It's All About Sex

I will not be kissing my wife in front of a Chik-fil-A tonight nor anytime soon.  Although I may kiss her at Eat n Park or Emiliano's or one of the other restaurants we frequent.  I don't know.  It all depends on how I feel.  I can tell you this, we won't make out.  I hate it when you're out somewhere, and that sweet couple who just a moment ago was holding hands suddenly is all tongue and spit til you're finally like "holy crap, get a room!"   I hate that.

I guess I'm just old fashioned.  Nowadays it's all boycotts and Huckabee appreciation events,  kiss-ins and chicken sandwiches.  <Sigh>

I really am old fashioned.  I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school and attended church every Sunday.  My sibs and I were taught the importance of family and country.  My sister's a nurse in the Air Force.  One brother's a cop, the other's a plumber.  I've worked my whole life, taught school, worked with seniors, helped community groups, voted in every election.  I own a house and love my neighbors.  I'd like to shoot a gun someday.  And I'm married, but only in Canada.

Sunshine and Happiness and I can't get married here  because we both have who-ha's which makes some folks think we're perverts or  pedophiles.  Or that we have a gay agenda to indoctrinate the youth of today which in turn will bring the wrath of God down upon us all.  Some also believe because I'm a lesbian, I have no style, a bad haircut and wear sensible shoes.

I'll cop to that last one.

So old fashioned, God fearing, traditional marriage proponents want to protect themselves and their children from me and Sunshine and Happiness because if  we (and our who-ha's) can get married what's next?  Meanwhile married folks are participating in:

intercourse in the missionary and 63 other positions
 (or so says the Kama Sutra)
anal sex
oral sex
role play
S&M (Have you READ 50 Shades of Grey?)
pornography
premarital sex
monogamous sex
sex with multiple partners (divorce and remarriage)
sex with multiple partners (adultery)
sex with multiple partners (swingers clubs)
sex for pleasure
sex for intimacy
sex for fun
sex out of a sense of obligation
masturbation
celibacy

Unmarried folk and gay folk participate in these things too but straight folks also sometimes have sex, 14 kids and a reality TV show which I and other gay folks cannot do without third party involvement.

And THAT (to me) is what's really at the crux of this whole "traditional" marriage thing. When  straight couples stick thing A into slot B they can biologically reproduce (sans medical/age issues) without outside help.  Sunshine and Happiness and I not so much.  My friends Rich and Joe when they put thing A into slot C, not so much.  Which makes a sizable portion of this country believe us to be unnatural and an abomination. 

As for straight folks - some women are infertile, some men are sterile and what may I ask happens after menopause?  These folks can put thing A into slot B, not procreate and they can still marry.  And men and women who don't intend to ever have children get married all the time.  As for gays, we can choose artificial insemination or a surrogate mother.  We can adopt and foster children where it's legal.  Or we too can choose not to have children at all. 

Which leads me to conclude this argument about traditional marriage vs gay marriage is really only about  who-ha's and ding-dongs.  Who has 'em and who doesn't, where they stick em and what happens when there's not a thing A to put in slot B.  It makes traditional marriage proponents squeamish.  And because it makes them squeamish  they go all fire and brimstone on our asses.  The only way my marriage would be OK with traditional marriage proponents and I could have sex with their seal of approval is if my who-ha was a ding dong. 

And all the kisses in the world ain't gonna be able to change that.

We Are Penn State

I've been thinking about my childhood lately.  Things like the storefront one of our neighbors had connected to his house.  Freddie's is where my family went to get Town Talk bread, milk, Dolly Madison treats, penny gum and on special occasions chocolate ice cubes for a nickel.  I was partial to the candy necklaces I could fashionably wear and lick at the same time.  Freddie's had an awesome comic book rack and the cigarettes were kept behind the counter along with aspirin and other things only adults could buy like x-rated mags.  Freddie hung a sheet between the store part of the house and his actual living room  from which emanated the incredible smells of homemade sauce and the sounds of Bonanza.   Sometimes if the curtain blew open just right I could see Mrs. Freddie with a table tray in front of the TV eating her spaghetti. This mixing of worlds fascinated me.
 
A ways away was the neighborhood fire station which had a big red metal Coke machine.  I loooooved that Coke machine.  The firehouse doors were usually open and kids could take the change they'd collected delivering papers or scavenged from Dad's couch cushions to get an icy cold Coca-Cola sweat dripping down the green sides of the glass, bottle refundable for a nickel,.  Sometimes the firemen who sat smoking on the metal park bench in front would let us climb up onto the truck, hang from the back, put on their helmets, try on their boots and if we were lucky sit in the cab and honk the horn.

We attended the local Catholic School walking with our book bags which were not knapsacks but actual suitcase looking things and metal lunchboxes that scratched our legs as we walked.  My family attended mass on Sunday and my classmates and I went to morning mass on First Fridays and regularly scheduled weekdays.  In my homeroom everyone knew everyone else. We were a group, a collective, special.  It was the same students first grade through eighth.  We knew who would be in the turtle row, the rabbit row, who would get boxed around the ears by the nuns, who would volunteer for extra work.  We felt sorry for the public school students who didn't have the one true faith and collected pennies for the pagan babies in our pint sized milk cartons.  It was familiar and safe.

During the summer we spent our time at the local pool playing with the teenage boys who would pick us up and throw us like sacks of potatoes to splash into the deeper water.  Or  they'd pass us around like dolls from one to one another putting us on their shoulders, jousting with each other to see which  of us would fall first from our perch..  My favorite game was jumping as hard as we could on the diving board for height, distance, momentum and doing cannonballs trying to hit the lifeguard on duty with the splash.  I grew up with a pair of  enormous identical twins, older and desired by the girls who tried to bounce the bolts from the board's sockets and who always inevitably won.

At home we watched Leave it to Beaver, the Little Rascals, Mayberry RFD and Matchgame 76.  We ate dinner as a family, did our homework and were in bed by 9.  Life was simple, I was innocent. 

All  of the above is true.  And not. 

My childhood has a dark and twisty side, a shadow if you will.  There is an underbelly of shit that got stuffed up in the attic, down in the basement, anywhere it could be shoved while my family struggled mightily to maintain an illusion of all is well rather than face reality which scared all of us.  The reality of my childhood is one of love, presence, God and community.  It is also one of abuse, alcoholism, mental illness and cruelty.

I have spent the better part of my adult life struggling to heal from the things stuffed up in the attic and  basement.   On bad days I'm not sure I'll ever be whole.  On good ones I feel joy and gratitude.  I continue to make progress and one bit of wisdom I've gleaned is  my nostalgic recall of the innocence and simplicity of my childhood is fantasy.  Life's complicated.  Good and evil exist side by side.  When I was a kid though the evil was never acknowledged, the elephant in the room.  And because it was not acknowledged or called out of hiding it perpetrated itself. with impunity.   As Edmund Burke once said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Which brings me to Penn State.  Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley et al. stood by passing the buck from one to another while Jerry Sandusky continued to steal from boys who trusted him  as a father figure any hope of a physically, emotionally and spiritually whole and healthy adulthood.  It is also true Penn State espouses academic excellence, personal/social responsibility and the dignity of others as ideals to be upheld and has produced thousands of  graduates, including former football players who have gone on to become solid citizens and to lead moral, upstanding and successful lives.  These things coexist.  Good and evil.  Light and shadow.

Along with thinking about my childhood I've also been wondering if I were the janitor who witnessed Sandusky performing oral sex on a child in the locker room  would I have blown the whistle?   What if I knew it meant the loss of my job?  What if I thought no one would believe me, a janitor at the bottom of the institutional food chain, my word against that of a revered coach?  What if I told myself, surely someone else knew about this and would do something?  What if I feared Sandusky would sue me for libeling him after no one believed me?  Would I have called police?  Would I have intervened?  Would I have had the courage to act?

No one likes looking at evil.  By it's nature it makes good folks want to turn away, run, hide, do nothing and hope someone else will step up to the plate.

I'm afraid that if I were the janitor I would have just kept on walking.  We all have good in us.  We all have a shadow.  I need to look in the mirror and see what is there, unflinching not turning away and accepting what I see.  I need to acknowledge the shadow in me and then pray that by the grace of God I will do the next right thing.  Because what the mirror shows me when I dare to look is.....

We are Penn State.

The Squirrel Cage

 A friend of mine refers to her head as a squirrel cage...

Fat Hamster

I prefer the term hamster wheel myself, because my thoughts go up and down, around and back while I spin furiously in one spot wondering why I can't get anywhere.   AA tells me the way to make this insanity stop is to take an action.  You know the saying, move a muscle, change a thought?

Seriously though. There has got to be a better way.  (Ice cream maybe?)

I'm thinking about the hamster wheel because right now my head is in an existential, dark and twisty place (which is why I'm writing this post.)  Well, you say, that's not moving the body.  Hey look Mrs. Smarty Pants, my fingers are tip, tippity-tap, typing away, so HAH!  Movement. TAKE THAT! (And at least it's not ice cream)

Anyway here's the thing.   There's a person (herein to be known as X) in my life who looks and acts pretty normal, appears to be a competent person and has done nothing to me but in spite of that I feel like there's something not quite right, something amiss.  I feel malice, ill will and contempt emanating from X in waves when I'm around but no one else seems to notice it.  Everyone acts as though they genuinely like X.  And this makes me feel crazy because I'm afraid  X has everyone buffaloed and is going to hurt someone I care about....at some point.....in the future.  Ahem.

Now I'm a highly sensitive person and just a teeny tiny bit tightly wound.  You're shocked I know.  I know.   Fact is though, as hard as it is to believe, I am extremely sensitive - to light, to sound, to smell,  to vibrations, to shellfish.  You name it.   And I'm hypervigilant.  I react internally to the moods, feelings and energy of others.  So presently I'm reacting all over the fucking place.  Literally the hair on my arms is standing on end and I have the heebie jeebies just thinking about X.  It's almost like I expect the human skin on X's head to flap back revealing a reptilian one that's licking it's nonlips and going "yum, yum."

 Consequently, there's not much contact between X and me to be sure.  But sometimes we do end up in the same room and inevitably on these occasions as I'm sitting, listening to a speaker and not paying much mind to anything except what's being said I'll  look up and BOOM there's X leaning forward, arms crossed defensively, staring straight at me with a hostile/contemptuous expression  that seems vaguely ominous.  It makes me uncomfortable because it feels like a challenge or maybe even a threat.  Being the submissive that I am though, instead of confronting this, I immediately look away.   Most of the time if I dare look back    X eyes are still drilling holes in my head. 

What sucks though is that as much as I want to spin in one place in my little hampster wheel for forever, as I go over and over the things I think are wrong with X , I am sober enough to know that, wait for it, wait for it....

It's not about X. 

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed,
no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with
us."

X is just a mirror.  As Pogo once said, "I have seen the enemy and he is us."  So it's me who needs to change not X.  Time to stop blaming the mirror.  Time to move a muscle - change a thought.

See how that came around?  Well I'll be damned.  It works.  It really does.

SMASH

I'm so excited. 

Sunshine and Happiness makes her dance debut this evening at the Grey Box Theater in Lawrenceville as part of  a showcase for various up and coming choreographers in Pittsburgh.   Now those who know S&H know she is a total ham and that part of her bucket list has always been to be on stage, preferably in a play, preferably as the star despite the fact she's never acted a day in her life and can't stay in the correct octave EVER jumping from key to key. But.....

My girl can move.

To catch you up sweet peas, in the beginning of January S&H's life took a turn and so began an odyssey of  doctors and specialists with the final professional opinion being....her butt is broken.  Gratefully the condition is not life threatening and it's under control.   One change we had to make though is that now in addition to being sugar, flour and processed food free, we can no longer have gluten. Soon, soon sweat peas I will  be noshing on dandelions from the garden, but I digress.  (On another note, I really wish I knew how to use commas.)

Anyway, S&H also isn't able to continue power workouts, kickboxing or karate. (too much impact on broken butt)  Does anyone know how many endorphins these things produce?

• Workouts, karate, kickboxing  = happiness and sanity.  
• No workouts, kickboxing, karate  = much unhappiness/divorce.  
• S&H without endorphins = Dark and Twisty lite.  

We needed to find endorphins and we needed to find them FAST.

Our first endeavor was to join join a gym /water aerobics class.  We found that these produce some happy brain chemicals.  Next S&H found an elliptical/cross trainer to run on. (at every opportunity I might mention)  And voila' -endorphins.  Yay! I climbed on S&H's  elliptical the other day just to give it a try and after a grueling,  oh, 2 full minutes I said  "to hell with this crap," and headed to the pool.."   Still though not quite enough dopamine

So she joined a country line dancing class. 

And then Dragon Boating.

Finally, finally (drum roll please) she found SWAG.  Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner.   SWAG if you're not familiar is Sweating with a Purpose - a mix of salsa, traditional  African and hip hop dance which apparently produces tons of endorphins.  Sunshine is back baby!  Never have I seen such joy.  Never have I seen such a glow.  Never have I seen such sweat. 

And so tonight .....the  debut .....in a real theater.....in public.   Yeah it's only 6 minutes long and an unpaid gig but I am so proud. so excited for her.

So relieved.

Shake your groove thing Sunshine and Happiness.  Shake that thang.

Click here to see S&H practice performance - S&H comes in at 1:43

Please watch and give my girl some love!

Time Wasters

<Credit SEO Blog>

Gonna try this blogging thing one more time.  It's Sunshine and Happiness' fault I haven't written.  She got invited to join Pinterest and I got invited to a new addiction.  I don't yet have my own account but I puruse hers daily - usually more than once.  It's kind of like when I stalked everyone from her Facebook account years prior to actually creating one of my own.

But Pinterest is more insidious because its got all those pretty pictures and I don't have to even read if  I don't want to.  I've gotta stop looking at sunrooms, gardens, shihtzus, funny shit, recipes and the like or she and I are gonna end up on an episode of  Hoarders.  The housework it is a -piling up.  As it is I hardly have any time to update my Facebook status, play Word Shaker and check my tweets. 

Just kidding.  I never joined Twitter.  I couldn't say anything in 140 characters if you paid me.

Acceptance



Ummm, 17 actually.



OK, I made it to my first water aerobics class, participated, got my heart rate up and didn't die, though I wanted to.  When you hide from your body for as long as I have and pretend that you don't have one, it's kind of a shock to realize that yes in fact you do have a physical self and yes you have somehow become middle aged and yes you are going to be REALLY sorry if you don't wake up and start moving ASAP. 

 My body is a TRAIN WRECK.

But pain is a great motivator and I'm moving again for the first time in, oh, a decade and a half, I kid you not.  I swear I looked in the mirror the other day and thought to myself, holy crap, I'm not just a floating head.  Where did all of  THIS come from?  I have enough ass, belly and boobs to create a lifetime supply of soap.*  (Barb - that's a Fight Club reference.  See still Dark and Twisty!)

 

No one clued me in though that I was going to have all sorts of unpleasant reactions once I began to move again. (I can't even call it working out because I can barely keep up with the 80 year olds) But I am almost 20 years on the wagon and I kind of remember sobriety didn't feel so good at first either.  The key I think is to accept where I'm at and not judge or beat holy hell out of myself, which in the end will not be effective and will only keep me from doing what I need to do. This is how far down the scale (or up as it were) I've gone and I just need to accept it.

 

By the by, the last time I went with S&H to the gym, in addition to the water aerobics,  I attempted to ride a stationary bike.  This particular bike had a computer screen upon which one could see a virtual track and a pacer bike with the idea being to pedal and steer and STAY ON THE TRACK.  First Sunshine and Happiness had to help boost me onto the seat and then I couldn't keep my feet in the little footie thingies  (which reminds me of the last time I had my gyne exam and I almost got my foot caught inside the stirrup because instead of placing my heal on it like you're supposed to, I tried to shove my foot through it.  My doctor almost pissed herself.  She was like, "it's not a damn bicycle.")  Anyway I digress.

Turns out I wasn't able to pedal and keep myself on the track while watching my heart rate and rpms and I had to keep stopping to pull my shorts out my ass due to the friggin seat being up my anus.  Soooooo, I don't expect I'll be riding a real bike anytime soon.

 

It seems this whole getting my body to move thing is going to be an adventure. 

A really, really, long one.

D&T's Natural State

* It's possible to make soap from liposuctioned fat (just in case you didn't see Fight Club.)

I Never

As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again

I walked everywhere when I was young.  My family never owned a car so unless where I was headed was on a bus route, I walked.  To school and to the store.  To the homes of relatives and to church.  Up and down the avenue with our bags.  On display to all of our neighbors. My father the Bagman and his brood.  Man, I HA-ated that.

It was though good exercise.

Because my family never owned a car, in addition to my constant fear of running into someone or something, due mostly to perceptual problems and frequent drunkenness, I never learned to drive.  When I was 30 and sober however, I thought that perhaps it was time to face my fear and finally learn.  However, as I've mentioned before, I don't know my left from my right, am directionally challenged and am  phobic about someone like me controlling a 2000 pound machine.  So I did what anyone would do and I went to a therapist.  There I practiced with a paper plate in place of a steering wheel as  Kathy, my therapist would yell out "left," "right," "right" "left" "left" and I would try to turn the paper plate in the correct direction.  Kathy also taught me how to deep breathe  when I got paralyzed because, you know, it's not good to be going 60 mph and suddenly freeze.   Eventually over time with the help of said therapist I was able to call the Will Rogers School of Driving.  Will Rogers in turn sent me a young woman who was a driving instructor by day but made her real money stripping in a club at night.  This 19 year old would regale me with stories from her evening gig while I would muddle through our driving lesson, hitting curbs, driving in the wrong lane, turning the wrong way and practically totalling the car while she completely ignored me, while telling me about the tips she earned at the Cricket the night before.  I didn't care though because no sane person would let me use their car and the Will Rogers School of Driving provided me with a vehicle on which to learn and my stripper/instructor would pick me up and drop me off for each lesson.  Also, did I mention STRIPPER INSTRUCTOR?

One day out of the blue, my stripper finally decided she'd had enough and that she and I should go and test for my license.  We drove to New Castle and wouldn't you know it, I pulled the big butch state officer as my test instructor.  You know the one who scares the crap out of all the high school kids and flunks them for not coming to a complete stop.  This though was fortuitous because she had an affinity for me.  She passed me even though I botched the parallel parking and forgot to brake going down the hill at the end of the course sending us flying into the parking lot.  In the end I got my very first driver's license and Officer Krumpky's phone number.

Anyway, afterward I bought a second hand Chevy Beretta  built like a tank.  All the better to protect me when I ran into things.  And long story short, this is why I relate to Scarlett O' Hara.  Because on the day I got my license and picked up my car I said to myself "As God is my witness, I will never walk anywhere I can drive to again."  And I haven't.  For oh, like 17 years. 

I also haven't exercised in those 17 years because, you know, IT HURTS and as a result I have become fat.  Really fat. 

I don't say this with pride, far from it but someone once said, "the truth shall set you free but first it's gonna piss you off."  So yeah I'm fat.   

Until now being fat never really hurt bad enough for me to do anything about it.  Unfortunately, no one told me that if you are fat, when you reach middle age you feel as if you are going to break in two.  My joints are so stiff and my cartilage so worn that I creak like a mo fo every morning when I get up out of bed.  I used to laugh at my Gram and my mom when they complained about their arthritis.  Let me tell you, I'm not laughing anymore.

So...though I once said I would never walk (or exercise) or put on a bathing suit again, I joined a gym and have registered for water aerobics.  I was told that water aerobics is good for fat, arthritic people.  I attended my first class on Sunday and again received a dose of humility. 

When I registered for water aerobics this is what I had in mind:

However, when I arrived at my first class, this is what I found:

Reality.  It's a bitch.

I Am the Neighbor Who Won't Give the Ball Back When The Damn Kids Next Door Hit It Into My Front Yard

Actually I don't even have a front yard.  Truth be told, I have no next door neighbor kids who play ball on the front street.  My Dark and Twisty self  just woke up cranky today and out of sorts.  For all intents and purposes, today I am a crank, crankity, crank crank.

There is a game plan worked out though for when this happens (just in case you ever want to borrow it.) 

And it goes something like this....(take me by the tongue and I'll know you.  kiss me when you're drunk and I'll show you) Oops. Sorry.  Got a little carried away.

Obsessively sing Maroon 5's Moves Like Jagger.  Check Facebook.   Post inane comments.   Surf  youtube and look for clips from the Hunger Games.  Get  Rickrolled.  Read email., skim blogs.  Check FB again.

Avoid housework.  Step over laundry on floor and think briefly about meditating.  Put tea towel over dishes in the sink and step down on garbage in can so as not to have to empty it.  Shove  recyclables that roll out onto the floor when cabinet is opened precariously back inside on top of the pile where they will immediately roll back out the next time.  Look at the dog bowls and wish to God they knew how to get their own food and water.  Think briefly about showering.  Decide not necessary.

Procrastinate.  Look at clock.  Limit self  to 15 more minutes on computer.   Think briefly about using weights to exercise.  Think briefly about meditating.  Steadfastly ignore healthy thoughts and give self another 15 minutes. Blog.  Look at clock.  Give up all pretense of doing anything productive. 

Oh, and I almost forgot -  Complain.

Me:     Kids today.  Pop culture. Technology.  Music.   I don't get any of it.  Grumble. Grumble. Bitch moan.    Holy crap. We need to move.  Have you read the paper?  The neighborhood is going to pot.  Pout. Fret.  I think I'm getting a migraine.  Did you see the wind blew Carla's  gutters off and down the street.  It's supposed to be like that again tonight. God I hope nothing happens to our roof..   Wait, what?  What did you just say?

S&H:  I have never in my life met anyone who loves to complain as much as you do.

Me:  It's true. 

If there's one thing I am masterful at, it's complaining.  I am a champion.  Maybe the all-time champion.

Because I am cranky, and when I am cranky I can be self-destructive (and fritter away an entire day) when S&H left for work she made me promise  I would be good to myself .  So I promised and then proceeded to go upstairs and waste time looking up every melancholy song I could find.

Melancholy Song

But now I seem to be running out of steam.  I'm finally tired of being cranky.  So I'm  rethinking that shower, those weights and maybe even some meditation.  It's time to get my ass in motion. Yeah. Yeah.  Take some action.  Move my body.  Have some face to face social contact..  Perhaps put on clothes and redd up the house.  Yeah.  yeah.  That's what I'm gonna do.

In just about 15 minutes.

LOST

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERSON

DARK AND TWISTY BLOGGER

 DISAPPEARS FROM BLOGOSPHERE

Adventures with D&T

Mr. Magoo

Growing up my family didn't have a car so we walked everywhere.  To school.  To church.  To the grocery store.  There we would load up on stuff and walk down the avenue arms full of bags.  Because of this my father's nickname was Bagman or sometimes Billy Bags.  This embarrassed me so I pretended  he ran numbers for the mob.

As a result I never learned  "car things"  like that there's a defrost button or a release on the shift lever, or a NEUTRAL.  Who knew it wasn't necessary to keep a rag under the seat to wipe the steam off the windshield?  Or that you have to push the release button in when shifting from park to drive so as not to strip the transmission?  And WTF is neutral even for anyway?

Once upon a time, my driving teacher instructed me to get into the left hand lane in order to make a left  turn.  I promptly complied crossing the yellow line and moving into the lane of oncoming traffic because... you guessed it.... IT WAS ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE. 

Yeah.  I'm THAT person.

Anyway, recently I started making deposits (for S&H) at our local bank.  Each time I'd drive there, park, go inside, visit the teller, chat, make the deposit, say  "have a nice day" and leave.  The parking situation is really tight though and some days I'd drive around and around before a spot opened up.  Other days I'd  park blocks away and walk  or sometimes just leave and come back later.  So...did I mention that the bank has a drive through window? 

One day, not much different than other days,  I thought,  I suppose I could use the drive through."  Brilliant, that.

Convenient Drive Through Window that I Never Thought to Use



So I drove up, the teller greeted me, I popped the deposit in the drawer, got my receipt, said  "have a nice day" and drove off quite proudly.   The only blip was that I accidentally "tapped" the car in front of me because, you know,  I lifted my foot off the brake while leaning out the window.  WHATever.  That's what bumpers are for.

Later after several successes it was evident that now I'm cooking with gas and it's time to try transacting at a DIFFERENT bank.  Confidently I rolled up ready for business and the first thing I see is this:

Intergalactic Tube Thingy

No worries though.  I'd just watched the guy in front of me.  Seemed simple enough.

Teller:  Hi may I help you?
Me:  (hitting the red CALL button) I need to make a deposit.
Teller:  O.K. go ahead.

So I put the deposit in the tube and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  A full 15 minutes.   In that time I managed to text some friends, play with the heat, listen to the radio and watch 3 other cars pull in, make transactions and leave.  Initially I assumed  the teller was helping them and would get back to me but as this didn't happen I began to get irritated.   I'd been there WAY before those other cars and she hadn't even sucked my deposit up the damn tube yet. Boy was I  HOT.   I decided to give her a piece of my mind and glaringly looked over at her, when I, for the first time, noticed a green SEND button. Right next to the red CALL button.  Right on the bottom of the intergalactic tube thingy.  Which I'd never pressed.  Hell, I didn't even know there was a SEND button.

Me: (sheepishly pressing the red CALL button)  Ah, should I send up my deposit?
Teller:  (in exasperation)  Well YEAH.

Yikes.  So I pushed the SEND button, whoosh up went my deposit and the rest went swimmingly.

You'd of thunk at this point I knew everything there was to know about how to do drive through banking but you'd of thunk wrong because the NEXT time I used a multi-service drive through I again waited for 15 minutes because the teller never said "Hi may I help you," (like they always do INSIDE the bank) and I thought it'd be rude to push the green SEND button to give her my deposit before she was ready.  Eventually I realized no such indication would be forthcoming (I'm quick like that) so I pushed the red CALL button and asked her if I should send up my deposit. And once more, a completely flummoxed teller said with much annoyance, "Well YEAH."

Additionally I thought that the communication between me and the teller was like a walkie talkie so I pressed the red CALL button and held it every time I replied.  Who knew that once the teller turned the MICROPHONE on she could hear me regardless?

Me:  (pushing red CALL button upon which a buzzer sounds inside the bank) Are you ready for my deposit?
Teller: Well YEAH.
Me: (pushing red CALL button thereby causing buzzer to buzz AGAIN) O.K.
Teller:  Here you go.  Have a nice day. (thinking to herself - now get the hell out of here)
Me: (pushing red CALL button, making buzzer sound one last time)  You too.
Teller: (in her head) Oh dear Lord, thank God she's gone.

Yeah.  I'm THAT person.

Obsessions of the Mind

Lizzie, a friend of mine, told me this story.....

Over the weekend, I went to see the movie War Horse with my wife and some friends.  What a heart wrenching movie.  If you go, bring tissues.  Animals are so much better than people.  Loyal.  Faithful.  Loving.  Go see it.  Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that when we got home from the theater and for the rest of the damn night I just could not stop thinking about that horse.  Brushing my teeth. Lying in bed.  Drifting off to sleep.  There it was.  The horse.  The next day at breakfast I said to my wife, "I can't stop thinking about that horse.  Are you thinking about that horse?"  My wife looked at me calmly.   "No," she said.

That happens to me all the time.  It doesn't happen to Sunshine and Happiness.  I'd still be thinking about that horse because I  have a  sticky brain.  Thoughts get stuck.  Images get stuck.  Ideas get stuck.  Feelings get stuck.  And for me it can be mighty difficult to get them unstuck.  Also for me, the things that get stuck tend to be things I'd rather forget about.  The incredible horror this world and human beings can dish out.  All of the things I am afraid of.   How I can't seem to stop ending sentences with prepositions. 

The other day I was flipping through the hundreds of cable channels that we now have and haven't yet cancelled and upon what do I land? I see the movie Untraceable on the cable guide and click on it.  Now if you're not familiar with it, the premise of this movie is one in which a serial killer who knows people (who are both curious and drawn to the dark side of things), will log onto an "untraceable" website where he conducts violent and painful murders LIVE via the internet.  The higher the number of hits his website gets, the more people who log on, the quicker and more violently the victim dies.  Not quite The Princess Bride.

Now I'd read about this movie and had successfully avoided it for 3 years.  It has notoriously gruesome murders graphically rendered.  Additionally, the movie's conceit that individuals, knowing that they're anonymous and unaccountable, will purposefully log onto a sight called "killwithme" in order to watch a  human being die is not the kind of idea that needs to be "stuck" in my head.  Talk about snowballing down into the dark and twisty.  Everything I fear about myself and human beings in general and our capacity for evil, apathy and darkness is front and center in this film.  And here I am in real life, watching this movie to be entertained.  So I KNEW, I was AWARE that the morally right, emotionally healthy, SMART thing to do (for me) would have been to turn off the TV or at least changed the channel.  But you know what I did.  I continued to watch.  I became captive to a horrific, stomach churning, disturbing murder scene and just like the anonymous folks depicted in the film, I couldn't look away.  Talk about meta.

And afterward I was sick and disgusted with myself for my self-destructiveness because then you know what happened?  As consequence for my behavior and for making a bad choice, the sticky brain thing happened.  I continued to see the murder scene as I walked the dogs.  I saw it lying in my bed.  I dreamt of it and woke up with it in my brain.  I'm thinking of it now as I type.  And I feel sick each and every time I replay it.  The only good thing (sort of) is that my brain doesn't seem to be able to become desensitized to this crap.  I'm horrified every time.  So right now because I hurt I will avoid any and all media of this type...news, novels, video sites, movies.  Until I dip my toe in the water (flip through the cable channels and land on, oh, say SAW VII) and the obsession begins again. 

I used to do this with alcohol.  I would drink self destructively.  I would start, know it was a bad idea, unhealthy, hurtful, possibly fatal and I would do it anyway.  People would advise me to stop and I would say, OK but just one more.  Then I would get sick, disgustingly sick and swear off the stuff and avoid it like the plague.  Until I felt better.  And then I would do it all over again.  The more I fed the obsession to drink, the more I drank.

I think I'd better stop feeding this one.  I'm sure It's A Wonderful Life must be on one of those hundreds of channels somewhere.

Lessons from 2011

Disclaimer:  This post contains adult language, sexual content and in general dark and twisty stuff.  I am not  kidding.  Proceed with caution.

At first as I looked back on 2011 I thought to myself, "hmmm I've not really learned much of ANYTHING this past year."  No big life lessons.  No great awakenings.  Nothing revelatory.  There just really didn't seem to be much of anything at all.

This made me grumpy.  Well grumpier than I usually am. 

I mean in my book, shouldn't I at least be able to think of one thing I'd learned, even if it was small?  And so because I couldn't and because it made me grumpy, I continued to wrack my brain. Wrack.  Wrack. Wrack.    And.........    Nothing.  

I decided to try again a  bit later....  Wrack.  Wrack.  Wrack.  And...... More nothing.   Then just as I was about to give up resigning myself to eternal grumpdom, I came upon a Dear Sugar column in The Rumpus.    And it was here that I found it.  Something revelatory, something miraculous, something big. 

Below in its entirety is Sugar's column Baby Bird.

 Dear Sugar,
 WTF, WTF, WTF?  I’m asking myself this question as it applies to everything
every day.
Yours,
WTF

Dear WTF,
My father’s father made me jack him off when I was three and four and five. I wasn’t any good at it. My hands were too small and I couldn’t get  the rhythm right and I didn’t understand what I was doing. I only knew I  didn’t want to do it. Knew that it made me feel miserable and anxious in a  way so sickeningly particular that I can feel that same particular  sickness rising this very minute in my throat. I hated having to rub my  grandfather’s cock, but there was nothing I could do. I had to do it. My grandfather babysat my older sister and me a couple times a week in that era of my life and most of the days that I was trapped in his house with him he would pull his already-getting-hard penis out of his pants and say come here and that was that.

I moved far away from him when I was nearly six and soon after that my parents split up and my father left my life and I never saw my grandfather again. He died of black lung disease when he was 66 and I was 15, the same as his father had, both of them coal miners.

“Do you remember how we used to have to jack him off?” I asked my sister one day shortly after he died. We’d never spoken of it. I’d never said a word about it to anyone. I was ready for my sister to say no, for everything I remembered about my grandfather and his cock to be an ugly invention of my nasty little mind.

But she said, “Yeah.” She said, “Wow.” She said, “What the fuck was up with that?”

There was nothing the fuck up with that and there never will be. I will die with there never being anything the fuck up with my grandfather making my hands do the things he made my hands do with his cock. But it took me years to figure that out. To hold the truth within me that some things are so sad and wrong and unanswerable that the question must simply stand alone like a spear in the mud.

So I railed against it, in search of the answer to what the fuck was up with my grandfather doing that to my sister and me. What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? 

But I could never shake it. That particular fuck would not be shook. Asking what the fuck only brought it around. Around and around it went, my grandfather’s cock in my hands, the memory if it so vivid, so palpable, so very much a part of me. It came to me during sex and not during sex. It came to me in flashes and it came to me in dreams. It came to me one day when I found a baby bird, fallen from a tree.

I know you aren’t supposed to pick up baby birds. I know once you touch them their mama won’t come back and get them, but this bird was a goner anyway. Its neck was broken, its head lolling treacherously to the side. I picked it up and cradled it as delicately as I could in my palms. I cooed to soothe it, but each time I cooed, it only struggled piteously to get away, terrified by my voice.

The bird’s suffering would’ve been unbearable at any time, but it was particularly unbearable at that moment in my life because my mother had just died. Her death was ugly. She was only forty-five. And because she was dead I was pretty much dead too. I was dead but alive. And I had a baby bird in my palms that was dead but alive as well.

I knew there was only one humane thing to do, though it took me the better part of an hour to work up the courage to do it: I put the baby bird in a paper bag and smothered it with my hands.

Nothing that has died in my life has ever died easily and this bird was no exception. This bird did not go down without a fight. I could feel it through the paper bag, pulsing against my hand and rearing up, simultaneously flaccid and ferocious beneath its translucent sheen of skin, precisely as my grandfather’s cock had been.

There it was! There it was again. Right there in the paper bag. The ghost of that old man’s cock would always be in my hands. But I understood what I was doing this time. I understood that I had to press against it harder than I could bear. It had to die. Pressing harder was murder. It was mercy.

That’s what the fuck it was. The fuck was mine.

And the fuck is yours too, WTF. That question does not apply “to everything every day.” If it does, you’re wasting your life. If it does, you’re a lazy coward and you are not a lazy coward.

Ask better questions, sweet pea. The fuck is your life. Answer it.

Yours,
Sugar

So that's it.  Thanks to those who have loved and supported me through all of my WTF moments.  Happy New Year Sweet Peas. 

Christmas

(We had this exact tree when I was a kid only we sprayed snow from an aerosol can all over it. And pretty much everything else.)

OK, so I just elfed myself.  And posted it on Facebook.  Good Lord, I'm not sure what's going on with me.  But it was fun and made me laugh.  So go.  Now.  Get thee to the Office Max website and elf yourself.  I highly recommend it.

(Tiny cardboard churches, houses, trees and stores with cotton for snow underneath.  Just more things to spray with aerosol snow)

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas's past (past Christmases? Christmas' past?) Oh  hell, you know what I mean.  And I've found myself getting all choked up and teary eyed.  Eh?  Who is this and where have they put Dark and Twisty?  It's unsettling is what it is.  Because you know, sniffling and snuffling are not conducive to being Dark and Twisty.  AND because was a time I hated the holidays.  That's pronounced Haaaaa-Ated by the way.  Emphasis on the Ate.

HOWEVER. 

This past weekend I was at the mall with Sunshine and Happiness strolling (that's right strolling) from store to store and oh, hey, is that Bing Crosby singing White Chrismas?  And all of sudden my throat tightens up and I'm fighting back tears.  Thank God it wasn't Loo loo loo Night from A Charlie Brown Christmas or I'd a been done for.  I managed to pull it together and we next wandered into Roxanne's Dried Flowers and BAM, right there in front of me laid out beautifully were all of the holiday ornaments from when I was a kid.  Only now they're called vintage and they cost a royal mint. 

Vintage Ornaments from my Childhood that Cost a Royal Mint

And ho, wait, there it was again.  Again.  That twist in my gut and a twingy bittersweet feeling.  What the????  Then on the way home we were looking at the houses decked out in lights and came upon a house that was decorated with those really old and heavy, lead paint covered Christmas bulbs we used to have on our live tree way back when and I seriously thought about calling my therapist.

Poison Lights

BUT,  I think I know now what's happening to me.  God help us all, I think I'm actually starting to LIKE Christmas.

Sunshine and Happiness

Not So Dark and Twisty

And maybe, just maybe, my heart's even starting to GROW a few sizes.  Merry Christmas everyone.

The Funny Papers





                                                                                                                                                                          Stephan Pastis

   Bwaaaaaha ha ha!  Touche'

Loneliness

There's walls made of steel
There's walls made of stone
But none are so strong
As the walls made of fear alone   

                             Maura O'Connell         

           

But I'm chipping away at it......

Although I am perfectly fine with my own company and enjoy being by myself I sometimes struggle with loneliness.  Balance eludes me.  It's embarrassing but I either have no boundaries at all, indiscriminately disclosing random intimate facts to perfect strangers or I put up walls that keep everyone out.  Including Sunshine and Happiness.

In 2005, Frank Warren created Post Secret, an art project in which people are invited to anonymously mail in their secrets on a homemade postcard.  Select secrets appear every Sunday on the PostSecret blog.  I read this blog every week and both of these postcards are from the site.

 


And I have the sense, though I can't quite put my finger on why, that somehow my loneliness is related.

Camp Pemberton

Our Crooked House

Sunshine and Happiness says I was holding the camera at an angle when I took this picture.  For the record, I wasn't.  Our house is just really crooked.  A good friend of mine always says when you start out as broken as he did sometimes the best you can ever be is a little bent.  I guess then it's appropriate  this is where I live.  Crooked?  Bent?  What's the difference.

November

I love November.  It's my favorite month.  I love Thanksgiving, I met Sunshine and Happiness on a beautiful November day in '98 and the anniversary of my last drink is November 13th.  However, the whole Penn State debacle and its mishandling by the powers that be, the youtube video of the Texas family court judge whipping his 16 year old daughter with a belt and the 2012 election campaign commercials (already!) started to put a real damper on MY month.  To combat this downward spiral I took some photos of Sunshine and Happiness' and my home. 




Ornamental cherry tree in front of our house

 

Thanksgiving Turkey Flag flying in front of Camp Pemberton



View from our back porch



Ah........now see.  I'm loving November again.  Happy Gratitude month everyone!

The Old Neighborhood

Kanai Funeral Home - Greenfield Ave

Doesn't the above building remind you of a haunted house?  I've always been afraid of it AND it contains dead people which just makes my point. 

So this is where I spent last weekend. 

My dad's father died and the viewing and funeral were on Friday and Saturday.  My grandfather was 96, married 73 years and died with his wife by his side.  He lived long and well and though I am sad for my father and my grandmother it was the longest weekend of my life.  And I have had some long weekends. 

I don't mean to sound callous.  I know I needed to be there for my father and to pay my respects.  It's just that revisiting the old neighborhood and spending large amounts of time with my family falls on the scale just below having needles stuck in my eyes.

So this is what it was like.

Conversation overheard as I was kneeling in front of the casket.

Senile family member:  "Who's in the box?"
Unknown relative:  "That's your husband."

Conversation between Sunshine and Happiness and my Aunt Helen:

S&H:  "Hi I'm Sunshine and Happiness, Dark and Twisty's partner.  Good to see you again."

Aunt Helen:  "Oh, I remember you."  Sharp heal spin giving S&H her back, abrupt end of conversation.  I don't think she's big on the whole gay thing.

Discussion early on at the funeral home.

My mom:  "Would you be comfortable doing the eulogy? "

Me to myself: "Wait a minute, my grandfather has 3 sons and 2 daughters.  Why is she asking me?"

Me outloud:  "Why are you asking me this?  Shouldn't Daddy or one of the kids be doing it?"

My mom:  "None of them know enough about your grandfather to write one."

Me:  "So why are you asking me?"

My mom:  "Because they asked me to do it but I don't know enough about him to write one either."

Yikes.  No eulogy for Grandpap.

 In making the arrangements for the wake my family tried to reserve this place.

Formerly Mike's Bar

This just so happens to be the bar where I became an expert on alcoholism.  My own.

Luckily, it wasn't available so here's where the wake was held.

Rock Bottom.  A dueling piano bar.  And appropriately named.

As evidence of this I shall relay one final ditty.

When we entered the bar, we sat down, settled ourselves and ordered a coffee.  Suddenly with no warning a wild eyed, wild haired woman sat herself down right beside us.  I had no idea who this woman was but she started inserting herself into each and every conversation and making absolutely no sense at all.  It was obvious that she had some kind of mental illness and so I just assumed she was related.  Then as S&H was fixing her coffee,  the woman turned and looked at her and asked her for several packets of sugar.  S&H  passed them to her at which point she promptly tore them open, threw her head back and poured them down her throat.  Then she started mainlining Truvia.  I kid you not.
Now I can be a bit slow so S&H had to clue me in that this crazy woman was a junkie who apparently was detoxing.  Come to find out she lives across the street from my grandparents and just decided to show up.  So I spent the rest of the buffet guarding S&H's  purse.

Rock Bottom indeed.

Purple Rain

This video was posted on a friend's Facebook page.  She asked if we could do the hand motions with her and all of a sudden I was 19 again.

I don't have many good memories from my drinking days but this is one.  It was a hot summer night, my friends were back from college, we were together and acting all goofy and drunk.  I remember the movie theater having those old red velvet seats and I think we were in Monroeville.  The movie onscreen was often fuzzy and the acting absolutely horrible but Prince, Lisa, Wendy and Apollonia were yummy to look at and the soundtrack was AMAZING.   I also remember my gaydar spiking when I saw Lisa and Wendy onstage.  Oh AND Prince. 


Due to my drunkenness I didn't quite follow the story.  You'd have thought I was watching Memento or something but  I didn't care because it was one of those perfect drunks.  You know the kind where you stay just crushed enough not to lose your buzz but not so much that you're puking out the car window.  I was happy.   The group of us, my younger sister and her boyfriend, (I remember he had on a Big Pecker's Bar t-shirt,)  my friend THE RINGLEADER and her boyfriend, a redheaded guy named Flame, and an assortment of other folks from the Island of Misfit Toys thought we were being sneaky and chose a row off to the side of the theater against the wall where we were sure no could see us pouring vodka into our pops.

Partway through the movie, BP, (the guy in the Big Pecker's bar shirt) became totally pissed with me because as I was passing him an extra large Pepsi doctored so that it tasted just like turpentine, I somehow managed to drop the entire thing  in his lap along with my popcorn. Not sure how THAT happened.  I think neither of us wanted to let go of the alcohol and were pulling in opposite directions when the whole thing went down. He then refused to speak to me for most of the night.  Big baby!  He didn't get that wet.  Later that night he and said friends stood outside my bedroom window at 2 in the morning and howled like wolves until my mom (who could be quite scary) went out on the porch and threatened to throw a pan of water on them.  Or come down and kick their asses.  I can't quite remember which.

During the movie we stood up in our row, (I think my sister was standing on top of one of the seats) danced and did the hand motions to I Would Die for U.   I was 2 moves behind throughout the entire song and it felt like I was playing Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes and was losing.  I may have fallen down afterwards.  I don't know.  Later we went to McDonalds and bought like a bajillion cheeseburgers singing "let's go craaaaaazy, let's get nuuuuuuts" over and over and over.  Maybe I did puke out the car window after that.  Hmmm. 

It was one of the happiest times of my life.

Thanks for the memory Donna.