A Boy's Best Friend

 

“Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.” Wakes me up every day. It’s either the middle of the night or the early morning. My son doesn’t walk into my room, he stands in the doorway and says “mom” from a whisper to a quiet yell. If my son is at his dad’s then my fur-son wakes me up. If I don’t wake up by sensing his moist nose an inch from my face, he sticks his tongue out and licks.

After waking up, I start the prepped coffee pot, and drink my first cup while staring at the ground, watching the carpet move in a psychedelic wave because I have thick sleepy residue coating my eyeballs. If it’s time with my son, we go through the rigamarole of him asking me to watch YouTube and play Fortnite. After he pouts, I seriously ask him, “Do you know me at all?”

Then he sings me songs that would get him suspended from school, and I low-key laugh and tell him he can’t ever say that stuff in public. He tells me to look up stock prices, we look at graphs we don’t really understand, and he tells me all the things he’s going to buy when he’s old. My coffee kicks in and I daydream about giving future interviews on Geoffrey to Biography Channel, “When he was a kid, he loved money and hated loosing games… we actually had to ban them because he flips game boards, cries and breaks things when he gets the sense he’s not in the lead, and his sister runs aways screaming, ‘He’s giving me anxiety!’”

When my dog wakes me up, it’s a quieter journey from sleep-dream into daydream, but after the dog notices my face is unfurled, he’s ready to go on an outdoor adventure, also called the Max Poopfest. He starts his series of bowel unloading at the same spot. I tie that bag off and leave it at the top of the first hill we climb to pick up on the way back. From then on, I leave tied off poop-bags right next to the desecrated spot, to swoop up on the return.

When the dog poops, I stand next to him and look at whatever house we're in front of. Usually the dog is obscured by some hedge planted in the 1970s, and my unanimated face takes in the house like Mike Myers standing in the street. I have yet to see someone in a window looking back at me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the person flips me off and dramatically throws the curtains closed.

On one stretch, the front yards of houses are separated from the road by a foot-wide strip of tiny white rocks. When the dog poops on this, I feel bad because I have to scoop the rocks up in the bag since they are disgusting and shit-covered, but I figure they’d prefer that when I justify their cost of replenishing the stolen property.

The house that starts this stretch is perfectly maintained. One time I left a bag of poop next to the mail box, and kept on running, but before I made it far, the owner was yelling at me that I forgot the dog’s poop bag. This man actually picked up the bag and because I had headphones in and didn’t really know what he was saying, he was throwing a pointed finger to the bag of shit. I yelled, probably very loudly because of the music blasting in my eardrums, “I'm getting the bag on my way back.”

I think the guy felt stupid, and I don’t really blame him, but maybe he has a problem with people leaving tied off bags of dog-doo next to his mailbox. I didn’t get too close to man because my dog’s reaction to anyone who is not within my inner-circle is to assume they are a psychopath trying to kill me. It’s down-right embarrassing, the dog’s unconditional love, but I shrug it off like I’m out with a pre-schooler asking inappropriate questions.

At the top of the second hill is an elderly couple’s house. After our first chat she told me, “You can call me Grandma,” and I politely declined, since I don’t know her at all. Even the dog had issue with this possible-serial-killer-posing-as-a-harmless-old-lady, and he jumped back and forth from her feet, barking incessantly through the entire encounter. She didn’t seem phased, and asked me if she could give him a treat. I told her, “You can try, but he prefers dirty underwear.”

The four mile walk/run/stand my dog and I go through was an everyday occurrence in June because my kids were gone most of the month. My kids went on a trip with their dad the first part, and after they returned we had a nice four day stretch before they went off to my parents’ house to attend a Vacation Bible School. What really sold me on this summer camp was the cost, FREE! 

Over the week, I was home with the dog happily working away, picturing the kids crafting, singing and playing games with new friends. My son refused to go the last two days, and spent that time following around my mom (not a surprise). I didn’t understand why he was so against the camp, but it all became clear; the price tag was a trick to sequester children and tell them  loads of crazy shit.

The last day of camp ended with a performance for the parents. Now I love Jesus, and Jesus songs (Father Abraham - it’s banger), but I wasn’t familiar with any of these songs. One song was about God’s creation of man and woman. The messaging was clear, there’s just two boxes that can be checked, male or female. My son refused to do the performance and stood cross-armed in the back. I sat in the front row, saved face, nodding my head to the beat and video taping my daughter.

The performance ended with a big barbecue. My sister and her child army were there too, so we claimed a picnic table by throwing all our crap on top of it, and got in the buffet line. When I returned to the table, balancing three plates, there were five other people squeezed onto the table with us. It was uncomfortably tight, but we couldn’t be rude, so I just side whispered to Becky, “What the hell?” And Becky looked at me like, “I know!”

There was a man and woman and their three kids, the youngest one sat right next to me and coughed on my plate the whole time. My son was still getting back at me for sending him to camp so he refused to eat, and scowled at me. The woman picked up the pile of crafts her kids made, and said, it was all heading straight for the trashcan. Becky laughed, and told her, “I do the same thing.” And I looked at Becky like, “You lie! I know you will be scotch taping this shit to your walls upon getting home so you can admire your children’s art.”

The camp leader came over, and I said thanks. I told her, “Were Catholic, but I’ve been thinking of going to the big Christian church in our neighborhood because it has a much more of a fun vibe.” She told me, we’d be better off at the new church because then we’d actually learn scripture. I gave a half-smile and looked into her eyes that gave me the impression she was insane. When I told Becky that I feared the lady in charge of our kids the last five days was coo-coo-bonkers, she said, “Naaaahhh!”

After camp ended, I loaded up the car with the suitcases, and my exhausted mom waved goodbye. We drove up the mountain, and hit a wall of traffic. In the four hours it took to move the wreckage of a semi-truck that crashed and caught on fire, the kids filled me in on all the lessons they learned throughout the week. Luckily, I was able to have this one-on-two time to undo any undoable damage. Hopefully, when they’re in therapy at 40, the remaining will be sorted out.

They told me one of the camp counselors said her parents are Buddhist and it makes her sad to know they are going to hell. My daughter recently got over my brother’s kid telling her that her parents will most likely rot in hell for eternity because of our divorce, so I had to double-down on that conversation, and for the sake of my daughter, I assured her repeatedly, “Your dad is going to heaven.”

Then we got into the musical numbers they performed, and I explained to them that the “God made male, and God made female” song seems to have a relevant social agenda. When I sang, “God made man,” my voice was low and I raised a clenched fist, and when I sang, “God made female,” my voice was high and I flipped my wrist. Kiki understood, sort of. She said, “Ohhhh, it’s racist!” I said, “Sort of, it is like gender-racist because some people don’t want to be called male or female.” And she made sense of it all by saying, “That song is very gender-rude.” I agreed.

The last thing they brought up was evolution. The entire week they were told evolution isn’t real, and given loads of kooky arguments to support the claim. Something about the amount of salt in the ocean was the most compelling argument to the kids. I explained to them my thoughts on the entire evolution debate, “The fact that anyone can be so confident about what the world was like 100 million years ago blows my mind. In either case, it is on such a macro level, evolution has zero affect on the human experience.” I really don’t know where they stand on this, and to my point, I don’t really care.

My son made it clear he didn’t let the messaging seep too deep into his brain, but my daughter will need to revisit this conversation 700 more times. I told them, “You’re better off ridding yourself of religious dogma. It’s sort of like a bag of dog shit you have to carry around with you, and even if you set it down, you still never forget it’s there because someone is going to point at it and yell at you, even if they look really stupid.”

Then, like a stroke of magic, the traffic started to move. I thought about church. I love going to church, it's an hour I think about all the people in my life, but I considered the call-and-responses throughout the hour, and how I've spent a lifetime saying, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you," which is the exact opposite of the self-affirmation I have scotch taped to my bathroom mirror. It reminds me of Helly R in Severance, when she is hooked up to a lie detector and has to say over and over, "I am sorry, and sorry is all I am," until the polygraph shows she is telling the truth.

I started to feel sad, but then I heard the kids laughing. My son moved on from resenting me and started singing one of his songs, lyrical cheap thrills to get us home. 

Smuggling Frozen Lasagnas

Last month I got in trouble for going into my ex-husband’s house when no one was home. I wasn’t going through their underwear drawer, I was saving my frozen lasagna from defrosting because my freezer stopped working. I was with my son who needed to get his cleats for practice. He used the keypad to get in, and I’d usually sit in the car, but I thought, if I don’t do this slightly invasive but perfectly harmless thing, my $15 lasagna is wasted. I’ve got enough food-waste guilt. I felt really uncomfortable when he made me walk upstairs with him to show me his hamster. I said, “I feel weird, let’s get out of here,” and right after we were back in the car, his dad’s girlfriend showed up. The timing was perfection.

At G’s practice, a text came in: “Please don’t go into our house when no one is there.”

I got ready to text-fight, but lost my passion after my reply, “Like I want to steal your HomeGoods bull-shit,” didn’t warrant a response.

My kids leave Wednesday for Italy, and they’re gone for two weeks. I hope their absence doesn’t send me into a depression, but rather a melancholic-creative zone of productivity. I haven’t been away from them for that long, and it’ll be way less abuzz around the house.

They’re going for their dad’s wedding. Who knows what compels someone to inconvenience everyone in their life by deciding to get married halfway around the world, but what’s the point of waxing over that now?

My kids’ dad had covid last month and he decided to quarantine twice as long as the CDC recommends, so the kids and I had a really long stretch of uninterrupted time together. I inevitably gained five pounds from constantly cooking food. When my kids are at their dad’s, I’m fueled on toast. It’s purely out of laziness. I don’t see any sense in dirtying plates when they’re away.

I’ve cooked proper-food-network-type of meals for my kids, but they’re so picky, its proven to be a total waste of time. Repeatedly. Last week, I boiled noodles and poured a jar of tomato sauce over it, and they reacted like I made a steak, mashed potatoes and a cherry pie. Such praise, and I didn’t even make them a side dish of toast. Really, they don’t like me to overthink things when it comes to their food.

I’ll miss their low expectations for dinner, my daughter's negative attitude and my son's impulsive insult-jokes resulting in some restriction that doesn’t seem to rattle him. My boyfriend and I will get to watch all the movies we’ve put off. We’re definitely caught up on TV shows. We're in the Second-Wave of the Golden-Age-of-Television and there’s a plethora of excellent mini-series! I wrote a friend of mine a few weeks ago, and couldn’t even list all the TV recommendations because it’s too much. We’ve watched Hacks, The Afterparty, Super Pumped, We Crashed, Candy, Pam and Tommy, The Dropout, I Love That For You, Russian Doll, and many more.

All of this while keeping up-to-date on all AEW storylines. Where do we find the time? I have no idea, but I think we could both use more sleep. We also watched the first two seasons of Killing Eve. It started off great; an exceptional first season. Once season two kicks off, it becomes clear we’re no longer in a cat-and-mouse thriller between an MI6 agent and an international assassin, but were watching some fifty-shades-of-grey-BS for the sex-deprived housewife. The story took a plunge into titillation, but it’s well acted by the two main leads. The suspense of season one, will Eve finally catch Villanelle, morphs in season two to, will Eve and Villanelle finally finger-bang each other while listening to Crimson and Clover? Erotic fiction has a purpose, and if it keeps women from going out and cheating on their partners or yelling at store managers, than titillate away, but I don’t need it.

Speaking of sexless marriages, I do wish my ex-husband all the best. I’m happy my kids have another loving home; a home I can rely on for for my kids’ stability and frozen lasagna relocation. I encouraged their dad to take the kids out for some one-on-two time to assure them he’s always got their back. The specific words I used, “They need to understand you’re in an alliance with them,” as I was engrossed by the latest reality TV show craze, #CircleFam.

The kids are excited, and I’m excited for them. They’re off to see the world, and I’m off to watch movies with my boyfriend whose made Killing Eve unessential viewing.

Alien Judas

My backyard was overgrown, so I went to Home Depot for a weed whacker. After I tied the dog to the fence because he was hell bent on getting a Glasgow Smile from the whipping twine, I slayed the overgrown grass. Toward the end of the spool, the twine got loose, and came out much too long. So the whacker had an 8 inch diameter. When this started, shrapnel flung about, and my legs were cut up. The small gashes on my legs, and the quick accompanying pain wasn’t completely unwelcome. It was sort of invigorating.

It reminded me of this stupid thing we used to do in high school. First, we’d rip the safety out of a Bic lighter, then light the flame and hold the lighter upside down so the metal heats up. Once the metal was hot, we'd take the metal and smash it into our skin, branding ourselves with what looks like a smiley face.  A barbaric practice, but I don’t think it was really like “cutting” because there was nothing therapeutic or shameful about it. It was just crazy young people stuff. Maybe we did it to forget how bored we were.

My daughter was sent home from school last Thursday because she had allergies. I didn’t realize this was something that warranted a nurse’s visit, but I enjoy the company, and my kids’ sick days are really the only way we have one-on-one time. On the drive home, I asked her to go on a walk, and in a raspy voice she said, “I need to be inside because of my allergies.”

I replied, “I think you need more exposure, Kiki, thats why you’re having this sensitivity.”

She told me allergies don’t work that way… she sounded pretty confident, so I believed her.

My daughter wakes up every morning like she’s going off to a work camp, not elementary school. She gives very colorful speeches, about the campus and students. A personal favorite is when she screamed from her bed, “MY SCHOOL IS FULL OF HOBOS AND IDIOTS!!”

Between 6:30 and 7:30 am my daughter forgets all the perks of school, like free lunch and free counseling, instead she focuses on the awful. Ironically, she finds their “Positive Thinking” campaign to be a load of horse-shit, and laments in a mocking tone how they respond to any complaint with a blanket statement, “Think positive.”

It warms my heart I don’t have to give her a discussion on toxic positivity. She innately understands Buddha’s quote, “Life is suffering.” I’m not against positive thinking, and encourage it, but I don’t think “positive thinking” is an indoctrination, and it certainly shouldn’t be attributed as the root of success.

A few years ago, in a statistics class I taught, I started a project with the students about positive affirmations, but I had to stop the project because I read studies that showed this is very harmful because it encourages the belief that their lack or crappy circumstances is the result of their own thoughts. These are young adults, only 18-21 years old, so they are still reeling off the tides of their upbringing. It is not the same as life-coaching a thirty year old. So students in financial hardship, or dealing with family issues, are led to believe that these are the result of their own shitty thinking.

Wallowing in misery is also ill-advised. There’s no benefit to negative thinking, however, once you acknowledge feeling sad is sort of normal, then it makes feeling good great! Besides, I really believe great things are accomplished by interior suffering. That’s the Catholic in me.

I watched YouTube videos from people who micro-dosed shrooms. This was all first-hand accounts, and there wasn’t any science to it. The videos were entertaining enough, and the influencer discussed how after they took the micro-dose colors seemed brighter and there wasn’t any sadness in their heart.

I thought, “I’ve got to try this shit.” So we got a shroom chocolate bar that came in an Wonka wrapper. I ate the smallest dose and watched TV. It wasn’t any more enjoyable than watching TV after a gummy, and in the end I got a massive headache. So micro-dosing shrooms wasn’t some sadness-ridding ritual for me, but maybe I should have done something more meditative than four episodes of Shark Tank.

The kids and I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory recently because G read the book in school. We were deciding which characters from the movie we’d all be. G is Mike TV, Kiki is Veruca Salt, and I thought I should be Charlie. They both nixed that idea straight away, but when I told them that I would share my birthday chocolate bar (traditional chocolate bar here) they countered I’m more like Violet because I punch them when they’re bad. These are not actual punches, I’d like to add. They are playful, non violent punches, but obviously Charlie doesn't embody such jest.

Geoffrey does like to go on walks with me, and we generally talk about Minecraft. The mosquitos have been out lately, and after we came back from a walk he counted five bites, and feverishly scratched them. I almost came at him with a punch, but stopped, and just said, “Stop scratching those bites.” And sounding like a Christian Scientist I added, “Leave it alone, and trust that your body is healing.”

On this walk Geoffrey and I were talking about aliens, and we carried on the chat at home. With Kiki in earshot, Geoffrey told us he watched a YouTube video about a Tic-Tac shaped UFO. I said I saw a YouTube video about a cube-shaped UFO that shot out of the ocean.

Kiki was silent and wide-eyed, then she looked at me and asked, “Is the front door locked?”

I believe aliens exist, and will tell any available ear about a dream I had where I was sucked up by a beam of light, and then felt terrible pain while something was digging though my organs. When I woke up, my body hurt, and I thought, "Could it be?!”

It didn’t scare me, actually it was the opposite. I thought, “Holy shit, I’m important enough for aliens!”

But, when I looked at my daughter, and her heightening anxiety, I told her, “This is all baloney, Kiki. Aliens don’t exist, never have, and never will!”

I sounded pretty confident, so she believed me.

Groomed

 

I took my dog Max to a nationwide pet store for grooming, and after they checked his vaccination record (dogs have been doing it from the start) the groomer came over to meet him. She went to pet him, and he hid behind my legs and started barking. I apologized, like an embarrassed mom, and said, “He really is a great dog… he just assumes you’re evil.”

She continued the meet-and-greet by reaching her arm underneath him and brushing up against his penis. He nipped at her hand, and she stepped back with an appalled look on her face. My face went confused, and she said, “So yeah, we actually can’t see your dog because he shows sign of aggression.”

I replied, “But you just,” then whispered, "grabbed his penis! Does any dog pass this test?”

She shrugged, and I realized there was no convincing this dick-grabber my filthy dog who was stinking up my house was desperate for a shave. I left and made him an appointment at the other nationwide pet store, where they didn’t grab his wiener, and he got the needed haircut.

My aggression’s been tested lately by looking at stocks I bought after I sold my house in June. All of them went up shortly after purchase, and I thought I was a psychic stock exchanger, and should quit my job because I was about to become a millionaire. My daydream turned into a daymare, and all of them have tanked. It is depressing to see these stocks sitting well below half of what I paid for them. I decided to stop looking, it would be stupid to sell them and take the significant loss, and now I have to hope one of them will turn into some Forrest Gump gold mine when I’m sixty.

One stock is the most upsetting, Electra Meccanica. I decided to buy it after I saw a model in the middle of Arden Fair Mall. A single seater electric car that came from the future. I thought it was genius, but after watching the stock’s line graph’s steep downward trajectory, I wonder if there really is a use for a single seater car. Who is that accepting of their lonely life, they’ll buy a car for just one person?

If the car is intended only as a commuter vehicle, then the mileage isn’t sufficient. The battery can’t even get you from Sacramento to San Francisco in one go. I sent them an email, since I have invested interest, suggesting they make a two-seater model that looks like a Suzuki Samurai or a Geo Tracker. These cars are compact and absolutely adorable — it’s auto fashion forward under the guise of making a better tomorrow. We'll see if I hear back from them. I don’t need any credit for the design idea… I’d just be grateful to see their stock sky rocket from hip youngsters buying these vehicles to carry around their pet bunnies and hydroflasks.

My refrigerator broke this week. It's not even eight months old, but it stopped working, and after eating the approaching room-temperature food, I decided I needed to deal with Lowe’s. I must have made the purchase when Mercury was in retrograde because it was a headache from the start. It took weeks, two credits and repurchases, to just get the damn thing in my new house. The kids and I lived like Europeans with a mini fridge that kept me from shopping at Costco and producing any food waste. Calling Lowe’s is a minimum of one hour on hold, there’s a good chance they’ll transfer you and then have another hour-plus hold, then there is the likelihood the representative is training and has a “drop the call” panic attack. I endured, and the technician is coming tomorrow between 8am and 4pm.

Thursday is our only “activity-free” afternoon and I live for it. Geoffrey started Lacrosse, a foreign sport to me, that I’ve only seen in movies. After going to a few games and all the practices, it is a great fit for my boy since they spend an hour running around and beating each other with long sticks. I’m in awe watching the kids chuck a ball across the field where someone on the other side catches it with their tiny butterfly net. I don’t want to seem in such shock that I find this exchange borderline impossible, but I tell him to practice A LOT.

The games are fun, and the enthusiasm from the parents is next level. This east coast sport migrated over to sunny California, and the crowd cheers like were ringside to an AEW match watching Sammy Guevara flip off the top of a ladder with perfectly sculpted hair while wearing purple leopard print briefs. One mom’s passionate yelling sounds like she's in the bedroom; loud screams and moans, followed up by her kids name. Hilarious.

Kingsley finds the practice and games to be inconvenient. She roams around whatever park were in until she finds some other bored sister to play with, which entails chewing gum and talking about the injustices of not having a sister. I don’t get the pleasure of stewing in this misery because I have two sisters, but I downplay it. I haven't told Kiki that nothing tops getting loud-mouthed drunk on Silver Bullets with your sister. Ah, the good ol' days.

In the morning I get up 15 minutes before the kids to have coffee and write in my journal. I start by writing dreams I had down so I don’t forget them, and then I get into whatever shit my mind’s brewing on. The other morning I was fixing breakfast and Kiki came up to me and said, “You had a dream you were talking to Pops about moving to New York?” 

“Oh, you’ve been reading my journal.” I’ll start writing about how much I miss my sisters to deter her from continuing this invasive practice.

The last few weeks have been isolating, hence the uptick in dreams where I chat with dead relatives. I’m not about to purchase a one-seater vehicle, but it's not a good sign I hope the fridge technician likes to talk. My usual Wednesday morning meeting with Love Horrors has been cancelled. We make scrambled eggs and sourdough toast, discuss fun ideas, projects and jokes, then have a weekly cigarette. It's a slumber party packed into a couple hours. 

    I talk on the phone a lot, but it’s exhausting when the call is dual stream of conscious chatter. I gauge how close my period is based on the tolerance I have for these calls. If I only make it five minutes before hanging up annoyed, then I’ll probably spend the next day eating a box of Reeces Puffs cereal and then tell myself the cure to my upset stomach is an animal-style cheeseburger and French fries.

I take to the streets to socialize, walking my dog. There are the power-walkers who give a wave, but then there are the meandering. If I give myself time, I can turn the walk into quite the social adventure. I recently met 82 year old Will, a widow, retired from the LAPD. We talked for an hour yesterday. I told him about the dog’s Petco visit. He's a cop, and bored out of his mind, and even he thinks dick-grabbing is lousy way to make an introduction.

Max

Graphic Novels and a Revolution

 

I bought Kiki a new comic on Amazon. As I pulled the graphic novel from its package, I announced its arrival and she came running around the corner to get it from me. On the cover was the title, “A Girl From the Sea” and on the back was a drawing of two girls kissing.

I groaned, “It’s about lesbians.”

She said, “That’s okay, I love lesbians. You’re the one who hates lesbians.”

“I don’t hate lesbians, I didn’t know if you’d be interested in a romance story,” I retorted.

She snatched the book from my hands before I could add, “I love lesbians too… I agree with Germaine Greer,  for Pete’s sake, but I’m just too much of a pussy to commit to the revolution, and I feel like a betrayer of my sex every time I bask in hetero post-coital pleasure.”

It seems revolutionary for kids to be such advocates of the sexuality spectrum because it’s about sex. By the time I was their age I already read The Joy of Sex, and leafed through Playboy magazines, which likely contributed to the construction of my sexual self, but if there’s a rating scale, my early exposure would be G rated compared the what the internet provides.

We were driving around the other day and Kiki announced, “I don’t know if I’m straight yet, so that’s why I say I am bisexual.”

I gave a heavy sigh, and didn’t know what to say, although my instinct was to shout, “You’re asexual. Alright, all ten year olds are asexual.”

The internet is the only thing holding me back from ever wanting to buy my kids cell phones. It was in fifth grade I came home from school, and asked my mom, “What is a blow job?” She looked at me and said, never say that word again.

“So, it’s one word!” I thought to myself, as I pranced upstairs to my older brother and sister who told me exactly what a blowjob is. I don’t even remember thinking, “Blowjobs seem weird.” Actually, I can’t remember thinking much about it after they told me.

Social media is scientifically proven to be awful for young people’s mental being, so it seems like a no-brainer to deny them the time-vacuum of scrolling through meaninglessness. Young boys have uncontrollable, wall-punching, rage when their cerebral cortex isn’t being hijacked by screens, and girls are lured to cut all their hair off, dye it green, and make everyone call them by a chosen name, like “Pickle.” The green hair and name change are a lot less terrifying than untethered aggression.

I wonder how long it took for gender theory to trickle down from academia to now being on the forefront of young people’s radar, and how Greer’s theories never seemed to make it. I suppose The Female Eunuch has to combat capitalism, and the gender spectrum embraces the free market, since you can buy a t-shirt at Target labeling yourself as fluid.

I have a t-shirt that says, “I’m the Boss.” My t-shirt lies, and I don't wear it often, mostly on laundry days when I’m down to wearing crotchless panties and twenty year old stained sweatpants. My laundry’s been elevated lately after buying amazing fabric softener beads at Costco. I’ve steered clear of fabric softener the last eight years because my sister told me, “Fabric softener causes vaginosis.”

“Say no more. Vaginosis sounds horrible, I’ll stop using it.” But the little pink pellets added to the wash make it smell amazing, and there hasn’t been a medical side effect yet.

I’m going off social media for lent, and we’ll see if it decreases my anxiety. I’m not a stress case, but I’m no poster child for calmness either. I’ll give my boyfriend an early birthday shoutout before I make my non-Irish-exit, because he’ll appreciate it. Reading comments on his active social media accounts sends my anxiety through the roof because I read some of them as creepy desperation from people slobbering at the mouth over his key strokes. They’ve ruined the internet for me, and I guess I should thank them, but their strange inclination to insert themselves into a person’s reality makes me consider them wayward soldiers. Consider if they put that energy into the revolution, or anything progressive for that matter.

If Greer’s plan to abolish monogamy for the sake of the revolution didn’t trickle down, I’m grateful because it’s nice sharing a bed with someone, and late-night planning the inscription on our massive shared tombstone. I missed him when he left town last weekend for work. I had big plans to walk around and fart freely, but it was boring at night. The kids were excited for his return too. When he was back he played Barbies with Kingsley, and was directed to play the Barbie whose hair is all chopped off and colored with a permanent marker because she lost all her Ken dolls. I told her I turned some of my Barbies into Kens too, when I was a kid. They even used the proper pronouns and called the desecrated Barbie they/them. 

I received a terrible phone call this week that my Grandma fell over in the parking lot in Carson City, and is in the hospital recovering from a fractured pelvis. I told Johnny, and he said Geoffrey asked him to get three tickets to watch a King’s game, so they could take Grandma J because she loves basketball too, and it made me feel so proud of my little boy and his beautiful heart.

I told my kids about their Great Grandma, and they were relieved the news wasn’t worse. I said, “Always have the thought of Grandma’s healing in your heart, and picture us all at her 100th birthday party.” I want her to be a great-great-grandma one day. She is so close because that’s what happens when you get married at 15.

Greer would despise her life, but she’s a perfect example of living without stress. A non-technological existence, she never has to worry about announcing to her kids, “I have to take a poop,” bored, during a zoom meeting, not realizing her microphone is turned on. 

My reliance on technology isn’t all bad. I get embarrassing joy playing Sudoku on my phone, and I told my boyfriend I play to get comments, “You’re faster than 95% of players” or my all time favorite, “You’re brilliant!” And he told me he gets the same joy from playing golf on Xbox, and lately the commentators have been calling him “The greatest golfer to ever play the game.” 

With our growing dependence on technology, a part of me advocated for Ted Kaczynski in the new biopic, and I wondered if he’ll be viewed as a revolutionary in 100 years when the people of the world abandon wearing t-shirts with labels and slogans for the sake of saving the planet. 

Like Ted K, I’ve convinced myself there’s a war to wage on technology, but I haven’t conjured up a plan. Given my lack of tenacity with last year’s lent, making it one day in before I thought, fuck it, I’m eating gummy worms, I doubt I will be able to do much more than stave off depraved google searches from my kids and learn never to read comments on social media posts. A very small revolution.

Running a Marathon

 

The date approached quickly, and when I woke up at 4:50 am, I was glad it wasn’t raining. I slept like crap because the dog was scratching his collar all night. After the alarm went off I put on the clothes I laid out and drove to the Whole Foods parking lot to catch a shuttle bus to the start of the California International Marathon.

When the bus arrived, there were a hundred more in front. The bus idled, and someone came on to tell us, we could stay on the heated bus or get off, but don’t leave any of our crap. I ate two nature valley granola bars, so really four granola bars, and drank water before I decided to walk toward the start line. Along the way men were pissing off the side of the walking path into a small stream, and even with this siphoning of exhibitionists, the lines for the endless chain of port-a-potties were enormous. Not sure if I had to pee, or if I was nervous, I decided to wait in line, knowing by the time I reached the front, I’d have to go.

I took my place in the ten minute mile group. Even though I didn’t train, I felt fine because I run four days a week, granted it’s with a dog that stops to pee on every bush, and in the end I get about four miles done in an hour, but I figured the height of my psychical fitness lied within me, waiting to be awakened.

The race started, and I took it one mile at a time. Two people gave me advice, my friend Jane, who said it would be fine, as long as I drank the water at every water station, and my older sister, Lacey, who said, “Anyone can run a marathon, you just can’t stop.” Lacey ran a marathon in Disney World ten years earlier with my little sister, who said Lacey spent the last five miles crying to an embarrassing degree but was too absorbed in her emotions to notice the looks she was getting.

I did great the first two-thirds of the race. In fact, at the end of the race I was annoyed by my chipper self at the beginning, taking notes in my phone so I’d remember things to write in my blog, waving to the sidelines cheering crowds, and thinking about everything I was grateful for.

I stopped journaling a few months back because I burnt out on it. When I started gratitude journalling in June, it turned into a painful exercise where I felt like I was lacking genuine feeling, rather on task for the promised rewards of an endless depth of riches.

The new-age “organized religion” of well-to-do white people claiming their exceptional good fortune comes from their undeniable connection to the universe rather than a social caste system is irritating. I imagine the conferences for these mindfulness gurus are 95% Lululemon models, and they’re too idiotic to realize the confounding factors of their good fortune. 

Around mile 20 my joy shrunk down to nothing, and I had to push through unfamiliar pain. I started being passed by waves of people I remembered flying by much earlier. 

There is not a physical limitation to running a marathon, aside from having legs. Women with a hundred pounds on me, we're jogging past. Old people, that looked like they just came from a Chiquita Banana commercial, trotted past, head down, forward momentum from their curved back pushing them through each step. At one point a women passed me pushing an adult man in a reclining wheel chair. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, giving her a pained thumbs up.

The only people I passed over the last five miles were the injured, sitting on the side of the road, fighting back tears, stretching out whatever atrocity happened to their body. These people actually looked like Fleet Feet sponsored athletes, lean and muscular, dressed in the most appropriate attire, which made it more sad.

The race started in Folsom and ended at the state capitol building in Sacramento. Midway through the race, when I still had space in my mind to think, I ran through my old neighborhood, Carmichael, the neighborhood I associate with my married years. We ran passed my old grocery store, library and cross streets. I remembered seven years earlier, when I had the kids in a jogging stroller and I ran into this marathon. Someone on the sidelines congratulated me, and I had to admit, I didn’t push my kids in this stroller the 15 miles prior, I just came from around the corner. The neighborhood looked beat up, and there were more homeless tents, but maybe it always looked like that.

I passed the office of a psychic I once visited. She ate McDonalds and drank a red bull while she told me nothing exciting, and I left there feeling like I wasted money. Maybe she knew I would try to change things if she said what laid in store for me.

Like all psychics, she closed up the session by telling me coins I find on the ground are from my dead relatives saying hello. I passed a penny laying on the ground five times over the entire marathon. I usually pick up this minimal monetary treasure, for luck, but I couldn’t stop on the run for fear I’d end up stuck in the bent over position. Someone once told me, “Never pass a coin in the street, it tells the universe you don’t want money.” I figured in this case I was telling the universe I value my health over money, and they’d appreciate that.

It was the beginning of December, and I didn’t start Christmas shopping. My kids’ ridiculous list of Christmas wants were laughable, and I did everything to curb their expectations of getting iPhones and computers. I planned on buying them a PC, but when my son was sent home a letter from his teacher reprimanding him for not listening to her, I said there would be no computer and he lost TV.

That night I walked to G’s room. Kiki and him were laying in bed, and before I was at the door, I heard her say, “She was never a good mother to you.”

I came around the corner shouting, “Kingsley!”

She whipped her head towards me, and a smile came across her face. “I am trying to comfort him… because he lost TV,” she said.

“Don’t tell him stuff like that! It’s psychotic.”

Later that week, at bedtime, she started crying, too absorbed in her emotions to see how ridiculous she sounded, “You aren’t going to buy me a laptop! That is all I want for Christmas.”

I was brushing her hair, and her emotions were impenetrable, so I jokingly said, “What do you need a computer for? You plan on writing a manifesto.”

It went unnoticed, aside from my boyfriend, who chuckled in the other room. 

I was expecting a divine moment when I was running the marathon, maybe a vision from God. It didn’t happen. In front of the last Del taco I’d run past, my boyfriend texted, “How are you doing?” 

I could be on the side of the road, with a flat tire, and a broken arm, and I’d write back, “Doing great!” But this time, all I could say was, “I’m doing OK.” Which meant, “Tell my children I love them, and not to fight over the $1,200 I have in my savings account… it has to go to my credit card.”

The closest I got to an out of body experience was when my hands started to tingle at the start of the last mile. I decided to walk in case I pass out. Entering Midtown Sac, the streets were lined with poster board waving crowds, my favorite board read “Run Bitch!!” I alleviated the stress with humor, and let all the spectators know, this is the only marathon I’d ever run.

A finisher passed me, and said, “You say that now!”

I jogged across the finish line, and was handed a much deserved medal. Someone handed me a ticket for a free beer, and I asked if I could get a Marlboro Light instead. With no one there to celebrate with I hobbled over to the shuttle busses heading back the the Folsom Whole Foods. I chatted with other finishers, and when they saw me descend from the bus like a woman who was taking her first steps in a decade, one man said, “You need to have a glass of wine and get in a hot bath.”

I didn’t tell him my bathtub is really only good for toddlers, and any full grown adult, has to sit with her tits out in the freezing cold. It’s the opposite of relaxing. I just said, “Oh, I’m an alcoholic, I’ll just take some ibuprofen.” He apologized for some reason.

I hobbled around Whole Foods to buy dinner, and drove home. I took a shower before my kids came back, and the moles on my stomach were circled with blood from my t-shirt rubbing them for five hours. They begged to put up the Christmas tree, and my immobility forced us to have to wait till the next day.

Christmas came, along with record breaking snowfall in the mountains, which equates to never ending rain in Sacramento. My boyfriend pulled back the curtains in our bedroom this morning, and said, “It looks like an ad for seasonal depression out there.”

The weekend before Christmas, my kids went to their dad’s, and we wrapped presents. The kids called and said, “Were driving to the snow.” They said “the snow” some some soft-pawed, city-slickers, and I imagined them parked along side the summit with a slew of other underused SUVs, wearing pristine snow suits, and riding a saucer down a carved out hill, with a million other people..

I took the kids to Tahoe the week before, and when I picked up Indian food from the liquor store at the end of the street, the cashier said, “I took off your twenty percent local’s discount.” I haven’t lived in Tahoe in over twenty years, but I still got the essence of someone who can drink twelve Coor’s Lights while shoveling snow in a t-shirt. We went sledding that week, with my sister and her kids. We hiked out into the middle of nowhere, and after finding a slope steep enough Becky would send them down what ended up looking like a Plinko board of decent, and my job was to fetch the sleds the kids would drop, flying a hundred feet away, while they were trudging up the hill. The outing ended the way it should, someone getting injured, and everyone suffering from extreme cold and snow in their boots.

I was nervous Christmas morning, my kids would be unsatisfied by their loot, and then let me know it. My strategy for any rudeness was to watch Manchester By The Sea as a family, and afterward, while we’re all recovering from sobbing hysterically, I tell them, “This Christmas I gave you the gift of gratitude.” I’d put on Lululemon leggings before. I didn’t have to worry about it because their dad bought them computers, so everything I gave them was a cherry on top.

I woke up the day after Christmas with the craziest pain in my left wrist, that I diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome brought on from a lifetime of going to bed like a Precious Moments ceramic figurine, curled up on my side, with prayer heads under my cheek, but it also could be that my resting position is a limp-wrist, hunched-over, George Burns. I bought a brace on Amazon, the last of my Christmas shopping.

That night I dreamed I had a baby, and it was Jesus. My message from God came. Of typical fashion, it was a month late, and I have no idea what it means. With the marathon off my bucket list, I have other resolutions to foster, some seem harder than running twenty-six miles. It might be worth gratitude journalling again, and if I’m feeling misdirected in my intention, I’ll watch Manchester By The Sea. Everything is like a marathon, really; the long game, a push through, a reliance on hope. Sometimes a penny on the ground is worth more than one cent, and if I'm going to have depression, than seasonal depression is the best kind. So if you ask me how I am, I'm back to saying, "I'm Great!"

Happy New Years everyone!

Texas Salvation

 

The night before we left for Austin, I rushed into my house after dropping the dog off at my parents, an hour and a half away, and taking my kids to their dad’s. I was having extreme cramps in my stomach, and the pain was so bad I nearly passed out, but after I laid in bed for an hour I felt much better. I finished packing my brand new suitcase, a small rolling black Sampsonite my mom gave me for my birthday, with all my favorite clothes, most of which I’d acquired over the last year at my retail job, taking advantage of my amazing employee discount. Then we set the alarm for 5 am, and went to sleep.

We made it to the airport during what could best be described as a monsoon that had been beating down on Sacramento for 3 days. When we pulled into the long term parking lot, the clouds parted, and the rain stopped. We made it through security and on the first flight with ease, so much ease that I said, “Things are going so well.”

I spoke too soon. After we landed in Denver, Colorado, we had an hour to get food and go to the bathroom. I headed for a food stall that had pre-made salads, a preventative measure to my jacked up vacation stomach. I got my salad, and sat next to Johnny on the floor by the people-mover-conveyer-belt in front of our gate. After eating, it was time to board the plane, and we got up and walked to the queue. Johnny said, “Hey, you forgot your suitcase.”

I turned around to get it from where we were sitting, and it wasn’t there. My bag disappeared. I ran to every place I had been. Our turn to board the plane was coming up quick. I went up to the United counter at the gate, panting from sprinting up and down the terminal, I said, “My bag is lost!”

She looked at me like I said, “I have herpes.” She was bothered, and helpless, so I ran what seemed like a mile, down to the customer service counter and she told me I have to fill out a claim online. There was nothing I could do. I needed to get on the plane, with just the clothes on my body and my purse, that thankfully had my laptop. I sprinted back to the plane, and boarded. The United employee burst with schadenfreude, as she waved me away. I tried to not project all my stress onto this miserable sap. 

I’m a white woman, so of course, I’m writing a letter to United explaining the injustice. The letter starts, Dear United, Most of your employees have been replaced by robots, and your remaining human workforce is only in tact so you don’t have to pay taxes on your billions of dollars of annual revenue, but could you just give these people a paycheck and have them sit in an employee lounge all day because their misery is triggering. They have no purpose, and know it. Their only sense of power is by enforcing people to pull their mask over their nose. Traveling is stressful enough. I also think you should give the woman at the customer service counter a bonus.

When we got off the flight in Austin, and walked to the car rental, I started shuffling through my purse to pull out my glasses that are usually smashed under everything, at the bottom of the bag. Not surprising at all, I lost them on the last flight.

I didn’t say, “Things cannot get any worse,” because I was now in a state of internal conflict wondering what the hell the universe was trying to tell me as I shed my favorite personal possessions on the journey from Sacramento to Austin. I walked away from that stress the best way I know how, compartmentalizing it to the tiniest space in the back of my mind.

When we checked into the hotel, the guy at the front desk was Texas nice, and we had the first of many chats.  As he was sliding our key cards in the envelope, he said “We have breakfast from 6:30-9:30 in the lobby.”

Johnny and I were all smiles, about to high-five, when he noticed our unnecessary excitement and added, “Oh, It costs money.” And we laughed at our intense reaction to possible complimentary breakfast.

After vegging out in the hotel, we went to Target to get me situated. The trip was for Johnny’s performances, and I packed accordingly, to be a very pretty plus one. So when I looked at the curling irons, razors, and make up, tallying up the costs, I thought, “Maybe I can pull off the upcoming string of nights out going au natural.” 

My au natural look resembles a woman who pulls over when she’s sees roadkill, to make a stew for dinner, so I just bought all the shit. I’d eventually have to replace it all anyways.

We went to the clothes section, and after seeing the price tags, I decided I should go to  Forever 21, because the slight difference in Target prices to Nordstroms was not happening. I foraged the clearance rack, that had only XL or XS random articles of clothing and I picked up a pair of shorts for bedtime. I went with XS, and looked like I was wearing giant underpants made of sweatshirt material.

In the morning, we slept through breakfast because we adapted right to the vacation schedule, and stayed up till 3 am watching TV. With our busy life back in Sacramento, we took advantage of our vacation appropriately, and over the week we watched The White Lotus, finished Squid Game, and caught a few movies.

We headed for the mall, and I bought enough clothes to get me through the week. Unable to escape the Forever 21 demographic, I looked like I was going through an identity crisis, pretending I was 20 years younger. I picked up underwear at Victoria’s Secret, and the sales girl’s cold sore concerned me as she wrapped the undergarments in tissue paper, but I have no access to a washer machine, so I decided to play Herpes Russian roulette, and just rip the tags off each morning, and put on a new pair.

My looks didn’t disappointed because the second night of shows Johnny was approached by a friend, asking if we were up for some group sex! He respectfully declined, and as he retold me about it later, he started with, “You might be flattered by this, but…”

I was flattered, giving some air snaps, thinking, “We’ve still got it!” But one woman’s fantasy is another woman’s nightmare, and if I had to watch my boyfriend have sex with another woman, I would have to file my letter of resignation with him the next day, starting with, “It’s been nice knowing you, but I’d prefer if we didn’t remain friends.”

My last day of vacation is filled with melancholy, missing home but also sad to have to go back to reality. We drove out to the Chainsaw Massacre gas station, hit up the movie theater and then went for one more meal of tacos. When I went to the bathroom, like all the hip establishments we’d been to, the toilets were all-gender. I came back to the table, and announced, “We might not be having group sex, but we can always take a couples shit! If you’re up for it.”

He respectfully declined.

The next day, I packed up my Target shopping bag, and we flew home.