Momomama
I'm inspired by Briar's post about love.
Superficially, Bill and I are an odd couple. He's 13 years and 12 days my senior. He's a powerhouse of muscle and belly and big old beard. I'm small and soft and mostly weak (but getting stronger.) He's a hunter, an adventurer, an offshore fisherman. I work in an office, rolling on my wheely chair and writing my blog. He can live on Ramen noodles and eggs for months on end. I need chocolate, red wine, tender steaks and apples. He dropped out of high school to work on boats and fish and sail. I have a useless master's and contemplate more degrees daily. He makes a plan and does it, he acts. I like to talk things out and obsess and mull. He drives a huge pickup truck named Natasha and likes to fly down dirt roads and make me scream. I drive a little Honda named Trixie and like to rapidly decellerate on the highway and make him jolt awake saying "what happened?!?" I could go on all day.
But I met him and we talked about Moby Dick and we bonded of books and brittany spaniels and then over margaritas. And we encourage each other to try knew things - skeet shooting and pumpkin pie. And we love our families and we love to read and we love about each other. And when it's just the two of us, reading in bed, or wandering through a museum, or buying groceries, or fighting about some stupid shit, it's simultaneously like we have no differences AND like we have a million differences, and we embrace them all and they make the other person fascinating and always new.
So. The interview. The les said the better, but I feel like it went well. We laughed, we chatted, I took a typing test.
This weekend was just insane. We spent the weekend putting up with the big kids, being delighted and exhuasted by the little kids, getting a song dedicated to us, enduring other people's jokes about the hell that is marriage, and eating all kinds of bad bad things. It was great, but by six o'clock yesterday afternoon, I was trying to stop myself from crying every other frigging minute. I'm just a mess sometimes. Of course, this is nothing new. Everyone knows that when I am tired the tears just start coming. Except everyone does not yet include Bill's family, and I am sure they thought that I have a.) really bad allergies b.) a very sad drug habit, or c.) watery eyes and a cracky voice. Bill's mom reassured m by telling me she didn't notice and that her late husband cried ALL THE TIME and it was nice to have a crier in the family again. That there is one sweet lady. So sweet it made me cry.
I have an actual, face to face, job interview. So why am I completely freaking out?
Watching the premiere of Las Vegas last night reminded me that I long to be a showgirl. And I would do it, too. If not for the lack of dancing and walking in heels talent. I am pretty good at balancing things on my head though.
God, I missed that Bill. Even though I was filled with rage for him staying in Alaska for two months, and subjected him to much deserved yelling, tears and also snot on his sleeve, I was never so happy to see him.
We took a day trip across the Lake to Vermont on Saturday to visit the
Shelburne Museum, and its quilts and decoys. And, thanks to some friends in Wilmington and their son's summer employment at a place that offers reciprocal memberships, we got in for free! FREE! I love to go to museums with Bill, because he is so curious. We were looking at a model of a boat, and he lay down on the floor so that he could look up at it from underneath. He saw interesting antlers in another exhibit, so he went and found a Museum docent in another building so he could have questions answered. He also moves slowly. I have the tendency to race along, but with him, I stop and really look at things. Even decoys. The quilts were amazing. Right now they are exhibiting 100 Masterpiece Quilts from their collection. And, wow. It was inspiring and now I have a
project. Wish me luck. I'll start her on payday.
A few months ago, I made the decision to stop wearing deordorant, because, well, I don't smell. Today that all changed. I have been told that a high protein diet will make you a little stinky in the mouth and the armpits. As if you wanted to know.
Four times a year, I must attend the Painful Board Meeting for work. It deserves every syllable of painful - plus ten. The only good things about the meeting is the fancy cheese and the fact that it is held at the offices of one of the most high powered law firms in New York...NAY, the WORLD! In their bathrooms, they have little bottles of scope, disposable toothbrushes (with toothpate INSIDE), small containers of hand lotion, and free tampons. While I am not a thief, and I consider eating grapes at the store and not paying for them a crime against humanity, you know I will be stocking my medicine cabinet this evening.
Going to the gym is weird. Probably this is always true, but it's especially weird when the gym is at your place of employment and you share a locker room with your co-workers (and thank god this locker room is seperate from that of the 20 year old students.) It's embarrassing to get changed in front of your much older co-worker when you have not been wearing a bra all day and hence have to put one on - which you think exentuates that fact that you weren't wearing one the rest of the day. It is slightly flattering, however, when on your way into the gym the second person of the day assumes your are a 20 year old student and asks if you would like to joing the volleyball team. You try not to be bothered by the fact that some you have to sit through regular meetings with is wearing a much too skimpy outfit and you try not to make note of who mouths along to whatever music is playing on their walkman. Don't be so disheartened, next time, when you are a machine behind a twenty year old for the entire weight training circuit and you keep having to change the weight to a third of what she could lift. Not everyone is paying as much attention to you as you are to them - except that one guy, but it is flattering to be stared at by a twenty year old....you just hope it's not that staring you used to do when you saw women in outfits too young and tight for them like you fear your outfit might be. Relax. You'll get used to it, after all, you have to go back again today.
Go home, Johnny, it's suppertime.
I feel like a movie star, as
Miss Bliss is interviewing me....ooooohhhh. I am totally getting a swell head....
What was the best dream you ever had?
I was at the movie theater with my friend Paula. The movie was about dogs, and I was bored, so I left to get changed and find another movie. Unfortunately, and epidemic of theater hopping had led to a change of policy so instead of riding the gondola to another movie, I had to wait with a gypsy and a bald man (who was reading the communist manifesto) in a dark, velvet covered waiting room. My friend Erica came by, and we left the theater and walked to our church, for the annual picnic. I had my quilt with me, so we spread it on the grass and started to eat. Then the bald man came and threw up on my quilt and told me I had to help him sneak some orphans out of the USSR. I did. Then we (the bald man and I) went to a hotel room and the artiest guy in my high school came over and sorted cocaine off a mirror in the shape of the Soviet Republic of Georgia. I had this dream 14 years ago.
What five songs would you say were the soundtrack to your freshman year in college?
Aimee Mann's "I Should Have Known", Liz Phair's "Fuck and Run", Luscious Jackson's "Naked Eye", Stevie Ray Vaughan's anything, and Madonna's "Vogue".
What is the most selfish act you have ever committed?
So many, so I'll go with the most recent. I took the last shrimp of the hor's doeurvre tray when I KNEW others in my group had not yet had one shrimp and I had had six. HA!
If you could live in any city in the world where would it be and why?
This changes everyday, but right this very minute I would love to be in Barcelona, eating strawberries and watching the sunset from the amusement park on top of Mount Tibidabo. Then I would go home to my Gaudi designed home, and Rosy de Palma, Penelope Cruz, and Pedro Almodovar would come over for dinner and a screening and discussion of his films.
If peaceful aliens arrived on earth and you were the first person to speak to them what would you tell them?
"In this world, I am considered HOT!"
If you would like to play along and have me interview you....the following rules apply:
1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different.
3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
I'd like to say that I didn't just start crying when I found out that my 10am meeting was changed to 11:30 and no one bothered to tell me. But I can't. I must be feeling sad because of Ben. Oh, Ben. Years ago, I pledged my love to you. I even said that if I were a teenaged girl with a locker, I would rip your picture out of teen beat and tape it to the inside of said locker. Wasn't the thought enough? If I had gone out and bought myself a locker, would that have been better? Sigh. The past few months have been a roller coaster for us Ben. Several times I have been sure, positive, that you were going to be done with her. But everytime, you worked it out. She took you back. Like a little fun with strippers is anything compared to the gambling and drinking I saw you through. Anyway. I finally resigned myself to your nuptuals to HER. Today I learn you have "postponed" the wedding. That's it. We are through. Do you really think you can get away with this? Well you can not, Ben. You are no longer my ben Affleck. I have moved on. I swear.
Earlier today I had a phone conversation with a grown man who would say "Fresh" in response to my ideas. Which is flattering. But also makes me feel time warped.
I just found out that golf courses are not open on Mondays. Yes. It's true. Nowadays in New York it's like you can't do ANYTHING on Mondays! No Broadway theatre (she says as if she goes...), increasingly no liquor (a new law passed that allows liquor to be sold on Sundays, but booze peddlers must close their doors someother day of the week...and most of them seem to be picking Mondays) and, now, no golf! Back in my day (say, twenty years ago) the MALL was closed on Sundays, as were most other shops. THE MALL, people! The altar at which we worship consumerism and the economy! What kind of blue laws make worship impossible????
I never tasted jello until I was a freshman in college. My grandfather used to make it all time, boiling water, stirring carefully...I have friend who also make it a lot, usually with alcohol. I have never bought jello, until yesterday. But now it will be my number one lucnh dessert, as I attempt to lose the 20 punds I have gained since February. I am ashamed to be on a diet. And it doesn't help that people have been responding to the news with, "OH! But you are so slim!" It makes me feel like I shouldn't be dieting and because I am it must mean that I am vain, shallow, or self-center or something. I must be projecting though, because I have always been really self-righteous about dieting - even though I have no experience with it. So not only do I get to have jello, I get to discover that I can be something a jerk and also very defensive. Oh, the joy of self-discovery.
I am not one of those women who can wear red lipstick. I end up looking like a clown. Also, pretty much any lipstick I wear tends to migrate from lips to my chin and nose pretty quickly. And another thing...I also can not apply blush with out looking like I have roseaca. This, along with my inability to wax (no seriously, the hair will not come off!) makes me a half a woman. Luckily, my inability to recognize and subsequently say no to a carb makes me twice the woman I used to be.
Last night I dreamed about fish. Beautiful trout that became salmon as they swam. My brother and I made an aquarium out of an old wooden table, but it was too shallow and the fish could hardly swim. I was afraid that the water was too cold and that without a fliter or somekind of oxygenation these fish would belly up die. So we put leashes on the fish and swam with them in their lake, and my fish led me to its mother. She had a net over her face, like a veil, and when I pulled it off she said thank you. I found myself back in the kitchen, looking into my new, deeper fish tak and watching the two fish swim.
Someone needs to tell our admin that saying to someone "WOW. You look really tired today" when you have no evidence of their actual tiredness is rude. And when the person answers back in an overly dramatic voice, "I have NEVER been so insulted in my LIFE!", you should look like you feel contrite for insulting them, instead of shrugging and saying, "well, you do!"
The new students were surprisingly unsurprising. The days of crazy hair colors are over and everyone and her mother has a tattoo now. In general, angst is over. But in one respect this class is the same as any other: they can't read. The sign on our door clearly states that we are NOT Health Services AND the health services is around the corner.Then why have six students come in looking to give me vaccination sheets?
