Just bitchin'

Zombie of the Season

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It’s insidious.

It wafts about virtually unseen until it accumulates in deceptively pretty, golden drifts. It collects in the crevices and at the interstices of your newly-washed car, your lawn furniture…your innocently-gaping throat and nostrils. Your eyes.

But those are mere diversionary tactics.

It wants your brain.

It’s pollen. The wild, golden child of all those lovely Spring catkins gracefully dipping and swaying in the breeze.

It is the zombie of the plant world.

It wants your brain.

And it shall have it.

Oh, sure, you can try to stave it off with any number of chemical weapons. But sometimes you don’t want to risk the accompanying lethargy. Sometimes you don’t relish the idea of every moist membrane of your body being converted into dry, cracked parchment. Your vivid imagination conjures up sinuses lined with something resembling California’s drought-ridden soil, webbed with arid fissures.

You don’t want that.

So you decide to power through the discomfort, hawking and coughing all the way.

By the time you are reduced to a wheezing, gelatinous mass, abandoned by friends and family because, let’s face it, you’re kind of disgusting like this, you begin to crack. Much like the California drought-ridden soil. The tiny crevices gather and grow and intersect and become one glorious gape.

You shatter.

You take the antihistamine. And it’s not the non-drowsy version, because, well, you’re still laboring under the delusion that you can power through anything the season dishes up. A sign your brain is already under siege.

In a few hours you will blink stupidly instead of speaking cogently. You will nod off over your keyboard. You will struggle for the words just out of reach. You will lick dry lips to no avail. You will rub dry eyes to a sandpapery texture.

You will fix the world in your deadened, dry gaze, and realize the final enormity of your defeat.

You and pollen have become one. You are the outward manifestation of pollen.

Zombies both.

It wanted your brain.

And it got it.

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Just bitchin'

Last Impression

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This tale will undoubtedly offend some. I don’t care. My circus. My monkeys.

 

End of life impressions.

It’s something I never gave much thought until my best friend had a serious scare.

A few months ago he went to his doctor wondering why he had heartburn (you can all see it coming, right?). He was put through some tests and ended up being admitted to the hospital for an exploratory procedure.

Heart disease runs in his family. It claimed his father at 38.

His big brother fell short of a heart attack, but had stents installed to remedy blocked arteries. He called bro and felt reassured. “Yeah,” his brother said. “That’s how I felt, too. But you get the stents done and you’re home the next day and you feel great! So much more energy.”

My friend figured that wasn’t so bad. He checked in, and closed his eyes…

…and woke up to find he’d had a triple bypass and would be in the hospital for a week. He was totally unprepared. Shocked.

He is the buff guy. The one who works out and has salad when others order steak. A glass of red wine while others down multiple Martinis.

Then there were complications. A blood clot. More hospital time.

When it was all over and he’d made a remarkable recovery in record time (so it does pay to stay in shape), we talked from the perspective of a few weeks.

I should mention here that he used to be an actor, a comedian. He got tired of the struggle it takes to make a living at it, so he moved on. But he still has the gift. He can make me laugh like no one else. His are the tales I’ll think of while standing in line, or on a subway or bus…alone…and burst into loud, unstoppable laughter. The kind that makes people cross to the other side of the street and pull their children closer. The guy is that funny.

Maybe not to everyone. But to me…oh, yes.

We spoke of many things, but my friend said that the first ‘project’ he tackled upon finally returning home and being once again on his own, was to ‘clean things out.’

“What do you mean? Your place is spotless.”

“No, Cat. I mean…you know…get rid of things.”

I was still mystified. “What? Like donate stuff to Good Will? Have a garage sale? What?”

A moment of silence rife with reluctance, and then… “I got rid of stuff I don’t want left behind if I die…you know…suddenly. Stuff I don’t want people to find when they go through my place. Things I don’t want to be remembered for.”

“Eh?”

“Porn, Cat! Porn! I got rid of all my porn.”

“Are you kidding? I mean, I didn’t see anything. How much could you have?”

“Enough to fill a couple of those giant garbage bags. I tell ya, I was hefting it like some kind of perverted Santa Claus. Scared I’d kick it in the elevator on the way down…the stuff would spill out, and the doors would open on Girl Scouts selling cookies…Mothers with children…Nuns…” He sighed. “Hell of a last impression…”

And that’s the image that’s to blame for my uncontrolled hilarity while standing in the grocery line today.

This guy is the best monkey in my circus…and I’m glad he’s still here.

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Just bitchin'

Petty Thievery

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I haven’t lived in my current location all that long. Just a few years.

But in that time, I’ve tweaked and nudged and lavished tiny touches on the land and buildings that don’t necessarily extend their longevity or increase their value…but that have meaning to me. Some are a bit quixotic. Which means they suit me.

What signifies nothing to others may have strong import for me, the lone resident of my strange, little world.

So it is with my blue reflectors.

They aren’t necessary. No one will mistake the sloping green of wild grassland for the gravel of the driveway proper. No one will require the guidance of electric blue to find their way down a long and winding road to the humble beach cottage at its end.

I set them out because I like their color.

Nothing more.

I like the gaudy sign of civilization that tells me I’m nearly home. I like their shape and size and ability to shine forth no matter the Northwest weather. I like hiking out to the road for mail and sharing it with their azure energy.

I bought five of them. Because they are inexpensive and…again…I like their color.

But now, there are only four. One of their number having been spirited away by a neighbor. For this is a locale where no one comes unless they live here. A miles-long dead end street. Who else, but a neighbor would know of their existence?

First reaction: disbelief. I count them. Twice. But no matter how I try to redefine reality, there is only one way to count to five.

Second reaction: create implausible explanations. As a fiction writer, this is my forte. But at the end of the day, the idea of Bigfoot absconding with the blue reflector that was closest to the road, doesn’t have enough weight to trounce the ugly reality…

…I live among thieves.

Third reaction: vengeance. I shall hike through wind and rain and fatigue until I find the lone, blue reflector standing sentinel in a neighbor’s yard. Then, I will snatch it away and run screaming into the night, knowing my cause is just.

Fourth reaction: puzzlement. Why would someone steal something so easily purchased at the local hardware store? For lack of the $1.50 it costs? For lack of the wherewithal to actually go to the hardware store?

I begin to feel sorry for the thief.  So maybe four is my lucky number. Not five. Maybe four blue reflectors is more appropriate. Feeling philosophical, I traipse back down my four-reflector drive to my cottage. Outwardly, I cling to the concept of ‘all things happen for a reason; to all things there is a purpose.’

I tell myself I hope the reflector-thief finds contentment and joy in his new possession.

But inside…inadmissible fury bubbles and churns. For I am certain that somewhere down his newly-reflectorized road, the culprit will encounter cat-fueled karma that will shiver his bones to splinters and color his world electric blue….

Because karma’s a bitch with a capital ‘B.’

You know…’B’ as in…BLUE.

Electric, reflectorized blue…

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Just bitchin'

The Unfair Art of Entertainment

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I have a guilty pleasure.

A shameful, inexplicable addiction along the lines of many people’s shameful, inexplicable addictions. A trashy TV show that turns my eyes to saucers and my brain to fudge.

What a wonderful feeling.

So once a week I draw the drapes and close the doors. I turn the phone off and I put the cat out. I retreat into a world of unhinged ‘reality’ and flaring tempers and peculiar human politics. Really, it’s no different from any of the other myriad of ‘reality’ shows foisted on a hungry, viewing public. Except that it’s set against a dance background.

And I’m a sucker for dance.

Dance drew me in, but the outrageous behavior of the ‘stars’ held me fast.

Usually, I get my hour-long fix and resume my high-functioning addict’s life, and no one is the wiser. I leave the experience behind and navigate the paths of my own reality consequence-free of my habit.

But then one of the ‘stars’ threw her requisite tantrum, and I have to respond. Otherwise, I’m afraid the seed of it will grow and entwine, and then I really will be lost…purchasing DVDs and spending my time poring over my addiction. Forgetting to brush my teeth and put out the trash.

Scary.

The woman was pushing her daughter’s cause as a dancer within the juvenile group of performers. Her argument was that the girl had been with the school from which the performance company sprang ‘from the start.’ She said it was unfair to give solo performances to newer arrivals when her child had earned the privilege by virtue of her longevity. ‘Not fair,’ she shrieked. ‘Not fair!’

My saucer-eyes blinked.

My jaw dropped, spilling an unlovely drift of popcorn….another addiction, but we won’t get into that now.

Here’s the thing: There ain’t nothin’ fair about the entertainment industry, lady! And nor should there be!

It made me take a second, harder look at the poor, little girl being dragged through this production. She is intelligent, eloquent, and has a certain noble grace unusual for someone so young. But she doesn’t have a dancer’s body. She doesn’t have a face that reads well from the stage. She doesn’t have the finely-honed technique that the other girls have.

Maybe she’ll be a ‘star’ as her benighted stage mother vows. But it won’t be as a dancer.

Another vignette had a choreographer/dance teacher snarling that her student was a ‘stronger dancer’ than a competing company’s entrant in a dance-off. When pitted against each other, the ‘stronger dancer’ lost.

It was easy to see why.

Her opponent was a softer, more lyrical dancer, but more importantly…she was prettier. Plain and simple. Her opponent has huge eyes that could be seen from the back row. She doesn’t. The opponent captured the judges. She didn’t.

I know…Not fair!

But the entertainment industry looks for performers who fit the bill. And that has more to do with native talent and genetic fortune than anything else.

Longevity, personality, work ethic, and so many more ingredients have an influence, but they don’t earn you that coveted ‘star’ status in and of themselves. A combination of them all might. Might. But it would still be necessary to have luck and timing. You’ve got to be what ‘They’ want, when ‘They’ want it.

I’m convinced my last words will be ‘NOT FAIR!’  I’ll rail against the injustice of life ‘til the end. But looking for an even playing field in entertainment, in Hollywood?

Not a realistic expectation.

And just another facet of the unreality of reality shows.

Lord help those poor, little children being publicly flogged for what’s nobody’s fault.

Too bad I can’t look away…

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Season of Bounty

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The calendar says ‘Not yet.’

The budding trees say ‘Almost.’

But Spring is here.

It crept into my home this morning. Actually, it was carried in. It was deposited with loving care on my bed before I knew what was happening. It was released beside my elbow as I lingered in the last, dusky shreds of sleep.

It electrified me.

It bolted me from my rest and my sheets, and the security of Winter slumber hitherto undisturbed by those who walk on four paws and bring…gifts… It burrowed under my comforter and snuggled deep with desperation rooted in its instinct to survive.

Spring is here.

I know because the invasion has begun and I have been pressed into the dual role of victim of, as well as EMT for, vermin.

My cat, Jack Sparrow, is thrilled. This is the time when he can truly express his gratitude for being adopted from a shelter. This is when, after long, cold, barren months, he can shower me with an embarrassment of feline riches. This is when he gets to watch the ensuing chaos after bringing me his version of ‘breakfast in bed.’

It amuses him. I can tell.

He takes a ringside seat and watches the race to find a receptacle that is mouse-worthy. Tail twitching, he sees how clumsily I trap his ‘gift’ in the drinking glass that will never be allowed to touch my lips again. Not after this. His whiskers tilt forward and his ears tilt back as his scantily-clad, furless owner dashes out into the chill morning air in search of a site where the ‘gift’ may be released with a reasonable expectation of escape and survival.

Deep inside, Jack Sparrow does a cat-chuckle.

Because he knows where to find more ‘gifts.’ And he will. A weekly, if not daily, progression of small, scurrying, squeaking bounty await him.

Spring is here.

The only thing more alarming is Summer.

That’s when the snakes appear.

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Lessons from a Lummi

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Growing up, my mother had a friend named Mary Hillaire.

She was an outspoken member of the Lummi Indian tribe in Washington state. Her name was Anglicized from Hill Air, I was told. She was an activist, an educator, and instrumental in founding programs devoted to the study of Native American culture. She left her mark particularly on Evergreen State College in Olympia.

At one point, my mother helped her write some of her speeches. Mom had the secretarial skills, but Mary had the charismatic ability to make people listen. She was an extraordinary woman.

Her spirit visits me every Spring.

I remember her standing outdoors in our yard, breathing deeply of the still chill air. She would joke about it being mandatory, given her name. And then she would fall silent before instructing the pale child beside her, whom she couldn’t know would store her lessons for a lifetime.

She said that Spring was not a season so much as a feeling of life surging upward and forth from the frozen ground. She could feel it in her blood, like wine. Spring was a promise that was always kept.

She told me to follow its example and never break faith.

I thought of Shakespeare’s Juliet, decrying that Romeo would swear upon the moon, saying that the ever-changing, inconstant moon was a poor example upon which to base a vow. The seasons change as does the moon, but they are reliable in that changeability. Mary Hillaire took a longer view, and in doing so, revealed a deeper truth.

Mary gifted my mother with an exquisitely woven basket; an artifact of her people. It featured stylized deer circling the rim. Each stood forth on four sturdy legs. Except one. It only had three legs. She told me it was intentional. She said if all the deer had four legs, the basket would be perfect. Humans were incapable of perfection. To produce something perfect was to mimic the gods…a thing both disrespectful and dangerous.

One must always acknowledge one’s flawed humanity and remain humble.

I don’t know how Mom and Mary met, but I suspect they became friends because they shared a concern about the fragility of their respective cultures.

To this day much of my mother’s background is unknown, veiled in vague mutterings about political expediency and the KGB in Russia at the time. She mentioned how the Soviet Union was overwriting languages of the countries that became satellites, insisting only Russian be taught in schools. She dreaded the loss of so many cultures.

Mrs. Hillaire had similar concerns. So she worked tirelessly to make sure tribal culture had a voice and remained strong.

It was her life’s work and admirably accomplished.

But to me, as trees begin to burst with blossoms, Mary Hillaire is a voice on the wind, telling me to be human and flawed…and to breathe deep.

Because life, like the seasons, is a self-renewing promise.

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Voices from the Heart

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It took me some time to come to a workable understanding of what ‘voice’ is in writing.

So when it’s challenged, I get a little panicky. My back arches. My ears flatten. I discover I have hackles. I discover they can rise and point. And I have to circle back over the ground I thought I’d claimed and check all the territorial markers to see if it’s still mine…if I can still work with it and defend it.

‘Voice’ in writing perplexed me for a long time. I’d get the inevitable rejections, but somewhere along the way editors and agents began attaching little notes: ‘Nice voice.’ ‘Interesting voice, I’d like to see more.’ ‘Keep developing your voice.’

It felt as though they were talking about something as tangible and declarative as a fingerprint, but I couldn’t see it, or, more accurately, hear it. Then I was told a writer’s ‘voice’ can change from genre to genre and character to character.

Fingerprints don’t do that. Not without acid and intent, anyway.

So how do you grab this slippery, inaudible thing and wrestle it into submission? It squelches around in your hands and defies examination. I mean, ‘voice’ is ‘voice!’ If it’s so identifiable and individual and recognizable, then why is it so hard to see in the plain light of day?!

Because ‘voice’ is a misleading, kind of crappy word to use for it.

I’m stuck with it because it was adopted and put into use long before I wondered if I had one. Or wanted one. Or had even the vaguest hope of producing something other than the harshest of caws when endeavoring to display one.

But when I realized what everyone was talking about, I also realized it’s not a voice. It’s a heartline. It happens when you’re so immersed in writing that the rest of the world disappears. It happens when the words come from the center of your being without artifice or detour. It’s a direct line from your writer’s heart to the page.

Heartline.

It is as changeable as mood and emotion and the sky. But at its core…unchanging.

So ‘voice’ be damned. Write from the heart.

They’ll hear you.

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Midwinter Malaise

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It’s like cabin fever of the soul.

But not quite.

It’s like mental nails on a mental chalkboard

But not quite.

It’s like teeth grating on the tines of a fork.

But not quite.

It’s emotional mid-winter. Grey. No end in sight. Damp and wet and squelching underfoot. Soggy and chill. It’s wanting to stay in bed all day. It’s forgetting to open the drapes, because, really, what difference does it make. It’s watching the sky drip like a suppurating wound. It’s going a little deaf from the endless rattling of the rain, the sifting of the flakes. It’s life bounded by drear, experienced in murk.

But not quite.

Out of sheer desperation you instigate paltry changes, as though doing so will make Nature take notice; will make Her speed up Her calendar and change now, change soon. As though Nature cares that you’ve hacked off your hair, or thrown out half of your possessions, or walked naked in the snow to demonstrate, if not your power, then your indifference.

As though Nature cares.

It’s breaking rules and doing things you’ll regret; regretting even as you do. It’s squinting at displays of red and pink satin hearts that try to deceive you into believing this is anything other than a time of snarling discontent.

It’s February.

It’s midwinter malaise.

It’ll pass.

Too late.

Damn that groundhog anyway.

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Image: Dark Hand In A Dark Place from pulsamedia.eu

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Uncategorized

Goodbye, Melinda…

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She was an artist.

Her work extended to jewelry, costumes, painting. She had a way of expressing her spirit, imbuing her work with it, that rendered her soul accessible.

That is the apex, the epitome of an artist’s goal. It takes courage and talent.

I met her in a jewelry store some years ago. Her husband is a jeweler. They found each other through the creation of her art. Her life was like that: following and defined by her ability to create.

A strange feeling I’ve learned to recognize had been haunting me since mid-December. But life and obligations and duties and necessities distract one from following up on these psychic blips that one never mentions…that one keeps secret because they invariably prove true and intensely private.

But today I gritted my teeth and followed the indefinable promptings.

I found her.

She died. Mid-December. Unexpectedly.

Of all the people I’ve encountered in my life, she was one of the two I can say I envied. In my lexicon there is a difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy has a tinge of hostility. Envy is a tribute.

So this is my farewell and tribute to a gentle spirit and a beautiful soul.

Melinda Mary Rogers Cowdery…artist.

Thank you for sharing your art and your spirit.

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Shady Ladies

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I’ve run into something lately that bothers me no end. It chaps my hide…creams my corn…grinds my gears…gets on my last nerve.

It’s a delicate subject, in my opinion.

It’s shady ladies.

By that term I mean women whose prime survival tactic is subterfuge, manipulation, and dishonesty. Of course, females don’t have a monopoly on these stratagems. Everybody lies. Everybody cheats. No one, man or woman, is completely without a few smudges on their shields. But the ones I’ve encountered are people who are adept at the art. They’ve been doing it all their adult lives. They’re good at it. They will make no effort to change, because being shady has served them well, has brought them far.

It’s a sore subject for me because I was raised by an immigrant who drummed it into her children’s heads that they would only receive what they earned by working for it. And working hard. We were taught that no one owed us anything. There are no free handouts. And…here’s the kicker…that you should rely on no one to right your wrongs or pay your way.

A lot of this was because I was raised post-feminism. The bras were already burned. The angry speeches already made. So, for some reason I find it personally offensive to watch women choose the shady way when others are offered to them.

Perhaps some examples would help.

Example #1:    A woman whose hard luck story is first and foremost on her tongue. It is her identity and what she clings to because it has allowed her to cobble together an income of fraudulent claims for welfare, food stamps, and state subsidies. These are good and useful resources for those who need them. But not for someone who spends her days wandering malls and hanging out. Someone whose hard luck is years in the past. Asked what she’ll do if these funds are taken away, the reply is ‘Something always turns up.’ Ask more and you’ll discover it’s not something that turns up, but someone. This is a woman who brags she gets through life by surrounding herself with the ‘right’ people. They feel sorry for her. They don’t look too deep, and they give her money and gifts until she fades them out as they become suspicious of her story. Whereupon, she goes in search of new prey.

To me, that’s shady.

Example #2:    This lady runs her own ‘business.’ House cleaning. She spends her first few hours plying her employers’ ears with tales of her hardships. “I’m a single mother; you’ll have to give me some money for gas, I’m living that close to the edge.” In addition to her fee, she is handed, over the course of a month or so, several hundred dollars for various mishaps that befall this brave soul trying to buck the odds. She needs gas. Her car needs repairs. Her child is sick. Her absences and no-shows are attributed to her difficult circumstances. Until she slips and it’s revealed that she’s a single mom who’s been living with the father of her child for decades (there was no wedding, but it’s a marriage for all practical purposes). And her child is 30 years old. She claims him as a dependent even though he lives fifty miles away in his own home, and has a life separate from his parents.

Shady, shady lady.

I’ve met these people and talked to them in depth. I haven’t lost money to them or been taken in by them. They’re boastful about what they do.

As I said, everyone gets a little shady at some time. No one’s perfect. But to make it your lifestyle of choice? There are labels for such people: scam artists, con men (or women), grifters…

…shady, shady ladies…

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