…It’s the notes that aren’t played…

It was quite a while ago. I had fallen in love with my idea of a sophisticated, worldly gentleman who knew so much about something I knew nothing. He was suave. He was mature. He was an authority on jazz.

I met this gentleman through my college best friend. She was his secretary. I met them in a bar on a Friday night after a long day of classes, teaching a noon aerobics class, more classes, then taking my grandmother to 4:00 mass.

My friend, Sandy, was in my 8:00 class-I can’t even remember what it was, I just knew I was looking at a long day of things I HAD to do, with nothing that I really WANTED to do anywhere on the horizon. At the end of the class, Sandy casually mentioned that she would be at The Bumble Bee after she got out of work.

The Bumble Bee was a jazz club. Dark, smokey, kind of forbidden and foreboding. It was a place I’d only been to after I’d danced and drunk my fill at neon-lit night clubs filled with neon-clad twenty-somethings. It was the only bar I knew that stayed open until 4 a.m., and it was usually a final destination for me and my friends when we weren’t ready to call 1 a.m. a night.

I knew no one who went to the Bumble Bee before midnight.

After mass with my Nana, I felt exhausted, but knew I shouldn’t wave the white flag and surrender to my bed, pajamas and a book on a Friday night. I had no plans. In fact, I was so busy with my day and running late from one thing to the next, that Sandy’s plans were the only ones of which I was aware. I knew I could meander into the Metro or Bill’s in a few hours, but I didn’t think I had the stamina to wait out a few hours before trying to make a casual entrance. So I headed out to the Bumble Bee jazz club at around 6:00 that evening.

When I think back, I recall walking up to the door while it was golden light outside, a beautiful ealy fall evening. Inside the Bumble Bee, I was plunged into a thick darkness. I now laugh to think of how I must of looked, trying to adjust to the change in atmosphere: edging my foot along the floor with my arms outstretched, my mouth opened wide to somehow make my eyes adjust to the gloom.

“Good evening, welcome to the Bumble Bee,” breathed a voice right beside my ear.

I gasped and managed to make out a spectral shadow of high hair and a bit of glitter glinting off a silhouette of a woman.

It was Elyanna, the ageless, gorgeous Bumble Bee hostess. She wore fitted, strapless glitter gowns and teased her neon red hair up about a foot above her scalp, then shellaced down to a helmet flip-do. Her eyes were heavily lined in black khole that swooped out to her mid-temple. It was a retro 1950’s style that NO ONE was imitating in the 1980’s. And Elyanna owned it. She was stunning.

Before I could yammer out anything that made sense, my friend Sandy called out, “E—! We’re over here!”

Elyanna cupped my elbow with a warm hand and gracefully maneuvered me through the maze of tables to Sandy and her boss. She deftly pulled out a chair and sat me down by pushing on both of my shoulders from behind. That woman could manage a rioting mob.

Sandy was a happy person. Everyone was a friend and she naturally brought people together. I don’t think I’d have known three people in college if I hadn’t met Sandy, and there we were sitting with her boss. She was half-lit, smiling even more happily than she usually did.

“Henry, this is my best friend in college, E—,” she reached and grabbed my hand.

“Nice to meet you, E—”

Henry had a deep, smooth voice but as my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I saw he was much younger than I expected. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than Sandy and me, although it looked like he was trying to pass for thirty in his wide-shouldered pinstripe suit and paisly tie. He was very thin, with a large adam’s apple. He wore a pencil moustache and his hair was cut in a very short 1950’s side-part Dick Tracy. He studied me, while I smiled and nodded, then reached out a thin hand to offer his fingertips for a very strange handshake.

Sandy ordered me a gimlet martini, something I’d never had in my life. It arrived in a huge glass and hit me hard after the second sip. Sandy was making the small talk while Henry sat back and looked around the room, then back at me every minute or so. I can’t remember what topics she gushed about (Sandy gushed about everything), I just remember thinking I’d probably have that one martini. and call it a night.

Suddenly Sandy stood up and looked at her plastic watch.

“Oh shit! I’m supposed to meet Frannie at 6:00!”

She gave me a quick kiss on my cheek, told Henry she’d see him on Monday, then ran out. And there I was, alone at the Bumble Bee with a total stranger.

Henry looked like he wanted to bail as well. In fact, he looked like he wished he’d acted on disappearing before Sandy bolted, but he surprised me by leaning in, and said,

“Let’s have the calamari. It’s the best.”

We got calimari and more martinis. A saxaphone-snare drum duo took the stage and played wending, winding background music while I just leaned back in my leather chair and relaxed.

Henry began talking. He was interesting but I can’t remember much of what he said-mostly it was about his work, which I feigned interest but couldn’t actually give a shit. I answered questions about myself with brief but truthful answers. Sometimes I lied, either for my enterainment or to avoid future encounters.

Henry began talking about jazz. He had an authority and mentioned names, labels, clubs and songs I’d never heard of. We were on our third martini, and I was mesmerized.

By ten o’clock, I was sure I had met the two loves of my life: jazz and Henry. We left as a six piece combo was taking the stage, and the place was getting packed.

Henry’s apartment was a studio with a murphy bed on the seventh floor of what should have been a condemned building. I don’t remember much except the record he put on kept playing over and over all night but I was too disoriented to get up and pull if off, and the sex was really good.

My martini hangover was probably the worst I’d ever had. Over thirty years later, I still can’t drink gin. It was the kind of hang over that I was praying I would puke in order to feel better. Henry didn’t move when I clumped out the door. I didn’t care if he did or didn’t, I remember wishing I was dead instead of having to teach an early aerobics class to overweight lesbians at the YWCA that morning.

Sandy was all smiles when she saw me at class the following Monday morning. I was still feeling the remnants of the hangover, so I faked a smile and told her we had a great time after she left because I couldn’t bear to think of anything that had to do with martinis. On Wednesday morning, she told me she’d given Henry my phone number so I smiled again, and said, “Great!”

Henry called me on Thursday. We made plans to meet at the Bumble Bee on Friday after work-exactly one week after we met. I was still nauseous if you can believe it, but I wasn’t ashamed, and aside from the wretched aftermath of acohol, I was intrigued by Henry. I wanted to see him again. I remembered the sex was actually quite good.

He was nursing a soda water and lime when Elyanna plunked me down at the same table. I ordered a pepsi. We looked at each other a bit warily then drank in awkward silence. Then he slid a cassette mix tape across the table.

“This is some of the best intro jazz for novices. These songs will help you learn to appreciate jazz and move on to a deeper level if you’re into it. I think the most important thing you’ll learn about jazz is, it’s not just the notes that are played, it’s the notes that aren’t played that make it great.”

He left after he finished his drink. We never met again. Sandy got all awkward when she talked about work and only referred to Henry as, “my boss”. I can’t tell you what actually happened or what didn’t happen to make it feel like it went all wrong. There’s a message in there about too much booze I’m sure, but that’s not what bothered me.

Years later, I heard the phrase “it’s the notes that aren’t played” on the radio when a station was eulogizing the death of a notable jazz musician. It brought back all sorts of memories, an event that was far too significant, stylistic, artistic in it’s brevity.

A couple of months ago, my husband’s younger cousin, a darling girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, was struggling with her feelings for a young man (she liked him waaaaaaay more than he’d ever deserve), and was, in reality, just a booty call for this undeserving man. To make up for his wretched behavior, he texted her a string of jazz songs and a long, self-aggrandizing ramble of his expert knowledge on jazz with the phrase “it’s the notes that aren’t played…”

Can end that now with, “…it’s the women who are.”

Creeping around…

Here’s a new one for me: I’m constantly pretending I am not home.

I park my car on the street or around the corner. Although I crave sunlight, I keep the blinds closed on one side of the house. I screen my phone calls. I leave the house through the back door.

This behavior has been going on in ernest for nearly four months now. My routine and actions are now defined by making sure it looks like I’m not home. I didn’t think I’d resort to this nonsense but after grappling with several options before the empty house ruse, I am happy to take this cowardly path.

Oh my, I couldn’t help noticing your toothpaste supply was getting low…

We all may have experienced someone like her. The pathetic thing about my busybody is that we moved her right next door to us! She is my 90 year-old father-in-law’s “companion”. They met on-line, about a year after my mother-in-law died unexpectedly. They joke that they’ve been on one date, and they’re still on it because they don’t have any time to  waste “at their age”.

I’m still in shock that my eighty something father-in-law went on-line, looking for love. I’m less shocked that she was out there, because I think she had been using all avenues of social network to find a new man.

Don’t get me wrong, it worked. They both seem very happy, especially when they were three hours away in the rural part of the state. But as my father-in-law got closer to the ninety year mark, his faculties and strength began telling on him and my husband was tryig to manage more and more from an unsafe distance.

They both loved the idea of relocating, moving closer to us instead of closer to her son and family. So we moved them right next door. And that’s when my life went from living a free life in my own home to constantly answering the phone and door bell.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a heart. I know how hard it is to relocate and settle into a new place. We did everything to make sure this was the right area for both of them: showing them the lay of the new land, introducing them to the very active and robust senior center, registering them with the Ride (senior bus system that will take 65+ residents shopping, to the mall, to their physicians. It also offers day trips to Cape Cod, Maine, casinos, Boston). My father-in-law was happy to be moving closer to family. His companion was over the moon to be starting new in “her own place” instead of wandering around in another woman’s home”. Sometime key phrases get missed when we should really pay attention.

Let me get right to the point: this woman is controlling and appears to want to flex her proverbial matriarch muscle beyond my father-in-law. She is constantly on the bell for issues that are non-existant. A daily visit does not fend off her urgent need to march over in the afternoon for…asking about the cardboard boxes stored in the basement. A daily phone call along with the daily visit only seemed to encourage her more. To add to my frustration, she has now decided that the Senior Center and it’s variety of activities is not to her liking (although she’s  never been) because “it’s not right to lump all senior citizens into one category”. Whatever that means.

My husband has been masterful at deflecting her “pop-ins”. He is polite, makes sure there is no emergency and then tells her he’s in the middle of something and will visit later in the day. Me? I can’t seen to cut her off if I open the door. She begins talking immediately and drones on, somehow managing to search for a way to turn a four word idea into a twenty word paragraph.

My level of frustration has shot through the roof because I work, our son is in high school, there are two dogs to walk, I am training for a marathon, therefore my time at home is limited and precious. And all I want to do when I have free time is try to free my mind to write. But lately, the moment I sit down…BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNG! My concentration is shot, my frustration is through the roof and the only thing I can see is straight up this womans nostrils as she dithers about some non-issue that I can do absolutely nothing about!

We have met her son. He has visited twice in the past year. Each visit lasted less than was civilly acceptable for a son who lives within driving distance. He thanked us profusely each visit for being so close to his mother. It was awkward. She has two grandsons who live less than one hour away. Neither has come for a visit. They are “just too busy”.

Her saving grace is that my father-in-law enjoys her company. I believe he doesn’t want to be alone and she is a “savior”–she nursed previous husbands (both deceased) through long, debilitating diseases. There are no plans for them to marry; for some reason, my father-in-law promised my mother-in-law that he would never re-marry. Perhaps she saw his future “companion” and her three needy adult children? Who knows. I do know that my father-in-law broke his hearing aids and has stated he has no desire to get them fixed.

So here I sit, venting away this secret. My car is parked around the corner and my phone is on silent mode. It’s peaceful and it’s worth it to keep up this ruse to keep my peace.

A Quick and Snarky Secret Observation

Honestly, my dear, you would pass your bottle bill reform in a New York Minute if you’d just comb your hair and put on a little lipstick. A push-up bra would not hurt your cause in the least either, precious.

Hugs,
Effie

The Farm Share Co-op

Who would have thought membership to  a local farm share co-op would call for secrets? An affiliation that elicits skulking diversions? A source of wiley distraction?

Welcome to my world lovies. On the surface, it’s quite banal. I care about good things, I want the best for humanity, I feed my family with locally grown and harvested fruit and veg from organizations that support diasadvantaged youth. You must love me! You must share my passion! You must wonder why I sneak my kale-filled eco-friendly grocery bags into the house after dark.

No, I am not banging the luscious, magnificently endowed South American farmer, alas. I am neither creating a secret potion of youth, nor am I concocting anything devious or illegal. I am sneaking in our bags of veg and fruit because I lied about belonging to the co-op and I don’t want to get caught full-fisted.

Our newest tenant, the younger Woman Upstairs, eagerly wanted to join the local farm share co-op when we mentioned it to her last year. She was new to the area and enjoyed a farm share in her past life in Oregon. She was thrilled to know we had farms and farm shares on the East Coast. Oh yes, darling, it’s more than fried clams and corn dogs north of Boston, I assure you.

She looked over our brochure. Certainly it was costly…would we consider splitting a share? The brochure claimed that a farm share could easily feed a family of 5 vegans from May to November. Our tenant was an avid vegetable eater/juicer but she knew she couldn’t consume enough for 5 in one week. Then she looked us over and ventured a guess that we probably weren t vegan (we aren’t) and that there was no way a family of three meat eaters would top off our American Diet with a vegan diet…if she were to take the liberty of an educated guess.

My husband and I mulled it over or several seconds, both of us thinking, I imagine, of our beautiful composter–which was so beautiful because we composted at least half of our weekly grocery store produce. We knew we would never eat enough of the farm share for a family of five vegans, but we loved the idea of local and that if we did, indeed, have enough vegetables every week, it would encourage a far more healthy lifestyle. If we had to compost it, well, it was for a good cause! Win, win. Either suddenly eat like rabbits or we double our compost yeild and support inner city youth. Win, win. Except, except! Here was our out! Half the amount of farm share, half the price! Talk about Win, Win!

Now, let me remind you, the younger Woman Upstairs doesn’t have a car. Our local farm is about 2 miles away and in entering this agreement, she happily offered to pick up our goods every other week. She would be happy to ride out (carbon free) to the farm and load up her city bike baskets with heathy gifts from the earth! How wonderful, it would make her life complete!

I picked up the first week. Last spring (2013) was late but but seasonable. The farm was bustling and I was eager to load up my eight to ten recycled, eath-friendly paper bags with spring harvest. When I arrived at the check-in table, there were instuctions as to what produce was available and how much each share could take.

1. Spring lettuce: fill 1/2 quart bag.

2. Garlic scapes: 5 each

3. Rosey Radishes: 1 bunch

4. Parsnips: take 4

4. Pick-your-own herbs: one bunch each of dill, chives, fennel (bleurrrgh! I hate fennel)

5. Pick-your-own Strawberries! One quart and what you eat from the cordoned area only. Sorry, strawberries are suffering a spring blight, please don’t cross cordoned area, we are trying to contain blight.

It was a meager haul to be certain. No wonder I don’t know any families of vegans. They all must die of starvation! When I took the prescribed portion of our share, I realized I had less than what we composted from my weekly grocery store run. It was pathetic. In addition, it had taken me an hour to harvest a half quart of pitifully blighted strawberries that I wouldn’t feed to a stray dog and gather what I assumed were early herbs but really looked like I had snatched a fistful of wilted weeds. Even at half price, it was a lame haul. And then I realized I had to split this half-baked harvest of goodness.

I did what anyone would do in a panic of not wanting to appear cheap or stingy: I snuck through and tried to double my take. I had no idea how else I would explain to the young Woman Upstairs how little our very expensive farm share yielded. It was awkward. I was definitely noticed as I counted out the parsnips for a second time.

Regardless of my felonious heist, I got no thanks for my efforts from our little farm sharer Upstairs when I delivered the best of my haul. “Oh, that’s not very much,” she stated as she pulled the bags into her apartment. I got the same from my husband and son–and they had every reason to gripe; I gave Ms. Woman Upstairs all the pathetic strawberries.

The day before the second week pick-up, Ms. Woman Upstairs emailed me to say she wouldn’t be home in time to pick up the share. (yadda, yadda, yadda….taking train from Boston…yadda, yadda…Oh, and could you please give me more arugula and spring lettuce? My portion didn’t last three days.) Oh yeah? Well OUR portion lasted one night for a small salad!

There I was the next week, reviewing the farm share black board instructions of how much was allowed per weekly share, and pitying the poor starving family of vegans if they really had to live on the meager spring harvest, picking herbs, sneaking extra produce, receiving glares and loud “Ahem!“s if I popped an extra radish in my eco-friendly bag. I picked shriveled and deformed strawberries for an hour in a pathetic attempt to fill a quart and I ended up splitting our share 75/25 in her favor to avoid her withering glare when I dropped off the bag of produce.

“Hey, we really aren’t getting a whole lot for our share!” my husband observed when I presented the farm share salad and 3 boiled parsnips at dinner that evening.

“It’s been a slow spring”, I assured him.

By the third week the routine was set. Ms. Woman Upstairs was not available to pick up the weekly farm share in time. I spent at least an hour gathering, picking, and trying to take more than our share and gave about 75% of what I brought home to her. She made comments about how little she was getting, implying we were bathing in the harvest and feeding the best to our dogs.

In a nutshell, the whole farm share dream became a royal pain in the ass and I dreaded pick up day.

The weekly yield did improve but it never was enough to feed an entire family, let alone one human for a week. Our portion lasted about 3 days during the best weeks and our composter was languishing. On days that Ms. Woman Upstairs emailed me her farm share requests or observations that she wasn’t getting enough, I felt like marching up and shoving rotten kale stems in her face while screaming, “Oh yeah? This is what WE chew on every week while I bring you the best shit from that lousy farm!”

Then there was the one week in August. One week. I was working a double on farm share pick up day. I emailed Ms. Woman Upstairs that I could not pick up the share that day, sorry. Would it be possible for her to make the pick up? If not, no problem, we would just have to skip a week. She replied she could. She had a friend with a car and she would be able to get the share. I was relieved for two reasons: she could finally do a pick up and pick the produce for us and she would see how by the black board instructions that she was getting the best of the weekly pick up!

That night I came home from my double shift looking forward to a nice, healthy, locally-grown salad of green beans, arugula, beets, kale, peppers and early yellow tomatoes but the crisper was empty. I woke my husband to ask if Ms. Woman Upstairs had dropped off our share. He groggily assured me she had but it was only a small amount of  green beans and spring mix that was eaten in one meal that night. “It’s all gone?” I whispered.

All gone. She gave us about an adult sized single serving of produce for our share of the week. She saw the rules, she read the instructions about how much to take and what to pick and that was how she shared the weekly take.

Unbelievable.

I resumed the pick-ups and harvesting but I divvied it a little more evenly each week until the end of the season. There was never enough yield to feed a family of 5 vegans for a week and when I dropped off the last bags to Ms. Woman Upstairs, she let me know that she didn’t feel she’d gotten her money’s worth. I had soooo many ready replies, outraged retaliations and a litany of argument that she was the one who got a lion’s share of fresh produce delivered to her door every single week except one where she gypped us! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF SHE JUST TOOK THE ENTIRE SHARE THE ONE WEEK SHE TROUBLED HERSELF FOR THE PICK UP!

I am, however, passive-aggressive and while that conversation took place in my busy brain, I just mumbled, “That’s too bad”.

Imagine my horror this year when I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for another share (save the planet, buy local, help disadvantaged youth, etc., etc., etc….) only to get an email asking if I wanted to split a share again this year!

I was in a lather of indecision and doubt. I felt obligated to tell her we did, indeed sign up again and, of course! She could give us her half when I schepped off for the first pick-up, because of course, unfortunately, her busy life wouldn’t allow her make the pick ups, and she sincerely hoped we would have a bigger yield this year…or a more even split of the share.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. NO. If I was picking, sorting, conniving a few extra beets or turnips, it would be for US. Not for Miss Woman Upstairs so she could pull a face about how little I could steal from disadvantaged youth and farmers.

So that is why I use re-used plastic grocery bags instead of using eco-friendly hemp totes to sneak farm-fresh fruit and vegetables in the our back door every Thursday.

 

 

 

 

The Woman Upstairs

I live in a place where there are two Women Upstairs.

That description is perfect. The book wasn’t, or it wasn’t exactly my idea of a Woman Upstairs, although it contained some of the qualities: single. Works earnestly at her socially helpful vocation. Drinks a little (or a lot) too much and hides it. Has many needy friends that come and go. Is long past dressing sexy although she is not old. Drives a crappy car. Cries easily

The first Women Upstairs in my memory were spinster sisters at my grandmother’s house. They were the upstairs tenants, retired teachers. I loved to go upstairs to visit them because they had spent their summers travelling to India, “The Orient”, Europe, Canada, South America. They let me and my sisters dress up in kimonos and sombreros. They loved to read to us. They laughed when we asked why they weren’t married, and said, “Oh sweetie, it’s because we have each other!” They died within months of one and other and my grandmother had to empty their bursting apartment, which contained a back room of garbage bags filled with empty burbon bottles.

Our Women Upstairs each live in their own apartment on the second floor of our 4 family.

K— has been here for almost ten years. She moved in when her engagement fell apart. She was a teary mess, accompanied by her ex-fiance who wanted to help her find a nice place to live. She had a good job and terrific references. A single gal would be a nice change of pace after the two-year old twins racing over our heads from dawn till 10 p.m. And it was; she was quiet and neat. She did call us for a lot of concerns-some relevent like the dripping faucet, others odd like the squirrels racing up and down the tree in front of the house. She was a little strange to start: we had to re-enamel the claw-foot tub after she painted it midnight blue (???) and we had to ask her not to put her speakers facing out when she blasted Billie Holiday after ten at night (???).

Then K— lost her steady day job (not her fault, the economy tanked). She found jobs waitressing and bartending so paying the rent was never a problem although we started getting it stacks of crumpled ones, fives and tens. My husband was concerned she was living beyond her means, but I was in her corner because I had lived month-to-month in my life and nothing would have been more devastating then losing my apartment when I was scraping by. Her hours changed and it was pretty obvious by our banging ceiling that she was bringing someone or something home after closing time. Early one morning as I was heading out for a run, I almost stepped on what I thought was an injured hobo in our foyer. He had one crutch, a casted arm and a bandaged head. “Ahhh, you looking for someone?” I asked/demanded in my toughest voice. “It’s all right, no problem, I’m a friend of K–‘s”, and he limped off into the dark.

K— is hanging in there by a thread. She finally junked her car after it rotted in our driveway for over eight months. We can hear her crying to her sister for money when she talks on her back porch. She’s living hard, looks like she’s aged 20 years, gained 30 pounds and noisily dumps plastic bags of cheap wine bottles and beer cans into the recycling bins every other day, no shame. I’m rooting for her because I think her life is tough but she’s scrappy and works incredibly hard but each month I’m afraid she’s going to cry poor or hand in a short pile of crumpled bills. Sometimes I think I could have been K—.

T— lives across the hall. She’s only been Upstairs for a little over a year. She is young, young enough to be my daughter. She’s an intellectual, a researcher at MIT. She comes from a lot of money. She doesn’t have a car, instead she’s locked an expensive city bike to the front porch but I never see her ride it. T— is quiet. Really quiet. She dresses like a 1950’s school teacher: pencil skirts and cardigan sweater sets but T— is heavy. She has columnar legs, no ankles, a gooshy midsection and no chin. Her skin is pale, clammy, almost gray. It makes no sense because she’s a vegetarian. I know this because she mail orders all her food–not kidding! Boxes of fresh veg, hummus, quinoa, bulger, soy and fruit fill the foyer each week. Every morning I hear her vitamix whirring. It was a complete mystery to me why she’s this soft! I want to tell her, Get Moving! Ride that beautiful bike! You’re too young to be this doughy! But we just smile and nod at each other as I squeeze past her mail order vegetarian groceries to get in our front door.

The mystery of T— was solved by our garbage men a couple of weeks ago. They started tossing aside bags of garbage and affixed orange stickers on them stating our city’s recycling initiative. Essentially, glass bottles and cans need to go in the recycle bin. The garbage men aren’t militant, but they won’t collect bags full of recyclable items. We looked into the rejected bags and found empty whiskey and wine bottles, beer bottles, liquor bottles and nips. We laughed at the stash and then asked the tenants to recycle because our garbage got rejected. K— and the guy on the top floor took it in stride but T— became defensive. “I know what should be recycled! Why are garbage men going through the trash?” Uuuuhhhh, because they’re Garbage Men, T—.

Her attitude raised my suspicion. Her nap on the cellar floor by the washing machine confirmed it. T— was plastered. I was able to wake her up and get her to her apartment. After many hugs and promises that she’d go to bed (total personality flip), she flopped on her couch. The next morning she was at our door, looking like her usual pale frumpy self. She apologized and said she has social anxiety disorder and sometimes drinks too much. Could I help, I asked? She looked at me as if I was from another planet. My husband says to stay out of it. We have her parents number just in case.

When You Run Into That Someone…

There is Someone. Someone you’re dying to accidently run into so you can show how perfect your life is after he or she dumped you, cheated on you, left you for for that asshole. You’ve rehearsed your casual hello and practiced a nonchalant toss of your perfectly highlighted hair. You are twenty pounds less than your post break-up wreck when he or she saw your in Walgreen’s buying adult diapers for your grandfather. Your skin is clear. You are on top of the world. You are having the best fucking sex of your life and it shows on you. And your ex is just a blip on your big life screen.

You’re hoping he or she is wretched. That life is the perfect opposite life of what you both were when you were dumped. That he or she is fat, living a miserable life, working a menial job, wearing sweat pants because nothing else fits. When he or she sees you, you are the object of envy and desire and wonder: “How could I have let that go?”

So that moments never happens. Still you practice for it, just in case. Because out there, there is one person you wish you could serve a big shit sandwich of your awesome fucking life, if wishes could ever come true.

It took over twenty-two years. And it was worth every second.

The details of how we came together don’t matter except that it was complicated and messy. There was a nasty divorce on my side and a fragile girlfriend on his side. To complicate matters even more, he was my boss. He was nearly twenty years older than me. Everything about us said, “Run. Run away. Don’t do this.” Which made it more exciting at the time.

We started out on the sly. It was delicious. The little innuendos, the longing stares, the secret touches, and best of all, forbidden sex at work. In the car. Quickies where ever we could. We were the only ones who knew of this passion, this pleasure. It would be so worth it but we had to keep it a secret (his rules) because my soon-to-be-ex-husband was dangerous (not so sure about that, we had been separated for months, and by my accounts, he was mostly annoying) and his girlfriend was fragile and almost suicidal.

A year into our secret relationship, my divorce was nearly settled but he was still living with Miss Fragile. Her name was Cathy. He told me he was trying to get her to understand why they needed to be apart, yet he went to Cathy’s apartment every night. She was really unstable, he assured me. She had been decimated by her divorce, left impoverished, betrayed by her best friends on the witness stand. Her child had been taken from her custody. Her behaviors were erratic spanning the scope of nearly suicidal depression to homicidal anger. (I am not kidding, he swore she strangled a dog that killed her cat and never felt an shred of regret). She could not weather another blow. Losing him might be the final break, could throw her off the deep end. Besides, he liked to pile on, I was dangerous. My ex-husband might lash out unpredictably. It was best we kept a low profile and fucked like monkeys in secret, dark places.

I wasted over two years of my life on these principles. First I believed it, I believed I loved him and I believed in us. Then I believed I was nothing without him. I went from a pathetic wife in a bad marriage to a cheating mistress. No break. No time to take stock of who I could be without someone who expected me to be something for him. My greatest regret of that time was that my son took a back seat to the menial, meager offerings of the Love Of My Life. I can never undo that.

I’d like to reveal that I came to my senses and left his sorry ass, the lame exuses and cheating crap because I knew I was better than that, but that is not what happened. The truth is he finally ended up breaking up with Cathy. Our holding pattern was over! No more sneaking around.We could move into our own place. Our dreams could finally come true…then I was asked out on a date by a gorgeous, rich, funny, charismatic friend and I went out with him for the following reasons:

1. Athough I was only 25, I hadn’t been on a date in years.

2. The date was to a hip, happening restaurant, then to see a jazz band.

3. The Love of My Life was wallowing in a trough of sorrow on his mangey couch for fragile Cathy, who was, by his account, destroyed. She was sorry for whatever she had done to him and that wracked him with guilt. Cathy believed that everyone she loved left her which was probably true but it was just blah, blah, blah to me after two years of sneaking around.

4. The nearly twenty-year gap in our age was a bit daunting. His body was on the decline: he had man boobs, a hefty paunch and an unfortunate mound of fat just above his penis that nearly hid his manhood when he was standing up. He thought nothing of farting in bed. And he talked with authority about the 1960’s and the Vietnam War. I kept doing math like, “When I’m 30, he’ll be…48…” It got even uglier when did the math for40, then 50…then 60.

My date was unbelievable. We were young, sharp, fun, drunk. We fucked our brains out in a huge, clean, soft bed at his loft after dancing the night away. My date dropped me off at dawn with a loud smooch and a declaration that we had to do that again! I couldn’t sleep. I was electrified by the night I just had, it was glimpse of a life I would never live if I moved with someone who was ready to settle in for listening to himself talk about his wild days gone while pondering hypertension and diabetes.

Three hours later I was looking at the weathered, pained, egotistical face of the man I declared for the past two years was The Love Of My Life and in my blurry, hung-over miasma, his face made me sick. He was still so full of self-righteous grief for the fragile Cathy that he had no inkling of my previous night’s activities, except that I was unusually quiet. I told him, “I’m tired of hearing about poor Cathy.”

He calmly replied with an authority one expects from  master to servant, “I’m not interested in your feelings right now.” And that was it for me. The only way I can describe the complete end of any affection I had for the man was a door slammed in my brain. I was done. Less than twelve hours earlier I learned there was a far bigger world than I had ever dreamed of and I wasn’t going to waste any more time on a fat, two-timing loser.

I said nothing because I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t outraged or empowered. I wasn’t about to start a fight or initiate the break up because that would have taken effort and emotion that simply no longer existed. It felt bizarre, as though any love I’d felt for him was erased, gone, vanished. He had a sense of my distance because I left that afternoon-I lied and said my ex had to bring our son home early-he said, “Don’t ever wake up and realize I’m too old, too fat and too stupid for you.” That was a line he used occasionally when I was sobbing about being alone while he spent holidays and weekends with fragile Cathy.

I didn’t respond in my typical, “Never! You are the most amazing, brilliant, handsome man I know!” I think I just stared with my mouth agape as I wondered what the hell I was doing with a fat, old hippy. He then said, “You know, if you dump me, I’ll just give up and marry Cathy.” I could not get away fast enough.

It was a feeble break up to be sure, but I had no shame because I absolutely did not care. I didn’t take his calls for several days. When I finally did, I just told him I was done and didn’t want to see him anymore. He was floored. He needed a reason. How could we be finished when the love we shared that transcended the universe? We couldn’t be over, we needed to be together to find out if we really should be apart. His rationale disgusted me, especially when he hinted that I could never find anyone better. With that, I didn’t believe I owed him a face-to-face after the two years of sneaking around as a second girlfriend. Besides I was having a blast with a new young guy. Plus there were other young guys calling me up for dates. I wasn’t a mess, I wasn’t second rate and I wasn’t trouble just because I was divorced with a kid. I was starting to live life as a twenty-something.

Things didn’t just magically turn around at that point, let me assure you. It was difficult. The handsome, rich, young guy broke up with me because he wasn’t ready for kids. That stung. I learned to set limits on who I let in. I stopped sleeping with men on the first date. I decided to just be alone for over a year which was hard at the time but further defined who I was and what I wanted from others. I loved being a single mother although I have no idea how I got through it when I look back. Then I met my husband. And life has been getting better every year.

I would be lying if I told you, “Oh, I only wish the best for that guy I almost moved in with.” For some reason, he pisses me off when I think of him. I compromised my integrity, my values and my self worth. He defined me in such a degrading way: young and divorced-implying ignorance. A package deal that was a burden. Less than ideal. Our “Perfect Love” was a poor second thought and I went along with it! I was a mistress. A cheater. A sneak. I know I let those things happen, and that I was a willing participant but it stings me to think of it. He was older, he was my boss, he initiated it and he could have had a better perspective and better character to not cheat on his girlfriend or fuck the hired help.

I had created many scenarios of chance encounters, from the sublime to the fantastic. Through a mutual friend, I learned he did marry his fragile Cathy and I was dying to run into them just to say, “Nice to see you’ve given up.”

Thankfully that encounter never happened-it would have been embarassing. Instead, over twenty years later I ran into him at a furniture making open house. I heard his voice before I saw him and tried to duck out of meeting him but I had made my way into a small room and he was standing by the only way out of the room. Unless I dove out a window…which I seriously contemplated for several minutes.

I decided just to say, “Hello” and caught him utterly by surprise. His face turned purple. To make matters worse for him, he had just had shoulder surgery and wore a sling and swath that held his arm out at a 90 degree angle from his body. He was not as fat as my memory made him out to be and other than that absurd contraption on his arm, he looked almost exactly the same.

I really can’t recall what was said–pleasant nonsense I think, jabber about how my son, who was two when we met was now twenty-six. He babbled some foolishness about working at the same job because his plan for complete world domination never really materialized, which was a little funny but felt like practiced patois in case we ever met.

I was just about to say, “Well, nice seeing you,” and scram when a tall, barrel bodied woman with wire hair and long thin arms and legs came to his side. She was smiling. He should have just let me leave but instead he said, “You do remember my wife, Cathy…Cathy, this is E—.” Her smile vanished, her eyes became slits and she reared her head back and bared her teeth. I suddenly felt as though I was looking at Medusa. I also know with absolute certainty the last thing that poor dog saw before she choked the life out of it.

 

 

 

 

Foggy Nights of Early Spring

I have always loved the early mornings after a foggy night, especially in early spring. It is quiet and empty. The air is cold and damp but filled with hints and promises of a better life. Sparrows and robins are the only birds chirping until the silence in shattered by harsh calls of a couple of crows. They shout as if they own the silence. As if they’re not going to let you keep your peace enshrouded in the white-gray silence.

I have lived in small cities along the Atlantic ocean for over twenty years where there is nothing like a cold, foggy morning with a mere promise of spring. The damp chill creeps into your bones and lives there. It can feel worse than the January wind but is worth enduring because the rich smell of the ocean is so solid you can nearly taste it. That smell heralds spring earlier than the yellow hue on the hemlock trees or the sudden swath of brave snowbells on brown lawns.

Since my college years, I have taken to walking downtown, enveloped in the fog of those nights and early mornings. I have never been able to sleep in, especially if I am hungover. What a curse to lie in bed in pre-dawn, wide awake, still drunk but with a pounding heart beat in my ears, a hammering headache and a queasy stomach. Oh, to only be able to bury my head into my fetid pillow and sleep away a few more hours while my poor liver metabolized the poison with which I taxed it. So jealous I was of my slumbering, snoring roommates. They were sure to suffer as I was, but at least they had put off the misery for a good stretch of precious oblivion.

One of my best pre-dawn fog walk memories was as a college coed. I woke, or surfaced after a night of hard drinking in a strange bed. Lying next to someone I could not remember. We were both naked. Sex had indeed taken place.

I took inventory of my surroundings and the potentials of my bedmate. The previous evening started at a house party. My roommates and I had gone as a group. The party was a blast: music, conversation, new people, several potential prospects for the night. We were drinking plenty and having fun and I recall there were at least two young men I would consider leaving with.

I studied the back of the head of his head. He had thick brown hair, a good cut-I could tell that even with his bed head. He had lovely strong shoulders and beautifully shaped arms. His hands were tucked under his pillow. He slept silently, even after a night of partying. I lifted the blankets to inventory his bottom half as well as I could in the dim light. He lay on his side. His waist tapered in to narrow hips. His buttocks were perfect: round and hairless.

The room, his room? Was strewn with our clothes but otherwise fairly orderly. We were lying on a real bed, made up with sheets and pillows with pillowcases. We were warm under a top sheet and comforter. The blinds were drawn, neatly drawn, against weak, predawn light, there were no missing or broken slats. There was a large desk was loaded with textbooks in organized piles. The closet door was ajar, but nothing looked to be spilling out from inside it. It was cold. The room smelled like morning funk and sex.

I propped myself up on my elbow as quietly as I could to see his sleeping face but I couldn’t raise myself up enough to look over him. I thought I had an idea who I was lying naked in bed with: a faint crush, a mere acquaintance, someone I knew I could crush on if I had enough to drink but I was a little surprised to discover I had been drunk and horny enough to wake up here.

My surreptitious and careful movement made my pounding headache worse. I lay back quietly and looked at the ceiling, calculating how long I would lie there waiting for him (Chris? Peter?) to wake up, wondering how embarrassed we would feel when we looked at each other from our pillow. I wondered if we would face the dilemma of a sober-but-hungover fuck vs. the awkward horror of the morning-after regret.

Minutes dragged. My bed mate was a silent sleeper and because I had no memory of our night of passion, it was his best quality. After lying there for as long as I could stand, which was probably about ten minutes, I decided I was done with the scene. I would not be able to stand a face-to-face. I hadn’t the guts or stamina muster up sexy feelings, to fake any sort of banter, or post hook-up revelations. Breakfast was clearly out of the question.

I slipped out of bed and gathered my clothes. Mini skirt, turtleneck, knee socks, bra, boots, one glove, my trench coat with (thank God!) my wallet, ID and a few bucks. No panties. They were nowhere on the floor, within reaching distance in the bed, or under the bed. Not on desk, not even in the closet that I could see. I gave them up as casualties of the night and quickly and quietly dressed without them.

“Hey, where are you going?” came a gravelly voice as I cracked the bedroom door open. My heart lurched, mostly because the closer I was to leaving without notice, the more I wanted to leave without notice.

“I have to go,” I whispered. “I hadn’t planned on staying all night.”

“I hadn’t planned on you staying at all,” he laughed.

I smiled over to him from the door. It was still too dark to see who I had spent the night with. “Come on back,” he said and rolled onto his back.

I walked to his side of the bed. He had a beautiful even face, heavy dark eyebrows, aqualine nose of a Roman god, a strong chin. I had never seen this man before last night. He wasn’t Chris, he wasn’t Peter. He was gorgeous.

“Let me ask you,” I knelt down beside him and with my elbows on the mattress, “was it good?”

He smiled slow and lazy and brushed his thumb along my mouth. “You better believe it.”

I came out to a gray, silent street. Cool damp air snuck up my bare thighs and soothed a throbbing inside. My head ached less and my stomach felt settled in the fog cacoon. I was several blocks away from my apartment and I walked home accompanied only by the gritty echoing steps of my leather boots.

There’s some place I can go…

Blame the newest site if you want: get secrets. You can post anything anonymously which intrigued me. Enticing idea. Yes, yes, yes…I need a place I can put my secrets.

I’ve been far too long writing under my “real” persona: a caring person, a supportive friend, someone to make you laugh and feel good about yourself if you’re blue. Simmering under that surface is ME. The person who wants to say, “shut the hell up”, “yes you’re fat”, “who cares about your stupid wedding”, “your dog is butt ugly”, “nothing is more emasculating than a guy walking his girlfriend’s chiuahua while carrying a pink poop bag…unless it’s a guy walking his girlfriend’s chiuahua wearing studded faux leather vest (dog that is) while carrying a pink poop bag filled with chiuahua poop.”

Those whom I would write about know me and I am not of that certain age where I believe I can say and write what I want regardless of how anyone feels about it. Truthfully, I hope never to reach that age or mentality. Therefore, I jumped over to twitter and spouted some of my obscure, snarky observations. Alas, friends also jumped to twitter, names popped up, I was followed–a perfect description for the social media life–I was followed and I stopped the nonsense about tearing people apart in alternate universes because I superficially “like” them but in reality I truly loathe.

There is a reason for my duplicity. As annoying as I find some of these “friends” and “followers”, they fascinate me, inspire me, pique my interest in finding more out of their lives. I want to be an accepted voyeur, a trusted confidante so I can relish in what I find so…irritiating, trite, preposterous, arrogant, asinine.

I found a new app for my mobile: secret. Perfect. Write something, say something. I did. It felt great. It wasn’t a terrible slander, or mean or hateful. It was actually a confession, a burden that I could never post anywhere or admit even to my nearest, dearest.

The app a roll of statements, some with images, some just a thought or an observation. It is perfect…until the second time I wanted to release a secret. A prompt, no make that a command told me to invite my “friends” to secret. I could either email them (access my gmail account) or text them (access my contacts).  Uhhhhh, are you kidding?

There is no way I am going to send anyone I know a tex message or email that I am on secret. Blabbing my darkest, deeply held thoughts. No way. Even though, secret assures me, it’s anonymous. Sorry, no bloody way.

Sadly, the prompt pops up everytime I want to release a secret and it has ruined the delicious feeling of unburdening by hampering me with the worry, “will someone I know realize it’s me?” I can’t do it, not there.

Why here then?

Because here I am who I want to be. You don’t know me, even if you think you know me, you don’t know me. You don’t know if I’m writing about me or you or something that just blew through my head and needs to be written. The secret site uncovered a mood that I can’t ignore at the present. It has me anxious and antsy to unload, kind of like a long period of abstainance that was easily ignored but, for some unknown reason, sexuality reared its needful self and will not be denied.

Here are some secrets I was ready to reveal: I share an office with a dumpy troll of a woman who I find repugnant in her bland homeliness. I wrote “you are a loser” on the back of every one of her manilla files in her filing cabinet. I took a picture of her Harley Momma mug an put it on twitter with a drawing of her and the caption, “I don’t think so”.

It was that “tweet” that brought me to the realization that I had revealed a heinous act to others who knew this dumpy woman–I got messages back from a coworker: Who are you talking about? That nearly paralyzed me–I could have gone further with my cruelty, revealing the victim to others who knew us both. It was thoughtless, careless.

I have no idea why secrets weigh on us. Or on me so heavily at this time. It’s not that I want to clear my soul or conscience, I just want to let some things go out. And I think you might like that.