Pull, Tug, Tug, Pull

Green beans, whole. Onion powder, a dash too much. Salt. Pepper. A can of mushroom pieces and parts. Eat three quarters. Chill. Nuke, eat again.
The sum of these things is my RDA dose of daily pleasure -- just one sunny spot of it. Not that my life behind the glass is a terrible, unbearable ordeal. It's just... nothing. And that is worse.
So, the state of my life is thus: the apex of my human experience is reheated green bean casserole.
I'm hungry, but not that hungry. I call other way-too-busy church wife who just returned from Louisiana. How's about that king cake you offered Sunday?
Gradually, I see myself deciding to take action. Grab those bull horns and give 'em a good yank. (On a tangent, I'm amusing myself by recalling a part from the movie "City Slickers" when Billy Crystal says he has "pulled and tugged, tugged and pulled" for milk, only to discover that the sex of the beast he's violating is terribly, horribly misunderstood....heh heh.)
Victoria's Secret catalogues arrive every three or four days now. I eagerly rip them open (in an assuredly heterosexual manner, mom!), searching the contents for guidance like a twelve-year-old with her first Seventeen. A push, if you will, in a more empowering direction. Inside those pages, long stalks of lean muscle mass beckon my back to the floor, where I will tug and pull and pull and tug my abdomenal muscles into a tighter, more pleasing shape (sorry, I just can't leave that one alone!). Somehow, if I've done only crunches, I tell myself that my requirement of daily excercise is somehow fulfilled. Now it's fiber, coffee, water, fiber, repeat.
I've begun begging reading material from friends. New knowledge, new stories, new ways to use my mind as my eyes and reinterpret my wilted point of view. My bathroom cabinet is stuffed with water damaged books. My web browser overflows with bookmarked blogs. I read Scarlett, The Lovely Bones, a youth translation Bible taken from the youth room, Star featuring Brangelina & babies, Hogscald Holler, The Hermitage, How to Eat, and online commentaries on The Secret Life of Bees -- I saw the film last week and fell in love with the sisters, the house, the whole premise. It made me want to flesh out my own flower-colored, nurturing, pancakes-and-syrup-every-breakfast, nearly-noumenal fantasy safety world.
The intoxicating sense of excersizing complete and ultimate control over the worlds I will create on paper fills my heart like smoke, curling into its abandoned, unswept corners, awakening them and calling them into labour. Ambitions begin to take shape.

I will have fresh air and pajamas and long, soft, artistic hair. I will take two baths per day and consult with my pugs for their professional opinions.

So forget music for awhile.

I'm going to be a writer.

Good Knees

Smile. It just might kill you.

This is what I'm thinking to myself as I gnash my teeth, trying to keep a public service smile smeared across my Lancome mouth. My last customer, a guy outfitted in Mossy Oak attire from toes to teeth, reaches into my window and grabs his food as if he were doing a transaction performed by an uncooperative machine.

Twitch, twich. Caffiene levels rising. Refill the Dr. Pepper. How was southern cross-and-bear-it woman her normal honeybee self before the creation of our favorite beverage?

I slide my aching hands into the cool wash of fresh air in the window. Today feels like the first slap of spring wind on my tight knuckles. Today, I am the freshman co-ed in three quarter length sleeves. Long hair. Vice president, first chair, able. Good knees. Unembarrassed of my physique. Eight years. It's been eight years. And I wonder why I'm angry.

Happiness Is a Warm Pen

I like writing so much better than speaking.

Writing is like composing a delicious secret to which you have the ultimate publishing rights. When you finally choose to release it, it's all there, on paper, in its complete and purposed form. Nothing that you haven't chosen to reveal. No slip of skin, like a tabloid photograph. No betraying facial expression. No concealing tone. You open your hands and release it in your own perfect timing. It refuses to lie, even if it is in itself a mistruth.

I wonder how many heroes' histories have been forged by the scribes, the poets, the bards.... I had the good sense long ago to learn the pen rather than the sword. I mean, knock yourself out slaughtering all the dragons you want, but at the end of the day, if your secretary hasn't been there to take dictation, your fantastic feats are naught but worm chow, perhaps good for credit on the purchase of your next mighty steed.

Maybe that's why I've kept diary since second grade. Even at the age of seven, I realized it as the golden gun of passive aggression. Like a boy, but too self-conscious to pin him to the playground fence and smear him with cherry lip gloss? Journal your every shared interaction obsessively. Shaken by your teacher, and afraid no one will believe you? Write a clever, thinly-veiled poem about her hairy moles and cash in some smart kid points to get it published in the school newsletter.

Ahhh, precious control. You are the dime bag that makes my out of tune pawn shop Fender sound like Eddie Van Halen's solo in "Beat It".

"You Are the Burden of My Generation..."

To whom do I belong? Do I have a heritage? A mother or a father land?

As I slowly progress in age (and I said SLOWLY, dang ya!), a longing grows inside of me to know who I am in reguard to what - or, specifically, whom -- I'm made of.

In a modern world that places so much emphasis on racial tolerance, I'm surprised that so many middle Americans like me have chapters of unwritten family history and identity. (Aside: perhaps this is why our preferences are so dictated by the whims of celebrity, fashion & trend?)
I continuously wonder that if I knew what kind of temperments and tendencies my acestors had, if I would better be able to understand myself. Don't get me wrong -- I understand that each individual is unique and special snowflake... and good Lord knows me folks shouldn't be blamed for a number of my less than endearing quirks!
Maybe it's merely a romantic notion of mine, that it would be so fortifying to belong to a tribe, a people, a centuries-old tradition of love and struggle and music and art and faith in things unseen.....

"Homeless,
Homeless,
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake...."

My mother claims that I am blood-related to both Confederate President Jefferson Davis and current American president Barack Obama. No wonder I'm going through an identity crisis.

"...but I've reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland...."

Everybody understands you better when you're dead.

touchdown

You ever just have one of those days when you want to punt every squirrel along your wooden path?

There he goes.... through the hedges...little fur torpedo!....over the treeline...two points!

Lilah-brand Love

Delilah, "kissing" her daddy on the thumb

As the sun teases me by wagging its tail over the horizon, I trek two frosty miles home in search of a little pug affection... (here's to hoping there are no gifts to be offered up to the paper towel gods left in her and Amos's crate...)