Coffee, water, wine

Coffee, water, wine --
so my days unfold in this drowsy pattern.
A lift, a drop, a cleansing,
each worthwhile day follows the arc of a tale...
I am grateful for each
unamerican pause in the hours.

Random streetcorners in goodmorning Manhattan
never knew sleep, and neither did I;
I wandered from cup to cup,
closing my hands around it like
the first precious discovery of fire.

Wine stained my hair and fingers
the few times I felt Jewish enough to dance.
Somehow, California made sense.
One day, daughters will catch a glimpse and murmur,
Mother had an adventure,
and you will laugh, my dear, because
we live behind closed doors.

But the water is different;
it flows in and out and through,
making and breaking and wasting.
The one I so frequently neglect,
I need the most.

When I am wandering slowly from this world,
which one of these will you give me?
To choose is to say so much of how you loved...

You have always loved me well.

What's the daffo-dealeo?

You'd think that with the onset of a warmer, more encouraging season, my brain would emerge alongside the unfurling cotyleadons.... but NAE! Instead, I'm typing things backwards, watering my dogs while letting my plants out to pee, the list of constant embarrassment rolls on into infinity and over the mountain tops.

On the brighter side, the shift in sunshine hours has transformed me from a drowsy lion to a frolicksome lamb (I say, as my emotionally exhausted husband thanks Sweet Jesus)... everywhere I look, there's fresh flowers and new lime green oak leaves and the beautiful and often fuzzy results of procreation, so what's there to bemoan?

So as either a reward for his tolerance or a snub to my spring diet, I think I'm gonna go home tonight and bake us a chocolate cake. Maybe it's the sight of rich, dark soil that excited me enough to seek such carnal indulgence. If so, we'll just call this my little fertility celebration. :)

Catfish, cooter & deer: survivin' & thrivin', Arkansas-style

The arrival of vernal equinox has caught me in an unusually industrious mood. I'm sure it's amusing to my mountain man dad to observe as his oldest daughter turns into a can-stocking, deer-eatin', tomato-plantin', secondhand clothes horse. Truthfully, I fear very little in reguard to all the doomsday depression talk pumped into the American consciousness via satallite 24 hours a day. My husband and I rent a house, own two paid-for cars, and are currently a two-income household with health insurance, life insurance, and a little stashed back. At this point in time, I'm glad that we have little else to fret over. God has blessed us so much by not blessing us with too much. Although we're headless-chicken busy much of the time, we still have the opportunity to enjoy what we've been given. I couldn't imagine what our life -- or our relationship -- would be like if we were up to our nose holes in loan or credit card payments.

I feel doubly blessed to have had parents who taught me that "if you can't afford to buy it now, you probably don't need it". E-mailing with my dad back and forth last week, he shared another one with me that he seemed surprised that I already knew (I think I picked it up from a Countryside & Small Stock Journal magazine he had loaned me): "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without."

Now don't misunderstand me -- I'm hardly Granny Clampett, out shootin', weavin' & wildcraftin' , but I would like to learn to run my household even more resourcefully than I do. I'm looking for more than simple Better Homes & Gardens solutions. I'd like to see my energy bill cut in half. I'd like to spend half of what I do in groceries (which averages about $100 every two weeks) and still be able to provide extra helpings at the table when company's over in the evening. I'd like not to look like a ragamuffin because I can't fit into last year's clothes, yet can't scrape up enough to buy new ones (I'm probably a little too proud of myself for being clever enough to consign last year's size 4's and 6's in order to earn enough for this year's size 8's. The size switch should keep me humble enough. Sigh.) I've even taken on a piano student -- her fees help pay for those little extra things around the house you don't know you need until they suddenly break or wear out.

I'm curious -- what are my fellow statesiders doing to tighten their belts, if at all?

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.