serendipity

Believing in Seeing

Although my optometrist assures me that my eyes are remarkable for a woman my age, I am starting to feel the effects of my aging eyes. The mottled blur of things that are much too close. The inexplicable shortening of my arms. The squinting.  

I am told by experts that I can't actually feel my lenses thickening and I kind of wish I didn't know it was happening; my mental imagery sees formations of ice, ocular glaciers, creeping their way across my retinas. 

If only the world was more beautiful as a result. I don't need Google glasses, I need Monet glasses. I might not mind the ever-increasing blur if it looked like this.

Instead my world is becoming blurrily nondescript. 

Imperfect eyesight is especially frustrating to those who want the details, the contents, the ingredients. What's in that? How much can I take? Is it 4:00 or 4:08? Are those specs of coffee grounds on my kitchen counter or are they ants? Are they moving or is it just that I haven't had enough coffee?

So now I'm equipped with a giant magnifying glass and I'm not afraid to use it. 

I am, however, not quite ready to wear it around my neck.

In addition to my magnifier, I have glasses in my purse, on my head, by my bed, by every computer and in my bathroom. Yes. Even there. I'm stashing them around the house like acorns for winter. 

But Juliette, whose blur is much worse than mine, seems almost fine with it at times. She has, I suspect, been living with some level of blur most of her life, and despite a few "Aha" moments when she realized that leaves and bricks and sidewalk pavements all come in multiples and not just one long mosaic, she seems to be okay with some haze in her surroundings.

That, or she just doesn't want to be "the girl who wears glasses."

As a witness for the girl-glasses theory, I have to reveal that a month ago she called me from school in the middle of the day to tell me that she simply couldn't read the smartboard anymore, especially when the teacher writes in red pen, and she always writes in red pen and Something Must Be Done. You have to listen to Juliette when she speaks with capital letters, and I managed to get her an appointment that very day.

The optometrist looked at the test results with a puzzled face, something I dislike intensely. I want to know. I want you, the expert, to know. I want you to know that I know. I want you to know, that I want you to know. Oh, wait, I've gone all Kill Bill again. 

Anyway, Puzzled Optometrist did several more tests and proclaimed what seemed to me impossible: her eyes had gone from slightly farsighted with an astigmatism, to mostly nearsighted with an astigmatism; her glasses are worthless, no wonder she has headaches.

And how can that be? Well, she grew. She's grown over a half inch in the past six months and as her legs were growing longer her eyeballs were growing bigger. And bigger in this case, while normal, did not ultimately result in better.

Should I be worried? She doesn't have a brain tumor or anything, right?

No, said Increasingly Less Puzzled Optometrist. This is unusual  but not unheard of (cue mental note: get second opinion). 

We measured her for new lenses, handed over the old glasses, since the lenses were worthless and the frames were still the only ones she liked, and prepared for a long week without glasses.  Oh, and did I mention this is not covered by insurance because they only cover lenses once a year, which, until today, seemed totally reasonable? Yep.

Every day she asked me when they would be ready.

Soon, I said,  soon. They put a rush on it..

"Today?"

Not yet.

Then finally, "today?"

Yes. We'll get them after school.

We go to Totally Back to Normal Optometrist and she puts the new glasses on. They help instantly. They're biofical transition lenses and that will take some getting used to, but the world is crisp and clear she says "Look, I see leaves!" 

The doctor checks the glasses and says something I thought was so obvious I was oblivious and unprepared for the impact of his words "From now on, you'll need to wear those glasses all of the time."

Cue: tears.

I had a total Scooby Doo moment.  I mean, if she can't see without them, and not wearing glasses gives her headaches, and school is hard when you can't see the board, and your teacher always writes in red pen etc. wouldn't wearing glasses all the time be a good thing?

Apparently not.

Because that would transform her from the Girl Who Wears Glasses in Class, but doesn't need them outside at recess, to the Girl Who Wears Glasses All of the Time. And this was a problem.

Fast forward through a week of "Where are your glasses? Did you wear your glasses in class? Put your glasses on. What? How could you leave your glasses at home?  Do you want to get headaches again? You have a headache right now?" Do you even recognize this nagging creature dressed in your mother's clothes? Of course not, you can barely see her. And PS, I don't recognize her either. "Put your glasses on. Now."

She rebelled. She complained about cleaning them. She asked for contacts. She "forgot" them. She hated them. She cried a lot. For a week.

But at some point she gave in. Whether to visual clarity or threats from her parents, it's a little too early to say. But her homework gets done faster and the feedback from the teachers is good.

To her credit she is doing a good job of keeping track of the slightly less-hated-than-before glasses. If she wanted to, she could lose them, and force her mother to pay another out-of-pocket $600. Instead she's keeping them on her nose where they belong and it's understood that we only talk about them when she wants to talk about them, which is almost never.

But at least now she can see the trees from the forest. 

Suddenly Spring

The hair fell into my lap. Clumps of brown, straight to the point where anyone who cuts it needs to wear protective clothing; my hair will quite literally give a person splinters. In the middle of the jagged brown piles were longer gray hairs. They were thicker than the brown ones, as if they'd been bulking up or working out. Moreover, they were not straight. They were not so much curly as bendy. Could those really be mine? Maybe he didn't clean the wrap well enough and this is actually hair from some other, older person with bendy hair.

I asked my hairdresser, AKA my gay husband of 29 years.

He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "How do you want me to answer that?" This was a not-so-subtle reference to a time, not so very long ago, when I was 100% certain that I was going permanently bald. To keep me from throwing fits he lied about my "bald" spot.  (Yes I had one. Yes he could see it. But only because he was standing over my head looking down at the crown. No, not my tiara, my crown. Stress related, it's all over now. All my lethal, acupuncture-worthy hair seems to be back where it belongs.)

But this hair is in my lap. So how do I want him to answer?

"Truthfully." 

"Yes, those are yours. Isn't it nice? You're going to have nice, thick, gray hair eventually. And look how it's so bendy!"

"I like my hair straight." 

"And the universe cares about that...how?"

Not at all, of course. He says we can dye it.

But not yet. I think we're waiting for some shift in percentage coverage between gray and brown. Currently the gray is still a protected minority group. Protected by him. (And not protected by Juliette: whenever she has the chance she pulls them straight out of my head. Ow.) But when the numbers shift and brown becomes the underdog, he'll switch sides and assimilate the whole kit and kaboodle back to brown. 

While he was cutting my hair, he and I started talking about death. I've known him my whole adult life and our conversations run the gamut of cheesy gossip to cold hard reality. I don't know what drove us here today but we were both ready for a real talk. I told him about my friend who recently startled me with her statement "I'm hoarding a supply of oxycontin. Just in case."

She got them legitimately for pain, never took them (did I mention she's tough as nails?) and now she's keeping them around in case the bad thing happens and she wants to end her life. She's so fit, so funny, so smart, so everything you want in a role model that it's hard to imagine she would already be planning ahead to that. But she's pragmatic and she's a planner. She's one of the people I know who didn't strike it instantly rich, who worked hard all of her life, and will be able to retire comfortably. I can't think about life without her, so I buried her oxy hoard in the back of my mind. Until today.

Then he and I talked about a mutual acquaintance, whom he saw two weeks ago and I haven't seen in a year. She has ALS and it has reached the point where she is literally a prisoner of her frozen body. Perfect mind inside and almost entirely incapable of communicating with the outside world; she couldn't kill herself if she wanted to.  But if it were me, I'd be asking my girlfriend to share her stash of oxy that I would wash down with the best tequila I could find.

He lovingly cut her hair and gave her highlights without her asking, so she would feel pretty. And that's the thing I love most about him, under the sarcastic and inappropriate commentary is a heart of gold.  

To lighten our thoughts, we went for a walk and said mean things about people we saw on the street. We did it because it was wrong and mischievous and felt good. We felt alive like teenagers, knowing that most of our grownup friends would chide us if they heard us.

Note: It seems that Typepad has taken a page out of Google's book and is reading this post before it is published. It has decided to present me with not one, but three "related posts" about going gray. There is a 4th recommended post about the fountain of youth, another about hairstyles throughout history, and my own post, recommended to me, which I have already read. 

The guy who is repairing my store sign had to get it done quickly this morning so he wouldn't be late to his mother's rosary. 

Another friend is in her car right now, driving the eight hours home from saying her final goodbyes to her beloved grandmother.

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My birthday is coming around again. Maybe that's why I'm surrounded by these specters. Or maybe I'm not surrounded at all. Maybe I'm just suddenly noticing what happens every day. 

The weather is so fine. Tree blossoms abound while tulips and daffodils (my "birthday flower") are raising their lovely heads all over my neighborhood. Funerals and daffodils.

It's time to plant something in the backyard. Maybe even grow some tomatoes.

This time next year I'll be turning 50. But not yet.

Clean Coal is the Funniest Idea in the Universe

And I have to file it under the very large category called "Marketing Uses its Power for Evil Instead of Good."

Again.

Clean Coal. It has nice alliteration. And you know how much I lurv alliteration. (What do you mean the kids don't say lurv anymore? Check your watch, I'm pretty sure the kids never said lurv.) And see how extensible the alliteration is? The possibilities are endless!

Clean Coal = Cool Communities.

Clean Coal Concocts Commerce.

Clean Coal Creates Calamity.

Clean Coal Collapses Captivating Cliffs.

Clean Coal is Crap.

There is no such thing as clean coal. Even Popular Mechanics says so.

But you know what's even funnier than Clean Coal? Fracking.

I mean, who uses a swear word from Battlestar Gallatica to name an energy technology? It's the ultimate in nerd marketing. Nevermind the fact that "frak" is a placeholder for a word that much more aptly describes what happens when you fracture shale for gas. Careful, sports fans, that last link leads to the Urban Dictionary, and you never know what you'll find there (AKA: NSFW)...

And yes, I do realize that the US is becoming the King of Frack, and that the middle states are making tons of money from it. But they are also making water that catches fire right out of the faucet. It would be such a cool magic trick if only we didn't need to drink the stuff.

Fracking Feeds Fantasy Finance.

Fracking Fouls Future Food.

Fracking Fuels Formula for Fools.

We are so fracked.

Fall Fragments

The light changed color today. It rained last night, welcomed by most except the owner of the car with the partly open sunroof. The air smells cleaner outside, and a tad crisper. It has bite.

The calendar notified me “It’s Fall!” but I never believe this news until I see it with my own eyes. Today I’m a believer because I can see the color of the light. It is muddier, softer, less illuminating. I should get my picture taken today, you’d never see my “laugh lines” in light like this.

I like the Fall light and I enjoy the rain, especially the sound of it when I’m snug inside. I don’t like it when Fall becomes “Fall Back” that awful day when Light changes its work schedule to part time. The lazy light arrives much later in the morning and takes off earlier at night. Such a despicable work ethic. It’s not like any of the rest of us can afford to work half time for half of the year. Light must have a good union.

Help me it’s Fall, and I can’t wake up.

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It was my friend Sara’s 50th birthday last week. And it was Dominique’s 50th a few weeks before that. It seems like Patty just turned 50 the other day although it was actually several months ago. Such good friends. Such beautiful women. All of these 50s around me.

But not me. 

Not yet.

><(((*>

My morning and afternoon commutes have taken on a hellish nature and I can only blame myself. Wake at 5:45, then shatter the sweet dreams of children at 6. Break fast, make lunch, insist on brushed teeth but not hair because hair can be brushed in the car. On the road by 6:40. Dawn is breaking and there is hardly any traffic, unless there is a terrible accident. Drive 22 miles to the bus stop. Wait for the bus or hope fervently that the bus waits for us. The beauty of modern day yellow bus travel is that you can actually call the bus driver on her cell phone and say “please wait!” instead of chasing her down the street. Back on the freeway for another 22 miles. Wait for the school to open its gates. She is first to arrive. Again.

Do the whole thing in reverse in the afternoon. If nothing bad has happened the morning run gets done in an hour and the afternoon run takes an hour and some. The other day Sigalert announced the arrival of a Life Flight helicopter a few miles in front of our gridlocked car; that drive took well over two hours.

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I miss the parents of my 9th grader’s class. We’d been together for years, and while we weren’t all close friends, and there were some pairs that were friendlier than others, everyone was nice and civil and almost never cared about politics. They were great.

The parents of my 4th grader’s class are a mixed bag. A handful of pearls, one prima donna and the group in between. There is one mom (Madame Prima Donna)  who has decided, for reasons I don’t understand, that my girl should not play with her girl. And so she’s taught her girl to say sweet things like “my mom says I’m too good for you” and “my mom says you’re teaching me bad habits.”

I wish I was joking.

My little one is navigating 4th grade girl politics better than she did in 3rd grade but she still sometimes comes home with bruised feelings. I don’t know if this toughening will be enough to get her through the upcoming Olympics-level politics of 6th grade, but I’m hopeful.

BTW, I don’t know how bored one has to be to actually encourage 4th grade girl politics, but I really wish this particular mom would get a hobby. Maybe she should start a blog. She could call it "My Daughter is Better than Your Daughter."

><(((*>

I accidentally-on-purpose missed my 30th high school reunion. I thrashed back and forth on whether to go, after all, how bad could it be? Maybe even fun. But the truth is that everyone I truly cared about in high school is either a friend in real life or a connection on Facebook (where I can stalk them in relative peace without having to make polite small talk). Looking at the pictures (posted on FB) afterward, I knew I was right to miss it. Every photo brought a new round of “who the hell are you?” I didn’t recognize any of the faces and I only recognized about 10% of the names. Now, if I’d gone to the reunion two years ago (not my reunion of course), I could have stalked a favorite ex-boyfriend. That might have been fun.

><(((*>

I usually have a great sense of smell, in spite of my terrible allergies, but it’s not as useful - or even fun - as you might think. While there are days when I get a whiff of truffle oil or spring flowers, most of my days are spent wrinkling my nose and asking myself (and whoever might be within 100 feet), do you smell that? What is That? That smells weird/awful/funny/dead. I once smelled gas in the house when no one else did, thus saving the lives of my family (hero!), but I also smell things that might be gas and aren’t, thus terrifying the same family (anti-hero) and confirming my Chicken Little heritage.

Right now I smell shrimp in my fridge. The only problem is that there hasn’t been any shrimp in my fridge for a week. Yes, I checked. It’s gone. But there is a smell, a really bad one coming from the depths of the fridge. Like maybe a little shrimp head somehow managed to escape from captivity only to find a convenient hiding place in a dark corner of the fridge. And then maybe it met up with an escapee from the cheese bin and it was love at first scent and now they’ve shacked up in said dark corner and are right now making monstrous shrimpheaded cheese offspring. I’m afraid to look. Plus it smells bad in there.

You go.

And speaking of rodents (were we speaking of rodents?), there must be a dead one out there somewhere. I don’t know where. OUT THERE. Maybe in the garage, or by the back door. Rotting.

By the way, I’m eating green pea soup while I’m writing this, can you believe that? And yes, the soup is delicious. I’m drinking tomato juice too. Blood-colored juice to go with my vomit-colored soup. All while I’m talking about THAT AWFUL SMELL.

But you see, I’m a parent now and that means there is very little left in modern family life that can gross me out to the point where I can’t actually eat. I’m in a total green pea soup phase, I’m eating it three lunches out of five. Green pea with ham soup. Now, THAT is a nice smell. Almost like bacon.

 

"Social Issues"

When I was young, before I was married, I took care of a friend who needed to get an abortion. She was a very good girl in a very tough situation. She struggled with herself about her decision, and no one tried to prevent her from doing what, in the end, she felt she must. 

This is not about her.

When I was young, before I was married, I missed my period. I was a good girl who almost never had more than one boyfriend at a time. After many sleepless nights it finally became clear that I wasn't pregnant, I didn't need an abortion. But if I had needed one, no one would have stopped me from doing it.

This is not about me. Well not exactly.

Because we were the lucky ones. Girls who grew up during a time when a woman's right to control whether or not she became pregnant had finally become so acceptable as to become law. 

How could things change so much in so little time? How could we get to the point where a large part of the collective "we" doesn't want to teach children sex education? Doesn't want to provide women with access to even the most basic birth control, and are fine with big corporations deciding what, if any, access to birth control their employees can get under their insurance (as long as their motivations are right and religious).

We seem to be sliding headfirst into an age where we don't want to provide women with abortions, ever. Except maybe, sometimes, if something really really bad has happened. Something, worse than rape. Something, worse than mortal genetic deformities. No, I can't actually imagine what those things are. 

This is what the Republican Party of Wingnuts has come to. With plans that ensure our girls grow up ignorant, pregnant and broke.  As Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat abstinence."

I have always worried about my country, but never more than I do today. Yes, the party has been taken over by extremists, but they don't represent the majority. I've seen the polls, America is evolving. We are becoming more open to gay marriage. We are less racist. We are increasingly worried about the environment. We are supportive of sex education and women's rights. If I only read polls, if I never watched the news, I might think we were headed in the right direction.

So whose story is this and what is my point? It's the most important story of my life, because it's my girls' future story, most immediately my eldest.  I have a fourteen year old girl who, as she reminded me the other night, has had more than one boyfriend. Now the first three boyfriends were texting boyfriends. Real in spirit, real in emotion, but not physically present, which as you and I both know, matters a lot. You can't get knocked up by Casper the Invisible Boyfriend.

But the fourth boyfriend was flesh and blood. No virtualness about it, he was a real boy. And while one thing could have led to another, nothing ever went too far. Which is good because she knows that I would kick the stuffing out of her if it did. And yes, the words I actually used with her were considerably stronger than "stuffing" because this subject really, really matters. 

But nothing went too far. She came home from vacation much as she left, in all the ways I'm depending on. 

Does she know to say no?
Of course she does.

Will she say always say no?
Now, let's not be silly. 

She is fourteen. She will get older.

And while she and I talk, and she is super smart, and I don't think she would do anything stupid, stupid things sometimes happen. For example, she knows she is not allowed to have food in her room, that food attracts rodents and we already have rodents in the garage. It wouldn't take much to gnaw through the wall of the garage to the wall of her room. And yet I have found food in there. Chocolate. Doritos. Vitamin water. Things that smell irresistibly delicious to four- and six-legged creatures. 

She does not want to sleep with rodents, she does not want to sleep with ants. But still she occasionally sneaks food to her room. In her 14 year-old developing sense of denial, she does not believe the bad thing will happen. The rodents will not smell the food. They will not gnaw through the wall, they will not scamper across her room.

And maybe they won't because I am like the freaking gestapo when it comes to food in rooms. I search, I interrogate, I confiscate. I vacuum. So maybe they won't come.

And god willing, my girl will turn out to be as smart as I think she is. She will delay a long time before taking one of the most irreversible steps of growing up. She won't give in to pressure from boyfriends, from girlfriends, from the Vampire Diaries and Twilight and the sense of romantic inevitability that comes from teen chicklit.

But not forever.

What happens in 2-3 years? By then we will have talked many, many times about birth control, about being prudent with boys, about not accepting drinks/pills/ingestibles from strangers, etc. Those seeds are planted now and my job, like so many mothers before me, is to make sure they take root so that she can take care of herself. 

Still, bad things sometimes happen.  

And if she grew up when I grew up, in the relative safety of Roe vs. Wade, something could be done to keep the very bad thing from becoming even more horrifically and permanently life-changing.

But today the political conversation includes terms like "forcible" and "legitimate" rape. As if there was a rape that was more acceptable, less violent, less wrong. There are "legitimate" politicians whose understanding of science is so flawed that they doubt the theory of evolution, doubt global warming, and doubt that a woman can become pregnant as a result of rape.

Today there are 14 states with laws that are considered unconstitutional criminal bans on abortion. Eight of these states ban without any exception for a woman's health. Candidates for World Leadership Romney and Ryan both want to ban abortion. Dougie Ryan, Mr Heartbeat Away from the Presidency candidate, is even more terrifying and extreme than Romney. He's one of those "not even if the woman's life is in danger" people.  I wouldn't at all be surprised if his next big idea was to throw women into the river to see if they're witches (next stop, the burning stake).  

And when I think of those two getting elected, I don't think about myself, or my friend, or the thousands of other women who have stayed up long nights, engaged in terrible inner conversations, debating what ifs before deciding to do whatever they end up deciding. I think about my daughters. I think about driving to Canada, driving to Mexico, flying to France. Because even though my girls know better and will take precautions and are exceedingly well educated, there is always a risk.  

This is a game that requires skin in it, and if you don't actually come with a vagina as part of your original manufacturer's equipment, don't try to tell me what it's like to have a vaginal ultrasound. Don't tell me what it's like to wait 24-48 hours in a strange town where you have no money and no friends just so you can "think about" what you're about to do before you accomplish your desperate mission. Don't tell me what it's like to wait nine months to give birth to your rapist's baby. Until or unless you are able to make that baby within your own body, and face these decisions first hand, I'm afraid I'm going to have to seriously discount your opinion. You can only kind of relate.

But I do and I can. And my skin is in this for my girls' sake. So there can be one less thing for them to risk their precious lives over.

 

You Can't Pack This

For three days I've been making threats: "if your bag is not ready, you can't…(insert idle threat here). "It's NOT too late for me to cancel your reservation" "You're definitely NOT leaving for FIVE WEEKS with your room LIKE THIS."

Lame. All of it.

And two years ago she would have bought it. But at 14 her tolerance of Mother's Idle Threats has grown faster than the threats themselves.

Which sucks because it speaks to a lack of imagination on her mother's part. (That would be me.)

Her Leaving Day has been on the calendar for quite a while but as usual it's been a shadow of a date. A threat of things to come. An appointment that may, or may not be kept. I could change my mind, after all I Am The Mother.

In theory she leaves tomorrow. Tomorrow I will close her suitcase after having lent her everything I am willing to lend. iPad. Kindle. Suitcase. After having purchased everything I am willing to purchase. Toiletry case, Kindle booklight, new wardrobe. This is officially The Night Before Leaving, which could as well be titled "Whatever you're taking, you've got."

Plus the one thing that can't fit in a suitcase.

My heart.

Sit Your Bad Self Down

We were at a concert in Oakland. I’d always wanted to see a show at the Paramount, and with my friend playing, it was the perfect opportunity. We’d have good seats for good music and good ambiance.

Dinner reservations for eight people at a chic restaurant nearby. Overpriced fish and head cheese. Tasty fish, but not amazing. Tasty drinks, but nothing to Yelp about. At these prices we expect amazing. Seriously.  We’re paying for it In This Awful Economy.

As we approached the theater two kids on bikes stole a guy’s iPhone, right in front of us. The victim kept yelling “Hey! Hey!” and I couldn’t help but think how ineffective a cry for help that was. As a girl in New Jersey we grew up with the warning “if you need help, call out FIRE.” Everyone loves a fire. Forty five minutes the police arrived to take a statement.

We had special passes and seats near the front of the theater. Not the front row, mind you, there were plenty enough people in front of us for a view and we had a good look at the action.

And man, there was some.

The average age of the audience was Seriously Hippie. Yes, that is too a demographic. So is Child of Hippie, which is me. I wish I could say “Son of Hippie” because that would make a much better movie title, but there were too many Daughters of Hippie to be so sexist. Especially since the Daughters of Hippie were the problem.

Back when Hippies Roamed the Earth without walkers there was dancing at concerts. Front row, back row, middle row. It didn’t matter where you were unless you were really good at it – then you needed to be in the mosh pit right in front of the stage. Bruce Springsteen wouldn't see you unless you were in the mosh pit. You couldn't become the Urban Myth of Courtney Cox unless you were in the mosh pit.

But if the music simply took you, if you were there for the music, you had to dance and you could. You could stand up and shake your body no matter what row you were in. The people behind you might be annoyed, but frankly, the odds were 99% that they were as stoned or moved by the music as you were. So if they weren’t actually dancing, it was probably because they were hungry. A bag of Doritos would cure that promptly sp they could start dancing, only to annoy the stoned and hungry groupies behind them. It was a cycle of concert life, of sorts.

So when did the dancing rules get so strict?

At the Church of the Paramount, we all sat so obediently. The music was good, and we were all (at least most of the  ones I saw) grooving respectfully in our seats. Some were shaking their booties, others shook their upper parts. Some did the white man's head bob. The hard part was actually staying still.

Two women, age indeterminate but inarguably sexy, stood up in the front row and started dancing together. With long hair and tank tops, it was like out of a (NC-17) movie. They danced slowly, in rhythm, together, and suddenly the focus of the show moved slightly south of the stage.

In typical hippie passive competition, stage right presented two folks dedicated to proving the stereotype: billows of pot smoke made its way toward the stage like the Angel of Death – but perhaps a little happier. The musicians could see it coming toward them, inevitable. These folks have been around the block a few times; they know what's up. Inhale, don’t inhale, it's a personal decision. But you’d better not forget your lyrics - nor the beat. This is an audience that knows the music at least as well as you do.

Two rows down and to the left (AKA center stage audience), a very VERY tall woman was moved by the musical spirit. She stood up and started to rock out. I could see her, but honestly, she was nothing special. Not embarrassing, not erotic. Not even particulary interesting. She’s a fan. She's feeling good and having fun. Dancing. Which, apparently, is against the rules.

Security comes. They do not come, mind you, for misses sexy and sexier tank top girls. They do not even come for the pot smokers. They come for Mrs Too Tall. And she is offended.

I can't actually hear anything she's saying, but her body language clearly communicates “and what about those women who are dancing down there? And what about those hippies who are smoking pot over there? WHY ME? Where is your manager? Who is in charge here?”

Security is unsympathetic. Neither are they terribly hard working. Mrs Too Tall is on the aisle. The Missy Sexy tank tops are in the middle of a row (hard to quietly get to). The pot smokers are in the vicinity, but the smoke makes them hard to locate. Or easy to locate. Who can tell, it’s all so confusing now.

One security person accepts Too Tall's challenge of “take me to your leader” and before you know it there are six security personnel surrounding her. They take her away – to the way back of the theater. I mumble something inappropriate to my seatmate about likelihood of her being waterboarded. 

The sexy girls aren’t quite making out, but for several rows in any direction the men are positively transfixed. This is the upside of concerts in san Francisco: sexy pretend lesbians. There is universal agreement, silent of course, that this would be much less interesting with boys - at least today with this audience.

Afterward we learn that there are New Rules across the USA: No Dancing at concerts. Well, except for very sexy exceptions.

Today there is no dancing in the aisles, because it’s a fire hazard. No dancing in the middle, because you're too tall and no one can see anything else but you, and no one paid to see you. No dancing in the front, because no one can to see anything else but you and no one paid to see you either. Unless of course you’re two pretend lesbians with long hair and tank tops. Which makes you technically a bonus, because people would definitely pay money to watch that.

I'm kind of appalled at the Paramount. After all, this theater is an institution, and if you can’t feel the musical spirit here, where can you? The red neck Cow Palace? The prim and proper Zellerbach Hall? Perhaps at the Greek, experts in all things coolio. If only we could park.

But there is something very wrong, nay, even sacrilegious, about not being able to dance at the Paramount Theater. This is, if not ground zero, 5 shades of gray from the center of the hipster, hippie universe. Dancing is understood.  The security personnel can hardly maintain a straight face as they say things like “ma’am I’m afraid you’re going to have to sit (your bad self) down.” Because as the security folks know, this is music. And music inspires, if not requires, dancing. And you shouldn’t have to be a pretend lesbian to get away with it.

 

Letting Go (and holding on)

The bay was calm, with an easy entrance. Rocks everywhere of course, but that was necessary to the ultimate experience. Sand wouldn’t do. There just isn’t much to see in sand, except sand. Which is what I like about sand, it’s a relatively predictable element in an environment I’m not comfortable in.

The water was colder than I expected or wanted. I want bath water temperatures, even in hot climates. Halfheartedly I sat down and let the water shock my armpits. Not enough to make me shiver, but enough to complain about. My guide was unsympathetic. “No whining, this is going to be great.”

The rocks were slippery and the waves kept pushing me unexpectedly toward the shore. When I say unexpectedly, it’s not because I don’t know the waves are coming, or that I don’t know their destination, but more that I don’t know when they are coming. Also, I’m busy not drowning in two feet of water. There's been no intake of actual salt water yet, but enough jostling and gulping to make me wonder if I can get my flippers on without actually going under. A hand grabs my arm and keeps me in place.

I walk backwards into the sea as instructed, tripping over my own feet. Rocks. Flippers. Algae. Was this going to be worth it? The last time I swam in the tropics I nearly drowned myself – all by myself. In a pure panic. The memory came back, inopportune, but the hand on my arm is there. Steadying.

The hand pulls me along in the right direction – toward the deeper sea. A voice guides and encourages me to be brave. To keep moving deeper into the darker blue. Not to be a chicken shit. Okay, maybe that last part was in my own head.

Treading water now.

The water is over my head. We are past the breakers but this is the ocean after all, and there are waves. I kick my feet and float upright, sort of.  I listen to instructions on how to put on my mask, how to breathe though the snorkel, given once before earlier in the day, repeated now. “Don’t worry about the snorkel, it will stay afloat – that’s what they do.” Right. All of them except for mine which will fill up with water the minute I let go.

This might be a good time to admit my asthma and the fact that breathing is something I don’t take for granted. I carry two inhalers and I know where they are at all times. Air matters, even more than for the average person. This drowning thing can happen out of the water. It is something to be avoided.

Gear in place and tired of trying to stay above the water (this floating upright stuff is both exhausting and boring) I hear the voice say “just put your face down into the water and float, I’ll take care of everything else.” And she did.

And the world changed. It was like going from black and white to color. From color to smellovision. From smellovision to total immersion. I was underwater and it was amazing.

Directly below I saw a bright yellow fish – the kind I’d only ever seen in fish tanks. The hand squeezed mine and pointed:  that way showed elegant coral and brightly-colored triggerfish chasing each other. The other way showed crazy-colored parrotfish eating the coral. In front of us:  sleek and silvery trumpetfish, gliding and completely indifferent to us.  Hundreds of sea urchins. How can I get those off of the rocks without getting hurt by the spines? They’re delicious, I need to eat them. Thanks to TSA I have no knife. But the urchins will never be fresher than right now. Surely there must be a… wait! What’s this? Water in my nose. Water in my mask! I’m leaking! Leaking!!!! Am I going to drown? I don’t want to drown. Breathe in. Breathe out. Through My Mouth. Focus. Listen to Darth Vader sounds in my ears. That’s me. Breathing through my mouth. Face down. Floating. Body straight, arms out in my Superman pose. Always the hand in mine to keep me connected. I am not drowning. Yet.

Everywhere I looked there was something to see. Sea life. An underwater world I had previously only known from watching Animal Planet and National Geographic. At aquariums. In fish tanks. Flat, black and white versions of a 3D technicolor world.

Slightly disoriented, I realize that I don’t actually know where I am. I could be close to the shore or far from the shore. Floating out to sea or about to crash on the rocks. I have no idea.

The hand holds me. When the hand swims forward, I do too. If the hand turns left, I turn with it. The hand decides. It enables me to focus on what I see, not where I am. I am not drowning, I am not lost. I am not floating out to sea. I am in a bay. I am with a friend. I am discovering new life.

Afterward there will be two worlds: the world of air and the world of water. I am a foreigner to the latter and I can never immigrate. But I will visit again.

Eventually I won’t need the hand. But today it keeps me grounded. It holds me. So I can let go.

 

Fragments

I measured it with a child's straight ruler just to see how bad the situation was. I never meant to grow it this long. I never had the patience to even try. But the guy who’s been cutting my hair for almost 30 years suddenly couldn’t and I didn’t have a back up. So I did nothing, wishing for it to grow slower. Months later, here we are: my hair is 3 ½ inches long. I know, I know – such exaggeration. By any scale my hair still qualifies as short. Technically. But on me, this is long hair. Long enough to constantly hang in my face. Long enough to develop a tic that I hope is adorable but I suspect is just annoying of pushing the long hair out of my eyes. Long enough to wear a barrette but I won't because I look ridiculous in barrettes. Long enough to brush.

I haven’t used a brush in 20 years.

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I am amazed at how many of my friends don’t wash their faces before they go to bed at night. I mean, I know your mother nagged you all of your life (just like I do) to wash your face before you go to bed and for good reason: the world pummels us every day with UV and pollution and grime on top of oily sweat. And some of us (you) sleep all night in that 21^st century facial poultice. Do you wonder why your skin is rebelling on you, not looking as young/tight/glowy as it used to? Okay, I have to admit, you still look really great. But you won't forever, despite your excellent genes, because the world is a dirty place. No matter how much you drink at night (and remember I’ve had several of those cocktails with you), you must wash your face – and moisturize before you go to bed. It takes 3 minutes to wash the weight of the world off your face. 

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They all forgot my birthday. I mean, they didn’t totally forget, at least he remembered and reminded them to say "happy birthday" in the morning, but there were no cards, no presents, no cupcakes. If not for  a couple of very good girlfriends (and Mama Facebook), it might have gone completely unnoticed by the world. I suppose 48 doesn’t really deserve a parade but I’m an Aries. Growing up I used to claim the entire month of March for my own birthday purposes – reluctantly sharing it with my dad whose birthday is 2 weeks before mine. But one might expect one’s family to at least go through the motions, even for boring 48. Not this year. The Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus will all remember and exact revenge (until we forget and forgive, of course -- in that order).

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I bought my first piece of grown-up jewelry when I was 30. I had recently been promoted and was making some decent money. And while previously I'd felt comfortable spending money on shoes and clothing (you know, to maintain my work uniform), jewelry was something that came as gifts -- from a man. Don’t ask me where this 19^th century-thinking came from. While I loved Jane Austin growing up (still today), part of the message for me from that period was how ridiculous it was for women to be so completely dependent on men. I grew up believing in more than just women’s rights. I believed anything other than absolute equality was ludicrous. And yet I didn’t ever buy jewelry for myself and I never poured my own wine. Go figure that.

Today I do both. And I bought my own birthday present.

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I am stunned at how powerful a singer my girl is at age nine. And it’s more than just maternal pride, I’m more than a little jaded when it comes to talented children, even when they're mine. But people other than family members genuinely enjoy listening to her. Her little friends are jealous and want to sing like her.

She sings from her heart - from her soul. On key with good timing. That girl can sing.  She has always been a force to be reckoned with. Now she’s a force with a voice.

><(((*>

My other girl is graduating from 8^th grade in less than two months. She’s taller than my mother, not  a great feat and yet it still feels significant. She's tall. She’s also beautiful and smart and witty and secretive and moody. And she has her first real boyfriend who lives 3 really big states away. She’s not ready to visit him, not that she’d be allowed to. And he can’t come here either. Texting is good. So is facetime.

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 One of these days I’ll go back to writing whole posts about a single subject. I’ll go back to 800+ words and you wishing I would be more concise.

But not today. Today you get fragments. 

 

In lieu of actually washing it

I have a tendency to not wash my car in the wintertime. Even when it hasn't rained in weeks I have this sense that it *should* rain, and since it should rain, it might rain. And since it might rain it would be silly to actually wash the car.

And so I haven't.

The only time I clean out the car trash is at the gas station or the car wash, and lately every time I've been to the gas station I've been to one that doesn't have the little thingamajigger that allows you to pump gas and walk away (I'm looking at you Arco). I have to hold the nozzle and pump. Which means I can't clean the car. Because there's no time you see - I'm in a hurry. In fact I'm late for work.

In the meantime I've been driving these children around. I'm sure you've noticed that children, despite rules and best efforts, never come without some fundamental accessories: snacks, water bottles, gum, assorted papers and pens, hats, stuffed animals and crumbs. You might have thought that children simply eat things that make crumbs but that's not true. All children come with crumbs as part of the original factory equipment. It's a feature. That explains a lot, doesn't it.

Today might be a good day to wash the car, it's gray but not rainy. Despite the holiday I have no intention of doing it. But I did decide to take a brief inventory because when I started to look around me I couldn't believe the stuff I had in the car:

• 3 half-drunk plastic water bottles that, according to the latest meme I read, will give us cancer if we drink them.
• 30-40 gum and cough drop wrappers. We like to chew gum and we recently had colds. Half of the gum wrappers contain used gum because whenever I chuck it out the window the kids berate me to death. 
• Tissues. New and in the pack, old and wadded up. Folded, balled and occasionally sticky, they are stuffed with secret surprises, none of them good. Don't touch that.
• One faux polar bear hat, complete with paws.
• Insurance paperwork. I really should take that inside the house, it looks important.
• Hand sanitizer. Little children touch everything. And then they eat with those hands. And then they feed you with those hands. Germy, disgusting and full of love. Put this on your hands. Now.
• One half eaten bagel. Really? No wonder my car is full of crumbs. And oh man, is that HAM? My god.
• Assorted peace symbol jewelry that they both claim is theirs. So now it's mine. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with peace jewelry. I mean I like jewelry and I like peace, but I haven't actually worn peace jewelry since  I was 13. Hmmm. I wonder if that is a clue as to the rightful owner?
• The largest, heaviest American history book in the world. That apparently no one needs. I say that because it's been in the car for at least two weeks and if someone needed it, they'd take it with them, right? She says, in her defense that "it's all online."
• Tangerine peel. Amazingly, this also makes crumbs.
•  A pair of purple and white striped socks. Because apparently, one day, one of them couldn't bear to keep them on her feet for a moment longer. 
• A florescent green, never-comes-off-until-you're-dead-and-maybe-even-later permanent marker. I shudder to think about where I should start looking for the graffiti. Because we both know that somewhere around here, undiscovered, is florescent green graffiti.
• Albuteral inhaler. Because all of this crumby florescent trash might just throw you into asthmatic spasms. 
• The tool I bought to crack the window in the event we should drive off a bridge and into the water - rendering the electric windows useless and mercifully saving our lives. It also measures tire pressure.
• A super duper, mechanic-grade professional chrome tire pressure gauge. Because you can never be too sure about the air presure in your tires.
• Stolen lipgloss, wrapped in special tissues and hidden in a secret compartment. Or at least she thinks it's a secret compartment. And it might still be a secret except that she hid some half-eaten food in there a while back and I had to tear the car apart looking for the source of the awful smell. Well hello there, secret compartment! 
• 49 cents worth of coins. Not the useful kind that could be used in street meters. The car holds lots of pennies and no quarters. Why do we still make pennies? It costs more than they are worth just to make them. 

This concludes today's archaeological tour. You'll note that the tour does not include a survey of the trunk. The trunk is the car equivalent of the la Brea tar pits without the valuable artifacts. Baby bottles, cooking supplies, various and sundry clothing comprise merely the tip of the iceberg. Give me enough time, I'll have dinosaurs in there.