Lies My Parents Told Me and A Few Truths, Too.

Your face will freeze.
Keep a $20 in your bra.
It's never too early to make ready for Shabbos.
For this, I stuck my hand in the toilet?
A little knuckle blood improves the flavor.
If you don't wash your ears, potatoes will sprout in there.
Never wear white pants, unless you're late and want to bring it on.
Do what you want today, you could be dead tomorrow.
Do what you want today and you could be dead tonight.
Give the other guy the right of way.
Ask me later, I'm busy.
I stood up for you and said yes, you were fit to live with the pigs.
Carry an extra pair of underwear in case you end up in the hospital.
Go ahead, I already have a foot in the grave.
You want to do what?!?!?
[silence]

All these homilies and the loudest is the silence.

Lament of the Broken: Cyclocross Haiku etc

I want to lick the
mud from pink polka dotted
cyclocross skinsuit.

Grass berms climb the stairs
through mud over obstacles.
Urban assault boys
kick the crap out of
sissy tire roadies.

I have to try it.
Grab my mountain bike, clip in.
Take off after them.

My deductible
is met. Future injuries
will be paid in full.

thing i wish would work for me

i'm a lousy typist. i'm reasonably fast, but inaccurate. and i'm an email addict, so i've lost the ability to capitalize. which is all fine. i write in longhand. i like thick pens with heavy black ink and lined notebooks, cheap 70 page college ruled notebooks, pack of 10 for a dollar at target. well, used to be price is now 7 for a dollar, still an amazing bargain. i'll also write in small notebooks [purse or car] on the back of shopping lists, margins of the newspaper, stubs of papers, whatever is in the console of my car, paper napkins [fermat's theorem? is that what was written on a napkin? http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fermat's_Penultimate_Theorem]
et alteri.

thing is, my handwriting is abysmal. it has deteriorated to the point that i rival my left-handed, dyslexic brother for illegibility.

and i'm prone to tendinitis in my right wrist and have a permanently dislocated right thumb. well, i think that's what's wrong with my thumb, i REFUSE to spend any more money on MRIs or x-rays [2007 and 200 total: over $2,500 out of pocket for doctors to look at my insides and say nothing is wrong, it'll heal itself. that was my out of pocket. none of this was covered by my medical insurance, if i'd gone through the insurance company it would have been $3,800 out of pocket. go figure.]obvious solution: get a mini-tape machine, talk into it.

only that doesn't work for me. i need to feel the ink, be moving my hands, my fingers.

okay, rant over, back to work.

New Project 8

Once upon a time, there were seven deadly sins: gluttony, lust, greed; the sins of wanting things. Sloth or apathy, the sin of wanting nothing. Wrath, envy and pride, the sins of wanting intellectual superiority and triumph. The greatest of these, the source route of all the others, was envy.

Envy, thwarted, discouraged, gave birth to apathy. Envy of property gave rise to the bearing of false witnesses, theft, embezzlement. Envy of relationships resulted in coercion, adultery, rape disguised as seduction. These and myriad variants pepper our world: wanting what isn't yours, what can't be yours, what shouldn't be yours. There are so many ways to try to get around it but unless it's root is killed, it comes back, bigger and meaner.

Was that the real reason she kept secrets, so no one would envy her? Try to take the crumbs she hoarded, the pebbles she used to find her way home? Was that the real reason?

She frowned, turned off the kettle and poured the boiling water over the freeze-dried coffee powder. Convenient, tasteless and still containing the caffeine punch she craved.

She wondered at people who made coffee properly. It was a skill she'd never acquired either by natural born talent or accumulated knowledge and practice, despite its seeming ease. With some people, coffee making was as easy as breathing. Take the pot, measure the beans, boil the water, et voila! Coffee. Grinds, whole, drip, perc, some people had the knack. Even her neighbors's kids knew how, but she preferred living in a state of ignorance, taking the simple solution of purchasing pot, filters and grinds instead of instant to be unnecessary and unworthy of the space it would consume in her brain. It served some purpose in her psyche, keeping this need unfulfilled or gratified in only the most cursory way possible. Some need.

New Project 7

She reached into the closet, all the way in the back and pulled out a folding screen. Snicked it open and transformed it into a narrow bookcase. Not very sturdy, it was decorative by design, not functional, but it would have to serve. They needed something to hold the statuary which had accumulated in the past year or so and were too cheap or lazy to go shopping for something new.

Moving it from corner to corner, the prayers frowned. It looked wrong everywhere. Perhaps they'd have to go out and buy something after all. Even if they bought raw wood and wall brackets or braces, at least it wouldn't be visually intrusive.

She shook her head. "Think inside the box, just once, just give me a chance." She opened the closet door wide and replaced the unit in the closet, closed the doors on it. "There. It fits, it serves and we don't have to look at it."

The others nodded in agreement. "It'll do. Let's load it up. We can sort through what we've got later. For now, being neat is good enough."

The small statues smiled, bellies full of the ashes of strips of paper. They liked the idea of being in the dark, behind closed doors.

Behind A Steamy Mirror, Look.

Awake, but by choice
Tonight avoiding sweet dreams
for sad memories

A relationship?
Versus having relations?
Act honestly? You?

I know you. Inside.
Hear what is behind your words,
selfish child; bully.

Learn some compassion
You can't come into my life,
break my toys. No more.

Pop Tart

Pressing down the lever to the toaster, waiting for the smell of sugar and warm jam to fill the room with morning sweetness, she frowned. Pop-tarts were the only real sweetness she ever found in this kitchen lately, in the morning. In the afternoon and evening, too, most days. Sweetness here was forced or Splenda fake.

Used to be, steaming pots of tea scented the air. Measuring cups of flour and milk, eggs and a dash of cinnamon, all beaten together, puffed on the griddle. But that was then and this was now. That was the way Saturdays used to be, before she had to move in with Clueless Aunt Shari and all those annoying stray cats she fed, before Mummy went away and everything fell apart. It felt like so long ago already and so forever coming up, even though she knew, KNEW, it was only a few months, maybe a year or two, and in the meantime, they had internet and webcam sometimes, snail mail or phone calls now and then, so they'd manage, they would, her and Clueless Aunt Shari, they would, until Mummy came back and everything would be okay and they could live together again.

So for now, she had an aunt who bought her every damned microwavable, single serving, convenience food they advertised on TV instead of cooking, even something simple like mac and cheese in a box or canned soup, or even just plain asking, ‘What do you want? What do you like? Are you hungry-hungry or would you rather just have cinnamon toast?'

Her aunt knew how to cook, she just didn't care to do it. They'd eaten at Shari's lots of times, dinners and lunches and cupcakes and fancy colored drinks in glasses with umbrellas and olives for the grown-ups and flourescent cherries for her. Only thing, each of those were special occasions or holidays or sorta specials anyway, not everyday. Everyday was work and hurry and homework and school and feed the cats and no time to do the laundry, ‘I'll just pick you up another shirt on the way home', and pages to turn and trying not to be fussy but it was so hard and she missed Mummy so bad.

"I miss her, too."

Well, she had snaps because she was just a kid and a kid missing her Mummy got snaps over a lady missing her sister.

The toaster popped and she put the charred around the edge pastries on a plate, poured a glass of water, no milk again, no juice either, and sat down, flicking on the TV. Mummy played CDs in the morning, ‘nothing good on, nothing we need to see this a.m. Let's just listen to some... some... How about this, it's zydeco/Japanese/French/creole? Yeah, that's good. If we can't understand whatever it is they're singing, we can really concentrate on the music, right, honey? Hey, is that a zither/calliope/hurdy-gurdy/shawm? How often you hear one of those, hon?'

Another repeat of some stupid, perfect, packaged life, kids show where everyone had a nice haircut and house and real dinners and money for whatever they wanted and it all ended in a happy free-for-all in twenty-two minutes or so. She clicked the power button on the remote. If it was a weekday, she could go to school. Today, she'd have to be cheerful, anything Aunt Shari suggested, she'd say, ‘Sounds good there, Aunt Shari. Let's do it!' even if she'd rather have needles in her eyes.

Shari walked in, grabbed a mug from the cupboard and leaned against the counter. "Hey, honey, you up so early? It's only 8:15, what are you doing up? You eat? Good." She glanced down at her plate, surprised to see that both Pop-Tarts were gone. She'd eaten them both? When had that happened?

Shari scooped out coffee and poured water through the coffee maker. "I am so glad I don't have to perk coffee. I remember when your Momma and I were maybe your age, perking coffee for your grandparents. It sounded great, smelled great, but drinking it, well, that was something else again, always a surprise: strong, weak, grounds all over the place." Shari patted the stainless steel appliance. "This thing, same taste every single time. It's a miracle."

She tensed up, here it comes.

"So, babycakes, what you want to do today? We got the whole weekend ahead of us, lots of time for fun and yeah, we got some chores, gotta get some of that special diet cat chow, but we'll have time to catch a movie or go to the library or do puzzzles or or or"

Or anything at all except what she really wanted.

Lust

How can I get shoes like that? What they say about her, her skills, interests, abilities, income level, all the socio-economic crap we get buried under, as opposed to my cheap generic foot coverings, multipurpose plain which means that they are good for everything but really good at nothing. You cannot be all things to all people and a shoe cannot be all things on one foot.

What leads a person to make the moves, choices in life that allow her to afford those?

Why do I end up making the wrong choices or what feels like the wrong choices certainly, over and over, looking back, all shot to shit, my lifeview widening as I move away from the now, all the choices I rejected, by design or misinformation or hidden agenda or need for approval, a river of choices, and back to the now, tunnel vision staring at a pair of shoes on someone else's feet on a sad, foggy evening.

The Shoez: The Mighty Have Fallen Arches

We're sick of this, of being locked away in the dark. She never does anything, goes anywhere anymore. Our lives are just so much drudgery, so drab. How do we get her out? It's not that she's being recalcitrant or in a state of flux or surly, it's just that... It's just that...

Aw hell, we're bored.

We can't go anywhere without her and she doesn't take us with her. We'd be happy even if she threw us the proverbial bone by throwing us in a bag and in the car, took us out of this box, out of this closet, got us closer to the light of day or maybe please, please, oh please, the dark of night.

We live for dark of night, seeing the headlights reflect off our gleam, watching cars come to a screeching halt at our glory, and then, when Venus and Mercury rise, sky tips from ink and turns us diamond bright, we live.

We want out.

After all we've done for her, ungrateful chit, how we protected her, advised her and avenged her, what do we get? Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Which proves we have to take charge, take care of us same as we take care of her, remind her we are here for her, all she has to do is look down and we'll take her out of herself, kick open the gate on that new life she's been mooning over. All she has to do is look down.

Only if she looks down now, she won't see us, not hidden in this box behind a stack of other boxes and bags and reject sweaters and gifts from pricks who aren't worthy of being stilettoed by our perfect heels.

Why? Why are we buried? Are we more demons and memories she can't acknowledge, another Bad Place she can't revisit? Why?

Only way to know is to get out and confront her. She never liked confrontation, but it's honest, it's true, and it's so much easier on the heart than avoidance and duplicity and sarcasm. If we wiggle a bit, a bit more, a little bit more, more.

-CRASH-

oops. Damn. Still buried. Well, she sees this mess, she'll have to clean it up and once she sees us again, we'll slide onto those elegant painted toes and figure out what's what. We will. She won't deny us, not after all we've done for her.

Now, we wait.

idle thoughts or perhaps idol thoughts

anagrams: have you ever played with words? noticed tonight, again, that sacred is scared. does that which awes us frighten us?

guess so.

Midnight Oil

The copter flies over again.
Past midnight, is it looking for my life?
The real one, not the one I'm leading.
It's back, wondering what I'm doing and what's going to happen next because
I don't know.
I didn't write the script.
I didn't even see the chapter outline.
Too silent now, whirring blades sucked the night noises after them.

New Project 6

Maybe the disarray was a warning. Yes, that was it. He'd sent her a message.

"Why do you keep them like that? It makes no sense and it takes so much time and you need a bigger case the way you sort them."

"You know I need everything ordered for my personal feng shui."

"Feng shui is room arranging, not jewelry or sock arranging."

"Alphabetic."

"Say what?"

"They're alphabetic."

"By what? Color, designer, by who gave it to you? Because I swear, it looks way random ass to me, on this side of the equation."

"By stone or metal. See, the jade and next the onyx and the topaz. The metals are gold, silver, rhodium plated, titanium."

"Oh, I see! Amethyst, beryl, coral, diamond, I get it! That's pretty cool, now that you explained it. I bet no one else in the world does it like that."

The stones, they were grouped by color, and the plain hoops by size.

"Only you! That is so hot. You're a demented genius."

"Thank you. It's a carry over from my day job. I alphabetize my files, too." She winked at him.

"Yeah, but you do it by source, not by client."

"Works for me. Means no one else can access my files without me knowing."

Without me knowing. He wanted her to know.

"Suppose I put the garnet over here and the jasper over there? Then what?"

"Don't you dare! It'll freak me out."

"Just messing with you. You know I'd never hurt you. Ever. I know how you get when things are mixed up, how you have to put them right. I love you. I love your crazy brain."

He loved her crazy brain enough to warn her. She paused. Was the mess a warning or was it a message, too? Was there a second meaning in the disorder or was it just telling her to get out? How did he have them? What was the pattern? She had to remember how he'd mixed them.

She had to go back. She couldn't, but she had to know. She circled the lake and headed back to the home she used to know.

Flamingos? Why Does It Have to be Flamingos?

One flamingo, two flamingo, three flamingo, four...
How many flamingos does one person need, particularly if that person lives north of the Mason-Dixon line and not in a trailer park?
How many flamingos, indeed?
More.
Please sir, I want some more.
Some more of those slim, long legged pink things, so sexy standing there, one foot twined around the calf of the other, rubbing it suggestively.
How many flamingos does it take to satisfy a craving for kitsch?

True Story:

We wandered the carnival, sun still up, ground not yet muddy, baby wide-eyed in her stroller.

"C'mon over here, win the little lady a bear! C'mon over, gentlemen, you can do it! Getcha little girl a bear! Just five dollars for three shots, getcha little girl a bear!"

C and G walked over to the barker. The counter held four sets of milk bottles, each set consisting of ten bottles stacked in a pyramid formation. The barker waved an air rifle at the guys.

"Only five dollars for three shots! Knock the bottles off the counter and win the baby a bear! Getcha little girl a bear!"

C looked at the pyramids and picked up the air rifle. "Three shots for five dollars? Gotta knock all the bottles off the counter and then we get a bear? Which bear? That itsy one?" He held it to his eye and checked the sight, aiming the front down.

"Or anything else the momma sets her heart on! I don't have no ordinary prizes here. Gimme a minute to get the rest out. This is a quality booth, great stuff for the little girl! I got here a penguin and check out this horse and I got a flamingo and a whale..."

Flamingo? Did he say flamingo?

"Lemme see the flamingo." He reached under the counter and held up a fix foot tall flamingo, bright pink, wearing a top hat, red bow tie and black high heels. He set it on the far edge of the counter and put a clip on it so he could hang it. I love it.

I took the baby out of her stroller and showed her the stuffy. "Look honey, it's a flamingo!" I turn to the guys. "I want that flamingo. Baby wants that flamingo. Get us that flamingo."

The barker smiles and lights a cigarette. "Ya gotta play to win, men. Which one of you gentlemen is going to win the little ladies that flamingo?"

C pulls out a five dollar bill and puts it on the counter. "I have to knock all the bottles off? All ten? Not just down, but off?"

"Yessir, off the counter. Win the baby a big flamingo! You're a big guy, you can do it!" I put the baby on the flamingo's back. She pats its head, grabs the bow tie and sucks on it. "Win the baby a flamingo, sir! Go on, do it!"

C settles the air rifle against his shoulder. Blam! He misses.

"Honey, I want the flamingo!" C shrugs, picks up the air rifle again. Blam! Nothing.

The barker smiles. "One more shot, guys. You gotta aim at the bottles, right at them. Don't worry, lady, they'll get you that flamingo. He just has to get comfortable with the gun, get his balance so to speak. One more shot, gentlemen."

C picks up the air rifle, sights it and sighs. He passes it to G. "Here, you take a shot. I just can't get it. Besides, it's your kid."

"Honey, baby really, really, really wants that flamingo. I want that flamingo. You have to win us that flamingo. Please, pretty please." I put my head next to baby's and flutter my eyelashes.

"It's tough. C already missed twice. These carnival games...." G shakes his head. "They're all rigged anyway, you know that. Why don't we just go down to Wally World and I'll buy you one?"

"I want that flamingo. That one, with the top hat and the red bow and the heels," using my most murderous, ‘you ain't getting anything else for the rest of your life tone'. "That one. You understand me? Capice?"

The barker smiles even more. "I have specials. Since the lady has her heart set on that flamingo and I know it's tough, not just getting the bottles down, but you gotta get them off, too,I'll do you guys a favor. I'll let you have eight shots for ten dollars, instead of six, or for fifteen dollars, I'll give you twenty chances. That's double! What do you say, gentlemen? Wanna get some insurance?"

C frowns. "We still have one shot left, right? It's okay that I give it to my buddy here? I don't seem to be having any luck, that's fer sure."

"Absolutely, sir, you let your friend go ahead and take a shot."

G lifts the air rifle and lays it across the palm of his hand. He runs his fingers along the shaft and grip. Flips it around in his had and points it down, narrowing his eyes as he checks the truing. He steps back and shakes his head. "I dunno, honey. This thing... Hell, instead of wasting money here, it's gonna cost a hunnert dollars easy, we could just go across the street. Besides, don't we need to do groceries?"

"I want that flamingo. You hear me?"

"Okay, then, here goes nothing." He raises the gun to his shoulder, closes one eye and then the other. "Here goes." He squeezes the trigger.

The bottles roll off the counter. All of them.

The barker stares. "But, but, but..."

"The flamingo, please." He pushes it towards me. G takes baby off its back and kisses her. I take the flamingo and put it in the stroller, upside down. I tie the feet up around the handle. "What my baby wants, my baby gets."

C pats him on the back. "Good job, guy. What was that championship pin you got last year? Or did you get two?"

"Last year, two. First in handguns, third in rifle. And I was top ten in black powder."

"You the man!"

"Get the fuck out of my booth," the barker says and slams the curtains down on the booth.

"Can we go home now? This thing is huge."

"You wanted it, deal. Besides, the carnival's only been open for fifteen minutes, we can't leave yet. We gotta have us some funnel cake and one of those big ole onion things. Us boys is hungry from all that shootin' and huntin' and killin' we had to do for you."

"Okay, then, we'll stay." Baby grabbed one of the flamingo's feet and chewed it.

New Project 5

"We go over hills, too."

"Hillocks."

"No, really, the sum is greater-"

"Stop it. Enough."

"The sum is greater than the whole of its parts," she finishes quickly and sits, quiet, for a few minutes. "I'm hungry."

"That's because something is eating you. What have you done now that it all pours right back out of you? What do you have that isn't yours, that you can;t keep?"

She doesn't answer, just gets up and goes to the lavoratory and locks the door.

"I know you're hiding something. I know you're not telling me the truth. It'll eat you and it'll keep eating you until you come clean. Lies are a tapeworm." He hears her vomit and flush.

New Project 4

Only a few more days and then it would be over. She'd get to pass the baton to the next unsuspecting victim. She was so tired, but the others, who had carried the burden for so much longer, for years even, who'd slept with it, ate it, endured it, without complaining, so her little piece, insignificant except to her, although they'd told her every piece was significant, each piece as important as the others, the sum greater than the total of its parts, so tired that armageddon, it all come tumbling down, boom, tra la la boom, didn't scare her.

There! By the back door! She hurried over and the gnarled fingers of a clown grabbed her wrist, nails biting into it. "Where is it? I want it."

"You? You're not the one."

"Like you know who the one is? You wouldn't know the one if he kicked you in the arse. You wouldn't know the one if he kicked you in the teeth and branded his footprint on your forehead. Gimme! It's mine."

"No, can't, go away!"

"Mine!"

"You had your chance, now scat!"

"Mine! Mine!"

She kicked the haggard troll in the shins, but it wouldn't let go of her wrist. It pulled her closer, clasped her other hand and twisted her arm behind. It smiled with only half its mouth, the smile made even more distorted by the red lipstick smears on its face. Hissing, split tongue-surgery? accident? god's design alternative? tickled her nostrils, then licked her jawline. Caffeine breath choked her.

"Bitch. You'll see. You and your precious. Think you'll turn into a princess, all turn out happy ever after? You think it's all good, that you'll get your big, fat, just rewards? Oh you'll get rewarded, bitch. Fool. You'll get what you deserve all right, you will.

"You'll end up like me." It let go of her hands and disappeared into the foliage. "You'll see, bitch. You'll see..." echoed after the clown troll.