Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Friday, November 30, 2007
....aaaand SCENE!
Welcome to the end of NaBloPoMo.
I was driving home today, and was fixated on getting to Trader Joes and buying a eucalyptus wreath. I thought it would be a modern update to the season, and I love the way it smells.
I didn't end up buying it, because it was dried, like you'd find in a flower store, and the berries were glued on it, with sloppy glue-gun work and all.
There were regular wreaths there, too, but I despise regular wreaths.
And the reason is this:
My freshman year in college, I went home for the winter break (from California to Ohio). I was expected to get a winter job, and did. I worked at a wreath-making operation, I don't remember where. We stood outside in these huge plastic warehouse tents, and although it warmed up, it was never really warm. Ohio is bitterly cold in the winter. We could not wear gloves, because it impeded our dexterity. The base of the wreaths is a double layer of green wire, stretched into a circle. You take the evergreen branches, which were pre-cut, mostly, but still needed to be de-twigged into the proper "lie" on the metal frame. You would place an evergreen strand on the metal wire, and take thin green wire from these giant spools to secure it. You would do probably 30 times per wreath, and we made about 30 wreaths a day. It was agony. By the end of the day your hands were cracked, tacky with pine and bleeding. The smell of pine is very antiseptic after a while, and the whole thing is pretty miserable. I worked there for a week, and then quit in search of more comfortable pastures. One thing that was illuminating for me was that I actually worked with a girl that I had gone to junior high with. She'd married badly, right out of high school and they had a daughter. Every day her husband would shuffle up their cute kid and pick Angie up. What was illuminating to me was that I was home for about a month on my Christmas break, and this was Angie's life. Not making wreaths, of course, but small-time seasonal jobs to make ends meet. And this was a story for me, something to blog when it crossed my mind, 11 years later.
I moved from the wreath place to Ken's Nursery & Crafts. (help me out here, CLP, am I right on the name?) It was still (of course) Christmas time, but this time I was sent to help the plant arrangement people. Now, in Ken's Flower Shop, there was a clear ranking of placement in the store. You had different departments. There was sales, and they had their manager, floral arranging, with their own, dominatrix bitch of a manager, and the plant section, the lowest on the totem pole. The manager of the plant section was a guy named Gary, who was in his early 50's and lived alone, except for his African Grey Parrot. He adored the parrot, and had suffered from colon cancer, and had had many surgeries. We connected instantly, oddly enough, this young girl in college with a pierced nose and Gary, who'd been at Ken's for 10 years. I had a blast in this department. We were a motley crew of losers, and we'd laugh and talk and turn out planter arrangements up a storm. The poinsettias came in and I was given the task of making poinsettia arrangements in the store. While I loved making the displays, and got creative and stacked and tiered and made glorious huge displays, I began to despise poinsettias. They are fragile, fragile plants, and a careless twitch of your hand can decimate an entire stalk. They also need to be watered - nearly daily. They were a complete pain in my ass, which is probably why the new girl got out of the work area and into the shop.
To this day I think of Gary when I see a poinsettia. We wrote letters for almost a year after I went back to school. He was my friend. He was a good guy and I think we both brought some warmth and cheer that season, to each other.
But I still hate poinsettias. I would never have them in any house of mine.
(plus they are poisonous to cats!)
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Mixed Salad Bar, Corn Velvet, Pasta with Pesto, Chicken, Broccoli, Olives
No one cares what I had for lunch.
In anticipation of NaBloPoMo, I bought Maggie Mason’s book, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. You could say that I have some fears of running headlong into the wall of writer’s block, and you’d be right.
But I made a commitment, and I will honor it.
I am so intent upon honoring it, in fact, that I am typing this blog entry on a Southwest flight from Nashville to Seattle, after a three day business trip.
Also, in honor of the book, from whence my ideas are sprung, I will heretofore be titling any posts taken from the cues of the book by stating what I had for lunch that day.
Cue 42: Make Your Timeline
Age Unknown(a): sitting in a high chair, eating a huge slice of sugared tomato as sunlight filters in and makes everything glowy.
-Note: My mother hotly disputes this memory, as a raw tomato is to her as haggis is to me. My father thinks my grandfather, his dad, who died when I was 8, had given me this treat as it was his favorite.
Age Unknown (b): shoving across the parquet-tiled entryway of the house on Lindshire Lane, on a small push seat with wheels that was painted like a lady bug.
Age 5: Early morning, my mother is pulling up a dark-blue velour short and tank set with red piping up my body as I stand in the living room. It isn’t even light out, my cousins are there and we are going to an amusement park for the day. I remember the day being fun, but mostly I remember that my mother dressed me in the living room this day, in front of my family. It doesn’t bother me.
Age 13: My birthday party. I’m wearing neon dangly earrings and I’m now officially a teen. I’m heavy at this time in my life, and I get a jean jacket and a boombox. My family is all around me and I’m miserable and self-conscious, but I adore the acid-washed jean jacket.
Age 14: I enter high school after a particularly troubling junior-high experience. I’m determined to be popular this time, after being the laughingstock of my previous school. I decide that I can be popular just by acting as if I am. I have permed hair, am still heavy and wear glasses. Things do not work out the way I planned. I am thrust again into dorkdom, where I will languish until junior year. I get out of dorkdom by getting fairly smart and making good grades and becoming heavily entrenched in the yearbook department, editor my senior year, as well as the theatre department. And before you scoff, I wasn’t popular because of Theatre – that is a negative on the scale of cool at my high school, but by bolstering my confidence. Something I love to do, I do actually quite well. Lead roles sophomore through senior year.
Age 18: I leave my hometown to attend college at UC Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz, CA. Within two weeks of being dropped off by my parents, I call home and tell them I will never again live in Ohio. I mostly keep this promise. I get into a group of really great people, dorm neighbors and classmates, and I happily am accepted and have a vibrant social life for the first time in my life. I again join the theatre group and receive a lead role my first audition, which everyone tells me is unheard of in the school.
Age 20: I begin a bad habit that I will keep for 6 years, on and off. I lose the companionship of my close friends, who can’t bear what I am doing, but gain something that will carry me through so many more years…..I start writing prolifically and will continue this for close to ten years. I am still in theatre, but less involved, and not working hard enough, being surpassed by other people for roles.
Age 21: I drop out of college because my bad habit is more important. I work low paying jobs and write so much that I fill close to 10 notebooks with poems. I begin performing spoken word around the city of Santa Cruz, and am met with some unqualified success in the arena.
Age 23: I am back in school, off the habit mostly, and am accepted into the Education Abroad Program at UCSC. I enroll for my senior year of college at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. I have completed every course required for my graduation, which leads to much beer drinking and traveling, although I do attend most classes and take a Russian Literature course with a professor who makes the books come alive like they have always done in my heart. I love the course, sit rapt every lecture and discuss at length some truly astounding literature. I also sleep with a college professor (different class, though just as interesting), which makes me feel like I’m very grown-up, but actually reflects that he is pretty immature. Albeit fascinating, and a published author. I break it off and go back to my college boys.
Age 24-25: I am back from England, living at home in Ohio. I work as a data-entry clerk for an insurance company, entering claims daily until I am promoted (through family connections) to a member eligibility clerk, where I enter family information. I drink heavily, am absolutely miserable, and one day announce that in 5 months’ time, I’m packing up all my belongings and moving to Los Angeles to become an actress. In 5 months’ time, with $5,000, I load up my belongings and drive to Los Angeles. Along the way I stop to see a dear friend in Austin, TX, whose very talented sister takes beautiful headshots of me, and then on to Vegas, where I sit down at a blackjack table and meet a man from Boston. I continue to Los Angeles, now dating the Boston guy.
Age 26: The Boston guy and I live in San Diego, and we’re engaged. I answer a random administrative assistant classified and get called into a cool company. I get the job.
I marry the Boston guy amid serious reservations, and the marriage is rocky and unfulfilling.
Age 27: The Boston guy and I move to Los Angeles, where I intend to be an actress. I stay at the same job – moving to their LA area office. I work for different people now, I get involved in an aspect of the company that ignites my interest. I never go on a single audition, I commute 2 hours and 30 minutes a day (combined) and work my ass off at this new job.
Age 29: My marriage is ending. I accept a job transfer to Seattle, WA, unhesitatingly. This drives the final nail through my marriage. I’m relieved and delighted to have a chance to start over. I move to Seattle.
Age 30: Living on my own for the first time in my life, I am set up with the Pope by mutual friends. Love at first sight. I wake up the morning after having met him and open my mailbox to find my divorce is official. We have a tempestuous relationship, we’re off more than we’re on, but we’re deeply connected and always get back together. I buy my first home, a condo.
Age 32: The Pope and I have bought a house, we live together with our three cats.
Age 33: The favorite cat has walked away from us, shortly before I find out we’re being transferred to Edinburgh, Scotland. We are now a house of four, but a loving little stray is on her way in.
In anticipation of NaBloPoMo, I bought Maggie Mason’s book, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. You could say that I have some fears of running headlong into the wall of writer’s block, and you’d be right.
But I made a commitment, and I will honor it.
I am so intent upon honoring it, in fact, that I am typing this blog entry on a Southwest flight from Nashville to Seattle, after a three day business trip.
Also, in honor of the book, from whence my ideas are sprung, I will heretofore be titling any posts taken from the cues of the book by stating what I had for lunch that day.
Cue 42: Make Your Timeline
Age Unknown(a): sitting in a high chair, eating a huge slice of sugared tomato as sunlight filters in and makes everything glowy.
-Note: My mother hotly disputes this memory, as a raw tomato is to her as haggis is to me. My father thinks my grandfather, his dad, who died when I was 8, had given me this treat as it was his favorite.
Age Unknown (b): shoving across the parquet-tiled entryway of the house on Lindshire Lane, on a small push seat with wheels that was painted like a lady bug.
Age 5: Early morning, my mother is pulling up a dark-blue velour short and tank set with red piping up my body as I stand in the living room. It isn’t even light out, my cousins are there and we are going to an amusement park for the day. I remember the day being fun, but mostly I remember that my mother dressed me in the living room this day, in front of my family. It doesn’t bother me.
Age 13: My birthday party. I’m wearing neon dangly earrings and I’m now officially a teen. I’m heavy at this time in my life, and I get a jean jacket and a boombox. My family is all around me and I’m miserable and self-conscious, but I adore the acid-washed jean jacket.
Age 14: I enter high school after a particularly troubling junior-high experience. I’m determined to be popular this time, after being the laughingstock of my previous school. I decide that I can be popular just by acting as if I am. I have permed hair, am still heavy and wear glasses. Things do not work out the way I planned. I am thrust again into dorkdom, where I will languish until junior year. I get out of dorkdom by getting fairly smart and making good grades and becoming heavily entrenched in the yearbook department, editor my senior year, as well as the theatre department. And before you scoff, I wasn’t popular because of Theatre – that is a negative on the scale of cool at my high school, but by bolstering my confidence. Something I love to do, I do actually quite well. Lead roles sophomore through senior year.
Age 18: I leave my hometown to attend college at UC Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz, CA. Within two weeks of being dropped off by my parents, I call home and tell them I will never again live in Ohio. I mostly keep this promise. I get into a group of really great people, dorm neighbors and classmates, and I happily am accepted and have a vibrant social life for the first time in my life. I again join the theatre group and receive a lead role my first audition, which everyone tells me is unheard of in the school.
Age 20: I begin a bad habit that I will keep for 6 years, on and off. I lose the companionship of my close friends, who can’t bear what I am doing, but gain something that will carry me through so many more years…..I start writing prolifically and will continue this for close to ten years. I am still in theatre, but less involved, and not working hard enough, being surpassed by other people for roles.
Age 21: I drop out of college because my bad habit is more important. I work low paying jobs and write so much that I fill close to 10 notebooks with poems. I begin performing spoken word around the city of Santa Cruz, and am met with some unqualified success in the arena.
Age 23: I am back in school, off the habit mostly, and am accepted into the Education Abroad Program at UCSC. I enroll for my senior year of college at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. I have completed every course required for my graduation, which leads to much beer drinking and traveling, although I do attend most classes and take a Russian Literature course with a professor who makes the books come alive like they have always done in my heart. I love the course, sit rapt every lecture and discuss at length some truly astounding literature. I also sleep with a college professor (different class, though just as interesting), which makes me feel like I’m very grown-up, but actually reflects that he is pretty immature. Albeit fascinating, and a published author. I break it off and go back to my college boys.
Age 24-25: I am back from England, living at home in Ohio. I work as a data-entry clerk for an insurance company, entering claims daily until I am promoted (through family connections) to a member eligibility clerk, where I enter family information. I drink heavily, am absolutely miserable, and one day announce that in 5 months’ time, I’m packing up all my belongings and moving to Los Angeles to become an actress. In 5 months’ time, with $5,000, I load up my belongings and drive to Los Angeles. Along the way I stop to see a dear friend in Austin, TX, whose very talented sister takes beautiful headshots of me, and then on to Vegas, where I sit down at a blackjack table and meet a man from Boston. I continue to Los Angeles, now dating the Boston guy.
Age 26: The Boston guy and I live in San Diego, and we’re engaged. I answer a random administrative assistant classified and get called into a cool company. I get the job.
I marry the Boston guy amid serious reservations, and the marriage is rocky and unfulfilling.
Age 27: The Boston guy and I move to Los Angeles, where I intend to be an actress. I stay at the same job – moving to their LA area office. I work for different people now, I get involved in an aspect of the company that ignites my interest. I never go on a single audition, I commute 2 hours and 30 minutes a day (combined) and work my ass off at this new job.
Age 29: My marriage is ending. I accept a job transfer to Seattle, WA, unhesitatingly. This drives the final nail through my marriage. I’m relieved and delighted to have a chance to start over. I move to Seattle.
Age 30: Living on my own for the first time in my life, I am set up with the Pope by mutual friends. Love at first sight. I wake up the morning after having met him and open my mailbox to find my divorce is official. We have a tempestuous relationship, we’re off more than we’re on, but we’re deeply connected and always get back together. I buy my first home, a condo.
Age 32: The Pope and I have bought a house, we live together with our three cats.
Age 33: The favorite cat has walked away from us, shortly before I find out we’re being transferred to Edinburgh, Scotland. We are now a house of four, but a loving little stray is on her way in.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Concrete Blonde
But aren't they all?
I have, through the mastery that is iTunes, discovered yet again that the songs JOEY and TOMORROW, WENDY should be on everyone's top 10 list.
I've been playing them like I played them when I was a teenager, which is to say how I play everything that strikes one of my personal chords.
Overandoverandoverandoverandoverandover.
I sang these two songs my entire 25 minute drive into work this morning. By the time I got to my office I could barely speak. It felt great.
Yesterday when I got to my exit off the freeway, I looked up, because I saw hundreds of birds flying. There were HUNDREDS of black birds flying from a line of trees west towards the 5 freeway.
It reminded me of this one time in Ohio when I was so desperate, I was so lost, and I would drive home these lonely country roads, home to a house I wasn't comfortable in (my parents') driving home from a job I despised (entering medical claims for an insurance broker) and I saw these birds that would fly in circles and circles and circles over the cornfields. They were crows, so it was murderous.
And I wanted away so badly.
I wanted away so badly that I was crazy with it.
One time, after a particularly "not anything in particular" day, I saw the birds and had to pull over. I was about 5 minutes from my parents' house, but I couldn't go on.
I pulled over onto the dirt shoulder of a country road, next to a pig farm that stank, and I cried until my heart broke, put itself back together, broke again, and then healed.
About three months later, I packed up everything that I couldn't live without, it fit comfortably into a Ford Escort, and I drove West.
I have never lived there again.
I have, through the mastery that is iTunes, discovered yet again that the songs JOEY and TOMORROW, WENDY should be on everyone's top 10 list.
I've been playing them like I played them when I was a teenager, which is to say how I play everything that strikes one of my personal chords.
Overandoverandoverandoverandoverandover.
I sang these two songs my entire 25 minute drive into work this morning. By the time I got to my office I could barely speak. It felt great.
Yesterday when I got to my exit off the freeway, I looked up, because I saw hundreds of birds flying. There were HUNDREDS of black birds flying from a line of trees west towards the 5 freeway.
It reminded me of this one time in Ohio when I was so desperate, I was so lost, and I would drive home these lonely country roads, home to a house I wasn't comfortable in (my parents') driving home from a job I despised (entering medical claims for an insurance broker) and I saw these birds that would fly in circles and circles and circles over the cornfields. They were crows, so it was murderous.
And I wanted away so badly.
I wanted away so badly that I was crazy with it.
One time, after a particularly "not anything in particular" day, I saw the birds and had to pull over. I was about 5 minutes from my parents' house, but I couldn't go on.
I pulled over onto the dirt shoulder of a country road, next to a pig farm that stank, and I cried until my heart broke, put itself back together, broke again, and then healed.
About three months later, I packed up everything that I couldn't live without, it fit comfortably into a Ford Escort, and I drove West.
I have never lived there again.
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