A Pox on All Your Offices

A co-worker has been reading my primary blog. I thought a bit about just posting over here, but I really don't want my lives to overlap that much.

If you are interested in reading my real blog, drop me a line: pillars_of_color@yahoo.com. My real blog is private, but I'll let you see.

speaking of unreasonable hatreds

My daughter is fourteen. And, she is in love. She is in love with a great boy who is totally in love with her. Probably, they are both too young to feel that way, but they do. Love is love.

She's far too young to date, and neither of them are allowed. However, they are allowed to spend short periods of time together with plenty of adult supervision. By me, at least. When they are together, it's beautiful to watch. I actually think they are good for each other. They are kind and supportive of each other. My daughter's confidence has really grown because of their relationship.

I never thought I'd approve of my 14 year old daughter liking a guy, but actually, I'm okay with it, because of the kind of guy he is.

However, this weekend, she decided that she is ready to give up on him.

His parents are Mormon, and they do not approve. They do not approve of my amazing, cool, wonderful, smart daughter. Why? Because she isn't Mormon. They don't want him to talk to her. They don't want him to like her. They won't allow him to come to any activity or party where she will be present. Their disapproval is like a wound for her, a wound that never heals, and always hurts.

So, after this week, she is letting go. They will be apart for the summer, and she's going to use that to let go of him, to move on. She can't live with being the girl that his parents hate.

She hates me. She really, really hates me.

I sure hope no one in my real life (besides Gypsy) is reading this.

There is a woman in my life right now who really hates me. I've been disliked before. I will confess, I'm like a big goofy puppy, full of energy and silliness and I know I can definitely get on peoples' nerves. But, I've only rarely been hated. I'm not the kind of person who usually inspires hatred. People usually love me, or they barely tolerate me.

But this woman, I'm the fingernails on her chalkboard.

So, she has nothing good to say to me, and in fact I think goes so far as to find ways to make my life a living hell. I don't know why she hates me, and perhaps it doesn't even matter. All that matters is that she does.

And, she's in a position to make my life unbearable. I'd fight her, in fact, she's almost pushed me to that point, but I'm not really sure how.

Mostly, I just would be happy if she would leave me the fuck alone, and I could just stay out of her way. But, apparently that isn't possible. So, instead, I have to figure out how to handle it. And so far, nothing I have done has worked.

I've worked really hard this year to rid my life of toxic people. People who have been controlling, co-dependent, passive-aggressive, or just downright mean. But, I have no way to get rid of her short of quitting my job. And, I love my job, and for the most part, I'm good at it. It's a job in a field I've spent my entire career working in, a field I love beyond all description, a field with a limited range of opportunities and places to work. And, I work for a really great company full of really great people. And somehow, one person has managed to make it unbearable.

I'm so fucked.

Pork and Beans

And, the song for today is...



I don't give a hoot about what you think. I don't care.

So, yeah, long story, but it fits, totally.

Random thoughts for today:

1. I need to go dancing. As King Harvest says,

We like our fun and we never fight
You can't dance and stay uptight
It's a supernatural delight

So, sometimes, when a week just sucks ass in ways I can't even articulate lest I lose gainful employment, there ain't a damn thing I can do to keep my sanity but dance. And, thank god I have the world's nicest and most accomodating boyfriend.

2. Men should not smell like cologne, or hair products, or any other goddamn thing but soap, laundry detergent, and deodorant. So let it be written, so let it be done.

3. Boyfriend has never looked sexier than when he rescued me on Tuesday night for my daughter's 8th grade graduation. There I was, stranded in a busy intersection with a dead battery. I called, and he came. And, not only did he fix my car, but he handed me the keys to his car and told me to drive it home. Then, he drove my car home to make sure it was going to run okay for me. I think he may be why the phrase "keeper" was coined.

4. He ate dinner with us last night. I sometimes wonder what an outsider must think of my crazy family where we quote song lyrics and talk about puke at the dinner table, and where we sometimes end up laughing so hard that there are food accidents.

that's the stuff that makes me hope he thinks that I am a keeper. Really, that we are.

Cake, and more cake

Last night, my daughter and I baked a cake. A lemon pound cake, to be specific. I always wondered why a pound cake was called a pound cake. Come to find out, the name came from the POUND OF BUTTER that you put in your pound cake. We whipped the butter until it was light and fluffy, creamed in the sugar, added the eggs, mixed the dry ingredients, and gradually incorporated everything together, including the fresh lemon juice. The cake came out perfect from the bundt pan, and was fluffy and delicious (I made a smaller version with the leftover batter just to be sure).

Then, we packed it up, and I brought it to work this morning for Sam and his family. Sam's father-in-law died last weekend from lung cancer that had infiltrated his entire body: his bones, his lymph glands, and his brain.

While we were at the store shopping for ingredients, my daughter, who is 14 and already the possessor of all the wisdom in the world, kept querying me about why was so important to bake that cake. "Mom, it's not like they NEED a cake," she kept saying, "Couldn't you do something else?" The clerk, after listening to this question about 15 times in as many minutes, finally responded: "No, taking in food is the best thing you can do when someone passes on."

In my small town, the only proper response to a death or serious illness in a family was to take in food. I grew up watching my mom fix meal after meal for families in our neighborhood that were suffering some kind of loss. In that situation, a cake isn't just a cake, it is a sign of love, affection, and caring. It's a piece of your heart on a plate. That cake says, "I'm thinking about you and your family, and I want you to know that we all care about your suffering." When I went through a miscarriage in 1992, people brought in food. When I was on enforced bedrest during my pregnancy with my son, again, people brought in meals for my family for weeks. Those meals brought with them such a feeling of solidarity. I remember each and every person who provided for me and my family during those times. Those were the people you knew you could count on through thick or thin. And, who similarly, could count on me.

I know that taking in food isn't done much anymore in our modern world. It seems like I am probably the last one in my neighborhood who still does it. And, there are very few people in my office that I'd bake a cake for. But, Sam is one of them, because he is part of my self-created community. And, this cake-baking is one tradition that I think should be kept alive. We need people in our lives, people who will bake us a cake or fix us a meal when we're in the rough parts of life. We need people who will mow our lawns or help us jump start our car in the morning before work. We need to live in neighborhoods where we know each other's names and where we can recognize each other's children.

And, if we want those things to happen, sometimes, we have to be the ones to start the chain of kindness.

It's hard to put that feeling into terms that a modern-day girl can understand, but I have a feeling that in another ten years, she'll be the girl baking cakes. I hope that by watching me, that tradition will be transmitted on to her, just like watching my mom bake the same cakes 30 years ago stuck with me.

Mini Me

We were seated at the theater, waiting for Prince Caspian to begin. All around us, loud and fluffy-headed teenagers from the local Abercrombie Posse. Beside us, a mother and daughter with more money than sense. The daughter reserved a seat between them and us specifically for her pink leather Coach purse, and remarked loudly how upset she would be if soda were spilled on it. After all, "It COST $300 DOLLARS," she loudly proclaimed.

My daughter, ever alert to irony, caught my eye and we shared a look of total understanding. Why on earth would anyone buy such an over-priced and ugly piece of luggage? And, if you were going to spend that kind of money, why pink?

Then she leaned in and whispered:

"Mom...we're surrounded by idiots."

The summer of 1983

Of course, it was hot and muggy like every summer in Missouri. I was working at my first job (Kmart) with girls from an entirely different social circle. Before that summer, I was a fundamentalist Christian goody-two-shoes who read the Bible every night before bed and told strangers about Jesus.

Oh, I'd made out with a few "nice Christian boys" in sweaty cars at the drive-in movies, and gone home with my white cotton bra and panties disarranged and moist. But, I'd never tasted a drop of alcohol, and I'd never stayed out past curfew. And, of course, though I'd laid hands on a couple of penises and dry-humped my boyfriend into misery, I was saving my virginity for my future husband.

During the summer of 1983, I broke curfew three times with friends from my new job, and got drunk once. This was wild rebellion for a girl like me. One night, I went out with girlfriends, and after a few wine coolers, I let two boys I'd never met borrow the keys to my car while my friends and I rode in a different car. That evening ended at 3 a.m. with my dad driving to meet me at a girlfriend's house, after which I followed him home, and then endured a silent stormy weekend with the folks.

Summer, 1983 was when the thin veneer of goody good girl broke, revealing what was about to follow when I headed off to college. My parents were ready to throw up their hands in despair, I'd always been such a biddable and accomodating kid, and suddenly, I was "acting like a hellion." Finally, they made me quit my job and I was grounded for most of August.

I have a snapshot in my memory of driving home from my last curfew-breaking: half-drunk, screaming Photograph at the top of my lungs while the dark wind blew in through the open car windows at 2 a.m., knowing I was in for a hellalot of pain and trouble when I got home.

The summer's soundtrack was Def Leppard's Pyromania, the first rock album I ever owned. Standing in line to buy it at Kmart with my employee discount, I trembled with adrenaline and fear. Every previous summer, I'd listened while an evangelist played rock albums backwards at church camp so we could hear the very voice of Satan encoded into the vinyl.

These days, every time I listen to Pyromania, I'm 16 again, getting ready to head off to my senior year of high school, and freedom is just around the corner. And yeah, I'm a little bit of a bad girl.