Came across a forgotten notebook today. Inside, in addition to a day's accounting of what I'd eaten, from Nov. 2, 2013 through Nov. 8 ~I'd enjoyed a pumpkin spice latte at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 4 ~ I also discovered a hastily scrawled title several pages later: "My Bucket List," dated March 25, 2013. My mother had died one year prior. Is that why I'd chosen that particular date? Did I need yet one more reminder to actually live my life instead of Dr. Phil-ing my way through each day?
Here's the list, with what I have accomplished since then asterisked:
- Ride in a racecar
- Shoot a gun
- Fly in a small plane (ideally over the Plaza at Christmas)
- Take a motorcycle ride
- Snow ski
- Ride a horse
- Drive to CMSU at five in the morning (CMSU, now called UCM, was the college where I'd met my husband; located in Warrensburg, Missouri, it is a 90-minute drive ~)
- Ride in a police car (not as a criminal)
- Tour the White House
- Milk a cow *
- Do Open Mic night at a comedy club
- Go to NYC at Christmas
- Learn to speak Spanish
- Go to England
- Learn to swim
- Learn to play piano
- Own a piano
- Go tanning (I've never been to a tanning salon)
- Vacation in Colorado
- Return to MacDowell
- Publish a book
- Try on an evening dress
- By an evening dress
- Attend a night at the opera
Hmm. Milk a cow. The only Bucket List goal I've met ... involved squeezing (surprisingly) rough, dry teats and getting milk to spray forth. I had taken two of the children I nanny to a local dairy farm. Each of us milked a cow that was the size of a compact car. While the 8-year-old girl screamed her way through the experience, I showed a weird and unexpected expertise. If I remember correctly, it was a proud sort of small victory.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014
All the Feelings
Just saw Saving Mr. Banks with the husband. Neither of us could leave the theater until we composed ourselves. Especially me. Not knowing the film was going to incite tears, I had no Kleenex with me. So ill-prepared was I. Instead, like a child with a runny nose, I resorted to drying my eyes on the voluminous cowl neck of my sweater.
Too many connections, I had/have with this movie. Like the author, P.L. Travers, of Mary Poppins, on which this movie is based, I had an alcoholic father whom I adored. I watched my father spit up blood; I saw his eyes, fixed and dilated, as he lay on his deathbed. I was forty-two when I watched my dad die. It was traumatic. Travers, whose real name was Helen Lyndon Goff, was only seven when her beloved father passed. And her mother, like mine, was emotionally troubled. I frequently daydreamed of having a different mother, one that was more loving and tender and stable, and I would probably have taken to a nanny who possessed those qualities. My mom didn't work outside of the home, really, save for a few temporary jobs, and we certainly weren't the wealthy sort who employed nannies or any kind of household help.
In life, I had a dad like Travers's, the Mr. Banks in the children's book. My dad, Duncan McDowell, was a delight, the sort who sang and danced and changed lyrics to popular songs with nonsensical lines ("They, asked me if I knew, raccoon poop was blue ... " ~ a dining room tribute to the Platters' song, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.") My father was my very dear friend. I felt like my arm had been cut off when he died. I wrote nothing for a full year, read very little, slept fitfully. Nothing, really, mattered to me, my grief was so broad. Clearly, I identify with the quite functional dysfunctional father-daughter relationship portrayed in Hollywood's dramatized movie, Saving Mr. Banks. I lived it, from the years 1965 until 1977, the summer I turned twelve, the summer Elvis died and my father quit drinking. Many times, I'd been a little girl praying that my daddy would lay off the sauce, as he called it; or, at the very least, he would only get a little buzzed, instead of pass-out drunk. Dad was still nice when he drank a six-pack. It was when the orange vodka came out that our carpet turned to eggshells.
Currently, I am a nanny, so there is that link. I sing and dance with the children in my care; I nurture them daily; I prepare their meals; I discipline tenderly; I love the children and they love me in return. The recognition that I am Mary Poppins to four children overwhelms me with happiness and gratitude. I know that I am making a difference in their lives. That is no small awareness. It is an enormous truth that carries immense responsibility.
Travers infused Mary Poppins with love because it was autobiography disguised as fiction. The pain of her love for her father, Travers Goff, is transparent on every page. She wanted the Mr. Banks of her book, an idealized version of her father, to impress and enthrall all. She wanted redemption and restoration of his character. She wanted an erasure of the alcoholism and his untimely death. (He was in his early 40s when he died from influenza, a truth that is not divulged in the cinematic version.)
It is why, the very same reason, that I am writing Bologna With the Red String: A Culinary Tribute to a Blue-Collar Upbringing in a Barbecue Town. The food memoir is a love story ~ a tribute ~ to my parents, much more than it is a cookbook. It does not exist to make fun of my blue-collar background, even though there is humor employed in the telling. We might have been poor at times, but we were never stupid; our income insufficiencies weren't from lack of responsibility. There was a recession and people quit buying cars. My auto-worker dad rolled newspapers to keep food on the family table when the General Motors plant shut down.
My story seeks only to honor my mom and dad, both of whom did the best they could, and then some.
Too many connections, I had/have with this movie. Like the author, P.L. Travers, of Mary Poppins, on which this movie is based, I had an alcoholic father whom I adored. I watched my father spit up blood; I saw his eyes, fixed and dilated, as he lay on his deathbed. I was forty-two when I watched my dad die. It was traumatic. Travers, whose real name was Helen Lyndon Goff, was only seven when her beloved father passed. And her mother, like mine, was emotionally troubled. I frequently daydreamed of having a different mother, one that was more loving and tender and stable, and I would probably have taken to a nanny who possessed those qualities. My mom didn't work outside of the home, really, save for a few temporary jobs, and we certainly weren't the wealthy sort who employed nannies or any kind of household help.
In life, I had a dad like Travers's, the Mr. Banks in the children's book. My dad, Duncan McDowell, was a delight, the sort who sang and danced and changed lyrics to popular songs with nonsensical lines ("They, asked me if I knew, raccoon poop was blue ... " ~ a dining room tribute to the Platters' song, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.") My father was my very dear friend. I felt like my arm had been cut off when he died. I wrote nothing for a full year, read very little, slept fitfully. Nothing, really, mattered to me, my grief was so broad. Clearly, I identify with the quite functional dysfunctional father-daughter relationship portrayed in Hollywood's dramatized movie, Saving Mr. Banks. I lived it, from the years 1965 until 1977, the summer I turned twelve, the summer Elvis died and my father quit drinking. Many times, I'd been a little girl praying that my daddy would lay off the sauce, as he called it; or, at the very least, he would only get a little buzzed, instead of pass-out drunk. Dad was still nice when he drank a six-pack. It was when the orange vodka came out that our carpet turned to eggshells.
Currently, I am a nanny, so there is that link. I sing and dance with the children in my care; I nurture them daily; I prepare their meals; I discipline tenderly; I love the children and they love me in return. The recognition that I am Mary Poppins to four children overwhelms me with happiness and gratitude. I know that I am making a difference in their lives. That is no small awareness. It is an enormous truth that carries immense responsibility.
Travers infused Mary Poppins with love because it was autobiography disguised as fiction. The pain of her love for her father, Travers Goff, is transparent on every page. She wanted the Mr. Banks of her book, an idealized version of her father, to impress and enthrall all. She wanted redemption and restoration of his character. She wanted an erasure of the alcoholism and his untimely death. (He was in his early 40s when he died from influenza, a truth that is not divulged in the cinematic version.)
It is why, the very same reason, that I am writing Bologna With the Red String: A Culinary Tribute to a Blue-Collar Upbringing in a Barbecue Town. The food memoir is a love story ~ a tribute ~ to my parents, much more than it is a cookbook. It does not exist to make fun of my blue-collar background, even though there is humor employed in the telling. We might have been poor at times, but we were never stupid; our income insufficiencies weren't from lack of responsibility. There was a recession and people quit buying cars. My auto-worker dad rolled newspapers to keep food on the family table when the General Motors plant shut down.
My story seeks only to honor my mom and dad, both of whom did the best they could, and then some.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Trying again
Well, hello, 2014. I've been waiting for you.
I do have some resolutions, the kind that I will probably break, but I'm one of those eternal optimists and so I trudge forward, feeling only kind of certain that what I'm about to write might actually happen.
1) Lose twenty-five pounds. (Duh.)
2) Quit cursing (emphasis on burying the F-word).
3) Get organized.
a) Clean out the linen closet
b) Clean out the top middle drawer of my dresser
c) Scrapbook photos as soon as I get them
d) Keep the Taurus clean so HAS doesn't freak out when he drives it
e) Donate all clothing that I haven't worn in a year
4) Pay bills on time.
5) ^Earn more money.
6) Follow that weekly savings plan I saw on Pinterest. (Week 1: deposit $1; Week 2, deposit $2 ...)
7) Plan a trip to Greenwich, Connecticut, to see the house where The Family Stone was filmed.
(Book a bed and breakfast there in town!)
8) Go to church 52 times.
*Try different denominations, in and around the Kansas City area
9) Blog about my church-journey?
10) Blog at least fifteen times every month.
11) FINISH BOLOGNA WITH THE RED STRING AND GET IT PUBLISHED.
12) Get at least three short stories published this year.
I do have some resolutions, the kind that I will probably break, but I'm one of those eternal optimists and so I trudge forward, feeling only kind of certain that what I'm about to write might actually happen.
1) Lose twenty-five pounds. (Duh.)
2) Quit cursing (emphasis on burying the F-word).
3) Get organized.
a) Clean out the linen closet
b) Clean out the top middle drawer of my dresser
c) Scrapbook photos as soon as I get them
d) Keep the Taurus clean so HAS doesn't freak out when he drives it
e) Donate all clothing that I haven't worn in a year
4) Pay bills on time.
5) ^Earn more money.
6) Follow that weekly savings plan I saw on Pinterest. (Week 1: deposit $1; Week 2, deposit $2 ...)
7) Plan a trip to Greenwich, Connecticut, to see the house where The Family Stone was filmed.
(Book a bed and breakfast there in town!)
8) Go to church 52 times.
*Try different denominations, in and around the Kansas City area
9) Blog about my church-journey?
10) Blog at least fifteen times every month.
11) FINISH BOLOGNA WITH THE RED STRING AND GET IT PUBLISHED.
12) Get at least three short stories published this year.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Shedding Skin
I hung wallpaper for a short time,
around 1985. I sucked at measuring and cutting. My boss complained
that I was weak and needed too much direction. (He was not wrong.)
Next: I entered tax forms for the
Internal Revenue Service. Was a whiz at the 10-key, but pregnancy
nausea put the kabosh on that desk job. Keystrokes were counted; I
spent a vast amount of time hovering over a toilet in a dimly lit
government-issued bathroom stall. (I wasn't fired. I quit.)
Twenty-two years later, after three children, a Bachelor of Arts degree to teach secondary English (I preferred high school then), a community newspaper gig (I was assigned the education beat) , and a
newly elected seat on the local school board (I wanted to serve my community), I scooped ice cream at
a mom and pop business as a stop gap between reporting and returning
to the classroom. Turns out that a person cannot write education news and serve on the school board at the same time. Something about a conflict of interest. (Also, and this is important, because I am proud: I created a chicken salad concoction that
became a kind of legend on the Square in downtown Liberty while working at the quaint, brick-walled ice cream shop.)
Reporting and teaching: the bulk of my
career. Two decadess. During those years, I was also raising kids,
laundering thousands of socks, grocery shopping twice weekly and
preparing meals twice daily. My husband traveled six months out of
the year. He ate meals out and slept in nice hotel beds. I was left
at home, trying to get myself and three children under the age of six
up and out the door by 6:45 a.m. Needless to say, I was tired and
bitch-cranky. My PMS was severe; at one point I (seriously) thought
about running away from home (and work responsibilities), maybe head
to New England. Chop off my hair and peroxide-dye it. Pierce my navel
~ hell, FIND my navel. Get into shape. Get a tattoo. Create a new
identity that had nothing to do with motherhood or teaching or asking
complete strangers prying questions.
For two decades, I was passionate and
pissy about those two jobs. (There were some good days.) Now, I tell
myself those feelings were valid, and not emotional fabrications to
ease the psychic pain of withdrawal from the newsroom and the
classroom. It's what I did. Was good at. Defined by. Paid for.
Look. At heart, I am an introvert, and
as such, I am a person who not only adores solitude and quiet but
needs it. As you can imagine, it was tough for me to go out into the
world (read: my community) with a smile and a notebook and interview
superintendents and lottery winners and city councilmen. I always
felt artificially poised and posed, there in my pumps and business
suit, as I asked questions and wrote furiously to record answers.
Showtime! (Jazz hands.)
Teaching high school was one big show,
too, only six chaotic times a day ~ in profoundly noisy
fifty-five minute increments. The hooligans needed fun assignments
or else they were bored, apathetic, and problematic. With the energy
I expended day-in-day-out, I might've trained to swim from Cuba to
Florida. (Bet Diana Nyad never taught high school English.)
Later, I found middle school and it fit me like a comfortable shoe. At heart, I am fourteen years old. I laugh at fart jokes; I like, truly like, the music of Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez; I purchase for myself fuzzy-fabric covered journals and when the Book Fair rolls around, I always buy bobble-head pens and erasers that look like chunks of cheese. Mostly, I think early teens are pretty dang funny; in fact, I feel most tender toward awkward adolescents. Why? I remember being thirteen, fourteen. I remember feeling out of control and painfully shy and oh-so-ready to grow up, even though it meant leaving the security of my childhood.
And then my mom died and I lost my mind. I left the classroom to devote my life to beating myself up with guilt and trying to work shit out in/through/around/ my writing. I got accepted to the MacDowell Colony and got to write, undisturbed, ten hours a day in a gingerbread-like stone cottage nestled among towering trees in southern New Hampshire. I was productive and loved every single minute of my twenty-four days. I came home energized. I would finish my novel and send it off; I would enter contests and win; I would be published in bona fide literary journals, like Ploughshares and Glimmer Train.
None of the above happened. What happened was home and all the responsibilities that come with it. Furthermore, a lack of discipline and my damned ADD took over and I reverted to pre-MacDowell ways, which meant spending too much time on facebook, too much time watching Modern Family and Dr. Phil, and eating out with friends three times a week. Bad for the waistline; bad for publishing.
Later, I found middle school and it fit me like a comfortable shoe. At heart, I am fourteen years old. I laugh at fart jokes; I like, truly like, the music of Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez; I purchase for myself fuzzy-fabric covered journals and when the Book Fair rolls around, I always buy bobble-head pens and erasers that look like chunks of cheese. Mostly, I think early teens are pretty dang funny; in fact, I feel most tender toward awkward adolescents. Why? I remember being thirteen, fourteen. I remember feeling out of control and painfully shy and oh-so-ready to grow up, even though it meant leaving the security of my childhood.
And then my mom died and I lost my mind. I left the classroom to devote my life to beating myself up with guilt and trying to work shit out in/through/around/ my writing. I got accepted to the MacDowell Colony and got to write, undisturbed, ten hours a day in a gingerbread-like stone cottage nestled among towering trees in southern New Hampshire. I was productive and loved every single minute of my twenty-four days. I came home energized. I would finish my novel and send it off; I would enter contests and win; I would be published in bona fide literary journals, like Ploughshares and Glimmer Train.
None of the above happened. What happened was home and all the responsibilities that come with it. Furthermore, a lack of discipline and my damned ADD took over and I reverted to pre-MacDowell ways, which meant spending too much time on facebook, too much time watching Modern Family and Dr. Phil, and eating out with friends three times a week. Bad for the waistline; bad for publishing.
And now, here I am. Forty-eight years
old. I am not reporting. I am not teaching. Without my income, vacations are a luxury of the past; I do my own nails now. Pedicures? What are those? I do, however, have money in my purse for a Starbucks latte anytime I want one. I am one lucky lady, thanks to a wonderful and supportive
husband who goes to work each day loving what he does. He is the
major bread-bringer-homer. Me? I freelance and pick up some money
here and there. I am a (paid) morning and after-school childcare
provider. (Love my pseudo-grandchildren!). And ~ and this is BIG ~ I
am owner of a kick-ass writing room.
Sometimes, I even go in there and I write.
Sometimes, I even go in there and I write.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
A Prairie Thanksgiving
Tomorrow, there will be fifty of us, seated around rickety card tables and long plastic tables, borrowed from the Altar Society at St. Ann's. As always, the dinner will held in the unfinished basement in the house on Church Road, the one that wasn't there on a Wednesday but was on a Thursday. (The home had been moved fifty-plus miles, to the acreage settled in 1956 by the Stander boys, newly arrived from Germany.)
If it is cold, which it will most likely be, as winter in Nebraska comes early, there will be two enormous kerosene heaters placed on each end of the vast concrete basement. I hate the smell, and I will complain four or five times to my husband, who grew up on this very land, and he will tell me to cut it out, that family is more important.
Of course he is right and I will head upstairs to retrieve a couple Tylenol (the smell of the kerosene gives me a headache) after I've stood out on the deck to get new air. Although I am Missouri-born and proud of my Kansas City heritage, I admit that the air in Nebraska out on the farm is unsullied and pure, cleaner. The wind that seems never to cease annoys me, but the air that comes with it is crisp and delicious, like a refrigerated Granny Smith apple.
There will be traditional Thanksgiving fare, only five kinds of stuffing instead of one, and one deep-fried turkey, one baked. Also, a spiral-cut ham and a huge pork loin. Feeding fifty people means lots of meat.
****
To be continued ~
If it is cold, which it will most likely be, as winter in Nebraska comes early, there will be two enormous kerosene heaters placed on each end of the vast concrete basement. I hate the smell, and I will complain four or five times to my husband, who grew up on this very land, and he will tell me to cut it out, that family is more important.
Of course he is right and I will head upstairs to retrieve a couple Tylenol (the smell of the kerosene gives me a headache) after I've stood out on the deck to get new air. Although I am Missouri-born and proud of my Kansas City heritage, I admit that the air in Nebraska out on the farm is unsullied and pure, cleaner. The wind that seems never to cease annoys me, but the air that comes with it is crisp and delicious, like a refrigerated Granny Smith apple.
There will be traditional Thanksgiving fare, only five kinds of stuffing instead of one, and one deep-fried turkey, one baked. Also, a spiral-cut ham and a huge pork loin. Feeding fifty people means lots of meat.
****
To be continued ~
Friday, November 1, 2013
Oh, Johnny ... Oh, Lindsey ...
It was one of those dreams where you
wake up, pissed. Pissed because someone or something has awakened you
before the dream reached its conclusion; or, in my case, before the
dream reached its climax. It was one of those dreams that stays with
you – through breakfast, through dinner, into the next day,
throughout the week. It was one of those dreams that you must find
time to write down, so it is guaranteed a proper shelf life.
It is important to note that I dream realistically when concerning Self: I am overweight in my dream; I have cheese-grater hairy legs (Day Five of no shaving); I am cognizant of my ever-burgeoning upper abdominal fat roll. My bikini line is a laughable thought: I have not worn a bikini since I was ten; I have made no attempt at pubic grooming since July 4 of this year. In this dream, I am very much Who I Am right now, this very day, and although some would think I might have low self-esteem and hate my body and am embarrassed by its saggy boobs and stretch marks, the opposite is true. In my dream, I am sexy as hell. Cash knows it; Buckingham knows it. They both want me.
Most important, I know they want me, and so when I launch into reporter mode and begin asking Cash 95,000 questions, I am well aware of his attraction to me. I am well aware of Buckingham's faux interest in the leather notebook he is holding: I know he is listening to every word coming from my Revlon Champagne Ice frosted lips. I feel beautiful. I feel powerful.
My questions to Cash come quickly: “When did you know you had talent? What is your song-writing process? Any regrets in this life? Did you ever feel worthy in your father's eyes? Did the money and fame mean much? Was June Carter the musical love of your life, or the all-time love of your life? Why? What was it about June that got you all twitterpated and divorced from your first wife?”
Suddenly, there's a new voice: Reese Witherspoon pipes in. Reese, who's been sitting, silent, in the front passenger seat, turns her blonde head around, styled like she wore it in Walk the Line, and she shushes me. “Ssssshhhhh, Kathleen,” she admonishes. “Do not ask Johnny about his June. Girl, what is wrong with you?” Instantly, I stop my interview and pivot in my seat, where I stare forlornly out the window. (Have you ever been hushed by Reese Witherspoon?) Cornfields newly harvested stare back at me. I am annoyed; I turn my attention next to the driver, who on this day, featured in this dream, is James Taylor ~ yes, THAT James Taylor ~ and I notice the bald spot on the back of his head and wonder if the balding started while he was still married to Carly Simon. Taylor is driving at a snail's pace, and I am ready to ask him to please speed up when all of a sudden I feel Cash's big man hand reach up my skirt, where it settles softly into the warmth of my parted legs (my without-underwear parted legs). As I am processing what is happening to me (Ohmygod Johnny Cash is engaging in sexual activity with me!), Cash then takes my left hand and places it onto his crotch, the parts of which are now exposed, the rim of whitey-tighties apparent in the pinkish sun-setting light of the sedan. Apparently, while I was sulking in my corner, he had unbuckled his belt, untucked his shirt, unzipped his slacks, and ousted his junk. Without conversation, I turn in my seat for better positioning (his and mine), place both hands on his swollen and ENORMOUS appendage, and proceed to give him a rousing hand job, while Buckingham watches and squirms sensually in his seat. While Buckingham watches and squirms sensually in his seat: OMG. Best. Dream. Ever.
As I hold Cash in my hands, my palms are burning, as though there are a hundred fire ants consuming the flesh. (I am fairly certain that Ring of Fire is not about friction.) I am just about to freak out when Cash lets loose. What spouts forth is bubbly and frothy and the temperature of near-boiling water. I retract my hands – in amazement, not fear – and as I watch Buckingham unloose himself from the tangle of denim and boxers (navy blue; an unidentifiable print), I sense a tug on my shoulder. Johnny, no! I scream-think in my dream mind: You've had your turn, but the tugging turns to squeezing, and then annoying and rude prodding, and before I can switch positions with Johnny Cash in the now remarkable sedan, I am … awake. There stands my husband, dressed in his Kansas City Chiefs jersey and paint-splattered jeans. “Get up, Kathleen. The game's about to start.”
Toast. That was what I'd eaten before I
lay down on the couch in the hearth room last Sunday morning. I'd
gotten up around five at my cocker spaniel's insistence ("Let me out
now, or I'm going to pee on you"); I made coffee; I watched CNN; I
thumbed through some catalogs; I made toast: two slices of
gluten-free bread, slathered with deliciously fattening butter.
Savored the simple breakfast, got tired shortly after eating ~ by
this time it was probably ten ~ and since it was cold outside and the
fireplace was warming the house and I had nowhere to go, I decided to
take a nappy on the couch.
What happened next, as I snored softly
on the sofa, is bawdy and titillating, and although there is no cursing, the dream is definitely
worthy of an R Motion Picture rating. Just so you know.
THE. DREAM
Setting: Near dusk, an open highway,
somewhere in Nebraska, maybe Iowa ... October of 2013
I am seated in the back seat of a
sedan, nothing fancy, near the rear passenger door. I am wearing a
black chiffon dress, Stevie-Nicks style. I am not wearing underwear,
which is unusual for me, unless it's summer, bedtime, and I'm airing
out my privates.
I am seated next to Johnny Cash ~ yes,
THAT Johnny Cash ~ and he is of course wearing black: black-collared
dress shirt, unbuttoned mid-chest; black slacks; black belt. I
presume he is wearing black shoes but I do not notice this in the dream.
Next to Johnny Cash in the backseat of this unremarkable sedan, is
Lindsey Buckingham ~ yes, THAT Lindsey Buckingham, he of Fleetwood
Mac fame ~ and he is wearing a blousy white shirt, somewhat pirate-y,
cut to mid-chest; he is wearing dark denim jeans, some sort of belt.
He is beautiful and looks how he looked on the cover of The Dance
album (1997). I am
placing him, therefore, at around age forty-eight (he was born
October 3, 1949). He and I then, sitting in the dream car, are
magically the same age: forty-eight. Cash, in the middle, looks very
mid-fifties ~ age, not decade. (My husband is fifty-four, and I am
highly attracted to him, so it is neither bizarre nor disgusting that
I would find a mid-fifties Johnny Cash sexy and desirable.)It is important to note that I dream realistically when concerning Self: I am overweight in my dream; I have cheese-grater hairy legs (Day Five of no shaving); I am cognizant of my ever-burgeoning upper abdominal fat roll. My bikini line is a laughable thought: I have not worn a bikini since I was ten; I have made no attempt at pubic grooming since July 4 of this year. In this dream, I am very much Who I Am right now, this very day, and although some would think I might have low self-esteem and hate my body and am embarrassed by its saggy boobs and stretch marks, the opposite is true. In my dream, I am sexy as hell. Cash knows it; Buckingham knows it. They both want me.
Most important, I know they want me, and so when I launch into reporter mode and begin asking Cash 95,000 questions, I am well aware of his attraction to me. I am well aware of Buckingham's faux interest in the leather notebook he is holding: I know he is listening to every word coming from my Revlon Champagne Ice frosted lips. I feel beautiful. I feel powerful.
My questions to Cash come quickly: “When did you know you had talent? What is your song-writing process? Any regrets in this life? Did you ever feel worthy in your father's eyes? Did the money and fame mean much? Was June Carter the musical love of your life, or the all-time love of your life? Why? What was it about June that got you all twitterpated and divorced from your first wife?”
Suddenly, there's a new voice: Reese Witherspoon pipes in. Reese, who's been sitting, silent, in the front passenger seat, turns her blonde head around, styled like she wore it in Walk the Line, and she shushes me. “Ssssshhhhh, Kathleen,” she admonishes. “Do not ask Johnny about his June. Girl, what is wrong with you?” Instantly, I stop my interview and pivot in my seat, where I stare forlornly out the window. (Have you ever been hushed by Reese Witherspoon?) Cornfields newly harvested stare back at me. I am annoyed; I turn my attention next to the driver, who on this day, featured in this dream, is James Taylor ~ yes, THAT James Taylor ~ and I notice the bald spot on the back of his head and wonder if the balding started while he was still married to Carly Simon. Taylor is driving at a snail's pace, and I am ready to ask him to please speed up when all of a sudden I feel Cash's big man hand reach up my skirt, where it settles softly into the warmth of my parted legs (my without-underwear parted legs). As I am processing what is happening to me (Ohmygod Johnny Cash is engaging in sexual activity with me!), Cash then takes my left hand and places it onto his crotch, the parts of which are now exposed, the rim of whitey-tighties apparent in the pinkish sun-setting light of the sedan. Apparently, while I was sulking in my corner, he had unbuckled his belt, untucked his shirt, unzipped his slacks, and ousted his junk. Without conversation, I turn in my seat for better positioning (his and mine), place both hands on his swollen and ENORMOUS appendage, and proceed to give him a rousing hand job, while Buckingham watches and squirms sensually in his seat. While Buckingham watches and squirms sensually in his seat: OMG. Best. Dream. Ever.
As I hold Cash in my hands, my palms are burning, as though there are a hundred fire ants consuming the flesh. (I am fairly certain that Ring of Fire is not about friction.) I am just about to freak out when Cash lets loose. What spouts forth is bubbly and frothy and the temperature of near-boiling water. I retract my hands – in amazement, not fear – and as I watch Buckingham unloose himself from the tangle of denim and boxers (navy blue; an unidentifiable print), I sense a tug on my shoulder. Johnny, no! I scream-think in my dream mind: You've had your turn, but the tugging turns to squeezing, and then annoying and rude prodding, and before I can switch positions with Johnny Cash in the now remarkable sedan, I am … awake. There stands my husband, dressed in his Kansas City Chiefs jersey and paint-splattered jeans. “Get up, Kathleen. The game's about to start.”
I
could have killed him. I had come this close
to engaging in sexual activity with my longtime celebrity crush, my
all-time favorite guitarist and contemporary male vocalist, Lindsey Buckingham, who, if
I were to meet today, I would fall at his feet, pledge undying love,
and kiss his calves. Also, I might try to undress him, but apparently
that's another dream.
Immediately, I felt compelled to tell
someone about this delicious dream. I don't know about you, but when
something this exciting happens to me (real or imagined), my first
inclination is to go forth and share. My husband, nearest in
proximity, was first to hear. I told him exactly what happened, only I
used real words, like penis and ejaculate. I might as well have
recited my grocery list: My spouse didn't care that I committed
an act of adultery with a dead country legend. He was not at all
intrigued. What he did care about on this Sunday afternoon was the
fact that the Chiefs were 7-0 and the kickoff was forthcoming. Next, I
phoned my sister, but she didn't answer her cell. My adult daughter
was home, but she certainly did not want to hear about her mother
giving anyone a hand job, particularly a deceased person who sang country
music, which she does not consider music at all. I have lots of
friends, but none close enough to divulge every single detail. Thus,
I was left with Facebook, but I had to be G-rated. Also, terse:
“Up too early, then fell asleep
on the couch. Dreamed I was in the backseat of a car with Lindsey
Buckingham and Johnny Cash (yes, I know he has passed on, but this
was a dream). James Taylor was driving, and Reese Witherspoon was in
the front passenger seat. I was annoying the hell out of Johnny
asking him 95,000 questions, when all of a sudden he got a little
randy. As FB is a family-friendly site, I will stop with the rest of
the dream. Cash, however, did not stop. (Happy-face emoticon)”
What happened next was pleasantly
surprising. A FB friend, one Jo Jacobs Self, of Boone, Iowa, is,
wouldn't you know, in addition to being a life coach, a skilled dream
analyst. She and I went to high school together in Kansas City
thirty years ago. She was trustworthy, intelligent, beautiful,
creative, and popular when I knew her then. Also, she had THE BEST
feathered hair in the Class of '83. She must know what she's talking
about now, right?
“I'm an amateur dream interpreter,”
she wrote in the comment section of my FB post. “If you're
interested it might be fun to see what your subconscious has to say
to you in this one. (Happy-face emoticon).”
Was I interested? Yes.
“Jo: Yes, do tell!” I wrote back.
“I will have to message you some of the (lurid) details!”
And so I did, and then we exchanged
cell numbers and emails and before I fell asleep Sunday night, I had
extraordinary knowledge as to why I gave Johnny
Cash an explosive orgasm.
Disclaimer: At this point, I
find it necessary to apologize profusely to any member of Cash's
family who might stumble upon this blog post and feel unsettled, or
angry, or litigious. I mean no harm; I am not making fun of Cash;
there is no libel, really, as this is a dream, and is identified as a
dream; I have never met Cash or anyone in his family; I have no
ulterior motives; to the contrary, I have huge respect and admiration
for the Man in Black's musical legacy. Which is, after all, why it is so cool to dream about him.
Up Next: The Analysis
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Damn you, gluten
I am one of those gluten-sensitive people that you read about. One of those special needs people you probably loathe, especially if you're in the service industry and have to take my picky-ass order. "There's no gluten in this, right?" I will ask, even as I order from the gluten-free menu. "You're absolutely positive, yes?" At this, you will suppress the urge to roll your eyes. "Yep, free of gluten," you will say. "We can guarantee that if you order from this gluten-free menu that your meal will be gluten free." (Still. Although you purport your grilled chicken/rice/broccoli entrée is wheat-free, I am fairly certain that someone named LaRon back in the kitchen is going to gleefully sprinkle wheat germ on my food before you bring it out to me.)
I wasn't always a gluten-free person. For forty-seven years, I ate whatever I wanted, generally stuffing any kind of bread down the old pie hole. Croissants, bagels, dinner rolls. My favorite breakfast was biscuits and gravy. If I got to Corner Café too late for the gravy, I ordered instead an omelet with a side of wheat toast. Wheat toast, for the uninitiated, is made of wheat. Pasta, which is also engineered from wheat, was a dinner favorite. Lasagna, spaghetti, fettuccine, I ate it all. A Hot Naked was my go-to meal whenever I needed a quick supper. (Sounds exotic, but hot naked pasta is simply cooked pasta that's been buttered, salt and peppered, and doused so heavily with processed parmesan cheese that the concoction takes on a cheesecake quality.)
For forty-seven years, I was one of those irritable-bowel people that you read about. One of those special needs people you probably loathe, especially if you're in the travel industry, or simply driving a car in which I'm a passenger. For the uninitiated, irritable-bowel people are folks who poop a lot. Alternately, there can exist profound constipation. (The expression "shit a brick" was coined by a person with an irritable bowel.) The irritable-bowel sufferer ~ and there is suffering, let me tell you ~ tries to lead a peaceful existence, even when his or her intestines are roiling or cramping or complaining or settling into a mass o' concrete. We must make necessary life accommodations: It is imperative that we know ahead of time where bathrooms are located. Specifically, it's the toilet we're after: Sometimes there's explosive diarrhea involved.
Needless to say, I was not a good travel companion. For a four-hour trip to Omaha up I-29 from Kansas City, I would ask my husband no fewer than six times to stop. I knew where all the rest stops were and which Interstate truck stop had the cleanest bathrooms. Because he loved me and because he didn't want a (profound) mess in the car, he would veer off the interstate and catch a snooze or get caught up on his email whilst I traipsed into Hilltop or the Welcome Center at Rock Port. So as not to arouse suspicion (she's just here to shit), I always bought something before I left: a Diet Coke, a bag of Funyuns, a Good Housekeeping magazine. Through the years, I became particularly good at evacuating the lower colon in a relatively quiet manner (there was coughing, sneezing, and humming involved); I always carried a sample-sized perfume spray to spritz the stall so the next woman in wouldn't suffer explosive vomiting. (I'm a considerate shitter.)
For years, I tried to figure out which foods made me cramp, which foods made me constipated, which foods caused violent diarrhea. Sometimes I kept a daily food log, but that proved exhausting: 8 a.m.- glass of orange juice/oatmeal/black coffee; 10:30 - spoon of peanut butter; 1/2 Diet Coke; 1 p.m.- large salad: romaine, spinach, cabbage, carrots, egg, mushrooms, croutons ... and so on an so forth.
I used to joke with my sister, who became increasingly annoyed with me: My God, Kathleen, wear a fucking diaper why don't you? And what the hell are you eating, anyway? and I would tell her that it was the strangest thing, that I could snarf a No. 8 Mexican Platter (enchilada, taco, beans and rice) and be fine, yet a half-cup of Cream of Wheat gave me intestinal spasms so intense I had to use Lamaze breathing to get through the cramping.
Look. We're both intelligent women. My sis has a genius IQ. I've occasionally demonstrated superb problem-solving capabilities, but for twenty years of my adult life I couldn't fucking figure out why sometimes the food I ate made me especially ill and in immediate need of a porcelain receptacle. My sis was equally flummoxed. Her ultimate response: See a doctor.
Which I did. A lot. Upper GI scans, lower GI scans. Nothing was wrong with me. Yeah, I have a hiatal hernia, but that's probably from all the vomiting I've done through the years. Forgot to mention the shit-and-spits. Sometimes my intestines got so confused that the upper and lower units didn't communicate well, and before I knew what was happening, both ends forcefully expelled gut contents. I was a mess physically and emotionally. Not only was my bowel irritable, but so was I.
And then. And then one day my 26-year old daughter, who generally has something wrong with her, came home from her doctor and proclaimed, as I was eating a bologna sandwich (on wheat bread), that she would no longer be the consumer of Anything Gluten. No gluten products from here on out, she said, and no products that had come into contact with any gluten-containing products. That's cross-contamination, she told me. Wheat-free from now on, I am, she sang, in a joyful way that confused me. (Gluten? Is she mispronouncing glutton?) She then went to the grocery and spent $769 on multiple flours, none of which contained wheat, and then she went to another store and spent $283 on various glass containers to hold the many wheatless flours. At some point, while she was clearing out the pantry (she lives with me and her dad because she has an English degree and is therefore a barista), I worked up the nerve to ask: So what is this gluten thing you speak of?
The rest is history. I am happy to report that since I have eliminated gluten from my diet I have also eliminated the need to evacuate my intestines at inconvenient times. And I'll take this new way of eating, even though it means giving up bread and pasta, the wheat-filled kind. Our kitchen is now completely stocked with gluten-free pastas, gluten-free cookies, gluten-free breads. Our food bill is much higher, but I'll take a bigger grocery bill if it means I can get to Nebraska without stopping half a dozen times.
I wasn't always a gluten-free person. For forty-seven years, I ate whatever I wanted, generally stuffing any kind of bread down the old pie hole. Croissants, bagels, dinner rolls. My favorite breakfast was biscuits and gravy. If I got to Corner Café too late for the gravy, I ordered instead an omelet with a side of wheat toast. Wheat toast, for the uninitiated, is made of wheat. Pasta, which is also engineered from wheat, was a dinner favorite. Lasagna, spaghetti, fettuccine, I ate it all. A Hot Naked was my go-to meal whenever I needed a quick supper. (Sounds exotic, but hot naked pasta is simply cooked pasta that's been buttered, salt and peppered, and doused so heavily with processed parmesan cheese that the concoction takes on a cheesecake quality.)
For forty-seven years, I was one of those irritable-bowel people that you read about. One of those special needs people you probably loathe, especially if you're in the travel industry, or simply driving a car in which I'm a passenger. For the uninitiated, irritable-bowel people are folks who poop a lot. Alternately, there can exist profound constipation. (The expression "shit a brick" was coined by a person with an irritable bowel.) The irritable-bowel sufferer ~ and there is suffering, let me tell you ~ tries to lead a peaceful existence, even when his or her intestines are roiling or cramping or complaining or settling into a mass o' concrete. We must make necessary life accommodations: It is imperative that we know ahead of time where bathrooms are located. Specifically, it's the toilet we're after: Sometimes there's explosive diarrhea involved.
Needless to say, I was not a good travel companion. For a four-hour trip to Omaha up I-29 from Kansas City, I would ask my husband no fewer than six times to stop. I knew where all the rest stops were and which Interstate truck stop had the cleanest bathrooms. Because he loved me and because he didn't want a (profound) mess in the car, he would veer off the interstate and catch a snooze or get caught up on his email whilst I traipsed into Hilltop or the Welcome Center at Rock Port. So as not to arouse suspicion (she's just here to shit), I always bought something before I left: a Diet Coke, a bag of Funyuns, a Good Housekeeping magazine. Through the years, I became particularly good at evacuating the lower colon in a relatively quiet manner (there was coughing, sneezing, and humming involved); I always carried a sample-sized perfume spray to spritz the stall so the next woman in wouldn't suffer explosive vomiting. (I'm a considerate shitter.)
For years, I tried to figure out which foods made me cramp, which foods made me constipated, which foods caused violent diarrhea. Sometimes I kept a daily food log, but that proved exhausting: 8 a.m.- glass of orange juice/oatmeal/black coffee; 10:30 - spoon of peanut butter; 1/2 Diet Coke; 1 p.m.- large salad: romaine, spinach, cabbage, carrots, egg, mushrooms, croutons ... and so on an so forth.
I used to joke with my sister, who became increasingly annoyed with me: My God, Kathleen, wear a fucking diaper why don't you? And what the hell are you eating, anyway? and I would tell her that it was the strangest thing, that I could snarf a No. 8 Mexican Platter (enchilada, taco, beans and rice) and be fine, yet a half-cup of Cream of Wheat gave me intestinal spasms so intense I had to use Lamaze breathing to get through the cramping.
Look. We're both intelligent women. My sis has a genius IQ. I've occasionally demonstrated superb problem-solving capabilities, but for twenty years of my adult life I couldn't fucking figure out why sometimes the food I ate made me especially ill and in immediate need of a porcelain receptacle. My sis was equally flummoxed. Her ultimate response: See a doctor.
Which I did. A lot. Upper GI scans, lower GI scans. Nothing was wrong with me. Yeah, I have a hiatal hernia, but that's probably from all the vomiting I've done through the years. Forgot to mention the shit-and-spits. Sometimes my intestines got so confused that the upper and lower units didn't communicate well, and before I knew what was happening, both ends forcefully expelled gut contents. I was a mess physically and emotionally. Not only was my bowel irritable, but so was I.
And then. And then one day my 26-year old daughter, who generally has something wrong with her, came home from her doctor and proclaimed, as I was eating a bologna sandwich (on wheat bread), that she would no longer be the consumer of Anything Gluten. No gluten products from here on out, she said, and no products that had come into contact with any gluten-containing products. That's cross-contamination, she told me. Wheat-free from now on, I am, she sang, in a joyful way that confused me. (Gluten? Is she mispronouncing glutton?) She then went to the grocery and spent $769 on multiple flours, none of which contained wheat, and then she went to another store and spent $283 on various glass containers to hold the many wheatless flours. At some point, while she was clearing out the pantry (she lives with me and her dad because she has an English degree and is therefore a barista), I worked up the nerve to ask: So what is this gluten thing you speak of?
The rest is history. I am happy to report that since I have eliminated gluten from my diet I have also eliminated the need to evacuate my intestines at inconvenient times. And I'll take this new way of eating, even though it means giving up bread and pasta, the wheat-filled kind. Our kitchen is now completely stocked with gluten-free pastas, gluten-free cookies, gluten-free breads. Our food bill is much higher, but I'll take a bigger grocery bill if it means I can get to Nebraska without stopping half a dozen times.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)