Sneaking In A Serious Moment

I have bad news.  I’m not sure if it ever stops hurting.  I think we just learn to live with the pain.  Sometimes that big bad bitch of a world snatches someone from you before you’re done with them.  And it’s a shredding, ripping, tearing.  No different than the severing of ligaments, the ripping on tendons, the snapping of bones or the burning of tissue.  And like these physically visible injuries, a scar is left. A souvenir photo that never fades to sepia.

We like to think it’ll leave us.  Because all past pains have eventually left us.  And when we look back we laugh and chuckle about the insignificance of the instigating issue.  But gut-chewing pain, real pain if you will, refuses to let go.  At first it’s excruciating.  Then it’s sharp.  Then it’s just dull.  And eventually it fades from memory almost completely.  But like my broken collarbone, when you hit it just right, or touch it just so, it hurts like hell all over again. 

And I guess the only good news is that the cliché is true.  Without pain we would not know love.  Plato spent pages upon pages trying to define love.  And if one of the Western world’s greatest philosophers couldn’t do it, then I am not bold enough to assert that I can.  But it makes me feel better to think that it hurts so much because I loved so much.  I found true love.  Not like, or lust, or passion, but love in its purest form.  And out hearts refuse to give up on such a great, rare and precious love.  The pain continues because we hold onto this filament of hope that one day, if not here than perhaps someone up above, we will meet this person again.  And our reason begs us to give up on this lunacy of hope, which slowly corrodes our sanity and builds this scar tissue of pain.  It’s the knowledge, that despite all logical reason and intelligent thought, we would gladly sever our right arm to have a guarantee that this person would return to us.  But this yearning, this obsession, this passion, this pain, does not exist without a great love having predicated it.  And we take comfort in the fact that this pain is the aftermath, the consequence perhaps, of love.

And I can’t promise you that the pain of losing her will go away.  In fact, I can guarantee that it won’t.  And I can guarantee that when it starts to fade, it will scare the shit out of you.  But don’t worry.  It doesn’t mean she is leaving you.  Or that she is any less real.  Or that you loved her any less.  It just means that time is playing it’s nasty little trick and actually healing you.  And I can guarantee that you will ache.  That you will drink yourself to the floor and that it will still hurt even on the floor.  But I can also guarantee that one morning and for once your hangover will hurt more than your heart.  And then eventually it will be a nasty, ugly scar, but it won’t hurt, unless you touch it just so.

Just know that the world is full of beauty and love and that its your right, your duty even, as a human being, to recognize this beauty in the world and keep on living for those who weren’t lucky enough to do that. And I’m always here for you.  And no matter where this winding road takes us, we’ll meet again at the end. And it is a winding road.  Be careful, if you blink you might miss it.    

My Home On The River That Caught Fire

I started foaming at the mouth and chasing my own tail today.  I recognized this as an early warning sign of resuming wanderlust.  Shit, I really thought I’d make it longer.  You see I have a history of poor impulse control and a tendency towards erratic behavior.  But the doctors assure me that I’m not bipolar.  I just possess sundried and assorted forms of craziness and restlessness.

I am from Cleveland.  A place where the checkout lady at CVS calls me ‘honey’ and was there when I had to purchase tampons for the first time, underage beer for the first time and Plan B for the first time.  A place the humidity makes my cleavage sweat even at midnight and is about as welcome as a the middle seat on an airplane between two bulbous, perspiring 300-pounders whose beads of sweat are inching closer and closer to my elbows on the quarter-inch of armrest that is allowed me by their bratwursts of arms.  A place where people invite you in to sit down at their dinner table because, “Don’t you just know, this young lady was so nice to me today at the grocery store.  She helped me with my buggy.” (and yes we say ‘buggy.’ And sweeper, and clicker.  And if you don’t know what those words mean then you’re just not cool enough).

Cleveland.  Land of surprising ethnic diversity left over from Rockefeller’s days.  Not like Aspen, where you see a person who isn’t white walking down the street and find yourself wondering how they got so tan in the middle of winter.  Cleveland’s got the Czechs, the Croatians, the Poles, the Russians, the other assorted eastern Europeans, the Slovenians, the Irish, the Puerto Ricans, the Mexicans, the West Africans and of course the Italians.  Oh, the Italians.  I dated one once.  They make excellent lovers but terrible husbands or boyfriends.  Remember that.  It might serve you well someday.  They are the race of hair gel and tempers, rigatoni and knee-bending sex.  I will never stop missing inappropriate ass grabs from old men with gold crosses or the sort of overstuffed feeling that only copious canollis, everlasting slices of pepperoni and Grandma Marie’s urgings of, “Come on Katie, you’re too skinny, just one more slice of lasagna,” can wage upon one’s stomach.

Cleveland. A place where this hot mess of a world that we live in right now stares you right in the eye.  It’s my family friend’s face when they find out that they have a bun in the oven and no way to support the ones they already have.  It’s my sister’s eyes when she knows that she might lose the restaurant that is their income, their home and their lifeblood.  It’s the brittle little tear that drops down her cheek that’s already seen too many sorrows when she owns up to the fact that cancer is eating her husband alive and leaving her with two babies.  Alone.  It’s my brother-in-laws head in his hands to hide the tears on his lean, 200-pound high school football star frame when he hears that his house might enter foreclosure.  It’s a place where unemployment is 13%.  It’s a place where the pain of the Great Recession and the Economic Crisis are more than a trite buzzwords garnered from CNN.  It’s a place where these phrases spell a nasty reality.  That life’s hard.  Life’s a bitch.

And unfortunately for me fluttering free spirits with tendencies towards eccentricity and penchants for musing philosophically about the meaning of life, don’t get along so well in the school of hard knocks.  No time for that nonsense when the bank man’s coming to take your house. I got tired of this weight.  The weight of the Cleveland humidity sticking to my skin, even at midnight.  The weight of the problems in my loved ones faces wearing me down.   The weight of my memories dragging at the edges of my psyche. 

And so I’m headed West again.  It will be the tenth time my 2005 Subaru has crossed the country.  And I’ll rejoin comrades in our bubble.  Where this sadness is far, far away in a land called Cleveland.  The place where I’m from.  So don’t fuck with me because I’ve got a whole city behind me ready to kick your ass because us Clevelanders stick together.

Fucking Cocks

I don’t want to have children.  Collective gasp.  I know, saying that tends to paint a picture of me as a real bitch.  It typecasts me as the narcissistic, selfish offspring of boomer parental-type figures, who has never wanted for anything and seems incapable of relinquishing even the slightest bit of sovereignty and self-determination over life in favor of trying the ultimate form of narcissism on for size – procreation. 

And maybe someday I’ll change my mind.  I’m certainly not dead set on remaining free of the grasp of tiny, crumb-crushing fists, but for now that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.  Only I’ll have to tell you about it some other time.  Right now I’ve got a funny rug rat tale to impart.  It’s these sometimes poignant, always devil-may-care and never concerned with social norms or public decorum moments that kids seem to conjure up, that make me want little-me’s sometimes.  They keep it real.  They rock out.  And they keep us all honest.

My sister owns two kids and has a restaurant (or is that supposed to be the other way around?) and as anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen knows, the two are not easily reconciled.  From the most anal retentive, five-star kitchens to the questionable dive bar across town that’s been shut down three times by the health inspector, kitchens are cesspools of all manner or depraved morality and sexual degradation.  If it doesn’t have to do with the male or female sexual anatomy, things that can be inserted into the male or female sexual anatomy, myriad and assorted terms for the male and female sexual anatomy or the things that happened (or that they wish had happened) between and male and female sexual anatomy the previous night, then it isn’t welcome in a kitchen.

My friend the pastry chef is thrilled to be coaching eight year-old boys soccer.  It teaches her the patience in the kitchen that she needs to deal with the man-children, Peter Pans who act like eight year-old boys trapped in a grown man’s body.  My sister the restaurateur routinely quiets her chefs.  Who am I kidding, she routinely tells her chefs to, “Shut the fuck up and don’t say cock, fuck, dick or pussy until the dining room full of 90 year-old women clears.”  Usually, this is too much to ask of them.

And so we come to our illustrative example.  Exhibit A.

While she gives eight-month old Knox his bath, two-year old Cooper looks on.  Being the precocious one that he is, he decides to practice being a man and offer unsolicited advice about a household task.  “Mommy, pour the water on his penis,” he instructs his mother.  She promptly ignores this and finishes the cleaning of the wee one.

The next day she recounts the story to the delight of her Corona drinking chefs and servers.  But, “Where did he learn what a penis is?” she ponders the linguistic accomplishments of her progeny.  “Steve and I only ever say pee-pee or wee-wee.”  On a side note, this is also why I should never have my own issue.  I am fairly certain that it lies outside of my impulse control capacity to refrain from using foul language in the presence of children.  Maybe that’s why the chefs and I get along so well.

“Maybe he heard it in the kitchen,” someone suggests.

“No.  That can’t be,” she says assuredly, “Because then he would have said, ‘Mommy, pour the water on his fucking cock.’”

Need I say more?  Priceless moment of kitchen ethos enlightenment and childrearing edification.  

Author's Note:  Sorry, I said I wouldn't curse in the titles anymore.  But there was really not other appropriate title.

On Dying Alone

Today my mother called me a raging bitch.  Well not exactly.  But that’s how I took it.  I was perfectly content wallowing in a tub of self-loathing and self-pity for my soulmate-less state.  Who asked her for advice?  She “tried to help” by telling me that maybe I am too smart for my own good and that I make men feel inferior.  Talk about a backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard ‘one.

My mother’s exact verbiage implied that my hyper-intelligent and overly intense personality, coupled with my inability to keep my mouth shut about my controversial opinions intimidates people by making them feel unintelligent and inferior. In further Freudian psychoanalysis, I was informed that I systematically alienate people because I have a fear of rejection.  I took this to mean that I am essentially a raging bitch who can’t leave well enough alone and who likes nothing more than to belittle, insult and demean by so-called friends in an attempt to alienate myself from society and live out the rest of my days in self-imposed isolation.  Ok so maybe that’s a bit melodramatic.  But then again I suppose I am just being true to my personality – a uber-intelligent, slightly crazy, hermitic writer who everyone loves to hate.  I’ll toast to that.  Here’s to living out my days with nothing more than my red wine and laptop for company. 

If I am to understand correctly, my dear old mum utilizes the following algorithm to reach the conclusion that I am a raging bitch who is destined to live my life alone.  It is given that I am very intelligent, very opinioned and completely unafraid of voicing these insight and opinions.  It is also given that I have been very deeply hurt (read: royally fucked over) by people who I thought were my friends.  It is also given that because of this I have lost my general faith in humanity, love and common decency.  By the way, that’s the adult version of finding out that there is no Santa Claus.

Mom concludes that I subconsciously use my intelligence, intensity and strong opinions to push people away to avoid loss and rejection.  After all, I wouldn’t want to find out there is no Tooth Fairy or no Easter Bunny.

Which brings me to a post-feminist rant outlined in a series of clichéd, rhetorical questions.  Since when did it become unacceptable to unabashedly voice one’s opinions no matter how controversial or unpopular they might be?  Since when did intelligence become a roadblock to the acquisition of male companionship?  Since when did making intelligent and truthful observations, in spite of any discomfort that they might bring listeners, make someone disagreeable to be around?  Since when did standing up for yourself equal a lifetime of loneliness?  And aren’t we all alone in the end anyway? 

The way I see it, we all end up alone and I’d rather do it with some dignity and aplomb.  Certainly we can bend ourselves like a Gumby Doll to fit the whims and fancies those we “love.”  Perhaps this allows us to find The One and live Happily Ever After.  Until, that is, we wake up one day, forty years from now, utterly alone in a room crowded with people.  When we realize that those around us only love the self-created, cellophane wrapper of a person we realize that we are more alone than ever.  Alternatively, if we stick to who we are, no matter how disagreeable that person might be in her utter authenticity, we realize that no one really wants to be around that person.  At least not for this social time construct known as forever.  And so we wake up forty years from now, utterly alone in an boho chic apartment with an English Bulldog named Charlie and a bottle of Tanqueray.  Either way, we’re alone.  Pick your poison I suppose.  I’d rather be a lonely raging bitch who stood up for myself every second, refused to sell out and had a damn good time throughout it all.

Cleveland's 11 O'Clock News: Sex, Boobies and Sleazy Politicians

There’s nothing like a good dose local news to compound my complete loss of faith in the human race.  You’ve got the 80s-called-and-want-their-shoulder-pads-back outfits, the sordid tales of rape and murder delivered without so much as a batted false eyelash and the sex and money laundering scandals of local politics – priceless.  All at once it makes me laugh out load, cry and ponder the existential nothingness of humanity as it spirals downward into a vortex sleazy local politicians, gangs of unrepentant thugs and average singles seeking commitment-free sex.  And Fox 19 Action News at 11, broadcast in living color from a studio in sunny Cleveland, Ohio, has it all.

And here’s what they are serving up tonight. 

First off we’ve got a Clockwork Orage-esque gang of hooligans kicking the crap out of a 70 year-old grandpa.  This is all caught on tape (but of course), which makes you wonder about the morality of the cameraman even more than that of the East 55^th Street Hooligans.  The old man survived and the police want your helping identifying the gang of thugs.

Next we’ve got Jimmy Dimora.  My personal hero.  There will never be a dull moment in Cleveland politics as long as we’ve got Jimmy Dimora.  Cuyahoga County Commissioner by day, scumbag by night.  Well actually he’s a scumbag by day too.  But let’s not split hairs here.  Accused, among other indiscretions and white-collar crimes, of unscrupulously accepting bribes of all kinds, Jimmy D awaits trial and endures almost daily ridicule in various Cleveland news outlets.  Fox News’ latest highlight of his indiscretions is billed as, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.  Unless you’re Jimmy Dimora.  Stay tuned for more details after this word from your local sponsor.”  This time our hero Jimbo spent at least $2000 on hookers, ahem, I mean on a “private massage” at The Mirage in Vegas.  He attended a nude pool party at Bare Pool which does not disclose its pricing on the web site.  If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.  After Fox makes several failed attempts to wring a comment from JD, they conclude with a clip of the hero himself calling them, “full of bleep,” and “ridiculous.”  Now Mr. Dimora, I respect your intelligence, but that seems a little bit like the pot calling the proverbial kettle black. 

Also on tap tonight we’ve got Miss Ohio (and a handful of other Miss Universe contestants) getting naked.  There is nothing the local news loves more than a PG version of Girls Gone Wild.  Donald Trump, the executive producer of the Miss Universe Pageant, placates his PR department by saying that, “this might have been a little over the top.”  But his true class and grace really shines when he follows up with, “we are, after all, in the business of beauty.”  Right.  By the way, those are gross paraphrases.  Fact checking is not my thing.

Which brings us to the grand finale of Fox 19 Action News at 11.  This titillating tidbit was advertised not only throughout CSI Miami, but also throughout 24.  Anything that shares billing with Jack Bauer has my vote.  It is entitled “Friends With Benefits.”  The voiceover man ominously asks, “When does this disturbing new phenomena jeopardize a friendship?  Tonight at 11.”  (Again that’s grossly paraphrased and negligently incorrect.  I told you, I’m not a researcher.  I’m a writer.)

This statement begs further examination.  One, since when did casual sex with a close friend become a “new phenomena?”  Pretty sure we’ve been fucking just for the fun of it, with no strings attached, since the human race started to walk upright.  And maybe even when we didn’t.  Second, why is this newsworthy?  Third, why am I actually staying tuned until 11 to watch it? 

Like any good one-night stand, the story is all build up and anticipation with not climax.  I am left with a nasty case of news story blue balls.  The only “fact” I learned was that 1/3 of all relationships lack exclusivity.  How they ascertained this fact was unclear.  But then again, who am I to judge a distaste of fact checking?  So after a morally corrupt gang of degenerates, a scumbag used car salesman of a politician and a naked beauty queen with Playboy aspirations, what advice does the newscaster give me – “Always avoid sex with the ex.  That is always a bad idea.”  Thanks for the advice friend.