I like this. Thanks Joy!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Things that Happen in Three's
In the last several days, David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Micheal Jackson have all passed on to the next round. Each one of them where cultural icons and in my peripheral vision for almost my entire life. I never met any of them, and still, their deaths upset me. The death of the status quo, which is always inevitable, is just upsetting all in itself.
Kung Fu, to quote my friend Sharon, is "something I almost never get to say". To us ignorant westerners (me in particular), Kung Fu was David Carradine. As an actor, he pulled off the ethnic imitation that Yul Brenner failed so miserably at in the "King and I". To this day, I'm thinking about how Grasshopper scars himself by grasping the hot pot with his fore arms and then falls into the snow at the beginning of the show. I have to fight the urge to force my children to grab small stones out of my hand before I'll give them their dinner. I have pretended to quote the Kung Fu master for the last twenty years, giving my friends some of the worst advice ever given.
Kung Fu will always remind me of my first boyfriend Tom. It must have been our favorite show because we seemed to watch it a lot. There was once a picture of David Carradine holding a tarot card (the Fool, which is absolutely Kung Fu appropriate) in Rolling Stone magazine. That picture totally validated my obsession with mysticsm to Tom (Dr. Science), and elevated my status with him from crazy to kinda cool crazy. I really appreciated that. Even in dying, Carradine stayed in character. Somehow, I can picture Grasshopper hanging in a closet somewhere in Asia.
When I was a kid, my mother would sneak me out of bed after my sisters were asleep so I could sit with her and watch the Tonight show. While Johnny Carson was not warm and fuzzy, Ed McMahon certainly was. I didn't realize till years later that he actually wasn't a stuffed animal.
Ed may have been second banana to Johnny, but to me he was a role model for how to be a friend. If you are my friend, I will always laugh at your jokes, no matter how not funny they are, at worst just reminding you that no joke ever survived an autopsy. That loyalty is it's own reward, and that's what I learned from Ed.
Being a teenage girl in the seventies, I always have had mixed feelings about Farrah Fawcett. There she was, on that poster that defined beauty for the decade, with her good hair, bedazzling smile, blue eyes and perky little nipples. Then there was me, dark frizzy hair that would never feather no matter how hard I tried, hips I never could get rid of, and dark eyes that had no chance of ever being blue unless I was sad. Farrah was a really a horrendous role model for every teenage girl I knew, mostly because we would/could never achieve it.
But then, Farrah made this movie. I can't remember the title, but it was about this woman who gets attacked by this crazy, serial rapist/killer type in her own home. Just when you think you know that story line, she fights back, overpowers him, beats him senseless, stuffs him in a fireplace with a barred front made out of grating. Then, Farrah's character doesn't call the police, she tortures him all day first. That was the first woman empowered movies I had ever seen, and I fucking loved it! So, Farrah was a two sided sword to a whole generation of women.
Say what you will about Michael Jackson, but the Jackson 5 was the greatest boy band of all time. What Jonas Brothers song will ever stand the test of time like "I'll Be There"? As kids, my sisters and I would put on shows in our basement lip syncing to "ABC". My entire dating philosophy as a teen was based on "The Love You Save".
And then Michael grew up, after spending his entire childhood singing about grown up things, into a grown up who didn't understand that no amount of money, fame, or awards (Artist of the Century? Artist of the Millennium?) could ever bring his lost childhood back. He just never got it. Michael Jackson was an icon to mixed emotion, a man both revered and reviled, all at the same time.
That's a total of four deaths, which means one of two things. 1) the dying isn't over yet and the universe demands two more, or 2) some of you out there don't consider Ed or maybe David an important icon. Perhaps the combination of the two makes up for one Farrah or Michael to the universe. Let's go with option number two, it's my version of optimism. So there you have it.
Kung Fu, to quote my friend Sharon, is "something I almost never get to say". To us ignorant westerners (me in particular), Kung Fu was David Carradine. As an actor, he pulled off the ethnic imitation that Yul Brenner failed so miserably at in the "King and I". To this day, I'm thinking about how Grasshopper scars himself by grasping the hot pot with his fore arms and then falls into the snow at the beginning of the show. I have to fight the urge to force my children to grab small stones out of my hand before I'll give them their dinner. I have pretended to quote the Kung Fu master for the last twenty years, giving my friends some of the worst advice ever given.
Kung Fu will always remind me of my first boyfriend Tom. It must have been our favorite show because we seemed to watch it a lot. There was once a picture of David Carradine holding a tarot card (the Fool, which is absolutely Kung Fu appropriate) in Rolling Stone magazine. That picture totally validated my obsession with mysticsm to Tom (Dr. Science), and elevated my status with him from crazy to kinda cool crazy. I really appreciated that. Even in dying, Carradine stayed in character. Somehow, I can picture Grasshopper hanging in a closet somewhere in Asia.
When I was a kid, my mother would sneak me out of bed after my sisters were asleep so I could sit with her and watch the Tonight show. While Johnny Carson was not warm and fuzzy, Ed McMahon certainly was. I didn't realize till years later that he actually wasn't a stuffed animal.
Ed may have been second banana to Johnny, but to me he was a role model for how to be a friend. If you are my friend, I will always laugh at your jokes, no matter how not funny they are, at worst just reminding you that no joke ever survived an autopsy. That loyalty is it's own reward, and that's what I learned from Ed.
Being a teenage girl in the seventies, I always have had mixed feelings about Farrah Fawcett. There she was, on that poster that defined beauty for the decade, with her good hair, bedazzling smile, blue eyes and perky little nipples. Then there was me, dark frizzy hair that would never feather no matter how hard I tried, hips I never could get rid of, and dark eyes that had no chance of ever being blue unless I was sad. Farrah was a really a horrendous role model for every teenage girl I knew, mostly because we would/could never achieve it.
But then, Farrah made this movie. I can't remember the title, but it was about this woman who gets attacked by this crazy, serial rapist/killer type in her own home. Just when you think you know that story line, she fights back, overpowers him, beats him senseless, stuffs him in a fireplace with a barred front made out of grating. Then, Farrah's character doesn't call the police, she tortures him all day first. That was the first woman empowered movies I had ever seen, and I fucking loved it! So, Farrah was a two sided sword to a whole generation of women.
Say what you will about Michael Jackson, but the Jackson 5 was the greatest boy band of all time. What Jonas Brothers song will ever stand the test of time like "I'll Be There"? As kids, my sisters and I would put on shows in our basement lip syncing to "ABC". My entire dating philosophy as a teen was based on "The Love You Save".
And then Michael grew up, after spending his entire childhood singing about grown up things, into a grown up who didn't understand that no amount of money, fame, or awards (Artist of the Century? Artist of the Millennium?) could ever bring his lost childhood back. He just never got it. Michael Jackson was an icon to mixed emotion, a man both revered and reviled, all at the same time.
That's a total of four deaths, which means one of two things. 1) the dying isn't over yet and the universe demands two more, or 2) some of you out there don't consider Ed or maybe David an important icon. Perhaps the combination of the two makes up for one Farrah or Michael to the universe. Let's go with option number two, it's my version of optimism. So there you have it.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
1,000 Oceans
The PS22 Chorus is a public elementary school choir in New York. They've put out a lot of other songs since, but this one remains my favorite.
I solemnly swear, with Bill Gates as my witness, that if I have the nerve to post something of this nature on Paula Interrupted, it will always be worth the interruption. I hope you love it as much as I do.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Georgia, 2008
Once, when I was a teenager, I was at my friends house, standing in the living room. Her grandmother walked into the room, looks at me, and says to my friend, in a deep southern accent, "When am I gonna get my Wandering Jew?". As I stood trying to think of the correct reply to that, and admitting to myself that I sort of resembled that statement, my friend says "There's a clipping for you in a glass on the kitchen sink." which made no sense what-so-ever. As i tried to decode this in my mind, I realized they were all looking above me. That's when I looked up and saw the hanging plant I was standing under. It was a Wandering Jew.
And so am I. My mother always said that there were three different money philosophies that people follow; people who spend their money on things like clothes and cars, people who spend their money on their home, and people who spend their money on travel. I am the latter, I am a wanderer.
Last summer, my cousin Ray, who lives in Florida, suggested we meet halfway between us. Halfway between us turned out to be Clayton, Georgia, which is a small town on the south side of the Great Smokey Mountains, right on the Tennessee border. Since our travel budget has been tight for the last several years, I have been favorable to car trips, and, so, agreed to her plan.
There was a part of this plan that made me more than uncomfortable. It was a nature trip, we would be staying in a cabin on the side of a creek, and going white water rafting. There would be fishing, cook outs, hiking and lots of other outdoor kind of stuff. This was going to be a boy vacation, and was dangerously close to actual camping, which is something I've always hated. After all the years struggling, why would I want to leave my air conditioned house to go sleep in the dirt? Camping is for rich people that want to experience poverty for a minute.
In spite of my misgivings, I told myself that it was time to leave my travel safety zone and go do boy stuff. We rented a car, paid extra for the GPS (don't leave home with out it), and off went the two J's and I, on a road trip.
Eight hours later, we arrived in Clayton at the little cabin by the creek. Ray and her son Bear were already there, and had coached us through the last 5 miles over the phone.
The cabin was adorable, with one bedroom on the first floor, and then a loft with two queen sized beds above. There was a deck over looking the babbling creek on the back of the house. To get down from the deck to the creek, where there was a fire pit and a small beach area, you had to go down a steep set of stairs. There was also a steep staircase that went from the living room to the loft.
Walking on steps, rocks, or unlevel ground is dangerous for me. My balance is incredibly bad since all my head surgeries, and I tend to fall alot. I'm famous for it. From the moment we got there, I was on high alert, watching every step I took. This made the white water rafting trip we went on the next day especially phobia-licious.
We woke up at some outrageous time in the morning and drove the half hour to the rafting place. They have this information session in the beginning, teaching you about life jackets, raft safety, and the more I hear the more I'm freaking out. I keep reminding myself that I'm doing this for the two J's, and did my best to hide my terror. The outing would last six to seven hours, and, oh yes, they were level five rapids. Fortunately, because of ignorance being bliss, I had no idea what that meant.
After hiking downhill five miles, carrying rafts above our heads, we finally reached the river. As we put the rafts into the water, with only nature surrounding us as far as the eye can see, the guide mentions that this is "the same river they filmed 'Deliverance' on". To what I was sure was the sound of dueling banjo's and squealing pigs, we began our million mile trip down river.
I thought I was going to die. As we went down a seven foot drop, I shoved my foot further into the raft and refused to fall out. We stopped for lunch, on a rocky bank. Then we stopped on another rocky bank to see a waterfall. Then we stopped on a rocky bank to climb the rocky bank. And then we would raft and stop on rocky banks for the next seven hours.
When finally we reached the end of the rapids from hell, we had to walk uphill for five miles, carrying the rafts over our heads, to a waiting bus. It was the most harrowing day of my life, but the two J's loved it and so I was proud of myself for doing it.
The next day, I was more tired than I had ever been in my life. I was sleeping soundly up in the loft, half way listening to the boys eating breakfast. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the cabin door. The boys, alarmed that anyone would be knocking on the door in the woods at seven in the morning (and perhaps remembering the "Deliverance" thing) began yelling "someones at the door, someones at the door!" and I sat up in a panic.
Going down the loft steps, half asleep and physically exhausted, I let my guard down, and ran on auto pilot. Unfortunately, there was one errant loft step that was off to the left of the rest, and I missed it. As my left foot hit the hard wood floor, my ankle buckled. In an effort to save myself, I switched the weight to my right foot, and that ankle buckled in the opposite direction. It was the most incredible pain I've ever felt in my life. TO BE CONTINUED
And so am I. My mother always said that there were three different money philosophies that people follow; people who spend their money on things like clothes and cars, people who spend their money on their home, and people who spend their money on travel. I am the latter, I am a wanderer.
Last summer, my cousin Ray, who lives in Florida, suggested we meet halfway between us. Halfway between us turned out to be Clayton, Georgia, which is a small town on the south side of the Great Smokey Mountains, right on the Tennessee border. Since our travel budget has been tight for the last several years, I have been favorable to car trips, and, so, agreed to her plan.
There was a part of this plan that made me more than uncomfortable. It was a nature trip, we would be staying in a cabin on the side of a creek, and going white water rafting. There would be fishing, cook outs, hiking and lots of other outdoor kind of stuff. This was going to be a boy vacation, and was dangerously close to actual camping, which is something I've always hated. After all the years struggling, why would I want to leave my air conditioned house to go sleep in the dirt? Camping is for rich people that want to experience poverty for a minute.
In spite of my misgivings, I told myself that it was time to leave my travel safety zone and go do boy stuff. We rented a car, paid extra for the GPS (don't leave home with out it), and off went the two J's and I, on a road trip.
Eight hours later, we arrived in Clayton at the little cabin by the creek. Ray and her son Bear were already there, and had coached us through the last 5 miles over the phone.
The cabin was adorable, with one bedroom on the first floor, and then a loft with two queen sized beds above. There was a deck over looking the babbling creek on the back of the house. To get down from the deck to the creek, where there was a fire pit and a small beach area, you had to go down a steep set of stairs. There was also a steep staircase that went from the living room to the loft.
Walking on steps, rocks, or unlevel ground is dangerous for me. My balance is incredibly bad since all my head surgeries, and I tend to fall alot. I'm famous for it. From the moment we got there, I was on high alert, watching every step I took. This made the white water rafting trip we went on the next day especially phobia-licious.
We woke up at some outrageous time in the morning and drove the half hour to the rafting place. They have this information session in the beginning, teaching you about life jackets, raft safety, and the more I hear the more I'm freaking out. I keep reminding myself that I'm doing this for the two J's, and did my best to hide my terror. The outing would last six to seven hours, and, oh yes, they were level five rapids. Fortunately, because of ignorance being bliss, I had no idea what that meant.
After hiking downhill five miles, carrying rafts above our heads, we finally reached the river. As we put the rafts into the water, with only nature surrounding us as far as the eye can see, the guide mentions that this is "the same river they filmed 'Deliverance' on". To what I was sure was the sound of dueling banjo's and squealing pigs, we began our million mile trip down river.
I thought I was going to die. As we went down a seven foot drop, I shoved my foot further into the raft and refused to fall out. We stopped for lunch, on a rocky bank. Then we stopped on another rocky bank to see a waterfall. Then we stopped on a rocky bank to climb the rocky bank. And then we would raft and stop on rocky banks for the next seven hours.
When finally we reached the end of the rapids from hell, we had to walk uphill for five miles, carrying the rafts over our heads, to a waiting bus. It was the most harrowing day of my life, but the two J's loved it and so I was proud of myself for doing it.
The next day, I was more tired than I had ever been in my life. I was sleeping soundly up in the loft, half way listening to the boys eating breakfast. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the cabin door. The boys, alarmed that anyone would be knocking on the door in the woods at seven in the morning (and perhaps remembering the "Deliverance" thing) began yelling "someones at the door, someones at the door!" and I sat up in a panic.
Going down the loft steps, half asleep and physically exhausted, I let my guard down, and ran on auto pilot. Unfortunately, there was one errant loft step that was off to the left of the rest, and I missed it. As my left foot hit the hard wood floor, my ankle buckled. In an effort to save myself, I switched the weight to my right foot, and that ankle buckled in the opposite direction. It was the most incredible pain I've ever felt in my life. TO BE CONTINUED
Monday, June 1, 2009
The Graduation
If someone would have told me five years ago that Ken would be bringing a date to our child's elementary school graduation ceremony, I would not have believed them.
It was a very big week at work for me, so i hadn't made many plans for J's sixth grade graduation other than to be there on time. It was on a Wednesday evening in late May, a day which the boys are normally with their father. That made it easy for me to just show up, straight from work, after a challenging day of technical processes that just didn't work right. It was as if the mercury retrograde really did effect these things.
The graduation started promptly at 6:30 pm and I of course arrived at 6:35 pm. The problem with that isn't so much that you missed the beginning, it's that everyone is already seated and aware of your presence.
Once, me and Traci went down to the Taft Theatre to see Cats, and Roger Grooms, whom is a local media critic, was sitting in our third row, center, seats. As we stood in the aisle, trying to make him get out of our seats, the show started. If you've seen Cats, you know that it starts with the cats entering for all entrances in the theater, through the audience, to the stage. Therefore, Traci and I became part of the show, and the entire audience was acutely aware of our existence, and that's just ugly. I hate Roger Grooms.
Then there was the time during the Nutcracker at Music Hall that I had to get up in the middle of "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies", muttering 'excuse me, excuse me' from our second row seats because if I held it any longer I was going to faint. I hate pre-show champagne. I could go on, but I think you get my phobia.
Anyqueenoftangent, I'm very sensitive about walking into anywhere late. As soon as I got into the gym, where the ceremony was held, I saw that there was nowhere to sit, neither in the bleachers or on the floor. Next, I noticed that Ken was sitting with one of the J's up in the bleachers, along with the live in girlfriend, her daughters, who are the same age as the two J's, along with Kens parents, and a woman that looked suspiciously like Ken's girlfriends mom (the mom being a part I may have created in my head). They were like the Brady Brunch, and there I was, old and worn out, with bad feet and nowhere to sit.
I tried to find a place to stand on the floor inconspicuously, and it just wasn't happening. It seemed like (granted, it may have all been in my head which is nine-tenths of reality as far as I'm concerned) their eyes were on me for the next hour. I felt like a bug in a pink skirt.
I was so self-conscious that when they called J's name I tried to hoot and holler for him, which is just what I do at these things, and it came out sounding just like the the scream that killed Howard Dean's run for the presidency. No, it was worse than Howard Dean, it was horrendous!
Then, I'm standing there, and I get to thinking about how J had just been in kindergarten yesterday and our hopes and dreams where all so different then, but then again, maybe they hadn't changed so much after all. These thoughts, so romantic and simple, are often not the best things for me to ponder at such events as this, and, oh lord, there came the tears, and after a minute, they were too many for my bare hands to absorb. I said "girl, you've got to breath". and pulled myself together.
Then it was over and the graduates came walking down the aisle in the center of the gym, right where I was standing. When J saw me, he lit up. I hugged him as long and as tight as you can an eleven year old boy in front of his peers.
I took his boudinar for my keep sake box, hugged him again, and told him that I was so proud of him, and that I was going to get out of there and let him be with his dad. Then, before I boo-hoo'd some more, I slipped out through a back door that couldn't have been placed in a more dramatically strategic location if I had planned it, into the night, and in my head I was Mildred Pearce.
Sometimes,things are so painful, I'm in awe of my ability to stomach it, and it almost knocks the wind out of me. Then I spend a week or two looking for the humor, and, damn, I always find it. So, there you have it.
It was a very big week at work for me, so i hadn't made many plans for J's sixth grade graduation other than to be there on time. It was on a Wednesday evening in late May, a day which the boys are normally with their father. That made it easy for me to just show up, straight from work, after a challenging day of technical processes that just didn't work right. It was as if the mercury retrograde really did effect these things.
The graduation started promptly at 6:30 pm and I of course arrived at 6:35 pm. The problem with that isn't so much that you missed the beginning, it's that everyone is already seated and aware of your presence.
Once, me and Traci went down to the Taft Theatre to see Cats, and Roger Grooms, whom is a local media critic, was sitting in our third row, center, seats. As we stood in the aisle, trying to make him get out of our seats, the show started. If you've seen Cats, you know that it starts with the cats entering for all entrances in the theater, through the audience, to the stage. Therefore, Traci and I became part of the show, and the entire audience was acutely aware of our existence, and that's just ugly. I hate Roger Grooms.
Then there was the time during the Nutcracker at Music Hall that I had to get up in the middle of "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies", muttering 'excuse me, excuse me' from our second row seats because if I held it any longer I was going to faint. I hate pre-show champagne. I could go on, but I think you get my phobia.
Anyqueenoftangent, I'm very sensitive about walking into anywhere late. As soon as I got into the gym, where the ceremony was held, I saw that there was nowhere to sit, neither in the bleachers or on the floor. Next, I noticed that Ken was sitting with one of the J's up in the bleachers, along with the live in girlfriend, her daughters, who are the same age as the two J's, along with Kens parents, and a woman that looked suspiciously like Ken's girlfriends mom (the mom being a part I may have created in my head). They were like the Brady Brunch, and there I was, old and worn out, with bad feet and nowhere to sit.
I tried to find a place to stand on the floor inconspicuously, and it just wasn't happening. It seemed like (granted, it may have all been in my head which is nine-tenths of reality as far as I'm concerned) their eyes were on me for the next hour. I felt like a bug in a pink skirt.
I was so self-conscious that when they called J's name I tried to hoot and holler for him, which is just what I do at these things, and it came out sounding just like the the scream that killed Howard Dean's run for the presidency. No, it was worse than Howard Dean, it was horrendous!
Then, I'm standing there, and I get to thinking about how J had just been in kindergarten yesterday and our hopes and dreams where all so different then, but then again, maybe they hadn't changed so much after all. These thoughts, so romantic and simple, are often not the best things for me to ponder at such events as this, and, oh lord, there came the tears, and after a minute, they were too many for my bare hands to absorb. I said "girl, you've got to breath". and pulled myself together.
Then it was over and the graduates came walking down the aisle in the center of the gym, right where I was standing. When J saw me, he lit up. I hugged him as long and as tight as you can an eleven year old boy in front of his peers.
I took his boudinar for my keep sake box, hugged him again, and told him that I was so proud of him, and that I was going to get out of there and let him be with his dad. Then, before I boo-hoo'd some more, I slipped out through a back door that couldn't have been placed in a more dramatically strategic location if I had planned it, into the night, and in my head I was Mildred Pearce.
Sometimes,things are so painful, I'm in awe of my ability to stomach it, and it almost knocks the wind out of me. Then I spend a week or two looking for the humor, and, damn, I always find it. So, there you have it.
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