Zen and the Art of Self Awareness

For the last week or so, I have been having what can only be described as an out-of-body experience. This is bigger than an epiphany, more like ten epiphanies at once.

I am not what anyone would call self aware, if I was, all of this wouldn't have shocked me. It's no accident, my total lack of self awareness, it's something I've worked on my entire life. To me, self awareness is almost a luxury, a self indulgence I can't afford. I've lived the kind of life where you learn to pick yourself up by the boot straps, suck up whatever the emotional soup Du jour happens to be at that moment, and move on.

Trisha has always said that "you can't go around things, you have to go through them", and it's always bummed me out every time she's said it because I know it's true. But I hate that shit, you have no idea how much I hate self reflection. Let me say that one more time, damn I hate that shit.

So, listen to this story. On this blog, I am lucky enough to have people that actually follow my adventures. This is different than just reading it, to follow it you have to actually set up an account, which in my short attention world is a real commitment. I appreciate my ten followers because they are my audience, and they are to whom I am speaking. Without knowing they were there, I probably would stop writing.

I used to have eleven followers but I recently lost one. The profile name was Noam Dplume, which to me was just a profile name and I didn't really read much further into what it meant. I don't know who half my followers are, so I just try to be myself, and hope I don't offend anyone with my base, twelve year old humor.

About a month-ish ago, I posted a rant on middle managers, which was fairly mean spirited. Soon after that, I lost Noam Dplume as a follower, and felt really bad about it. Ironically, it wasn't the face sitting or booger stories that finally ran a follower away, it was a middle manager rant.

It surprised me so much, that I went looking for Noam Dplume. All the profile description said was that she/he lived in the midwest and was born in 1942. So, now, in my head, I was sure that this was an older guy in his sixties who had spent his life being a middle manager, and I felt horrible about it. It became my personal mission to reach out in reconciliation to this poor guy.

The only thing else on her/his profile was that they were writing their own blog. It was called some Latin mumbo jumbo that I didn't know what it meant, and it had a picture of a flower. Once again, I read absolutely nothing into what the Latin might mean...details, details. The story was about this guys first love, of which I read the first two paragraphs, and, having the attention span of an eight year old on crack cocaine, moved on to my next thought.

(I'd like to state that having attention deficit doesn't mean I'm the one with the disability, it just means that everyone who doesn't have it is really fucking slow and I can fit entirely new topics into a conversation while I'm waiting for you to form your first sentence, kinda like I just did.)

My next thought was that the poor middle manager who was writing what could almost be described as a love letter to a woman he once loved, and she never showed up to read it. This made me even sadder, and I felt an even stronger connection to my once ago follower. To make it up to him, I became his first follower, thinking that this silent gesture would let him know that I, for one, had noticed his presence and his absence, even if no one else did.

That was about a month ago, and Noam Dplume never came back. I never read any more of the blog because of that attention span issue I have. Plus, I generally do not give much thought time to things after my initial impression. I like to go through life with no real facts, just vague impressions, things are so much more pleasant that way.

I had recently, by chance, ran into my old friend Zen, who has always loved talking to me in riddles, perhaps because he knows how shallow I really am. He's always driven me crazy, always talking in riddles, when I prefer that he'd just get to the point. I had noticed that for the last few weeks, Zen, whom I almost never heard from, or for that matter, really even thought of, was becoming more cryptic in his conversations with me than ever. I could tell he was becoming annoyed with me and my inability to understand him.

Finally, one day, Zen says to me "How about that Noam Dplume?"

"What do you know about Noam Dplume?" I asked him, "What does Noam Dplume mean anyway"

To which Zen replied "That's what online dictionaries are for"

So typical, make me go Google it for myself instead of just telling me the answer. It turns out, and perhaps you already knew this, that "Noam Dplume" means "no pen name", the writer is anonymous.

So, I say to Zen "Well, maybe I didn't know that fancy name, but I still knew it was anonymous",

"But what do you make of the Latin around the flower" he asks me.

Now I'm starting to freak out, the out of body experience has begun, and Zen knows it. How does he know about the Latin?

"I have not idea what the Latin means, and it's too much work to type it into Google, so I'm going to live without ever knowing" I tell him.

He laughs at me like I'm his student and says "Did you always love the story of the Scarlett Pimpernel?" I always did, it was true.

After much ado, Zen explains that the picture is of a scarlet pimpernel, which is what the Latin means. A Scarlett Pimpernel is a flower that closes up when bad weather is approaching. The Scarlett Pimpernel is the name of a romantic story, where this average aristocrat is meek and effeminate by day, but at night becomes the Scarlett Pimpernel, rescuer of damsels in distress, who love him by night but do not recognize him by day.

Ok, fine, so somehow Zen is following the same blog, maybe he saw the follower on my blog, of which Zen has been known to read from time to time. Then he asks me my opinion of the story, and isn't it strangely familiar, which, of course, I haven't actually read. So I mutter something about how it's about some guys first love, named Cola (hated the name, may be why I stopped reading), who was once the guys babysitter."

"Babysitter? What the fuck are you reading?" Zen says, and I realize that he really has read it and knows that I'm making this up. Apparently, there was no babysitter, and I have to confess that I never actually read anything that's not summed up in the first two paragraphs.

I put Zen on hold, and run to read the "The Story of Cola, My First Love" which by now is up to several chapters.

I couldn't believe what I was reading. Though thinly veiled, it was our story and I was Cola! Zen was telling the story of our love affair and it was so beautiful it made me cry. I'd forgotten all the things we shared, and had just moved on when it was over because it was too painful for me to reflect on.

Since reading it, I have realized so many things that I just never knew. It was almost as if Zen dragged me kicking and screaming to reflect on what was a really important part of my life. That Zen, he made me go through it instead of around it, without me even knowing where I was going! Damn that Zen and his riddles, he got me again.

Someday, when he is ready to share our story, Zen will leave the address to his blog for you. Until then, it belongs to he and me, and it was amazing.

When Trisha Got Married

Trisha was the very first close friend I had to get married. She dated her husband for a couple of years, he was ten years older than us, very grown-up, and very much her polar opposite. He was very responsible, made good money, and loved Trisha desperately. He went about winning her over with every ounce of the salesman he was, and he was a great salesman.

I, of course, hated him instantly. Both Trisha and I were raised in matriarcle households, and I didn't know nothing about no alpha male. Eventually, the Boss won me over, but I had to have been the most belligerent, cranky-ass maid-of-honor any poor bride ever got stuck with. Trisha was also my matron-of-honor when I got married years later, and she was so wonderful to me, which was punishment enough for my earlier behavior. Damn, I'm pissed at myself to this day about being such a shitty maid-of-honor.......more like maid-of-horror.

Anyimabitch, Trisha marrying the Boss changed both of our lives. It introduced us both to what we thought was how normal people lived. The Boss had a big grown up job at a very well known company and was very successful. Eventually, he started his own distribution company and became extremely wealthy. One of the fun things about him was that he liked to spend his money keeping up with the Jones's, and that shit was too fun. I liked it...there, I said it!

Soon after they married, Trisha and the Boss moved to Atlanta. It was the first of two moves around the country that Trisha never returned from, except for the occasional visit. But in true-blue Trisha fashion, she would send for me no matter where she lived, and I would always go.

When Trisha and I get together, we hang around. Neither one of us were really raised to be domestic and neither one of us were particularly motivated when it came to house chores, nor were we very particular. The Boss, on the other hand, was a neat freak, wanted things done just so, and God forbid they ever ran out of paper towels. Everything was always fully stocked and in its place.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing. In many ways, Trisha and I needed adult supervision. He had a way of keeping us on the straight and narrow. We were not the most structured of girls. Like I mentioned earlier, Trisha and the Boss were polar opposites.

As the years went by, they became wealthier and wealthier. It was were I learned the concept of "when one of us do well, we all do well". Trisha is extremely low maintenance, and I think she always felt secretly guilty about having so much money.

She is not a shopper, not into clothes, doesn't care that much about "stuff". What Trisha did love doing was giving away the Boss's money. Not spending it, giving it away. If times were tight for me, she'd pay my rent. She loaned me the down payment for my first car. I have sat with Trisha and watched her write check after check to ALOT of charities. She wrote those checks once a month, every month. The Boss and Trisha took me to swanky places, on vacations, and were so good to me, it was like I had married well. Trisha, even before her good fortune, was always giving and generous and now she really had the tools to work with. If her family ever wondered why I always tried to be so good to them, it was because Trisha was always so good to me. You play it forward.

The Boss was often frustrated with us. There was what I like to refer to as "The Hamburger Incident of 1985". They were living in Atlanta at the time, and had two small children. The Boss traveled a lot, and Trisha was left to take care of the babies. I was in town visiting, and as soon as the Boss hit the runway, we hit the chill mode.

Before he got back, we went to the grocery store, which was a huge endeavor because the Boss liked to buy in bulk. Trisha bought this huge mega lump of hamburger, which would be dived into smaller sections once we got it home.

When the Boss got back from his business trip, everything seemed cool. We never got around to breaking up the hunka hunka hamburger, so it remained in the fridge. Everyday, the Boss would ask if we had done the hamburger. Everyday, we forgot. Finally, on the third day, we hid it in the freezer. When the Boss discovered it there, HE WAS SO PISSED! I, of course, was mesmerized, because we had done much worse things and he never got that pissed.

Eventually, they moved out to the land of fruits and nuts. Yes, they went west, where Trisha still lives today. She's no longer married to the Boss, and I'm no longer married to mine. Looking back on it, though, those were some great adventures that we would never have had, had Trisha not married the Boss.

The Kids from the Old Neighborhood

Tami and I grew up in a neighborhood named Roselawn, where we attended Roselawn Elementary. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we met on the first day of kindergarten and enjoyed many a snack time together. It's where I got my very first brain freeze, drinking the milk from the red and white mini carton too quick, and thought my eyes were gonna pop out of my head like that slick wolf's cartoon character in the in the zoot suit does whenever he see's a hot bitch. Ahhh, those were the glory days at Cincinnati Public, back when they still refrigerated the perishables.

Along the way, I met the group of friends that I'm still hanging out with 40 years later. After Tami, I met Traci, the third of my three T's. We would have met Traci in kindergarten, except for she was still home in diapers because she's two years younger than us.

Traci is the friend whose life has most paralleled mine as far as timing goes. We were lucky enough to have our children around the same time, and went through all that together. We once quit smoking at the same time without knowing the other was doing it. While Traci still doesn't smoke to this day, I started again after 12 years of not smoking. Sorry, I'm weak. So shoot me.

Anypuffpuff, after we met Traci, next came Jimmy. After Jimmy, we met Dean. After Dean, we met Patrick. After Patrick, we met Cathy. And that completed the core group we would travel through time with.

Jimmy, who moved to San Francisco years ago, was in town for Easter this year. Traci hosted a party for him at her house, and we were all there. So, I got to looking around the room