Take it or...take it?

Ever feel like you deserve more? I know, I know, does a bear sh*t in the woods, Nichole? I get it. But in all seriousness, and maybe I should've had this thought much earlier in the game, but I am painfully immature (as my friends have reminded me) and so...you see why it took this long.

Now, back to the bit about deserving more. I'm not talking necessarily about more "stuff" in the material sense of the word. Although, hell, who wouldn't want an iPhone (yes, I still have a flip phone that has been dropped in 3 water features and that I have to scroll through each letter button to send a f*cking text). Or a pair of SmartWool socks with owls on them? Or even a full tank of gas (or fuel oil)? These seem like simple requests but I assure you, they are not easy to obtain and really, life can and does go on without them. But I'm not even talking about this stuff (I REALLY want the socks, though, to anyone who's looking for a great gift idea for their crazy journalist friend).

And, frankly, I do deserve to be paid more. I will shame myself or my employer by setting up that number; just think new teacher pay but without any bennies. But again, this is tolerable, it is the way of the world, I do love my job and frankly, right now, I feel pretty goddamn lucky to have a job that guarantees basic food on the table and shelter from the cold.

So, blah, blah, I am thankful, I get it, but I can't help feeling like I deserve more. I guess I need to figure out what this "more" is, but I have a vague sense that it refers to my tendency to give up my rare moments of freedom (read: being ALONE in my apartment, sipping ALONE at a cup of coffee, sharing or not sharing my bed with whoever I want, not sharing my one-ounce sliver of specialty cheese, not being rushed in the shower, just doing MY dishes that I dirtied...).

Essentially, I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I need to say, "Nope, sorry, not today. I'm too into myself today."

Sounds awful, doesn't it? But that's how I feel. Obviously, I can't say this to my own children. They'd think I was kidding anyway, but there are days when I don't want to have to give a f*ck about anyone else's feelings but my own. There are days, truly, when I just don't care. Or rather, I don't want to care. I am waiting for the big moment when I wake up one morning and languish in bed because I WANT to be there. Because there is no one on this earth I'd rather be with but myself in that moment. Reading, or just daydreaming...

It is a foreign world out there in that land of "me." I am envious of its inhabitants.

Sad Enrichment

I try not to make too much eye contact in the waiting room of the therapist's office. It's a small town, people you know are bound to walk in. It's awkward, even though it shouldn't be. Twice I've emerged from the depths of the building with red-rimmed eyes, and wouldn't you know, there's always a familiar face to smile at me through snotty tissues and mountains of regret.

So, yeah, my strategy is to duck and cover.

Or to pretend to be so engrossed with the Al-Anon and La Leche League fliers pasted to the bulletin board that I cannot see or feel the anguish around me.

I got sick of looking at the announcement so my eyes shifted to the posters on the wall. One above the doorway caught my eye. In bright cheery orange letters the sign read "People with mental illnesses enrich our lives." Above the lettering were the names of famous people in history who apparently had mental illness but who, apparently, have enriched our lives.

More than half of those listed were writers. I nearly choked on my own spit. For starters, there was Ernest Hemingway, who continued to subdue and submerge his homosexual tendencies into his writing, where many of his main characters couldn't get it up and hated women and drank whiskey in profusion. And let's not forget Ernest's untimely end which involved massive amounts of booze, a double barrel shotgun and a very adept big toe.

And if Ernest hasn't enriched your life enough (he's certainly contributed to my depression and need to prove my masculinity), how about Sylvia Plath? Great poetry, tortured, mysterious. Oh and by the way, she shoved her head into the f*cking oven so as to asphyxiate herself. Now that's what I call enrichment. I feel so much better now.

Of course, Lincoln was on the list, as was Tolstoy, O'Neill, Keats, Williams, Dickens, you name it, they were there.

Gulp. And so, what am I, a writer, poet, journalist, dry drunk, mother supposed to glean from this list of brilliant people who've met a horrible end? Not just people, but MY kind of people; the weirdos and freaks who pursued risk as a lifestyle, who locked themselves up for years, who exposed their broken terrible hearts to the world in prose?

Is my only comfort that after I stick my head in the oven or drink a gallon of hemlock that my work will have enriched some dipsh*t college student's life for 5 minutes because he liked my chapter about the old man?

God, I hope not.

I remember not long ago, that there were certain quotes that I tried to live by, or at least utilize in conversation. They were famous quotes about honor and integrity, said by famous honorable people, like Lincoln and Ghandi. Really meaty stuff that could change the world...

I'm not so into those quotes anymore. I still hold the sayers in high esteem and I still believe strongly in the values they tried to teach, but, frankly, I feel a little too ordinary and cynical to be slinging this kind of ideal eloquence around. For starters, I use the f-word too much (still working on it) and I still laugh at really loud farts and utterly indecent picto/audio texts which I receive mostly from my brothers and my father. I'm still one of the boys in this regard. My brother's wife has blocked his number because she wants nothing to do with these messages.

I laugh uncontrollably and forward them to my friends.

So, you see, I am lacking in that idealism that I had all those years ago. Could it be a sign of depression? Or age? Or just the big work boot of reality that has finally met up with my once unscathed forehead?

I have a friend, I'll call her Red, and she has many more years of wisdom on me, meaning she could be my mother with some years to spare. Yet, when I see her and we chat, I feel like somehow, despite my comparative youth, we are equals in many ways. I am lulled into thinking that my jaded edgy personality trumps her nearly 70 years of surviving and raising children and falling in and out of love and burying children and illness.

But she always surprises me, in the end. Always. I think I was trying to find words to describe to her my utter desolation and my confusion about love and my insecurity as a writer and a mother and how I felt injured by the world. She, in turn, told me that she had a morning where she opened her eyes and just wanted to die. Literally.

"But," said Red, "I just keep reminding myself what my friend Don always says to me."

"Oh yeah, what's that?" I say, hoping that this is the answer to my sadness and chaos.

"He always says, 'Red, you gotta remember, life is a shit sandwich. It's just a shit sandwich.'"

"Wow," I said, feeling the life drain out of my shoulders. "He's absolutely right."

And it's full of idiots like me and Red who will keep eating, hoping against all hope, that the menu will change.

And if it doesn't, there's always something to write about.

No reply

It is ten o'clock on election night. I covered the polls in South County, I talked to people, I made phone calls, I wished the underdog good luck, my kids and I waved frantically to the projected winner from all windows of our car...

I've done my part, I think.

As I send in the last of the results, mostly numbers, who voted, who didn't, my email shows a message from Barack Obama.

His media advisor wants me to make some more calls to key states. "You have until midnight" the email blast says.

I am totally exhausted to the point of being cynical. I'd like to send a mass email blast of my own to the White House and everyone in it who has premo health insurance, nice suits, a housekeeper and a vehicle in working condition.

I've been working hard for you guys. Getting people to the polls, trying to look on the bright side, knowing I have to do my part, knowing that this economic wreck was a nice little inheritance from the Bush administration and the nation's overall greed (mostly credit cards and living beyond our means).

Here's what I ask in return, your humble servant who works three jobs and raises two kids.

I ask for some space to breathe in.

I ask for health insurance that I can rely on when my children are sick or when I am sick, 'cause it does happen once in awhile and it sucks.

I ask for the words coming out of your mouths not to be dripping with lies to keep the starving wolf at bay.
I ask for decent schools where intolerance is intolerable, always.

I ask for YOU to stay up until midnight making frantic calls on my behalf to those who might listen.

I ask for an end to this godless, useless, senseless war so that my children will know a time of peace, as they have yet to do.

I'm sure there's more, but, above all, I ask for you to employ integrity as your mantra.

I feel like a once-loyal dog who has lost the love of her master and now wanders the streets hoping merely to survive one more day out there, in the land of great uncertainty and even greater doubt.

I ask, as you promised, for that hope that I caught a glimmer of not so long ago.

Thank you. You have until midnight...or so.

To know enough's enough is enough to know...

I'm getting to the point now where I'm realizing that I don't have an "off" switch, especially when it comes to disgusting humor and practical jokes. My victims have the "off" switch for sure, but I seem to miss the cues sometimes...or most of the time. Even Anna has a stern face reserved just for me. And she's not afraid to use it.

"Mom, why do you let us say 'crap' and 'hell' and 'friggin' and stuff?" Lucian says between bites of cereal, most of which end up in his lap, half-chewed and soggy.

"I don't know, Luca. 'Cause they're fun to say and they're not swears really and you can get them out of your system." Mind you, I barely have three sips of coffee in my body.

This is the precise moment at which Anna, her hair wild from sleep, gives me a steady, cool glare and speaks, slowly, as if she is the final word on the matter.

"I think it's because you don't even know you're saying them," she says. "Dad doesn't let us say crap or the other words. He says they're inappropriate."

That's when I pull the writer card. Otherwise I'd pull the go-f*ck-yourself-you-f*cking prude card.

"Well, Anna, as a writer I need to use all the words in the English language because each word expresses a very important idea." I was proud of my thesis for it being so early in the morning.

"I friggin' hate school," Lucian sighed, brushing the cereal blobs off of his shirt.

Who can argue with that?

Even the supposed grown-ups can only take so much. Yesterday I was eating a little cup of Italian ice watching the Godfather trilogy with the Sisco kid. Of course, what normal human being can resist putting the cup on the flesh of another, especially the stomach or the neck, just for a little laugh and to watch them jump about 50 feet into the air. After about 3 attacks Sisco turned to me, his face flushed and unblinking.

"I'm gonna kick you in the d*ck if you do that again."

"No one's ever said that to me before."

"No one's ever tortured me this much before."

Duly noted. I will refrain and/or wear an athletic cup for the next joke.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste

Lucian has not blinked in 45 minutes. Upon literally jumping out of the shower (in which he whistled, screamed and sprayed nearly all of my shaving cream on the walls) he shook his wet head like a dog and spoke...wildly, of course.

"My mind feels like it's going to blow up!" Shake, shake, jump.
"Um, well, what did you have for dinner?"
"Just pizza." Shake, shiver, shake, dum-dee-dum.
"What did you have to drink with your pizza?"

His eyes lit up like an Iraqi oil well.

"Oooh. I had root beer."
"I thought so." He darted off naked into his room where he then emptied the contents of his dresser, throwing each and every pair of boxers into the air.

Thank you, daddy-o, for giving them root beer. The last time he took them out Lucian came home holding his guts, greener than the Hulk. Guess what. Two cans of Coke. Again, thanks. I want to exact a sweet revenge but I feel like it would be cruel to the children. He doesn't have the patience to deal with the fall out if I did finally decide to give the kids that giant slab of flourless chocolate cake.
At least I have a sense of humor...sort of.

Even Anna was being defiant about the shower, which is alarming because the child gives off a pretty strong scent, even for being nine.

"Anna, if you don't go take a shower now, I swear, I will beat you senseless."

Long, contemplative pause.

"Well, you can beat me, but you still have to pay your taxes."

Thanks for reminding me, babe.

Oop, gotta run, I just heard a chair being dragged across the kitchen floor. Lucian must've spotted the cider donuts on top of the fridge.

Aaaaah yeah

I am done pretending, even for a minute, that human beings aren't total animals. We are driven by instinct and survival, the rest (like writing, music, technology) is just a thin cover that barely conceals our horns and tails. We tried, with various gigantic religious texts and talk about sin and hell and enlightenment, to deny the beast within because it's embarrassing, especially to the intellectual set. But in the end, we are all, in some way, cave men.

Here's how I know.

Last week, I went to a dignified theater because of my dignified appreciation for world music. I wore make-up and heels and sat in a plush velvet seat and tapped my foot and snapped my fingers to the music. But then, about 15 minutes into the show, my intellect crumbled like the Soviet bloc. Why, you ask? What was it that snapped the Yale graduate and compelled her to jump on stage with a bunch of other women and to dance in front of the WHOLE audience, including her son's pediatrician?

Hips, people, hips. And not just any hips but the mad, gyrating, dancing hips of a lean Cuban singer who must have known, very early in life, that it's pointless to fight against the animal, against lust. The back of his blue shirt was dark with sweat and every woman dancing on the stage was watching the slight movement of muscle under the drenched material, as well as the way his pants stretched, ever so slightly, revealing an ass that was as close to perfect as I've ever seen.

So, yeah, you think you're smart, but lust is smarter, I assure you. Even my most professional, intelligent moments, where I am deep in thought and writing/contemplating are easily broken by lust and its design. There is fire everywhere! Look around you!

Not too long ago my "gentleman friend" as my therapist calls him, looked at me through very sleepy eyes and just shook his head, I couldn't tell if it was disbelief or disgust.
"What," I said, defensive, "Do I scare you?"
"No, you don't scare me," he said. "But that look does. That's the look of a wolf right before it sinks its teeth in."

We cannot rationalize it, we cannot give in fully to it, so, we call it love, which it is. And love, contrary to popular belief, is not civil, nor is it patient, nor is it kind. At least not the love of animals. I was watching "Closer" the other day and Jude Law, who plays Dan, an overly intellectual writer is trying to explain that Larry, a brutish doctor, knows nothing about love. "You don't understand the heart," he says to the doctor.
"Have you ever seen a human heart?" Larry roars. "It looks like a human fist wrapped in blood."

There you have it. We're not fooling anyone.