one more ticket to hell

Got off work early today and snuck off to go plant shopping at home depot (tiny smidge of shame in admittance). Aisles were narrow and made difficult to traverse because of hoses etc. So, as a new yorker, i park mine and walk the rows. A couple with an empty cart comes quickly and sloppily down the row, bumps me, so that i almost fall and actually runs over my foot. No apology. My foot hurts (a little) but I am more pissed. I say loudly, "EXCUSE ME!" no response. So i then say, "fucking assholes". Still cannot believe that they did not respond. I get over it.

Go up to checkout line. They are 3 ahead of me. I am watching them, and slowly begin to realize that they are 'slow' adults. I look outside and see that they have work coaches waiting for them who are helping them to live productive healthy lives.

I swallow yet another deep gulp of self-shame.

dream

During my 5 minutes of sleep on the plane, I dreamt that i was the director of the big upcoming blockbuster of Dante's Inferno. I had some really cool ideas for it, so if you got the $, let's do this.

jobs

I love it when my friends talk about job stress.

AM: Yesterday am, i rolled into work late, around 8:15. I opened my door sat down, opened email. All of a sudden out of the complete blue, a huge fax machine is being thrown at me. I duck, but as the electrical socket was ripping out of the wall, complete with sparks flying, the fax machine fell short of hitting me, but shattered into pieces. I immediately think about the fact that we have no money to replace this machine.

This was all because one of my gangsta girls needed a bandaid and the school nurse was not yet in.

PM: At dismissal, a huge fight breaks out between all of the gang kids, the big guys manage to pull away the main characters. I happen to grab a smaller member. I am trained in restraint, but this kid who is half my size is killing me, kicking me in the groin, punching me in face, you name it. I finally get him calm, he gets on his bus. I realize on my way home, that I can barely move from how sore I am.

master cleanse deux

As predicted, i did indeed catch the bug. Threw up, shit guts out then...eye of storm. Was supposed to be a 24-36 hr bug. Everyone else was 24 hrs. me. Sunday night until 5 am this morning. You do the math. A long, long time. As a result I realize that I have serious GI probs, and I need to redo the colonoscopy/endoscopy rituals. I am certain that i have guts cancer, the grossest of all............

master cleanse

One of the parents of one of my students gave a gift of a book to one of the teachers. It was a crazy culty book of recipes and god stuff. I read it and became very interested in the lemonade diet. So, after much research and reading, I will subject my body to somewhere between 1-10 days of drinking:

• 2 Tablespoons of organic lemon Juice (about 1/2 a Lemon)
• 2 Tablespoons of Organic grade B maple syrup (not the commercial maple flavored syrup you use on pancakes)
• 1/10 Teaspoon Cayenne pepper powder
• Ten ounces of filtered water

And will shit my toxic shits until i break down and need a hot dog.

BTW: Will and Gilly both have a stomach bug and have been puking. So I may end up with an alternate plan.

power

my small boy summoned me upstairs tonight, long after his bedtime. I brought warm milk and cradled him in my arms in the chair. he barely drank but just kept looking up at me, smiling. i looked at him and realized just how helpless he was without me. and i also realized that there is not a person on earth more capable of breaking my heart. that is power.

looking at it from the other side

I am getting older and not any prettier. When I was young and cute, I just completely discounted older people. Now, I treat young people the way that older black men in the south treat white people. "Oh yes maam..blaaaaah, etc, Fucking cracker. Yeah, I once had a 20 inch waist too, cracker.

what i am listening to right now

Momma? Dadd-eey? ratz? henen? geena?
heellpp. lemme oouutt. im stuck. heellllllllllllp. henreez in trubble. heelllppp! pleez help?

eat? no eat. downstairs? eddy? EEEEDDDDDYYYYY? cum upstrs eddy.

otay. ni-ni.

heavy breathing.

please be asleep.

The Knowmadz

Will found this website which gives detailed renderings of a group of hipsters that lived in our house in the 90's. Wild shit............

http://web.archive.org/web/19971008100722/www.knowmadz.org/house/homepage.htm

Shout out.............if you were a member of the Knowmadz, email me at geener@reeltoreelrecords.com

Be careful what you ask for

I grew up in a pretty religious family, and I truly believed my prayers were heard until maybe high school. My brother and I would sometimes pray together. He was almost 4 years younger than me and the only prayer we ever had in common was that our parents would get divorced. We both agreed that he would live with her, and me with him. Yes, they do not even have names or titles at this minute. Anyway, as of today, by the court of connecticut, my parents are officially divorced.

Of course, this is not what I had asked for 25-30 years ago, it is now a sad shroud that will always taint every holiday in ways worse than had been previously tainted. It will also infringe upon already limited time in terms of visitation time etc.

why didn't they do it when we were kids? Shit woulda been so much easier.

update

So, after hours of worryiing, it turns out that when my brother got there, my father was drunk. He is not normally a drinker, but has been doing so since being served. Total attention seeking act, he calls family member, announces that he is drunk and will proceed to take sleeping pills. Refuses all calls, so we can all believe he did it, based upon a previous attempt. Sean shows up, dad is fine. What a fucking calculating jerk. My parents are such puppeteers. I hope that I am actually a far better parent. I should be, I've had 41 years of practice.

moment

Right now I am sitting here, holding a beer, waiting for a call from my brother to let me know if my father has killed himself.

dog teaches boy teaches dog

the other day, gilly was watching loretta eat her dog food. he immediately puts his face into his own plate and starts eating (well not really ingesting, just chewing, as he does not eat).

gilly has recently become obsessed with turning light switches on and off. last night we came home from trick-or-treating, and i was a little freaked out because backyard light was on, and i knew i had left it off. nothing missing no robbery, but scratching head.

just now, i sat at this island and watched the dog stand against the wall, use her nose to turn the light switch on so she could have light to go outside to do her bizness.

having problems with myself

I am not an idiot. But at the craziest point of my life i think i may have known myself better than i do now. I now float, and not well. I also, cannot deal with the mismatch of self vs. mirror. It's starting to have some feel to me.

where's the camera when ya need it?

En route home from work today, I see a delivery truck worker exit the passenger side of his truck. He looks ragged, like he'd had a rough, rough night. He has a shaven head with stubble and as he turns around to approach the back of the truck, I see that he has 3 pieces of chewed gum placed neatly planted around his head. Priceless.

sucker punch

I got a letter from my (very youngish) ob/gyn stating that he was retiring. (If there are any males reading, keep staid). So, I quickly make an appointment, and I go. I am not a doctor person, but as I love him, I have to go to find out why and what.

He would not share specifics for reason for retire, only that it was a tough decision. I bluntly told him that it was not good for me as he was the ONLY doctor that I felt comfortable with. He does an un-doctorly move and tears up. Gives me a huge hug and tells me that he has thought about our miracle baby often. Gives referral and bye.

I get in the car and cry my brains out. This guy, who is nobody to me really, never been to thanksgiving or has never talked to me about anything personal, was the direct reason I have my son. He had no idea how to contend with my weird blood disorder and managed to research and figger the shit out and go all experimental on it. And now, this guy, a stranger, who has seen me through many miscarriages and through a perfect child, is out of my life. I am seriously feeling a loss.

more fall........

Sometimes it's fun being an almost grown-up.

autumn

Everyone who really knows me, knows how much I love the autumnal rituals. No one on this planet right now loves a pumpkin patch or a corn maize as much as i do. Ergo, this past weekend, 3 hayrides in 24 hours. First two: with-now-single-mom. #1 clydesdale horses , #2 disney-esq farm that i worked on as a kid. next day: with-now-single-dad. totally old-school farm. the geezer who parked the three cars that were there, recommended that we look at the newborn pigs. The barn floor was 3 inches thick with muck that you absolutely had to step in to see the pigs. Once in, I glance over and happen to see a shotgun just propped against the wall within total reach of anyone willing to step in the muck. Totally fucking awesome. I will post the name as soon as i remember it.

subways when i was a renegade child

People still smoked on the platforms and on the trains. The trains were so dirty and smelly and covered in graffiti. The smell of human funk was truly so pervasive, it was not even talked about. I never wanted to sit, because every seat had something gross on it, even though i was a wild tomboy. It was wild and exciting when I was riding with an adult. When I decided to go it alone, it was oh-so-scary, but such a thrill to me.

addendum to: "that was then, this is now"

So my parents would ship me to my aunt mimis for small bouts of time, as per previous post. But then, when I got there, she would also sometimes foster me out. Sometimes she had to work (a nurse at St. Vincents) and sometimes she just had her life. If nighttime, I just went to sleep, and she went out. If daytime, she had another "best"friend who was the head librarian at the library at the W. 4th branch. I was supposed to stay there all day and read. Which I did most days. I have always had better than perfect vision, and in those days my eyes actually hurt at the end of the day for so much i read.

Then one day at school i was talking with a kid in my school who was also a quasi-newyorker. She was like, "you don't know new york, if you haven't been to coney island to ride the cyclone" (yes, i grew up in snotty loser connecticut) .

So, next time i am shipped to mimis apt, she ships me to the library. I am loosely being babysat by head librarian and i decide to duck out to coney island to ride the cyclone. I am 9 or 10. I ask directions, read maps. I get there! I ride cyclone (1$ at the time) and still in love with life and myself

. Then........I don't remember how to get back to mimi's. I go up to nearest cop and lo and behold, they drive me to my ny home. Parents never needing to know. Great aunt, worried, but no real trouble. It all worked out. That was then, this is now.