Delivered

Jul 24, 2007 | This Life

Pictures now, words later.

(post box and photo from the lovely and talented Juliet. Used with permission!)

UPDATE: It’s been a profoundly disappointing day. I woke up to discover that the medication I’d been taking for 2 months was actually a lower dosage than I thought. In yet another snafu with my Drs. office, it appears that they lowered my medication and didn’t tell me. Actually, let me rephrase, they lowered it and LIED about it. I took them at their word and didn’t read the label, so in the end it’s really my fault. For the past two months, while I’ve been thinking I’m going insane to feel the way I do, I was really just going through withdrawals. There’s nothing like interacting with your doctor to make you feel completely insane. Insane or not, I spent the remainder of the day making sure I had a new phyician, an appointment to see said phyician, and all my records in order. In between crying jags for the frustration.

When I thought the day had dealt me its worse, I discovered that the man who delivered my vintage hutch, only to take it away and work on it because it couldn’t fit, didn’t bother to look at it for a month. Despite telling me he could do the work in no time, easy peasy, despite reassuring me that he would make it a priority, he did nothing. And when he finally did look at it, (today!) he decided that he would like to charge me the same amount of money I spent on it to fix it. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

So, my “space”, which has been torn apart waiting for a new hutch is now just torn apart. The item is too big and will now go back to the store where I will get to eat a 10% charge assuming it ever sells. I am without a hutch and without any motivation to face the disaster area that is my office. I have even less desire to begin the hunt for a solution to the problem. Honestly, all I can do right now is cry… Ever feel that way? Just overwhelmed with setbacks. It’s really petty, I suppose and I don’t know what’s more pathetic—all this nonsense, or the fact that I can’t seem to stem the waterworks today.

And for those of you who read this blog and wonder if I ever have a down day… yeah, well, here’s your proof. I do.

One Letter at a Time

Jul 23, 2007 | This Life

Growing up I had several pen pals. A child with no television with parents who defined the term “over-protective”, I sought refuge in books and letters. Lots of letters. I kept lists of the people I was writing, detailed charts that kept track of who got the next letter… and for the most part, the world wrote back. Life lines to an existence I wanted and could dream about and did dream about. My dreams and my letters went uncensored.

Good thing, too. Some of those letters were steamy! Because eventually I ceased to be twelve and the recipients ceased to be other lonely little girls living in middle America wondering about exotic California and our sunshine. No, eventually my letter writing was directed at long-distance boyfriends. Full of loneliness and angst, I’m sure. And some of those letters I received told me stories about worlds I couldn’t imagine. I wish that I’d saved some of these letters… but with each ending I burned the volume of paper that witnessed to a romance best forgotten. Even I couldn’t miss the irony of lust burning, despite having only written experience with the subject. Perhaps they weren’t as provocative as they felt at the time, but I knew this much, it was best not to keep them lying around. If they shocked me, I’m sure my parents would have converted just to pack me off to the nearest convent had they read them.

(more…)

Jewell

Jul 20, 2007 | This Life

This is my mailbox. Sad sight, isn’t it? Its door has fallen off and is tucked neatly inside—as if that will make a difference somehow. I’d say it’s in need of a replacement, wouldn’t you?

The hunt for a mailbox has been arduous. You would be surprised at what passes for a mailbox these days, and the prices people are bold-faced charging for them too! Evidently, the cheese factor is well established in the mailbox industry, which apparently is a subsidiary of the Garden Gnome industry. Scary!!

Sadly, the only one I’ve found that I adore is so pricey I’d be embarrassed to spend that kind of money for a mailbox—even if it is a hand-painted enameled piece from Germany. Call me frugal, but I don’t think your mailbox should cost more than your mortgage payment—or at least not my mortgage payment.

Oh how I tried to rationalize the expenditure. I really wanted that postbox. It was yellow. With red accents and the word “POST” in gold leaf. Oh my. But I was raised in a tradition that does not allow such frivolity—mostly because there was never money to consider it.

I hail from really poor folks. And not the “poor but my-do- we-have-pride” poor, but the “spent-my-last-dime-on-a-pint” poor. There is a difference, people. Some poverty can be avoided. And for what it’s worth, along with the penchant for alcohol came a craftiness that has to be admired, if only for its brazenness. We were poor but creative. Delusional and drunk, but we prefer to call it optimistic.

My grand-daddy was a sharecropper in his youth and I’m fairly certain he was drinking long before he was ever driving. One year when the crops were really failing, the farmer he worked for didn’t have the money to pay him his wages. Sharecropper are paid at the end of season, and when the time came the farmer only had store credit to offer my grandfather. Grandpa Joe, being who he was (A man named Jewell who went by Joe, he was no fool. Drunk, but not stupid) bought himself a new pair of shoes, pants, and a shirt. Then he took the remainder of his wages in sugar. He was 15, maybe 16 and there was no way the general store was going to be selling him alcohol.

He very quickly sold his lot of sugar to the local ‘shiner. (Moonshine!) Who gave my grand-daddy whiskey in return. Clever boy, yes? But, here is where you have to admire my grandfather—because most people would have stopped there. Not Joe. He then scrounged up Mason jars, diluted his whiskey with water, and sold the lot for more than the wages he spent on the sugar. It’s called a profit. Illegal, immoral, but ingenious!

I don’t know how much of that family fable is really true. But it’s just one of the stories we like to tell about the man, because the truth about Joe isn’t nearly as endearing. We want to admire the moxie in his youth because who he turns out to be in his adulthood leaves little to be admired.

I’m conflicted, of course. By the time I knew him, the anger and the alcohol had long left his system—replaced by Diabetes and the Parkinson’s that eventually killed him off. His heart exploded into bits one day and the only real memory I have of the man is his pressing quarters off on me for a kiss, “Grandpa Joe loves you baby, you know that don’t you? Grandpa loves you baby.”

I have no doubt that he did love me. That is the only “truth” I know about him. Yet, I also have no doubt that he was the mean son-of-a-bitch who abused and terrorized his children and wife. That truth, despite our fables, haunts us at the edges. We don’t get to escape it, even if we won’t dwell on it. It’s tucked away on the inside, a rusty door that serves no purpose any longer, but that we can’t, won’t throw out.

Joe wasn’t always rusty. He wasn’t always a drunk. It’s just that his hard-living,and I believe his anger, eventually caught up with him much sooner than it should have. But I also have no doubt he was that clever 15 year old, maybe 16 year old who turned a profit when the crops that year couldn’t. That boy name Jewell, who called himself Joe—a boy I never knew, but keep alive. That’s the Joe I tell my child about. That’s the Joe I choose to believe in. . . the fable I keep alive, with a rusty door tucked just inside.

Down For the Count

Jul 17, 2007 | This Life

Apparently, the commenting issue is significant… I don’t know when comments will be restored, but we’re working on a fix as fast as we can. Ok, I’m not, but IZ is! In the meantime, you can take Sophie’s suggestion. Me? Well, I’m deep breathing. A LOT!

UPDATE: Comments are now fixed. Woohoo. Thank you, thank you IZ!

That Would Make Me George

Jul 16, 2007 | This Life

Here’s the thing. I’m allergic to this stuff. So much so, that it triggers asthma attacks even if I’m painting in a well ventilated area. In theory, I shouldn’t walk into a paint store, much less pry a can open with the first screwdriver I can lay my hands on.

In practice, you know I opened the can right after I played Alice. One white pill to stop the itching, one red pill to open my lungs. Inhaler in my pocket, we’re ready to go. Yes, yes, I do this to myself. What’s your point?

However, I didn’t do this to myself this time. No, IZ decided that our 15 year old bed needed to be replaced because he was tired of being mocked every night. Part of the casing on our air bed is cracked—gloriously on HIS side of the bed. Every night he comes to bed and it lets out this pitiful wail, I can’t help myself, I burst into the giggles.

We could have just bought another bed the same size, but that would be too easy. Besides, IZ has been itching for a King sized bed since the last time (15 years ago) we bought a bed; he saw the brass ring circling his direction and he rigged a plan to snatch it this time. I’m not exactly complaining, however, a larger bed means new bedding. New bedding means the bedroom should finally be painted. Two years of sleeping in a half-painted room is my limit. If he gets a new bed, I get a new paint job. We struck a deal. What a bargain, right?

The one thing I forgot to factor into this “bargain” was what to do about the headboard situation. For the record, our present headboard is a thrifted number: a size too small, nasty green vinyl upholstered thing that I slipped covered and centered on the wall. Voilà, headboard. What? It works. Kinda. But now that it’s two sizes too small for the bed, something has to be done. Which is how, the very long way around, I found myself on the porch prying open a can of paint tempting fate armed with an inhaler! While IZ worked on prepping the room, I hauled my project outside and began attacking a set of vintage wicker headboards with some kind of blue paint. Apothecary blue, I think they call it.

You should know that wicker is a beast to paint. And if you decide to paint wicker, don’t use a good brush. Anyhow, our solution is another thrift store find: two twin sized vintage wicker headboards that will magically become a king sized headboard. You know, if I ever get done painting them. It’s just that sitting on the floor of the porch painting on my knees is not something I do with any grace. My poor joints whined through my entire workout this morning. Snap, crackle, inhale. I’m my own cereal box.

Once again, I’ve managed to write an entire post about absolutely nothing. And if you’ve read this far, you’ve just read an entire post about absolutely nothing! This blog is starting to read a bit like a poorly written version of Seinfeld. I guess that would make me George. Who does that make you?