A day in MFA life

It’s a Friday and it’s raining when you wake up at 7:30.  You meant to get up at 5:30 to get an early start on work, but the rain sounded so nice and your bed and partner were so warm that you drifted off, thinking it’s Friday, that you’ve got all weekend to finish your work. At that gray hour you don’t remember the mound of graduate school homework you’ve got, and it seems reasonable to close your eyes again. So you sleep in, and the kids actually wake you up.  You make chocolate milk for one, coffee for yourself, and tell the oldest there’s instant oatmeal, or they can ask their father to make Malt-O-Meal when he leaves the toilet. 

She wants to know can she have chocolate chips in her oatmeal.  Yes, you say, because you’re feeling indulgent after receiving some food stamps.  She wants to know how many.  You think for a moment and then say “Nine.”  You’d been down to a couple freeze pops and a few items that didn’t really make a meal of any kind when your case had finally gone through the system.  You felt like shit that you couldn’t buy your daughter any new clothes for her first day of Kindergarten, but she looked good anyway and didn’t seem to mind.  You’re glad your kids remain young enough to be comforted by a chocolatey after-school snack, that they’re too young to know what it means to live below the poverty line.  To say you are grateful for the public assistance is an understatement. 

Your coffee’s ready so you trudge upstairs in your pajamas, because you know you have to go out later and you’ll shower then, so why bother with a bra and real pants now.  Working at home as a medical transcriptionist is fabulous and you know you’re lucky to be able to pick and choose your hours in order to get your master’s degree, to have a job already set up wherever you go.  Your son and daughter come in and out of your office, interrupting you and asking you to get them things from downstairs even though their father is downstairs.  You send them down to ask him most of the time, but sometimes you take breaks to give them a bath or make them lunch.   

Karma is Not My Chameleon

I was reading an article in Yoga Journal (March 2012 issue) the other day about Karma and it said that when you are drawn to someone, this is karma at work and that when it ends, you are have worked out what Karma needed you to work out with each other.

To me, I see this as having the same reasoning as “all things happen for a reason” or “God’s Plan for your life.” It’s the same principle, and to me, the same ‘power’ at work.

What I don’t like is that these cosmic meetings or planned life intersections with others are to end. If this is true, what’s the point? Is this some evil form of “it is better to have loved and lost, then to not ever have loved at all?” And I supposed I can see the Karma principal functioning with friends, co-workers or bosses but love?

Perhaps, yogis and other Eastern thinkers would tell me the Karmic meetings don’t have to end. To be clear: my God is a kind one, one who gave me free will and thus, the Problem of Evil is a result of this free will. We are free to love and to destroy each other. Blessing and miracles occur, but life isn’t pretty. And I see that this might be what karma is kind of about, too.

When you bring the word Karma into the discussion, it carries with it the belief of ‘you get what you give.’ The Yoga Journal article says this view of karma is way too simplified. Karma works without our intake/output as its prime source but instead works things out between people as they need to be done.

As a poet, I have always found the intricacies of humanity: the way we treat each other, the ebb and flow of intimacy, the rise and fall of wars (in the human mind to the traditional sense of the word), to be the subjects of my poems. And you can call me a confessional poet, if you want. I am in good company.

But what is important is working through being human and right now this karma dosage is messing with my head. Something like this wouldn’t normally shake my grasp on the idea of a ‘higher power’ but to try and find meaning, in what seems like needless torture between any two given people, doesn’t make sense.

So I go back to the ‘click’ of revelation I had while reading John Hick in Forrest Baird’s Philosophy of Religion course at Whitworth University. The sense of calm I felt in knowing the different Being(s) the world believes in are one entity of power. And that this Being’s name(s) change(s) due to the culture of one’s birth and the familial culture of your life. It was within that “click” moment inside Weyerhauser Hall in which my faith was born.

So I have to take this Karmic piece and look at it through my poet eye because for me, Buddhist thought is just another culture’s view of my faith. And for now, I have to say Karma is the name of Buddha’s view of free will defined as this: As humans we come together, love and hurt each other, and ultimately part in one way or another.

I have to be ok with that definition right now.

As for synthesizing it all with my life this past year?

Wish me luck.

*Brighid art by Renee Thompson

**Article: "Seeds of Change" by Sally Kempton

Making like a tree

My family and I moved to Spokane 2 ½ years ago so that I could attend graduate school.  My oldest daughter started school here, and so did my son.  My youngest was practically still a baby when we moved.  We hadn’t planned on what would happen after my MFA completion, other than that we’d move anywhere I could get a job. 

Some of these are mine and I miss the rest.  The kids wished
for a magic closet door that would take them from
Spokane to Billings or vice versa anytime they wanted. 

          Turns out, I couldn’t get a job, or a new one anyway.  I applied fervently for several months and received not one bite, and so decided to stick with my work-at-home job in medical transcription.  I work digitally so that can follow me anywhere.  After I had trouble finding a new and exciting job in the world of writing, my partner and I decided we wanted to move back to Montana.  My kids have many cousins there and I love all those kids so much.  I want to be around them, I want my kids to be around them, while they’re still young.

                That was the plan, to happen this summer after the kids finish school.  It turns out, though, that we’re going to be moving much sooner than planned – next week, in fact, we’ll be leaving the Evergreen State for the Big Sky State.  My partner and I have experienced a lot of the great things Spokane has to offer, like Pig Out in the Park, the Spokane Pride Events, Riverside Park, Centennial Trail.  But we haven’t done a lot of things, too, and that’s why we decided to put our Spokane Bucket List into high gear for our final weeks.  Here’s how we fared: 

IMAX.  We took the kids to see a program called Arabia.   I had thought the IMAX was 3D, but it’s not.  The screen was big and took a minute to get used to, but the show was beautiful and informative, and the nachos were fabulous.  Bonus:  The show was 40 minutes, short enough that the kids were able to enjoy the beauty of the ocean and desert and the amazing gathering at Mecca and eat their snacks happily and without a trace of bored fidgeting.  

Poetry reading / Uncle’s Games.  My former poetry professor, Chris Howell, released a new collection recently, called Gaze, and I was happy to be able to attend one last reading in Spokane, where I also attended my very first reading, and at the same place that first reading took place – Auntie’s Books.  I’ve been to Auntie’s any number of times, but my partner had not, and I’d actually never been inside Uncle’s Games.  So while I nestled into my MFA community at the reading (amazing!  Check it out here!), my partner and kids explored Uncle’s. This one was a two-fer!   

Dick’s.  The partner had been begging to get a bag of burgers ever since we moved.  So off we went to Dick’s, and with my partner’s instructions to get a “bunch” of burgers, I got 12 plus some other good stuffu like shakes and onion rings.  My partner can EAT, folks, and he only ate 4.  Dick’s was a success.  Yum.   

Milford’s.  We needed some good seafood before we headed inland, and we heard this was the place to go.  Fancy-gorgeous salads.  Mine had very thin green apple slices drizzled in some sauce with sea salt, with kalamata olives.  Partner’s had orzo pasta salad and olives.  I got parmesan crusted perch which was really really good, and he got fried catfish in kind of a sweet and sour sauce.  Loved the atmosphere – we were very close to the front and the door, but the way it’s set up we didn’t even notice and, get this, I didn’t freeze my butt off like I usually do at restaurants.  There was a huge Valentine’s red and white flowery burst right in front of our table, and we both loved it a whole bunch and left our server a big tip.  

I was lost, but then I was found.

Hide & Seek at Manito.  My kids, partner and I have played over there a handful of times.  In the early summer we played in the Lilac gardens there, crouching behind the purple or white bursts, ignoring the other park goers walking through, waiting to be found with a squeal.  This time we had a friend with us, fellow Alala Mama Rhea’s daughter, who’s the same age as my oldest, and we had a great couple of games near the rose gardens. 

Book Traders.  Up in the Garland district, we’d seen the small storefront in passing, and last summer we finally got a chance to visit.  We’d just gotten married and left our kids in Montana to have a stay-honeymoon here in Spokane.  So we visited Book Traders last summer, and loved it so much I knew I had to stop in once more.  I found five more fabulous books, including one of The Black Stallion series.   I love a book store that’s slightly dark, maybe a little musty, and bursting with books.  This place has so many that boxes of extra books line the floors at the bottom of every shelf.  I spent an hour there and only after that did I come upon the poetry, literature, and biography sections, my favorite sections.  Bonus:  There’s a sign that says you can volunteer there and earn books!  Even bonuser:  Both times I patronized this store, I paid less than expected because they give you discounts if there’s even a tiny bit of damage.  A great place for a book lover.  

We didn’t make it to Mount Spokane or ride the gondola at Riverfront.  We didn’t get to eat at Mizuna or The Melting Pot, or hear my friend and MFA buddy Liz Rognes sing and play her guitar once more.    I promise to visit, though, because I love some of the people here, and maybe I can still scratch some of those off the list.   I’ll be sure to tell everyone back home, because it has come up more than I thought—it’s Seattle that is supposed to rain a lot, and Spokane’s weather is pretty much identical to Montana’s.  Thanks for having us, Spokane. 


Cross-posted at The Spovangelist.

Mary Tudor: Don't call her Bloody!

I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but for some years now I’ve been fascinated with Queen Elizabeth Tudor and, subsequently, the Tudor Dynasty, and my fascination keeps expanding.  I recently finished a really insightful and interesting biography called Mary Tudor, you know, “Bloody” Mary.  I picked it up at a library sale.  It was published in 1953, so I’m sure there have been other biographies, but this one by H. F. M. Prescott is supposed to be, still, a premier biography.  OK, there were a couple parts in the several rebellions where I got bogged down in names and places—you’ll have that.  

The thing is, Mary’s gotten this terrible reputation, but she was simply a human, specifically a woman, and she had little rights or respect, even as a queen, and her childhood was, in the least, dysfunctional and emotionally exhausting.  I love how Prescott explores that in as much detail as she does the actual events of Mary’s life—the events that both caused and were caused by Mary’s remarkable fortitude in dealing with her father and her brother as Kings of England, as well as her unmovable faith even if, as Prescott readily points out, she did not possess the political intellect and ingénue of her half-sister Elizabeth. 

What Mary Tudor did have was an iron will.  She didn’t always make the best or right decisions, but when she made a decision, she stood behind it, even if and when it blew up in her face.  And boy, did it.

Mary was 17 when her father Henry VIII made himself head of the church in order to divorce her mother, Catherine of Aragon, or at least she was that old when the deed was finally done—it took around four years.  Henry declared his current marriage was illegal/immoral because Catherine had married his older brother first, even though the Spanish-born Queen insisted her marriage to Arthur, Henry’s older brother, had never been consummated before his death.  Catherine fought Henry, and she was one smart cookie.  But when Henry was able to divorce her, he declared Mary a bastard and kept her apart from Catherine for years—even when Catherine lay dying, Henry refused to allow Mary to see her mother, and Catherine her child.

Mary grew up Catholic like her mother, and even when her father the king began to crack down on those celebrating Catholic mass, Mary kept on.   Through her adolescence and young adulthood, Henry had her moved from house to house, took away her most beloved companion/servants, and humiliated her by forcing her to sign papers admitting she was no princess, but only the “Lady Mary.”  Signing those papers was wrenching for Mary, as the “Spanish Tudor” was filled with pride and faith, and she never believed Anne Boelyn was truly Queen nor Elizabeth truly royalty.  Imagine the poor young woman, forced to write the words that her mother and Henry’s marriage was never legal, her mother therefore no queen and herself, no princess.  Writing it out in triplicate while the king’s messengers waited. 

 Renouncing her title, though, was nothing to Mary compared to Henry and then Edward VI’s attempts to take away her religion.  For a while, Henry turned his head while Mary kept hearing mass, and her brother Edward did the same, even when his Act of Uniformity made it illegal to use any but the Protestant prayer book, but eventually he attempted to stop her mass altogether.  It’s believed, though, that Mary kept hearing mass as secretively as necessary. 

So Mary’s emotionally tortured for over a decade.  To the point that she just wants to leave England and go to Spain, her mother’s country, where she could practice her Catholic faith and live in the bosom of her kin, a warmth she had not felt since her connection with her mother was broken.  She attempted to escape to Spain but her attempts were foiled by various things.  That’s one of the parts where I got a little bogged down in the details.  Edward died, though, and Mary knew she had to make her move.  Because Edward had not named his older sister as heir to the throne.  His advisers had convinced the teenaged King to name a cousin, Jane Grey, a protestant who they figured they could control.  Well, they were wrong about that, and that’s a whole ‘nother story, but Mary was bold and quick and decisive in this case and she got her crown. 

Right away when she became queen, of course, since they believed a woman could and should not actually rule, Parliament began to float potential husband ideas around.  The only two that got real consideration appear to have been an Englishman named Courtenay and a Spanish prince, Philip.  Mary waffled for a long time, but I think she probably knew she was never going to marry Courtenay. She’d been hurt too much by Englishmen already and I think she leaned towards a Spanish match from early on.  The people of England were pissed about that, though, so she had to appear to entertain the idea of a marriage to Courtenay.  She did marry Prince Philip though, and his father made him a King by giving him some lands to rule, I forget which ones exactly, but that’s not important here.  So the match was made:  Philip late twenties, would marry Mary, a decade older. 

Well, England was pretty pissed, and as Prescott said, “A lesser woman would not have dared pursue the marriage; a greater would have realized the folly of it.”  A caveat for Philip was that Mary had had to agree that neither would Philip be crowned king, nor would he have a say in affairs of state.  Philip wasn’t happy about it but he probably figured he could win over Parliament, or Mary, to such degree that he would get his crown and drag England into the war between Spain and France, a war England had been determinedly staying out of.  Philip never got that, though it’s not for lack of Mary’s trying.  And that’s consoling, because Philip’s failings as a husband were gargantuan.  He left Mary for two years, then came back to try once more to get England as an ally against France.  He came back in March of 1557, got Mary to declare war on France in June, and he was gone again by July that same year.   He stayed away most of the time after that, pouting that Mary was unable to move the Council in his favor with regard to the crown, and also that she wouldn’t either have her sister Elizabeth killed or marry her off. 

“While Henri [ruler of France] was belatedly striving to keep England out of the war, Philip was as bent on bringing her in.  If Mary could not bear him a child, if she dared not crown him, if she would not, without the consent of Parliament, give Elizabeth to his friend and dependent the Duke of Savoy, there was only this one thing left.  Philip’s determination to have it was proportionate to his resentment at the other disappointments.”

During all of this, of course, heretics were being burned at the stake by the hundreds.  Mary had started out quite lenient, even sparing the lives of those who plotted for her throne.  Eventually, though, Prescott points out that Mary probably felt so betrayed by England and the Protestants who she had thought would come around, so desperate to prove something to her husband, that she hardened her heart, and the burnings went on. 

Maybe we could call it
Veggie Vodka instead?

Oh, it was a sad end for Mary.  The poor woman wanted so few things—to unite England in Catholicism, to be a good, godly wife.  She suffered through two false pregnancies, which is heartbreaking in itself.  Her husband did not deign to visit her on her death bed, though he sent envoys to express his concern or, more accurately, to urge Mary once again to marry Elizabeth to a Spaniard with promise of succession.  To her credit once again where Elizabeth is concerned, she refused.  Prescott says Mary did name Elizabeth as her heir, though a historical website mentions that Mary failed to name an heir, and therefore Elizabeth succeeded, because Henry had named her in his will after Edward.

 Mary heard mass one last time and died in 1558, leaving a terrible legacy behind, one that seems unduly harsh if a proper 16^th century context is imposed.   “Perhaps no other reign in English history has seen such a great endeavour made and so utterly defeated.  All that Mary did was undone, all she intended utterly unfulfilled.”  And even if I’m an ex-religioso, I gotta love the way Prescott wrapped it up, with the whole bit about casting the first stone.  “If her enemies could have brought her, as Pharisees brought another woman, to Christ…He might again have stooped down, written in the dust, and then, looking up, dismissed them with the same unanswerable word.” 

This is not goo on the belly, people

STILL want that abortion, dearie?

Just what in the crap is going on in this country, you guys?  A room full of men deciding the fate of birth control coverage?  But men can’t even…and they don’t…so why should they…what?! 

 Not only that, but Virginia, Texas, and Iowa with the forcible transvaginal ultrasound for women wanting an abortion?  Transvaginal – that’s up in the vagina, if you didn’t know.  That’s a medical instrument forcibly placed into your body (which you have to hold?!).  Um, so the FBI recently changed the definition of rape to include, well, EXACTLY THIS.  Penetration against one’s will.  And that’s what the mandatory ultrasound laws are about.  They’re not about smearing goo on a woman’s tummy and then forcing her to check out the screen with the wavy blue lines that is supposed to magically make her change her mind but actually pretty much never does.  The laws are about legalized rape. 

 And for what, you GOP assholes?  It’s dizzying how fast it comes down to treating women like children or chattel when you start unraveling the reasons a state would legalize rape.  Let’s see if we can follow it, if we slow it down a little:

1.       We think abortion is bad, which means

2.       Abortion is bad, which means

3.       Abortions shouldn’t happen which means

4.       If abortions still happen women don’t know better which means

5.       We have to protect the women from themselves which means

6.       We have to remind them of their natural purpose which means

7.       If we force them to look at wavy blue lines they will come around and they will thank us in the end.

I really can’t believe this is on the table at all, but let’s let the fact that it is fire us up.  Komen learned a lesson about politicking women’s lives, and I think the GOP needs a lesson about staying the eff out of women’s personal decisions. 

We Girls, Girls, Girls

I confess: my expectations of girls and women are conflicting. Over the last few weeks, I paused to consider the expectations I was imposing and bitching about, scratching my head about, allowing myself to become depressed over, and – of course – the expectations I was setting myself up for. I have more confessions. Maybe this can be a “Name That Conflict” kind of game, for I am trying to answer for myself how these things fit together (or not). I see potential problems – maybe your experiences are similar? – but, in this world and as a strong woman hoping for a professional career, I’m not sure how to move myself around them. For now, there may be lines to be drawn . . .

 . . . in football?

1.       At the bus stop just outside my apartment, I stood staring up at a pair of billboard-sized, posterized cheerleaders as they hovered above the Sullivan KinderCare, flaunting their cleavage and belly buttons for the Arena Football League, the “SpokaneShock” Games. The text on the board read in big orange letters: “MORE THAN just a game.” And I thought to myself, “Now what the hell does THAT mean? Are they offering something beyond the usual football cheerleading like End Zone pole dancing?” Then a bus appeared with an ad for Busty’s Top Espresso plastered across its broad side. There, larger life, rolled up two more sets of women’s perky knockers in push-up bras, i.e., bikini-clad baristas serving Spokane’s top coffee. I made some snark comment to no one, but then I let the bus wisp me away to the downtown bus Plaza where I always feel overdressed – even a bit floozy – in the mornings in my v-neck blouses (a more womanly attire?) and with my lipstick fresh.

2.     I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, but I went on a mad search for Madonna’s NFL half-time show after the fact. I was a child of the 80’s, and by the early 90’s she was teaching me super-details about sex, and I loved her for it. Her boob cones were fantastic. She has orgasms on the concert stage, I liked to say as though I had actually bore witness. After I watched the entirety of the her half-time show, I smiled for the World Peace thing at the end, but then bitched that the show was surprisingly modest, as if Madonna had somehow digressed. I said it was probably because she was now a mother or maybe because she’s over 50, but I couldn’t talk myself out of being a little pissed.  

 . . . in girl talk?

3.       We have new neighbors – a set of three young girls in the apartment just above us. The three young girls have replaced a set of three young boys who partied every weekend, having turned their bay window into a fully stocked liquor cabinet. When the boys were here, they revved their pick-up truck/tank every morning before daylight. Their partying friends liked to steal our assigned car port. We dealt with the boys but not without griping – once even mentioning the thumping bass to the management. But the girls, since they had moved in, had been so stompy and loud and bass-thumpingly annoying that they might as well have been doing the Dougie on our last nerve. Finally, they piled up in the stairwell one night – a school night – near to midnight, laughing and squealing and calling out to each other between the levels. They were stumbling over each other, having a good ole’ time, keeping every last toddler awake in the building. It takes a lot for me to work up the anger/courage to let someone REALLY know how I feel, but often times I’m good to go once I have convinced myself it’s for a higher purpose. I did it for the sleeping babies – including my own. I let them have it. I marched out into the stairwell and told them there were people and children trying to sleep in the building and then I told them they needed to shut the fuck up – five times. I surprised myself. The cute red head responded with “Calm down, honey,” and I told her to shut the fuck up again. She’s lucky I didn’t break her nose. My partner practically grabbed me by my waist and pulled back in to our safe haven. He was a little shocked . . . and scared. We argued over this a little, but he insisted the boys were far worse than these girls had ever been, and I never once attempted to let THEM know how I REALLY felt. He accused me of taking on some “boys will be boys” level of tolerance that I wasn’t willing to extend to the girls. He was right.

4.       Another true story: a few weeks ago, a drama between two love-strewn high school girls via Facebook resulted in a flash mob of teenagers anxious to view a predicted cat fight at the Spokane Valley Mall (by the Orange Julius, just beyond the dark breezes of the Hot Topic). A boy had broken up with the younger girl to start dating the older girl (“Because what high school freshman doesn’t want to date a sophomore?” I thought and then kicked myself for it). Although much of this is the result of rumor (the result of having a daughter in a local high school and having a keen ear on the bus), it was said the boy was beside his new older girlfriend when older girlfriend pulled out a knife and stabbed the younger old girlfriend in the thigh, nicking her femoral artery. The younger old girlfriend, left a trail of stark blood on the mall floor all the way to the bathrooms, and she might have bled to death if not for the convenient appearance of an EMT and a surgeon who happened to be around, browsing American Eagle and Radio Shack and gnawing on Auntie’s Pretzels (Okay, either an EMT and a surgeon or highly trained mall staff). The older girlfriend and the boy disappeared, presumably to the Centennial Trail as it is across the road from the mall; the trail follows the river and dips under one badass railroad bridge (If I was a teenager of the valley I would so hang out there every full moon). I heard (via high school kid gossip on Bus Route 97) that older girlfriend threw the knife in the river and the two of them tried to skip town. Of course, it had to be a boy, I said to myself. He probably asked older girlfriend to marry him afterward as they were running with dry blood on their shoes, and the girl saw cloud castles and rainbows through her tears. Stupid, stupid girls. It’s just a stupid, stupid boy. But then if I was dumb enough to stab some chic and run, I sleep easy at night knowing I'm lucky enough to have a a lover/partner/husband who would be right there with me, running alongside, ready to truck it to Mexico, telling me when we get there, he'll find us a couple of Strawberry Daiquiris, and he has no qualms with changing his name. And what better lover could one ask for? 

. . .  on buses?   

5.       I’ve been on the bus a lot lately, since my Looney Tunes edition Venture minivan died and since I realized how idiotic it was to keep driving (even after the Venture was replaced) back and forth to work, wasting gas and spewing emissions, when a bus route could get me there for free and with little worry. Last week, I rolled my eyes at a set of loud girls who stood in the aisles of the crowded bus, pushing each other around, laughing like second graders on sugar highs. They flipped around their flat-ironed, dyed hair; they wore tight skinny jeans and thick make-up – extra curly-Q mascara, and their eyebrows were plucked near to oblivion. They took turns punching each other in their respective limbs and giggling and snorting. They stood between impending conversations (as they were occurring across aisles between myself and a colleague) without even noticing. Or maybe they noticed and kept themselves in the same spot regardless. Surely they were having fun. Surely they wanted all eyes on them. And that’s where mine were, although I was far from impressed; rather, I was steaming and my nostrils were flaring.  Because I didn’t want to scare my colleague as I had scared my husband when I let the neighbor girls have it in the stairwell, I said nothing. But then, had I caught myself thinking "Girls should know better" again?

6.       In the fall, I was on a Greyhound in the middle of Kansas on a four-day trip from Spokane to Indiana for a family funeral. My presence back in Indiana was absolutely necessary, but a bus trip cross-country was all I could afford. I came to learn I wasn’t the only one on the bus taking the cross-country route. I was sharing the same space with several of the same faces I’d met up with, even joined coming from Seattle, at the Greyhound Terminal in Spokane. Conversations were sporadic but always with purpose. Some of us had grown to know each other quite well. Some of us had gone far to illustrate our distinctive personalities. All of us were smelling bad and ready to be out of Kansas. The bus driver told us the air conditioning had stopped working not far outside of Salina, but we wouldn’t be able to change buses until Kansas City. At some point – a stop post-Denver? – the bus had picked up an older obnoxious woman in a tank top with lots of tattoos, who wouldn’t stop fidgeting – standing up, sitting down – and also chatting with thin air. The man beside me told me she was likely “missin’ her crystal.” When a few passengers started telling her to sit down and shut the hell up, she became pissed and started flipping us all off. She threatened us all with an ass-whoopin’, told us she didn’t have to put up with our shit, started yelling at the bus driver to do something because everyone was ganging up on her. A twenty-something girl who seemed quite comfy in the bus setting had been among the first few who had spoken out to her. The girl stood up where her seat was (as the bus trucked on down the wide and super-flat interstate) and told the older woman to come a little closer if she was going to be such a whiney ass bitch and the girl would see to it that she shut her mouth. Sweat glistened on both of their foreheads. The older women flinched as though she might pull up a fist, and it was enough to send the twenty-something girl near-to crawling over the head of the passenger seated between them in some fit of mad rage. A man jumped to his feet to hold them apart while I sat shaking my head like I beheld greater self-control and wisdom. The bus stopped and the older tattooed woman was handed a lecture (for us all to see) from the bus driver who was indeed a firm woman who had been quick to spout her rules when we first met (“If you are off smoking or eatin’ Subway and you aren’t back when I say I’m leavin’, I’ll leave your ass in TheMiddleofNowhere, Kansas – Don’t test me.”). I confess: I had expected the men at the back of the bus to start arguing about the pot smell coming out of the bathroom first. I must have truly been delirious or an idiot. I came to learn that days on a Greyhound levels the playing field in gender, class, and reasoning skills.

. . . for pretend or real?

7.       I didn’t watch the Grammys because I don’t have cable. I did find a list of winners the next day – Go Adele and Foo Fighters!  But what was with all the Chris Brown shit? And then there were the tweets. The small-minded über-goofs of far too many naive girls calling out (as Brown’s Grammy performance was rolling) hash-tagged comments to the online social networking world like, “I’d let Chris Brown punch me in the eye any day.” Wink. Wink. I confess: I hope they may never get a punch in the eye from a man who they think loves them, but then a part of me thinks it might take something just like that before they kick themselves for having ever made such an idiotic public claim. Meanwhile, Brown will continue to get his shoes kissed like some R&B hero who couldn’t help his manly rage (as sexy and encouraged as manly rage is). We’ve been TAUGHT to raise a higher eyebrow at Rihanna.

8.       The only time I was ever homeless was when I was hiding in a domestic violence shelter, seeking a divorce and doing all that was in my power (which wasn’t much at all) to keep from losing custody of my three kids. At the shelter, I had to keep my apartment up to par for daily inspections. There was a curfew of 9PM and a locked gate. There were group therapy sessions in the basement alongside the washer and dryer, and we cried to each other while our children rolled around with a set of blocks on the cold concrete floor. I stayed there in a tiny little apartment on the toughest side of Indianapolis for almost six months while I endured court hearings and tried to keep my kids (and myself) in the same school. Within that six month period, I drove down once to my hometown (five hours south) and picked up my big sister just before her husband was thrown in prison for running a meth lab (a business she had long suspected but had tried to ignore). She showed me photos of herself she had taken months ago when she had a black and blue face, swollen and broken to the point of missing several days of work. She told me she took those pictures to remind herself of how hideous things had gotten between the two of them. I drove her up to Indianapolis with me – so she too could hide in the shelter with me, even though her husband was going to be behind bars. We needed the therapy. We needed the daily inspections. We needed the curfew, and we needed the gate. If we knew nothing else, we knew that we needed those things, and that we needed each other. When her husband got out of prison, she took him back and not much changed. She didn’t see other options. She wanted to make him better. I blamed myself for being the world’s worst sister, for preoccupying myself with my schooling rather than giving her the friendship she needed. It reminds me now of how I know there is a part of me who still blames my mother for her crooked nose, having had it broken by my drunk father twice, early in their 7-year marriage. And although divorced from him today, I can become angry at her in a flash when she implies she may be regretful, being in love with him still – if only a little.  

finis. (Finally!)  ;)
Anybody else got any conflicting expectations or confessions? Or did the world drop a make-believe egg on my head again?