Big Words Used in Small Ways

She is part of my earliest memories, a gentle hand tucking a beloved stuffed animal into my sleepily waiting arms, a kiss goodnight, laughter as she bounced me into my leotards at the end of my bed, and then later, waving and smiling as I boarded the bus for kindergarten, so excited as she snapped pictures.  My mother.  She was there every step of the way, a supporting and loving force that I can see in the stories that make up my life, and our lives as a family.

When I think about my history, thousands of memories immediately clamor for attention; hunting for clams in Maine, and hearing her and dad laugh and laugh when one shot water in my face as we cleaned them later.  Thinking back, I can almost hear the sounds of the two of them rustling up dinner from the camp box while Craig and I battled with lightsaber flashlight beams.  I remember, at home, eagerly leaping into the unmade waterbed where mom would settle sheets over me and try to brush out the “wrinkle.”  I found it to be the most hilarious game in the world, and she would play it over and over, much to my delight.  We had songs about our lazybones, and a complete mastery of the “Miss Mary Mack” clapping game. She made driving down the shore fun, singing made up jingles about tuckahoe and making me, Craig, Bryan and David laugh like banshees about house clearing smelly shoes.  There were summer cookouts galore, and every hoiliday was spent shuttling between our house and Uncle Dan’s, with as much chaos as there was laughter.  After we moved to Kwaj, the good times continued, with summers spent in Colorado, where there were parties and barbeques and good chummy jamborees filled with endless merriment and love everywhere you looked.  The same was true of our lives on the island, both tours; dinners with friends and sunny beach days.  There were always  fun to be had and the blender was running, full of one of dad’s deadly concotions.   She was queen of jello shots and queen of Roi-Namur; the airport ran on her say-so, and she couldn’t have been happier.  She later told me that the time that she spent on Roi was one of the best times of her life, and it was true for all of us. It seems like we lived a lifetime of summer, with good times and jokes spun out under warm, sunny skies.

She also my bedrock.  As I got older we spent hours upon hours discussing life and how we felt about the ways of the world.  She was more than my best friend, she was my mother, there for me in every aspect of my life.  She was unfailingly patient with my screechy stress fits, whether they were provoked by uneven hair buns or missed directions while taxiing me to a party, and she was always wryly exasperated when I had calmed down enough to sheepishly admit that the world wasn’t going to end right at that second.  Oftentimes I felt like the stormy to her calm, and at other times as I got older, it was the opposite, with me being the one to soothe and reason against emotional storms resulting from her fight against renal cancer.  Despite her occasional panicky moments, after her diagnosis she held up with grace and courage, though she would say just the opposite; she always was one who was quick to credit others while underestimating herself.  To me, and the people she loved, she was an indomidable woman, there for everyone with quiet strength and humor, someone we all relied upon for her ability to cut to the quick of any problem, after which she would pitch in and help with whatever needed doing.

I can’t begin encompass what she meant to me in one sheet of written words, nothing I could write could possibly go far enough to illustrate how much she meant to me.  All I can say is that I loved her, will miss her terribly, and I will go on with the certainty of her love for me locked inside my heart.

Dear Drunk Self,

Hi there, you saucy, dancing, karaoke singing wild child!  Aren’t you just the life of the party?!?  I’ve heard that you’re quite the popular girl, swanning from one great jamboree to the next, and that must be fun.  You get all the kicks and the thrills, the late night swims and drinking games galore.  You lead a charmed life, Drunk Self, yes indeedy.  I mean, what could be better than an endless round of drunken revelries?  That is the existence you dwell within.  And, let me just say, bravo - you do so magnificently.  I mean, sure.  There are those other times; you know the ones I mean.  Sometimes you don’t resist shots very well (or at all) and this sometimes results in embarrassing passing out in public incidences or early exits from parties or rambling incoherencies shouted at friends or unfortunately timed puking. On the whole, though, you’ve got this whole scene by the long necked throat, and you’re going to drink it down to the last fizzy drop. 

I do have one eensy, weensy question for you, though, so concentrate.  Why do you hate me?  It seems like all your goals are completely opposite of my goals, and I wanna know why.  I’m good to you - hell - I’m the one that gets you to all these zany times that you so love; you could at least show a little gratitude for that!  But, no.  You don’t.  You insist on doing nasty things that lurk in the shadows and only pop out once you’ve slipped away on a tide of dreams.  I picture you cackling maniacally in the back of my head, watching the results of your actions with malicious glee.  That ain’t cool, man.  Listen, I get that you’re footloose and fancy free with pretty much no rules, but we’re sharing this body, Drunk Self, and I don’t like some of the shenanigans that you’ve been getting up to lately.

First of all, you need to stop motorboating people - with or without permission.  YOU may think it’s funny, but I’m the one who has to hear about it.  Forever.  I still hear stories about that one time over at KL’s house after the club. Even I vaguely remember what happened, so don’t try to play innocent with me!  It’s been years and it still comes up, so quit it!  Keep your sweet, sweet boobies to yourself.

Also, quit falling off your bike - that shit hurts me.  I realize that in your pleasant haze of alcoholic numbness that you rarely feel any bumps or bruises, but I do.  Knock it off; the comedy is not worth the next day’s tragedy. 

Seriously, and would it be too much to ask you to drink some friggin’ water before you go to bed?!?  It doesn’t seem like a huge effort to me, but apparently, you can’t be bothered to save me from a screaming hangover headache.  Nope, no way!  That would cut into your time chowing down on bizarre/fattening/salty drunk food.

Now we come to the crux of it.  STOP FUCKING EATING WHEN YOU’RE SHITHOUSE HAMMERED!!!  This rule also applies to times when you’re perhaps tipsy, buzzed, spinny, inebriated, wrecked, floored, tanked, tap hackled, three sheets to the wind, or just really good and drunk.  You know, you know that I struggle every day to do good with my food intake, to do better than the day before.  I generally do a fairly commendable job of it, too, if I do say so myself.  Then you come shambling along in my wake and screw it all up!  Jeeze, some of the things that you eat, I just can’t believe.  Do you really need a whole plate of BQ nachos made in the microwave with the wrong kind of cheese, and not enough of it at that?  Do you really need three little bags of Doritos and some Cheetos?  Did you honestly think that concocting a complicated pasta salad would turn out well at three in the morning?!?  The answer to that is always no.  I know you thought it was good, but I don’t and now all my avocados, sun dried tomatoes and parmesan cheese have all been wasted, and you don’t even care.   You’re just not satisfied with anything, are you?  Eat, eat, eat, right up until you pass out and leave me to take over, creeping around the next morning picking up wrapper and cringing over the thought of your excesses. 

I realize at the time that all these things sound super delicious and that you gotta have them nnnoooooowwwww or else you are gonna diiieee, but think about this from my perspective.  I want to be thin.  You should want this, too.  Think about all attention that you would get from red hot hotties on the dance floor if you were willing to hold up your end of the bargain.  Think about how much more fun two AM trips to the adult pool would be if you were rocking a rockin’ bod.  You know you’d love to be a star, and this is the only way to do it.  Flipping out over sub-standard nachos is not going to net you flippy little skirts to flirt in.  I’ll make you a deal.  You lay down and pass out immediately after coming home, and I’ll do the rest.  Easy peasy!  All you have to do is hold up your end of the bargain, and I’ll get us everything we’ve always wanted.  C’mon, do us a solid, okay?  Think hit the sack, not snack attack!

No kidding, for reals - you gotta do all this for me, or we are breaking up!  Well, or kinda just taking a little break.  You know I love you, baby.  See you tonight.

Smooches,

Sober Self

So, life is ironic.  Here I’ve been dying to write somthing and been unable to get on this site for weeks now.  Thanks, Army provided wifi.  Today, my dashboard just popped up while browsing some other Tumblr.  Like, “Heeeey, gurl, you wanna write somthing?  You know you do.  Just a little bit.  I won’t tell nobody.  Honest.  Yeah, just like that.  Yeah.”  But, well, I’m just not in the mood.  Tumblr, you’re going to have to be a lot more convincing than that before I get over my snit.  Timing is everything, Tumblr, and I kind of have a headache.  I’m tired, my brain hurts, I feel crampy.  Maybe later.  Oh, I see.  It has to be right now, huh?  I might not get this opportunity again for who knows how long, huh?

Sigh.  It’s only because of my devotion to you, Tumblr, that I will grudgingly aquiesce to your not so charming blandishments.  It’s only because I love you.

Okay, well, not so shiny.  In attitude, anyway.  But here’s my brand, spanking new  blog, which has nothing to do with spanking monkeys.  Where was I?  Oh, yes, the new.  Well, I would love to say that I was beautifully inspired to make a change, to start blogging again after all these monthy, years-i-ness by some awesome life event.  Not so, gentle readers (hi, person who stumbled here by accident!), not so.  In fact, somthing ball suckingly awful happened, and here I am.

What happened, you ask?  For I know you to be riveted.  Well, my former hosting service, Vox, shut down withouth warning.  !!!  With a sign up that says, hey, thanks for all the love and a big fuck you to everyone who had content here!  Yay!  Okay, actually, it does say thanks for the love, but I wasn’t feeling much love when I realized that I couldn’t retrieve the few entries that I had neglected to back up.  Was it my fault for not backing them up?  Yes.  Did that obdurate sign still metaphorically pull a Thuggee cult ritual on my chest?  Also yes. 

Now, like I said, they were few of many.  But, I bet even Captain Von Trapp would have missed Marta and Kurt if the rest of his large brood had still been milling around.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I created those entries out of the best that was in me.  As dubious as that may be, every syllable was thought over scrupulously, every perfect phrase gloated over lovingly.  They may have been flawed or funny or great or boring to the rest of the world, but they were mine. 

And que the hyperbole!  

I suppose it’s silly to get so upset over what amounts to writings that would add up to less than than a freshman essay, but then, hey, color me motherfucking silly.  I will miss my entry about watching Game 6 of the ‘08 World Series in a freezing, rainy parking lot.  I will miss reading about my absolute gobsmacked shock when I realized how much just one college course was going to cost.  Thinking about those entries now or trying to re-write them just isn’t the same.  It’s like someone trying to tell you about the funny thing that happened at the party after you left.  You get it, but it’s not the same as being there.

So, the moral of this story, children, is back your shit up.  Do it without fail.  Do it twice.  Do it every day.  Do it twice every day!  I hate knowing that I could have prevented this by not being careless and stupid.  Lesson most assuredly learned.

So, yeah!  Cheerful start to the new year and blog.  Woo hoo! 

Welcome and good tidings, fuckers.