this is a feeble attempt to start posting non fiction again..here is something I found. hopefully it will feed the delusion that I am "full of great stories" haha. It would be great if this wasn't even written by me. But it is.
I went to a party last week. It was kind of crappy. It was in a really nice art space in the Southend that will soon turn into luxury condominiums. Bummer. The party was equipped with a Panamanian birthday boy who would be home sick if there were no pinata. I remembered the pinata's of my youth. It was at my little best friends birthday party. a competitive child, I aligned myself at the appropriate place in line, to poach off of the hits from the kids before me. We used an old broom stick end. When it was my turn I bounced up and down in my learned softball stance and took a wack at the thing. My childish force did not bust the pinata, but it did break the broom stik in half-sending it flying into the fleshy temple of my god mothers son (which carries significant religious virtue or equal to the exact opposite of going to church?) whom she was holding on the side lines....oops. I guess I ruined that party. I can still see his 3 year old- red- tear -stained face screaming out in pain. Needless to say, I would not be taking a wack at this party's pinata. Some annoying kid pretended to not know where the pinata was...as he took his misplaced swings..his effort proved successful and the pinata donkey hit the ground. My friend already informed me that there was a rubber shark in this pinata, I was on the case. I uncovered some resees peanut butter cups, a nip of tequila, a batallion of 1" tall green army figurines and the coveted 6" long rubber hammer head shark. I know, I'm lucky. My friends and I grew tired of canned beers and shoving resees peanut butter cups in our faces, so we decided to leave.
The next morning at work I told my boss to go in my bag to grab the keys to an apartment he had listed. In the last minute I decided to go for it my self. I opened my bag (under his nose) and rummaged through a rubber shark, a nip of tequila, and a batallion of army figureines to find him his key....I would have never been able to explain that one.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Monday, September 15, 2008
Let's pretend
Ok. So. Let's pretend that I am French and took all of August off on Holiday.
But don't worry your pretty little head- Sept won't be an epic fail like August was.
I have a story up my sleeve that involves my first night in Japan.
It involves bath water, technology & private parts...so for some reason I am being shy.
It's coming.
But don't worry your pretty little head- Sept won't be an epic fail like August was.
I have a story up my sleeve that involves my first night in Japan.
It involves bath water, technology & private parts...so for some reason I am being shy.
It's coming.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
short but sweet
As a kid I never heard my mother swear. She once exclaimed “freak” when I was 7 or so. We had almost got into a car accident on the way to gymnastics. This was around the time when I deemed my mom cooler than my dad because she didn't make me wear a seat belt (how did we all survive the 1980's childhood of lawn darts, kidnapping and zero safety laws? I tend to wonder). I think I cried because the shock of her yelling made me so nervous. I was a very nervous youngster.
Around the time I was 18, I went to college and met a boy. Conveniently he transferred out of our school at the end of our freshman year. This forced us to visit each other during that summer like it was the end of the world. If all of my dysfunctional relationships were to be placed in sandwich form: he would be the sliced cheese stuck to mayonnaise part, even though he did teach me to appreciate miracle whip (and soft toothbrushes- but that’s another story). I was driving home from one of my visits to his 3 and a ½ hour away from my home- town, mother’s house. Listening to that crappy (but catchy) “semi- charmed kind of life” song. You know, “do do do do do do dooo. she goes down and she cums loud” lyric song?
We had just wrapped up a weekend of drinking Guinness and impressing his friends with our card game skills, lack of respect for eachother and pointer sister song dance moves. I really won his heart on this particular trip because not only did we see a bunch of shooting stars and dance in exactly the same awkward way-but I also threw my empty Guinness bottle and not only hit a mailbox, but was able to secure the bottle inside the mailbox as we sped past it.
Anyways. I had my 2nd job ever as a bus girl. And I was to head straight there from my drive.
I don’t really know why I never stopped for gas, but I didn’t. Needless to say, I was borrowing my mom’s commodore 64 -esque cell phone for the trip. And somehow ran out of gas and money simultaneously.
I called her up to let her know that my grandpa’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra was highway side somewhere in the beginning of CT and I needed help, because I had no cash. She was quick to react and told me that she wanted me to move in with my father and came begrudgingly to my rescue. I am sure that I disrupted her new favorite past time of sitting by our pool in her gold lame and Black bathing suit with matching sun visor that read “Vegas” or “Missquamicut” whilst sipping Bacardi & diet coke’s and listening to lite 100.5 FM “almost paradise we’re knocking on Heaven’s door”,
with her boyfriend, whose daughter was also named ‘Tracy’ but appeared to be less of a failure at first glance and from her wedding photo's (that magically appeared on my mother's dresser one morning).
I probably answered with something very similar to “fuck you”.
She finally arrived, even more pissed and we headed to the gas station to get a gas container and gas. When we returned some universe fluke reared it’s (in hindsight hilariously) ironic head and the nozzle proved to large to allow any gas to pour into my empty tank.
As a child, I had never heard my mother swear; but as a newly christened adult of 18, the swearing poured out like the gas previously refused.
“Fucking Freck Fuck Fuck Asshole, Sonofabitch FUCK, Fuck you Tracee” she shouted.
Me = silent.
Heavily influenced by MacGuyver as a kid, I smartly suggested that we use one the many empty beer bottles clanking around in the back seat of my Grandpa’s car.
The next 20 minutes consist of me pouring gas from the red and yellow (Mc Donald sponsored?) gas container into the empty beer bottles. My mother would then pour them into the gas receptacle of the Oldsmobile.
She finally swore.
Around the time I was 18, I went to college and met a boy. Conveniently he transferred out of our school at the end of our freshman year. This forced us to visit each other during that summer like it was the end of the world. If all of my dysfunctional relationships were to be placed in sandwich form: he would be the sliced cheese stuck to mayonnaise part, even though he did teach me to appreciate miracle whip (and soft toothbrushes- but that’s another story). I was driving home from one of my visits to his 3 and a ½ hour away from my home- town, mother’s house. Listening to that crappy (but catchy) “semi- charmed kind of life” song. You know, “do do do do do do dooo. she goes down and she cums loud” lyric song?
We had just wrapped up a weekend of drinking Guinness and impressing his friends with our card game skills, lack of respect for eachother and pointer sister song dance moves. I really won his heart on this particular trip because not only did we see a bunch of shooting stars and dance in exactly the same awkward way-but I also threw my empty Guinness bottle and not only hit a mailbox, but was able to secure the bottle inside the mailbox as we sped past it.
Anyways. I had my 2nd job ever as a bus girl. And I was to head straight there from my drive.
I don’t really know why I never stopped for gas, but I didn’t. Needless to say, I was borrowing my mom’s commodore 64 -esque cell phone for the trip. And somehow ran out of gas and money simultaneously.
I called her up to let her know that my grandpa’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra was highway side somewhere in the beginning of CT and I needed help, because I had no cash. She was quick to react and told me that she wanted me to move in with my father and came begrudgingly to my rescue. I am sure that I disrupted her new favorite past time of sitting by our pool in her gold lame and Black bathing suit with matching sun visor that read “Vegas” or “Missquamicut” whilst sipping Bacardi & diet coke’s and listening to lite 100.5 FM “almost paradise we’re knocking on Heaven’s door”,
with her boyfriend, whose daughter was also named ‘Tracy’ but appeared to be less of a failure at first glance and from her wedding photo's (that magically appeared on my mother's dresser one morning).
I probably answered with something very similar to “fuck you”.
She finally arrived, even more pissed and we headed to the gas station to get a gas container and gas. When we returned some universe fluke reared it’s (in hindsight hilariously) ironic head and the nozzle proved to large to allow any gas to pour into my empty tank.
As a child, I had never heard my mother swear; but as a newly christened adult of 18, the swearing poured out like the gas previously refused.
“Fucking Freck Fuck Fuck Asshole, Sonofabitch FUCK, Fuck you Tracee” she shouted.
Me = silent.
Heavily influenced by MacGuyver as a kid, I smartly suggested that we use one the many empty beer bottles clanking around in the back seat of my Grandpa’s car.
The next 20 minutes consist of me pouring gas from the red and yellow (Mc Donald sponsored?) gas container into the empty beer bottles. My mother would then pour them into the gas receptacle of the Oldsmobile.
She finally swore.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
monologue
I am early.
Not annoying early. But, really, really close. We sit in uncomfortable silence after I introduce myself. I’m doing something I think. For once, I am definatly not full of shit. I spend the whole morning having to pee. Coffee, water, smoothie, green tea, more coffee.
I can already feel that I don’t belong here. There are boney faced actors (that make me think of mandible’s, but I keep wanting to say “mandibula”) with bob’s and great bodies. Rounded writers with post it note colored teeth. A pretty faced actor. A tardy-negative- neurotic- visual artist. She busts in like the Kool Aide man. Angry. Mumbling about Ct and travel, like she didn’t have any idea this was in NY. I resent her. But I still like her. I came from Boston arrived in CT at 2am to sleep in the spare room at my mothers. The one with the matching pirate ship nightstand lamps. Awoke at 5:30 for a 6 am train. I haven’t told anyone this. I am happy to be here. This type of complaining is why I sometimes hate my mother and most strangers.
I see a stage and too many folded chairs. We go around the room and talk about ourselves and declare “why we are here”. As long as we don’t have to pick an animal that starts with the first letter of our name, I think, maybe I’ll survive this part.
This guys an actor, that ones a playright, she was a clown, ( a butcher, a baker a candlestick maker) the only common thread is that they’ve all done this before.
Except me. Shit, my turn.
“I am from Boston, I write shitty poems, nonfiction and plays (the play part being a stretch, unless you count the 5 line play written in 1999 about a girl crying into a mirror). I am a terrible editor. I want to pull my stories together. I am all over the place”.
A pretty German girl is next to me. She wears a wedding band. Something I take the time to notice on people, of late. She is a spoken word poet. I don’t hold that against her.
She agrees with me.
“I, too am a terrible editor” I realize she means that she is “too good at editing”, I meant I was bad.
Our leader is funny as hell. I already knew that. He doesn’t like me. Thinks I am trivial, normal, scared.
When he speaks we listen and laugh at appropriate and inappropriate times. He insults the actors and I adore him more. He scoffs the writers and I agree. It’s ok because he wrote a book. I don’t tell him I read it.
The older comedian who has been on tv talks too much for not being the teacher. He mentions how he knows Jerry Seinfeld and I liken his elongated belt to the equator as it wraps the earthly sphere of his bloated body. His eyelids are weighted, reptilian and satisfied.
We are supposed to be thinking about something we have been thinking about lately.
I am blank.
Well, I think, I’ve been thinking about how I am a sham. I can’t seem to gain acceptance in to any grad programs. How I only fit into one pair of my jeans. A bartender from my home town, whom once I'm nicely drunk, I wouldn’t mind fucking casually.
Yes, I guess I am the normal one. My turn.
“Puberty” I barf out.
“I think about middle school-I read non fiction accounts of adolescence, I research MA programs in Guidance Counseling. I worry about myspace and txt messaging” I selfishly interject that my experience was neither poignant or especially painful ( I think I am lying). I say “breeding ground of obsession” twice. I stop talking.
He does not acknowledge the meat of what I yammered about and scowls the mention of facebook. You know, how no matter where you go “facebook” comes up…oops, I think.
He tells us how we need to tell the stories that scare us or else they will become greater than us. As normal as I may appear, I have always loved what scares me. I am nervous about this story. I turn red when more than 3 people are listening. I barely speak clearly on the telephone. I can’t even say my name clearly. People always think my name is Jesse, Stacy, Casey, sometimes even, Jason. I am not articulate.
As the token non- actor, I have another mark on my face. I have prepared nothing for this class. I somehow was not apart of the “welcome email” of fuzz and buttercups and I did not get the memo that we were to prepare 2 ten-minute dialogue’s. Under this type of pressure, my usual self- indulgent story telling tendencies have fled the building. I frantically call a friend, what story do I tell?
“My favorite story is your 911 one”
Done, I think.
As we go deeper into our seminar I realize I’m more than lost. These miscellaneous successful people brag about what they have done who they have met. I find it annoying. I find theatre annoying. Sometimes I find nyc annoying. But most times I crave it.
We all go to lunch. I make small talk with people. The German Girl is my favorite. She just moved yesterday with her girlfriend from Seattle. She made a documentary and is in NYC for 3 months. She is brave. She is LIVING her life. Just like me, she will turn 30 in April.
I walk back to “the tank” alone. It is time to tell our stories. Already?
The frog lidded comedian goes first. He reads his notes. This is exactly what this whole seminar was about. Getting rid of these notes. Live in the moment. Tell the story as it comes to you.
He cheats.
His story is no monologue.
The actor goes next. His story is great. I was so surprised. He had been combative throughout the whole seminar. The whole “in the moment thing” really messed up his line reciting actor life. But he got it. These fucking actors I think. They are not human. I feel like a spy. More stories, Michael Jackson, bulimia toothpaste eating girlfriends, brown paint as chocolate, a cabaret performer’s bed habits. Sounds like my life. The cabaret performer is fidgety and neurotic and ultimately loveable. The messy visual artist tells the worst story.
Long drawn out, like a stillborn child. She paces. She says “you know” a lot. It hurts my ears and patience. But I still like her because she has been smiling at me all day. She probably thinks I am simple and pretty. I don’t mind either. With 2 people left I rise and walk towards the stage. I have never been there before. Well, except for 1986 when I did cartwheels in the wings of a community Annie performance as a nameless orphan. You know, show business stuff.
I step onto the stage alone. I step out of the light. I can not believe how I can see everyone’s face in the audience. I never knew that. I’ve never been here.
“I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about reciting my mother’s eulogy” I begin.
“not because I am worried that I will be sad. But because I don’t know how I will ever make everyone believe that I care. I was an angry daughter. It was the two of us. And we were miserable. When she sprained her ankle I would yell to her ‘I’ll break your other leg!!’ When she would find refuge on the phone with her single friends. I would tape record her conversations, or while she complained about me I would bellow into another phone receiver: ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkk Yoooooooooooou”. I used to take eggs and crack them along her bed post waiting for them to rot and stink. I would steal money from her tattered black purse. Threaten to kill her in her sleep”.
(Says the ponytailed, white oxford shirted, pressed Levi jean girl)
I see their faces. Their mouth’s are agape. Furrowed brows. Expressions of horror. What am I doing I think. Oh well, too late.
“On the night of my 18th birthday, after midnight phone calls decided it so. I must have dozed off. I awoke to a muffled scream and what sounded like a grunt from my mother in the next room. It sounded like she was being dragged down the hall through the kitchen down to the basement.
Not knowing what to do, I called 911.
‘911 Emergency’ she answered
‘I think someone is attacking my mother’
‘Is your Father home’
the age old question rears it’s nuclear head.
‘no!, no! its just us’ I panic
‘Ok, stay in your room, stay on the line, we’ll send a squad car over’
I don’t hear anything anymore. The operator tells me that I will need to open the front door for the cop, absurd I think.
As I wait and pace with the chordless phone to my ear. I listen for struggle. Is she dead already I think? Do I care? Or am I merely afraid for myself? I don’t know anything. All I do know is that I do not see any cops coming to save me.
‘There is no police officer here yet” I squeal into the phone.
The operator recites a muffled cinematic murmer of
“breaker breaker hermmalerrrma beerrrrrmaloo” or something and in 5 seconds I see: swoosh, woosh, squad car after squad car zooming into our front lawn. 1, 2, 3-5!! An officer leaps out of his car, forward rolls into my yard and shimmies up behind a tree. You know, what I am talking about because you’ve seen it in every movie. I must be pacing and peering out of my window loudly because I hear a knock on my door. I realize that this isn’t the “murderer” that has my mother. It can only be my mother. Unscathed, unharmed, just woken up by my rummaging in the next room.
“Tracee, what’s going on in there”
“Uhhh, nothing, ummmm, well, the cops are here, I thought you were getting murdered”
“what??”
“Um, yeah, well I called 911, I need to go to the door and tell them your fine”
I open my bedroom door to her pink sweat suited self.
We walk together to the front door. I peer down the hall for the “intruder” I could’ve sworn I heard. Nothing.
My mom opens the door. I sheepishly stand behind. There are at least 7 officers’ ready to pounce.
“I’m fine” my mom declares. “my daughter just had a bad dream”
“Sorry” I nervously emit with a weird curled mouth.{end}
And that’s it. I look around. I walk back to my chair. And I wait in horror.
“How do you feel about that” the leader asks me.
“uhh, I willingly did this to my self?” I say.
Probably the wrong answer. But I just told a horrible story that makes no sense, I didn’t have the elegance or point that everyone else did. And this was my first time. The actors start to respond.
“The eulogy part could be left out. But we want to hear more about what a horrible daughter you were”
They all agree in unison. The writer in me tried to pull it all together. The story teller in me told what I was most afraid/ embarrassed/ horrified of .
“You look so innocent” the leader says “you could horrify audiences with these stories from such a seemingly mild manner exterior”
haha, I think to myself, I saw it all on their faces.
“You also stepped away from the light, and you need to stand in it”
That’s ok. I think. I just did something that horrified me. I am not full of shit.
Not annoying early. But, really, really close. We sit in uncomfortable silence after I introduce myself. I’m doing something I think. For once, I am definatly not full of shit. I spend the whole morning having to pee. Coffee, water, smoothie, green tea, more coffee.
I can already feel that I don’t belong here. There are boney faced actors (that make me think of mandible’s, but I keep wanting to say “mandibula”) with bob’s and great bodies. Rounded writers with post it note colored teeth. A pretty faced actor. A tardy-negative- neurotic- visual artist. She busts in like the Kool Aide man. Angry. Mumbling about Ct and travel, like she didn’t have any idea this was in NY. I resent her. But I still like her. I came from Boston arrived in CT at 2am to sleep in the spare room at my mothers. The one with the matching pirate ship nightstand lamps. Awoke at 5:30 for a 6 am train. I haven’t told anyone this. I am happy to be here. This type of complaining is why I sometimes hate my mother and most strangers.
I see a stage and too many folded chairs. We go around the room and talk about ourselves and declare “why we are here”. As long as we don’t have to pick an animal that starts with the first letter of our name, I think, maybe I’ll survive this part.
This guys an actor, that ones a playright, she was a clown, ( a butcher, a baker a candlestick maker) the only common thread is that they’ve all done this before.
Except me. Shit, my turn.
“I am from Boston, I write shitty poems, nonfiction and plays (the play part being a stretch, unless you count the 5 line play written in 1999 about a girl crying into a mirror). I am a terrible editor. I want to pull my stories together. I am all over the place”.
A pretty German girl is next to me. She wears a wedding band. Something I take the time to notice on people, of late. She is a spoken word poet. I don’t hold that against her.
She agrees with me.
“I, too am a terrible editor” I realize she means that she is “too good at editing”, I meant I was bad.
Our leader is funny as hell. I already knew that. He doesn’t like me. Thinks I am trivial, normal, scared.
When he speaks we listen and laugh at appropriate and inappropriate times. He insults the actors and I adore him more. He scoffs the writers and I agree. It’s ok because he wrote a book. I don’t tell him I read it.
The older comedian who has been on tv talks too much for not being the teacher. He mentions how he knows Jerry Seinfeld and I liken his elongated belt to the equator as it wraps the earthly sphere of his bloated body. His eyelids are weighted, reptilian and satisfied.
We are supposed to be thinking about something we have been thinking about lately.
I am blank.
Well, I think, I’ve been thinking about how I am a sham. I can’t seem to gain acceptance in to any grad programs. How I only fit into one pair of my jeans. A bartender from my home town, whom once I'm nicely drunk, I wouldn’t mind fucking casually.
Yes, I guess I am the normal one. My turn.
“Puberty” I barf out.
“I think about middle school-I read non fiction accounts of adolescence, I research MA programs in Guidance Counseling. I worry about myspace and txt messaging” I selfishly interject that my experience was neither poignant or especially painful ( I think I am lying). I say “breeding ground of obsession” twice. I stop talking.
He does not acknowledge the meat of what I yammered about and scowls the mention of facebook. You know, how no matter where you go “facebook” comes up…oops, I think.
He tells us how we need to tell the stories that scare us or else they will become greater than us. As normal as I may appear, I have always loved what scares me. I am nervous about this story. I turn red when more than 3 people are listening. I barely speak clearly on the telephone. I can’t even say my name clearly. People always think my name is Jesse, Stacy, Casey, sometimes even, Jason. I am not articulate.
As the token non- actor, I have another mark on my face. I have prepared nothing for this class. I somehow was not apart of the “welcome email” of fuzz and buttercups and I did not get the memo that we were to prepare 2 ten-minute dialogue’s. Under this type of pressure, my usual self- indulgent story telling tendencies have fled the building. I frantically call a friend, what story do I tell?
“My favorite story is your 911 one”
Done, I think.
As we go deeper into our seminar I realize I’m more than lost. These miscellaneous successful people brag about what they have done who they have met. I find it annoying. I find theatre annoying. Sometimes I find nyc annoying. But most times I crave it.
We all go to lunch. I make small talk with people. The German Girl is my favorite. She just moved yesterday with her girlfriend from Seattle. She made a documentary and is in NYC for 3 months. She is brave. She is LIVING her life. Just like me, she will turn 30 in April.
I walk back to “the tank” alone. It is time to tell our stories. Already?
The frog lidded comedian goes first. He reads his notes. This is exactly what this whole seminar was about. Getting rid of these notes. Live in the moment. Tell the story as it comes to you.
He cheats.
His story is no monologue.
The actor goes next. His story is great. I was so surprised. He had been combative throughout the whole seminar. The whole “in the moment thing” really messed up his line reciting actor life. But he got it. These fucking actors I think. They are not human. I feel like a spy. More stories, Michael Jackson, bulimia toothpaste eating girlfriends, brown paint as chocolate, a cabaret performer’s bed habits. Sounds like my life. The cabaret performer is fidgety and neurotic and ultimately loveable. The messy visual artist tells the worst story.
Long drawn out, like a stillborn child. She paces. She says “you know” a lot. It hurts my ears and patience. But I still like her because she has been smiling at me all day. She probably thinks I am simple and pretty. I don’t mind either. With 2 people left I rise and walk towards the stage. I have never been there before. Well, except for 1986 when I did cartwheels in the wings of a community Annie performance as a nameless orphan. You know, show business stuff.
I step onto the stage alone. I step out of the light. I can not believe how I can see everyone’s face in the audience. I never knew that. I’ve never been here.
“I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about reciting my mother’s eulogy” I begin.
“not because I am worried that I will be sad. But because I don’t know how I will ever make everyone believe that I care. I was an angry daughter. It was the two of us. And we were miserable. When she sprained her ankle I would yell to her ‘I’ll break your other leg!!’ When she would find refuge on the phone with her single friends. I would tape record her conversations, or while she complained about me I would bellow into another phone receiver: ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkk Yoooooooooooou”. I used to take eggs and crack them along her bed post waiting for them to rot and stink. I would steal money from her tattered black purse. Threaten to kill her in her sleep”.
(Says the ponytailed, white oxford shirted, pressed Levi jean girl)
I see their faces. Their mouth’s are agape. Furrowed brows. Expressions of horror. What am I doing I think. Oh well, too late.
“On the night of my 18th birthday, after midnight phone calls decided it so. I must have dozed off. I awoke to a muffled scream and what sounded like a grunt from my mother in the next room. It sounded like she was being dragged down the hall through the kitchen down to the basement.
Not knowing what to do, I called 911.
‘911 Emergency’ she answered
‘I think someone is attacking my mother’
‘Is your Father home’
the age old question rears it’s nuclear head.
‘no!, no! its just us’ I panic
‘Ok, stay in your room, stay on the line, we’ll send a squad car over’
I don’t hear anything anymore. The operator tells me that I will need to open the front door for the cop, absurd I think.
As I wait and pace with the chordless phone to my ear. I listen for struggle. Is she dead already I think? Do I care? Or am I merely afraid for myself? I don’t know anything. All I do know is that I do not see any cops coming to save me.
‘There is no police officer here yet” I squeal into the phone.
The operator recites a muffled cinematic murmer of
“breaker breaker hermmalerrrma beerrrrrmaloo” or something and in 5 seconds I see: swoosh, woosh, squad car after squad car zooming into our front lawn. 1, 2, 3-5!! An officer leaps out of his car, forward rolls into my yard and shimmies up behind a tree. You know, what I am talking about because you’ve seen it in every movie. I must be pacing and peering out of my window loudly because I hear a knock on my door. I realize that this isn’t the “murderer” that has my mother. It can only be my mother. Unscathed, unharmed, just woken up by my rummaging in the next room.
“Tracee, what’s going on in there”
“Uhhh, nothing, ummmm, well, the cops are here, I thought you were getting murdered”
“what??”
“Um, yeah, well I called 911, I need to go to the door and tell them your fine”
I open my bedroom door to her pink sweat suited self.
We walk together to the front door. I peer down the hall for the “intruder” I could’ve sworn I heard. Nothing.
My mom opens the door. I sheepishly stand behind. There are at least 7 officers’ ready to pounce.
“I’m fine” my mom declares. “my daughter just had a bad dream”
“Sorry” I nervously emit with a weird curled mouth.{end}
And that’s it. I look around. I walk back to my chair. And I wait in horror.
“How do you feel about that” the leader asks me.
“uhh, I willingly did this to my self?” I say.
Probably the wrong answer. But I just told a horrible story that makes no sense, I didn’t have the elegance or point that everyone else did. And this was my first time. The actors start to respond.
“The eulogy part could be left out. But we want to hear more about what a horrible daughter you were”
They all agree in unison. The writer in me tried to pull it all together. The story teller in me told what I was most afraid/ embarrassed/ horrified of .
“You look so innocent” the leader says “you could horrify audiences with these stories from such a seemingly mild manner exterior”
haha, I think to myself, I saw it all on their faces.
“You also stepped away from the light, and you need to stand in it”
That’s ok. I think. I just did something that horrified me. I am not full of shit.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Baby Boy Blue
My great grandmother’s room was magic. She lived in the room at the very end of Grandpa's cooled slate blue floored hall in his slate blue home. We called her GiGi but her real name was Marie Antoinette Welch Butterfield, (I would brag to my teachers that she wasn’t the Marie Antoinette who faced the guilliotine, she was a different Marie Antoinette). She had a fan club of neighborhood children, but I was special because I was her great granddaughter. She taught me how to swear and was perfectly okay with me calling her a whore in jest during those so very strange teen years. The only thing that caused her offense was to utter that you “hate.” She always took pains to tell me that she could see the old ladies who said “hate” all of the time, and “it shows on their faces” she would tell me. My mother and I to this day think of her when we catch ourselves mid “hate” declaration. When I was younger she would feed me Kit Kats and tell me that the wrinkles on her paper thin hands were from the neighborhood children pinching her. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was 90 years old. She had silver hair and wrote me beautiful letters addressed to “Monkey Doodle Doo,” signed “Miss. America,” and my crazy mother always insisted I write her back because someday I would be sorry when she died. As a strangely religious child I would make unheard of pacts with God to make her live forever on the nights that I remembered to pray., which were pretty often. Her room though, was a museum of jewelry, candy, and dolls: the kind that do not frighten. Some of her dolls even wore jewelry. Her lavish bed sat diagonal in the center of her room adorned with the most luxurious blaring red satin you ever did see without having to squint or even know about sex. Pillow upon pillow rested up against her dark wood headboard full of antique books and jewels. She had music boxes, a color spectrum of satin robes, a 13-inch television utilized solely for Little House on the Prairie viewing, and a closet full of shoes with the bunion spot cut out of every single pair. Her closet was also full of empty paper bags with a Persian cat stencil drawing from some store named Samantha’s. All of the furniture appeared to be from the most successful of pirate ships. And five years after her death an antique dealer offered my mother $2500 for what we presumed to be her beat up dresser. She wore silver bracelets up to her elbows and insisted we always drink blackberry tea from the finest of china. Despite her reuse of her tea bags for multiple dunking I swear she was of English royalty.
The only person to ever say a sour word about GiGi was my Uncle Tommy who called her a freeloader, but I think she was just doing what women in their 90’s do: visit family members for long periods of time. She named everything. Her African violet was Baby Jean, her sailor figure was Sailor Boy, and the pastel figure that looked like the Dutch Boy Paint mascot playing the Ukeleli, was Baby Boy Blue. Baby Boy Blue was my favorite and I swear he could talk. He was ten inches high and the kind of light blue clothing and pinky flesh that girls recreate with crayons when they stop pressing hard. His leg was broken and glued back together with what appeared to be more haste than glue. He was beautiful, and I didn’t even like boys. (With the exception of my gym teacher, Davy Jones, and the boy who lived down the street, who I would smoke uncooked spaghetti with on occasion). No body understood how valuable and beautiful baby boy blue was except for us. In fact I think that Design perfume gives out dolls that look like his cousins as a free gift. I would have to ask for permission to pick him up and this was in the room with no rules. The room where you could eat chocolate until you choked and say “shit” and even “whore”! I could feel the discomfort from such an unusually comfortable lady when I held him. An accident-prone child, I couldn’t understand what the problem was then.
When GiGi passed away her room turned into a roped off museum. And I never went to the house again until I became an adult. It was with her passing that my freakish family started their habit of ignoring death; and at the request of her Christian Scientist wishes she was cremated, a concept I couldn’t wrap my brain around at the time. I think they divvied her up and part of her sits in a fake plastic urn in my mother’s closet. Her room gathered dust until my grandmother passed away and shortly after my grandfather from his broken heart. It was then that I remembered Baby Boy Blue. We all went up to the house to gather keepsakes from their long lived lives before we sold the house. I knew what I wanted I needed to take care of Baby Boy Blue. I bolted to her room, unaware of how emotional it might be to revisit as an adult. I sat on her bed, hauntingly not as dusty as it should have been after all of these years-and held the boy tenderly.
“Ohhh what did you find?”, my competitive mother coo’ed as she had followed me shortly after my reunion with Baby boy.
“Oh I love him, I ‘m going to take him, he matches my living room”. She snatched him from my hands. I knew this wasn’t the time to showcase my aggression or skills of debate so I obliged. He now sits on her mantle because he matches the pale blue curtains and her weak hued oriental rug in the living room for when company comes (And she doesn’t even know who he is).
The only person to ever say a sour word about GiGi was my Uncle Tommy who called her a freeloader, but I think she was just doing what women in their 90’s do: visit family members for long periods of time. She named everything. Her African violet was Baby Jean, her sailor figure was Sailor Boy, and the pastel figure that looked like the Dutch Boy Paint mascot playing the Ukeleli, was Baby Boy Blue. Baby Boy Blue was my favorite and I swear he could talk. He was ten inches high and the kind of light blue clothing and pinky flesh that girls recreate with crayons when they stop pressing hard. His leg was broken and glued back together with what appeared to be more haste than glue. He was beautiful, and I didn’t even like boys. (With the exception of my gym teacher, Davy Jones, and the boy who lived down the street, who I would smoke uncooked spaghetti with on occasion). No body understood how valuable and beautiful baby boy blue was except for us. In fact I think that Design perfume gives out dolls that look like his cousins as a free gift. I would have to ask for permission to pick him up and this was in the room with no rules. The room where you could eat chocolate until you choked and say “shit” and even “whore”! I could feel the discomfort from such an unusually comfortable lady when I held him. An accident-prone child, I couldn’t understand what the problem was then.
When GiGi passed away her room turned into a roped off museum. And I never went to the house again until I became an adult. It was with her passing that my freakish family started their habit of ignoring death; and at the request of her Christian Scientist wishes she was cremated, a concept I couldn’t wrap my brain around at the time. I think they divvied her up and part of her sits in a fake plastic urn in my mother’s closet. Her room gathered dust until my grandmother passed away and shortly after my grandfather from his broken heart. It was then that I remembered Baby Boy Blue. We all went up to the house to gather keepsakes from their long lived lives before we sold the house. I knew what I wanted I needed to take care of Baby Boy Blue. I bolted to her room, unaware of how emotional it might be to revisit as an adult. I sat on her bed, hauntingly not as dusty as it should have been after all of these years-and held the boy tenderly.
“Ohhh what did you find?”, my competitive mother coo’ed as she had followed me shortly after my reunion with Baby boy.
“Oh I love him, I ‘m going to take him, he matches my living room”. She snatched him from my hands. I knew this wasn’t the time to showcase my aggression or skills of debate so I obliged. He now sits on her mantle because he matches the pale blue curtains and her weak hued oriental rug in the living room for when company comes (And she doesn’t even know who he is).
First (not so) Love
My first practice not at all love was normal named Danny Johnson. He lived in my neighborhood. I moved to this neighborhood when I was 12. Against the adamant wishes of my pediatrician. He believed that it would be more than hellish to move from my K-6 schoolhouse elementary school to an open classroom 5-8th grade Intermediate school. He was right. I remember listening to the answering machine as my guidance counselor threatened me with the police arresting my mother if I continued to not go to school. I hated middle school but I loved the summer. My first summer in my new neighborhood proved lucrative in the game of love. I had an in ground pool and a bevy of new boys to invite over to swim. The girls in the neighborhood were slim pickings. The weirdest girl I ever met shared my name and lived across the street. When she spoke she scrunched up her face like she smelt something burning. For some reason she smelt like milk. The fattest girl in our school lived down the road, (and though I tried to be open minded when her and her fat family drove around the block in their squished tired station wagon) she just wasn’t a nice girl. Another girl who was a grade above me lived around the corner, but the boys told me that she had inverted nipples. I didn’t know what that was, but to tell you truth I didn’t care either.
All summer, the boys and I swam and threw footballs around my pool. There was Shawn who lived next door. He always wore a black tee shirt when he swam and was a red head born on St. Patrick’s Day. Tristan, who’s mother died a few years before. He lived with a wretched stepmother and would later join the airforce morphing into one of the “good guys” overnight. Billy’s parents owned a bar down town. He and I would get into trouble together later in life, on picnic tables and in my basement dry fucking. Dan was a dream to me. Brown eyes and gym teacher-parted in the middle hair. Effectively Conjuring my first infatuation of Davy Jones and Bruce Jenner look-alike gym teacher of Elementary school days. He wore body glove tee shirts and neon shorts, and always smelt like pert plus, my first whiffs of masculinity. He was always on a bike and had a father who was a cop. His name also started with a D. I am surprised that the next chain of events are so vague, because they were most certainly the first of their kind and are worthy of remembrance but my recollection is sparse.
If first love has a smell I would describe it fiercely as fabric softener and low tide. Heaven to my memory, we would walk around the neighborhood, together Dan beside his bike, me beside them both. He asked me if I would go out with him and I, the epitome of nonchalance smiled sheepishly and said “sure”.
It was then that we sealed this commitment of never going anywhere with a kiss. A French one to be exact. Underneath the buzz of nightly insects and the Parisian streetlight looming over our CT suburbia of manicured lawns and perfect pavement driveways we kissed as I inhaled his everything. Thinking the whole time, Thank god I had already used up my first kiss on Dustin Johnson (no relation to Danny) the month before, during the Kiss the girl segment of The Little Mermaid, because otherwise I’d be a wreck. Giddy, delirious and floating on earth, I pattered home to pour in my front door. My mother was on our porch drinking White Zinfindel, (because that’s what teachers do) with her model beauty best friend. Who would die the next year at a dinner party (Looking for the bathroom she falls to the bottom of the basement stairs, taking her husband with her the year after. Shattered from his own broken heart. My mother will stay in bed for a week to cry).
I fishing net throw my new title as “Dan's girlfriend” to my mother and ‘for now’ mortal friend. Quickly realizing that this porch is only screened in and there is the chance my neighbor could be listening in on his screened in porch 10 feet away (These are the same boys who would later use Dan's fathers police scanner to listen to my cordless phone conversations) I spoke softly. What happens next is typical my mother. Her reply to my excitement is not “Oh Great Honey” or “lovely” or “Congratulations” or even a knowing smile,
it’s the monkey wrench exultation of “be careful, this may be a joke they’re all playing on you”
Shocked and incapable of a reaction of such cynicism from the zipcode of cloud nine, I waited for her to continue.
“Well be careful and I hope you know that if you do more than kiss him you are certain to receive a reputation”
I looked at her like she was nuts and went to my room to practice kissing on my pillow.
I fell asleep to the top 40 radio and waited for my new life as a girlfriend to continue in the morning.
So long as it wasn’t a joke.
All summer, the boys and I swam and threw footballs around my pool. There was Shawn who lived next door. He always wore a black tee shirt when he swam and was a red head born on St. Patrick’s Day. Tristan, who’s mother died a few years before. He lived with a wretched stepmother and would later join the airforce morphing into one of the “good guys” overnight. Billy’s parents owned a bar down town. He and I would get into trouble together later in life, on picnic tables and in my basement dry fucking. Dan was a dream to me. Brown eyes and gym teacher-parted in the middle hair. Effectively Conjuring my first infatuation of Davy Jones and Bruce Jenner look-alike gym teacher of Elementary school days. He wore body glove tee shirts and neon shorts, and always smelt like pert plus, my first whiffs of masculinity. He was always on a bike and had a father who was a cop. His name also started with a D. I am surprised that the next chain of events are so vague, because they were most certainly the first of their kind and are worthy of remembrance but my recollection is sparse.
If first love has a smell I would describe it fiercely as fabric softener and low tide. Heaven to my memory, we would walk around the neighborhood, together Dan beside his bike, me beside them both. He asked me if I would go out with him and I, the epitome of nonchalance smiled sheepishly and said “sure”.
It was then that we sealed this commitment of never going anywhere with a kiss. A French one to be exact. Underneath the buzz of nightly insects and the Parisian streetlight looming over our CT suburbia of manicured lawns and perfect pavement driveways we kissed as I inhaled his everything. Thinking the whole time, Thank god I had already used up my first kiss on Dustin Johnson (no relation to Danny) the month before, during the Kiss the girl segment of The Little Mermaid, because otherwise I’d be a wreck. Giddy, delirious and floating on earth, I pattered home to pour in my front door. My mother was on our porch drinking White Zinfindel, (because that’s what teachers do) with her model beauty best friend. Who would die the next year at a dinner party (Looking for the bathroom she falls to the bottom of the basement stairs, taking her husband with her the year after. Shattered from his own broken heart. My mother will stay in bed for a week to cry).
I fishing net throw my new title as “Dan's girlfriend” to my mother and ‘for now’ mortal friend. Quickly realizing that this porch is only screened in and there is the chance my neighbor could be listening in on his screened in porch 10 feet away (These are the same boys who would later use Dan's fathers police scanner to listen to my cordless phone conversations) I spoke softly. What happens next is typical my mother. Her reply to my excitement is not “Oh Great Honey” or “lovely” or “Congratulations” or even a knowing smile,
it’s the monkey wrench exultation of “be careful, this may be a joke they’re all playing on you”
Shocked and incapable of a reaction of such cynicism from the zipcode of cloud nine, I waited for her to continue.
“Well be careful and I hope you know that if you do more than kiss him you are certain to receive a reputation”
I looked at her like she was nuts and went to my room to practice kissing on my pillow.
I fell asleep to the top 40 radio and waited for my new life as a girlfriend to continue in the morning.
So long as it wasn’t a joke.
Tour de Force
Family dinners for me were a weekend thing. I lived alone at home with my mother, and visited my father on the weekends. Living with my mother we ate together but it was only dinner for two. Eating steak outside at the picnic table was as good and as complicated as it would get. My dad’s house was a different story. I think my dad dreamed his whole life to be the maestro of these elaborate family dinners filled with giving grace and “may I be excused?” requests. Both of my parents like to think that they are the catalyst for my way with manners. I would like to think I am a self-taught success story. My father lived in a round house that he built himself. He bought milk in clear gallons and was always dolling out chores. My mom bought milk in a carton and made my bed everyday. When I was five, my dad would charge me $1 for any article of clothing or toiletry that I left at his home on a weekend visit. At home I would beg my mom to give me something to do for some cash. I remember pleading with her on whether or not I could clean the grout in between our pink bathroom tiles with bleach and my toothbrush. She always said no. At my father’s house you had to ask permission to get a drink in between meals. At my mother’s I would consume an entire package of Chips Ahoy cookies while watching one He-Man episode. I was always on edge at my father’s house. Sometimes he had a beard and sometimes he would shave it off. He was full of surprises. He bought a dinner bell to make our dinners ritualistic. Our dinner table was a peninsula table that he designed himself. It was off-white with oak trim and had oak round chairs surrounding it. If our dinner table was Florida, Dad sat where the Keys jut out. Roberta, my stepmother perched close by to his right in Miami, and my brother was around West Palm Beach. Before my sister: I sat alone on the other side, usually in a hooded sweatshirt with chewed strings mangled, right around Fort Myers. Eventually I would wind up in the panhandle. I remember being pissed off that I was demoted further away from dad, but I got over it. As kids we would battle over who would get to ring the dinner bell. I even painstakingly wove an embroidered string in the hurricane stitch to dangle from the brass eyesore of a bell. I believed that this woven masterpiece would guarantee my position as weekend bell ringer. I remember when I proudly held it to my father’s face like a fish on a hook, after weeks of describing it to him, and he told me he pictured it thicker and that I should make another one. My stepmother did everything for our meals. I have only seen my father cook one thing in my life and that’s French toast. He never even cooked that at home he only cooked it at the Elks club Sunday breakfasts. I also have never seen my dad help with any meal; although I’ve heard him criticize the dryness of chicken, pork, and beef many times. As the girls set the table and I eyed the dinner bell. I would think of the injustice of this home. Ryan never helped. It drove me crazy. I remember being so peeved that I didn’t even live there and I was setting the table, and doing chores, on these 48-hour weekend visits. Was I not a guest? Once everyone was seated, we would say Grace. It was prayer stolen from my mother’s house that we would fight over who could recite:
“For health and food,
For love and friends,
For every gift your goodness sends,
We thank you gracious God,(or Lord, I don’t remember)
Amen.”
It drove me nuts that they stole this from my mother and I. Was prayer not even sacred? Dinners in both homes started with salad and I remember that Roberta cut her carrots into discs while my mother shaved them with a peeler. Roberta would make fresh bread for every meal with her bread maker, and make us all drink milk and if you spilled that cup of milk there would be hell to pay. My mom let me drink whatever I wanted. Two rules for Dad’s dinners were that you had to clear your plate, and you had to ask to be excused. I was a shy child who took quite a while to “warm up” at social events, so they said. I would take me a long time to muster up the gumption to ask, “May I be excused?” It seemed forced and unnatural to my five –year- old ears and I didn’t like it. This, I believe is what started the tradition of me sitting at the dinner table until the very end of the meal. If I waited until it was just Dad, Roberta, and I, well then they would tell me to clear the table and I wouldn’t have to ask for anything.
All of this talk about family dinners evokes the infamous pot roast incident. A family joke of mine is that “Tracee hates pot roast” and they still think it’s hilarious. Roberta didn’t know this truth of my existence and made the mistake of serving it one Sunday afternoon. We all gathered around the table and I just stared at the disgusting shoe-lace-smelling-stringy meat. I painfully chewed it and spat it into white paper napkins under the table shoving some in the pockets of my sweatshirt, and all the while wishing that we had a dog. Eventually they noticed and demanded I eat and swallow the fork full of pot roast. I did what I did best, which was cry and told them I didn’t like pot roast. My dad is a hot head. When feeling cornered he is known to firmly stand his ground even when he forgets why he is standing in the first place. His favorite saying at the time was “For crying out loud.” They foolishly thought that they could out last my distaste and refusal for pot roast. My father was in a predicament; he couldn’t threat his usual spanking punishment because the week prior he got a call from mom’s lawyer saying that he wasn’t allowed to spank me ever again. You see, the weekend before I had a bad dream and woke up crying in the middle of the night. My father came in and asked me why I was crying. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know where I was, what was going on, I just knew I was afraid and they made me sleep in the dark, they made me shut the door. I couldn’t stop crying and he began to freak out. A paranoid man to begin with, he started to take it personally. He told me to stop crying or he would give me something to cry about. I didn’t know why I was crying and then cried more, because spankings scared the crap out of me. He flexed his freckled-elephant–knee-knuckled-fingers as I awaited his wrath.He spanked me 3 times and I remember staring at the wall while my ass began to burn. Scrambling for any reason to say why I was crying, I finally remembered that we had watched the Wizard of Oz that afternoon, and I falsely admitted that I was crying because of the Wicked Witch. He fixed my nightgown and pulled me close and said in his pretend nice dad voice, “ See what you made Daddy do? You should have just told me.”
I remember thinking in my young brain, unaware that it was young, ‘what a strange thing, I’m lying, I’m only saying this so you won’t spank me, where does this make sense?’
I went to sleep shaken from hyperventilation and schemed to tell my mother as soon as I got home.
(I was never spanked again.)
Because of this, I knew that I didn’t have to eat the pot roast. He couldn’t touch my rear; he could only yell at me and send me to my fake ‘ my room’. A man of consistency his rule was that you had to clear your plate, pot roast or no pot roast and he couldn’t go back on that rule, or so he wrongly believed. Our stand off went on for forever and they convened in the living room away from my ears and tear burnt eyes. I heard them rummage in the hall closet and my father emerged from the hall with a snack tray table and collapsible chair. They whisked my disgusting brown stoneware plate away from me, set up my plate on the snack tray and yanked me out of the kitchen by my bent elbow macaroni arm. They sat me down at the table and turned on the knobbed television. Dad put on the Tour de France, and though I now know it lasts a few days I swear I sat there with my now tear salted pot roast for the duration of the race. That’s all I remember because the next day I awoke in my nightgown in my top bunk with no signs of pot roast in my belly. I never had pot roast again.
“For health and food,
For love and friends,
For every gift your goodness sends,
We thank you gracious God,(or Lord, I don’t remember)
Amen.”
It drove me nuts that they stole this from my mother and I. Was prayer not even sacred? Dinners in both homes started with salad and I remember that Roberta cut her carrots into discs while my mother shaved them with a peeler. Roberta would make fresh bread for every meal with her bread maker, and make us all drink milk and if you spilled that cup of milk there would be hell to pay. My mom let me drink whatever I wanted. Two rules for Dad’s dinners were that you had to clear your plate, and you had to ask to be excused. I was a shy child who took quite a while to “warm up” at social events, so they said. I would take me a long time to muster up the gumption to ask, “May I be excused?” It seemed forced and unnatural to my five –year- old ears and I didn’t like it. This, I believe is what started the tradition of me sitting at the dinner table until the very end of the meal. If I waited until it was just Dad, Roberta, and I, well then they would tell me to clear the table and I wouldn’t have to ask for anything.
All of this talk about family dinners evokes the infamous pot roast incident. A family joke of mine is that “Tracee hates pot roast” and they still think it’s hilarious. Roberta didn’t know this truth of my existence and made the mistake of serving it one Sunday afternoon. We all gathered around the table and I just stared at the disgusting shoe-lace-smelling-stringy meat. I painfully chewed it and spat it into white paper napkins under the table shoving some in the pockets of my sweatshirt, and all the while wishing that we had a dog. Eventually they noticed and demanded I eat and swallow the fork full of pot roast. I did what I did best, which was cry and told them I didn’t like pot roast. My dad is a hot head. When feeling cornered he is known to firmly stand his ground even when he forgets why he is standing in the first place. His favorite saying at the time was “For crying out loud.” They foolishly thought that they could out last my distaste and refusal for pot roast. My father was in a predicament; he couldn’t threat his usual spanking punishment because the week prior he got a call from mom’s lawyer saying that he wasn’t allowed to spank me ever again. You see, the weekend before I had a bad dream and woke up crying in the middle of the night. My father came in and asked me why I was crying. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know where I was, what was going on, I just knew I was afraid and they made me sleep in the dark, they made me shut the door. I couldn’t stop crying and he began to freak out. A paranoid man to begin with, he started to take it personally. He told me to stop crying or he would give me something to cry about. I didn’t know why I was crying and then cried more, because spankings scared the crap out of me. He flexed his freckled-elephant–knee-knuckled-fingers as I awaited his wrath.He spanked me 3 times and I remember staring at the wall while my ass began to burn. Scrambling for any reason to say why I was crying, I finally remembered that we had watched the Wizard of Oz that afternoon, and I falsely admitted that I was crying because of the Wicked Witch. He fixed my nightgown and pulled me close and said in his pretend nice dad voice, “ See what you made Daddy do? You should have just told me.”
I remember thinking in my young brain, unaware that it was young, ‘what a strange thing, I’m lying, I’m only saying this so you won’t spank me, where does this make sense?’
I went to sleep shaken from hyperventilation and schemed to tell my mother as soon as I got home.
(I was never spanked again.)
Because of this, I knew that I didn’t have to eat the pot roast. He couldn’t touch my rear; he could only yell at me and send me to my fake ‘ my room’. A man of consistency his rule was that you had to clear your plate, pot roast or no pot roast and he couldn’t go back on that rule, or so he wrongly believed. Our stand off went on for forever and they convened in the living room away from my ears and tear burnt eyes. I heard them rummage in the hall closet and my father emerged from the hall with a snack tray table and collapsible chair. They whisked my disgusting brown stoneware plate away from me, set up my plate on the snack tray and yanked me out of the kitchen by my bent elbow macaroni arm. They sat me down at the table and turned on the knobbed television. Dad put on the Tour de France, and though I now know it lasts a few days I swear I sat there with my now tear salted pot roast for the duration of the race. That’s all I remember because the next day I awoke in my nightgown in my top bunk with no signs of pot roast in my belly. I never had pot roast again.
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