Procrastnation's blog

Just smile

What Are You So Scared Of?

 

A good friend asked me a question last weekend in a vulnerable moment.  I didn’t really know how to answer, aside from saying “Of letting people down.  Of letting me down.”  It was a horribly vulnerably, honest moment; it’s no less true when I’m sitting here feeling stronger than ever, incredibly sure of myself.

 

Have you ever been in one of those group activities, where they make you take the Briggs/Myers test that puts you in a quadrant?  I made a lot of you do it recently,  I love those, they’re great.  You usually end up exactly where your outdoor voice should be.  I love to go home later and pick at where my indoor voice lives.  I’m always two sides of that coin, I always have been.  I bet most of you are too.  I wonder often about people who aren’t. 

 

I always come up introvert/extrovert.  At work and at play I’m the head of many committees.  I put myself out there.  I’ve refined the ability to be Rah Rah Cheerleader and cynical snob.  There are days I resent everyone, like I assume most people do.  But then I look around at all those people I assume about and realize I’m being a jerk.  They’re jus trying to get through their lives, they want to move on to better things like, just like me. 

 

Well some of them are still jerks, let’s face it.  That guy/gal texting behind you at a traffic light?  Total jerk.  Obviously.  Moron texting, while wearing earbuds and crossing the road without looking?  Total jerk.

 

I like to think I’m a cynic.  I like to think I’m jaded and world weary.  I like to think I’m tired of the coops and interns that think they don’t have to pay dues. 

 

I’m a big fat liar.

 

I’m a giant optimist.  Yeah, I still think the jerks walking into traffic texting and re-programming their IPods should pay the price. 

 

Here’s the thing: 

 

Kindness is powerful.  Kindness can change a life.

 

It’s hip (and hip is hip again) to be cynical, snarky, mean.  I get that!  But I only get that if it’s because someone famous is doing something stupid, or wearing something outrageous.   It’s a harmless way for the unheard to be heard.  What other explanation for Perez Hilton.

 

But think about what I wrote up there.  Kindness is powerful. Kindness can change a life. 

 

In my twenties I was so sure I knew everything.  I was sarcastic and dismissive.  Sometimes, I still am.  Those days I may think I’m clever, the day after I usually  think I’m an asshole. 

 

Kindness is powerful.  Kindness can change a life.

 

Think about that.  It’s been played with in movies and commercials (there was recently one, about paying nice things forward and how good that was).

 

The movie “Pay It Forward” had a terrible twist.  But the message was still clear. 

 

We’re in dire straits people.  If we don’t help each other, no one is coming to help us. 

 

We’ve bought these McMansions, on huge lots.  But do we know our neighbors?  Would they help us?  Do they care?

 

They do.  Everyday, I read amazing stories about people that didn’t know each other but reached out.  A 66 year old man was jailed because of his brown lawn.  Once his neighbors (not his horrific neighborhood association that sued him) found out; and people that were not his neighbors:  they pulled together in a day to re-do his lawn and free him. 

 

We have become a place where false governments (HOAs) influence our actual government.  We have become a place where keeping your home is less a priority than keeping up your lawn.  We have become a bunch of idiots that can’t see the forest for the trees.  If a community organization has a man imprisoned for his lawn being brown, at the sake of his home being his?  We have seriously decided to drink the sand that we believe to be water in the mirage before us.

 

Let us all step back.  Let us all rethink. 

 

Kindness is powerful.  Kindness can change a life.

 

In these new hard times there are so many options before us.  Go through your possessions and donate.  Really?  Really?  Look hard at what you own.  Think about The Spring, where abused families just need basics like clothes and shampoo.  Think about the homeless tent cities that were destroyed.  Do you really need a new lemon zester?  Or are you buying it because you can?  Because you haven’t been hit?  Or because you are afraid you will be?  And in two months, you won’t be able to sell it on Ebay. 

 

No one is asking you for money.  Although everyone is. 

 

Kindness is powerful.  Kindness can change a life.

 

It’s easy to be cold, sharp, abrupt.

 

It’s just as easy to smile. 

 

Not even give, just smile.

 

Yes, people are annoying, and in your way and horrid and smell.  But how hard is it, to smile?  And once you try it?  You might find you actually mean it.  And others will mean it too.

Desperados

DesiOnTheLedge

Desi has always been an embodiment of the best of who I really am inside.  When Des and I first met, I was beginning my path on a career in IT while still living with my former ballroom dance partner.  I was probably 22 or 23.  I find it amazing I don’t remember exactly.  Desi was a lone 4 week old kitten, nourishing himself out of puddles in the back lot of the dance studio where Thom still worked and I still subbed in sometimes.  Thom caught him one night with an elicit can of tuna from the gas station in front of the strip mall that housed the studio.

 

Thom called me around 8:30 and told me to come quick and bring the cat carrier.  Back in those days, Scarlett was just around a year old and the only carrier I had was the cardboard one I was given by the Humane Society.  I arrived to find Thom and some others standing on the sidewalk out front.  Thom, all six foot two inches of him was holding a wee tiny yowling bit of stripey fluff.  I leapt from the car, reached out my hands and cried “Oh you darling…. Stinkbomb!!!!” 

 

I was now holding a hissing, spitting, enraged, oil and dirt covered tan and brown striped mass that had a softball for a head, very little body, a stick of a tail and very large feet.  I initially deposited him in my tiny bathroom, where he took cover behind the toilet and hissed at me constantly without making a sound.  I was charmed.  All that rage, and fury and fear and angst from something so young and tiny.  He had to be bathed several times over to rid him of the woods and parking lot grime.  He got a good check up from the vet and some worm medicine and was sent back to our tiny bungalow.

 

The vet guessed he was about four and a half weeks old; but when your brain is the size of  walnut, and your mother and all your litter mates die, and then you’re scooped up and shoved in a box, the world sucks and can scar you pretty bad in a pretty short time.

 

When we opened up the condo to him, beyond the bathroom, he made tracks straight to under my bed.  Only having had Scarlett for a year at this point, I was new to the idiosyncratic nature of cats for the most part.  I was used to troubled animals, abandoned animals, but none had ever been cats.  I quickly learned that even cats that had spent their whole 4 weeks of life outdoors would use a litter box if you gave them the option:  if you didn’t?  They’d use your laundry.

 

Almost everyday, I’d come home from work, lie on the floor, on my stomach, next to my bed, and read.  At first he would just hiss, now with sound!  Then maybe a month later he’d come to the edge of the bed skirt and watch me.  Then maybe around the end of the third month he’d sniff at me.  By the fifth month, he was laying in the small of my back, but I could feel him taught as a coil.  By the sixth month, he’d lay there and doze purring.  By the beginning of the seventh month, he was exploring the condo and was using the regular litter box, adept at avoiding my roommates none too bright dog, and following Scarlett’s lead.

 

It’s been at least ten years, I can’t recall, so much has changed.  Desi and Scarlett moved from that condo to my first apartment alone.  Then they moved from that apartment to my next place in a new city two and a half hours away, then they moved to another apartment two minutes away.  In August we all moved in to our first house… home. 

 

Again the cats were hidden in the bathroom while the movers did their thing.  Again, Scarlett came out almost immediately and explored every nook and cranny of her new surroundings.  Desi made haste to find the bed and hid under it.  But for the first time we were in a place large enough, that this was not a tenable option for day to day living.  He was 10 or so, not 4 weeks; I wasn’t going to put a litter box in my new bedroom.  The only litterbox was on the opposite side of the house.  He would steal under darkness of night. 

 

He and Scarlett had some displaced anger/territorial issues.  She didn’t care after the first week.  He still did. 

 

Like I said, Desi represents the best and worst of me.  Desi is the part of me that is quick to make unfounded snap judgements and stick to them for no good reason.  He’s also the one that desperately wants comfort, quiet, acceptance and love.  He denies himself amazing opportunities because of that. 

 

The new house has a completely screened in patio with a cat-tastic level shelf running a foot above the ground at the base of the windows that Scarlett had been enjoying since day one.  Desi missed out on the birds, lizards, squirrels, frogs and view for a month and a half because he was convinced that Scarlett wouldn’t let him out there.  To be honest, for a while she kind of didn’t, but he didn’t really even try until recently.  But back to the theme.  Once he realizes he was wrong, he’s so happy to tell you you were right.

 

Desi and Scarlett are the two halves to my whole.  Yin and Yang to use them as kitty clichés.  She’s the confident, curious, flirty, outgoing, demanding part that most people know.  He’s the shy, scared, skittish, defensive, grumpy, cranky, solitary inside that so many people don’t see and would never understand. 

 

Lately, Desi has been making an effort.  He’s been hanging out in more rooms in the house.  And he’s been trying to hang out on the patio.  He would poke his nose out and then go lay on the other side of the sliding glass doors looking out.

 

In the last week, especially when my Mom was visiting he took his fledgling steps out, always watching for his sister/keeper.  Depending on her approach and demeanor he would scurry back inside.

 

Tonight he came out, over and over.  The first two times he watched her and when she approached, he fled.  Finally, I think she got it, and she just laid down and let him come forth. 

 

He hid, he watched her, he realized she wasn’t watching him.  He began to stalk the ledge strongly.  She approached, he didn’t back down.  She showed him the best places to watch for lizards and moths.  Like she has taught him to hunt in the past.  He overloaded and ran back inside.  He came back out.  He jumped in my lap.  He purred and rolled around.  Then he hopped down and hopped back up to the ledge.

 

My heart broke a little when I saw him out on that ledge, because he was me, out on that ledge.  Still a little afraid, but ready to start again, even if he had to come back every once in a while for that reassuring head scratch.

Old is New Again

NEW-OldHair

You’ve Come A Long Way Baby

You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!

 

Man, can you believe that slogan used to apply to women smoking?  Although in NYC, I believe it was as recently as 80 years ago (and longer in other areas) that it was frowned upon for women to smoke in public, even after they had the right to vote (it was actually illegal for two weeks in 1908).  That was the slogan of Virginia Slims starting in 1968 by the Phillip Morris owned company. 

 

This isn’t an ode to smoking, but I thought the phrase was apt, and then I remembered I actually had a tie to that old slogan.  Bear with me on this one, I started out on one path with this story, but got massively sidetracked.  I actually think that’s a testament to what I started out to write.  Stay with me here, it will come full circle, and I believe even I’m going to learn something about myself on this trip.

 

I grew up in an ideal suburb located in Upstate New York in the 80’s.  When I say ideal suburb, it really was.  But now I think the better term with hindsight would be ‘idealized”.  I grew up three blocks from my elementary school in one direction (with my dentist helpfully across the street from the school), and three blocks in the other direction was a corner store, the likes of which I’ve never seen since I moved from there.  “Terry Road Market”.  It was much like a modern convenience store in what it carried, but minus the gas pumps and it was mostly family owned and neighborhood employed.  It was one of those places you never hear of anymore where a seven year old could bring a note and two dollars from her Mom or Dad and buy a pack of smokes and a Chunky Bar or Pop Rocks.

 

When I was under eight or so, I’d walk there with my parents and brother on hot summer nights and get novelty ice cream out of the cooler.  We’d walk the half a block down Meadow hook a right on Clover Road and then the block to Bronson, and then the block to Terry taking another right, saying “Hi” to neighbors as we passed.  We’d wait to cross Terry Road, which was always very busy as a through road off a main street, then even with no cars coming we’d exaggeratedly run across.  I was taught at an early age Terry Road was dangerous.

 

Those things I remember oh so clearly.  I don’t remember so clearly at what age Jennifer and I met Becky and Rita.  I find that funny now; I know it must have been what we called ‘middle school’ and what now is called junior high.  I was so much closer to them in high school; I just can’t remember how I met them before that. 

 

In this ideal little world, I went to a school system that started out at Cherry Road, unless you went to St. Charles, the private Catholic school.  But even the majority of kids at Cherry Road made their First Communion; and if you were devout your Confirmation at St. Charles.  And Father Matthews was who you took instruction under.  From Cherry Road, you went to Onondaga Middle School and then Westhill Central High.  Westhill in the 80s had an average graduating class of between 100 and 150 students, and was rated one of the top 40 schools in the U.S. I don’t know what the judging was based on, I just remember being really proud.

 

In my neighborhood of Westvale; well Westvale covered a fairly large area, but by middle school, my knowledge of it was about six roads parallel to each other running off of a main road that spanned the city and another eight bisecting those.  We all knew each other from before kindergarten to graduation and beyond.  Even the St. Charles kids, the Bishop Ludden kids (high school of St. Charles), we all played together, or fought together, changed alliances, formed new pals, abandoned old, broke up and reformed.  And then in the years after we graduated, we all met up again at the same pub our parents and grandparents had, and laughed about it over Irish folk music and beer.

 

It was a small city, known best for its university, major manufacturing headquarters and was doing well under the mantle of Reaganomics.  My father worked full time in a printing factory and my mother only occasionally worked part time while my brother and I were young.  Once I was in junior high, Mom took a administrative job in a bank. 

 

My parents both grew up in nearby villages or suburbs in the post Depression Era.  Both of them were Blue Collar, in the way we used to mean that meant hard working, honorable, loyal, patriotic; not stupid comic low class jokes. 

 

Dad was the only child of two musicians in practice and heart; one of whom was a veteran, and unfortunately an alcoholic.  The other was torn between being a good mother, and the wife of a frustrated and unhappy man; that never got over scrimping to keep her family together and herself a whole woman.  Her strong Polish heritage and Catholic faith kept her an amazing woman throughout.

 

Mom was the second child of a second generation Irish man who was so storied he deserves more stories than this one here.  He attended and graduated multiple high schools to play sports, without necessarily spending much time at the books.  He turned an Irishman’s work ethic towards the factory and family, and turned his charm to unions and politics.  His stoic, warm and hard working, hard living second generation Polish wife managed the realities and the respective duties with pride and pragmatism.

 

Both of my parents learned to work hard, deal with the realities of life and invest well.  Neither went to college.  They met in their early twenties at work.  Mom played hard to get; except it wasn’t playing, she wasn’t interested.  He wore her down.  They like so many couples were disappointed to find out they might not be able to conceive; they proceeded to adopt a boy and then five years later… me.

 

At that time, in that climate and culture both of my parents smoked; most of my friends had one or both parents that smoked, as well as older brothers and sisters.  By then we all knew the surgeon general’s warning, we just weren’t yet ostracized and criticized for ignoring it.  Again, this is not a treatise on smoking, anti-smoking, or cancer.  I’m getting to tying it back to the title, wait for it. 

 

So back to Virginia Slims, Terry Road Market and Rita; not a full loop, but I swear we’re getting there.  I know I knew Rita in middle school, because I remember it was with Rita and Jennifer I started smoking.  Despite the fact that neither of my parents ever touched a Virginia Slim, I was somehow able to buy a pack at Terry Road Market I’m guessing when I was twelve or thirsteen.  I kept them in a zippy bag in a zipper compartment in my zippy giant 80s purse inside pocket. 

 

Two blocks up and parallel from my Meadow Road, was a street called Parsons Avenue.   In that small, insular pocket of the world which didn’t even cover a mile, Parsons was considered the high end.  Parson’s after all was an Avenue.  It had a median, and trees, and bigger houses than most of the neighborhood (which looking back now, they all were enormous two story colonials with huge yards).  Brick houses with white pillared porches, stained glass doors, fan windows above the gleaming doors with their gleaming brass polished handles.  Or at least that’s how I remember them.

 

Lord.  Rita, Jennifer and I probably made that pack of Virginia Slims 120 Menthols (of course) last two months, while sneaking out to sit in the small low trees of Parsons Ave. 

 

I didn’t become a smoker because of those Virginia Slims, but boy did we all think we were so chic, and mature, and that we’d “come a long way”.  I didn’t become addicted to cigarettes then.  It wasn’t until the summer after eighth grade that that happened, and I got busted.  I haven’t thought about those days of hiding in trees with those ridiculous lollipop stick cigarettes in ages.  And especially tonight; and only because I started this, with that old chestnut of an advertising line.

 

Let’s assume, I was eleven or twelve sitting in that tree.  It’s now 22 years later.  And I have come a long way baby.

 

If we flash back to high school, I was already probably starting to smoke ‘regular’ by then.  Maybe 8 a day.  But that is not what this is about, this is about a thread and tying it to an ad that became a part of pop culture and feminist history.

 

I was fortunate to be bright, and by the first week of Junior year at Westhill I was ready to speed things up.  Perhaps because it was shortsighted, or perhaps because it wasn’t meant to be, I moved to Florida to become a cocktail waitress instead of going to college.  I like to think it was meant to be. 

 

In a story for another time, we’ll again flashforward to now.  I skipped the part of my youth where I became obsessed with computers, because at that time I thought I was really obsessed with journalism.  Lucky me, it was the other one that paid off in spades.  Once I moved to Florida, I always seemed to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.  Of course, there were bumps, ditches, Grand Canyons.  But from what I learned from my parents and their parents, my neighborhood, friends, my teachers, and myself:  I’ve come along way baby.

 

I am thirty four years old now.  I am a highly respected computer professional in a highly respected financial firm.  And last week I signed a contract to buy myself a gorgeous house.  Not a McMansion, not a dream house by maybe anyone else’s standards.  I bought ‘MY’ perfect house.  And because of the way I was raised, those are the only standards I really have to meet. 

 

And I have two porches I can smoke on.  Because I still smoke, and I’ve come along way.  But I think maybe starting to only smoke outside might be the path to quitting.  And that?  Would be truly coming a long way.  But right now, I’ll take what I’ve done.

 

 

 

 

How Wii-Fit changed more than my waist-line...

How the Wii-Fit Changed My Waistline and My Life

 

Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I came home from work to find my friendly little Wii-Fit waiting for me on my doorstep.  As a lifelong Nintendo Geek (well, I’ll admit that I’m older than their first consoles), I happily ripped into the Amazon box, dug out the sleek other box and was up and running in minutes.  Since the announcement that Wii-Fit would be coming stateside, I diligently watched Amazon so I could pre-order.  I was going to get in shape!  Finally!

 

Before I start on my journey with Wii-Fit, I feel like I should give some background.  I’m 34.  I am not highly active, I don’t go to the gym, I do always sign up for work or friend related sports festival kind of things.  I am not overweight as confirmed by my doctor prior to Wii-Fit.  At times in my life I have been very physically active; in junior high I did cross country and softball, in high school I did track until my knees decided they hated me, then I joined my part time job’s company softball team, in my early twenties I taught ballroom dancing, in my mid to late twenties I played on co-ed rec league volleyball teams (I think the beer negated the exercise), in my early thirties I had a job that included a lot running through airports, carrying massive quantities of weight, and tons of speed walking.

 

So here I am at 34.  I’m just a bit over 5’5”, and after the crazy job with the carrying and the running, and the non-stop traveling, I settled very happily back into my chosen world of working in IT, playing a lot of video games, reading, and being on the computer non-stop.  So on the day the Wii-Fit showed up, I wasn’t overweight, I wasn’t a lost cause, but I was definitely… squishy.  I was however, highly competitive, motivated and captivated by games, and not wanting to be squishy anymore.

 

As for my eating habits?  I’m mostly herbivore.  I just have weird issues about meat and how I eat it.  Catching the least bit a gristle?  I’m done with my meal.  Fat?  Same thing.  It’s not a stance on anything, I’m just very texture oriented and freak about certain things.  Plus being single, as much as I love to cook, I need stuff that’s easy and re-heatable.  Not to mention in this day and age when I cook for groups there are so many dietary restrictions to cook for.  I hit fast food maybe once every two or three months.  I love peanut butter, milk, TGIF Potato Skins frozen or chips.  I love fruit candy (sour gummy LifeSavors, JellyBelly).   And anyone that suggests South Beach/Atkins, runs the risk of being stabbed with a sharpened celery stalk, because I live on bread, potatoes and fruit.  Food made of happiness.

 

Here’s another admission:  I’ve used the Wii-Fit almost every day (I think I’ve missed four days) since I got it, and not only have I not lost a pound?  I seem to have gained one since my first weigh in.  My daily weight chart goes up and down and the little balance board avatar quite honestly tells me that daily weight fluctuates two pounds a day.  On the first day I set a goal of losing four pounds in two weeks.  Tomorrow is the deadline and I’ll actually weigh more than when I started.  There goes my goal of losing four pounds in two weeks (which the Wii-Fit wisely decried as too ambitious when I set it).

 

I started out easy.  The first night I played for hours.  Oooh yoga!  Skiing!  Hula Hoops!

Then I didn’t play for two days.  Then I did almost every day.  I started at 20 minutes, I worked up to 50.  But I quickly became hopelessly devoted to yoga, strength training and aerobics.  I wouldn’t touch the balance games until I had done at least thirty minutes of all the other activities.  I wanted to squash the squish.

 

There are hundreds of Wii-Fit stories out there that will say:  ‘It works!’, ‘It doesn’t’, ‘It does, but it won’t long term’, endlessly.  But just like the South Beach Diet, or Spinning Class, it’s going to have different results based on how you use it and who you are.  When I finally found a co-worker that had it from the same day I did, I was ecstatic to compare notes.  Until he told me he lost nine pounds in a week.  I was crushed.  I felt like that stupid supplement commercial cartoon woman bitching about her and her husband giving up soda.  He lost ten pounds she gained two. 

 

Aside from skipping a few days early on for various reasons, I find, especially on work days, thinking about what combinations I’m going to do when I get home.  I do some of the basic yoga in my cube.  I’ve also started checking out and trying my free ‘On Demand’ yoga channels in addition to the Wii-Fit.  I’ve become a yoga junkie.  And a jackknife crunch junkie.  I look forward to working out.  It takes a video game to remind me to stop at the one hour mark.  I bought 3 and 5 lb free weights that I’ve figured out how to incorporate in step aerobics and strength training.  I bought new work out clothes.  My already existing clothes fit better. 

 

In two weeks, I haven’t lost any weight.  And I don’t care.  I feel better; all over.  My waist is actually discernable and starting to be curvy; my legs (which were always my best feature) are taught, my upper arms (those of you in your twenties?  Don’t realize how quickly that bat wing situation happens) are toned, my hips and thighs are sleeker.  I feel sharper and more energized.  I’ve had several people ask if I’ve lost weight. 

 

That’s an interesting question, since I haven’t… I’ve gained a pound plus.  I hope that’s muscle mass, but I have no idea.  I do know that when I’m standing naked drying my hair in the morning, a lot of parts look better.  Especially my abs and hips and gut, which two weeks ago, I hated about myself.  I know my slim pants?  I no longer want to discard by 10:30 in the morning.  They’re now comfortable.

 

But the only person wearing my clothes, and seeing me naked in the mirror every morning is me.  The scale didn’t see a difference, but I did.  And the Wii-Fit did on my center of balance and my scores.  And people that know me think I lost weight.  They also sense that I have a better energy.  I’m more positive, focused, and aware of myself. 

 

The only downside is that my friends that always exercised constantly are now right about how much I would love it.  And I haven’t mentioned it yet, because they are going to be insufferable. They will also at the same time make fun of me working out with a video game. 

 

It would take a video game got me to do what they couldn’t.  I’m now a fitness/video junkie.  I’ve also ordered a yoga title on DS.  Then again, I’ve also started doing the local cable OnDemand yoga programs. 

 

Wii-Fit isn’t a revolution, but if it can get mid-level (obviously not hard core RPG FPS maniacs) this into it?  Rock.  Yes, most people will focus on the games, but the work out bits are for real, to an extent; especially if you get creative. 

 

I’m anxiously awaiting intense and customizable yoga and aerobics. 

 

So I didn’t lose nine pounds in the first week.  But I lost a lot of bad preconceptions, I lost several inches, I lost a fear of what I didn’t know I could do. 

 

Now I just have to figure out how to deal with the excess work out adrenaline, work out rush that seems to keep me up until at least 1 AM.  I mean seriously.  Those stupid endorphin rush issues are annoying. 

First stab at oils

Valet Waste

He relished the breeze standing in the back of the pickup as it crawled towards its destination.  He slightly gyrated to the sound of the music coming from the cab of the truck.  It was still so hot for the second week in October, almost third.  Back up north it would be called Indian Summer, here in Florida it was called frustrating.  The truck came to a stop.

 

He and the other two guys jumped down on the lot before the steps leading to the first building with its three floors and three staircases.  It was his night to do the first staircase. 

 

He both envied and hated the people here.  They didn’t even have to take out their own trash, just open the door and put it in the non-offensive looking bench. 

 

Stupid codified people!  He guessed that was unfair; some of them may have worked hard to get where they were, or shared with roommates they hated.  Yet, he knew so much about them, all of the trash guys with any sense did. 

 

You didn’t even have to open the bags.  Who had trash everyday?  Who had the clank of bottles?  Who rarely put anything out?  America was all about their excretion, especially when they didn’t have to think about it; that defined each household almost perfectly. 

 

From the waste he could discern through mostly white tall kitchen bags he collected every night; except Wednesday and Saturday, he had a picture perfect representation of the residents.  From almost all of those bags he realized they didn’t think of him or his coworkers as people, much less as threats; despite rampant identity theft.

 

The people in these apartments would never credit the men (there weren’t any women currently on the trucks) who picked up their waste, with the intelligence or acumen to use their blatant disregard to their own benefit.  The entitled usually underestimate the desire of those they see as beneath them.  It was South Florida, the people in those air conditioned, spacious units assumed non-English speaking illegals were collecting their discarded Visa statements and Amex offers. 

 

It would have been so easy.

 

As he started up the three flight staircase his mind wandered as it usually did.  Despite the unseasonable heat and humidity he thought back to his days of wearing a worsted suit, 100% cotton shirt, professionally pressed, and a silk tie.  It was a time when he spent $500 a month on his haircut and highlights, manicure and facials.  His gym membership was $500 a month; and yet with his new job, he was in the best shape of his life. 

 

He sprinted up the concrete and wrought iron steps to the third floor.  The top floor of this building was a one bedroom.  He was familiar with the layouts of each of the homes he serviced thanks to the complex’s website.  A young couple just living together for the first time; full double bags every night.  One or the other of them was a complete clean Nazi, and had no use for the concept of Global Warming.  He suspected it was the woman that was so clean and focused but had nothing solid to back it up.  It was hard to make a determination on a resident’s ‘Green’-stance since recycling wasn’t offered.  But the plethora of dried pasta boxes, plastics, magazines, papers in the three white tall kitchen bags were pretty obvious.  That and the fact that the two of them yielded almost that much garbage daily surely illustrated that they weren’t too worried about the volume of their waste.  They produced a lot of it; even for a Sunday.  Although it was light.  Mostly paper and food containers.

 

He headed down to the second floor.  The second floor unit was a two bedroom, two bath with a fireplace and a screened in porch, same on the first and second floors in this type of building.  It was most often the abode of married couples with good jobs, retired couples, or struggling roommates.  Most especially that was the case in this building, as it faced on the front the exercise room and the complex’s smaller pool.  On the backside it overlooked a lake with a fountain and overhanging trees. 

 

He stopped and stood in front of the ‘bench’.  He saw no telltale bag handles of red hanging out.  This unit rarely put out any trash, maybe one or two nights in a week.  Usually Monday and Thursday.  Or Sunday and Friday.  Whenever.  Really, no pattern.  Sometimes predictable, more often she wasn’t.

 

She.

 

If he wanted to, he could know her name.  He could take her piddling trash, there was so little of it, and look through her mail.  If he wanted to, he could know so much about her.  He wasn’t…  he couldn’t… and he preferred her as a mystery.   He opened the ‘bench’.

 

It was empty.

 

He stood on the landing and looked from there into the small kitchen window, a few feet away.  It was one of his only three, small glimpses into her life.  One was her trash, one was the window from the street, far away.  The main one was this kitchen window off the stairs.  This one was so close, but so small.  From the third step from the landing you could see the backs of the curtains and the stovetop.  From the landing, if you leaned over the banister, you could see all of that, the varied cookbooks, plus the lamps in the living-room. 

 

Several times he had seen more than the lamps.  He had seen her.  From the parking lot.  In the small kitchen window..  Maybe cooking.  Once, definitely making a peanut butter sandwich, in a pink long sleeve t-shirt.

 

The third was what he could see from the parking lot.  A window on the second floor.  It really wasn’t a glimpse, all he could see was Venetian blinds and cheap curtains.  This was her spare room.   She could afford a spare room.  He could also see a ceiling fan a keyboard and some boxes.

 

There was a fourth way.   He didn’t like to admit it.  He had never tried it.

 

He looked in the empty bench on this Sunday night, sighed and headed downstairs with the third floor trash.  This was another young couple.  One or the other was prosperous.  They lived well, had trash every night, were gone often; and never actually put it in the bin, they just tossed shit where-ever outside their front door.

 

Why couldn’t this couple ever put their bags in the bench?  And why did they leave stuff like air conditioner filters sitting next to it?  The monthly flier announced there was no pick up of loose trash.  He opened the bin just to check and it was full of loose soda cartons and dog food bags.  He let it fall shut.  Leaving the filters, containers, and taking the three bags next to the door.

 

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, before he went down the last three concrete steps.  When he had stopped at her bench, the lights were on, windows were open, and he could hear the television tuned to what he thought was a crime show on Showtime, that he himself loved and recorded.

 

He walked back to the truck.

 

He tossed the light bags from upstairs, and the heavy bags from downstairs into the truck.   And none from the middle.  He told the driver he needed to piss and would catch up at the next building.  He wandered off to the bushes in back, overlooking the lake.  He unzipped in front of a gladiola.  He looked up at the open window on the second floor and saw the light of a lamp and the flicker of a television.  She was there.  She was always there.

 

He thought of her trash.  Cigarette butts, cat litter, wine bottles, sauce jars, plastic packages of pasta and pre-cut fruit.  Most often she was home when he picked up the trash.  A few times she wasn’t and delivery boxes sat at the doorstep… based on the size they were books or movies or games.  But since his company took cardboard only broke down, she did something else with her boxes. 

 

She ate well.  He guessed she seemed to cook well; based on her purchases and the cookbooks he saw through the window.   Her food was fresh.  She didn’t yield a lot of waste.  He thought she might be trying to conserve, or maybe she just didn’t need much.  Or there was a lot of clutter.

 

He thought back to when he could have won her.  He probably would have been the guy she totally would have talked to at the patio of the bar.  No, she probably would have blown him off.  He remembers.  He was that guy.

 

He had done his time, he had scammed people.  He was torn between stealing her identity and becoming a part of it.  He knew only one was probable.  He didn’t want to be that guy anymore. 

 

He wondered if there was anything she didn’t want to be anymore.

 

He ran to catch up with the truck.

 

:

:

:

 

She was just finishing up the touches on the invitations to the shower.  She didn’t mind hosting parties, but real parties… in the evening.  But oh she hated the readying.  She hit the send button and wandered into the kitchen to refresh her glass of wine. 

 

She paused to catch a moment on her favorite cable show; who would have thought an hour show with no commercials could be such a burden?  She walked back and hit the pause on the DVR. 

 

She proceeded back to the kitchen and heard the familiar hollow thud. 

 

“Damn!” she thought.

 

She had forgot to put out the trash. 

Holiday Season

When exactly is it, that...

When exactly is it, that we stopped questioning ourselves?  Society?  Each other?  When do we decide the crazy is acceptable?  I’ve found myself suddenly going back to my high school thinking.  I wanted to change and save the world then, and now?  I want to do it now.  I find myself going back to the literature that changed and moved me then, now.  Where is our radicalism?  Where is our outrage?  Which we most especially need now more than ever!  Our daughters have thrown off the vestige of our fight and the mantle of Betty Freidan in order to emulate Paris Hilton and MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16”.  Our sons are now the soldiers of feminism.  I consistently run into young men in their 20s that lament the lack of ‘real’ women that they were taught to respect by their single hard working mothers. 

 

We’ve become so fucking inundated with information that we’ve actually become sheep.  I remember clearly in the early 80s that we thought that is we knew more we would be more proactive.  Now that we know everything, the second it happens; and at the same time we know almost nothing, we don’t care anymore.  We just want to hide.

 

God, I just want to cringe.  In high school, I was so outraged and incensed about everything, and then I got out in the world and had to deal with real life, and money, and surviving and I… it’s not that I didn’t care, I just was so busy trying to survive.  Now I’m comfortable so I’m concerned again.  And it’s not even just about recycling, it’s not even about Freeganing,

 

We’re such self involved assholes. 

 

I’m watching “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”.  I’m crying.  For so many reasons.  Oh how this book touched me when I first read it, how this movie touched me.  I’m wishing so hard that I know where my copy of this book is, while being destroyed by how fabulous the movie was.  We think we are so revolutionary right now.  When I watch this movie I realize how fucking lame we are.  The late 50s to mid 70s were actually revolutionary.  Now we’re just twats.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet and all it’s done.  But back then news was more weighted.  We’ve become so used, so immune to everything.  We have a greater voice but we’ve lost our timbre.  In the 60s and 70s yes there was fluff and socialites, but our voice, are art had meaning.  Our maybe it’s not different, maybe we are different, and we just pretend to care more and actually do less. 

 

Cheney has become our Nurse Ratched, because lord knows GWB is a moron with no say and is out of control.  But where is our McMurphy?  Where is our Chief?  Where is our hour of discontent? 

 

We are so caught up with Lindsay, Britney, and Paris that we have lost our real moral outrage.  Where is our civic duty and public outcry?  We continue to steep ourselves in celbutantes to avoid social obligation.  We put our fund raising and awareness in the hands of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.  We crown our cele”brat”ies with our responsibility! 

 

We obsess about dumbass Britney and her attack umbrella, and only remember Katrina victims when Brad Pitt Shows up.  Celebrities aren’t the new reality!  They are the new pull focus!

 

We’re such assholes, we forget so easily in such a short time.  Believe me, I’m not casting aspertions, I’m the worst.  Tonight, after many glasses of wine, I am all Green and holier than though.  And tomorrow I will go to brunch with a friend and be a total douche. 

 

I’m not thumbing my nose at America, because despite trying to change me ways, I am that person.

 

I want to be McMurphy in my small sphere of the world.  But on a day to day basis, that’s really not easy.  But I hope that my passion to oppose The Nurse Ratched of our society is strong enough to keep fighting. 

Overwhelmed at heart

He stood there, as a shield.  He was a Holocaust survivor.  He had survived the worst of the worst, known the worst ever, and he knew what he was doing now, was more important.  He shielded his students, he told them to jump.

 

I obviously never knew him.  I will now never, ever, forget him.

 

Professor Librescu.

 

The bravest man I never knew.

 

We went through something on April 16^th, that we’ve never gone through before.  I am of about 33 minds to the nth degree of it.  Which is cowardly, because I don’t have to be anyone of them.  This time it doesn’t touch me.  This time I don’t know.

 

I don’t know any of these people (so far as I know).  I know; I hope I will spend the rest of my life asking:  What Would Professor Libresco would do?  What would any of them have done?  (I also ask that no one make one more of those bracelets)  I would like to emulate him.  I know myself, I know people, we’re lazy and off.  I doubt I will often, but I hope when it is important I will.  I will spend the rest of my life hoping I will, and probably forgetting.  He was a much better person than I am, not because he tried to be.  And not that I know that, I just know that he was a truly beautiful and amazing person from what his friends said, and I now know about him.  I know for sure, I will never be that amazing.

 

I like to think that Professor Librescu immediately ascended to his ‘heaven’, and when he got there he said to alleged St. Peter or whomever guarded his gates:  “I already survived the Holocaust, if I saved even one more life at my age in the last few minutes on that earth  I’m happy.  I gave my last minutes for one more child, I was ready… they weren’t, I happily gave all that to them.  My family knows my love, my family knows my strength. My family is angry right now, but they need to be at peace, and being my family, they will. I did this for them, and they’ll get that. (Proefessor Librescu obviously didn’t say this, but I imagine he would, even not knowing him, he’d be more than okay with it.  More than that, he’d want us to understand Cho.

 

I know again, I didn’t know him, but from what I’ve read he would want us the people to not want us to punish Cho.  He’d want us to reach out to Cho, if Cho would have let us.  Which he wouldn’t..

 

I “knew”.  I have a brother, which could have been him, without the right help.  He now has a family and is fine.  Remember, this isn’t evil, it is subjective.  This isn’t a admonition at his parents, it’s a plea.  His parents knew. And they were scared.

 

Remember, this is the first time this has happened with this technology.   Try to impress on your minds, the rescue workers had to listen to the cell phones of the dead ring over and over.  And they had to think to themselves, do I answer it.  Am I the one that says this to this parent.

 

Cho’s family needs to be surrounded now.  Not in a territorial or angry stance.  In a comforting and supportive stance.  Did they probably know?  No.  Did they suspect?  Maybe, almost probably but not like this.  It sounds to me like they were quiet, scared immigrants.  Before you blame his parents for letting him get this far, think about all the things your parents pretend not to know about you.  Too much booze, too many partners, exposing yourself to too many risks.  A lot of people died yesterday, doing those same things, without doing any of those things as the cause. 

 

Please don’t turn what this one terribly horribly destroyed person did against a race.  Look back on those before, he’s the first non-white that did this on our radar.

 

Let’s try to remember in the pain, what his family is feeling too?  I’m not defending him.  But please try to remember, out of the 33, he was one.  His parents didn’t apparently know (let’s give them the benefit of the doubt) And now the parents and friends of those 32 will always blame them.  Probably sue them.  And they didn’t know.  And now they think they should have, and now they blame themselves.  And now they hurt more than he did because he couldn’t tell them. 

 

Please let his parents and family walk in peace.  Unless other reason to blame them is shown. 

 

Don’t punish his family for what he did.

 

Let’s just help ourselves heal.