100 words a day

Tonight is my great-aunt’s wake, which I’m attending alone since my parents can’t make it.

I’m fine with the part about not knowing anyone else, and plan to get in and out in under thirty seconds, ideally without anyone realizing it was only thirty seconds. 

Then my special task, on behalf of my dad.

He ordered flowers from our family and a cousin’s.  I am to root around in the floral arrangements, identify the ones he ordered, and report back with descriptions of how big they are and what they look like.

Sealing my family’s fate as the “normal” ones.

My new dermatologist was telling me how great my skin is, (not true), how young I look (true), how to fix the problems.  Very helpful.

At the end of her list of suggestions, “And then I’m gonna Botox you!”

I told her the “eleven” on my forehead is at the bottom of my priorities.  No Botox.

That was last month.  Today, shiny-forehead was pushing it again and I said I didn’t want to lose all expression in that area (…like she had) .

“You’re beautiful and have a great personality!  Why do you need to show expression on your forehead?”

Back in my cubicle, it’s like it never happened.

The weekend is a broken jumble of images and emotion, remembered dimly and fleetingly, like the dream that fades more the harder you try to hang on to it.

I’m richer in experience, poorer in money, and proudly baring a network of scratches on my forearms.  The curious pain in my abdomen comes from too much laughter, if there even is such a thing.

Even better is the knowledge, confirmed at long last, that I can indeed spin threads of gold from the piles of lead that life insistently hands me.

I’m obsessed with talking to my niece.  Everything she says is funny. 

When I asked “What did you do today?”, she said:  “I danced!”, in a purposeful tone you’d use if saying “I saved a man’s life today”

Last week on the phone, she kept repeating, “Kyle got a new monster truck from Costco.”   (Kyle’s her 3 year old older brother).

After about the tenth time, I asked if she had anything besides that to discuss.

“Yes.  Kyle got a new monster truck from Costco, and if Kyle’s a bad boy, Kyle’s monster truck is going RIGHT back to Costco.”

My mother has been an angel for more than three years and the longer I’m a parent, the more poignant some of her thoughts and advice have become.  Way before I ever had the twinkle of children in my eye, she would tell me that “parents can only influence their kids’ opinions up till the age of ten – after that you can’t and won’t change them.”

What an obvious 2 x 4 to the back of my head.

I’m trying to steer two rugged individual souls whose unique personalities I love more than anything.  Let them be, let them go.

McDonalds. 8^th and Tacoma Ave. 1:47 pm.

He sits down next to me reeking of sleaze. His short graying ponytail attempts sophistication, but matched with his pock-marks, Hawaiian shirt and cheap shoes it falls short.

“There’s a homeless guy taking a shower in the bathroom sink,” he tells me, stretching his arms on the back of the long bench we’re both sitting on.

“I saw that,” I say through my apple. He forces conversation about the Postal Service, his 9 kids and the “young thing” he’s banging who’s 21 years younger than him.

Am I in a Quentin Tarantino movie?

It’s a late Friday afternoon smoke break at work, and I’m sitting on the designated bench.

In front of me is the yellowjacket.  He’s clearly injured, an inch long with his wings sticking out at odd angles.  He’s limping back and forth across a concrete square, and I surmise he’s not in the greatest mood.

I consider putting him out of his misery, but decide that would be interfering in the essential order of things.

Suddenly a coworker arrives, spies the bug, and crushes him without a thought.

“What are you doing this weekend?” he asks, like nothing has happened.

Today has become a day of observation for me. Is it odd to note the birth of something that no longer exists? We observe the births of presidents long gone; we get holidays and deals on cars.  Why not celebrate my parents’ marriage even though it is as concrete as a cloud?  

This day means more to me now than when their relationship was a living (and suffering and dying) organism.  Then it was a Hallmark occasion. Now I stand in silent reverie for something that was, that maybe should never have been, but that I am eternally grateful for.

As I awoke to the forgotten sounds of wind and rain, I glanced around my grey-lit bedroom.  Work was in the forefront of my mind, but aggressively pushing through was my sore throat.  It was an easy decision.

When I hung up, I texted my bestie and informed her.  “You wanna go to the Aquarium?” she replied. 

I was driving on the slick 18 freeway an hour later.  My body, however, cared nothing of my plans.  My lymph nodes swelled with the tide pools.  The aches began in the underwater dome.  The fever burned with the exhaust from rush hour.

One hard and fast mantra I chant to our children is “Question Authority.”  I know this will serve them well, make them better world-citizens and hopefully good partners and parents down the road – but my own advice is killing me.

I’ve taught them to aim, fire and I’ve provided the ammo; they are questioning my authority with focus and pin-point accuracy and I’m taking heavy losses.  The “patients” are now running our “asylum” and I need to restore some sense of order.

What could possibly counteract “Question Authority?”  Hmmm, I know – “I’m the parent and I said so, that’s why.”