Dirty Little Secrets

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So, here’s the thing. I grew up in a tire shop, surrounded by guys. I also hang around a racetrack (cars, not horses), surrounded by mostly guys. Most of my friends are men. And you know what? I’m a flirt, too. An incurable, yet harmless one. So I consider myself to have been pretty smart in choosing to marry someone who is secure enough that he doesn’t lose control of himself because I happen to hang around other men, and he’s never asked me to change who I am.

But I’ll tell you what – I’m getting pretty damn tired of being everyone’s dirty little secret. I just want to meet new friends, enjoy the ones I have, and that includes acknowledging in public that such a friendship exists. Being able to say hello, to chat online, be Facebook friends. This is why I find it difficult at times, to be honest, to be friends with women. It frustrates the hell out of me to see their distrust of their husbands, boyfriends, friends. And if they can’t trust me, then what’s the point of my even trying to build a friendship? Even if that man and I did have a past fling thing or relationship, get over it. Obviously he and I have. He’s with you, and I’m with my husband.

I tried to do something nice for a friend a couple of months back, and while he seemed thankful about it, what came out as being more important was the very fact that he knew me. And it became such a big deal that in the end it really soured my feelings about said friendship. We’ve been meeting occasionally for lunch for over a year now, and I thought he’d become more comfortable about being seen with me. But finding out that we knew someone in common – suddenly there had to be concocted stories and a bunch of other bothersome b.s. and now I wonder.. is it really worth it?

Another – I would post occasionally on his Facebook wall, in response to his own posts, and soon began to notice that my comments were disappearing. Idle chatter type posting here. Finally I asked him what was up, and was told “She’s not really comfortable with the fact that you and I had a thing.”

At the track – there’ve been wives who give me the evil eye just for saying anything to our friends beyond “Hey, great race..!” My husband’s even pointed it out to me, and he’s not exactly the paranoid type. I’m not some dipstick groupie looking to score, and I resent being thought of as such.

Not really sure what the solution is, but it gets tiring, old, and hurtful. If you have reason to believe I am after something you feel belongs to you, come and get me. But stop first and take a look at your own home on the range, and maybe figure out a) why he’d be looking, b) why you’re not giving him enough reasons to not look, and c) where that leaves you when I’m long gone out of the picture.

The end result is that I’ve become someone expendable, someone these men walk away from and sometimes very abruptly, because I’ve become the problem they don’t want to deal with anymore. Just wish I could tell from the beginning who’s going to go running. It would save me the time of trusting, of believing them that my friendship meant something.

Go, meat..!

(click here if video does not show) Go, meat..!

There's a local place here in town, called Kinder's, and it's a butcher shop/deli where they slow-roast the meats for the tastiest sandwiches around.  It is a scent that reaches far and wide, and today coming down off of Hwy 4 in Concord, it wafted to my hungry tummy leaving me with a desire to nibble on some tender balltip steak. 

As I rounded the corner from the exit with a Black-Eyed Peas beat thumping all around me, suddenly - much to my husband's chagrin as I laughingly.. lovingly... told him later - suddenly there was a whole other kind of meat treat on the horizon..! 

Big ones, short ones, sculpted ones, even dirty ones - wandering the parking lot, sitting on their tailgates, walking to their trucks, talking man talk that every woman secretly wants to eavesdrop on.  I'd never put much thought about it in all the years I've driven past or stopped in at Kinder's, but apparently it is the noontime mecca of where to go man-browsing. 

It was a nice little jolt of superficiality on a hot summer's day, and for that I want to thank all of the clean men, the tired men, the sweaty, sexy men.  Thank you for being a great landscape along a dismal highway.

Anger Management

I was sitting in a writers group the other night, and we were taking turns reading our works, everything going swimmingly.  Then someone read something about a blanket that her mother had "lovingly stitched" for her great grandson, and this woman's brother (also a member of said group) reminisced, saying "Yep, Mom put much love into those blankets." 

I suddenly had a flash that came and kicked me right in the stomach like a bully on a playground.  My grandmother, and my mom too, spent many hours crocheting blankets for people, especially us grandkids.  Maybe it was fresh because it just happened my deceased grandmother's birthday was the day before this meeting, so she was fresh on my mind.

Or, maybe it made me leave the room with rare tears in my eyes because all I could think was ... it's all a damn lie. 

It's bad enough to have memories lost in space, stripped from my mind, taken from me by age and circumstance.  But to have what was left ripped from my heart and washed in horror and hatred at the things I've recently discovered falling out of my family tree like rotten fruit... it left me feeling weak, vulnerable and quite foolish standing in a strange bathroom trying to calm myself and not break down. 

I hate crying.  Makes me look like shit - eyes looking like red rice puffed cereal, face all flushed, lips swollen like a fresh Botox job.

I'm not ready yet to talk about the things I've found out.  Someday, just not yet.  All I know is that I'm angry.  Years of blame, of my guilt that never should have been, years of contention - all for nothing.  Not a damn thing.  All the years my grandmother refused to comfort me, understand me... once again, there is no vindication in being the victor, especially where dead people are involved.

My husband tried to tell me "I'm sure she didn't mean..." Yes she did. 

Like the time I asked my stepdad "Is it true that Grandma thinks I'm prostituting myself to pay the rent?"
"Do you really think she'd say that?"
"Yes.  I do."

My grandmother's golden rule was drilled into my head, unrelenting like an oil rig on a hot Texas day: "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."  So she meant every word that ever came from her southern, judgmental lips. 

Ten years after her death, it's a whole new sting.

Adam and Steve walked into a bar...

and exclaimed, "Wow - that fig leaf Eve has on is simply fabulous!"

Do you see how they don't hate on Eve for having girl parts?  They embrace the differences between them.

"but it's cool for Tom Green to hump a dead moose
We ain't nothing but mammals.. Well, some of us cannibals
who cut other people open like cantaloupes
But if we can hump dead animals and antelopes
then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope"

This is a perfect example of where our priorities lie. Our American society rallies around the flag, tooting our horns about freedom and civil rights. And yet.. there seems to be this big to-do about letting only certain people marry. The last I checked, the technical definition of marriage is "the joining of two people in commitment." So, seriously, wtf..?! 

We really do glorify things such as obscene acts with animals, rolling around Hollywood in a drunken stupor, laughing in secret at the jokes we don't want our friends to know we think they're funny.  How about finding love and life ever after on a reality show?  Sell yourself on television for a rose and a ring, this is acceptable.  Two people in love who want to marry and commit themselves to each other - this is somehow going to ruin your life as you know it? 

Many view marriage as a religious ceremony, and traditionally it is. However, I thought we were supposed to have a separation of church and state. Why is it we haven't just made marriage a civil thing across the board; him and her, he and him, she and her. If you want to go off and have a religious something or other on top of that, have at it, much as we do now. But, everyone should have the right to marry, divorce or live in so-called sin.

For those who are afraid "gay" is contagious, grow up and get over your cootiephobia. It's the most ridiculous and paranoid thing I have ever heard. If you truly think that homosexuality is hell-worthy, but in the next breath forgive those who rape, pillage, mutilate and murder others, perhaps your heart isn't as pure as you'd like to believe. Come on down from that pedestal - I'm here to tell you how lonely it can get up there. When you are more accepting of others for their differences, you'd be amazed to see that you'll get more love in return than you could ever dream of.

And refusing gay couples to adopt children? What will they pass on - Tolerance of the hate that surrounds them? Forgiveness in the face of judgment? Commitment? Unconditional love? Or maybe, just maybe, they will save a child from a life of loneliness, abandonment, and abuse.

I can tell you this - my gay friends and relatives would never rape me, as some of my heterosexual species has done. My gay friends don't play games with me, or hurt my feelings on a regular basis as my competitive, jealous girlfriends have done. My gay friends accept my being different from them more so than my actual family does.

If Eminem can get over himself long enough to sing these words, do you really want to go through this life thinking someone like Marshall Mathers is more enlightened than you are?

You have every right to your opinion - that's me accepting this about you.  I just don't have to agree with said thoughts.  The problem that I have with some of the things I hear coming out of the mouths of religious babes ("hate the sin, not the sinner." "Science has nothing to do with it." "I don't care what they do, as long as I don't have to see it!") is that it hurts others.  And there seems to be little interest in rectifying that.  It's God's way or the highway.  The thing is, your God isn't everyone's.  But a surprising amount of gays do believe in a God who loves them unconditionally. 

I invite you to have a seat at my table and break bread with my sister, my cousin, my cousin-in-law, and my friends. Look them in the eye and have a discussion about why they don't deserve the same rights you do. That they are not worthy of the love that you have or have had in your life. Tell them all about how they've sinned. Make sure to look them in the eye when you do, it helps get your point across that much stronger.

Then go home and look yourself in the eye in your mirror. It's so much easier to preach to the intolerance that you don't see inside, much harder to "save" the stone-thrower who stares back at you.

Tuesdays With Anthony

I had lunch with a dear friend today.  I've missed him, and our afternoons together.  Anthony is a minister, and to know anything about me whatsoever is to know that this isn't my usual crowd.  Last year Anthony and I resumed our friendship after sixteen years of absence, and it has been just like a day at a familiar, friendly beach.  The tide goes out, then washes back in and leaves a clean, wet sandy beach to write new words on.  We exhausted our Tuesday afternoons and took a break for these last six months, but now we seem to have resumed these sessions again.

I'm a person who, as obsessive as I am with music, has an individual ringtone on my phone for just about everyone I know.  The song I chose last year for Anthony was "Ooh Child," an old 70s tune by The Five Stairsteps.  "Some day, we'll get it together and we'll get it all done, someday when your head is much lighter.  Some day, we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun..."  It's such a hopeful song - something I don't know much about - and there was a day after we'd spent hours talking and sharing, that I heard it randomly and knew it would forever be my Anthony song. 

I believe in signs.  Anthony would say a sign from God, I say a sign of destiny.  A sign to show me every so often that I'm on the path I should be, even when I don't always know why.  I've been stalled this summer, creatively speaking.  There are things going on that I've not been wanting to write about.  Big things I have been grappling with, that I'm not quite certain how to process.  I've done a hell of a lot of work on myself this year, sorting through things in the attic that is my mind - discarding what I've kept for so long, saving what can serve me in the future.  I've put myself out into the world, regardless of the repurcussions.  There has been support and backlash both - some have been surprising to see where the loyalties lie. 

Sitting at lunch with Anthony today, involved in a debate over our differences in God vs. Science, it was a refreshing reminder that there is someone I can trust to have these discussions with.  We are willing to accept the other's differences while being comfortable enough to express our views, without the consequence of judgment.  I don't have to be politically correct.  I can just be myself.

As I walked away from one of his warm hugs, I could feel the thoughts already wanting to express themselves, stimulated by a meeting of the minds.  I was ready to be me again.

And I swear, as I turned on the car, my iPod set to "shuffle," and the next song to come on didn't sink in at first, but there it was.  My sign. 

Welcome back, Tuesdays.  I've missed you.

Happy Birthday to me...

I exist.

I wasn't sure I was aware of this, until today.  Sure, I touch things, can smell a rose and see the clouds in the sky.  I often find myself asking the question, "When my voice echoes through the woods, does anyone ever listen..?" 

The messages began trickling in just before midnight, August 9th, 2010.  Happy Birthday.  Truly I wasn't aware that so many people out there in the world were paying attention.  Facebook has, at last, proven its worth to me.  Not only was my personal page flooded with posts, but my work page as well. 

I existed.

My birthdays tend to take on princess-like proportions, thanks to the generous and loving nature of my husband.  But beyond my immediate circle of friends, I honestly didn't realize that others noticed.  I've spent the better part of this year analyzing a few things and taking a good hard look at my now 39-year old face in the mirror.  Can't say that the reflection was all too clear.  In fact, last week I asked a friend of mine if it was okay to quit at 40.  One more birthday, we'll make it a good one, then I can call the whole thing off. 

I'm tired..!  Truly I am.  There are days I am so overwhelmed by every damn little thing!  And I want to get off of the merry-go-round.  I want to sleep.  Want to not think.  About anything. 

I have a year to decide where I want to be, who I want to see me, and what I want to do.  What can I accomplish by the end of my fourth decade, and the better question will be - do I want to accomplish a single thing at all?  Maybe it's time to stop making everything about me, and see the others around me. 

No, that's way too enlightened for the likes of this old girl.

In the last twelve months, I have climbed ladders (not mountains.. I'm a bit of a gimp, you know..!), looked straight into the sun and been blinded by it, reached out to many and have been shot down by several.  Where does that leave - or lead - me in the next twelve?

Where do you anticipate finding yourself as you wander through the next twelve pages on the calendar..?