Dear Friend I Last Saw More Than 20 Years Ago Who Has So Kindly Continued To Include Me As Part of Your Yearly Christmas Form Letter,

I hope this Christmas finds your vision 20/20 and your faculties sound.  It has been kind of you to include me among the family and friends you keep in touch with each Christmas.  I was surprised to look at your picture this year and find your hair has grayed and your children are both about the age we were when we first met.  To be honest, perhaps I would have noticed years ago, had I not been throwing your card, unread, into my recycling bin for the last five years.  I could claim I didn’t realize it was intended for me, as it is addressed to my married name and I reclaimed my maiden name nine years ago when I got a divorce.  At the time, I informed you of my update in name and circumstance in my handwritten note at the bottom of the my handmade card I sent to my Christmas card list.  

Over the next five years, I continued to receive mail for a woman I have never been - you actually are sending it to a woman with my ex-husband’s last name, which I never actually took.  When I was married, my name was my maiden name combined with my husband’s name, hyphenated.  Each year I tried to find a new and creative way to update your address list by highlighting my last name, writing it in bold, or surrounding it with arrows.  Finally I was forced to conclude that you weren’t reading my cards.  That is why I stopped sending them several years back.  

I’ve forgotten, did your husband work for the US Postal Service?  You seem to have a decided interest in keeping them busy at this time of year.  

It is only this year, filled with the spirit of “WTH it’s Christmas,” when I opened your card and saw your smiling, innocent faces that it occurred to me - perhaps these letters have been intended for my ex-husband and his new wife?  I’m sorry I never thought to forward their address to you.  How thoughtless of me.  But then, the included Hallmark card always has my name, just my name.  Hmmm it is a puzzle.  

I was glad to hear the year has been kind to you and you have been busy, that your son graduated at the top of his class and your daughter is getting married.  I’m glad your husband has remained in good health.  

Until next year, 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN ADULT THOUGHTS OR LANGUAGE

Lately I've been talking a lot about curse words and insults.  Not actually using them, just talking about them.  Really, who out there who appreciates lovemaking and the sexual act, hasn't wondered why we insist on using the word "fu@k" in such an abusive way?  Why isn't "Fu@k You" the equivalent of "Have a Nice Day?"  The thought really come to a head when a friend told me his name translated as "douche bag" in The Urban Dictionary.  While one part of my mind was wondering why men insist on creating disagreeable insults based on a woman's vagina when such a large percentage of them would like nothing better than to be in a woman's vagina, the other part was thinking:  "douche:  something inserted into a woman's vagina that makes her feel good afterwards."  Hmmmm, really should that be that insulting?  Granted, it also brings to mind the notion that perhaps the lady in question's vagina needed a douching, which may be at the heart of the insult.

Really even the curse words that are about something unpleasant, like say "$hit" don't bring to mind the sheer intensity of discomfort as say "shart" would.  ("Shart" the equivalent of vurp, which is a burp with a bit of vomit.  A shart is a fart with a bit of $hit.)  $hit can be in many forms, dry, damp, smelly, in the toilet bowl, from a different species even.  But calling a person a shart instead of a piece of $hit, well you summon up the inconvenience, the embarrassment.  Now you have called someone something with grit.  Something that means something.

When thinking this way, embellishment is important.  Calling someone a booger or even a green booger, lacks the intensity of you "sinus infection nuclear green booger."  But then you run the risk of using too many words.  Insults or curse words that have a person walking away before you finish uttering them are absolutely useless, as would be having to repeat them because the recipient didn't hear the whole sentence.  The use of the words "wipe" or "smear" should be considered because, after all, wipe or smear in the context of bodily fluid or discharge is never a good thing.  Discharge itself is not a good thing and is a handy noun for your vocabulary.

So the next time you feel the need to really tell someone how you feel, may I propose some of the following:  (In most cases, the word "you" proceeding the phrase is assumed.)

premature ejaculation stain
pus leakage
oozing sore
shart
vurp
infected knob end (infected anything is good, oozing infected is better)
broken stringed tampon
tea toned jock strap

Well, I'm sure you get the idea.   Go out and creatively use some of your own.   And try to stop using the word "c*nt."  It disturbs women and .....  really do I have to remind you again?

The vagina is your friend.  Most of you out there either have one, want to have one, or want to be in one.

'nuff said.

As If Underwater: No. 2

As If Underwater: No. 2: I sit in my parents’ living room. It’s hot and it’s stuffy. Anyone else in the room is asleep. My only company left is “Sherlock Holmes a...

As If Underwater: Moments With My Father

I have begun working on a tentative new body of work based on my experiences caring for my father, who had a stroke a little more than a year ago. The entries, persistent little voices in my head who seem to want to be written, whisper quietly, haltingly. At first I wasn't sure what to do with them. Am I writing a memoir? Am I writing a "how to" guide? Am I simply stumbling through experience, grasping at moments like pebbles along my way? Either way, my experiences 10 years or so back sharing my feelings about getting a divorce, have taught me that sometimes simply sharing your own voice, even if it is simply saying "this is hard," can be a great comfort for others going through the same thing. I can hope for no better for this blog than to accomplish that same result.

As If Underwater: No. 1: There are human experiences that can't be written. You are sitting next to a huge koi pond with a fountain. That noise, not quite "babblin...

Open Letter of Apology to My Writing Group

I'm doing the best I can . .. . but the wrong muse is calling . .. .lol.

Slide show of a photo project a very long time in the dreaming and just two days in the making.

Personal Photo Project

"The Red Means"

Yesterday I had the blues.  Actually I was descending towards what Truman Capote's character, Holly Golightly, would call "the red means."  Why?  Too much negative self introspection?  Absolutely.  Too much reminiscing over the sadder moments of my life?  Can I get an amen to that?  But mostly I had one of those moments where, like that sharp pain you get under your ribcage from too much exertion, I knew I had missed out.   To be fair my mood had already darkened before I listened to one of my dearest friends in the world convey knowledge he gained from having a daughter and I was introduced to the notion of yet another thing I missed out on by not having children.

Even as I actively pursued "not having children" - because while the notion courted me, I found merit and actively followed that path - I knew I would live a different life from many people.  I knew I could never claim the immortality of a healthy, vibrant family tree branching out into a future I couldn't hope to live to see.  My heart always ached a little to know I would never hold a tiny hand in my hand or feel the unconditional or unquestioning love of a toddler, while I breathed a sigh of relief that I would never know the distain of a teenager.

My father once had a story he told about friends of friends.  Apparently they had an unexpected windfall and were questioning whether they should spend the money towards adopting a child or buying a new car.  Everyone in my family rolled their eyes in exasperation and said, "Well, if you have to ask ..."  **sneer**  "buy the new car."

I bought the new car.  I took the vacations.   Most of the time, I never looked back.

Until two days ago when I listened to a single parent speak with passion of the things he has learned.  The selfless wisdom that comes only from having had a child.  And I knew I had missed out.  There was an entire wing of knowledge in the library of life from which I had detoured myself away.

Sometimes the bitch slap of what you already should have realized stinging your face can shock.

I spent the day irritable, on edge, ready to cry at a simple change in the breeze.  Until this morning.  You see this morning, I remembered something.  It is the reason Christians have the saying, "Whenever God shuts a door, he opens a window."  We tend to look at our choices as black and white, right or wrong creatures.   Just recently while watching "Celebrity Rehab" - yes I occasionally watch very schlocky television - I watched Sean Young tear her hair out over losing a part in the movie, "Batman."  After asking who had eventually won the part, the counselor sagely asked, "and how has her career been lately?"

We look at all these choices as things that will make or break us.   "I could have been somebody.  I could have been a contender."  If only I . .. .. . got married, had kids, inhaled, didn't inhale, went to college . . . well, you get the point.  The truth is they are more like the Robert Frost poem, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood ......"  While sometimes you may return to visit the unchosen path, choosing a path very likely means sights on that other path that you will never see.  Sometimes you will find yourself a continent away and no longer will even remember what words to program into Mapquest to find those unchosen detours.  Sometimes, strangled by indecision, you will forget that not choosing a path is actually a choice in itself.  One that leads to conclusions and outcomes just as surely as consciously choosing would have done.  Sometimes you will despair that what you chose led you to what seem to be inconsequential victories, like learning how to play a mean game of Pinochle; while the choices of other people around you seem to have led them to sainthood.

I suppose the trick is to remember to be as kind to yourself as you would be to others and try to appreciate the things you DID learn.  Most of all, remember.  It is just a road you have chosen to walk upon.  You can always change directions and choose another path.  Of course, do so too often and you may find yourself walking in circles, never arriving anywhere, but even that probably has merits only those travelers can truly see and appreciate.  Because, best of all, all of the journeys have wondrous things to see and learn for those whose eyes and hearts aren't afraid to be open.

Perspective

When I was five or six years old, I went to a public pool for the first time. I didn't go unsupervised, but my direct supervision was loose. Loose enough that, after talking with other kids my age, I was convinced into jumping off the diving board into the deep end of the pool and no adult intervened and stopped me. I don't remember feeling any fear. I do remember hitting the water and sinking under. I remember bobbing to the surface three times only to slip back under three times. I remember being rescued by a lifeguard. I remember being ordered to stay at the shallow end of the pool. I remember spending the rest of the day there, alone.

It seems to me all of the different highlights of your life can be charted, like points on a map or a model of our solar system. The points remain stationary, separated by dates and time, but your perspective changes depending on where you have moved along the map. At different times in my life, I have reflected on that swimming pool story and focused on my lack of supervision or painted the other kids as "the bad guys." For a long time, the story was my excuse for being an uncertain swimmer or "a little uncomfortable" in the water. Nowadays, my focus is that little girl who jumped off the diving board. It would be easy for me to dismiss her as an idiot, but instead I see someone who was fearless: literally "fear less." That little girl had such a positive outlook on the world she heard not even a whisper of the possibility of negative outcome. Nowadays, I want to climb into that little girl's head and see just a glimpse of the world through her eyes.

Four or five years later, a completely different little girl, I had a poster above my bed. It had a single seagull in flight and read "Hold fast to your dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly." I did not know at the time the words were taken from a Langston Hughes poem and he was not credited on the poster. By this time, I was so familiar with the possibility of a negative outcome I think the image of "a broken winged bird" was what I identified with most in the words. I don't remember how long the poster hung there, but I know I never went into my room without giving it at least a glance.

I was reminded of the other little girl, the fearless one, just today when I listened to the 21-year-old caregiver assigned to my father tell me her dreams in life and then systematically, one by one, tell me why she couldn't achieve them. I should say here: the dreams were only sketches, not definite, concrete plans detailing what she wanted and the obstacles were noted as somewhat temporary, transitory blockades. Nothing was set in stone. But nothing voiced any confidence in a positive outcome either, and as I drove home, I wondered why it is that we do that? Why do we voice a dream, if only silently, secretly to ourselves, and then shoot it down so utterly and completely? Is it because we reach a saturation point where others have shot us down often enough a need emerges just to get it over with before they get the chance to do it again? Is our need for recognition or agreement so strong that we will freely ridicule ourselves simply to be part of the crowd? After all, across the internet on Facebook and Twitter, you can watch the world bitch and moan about it being Monday and breathe a sigh of relief when it is Friday. Misery does love company.

I'm not sure what the polar opposite of misery is. Success? Happiness? Whatever it is, the first little girl had it in abundance and I'm pretty sure she had it in common with a lot of people we hold up as role models or wish we had lives like theirs. I think the only thing they have she didn't have was a little bit of knowledge. She hadn't learned yet some things don't just come naturally to you, they have to be learned. She lacked experience and a little bit of perspective, but the rest of it she had right.

Sometimes, whether the crowd is with you or not, you just need to get on the diving board and step off . .. ..