Posted: April 26, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family, friends | Tags: friendship, Jim, loss |
I thought I saw Jim again the other day. I hadn’t seen him in a while, or I should say, his apparition, since he’s been dead for almost five years. It’s weird how I miss that guy. It’s not like I’d seen him five times in the decade before his death. But I did love him. And even now, more than twenty years after we were inseparable, I still laugh at things he said.
I don’t even know how we got to be friends. I met him by accident, after dialing his number, which differed by one digit from my friend Tim’s, in error. We had a laugh then, especially since his mom had answered and mistook my request for “Tim” as one for “Jim,” and he said that I should look for him the next day. He was visiting my school in some kind of exchange program. I went to an all-girls school, and he went to the affiliated all-boys one.
After that, I guess we ran into each other through the theater exchange program. I worked the stage crew for a few shows at his school, and he was either onstage or in the audience. I didn’t like him at first. He was pushy. He would talk everyone into enacting whatever crazy idea he had in his head. He was infuriating. One time he talked me into taking him for a quick run to McDonalds. It was spring, and I had the top down on my brick-red 1969 Buick Skylark convertible. I can still see him laughing in the wind, this big six-foot-three future queen with his mouth full of Quarter Pounder with Cheese. He got shredded lettuce all over my white leather front seat. Oh, never again with that guy, I thought.
But he drew me in. I don’t know how or why. I mean why had he befriended me? He used to call me all the time. He brought me to parties with his basketball team. Was it because I had a car, or did I amuse him as much as he did me? He definitely made me laugh. And he would do crazy stuff. He’d get you to pull stunts with him. I won’t bore you with my crazy high school hi-jinx, but I will tell you that we had lots of fun.
Jim and I before my senior prom. He taught me to swing dance for the event. Good heavens, is that a decorative cane in his hand? I look at this picture, more than twenty-five years later, and the expression on Jim's face tells me all I need to know about the way he felt for me.
It wasn’t that he was interested in me. First of all, he was gay, though he didn’t really let that freak flag fly until college. He was always trying to hook me up with his basketball friends. But at those parties, was I his beard?
I had a job shelving books at the public library during my senior year of high school. His house was between mine and work, and I would often stop there on my way. More often than not, I wouldn’t want to leave, and so would be late for my shift. In February, I came down with a serious case of the Senior Blahs. I was down with no idea why. I stopped by his house on the way to work, and his mother let me into his room, where he was shirtless, still undecided about the day’s wardrobe. He tried so hard to snap me out of my funk. I just kept saying that I “felt…blah.” Then he did the oddest thing. While we were talking, he popped some of his Valentine’s chocolate into his mouth, nonchalantly licking the melted brown goop out onto his hand and spreading it all over his face until all that was left were the whites of his eyes like a performer in a minstrel show. That alone succeeded in making me laugh, but he pushed it further –“Kiss me,” he mock-pleaded, pulling me toward his reaching lips with those All-American Basketball arms. We ended up in hysterical fits of laughter on the floor. Then I left, buoyed enough emotionally to take on the dull-as-tombs of the library.
We both went off to colleges. I visited him a few times at his, and we kept in touch, and then we didn’t. After a year or so, I dropped out, took a semester off, before re-enrolling at state college. I was stunned to see him standing in the bookstore my first day. Turned out he’d also dropped out of school, abandoned his basketball scholarship, and taken some time off before returning.
And again, we picked up, right where we’d left off! He found out I was living with these strangers in a house off campus. He, of course, was in a dorm. “Do you have a tub?” he asked. And the next afternoon, he was soaking in it. We were inseparable after that, back in our old routines, he my ringleader, and I (I would hope) his touchstone. The following fall, we moved into a townhouse together.
He was sick with a cold for a few days that first semester off-campus. I remember him calling his English Lit prof, Fleda Rumson to get his reading assignment for the next class. She rattled off a number of pages on which he could find the poems they’d be discussing, “225, 229, 237, 248, 256, etc.” After about five more page numbers in the list he stopped her. “Fleda, honey,” he quipped, “are these haiku?” Dr. Rumson was unfazed and continued with the litany of homework pages.
A Weekend Getaway, visiting friends in DC
Living together though, eventually undid us. We were both young, and though fabulous, we both had holes on the inside. We would go for periods when we wouldn’t really communicate, let the other’s little quirks (the ones you wouldn’t see unless you lived with a person) go unaddressed until the hard feelings would erupt with way too much drama.
After one fight, where he’d accused me of not dealing with things the way I hadn’t dealt with the death of my mother (and I HATED him for saying that – oh I thought that was a low-blow – but all these years later, I think, man, he had me pegged) I stormed out. He was upset and went to his daily AA meeting. He was the first one to share, and he told the whole story about how he and the girl he lived with had this knock-down-drag-out, and how she had left, slamming the door behind her for emphasis.
It turned out that Warren Zevon was playing a show in town that night, and Zevon, an AA member himself, had come to the same meeting. After Jim had unloaded his story, Zevon offered him words of advice. “Let her go,” he said. “Tomorrow something beautiful’ll be knocking on your door.”
Oh, we’d laughed at that.
We made up of course, talked things out, but the problems returned, and eventually things escalated. We couldn’t live together. It ruined our friendship, and things were never the same again. We loved each other. And we saw each other after he’d moved out. We were always glad to be in each other’s company, but we were never inseparable again.
He ended up traveling. Chasing the fabulous life that he deserved. I’d hear through channels that he was living in D.C., or New York, or London. At one point I heard that he was a member of Madonna’s entourage, and knowing him as I did, I believed it. Eventually he settled in San Francisco. And then, about five years ago, I heard he was sick. Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. So I tracked him down by phone right away. And it was like we’d only been out of touch for a week. We talked for hours. About high school, about living together, our lives since. We talked about his cancer and the things he’d been through with it, like the nightmare of bone-marrow transplant.
One of the biggest laughs we had during that conversation was about the time his mother, who is a devout Catholic, had hosted a wandering statue of the Virgin Mary while we were in high school. She’d put it up in a shrine in their living room, so that when you entered the house, you walked right into it. It was like four feet tall, lit up from the huge windows behind it so that it looked ethereal. She surrounded it with flowers and candles. A parade of the devoted came by to worship at its feet before it moved on to the next location. At the time, we were young and stupid. We thought it was kind of goofy, kind of funny. We had no use for or experience with the strength of true devotion. Twenty years later, we may have been slightly wiser, but we still laughed.
And then, he sighed, really only half-joking, “Yeah…I could sure use a shrine like that now.”
He was planning to visit next month, before which he had to have one more set of tests done, to make sure the cancer was in remission. He couldn’t wait to see me, he said, and meet my kids. He’d call me in a month when he was in town.
I set out immediately, to make him a new shrine. I found a good statue of the Virgin Mary, albeit significantly smaller, on eBay and fashioned a shoebox diorama of his mother’s living room circa 1982, shipping it to his California address. The next month passed, and I didn’t hear from him. My father called one day in October, to ask if I’d seen Jim’s obituary in the paper. And that was how I heard the news. After the funeral, his parents told me about opening my package during one of Jim’s last few weeks, and how he had laughed and laughed from his sickbed.
I ran into Jim’s mom a few weeks ago. It was so good to see her. To talk to someone who understands how you can see the dead in public, only to get closer and realize the person’s not who you hoped they’d be. I wonder if Jim knew how much he would be missed. How much I would miss him. How even to today, I can’t see the word “haiku” without thinking of him and smiling.
Posted: April 25, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family |
My father used to have a bigger company with many employees, but over the years, he has cut back, and now he’s just got this one guy, Ron, who’s been working for him for years, doing different types of labor. Ron’s not much younger than my father, but he’s built like a little fire plug. And for a guy who has taken little care of himself (smokes, breathes in all kinds of dust, and no doubt partakes in the recreational substances) he seems like he’s in pretty good shape. He’s very strong. I’ve seen him lift an iron radiator over his head. Whenever there’s heavy lifting to be done, Dad calls in Ron.
In the past few years, Ron hasn’t been as dependable though. He disappears for days at a time, usually once he gets a little money in his pocket. He’s got that kind of swagger that makes you think sometimes he might be drunk, or a little on something, and there’s no doubt that sometimes he is. Ron lived for many years at the local YMCA. He had a little trouble managing his finances, and my father helped him out, giving him enough to get by on, but putting some aside so that Ron could eventually get a car. Which he did.
With my father’s help, Ron became the proud owner of a late-model Buick. It’s blue with a white leather top. Pretty swanky ride.
A year or so after he got the Buick, Ron’s father died and left his house to Ron. Dad tried to help Ron manage the responsibility of home-ownership, but Ron, who’s not the most intelligent of men had a little trouble with the basic concepts. And also, his substance abuse problems were probably a factor. Perhaps he was broken up about his own father. Maybe there were things that had never been said. Ron had some troubles around that time and seemed to be self-medicating a bit to keep the sad thoughts away. He wouldn’t show up for work or answer the cell phone my father had given him. Dad would inevitably drive over to the house and find Ron in a daze, a couple of skanky women always hanging around, or other guys, all in similar states, lounging on the dilapidated furniture in Ron’s parlour.
Eventually, Ron loaned the Buick to some guy who said he needed it to go get some money with which he could pay Ron rent for a room in the house. Ron never saw the guy again. Turned out the guy had traded the car for some crack, and no one is really sure what happened then, how it got into the hands of those teenagers, but in any case, by that time Ron and my father had already reported it stolen. The police spotted the Buick and gave chase. The kids in the car freaked out, and tried to hide, driving into a city park and wedging the car beneath the large branch of a tree, the force of which peeled back the front edges of the white leather top.
Ron’s still driving that car. The paint is completely dull, and the tattered leather of the top flaps in the wind as he cruises along. The muffler trumpets the car’s velocity, audible from two or three blocks away. A few weeks ago, Ron parked it somewhere, and when he came back for it, the car had a boot on its wheel. My father paid the $400 and change in parking tickets, plus almost $200 in towing fees.
At this point in the story I stopped my father. “Is that car even worth six hundred dollars??”
He laughed and told me that Ron claims people are always offering him money for the car. He tells Ron time and again to get rid of the thing. It needs frequent repairs, $500 for a transmission, then it might need a brake line, or a new tire. Dad will pay for those, and then Ron always pays him back, or does some job for him, whatever. And every time my father urges him to let the car go, Ron says, “Are you kidding? Some guy just offered me money for it last week!” But because it’s a “classic” Ron has no plans to part with it.
And so, Dad was teasing them right before the two of them came over here yesterday to do some handy work in my basement. This week the city is working on my street (some kind of hush-hush problems with the sewage system) and as they got out of their cars, my father teased Ron by admonishing the men on the street, “Now don’t be offering this man any money for this car, gentlemen!” he said laughing. Sometimes Dad gets a kick out of himself. And he is a pretty funny guy.
They came in, and he got Ron all situated with the tools for the job in the basement, and then he went off to tend to other business. As he went out to his car, one of the city workmen stopped him. “Hey,” he said with all earnestness, “does your friend really want to sell that car? How much does he want?”
Posted: April 24, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family |
At Edison’s school, the kids wear uniforms. Spring uniforms were permitted at the end of Easter break, and for the boys, this meant shorts with a polo shirt. It was cold this week (highs in the 50’s) 
so I let him wear the polo shirt, but with his longer pants. Every day he would come into my room before the last of my snooze-button reprieves had ended to ask what he should wear. And every day I told him short-sleeve shirt, long pants, squinting at him from the mattress like Popeye.
Then yesterday, I was up and around, getting his clothes out for him. He asked if he could wear shorts, but I said no. The forecast was windy with a high of 60. “But,” he said, his face sad and pleading like a Basset Hound, “all the other boys in my class have been wearing shorts all week.” And I couldn’t argue with that, so I gave in easily. Okay, kiddo. Be chilly, but fit in. I understand where you are coming from.
Several weeks ago, I was at GapKids with The Princess, and she came across a pair of ballet flats with a large jewel on them. There are times, when as a parent, yes, you do have to pick your battles, but even then, even when you are ready to battle, even if you know going in that you’ll have to go all “William Wallace” on them, you know, they’re just never going to cave. Never. This was one of those times. The shoes were almost $30, and I 
thought, shit, when the heck is she going to wear those? But I coughed up the thirty and sucked it up because I knew. The only way she was leaving the store without those shoes was going to be unending stress for me. And that’s worth $30, isn’t it?
Well, the answer to the question about when she was going to wear them was that she was going to wear them all the time. We’ve gotten the $30 use out of them and then some. She wears them everywhere, and everywhere she goes, people make a fuss over the shoes, only reinforcing her steadfast determination to wear them for almost any and all occasions.
They came in three colors, but only the pink ones fit her. She knew there were others, and in the last week or so, she had started asking for blue ones. I figured by now, they would be discounted, and they were, but every store I looked in was out of her size, including online. I enlisted the help of my stepmother and my mother-in-law, both of whom searched the malls that were out of my normal circle. Last week, my in-laws took a drive to New England, and they found a pair of blue ones, the last, apparently in the state of Massachusetts. They had them shipped here, and they arrived yesterday, just as I was getting ready to make dinner.
I took them out of the package for The Princess, and returned to my supper duties. The next time I turned around, she had changed her entire outfit to match the shoes. “Don’t I look fancy?” she asked.
And she did.
This Saturday, I’m having a yard sale. I don’t know why, except that I have a huge pile of crap in the basement that I just want to get rid of. Clooney LOVES to sell stuff, so when I said I was thinking of having a yard sale, he took off running. Oh, we are having a yard sale. Every day he’s been collecting more stuff for the yard sale. Counting down the days to the yard sale. Yes, yes, yes. No turning back now.
Not that I’m not living in the moment, but I can’t wait for next weekend. Manfrengensen and I will away to NYC for our anniversary. Going to stay at a swanky hotel and celebrate eleven years of relatively blissful marriage. We also have tickets to see God of Carnage, which stars James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis. Should be a fun weekend. Just plan to stroll the city (hopefully with good weather), spend some time at Central Park, visit my bro and his family, and a museum or two.
Seven more days.
Posted: April 23, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: Books | Tags: Audiobooks |
The other day I ordered an audiobook from my local library. I like to read at the gym, but I can only read on the recumbent bike. If I’m on the elliptical machine or something else, forget it. So I figured audiobook might be cool.
I priced the download on iTunes, and it was like $45, so I put in a request at the library, fully prepared to have to download four or five CD’s (the book is 25 hours unabridged) to my computer, and then again to my iPod. But to my delight, this is what I got when I went to pick the thing up:
Blah. Can’t figure out how to rotate that…try tilting your head to the left a bit. That should fix it.
Anyway, it’s totally cool! The book is already on this little player, and all I have to do is plug my phones into the built-in jack.
Like all audiobooks, it’s a huge pain in the button if you accidentally lose your place, but overall, it’s very convenient. And so far, the book’s not bad either.
Posted: April 10, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family | Tags: bickering, kids |
It’s raining and the kids are wrestling in the living room. Thought I’d give you a list of the things they invariably tend to bicker over:
Opening the door of the house.
Opening the door of the car.
If they all have to sit in the middle row, the boys fight over the brown booster seat.
If someone is allowed to sit in the back row, they fight over whose turn it is to do so.
Yesterday they fought over whose turn it was to ride back there first for this outing, even though one of them had been the last one back there the day before, which meant clearly that it was the other’s turn to ride.
Closing the door of the car.
The Princess will also fight me over the buckling of her seat belts.
Controlling the remote for the DVD player in the car.
Pushing the elevator buttons.
Pushing the buttons to activate any automatic doors.
Helping me load the clothes washer.
Closing the detergent dispenser drawer.
Who is making too much noise when Edison is trying to practice piano.
Who gets to curl up in Mom’s blanket while they are watching TV.
Who gets to sit in Mom’s “usual” spot on the sofa.
“She’s banging on the piano!” (As if I can’t hear that for myself.)
Whose turn it is to watch his or her show.
“She’s touching my cars!”
“He’s touching my dolls!”
He won’t play with me.
She won’t play with me.
They won’t play with me.
Edison’s not letting me play Wii.
Clooney won’t let me take my turn on the computer.
“Gimme those back!”
“Mine!”
“No, mine!”
(SEASONAL)
Who gets to turn off the sprinkler.
Those are just the ones I can think of at the moment. They always seem to surprise me with the arguments they are capable of conjuring. I’m sure both my mother and my grandmother (who lived with us and helped my father raise my sibs and me) are both having a laugh somewhere. After all, their prophecies have come to pass: I have kids who are just like we were.
Happy holidays, all!
Thanks for stopping.
Posted: April 9, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family | Tags: hair stylist |
I need to break up with my hair stylist. It’s not that I don’t like her, and I feel awful about it, but I just can’t take it anymore.
I’ve been seeing her for years. At one time, every member of the family was getting his or her hair cut by her. But then Manfrengensen was the first to break away. The economist in him crunched the numbers and figured it was a better investment to buy his own clippers and have me run him over every few weeks. No one can fault him for that.
Then, about six months ago, she opened her own place, and that was the beginning of the end for me. Don’t get me wrong: Her shop is beautiful. It’s done all in white leather and dark granite. But frankly, I hate it. First of all there’s the music. They’ve got this techno-kind-of-house music BLASTING in there the whole time like you’re at a club, and the bass is throbbing like my temples – brum, brum, brum, brum, brum, brum, repeat. Her boyfriend is the receptionist (or is he also a stylist? I can’t really tell. He’s supposed to be a stylist, but I never actually see him cut any hair. Then last time I was there, his thumb was in a bandage, so I asked if that was an occupational injury — like cut with his scissors — but he admitted no, he’d injured it cutting a bagel. Yeah, I want that guy cutting my hair — he can’t even cut a bagel.)
So, not last time, but the time before, I said, “Hey, Franz,” (Franz wearing thes super tight jeans that are too long and the same navy suede jacked with the paisey-etched detail that he always wears) “do you really like this music, or is it just the kind of vibe you’re going for in here?” And he nodded his head (in time with the bass??) and admitted that no, he really liked this music.
Okay then.
Then, in the waiting area (and by the way, there’s always a wait) they’ve got this 70″ plasma TV, which would be nice except that all they show on that screen is people cutting hair! There’s no volume to the TV, so I can’t tell if it’s an instructional video or what (Franz learning his way up from bagel?) but seriously: who the f@#& wants to watch that? Why would I want to watch that? So I can learn to cut my own hair and hopefully never have to come back?
Don’t even get me started on the styling chairs which look great, but are totally stiff and uncomfortable. There’s an area in the salon for coloring that has about six of these chairs arranged so that (I assume) when she gets other stylists working there, they can all color at once. Besides the discomfort of the chair, while you wait for your color to process, what are you looking at? Do they have the chairs facing the window you can feel radiating sunshine behind you, or even a TV (though I admit I wouldn’t want to watch what they’d probably be showing), or anything aesthetically pleasing? No. When you are processing your color, you sit facing the wall of color tubes, where you can watch her mix other people’s color. Wee!
I feel bad leaving her, especially in this economy, especially now that it’s her own place, but I just don’t think it’s my kind of place. Plus, it was always stressful to take the kids wherever she was working 
before, but now it’s a total nightmare. They’re dancing to the music like it’s some kind of funny when they’ve got to wait wait wait, and who can blame them? I’m always freaking out, thinking they’re going to take a header and smash through the acrylic coffee table that squats about a foot above the center of the floor in the waiting room, or worse, crack their heads open on the marble tiled floor. I think she and Franz are worried about this too, because on this last occasion they both admonished the children in two separate moments to chill. But the clincher was last time because not only did we have to wait forever, first for her to cut one and then the other (we were there more than an hour even though we had appointments), but also — she raised the prices for the kids’ cuts. And they weren’t even that good. I swear, both boys looked like something out of Gorillas in the Mist.
She didn’t even get a chance to wash and dry their hair either. She cut one and then waited to wash his while she cut the other. But by the time she finished cutting the second one, I just wanted to get the heck out of there! She was like, “Are you sure you don’t want me to wash them?” I was sure. I’d spent more than an hour trying to hold the Princess down (even with the toys and books I had brought for her) as she tried to mimic her brothers’ various dance moves and keep up with their climbing and spinning on the white leather chairs in the waiting area. And then — not even a discount roll-back to the old prices for saving her the shampoo and blow dry. After we left, I felt like I’d been hollowed out with a mellon-baller.
And then, a week after that, I had to cancel The Princess’s cut when she had the pinkeye. I left a message on the voicemail a little after 9 a.m.. Was there ever a follow-up by Franz to reschedule? What do you think?
So, we’re done.
Posted: March 31, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family, kids, parenting | Tags: mom-meme |
I’m stealing this meme from Betty and Boo’s Mom, who admits she stole it from someone else. I guess it’s okay to borrow, as long as we are honest about our sources, right? Anyway, the object of this game was to ask the kids these questions. Their answers (in italics) were pretty fun.1. What is something mom always says to you?
I love you. – Edison
Knock it off. – Clooney
2. What makes mom happy?
When I hug her every day. – Edison
When I eat my dinner. – Clooney
3. What makes mom sad?
When I yell at my brother. – Edison
When you don’t eat your dinner. – Clooney
4. How does your mom make you laugh?
By tickling me. – Edison
Tickles me. – Clooney
5. What was your mom like as a child?
Friendly and kind. – Edison
Me. – Clooney
6. How old is your mom?
37 – Edison.
44. – Clooney
7. How tall is your mom?
Five feet, one inch. – Edison
Sixty feet — no, sixty inches. – Clooney
(Close.)
8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Read – Edison
Go to the park. – Clooney
9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?
Read – Edison
She gets scared. – Clooney
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Being President – Edison
Fashion – Clooney
(I did a “spit take” for at least one of those answers.)
11. What is your mom really good at?
Helping me feel better when I cry. – Edison
Making mac and cheese. – Clooney
12. What is your mom not very good at?
Spanking me, because she never does it. – Edison
Making a fire. – Clooney
13. What does your mom do for her job?
Make us lunch for school. – Edison
She eats diet food. – Clooney
14. What is your mom’s favorite food?
Diet Mac and Cheese – Edison
Ice cream sundae – Clooney
15. What makes you proud of your mom?
She always helps me do my homework. – Edison
She tickles me. – Clooney
16. If your mom were a character in a book, who would she be?
Simba’s Mom in The Lion King. – Edison
Minnie Mouse – Clooney
17. What do you and your mom do together?
Play min-golf sometimes. – Edison
Go to the burger place. – Clooney
18. How are you and your mom the same?
We both look like each other when we were young. – Edison
We are both talking animals. – Clooney
19. How are you and your mom different?
She’s older than I am. – Edison
We are not the same height. – Clooney
20. How do you know your mom loves you?
She gives me hugs every day. – Edison
Because she hugs and kisses me. – Clooney
21. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?
The Mexican Restaurant. – Edison
The park. – Clooney
Posted: March 31, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family | Tags: fish |
Years ago my in-laws took a trip to Italy with another couple. One night at dinner, their friend, Mr. G ordered the fish. After a few minutes, the waiter came out of the kitchen and told the man, “The fish is finished.”
“Great,” Mr. G said. “Bring it out.”
The waiter then proceeded to bring meals from the kitchen for my mother-in-law, then my father-in-law, and then Mrs. G. The three of them waited for Mr. G’s dinner before they dug in. And they waited. And they waited. The fish never appeared.
Finally, Mr. G, very frustrated, called the waiter over again to inquire after the fish.
“The fish is finished,” the waiter said, opening his palms and shrugging his shoulders.
And at that moment, it dawned on the Americans. The restaurant was out of fish.
I tell this story because today, our pet fish experiment has come to an end. The last of the three has perished. The fish is finished.
Posted: March 29, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family |
I haven’t had many blog-worthy moments lately. My mind has been blank and yet busy, I guess too busy to focus on any one thing to write about. Last week I went to a funeral for an old friend’s father, and I guess that got me thinking about the past. My friend, Lu and I have been close since high school, and even though we don’t see each other much, we have this kind of relationship that just picks up every time where it left off. We are both married now, with our own families, etc., but I still love the guy like I did the first time he posed the question “What’s the poop?” to me almost 30 years ago.
I remembered that Lu came to visit me in NC when I was down there working at the paper, and that got me thinking about this story:
I had been out of school for six months or so, working temp jobs at banks and such, simple filing work; living in a one-room flat, freelancing for local magazines and waiting for my “big break” in terms of a real job. I had been checking out the Want-Ads in Editor and Publisher every week, and had sent my resume down to a paper in NC that was looking for a copy editor. They flew me down for an interview in February of 1987.
I was young, 22, but you know, when you’re 22, you think you are all grown up. You’re ready to take on the world and live your life, that life you’ve been dreaming about for as long as you can remember. You think you know what’s coming next, you’re ready to make it all happen because you know how the world operates. I mean, what the hell did I know?
So the plan for the flight was this: I got a plane out of Philly to Charlotte, NC, and when I got to Charlotte, I had to call for a shuttle to take me to my connecting flight to Wilmington, NC. There was snow in Philly, so we got a bit of a late start. I was a little nervous even though there was plenty of time to make the connection, I’m just a spaz about traveling.
There was an older man sitting next to me on the plane, and he struck up a conversation, told me a bit about himself, and asked where I was going, etc. Because I was nervous, I started talking, and I gave him basically my whole story; how I was just out of college, looking for this job at the paper, how I’d been freelancing and hoped to someday write for Rolling Stone, my whole big plan. Again, I was young, a dreamer, and open. I wasn’t playing any cards close to the chest because I had no idea how to even get into the game.
He was a nice man. As the plane touched down in Charlotte and we took off our belts, he told me that he could tell I was talented and that I would “go far” in life. At that moment, I swelled. I felt so hopeful, so sure of my future. This man, this stranger, had seen the diamond in the rough that was me, could see the potential of my future success. We had talked so much about me, that I had completely forgotten what his story was, so I asked him, “What is it again that you do?” His answer: “I’m in waste management.”
So I got into Charlotte. This was long before cell phones, so I had to rush to find a pay phone, and finding one that wasn’t being used was a challenge. I finally got to one, and just as I picked up the receiver, everything in the airport went black. It was a complete power outage. No phones, no lights, nothing. People were just wandering about in the gray light, unsure of what to do next.
Now I was really nervous. The minutes ticked away until the lights finally came back on. At that point, I had about fifteen minutes until my connection was scheduled to leave. I dialed the number I had for the shuttle, and a woman with a slow Southern drawl answered. I told her I needed a shuttle, and she told me to wait out on the sidewalk and the van would be around in a few minutes to transport me. I was still kind of freaking out, so I said that my plane was going to leave very soon, was there a chance I would make it?
She laughed a little and said reassuringly, “Well now, I seriously doubt that plane’s gonna leave without you, I mean, your shuttle bus driver is your pilot.”
And sure enough, he was. This big dude in a khaki jumpsuit who looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and come to work. He threw my bag in the back of the van and sped around the terminal, stopping once for another passenger. Then he took us straight to the plane on the tarmac. It was this four-seater puddle jumper, the inside of which reminded me a lot of my brother’s beat-up Honda Civic. There was trash strewn about, crumpled burger wrappers and styrofoam cups.
I climbed in, clung to my seat, and we took off (me white-knuckled the entire time) toward my future.
Posted: March 17, 2009 | Author: egghead23 | Filed under: family |
Saturday Manfrengensen had to work, so I took the kids to the Y. The boys have separate tumbling classes in the morning, so I usually put the other ones in babysitting and work out while they have their classes, switching them in or out at the top of the hour.
Saturday though, I was on day three of a migraine, functioning yes, but barely. My plan (I always have one, which must somehow amuse God) was to put one in his tumbling class while I took whichever combination of the other two I had out to the playground while we waited. It was nippy, so I brought a bag of warm weather gear, hats, scarves, gloves, etc. I also brought a book, figuring I would just relax on a bench while they expended some energy climbing and sliding. Pretty good plan right?
Well, I hadn’t even read two sentences before The Princess emptied her bladder into her pants. This, literally one day after I had said to myself, well, she hasn’t had any accidents in a while, guess I don’t need to keep this change of clothes in my car anymore. Ugh. We ran into the family locker room where I rinsed her bottoms, spun them in the bathing suit dryer and then ran them under the hair dryer for at least two dozen cycles.
Can you see it? A woman frantically trying to dry a tiny pair of undies with one of those hand dryers on the wall? One of her kids, the eight-year-old boy, is sitting on a bench near the lockers, leaning on a pile of down coats, a bored look on his face. He’s wishing he had his DS with him. Her daughter is happy as a clam. She’s dancing around the locker room with all the modesty that is normal for a three-year-old to have, which is to say none. Her cherub-esque ass on display for her peers just back from their poliwog swim classes. The room is filled with the sound of the dryer, about as melodic as a vacuum cleaner. Whaaaaaaaah. Done. Again, Whaaaaaaaaaaah. Done. Again…
Got the underwear to the point where she could wear it, but not her pants. Luckily, I had dressed her that day in a dress over skinny-legged pants, so she could make do with just the dress (and squishy sneakers) but at that point, playground was out of the picture.
I put her in babysitting, and after switching Edison into his class, I took Clooney to the lobby where he played his DS for a half hour. It was fun, let me tell you.
Other than that, I know I haven’t blogged in a while, but I have been dealing. Manfrengensen is elbow-deep in work these days, which means that I am treading water over here on my own. Two out of the three of them had pink eye last week, so we were around the house quite a bit.
I can’t wait for Spring.
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