I am one of those purse ladies now.
Observe my purse. It is brown, leather-ish. About the size of a football. One main pocket, one zipped outer pocket, one open outer pocket on the other side. Not particularly bulging or conspicious in any way. An unobtrusive little purse.
And inside, it contains:
set of keys
car key
unlabeled key
49 pennies (3 sticky)
4 dimes
3 nickels
5 quarters
7 packets of Splenda (2 sticky)
cell phone
ear receiver
wallet
checkbook
7 lipsticks (1 of which I use)
1 eyeshadow
1 eyeliner
1 makeup brush
1 mini foundation bottle
1 bottle ylang ylang essential oil
1 lipliner (unused)
3 pads (also unused)
1 box breathmints
bottle of ibuprophin
bottle of unused prescription
tube of medicated ointment of unspeakable horror
plastic vampire fangs
instruction booklet in Japanese
2 letters in full-sized standard envelopes
weight watchers point calculator
2 pens
a receipt for 87 cents
a receipt from the thrift store
a bank statement saying I'm broke
empty vitamin box
hair clip
comb
red post-it note with my own phone number on it
yellow post-it with lawyer numbers scribbled out on it (sticky)
folded white paper with university course number on it
6 pink rocks from upstate New York
lanyard clip
black eye patch
AA battery
leather zipper pull (no zipper)
half a candy wrapper
back of a scottish pin (front fell off and got lost)
torn barcode from grocery store club card
1 white-ish pink-ish M&M
1 nail file
1 miscellaneous pink pill, probably advil
And guess how much of that I just threw away instead of throwing back in my purse? Correct, none.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
published 7/7/09
copied and pasted from RMC web board for my records:
He called his mom and told her the basics; that he'd cheated on me and was doing things on the internet and needed help. He's making plans to move back to New York. His mom is looking into treatment for him; if anyone is good at running other people's lives, it's her (not necessarily a criticism, she's very efficient), so he's in good hands. He asked if he could come over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I said I didn't think it was right to ask me to spend the holidays with the man who had sex with strangers behind my back. He cried. I told him to get out of my life. He wanted to know about Gavin, I said he could talk about that when he was working on recovery, in the meantime he could see him when we go to Scottish dancing on Wed, while I'm there.
I feel like my good sweet husband died. Did I ever have one? I look at pictures now and wonder what he was thinking, who he was thinking about, what he had done with whom only hours before or after our happy little pictures. For the entire time.
He called his mom and told her the basics; that he'd cheated on me and was doing things on the internet and needed help. He's making plans to move back to New York. His mom is looking into treatment for him; if anyone is good at running other people's lives, it's her (not necessarily a criticism, she's very efficient), so he's in good hands. He asked if he could come over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I said I didn't think it was right to ask me to spend the holidays with the man who had sex with strangers behind my back. He cried. I told him to get out of my life. He wanted to know about Gavin, I said he could talk about that when he was working on recovery, in the meantime he could see him when we go to Scottish dancing on Wed, while I'm there.
I feel like my good sweet husband died. Did I ever have one? I look at pictures now and wonder what he was thinking, who he was thinking about, what he had done with whom only hours before or after our happy little pictures. For the entire time.
Friday, September 22, 2006
drippy
Lunch break
It is cold and quiet in the library. I have taken down my book display, so all the little book holders are sitting empty like stiff little white skeletons. I have misplaced my mug of coffee, which I'm sure will make itself evident by Monday. Or maybe the following Monday, as it has to compete with the nose-numbing air freshener I used in the library.
Friday. Another Friday, I swear we had one last week. It's as if each day of the week is aligned in a sort of worm-hole fashion to create singular, long, terrible days. Every Friday I'll be stuck in this endless Friday. And Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and the rest of them, too.
Promises, promises
One of the high school student swore to me that my copier kicked the bucket ("whoa, this is waaay before my time, this is from like the 80s"), and the tech guys told me it was a dinosaur and wasn't getting any new parts, so I was all excited about maybe getting a shiny new copier - and then the maintenance people came around and fixed it anyway. Old Bessy lives to see another decade.
Yes, I'm avoiding talking about my personal life. I am a career girl now. I drink coffee, talk about student profiles, wear uncomfortable shoes, and watch tv shows starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
About my personal life
Fine.
My mother took Gavin to bronze casting last night while Mike and I poured our guts out to the therapist. I am going to dig out my half-finished sculpture from last year and work it back into life. Clay, plaster, blast furnace, grinding metal, blowtorches, dangerous chemicals - that's therapy right there. It will be wonderful to kick off the heels, pull on some jeans, get my hands dirty, and get into that intense concentration where everything else disappears.
It is cold and quiet in the library. I have taken down my book display, so all the little book holders are sitting empty like stiff little white skeletons. I have misplaced my mug of coffee, which I'm sure will make itself evident by Monday. Or maybe the following Monday, as it has to compete with the nose-numbing air freshener I used in the library.
Friday. Another Friday, I swear we had one last week. It's as if each day of the week is aligned in a sort of worm-hole fashion to create singular, long, terrible days. Every Friday I'll be stuck in this endless Friday. And Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and the rest of them, too.
Promises, promises
One of the high school student swore to me that my copier kicked the bucket ("whoa, this is waaay before my time, this is from like the 80s"), and the tech guys told me it was a dinosaur and wasn't getting any new parts, so I was all excited about maybe getting a shiny new copier - and then the maintenance people came around and fixed it anyway. Old Bessy lives to see another decade.
Yes, I'm avoiding talking about my personal life. I am a career girl now. I drink coffee, talk about student profiles, wear uncomfortable shoes, and watch tv shows starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
About my personal life
Fine.
My mother took Gavin to bronze casting last night while Mike and I poured our guts out to the therapist. I am going to dig out my half-finished sculpture from last year and work it back into life. Clay, plaster, blast furnace, grinding metal, blowtorches, dangerous chemicals - that's therapy right there. It will be wonderful to kick off the heels, pull on some jeans, get my hands dirty, and get into that intense concentration where everything else disappears.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Hear me roar or something
My mom's house. Woke with a start from bad dreams that I couldn't remember, puffy-eyed. Brushed the wrinkles out of my work outfit that was chucked in the closet since the man brought it over last Friday. Calling in sick for Gavin's fever that day meant that a mountain of work and desperate teachers would be waiting for me when I got to the library.
Shuffled downstairs in the dark, pinning my blouse securely shut with a safety pin. On my web board, the news was all bad. My mom came downstairs while I ate my cheerios dismally in front of the laptop, and let out a low moan by the bird cage. Mugwort the Not So Stupid Bulbul (aka Norbert) died overnight. He seemed happy yesterday, snatching bits of strawberry from my fingers and using his wings like hands to crawl all over the cage (his legs hadn't worked since the cat bit him last week). After assembling Gavin's lunchbox and boiling his eggs for breakfast, I went upstairs to wake him while digging through my mom's jewelry boxes. Put on an opal ring, different earrings, a fairy pin, while Gavin sobbed that he didn't want to go to preschool. With her jewelry on, I looked a bit like my mom, like she used to look when she was 26, alone and grim. Hugged Gavin, got him dressed, carried him downstairs with his head on my shoulder.
The ride to work was stiff and awkward after the man arrived to pick us up. He smiled hopefully at me, the kind of smile where you're pretending things aren't as bad as you know they are so that maybe the other person will think so, too. He started trembling a bit when I started talking. I know how that feels, being called on to talk about uncomfortable feelings and events, but my heart doesn't pound anymore when I talk about this thing. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Move
132.0
The baby bird has grown into an attack-sparrow. It tried to take off the mole on my forehead, and now every time I walk into the house she flies at my face. La La the Terrible.
A long, exhausting, never-ending weekend. Our first night in the pink house was... comfortable. Amazingly, the crack and clatter of bamboo and the hallelujah chorus of rooster crowing did not disturb us. The near, distant, and mid-tone chicken calls created a 3D audio effect, because every rooster has a dozen hens and chicks. No wonder the foliage is crawling with feral cats - the valley is chicken stew.
Last night we went out to a social event with the Scottish dance society. I wound up in our host's bedroom watching the Timmy Jimmy special on Nickelodeon with Gavin and then falling asleep on the couch after eating too many english muffin pizzas. Wild partying.
Another week has started. My library is being used as a classroom for the high school until their building is finished with construction, my librarian nerves are fried by the teacher clutter. Before I meant to, I put all our books in the new house in Dewey Decimal order. It's not as pretty as organizing them by size and color. I compromised by breaking up the sections with little statues.
I'm over this moving business. The fun part is over and it's all messy papers and under-furniture dirt now. Gross.
I thought I'd be more excited.
The baby bird has grown into an attack-sparrow. It tried to take off the mole on my forehead, and now every time I walk into the house she flies at my face. La La the Terrible.
A long, exhausting, never-ending weekend. Our first night in the pink house was... comfortable. Amazingly, the crack and clatter of bamboo and the hallelujah chorus of rooster crowing did not disturb us. The near, distant, and mid-tone chicken calls created a 3D audio effect, because every rooster has a dozen hens and chicks. No wonder the foliage is crawling with feral cats - the valley is chicken stew.
Last night we went out to a social event with the Scottish dance society. I wound up in our host's bedroom watching the Timmy Jimmy special on Nickelodeon with Gavin and then falling asleep on the couch after eating too many english muffin pizzas. Wild partying.
Another week has started. My library is being used as a classroom for the high school until their building is finished with construction, my librarian nerves are fried by the teacher clutter. Before I meant to, I put all our books in the new house in Dewey Decimal order. It's not as pretty as organizing them by size and color. I compromised by breaking up the sections with little statues.
I'm over this moving business. The fun part is over and it's all messy papers and under-furniture dirt now. Gross.
I thought I'd be more excited.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Big boy!
Gavin scribbled on his shirt with marker while we scrambled around for all his preschool loot. "See? I write my name." Green lines on his blue shirt. "Good job, now never write on your clothes again, sweetie." We took pictures as he headed out the door, then threw all his stuff in the car and headed out as the sun came up. Gavin lounged in his booster seat, gazing coolly out the window. He tipped his head and gave me a wink and a half-smirk when I turned around to squeal at him, "You're going to preschool! Now remember, no hitting. Unless they hit you first, then you can hit them." "No," said Mike, "No hitting anyone at all." "No hitting unless someone else sees the other kid hit you first," I amended. Gavin nodded solemnly, "They hit me, I hit them real real hard." "Good boy," I said. "No hitting!" said Mike. He was the first kid there. Once we had stuffed his cubby, we sat him down at the mini picnic bench for breakfast. I cracked the boiled eggs I brought him and Mike situated his fruit. Gavin settled in and bit an egg, looking up at us as we stared expectantly at him. "You guys are gonna go, right?" The teacher behind him hid a laugh. I had visions of him driving off to college, hooting in liberation. And so it starts, Gavin Part II: School Kid.
update on first day: me: how did he do? mike: it was good, he had fun. Except I guess a boy hit him and he hit him back, and they both got in trouble. me: haaa ha ha
Monday, August 14, 2006
homeward bound
Our checklist of vacation to-dos wasn't complete without a quest for donuts. Failing to find a single Krispy Kreme, we opted for Dunkin Donuts instead. It was a crisp, quiet morning, not a soul in sight as we skipped up to the doors. Immediately we were swept in by a shouting mob, the cashiers barking over the clamor, hands shooting past our ears clutching dollars and pastries. "WHATTAYA WANT?!" screeched the cashier. My hands flew up in confusion, I waved them stupidly and began yelling, "Pink donut! Sprinkles! Munchkins! 25! 25! I said 25!! Mixed!" We banged outside and stood panting with our paper bag. "God, that was just like an instant trip to the city." Kind of awesome, in a terrifying way.
We sucked up the last of summer and watched as autumn tried to catch us. Gavin demanded his jeans and socks and hoodie, then punched his cousin in the head when she teased him and yanked down his hood. I should not have been proud of him. My jacket smelled like a bar, so I stood shivering in a tank top while we packed the car with Salvo. "I am so done with this cold," I told Gavin. He pulled down his hood and nodded, "Let's get out of here." At the airport, I wrapped in a blanket and sat in the terminal worrying my pockets while Mike hunted for breakfast with Gavin. We sipped coffee, ate chicken, boarded the plane, and were gone. Over the hills and far away.
Up for work at 3:30am. Gavin is methodically cooing over every one of his toy trains he had forgotten he owned, holding them up for me to admire. "The Easter Bunny gave me this one, look, mom! My break-down train, look!" He has been leaping from one thing to the next - trains, cats, grannie - with glee. I'm looking at the full answering machine and piles of moving boxes with resigned dread. Life starts, life waits, life goes on, etc.
We sucked up the last of summer and watched as autumn tried to catch us. Gavin demanded his jeans and socks and hoodie, then punched his cousin in the head when she teased him and yanked down his hood. I should not have been proud of him. My jacket smelled like a bar, so I stood shivering in a tank top while we packed the car with Salvo. "I am so done with this cold," I told Gavin. He pulled down his hood and nodded, "Let's get out of here." At the airport, I wrapped in a blanket and sat in the terminal worrying my pockets while Mike hunted for breakfast with Gavin. We sipped coffee, ate chicken, boarded the plane, and were gone. Over the hills and far away.
Up for work at 3:30am. Gavin is methodically cooing over every one of his toy trains he had forgotten he owned, holding them up for me to admire. "The Easter Bunny gave me this one, look, mom! My break-down train, look!" He has been leaping from one thing to the next - trains, cats, grannie - with glee. I'm looking at the full answering machine and piles of moving boxes with resigned dread. Life starts, life waits, life goes on, etc.
Monday, July 24, 2006
love
I sat in the back seat with Gavin as we drove to North Shore. Rose's mom chatted with Mike in the front, I looked out the window. Although Mike went to the festival last year, I hadn't been along the road since our wedding more than 3 years ago. I saw ghosts along the way, and I loved them: the teenage imprints of the boys and I walking from Kualoa covered head-to-foot in red mosh-pit dirt; my sad 23-year old self sitting at Kaaawa with my small baby jumping in my lap; Mike and Peter running through the surf at Sunset Beach; 17-year old Harris and I, lobbing water balloons at his summer camp near Turtle Bay; Mike the Marine dancing furiously to Irish music and swinging me in circles at the festival when I was 19. And Rose, almost there, a bit of her with us for the day in her wonderful mother.
We went to the opera in the evening. I switched my cocktail order at the last second, and the bartender dumped the liquor from my glass into Mike's before starting over. The people at the opera are amazing to look at. Women with fragile skin and delicate veins against purple velvet and pearls - bodies of all ages and shapes and posture wrapped in their best clothes and really truly beautiful. During the first act, Gavin swayed to the music and went limp in my arms, so long-legged and solid, almost all the baby gone from his sleeping little boy body. We ate at a lovely French restaurant as the crowd flowed out into the evening. Ron was unsuccessful in teaching Gavin to say "merci", but did manage to prompt an enthusiastic chant of "chocolate mousse". I enjoyed the most pretentious Diet Coke of my life, and Mike was surprised to find that he enjoyed the escargot. It made me happy to see my mother cut into the sugar of her creme brulee, one of those small things in life that is as beautiful to see in the dish as it is to see on the face of the person enjoying it. Mike and I examined the photos on headstones as we walked by the dark cemetery, Gavin dangling happily by our hands between us. One of the photos had fallen off and was lost, leaving an empty space that struck us as vastly sad.
On the way home, Gavin reached for my hand and pulled my arm across his lap, resting his cheek on my shoulder, stroking the inside of my elbow and threading his small fingers through mine. Beside us, Mike looked at him, pushed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. I looked at Ron's hand on my mother's knee in the front seat. The small ways we hold together through this fleeting trip.
There's so much love to be had in the world, it is almost too bright to look full in the face.
Me and Rose's mom, after 10 years:
Gavin ponders the graveyard on the way to the King and I at the Hawaii Opera Theater:
Getting with the program:
Gavin's reflections on passing a cemetary...
"All thems is dead?"
"Yes."
"I going die too?"
"Yes, we all will, but we have a lot of life to live before then."
"... I going to hit bad guys, and they die. Hit hit hit, like dat."
"What? Is that what you're going to do when you grow up?"
"Yep. I is. I be a policey man power ranger."
"How will you know who the bad guys are? What do they look like?"
"They has mustaches."
"All of them?"
"Yep, and I has a mustache, too. A biiiig mustache, and I hit them with it. And they fly hiiiigh up and crash! and make a big hole. And I fly after them, ha ha ha."
"Policemen can fly?"
"Yep. Like Superman." [Gavin has never seen Superman movies]
We went to the opera in the evening. I switched my cocktail order at the last second, and the bartender dumped the liquor from my glass into Mike's before starting over. The people at the opera are amazing to look at. Women with fragile skin and delicate veins against purple velvet and pearls - bodies of all ages and shapes and posture wrapped in their best clothes and really truly beautiful. During the first act, Gavin swayed to the music and went limp in my arms, so long-legged and solid, almost all the baby gone from his sleeping little boy body. We ate at a lovely French restaurant as the crowd flowed out into the evening. Ron was unsuccessful in teaching Gavin to say "merci", but did manage to prompt an enthusiastic chant of "chocolate mousse". I enjoyed the most pretentious Diet Coke of my life, and Mike was surprised to find that he enjoyed the escargot. It made me happy to see my mother cut into the sugar of her creme brulee, one of those small things in life that is as beautiful to see in the dish as it is to see on the face of the person enjoying it. Mike and I examined the photos on headstones as we walked by the dark cemetery, Gavin dangling happily by our hands between us. One of the photos had fallen off and was lost, leaving an empty space that struck us as vastly sad.
On the way home, Gavin reached for my hand and pulled my arm across his lap, resting his cheek on my shoulder, stroking the inside of my elbow and threading his small fingers through mine. Beside us, Mike looked at him, pushed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. I looked at Ron's hand on my mother's knee in the front seat. The small ways we hold together through this fleeting trip.
There's so much love to be had in the world, it is almost too bright to look full in the face.
Me and Rose's mom, after 10 years:
Gavin ponders the graveyard on the way to the King and I at the Hawaii Opera Theater:
Getting with the program:
Gavin's reflections on passing a cemetary...
"All thems is dead?"
"Yes."
"I going die too?"
"Yes, we all will, but we have a lot of life to live before then."
"... I going to hit bad guys, and they die. Hit hit hit, like dat."
"What? Is that what you're going to do when you grow up?"
"Yep. I is. I be a policey man power ranger."
"How will you know who the bad guys are? What do they look like?"
"They has mustaches."
"All of them?"
"Yep, and I has a mustache, too. A biiiig mustache, and I hit them with it. And they fly hiiiigh up and crash! and make a big hole. And I fly after them, ha ha ha."
"Policemen can fly?"
"Yep. Like Superman." [Gavin has never seen Superman movies]
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