Afterthoughts

This morning I woke up in a fog. Literally, for once. I couldn't see the garage from the back door. I feared for the invisible squirrels out in the yard when I let the invisible dog out. Invisible birds twittered high in invisible branches.

The drive to my daughter's school was Kafkaesque. Car headlights materialized in the mist like the eyes of humongous animals, school buses were mastodons looming.

"They should've called off class," mused my daughter, then, "music on," and she disappeared into iPodland.

Announcing that she was about to disappear into iPodland was my daughter's way of being nice. She was being nice because it's my birthday. I felt positively giddy with such a reprieve, however short-lived.

Which certainly doesn't describe me. I'm about as long-lived as you can get and still remember that you are. My husband has reminded me that I am, once again, a prime number. I ain't saying which one, jack, only that it is. I'm taking this as proof that I'm still in the prime of life.

Dream on, she mused foggily.

But it's my birthday and I'm trying to think good thoughts. That seems fair.

Except life isn't fair, as we all know, and I'm haunted by images of Norm Coleman and dead horses and murdered pigs and the Housekeeper, who's due down on the first floor any second.

Question: "Is Norm Coleman actually a ventriloquist's dummy?"

The Housekeeper belongs to a church which believes wives should subjugate themselves to their husbands because, as we all know, Eve was an afterthought created from Adam's rib. The Housekeeper had to ask the church for permission to date-and-marry her particular Adam because both of them had been married before.

Question: "Does that make the Housekeeper a sparerib?"

I'm trying a new thing with the Housekeeper, earplugs. It's not about the noise, it's about the invasion of my personal space, namely, my brain. I reserve the right to invade my brain with enemies of my own choosing, thankyouverymuch.

Question: "Who's to blame for the swine flu?"

Answer: "Carnivores."

As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to murder and devour pigs -- or cows or chickens or sheep or swordfish or your neighbor's manservant -- then you deserve to suffer the same. Decrease the surplus population, I say.

So shoot me.

Except, not today. Today I've earned a reprieve. It's my birthday. And I'm prime rib.

All I Have

My husband thinks I make shit up.

Like when we first met. I told him I used to be a famous local culture hero. That George Thorogood once invited me to his backstage party. That I spent New Years Eve 1977 stoned at the LA Forum with Bonnie Raitt.

Shit like that.

Okay. Maybe the storylines are adjusted a bit. Like my mother-in-law's recipe for "adjusted southern eggs." I really love that dish. Which is what my husband used to say about me. Now all I get are cracks about leftovers.

Like that old Joan Rivers joke about greeting her husband at the door dressed in nothing but Saran Wrap in an effort to spice up their sex life. Her husband looks at her and says, "What, leftovers again?"

Like that.

So. Ever since I've known my husband, I've been talking about this certain song. A song from the Old Days. From my wild and woolly youth up on the wild and woolly Iron Range. The year is 1966. I'm sixteen years old, walking home in the rain, carrying a brand new 45 in my purse.

Not a gun, bub. A record.

(FYI: in the Old Days people used to have hi-fi record players, which stood for high fidelity. Some people had stereos, but they lived in New York. The hi-fis most people had were equipped to play albums, which ran at 33-1/3rpm. Smaller records with singles on them ran at 45rpm and required a plastic insert to adjust the size so they could be played on a hi-fi turntable.)

Which is probably how my husband feels after twenty-five years (a quarter of a century!), that someone somewhere turned the tables on him.

Anyway. There I am, walking home in the rain, singing the song off the record I just bought at Woolworth's.

When I first heard this song, I was smitten. Besotted. Sick with longing. This song was me. I wanted to be this song. I wanted to devour it. I wanted to live it. You know the feeling. At night I'd clip my Rocket Radio to the bedframe and search for WEBC. After school I'd sneak my sister's transistor, on Saturdays I'd camp out in front of my parents' old tube radio with the little red light on top.

I came of age in the days of CT (Caveman Technology). No wonder I have trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of an iPod. What the fuck is an iPod anyway? When I was a kid I walked ten miles to school with hunters taking potshots at me and misogynists in hardhats trying to run me over with Euclids! Did I mention the Rocket Radio?

Meanwhile, in amongst the Beatles and Herman's Hermits and Mitch Ryder and ? and the Mysterians, there was, for me, this other song. The one that was so totally utterly completely me. The one I still remember, word-for-word, deep in my ears and heart, all these long years later. The song no one else seems to remember hearing! It's true. Everyone I've ever asked has never heard of this song.

My husband, of course, being foremost.

My husband doesn't believe me about this song. He thinks I made it up. After all, I used to be a famous local singer-songwriter, I told him, so maybe I wrote the song myself, he thinks. My husband also has his doubts about the singer-songwriter bit, except I've threatened to produce actual witnesses (if I can find one still living), so he's eased off.

One of the reasons my husband doesn't believe me about this song is because he's one of Those Guys. You know the type:

My husband knows the name of every band, the name of every player in that band, the name of every player who was ever in that band, and the names of any other bands any of those players might have played with. He knows the name of every song on every album that band made. He knows the name of every album and what cover art was used and where and with whom it was produced. Not only that, my husband remembers the date and place of every concert he ever attended and who he attended it with and which songs were played and in what order.

Okay. Maybe that storyline is adjusted a bit. But I couldn't recall a fraction of this kind of shit if my life depended on it.

The only thing my husband can't remember is song lyrics. Can you believe that? He can't remember the fucking words! The words were the only things that ever mattered to me! I was one of those! Which is another reason my husband has never believed me about the song I'm referring to: all I ever remembered were the words. Name of the band? label? lead singer? Nada. But do you want me to sing the words again?

To quote another singer I don't know from some band I can't recall on some album I don't remember in lord-knows-what year,

"Words are all I have to take your heart away."

Being of a CT background, I'm a little slow on the uptake. It never occurred to me that the answer to this decades-long conundrum regarding that Song of my Youth was right here at my fingertips. Then, just last week, after listening to Susan Boyle on YouTube for the five-hundredth time, a lightning bolt struck. Could it be? Was it possible? I only had the words, but maybe, just maybe...

So. This one's for you. You know who you are. I'm turning the tables on you again. I'm sitting right here, watching you read this, raising my glass. I've waited a quarter of a century for this. During which time, I would hope you'd agree, I've tried to take good care of your heart, the one I took away all those long years ago.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPZVrmJ2HH8

Seige

I'm on the third floor hiding from the Housekeeper. I can hear her hoovering up the evil that wafts through my house like tumbleweed. The Housekeeper, you may recall, is an FC*.

I'm hiding because she keeps breaking things -- an Italian hand-painted egg cup, the pelican paperweight on my kitchen windowsill, a 100-year-old child's teapot -- and I'm feeling guilty. As in, why do I possess such useless flotsam when there's a War going on?

The Housekeeper told me about this War a few weeks ago, when she caught me at a vulnerable moment. A moment made vulnerable compliments of the resident 13-year-old.

"There's a War going on," she said. The Housekeeper, not the 13-year-old. I nodded vaguely, thinking of the Mideast.

"An Army of Evil surrounds us," she said, looking around the living room, "we're in the midst of it."

If that's true, then this woman's Oreck is an AK-47. She handles that baby like Sigourney Weaver in "Alien." Which is how she sees me no doubt. Nothing new there. I've been alienated since I was old enough to sit up by myself.

When our father died, my sister and I spent the night before his funeral crying into our Pinot Grigio, looking through old photographs. After a few hours one thing became clear (as others became progressively fuzzier): the look on my face in those old photos could bring down a rhino. Make that a Hummer. There I am -- four years old, nine years old, fifteen years old -- scowling into the camera like a dark knight working out troop maneuvers, while various and sundry Scandinavians smile their little beige hearts out beside me.

At midnight my sister and I started making up word balloons to put over my head:

"What do these people put in their orange juice to make them smile like this?"

"I know that guy behind the camera from somewhere...but where?...where?"

"As soon as this is over I'm going back to the orphanage."

I was a stranger in a strange land, in the midst of my own family. Now I feel the same, in the midst of my own house.

I try to think of ways to sneak down to the kitchen for more coffee, but the Housekeeper is everpresent. Like God. My dog lies in wait at the top of the stairs like a gargoyle. My dog doesn't like the Housekeeper, she gives her wide berth. If my dog happens to be out in the yard when the Housekeeper arrives, she won't come in unless I make her a grilled cheese sandwich. The dog, not the Housekeeper.

This is bringing out my inner Edie Beale. I can envision staying up here until my daughter leaves for college, ordering in Dominos and Netflix, blogging about it ad nauseum until my computer explodes. I can throw the dog shit out the window, have my husband rig a pulley system for reeling up essentials like wine and mascara. I think I remember most of my Jane Fonda exercise video. No sense letting myself go.

She's taken the first floor landing now, I'll have to call for reinforcements. Except the cat's in the sauna and my cellphone's in the kitchen, charging. Now she's charging up to the second floor. The Housekeeper, not the cellphone. The dog's hackles are rising like a white flag. That's it, my only option is surrender. Stash the empties from last night and try to sneak past while her back is turned. Except the element of surprise might work against me. Too many glass items in the second floor bathroom.

I'm in a quandary, I need a new battle plan. There's only one option: watch Susan Boyle again. Followed by a couple more times. Like the Cowardly Lion, I could use a dose of courage. After all, there's a War going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

(*Fundamentalist Christian, Fucking Christian, take your pick.)

(Taking a break...

...back next week)

Nice Work If You Can Get It

You know about staging a house you're trying to sell, right? Reduce clutter, bake bread, clean the toilets. Here's a new one: staged neighborhood.

Say the homes in a particular new development aren't selling. Economy in freefall, foreclosures rampant, you get the drift. In an attempt to pump up sales and entice prospective new home-buyers -- who might, understandably, be reluctant to move into a ghost town -- the entire neighborhood is "staged."

Temporary landscaping is trucked in, empty houses are filled with signs of life (furniture, plants, food in the cupboards, bread in the oven), and -- here's the best part -- actors are hired to impersonate nearby homeowners and neighbors.

Did you miss that? Actors are hired to impersonate actual people.

Try wrapping your brain around it: a prospective buyer is brought in for a walk-through, and all around them actors are seen mowing lawns, walking dogs, barbecuing, jogging. Some are engaged in drive-bys: errand-running, leaving-for-or-returning-from-working, soccer-momming. Child actors are employed to impersonate children playing, and their older counterparts, presumably, to impersonate teenagers making all the other actors around them feel like shit.

Do you suppose the dogs are also considered professionals, likewise the potted plants?

In some extreme cases -- and this is the biggest mindfuck of all -- house-hunting clients are invited to attend block parties (all actors), local church services (completely fictitious, but don't get me started on that one) and organized ball games (again, entirely staged).

All to create the illusion of an active, vibrant community. Move over, Rod Serling.

The obvious question is how, precisely, this...let's call it "situation"...differs from any other suburban development in the good ol' US of A. I mean, do you really think those are actual people living out there in all that sprawl? Who in their right mind would want to live like that? At least the actors in a staged neighborhood can go home at the end of the day. Home being, one assumes, elsewhere.

But what's really fucking with my psyche is this: how do I know that my own life isn't being staged? Are these really my neighbors? Is the pizza delivery guy actually some ingenue from central casting? After all, it's a different guy every time. And what about that person behind the counter at the liquor store? Or the mail carrier? Is this my actual mail? Who's that dog barking? Are those real birds? And how much would you have to pay a baby actor to scream like that?

The fact that my life has been staged would explain alot. For instance, why am I such a deadbeat? a hasbeen? a slacker? It's all staging! My lack of success has been written into the script! Every neighborhood needs a character like me...so here I am! Fulfilling my civic duty.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just here in a supporting role for the broad next door. Or those jerks across the alley who cut down the trees so they could grow asparagus and then moved to Canada. Half of Vancouver probably turned up for that casting call. Or maybe we're all just here for the dogs. Maybe it's their show. I mean, somebody has to pick up the shit and fill the water bowls.

The good news is that the practice of staging entire neighborhoods isn't exactly an epidemic. Mostly it happens in California and Florida. Oh really? Nothing odd ever happens in those places. Still, wouldn't you love to impersonate a fly on the wall when one of those new home-buyers wakes up in her new tomb of a neighborhood the next morning? Talk about blackout.

"Er, honey...exactly how much champagne did we have last night?"

It's hard to believe something as surreal as staged neighborhoods actually exists. At first I didn't believe it. But I live in the USA (also I heard it on NPR) so it must be true.