Confessions of a One-Track Mind

I went over to Mb's Wednesday afternoon and just got back. Am amazed I still have 'net, all the most so because BrightHouse left a pay-or-die tag on my door while I was gone, so I'm taking the opportunity to post while I can.

Sold some jewelery for enough to cover the car tag, although I am somewhat miffed. A charm bracelet I had high hopes for---confirmation present from my rich Aunt Ruth*---turned out to be silver-plated. Frackin worthless!

Had a good time with Mb, although I killed my left little toe on the side of a door frame, and am a mass of mosquito bites from the knees down on both legs. I hope I can find that Benedryl lotion!

We watched the Sons of Anarchyseason premiere together, and are in agreement that it's going to be a helluva ride!

J called me needing something printed. Told her where I was, and Mb oblieged her, although she says it'll cost J---she wants a landslide victory at canasta. (Yeah, good luck with that, I couldn't even win for my birthday!)

Thankfully, I made sure to wash all the dishes in the sink before I left, so fixing dinner won't be a chore. Talk atcha later, I hope....

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* No, really: Rich. She was the only one in the family who was well-heeled: House near a golf course, Franciscanware Dessert Rose china with completer pieces, tons of Hummels, and layers of hand-knotted rugs everywhere in the house. A few European vacations that I know of, and probably other stuff that didn't register on me as a child. Silver-plate? How tacky!

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In the spirit of back-to-school, what is your favorite book that you had to read as a student?

Treasure Island. As far as I'm concerned, that's the ONLY good thing that happened in 6th grade. Our teacher was a 24-karat asshole, I have no other good memories of that year, but the adventures of Jim Hawkins are a shining exception.

What that when my love affair with pirates started? I think so. I know the plot was all fresh to me when I read it, although I'd vaguely heard of Long John Silver in passing. Oh, the suspense as Jim hid in the apple barrel! The humor of Ben Gunn and his craving for cheese! The atmosphere of creaking sails and the scent of gunpowder---one of the enduring classics of literature for a very good reason!

I've seen various adaptations, including Treasure Planet (rather interesting, I thought), but the book is still the best. Although I still have the hardcover I got in 1974, I also have it on my Nook. It deserves to be carried into the future.

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Back in the day, circa 1989, GK got me and a few of the usual suspects into attending Renaissance festivals, and at one of them, we encountered The Chameleon.



We got to see the inventor and his crew demonstrate its versatility, and SBJB, Doc and I all purchased one. (According to J, Doc had more than one, but whatever.) It wasn't what I'd call cheap, either---I seem to recall the ultra-super-plus size I got was about $75, making it one of the priciest garments I've ever owned.

They are NOT one-size-fits-all; according to the gal I bought mine from, they're constructed proportionally, a certain radius for the torso, a certain hexagon size for the correct length...anyway, I got mine ages back, grew out of it, and about ten years ago, when GK got into sewing cloaks and such, I gave her my Chameleon thinking she might be able to expand her repertorie (and possibly make me one that fit).

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, at GK's hotel, when she brought out my old Chameleon and asked if I wanted it back.

I hadn't seen it in eons or had it on in even longer. Purely out of morbid curiousity, I tried it on, and almost had to be revived: IT FITS. (Worked a treat as a nightgown, too.) Yes, my weight has been up and down, but clearly more down than up.

Now if I can just get some of the rust stains off it...I might end up tie-dying it, or at least redying it something more saturated than candy pink....

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What is your best memory of time spent with your father?

This would've been sometime between 1965 and 1967, making me six or seven years old, because I remember riding in the '64 Galaxy we had back then. My dad always had his Rolaids on the red bench seat, and memory conjures up the aqua blue label on the plastic bottle their chalky-mint taste.

One summery evening, we went to the driving range. My dad was an avid golfer, and even had a trophy from the Early Bird League atesting to his prowess.

I remember the route we took to the range, South Ave, which was a wooded two-lane road in those days, and over to Richmond Ave; we came out near the produce place where my Aunt Mary went for veggies. Dad was always finding back roads and shortcuts, a trait that rubbed off on me when I began to drive.

He got his clubs out of the trunk, and went to the little building where he got golf balls to hit. They came in a round metal bucket, 40-50 of them...IDK, I never thought to count. It was only a dollar a bucket, so he often shot a couple of them.

Dad walked down the line to the far end, away from the shack. I sat down on the glass far enough behind him to be out of club's way.

Each swing of the club sent a ball lofting out into the distance. They went so far---I could see that not everyone got that much distance. I always thought Dad must be the best golfer in the world. (Today, watching pro golfers, they seem so effete. Dad's swing walloped that sphere; it wasn't one of those strokes that looks like a wind-up toy.)

That evening, I got a special treat: A dime, to spend in the Coke machine. This was when a dime actually bought something of value, and Coke really tasted like Coke, that brown-sugar undertone that lingered on the palate. Granted, it wasn't a very big bottle---8 or 10 oz, the cute little baby size---but it was something I sseldom if ever got at home. It was fun to open the narrow glass door and pull out the bottle. Then the opener on the side of the machine helped me pop its crinkled cap.

He gave me a dollar to go get another bucket of balls, which made me feel important, walking up to the window with the empty bucket and the bill and exchanging them for a full one.

I know we were there until nearly dark. I don't really remember the drive home. But that evening, sitting on the grass and watching my dad swat golf balls as I savored my Coke---that's a memory that burns brightly in my heart.

(I miss you, Dad!)

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If you ate school lunches as a kid, what menu item did you most dread seeing on the week's menu list? Or, if you more often brought a lunch from home, what did you hope wasn't inside your lunchbox or bag when you opened it up? What made this item so revolting for you?

Mostly, I brown-bagged it. Sometimes I'd have school lunch (You could sign up ahead of time, and I'd nag my mom if there was something "good" on the calendar). I avoided the Salisbury stead, but I adored fish sticks. And it seems to me that the chicken was pretty good. Alas, somewhere around seventh grade, they stopped cooking in the cafeteria and brought in pre-made meals ala TV dinners.

Unfortunately, my mom wasn't terribly inventive when it came to lunch. Peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter! (and jelly). Not every day, but an awful lot. It was years before I could eat peanut butter after grade school! Or, worse, a slice of American cheese between two slices of white bread. Ugh! Nasty yellow wax! Sometimes there'd be leftovers, like a roast beef sandwich, or meatloaf. Those were the good days!

I liked tuna, but she was always worried that it would spoil if the weather was warm. This was long before the days of insulated coller bags and those plastic freezer cubes. I did have a wide-mouth thermos, but it tended to leak, so that didn't get used much.

And now I'm craving fish sticks, which I don't have on hand....

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If you could live one day over without the consequence of changing the future, what day would it be and why?

I had to think about this one for a few minutes. My first reaction was, What the hell would the point be of going back WITHOUT fixing anything? I can think of a few tipping points that could've gone another way, IF ONLY....

A few things surface that I might do differently, but which wouldn't affect the future as far as I know, mostly vacations where I didn't take advantage of some of the opportunites I had, where I didn't go places because I thought they were too "touristy" or didn't take pictures because I thought it would be touristy, hence uncool.

I think I'd pick one of the trips to Lake George (New York) with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Al. I was too young at the time to care if something was touristy; I had fun, it was ALL cool! I'm sure we didn't do it all in one day, but those trips are a happy montage of playing mini-golf, licking cones of soft-serve ice cream, of spin art, the penny arcade and souvenir shopping. We visited Gaslight Village, Fort William Henry and Storytown USA. There were days swimming in the lake, motorboat rides, dinners out. The sound of locusts was a constant whirring accompaniment, but it was never hot---although it cooled down enough at night to need a blanket.

I'd love the chance to spend more time with Mary and Al, both of whom have been gone from this earth for a long, long time. Too, it would be nice to take a vacation without worrying about where the money would come from, which is why I haven't really had one in twenty years. I can't imagine not even glancing at the prices on the menu (although most of the time I ordered a hamburger, so no big deal anyway).

I never used to understand grown-ups saying that someday I'd look back on childhool and think it was great. No, I still haven't gotten to that point, because quite a bit of it SUCKED. But some of it, like those Lake George jaunts were pretty darned wonderful.

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What's the most embarrassing moment you've had to live through? Do you look back at it now and laugh, or do you still cringe when you think of it?

The year was 1989. I'd lost quite a bit of weight over the course of about a year, going from 315 pounds down to 230ish at the lowest. I don't recall *exactly* how much I weighed at the time of this incident, but it was somewhere on the sunny side of 250.

I was working the night shift at an answering service, and frequently stopped at one convenience store or another to pick up a cold caffeinated beverage on the way in to work (Start time, 11PM).

At the time, I didn't have a washing machine at my house, and I hadn't been to the laundromat for a while...long enough to be down to the rattiest of the old panties at the bottom of the drawer.

So there I was at like, 10:45 at night, back near the cooler grabbing a big ol' Diet Coke, when the saggy, stretched-out panties succumbed to gravity and dropped down around my ankles without any prompting from me.

I was the only one in the store, not in line-of-sight of the cashier, but I had a feeling that trying to retrieve my undies might have made me a tad conspicuous. I abandoned them, paid for my drink, and got the hell out of there. I felt awfully drafty that night at work, but nobody noticed,or if they did, they didn't say anything to me. I blush to think of what whoever found those raggedy drawers thought!

It was probably about 15 years before I went into that particular convenience store again. I've also learned to cull my lingerie before it gets THAT bad.

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Today's mail brought a manila envelope from GK. Got a sheaf of EW covers starring Johnny Depp, an article about Boston-based mystery writers, and a bunch of photos from 1986 through 1998. The photos were mind-bending. My reaction to most of them was OMG, WTF are you wearing?!

As much as I would like to chalk some of it up to bad camera angles, peach shorts ovr a black swimsuit is never going to be picturesque in a good way. (September 1st, 1986)

Another *major* WTF was of a dress that I got as a hand-me-down from a co-worker at the answring service. It's a white tee-shirt dress painted with abstract pink flowers and green stems and adorned with what looks like giant silver dragees. Dreadful---but what's worse, I still have it, albeit in a pile of stuff to Go Away. Circa 1990.

The one that stirred up the most agita, though, was of me in a certain turquoise shirtwaist dress. I got it, new with tagws, from Susie, who'd gotten it from Lane Bryant, tried it on, and it was absurdly too big for her. I said it looked like I could wear it; she took it off and told me if it fit, I could have it---and it did. I wore it when I interviewed and got the answering service job, February 1988.

It fit well at the time. I gained weight, the waist stretched out, I kept wearing it...I wore the hell out of that thing. And even when it was toward the end of its days, I got compliments on it. It was a good color for me.

In the photo, dated January 1993, I'm sitting in one of those white plastic stacking chairs. There's a Christmas tree with a mountain of still-wrapped gifts in the background. In the foreground, I've got my hands clasped across my sloping Buddha belly, like I'm trying to stop myself from melting.

Christmas 1997 and 1998. Several shots feature me posing in a long leopard-print chiffon scarf. GK gave it to me for Christmas 1997, and I loved it. Wore it to tatters, I did. It's probably still kicking around here, although I've gotten a similar one in better shape. Gal's gotta have her leopard-print!

One thing I will say: Having grown the color out of my hair, I really did look better blonde. I may have to go back to tinting it, because it looks very dull as it is.

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I didn't actually get to sleep last night til after midnight. Then my eyes popped open around 4:30 and refused to let me go back to sleep. Swell.

That did give me a chance to get somewhat caught up on my DVR trove. Yesterday's Adam-12s (two eps back-to-back) were both from 1974/75*. One had a female!police!officer! riding with Reed because Malloy was filling on for Mack, who was busy on assignment elsewhere. She was played by JoAnne Pflug, one of those 70s names I haven't heard in ages. Lots of chauvinism and having to prove herself. Someday, I'm going to do some Adam-12 meta on then and now. It's coming; I can feel it.

The second ep featured Reed partnered with a rookie (again, Malloy was subbing for Mack...wait, that just sounds wrong), and I yelped when I recognized the kid as a baby-faced, 24 y.o. Mark Harmon. That's easily the youngest I've ever seen him, and he didn't even sound like I'm used to. According to IMDb, that was only his third acting credit, after Emergency and something called Ozzie's Girls.

I suspect there's an afternoon nap in my future, if not sooner.

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* Depending on whether you believe the copyright date on the credits (1974), or IMDb (1975).

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I remember an episode of "The Flintstones from a million years ago, where the gang thought Fred had some kind of sleeping sickness, and they had to keep him awake for 24 hours, because if he fell asleep, he'd never wake up. (Except it was actually Dino who was sick, and he could sleep all he wanted---but I digress.)

Right now, I'm feeling rather Fred-like. Over the last few weeks in particular, my sleep schedule has run amok, to the point where "bedtime" has been around noon, and I sleep til evening. I managed to shift it around a little yesterday, to the point where I woke up before 7AM today. Now, I'm endeavoring to stay awake until 10PM or thereabout.

At the moment, my brains have the higher functions of a bowl of custard. I want to get horizontal and snooze, to hell with how out-of-sync I am with the rest of the world. I crave sleep. NOW.

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I'm still feeling codswalloped by BC's passing. This morning, NJ and Stellar (their daughter) turned up on my doorstep mere minutes after I'd crawled out of bed. She wanted to make sure I'd heard and bring me up to speed. No viewing. Cremation, and a memorial service in June when GK is in town. NJ says she isn't up to planning anything at the moment, and I'm in sympathy with that. This way, everyone gets to grieve privately for a while, then we'll have the memorial/a family get-together and closure.

Per her, the medical examiner should have answers in a few days, but apparently he'd been vomiting the night before. He hadn't complained of any pain, and according to NJ, he was sleeping on his stomach, so I'm wondering if he might have vomited again and aspirated it? She was there at the time, though, and says he was quiet. IDK.

I called BigRed at work after they left---we were all in school together---and broke the news. I didn't want to do it over the weekend, because I know she participates in her church choir and didn't want to sandbag her in case she had a performance. She was shocked, but not surprised, which seems to be the consensus.

In the middle of all this, I found out that the post office has been returning my mail. I went down there a little while ago, and they've agreed to give me til Saturday to get the new box installed. (No pressure, or anything.) They'll hold everything til then, which is good; I have a skirt and some books coming.

To try to tone down all this bleakness a smidge, here's a vid for a song that BC loved. I remember him introducing me to it back in the day, in the apartment he and NJ were in when they got married, circa 1984-85. Favorite line: "The sign said clearance to the 12' line, but the chickens were stacked up 13-9...."




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Today was a quiet day for the most part. Then, a little while ago, I got an email from GK letting me know that this morning, her brother BC passed away in his sleep. Exact cause unknown; because it occured at his home, there will be an autopsy, but he was morbidly obese, had sleep apnea and heart attacks run in his family. He was 51--would've been 52 next week.

I feel really unsettled by this. I don't know that I would go so far as to call it grief, because it's years since we've been close, but there is definitely a hole in my universe. We go clear back to our mutual senior year of high school. He took me to senior prom, with NJ's (his then-girlfriend-now-widow's) permission.

We hung out; we saw a lot of movies, often with NJ, and the only drive-in movie I ever went to was with BC. (It was a double feature of High-Ballin' and Smokey and the Bandit.) It was always platonic, because I wouldn't do that shit to a girlfriend---but his family became my family as mine disappeared. He's the one who introduced me to S, and through her, to J.

In a daisy-chain of events, my friendship with BC has led me to where I am now. It was baby-sitting his kids that got me into comics, gaming and LARPing, which is how I met Mb. My phone career was initiated when S's SIL told me they were hiring at the answering service she worked for. Mb and I met through gaming, and realized that we both worked at the directory assistance call center. Then it was her who told me about the opening at the medical billing service.

I have so many memories of BC over the years, good and bad. The way he lived on peanut butter sandwiches and root beer the time his parents left him alone one weekend. His first computer, one of those cheapo Texas Instruments jobbies that you had to hook up to a TV for a monitor and a tape recorder as a hard-drive. His passion for Star Trek: TOS (Spock was his high school nickname), and how his dream job for a few years was at the local planetarium. Being at KSC to watch the first shuttle launch.

The less pleasant memories...I don't have the original Latin version, but there's a saying: Of the dead, say only what is good. He had his faults, but they're moot now.

He wasn't religious in the least, but I'm pretty sure he leaned toward agnostic rather than atheist. I don't know how he imagined the Hereafter, but I seriously doubt harps and halos figured into it. I think, if the "many mansions" of Heaven are reflections of our ambitions, that he coalesced in a cloud of sparkles onto a teleporter pad, ready to go on to some great adventure in a distant galaxy.

Good-bye, Bryan. Rest in Peace.

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God, I feel so old.

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Mb and I went to return some books at the library Tuesday evening, and she told me about the plot of hers, where one of the characters was motivated by something "unfair" that happened in their childhood. It reminded me of something that happened 40-odd years ago which has bugged me all this time.

My sainted Aunt Mary took me with her on a visit to her cousin in New Jersey. I'd been there before over the years, and was acquainted with the cousin's family and had met the neighbor kids. The kids next door to the cousin had a wading pool. Just a dinky little above-ground kiddy pool, nothing fancy, but more than I had at home.

So, I was over there in the pool, and the kids who owned the pool were really possessive about sharing their pool toys. They'd let me hold one for a short minute, then demand it back. I was keenly aware of the unfairness of this; I wasn't hurting it.

The way I was raised, if I had a visitor who wanted to play with something of mine, I let them, because I could play with it any time. I guess not everyone got that message.

Yes, I can carry a grudge like nobody's business over all kinds of piddly shit.

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I may have grumped about J from time to time, but I hereby take it all back. When I came over this evening, she had a surprise for me.

Now, she's been hinting for the last couple weeks that Something Was Coming, and that I would never, ever guess what it was.

Well, she was right.

I squeed like mad when she produced Season One of Adam-12. OMG, TALK about a blast from the past! Growing up, my standard Saturday night viewing was Adam-12, Emergency!, Mission: Impossible and Mannix.

We watched the first two eps tonight---a very young Cloris Leachman was in one ep, and Melody Patterson also showed up. (Oh, this is going to be fun!) I'd forgotten how baby-faced Kent McCord was...mmm-mmmm! And I think it's amusing how men's grooming has finally come full-circle to clean-cut once again....

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I miss summer vacations. When I was a kid, Lake George (upstate NY) was a recurring destination. We stayed at a variety of motels over the years...ate at an assortment of restaurants. (I couldn't really tell you about any of the restaurants, though, since in those days all I ever ordered was a hamburger.) Aside from swimming in the lake, we'd go into town in the evening...typial little resort town with a bunch of souvenir shops on the main drag. There was a spin-art booth, which I loved to do, right across from a place called The Trading Post, where I enlarged my collection of Breyer horses (still have some of them!).

Down the block was an ice cream parlor, right next to an arcade. Yes, they had arcades before the advent of video games! Mostly pinball, some skee ball, stamping pennies with The Lord's Prayer...they even had a booth where you could record your own 45 record. I tried it once---the resulting disk is around here somewhere.

There were a bunch of attractions. Fans of the Daniel Day-Lewis version of The Last of the Mohicans may remember mention of Ft William Henry...the movie was filmed in the Carolinas, but the real fort is on the shores of Lake George. Although these days it's got a mini golf course with a thirty-foot tall Paul Bunyan next to it.

My particular favorite was Gaslight Village, a now-defunct amusement park with a "gay 90s"* theme. The 1890s are an era I wouldn't mind visiting. In those days, gals with my figure were prized! Anyway, Gaslight Village had Victorian-style architecture and what was billed as the oldest carousel in America and I loved wandering around looking at the exhibit of ladies' fashion and the arcade.

We'd go back to the motel, and no matter how warm it might have gotten during the day, at night it would cool down enough to need a blanket. Sounds wonderful!

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*So-called for the general merriment of the times, nothing to do with anything slashy.


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Had a guest speaker at church today who was very good. The topic was "June Bugs", and it was a light-hearted talk about how things that "bug" us can keep us from attaining inner peace.

Considering the generally evil mood I've been in of late, it struck home. I have enough heavy-duty shit going on that I shouldn't let myself get so wound up about rotten drivers and sundry superfluous bullshit. *breathe in, breathe out, breathe...*

Why is it that when I'm flipping channels and run across a movie I've seen umpteen times, even if I actually own it on DVD, I'll stop and watch it, commercials and all? It happened twice today. How many times have I seen Flight of the Phoenix (the remake). A bunch. Enough that I've written four fanfics for it. And I *still* get all choked up and dewy-eyed at the ending.

Also came across Jumpin' Jack Flash, 1986, Whoopie Goldberg's first film...and had a shitstorm of nostalgia about the first time I saw it. 1986 was the year after my dad died...I was between jobs, with money to fall back on, and one fine day, I showed up at Susie's around noon, and somehow, she talked me into doing Southern Comfort shots with her. Between that and a few puffs, pretty soon we were feeling no pain.

We both liked Whoopie from her HBO specials, and we wanted to see her movie, but we were sane enough to realize we shouldn't be driving. So we called Susie's mom and promised to pay her way and buy her lunch afterward if she'd drive us to the theater.

I was entertained. When we got out, we went to Susie's mom's favorite restaurant, a Chinese joint called the Rickshaw, which has since closed, alas. They did an excellent egg foo yung, and ours had just gotten to the table when Susie turned green and bolted from the restaurant. Her mother and I enjoyed our meals while Susie took refuge in the car, occasionally yarking out onto the asphalt. I was fine, but then, I had eight inches and about fifty pounts on her.

She had a job a year or so later, showing model homes in a ritzy new development. She got bounced because she kept a bottle of Bailey's in her desk, she *said* to offer guests. (Which even then I thought was a crummy excuse: All the customer would need to renege on a deal would be to say the saleswoman got them drunk....) Bailey's in her coffee was a favorite, but her alcohol dependence didn't surface for another couple of decades, and by then, it was mixed up with hormones (from going through the change), digestive problems from TWO gastric bypass surgeries (she ate her way back up after the first one), and a massive Ambien habit (which is why everyone was sure she'd OD'ed). And because she was such a special snowflake, Susie never thought she had a problem; there was always someone or something else to blame for her difficulties.

Oh, the pet peeves I could list about Susie! But what good would it do? How does that old proverb go? "Of the dead, speak only what was good."? Something along those lines. Much easier to do with an angel like Kat, whose death wasn't unexpected; the issues were all resolved, and besides, she was an angel.

Susie's death was sudden; nothing was resolved, and she was surely no angel. Still, she was smart and funny and could be generous. If everyone creates their own heaven, I imagine her zooming down the road to the Florida Keys in a convertable with the top down. She's wearing a flirty little tropical print sundress. Jimmy Buffet is blasting on the stereo, and the car is populated with all the dogs she loved: Macs and Stormy and Mariah and Grover that I know of. The dogs all lean out the windows, eagerly sniffing the sea breeze, Whereever Susie is, I really hope she's at peace.

My curfew was the street lights and mom didn't call my cell, she yelled "time to come in". I played outside with friends, not online. If I didn't eat what my mom made me then I didn't eat. Hand sanitizer didn't exist, but you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap, and your butt spanked. Repost if you drank water out of a hose and survived.


Ganked from jagfanlj
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