A Summer's Rain

I stood on the porch and flicked the ashes of my cigarette into the cedar chips. I watched the runoff from the eaves beat the ashes into the ground.

I was overtaken by the urge to run naked through the rain. I decided against this -- not for the fear of exposing my body to the eyes of the neighbors but for fear they'd think I was crazy. They'd think I'd had too much wine. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I had had too much wine, but there was something about the thought of the warm water beating against my flesh. Something about forgetting my problems and inhibitions. Something that I just could not resist.

I stuck my foot out into the downfall and thought -- no one could think like this and not write.

So, instead of frolicking drenched through the neighborhood, I found a pen.

A Word on Religion or God Pisses Me Off

God pisses me off.



Maybe I should rephrase that: People who believe in God piss me off.



Let's try this again: People who believe in God and try to push their beliefs on me, piss me off.



There is nothing more awkward than having a believer initiating a conversation in which they seem to assume that all other participants have the same beliefs. Newsflash: Not everyone agrees with your philosophy. Even bigger newsflash: Just because I sit here nodding doesn't mean I believe in your philosophy; it just means that I have learned my lesson about speaking about religion when outnumbered amongst Christians. And yes, I do mean to single out Christians. I've never had a Hindu or a Buddhist try to convert me. To be honest, however, I've mainly been surrounded by Christians.

I don't care if you believe in God. I don't care if you don't believe in God. I don't even care if you're not sure if you do or do not believe in God.

So, why do Christians feel the need to care about what I believe?



I've had a few God interventions over the years. The kind of sit-down-let's-discuss-what-you-should-believe discussions that no one should have to endure. Ever. They're uncomfortable. They're accusatory. They're not effective. If anything, I'll dig my heals in even harder and get offended.



How does that help your cause?

I'm not saying I'm not open to discussing religion. In fact, I find religion extremely interesting, and Christian ideology is based on good ideas, for the most part anyway. Love, redemption, forgiveness, how could that go awry? In fact, I used to be very strong in my Christian faith, but it seemed the more exposure I had to the world, the more my eyes opened and the more my heart closed to blind faith. Who determines which religion is truth and which is gullibility?

Let me know if you want to grab coffee and discuss theologies of the world, but please don't start quoting the Bible at me or I may retaliate with something like this.

Heeeeeere's Johnny...

I feel like that guy from The Shining.

You know, the guy who gets possessed by the evil hotel and tries to kill his family.

Yeah, that guy.

I'm not actually contemplating chasing my family around with a hatchet, but this snow is making the cabin fever almost unbearable. One minute it's mud and chirping birds the next it's frozen tundra and plow trucks. How can Mother Nature expect us all to keep our sanity?

I bet there's a rise in institutionalization this time of year (side note: that is one HELL of a fabulous word). Someone should do a study on that subject instead of the stupid ones I read about on yahoo or MSN. The ones that spend an obscene amount of money to tell us that Twinkies make us fat or texting and driving is dangerous. Waste money on something that informs me, not something that sucks all the joy out of my life.

It's amazing how people forget how to drive in snow within a matter of weeks. The road warriors suddenly are slipping and sliding and trying to run me over. Of course then there's me driving like a grandma in my grandma-esque vehicle. Maybe I should start slouching and wearing a curly grey wig when I drive. Then I can should obscenities out the window and other motorists will just think I'm crazy. Maybe they'll think I'm crazy anyway.

I sure feel crazy. All I want to do is go for walks after work, clean out the bird feeder, sit at my backyard table, dig in the dirt, and not freeze my ass off. It's like the last couple of weeks were just a teaser and we're never, EVER, going to see the sun, again.

Stupid snow.

Stupid winter.

Stupid insanity.

Don't call the authorities. I'm not literally feeling homicidal, however, I may scrawl "REDRUM" in crimson lipstick on the mirror in the office bathroom tomorrow just to see how coworkers react.

I love Journey... there I said it... on the Internet, so it must be true

And Whitesnake, too, for that matter.

I have a lot of "loves" in my life that I'm ashamed to admit.

I love reading Dear Prudence weekly on MSN.
I love Glee.
I love to hit my snooze button a minimum of 3 times per morning.
I love Elton John.
I love Cosmopolitan Magazine.
I love the cookie of the month at Glen's.
I love daydreaming.
I love reading celebrity fashion disasters online.
I love reading only the police/crime/court section of the Midland Daily News.
I love reading only the opinion section of the Gaylord Herald Times online.
I love movies that are stupid and just make me laugh.
I love to read my old journals.
I love 80s rock ballads.
I love the smell of gasoline.
I love to peel glue off my fingers.
I love to down the last bit of cold coffee in my cup like a shot of booze.
I love to stamp random papers with my entered or faxed ink stamp. Repeatedly.
I love to pretend I know what I'm talking about.
I love driving downstate pretending I'm going on a grand adventure.
I love dumping laundry, warm out of the dryer onto my bed then burrowing under it.
I love talking to my animals.
I love when my animals talk back.
I love talking to myself.
I love when myself talks back.
I love giving people nicknames in my head.
I love making things clean.
I love the show Cops.
I love living in my own head sometimes.
I love planning trips to Europe when I'm bored.
I love spying on my neighbors.
I love singing in my livingroom.
I love pretending I have a very busy evening planned when all it consists of is catching up on Hulu but not wanting to be bothered.
I love leaving funny voicemails/texts for my girls to relive funny memories.
I love fried food. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.
I love having wine after work.
I love accomplishing the most minor of tasks.
I love plucking my eyebrows.
I love going to bed in clean sheets after a shower.
I love the smell of my attic.
I love traveling alone and making up stories about who I am.
I love pretending I know what's going on when I have absolutely no idea.
I love a sincere thank you.
I love a sincere appology.
I love a sincere I love you.

How I Spent a Saturday Night

I found an acordion file in the top of my closet tonight. A file I haven't thought about for years. In it, I found late high school and early college writings. Some formal -- some not. I have to say I had the best time reading through my treasures.

Why?

I was able to go back to a time where I was totally naive and genuine. I honestly believed that all people were good and took them at their word. A time before I became guarded and suspicious. A time where I was so open and honest it's almost embaressing.

It was great.

I was a letter writer in high school. Maybe I would still be a letter writer if e-mail and social networking hadn't already destroyed me {see previous blog}. There is something beautiful about receiving a handwritten letter -- misspellings and all. I knew how I felt about people I loved, and I had no hesitation about telling them so.

I found a copy of a letter that I sent to Charlton Heston {of all people, right?} about a teacher I had. This teacher was a great friend to me, and I wanted to find a special way to thank him for everything he had done. Knowing he practically worshiped the ground Heston walked on, I wrote a letter asking for an autographed picture or some other momento to give him. The letter I wrote was beautiful. I'm not saying that as the author because there were so many mispellings and comma splices I'm horrified to even think about it, but it was a very sincere, heat-felt piece. I never thought twice about writing or sending it.

What happens to that?

I have many beautiful friends. People who are my family, not by DNA, but by choice. Why is it that a decade ago, I felt compelled to put pen to paper and tell people I loved them, but now I just assume they know it? Why is it that I never sit down and eloquently put my thoughts into words so people will know that I love them?

I really don't feel that I'm the only one in this situation. Why is it that as we grow older, we become more synical? If anything, shouldn't we become more intent on telling people what they mean to us as we become more and more mortal in our own minds? At 16 I thought I'd never die. Now that I'm in my mid 20's {I couldn't bring myself to type late 20's... I'm just not ready for that} I realize that life is fleeting and precious yet I take it for granted more than I ever did in my younger years.

Maybe that should be my resolution for 2010: Have the heart I had 10 years ago. Minus the teenage drama, of course.

The Best Opening Line EVER

“Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself a beetle.”

Imagine waking up one morning to find that you’ve transformed, unbeknownst to you, into a beetle. An ugly, hairy, nasty looking beetle. Worse than that, your own family tries to kill you. An apple gets lodged in his back that eventually begins to rot. So, not only did he wake up a creepy crawly, his very own family wants to squish him.

Pretty sure there's not enough therapy in the world for that.

I’d like to think if I woke up a bug one day, my mom would stear me towards the nearest garbage can or compost heap and tell me to eat my heart out. That's of course after she stopped screaming and peeing her pants when a 5'5 beetle showed up on her doorstep. She may be my mother, but that's enough to freak anyone out -- even the woman who has evicted spiders for me for nearly 30 years.

I don’t really fear waking up a bug, however, since I’m fairly convinced that Kafka made the whole thing up. Although, I keep an open mind about what the human body is capible of achieving.

Melancholy makes me post sappy stuff

I thought about calling my dad today. It's been snowing for days, and nobody appreciates a good snow story quite like my dad.

I think about calling him all the time. There are so many things that I think he will find funny. There are so many times I want to call him for advice -- like when my car makes funny noises or my drain makes funny smells. Things only a dad knows how to fix.

I think about him every day. I feel as if so many waking moments of my life are spent thinking about him... about us... about the end. I relive it all. Over. And over. And over again.

Did I do what I should have done? Did I really try my best? Did I really do what was right?

I know in my heart of hearts that I did, however, I doubt myself. It's what I'm good at. I doubt every decision I made.

I'm going to post a piece I wrote for a writing workshop I took with Wade Rouse in November. I hope it's part of a series in a memoir. Not sure how that's going to piece itself together quite yet, but, I'm working on it.

Here it goes...

"Okay Dad, I guess maybe we should have a talk. That's what people do in times like these, right?"

It was a beautiful June day. The sun was shining and the drive was gorgeous from Gaylord. A perfect day for taking Dad's Jeep and rocking a little "Freebird." The sound system in the Jeep was awesome for driving down the highway. "Freebird" blaring was awesome for driving down the highway, too.

"I'm glad we finally have some time alone. We haven't really been able to sit down like this -- just you and me."

I found my great-aunt's cabin -- the one that's been in our family seemingly forever on a dirt road overlooking Lake Geneva. Hence the cabin's name "Lakeview."

It's a place where the children in our family caught their first fish, saw their first elk, and rowed their first boat. My parents even honeymooned at Lakeview. I thought it was real wilderness when I was small. Dirt roads only exist in the middle of nowhere, right?

I sat on the bench overlooking the swimming area I used to play in for hours. I would stay in the water until my teeth would literally chatter and my dad would make me warm up in the sun.

That same beach is where I saw my dad become a hero. A minnow had beached itself on the sand. It flopped frantically until my dad scooped it up and returned it to its watery home. To a five year old, that's Nobel Prize material.

"Here, Dad, sit next to me," I said as I kicked off my shoes. Heals were really not a good option for sand, but, fashion over function.

A school of minnows fed in the shallows. The slight breeze made tiny ripples in the water that sparkled in the sun. A truly gorgeous day.

"Well, here we are just us. Finally. I almost feel selfish for keeping you to myself today, but everything has been so hectic. I brought you here because I know how special Lakeview is to you and us. I want you to know that I love you and I meant what I said the other day. You had to do what was right for you. I understand."

A breeze blew through the leaves of a birch tree growing nearly sideways out over the water. I've always been amazed at how things can grow in such odd spots.

"It's all going to be okay. I know it will be. I'm actually looking forward to things settling down. The past few weeks have been horrible and I'm really going to need your help to get things under control. I'm sorry that it turned out like this, but I love you and understand."

The view became blurry as tears welled in my eyes. I stood up and walked barefoot to the water, stopping beneath the crooked birch tree.

"Good-bye, Daddy. I love you."

I opened the plastic bag containing my dad's ashes and poured them into the lake that meant so much to him -- to me -- to us.