Why I Am -Part II: The Consolation Prize

Mama was nervous about giving birth to a baby she would have to raise alone, but she wanted to have me. My mother assured me sometime that she was pro-choice, and if she didn’t want to have me she wouldn’t have.  Now there’s a heart warming story for the next Chicken Soup for the Soul, but seriously, I’m glad.  It puts a less burden on myself for worrying that I ruined her life.

One time looking through a photo album, I found a note from my mother’s best friend, Norma. She named off some girl and boy names for me and said at the end, “With all of us helping you pick a name, you’ll still end up naming that youngin’ Fanny.” I don’t know if Norma got to see me before she died, but she died sometime around the time I was born, making her the second of my mother’s best friends to die…She died of cancer, but the other friend, a man, died of a heart attack earlier. My therapist, when I was 16 ,told Mama he  did not know what would have become of her if I hadn’t been born.  More fodder for the next Chicken Soup for the Soul book.  I think if I was the consolation prize  that my therapist implied, the contestant should have asked if she could have a toaster oven instead.

But for good or ill, I came into the world at 8:03 pm on December 8, 1977, delivered by a doctor in a hurry to leave.  I don’t know if my dad even knew he was going to be a father at the time, but there I was. My mother named  me Lisa, short enough to be spared from butchering, unlike her name which she hated.  She was born Patricia, which got chopped down to Patsy in childhood, and finally ground down to gender neutral Pat in adulthood.

The first time my grandparents saw me they were terrified something was wrong with me, but no. They didn’t realize that the darkened soles of my feet were from being footprinted and the ink not entirely washing off instead of a dread disease. If this was a story and not the truth, I would use this incident as a foreshadowing of what a strange person I would become, but as this is the truth as far as I know it, you may take it to mean that my whole family is nuts.

 

 

My mother had an apartment above my grandparents’ garage they built for her years ago and this was where we stayed for about a year and a half before Mama found it necessary to flee. I think she had to go because my father tried to talk to her again and again, but my grandmother was a fortress against him, firm and forceful in getting him to leave. My grandmother could be a bit of a bully.

Mama started working nights at a hospital while I was still infant. “I don’t mind keeping the baby while you work, but I won’t keep her for you to go out with men,” said Grandma. Goodbye life, hello motherhood. But strangely enough, everyone wanted me. They all wanted the baby to be a girl and I obliged. Not just my mother and grandmother, but my sensitive grandfather as well. Mama would come in after midnight from work, go into the house and into my grandparents room to pick me up from the bassinet by their bed. Grandpa would wake up and say “Aww, leave that baby. She’s asleep,” but Mama picked me up anyway.

My mother needed her mother though sometimes. If I wouldn’t stop crying no matter what, Grandma would be enlisted to calm me down and rock me to sleep. I had colic. I wasn’t breast-fed because Grandma told her daughter,  the registered nurse, it was dirty (well, thinking about it, it does seem a bit yucky. Tell you what though. If I ever became a mom I’d definitely want to taste my own milk, just a taste, you know? Is that so weird? Of course not!!!). But then, my mother didn’t even know about sexual intercourse until she was 17 and in nurse’s training…..that was my grandmother for you: The kind of mother who didn’t find it necessary to warn her daughter of menstruation until the day it happened and her daughter thought she was dying.  Perhaps that was the norm when my mother was 12 in 1954.

When I was about 1 1/2 , Mama decided it was time to flee again. By then my father  had found us, but Grandma always came to the door and demanded he leave. By then Mama built up a terrible fear of her husband, a fear far worse than at anytime when she actually lived with him.  So she decided on moving to a town in Florida near Vero Beach, where some other relatives had settled also. We stayed in Florida until I was 5 and sometimes my grandparents  stayed for long periods of time too.

It was at the age of 3 my mother at last severed all ties to  the fact I  ever had a father.  In Florida somehow it is easier to obtain a divorce and that’s what my mother did. Claiming “Desertion,” my Mama got full custody granted. No visitation rights, my father wasn’t there to ask for them.  Mama didn’t want anything to do with the man, not even child support or alimony, though he had tried to send money a few times. Mama didn’t even want me to have his name, so when she changed back to her maiden name, she changed mine back to her maiden name too.  Instant immaculate conception or instant bastardization, however you want to look at it. Slate clean.

Before the divorce, my father once found us in Florida. To the door he came, drunk. I guess Grandma was there too to ward him off. He had come all the way from Homestate to see me, he claimed.  “I only got to see my daughter through the window!” Did he see me through the window before they came to the door, me playing on my mother’s bed oblivious that I even had a father?  I hope he did, though they thought he was lying. I don’t think he ever even got a photo of me.

Did my mother do right in keeping my father  out of my life? It was cruel to him, but may have spared me intense misery. She feels with my sort of personality, he would have manipulated me terribly and made me miserable. She’s probably right, but it would take someone far stronger than me to deny him a visit after he came so far. BUT…Dude was drunk and my Mom was afraid , so maybe I would do the exact same damn thing and send my mother to deal with him. Shit-fire-damn.

My father died when I was 17. I always thought I would meet him someday,  but no, dead at 57. He was found in a motel. It wasn’t cirrhosis, but his heart . I hope he died in his sleep and didn’t know he was dying alone, which is one of my own fears.

After my father died and there was no harm in it, my second cousin thought it would be a curiosity for us to see what my sire looked like much older. Cousin cleaned homes for the elderly and saw to their needs. One of these elderly women Cousin helped just happened to my paternal grandmother. I don’t know if Grandma Pearl knew Cousin was cousin to her son’s ex. It was a small county in the Appalachian Mountains. Nearly everyone is related there or knew someone who is related to someone . What Cousin did was ask my mom if she wanted to see a photo of my father while in a phone conversation if I remember right. So the next time Cousin came down to the beach she brought a “borrowed” photo of my now dead dad, which she returned before it could be missed. My father had changed from the black and white photo I saw a glimpse or two of in my life. From a thin, dark, curly-haired man with a mustache to a beer bellied, pear-shaped creature with a tuft of grey hair. I remember he wore a light blue shirt.

What would have happened if I had met my father? Would he like me? I don’t even particularly like me. Would he compare me to his other progeny and ask me why I couldn’t have turned out like them? Would he have stopped trying to pickle himself ? Doubt it. Would he have manipulated me and made my life hell? Probably.Would he have died alone in a motel room at 57? Maybe not. Was it the result of his blood in me that made me so weird? I can only imagine.  I never even met a single relative on his side unless you count a couple of his female  cousins who went to the same church when I was an infant. Maybe they reported I wasn’t a tentacled mutation of an infant. But then I hope they didn’t rub it in with “a pretty baby. You should see her sometime.” But he might not care much and only wanted his good lady wife back.

I looked at the obituary of my father while Cousin was down here. There were 2 daughters listed….neither were me.  I was the second result of his misadventures I think and the only one born in wedlock for all the good it did me. Cousin told me that the first joined the Air Force and that’s all she knew. So I take it she grew up to be normal.  It’s really sort of funny to me, since I think the best time of my mother’s life was as an Air Force nurse in the 1960s when she stormed the beach at Myrtle in South Carolina. Too bad my mother didn’t get that one for a daughter instead of me, but that’s fate for you. What happened to the other girl I have no idea, but rather apparent whatever relationship bore his last child didn’t last either. Considering his knack for the production of female children and I can only guess his disdain for rubbers, perhaps I have more!I don’t remember my sisters’ names and I don’t know where my father’s obituary is now. Hopefully I still have it somewhere or can one day find it some other way.  I want to know what they look like and whatever happened to them. Basically I want to know everything about them.  Are they in any way like me? Did they love him? The thought of actually meeting or talking or even emailing them though terrifies me. The social anxiety and fear of what they would think of me holds me back. One becomes particularly aware of her appearance,  ways,  lack of accomplishments , and redeeming qualities when having to make an account of oneself. I don’t think I’m up to it.

 

 

When my father died, Mama received the news with both sadness and relief. She was sad that her one-time husband and father of her child had died, but she felt relieved when she realized she never had to worry  about him finding us again. As for me,my father’s death benefited me in that I applied for Social Security and received about 100.00 a month for around a year since I was still a minor then. When the man asked my mother if she was certain he was the father and had she  been married, I got angry. He was an older, chubby, gruff sort of man who looked judgementally at us, but I got my due.

 I feel bad that Dad did more for me in death than the miserable soul did in life.  I think for whatever sins he committed, he must have paid the price. The evidence is in the fact he died in a motel room.  His real beloved, Liquor, consumed his life, but she was a jealous mistress and made him choose her over his children.

Scenes from a Lifetime Movie -Just reblogging a couple comments I made

Ok, so my last post was semi-depressing, so moment of brevity before I do Part II of my most exciting, depressing memoir.

Did y’all read Vodka’s story of  the Motrin Baby? Here’s a link, really funny stuff: http://vodkaandgroundbeef.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/the-pain-of-giving-up-an-unattractive-child/

So on that blog, I wrote this in the comment section after some chap said the post was “juvenile and appalling.” Some folks ain’t got no sense of humor I guess:

Juvenile and Appalling: A Memoir of Shame, Addiction, and Healing by Vodka G. Beef
Vodka G. Beef reveals the shocking truth of the downward spiral of Motrin addiction, a drug as addictive as heroin and Red Bull combined. With a brave voice, Beef tells how a good girl with a headache is led astray into Los Angeles’ underbelly of crime, prostitution, and over-the-counter analgesic abuse. You will feel the raw emotions of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy while feeding a drug habit and her fight for survival. This leads to the most important decision of young Vodka’s life as she decides to selflessly gives up her ugly orange baby to the L.A. River, setting the stage for a baby who would grow up to be one of the most influential comedians America has ever known.
Soon to be a Lifetime Television Movie Event starring Markie Post!

So today I wrote a reply to Vodka’s very kind comment on my Family Dollar Post, but I decided to share it with y’all while giving her a promo. :

Maybe we could combine it with the Motrin Abuse story, for a powerful film. Marki Post could make it work, Sort of like the lamest tv movie ever Chasing the Dragon w. Markie as a heroin addict. Chasing the Motrin at the Family Dollar

Something happens when you’re walking home in 90 degree weather with a big bag of groceries and a 12 pack of coke balanced in your arm. A feeling of dread. A feeling of longing, like a lost soul without Mapquest. You see the man by the bus stop. He looks, nods, and waves you over.
What does he want?
“Hey baby, you look kinda tired. Got something to help you feel better. Come back to my place.”
“Ok!” you say. He looks like such a nice man, 7 feet tall and a gold tooth glittering against the sun. Besides this is a TV movie and it’s what one does. Lucky for us this story is only about drugs, tune in at 7pm for She Said OK: The Dixie Smith Story for the next Violence Against Women flick, followed by Golden Girls.
The apartment looks like an opium den for dramatic effect, people sitting against walls smoking and shooting up.
“You can sit your groceries on top of that passed out guy on the table.”
“OK!”
He leads you to the bathroom , where someone is vomiting into the toilet. He closes the door and pays the vomiter no mind once they’re inside with him. “I’m doing you a favor, baby. Giving you some of my secret stash.”
“OK!”
He opens the medicine cabinet and takes out the Motrin bottle, a small mirror, and a razor blade. He pulls a rolled dollar from his pocket. He uses the razorblade to chop up an orange pill. “Do a a line with me?”

“OOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKKKKK” Your voice is in slow motion as you make the defining moment of your life. Slow mo’ is great for dramatic effect. The screen fades to black as you and Mr. Nice Gold Tooth take turns snorting Motrin with the dollar bill, dramatic music playing

DISCLAIMER: No aspersions to Motrin. No, you can’t get high on it (I don’t reckon). Just a PARODY, dearest Motrin.

Comment by Lisa — August 26, 2010 @ 10:16 pm |

Why I Am -Part I: Who’s Your Baby Daddy

Okay, so I’ve been working on this on and off since May. Today’s posts, mercifully cut down from one  giant 3000 word monster to a couple posts,   is the beginning of my life story and will continue it when there’s nothing better to bore you with. The story of my father is told here as I remember it being told to me over the years, so if I get something wrong, I will let you know.  As weird as this story sounds, it is the truth as best I know it.

Basket Case

 

How did I become this way, an obsessive-compulsive woman-child; a timid, anxious individual? Genetics? Brain damage at birth? Life experiences, both remembered and forgotten? Alien abduction? Almost all the above? Probably.

The years 1976-1977 were not good years for love or fashion. People walked around wearing puke green, brown, and orange; all the while love conquered all, including common sense. At least this was true in my mother’s case. What do I mean? I mean Mama sure knew how to  pick a man. She decided to dive into a gene pool of  green, stagnant water and I am the result. My father was an alcoholic, which in itself is nothing new or that different from other people. It’s all in how my mother met my father that is the difference. You see, my mother was a nurse who at the time worked as a counselor to alcoholics, which is where she MET her husband, a patient. Love Story.  Just how my father beguiled Mama, I’m not sure. She was 34 then, her true love turned out to be a prick, and several years had gone by since their break-up. Perhaps she was super lonely and my father was a nice fellow. Likely also, and this is a trait I see in myself too, she had a similar urge to save or help people .

My grandmother, Zoulean, yes that was her name, always warned my mother against marrying a drunk or dating anyone she wouldn’t consider marrying. There is even a story showing how much Grandma hated intemperance. When she and Grandpa first got married they stayed at his parents’ home. The first night they stayed there, Grandpa and his two brothers decided to go out together, a boys night out. So my grandmother went to bed, only to be awakened later by the brothers’ wives.

Hazel and Margie were two prim sisters who had married my grandpa’s two brothers. “Come on, Zoulean,  our husbands are in jail. We gotta get ’em out.”

“Y’all can go if you want, but I’m staying right here,” said Zoulean.

Which set the sisters clucking. “You can’t leave your husband in jail overnight!” exclaimed Hazel, and the two sisters clucked, clucked, clucked until they were gone. The whole house was roused from sleep, but Grandpa’s parents sided with Zoulean. He had left his new wife in a house with people she barely knew to go carousing with his brothers. Let him stay overnight in jail. Would serve him right was their verdict. Apparently, alcohol is no cure for claustrophobia, and Grandpa learned his lesson well spending the night in that jail cell.

Maybe it all made my father more appealing, forbidden fruit. Forbidden by parents and no doubt kind of frowned upon by Mental Health for upping and marrying the patients. But whatever. At least she didn’t meet my dad years before when she worked an internship at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. (Fun fact: John Hinckley resides there nowadays). So my mom married my dad in a charming civil court ceremony and they honeymooned in South Carolina after he asked her, “Do you want to get married?”  Their married life together and apart and together again lasted a whole 6 months. Like I said, love conquers all, right?

But it wasn’t all bad. He was a binge drinker, so he wasn’t drunk all the time. He was a good guy when he wasn’t drinking, I’m told. Give the shirt off his back type of guy. But just before he went on a binge, he’d get agitated acting, like something was building up in him, and voila, a several day binge.

(Stop the presses a moment. Here is where I grow suspicious of Daddy Dearest and wonder if his contribution to my genetic make-up was that of Mental Midgetdom. Almost every man in his family was a drunk, which makes me wonder what the hell they were trying to dull down. Anxiety? Depression? Was it compulsive? Or were they just a bunch of assholes who could find no  better diversion than getting plastered?)

My father was also supposed to be a smart man, though he only made it up to 8th grade before his family needed his labor. My father’s life consisted of living by his wits and hands. At one point in their six month marriage, my parents decided to move  to Alabama where my father could find work in landscaping and carpentry-type work. While there, my parents started going to a Baptist church and Dad slowed down on the drinking for a time. For a time.  But in the end the alcohol won. Their relationship went something along these lines: Things are ok. Things are not ok, so Johnny spends up the money drinking. Johnny sobers up and swears he’ll never drink again. Things are ok. Things are not ok….

Daddy’s Little Marriage Helper

Once when good and sauced,but before he got into angry drunk mode as was his custom, he told Mama  that he was part Cherokee Indian. When they said in vino veritas, they probably didn’t mean imbibers of Wild Irish Rose Whiskey. Before my mother knew him, one of my father’s jobs was ‘orange picker’ in Florida. I suppose  he got himself a good tan out there working with his co-workers, all Mexicans.  So good in fact that when Immigration rounded up everyone, they picked up Johnny too.  Before he was deported, however, he was able to negotiate his freedom. Perhaps it was my dad’s southern accent that tipped INS off, or maybe it was that he didn’t know one blessed word of espanol. My hair is dark too, but very curly, my cheek bones aren’t pronounced (even when I wasn’t chunky), and my eyes are a dull blue, so how do you like them apples, kenosabe? Just another mystery, though Grandma told me she knew that family  forever, “and there weren’t no Indian in  none of ’em.”

In another  alcohol soaked scene  of domestic tranquility, Dad called the police saying he had a gun and was going to kill himself. My mother was not amused.

Talking to the police outside of the house, my mom leveled it out with them, seething. “NO, he DOESN”T have a gun . NO, he is NOT suicidal (though at that point, Mama probably could have killed her husband with her own hands). The police worried about leaving her alone with her drunkard husband, but Mama swore she would be fine, and she was. The fact of the matter was my father on a drunk aspired to being  wife beater, but never could reach his mark. Kicking or trying to lash out at the air all the while hurling  bizarre combinations of curses and insults, my dad  wasn’t fast enough or coardinated enough to actually catch my mother.

Sometime in all the breaking up and making up, Mama got pregnant and miscarried.  She wanted that baby, ailing marriage or no, but for whatever  reason my sibling ceased to be before it had a chance to become.

The final break up saw my father running out to the car in his underwear as my mother drove away. She circled around once to make sure the man she married got back into the house safely, and that was that. Little did she know when she made the long trek  home to her parents that for about two weeks a memento of a marriage best forgotten grew inside her.

Wild Irish Rose photo used w/o permission from blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com

OCD Trip to Family Dollar

A Family Dollar. How Quaint!

Started on Fri the 13, finished post today.

Our van is out of commission for a while until we absolutely need to go somewhere. The muffler is holding on by the skin of its teeth, so we dare not take it somewhere now. It’s always something isn’t it? This morning, however, we needed a few things.

One of the ways to get me annoyed is talking about money , or lack thereof.  It’s my bad and everything to feel that way, but I feel my frustration building. I get the feeling it’s all my fault and Nervous Nelly is telling my head, It’s all your fault for being such a fucking, worthless piece of shit on fucking disability. You never do anything right. You should just fucking die. The Nervous Nelly part of me that lives in my head is not a very nice person, and she curses like she’s got Tourette’s as she serves as my personal ‘life sucks coach and anti-motivational/verbal abuse speaker.’  With thoughts such as these talking over my mom asking me if this and that are showing up on my rinky-dink credit card’s online statement I feel one step from a fit. This is a perfectly reasonable question to ask considering we have a limited amount of funds available and needed to refresh our supplies. What can I say? Sometimes I’m a total mental midget. More fodder for my ‘pile of things that make me feel guilty.’

With the heat index near 100 degrees at 10:30 in the morning, I decide the right thing to do is go myself, then as we sort of bicker over it, she suggests we go together. “No, I’ll go.” After all, I see no reason for both of us being miserable. “Just let me go brush my hair and teeth.” I ran a brush through my hair enough to push it a little down earlier, but not enough to go past my patio and certainly not enough to get all the fuzz from my blanket out of my hair.

“I’ll just go,” she says. That did it.  Angry….angry…..ANGRY! It doesn’t take that long for me to brush my hair and teeth…granted I do ritualize it like everything, but it isn’t like it could take more than 10 minutes. It may just be I’m mental, but I interpret her as always trying to run my life and if she would just let me do what I want how I want we would get along better. I don’t think my request was that bad, especially since I was going. Now she’s all “I’ll go” and “I’m going with you” in a voice with a decidedly martyr lilt. We’re out in the hall so we have that added advantage of airing our sundries for whoever wishes to listen just like some of our neighbors scream, when I bellow “I’m going, GOD DAMMIT!”

Great, now I’ve lost my religion too. Though I’m not as religious as in the days of old, I still consider myself a Christian, and still I retain a certain degree of scrupulosity. I remember that, if the Bible is 100 percent true, I will be held accountable for every time I get mad enough to drop the “GD” bomb. I even feel the slightest tinge of apprehension at writing what I said above, but the kind God I generally believe in no doubt understands ‘my art.’ Oh well at least I’m not like I was when I was 13. All sorts of superstitious thoughts and accidental blasphemies were the order of the day in my head, the remnants of my days in Holy Roller Christian Academy, which I left at the age of 9.  There is a fear of God and then there is becoming a total dumbass, which I fell into the latter. I didn’t give up my MTV or the fascinating world of 1990s rap music (which in the 2000s sort of went to hell like all music did -no pun intended). So I listened to Yo! MTV Raps and BET’s Rap City, delighting in it in my own WASPy ways, all the while doing nutty junk like making sure I crossed my ‘t’s at least at the midway point lest they look  like upside down crosses like devil worshipers favor.

But anyway….

I walked a swift pace, letting the energy of my indignation propel me to Family Dollar, about a couple blocks from my complex. We may live in a somewhat bummy part of town, but hey, it’s convenient to a bit of everything. I was still in a foul humor walking into the blessed air-conditioned store. I see that The Other Lisa is working and I feel a pang of guilt. The last time I spoke to her a few weeks ago I said something I shouldn’t have. The Other Lisa, I’m pretty sure she’s the same person my best friend and I used to hang out with, was describing her Missions  in Africa. How some of the men stood around with folded arms looking mad at them. And I said it before I knew I was going to say it and by the time I was back outside with Mom I knew I shouldn’t have. I said shyly  to The Other Lisa, “Well, wouldn’t you be angry if someone came to your country and tried to change you?” She had the grace to ignore me (yeah, the puns are intended. Who am I kidding?). Even if I were speaking the gospel truth I should haven’t said it. She saw it as I used to see it as a little girl…saving souls from the eternal fires of hell, perhaps thus saving her own. Faster than you could say infidel, my conscience had started panging me.

So I decided today I would do my best to be friendly and hope to ease the wrong I committed. We say hello and I’m off on the hunt for what I was told to get before and a couple other gluttonous things. Toilet paper. 3 boxes of dollar dry cat food that we keep out all the time because we only feed the cats cans in the evening -I get 3, Mama usually gets 2, but I have a bit of a preference for things in 3’s and we do have 3 cats, so it’s all fair and balanced, right? 6 pack of Hershey Bars -if I’m going to that part for gluttons as described in Dante’s Inferno, might as well enjoy the trip (feel a bit nervous writing that one). 12 pack of Cokes (you know,to wash the Hershey bars down). Done. I balance my treasures in my arms and head for the counter with the intention not to be counted as that heathen bitch from the other day. Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi comes on the radio and she sings along. God likes irony apparently.  Pleasedon’tthinkbadofme.Pleasedon’tthinkbadofme.

Amazingly enough, I think I hold it in the road. Sure my naturally child-like voice is probably more child-like now because I’m nervous and I’m a bit stuttering, but we exchange pleasantries. As I leave , walk past the side of Family Dollar and notice a man in a jeep just sitting there. I’m immediately suspicious. The window is up, though it’s 90 degrees and I don’t hear the engine. I don’t dare glance too much just in case he’s one of those real-life ‘Evil Ones,’ entailing someone who’s a perv or mugger or something. He doesn’t look dead from my peripheral vision and I walk on, stealing a slight glance once. At the road, I realize I forgot something. Mama’s coffee! Back I go.

The Other Lisa is out at her car getting a pair of sneakers to replace the uncomfortable ones she was wearing. She asks me if something’s wrong.

“I forgot the coffee,” I say cheerfully, all the while thinking, please don’t think I want to steal something. One of my neuroses is the fear someone will think I want to steal, which I never would do, but my mind keeps telling me people think I’m about to snatch something. So when I get inside I set everything down except for my little wallet  with the tabby kitten on it. Tres chic,  non?

I come back to the counter and say, “This was my main mission coming here.” Then I think to myself, Oh no, I said mission. She’ll think I’m making fun of her.

But if she thought I was making fun of her, she didn’t show it. She said,”In third world countries where they don’t got a lot to eat, they still be drinking coffee. Like when we were in Africa, they be drinking like Starbucks.”

“Really?” I say, hoping to make it sound like that was the most interesting thing I’d heard in years…Well, it was interesting, but I felt it necessary to show approbation. “I’m glad I remembered before I walked halfway home.”

“You live at Shitzville?” she asks (I’m using an assumed, but pretty apropos name for my apartment complex).

“Yes.” Before I leave I confess that I don’t even like coffee.

Something happens when you’re walking home in 90 degree weather with a big bag of groceries and a 12 pack of coke balanced in your arms. Anger melts, almost in a literal sense. I trudge past the weirdo in a jeep and the shopping center that at separate times housed an illegal gambling spot and a doctor who sold prescription drug subscriptions of the patient’s choice for $100.00 until they got shut down. Past the house I think is suspicious, the one with no windows in the front…People are outside talking, but pay me no mind. Past a couple of women waiting for a bus. I force a “Morning” out of my throat at them and hurry away. Past the apartment where those folks killed themselves in a sexually explicit way. And I’m home.

PS, I’d be an epic fail as a missionary unless the “Secular Humanists” are evangelical. I posted this on a young woman’s blog once who was afraid to admit she’s an atheist. I think somehow though, Jesus might approve:

Hi there!
Great post. I believe in God and Jesus and all that, but I believe the Bible was mostly the product of the men who wrote it and the era. Jesus wasn’t a hater, so I still believe in Jesus. And I believe that if you go around hating people, you generally got the wrong idea about the whole being a Christian thing.

That being said, look at all the positive things about being an atheist (think if I was an atheist I’d prefer ‘humanist’ too):

You know you’re a good person because you’re a good person, not from a fear of some divine punishment. You are able to decide who you are as a person without the constraints of religion, you can look at spirituality, politics, and science objectively and take what you want from it. You may be in the minority of people, but I see atheism just as another ‘religion,’ something to tolerate and accept, not condemn.

Also, that being said, I’m not saying don’t ever think about there being a God either, because spirituality definitely has its blessings and gifts too.

Anywho, what I mean to say is “Being an atheist doesn’t make you a lesser person, just a free-thinker. And your dad isn’t in Hell, for Heaven’s sakes. But the person who said that should go to Hell -figuratively, of course.

*Image taken from

http://www.riggscorp.com/Development.htm

Used without permission.

My Rodrigo Penthouse Parody: The Affair of The Wax and Spray-On Tan

Dearest Penthorse,

I needs for me to to tell you of my bloggy man very sexy and how I make for a mistake in the judgings. You sees, I knows he keeps for the subscribings the Penthorse for the articles when his female wife makes for the headaching, yes? He may reads this and make for the forgiving of The Rodrigo I hope.

OK, my bloggy man more sexy come all here long far away to visit The Rodrigo to Florida because I makes promise for him I make him sexy man hot like The Rodrigo. But I knows my elderly monied female wife no understanding so I takes him to fine hotel called Super the 8 to make him for the sexy.

“By favor, Mr. Bloggy Man,” I make for to say to him, “You takes clothes off, yes?”

“No ways” say the Bloggy Man to I, The Rodrigo! Can you believes?

“But you must haves no clothes for treatment for to make you sexys for the mans and the womans, yes?”

“I no knows for this,” says Mr. Bloggy Man. “I no onesexual. I make for the sexy for my female wife.”

I sees he is in the nile that no wants to makes sexy for the both sexes.

“Is OK, is OK to be a bothsexual like The Rodrigo, or no, like man super the macho. Me understand.” He is sitting in the bed looking for the sad and thinkful. I runs my fist through his hairs and say how ok he is. “But, who you wants for the loving thinks for you have hair too much on the body. I wants you to make for you beautiful sexy bloggy man for any sex, yes?”

“You does that for me?” he ask.

“Clearly that yes!” I make for happy little dancing over floor. I stops. “You takes clothes off now?”

I takes one look at Mr. Bloggy Man with the no clothings. I makes for to shriek.

“What hell matters for you?” He ask.

“You have to many hairs!”

“Well for shit, man.. I thinks I just average for hairs.”

“Maybe for the America and the Spain that makes for normal.” I turns my pretty little nose up at silly American Bloggy Man. “No makes flies in my Brasil. No makes flies in The Rodrigo!” I spits on floor to emphasis.

“Oh, that makes for gross, man!” He look like he make for clothings, but I grabs thems. “Give backs me my clothings, little bitch!”

“Eh? Clearly that makes for no. Just makes for listens to me by favors please.”

“What then,” says the Bloggy Man. He nearly metre bigger as me and he looks like he have much the anger at The Rodrigo.

“I can makes you the beautiful man most sexy if you let me for you. The womans all thinks you for sexy after I do you.” And the mans also, but I thinks to myself I may keeps that in my head for now. For some mens the metrosexual and the bothsexual are hid to finds more later. I decides I helps him hunts for later and thens I tells him the womans all for the liking the bothsexuals. They finds it makes for much sexy…I wants to tell him but insteads I takes out the hot wax.

“Does that have the hurt?” he asks and looks at the door with much the longing.

“Eh, what? Clearly that no! Well, just tiny little pinches at the first, but no problems very shortly. You makes for the use to it very soon and no hurts it all I make promise.”

“Fine. Just gets it over.” He makes for to sigh. “I hopes my wife likes it.”

“Clearly that is for yes. Nows you just lays back and The Rodrigo fixes everythings. I just sets this wax a down on bed table and now I takes off my clothings.” I takes off my shirt so he may basks in the results for my works, my perfect torso, smooth much uber sexy. I starts for to remove my much short much tight shorts. Very much for style this year.

“What for fuck?!” He makes for yelling louds enough for all the Super the 8 to hears.

I stops and looks at him for to question. “I just wants to not gets much waxes on my clothings. My married female wife might make much fuss I make a mess of 500 dollars shorts.But if it much deal for you I no takes off the shorts. But if you likes, I can shows you much fast the areas around my happy stick so you gets idea how you looks after I do you.”

“Fuck no!” He makes for screams at The Rodrigo. These Americans much to fond for the yelling, the swearing, and for the being the prude. But I makes for to pleasure my customers, so I mention happy glory stick no more. We both mans. I no see big for the deal any the way.

So we starts and there he go the screaming and making the curses again. “OH FOR THE SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!” and such sillies. For big man super macho he make lot of noises when I pulls off the waxing. I sure my married female elderly wife hears him from her balcony 4 kilometres aways and she near the deaf. Especially when I do around his man stuffs.

But I finally done that, front and the back. No more mustache goaty for uber macho man. I fixes him good. Bye the bye eye bros. I will fix him new eye bros with seductive slants making for man of mystery with my pencil of eyes….after I spray all over tan for him.

“Bad part over now, Mr. Bloggy Man. I makes for finishes you now. Please by favor, stand.”

So he makes for to stand and I spray him all over the tan, very sexy. “It dry in the 5 minutes.”

But only taking 2 minutes for me to see something not so right. Instead of beautiful bronze Brasil man color I hope for, he is making a much red color!

“Is it normal for me to make much itch after tan spray?” He ask, “and for make swelling?”

“Eh…yes?” I make for answer and keep the watch as white man go all red and skin go plump like riped tomato.

But for the worse, his man stick keep growing and the widening. It was like my best favorite dream turn into my worst nightmare!

He soon starts for scratching so much hard like he trying to rip his skin off of himself. “Gets it off! Gets it off!”

He runs to the bathsroom and takes to the shower. Throughs water shower I hears him yelling for me to calls the 911.

“OK, Mr. Bloggy Man!” But for then I starts to have the panic. One problem with having much panic: The Rodrigo forgets the English speaking and goes back to the Portuguese of my native Brasil. I tells lady over and the over in the Portuguese that I near kill a bloggy man and needs for an ambulance before his penis makes for the exploding, but she no understand. Finally Spanish speaker dispatch understand I at Super the 8 because we have similar tongue, no?

I hears Mr. Bloggy Man still in shower. He have much anger at The Rodrigo. How is I to know he have the allergy of the tan spray? He say he going to kill me and dig up my body so he can make for to sue me, then to kills me again! The Rodrigo makes decision to takes me away to safe home in gated community of the monied elderly female wife, so when ambulance be seen I goes away. I never sees Mr. Bloggy Man again, but I hopes after much Benadryl in hospital he seen how he now be the man most sexy for the womans and the mans, hairless, very much the perfect man.

If you are reading this Penthorse letter, Mr. Bloggy Man, no more feeling hard at The Rodrigo, please.

Thanks for the time, Penthorse!

With much gratitude,

The Rodrigo

Rejected Penthouse Letters (via Zodi’s Blog) Look for my comments/screwed up story in the comment section, please!

Good people of my blog, Scott’s blog is perhaps the funniest blog out there and well worth a gander if you’ve never read it before. The one character that stood out the most for me this time is ‘Rodrigo.’ He stood out so dang much I became inspired and wrote a story based on the post and the first comment i wrote. So if you want after you read his post but want more fictionalized version of Rodrigo, you might check out my story at the bottom of the page and if you thirst for a prologue to my stupid story look for my first comment. It’s somewhere.
Anywho, I urge you to thoroughly check out his blog while there. It really is hilarious and he’s a very nice fellow too.

I completely stole this idea from one of my favorite bloggers in the history of me having favorite blogs; the lovely, uber talented, and multifaceted (I think that means bendy, or maybe two faced, one of those) Bschooled. I figure now that she is getting published left, right, and center (and there are a lot more but this linky, codey stuff always ends up making me feel a little dizzy and light headed) she won't notice my stealthy stealing. This … Read More

via Zodi's Blog

I, Pollyanna

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Pollyanna lacks common sense, she was told this more than once. Her therapist…Yes, Pollyanna has a therapist. It’s 2010, not 1913 anymore, and now no one seems  able to play “The Glad Game” without therapists, shrinks, and  selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors….Her therapist says it isn’t so much that Pollyanna lacks common sense. “It’s just you’re a bit naïve, Pol.”

Joy! It’s been 97 years since her first book, and Pollyanna hasn’t learned anything of import. She aged gracefully, she doesn’t look her old age (she only looks in her 30s. Way to go!), but she gained a lot of weight since the days of petticoats.  She no longer lives with her Aunt Polly in a mansion in Vermont, but now lives with her resurrected Mother in a semi-run down apartment somewhere in the south……Yes, Pollyanna’s momma is alive again. It’s fiction  so she can drop dead and come back to life as often as she likes if it helps the plot, you know?  She did smell a bit from moldering in the ground for some 100+ years, but Pollyanna, in her magnanimity, loaned her some of her cheap perfume, so now she just smells of  ‘vanilla fields’ and cigarette smoke (in this new lease on life, Pollyanna’s momma set down her sewing needle and picked up a pack of Pall Mall’s, needlework being so 1902).

Pollyanna is so sunshine, lollipops, and pansies in her eternal state of naiveté, that her mother prays for strength in handling her glad ass. “Lord, ‘GIVE me strength!” Pollyanna and her mother seemed to take divergent paths during their 100+ years apart. While waiting for her ever procrastinating daughter to perform that most filial of duties -picking up a shovel and digging her dear mother up -Pollyanna’s Momma saw the world as it is. Pollyanna’s Momma knew the secrets of the world, watching life going on without her so many years. She had to warn her daughter of the Shape Shifters; it seemed as though Pollyanna knew nothing of these beings and they were everywhere!

Everywhere?

Yes, everywhere!

And her daughter seemed oblivious.

All Shape Shifters are Deceivers and range from fairly benign mischief-makers and thieves to The Evil Ones, the soul suckers of the world…..these are the ones Pollyanna’s Momma is most afraid of her silly daughter encountering. The Evil Ones can steal your entire essence so that you are dead.  Pollyanna wouldn’t have to worry about that being a forever state since she is a fictitious character and can get back up eventually, but whomever The Evil Ones encounter, fictional or no, they will take a part of you, an essence you will never get back. Pollyanna’s Momma has to warn her daughter of them all, from thieves to The Evil Ones.

But Pollyanna is aware of the Shape Shifters, the mild to The Evil Ones. She’s seen the mild ones often, but their disguises made it hard to see them at first. Pollyanna is asked favors, to let people have money, possessions. They say they will give the money, the things back, or that they need the money and can’t return it. What if you turned someone down and they really needed help? It is better to give in, just in case, Pollyanna thinks and will think that for time immemorial. What can ya do with someone like that? She believes it’s what makes her a ‘good’ person, makes God be in His Heaven and all right with the world.  Her philosophy involves being ‘glad’ to give over and maybe someone will help her one day too. Shape Shifter thieves just love her. Pollyanna’s momma didn’t raise no fool if you asked her, but secretly she thinks in the years she’s been separated from her daughter, the dust accumulated into the folds of Pollyanna’s aged brain. Is there a way to dust out a brain full of dust bunnies? Guess not, since this story isn’t ending right now with Pollyanna’s Momma pinning her flailing daughter down on the ground and trying to shove a feather duster through one ear and out the other. Shame really, but oh well.

A Visual of Pollyanna with Duster Through the Brain

Pollyanna is even aware of The Evil Ones around her. She knows that the smiles and insistent waves of some people attempt to cover up the fact that they are Evil Ones, even if it’s been years since  they last sucked the essence from someone. Perhaps they used the same smiles and waves, and then…..gulp, gulp, gulp. They used a straw and broke the law. It is better, Pollyanna thinks, to not think of someone drinking the essence out of someone with the ease of a mosquito drinking the blood out of her plump thigh. No, it just won’t do to think of soul milkshakes consumed by Shape Shifters of the worst sort.  Perhaps they changed, maybe not, but they know essence sucking is frowned upon in polite society, and if  they succumb to whatever hatred that causes someone to drink an essence like a Burger King Icee,  they will once again be put into exile. Yes, don’t think, Pollyanna, wave back….they are human Shape Shifters, after all. and every person deserves common decency, a home, and life. Don’t think how it would feel if an Evil One stuck a straw through your skin and start drinking your personal chicken soup for the soul. Everything is wonderful. You will be fine. Life is fine. Neighbors are never Evil Ones. No one is ever evil to the core.

Yes they are. You know they can be evil.

No, won’t think of it. La la la la. I’m glad, glad, glad I can forget about it.

Imagine, Pollyanna, the straw coming out of the darkness, pierces your jugular. You can’t scream, blood is everywhere, you’re drowning in it, but blood isn’t what he’s after. Your soul…

Gulp.

Gulp.

Gulp.

You’ve seen these people before. Neighbors can be the biggest hypocrites. The Evil Ones lurk among us, you see the news, hear the stories of survivors, and you’ve even known an Evil One or two in your life.

“I won’t live my life waiting an attack by an Evil One. I won’t!” And with that, Pollyanna stomped her foot.

The great point of contention between Pollyanna’s Momma and herself involved the local ‘swimming hole,’ a small pool. Since 1913, things have changed in the methods common to bathers besides the length of swimming apparel. Ponds and rivers are oft replaced with chlorinated bathing lest one get some weird bacterial infection, or become a Mutant Ninja Turtle, or some other equally dreaded malady. Pollyanna loves being in the water, makes her feel so ‘glad’ to be alive and to have found such a peaceful place….well, peaceful apart from the screams of “Marco!” “POLO!” every three seconds and parents cussing out their wayward children. It is being out there after 8 pm that puts the bee in Pollyanna’s Momma’s bonnet. No, really, her Momma wears a bonnet, Little House on the Prairie-style and everything. Pollyanna’s Momma comes to check if  her daughter met with an unfortunate end, an apparition of the Blue Bonnet Margarine Woman.

“Momma,” Pollyanna says one evening, “I’m perfectly safe being out there with other people around. I leave once everyone else does.”

“An Evil One may get you on your way back home. You can be safe doing it a hundred times with nothing ever happening to you, but one time you may not be so lucky.”

Pollyanna is troubled by this. Is her mother overreacting or is she really in danger? There are Evil Ones of  almost every sort here. It is no longer 1913. The world now is a decidedly more evil place, no place for Pollyannas or even Care Bears. It worries her that she thought herself safe at the swimming hole when she might not be. It depresses her that shapeshifters are everywhere and that she must not let down her guard.

She is so brought down. Little Miss Sunshine-Glad-Lollipops feels the sun obstructed by looming,dark clouds.

“She’s probably right isn’t she?” Pollyanna asks her therapist.

“Yes, it probably isn’t safe.”

Shape Shifters have ruined the earth.

So Pollyanna comes up with a plan. No, not to pick off Evil Ones with a shotgun or use dark arts….the author of this story may “write like Stephen King,” according to that writing styles website, but, alas and woe, she isn’t Stephen King, so this is what our heroine does instead:

“On days, the pool is open late because the matron is too busy gallivanting to lock the pool up, if I’m not back between 8:15 and 8:30, you will come out and wait for me?”

“Fine,” said Pollyanna’s Momma.

Based on a true story (kinda).

Administrative Assist-Me-Not

[tweetmeme source=”lisaexclaimed”] It is 9:15 in the morning when I decide to get up. Just as I’m about to launch myself from a mattress that is older than I am (hey it works, even if you can see  the springs it’s a quality item), the phone rings. The phone by my bed has a cord so twisted, so impossible to untangle, that it takes about three seconds after I pick it up to actually get the damn thing to my ear (note to self, you might oughta get a new phone, maybe…). It’s my therapist’s office. 1:30 pm Wednesday is my next appointment. Good thing they call a couple days beforehand, or -might as well not lie- I’d have forgot it this week since it’s a week earlier than my usual appointment because my therapist is going on vacation…..Funny though, didn’t Mama say she found a card saying my next appointment was September 20^th, and I explained, “Oh, that’s probably ‘cause she is going away.” But I also remember thinking, Don’t remember it being that far in the future. Eh, Mom probably was mistaken. Anyway, hurry up and get up now…you still have time.

But time is slipping away before cut off time I realize and scurry to the bathtub. Hmm, clothes drying over the tub, best bathe instead of shower. I do it according to prescribed formula. Since today has nothing on my plate in the outside world, it is a gold Dial bar soap day. Aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish everyone did? Sure I do, but only on certain days. Other days are reserved for Dove body wash. By the same token, today is not a hair washing day, just a struggle with your finger-in-the-light-socket curls with a wet brush day. Ouch and sigh. I look at my watch. Still have 5 minutes.

I grab a cookie to stuff down my gullet, when I make my dire mistake… telling Mama who called. The September 20^th controversy begins. “You probably just got it mixed up,” I say.

“You should call them.”

“I’ll call ‘em later” I still have time. The big hand isn’t touching the 12 at all, it still isn’t 10 am.

“No, you should call them now. It may be someone else’s appointment.”

Whatever, Mommie Dearest. You may still get there by 10, I console myself. Good people listen to their mothers. Good people LISTEN to their mothers.

I don’t particularly like being the initiator of conversations on the phone except with my closest friends. The receiving end is great, I feel in control  and that person wants to talk to me for certain, but I can handle one call. I hang up. Still time. Still…..

“1:30 pm. Wednesday. No appointment on September 20^th.”

There that’s settled, then. Um, no.

“But I thought you said 1pm earlier.”

Angry…angry….ANGRY.

“No, Mother, I’m sure I said 1:30.”

“I coulda swore you said 1:00.”

Fuck. An. A.

“I’m not calling them again. You can call them if you want ‘em called!”

And heaven help us, call she did. I could hear her on the phone. “So 1:30 pm on 7/21….Oh August 4^th.”

That’s what I get for not remembering to throw out old appointment cards! Turned out it’s my psychiatrist that’s on September 20^th too. I look at my watch, the long hand is touching the 12 just barely. 10 am. Game over.

Dammit! Dammit!  DAMN IT!

It is a rule inviolate that if I don’t get outside by 10 am, I will not allow myself to sit outside until after 3:30 pm lest I get a sunburn. If I’m out and about I don’t care, I’m rather tanned, but I feel that I must have this rule. Otherwise I might get a carcinoma, melanoma; or, almost as bad to me, more hideous brown spots on my face.

Friendliest Catch Day 1 -Phil Has a Speaking Part!!!

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http://dennisthevizsla.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/friendliest-catch-day-1/

Phillipe the Cat and Dennis the Vizsla Dog

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Please visit http://dennisthevizsla.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/its-the-sunday-awards-and-meem-show-frendliest-ketch-edishun/#comment-21757 . Dennis the Vizsla accepted the animal relations of his readers for a reality show. Phillipe got accepted into the competition along with a white cat so as not to discriminate against felines. Phil is the black cat peeping out near the bottom of the first picture -I think he is afraid Lindsay Lohan will  either puke on him or mistake him for a bong in a drunken stupor, so it’s better to hide out with the little dogs.