Back and Forth, Up and Down.

Nothing too exciting is going on around here. How about a dream from a few weeks ago?

I was tired of waiting. I walked hurriedly back and forth, up and down a long hall. I was looking at faded art prints. Flowers, vases, and vases of flowers. All the standards. Well done but not remarkable. Thirty minutes passed. The children were lost in their gamesboys. Quiet and happy. I should have been content. But, I wasn’t.

I carefully took the prints off the walls and threw them out the back door. They turned into owls and perched on the tree in the back. They were hungry and angry. They cried out and their wings flapped viciously. I grabbed handfuls of corn and threw it to the birds. They mocked me “You know better. You know better!” Their large eyes followed my every move. Owls don’t eat corn. They eat meat. Live meat. I was happy I had hotdogs in the fridge. They turned their backs on the hotdogs and became very quiet. I gave them the name of a vole farmer.

I went back to walking. Back and forth, up and down a long hall. Except now the hall was empty and I was angry. I was going to fix hotdogs for dinner and I wasted them on owls! 

Dumbells

MyHusband was watching the news and I was sitting on the couch knitting a sock for my oldest. There was a “news” story about lipo-suction. It can be used to get rid of floppy upper arms. They called them bat wings. I stopped knitting to watch clips from the procedure. It was gross and looked painful. They finished the story by saying the procedure was now available for so many thousand dollars. I was about to temporarily loose my faith in humanity when the camera turned to Jim Vance.

 “Or you could buy some dumbbells and do tricep exercises,” he said.

I love that man.

The Road Ahead

Today I was sitting at a stoplight and I looked over at the person sitting in the car to my left. It was a very old woman. She was dressed nicely, like old women do, and her hair perfectly styled. I imagined she was wearing just a little too much flowery scented perfume. I wondered if she was feeling happy for her independence or if she wished she had someone to drive for her. She was in the turning lane to go to the mall and I wondered what she was going to buy. Then I started to imagine what she looked like when she was twenty. It seems that some things are not to be imagined.

At that moment, a huge gust of wind came and blew through her window. One side of her hair lifted completely up and stood on the top of her head. It was still in a perfectly formed curl. The loose skin from the left side of her face was pushed under her chin and started to flap in the breeze. I thought, Holy Crap, I didn’t need to see that! I spent the rest of the trip with my eyes firmly focused on the road ahead of me. The literal road was familiar, but the metaphorical road, that one kind of scared me and it didn’t seem as long as it should be.

Lightly Powder Scented

I have this shirt. It’s a good shirt. It’s the most comfortable shirt ever made by man, or beast, or more likely machine. I’ve had it since I pregnant but I don’t remember with which child. So, it’s between 9 and 12 years old. It’s a size 2XL mens (100% cotton…pre-shrunk!) and I bought it because I thought I was so big it would be the only thing to fit me by the time I gave birth. Thankfully, I didn’t get that big.

It is more of smock than anything. The arms are so big that they hang down like wings. This is a handy feature. When it gets hot I flap them and make a cooling breeze. It’s a nice breeze with a light powder fresh scent, unless I forgot to put on my deodorant.

My shirt is supposed to be a light bluish-gray color but it has some white paint spatters from when I painted the trim and some green from when I painted something green. There is also a spaghetti sauce spot on the right breast area from spaghetti sauce. I feel this adds to the charm.

When I wear this shirt it is a form of creative expression. It speaks for me. It communicates an important message between me and MyHusband. He sees me in my shirt and he knows it’s saying, “Hey, why don’t you go and pretend your doing something important in the garage before your wife makes the next few hours of your life a living hell.” Non-verbal communication is important in a marriage.

My shirt has been there for me through hormonal outbursts, exhausted tirades, and dually evacuating stomach flues. It’s a true friend. I know this shirt so well it’s like I can wear it any time I want. You just don’t have many human friends like that.

Today I went to put it on. It was waiting for me in the bottom of my bottom drawer. I stripped down and pulled the comforting goodness over my head. I went to flap my wings when I heard a strange sound. A moan, maybe more of crackle. I examined it closely and everything appeared fine. Then I pulled gently on the shoulder seam. It moaned again. After a few minutes of stunned silence I realized the truth, my friend was dry rotting. I checked the Internet but there was no treatment. I made a few panicked calls to a clothing specialist (my mom) but the answers were all the same. There was nothing I could do but wait for the end.

It’s a sad, sad day around the ImPerceptible household, but don’t worry about me. I’m strong and I’ll be fine. Life will go on. It just won’t be as comfortable and it will no longer contain a lightly powder scented breeze. I’ll adjust.

I’m a Quitter

Hello. My name is ImPerceptible and I’m a quitter. Yep, you heard me. I’m a quitter. If you don’t believe me, I can prove it. Here’s a list.

Things I have quit:

1. Smoking – That was a nasty habit I wish I had never started.
2. Drinking until I puke – MyHusband is not an enabler. Spending the night with your face pressed against the toilet is a fast way to learn the meaning of moderation.
3. College – Three times.
4. My job – Several times.
5. Fishing – I don’t eat fish anymore and catch and release seems cruel.
6. Eating raisins and peanuts – I guess I haven’t quit this, I just haven’t done it in a long time. It’s the ultimate in salty sweet goodness.
7. Being too shy or embarrassed to ask for what I want in bed – Who knew men really like to know what you want. Even if Especially if it’s freaky.
8. Picking a fight with my husband and grabbing my pillow and blanket to go sleep on the couch just because I want him to come in there and tell me he loves me and doesn’t want to sleep without me.
9. Studying Karate and Judo – But I can still kick the hell out of something if I want to.
10. Caring what people think about me.
11. Not caring about what people think about me.
12. Cleaning my house with harsh chemicals
13. Being afraid of spiders

I’m sure there’s more. I’ll keep you posted. Any other quitters out there?

Confusion on the Catfish Hodge

Today I took the kids to Hurcamp park for one of their Concert in the Park days. I was happy to be going because I misread the schedule and I thought Catfish Hodge was going to be playing. I was looking forward to it and I even wore clean underwear.

As we were walking up I caught the distinct sound of Buffett, Jimmy Buffett. I have a tendency towards denial and I assured myself that they were playing a tape until the singer was ready to sing. We got a bag of cotton candy and some lemonade. After talking with a few friends we went and sat down. It was five o’clock somewhere. I talked with the girls for a bit and then a Volcano was about to explode, but we didn’t know where we wanted to go.

Slowly reality began to set in and when the singer began to sing a Kenny Chesney tune I began to cycle rapidly through the five stages of grief. Once I landed firmly on stage 5, acceptance, I asked the girls if they wanted to sing along. “No, not really” they told me. We hung around for a little bit then we walked down to Caroline Street for some ice cream.

There was a man in the ice cream shop and he had commitment issues. We waited as he sampled flavor after flavor of ice cream. It was starting to get on my nerves. Finally I got a chance to order.

“I want a single scoop of rum raisin.”

No sample! I’m wild and crazy like that. It was good.

As we walked back I cursed Jimmy Buffett. “My ice cream is a frozen rum concoction! He’s in my head. He’s in my head!” I scared the hell out of that dude on the Harley but the kids and I thought it was funny.

I want to make it clear that I’m not a Buffett hater but when you’re expecting this and you get a barefoot guy with a tambourine named Island Jimmy, who happens to be asking people to form a conga line, there is a large chance of disappointment. The worse part is I have no idea if the guy has his own music or if he just does Buffett/Chesney covers. He had a nice voice.

But we made the most of it and all in all we had a good day. Except for that guy on the Harley. I think he may have peed his pants.

Nothing.

I went to check my e-mail today. There was nothing. No one loved me. No one missed me. No one wanted me to go anywhere or do anything. No one wanted to tell me about their accomplishments or heartaches. There were six spam messages. I could increase the size of my penis. I thought, “Even if it tripled in size I’d still have nothing.” What a waste of disk space. Then I deleted them. They became nothing. It felt right.

For school today we did nothing. I decided to take the day off. I had a dentist appointment. Everyone else gets the day off when they go to the dentists. So should I.

I sat in the dentists’ chair and wondered if she got her hygienist license from the Marquis De Sade School of dentistry. She poked and scraped until I bled. I figured I deserved it.

My teeth looked great. I would have to wait to see the dentists or I could leave. There was nothing wrong. I told her I would wait. He came right in. I asked him to check my filling on my back tooth. I felt weird. Nothing in particular. Just different. He said it was fine. It was just getting old. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

Nothing remarkable happened at the grocery store. Just the same old food in the same old aisles. They gave me 20 cents off for using my own bags. But that really amounts to nothing. I thanked her anyway. I’m nothing if not polite.

I came home and decided to drop some things off at the food bank. When I got there they were closed. No one was there. So I left them nothing.

I did next to nothing for the rest of the day. I wasn’t in the mood.

Now I need to wrap up this post with something meaningful, or funny, or stupid, but I got nothing. I guess that’s the point.

Like Oil and Water

There is something you guys don’t know about me. I feel I need to get this off my chest. So I’m going to come right out and say it. I have problems with hippies. Don’t get me wrong, I like hippies. I appreciate the long hair and flowing skirts. I like the bright rainbow colored art and drum music. I can even tolerate a tambourine or two. The hippies and I always start out well. We share vegetarianism and organic gardening. We believe in human rights, comfortable shoes, and (in theory) free love. We can share stories of a hand-rolled masterpiece that was purchased from a Jamaican guy, by a former roommate, at a Grateful Dead concert. Yes, It changed my life as well. Then I make an innocent comment like, ‘Hey, Wal-Mart has disposable razors on sale for half off.’ and that’s when things turn ugly. Mentioning the two for one deal on deodorant usually does me in. The next thing I know, I’m rocking gently in the corner and sucking my thumb. They leave in a vapid patchouli scented cloud, off to molest their next unsuspecting victim. It ain’t pretty. It’s a problem. Like oil and water, we just don’t mix. I’m not sure if I’m the oil or the water. Maybe I’m the vinegar. Or the seasoning. Maybe I should go and make some salad dressing. My homegrown, organic, non-GMO, heirloom lettuce is about ready to pick. I’m going to store it in a plastic bag.

Revenge of the Spider

It was like a scene from a horror movie except the spider was just bigger than the tip a pencil. Besides that it was scary. Imagine waking up to a spider slowing descending from the ceiling just above your head. Making it’s way toward your face. Trying to make you it’s bitch. My sleepy eyes went in and out of focus as it worked its way slowly toward me. I’m sure if they hadn’t been too tiny for me to see, its eyes would have been glowing an evil red. Its fangs would have been poised and ready to strike. I reached up and pinched it between my fingers. Then I looked around for others. I hope that wasn’t the scout spider out looking for a new home. Do you think the spider queen will send out a search party of bigger meaner spiders? Spiders hell bent on getting revenge for their brothers unjustified death? You never know. I’m watching my back. And my ceiling. You can never be too safe.

It’s All Mine

It wasn’t what I wanted.

In no way was it what I wanted. But I held firmly and demanded it to be mine.

I’m not sure why, other than because I could.

Now I have it. But I still don’t want it. Making it mine made it change. Now I want it like it used to be.

Did I try too hard.
I guess I don’t know a good thing.
Maybe I like the bad.
I don’t know.
I don’t think I ever will.

It just wasn’t what I wanted. Now it’s mine.

[I'm not sure where this came from. I wrote the first part a long time ago and the last part a few minutes ago. And here it is. I did drink a rather large glass of Coca-Cola today. that might explain it.]