Word Up, Sister!

My mother was very young when I was born.  She was so young that returning from maternity leave meant looking for her first job.  As a stout, though, graceful woman she easily acquired a position working with the elderly at a local nursing home.  It was so local, in fact, that she could look out the back window of our apartment and see it quite clearly.  It always seemed to loom at the top of the hill, eyeing us like a watchful parent.  Mom quite quickly began to resent this closeness, but compromised by keeping those particular curtains closed a large portion of the time. 

Working with the elderly is an emotionally and physically tiresome, thankless job, but it is a way for a woman to support herself.  And my mother was glad to have the paycheck, therefore enthusiastic about her job. 

A few days into the job, she was bee bopping down the halls recording blood pressures and temperatures.  Just as she was leaving room 24 she noticed a nicely dressed man striding down the hallway.  The fellow strolled up to her and asked for the whereabouts of his father.  She recognized who the man is talking about, so she picks her jaw up off of the floor and escorts him to the room of Daddy Warbucks. 

Now Daddy Warbucks got his nickname upon arriving at the nursing home several years before.  At this point, my mother hadn’t heard his real name enough to be able to remember it.  So, when we talk about it we just call him Daddy Warbucks.  He was a man of considerable age, but always polite and pleasant with the staff.  He quickly became a favorite resident for many of the women walking the halls, including my mother. 

When they reached the room, my mother found quite a surprise.  Now, she had not yet ever seen a dead body before, but she could tell from across the room that Daddy Warbucks was stone, cold dead.  The man following her, however, seemed to have no inkling that things were off.  He breezed past her and sat in the chair next to poor, dead Daddy Warbucks.

 “How have you been, Papa?  It’s so good to see you!” the man said with a bit of glee in his tone as if no one in the room were dead.  Shocked down to her toes my mother goes to excuse herself, but the visitor called behind her. “Excuse me, Ma’am?  Papa seems to be a bit cold, could you find him a sweater or something.”  Without missing a beat, she hops over to the closet and grabs one of Daddy Warbuck’s favorite sweaters.  Doing everything that she can to act natural, she squirms with the body’s stiff arms and joints to work the sweater into a suitable position, meanwhile talking to him.

 “Gee, Daddy Warbucks, I bet you are really glad to see your son.  How long has it been now?” 

The son noticing his father’s silence pipes up “I know it’s been quite a while, perhaps even a year since I last came to visit.  But you know how life can be.” 

My mother trying to save the moment says, “Oh, but he seems so happy to see you!” 

“Yeah.”  The son seemed comforted with that somehow. 

By the time my mother had securely fastened the sweater on this man, the son seemed to be content with the visit.  He stood up, gave his father a hug, thanked my mother for her hospitality, and casually walked out the door as though he had done a good deed for all of humanity by spending 3 minutes with his father. 

My mother, still a bit befuddled, ran to the nurse’s station hollering “Daddy Warbucks is dead…and I just put a sweater on him…”

Though the direct confrontation with death was a regular part of the job, my mother eventually got the hang of things and as of this day has never changed her chosen profession. 

Life does not equal pain, but requires it nonetheless.  Pain changes people, the way water smoothes rock.  Anger changes perspectives, and motivates people.  Happiness is great in small doses, but happy people are less inclined to evolve.  This lack of evolution can be connected to either complete contentment or the fear that if anything changes the happiness will lessen or end completely, giving way to pain. 

Much like heat and cold, pain and happiness bear an exclusive connection.  One could not possibly exist without the other.  Without tears, how could you experience joy, or know it when you see it?  Without the hurt of lost love, how could you take solace in the warm embrace of a friend?  Without war, would we have a word for peace?  Also, without a little happiness how could we see pain as anything other than the normal state of things, stagnant and unimpressive.

It is also my belief that in every painful event, there is a lesson.  Even if the lesson is nothing more that reinforcement that pain is powerful, it is valid and necessary.  Sit by yourself and look back on your lessons of life, how much in hurt, and what you learned from it.  Take an in depth analysis of the pains that revisit you over and over again throughout your life thus far and find the common threads.  Don’t encourage regret, that is just another roadblock waiting for you.  Try to be impartial.  The past is the past, picture it as a history book, and you are the author.  Try it. I dare you. I dare you to be the valedictorian of your existance.

I have a spider in my bathroom, an English House spider to be exact. I sometimes imagine her breaking out the tea set with sugar and honey, inviting her friends to join her in polite conversation about the weather and the latest fashions.  I never seem to make it to these parties. Very delicate and long legged is this type of spider, much like daddy-long-legs, but more streamlined, more graceful. The thought of killing her has occurred to me.  Goddess knows she isn’t the only spider in the house, and certainly wouldn’t be the first spider to see the underside of my shoe.  But for some reason, I just can’t do it.  She built her web in relation to the wall and the bathtub, directly in front of the toilet.  She built it such a way that during my morning bathroom rituals I don’t bother her and she doesn’t bother me, but she is in full view of everything.  I wonder if she considers my bathroom to be her kingdom, and then my commonsense kicks in, of course she does. I suppose that I can’t just kill a female that is so brazen, such a rare breed.  Besides, she eats flies.  Bonus!

Last night I had a rare honor.  I went to the restroom, and as I sat down to do my business I noticed that her web had two spiders.  They were like mirror images of each other. They made slow gestures that seemed aggressive in their placement.  As I noticed this I pondered whether or not spiders were territorial creatures.  What I mean to say is, do spiders try to take over another’s hunting grounds?  Was I watching a spider duel?  I was intrigued.  This went on for a minute or so, and suddenly the mirror image stretched out his fangs and then lurched his body forward.  They connected and got sort of tangled. It looked like quite a struggle.  Ihad expected one of them to stop moving, but when that didn’t happen an idea occurred to me…Spider Sex! Her majesty had a guest. I suddenly felt awkward for gawking at the entire arrangement without recognizing what it was. Am I jaded?  I felt dirty.  I felt so dirty, that I ran to the other room to grab my recorder.  I already feel guilty, why not go to the next level.   As I recorded the “last leg” of their entanglement, something occurred to me.  How many spiders have watched me make mad passionate monkey lovings?  I would imagine that there are quite a few considering my “passion” for the out-of-doors.  With that in mind I felt justified in recording the exchange.   

It must have been what spiders consider the missionary position.  Do spiders have different positions? Is there a “spider style”?  You know, your body doesn’t move all that much but you flail your arms and legs around wildly like you just won the fucking lottery.  What about spider foreplay?  Do they “play around” a bit first or do they just greet and go in dry?  Can spiders speak to each other?  If so, would they talk dirty?

And what should I do with the video?  I’ve got it. It’s spider porn that I can sell to lonely spider singles all over the planet via (are you ready?  This is a bad one.  Brace yourself.) the world…wide…web.

One of my few certainties is that I will die.  It is a fact.  But how will it happen?  I feel cheated by death already, because I know that I won’t get to see the last scene of the movie that I am such a part of.  The packing up and moving on scene that wraps everything up and gives the viewer a sense of completion and closure.  I want my money back! Or at least a hand in the writing process. 

The idea of death has brought me to the thought of my funeral. Ugh!  That could go badly!  So badly.  You cannot fathom the bad.  First of all, the prep for the funeral. This is where my relatives go thru my house to “clean up” and fight over my meager possessions.  And they inevitably find instead my staggering collection of dildos and other sex related paraphernalia.   Whips and chains and candlewax, Oh MY!  ***If any of my dear friends are reading this … take note.  Should I kick the bucket.  Break into my house and grab my sex toys.  Distribute them amongst  yourselves, first cum first served rules apply.  Consider it a keepsake that could only come from the likes of me.  *smirk. 
But keep the naked pictures of me and post them on the bulletin board at the funeral when no one is looking.  I would really enjoy that!  Especially the ones of me spinning fire topless.  I am quite proud of those. If you can’t find them, I am sure that Brandon still has copies. 
Things I would like to see happen at my funeral…A bar fight…Should my family insist on a christian style funeral…I want the preacher to leave with a limp and a bloody lip, my friends and family exchanging blows and howling at the moon. “Where is the cooler?  I need a beer and some ice before I go back in there to kick some more ass.”  People are angry in general and never have the opportunity to express it!  Let this be that opportunity.  Take all the anger that you acquire on a daily basis, take that fuel, beat someone over the head with a hymnal and light a fucking match!
 I want people to show up naked.  I want my friends to get arrested at my funeral for indecent exposure and plead guilty proudly.  Cover yourselves in mud and wrestle, winner gets all of my worldly possessions (with the exception of the sex toys.  See above).  And some tricky bastard should tumble the coffin.  It’s just an empty, freshly embalmed shell with no further use anyway.  Give the folks in the back row a laugh, for Goddess sake. 
I want a drum circle at my grave, and some Irish bastard to holler drinking songs about booze and tits and blue ribbons, thru a keg.  And bagpipes!  I want some fucking bagpipes, played badly! 
I want blunt honesty…I was a shithead so don’t paint your face with regret and talk about how much of an “angel” I was.  The most flattery I could expect is for everyone at the “party” to share a moment when I made them laugh. That is something consistent about me.  I have made everyone I know laugh at some point or another. Sometimes it is laughter thru frustration, but it still counts as laughter, right?

Maenad

Maenad was a child once. No, really, she was. She wore children’s clothes and she played children’s games. In her mind she would create “happily ever after” and never before scenes. Her hair flowed wildly like the wind. And she never listened when a boy’s only reason was “’cause you’re a girl.” She never flinched when the teachers seemed to be no more intelligent than the school yard boys. She knew better than to take someone at their word, just because they say so. She was a smart child, she was.She raised herself, you know. She had no mother or father to instill in her the fear that they learned from their parents. After all, isn’t that the point of having children, to pass down your DNA along with your fears, superstitions, and prejudices? She raised herself to fear very little, to risk everything, and to go for broke every time. Besides, what is life, if not simply the opportunity for risk?