Friends are like bras; a good one never lets you down
“How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live ’em.How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give ’em.”
Shel Silverstein
…Listening matters.
The Little Boy and the Old Man by Shel Silverstein
Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you mean,” said the little old man
Shel Silverstein at his absolute best.
It’s a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you’ll be amused by its presumption.
James Thurber ~ Cartoon caption in New Yorker (March 27, 1937).
The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt by Shel Silverstein
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Me!
Me who?That’s right!
What’s right?
Meehoo!
That’s what I want to know!
What’s what you want to know?Me, WHO?
Yes, exactly!
Exactly what?
Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain!
Exactly what on a chain?Yes!
Yes what?
No, Exactlywatt!That’s what I want to know!
I told you – Exactlywatt!
Exactly WHAT?
Yes!
Yes what?Yes, it’s with me!
What’s with you?
Exactlywatt – that’s what’s with me.
Me who?
Yes!GO AWAY!
Knock knock…
Again, Shel Silverstein to the rescue!
Standing on my elbow
With my finger in my ear,
Biting on a dandelion
And humming kind of queer
While I watched a yellow caterpillar
Creeping up my wrist,
I leaned on a tree
And I said to me,
“Why am I doing this?”
Politics never really changes.
From now on, I think it is safe to predict, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever nominate for President a candidate without good looks, stage presence, theatrical delivery, and a sense of timing.
James Thurber (1894-1961), U.S. humorist, illustrator. James Thurber Collecting Himself (1989). From an unpublished manuscript, dated March 20, 1961, said of the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates
Revisiting Shel Silverstein
“Nobody loves me, nobody cares,
Nobody picks me peaches and pears.
Nobody offers me candy and Cokes,
Nobody listens and laughs at my jokes.
Nobody helps when I get into a fight,
Nobody does all my homework at night.
Nobody misses me,
Nobody cries,
Nobody thinks I’m a wonderful guy.
So, if you ask me who’s my best friend, in a whiz,
I’ll stand up and tell you NOBODY is!
But yesterday night I got quite a scare
I woke up and Nobody just WASN’T there!
I called out and reached for Nobody’s hand,
In the darkness where Nobody usually stands,
Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook,
But I found SOMEBODY each place that I looked.
I seached till I’m tired, and now with the dawn,
There’s no doubt about it-
NOBODY’S GONE!!”
~~~~
I’ll be posting more of my favorite pieces over time. I’m using these as reminders of what a beautiful world it is in which we live.
Left nostril stuffed up
Decongestant didn’t work
Time for good old steam
And that, my friends, is probably my favorite haiku I’ve ever written
Lillian was gone. Dead. And that’s all there was to be said about that. At least, that’s what everyone thought. As the crowd slowly dispersed from around the grave, the attendants began to shovel dirt upon the coffin. Suddenly, there was a tremendous knocking coming from the ground. People turned…the gravediggers leapt back from the hole.
And then came the voice. It was Lillian. She was yelling, “_______________________________”
(You fill in the blank)
It would be entirely too easy to point back to my post about Rob for this one, so I’m going to avoid that. I’m actually going to share a little something that hits very close to home. Something that’s been very much on my mind this past week.
Once upon a time, that was Little Dude. Now he’s basically as tall as I am, his voice is deepening, and he’s occasionally selectively deaf to my voice. In other words, he’s a teenager.
I actually started tearing up the other night as I was going through photos of him now and stumbled across photos of him way back when. It seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t.
And then there’s Mojo.
She’s going to officially be graduating from high school next week (finally!) and I want very much to be there. I remember clearly her first day of school and now she’s graduating? How does this happen? Where does the time go? WHY? WHY? WHY?
And then give a big sigh and just accept that time does not stand still. If it did, it would have frozen back when my ass was still fairly tight and relatively small(ish), my breasts were still perky, and my stomach essentially flat.
I started this post on the 12th. I had a random list of things that struck me as bloggable, but perhaps not individually. So I was going to throw them all in under the guise of one “real post” (let us all laugh at that one) when lo and behold! PROMPTuesday this week is to make a list! I love her. But I want my brain back. Or at least I want her to knock on the window before she peeks in.
1) Apparently I do respond to the name “Bitch”. Buster and his friends were downstairs on Monday jamming away. They finished a song and were talkin’ smack amongst themselves and then I heard “bitch”…so I walked over to the landing and said, “you called?” They laughed. I laughed.
2) I am funnier than people think. So after responding to “bitch”, I was asked to make drinks. “What kind?” “Whatever.” “Fine, the boys in the band ordered boat drinks.” I laughed at my own cleverness. It’s Jimmy Buffett. It’s funny. Okay, maybe only to me.
3) I need a creeper (the under car sort) to scoot around a stage at this point because my knee isn’t working at all. Evidence of my inability to move is contained in this set. I should have been all around that stage!
4) I should have had my head examined for not buying a car 5 months ago. I can’t find anything decent and my budget is now practically non-existent.
5) I take way too many photos. 631 at a friend’s show. There were, at most, 12 people there by the time I left. There had only been three when I got there. The lighting was too good to pass up, though.
6) I lack the ability (okay, I lack the desire) to group anything on this list in a way that flows.
7) Little Dude will be here in a few hours!
I have duplicate songs on a playlist. I see them. I don’t delete one. Why? WHY?
9) Still being sued for eviction on the apartment I left back in November and now the landlord and company that owns the building are playing games. I know the former roommate is out because I saw mention of it on Facebook (the single most evil and beneficial tool on the internet). I’d like to scream.
10) On the 20th, my attorney meets with the insurance company in court so the judge can tell them to do what they were ordered to do in March and maybe I’ll once again be on medications so I won’t feel like crap all the time. Tylenol ain’t workin’.
11) I’m super excited because any minute now the new Crowded House CD, Intriguer, will appear in my mailbox. Oh, and there’s a reissue of Concrete Blonde music out, too!
And I’m done.
Deb was off telling spooky stories at summer camp while I was off doing…hmm, I dunno know what. All I know is that the only summer camp I got to attend was usually something related to Girl Scouts. And it was either camping for a few days up at Cuyamaca or day camp at Lake Poway. I’m gonna have to dig deep to deal with week’s Prompt, so bear with me.
I don’t know that I recall enough about any camp experience beyond these few things: there was the time we had a bat in our cabin while we Girl Scouts were up in the mountains somewhere. It caused great distress for a goodly number of campers and some ended up sleeping outside, which I thought was more dangerous than sharing a cabin with a bat who probably just wanted to be as far away from screaming 12 year old girls as possible. There was also the time at day camp when I only really wanted to be part of the color guard. In fact, I wanted it so badly that I’d talk other girls out of it so I could do it more than once. Which I did.
“Girl Scouts, attention.”
“Color guard advance.”
“Color Guard, post the colors.”
“Color guard, honor your flag.”
“Please join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Yes, I got to be the caller more than once, too. But mostly I wanted to be one of the girls folding the flag. That was a big honor in my book. Making that perfect rectangle and then folding the flag into its perfect triangle, tucking in the end just so. It meant the world to me. I’m still unabashedly patriotic and tear up when I see the flag flying. I was born that way, I think.
Sigh.
“Color guard, honor your flag.”
“Color guard, retire the colors.”
“Color guard, dismissed.”
“Girl Scouts dismissed.”
I feel almost guilty about PROMPTuesday entry because I could do it in my sleep. Little do many of you know, but I moonlight as the Haiku Queen in a land far, far away. The pay is shit, of course, but I like the job.
So, dirty little secret haiku-style? Easy peasy.
Roar through the night sky
Immense solitary voice
Calling out to you
At first blush, the haiku doesn’t seem to be about my DLS, does it? The simple fact is, my secret is the haiku.
Okay, fine. Here’s another.
She has big knockers
That’s why they come to her door
For knockers of brass
And there you have it.
There was this story Deb was telling over on San Diego Momma the other day. An old house, a little mouse, a creepy basement, and a guy brandishing an axe. Doesn’t get much better than that, does it? Well, it could if we were to fictionalize a bit and that’s exactly what this week’s prompt is all about.
I’ll give you a moment to read the story and then come back for my take.
Done already? Okay. Good.
____
…the axe caught a glint of light as it was swung and it looked even more sinister in a way. The deep, dull thud as metal struck old wood resonated in my gut. It sounded sickly and altogether wrong. Surprisingly, the door remained intact and the axe seemed to bounce back a bit. Willy looked at us and we at him. I shrugged, ready to give up and have another beer. But the others insisted he keep trying; their curiosity about what was in the basement stronger than common sense.
Willy raised the axe again and took a swing. This time, a bit of the wood splintered in the center of the door.
“Oh come on, guys. Let’s stop. Do we really need to know what’s down there? Starr will freak if we chop the door to bits. C’mon. Let’s just have another beer,” I pleaded. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. We could explain a little chunk of the door missing, but there’s no way we could possibly explain an entire door smashed to smithereens.
Willy looked at me and then back at the other girls. They urged him to continue. He looked back and me and I just turned away. I didn’t want to be a part of this and knew that even if I walked out that I’d still be just as responsible for the damage as everyone else.
So I stood there and watched as the axe found it’s mark a few more times, each resulting in a teeny scrap of wood falling to the ground.
And then something seemed to come over Willy. He went from our best guy friend to Jack from The Shining, complete with maniacal grin. The axe caught the light just right and it looked so sinister as it landed squarely in the middle of the chipped away section. Suddenly, the center of the door began to split open. We all jumped back as the sound of wood splintering filled the air around us. It was deafening.
A strange puff of air wafted toward us. Musty and kind of mean. Then there came a cloud of dust. It was dust, wasn’t it? It smelled far worse than dust, though. And the light. Light? Yes, a sickly yellow light wrapped itself around the dust and seemed to reach its bony fingers toward each of us. As it reached Willy, he fell to the floor, clutching at his throat. One by one, I saw each of my friends fall to the floor. I tried to dodge the snaky tendril headed my way, ducking, weaving, and bobbing like a prize fighter, all to no avail. My breath caught. I felt lightheaded. And then there was nothing but blackness before my eyes…and the sound of Starr laughing from a distance.
“When is the first (or last) time you felt like a square peg in a round hole?” Deb. I dare say the better question is, “when DON’T you feel like a square peg in a round hole?” It would be easier for me to count those times for sure.
In a way, I’ve always felt like an outsider. Even in my own head, I’m not the most popular character. Yeah, the movie about my life? I’m not the lead!
When I was younger, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. By the time I reached 4th or 5th grade I felt even more on the outside because I was already wearing a bra (not a training bra…a BRA) and I had already started my period. Nobody else I knew of was going through this.
In 7th grade I got really sick during Spring Break and lost a lot of weight. I was finally as thin as my best friend and yet nobody acknowledged this. I was still the fat friend. It wasn’t until I switched schools for 8th grade that there were new people who saw me — not as the fat friend — as just me. My best friend didn’t like that and instead of us both being popular, I became the target for her ridicule and cruelty. The one chance I finally had to be just like everyone else was gone, I thought. But I made other friends and we were our own ragtag bunch of goofy squareness. It worked.
I spent high school wondering where the hell I fit in. No one group fully appealed to me or fit me. I had friends from every possible clique you could imagine. And still I was peripheral. Not really belonging. No wonder I managed to get in trouble all the time.
Now that I’m an adult, I look around and see that I’m still very much the sort of person who isn’t going to be the most popular or the kind of woman who will draw the eyes of all men to her. I’m pretty much okay with that, too. There’s something to be said for being an enigma to others. People are curious enough about me that they’ll come closer and spend some time talking with me. We don’t always mesh but that’s okay. At least I get to meet a lot of different people.
The very best part of being different and not really fitting in is that on occasion I discover a brand new friend — someone who is truly interested in me and I in them. Kindred spirits and all that. It’s pretty cool.