Seuss

I was actually going to sit down and write something real today, but then we went to East Boulevard Bar and Grill for lunch today and I perhaps over-glutened. I’m supposed to be staying away from the stuff and focusing instead on iron-rich foods (which is a whole ‘nother post for a whole ‘nother day), but there were club sandwiches! And sweet potato fries! And OGRE WINGS! Seriously! Wings in Ogre sauce. Made even more awesome by the fact that I used to work with Ogre back in my Apple Store days.  But gluten, gluten, gluten, and I have now hit craaaaaaaash.

So I thought I would share with you a quick (ha!) little story I wrote for my good friend TPO’s Sparky Blog back in November when she was more interested in writing the Next Great American Novel (read: NaNoWriMo) than blogging, so she pulled in some favors and a slew of guest bloggers jumped to the task.  And these weren’t just your simple little guest bloggers, no.  The day AFTER my post?  Tracy Beckerman guest posted.  The next week?  Anissa Friggen Mayhew! Honestly.  If you don’t know who those two are, you should because they are hilarious and brilliant and fabulous.  So when TPO asked me to write a guest post, I immediately ran to her house, checked her temperature, then reintroduced myself because, SRSLY?  I blog about as often as, well, something that doesn’t happen very often, and even when I do blog, nobody reads and nobody comments.  Needless to say, I was floored.  And then I said yes, because, HI!  EXPOSURE!

I was going to repost that post here, but TPO says it will hurt both of our SEOs (which I understand about as well as I understand why anyone would ask me to guest post in the first place), so rather than repost, I shall link.  But I will beg you, if you haven’t read it already, please do.  I’m quite proud of it.  The writing, that is.  Running around my neighborhood at midnight in PJs in a robe introducing myself to people after taking an Ambien isn’t something to be proud of, but it’s a good story, and it’s the way I met one of my now closest friends.

No, my neighbor’s not really Joan Jett. My neighbor is WAY cooler.

So here.  I’ll stop blabbering and you can just go read the absolutely true, mostly unexaggerated “How I Met My Neighbor, Joan Jett.”

*******

Updated 4/9/18: TPO’s blog is long gone, but thanks to my digital hoarding tendencies, here is the post, in all of its glory.

As a neighbor, I suck the suck of 10,000 Hoovers.  I’ve lived in this same house, in The Bubble, on this same corner, for nearly 9 years.  You’d think in a community that’s known as the “Front Porch” type, where everybody has a rocking chair or quaint little swing, that I’d know my neighbors, right?

I am a recluse, koo-koo-kachoo.

When Tricia asked me to write a guest post for this here fantabulous bloggarooni, two thoughts crossed my mind: One, my blog is notoriously contentless. Really? You’re asking me to guest post along with all these other amazing bloggers? Girl, whatever you’re smoking, walk some over to my house and share, will ya? Self-depreciation aside, though, the pressing thought was, wow, how far we’ve come from that Ambien-induced stupor in which we officially met.

See, there’s this book club that, when the moon and Jupiter are in perfect alignment with Orion’s belt, I attend.  A couple of years ago, it was just getting off the ground.  I’d only been once, there had been wine involved, and, honestly, names just didn’t stick.  (I’m not only a recluse, I’m a forgetful recluse.  Especially when there’s a nice red in the house.)  As time for our next meeting rolled around, I kept getting Tweets from one of the members, whom I knew only as TPO, whatever that meant, whose avatar was Joan Jett.

Let’s keep it between us that I had/have NO idea who Joan Jett is, okay?  I don’t want to lose whatever cred I still have around this joint.  Anyway…

The meeting neared and Joan Jett was flat out stalking me.  “You’re coming to book club, right?” she’d ask, then hashtag, “#acrossthestreet.”  Well, duh.  It’s The Bubble.  Everyone is across the street.  “You ARE coming to book club,” she’d demand, then hashtag, “#acrossthestreet,” and I’d roll my eyes.  “You better come to book club!” she’d threaten, then hashtag, “#nextdoor.”  Right, sister.  I know who lives next door to me, and you ain’t next door.  She couldn’t be the older couple on one side – I knew them.  The newly single dad was out.  The nutty scrapbooker was too busy to be in book club.  And the party people in the party house catty-cornered to us were…well, I was pretty sure Joan Jett didn’t live there. Besides, I’d think I’d have noticed if she did because our video baby monitors had been interfering with each other for years.  I’d know that nursery anywhere, and I’d certainly know if Joan Jett, whoever the heck that is, lived there.

I shot of some lame (and coincidentally true) excuse that I couldn’t because my husband was out of town on business and I didn’t have a sitter for my preschooler.  She retorted that she was pretty sure the baby monitor would work at her house.  I figured she was off her rocker because how could she possibly know where I lived since I’m practically a diurnal vampire.  The light, how it burns!

The night of book club rolled around and I tucked my daughter, Earl, into bed and settled in to watch some truly crappy TV.  I also took my nightly Ambien.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

I was laying there engrossed in some kind of Dateline: Psychics in Tutus when I heard raucous laughter from the party house.  I stopped.  Muted the TV.  Wait.  That cackle.  I knew that cackle.  But it couldn’t be, because the cackler was at book club.  And I knew book club isn’t wasn’t there, across the street.  It couldn’t be…could it?

Um….

I flew to the window and threw back the sash, and much to my wondering eyes did appear but a very pregnant party person and 8 hooting bookclubbers.

Oh.  My.  God.  I’d lived next door to this woman for six years and we’d been tweeting for months before I realized – Joan Jett lived in the party house!  And there, on the party porch I could see from my bedroom window, stood my book club!  What in the…?

Of course, we know how this story ends.  I did what any rational, sane person would do 30 minutes after taking Ambien, of all things.  I threw on a robe, fell over my shoes, and flew out of my front door, bare feet pounding the pavement to the party house.  “OH MY GOD!” I shrieked.  “YOU’RE TPO!  I HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE TPO!  HOW DID I NOT KNOW YOU WERE TPO!?!?”  Trust me.  My voice was worth all the caps.

“Um…maybe because I don’t look anything like Joan Jett?”

And that’s how it all started.  Years after we should have met, I met my neighbor and now dear friend, who one day asked me to guest post for her blog.

Now if only I could figure out what to write about…

I love it when I login to WordPress and people have been coming to my blog even though I haven’t written anything in what seems like ages.  It makes me feel just a teensy bit less unfamous.

Oh, wait.  I hath violated the code.  One shall never apologize for not posting, nor shall one explain or make any mention of any lack of posting.  I know this because the one blog conference I’ve been to (which makes me A Real Live Official Professional Blogger Whom You Should Unequivocally Trust kind of like playing a doctor on TV makes Neil Patrick Harris The Dude I Would Go To For an Appendectomy) told me so immediately upon the start of the very first session.

Obviously, they failed to tell me that Angry Kissy Face is flattering to no one over the age of six months old or that bra straps will kill the look of your tank straps under your off-the-shoulder shirt, because that would have been helpful advice. Not this “never explain your absence” crap.

Anyhoo.  I haven’t been around.  Wanna know why?  No?  Tough.

I’m back in school.  I know, I know, I know.  I am already horribly over-educated and underpaid and still hold the title, so far as I know, as the only Emmy Award Winning Massage Therapist in The Carolinas which means, of course, that I’m going back for my Bachelors in Mobile App Development.  For Pete’s sake don’t tell my father because his eye-roll will be violent enough to tilt the earth off of its axis and his bellow loud enough and strong enough to extinguish the sun.  So, you know, not just for Pete, but for ALL of our sakes, it’s a DL kind of thing, this going back to school.  Unless, of course, he somehow reads this in which case, HI DAD!  I’m good!  I promise!  You’re not paying for it this time!  Wahoo!  And, yes, I’m blogging about you, but I love you and I adore you and…and…and…

December 21, 2012 passed, what, two and a half months ago?  And, let me tell you, I was CERTAIN the world was ending.  POSITIVE.  Why?

Exhibit A: My father was pleased when I told him I was now selling Mary Kay.  Truthfully, though, that shouldn’t be that huge of a shock.  (The him being pleased thing, not the me selling Mary Kay.  That should be a ginormous shock.)  The man has been trying to get me to wear lipstick once in a while for the past 20 years.

Exhibit B: My 19-year-old niece got engaged and my father did not flip out.  He was, actually, almost, dare I say it, pleased?  Sure, we all love the fiancé, but she’s 19 and he’s 20.  My nephew got a rather infamous lecture while trapped in a car with my father when he got engaged, and the kid was 26.  My sister’s husband wasn’t sure if my dad liked him for the first 5 years of their marriage.  Needless to say, that alone just about sealed the deal that THE APOCALYPSE WAS NIGH.

Exhibit C:  I spent most of the day embroidering.  On a sewing machine.  To handmake a Christmas gift.  Is that not enough?

Exhibit D was the kicker, though: My father wondered, out loud, in front of witnesses, why I wasn’t writing.  I honestly thought that was the moment the skies would open up and the aliens would take us all away because, surely, he had already been abducted.  He was stunned that I had never pursued it as a career.  “You’ve always loved it, and you’ve always been so good at it,” he said.  As I sat there stunned.  And immediately (well, the next day because I was Simply That Stunned that I had to take time to digest it, tweeted that stunnedness.

Of course, there’s a little bit of a sticking point there as, when I tweeted my amazement, TPO threatened to call him and tell him I was writing a blog all about HIM and asked for his number to which I flippantly replied, “1-888-BUTT-OUT,” which apparently wasn’t nearly as funny to her as it was to me, and I still feel guilty about it.  But this isn’t about me.  Or TPO.  It’s about my father.  (No, it’s not, Dad.  I’m not talking about you.  I promise! {bats eyes innocently}  Here.  Go take a gander at DEVONThink for all your data organization needs!  Nothing else to see here.)

Actually, it’s not even about my father.  It was that he was the fourth person in three days to tell me I should be writing.  And each time I would think, “Well, you know, that’s all well and good, but I picked the Mobile App Development over the Masters in Creative Writing because, dude, so not smart enough for a MASTERS in CREATIVE WRITING.”  Honestly.  You see all my best ideas here on this blog, the three of you who read (and apparently check up on me religiously).  And, also, as Masters in Creative Writing sounds about as useful as a major in Broadcast Communications which never remotely helped me get a job, and certainly not a job as a massage therapist.

Last month, though, in my extended absence here and my absolute absorption into the jolly old time that was learning JavaScript in four weeks, I learned more about time management.  Which is why I’m completely neglecting my current, due tomorrow, assignment to come here and write.  Because four people said I should do it three months ago.  And because, dammit, I miss it.

And because I need content because I’ve signed up for another blog conference where the first thing they’ll tell me, I’m sure, is to never acknowledge long, awkward silences on your blog.

I have a weird brain.  This is nothing particularly new to anyone who’s ever met me, but sometimes…

Look, it’s 3:45 a.m.  I haven’t been to sleep.  I haven’t even been close.  Electronics were down at 11, TV off at midnight.  I focused on getting to sleep.  And then my brain…dear Lord, my brain.

Can I tell you now that I’m already irritated at my brain for that wackadoodle atypical migraine it threw at me yesterday…er…Wednesday that landed me in the ER for 7 hours?  Because OMG.  BRAIN!  GET A GRIP!

So I’m laying there, all nestled down in my smooshy mattress with my dreamy body pillow, and I just want to sleep, right?  Because, really, this is ALL I WANT.

I tried to zone out, I really did.  And I was doing great.  No worries, relaxing, enjoying being all curled up, tuning out TechPapa’s snoring.  When out of the nether regions of my brain comes a voice.

If they could see the face, the face behiiiiiiiiind the mask…, it sang.
Perhaps they’d understand, they wouldn’t have to ask.
What is the force that makes…the comic perform?
To act in ways that seem to faaaaaar from the norm…

I know this voice because my brain is weird.  I can’t remember what I did today, but this?  This Shirley Maclaine acceptance speech from the Comedy Hall of Fame in FRIGGEN 1994?  This, I remember.

I was obsessed with half of these people growing up. (image credit: AP)

What makes ’em face the thunder, makes the face the crowd,
With nerves a bit unsteadied, but with head unbowed,
Facing one cold, grim, hard fact:
There’s nowhere to hide, if they don’t laugh, and love your act.

And then it starts talking, the accompaniment to “If You Could See Me Now” continuing in the background.

What enables a comic to show up for work,
Knowing each night he might be faced with some jerk,
Who came to the club just to heckle and jeer,
To screw up his timing and ruin his career…

See, this thing has stuck with me, man, like GLUE.  For a while in college, I could say it at just the exact rhythm and actually time out a minute on the nose.  BRAIN=WEIRD.

What enables an actress to come to the set,
Believing the camera is going to get
Every gag, every gesture, every subtle aside,
And not knowing for months if her efforts have died…

I have looked and looked and looked for the video of this thing on YouTube or elsewhere on the Internets, but I cannot find it.  I can, however, tell you it aired in October as I was watching it while I was waiting on a pal of mine to come pick me up in her Jeep so we could go looking for a Halloween party (which we never went to, MOTHER.  We drove to Calhoun and back, woohoo, while she talked me into doing another weeks’ worth of her French homework.).

What courage it takes, what impossible grit,
To maintain and sustain the belief you’re a hit,
When your agent, who loves you, now puts you on hold,
And the club owner’s tell you your routine is too old?
What words of encouragement make you go on,
When common sense tells you your chances are gone,
When you’re watching young guys who began after you,
Get shots on the talk shows and you can’t break through.

I was in the midst of my Murphy Brown obsession at the time.  I was determined to go into production.  And one day, when I won my Emmy, I would make a speech that would be remembered by some random kid in some random small town for the rest of HER natural life! (not) (I totally rambled on about editing on my dining room table.) (I also got cut off.) (On the front end.) (Because I talked over my clip.) (But I digress.)

The words that sustain you are names from a list
Of others who made it, and so you persist.
You think of the legends, like Skelton and Hope,
Who also had setbacks but learned how to cope,
And you think if you’re female, the course has been set,
By Lucy and Mary and Carol Burnette,
And you think of the standups who stood up and died
Before finding that voice that comes deep from inside…

I was gonna be FAMOUS.  Because Shirley Maclaine had INSPIRED ME with her WORDS that I still REMEMBER NINETEEN YEARS LATER.

Yes, those are your touchstones, your icons, your spur,
That if it could happen to him or to her,
There might be a chance if could happen to you.
And wouldn’t that be funny?  If dreams could come true?

And then the singing’s back.  Because God forbid I ever be able to stop this train in the middle of its track.

If you were booooorn to wear, the jester’s cap and bells,
There’s no one who can tear you from that magic spell.
You must commit to something deep in your heart,
To turn your wit and humor into an art.
Aaaaalllllll Iiiiiiiii can say is HEY, I owe it all to you.
I know the things you pay for doing what you do.
You’ll go through so many wars….but you’ll survive them…
And the last laugh could be,
The last laugh should be,
The last…laugh…will…be…yoooooooouuuuuuuurrrrrrrsssssss!

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s 4:15 a.m.  I’m wider awake than I was at 4:15 p.m.  Egad, my braaaaaain!

Noah Pozner was laid to rest today.  I did not know him.  I knew of his aunt.  I was once good friends with a friend of hers.  But he has been on my mind all day today.

Evil took him and too many others on Friday.  I could say so many words about Evil – I have a drafted entry, in fact, that’s 800 words on Evil and will probably never see the light of day.  But really, this is all that needs to be said.  These are the words Noah’s mother, Veronique Pozner, read at his funeral today (link here).  I cannot imagine her grief, but her words…God, they are beautiful.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Beautiful boy, gone far too soon.

The sky is crying, and the flags are at half-mast. It is a sad, sad day. But it is also your day, Noah, my little man. I will miss your forceful and purposeful little steps stomping through our house. I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room.

Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future. You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos.

You were a little boy whose life force had all the gravitational pull of a celestial body. You were light and love, mischief and pranks. You adored your family with every fiber of your 6-year-old being. We are all of us elevated in our humanity by having known you. A little maverick, who didn’t always want to do his schoolwork or clean up his toys, when practicing his ninja moves or Super Mario on the Wii seemed far more important.

Noah, you will not pass through this way again. I can only believe that you were planted on Earth to bloom in heaven. Take flight, my boy. Soar. You now have the wings you always wanted. Go to that peaceful valley that we will all one day come to know. I will join you someday. Not today. I still have lots of mommy love to give to Danielle, Michael, Sophia and Arielle.

Until then, your melody will linger in our hearts forever. Momma loves you, little man.