One would have to be blind and deaf not to notice the reading and viewing public's fixation on vampires. With a short pause for breath, this has been true since Anne Rice first published Interview With The Vampire (help me out with the year here). I really enjoyed that book, and it translated quite well to the screen. I also enjoyed the second book, The Vampire Lestat, and then the series went into a downward spiral of increasingly implausible material. None of these went to the screen. However, after the pause for breath, the teens and "tweens" got on the vampire bandwagon, as did the small-screen audience, and off we went. Vampires are now once again the top draw with the "Twilight" series on the big screen, where chicken-chested adolescent boy vampires take their shirts off to the squeal of millions of young girls, and on the small screen, with programs like "True Blood", which I must confess I have never seen.
Be it known here that Count Dracula, in his many iterations, never once took his shirt off. In fact, he wore that high-collared cape so much that we rarely got to even see the shirt.
Anyway, I digress. What I am getting at is that it occurred to me that if I ever want to turn "The Green Dress Diaries" into anything that will sell, I might do well to put a vampire slant on it and call it "The Green Dress Vampires". The green dress would lend itself beautifully to a running-around-in-the-mist scene, like you always see outside the castle or the mansion or the mausoleum in vampire movies. It would even look great on one of those Fabio-type paperback covers that people read on the beach.
what really made me think of the cast of "The Green Dress Diaries" as vampires is the fact that The Wet Rag is the most perfect vampire ever. Here are several things to support this:
1. He seems to turn up out of nowhere, as if he can just dissolve into mist and flow through walls. Every single time I have visited Siss, he has materialized within minutes, ready to join the group
2. He is brooding and silent. What a creep!! I can never figure out why he joins us or whether or not he really wants to be there. Like Count Dracula, maybe he is just there to watch our necks for future reference. Whatever his purpose, he always just sits there like a stone, contributing nothing. When he does say something, everyone jumps a mile.
3. He often leaves the group and goes off by himself for long periods of "alone time". He either goes home (his coffin is probably upstairs there) or wanders off as he did at our picnic. Siss says that he goes running by himself for long distances. This is strange, because he does not look like he is in any kind of shape, and even has rounded shoulders and a sort of hunched back. Not exactly a hump, but like the beginnings of osteoporosis.
4. He is an energy leech, who descends on the group like a black hole and sucks everyone dry of energy. You know the type. Without saying a word, he brings the group to its energetic knees, and dominates the conversation with his silence.
So, The Wet Rag would be the vampire of mystery, the heavy, creepy element, the base around whom the story line(s) would be built. You see that I have left room for a sequel or sequels. They always beat these things to a pulp before they bury the series. Casting The Wet Rag is a brilliant idea. No one would initially suspect him to be a vampire. He is sort of short and puny and stringy, with a bald spot on the back of his head. He has a perpetual stoop and kind of a sunken chest. I realize that I am describing more of a Quasimodo than someone with the charisma of Dracula or Lestat, but disguise would be the beauty of his entire persona. I am really at a loss to remember how he dresses or anything I have ever seen him wearing, but the color gray seems to leap to my mind. Gray T-shirts? Gray running shoes? Maybe it's just that The Rag is so lacking in color. He has a black-and-white persona. Just as Pigpen in the "Peanuts" comic strip walked around with a cloud of dust and dirt around him, The Rag is always surrounded by a gray fog. This is a great vampire thing; colorless, joyless, devoid of life.
Now we are getting somewhere!!
Next installment....Siss as the damsel in distress who does NOT get rescued but gets her neck bitten but good by The Rag Vampire and turns into a vampire herself.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Siss, The Blue Coat, and a Near-Death Experience
Siss and I, although only three years apart in age, have often been oceans apart in experience and social skills. Just think of thirteen and sixteen. There you have it. At the time of The Episode of the Blue Coat, Siss and I were, respectively fourteen and seventeen or fifteen and eighteen. I was a freshman in high school and she was a senior, and we both changed ages in the second semester. Sue me.
I have already mentioned the "Hill Section" of Scranton, and I by no means exaggerated the incline of those hills. They were steep, man. We ( Cella, Siss, and I) lived at the very bottom of the hills, on a street called Jefferson Avenue. Almost every old town has streets named after various presidents and statesmen, and Scranton was quite creative about mixing them up. On the way up the hill, there were, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy, Clay, Webster, Taylor, Irving, Prescott, Harrison,Wheeler, Colfax, Arthur, and then Nay Aug Park, where the large man-made lake was called Lake Lincoln. Scranton never wanted you to forget about the presidents, but the city felt free to throw in other dudes like Irving, for those of a literary bent.
I can remember one Christmas Eve when Cella and I left our little apartment looking for a Christmas tree. We had almost no money, so we had to wait until Christmas Eve, when all the trees had been picked over and the remaining rejects were on sale for next-to-nothing, or free. Since we lived at the bottom of the Hill Section, there was no place to look but up, so up we climbed, in a steadily worsening snowfall. Almost at the top of the hills, and well after dark, we came upon a tree lot that was closing but still had some trees left. I think the man felt sorry for us because we were on foot, so he gave us a cute little Douglas Fir, which Cella at once named "Doug", for free.
We were happy as we began the descent, for we had saved the five dollars that we had earmarked for the tree, for extra Christmas nuts or candy. Almost as soon as we started being happy, disaster set in. The wind picked up, and the snowfall became a veritable blizzard, forcing us to crouch and slide on the ice-covered slate sidewalks. Finally, the ever-resourceful Cella pointed Doug's little stem downhill, told me to take a seat, and climbed aboard the tree behind me. We rode home in some modicum of style. This is what I remember the most; when we arrived at the warm apartment and dragged "Doug" inside, there were all the lights and ornaments and icicles and tinsel and popcorn balls and gingerbread men, laid out and waiting for us to decorate. The tree stand was in the middle of the tiny living room. All this had been there when we left, but I never stopped to think then that Cella had no money....but she always had hope and optimism. The smallest things in life were always a cause for celebration for her. This is the thing that I hope I inherited from Cella.
I have not gotten to the story of The Blue Coat yet, but I hope that the Christmas Tree schtick has given some idea of how steep and treacherous the Hill Section can be. That is important to this part of the story. On the day in question, Siss had gone up the hill to see her best friend Jill, with whom she sang in a Peter-Paul-and-Mary type folk group. They had, besides themselves, a boy who played guitar and a boy who played double bass. Siss and Jill had bought matching outfits for performance; mohair suits with straght skirts and little vests. Siss' was blue and Jill wore yellow. The group billed itself as "The Singletons".
It was cold and raw and wet that day, so Siss borrowed the only garment that I owned that I truly cared for; my slate-blue, wide-wale corduroy car-coat. It sported a hood which was trimmed with red fox fur, and had wooden beer-barrel buttons that closed on loops down the front. She was my big sister. I was proud that I owned something that she deemed worthy.
I stayed home that day. The weather made me want to read and talk on the 'phone. It was growing dark, and Siss still hadn't showed up, so Cella called Jill's house and found out that Siss had left there several hours before. Cella was frantic. She called Jack, from whom she had (thank Heaven) separated, and he got in his car and started for our place. Before he got there, the door burst open and a distraught and dripping Siss came in. Here is what happened to her, and by association, my Blue Coat:
Siss was walking home from Jill's house, being careful to avoid the large puddles that were accumulating from the heavy rain.When it rained, the water started at the top of the hills, gathering momentum and volume as it flowed down under the streets. On this particular evening, the rain had been so heavy that it rushed down and popped the manhole cover off at one of the corners where Siss had to cross. She stepped off the curb, through the water, and fell into the manhole.
The rushing water grabbed her legs and pulled them underneath the street. She thrust her arms out over the lip of the hole and struggled to kick herself free. My coat became sodden, and was so heavy that it kept her down. She could not even release an arm long enough to take the coat off.
There she stayed for a very long time. We still do not know how she finally mamaged to get out of the hole and avoid being sucked into oblivion underneath the streets of Scranton. Siss does not remember this herself. All she remembers is bursting in through the door of home and collapsing on Cella. Jack came in shortly thereafter, and took Siss out with him after she has gotten into some dry clothes. This part never made any sense to me, but Jack took Siss to one of his neighborhood Irish bars, either Joyce's or Judge's, and bought her a glass of wine. First, what kind of an Irish bar serves wine? Second, an Irish bar probably serves the kind of wine that would take the paint off your car. Third, why on earth take a traumatized teenager to a bar to have a drink? Siss got the glass of wine in her hand, and squeezed it so hard that it shattered.
I hope that I did not take after Jack in this respect.
I have already mentioned the "Hill Section" of Scranton, and I by no means exaggerated the incline of those hills. They were steep, man. We ( Cella, Siss, and I) lived at the very bottom of the hills, on a street called Jefferson Avenue. Almost every old town has streets named after various presidents and statesmen, and Scranton was quite creative about mixing them up. On the way up the hill, there were, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy, Clay, Webster, Taylor, Irving, Prescott, Harrison,Wheeler, Colfax, Arthur, and then Nay Aug Park, where the large man-made lake was called Lake Lincoln. Scranton never wanted you to forget about the presidents, but the city felt free to throw in other dudes like Irving, for those of a literary bent.
I can remember one Christmas Eve when Cella and I left our little apartment looking for a Christmas tree. We had almost no money, so we had to wait until Christmas Eve, when all the trees had been picked over and the remaining rejects were on sale for next-to-nothing, or free. Since we lived at the bottom of the Hill Section, there was no place to look but up, so up we climbed, in a steadily worsening snowfall. Almost at the top of the hills, and well after dark, we came upon a tree lot that was closing but still had some trees left. I think the man felt sorry for us because we were on foot, so he gave us a cute little Douglas Fir, which Cella at once named "Doug", for free.
We were happy as we began the descent, for we had saved the five dollars that we had earmarked for the tree, for extra Christmas nuts or candy. Almost as soon as we started being happy, disaster set in. The wind picked up, and the snowfall became a veritable blizzard, forcing us to crouch and slide on the ice-covered slate sidewalks. Finally, the ever-resourceful Cella pointed Doug's little stem downhill, told me to take a seat, and climbed aboard the tree behind me. We rode home in some modicum of style. This is what I remember the most; when we arrived at the warm apartment and dragged "Doug" inside, there were all the lights and ornaments and icicles and tinsel and popcorn balls and gingerbread men, laid out and waiting for us to decorate. The tree stand was in the middle of the tiny living room. All this had been there when we left, but I never stopped to think then that Cella had no money....but she always had hope and optimism. The smallest things in life were always a cause for celebration for her. This is the thing that I hope I inherited from Cella.
I have not gotten to the story of The Blue Coat yet, but I hope that the Christmas Tree schtick has given some idea of how steep and treacherous the Hill Section can be. That is important to this part of the story. On the day in question, Siss had gone up the hill to see her best friend Jill, with whom she sang in a Peter-Paul-and-Mary type folk group. They had, besides themselves, a boy who played guitar and a boy who played double bass. Siss and Jill had bought matching outfits for performance; mohair suits with straght skirts and little vests. Siss' was blue and Jill wore yellow. The group billed itself as "The Singletons".
It was cold and raw and wet that day, so Siss borrowed the only garment that I owned that I truly cared for; my slate-blue, wide-wale corduroy car-coat. It sported a hood which was trimmed with red fox fur, and had wooden beer-barrel buttons that closed on loops down the front. She was my big sister. I was proud that I owned something that she deemed worthy.
I stayed home that day. The weather made me want to read and talk on the 'phone. It was growing dark, and Siss still hadn't showed up, so Cella called Jill's house and found out that Siss had left there several hours before. Cella was frantic. She called Jack, from whom she had (thank Heaven) separated, and he got in his car and started for our place. Before he got there, the door burst open and a distraught and dripping Siss came in. Here is what happened to her, and by association, my Blue Coat:
Siss was walking home from Jill's house, being careful to avoid the large puddles that were accumulating from the heavy rain.When it rained, the water started at the top of the hills, gathering momentum and volume as it flowed down under the streets. On this particular evening, the rain had been so heavy that it rushed down and popped the manhole cover off at one of the corners where Siss had to cross. She stepped off the curb, through the water, and fell into the manhole.
The rushing water grabbed her legs and pulled them underneath the street. She thrust her arms out over the lip of the hole and struggled to kick herself free. My coat became sodden, and was so heavy that it kept her down. She could not even release an arm long enough to take the coat off.
There she stayed for a very long time. We still do not know how she finally mamaged to get out of the hole and avoid being sucked into oblivion underneath the streets of Scranton. Siss does not remember this herself. All she remembers is bursting in through the door of home and collapsing on Cella. Jack came in shortly thereafter, and took Siss out with him after she has gotten into some dry clothes. This part never made any sense to me, but Jack took Siss to one of his neighborhood Irish bars, either Joyce's or Judge's, and bought her a glass of wine. First, what kind of an Irish bar serves wine? Second, an Irish bar probably serves the kind of wine that would take the paint off your car. Third, why on earth take a traumatized teenager to a bar to have a drink? Siss got the glass of wine in her hand, and squeezed it so hard that it shattered.
I hope that I did not take after Jack in this respect.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
More About The Green Dress
I am still trying to figure out exactly when Siss wheedled the green dress out of me, and I just know that I have gotten it all wrong. Time has seemed to compress in the almost-ten-years that I have lived in Houston, and I have molded it into a little ball that I can throw out in conversation as a neat package. Actually, it hasn't been like that at all.
When I think about all this time in a non-anecdotal way, there are events that stand out like blazes on trees to mark my way in time. Cella died in June and I came here in August, leaving Scranton directly from her memorial service. That first academic year, August-May, Siss came along with me and ten of my students to the American College Dance Festival, which was held at the University of Texas at Austin. Siss came as our "nurse", so she got a free ride. She watched me teach some master classes, and we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Garden. This was in March.
I saw Siss again the next November, which would have been my second academic year here. She came for Thanksgiving, which I had prepared to cook for us both. Naturally, Mr. Stupid-and-Cheap had provided me with a wreck of a refrigerator, which died just in time to spoil all the food for my big dinner. This is why Siss and I ended up at Kim Son, my neighborhood Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant, for dinner. I had house soup, a duck salad, and several glasses of appalling red wine. Who cared? We had the good stuff back at my place, a mere two blocks away. It was a good Thanksgiving Day.
Also on that weekend, Siss and I went to the Butterfly Garden at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We took photographs there, among the fluttering wings, and I have not thought of those photographs until now. Perhaps I should dig around for them and post one....if they really do exist.
Here is the other thing I remember about that weekend....or was it the Spring Break weekend? Siss was shocked that I did not own a television, so she took me out and bought me this little, 13-inch TV/VCR combo that I subsequently used only too look at movies and dance videos from performances. I had this little TV/VCR until just two Christmases ago when Sig bought me a large-screen TV and a satellite subscription. I still use it mainly to watch movies. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
That was also the year that Jack, my father, died at Christmas and I missed the funeral because I was snowed in by a blizzard in Flagstaff, Arizona....another story entirely.
In the middle of the third year, Siss suggested that we get together and visit Scranton in order to look at our parents' grave. Yes, they were buried in the same grave, although they had been divorced since I was fourteen. And, how do you get two people into the same grave, you ask? Cella was a Lutheran and Jack was a Catholic. Cella wanted cremation and Jack wanted a big Irish wake. Cella and Jack wanted to be buried together. Therefore, when Cella died, her ashes were stored at the mortuary in their little cherry wood box until Jack died. Then, the box was slipped into his coffin with his hand resting on it, probably in an effort to keep her quiet for eternity. No one said a word about this arrangement, because the church charged an "extra body fee" for more than one person in a grave. Ghoulish.
So, during the third academic year, Siss and I went to Scranton, visited the grave, and....I got my navel pierced. These things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. There is just a dearth of things to do in Scranton. We probably went to Brenda's, too, because we never go to Scranton without sampling the Italian fare and potent Manhattans at Bistocchi's.
A year later, at the end of my fourth academic year, I met Sig. Sig never even knew about the green dress until I asked for it back. I asked for it back when I was going on sabbatical. You can't get a sabbatical until you have been at the college for seven years.
What does this all mean? I mean, what is the point? The point is that Siss had possession of my green dress without writing a word for much longer than I had thought. It was on the grave-visiting, navel-piercing trip that she asked to borrow the dress; and it was after my seventh academic year that I finally asked for it back.
Having thought in terms of "academic years" for far too long, I have decided that I am finished with higher education forever. Dancing for grades never made a whole lot of sense anyway.
I did get the time line settled.
When I think about all this time in a non-anecdotal way, there are events that stand out like blazes on trees to mark my way in time. Cella died in June and I came here in August, leaving Scranton directly from her memorial service. That first academic year, August-May, Siss came along with me and ten of my students to the American College Dance Festival, which was held at the University of Texas at Austin. Siss came as our "nurse", so she got a free ride. She watched me teach some master classes, and we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Garden. This was in March.
I saw Siss again the next November, which would have been my second academic year here. She came for Thanksgiving, which I had prepared to cook for us both. Naturally, Mr. Stupid-and-Cheap had provided me with a wreck of a refrigerator, which died just in time to spoil all the food for my big dinner. This is why Siss and I ended up at Kim Son, my neighborhood Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant, for dinner. I had house soup, a duck salad, and several glasses of appalling red wine. Who cared? We had the good stuff back at my place, a mere two blocks away. It was a good Thanksgiving Day.
Also on that weekend, Siss and I went to the Butterfly Garden at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We took photographs there, among the fluttering wings, and I have not thought of those photographs until now. Perhaps I should dig around for them and post one....if they really do exist.
Here is the other thing I remember about that weekend....or was it the Spring Break weekend? Siss was shocked that I did not own a television, so she took me out and bought me this little, 13-inch TV/VCR combo that I subsequently used only too look at movies and dance videos from performances. I had this little TV/VCR until just two Christmases ago when Sig bought me a large-screen TV and a satellite subscription. I still use it mainly to watch movies. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
That was also the year that Jack, my father, died at Christmas and I missed the funeral because I was snowed in by a blizzard in Flagstaff, Arizona....another story entirely.
In the middle of the third year, Siss suggested that we get together and visit Scranton in order to look at our parents' grave. Yes, they were buried in the same grave, although they had been divorced since I was fourteen. And, how do you get two people into the same grave, you ask? Cella was a Lutheran and Jack was a Catholic. Cella wanted cremation and Jack wanted a big Irish wake. Cella and Jack wanted to be buried together. Therefore, when Cella died, her ashes were stored at the mortuary in their little cherry wood box until Jack died. Then, the box was slipped into his coffin with his hand resting on it, probably in an effort to keep her quiet for eternity. No one said a word about this arrangement, because the church charged an "extra body fee" for more than one person in a grave. Ghoulish.
So, during the third academic year, Siss and I went to Scranton, visited the grave, and....I got my navel pierced. These things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. There is just a dearth of things to do in Scranton. We probably went to Brenda's, too, because we never go to Scranton without sampling the Italian fare and potent Manhattans at Bistocchi's.
A year later, at the end of my fourth academic year, I met Sig. Sig never even knew about the green dress until I asked for it back. I asked for it back when I was going on sabbatical. You can't get a sabbatical until you have been at the college for seven years.
What does this all mean? I mean, what is the point? The point is that Siss had possession of my green dress without writing a word for much longer than I had thought. It was on the grave-visiting, navel-piercing trip that she asked to borrow the dress; and it was after my seventh academic year that I finally asked for it back.
Having thought in terms of "academic years" for far too long, I have decided that I am finished with higher education forever. Dancing for grades never made a whole lot of sense anyway.
I did get the time line settled.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
"It Wouldn't Be Me"
Okay...that was the big line emanating from my sister's electronic lips (she always does both her dirty work and her making up over the 'phone or the e-mail) on the night that I finally had had enough of her BS and hung up on her. What a feeling!
This was before the big birthday blowup and final parting. In fact, this was the incident that gave me the two-plus years of peace and quiet before her "you're the only sister I have" speech. I really enjoyed those two-plus years. Why don't I ever remember these things in a timely fashion when she wants to reconnect and "bond"??
At this point in time, I was still in possession of the green dress. It was wadded up and shoved in a trunk, having been last used as a costume for a solo that I set on a particularly gifted student. This girl could really dance, and she was intellectually interesting as well, and a thoughtful choreographer. I set this short work, an introspective solo to Philip Glass' "Freezing", for an annual college event called "Rising Stars". We, as faculty, nominated these students and showcased their talents at a really decent dinner held at a hotel ballroom every May. I went for the food, and I was always sure that the nominated student or students would show up for the same reason. I remember that the dinner was one of those clever, molded turkey breast slices that was formed around a mound of stuffing and framed in festoons of french-cut green beans. Okay, it was predictable, but the dessert was frosted with real ganache and had chocolate-covered strawberries on the side. This was the lure. The student, who will remain nameless for her own sake and my legal safety, showed up, danced, and chowed down on the dinner. This is the selfsame student that I once saw devour five slices of a very dense pizza and then go out and perform. All this to say that I did, indeed, have the green dress.
On to the hang-up incident. I have already mentioned that I live in a warehouse space. What I have not yet mentioned is that the entire warehouse is owned by probably the "stupidest" and cheapest man in the world....at least, in my world. After I had lived in the space for a year, I came home one day to find a notice to vacate posted on my door by the City of Houston. The notice gave me one week to get out. You see, Mr. stupid-and-cheap didn't feel that he had to be up to code because he rented us the spaces on fake rental agreements. This is the same man who once admonished me to "talk to me in words I can understand". You get the drift.
What I am trying to say is that the warehouse leaked like a sieve and had PVC pipes that were totally inadequate for the amount of water that flowed through them. Recipe for disaster, and disaster came more often than I would like to remember. On this occasion, a particularly heavy rain came in a matter of minutes, and fell on ground that was very dry and not ready to absorb. I ended up with more than three feet of water in my place. I lost almost everything, including art, clothing, furniture, books papers....the list goes on and on. It was so bad that one of my friends at work gave me a few items of clothing so that I could go to school and teach my classes. Naturally, Mr. stupid-and-cheap never paid a cent to any of us poor slobs who were his tenants.
As I was still digging out from the three feet of silt, water, and happy frogs, Siss called me, wanting to chat. For whatever reason, she wanted the conversation to be all about her, and I wasn't in the mood for her petty bitching. I told her nicely that I was having a difficult time, just having lost everything. I hadn't asked her for a thing, and didn't intend to. I just didn't need to be an ear for her just then.
She turned on me, not in anger, but in cold moralistic tones, which I find much worse. She delivered her line, "It wouldn't be me living that way"....this, just after she was braying on about how she always wanted to live in a warehouse.
In a moment of weakness (or strength),I said "get out of my life, and stay out", and hung up.
There. Now I have connected the dots to the "you're the only sister I have" speech. Siss let more than two years go by after I hung up in her ear, probably hoping that I would forget all about her bad timing and moralistic attitude, and then she contacted me by e-mail. I took her back in without a word about the past. What an idiot. Somewhere between that 'phone call, that e-mail, and the birthday debacle, I let the green dress out of my grasp...I think. It's all really cloudy these days.
Suffice it to say that I had the green dress, then I didn't, and now I have it again.
More later.
This was before the big birthday blowup and final parting. In fact, this was the incident that gave me the two-plus years of peace and quiet before her "you're the only sister I have" speech. I really enjoyed those two-plus years. Why don't I ever remember these things in a timely fashion when she wants to reconnect and "bond"??
At this point in time, I was still in possession of the green dress. It was wadded up and shoved in a trunk, having been last used as a costume for a solo that I set on a particularly gifted student. This girl could really dance, and she was intellectually interesting as well, and a thoughtful choreographer. I set this short work, an introspective solo to Philip Glass' "Freezing", for an annual college event called "Rising Stars". We, as faculty, nominated these students and showcased their talents at a really decent dinner held at a hotel ballroom every May. I went for the food, and I was always sure that the nominated student or students would show up for the same reason. I remember that the dinner was one of those clever, molded turkey breast slices that was formed around a mound of stuffing and framed in festoons of french-cut green beans. Okay, it was predictable, but the dessert was frosted with real ganache and had chocolate-covered strawberries on the side. This was the lure. The student, who will remain nameless for her own sake and my legal safety, showed up, danced, and chowed down on the dinner. This is the selfsame student that I once saw devour five slices of a very dense pizza and then go out and perform. All this to say that I did, indeed, have the green dress.
On to the hang-up incident. I have already mentioned that I live in a warehouse space. What I have not yet mentioned is that the entire warehouse is owned by probably the "stupidest" and cheapest man in the world....at least, in my world. After I had lived in the space for a year, I came home one day to find a notice to vacate posted on my door by the City of Houston. The notice gave me one week to get out. You see, Mr. stupid-and-cheap didn't feel that he had to be up to code because he rented us the spaces on fake rental agreements. This is the same man who once admonished me to "talk to me in words I can understand". You get the drift.
What I am trying to say is that the warehouse leaked like a sieve and had PVC pipes that were totally inadequate for the amount of water that flowed through them. Recipe for disaster, and disaster came more often than I would like to remember. On this occasion, a particularly heavy rain came in a matter of minutes, and fell on ground that was very dry and not ready to absorb. I ended up with more than three feet of water in my place. I lost almost everything, including art, clothing, furniture, books papers....the list goes on and on. It was so bad that one of my friends at work gave me a few items of clothing so that I could go to school and teach my classes. Naturally, Mr. stupid-and-cheap never paid a cent to any of us poor slobs who were his tenants.
As I was still digging out from the three feet of silt, water, and happy frogs, Siss called me, wanting to chat. For whatever reason, she wanted the conversation to be all about her, and I wasn't in the mood for her petty bitching. I told her nicely that I was having a difficult time, just having lost everything. I hadn't asked her for a thing, and didn't intend to. I just didn't need to be an ear for her just then.
She turned on me, not in anger, but in cold moralistic tones, which I find much worse. She delivered her line, "It wouldn't be me living that way"....this, just after she was braying on about how she always wanted to live in a warehouse.
In a moment of weakness (or strength),I said "get out of my life, and stay out", and hung up.
There. Now I have connected the dots to the "you're the only sister I have" speech. Siss let more than two years go by after I hung up in her ear, probably hoping that I would forget all about her bad timing and moralistic attitude, and then she contacted me by e-mail. I took her back in without a word about the past. What an idiot. Somewhere between that 'phone call, that e-mail, and the birthday debacle, I let the green dress out of my grasp...I think. It's all really cloudy these days.
Suffice it to say that I had the green dress, then I didn't, and now I have it again.
More later.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Sorting Out A Few Things
I have always been a live-and-let live person, especially where it concerns my sister, whom I have seen rarely once we were out of college. I have never thought about how she might be living her life. My own has always been plenty for me to handle.
I have always liked and admired the homes that Siss has created for herself, except for the smoky dungeon she shared with The Rag before the breakup. That was horrible, but I love the little house she has in New Providence, with its jewel-toned furniture, comfy back porch, and procession of clopping horses going by. She also had a cute place in Easton, PA. It was a large apartment that covered the second story of an older house, and I remember visiting her there when I was still in undergraduate school and she was newly married (for the first time). My boyfriend (who later became my first husband) and I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a gift to take along to Siss' place; an enormous milk-fed pumpkin that easily measured three feet in diameter. We suggested that they coat it with polyurethane and use it as a cute chair or footstool. None of the four of us knew anything about milk-fed pumpkins, what was inside them, or how all that milk might affect the process of decay. About two weeks later, Siss called me at school to inform me that she had sat down on the pumpkin, only to have it turn to mush and implode beneath her, at the same time releasing a noxious liquid in great quantity. This liquid saturated her new wool area rug, made its way across the kitchen, and flowed out the back door and down the stairs to visit the neighbors, who were also her landlords. Oops!
Siss and this same husband, who was an urban planner, later bought a cute little house in Moorestown, New Jersey, right across the bridge from Philadelphia. Siss fixed this one up beautifully, too. I always envied her ability to "nest". She did it well.
At this time I was living in New York City and had married the boyfriend from the pumpkin disaster. He and I both had begun Orgone therapy with the wonderful Dr. Schwartzman, whose office was in Philadelphia. Each week, we would get home to Brooklyn from working/dancing in Manhattan, change clothes, and leave for Philly. We ate convenient-store ham sandwiches while we gassed up on the way, and got to Philly for our back-to-back 8PM and 9PM therapy appointments. After therapy, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a "bucket of munchkins" and headed for Moorestown and that cute little house where my sister and her husband lived. We shared the munchkins, which were doughnut holes in several flavors, among the four of us before we headed back to Brooklyn at 2 or 3 in the morning. This went on for years, until Siss got divorced and the house was sold.
Back to the point. I am very live-and-let-live. I never loved and then hated Siss. I never admired and then vilified her way of life. I never even noticed the way she dressed or styled her hair. I never commented on her life-choices.
Maybe all this going with the flow left me open to be loved/hated and admired/vilified by her. I learned some very valuable things about the human condition while I was in therapy. One of those things is that people often lash out at others who have what they themselves want but are too afraid to reach for. This is an emotional plague reaction. It is a hatred of the life and happiness in someone else because of a fear of reaching for that life and happiness.
What does this have to do with all those cute little houses and all that nesting? Well, Siss always wanted a more adventurous and "artistic" way of life. She wanted to be a writer, and actually got a degree in English, but later gave up an editorial position to go back to nursing school. I am living in a converted warehouse on an organic farm in the middle of a big city, surrounded by museums and galleries and theatres. I achieved my dream of becoming a dancer, and that is how I make my living. She reveled in this way of life, loved visiting the warehouse, having Thanksgiving dinner at the local Vietnamese restaurant, going to the butterfly garden at the Natural Science Museum. Then, when I got flooded, she turned all moralistic and said, "it wouldn't be ME living that way"! And....when Hurricane Ike hit Houston and made national news, she never even called me. All part of the old "I told you so". You know, I would never have lived in the cozy little places she has inhabited, but the important thing is that I would never have thought of saying this to her. We all have the right to live the way we want to live, and the way that makes us comfortable.
What did I want to sort out here? Just one very basic thing that separates me and Siss. I believe in living my life exactly as I please as long as I hurt no one else. I also believe that I do not have the right to comment on how anyone else lives his/her life unless I am asked. Siss, on the other hand, feels free to sling off at me about my life, and it is always disguised as "what is best for me". This disguise is another dead giveaway that the emotional plague is at work. Siss has become very moralistic and self-righteous where I am concerned ("it wouldn't be ME living that way"). I should really say "had become", because there is no present tense for us any more.
I have always liked and admired the homes that Siss has created for herself, except for the smoky dungeon she shared with The Rag before the breakup. That was horrible, but I love the little house she has in New Providence, with its jewel-toned furniture, comfy back porch, and procession of clopping horses going by. She also had a cute place in Easton, PA. It was a large apartment that covered the second story of an older house, and I remember visiting her there when I was still in undergraduate school and she was newly married (for the first time). My boyfriend (who later became my first husband) and I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a gift to take along to Siss' place; an enormous milk-fed pumpkin that easily measured three feet in diameter. We suggested that they coat it with polyurethane and use it as a cute chair or footstool. None of the four of us knew anything about milk-fed pumpkins, what was inside them, or how all that milk might affect the process of decay. About two weeks later, Siss called me at school to inform me that she had sat down on the pumpkin, only to have it turn to mush and implode beneath her, at the same time releasing a noxious liquid in great quantity. This liquid saturated her new wool area rug, made its way across the kitchen, and flowed out the back door and down the stairs to visit the neighbors, who were also her landlords. Oops!
Siss and this same husband, who was an urban planner, later bought a cute little house in Moorestown, New Jersey, right across the bridge from Philadelphia. Siss fixed this one up beautifully, too. I always envied her ability to "nest". She did it well.
At this time I was living in New York City and had married the boyfriend from the pumpkin disaster. He and I both had begun Orgone therapy with the wonderful Dr. Schwartzman, whose office was in Philadelphia. Each week, we would get home to Brooklyn from working/dancing in Manhattan, change clothes, and leave for Philly. We ate convenient-store ham sandwiches while we gassed up on the way, and got to Philly for our back-to-back 8PM and 9PM therapy appointments. After therapy, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a "bucket of munchkins" and headed for Moorestown and that cute little house where my sister and her husband lived. We shared the munchkins, which were doughnut holes in several flavors, among the four of us before we headed back to Brooklyn at 2 or 3 in the morning. This went on for years, until Siss got divorced and the house was sold.
Back to the point. I am very live-and-let-live. I never loved and then hated Siss. I never admired and then vilified her way of life. I never even noticed the way she dressed or styled her hair. I never commented on her life-choices.
Maybe all this going with the flow left me open to be loved/hated and admired/vilified by her. I learned some very valuable things about the human condition while I was in therapy. One of those things is that people often lash out at others who have what they themselves want but are too afraid to reach for. This is an emotional plague reaction. It is a hatred of the life and happiness in someone else because of a fear of reaching for that life and happiness.
What does this have to do with all those cute little houses and all that nesting? Well, Siss always wanted a more adventurous and "artistic" way of life. She wanted to be a writer, and actually got a degree in English, but later gave up an editorial position to go back to nursing school. I am living in a converted warehouse on an organic farm in the middle of a big city, surrounded by museums and galleries and theatres. I achieved my dream of becoming a dancer, and that is how I make my living. She reveled in this way of life, loved visiting the warehouse, having Thanksgiving dinner at the local Vietnamese restaurant, going to the butterfly garden at the Natural Science Museum. Then, when I got flooded, she turned all moralistic and said, "it wouldn't be ME living that way"! And....when Hurricane Ike hit Houston and made national news, she never even called me. All part of the old "I told you so". You know, I would never have lived in the cozy little places she has inhabited, but the important thing is that I would never have thought of saying this to her. We all have the right to live the way we want to live, and the way that makes us comfortable.
What did I want to sort out here? Just one very basic thing that separates me and Siss. I believe in living my life exactly as I please as long as I hurt no one else. I also believe that I do not have the right to comment on how anyone else lives his/her life unless I am asked. Siss, on the other hand, feels free to sling off at me about my life, and it is always disguised as "what is best for me". This disguise is another dead giveaway that the emotional plague is at work. Siss has become very moralistic and self-righteous where I am concerned ("it wouldn't be ME living that way"). I should really say "had become", because there is no present tense for us any more.
Friday, June 4, 2010
That Party
The party at which Siss put out a restraining hand to stop me from dancing is my only memory of the seventh grade, outside of being ridiculed by a male classmate (name withheld) for having hairy legs. You see, I was a very late bloomer, and was not allowed to do things like wear makeup and shave my legs at the age of twelve. I was a Catholic school girl who appeared every weekday in a green jumper with a white blouse, a green tie and socks-and-shoes. You can be sure that the very next time I appeared at school after the "hairy legs" comment, I had clean-shaven legs and lots of little dots of toilet paper stuck to them with my dried blood. One more step on the way to puberty.
Ah, puberty. Girls reach puberty much sooner now than I remember, but I am sure that I am mistakenly judging all other women by my own experience. I didn't get my period until I was seventeen, for lord's sake! In retrospect, I don't think I am exactly the norm. Anyway, in the seventh grade I was a child, five years from puberty, and I didn't understand boys and dating and leg-shaving. I still wore my hair in a ponytail.
Back to the party. If I was twelve and in the seventh grade, Siss was fifteen and in the tenth grade. There were light years between us. She had gotten her period at twelve like everyone else, and she wore her hair in a "bubble cut", the 1960's "Shirelles" do that had to be teased and lacquered and covered with a scarf just to get to school in one piece. I remember leaving Grandma Lavina's house for school with Siss, and she would ask me every five seconds, "does my hair look alright? Does it look the same as when we left the house?" Of course, I couldn't see it under the scarf, but I dutifully told her "yes" and plodded on, ponytail bobbing.
Again, back to the party. It seems to me that it was a birthday party for one of Siss' friends, maybe even her boyfriend. I thought that he was cute, and his name was Carl-something-Slovak with a last name that sounded like a sneeze. Heaven only knows why I had been invited, but there I was. The party was at my Aunt Kaye's house on Woodlawn Street in Scranton, in a part of the city known as "the hill section"....appropriately. The houses faced a street that was on such a steep incline that they appeared to be leaning to the side. Aunt Kaye was only ten years older than my sister, being twenty years younger than my father. Such are Irish Catholic families.
I was feeling really energized that evening. The music was turned up and there were many teenagers dancing "The Twist". I was very good at The Twist. I am sure that Chubby Checker would have been proud. I was wearing my "Twist blouse" that night. You had to wear a Twist blouse to make the Twist look authentic, just as you had to wear a Ben Casey shirt with a buttoned neckband to look like one of the in-crowd. A Twist blouse was usually white, and fell to mid-hip. It had long sleeves, and around the cuffs and the hip line were bands of ruffles. These bands showed off the gyrations of the dance called "The Twist".
I could Twist better than anyone there, probably a harbinger of my future career as a professional dancer. I knew all the moves, and even made up some of my own. I was just at the apex of my Twist performance, when a harsh, restraining hand was clamped on my shoulder by my sister, and I was edged off the dance floor.
Did it hurt me? Why do you think that I still remember the moment like it was yesterday? I didn't understand it then, but I do now. That uninhibited dancing is why she runs from me now, why she borrowed my green dress, why she wants to be me, and why she detests me.
Ah, puberty. Girls reach puberty much sooner now than I remember, but I am sure that I am mistakenly judging all other women by my own experience. I didn't get my period until I was seventeen, for lord's sake! In retrospect, I don't think I am exactly the norm. Anyway, in the seventh grade I was a child, five years from puberty, and I didn't understand boys and dating and leg-shaving. I still wore my hair in a ponytail.
Back to the party. If I was twelve and in the seventh grade, Siss was fifteen and in the tenth grade. There were light years between us. She had gotten her period at twelve like everyone else, and she wore her hair in a "bubble cut", the 1960's "Shirelles" do that had to be teased and lacquered and covered with a scarf just to get to school in one piece. I remember leaving Grandma Lavina's house for school with Siss, and she would ask me every five seconds, "does my hair look alright? Does it look the same as when we left the house?" Of course, I couldn't see it under the scarf, but I dutifully told her "yes" and plodded on, ponytail bobbing.
Again, back to the party. It seems to me that it was a birthday party for one of Siss' friends, maybe even her boyfriend. I thought that he was cute, and his name was Carl-something-Slovak with a last name that sounded like a sneeze. Heaven only knows why I had been invited, but there I was. The party was at my Aunt Kaye's house on Woodlawn Street in Scranton, in a part of the city known as "the hill section"....appropriately. The houses faced a street that was on such a steep incline that they appeared to be leaning to the side. Aunt Kaye was only ten years older than my sister, being twenty years younger than my father. Such are Irish Catholic families.
I was feeling really energized that evening. The music was turned up and there were many teenagers dancing "The Twist". I was very good at The Twist. I am sure that Chubby Checker would have been proud. I was wearing my "Twist blouse" that night. You had to wear a Twist blouse to make the Twist look authentic, just as you had to wear a Ben Casey shirt with a buttoned neckband to look like one of the in-crowd. A Twist blouse was usually white, and fell to mid-hip. It had long sleeves, and around the cuffs and the hip line were bands of ruffles. These bands showed off the gyrations of the dance called "The Twist".
I could Twist better than anyone there, probably a harbinger of my future career as a professional dancer. I knew all the moves, and even made up some of my own. I was just at the apex of my Twist performance, when a harsh, restraining hand was clamped on my shoulder by my sister, and I was edged off the dance floor.
Did it hurt me? Why do you think that I still remember the moment like it was yesterday? I didn't understand it then, but I do now. That uninhibited dancing is why she runs from me now, why she borrowed my green dress, why she wants to be me, and why she detests me.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Is There More To The Story?
Yes, there is much more to the Green Dress Diaries. There are stories to be fleshed out, added to and post-scripted. There are moments to be pondered, such as....why on earth did my sister stop me from dancing at that party when I was in the seventh grade? By the way, I was wearing my twist blouse at that party; very spiffy.
I have never regretted sending that letter, and do not ever intend to break my resolve about its finality. The chapter is indeed closed, and my future with Sig looks very bright indeed. The burning question of what on earth to do with The Wet Rag in social situations is now rendered irrelevant.
After many years, I am no longer teaching for that college. I am writing this with the hopes of turning it into either a book or a play. Which do you think?
The blog will go on tomorrow.
I have never regretted sending that letter, and do not ever intend to break my resolve about its finality. The chapter is indeed closed, and my future with Sig looks very bright indeed. The burning question of what on earth to do with The Wet Rag in social situations is now rendered irrelevant.
After many years, I am no longer teaching for that college. I am writing this with the hopes of turning it into either a book or a play. Which do you think?
The blog will go on tomorrow.
Things Come Full Circle
In the morning, things seemed back to normal as we packed our things to leave. We ate what the hotel called a "Continental Breakfast" in the lobby, enduring the dishwater coffee and powdered eggs as best we could. We packed her mint green Volvo wagon and headed down I-81 to Lancaster County. Nothing but pleasantries passed between us, and I was thinking that this was the wall that was beginning to solidify and shut us off from each other forever. It was a relief. I saw the same scenery, the same huge conifers, maples, and broad-leafed oaks, the same old homes and stores, but they were not fresh anymore. I wanted to go home.
On our last night in New Providence, I did not have to endure The Wet Rag. We got in late, leaving no time for anything but a hasty dinner and bed. I was tired, as I had not been tired in a long, long time. It was an emotional exhaustion, the kind that makes your eyes burn and yet refuse to close.
On the last morning, I found that I could not get everything into my suitcase, and it was much too early to go to the post office and mail things back to Houston. Siss told me that I should leave the vase and poster from the Everhart Museum with her, and she would mail them to me in the next couple of days. I, in my turn, promised to send her a leather coat, two pairs of leather demi-boots, and a leather makeup bag that I had said she could have. The leather coat was new, and much too heavy for Houston weather. The boots were gifts that Sig had ordered for me online, and the order had been sent in duplicate by mistake. The makeup bag was from Cole Haan, and was something that the adorable Sig had bought in several colors. This was about a thousand dollars worth of stuff, and I was very happy to pass it on and give it a good home. On the way down the stairs at Siss' house, I brushed past the green dress, feeling a sense of loss and hoping that I would see it again. This was the later part of August.
Back home in Houston, I immediately had to return to the college for in-service week. Translate this as endless meetings that accomplished nothing, and listening to reports from people that I don't respect. It has little to do with students, especially since my cell 'phone number is printed in the course schedule and they can reach me at any time, regardless of my presence on campus. The point is, I forgot about the drama of the sisters' weekend and slipped gratefully into my double routine of dancing and avoiding committee work. I did, however, send the promised "goodie box" to Siss, and was actually very excited at being able to give her such nice things. Circumstances in my life have not always been this good. Sig was a gift from the Universe, and he knows that I love sharing the largesse as much as he does.
There was no response for about a week, and then it was like a cold shower bath had suddenly fallen on my unsuspecting head. My sister wrote me a curt, frosty note saying that she had gotten the box, would use the coat, and "we'll see" about the boots. No "thank you", no delight, no nothing. What she did say was that my vase would "cost more to send than it is worth", ergo she wasn't going to send it. P.S.....she never sent the poster, either. No big deal? No big deal? Well, yes it was, and I had just had my first picture of how tit-for-tat doesn't always work for tat. I responded to her, saying that she could keep the vase, and think of me every time she filled it with deadly nightshade.
I signed off.
Fast forward an entire year. I had earned myself a sabbatical leave from my job, and was planning to spend the fall semester immersing myself in dance in New York City, performing, and creating some new works. I started thinking about the green dress and how much I wanted to have it back. Did I want to work with it? Use it as a costume? A prop? I didn't know, but I knew that I wanted it badly enough to ask for it.
So I sort of lied, told the story of recreating the solo, and offered to send Siss the money for the postage to return the dress to me.
I waited.
Soon, this chirpy little bread-and-butter e-mail arrived, telling me that I did not have to pay for the postage, and how sorry she was that she missed me at the Princeton lecture (which I went to without telling her I was going....duh!). She acted as if everything was hunky-dory, and we would just pick up where we left off.
Not hardly. I waited until I had the dress in my hands.
The note had finally made me take a hard look at the pattern of a lifetime. Siss was the approach-and-run part and I was the rock-steady-take-anything part. She got to call all the shots.She dictated when we could talk, when we could see each other, when we needed to be far apart. This was not my style, and it finally occurred to me that there was something very wrong with Siss, not with me. I was merely the enabler. She was feeding her own needs, ignoring mine, and fully expecting that I would act as if there were nothing wrong with the arrangement.
I decided to act, to cut the cord. Knowing that I had my green dress safely home helped me to make the break, and I did. The letter that I hastily penned that night, and sent without hesitation, without salutation, and with a check for the postage for the green dress taped to the top....that is the letter that is reprinted in the very first post of this blog.
On our last night in New Providence, I did not have to endure The Wet Rag. We got in late, leaving no time for anything but a hasty dinner and bed. I was tired, as I had not been tired in a long, long time. It was an emotional exhaustion, the kind that makes your eyes burn and yet refuse to close.
On the last morning, I found that I could not get everything into my suitcase, and it was much too early to go to the post office and mail things back to Houston. Siss told me that I should leave the vase and poster from the Everhart Museum with her, and she would mail them to me in the next couple of days. I, in my turn, promised to send her a leather coat, two pairs of leather demi-boots, and a leather makeup bag that I had said she could have. The leather coat was new, and much too heavy for Houston weather. The boots were gifts that Sig had ordered for me online, and the order had been sent in duplicate by mistake. The makeup bag was from Cole Haan, and was something that the adorable Sig had bought in several colors. This was about a thousand dollars worth of stuff, and I was very happy to pass it on and give it a good home. On the way down the stairs at Siss' house, I brushed past the green dress, feeling a sense of loss and hoping that I would see it again. This was the later part of August.
Back home in Houston, I immediately had to return to the college for in-service week. Translate this as endless meetings that accomplished nothing, and listening to reports from people that I don't respect. It has little to do with students, especially since my cell 'phone number is printed in the course schedule and they can reach me at any time, regardless of my presence on campus. The point is, I forgot about the drama of the sisters' weekend and slipped gratefully into my double routine of dancing and avoiding committee work. I did, however, send the promised "goodie box" to Siss, and was actually very excited at being able to give her such nice things. Circumstances in my life have not always been this good. Sig was a gift from the Universe, and he knows that I love sharing the largesse as much as he does.
There was no response for about a week, and then it was like a cold shower bath had suddenly fallen on my unsuspecting head. My sister wrote me a curt, frosty note saying that she had gotten the box, would use the coat, and "we'll see" about the boots. No "thank you", no delight, no nothing. What she did say was that my vase would "cost more to send than it is worth", ergo she wasn't going to send it. P.S.....she never sent the poster, either. No big deal? No big deal? Well, yes it was, and I had just had my first picture of how tit-for-tat doesn't always work for tat. I responded to her, saying that she could keep the vase, and think of me every time she filled it with deadly nightshade.
I signed off.
Fast forward an entire year. I had earned myself a sabbatical leave from my job, and was planning to spend the fall semester immersing myself in dance in New York City, performing, and creating some new works. I started thinking about the green dress and how much I wanted to have it back. Did I want to work with it? Use it as a costume? A prop? I didn't know, but I knew that I wanted it badly enough to ask for it.
So I sort of lied, told the story of recreating the solo, and offered to send Siss the money for the postage to return the dress to me.
I waited.
Soon, this chirpy little bread-and-butter e-mail arrived, telling me that I did not have to pay for the postage, and how sorry she was that she missed me at the Princeton lecture (which I went to without telling her I was going....duh!). She acted as if everything was hunky-dory, and we would just pick up where we left off.
Not hardly. I waited until I had the dress in my hands.
The note had finally made me take a hard look at the pattern of a lifetime. Siss was the approach-and-run part and I was the rock-steady-take-anything part. She got to call all the shots.She dictated when we could talk, when we could see each other, when we needed to be far apart. This was not my style, and it finally occurred to me that there was something very wrong with Siss, not with me. I was merely the enabler. She was feeding her own needs, ignoring mine, and fully expecting that I would act as if there were nothing wrong with the arrangement.
I decided to act, to cut the cord. Knowing that I had my green dress safely home helped me to make the break, and I did. The letter that I hastily penned that night, and sent without hesitation, without salutation, and with a check for the postage for the green dress taped to the top....that is the letter that is reprinted in the very first post of this blog.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Last Evening in Scranton
The sight of my sister squeezed into one of my leotards (she forgot to bring a bathing suit) was almost as bad as the naked bonding scene. When things are too tight, the excess flab squishes out unappealingly around all the pressure points; butt, armpits, back....you get the picture. I know that Siss felt rather uncomfortable in my camisole leotard, for she dropped her towel on a plastic chair and virtually sprinted for the jacuzzi. I was really afraid of one of those slip-and-fall-and-crack-the-skull incidents that you read about in the large-print Readers Digest. Not that I ever read those things except when I am getting an oil change. My mechanics have a bookkeeper who is sweet, elderly, and probably vision-impaired. Why else would a bunch of alpha-male grease monkeys keep large-print Readers Digest?
We settled into the jacuzzi for a wallow-cum-chat, since we had found out the hard way that the pool was kept at what felt like a constant sixty degrees. It really reminded me of my days living in San Francisco. Better I should have wrinkled fingers than blue lips. The chat was probably about family, but I remember most clearly that my sister was so uncomfortable with her body that neither she nor I could concentrate on anything else. She moved from one jet to another, carefully positioning her thighs for minimum exposure, like the old modeling schools taught you. Come to think of it, like the new modeling schools teach you, too. I had to periodically jump up on the rim and just dangle my legs in order to cool off, but she wouldn't get up with me so consequently looked faintly boiled, like a shellfish in the pot. As much as she gushed on about how great the sisters' weekend was, I couldn't help but notice that she was trying out a real relationship and wasn't feeling very positive about it. Besides this, whatever I had eaten for dinner had had onions in it, and I was suffering from bad breath and a case of the belches. I was one up on my sister, being uncomfortable for two different reasons. Or maybe more.
On this trip, it had hit me like the proverbial bolt from the blue that my sister is, was, always had been, and always would be afraid of every damned thing in life. She was afraid to wear tampax, or contact lenses. What, was she afraid they were going to get lost in there? She was so afraid of the symptoms of menopause, the hot flashes and the night sweats, that she insisted on wearing the hormone patch on her arm....for five years! She lost a breast to cancer because of it. And this is a nurse, already!
Siss is still the best of buddies with The Wet Rag because he is a convenient excuse for her NOT to go out and look for a decent man who would treat her right. This is not merely conjecture on my part; she told me so herself. She has been in therapy for forty-odd years, and just uses it as a wall to put up in front of the world to show how hard she is working at things in her life. She was, and is, in freaking stasis, and here I was in the jacuzzi of the used-to-be-Sheraton watching her hide her thighs and pretending to trade small talk with her. Visualize the emperor's new clothes. I had had it! I could feel the truth bubbling to my lips, and I knew for certain that this was probably the last sisters' weekend of my life. I was going to spill my guts that night, like it or lump it.
We sort of had it out that night, although I was more diplomatic and tactful than I thought I would be, considering my lack of vigorous exercise.
Surprisingly enough, Siss led off, jockeying for position like a chess master making the opening move. I think that she sensed what was coming,for she attacked immediately, hissing that Te Rag "had a problem" with me. She further stated that he felt that I didn't ever listen to him, I didn't "hear" him. Well, this was true, especially since The Rag rarely had a word to say for himself to anyone. Instead of spilling my guts right there, I merely pointed out that, as an adult, if The Rag had something to say to me, he needed to be a big boy and do it himself.
Her jaw dropped. She never expected that her little sister could summon such moxie, especially where it concerned such a sacred cow as The Wet Rag! Caught off guard by me for probably the first time in her life, Siss admitted to me that this was true. She admitted that she was "just afraid" of leaving him and launching out on her own. What she didn't say, and what I knew was true, was that The Rag had never told her of any problem with me. She was the one who had the problem with me as concerned The Wet Rag, and she just couldn't summon the guts to say so. She told me that she "just wanted us to be a big, happy family", entirely omitting the part where The Rag had ended their cohabitation as man and wife. Who wants to be family with the likes of that?
Our relationship was unraveling like an old sweater sleeve, showing all the frazzled yarn and dust motes of forty years.
We were terribly polite to each other on that last night, acting as if nothing had happened, each aware of the tension that hung heavy in the Scranton air. We drank the wine, watched a movie, prepared for bed. We were both sisters and strangers, and I was beginning to see which I preferred.
We settled into the jacuzzi for a wallow-cum-chat, since we had found out the hard way that the pool was kept at what felt like a constant sixty degrees. It really reminded me of my days living in San Francisco. Better I should have wrinkled fingers than blue lips. The chat was probably about family, but I remember most clearly that my sister was so uncomfortable with her body that neither she nor I could concentrate on anything else. She moved from one jet to another, carefully positioning her thighs for minimum exposure, like the old modeling schools taught you. Come to think of it, like the new modeling schools teach you, too. I had to periodically jump up on the rim and just dangle my legs in order to cool off, but she wouldn't get up with me so consequently looked faintly boiled, like a shellfish in the pot. As much as she gushed on about how great the sisters' weekend was, I couldn't help but notice that she was trying out a real relationship and wasn't feeling very positive about it. Besides this, whatever I had eaten for dinner had had onions in it, and I was suffering from bad breath and a case of the belches. I was one up on my sister, being uncomfortable for two different reasons. Or maybe more.
On this trip, it had hit me like the proverbial bolt from the blue that my sister is, was, always had been, and always would be afraid of every damned thing in life. She was afraid to wear tampax, or contact lenses. What, was she afraid they were going to get lost in there? She was so afraid of the symptoms of menopause, the hot flashes and the night sweats, that she insisted on wearing the hormone patch on her arm....for five years! She lost a breast to cancer because of it. And this is a nurse, already!
Siss is still the best of buddies with The Wet Rag because he is a convenient excuse for her NOT to go out and look for a decent man who would treat her right. This is not merely conjecture on my part; she told me so herself. She has been in therapy for forty-odd years, and just uses it as a wall to put up in front of the world to show how hard she is working at things in her life. She was, and is, in freaking stasis, and here I was in the jacuzzi of the used-to-be-Sheraton watching her hide her thighs and pretending to trade small talk with her. Visualize the emperor's new clothes. I had had it! I could feel the truth bubbling to my lips, and I knew for certain that this was probably the last sisters' weekend of my life. I was going to spill my guts that night, like it or lump it.
We sort of had it out that night, although I was more diplomatic and tactful than I thought I would be, considering my lack of vigorous exercise.
Surprisingly enough, Siss led off, jockeying for position like a chess master making the opening move. I think that she sensed what was coming,for she attacked immediately, hissing that Te Rag "had a problem" with me. She further stated that he felt that I didn't ever listen to him, I didn't "hear" him. Well, this was true, especially since The Rag rarely had a word to say for himself to anyone. Instead of spilling my guts right there, I merely pointed out that, as an adult, if The Rag had something to say to me, he needed to be a big boy and do it himself.
Her jaw dropped. She never expected that her little sister could summon such moxie, especially where it concerned such a sacred cow as The Wet Rag! Caught off guard by me for probably the first time in her life, Siss admitted to me that this was true. She admitted that she was "just afraid" of leaving him and launching out on her own. What she didn't say, and what I knew was true, was that The Rag had never told her of any problem with me. She was the one who had the problem with me as concerned The Wet Rag, and she just couldn't summon the guts to say so. She told me that she "just wanted us to be a big, happy family", entirely omitting the part where The Rag had ended their cohabitation as man and wife. Who wants to be family with the likes of that?
Our relationship was unraveling like an old sweater sleeve, showing all the frazzled yarn and dust motes of forty years.
We were terribly polite to each other on that last night, acting as if nothing had happened, each aware of the tension that hung heavy in the Scranton air. We drank the wine, watched a movie, prepared for bed. We were both sisters and strangers, and I was beginning to see which I preferred.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Last Day In Scranton
This was our last day in Scranton (the whirlwind tour), so we decided to spend the afternoon at the Everhart Museum in Nay Aug Park. These are the things that I remember about the Everhart Museum from my childhood: first: the most ghoulishly compelling display for all the kids was a Native American mummy, bound into the fetal position and tastefully lighted in a glass case. These days, that is considered not only politically incorrect,but morally wrong, tasteless and offensive to both the viewer and the Native American population. Needless to say, the exhibit has been removed and, I hope, respectfully reburied. How do I know it is not there? It was the first thing that I went to look for when we got inside the museum. Fools!
Second: there was a small room dedicated to rocks that glowed in the dark when you pushed a button that bathed them in some spooky light. Today, I have solved the mystery behind this phenomenon, and the rocks just weren't doing it for me anymore.
Third: there was another, larger room full of stuffed birds from all over the world, some with their nests filled with pathetic little eggs that would never hatch. I always liked the Baltimore Oriole best, because that hanging nest is a marvel of engineering. I liked the seagull least, because I have been pooped on by seagulls many times, and it is messy. I also think it is quite intentional on the part of the gulls.
Fourth, and by no means least: in the basement there is a glass-enclosed beehive, in which you can watch all the different bees doing their various things, even the fat queen. There is access to the outside for the bees to pollinate flowers and collect honey. I have actually found this exit/entrance from the outside of the museum. The bees around the opening were much too busy and smugly satisfied to pay any attention to me.
On this particular visit, we saw all of the above-mentioned attractions (except the mummy, of course), and then succumbed to my sister's favorite saying, "So many gift shops, so little time". We spent a good half hour in the museum shop, both looking at the merchandise (surprisingly nice), and talking to the staff about the changes in the place since we had last seen it. I came away with a happy heart, a poster of the museum's facade, and a tall glass vase that I just couldn't resist. You might remember these items from my final letter to Siss.
Back at the used-to-be-a-Sheraton, we had a very nondescript dinner accompanied by some equally nondescript wine. That was okay. We had the good stuff up in the room, courtesy of the spectacular liquor store across the street. I had even snagged a few of those little airline bottles full of things to later enhance our coffee. Rather than endure dessert, which was probably as nondescript as the rest of the food, we decided to get changed and hit the pool/jacuzzi, both of which were indoors, thank heaven.
Second: there was a small room dedicated to rocks that glowed in the dark when you pushed a button that bathed them in some spooky light. Today, I have solved the mystery behind this phenomenon, and the rocks just weren't doing it for me anymore.
Third: there was another, larger room full of stuffed birds from all over the world, some with their nests filled with pathetic little eggs that would never hatch. I always liked the Baltimore Oriole best, because that hanging nest is a marvel of engineering. I liked the seagull least, because I have been pooped on by seagulls many times, and it is messy. I also think it is quite intentional on the part of the gulls.
Fourth, and by no means least: in the basement there is a glass-enclosed beehive, in which you can watch all the different bees doing their various things, even the fat queen. There is access to the outside for the bees to pollinate flowers and collect honey. I have actually found this exit/entrance from the outside of the museum. The bees around the opening were much too busy and smugly satisfied to pay any attention to me.
On this particular visit, we saw all of the above-mentioned attractions (except the mummy, of course), and then succumbed to my sister's favorite saying, "So many gift shops, so little time". We spent a good half hour in the museum shop, both looking at the merchandise (surprisingly nice), and talking to the staff about the changes in the place since we had last seen it. I came away with a happy heart, a poster of the museum's facade, and a tall glass vase that I just couldn't resist. You might remember these items from my final letter to Siss.
Back at the used-to-be-a-Sheraton, we had a very nondescript dinner accompanied by some equally nondescript wine. That was okay. We had the good stuff up in the room, courtesy of the spectacular liquor store across the street. I had even snagged a few of those little airline bottles full of things to later enhance our coffee. Rather than endure dessert, which was probably as nondescript as the rest of the food, we decided to get changed and hit the pool/jacuzzi, both of which were indoors, thank heaven.
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