Category Archives: Random Thoughts

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Why Won’t I Shut Up?

I know and you know that the quality of the posts lately have been kind of “meh”. I personally blame the quality issue on the people around me. No one is doing anything outrageous. The most exciting interactions I’ve had have been those involving cars and even those are so “meh” they’re hardly worth repeating.  And the random folks I bump into on a daily basis are kind of friendly or when they’re not friendly, they’re not particularly unfriendly; they’re just people bumping through life.  Not a story to be had there.  (I realize that by making that statement I’ve doomed myself to some bizarre future encounter.)  The rest of the stuff in my head is more primal and of the “grr, rip throat out, grr, glare menacingly, grr” variety and supposedly if I want people to still hang out with me, I can’t use the stories as fodder for the blog.  HELP! I’m being repressed!

That leaves me with the only story I have at the moment involving a grocery store cashier whose step-mother is apparently bad at shopping.  He admired my assortment of foods that you could actually combine together and make things.  I proudly held up my list and shared my profound thoughts on list making.  (In other words, I said something like, “I’m cheating today.  I have a list.”  But it was HOW I said it that made it sound exceptionally wise.  I’m sure of it.)  He then praised me for weighing and labeling my produce.  I gushed about being OCD.  Then when he finished he asked, “Would you like to buy pistachios?” No.  “They’ll help me win a store prize of $50.”  Well, of course I will.  How could I not help the kid who thought I had the best groceries he’d ever had the pleasure to check-out? (Side note: Anna, when can you come pick this bag up?  Doesn’t your mom like them?)  He even promised to share part of his winnings, so I made a circular motion around my face and said, “Remember this face. I’m counting on it.”  As I was leaving his sacker asked admiringly, “wow, you sold one?  That actually worked?”  Young grifters today – they just don’t have the patience for the mark to be out of earshot.  Those are the kinds of stories I’m left with.

Now, some of you might think “if you don’t have a story, you don’t have to post”.  You crazy little dreamers, of course I have to post.  I mean what if you few, you happy few, were worried that something had happened?  You know how you worry about me all the time when the posts grow scarce.  (No, you do.  Well, you could try at least.)  These posts let you know I’m still alive and typing.  (Or that someone has my password and is posting in my name. We won’t dwell on that possibility.)

But let’s face it, the reason the posts have been more plentiful (and at the expense of the quality) is because I have to write every day for my sketch writing class and you’re occasionally my unwilling victims.  What’s the fun in having a regular writing assignment if there aren’t at least one or two victims? This is why I won’t shut-up lately.  However, I do want some props for not posting every day, which I easily could.  See, it’s like I’m sparing you and you’re really only having to endure the best of the worst.  Yes, there’s actually worst lurking away in the bowels of my computer.  Now aren’t you feeling at least a little better about these posts?

There is some hope on the horizon, however.  My class ends in about 4 weeks, which not only means you survived 4, but that in 4 more I’ll shut up!  Maybe. Ok, I probably won’t.

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Whispering Through a Field

I remember my first high school reunion.  I went for the same reason I went to the prom, because I didn’t want to look back with regret at having not done it.  It’s not a particularly great reason, but it got me there. The reunion, more than prom, involved a serious self pep-talk.  I had to overcome the obstacle of knowing almost none (code for “only one”) of my high school pals were going to be there, and I would be stuck going alone and possibly being stuck in a corner.  You see it turns out I wasn’t particularly popular.  (SURPRISING!)  In fact, I’m pretty sure I made it through four years without really being noticed outside of the band of outcasts/misfits I called my friends. (True story – they were the coolest/smartest people in the entire school.) Plus, I’m not someone who is particularly gregarious or charming outside of my gang.  Still, I wanted to take one for the team so I could amuse them later with stories.  And let’s face it, I was curious to see how some of these people turned out. Maybe one of them was actually more interesting as an adult.  The night held possibilities.  I admit I did have a back-up plan in case things went south.  My college friends were on standby ready to swoop down to 6th Street (Austin’s answer to Bourbon Street) to rescue me.   Remember, it’s important to always have a Plan B.  I’m fairly certain you learn this in Girl Scouts along with how to sit properly in a car.

When I got there the bar was aflutter with conversation that mostly boiled down to: “Are you married? Do you have any children? What line of work are you in? Do you have a business card?”  It was a creepy contest of “who is having the best life” that I’m pretty sure I failed.  I wasn’t married.  I didn’t have kids and more importantly, I didn’t have a card.   However, by the time I left the bar I did manage to walk out with several and by the time I made it to the car, I had none.

While those cards didn’t tell me who those people were, I suppose they told me a little about what they thought was important and how they defined themselves.  Things like being married, having kids and a card are very important. Anything outside of that, which maybe couldn’t be printed on a card, weren’t so much.

I was reminded of this event when I read a fellow blogger’s post inviting readers to fill in the statement “I am a ____” and then the author proceeded to make her own list of who they are.  It was a beautiful and insightful list that really gave you an idea about who she is and how she sees herself.  I felt I knew her better than many people I’ve known through the years from school or work with just a few brief statements.  The comments that followed were just as fantastic.  Many accepted that challenge and wrote from their hearts casting off the typical societal expectations that dictate we stick to status (whether that’s status within our family, our job or our community).  I realized this was the thing I was missing from the reunions (other than people with souls) and other encounters with friends who fill in details with a rehearsed answer.  They answer to impress or in a way that they think you want to hear, trying to figure out what you think is important, and never getting to the heart of who they really are.  Sometimes that’s all I need, but sometimes I really want to see them.  Plus, it spoke to me because I simply don’t see myself as just my job or any title I may hold in my family.

I responded to her post as well. I wrote all the words I keep in my heart that I rarely share with others. I wrote words that represented how I see myself.  Even if I can’t do all the things I mentioned well anymore; they’re still a part of who I am.  When I hit the submit button it was like sending a balloon to God (to borrow my friend April’s phrase) or pressing a secret wish into Marie Laveau’s Wishing Stump where I once tucked away my wishes years ago.

I am a… musician, a dancer, singer and an improviser. I’m the thunder heralding the storm and the light breeze whispering through the field. I’m a listener, a watcher, a dreamer and a Texan. I think there’s some clause on my birth certificate that requires me to say that last bit.

… and while that’s not the complete list of how I see myself, it’s a start.

Who are you?

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Flags of Our Fathers (and Mothers)

My family fought in the Civil War under the Confederate flag and we lost, if that’s how you want to look at it.  Personally, I don’t see it that way.  My family comes from the south – from South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and eventually landed here in Texas.  Our family stories from that time mostly focus around the aftermath of that war.  They tell of hidden blood-caked swords, of Andrew Johnson’s “Reconstruction Plan”, of Carpetbaggers and Scalawags, of former Union soldiers being run out of town by an angry great-great grandfather.  A lot of the ire that continues to persist through the generations can be tracked back to the years that followed the Civil War.  It’s why the South continues to stay mad.  We lost, you didn’t and we’re still sore about what happened afterwards.  That ire is perpetuated by stereotypes – the ones that we Southerners and those of Southern decent encounter every time we run into Northerners, flip on the TV or go to any movie that depicts one of us.  The one that bugs me personally is the perception that the clip of a person’s speech is some how directly related to intelligence.  We have a drawl, our speech is a little slower, therefore it follows that we must be a bit simple. Bless our hearts. I remember a co-worker from Ohio once told me he came to Texas to sell some product here versus some place up north, because he knew that we were less intelligent and therefore more likely to buy.  When I balked, he claimed I was the smartest Texan he’d met in a failed attempt to appease me.  (It’s a sad day when I rate as “the smartest Texan”, trust me.)  Mocking us in the media, is like pouring salt into an open and festering wound.  We’re not actually all dimwitted toothless cousin-marrying yokels wandering around barefoot while clad in overalls   Not that we don’t have our share, but I suspect you can find that kind of person in any rural area of any state.  Plus, never forget that we have our own ideas about Northerners that are a tad unkind, but I digress.

Before my family fought in the Civil War, we fought for Texas Independence and before that we fought in the Revolutionary War.  We were the first pilgrims who arrived on ships long before there ever was an Ellis Island or a Lady Liberty to welcome us to these shores.  We were Huguenots escaping France.  We were French, Prussian, Scots, Irish, Swedes, Welsh and English long before we were Americans.  A melting pot of nationalities who lived, fought and died under many different flags.

Of all the flags we’ve lived and served under, the one that bothers me the most is the Confederate flag. This controversy recently flared up in our media thanks to a group who want to honor Confederate Soldiers from Texas by displaying it on a license plate.  An argument that has been used is that the Buffalo Soldiers are also applying for a license plate and certain regiments of theirs were responsible for the genocide of the American Plains Indians.  “Why is that less controversial?” I do get this argument, but it’s still not the same in my mind. The confederate flag is no longer the symbol of a fight for states right, if it ever truly was to begin with. It’s a symbol of something completely different now and to put it quite simply, the places that would fly that flag are not places I want to be near.  If you came for a visit, I wouldn’t take you anywhere near those places either.  By that same token, I don’t think that the people who would buy that plate would be doing it solely to honor those who fought in the Civil War.  For many, it’s a very clear statement about race and when it flies in the South (or near South as we are), you’re making a very clear and deliberate statement about your beliefs.

I can honor my ancestors without a license plate and without that flag.  I can believe that what they fought for, they believed was right. I can imagine that part of why they fought had more to do with where they lived and being swept up in the emotions of the time.  And I can appreciate why they held such anger in the aftermath of Reconstruction. I can truly think of them as fallen heroes who died on the wrong side of a cause.  And if you could transport me back in time, I would go out of my way to find and spit on Sherman, out of respect to all of my relatives who wrongly suffered in Atlanta.  Hell, I’d shoot that man if I could get close enough and you can thank my family’s legacy for that thought, but I will never fly that flag.

However, that being said, I am French and German and Scottish and Irish and Swedish and Welsh and English and Southern.  My family lived and served and died under many flags – no one flag more important than the other.  No one flag that I feel more compelled  than the other to represent me or my family’s odyssey through time on a license plate.  I am proud of the entirety of my heritage (even you French genes, get over here so I can ruffle your hair) and there’s only one flag that really represents who I am today.

(Unless a certain someone becomes President and then I may have to don a tuque and embrace a more maple leafy flag.)

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A Bad Day, A Perfect Night

Yesterday I was having a day.  The kind of day that starts off rocky and isn’t on track to right itself soon.  The kind of day that tries to club you over the head and dump you on the side of the road.  The kind of day where a little rain cloud stalks you. The kind where you’re a gigantic magnet for all that is negative and weird.  A bad day.

The day started with locking-up my brakes as I ventured down the highway, twice.  Both times the people in front of me unexpectedly slammed on their brakes, and I followed suit. I skidded merrily along, eyes wide in horror as I narrowly avoided venturing into their trunks.  The car behind me did the same highway skid dance as they veered onto the shoulder to avoid becoming my instant passenger.  The second near miss was a sign, so I took that opportunity to exit.

I was having a day.  My hair was sticking to the side of my head. My face was blotchy. Dark circles hung beneath my eyes.

To celebrate, I took an online personality test and was immediately offended by the results.  It said I was a tattoo hating loner who was insensitive to others hardships and that I should steer clear of things like writing, dancing, photography, and acting – really any creative endeavor.  Great.  All those years devoted to this blog, to orchestra, to dance (tap, modern and ballet), to my camera and to improv were completed wasted.  According to that test, I hate those activities.  I really had no idea.  What an apparent waste of time, energy and money. The tattoo I’ve been desiring for years, it turns out I didn’t actually want that.  The test said clearly that I hate tattoos.  Thankfully, I took the test before ink was pressed to skin.  Insensitive tattoo hating loners like me loathe these things. Too creative!  How many years have I spent unknowingly pissing myself off?  An acquaintance of mine chimed-in noting how accurate those results actually were.  (I’ll miss our time together.  We had some fun.)

The day was bad and devoting so much energy into being grumpy made me want to curl up in a ball and sleep.  Pointless sustained anger takes a lot of energy.

I stepped onto an elevator while looking extra dour.  The rain cloud, my little pal, continued to drip.  That’s when a colleague stepped in.  A rhythmic beat began to reverberate through the small space and suddenly the elevator was filled with the “Beth” rap. When it ended, my co-worker winked and said, “see, it can’t be that bad, Beth.  I made you smile.”  It was the first smile I had all day.

My friends stepped in. “Why would you believe something that’s not true?”  “Why are you paying attention to something that has so many typos?”  I guess the only answer I could have honestly offered would have been, “I guess I’ve decided today is a bad day and clearly I want to be upset.  Hey, I’ve even managed to find the one person who agrees with these results so I can feel extra bad.”

I had planned a Happy Hour for that evening and I was trying to figure out how to encourage people not to show up. Maybe I could just reschedule with those people I hadn’t seen in years. And my newer friends?  Well, they’d have to get used to my quirks eventually if they planned on sticking around.  No time like the present.  (What’s the saying? Friends are the people who like you in spite of yourself?)

The only reason I eventually went to Happy Hour was to avoid the disapproval I’d doubtlessly receive if I canceled.  I hate disapproval more that I enjoy self-loathing.  When I arrived, I was alone.  I sat at a long table and tried to explain to the waiter that “no really, I think there might be others coming, but you know you can never be sure.”  I ordered a drink and sat dwelling on the craptacular bits of the day and how, in all likelihood, no one was coming.  That’s when an old friend I hadn’t seen in about 10 years walked up.  She sat down.  Within minutes the table filled.  All of my favorite people in one spot.  More folks came throughout the night until there were no more extra chairs to drag up and people were left standing.  Stories were told.  Laughter filled the table.  There were even cookies and whole milk.  I have it on the best authority from my cookie/milk aficionado that this is pretty awesome. My little cloud blew away as I looked down the table and smiled.

The night ended with the manager dropping by to offer up a free dessert.  (Our numbers had dwindled and they needed the space for another large group waiting in the wings.)  We moved over to a smaller table and continued to chat while enjoying the dessert sampler bribe.  Free dessert is the best dessert. My idea of a perfect evening.

Thank you, my very favorite people, for coming out and turning a bad day into a delightful night.  My only regret is that I didn’t get to talk to everyone long enough, but being able to look down the table and see your smiling faces, hear your voices and listen to your laughter completely made my evening.

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Earning Those Tokens

The other day I came home and found Jay in a rather excited mood.  He said something like, “you’ll never guess what happened?”  I tried to think of all the things Jay could have been exposed to that day and compared them to all the things I thought he might be excited about.

“Our wretched neighbor died?” Nope.

“Our wretched neighbor is selling her house?” Nope.

“You kicked the wretched neighbor’s wretched dog?”  Kicking a dog wouldn’t make me happy.

“Oh”.  I’d run out of ideas and knew I was just going to start getting more specific with guesses.  Guesses  that would involve delightful scenarios like the wretched neighbor being injured in some non-fatal way or perhaps guesses that involved run-ins between her and the police, animal control, someone from an institution with a padded van or maybe men dressed in black who mysteriously showed up, tossed her into the back of an unmarked vehicle’s trunk and sped away.  I could picture myself standing on the porch and waving my little hand like I was Vir Cotto saying his final good-bye to Mr. Morden. (Geek reference, it’s a bit over the top and cruel, but you’ve probably guessed I’m not overly fond of  this woman.)

To recap a bit, about four years ago the wretched neighbor lost her wretched little mind and decided to scream at me over the fence then she finished her scream-fest with a threat of calling the police.  She’s adorable, really.  I was appalled and angry.  I’m not the kind of person people tend to yell at (when I’m not driving) and I’m definitely not the kind of person you’d call the police about. I’m the human version of beige.  Who can get mad at beige? I mean seriously, we’re decent neighbors.  We’re polite, quiet and try not to bother anyone.  In that moment where she threw her gigantic fit from behind a fence, she earned my undying ire and the title of “wretched”, which for the purposes of writing for a mixed audience is the shortened version of a more descriptive title that’s more fun to say.

Jay finally busted, “she apologized!”

“For destroying our fence?“ No.

“For throwing debris all over our yard?” No.

”For the dog being off the leash and charging to attack you every time you go outside?” No.

Again, I was running out of ideas and was going to start listing things she should apologize for like watering her lawn in a drought at noon several times a week and being a bad global citizen, for voting for the wrong political party, for being insane, for that haircut or maybe for using valuable oxygen.  I was left with just staring at Jay.  “She told me to tell you she was sorry for yelling at you that day.  Apparently, she suffers from insomnia and the dog behind her had set her off, so when Sam barked she lost control.  Anyway, she said she was really sorry for that.”  Hrm.

Four years later she’s sorry? Really?  I still don’t know what to do with that.

Sure, she owed me an apology, but I gave up on that about two weeks after the incident.  By YEAR FOUR I hadn’t exactly moved on, but I was content in my utter disdain.  Why now?  I mulled that over a bit along with trying to decide whether I had to accept that apology.  I mean, it’s been FOUR YEARS.  Jay and I discussed it along with my group of friends.  Since we’re all a cynical sneering lot, we all came separately to the same conclusion.  Clearly, she’s attending a substance abuse program and her sponsor instructed her to make amends with the people she’s harmed.  Bless her heart.  My wretched neighbor isn’t just a wretched neighbor she’s a wretched alcoholic crazed loose cannon who is trying to get better Now she’s taking that difficult first step by apologizing to the people she wronged… through their husbands.

Well, we wish her well on her journey to sobriety!  I’ll try to grimace out a supportive smile next time I’m forced to look at her.  Maybe she’ll get a token.

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She Did It

She did it. You know she did.  I’m pretty sure he did it, too.  But I didn’t sit in a courtroom day after day listening to hundreds of hours of testimony and I wasn’t in the room with 11 of her peers (or his) to help deliberate.  We know in our guts, based on sound bites and sensationalized headlines  that she’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  But fortunately, we mostly live in a society where our “guts” don’t get to decide. You don’t have to go far back into our history to recall tales of angry lynch mobs stringing up someone because their “guts” told them it was the right thing to do. Think of all the overturned cases where someone’s “feelings” about a suspect landed the wrong person in jail. I want to believe that those witnesses and victims were just as sure that the person who was being sentenced had committed the crime they were accused of.   Here in the US, when our system works, we do not run kangaroo courts.  You are innocent until proven guilty. Guilty verdicts should never be foregone conclusions. “Guts” aren’t facts.  “Guts” aren’t evidence.

Tragically that system sometimes works in a way that the right person gets off.

Do I think she did it?  Absolutely.  I thought he did it, too.  I know I personally wouldn’t double bag and duct tape a child who had recently drown and discard them in the woods, but maybe that’s just me. Still, I have to place a certain amount of faith in our legal system and in the jurors who were selected.  I need to believe that they did the right thing based on the evidence they had, because I wasn’t there through each grueling day listening to all of that evidence.  They had the luxury of being sequestered away from the media, I did not.

So, if we could all put down the torches and the nooses for a bit and wait until we hear what the jurors have to say that would be great.  I’m very curious about why they ruled the way they did, just like you are.

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Some Kind of Woman

The Big Blue Mess is going on hiatus for a bit, which could mean a few days or it could mean a few weeks, but I’ll leave you with a poorly worded and poorly constructed “eulogy” or more precisely my random ramblings about my Mother and her “passing”.

I wish I believed as some of my friends do that death is a glorious moment. That being there in that moment, with that person was something to envy. The image I have on replay in my memory is not glorious or comforting; it’s one of confusion and running down a hall yelling at people – relying more on frantic hand gestures than words that the nurses then passed down the line stirring up an entire group of people to run into my Mom’s room. I looked in once to see that she was still convulsing and then I stayed outside the room completely alone. I felt small and upset – angry that the world didn’t just stop just for a few seconds to quietly mourn.

My Mother lived somewhere between the Emerald City and Pompeii at the moment Mt. Vesuvius erupted. If I were to ask her how she would want to be defined, she’d say “not by The Wizard of Oz” which she’ll forever be associated with. She would want people to remember her love of history, Jane Goodall’s work with primates, the Challenger shuttle, robots, model building, tennis, football and movies particularly musicals. In fact, the kind of service she’d love to have would be choreographed by Busby Berkeley, although Bob Fosse would be more than welcome to throw in a number or two. She was the kind of person whose knowledge of movies was so great that she frequently corrected magazines, newspapers and people she saw on air. When I went to visit her on Saturday she was enjoying a “Touch of Evil” on TCM and whispered, “just a second, I want to hear this line…” When Janet Leigh uttered “he was some kind of man” she smiled and said, “ok” indicating that we could start talking.

My Mom also loved to read and write and relate stories and whenever you were about to say goodbye, she’d end with “…just one more thing” so you’d listen a little longer.

My aunt asked me to write her obituary. She said, “you write well, you should do it” but what can you really express in the small space a newspaper allows that encompasses a long and full life?” So let me add a couple more things I really couldn’t for the paper. She grew up in Highland Park and was very proud of that. She got her degree from UT at Arlington in Sociology and took graduate classes at UT in Austin. Her education and where she came from were very important to her; they truly defined my mother more than ruby red slippers ever could. (Although, she once wrote a paper in graduate school about the symbolism of color in The Wizard of Oz – it’s no small wonder that my Mom and that movie were always paired together.)

On Wednesday we’ll release balloons at her graveside while playing Over the Rainbow and all my “… just one more thing before you go’s” will drift away.

But just one more thing…. I’m so sorry Mom. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I love you and I really like you; you were “some kind of [woman]” and a good friend.