Sore Loser

Summer nights when I was young my brother Nate used to chase me around to smash lightning bugs across my t-shirt. I loved lightning bugs, and all he’d leave me with was their guts slashed across my shirt.

I was watching the dogs tonight, one chasing his ball, the other, the lightning bugs. The lightning bugs of 2007 fared much better than those of my past. No guts.

Watching the dogs occasionally compete for the same toy, and (once in awhile) my attention made me think about competition in my own life.

I’ve always been involved in sports, so you would think the competitive edge would be easy to come by. It’s not though. I can’t remember ever really caring if any of my teams won or lost. I can remember laughing behind my college crew coach’s back when he’d scream and get red-faced over 2nd place. Hello? Crew is HARD. 2nd place was okay with me.

As an adult, I took up running. Runners, as a lot, are incredibly competitive people, they compete against everyone informally and formally they compete against other runners in their age group, and their previous times. Again, I haven’t found this competitiveness in me. I was always happy to just be running. I still keep track of my times, sure, I know my average time per mile, know my last 8k, 10k, and marathon time as well as I know my own birthday. I might be faster next time. I might not. I may never race again. I’m okay with any of those options, as long as I can keep lacing up my orange running shoes and putting one foot in front of the other.

This feels a little dishonest though. The first individual competition I can remember was in 9th grade band. We were given a piece, told we would be individually tested for ‘chair’ placement. I was relentless. Test day. First chair. 6 months later – I quit band.

Fast forward.

Tae kwon do classes. Sometime in college (the first few years).
I worked in a group setting and one on one with a black-belt instructor who assured me I was ready to test for my first advanced belt.
I never did take that test.

It seems, that maybe I am competitive to the point that I just don’t want to lose. So I remove myself from the competition before losing becomes a real possibility.

Comparisons are great when you come out the winner, but the thing of it is, if you make a habit out of it, sooner or later, you’re going to come up short, or in other words, just plain lose.

It’s worth mentioning, I think, that I really don’t like what this says about me.

Dames! Dames!

That's right. I said No.More.Wire.Hangers.

Your Score:

Joan Crawford

You scored 40% grit, 33% wit, 33% flair, and 9% class!

You are one tough dame, as tough as they come. You've had to fight long and hard to get where you are, but you always knew you'd do whatever you had to do to get ahead. You aren't above committing crimes (or seducing others to do them for you) to get what you want. You want to be happy and comfortable, but you usually always manage to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Even your kids are usually against you. Your leading men include anyone you set your sights on, even married guys that are never seen on-screen. Watch your back.

I'd say thanks to TL for pointing me at this, but, um.. ouch...fuzzy end of the lollipop, indeed.

Tiff's Meme (or What the hell, I got nothing anyway).

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Just started my first writing job, playing softball and volleyball for the company teams, drinking way more than I should have, and six kinds of crazy about a completely unavailable man.


What were you doing 1 year ago?
Just started my second writing job - completely panicked that this was going to be a huge mistake and thinking that in another year (aka NOW) I'd be moving to Austin, Texas.


Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Tortilla chips
2. Popcorn
3. String cheese
4. Apples
5. Ice cream



Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
(It would be way easier to name 5 songs I don't know the lyrics to - I have a rainman like memory)


1. The Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson
2. Broken - Days of the New
3. Ice Cream Man - Van Halen
4. Anymore - Travis Tritt
5. Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen



Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Go back to school
2. Give money to HSUS - a LOT of money.
3. Travel the US, by RV with the dogs - I need to see Crazy Horse, Yellowstone and the desert again..soon please.
4. Start running programs for kids (this is Mandaroo's idea - I'm stealing it because I love it)
5. Fund soup kitchens. No one should be hungry.


Five bad habits:
1. I watch too much TV
2. I'm tend to not think things through
3. I hold a grudge
4. The speed of my mouth vastly exceeds the speed of my brain
5. I eat Cool Whip out of the tub with a spoon


Five (g-rated) things you like doing:
1. Playing with /training my dogs
2. Reading
3. Cooking
4. Sitting on my porch swing with a cup of coffee, glass of wine, cold beer, or vodka
5. Talking to my friends


Five things you would never wear again:
1. Parachute Pants
2. Eyeshadow
3. Hairspray
4. Turtlenecks
5. Braces


Five favorite (g-rated) toys:
1. Puppies
2. Laptop
3. Treadmill
4. Running Shoes
5. I'm all out here ...


INSTRUCTIONS:The blog chain that got this here.........If you participate, remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

-Inside Mo's Mind

-One Gal's Musing-Philly Transplant

- No Accent Yet

What Can't Be Looked For

Me, who am I tagging?

Biff Spiffy

Queen Anne

Utenzi

Take That.

Quiz Time

About four and half years ago I met this guy. He worked in second shift in critical care, and I would see him during the week when I would transfer critical anesthesia cases to ICU or when I came in on emergency anesthesia cases after hours or over the weekend. He was always just a little more interested in my patients and a little more helpful than the average critical care tech. I don’t remember when or what made me decide to cross the ‘dating people you work with line’ but I did. He did. We did. Whatever.

Twelve months later, we were still really happy together, saw more of each other than was probably good for either of our sleep cycles (not to mention our work schedules), but we were still having fun, eating sushi, listening to live jazz, watching ultimate fights and that December, talking about moving in together over the approaching summer. The night of that discussion we were sitting on his living room floor, trying to figure out just how we’d make his three dogs, two cats and my dog work all in one house, as that seemed to be the most problematic area of our relationship. We weren’t arguing about it, it was like trying to decide where to put the new sofa.

The next month, on the first Monday of the New Year my brother died. All that week I ran around Northern Virginia trying to keep my family from killing each other, trying to locate friends of the family, and trying to not drive into or off of a bridge. I remember every night that week, just wanting to get to him, to his house, away from delivering more bad news to more people I loved.

The night before the service I finally made it to his house. It was everything I had hoped it would be all week long. Right up until we started discussing the service, and how he would get there. That was when he announced it would be “far too sad for me to go” and “Sorry, but I just can’t put myself out like that”.

I don’t remember responding verbally. I put my shoes on and left. He called a few times after that, but I never did speak to him again.

All that history, to say this.
Tonight, he called me.
A friend of a friend passed on my North Carolina contact information.
Apparently, someone in his life died, and he wanted advice.

So friends of blog-dom – you tell me, how do you think I handled this?

Just Joy

When was the last time you had a day so good, it HURT.

Yeah?

Me too. Today.

Bartender, I'll take another, just like the last.

Hells yeah.

Back when the world was perfect.

I heard this phrase used recently, after the speaker described the experience of first real heartbreak and the utter disbelief at the way things had turned out. At the time, the phrase made me laugh a little, but since hearing it, I’ve been unable to get it out of my head.

I’ve been trying to remember what my moment of ‘back when the world was perfect’ was.

My siblings and I joked for many years that our parents divorce was the nastiest divorce in recorded history. Truthfully, though, it wasn’t the divorce that was so bad, it was the separation/reconciliation/vicious fight/separation/vicious fight/reconciliation/divorce. My dad had a violent temper, so there was never a fight that didn’t end with something needed to be replaced or repaired, walls were punched, doors kicked in, lamps thrown, and my personal favorite the night he pushed my mom backwards into a closet door and the door, my mom and my dad collapsed in a heap inside the closet. After the crash that sounded like the end of the world to my 8 year old ears, I heard my mother, calmly and reasonably ask “Well, are we going to talk about this or are you going to kill me, Roger?”

It’s a moment that has stayed with me, for sure, I remember sitting at the top of the stairs, wearing yellow pajamas and holding our golden retriever without a tail by the collar. I remember being scared and crying. Maybe when you’re 8, the world is moving too fast or maybe you don’t even think the world is perfect at that age, because the world is so small when you’re 8, and it doesn’t feel like you control anything.

I remember watching the taillights of my dad’s brown Toyota Celica as he made the left off Bing Court and onto Hayfield Road.

It’s a perfectly clear and perfectly awful memory, but it’s not the memory I’m looking for.

A few months after my brother died, I remember walking around in a grocery store I didn’t normally frequent, and being unable to find skim milk. I haven’t any real idea about why the bloody skim milk became so important, I just knew that it was, and not finding it felt like just one more thing I couldn’t do ‘right’ without Mark. I couldn’t even buy fucking milk. In that moment, I dissolved into a puddle of tears, sobs really. I’m not one for crying in public, so the combination of crying so violently, and the mortification of doing so in a grocery store, was six kinds of horrifying for me. I put down my basket and fled the store.

There was some realization then, that what was ahead was nothing like what I had imagined and nothing like what I wanted, and nothing like it was supposed to be, dammit. Now, I had to re-figure everything.

It felt like trying to solve for X without X actually being in the equation.

My ‘back when the world was perfect’ was the life I saw myself living as Mark’s baby sister. I could live with all my mistakes, my stupid decisions, the trouble my big-smart-ass-mouth got me into; if I saw it through his eyes, heard it through his ears. I could hear every fiber of my being screaming NOW WHAT?

‘Back when the world was perfect’ - I’ve turned this phrase around in my head almost non stop since I heard it. I feel it, the sadness in those words, more acutely than any I’ve heard in some time.

Is there a sense of recovery on the other side of that first real sense of loss? Is it really just never the same again?

I think I know the answer, and it makes me sadder still. I think you move past things, over things, around things, but they never really go back to the way things were... back when the world was perfect.

The past catches up, via Email.

My 20 year high school reunion is just a few months away. Normally, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of going but this past year has been full of finding some people in my life that given any choice, I would have never lost to begin with and they want to go.. so, we’re going. We may end up spending 15 minutes at the actual reunion, and the rest of the weekend walking around in a park in south Alexandria, much like we did on our graduation night, chugging wine coolers out of 2 liter bottles, but that’d be just fine by me. At least this time if we get thrown out of a school function for being drunk, it won’t actually be illegal, and we won’t end up spending the night traipsing down Route 1 in formal wear, or at least, I hope that doesn’t happen, because it can’t possibly work out, twice in one lifetime.

Since reconnecting with these people we’ve been playing the “whatever happened to” game, and so we both signed up on one of those reunion sites. I’ve gotten random messages from people I remember and a few I can’t. Nothing earth shattering.

Until tonight.
Tonight, there’s a message from L.Absher sitting in my inbox. I laughed out loud when I saw his name.

Larry Absher is the first boy I ever kissed. We were in 5th grade and my best friend at the time was Kristi Thatcher and we both had crushes on him. Being the generous guy he was, he let us take turns walking down the basement stairs to kiss him.

We were 11.

I don’t remember what was so charming about Larry now.

I have been amusing myself with the memory of Kristi and me taking turns kissing Larry before running down Bond Street chasing the good humor truck and eating ice cream in her carport listening to Christine Sixteen and Beth on her little portable record player.

I don’t remember knowing Larry beyond that year in grade school and I surely don’t know what made him send me this message.

It’s funny the way memory works, isn’t it?

I remember the kisses, sure, but just as clearly, I remember the smell of hot tar, from the paving on hayfield road, a few blocks down. I remember the smell of cut grass from the mowers taking down the soccer fields behind Kristi’s house. I remember watching Kristi dance to that Kiss album and wondering what Peter Criss looked like under all that makeup.

I’m pretty sure Larry would be disappointed.