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A Wino Most Foul

07.10.11

Today is the day that I woke up as my 80-year-old self. Grumpy, inconsolable, maybe something closer to a two year old if it weren’t for all the Diet Mountain Dew drinking. Nothing is quite right. My mother called at 8:20 on one of the two days of the week that I would ever be able to sleep in until 8:20. In her defense, I’d told her I was getting up early, but that didn’t happen, because I stayed up past midnight working on a report. A report that left me in an ornery rage, wondering why it was that no one could get things right, why subject and verb agreement clearly matter to no one but me, why I was home making obvious corrections while the rest of the world was drinking champagne and eating Taco Bell as their eighth meal, why I was putting so much effort into something I won’t remember in two or three years. Quite possibly two or three weeks.

My agitation is showing itself physically. Yesterday I arrived at the salon before it opened, before the manager had even come to unlock the door. I was the first customer, and I was unduly proud of this. Yet even in the chair, feet dangling in the warm, churning water, I couldn’t calm down. “Relax,” the woman said, massaging my feet with what felt like unusually strong hands. “It’s better when you relax.”

I wanted to kick her in the face. I’m not particularly good at getting instructions from people I know, people I’m expecting to say such things to me, like my boss or my mother. But I’m especially bad at getting feedback on obvious things that I can’t do, things that seem simple for other people but are beyond my reach for one reason or another. Throwing a Frisbee? “Just flick your wrist,” at least 800 people have said to me over the years. Wait. So throwing a disc horizontally through the air involves my hand and wrist? Huh! So if I just flick it all will work like a charm, and the Frisbee won’t go sailing into the street? Thanks, Einstein. And so it was with the pedicurist. Just calm down, relax your feet, she said, pushing my heel onto the towel below it. The woman next to me chuckled. I felt like a fool. It’s like telling depressed people to cheer up. Don’t you think I’d relax if I could?

I have so much energy that I feel paralyzed. Odd, yes, but completely true. I’m a bottle of Coke that’s been rolled down the stairs, across the front lawn and into the street. I’m lying in the gutter waiting for some unsuspecting child to come upon me. I’m ready to spit at the smallest twist, ready to shower boy and sky and irritated parent with carbonated sap that’ll teach them right and good for picking me up in the first place. It would be better if someone with experience in such things would find me first, would take a pin to my side and let the pressure out slowly. Fizzzzzzz. Or maybe I just need to lie here on the sidelines until things die down.

Reservations

03.28.11

I miss meat so much that I ache. It’s a visceral reaction, as they say, a longing I feel in my belly and my bones. I feel the need like I do for a shower on a weekend of parties, two days of dancing in smoky rooms and spilling beer on my jeans. I have had dreams about it, about slicing into a buttery filet, of a quarter pound of ground beef spitting on a dirty drive thru grill. I miss it much more than my 20s, much less than kisses under street lamps or a hand on my knee. I miss it infinitely more than chicken.

People talk about meat more than you’d think. Coworkers eat it at lunch, buns of steamy meatballs made by a kerchiefed grandmother and the simplest of ham sandwiches crying out for a suitor. Restaurant menus tease. Pork pulled from a part of the pig I’d rather not imagine, but when I do, it’s a part that feels like a down comforter slathered in sauce, like pig cotton candy. Beef Wellington, equal parts warm pastry and love your family never gave you. Flank steak, properly soaked and chilled, upstaging summer greens like Jackie O. did the commoners. Meat is a delight, friends, an indulgence unparalleled.

I’m slowly giving in. I feel as if I’m caving, a whore unable to tolerate a day wage. I’ve done my due diligence, researched those spots that might afford the predestined their last rites, a final meal of choice? At the very least assurance that they’ll serve a greater purpose than posting on Facebook and logging hours in a well-decorated cubicle. I’m eating meat here and there — nothing mass produced, of course — and I’m savoring this that is ridiculously most savory.

And I’m trying to avoid the squeals inside me that tell me my body is doing something wrong, yet unapologetically and downright beautifully right.

By kris | Posted in everyday | Comments (17)

On togetherness

03.26.11

My mother turned 70 this month. My sister, the event planner of the family, put together a divine bash, a dinner for my mother and 30 of her closest friends. It was a lavish event for the Likeys, one with servers and a guest book and shrimp cocktail and adult beverages. There was many a coiffed lady and all wore their finest, colorful suits and silken scarves. Baubles and kind words about my mother’s dedication to her friendships and her kindness. Yours truly gave a toast, one I wrote out on stationery beforehand and delivered courtesy of a glass of cold pinot grigio. I thanked my mother for many things. For teaching me how to iron. For demonstrating the value of close friendships. For taking care of my sister and my father and me. That last part was difficult to choke out aloud and prompted the bartender to hand me a napkin. I was also photographer for the evening, and snapped multiple photos of each person to ensure everyone showed up in one with just the right number of chins. My mother was beyond thankful for our efforts, not to mention me wearing my hair curly, just as she likes it, as she had outlined as one of her few requests for the night. Tables in rounds, speeches that didn’t say too many nice things about her, her youngest wearing her hairstyle of choice. I was immensely proud of her that night. Of the relationships she built from scratch well after turning 50, and just how beautiful and vibrant she was in the company of friends.

*****

I’m single again. I’ve been single (for a second time) for some time, if I’m honest, but it’s just now that it really feels like it. A big sigh is what you hear here. There are spaces in my day that did not exist not too long ago, voids of time once consumed by phone calls and texts. It’s the right thing to have happened, if it had to happen, but I’m left with a blend of anger and disappointment. Sadness. Back to the drawing board, back to square one, a steamer trunk of clichés that I wish I didn’t so often feel I was living. This life change coincides with a somewhat ironic experiment with Facebook, one that’s of course afforded me the opportunity to view every single person I’ve ever known and the people who love them, the women and men who make their coffee in the morning and with whom they’ve (apparently) had 65 children each. Another sigh, extended this time. Part of me worries, over thinks. The spinster with cat jokes I make ad nauseum? What if they’re true? What if this life is indeed this, and is meant to be spent alone, independent, thriving but not entirely? That’s only half of the experience, the darker side that shows its face in quiet moments and those unfilled by meetings and drinks. The other half remains hopeful, reminds herself of the beauty of the new, of the likelihood that there’s someone out there who wants to take my hand to old New Jersey haunts, to places exotic and family gatherings somewhat less so, to meet parents and friends and his goldfish. Another sigh. The man who not only wants to take my hand for the month or the year, but the one who’ll walk beside me. The one who’ll hold on to me this time.

By kris | Posted in everyday, relationships or the lack thereof | Comments (19)

A Wino Most Foul

Reservations

On togetherness

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