Three generations.

My beautiful mother, my beautiful daughter and my lucky, lucky self: Thanksgiving 2009.

A true story about a very small world, part III.

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

It is a truth universally acknowledged generally recognized known to the few stalwarts who have put up with my presence for any length of time that Mrs. E has only two strategies when confronted with potential personal crisis: a) unplug the phone, curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor and lock the door or b) dive headfirst into the deeps and attempt to surf the roiling waves of human strife with honesty (rudeness), integrity (bullheadedness) and wit (sarcasm). Both involve nausea, cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, chills and a constant heartrate only slightly lower than a hummingbird’s. Neither is fun to watch. Neither works very well.

B never, ever happens until she has been forced out of the bathroom.

Thanks to The Kid, I didn’t even have time for the puking to begin.

A true story about a very small world, part II.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me. Part 1 is below.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

Because of course, I was lying through my lovely veneered teeth.

We had dated, if the definition of “dating” can be understood to include “screwing around during a season of summer rep before Ms. Euphrosyne had matured enough to end an existing relationship honestly, thereby employing the classic technique of using the fling as a catalyst with no intention of ever taking it, or him, seriously.” It had seemed so perfect, in a sleazy way. He was almost ten years older, living and going to graduate school across the country in the fairytale world of C___________, and most importantly, he had played the end of the summer beautifully in harmony with my narcissistic needs.

Yes, it was fine that we date other people. Yes, we should stay in touch. Yes, maybe we could arrange a meeting at some unspecified future time, but there was to be no pressure, no obligation. I was nineteen, a late bloomer in full and raging efflorescence, and the last thing I wanted was a commitment of any kind. He was almost insultingly fine with that. I cried when I left my new friends that August; I could barely speak to the man I truly had a terrible crush on; I said good-bye to the fling with not a flutter of regret, and he was just as calm.

A true story about a very small world.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake

There is no doubt that I showed spectacularly poor judgment; not head-through-a-windshield or hey-I’m-in-jail poor judgment, but poor nonetheless. In retrospect, however, I feel a substantial portion of blame (and isn’t that what it’s all about, really?) should rest squarely on the skinny shoulders of The Kid Who Should Have Been in Honors English. You always get at least one in the chaos of wildly varied adolescent humanity that is “regular” freshman English: the transfer whose records haven’t made it yet, the eighth-grade binge drinker who is now sober with a 1.3 grade average, the emotionally disturbed introvert disguising rage as apathy, or the most depressing type, the hard-drugging 17-year-old total waste of potential.

The Kid in this instance was a classic transfer delay. He was polite, he was smart, he knew all the answers, he was a typical late-maturing male – he was exactly like most of the guys in all my own high school classes. Fortunately for The Kid’s health and well-being, he was also funny and rather pretty, a favorite with the regular English pep squad girls, although their approval did not extend to thinking of him as a potential sexual partner. The popular girls adopted him, petted him, laughed at his jokes – and you can bet your sweet ass that meant most of the boys did not give in to their natural instinct to kill off the weakest pack member. Even the most hormone-addled teenage boy knows you don’t kick the hot chick’s dog. So The Kid, unlike most of his misplaced kind, enjoyed a relatively peaceful scholastic existence.

Tell a story.

It’s fiction, don’t worry, and not important fiction at that. A story for the lunch table at work, a story for waiting in line in the women’s room. A good one, and parts of it need to be whispered, but not a new one.  The best bits are the oldest.

Tell a story. It’s not hard if you have the narrative well in mind; easiest if the protagonist is based on the person you know best. Make it yourself. It will be, anyway. Change her name just in case.

Then tell the story. Tell what she did, what she said, who was there and who wasn’t. Put in what she was thinking when she made the call, when she crossed the line, when she left the room; the name is different, remember. Don’t make it pretty. No one will know.

Just tell the story. Tell it all. Bring it up into the screenlight, the smell of bleached and rotting cotton, the mirror she checked her lipstick with. The cat she left behind. The green bile in the chipped white toilet bowl, her head on her knees and nothing left inside. The lies she told. The lies and lies.

Then write it down.

Read it.

Try another ending. It’s fiction, remember?

Tell a story.

A lexicon of beaglery.

Today my Facebook friend Deanna posted a link to this article in the NYT: “Good Dog, Smart Dog,” a look at changing ideas about the cognitive abilities of the canine set, the point being that, hey, they might be smarter than those brainiac science-types thought.  My layperson reaction? “Finally, some scientists who actually live with dogs.”

A beagle I once knew and still love (not a breed that ever makes the “smartest” list, by the way) would purposely sit and stare intently at our French doors, squeak to go outside, let the younger male mutt assert his dominance by rushing out first as the door opened… and then drop to the ground to indicate that she wanted to stay in, thank you. As soon as the door closed, she would hop to her feet, head to the middle of the rug and do the rolling, squirming dance of beagle joy as the mutt stared bleakly inside through the glass, gaslighted yet again into losing possession of the indoor realm.

Do dogs think? Of course they do, about dog things and in dog ways. That beagle changed my ideas of the capabilities of canine manipulation and the effects of sheer doggie force of personality. We developed an entirely new vocabulary to describe the machinations of The Beagle Known as Alice.

Countdown/countup: 13 to 39.

Look. No, watch – closely and with attention. A wig, colored mud and oil, a pair of gloves… a different person. Anyone you choose. What power.

And possibly within reach. But not yet. Not at 13.

Little did I know. Fast forward…

Mom, watch this.

Turn the volume up so you can hear the lyrics really well.

South Texas Girl

Memed! Anonymously memed!

Well, I know who memed me, but I can’t tell ya. State secrets, national security… you know, the usual. Being this important is hell sometimes.

Here goes:

1. I can’t believe I’ve never been to London. Seriously, it’s amazing, considering that I have practically 400 years of British history memorized (the juicy bits, anyway) and have no trouble understanding any dialect even remotely like English. Damn. This sucks.

2. Every time I think about the night I got so drunk that I woke up on a couch next to someone who had been hitting on me and had to check to see if my tights were still on I still cringe. Fortunately, they were, and there was no way in hell I could have gotten them back on in the previous night’s state of intoxication. Not that I would have minded sleeping with him, really, but I would have minded missing the fun. Wait, I might have been engaged at the time. Oh well.

3. I wish I’d met Lyle Lovett when I had the chance.

4. I have never felt so out of place as when I was a bridesmaid at my best college friend’s wedding. Not only was I the only non-Christian among the wedding party, I may well have been the only non-virgin. And thank whoever is up there for that, because I was able to render an educational service involving a banana to my beloved friend that none of her more saintly companions could have. Just goes to show you, every good girl needs a go-to whore on the roster.

5. Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls are my guiltiest pleasure. I don’t have food issues, you know, the “bad food” crap, it’s just that Swiss Cake Rolls have no redeeming value whatsoever. They are the trailer trash of pastry: sickeningly sweet cheap chocolate coating over a usually stale chocolate cake wrapped around some unidentifiable white semi-solid sugar product. And they rock my fucking world. We can’t even have them in the house or I’ll eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

6. I hope my mother knows how grateful I am for her letting me make my own mistakes while always being there for backup. Although I wish she’d given me a heads-up about the batshit bipolar guy from California.

7. In my darkest hours, I secretly blame my screwy neurochemistry for my dysfunction. Actually there’s no secret about it. As far as dumb things I’ve done in my life or bad choices, that’s a hundred percent me – and that’s no secret either.

8. Being really, truly on my own and broke as hell changed my life forever. I can’t say it was completely a conscious decision, but partly, and it gave me time to figure a lot of things out – like what I wanted to do with my life, my vocation, my values, my bad habits, and the list goes on and on. It was time to just live for a while with no expectations. I highly recommend it.

Whew.

I’m tagging Lorelei, Banshee and Polly. Because I lurv them.

My first correspondence from a gentleman: 1974

8 April, 1974

Miss Ann A_____

206 Blaze, Dr.

San Antonio, Texas, 78218

Dear Ann:

I was very glad indeed to receive the kind letter that you wrote me when you were in N_____ & Company’s offices last Tuesday. I had a little trouble to understand one of the sentences you wrote: for example: 8tq7h40ikjh 000. But after studying hard, I came up with some nice things you said about me. I do hope I was not mistaken in the complimentary result at which I arrived. You see most people like to hear nice things about themselves; especially when they come from so charming a person as your self. I am no exception to the general rule. I could have preferred that you had come to my little room and talked with me. However beggars must not try to be choosers and if you will visit us again I shall rest entirely content.

How about something else. I have two little dogs; one is named Bullwinkle and we call him Bull for short. The other is named Mancha; that means “spot” in Spanish and we call him so because he has a beautiful black spot on his back, just ahead of his tail. Like people, each is different from the other. For example; Bull is very particular about what he eats, while Mancha will eat anything you give him. I believe some people are that way. Of the two, Bull is the smarter. He comes into my room every morning and finds me very comfortable in bed and hoping that I will not have to get up. But Bull will not have it so. He sticks his wet little black nose in my face and keeps doing that until I simply have to get up. When I do, he says: “now go on and get dressed and come to breakfast and give me a piece of your bacon.” That is just what I do.

I am not going to tell you to be a good girl; I am sure that you need no such admonition. If I use a few words that you do not understand very well, ask your nice mother. She knows much more about words than I do and makes me feel quite ashamed of myself.

Good bye, now; and come to see me soon.

Affectionately,

R N_______

• I was four years old; he was at least 80. He was my mother’s employer and her devoted friend until he died.