Crudbucket: The Blog That Loves You Just the Way You Are

My Cruddy Summer Vacation 2011: Family Staycation* Edition

2011-09-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

(* I dislike the term staycation for reasons I can’t quite articulate. Maybe it’s the cutesy Brangelina-ness of the word combo or the implication that one is slumming because they are deigning to not travel the world this year. The economy, you know. But repeated use of stay-at-home vacation feels more like I am standing in an empty room trying to avoid eye contact with staycation while she raises a knowing eyebrow. You win, staycation.)

Mr. Crud and I spent a good part of our winter and spring in search of vacation ideas that fit one main criteria: they would actually be relaxing. Vacationing with an 18-month-old Purvis is the complicating factor. If we went out of town to a sweet cabin in the gorge would we be setting ourselves up for a heart attack-y time chasing her around a new set of hazards? How about child-proofing? Visions of uncovered electrical outlets and steep spiral staircases danced in my head. And sleep. Oh sleep. Last year our foray to Illinois to visit Mr. Crud’s parents marked the beginning of two sleepless months as Purvis’ once trusty sleep schedule was thrown into turmoil. I won’t even mention the slowly deflating air mattress that made our first night chez in-laws into a total hell. Well, I did mention it. Guess I’m still bitter about that one.

The coast? Nope. The tsunami in Japan and my subsequent research on the tsunami-unreadiness of our usual coastal haunts struck this option from the list. After an inventory of ways that the coastal areas are doomed should a tsunami strike, the articles shrug their shoulders: eh, good luck even though your doomed, coastal residents and unlucky visitors. Please, Cannon Beach, build that City Hall on stilts so that I can at least entertain the possibility of visiting your fine hamlet again.

The mountains? We’re not really nature people and minimizing Purvis’ and our chances of falling off something high and cliff-like ranks high on my list of to-do-s.

Family visit? Travelling with Purvis when she couldn’t walk was a challenge. I’m not ready to contemplate the new airplane reality with the up-and-at-em Purvis. More than toys and pizza, she loves running from kitchen to dining room, dragging her baby dolls and blankets. We plan to keep air travel to a minimum until she is old enough to plug into episodes of Dora or whatever is hip with the toddlers.

Then there is the trailer’s worth of baby crap we would have to haul to our destination and the promise of awkward diaper changes and backs sore from schlepping all of it. One of my yoga pals told me about a teacher who took her 1-year-old to India. “So you really can go anywhere with a baby. She doesn’t have to limit you.” So true. My fears and worries do a fine job of that, thank you very much.

So staycation it was.

We swore that we would not let the days slip away from us as in the past. I would skip my morning yoga routine (which to my chagrin seems to have f-ed up my back more than it was before somehow), we would eat out as we wished, and we would see the parts of Portland we normally take for granted. Staycation: here we come!

Magazines read:
No sweet junk food US Weekly, People, and abusive boyfriend O: The Oprah Magazine for me, an oversight on my part. Just the regular magazine subscriptions.

Yoga Journal
How I used to anticipate the arrival of a new YJ. Each page burst with promise of enlightenment and alignment tips. But in the last year I have soured on YJ. In part because it feels like I am reading the same issue over and over again. And maybe its more frustration with my own yoga practice and monkey mind than the contents of the magazine that is harshing my mellow. I am annoyed by the increasing page count full of shameless endorsement of expensive body lotions and shawl wraps with yoga-ey names and the appearance of celebrity yogis dispensing words of overly simplistic wisdom while they direct their personal chef to make the latest aruyvedic curry. We may soon part ways, dear Yoga Journal, but I will never forget the good times. Namaste.

Real Simple
So why does shameless product endorsement in YJ stick in my craw while I don’t bat an eye at pages and pages of “Things to Try This Month” in RS. Good question. I subscribe to RS not so much for the lifestyle tips as the recipes. Plus it’s easy to digest while on the can.

New Yorker
Gone are the days when I read the NY from front to back. Now I am lucky if I complete a Talk of the Town piece. Guess this is what happens when most magazine reading time is relegated to the bathroom. Maybe I should put down the Real Simple.

Madison: The James Madison University Alumni Magazine
Who wed, who died, and who bred sums up my skim of my alumni magazine. I wonder if I’ll ever have anything blurb-worthy to send. Sigh.

Books Read:
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
In the Crud house George R.R. also goes by the name “Mr. Crud’s Boyfriend” so beloved is he to my husband. For years I have been hearing about the ups and downs of the Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. Mr. Crud laments pushed-back release dates for new books. He thrills at every new detail of the HBO series. All the while I roll my eyes playfully, “Oh you and your boyfriend.” He hooked his brother and sister-in-law on the series a few years ago. Every visit would include at least one long conversation with names totally foreign to my ears. Here we go again, I silently lamented. After watching the first season of the HBO series, “Game of Thrones,” I decided to give the books a try. I tried to be casual about it. I planned to read one then return to my literary diet of humorous memoirs, Scandinavian thrillers, and literary fiction. But no. I have to know what happens to Arya. What about the dragons? And that little shit, Joffrey? I have a new boyfriend and his name is George R. R. Martin. I look forward to Purvis’ naps because while she sleeps in my arms I read the teensy tiny print by eye-straining dim light. Mr. Crud has been sweet about not rubbing my new addiction in my face. The words “I told you so” have not crossed his lips. He reads over my shoulder. “Can you believe that happened?” No, no I can’t.

Yuks
We kicked off our staycation with the Maria Bamford set at Helium Comedy Club. The week before our big night out I worried over the timing. We had a window of 45 minutes for the babysitter to arrive, Purvis to fall asleep, and to get to the club in time to pick up our tickets. I am a logistical worry wart. I see all the holes in the most simple of plans. All worked out as planned. The babysitter did not get waylaid by my imagined traffic jam, Purvis did not throw a tantrum because she sensed that we were heading out for a night on the town although I did throw Mr. Crud some shade for taking a shower and tipping Purvis off that this night was not like other nights. We found a parking spot and our tickets were waiting for us with time to spare. Because rock shows are now after my bedtime, I’m thinking that comedy will be my new out-and-about activity. I am totally addicted to comedy podcasts—Never Not Funny, Who Charted, How Did This Get Made, WTF to name a few—so why not support my local funny folk? Maria Bamford was amazing. I laughed until I was sobbing and begging her not to make me laugh anymore.

Lions, Tigers, and Cows Oh My!

Oregon State Fair
Tuesday we trucked down to Salem to take in the fine dairy-air of the Oregon State Fair. After a delightfully bouncy ride from car to fairgrounds—“Bumpy! Bumpy! Bumpy!!” Purvis chanted—we headed straight for the blunt yet accurately named Beef Barn. We mooed at cows, bleeted at sheep, neighed at horses, and quacked at ducks. During our two sojourns to the petting zoo, Purvis grazed the back of a deer and swatted at a goat’s tail. Thankfully she did not repeat my young petting zoo experience where a goat nibbled on my fingers as I tried to feed it. The petting zoo had the added excitement of trying to keep Purvis’ hand from jamming into her mouth after she had touched the poo and pee-riffic floor of hay. I didn’t even mind that the soap provided by the fair had the dreaded triclosan as its antibacterial agent. Funny how quickly the hippie mom worries about parabens and pthalates evaporate when possible e-coli is on the menu. As Purvis munched a PB & J, I read the Petting Zoo signs assuring fairgoers that the animals were delighted to be penned up and subjected to the sticky, swiping hands of hundreds of children. I couldn’t help but think to the scene in the recently viewed—thanks to a lovely staycation day minus Purvis during which we saw our first movie in 8 months and ate a leisurely lunch at Nostrana—Rise of the Planet of the Apes where main chimp Caesar bounds into a seemingly wonderful playroom under the watchful eye of his owner, the wary James Franco, and is then crammed into a dismal cage as soon as Franco leaves the building. Yes, I’m sure the petting zoo is a donkey’s dream. A pig slept in the corner during both our visits to the bustling pen. Pigs are smart. I wondered if the pig was depressed, if he was the Caesar that would try to lead the Petting Zoo rebellion. The fair food was disappointing. After all the website hype about the great food, I expected something gourmet-ish, representative of the pride Oregonians take in their grub. The usual parade of oily noodles, corn dogs (the foot-long corn dog named “The Dominator” resembled a soon-to-be-retired dildo), funnel cakes (which are admittedly delicious), elephant ears, mounds of curly fries, and the requisite fried Twinkies crammed the food court. State Fair life lesson: pack a lunch.

Portland Zoo
After my last zoo sojourn in college, I swore never to see another zoo without a tot in attendance. Otherwise, I spend the whole time feeling guilty that animals must be caged so that ding-dong humans can be convinced to not annihilate them from the planet. Alternately, so that animals won’t be annihilated from the planet because their habitat has been destroyed or they are fun to wear or they are tasty. I still had some of these thoughts, especially while huddled behind as mass of teenaged girls who squealed and hollered, “he’s waving at us!” while watching a chimp in the primate house. I can only imagine the parade of humanity that greets him every morning. Sorry, Mr. Chimp Sir, I tried to convey to him telepathically. If you become our overlords and annihilate us from the planet, I totally understand. Purvis dug the swimming sea lions, the grazing giraffes, and the pacing leopards. I am still partial to the primate house and the orangutans. After our zoo visit Purvis’s love of Goodnight, Gorilla (a tale of the most incompetent zookeeper ever) has been rekindled. Each mention of the zoo is met with a bellow of “Mooooo.” No cows at the zoo, but I appreciate her rhyming skills.

Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge
We saw exactly 2 ducks on our hike in the aforementioned wildlife refuge, but it was still cool to take a walk in the woods while in the city. Oh sweet Portland. I like to walk and I am a fan of nature (as long as getting lost in the woods and killed by deranged rednecks are not a danger) so it’s odd that I’ve not taken advantage of Portland’s many parks and hiking grounds. Mr. Crud and I vow to pull out our comfortable shoes—maybe even invest in some ugly but practical hiking boots—and start seeing the great outdoors. Purvis is a fan of outside. “Outside”—pronounced “dieee”—was one of her first words. Sometimes I worry that she is becoming too much a fan of outside. I fast forward to theoretical future when she asks to go on a hike in the wilderness or worse she is a young adult venturing into the woods with our without my blessing. Shiver. Maybe I can teach her a lesson a la the Arrested Development way by traumatizing her in a safe way so that the outdoors will not be so enticing. Now that’s some fancy parenting.

Tids and Bits
We bought Purvis a helmet so that she can ride her tricycle—actually be pushed on her tricycle—around the neighborhood with a protected noggin. She likes the helmet—her “helmey”—more than the actual trike-riding. We made a house rule that helmets are only for outside, a rule which as become the latest source of tears second only to the denial of pizza at every meal.

Purvis attended her first wedding and I spent my first wedding in decades not taking advantage of free booze. Are my boozerini days really over? Stay tuned. (A hearty mazel tov to Kelle and David.)

Purvis is an outgoing young lady. Her preferred method of getting to know you is to either holler “hi” or “baby” or swipe her hand at your face. She mistrusts the friendship overtures of other kiddos--she likes to woo her new buddies--and prefers to run with an older crowd. This week she made several temporary buddies. Moxy who shared in the fun of crumpling leaves and throwing them at each other. Anya who we have seen at the park near our house several times and showed Purvis the fun of leaping off high brick walls. The little boy who led Purvis in a “choo choo” parade around the perimeter of the park. While Purvis is working her shouty charm on a future temporary pal, I look to the parent and wonder, “Will you be my parent friend?” I remember how I scanned our childbirth preparation classroom and prenatal pilates class for possible future parent pals. After every conversation I analyzed the couple for compatibility with Mr. Crud and me. (Were they artsy, punky types? Would they want some former artsy, punky types for pals? How did they feel about attachment parenting? Do they mind awkward, dorky jokes possibly involving potty talk?) And after every conversation we stepped away from each other with no future plans to get together over coffee and chat, thus putting the kibosh on our parent friendship. I have my eye on the couple across the street. They fall on the yuppie side of the fence but their son is only a few months younger than Purvis and they have a killer yard. If all else fails I could try the Purvis holler-in-the-face method. Seems to be working out for her.

Podnah’s Pit is delicious. I say that I don’t like meat, but I lie. I like meat. I like it a lot.

Pythons on a Shuttlebus

2011-05-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

(Reprinted from Crudbucket 6 on the occasion of Randy "Macho Man" Savage's death. R.I.P. Macho Man.)

The night I began my love affair with WWF wrestling returns with startling clarity. A visit to my mom’s best friend’s house on a Friday night, the best friend whose son happened to be one of the supercoolio boys who made an appearance on every self-respecting 6th grader’s crush list. While Mom chatted it up with her friend, Wes took me to the basement where I watched my first wrestling bout. He jumped on the couch, when Hulk Hogan had his comeback moment, the part of any Hulk bout that made you want to start shrieking his Rick Derringer-penned theme song at the top of your lungs. I’M A REAL AMERICAN/ FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OF EVERY MAN.

No matter his opponent Hulk always found himself on the verge of going down, usually due to some illegal folding chair incident. (What good were those referees anyway?) He’d be sprawled on the mat, an equally muscled, oiled many laying across him. The good-for-nothing ref pounded the floor, “1-2-3-“ As he neared 10 that’s when you’d see it, the shaking fist that signaled Hulk wasn’t as out as he seemed. He could gut it through, at least enough to tear his t-shirt. During the Hulk comeback Wes jumped on the couch. “He did it again!” Wes’ younger sister, Brande, curled her lip. “It’s all fake anyway.” Wes jumped off the couch and onto Brande, pinning her to the shag carpet. “Take it back,” he said, rubbing a fresh noogie on her head. We were all laughing. I was almost doubled over. Man, this is great, I thought. Were girls allowed to love wrestling?

I decided my favorite was Randy “Macho Man” Savage for reasons that make me want to kiss the feet of Gloria Steinem for rescuing me from my fucked up gender conditioning. Randy ruled his lovely Elizabeth—always referred to by announcers as Lovely Elizabeth—with an iron fist. Sometimes he actually pushed her to the ground if she got in trouble. She always came back, somehow unable to resist the way he stuck his pinky finger straight in the air and through clenched teeth—how DOES one describe that fucked up gravelly whine? Laryngital?—curse his rivals without raising his voice. He was a bad boy, an abusive bad boy so tough that the name Randy Savage was not sufficient to express his hypermasculinity. He added Macho Man for good measure. I slobbered at the thought that someday I could show him the right way to treat a lady. He hadn’t met anyone who could stand up to him. Pathetic Elizabeth, it was all her fault. Or maybe it was the tight tiger-striped fluorescent pants, the perma-tan, the cowboy hat. That voice.

And then he took off his sunglasses. Shiver. Please don’t ever take off your sunglasses, Mr. Macho Man.

My wrestling love stuck around long enough for Dad to haul my brother and I to two WWF extravaganzas at the Capital Center. I saw the Hulkster, the Junkyard Dog, and the British Bulldogs who I decided were my favorite tag-team wrestlers because I liked the accents, which lent them a modicum of sophistication in a decidedly unsophisticated world. I had a trapper keeper folder emblazoned with the Macho Man; I liked the Slim Jim commercials but then middle school hit and I abandoned my WWF, leaving my brother and Dad to carry the torch.

Fast forward to a few years ago when my husband-to-be and I boarded the Avis shuttle bus, exhausted from our flight to Detroit where we would be visiting his grandma. The bus was packed with other weary travelers, mainly business suit guys, their eyes glazing at the sun-baked pavement beyond the windows.

We were about to depart when the doors shushed open and the widest muscleman I’d ever lay eyes on boarded. Skintight acid-washed jeans strained against his thighs. A white muscle t-shirt hugged the ridges and valleys of his torso. The tell-tale wraparound sunglasses perched atop his bumpy nose. Fake tan was everywhere. He mumbled something about a car to the driver in that laryngital strain. His voice was the sound of shredded vocal chords, a walking cautionary tale to chorus classes everywhere of the importance of singing from the diaphragm. (I understand now, Ms. Watkins.) He loomed over the driver, his hands on the luggage bar behind him.

“Sorry Mr. Savage, they haven’t found your car but you should come along.”

With both hands, he hit the bar with a force that shook the bus. The businessmen were awakened from their daze as we all exchanged nervous glances that wondered if the combined power of the businessmen and me could take out this monster man should he go insane between the Wayne County Airport and the Avis. The driver kept his cool, gripping his glorified walkie-talkie.

“I’ve been doing this all day, man,” Macho Man whined through his strained vocal chords.

“Sorry Mr. Savage.”

Lucky me, my former idol slumped into the seat beside me. I stared at the meatiest paw hands I’d ever seen, marveled at the veins crisscrossing his thigh-circumferenced biceps. The urge to pinch his leg was overwhelming. Could I actually get a fingertip-ful of denim or was it actually as sprayed on as it looked? I squeezed husband-to-be’s hand. He knew of my Macho Man love. No secrets in this relationship.

I weighed the consequences of me blurting out, “You were my favorite wrestler when I was 12.” I tried to soften the obvious jerkitude of that statement, “I used to love you. Whatever happened to Elizabeth? I like your Slim Jim commercials. You were on my English folder.” All left me fearful that after a day of rental car frustration, I would be the final straw to break the Macho Man’s back. Being so close to him I felt like I could touch history. I imagined the excitement of the 12-year-old me running up to tell Wes, “Hey I sat next to Randy Savage on a shuttle bus.” Or rather I will 15 years in the future. Maybe he would have gone with me then.

The bus ride was silent. The nervous glances continued until we reached the Avis. When the doors shushed open, all remained seated as Macho Man, who stands just over 5 feet tall (not Prince short, but shorter than you’d expect), clomped to the front of the bus. “Take it easy, Macho Man,” the driver said. He grunted. We all exhaled. No heroics necessary on this ride. The pythons exited without incident.

The Mostly Bearable Heaviness of Morning Coffee

2011-04-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Fellow with glasses a beard and snazzy brown loafers stands behind chubby lady sagging beneath an overloaded backpack. The distance between the counter and the line is Grand Canyon wide. Had I not known this was the line to order our mediocre name brand lattes, I would wonder what these people were waiting for in their orderly single file. The next register is available. Chubby lady advances. Now he’ll move closer, right? Things are bunching up in the back. The line is practically out the door. No movement. I almost stumble into him. Come on, dude. Shuffle those fancy loafers closer to the counter. Have you never waited in a line before?
“Next.” Coffee lady calls to Loafers.

I take three large steps into the proper line position. Ah, that’s the ticket. My brow un-furrows. I’ll lead by example. I feel the coffee army behind me relax. No need to crowd together by the door. I will give you the space. You’re welcome.

“Next.”

I step to the counter. They know my order by heart—double, non-fat, extra hot latte. I can’t believe that I added the obnoxious extra hot to my order a few months ago. 2 years ago Me would roll my eyes at Extra Hot Me.

I wish the coffee slinger a nice day and silently thank him for not trying to upsell me on a Danish. I feel simultaneously annoyed and guilty when the new kid in the coffee shop asks me if I’d like a bagel or muffin with that. I envision the meetings where the managers, plastered grins on their fake tanned faces, toss required scripts at the new employees. “Be sure to call it a fresh muffin.”

I turn to move sheep-like to the waiting area near the other end of the counter but Loafers has taken up residence in the slim corridor between the counter and a rack of coffee. He is blocking the corral. Not only is he unaware of how lines work; he also needs training in the etiquette of waiting for your order. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I hit play on my iPod. I am forced to back track through the line. “Excuse me, sorry.”

I pick a spot near the rack. I stare at the back of his head.

“Tyler,” calls the coffee lady.

He steps to the counter and grabs his frothy, whipped cream-topped drink.

Oh Tyler. It’s not his fault. With a name like that he never had a chance.

I wonder who is staring at the back of my head, marveling at the oddly aggro energy emanating from iPod lady with the overloaded messenger bag. (Who I should mention just came from yoga class thus should be oozing love and compassion for all beings, even those who are named Tyler.)

My Cruddy Spring Break 2011: Crud Family Edition

2011-04-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

(Fiona, Purvis, and Monkey Boy all pirated up and ready to go)

Last year we missed our yearly trip to visit JADE—the power quartet of my bro/sis-in-laws, Dan and Anna, nephew, Monkey Boy, and niece, Fiona*—in Pompano Beach, Florida due to the recent arrival of Purvis in January. Traveling with a 2-month-old sounds easy now—What’s the problem? She’ll sleep the whole time—but to rookie parents, the trip sounded impossible.

Although I was nervous for this year’s trip, and had the pre-trip insomnia to show it, we were raring to make what would be our final visit to the spring break appropriate, Florida. (JADE will be relocating to Connecticut this summer. I looked at the spring break weather in their future neck o’ the woods. Rain, partly cloudy with a few hints o’ sun. Basically like Portland but 10 degrees colder. Spring break Connecticut! Woohoo?) Lazy days by the pool? Check. Walks on the beach? Check! No to-do list albatross around my neck? Yes, please.

Magazines Read:

US Weekly and half of People: My typical magazine intake per flight is 4: 2 of them fast-flipping rags like the aforementioned; an O to empower and enrage me; and an Utne Reader to cleanse the palate. Traveling with Purvis significantly reduces my magazine time. On our first flight I had to stroke her head and whisper sweet nothings for 30 minutes to lull her to sleep in her car seat so that I could steal a few minutes of hating on the Kardashian clan. In denial, I purchased 2 more magazines, Glamour and Rolling Stone, at our next stop. If I bought them then Purvis would know that she had to give me a few minutes to read them, right?

During our stay, I nibbled here and there from my magazines while trying to shield my 8-year-old niece, Fiona, from the Japan tsunami coverage in People. I was impressed that she chose tsunami over the latest Bieber news. Sometime between her visit to Portland for Purvis’ naming ceremony and now, her Bieber Fever had been cured. I asked her, sounding like the out-of-touch grandma I am fast becoming, “Do you still have Bieber Fever, dear?”

She shook her head and gave a half-roll of her eyes, “No.”

If she had still been under the influence of the flippy-haired one, I would have directed her to the Rolling Stone interview that I read in bits and pieces whilst logging time on the JADE toilet. Not that I expected much from a teenager who has rocketed to worldwide fame so quickly, but sheesh, what a little shithead.

The Snooki Rolling Stone, Glamour, and O await my nonexistent free time on the table next to my side of the couch. For now I skim the Do’s and Don’ts while Purvis nurses.

Books Read:

Half of Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
When a supposed page-turning thriller starts to feel like a slog through a Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak article (please pardon the Dennis Miller moment, but I did slog through a Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak article in my grad school days so the reference feels earned), is it really suitable vacation reading? Since Purvis burst on the scene, my reading list has become almost exclusively humorous memoirs and thrillers, especially thrillers by chilly Scandinavians. Literary fiction is too difficult to digest in the 1-2 page increments that have become my reading style. In past years our spring breaks were filled with delicious stretches of free time in which I devoured the latest voices of our generation. Alas. (I hope you have not yet grown tired of the many references to how life has changed since Purvis came along. Can be summed up with: I ain’t got no more time to myself.) I’m still on the fence as to whether I’ll push forward through the Mankell. He comes highly recommended by reliable sources. I do appreciate that the main character has diarrhea not once but twice for no apparent narrative reason. Diarrhea is random. Mankell speaks the truth.

Goodnight, Baby
An instant classic, Purvis requests that I read this picture book detailing one sleepy baby’s march towards bedtime 5 times in a row while seated in my lap on the plane.

Noisy Farm
Another instant favorite with Purvis. All the baa-ing and moo-ing and maa-ing leads up to her current favorite animal noise in the world: cock-a-doodle-doo! I hear the man behind us on the plane sigh after I’ve cock-a-doodle-doo-ed for the tenth time. Would you rather listen to a screaming baby, sir?

I Am A Bunny
The more I read about the spring-summer-fall-winter antics of Nicholas the bunny, the more I feel like there is an untold dark underbelly to his tales of chasing butterflies, observing frogs, and hiding under toadstools during rainstorms. Where is Nicholas’ family? Were they killed by hunters? Snatched by evil pet store owners? Do they not approve of his decadent lifestyle? (“Enough of this pansy butterfly shit,” Nicholas' father snorts. “Get a real job.”) The story teems with families of birds, squirrels, and raccoons. I imagine the poor little bunny watching on with envy as the mother bird regurgitates worms into her babies’ gawping mouths. So much pain in his cute, furry face.

Books Not Read
Pat the Bunny
Purvis white knuckles this book as she cruises around the coffee table in the Florida room, her favorite toddling path chez JADE, but gets angry if anyone attempts to read it to her. No, she will not pat the bunny.

Swamplandia
A pre-spring break gift from a former colleague, this book remains zipped away in my suitcase. My hopes for a return to literary fiction are deferred. May they not shrivel like a raisin in the sun.

Witch Business Conducted
My niece Fiona and I are witches so when we get together we get down to witch business. Our business has been curtailed since the birth of Purvis. No chance to ride our brooms, cast spells, or craft fiendish plots while intertwining our knobby fingers over a bubbling brew. Purvis goes to bed an hour before lights-out for Fiona so we have a few chances to TCB.

After kicking her mom out of her makeshift room (Fiona sacrifices her room to visitors and nests down in the family office.), she said, “So, like, do you know any other potential witches aside from Purvis?” (Fiona has coached me in how I will turn Purvis into a witch after a certain mandated waiting period. It involves spells and dances that make me jerk and twitch like a crazy person, which is sadly not so different from my usual jerky robot dance style.)

“My other niece Lyla. She’s too young right now but maybe in a few years.”

Fiona scribbled Lyla’s name on a piece of paper. She leaned closer. The air mattress belched below her shifting weight. “What is her witch name?”

My witch name is Missy; my niece is Fiona. Our names came from our source witch, Miss Fiona, the protagonist of a book I read to Fiona years ago when our witch world was sparkly and new.

Fiona told me that Lyla means night in Hebrew. I did not know that. Could a witch’s name be any more perfect? We brainstormed night-related words.

“How about Luna?” I asked.

“That means moon.” She said.

“Or how about Stella-Luna for star-moon and Luna is her nickname?”

“Witch nicknames are extremely rare,” she corrected.

“Oh.”

Fiona had given Purvis the witch nickname of Dibbie, short for Dibba-Dibba-Dibba-Dibba, which is one of Purvis’ babbles du jour.

“So, what else?” Fiona asked, pen poised over paper.

“Spirit animal?” I asked.

She considered. “I’m a panda because I’m sweet but violent, but I’m not violent like I would kill someone without a reason.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m a poodle because I’m smart and fashionable.” I said.

She scrunched up her face. “A poodle?!?”

“A standard poodle, not one of the yippy miniature kind.” I clarified.

“Okay,” she said with raised eyebrows.

Lyla will be a lioness. Purvis remains spirit animal-less for the time being. Her excitement over Zooey, the 18-year-old JADE family cat, leads me to believe that she will be the witch-appropriate cat.

Before every visit, I wonder if Fiona will have outgrown our playtime together. She is so much like a teenager at times—kids they really do grow up so fast, I blame Bieber—that I get a sinking feeling that she won’t want to play witches anymore, that she’ll shrug off my talk of spirit animals and power stones as childish things. I know that day will come. I remember my older cousin, Elizabeth, shunning my wish to play Barbies and feeling like a fun part of my world had been crushed beneath her newly acquired kitten heels. Elizabeth traded Barbie’s Corvette for the redneck trucks of the boys who lived in the surrounding hamlets of rural Virginia where she lived. She shoved her box of Barbies at me and then locked herself in her room to talk on the phone.

I hope Fiona will let me down easy when the time comes or maybe find some liberation from adolescent strictures in playing with Purvis. For now I relish the twinkle in her eye when talk turns to witches and her shushing me when I try to talk business in front of outsiders (like her mother).

(Note to Dan and Anna—please do not tell Fiona I wrote about this. I hear that she has a violent side and I don’t want to see the vicious panda in her awakened. )

Baby Steps
Purvis walked! She walked at least 4 steps back and forth between Mr. Crud and me. Even though I am not officially worried that she hadn’t started walking by the time she turned one, I occasionally fret that she is delayed in some way. Or maybe it’s just that the first question on everyone’s lips is “Is she walking yet?” I feel like I have to make excuses. “She’s taken a few steps here and there. Oh sure, she walks around holding our hands all the time. Not yet, but she’s getting there.” Part of me looks forward to seeing her totter around hands-free. Of course I want her to walk. Then again our house is barely baby-proofed for her as a crawler.

In other exciting development news Purvis now knows the location of her head, her eyes, her nose and her feet as well as the heads, eyes, and noses of her doting parents. Sure, we get poked in the eye a few times a day, but it’s so worth it to see the pride on her face.

Food Eaten
When I made my list of things to do on our final trip to Florida, two of those things were food. The third was the beach, but I could have done without the beach if push came to shove.

Las Vegas
While I am no big fan of south Florida, I am a huge fan of the delicious Cuban food that dots the landscape inside and out of Little Havana. A few trips ago we checked out Versailles, the Cubanest of the Cuban restaurants that has hosted Bill Clinton and a number of visiting dignitaries. I drooled over the colorful treats in the bakery case and snooped around the old men drinking strong coffee out front. So wonderfully old world.

Sadly a trip to Miami was not in the cards. So we settled for the equally tasty, but not as fashionable restaurant, Las Vegas, in the heart of Fort Lauderdale. The hostess pointed at a table and before we could even buckle Purvis into her highchair, a basket of buttery garlic bread appeared. Immediately Purvis pointed. My girl is a carb fiend like her mama. Be it cornbread, garlic bread, baguette, waffle or slice of whole wheat, she devours her bread by the fistful.

I ripped tiny pieces from the slices of garlic butter-slathered baguette while we perused the menu. Everything came with black beans and fried plantains so the entrée was almost beside the point. Soon our chow arrived. Purvis’ grunts of bread satisfaction were redirected to the black beans she was now shoving in her mouth. I am terrified of the prospect of a choking Purvis. She has a super sensitive gag reflex so coughing fits can easily transform into puking fits. As a result, I cut her food into dollhouse miniature sized pieces. I carefully sliced each bean in half and smooshed it between my fingers before depositing it on the table in front of her. She hoovered them up as fast as I could make them. I’m still not sure if my care is necessary since she eats my tiny pieces by the handful, but I’m not taking any chances.

We snatched minutes of adult conversation between feeding Purvis beans and bread. My mealtime conversations with Mr. Crud and anyone else who shares table time with Purvis consist of me asking a question, Mr. Crud starting to answer, our attention getting called to Purvis, whining over not getting enough beans fast enough averted, and then we both lock eyes, “What were we talking about?”

Eventually we were stuffed and gestured to our server that we were done. He reached to clear the plate with two cups of half-empty beans left. Had she not been belted into her high chair, Purvis would have leaped from her seat.

“Nuh-nuh-nuh!” She cried, grabbing at the plate as the server lifted it over her head.

We pried her fingers from the plate, leading to a baleful wail. I freed her from her high chair, a cascade of bean pieces and bread sprinkled to the floor, and walked her around the restaurant, pointing out the old-timey pictures of little kids that lined the walls. Thankfully the images of the kids made her forget all about the travesty of black beans gone uneaten.

Cypress Nook
There is nothing exactly special about this tiny German-ish breakfast-lunch joint a 20-minute walk from JADE’s house, but it is my one must-do meal while spending time in Pompano Beach. Maybe I love it for the memories of past visits to Florida. When we step through the door images of Fiona, her round cheeks smeared with chocolate from her M & M pancakes and my nephew, Monkey Boy, ripping pieces from his pancake flood my mind’s eye. I remember the year when Fiona was three and buzzing around the outside patio while we took a family portrait that still hangs on our refrigerator. So many low-key yet sweet breakfasts in our nook of the Nook. Vegetable omelets and hash browns and ladies scribbling our orders on their pads while calling us “hon.” I ordered Purvis a pancake and ripped her miniscule pieces while she fumbled with the crayons our waitress had given her to pass the time. My vegetable omelet and hash browns were the platonic ideal of down home breakfast. Cypress Nook, I will miss you most of all.

Vacation-y Activities Partaken
Putting the Beach in Pompano Beach
We settled on Tuesday afternoon for our big beach outing so as to avoid the spring break crowds and midday sun. Purvis, resplendent in the hot pink poodle tankini I picked up for the trip, and I and Mr. Crud in our saggy 5-year-old swimsuits packed into the JADE-mobile with Anna, Fiona, and canvas bags overflowing with beachy necessities. In 10 minutes we were there. The waves ebbed and flowed, seagulls cawed, Purvis soaked through her swim diaper before our toes touched sand. We schlepped our goods to a spot by the water and unfurled the beach blanket. I set Purvis down. The second her toes touched sand she whimpered and lifted her arms. I obliged, letting her soak the hip of my capris with her pee. Ah motherhood: pee is as benign as water to me. Anna offered to take Purvis on a jaunt down the pier while Mr. Crud and I relaxed the rays of the fading sun and bathed in the glory of the crashing waves.

The moment they were out of sight, I panicked.

“I’m just going to say this out loud because it’s ridiculous: I’m suddenly afraid that Anna will drop Purvis into the ocean.” I said. So remarkable how quickly my mind origami-s a new fear from mental scraps.

Mr. Crud grabbed my hand. “I know. Me too. It’s okay.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust Anna.” Anna is one of my parental spirit guides. Her handling of parenthood with grace and bad assed-ness was one of the reasons that I thought I could venture into the murky waters of mothering. Her kids have made it to age 8 and 4 without being dropped into the ocean, I reminded myself.

“No need to explain. I get it,” he said.

“I’m also terrified that I will drop her in the ocean.”

“That one has crossed my mind as well.”

A short and incomplete list of Purvis-related things that have made me shiver with fear in the past week:
• I will let Purvis walk on the Hawthorne Bridge and she will slither beneath the guardrail and fall into the Willamette.
• I will forget I am holding her and just drop her (sometimes this fear is compounded by standing atop the Eiffel Tower or near an elevator shaft).
• Purvis is somehow sleeping in our bed and I am lying on top of her, smothering her (I still wake up in a panic some nights convinced that she jumped out of her crib and climbed into bed with us).

I’ll stop there. You get the picture. My fear is malleable. It bends and twists to fit whatever situation hooks my overactive imagination. Were it not for yoga, I would be a walking panic attack. Sometimes I wonder I will ever trust the world with my sweet Purvis. How did my parents ever let me walk out of the door and into my high school boyfriend’s pea green Mustang without hyperventilating? I guess there is no trust about it. You protect them from what you can, attempt to protect them from what you can’t, and hope for the best. A little prayer here and there helps too. (Even the hippie dippy post-yoga-not really-to-any-particular-G-d prayers that are my stock and trade.)

After a few minutes I saw Purvis’s hot pink hat bobbing along the pier en route to our patch of sand. She survived the completely non-harrowing walk among the fishermen and pelicans waiting to snap up any discarded fish. Huzzah.

Anna handed her off to me. “Yep, she’s wet all right.”

Fiona, Mr. Crud, and Anna filed into the water. I hefted Purvis onto my hip and stood at the line of sand where the waves became moving puddles of foam. The water licked at my toes. A little cold, but doable. I dipped her into the next round of water, letting it wash over her feet. Instantly she recoiled and curled her legs as tightly as she could into her body. “N-nuh-nuh-nuh,” she whined.

“Okay, okay,” I said.

I set her back on my hip and took a few steps into the water. The prickly band of broken shells and rocks that separates beach from ocean cracked under my feet. The waves started to hit my knees. The sand turned smooth again. Purvis’ grip around my neck grew tighter and tighter in direct proportion to the urgency of her whines. The ocean was not on her vacation agenda.

I backed out and stood on the packed sand. I remembered my childhood visits to Fenwick Island where I spent as much of my day body surfing and diving under waves as I could without my skin peeling off due to sunburn. How did my mom let go then? She always insisted that we play in her view and that my dad be on duty. He had been a lifeguard and knew how to swim. That was the deal she cut with the universe. As long as my former lifeguard dad was around, we were safe. I was the former lifeguard in this equation and I did not feel up to the protector task. For a moment I rejoiced that we would not be returning to Florida. The waves in Oregon are too strong and the water too cold for kids. (Well, actually for adults. You see kids splashing around the shallow water even when the temperatures hover around 70.) Still the Pacific is not a body-surfing kind of ocean. Maybe the JADE relocation to Connecticut would help me to dodge this one tiny bullet. I await the new Connecticut-related fear that will pop up in its place. (That Purvis develops a love of penny loafers?)

Our afternoon at the beach came to an end with the promise of take-out sushi pulling us back to the homestead. During our brief stay Fiona had created a lovely bit of sand art from seaweed and rocks. She is my beloved niece, but I know talent when I see it.

Purim Carnival
What? Doesn’t every vacation include some sort of Jewish festival? While I am somewhat well-versed in the ways of Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, and Passover, I’ve never participated in Purim. Mr. Crud assured me that it was the fun holiday, the one where people are commanded to drink wine by no less a force than G-d, G-d-self. Fantastic. Where was this holiday 2 years ago when I was still full force in my boozerini ways?

My bro-in-law Dan, Purvis, and I headed over to the temple to meet up with Fiona and Monkey Boy who had gone earlier for the kids’ Purim service. Mr. Crud, who was battling a gnarly cold, and Anna took the opportunity for a few hours of quiet. I put on makeup for the first and final time of the trip. Even though I have heard only positive, accepting things about the congregation, I still wanted to feel confident, and my confidence is always enhanced by a swipe of mascara.

When we arrived, the children’s service was still in full effect. I spied Fiona in her kick-ass Vashti costume, ready to read a section from the Purim story. She alternates between Esther and Vashti each year because Esther, the hero of the story gets all the attention. Later that day on our way to the car, a woman complimented her Esther costume.

“I’m Vashti,” Fiona said over her shoulder.

That’s my righteous niece, sticking up for poor Vashti whose refusal to parade herself naked in front of King Achashverosh (spell check does not look kindly on that name) set the Purim action in motion, but gets no respect.

The rabbi stood in front of the costumed congregants in a dread-locked rasta hat-wig and rotated the gragger, the Purim noisemaker, at the mention of Haman, the story’s bad guy. The kids joyfully boo-hissed and rattled their graggers along with him. Purvis quickly got excited about all the kids in costumes and started making smiley eyes at a tanned lady a few rows back. My usual default at Jewish gatherings is nervously optimistic, but I felt at ease almost instantly. Purvis is a wonderful social lubricant—much better than wine—and if I don’t feel comfortable, I can always take her to a patch of grass to work on her walking skills.

The service ended. Dan and Monkey Boy hit the snack table. I lingered by the craft station while Fiona made a shaker out of a folded paper plate, black beans, and staples. She handed it to Purvis who rattled it around and smiled. She probably would have loved anything Fiona handed her, but she joyfully shook it while Fiona ran to another station.

My stomach growled. The rabbi had mentioned hot dogs (first pass at typing this hot gods appeared, Freudian slip?), hamburgers, veggie burgers would be served at the carnival. I headed over to the table where hot dogs and burgers were spread on platters. Nary a veggie burger in sight. Dan went for a hot dog while Monkey Boy filled up another bag of popcorn. I decided that a hamantaschen would be my temporary hunger-sater. My rules about eating meat are random and haphazardly enforced, but I stick by my plan to avoid hot dogs and hamburgers of unknown origin. I slipped Purvis a few crumbs. As my stomach got growlier, I kept my head. I did not start cursing the Jewish holidays for not letting me eat. I watched the kids zip around and breathed in the moment. I understood why Dan and Anna did not want to leave this congregation. The members were smiley and accepting. Several people commented on Purvis’ cuteness. I wondered if Mr. Crud and I would ever find a congregation that made sense for us, i.e. one that reminded Mr. Crud of his childhood yet didn’t activate my feelings of outsider-ness. We have a few years. But Passover, the holiday that starves and tortures me, looms on the horizon.

Home Again, Home Again
The flight home took us through Midway where Mr. Crud successfully resisted the urge to gorge on a hot beef sandwich. Airport restaurants never properly sate cravings unless such cravings are for tomato-pastey pizza with oil-puddled dry cheese. We boarded the plane. The people around us gave us the now-familiar wary baby-eye which can be summed up with: Is your baby going to make this flight miserable for me? On our first flight out of Portland, a man sat behind us. While Mr. Crud hustled to install the baby seat and get our many bags situated, the man said, “I have tinnitus. Is that going to be a problem?” He nodded in Purvis’ direction.

Mr. Crud kept his sarcastic responses in check and ignored the man. The man’s wife slapped him on the shoulder from her seat across the aisle, “It’s a baby. If you need to move, you move.” Thank you wife of clueless Tinnitus man.

Once in the air, Purvis did not satisfy my craving for some uninterrupted Us Weekly time by falling asleep in her seat, but she did nap for some good time stretched across my lap. Heavy but cute. I can’t imagine how the lap-baby parents do it.

For the first time in our air travels with Purvis, we found our car in the long-term parking lot at PDX without too much cursing and trudging. We shivered in the damp air as Mr. Crud installed the car seat base and I jammed luggage into the back of our Subaru station wagon. Purvis vacillated between faraway stares and crying. Although it was 6:00 Pacific Standard Time, it was 9:00 by our east coast internal clocks. Yawn.

We pulled into our driveway. A tow truck driver was hooking up his truck to the port-a-potty that had been parked in front of our house for almost a month. The backhoe that had been its partner-in-illegal-parking was already gone. In the last two months I had grown into my crotchety old lady-hood with ease. I had learned to use (and love) the City of Portland’s online complaint form. To date the power of my complaints have cleaned up the trash littering the front yard of the twenty-something flophouse across the street and now the backhoe and port-a-potty would be an abandoned auto memory.

“It worked! My complaint worked!” I said.

“Dang, I was hoping to watch them tow the backhoe,” Mr. Crud said.

Even though the cold air was a slap in the face after the long days of sunshine in Florida, at least the view from my window wouldn’t be eclipsed by a mud-caked backhoe. Now if only I could find a way to keep Purvis from waking up at 3:00 the next morning, the spring break miracle would be complete.

* Names have been changed to protect the young and innocent, thus rendering the JADE family nickname not as self-explanatory.

Motherhood: The First 6 Months

2010-07-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

July 16, 2010

Purvis’s cries crackle through the baby monitor. I pull the pillow off of my head, hesitate for a second before I look at the clock. 2:38. Not bad. Better than when she starts to peep 15 minutes before my alarm is set to go off. This way I can sleepwalk through her feeding then get some more z’s before the cruel beep of the alarm rips me from whatever dream is creeping around the edges of my subconscious this night.

New recurring dream: Mr. Crud and I have sold our house for some unknown reason and now we must find a new house, but we can only afford to rent. And all the new houses have leaky basements or crazy landlords who spit orders at us to mow our lawn. Why oh why did we sell our funky yet loveable house? We can’t afford a new one in our neighborhood, not in this market.

“That’s not at all symbolic,” Mr. Crud says.

“It’s almost disappointing in its obviousness,” I say.

The motherhood experience is not known for its subtlety.

Back in bed I wait a few more moments. Don’t go to her too soon, advise the parenting books. She may just be between sleep cycles. If you go to her too soon, she’ll never learn to sleep through the night. Nothing strikes more fear in the new parent or parent-to-be than the phrase “never learn to sleep through the night.” I’m actually getting more sleep now that Purvis’s out of my belly than when she was in. In part I am too exhausted to lie awake all night, letting my fears drag me hither and thither. Before she arrived six months ago, I didn’t know what it would be like to live in this new unstable house. I knew that my beloved sleeping schedule was fucked. I knew that I’d be a hormonal ball of goo. I knew that I would love my baby, but I didn’t know-know.

Was I fit to be a mother? I am a pretty fantastic aunt—an awesome aunt according to my favorite mug given to me by my niece as a Hanukkah gift—but did my auntie skills translate to mothering? Was sacrifice in my vocabulary? I got a preview of sacrifice during pregnancy. I had to give up two of my favorite foods—sushi and martinis for 9 long months. (Boo hoo.) I had to dial back my yoga practice, which wasn’t as hard as it once would have been since I’d been contending with injury the last couple of years. But still. No more jump-backs, no more headstand. I had a front seat to my yoga compatriots advancing in their asana practice, looking elastic and free, while I rolled up blankets so that I could prop myself into a restorative pose. But really, these were small potatoes. Tater tot sacrifices. (And now that I’m finding myself blocked after this paragraph, let’s go to a list.)

Sacrifices: The Early Months
• Where are you keeping my pre-pregnancy body and can I have it back now, please?
I believed the hype: Don’t worry about the pregnancy weight gain, you’ll burn it off no problem when you breastfeed. When I read that not every woman experiences the year of magical weight loss, I averted my eyes. No, I won’t be one of those poor souls. I’m joining the eat-what-you-want-without-consequences club. I actually couldn’t wait to reach my breastfeeding culinary free-for-all. Not like I denied myself much food-wise when I was pregnant (aside from the tsk tsk tsk list of cold cuts, smoked fish, sushi, et al), but I didn’t consider myself overindulgent. I was holding back, biding my time for breastfeeding when I was assured by articles in the NY Times and mother friends that I could go wild with gluttony. Yet 6 months later and I am still wearing, actually barely fitting into, the size up wardrobe that I’d saved during my last round of weight loss 5 years ago. I feel like I actually gained weight after Purvis was born. Maybe my daily walks with her were a little too heavily focused on visiting the fine local bakeries in our neighborhood (Damn you, Little T and your delicious chocolate chip cookies!), but I was supposed to be burning off those calories feeding the baby.

The cruel truth: some ladies—apparently I am one of them—actually find it more difficult to lose weight while breastfeeding because our bodies hold on to extra fat in case of famine. Although I have promised my stomach, hips, and thighs that there is no way that I will let them go hungry, they refuse to give up the ghost. It’s not like I’m sitting on my duff waiting for the pounds to melt away (even though it was promised that this scenario was in my future, NY Times Article of Lies). I go to yoga 6 times a week. I sweat my ass off. Before I returned to work, I went for at least 3 walks a day toting Purvis around in the Ergo baby carrier because the little darling refuses to nap unless she is nestled against a human chest. My weight loss pattern has always started with losing poundage in the boob area. Damn you, cruel weight loss fate. Looks like the ladies are continuing in their gatekeeper role. As long as I am a Double D, the hips (and stomach and wide ass) stay in the picture. Thus I have added a new silent affirmation to my post-yoga meditation: I am patient, loving, accepting, and compassionate with my body. Well, at least I am not loathing it, but me and mirrors are still keeping our distance.

• The Redefinition of Sleeping In
Pre-Purvis: sleeping in = waking up at 8:00 or 9:00
With Purvis: sleeping in = waking up at 5:30 or 6:00
The morning that I was thrilled to have slept in until 6:00 a.m., I knew that I had turned a corner. Purvis actually will sleep in until 8:00, but because of my breast pumping schedule I must awake by 6:00 or not have enough bottles of milk for her evening feedings. These bottles allow me to go to bed early—before the sun sets—since I have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed her.

• Wine? Beer? No, thanks. Sigh.
I can count on one hand the number of drinks I’ve had since Purvis was born. Well, make that two hands, but definitely not three. Drinking while breastfeeding is tricky. I have to wait until she eats, guzzle my drink, and then wait for the effects to subside before I can feed her. She eats every 2-3 hours so these perfect windows of opportunity are few and far between. Not to mention that a drink puts me right to sleep. Last week, Mr. Crud and I ordered barbecue. A beer sounded perfect.

“Maybe we should split it. A whole beer sounds like too much,” he says.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’d pass right out.”

I don’t think that I’ve split a beer with someone since I was a teenager trying to spread the intoxication around with limited supplies.

On the plus side, I’ve regained an appreciation for beer for some reason. I theorize it’s the handiwork of my boobs who are trying to plump me up with beer calories for the famine they think looms on the horizon.

• Is that a breast pump in your saddlebag or are you happy to see me?
I have some variation of this conversation everyday when encountering an acquaintance with my bike gear in tow.

“Wow! That’s a lot of stuff. What you got there?” asks Random Acquaintance.

“My clothes.” I hold up big-ass bag #1. “And a breast pump.” I nod to big-ass bag #2 and hope Random Acquaintance is not forced to fend off images of me hooked up to the hated milk machine. .

“Oh wow.”

“Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass, but whatcha gonna do?”

The conversation then veers into one of two directions—good for you for keeping up with the breastfeeding or an inquiry into the cost of breast pumps. “Why don’t you just buy another one?”

Oh Random Acquaintance, I considered it. I was thisclose to plunking down another 200 smackeroos to save myself the added weight to my commute, but then Purvis’s childcare came into question and purchases that weren’t 100% necessary (like the cute zebra print hat from Baby Gap) seemed unwise on the chance that I have to quit my job to become a full-time momma.

Someday I will regale Purvis with tales of lugging a breast pump to and from work on the back of my bike all so that she could be healthy, happy, and strong. And she will shrug and say, “Whatever, Mom.”

• Hard Assana* (see also Where are you keeping my pre-pregnancy body)
I returned to a take-it-easy yoga practice 6 weeks after Purvis’s birth. I took it way easy during the first month, opting to keep ashtanga on hold for the time being. I felt pretty good about my decision until I met a woman who told me she returned to her practice two weeks after she had her child. Oh, wow, well that’s, uh, great. (I know I should not be comparing myself to other yogis and that doing so is about the opposite of practicing yoga. Yeah, yeah, yeah.)

“I felt stronger than I ever have before,” she added.

And that was the opposite of how I felt when I did return to my ashtanga practice a couple of months later. My chaturanga dandasana was non-existent. My warrior pose wobbled. My shoulders howled in poses that once felt breezy and light. Hadn’t I lost weight (at least 7 pounds of baby) since the last time I practiced? Wasn’t this supposed to get easier now that I was no longer toting a fetus around in my belly? So much for second series, which I had been working on before becoming pregnant. It’s back to primary for me. Poses I had taken for granted are now difficult. Now you’re really practicing yoga, says my inner guru. Yeah, thanks for that.

• Tough Titties
Nursing did not come easily to me or my sensitive boobs. Thankfully Purvis was a natural with a strong sucking reflex. The fresh young lady had already given me two hickies before she was an hour old. But even when the latch looked perfect, it still hurt.

“If it hurts, then it’s not a good latch,” said the nurses, my doula, the internet, the breastfeeding book.

We tried and tried again. I let more people manhandle my ladies than during my college years (a time of a very liberal boob-touching policy). Still, ouch. I came to dread the nursing sessions. I yoga breathed my way through each latch and prayed that there was a purpose to my pain, that she was getting nourishment.

The day of my lactation counseling appointment, my nipples were raw and bleeding. I broke down in tears. I felt embarrassed. I was supposed to be good at this. I had believed it would come naturally even as the nurse who led our breastfeeding class warned that it’s harder than it looks.

After 2 lactation consultations, many hours logged on the internet in search of tips, and a truckload of gel nipple pads, it stopped hurting. I felt triumphant and proud that I stuck with this first of many parenting challenges. To be honest, I don’t think I was ever doing anything that wrong, my nipples just needed to toughen up. The day I nursed Purvis while walking around the house, I knew I had come, seen, and kicked breastfeeding’s ass.

I hear tell that after I’m done breastfeeding that my current Double Ds will return to their itty bitty starting size. Alas, they don’t really feel like instruments of seduction anymore, more like an appendage that feeds my baby. About as erotic as a knuckle. Purvis hasn’t gotten a cold yet—knock on wood—so the trials and tribulations have been worth it.

• Who Likes to Rock the Party? I like to rock the party
I miss the days when the main factors to consider when receiving an invitation were if Mr. Crud and I felt like it, the distance between the party destination and our humble abode, and if I should tote along a bottle of wine or take my chances with a keg. As we grew older, we grew lamer for sure, but now there’s the baby factor. Where will the event fall in her eating-sleeping-napping schedule? Can we get her to take a nap so as not to break down into a howling heap once we reach the party? Will I be able to drink one precious beer?

Yesterday was our first party attempt and, all things considered, it went well. She screamed bloody murder in the car while we were stalled in some freak Sunday afternoon traffic jam. She was not able to sneak in a nap while at the party because, upon arriving at our friend’s house, a dog peed on the baby carrier I had so wisely stashed on the ground. Thus our stay was cut short by a couple hours, but all in all we ate, we laughed, and I drank a beer. I also let a record 5 people who weren’t me or Mr. Crud hold our precious child.

Each time I handed her over, I nervously smiled. “You got her? She’ll probably start crying in a minute or two. She’s going through a phase where she’ll only let me or her daddy hold her.”

Meanwhile inside I was mentally willing her to stay aloft in my friend’s arms with the same powers I once used to keep airplanes in the sky while I white knuckled the armrest. Please, please let her start crying so I can swoop in and carry her and not get a rep as overprotective mother. She didn’t make a peep. She kicked, she grabbed at eyeglasses, and she seemed to be over her phobia of strangers in an instant to my silent chagrin. Thank goodness for that beer or things might have gotten ugly.

Evening outings are still out. Our one trip out to see Aziz Ansari (Hilarious!) was a good time all around for us. Our babysitter on the other hand was trapped with one pissed off baby. We can’t stay out late anyway because—and this is the big neon lesson of parenthood—there is never a day off. I always have to wake up early, always have to be ready for a peeping baby at all hours of the night. Always, always, always. (Unless it’s Mr. Crud’s shift when I can sleep through the baby crying bloody murder.)

Most of our conversations with friends revolve around Purvis now. I am trying not to become one of those people who can only talk about their babies. I try to keep up on the pop culture, the movies that I won’t be able to see until they are released on DVD, books that I must read in 5-minute installments. There is always TV. During my multitude of hours logged breastfeeding, I watched an ass-load of TV. And now for a list within a list…

Top Breastfeeding Entertainment Picks
o True Blood
Pre-Purvis, Mr. Crud and I were slowly wading through season one, both still skeptical as to whether we would finish.

“It’s so cheesy,” he said before going on to enumerate its many shortcomings—a seeming ignorance of the vampire oeuvre, terrible accents, and lame plot twists.

I shrugged. “You’re right, but I’m willing to give it another chance.”

It was no Sopranos, but certainly better than John in Cincinnati.

Then into our lives fell Purvis and mindless entertainment became of premium importance. I sprinted through the season one DVDs, finding myself almost looking forward to the marathon nursing sessions, which came every 2 hours (yes, even in the middle of the night.) I developed a kinship with the vampires and their prey as I felt like Purvis was sucking the life from me on the reg. Now I’m a True Blood true believer. The theme song instantly brings me back to those first bleary-eyed weeks when a baby in my arms was a strange novelty.
o Sex and the City
I HATE Sex and the City. The obsession with fashion, shoes, celebrity, and the characters which purport to be archetypes of the modern single woman are only the start of my issues with SATC. Somehow in the haze of nursing, I succumbed to its saccharine pleasures. Maybe it was the episode where Miranda struggled to breastfeed her new baby that sucked me in, but after a few tentative I-can’t-watch-another-episode-of-The Cosby Show DVR-ing of the last season of SATC, I got hooked. I actually let the DVDs take up precious room on my library reserve list. I watched every last shiny, shrill episode and the movie too. Officially I was watching because I enjoy hating on this modern TV institution, but I also came to like it. Just a teensy little bit. I am totally a Miranda. (Who the fuck would want to be a Carrie? She is a horrible writer and is always so full of wist that I want to shake her.)
o The Cosby Show
To be truly appreciated must be watched at 3:30 a.m. when the only other entertainment options are cable news talking heads and Everybody Loves Raymond.
o The Sopranos
Still one of my favorite TV shows of all time (tied with The Wire).
o The Wire
I was so sad to see this series end again. Bye, Omar. Mr. Crud and I were tempted to name Purvis after Omar, but decided that we might be asking for trouble. I also imagined Purvis sharing the source of his name, “Yeah, Omar was a character in this TV show who robbed drug dealers. He loved his grandma though.”
o United States of Tara
Awards are bullshit, but Toni Collette totally deserved her Emmy for her portrayal of the multiple personality-ed Tara. I was slightly distracted by the presence of John Corbett as her husband because he had transformed into Aidan due to my SATC intensive.
o Nurse Jackie
Yay—Edie Falco and the priest from The Sopranos finally get to explore their romantic chemistry in another universe. It’s like Nurse Jackie is one of the infinite alternate universes for these two souls.
o Everybody Hates Chris
So much better than Everybody Loves Raymond, and on right before The Cosby Show.

Of course, it hasn’t all been sacrifice and TV watching. As Mr. Crud frequently says, “All the clichés are true.” Parenthood is wonderful and intense and frightening and fascinating in all its mundane joy. I feel like I am living in capital letters. IT’S GREAT! I LOVE HER!! I NEVER KNEW WATCHING SOMEONE TAKE A DUMP WOULD BE SO ENTERTAINING!! I’m also exhausted. Life has taken on the sheen of an altered reality. Everything is centered around this tiny being. Her whims, her needs, her smiles, the tangle of the three of us feeling around in the dark for the shape of this family we’ve become. (You see, in my altered reality, that last sentence makes total sense. And it’s also soooo deep, man.) I both can’t believe I’m finally a mom and don’t believe that I haven’t always been one, which is probably another one of those true parenthood clichés.

* Please pardon this horrid yoga pun.

The Karma of Stink

2009-12-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

I call him Senor Stinky. The first day he attended yoga class a pungent B.O. cloud took up residence in the yoga room along with us 10 yogis. The stench whooshed up my nostrils as he passed my mat and unfurled his own at the opposite end of the room. If I could have made eye contact with my yoga buddy, I would have been rolling my eyes the whole time. Who does this guy think he is? “Wanna know why you don’t have a girlfriend?” I’d ask him after class then wrinkle my nose. Fantasies about how I’d break the news that he stinks, really stinks trailed me through every vinyasa. How dare him? There is an unspoken agreement to keep our personal aroma at a level that doesn’t escape the confines of our airspace. Senor Stinky with his hair hanging in greasy brown clumps and gag-worthy wafts of armpit had crossed a line.

I emailed my yoga buddy later that day. What was UP with that guy?

I know. He was pretty smelly.

I saved my longer rants for Mr. Crud who I knew would be sympathetic to my outrage and also wouldn’t call me on my non-yogic behavior. (So he’s stinky, let it go, shrugged my inner and much wiser yoga voice.)

“I mean it’s hostile coming to a class that ripe. It smelled like he hadn’t showered in days. I was across the room and it was still choking me. I couldn’t think of anything else.” I said.

“What did he look like?”

“A dude. 20 or 30-something. Brown hair, skinny.”

“Hipster?”

“Could be. It’s hard to tell with yoga clothes. It’s a definite possibility.”

My mind spun out some more. Is this a hipster thing? For some kids of today it’s hip to to be stinky. I should know. I went through a stinky phase myself my junior year of college at the height of my railing-against-the-bourgeoisie phase. (I think this phase is actually a stage in the life cycle of the college age bourgeoisie as much a requirement as 3 credits of Bio.) My cadre of punk fucking rock friends and I showered rarely and shunned toxic deodorant.

“That shit probably causes Alzheimers or something,” we sniffed.

We secretly smiled at all the upturned noses we left in our rank wake. Fuck all y’all shrieked our body odor. My ill-advised dreadlock phase happened during my smelly period to emphasize my dedication to dirty cool.

Sadly the youth of today did not grow out of this phase along with me. (How dare them!) In fact they’ve upped the ante, letting their hair sop with grease and flaky scalp and their armpits go untouched by deodorant. (Those crystals that claim to control stink do not count. Nor do they work.)

The next time Senor Stinky stepped in the yoga room, I could barely contain my groan. Oh shit. I had hoped he was a one-timer, a fluke instead of a potential regular attendee. A BO-dorific wind wafted up my nose as his arms swooped skyward in his first surya namaskar A. I scowled. I contemplated playing the pregnancy card with my teacher.

“Uh, I hate to be a jerk, but my super smell powers are making class severely unpleasant when that new guy comes.” Not true. Super smell powers decreased—thank g-d—months ago.

I spent most of the class phrasing and rephrasing possible complaints to my teacher. I could couch it in yoga speak: “What about saucha (cleanliness)? Shouldn’t we be somewhat clean before practicing?”

Or myself as spokeswoman for the silent majority: “I know this is bugging everyone, but they’re too polite to say anything.” Or just keeping it real:

“C’mon man, that guy REEKS!”

I walked out of class in a pleasant all-one-or-none savasana haze, almost forgetting the stinky boulder I’d been rolling up my personal hill for the past 2 hours.

“How’s it going?” My teacher asked.

“Good,” I said, packing up my mat. Tell him, tell him, TELL HIM. “How are you?”

I ducked into chitchat. I wussed. I flashed back to the day when a past yoga teacher, Moira, pulled me aside.

“So Kt, your mat is emitting an odorific smell,” she said.

“Oh yeah, uh,” I stuttered. Who knew that yoga mat + dripping sweat - laundering = odorific smell?

I knew it had been emitting a vaguely hair-dye chemical/body funk smell for some time now, but thought that I was the only sad soul who was being subjected to the nose hair singing odor. Guess not. Tears sprung to my eyes as I tried to make small talk with Moira and let her know that it was no biggie. I was cool. Yeah, I knew my mat stunk and I would fix it. I wondered if my fellow yogis had been whispering about me behind my back.

“Someone should tell her. It’s nasty,” I imagined them whispering.

“Oh I know. I try to stay as far away as possible.”

From Moira’s sentence an entire world of paranoid, bitchy mat-related cut-downs sprung to life. I eyed my yoga compatriots warily. I wished there was a way to apologize for stinking up my corner of the room without making a scene, to let folks know that it was safe to unroll their mats beside me once again.

I bunched up my offending Mysore rug into a ball and shoved it in my saddlebag. Even though it barely fit, I was determined to not be the stinky one come tomorrow. Thus was born my policy of washing the mat once a week to keep the funky hair dye smell away. Over the past few months I have grown more lax on the once-a-week-washing rule since my practice is so pregnancy modified that I barely break a sweat. I actually wish it were stinkier to overpower Senor Stinky.

“So have you said anything to your teacher yet?” Mr. Crud asked after another round of complaints.

“No. I wimped out. I’m kind of afraid he’ll give me a look-who’s-talking look. I don’t exactly smell like roses.”

“No, but you don’t smell up the entire room with your B.O. either.”

“I think I figured out the problem. He wears the same yoga clothes for a whole week. He seems to have more than one set, but just wears the one outfit all freaking week. What the H?”

“You should say something,” Mr. Crud said.

“Yeah yeah.”

“Or do you like having a new bete noir more?”

“Touche.”

Yesterday Senor Stinky walked through the front door. There was only one spot left in the room. Next to me. Cracker please, I thought. Not today.

He unrolled his mat. The smell was distinctly him, a mixture of armpit, earwax, and wet dog smell, but not as overpowering as that first day. A small relief. Like the noisy neighbors Mr. Crud and I had to endure at our first apartment together, I wondered if this was my payback for past stinky offenses. Immediately I shifted into retribution mode. Someday Senor Stinky will be a showered, laundry freshened member of the citizenry. And on that future someday he will be minding his own business when he is almost knocked out of his tadasana by a powerful stench. Someday, Senor Stinky, someday.

I, Bete Noir

2009-10-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

Her name is Alice.* She works at the pita sandwich booth at the Wednesday Farmer’s Market. Sometimes she takes the same Sunday yoga class as me. She has shoulder length brown hair, a face that settles nicely around her large-ish nose, and wears her Old Navy tanks inside out to class. Also, she hates me.

Well, I dramatize. Hate is a very strong word and should only be applied to white Hummers and groups of richie rich white people who commandeer a tiny, struggling breakfast place and order off-the-menu like it is their divine right. (I’m looking at you Surfsand Resort a-holes.) Alice probably doesn’t lie awake at night biting pillows at the thought of me. In fact she likely rarely thinks of me at all—unless she shares my unfortunate penchant for obsessing over the minor bete noirish characters of everyday life—but when I stand before her, all 6 feet 200 (or close now that my body has been colonized by the growing alien-dinosaur-fetus-baby we call Purvis**), her lip curls in disgust.

Last Sunday, yoga class. Mr. Crud and I stand in the doorway that opens from the airy orange and pink yoga room to the foyer. I turn to step through. Alice approaches. I immediately swing into appeasement mode. Alice’s silent hostility towards me has been building for at least a year. We only see each other occasionally, but on every occasion she is all ice and averted eyes. I don’t know why I continue my quest to try and make her reconsider her opinion of me. The injustice that someone who doesn’t even know me, who I haven’t even had the chance to fuck over, dislikes me roils my blood. I’m nice, goddamnit. Then why does she breeze by me, not even a smile or acknowledgement that I demurred to allow her to pass through the door to the yoga studio before me? I step into the foyer, followed by Mr. Crud.

“Did you see that? She’s here. The woman who hates me,” I whisper.

“Who?”

“The woman in the green shirt. The one who just passed us.”

He makes a move towards the yoga room. I pull him back. “Don’t look,” I hiss.

He shrugs. “Whatever.”

Mr. Crud knows of Alice a.k.a. The Woman Who Seems to Dislike Me For No Apparent Reason. (Need to come up with a snappier name, I do.) But not unsurprisingly, he does not keep track of her like I do. He humors me when I toss around my theories:

• Alice hates non-tippers. I tip semi-regularly at the pita sandwich booth. The sandwiches alone are $7. I’m not made of money.
• I once confirmed with Alice that my sandwich had chickpeas on it. The previous time I ended up chickpea-less and, needless to say, quite bereft and cursing the hand of the sandwich-maker who f-ed up my precious lunch. After I said “These have chick peas, right?” I notice she slipped me a side-eye. Should I have apologized for questioning her sandwich-making prowess?
• I have been known to perhaps flirt the tiniest bit with the owner of the sandwich cart. Are they married or something? (Note to Mr. Crud—I’m only doing it for the extra roasted shitakes!)
• Alice is one of those competitive yoginis who doesn’t like it when another student displays more yoga prowess than she. In that case she should love me now as my prowess has nosedived in the days of Purvis.

In the yoga studio Mr. Crud heads back to the room while I use the bathroom. I return to my mat and discover that Alice has chosen the spot next to mine. I detect a silent groan as I squat down on the mat and start with my pre-class twists. I turn to Mr. Crud who has claimed a spot behind me and nod my head ever so subtly in her direction. He gives me a puzzled look. We really need to work on this couple mind-reading thing.

The teacher enters. We breathe. We chant. We vinyasa. I try to ignore Alice, but as tends to happen I feel my ire rising with each sun salutation. Who the hell does she think she is to dislike me? What exactly did I do to her? So I questioned her sandwich…ONCE. I am a nice and respectful customer. I tip when I can. I can’t be the only person who doesn’t tip. What. The. Fuck.

After a few times through the thigh-burn-tastic vinyasa our teacher cuts us free to do our own thing. I breathe and flow from asana to asana, letting my Alice ponderings go for a few precious moments until we are somehow face-to-face in a semi-squat torture called horse pose. I review my vinyasa: did I mess up and do everything on the same leg twice? Why else would we end up facing each other unless one of us is off. I review the last minute. Nope, solid. Alice is the double-leg doer. Silly Alice. She looks past me. I look past her. Into yogic infinity or rather over each other’s shoulders. My inner Nelson awakens—HA ha. (And in this moment I am certainly NOT doing yoga, but rather what my first teacher labeled ego or what I label yoga jackassery.) I fight the urge to send myself into some difficult pose to show Alice who’s yoga boss. I release the moment, laughing at myself and the silly games my mind plays. (Now that’s yoga.) Oh Alice.

I don’t remember when I first felt the heat of Alice’s hostility. It may have been the sandwich stand where I noticed her purposefully slowing down her transaction when I was next in line in order to not be stuck making my sandwich. Or in yoga class when I gave her a smile of recognition—just a little “Hey you, I know you, I know you”—and she stared intentionally past me.

We move to the floor poses. We sit tall on our sitz bones, bringing our right leg in close to our bodies bent in an upside down V. “Marichyasana 3” (or C as us ashtangis call it), the teacher says. I twist gently into the traditional pose, but don’t get far before the Purvis region says an emphatic no. Twists are generally the first poses to go in the second trimester. So, I do as another teacher suggested and twist the opposite way, putting me face-to-face a second time with Alice. Out of the corner of my eye I catch hers. She looks at me and, I swear to G-d, rolls her eyes at me. You bitch! A teacher trainee approaches. She’s about to tell me I’m doing it wrong. I know how to do a goddamned Marichyasana C, I want to scream. The trainee bends over as my teacher approaches her. Seconds before the teacher can tap her shoulder and explain why I am twisting the opposite way, I say, “I’m pregnant. That’s why—“ The trainee nods. “I’m glad you told me.”

I want to look at Alice and say, “And also fuck you and your rolled eyes.” Instead I feel my eyes tearing up. I can’t discern if I’m upset at Alice’s rolled eyes or the insinuation by the trainee that I didn’t know what I was doing. I already feel awkward enough in yoga class modifying poses while others give me puzzled looks. While I look mildly pregnant, I’m still not obviously pregnant so my fellow yogis may mistake me for a chubby lady who doesn’t know her ass from her asana.

I breathe. I let this latest indignity go. Thank you, yoga.

After class Mr. Crud and I ponder my options.

• I could get all gangsta on Alice and get up in her grill as they say. “What?” I’d bellow fluffing up my chest in her face. “You got a problem, bee-yatch?”
• I could go overly sensitive hippie: “Hi, um yeah. I seem to have noticed some bad vibes coming from you where I am concerned. Did I do anything to offend you? Was it the sandwich because really, you are a terrific sandwich artist.”
• I could be aggressively friendly with Alice, melt her heart of stone or further solidify her conviction that I am an a-hole.

Or I could let the whole thing go and embrace my bete noir status. Consider it the circle of life. I have plenty of my own, a collection of people who have irked me for passing me at stop signs on my bicycle or breathing too loud in yoga class or a hundred other minor offenses that make me feel sheepish for even admitting how much they get to me. I could chalk this up to a fine opportunity to walk around in the shoes of the people who annoy me, to see how it does hurt just a little bit when someone seems to dislike you for no apparent reason. Wouldn’t that be mature?

I suspect that I will continue to oscillate between tamped down outrage, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, and, every now and then, a tug of hurt feelings. I will try be yoga about things and not intentionally fuck with Alice by putting my mat next to hers or accosting her with forced good cheer. Maybe I’ll get so yoga that I include her in my silent blessings every morning, sending her peace and ease and wishes for a good day. Or not.

* Names have been changed to protect the annoyed.
** To read more about our adventures with Purvis check out the Peabody Project Chronicles 2.

Life and Times of the Ignored

2009-04-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

(A sneak preview of the soon--soon being a relative term--to be released, Crudbucket #8 The Infinite Issue.)

When I started my Facebook (FB) career, I made rules. (A woman’s got to have a code.) I would only accept requests from true friends, I would not let my number of friends climb too high (oh how I scoffed at those who listed more than 200 friends. I labeled them—derisively of course—“collectors.”), and I, in turn, would only send friend requests to those I felt confident would accept. I would not be one of those people whose picture pops up on your friend request screen and causes a crinkled brow (“who exactly is that?”) or snorts of dismay (“We’re friends? In what universe?”). Nor would I beg. Because that’s just sad.

After a few months, I learned that I am no Omar Little when it comes to my FB code. I accepted requests from people whose existence I would never have remembered if it weren’t for my yearly stroll through my old yearbooks while visiting my mom. I accepted a request from a guy who mocked me from junior high through my senior year of high school. I grew more liberal in my friend requesting ways as well, which as you might expect has led to some mini-disses and many conspiracy theories.

A Partial List of People* Who Have Ignored Me

Ananda: She was the first to ignore me. (You always remember the first.) An old yoga teacher who at one time invited me to parties and included me on an email list of her goings-on, Ananda seemed to be the type who would be happy to reconnect in the FB-iverse. Sure, I didn’t attend any of the parties she invited me to, but that wasn’t personal. I barely attend parties period. She stopped teaching my Mysore class a couple of years ago after growing skeptical of ashtanga so I only see her every now and again.

Conspiracy theory: None. I think Ananda is choosy or I offended her during one of my ill-fated attempts at being funny.

Diss rating (on a scale of 1-10): 4
Can I refrain from bringing up Facebook next time we run into each other? Will one of those blank FB profile pics hover between us for all eternity?

Kelly: If I don’t hear back about a friend request for a few days, usually I don’t take it personally. Some folks are more involved in FB-ing than others. Maybe she created the account and walked away, I reason. Not all of us are so fascinated by our pasts that they spend hours scrolling through pictures of random guy we knew in high school. Some people dislike nostalgia. (And good for them.)

After I friended Kelly—at the suggestion of a mutual acquaintance—I forgot about it until I received the automated message from the FB gods that Kelly had accepted the friend request of another one of our mutual friends who I’d told that Kelly was now on FB. Oh really. I clicked over to Kelly’s profile, still hidden to me because I was not an official friend. “Friendship Request Pending” it read. Oh. Really. So that’s how it’s going to be.

Conspiracy theory: After racking my brain for possible fights with Kelly-- a partner-in-underage-drinking and concert-going my senior year of high school--and coming up nil, I let my imagination toy around with the possibilities like a cat tossing around a half-dead mouse. We lost touch during our freshman year of college. One of our last conversations involved her trying to convince me that one of the popular girls from my high school was actually pretty cool. They were dorm mates and friends. (The horror!)

“She likes The Smiths,” Kelly had said as proof of Miss Popular’s viability.

No way. She can’t. She’s not allowed to, I had thought. “Uh okay,” I said.

“No really. She’s cool. You might like her now.”

“I doubt it.” I said, flashing on an image of her in French class swiveled around in her seat and oozing derisiveness because I had the gall to answer a question.

Perhaps Kelly had chosen Miss Popular’s version of events over mine. Although I can’t quite believe Miss Popular could build a case against me on the basis that I once seemed to be showing off my Swatch by raising my hand in the 7th grade. (No, I’m not bitter about that at all.) Didn’t Kelly understand that for the 6 years I knew Miss Popular I had merely responded to her muttered comments about my outfits, my watches, my taste in music, my French accent by mirroring her disdain. Defensive snobbery. Right?

Diss Rating: 8
I’m still here, Kelly. Pending.

Timmy: He was more of a friend of a friend than a friend-friend, but we hung out occasionally (at which time I may have acted a bit skeezy). He still has my Fishbone CD, which I am happy to have given him as a token of apology for trying to mack on a boy who clearly did not wish to be macked upon. He was polite enough (or lusting after my beer and cigarette stash enough) to not throw my hand off his shoulder and yell something like “Pick on someone your own size! Or your own age at least. Jeez!”

I totally deserve that Jeez. In my defense, he was really cute.

Conspiracy theory: Timmy was a teenaged alcoholic and when he sees my name in his friend request list all he can think about is how he traded on his good looks and charm for a few warm Milwaukee’s Bests and crumpled Camel Lights. Alcoholics Anonymous did not prepare him for the horrid images that resurface from a mere friend request. He flashes back to the night when we were tipsy and hanging out in my parents’ backyard smoking. I put my arm around his shoulders “because it’s damn cold out here” (or so I claimed) and leaned my head close to his just in case he had a sudden urge to make out with me. For warmth of course. When he remembers that night, he shudders at what he might have done in the name of intoxication. I dodged a bullet there, he thinks. No CD is worth that.

Or perhaps he just doesn’t want to give it back. Fishbone is pretty great.

Diss Rating: 6 (I would still like my CD back)

I’m sure I’m forgetting some folks here, but they were probably not really my friends. It’s just that “People you know” feature can trick you. Yes, I do know her! She definitely wants to be my friend. Or not.

On a tangentially related note (are there any other kinds?): I don’t recommend getting friend request-y after having a few drinks. The comradery you feel might not translate. Or you might try to mack on a boy 2 years your junior and 50 pounds lighter than you. Just saying.

* Names have been changed to protect people who have the terrible taste not to want to be my friend. Mon dieu!

My Cruddy Spring Break 2009

2009-04-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

Every spring break Mr. Crud and I discount airline ourselves across the country to visit JADE, the supergroup/family made up of Jonah, my almost 3-year-old nephew, Anna, my crazysexycoolsmartyawesome sister-in-law, Dan, bro-in-law extraordinaire, and Emma my 6-year-old niece and BFF. Most of the time we lounge by the pool, read, play, and eat very very well. This is our story.

Magazines Read (It’s a very long flight)

US Weekly (2 issues): With this trip I fulfill my travel dream of having 2 different issues of gossip goodness (actually badness) to peruse while flying over the lower 48. I am impressed at US Weekly’s skill in professing to love celebrities while simultaneously tearing them down. They have mastered the back-handed compliment.

People (2 issues): Slightly less trashy than US Weekly with almost exactly the same photos of Angelina making a movie and Halle frolicking with her baby.

O The Oprah Magazine: An interview with Michelle Obama that makes me love her even more. Bonus article on the supposed more fluid sexuality of women which confirms gender stereotypes while pretending to upend them. That’s my O.

Self: I read these while spending time in the bathroom Chez JADE. Inspiration to live healthier seems to have taken hold. I made a salad for dinner last night, and not just as an accompaniment to real food. Just salad. Who am I again?

Glamour: A half-step above the typical women’s rag. I still love the Do’s and Don’ts section most of all. You’ll be relieved to learn that President Obama is a Do.

Cosmopolitan: A.k.a. horrible people monthly. I picked this up for half-price at the university bookstore knowing that it would raise my ire and hackles. It did not disappoint. This issue was the sex issue (isn’t every issue of Cosmo the sex issue?) in which douchebags and the women who are trying to trap them into loving them tell all their secrets. Most representative article: “The Bitchy Little Move That Men Love.” The secret: be kind of a bitch but not too much of one. Can’t we all just get along?

BUST: More and more this once beloved magazine disappoints me. It’s been weird and sad watching the fortunes of BUST rise as they go more commercial while Bitch has to struggle to keep afloat. Depressing.

Spin: Lily Allen. Again. When did Spin get so lame?

Books Read

The Will to Whatevs by Eugene Mirman
I chuckled, guffawed, and tittered my way through Mr. Mirman’s worthy tomb.
My favorite quote: “Being an uncle is like being a rock star no one but your niece or nephew has heard of.”

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
Wowowowowowow! What a wonderful booky book. I haven’t been blown away by a story or cried as I devoured the final word of a book in a long time. I recommend this one to anyone.

Bits and pieces of The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket
Mr. Crud and I alternated reading to Emma from her latest favorite book series. I found myself quickly absorbed in the trials and tribulations of the Baudelaire orphans. I too became swept up in uncovering the meaning of the mysterious initials V.F.D. We spent a lazy afternoon brainstorming possible meanings while Emma took notes. Violet Fights Death? Violet Fakes Death? Very Fudgy Dessert? (“Don’t be silly, Uncle Mr. Crud!”) The mystery continues. (Actually it doesn’t. Mr. Crud wikipediaed and learned all, but we will never tell.)

Tabled: The Likeness by Tana French

Games, Games and More Games
Organized Division: Whoonu
A delightful game for the 8 and up set that asks players to rank things they like (or don’t like) while others try to guess how said likes and dislikes will rank on a scale of 1 to 6. Players get points for guessing correctly. The deadly hand: SUVs and Starbucks. None among us like such things, which I like very much.

Disorganized Division: Mermaid v. Sea Monster

Every time we headed to the back patio for some poolside lounging Emma declared it open season on the dreaded sea monster, played here by Uncle Mr. Crud. I was her mermaid partner. Our traps included acorns that when properly placed created rainbows, which shot lightning bolts (my idea). While confronting the sea monster I whistled the Herb Alpert hit—and Dating Game theme song—“Little Spanish Flea” while Emma sang “There was a little Spanish flea, doo doo doo doo dee dee dee dee.” (Also my idea.) But the totally confusing execution was all Emma.

“Here now you have to hide behind the tree so he won’t see you. No! The other tree!! Make yourself skinny! Oh no, he’ll see you!!!” I moved to the correct tree and awaited further instructions. She stage whispered, “Aunt Kt, is it time for a month later yet?” I gave her the thumbs up.

“A month later!” she yelled, holding her acorn aloft.

Mr. Crud spun in the water. She tossed the acorn beside him. “Now you’re dead.” She scrambled to the side of the pool. “Now give me back the acorn. In real life.”

The mermaids always won this one.

Witches
I introduced the idea of witches a few years ago as a counterpoint Emma’s princess love. Now whenever I come over, witches is on the tip of her tongue. This time around we collected ingredients for a witch’s brew (dirt, rocks, extremely confused ants, acorns, some crackly brown flower petals, and more dirt) and then killed the soda company director, Mr. Crud, who we only revived if he promised to give us unlimited Dr. Pepper.

If You Build it We Will Run Over It with a Scooter
Jonah enticed me to his block-building game with a cute smile and mischievous look in his eye. “Let’s make it. Let’s make it!” he chanted while piling laminated blocks with pictures of numbers and animals on the side. Once our shining towers were completed, he hopped over to his scooter and drove through as if they were nothing more than…well, paper blocks.

Booty Butt Dance Party
We like big butts, we cannot lie so why not have a dance party dedicated to the bootylicious among us. Dan fired up the Booty Butt Mix that Mr. Crud created and we immediately got to getting down. I showed Emma a few moves and she invited me to do the butt bump, which required some serious deep knee bends on my part. My quads ached but bumping the butt of such a sweet child was well worth it.

Art Class
Emma is both artsy and craftsy so Art Class nears the top of her to-do list. I harbor art dreams but in reality my drawings look more like the doodlings of a kindergartener so I was hesitant to take on the role of teacher in our first round of Art Class. However I am pretty proud of my eye-drawing prowess. After the eyes, I let her take over, and yes, I learned a thing or two about drawing noses and mouths. On our final morning chez JADE I was dressing and finishing up the packing. A knock at the door.

“Yes?” I asked.

Emma poked her head through the crack. “Art class!”

“I don’t know if I have time, but you can play.”

While she drew treasure maps on the floor and directed me to add a few choice bits, in the spirit of Art Class, I told Emma about Portland in hopes of enlisting her on the Crud team to bring JADE out for a visit this summer.

“We live a block away from a park. And there’s a volcano that has a playground just a few minutes from our house.”

“Cool!” she said looking up from the heart she was coloring.

“Maybe we can go to the mountain and ride inner tubes down in the snow,” I said.

“Wow!”

I considered telling her that in Oregon trees were made of cotton candy and popcorn, and that the grass tasted like chocolate, but thought better of overselling it. She’s impressed enough by the fact that we have a basement and an attic.

Words Created
What do you call those shirt-handkerchief thingies that the young ladies wear to be hotsy and why do they exist?

“They exist so ladies can show that they aren’t wearing a bra,” I posited.

“Yeah, but what do you call them?” asked Mr. Crud.

“Skank tops?” I offered, patting myself on the back for my clever idea.

“Skankerchiefs?” said Anna.

We all agreed: skankerchiefs it is.

Notable Quotables: I Made a MESS in my ROOM!
Jonah loves him some ice cream. Dinner? Unless it’s pizza or “chicken” nuggets, not so much. Dan and Anna were doing their diplomatic best to find Jonah some chow that would grant him entry to the freezer and the mint chocolate chip winking at him so coquettishly. After he splattered some cottage cheese, Anna had enough and sent Jonah to his room for a time-out. A few minutes later Emma volunteered to check on him. We finished up our fine turkey burger dinner and chatted adult-like until we heard Emma’s voice.

“Jonah made a mess!”

Dan jumped up from the table. I imagined poop smears on the walls with a storm of Legos on the side. It wasn’t so dire, just some toys strewn about the floor.

Jonah’s voice piped up loud and clear. “I made a MESS in my ROOM!” He sounded proud and taunting as much as an almost-3-year-old can taunt. He repeated it a few more times while we dissolved into laughter.

Since returning home Mr. Crud and I have sprinkled Jonah’s words of wisdom throughout our everyday discourse. “You’re totally going to make a mess in your room,” I say to Mr. Crud after he tells me of the latest work indignity. Then in unison, “I made a MESS in my ROOM!”

2nd Runner Up: Awe-sum
Emma’s favorite punctuation is the exclamation point. Her favorite way to exclaim: awe-sum. So young to be a teenager.

Best Business Names in Wilton Manors
Mr. Crud’s mom kindly springs for a fancy dinner for the adults in the crew during our yearly visit. This year we went with sushi at Galangal, one of the many Sushi-Thai restaurants in southern Florida. (Cruddy question: Does your hometown host any strange ethnic hybrid cuisines? Discuss.) Galangal is known for its yummy lobster sushi roll and the hot gay waiters that serve it. This hot spot is located in the heart of the fancy gay ghetto, Wilton Manors. En route I collected my favorite gay-themed business names:

Tops and Bottoms: A clothery, I presume.

Gaymart: If it’s gay, they got it.

Out of the Closet: A thrift store natch.

Dairy Queen: Context is everything.

Best Overheard in Wilton Manors
“You are a hot mess! You are such a hot mess! Come on, hot mess!” the guy texting on his phone yelled to a woman with shorty shorts teetering out of her car. I have few goals in this life but someday I would like to be called a hot mess. However I will not wear hot pants to achieve this goal.

Souvenirs
1 can of boiled peanuts. Not as good as buying them from a roadside stand and munching straight out of the soggy paper bag, but I’m hoping a warming up on the stovetop will bring back memories of the famed Gollyrocket-Cornpopp tour of ’93 that introduced me to this southern delicacy.

1 pair of Hot Rod sunglasses
For kicks Mr. Crud and I walk to the local grocery store, Publix while JADE is at work or school. Last year I found some perfectly asshole-ish sunglasses in the Foster Grant display by the cash registers. I wore them until they broke a few months later. So deep was my love that I scoured every Foster Grant display I saw to replace them. Mr. Crud contacted the good folks at Foster Grant who informed him that the Hot Rod model had been discontinued. Nooooooooo! I bought some lookalikes but they were no Hot Rods. Our first full day in Pompano Beach we headed to the store and I was reunited with my beloved. “Precious,” I whispered as I cradled them to my breast. I contemplated buying out the entire stock of Hot Rods, but decided hoarding would ruin the mystique. Now they sit atop my desk beckoning me to walk in the sun. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any since we returned.

10 nasty welts of bug hatred
Why do the mosquitoes love my sweet blood so? Why? 10 is actually not so bad. I’ve walked away with upwards of 50 bug bites from a single trip to visit my mom during the summer in her swampy neck of the woods. Me = bug food.

Assorted drawings from Emma created during Art Class: The feared alien Grachta Waspook, the Mackenshack-Plack siblings, and a drawing of the sun with “Awesome. It’s the sun,” written across the top.

The Long Road Home
We pulled up to the departure terminal at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. Throngs of flip-flopped, tanned cruise-goers sagging with luggage crowded the curbside check-in. The line went on as far as the eye could see.

“Oh shit,” I said, stepping out of the car. “Did they evacuate the airport?”

Mr. Crud craned to see. “Nope there’s people inside too.”

We said our tearful good-byes and inched through the crowd. The inside was worst than outside. “Oh shit,” I said as tears sprung to my eyes. I looked at my watch. An hour until our flight. We would never make it. A Southwest employee hustled us into line. Behind us a woman was in worst shape.

“Your flight leaves in 30 minutes?” The Southwest employee asked. “Here. Good luck,” she said in a voice the clearly wished this woman no luck at all.

The next hour was pure anxiety as we moved from line to line, sharing disbelieving stories with our compadres in airport misery. “I’ve never seen it like this,” said the man ahead of us in the security line. “And I fly out of here every weekend.”

“5 cruises just arrived,” a woman piped up behind us.

I flashed back to one of our many games of Whoonu. “Would you all ever take a cruise?” Anna asked.

“Uh maybe,” I said.

As I stood looking at the tanned mobs, I re-answered her question. Hell to the no. One of the reason I hate airports is the crowd factor. A cruise would be one big crowd of middle America. No, no, and no again. (Snobby much?) But ask again later when I’ve had time to scrub the panic from my psyche.

We stood in line and cursed the airlines, cursed the cruise ships, cursed the stupid security procedures that keep no one safe, cursed Dan for assuring us that an hour was enough time for us to check our bags and make our flight, but then reversed the Dan curse because even the recommended one and a half hours wouldn’t have been enough. I cursed my full bladder and wondered when I’d have time for a pit stop. I saw a full day of cramped, urine stinky airplane toilets in my future and shuddered. As soon as we got through security, I booked to the Dunkin’ Donuts stand, which served nary a donut, and loaded up on pricey bottles of water. For the first time in an hour, I felt secure. I may have to pee my pants, but I would not dehydrate.

Despite the doubt and panic, we indeed made our flight, and the connection, which we learned, upon boarding, would be stopping in Kansas City, MO. “No biggie,” spaketh Mr. Crud, “we won’t have to get off the airplane.” Our row-mate leaned over, “I hear it’s snowing in Kansas City. When I left last week it was 80 degrees.”

“You’re kidding,” Mr. Crud said.

We exchanged worried looks. Our previous air travel experience happened during the storm of the decade in Portland, a blizzard we followed to Chicago and which almost prevented us from getting east for the Christmas holiday. That day topped my worst air travel experiences ever (although the first-class bump on the flight from PDX to ORD almost saved it).

“Are we cursed?” I asked Mr. Crud.

He shrugged.

“I guess if we were cursed we would have never made it back for Christmas,” I said. Most of the people hadn’t made it out of PDX including many that had been stranded at airports for days.

We settled into the flight. I settled into US Weekly Issue #2 and marveled at how stars were really like us. I’m waiting for the day when there’s a shot of Blohan on the toilet and the caption “Taking a crap. Just like us!!!!” (I have a sneaking suspicion that I just recycled a joke. Please forgive this latest round of self-plagiarism.)

The plane descended and the captain’s voice crackled through the speakers. “As you can tell, we’re making our final descent. Unfortunately it’s not into Kansas City. We’re landing in St. Louis to wait out the storm.”

Blood pounded in my ears. Trapped! Trapped in St. Louis. “Do we know anyone in St. Louis?” I asked Mr. Crud.

“A friend from college’s dad who I met one Thanksgiving,” he said.

Whenever I fly, I try to route myself through airports with friends or family nearby just in case. Usually it’s pretty easy as Mr. Crud’s parents live in a suburb of Chicago, our most frequent hub en route to the east coast. On St. Louis, I had nothing.

We landed and waited. Two dudes with extreme southern drawls made call after call about their gig that night. Mr. Crud and I pegged them as crappy new country and stopped caring if they made their gig or not. A gel-spiked hair Southwest fellow boarded the plane and gave us the scoop. We could be stuck here for a few hours or the night. All depended on the storm. People flying to Oklahoma City, Oakland, and Alberquerque were in luck: the airline had booked them on new flights. I looked at them with bald envy as they grabbed their bags and deplaned.

The Portlanders in the bunch murmured that we should skip Kansas City and just go on to Portland. I felt the same. I am disturbed at how easily I slip into total selfishness and disregard for others when I feel out of control of my situation. Airline travel brings out the worst in everyone. We don’t want to be left out of the special plan that makes everything better so we push and shove and smile frozen desperate smiles in hopes of ingratiating airline employees so we get ours. Fuck the rabble.

Luckily the rabble did not have to be fucked. As I waited for a crappy California Pizza Kitchen cheese pizza to be prepared by the most listless airport restaurant employee in history, Mr. Crud speed walked by. “Our flight is boarding.”

I looked at the pizza oven, I looked toward our gate. “You go. Get our seats back. I’ll get there as soon as I can. Don’t let them leave without me!” I said more dramatically than necessary.

I contemplated leaving my $9 shit pizza that I’d only ordered because Mr. Crud was urging me to eat away the gnawing stress, but realized that the punchy flight crew would not leave me and my pizza behind.

So off we were again to a snowy Kansas City then Portland. I love the moment when we break through the clouds and the lights of Portland fill my window. My stomach gets giggly. I love you, my sweet Portland. I love your drivers who do not try to kill me with their Florida Marlins be-decked SUVS. I love your delicious eateries who understand food allergies without judgment. I. Love. You.

Although we arrived home 4 hours later than our itinerary, we made it all the same. Mr. Crud ordered us some Thai food. (A cruddy mystery—Why do I get so hungry on airline travel days when all I do is sit and read trashy magazines?) Our answering machine blinked. We prayed for no whammies.

Emma’s voice: “Hi Uncle Mr. Crud and Aunt Kt,” she said in her girly sheepish phone voice. “We figured out what the V in V.F.D. stands for,” she said. “It’s Volunteer.”

Mr. Crud and I waited for her message to finish and then hit play again. If only we could do that for the whole week.

Party Tips for Aging (Dork) Rockers

2009-02-24T14:13:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I attended a band party for the first time in months. You know the kind of party where the chow is ironic instead of edible; bands play in the basement and never ever in the history of parties at the time scheduled even when band members swear that this time, for real this time, they would start at 9:00; and folks stand around in clumps chatting about who is married/pregnant/divorced/in rehab/should be in rehab.

Here are a few tips for those of us who are more Oldy Olderson than fresh faced scenester.

Imbibery
Long past are the days in which my only requirements for a party drink be that it is potable and alcoholic. I’ve sweated—and spent many a day running to the toilet--through too many a Pabst Blue Ribbon hangover to allow such swill to pass my lips. In fact the entire genre of beer no longer works for my delicate system. I’m a vodka and wine kind of girl. Mostly wine since vodka takes me to the point of no return at bullet’s speed.

Until last summer this preference caused me party stress. The bottles of wine I brought to house parties to share were inevitably drunk clean by the time I came back for my first refill. I tried hiding places. I tried just drinking some freaking beer for Christ’s sake (“What are you, a pansy?” I taunted myself.). I grew sullen and distraught at the mention of a party at a new house. “But what will I drink?” I whined.

Then my flash of genius: wine in a water bottle. Brilliant!

Last summer I toted a half bottle of wine in the Nalgene container that—before the discovery of toxic plastic—was my go-to water bottle. I also brought a small plastic cup from our outdoor collection. All night—meaning the 2-3 hours I can tolerate in a party—I poured myself cups from the wine stash nestled in my purse. This idea opened up a whole new world of party going. So when Mr. Crud and I were invited to see a friend’s band play at a nearby house party, I didn’t hesitate.

Lessons learned—For some reason all the plastic bottles I have used to transport my tasty beverages have leaked. This time I wised up and stashed the bottle in a plastic Ziploc bag. Sadly the bag did not protect me from myself. A few seconds after making my grand entrance into the basement-bar-band room, I whipped out my bagged bottle of wine and poured.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Mr. Crud said. “Watch it, Spillio.”

In a matter of seconds I had spilled a good quarter of the bottle all over the floor because of another unforeseen leak.

I caught a few disdainful glances as I re-zipped my bag and jammed it back into my purse. Ever so casually I stepped my foot onto the spreading red puddle. I keep it classy.

Transport
There was a time when I would ride my trusty Specialized steed 30 minutes in the rain to get to a cross-town party. No more. My first recommendation is befriending folks who live in your neighborhood. A 20-minute walk clears the head both before the festivities and post. If you do have far-flung amigos, I suggest convincing your partner (or housemate or friend) that cleaning the bathroom weekly for the last 10 years of your cohabitation entitles you to be driven around drunk whenever necessary. When I was in high school I worked this angle without the bathroom duty. Seems I’ve lost a step in my old age.

Some may also recommend moderation and not getting so drunk that you can’t drive. How mature of them.

Conversation
When you don’t regularly circulate on the party circuit, it can be hard coming up with things to talk about, especially if you are a woman trapped with the social skill set of a 13-year-old tuba player. The answer is cigarettes. A majority of the post-30 set have given up their pack-a-day habit. Good for us. But a majority of that majority still get a hankering for the sweet smoky burn once they get a little liquor humming through their veins. Buy a pack. Light up in a prominent corner of the yard, far enough away so that you don’t invite anti-smoking venom, but in vision of those who are sympathetic to your cause. And watch them flock like moths.

“I quit a few years ago, but…”

“Sorry to bother you, but would you mind…”

“You’ll be happy to know that I will savor this all night…”

Of the 6 people I met at this party, three of them were drawn to my cigarette. I don’t mind giving them out since I sure as hell don’t want to smoke all of them.

Facebook is another ripe topic of conversation. “Yeah, it’s kinda cool but kinda weird” is a safe opinion to get things started. At some point you can make the joke about how fucked up it is that you are talking to each other in person at a party but still talking about the world of virtual networking. You will seem suave and meta.

Bitching about kids today is another handy topic. “Back in my day music came from actual instruments” or “What is up with those pants?” But beware, the 20-somethings with their emo pants may be lurking around every corner. Trying to defend your views to the young ‘uns will have the unfortunate side effect of making you feel like your dad.

Attire
What to wear! It was so much easier when I was a simple rocker girl with a slutty heart. Something black. Something tight. Finish off with clunky boots and a thrift store fake fur and I was good to go. While I’m not ready to Eileen Fisher out, I feel a bit like I’m trying too hard, like one of those heavily made-up mothers who trails her daughter in The Gap so she can pick out clothes that she will “borrow,” and also sending off the wrong signal (the signal being “I’m naked under all these clothes”) if I go too tight. I find that flattering jeans and some t-shirt variation works well for the laid-back kind of gal. Also if you spill, as I inevitably do, you won’t be messing up your Sunday best. Don’t forget the bright thrifted scarf to show that you are still down with the people.

Midnight? Already?
I’m a sleepy drunk. I pass a certain point and there is no going back to my flushed cheek giggly drunk. I once combated the sleepies with ephedrine, which led to a buzzing good time of a night but also to the most horrific of hangovers. Being a nice married lady, I’m also out of the hook up scene. The possibility of smooches or sex would keep me awake to all hours of the night once upon a time, but lacking this energy, I find myself double handicapped in the staying awake category. Did I mention that my bedtime is 9:00 on most days?

Unless you want to pick up another pain-in-the-ass-to-kick drug habit, you’ll have to go with common sense and the dreaded maturity for this category. Sneak in a glass of water here and there. Maybe some coffee if you’re really feeling exhausted. And perhaps let that joint that’s circling the party pass you by un-smoked. Snacks can also keep you fueled for fun. (Unless those snacks are tiny little crabs covered in sesame seeds, which you should never ever eat because they are disgusting.) In fact the lust for snacks has replaced the lust for illicit hook-ups that once fueled my late night partying.

(Thanks to Rino and Libby for convincing Mr. Crud and me to come out of our domestic cave for some good time partying. Sorry we didn’t bid you a proper farewell, but that’s how we party ninjas do.)

Blue Boots

2009-02-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

I pull up to the yoga studio at--as my friend Laertes so eloquently puts it--the crack of ass. A few stragglers roam the streets of the Pearl district before the clackety clack of Pearl doyenne heels and the swing of briefcases sweeps them out to the parks and soup kitchens. Across the street, a man with ragged, sagging pants clutches a pale blue blanket like OG blanket-lover, Linus. He pauses his stream of babble. I dismount my bike and pull my lock from the back rack. His mumbles restart and grow nearer. I glance in the studio. Empty.

“Blue boots. Those blue boots? I like blue boots,” the man says. He leans against the brick wall of the art gallery next door to the yoga studio. He hisses his “s-es.” Not many teeth left to shape the sound.

“Yes, they are blue boots.” I say, “thank you. I like them too.” I sound too much like a kindergarten teacher. I turn the key in the bike lock and glance over my shoulder, praying my teacher, Jason, is pulling up behind me.

I smile at the man. Hesitant smile. Smile that says, “wow, this was sure fun. Please go away now.”

He wipes at his nose. He stutters, “I h-have a pretty big dick.” He grins a gummy, sheepish grin.

I am stuck between saying, “Good for you!” and wanting to fifty-yard dash it to the diner down the street. Part of me wants to be agreeable. “Yeah, so do I. Imagine that.”

How to be compassionate yet firm. Kind, yet you-get-outta-here-now. When I recount the story to Mr. Crud he suggests that maybe this was the man’s way of expressing “Yes, I have blue boots too. Maybe the meaning got lost in translation.”

Perhaps.

I take a deep breath. “Please leave me alone.” I don’t beg or bark. The vibe emanating from the man isn’t scary so much as creepy and confused.

He grows silent. His stare follows me as I walk to the studio. I huddle by the door. I jiggle the handle. Locked. The man shambles down the street, stopping every few steps to look my way. I tie my hair up in a ponytail, careful not to be too shampoo commercial about it lest the man interpret my swinging hair as an invitation.

Jason pedals up the sidewalk and executes a suave moving dismount in front of the door. “Been waiting long?”

The man looks back once more before he turns the corner, his blanket dragging behind him like a tail.

Slack-Ass Mofo

2009-01-08T15:13:00.001-08:00

I hold up a shield of holiday excess, hard work on Crudbucket #8 The Infinity Issue (which is really earning it's title as the creation of said issue drags on), and a snowstorm to protect me against the slings and arrows of crud fans who want regular posts. Yeah, yeah, I know. And I am sorry.

If you need a little something to keep you going, and don't mind occasionally depressing topics, hop on over to my musings on life after miscarrage at The Peabody Project Chronicles.

Keep it cruddy, y'all.

SNOW DAY!!!!!

2008-12-19T14:03:00.000-08:00

The snow day is the sick day’s dashing—and less sniffly—uncle. He rides in on slate clouds, turns the world white and muted, and, striped cashmere scarf flapping in the wind, grants lucky students and university employees a free day off. (In my case it’s not so free as I am REQUIRED—as the Human Resources website says in bold red letters—to take vacation time on “Inclement Weather Days.”) This week my favorite uncle (No offense, Uncle Tim) dashed into town. The tally so far is 2 snow days—Monday and Wednesday—and 2 2-hour delay days—Tuesday and Thursday. What will tomorrow hold? It was looking like more snow, but now I’m not so sure. Come back, Uncle, come back!!!

What I Did on My Snow Days
by Kt Crud

• Created missions that required walking in the snow. Sunday I “had” to have homemade Crispix mix. (Cheaper than Chex as one box fulfills all your cereal needs. And no leftover Bran Chex to stare at you from the top of the shelf, daring you to eat it in a non-Chex Mix setting.) Monday I “needed” fresh bread. Wednesday, it was “imperative” that I chow down on my favorite Farm Plate Special, the bahn mi, at New Seasons. Then I got sent to jail by the grammar police for overuse of quotation marks. They let me go with a warning on the counts of parenthesis overusage.
• Made clam and corn chowder. Thank G-d I had fresh bread to accompany it!
• Prayed that the university would close.
• Compulsively checked the websites of the university, the Oregonian, and Oregon Public Broadcasting for closure information. (What is the Australasian College of Health Sciences? Does Aveda really require an institute?)
• Convinced Mr. Crud that taking a walk in below freezing temperatures was a superfun happy time. He bought it. Once.
• Compulsively checked the weather forecast. “Shit, it’s 36 degrees. That snow’s gonna melt if the temperature doesn’t drop. It’s supposed to be 32 degrees. Weather.com says so! Come on Oregonlive, Mama wants some accumulation.”
• Finished the Miriam Toews book I’d been working on. I give The Flying Troutmans a B-. Check out her A+++ book, A Complicated Kindness.
• Fired up the Wii Fit my brother and sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. Turns out I am both overweight and actually 49 years-old if Wii Fit’s assessment is correct. Fan-fucking-tastic. Virtual hula hoping rules. The yoga application? Not so much. Or maybe I’m just bitter that the Wii Fit labeled me a “yoga novice.” Mr. Crud fared better. He’s riding the line between normal and overweight and is a mere 44 years of age in Wii Fit time.
• Made and soon devoured a batch of Crispix mix. Why do I love it so much? Is it the Worcestshire’s Sauce? The crumply chip clumps drenched in melted margarine? The garlic powder?
• Checked out a new yoga class at a nearby studio.
• Worried that my astanga muscles were atrophying. Trust this: even a few days off of astanga will make your return a painful, sore experience.
• Wrote a To-Do List that would take a week to complete.
• Learned that snow days are in fact not any longer than regular days.
• Watched snow fall while Mr. Crud napped in my lap.
• Calculated how much money I was losing thanks to the snow day. $300 before taxes. I am not one to hold onto my vacation time for very long. I was already down a few days thanks to my planned trip back east for the holidays. Please, Santa, big money, no whammies.
• Eyed my folder of Crudbucket 8 material then quickly tucked it away. Why can’t it just assemble itself? (Also, why can’t my novel agent, publish, and market itself?)
• Updated my status way too often on Facebook.
• Drafted contingency plans for yoga. Okay, if there’s a 2-hour delay, I’ll go to Heidi’s Soul Flow. If school is cancelled, Ecstatic Flow at noon. But what if Ecstatic Flow is cancelled too? Oh g-d, oh g-d, I’ll never do yoga again. Should I just bike to Mysore? So what if I get stuck?
• Tormented myself with yoga quandaries, thus creating suffering. Not very yogic.
• Practiced, practiced, practiced my Super Mario Kart skills. I unlocked the Piranha Cart. Very exclusive, yes?
• Decided that King Boo is my Super Mario Kart spirit guide.
• Walked down to Little T American Bakery to buy some more bread. The nub leftover from the first loaf got stale. I recommend the 7-Grain Carrot loaf and the pretzel bread.
• Reheated the leftover clam chowder and got a not-so-fresh feeling in my guts.
• Counted Mr. Crud’s Hanukkah gifts. Wondered if I should buy more.
• Dug out my old red union suit from beneath layers of summer clothes and pants that don’t fit anymore. Walked around SE Portland looking like Santa Claus’ grouchy niece. Maybe the Wii Fit is onto something.
• Watched Battlestar Gallactica and marveled that I enjoyed it so much. Death to the Cyclons!!!! Viva Humanity!
• Prayed for more snow and more snow days.
• Prayed that the snow would end before we fly out on Tuesday to visit the folks.
• Used road conditions as an excuse to avoid the post office thus dooming myself to carting around a suitcase full of gifts. Looks like it will be a reuse-recycle Christmas for the one lucky outfit I can fit in my carry-on.
• Scanned photos of the epic 1993 GollyRocket-CornPopp tour of Georgia and Florida.
• Added photos to Facebook.
• Eagerly anticipated comments on said photos.
• Reflected on snow days past. The snow forts, the frolicking, the drifts that stood taller than me. Good times.

I wish you a humongous, jiggling booty butt-load of (paid) snow days in the coming year! I shall return with more crud in 2009, not to mention Crudbucket 8: The Infinity Issue.

Rock on.

Peace out.

I Am the Worrier

2008-11-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

Despite my attempts to be a warrior, I remain a fretter not a fighter. Take our upcoming trip to the coast where we will feast Thanksgiving-style with some of our closest friends in a deluxe house overlooking the beach. What could be a lovelier way to spend the holiday? I am looking forward to cozying up to a fire while watching my husband attempt Dance Dance Revolution moves after stuffing ourselves on turkey, but my mind keeps jumping to improbable scenarios of terror and woe. For when I break out of my routine, my monkey mind goes into overdrive, jumping from branch to branch while shrieking frantically. Eee! Eee! EEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I know I’m not the only one to slip so seamlessly into worry mode where most other see only fun and relaxation. But I do think that I get bonus points for overblown hysteria. And creativity.

And now a short—and literary—list of things that probably won’t happen during our Thanksgiving trip to the coast, but, which, nonetheless, are haunting me:

1. WoMan vs. Nature
While driving over the coastal range, Mr. Crud and I are socked in by an unexpected snowstorm. In an uncharacteristic move, we decide to veer off the well-traveled highway in an attempt to find a shortcut to the small coastal town where we have never been. (It’s what someone would do in a movie, right?)
After driving a few miles, the road comes to an end. Our car gets stuck. The winding road that we’d been following has disappeared into a nightmare of white. No cell phone service.

“We’re doomed. Doomed!” I collapse in tears into Mr. Crud’s chest.

“Let’s not freak out.”

For a day we live on the bounty of snacks that we had packed for the trip. Eventually our only liquid is wine. We turn on the car for heat whenever we feel ourselves becoming scared or desperate. We sleep snuggled next to each other in the sleeping bags that Mr. Crud ridiculed me for bringing. Who’s laughing now, eh? We have moments of levity but I am terrified, remembering well the man who perished when his family veered from the highway. His wife and kids survived because she ate their snacks and was able to breastfeed her children. If only I was still pregnant. (Reason #543 to be pissed about the miscarriage.) After a few days, Mr. Crud insists on setting out on his own to try and get a signal on his cell phone.

“But they’re looking for us. We have to stay with the car. Remember that man?” I plead.

As soon as Mr. Crud steps out of the car, he is mauled by the bear who has been lying in wait to attack us. I can do nothing but scream and feel my reason for living slip away. All that is left to eat are raw Brussels sprouts. Can one eat raw Brussels sprouts?

See? I was right about the doomed part.

Homework: Can one eat raw Brussels sprouts?
Check the weather on the coastal ranges before leaving.
Charge up the cell phone.
Pack sleeping bags no matter how ridiculous it seems.

What Mr. Crud Will Say After Reading This:
Why didn’t you save me from the bear?
Cracker, please.

Moral: Never ever try anything new. It will only ruin your life and cause your spouse to be eaten by a bear.

2. WoMan vs. Herself
We somehow escape certain death on our trip to the coast and end up gleefully stuffed on turkey and pumpkin pie sitting around a crackling fire with our friends. In addition to our friends another couple, The Strangers, share the beach house with us. The gentleman half of the couple, Johnny, has a wild past. Mr. Crud assures me that he’s calmed down, but I’m still wary. We’re tipsy on wine. Johnny Stranger gets a sly look in his eye. “Hey, you all wanna do some ______________?”

A. Cocaine
No, I don’t’ really want to do cocaine. I’ve never been initiated into the ways of the white powder and 36 seems like too late an age to start. I’m a firm believer in getting the stupid shit out of your system before early middle age. But I’m also a prime candidate for peer pressure. My reputation precedes me. My friends egg me on for awhile, “Come on, Kt, it’s not a big deal.” Even Mr. Crud looks disappointed that I am refusing this offer of free expensive drugs.

“Hon, it’s not like it’s heroin,” he says when we’re alone.

I remember back to the late night/early morning on the eve of my departure from Portland during my first visit in 1995. A stripper friend of the guys I had been staying with grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the bathroom.

“Wanna try some meth?” She asked.

“Uh, sure,” I said so drunk was I that new drugs seemed like exactly the thing I should be doing.

When she pulled out a mirror and started cutting it up, I got cold feet. “Eh, you go ahead. I’m good.”

“Come on, just a little.” She said.

I had lost two friends to heroin at this point. Images of their purple lips and vacant eyes flashed through my head. But that was heroin…not meth! “Sure, okay.”

Never having snorted anything but a Pixie stick, I barely got any of the powder up my nose. I got enough to keep myself awake for the rest of the night AND for the entire, crammed bus trip to San Francisco that I embarked upon the next day. Wow, I get to experience my entire hangover instead of just the part I didn’t sleep through, I thought. F-ing great. Needless to say, I was cured of any curiosity about meth. Still, I worry about my susceptibility to pressure, especially when a devil-may-care drunk comes over me.

So, back to the beach house. I cave in and give cocaine a try. And have a heart attack. And there is no hospital for miles. Ironically, I am the only one certified in CPR, but you can’t give CPR to yourself.

B. Mushrooms
Same peer pressure scenario except this time I am being fed the line about how shrooms are a natural high. “These are mellow, not a big deal at all,” Johnny Stranger says.

Mr. Crud gives me the look. “I haven’t done these in years. I never thought I would again.”

“Okay, sure.” I say.

I’ve never had much luck with the supposedly mellow shrooms. The first time I took them, I ended up sitting with a friend in a cemetery, watching her teeth grow into fangs and her cheeks become hollow as we shared tales of body image woe.

“I mean, I know I’m not obese or anything, but look at these!” She pinched a hunk of flesh from her inner thigh.

Don’t worry about your thighs, I wanted to say, you’re face is melting! I ended the night vomiting in my dorm room toilet and calling my then-boyfriend to confess to every time I’d ever cheated on him. I do not recommend admitting infidelity to ones jealous boyfriend while coming down from hallucinogenic drugs.

My last experience with the devil fungi came during a holiday trip home a year after I’d moved to Portland. I don’t know if the mushrooms were bad or if we were simply too old and control-freaky to enjoy them, but it was a bad trip for the group. My friend Pete moaned on the floor. A TV flickered in the corner while we all desperately struggled to keep it together. Our attempts at coming down through chain-smoking were met with spotty success.

“I think I’m okay…aw shit.”

We tried music. We tried food. Mr. Crud (who was just Boyfriend Crud at the time) was across the country and all I wanted in the whole wide world was to bury my head in his neck and feel like myself again. I picked up the phone, but didn’t think I could figure out how to use it or, worse, how to speak coherent English.

I stepped into the snowy night to smoke my hundredth cigarette and forge a path to sanity. The drumbeat of the hallucinatory: “I’ll never be normal again. I’ll never be normal again” taunted me. How had I come back to a place I’d sworn never to go again?

“It’s Amateur Night!” my friend Sunny called from inside the house. I looked through the front window. My friends crowded the tiny television screen. They were bathed in the glow of Showtime at the Apollo Amateur Night. Hope swelled in my chest.

I stubbed out my smoke and went inside. A little girl over-emoted Whitney Houston-style. “I believe the children are our future--“
Something clicked back into place and all was well with the world again.

I swore to myself: never again.

Until the beach house. I’ve always been the friend to shake my head and say “I’m not sure about this, guys,” after some new plot of fun has been revealed. I get weary of my killjoying. I give in to my friends hop down the hallucinogenic path.

All my compatriots are having a fabulous, giggly time but I go insane. I don’t come down. I spend the rest of my days mumbling about Showtime at the Apollo, but nobody understands the curative powers of an audience boo-ing a Mariah wannabe.

Homework: Practice: “No, I do not want to take your drugs. Thank you for offering.”
Locate the closest hospital and Mapquest it.

What Mr. Crud Will Say After Reading This: “Nobody is going to make you take drugs. Nobody is going to bring drugs. We’re old, remember?”
“Cracker, please.”

Moral: I believe the children are our future. Crack is wack.
Just say no.

3. WoMan vs. WoMan
There are always posses of rednecks with chainsaws lying in wait to hack us city slickers unfortunate enough to stumble into their path. This one actually hasn’t been weighing on my mind too much. Dare I call the absence of this worry, progress? I dare!

A HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

It's the Hate* I'll Miss the Most

2008-11-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

Not exactly timely but not a bad way to pass the time. Somehow this nugget of writing got lost in the summer shuffle.

(* Okay, not hate-hate as in genocide hate but that light hate that brings a flush to the cheeks and a bluster to the soul.)

Last year the city council passed the so-called “duct tape ban,” disallowing the recent Portland tradition of marking your territory along the Grand Floral Parade route. City slickers marvel that anyone respected the chalk/duct tape/lipstick/masking tape boxes that Portlanders and suburban folk (Beaverton, I’m looking at you) drew along the route in hopes of reserving a prime slice of parade-watching real estate. When I moved here 13 years ago, I marveled too.

“Why are those chairs chained to that tree?”

“Parade.”

“Why is that normal-looking dude setting up a tent on the Burnside Bridge?”

“Parade.”

While many things that I initially found strange about Portland—the freakishly polite drivers, ???—soon blended into the fabric of my new and improved Pacific Northwest groove, I never got used to the territorial parade watchers.

“Who the hell do they think they are? Does the social contract include duct tape spots? It’s a public street, for Christ’s sake. It ruins the spirit of the thing, don’t you think?”

Every year Mr. Crud and I ranted and rolled our eyes. In fact the one part of Rose Festival I looked forward to was my Friday lunchtime walk downtown where I marched along the parade route in search of marked territory to deride. A silver box with “Smith family” written in blocky duct tape letters; two lawn chairs with “Robinsons” scrawled on the armrests in thick black marker then chained to an innocent bystander tree.

“Jeez,” I’d snort to myself. “Such dingdongery.”

When Randy Leonard proposed the ban, I was heartily in favor. At last someone with common sense who wasn’t afraid to stand up to the tape lobby. Not one to get involved in local politics much beyond voting, I emailed my first missive in support of Commissioner Leonard and his duct tape ban. The issue was fiercely debated in the pages of The Oregonian. Mr. Leonard was taken to task for his stereotyping of the supposed duct-taping Greshamites as pinky-ring wearing SUV drivers.

After much back and forth, the ban passed. Now parade enthusiasts would be allowed to camp out 24 hours before the parade. The catch is that they had to remain with their site, no marking and running. I couldn’t help but wonder about bathroom breaks, but that is for the police and the parade goers to hash out. I did not plan to join their ranks.

Friday morning, I pedaled in early for my yoga class. A short leg of my trip carried me along the parade route. At 5:45 a.m., a fellow donning Columbia Sportswear unfolded a tent along SW 4th. Tsk, tsk. Not until 10:00 a.m., I almost called out to the man, but a car was edging into my lane and I (for once) had more important business than not minding my own business.

At lunch I walked my normal parade-hating route, but saw only the tent guy and his gathered family along with some “official Rose Parade” flyers holding spots in front of the Hilton. A bit of a letdown all around.

That night I went home to Mr. Crud and shared my tales of my parade hating-less afternoon. Sure, I could still complain about out-of-town drivers and all the tarted up young ladies waiting at the Waterfront for the fleet to come in, but the duct taping was such an integral part of the Rose Festival hating experience. I had to face it: I missed it.

I was reminded of the brown Volvo that remained parked outside the house where we lived 7 years ago. The house was in an industrial part of town so the streets were often used as a dumping ground for unwanted cars, trash, and shopping carts that no longer cut the mustard. Every day over coffee I watched the Volvo, waiting for the young man, a friend of one of a neighbor’s, who slept in its back seat to emerge.

“Still there,” I said to Mr. Crud with a snort.

We walked past the car on our way to breakfast, peering in at the makeshift bed through the sheet and towel-curtained windows.

“Must be kind cramped in there,” I said.

“Oh so now you’re concerned about his comfort,” Mr. Crud said.

Bitching about the car became part of the daily routine, an addendum to the coffee and paper. We saw the occupant less and less. The towel-curtains sagged.

“Do you think he found a place to live? Is he living next door?” I asked.

Mr. Crud shrugged. “Maybe.” Then went back to his own life.

Then it was gone.

“The brown Volvo!” I hollered as I lugged my bike up the stairs after a day at work.

“Yep, they towed it away an hour ago.”

“Oh.” I dropped my bike and unhooked my helmet.

“Aren’t you glad? He’s not taking up a parking spot anymore. You don’t have to worry about his comfort anymore.”

I punched Mr. Crud on the shoulder.

The next day I sipped coffee by the window. I gazed at the spot where the brown Volvo once lived seemingly only to annoy me.

“You miss it don’t you,” Mr. Crud said.

I nodded. Damn straight.

“The brown Volvo” has become shorthand for those things that I once hated and then realized too late that I had found much pleasure in the hating of them.

A partial list of things that I would really miss hating on:

Courtney Love
Hummers (they won’t be manufactured anymore—good for the environment, but bad for my hating)
Plastic surgery
Bad drivers
Fixies
Bad fixie drivers
Young, hip, beautiful writers
Anyone associated with McSweeney’s (am willing to trade hating for loving if McSweeney’s publishes me)

Oh Crud! Jury Duty

2008-11-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

I am a patient boy,
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait,
My time is water down a drain
--Fugazi

(In the Sad but True Files—One can purchase a “Waiting Room” ringtone. The man strikes again.)

Jury duty! As soon as I found out that I would get my regular salary for the day (or 2 or, in the case of a grand jury, 30) that I would miss serving my civic duty, I got exclamatory about the opportunity.

“Jury duty on Election Day, how more civically involved can you get?” became my line of choice when telling people about my impending service.

Most people roll their eyes and sigh at the thought of spending a day with a crush of their fellow humanity. I imagined the experience as an updated version of high school gym class. Gym was the melting pot, one of the few classes where anyone could appear on the roster. A prospect both exciting and terrifying. I was challenged to my first and only round of fisticuffs in my freshman gym class.

“I’m gonna kick your ay-ass,” my nemesis said.

“Oh-okay. Go ahead. I won’t fight back,” I said, trying to sound defiant in my wimpitude.

I met my first sort of boyfriend in my sophomore gym class.

“You look beautiful today,” he stumbled over the sentence in his heavy French accent. He’d clearly been practicing.

“Merci,” I replied to show how chic and wordly I was.

I met friends outside of the circle of my normal group of smartypants and jocks, leading me down the marvelous path to suburban punk-dom. French boyfriend-ish boy led to punky skater boys led to me mentally seceding from the high school rat race in favor of alternative horizons. (Well, in theory at least.)

I didn’t think any such revelations would be had during my day of jury duty, but there was a possibility for categorization, alliances, rivalries, especially on Election Day. Would the young professionals smirk in a corner, shaking out copies of the Wall Street Journal and muttering about their lost time-as-money? Would the artsy among us cluster at the opposing wall, comparing our art-writing-music credentials while sneaking glares at the suits? Would there be a geek component talking D & D in the corner? What of the innocent political discussion over burnt coffee? Could it turn into an Obama v. McCain riot? Eh, not too likely in blue as blue can be Multnomah County. The closest we came to any sort of political incident was when the remote control was commandeered from the woman who had turned on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Maybe she thought it was CNN.

In reality, jury duty was akin to air travel except I didn’t know if I’d be departing and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go in the first place.

I arrived at the courthouse just shy of the mandatory 8:00 reporting time. The line at the entrance curled around the doorway and down the leaf-strewn sidewalk. At the sight of the x-ray tube inside the door, I felt a sudden attack of criminal magical thinking. The impulse similar to slamming on the breaks when seeing a police car even if one is driving the speed limit. The x-ray machine started a chain reaction of worry rushing through my brain: Had I ever carried weed in this bag? Did it smell like pot? Were bike lights suspect? Did I stash a balloon of heroin up my ass and forget about it?

Plastic bowls were stacked on a table outside the entrance. A list of suggested uses for the bowls: a place for ones keys, cell phones, iPods sat beside the table. My criminal magical thinking blurred my common sense. Does this mean I have to remove my cell phone, keys, and iPod from my bag and put them in the bowl? It must. Why else would it be there? I rifled through my bag and grabbed the offending items, dropping them in a bowl. I looked around. Nobody else was rifling and dropping. Dumbshit. I plunked the bowl back on the table and tossed the keys and iPod back in my bowl. The jury instructions had mentioned something about putting cell phones through the machine so I set it next to my bag on the conveyor belt. My bag promptly fell on top of the phone. Craptastic. The woman scanning the conveyor belt would think I was trying to pull one over on them, hiding my phone beneath a bag bulging with my water bottle, book, journal, and enough snacks to get me through a weekend on the trail.

After ditching the bag, I had the metal detector to contend with. In my younger days, during my blue collar phase, I set off all metal detectors with my steel-toed boots. Sometimes the underwire in my bra causes me to be wanded by Homeland Security, but my last few trips through airport security were incident-free.

I took a deep breath and marched through the arch. Beeep!

“Try removing your jacket,” the uniform said.

I flung both of my jackets on the conveyor belt and tried again. Beeeep!

“Maybe it’s the boots.”

I kicked them off as quickly as possible, feeling the heat of the eyes of everyone waiting in line on my back. Onto the conveyor belt they went.

Take three in socks on the wet, leafy floor. Beeep!

I was now officially a bottleneck. “Could it be the necklace?” I asked, whipping it off and barely missing the cheekbone of the annoyed woman standing behind me.

The uniform shrugged. Give it a shot. I piled the necklace in a bowl and gave it another go.

Ah the sweet sound of silence.

As I struggled to pull on my boots and throw my jacket over my back, I saw my cell phone on the floor beneath the rollers at the end of the conveyor belt. I dove to get it so quickly that I brushed a woman’s thigh.

“Ha, sorry,” I said, trying my best what-are-you-gonna-do look. She scowled and bustled on her way. “Lawyer,” I hissed.

I glanced at my watch. Almost 8:00. The jury instructions were very specific about arriving on time. Exclamation points were involved. Exclamation points of emphasis instead of jubilation. After the minor security snafu, I felt disoriented, somehow missing the huge sign: JURY DUTY THIS WAY in the lobby that I noticed later in the day. I wandered wide-eyed counting doors and temporarily forgetting numerical order.

I wasn’t the last to arrive. I exchanged my summons for a badge on a plastic necklace. Juror 0007692. Not a snappy ring to that number. The room was the size of half the old gym in my high school. Computers, all taken by internet surfers, lined one wall. At the other end of the room lockers flanked the doors to the bathrooms with a small kitchen tucked in behind a partition. Rows of black semi-cushy office chairs took up most of the room. 6 faux-wooden tables scattered around the area next to the kitchen with a few slouchy blue couches thrown in for good measure. The panic of the cafeteria set in. Where am I gonna sit? Who’s gonna sit with me? What if I choose wrong?

I spotted an aisle seat and made a beeline for it as if I was on an actual airplane and would need to stretch out my legs during the long flight. The 20-something college student in the chair next to me didn’t look up as I situated myself. I pulled out my water bottle and journal and hunkered in to what I (silently) declared to be the Temporary Republic of Kt.

“Greetings. If I may have your attention.” A smiling woman in a white shirt and slim black skirt stood at the podium in front of the 2 sections of chairs. “I’m Judge Bigwig. Welcome.” She gave us the rah-rah democracy-in-action speech to get us psyched up to judge our community members and sit in a glorified airport for a day.

“Even if you don’t serve on a jury, your presence sends a message. Just by being here settlements may be reached. Just because of you.” She said, emphasizing the ‘you.” I am a sucker for rhetorics. I got a little chill at the thought of my compatriots and I being passive thugs of justice.

A few minutes later the HBIC, a bald guy with a 70’s office drone feel, gave us the no-frills rundown of the procedures for the day. To sum up: Don’t be an asshole and don’t leave unless we tell you to leave.

I removed my umbrella from my bag and scribbled away in my journal. I had big plans to purchase a laptop before today so that I could experiment with live blogging. I knew that the audience for my live blog of my day of jury duty would be small, but mountains have been made of smaller molehills. At least I could have been obsessively updating my Facebook page.

My morning as Facebook Status Updates (which are starting to mediate my experience in real life to a disturbing degree):

Katie is writing in her journal.

Katis is writing a letter to Isabel.

Katie is wondering when somebody will turn on the TV. Already 10:00 and no TV? Aren’t we fancy.

Katie wishes the TV would be turned off. Who the fuck turned on Pat Robertson?

Katie is getting up to pee. Should she leave her bag? Is this room secure?

Katie is surprised that the bathroom isn’t so bad. Still, she is praying that she doesn’t have to take a crap. Some things are private.

Katie just noticed her boss’ friend is sitting 2 chairs away. Dang! Even if she gets released early she might be busted out. Must not make eye contact.

Katie is inching her chair away from her jittery neighbor in hopes that she won’t feel the bounce of his chair against her shoulder.

Katie will not be taking a break with the other jurors so as not to relive the security checkpoint badness.

Katie has to pee. Again.

Katie does not know if she wants to serve on a jury or not. Is she fit to judge?

Katie is psyched for an hour and a half lunch break. Woohoo!

After a long lunchtime walk, I did the security striptease and quick-dress and return to the Temporary Republic of Kt. So far two juries had been called. The HBIC assured us that more were to come. In other words, don’t get too excited about leaving early, suckers.

I pulled out a George Pelecanos paperback borrowed from Mr. Crud. Someone finally changed CBN to CNN where Wolf Blitzer and the Dlection Day flunkies toured around their souped up studio. The words blurred before my eyes as Election Day jitters took root. After 8 years of George W. Bush, I feel demoralized. A democratic president seems like an impossible dream, like the Clinton years were a fluke. In the corner of the screen numbers counted down the time until the first polls closed. Announcements about trouble at polls flashed on the screen. Not again!

I turned back to my book. My greatest fear of the day was getting called to be on a jury while I was in the can. I doubted I could holler “Here!” from the corner stall loud enough to be heard. I imagined my compatriots scanning the crowd for the missing me as the HBIC tonelessly said “Kt Crud, Kt Crud, Ms. Kt Crud,” into the microphone. This fear did give my trips to the bathroom a certain drama they otherwise lacked. I was in a battle against time. The fate of democracy weighed heavy on my shoulders. I washed my hands in record time.

A sign on the tampon and maxi-pad dispenser read This Machine Equipped with Audible Alarm. I made a note to myself not to try and beat the tampon machine into submission. Had they really had trouble with menstruating women jacking tampons?

At 2:30, the bald guy, our fearless leader for the day, stood at the podium.

“We’re going to call 40 names. The rest of you are free to go.”

The tension in the room grew taut. TVs went mute. All eyes became laser beams on the podium. We waited with held breath. After each name was read, a dejected “Here” or an annoyed “Present” rang out in the room. Not me, not me, not me was the beat pulsing in the background.

“For those of you who were counting, that was 40.”

Free at last. I stepped into the rainy afternoon, opened my umbrella and trudged up the hill to my office where I had stashed my stuff for the day. The exclamation points from the moment of receiving my summons had faded. I would not be filling out a questionnaire or answering lawyer’s questions or seeing how justice in America really worked. Mr. Crud served on a drunk driving jury where it was so painfully obvious that the guy was guilty it made everyone feel embarrassed for him. I am nothing if not judgmental—working on it, thank you very much—but the thought of declaring someone guilty makes me nervous. They won’t be on the wrong end of a frown or my squinty eyes, but prison. Mr. Crud was sobered and slightly disturbed by the workings of the trial. I’ve had enough disillusionment in the last few years to last a lifetime so maybe I should feel relieved that my number wasn’t picked. Despite all the big issues floating around my world, I can’t stop thinking about that tampon machine. Really, who steals a courthouse tampon?

My Cruddy Dentist Appointment

2008-10-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

(100% miscarriage free!!!)

The hygienist gazed down at my gaping mouth, nudging a gum line here, scraping at my indomitable cloak of tartar there. Through the scratched hygienist-provided glasses, styled much like the safety goggles I donned during my brush with Chemistry junior year of high school, I watched a frown tug at the edges of her thin lips. She prodded a tender spot in one of my right side molars. I flinched. She withdrew the hooked torture device.

“How often do you floss?” She asked, brown eyes impassive behind her own set of safety glasses.

“Once a day—“

“Oh good.” Her frown eased.

“Once a day, uh, every other day,” I said, not wanting to lay my dental lies on too thick. I should have added one more clarifier: once a day every other day for the past two weeks in compliance with my system. Kt’s Dental System: brush twice a day, floss whenever the yen strikes until one month before your next rendezvous with the dentist, at which time flossing should be increased to once a day. My system brings me mixed results. Most of the time I get away with a lecture and no cavities. Most of the time I am more honest.

This time I lost my nerve. I wanted her to like me, to respect me as a vibrant participant in the health of my mouth. Why the flossing lies? I may has well have ripped a loud fart while in the chair and pretended that the hygienist was the one who had beans for lunch.

As the scraping more intense, as the blood-drenched cotton pads piled up on the tray looming beyond my upturned chin, as the hygienist wondered aloud why my gums were bleeding so much, my house of flossing lies crumbled. This time around I had grown lazy.

“I should really be flossing,” I said to my image in the mirror nightly.

Mr. Crud overheard me. “Why start now?”

“My system,” I said.

“Oh yeah right. Failproof.” He said.

“You made a dentist appointment yet?” I asked.

Silence. Mr. Crud disappeared into the kitchen on an important frozen soy yogurt procurement mission. I took that as a no.

The hygienist nudged a sticky spot on a molar. I dug my fingernails into the armrest. I deserved this pain. Last summer I ignored the postcard advising me to make an appointment for my yearly cleaning and check-up at Willamette Dental, the Costco of dentist offices.

After a brief period of having a crush on the dentist of my youth because he reminded me of Bo Duke*, I developed a distrust of the dental arts. I didn’t have an especially bad time of cavities in my youth. I became acquainted with the burning smell of drilled tooth, the burn of a floppy novacained lip as the numbness wore off, but I wasn’t one of those kids who bit dentists or required restraints. All was reasonably copasetic until one traumatic Memorial Day weekend when I was thirteen.

After breaking a band of my braces on a carrot stick at lunch, an ache took root in my right incisor. As the day wore on the ache turned into a buzzing pain that I couldn’t ignore even as my classmates zipped around me, excited about the three day break from junior high school hell that awaited us at the end of the day. By Friday evening, my tooth was throbbing and neither megadoses of Tylenol nor numbing gel could soothe my pain.

There was no emergency room for orthodontal emergencies so I waited it out, spending most of the weekend crying and unable to sleep, until Monday when my mom got me in with Dr. Zeller.

I explained what happened and the brusque, hairy man tilted me back in the chair and got to work. He gave me nothing to numb the pain, but ripped the broken band off, almost causing me to yelp out in pain. As he shoved the new band on my tooth, silver hot pain flashed through my gums to my face and nose. Tears poured from my eyes.

“Quit crying,” Dr. Zeller said in his heavy Eastern European accent. “It’s not zat bad.”

I cried harder. Not so much because of the pain. I had pretty much hit a plateau with the pain, but because I realized that this was not the solution to the pain that had kept me up at night. (If I could travel back in time right now, I would deliver Vicodin and a flask of vodka to 13-year-old me in hopes of preventing the deep scarring of that weekend.)

After Dr. Zeller finished instilling a deep hatred of all things orthodontic along with a new band around my tooth, I collapsed in my mother’s arms. “It hurts worse,” I wailed.

After another appointment with the John Schneider doppelganger, I was diagnosed with an abscess. I wanted to kiss him more than I had during my long gone days of Bo Duke worship. John Schneider referred me to a specialist who reminded me of Gene Wilder and blessed me with laughing gas while he performed my first—and hopefully last—root canal. Gene was a strange man. His assistant was a super hot lady in the early 80s mold: blonde hair winged and hairsprayed to a crisp with shoulder pads that offset her slim figure. He was my savior but I also couldn’t help but imagine “adult things” happening in the chair after I had skedaddled with my newly renovated tooth.

If I had been reluctant before, the abscess--and youthful belief in immortality even where teeth were concerned—had turned me obstinate. My mom’s grasp on my dental life loosened during the college years. My teeth yellowed from a diet heavy on coffee and cigarettes. As long as nothing hurt or was falling out, I paid no heed. Thanks to all the hard work put in during my youth, I survived with few tooth problems. I still had recurrent nightmares that my teeth were falling out so quickly and forcefully that I was choking on them, but by morning I ran my tongue over my dingy yellows and breathed a sigh of relief.

My next wake-up call came on my first birthday in Portland. The day had been ordinary and a bit depressing. I missed my faraway friends and family. The fellows I knew in Portland offered to take me bowling to lift my spirits. Well, they were already going bowling but decided that it would be no ordinary bowling trip but a bowling trip in honor of my birthday when my friend Rusty heard homesickness weighing down my voice.

To treat myself before the big bowling for Kt night, I dialed up my favorite Thai restaurant and swore to salvage whatever happiness I could from my birthday in the form of culinary indulgence. I got the Pad Thai AND salad rolls even though it was enough food to feed two of me. Damn the expense! It’s my birthday and I’m special.

I bit into the first salad roll and noticed something hard mixed in with the vermicelli noodles and cilantro. I spit the hard nugget out, thinking, “Shit, it’s a tooth.” Then, “Wouldn’t somebody notice that their tooth fell out? Does this mean I can’t finish my salad rolls? Yeah, it would be kinda gross to eat tooth salad rolls. But they’re so delicious.” Then as my tongue grazed my right incisor, “Shit! It’s my tooth!!!” I dropped my salad roll and ran to the bathroom. My previously voluptuous incisor—filled out so gorgeously thanks to a bonding procedure done when I was 10 and my incisor was judged to be too small—was nothing but a pointy nub. I felt dizzy. In addition to being my first birthday away from home, this birthday would mark my last day of being on my parents’ medical and dental insurance. They weren’t here to call up John Schneider and schedule an emergency appointment. I felt small, alone, terrified, and hideous. I was not the independent adult I had claimed to be when I told my folks I wanted to move across the country. I was a dumb little girl who somehow broke a tooth off while biting into a freaking salad roll. The punky bike messenger who I had my eye on would never kiss me now. He might christen me Dracula or something equally sensitive. And I would have to laugh and pretend that it was hilarious that my tooth had randomly fallen out. Well, at least he wouldn’t be calling me fat. (Which I was no longer so there was no danger of that, but once you’ve gone fat, you never forget.) I couldn’t kiss anybody now, not with this tooth-dagger lurking behind my lips.

I sat down on my bed and started to sob. Worst. Birthday. Ever.

My phone rang. I collected myself as best I could, praying it was an uncharacteristically late call from my mom. Maybe she had telepathically sensed my moment of need. Viva the mother-daughter bond!

“Hey Kt, where are you?” My friend Rusty’s lazy drawl dashed my little girl hopes.

“I’m, hiccup, still, sniffle, here.”

“What’s wrong?”

I spilled my tale of broken tooth woe. My hopelessness refreshed, the tears flowed freely.

“It’s okay, we’ll figure this out.” Rusty said, morphing from dude to trusted compadre seamlessly. “You still coming out bowling? I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Sure,” I said.

I took a few minutes to scan the phone book for dentist offices. I remembered an office that had advertised same-day emergency appointments. I left messages at the offices that I was confident I could find. I had lived in Portland a month and barely ventured anywhere that I couldn’t reach by bike. Getting lost on my way to the dentist’s office might shatter me for good, serve as the final evidence that I couldn’t hack this life so faraway from everything I knew.

Feeling better about my prospects of a fixed tooth and very ready for some bowling and beer, I hopped in my car and vowed not to smile. The jagged tooth didn’t look totally hideous, but it limited my hook-up chances, which was really all I wanted for my birthday. Every time I imagined my jack-o-lantern countenance tears welled in my eyes.

The trip to the bowling alley was supposedly straightforward. “It’s at the end of Interstate,” Rusty had said.

Interstate was a new road in my slowly expanding Portland consciousness. Leaning over the steering wheel, I negotiated the rainy night. Interstate was a boulevard of liquor stores, slumping gas stations, and no-tell motels with garish neon signs cutting through the low-rent gloom. I passed one bowling alley but didn’t think it was THE bowling alley. The parade of amazing signs continued.

“Portland, I love you,” I said. It was an oft-recurring phrase in my early days with each new discovery in my newly adopted home.

Maybe I was dazzled, maybe it was the rain but the next thing I knew a sign reading “I-5 Only” appeared in my headlights and I could find no turn-offs in my brief and frantic search.

“Goddamn motherfucking shit,” I screamed.

The tears restarted. I had no clue where I was. I had never been on I-5. I knew enough to get on the southbound highway and felt a wave of relief wash over me when the lights of the city appeared on the horizon. The tears dried as I switched into TCB mode and made my way back to my apartment. As I parallel parked near my building, I experienced a momentary swell of pride in my Portland navigational skills. I didn’t feel so lost and hopeless. Even when I was thrown into a new city, I could find my way home.

Still. Worst. Birthday. Ever.

The next day I called in sick. I could not face punky bike messenger with a dagger tooth. My skeptical boss quizzed me on my improbable story, believing that I was in reality too hungover to come into work after an all-night b-day celebration. My tooth hurt way too much to smile or eat or talk, I claimed. And in that respect I was lying. It was my ego that hurt. I could not be seen with a fucked up mouth. I could not survive a hundred conversations about my lost pearly white.

The office that had advertised same-day appointments called me back. “Are you an established patient?” asked the receptionist.

“No, I’m new to town,” I said, believing this would activate the native Portlanders kindness to strangers gene.

“Sorry. We can get you in next week. Maybe.”

All morning the call-backs were a litany of disappointment. Desperate, I tried Willamette Dental again.

“I think we can squeeze you in at 3:00.”

“Thank you so so much,” I said, drifting back into my teary state. I felt grateful enough to offer up my first born child for the promise of a normal tooth.

A new dental bond was forged. Fate assigned me to Dr. Metz, a dentist who reminds me of a cheesy disc jockey mixed with my high school algebra teacher. “Heeeeyyy Katherine,” he says as I lay there open-mouthed. “How ARE you doing today?” I mumble something that doesn’t involve closing my mouth. “Terrific! Now let’s see what we got here.”

After a long stretch of wearing a temporary crown that was so obviously not my tooth it might as well have been gold, Dr. Metz fixed me up with a proper crown. I heard tales of dentists at fancier offices that gave out laughing gas and Valium to relax nervous patients. I saw advertisements for environmentally sustainable dentists. Sometimes I wonder if I should trade in Dr. Metz’s flat jokes, the smooshed together cubicle-offices, and the workmanlike Willamette Dental for something better. Search for a new John Schneider to inspire enthusiasm for flossing. But my gratitude has not yet run out.

After Dr. Metz finished with the poking and prodding and inspection of my tongue during my recent visit, my hygienist continued with the thankless task of de-tartarifying my teeth.

“No cavities,” she said with a smile, “but you have Gingivitis.”

The shock! The shame!! Wait. Isn’t Gingivitis an invention of Listerine?

“Oh no,” I said.

“Don’t worry. It’s reversible. You just have to start flossing,” she paused, “more carefully.”

“I will,” I said, fully intending to turn over a new flossing leaf.

One week later and I have not touched the plastic box of floss that taunts me every night.

“I really should floss,” I say to my reflection.

Oh, I have 5 months until we need to get started with all that.

* As played by the devilishly handsome John Schneider, a name that baffled my 8-year-old brain. I pronounced it John Skender until a fellow Bo Luke lover, Kim Rannells, blew my spelling and Dukes of Hazard-loving world open by revealing the true pronunciation. I could tell that she thought herself more devoted for knowing how to pronounce his name, but I let the moment of superiority go in favor of sharing pictures of the object of our crush cut out from TV Guide. I bragged to Kim that my dentist looked just like the pictures. On my next appointment, I studied my own personal Duke of Hazard, comparing him with the kiss-worn picture in my jewelry box. I was crushed when I realized that I had overstated the resemblance. He had the hair down, but the face was all wrong. I don't know if Kim ever found out about my exaggeration, but if she did, she did not use it against me in the dog-eat-dog world of the elementary school playground.

Bummer in Bummertown

2008-10-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hello my cruddy friends. It’s been awhile, yes? Sadly, the reasons for my absence do not include such awesome news as a bidding ware over my novel or I was sent on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. in the name of promoting crud. Someday. But for now I am the bearer of bummer news. I got pregnant again. I had a miscarriage again. Crap.

Writing about the pregnancy and just keeping my head above water at work absorbed much of my writing energy for the past few months. I started a new blog about pregnancy after miscarriage and proceeded to keep it a secret out of fear. Fear of another miscarriage, fear of opening myself up so thoroughly to the cold, hard internet, plain old icy fingers gripping your neck fear. But the desire to share the experience is finally overriding the fear. I don’t plan on posting all that I wrote about my second pregnancy—or first for that matter—but will post what I write as Mr. Crud and I continue our journey through post-miscarriage world on Crud blog 2 (electric boogaloo): The Peabody Project Chronicles 2 : Adventures in Pregnancy After Miscarriage. Posts about the non-miscarriage, endlessly fascinating stories of my life will contintue to appear with (hopefully more) regularity here.

In between musing on pregnancy and miscarriage, I hope to get going on assembling Crudbucket 8: The Infinite Issue. The writing is done, but the cutting out of odd pictures and taping to paper has not yet begun. As always, thanks for reading, commenting, caring, and keeping the cruddy faith.

My Cruddy Politics

2008-09-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

I haven’t gotten overtly political in my cruddy world, at least not the blog one, because there are a million political blogs out there and 9,999,999 of them are better done than anything I could hope to throw together. Why? Well, I’m a little lazy. Outside of school-required research papers, I’m no fan of digging up actual facts or quotes. I much prefer to make things up.

But ever since this Palin shit has hit the media fan, the voices in my head have been shrieking rebuttals to all the hockey moms and pundits and right wingers who have suddenly seen the feminist light and are screaming sexism about every criticism leveled at Madame Palin. Every morning while I attempt to practice yoga to soothe my tortured soul, letters to the editor unspool in my head. What exactly is a hockey mom? Why do we give a shit what kind of mother she is while ignoring what kind of politician she is? (Aside: make no doubt that if one of the Obama children—should they be at an appropriate age—was knocked up that the Republicans would be screaming bloody murder about their parents’ lax morals.) Don’t get me started on Maverick-My-Ass-McCain.

I am depressed at the continuing race to the bottom of the political discourse. Not to mention the short memories of the American public. The Republicans have been in power the last 8 years. The country is in a downward spiral because of their greed and war-mongering. A new set of Republicans will not change a thing but rather accelerate the spiral. They continue to dangle abortion and gay marriage in front of conservatives, using false dichotomies—either you are against abortion or you want to kill all babies—and scare tactics—if gays can marry, you will turn gay. It’s enough to make a gal tear her hair out. Or compose letters to the Oregonian never to be sent (150 word limit? Cracker, please. I can’t even say hello in 150 words or less). A prize of Cruddy Political Excellence to anyone who can edit me down to 150 words.

My Letter to the Editor:
Note to McCain/Palin supporters: unless you are a 7-house-owning member of the Republican elite--the party that brought you the last 8 years of war, economic downturns, and record deficits--you are being taken for another ride. More accurately, you are the horses dragging the McCain chariot towards tax-cuts for the rich, escalating war in the middle east, and continued corruption in the white house while the right wing dangles their usual raft of divisive issues—abortion, gay marriage—and downright lies before your eyes. John McCain has changed his position on issues from abortion to tax cuts to immigration to appease the extreme right wing of the Republican party. Any traces of the maverick he once was have disappeared in his clamor for the presidency. As for Palin, she began her vice presidential run by lying about her supposed objection to the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a project she supported until it was clear it would not receive congressional support. No matter, she kept the money anyway. A McCain presidency would mean four more years of war, economic turmoil, and the continued lowering of the standard of living for the middle and working classes. For true change, consider Barack Obama. Obama and Biden have the right blend of idealism and experience to affect true change for average Americans, us folks who make do with one house.

My short take:
(A feature in the Sunday Oregonian that invites readers to try their hand at pithy, political statements.)
Introducing the new Phyllis Schlaffly for the millennium: Sarah Palin. Two women who have built careers on rolling back rights for all women.

PS—I’ve been reading Syliva Boorstein’s Happiness is an Inside Job, which encourages metta (loving-kindness) meditation. When she asks us to extend our metta wishes to people we don’t like, the manically smiling updo-ed Palin pops into my mind. Not there yet, but working on it. In this insane political season, may you all find ease.

I Quit (Again)

2008-09-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

(Sorry for the lag in posts. Vacation, working on the new novel, and a heavier load at work has been keeping me from the crud. May this humble post tide you over until I find the time to get cruddy again.)

Two days ago I bid farewell to my toxic, forbidden love: cigarettes. Again. For the past 8 years I have been an on-again-off-again, casual, 3 cigarettes with a glass (or 3) of wine kind of smoker. I reassure myself that I will not tumble back to my pack-a-day habit because, when not sipping a fine alcoholic beverage, I find cigarettes disgusting and stupid. My cigarette stance is the height of hypocrisy. During the day I step by packs of huddling smokers between campus buildings, tossing off dirty looks like they toss their butts.

“The sign says 20 feet from the door,” I hiss under my breath.

In all fairness, do you know what 20 feet looks like? Me neither, which is why I am an artiste instead of an engineer. And most of those smokers look to fall on the artsy side of the spectrum so maybe I’ll redirect my blame at the campus policymakers who fail to demarcate the acceptable smoking places.

One day the pavement of this country will be striped with fluorescent orange lines marking where each brand of person can stand: the smokers, the overly perfumed and cologned (Iranian fellows who cluster outside Mr. Crud’s office door, I’m looking at you), the body odorific, the Patchoulied. (Is this the seed of an odor-based dystopia? A reason to resurrect the Odorama cards a la Polyester?) But for now, we police ourselves and do a pretty poor job of it. Some smokers are indignant about the limits put on their puffing freedom. I’ve never been one of these. The shit is harmful to the smoker and everyone else in the world. If you don’t feel like a slave for dashing to a designated smoking area in an airport like I used to do, then your denial is too deep for any of the tax hikes or increasing number of cordoned off smoking areas.

Once night falls and I have a drink or two (or 3) in me, I go googly for the smoker set. My people! I huddle along with the other smokers and suck on my sweet cancer stick. Although since experiencing secondhand smoke while pregnant, I feel guilty whenever a lady sporting a bump steps by. The super-smell power of pregnancy makes passing even a single smoker a gag-worthy event. So for the pregnant and small children, I make an effort to hold my cigarette above their heads. More a gesture of “I know what I’m doing is deadly and totally stupid” than an actual secondhand smoke avoiding heroic act.

I’ve quit several times in my storied smoking career. The big quit was summer of 1997 shortly after my doctor threatened to take away my birth control pill prescription if I failed to quit smoking. I weakly argued that the smoking-related blood clot warnings didn’t apply to women under 35, which I was at the time.

She shot me an icy glare, “35 comes faster than you think. Quit by your next appointment or we’ll have to reevaluate your birth control options.”

I left the office with tears of anger spilling from my eyes. Who the fuck was she to tell me what to do with my body? Bitch. I whipped out a smoke and puffed heroically as I stomped up Burnside towards my charming and smoke-stinky studio apartment. After the initial anger faded, I realized that this was as good a time as any to let the cigarettes go. They did make me feel like a slave to the habit and the evil companies that had the marketing wisdom to hook me in my teen years. Every time I lit up, an annoying voice in my head who I call “the Puritan,” castigated me for doing something so bad for me.

“So you think you’re healthy? Ha!” the Puritan sneered.

“But I exercise and eat right,” I whimpered.

“But I exercise and eat right,” the voice mimicked me like a 13-year-old. “Tell that to your tar black lungs.”

I resolved to quit. This was not my first try. A year earlier, I went the Nicotine gum route and promptly lost my shit from all the Nicotine coursing through my system after my first day’s allotment of gum. I got jittery, dizzy, and felt like I’d been drinking too much Robitussin. The next day, smoking a cigarette seemed like the healthier option than returning to the gum. Later while enrolled in the Free and Clear program paid for by my insurance, I realized that I had actually been taking in more nicotine with the gum than I did while smoking my light cigarettes. I also realized that most of my addiction was not physical but rather psychological. I wasn’t sure if this was better or worse.

With the Free and Clear program I successively switched to lower nicotine brand cigarettes until I was smoking Virginia Slims Ultra Lights, which felt like smoking polluted air. The day that I threw my last pack of the embarrassing Slims away, I awoke and tossed on my hiking shoes for a walk around the city. Change your habits. Do something out of the ordinary, the brochure urged. I rewarded myself for quitting cigarettes by getting stoned and buying a bunch of Adam Ant records before splurging on a huge pile of books at Powell’s and Pad Thai from Bangkok Kitchen. Baby steps.

As the novelty of quitting wore off, I got antsy. Walking by the convenience store around the corner from my apartment became a Sophie’s Choice chore. I was still on summer break at the time and not working thanks to the insurance settlement from a car accident in June that left my car “totaled” but drivable. In lieu of a real job, I took a few temp gigs and lived off the proceeds of the insurance settlement. Thus my days were yawning empty holes of lost chances to smoke cigarettes.

Since I was also a newly proclaimed WRITER, I decided to funnel my cigarette-deprived pain into my art. I wrote a vengeful horror story in which a young girl—could that be me?—attends a junior high school dance at her swim club and dances with one of the popular boys that is out of her social reach. The whole time they dance a crew of rat-faced popular girls chant insults at her, insinuating that cute, popular boy #1 is only dancing with her as part of a prank. The queen bee of the rat-faced bunch is drunk (of course) and ends up drowning during an illicit deep-end swim while our protagonist watches. Chaos ensues. The protagonist gets away with her inaction and after a bout of mild guilt, decides that bitchy popular girl had it coming. It was God’s way.

Killing off popular kids through fiction helped me quit smoking. Could this be a new method? I should probably suggest it to the artsy college lurkers.

After a few months of no cigarettes at all, I slid back into having a few when I went out to shows. A couple with a beer here and there. Mostly I bummed off the folks who’d been bumming off of me for years. All was well in the kingdom of occasional smoking. I was big into cardio kickboxing at the time so I would pay dearly for too many cigarettes with shooting pains in my lungs and an instructor barking at me to work harder. For years I remained a truly occasional smoker.

“I thought you quit,” my friends said at parties and rock shows.

“I did. I only smoke when I drink.”

And then at some point I started to have a few glasses of wine every night and the cigarettes came along for the ride. My limit to feel as if I hadn’t smoked was 2. My intake went up and down, stopped and started, but it grew into a mostly daily habit. My new doctor wasn’t super concerned about my cigarette habit. Overall I was healthier than 90% of her patients (thanks again, yoga), and she saw the cigarettes as more of an annoyance than a ticking time bomb. I’ll quit when I get pregnant, I reasoned.

And so I did.

In fact I quit when Mr. Crud and I started trying. But then after I started feeling what I thought were pre-period cramps, I purchased a pack to go with my martini post-haste. The next day I decided to take a pregnancy test to be sure that I was right with reverting to old bad habits. Oops! Positive. After sharing the news with Mr. Crud, I tossed the rest of the pack in the trash. Won’t be needing these for awhile.

I didn’t miss the cigarettes or wine while knocked up. I had no taste for them or 80% of food. When we got the diagnosis that I had miscarried, my mind found its initial consolation in “Well, at least I can smoke, drink, and eat sushi again.” Not a real consolation as we were devastated by the loss, but a lifeboat to grab onto while the reality sunk in.

“Do you think you’ll smoke tonight?” The nurse asked me before the D and C to end the pregnancy.

“Uh,” I blinked away tears.

“We’ll just say yes and not worry about it.”

I know that she meant it would be understandable to have a smoke or two while under such stress, but I took that as a green light to smoke my ass off. I’ll just smoke until this pack is done, I reasoned. My first few cigarettes after the pregnancy break were horrible. I felt dizzy and nauseous. If at first you don’t succeed…so I kept smoking and drinking until it was fun again. I didn’t stop at that pack. Or the next. I used the three months between the miscarriage and the potential try-again time as a no-holds-barred smoke-a-thon. Yep, I started smoking 4 cigarettes a night. Mon dieu!

Last weekend Mr. Crud and I attended a BBQ party at the abode of two of our oldest P-town friends—and old smoking buddies. Most in attendance had small children who zipped about the backyard in various states of undress and sugar rush. I sipped my wine and looked around for a corner to call my own. Where are the other smokers? At the parties of yore, even the backyards would be thick with smoke. After another glass of wine and eyes searching for anyone whipping out a lighter, I realized that I was the last smoker at this party. True, most of the attendants were parents or small children, but really? I cajoled Mr. Crud into joining me in the front yard for a furtive smoke. I puffed away on the front porch until a wee one joined us. I feared the wrath of the organic mother, a species common to Portland, and decamped to the sidewalk in front of the house. As I grow older this has (thankfully, as I want my friends to live to ripe old ages) become more common.

I declared I would quit Monday. Then I came eye to eye with the half-pack of smokes still in my purse. Okay, Tuesday. Still a few left. I put out my last cigarette on Tuesday night and thus far have successfully evaded the convenience store where I once purchased my poison.

My sweet sweet poison. Over the years I have contemplated the hold cigarettes have on me. I have tried the yoga route of being aware how I feel at every moment of the cigarette. The best part is undoubtedly the five minutes before I smoke, when the anticipation for the evening treat builds to a fever pitch. I sip my dinner wine and eye the remnants of Mr. Crud’s dinner plate.

“You done yet?” I ask, hoping beyond hope that he’ll say yes so I can tear out to the back patio and read the paper while I puff away.

The first drag always gives me a slight buzz, reminding me of my OG cigarette at the Catholic retreat where my ex-high school boyfriend and I briefly reconciled over Camel Filters. Part of my attachment to cigarettes is their tie to my youth. When I smoke I feel young—while making my skin more wrinkly, how ironic—and rebellious even though I consciously know that smoking is about as rebellious as wearing Guess jeans. Both are sold as rebellion while lining corporate pockets.

I love the smokers club, that I can have common ground with a stranger by virtue of a bad habit. I love the ritual, the flick of the lighter, the sweet burn of the first inhale. Shit, now I’m making myself want to smoke.

Even as I realize that the rituals of smoking, the connection are all my (and Phillip Morris’) creation, that any puff after the first one doesn’t feel like anything but a sore throat, I still struggle. I still think, I could just buy a pack, as I walk past the Plaid Pantry. Just one more pack. And one pack begot a second pack and so on and so on.

During my lunchtime walk, mere minutes after writing this, I passed the Plaid. Just one, I thought. For once I opted to not add another layer to my hypocrisy.

(Not so fast, lady. A week after penning this missive I returned to my smoking ways, but I’m back among the non-smoking now. 1 month, one week and counting.)

Sucker!

2008-08-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

(A lovely view of Mt. Tabor)

During the long dark teatime of the acute phase of my sprained sacroiliac joint, I rediscovered the joys of cycling. Instead of my morning yoga routine, I rode the long way to work—which happened to send me by the yoga studio where I tried not to lust after my mat as I pedaled by—to get my heart pumping. One Sunday the need for a cycling challenge bubbled inside of me. Although my bike is my primary form of transportation to work and around my hood, I am wimpy when it comes to cycling challenges. I will ride 10 blocks out of my way to avoid a hill. I call the final two-block incline to our house Hate Hill and am often muttering “hate, hate, hate” as I huff and puff the final yards. I have been known to dismount at the first sign of a steep incline. My years of living near the top of the West Burnside hill helped me to make some peace with riding uphill—and to lose 10 pounds—but still I flinch.

As I pondered my cycling options, my mental voice morphed into Chairman Kaga, the eccentric pepper-biter from Iron Chef who commands the battles with a dramatic “Allez cuisine!” (At least that’s the Kt translation.) The Kaga voice told me “For your next challenge, you must conquer Mt. Tabor.”

For those who do not live in Portland, Mt. Tabor is an inactive volcano nestled in the southeast part of the city (the only volcano within city limits in the US, trivia lovers) and also serves as a much-loved park. I tell you this because I don’t want to claim more credit than is due. Tabor is a bit of a slog but it’s no Mt. St. Helens.

My past attempts at riding up Mt. Tabor all ended in the dismount and walk method as soon as I reached the base. The ride to Tabor involves a steady uphill climb, which turned my wimpy leg muscles to jello before I could even take a bit out of the mountain itself.

The afternoon of my Kaga command, I pulsed with the manic energy of not-enough-yoga. I felt like a dog who’d been tethered to a pole for weeks, desperate to escape my dirt circle. I kissed Mr. Crud farewell and headed out on my bike. I took the trip to Tabor slow and easy, not blowing my wad trying to keep up with the Lance Armstrong speed demons that whizzed by. The weather was warm for Portland, but did not rate high on the misery index, although I looked forward to finding a cool spot atop the mount and hunkering in for some post-ride writing. (How artsy of me.)

I was breathing heavily once I reached the foot of Tabor. (Doesn’t that sound like an item on a fantasy novel quest? “Bring me the foot of Tabor, or DIE!!!”) Two runners beeped their car locked and started their own plod up the winding road. It took me a few minutes to pass them, which I did ever so slowly, but pass them I did and continued onward and upward, slowing down for some crossing pedestrians and taking in the joyful yelps from the playground near the top, but keeping my legs pumping. Sweat dripped from my arms and legs and I realized how much I missed the sweat-bath feeling of exertion. Once I reached the final climb and pulled into what I called the Victory Circle I could barely catch my breath.

“I….did….it,” I whispered to myself and relaxed into an easy lap around the circle.

Halfway around the circle I spotted two teenage gadabouts sitting on a bench up the hill from the Victory Circle. One sported an oversized Blazers jersey with pants worn just below the ass-line; the other wore a loose Budweiser tee with low-riding jeans.

(Time out: I know I’m old and all, but I really REALLY don’t understand the whole loose pants belted beneath the ass thing. Same thing goes for the ladies version: super tight hip huggers that cause the flesh of the stomach and ass to be smooshed over the belt line into a muffin top. I’ve road-tested both styles in the name of being down with the kids and found both to be unbearably, undisputedly uncomfortable. All theories are welcome. Now we resume our regularly scheduled, rambling story.)

The dudes sat wide-legged, loudly conversing in the whitey hip hop lingo of the day. I caught a “ho” here, a “bitch” there and then they collapsed into laughter and “Nawwwww.”

As I rode past, Blazer jersey hollered, “I’m going to have to give you a ticket for riding on this road.”

I snorted and continued on, but then I swear, swear to G-d, that I heard my name spill from his mouth, “Kt!”

And like a dog, my ears perked up and for reasons that I’ll chalk up to muscle fatigue-related punchiness, I swerved my bike around and headed towards the boys. (Or rather boyz.) Maybe he was a former advisee. In my previous profession I had advised the masses on university academic requirements and helped a few young ‘uns keep from failing out of school. You never know.

“Do I know you?” I yelled up to them, realizing the instant that the words left my mouth that I did not.

Shit. Hadn’t I learned my lesson in the line of duty of being a female in a world of hooting idiots who, for whatever reason be it feelings of powerlessness or superiority or boredom or desperation, feel compelled to yell at women? Hadn’t my junior high school times among the likes of Jim Parrish (where is he now and does he have roid rage?) who built a reputation for yelling at us awkward, self-esteem challenged girls, telling us we were hot/were turning him on/were looking good only to rip the rug out from under us by laughing uproariously should we look up from our heads-down misery march and believe him for the most momentary of moments? Instantly I flashed back to all the times I’d felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment and anger at the hands of Jim and his cronies. I also remembered that my name, Kt, has tripped me up before. If your name ends with an E sound, you feel me.

The dudes perked up at my approach. “What?” Blazer jersey asked.

“Oh, for a second you looked familiar to me. I thought I knew you,” I said. Smooth cover, Kt.

I turned my bike around.

“Do you know us?” Blazer guy asked in a mocking tone? “Do we look familiar?”

“No,” I yelled over my shoulder as I hightailed it to a spot on the opposite side of the mountain.

I settled into my pine cone blanketed piece of the mountain near a statue of one of a former Oregonian editor, and recounted my harrowing tale of junior high school recalling shenanigans to my always understanding journal. Every few minutes I checked over my shoulder to make sure that they hadn’t followed me. I felt silly, like I had fallen for an old trick, but instead of crying into a pillow as I relived the humiliation over and over—while wondering if maybe, secretly, Jim really did think I was hot, but was too caught up in the middle school bullshit to be able to act on his forbidden love*—I laughed.

Chairman Kaga would have been proud.

* This teen movie trope must die!

This is What Passes for Flirtatious Banter in My Life

2008-07-31T16:12:00.000-07:00

On my noontime stroll I detoured by the food cart row on SW 5th. As I reached the end of the line, I heard the sound of small change against pavement. I looked over my shoulder.

“This yours?” A 40-ish mulleted man with hoop earrings and Popeye biceps held up a shiny quarter.

I hit pause on the iPod. “I don’t think so.” I patted down the outside pocket of my messenger bag. A broken zipper had necessitated an evacuation of all quarters days ago.

“I think it is.” He held it up between us like it was a rare coin to be inspected and admired.

“Okay then.” I deposited it in my pocket. “Thanks.”

“So what are you up to today?” He asked like we were old buddies old pals.

“I’m going to get lunch,” I said.

In the moment between the l-sound and –unch, his face lit up.

“I thought you were saying ‘I’m going to get—“ he mouthed “laid.”

Such a gentleman to protect my virgin ears from crude sexual slang.

“-Unch. I’m going to get lunch.” I said , over enunciating the -unch part, as he beamed a lascivious smile.

And so I did. A mediocre bahn-mi sandwich from the same cart where I purchased a bento that had a few pieces of raw chicken mixed in with the rice. Strike three and you’re out, Asian Station.

I wondered if Quarterman staked out a spot in front of the burrito cart during the lunch hour, tossing good quarter after bad in search of that one special lady who would fall under the spell of his wit, who was going to get l-aid. Good luck to you, sir.

Pardon M-oi

2008-07-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

A short and incomplete list of stuff I’ve written for Crudbucket in the past few months but not posted:

• A way too long retelling of the first and only time I ever broke up with a boy. Bonus: Also includes story of the first time a boy broke up with me. Fascinating!
• A meandering short story about a philandering administrative assistant whose husband is accused of sexually abusing one of his students. This was inspired by a conversation I had with an Office Depot customer service representative who used my name way too much for a one-minute phone call.
• Exhaustive and exhausting account of my ongoing struggles in post-miscarriage/pre-should-we-try-again world.
• Tales of my days as a band lady (the drum and guitar kind, not the tuba and flute kind) and how I yearned to parlay my rock powers into bedding cute boys. Is there a groupie in the house? Ain’t I a bass player?
• A thingy about how I miss hating on the people who used to tape off spots for the Rose Festival parade.
• A theory about how Hummers and uber-masculine stuff is really gay.

As you see, I’ve been trying. And maybe one day soon, one or more of these exciting and enlightening pieces of crud will make their way to your screen. (Don’t hold your breath for that short story though. I have no idea where that came from.) But for the time being, I am letting them marinate in my own secret blend of herbs and spices. I don’t like to use this venue or any venue other than my journal to bitch about how I’m going through a tough writing period, but I gotta be honest with you, my awesome, generous, and forgiving readers: I’m having a tough writing period. Not a block per se. I can always scribble something on a page and later read it drunk and think “Brilliant!” but just a quality road bump of sorts.

Or, dare I say, was having a tough time of the writing?

Actually this last week I have witnessed the emergence of something shimmering and wonderful—an idea for a novel that I actually think I can finish. And I started writing it! And so far so good!! (And oh shit, I’ve probably just jinxed myself.) It’s easy starting a novel. Since finishing my first masterwork, I’ve started three. I’m convinced that I will return to each of them at some point in this life o’ mine, but for now I twirl around with this new idea, write when I have a chance, let ideas bounce around my head when I take my lunchtime walk, and block out the knowledge of the discouraging days ahead. Whenever I have an idea I secretly wish that I’ll sketch out an outline and some other force will write it for me while I sleep. Others have this notion too. Like the guy I work with who loves to tell me about all the “novels he has in him. I just need to write them down.” Well, that would be the trick, wouldn’t it.

So if I’m erratic (or erotic), please forgive me. I feel the tug of my blog and I will not leave it or you in the lurch. I am committed to putting out Crudbucket 8: The ??? Issue in the fall and already have a few nuggets o’ crud set to go. If any of the above ideas sound like something worth 5-10 minutes of your life, drop me a line or a comment. As always, thanks for taking a moment to share the crud.

Hambone Days

2008-07-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

“Will you still love me if I’m Hambone?” I ask Mr. Crud for the second time today.

“Yes, but you’re not going to be Hambone,” he says.

“You never know,” I say, shaking my head.

“Hambone” is our shorthand for morbidly obese. The OG Hambone was a sweet man so overweight that he could not leave his house. Richard Simmons tried to help him twice. He was on Oprah. Sadly, he died due to complications from his weight. RIP Hambone.

While I don’t believe that I’m going to gain weight of Hambone proportions in my rational mind, the body dysmorphic side of me forever taunts. Last week I injured my back (yet a-fucking-gain) attempting a yoga move that may have been slightly out of reach. I vividly remember thinking to myself Don’t be afraid. Be careful. Just try it. You’ll be fine. Since my first few back-caused time-outs from yoga, I err on the side of caution. When asked to move out of my comfort zone, I, despite the breathing and trusting my teachers, spiral into fear, into belief that I am about to injure myself so grandly that I’ll never do yoga or any other form of exercise again and will gain weight of Hambone proportions. Thus I will become somebody other than myself, I will not be liked nor loved, and every fear about my useless self will come roaring front and center.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of the Modern Woman’s Body Image. Maybe not all modern women, but certainly many of the women I know including some of the most fuck-you feminist ladies on the planet. The Beauty Myth rocked my world and gave words to the vague misery and fear that punctuated my young adult relationship with my body. It confirmed my suspicions that all this self-loathing was lining corporate pockets. In response, I wrote poems about strong, self-loving fat women. (Sadly, these poems are terrible.) I wrote stories. (Ditto.) I wrote an angry spoken word “piece” about my myriad of issues with my temple that I read at a yearly performance happening put on by my feminist buddies. I felt so fearless and hot that I thought it would get me laid for sure. (No dice.) I wiped my hands together. Well, that should take care of that. Not so fast.

In college I gained 80 pounds from my high school weight, or rather the weight I copped to on my drivers license, which was already a generous assessment. I did everything in my power to convince myself that I was beautiful, loveable, and worthy no matter what the scale said. Some days I believed it. But most of the time I caught my breath at the person whose image I caught in shop window reflections. Not the most delicate flower to begin with, I grew even clumsier as my brain hadn’t quite adjusted to my wider girth. I felt like a tank. I grew angry at all the fat-phobic fuckers that I found everywhere. Whenever a guy didn’t like me or want to make out with me, I blamed my weight. The fat-phobic lurked everywhere even in the progressive, punk circles where I moved. Could it be that the fellows and ladies weren’t so turned off about my body as my suspicious, angry attitude? Nah, of course not. It’s all about flesh, baby. Personality shmersonality.

In a fit of self-improvement and wanting to be able to climb a flight of stairs without degenerating into a heaving red-faced jelly of a woman, I turned to Jane Fonda. Her Fabulous Fat Burners set me back on the road to fitness. Over the years my fitness fix has taken many forms: from fat burners to fighting the insanity (I still have a soft spot for Susan Powter) to the weirdly Christian Tae Bo to cardio kickboxing to Pilates to yoga. Through all the phases, one thing remains the same: I gotta move. My weight goes up and down. Sometimes I can fit into the skinny jeans, some days it’s back to the more forgiving 501’s but as long as I have my morning yoga*, I trust that I’m staying within the range of what’s good for me. Not to mention all the spiritual, emotional, etcetera etcetera benefits that come with yoga. (Have I mentioned that you REALLY should give yoga a shot?)

But when I get injured, I get scared. First that I will immediately regain the 80 plus pounds that I’ve lost. Then, after I am again unable to climb stairs or ride my bike or smile without feeling the claustrophobic spread of my 5 new chins, I will lose my shit because my source of calm, my sweet prana conduit will have dried up over the week that I cannot do yoga. In short, I will be fat and sad.

The fear has complicated the most simple of interactions:

“Hey Kt, you look great,” says long time friend who I haven’t seen in awhile.

“Thanks, so do you.” I say while thinking: Does he mean I didn’t look great last time? Have I lost weight? Gained weight? Is he just being nice? Will he say that I look great the next time we see each other after I have become Hambone? Why does it matter what I look like? Oh G-d, I knew it, all guys care about is looks. Even if I’m funny, smart, cool, it’s not enough. Always gotta look great or else. Shitfuckshitfuckshit. Wait, that’s dumb. He’s a cool guy. We’re old friends. That’s what friends say to old friends. I’m married for fucks sake. Oh man, but I wanna look great. I want all people to think I am the most ravishing beauty they’ve ever seen. But they shouldn’t stare. No, that would freak me out.

“So what’s been going on with you,” he asks.

“Well, I hurt my back.”

I hope I haven’t raised the dander of any loud and proud fat ladies in the crud-loving audience. If I could kick my fear of fat’s ass, I would totally challenge it to a cage match. I have my own love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with my fat fear. Where does the love come in? Part of me is glad that I have this fear to motivate me to not fall into the abyss of uncontrollable weight gain. Though if I was okay with myself at whatever poundly state I find myself in then….ugh, I am giving myself a headache. The hate is obvious. I would feel much freer and happier if I could simply appreciate this old house for its health, for being a worthy vehicle of that namaste part of me, you know, the infinite soul part. (Is it possible to have a fat soul? Don’t answer that.)

I blame society. And my mom (“You’d be so pretty if only you lost ___ pounds.”). And my skinny (and later anorexic) childhood neighbor Donna who cajoled me into giving a strip show for the neighborhood kids and then made fun of my jiggles. And all the boys who wouldn’t date me because I was “big.” To their credit, or to the credit of their discrete friends, they never said fat, just big. Big? I imagined my crush boys as tiny Jacks trying to climb a beanstalk to kiss me. Mostly I blame society, the beauty industry, and—what the heck—capitalism for fucking up all people, large and small about their own bodies.

My first post-feminist way of dealing with this fear was denial. No, no, really, I’m fine. I don’t want any ice cream because I don’t like ice cream. Now I’m giving honesty a shot along with all the other Buddhist yoga techniques that I can muster. I will meditate on it, have compassion for myself and (grit teeth) the forces of society that instilled this fear and hatred of fat, and spill a cajillion innocent words over the state of my body and how I feel about it.

Not to mention ask Mr. Crud to the point of eye rolling if he’ll still love the Hambone me.

*Last night Mr. Crud told me about the new yoga class he’s taking. I grilled him about what poses they did, hanging on every word like he was sharing an exciting new adventure. “Oh yeah, warrior, and then what?” You’ve heard of the Food Channel as food porn. Do you know where I can get some yoga porn?

**Hold the phones. I didn’t mean it like THAT. Ew. My mental retinas are permanently seared.

Kineahora, M-f-er

2008-06-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

I receive an email from a former coworker who I haven’t seen in a few years. Sorry for your loss, it says. Which loss?, I think, my first clue that the last few years have been a bit rough-going for the Cruds.

In summer 2005, my father died after a protracted battle with colon cancer. The entire family was able to say good-bye to Dad even though by the time we were sniffling our good-byes he could not respond. His eyes were vacant, his body a pale, splotchy shadow of parts that had once been so familiar and comforting. The chest where I’d buried my head hundreds of times, the arms that tossed me basketball after basketball while I shot free throws, the almost comically long, lean legs that turned most pants into highwaters. After all the chemo, the slow and cruel loss of his ability to read or make sense of a TV show, and a wasting away so pronounced that he was barely recognizable, we gathered around him, told him it was okay to let go, and watched as the life drained out of him. I wish it had been some spiritual awakening, some moment when I felt the presence of G-d or a portal to another plane of existence, but the image that sticks with me is watching the flutter of his pulse on his neck, the frantic beating as his heart made its last, best attempt to keep doing what it had been doing for 60 years, and then the stillness, the tears, my final kiss on his cheek. He died with his family surrounding him. I read this phrase in obituaries and the scene comes alive to me all over again. With terminal cancer, this is all you can ask for. This constitutes a good death. Pretty fucking relative if you ask me.

Next in the shitty-shitty-bang-bang loss parade came the death of my grandfather last fall. Again, cancer. He’d survived two bouts of cancer: one when I was in high school and wasn’t told that he had cancer until my parents packed my brother and I into the car to visit him in the hospital, and another round at the same time that my dad had entered into what would be his final tango with the metastatic cells of doom. The third bout, after Dad’s death, got him. And got him mercifully quick. Despite a painfully swollen lump on his calf, he put off going to the hospital for fear that the doctors wouldn’t allow him to go on one of the international trips that had filled his life since the death of my grandmother. Finally he relented. He went to the hospital. He was dead within a week. Of course I was sad, sadder still that my final attempts at calling him were a wrong number and I lost my chance for one last “I love you.” But grandparents are supposed to die. I feel lucky that he had lived so long. Long enough to see me grow out of my purple-haired combative phase and long enough for me to see him as a man greater than the sum of grandpa parts.

Sorry for your loss. And they surround me. Losses. Plural.

Last night Mom called. The test results that I had been trying not to worry about since she told me about the test the previous weekend were in. “I didn’t get the news I wanted,” she said. The small lump found on a routine mammogram was malignant.

One parent with cancer is bad luck. Two? That’s destiny. This cancer is somebody I’m going to meet whether I want to or not. I really should quit smoking. Rob the cancer of the home base that would cause self-loathing beyond belief. I picture the satisfied smirks of all those who have warned me to quit throughout the years. (Reality check—people don’t typically smirk to your face when you announce you have cancer, but they engage in some head-shaking tsk-tsking when you’re out of earshot.) Recently I read an essay by a woman whose father died of throat cancer. “Did he smoke?” is always the first question people ask when she shares the cause of her father’s death. Until reading this, it never struck me how fucked up of a question that is. The real questions asked being: Did he deserve cancer? Am I safe from it?

I consider cutting off my breasts, robbing cancer of another potential command center. I can no longer content myself with the belief that Dad’s colon cancer came from a lifetime of meat, that I can escape his fate with the help of diet, yoga, and early colonoscopies. My mom has experienced some bouts of sedentary lifestyle, of less-than-healthy eating but for the most part she follows the guidelines. No alcohol, no smoking, vegetables out the wazoo. Still. Cancer. I am nowhere near the guideline follower that she is. I have a checks and balances theory. Sure, I have a few smokes and glasses of wine but I eat my greens, drink of the antioxidant rich green tea, and overachieve in the exercise department. My theory seems ludicrous now. I feel crosshairs on my cells, and I don’t know how to rearrange them or pump them up with a rousing anti-cancer pep talk to escape the bulls-eye.

Through this entire storm, I’ve remained relatively sane. I cry sometimes but I haven’t crossed over into rage until now. Something is boiling and it isn’t tonight’s pasta water. Thanks again, G-d. This is about what I should expect from the being who let the Holocaust happen. Or Darfur. Or any one of a million other words that signify pain, suffering, and misery. Typhoon, anyone? Tsunami? Taunting G-d isn’t the best strategy. I know this. I’ve seen G-d’s work and know that it can get much, much worse than a first trimester miscarriage and an early cancer diagnosis. A new niece is on the way, my sister-in-law’s due date in July. Kineahora! It’s an old school exclamation to scare off the evil eye. You’ll probably be hearing a lot of it.

PS--News from Mom is relatively good, as good as it can be in breast cancer universe. Also my niece, Lyla Crud, was born on Saturday. See? It's not all bummers in bummertown.

Namaste?

2008-06-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

Namaste is a Sanskrit word, meaning (loosely) “the divine light in me honors the divine light in you.” It can be a greeting, an email sign-off for people who work at Yoga Journal, but most often you will find namaste-s being murmured at the end of yoga class as a way for the teacher and students to honor each others’ efforts.

During today’s noontime walk around downtown Portland, I waited at a corner for the green light so I could cross. Construction is rampant. The intersection clogged. Just as the light was about to change, three cars rushed into the intersection, blocking—as they say in our nation’s capital—the box. My pedestrian comrades and I snaked our way through the cars. The buttoned-down fellow walking towards me slowed down as he stepped in front of one of the box-blocking cars. He shook his head and threw the driver an “I’m very disappointed in you” look. I met his eye. I smiled. Is there a Sanskrit word that expresses “The annoyed pedestrian in me honors the annoyed pedestrian in you?” I so need to learn that word.

Hey Check Us Out!

2008-06-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

After reading my profile, some of you ask, "What exactly is a Gollipopp?" That is a hard question to answer, my friends. I hope this slice of Gollipopp-hood will alleviate some of the mystery. Here we are playing our hit, Carpe Meridian Per Diem at the Galaxy Hut in Arlington, Virginia somewhere in the late '90s. I cannot be seen as I am crouching down to play the Casio. Those random weird keyboard noises? All me. Before I was writing crud, I was playing it.

This post may be labelled Blast Off Country Style. Chaudbaise was a member of BOCS before dedicating his full attention to the Popps.

The Passover Seder: My Own Private Everest

2008-06-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

Mr. Crud is a loud and proud, though not particularly observant, member of the tribe. No judgment here. I am of the annoying majority of Americans that are unaffiliated with any one religion, but claim to be spiritual. (Or rather “spiritual” or spiritual depending on how you want to say it while rolling your eyes.)

Between the Buddhism I absorb from Yoga Journal and my childhood image of G-d as Santa Claus, I’ve cobbled together a Kt religion that if held up under even the weakest of dime store magnifying glasses in the light of day would burst into flames. Aside from being baptized by Reverend Roach (the coolest thing about my baptism was his name), a few grandmother-induced trips to church, and a brief high school flirtation with Catholicism thanks to the punk rockers in the youth group, I have steered clear of steeples, temples, and mosques.

Three times a year Mr. Crud gets a yen to return to his Jewish roots. Chanukah is my favorite: lighting candles, eating latkes, and exchanging presents. What’s not to love? This year I proudly said the prayers without relying on the transliterations sitting next to the flickering candles on the menorah.

Rosh Hashanah is trickier. I’m all for celebrating new beginnings, but my main emotion during Rosh Hashanah services, if it can be called an emotion, is boredom with a side of outcast anxiety. Mr. Crud has taken me to some pretty liberal congregations, but still, I stick out like a tall blonde with Nazi blue eyes. Not knowing any of the prayers or songs doesn’t help either. I gave Rosh Hashanah a chance, but not having grown up bathed in G-d language, I find myself rolling my eyes at all the praise and unable to turn off my bratty critical brain. Man, this seems like overkill for a supreme being that let the Holocaust happen. Sorry to bring up the H-word, but every time I read this overflowing praise, it bobs to the surface. Not to mention the kazillion other evils of the world. We are dealing with an angry G-d. Rather the Jewish folk are dealing with an angry/loving G-d. My Santa G-d is all-forgiving and exerts minimal control over the affairs of humans. Santa G-d is too busy drinking martinis and reading dlisted. (I was made in her image after all.)

Yom Kippur is a non-starter. I’ve never attended a service. I don’t fast. I’m not big on atonement. I hope that my attempts at self-improvement--yoga counts for something, right?—have covered my mortal soul. Frequently this holiday falls on a workday so I don’t look like such a dick for opting out of an opportunity to share Mr. Crud’s culture. I think that those attending the service would thank me for skipping. Don’t let me get hungry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.

Enter Passover. I like the idea of Passover, a holiday to celebrate freedom from bondage. Plus there’s mandatory wine drinking and a large meal. There is a catch. The meal comes after a lot lot lot of praying, singing, reading of stories, and, as this is a gathering of Jewish folk, discussion about the meaning of those stories.

My first Passover seder was part of Mr. Crud’s and my mission to find a rabbi to marry us. We had attended services at a Jewish renewal congregation before and, for the most part, they were a kind and accepting bunch. However they liked to sing and dance and both Mr. Crud and I found the proceedings to be a bit cheesy. Part of what he was seeking by attending the seder was a connection to his family and past seders. The tunes were unfamiliar, the service wasn’t what he expected, and ultimately the rabbi had other obligations around the time of our wedding.

“Can we leave now?” I whispered mid-seder after hearing that the rabbi crossed himself off our list of possible officiants.

Mr. Crud nudged my knee. “Not yet. It’s not over.”

But I want to drink wine and smoke a cigarette. I pouted. The Jews are always keeping me from the fun stuff.

Like eating.

The common thread that runs through my experience of the seders I’ve attended is a whining voice that pounds in my head--“Why won’t the Jews let me eat?”—until dinner is served and the voice is drowned out by wolfish eating noises and snarling at anyone who dare come between me and my brisket.

Passover seder 2008 was promising. Hershel*, a college friend of Mr. Crud’s hosted along with his goyish girlfriend, Heidi*. When we arrived, Hershel was setting out a plate of cheese and matzo, putting my mind to rest. Ah, maybe it won’t be test of my hunger denial powers. Heidi dipped canned macaroons in chocolate.

Sarah* arrived next, lugging a huge pan of brisket and a Pyrex of kugel. As the introductions continued, along with the ceremonial complimenting of each other’s fine taste in seder wear, I realized I’d met Sarah before.

8 years ago in a fit of volunteerism—one which I try to kick-start every few years but hasn’t taken yet—I offered my services to the local feminist bookstore. Mostly a volunteer operation, they relied on the kindness of strangers to keep the goods and services flowing. I signed up to work the cash register. My retail experience was limited to a few years at a local record store during high school, but I was confident things hadn’t changed too much in the past 8 years.

In full-on eager beaver mode I arrived at the bookstore for my appointed shift. Sarah stood behind the cash register, phone cradled on her shoulder. I walked around the stacks of books for awhile, pretending to browse while waiting for her to hang up so I could introduce myself.

“Hello, I’m a fellow warrior in the fight against sexism. Nice to meet you.” I would say.

By the time she hung up, I had memorized the magazine rack. She started to dial again. I tripped over my feet getting to the cash register.

“Hi! I’m Kt. I’m a new volunteer and I believe you are my trainer.” I said it with a false cheesiness, trying to salvage an essentially dorky moment.

“Oh. Hey.” She put the phone down and held out her hand. “Sarah.” She poked her lip piercing with her tongue. “I need to make one more phone call then I can introduce you to the exciting world of feminist bookstores.”

I liked her sarcasm immediately. We were feminists but we didn’t need to be all spazzy about it.

I poked around the literature section, scanning the shelves for any out-of-order titles. When I signed up, I meant it. I was raring to alphabetize, reorganize, recommend while keeping an eagle eye out for shoplifters. While Sarah talked, I neatened and re-shelved before settling down on the floor with an Adrienne Rich book I’d meant to check out. Sarah’s bland chatter blended with the low-volume Ani Difranco. Some day I will pick out the music, I thought. I caught a glimpse of some Sleater-Kinney behind the desk. That would do just fine.

Another half hour passed before Sarah called me up to the register. She ran me through how to ring a sale, how to run a credit card, and showed me the big book of information should I find myself in a pickle. All the animation of her phone call voice vanished as she explained the ropes of feminist bookstoring.

“I guess that’s it until closing,” she said with a shrug.

I looked at the clock. Closing was two hours away.

“How long have you been working here?” I asked.

“A few years. I don’t know. Forever.” She laughed.

“Cool.”

Overly long pause.

“So, do you like it?”

“It’s okay.”

Overly long pause part two.

“Look, if you just want to hang and check the place out, I have some calls I gotta make,” Sarah said.

Call she did. I, on the other hand, found other sections of the store to memorize. A few customers meandered in the store. I hung back. Maybe I should give up-selling a whirl. “Would you like a Sexism is a Social Disease bumper sticker with your Off Our Backs?” During my record store days the concept of overbearing customer service was in its fetal stage. Our job was more to make sure that the rap and country sections remained secure against the parade of juvenile delinquents and burping Chesapeake Bay patrons who wandered along the strip mall.

I decided to keep my aggressive sales tactics in the realm of fantasy.

Whenever a customer stepped to the counter to make a purchase I raced to Sarah’s side to observe. A few times Sarah let me ring up a purchase while she and the phone headed to a more private part of the store.

A million crawling minutes later, closing time came.

Due to a scheduling error, the next time I signed up to work I was alone. No Sarah to offer even the most lackadaisical of guidance. I did the best I could, but a month had elapsed between Sarah’s tutelage and my leap into solo retail waters. At the end of the night, I couldn’t figure out the register and may have, in fact, fucked it up totally. I left a note of apology and never went back again. In the intervening years, I blamed Sarah for her poor training, her lack of desire to initiate me into the ways of the non-profit bookstore.

At the seder, Sarah didn’t show any signs of recognizing me. I was more than happy to play along that this was our first meeting. I have an uncanny ability to remember faces, leading to many conversations that go like this:

“Hey Blahblahblah! How’s it going?” I ask.

“Uh, hey.” Total confusion clouds Blahblahblah’s face.

“I’m Kt from the Dingdongery?”

“Oh yeah. Hey.”

It’s a nice skill to have, but it’s no way to live. Such exchanges inevitably end with me turning to Mr. Crud and uttering, “Am I so freaking forgettable?”

After Sarah, another couple entered, Moishe* and Francoise*, the third Jew-Goy pairing of the night. “We’re doing our part to fight Tay-Sachs disease,” Moishe joked later in the night. Ah, Tay-Sachs disease. A few weeks ago Mr. Crud and I sat in our genetic counselor’s office talking about how our divergent genetic ancestries made this disease an unlikely threat in my pregnancy. Then came the ultrasound of doom.

The final sederite, Rachel*, arrived and we got down to business. Wine poured, the seder plate with the traditional horseradish, lamb shank, charoset, egg, parsley and the non-traditional orange set in the middle of the table, we cracked open the Haggadah chosen for the night’s proceedings because it was foreign to all participants. No home court Haggadah advantage in this seder.

Haggadahs are chock full of prayers, songs, stories, pictures, poems, along with remembrances written by the author of each edition. The creator intends that the participants will pick some parts while discarding others. I was aware of the cherry-picking nature of the Haggadah so I didn’t panic when I noticed it was 60 pages long.

Then we got going. The round robin plan quickly fell apart so people just spoke up whenever they felt the spirit—is that you, Elijah?—move them.

A tickle of panic took root. They were reading everything, even the silly poem about seder preparation. My head spun when we reached the list of necessary steps for a seder and Hershel read them aloud, both the Hebrew names and two translations. My stomach growled.

I had done my best to prepare for the late dinner. I ate a huge burrito at 2:30. I snacked on peanuts and whole grain crackers minutes before we left for Herschel’s house. I ate my share of cheese and matzo when we arrived. But the hunger hit me mid-“discussion” about whether Israel was more oppressive than other nations of the world. Moishe took the typical lefty view that Israel was illegal, wrong, cruelly and unusually oppressive to the Palestinians, etc. while Mr. Crud countered that most countries were, including our own.

Why won’t the Jews let me eat? My inner voice brought it loud and strong. My blood sugar plummeted. I looked around the room like a caged dog. These kind strangers had invited us into their home. How could I ask that they put the brakes on all the talking and get to the part where dishes of kugel and brisket circled the table? In such low blood sugar situations, things can go one of two ways: I cry or I lose my shit and start yelling at people. As the second of the options seemed the most likely to upset Mr. Crud and everyone else, I started crying. First intermittently and sporadically enough that I could—I hope—play it off as allergies. I sucked down wine—really not helping the situation—and broke off chunks of matzo to nibble at every chance.

Only bits and pieces of the conversation—“Well, I don’t know what the Native Americans would say about that?”—penetrated my wall. Rachel ran interference. She hunted for middle ground between Mr. Crud and Moishe. Sarah clapped. "I love these discussions!" I sniffled. I tried to think of past seders, to laugh at this seemingly inescapable element of my own private seder hell, but those laughs were too far in the distance for me to hear.

Then the talk somehow turned to wombs and pregnancy and the dreaded c-word. (How I wish it had been cunt.)

“So, do you all want children?” Sarah asked, looking in Mr. Crud and my direction.

“Eventually,” Mr. Crud said, not betraying the tiniest hint of our recent ordeal.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I mumbled as I clattered from my chair and attempted to stanch the sobs that choked me.

I closed myself in the bathroom and took deep breaths. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival pamphlet distracted me, but fat tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this,” I whispered to the empty room.

I stood up. I took another deep breath. I looked in the mirror. “You have to do this.”

Before the seder I psyched myself up through the invocation of yoga, that attending this and supporting Mr. Crud would simply be practicing seva (or service). I tried to remember yoga, to remember breathing through periods of discomfort. I opened the bathroom door. Mr. Crud stood outside.

“Are you okay?”

All my hard tear-drying work down the drain. “I can’t do this,” I said, falling into his arms.

Eventually the tears dried enough to return to the table. The crowd had dispersed in search of the afikomen, a piece of matzo broken off and hidden as a game for kids to find.

“Is everything okay?” Hershel asked us.

“I’m not feeling well,” I said, looking down for fear of bursting into tears again.

“I think we need to eat,” Mr. Crud said. My hero.

A fine feast of matzo ball soup, salad, asparagus, kugel, and brisket followed. Nary a word escaped my mouth aside from a few grunts of approval over each course. I glanced at my watch. 9:00. Dinner at 9:00? Are they mad? Do they know who they are dealing with? I recounted my ordeal to my pal Dawn the next night. Sometimes I think Dawn and I share a stomach we are so much on the same eating schedule. “Hell no. What were they thinking?” She granted me permission to call her should I find myself in a similar situation in the future. Lasagna was promised.

Dinner ended with the required Clinton v. Obama debate, which was likely a part of many seders around the country, and me barely restraining my frequent watch-checking. A few more prayers and then the clean-up. I cleared a few dishes and saran-wrapped the potato salad and charoset Mr. Crud made for the seder. While everyone else busily scraped dishes clean and divvied up leftover brisket, I pulled Mr. Crud aside.

“Now?” he asked

I nodded.

I wondered if we’d ever see these people again.

We walked to the car, Mr. Crud’s arm around my shoulder.

“Thank you for sticking it out.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

The silver lining to all the recent shit of our lives has been the strengthened bond between Mr. Crud and me. We survived a miscarriage. We survived another fraught seder. I didn’t let my inner voice migrate to the outside. Though maybe if it had I would have found the answer to the question that plagues me, the question that should be added to the official 4 questions asked—maybe the wicked child could swap out the usual question for this one: Why won’t the Jews let me eat?

I understand delayed gratification, but really, trust a goy on this one, you’re taking it too far.

*Names have been changed to protect the seder participants. Haven’t they suffered enough?

Who's Zooming Who

2008-05-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

The bicycle is my chosen mode of transportation. I’m midway between a geared-up speed racer who sport the clickety clack shoes and body-hugging fluorescent unitards, and the schlumps who look like they picked the nearest bike off the ground and got to pedaling. Three mildew-ridden hoodies and a million wet-assed workdays later, I invested in an actual raincoat and the padded butt pants, which I call my ass pants named for a Beck song that bounces around my brain whenever I slip them on. Shock of shocks: These small concessions to bike culture actually make cycling in the rain and cold far more pleasant. I no longer have the pleasure of feeling all hard-core and judgmental of the speed racers while sporting my moldy sweatshirt, and have mostly halted my sneering at the bedecked bikers as they whiz by.

Although sometimes I wonder (judgmentally of course)—is all the shiny corporation-endorsing wear necessary? Drivers don’t dress up like Mario Andretti for the morning commute. I hate to be a playerhater (one word? Hyphenated? Playa instead of player?) but the speed racers evoke rolled eyes for a reason. Feel someone riding your tail on the Hawthorne Bridge, grunting in annoyance that you aren’t racing to the finish? Speed racer! Who is that gliding by your spot at the front of the bike line at the stoplight? Motherfucking speed racer!! In their spandex-glowing eyes, they are soo much faster than you and they can’t even wait to pass you honestly. Ever so unsubtly they jump the line of cyclists, not meeting your eye, before the light turns green and they furiously pedal away, dusting all the cyclist social contract-abiding folk.

Alas this final habit is not limited to the speed racer. I call him the Wicked Witch of the Southeast.

He earned his title the first day that he pulled a stoplight pass on me at the corner of SE 21st and Division. His bony jutting elbows and flowing wavy blonde hair evoked the Miss Gulch theme music from Wizard of Oz. I’ll get you my pretty. The early days of our rivalry (I mean, my rivalry) I would be hot on his traffic-laws-be-damned heels all the way to my yoga studio, shaking my fist as he peeled off to go to work at the corner near the studio.

I’ll get you my pretty!

Most of the time he rode ahead of me, his ill-gotten gains a result of his willingness to run lights and ignore stop signs. He passed me at every stoplight where I dutifully waited for the green. Then my schedule changed and he became an old war story (or actually a story to demonstrate how insane I can be and how I form weird rivalries at the slightest provocation.) I started seeing him everywhere off his bike.

Walking around my neighborhood, I elbowed Mr. Crud in the gut. “That’s him, the Wicked Witch,” I hissed. (Not the hugest of coincidences since living in the same neighborhood was the set-up for our close encounter of the idiotic kind.)

“Does he know who you are?” Mr. Crud whispered.

“You mean the insane woman who seethes with hatred whenever he passes her on a bike? I hope not.”

The Wicked Witch looked up from the furniture he was eyeing outside a vintage store.

Our eyes met for a brief moment. Did he? Nah.

Soon after, I bumped into him at the bookstore where he worked. I looked him straight in the eye as he passed me by, his nametag flipping in the wind caused by his swift gait. I considered following him around the store, gathering more information on who the Wicked Witch was when he wasn’t pissing me off on the road.

I brought the information back home with me. Mr. Crud had once worked at the same bookstore as the Wicked Witch and I had the witch pegged as a sci-fi geek, a club to which Mr. Crud also belongs.

“You work with him?” I asked Mr. Crud.

“Never saw him in my life until the other day.” Mr. Crud said, kindly refraining from telling me I was batshit crazy for caring.

Fast forward 2 years. I’m a working woman again. 9-5. And who should also get off work at the approximate same time and ride the same way home. Yeah, baby.

When I first spotted him ahead of me, I felt a thrill. Wicked Witch! Where have you been? I pulled up close behind him, breath-down-the-neck distance. The light turned green. I hung close, remembering a phrase my old basketball coach used to describe the optimal defensive strategy: “stick with your man like flies on stink.” I am the fly. Sir, you are the stink. I sacrificed some of my traffic law analities, running a few lights and passing on the right, to stay on his tail until we hit the Hawthorne bridge. I jammed on the pedals and waited for my passing opportunity. He didn’t know what hit him. I pulled easily ahead and pushed myself until I was panting for air.

The rest of the ride home was a perfect storm for my victory. No stoplights for him to pull his patented move and there was even a chance for me to slide through an intersection just before a line of cars approached, leaving my dear witch in the dust. Victory was sweet. I didn’t see him the rest of the ride. I was the faster rider. We both knew that. I have passed him on several occasions the honest way: both of us pumping our legs, going for the gusto on the leaf littered streets of Ladd’s Addition. This time his dirty tricks couldn’t save him.

At home, I flung open the door and jumped into the befuddled Mr. Crud’s arms. “I won!! I really beat him!!”

He knew exactly who I was talking about. “The witch?”

I nodded, raised my arms above my head. “Woo hoo! Catch this, motherfucker!”

“Well, bully for you.”

After my victory, some of the magic of the race wore off. Now I get more pleasure from riding his ass and seeing him turning his head to the side, twitching to get a glimpse of me and trying to gauge whether now is the moment when I’ll go for it. On high-spirited days, I’ll see him ahead and whisper, “It’s on.”

Perhaps it’s time for me to move onto bigger prey. Watch out, speed racers, your days are numbered.

Nobody puts Kt in a corner.

* Special thanks to the Wicked Witch for making my commute an adventure and for the extra calories burned in trying to burn you. Also, sorry for torturing you.

** I wrote this a couple of years ago but opted to leave it in the vault to marinate. Yesterday I encountered the Wicked Witch for the first time in months and felt inspired to bring you this tribute (to my pettiness and insanity). Such is the life of a transhole. As is his way, he whooshed past me while I waited at a stoplight.

The Miscarriage Avenger

2008-05-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

Since joining the silent yet large miscarriage sisterhood, I’ve gone through the stages of loss: guilt, depression, denial, bargaining, wine, cigarettes, and acceptance. While I still think about our loss every day, it’s starting to be absorbed into my psyche like a vanishing twin. It comes up when I have to tell yet another yoga teacher that I am no longer pregnant.--4 down, 1 to go on that count—or when I happen upon a baby bump at a vulnerable moment. Tears come to my eyes. I take a deep breath. I force myself not to figure out what week in my pregnancy I would be in at this moment if the worst hadn’t happened.

When not coming to terms with the sadness, I feel more than a hint of anger at the widespread misconceptions about miscarriage, the insult to injury that women who miscarry must endure at the mouths of misunderstanding, even if well-meaning friends and family, and the widespread ignorance about this common experience.

I fantasize about becoming the Miscarriage Avenger. I will wear a blood red cape, littered with all the hairs that fall out once the pregnancy hormones die down. Would blod clots be too gross? Yes. Although true to the yucky experience of passing the conceptus. MA in silver sequined cursive is scrawled across my chest inside of a heart.

Wherever a woman cries after hearing from yet another friend that “It just wasn’t meant to be,” I will be there.

“What did you just say?” I ask, laser blue eyes shaming a hole in the friend’s forehead.

“Who are you?” Asks the meant-to-be spewing friend.

“Not important. What IS important is that you never ever never tell a woman who has experienced a pregnancy loss that it wasn’t meant to be. What kind of new age crap is that? Are you saying that God is a raging asshole who derives pleasure from messing with the emotions of loving couples everywhere? Please do explain…”

“I, er, I never thought of it that way,” says clueless friend. She turns to her weepy friend. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just didn’t know what to say.”

I continue. “Even though there technically is no child in a miscarriage, parents still experience it as a loss. A loss of potential, a loss of their hopes and dreams. Would you ever tell someone that their Dad died because it was ‘meant to be’?”

“Well, maybe—“

“Silence! Another issue for another day,” I say, hands on hips a la the superhero stance. My silver sequined cape flaps in the wind. I look to the crowd that’s gathered. “Listen up, people! Think before you say that anything, no matter how wonderful or sad, is ‘meant to be.’”

The Miscarriage Avenger most definitely has a bee in her bonnet about the “meant-to-be-ers.” I used to be one of them. Nothing worst than a reformed smoker or former meant-to-be-er. I once viewed the events in my life as parts of a puzzle and a plan that I would someday figure out. God as puppet master. Every time something bad-good-weird-coincidental stood in my path I wondered “what is that nut upstairs doing this time?” I slapped together a hasty feel-good explanation. Oh, my friend Anne died when I was in 7th grade because G-d wanted me to start keeping a journal and reject conformity. Yeah, that’s it. I’m sure her parents didn’t mind. Don’t get me started on The Secret.

I swirl my cape around and hop a breeze to my next miscarriage outrage.

A similar situation to one that was recently tossed at me from a friend, a well-meaning, much loved friend, a friend who just had her first child 6 months ago, which unfortunately lends a certain air of superiority to anything she says. Not fair. But nothing about miscarriage is fair.

A recent miscarriage victim opens her email at the office. Her friend writes “All things happen for a reason. You were so nervous about being pregnant, maybe you weren’t ready to be a mother. Now you know. I just know that you’ll have a baby soon. I’m sure you’ll appreciate your baby so much now.”

The Miscarriage Avenger swoops through the office window. “Don’t cry, sister. I’ll take care of this before you can hit delete, which you should right now before you read the email over and over again and get lost in a ‘how could she say that?’ bog. Delete!!”

She nods. She deletes.

I fly away to find the offending emailing friend, wiping poop off the wall while her baby kicks and cries on the changing table. “May I have a word?”

She jumps in front of her baby. “Who are you?”

“That’s not important. What is important is your friend. She lost her pregnancy. She needs you to say you’re sorry, to cook her some soup, to listen to her tell her story no matter how many times you’ve heard it before without saying a word, or telling her any cockamamie theories about ‘all things happening for a reason.’”

“But they do,” she protests. The baby halts its cries and starts cooing at me. Aw, the Miscarriage Avenger made a friend.

“You may believe that hokum, but there’s no need to subject your grieving friend to your theories about why she miscarried. 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage, most of the time for no apparent reason at all. Genetic abnormalities are most often the culprit, but sometimes, pardon my French, shit happens. Nature works in mysterious ways. Some of them break people’s hearts. If you found out your precious child had leukemia, would you want your friend to tell you ‘everything happens for a freaking reason’?” I catch my breath and stick my tongue out at the baby. The baby laughs.

“No, I guess that would be kind of inappropriate.” She picks up her baby and bounces it on her hip.

“Yes! By zygote, she’s got it!”

“I think I’d better call her. Thanks, uh, Ma?.”

“That’s Miscarriage Avenger!”

In reality I responded to my friend’s email with a brief thank you for her prayers. I don’t want to poop all over my friends’ good intentions, which is why we need MA. I thought that I’d be comfortable confronting unintentionally hurtful comments after a few weeks of getting used to the miscarriage landscape, but I find myself worrying about sounding too defensive, too angry, and alienating the people I love. I felt the same when trying to explain why a sexist joke is offensive. Somehow being on the receiving end of the hurtful comment gives you less credibility. As if feeling offended makes one prone to extra sensitivity and –ism-based delusions. I worry that I’ll hurt my friends’ feelings or that later they’ll whisper about how “overly sensitive” and “angry” I am. And should they have kids, I’m sure I’ll be called jealous to boot.

There is a lot of confusion around miscarriage. I even found myself ranking different kinds of miscarriages. When explaining my miscarriage I was quick to add that while I technically had an unviable pregnancy that my body held onto the conceptus until it was removed via D and C. My body was ready to go the distance, to beat this dead horse as long as there was a whip. I distinguished myself from other women whose bodies indeed expelled their embryos. Never mind that their bodies were actually doing what they were supposed to while mine held on like a jilted lover gripping a love note whose scribbled emotions were long dead. I saw my jilted lover uterus as somehow superior.

In the meantime I’ve done some reading on miscarriage. I filled in some of my blanks. A lingering why me remains. Not hot and throbbing but a dull ache.

The tests done, karotype figured, and my body on its way back to pre-pregnancy hormonal balances—how do I know for sure? I got a face full of zits that says the magical pregnancy hormones have left the building—we are left with the why. I don’t know if Miscarriage Avenger is up for this one. Her compassion is limitless, her tongue silver, but the why of miscarriage, the existential why, is her kryptonite. The final touch to her costume will be a question mark in the middle of the rippling muscles of her, I mean, my back. As long as I’m a superhero, might as well add some muscle tone.

2 Weeks Later: Scarred but Smarter*

2008-04-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

(* Bonus points to anyone who can name that tune--Scarred but Smarter--from an ex-favorite band of mine. HINT: They opened up for R.E.M. on the Green tour and the cheesy bass player hit on my friend's 14-year-old sister.)

The bleeding done and my physical symptoms of pregnancy almost totally gone—I nervously await the mass migration of my hair to the shower drain after the pregnancy hormones go—I find myself feeling like this whole thing, the pregnancy and miscarriage, was all a dream. Mr. Crud agrees.

“It’s like we went on a vacation, came back, and it feels like we never left,” he says.

Exactly. Despite my best intentions, I am back on my daily wine and cigarettes schedule. If the Puritan voice that occupies my head in the early morning hours has its way, I’ll be done with that in a week or two. Just getting my ya-yas out, assures my good pal, the devil-may-care evening voice. My life feels much like it was before the positive pee stick, except I feel weighted with the knowledge that even the best laid plans, the most loved and wanted plans, can end and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

On Friday I met with my doctor who I had last seen at my first pregnancy check-up.

She opened the door. “I have good news.”

This was all a bad dream, I think. You’re about to wake me up and show me a blinking light that is Peabody’s hearbeat.

“You didn’t have a molar pregnancy. It was a missed abortion as I suspected,” she said.

She assured me that I did nothing wrong, that it was just one of those shitty things. “I don’t think that the genetic tests will show anything wrong either.”

They don’t. Mr. Crud spoke with Sara, our genetic counselor, yesterday. They found nothing. Just one of those shitty, shitty things.

When we first got the news about the nonviable fetus, one of my first thoughts was Here we go, here’s where our luck runs out. In a way I’m right. Up to 1 in 4 acknowledged pregnancies end in miscarriage. This is what bad luck at the cellular level looks like. We get to be the 1. I hope the other 3 appreciate our sacrifice.

On the walk home from my doctor’s office I realized that I hadn’t been prepared for bad news. It’s like with the pregnancy. Assume the best and deal with the heartbreak later. This is not such a bad philosophy. Life is totally out of our control. That proverbial bus lingers at every corner, ready to strike. If I get pregnant again—which my doctor says I can try to do after a few months—what exactly will Mr. Crud and I gain by feeling terrified that something is wrong from the get go? Will it be any less devastating to miscarry if I decide not to rub my belly, imagine my child, or whisper sweet nothings to it?

I feel another kind of guilt for not knowing when my baby died. You think you’re so in touch with your body, but you carried around a dead embryo for weeks, I chastise myself. You didn’t have a clue. And I didn’t. I believed that the lifting of my pregnancy symptoms was merely an early leap into the second trimester. I never considered that maybe it meant I was about to miscarry, that Peabody, still the size of a pea, had stopped growing.

My family, friends, and coworkers are amazing. Nobody likes talking about it—who wants to dwell on this weird liminal death, so hard to understand and explain—but they listen to me when I need to tell the same story again or bitch about the diaper ambiance of maxi-pads. Coworkers bring me cards, chocolate, and 2 free tickets to a play. Close friends bring us dinner and wine. Faraway friends phone and talk about the craziness of their lives to distract me from this heavy weight. My fears of people saying the wrong thing—It was meant to be; It’s better this way, and their ilk—are unfounded. Mr. Crud is lobbed a few “meant to be-s” at drum practice, but he immediately forgives his friends. They mean well. What can you say at a time like this?

I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do? Let me know if you need anything.

A good start all of them.

Please never say "it was meant to be" to anyone who has had a miscarriage. It may have some truth to it, but who wants to hear that this good thing they created was doomed from the start because G-d is an asshole who likes to fuck with people. I used to be a dedicated meant-to-be-er but after reading an O editorial about how Oprah’s beloved dog choked on a chew toy and died because G-d wanted Oprah to slow down the frantic pace of her life, I’ve undergone a conversion. Life throws us some crazy, impossible, sad, happy, amazing, hard, hard, hard stuff and we make sense of it the best that we can. What can I learn from this? What meaning can I bring? I ask myself instead of What fucked up shit is that sonofabitch G-d up to now? Mr. Crud and I were discussing how hard it is to share the news with people because it’s a bummer, people don’t know what to say, it opens us up for more sadness in addition to comfort.

“After telling everyone about my dad dying, this hasn’t been so hard,” I said.

“Ah, so your Dad died just so that it wouldn’t be so hard to tell people about your miscarriage!”

“Yes! It all finally makes sense,” I say.

“Meant to be, eh?” Mr. Crud says.

G-d did not kill Oprah’s dog so that she would go on a multimillion dollar Caribbean vacation! If you ever hear me yelling about Oprah’s dog, this is what I mean. (Man, does everything somehow trace back to Oprah? Oh crap. Is Oprah actually G-d? That would explain a lot.)

The current debate between Mr. Crud and me is over the name Peabody. Does the name go along with the pregnancy or does it endure? Before we were pregnant we spoke of Peabody, this theoretical child of ours, and how Peabody would love my pancakes, hate his/her parents for not buying a fancy cell phone, and walk around the neighborhood with us on drowsy summer nights. Does the name Peabody die along with the embryo? At first we both panicked at the thought of losing Peabody.

“That wasn’t Peabody, that was an impostor,” I said, shortly after learning the diagnosis.

Mr. Crud nodded as tears streamed down his cheek.

Then, as the truth of what happened, the loss sank in, I started to feel like keeping Peabody around would be disrespectful, would deny that this baby ever tried to exist.

“I don’t think we can keep Peabody,” I said over dinner.

“Why not?” Mr. Crud asked.

“Because I associate it with this pregnancy. This baby. I’ll think about this every time we say Peabody. There are other silly names.” I tried to reassure him when I saw his face grow red, his eyes grow shiny.

He agrees to abide by whatever decision feels right to me, but tries to convince me that we can keep Peabody and still acknowledge this first baby. He realizes that to keep Peabody we would be doing mental gymnastics. This baby was Peabody to me. I wrote about it, I thought about it, I whispered, “Good morning, Peabo.” Peabody was innocence, belief in nature and my body, belief that everything would turn out okay.

I share his pain, his sadness at the idea of saying good-bye to Peabody. “I don’t want to say good-bye because it makes me so sad,” Mr. Crud said.

I walked over and hugged him, our sobs muffled by each others shoulder.

“I have other funny names,” I said.

“Don’t. Please. It’s too soon.”

Later we talked about a ceremony to say farewell to Peabody. Mr. Crud will decorate a toy ship, the SS Peabody. We’ll both write letters to this unborn child of ours and release it at the coast. A ritual feels right. Perhaps it will help us deal with this feeling that the whole pregnancy was a dream.

But I find myself doing it again. Imagining conversations with a baby Peabody. Thinking of Peabody in the future and not the past. It does not feel like mental gymnastics. More than a hint of denial, but mostly it feels organic and right. The name I had been toying with—and assuring Mr. Crud that the next fetus would have to earn by showing us a hearbeat first—is Banjo. Equally silly, yes, and also a favorite of Mr. Crud’s tied to a Powerpuff Girls-related inside joke. Somehow Banjo doesn’t feel right. Someone is rolling their eyes—perhaps that nasty ass Puritan morning voice—and saying, “Uh, no, it’s Peabody.”

Mr. Crud and I have an appointment with a counselor who specializes in pregnancy loss in a few weeks. I imagine us going to her office, a solemn yet caring counselor atmosphere in the tastefully decorated room.

“So how are things going?” She'll ask.

“Yeah, everything is really fine. Great,” I’ll say, “except for this one thing. Can we call our next baby Peabody? It was the joke name of our first baby. We can’t decide. We just need a third opinion then I think we’ll be done here.”

We’ll spend the next hour, going over the pros and cons of Peabody-ness, only glancing at the big issues of our miscarriage experience. We’ll leave and she’ll let out a long breath, muttering, “Some people have real problems.”

At the start of this baby project, the overarching question was: To Peabody or not to Peabody? Could we be good parents? Were we ready for sleepless nights and sweatpants as couture? We realized that while we may never be ready, we were ready. A giddiness took over between my frequent bouts of nausea. We would be good parents, strict parents, parents who would make their kids hate them at times for their own good. Vegetable-pushing parents. No TV in your room parents. We began to see a new dimension in ourselves and looked forward to seeing it blossom even if it meant it would get puked on a few times in the process.

After all we’ve been through, the question remains the same—To Peabody or not to Peabody—although the underlying meaning has gathered more weight. For the moment I return to my new-old philosophy of taking things as they come, of keeping the faith that I’ll know what’s right after our next—fingers crossed—double pink line pregnancy test.

D to the Mothafuckin' C

2008-04-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

A week ago I learned that the pregnancy I had been carrying for almost three months was not viable. The jury is still out on what happened, but nonetheless for health reasons I had to have a D and C, a.k.a. Dilation and Curettage, a procedure wherein the cervix is dilated and the uterus is scraped clean with a handy dandy tool called a curette. In my head, I keep calling it dilation and cuTTerage because I feel sliced in so many ways.

Compared with the dark emotional swamp that I find myself in after learning that I haven’t been carrying around a baby-to-be, the procedure itself is no problem. I am grateful to have it scheduled so soon after getting the news. Whatever this is inside of me, I want out. The nurses and doctors explain everything clearly: I need to take the day off work to recover but can return to normal activities in the next few days, provided I feel emotionally up to the task. There are few complications associated with the D and C, and the main one, a ruptured uterus typically heals on its own. I should expect some spotting and cramps, but most people recover quickly. I’m a hearty, healthy gal so I expect this will apply to me.

“When can I get back to yoga?” I ask, aching to begin my healing in the activity that has supported me for the last few years, helping me deal with everything from my dad’s death to post-wedding weight gain.

“Probably by Friday,” the resident says.

“You should probably wait a week for anything vigorous,” the nurse advises. “One patient ended up in the hospital after an Ultimate Frisbee game too soon afterwards.”

Both of their opinions stick in my head. I’ll split the difference and go back Monday, I decide.

Mr. Crud and I pepper them with questions.

“Can I drink wine?”

“Yes, but be careful with the Vicodin.”

“When will we have the results?”

“About a week.”

The only thing I can’t bring myself to ask is if it is okay to smoke a little weed to take the edge off. They are so poised and helpful in every way that I’m sure they would have been un-phased if I had inquired about the effects of crack cocaine on the post-D and C woman, but I hold back. I’ve been honest with all my doctors about my recreational drug use, and am tired of it now. I’m not ready for a speech about how I should deal with this grief instead of numb myself to it.

My questions answered they give me my chosen cocktail of 800 mg Ibuprofen (instead of an IV of morphine which hit me as way too operation-y) and Ativan, an anti-anxiety med. Maybe I’m not anxious enough to provide the Ativan with grounds to work because shortly after taking it I feel positively drunk. I see double. I can barely stand up to remove my pants for the procedure.

Mr. Crud opts to stay in the room at my request even after the nurse warns him that he might be traumatized by seeing me in pain.

I catch my breath at that. I thought you said this was no big deal. The term “uncomfortable” was used, but I never heard “painful.”

As I saddle up, my feet in stirrups and covered with a sheet like a routine trip for a pap smear, doctors filter into the room, assembling instruments and dimming the lights.

“You want silence or distraction?” The nurse asks as expectation reaches a crescendo.

“Distraction.”

Mr. Crud squeezes my hand as I chat with her about my blue boots, my novel, and the difficult world of publishing. She perfectly interweaves questions about writing with warnings of “This will hurt” and other advisories to brace myself. There are some painful moments of cold and wrenching cramps, but the Ativan has erased many of those memories. Mainly I remember feeling frustrated that in my altered state, I wasn’t sounding very smart about writing. When the nurse talks about her interest in penning a book, my answer is a slurred, “You should totally do it. Just start writing. Just do it.” Ugh.

At one point the doctor pops up, “You wrote a novel? Cool.”

While I am happy to soak up people’s impressed reactions when they hear I wrote a novel, my first response is “Do you know how many shitty novels there are in the world? How do you know mine isn’t slush material?” This isn’t my response while splayed out on the table. Just gratitude. The doctor with the cute green glasses is talking to me. It is over.

The Ativan keeps me whacked out most of the day. I sleep, I cry, I watch old episodes of Ugly Betty (my new favorite TV show in the world), and limp to the bathroom to change maxi-pads. A note on maxi-pads. I haven’t worn these suckers since I was thirteen and terrified of tampons. Maxi-pads also mean underwear, something I haven’t worn since I was a junior in college. (Not for sexy reasons, I just hate a pantyline and the feel of elastic cutting my hips and thighs.) Mr. Crud goes above and beyond the call of husbandly duty. Alone he picks out maxi-pads and pantyliners for me. We are both clueless as to what to get.

“Do you want super or regular?” He asks from his cell phone while perusing the feminine hygiene aisle.

“Super.”

“Stay free?”

“Perfect.”

“How about Always pantyliners?”

“Sure.”

“Large?”

“Wow! They have sizes.”

“Yeah.”

“Always Stay Free, dude.”

Even though I can’t wait to get back to tampons, a kudos to the maxi-pad makers of America. The technology has improved by leaps and bounds. Maybe it’s all that blue liquid they pore over the pads. Magic has come in stranger forms.

I lay off the exercise, the nurse’s Ultimate Frisbee cautionary tale fresh in my mind, for a few days and am pleased when the bleeding seems to fall on the spotting side of the spectrum. The cramping is handleable and the prescribed Vicodin remains sealed in the bottle.

Then Saturday. Pot time. I haven’t smoked pot since February 8, the night before I learned I was pregnant. I am a bit nervous to jump back into a drug I had smoked practically every night for many years, but Mr. Crud reminds me that, well, I had smoked it practically every night for over ten years. (Hmmm…should that depress me?) It is more fun than I remember, likely because it had become such a habit over the years that I had grown deadened to the fun of it. Then the munchies hit. Oh yeah, that’s why I put on a few pounds. I tear into homemade strawberry shortcake, then another strawberry-less shortcake, chips, nuts, and some little treats the waitress from Pambiche gave us to entice us to try their weekend brunch. (Consider us enticed.) It was the most bountiful snack session I’d had in months.

The cramps hit shortly after the night’s viewing of Human Giant. I pop some ibuprofen but relief remains elusive. The cramps intensify and I head straight into a panic attack.

“What if I’m hemorrhaging?" I ask.

“You’re okay. Are your symptoms listed on that sheet?”

“No.”

“Then you’re fine.”

Gently, ever so gently, Mr. Crud suggests that I might be a bit paranoid from the combination of the weed and the heartbreaking events of the last few days. He suggests I take a Xanax, my go-to in times of panic.

As is my usual response to common sense, I refuse. “I need to stay alert.” This is the same logic I employed while refusing anti-anxiety meds while traveling by air even during a period when air travel sent me into hives and freak-outs.

A note on my sudden leaps into death terrors. These aren’t exactly common but they happen every few years and are ridiculous and terrifying in equal measure. A former favorite death terror seed was Toxic Shock Syndrome. If I feel even the slightest bit off-balance during my period, which is a time made for off-balance feelings like crushing cramps, headaches, and emotional swings, I spiral into death fear territory. I imagine my picture beneath the heading "The Silent Killer." Oh my G-d! It’s finally happening!! All those warning inserts in tampon boxes and it’s finally happening! I choose to suffer in silence, my heart racing and stomach churning, because, you know, it probably ISN’T happening. A conversation with my friend Rusty during one of these panics pretty much sums is up.

“I think I’m dying,” I say passing Rusty in the hall of the bike messenger company where we both worked.

“What?” His normal laid-back timbre rose a few notches.

“Toxic Shock Syndrome. Ever hear of it? It’s a period thing,” I say.

“Maybe you should like go home or something.”

I shrink back in horror. “What? Do I look messed up?”

He shrugs. “If you’re worried about it, go home or to a doctor or something.”

“Nah, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“I thought you said you were dying.”

“Oh, probably not.”

Rusty walks away confused. I walk away feeling like an idiot. And I later go home and pen the lyrics:

Toxic shock syndrome
Making my day hell
Cramps, diarrhea and a fever,
Bloody tampons as well.

And you wonder why I’m not a poet.

A similar death terror strikes Saturday while I’m in the throes of high-dom. The cramps are pretty intense.

“I may have eaten too much,” I said.

“Yeah, maybe. Just calm down.”

As I grow teary-eyed imagining Mr. Crud having to get through the death of both his much anticipated progeny and his wife, I feel something shift in my abdomen. Kind of an internal moan. Phrrrrrrrap!

The pressure is halved. The cramps remain but they fade from unbearable to normal.

Mr. Crud and I laugh hard and long. Oops. Just a little gas, not life-threatening hemorrhaging. I decide to give the weed a break until I’m feeling more up-to-snuff.

Monday I return to yoga. My teacher didn’t get my email. I tell my story again. The anticipation of telling what happened, of shaping it in my head is proving to be more stressful than the actual telling. She hugs me. I cry a little and then head to the locker room to maxi-pad up.

I am cautious at first, nervous to jostle myself too much but soon find the yoga humming through my body, returning me to a place of safety and strength. Practice feels wonderful even with my arms going weak on the final chaturangas. After practice, I check my pad with trepidation, but it looks pretty normal. A few smudges here and there but nothing to call the ER about.

Throughout the day of pretending that I was out sick due to a cold I picked up over spring break, I check the pad and find the bleeding to have picked up a bit. They said this might happen. I’m a little pissed that I am not in the portion of D and C ladies who stop bleeding within days. I remember a phrase that the initial doctor who told me about my unviable pregnancy said during the ultrasound. “Vascular tissue. Lots of vascular tissue.” In fact that is the reason I had the procedure in the first place. The doctors feared that miscarrying on my own could cause me to bleed to death. I try to keep that in mind as the blood flow increases.

Tuesday, post yoga, I feel like my body has gone Amityville Horror on me. I bleed through a pad on the bike ride from the studio to campus, a 15-minute ride at most. I calm myself with breathing, remembering that the nurse said activity would make the bleeding increase. As the day goes on, it gets worse. Every trip to the bathroom is thick with trepidation. What will come out now? A torrent of clots? Blood? A thick jelly-like black-red goo that plops on the floor when I squat down? Sweet Jesus.

I keep it together as best I can. I memorize the post-D and C warning signs: soaking more than 2 pads in an hour for 2 consecutive hours. It becomes a sort of mantra. During lunch I walk to the mall to return hair mousse and fingernail polish at Trade Secret. As I fill out the return slip, my vision blurs on the address line. My heart races. Oh shit. This is how it happens. I die in the middle of returning Catwalk Ultrahold Mousse to the snippy Trade Secret lady who looks down her nose at me every time I step in the store to “just look.” I feel woozy.

“I’m sorry. I have to call my husband,” I say, pushing the half-filled out return slip back to her.

I dial him up on my cell phone. She points at the blank driver’s license line on the sheet. I dig in my purse and toss my license at her to fill it out. Even as I’m doing it, I can’t believe I’m behaving this way. The image of me splayed out on the Trade Secret floor keeps flashing through my mind. Would the Gap have been better?

“Hon?” Mr. Crud sounds scared.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” I say. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

He calms me down, urges me to find a seat. The Trade Secret lady refunds my money and pushes the return slip and receipt back to me. Guess I won’t be “just looking” in there again anytime soon. After shoving half a granola bar down my throat, I feel calmer.

“Should I come get you?”

“No, I can make it.” Plus waiting on a bench at the mall for twenty minutes sounds unbearable. I am surrounded by women tugging children by the hand. Pregnant women are everywhere, especially since the Mimi Maternity store I had been eyeing a few weeks ago is a few stores away.

After two more maxi pad bloodbaths and way too many internet searches for “D and C”, I call the nurse at the clinic and spill my symptoms along with pent up fear tears.

“Everything you are saying is within the realm of what’s normal,” she says in a charming accent. She offers to make an appointment, but mainly I just needed reassurance. Enter cramps from hell.

I take 2 ibuprofen. Then 2 more. I get as much work done as possible while keeping myself from puking from the pain. Here we go. I think of the D and C sheet: Cramps that don’t improve after taking Tylenol or Ibuprofen. I suck it up for another 30 minutes until Mr. Crud calls my office with a dinner question.

“Can you come get me? Now?” I ask in a shaky voice.

A flood of tears and some bed rest later, I am feeling much improved. The bleeding slows. I wonder if I’ll have some sort of post-traumatic trigger at the smell of Stay Free pads then realize there will be so many post-traumatic triggers to choose from: the streetcar which we took to the appointment of doom; periods; the black corduroy pants I wore to the appointment.

Today I opt to walk to work instead of yoga to see if there is a difference in the bleeding. I needed a day off from the slaughter in my pants. Walking from the locker room to my office I encounter, for the second day in a row, the Genocide Awareness Project, a group that travels from college campus to college campus displaying huge pictures of holocaust victims and aborted fetuses. For the second day in a row, I avert my eyes. How I wish I could save up all the maxi-pads and toilet bowls full of blood to spill all over their signs, challenge one of the glum-faced projecteers to a duel by slapping them in the face with a soaked pad. I know it’s not very free speech of me, but this shit is disgusting and inhuman. In the past, these images have angered me for obvious reasons: abortion and the holocaust are not the same thing; the images do nothing to further the abortion debate and upset women, one of whom is now me, who have had abortions. Now I’ve found a new layer: violation. I feel violated for the women who had abortions and trusted that the contents of their uteruses would be disposed of with dignity. Confrontation is what these assholes live for so I walk by, staring at the ground, not even allowing myself a glimpse of their horror.

It’s been a week since my D and C. One of the longest and most tumultuous weeks of my life. Today I decide to email my coworkers and tell them that my absence was not due to a cold, as reported by my boss, but rather that I had a miscarriage of sorts. Keeping it a secret was making me feel like I had something to be ashamed of, something to hide. Sadly my experience is not even close to unique. As many as 1 in 4 acknowledged pregnancies end in miscarriage. It’s just not something that people talk about because it is scary and sad and pregnant women have enough to worry about.

There is a light in this tunnel though. My friends and family are awesome and supportive. Mr. Crud is amazing. (He is going beyond the call of duty in every way. I suspect he might be angling for some good Hanukkah presents. Done and done.)
The blood seems to be slowing today. I don’t know when I’ll return to normal or what normal will feel like or if there is such a thing as normal.

In the past I have rolled my eyes at people using writing as therapy in a public venue—-therapeutic private scribbling is a-okay with me—-but I’m hoping this post transcends helping me get this out of my system and can bring this subject into the open. (I am sparing you the bad poem I wrote Sunday which popped out after I inadvertently listened to a few minutes of Prairie Home Companion. You’re welcome.) The stories of others have helped immensely. I now add my voice to the chorus.

The Long Awaited Project
My last few posts have mentioned a cryptic project that I promised to unveil in a few weeks. That project was “The Peabody Project Chronicles,” a blog about my pregnancy: 40-plus pages of excitement, fear, raised eyebrows at the pregnancy industrial complex, and hope, a whole lotta hope. For the time being, I am tucking away this memento of my innocence. I suspect it will see the light of day at some point. Maybe after the sting has faded. Then again, who wants to read a story that you know will have the unhappiest of endings.

Talkin' About My (90210) Generation

2008-03-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

If you aren’t contractually stuck in front of a computer 8 hours a day like I am, then you may have missed the latest TV news to swirl around the blogosphere: they are totally making a Beverly Hills 90210 spin-off. Oh. My. God. (Because in my day we actually spelled out our OMG-ing.) I have no plans on rejuvenating my former 90210-aholism, but I will take this opportunity to reminisce about the good ol’ days when Brian Silver and Donna contemplated sex with more gravity than our president considered invading Iraq. When Brenda and Kelly vied for the love of balding Dylan. When I moved into my first group house, The Neighborhood and was initiated into the ways of the Beverly Hills teens by my new housemate, Trevor.

I barely knew Trevor when I lugged my pallets and mattress into the punk shabby chic Neighborhood. (In college all houses have names. Other names from my ilk: the Funkhouse, the Corn Rocket House, the Moonhouse.) As college kids are wont to do, we got acquainted over 40s of malt liquor and Velveeta Shells and Cheese. I complained of my shithead ex-boyfriend and he reciprocated with tales of his ex-girlfriend. We got drunk. We stuffed ourselves with chemical cheese. We did the “are you cool” dance, comparing favorite bands and Fugazi shows we had attended. Tired after a long evening of feeling each other out, we called it a night. As he headed up to his bedroom and I to mine, he paused at the top of the steps.

“So, are you into the Hills?” He asked.

“As in Beverly Hills?”

“Word.”

“Uh, no, not that I know of.”

He bounded down the steps, leaned his chin on his fist and pouted a perfect imitation of Luke Perry as Dylan. “Come on, you gotta love the Hills.”

Was this a test? If I admitted to a years long obsession with Brenda, Dylan, Donna, and the gang would he straighten up, roll his eyes, and smirk back to his room, muttering “yeah, I thought so.”? High school was still fresh enough in my memory for such guerilla tactics to be possible even among the punk rock and freaky.

“I’ve never checked it out,” I said.

“Wednesday. 8:00. Be there.” He said.

Trevor and I along with the rest of our house of alternativey college students gathered in front of the TV, 40s of King Cobra in hand to initiate what would become a tradition for the Neighborhood that lasted as long as the show. Malt liquor + cheesy drama about privileged high school students played by 20-somethings = Good good times. We hollered at the set:

“Don’t do it Kelly. Drugs are BAAAAD!!!”

“Fuck him, Donna. You know you want to.”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!!”

“Peach Pit Rules!”

If you wanted to get all psychological on our asses, (don’t mind if I do) one may say that we were blowing off steam from our own unhappy high school days. Most of us had been misfits mocked for our black clothes, heavy eye makeup, and love of The Cure. (Things that somehow make kids today popular. Insert shaking of fist old man style.) Finally we felt like we fit in and had found the kinship we so lacked just a few short years ago. We laughed at this idealized and heavily afterschool specialized version of high school and patched over some of the unhealed scars.

Or maybe it was a great excuse to start the party weekend on Wednesday.

I stumbled upon an old notebook of song lyrics that I had been toying with during my days as a bass player in the classic Harrisonburg punk outfit, Hatchet Wound. One page revealed my attempts to bring 90210 into my artistic realm:

Donna Martin graduates
Or upon you I will masturbate

I never got any farther than those lyrics. I love to imagine myself, cigarette drooping from my lips, a half-finished, warm 40 gripped tightly in my hand as I scanned the lyrical possibilities stemming from this very special episode of 90210 when all of Beverly Hills High rallied around Donna Martin who had been banned from graduation because she got drunk on prom night.

Donna Martin graduates
Or upon you I will masturbate
Shove your high school
It’s not great

No, no, that’s not it. I hummed it under my breath. I tried to get meta, feminist, but still nothing. I doodled a heart and an eyeball. Typical. Donna Martin graduates.

Later I was summoned to make another 40 run, forgetting all about the plight of Donna Martin and my attempt to raise her photogenic alcohol problem to kitschy art. Until now, thanks to a mind-blowing lack of creativity in the TV world. I hear the only remnants of the former Hills will be that a couple of the new characters are tangentially related to David Silver (played by the not-to-be-heard-from-again Brian Austin Green). David? Really? Ugh. They may as well bring back that meathead Steve. I am so whatever.

****

I'm going a-spring breaking for the next week. Stay tuned for my spring break re-cap as well as the mystery project I mentioned in my last post. It will debut mid-April, G-d willing.

Team Awesome

2008-03-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings palios. Sorry to be such a low producer of crud for the last few weeks. Yeah, yeah, I know you’ve heard that about a million times before. I’ve been working on another blog-like project, which will be revealed in the next few weeks. Then, I promise, you will be overwhelmed with crud. It shall ooze from your ears, your eyes, your other less g-rated orifices. For now, I hope you enjoy more tales of how we Cruds keep the boring interesting, at least for ourselves.

****************************************************

During a Christmas visit home three years ago, the youngest members of the Crud clan harnessed our considerable powers to form Team Awesome. Like the Wonder Twins but with four less shape-shifting members: Me and Mr. Crud, and my brother Max and his (now) wife Kathy. The genesis was a trip to the grocery store. What sounds better to you?

“Hey Mom, we’re going to the grocery store to pick up some boiled shrimp.” (Or scrimps as the Crud clan is apt to call them).

Or

“Hey Mom, Team Awesome will undertake the most awesome task of purchasing the boiled shrimp you desire!”

Yeah, I thought so. I am a big believer in turning the mundane into the magnificent, or at least the mildly amusing through use of mythic language, inappropriate nicknames, and interpretive dance. Team Awesome is merely one example of the magical, mystical world that is the universe of Kt Crud.

Although we are united as a team, we have divided into smaller, more focused super-duos. Max and Kathy are the Do-Gooders. Their superpower is protecting the weak and innocent, such as the hyper, super leg-humpy dog they picked up on the side of the road, Mr. Peepers. Even more illustrative is the night they drove by a bank late at night. They noticed someone inside, turning objects over and moving through the lobby in what they deemed to be a suspicious manner. Max pulled the car over across the street and for a few minutes they just watched, debating whether to call the cops. As they are put on this earth, specifically in the Nashville, Tennessee portion of this earth, to do good, they ended up calling the po-po.

“I want to report suspicious activity,” Max said (or at least I imagine that’s what he said because since becoming a lawyer he sounds official at all times.)

Not wanting to miss the results of their handiwork, they waited, breath held in anticipation. The police arrived shortly. They rushed the bank, causing the alleged intruder to drop what he was doing and lift his arms. After a few minutes the police left. The man continued what he was doing, being emptying trashcans and cleaning the bank lobby.

The Do-Gooders had called the cops on the night janitor. Still, you gotta admire their moxy and willingness to get involved. No code of silence here.

On the other end of the Team Awesome spectrum are Mr. Crud and I: The Petty Annoyance Squad. We do things like fume about abandoned cars on our street and fret about the pile of junk our scrap metal-harvesting neighbors keep on their lawn. Our official warrior cry is “Tsk tsk.”

Last summer, our across-the-street neighbors whose house we called Douche Lord Manor, slipped a flyer in our mailbox. Music! Beer! Fun! Sunday night 9:00 - ???? was scribbled over a list of hippie-jam band sounding names. On the back one of the manor’s occupants has scribbled a note inviting us to the party and warning us that it would be “loud all night.”

Aw, hell naw.

Mr. Crud and I went into a frenzy. We contemplated calling the OLCC since the douche lords were dumb enough to advertise that they would be selling beer on the flyer. In a past confrontation with an illegal after-hours club run near our old apartment, the OLCC was the only official body that could chase the Russian mafia (what we called the a-holes who ran the place who likely were not in the mafia but who were definitely Russian) away. Cooler heads prevailed and we merely called the police.

“There’s going to be a loud party happening tomorrow night,” Mr. Crud said. “What should we do?”

“On a Sunday?” The operator asked with appropriate incredulousness.

“I know!”

The police operator advised us to call early if there was a large, unruly crowd or if any fights broke out. Around 8:00, all was quiet except for the usual suspects drinking beer on the porch. Mr. Crud and I decided to go out to a movie, knowing that if we remained at home we would be consumed with watching the neighbors and waiting to get annoyed. We saw Hot Fuzz. The police theme sent my mind back to our house, our neighbors. I pictured them hooting on the front lawn, littering our quaint hood with plastic cups. At moments like these, I say a silent apology to the neighbors of my college party house. Karma dictates that I deserve a certain amount of loud parties to make up for the annoyance I caused, but I feel like I’ve burned most of that bad karma off after sharing a four-plex with the most annoying rotating cast of assholes I’d ever encountered. But enough on the history of my jerkazoid neighbors.

We returned home to find a lackluster party. What did they expect on a Sunday? Around 10:00 we went to bed, trying our hardest not to lie in wait of annoying sound. The thump of bass hit us around 11:00. Mr. Crud made the call. After a few furtive and furious glances out the window we successfully surrendered to slumber.

“Did the police come?” Mr. Crud asked the next morning.

“I don’t know.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter as long as we got some sleep.”

“I hate those assholes.”

Thankfully they moved out the next day and have been replaced by my dream neighbors: stoner computer gamers. Yes, Lord, you have heard my prayers.

Yesterday I made a solo Petty Annoyance Squad complaint against a student who has been using the faculty area of the locker room. My area. Last week she didn’t get the message from my annoyed huffs and slammed locker doors so this week I enlisted the HBIC of the locker room who assures me that signs will be hung, IDs will be monitored. They will do everything in their power to rid the faculty/staff/alumni area of the pesky students. (A tip on how to determine a student: she is overly modest, keeping every body part shielded until she can frantically cover it with clothes, whereas the faculty/staff/alumni just let it all hang out. She spreads her clothes, towels, makeup bags, brushes, oils, soaps all over the locker room bench. Oh! Also, she carries a backpack full of books. The clincher!)

I could have just told the offender that she needed to get thee back to the student area, but that’s not how the Petty Annoyance Squad rolls. Passive aggression is an important facet of our superpower.

Lost But Not Forgotten-Album Edition

2008-02-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

Over the years I’ve bid farewell to several albums, most in the easy-to-lend and easy-to-steal CD format. Some have been deemed great enough to buy twice, although I usually make a strong effort to find them used as this doesn’t seem as egregious as buying a CD new twice. Others, I just mourn while cursing the name of the suspected thief.

Fishbone’s Truth and Soul
Ahhh Mas Cardenas. Mas, short for Tomas, was a punk rocker too cute for his own good and, alas, too young and too short for me to add to the official column of boys that I liked in high school. I was a senior, he was a sophomore. Tainted love indeed.

One night I got drunk and staged an impromptu cougar party with my best high school friend, Angela. In attendance: Angela, me, Mas, Chris (younger brother type friend and actual younger brother to one of our friends), and a bespectacled boy who I labeled “some dude” in the extensive—so as to have pictures of Mas—photo documentation of the night.

Sadly, this was my weekend night M.O. When I couldn’t find suitable teenage shenanigans outside the house, I snuck some Bacardi from the parents’ liquor cabinet and proceeded to get wasted before calling up a few select pals and inviting them over to watch movies in my basement. Were I in pre-school, my parents would have been advised to urge me to work on my sharing skills. For I would finish—or claim to finish—off all the liquor before my guests arrived. Angela didn’t drink so that wasn’t such a big deal and she loved making fun of me while I was drunk so we had achieved a symbiosis in this respect, but the troupe of younger boys would have relished a trip down drunky lane. Anyhoo, on this one night I felt uninhibited enough to slip my arm around Mas’ shoulders when we snuck out for a smoke break.

“Sure is cold out here,” I slurred.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Want another smoke?’ I asked. At least I was kind enough to share my Camels with the youth of today.

“Nah.”

However he did want to borrow my Fishbone CD. Being as stingy with my CDs as my liquor, I almost said no, but he assured a swift return.

Over the next few years we ran into each other at shows, at youth group meetings, and the occasional party.

“Fishbone!” Mas would say.

“Yeah, you got it with you?”

“Nah, but I still have it. Next time.” He slapped my shoulder.

I guess he earned it.

My important lesson learned—you gotta get the guy drunk too if he is to succumb to one’s questionable cougar charms.

The Smiths’ Strangeways Here We Come
Fucking Josh Regan. I should have never lent him this CD in the first place. He borrowed it only to add more weapons to his ever-growing arsenal against my musical tastes, what he so eloquently called “Fag music.” Perhaps he caught me in a moment of weakness after he handed over a nude picture of Iggy Pop as a Christmas present. I was not happy to receive this picture. It scared the living sexuality out of me and I threw it away as soon as I got home.

“Uh sure, yeah, take all The Smiths you need,” I said, dazed by Iggy’s schlong.

I probably could have used Morrissey’s soothing words to make it through the night, to be reassured that celibacy was an option.

I also lent Josh Living Colour’s Vivid, (ColoUr with a "u?" Really? How pretentious is that?) which was eventually returned (and eventually sold by me during the college years when this hard rock morphed into cheese rock in my humble opinion). I did replenish my Smiths’ collection after finding it used on cassette.

The Pixies Surfer Rosa/Come on Pilgrim
Man, owning this CD made me feel cool! The combo of EP and full-length album on a limited edition CD that came out after The Pixies hit it semi-big with Doolittle. I worked at a record store my junior year of high school and was lucky enough to have several spirit guides in the form of the older employees. Cathy turned me onto The Ramones. Dave turned me onto Jane’s Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and assorted other hard-core/metal bands. Holly fed me more Athens music than I knew what to do with. I can’t remember which one suggested the Pixies, but I was hooked from the first listen. I specially ordered Surfer Rosa/Come on Pilgrim, and liked it even more than Doolittle. So raw and weird and mysterious.

This one disappeared in the black hole of The Neighborhood, the group house where I spent the best of my college years. I eventually did purchase both of these, but separately and wishing a CD curse on whoever had taken it from me.

Shudder to Think Funeral at the Movies/Ten Spot
When I was a PoFo nerd, Shudder to Think was the shit. Second only to Fugazi in the D.C. rock kids esteem. (Well, not counting all the old school harDCore bands whose disbanding everyone constantly bemoaned.) They did something different. Craig, the vocalist, had operatic aspirations that made them stand out from the usual skull-capped fare. This CD disappeared during my time at The Neighborhood. I delayed replacing it until moving out to Portland when I got a case of homesickness for the DC scene (DsCene?). After a yearlong search for it used, I broke down and ordered it from Amazon. After a single listen, I regretted replacing it. My memories of the CD far outshined the actual music. It sounded cheesy and dated. Always a danger in listening to the music of our youth.

Care to share any tales of lost music loves? Any Neighborhoodians out there with a few mystery CDs that match these descriptions?

Blister on my Soul

2008-02-13T14:37:00.000-08:00

I am doing my usual morning internet rounds. First I cleanse my prurient soul with a skim of the New York Times before moving onto what I’ve really come here for: bitchy celebrity news courtesy of dlisted, humorous tales of parenthood (alternadad) as part of my self-directed campaign to not be so freaked by the concept of having kids, and then a website that makes me long for my carefree, stupid twenties, Fart Party.

My deep thoughts are interrupted by a familiar tune filtering through the floor. My office sits above one of the music department’s practice rooms. I work in the theater department, which harbors a rivalry with the musicians. Some days I think the practice room is a conspiracy to drive the theater folk insane. Those days consist of halting scales, "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" played poorly for hours (Christmas season above the band rehearsal room is a layer in hell), or the repetition of that one hard tuba part in "Flight of the Valkyries."

Today I halt my internet scan and listen. Nope, yep, it is, it can’t be, oh shit. Some band, the orchestral kind not the black t-shirt and ripped jeans kind, is playing that old time alt hit “Blister in the Sun.” A horn solo kicks in at the Let me go o-on part. No fucking way. I resist the temptation to email the high school pals that I’m still in touch with because all four of us don’t need to feel old and confused on this particular Monday. I’m taking one for the team this time. If I remember correctly, “Blister in the Sun” is one of the cleaner Violent Femmes tunes albeit one about masturbation. When I was a young punk wannabe, it certainly wasn’t as fun as belting out the lyrics to “Add It Up.”

Why can’t I get just one kiss?
Believe me some things I wouldn’t miss,
But I look at your pants and I need a kiss…

Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.

Ah, the Violent Femmes. I let Andy Duran, who I was in total teenaged love with my freshman year of high school, borrow The Joshua Tree in exchange for the Violent Femmes who I knew I would love because I loved Andy and thought their name was wicked clever. (Other wicked clever names according to high school me: Dramarama, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ten Thousand Maniacs.) Primed for worship, I popped it in the tape deck and was pleasantly surprised that I wouldn’t have to try to like this band as was occasionally necessary in my early days of discovering punk music. I loved the weird, whiny vocals, the curse words, the undercurrent of desperation that buoyed what really are some fine pop songs. Man, where can I get their t-shirt? I wondered. Sam Goody? Not likely.

Downstairs the upright bass has its own little solo. Let me go o-on. As folks of my generation, that labeled X, climb the rungs of the entertainment industry more and more of my beloved “alternative” songs seep into music soundtracks, TV shows, and the public consciousness. I hate it. I won’t say that my teenage years are being raped, or pillaged or violated but I really would like to know, what the fuck?

When I was a teenager in Manassas, Virginia cassettes of the Violent Femmes, Minor Threat, the Sex Pistols, The Smiths, The Cure, 7 Seconds were passed between a ragtag troupe of weirdoes like notes between classes. In my high school, the weirdo population, including the few hippies, totaled 20 on a good day when nobody was cutting class to drive to Georgetown and buy more Sid Vicious t-shirts. We weren’t all best buddies and everyone was on constant poseur alert, but for the most part we smiled at each other in the halls and were excited to talk music.

The rest of the school was a sea of heavy metal, radio pop of the Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force ilk, and rap. One of my darkest days was realizing that some of the popular kids shared my musical tastes. I questioned everything. How dare they! How could they? They could never understand Morrissey’s pain in their Esprit sweatshirts and cloud of Polo cologne. When I wore my U2 and R.E.M. concert shirts, I felt proud but also didn’t like all the compliments that they garnered me. So now that I’m wearing this t-shirt, I’m cool, but tomorrow you’ll make fun of me to my face for my white creepers (which were totally ridiculous golf shoes and deserved mocking, but still).

What did I actually want? I wanted to keep my outcast status because it made me special while being worshipped as coolest of the cool from afar. I wanted all the lip glossed girls and jarhead jock dudes to respect and admire me while knowing that they were not brave enough to be me (thus all the teasing and not falling in love with me). I wanted to be popular and unpopular at the same time. To spit in the face of all those who were full-time disdainers of the freaks by choosing to hang out with the misfits.

As I look around the pop culture landscape now, I feel that same sense of the popular kids encroaching on a world that I thought was mine, reserved for the fat kids who wear all black, the gay guys who got beat up for existing, the drama nerds, the mocked, the depressed, the poetic, the deep. VH1 shows videos that I would have gone nuts for 20 years ago. Kids today don’t believe that VH1 once meant Lionel Ritchie, Lisa Lisa with Cult Jam and Full Force, Anita freaking Baker. I feel like the popular culture memory is remembering a reality that never existed. That when the deejay spins a Cure song at my 20-year high school reunion (should I actually get invited this time) and everyone screams “wooooo!” I’ll still feel left out as I am one of the few who remembers that the wooo-ers made fun of my Cure shirt and that “fag with the lipstick.”

I own my Joanie-come-latelyness. During its early heyday I did not like rap. I loved the Beastie Boys, considering them a guilty pleasure on par with Milli Vanilli, but on the whole I thought rap was for somebody else. That somebody else being black people. Rap music didn’t mesh with the punk outsider vision I had of myself. Besides that, a posse of black girls at my school picked on me and they were big into rap music so I associated rap with their hollers in the hall and their pint-sized emissary, Harry Jones, who delighted in ripping bows from my hair and other such juvenilia. (Yes, he did this in high school and, yes, I wore bows in my hair. In high school.) I lived close to Washington DC and could have caught some amazing old school hip hop and go-go bands had I been alert to the awesomeness of this kind of music, but I wasn’t. And I don’t pretend that I was anything but clueless on the rap front.

This is all well-covered ground in the Kt Crud oeuvre, but still, “Blister in the Sun” as interpreted by the Blahblah University Pep Band?

I’ll keep you updated on disturbing trends in orchestral arrangements of beloved songs of youthful rebellion.

Wire Me a Life

2008-02-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

(Warning—some Wire spoilers in this post. Get watching, my peeps.)

Aside from laughing hysterically at cakes that resemble penises, my main diversion these days is keeping Mr. Crud and me from diving into the shitty weather inspired depths of depression. The only things standing between me and a day-long crying jag is yoga and my new TV obsession, The Wire. (You thought I was going to say a penis-shaped cake. I do my best, short of showing up at the door swaddled in saran wrap, to keep things surprising around here.)

The Wire is the new Sopranos in Crudland. When I’m not flogging myself for working on novel attempt #4 (don’t ask), buoying the spirits of the Crud unit, or pretending my life is a musical (not hard to do when an entire brass quartet is playing beneath me—wait, no, not like that, I work in an office located over a music practice room. Yuck, you nasty.), I am puzzling over The Wire. My latest puzzle: Match the Wire character with the rapper who most embodies their essence. Most of these are gut feelings and not based on some principle that I could defend in a five-paragraph essay. Let’s get participatory up in here—Agree? Disagree? Let me and the crud-loving world know.

Marlo = Clipse

Prop Joe = Notorious B.I.G.

Avon Barksdale = Ghostface Killah

Stringer Bell = Jay Z

Snoop = Snoop (nah, she has more of a Yo’ Majesty vibe except for all the joyless killing.)

Slim Charles = Ice T (voices that ooze smooooothe)

McNulty = House of Pain

Cheese = Method Man (yeah, obviously)

What of Bodie? The murderous Chris? Webay? Stinkum? And my favorite, Omar? I need to get Nathan Rabin on this pronto.

That's It For Me, Folks

2008-02-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

This picture made me laugh until I cried fat, silent tears. I think it's time for me to go home. It's a cake, a, um, basketball court cake.

(Thanks to The Sneeze for the needed moment of hilarity. You should check out the post, and The Sneeze. Good stuff.)

Look Who's Talking

2008-01-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

Please take a moment from your busy day of Britney fiasco-tracking to feast your eyes on Mr. Crud’s recently created blog: Clambeard’s Whatnot. Mr. Crud is more than the voice of reason on this blog and my ever-awesome husband. He is a sociological whiz, the ass-kicking drummer for pirate rockers, Sunken Chest, and an all-around smarty-pants when it comes to sci-fi, rock ‘n roll, and useless trivia.

Odd Crushes I Have Known: Pre-Teen Edition

2008-01-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

Bill Bixby a.k.a. the guy who played David Banner on The Incredible Hulk
The age 8 Kt cut out a picture of David Banner from the Washington Post and carried it around in my pocket until it was discovered by the neighborhood kids. Between our biking in circles around the cul de sac and games of kickball, I whipped out my crinkled photo.

“You love him,” sneered Donna, the snotty neighborhood elder who I worshipped.

“No, I don’t.”

“Then rip it up.” She said, hands on bony hips.

I held it on my palm. Did I love Bruce or merely the fact that he could transform into a raging hulk at the slightest provocation? How, as the brothers Gibb inquired, deep was my love? Deep enough to holler from the rooftops? To doodle on my notebook? To confide to Donna whose favor teetered on an invisible tightrope? I stuffed the picture back into my pocket.

“See, you love him. I knew it.”

Not the first nor the last time I would cave into peer pressure. I pulled the slip of newspaper from my pocket, held it for a moment in my shaking palm before I ripped it up and let the pieces flutter to the pavement.

“Litterer!” Donna taunted and rode off on her bike. My brother and the rest of the gang followed, chanting “Kt is a litterer!”

Robin Williams as Popeye
The moment he walked on screen I knew it was love. So I wrote in my short-lived official Diary. It was the kind with a picture of a calico cat next to a bonneted girl with a book open in her lap on the cover and an easily jiggered lock. I must have spent the two hours swooning over Popeye’s fake biceps and hoping that he could look past the blinding beauty of Olive Oil one day. Perhaps I was testing the flimsy diary lock. Should my brother start making cracks about fat calf muscles or spinach, I could bust him for snooping.

Richard Chamberlain
I was on the cusp of adolescence when I happened upon a showing of 80s miniseries favorite, The Thorn Birds. Word on the 6th grade street was that there was a scene where Rachel Ward got her period so I watched on in hopes that this whole period mystery would be revealed. Instead I fell for my first unattainable man, the priest as played by Richard Chamberlain. Every night before I fell asleep, I imagined him coming into my room and offering sage advice with a side of smooching.

Gary Coleman
My kingdom for the autographed photo of Gary Coleman that I once kept safely on the top shelf of my dresser! Every time my mom forces me to sift through the remainder of my childhood effects in (foolish) hopes that I will declare it all trash, I am on the edge of my seat for Gary sightings. In the picture he wore a striped shirt and that smile that made a nation fall in love with chubby black kids. My mom explained to me several times that Gary was actually a man even though he played a kid on TV. But the heart knows no boundaries.

Secrets and Lies Part II: Basketball v Rock 'n Roll

2008-01-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Two forces battled for dominance my senior year basketball season. The Milwaukee’s Best-fueled bad girl life with its attendant punk rock soundtrack versus the last standing remnants of my old honor roll suck-up life of attempted respectability. The latter included basketball, a sport I’d started playing in 5th grade after ballet didn’t pan out.

My freshman year I played basketball, volleyball, and “ran” track. I didn’t do much running in track, but rather was christened a discus thrower and shotputter. I neither knew how to throw a shotput or discus nor had any training beyond my coach’s hasty instructions to watch what the other trained throwers were doing and to imitate it. I came in last every time aside from that glorious day when no discus could be found for us to throw, thus everyone either won or lost, depending on your point of view. I chalked it up to a victory. Then vowed to ditch the track team next year.

Sophomore year I kept basketball and volleyball. I even made the varsity volleyball team, a minor coup due to my underclassmen status. At the practice before the teams were chosen, I executed a perfect save. The ball about to hit the floor I extended my arms in front of me and dove, sliding across the dusty gym floor just in time to bump the ball over the net. The coach’s eyes gleamed. My volleyball compatriots looked on in awe. Such play was never to be repeated. I became a disappointment, a well of untapped potential, a daily reminder of my coach’s error in judgment. I was subjected to pep talk after pep talk in lieu of the yelling style favored by the coach because I was—and remain to this day—a total cry baby. He always brought up my perfect save.

“Remember that practice? That terrific dive?”

I nodded despondently, wishing I’d never shown a glimmer of potential.

Volleyball was too static. Too much standing around gave me time to stare off into the lights, imagine what my life would be like when I was a dancer-model-actress living in a chic New York apartment. Wait. Did the ball just hit my forehead?

Junior year I whittled my sports participation down to basketball, which concerned everyone. Quitting track they could understand—“She’s not much of a runner,” my mom confided to another parent—but volleyball, well that was another story. I was tall, thus genetically predispositioned to volleyball and basketball. When I declared I would never again slide across the filthy gym floor in the name of keeping a white ball aloft, my parents acted like I was dropping out of school. Like this began the inexorable slide into crack addiction and whoring myself out for pencils.

My parents confronted me with a plastic packet of white powder they’d found in a shoebox. “What exactly is this?” Mom held out the packet. Dad stood by her. A united front of worried disappointment.

“I don’t know,” I said, instantly relieved that I was being accused of something I didn’t do rather than the catalog of stuff I had done.

They pressed further and my “I don’t know-s” grew more shrill until finally I noticed that the packet had the word “dessicant” on it. My mom grabbed the packet from me, stomped angrily out of the room, and promptly forgot the entire conversation ever happened. (When recently asked if she remembered our big drug confrontation, my mom denied its existence.)

Senior year I wanted to ditch basketball too, but was far too entrenched to even consider it. Imagining the “serious talks about your future” I would have to suffer through at the mere suggestion that I not play was enough to endure the line drills, shin splints, and heat exhaustion of our August practices. This year I was one of two star players on the team: Dana, the hot cha cha point guard was the other jewel in the Osbourn High girl’s basketball crown. I was interviewed by the local paper: Osbourn Pins Hopes on KT Crud (What? You didn’t think that was my real name?). Unfortunately I proved an unworthy vessel for my crummy high school’s hopes. It was the volleyball dive all over again.

I didn’t totally collapse. I remained a frequent high scorer and our team was in the top four in the region, but, according to the coaches, my play lacked heart. My jayvee basketball coach, who was also a family friend and an enduring crush of mine, came to the house to talk some sense into me. A lite version of the talk that would have befallen me had I attempted to quit basketball.

“You look tired out there, distracted,” he said as he leaned his elbows on his knees and shot me the concerned-about-your-future look.

“Sorry,” I said, my cheeks burning.

“Is there something wrong? You know you can tell me.”

If only I could have told him that I was addicted to crack or bulimic or couldn’t read, but I only managed a non-committal shoulder shrug. Telling him that I’d rather be smoking cigarettes and listening to Jane’s Addiction would have only invited a different talk. “Oh, I remember when I was your age. I loved the Rolling Stones,” he would say before telling me that music would always be there; sports were my future.

My parents listened in from the kitchen. I promised my ex-coach to try harder and everyone seemed satisfied that I’d be back to the old please-authority-figures-at-any-cost me posthaste.

So I pretended. I played. I tried to make myself care, but could only muster any fire for our rival team, Parkview. At 12, I had played on an AAUP team with their star point guard, Nikki. (Would it be immature of me to call her Nikkki here? Probably.) She marked me from the start as her personal whipping girl. Whenever we shared the floor, she never passed me the ball and blamed any error, whether I was near the ball or not, on me. Nikki was a great lover of fat jokes and relished making me cry. What a gal.

A few weeks after the big talk with my ex-coach, we played Parkview. I was pumped. The coaches were abuzz over the triumphant return of my ball-playing heart and soul.

“You showed us something out there,” they said, knowing coach looks in their eyes.

It was a hard fought game, and I was the high scorer. Nikki cried after the buzzer sounded. Oh sweet revenge. My play even garnered some interest from a local d-list college. I had no desire to play college ball, but still I was flattered.

After a few more cakewalk wins, we started the play-offs. We would likely meet Parkview again in the finals. The only problem was that the finals conflicted with my preferred new life. If we made it, I would miss both a free mid-afternoon Red Hot Chili Peppers show and Pylon at the 9:30 Club. Missing Pylon would be especially bad because Holly, my record store coworker, knew the band and they knew R.E.M., and there was no fucking way that I would miss meeting somebody who knew R. fucking E.M.

In the locker room our coach gave us her usual intense pre-game speech. My dormant competitive spirit rose a bit after we huddled and piled our hands on top of each other, but mainly I already felt tired. As the rest of the team filtered onto the court for warm-ups, Dana and I remained.

“Man, I’m tired,” Dana said as she laced up her shoe.

“For real. I’m over this.” I said, quietly very quietly. The wrath of my coach involved lots and lots of sprints. We had felt her wrath in spades the last couple of weeks. We hadn’t done as well as expected, which I’m sure could be traced to the whole pinning of their hopes on me.

“I don’t even care anymore,” Dana said in an equally quiet voice.

“I got stuff to do next weekend.”

Our eyes met. Coach’s voice rang through the locker room. “Out here NOW, ladies!” Dana stood up and we walked out together, a pact made that we could never speak of again. (That is unless one of us is a loudmouth writer who can’t keep a friggin’ secret to save her life.)

I fouled out. Dana did too. I scored 4 points somehow. Everybody on the team worked their asses off and cried when the buzzer sounded and we were down by 6. I felt a little sad. This was the final game of my basketball career—nope, that college didn’t offer me a scholarship to turn down—and I had played horribly. The coaches were kind. My parents hugged me and told me that I’d done the best I could while I stood there thinking “no, I didn’t,” and wondering if Dana felt as shitty as I did.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were in full sock regalia and even got arrested for indecent exposure. Sweet! Pylon kicked much ass and I got to hang out with them backstage, and drink their beer.

“You should come for a visit,” Vanessa, the lead singer, drawled sweetly after I told her of my burgeoning Athens worship.

“I totally will. Totally.”

The members of Pylon autographed my address book and talked to me like I was a real person. A cool person despite the fact that I had displayed extreme uncoolness by asking for their autographs. My lips loosened from the free beer, I confessed “I threw a basketball game so I could come tonight.” The crowd of six woohoo-ed. We clunked Budweiser cans together. The walls around me were covered in old rock posters: Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Gray Matter and even more that I had never heard of before. The room smelled of the holy trinity of rock: beer, body odor, and cigarettes. I drank it all in. Perfection.

My Cruddy Christmas Vacation

2008-01-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas vacation routine remains the same: December 23 – 28 we venture to visit my mom in Lusby, Maryland, the crappy hamlet nestled between Prince Frederick and resorty Solomon’s Island, where Mr. Crud and I are ogled as if we don purple mohawks and forgot our pants. Hard not-one-of-us stares, which make our stay oh so delightful, and the prospect of leaving my mom’s house unsavory. (Perhaps she pays the Lusbians—-no, saying “Lusbians” never gets old—-to be so ornery so we don’t want to venture out. A smart cookie, that one.) On the big C-mas, we were joined by my brother, Max, and his wife, Kathy. Gifts were exchanged. Hearts were warmed. Head colds were passed to and fro.

And now for a breakdown of the highlights and lowlights.

Magazines Read
US Weekly
3 (!!!) issues thanks to the donation by Kathy. All Britney all the time.

That Rachael Ray Magazine
I was desperate. The Albequerque airport filled me with a dread that purchasing another magazine could only dent. I feared being stuck here with nothing to read. Flipping through the EVOO-soaked pages did not make me feel any better.

Rolling Stone
Ghostface Killah reads the Koran AND gets a lot of (in his own words) pussy. Who knew?

Entertainment Weekly
After claiming loudly and proudly that this mag had gone out of print, and being a bit bossy about the whole thing for Mr. Crud’s benefit (or rather his detriment), I picked up a copy and realized that Premiere was the defunct one. So many end-of-year "Best of" lists.

O: The Oprah Magazine
Can’t resist the siren song of my favorite abusive boyfriend.

Glamour
Hooray for the year-end fashion dos and don’ts extravaganza. Someday I will be the lady with my eyes covered by a black box. I shall dress everyday as if Glamour is waiting to make me a don’t.

People
More year-end blah, blah, blah with a side of Britney.

Ms.
I did more skimming than reading, I admit it. Still I felt like the US Weeklies were almost flushed from my system.

Martha Stewart’s Body + Soul
O + Health + Natural Health + Cooking Light = Body + Soul.

Yoga something something
Another yoga magazine that I don’t like as much as Yoga Journal. I always think that reading about yoga will somehow make me feel more relaxed in the holiday stress-sweat drenched airports. Doesn’t really work that way. Sometimes I’ll try doing a squat to open up my hips or a forward bend, but people stare and I get self-conscious.

Books Read
Heartsick by Chelsea Cain
A thrilling thriller set in Portland, Oregon with a crazy-sexy-scary serial killer, a damaged cop, and a spunky pink-haired reporter. Perfect airplane reading.

Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander
Sure, he’s narcissistic and depressing, but also funny and smart. Will I ever escape this memoir ghetto?

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
When in Rome. Even though not technically in Baltimore, I was in a Baltimore mood. The Wire season premiere is Sunday. YAY!!! Still working my way though this one. Not as good as Heartsick, but a decent mystery.

Quest Fulfilled
Every time Mr. Crud and I return to the metropolitan D.C. area the following things are said:

“You need to try Five Guys this time. Their burgers and fries are awesome,” says I.

“Quit dangling that carrot. We always conveniently run out of time and never make it there,” sneers Mr. Crud as if the Crud clan is conspiring to keep him apart from a good burger.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries is a local chain that has grown from three tiny storefronts circa 1990 to a franchise to be reckoned with. My old beau was a burger fiend and I appreciate a good French fry as much as the next lady. I also liked that they had huge boxes of peanuts to munch while you waited for your order to be ready. A few years ago, I remembered this yumminess and shared my tales with Mr. Crud. A quest was born.

When we were in Virginia for my grandfather’s funeral, I discovered that the mega-mall next to our hotel had a Five Guys. Our last day in town we raced around the mall in search of the elusive burger. Once we found the red and white checkered burger grail, I realized that we wouldn’t have enough time to wait for his order to be ready. The line snaked into the food court. We returned to the car in silence.

It almost seemed like our burger plot, which I’d promised to carry out, would be foiled again when our luggage was lost en route to BWI. Christmas Eve was the designated burger day, and we had to spend our day driving back to BWI—3 hours round-trip—instead of scurrying around Target in search of a gift for my 16-year-old cousin whose tastes run toward those of a middle-aged man and, more importantly, getting Mr. Crud his g-ddamned burger.

Christmas Day was out and the following day was a designated crab cake feast. The burger dejection crept back into Mr. Crud’s eyes on the 27th, our final full day as temporary Lusbians. The extended Crud family came over for a mid-afternoon lunch. There may have been enough leftovers for a second feast, but I couldn’t let this Christmas turn grinchy. So we made it to Five Guys. We munched peanuts while we waited. The fries were awesome. The burger was good.

“Worth it?” I asked.

“A Christmas miracle!” Mr. Crud said, mouth full of delicious beef.

God bless us, everyone.

(Fun fact—The extra credit question on my 7th grade test on Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol": What were the last words of this story?
Of course I had not actually read the story, having witnessed numerous sitcom variations on it, my favorite being when Alex P. Keaton was shown the error of his ways on Family Ties. It’s gotta be that sappy Tiny Tim shit, I thought, though probably not in such crude terms. Indeed it was! My teacher used me as an example of someone who actually read the story instead of seeing a movie “like the rest of you,” she said, eyeing the class angrily.)

Illnesses Endured
Stomach Cruddiness
My mystery stomach ailment followed me to Lusby, alternating between constipation and what I’ll politely call a bad case of the cha-cha-cha-s. Whatever nastiness resided within did work its way out in time for Christmas brunch. Christmas miracle part 2!

Head Cold
Mr. Crud was struck down on Christmas Eve. My case came on as we searched for food in the Albequerque airport, one of the crappiest airports I’ve ever had the displeasure of laying over in. (It kills me to end that sentence with not one but two prepositions, but I am too tired/lazy to perform grammatical gymnastics at the moment.)

At the ironically named Buenos Comidas, a hair-netted woman piled anemic cucumbers atop a slab o’ Swiss while a manager type barked instructions at her. “The peppers are always last. Always last!” Mr. Crud opted for a burrito—described as “not bad” during the eating and later as “I shouldn’t have eaten that burrito”—while I decided I really needed some vegetables. The hairnetted woman coughed into her shoulder while piling more limp veggies on my sammy. I should’ve gotten out of line and called it a day, counted my “Veggie Delight” out for the day but I felt some sort of loyalty to the depressed workers at Buenos Comidas. I paid $10.14 for a sandwich I could only eat half of as the image of her coughs haunted every bite.

The day after we returned home, I awoke with a scratchy throat. I flashed to Buenos Comidas lady and her barely stifled coughs. More likely, I’d picked up the germs from the fellow I’d been smooching and sharing a tiny double bed with for the past week.

The Greatest Gift of All
I’m going to be an auntie again thanks to the fancy reproductive work of Max and Kathy Crud. I can’t wait to teach my newest niece or nephew to curse, smoke, and drink whiskey.

No, They Di-in’t
Two words: lost luggage. FUCK! After my first experience with lost luggage courtesy of United Airlines, I stopped checking luggage altogether. Never again, I vowed, would I experience the sinking feeling as I watched the same three pieces of foreign luggage go round and round while I tried to keep from freaking out. I bought a quality carry-on sized piece o’ luggage and learned to pack light.

All was fine and dandy until those TSA fuckers instituted the 3-ounce liquid limit. What of my hair goo? My hair goo (Bedhead’s Off the Hook mousse, if you must know), contact solution (generic), and face wash (varies depending on the pimple situation) do not come in 3-ounce containers. With trepidation, I began the crapshoot of checking luggage once again. I learned to trust again. Even to love a bit more and better. But then came the empty luggage carousel, the woman with braided hair who ranted about her day of travel mishaps to anyone in shouting distance, the poor weeping teenaged mom who stalked the baggage claim area in her pajamas, and the clunk clunk clunk as the carousel chugged to a stop.

Mr. Crud and I filed our claim. I kept my tears under wraps as I, making more vows in the thick airport air, promised to get yoga about this. Non-attachment, non-attachment, non-attachment, I silently chanted. Only clothes and face wash. They’ll make it. Plus, I had packed an emergency outfit and pair of pajamas in my carry-on just in case. Earlier that day Mr. Crud had gently laughed at my need to lug these emergency togs around with me. “It’s so cute that you’re prepared.”

Who’s cute now?

The woman who filed our lost luggage claim shook her head at the culprit: Midway Airport. Bastards. She told us that our luggage arrive on a later flight so we might want to stick around. Because Lusby is outside of Southwest Airlines’ delivery radius, when our luggage arrived we would have to pick it up, or else wait to receive it until the last day of our trip due to the holiday. We decided to wait. For 4 hours I haunted carousel after carousel and stared at the incoming flight board in search of more Midway flights. I tried to read Heartsick, to eat some trail mix, to relax, but anything non-luggage related was fruitless. For a half hour, a man dressed as Santa sat next to me and chatted up waves of kids waiting for their baggage. He didn’t seem to be working for the airport. He too checked the incoming flight boards a few times. Mr. Crud and I pondered the meaning of an “unofficial Santa” and whether it was creepy or not.

At 10:00, I could take no more. We headed home, dejected.

“You feel like we left a man behind?” I asked Mr. Crud after we had slipped into the front seat of our rented Chevy Impala.

“Yeah, sort of.”

Luckily we found a Safeway that was open until midnight and picked up emergency supplies.

Our luggage was found the next morning. I only had to walk around in the world with shitty hair for one day. It IS a wonderful life.

The Crud 2007
Because I know you hang on my every word and recommendation, here is a list of art (pronounced ahhht, of course) stuff that I liked this year. As always, thanks for humoring me.

MUSIC
Not necessarily released in 2007, but became part of my cruddy world this past year. This year the ladies and the hip hoppers battled for my dangerously enlarged heart.

Lily Allen: Alright, Still
Amy Winehouse (Whiny Amehouse as she’s called in Crud Castle): Back to Black
Tegan and Sara: The Con
Lupe Fiasco: The Cool
Ghostface Killah: Big Doe Rehab
Clipse: Lord Willin’ and Hell Hath No Fury
M.I.A.: Kala
Lifesavas: Gutterfly
Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

WORDS
This list only includes books I’ve read in the past few months because where reading material is concerned, I have the memory of a fly. (They have notoriously short memories, right?) Thanks to goodreads.com (It’s like myspace but with books. Join! Befriend me!) I will keep better track next year.

Lauren Weedman’s A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body (Tales from a Life of Cringe)
Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Sherman Alexie’s Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie’s Flight
Josh Ferris’ And Then We Came to the End
Fart Party by Julia Wertz

Sickly

2007-12-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Aside from my yearly visit to the gyno, I stay away from doctor’s offices. Not that they aren’t a barrel of monkeys, but I do all that yoga and eat all those darn vegetables so that I have the privilege of only darkening the doctorial doorstep when I need to re-up on the birth control pills and Xanax.

But once every 4-5 years I have some odd medical issue that forces me to look hard at the (wo)man in the mirror and ask her to change her ways for a day. The last time was a bizarre Christmas Eve mishap.

For years I’d had this swollen gland-like spot on my neck, which Mr. Crud and I called appropriately enough “my neck thing.” When I had salty, spicy foods or even for no apparent reason it would swell and grow sore, turning a leisurely slurping of Hot and Sour soup into a trial.

“Goddamnit, my thing’s doing it again.” I said and immediately started pressing on it. Because what’s better for a sore, aggravated gland then smashing it into my neck with my fingers as if to push it back to the body netherworld from whence it came.

Pressing on my neck thing became a bit of a pastime. Sometimes I could make it shoot out a salty, pus-like fluid into my mouth. (Here we go down that literary ick girl path again.) Of course, the pressing enraged the thing and made it grow red and more swollen, the opposite of my eradication goals.

“You made it angry again,” Mr. Crud said in his best tsk-tsk-tsk voice.

On Christmas Eve of 2002, the neck thing came to a head. Mr. Crud, my brother Max, and I played a spirited game of Trivial Pursuit at my parents’ house. After eating my share of pecan bars and spiced nuts, the neck thing was up to its old tricks. I went to the bathroom and pressed, quickly discovering a thicker more substantial goo was a-oozing. I’ve cracked the code! I’ll pass whatever little clogged stone is in there through my salivary glands! A Christmas miracle!!

I pressed and pressed and eventually started to feel lightheaded so I returned to the table where I shared my exciting discovery with my disgusted compatriots and pressed once again.

The next thing I knew I was flat on my back, still sitting in the chair but toppled over. Max and the Mister crowded over me, calling my name. I’d peed myself in what Mr. Crud claims to be the most impressive self-pissing he’s ever witnessed.

“It all came out at once. It was like a power washer.” I impress on so many levels.

As I slowly came around, my sweet brother mopped up my impressive pee with towels. We debated telling my parents and rushing to the emergency room, but after I started to feel better thanks to Xanax, we decided against it. My dad had been battling cancer for a few years and the last thing my exhausted folks needed was a midnight trip to another hospital. (At this point we had the idea to print “I ruined Christmas” t-shirts. I still think it’s a swell idea, but who has time for million dollar ideas with all this crud to write.)

The next morning—Christmas! Hooray! Santa brought me a Thich Nhat Hanh day planner!!—we told my folks of the incident in the mildest terms possible. After a brief family conference, it was decided that non-insurance having me would wait to return home so I could visit the university’s clinic.

After telling my tale to a string of confused doctors, the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist had my answer: I had pressed too hard on my carotid artery. The passing out and peeing of self was my body’s way of staying “Step the fuck off!” My neck thing was an abnormal salivary gland caused by another one of my weird health discoveries of 3 years previous-TMJ or rather a misaligned jaw. Dr. Ear-Nose-Throat advised me to lay off with the neck thing pressing, which was not a problem since even grazing that area sent my limbs a-tingling with the feeling that I was about to pass out again. After a few weeks of not pressing, my neck thing stopped swelling and hasn’t been an issue since. Who knew the wisdom in that motherly advice “Don’t play with it!”

A few days ago my 5-year good health grace period was up again. This time the culprit was a burning in my gut that didn’t cease for 2 days. All other digestive systems were go, but the burning intensified. After a frustrating morning of calling the health advice nurse who was convinced I was having a heart attack and trying to get appointments at two clinics, (who do you have to blow to talk to a doctor these days?) Mr. Crud and I headed off for the dingy urgent care center in Clackamas.

“It’s a 2 hour wait,” the receptionist informed me.

My instinct was to run away and pretend this whole crying-from-pain and fear-of-dying-from-burning-guts thing wasn’t happening. I knew Mr. Crud wouldn’t let me off so easy so I filled out my paperwork and took a seat near a surly teenager and burly bearded guy in the waiting area. A TV babbled from the corner of the room, making reading the fun memoir of Phoebe Damrosch’s adventures in high-end food service (Service Included) impossible. I gave in. I watched America’s Funniest Home Videos and found myself longing for the smooth MC skills of Bob Saget as the new guy hardy-har-harred his way through the usual panoply of videos: kids falling down, getting their heads stuck in hilarious places, but sadly no ball smashing. I thought “Ouch, My Balls” moments were the bread and butter of AFHV. Next came The Cosby Show. Mr. Crud and I flexed our sociological muscles for awhile (Ever notice how Cos’ kids and grandkids got more and more light-skinned as the show went on? Coincidence?) while I tried to remember why I adored this show as a child.

Finally my name was called and I was ushered to a bare-walled examining room with only an old issue of Family Circle to keep me company. At least this time I didn’t have to regale the nurse and doctor with the history of my neck thing, instead I elaborated on my hunk of burning stomach and how, yes, it hurt constantly and no, I hadn’t puked or experienced any notable--to be couth for once--bowel movements.

“I WISH I was vomiting and having diarrhea!” I exclaimed. “I wouldn’t be here if that was happening.”

The nurse slowly backed out of the room. I picked up the Family Circle. The recipe of the month was Fish Fillet Pizza Roll Out. I put down the Family Circle. At least there were no Cos adventures to keep me from reading about Ms. Damrosch’s adventures at Per Se. Under normal circumstances my mouth would have been watering at the food she wrote about: salmon cornets, oysters, truffles-a-go-go, but instead my gut lurched at the though of putting any delicacy in my mouth. I had been subsisting on soup for the past few days. Sadly, I had been pondering the weight loss possibilities of this little bout with gut burn. The Beauty Myth never rests.

Dr. Reynold Orchard (I had to print his real name because it rocks) listened to me breathe, poked at my gut, and ran down the usual suspects. Nothing.

“We’ll give you a GI cocktail. That ought to do it.” He left the room and was replaced by a happy-go-lucky nurse who advised me to toss it back quickly lest I taste the foul liquid. My mouth and throat quickly numbed but the gut burn remained.

The corners of Dr. Orchard’s mouth turned down at this news. “You still feel it? Hmmm…”

What was left but to take some blood from my—in the words of the bouncy nurse—“great veins.” If I didn’t hear from them, then everything was fine. I could call for my results the following night. Dr. Orchard gave me a prescription for Vicodin and we were, after 4 hours, on our way.

“I had to watch another Cosby Show and Sister, Sister with Jacquee,” Mr. Crud said. One of us had certainly been traumatized.

At Fred Meyer, I doubled over in pain with only celebrity tabloids to distract me. I had only had half a bagel since entering the clinic and the burn was angry.

“You’re going to take it, right?” Mr. Crud asked after the Vicodin.

I nodded as I was unable to form words at the moment. It was another “we’re so old” moment. I remember when my friends and I used to endure the pain just so we could get wicked messed up with our painkillers later. Good times. So glad most of us survived.

Two days later and the burn has finally taken leave, at least most of the time. I’ve moved onto some monumentally bad menstrual cramps, but at least it’s the devil that I know. I still don’t have much of an appetite except for Japanese food. (No, I swear this is not some overblown scheme to eat sushi at every meal.) And because it’s that jingle belly time of year, I feel compelled to leave you with a few words of holiday wisdom:

The health care system really is fucked (I have good insurance and still seeing a doctor was a hassle, which is really what you need when you feel like shit.)

Appreciate your good or medium-good health

Don’t eat a Fish Filet Pizza Roll-Out

A CRUDDY NEW YEAR TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!!!!

I Wish You a Cruddy Chanukah

2007-12-10T12:57:00.000-08:00

Greetings, coolios. Please forgive my inconsistent blogging ways as I have been trying to get my fiction groove on for the last few weeks. It’s going comme ci comme ca—pardon my French. Thanks for asking.

In lieu of the usual tales of transportation woes and bitchy musings, I take a moment to wish you and yours a very Chappy Chanukkah (Chappy Chan for short) and to list my gifts so far with—because the Jewish folks love it—commentary.

Night #1
Upright Citizens Brigade Season 2. Thank Amy Poehler, they finally released another season of one of my all-time favorite TV shows.

Night #2
An Official Dundee Award. Hooray! Now I can share my Office obsession with my coworkers by proudly displaying my Dundee on my desk. This very special award comes with changeable name-plates. I plan on alternating between “Hottest in the Office” and the “Don’t Go In There After Me” award.

Night #3
Hooray for hip hop Hanukkah! Ghostface Killah’s The Big Doe Rehab will show me the true meaning of the holiday season.

Night #4
Season 1 and 2 of The Office on DVD. Mr. Crud tricked me into thinking he got me the second half of the last Sopranos season. But we would have bought that anyway, I mentally whined. Not the true spirit of Chanukkah at all. The real gift was the guilt.

Night #5
A new set of brighter bike lights. Dare not to see me now, motherscratchers!

Night #6
Jellybath!!!!! I am a bath-and-body product-a-holic. Now I have my holy grail: a powder that when added to a hot bath turns into the consistency of jell-o. After the novelty wears off, I plan to reenact the scene from Poltergeist when the mom and daughter have just returned from the great beyond and are lying in a tub, covered with what appears to be cherry jell-o. “Thank God you’re alive, Carol Ann!”

Stay tuned for the final 2 nights o’ gifts. My money is on yoga props since I asked for—and helped Mr. Crud pick out—yoga props. Maybe then I will learn the true meaning of Hanukkah, opening my heart to embrace humanity or something like that. I’m sure Ghostface will guide my way.

2 Items from the Kt Crud Museum of Aweseomeness (R.E.M. Section)

2007-11-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

(Please accept my apologies for denying the blogosphere my brilliance for the past couple of weeks. First came Thanksgiving, then came cold from hell, which knocked me flat on my ass but did allow for time to read the excellent and highly recommended The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I hope you enjoy this latest baring of my pock-marked soul. Actually my soul more likely wears too much blue eyeshadow and candy corn flavored lip gloss, but pock-marked sounded kinda dark and deep...for about 2 seconds.)

1. Orange and blue band jacket from Cedar Shoals High School in Athens, GA

During my junior year of college, my pals and I crammed into two cars and drove to my personal Mecca: Athens, GA. (See Crudbucket 2: The Music Issue for an expanded commentary on my love for Athens.) When not getting drunk in the Georgia Bar, hunting for bootleg R.E.M. tapes, and generally trying to make the city of Athens believe that we were the shit, we thrifted. Enter band jacket. It was bright orange with criss-crossing white and blue stripes on the back, Cedar Shoals printed on the shoulder, and blue epaulets. “Wow cool!” my pals exclaimed as I strutted around the musty thrift store and admired myself in the smudged mirrors. $5. A steal. The orange jacket became the coat of record during our stay and my main Michael Stipe stalking gear.

One night we tracked him to a fancy-ish beer bar, The Globe, where he sat in a corner in intense conversation with Bob Mould. The presence of two of our personal heroes transformed us into giggling teenage girls with the added bonus of being trashed on strong European beer. As I tried to roll an impressive Drum cigarette—all my attempts at hand-rolling cigarettes, joints, twigs end up looking like the snake that ate the planet in Le Petit Prince—my friend Nicole stumbled over to their table and thanked them for their music and general awesomeness. They were very gracious. Nicole is one cute lady so I wasn’t surprised that they thanked her and then she thanked them and then they thanked her again. God, I was jealous.

In the hotel room a few blocks from the bar, we assured ourselves that we weren’t dorks, that Michael and Bob (as we now called them after observing them in a bar) could see through our nervous exuberance to the cool souls that we were. Nicole and my other friend Marian went to get some fresh air. Barely able to stand, I stayed in and again tried my hand at cigarette-rolling. A half hour later they burst through the door.

“We were out skipping and we saw Michael and Bob taking a walk. They waved at us and told us to have fun!”

Nicole plopped next to me on the bed. “Michael was so drunk. It was adorable.”

At that moment rolled cigarettes were dead to me. How I yearned for Michael Stipe to tell ME to have fun. Hoisted by my own retarded vices again.

Our stalking continued for the remainder of our stay. The last night of our visit, we hung out with a member of Mr. Stipe’s inner circle who was obviously hoping to steal a smooch from Nicole. She dared ask if our presence had registered on the object of our obsession. “Oh yeah, Michael knows you all. How could he miss you?” He gestured to my coat with his beer. Did I mention that my hair was a flaming orange-red-bleach blonde at the roots combo? I felt slightly victorious.

“Michael Stipe knows me in this jacket,” I bragged after we returned home (I only did this while extremely drunk. When sober, I am a bit more cagey about my name-dropping. Like now. A whole post created just so you’ll know that for 3 days Michael Stipe was aware of my presence on this earth and my love for the color orange.)

The jacket is living its third life as part of Mr. Crud’s oft-complimented pirate ensemble. He is in the inimitably marvelous pirate band, Sunken Chest. “Michael Stipe knows me in this jacket,” I say whenever Mr. Crud reports a jacket comment from his pirate travels. He pats my hand with such loving condescension, “Yes, I know.”

2. T-Shirt from R.E.M.’s Green tour

Seeing R.E.M. play during the Green tour was my Beatles hysteria moment. They were my favorite band. I loved everything about the show except for the fact that I didn’t become instant best buddies/lovers with a member of the band, but whatever, I’ll settle for attempting to decode every shimmy and gesture coming from Michael Stipe.

I bought a t-shirt with the faces of my beloved band on front and the tour dates on back as is standard in the concert t-shirt genre. I wore the t-shirt at least once a week, stroking the sleeves as if they would give way to a college rock genie who could transport me back to the magical moment in the Capital Centre. It was my go-to t-shirt and became soft and transparent with wearing until it was relegated to the pajama shirt ghetto, where it had its next appearance of note.

Beach week. Two of my close friends and my boyfriend rented a hotel room for a week in Virginia Beach. The alcohol flowed freely thanks to slack cashiers at the nearby Safeway. While my pals went on the prowl one night (later bringing back two sketchy marines—ugh) I finally was able to dispense with my virginity, my albatross for the last few months. My senior year of high school, I was ready to be done with it already but every night that I was wasted enough to hook up with some unworthy boy with a lopsided haircut and a Cult t-shirt, I magically got my period. “God doesn’t want me to have sex!” I lamented. (A belated thanks, G-d. I’m eternally grateful that I did not lose my virginity to any of those douchebags.)

When I finally got a legitimate boyfriend, I knew that my pal God had sent him to do some serious deflowering. The only problem was that he—my boyfriend, not God—was, well, a big guy and I was a virgin. For all my bravado, I was skittish about the pain. Wasn’t this supposed to feel good? By the time beach week rolled around we had several aborted sex attempts under our belt. On prom night, I too quickly crossed the line of drunk enough to fuck into drunk enough to puke, responding to his amorous advances with a randomly waving arm and the slurred “Get away from me. No touch.”

My boyfriend, an 18-year-old body builder who oozed testosterone, even had his own crisis of impotence during the run of our virginity-losing mission. The doctor theorized that he was either afraid of hurting me with his monstrous wang or suffering from performance anxiety. So we tried a strategy of no pressure. And also getting very drunk. As a result, I don’t remember the exact details of this vital Beach Week seduction, just that it hurt like a bitch, I bled like a stuck pig, and my precious t-shirt was soaked with the sauces of our effort (um, yuck—mostly it was blood). When I stood from the toilet, finally believing that I wasn’t going to die of internal hemorrhaging, I felt victorious. I looked into the faces of my R.E.M. pals in the mirror’s reflection. “We did it,” I whispered.

Nope, the t-shirt is not part of Mr. Crud’s pirate ensemble but it does remain in my t-shirt crate. In its old age, it has been retired from the t-shirt rotation—also it is full of holes, but no lingering blood stain—but it will remain until someone sorts through my stuff and holds it to the light, “Why did she keep this rag?”

Now you know.

Crudbucket 7: The All Grown Up With Nowhere To Go Issue

2007-11-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

My goal was to complete Crudbucket 7: The All Grown Up with Nowhere To Go Issue before my pal, Mirjana, left on a trip for India. That was over a month ago. She returned today. Better late than later, I say. A saying soon to be famous on the always competitive catchphrase circuit.

This dose of crud includes a catalog of my fears of reproducing and how they relate to Steve Guttenberg; a tale of dancing-related humiliation at the hands of now defunct (I hope) rock-rap group, The Hard Corps; the horrors of grain moth infestation; a bad bad trip to the Goodwill; yet another foray into the weird-awful-wonderful world of teenage angst; and more. CB7 is available from Powell's City of Books (online at www.powells.com) and Reading Frenzy in lovely downtown Portland, Oregon. You can also go directly to the source and email me (ktcrud@yahoo.com), flag me down, ply me with drinks, leave a comment, or whatever suits your fancy to get your very own crud for the low, low cost of $3. If you'd like me to mail your crud, please include an extra buck for shipping. (I've got doodads coming out the wazoo so your shipping buck will buy you some sort of cruddy treat.)

A new post coming soon!

Secrets and Lies Part I: Another Night In Paradise

2007-11-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

Nicole drove. She always drove. Her willingness to cart my drunk ass around Manassas and beyond was a pillar in the somewhat crumbly foundation of our friendship. In fact I barely remember how we became friends aside from the fact that it involved a mutual desire to get loaded and to smoke as many cigarettes as possible while screaming along to The Cult’s “Fire Woman” as she navigated our piece of suburban wasteland in her spanking new white Mustang during our senior year in high school.

Wait, now it’s coming back. Oh yeah. I ditched my best friend of several years for the punkier, booze loving, and older-boyfriend having Rosemary who then ditched me for the aforementioned boyfriend (after the older boyfriend’s even older roommate—25 years old old—decided he probably wouldn’t get much play from me, a 17-year-old virgin), which somehow brought Nicole and I together.

Wow. I really shouldn’t write these things out or I may realize that I have more in common with the oft-lamented popular people of my youth than I’d like to admit.

On this particular spring night, Manassas held zero promise. Our booze buddy Jimi was occupied with his new girlfriend. There were no parties to be had. My hook-up of 2 weeks ago, the only Republican I have ever dated, had fizzled after the aforementioned date proved to the both of us that we would make a great couple if the only activity of our relationship was making out on a bed while four other people also sitting on the bed watched Saturday Night Live. Yes, ew.

So, fake ID in shaky hand, I bought a 6-pack of Miller Genuine Draft (my beer of choice when I was feeling classy) and cigars (must have been feeling extra classy). We drove by the Republican’s house a few times while I ranted about what a dick he was for not calling me back.

The third time we looped around—I was on beer #4 and feeling sassy—the car made a chugging noise and came to an unceremonious stop a block away from the Republican’s house.

“Shit!” Nicole yelled in a voice that a friend described as a young Joan Rivers. “We’re out of gas.”

“Fuck a duck,” I said. Why that expression seemed cool to me is now a total mystery.

She nodded in the direction of chez Republican. “You should go to—“

“No way. I can’t. What if he’s there with another girl? Plus I’m practically wasted,” I said, throwing back the last warm sip of my beer before jumping out the door to stash the can in the bag in Nicole’s trunk. These were the days before curbside recycling. Nicole carried around a garbage bag of cans, soda and beer, that was supposedly destined for the recycling center. We were environmentally conscious degenerates.

Part of me wanted to go to the Republican’s house (actually his parents’ house), to finally have an excuse to see him and those plush lips of his. I could act drunker than I was and move in for one more kiss or go the righteous anger route. “Why didn’t you call me back,” I would slur as tears moistened my cheeks.

I lit a Swisher Sweet and contemplated. Cigar smoke filled the car. Nicole lit a Camel. “So what are we gonna do?”

Neither one of us had noticed the truck that had pulled up behind us.

A guy in a baseball cap and the redneck uniform of our area—flannel with old jeans and a yellowing white t-shirt—stepped from the cab and came over to Nicole’s side. “Y’all need some help?”

“In fact we do,” I said, attempting a smooth sexy confidence while I puffed on my cigar.

Truck guy and I pushed the car to the side of the road. He went back to his truck and pulled a gas can from the bed. Nicole and I cheered as he poured in enough of the sweet nectar to get us to the gas station down the road.

This was my first and last encounter with the magical redneck. After that night, the redneck population continued their campaign of woohooing as I walked down the street, riding around with the ever-menacing gun racks in their pick-ups, and generally making me wish I lived in a redneck-free utopia.

Relieved and jittery from adrenaline, Nicole pulled into the Shell station next to the Denny’s, our next destination. She misjudged the distance to the pumps and over Ian Asbury’s whine, I heard a loud scraping noise against my door.

“Oh fuck! What was that?” She Joan Rivers-ed.

I nervously giggled. “Oh my g-d, you ran into those poles.”

You know, those white poles between the curb and the pump that have scrapes of all colors on them from the many drivers that misjudge the width of their car?

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. My parents are gonna kill me.” Nicole said.

Not kill but certainly berate her and possibly take away the white mustang that had been my taxi for the last few months. This was serious.

“Damn girl, you did a number on your door,” the unmagical redneck who manned the Shell station said after surveying the damage.

Nicole and I got out from the car slowly, taking in the black scrapes against the door without breathing.

“That’s it. I’m dead,” she said.

“No, wait a second, I have a plan.”

My storytelling mind jumped into high gear. After filling the tank we went to Denny’s where I told Nicole what really happened:

We were in Denny’s, yeah? Before we went in I had noticed a black car next to you that had seemed to be a bit close, which I noticed because I had to squeeze out of the door. So anyway, when we got back to the car there were these huge black marks on the door. “That fucker scraped your car, Nicole!,” I said, but we’ll change “fucker” to “jerk” for the sake of your parents.

We practiced the story a few times, worked out our positions, and after leaving the restaurant, heaved the bag of cans into the dumpster. We drove around town for a few more courage raising cigarettes. It had to work. No big deal. We worked up some outrage and headed to Nicole’s house.

We told the story to her open-mouthed parents. Her dad inspected the damage. “Sheet,” he said in his French accent. “Pardon me,” he added, looking at me.

“No problem,” I said. “What a jerk. They didn’t even leave a note.”

“I’m just so glad you aren’t hurt,” her mom said, hugging Nicole to her. “Oh honey, you smell terrible.”

“It was really smoky in Denny’s,” I said.

Then they called the cops. The cops? My beer courage was wearing off. The shot of adrenaline dissipated. Could I make it through the questioning without bursting into tears? Nicole and I looked at each other wide-eyed. I called my parents and relayed the sad story, explaining why I would be late. Nicole’s mom got on the phone with my mom “I’m just so glad no one was hurt.”

The police arrived quickly. As they took our statements they looked bored mostly, a little skeptical but mostly bored. Our story was so detailed as to be suspicious, but Nicole’s dad was a prominent doctor, and we were “yes sir-ing” like crazy. To our relief, they didn’t separate us or try to poke holes in our story but simply wrote our lies in their notepad and handed Nicole’s dad a copy of the report for insurance purposes.

Nicole drove me home. We took an oath to keep this little adventure to ourselves, since the police had been involved. A week later, the door was repaired and the black marks faded into our senior year together.

Instead of getting bummed about all the lies littering my aura (I kid, sorta), I’ll chalk this one up to a stepping stone on my career to fiction greatness. I guess this means I’ll have to go out and actually achieve some greatness to justify all the lying. Great. Like I need more pressure.

(Stay tuned for more secrets and lies! Has the statute of limitations on insurance fraud passed yet?)

Fixie-Foolery

2007-10-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

If you live outside the Portland area, you may have never heard of the fixie a.k.a. my current transportation arch nemesis. A fixie is the cutesy poo name for a fixed-gear track bike (is that redundant?): a bike with one gear, a frame that looks like a strong wind could break it in half, and most notably no brakes. (Don’t hyperventilate yet. Some fixies do come with brakes but most that I encounter on the hardscrabble streets of Portland are blissfully break-free.) These hip young things are intended to be ridden on a track such as the Velodrome, a controlled cycling environment, but the current crop of young coolios have taken the track bike to the streets, my streets and streetlights and sidewalks and grassy knolls, transforming me—innocent me who is such a big-hearted lover of everyone and everything—into an unabashed hater.

Exhibit 1: The no braking thing
The fixie riders claim that they CAN brake, they just don’t do it with the traditional handbrakes, but rather with their leg strength by pedaling backwards. Sounds reasonable in theory. In theory. Most fixies that I encounter ride a meandering path, moseying onto sidewalks, lawns, the thighs of chubby teenagers, whatever to avoid braking. Frequently they ride in front of traffic, trusting that the driver will stop. Not wanting a dead hipster cyclist on their consciences, most of the time they do. The fixie rides away, oblivious, missing the chorus of honks and “asshole” calls left in his-her wake, and generally contributing to the delinquency of the cyclist reputation. If all the meandering fails, they attempt the backpedal-brake maneuver with mixed results. I’ve seen dangerous fishtails as they struggle to come to a stop and a couple of wipe-outs.

One guy gave me a “what’re ya gonna do” shrug when he barely stopped his fixie before a river of rush hour traffic. “Get some fucking brakes, asshole,” thus spake I with my intense stare. He probably thought I was constipated.

Exhibit 2: The no gear thing
Gears are not some sort of cycle luxury; they are a practical response to the different geographies of this great land of ours. (Doesn’t that sound like I’m writing a paper entitled “Brakes: A Manmade Miracle!”) If I could, I would make love to those low gears that have saved my burning thighs on many an uphill trek. Likewise I would give a hearty slap on the bottom to the high gears that increase my speed on the downhill grades. (Digression #539,999: Is there such a thing as bike porn? Does anyone actually want to fuck a bike?)

Being without gears, the fixie rider can go one speed. Since most fixie pilots view their riding as some sort of zen rebel pose, don’t expect the fixie in front of you to accommodate higher speeds on downhill coasts. Nay, they just zigzag along, pedals forever in motion, oblivious to everything since 99% of them (in an unscientific crud observational study) are plugged into an iPod, which brings me to…

Exhibit 3: The uniform
No helmet unless for decorative purposes. Instead a jaunty hat or stocking cap pulled over ear buds whose cords snake into the low-slung pants pocket. Unlike the speed racers decked out like Lance Armstrong, most of the fixie riders don the twentysomething nerd-chic hipster outfit: too tight floods with sneakers or ballet flats and a boxy jacket on top. Even in the pouringest of downpours, or on the darkest of nights, the fixie rider does not deign to wear the practical yellow rain jacket. I can sympathize on this count. I purchased my first rain jacket four years ago, a full six years after moving to the Pacific Northwest. I thought my super cool insulated sweatshirt with the Boy Scout patches that struck me as hip for some reason would be adequate shield against the rain. Not so much. Once the mildew stench started to cling to the clothes I wore underneath, I joined the neon yellow army.

Exhibit 4: Safety? Fuck Safety
I am not the perfect picture of safe cycling. I don’t wear one of those neon orange safety vests. I’ve been known to run a red light or two (or three or four at 5:30 a.m. when I’m riding to yoga). I make mistakes, most frequently in the name of racing home so we can get a table at Yoko’s before the rush hits. (Everyone, stop going to Yoko’s, please. For my safety. For the, uh, safety of the children.) In my defense (get off my back, people!) I always wear a helmet, use lights when it’s dark or pea soup-y, and obey most traffic laws if only so I can affect an air of haughty superiority at moments like these. The fixie rider? No helmet, no lights, no obeying of traffic laws. I keep waiting for the flood of fixie-related deaths to ignite yet another cyclists v. drivers battle royale on the Oregonian editorial page. I don’t wish anyone dead or injured or even mosquito bit, but tragedy seems inevitable as fixie popularity grows among the young, a group not known for their attention to safety. (There but for the grace of somebody go I.)

Convinced yet?

I’m not wholly unsympathetic to the kids of today. I too purchased a bike that had more to do with fashion than practicality when I first moved to Portland. In my day, the kids rode mountain bikes. Theoretically I could have gone on rock hopping adventures, but realistically, I got the bike because it looked sturdy, fat (or rather phat—oh man, when did people stop saying phat? I’m so freaking old.), and it was the style at the time. Also, the tires looked like they wouldn’t easily puncture, which for a repair-a-phobe like me, was a huge bonus.

A few years later after tiring of the extra effort it took to pedal uphill with the smaller circumferenced mountain bike tires, and realizing that a rugged terrain cycling habit would never develop, I purchased a hybrid, which serves me well until this day. Even though it’s more delicate than the old Specialized, it could still rip the head off and shit down the neck of any fixie in town. And that’s what counts, right?

Happy Friday--Me and the Mystical Horses

2007-10-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

In an effort to keep myself fresh for a Friday o' party down fun, I just spent 15 minutes doing a photo shoot with ye olde computerre monitorre camerrrra. How does this keep me fresh? The photo shoot keeps me away from that energy drainer of the first degree, work. Kind of like getting healthy by replacing your hamburger with a cheese sandwich. Or something like that.

I'm not usually a mystical horses type o' gal, but this journal makes me laugh every time I crack it open to fill its pages with my trademark wit and brilliance.

Have a lovely weekend. Ride that sexy mystical horse.

Please Make This Reality (TV) Go Away

2007-10-22T14:16:00.000-07:00

When Mr. Crud is away my television viewing choices go downhill. Not just a rolling Shenandoah Valley hill but an alpine slope. His presence and the threat of a reality check—“What ARE you watching?”—keep me grounded. A typical Crud family night’s viewing habits: a little Daily Show, some Food Channel diversions, and a sprinkling of OPB to keep the brain from totally oozing out of my ear.

Last Tuesday evening I was alone with the remote, a bit loopy from some wine, and ready to engage in the dreaded channel crawl in search of entertainment. Unlike Mr. Crud, I have not memorized the worthy channels thus must wade through all the home shopping-ortunities and the jiggly camera cable access shows. I haven’t yet forgiven him for leaving me like this. It wasn’t pretty.

After ruling out the high falutin’ channels—Comedy Central (They cancel Strangers With Candy but allow that Mencia douchebag to live on. Explain, please.), Food Channel, the HBOs, IFC-- my flicking finger pauses on Lisa Williams’ My Life Among the Dead. A show about a woman—a medium, not a psychic she stresses—who communicates with the dead is probably not the wisest viewing choice a mere 3 days after burying my grandfather, but I’m having a rubbernecking moment.

Two women talk to the camera about their excitement at meeting Lisa. They don’t mention who the person they hope to communicate with is, but immediately I know it’s their mother. I wonder if people can take one look at me and know that my father died. Lisa takes a necklace from the blonder of the women and within a few moments she is “talking” to their mother. The daughters dissolve into tears broken by laughter and the oft-repeatd phrase, “that’s so Mom!” Initially I found the girls to be of the giggly, overly made up, too tight dress sort, but I feel a flash of kinship with them. I would love to hear from my dad once more. At the end of his life, he was so far gone to cancer and pain medication that his only communication was a frightened “huh” when we shouted his name in his ear. He didn’t even respond to “dad.” Even though Lisa is telling these women what their mother is saying—the usual I love you, I’m proud of you stuff—and I’m shaking my head at the cliché-ness of it all, I also feel a tug of wishing to hear her chirpy British accent describe my dad. I would tell him that I loved him, which is a bit of a duh statement but feels necessary, and, if possible, that he should watch The Colbert Report. I am so pissed that my dad died before seeing it. I start thinking of all the other things I’d say: Check out The Office too, especially Dwight Schrute; Mom really should get a dog, can I tell her that you said she should get a dog?; I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

“You need to not watch this,” I say aloud and start inching up the channels.

Thank Tori Spelling! She helps me to shake off the sadness with some good old-fashioned hating. (I remember all too well how she started off on this road to reality TV-land:"Donna Martin graduates! Donna Martin graduates!")

In the first shot the plastic Ms. Spelling hawks jewelry on QVC. Then we cut to a scene of her husband pacing around their living room watching the QVC extravaganza, their bouncing baby boy cuddled on the lap of a nanny. Tori and Dean Inn Love. Let the rubbernecking continue. Tori is like so excited that her jewelry is selling but she like totally misses her husband and baby. Aww, how cute. She thinks she’s people. She ruminates about whether she should let her baby be used in a photo shoot. Would this be exploitive? Dangerous? How is this different from parading your baby around on a fucking TV show?

A few months ago I read an essay by the woman Dean divorced to be with Tori. I wonder if she ever tunes in to this boring humiliation of a TV show. The temptation must be so great, yet the aftermath of giving in would be a trip into Kurtz’s jungle. After a minute or two I get bored. I imagine that my ex-boyfriends have their own reality shows where I can watch them coo over hot ladies and fuck before my very eyes. I would totally watch that shit. But still, ex-wife of Dean guy. Don’t. Just don’t.

I hit the up arrow. Oh shit, the Tila Tequila bi-sexual dating show. Tonight it’s the ladies’ turn to woo the fake-tanned and boobed idiotic imp. The ten minutes that I watch sets feminism back at least 25 years.

Tila opines to the camera, “Girls are like so emotional. Sometimes you just wanna say ‘shut up’ and get busy.” (I’m paraphrasing as I was too busy gaping in horror to take notes.)

Ms. Tequila does just that on several occasions. She sticks her tongue down one woman’s throat while another looks on, pouting. It feels like high school except not as classy. I wonder if these women are actually lesbians or if they view playing a lesbian on a d-list reality show as a wise career move. One of them, Kendall, is the spitting image of my high school nemesis. Red Bull-Vodka loosely in hand, she bounces around the awkward reality party, shouting “Hey whassup whassup whassup?” and clearly views herself as the party girl of the group. She invades on another woman’s face time with Tila with nary an apology or sign that she has done something wrong. (How could you, Kendall? I really think those two were soulmates. Tila’s hand was totally down her pants.) When you’re fighting for the lust of a Mrs. Myspace Popularity, things can get a bit dog-eat-dog (or friend-eat-friend).

A woman can only take so much and then she can’t takes no more.

I crawl into bed and reach for the book that I should have been reading instead of being sucked into the horror-the horror of bad reality TV. Gary Shteyngart, take me away!