On The Radar

(Pre-Script: This post should be read as the song, "Going the Distance," #18 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

Yesterday, I was driving to work, and I don't even think I was speeding. I even remember consciously having that thought, "I am driving to work, but I a not speeding." So it really jarred me when all of a sudden, I saw a police officer standing on the sidewalk and pointing his radar gun at me. He was wearing sunglasses and the smile of a seasoned hunter. He was aiming to shoot. It made me question my own good judgement on the matter of "not speeding," which made me fumble my steering wheel a little and hit the brakes a little. It made me exactly the opposite of what the police officer wanted to make me, which was a less safe driver than I had been the split second before.

This, Dear Children, is what we like to call "ironic."
Y'all, I'm not going to lie; when I saw that radar gun and that smug, satisfied smirk, I felt just like a goose flying with my pack over a frozen lake above New England somewhere; I felt like a Republican out with my fellow constituates on a jovial wildlife preserve for an innocent hunting jaunt; I felt like a large, wild game animal on Sarah Palin's ranch in Alaska.

It disturbed me.
If I was disturbed, I was not going to be on my A game at work, and, as a salesperson, I was not going to sell very well. This disturbed me even more. Because If I don't sell well, not only will I not survive, but the economy won't survive, and I won't be able to pay my taxes...the very same taxes that provide this policeman (who harbors an unrealized lifelong dream of big adventures on the African Savannah with Ernest Hemingway et al circa 1922) with his job of terrifying the masses of civilized tax payers so that he can shock them with a photo ticket 3-5 business days later.

Blink.

Blink.

And to think, he could have been using that time and money to hunt down and capture a real criminal.

This, Dear Children, is what is commonly known as "Wishful Thinking."

-XOXO,

The Sum Of My Parts

(Pre-Script: This post will introduce you to worlds you never knew existed when read as the song, "Everybody's changing," #21 on the playlist plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I get all flustered when I have to fill out any kind of Health Care questionnaire or job application that asks me about my race. Pacific Islander? Maybe. My skin is pale, but so is Gwyneth Paltrow's, and she was in an ad campaign that said "I am African," the theory being that we all started out in Africa.

Lately, I have been wearing a flower in my hair every day. You could call it flamboyant overaccessorizing, but I like to think it's my Hawaiian gene pool finally showing itself.

"Michelle, you have Hawaiian in your bloodline?"

Sure, why not?

I have no way of accounting for every action of my every ancestor since the beginning of time, and even if they all kept extensive, detailed diaries, I'm sure at least one or two of them was lying.

Blink.

Blink.

Even if the lie was simply by way of omission.

Blink.

I am just as likely to contain Hawaiian blood as any other. So I feel pressure, Healthy Care providers and Job Granters of the world; do you hear me? I feel pressure to check every box in the nationality department.Yes, I could have a 15% higher chance of getting this or that disease, instead of that or that disease. You'll just have to test for all of them.

...But instead I check the box marked "Caucasian." This causes my brain to itch in a place I can't quit reach to scratch, because, aside from the fact that I'm not as flexible as I once was when I used to stretch extensively before trying out for cheerleading, (call that my "delusions of grandeur" gene, of which nationality I have yet to pinpoint) checking "Caucasian" is sort of like getting stuck eating the corn flakes when everyone around you gets to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Waffles and Bacon.

Blink.

Blink.

I have never heard of a land mass, (country or continent, I wouldn't be picky) called "Caucasia." Have you?

How can I be whole if I am not the sum of my parts??

Think about it.

-XOXO,

Thanksgiving

(Pre-Script: This post pairs best with the song, "Better, " #43 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait..)(...still waiting...)

I was always hungry, then.
I wanted something sweeter
than what was on the table
I wanted the sweetness
to never never end
so I went outside and started digging
I started digging
with filthy bleeding hands
didn't mind the sting of the ache
didn't mind because sometimes
something inside of me would start to growl.
I was always hungry, then;
I wanted something sweeter than what was on the table
the problem was
I didn't know how to differentiate
sweetness from poison-
and maybe I still don't.
(Didn't anyone ever tell you that poison tastes like love?)

-XOXO,

The Broccoli Myth

(Pre-Script: This post goes down easy if you read it as the song, "Sweet Pea," #5 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

Believing in something because it's what you think you should believe in not the same thing as believing in something because it's what you actually believe.

Blink

Blink

Blink

My entire life, people have told me that broccoli is good for me, it is SOOOO good for me, and "OMG, how can you NOT like broccoli, it is SO GOOD for you!" I've heard it so many times, in fact, no one has ever told me the opposite. I have even said it myself, "broccoli is good for me!" but that must have been before I had an original thought of my own. Well, actually, judging my the number of imaginary friends I had as a child, complete with first, middle, last names, and siblings, I WAS already having original thoughts of my own. I just had yet to have an original thought about the vegetation I was forced to ingest.

I would sit at the dinner table and be told I had to eat my broccoli before I could leave the table. So I believed for many years that broccoli was indeed GOOD. FOR. ME.

World without end, Amen.

But then one day, as I was attempting to swallow this vilest of miniature edible trees, As if my body were a tree shredder, shredding this small tree to use for my own bodily purposes as I carried on with my day, It occurred to me that I was involuntarily gagging. And I had to ask myself, "How the heck can something be good for me if my own body is doing everything in it's power to reject it?"

I decided then and there that broccoli is good not for me. It might be good for you, your nutritionist, a food chemist in Iowa, and your mother who makes the BEST broccoli cheese casserole this side of the Mississippi, but it is not good for me.

World without end, Amen.

Never again will I try to force myself to focus focus focus just to swallow anything that tastes like the love child of all of my disgust and regret, lightly seasoned with exhaust fumes.

-XOXO,

Violet

(Pre-Script: For a more sensationalized experience, read this poem as the song, "Secrets," #43 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (Still waiting...)

I am the raw split open version.

There are body parts,

internal organs strewn here and there

along my highway.

Rubber neckers watch and say to each other,

"All this time, I thought it would be

deep purple,

but I would call that more of a violet,

a bright vivid violet,

definitely."

-Yeah, I get that all the time.

-XOXO,

What I Held

(Pre-Script: For a more full bodied experience of this poem, read it as the song, "Gravity," #42 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

When I am old my hands won't rust
or dissolve into dust
if you blow on them, or treat them
less than gingerly.
They will remain as solid and bony as ever,
(do you see how thick my knuckles are?)
these hands that held the babies when they were born
that opened and closed opened and closed
let go of things and pulled things in and pulled things in only
to let go of them so that
I can hold them
when I am old
and my hands
contain the same nerve endings, the blood
still pumping through them from the same heart
that always pumped
(I cannot speak to the condition of this heart,
but my hands,
at least,
will be softer.)

-XOXO,

Silver Fish

(Pre-Script: This post should be read a the song, "The Chain," #54 on the playlist, plays in the background, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I just washed the silverfish bug-creature that was using my bathtub as a rest stop down the drain. I know that we are all supposed to co-exist peacefully with every creature we can't stand on this earth, even if we don't understand why God created them in the first place. I usually abide by this rule, I promise I do. But invading my bathtub is really crossing the line. I have a strong disregard for the rights of anyone who dares sneak into my bathtub while I am peacefully sleeping...just when I thought it was safe to step into the shower...into my own shower in my own home. I said that already, yes, but it bore repeating.

Raise your hand if you have ever washed a small critter down the drain, then wondered if it was still alive, as alive as ever, only enraged now, and focused on revenge, and determined to use the last shred of energy it can muster to climb it's way back up the drain and navigate it's way through the house until it has a feel for the layout, and can find you where you sleep in your bed at night? In the pitch dark, where no hidden camera will detect it, and no personal eye witnesses will be able to identify it later?

My hand is raised high.

I think about these things.

BUT THEN

What if I had smashed it, and this bothered my conscience? There are few things that bother me more than a bothered conscience.

Raise your hand if you have ever suffered from smasher's remorse.

Raise your hand if you have ever salted a snail, just because you had heard rumors of what would happen if you did, and you wanted to see for yourself if it was true, even though you were usually such a good, good, calm, quiet, rule abiding girl? But no one told you that the snail would actually turn green, did they? No, no, they didn't. No one told you how MUCH WORSE that would hurt you than it ever hurt the snail, so that suddenly you knew JUST what your mother was talking about when she said "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" right before she lit into you, did they? No one told you that you would be forever internally labeled as a murderer of snails, that you would suddenly realize in that moment, (Too late!! Too late!! Yes, my friends, it was an epiphany realised TOO, TOO LATE!!) that life really IS precious, and that EVERY life deserves a chance, you always believed it, but had never let the thought process carry itself out all the way to the snail level of life and living in this world. AND NOW!! The poor dear has NO CHANCE at fulfilling it's intended life cycle, and it is all your very own 10 year old self's fault.

And now you have to live with yourself, with your very vile, disobedient, naughty self, forever more after, world without end, amen.
Gulp.

My hand may or may not be raised high.
I'm sure that was just a random "for instance," and not, I repeat NOT an actual flashback from my own life.* Hee hee. But I digress.
And I am blushing as I do so.
Where was I?
Oh yes, the silver fish.
I should have smashed the little dear.

Blink

Blink

...You see how I did that? I just eliminated all smasher's remorse because I called it a "Little Dear."

-XOXO,

*But then again, you never can tell, can you?