Confessions of a Wimpy Weenie Desert Rat

This is ridiculous.
I am sitting on the floor by my fireplace. I am wearing a long-sleeved black t-shirt under a fleece hoodie sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of my school, red sweat pants, stripey socks, and my shearling-lined slippers.
I'm seriously considering a second pair of socks.
Do I need to remind somebody that this is the DESERT?!?
If this is what they call global warming, we're really in trouble. Not only are the polar icecaps melting because we're selfishly insistent on burning fossil fuels, but the scientific community can't tell their hot from cold.
Now, I'm a tree-hugger from way back. Since that first Ranger Rick magazine made its way to my mailbox when I was in the third grade, I've been acutely aware and continually reminded of the foolhardiness of the human race-- and Americans in particular- when it comes to taking care of this planet.
"I, (state your name), as a member of Ranger Rick's Nature Club do hereby promise to:
Train my mind to think about the importance of nature,
Train my eyes to see the beauty of all outdoors,
Use my hands to protect soil, woods, water and wildlife,
And by my good example, help others to understand, respect, and…" aw, hell. I forgot the rest.
Sometimes on Saturday mornings after we'd done our chores, my mom would let a group of our friends come over and we would have a meeting in the basement. I was the president, because I was the oldest, I was the bossiest, and it was my house. We would stand up and say the pledge. We would read a story out loud from the magazine. We would talk about various plans to hold bake sales to buy official NWF Ranger Rick badges, get in boisterous arguments about who should bring what for said bake sale, whether we would make more money at Hy-Vee or Fareway, how long my term as president should run because just because you're president doesn't make you the boss of everything, you know; and eventually the door at the top of the stairs would open, and we'd hear Mom call, "Girls! Come and get these sacks and go for a walk around the neighborhood. You're here to be a nature club. Stop bickering and go pick up litter." So we did, and that was fun.
Never did get those badges.
I know the rest of you are having weird weather this winter too. I talked to my sister Kathy last night, and Des Moines should be getting their first snowfall of the year right…..about………..now. We had a few "brown Christmases" when I was growing up, especially when we lived in the southern part of the state, but there had usually been snow earlier in the season. And there was never anything like the balmy light-sweater weather they've experienced this year. I've seen An Inconvenient Truth. This is more than a little scary.
I know I risk making a laughingstock of myself by admitting this, but my AOL weather tells me it's 43° right now, but "feels like" 37. We have a freeze warning in effect tonight.
There go your lettuce prices. And your orange juice.
When we first came to Yuma twenty-two years ago, I was a thick-blooded, cocky Northerner. I ran around in my shorts all winter and swam in the pool at our first apartment complex in January. I observed the natives with a smug little half-smirk and felt morally superior because--HA! Are you kidding me? She's wearing mittens?-- they obviously couldn't begin to fathom the word "cold." Those wimpy fools would curl up and die with five minutes of exposure to a real Northwest Iowa January. Seventy-five below zero wind chill, that's what I call cold. What a bunch of weenies. I'll bet they're not cold at all, they just want to wear winter fashions.
Tell you what-- I'm no fashion plate here tonight.
Karma's a bitch.
Quick! Go recycle something!
Please?!?!

Mopping Up Misconceptions

For once and for all, I would like to address a few oversights still lingering around the perimeter of my online persona. This is a blog of pure self-indulgence, dear reader, proceed or not, the choice is yours. But let it not be said I withheld an iota of my true nature.
For quick reference, here are but a few of the things some of you have said about me in the recent past. Forgive my not quoting you by name.
1) Intelligent, happy, fun, deep thinker, spiritual, warm, and tenacious.
2) …a dear and gracious soul.
3) …a Mary Poppins sort...you know-- "Pleasingly perfect in every way.”
4) …you are clearly a strong woman. roar.
5) you are: 1). brutally honest; 2). Interesting; 3). A perfect girl next door in thought and appearance...
I have chosen these particular descriptors for several reasons. First, they were available without digging too deeply into the blog archives. Second, each of these gave me a moment’s pause when I first read them. A flinching second of “…hmm. What gave them that idea?”
I do have a thinly-applied veneer of most of these lovely qualities. I come from a long line of intelligent, gracious, strong, honest, interesting, spiritual people; the simple proximity of so much goodness was bound to rub off a little.
Perfect example- Sunday’s paper contained this huge article about my dad. Too bad you can’t see the accompanying pics.
http://sun.yumasun.com/google/ysarchive25677.html
(My mom says the reporter took some adjectival license and over-dramatized a bit- but nevertheless…)
When followed by a phone call from my brother on Monday- he was at the airport, on his was to Haiti for the fourth time. They’re building a school for a desperately poor village there, and this time he’s setting up a free hot lunch program for the kids. And then there’s my sister- ER nurse-- Florence Nightingale incarnate…
Get the picture? While I’ve been surrounded by nothing but good examples, left to my own devices, I’m the family snark. I’m the bossy, picky, selfish, bitchy perfectionist in the bunch. I have a tendency toward brutal vanity, egocentrism, and an acid tongue. My expectations for myself and others are extremely high: good grades, good character, good grammar, good grooming. I surround myself with a constant stream of pretty little luxuries; from that perfect cup of coffee upon rising, to the finest bedding money can buy that shrouds me as I sleep- my world will smell, sound, feel, taste, and look as delicious as I can possibly make it.
Manipulation is my middle name. I mold myself and my surroundings to fit my needs. I believe this nimbleness is due in part to being a child of children of the Depression. Find a way. Make it work. I can have a Victorian home in the Sonoran Desert. I can raise bright, beautiful, articulate children in an increasingly plastic world. I can become a published author in my forties. Try to stand in my way.
If my tolerance level for bigotry, ignorance, homophobia, pettiness, and pretentiousness were the water table; the world would be swimming right now. And good riddance to those who brought on our submersion. (I only hope I wasn’t the Red Cross lifeguard who taught their lessons-- they’d be too competent. I hope it was the giggling bimbo from the other session.)
Even as I wrote it, the above list made me laugh. These are among the most despised human qualities imaginable to me, and yet I willingly spend my days in a Middle School- a veritable breeding ground for such thinking. I’ll say it again. My classroom is my last-chance battleground. I will use all weaponry available to me in literature and thought to question and quash those ideologies before releasing my students on society.
I’ve wound myself down now- suffice to say-- just know I don’t want to give the false impression of sweetness and light when I see my own countenance as being closer to vinegar and steel.
Except I refuse to corrode.

Having it All

As this new year is undoubtedly the one in which I shall take the literary world by storm, I have taken the opportunity presented by this final vacation to feed my family. I say "final vacation" because it is obviously the last one I will have time to enjoy before I become overwhelmed by slavering agents, editors, and publicity personnel seeking my illustrious presence at book-signings, library ribbon-cuttings, and, of course, they will need my counsel and advice at all those tedious-yet-thrilling meetings to oversee the adaptation of No Matter What to the big screen. I'll also have to squeeze in some time to pick up those two Honorary Doctorate of Letters my Alma Maters will be begging me to take off their hands. Damn good thing I love public speaking.
It's going to be a busy year.
Anyway, I have to make sure the home-folks get fattened up before I begin the talk show circuit. Mike is a good cook when we're here together, but if I'm out of town for any length of time, it's a living testimony to Supersize Me around this place. When I went to that differentiated instruction conference in Scottsdale last month, (my "sleep number" is 35, by the way. Nice hotel!) I had to unearth my daughter from a landslide of Dominoes boxes in the kitchen when I got home. Poor baby. God only knows how long she was under there. The therapist says she should start speaking again any day now.
One thing I will say about me: I am a damned good cook. Ask my thighs. When I have the time, budget, and inclination, there is little I enjoy more than puttering around with all my gorgeous gadgets (All hail Cuisinart! God bless KitchenAid!* ) and concocting the kind of food most people only see in magazines. My future bestsellers will include at least one cookbook, according to Michele, who has hired herself as my business manager. (As long as we can keep her at her current salary, I'll keep her on staff. ** ) Amazing as my culinary masterpieces have always been, over the past couple of weeks I have surpassed even myself.
In the "Books" section on my page, I pay homage to my living literary idol, Pat Conroy, author of many hysterical and heart-wrenchingly beautiful novels. Sir Pat*** has a cookbook available that includes stories as wonderful as any of his other work. (These keep you occupied while you whisk that fascinating roux for fifteen minutes wondering if it will ever really reach a "deep caramel color and/or smell of toasted almonds." Trust me. It will do both. It was like a science lab!) It also has recipes that, albeit time-consuming, will have your taste buds standing at full attention, and you gathering fragrant roses from the kitchen floor.****
So in addition to my own secret recipes, I have used part of my vacation whipping out Conroy-inspired dishes. We received a package of gigantic Gulf shrimp from my dad, so yesterday Mike and I followed every one of the two-thousand steps (Mike pulled out the shrimp poo while I whisked that magical 15-minute roux.) required to make the Gumbo on pages 90,91, and 92 of The Pat Conroy Cookbook.
Oh. My. God.
Never let it be said that good things aren't worth waiting for. Never let it be said that you can't be a literary superstar and a five-star chef simultaneously. Never let it be said that I- like my hero Sir Pat- can't have it all.
I'm due.
(footnotes)
*Seriously. Not only do they make all those fabulous appliances in RED, but I blew out three, count them: three hand mixers in the year before I got my Artisan. Cream Cheese frosting for "Anoka Minnesota Lutheran Ladies' Carrot Cake" did in the first two, mortar icing for a fabulous gingerbread house brought on the third smoky demise. It was grim.
**Yes, it's still $0.00, Dan. Stop sniffing around.
***Dubbed him myself, thank you. If this were Britain, it would have been done long ago.
****The ones your family has flung in their wild ovation over your gastronomic prowess, silly! Whaddaya mean, "Huh? What roses?"

Thrill Ride

When I was a kid there was a big roller coaster at Six Flags in Kansas City called the ScreamRoller. It was the first upside down loop-di-loop I ever rode. I remember finishing my first ride on it and being amazed that upside-down wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the ninety degree sideways turn- when you found yourself looking over your shoulder at the ground a hundred feet down. Thinking about it now, I have to wonder if that was more frightening because it was a more familiar sort of fear. Perhaps the brain registers the danger of falling from that position more readily because that’s the usual way to fall, as opposed to dropping straight out of the sky onto the top of your head…
Whatever the root of this insane logic, it has never kept me from doing it again.
And again.
Fortunately for me right now, I have spent most of my life a roller-coaster junkie. My adult favorite is Space Mountain at Disneyland. There’s just something so exhilarating about stepping onto the platform at the end of a ride after willingly hurtling yourself through darkness and space- having no idea what’s waiting around the next bend-- and even before it’s over, you know that if the damned line wasn’t so long, you’d go right back and do it again. You take inventory of your body parts- all present and accounted for. Good. What else can I do that will shake up my guts like that did? Hmm…
I am riding the SpaceMountainScreamRoller of my life these days. Only in this fun park they disguise its true nature; they dress it in a suit and tie and call it the Publishing Industry. Instead of happy faces and mouse ears, the ticket takers work at the post office. They’re excited about your ride, they lick stamps and strap you in safely. Then ,up you go,into the darkness-- and up still further; a request for the partial, a request for the full, your hopes are mounting, breath comes in gasps--the contract is within reach--then WHOOSH! To the bottom again. The letter arrives. “nothankyounotrightformebestofluckinyoursearchforrepresentation.”
Staring at the listings in The Writer’s Market, I am struck by the same cruel irony I felt trying to find a part-time summer job when I was an undergrad. To be a waitress you need waitressing experience. Or know someone in the business. To get published, you have to have publishing credits. Or know someone in the business.
My eternal undying devotion and gratitude to the two women in this industry who have stepped up to the plate to help me in this thrill-ride so far. The simple knowledge that they have seen my work and believe in it and me is sometimes the only thing that gets me back onto this potential hurtling death-trap. Their confidence in my story is my seat belt and my safety bar. I wish there were more out there like them. More who are willing to step forward and say; “This is good stuff. Let me see what I can do to help.”
I never was a waitress, by the way. I may be the only person on earth with an advanced degree and no food-service job history. But I will be a published author.
I’m looking for my roller-coaster ticket again. It’s here somewhere.

Pedestrian X-ing

“I have lost friends, some by death, others through sheer inability to cross the street.” - Virginia Woolf

I have never been afraid to cross streets, real or metaphorical.

One legend that has been oft-repeated in my family is the story of my dad walking me to a play date with a friend when I was two or three. We came to an intersection, he instructed me to stay on the curb, and squatted down to show me how to look both ways. In the middle of the lesson, he glanced at my feet. One round-toed little Ked had sneaked down into the street. I looked at him with guileless eyes, and he knew he was in trouble. As a toddler I was already daring anything - be it traffic or my dad’s lesson- to stop me or even detain me momentarily from reaching my destination-- in this case a friend.

I’ve had some rather crucial “Street-crossing” phone calls this week. One was made by me, the other to me. Both marked important changes in long-term friendships.

The call I made was to Minnesota, to the residence of the first man I ever told “I love you.” This relationship is one of my most prized- both because of the length of time involved, and the nature of its beginning. It is unusual to have any communication drought between us and I had been chalking it up to normal busy-ness for awhile, but the truth is I had been concerned about it for some time. So when he missed my birthday, I picked up the phone. He wasn’t home, and I had an uninterrupted hour of phone time with his partner.

My “favorite gay ex-boyfriend” (FGEB) is finally, some twenty-five years later, pursuing his MFA in Theatrical Design, and has a show opening this weekend. The show, incidentally, is Peter Pan, one I have heard derisive guffaws from him about for several decades now. I can’t say for certain, but it may well have to do with the whole idea of clapping your hands if you believe in fairies.

And I say that with all good humor and love.

So partner and I had phone time. And I learned that the reason for extended silence from the land of 10,000 lakes has not been simple busy--ness, but that there has been some real trouble in paradise, and it is likely trouble of the irreparable kind. Which makes me very sad.

FGEB sang at my wedding half a lifetime ago, I flew up to read “Desiderata” at their commitment ceremony in 2000. I love them with every fiber of my being, and will be devastated by this split. I will maintain a relationship with both of them no matter what happens. I have been walking happily down the sidewalk with these two men for nine years now, and we have come to an intersection.

We are standing at the curb. We stop and look both ways. We make our way across together.

The call I received was from my favorite cousin B. In this case, I suspect a change may be in the offing; a “hook-up,” for lack of a more accurate term, between my life-long love-hate, adversarial adolescent off-limits summertime crush--turned adult confidante, frequent houseguest and trusted ally, B, and one of the dearest female friends I have ever had. With his phone call, I sensed that feelers were being extended in my direction to gauge my response, not as his cousin, but as a far more primary relationship and one he is less inclined to disregard: his friend.

And by so doing, I see that he doesn’t want us to get run over either. He’d like to step off the curb, but wants to be sure I will cross this street with him.

Of course I will. Because when I say “I love you,” I mean it for keeps.

At the top of my MySpace blog is a motto I thought long and hard about before posting. It is one I firmly believe. I have lost many “friends” over the years to street traffic, because they were willing to forsake fundamental things they claimed they believed, who they had been, and all they stood for when they were faced with adversity. There inevitably comes a moment when people must stand up and define themselves- stand alone and name out loud the hill upon which they are willing to die. I have done it many times. I have written the manifesto, I have climbed up on the soapbox, I have declared my independence. I’m sure I will do it again.

“I am every age I ever was,” because I honor my experiences. And because I honor them, FGEB, Cousin B, and several others have lifetime membership in my friendship hall of fame, with all the rights, benefits, and privileges inherent to that distinction.

Which include crossing busy streets in construction zones on rainy, moonless nights.

Together.