Meezer Monday: Just The Way You Are

"Don't go changin'…" 

Yup, crank up the corny to 11 and get ready for some sentiment just south of sap. (Seriously, if that song had been performed and heard just once in the entire history of the world, it would so not be cheesy, ya know?) 

Anyway, I want to tell you about Lorenzo's first trip to the vet last week. He's definitely not the most valiant cat, and he's come so far since March. In the middle of one night earlier this month, for example, I awoke to what felt like a little loaf of bread, pumpernickel-dense, cuddled up and very softly purring next to me. He's even ventured out in the hallway, and ran back when he heard the elevator. But yeah, I knew he'd be upset going to the vet, I just hoped he wouldn't be some hissy fear biter.

Aww, that couldn't have been further from the truth. The little dude was so terrified he pooped AND expressed his anal glands in the carrier. When Dr. K took him for a blood test, he was pie-eyed docile and compliant, with an affect sorta like Toonces, the Cat Who Can Drive a Car. I sound like I'm making fun now, but my heart was melting for him, my junior-sized pain-in-the-a** thug who launches himself at Derrick like a cannon ball. It was like seeing a sad Leo--a true crime, like the sun going in on a summer day.

When we returned home and the entire family practically passed out from our shared stress, I realized I really love this little shorty. And that you don't necessarily love people because of what they're great at (that's boring old admiration, not love), but for the sweet shortcomings and stuff they don't quite get right but try anyway. For the stuff you laugh at more than the stuff you look at. Not to say I love him for his anal glands, but, heck, you know what I mean, right?!

P.S. The ironic thing is this photo was taken a few weeks ago, when Derrick had his appointment. He and Lorenzo fought to get into the Kennel Cab, and Renz wouldn't leave until I offered a more-motivating stimulus. (Opening of refrigerator door.) There's something here about getting what you wish for, of course, but I just can't write another nasty, hair shaving-filled post this month.

If you've never heard Barry White's version, it's like listening to the song for the first time! 

Wordless Wednesday: It's Not You

The other day I found myself in one of those trigger finger-powered Facebook fogs, rifling through the photo albums on the page of a very casual acquaintance; I knew her awhile back on a fairly superficial level. (What?! You've never done that? Then you may be one of these!)

Anyway, I was amazed and intrigued at the quantity of photos she'd posted of herself, and the various reactions of her friends. It just makes you wonder, you know? That evening I had nightmares, an endless loop of photos of her, each the same but, no, a bit different--her head at a slightly altered angle, closer up, further away, taken in the sick bright sun that bounces off hot pavement, snapped in dressing-room light that amplifies your im/perfections, candy-colored positives & negatives, all screaming/creaming/dreaming, "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!"

If Narcissus were on Facebook:
Smiling this way, glancing that;
mobile uploading has made you tired!
Hit Sleep and dream
of your Wall photos.
"Like" "Like" "Like"

Sunday Sidewalk Surfin': Hair Apparent

OK, so I'm always finding stuff on the ground--a Hello Kitty charm bracelet, a soggy clump of 20s in a puddle, an apple covered in ants that a funny little boy told his mom he was going to pick up and eat--so I figured I'd spotlight some of my more potentially poetic discoveries on sssspunerisms. I don't intend for it to always be as disgusting as this first installment, so please, uh, don't read if you have a highly active gag reflex.

Exhibit A,  an engaging collection of hair shavings I found in the laundry room last week, on the floor next to the garbage can. I was so repulsed I had to leave a note, asking whosever hair it was to please clean it up. And there was more--stray shavings, ranging from 1/4- to 1-inch-long, were scattered all across the tops of the 5 available washing machines. Ewwww. 

It wasn't dog or cat hair, which wouldn't have bothered me in the least. I don't know what area of the body it came from, or how it could have gotten all over the laundry room. I told a friend of mine about this later, and she thought perhaps the hairless (or at least less-haired) wonder had shaken out a towel he or she had used while shaving before putting it in the wash. No matter what, I suspect this is the hair of a narcissist. A close-shaven one, of course.

Wordless Wednesday: Hang On To Your Ego

Warning: I've got my cranky pants on today, so my first thought when I saw this was: Oh great, sign her up for American Idol because lawd knows the world needs more oversoulers. My second thought: How freakin' sweet is this.

Like Dreamers Do

If the mind's a library and memories are books, overdue notices are those out-of-the-blue recollections that float through your days and dreams, all WTF?like. Do you want to return, renew or just keep the dang book because you've had it so long the fine would be more than the actual list price?

Last night I dreamed about one of my best friends from college, a biologist who, as I write this, may be in Kenya counting the rows of Os from which a lion's whisker grows. That's how scientists ID them, I remember her telling me the last time I saw her. I dreamed that we were going to take an exam in a class I hadn't attended all semester (You know those dreams? Sometimes you show up barefoot, too.), and she seemed positive I would pass. The night before that I dreamed about her college boyfriend (WTF? I told you!), and the last time I saw him was when I'd just gotten Bing, and I remember him saying how much fun it must be to have a kitten…

Oh, Bing.

I've been dreaming about him, too. My therapist says it's not uncommon to dream someone to death as part of the grieving process, and I think that's what's happening. They're not sweet cameos of us together, but violent and desperate and confusing. In one dream I was about to be raped, and the attacker put Bing in a pink dresser drawer to get him out of the way. His cries kept me alive as I was beaten and hit and cut. I knew in the dream I would survive and rescue him--no physical pain could be worse than losing him. But geesh, who the heck wants a dream like that?! In another, there was some sort of disaster and I had to bring Bing and Derrick to safety. I dropped Derrick and he fell down the stairs, landing silently, still, in a snowpile.

More overdue notices: This morning I noticed that the ring I wear on my index finger, right hand, was broken. I'm not a big bauble person (unless the thing jingles,  which likely means it's  cheap), but I've worn this ring for, I don't know, 15 years. It was given to me by a beautiful and talented young friend who, just as she was in her freshman year in college, went into a coma. She remained so suspended for years, until she was taken off life support. The ring reminded me of life, only life, and her wonderful family and home, where I spent so much time during  my teenage years.

What does it mean that the ring broke? I don't know. This morning I was all doomsday about it, but maybe I don't have to bring the book back after all. Maybe this isn't about letting go off the past, but of letting go of what you think you're supposed to let go of.

P.S. Excuse the mostly depressing musical accompaniment, selected earlier but still killer, doncha think?

Wordless Wednesday: You Spin Me Round

Oh, this image makes me ache in the same way that the ones in this post do. It's not the Dakota thing (there are other words and wordlessness for that), but that he's listening to 45s. As in, not 33s. And as in, just like you might have done.

Each perfect, contained, knowable. Yet infinite with a spin on it. (The exception:  My 45 collection, which includes such stunners as "Convoy" and "The Little Space Girl." Tho' the latter may be the B side.)

Summer Love Sensation

It's only been a freakin' week or so and already summer's doing a number on me, squeezing out that silky, languid longing for…I'm not sure. It's like I'll be walking by the window as a breeze comes in, and know that I've felt the very same breeze before, on another afternoon in July, on another night in August…  Feeling the asphalt warm on my feet as I walked to the beach barefoot listening to Upstairs at Eric's on my Walkman, bummed that I had to waste my batteries to fast-forward through "I Before E Except After C."  Hitch-hiking home from a club in Sag Harbor at 3 AM, wearing pointy frog-green shoes and black-and-white striped leggings…

These tiny memories come fast and oozy when exposed to bright light, leaving an ache that you can almost see-feel fading. Reminding me how simple summer is, so very much and only about skin and sky, be it at dawn or midnight…

Two Julys ago I got all Slinkadelicate on ssspunerisms, but this year the breeze blew in the rindonkulous memory of my first-ever kind-of-legitimate summer romance. It was the beginning of August before my senior year in college, and I'd finally given up on the guy who wore a fuzzy white hat and once bit my fingernails to see if girl thumbs tasted different from boy thumbs (that one's so you-had-to-be-there, I know, but it was actually quite romantic, and y'all know I'm a nail-biter). 

Anyway, I was working the evening shift at the Paper Place in East Hampton when a creeper-wearing, ersatz-pompadoured boy came in and asked me to the movies. He'd seen me at aforementioned club, where I'd dance by myself in sparkly green 50s dresses and no shoes. I was picky and shy and fast-moving, so that stuff just didn't happen to me. Ever. He would pick me up after work and we would sit on the stoop in his backyard. No smoking, no drinking, just Woody Allen movies and red hots. One night I stole his underwear and wore it, too charming big, as we kissed under the bright white moon. His last name was the name of a Greek goddess, so it is quite fitting that I went to Athens at the end of the summer, and when I saw him again in December it was cold and over, mostly because I started crying like a weird jerk. 

I dreamed about him once, that he was living with a woman with white hair and tried to bite me. The truth wasn't that far off--he'd hooked up with a much-older woman, and the last time I saw him he was wearing boat shoes, in a photo in an article about her in a local real estate magazine. And he used to make fun of people who wore boat shoes.

OMG, why am I telling you all this?! It's too late, I've already typed it.