Day 2/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

Today, I will not be buying a Mercedes-Benz Classic Car, in particular, this perfect 300SD from the year 1980. 

I became infatuated with Mercedes Benz at the age of twelve when a friend of mine, whose father was a bank president and whose mother was an interior decorator, had a Mercedes wagon; specifically in which to drive their female golden retriever around because the dog was so hairy and stinky. 

Although I am admittedly hairy (but hardly ever stinky), I too, feel like it's probably time I exercise my right to own a car I have coveted for almost 4 decades. 

'Cause that's a whole lotta coveting.

In addition to this being my absolute most favorite Mercedes paint color, Manganese Brown, a rich and spicy root beer hue, it also sports the wood trim I associate with reading rooms and Chris Craft boats and horse barns and old money. It's looks like a rolling library of honey colored leather. 

Might you have any Grey Poupon?  

 

The fact that it has a cassette deck is no problem, musically, as I still have my cassette collection, minus a few that have snapped due to a combination of brittleness and overplay throughout the years...sort of like my body.

But because a bag of groceries cost us 48 dollars today (navel oranges, tangelos, dog treats, apples, bread, a frozen pizza and two bottles of juice) I will be eschewing this Long Island-based Mercedes. 

Okay, let's be honest, I wasn't going to buy it even if those groceries were free. I will, however, keep it in mind if we ever rescue a golden retriever because God knows that hairy stinky thing is definitely going to look great in this.

 

 

 

#mushroomtumbler 

Day 1/24: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

I will not be buying a chicken nugget shaped hair clip today.

Having long hair, I like barrettes, elastics, pony holders, head bands and other assorted hair funkery but why anyone would wear a piece of fast food in his or her hair is beyond me. 

The description says it "looks real but is not edible"... yeah, no kidding.

I bet I'd be the most popular sunbather on the beach with this thing on my head. The seagulls would have a flipping field day. 

And then I'd have a hair ornament shaped like fear and loathing...and bird shit. 

 

#mushroomtumbler

Oatmeal Colored Fog

 

Walking up our stairs I am suddenly trudging up a greige carpeted mountain path. On the hiker's scale, it's got a rating of  'Strenuous'.

 

My vision blurs and I am a six year old grasping for the flimsy, frayed nylon exit rope after stepping off the Tilt-a-Whirl. All pigtails and white canvas Keds and between the fingers cotton candy stickiness, I'm stiff from gripping down so hard on a hot steel safety bar. 

 

My palms feel clammy. 

 

I swear I smell fairground metal. 

 

I close my eyes, breathe, and try not to lean too far left or right. My heart beat is a skippity-dippity-do bayoneting its way through the side of my neck. In what now looks like oatmeal colored fog, I dramatically and fitfully seek out the sturdy wooden railing on my first to second floor staircase and force myself to kneel. Remembering what my meditation app says, I picture low tide waves, cerulean and cushy, softly washing over my knees and feet. I conjure my yellow and brown tube of suntan lotion with the smug looking monkey on it. I hear a boom box, grit in all its joints from having fallen over in the sand, stuttering the bass line from 'Come Together'. 

Finally, after a moment of panic, I've got feet down below my knees. 

One thing I can tell you is [I've] got to be free... 

 

of this fucking anxiousness.

 

Later, I'm preparing dinner, stubbornly squinting because I was too lazy to look for one of my ninety nine pairs of reading glasses. I'm pointing and dragging my index finger, ashen and ancient-looking from being washed in million degree anti-bacterial water 82 times a day for the last 731 days, down a cookbook page of rudimentary ingredients like noodles and butter. I question why I even require a recipe for a meal as simple as this when my iPod travels to one of the old George Harrison songs I used to crank in college. I hear the first five notes and begin weeping without an ounce of control. 

 

I'm a Dark Horse. Running on a dark race course. 

 

It's just one of those days.

Because, like you, if I have to read about one more person whose last breath looked a lot like the last breaths of a bug-eyed guppy discarded on the beach by the 4 year old who'd not been taught better, dumping her water pail full of stolen sea creatures out on the sand before grabbing her moldy towel and dragging it, tripping over and over on the way back to her family's summer retreat; or one more small businesses owner first watching her last two employees nail sheets of cheap splintery plywood to the windows of what was to be her American Dream, and then going home to cry silently behind the door of the freezer so the kids don't hear her pitchy gulps as she pulls the last pound of overly fatty ground beef out of the freezer to cook with a box of Hamburger Helper found in the back of the cabinet from 2019 when it seemed more like a cheeky nod-to-nostalgia impulse buy than an actual end-of-our-working-life-as-we-know-it meal; or one more exhaustively walloped health care provider following the familiar footpath from the ER to his favorite hospital parking spot for the last time, scrubs sweaty with the acrid funk of fright and forced out of his job over a choice about what he puts in his body despite saving thousands of lives over the course of his 20 plus year career, I'm going to crack. 

 

I am a handful of peppermint Mentos, quickly and sinisterly forced one by one, into a tepid can of Diet Coke on Granny's doily-covered end table.

It's the bad news. It's the hatred. It's the shaming. It's the hopelessness. 

 

It's the lack of accountability. It's the politics. It's the fear factor.

But, I wipe my nose, find a pair of horn-rimmed readers, and slip into my thirty year old clogs, not so much brown but more the color of that dead pelican I found. Just an enormous bill, bleached white bones and clustery tufts washed ashore. I feel my aching feet loosen up in the worn leather, thawing from having numbed atop the icy kitchen tile, and I look out the frosty window pane to admire the fresh snow and know this too shall pass.

 

It just has to.

Everyone my age has a long list of sufferings and nearly all of it has shifted, either temporarily or  permanently. And if it hasn't, we have figured out a way to live with and among the misfortune. We might make it through the day with a healthy jog on the treadmill or we might make it through the night with a hearty swig (or five) of Jack Daniels. We might have steel resolve forged by confidence and the knowledge that we can stand strong against whatever we encounter or we might have an invisible exoskeleton created by thousands of alternating layers of panic and recovery, like thick bubbly varnish on a beautiful antique.

Either way, we make it through.

 

Today, I scratched out a list of things that I have endured and, very significantly, which have passed. I used a bubble gum pink marker which I realized the irony of after item 35. The list is long, or maybe it just feels so fucking long because of where we are in the world. But as I look at it and try to just regard the events as "times gone by", I reinforce that I've motored through and figured out every last hurt, tragedy, trauma, and disappointment. I've proven that the abandonment, the recklessness, the harm done, and the abrasions are no match for me. 

 

I am triumphant. 

I am a blue ribbon and a first place trophy.  

I am more undefeated than the 2007 Patriots.

For just a brief moment I am more Jolene than Dolly.

 

Most importantly, I'm still here. 

 

I flip through the list again. It can be viewed, as can most things in the human condition, multiple ways. It can be looked at as a life that has been less than saccharine sweet, or it can be viewed, as I am choosing to see it right now, as a life that has prepared me for disaster and recovery, calamity and recuperation, strife and calm, cataclysm and rebirth.

 

Normally, I wold totally choose the Oatmeal Fog as a paint color, but today, if I were selecting something new for the hallway where I stumbled for a moment overcome by panic, I would choose one of these, as sentimentally cloying as they are, just to make sure I am focused on the possibility of a happy tomorrow. 

 

 

Keep going, friends. 

We are journeying through this together and one day we will emerge, like baby voles blinking at a corona of concentric circles surrounding the white summer sun, stunned by the notion that this new day is for nothing more than our collective enjoyment.

 

Keep going. 

 

Keep. 

 

Going. 

#mushroomtumbler

Take a Good Look

This is Jax. He's momentarily still as a statue here but don't let that fool you. He moves about like a giant wind up toy rotated two clicks past where the tiny white winder really should stop.

In every other moment besides the nanosecond of pause required for this shot, he repeatedly bumped and circled his tank-like body up against and around his owner's legs with a plucky kinetic energy. 

He's huge with a strength and size rather daunting to the average person; but at "just about" one year old, this male Great Dane is a big pink-hued albino baby. 

All of his weaving and darting coupled with the glare of the sun and my less than skillful ability to take photos on my ancient phone, made this picture nearly impossible but was able to snap and capture what I needed for this piece. (Thank you, God.)

And what I needed was a decent picture because I really need you to take a good look at him. 

A close and careful look. 

And when you do, you'll see that Jax was born without eyes. 

He was also born without the ability to hear a single sound.

Because hubs and I walk a lot, I've crossed the paths of hundreds of dogs but I can't say I've ever seen one quite like Jax. He is unusually special, like something you might see on 'The Dodo', an internet site for animal lovers.

I believe, as I do all the time, that Jax was placed before me for a purpose. Stumbling upon him and learning about his adoption as the most vulnerable newborn pup I'd ever personally heard of, once again gave me reason to renew my faith in humanity. Our random encounter offered me the blessing of a special chance to see all of the beauty within what initially might have presented as a hopeless situation. 

The beauties I saw were acceptance and safety and love. 

His owner is a kind soul, oozing sweetness like pumpkin stuffed French toast. Leading Jax gently but firmly on a soft, thick leash, she encouraged us to put our hands on him and without hesitating, hugged me tightly when I tearfully told her that he touched my heart. 

They are living their best lives together, galivanting on daily beach walks and interacting with strangers who, unless they pay close attention to where his peepers should be, might not even notice that there is something seriously flawed about that puppy face. 

Today, there were horses on the beach and, damn, didn't Jax know it? Sniffing the air and skittering about, he could sense them. There was a sharp farmy scent and a low thrumming vibration in the sand that I could feel in the soles of my feet as they approached us. Jax grew more animated, perhaps agitated, as they clomped closer. His owner soothed him, leaning into his body and petting his jittery back in long, slow strokes. 

Like so many of you, I also been struggling; but my unexpected and enchanting moments with Jax and his owner gave me a real lift. 

Someone with a big heart truly wanted this dog, despite being born with so many problems and needs, and she willingly provides him with unlimited love, safety, and acceptance. He lives a good and decent life, even when something big and powerful and unknown is approaching in the distance. 

Truthfully, we all have problems and needs...and serious flaws which most strangers fail to see unless they take a really good look. Maybe we can offer ourselves and each other more love, safety, and acceptance.

I wish you a good and decent life no matter what is approaching you. May we all feel loved, safe, and accepted. 

#mushroomtumbler

Sidewalks, Silence and Siding - the Stories

Complete strangers always tell me their stories.

I suppose you could say I have one of those faces or I remind someone of an old friend they once knew and felt comfortable with but honestly, I think it's because I just look people in the eye, smile, and stand around and listen. I try not to rush off in a hurry. I let people know that I'm holding space for them even though we've just met.

Last week I was approached by the woman who methodically and repeatedly, day after day, sweeps the common concrete and blacktop in front of her apartment complex; a large community that houses hundreds of people. She can't wait to tell me, after vigorously petting the min pin, that her mother had ten chihuahuas when she was a kid, all with names straight from the bible. She proceeds to recall the little buggers, squeezing her broom handle, wooden and worn, under one armpit for what is probably the first time in the last few hours. She counts off on her calloused, dusty fingertips...Abraham to Zebediah. 

I'm routinely blessed to interact with a cherubic mute man who breakfasts at Stewarts. If he wore a baseball uniform, he'd be a dead ringer for a differently-abled Don Zimmer. Although he's older, he has the smooth kewpie face of a perpetually astonished blue-eyed child that you've just surprised with a sheet cake and balloons on a morning he forgot was his birthday. Our Zim doppelganger wears effeminate sneakers, in a style your Memaw might call 'house shoes', but he balances their grandmotherly charm with an unexpected fistful of chunky silver skull rings and as he stands before me in his periwinkle soft soled slip-ons, I ask him questions to which he utters, urps and ughs while conducting an invisible orchestra; mammoth stainless steel biker jewelry shoved down every arthritic digit; a gleam in his glacier-colored globes which tells me he is an amazing orator despite not possessing a single recognizable word. 

But today, I got to chat with a new guy, a guy who is single-handedly re-siding his home, a building rather stately but in need of a facelift. 

We've probably walked by this house forty times in the last three months and bit by bit, the old beauty is being veneered a pleasant brownish gray, very much like the feathers of mourning doves.  

I get weirdly excited when a city house undergoes significant repair. I can't help but heap praise upon the flippers who are busy pouring sweat and love into a dilapidated home. Hubs sometimes leaves me be and circles the block with the min pin when I start yakking with the tile guy or hollering up to the roofing crew balanced precariously on slate like the chim chimeree stack sweepers of my youth. So, I was pleased when my love stood with me this morning and looked for whomever'd been busting his or her hump on the two story colonial. 

Like most days, there is an old van in the driveway. There is a paint splattered boombox playing classic Bryan Adams. I strain my neck to see who's responsible for the handiwork but there's never been anyone there to converse with...until today, that is. Today, Mr. Siding Man is there. 

Mr. Siding Man is probably somewhere around my age, though, admittedly, I am a very poor judge of that nowadays. My eyesight isn't as good as it used to be and though my sunglasses are prescription, they're old. Hubs points things out to me all the time and I peer skyward, rather Magoo-ish as I step off of curbs squinting and saying "Where? What am I looking at?"

But I can see that Mr. Siding Man has a short shock of perfectly silver hair and a build suggesting hard work and home cooked meals. 

We compliment him on a job well done thus far. He apologizes for the amount of time it is taking him. He is but a one man show and he likes things done right the first time. This would have been sufficient explanation for us, but as I cheerfully flatter his colorful choice of vinyl, he blurts out that he has recently had a variety of below the belt cancers, three rounds of chemotherapy, a prostate left back in the operating room and a bladder surgically crafted from his small intestines. He also mentions that siding work with a colostomy bag is about as uncomfortable as anything you can imagine. 

We stand, mouths agape, at the determination this man possesses. I start feeling that familiar heat coursing up the sheath of my spine whenever I am in the presence of someone who has more fortitude and backbone than I perhaps ever will. I want to shake his hand and tell him I am proud to know him, but I really don't know him and shaking hands has become such an overstep in this horribly awkward time; so, instead, I offer simple exclamatory statements suggesting awe and blessings that sound rote but what else can you say when presented with such information? He goes on to tell us that he has two new grandchildren and he is beyond thrilled to be in their lives. Hubs declares that grandkids are definitely something to be thankful for. Mr. Siding Man says this will probably be his last job so that he can spend more time with them. 

His last job. 

It is then that we realize he doesn't live at this house. He is working on this house. Someone hired this guy to start and complete what for some might be a one-man Sisyphean task but he's doing it...while jamming to Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" as his colon empties into a bag strapped to his abdomen. 

Think of that next time you have to mow the lawn or scour scrambled eggs off the stovetop, or watch Bubble Guppies for the hundredth time this week, or pick your in-laws up at the airport. Think of the dog-loving lady forever sweeping a driveway that can't possibly stay clean or the poetry of a wordless, slipper wearing bard, or the cancer conqueror on a ladder wearing his insides on his belt and dreaming of pushing two brand new littles in a double-seated stroller. 

And then, after you've done what you didn't want to do, breathe deep, go outside, throw the doors to your beating heart wide open, look your hometown in the eye, and marvel at the sweetness of how everyone starts telling you their stories. 

#mushroomtumbler

James Taylor, October Nights and Thrill Hill

It's that kind of a night.

The kind of October night that brings back bonfires, a borrowed jacket redolent of post-practice sweat and teen boy pheromones, and a long walk through the woods to our party spot, high up on the hill. 

Thrill Hill. That's what we all called it. Spoken of mostly in legendary terms now, it was our teen hangout and best place to be in the brisk fall darkness.  

Those were the days...when we left the house on a Friday evening and headed to the football game, back slapping and yelling ourselves hoarse before zipping up our coats and hiking far into the forest to drink out of clear plastic cups while either hanging onto our best friends or our best hook up.

Music. There were always tunes though, oddly, I never much thought about from where they came. Was it a car stereo? A boombox? There was no electricity at Thrill Hill so someone was willingly, for our collective entertainment, eating a whole lotta battery, whether automobile or D cell. 

Boston begged us not to look back. JT reminded us to shower the people. CSNY asked us to carry on. The Grateful Dead said being friends with the devil just might be acceptable. 

The beer might have been cheap. Who knew? Who cared? For a dollar you got all you wanted (and then some).

Lighters got passed around all night. Don't bring the one with the Navajo silver and turquoise cover that you "borrowed" from your brother's girlfriend 'cause you'll never see it again. There were cigarettes (menthol for the girls, so only bum one if you can handle their icy harshness), the occasional cigar (for which we were thankful as they really did keep the bugs away) and, always, the ropey diesel of marijuana. One sniff of pot transports me to that time like almost nothing else, except maybe the powdery notes of my old perfume or the sulfur stench of coppery downed leaves. 

I've heard marijuana called a 'gateway drug' but for us, back then, it seemed to provide only a gateway to mellow authenticity. For the socially shy, it made covert thoughts sharable. For the anxious and worried, it brought the feeling that every little thing's gonna be all right. For the brash and bold, it offered a more harmonious style of communicating. For the carefree and genial, it turned the regular world into a kaleidoscope of colors.

For me, it took away the chatter in my head that said I wasn't attractive enough and that my family was woefully unsettled. It offered me the chance to sit quietly next to a friend on a log, staring skyward at the navy greatness of this chasm, in which I was nothing more than a tiny quark. It gave me some peace. It prompted me to join the song circle, torsos intertwined, with no discernment as to where one arm started and another ended; belting out lyrics about rain and flying machines and "I always thought I'd see you baby, one more time, again". It offered me the lifelong gift of recognizing myself in everyone else. It made me sink into the shoulder of a friend I could trust while he walked me more than a mile to the safety of my front porch, light on, door unlocked.

The solidarity that my high school friends and I created in those moments, that brand of unwavering unity, is usually either formed in situations which are memorable and perfectly lovely or in situations helping each other survive something perfectly awful. So, in our time, in the woods, warmed by the firelight, bathed in the smoky haze of our collective harmony, we took what was perfectly lovely and perfectly awful about our lives, our bodies, our grades, our homes, our adolescent mindsets and our oft-broken hearts and forged those emotions into torrid links of cadmium and tangelo; into chains of oriole-breasted red-orange fire that will never break.

Truly, never. 

So tonight as we traipse by others' outdoor backyard burns, smelling the grass that's now curiously legal, the pungent combination takes me back to how we existed like a spirit family. A fraternity conjoined.

And I sigh so very gratefully for having been a part of it all. 

It's that kind of night, Glens Falls. 

Ain't it good to know? 

Ain't it good to know? 

Yeah, yeah. 

You've got a friend. 

#mushroomtumbler

My Perfect Ten for Sirius XM

Sirius XM is playing selected listeners' Perfect 10 lists on October 10 (10/10). 

I think the lists they choose will be spun on Classic Rewind. 

This might not be your cup of tea but it's mine so these are the songs/artists that I selected and submitted today for my Perfect 10.

 1. Soul Kitchen – The Doors

2. I Feel Free - Cream

3. You Keep Me Hangin’ On – Vanilla Fudge

4. Traveling Riverside Blues – Led Zeppelin

5. Let Me Roll It – Paul McCartney

6. Loving Cup – The Rolling Stones

7. Satisfaction Guaranteed – The Firm

8. Bell Bottom Blues – Derek and the Dominoes

9. To Love Somebody – The Bee Gees

10. Mandolin Wind – Rod Stewart

 

Every career assessment I ever took said I should have been a Medical Doctor and a DJ. 

Maybe I can realize one of those dreams with this list. 

#siriusxm

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