The wheels of misplaced anger

I always thought riding a bike to downtown Detroit for work would be dangerous because you ride through mostly shabby (not shabby chic) neighborhoods. So I meet a guy who does it and it ends up the danger is from the drivers. They yell at him. They throw things at him. They swerve towards him. They are angry about him riding his bike. He said Detroit isn’t as angry as other counties nearby.

It reminds me of the strangely aggressive and angry reaction I’ve noticed on several things. Like saying you are a vegetarian. “Do you want animals to overpopulate and starve to death? You want to make hunting illegal? Can I eat this cheeseburger in front of you? Are you a communist? So you never eat protein? Do you eat bugs?”

Or if you don’t order a drink when everyone else does, “What did you kill someone drinking and driving? You got liver cancer? Are you in some crazy church? Why don’t you just leave?”

Or when they find out you’re a Jew, “No Christmas…no tree…a Santa? What about bacon? You don’t believe in JESUS? Will they let you into heaven? No ham? No Easter bunny? Are you sure you didn’t kill Jesus? Do you have your own churches?

Nosey

I worked an entire summer at a Jewish newspaper with the obituary writer who had a nasal deformity. He had this slender white growth coming out of his left nostril. It was repulsively distracting, yet incredibly curious to me. Not only didn’t he explain the gnarly growth, he never acknowledged it as if he didn’t know it was there.

I waited all summer and got nothing close to an explanation. I might have quit that job, but hung on figuring he would break in that steamy un-air-conditioned-musty-corner left to write obituaries on typewriters that were missing keys.

He was always a little uneasy about his position at the paper since his wife was Catholic. I used to see him nervously sneaking the Catholic Chronicle into his tattered back pack each week. Now I know I should have used that Catholic Chronicle as bait to blackmail him for the story on his nose. I guess I wasn’t cut out for investigative journalism.

A Pretend Life

Like most kids I was big into the world of pretend and make believe. I had imaginary friends called Imogene, Penelope, and Wilt. Also, there was a man living in a high rise apartment building underneath my tongue.

But sometimes as an adult I find myself still playing pretend. That the dust I find on the floor is sand and we are sunning ourselves at the beach. For a while I pretended our dust bunnies were alive and I couldn’t kill them with a mop because it was obviously cruel.

Other days I ignore the cell phone and computer because I am having a pretend 1950’s day. It helps to have a lot of vintage clothes, jewelry, handbags and, magazines.

Make believe isn’t any easier now than it was as a kid. People give me a hard time and try to reason about the difference between dust and sand. People show me calendars, wave ringing phones in my face.

They used to try to sit on poor Imogene and suffocate Wilt to prove some unknown point. And all the architects in the world couldn’t convince me that you can’t build a beautiful high rise under a child’s tongue.

I'm so glad it's changed

Parents often talk about how having a child changes them…the house is taken over by brightly- colored-bouncy seats, finding sweet potato on you sleeve (just happened), lack of sleep, becoming immune to smells of poop.

Last Saturday I was at our local grocery store sans make-up and in clothes that welcome baby food-spitting fights. Trips out are not as “successful” as they used to be. I am focused on enjoying my baby. This means a combination of swinging my head around (he likes my hair tickling his face), nibbling on his socked feet, singing, and dancing. I miss a few things on the list because we are belly laughing aisle after aisle.

We get to the frozen section and my husband remembers some of what we have forgotten and dashes off. He returns to my performance of Huey Lewis’, “Do you believe in love” to our son.

What struck me funny was that no surrounding shoppers had a reaction. They kept their heads down like nothing was happening. No call for help, tossing of produce, booing, giggles, humming, hip shakes, disapproving nods, 911calls. I would have a reaction to an adult woman knowing all the words to a Huey Lewis song, let alone someone believing she is in a karaoke bar instead of the ice cream section of her grocery store.

During the brief instrumental, I wonder for a minute if this isn’t how our neighbors parent, and then go on, “I used to have you in a photograph, I’m so glad it’s changed.”

Suck Away

Being a parent has opened my world to a dizzying amount of input. One seemingly major issue is the pacifier. I first noticed it with a co-worker’s baby, someone asking “You aren’t going to use a pacifier are you?” I thought they had to be joking. Like they were saying, “You aren’t going to use a rusted-out-dagger to get that booger, are you?”

Our baby didn’t take to daggers, or pacifiers. So he is sucking his thumb. Parents gasp and look at me, tattling and pointing “He is sucking his thumb!” As if he just stole their ID or motorcycle. “Yeah, I know. Next week are going to start him on unfiltered Camels.”

Being a former thumb sucker, I don’t get the big deal. Are you supposed to be a non-sucker, or a finger-sucker, a penny-sucker? It isn’t illegal or costly. He enjoys it and no harm is being done to the environment or the stock market.

I remember my parents trying to wean me off the thumb and the blanket with extreme rigidity. I just wonder what harm I was causing. Did I look weak? Was it an embarrassment? Did they worry I would fall the wrong crowd? If that is the worst habit for stress management that you end up with, then I say suck away.

Practicality of Religion

My grandmother died just shy of ninety-one. She was cremated the same as we did for my grandfather several years earlier. We had no funeral or memorial service for her. No gathering of family or loved ones in her honor. No traditional or untraditional function which could have served as a valid reason to take off work, to cry, to space out, to linger over old pictures and mementos, to receive hugs, and casseroles.

My family is out of town. Our traditions are sort of out of this universe. So I was left in the middle of my life to grieve the loss of someone who meant a lot to me. Of whom the memories are rich with texture and life. The recollections came quickly to my mind provoking warm salty tears running down my cheeks like a broken faucet. I considered wandering a random cemetery or hospital hoping not to look so odd.

I found that without an organized religion or tradition I simply didn’t have a place to be at this very vulnerable and lonely time. I realized weather or not I am comfortable with each and every aspect of a particular religion and its traditions, they serve a purpose. They give you something to do and someplace to be during a difficult time.

It is easy to disagree with the tiny details of a religion when you are not in a place of need. Comfort isn’t really in the tiny details, but the overall feeling of safety and togetherness.

Un Dia Nuevo

I rode in your convertible with the top down at night. Music so loud I didn’t know music could get that loud in the open air. Music made up of female scratchy voices. Guitars being played so awkwardly it was painfully beautiful in a shy-don’t-notice-me kind of way I remembered from high school.

You spoke fast. You drove fast. Your tiny delicate parchment-paper-pale fingers danced along the leather steering wheel animating your words about planting flowers at a park, going dancing, moving with a group of 28 to Austin and did I want to join in? You were inviting me on our first nighttime car ride into such intimate permanent activities. I am just a curious passenger, wanting to fill in the holes of my imaginary crayola sketch of you, not expecting such a welcome, such energy like 18 packets of pop rocks in a puppy’s surprised mouth.

I watch your movement so natural with feminine fleshy parts easing out of your too-tight shirt and getting pushed out of equally small jeans. Bright fuchsia nail polish light your finger tips and toe nails like perfect stage lighting for your nightly performances.