A Woman and a Man

She is a pretty woman…a woman with one of those faces that radiates youth and grace and serenity and one of those faces where you can already see the gentle contours of the lovely middle aged woman and the cute old lady that she is going to be in decades to come. She speaks softly and smiles shyly and she lets her fierce intelligence shine without having to make a lot of noise about it.

He is a boyish man…a man who lights up every room he was in and who holds fast to his inner child while embracing the responsibilities and hard-won wisdoms of adulthood with equal diligence. He is smart and funny and he has a way of putting everyone in his company at ease.

They flow together naturally…their differences binding them together as sweetly and as wonderfully as their similarities do…their life energies, complimentary and contradictory, combining to make a gentle kind of everyday magic.

They flow together gently, naturally, wondrously…the lovely wise woman and the handsome boyish man…their paths in life having wound together to create something new…and magical…and lasting as they continue on along the winding path that leads on to the golden horizons.

It is a very good thing.

- for J & J -

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

July

Peter was born on a sultry day in July. His mother, who had been told to expect a great deal of agony during the course of delivering her first child, was pleased when Peter made the transition from the comfortable shadows of her womb to the bittersweet light of the world outside with remarkable speed and ease. Peter remained the apple of his mother’s eye for all of the rest of her days.

Peter ran for the first time on a cloudy day in July. He had been walking for months but that was the first time that he the opportunity to really see what his chubby little legs could really do. Peter ran into his verdant backyard and kept running and laughing while his mother smiled and his father, the most impressive man Peter would ever know, looked up from his newspaper and his cigar and nodded appreciatively.

Peter had his first kiss on a sweetly magical night in July. He had pursued Rachel shyly for weeks never imagining that she knew he was even alive. Peter had always thought of Rachel as an angel incarnate and he hadn’t imagine that she would say yes when he finally screwed up the courage to ask her out to movies. But, much to his amazement and delight, say yes she did. When Rachel held hands with him as they walked home from the neighborhood theater Peter couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful…at least until they kissed, ever so shyly, with no witnesses save for the lazy golden moon in the sky and Rachel’s pesky little sister peeking through the curtains of her second story bedroom.

Peter got married on bright and breezy day in July. He and Sara had wanted to be married on their favorite cliff overlooking the bountiful Pacific and that is indeed where their friends and families gathered to witness their union. Sara was a vision in flowing white with a tiara of tiny flowers in her long black hair and Peter thought that there couldn’t be a luckier, happier man than him anywhere in the sweet blue world. Peter’s mother, smiled beatifically as the apple of her eye took a bride; Peter’s father, no less impressive for the years he had accumulated, nodded approvingly.

Peter’s daughter Kimberly Michelle was born on a rainy day in July. Kimberly Michelle had her mother’s eyes and his mother’s smile and, like he had done, she made her debut in the world with very little fuss. Kimberly Michelle staked out a large part of Peter’s heart from the instant that she placed in his arms and he couldn’t imagine helping to create anything more wondrous ever again. Kimberly Michelle would remain the apple of his eye for all the rest of his days.

Peter looked up at the golden moon for the last time on a soft but unremarkable night in July. His years had been long, his world had always been more happy than not, and he was not afraid of what was to come after. Sara was still the light of his life. Kimberly Michelle and her brother Christopher Jacob and their children still brought him boundless joy. Peter knew that he would be remembered when he was gone and that was good enough for him.

Peter died on a still morning in July. Sara found him in his favorite chair, his newspaper fallen to the floor, his cigar still burning in the ashtray on the end table. He had slipped from life with remarkable speed and grace, his mighty heart having beat its last while he was thinking about Sara. Peter was buried on a crystal clear day in July…his friends and families gathered together crying and laughing and hugging each other…and remembering. Peter was remembered and that was enough for everybody who loved him.

Friday the 13th (Waiting)

Friday the 13^th. Were I a superstitious person I would be worried. But I’m not. I have two black cats and my birthday falls on the 13^th day of March so I’m certainly not sweating things like superstition (knock and wood :-)

It’s summertime in America and the sea breezes are coming off the Pacific are trying to soothe my soul and I’m waiting. I am surrounded and kept safe in warm, golden circles of love and friendship and kinship with the universe but I’m still waiting.

It’s a time of reckoning in the world at large and I’m waiting. All about our bright blue globe, people are living, people are dying, people are being born into a world that shifts and roils and morphs…for the better and for the worse…with every passing instant and I’m still waiting.

Voices are being raised in song, blood is being spilled on the sands and on the streets of far too many nations, dreams are being given wing, and hope is thriving where it should have no foothold…and I’m waiting.

Friday the 13^th…just another day in tapestry of never-ending time…and I have no time for superstition. Because I’m waiting…I’m hoping and praying and swearing, working and dreaming and fighting…and waiting. I’m waiting on the world to change.

- thanks and apologies to JM -

Angels and Electricity

The club was packed and the electricity was palpable through the humid air. People were chattering amiably all around me but I paid it not the slightest bit of attention. I wasn’t there for them. I told myself that I wasn’t really sure why I was there at all but I knew before the thought was finished that that was a lie. I was there for her.

She and I had talked about “forever” like it was something that could really happen. And, for a brief season anyway, we lived that way too…two fools passionately in love and not giving a moment’s consideration to tomorrow.

“Forever” wasn’t quite as long as we supposed it was going to be. She left…or I left…or we left…I really can’t remember anymore.

And now I was here…the better angels of my nature compelling me against the nagging doubts of my more rational self…waiting with the amiably chattering crowd.

And then the lights went down and the crowd started buzzing excitedly and then she was there…in the spotlight, in the center of my known universe…guitar in hand and beatific smile on her breathtaking face. She started to play…that song she wrote for us one rainy Sunday afternoon as we lay in bed letting the day slide lazily by…and I felt like my heart was going to bust wide open right there and then.

I shrank into the shadows presuming that she would never see but it seemed like her gaze was fixed on my location in dark as she sang that song…the song she wrote for us back in the time before forever ended…and I sang along and all of the buzzing crowd faded from my perception one by one until there was just her and just me.

And when she was done, she put down her guitar and held out her hand in my direction. The crowd reappeared and then parted like graceful waves as I felt myself moving forward. I looked up at her and she floated down into my arms. We kissed…the way we used to kiss when forever was a real thing between us…and brushed tears from each other’s eyes. The crowd sighed and then cheered. I lifted her back up to the stage and she played and sang while I watched proudly, wistfully, hopefully.

Afterwards…with angels on our shoulders and electricity in our beings…we kissed and laughed, cried and apologized…we talked about “forever” like it was something that could really happen…two fools falling in love again and not giving a moment’s consideration to tomorrow.

- special thanks to Eddi -

Live Earth

F.Y.I.: I've written a piece on the Live Earth concerts over on my pop culture blog, Neverending Rainbow. If interested, please see here.

Happy Anniversary!

July 5, 2004: This blog debuts with absolutely no fanfare at all.

July 5, 2007: 380 posts later, this blog is still droning on.

Okay so maybe it’s not really all that interesting when all is said and done but let’s all give a jaunty “thumbs up” to the 3^rd anniversary of the blog version of Bread and Roses anyway (Yay!)

Thanks to all of those who have read B&R over the years…and special thanks to everyone who’ve taken the time to comment.

In the future we only promise more random acts of creative stuff and optimistically cynical nonsense and whatever else the heck happens here (it’s a mystery even to us sometimes…we just go with the flow and hope that it makes some kind of sense…)

Onward…

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MKW's Pop Culture Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

America

(This was, in the spirit of full disclosure, the Independence Day post I wrote last year...it said everything the best way I could think of so it makes its second annual appearance here.)

America doesn’t always live up to its promise. But its promise is still something worth striving for…worth dreaming of…worth fighting and dying for if need be. I am a cynical patriot but I am indeed a patriot and no one can gainsay that fact.

Blind, unthinking loyalty to anything or anyone is a fool’s path; knee-jerk disavowal of everything this country thinks it is...everything this country wants to be…is also a fool’s path. As with most things in this world, the truth lies somewhere in between strident, inflexible extremes…this is certainly true here in America…our generous, arrogant, naïve, myopic, our hard-hearted and inflexible, open-minded and open-hearted America… our complex , often marvelously and infuriatingly so, America.

Here in the 21^st Century, America is looking for its way…we’re fighting wars on distant soils and building walls on our borders…we’re reeling still from the knowledge that our shores are not immune from terror and chaos and sudden brutal deaths by the score; we are a nation united by history, hubris, and hope…we are a nation fractured along ever-fluid lines of politics, race, religion, pride, and culture.

We are America…for better and for worse…in times of peace and in times of war…in times of joy and pride and in times of sorrow and shame…in times when the rest of the world (rightly or wrongly) celebrates us and in times when the rest of the world (rightly or wrongly) reviles us.

We are America…the sons and daughters of many distant lands…the sons and daughters of adventurers and outcasts…the sons and daughters of slaves and freedmen…the sons and daughters of visionaries and madmen, of pirates and craftsmen, of warriors and peacemakers, of saints and scoundrels, of builders and destroyers, of emancipators and bigots, of heroes and villains…the sons and daughters of uncommon wizards and countless everyday folk…

We are America…we don’t always live up to our promise…maybe we never will completely…but it’s our birthday and attention must be paid just the same.

In the cool, soothing twilight,
In the soft, warm glow of the dawning sun,
America sings…
We sing of joy and hope, of pain and forgiveness,
We sing of sins gone but never forgotten,
Of sins to come, ready to be weathered and overcome.

We sing of bright souls lost and redemption found,
We sing of blood spilled and new life a-borning,
Of life renewing, ripe and fertile and eager to soar.

In the bittersweet shadow of our history,
In the burnished glow of complex days to come,
America sings…
We sing of our days of glory, our dreams of tomorrows,
We sing of peace from war, liberty from chaos,
Of passion never-ending, God’s grace blessing us all.

In the cool, soothing twilight…
In the shadow of our history… America sings:

“…God shine His grace on thee…”

Happy Birthday, y’all.

Namaste.

Our Long National Nightmare (a Talking with Bob interlude)

I was checking my e-mail and happily making plans for the millions of dollars that was coming my way from all of the sweepstakes that I had won without remembering when I had actually entered them and from all of the inheritances I apparently had coming from people I didn’t know all over the world. Images of my new luxurious life were dancing in my fevered head as each wonderful e-mail scrolled across the screen.

My friend Bob was on the other side of the room grumbling and cursing as he perused the day’s newspaper. Bob had a fluorescent marker at the ready as he carefully searched for factual, spelling, and grammatical errors. “Aha!” he exclaimed every time he found such an error, gleefully highlighting each one with a ragged yellow circle. Bob said “aha!” a lot every time he read the paper.

When he was done Bob, the undisputed master of the scathing letter to the editor, would turn his outrage and disgust into missives of poetic invective and withering, carefully-crafted vitriol and send them sailing into the ether and on to the screens of the poor interns tasked with sorting through such communications. Bob was something of a legend among said interns.

A breaking news alert caught my eye and I scanned it; the news sent waves of relief coursing through my very being. “At last,” I said aloud, “our long national nightmare is over!”

Bob’s eyebrow shot up and he looked over expectantly. “What? What is it? Is the war over?”

“War? No, Bob, not the war,” I replied as patiently as I could (Bob had strange priorities sometimes.) “The unjust incarceration of our queen is over, man. Paris is free!”

Bob’s eyes grew shaded. “Paris Hilton? You think our national nightmare was Paris Hilton being in jail?”

Ignoring the skepticism in Bob’s voice, I nodded. “Well yeah…it had to be hell for that sweet girl. No makeup, no cell phones, no photo ops…I hope she’s not permanently scarred because we need her so much.” I paused and sighed heavily. “C'mon, dude, even you have to admit that it’s been so very hard on all of us.”

My friend Bob glared at me silently for a long moment and then he shook his head. “You say these things just to hurt me, don’t you?”

“I too am America, Bob,” I said with an impish grin.

“Yes,” Bob agreed glumly, “unfortunately you are.”

“Hey,” I said reading from the news, “Barbara Walters said that Paris has found Jesus…or Buddha…or something…she’s a new, enlightened Paris following in the footsteps of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Oliver North, and, I'm sure, Scooter Libby and turning her oppression into something that will enlighten us all!”

Bob rolled his eyes in righteous disgust and turned back to the paper. “I’m not listening to you anymore, Michael.”

“Ooo, she's going to tell all to our pal Larry King! This is gonna be so hot!” I gushed as Bob resumed his hunt for errors to bring to the attention of the newspaper’s interns.

I Remember Summer

I remember summer. I remember when summer really meant something to me…school was out (finally!) and the skies were bright and crystal blue and a whole world of amazing adventure beckoned with all of the time in the world to indulge it.

The kids in the neighborhood…my brother, my cousins, the kids from down the street, and the kids from around the corner…gathered (usually in our front yard) and we were off…raising heck (we were too well-behaved…and too wary of our parents…to raise hell), running and laughing and jumping and swimming and biking and dancing with all of our seemingly boundless youthful energy.

We would entertain ourselves while only stepping foot inside long enough to wolf down lunch and grab some new item with which casual childhood magic could be woven once taken out into the sunshine.

I remember summer. Saturday mornings were reserved for cartoons, Sunday mornings were reserved (by our mothers) for Sunday School, and most of the other daylight hours were ours to do with as we would. And, in those gentler times, we did everything we could imagine totally safe and secure in the streets and alleyways and front yards of our remarkably verdant Los Angeles neighborhood.

Yeah, summer…I remember when summer really meant something to me…

Afterwards...

Deliriously spent, they reluctantly slid away from each other. Lying side by side…just barely not touching…in the steamy, musky air of the moonlit bedroom, they closed their eyes and waited for their breathing to return to something more akin to normal and for their humid bodies to cool and stop tingling so intensely.

“Damn,” Nathan said after a short eternity.

“Yeah,” Della said knowing exactly what he was he was feeling because she was feeling it too. The man had a number of annoying traits, she thought, but Jesus did he know how to rock her world.

Nathan turned on his side his eyes lighting on the voluptuous curves of her breasts glistening with sweat in the golden moonlight languidly dancing in through the window. “Are you okay?” he asked solicitously. He always asked her the same question every time they made love.

Della smiled patiently. The earnestness of his question…the same question he asked every time they had sex…was both enormously endearing and utterly ludicrous to her. She nodded. “I’m fine, baby,” she said in a creamy purr. “I’m better than fine.”

Nathan allowed himself a moment of pride and relief and then he rested back on his pillow. Nathan was a thick bear-like young man whose powerful frame masked his fleeting but undeniable waves of insecurity and his sometimes aching need to please. He had never known a woman like Della and he couldn’t imagine that he ever would know her like again.

Della turned and snuggled into Nathan the way she loved to do. She was a woman of independent spirit but sometimes…just sometimes…she loved to cuddle into the warm comfort of Nathan’s encompassing embrace. Della was a woman of full, feminine curves…rounded breasts and rounded hips…but she felt delicate and safe in Nathan’s arms and sometimes…just sometimes…she really wanted and needed to feel delicate and safe.

Nathan stroked Della’s soft raven tresses and held her tenderly. He knew that he was more emotionally invested in her than he should have been…Della had asked him not to go there…but he didn’t care. He could hear her breathing slowing as she willingly surrendered to sleep. “I love you,” he whispered though he knew that she did not want to hear that.

Della, transitioning swiftly from the waking world to the dreaming world, smiled…patiently and ruefully at once…and snuggled against Nathan’s broad chest. “I know you do, baby,” she said without acrimony. “I know you do.”

Nathan felt her slip into sleep and, holding her securely, he closed his eyes and followed her into the realm of dreams.

My Father's Song

My father’s song…a symphony of so many things said and unsaid…waxes and wanes in my heart and in my memory as the winds of forgiveness shift and the vagaries of love and honor and regret and disappointment take their turns coming to the fore.

My father’s song…sweet soul music in better moments…was distant and all but inaudible in so many cool hours of my youth…so far away as to not be a viable comfort in the wee hours of quiet, lonely nights…but there, however faintly, just the same.

My father’s song…a plaintive blues in waltz time…was ever a promise that ever lingered just outside the realms of my everyday world and my dreamtime fancies.

My father’s song…a bittersweet rhapsody…called to my mother’s mighty heart, to my brother’s fragile soul, to my own wistful imagination but never completely filled our beings as we would have sometimes liked.

My father’s song…a tender ballad of days forever gone and days yet to come…waxes and wanes…shines and darkens…lingers and dances away…forever in my mother’s knowing eyes…forever in my brother’s eternal memory…forever in my own cynical heart and in my ever hopeful soul.

- for Bud -

Free Paris

Today I had decided that I was going to organize a march to protest the unjust incarceration of America's sweetheart...the strangely ubiquitous Queen of all Media...Miss Paris Hilton. But then it turned out to be such a gloriously blue and breezy spring day here South California that I blew that off and took a long, leisurely walk in the early afternoon sunshine by myself instead.

I am, of course, still fuming over the way "The Man" has treated Paris...but hey stuff happens (and I know that she would want us all to be strong and keep our heads held high while she's up the river in the Big House.) And besides I know that the media...especially the television folks...will keep us completely up to date on all things Paris (I'm pretty sure that they reported that she had regular bowel movements thanks in part to the oatmeal she had for breakfast today...though they forgot to mention if she had raisins on that oatmeal... )

Perseverance furthers, Paris. Stay strong, sweet pampered princess, stay strong.

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

Strong Arms and Soft Lips

He had strong arms and soft lips…dark eyes that twinkled with mischievous wit and wisdom…rough-hewn and beautiful masculine curves and features that seemed to invite tender exploration…Terry found it all so wonderfully wounding that it stole breath from the body and gave light to the soul.

The sweet, steady song of his sleeping breathing was magical…Terry couldn’t imagine a sound more amazing, more lovely, more thrilling…especially in the first light of dawn as that song confirmed that the passionate, sweaty, carnally delightful magic of the darkling hours was more than just an aching trick of dreamtime.

He had a voice that rumbled melodically, that spoke softy and gave amble space for both quiet and dialogue…Terry found that so incredibly precious and rare that it was almost beyond belief…almost beyond desire…almost beyond reason and expectation.

Terry took a deep, hopeful breath as the man stirred to waking…as the promise of the night before teetered on the precipice of disappointment in the harsh light of an unforgiving morning.

He looked over and smiled that smile and looked out with those eyes and Terry sighed with relief and snuggled into a lingering good morning kiss. Strong arms and soft lips…Terry sighed with passion and allowed for the possibility of a thousand and one tomorrows started just so.

- for T & K (by request)-

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

Decision '08 (a Talking with Bob interlude)

My friend Bob burst into my house with a mission. He was, I noted with some chagrin, in his crusader mode. “Who are you gonna vote for?” Bob asked without any preamble.

I wracked my brain. American Idol was over and I didn’t think that So You Think You Can Dance had opened their phone voting yet. I frowned and gave him my best puzzled look. “Vote for?”

“For President! President of the United States of America! Maybe you’ve heard of it???” Bob said with exasperation. “Who are you gonna vote for?”

I sighed to myself. Political conversations with my friend Bob were never a pretty thing. “Hadn’t really thought about it that much,” I replied truthfully. “Especially considering that this is June of ’07 and I don’t really have to make a final decision until November of ’08.” I knew that this was the wrong answer before I’d finished speaking but I was already committed so I went with it.

“No! No! No!” Bob raged indignantly, the veins in his forehead throbbing impressively. “This is the most important decision in the history of this country and you can’t sit on the fence until next year! The good people of New Hampshire are on the verge of moving their primary to Halloween of this year so that they can have the first say in who gets to move on! You have to choose and you have to choose now!”

I suppressed a smile. “Calm down, Bob,” I said solicitously.

Bob grabbed me by my lapels and drew me so close that I could tell that he’d had Hawaiian pizza for lunch. “A name, Michael,” he said, his eyes glowing wildly, “give me a name!”

I suppressed a laugh and shrugged. “Okay. Fred Thompson.”

Bob’s eyes went wide and then he frowned. “Because you agree with him on the issues?” he asked warily.

“Nah,” I said, extricating myself from my friend Bob’s grasp, “because he has the coolest theme song. They’re going to play the Law and Order theme everywhere he goes and that’s going to be so cool.”

Bob’s mouth fell open. “You…you…you…” he sputtered unable to grasp my seemingly flippant attitude to the most important decision in the history of this country. “I can’t talk to you anymore,” he said his voice low and icy.

“Gah!” Bob exclaimed, throwing up his arms as he spun on his heels and marched towards the front door.

“Nice talking with you, Bob,” I said not bothering to suppress a smile as I began to hum the theme from Law and Order.

Believing in Magic

“Don’t be afraid,” she said reassuringly, “you can do it.”

I smiled to myself…she was 6 and I was much older than 6 and she was the one telling me to be strong…to have a little faith…to believe in magic.

“I used to be able to do this, sweetheart,” I said looking down to the valley so far below. We’d climbed up the mountain together but now, at the summit, I was afraid. “I think I’m too old to believe in magic.”

She smiled…patiently and impatiently in the same instant…and held out her hand. “You never get too old to believe in magic, Papa,” she said guilelessly.

I took a deep breath and took her tiny hand in my ungainly paw of a hand. And, fighting the “wisdom” of my dotage, I stepped forward. We dipped down into the bracing summer’s breeze and then we began to glide…to soar…to fly.

“See?” she said smiling brightly and holding tight to my hand. “I told you so.”

“Yes, you did,” I smiled back feeling the wind in fact and the sun dancing on my back. We were flying…so high above the verdant valley…and believing in magic.

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

Safe Harbor

She walks in light and shadow with each and every step; she walks with the casual, entrancing sway of her delightfully rounded hips and her bountiful and enticing bosom. The dazzling, passionate, boisterously smiling sparkle in her dark eyes colored and mitigated with a soft, wounding melancholy; those eyes, filled with equal measure of laughter and tears and hope and faith and bittersweet memory, so easy to get lost in forever.

Her thick brown hair crowns her head softly waiting for strong hands to caress it, to luxuriate in it, to stroke it lovingly as she lays her head close to your heart. Her face…those dark eyes, that creamy skin, those sweet lips that seem made to be kissed gently and roughly (often and gratefully) She is bright and beautiful and breathtakingly sensual; sensitive, energetic, strong, vulnerable, wise, naïve, girlish and womanly in the same amazing, thrilling, beguiling moment.

She is all a wise man could ever want in a partner…a friend, a companion, a lover, a confidant, a safe harbor…in the tumultuous journey that is life. A remarkable girl…a remarkable woman…

And, of course, there was no way that he could not fall in love with her.

She, of course, never regarded him that way…never took his ill-disguised passion and longing for her seriously. Her wisdom failed her in matters of love as she too often gave her heart to an endless number of vapid brutes who had absolutely no idea what a treasure it was…no idea what a precious treasure she was.

Not having it in him to try to play the brute he settled for being her buddy… her confidant…the good guy she trusts but would never fall in love with. For him, it wasn’t enough…but, with her, it was better than nothing.

She walks in light and shadow…she nestles into him and cries over the brutes who will never cry over her…and he holds her, keeping his love chaste and his longing at bay, and gives her the safe harbor she needs.

- for Chris and Magdalena (wherever life has taken them) -

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

The Necessary Persistence of Memory

We were born in a crucible of fire and blood…of the sweat and the tears and the courage and the hypocrisy and the bravado that only fools and visionaries and freedmen and dreamers know intimately.

We were born of blood on the ancient byways of the Old World, blood on the fertile realms of noble Africa and blood on the plains, and the verdant fields of a “New World”.

We were born of blood spilled in burgeoning colonies created…by hubris and guile and deception, by force of will and force of arms, by self-anointed divine right…from the bright and blue, majestic and expansive, hardscrabble and bountiful, land we claimed as our own.

We were born of the blood of the young spilled on battlefields near and far…in Lexington and Valley Forge, in the shadow of the majestic Rio Grande, at Fort Sumter and in Gettysburg and Atlanta; in Cuba and Germany and France and North Africa and the blue Pacific; in Selma and Mississippi, Dallas and Memphis and Chicago and Kent State and Los Angeles; in Korea and Vietnam and Kuwait and Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq…and we remember.

We born of the blood of the young spilled…in the name of freedom, in the name of justice, in the name of manifest destiny, in the name of a fragile union, in the name of ending tyranny and injustice and war itself, in the name of self-protection, in the name of peace…and we remember.

We were born in a crucible of fire and blood…sweat and tears and passion and setbacks and triumphs. We were born from the sacrifices of our young…and, in the necessary persistence of memory, we remember.

Dirty Laundry

I dreamt that I woke up (yeah, I know…just go with it) and heard a raucous commotion in the outer room. Walking out of the bedroom I found my dirty clothes hamper had been dumped out onto the living room floor and Jerry Springer, Montel Williams, Judge Judy, and Maury Povich were furiously digging through my dirty laundry looking for…well actually, I didn’t know what they were looking for.

“A bit on the nose, isn’t it, folks?” I said as sardonically as I could so soon after waking up.

All four of them sprang up and surrounded me. “Laugh it up, buster,” Judge Judy snarled poking my chest with her bony finger, “but when I find the goods on you I’m going to drag your no-good butt into court and let you have it! Just you wait!”

“Ooo-kay,” I said trying to take a step back from the spray of righteously indignant spittle coming from her thin, angry lips.

Maury Povich spun me around and brought his face so close to mine that I could almost taste the turkey sandwich he had for lunch. “There’s a 99.730017792% chance that you’re the father and I’m gonna find the proof!”

Before I could reply to that, Montel Williams spun me around. “My psychic will tell me everything I want to know about you, buddy. Prepare to be smacked down on national television!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that nobody watched his show any more.

Jerry Springer nudged me and bent close. “Look, if you’re cheating with your alcoholic midget nympho half-cousin who’s pregnant with your priest’s love child, I can make you a star.”

I nodded warily. “Thanks, Jerry, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do you know what you want?” Judge Judy demanded.

“I want you all to go away…?”

“No!” Montel bellowed. “You want to be on television!”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE ON TELEVISION!” they all shouted as one.

“And if you’re not gonna fess us, then we’re going to keep going through you dirty laundry until we find something,” Maury said portentously.

I backed slowly out of the room as the four of them leapt back into the pile of sweaty t-shirts and used BVDs. “Yeah, good luck with that,” I said softly not wanting to upset them again. “Lock the door when you go.”

Jerry, Montel, Judy, and Maury ignored me as they clawed at different pieces of my soiled clothing.

“Eww, what’s that?” I heard Judy ask as I ambled back into my bedroom.

“I’m not sure,” I heard Jerry reply with no small amount of concern in his voice, “but I hope to God that it’s chocolate…”

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MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

My Mother's Eyes

My mother’s eyes are ever with me…I am kept safe and strong in their light…in their tenderness and anger, their wisdom and their passion, their hope and charity and nostalgia and regret.

I am who I am because of my mother’s eyes…my mother’s heart…my mother’s strength and dreams and her boundless and wondrous and fierce love.

My mother’s eyes are ever with me…lingering with me through days of sunshine and magic, through days of shadow and sorrow, through all of my days of my journey from my first cry and down the winding path that makes up the continuing tapestry of my life.

My mother’s eyes are with me…and I am kept safe and strong by their light…my mother’s eyes are now, and ever shall be, with me.

Blessed be.

Melting (a brief Spring interlude)

So I was out watering the roses, the tomatoes, the fruit trees, and the irises in my backyard and listening to the song playing in my head (which was, in case you were wondering, “Tears Cry on Their Own” by Amy Winehouse…don’t know why, I’ve long since made my peace with the fact that when a song decides to take up residence in my whimsical psyche it’s best just to let it go rather than trying to fight it) when my mind wandered in the odd ways it sometimes wanders. I felt, for fleeting moment, like I was melting.

The sky was crystal blue and the Santa Ana winds (hot, dry winds that blow in off the desert…as opposed to the cool breezes that usually blow in off of the Pacific) were dancing softly but insistently and thus the day was unseasonably warm (91 degrees) for a San Diego May afternoon.

The sun and the spring/summer winds were competing to impishly caress and tease my shaved head and bare arms and, for a brief little eternity, time stopped and I felt like I was melting…an odd but not really unfamiliar sensation.

The moment passed…Amy started singing again…and the roses, tomatoes, fruit trees, and irises…parched by the withering heat of several days of unseasonable temperatures…got my full attention again.

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