All pain is relative
I'm on a plane to Chicago to attend to some business meetings for the next couple of days and as usual I fell asleep during takeoff. I woke up only because I guess my body involuntarily jerked and I kicked the underside of the seat in front of me so hard that the top of my foot started bleeding. The woman next to me totally could have thought, great. Just my luck that I'm sitting next this wackadoo, except she didn't even notice because she's watching a tai chi video on her iPad AND SHE IS MIMICKING ALL THE MOVES. IN THE MIDDLE SEAT OF AN AIRPLANE. Her outstretched arm just came within three inches of my face. People have got to be like, what in the ever loving hell is going on in row 14?
If anyone asks I'm just going to shrug and tell them that we're Mormon.
Could be a lot worse. We could be butt chuggers.
Anyway.
While I'm away my mother is picking up both girls and taking them to her cabin for a weekend getaway, a vacation she's been planning for a few weeks. I never should have mentioned this to Leta when my mother first mentioned it to me because she has pretty much talked about nothing else since then. She's all, when? When? When? And I'm all, I can't hear you! What? I've gone deaf! Help!
As I kissed her goodbye this morning I told her to have a great time, to listen to my mom and be nice to her sister. She huffed and puffed and let out a little whine, so I pulled back to look her in the face.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "I thought you were exited to go?"
"I am," she said. "It's just… when we get there I'll have to eat and sleep at some point."
I shook my head to clear my brain because I mistakenly thought she said she was going to have to eat and sleep.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said."
"I HATE eating and sleeping," she explained. "Whenever I do those things I have to stop playing. Those are the worst things in the world."
The worst things in the world.
I cupped her face with my hand and told her I understood, that she was going to have a good time regardless of those horrible, boring things.
If only I could take the eating and sleeping away from her. If only I could ease that pain. That agony. And then hoard it all for myself and give seventeen blow jobs to a box of chocolate cupcakes after waking up from a ten-hour nap.
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Selective hearing
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Leather jacket
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Burfly shirt
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"Those stories were a good read"
I was looking through the questions in the Community today when I saw this one asked by @janeingrid that sent me down a rabbit hole of memories:
Today is the Compact Disc's 30th birthday! What/When was the first CD you bought? When was the last time you bought one?
The first CD I ever bought was Blind by The Sundays in 1992, the soundtrack to my first breakup. I hear the first few notes of the song "Goodbye" and I'm instantly 17 years old again, driving around Bartlett, TN in my 1979 Datsun 510, feeling an ache for that boy in every breath I took between sobs, trying not to drive by his house but ending up driving by his house to see if his car was parked out front.
Stalking was apparently not against my religion.
As the Heavens shudder baby I belong to you
They said you get what you deserve
And all they said was true
So is this what it's come to?
Am I cold or just a little bit warm, oh well
Just give me an easy life and a peaceful death
(Try not to listen to that song over and over again. You will fail.)
That boy was my first boyfriend. He wasn't my first kiss, however. That belonged to a boy named David. We made out in his bedroom while the video for Nirvana's "Lithium" played on the TV in the background. I'd been obsessed with him for over a year and couldn't believe I was finally locking lips with his. He couldn't believe he was about to get laid, and when I realized the difference in our intentions I rushed out of his house, sped home in my Datsun and immediately fell to my knees next to my bed to pray for forgiveness. The following Sunday I scheduled a meeting with my bishop and confessed to the awful thing I had done. He had a very hard time not laughing at me.
I don't remember the last CD I ever bought, only that it was before Leta was born. Every music purchase I've made since then has been digital. I do remember that one of the first albums I downloaded in iTunes was Talkie Walkie by Air, the soundtrack to my postpartum depression. I hear "Run" and I'm there alone with two-month-old Leta on the queen bed in that tiny house, staring at the mile-long lashes extending from her giant green eyes and trying to reconcile the space she filled in my heart with how much I felt like a stranger in my own body.
So much of my life is captured in the notes and choruses of songs. @janeingrid's original question now has me curious, what songs can take you back instantly to a moment, to the smell, the ache, the instant you could feel your heart beating in your throat?
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Faux
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Fixated
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First born
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And she shall be known as "Fille"
Cami and her fiancé recently moved to up to Salt Lake City from Provo into an apartment about a mile from here, one that allows pets. Well, shit. I just gave the whole thing away. You know exactly how this ends now: the chimpanzee went crazy and ripped her face off. She died from blood loss. Now I have to find somebody else to model clown clothes. The end.
You still want the story? FINE.
Yesterday she accompanied the girls and me on a stroll through Memory Grove, a gorgeous park in a canyon just north of downtown set aside to honor American Soldiers. We wandered slowly along the stream that branches off from City Creek so that Leta and Marlo could explore the various memorials set up along the perimeter. Just as we were about to enter a more wooded area I noticed a booth about a hundred yards away, one set up by a feline rescue organization. You're thinking, wait. I thought you said CHIMPANZEE. And I'm like, EXACTLY. Dude was jammed inside a cat carrier. We HAD to take him home.
Cami has been talking about adopting a cat for weeks now, and each time she brings it up I point to Coco and say, "What if your luck is as good as mine?"
I know all of you know this but it bears repeating: adopting an animal is serious fucking business. It affects every aspect of your life. Especially if that animal is the walking embodiment of the tagline for a popular children's breakfast cereal.
But she wouldn't let it go, and when she saw that booth she turned to me with the hugest frown on her face.
"You're not going to let me go over there, are you?" she asked, her hand gripping my arm.
Oh my god, seriously. How many times do I have to ask the people in my life this question: have you met me? Not only were we going to go over and look at all those precious, abandoned cats, we were going to scoop the sleeping two-month-old kitten out of its cage, bond with it for over a half hour and then take it home. Because, why learn from past experience? They make Prozac so that I don't have to!
Cats ahoy!
Cami adopted a kitten. Right there. We took it home and THAT'S when the chimpanzee ripped off Cami's face.
Marlo and Leta couldn't have been more excited. They bonded with it, too, so we decided to bring it back to the house for a few hours. When I pulled into the garage I immediately hopped out of the car and ran to the door so that I could lock the dogs safely in the backyard. However. I wasn't fast enough, and Chuck instantly smelled that there was something wrong, something disturbing. I had to drag him to the back door, and when I put him outside he stood at the door, his eyes fixed through the glass in the direction of the garage, waiting. Coco? Coco didn't notice a thing. She was just happy that we hadn't gone missing! We'd returned! Who would have ever thought that we would come back home? IT NEVER HAPPENS!
I kept the dogs in the backyard while we played with the kitten in the kitchen, letting her wander and explore the corners and dark places made by cabinetry and furniture. I've never witnessed a more mellow kitten, one so calm and measured in the presence of a child like Marlo who is that kid in the cartoon hugging an animal so tightly that its eyeballs have popped out: "I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him!"
But then the kitten wandered into view of the back door where Coco saw it for the first time. Jesus, I wish I had that reaction on video. That dog SHOOK HER HEAD, like she could not believe what she was seeing, and then she almost broke through the glass, barking at such a frenzied, high pitch that a whale showed up and tried to mate with her.
I had Cami take the cat upstairs to the guest room because I can't leave the dogs in the backyard for more than an hour or both of them will get bored and begin to destroy things. Chuck had already dug a hole in a flower bed two-feet deep, and Coco was eating poop that had very recently come out of Chuck's body. OH MY GOD, why did I let Cami adopt an animal? Doesn't she know they're awful? They're awful and then they either rip your face off or they die and leave you heartbroken. Animals are assholes.
When I let the dogs inside Coco made the rounds to count everybody and then settled on the floor next to my feet. Chuck, however, ran upstairs and pressed his nose to the door of the guest room, and when he realized he could't get in he paced the entire house. Down the hallway and back. Up the stairs, down the stairs. Around and around the island in the kitchen. Always making his way back to the door of the guest room. This went on for hours. By the time Cami took the kitten home he had walked at least two marathons inside the house. His imaginary balls were so chafed. That dog should have at least done some fundraising!
Why he was more interested in the cat than Coco, I'll never know. But if I had to guess I'd say it's because Coco has never experienced me bringing home a Coco. She's never had a Coco move in and destroy her life. What's the worst thing a cat could do, right?
Chuck knows the answer to that question.
A cat could be a Coco.
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