Dilemma, or, honesty and skull f*cking

I sit here at my desk, alternating lunges, chatting with Ryan, deer watching and   frequent 

potty breaks due to my massive coffee consumption. What can I say, I have a short attention span.

Before I attempted anything productive today (interpret that any way you want) I felt it was necessary to change my default myspace photo. I vacillated between a picture of my 4 kids in their soccer uniforms and a great X Ray of a skull fuck I found a few weeks ago (that story to be explained later). This was provoked by a desire to impress one of my favorite authors, Jen Lancaster, when I left a comment on her myspace blog. I had taken a few pictures of  stacks of books I have read, aspire to read, and am in the middle of, that I intended to put as my default picture until I realized how boring that was. I got distracted uploading those and decided to add the aforementioned two pics.

Unfortunately the skull fuck picture was not in a format known to myspace, and I was too lazy to reformat it, so I chose the soccer pic. Then it occurred to me how representational this situation is of my writing dilemma. I have yet to decide what persona to expose in my writing. Like the Chelsea Handler book " My Horizontal Life" that is currently my bathroom reading, I can be vulgar, honest, lewd, and mean. I love to tease and mock others behind their backs. No one, including spouse, children, and strangers, are safe. On the other hand, I  am a mom who is terrified my children will read what I write, be ashamed of me, furious because I have published the funny things they do and say ( I asked them both if that would be ok...Skylar said NO and Hayden said, yeah, baby! Typical)

Part of my hesitation to write about my life is wondering if total honesty would be more harmful than fictionalizing my life. I have dirt on people that would cause them not only to alienate me, but possibly put a hit out on me as well. Parents, siblings, exes, and kids- my urge to utilize their lives for my entertainment and hopefully profit seems to be a bad idea as I examine it further. So, my options are these:

 

A)Write a memoir that mostly reveals  only MY OWN personal follies (and Ryan's, he has no shame, naturally, look who he married) with vague references to family and friends. This is the safest approach. However, this would cut out approximately 90% of my funny material. 89% of which  can be attributed to things Hayden says and does.

* I am serious. I could write an entire book of his quotes, dances and songs, including " I am God's brother" and the hit song "Chubby boobs, chubby boobs, I want to ride your chubby boobs". This book would be entitled "Was Your Penis Made in Heaven?"

I do not want to be responsible for  his future institutionalization for which he would undoubtedly blame on me.*

 

B) Fictionalize my life and use aliases, which would fool no one. Everyone would know which character was theirs and hold that against me. 

C) Write a complete work of fiction, using bits and pieces of my life as thinly disguised filler. Readers would  not know what is drawn from my life and what I fabricate. Denial that the work is about the people in my life would be a reasonable defense, like singers that write about cheating and then tell their spouses, " It's just a song!"

So that is what I currently ponder.

Oh, the skull fuck thing...that was pretty awesome. It began after we got notice from our car insurance that Ryan's Camry had been deleted from the policy. WHAT THE FUCK. I called them, and the nice lady on the phone informed me that because he had added his company as additional insured, and answered a few questions like "Do you occasionally carry product in your car, or transport clients?" To which he INCORRECTLY answered "Occasionally" (never admit anything to your insurance company EVER!) he was now told he needed commercial insurance to the tune of 2 grand a year. After going round and round with the lady, her calling Ryan, and him calling HR and telling them thanks a lot for fucking up my car insurance and I'll be goddamned before I pay for commercial insurance, he finally got it straightened out. I wasted 3 hours that morning between Geico and Ryan and we were both enraged and freaked out. I declared that I was going to head over to their office and skull fuck them all. This lead to an internet image  search for skull fuck, which resulted in a rather graphic, albeit doctored photo that greatly entertained me. 

The skull fucking theme was continued in a recent conversation we had about the weasly guy at the fireplace store. The fireplace was installed last week, but the blower and doors were missing. I went to the shop to pay for the fireplace and inquire as to when they would be installed. The weasly guy, let's call him Dick, said to call them when we had done the finish work on the fireplace and then they would come out and install the blower. 

I said, "Since my husband has to hook up the electrical for the blower, and this is located behind the fireplace, don't we need the blower before we enclose and sheet rock the area?"

Dick replied," Well, that way it will be all nice and neat." 

I looked at him with puzzlement and said, "I don't see how that is possible. *Clearly you are an idiot.* Just tell them to install it as soon as they can."

"Ok" said Dick, *looking dazed because I had just bitched slapped him.* 

This is how I relayed the conversation to Ryan, who is a pro at distinguishing what actually happens and what I want to do or say, but don't because I am clearly a lady.

Then Ryan tentatively asked, "Did you skull fuck him?"

To which I laughed my ass off and said "Of course!'

ps. look! I wrote dialogue! One of my obstacles... sorry about the indent even after the dialogue. The blog format won't let me go back to regular spacing. More learning to do...

Roadkill

Went to SF with Mom and Mija today and saw  the Frida Kahlo exhibit. Mom drove and played a live reading by Billy Collins,  poet laureate. 

 

Inspired by Billy Collins, who writes simple yet clever poems about everyday observations. His poem "The Revenant" follows mine, to give you an idea of his style.

PS it's ok to laugh at this. It's off the cuff :P

 

“Roadkill”

Part of country life

Is dodging roadkill.

A lump of fur

Followed by red asphalt.

Squirrels, skunks,  raccoons

For every deer I see on the road,

Four visit my yard each day to see what greenery

Creeps out of its prison to be sampled.

They stare at me, coal black noses glistening

Ribs showing like Frida’s tiny dogs

Just a yard from my window

And I think, you want fries with that?

Bring your spotted baby for a drink from my pond

But I draw the line when you eat my water lilies.

 

The road claims the occasional dog or cat.

It’s the cats that really affect me.

I think

Of my sweet silly girls

The ginger one

Chews plastic and mews like her heart is broken

The sienna one

Grabs my arm to lick it hungrily and lovingly

Then thunders off 

Throwing a clattering necklace in the air

 Like a pudgy monkey.

When I see a cat

I think

Of how

She must have rubbed on her person’s leg that morning

Before mewing to be let out.

So far

I’ve hit a bird (so sorry)

A rattler (not sorry)

I saw a deer with no head today

Maybe I don’t have to get a pet mountain lion after all.

I bet my guru from Iowa

Sees the squirrels and thinks of his childhood hunts

A wasted meal, instead of a tragedy.

The Revenant  by Billy Collins

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength 
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

Top 10 reasons to write at home

10. Piles of dogs and cats at my feet, adoring me, and following me around the house.

9. Snack breaks.

8. Reading for pleasure has become "research."

7. Great benefits, employee discount, flexible hours (wait, that was if I worked for Target.     Nevermind.) Ok...flexible hours still applies.

6. Extra opportunities to tidy the house (HAHAHAHA that was funny. I said tidy!)

5. Productivity is relative. For instance, if this top 10 is all I get done in 5 hours, I can still claim to have been productive today! Because in the other 4 hours and 45 minutes, i was doing "research."

4. Saving money on gas and lunches out. So what if that means I live on cereal? I'm conserving!

3. www.icanhascheezburger.com. Priceless.

2. Taking pictures of deer in my yard while naked. Yes, I can do that in the country! (ok, so I'm in my house and they're outside, but still...)

1. Save money on psychotherapy, because writing  a memoir is the cheapest form of self analysis.

I'd get more done if I had less time...

So here we are, almost one week later. Shit, with all the notecards I've scribbled on, freelance writer's sites I've visited, craiglist  writing ads I've perused, (somehow I ended up on a page with a picture of Barack Obama on the beach juxtaposed with a picture of a kidney in  a request for tickets to his speech...explain that one!) you'd think I would have written SOMETHING by now, and possibly made some money... so not the case. Besides 2 pages of binder paper I filled during Hayden's soccer practice, I've avoided being even remotely productive. My schedule was conveniently WIDE OPEN last week, which reminded me- I am deadline motivated. That is how I made my way through college in a mere seven years! I had assignments. I had due dates. I did NOT, however, have so many distractions. Celebrity gossip websites call to me. Anti-Sarah Palin e mails beckon to me to check out their verity. Myspace and Fecebook (haha that was seriously an honest typo...I mean Facebook) prove to me that resistance is futile. How do people with desk jobs EVER get their work done? And all I want to do when I sit down here is snack. Can I write while on the treadmill? If not, I am going to have a new career as a food critic.

I have a gift. This gift comes in two parts. The first is procrastination, the ability to move about the house for hours yet accomplish nothing visible. The second is rationalization, also known as making up excuses or lying to oneself. I am frequently seven minutes late leaving the house. This is a result of screwing around until the last minute then deciding I MUST accomplish something before I leave, like doing the dishes or shaving my legs. Once I am out of the house,  I can on time, even early.  I bust out to-do lists. But  originating motivation is not my forte. Especially with a tub of really, really stale red vines to fuel me, and piles of dogs and cats at my feet. (Seriously- I'm like the Pied Piper!)

So I intend to keep up with the blog, but who am I kidding.  I found freelance copywriting  jobs available at .05 a word,  telecommuting jobs organizing material for textbooks, ( experience needed!) and what exactly is entailed in the job of Latino Divorce Blogger? Hmm. My best bet is to hunker down, write my book, harrass publishers, and get it made into a movie.  But first, let me check thesuperficial.com :)

Balls out Bitches!!

So, as some of you know, I have been making a bit of noise lately about writing a book. Why in the world would I do such a thing, you may ask. Well, simply put, my life is quite entertaining, particularly the last 4 years. MOST particularly the last year. "You should write a book" I hear all the time, mostly from friends and clients to whom I regale my adventures with husband, kids, exes, wild animals...and  finally I have admitted I should.

*stops to put on inspirational music, i.e. Fiona Apple*

My hesitations have been: who the hell would be interested in my life, I haven't written anything since college, I am a 4 fingered typist who seldom capitalizes my i's, no one will read what I write, everyone I know will read what I write and shun me...the list goes on. All valid reasons. However, as I live, I find myself actually narrating. At this point I know it is time to document. Fuck my fears. I am annoying myself by NOT writing. Better to satisfy myself and annoy others. And possible make you laugh, feel better about yourselves, be critical, be sympathetic, or lull you to sleep. Whatever works.

Writing is like going to the grocery store naked. I will be seen by strangers, by neighbors, by critics, by fans. They will see my tattoos and stretchmarks and breast implants and judge me. Sometimes they will admire me, sometimes they will go home feeling better about themselves by comparison. They will wonder, " What the hell does she do with all those bananas?" My desire is that they understand my perspective, and feel a connection with me. I've got friends and family that know everything about me, and some that know only what  I think they can handle. So to the conservatives, the right wing Republicans, the Mormons, I love and respect you. You have every right to live your life as you see fit, as do I. If you can't handle my truth, do us both a favor and don't read it. 

I've been known to be honest to a fault.... to tell people more than they need to know. I can be blunt, insensitive, and indiscreet. I say "fuck" a lot. A LOT.  When Ryan and I got married the vow we repeated, so cleverly chosen by our Reverend Court, was "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, even if the other person can't handle it." So here is my truth, for everyone else. This blog is a test. Can I finish what I aspire to start? Can I expose my truth? Can I make you laugh, and understand a modicum of what it's like to be me? Could I get carried away, and actually write a book? Or five?

So this is how I begin. Cautiously, with spellcheck, because frankly it's been a while.

Balls out, bitches.