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Teresa's Blog – March 2011 Archive (16)

Just A Movie Star

My mother had Elizabeth Taylor's eyes only they were green instead of violet. She also had her smile, nose, hair and almost as many husbands. They shared a fondness for pills, a love of drama and a heart for helping others. They were always a pair in my mind and when my mother died in 1984 it was as if Liz lived on as an extension, or a comforting parallel. I was doing two or three things at once last night when I glanced across the room at a television I could not hear, saw the word…

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Added by Teresa on March 28, 2011 at 6:30pm — 11 Comments

Imaginary Boy

We had an imaginary child while we were dating, a boy we called Julian. "He will climb and break things," my future husband joked, "and he will drool in his sleep." We were dreaming in those early years, writing our own story as a game to see how close we could get to reality. I always pictured a high chair…

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Added by Teresa on March 28, 2011 at 2:38pm — 9 Comments

Lost Valentine

In a smoke-filled room of empty chairs and tables he sang My Funny Valentine only for her. The ghost of Rico's voice still lingered like expensive perfume, clung to the mirrors, ceiling and stained red sofas along the back wall of the club. Ernie swept the floor while Linda hummed to herself, took his time so she could perform her ritual. She played back the tape as she had for years, handsome Rico on stage ten million lifetimes ago, her rejection of an offer she thought bogus, his…

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Added by Teresa on March 27, 2011 at 9:30pm — 9 Comments

Adapting

Julian's carseat was blasted twice this week with projectile poo but he's a trooper, still happy, eating French bread from Whole Foods at the moment, part of his "BRAT" diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) to cure week-long butt woes. My husband and I were a tag team yesterday afternoon, Bring me the wipes and a plastic Kroger bag...I need the changing pad...Put these clothes in another bag and drop them in the utility room...Take the carseat apart so I can wash the…

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Added by Teresa on March 27, 2011 at 9:30am — 11 Comments

Review of Poo Day

Today began as usual, my cell phone alarm going off at 6 am -- some jacked-up tune I can't wait to extinguish -- then I dressed, made kid lunches, then loaded kids, coolers, backpacks, medical records and eight dozen cookies into the car. I need every second to be on time, none to spare, so I wasn't prepared to find my dog covered in his own poo which meant hoisting him and the kennel onto the porch, hosing him off and leaving him traumatized and alone in the back yard. I dropped kids at… Continue

Added by Teresa on March 25, 2011 at 10:00pm — 10 Comments

Questions

Some nights I can see through Han's window where he sits and writes to me, his office and other rooms cluttered with boxes still unpacked after seven years. Before she left for college, it was common to hear his daughter play violin from her upstairs bedroom, beautiful sounds flooding my back yard where I would sit after dark just to listen, unaware that downstairs furniture was being ripped apart by his other child, holes punched into walls. I never knew he had a son, then came our…

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Added by Teresa on March 20, 2011 at 12:30pm — 7 Comments

The Great White

It occurred to me while listening to Cecilia Bartoli's powerful opera voice that I might believe in God after all. The revelation was not born of the usual human panic, chemically induced mind expansion, naturally occurring blissful state or evangelical pressure, and no, I do not imagine God as an invisible old man with a conscience per se. It was just a musically inspired daydream that revealed a slice of brain tissue (yes it did) with its cauliflower pattern of white and gray,…

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Added by Teresa on March 19, 2011 at 11:30am — 4 Comments

Phyllis & Adonis

The men from Lily Frog are here to install a cedar playset to keep my children occupied this summer. They arrived as promised during the window of 8:00 and 10:00 am, two men I greeted in my almost-like-daywear pajamas assuming they would arrive at the far end of the time window. As I instructed where in the back yard to put the hulking playset - three swings, a slide, climbing…

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Added by Teresa on March 17, 2011 at 1:00pm — 9 Comments

Flora

The playful center of the flower reminds me of the tiny whimsical world in Horton Hears A Who, hidden from the larger, outer, disbelieving world. The pale velvety petals are like fairy wings or those of a dragonfly painted opaque. The center petal is folded in mourning, or maybe she is only…

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Added by Teresa on March 16, 2011 at 11:30am — 10 Comments

"H" Is For Hydrant

I have this joke with a friend about fire hydrants. The joke is that when I'm ovulating, hydrants look enticing (there's a handsome one in front of my house), but so do fence posts, door mats, rocks and mail boxes. My husband tells me that he's always ovulating, that most men are. Wow, like David Duchovny but modulated and without the press, fame or getting caught. I'm content with only a few egg-popping days a month or those fire hydrants would be in big trouble,… Continue

Added by Teresa on March 15, 2011 at 6:30pm — 13 Comments

Thanks For the Miracles

When I was ten Ms. Henden told our classroom to thank God when bad things happen to us, to thank him for the lesson in the pain even before we are aware of the lesson. I'm not sure that I completely understood this idea at the time but embraced it sincerely, took it with me only moments later into a bathroom stall in the main chapel building where I closed the door, sat on the toilet and stared at paint flaws to compose the following: Thank you God for the seven F's on my progress… Continue

Added by Teresa on March 10, 2011 at 11:00pm — 13 Comments

Mozart & Butterflies

Six small children hold hands in pairs as they cross from one school building to the next. They do not know they attend a school for children with autism, that they themselves have autism, that it is odd to be able to read before they can speak, or speak without ever leaving their topic of obsession. They believe it is normal to have jumbled senses, to see music, hear color. A dark-haired girl at the front of the line is mesmerizing to watch, her arms extending…

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Added by Teresa on March 9, 2011 at 6:30pm — 7 Comments

Brody Helps Julia

The sudden knock at the door caused Brody to spill his last Coors on a worn Penthouse magazine. "Fuck..." he mumbled as he clumsily wiped the fizzing liquid with a ball of black underwear before quickly pulling on his standard uniform of gray sweat pants stained with urine. He expected Marty from hotel management since he was late with rent, not the juicy neighbor in a tight skirt, "Yeah, can I help you?" Julia quickly introduced herself and her young son, Josh, said she…

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Added by Teresa on March 7, 2011 at 10:30pm — 6 Comments

Brody's View

There weren't enough cigarettes, Hershey's Kisses or porn stars in the world to shake his boredom, but Brody pushed through tar-thick afternoons humming half-remembered songs, his dirty feet propped on a shaky card table as he stared at parked cars and California haze through a fourth floor window. When he wasn't counting molecules he was Googling porn stars, one in particular named Kasha, a blond Asian doll he once named a Golden Retriever after. He wondered how well she was aging to… Continue

Added by Teresa on March 7, 2011 at 8:00pm — 12 Comments

Snakes & Bells: Totem Challenge

Behind a glass case were smooth rocks bearing totem animals painted in black ink, "Choose with your instincts," the woman behind the counter said, so I chose the snake without thinking. I walked out of the shop with the same cheerful peeling of a bell cluster at the top of the door that had also announced my arrival. I put the snake in my jeans pocket and stood next to a totem pole capped with white snow where my photo was taken, a timeless image of girl who lived twenty years ago -- straight… Continue

Added by Teresa on March 6, 2011 at 11:00am — 14 Comments

Acknowledgements

From Lady Gita I'm learning to use very specific nouns and to reach way outside the box for characters and situations; Mike Handley shows how to cut-cut-cut to only the essential words, to write with eloquent efficiency (less is more). From Jamie Hogan and Glen Green I'm learning to let life's naturally occuring metaphors flow through me and from Cita I'm learning that the everyday and natural worlds are… Continue

Added by Teresa on March 4, 2011 at 12:30pm — 16 Comments