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Teresa's Blog – September 2010 Archive (19)

Just Stopping By...

A bee hovers near my children as I push their double stroller down a sidewalk in Sugar Land. It occurs to me that my brother was severely allergic to bees so I fear my two and three year-olds might be also. I stop the stroller and peer over the visor to be sure the bee is gone, then before resuming our walk I stare ahead at a pleasant memory of my older brother David, of him saying, "Look over there!" then sneaking extra toys into my Cracker Jack box. I remember the yellow plastic giraffe,…

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Added by Teresa on September 30, 2010 at 7:30pm — 9 Comments

...To Hold Up His Head

He started out tiny and like all infants, he needed support under his chin to hold up his head. When he learned to walk he loved to streak naked across the back yard to our grandmother's house after a bath, completely unaware that he was anything but free. Later in school he had trouble reading, trouble with math, so our father tried to beat some better grades into him. At fifteen he found new friends, drugs for escape, a one-size-fits-all hole called the streets. When he was… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 30, 2010 at 6:00pm — 12 Comments

Escape

Two large red We-Move-U trucks parked in front of Jade's house -- the house, wrecked marriage and rapid-fire escape all soon to be a ghost logged in a journal. As soon as her husband had left for work she ran from room to room taping labels on furniture she would take and in the doorways of her children's bedrooms one simple instruction: Take ALL. She had set up her own bank account two years prior and systematically followed the other twenty or so items on a carefully thought-out list, "These… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 26, 2010 at 12:09pm — 6 Comments

New/Old Planet

After four weeks of PG-rated dates, Leslie and Dan reached the we've waited long enough moment. Leslie had avoided sex for a year post-divorce, and although she enjoyed the act and was physically attracted to Dan, sex wasn't just a single act or a series of acts but a whole new planet; sex required rockets, sockets, special protocols and tedious hardware. She'd have to shave her legs every day and trim the wiry tumbleweed that had blossomed during her year of celibacy. Sex would mean… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 25, 2010 at 2:00pm — 10 Comments

...For All My Faults

Yesterday afternoon as I pushed my red Target cart into aisle #7 and past the Quaker Instant Oatmeal, my brain blurted, I'm not a Christian. This is the same thing as saying, I want a divorce. I continued pushing my cart past the Cheerios and Fruit Loops as if nothing had happened, surprised that I didn't break out in my usual spontaneous prayer, Please forgive me for all my faults. This prayer was born when I was ten after Brother Gene Wolfenbarger yelled from the…

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Added by Teresa on September 23, 2010 at 6:00pm — 15 Comments

No More Dr. Seuss

Jenny found her father naked on the living room floor along with his best friend, Bucky Sneed. She had walked home from school, left seventh period early because Mrs. Tinkersley said she didn't have to view the film about reproduction again since she'd seen it in detention the week before. Bucky was bent over her father, his head bobbing with the rhythm of oil pump jacks she'd seen in Texas on the way to Grandma Platt's house. The men didn't hear her come in so she quickly tiptoed through the… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 22, 2010 at 7:00pm — 16 Comments

Titus Flies To Dallas

Our Southwest flight to Dallas was delayed by twenty minutes Sunday afternoon due to "a problem with the hydraulics system, but mechanics are looking for a part and we'll update you soon", said the pilot between mumbles while I noticed a dirty golf cart speed away from our ailing plane. I'm terrified of flying as it is, because to stuff a bunch of strangers into a 570 mph bus and defy the law of gravity 10,000+ feet above safe ground is just crazy unnatural. To take my mind off our…

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Added by Teresa on September 20, 2010 at 7:00pm — 12 Comments

Bob Hope & Birth Control

"I have ADD -- do you think you have ADD?" Dr. Huebel asked with odd excitement when I mentioned how forgetful I am lately.

"Uh...I don't know...sometimes I feel scattered...it could be depression from self-imposed isolation or..." I stalled mid-sentence as the doctor dropped a small tuft of pink tissue in a jar of liquid where it floated like feathery cotton candy in the shape of a scorpion fish.

"Do you want some Wellbutrin? I could write you a…

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Added by Teresa on September 20, 2010 at 3:30pm — 10 Comments

Adult "Ducklings"

Like a dutiful mother duck with ducklings, the sixty-something chocolate-skinned woman led two other adult women past me into the public restroom. "Are you okay?" Tandy turned to ask the other two, her question as gentle as a mother's to a child. I noticed the eyes of the two "ducklings" were glazed with innocence, then my mind whispered beneath other thoughts, They're not afraid of death. A few moments later Tandy abruptly pointed to a shiny cyst on her forehead, a growth she fears… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 18, 2010 at 3:00pm — 4 Comments

Toilet Episode

I had a lunch date with my three year-old this afteroon at BJ's on Highway 6. I figured he needed to potty so I took him to the ladies room, to the handicap stall to give us space to spread out. Then I noticed the height of the toilet seat which was too tall for him to stand on the floor and aim into the bowl (sitting doesn't really work except in a frog potty we have at home that has a barrier made from the frog's eyeballs to keep him from...blah, blah, blah). So I decided to stand him on… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 16, 2010 at 6:51pm — 11 Comments

True Fairy Tales

I don't remember telling her there is no Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny. Somehow she learned these things on her own, from conversations overheard on Christmas Eve, absent money under her pillow, and a couple of Mel Gibson movies. Now my oldest daughter is almost twenty-three and I suddenly realize I do need to tell her there's no Prince Charming (Mel taught us this, too, but late in the game). My daughter, like most women, has been duped into believing a prince will arrive… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 15, 2010 at 6:25pm — 13 Comments

The Price of Freedom

It would be nice to be free, only I'm not always sure what the word means anymore. John Updike once said, "Freedom is a blanket which, pulled up to the chin, uncovers the feet." As children we give up freedom from responsibility in trade for: eating all the candy we want, driving a car, earning more than fifty cents a week, exploring our sexuality, questioning authority, staying up past 8 o'clock. As adults we realize: candy causes cavities, the expense of a car extends beyond the…

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Added by Teresa on September 14, 2010 at 11:30am — 11 Comments

Essence

I can name the reasons I love you. But there are reasons without names. You are a constant voice in my head, words of an unwritten language. Though you are familiar your mysteries sing in unfamiliar voices. I do not want to share, disturb, dilute you. Be still.

Added by Teresa on September 11, 2010 at 12:30pm — 11 Comments

List Thief

Someone has left a grocery list by the Kroger checkout register and though I feel like a thief and wouldn't know what to say if caught with it, I've tucked the list into my purse as if it is a sacred abbreviated journal. The small white sheet of paper is decorated with colorful letterhead at the top which reads: Volunteers Thanks For Sharing Your Heart; beside the words is a thin blue character holding up a large red heart full of yellow and blue stars. There are 23 items on…

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Added by Teresa on September 9, 2010 at 6:30pm — 14 Comments

Moleskine

On Sunday morning we walked slowly along North Peters St. toward Jackson Square, discussing how I felt like a mute that day with words bottled up in sadness, then I stopped to ask a new bookstore owner for directions to the nearest used bookstore. We were directed half a block over to Librairie Bookshop on Chartres St., an establishment in the French Quarter for more than forty years. As we entered the shop I inhaled the rich smell of old books, which produces the same divine effect as… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 8, 2010 at 2:30pm — 7 Comments

Pixels & Instincts

Those of you who didn't attend HoW this year have probably wondered if pixel personalities match those of the real humans behind them. I often wondered how accurate my instincts would be about my 6S friends, whether the essences I felt pouring from my monitor all these months was a figment of my imagination or an authentic representation. I'm here to say that yes -- enthusiastically YES! -- you can learn and love another online. There were added bonuses, of course,… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 7, 2010 at 12:02pm — 20 Comments

Nature Is Going To Hell

When I want to blank out my mind before going to bed, I watch reality TV. I've watched shows about "mermaid" girls and conjoined twins separated in life-threatening operations or who live as two-in-one (a morally complicated situation after puberty). I've watched shows about men and women with only half a body -- a head, partial trunk, upper extremities, and genitalia; they walk on their hands, drive, work, play and procreate like the rest of us. There are people born without faces,…

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Added by Teresa on September 3, 2010 at 3:00pm — 4 Comments

Is He Really?

I saw a bumper sticker moments ago that was decorated in bright rainbow colors and the words, God Is Pro-Life. My first thought was, Well, I guess that's true since God is synonymous with creation. My next thought was along the lines of what happens to life eventually, all life. Of course, there is natural and unnatural death, unless you decide that any breathing organism who can flip a switch to end mechanical life-support, shoot a gun or perform an abortion… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 2, 2010 at 10:30am — 14 Comments

90% Lost

I'm thoroughly confused about 90% of the time. I'm confused, therefore I am. I'm confused about why I'm confused. I'm confused that despite my millions of lists and careful notations on a calender, I still forget to do important things and that despite the pain of hard lessons learned, I'll forget the pain and repeat my mistakes. I'm confused about morality, monogamy, religion, relations, pretense, politics, self-image, self-promotion, marriage and martyrdom; right becomes wrong upon… Continue

Added by Teresa on September 1, 2010 at 8:26pm — 16 Comments