If Not For You - Dylan/Harrison Duet

Neither Master nor Blaster

I went to lunch today with two of my former students. Both are bright, funny, witty, self-possessed, well-read, pleasant, and responsible. These gorgeous creatures are making their way through the world, not sure what their mark will be but bright eyed and energetic and epic enough for possibilities to be limitless. And they really are limitless for them. It's breathtaking to see.

I used to think I could keep up with the treacherous little darlings, you know? It was the final vanity before an ever-expanding waistline and the "Naw, you go out, there's a really cool Nova special on PBS tonight." was accepted as reality. Now, of course, while I have always, ALWAYS been old to them, I'm old to myself as well.

"WHAT ABOUT BARTERTOWN?" I demanded of them.

First of all, they've never seen Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and have no idea what I am talking about; secondly, halfway through the conversation it occurs to me--they have nothing to worry about. Adaptable, resilient, resourceful, Bartertown can come as it pleases, they'll survive and do beautifully. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no skills for Bartertown. I'm too right-brained for any applicable scientific knowledge like how to create energy from methane, have never been big on camping/survival skills (roughing it is one-ply toilet paper), and neither young nor limber enough to make it as a prostitute. Somehow I don't think Bartertown is going to be interested in a dilettante chef or knitter with 15,000 paperbacks who can recite the entire lyrics catalogue to the Beatles' Help album by rote.

If I don't cack it, since I have never actually been young in their eyes perhaps I can prevail on one of them to take pity on Auntie Del and she'll bring me food. It'll make for a good minute-and-a-half scene in the movie.

Her August Majesty, Sublimator

I recently staged an intervention for myself.

For those in the betting pool, it was not about Trashy Romance Novels, yarn (or its subsequent three-quarters-finished-never-to-be-completed projects, which actually isn't a bad idea either) or my compulsive need to use my refrigerator to house more dairy products than a herd of incredibly dedicated cows from around the world could produce in a fortnight.

Okay, I may have lied about the last one.

Genetically speaking, there's nothing I can do. I come from hearty Icelandic stock, which in point of fact I'm not sure actually has anything to do with dairy. I think living one's heritage at that point includes wearing aquatic fowl as evening wear and putting umlauts over important vowels. Maybe something to do with sheep and yarn, which at least might excuse another of my Very Bad Habits (dealing with yarn, not sheep, filthy-minded people). Also, somebody in the not-so-far-back family line was Danish or Swedish or something, and somewhere the Scottish enter into it with Clan Farquarson, which I think means we fight for the Jacobites, although I'm not sure who they are until I reread Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series later this year, having already missed the local Highland Games for the year.

Anyway, it's still not my fault. Whatever our history, we are a dairy-based people. My great-grandfather handed down a recipe for cream candy. Minus details like INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE IT. For my entire childhood I could count on Thanksgiving tradition, which produced men roaring incomprehensibly at football players on television, Aunt Pat playing the first Christmas carols of the season on a piano while we all sang along, Aunt Jane's divinity, and someone's attempt at cream candy, which could either be chipped from a block or sucked up with a soup spoon, depending on the year. For those who might be wondering, the ingredients are as follows:

Heavy cream

sugar

nuts (optional)

It has a fudge-like consistency, only not gritty or filled with marshmallow fluff. It's quite possibly one of the most magical creations on this earth. I will proudly state here and now, my brother cracked the recipe. In high school, no less, as a thug baby gangsta taking home ec. He can take a rainbow and sprinkle it with dew if he damn well feels like it, for he is the Candyman. Cream candy for everyone, HUZZAH!

So, back to the intervention...

Costco, you see, is the devil's playground. I know, for I cannot escape Costco without at least one item, roughly the size and bodyweight of me. What item, you ask yourself? IT DOESN'T MATTER. IT'S EFFING COSTCO. EVERYTHING THERE IS THE SIZE AND BODYWEIGHT OF ME. I am an impulse buyer, and I am over 30 and live alone. I have no business ever getting anywhere near a 300-hectare store like Costco, because once inside insanity reigns. "It may seem like a lot of olives," I will reason, "But it's only $6.99. That's how much I'd pay for TWO bottles of olives in a regular grocery store. And they are not even a THIRD the size of this bottle!" Never mind that I do not need olives. Never mind that there are so many olives in that bottle that when I die, my mother will place them over my eyes instead of coins. It's in bulk, and it's cheap. Thus is my true American heritage shown in full, vivid, no-place-to-store-olives-in-800-square-feet-of-duplex-but-they-were-$6.99-and-you-can't-beat-that Technicolor.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we approach the Costco cheese aisle.

It used to be easy. Cheddar for 300? No problem. Swiss for a dinner party of 95? Check us out. Slowly they eased us along. Suddenly one could find fresh mozzarella...fresh, mind you, hermetically sealed in its own colostomy bag of mozzarella water. Then it was quarters of parmesan, and a saucy flirtation with feta and maybe a whisper of brie.

Now? SWEET CRUNCHY CRACKER, WHOSE CRISPINESS CANNOT DECIDE WHICH CHEESY GOODNESS WITH WHICH TO BECOME LADEN! What is a person to do?

Pecorino romano...smoked gouda...manchego, Irish Dubliner, emmantaler, jarlsberg, gruyere, even a Tillamook 3-year white cheddar. At prices far more reasonable than one should hope or dream. I was good, I swear it. I had a friend with me who helped me maintain an iron-clad rule: "No more than two cheeses," she reaffirmed after I explained to her what I needed and what was best, although not what I wanted. "You are a single woman. You will die alone, and you will rot faster than the cheese. Do you want those bastards to eat your haloumi?"

"No!" I roared. "Those bastards won't cook it right!"

"EXACTLY!"

"NO MORE THAN TWO CHEESES!" I howled. "I WILL BE GOOD! I WILL BE A RESPONSIBLE CONSUMER!"

"YOU KNOW IT!" she screeched and kicked a passer-by.

And then I saw it.

Neither of us knew what it was, what it would do to us.

We took it home, we read the label. Delice de Bourgogne, it said, Triple creme cheese. Imported from France. "What does that mean?" I wondered. "It means it was imported from France." "Shut up." We set out a crispy French baguette, and planned on an evening with a few friends, watching 30 Rock and having something new and different to eat. "It spreads like butter," I said reverently. "It melts like butter on the tongue. But it tastes like cheese." Thus does crack cocaine look innocuous, thus does the sex addict excuse himself with "just one more go."

It is, quite simply, a reason to live.

It is a reason to die.

It's the reason I give when I break down and cry.

And all of those are the reason that I showed up at work with a delicious snicky-snack in hand.

The entire quarter-wheel didn't make it to lunchtime.

Everyone else is addicted now, too.

Does an intervention count when you are actually the worst influence ever and get everyone else hooked on it as well?

More importantly, when can I get back to Costco to get more?

You're My Angle--Come and Save Me Tonight

If I could find my senior yearbook, I'd include a particular entry. "Dear Bitch," I believe it opens, "I am your Pig and no one else's..." and so it goes on.

We were many things to one another throughout the course of an ever-evolving relationship; acquaintances, antagonists, significant other, confidante, friend.

We were there for one another.

Except for this time.

I miss you.

Shallow as a puddle and squeaky clean

The occupants of the bathroom froze.
"WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!"
"Something about Jesus."
"Shhhh!"
A voice was raised in song: "Hallelujah, Jesus is the God!"
Intense splashing, followed by heavy hammering on the door.
"Shut up in there!"
"I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't," the off-key voice caroled back. "We're having seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex!"
"KNOCK IT OFF! There are bubbles coming out from under the door out here!"
"He does this all the time," Rachel hissed. Her bathroom walls started shuddering from the pounding thumping going on downstairs.
"He really sings like that all the time?" I asked, disbelieving.
"Nobody's ever been here before," she said. "Who would believe this?"
The downstairs voice sang something about 'the pooper'.
"Does anyone want a turn sitting on the pooper?" Ryan asked, perched on the toilet.
"Pass!"
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeere is the butthoooooooooooooole?" echoed from below us.
"Oh, dear God!"
"Just wait," Rachel said, one finger raised. The kitty-corner downstairs neighbors commenced pounding on the downstairs front door, also trying to shut up the horrible caterwauling of Howard-Cosell Gregorian Chant Coitus happening below us.
"I'm the MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTER of the BUUUUUUUUUUBBLES!"

Forty-five minutes later, we finally went to dinner. Neither Rachel nor Ryan nor I could meet one another's eyes. "Let's not have this be like war buddies," they said. "A horrible experience that means you can't be around the other people because it just reminds you of it. Let's use this to keep ourselves close."

I'm not gonna lie. It was a pretty good vacation.

As is requisite in anyone who wants to cultivate a reputation as being introspective but who consistently ruins it by laughing hysterically every time she sees Johnny Weissmuller in a loincloth, I've been making a conscious attempt to change a few things in my life. It's less from the fact that I don't like where I am at the moment than that I won't like where I am if it's exactly the same in, say, five years. Or three, even. Gotta keep evolving, gotta keep changing, gotta aim for that Ayn Rand Pie in the Industrial Grey Objectivist Sky.

Okay, maybe not.

But still, what're you gonna do? I mean, there I was driving back from the middle of nowhere with a friend. "I think I want to get my pilot's license," he announced.
"I'm not goin' up in a plane with you."
"Why not?"
"I'm not Buddy Hollyin' it with you," I said.
"What the hell would you be missing?" he demanded.
"Thanks very much, you just said that nothing in my life is worth living for!"
"Well..." he said, and shrugged.

Bastard.

Of course, this was also the friend who listened to me expressing my thoughts about something, and then said "I can't wait until we're in my car. I can't hear you whine over the engine." (Said engine is located in an early '70's bug with an extremely uncertain temperament.)

But in the interest of redeeming myself as an intellectual after a disgraceful exhibition over said loincloth, and also my inability to hear someone refer to "briefs" without snickering (a definite liability in my chosen career), it does beg the question: What would I miss if I croaked tonight?

I never conquered that red wool jacket I was knitting, with the crackwhore directions that led to one lapel in lapel-correct placement and the other neatly covering my navel. (It's been sitting untouched for almost two months.)

I just figured out what I'm going to do with that gorgeous, not-quite-peacock silk-and-wool combo yarn that I've been treasuring and stroking with Gollum-like devotion for the past six months.

My impending niece, little Delanie Regina (Pronounced Regiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiina, long 'eye' sound)(not her real name, according to her mother), still has not received her kimono ("A kimono for Delanie's what?" smart-mouth coworkers query), nor yet her stripey afghan. ("An afghan for your what?")

The black lace for the sleeves of my hug-me-tight got screwed up and must be redone.

Fine, so far all of that is knitting--"You know you're two cats away from a crazy cat lady," a coworker's husband informed me. Clearly I must needs find more reasons to live than yarn.

...

Well, books. When The Big One hits, that amazing earthquake that rattles down the faultline of the Great Salt Lake and its valley, I will no doubt eventually be found buried in the rubble of 15,000 paperbacks. The thing that will really piss me off, and will lead to my surly ghost kicking around ruins and refusing to rest, is that I won't have finished any of the Important and Mind-Expanding Tomes which I've collected and yet to read; no, no, when I cack it I'll be reading something tremendousy embarrasing, like trashy horror or a burning loins book. Maybe the latest YA fiction novel.

I suppose a truly frivolous person would argue that they haven't had a chance to properly prance about in the new Hall of Shame acquisition (because I cannot afford Anthropologie full price).

But it really does fit me well.

Fine, then. There might be very little in my life that I'd be missing, per se, but it's still my life. I like it.

Barring that as reason enough, there's always eavesdropping on the Master of the Bubbles.

So there.

Lust, Love, and a certain amount of mercenary joy

I am in love.

No, really.

As at least 2/3 of my close personal acquaintances would have expected, it's with an item, one that requires batteries, no less; but the Kindle? C'MON, WHO CAN'T GET BEHIND THIS?!

As one of those people who frequently gets stopped by airport security (I choose to believe it's due to overwhelming fun personality rather than Code Orange hairdo), there is nothing a) more time consuming, and b) more embarrassing, than dragging out every item contained in one of your carry-ons for airport security to peruse. C'mon, people. I'm over thirty, and I knit. I don't own cats, for the two aforementioned reasons, but we all know it's just a matter of time.

Side note: Don't get me wrong, here. I am a doggie adorer. Max and Snarla will attest to that, despite being parked with grandparents who utterly adore them owing to a ridiculous theater schedule once upon a time. I adore animals of any kind, despite the fact that they excrete and want your time and attention and Touch Your Stuff. I love them more than children, for the simple fact that children only pretend to be independent. Let's face it, any dog in the world shows up on the end of an adoption leash and I am St. Francis of Assisi, ready and able to Run With The Pack, despite an alarming lack of muscle coordination or initiative. Nevertheless, I adore cats. There is something so magnificent in an animal whose every action basically says "If you don't want me to eat you, say something. NOW."

So think about it. Instead of unloading approximately 1,800 yards of the finest mohair in an albeit violating shade of pink (damn you, Favorite Knitting Store ladies, and your math skills that apparently rival my own), an iPod, and six or ten of the latest novels (depending on which one you're in the mood to read), instead you unleash this latest of modern miracles, the Kindle. No more having to pack fewer pairs of underwear or socks for you--you have the Kindle, and that means that umpteen books are literally at your fingertips! The entire concept of airport frequent flyer reading exchange programs fly out the window, because who remembers to bring those particular books back, and anyway who can keep track of a receipt over three or four months?!

(Okay, so if I wanted to be completely and morally accurate I would admit that you still have to unpacck the 1,800 yards of the finest mohair and an iPod, but now you don't follow that up with Michael Chriton, Dean Koontz, and Joanna Linsdsay as their compatriots; at least you stand a chance of pretending that you have something akin to class, which means that nobody knows that you're only reading Nebokhov for the dirty bits, which to this day still creep me out and which thwart me from being a Hipster, since I can't get behind Lolita, no matter how many times I start the novel and think that this time I won't find him to be a total pervert.)

I want a Kindle. I want one so badly that I'd almost sell someone else's vote for it. Of course, having found them (months behind the current electronic trend, of course) they are sold out on Amazon. Once again I choose to believe that the entire world is working against me.

Either that, or little Delanie Regiiiiiiiina (long "I" pronunciation, as is right and proper for a niece's name, no matter whether the mother in question is insisting the child's name is Kylie Jo or no) figured out that if I had a Kindle I'd never get her afghan done.

Clearly, they are all against me.

Mole Vs. Shrew

At the risk of being one of those creepy people who discuss their medical conditions, this post is centered on the physical rather than the emotional wellbeing. I've had a mole removed, both for looking funny and giving me attitude.

The irony of Delanie-The-Slug-Woman-Tucker having suspicious skin issues is lost on no one, save my family practitioner.

"I take it you're a bit of a sun worshipper?" Mr. Doctor asked.

"Are you kidding me?!" I shrieked. "I haven't seen the sun in twenty effing years! Why would I expose myself to the Evil Day Star? Who do you think I am?! I do not set foot outside without 50 sunblock, a wide-brimmed hat, and a burnoose! I could give vampires pointers on ways to hit the Nordstrom semi-annual sale at high noon in July!"

He just shook his head.

Not only have I been harboring a fugitive growth which my doctor INSISTS is not a teratoma, even though I had a really cute name for it picked out and everything, I also had to have a shot.
I haven't had a shot since I was 19 and in a rollover with my jackass exhusband, who was driving and wound up being ticketed for being a careless driver. (I tried to get them to ticket him for being a jackass as well, but apparently that's not against the law. C'mon, Obama. Give me a grass roots movement I can get behind) Anyway, yes. I am a carrier for tetanus, for polio, for the flu and ebola and, I don't know, TB or something. "You're one of those people who just count on everyone else getting inoculated to cover you from getting diseases, aren't you?" My boss said disgustedly. "Nope. I just don't care if I'm a carrier," I said, and he banned me from his office. Not before I licked a few pens and absconded with his coffee mug, though. (Later I will return to his office and lock it in the filing cabinet. I have taken to locking things in the filing cabinet with no warning or announcement whenever he does something that displeases me. I consider it training. A man who hasn't figured out that whether he knows it or not, he's generally done something to displease a female somewhere in his life isn't helping anyone, particularly himself. "You're the most passive aggressive person I've ever known," he accused, and I denied it pleasantly. Then I locked his reading glasses in the filing cabinet when he went to the bathroom.)
So I had a shot, and the doctor tried valiantly to be a respectful and informative caregiver. I didn't want to know anything about it, and kept telling him so every time he tried to share moments of note with me, important things like when he was trying to inject me, how it would sting, or what he was doing with various sharp implements behind my back. I would have none of it, which meant that when I got back to work looking for sympathy, every time anyone asked me what they did or how long it would take, I was forced to shrug my shoulders and tell them I have no idea. When you can't describe in vivid Technicolor detail exactly what someone in the medical profession did to you, you will find that sympathy is noticeably lacking. Not only that, people will then volunteer their medical stories and it turns into that horrible one-upmanship of who had to have what cyst removed the size of a lemon from their coccyx, and people's cousins whose story always open with "No, you think THAT was bad? Well, my cousin went in and..."

I do volunteer to show them my bacon-strip bandaids, though, which are the only thing that really brings me any joy in life at the moment--despite the fact that I am constantly getting a rash from the adhesive or silicone from bandaids. Who's allergic to bandaids? I ask you?

Not only that, because I keep trying to apply the bandaid to the part that doesn't yet have a rash, I basically have a Star of David rash on my back, caused by bacon strip bandaids.

I am the worst. Jew. EVER.

Anyway, they'll let me know in about a week whether or not I'm a walking carcinogenic bomb of melanoma, which is slightly different than being a walking ball of bitterness and rage at heart in that while both options will kill me, one of them doesn't help me take it out on other people, and where's the fun in that?

My doctor also recommended that I find someone who can check all my appendages regularly for unexplained pigment changes.

"Who do you have on Mole Patrol?" my brother-in-law asked. "Don't you have someone who can check it out and make sure that everything is okay?"

Oh, please. Let's ponder that scenario; I finally, finally, against all odds and current spinsteresque eixstence, get someone to volunteer to inspect my body, and what do I do? I lure them into my seductive web of delights...candles glowing, the sultry sounds of whatever vile Starbucks jazz compilation of the month could be found, legs shaved, the proverbial hydrangeas pruned so that hopefully I will never again hear "So, you ever seen the original drawings in the Joy of Sex?" at a crucial moment...the scene set for the penultimate of romantic interludes...

...And for openers I say "Hey, is this a rash?"