Cranky Is The New Perky

“Half mad . . . between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delinquencies.”
It has been nearly a month since I have written. I have been paralyzed by my own navel gazing horror of my own inadequacies. The above quote is a long time favorite of mine – I might even consider it as an epitaph or as a good summing up of the last 24 years for my upcoming high school reunion. (My year is doing it a year early in a combo with the class above us as we were the first two grades starting the school. So I find myself desperately explaining to people that it hasn’t quite been 25 years, as if that one year at my advanced age made a huge difference).
Several things have happened. The first is that I nearly missed two deadlines for things for nursing school and learned quickly that they are not playing around and there are no grace periods. I received the bone chilling admonition from them that perhaps I am not nursing school material, which brought back flashbacks of years of school reports stating “Jessica is not working to her full potential.” I was a smart but disenfranchised high school student, somehow got into a great college, deferred for a year and then entered only to flunk out in a blaze of glory by being frozen by fear and simply not going. I was readmitted two years later and made it through, mainly by finding a major, professors and fellow students (I’m looking at you Jaime A.) that I loved. But there were always distractions – both my exciting life in the big city and my own self created drama and stress. At 27 I went off to graduate school in London and quickly burned out on the program and was instead distracted by lovely London and all it had to offer. I did meet my lovely husband and have one of the best years of my life, so it was worth the mountains of amortizing student loan debt. I still have nightmares after all these years of showing up to a class and facing an unexpected and mind rattling test (which happened to me again this spring bringing the whole thing full circle).
When I started the nursing school process two years ago I had to go back to school and take all the science classes I skipped in college and more. I had to take Algebra as I failed the placement test and it was required for chemistry – both subjects that have haunted me since high school. First semester I took 21 credits while working full time and made the Dean’s list. But as the process dragged on and my good friend and co-conspirator MS dropped out, I found it harder and harder. This spring, battling with the decision whether or not to go to school full time, I shoved all the paperwork in a drawer. Hence the nearly missed deadlines.
After that devastating wake up call, I have been terrified of missing deadlines and am running around getting things like immunizations and replacing my social security card. As I get ready to leave work I feel guilt and responsibility for all the unfinished work there is no way I will ever finish due to the workload and training my replacement. On top of everything the hospital announced a hiring freeze so for now any part time work is not possible. So the terror I felt before is magnified.
I used to think I was highly organized and together. Now I realize I am more like other people in my family than I thought – periods of procrastination and denial followed by mad bursts of manic energy and self flagellation. Added to that a deep strain of negativity and sarcasm that even my British husband finds too dark and you have a winning combination.
I used to think that if I was alive 200 years ago I would have loved to run with Byron, et al. – all that drinking, drugging, sex and inspired writing to justify it all. I realize that my other reactions to stress and conflict is to either retreat into a dream world of reading and daydreams or to indulge in potentially destructive or at least time wasting self indulgent behavior. But I can’t do that anymore. I am 42, have three (wonderful, beautiful, smart) children, a husband who is ill and in pain and most of all loves me more than I deserve. Looking back at the life of Byron most of all, I see that what he left besides great poetry was a lot of pain to those around him and a lot of wasted time and energy that could have created even more beautiful work.
Oh no, I might have finally grown up.

            

‘cause an 80’s revival won’t stop (thanks Belgian Waffle for getting that song stuck in my head). 

My lovely friend who I will call by one of her fond nicknames Marzipan, or Mars for short (not that she is saccharine sweet or composed of almond paste) sent me an email showing rompers.  For women.  In dreaded terry even (I haven’t the courage to go back and confirm this).  I won’t name the company as they will probably sue me and we would lose our new hitch hauler and my spouse would be most unhappy.  Let us just say they are called “City-type Clothing-purveyors”.  I retaliated in this fashion war by sending her a link to a pair of white, cigarette cut, calf zip denim capris.  For $178 bucks.  Sadly, I was in a store this weekend wandering around and stroking and looking fondly at the clothes (it’s what I do since I have no actual money to spend) and I saw the dark version of those capri zip jeans.  I was alternately fascinated and repelled and found myself reaching out for them.  “Stop it Jessica” I said (possibly out loud) “You threw these out in 1984 when you went all punk/goth/ whatever.  $178 buck!  Remember the electric bill.  Think of the children.” 

I suspect mine were acid washed, or at least artistically faded.

I am waiting for them to bring back those braided headbands that you wore across your forehead.  I had quite the collection.  I remember one pair that was white leather, white suede, and gold lame.  My mother has a picture of me meeting Coretta Scott King, tragically marred by the fact that I am wearing one of these creations.

And knickers (no, not Brit underpants).  Those cropped pants, often in corduroy, that came to and buttoned under the knee.  Try being an ultra tall, bean pole skinny, white chick on the #96 or the #70 bus and see what the comedians of the back row (every bus has them along with the same soda bottle that has been rolling around in the back for decades) do to you.  I recall them asking when the Mayflower was coming (among other things).

I know everything comes around again, and nostalgia is my drug of choice, but as much as I enjoy reliving the past I also like moving forward.  I have several large boxes of letters, cards, photos, journals that have made every move with me.  Most (all except 1 new one) of my friends are from elementary school to the college years.  I love Facebook because it has enabled me to find and reconnect with certain people again.  But like all real friendships the conversations can continue off the webpage and into real life.  Some of them I will be seeing in the flesh this summer.  And those who are farther away I will be visiting as soon as I can.

I went to DC to see The Damned in May – birthday celebration graciously provided by Mars and P.  and Mars was on her East Coast tour (slogan to be announced).  At the show Mars and I were obnoxious lunatics, not drunk on alcohol as much as adrenaline and joy and the sheer perversity of us and the way we egg each other on.  It was great seeing so many people who had not aged or changed for the worse.  Being back in a dark, noisy (no longer smoky) club felt as real and natural as my day to day life and job.  Considering I spent the formative years of 16-28 in clubs listening to loud music it should.  I was ecstatically, brilliantly happy.  It wasn’t reliving the past that made me euphoric – it was reconnecting and the possibility of all the shared future memories.  The past is inspiration and not the endpoint.

            

And holding your breath.

When I was in high school, I used to take mental health days when things just got too much and I couldn’t deal with people or the world anymore. Not only did I go to a very rigorous high school, but there was all the attendant drama and strain of being me as a teenager. I would plead illness, usually stomach related as I have learned that no one will argue with you if you are vomiting, and spend the day at home, house to myself, reading and watching bad TV (and in the 80’s pre-cable it was pretty bad) and mooning around.
I had the strongest urge to do the same today. I am uncharacteristically exhausted, fighting a bad tooth that needs a root canal and a crown but has to be delayed as the dentist wants his pound of flesh upfront, and it is the last day that all three boys will be safely locked up at school. I have this fascinating new book which is like junk food for a hungry mind – “Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging” by Janice Dennison. I would like nothing more than to lay in the king size bed with the dogs (who would have to be lifted up), watch the Style Channel or CSI, and read, with an occasional throwing in of laundry as a nod to my domestic responsibilities.
I made the terrifying and major decision to go to nursing school full time and gave my 8 week notice last week. The thought of leaving my full time job caused me to hyperventilate and search for a paper bag (all I could find was plastic). Not only have I worked hard to get to this point, even taking Algebra and Chemistry, the bete noires of my youth, again and conquering them. The thought of staying in my job from which there is no promotion fills me with a greater dread. Another year of this and I would be putting my head in the (electric) oven.
It will make for interesting blog posts – going back to school at 42, the gothic and bloody possibilities of nursing education, and hopefully new inspiration for my cobweb laden mind.
The job announcement went up this afternoon. You know how you dump someone, and they start dating someone and you feel a twinge, even though you don’t want them back? I don’t want it, but I don’t want anyone else to have it either. A friend remarked that the only thing more wistful is training your replacement. I will be doing that and moving back into the unventilated closet where I spent the last 3 and a half years.
To beat the metaphor to death, reading the job posting was like reading your exes singles ad – unrecognizable and none of the bad aspects were mentioned. And what they are looking for – I don’t recognize myself at all. Oh. Probably for the best then – they need someone who is slavishly devoted, doesn’t have the yearn for something more and has no wandering eye.

            

We traffic in nostalgia around here.  If you have come for shiny quips about modern parenthood, you have come to the wrong blog.  Not that there is anything wrong with stories of parenting.  It’s just that I spend so much time being consumed by and obsessed with my kids that I need a place where it is all about me.

My mind, which has never been good with dates, facts and reality, can’t quite grasp that Memorial Day weekend is almost here.  This means several days with the kids at the beach.  I will be hiding under the beach umbrella religiously applying SPF60 or higher while languidly watching the children and hoping they don’t caught in a rip tide or beat each other bloody with sand shovels.

The last time I tanned I was 14 and I got it up to a burnished copper hue.  We were in Cape May, my friends and their parents who were friends with my parents.  My parents came briefly and left quickly.  They rented restored Victorian houses on quiet streets – it was like Capitol Hill with an ocean front.  All the girls shared a room, clothes, makeup, sometimes secrets.

We gang of girls were obsessed with boys and the holy grail of a beach romance.  Well, they were obsessed, I was terrified of any boy who wasn’t a childhood friend and therefore automatically a eunuch.

The most successful at this boy thing was Cat.  She was (still is) beautiful with peaches and cream skin and ever-changing blue green eyes.  She was a dead ringer for Lady Di and played it up by getting her signature haircut.  She hit puberty way before me and at 13 had actual breasts which caused me to gaze wistfully at my so flat it is almost concave chest.  Cat could also actually talk to boys with confidence and skill while I always blushed, stammered, and drooled on myself.

We spent the cooling summer evenings walking back and forth on the boardwalk to the arcades that anchored each end.  We looked at boys also travelling in packs, they looked at us, and no contact was made.  Cat was the first to break through – she met a boy named Rob with feathered hair like Shaun Cassidy.  From him we learned many things: that tourists were despised and called Shoobees and that the dunes next to the arcade were the make out point.  Soon Cat and Rob were going out and spent many nights in the dunes while we remaining girls wandered around sadly, spending hours racking up skeeball tickets to be redeemed for glass animals or statues of ponies or kittens.

And then one night I met a boy named Emmett at the skeeball machines.  He was polite and friendly and I was able to talk to him without brushing bright red or making random noises meant to be conversation.  He asked if he could take me out the next night.

He showed up the next day and the adults were fascinated by his good manners in coming in to pick me up and making polite remarks.  They ragged on Cat as Rob used to come by on his bike and shout up or throw pebbles very inaccurately at her window.  He was from the south and soft-spoken and had good manners. 

I don’t remember much of the evening – we ate somewhere, had ice cream, and then slowly progressed toward the make out dunes. 

When we got there I stopped him.  I had something very important to ask him before we went any further.  He was from Georgia and my impression from growing up in DC Public Schools from the stories I heard was that all white southerners were card carrying Klan Members.  I had seen the life and times of Miss Jean Brodie twice.  Looking deep into his eyes (thankfully he was taller than me) I asked him gently if he was a racist.  No, he said, not put off by my question, he was on the basketball team and all his teammates were black and he couldn’t get by in the world if he disliked black people.

We got that out of the way and got done to kissing.  I had been kissed once in a closet during an afterschool game of spin the bottle and I regret to say my instinctive reaction was to knee that guy in the groin.  But this was real kissing, nice kissing, now I knew what they talked about in books.

I only saw him a few more nights and then we had to leave.  I traded in my winnings for a china dog of uncertain parentage and headed back to DC. 

But every year when summer starts I think of my one summer romance and how I learned to kiss.

            

Mothership tagged me for this.  I don’t know any other bloggers to tag (new girl here) but Reader, feel free to do it.

1.What are your current obsessions?

A pair of Doc Martens with sequins I have been craving for 6 months now.  And a gray bustle mac from Miss Selfridges (they do international delivery).  The boots will replace my beloved purple ones (gone many years ago).  Miss S. reminds me of the weekend in the B&B in Cardiff after the dig in Wales when we first discovered the beauty and magic of that store and my whole year in London.  The real bat skull necklace from Loved to Death.  Nemo in Slumberland in hardcover.  Every volume of Louise Gluck’s poetry.  They are all on my birthday list. 

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?

My grey trouser jeans from Joes (subverting the dress code here as they are cut like trousers so can’t be jeans) and any one of my t-shirts by Velvet.  Velvet is having a sale and I have been browsing their site like porn.  Adding the Lucca dress in Kiln to the list.
3. Last dream you had?

I dreamed that the sister of an old friend of mine had a massive apartment in Kalorama and all her possessions were being auctioned off.  But a lot of them were my things.  That’s my Klimt poster of The Kiss!  That’s my bat carved dressing table!  My old friend and her friends were giggling and laughing at my despair and wouldn’t help.  Waking up,  realized that most of these things were sold/given away over the years.  I still dream of my grandmother’s house and everything in it, down to the wallpaper and the smell of the closets.
4. Last thing you bought?

For the ten year old’s birthday: dog that jumps in the air and does flips, remote control flying saucer, pirate finger puppets (I kept 2), galatic space blaster, a tiny trebuchet, Bakugan (we are singlehandedly supporting the Japanese toy industry), scented pencils, Dogwood ts.

5. What are you listening to?

Rites of Spring (the DC band, not Stravinsky).  Remembering the shows, the being mashed against the stage, the dragging boot of the stage diver hitting my head, the intensity, the camaderie, the sweat.
6. If you were a god/goddess who would you be?

Athena.  Smart, independent, very vengeful, liked to be alone.
7. Favourite holiday spots?

Our place in Maine on Harpswell Neck.   I could watch the colors of the water and the sky change all day for the rest of my life.  And the smell – of salt, pinetrees, seaweed, drying mussels in the pools.
8. Reading right now?

Microbiology, Anna Karenina, The Making of a Marchioness.
9. Four words to describe yourself.

Stubborn, driven, easily bored, loyal.
10. Guilty pleasure?

Bad tv (Bravo, the Style Channel).  Forensic crime shows.  Going into boutiques and trying on clothes.  Chocolate in small quantities.  Playing with my miniatures.
11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?

I work hard at my job and rarely take my breaks.  What keeps me going is the email chains between my friends M, P, and me.  Recent topics: whether Kate Mosses curtains match her drapes, why it’s all Amanda’s fault, our top 4 criteria, the joys of cattiness.  In fact, I am going to use bits of them as my rotating blog taglines.  Their comebacks and comments are so good I find myself snorting with laughter and hiding my head under my desk.
12. Favourite spring thing to do?

Not cleaning, although I do it.  It is the only time I like taking the kids to the beach, before the crowds and the heat.
13. When you die, what would you like people to say about you at your funeral?

She looks just like a Bauhaus video.
14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?

After Valentines day, a gorgeous steak with blue cheese.  Tender and perfect.
15. When did you last go for a night out?

In February we went to see our friend Patrick Tracey read from his book “Stalking Irish Madness”.  I was in a bar, in DC, with friends and my beloved husband, I had a cider, I heard good writing.  I was euphoric.
16. Favourite ever film?

Just one?  I used to know Betty Blue by heart.  I love Cinema Paradisio.  And Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  And Rear Window.
17. Care to share some wisdom?

If someone says they love you, but then try to change everything about who you are, they don’t love you at all.
18. Song you can’t get out of your head?

“Love Song” by the Damned.
19. Thing you are looking forward to?

DC, the Damned, seeing people I haven’t seen in 14 years.  Not just looking forward to it, living for it. 
20. If money were no object, which designer would you wear?

Right now, Rag and Bone.  I love those razor slim jackets and trousers.
Rules of the game. Respond and rework. Answer questions on your own blog (or facebok page). Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 6 people.

            

Today I went with my seven year old (and his second grade class) to the Natural History Museum in D.C.   We had a perfect day:  dinosaurs, bugs, ice cream, climbing on the big rocks outside.  There was a great forensic anthropology exhibit but he dragged me away from it.  He loves me with an intensity and a calculated winsomeness that makes me think someday he is going to make a Freudian psychologist very, very rich.

I grew up walking to the Smithsonian museums on hot, aimless summer days.  There was an exhibit on cultural body modifications in the dusty corners of Natural History that used to repel and fascinate us for hours. 

When it snowed we used to go sledding on the Capitol grounds.  We didn’t have sleds so we borrowed the neighbor’s trashcan lids to use as saucers.  We hid from the Capitol Police in the bushes when they made their rounds.  Anecdotally, they were more tolerant in the Carter years, more authoritarian in the Reagan years.

The spring break I was 16 we spent every night swimming in fountains.  We would spend the night at Becky’s house.  When her parents had gone to bed we would slip downstairs to the kitchen one by one and out the silently sliding back kitchen window.  At the end of the alleyway we would meet the rest of our group (I could roll call, you know who you are).

Our spot was the fountains on the side plaza between the Capitol and Union Station.  There is a long reflecting pool, stagnant and mossy, that we swam in fully clothed for hours.  There is a fountain built into the wall facing that had stacked rocks we climbed on.  The best fountain is on the higher level, an elaborate centerpiece with changing colored lights.  We would lie on the grass to dry out and go home at 5 am, our clothes clinging to us.  There was always a moment when I eased the kitchen window open, perched on the window ledge before climbing in, listening for movement in the house, that gave me the first (of many) tastes of illicit, adrenaline pumping thrill.

On the bus ride out, even New York Avenue in its grubby glory of used car lots and metal barricaded storefronts was beautiful to me today.

            

A strange thing happened to me on the way back from the library.   I had gone to pick up some books (spring break next week, I want to go wild and read fiction all night) and read back copies of Vogue.  Mass purchase of shiny fashion magazines is not in the budget and I would never get a chance to enjoy it at home.  There are the interruptions and the noise and must of all the harsh illustration of the difference between the beautiful dream-like world of Vogue and my own reality.  When I say my house is falling down around me, that is not hyperbole.  It is a shrine to unfinished projects and my own bad housekeeping.

I had this rush of hope and excitement. I was imagining this poufy, strapless, layered plaid dress I had seen in a shop.  I saw it over jeans or leggings, with the black leather jacket I saw once and am still searching for (thin, narrow armed, fitted to the body, glove-soft).  I got distracted, clutching my books to me, and nearly walked into traffic. 

There is a difference between the world in my head and the 42 year old reality that will confront me when I eventually look in the mirror.  I don’t mean that in a bad way.   I don’t have a lot of issues with growing older.  Due to financial constraints and personal preference, I don’t spend a lot of time and money on beauty regimes or anti-aging.   I am low maintenance to the point of slovenliness.  I forget that what would have looked great on my 27 year old self wouldn’t work now.

I spend the time I can escape from the office and from the family wandering around shops, preferably little boutiques with nice people who have the same insane love of fashion and design.   I look at shiny things and cute tops.  I don’t buy (again the budget) but I look and I dream and I try on and I style outfits in my head.

My love affair with Vogue (sometimes open, sometimes secret) began in the tiny library on the lonely top floor of a failing school in a forgotten neighborhood of DC.  I would finish my day’s worth of schoolwork easily and early.   They would send me to the library rather than try to teach me anything more.  At school, and at home, which was a library in itself, I worked my way through anything I could get my hands on, War and Peace, Vanity Fair, The Odyssey, whether I understood it or not.

The first time I opened the heavy, glossy covers of Vogue I stepped into a world of beauty and creativity I never knew existed, stuck in a still-small southern city in the late 1970s.  Later, as a punk rock girl, I tried to deny my love of fashion.  I soon found it was just another way to express it.   I assembled outfits of Victorian bed jackets, homemade long black skirts, corsets from the Dor Ne Corset shop.  I wore an Edwardian dress to a show on my 19^th birthday and the lace was so old that by the end of the day it hung in tattered strings from the silk under dress, which thankfully remained intact.  Lisa took me to get sewn in extensions in a squat in Notting Hill and Nina Hagen showed up.   I couldn’t turn my head to see her.  I spent hours haunting the designer floor of Woodies downtown, stroking the Donna Karan (literally), ignored by the salesclerks, followed by security.  I worked at Dream Dresser (never underestimate the power of a little black latex dress).  And then Betsey Johnson (where we spent more than we made, crackheads working in a cocaine factory).  In London, I mainlined outfits.  I can remember every item of clothing I ever owned, but I have trouble recalling ex-lovers.  In each item I purchased I thought I was purchasing the power of transformation and adventure.

What I had a glimpse of the other day before I jaywalked into the road was the joy inherent in playing and trying.   I don’t mean just clothes.   Playing with and transforming how I look was just one of the ways I dealt with the soul sucking dramas of my youth and the joyless twin overlords boredom and frustration.  What I was riding was the rush that comes from inspiration and the mad urge to do something creative and fun.  The foul mouthed cross stitch samplers my friends and I dreamed up the other night had me all riled up like a three year old on a sugar binge. 

Someone asked me why I wanted to make my writing public.  I write everyday in case as Bukowski said, “being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder.”  But to write to myself anymore is not enough.  I fear I will end up wandering the streets of this seaside town muttering lines of poetry to myself (I memorize poems – it gives your mind something to do in bad or boring moments).

I still have some of my old partners in crime.  We got dressed up and went to shows, finding other misfits.  We made friendships that still last where we can speak in inside jokes and random memories.  Or we suffered through elementary, middle or high school together.  We shared the powerlessness of childhood and the suffocated frustration of adolescence, where everything is desired but little is possible.

I promise it wont be all doom (but if you expect perkiness and positivity, move along, you’ve got the wrong girl).  There will be humor (dark, the only kind I do) and visuals and odd stories (I have some good ones, I bet you have too).

In the words of Dante (re-read the Inferno, it is new and amazing every time):

“Abandon all hope all ye who enter here (but wear a good outfit).”