Archive for category Stories

A transformation.

Posted by Lotus, aka Sarcastic Mom in Husband, Love, Marriage, Stories, Writing, {W}rite-Of-Passage Challenge on December 21, 2009

It’s a ring.

When I’m asked what Christmas gift I remember the most, this ring is the first image that surfaces in my mind. One of the most beautiful opals I have ever seen sits like a regal queen atop a shining, golden band. On each side of her, like ladies in waiting, is a tiny diamond, twinkling playfully.

I am not obsessive about jewelry. I appreciate things of beauty, and with these types of decoration I tend to gravitate towards simplicity.

I had never before received expensive jewelry from a lover. I had never really desired it, to be honest. Regardless of that, I found this piece perfect. When I opened the box, I was floored and pleased.

It is beauty, basic and true. I loved it immediately, and still do.

A person special to me worried over the selection of this ring. He had labored over this choice, and this ring had spoken to him.

While it is certainly true that the ring is stunning, that is not why it is my most memorable gift. There is magic in my memory of this gift, but it is not because I received the ring on Christmas day.

The real magic lies in what it later became – an engagement ring. The man who painstakingly chose that gift for me did not know that later I would switch the hand on which the Queen Opal rode, as promise to marry him.

My most memorable Christmas gift was a pretty, shiny adornment that later transformed into a symbol of love, basic and true.

Beautiful.

******

Today’s post is my answer to The Gift, a writing challenge at {W}rite-of-Passage.

The following people took the challenge, too.

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Pain and joy mingle.

Posted by Lotus, aka Sarcastic Mom in Depression, Happiness, Love, Mental/Emotional, Miscarriage, Stories on December 16, 2009

We purchased this year’s tree on a Sunday while John was home for a day.  That night, I put the lights on it.  The smell of a real Christmas tree is something I love so much that I don’t exactly know how to put it into words.  The olfactory sense can trigger some of the strongest sense memories we have, and I think this smell is linked into the magic and joy that laces my memories of Christmas as a child.  We never had a fake tree, so when I smelled this smell – a real pine, cedar, or fir – it meant Christmas was coming.  And that meant magic, love, and light.  It meant my soul would lift and float for awhile.

needles

This year, before we bought our tree, I went in search of something I’ve had in a cabinet all year long.  It is a glass spice bottle with a black plastic lid.  The glass is very heavy, and the plastic is thick and sturdy.  It appeals to me in some way, and so I saved it to use for something when the spice ran out.  I had no idea when I put it aside that later I’d be gathering fallen needles to place inside.

Last year, I lost a baby (Davin) right at three months into the pregnancy.  It was my second miscarriage of the year and, for many reasons, it throttled me in different and harder ways than had the first one (in April).

I found out on December 9th during a prenatal appointment that he had died.  A D&C to remove Davin from my womb was scheduled for December 16th.

I had carried him for a week, knowing he was no longer alive.  It was both maddening and oddly comforting.  On the one hand, I felt insane knowing he was inside of me and he was not alive; my body was incapable of doing anything to help him.  On the other hand, I got to be with him and say goodbye, come to terms with him being removed.

On December 15th, the day before the surgery, I asked John to go get a tree.  I didn’t tell him, but I wanted that tree in the house with all 4 of us.  That’s how it was supposed to be, and in my fractured state of being, I was going to have it that way, regardless.

When last year’s tree came into our home with all of its wonderful smelling glory my child was still inside of me.  The next day, he was all the way gone.  I was sedated for some time after that.  When the pills ran out there was still wine and liquor.  I got tipsy regularly; I ate crappy food.  No matter what I ingested, I was empty.

I was empty in more ways than the one that made my uterus ache as it healed.

That tree sat in the living room with me.  I watched those lights flash and dance through my bleary eyes.  I sat here, numb, with that happy smell.  Each day rolled by and I tried whenever I could to enjoy them, even if it was an altered, forced experience.

I cried a lot.  I was angry and sad.  A lot of days I was just nothing.

The tree was there.

At some time way past Christmas there came a point when I had to admit that the tree was dried out and needed to be taken away.  I cried about that, too.

When that tree came into my house, I still had my baby inside of me.  Now the tree was about to leave, and I had to keep a part of it, because somehow, it was the last thing I could hold onto about Davin.  Is that crazy?

I got down on my hands and knees with that damn spice bottle and I gathered up fallen needles until it was full.  Then I put it in one of my kitchen cabinets.

Only a couple of times during the year, when my heart ached the very most for Davin, I went and opened that bottle.  I held it, smooth, cool and heavy, in my hand.  In my fingers, it felt strong when I felt weak.  I stared at the needles.  I opened the bottle and smelled.

Pain and joy mingle together in that smell for me now.

Not long before we got our tree this year, I went for that bottle for the first time in quite a while.  When I smelled it, I wept for my lost son.  The smell was still very strong and crisp.  It wrapped me up; it sang to me of both sorrow and delight.  Afterwards, I felt a sort of peace.

I put the bottle out as the very first Christmas decoration in our home this year.

I will think of them both every Christmas: the baby who we thought would be born in December 08 as well as the baby who died in December 08.  I don’t think I’ll ever smell that happy smell or watch those dancing lights again without a twinge of sorrow.  But I believe I will always still smile at them, as well.

Pain and joy mingle together, and that is not such a bad thing to experience, or acknowledge.

It is far better than pain sitting in the heart by itself.

spicebottle

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About menstruation, armpit hair, floaters, etc…. oh, and writing well.

Posted by Lotus, aka Sarcastic Mom in Blogging Stuff, Humor, Husband, Poop/Farts, Relationships, Stories, Writing, {W}rite-Of-Passage Challenge on November 30, 2009

So, I’ve been quite brilliantly not writing near as often as I used to here for some time now. I’m perfecting this art I like to call “Ignore Your Blog Until It Dies.” I think I’m doing a *really* good job. Only, I keep popping back into frame and, you know, it’s because I love you. And because I like to run my proverbial mouth write. Also, a little bit because of how good you look in those jeans, and that you’re kind of slutty. But mostly the thing about how I like to write. Yeah.

I used to post something every day – and while I’m not interested in pushing myself to a “per day” schedule anymore, I do want to get back to writing more often. And because she’s awesome like that, Leslie (aka Mrs. Flinger) has been thinking of this whole “let’s get back to writing” thing, only she actually wants it to be GOOD WRITING (oh, shit) and after several email brainstorming sessions with a group of amazing women (I think someone added my name to the email list by accident, but I wasn’t going to rat myself out) there’s a little movement, or community, going.

Leslie has launched a Ning site to fuel this, and it’s called {W}rite of Passage: taking the challenge to write well.

So I’m jumping in. I’m going to take the challenges and post my shitty drafts in answer to them here for you to look at and laugh while you point and say, “this shit is supposed to be good writing? BAHAHAHAHA.”

Of course, instead of just being a turd, you could join the network and get your ass in gear, too.

Today’s Challenge? Embarrassing story.

And you know, I am having a little bit of difficulty coming up with a topic because I never have embarrassing things happen to me, and I never do embarrassing things.  I have a hard time even understanding what this whole “being embarrassed” thing is like.  I am poised, confident, and graceful.  Whether by luck, chance, or higher power, I am immune to awkward situations.  All of the stories of my life are calm, without incident, and there is truly a spirit of class and dignity that surrounds all that is moi.

Also, pigs fly out of my butt and there’s a unicorn eating rainbow striped cotton candy on my back lawn, right next to the leprechaun who is counting out all the gold he’s going to leave on my front step later today. Now, excuse me, because it’s time for me to go climb on the back of my friendly, neighborhood dragon and go for our regularly scheduled flying playdate with Peter Pan and Mary Poppins.

I am having trouble because I’ve already written here about all the most embarrassing topics that come to mind immediately.  Like when my mother announced that I’d started my period in front of our male, European house guests.

Who do you tell?  If you’re like me, you tell your mother.  And you don’t enjoy it.  But you get it over with, and then you expect it to go away.

You don’t expect to be washing the dishes after dinner, minding your own business, and have your mother practically float into the room on her Mommy Pride and gush about it to the two MALE, European house guests sitting at the kitchen table.

They speak very little English, but you quickly see that they have perfected that Creepy Guy Look Of Knowing And Thinking Ew Things, because they are aiming it right at you.  Picture it, right now.  If your skin didn’t crawl, you don’t know what I’m talking about.

I.Couldn’t.Believe.She.Had.Done.That.

She CLEARLY hated me. I was SURE of it.

I just wanted to DIE.

Or the story of my first pit hairs.  Yeah.

I remember when I first started getting armpit hair.

I was mortified.

My mom?  Was excited.

I was sitting on her bed, with my hands behind my head, all chilled out, leaning back.  I can remember her noticing the armpit hair and pointing it out, smiling and gesturing.  The expression on my face had to have been one of complete and total terror.  She, on the other hand, was dangerously close to suggesting we should have a parade for my pit hair.

I could see myself on the lead Pit Hair Parade! float, my arms strapped up and to the sides.  Large spotlights would aim at my pits and flower adorned arrows would be positioned to point right at the tiny hairs there, in case people were not aware that LOTUS.HAS.PIT.HAIR.NOW!!!

I slapped my arms down, and tried to change the subject, while mentally willing with all my might that time would just stop.  Maybe God really did exist and I could pray to him right now to erase this?

Because it was embarrassing.

Or maybe you’ll remember when I talked about how I made sure that John would truly fall madly in love with me, one day becoming my husband.  I had a foolproof plan, really.  All you dating ladies should try this out on your man.

John told me that when we were first dating, he had an interesting experience. He was visiting me at my apartment in Winston-Salem, NC. We had been hanging out, laughing, having fun, etc. He had to pee. He got up… walked down the hallway, and went into the bathroom. Closing the door, he turned around, and lifted the toilet seat.

And witnessed a large, brown floater.

Sexy or what?

And you’re probably thinking that I *forgot* to flush.  Ah, foolish one.  Everyone knows that Surprise Shit is the way to a man’s heart. It’s either that or food. Or blowjobs. Or something. Clearly I’m an expert.

When it comes right down to it, a great many of my embarrassing situations don’t really stand out because they are the majority of the strands that weave the I’m A Dumbass Idiot tapestry of my life.  It all just blends together to create the badass that is Loter.

So what if I’ve puked on the side of the highway in my underpants?  Big deal if I drove a car up past the parking space and actually right into the wall of a building once?  No problem if I leave my wallet at home when I go shopping, hold bows up to my crotch in department stores, lose my car in parking lots, say horribly stupid things to people in practically any social situation, walk into doors and fences, or melt my food processor in my oven because I was too lazy to clean it and instead shoved it in there so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore and then forgot and preheated the oven for dinner while it was still inside, like a completely idiotic assface? So what if I write long, run-on sentences just because I like the way they sound in my head and think you should, too?

So what? I am still awesome.

And I’d love to delude myself talk about that in detail, but I really have to go now.  I need to put on my magical, vanilla-scented Invisibility Suit and take my pet dinosaur for a walk down our gold-paved street.

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Here are more people who took the “Embarrassing Story” Challenge today.

Join up at {W}rite-Of-Passage and then add yours, too!

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Reason number 39756385 why renting a house blows.

Posted by Lotus, aka Sarcastic Mom in Humor, Miscellaneous Blabbering, Rant, Stories on November 4, 2009

And when I say “blows” I am not thinking about bubbles or dandelions.

Or even that hot guy I saw standing in line at the grocery store the other day. Rawr.

I’m referring more to hairy ballsacks, possibly even diseased ones.

I have a good running list of reasons (39756385 items long, clearly) for this particular brand of Makes You Want To Vomit All Of Your Meals From Ever suckage, but today let’s talk about:

“When Shit Breaks And Doesn’t Get Fixed In A Timely Manner”

When shit breaks and you own your own house, the reason why it sucks is because you have to FIX THAT SHIT YOSELF.  So that means, get off your lazy ass and determine the cause of the problemage and then do something about it.

When shit breaks and you rent, you’re often NOT ALLOWED to fix that shit yoself, nor are you allowed to hire someone else to fix that shit for yoself.  Because, of course, when you signed the lease you did no less than admit that your judegment is not to be trusted, m’kay? And you signed an agreement that says “I am a dummee and cannot fiss thingies goodlike and also I can not has enough smart parts in my head to find any other good peoples to help me fiss thingies eether. ever.”

I swear that’s what the thing said, and normally I wouldn’t sign a document rife with such horrible spelling mistakes, for chrissakes, but if I remember correctly I had diarrhea that day so I was kind of in a hurry to get things wrapped up, because there is really nothing worse than sitting in a realtor’s office with a hot wet ass that ISN’T just a euphemism for how damn sexy you are.

But I digress.

So, basically, we’re not allowed to fix broken things.  Instead we have to call and report them to property management, and they will send someone to the house to fix what’s broken.

Wait, no.  I wrote that incorrectly.

They will THINK ABOUT HOW THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO send someone to the house to fix what’s broken FOR ABOUT A WEEK, but they will not do anything about it.

Then when your husband calls them and says, “Uh, did you get my two messages about how the kitchen light is broken and my wife has already set 4 fires in there trying to cook in the dark because she’s an idiot, and could you please just go fix it before she accidently builds an atom bomb trying to make Mac & Cheese in the dark? I know it sounds improbable, but really, you don’t know her. And it is not at all improbable.  That kitchen light is SO MUCH MORE important than you realize” they will be like, “Huh?”

And then they’ll be like, “Oh, we need approval from the owner since it’s just lightbulbs.”

This is the part of the story where I tell you how I almost threw the phone across the room when John was relaying things to me.  Because I was in the room the day that John called them and left a message, and I heard him saying, “Hi, our kitchen light is broken and we thought it might just be the bulbs, so I went out and bought new ones, but it still won’t turn on, so it’s not the bulbs.  We need someone to come out and have a look at it and fix it.”

And:

1) See that part where he said IT’S NOT THE BULBS? Yeah. I HEARD THAT.
2) John hasn’t been home since October 16th.  I just want to go ahead and point that out.
3) As I type this, the light is STILL BROKEN.

After he set them straight in a much more polite way than I’d ever be capable of, they promised him someone would “be out tomorrow” to have a look at it.

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

“Be out tomorrow” in Property Managementese CLEARLY means “sit around with a thumb up one’s ass.”  Either that or “laugh at your dark kitchening ass while we pretend like we care about you and your broken thingies, when if fact, we so very much do not. Buy a lamp, asshole.”  I’m not sure, but it’s definitely ONE of those.

A WEEK LATER he called again to find out if they would prefer that we:

A) Burn down their building.
B) Set bull weavels loose in their office.
C) Poop in a box and send it to them instead of next month’s rent.
D) Get H1N1 first and then poop in a box and send it to them instead of next month’s rent.

They asked if there was an option E, and while I told John to say, “Yes, All of the above, you sons of bitches,” instead he just asked if they could please come fix the light in the kitchen.

He is such a pussy.

So finally, someone came the next day and looked at the light.

(Technically, they said someone would “be out tomorrow” again and so I got all pissed off because I AM LEARNING THEIR LANGUAGE. But they decided to mix things up to keep me on my toes.  I am on to you, anyway, Property Management.)

On Friday, a nice man came to the house, stood on one of my chairs and looked at the kitchen light fixture.

He told me it was broken.

I almost had a hysterical breakdown at the delivery of this news because I had no idea the kitchen light was broken and I thought frantically, “Holy crap, how am I going to make dinner now, in the dark???”

But really, he said the ballast is fried and that he’d have to remove it and replace it.  Then he took it off the fixture and he left, saying, “If I don’t see you again later today, I’ll see you Monday!”

It’s Wednesday.  I have not seen the friendly Ballast Replacing Fairy yet.

I’mma gonna go into the kitchen later and whip up that atom bomb.

Hope you fuckers liked your lives. Some shit’s ’splodin’ tonight.

****

UPDATE: So after I wrote this, but before I could publish it, the friendly Ballast Replacing Fairy actually showed up, except it was the same guy who came before and told me the ballast was broken, so I was a little bit disappointed.  I was hoping for something with wings and a tutu or at least a glittery wand or a Pegasus waiting for him in backyard while he was inside working.  Regardless, he had a new ballast with him and the knowledge necessary to install it.

Fortunately, while he was working, Braden made sure to point out loudly to me that “that’s not Daddy!” saving me from making the horrible mistake of pestering the poor guy to rub my feet.  Of course, this is nothing new from Braden; he’s always screaming that information at random times, like when I’m on the couch making out with boyfriends, and also sometimes when my pimp comes to collect.

Duh, Braden, DUH.

Oh, but apparently the Ballast Replacing Fairy IS a fireman.  Braden said so.  Which clearly means he needs to be reported to the fire chief for his Fairy Side Gig.  I’m 97% sure that there’s a “No Fairies” rule in the Fireman Job Requirements.  It’s right next to the part that says you have to have really big muscles and the ability to grow masculine patterns of facial hair on command.  I’m not sure whether it’s more or less important than looking sexy while you slide down a big metal pole in a hurry.  Anyway, he’s breaking the rules.

I’m telling.

PS: You’re a bunch of lucky bastards. There’s light in the kitchen now, so I probably won’t be blowing up the earth tonight.

Probably.

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