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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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12:15 p.m. - 2011-05-04
Yesterday I got the new filter for the central air installed, checked the fans, cleaned all the vents and intakes, set the thermostats, then helped Mick put the window a/c in my office and today�it's 50 degrees and raining. I don't mind in the least, I'm digging the damp earthy lilac scented air wafting in through my open office windows and the gentle rain sounds are soothing. Also it's not like we're never going to need the air conditioning, I just thought the timing was funny. Yesterday it was very hot and it truly seemed that the blast furnace season had begun, hence the hurry-up to get the cooling system online. Something I wish they'd finally do at the gym. Man it was gross in there yesterday. I know, I know. PF is the Walmart of gyms- it's cheap, the service sucks and lots of fat ugly people go there. So it stands to reason PF's attitude toward climate control is going to be, "Suck it up, what do you expect for $10 a month? The Hilton?" But still, I think the punishment at the gym should be self-inflicted and not from the smell and the dead used up air of the place. Hey, I'm goofy like that. Though speaking of self-inflicted punishment, I felt my weight routine was getting too easy so yesterday I upped everything by 5lbs and an extra set of reps. Ouch. Then figuring I'd be half dead today anyhow when I got home I did a bunch of housecleaning. If I was going to need a slacker day today I wanted to have it guilt-free in a clean house. Smart plan, but actually I'm not hurting today. My back is achy, but it has been for a while and I can't blame the gym. The kicker will be on Friday when I try to do a repeat performance. Gads, it's been so nutty with royal weddings and killing bin Laden and stuff I forgot to tell you how Chiller went. Wolf got to meet Maud Adams, Bond Girl Extraordinaire. She was quite gracious and not surprised to have a 13 year old fan. Me? I made the rounds and got to meet not one, but TWO Brady kids. Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen aka: Bobby and Cindy were there. And just like when I met Barry Williams (Greg) all my cool flew right out the window and I started to cry. Why can I be chill and fine speaking with far more important celebrities, making jokes and asking whether Oscar statuettes are as heavy as they look, yet trying to talk with cast members of a dorky sit-com from the 70s reduces me to blubbering idiocy? I can't say for sure, but I think it's because of how deeply 'The Brady Bunch' is imbedded in my psyche. As I told Barry a couple years ago and then Mike and Susan on Saturday, their supposedly silly show was a life raft for me. A sweet half hour of normalcy. I know it was a TV show and knew it then. But the happy, dippy Brady family was everything mine wasn't. Loving, kind, safe, fun. But the biggest draw for me was how the kids' problems were kid-sized. How great was it that the 'big' problem was a missing book report or making a magic trick work? I'd have given anything to have those kinds of problems. The shit in my life was too big. It was too hard, too adult. No 7 year old should have to figure out how to live with being sodomized on a nightly basis. Or how to plan, shop for and cook the week's meals, and get all the laundry and the housework done, and get her little sister to the dentist all while trying to study for the 3rd grade spelling bee. Throw in my mother's drinking and drugging and irrational outbursts, and man, life at the Brady house looked like Paradise. Once a week and then long after in re-runs I got to wish myself into the Brady universe and just be a kid. A regular kid. And it helped. It truly helped. And I want the people who played those happy kids to know it and to never think their work was just a goof. A pop culture piece of fluff that they're stuck with and perhaps sometimes regret. A bad polyester anchor around their necks. It's important to me they know that they helped one sad and lonely kid's life be bearable. In a teeny tiny way through this diary I've been on the other side of the equation. Over the years I've been fortunate enough to hear from people who've said as much to me. My gnarring on about my doings and thoughts and sometimes train wreck-y life has helped. Not because I'm so great or do everything right, goodness knows neither of those is true, but because I was here. What I was saying made sense or struck a chord or even provided a "But for the grace of God there go I" moment. I'm always wowed and startled and nervously pleased when someone says, "Thank you." Even if it's just for a recipe or providing a laugh. I'm not out here shouting in the dark for no other purpose except my own selfish ones. Once in a while my shouting finds an ear that needs to hear it. How cool is that? And how lucky am I? Very- on both counts.
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