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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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11:01 p.m. - 2012-04-24
I was in the kitchen just now sitting with Mick while he ate his dinner. (It's a grazing night, mostly because I had a big lunch and wasn't hungry, so why cook? There were plenty of good leftovers.) We were sharing the news of the day and he told me about how one of the part-time coaches was dressed down by the principal today. A very LOUD dressing down, apparently. Now Mick's dying to find out why the coach was ripped a new one. That's not going to be a problem, Mick works at Peyton Place- the School District. Never saw such a place for gossip, not even the car dealerships could match it, and a car dealership is a big room full of guys with a lot of downtime who fricken talk for a living. When you sell cars a good 70% of your time is spent shooting the shit with the other salesguys. Gossip is the first order of the day. And Mick's school is worse. The gossip mill at Uber Sports School is vicious, immense, and fast. Sneeze and before you can walk halfway down the corridor they have you dying of pneumonia/battling a cocaine problem/are gleefully saying you got a leeetle too close to Ms Hansen's (the sexy English teacher) mohair sweater- *wink* wink* nudge*. So no doubt tomorrow Mick will get some skinny on why the coach got yelled at. Will it be the real story? Not likely, but it'll be juicy that's for damnsure. Btw, Mick's interest isn't wholly prurient, as head of security he's got to know if the coach is still allowed near the kids or be on campus at all. I twitted him anyway for his wanting to get the poop. He flapped at hand at me and said, "Baby, just because you're too kind to gossip..." I cut him off. "I am NOT kind, I am simply too self-involved to bother with what other people do. No one is more interesting to me than me. Gossip is a colossal waste of time, time I could spend spelunking up my own ass. Metaphorically, of course." Mick rolled his eyes. "Maybe, but you're still the nicest person I know." I got up and poured myself a cup of coffee, turned, parked my butt against the edge of the counter and after swallowing a big slug from my mug said, "You know why I'm nice? Being a bitch takes too much effort. Seriously. To be a cruel asshole you have to scope out other people's weaknesses and ouchie spots, then you have to come up with something nasty that'll poke 'em where it hurts, remember the nasty gibe and wait around for just the right moment to zing them with it, then you have to smirk and wait around some more for them to go red in the face and cry. It's exhausting. Me? I just go about spreading my particular brand of easy breezy sunshine and never have to hang around to see how it went over. 'La la la! Life is good. You're terrific and so am I. Everything is great! You have a wonderful day, okay?' And I'm out the door. No muss, no fuss, no bullshitting around waiting to get my jollies from someone else's pain. My time is too valuable to willingly hand it over to others just so I get to be a dick." Mick conceded I had a point. One of the happier errands I did today was picking up my new glasses. I like 'em. Nothing new style-wise, I've been wearing round frames since my very first pair of specs- an homage to my super-crush John Denver. Yes, smarty-pantses, I said 'John Denver'. Lennon wasn't even on my musical or sartorial radar back in 1975. I was all about Henry John Deutschendorf, he of the Rocky Mountain High and the dopey bowl haircut. Back in the day I liked my men non-threatening and dorky. A rule I hung fast to until I met the ex. For certain he was a dork in a cool Ernie Douglas sort of way and at the time it looked like I could snap him across my knee like a twig (6'2", maybe 137lbs) but in the end he turned out to be a menace and far more cruel than any kind of macho butthead who'd have smacked me around. The ex specialized in emotional deprivation and torture. At one time or another during our 26 years he managed to break every rule in the Geneva Convention except the one about using mustard gas. Anyhoodle, my new glasses. I'll try to post a pic or two on Thursday. The a/c guy is coming on Thursday to get our central air all set for the season so I have to be up and dressed. Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day cleaning my stanky office and installing the new mini-blinds. Aside from a well-deserved shower after I'm finished I will be doing no grooming at all. Your friend the Sage is far, far too vain to be posting pics of herself sans good lighting and make-up on the internet, so Thursday when I have my public face on it is. The mini-blinds will be replacing some seriously battered and sad looking Roman shades. The shades are made of laminated paper and were marketed as temporary shades. Some quickies hung to keep new builds and renovations reasonably private. No way were they supposed to last the four years I've had them. Tomorrow those torn, smoke-yellowed shades are coming down. The windows and the valance curtains will be washed. The valances, btw, date back to the used bookstore I set up and ran so I could have an outside job and still have Alex with me all day. The valances in my office are almost 25 years old. At the time my particular brand of feminism said ALL women had jobs, even mothers of toddlers, hence a bookstore that sold used paperbacks, some hardcovers, and the occasional spendy collectible like the leather-bound encyclopedia dating from the colonial era. I mostly broke even financially even though Podunkville is harsh and clubby about its downtown businesses and I was NOT a member of the club. Mostly, though, I had somewhere to go that counted as an official job and I took my kid with me to work. Best of both worlds, you know? He's been on my mind a lot today. Alex. When he's strong in presence out of nowhere, no birthdays or other markers, I think he must have me on his mind. I know better than to hope he misses me or ever wants my counsel. I'm guessing today he came across something that reminded him of me, some odor or random voice that sounded like mine, and he aimed some psychic venom my way. It's hard having a mother you loathe, trust me I know from experience. The worst part about hating your mother is how much room she takes up in your brain pan. Someday Alex will be able to be rid of me and any residual hate and he'll get on with his life, but for now every once in a while I'll still come out of nowhere and bite him in the psyche*. *Sorry, Kid. I do my best to stay away. Though do a kindness and don't be rude to a grad student named Rebecca who might ask some nosy questions of you at the restaurant. She's being a mensch and doing me a favor. Thanks. In hair news I've decided to abandon the bob. For real. The main gist of growing my hair out was to prove to myself that I'm not one of those time warped dopes who insist on keeping a make-up and hair style from the time when they were most powerful and desirable to their preferred sex partners. I refused to be a stalled throwback endlessly reliving the glory days. A self-deluded twit with a bouffant or Farrah hair. What I've come to realize is that I wore my hair in some version of spiky bedhead for almost 15 years for a reason, the only reason...it suits me. In fashion or out that fierce spiked coif is a flattering, political, generational hair statement that says, "Yeah, I'm menopausal and slightly crazed, but I'm not fucking dead yet. My brain and my pussy still work and I do not agree to be daffy, neutered, and juiceless just because I'm supposed to be at my age." Come May 8th Carmen the Wonder Hairstylist is going to snip, clip, buzz, and razor me back into looking like the LA the Sage I was, should be, and sadly (for a while) forgot how to be.
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