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Poppymom.com is back up! Archives are still down, but everything else works, so I'll be posting there once again. C'mon!
posted by Poppymom at 10:29 PM
41 comments
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Home
Just got home from my whirlwind trip to Chicago with Kara, Holley and Bono. Much, much to say, but I'm not in a position to do so right now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some writing time. In the meantime, I thought I'd recycle share something I wrote in 2001 after my last U2 show. It might put an interesting perspective on what I have to say about last night's show. Or it might just be that I'm lazy and doing the least necessary to appease you people. Here 'tis:
Reflections from an Old Woman in the Mosh Pit
I’m not twenty-one anymore.
I may look like I’m twenty-one. I may bear similarities to who I was when I was twenty-one. But the cold fact is, I haven’t been twenty-one in eight years.
Sometimes, though, you’ve got to act like you’re twenty-one, just one final time. Slow-dance with your youth for a night and reap the consequences later.
I should have outgrown rock star excitement somewhere down the line, the days when I would blindly blow my rent money on concert tickets, call in sick to work for a week so I could follow a band around the Midwest. Sleeping on concrete and bathing in gas station bathroom sinks, just for a chance to dance with other lost souls.
A great deal of rock star excitement somehow survived in me, despite being flogged by adult responsibility.
My friend Kristina is twenty-one, and so much like what I used to be. In the fall of 2001, when everyone was afraid to venture out of the CNN haze of war, Kristina and her roommate Sarah couldn’t stay home. They fled their apartment in Bowling Green, Ohio, in pursuit of U2. In Sarah’s maroon Toyota with her dad’s Texaco credit card in hand; they followed the band to Chicago, Indiana, and Rhode Island. They lugged their sleeping bags to the arenas at five in the morning, sleeping like street urchins, just for a chance to be so close to the stage that they might make a flash of eye contact, feel a drop of sweat, reveal in the humanity of rock stars.
In late November U2, followed by Kristina and Sarah, came to St. Louis. The girls, along with my friend Kara, converged on my house the night before the show. The next day I lunged out of bed at 4:30 AM, my exhausted eyes burning in the darkness, stumbling through the house and waking everyone.
Even the most sludgy, bitter convenience store coffee taste blissful when it’s 5:16 AM, twenty-three degrees, and you’re wedged in a pickup truck with 15 blankets, six pillows, four backpacks, and three sleepy people.
Overnight, a tent city sprouted on the sidewalk along Fourteenth Street. Reaching down the block, sprouting from the side of the arena, little pods of nylon slept with no signs of life. When the stream of tents ended, lifeless bundled masses of humans continued the line, their breath substituted by coffee cup steam and cigarette smoke. They stretched past the metal and glass of Savvis Center and huddled into the cold concrete and stone of the old Kiel Opera House, swooping down a short flight of stairs into a pit, where the wall turned into boarded doors. We descended the stairs, resting our pillows against the frigid wall and spreading our blankets over the bitter floor. Our four bodies, padded and shielded, wedged into our little cubbyhole to wait.
We had purchased our tickets to the show two weeks prior. General admission tickets for $45. It’s a good deal, but g.a. means there are no guarantees. Those who don’t show up before dawn are relegated to the back, far from the stage, watching the ocean of bodies that separates them from the stage. At each show they’d attended, Kristina and Sarah had lined up early and were rewarded with positions that were mere feet from the stage, an arm’s reach from a calloused hand still warm from the metal guitar strings. And that’s why we crammed into our cubbyhole, under a mountain of blankets on that cold November day, before day began. Just for that moment at 7 AM, when the girl with the clipboard and the red marker would brand our hands with numbers, indicating our place in line, and the order we’d be allowed into the arena at 6 PM. A red brand in honor of our tenacity, or to mark us as idiots for the rest of the world.
And so we waited, wrapped in whatever warmth we could gain from the blankets, eating fluffy, warm beneigts brought by my husband, taking walks to Union Station for bathroom breaks and to relieve the unbearable monotony of sitting in a concrete alcove in the cold. Sarah barely moved all day. She stayed in her cocoon, her nose in a biology textbook, saving her energy.
Maybe I should have taken a hint from Sarah. In the days since the show, I’ve played the “what if” game far too many times. What if I’d just stayed still, hibernated in that alcove, instead of letting the boredom get to me? I spent more time walking the streets of downtown than I spent sitting quietly. I walked until the friction of my feet on the sidewalk was strong enough to warm me. I walked under the gaze of the Victorian landmarks and sleek shining new buildings, trying to find a place in my adopted city while my friends sat on the concrete, staring at the sheriff’s department building, watching the building’s inhabitants watch them back. I fought with myself, willing myself to give in to boredom for once, to take advantage of the opportunity to simply sit quietly for a day, knowing that my reward would come when the band took the stage at 8 PM. But that wasn’t enough to stop the constant frenzy that forever resides within me, driven by guilt to be doing anything - anything but sitting on my ass.
I returned from one of my walks shortly before 4 PM, just in time to help gather our blankets and rush them to the truck in the spitting rain. The others changed clothes in the parking garage, hidden behind the opened doors. They fluffed hat-matted hair, drew borders around their sleep-starved eyes with black pencils, spritzed perfume and smeared deodorant, vain attempts to mask the effects of a sleepless night and a motionless day. I stood nearby, still in my navy t-shirt under a charcoal gray fleece pullover that matched the darkening sky. My bag of clothes – low-cut shirt and shiny black shoes – stayed buried under the blankets, and my face remained rain-smeared and wind-chapped pink.
We returned to the arena as the lady with the clipboard began checking the numbers on our hands, lining us up in order. No more warm blankets, no more overhead awning, no more pillows to sit upon. Just room on the sidewalk to stand for two and a half hours as the drizzle grew into dark waves of rain. We’d left our coats and umbrellas in the truck, shedding all items that would be in the way once we were inside the arena. The crowd behind us pushed, and slowly we inched under an awning, damp and cold.
No books to keep us occupied, no place to take a nap, no places left to walk in the rain. We stood, shifting from one foot to the other, giggling wildly, yet nervously. Exhaustion dripped through us, expressed as punch-drunkenness. Kristina kept us entertained by doing silly dances. We chatted with the people in line with us. Anything to keep us from clock-watching and thinking about the cold.
They let us inside at 6 PM. Through the turnstiles, patted by security, we ran through the halls of Savvis Center, rushing through the doors into the arena, flying down the stairs, barely stopping for the ushers to check the branded numbers on our hands. “Slow down! You’re almost there!” one of them told me. But I didn’t slow down. I ran, my legs, frozen from November and atrophy, stretching across the rubber floor that radiated the bitterness of the hockey ice beneath. I flashed my hand to another usher, who nodded me into the passage under the walkway that jutted into the audience. I didn’t stop until I was with the others, dwarfed in the shadow of the stage.
For another ninety minutes, we sat on the rubber floor until the ice began to bleed through, chilling us again. Then we’d stand until the cold permeated our shoes and the skin of our feet. The floor behind us filled, and we joined conversations. People who’d driven from Kentucky, Chicago, Tennessee. People who’d driven to St. Louis immediately after the concert in Kansas City the night before, sleeping in those lifeless tents. People who’d seen them before, telling those of us who hadn’t that we were about to be moved to the cores of our souls. Conversations interrupted by forty-five minutes of the opening act, followed by another thirty minutes of waiting.
The hoard behind us began to push. No more conversation – the time had come to stake claims to the spots we’d waited so long to hold. Bracing against the force behind me, I felt the lunge in my gut, the stomp and flutter of something inside me. My claustrophobia stirred, noting the heat of the oxygen-less air, the closeness of the bodies crushing into me. While my friends clamored and squealed, I closed my eyes and I prayed. It seemed so petty, praying for myself at a silly rock concert when there’s so much horror in the world. People who sleep in concrete bassinettes every night, not just for a chance to stand on the covered hockey ice and play air guitar. People who are so gripped by fear that they can’t leave the walls of their houses, who are struck by paralyzing horror anytime a plane passes overhead. People who have been left alone since one day in September.
And here I am, praying that my fat, dehydrated, exhausted body can withstand the intensity of standing on the ice, crushed against humanity, just to hear some songs.
God, just let me stay upright on these swollen feet and weary legs. Let me stand without being crushed. Don’t let this be the moment I have a heart attack or a stroke. Please keep me from puking. Just please. Please put me where I need to be right now. Let me see what I’m supposed to see.
The music shifted, and Stevie Wonder’s voice swarmed over the masses with the whining keyboards of “Higher Ground”, which launched into The Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, melded into “All You Need is Love”. It wouldn’t be until the next morning that we’d know that George Harrison had died while we were sitting on the frozen sidewalk. In twelve hours we’d be glued to VH1, watching George softly singing “Here Comes the Sun.” But tonight, we celebrated in the truth of the music he’d created before the four of us were born.
With the houselights up, The Beatles gave way to U2 sneaking onto the stage and ripping into “Elevation”
High, higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here
At corner of your lips
As the orbit of your hips
Eclipse
You elevate my soul
In the yellow glow of the lights, everyone around me became airborne, their feet springing from the frozen ice below, one mass with three hundred parts, leaping to the beat, with me wedged in the middle. My legs screamed at me as the lights burned into my eyes. In the brightness, the band – not twenty feet away – shimmered in the same light as me, as if the performance was only in my head. My body bounced to the music, disconnected from the portion of my brain that screamed for it to stop, to rest.
I remember when I was ten years old and MTV came to my hometown. The first vision my eyes drank from the screen were of four young men walking the rubbled streets of Dublin. I didn’t get their music, their anger at the politicos of the world, didn’t understand the terror that had been a part of their lives in Northern Ireland since the days of their births. In my child’s mind, it was dark music about a darkness in the world that I didn’t know existed.
Twenty years later, standing on cold ground while breathing hot air, my body surrendering, it made sense. The band returned to those songs I heard as a child, the songs I couldn’t embrace then. Bono, the lead singer, stalked the walkway into the audience to the beat of a military drum.
I can't believe the news today
I can't close my eyes
And make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long...
Tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...
Broken bottles under children's feet
And bodies strewn across a dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
Puts my back up
My back up against the wall
With those words, my heart stopped. The cold that had crept through my body all day clutched my heart and everything deeper within me. The cold took those words and wrapped them through my organs and pulled me away from the walls of people surrounding me.
I understood.
The song, its images of terror in Ireland over two decades earlier. Images from my own country, still new and unreal in my mind, like they’d grown out of my brain from years of seeing the atrocities that happened to other worlds on the evening news. Through the dizziness and nausea that held me so still, I understood the rage that connects our worlds. The experiences we share, the words that heal both of us. “We’ve been here before,” they seemed to say. “We’ve been here, and we know. And it still doesn’t make any sense. But we know.”
Bono stopped singing, but the band continued to play. Through the crowd in front of me, I watched as he crouched, extending his arms into the crowd. When he stood, his back to me, I could see the fabric clutched in his hands, the broad red and white stripes of a flag. He seemed to cradle it to his chest, an embrace of solidarity and understanding. But when he turned, I saw it was so much more than an embrace. With one arm wrapped around the flag, the other stretched to his side, the fabric draping his fist, he danced. Slowly, he swayed, eyes fluttered closed, mouth turned slightly upwards in a gentle smile, the kind given to an injured child by one who understands the hurt. The embrace of solidarity evolved into an act of love, a slow dance with a wounded partner. As he caressed the fabric to his cheek, someone in front of me raised another flag, the orange, green, and white of Ireland, waving strong and broad in salute. The crowd under the flag no longer lept. They no longer screamed. In silence they watched from under the solid canopy of the Irish flag.
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
I’m not sure when I finally realized that the tears poured from my tired eyes and my throat was clenched in mourning. Everything I’d held at bay for two long months, the heat of terror and grief, had burst through my frozen skin. The battered shell of my body could no longer stand there.
I had seen what I needed to see. I tugged the hem of Kristina’s sweater and told her I needed a break. And with that, I left. I pushed through the crowd, heaved my heavy soul up the stairs, and gulped the open air in the lobby.
I missed the rest of the show while I sat in the lobby, trembling and weak, not strong enough to go to the first aid station. They’d probably just think I had overindulged, and I didn’t feel like pleading my case otherwise.
The disappointment hit quick and hard. After waiting for months to see them, after putting myself through a self- imposed hell, I was missing the show. I tried to feel sorry for myself, but the self-pity didn’t come. Nothing came. Just a long-forgotten silence within me. I could hear the music from where I sat, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t concentrate on anything, just lapped up the solitude. I didn’t feel alone. I could fill my lungs for the first time all day. For the first time in months.
I’m not twenty-one anymore. I can’t physically tolerate the grueling tenacity required to operate on little sleep, with little water, in harsh conditions. The day after the concert I realized what I had done to myself – in an effort to avoid bathroom breaks during the long wait, I hadn’t drunk the gallon of water I consume daily. It wasn’t a heart attack or a stroke that had made me reel; it was dehydration. Something so simple, missing something so elemental had made me ferociously ill. At twenty-one, I could have operated solely on beer and adrenaline.
But at twenty-one, I wouldn’t have understood. I wouldn’t have been able to grasp the truth that comes from an Irishman dancing with an American flag and telling us to wipe our tears away. I was too alienated then, too wrapped up in my own wars to understand such love, love that reaches beyond each individual, each country. At twenty-one I would have rejected that love, because I hadn’t seen the darkness of the world.
At twenty-nine, I’ve seen that darkness. I’ve also seen light. And I’ve seen how music can thaw the cold, salve the burn, and silence the noise.
Reflections from an Old Woman in the Mosh Pit
I’m not twenty-one anymore.
I may look like I’m twenty-one. I may bear similarities to who I was when I was twenty-one. But the cold fact is, I haven’t been twenty-one in eight years.
Sometimes, though, you’ve got to act like you’re twenty-one, just one final time. Slow-dance with your youth for a night and reap the consequences later.
I should have outgrown rock star excitement somewhere down the line, the days when I would blindly blow my rent money on concert tickets, call in sick to work for a week so I could follow a band around the Midwest. Sleeping on concrete and bathing in gas station bathroom sinks, just for a chance to dance with other lost souls.
A great deal of rock star excitement somehow survived in me, despite being flogged by adult responsibility.
My friend Kristina is twenty-one, and so much like what I used to be. In the fall of 2001, when everyone was afraid to venture out of the CNN haze of war, Kristina and her roommate Sarah couldn’t stay home. They fled their apartment in Bowling Green, Ohio, in pursuit of U2. In Sarah’s maroon Toyota with her dad’s Texaco credit card in hand; they followed the band to Chicago, Indiana, and Rhode Island. They lugged their sleeping bags to the arenas at five in the morning, sleeping like street urchins, just for a chance to be so close to the stage that they might make a flash of eye contact, feel a drop of sweat, reveal in the humanity of rock stars.
In late November U2, followed by Kristina and Sarah, came to St. Louis. The girls, along with my friend Kara, converged on my house the night before the show. The next day I lunged out of bed at 4:30 AM, my exhausted eyes burning in the darkness, stumbling through the house and waking everyone.
Even the most sludgy, bitter convenience store coffee taste blissful when it’s 5:16 AM, twenty-three degrees, and you’re wedged in a pickup truck with 15 blankets, six pillows, four backpacks, and three sleepy people.
Overnight, a tent city sprouted on the sidewalk along Fourteenth Street. Reaching down the block, sprouting from the side of the arena, little pods of nylon slept with no signs of life. When the stream of tents ended, lifeless bundled masses of humans continued the line, their breath substituted by coffee cup steam and cigarette smoke. They stretched past the metal and glass of Savvis Center and huddled into the cold concrete and stone of the old Kiel Opera House, swooping down a short flight of stairs into a pit, where the wall turned into boarded doors. We descended the stairs, resting our pillows against the frigid wall and spreading our blankets over the bitter floor. Our four bodies, padded and shielded, wedged into our little cubbyhole to wait.
We had purchased our tickets to the show two weeks prior. General admission tickets for $45. It’s a good deal, but g.a. means there are no guarantees. Those who don’t show up before dawn are relegated to the back, far from the stage, watching the ocean of bodies that separates them from the stage. At each show they’d attended, Kristina and Sarah had lined up early and were rewarded with positions that were mere feet from the stage, an arm’s reach from a calloused hand still warm from the metal guitar strings. And that’s why we crammed into our cubbyhole, under a mountain of blankets on that cold November day, before day began. Just for that moment at 7 AM, when the girl with the clipboard and the red marker would brand our hands with numbers, indicating our place in line, and the order we’d be allowed into the arena at 6 PM. A red brand in honor of our tenacity, or to mark us as idiots for the rest of the world.
And so we waited, wrapped in whatever warmth we could gain from the blankets, eating fluffy, warm beneigts brought by my husband, taking walks to Union Station for bathroom breaks and to relieve the unbearable monotony of sitting in a concrete alcove in the cold. Sarah barely moved all day. She stayed in her cocoon, her nose in a biology textbook, saving her energy.
Maybe I should have taken a hint from Sarah. In the days since the show, I’ve played the “what if” game far too many times. What if I’d just stayed still, hibernated in that alcove, instead of letting the boredom get to me? I spent more time walking the streets of downtown than I spent sitting quietly. I walked until the friction of my feet on the sidewalk was strong enough to warm me. I walked under the gaze of the Victorian landmarks and sleek shining new buildings, trying to find a place in my adopted city while my friends sat on the concrete, staring at the sheriff’s department building, watching the building’s inhabitants watch them back. I fought with myself, willing myself to give in to boredom for once, to take advantage of the opportunity to simply sit quietly for a day, knowing that my reward would come when the band took the stage at 8 PM. But that wasn’t enough to stop the constant frenzy that forever resides within me, driven by guilt to be doing anything - anything but sitting on my ass.
I returned from one of my walks shortly before 4 PM, just in time to help gather our blankets and rush them to the truck in the spitting rain. The others changed clothes in the parking garage, hidden behind the opened doors. They fluffed hat-matted hair, drew borders around their sleep-starved eyes with black pencils, spritzed perfume and smeared deodorant, vain attempts to mask the effects of a sleepless night and a motionless day. I stood nearby, still in my navy t-shirt under a charcoal gray fleece pullover that matched the darkening sky. My bag of clothes – low-cut shirt and shiny black shoes – stayed buried under the blankets, and my face remained rain-smeared and wind-chapped pink.
We returned to the arena as the lady with the clipboard began checking the numbers on our hands, lining us up in order. No more warm blankets, no more overhead awning, no more pillows to sit upon. Just room on the sidewalk to stand for two and a half hours as the drizzle grew into dark waves of rain. We’d left our coats and umbrellas in the truck, shedding all items that would be in the way once we were inside the arena. The crowd behind us pushed, and slowly we inched under an awning, damp and cold.
No books to keep us occupied, no place to take a nap, no places left to walk in the rain. We stood, shifting from one foot to the other, giggling wildly, yet nervously. Exhaustion dripped through us, expressed as punch-drunkenness. Kristina kept us entertained by doing silly dances. We chatted with the people in line with us. Anything to keep us from clock-watching and thinking about the cold.
They let us inside at 6 PM. Through the turnstiles, patted by security, we ran through the halls of Savvis Center, rushing through the doors into the arena, flying down the stairs, barely stopping for the ushers to check the branded numbers on our hands. “Slow down! You’re almost there!” one of them told me. But I didn’t slow down. I ran, my legs, frozen from November and atrophy, stretching across the rubber floor that radiated the bitterness of the hockey ice beneath. I flashed my hand to another usher, who nodded me into the passage under the walkway that jutted into the audience. I didn’t stop until I was with the others, dwarfed in the shadow of the stage.
For another ninety minutes, we sat on the rubber floor until the ice began to bleed through, chilling us again. Then we’d stand until the cold permeated our shoes and the skin of our feet. The floor behind us filled, and we joined conversations. People who’d driven from Kentucky, Chicago, Tennessee. People who’d driven to St. Louis immediately after the concert in Kansas City the night before, sleeping in those lifeless tents. People who’d seen them before, telling those of us who hadn’t that we were about to be moved to the cores of our souls. Conversations interrupted by forty-five minutes of the opening act, followed by another thirty minutes of waiting.
The hoard behind us began to push. No more conversation – the time had come to stake claims to the spots we’d waited so long to hold. Bracing against the force behind me, I felt the lunge in my gut, the stomp and flutter of something inside me. My claustrophobia stirred, noting the heat of the oxygen-less air, the closeness of the bodies crushing into me. While my friends clamored and squealed, I closed my eyes and I prayed. It seemed so petty, praying for myself at a silly rock concert when there’s so much horror in the world. People who sleep in concrete bassinettes every night, not just for a chance to stand on the covered hockey ice and play air guitar. People who are so gripped by fear that they can’t leave the walls of their houses, who are struck by paralyzing horror anytime a plane passes overhead. People who have been left alone since one day in September.
And here I am, praying that my fat, dehydrated, exhausted body can withstand the intensity of standing on the ice, crushed against humanity, just to hear some songs.
God, just let me stay upright on these swollen feet and weary legs. Let me stand without being crushed. Don’t let this be the moment I have a heart attack or a stroke. Please keep me from puking. Just please. Please put me where I need to be right now. Let me see what I’m supposed to see.
The music shifted, and Stevie Wonder’s voice swarmed over the masses with the whining keyboards of “Higher Ground”, which launched into The Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, melded into “All You Need is Love”. It wouldn’t be until the next morning that we’d know that George Harrison had died while we were sitting on the frozen sidewalk. In twelve hours we’d be glued to VH1, watching George softly singing “Here Comes the Sun.” But tonight, we celebrated in the truth of the music he’d created before the four of us were born.
With the houselights up, The Beatles gave way to U2 sneaking onto the stage and ripping into “Elevation”
High, higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here
At corner of your lips
As the orbit of your hips
Eclipse
You elevate my soul
In the yellow glow of the lights, everyone around me became airborne, their feet springing from the frozen ice below, one mass with three hundred parts, leaping to the beat, with me wedged in the middle. My legs screamed at me as the lights burned into my eyes. In the brightness, the band – not twenty feet away – shimmered in the same light as me, as if the performance was only in my head. My body bounced to the music, disconnected from the portion of my brain that screamed for it to stop, to rest.
I remember when I was ten years old and MTV came to my hometown. The first vision my eyes drank from the screen were of four young men walking the rubbled streets of Dublin. I didn’t get their music, their anger at the politicos of the world, didn’t understand the terror that had been a part of their lives in Northern Ireland since the days of their births. In my child’s mind, it was dark music about a darkness in the world that I didn’t know existed.
Twenty years later, standing on cold ground while breathing hot air, my body surrendering, it made sense. The band returned to those songs I heard as a child, the songs I couldn’t embrace then. Bono, the lead singer, stalked the walkway into the audience to the beat of a military drum.
I can't believe the news today
I can't close my eyes
And make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long...
Tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...
Broken bottles under children's feet
And bodies strewn across a dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
Puts my back up
My back up against the wall
With those words, my heart stopped. The cold that had crept through my body all day clutched my heart and everything deeper within me. The cold took those words and wrapped them through my organs and pulled me away from the walls of people surrounding me.
I understood.
The song, its images of terror in Ireland over two decades earlier. Images from my own country, still new and unreal in my mind, like they’d grown out of my brain from years of seeing the atrocities that happened to other worlds on the evening news. Through the dizziness and nausea that held me so still, I understood the rage that connects our worlds. The experiences we share, the words that heal both of us. “We’ve been here before,” they seemed to say. “We’ve been here, and we know. And it still doesn’t make any sense. But we know.”
Bono stopped singing, but the band continued to play. Through the crowd in front of me, I watched as he crouched, extending his arms into the crowd. When he stood, his back to me, I could see the fabric clutched in his hands, the broad red and white stripes of a flag. He seemed to cradle it to his chest, an embrace of solidarity and understanding. But when he turned, I saw it was so much more than an embrace. With one arm wrapped around the flag, the other stretched to his side, the fabric draping his fist, he danced. Slowly, he swayed, eyes fluttered closed, mouth turned slightly upwards in a gentle smile, the kind given to an injured child by one who understands the hurt. The embrace of solidarity evolved into an act of love, a slow dance with a wounded partner. As he caressed the fabric to his cheek, someone in front of me raised another flag, the orange, green, and white of Ireland, waving strong and broad in salute. The crowd under the flag no longer lept. They no longer screamed. In silence they watched from under the solid canopy of the Irish flag.
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
I’m not sure when I finally realized that the tears poured from my tired eyes and my throat was clenched in mourning. Everything I’d held at bay for two long months, the heat of terror and grief, had burst through my frozen skin. The battered shell of my body could no longer stand there.
I had seen what I needed to see. I tugged the hem of Kristina’s sweater and told her I needed a break. And with that, I left. I pushed through the crowd, heaved my heavy soul up the stairs, and gulped the open air in the lobby.
I missed the rest of the show while I sat in the lobby, trembling and weak, not strong enough to go to the first aid station. They’d probably just think I had overindulged, and I didn’t feel like pleading my case otherwise.
The disappointment hit quick and hard. After waiting for months to see them, after putting myself through a self- imposed hell, I was missing the show. I tried to feel sorry for myself, but the self-pity didn’t come. Nothing came. Just a long-forgotten silence within me. I could hear the music from where I sat, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t concentrate on anything, just lapped up the solitude. I didn’t feel alone. I could fill my lungs for the first time all day. For the first time in months.
I’m not twenty-one anymore. I can’t physically tolerate the grueling tenacity required to operate on little sleep, with little water, in harsh conditions. The day after the concert I realized what I had done to myself – in an effort to avoid bathroom breaks during the long wait, I hadn’t drunk the gallon of water I consume daily. It wasn’t a heart attack or a stroke that had made me reel; it was dehydration. Something so simple, missing something so elemental had made me ferociously ill. At twenty-one, I could have operated solely on beer and adrenaline.
But at twenty-one, I wouldn’t have understood. I wouldn’t have been able to grasp the truth that comes from an Irishman dancing with an American flag and telling us to wipe our tears away. I was too alienated then, too wrapped up in my own wars to understand such love, love that reaches beyond each individual, each country. At twenty-one I would have rejected that love, because I hadn’t seen the darkness of the world.
At twenty-nine, I’ve seen that darkness. I’ve also seen light. And I’ve seen how music can thaw the cold, salve the burn, and silence the noise.
posted by Poppymom at 3:43 PM
12 comments
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Mother's Day: Pros and Cons
Pro: Waking up to find this hot daddy next to me, along with sweet cards from B. and Clara "Dust Devil" Jane.
Con: My own mother currently dislikes me, and my father pretty much hates me.
Pro: Since we cut our visit to my hometown short by a day - hey! - we've got an extra day.
Con: All that wasted time driving to and from my hometown, nevermind the time there. Don't get me started.
Pro: Getting to spend some time with my cousins Tyler and Hillary while in my hometown, who I don't see often enough.
Con: Getting so spend some time with another cousin, who felt the need to tell us how one of her many dogs comes running when he sees anyone picking their noses because she wants to eat the boogers.
Pro: Discovering the potential of making our next home in Belleville, Illinois, where they have a quaint town square, several Metrolink stops that lead to urbanization, and houses like this sell for about a dollar fifty.*
Con: Realizing that, if we do move to Belleville, I'll be one of those Illinois drivers I mock. Or worse, all those Illinois drivers I've mocked will be waiting for me.
Pro: I'm going to Chicago to see U2 tomorrow!
Con: I missed last night's Chicago U2 show in favor of having my pysche bull-whipped yet again by my parents.
Pro: They're sitting in the living room. One's talking to his mom in Michigan. The other is playing with her LeapPad.
Con: I honestly can't think of one, aside from I haven't completely fucked up my relationship with both of them. There's still hope.
Much love to my fellow mamas. Yo.
*And how could I possibly not live in a town with a restaurant named Hazel & Betty's Mexican Food, located in the bowling alley? We could base this potential move solely on the existance of this restaurant.
Con: My own mother currently dislikes me, and my father pretty much hates me.
Pro: Since we cut our visit to my hometown short by a day - hey! - we've got an extra day.
Con: All that wasted time driving to and from my hometown, nevermind the time there. Don't get me started.
Pro: Getting to spend some time with my cousins Tyler and Hillary while in my hometown, who I don't see often enough.
Con: Getting so spend some time with another cousin, who felt the need to tell us how one of her many dogs comes running when he sees anyone picking their noses because she wants to eat the boogers.
Pro: Discovering the potential of making our next home in Belleville, Illinois, where they have a quaint town square, several Metrolink stops that lead to urbanization, and houses like this sell for about a dollar fifty.*
Con: Realizing that, if we do move to Belleville, I'll be one of those Illinois drivers I mock. Or worse, all those Illinois drivers I've mocked will be waiting for me.
Pro: I'm going to Chicago to see U2 tomorrow!
Con: I missed last night's Chicago U2 show in favor of having my pysche bull-whipped yet again by my parents.
Pro: They're sitting in the living room. One's talking to his mom in Michigan. The other is playing with her LeapPad.
Con: I honestly can't think of one, aside from I haven't completely fucked up my relationship with both of them. There's still hope.
Much love to my fellow mamas. Yo.
*And how could I possibly not live in a town with a restaurant named Hazel & Betty's Mexican Food, located in the bowling alley? We could base this potential move solely on the existance of this restaurant.
posted by Poppymom at 6:28 AM
3 comments
Friday, May 06, 2005
Apparently, I'm invisible
...or I'm just not allowed to blog anymore.
If you can see this, lucky you, because all I'm getting is a white page. And my regular blog still isn't up.
Good thing I saw my therapist today, or else I'd be getting all paranoid and taking this personally.
If you can see this, lucky you, because all I'm getting is a white page. And my regular blog still isn't up.
Good thing I saw my therapist today, or else I'd be getting all paranoid and taking this personally.
posted by Poppymom at 2:11 PM
5 comments
Friday Shuffle - The Relocation Blues
For the five regular readers who have followed me from my broken home to the Econo-Inn...
1. I Want You (She's So Heavy) - The Beatles
2. Members Only - Sheryl Crow
3. I'm Free Now - Morphine
4. Nothing Man - Bruce Springsteen
5. Book of Flags - Q and Not U
6. Not Home Anymore - Whiskeytown
7. Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
8. The Air Near My Fingers - White Stripes
9. Bamboo (Interlude) - Outkast
10. Far Away Christmas Blues - Asylum Street Spankers
1. I Want You (She's So Heavy) - The Beatles
2. Members Only - Sheryl Crow
3. I'm Free Now - Morphine
4. Nothing Man - Bruce Springsteen
5. Book of Flags - Q and Not U
6. Not Home Anymore - Whiskeytown
7. Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
8. The Air Near My Fingers - White Stripes
9. Bamboo (Interlude) - Outkast
10. Far Away Christmas Blues - Asylum Street Spankers
posted by Poppymom at 7:26 AM
2 comments
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Damn kids
I'm watching the local morning news, where they just gave detailed instructions on how to get high by huffing aerosol fumes. I have two comments:
1. Slow news day?
2. Thanks for the tips! I don't think I've been getting the maximum Aqua-Net bang for my huffing buck. With these new tips and tricks, I hope to at least double my huffing brain damage. Thanks, Fox 2!
(No, I'm not a huffer. Geez. Sarcasm. I'm not 14; I can afford real drugs. Again, sarcasm.)
Yesterday Clara "Huffer" Jane and I went to a local chi-chi garden center in a somewhat chi-chi part of town in search of Mother's Day gifts. Why? Because I like to give my mom and grandma Mother's Day gifts they can kill. I think it's cathartic. I've never hunted in my life, but with the way things have gone in my life recently, I'm hoping for a shotgun and a hunting trip where I might shoot a bear for Mother's Day. I'll be lucky if I get a card.
Anyway ...
Huffer was in fine form yesterday. It was all shrieking, all the time. The pitch of her whining indicated that being pushed in her stroller through the aisles of beautiful flowers, trying to find the perfect overstuffed hanging basket to express our love to Mimi was akin to having her bare feet shoved into a paper shredder. Luckily (I thought), two little cherubs, dressed in head-to-toe Talbots Kidswear came to the rescue. Or so I thought.
The 4-year-girl, complete with a white bow in her blonde hair and painted red toenails peeking out from her sandals, seemed sweet enough. "Oh, look at the baby!" she called to her 2-year-old brother, and they swooped onto Huffer's stroller. She was thrilled to have other children to commisserate with regarding how terrible it is to be forced to spend time looking at flowers and how maybe they should call the authorities.
That's when The Cherub started turning into a little minion. She grabbed Huffer's hand and gave a pull. I said, "Hey Bitch. Quit it." Well, not quite. But I did step in, of course. So did The Cherub's mother, who said, "Oh! Look at her little feet! Touch her toes!" she commanded The Cherub, who proceeded to pinch my child's bare toes while her mother said, "Awwwww!"!
I suddenly had to look at some weeds on the other side of the greenhouse. "Where are you going?" called The Cherub as Huffer and I walked away. "Are you going to your car? Where's your car?" I pretended to not hear her, because as rude as it is for one child to pinch another child's toes at her mother's requested, it's even more rude to plow over mother and child with a motherfucking stroller while throwing polished river rocks at their heads.
"Hee hee hee," The Cherub giggled when it became apparent that I wasn't listening to her. "You have a really big butt!"
Her parents need to get a refund from whatever finishing school that's educating that brat. They also need to get a helmet for her, because I have a feeling that as she gets older, she's gonna get a lot of polished river rocks thrown at her damn head.
1. Slow news day?
2. Thanks for the tips! I don't think I've been getting the maximum Aqua-Net bang for my huffing buck. With these new tips and tricks, I hope to at least double my huffing brain damage. Thanks, Fox 2!
(No, I'm not a huffer. Geez. Sarcasm. I'm not 14; I can afford real drugs. Again, sarcasm.)
Yesterday Clara "Huffer" Jane and I went to a local chi-chi garden center in a somewhat chi-chi part of town in search of Mother's Day gifts. Why? Because I like to give my mom and grandma Mother's Day gifts they can kill. I think it's cathartic. I've never hunted in my life, but with the way things have gone in my life recently, I'm hoping for a shotgun and a hunting trip where I might shoot a bear for Mother's Day. I'll be lucky if I get a card.
Anyway ...
Huffer was in fine form yesterday. It was all shrieking, all the time. The pitch of her whining indicated that being pushed in her stroller through the aisles of beautiful flowers, trying to find the perfect overstuffed hanging basket to express our love to Mimi was akin to having her bare feet shoved into a paper shredder. Luckily (I thought), two little cherubs, dressed in head-to-toe Talbots Kidswear came to the rescue. Or so I thought.
The 4-year-girl, complete with a white bow in her blonde hair and painted red toenails peeking out from her sandals, seemed sweet enough. "Oh, look at the baby!" she called to her 2-year-old brother, and they swooped onto Huffer's stroller. She was thrilled to have other children to commisserate with regarding how terrible it is to be forced to spend time looking at flowers and how maybe they should call the authorities.
That's when The Cherub started turning into a little minion. She grabbed Huffer's hand and gave a pull. I said, "Hey Bitch. Quit it." Well, not quite. But I did step in, of course. So did The Cherub's mother, who said, "Oh! Look at her little feet! Touch her toes!" she commanded The Cherub, who proceeded to pinch my child's bare toes while her mother said, "Awwwww!"!
I suddenly had to look at some weeds on the other side of the greenhouse. "Where are you going?" called The Cherub as Huffer and I walked away. "Are you going to your car? Where's your car?" I pretended to not hear her, because as rude as it is for one child to pinch another child's toes at her mother's requested, it's even more rude to plow over mother and child with a motherfucking stroller while throwing polished river rocks at their heads.
"Hee hee hee," The Cherub giggled when it became apparent that I wasn't listening to her. "You have a really big butt!"
Her parents need to get a refund from whatever finishing school that's educating that brat. They also need to get a helmet for her, because I have a feeling that as she gets older, she's gonna get a lot of polished river rocks thrown at her damn head.
posted by Poppymom at 6:32 AM
7 comments
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Monkey for rent
Why has this never occured to me?
(from Craiglist):
Reply to: anon-70499915@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-04-27, 4:28PM CDT
or possibly chimp Sat. May 7th 8pm - 9pm Under $150.00
Must be friendly and housebroken.
Drinking and Smoking ok.
Clean enviroment.
Huge tips if the monkey/chimp can ride a tiny bike or juggle.
No humans in monkey suits please.
thanks,
d
(from Craiglist):
Looking for a Monkey to rent
Reply to: anon-70499915@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-04-27, 4:28PM CDT
or possibly chimp Sat. May 7th 8pm - 9pm Under $150.00
Must be friendly and housebroken.
Drinking and Smoking ok.
Clean enviroment.
Huge tips if the monkey/chimp can ride a tiny bike or juggle.
No humans in monkey suits please.
thanks,
d
posted by Poppymom at 8:06 PM
2 comments
Gone Country
Warning: any punk rock cred I ever possessed is about to be obliterated with the following confessions.Nashville
And yet, I still managed to forget to pack Kleenex for Sunday night's show.
We were a bit disappointed when we arrived at the ampitheater. I'm pretty sure Ticketbastard stuck a Mullet Viewing Convenience Fee onto our ticket price, but we didn't see one single solitary mullet. Lots of cowboy hats, but no mullets. Even Alan seems to have shortened the party in the back recently.
Otherwise, Alan didn't disappoint. The blubbering started early in the show with "Little Bitty" when they showed kids in the audiance on the big screens.
Holly: Oh! They're showing kids!
Me: sob I almost brought my kid. She cried when she said 'bye bye Mama' tonight!
(commence moaning and wailing and writhing on the ground)
But it didn't stop there. Then he tried to kill us with "Livin' on Love":
Holley: sob He wrote this about his parents.
Me: sob And there are pictures of them on the big screen. Just look
how cute and in love they were!
Holley: wail And the pictures are in black and white! Black and
white tears me up!
Me: blubbering And his daddy's dead!
(commence moaning and wailing and writhing on the ground)
But that was nothing. Oh no. While we were down, that hillbilly motherfucker had to really kick the shit out of us with his pointy-toed boots by first doing "Drive (for Daddy Gene)". Oh, and did I mention that Daddy Gene is dead? Well, he is, which just makes it that much more gut-wrenching. At this point, so intense was the moaning and wailing and writhing that Holley and I couldn't even converse, but if we had been able to do so, I'm sure it would have sounded like this:
Me: wailingMy grandpa used to hold me on his lap and let me drive!
Holley: moaningJust like Alan's daddy, who's dead!
(moaning and wailing and writhing)
Me: wailingMy daddy and I used to sneak out to the country when I was a kid and he'd let me drive.
Holley: moaning So did Alan's daddy. Did I mention that he's dead?
(moaning and wailing and writhing)
Me:really wailingOh my God! I've got a daughter of my own. Someday I'll let her drive and someday she'll pull out that old memory, think of me and smile!
Holley:moaningProbably because you'll be dead!
(EMTs come to take us away.)
And then the motherfucker did "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)", and we would have really moaned and wailed and writhed but we could because we were dead because Alan Jackson fucking killed us!
However, during all of the moaning and wailing and writhing, I still was able to be super-obnoxious. My mom's a huge AJ fan, but has never seen him live. So, anytime he did one of the songs she likes, I'd whip out my cell phone and call her. Not that she could really hear what was going on. And not that I said anything while I was doing it, although she probably recognizes my moaning and wailing and writhing in the background.
Now, if someone calls you upwards of ten times in one night and forces you to listen to a concert through a cell phone, wouldn't you get a annoyed? Not my mom. At one point I hung up during what she deemed a crucial concert moment, so she called me right back.
"Who keeps calling?" my dad asked her.
"Alan Jackson," Mom said. And then she moaned and wailed and writhed.
The madness ended with "Where I Come From", where I cried, "Oh my God! It really is cornbread and chicken where I come from! And the chickens are dead!"
From now on I only go to shows where I'll cry only because I've been trampled in the mosh pit.
I’ve got a weird relationship with country music. Just like with pop music, I can’t stand what’s played on the radio, for the most part. Kara’s dad’s got a great term for it: Wal-Mart country.
“You used to listen to country all the time,” my mom would say when I would clutch my throat with one hand and mock sticking my finger down my throat with the other when they’d subject me to “their” music.
Brian hid in the basement that day, and when he came upstairs he found me, blubbering on the couch next to a mountain of used Kleenex.
"What's wrong?" Brian asked.
Country music + pregnancy hormones = enough sobbing to merit running the couch slipcover through the dryer.
And yet, I still managed to forget to pack Kleenex for Sunday night's show.
We were a bit disappointed when we arrived at the ampitheater. I'm pretty sure Ticketbastard stuck a Mullet Viewing Convenience Fee onto our ticket price, but we didn't see one single solitary mullet. Lots of cowboy hats, but no mullets. Even Alan seems to have shortened the party in the back recently.
Otherwise, Alan didn't disappoint. The blubbering started early in the show with "Little Bitty" when they showed kids in the audiance on the big screens.
Holly: Oh! They're showing kids!
Me: sob I almost brought my kid. She cried when she said 'bye bye Mama' tonight!
(commence moaning and wailing and writhing on the ground)
But it didn't stop there. Then he tried to kill us with "Livin' on Love":
Holley: sob He wrote this about his parents.
Me: sob And there are pictures of them on the big screen. Just look
how cute and in love they were!
Holley: wail And the pictures are in black and white! Black and
white tears me up!
Me: blubbering And his daddy's dead!
(commence moaning and wailing and writhing on the ground)
But that was nothing. Oh no. While we were down, that hillbilly motherfucker had to really kick the shit out of us with his pointy-toed boots by first doing "Drive (for Daddy Gene)". Oh, and did I mention that Daddy Gene is dead? Well, he is, which just makes it that much more gut-wrenching. At this point, so intense was the moaning and wailing and writhing that Holley and I couldn't even converse, but if we had been able to do so, I'm sure it would have sounded like this:
Me: wailingMy grandpa used to hold me on his lap and let me drive!
Holley: moaningJust like Alan's daddy, who's dead!
(moaning and wailing and writhing)
Me: wailingMy daddy and I used to sneak out to the country when I was a kid and he'd let me drive.
Holley: moaning So did Alan's daddy. Did I mention that he's dead?
(moaning and wailing and writhing)
Me:really wailingOh my God! I've got a daughter of my own. Someday I'll let her drive and someday she'll pull out that old memory, think of me and smile!
Holley:moaningProbably because you'll be dead!
(EMTs come to take us away.)
And then the motherfucker did "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)", and we would have really moaned and wailed and writhed but we could because we were dead because Alan Jackson fucking killed us!
However, during all of the moaning and wailing and writhing, I still was able to be super-obnoxious. My mom's a huge AJ fan, but has never seen him live. So, anytime he did one of the songs she likes, I'd whip out my cell phone and call her. Not that she could really hear what was going on. And not that I said anything while I was doing it, although she probably recognizes my moaning and wailing and writhing in the background.
Now, if someone calls you upwards of ten times in one night and forces you to listen to a concert through a cell phone, wouldn't you get a annoyed? Not my mom. At one point I hung up during what she deemed a crucial concert moment, so she called me right back.
"Who keeps calling?" my dad asked her.
"Alan Jackson," Mom said. And then she moaned and wailed and writhed.
The madness ended with "Where I Come From", where I cried, "Oh my God! It really is cornbread and chicken where I come from! And the chickens are dead!"
From now on I only go to shows where I'll cry only because I've been trampled in the mosh pit.
posted by Poppymom at 10:37 AM
8 comments
Monday, May 02, 2005
Yep, I'm back
Seems we're having some problems at ye old homestead (aka poppymom.com). I don't know what's up, but it's being investigated by ye old cuz.
It's probably just as well, since I've got a crazy week ahead of me. Work stuff. A Mother's Day visit to my hometown. A trip to Chicago to hang with Bono. About a gazillion baby gifts to knit, since my friends are single-handedly causing a global population crisis this spring.
I did mentally compose a post this afternoon, and let me tell you, it was frigging hilarious! Seriously. You would have laughed so hard. If I happen to remember any of it tomorrow and Clara "Little Bitty" Jane cooperates by taking a nap, I'll regale you with the hilarity. In the meantime, Holley has discussed some of the issues that have been on my mind.
It's probably just as well, since I've got a crazy week ahead of me. Work stuff. A Mother's Day visit to my hometown. A trip to Chicago to hang with Bono. About a gazillion baby gifts to knit, since my friends are single-handedly causing a global population crisis this spring.
I did mentally compose a post this afternoon, and let me tell you, it was frigging hilarious! Seriously. You would have laughed so hard. If I happen to remember any of it tomorrow and Clara "Little Bitty" Jane cooperates by taking a nap, I'll regale you with the hilarity. In the meantime, Holley has discussed some of the issues that have been on my mind.
posted by Poppymom at 10:01 PM
3 comments
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Mirror mirror on the wall - who has the reddest neck of all?
File this under: Shit I Couldn't Make Up Even if I Wanted To
This morning I was on the phone with my mom, hearing all the details of their trip to Lebanon, Missouri, hometown to the Poppy family's matriarchal line, pronounced "LEB-nin", usually in a deep Ozark twang. My parents and grandparents made a trip to Lebanon yesterday for the funeral visitation of Charlie Earl (name not changed to protect the probably never very innocent), one of my grandpa's many cousins. Or maybe he was my grandma's cousin. I don't know for sure, as there's some overlap in who's related to whom.
Anyway, Charlie Earl, who achieved his goal of being a welfare recipient many years ago, had a gaggle of adult children and a semi-new wife of seven years. Charlie Earl knew he was dying and he informed his wife of his exact wishes in regards to his funeral service. Mrs. Charlie Earl said that she would pay for the entire funeral, as long as no one in the family changed Charlie Earl's plans.
After his death, Charlie Earl's many progeny, most of whom my mom described as "ornerier than sin", showed up and offered their input into how they thought dear ol' dad should be sent to his heavenly home. Mrs. Charlie Earl, per Charlie Earl's wishes, informed the progeny that she would no longer be paying for the funeral. One of Charlie Earl's female progency decked Mrs. Charlie Earl, right there in the funeral home. Mrs. Charlie Earl decked back.
I suppose this might be a good time to tell you that the people in my mom's extended family can be easily divided into two sub-groups: those with teeth, and those without.
My mom skipped the actual visitation because Aunt Flory (again, name unchanged) would be present. Aunt Flory, who orchestrated the murder of Granny's brother, Uncle Dink (really - that was his name), about 25 years ago. Mom can't handle being anywhere near Aunt Flory, and the family didnt' think Granny should be near her, either. "She don't need to be 'round them none," said Grandpa. Granny disagreed, saying it would be wrong to not pay her respects.
"That is the good, Christian thing to do," said my mom's cousin Donita, who decided to do the unchristian thing and spend the visitation time with my mom at 91-year-old Aunt Idy's house. Donita's really skinny with large hair and great big sparkly rings on every finger. And teeth. She does have teeth.
"Charlie Earl's obituary said that he worked over 30 years for Berry Masonary," said Donita. "More like 30 minutes."
Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the rest of the story. I don't know if anymore funeral home fistfights broke out, or if Granny suddenly turned unchristian when faced with Aunt Flory. During this point in the conversation, I looked out my living room window and saw a cop walking up to my front door.
It seems the neighbor behind us has issued a formal complaint about my hound dogs:
Barking dog: Willfully and knowingly allowed dogs to bark, disturbing the peace of complainant (insert drunken redneck name here) at (insert address of house with camper on blocks in yard here) in the late hours and through the night.
Yes, I do have barking hound dogs. That's why I keep them inside at night. Every night. This is exactly what we told this neighbor in April when she complained directly to us. We even proved this to her, when she complained about our dogs barking during a weekend in which our dogs were out of town. "Well, I cain't 'member what happened that weekend. I was drunk." That's what she said. She's having drunken hallucinations of dogs barking and she's filed complaint against us.
So, I have a court date - on my daughter's first birthday, no less - in which I was be forced to prove that it ain't my dawgs doin' the barkin' and that she either needs to mind her own fuckin' bidness or sober up and buy some dayum earplugs. And then, since it's in my family lineage to do so, I'll deck the shit outta her raight there in court. Fuck, I gots people in my fam'ly who'll start a knock-down drag-out in a funeral home. Ain't no tellin' what I'll do in municipal court.
This morning I was on the phone with my mom, hearing all the details of their trip to Lebanon, Missouri, hometown to the Poppy family's matriarchal line, pronounced "LEB-nin", usually in a deep Ozark twang. My parents and grandparents made a trip to Lebanon yesterday for the funeral visitation of Charlie Earl (name not changed to protect the probably never very innocent), one of my grandpa's many cousins. Or maybe he was my grandma's cousin. I don't know for sure, as there's some overlap in who's related to whom.
Anyway, Charlie Earl, who achieved his goal of being a welfare recipient many years ago, had a gaggle of adult children and a semi-new wife of seven years. Charlie Earl knew he was dying and he informed his wife of his exact wishes in regards to his funeral service. Mrs. Charlie Earl said that she would pay for the entire funeral, as long as no one in the family changed Charlie Earl's plans.
After his death, Charlie Earl's many progeny, most of whom my mom described as "ornerier than sin", showed up and offered their input into how they thought dear ol' dad should be sent to his heavenly home. Mrs. Charlie Earl, per Charlie Earl's wishes, informed the progeny that she would no longer be paying for the funeral. One of Charlie Earl's female progency decked Mrs. Charlie Earl, right there in the funeral home. Mrs. Charlie Earl decked back.
I suppose this might be a good time to tell you that the people in my mom's extended family can be easily divided into two sub-groups: those with teeth, and those without.
My mom skipped the actual visitation because Aunt Flory (again, name unchanged) would be present. Aunt Flory, who orchestrated the murder of Granny's brother, Uncle Dink (really - that was his name), about 25 years ago. Mom can't handle being anywhere near Aunt Flory, and the family didnt' think Granny should be near her, either. "She don't need to be 'round them none," said Grandpa. Granny disagreed, saying it would be wrong to not pay her respects.
"That is the good, Christian thing to do," said my mom's cousin Donita, who decided to do the unchristian thing and spend the visitation time with my mom at 91-year-old Aunt Idy's house. Donita's really skinny with large hair and great big sparkly rings on every finger. And teeth. She does have teeth.
"Charlie Earl's obituary said that he worked over 30 years for Berry Masonary," said Donita. "More like 30 minutes."
Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the rest of the story. I don't know if anymore funeral home fistfights broke out, or if Granny suddenly turned unchristian when faced with Aunt Flory. During this point in the conversation, I looked out my living room window and saw a cop walking up to my front door.
It seems the neighbor behind us has issued a formal complaint about my hound dogs:
Barking dog: Willfully and knowingly allowed dogs to bark, disturbing the peace of complainant (insert drunken redneck name here) at (insert address of house with camper on blocks in yard here) in the late hours and through the night.
Yes, I do have barking hound dogs. That's why I keep them inside at night. Every night. This is exactly what we told this neighbor in April when she complained directly to us. We even proved this to her, when she complained about our dogs barking during a weekend in which our dogs were out of town. "Well, I cain't 'member what happened that weekend. I was drunk." That's what she said. She's having drunken hallucinations of dogs barking and she's filed complaint against us.
So, I have a court date - on my daughter's first birthday, no less - in which I was be forced to prove that it ain't my dawgs doin' the barkin' and that she either needs to mind her own fuckin' bidness or sober up and buy some dayum earplugs. And then, since it's in my family lineage to do so, I'll deck the shit outta her raight there in court. Fuck, I gots people in my fam'ly who'll start a knock-down drag-out in a funeral home. Ain't no tellin' what I'll do in municipal court.
posted by Poppymom at 11:22 AM
10 comments
