Big Girl on Big Families

My whole family, at least my mom's side, right now is sitting at a dinner table in North Carolina celebrating her twin sisters' birthdays.

And I am writing from my computer in Astoria, not there with them.

I hate that.

I could have gone, but three days from now I will be getting on a plane and headed to CA for a wedding of one of my dearest grammar school friends. And seeing most of the family I don't get to see so often. But this weekend I have been depressed and sad, because I want to be there, to kiss those kids faces, talk with the adults and have a happy memory that will last forever.

But too, this is a pipe dream-- see in theory, it is a great idea, the whole family laughing around the dinner table, sharing stories, being together. What really happens is this one gets mad at that one, somone yells at me, I start to cry, and then lock myself in the bathroom, at which time my mother storms in and tells me to suck it up. Well, not quite, but that's what happened when Gramma died. Nothing like breaking down at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner restaurant over a comment Keith (my brother) made to me about his use of salt. To this day, I swear, I was just looking at the salt going "Should I put salt on my dinner too, it is an old people's restaurant, so it's probably bland." To which my brother, as menacing as can be says "You gota problem with me?" Then, cue the tears.

So yes, it is better that I am here, in my apartment, helping and avoiding Kimi as much as she needs me to do either. I now know that I will not be going back to school for a PHD, wow, the stress she is under has had me break out like a fourteen year old.

But then again, what is family when they are scattered across the country? I consider mom and pop and any relation of blood family, but I consider my closest friends family too-- Anne, Kimi, Dan, Michelle, Christine, Gayle, Desha, Wendy, Kris, Sandhya, et all-- people who are in and out of my life but stay unwavering in their love for me. People I can be filthy with, I can cry with, laugh with, create worlds with. People I actually want over at my house for dinner, or who will, in a moment of sadness, take care of me and let me cry. My family, mom specifically is a big believer in "No one cries alone" unless she is the one that made me cry. Most of my friends have the ability to touch and move me in ways I have never felt before (no, not in that way, you filthy bastard) that have me know that I am completely and totally taken care of.

Family as I move into my thirties has taken on choice of people I want in my life. No longer am I a believer that I need to be well liked, nor that I have to be friends with everyone in the room. No longer to I have to slap on the happy face and do things out of obligation. I can just be.

But then, back to the family around the dinner table. I miss them, I miss the Christmas mornings at gramma's house, eating olives off my fingers (only the black ones, because in my younger days, the green ones were yucky), sitting downstairs opening presents, playing trivial pursuit, laughing and talking, and being together. I miss Church on Sunday mornings with my whole family, and then off to Hoff's Hut for french toast and cocoa. I miss playing marco polo for hours in the pool with my cousins. I miss making up games, pre-survivor survivor, and using what was left in the garage to make up worlds. I miss all that-- the fun, the games, the innocence, the joy. Before I knew who did what to who, before divorces and re-habs, before jail time, before totalled cars, totalled houses, new babies, before we all grew up and left home.

I want those blue skied days of wonder and never ending explorations of what we can create with just our imaginations. And playing together because we love each other, and because we are family. Falling asleep in the sun, watching tv-- four across-- in my parents waterbed. I want to play crazy 8's in my dry-ish bathing suit at the dinner table, I want to eat popcorn with five hands going in and out of the bowl. I want my family back the way it was, when we all lived a couple miles from one another, and I am missed at the dinner table.

I know I am missed at the dinner table. I just had to call to remind them I am not there.

I have to remember how I feel right now.

I never think of myself as huge, and then, I see a picture of me. Taken just moments before, and go, who's that? That is me, this large thing I have become.

Does it make me ugly-- no. Does it make me uncomfortable? Yes. Because regardless of my size, I will always be a big girl, a girl with big dreams, big ideas, big laughs, big cries. Big is just an adjective to describe everything I am, larger than life, whole, grounded, huge, powerful, monstrous, giant, glamorous, glamazon, Amazon, strong, bold, audacious, bodacious.....

We went to lunch for the mouse's birthday, and she said something snappish to me. I really don't care if she doesn't like me, but she is my boss. Maybe she should stop competing with me, and just manage me, and we could get along great. Ever think of that, squeak squeak?

But this isn't about her, in fact she is a waste of space on here. No offense, squeak squeak, but this is about big girls.

So there I am larger than life in a picture with my boss and her boss and the other girls I work with, and I am huge. Huge huge huge. And I can feel it because I haven't worked out in a week or two, and I have been sleeping so much, and I just feel blah. And then proceeded to belong to the clean plate club, and then buy a pair of cockroach killers at the NJ strip mall we were at. And wonder when we are having cake for her birthday. I have no shame.

And I realize that I want to be healthy. I want to look in the mirror and like what I see, or be on the way to liking it. And I am tired of just being tired. Bit by bit it drags me down. Small deaths. A la petite morte-- which is little deaths and orgasms in French. Hmm, more on sex later.

I want an old fashioned merry go round-- the one from the seventies that was metal and rusty and if you stayed in the middle and looked up, your stomach turned flip flops, but your eyes could focus on the one spot in the sky while the world around you spun out of control.

So, to the gym. Walk, breathe the air (without the filter of smoke). Play again. Play play play. Spin out of control as the whole world stays in one place.

What to say?

Taking classes is awesome and hard.

That sounds so dumb, but here goes.....

I am in a class, a year long class. It's based around the cycles of life (read: slightly wiccan) and this month we are in contact with the destroyer. The destroyer being an image we hold in ourselves, and that we do things to destroy ourselves. In circle on our big Saturday we wrote down how we destroy ourselves. Mine are apparent, but going around the room and having other women have the same things that I use to hurt myself was interesting. A bit of "Oh honey, you shouldn't feel that." Crap.

Feel anyway you need to feel.

So, destroyer comes out, and if we don't let her out how she wants, then she takes away from us what she needs.

I go on date number two (which shouldn't have happened at all) with the Elvis Republican. #1: He calls as I am getting there (Sunday brunch date) saying he just got up. Now I want ham and eggs, and I want it in the next hour, but I wait for him. #2: Should have cancelled and said thanks but no thanks right then, but....Read the NY Times, have various non-hip hipsters look at me as I drink my coffee. After I order, he shows up and all I do is say HI.

Elvis Republican: Don't be mad at me.
ME: You are an hour and a half late.
ER: You could have cancelled.
ME: Stop being like eyeore.
ER: How's that?
ME: I am not going to feel sorry for you, I am over it. I ordered you ham and eggs.

As we eat, and drink coffee, talk about various topics (work, family, etc) he begins to spout politics, again. I am so bored bored bored, and am thinking-- that is a face I never want to kiss. Ever.

After a twenty minute tirade, I shut him up.

ME: No more politics. We land on the opposite side of the fence.
ER: But isn't that good?
ME: Not if you ever want to have sex with me.
ER: Oh.
ME: And by the way, who shows up in a Mets jersey for a date? I don't care if it is Sunday, take a goddamned shower, and brush your teeth, You smell like you are rotting from the inside out. Your crew cut is stupid, and you are right, I was reaching to the bottom of the barrel when I agreed to go out with you. Now tip our waiter 10 bucks, because I have taken up his table for too long, and the subway is that way.

Okay, I really didn't say that. The destroyer wanted to say that. What I said was...

ME: no more politics. You are just trying to push my buttons.
ER: In more ways than one.
ME: Eww, gross, no.
ER: What?
ME: I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. I have to go. Thanks for breakfast.
ER: Wait, umm, you wanna go see a movie?
ME: No.
ER: Umm, so that's it? You use me for ham and eggs?
ME: Yeah.

I felt gross, put on my jacket and gave the waiter a ten and thanked him, walked to my car and came home.

That jerk had me waste good makeup.

Where does the class and this date fit it-- well, she wanted to stomp all over him, scream "YOU'RE WRONG, STUPID AND DUMB.". I never understand the political conversations that go "I am right, you are stupid". I respect various opinions, I respect different lifestyles. Hey, if you are into role playing, all the more interesting, if you think horses are aliens, right on, if you go to Church every Sunday, good for you, if you think Bush is a good thing, fine. Just don't come from "I'm right, you are stupid" or "my way is the only way." I might be misinformed, I might not have a stance on issues, but I am interested an fascinated by life, all forms.

The dialogue is more important than the stance.

Oh to find someone to have a conversation with. Who might be a little dark, who might be a little off beat. Who opens my mind, and leads me to water, not forcing me to drink.

Old Phone Numbers

I wanted to talk to you, just like we used to do.
You sitting in your room hiding from the noise and the dogs. Listening to the house that you bought and built be torn apart around you by life moving on.

I wanted to talk to you, just like we used to do.
Me in my room, whispering into the phone, so as to not disturb the various roommates, speaking up when you told me too. Trying not be scared that this was it, that this was all there is, that life somehow, somewhere was around the corner in this big far away city.

I wanted to talk to you, and I called your number. The number you were at for my whole life. The number I cannot erase from my memory, no matter how many times I try. No food, no drug, no wine, no smoke can block out your number in my head. It is and always will be your number. The number that is you, that means that I can reach you any time day and night.

And I got you. I heard your "ahHello" and you knew it was me.
And I didn't speak, because how could I have a phone line to heaven?

You told me that it is beautiful there, and that I need to speak up because God can't hear me all the time, and that you sit every day in the window of your house, just like it was before it got changed, with the shade half down, the sun coming in, having your sanka with one pink sugar. And you have so many friends there, you have so many lives that you had forgotten about. You are excited to see me, but if won't be for a while, so stop trying to hurry it up because we have forever together.

and I said "I love you Gramma. I miss you. I love hearing your voice."

And then you were the silent one.
A man on the other end said "I think you have the wrong number".

It's your number. it will always be your number. And like you said when I was five, and mom was being mean to me, and daddy wasn't home all the time, you told me, you told me if I remembered your number and I needed to call I could call anytime I wanted to. ANYTIME. Well, I am calling now, and you are not there, not there at all and I need you and I need you, and mom isn't being mean but she's getting older, and daddy's not always there and I am getting older too and I am scared. I'm scared this is all there is, and my life isn't just around the corner, it's here now. And that I didn't do a very good job with it.

And all I need you to do is pick up the phone. Just pick it up from heaven. And we can talk someone. We don't even have to talk much about anything. I can read you the tv guide like I once did. I can tell you what's on. You can tell me stories of when I was little. When you were little. Of anyone, anything. It doesn't matter.

Just pick up the phone. just to hear your voice without the tinniness it has in my head. Just to hear it as it should be, in my ear, for me to close my eyes to and fall asleep.

Big Girl on Dating

It's past the millennium, and I didn't become the youngest woman president of the United States. It may have had something to do with smoking pot in college, I think I lost my focus there. And so then I move to NYC, to meet the man of my dreams-- however working in theater, I am more likely to meet the Will to my Grace, or the woman of my dreams, neither of which provide me with the kind of satisfaction I am looking for. Bars, ehhh, community clubs and networking event-- for type A's that are still trying to get their resumes to look well rounded. Classes-- yes, I met a lot of men in them, however, nothing sticks. Online dating.... hmmmm.

I tried online dating a couple years ago, met a funny guy and then talked to him over the phone. It was a nice click. Then on our first and only date, he picks me up in his car, which has a baby seat in the back. No problem. When we are at drinks he tells me he is still married, and his wife is cheating on him so this, for him is payback. Now I am intrigued. But not going to sleep with him. Here's a guy that for all intents and purposes, is a total slob, and unkempt, he is dowdy and has small hands (small hands on a man creep me out, their fingers take on the look of fat little sausages, and they are meaty like a homemade hamburger patty) and HE is MARRIED. I am thinking there is something wrong with me. I end the date, and never speak to him again. And swear off online dating.

Flash forward to two months ago. Online again. In the interim, I have dated three different men at work and in classes. Although none of them did it for me, they were nice, and I learned a few things. I go out on a date with a man who is interesting, but different. Total spark, however, he is a trekkie. A big time trekkie. And to top it off, he cross dresses to express himself. As if being a trekkie wasn't expressive enough. Without that information, I could have been in a longer term serious relationship. However, I had just recently dated a girl, and wanted no part of the alternative lifestyle. The cross dressing trekkie becomes my friend, and again, I think to myself, it must be me. I am doing something wrong. Regardless of how much I like this guy, there is no way I can ever introduce him to my parents-- "Hi mom meet X. No his eyeshadow isn't garish." Here's the worst part, his shoe size is much smaller than mine. And therefore, he has better shoes. That bitch.

So I try again. The next one I meet twitches and shakes over coffee. Well, maybe it is the coffee. And when he speaks to me, it's like he's not really in the conversation at all. "Yeah, I worked for X, yeah yeah, great job." a little while later... "Yeah, I worked for X, yeah yeah, great job." Umm, yeah, you told me about it already. "Oh really, huh, hahahaha, yeah, well I worked for X" Get the picture?

After talking about it with my roommate, I discover that I am really at ease in new social situations. Maybe he wasn't. Okay, so we talk on the phone a week later. "Yeah, I worked for X, yeah yeah, great job." Next.

I then go to a site that caters to women who are luscious and big, and men who are looking to date them. Some of the profile names include "BigDick4BBW" (no his name is not Richard) "Luv4AMPLE" "LuvFatChicks" etc, etc. Yes, I am a BBW, a plus size, zaftig, large, heavy, curvy, and a big girl, however, being someone's fetish is not my style. We'll get into fetishes later. I read some of the profiles-- I'm into fishing and Harley shows, I want a super sized woman to smother me, I want to be dominated (hmm, check him off as interesting), I am an ultra conservative, Rush is my God (and not the band). And still I think there must be something wrong with me.

I am not going to cater to the lowest common denominator, I am not going to be that girl who is just in it for fun. I want a partner, somewhere he is out there. I want partnership, where I can say anything to him, create our world together, where there is no fishing and Harley shows, where muscles are used for work, not display, where I can be comfortable introducing him to my folks, where I can be loved and give love freely... I want the whole package. I want smart, smart ass, funny, witty and wry. I want to be held before I sleep, and holding nothing back. I want creative inventive dates, I want to be wooed. I want future plans made beyond tomorrow, I want a life where we only struggle because we want something more, and there is work to be done before we can get there.

So, I'll keep sifting through the crap, and find a gem. He's gotta be right in front of me somewhere, I just know it. And if I have to take a ride on the back of a motorcycle to find him, I will.

But I swear, I am not going fishing. At least not this week.

Something has shifted recently. I had my apartment cleaned thoroughly this weekend, and I feel like all my clutter is just falling away. Even life clutter. Old friends to say goodbye to, new friends to say hello to, re-adjusting, re-organizing, letting life happen without force or manipulation.

The cleaners were awesome. They got behind the fridge and the stove and did the windows, all the while I hung up clothes, and threw out old shoes, and turned my little bit of bedroom into a haven. A heaven, a heaven on earth.

It is such a nice respite to be in that space, between waking and dreaming, where everything is clean and beautiful. Remember the movie (or book) Where Dreams May Come-- after he dies and he creates his own heaven, he has the opportunity to create heaven however he wants it to look. That's how I feel like in my room, I get to create it however I want it to look.

I recently started up a new relationship. I am not quite sure where it is going, and that's the cool thing, we get to make it up as we go along. I have never been in a situation ever where I have complete open communication with another human being. To top is off, he is a good man, a gentleman while being a bit of a rough as well. Very respectful, and yet not so much. He says he's an enigma, I think that's just because he wants to be.

Anyhow, this new addition into my life had me start looking at places I never want to look at. And being a big girl, I decided to get grown up. Clean my house, pay my bills, and plan for the future. What is it that I want in the future? What is it that I want to possess in the future, as a having, that is created and fun.

Big Girl writes a not really kind of true story

He sits on the plastic chair that came with the house. Just inside the garage so the sun won’t burn his paper like skin. The glass in hand, cool, sweating. Ice clinking together as he sips slowly from the jelly jar that holds the unsweetened, fake lemonade his doctor says will help him with his daily intake of water.
‘I don’t need any water.”
“Doug, you do. You need water. Drink it however you can.”
“Ahhh, the taste is horrible. When I was a boy the water was cool refreshing. It tasted like the earth. Even when I did the scouts with my sons, it tastes fresh, like life. Now, it’s just, well, it’s just chemicals. You can’t even get good water up here, and I live on the damn river. I’m not going to drink it, it makes me feel dead.”
“Just do it. Your body needs it.”

The lady who drops off his weekly groceries dropped off a package of this chemical stuff.
“Now, it doesn’t taste that good, but, well, it takes away the mineral taste of the tap water.”
“Fine.”
“Fine, now let’s see, I got your list, and a treat. Fresh raspberries. They had them at the roadside. I thought you’d like a fresh fruit this week.”
“What do I need that for? Canned is fine. Anyways it will just go bad.”
“Doug, try to be nice. After all it is your birthday… Do you hear from your kids?”
“Not yet.”

It had been early in the day. Early except for the time change that his kids had. He knew by seven he’d hear from them, or maybe not. He couldn’t tell. As long as they called before seven, he could have a beer or two. That’d have plenty of water in it—at least it made him pee enough. Maybe he wouldn’t hear from them. The two most useless were coming up with their assorted broods, the first time for either in quite a while. Maybe they’d wait to wish his birthday in person.

In the chair, he sipped his yellow tasting water. And waited. The memories dancing in his mind, the trips in the car, the driving lessons, the nights too blurry to remember except the next day with hurt feelings and “I’m outta here’s”. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He wanted to see his kids, his kids kids he never saw grow into adults, and then his great grandchildren. He had no idea what they looked like. Maybe a little like him, maybe not. For all he knew, his Navy man grandson could have married an Oriental girl like he had wanted to. Smooth skin, porcelain features, quiet voice, doing anything for him, making him feel like a king. Not like the first woman he married.

Waiting, his drink sweating, every movement on the quiet street perking him up, straightening his posture, only to pass by with no relatives. The man across the street came over to ask how things were; he just waited until they got there.

What had happened?

She was in her twenties, not quite beautiful, not quite handsome, but striking, and spoke her mind. She loved to laugh, she loved to drink, and with him she had a ball. Her older sister had gotten married a year before and it was his turn, her father disapproving of the Greek her sister had married, and so she picked him. A good man, a strong man. Out of the Army, back in California after the war. She had great stories of the fishery she had spent time at, dating many men, loving many men. She truly was a catch, light and free. Not as pretty as her sisters, never going to be, but sure enough of herself to want him. They met, they married, he happy and shy, and couldn’t believe her luck, she happy, satisfied and ready to start a family with this new stranger.
It came down to money. Always about money. He would get angry, and when he got angry he drank. A few beers with the guys after work, a few more at home, some for the yard work, painting the house, in the California sun, and while pregnant with her second he hit her. She didn’t know she was expecting, as she was still nursing the first. She left him to ask for her mother’s help, her mother who was sick, but not too much yet. “Louise, you have to make this work. There’s no going back. Who would take you now?” She couldn’t blame her mother, she had two boys under 10 and was done raising kids. “Just work it out. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”

Things got better, the second came, sicker than the first, and then the twins. She was done, her body hurt, he was a company man, scouts on the weekends, camping on the holidays, with her family, with his friends. Lots of gatherings to go to, lots of people to be around. Life happens. The boys worked hard with their father, painting the house, causing a ruckus in the yard, on the street. The first one, the student, he was his boy. That second one was a hellion, getting into everything, taking apart their brand new phone to see how the bell worked. The twins were hers, no one else’s. Like two little shadows. Late nights spent silent on the edges of the queen mattress they shared, her worrying about money, him worrying that he couldn’t love her enough. Blacking out at night to rise the next day and drive thirty miles off to work in shirtsleeves, over plans for new airplanes, new plants, the new American life he was promised.

Where did it go?

A car passed by. This time he noticed too late. He couldn’t make out if it was tan or gray, just a flash by. No one should be driving that fast on this street. Someone could get hurt.

But that car had somewhere to go.

He was where he had to go. Right there, in his chair, the plastic sticking to the back of his white legs. How is it that he had lost so much color over the years, his legs pale and just a shadow of the power they once had? These legs, carried him through the war, through various hikes with the scouts, to work every day and home, and now, they were all but useless, two spindles that held up a shell. No longer could he walk tall and proud, no longer was he the king. His knees twice the size that they were just last year, before the fall, before the hospital.

When were they getting there?

He drank some of the water, the glass faltering in his hand, his memories coming back. He pushed them down, he wouldn’t remember, he would only live in now. Now, he was an old man, with an old house, a few pictures of the families that he never really knew, a couple of postcards from trips he once took. A chair he sat in, and the chair he hated. The old man’s chair, the one that helps you get up and down. It was a nice gesture, but completely lost on him, as he was just as capable as the next to get up and down from a chair. And too soft to boot, he didn’t need to feel comfortable, he needed to feel alive, to feel the air moving around him and he powered up the side of a hill with the boys in tow, to take the fifteen powerful strides across his office, to push the Cadillac’s accelerator through a turn, to feel something like he once felt.

Waiting, he watched the cardinal’s rebuild their summer home in the eaves of his neighbor’s house. He would have to get the ladder down again and knock it out. His neighbor, something to be looked at. In another time, she would have been a loose woman, four kids, four different fathers, barely a high school education. He thought she had had a hard life, at least that’s what she told him. She took care of him too, she picked up his mail from time to time, and she watched Jeopardy with him, telling him how smart he was. She made him feel like a man again. She did understand. She even let him eat Chinese food from Fung’s Garden, even though it shot his blood pressure up. He knew it wasn’t just the food, it was her. Tanned, blonde, strong, and she loved him. So what if she didn’t love him like that, he was old, he could do what he wanted. One night they shared a couple of glasses together, and he felt alive again. If he was younger, he would marry her and take care of her. Now all he had was to give her what she asked for in the hopes that she too would love him enough, love him long enough to have him feel alive again.

He looked for the ladder from his chair. Up in the rafters, how did it get up there? He remembers the night after he knocked down the nest in the spring, he wanted to do something nice for her, something that would have her know she needed him, too. Her cousin’s car in the driveway, and not yet three weeks out of the hospital, he dragged the ladder across the gravel and set it against the house. On the third step, he steadied himself, and brought his cane up to the nest. He heard the laughter from inside. The high pitched giggle, the mumbled voices. Through the window he could see his neighbor and her cousin, kissing. He knocked down the nest. Dragged the ladder back, and left it in the front yard. Later, she came over, she knew he knew but they didn’t talk of it. This was no cousin, but he was an old man, he would play as one. He would get sick and she would be right there for him. She helped him into bed, and kissed his forehead. That was enough for him. Nothing else mattered.

Life had passed by. Like that car with somewhere else to go, life had happened and he hadn’t even seen what color it was.