fire in the whole

Thanksgiving always has potential in my family to be like a movie. This year really was no different. But it's not movies anyone really wants to see.
Being the new me, I put off thinking about Thanksgiving until the day of....and by Thanksgiving in this sentence, we all know I mean Dad. I was nervous (to say the least) about seeing him. I barely said more than hello to him since Christmas 2009.
Day before Thanksgiving: Mom calls, "Will you please be cordial to your father?" Her stress is my stress. It's always been that way. A little less that way since adopting the New Me Life - but my thoughts envelope hers. I agree. I agree to do the best I can.
Thursday comes and like the last time I saw him in July, I feel oddly calm. numb. like I'm on zanex. an extreme awareness. don't get cornered. don't want to deal - yet. must stay strong.
Hello. Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank god for the distractions she sent!
Kitchen fire.
1st thought - what about the turkey?
Living room TV fire.
1st thought - where will we watch the Saints?
2nd thought - where is the sister? (oh, she checked on the turkey, then ran to the bathroom to compose herself - she knows what's coming).

His negativity grows and gets loud and uncomfortable as the Cowgirls score. I can hear him but I look forward.

Reminded me of the first time I got my mascara on my eyelashes just perfectly. a thanksgiving drive to Liz's house. Crab and corn bisque awaited me and my eyelashes. he ruined the day and i silently cried and cried in the back seat behind cheap sunglasses. black running down my face
the bisque is still waiting.

Honestly, who has two fires on Thanksgiving? Really the day as a whole was a fire. Each time I see him I feel as though he burns me and if and when i make it out, I rise from the ashes. each time a little more singed. scarred. sad. that's the part of the movies I walk out on. Not paying $9.50 to see that play out.

World View

Liz: Can I share with you my world view?

Jack: I’d rather hear you sing Rocket Man again.

Liz: All of humankind has one thing in common. The sandwich. I belive that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.

Jack: What a surprise, you world view is food based.

            -NBC's 30 ROCK

This certainly resonates with me. I've always loved sandwiches. 

When I was about 12, my parents renovated the kitchen. Which was a big deal because my dad never fixed anything.  We ate together as a family each night and since dad had started working on the kitchen we had been eating on tv trays. My sister and I loved eating on the trays in the den. Normally this was only for special occasions. When it was near finished, as a family we decided to have a special dinner the first night we were back eating at the kitchen table. We each got to put down on paper what we wanted as that first dinner. 

Dad wrote Shrimp Creole.

Mom wrote Steak and Potatoes.

My sister, Magg, wrote Crawfish Etouffee. 

And I, I wrote sandwiches. 

I love a good sandwich. Fresh bread. Thin meats. Crunchy Iceberg lettuce. Sliced Creole tomatoes. Zippy Mayo. Dill pickle on the side. 

I'm even the crazy who puts the chips on the sandwich. It's all about the crunch. 

A good sandwich can change a person's life. Well, their day at least. 

And while it can definitely change a person's day, sandwiches have changed my life. For that fateful night in my family's renovated kitchen - my choice was pulled. And my family's never let me forget it. 

I've been away

I've been away from writing for a while. While I didn't have a j-o-b, I wrote often. Now I work. and write less.
My typical life has gone on. My life's an opera. with arias that never quite reach the top.

The holidays are around the corner and I am trying desperately hard to find some place else to be. I've somehow quickly slipped into being a family member of a family I don't want to think about. the holidays mean a few things this year (more than any other) - avoidance, drinking, and stress.  I know I'll fall into terrible twos - drinking and sleeping - and read too much David Sedaris. Oh, so much to look forward to.

I ask myself, pretty often, WHO IS THIS PERSON!? Who is this person thinking this way? Doing these things?  For I am not the same person I was last January. Have I been away from myself - or is this - myself?

I never want. Never never let myself want. Wanting leads to trying and trying leads to failing.

Seize the Day (Chorale) to Bad Romance

Gosh I love Newsies. and Christin Bale of course.

THIS IS MY SISA!

I love the laughing parts - thats what makes me wet my pants laughing!!!

two sodas means only a few things....and no he wasn't super thirsty.

This morning I was pumping gas into my car. I caught the eye of a guy as he was coming out of the store in the middle of the gas station. So of course in the four seconds between him opening the glass doors to leave the store and him getting to our cars, I had a wealth of visions or what have you. Then I realized he had bought 2 sodas. And per usual, my mental face dropped – cause we know what two sodas means. Oh well. 

Charlie bit my finger - again !

It's been a month!

It's been a month since I've bogged. I've been busy. Work's not rocket surgery but it keeps me busy while I'm there. It is nice to be able to leave work at work. it's not a stressful job. its not creative either. which means it's not really up my alley. i have a title but i heard my boss call me his secretary the other day. umm, yucko. i have a few things to write about...let's get started....

So I got a job the other day

So I got a job the other day...that make me think about the ole joke, So A Guy Walks Into A Bar - Don't know why but it does. Which THEN reminds me of when I was in NYC with Jay and saw a Nun with a suitcase actually walk into a bar....so you know I had to laugh and laugh and laugh...till a yellow taxi cab almost hit me....which reminds me of the time I was in Innsbruck and did Absinthe all night then had to walk to the train station to pick Ry up and nearly died by getting hit by a car...Really - one second I was walking and the next I was in the street touching a car's bumper and very confused how and when it got there...yummy. Argh.

So this week I am doing lots of things that I won't be able to when I start working regular normal people hours. I went to a day time movie alone, had lunch at Whole Foods, dentist, hair cut, wax, looked at new cell phones...and it's only Wednesday. Tomorrow I am going to do some shopping. I need some sensible shoes. I never thought I ever ever say that - let alone write it out for the world to see! My Shoes will miss me. And, oh, I will miss you, Shoes. Don't worry Shoes, I will visit you every 5 days or so.

I wrote a great poem today. I was driving up Magazine Street towards the city trying to get to my internship on time, and the people (people on the pavement...wow, I'm a nerd) really inspired me. It reminded me of the little city within the city: The French Quarter. I was driving on Magazine, and maybe, just maybe would have texted ideas for the poem or written it down while driving - but I've already been in a car accident on Magazine and Jena. I didn't need another...which is means I didnt't get the poem down. Society would have been moved.

I'm sorry I let you down.

Welcome!

Welcome Amy and Christine!

tortoise is dancing at satisfaction

2 a.m. - who loves you baby?

Once again it's 2 am and I am no closer to sleep. Sleep and I have always had an interesting relationship. I am told as a child I hardly ever slept - that I never wanted to miss anything. I would go and go until I would pass out....once in my mashed potatoes. I think I'm still like that. Actually I know I'm still like that. I'd never not do something in life just to sleep. Just yesterday my sis and I were at the grocery store and I saw that Price William is getting married. I told my sis, I told her we'd have to get up at like 4:30a.m. to watch it. She asked why. I said because it's in England - there's the time difference. She said, "won't it be relayed later? Can't I just watch it later?" I was like - ummm, no. That the thing - I want to experience it as it's happened. If I can't actually be in England - yes, I'm going to get my ass up and experience it at 4:30am. I'd never miss out on something just to catch it later on instant reply. Some people use the expression, "I'll sleep when I'm dead" - yea, that's about right. Not that I don't love by bed. I do love to crawl into clean sheets and sleep and sleep. But I don't really sleep when I am sleeping. No, I am a sleepwalker. A sleeptalker and a sleep-what-ever-else you can think of. I can remember times when I would wake up and be refreshed and feel good about the night's sleep. I don't think I've slept since August 25, 2005. The next day – our whole world changed and so did I. Nope, I can't recall having a single night's sleep that didn't involve some kinda ruckus. I've seen spiders, men walking about, and friends. I’ve had vivid dreams when I wake up with a start and I heard voices in my apartment. I’ve had dreams where I can see through my apartment to the outside yard….like I was a superhero with x-ray vision. I've woken up standing by the front door dressed fully in a suit ready for my day at work. One night I dreamed I saw a tiny camera in the corner of one of the pieces of art on my wall next to my bed. I woke up with it in my bed – which isn’t the weird part. The weird part is I remember doing it. I was aware of my actions but still unable to pull myself out of this other world. One morning I awoke to find I had taken all of the picture frames off of the wall and stacked them in neat little piles on the floor underneath where they should be on the walls. Mom says I've always been this way. When I was young and I would study particularly hard, and I assume stress about the situation, I would spend the night sitting up straight in my bed and regurgitate the Catholic prayers or French verbs I had just learned. Must have been pretty freaky for my mom for the nights I was spouting out French prayers. weird. My sister says she still can remember times when I would jump on top of her and scare the shit out of her. What? I was protecting her from the dinosaurs or whatever she needed to be protected from. Sounds like she needed to be protected from me! And maybe given her own room. I wish someone would protect me from myself. I have this whole other world that lives in my head. Not in a traditional crazy way – but an insanely imaginative way that never stops moving. An alternate reality of sorts. My brain never turns off. Not even when I’m pretending to sleep.

Lately I've been having to remind myself to breathe.

They say that people who are truly insane don’t think they are. So I've got that going for me, thanks Bill Murray.
There's so much to do and so much to say and so many dreams. I go back and forth on who to be…Hamlet or Fortibras. Be a man of thought or a man of action. Who am I? It’s a constant struggle. A struggle to keep putting myself out there and getting kicked in the mouth. I should be used to that scenario. Growing up with being called terrible names and told I would never amount to anything. Being told I should end it all because there’s nothing out there for me. Thanks to my own personal Hamlet.
Much of my problem is I've never been able to want anything. I think back and about myself and I realize that I've never really wanted anything and as Type A as I am, I really do go with the big picture proverbial flow. Being pushed this way and that way and this way and that - like a melodic nursery rhyme.
Allowing myself to want something leads to trying and trying leads to failing.
Just look at me now. Almost 20 years of education and it's very possible I will be asking friends and family, "Would you like fries with that?" Laugh if you will - but my life is not where it should be at 28. Say if you will, "what is should be?" I should be rungs up the ladder not fighting to stay afloat. I should be in a different place. My life is not at a should be point. My life seems to be standing still and I’m sinking inward from a pin hole at the top of my head.
I have no idea what I am doing. I am getting to know who I am. And that's one of the few perks.
There is a huge different between silence and being still. The old me? The old me hated silence. It was in the silence that i could hear the yelling. The screaming of truths. The frightening failures ringing while I sat in the bell jar. I still get uncomfortable with the silence. But I’m trying to make friends with it. I’m trying to make friends with myself.

I wake up in the night, soaked in sweat, muscles clenched - and have to tell myself to breathe. It's the only way to make it through.

A poop story. Somehow this has happened to me twice in one lifetime.

So I was at a store yesterday. I’ll spare you the name of the store – after this you might not want to shop there anymore - I was walking around and began to smell poop. I just thought that maybe the bathroom had backed up due to all the rain we have been having. Then I saw a head of me, well, I saw poop on the ground and in the same eye sweep, a man looking down at his son who was sitting a few feet from the poop. He was saying, “See what you just stepped in? See what happens when you don’t watch where you are going?” I don’t know what I was more appalled with – the poop on the ground or the fact that a man, presumably the boy’s father, was looking down at his son and yelling at him for not assuming he needed to watch out on the floor for poop. The poor kid was just looking sadly up at his dad. Poor kid. How was that his fault? So back to the poop...I was able to compose myself and went to another part of the store. I heard workers complaining and was able to learn that a woman apparently just pooped and let the poop out of her underwear. At different places in the store. Lots of customers had stepped in the poop and tracked it all over the place. At this point – I did have to leave. This reminded me of the time Mom, Magg and I were at Solo Serve and mom stepped on a turd. I must have been 10 years old. Magg says she remembers that day too. I mean, what type of person allows this behavior of themselves? I hardly ever show enough skin for a summer wardrobe and there are people (I think I can make this statement plural – being that statistically this must happen a lot because it’s happened twice just to me!) out there who while in public pull down their pants and let nature happen? I refuse to think that is natural. Is this a message to myself? Is life yelling, “See what you just stepped in? See what happens when you don’t watch where you are going?”

Microsoft WORD is telling me that turd is spelled incorrectly. Ha.

-Short Legs Magee

I am Eleanor Rigby.

.

Late nights with Garden Shears

Who in their right mind would want to break into my apartment? It’s almost not a question but a statement. Within the last hour someone yanked on my storm door and tried to get it open. This is the third time this has happened in ten days. There’s nothing in here to steal. And as much as whoever this is terrorizing me doesn’t know that – it freaks me out to think maybe they aren’t looking to steal stuff but to hurt me. I live in a shit neighborhood. I’ve got to move.
I used to take drives at night. I’d drive with the windows down and let the wind blow through my hair. I’d breathe deeply and smell the night air. I’d smell honeysuckle and rain and near the lake, salt water. In the winter I’d ride with the window’s down and the heat on high blowing on my feet. Now I feel as though I am a prisoner in my own home. I can’t leave even to do late night laundry (and no I don’t mean that as a euphemism). I even will watch my watch when I’m out at night because I don’t want to come home too late.
I don’t sleep during the night. And I have garden shears in my bed with me. My cousin says I should get a gun. Thanks, 19 year old cousin. But I sleepwalk – I don’t think that’s safe. I mean, sleepwalking is more than walking while asleep. I’ve woken up fully dressed in a suit standing by the door waiting to go to work. I’ve woken myself up talking. I’ve taken baths. One night I took everything off of the walls and put it in neat little piles on the floor. Thank the good god, thank her I said, that I don’t sleep-eat! So…yeah, not a great idea to buy a gun. Dog’s out as an idea as well. I can’t afford to feed myself.
Well, off to not falling asleep. I think I’ll watch a Cary Grant movie cuddled up with my garden shears.

Airports and networking

Airports and networking

I’m waiting for my connection flight in my second airport today. I’ve got my cell phone and laptop plugged into a Samsung Mobile charge site. I’m watching CNN’s Larry King LIVE’s Disaster in the Gulf and How You Can Help telethon. CNN is reporting how they are live on TV, the web and can be contacted through phone, Twitter or Facebook. There’s probably 35 people sitting in the waiting area and no one but me is watching the show. But lots of people are on their phones and computers. There’s a kid who looks about 11 years old and he’s on his netbook and a cell phone. He’s probably letting his wife know how tough his workday was and he’ll be home late for dinner. There are still people using the standby way of networking – talking face to face. There’s a guy talking to a girl one row over. I can hear him chatting her up and she laughs. He isn’t funny but I guess she likes the romantic notion of being hit on by a stranger in an airport. Hey, that’s still networking. Airports have caught on to the idea of social networking. You can ‘like’ Continental Airlines on Facebook. I’m sure there’ll soon be a program that encourages future airline wannabes to ‘follow’ pilots on Twitter to learn what it is really like to fly for a living. “Don’t tweet and fly,” they’ll write. I joined Twitter two years ago. I tried to explain to my boss the significance of being connected continually to the world. She was aware of course of the Internet and news sites but did not understand why she would want to know what someone was doing all the time. I remember her saying, “Why do I want to know what someone ate for breakfast?” I tried to explain that while the site was about that it was about so much more. Networking skills are keenly important to the growth of a business or relationship and networking through the Internet was a new wave she needed to encourage the hotel to ride. Social networking is not a fad and I think within today’s world cannot be ignored. Small businesses, corporations and individuals alike need to get on board or they will be left behind. To my boss I gave the example of the plane crash in Hudson Bay in January of 2009. A Twitter user was the first to report the incident and CNN picked it up from his account. For a long time the media only had this gentleman’s pictures as photographic evidence. So not only would my boss get up to the second news and information, she also would be able to find out what I had for breakfast. I sold her on the idea but she didn’t sign up for an account.
If my flight gets me home on time maybe I will hit the Facebook ‘like’ button!

I had toast for breakfast.

-Short Legs Magee

Evacuation Day

Evacuation Day

Hurricanes are a part of year round daily life in New Orleans. If it’s not hurricane season we New Orleanians are talking about last year’s hurricane season and why we think this one will be different, better or worse. But when June 1 hits, our thought patterns heat up with the weather and spin faster and faster counter clockwise. Are we prepared? How are the levees doing? Do I have enough money to evacuate? Where will I go? There is a feeling in the air that no one can quite put his or her finger on but everyone feels it as much as they feel the humidity. If a hurricane is close enough, people start becoming instant friends with strangers at gas station and hardware stores. They ask, “When are you leaving?” or give helpful tips, “Make sure to bring toilet paper for the car trip!” We are a band of brothers and no longer strangers. People flood to the grocery stores for water, batteries and Spaghetti O’s. There is a certain amount of excitement and fear flashing in everyone’s eyes. Is this it? Is this what we’ve been hearing about for our whole lives or will we be back in three days hearing I Told You Sos? There are the realists who remind everyone – no one knows anything, be smart and do what you have to do. There are the alarmists, also known as TV weather people, who thrive on a good storm. The may as well join the sandwich boarded “The End Is Near” group. They wait all year to use the scary graphics and repetitive doom music. Between the Internet, voodoo rain dances and years of knowledge of vanishing wetlands everyone becomes a meteorologist and everyone has their opinion. Everyone believes it’s his or her opinion that is fact. People go round and round on whether they’ll leave or not. “I’ll leave if it’s a 3 or higher,” is commonly heard. Older people will often refuse to leave. They’ll say they made it though Camille, Betsy, or even Katrina. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a scare here in the city. Gustav was tough on us emotionally. We were scarred, scared and then, other than the contraflow, didn’t get much action. This promotes people to want to stay in the city if a storm is coming. Evacuation is taxing on a person’s wallet but also on the heart. The people of New Orleans are resilient but we live with broken hearts. Sometimes people forget it’s not usually during a hurricane that is the worst part; it is the aftermath that begins a second after the storm passes. As awful as an evacuation can be, it is also a bit thrilling. Sometimes the not knowing can be exciting. Everyone jumps to pack and leave as soon as they’ve done their preparations. Pack, fill the bathtub with water, call family and friends, turn off the gas, grab memories and paperwork and take insurance photos. Everyone wants to try to beat the traffic. There is a surge of emotion in the air. Driving, you meet other refugee’s eyes and there is no need to speak – everyone’s on the same wavelength inside with their blood pressure rising while remembering the waters rising. Hours and hours of driving take us slowly out of the city in our souls. Then there’s the waiting. Fate has a way to show who is boss and She’s in charge on evacuation day.

-Short Legs Magee

Unemploymentality

Unemploymentality

So it happened. I was laid off and I didn’t see it coming. The unemploymentality bleeds into every aspect of my life.

I’ve come to realize everyone feels the need to comment on my situation. You should do this and you should try this, they tell me. This may come from a place of a good-natured need to fix situations but unless it’s substantial advice that will head to a lead – it’s only an annoying reminder that you’re not in a good place and everyone knows it. I don’t need any more reminders of that fact. I’m told one day I’ll look back on this time and think it wasn’t so bad. And yes, I’m not so selfish as to assume no one has it worse than I, but I’m not usually a stressed person. Friends say they wish they had the time I have. That when I get back in the rat race I will wish I had the time I have now. But what they don’t realize is that looking for a job is actually a full time job. I constantly have to be on the look out for a potential person to contact or for a lead. It is days of networking, taking names and kicking butt. It’s a world of vast amounts of time and zero freedom. It’s endless nights of Holly Golightly Mean Reds (and the occasional cry in the hot shower). It’s endless days of pretending, stress hives and a few panic attacks for good measure. It’s about looking forward and not allowing your self to look left or right. Staying the course and believing in your self. It’s about marketing yourself in such a particular way that people remember you and can’t imagine their next project without your fingerprint. It’s thinking of creative ways to get your name attention.
When I get a job it’ll be like Christmas Morning. I know myself.
I’m a positive person and when I allow myself to freefall into believing something good will come out of all I’ve learned while out of work I can shelve the negative – for a few minutes. I been able to spend a lot more time with my family. I’ve been able to read more books and catch up on popular culture. I’ve been cooking. I’ve been being a tad more selfish with my time than I have been in the past.
The unemploymentality will affect everyone differently. I hope to get a novel out of mine.

-Short Legs Magee

Today was a BLT day and enough grey veggies on my own plate

Today was a better day than some. It seems the days where I leave my apartment and see humans - and the experiences are positive - NOT interviews for jobs - when I see humans and it's positive, things are a bit better inside.
I no longer have money to grocery shop. Today mom took me out to lunch. Well, I actually ended up paying but whatever. And I had the greatest BLT.
Had a nightmare that a hurricane came and went while I was asleep in my apartment. I opened the front door and everything was covered in oil. I listen to Cowboy Mouth - The Avenue - who would want to live here if slapped in the face a second, and for that matter, a third time. Fate has a way of showing who's boss? Yeah - OIL.
I've begun taking my hurt and shelving it. Dad keeps texting me and I don't read them anymore. 11 months have really hardened me. The old me would have chastised anyone who did a thing lke that. Old me would say, "but what if it was an emergency?! - what if something happened?" But the new me hopes something did happen and doesn't want to deal with it. I'm done with picking up everyone's pieces. I'm also done with the threats that something BAD will happen. Let it happen. I'm out.
I have enough grey veggies on my own plate.
-Short Legs Magee

Blind Sided

I've been blind sided by this economy and laid off. It's almost been 11 months and for the first 7 I was fine - but lately I am a mess. Thus, I blog. Cheaper then therapy. I am a writer after all. Who knows what will come of putting my energies, feelings and thoughtful thoughts into the unjudging and rhetorical internet universe.