I had wine last night. And wine is like an acid on a metal door with me; it just melts away my polite party conversation and replaces it with an unfiltered blurt of everything that crosses my mind. It’s not unlike this blog but with way more story side trips, hand gestures and acted out scenes. For the most part, it's entertaining for everyone around me. And I, of course, have a great ol’ time.
Last night at a picking party, I sat outside in the lovely non-muggy sunshine instead of sitting inside listening to music. It’s been so dang beautiful here, almost California like (sniff sniff), that I hated to miss any outside time. And, Husband was nice enough to bring me a glass of wine and there were interesting and entertaining people around so I sat in the sun and chatted and blathered over-shared and generally had a good time. BUT, it was a picking party people are there to play music and I felt I should listen to some music so inside I went and stood quietly (I think) in the kitchen. A few songs later, I took the opportunity of the lull in the playing to visit the bathroom, located just off the main room where everyone was sitting and singing. It shouldn’t have been a thing BUT I’m me. And just as I sat down to pee, the music started up again. Now, picking parties, for all you non-Nashville folk, are a gathering of folk taking turns playing their songs in a round. Usually, most everyone in the group can sing or play or both so they join in and harmonize or juice up the guitar or whatever. But as I sat, knickers at my knees, the woman a few steps away on the other side of the bathroom door started a profound and meaningful and very, very quiet song. A song no one knew. A song that required the rest of the group to hush and listen, heads slightly tilted, furrowed brows, deep understanding on their faces. While I sat peeing, adding a rather unmelodic background to the reverence of the moment. Now, I can’t emphasis how much the wine led to the giggles here. And the giggles led to me standing paralyzed on one side of the bathroom door while the moment went on on the other side, debating whether to flush, when in the verse to flush, how to wash my hands in the rhythm of the song. By the time I was done with all that needed doing, I was in tears. And I was still in the bathroom. And the beautiful quiet song filled with all the feelings was still being sung. And the group of musicians was still silently hushed. And I was still in the bathroom. I started to think I might be in there for days. And then I started to think, what if someone watched me go into the bathroom and not come out for ages and began to think that there was something wrong with me? Not, “Wow, ej’s had a lot of wine” wrong, but tummy troubles wrong, like frat boy movie, break the toilet wrong? And that sent me on another wave of giggles as I pictured the woman still singing and the person nodding and enjoying the music while keeping one eye on the door, wondering what I was up to in the bathroom. “Come on ej! Pull it together” I told myself in the mirror. Wiping the tears from my face, wry look of encouragement to my silly self in the mirror, I opened the bathroom door, fully intending to slip into the hallway and unobtrusively stand there looking deep and nodding to the music like the rest of the group. But I’m me and I’d had wine and the door squeaked (!!!) and my friend was standing just on the other side of the door and he laughed when I came out and I was not subtle at all as I burst into giggles again. Right at the end of the deep meaningful song filled with all the feelings. I put myself on time out outside after that. Pretty sure I shouldn’t have wine in polite company again. Or use the bathroom. Then again, maybe peeing, flushing and water running will be the ‘new sound’ all songs need. It does add a bit of realism to it all. I mean, everybody feels and everybody pees…
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I’ve never been much for horror movies. I can’t seem to let them go and they knock about my brain for years after the initial viewing. I mean that damn Chucky doll, despite its stupid fake face, still haunts my dreams. But horror movies have nothing on this: The EU has banned more than thirteen hundred ingredients that were found in personal care products but the US has only banned eleven. ELEVEN!!! And the last time a federal law was passed to regulate these ingredients was 1938!!! WHAT??? Want to see something really REALLY scary? Go to this website: http://www.ewg.org and look up your favorite product that you use daily on your skin, face or hair - and then cry because it turns out it is horrible for you and your face, skin and hair. I'm not a make-up person. The only thing I use on a daily basis on my skin and face right now is Lubriderm Daily Moisture Lotion with Sunscreen. This is what EWG site says about the only thing I use... Um... yikes. Not as bad as some things I found last night when I was playing 'find the ones that cause cancer' but not great. But at least my deodorant fairs better... Now I may not be a make-up wearer but I am a nut for hair care stuff that will make my afro(ish) hair look less like pubic head - as one not so charming guy called it in high school. And this is the stuff I just found that I love but now really should break-up with... Here's the direct link to the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database. You’re welcome. Now spend a few hours there with your favorite things and then you can join me under the covers where I’ll be hiding for the rest of the foreseeable future... I’m teaching sixteen seven-year-olds this week and I am exhausted. Seven-year-old boys never stop talking. Ever. And every idea, every story goes on and on and on. And just when you think its finished - because they have stopped actively making words and are just breathing and uttering noises and looking off in the distance and twisting their fingers in their shorts or playing with their stupid shoelace that is never tied- and you start to say something, they’ll jump right back in with a wounded “But I’m not done.” And you’re stuck in the story loop about how your pirate story is like the bad guy in mine craft or Pokémon or something for another five minutes. When I get home, I sit in a mini coma in the corner of the couch just shaking and trying to get all the extra words my brain has acquired over the day out of my head.
On Monday, in the midst of group games with my sixteen seven-year-olds, sixteen “I’m almost eight!” year olds and “I used to be four but now I’m five.” year olds, I spotted a crying five year old sitting against the wall. Concerned, I slid myself down the wall, sat next to him and asked him what was wrong. Head down, lips in full pout, tears streaming down his face, and he told me he wanted his mommy. I reassured him he would see her soon and that we only had a few more minutes to play. “Are you tired?” I asked him. He turned to me, nodded his head, his big wet blue eyes over flowing and told me earnestly and totally overwhelmed, “It’s just too much. It’s just too much.” I hear you little one. I’m off to write pirate clues for sixteen seven-year-olds for a play they are performing on Friday that I have yet to write that will probably have an evil mine craft character in it that maybe is on a boat but maybe was really a good guy that turned bad when his cop friend found the treasure in the boat took it from him and and and maybe that made him into a bad guy who was really evil but then maybe he found a special potion that made him turn into a dragon and that dragon was like a fire breathing dragon and then and then and then…. Sometimes it is just too much. One of the things I loved when Husband sent me pictures of the house he was planning to buy for us in Nashville was the tree fort. It was old and mossy and rotten looking and full of secrets and it would likely not hold the weight of a child let alone the weight of a fully-grown woman with a French fry addiction but it was awesome. And as we waited for the house to close escrow, I dreamt about how I was going to plant around it and grow vines up the rickety legs and dangle hanging baskets from its rungs and make it into a Martha Stewart wonder...
None of those things happened. In the growing months, the fort was fully shaded and nothing but weeds wanted to grow at the base of the tree as it swarmed with mosquitos at all times. In the winter, the winds would whip about the rungs of the ladder and chill whatever might have been growing into a frozen stem. And not once did it resemble anything Martha would have had a hand in. And yet, when Husband threatened to take it out, I would plead for him to leave it be. I mean, the baby owls used it as a home base for hunting and my planting dreams really might have happened... someday... So he did, for a while. Partly because he was occupied with inside house things and mostly because taking it down required climbing into the thing and fighting off creatures that crawl and fly and bite. Then a friend came by and told us that if we ever wanted to get rid of it, he was looking for wood to make his kids a guard tower fort in his yard. Which is why this past weekend, poor Husband had to deal with two things he hates: heights and bugs as he climbed into the fort and battled the rusted nails and screws and the MASSIVE colony of GIANT ants and their BAZILLION ANT BABY EGGS to take the sucker apart. At one point, we had enough eggs come out of a hole to fill small cooking pot – if ant eggs happened to be your thing. A surprising quick three hours of work and the tree fort was down, my Martha Steward dreams were thoroughly dead and, despite all the insects and very pissed off ants, we ended up with only a few mosquito bites, one ant bite and a tick just south of Husband’s um, area. All in all, a job well done that has sadly just revealed another project to pretend to get to next. That yard is a mess.... Ain't home ownership fun. I had a post all written but people and their hate and their religions and their one-sided beliefs and ‘I’m right so you suck and everything you stand for sucks so you should die’ and their disregard for humans and animals and the earth and whatever has totally gotten up my nose so I just feel stabby and dark and hopeless and poopy so (inhale... exhale...) here is a fuzzy picture of Owl looking for breakfast in the backyard on Sunday -
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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