Brother knows me really well; my penchant for exaggeration, my flare for the dramatic in all things, my memory lapses in storytelling – or, as I like to put it, my ability to tell the story I'd like to hear. For this reason, he has forbidden me from writing or speaking about anything but his first five years of life or his last five years of life. I've broken that rule already and will likely break it again. It's a stupid rule, and I have some amazing stories with him or about him that fall right in the middle of those years but, for now, I'll follow the rules. This totally happened to him when he was four.
Brother is awesome. He is gorgeous and funny and smart and really freakin’ fun to be with. He has a knack for reading people and figuring out just how far to push someone with a joke – not that he always stops when he should. I like to say, his special talent is being able to insult someone to their face and they’ll think it’s a compliment, he's that smooth. He wasn't always that way. We were born in Kenya in the 70's. Our mom is American, of Irish Scottish descent. Our father is Kenyan of the Kamba tribe. They met in college in Oregon, of all places, moved to Kenya where we were born. We lived in the town of Karen – the Out of Africa town for those of you who know the movie on the outskirts of Nairobi. When my mother left my father in the late 70’s, my brother, mother and I moved to Pebble Beach, California to live with my grandmother while my mother tried to find work. While we'd visited before, moving to America was a total culture shock for us. The day-to-day existence was like nothing we'd experienced before. Everything was different; the clothes, the food, the faces, the way people interacted. There was not one thing that was like what we’d had at home. With everything and everyone so different, Brother and I were inseparable. It was me and Brother against the world. My grandmother lived in Pebble Beach, in the non-mansion section of the forest. She and my grandfather had built the house themselves in the forties; long before it became the golf and moneyed paradise it is today. The street she lived on had folks all about her age with grown children but younger families lived on the streets surrounding us, in bigger fancier houses. The kids there wore designer clothes, not clothes their mother had made and had toys bought from store, not worn dolls and cars passed down from friends. They didn’t speak with accents and they had straight blonde hair cut in a perfect bowl shapes that swished when they turned. Not large Afros that had been combed out to the size of a small tree. We had to take the bus to school, meeting it at a stop at the bottom of the street. These two brothers with shiny blonde hair were the only ones who would take the bus from that stop with us. We thought they were nice at first, asking us questions, making exaggerated attempts at of our accents and snarky digs at our clothes. We didn’t know what to do so we kind of laughed along - but then one day, they got mean. One of the brothers discovered that they could drop a rock on Brother’s Afro and it would bounce. To this day, I don’t remember how they discovered it. I’ve probably blocked it out. All I know is that they would drop the rock on Brother’s head and watch it catch air and bounce off. And they did that to him, over and over again. And Brother stood there, stone still and crying as these boys bounced rocks off his head and laughed. Puzzled at how they found this funny and totally unsure what I could do against these big boys, I ran home to get my grandmother. My grandmother was in the original pride and prejudice with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. She was fierce! She was cast because she looked like Edna May Oliver and she must have picked up fighting techniques from her because she could be scary when she was not pleased. Watch from 4:18 – 4:28 of this link from original movie where Edna May Oliver's Lady Catherine leaves. The part where she says, “I am seriously displeased.” that's what my grandmother was like with the boys. Teeth bared, cold fury she came back with me and totally demolished them with just a few short words and a look that could freeze the sun. Terrified, they mumbled an apology, got on the bus and sat at the back so we couldn’t see their tears. They never bothered us again and Brother’s afro remained rock free the rest of our stay there. I’m sure Brother remembers this differently. Perhaps in his version he’s not crying or he punches the boys in the nads or it was all fun and games - all I know is that my grandmother was my superhero that day, with her sharp clipped ice-cold words. She won the war against them without a drop blood being shed or threat of a lawsuit and yet, still managed to mortally wound those boys with her words. I want to be just like her when I grow up.
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Not really awake due to a 2am wide-awake-might-as-well-watch-TV session followed by a way too early wake up whimper/whine from Tigger The Dog. Figured it would be a good time to share some of wonder that is my Husband since I can't really think.
Husband can be a pain ass but I find him to be a funny pain in the ass. His take on life, on certain situations, is so very unique and often, totally and completely inappropriate. But, more often than not, he’ll deliver his inappropriate statements in these one-liners that will put me on the floor. I started trying to keep track of them earlier this year but sometimes I’d be laughing or standing with my mouth open in shock too long get the story behind them written down. Below are a few of the ones from the last three months and my best recollection of how they came about. Remember, Husband is Scottish so, when reading these, think of Groundskeeper Willie saying them. Husband doesn’t sound like him at all - and would totally be insulted at my suggestion - but imagining Willie speaking really will help to set the scene. Things are funnier with an accent. *** This nature thing we have here in Nashville is new to Husband. A few months ago, the only bathroom at the bar we were in was out of order and if you needed to pee, you had to use the port-a-potty "...out in the back, through the yard, behind the trees and to the left of the building..." Husband went off and came back in a few minutes later quite flustered. HUSBAND: I saw a possum and nearly sh*t myself! ME: You didn't really see a possum. HUSBAND: Well, it was too short to be a ghost! *** He once said he was taking a flashlight with him and his phone just to let the dog out. ME: Why? HUSBAND: In case some creatures are out there plotting my downfall. *** I have a tendency to ramble when telling stories, filling them with facts not pertinent to the story, going off on tangents and totally forgetting my original point. Husband’s response after one particularly lengthy story without a point - HUSBAND: Your stories are like jazz – you use every other note possible. *** Sadly I do this when leaving messages too. HUSBAND: You can talk the hind legs off an answering machine. *** Husband has now taken to responding to my storytelling like this - ME: Blah, blah, blah… and that’s how I burned the banana bread. HUSBAND: Michelle Pfeiffer? ME: What does that mean? Michelle Pfeiffer? HUSBAND: Is Michelle Pfeiffer going to play you in the movie about that story? Cause that’ll be good. *** I’m not a great singer. I can sing and I can hold a tune if no one joins in but try to harmonize with me and all bets are off. Husband likes to say that I can’t sing "street", I can only sing "show tune". And he does the quotation fingers every time. He also says I also have a lisp and vibrato when I sing. He finds it fascinating. The other night we were listening to a singer and I asked if I sounded like her at all. His response - HUSBAND: No. You do vibrato and you do kazoo. *** The line he probably says the most to me since I tend to stick my nose in to most every situation. HUSBAND: Is someone gonna die? No? Then don’t get involved. *** We found out a friend of ours was cheating on his wife and we were discussing how it all started while watching them make out at the bar - HUSBAND: Don't have intimate emotional connections with people who aren't your wife. You know what I mean? Get that girl out of your mouth. *** The other night we were talking about wars in America. I couldn’t remember the timeline of one war - ME: I’m horrible with history. HUSBAND: That's not true. You’re good at history. Anything that happened between you and me in the last seven years, you remember it perfectly. Best part about this statement - we’ve been together nine and a half years. He sucks at our history. *** When I ask if he’d miss me if I died HUSBAND: It'd be a whole lot duller without you *** There are more and I might share more at a later date but for now, I’ll leave you with this one. I have no idea what the hell happened to make him say this and he’s not here to ask and so, your guess is a good as mine on this one - HUSBAND: I just needed a beard and an accessible vagina. I’m late. I rush down the subway steps and just make it onto the train as the doors close. It’s crowded and smelly and I’m hot and sticky from running. There’s no place for me to sit down so I hang onto a pole and try to keep myself upright as the train gathers speed. Glancing around at the passengers with a some what patronizing half smile on my face, I start to go over the agenda in my head for meeting I’m late to. I need to check a point on the agenda so I open my bag. There is no agenda. There is no paperwork. I am not prepared for the meeting that I’m late to. The announcer’s voice breaks through my panic to announce the next stop.
And this is when I realize I’m on the wrong train. And that it is an express and it has passed my stop. I’m late. I’m on the wrong train. And I am now six stops in the wrong direction for my meeting. I think I’m keeping it together but the passengers are watching me slowly freak out. As the squeal of the train against the tracks signals the next stop, I can only hear, ‘I’m on the wrong train. I’m on the wrong train.’ Screaming in my head to the same rhythm of the wheels against the tracks. I start to mumble it under my breath. The staring gets worse. Crap. I’ll just get off the subway and grab a cab, I think. I check for my wallet to see if I have enough for a cab but I don’t have it. I don’t have my wallet or any spare change. I don’t have anything but my messenger bag, my stupid messenger bag that doesn’t have the agenda or the paperwork for the meeting. Flustered, I push myself through the passengers to find a map and scan it for the upcoming track. Is it one that will let me transfer without leaving the station? It is. I am briefly relieved. I don’t have the funds for another token and maybe there will be a train going uptown. The train I’m on lurches to a stop and I am swept off the train with the crowd. The train I want, the train on the other track squeals into the station. Panicked, I fight up to the top of the steps; across the bridge and down the other side just as the train doors are closing. I manage to get half my arm into the opening and it recoils just enough to let me in. I’m on it. I breathe and look around. This train is also crowded. I stand next to the connecting door between the cars and lean against the wall and try to relax and breathe. Suddenly, I realize I need to change my pants. For some reason, I must change my pants right now. On the train. I unzip them and try to pull them down. But I’m sweaty and my pants are tight and stick to my legs. I struggle, pushing them down slowly, inch by inch. I get them down to my feet but, for some reason, I forgot to take off my shoes. I struggle to get them over my shoes. The passengers are looking. I’m trying to ignore them as I continue to struggle with my pants. Then I hear the squawk of the announcer letting us know the next stop is coming up. My stop. My pants are stuck on my shoes. I can’t get them off. The passengers are watching me. I am unable to move and I have to get off the train right now… It’s usually at this point I wake up, heart racing, sweat dripping and just a little too wound up for 3am. I’ve had this dream as long as I can remember. It’s this dream or some variation of it; I’m late. I get on the wrong train/car/bus/boat going the wrong way without my important papers for my important meeting that I’m late for. I get off the wrong train/car/bus/boat and onto the right train/car/bus/boat and then, I have to take my pants off. Every time. I never remember to remove my f-ing shoes first. |
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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