You Can't Fight Mother Nature

A few weeks ago, in a motivated moment, I decided I needed to exercise more and do some resistance training—so my muscles will burn more calories while I’m at rest or as I prefer to say, "getting in touch with my horizontal axis." Muscle mass, I’ve heard, is the key to beating middle-age weight gain.

Traveling the four sets of stairs spanning my house from basement to attic and my brisk walks to bus stops, Metro stations, and the parks near my home was not enough. I was getting only half the job done. You see, from the waist down I‘m Denise Austin (add a bit of cellulite, lose the tan), and from the waist up, I’m Olive Oyl. It was time for a change. My caboose was overtaking my train.

This is a conversation I’ve been having with myself all my adult life—because my long arms and bony shoulders have NEVER kept pace with my legs. As a distance runner in high school, my legs did all the work while my arms major task was to help my hands wipe sweat off my brow and push my hair out of my eyes. In my 20s, I joined a fitness class and never graduated past the five-pound hand weights. In my 30s, my back and shoulders bulked up a bit as I hauled babies, car seats, and toddlers, but as the kids grew up and I grew older, my upper body atrophied again and I started to look like E.T.

So in an effort improve my life, wear tank tops with confidence, and be able to haul even heavier groceries home from the bus stop (a GALLON of milk!), I embarked on a home exercise plan. I rolled my weights out from under the futon—everything from the puny 2 pounders I’m embarrassed to own to the 10 pounders I bought years ago in a rush of confidence (and never used). I warmed up a bit with yoga, stretched out, and then decided to do some pushups.

Not military pushups, mind you, GIRLY pushups, the ones designed for those whose weight and strength is centered in the rear, not the shoulders (C’est moi!). I carefully got down on my hands and knees, straightened my back, sucked in my stomach, snuck a peek down my shirt to see if I had great cleavage in this position (sadly, NOT), and then carefully bent my elbows to lower my chin to the floor. THUD! That’s the sound of my perfect form collapsing onto the rug, crushing my ego in the process. (OMG, is that a carpet burn on my chin! My humiliation is complete!)

I scrape myself off the floor, drag myself over to my computer and exercise my very strong mouse-pushing hand and double-clicking finger to see if there have been any studies on gravitational pull in Belgium . I’m convinced it’s stronger here, closer to the North Pole. This explains why my face is sagging, my rear end settles so snugly in the chair and my arms can’t do pushups anymore…..It would also explain the powerful, invisible forces pulling me into a horizontal position. We all know, you can’t fight Mother Nature—especially if you can’t do even one pushup.

September 10, 2005

My Life with Eddie

Eddie and I go way back. I may be married to Eric, but Eddie is my secret passion, the one who knows what I like and delivers it without question. When I’m exhausted, Eddie joins me in bed. When I open my dresser drawer or peer into my closet, I think only of Eddie. He rarely disappoints me, he carries my camera and gear without complaining, and he keeps me comfortable. Best of all, he’s available 24/7. Time and time again, in all kinds of weather and circumstances, Eddie is the one I reach for. Eddie Bauer, that is.

I buy the classic V-neck t-shirts in bulk: four white, one sprig green, one celadon, one shell pink, one pumpkin, one black. I love the zip-neck polos with their Jetson’s vibe. Not too tight, not too loose, Eddie’s embrace is always just right. I have linen and wool blazers, stacks of cardigans, long sleeve shirts, even hats and bags—all bearing Eddie’s signature.

Check out the Stine leather jacket with its totally cool buckles nipping in the waist--it makes me feel like Sheryl Crow in leather. When it rains, my yellow windbreaker mocks the gray skies and drizzle and feels silky, not stiff. When the first frost nips at my cheeks, I layer my corduroy field jacket over a wool sweater and feel oh so cozy. In winter when the snow starts to fall, my gray charcoal mittens and Sorel boots come out to play.

A recent Eddie Bauer order arrived with a shipping bill that read like a virtual feast. Clothing colors have sumptuous names, like plum wine, banana, cantaloupe, apple, orange. It only seems right that I unpack the box on the dining room table. The breezy linen dress with the modern print is sidewalk café perfect. And the two new hoodies will be my blogger uniform. And yes--another zip neck polo! I want to do a happy dance.

So today my blog is dedicated to my long-time companion, Eddie. Check out all he has to offer at eddiebauer.com.

September 9, 2005

The Fortress Around My Heart

I saw my British neighbor outside his house and wandered over to chat. He and his wife are very friendly and neighborly in every sense of the word. Today we discussed the weather and the stability of our Internet connections, and I casually asked him if he knew of an English-speaking cardiologist in the area. It’s been nearly six months since my last EKG, and before I left Virginia , Dr. Caven told me I’d need to check in with a cardiologist in September.

Clive tells me he sees a cardiologist in Aalst , and it just happens to be the king’s cardiologist. Quite the recommendation. I’m accumulating an impressive list of medical practitioners—my chiropractor worked on Lance Armstrong during the Tour de France.

Clive has been seeing the royal cardiologist for a number of years. “I’ve got a heart rhythm problem,” he says.

“Me too! I’ve got atrial fibrillation” Clive expresses surprise and confirms this is his arrhythmia as well.

I tell him mine is sporadic, it comes and goes. This is how I reassure myself it’s not really serious. In my medical fantasies, I imagine it will one day disappear as unexpectedly as it showed up.

I tell Clive my a-fib is controlled with beta blockers, and I take a daily aspirin to reduce my stroke risk. I’m thinking to myself, “I’m fine, I’m safe, no worries.”

Clive confides he has had three mini strokes related to his heart, and he had been taking daily aspirin at the time. Now he’s graduated to warfarin, the dreaded blood thinner that requires all sorts of monitoring. Dr. Caven had told me that prescription blood-thinners are probably in my long-term forecast, but I wanted to believe I was going to be an exceptional patient, things would never reach that point.

I’m suddenly both more interested and less interested in hearing the rest of Clive’s story, which didn’t end with the mini strokes and warfarin.

No, he’s had two surgeries—ablations—where they send a probe in through an artery and cauterize a selected portion of the heart muscle to squelch irregular electrical impulses that cause the fibrillation. Neither procedure worked. He’s also had his heart shocked, and that unpleasant experience worked for all of 36 hours. He told me he recently read about a procedure that freezes rather than burns the faulty electrical pathways. He’s going to ask his doctor about that.

I think about Robert Frost’s famous poem that discusses whether the world will end by fire or ice…I feel like Grrrl-Interrupted. Clive’s adventures with atrial fibrillation have dismantled the carefully constructed fortress I’ve built around my heart. I laid all my rationalizations on the foundation that a healthy fit woman in her 40s can’t really have serious heart problems. I built a sturdy self-image on my low blood pressure and cholesterol levels. I felt protected by my hour-long walks and yoga practice, my reasonably healthy diet and weight.

But the truth hidden inside my cardiology house of cards is that it’s likely the medication I take twice daily will gradually become ineffective, that the occasional fluttering and irregular thumping in my chest will not stop on its own. Atrial fibrillation is a long-term, chronic condition that gets worse over time, something my head knew but my heart refused to acknowledge. My relationship with a-fib is not almost over, it’s only just starting.

Clive writes down his doctor’s contact info and hands me the white slip of paper. It feels like a bad fortune pulled from a cookie in a Chinese restaurant. I want to stuff it in my pocket, pretend I never read it. But then my hope preens its feathers and rises: maybe if I see the king’s cardiologist, I can pretend I’m a royal secure in a stone castle and not Grrrl-Interrupted waiting to get her rhythm back. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can still believe in happy endings and not dwell on my broken heart.

September 8, 2005

September

This is my favorite month of the year. It’s a month of fresh beginnings and lingering pleasures, when the sun is still warm, the mornings cool, and a sense of anticipation is in the air.

The breeze lifts the curtains at the windows, the streets are quiet, the children are in school wearing shoes unsullied by the stress of a hundred recesses. Their notebooks still have covers, their lunchboxes don’t smell yet, and the year is like a shiny copper penny in their pockets.

The days are shorter but not yet short. The stars gleam before bedtime and the sun is up but not too high as we walk to the bus stop each morning. There’s a delicate balance to each day, as if the yearly pendulum has paused ever so briefly in the sweetest point of its arc.

The leaves are still green, but a few are yellow and falling. The trees whisper secrets among themselves. Flowers still brighten the gardens, the lawnmowers still whine every Saturday, and the apples are growing fuller and beginning to blush.

The catalogs in the mailbox remind us of the cozy days to come: wool sweaters and rib socks, suede boots and dark jeans. The fireplace yawns in the living room and prepares to welcome fall. The cranberry sofa is full of comfort and promises. A stack of books grows next to my favorite chair.

Leaning out the window over a landscape dotted with brick cottages, stone streets, green gardens and golden fields, my mouth whispers, “Soon,” and my heart answers “Not yet.”

September 7, 2005

The Only Way to Travel

I rolled out of bed in my usual early morning daze and faced the additional challenge of having to look presentable for a driving class that you-know-who signed me up for. (I noticed he was far too busy to take time out of his schedule to learn the ins-and-outs of driving in Belgium . Now he will suffer from my insufferable arrogance as I lecture him with great AUTHORITY on Belgian traffic laws.)

I put the kids on the school bus and immediately go to catch my bus to the NATO support center that is offering the class. I arrive with 10 minutes to spare, navigate the labyrinth of hallways to find the conference room—and notice the door is locked and no one is there. I wait a bit, go to the bathroom, come back, and still don’t see any indication a class is getting ready to start here.

Out comes the cell phone and I call E-Man and ask him if he is sure the class is today. Yes he says. He gets me to describe precisely where I am and then tells me, “That’s the wrong conference room.”

Oh God. I’m never going to make it to class on time. This center is one of those government marvels of architecture, built bit by bit as they got funding and personnel levels expanded. It’s actually three or four separate buildings connected by pieces of stairwells, crossovers, elevators, and identical looking hallways that dead end or go around in big squares.

Fortunately, I can’t despair for long because the E-Man has the whole place mapped out in his mind in an amazing level of detail. With my cell phone glued to my ear, he tells me to make my way outside and stand by a particular door, and then like a human GPS, he guides me step by step to the location of the other conference room. My new term of endearment for him is going to be “Mappy.”

Mappy has signed me up for this class because he really wants me to start driving in Belgium and quit hanging out with Big Lip at the bus stop. I told him before we left the U.S. that I wasn’t driving in Belgium . He can call me Metro-Grrrl or Super Bus Woman. I did not see myself as Smart Girl in a Smart Car. No, from the beginning I was going to be punching my Metro tickets and flashing my bus pass as I conquered my own little corner of Europe .

There are lots of things that freak me out about driving in Belgium . There’s the near-death experiences, for example, the Belgians propensity for creating their own lanes or driving on sidewalks, the constant presence of bicycles, pedestrians, and honking horns, the narrow, curving streets that are two-way but have room for only one car to pass, the lack of street signs, the abundance of signs in languages I don’t read, and the fact that both city names and street names change languages as you move from one section to another.

So I worry about getting lost in places where I can’t read signs or speak the language, having a head-on collision, bicyclists pedaling in my blind spot, pedestrians stepping out from between parked cars, and getting nailed by cars entering the road from the right. The latter is a possibility because in Belgium any car entering the road you’re on from the right has the right of way. So as you’re driving, one eye must always be on the intersecting side streets because at any moment, a car can zip out and if you hit them, it’s all your fault. There are no stop signs—there’s only a complicated system of PRIORITY, the Belgian term for right-of-way.

The driving class instructor begins by telling us that most Americans are stationed in Belgium for four years and nearly all of them will have at least one accident. This is a real confidence builder for someone who was involved in three accidents in six months in the U.S. and NEVER WANTS TO BE IN ANOTHER ONE, least of all in a foreign country.

The conference room, like the rest of the buildings here, is not air conditioned and it’s hot. The lights are dimmed as the instructor begins a slide show to accompany his lecture. I’m under the influence of drugs and trying not to fall asleep. My sympathy is with the young MP next to me, who worked all night and then had to come to this class. We’re both fantasizing about curling up into fetal positions under the table and sleeping for hours. The instructor goes over traffic laws, hundreds of traffic signs, pavement markings, typical speed limits, hypothetical situations, etc. I’m furiously taking notes, trying to stay awake and remember everything he says. It seems for every rule, there are three exceptions. After a while, I just listen.

When we break for lunch, I’m out of there. Unlike the other poor souls in the room, I’m not required to take a test in the afternoon and get a Belgian license. I grab my backpack, thank the instructor, and make a dash for the nearest exit. I know the next bus leaves in five minutes, and I aim to be in the front row seat, on my way home, protected by a few tons of steel and the expertise of a professional driver. It’s the only way to travel in Belgium.

September 6, 2005 

Why I Love Public Transportation

Ever since my first child arrived on the scene 10 years ago, everything about driving or being in a car has become stressful. Just getting the car out of the garage is a challenge. In the beginning of parenthood, outings were wedged between meals, naps, and crying jags (mine and theirs) and involved packing bags and hauling equipment and twisting my back into impossible positions as I loaded and buckled the kids into their car seats in our two-door hatchback.

Later when the kids were preschoolers, things improved slightly when we left diapers and strollers behind, and everyone was responsible for wiping their own noses and butts and buckling themselves in. Now with elementary school kids in tow, our goal is to eliminate whining and food purchases on car trips. Even a 20-minute drive across town must be treated like a trip across the Sahara with adequate food and water supplies taken along. Andrew is always thirsty, Emily is always hungry, and both are persistent in keeping thirst and hunger issues on my personal radar, pinging their requests and complaints to me in neat intervals until I feel my brain is being microwaved. Now I know why dogs hang their heads out the window when they’re riding in the family car.

Yesterday we proved once again that even going to church can be traumatic as various parties got into the car and then got out again—“Go comb your hair,” “Grab a sweater, it’s chilly,” “You are NOT wearing those shoes to church,” “Wait! I just want to start the washer,” “Leave the (insert toy name here) at home” and the ever popular, “Did you check the lights (and/or) windows upstairs?” By the time we get in the car for the tenth time after rushing around and fighting over who should be doing what, we’re all in a bad mood. We’ve already violated most of the Ten Commandments.

So it’s no surprise things go down hill from there. As E-Man is driving, navigating the ever dynamic Belgium traffic, I keep clutching my heart and flashing back to The Day I Was Creamed by the Tractor-Trailer and the months it took to recover. While I’m freaking out about cars, pedestrians and bicycles threatening to collide with the car on the passenger side, the E-Man is telling me in an increasingly loud voice to shut my pie hole (not using those words, mind you) and he begins lecturing me on safety, reminding me that I don’t even drive here and he does. He delivers his message in his self-righteous, ultimate driver voice, which I HATE.

To counter the smug “safety-lecture voice,” I employ my “superior church lady voice,” as I remind him that damn it, he is NOT perfect and that sometimes my concerns are justified—like when he has headed down streets in the wrong direction or nearly mowed down a pedestrian in a crosswalk, ignoring my escalating cries of “stop, stop, stop!.” The Muslim woman who almost met Allah that day in the crosswalk reached out to touch our car as she jumped out of its path. The journalist in me saw an international incident in the making. Headline “American Male Kills Muslim Woman Walking to Mosque.”

E-Man accuses me of over reacting, and he asks me if, at this moment, I am wearing prescription glasses. (Let the record show I was indeed wearing my prescription glasses from Lenscrafters, thank you very much!) I resist the urge to remind him he is BLIND in one eye. I don’t smack him because I don’t want to ruin his good eye. (See how NICE I am?) Instead of punching him, I tell him that having an accident of any variety in Belgium will be a nightmare unmatched by anything we faced in the States. (“I KNOW that already! Don’t you think I know that! I’m not stupid!”)

By the time we arrive at church, I’m ready to call a lawyer on my cell phone and start divorce proceedings. He’s ready to suggest medication and a straight-jacket. Above all, as we walk into church (separately I might add, because damn it, I’m not SPEAKING to him), we’re wishing we didn’t have to smile and look like a nice friendly family. We are two people squelching murderous impulses. We are not June and Ward, we are Ozzie and Sharon.

All I have to say is that in the car, Silence is Golden. And Jesus better arrive with the Premarin M&Ms soon—and bring some duct tape for our pie holes.

Big Lip at the Bus Stop

On Friday I hurried to the bus stop to catch Bus 316 to the Metro station and head into Brussels for a chiropractor appointment. There’s a girl waiting there who looks to be about 18, her yellow hooded top revealing a narrow sliver of brown belly above her jeans, her white sneakers are scuffed, her cell phone waits in her hand. She’s leaning on the bicycle rack, and tired after a long week, I slip over to the glass bus stop enclosure and drop down on a bench.

And that’s when I see him, the old guy that haunts my village, wandering streets and stores, aimlessly riding the buses, bumming euros from strangers. I shrink into my own skin a he approaches the bench I’m sitting on and sits down next to me.

I want to escape, but the words I always preach to my kids ring in my own ears: “Treat every person with dignity and respect.” Damn. I hate it when I have to be a better a person than I am. Parenting does that to you. I sit up a little taller, I take a deep breath, I don’t run away.

My new companion has an enormous bottom lip that curls down toward his chin like a giant wave ready to crash onto shore. Gravity pulls its weight towards his chest and reveals the lip’s glistening pink underside, which trembles a bit as he talks.

“Want a cigarette?” Big Lip asks.

“No, thanks.” I check out his bony frame, his dark brown pants, loose fitting buttondown shirt, and the dusty leather Docksiders he wears on his feet. His hair is shot with gray, neatly trimmed but long and stringy, very dirty looking. It is in total disarray. But he doesn’t smell, and for this I’m grateful.

“Are you English?” he asks.

“American,” I answer.

“From where?” he asks.

I’m doubtful it matters, but I answer anyway, “ Virginia .”

“I’ve been there,” he exclaims. “ Virginia Beach !”

I’m surprised. “I have a good friend there,” I say, and then stare off into the distance, thinking of Lynn, who is getting ready to start a new job this week. What would Lynn do if she were here?

He admires the spectralite necklace I’m wearing, the one Eric bought me in Finland in April. “It’s very nice, “he says. “Very beautiful.” His words are a little slurred: Is it because of his vibrating lip or has he been drinking? I don’t smell alcohol on his breath.

“I should stop smoking,” Big Lip says, “I want to stop, but it’s too hard,” he explains as he extracts a crumpled package of cigarettes out of his pocket. I nod in understanding and wonder if he’d slept with the cigarettes, slept in the rumpled clothes he’s wearing.

He lights the cigarette, takes a long drag, and immediately begins coughing. His breath rattles in his chest. This is my cue to casually escape the glass cage I’m in.

I wander out to the sidewalk and start to pace. Where the hell is the bus? It’s late.

The teenager is looking bored, praying for her cell phone to ring, the bus to help us get on with our lives. I edge closer to a tiny stone building next to the bus stop. It has a peaked roof and a French door. I peer in to see an altar to the Virgin Mary, the words “Ave Maria” set in stone, the year “1937.” Who built this and why is it here? It’s no bigger than a porta-potty and the door is locked. Are those flowers on the altar? Who put them there?

Full of questions, I turn my eyes back toward Big Lip, who is pulling a long strand of drool off the precipice of his lower lip and flinging it onto the sidewalk as he stands and hitches his pants up on his bony hips.

“How long ‘til the bus?” he asks me.

“Any minute,” I say. The girl and I exchange impatient glances. I move closer to her and we watch as Big Lip shuffles over to the side of the bus shelter, opens his fly, and takes a leak. The girl and I roll our eyes at each other and she shakes her head and says, “God, some people are so weird!”

I tell her if we position ourselves to get on the bus last, then he can’t sit near us. I immediately feel guilty. Mary’s ghostly white face is a shadow in the roadside shrine. Once again, I shrink into my skin.

A bus approaches. It’s 318. Big Lip flags it down. I sigh in relief. Me and the girl are waiting for 316. I watch as 318 carries away Big Lip but leaves my shame behind. I carry it with me as 316 pulls up to the curb.

September 3, 2005

PMS, Eve's Mistake, and the Second Coming

There's a big bowl of pistachio shells on my desk. I love pistachios. There’s something so satisfying about snapping them open and seeing a GREEN nut. And they’re salty, which makes them irresistible, especially at certain times of the month.

Of course, read any article on PMS and it will tell you to avoid salt, sugar, and caffeine in order to minimize symptoms like bloating, headaches and moodiness. In other words, just as every cell in your body is calling for the dark chocolate or the bag of Doritos (or both, God forbid), you’re supposed to deny yourself all that and expect to FEEL BETTER.

Oh yeah. Medical science fails women again. If you have a PMS Bitch and take away her morning coffee, afternoon chocolate, and one-night-stand with the Doritos bag, in the end you’re not going to have a NICE woman, you’re going to have a freakin’ psychopath.

Trust me: an ordinary bitchy woman is less of a threat to world peace, human health, and the people she loves if you just GIVE HER WHAT SHE WANTS. So I say, “Girlfriends, when your inner bitch rears her ugly head, break out a big bar of dark chocolate and don’t let anyone make you feel guilty about devouring it. Honey, you are SAVING civilization with every bite. You go girl! Everybody say ‘Amen!’”

Bibical history has it that menstruation was the curse Eve pulled down on womankind after she led Adam into sin. Sisters we ALL know that Adam went into sin all by his sorry little self, and Eve, establishing a pattern that would dog women for the rest of recorded history, covered for him.

“Oh yeah, God, it was ME, it was ALL MY FAULT he screwed up. Don’t be mad at Adam, he couldn’t help himself—I served him forbidden fruit! I’m such a jerk. He was just trying to be nice, joining me for a romantic little picnic out here in the garden!”

Uh-huh, uh-huh. I’m not buying that line for a minute! That story in Genesis is so lame—I mean c’mon, what kind of woman takes advice from a viper that LOOKS like a viper. None! We know better! But give us a viper in the shape of a man with six-pack abs, dark curly hair, deep blue eyes, and a sheepish smile, and DAMN, we’ll do ANYTHING for him—even disobey the Creator of the Universe. DUH! I'm convinced the children's bible pictures got it right: Eve was a blond.

Hang on a sec while I get some more pistachios and crack open another Coke. There now--all better--now where was I? Oh yeah, the first dumb blond who gave all subsequent blonds a bad name. Another curse on our heads (pun intended, y’all).

While medical scientists have never been able to figure out exactly WHY women menstruate, it’s been pretty easy for me to figure out why we have PMS. There’s been research done that shows women are perceived as more attractive when they’re fertile. When the egg drops, we all send out “a love me glow,” and through some metaphysical mystery, for a few days we attract men as easily as Jessica Simpson.

PMS, of course, follows this happy interlude and has the opposite effect. PMS shouts to the world—“Back away from this woman! Not suitable for breeding! We repeat, she is not suitable for breeding” PMS does this by adding five ugly pounds of water weight to our middles, making our pants grab us in all the wrong places, which in turn drives us to wear floppy gray sweatpants that are oh-so-flattering (NOT!). In case that doesn’t turn off the males of the species, our faces break out in angry red zits that make us look like we’re carrying an infectious plague. But if there are wonderful, rational men out there who still love us anyway, all we have to do is open our big moody mouths and snap their sweet little heads off. As heads roll across the floor, the message becomes perfectly clear: “Back off! Not suitable for breeding! Do not attempt to reproduce her DNA!”

The bad thing is that as I cruise through my 40s, PMS dominates my monthly calendar. This is because in mid-life, PMS not only stands for “pre-menstrual syndrome,” it also stands for “pre-menopause syndrome.” This is why I’m becoming a little BATTY (Bitchy All The Time Y’all). I’m caught in a riptide of fluctuating estrogen, and it’s making me crazy.

There is however, a cure for this, if only I could find it on a store shelf. What we need, Sisters, are Premarin M & Ms—pretty little pieces of dark chocolate laced with estrogen. Have you ever wondered if M & M really stands for Menstruation and Menopause? Are those bright little discs The Cure for The Curse? I have seen an awful lot of middle-aged women under their spell. They could be our salvation.

I’m convinced that when Jesus arrives in the Second Coming, he’s going to be passing out the estrogen M & Ms to all the women--even the blonds! And with divine M & Ms melting in our mouths, world peace will come again and men and women will all live happily ever after. Now that’s something to look forward to—that and some more pistachios.

September 2, 2005

Sex and the 40something-Year-Old Woman

My friend Mike said that V-Grrrl in the Middle sounds like a heading for a kinky sex Web site. Mike—I’m so surprised you would say that. (NOT!). Raise your hand if you share Mike’s ménage á trois fantasy—y’all can hook up on some other Web site later, all right. Leave me alone.

My idea of a threesome in bed is me and two oversized pillows (one between my thighs! Ooh la la!) My favorite bedroom fantasy involves sleeping for ten hours straight and waking up without wrinkles. Sorry to disappoint--I don’t see my virtual alter ego literally wedged between “The Graduate” and the Medicare patient in a room with mirrors on the ceiling and a Web cam in the corner (All together now: EWWW!), but hey, we CAN talk about sex if you really want to (laugh). So here’s today’s hot topic:

Why Moms are So Sexy, or Tabitha Hotlips Opens the Door

Tabitha Hotlips answered the door in a wet white t-shirt. The baby had slept through another feeding and her cups runneth over. She greets the UPS man with a coy smile and a husky “Hello there! Have you got something for me?” (Her voice is raspy from yelling at the kids all morning.)

“Ooh! A big package! I haven’t seen a man with a big package at my door in too long,” she exclaims.

Just then her three-year-old breaks away and steps in a pile of dog poop in his dash to the street.

Tabitha follows, her damp bosom heaving as she sprints with a 15-pound baby on her hip, her powerful loins leaping over the dog doo in a single bound. She grabs her son, looks into the UPS man’s eyes and says breathlessly, “Men! I just want to tie them up! They’re so dirty, so naughty.”

Her cheeks flushed with excitement, she signs the clipboard as the UPS man mops the sweat from his upper lip. She grabs his package and says, “Come back any time.”

September 1, 2005

Devils and Angels

Disasters like Hurricane Katrina bring out the best and worst in people. As emergency workers, police, soldiers, and medical staff work toil past the point of exhaustion to rescue and comfort the afflicted, others smash windows and raid businesses and cart off whatever they can carry. They’re like the seagulls in the movie Finding Nemo—their mantra is “Mine. Mine. Mine.” The devil’s own, looking for salvation in an electronic black box or a carton of pork rinds.

Angels hover in helicopters, maneuver in boats, and reach healing hands out wherever they can. I imagine the poor souls trapped on roofs or in attics in the stultifying Southern heat, avoiding drowning only to die of heatstroke. Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. Bodies floating and bloating amid the destruction, faceless, nameless, but not unloved. Somewhere in the post-Apocalyptic world that is New Orleans and Mississippi , someone is calling their names, heaving sobs, sighs, and prayers to heaven as hopes sink and the black waters continue to rise.

The Big Easy has become the Big Horror, flashing over a giant screen like a nightmarish scene in a horror movie. Day breaks and hearts are broken. Night falls on dark spirits. Crime rises to the surface of the floodwaters like a grimy oil. The soulless point and shoot guns and kill those who haven’t died already. But even the survivors have lost their lives in a palpable sense—all that they’ve known is gone, swept away in wind and fury and raging water. Life will go on but where will it go? Many must feel they’re already in Hell.

August 31, 2005