The Joke's on Me

Am I the only person who occasionally wants to tell the universe to Bite Me?

After another run in with the StormTroopers yesterday  (for those of you who are not my friend on Facebook – and why aren’t you? Send me a friend request, I’ll totally be your friend! – their air conditioner started leaking on Thursday, but they didn’t think it was a problem until SUNDAY, at which point they became aware it was a problem because it was leaking through my ceiling. We had words. I had to call the building manager and may have uttered the phrase “I am SO SICK OF THING ONE AND THING TWO UP THERE” while she snickered), I was thinking some mean thoughts in their direction. Thoughts like “How is it possible that they’re so STUPID? “ and “Who plays BRUNO MARS as loud as they can? WHO?!” and “WHY DON’T THEY JUST MOOOOOOVVEEE FOR THE LOVE OF PETE AND ALL OF HIS FRIENDS BECAUSE I HATE THEM”, the universe (or God, or the fates, or whatever you prefer to call it) keeps throwing them in my path.

I don’t want them in my path.

I want them to be rendered invisible and unhearable and definitely I want them to stop causing water to drip through my ceiling.

But there they are. In the laundry room. When I go to the mailbox. When I go out on my balcony. StormTroopers EVERYWHERE.

And they keep being friendly and kind of charming.

I’m a sucker for friendly and charming. But I will NOT be swayed. I don’t like them. They are messing with my nicely ordered existence.

Except that they kind of remind me of puppies. They seem so YOUNG. And goofy. And poorly trained and housebroken.

Puppies, though a total pain, are lovable.

The StormTroopers might also be kind of loveable. In a “I’m going to ruin all of your stuff, but it’s not on purpose, it’s because I don’t have a freaking clue” way.

I want to universe to leave me alone. I have a good thing going with my loathing of the StormTroopers. Why mess with it? Why can’t I just loathe them in peace? I ask the universe, but it just gives me a nudge. Nudge, nudge, in the direction of trying to be understanding. Nudge, nudge, in the direction of maybe being nicer.

Not enjoying the lesson doesn’t mean not learning the lesson. Even when it’s a lesson you REALLY don’t  think you need, or want.

Maybe especially then.

All You Need Is Love

I’ve been trying to write this post for a couple of hours.

First, I wanted to say something about how people who are getting married often hope for the perfect day. Perfect, cloudless sky; perfect temperature (not too hot, not too cold); perfectly dry; perfectly beautiful perfect day. And then I was going to say something about how you hold all of the elements of a perfect day within you.  That it doesn’t matter what the weather is doing as long as you have joy and love in your heart – that would make ANY wedding day the perfect day, no matter what the weather is doing. Because a wedding isn’t about weather.  It’s about people, and love.

Then I was thinking about how much WORK weddings can be, and how they can be so exhausting and crazy that sometimes the happy couple is the stressed out couple and they forget to enjoy themselves, and how I wish that more people would remember that the big day is just that – ONE day. One day in a series of days that comprise a lifetime, and that the lifetime’s worth of days? That’s important. ONE day? A drop in the bucket. It doesn’t have to be perfect – nothing ever is – but because it’s about a couple, and their love? It’s bound to be fabulous in all of its imperfection.

Then, I wanted to say something about being proud to live in New Hampshire, where all people are allowed to get married. YAY! EVERYONE COME TO THE WEDDING PARTY, Y’ALL!

But I think that what I’ve been trying to say all along is that I want to offer best wishes and big, BIG hugs to my friends Stephanie and Jaime. Your wedding day is magical because you are, you crazy kids.

Love. It really is all you need.

Roofahs

“Hey, daaahlin,” someone said.

This was unusual. I looked around from my perch on my balcony, where I was drinking coffee and contemplating the eight gazillion things I had to do. Then I heard it again.

“Hey, daaahlin!”

I looked down. There was a man in a truck. He was looking at and talking to me. This was weird. My apartment complex has a code that is something like the first rule of Fight Club, and that rule is this: You don’t speak with someone who is out on her balcony. The second rule? You DO NOT SPEAK with someone who is out on her balcony.

Truck guy didn’t know the rules.

“Um, yeah?” I said, thinking that in addition to not knowing the rules, Truck Guy also apparently didn’t realize that no one ever calls me “darling” – except, of course, that he wasn’t calling me darling exactly, what with his significant Maine accent. He was calling me “daaaahlin.” Like when my nana called me “deah” and which I also would prefer not to be called by a strange man in a truck.

“Is this yoah caah?”

He gestured to one of the vehicles belonging to the Stormtroopers. “No sir,” I said. “I park away from the building.” Because of the asshat who owns that piece of crap, I added silently.

“Weah going to work on the roof today, and weah gonna be tossin stuff off for a bit. Don’t want yoah caah to get messed up.”

“No worries!” I said.

Four hours later I was, in fact, a little worried. Because “Tossing stuff off for a bit” didn’t exactly describe what the roofers were doing. It was more like, ripping off the entire roof and sending it flying past my windows. My balcony where I had previously enjoyed my coffee was hip deep in debris.  My cat, who initially thought the “stuff zooming through the air” game was fun became scared and was hiding in the bathroom.

The whole thing seemed a little excessive.

Adding to the fun of the noise and falling … roof stuff … was Truck Guy, who was apparently the foreman of the project. He spent his time on the ground, yelling up at the guys on the roof.

“Baaaawbaaaay!” pause. “Baaaaawbaaaay! Did I not TELL you to fill the coolah with watah?”

“Miiiiiikaaaaaay!... MIKAAAAAAAY! Watch weah youah droppin that stuff! These balconies are full o’craaaaap!”

All day.

I wanted not to mock him. But I couldn’t help it. I went into where the cat was hiding in the tub.

“Beaaaaaansaaaaay!” I said, softly. “Beaaaaansaaaaay! Didn’t I tell you that the roofah guys weah gonna drive us nuts? Didn’t I?”

She gave me a dirty look and turned to face the corner.

“Sorry,” I said.

I closed the windows and drew the blinds, trying to escape from the noise and chaos. Beansie stayed in the bathroom until the noise finally stopped.

I peeked outside. There was a giant yellow panel truck parked directly in front of my balcony, which had somehow been cleared of debris. It reflected the sunlight. I felt radioactive but I could now sit in my chairs, open the door, get some air. It was quiet.

Then I heard it.

“Heeeeeey, Daaaaahlin!”

Oh well, at least I got a new roof.

Hopkins B. Frogington

When I turned one, my Aunt Judy gave me a stuffed frog for my birthday. Or Christmas. Since those two events are only two days apart, it hardly matters. The important part is the frog. Aunt Judy and my mom both love frogs, and I think Aunt Judy saw this guy in a store and thought, “OOOOHHHH, Danielle needs to have him.”

Little did she know what she was doing.

Hopkins B Frogington*… also known as Hoppy – became my constant companion. I went NOWHERE without him. And when I say nowhere, I mean … NOWHERE. Not even the bathroom. (Which is how he came to take an unexpected dip in the toilet once, and then had an adventure in the washing machine. We don’t talk about that much. It’s too traumatizing.)

It’s likely that most people outgrow their childhood buddies of the stuffed variety. That would be normal.

I have never pretended to be normal.

I am one of those people who likes to nest. I unpack my suitcase in hotel rooms. I personalize spaces. So when I travel, Hoppy comes too, because I can’t rest my head anywhere he isn’t. As a result, he’s very well traveled. When I was a kid, he went to camp, and to Virginia, DC, Florida, Ohio, New York City and everywhere in between.

Then he went to college.

To be honest, by the time we were old enough to go to college, he looked a little … sad. He used to be a plush toy. As in, fluffy. At 18, he was suffering from mild baldness.

But still handsome, I thought.

He went to college. And then he went to grad school. And then he lived in Boston, and Portland, Maine, and North Berwick again. We did some more travelling – Rhode Island and Seattle and San Francisco. I had to travel with co-workers, and room with co-workers, and I had a moment of “I’m a professional woman in my 20s and I’m going to pull a mangy stuffed frog out of my suitcase?”

And then I thought, HELLS YES, I’m going to.

So I did.

I moved in with my future ex-husband. So did Hoppy. The future ex-husband, who was used to Hoppy’s presence, said, “Does he need to sleep with us?”

“Can he sit on an end table?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay, then.”

He went to England with me. Thank goodness he did, too, because I had the worst case of food poisoning EVER while I was there and needed something to help me to feel like I would make it through.

That’s been his job. He’s a reminder that some things in life are constant. Oh sure, we’re both a little worse for the wear – who isn’t? – but we make it through, and we are loved.

I married future ex-husband. We went on our honeymoon.

Guess who came with?

Who doesn't enjoy a tropical beverage?

He moved out of the future ex-husband's house with me. He moved to North Carolina with me. I will admit that, shamefully, I had a moment of abject depression when I was packing for North Carolina when I thought about tossing him. Nothing is permanent, I thought. No one loves anything forever. I walked to the dumpster and then -- couldn't do it . I had a little meltdown that probably looked VERY weird to anyone who happened to be passing by – a grown woman, clutching a stuffed frog that has DEFINITELY seen better days and sobbing. Oh well.

We both went back up to the apartment.

I would never have forgiven myself.

As I type, Hoppy sits on my bed. I like to imagine that when I'm not around he and Bert the Farting Hippo, and Wally Monster and the Transformers in my office have fun, like in Toy Story. Only Hoppy gets to be the ringleader and the mastermind. After all, he's 35 years old.

He doesn't look his best, I guess. Neither do I. He's LITERALLY a little tattered and torn. He's been sewn back together and he's worn out in spots. Me too. But we're both still here, and that's the most important thing.

We're both still here.

And the adventures continue.

*His name was only Hoppy for a long time. Then I decided that a distinguished elder statesman such as himself probably had a longer name with more gravitas. If you're wondering what the B stands for? Forget it. He won't tell.

The Lucky One

Sometimes, it just hits me.

I look around my apartment and I want to hug it.

I think about who I used to be, and how I let myself get boxed into a very tiny little life, and how painful it was to suddenly be released from that box when I didn’t know how to be myself anymore.

And I want to sing and dance around a little, so I do.

Whenever I want to.

Or I simply sit and listen to the wind chimes I hung outside and think, “I am so lucky.”

I am lucky.

Five years ago, if you had told me I was lucky, I probably would have wanted to punch you. I didn’t know I was lucky then, you see. I was tentative, hesitant. Like a zoo animal that had been released from captivity, I was afraid. You get used to the bars, and when they’re gone? You don’t quite know what to do. At least, I didn’t. So many choices. So many OPTIONS. I didn’t want them. I would have happily retreated back into the cage I was used to calling home.

That would have been a mistake.

I know that now.

That makes me lucky.

The fact that I am surrounded by things I love, by people I love?

That makes me lucky too.

It also hits me that there are a lot of people who are not lucky. You might know one, though it’s highly possible that you don’t know it.  Someone who is being boxed in.  Someone who isn’t allowed to dance and sing in her joy.

You can help her.

I know, because people helped me. They listened to the things I did say and the things I didn’t. They were there. They didn’t preach to me, they didn’t yell at me, they didn’t snap their fingers in front of my face or demand. They just let me know they were there for me and waited me out, and when I was ready? They helped me pack. They held my hand. They let me cry and made me laugh and reminded me that I hadn’t forgotten how to sing and dance with happiness.

Like I said, I’m lucky.

We should all be so lucky.

Stink, Stank, Stunk

My house is near the woods. As in, parking lot, building, small grassy knoll, woods, river. This arrangement makes me happy – I am happiest when I’m near the water, and I grew up in a house in Maine that had a big chunk of woods behind it.

I like being near trees. What can I say?

Living near the woods is great. There are trails out there, it’s pretty, it’s calming,  and it generally smells great. All leafy and green and river-y.

Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

Like the other night, when a foul stench woke me out of a sound sleep.

“Whazzit?” I said, jerking awake. The cat was perched next to my head, as usual, and she was looking around as though she was trying to figure out what was going on. This is kind of her default, but at this moment I was pretty sure she had a point.

My house – my entire house, because the windows were open – REEKED.

Of SKUNK.

You may not be aware of this, so please let me tell you: there were no skunks in North Carolina. NONE.  In New England, skunks are spotted regularly on the side of the road, stinking up the air. I used to see them in the woods. In fields. Hanging out under decks and sheds, waiting to spray the unsuspecting passerby. Here’s how many skunks I saw in North Carolina, alive or otherwise:

0.

I’m telling you. North Carolina is skunk free.

It’s weird.

It’s also why it took me some time to identify the stank that was currently gagging me. If you’ve ever had the dubious pleasure of being sprayed by a skunk, or having a pet that was sprayed by one, you know that skunk … whatever it is … is not just an odor. It’s a TEXTURE. It’s like having a warm towel of stinky funk wrapped around your person.

Or, in this case, my person, my furniture, my curtains, my EVERYTHING.

I got up, but didn’t know what to do. I tried breathing through my mouth, but quickly remembered why that is a bad idea when it comes to Skunk – it doesn’t taste good. AND YOU CAN DEFINITELY TASTE IT.

I didn’t – and for that matter, still don’t – know if someone had struck a skunk with a car, if a skunk had sprayed an animal close by the building? I don’t know what happened. But I knew my house REEKED.

I closed the window.

I closed the other windows.

Now the skunk smell was trapped in the house.

Not ideal, but at least it wouldn’t get stronger, I thought.

The cat sniffed the air and then made a face. “mEEEWWW,” she said.

“I KNOW,” I said. And then realized that I realllllly need to stop talking to my cat.

I turned on the air conditioner. I febreezed. Then I laid back down because it was 2 am and I was tired.

The stinkiness remained.

I tossed and turned with it for a while. I tried burying my face in my pillow. I thought about putting blankets down right next to the cupcake air freshener and trying to sleep there.

A tip: Cupcake tinged skunk funk will put you off cupcakes for a good long while.

Finally, I fell asleep.

When I awoke, the stench was gone. I opened the windows, fully expecting a blast of odor. Nothing. Apparently, the skunk had toddled off and taken his noxious fumes with him.

The air smelled sweet, like growing things and water.

My cat jumped up into the window, sniffed. “Mrrrooowww,” she said, approvingly.

“Right?” I said in agreement, and breathed in the fresh morning air.

Fast Food, Fundamentalism, and Free Speech

I’m relatively certain that anyone who reads this blog has been waiting for me to say something about Chik-Fil-A.

So here it is: first, I have a hard time patronizing any business that can’t freaking SPELL. (True story: I once refused to have my hair done at a very nice salon because there was a typo on their signage. I can’t HELP it, y’all.) So for that reason alone, delicious waffle fries aside, I had a hard time giving them my hard earned cash money.

Second: I don’t support bigotry.

There are many people – including people in my own family – who argue passionately that Mr Chik-Fil-A is allowed to say and believe what he wants, which I agree with WHOLEHEARTEDLY. This is America, people. You get to say and believe whatever you like. YAY!

You also get to bear the responsibility for what you say and believe.

However. I’m going to say it again: THIS IS AMERICA. Where we, in theory at least, should believe in equal rights. Our track record on “all people deserve the same bunch of rights” is, well, not so great, but we have made progress in the areas of gender and race and religion.

Many Americans get stuck on the issue of sexuality for religious reasons. And to that I call bullshit. Show me someone who says they follow all of the rules of their religion and I’ll show you a liar. The pastor at my church used to take bottles purchased in New Hampshire and redeem them in Maine – a practice which, last I checked, wasn’t entirely legal – and I’m pretty sure that “not breaking the law” is against his religion. I know lots of pious Christians with craptastic driving records. I know many a divorced Christian. I know Christians who gamble, Christians who drink, Christians who curse like sailors and who have affairs and who steal and who do any number of things because it’s what people do.

Here’s what I learned in my fundamentalist church, growing up: all sins are equal. If you’re mean to your sister, that’s the same as stabbing someone. Which, perhaps, is crazy, but since many people who oppose equal rights for the LGBTQ community are fundamentalists, let’s roll with that. Here’s the other thing they stressed: We’re all sinners. Every last one of us. Basically, to be a fundamentalist is to say that you’re a sucky human being and you’re going to keep right on sinning but God loves you anyway, and that your sins are the same as everyone else’s. They’re all equal.

Of course, my friends the fundies don’t necessarily attach that bit of wisdom to gay rights. Because apparently, they’re mostly willing to overlook the sins of themselves and their churchgoing friends, but not those of people they deem “other”.

To be honest, the issue for me has never been “gay marriage” but the fact that, as a nation, we continue to allow discrimination against a specific group of people based on who they’re sleeping with. Not only is this not awesome? It’s kind of dumb. What someone does in their bedroom (or wherever, I’m not judging) with another consenting adult is no one’s damn business. It hurts NO ONE. Two guys making out on a street corner is no more appalling than seeing a man and a woman make out on a street corner – either way, I’m going to yell “Get a ROOM!”

So by acknowledging that he doesn’t support gay rights, and that he gives money to groups that work to deny equal rights to gay people, Dan Cathy has outed himself as a bigot.

And as I said, I don’t knowingly support bigotry. Think of it this way: if he had come out and acknowledged that he gave money to groups trying to prevent people of colour from having equal rights, it would be denounced as horrific, archaic, unacceptable – because it would be.

It is unacceptable to work towards preventing civil rights for anyone in America, whether you agree with their lifestyle or not.

That’s the problem with Chik-Fil-A. That’s the issue.

I wish I could make more people understand.