Coming In & Getting Off

I am a simple man. Always have been. I put my pants on one leg at a time. I wear a hat when it’s cold. I eat a well-balanced diet and I don’t play contact sports. I lived with my mom until I was thirty-five, when my wife and I got together. We got married in my uncle’s backyard beneath the big old weeping willow six months after we first met.

One day, I was working at the Winn Dixie in Dayton, and a wave of blond hair came fluttering through the automatic door. She practically floated. I can still picture that tan skin over that lean body and those little denim shorts. Me and the other cashier, Dale, stopped breathing as she passed. Women like that just don’t come walking into Winn Dixie everyday. A minute later she walked right up to my register looking proud with her box of Tampax. I rang them in and put them quickly into a brown bag to get them out of sight.

“That’ll be $4.53,” I said, handing her the bag.

She smiled and pulled the money out of her pocket. It was two one-dollar bills and a big pile of change. After dropping it on my counter she began ruffling through it, looking puzzled. I pulled out the quarters first, then the dimes and nickels, and brought us up to $4.40, but when I counted out the pennies there were only eleven.

“Two cents short,” I told her, pushing the change off the counter and into my hand.

She looked around the store a bit shyly and leaned into me real close. I could smell the coconut shampoo in her hair, and the mint of her chewing gum.

“Well, that seems to be all I got,” she said, twirling her hair on her finger.

“Any chance you might wanna lend me two pennies, I sure would be grateful,” she smiled.

I smiled back at her, suddenly feeling warm and even more nervous. Well I certainly could see that this pretty lady was in need of those Tampax, and I sure would have hated to be the one that denied her, so I told her it was no problemo, I sure could throw in a couple of spare cents for her.

Before I could say anything she threw her lean legs over the counter and was standing behind the register with me. She wrapped her arms around me, and I would be lying if I told you that with those round bosoms pushed against my chest I didn’t feel a bit of excitement down below. She asked me my name, and when I told her it was Joe Lewis she seemed pleased.

“Well Joe Lewis, I am gonna marry you,” she whispered, “What do you think about that?” I just never found a compelling reason to tell her no.

So, Marly Jo and I got married under that big old weeping willow in my Uncle Charlie’s yard and then she took me back to her parents place to consummate the event. They were out of town visiting her brother, so we had the place to ourselves. I’m telling you, she did things to me that afternoon changed my life. After Marly Jo and I got together I realized that there was something more for me and I stopped working at Winn Dixie.

Marly Jo and I bought a little trailer and moved down to the trailer park. She didn’t want to stay there, she wanted a proper house, but for a time it was all we could afford. She bought tulips to plant out front, and I found a new job at the sperm bank. It wasn’t the most glamorous job, but it was interesting, and it paid much better than Winn Dixie.

Marly Jo wasn’t excited about me working down at the sperm bank. She worried that the lonely wives would flirt with me while their husbands were out back trying to make a squirt, but when she saw how big my paycheck was she decided it was all right. Soon Marly Jo and I were going strong, we expanded our trailer, and it looked like a proper ranch home. We also started expanding the size of our family, as Marly Jo’s belly swelled and our first baby came into the world.

All the while I worked hard down at the sperm bank. I gave people their forms to fill out when they came in. I reviewed their paperwork and filed it. I took them into the donor rooms and got them set up with everything they needed. Some guys needed movies and magazines, or music. Others wanted complete silence. Others still wanted something to eat, certain brands of lotion, or warm towels. All of these things I gave them or let them have.

The remaining few wanted to bring their wives in with them.

Though you might think that couples would be the exception at a sperm bank, it was actually pretty common to have them there. I can’t imagine their difficulties because Marly Jo and I never had struggles with this at all, but some couples want a baby and just can’t seem to make one on their own. These couples would come into the bank and he would give the sperm to us, then, later, after we tested them to make sure they were a-o-k for making a baby, the doctor would bring in the wife and put the sperm inside of her. It was her own husband’s sperm; we were just helping the little crawlers along is all.

Over my years at the clinic I watched them all coming in. These couples, hesitant and hopeful, nervous and expectant. In through the door, and out to the back to begin the process of getting off. In the beginning, I was nice to all them couples, but I tried hard not to think about why they were there, or what they were doing behind the solid white door that separated me from them. Later though, I began to imagine what they were doing back there.

I want to make clear that I didn’t imagine those men that were alone, I only imagined the couples, and what it must be like trying to get off in that sterile room. Knowing other people had been in there only 30 minutes ago, doing the same thing in a different way, but with the same goal in sight. When I thought about it I used to get a little warm below the belt, almost the way Marly Jo made me feel when she came close, stroking the back of my neck with those manicured nails the way she did when she wanted to make love.

The same day our own child came, a couple I knew well found out that they were finally pregnant. They had been coming into the clinic for a few years, and hadn’t been blessed with any luck up until this point. I remember this specifically because they were a couple who argued frequently in my lobby, and I often had to put them into a room just to keep them from alarming the other guests. There was always a bit of an argument about whose fault it was that they couldn’t get pregnant, he believing his sperm was fine, and her believing her own eggs ripe for the picking.

In the end they would go back into that room and do what needed to be done, her coming back the following week to have the sperm inserted. It still baffles to me this day that between the two of them they couldn’t just get the sperm inserted themselves, but I am not in the business of judging other people.

I guess what really gets me about their situation is that the following week after their last big argument she came in on her own. She was in with the doctor for a full hour and when she brought me her invoice it was for an “insemination procedure.” She paid and left, only to return the following day with her husband. Upon leaving, she handed me an invoice identical to the one she had given me the following day.

I didn’t ask any questions, but I looked her up and down with curiosity. I knew full-well that the husband only had one tub of sperm on file, and there was no way they got two inseminations out of it. Later, when my little Betty was born and this couple came out all smiles about their pregnancy I didn’t have the heart to ruin their happiness no matter how bad the rat smelled. I was happy, so why shouldn’t this couple be happy too? But happiness never lasts as long as we think it will.

A few months later (four months to be exact) Marly Jo and I realized that something was wrong with our little Betty. She had stopped advancing. She should have been sitting up on her own, but she only lay there, stumbling over her self whenever she tried to move. We took her to Doctor Robbins, and he told us that Betty might only live another week due to an unusual illness that cause infant death.

We buried Betty under the old weeping willow. The life went out of Marly Jo that day, and her golden hair turned a dull gray. Where she used to whisper and laugh with me, she only stared blankly around the house and sat silently smoking cigarette after cigarette until the sun went down and she could go back to bed. I kept up my job at the sperm bank, but never wanted to think about sex, or having children, or getting off at all.

About a year after Betty died I sat down at the table to read the paper and drink my coffee. Under the community section, there were the death notices. Marly Jo used to yell at me for reading them, she thinking it wasn’t right to be so fascinated with death, but she had given up on that after our baby went to rest. The first notice was that of a three month old who died suddenly of a rare disease. In reading the notice, it came clear to me that this was the baby of the very couple who had gotten pregnant on my daughter’s birth day.

Now I am not trying to be coy here, but there was something unsettling about that report. A baby, died of the very same rare disease as my baby, and the parents having made that baby at my very own sperm bank. I walked out into the den where Marly Jo sat smoking and held the paper out to her. After reading it, a look of fear came over her face and a tear came down her cheek. I never saw Marly Jo cry, not even when little Betty died. Not even when we got married, or when she cut her hand on a broken glass. But this time she cried. It was a downright sob, but I didn’t have the heart to hold her no more.

A Bleb Once Told Me That People Like to Talk About Themselves

I guess this explains why I started a blog.

This is a community, isn't it everyone's snow?

I love New England. As much as I love the sun & the beach, I've been in Massachusetts my entire life, and I love it here. The spring, the fall, the summer, and even the....gulp....winter (sort of).

What I love about spring, summer, and fall are probably obvious. Flowers, and sunshine, the beach and the ocean, the foliage. What I love about the winter is less so. Sure, there's the first snowfall, there is hot cocoa, and there are adorable activities like snow angels and sledding. There's skiing, and there's tubing. There are cozy days by the fire, during which you don't need to feel bad when you do nothing but snuggle under a blanket all day long.

There are a fair amount of wonderful things about every season in my locale, but, when you live in New England, there are a fair amount of things not to enjoy about the winter.

First off, there are the resident "massholes" who take to extreme and obnoxious behavior. This is a year-round thing, but seems to intensify during the winter months. I notice this more than some others might, for in addition to driving to work, I have a dog that I walk the Cambridge Streets.

It begins when the cold arrives, and folks need to bundle up excessively just to walk down the road. The wind is brisk, and there is a chill down to the bone. Once folks break out the full winter gear, hat, scarves, gloves, hoods, parkas, etc, they reach a new level of rude. Perhaps this is due to the fact that with all that gear they feel more like knights or soldiers. So, they decide it's a good idea to throw everything they have ever been taught about manners out the window.

These cold-weather-crusaders take it upon themselves to cut other people off on the sidewalk, and to cut cars off so they can cross the street. They put their heads down and mumble insults at one another. Joe criticizes Bob for being in too much of a rush, failing to notice that his clothes are wet and he's freezing. Jane criticizes Nancy for not dressing her three-year-old warmly enough when walking him to daycare. Everyone becomes a critic, a comic, and a downright masshole. I don't love this element of winter.

As the days grow shorter, and the cold more intense, so do the knights of winter grow more gnarly, hateful, and bold. They become pale, and chapped, and tired looking.

And then comes snow.

We just had our first major snows last week, and I'll say, I love to see the snow falling for the first time every year. It's lovely to watch, and exciting. And it reminds me that I do love all the seasons, even if I am only able to love winter for a few fleeting moments. But once I head to the streets for the shoveling, this all fades away.

First off, I live on a street where parking is at a premium, even during the nicest weather months. Not only this, but the city has refused to see the light and make my road a one-way. This means that when there are cars parked on both sides of the street there is only one lane left in the middle, and I have witnessed many a standoff where two drivers sat bumper-to-bumper, both refusing to back up and let the other pass. Reminder: this is even during the nice-weather months!

The snow falls, and people go haywire. They start driving excessively slow, almost wrecklessly. They head outside to shovel their cars out, and it becomes a war over where to put the snow. Number 47 doesnt want you throwing it in his yard. Number 34 doesn't want it piled to close to his driveway. Number 65 throws his back in the street (which there are laws against, by the way). There are tiny, inept folks shoveling out their cars and sidewalks incessantly, while lookers-by care only about their own snow issues.

You'd think though, this is a community, isn't it everyone's snow?
Think again.

People begin to pull their cars out of spots to leave for greener pastures. Others move their cars further from the snowbanks on the sidewalks. Others just never pulled in correctly in the first place. And the plows can't fit down that skinny lane. And people don't understand why. And the panic sets in. And it all becomes mayhem.

Folks start acting crazy. They put chairs, and recycling bins in their parking spots to ensure that noone else parks in them while they are at the market. Folks move them, and park, with no other options, and return to their cars to find nasty notes, key marks on their paint, or to find that someone was so angry that they paid a person with a plow to snow them in all over again.

Everyone starts looking at everyone else as the person who marginalized or victimized them. Noone will talk to anyone else. The hi's and good mornings have ceased to exist. People watch others try to back into or out of parking spots, and get stuck, and they ignore it. They listen to the wheels spin, and the rubber burn, and they look the other way.

I sit there, wheels spinning. I've stuck cardboard, and pieces of wood under my tires, but I can't get traction. My undercarriage is stuck on a patch of ice that was too thick to break away. I'm a 5'4'' woman. I only have two arms, and two legs. I can't possibly cut the wheel, press the gas pedal, and push my own rear bumper. There are knights walking the streets. Their kamik boots crunching in the snow. Their north face jackets rustling. And they soldier by. Marching in perfect formation.

I am on an island.

This is winter in New England.
This makes me question my continued ability to love, the place I love.

COMING SOON!

-The Morning Big Mac!
-The RUSH to make a left!
-Fresh City & Express Clothing!
-My dog is a lesbian!

The Leather Backpack

There are some inventions, that when you think about them, you say "I'd like to shake that guys hand" about the person who came up with it. For example, the guy who invented the nacho, and the woman who invented gloves and shoes. There are others that give you a less-positive reaction. The leather backpack is one of those.

I'd like to start off by saying that I didnt feel it would be fair for me to call out the leather backpack for it's lack of coolness without first looking it up on the wikipedia so that I knew a bit more about it's origins. Amazingly enough, I discovered that there is a lot more air time for the regular backpack then for the leather one, and there is some irony to that.

First, the wikipedia describes a backpack as "a handbag for carrying heavy loads" and then goes on to explain that in ancient times, the backpack was first used to carry a hunters larger game and prey. Therein lies the irony of the leather backpack: It's SICK to use the skin of one animal to carry another, no? I mean, in ancient times they had to make due with what they had but still...as my main squeeze would say, it's similar to the idea of making a chicken omelet.

Okay, so anyway, aside from the history, and the irony, my strong dislike of the leather backpack truly stems from both a) it's ugly appearance and b) the likelihood that it is too small to really hold much weight and c) the fact that functionally, our arms don't go that way, and its crazy to carry your valuables on your back where thieves can reach them and you can't!

So, while I can understand that hunters might have found it convenient to carry heavy game on their backs, it seems that carrying prey on their backs likely caused an unsubstantiated number of ancient hunter deaths when tigers pounced upon them to grab the deer in their backpacks. But whatever...I would like to think we've evolved since then, right? Like, we're smarter. Oh wait, except, we aren't, because we still use backbacks unnecessarily.

Guess what? If you are carrying a leather backpack, and it's smaller than the purses of most of the women in your general vicinity, then you are making a serious mistake. Not only is it a fashion faux-pas, but it's also generally retarded. And no, I don't care if it's a Louis Vuitton. Spending a thousand bucks on a tiny leather backpack that can't hold much of anything just so you can show off the label to predators is like tattooing a target on your own forehead. For real.

At this point I guess this has become more of a rant than a blog. But it is food for thought. There are MANY inventions, and inventors that deserve props. I can appreciate the backpack for the hunter, the gatherer, and the nomad. I can even appreciate the backpack for the hiker, and the student. You know, the type of person who is actually carrying heavy stuff that requires the use of the strongest muscles in the body (the back and legs, in case you didnt know). But I absolutely cannot, ever, condone the use of a backpack, and a leather one at that, for carrying lip gloss and car keys. Sure, is the thought of not having to use my hands to carry a purse slightly appealing, yes. But guess what? If I've only got lip gloss and keys I can probably get my boyfriend to put them in his coat pocket. And if I've got a few more things, well, I'd likely go for a wristlet, or a clutch. The over-sized clutch is in style right now anyway.

A Vat of Stuffing

I am dreaming about making a giant vat of stuffing.
Crawling into it.
And not emerging until it's empty.

The difficulty in this?
I do not have a turkey or an oven large enough.
To hold the massive amounts of stuffing that I am envisioning.

So here I sit.
Dreaming of stuffing.
Wondering why I always must wait.
To have it only for a week out of every year.

Thinking it sick, where we stick it.
But I still love to eat it when it comes out.
You cant say that about much.

Ahhh. Stuffing.
The Good Stuff.

Enough.

A burnt english muffin is no way to start the week...

I woke up way too early this morning. This is my own fault, as I fell asleep way too early last night, after an afternoon of wine and art and cheese. At any rate.

I got out of bed and turned on the computer, figuring with a little extra time this morning I might as well give my little 'ole blog a bit of attention. So, I made some coffee, took my multivitamin, and put an english muffin on to toast. Unfortunately, I got involved in a little game of fashion wars on facebook, and unfortunately my muffin got a bit too toasty.

After realizing that the smell of burnt whole wheat english muffin was wafting through my house, I also realized that I was NAUSEOUS. Not from the over-cooked muffin, but from the multivitamin. Those damn things always make me sick if I take them on an empty stomach, and even more so on occasions when I start drinking my coffee before eating something. I guess I should consider that crystal light, coffee, and a multivitamin MIGHT make me sick, but when it's early and I'm a bit groggy I dont always think of this stuff.

Ok, so I take my well-done english muffin out of the toaster (by the way, the package tells me that the whole wheat variety I bought will supply me with 1/3 of my total fiber for the day), and begin pacing the kitchen, wondering what condiment will best disguise the taste of burnt fiber so that I can still eat it in order to make myself feel less pukey. Of course, these things only happen when it's the last english muffin in the pack, which of course this was, and when I really need to eat something, which I did.

I consider my options. Butter, jelly, cream cheese. Any of them could work, I suppose. But I'm kind of having trouble thinking still because I only had a few sips of coffee, and I feel so sick that it's hard to think of anything except my nausea. I settle on peanut butter, figuring that even if it still doesnt taste good, I can be pretty sure that by putting enough on it will be sufficient to coat my stomach long enough to digest the multivitamin so that I don't barf it up.

Well, this tactic worked. I had to fight my dog off while eating it, as she LOVES peanut butter (she takes after her mom), and to eat it as fast as possible the whole time willing it to hurry on it's merry way down to my stomach where it can work it's magic. Finally, 10-15 minutes later I felt better.

So, here I am. It's Monday morning. It's a short workweek, and will be a big week of eating all of my favorite foods for thanksgiving. Which is the bright side of a dark beginning. I still question why I want to take the magic 'multivitamin', which is supposed to help my overall health, but only ever seems to succeed in making me nauseous, or changing the color of my pee. Sometimes I think I should go back to the old days when people didnt rely on things like vitamins, and aspirin to heal their pains, and protect them. They simply worked, and ate, and were thankful for whatever they had.