Rock the cash bar

Sometimes the intersection of ideas, thoughts, events, and even cars can astound me into believing in something. What that might be I’m still not sure of, and that brings me to; knowing that I probably am not going to be sure of much ,ever. There are some certainties though, and  those have mostly  always held true.
I’ve known this was going to be a challenge from a very young age. Then with kids, you see that the stages and behaviors start early and stay for the duration. It is nothing less than a fascinating experiment experience that sometimes can go horribly awry, and on the other end of the spectrum amazingly well.
I wrote a little note the other day, regarding the constant yearning, and or keeping in check the strong desire to get all of the answers, or even some, or maybe one, of course, I lost it.

Too big to ignore

Pretty much every day, I exercise with Tracy Anderson, well not actually with her, but to her DVD. It is more for strength training than in hopes of cosmetic results, and it gives me a sense of well being, which is most welcome. This gal is a celebrity trainer, and she is, to say the least petite.
On this last occasion of working out, I was kind of in that trance place where you’re there but not really, and I noticed the void, the area around her rather, then her, as in the space, as opposed to the person.
I started thinking about the ramifications of how little area this women, and most women want to take up in the world. How small we want to be, and how though, we want, and manage, to offer so much of ourselves, we strive to do so in a tiny little package. The discord of those two desires, is confounding. Is it about existence, or not being?
There are, a deeper and complex set of challenges to examine;  feeling as though we don't have the right to take up more space, seems silly, but so does starving in order to be a certain size. The desire to remain childlike in an adult world, in a sense, to be punished for growing to be a women, to embrace the physical changes that make up what it is to be an adult female. The cultural relationship to body acceptance, especially from a Western perspective.
All this and more from a lost moment of thought, perhaps it’s just my way of avoiding the task at hand.

Like a stone

I’ve not spoken about the little people of late, and that may very well be because they are no longer even a little, little.
They, with the exception of Jack, are all adults, and somewhat private. Not as particular about sharing some things as I wish they might be, but for the most part, I am not privy to much that is going on.
I guess I’m fine with most of that, except that when something does go wrong, or they run into a problem, I kind of get  called in midway and have to put the pieces together, and try to figure out what to do, to either help, or yell at them . There are no in-betweens it seems. It’s going to be either fix it, or give them hell.
I am on my ninth year of high school, not including, my own actual time spent there. And , I want to be enthusiastic for Jack, to support his experiences and watch him with new eyes as he enjoys this last year. But, I don’t want to be delusional. He managed to go from mostly A’s the first quarter of last year, to failing one and almost failing three other classes.
This year, he has a heavy schedule and ascertains that it will be no big deal. Except, that it will.  No matter how convinced he is that it will all go swimmingly, past performance has to have some bearing on what we can expect.

I was raised up believing

And then the other story I’m going to tell is kind of gross, so look away if you don’t have the stomach for human stupidity and complete lack of manners or grace, and not on my part for once.
Many houses in the neighborhood, are being worked on, some by the same contractors, including ours, and the neighbors.
The workmen are pretty much finished at our house, so I was a little puzzled when I saw a couple of them, over a few day period, coming or going towards the shed in our yard which borders a woods.
I thought perhaps they had set up a work table back there in the shade, or some such thought crossed my mind and then was forgotten, until the other day when I had just come outside to eat my lunch before going back to work and Eamon was walking past, with a face I’ve only seen twice before and that was when he was cleaning up the remains of the toad he had accidentally run over with the rider mower when we lived out in the country, and when a cat came to die in our garage.
I glanced at him, and his face as he walked by, and then again, when he came back, and went towards the woods with the lead contractor, I went in the house cause with that chain of events, I realized the workers  had been shitting in the woods, with neither a bear  nor the pope.

Time is tight

As I mentioned, I was going to tackle the story regarding the near bar fight, or rather bowling alley fight that I would have been more than ready for, as I had an empty mason jar in my hand ready to smash someone’s meddling, buzz crushing, skull in.
The night before I left for NJ, Buckwheat Zydeco was playing, and though I knew it would be a late night, and had promised an early start, I had not seen him since the late 80’s and it was such a unique venue, there was no missing it.

Eamon and I went, met some friends there, and then when the show started I made my way towards the front, and ended up very close to the band. As the music was playing, I was taken, by the rhythm section, and I mean taken.

Not one of them was under 65 and they were probably over 70. Regardless, they were wondrous, I loved the entire show, and what a production it was, especially these guys who were just so the under appreciated working men, that at the near end of the show, during a break, I took two steps forward to shake their hands and tell them of their awe inspiring skills. They seemed quite pleased and grateful for my admiration. I then stepped back, (the entire meet and greet taking about fifteen seconds) , to notice these two women off to the side of the stage, screaming, and lathered up about something. Above and behind them, was Eamon, laughing his head off, because, apparently they were freaking out about what I had done. The only thing I could hear was “it’s not about you!” which apparently meant me. He later told me they had been in a tizzy about the hand shaking thing while it was going on. For some reason I felt compelled to engage them and ask what the problem was, and they snarled about waiting until it was over and being selfish. I walked away, sad and angry, all because of these strangers and their admonishments.
I’ve let people ruin so many things for me in the past, and I really did want to hit them both. Lucky for me I didn’t, and I’m none to pleased at the desire to do so, but I’m so tired of people and their joy crushing , I wanted to do some crushing myself.