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mallorys_cameraThe Spy Who Stayed Out In the Cold – even when he stopped being a Spy – lives about fourteen miles from the latest battle zone. He sez if the battles come within ten miles, he'll seek sanctuary at the American Embassy.
Gotta hand it to those Ruskies – way to start a war when the whole world is focusing on the Olympic games. Well-played, Vlad.
MTV is one of the few networks that doesn't switch to infomercials at 4am. Thus I got to watch three whole hours of Date My Mom when insomnia stuck in the wee hours.
I'd been dreaming of Rome. Rome was a cramped apartment that reeked of fruity incense. Ben knocked on the door. We were trading places – Ben was going to stay in Rome, and I was going home. Wherever that was.
I woke up in full fledged panic attack mode.
Now there are many, many reasons why I could be having panic attacks. But the reason I am is because Robin is due to return to Monterey on Thursday.
I'm not looking forward to it.
I've made my peace with the fact that I'm a horrible mother, at least as far as Robin is concerned. I'm just too damn old. I lack mental flexibility, emotional resilience. I don't want to fight the good fights, and Robin – headstrong, brilliant boy that he is, with no impulse control whatsoever – needs someone who can set limits in a cheerful, no-hard-feelings way. It ain't me, babe. I'm not up to it.
Ben can't do it either. Ben has always had a hard time telling Robin what to do.
"Why do you give him so many choices?" I used to ask Ben when Robin was six, seven, eight. "Children don't want choices. They want routine, they want to be told what to do. It makes them feel safe in a scary world."
Ben was the primary parent because I was the one out there supporting the family.
Ben probably had the harder job.
And he resented being a house husband. I suppose that was the reason he was so bad at it.
I wouldn't say I've been happy since Robin's been gone. I don't think I'm capable of what most people call happiness. But I have been content. I work my various jobs, I nibble my salads, sip my Orangina, read my detective novels, hang out with the pets. (Altogether now: the dogs have needs.) At eleven when I take the dogs for their last walk of the night, the Meezer stalks us at a discreet distance. She's the most unpleasant cat in the world, but I'm fond of her: she had a bad childhood and so did I. Anthropomorphizing again, I know.
The sole endearing thing about the Meezer is that when I walk the dogs, she trails us through an impossibly silent world. Milo's eyes catch the illumination from distant street lamps and there's a sense of total unreality, as though this is the instant when you might be able to put your arm right through that tree since physics tells us its atoms are mostly empty space anyway.
I like walking at night. I like being answerable to no one but animals.
Started thinking about the two short stories I have to write for my annual exercise in humiliation and rejection, my application for the Stegner Fellowship.
One story will be about a man who goes to Mexico for cheap dental work. The Mexican dentist, of course, will turn out to be quite, quite mad. But a good dentist.
Not sure what the other story will be.
So anyway. There I was in the van with surly, impossible Robin but without my wallet. The kindly AMEX man was giving me a name and a phone number. I was trying to write it down without swerving into the cars in front of me.
"Who's that?" Robin demanded.
"Mark," said the AMEX man. "Mister Mark." It was an 818 number. I sincerely hoped that Mister Mark – whoever the hell he was – was not lead-footing it back to the city of the misplaced angels.
"Hold on," I said to Robin. I pulled into a parking space across the street from Stew's house. "Why don't you just go ahead and run along upstairs. Tell them I'll be there in a minute."
"Why do I have to get out of the van?" asked Robin. "Why can't I just sit here until it's time for me to leave with Max?"
"Because it's a free meal," I said. "And with your attitude it's unlikely you'll have many offers like that in your lifetime."
Mr. Mark turned out to be Mr. Mars – Terry Mars, he told me. (Not, of course, his real name.) He repaired guitars. And he liked to talk. He described every credit card in my wallet and would have rattled off the serial number of every bill if I'd let him. "It's all there," he assured me. Gotta love that "all!" He repaired guitars all night long so if I'd like to drive by after my dinner in Santa Cruz –
"Now I have long hair," he told me. "And I wear a cowboy hat. But that's no reason to be scared – "
I wasn't scared.
"It makes me feel good to be able to do something good for someone else," he told me.
"You're a sheep dog," I told him.
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
The ultimate meet-cute, I thought as I climbed Stew's stairs. I'd never noticed Stew had so many fruit trees before. There was a plum tree, a pear tree, an apple tree, a lemon tree. Stew did it right. He bought his house for 70 K thirty years ago and he paid it off. Even with decreasing real estate values, it's worth a fortune now.
"I wish I'd bought real estate first and then dropped acid," ___ ____ remarked a million years ago. Of course ___ is a huge success now, owns a company, owns a magnificent Sunset Boulevard-style mansion in the toney Trestle Glen neighborhood of Oakland. No sense in missing ___ – he's not the same person I knew way back when. Alone of my cosmic littermates, I went on to become a failure.
Missing wallet was a logistical problemo since I had intended to lay $50 on Robin but couldn't now, and I was sure that Annie thought the quote missing wallet unquote was some sort of elaborate stratagem designed to extort money. After half an hour or so, Max joined us and we went out to dinner. Robin lobbied strongly for pizza. Under normal circumstances, I would have deferred to him but I wasn't feeling particularly benevolent towards Robin – if he hadn't been such a jerk, I never would have left my wallet at the gas station. "I want Mexican food," I announced and I wouldn't be swayed.
I was distracted at dinner. Worried about the wallet thing, physically exhausted, stressed to the max over Robin. One of the things that happens to me when I'm stressed is that I stop being able to eat, food literally nauseates me, so I sat there with a plate piled high with chicken flautas, guacamole and sour cream feeling as though I was going to throw up all over it while Annie kept sneaking looks at me from the other side of the table. I could tell she was concerned about me. "I didn't know Ben had gone away again," she kept saying.
"I told you, Annie," I said. And I had. But Annie's memory as she ages has become more and more selective. She grows more and more like Grandpa Al, her father. She really just doesn't want to deal with negative things, with drama. I can't say I really blame her; still it's hard – she's the closest thing I have to a support system.
Terry Mars called me three times as I was driving back towards Monterey. "I'm sorry – I really hate talking on the phone when I'm driving," I said.
He chuckled softly. "An old-fashioned girl!"
He was very cute when we finally met. There was the long hair, there was the cowboy hat. A smooth Welsh coal miner face. A little bit shorter than me.
"I don't know how to thank you," I said.
"Can I have a hug?" he said.
We talked for about twenty minutes, standing there in the parking lot. "Would you like to come in, see what I do?" he asked.
Actually I would have liked. But I said no anyway.
And stood him up for the lunch date he made with me two days later.
Why?
I suppose because I imagined he was interested in me and the thought of someone being interested in me was just too much to take. What if he wanted to kiss me? What if he wanted to have sex? What if I had to take my clothes off in front of him, display my fifty-six year old body nakedly to someone who didn't remember how beautiful I used to be once upon a time. I'm not beautiful now. I've reached that age – it happens some time between forty-five and fifty-five – where looking at me, you'd have no idea what I looked like twenty, even ten years ago.
It's not that I look bad for my age, mind you. I don't. My body's in good shape, I exercise fanatically. I'm tall, I wear size 10. My cheekbones remain high even as my jawline begins to soften. My tits don't sag too much.
The problem is there's no model for what naked women in their fifties – sans plastic surgery – are supposed to look like.
And I just couldn't bear to be part of a stranger's liberal education on that particular issue.
Gotta hand it to those Ruskies – way to start a war when the whole world is focusing on the Olympic games. Well-played, Vlad.
MTV is one of the few networks that doesn't switch to infomercials at 4am. Thus I got to watch three whole hours of Date My Mom when insomnia stuck in the wee hours.I'd been dreaming of Rome. Rome was a cramped apartment that reeked of fruity incense. Ben knocked on the door. We were trading places – Ben was going to stay in Rome, and I was going home. Wherever that was.
I woke up in full fledged panic attack mode.
Now there are many, many reasons why I could be having panic attacks. But the reason I am is because Robin is due to return to Monterey on Thursday.
I'm not looking forward to it.
I've made my peace with the fact that I'm a horrible mother, at least as far as Robin is concerned. I'm just too damn old. I lack mental flexibility, emotional resilience. I don't want to fight the good fights, and Robin – headstrong, brilliant boy that he is, with no impulse control whatsoever – needs someone who can set limits in a cheerful, no-hard-feelings way. It ain't me, babe. I'm not up to it.
Ben can't do it either. Ben has always had a hard time telling Robin what to do.
"Why do you give him so many choices?" I used to ask Ben when Robin was six, seven, eight. "Children don't want choices. They want routine, they want to be told what to do. It makes them feel safe in a scary world."
Ben was the primary parent because I was the one out there supporting the family.
Ben probably had the harder job.
And he resented being a house husband. I suppose that was the reason he was so bad at it.
I wouldn't say I've been happy since Robin's been gone. I don't think I'm capable of what most people call happiness. But I have been content. I work my various jobs, I nibble my salads, sip my Orangina, read my detective novels, hang out with the pets. (Altogether now: the dogs have needs.) At eleven when I take the dogs for their last walk of the night, the Meezer stalks us at a discreet distance. She's the most unpleasant cat in the world, but I'm fond of her: she had a bad childhood and so did I. Anthropomorphizing again, I know.
The sole endearing thing about the Meezer is that when I walk the dogs, she trails us through an impossibly silent world. Milo's eyes catch the illumination from distant street lamps and there's a sense of total unreality, as though this is the instant when you might be able to put your arm right through that tree since physics tells us its atoms are mostly empty space anyway.
I like walking at night. I like being answerable to no one but animals.
Started thinking about the two short stories I have to write for my annual exercise in humiliation and rejection, my application for the Stegner Fellowship.
One story will be about a man who goes to Mexico for cheap dental work. The Mexican dentist, of course, will turn out to be quite, quite mad. But a good dentist.
Not sure what the other story will be.
So anyway. There I was in the van with surly, impossible Robin but without my wallet. The kindly AMEX man was giving me a name and a phone number. I was trying to write it down without swerving into the cars in front of me.
"Who's that?" Robin demanded.
"Mark," said the AMEX man. "Mister Mark." It was an 818 number. I sincerely hoped that Mister Mark – whoever the hell he was – was not lead-footing it back to the city of the misplaced angels.
"Hold on," I said to Robin. I pulled into a parking space across the street from Stew's house. "Why don't you just go ahead and run along upstairs. Tell them I'll be there in a minute."
"Why do I have to get out of the van?" asked Robin. "Why can't I just sit here until it's time for me to leave with Max?"
"Because it's a free meal," I said. "And with your attitude it's unlikely you'll have many offers like that in your lifetime."
Mr. Mark turned out to be Mr. Mars – Terry Mars, he told me. (Not, of course, his real name.) He repaired guitars. And he liked to talk. He described every credit card in my wallet and would have rattled off the serial number of every bill if I'd let him. "It's all there," he assured me. Gotta love that "all!" He repaired guitars all night long so if I'd like to drive by after my dinner in Santa Cruz –
"Now I have long hair," he told me. "And I wear a cowboy hat. But that's no reason to be scared – "
I wasn't scared.
"It makes me feel good to be able to do something good for someone else," he told me.
"You're a sheep dog," I told him.
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
The ultimate meet-cute, I thought as I climbed Stew's stairs. I'd never noticed Stew had so many fruit trees before. There was a plum tree, a pear tree, an apple tree, a lemon tree. Stew did it right. He bought his house for 70 K thirty years ago and he paid it off. Even with decreasing real estate values, it's worth a fortune now.
"I wish I'd bought real estate first and then dropped acid," ___ ____ remarked a million years ago. Of course ___ is a huge success now, owns a company, owns a magnificent Sunset Boulevard-style mansion in the toney Trestle Glen neighborhood of Oakland. No sense in missing ___ – he's not the same person I knew way back when. Alone of my cosmic littermates, I went on to become a failure.
Missing wallet was a logistical problemo since I had intended to lay $50 on Robin but couldn't now, and I was sure that Annie thought the quote missing wallet unquote was some sort of elaborate stratagem designed to extort money. After half an hour or so, Max joined us and we went out to dinner. Robin lobbied strongly for pizza. Under normal circumstances, I would have deferred to him but I wasn't feeling particularly benevolent towards Robin – if he hadn't been such a jerk, I never would have left my wallet at the gas station. "I want Mexican food," I announced and I wouldn't be swayed.
I was distracted at dinner. Worried about the wallet thing, physically exhausted, stressed to the max over Robin. One of the things that happens to me when I'm stressed is that I stop being able to eat, food literally nauseates me, so I sat there with a plate piled high with chicken flautas, guacamole and sour cream feeling as though I was going to throw up all over it while Annie kept sneaking looks at me from the other side of the table. I could tell she was concerned about me. "I didn't know Ben had gone away again," she kept saying.
"I told you, Annie," I said. And I had. But Annie's memory as she ages has become more and more selective. She grows more and more like Grandpa Al, her father. She really just doesn't want to deal with negative things, with drama. I can't say I really blame her; still it's hard – she's the closest thing I have to a support system.
Terry Mars called me three times as I was driving back towards Monterey. "I'm sorry – I really hate talking on the phone when I'm driving," I said.
He chuckled softly. "An old-fashioned girl!"
He was very cute when we finally met. There was the long hair, there was the cowboy hat. A smooth Welsh coal miner face. A little bit shorter than me.
"I don't know how to thank you," I said.
"Can I have a hug?" he said.
We talked for about twenty minutes, standing there in the parking lot. "Would you like to come in, see what I do?" he asked.
Actually I would have liked. But I said no anyway.
And stood him up for the lunch date he made with me two days later.
Why?
I suppose because I imagined he was interested in me and the thought of someone being interested in me was just too much to take. What if he wanted to kiss me? What if he wanted to have sex? What if I had to take my clothes off in front of him, display my fifty-six year old body nakedly to someone who didn't remember how beautiful I used to be once upon a time. I'm not beautiful now. I've reached that age – it happens some time between forty-five and fifty-five – where looking at me, you'd have no idea what I looked like twenty, even ten years ago.
It's not that I look bad for my age, mind you. I don't. My body's in good shape, I exercise fanatically. I'm tall, I wear size 10. My cheekbones remain high even as my jawline begins to soften. My tits don't sag too much.
The problem is there's no model for what naked women in their fifties – sans plastic surgery – are supposed to look like.
And I just couldn't bear to be part of a stranger's liberal education on that particular issue.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 09:00 pm (UTC)As for naked older women, time to rent "Calendar Girls". Helen Mirren is a wonderful example of a natural, yet exceptionally hot, middle aged woman.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-10 03:35 am (UTC)Jeff
no subject
Date: 2008-08-10 03:56 pm (UTC)Yes, I don't quite know what to do about the Robin situation. I'm beyond feeling guilty about it. It is what it is. What I'm most sorry about is that it's going to wreck our relationship as two adults, and I was really looking forward to that.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-10 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 05:39 am (UTC)