Jillibee'sness

Notes on White Rage

This is an actual account of a trip to the grocery store today.  This aging Barbie in the bullying white truck who would not let me turn into the grocery store and then laid on the horn and followed me when I had the audacity to do so, is a real person (with fake parts).  I did drive around the parking lot with her following me (after me having waved at her with my finger when she laid on the horn and accelerated instead of allowing me to make the turn).  She approached my car and angrily "invited" me to discuss the matter in front of my children, but I chose instead to turn on the CD player and ignore her.  Beautifully and ironically the song on the CD was from the musical "Wicked".  She left disappointed not to have engaged in a fight and completely missed the humor of the moment. 

I was a bit shaken and the kids were a bit rattled.  I hated that.  I was telling a friend of this experience when she relayed her own.

Two nights ago she and her husband went to dinner in a very nice town.  They were trying to turn into a parking spot but had come a little close to the spot and needed to back up and try again.  A woman with a nice car refused to back up.  They motioned to her so she would know their intentions.  Nothing. The wife got out of the car and asked her to back up.  No response.  The wife began to insist she back up while many people were watching.  Nothing.  The husband and wife drove off and let the woman have their spot.

I know none of this will make the headlines, but I fear this is a sign of the times in suburbia.  It will be interesting to see if we can all keep it together and play nice while our toys are being taken away from us or if there will be more of this kind of thing in the coming months.

I for one will do my part. I intend to engage in only acts of passive (aggressive) resistance in rhyme.  If I am pushed too far, I may be forced to start expressing some of this in song!  So DON'T PUSH ME!!! Musical theater happens, and it's NOT pretty!

White RAGE

Here's how we roll
Here's how we see it
It might sound droll
But it feels like shee-it

Driving in my mini-van
driving in my hood
Going shopping is the plan
oh yeah, I shop so good

Whoop there it is
a big ol white suburban
all up on my biz
like Aladdin's tiny turban

Laying on the horn
make me want to holla "STOP"
don't wanna be like porn
but I flipped the BEE-ATCH off

Next thing that I know
She guns a motha down
with all my kids in tow
she follows me around

Gets outta her car
like an angry ol Barbie
she takes this thing too far
starts to cuss and hollar me

I cranks up some show tunes
till she just storms off frustrated
Wicked soundtrack "boom boom boom"
that beatch just menstru-ated

I know I could do bettah
the finger should not fly
but the moment that I met her
with her anger and her "why"

I knew that I had seen
a case of white hot house wife rage
like a smutty magazine
with a wrinkled dirty page

I know this angry chick
with her angry ugly curse
Is feeling kinda sick
cause her shoes don't match her purse

I know this big old truck
that she drove up on my van
ain't paying for itself
so she's doing what she can

Like my classy middle finger
hope this chick can introspect
and not let this anger linger
till the next intersect

I know my kids are proud
that their mama did not pop her
her angry words were loud
my quiet finger flew on topper

I know they think she's crazy
and just came out of nowhere
Truth is I was lazy
with just one finger in the air

don't think I shoulda done it
but it's not the worst of crimes
this middle finger she-it's
just a sign of the times!

These times they are so tryin'
brings the worst out of us all
so before your finger's flyin'
gotta give the Lord a call

If you don't you might just find
an angry Barbie at your window
out of her frickin mind
and putting on a van show

Children are our future
(though we've spent it all today)
next time I think I'll toot her
and drive peacefully away

Nothing's worth the effort
Nothing's worth the strain
Nobody needs to get  hurt
we just need to keep prayin'

Things will turn around
they always seem to do
don't let the money get you down
and make you say "screw you"

We're in this thing together
Barbie, work to keep your head
make friends with things like pleather
and shop at Ross instead

We all must do out best
to restrain our fingers and our rage
we may not all be well dressed
but we should all act our age

The children we are robbing
will have rage of their own
let them see me bargain shopping
and not picking any bone

with an angry aging Barbie
or a tired weary Ken
let my conduct and my car be
4 tired, steery, cheery - zen

The house on Main street

It is ironic that I am typing this with my thumbs on my tiny blackberry keyboard instead of my big mini laptop or my bigger computer. It is all about size and space with me these days (and this time it is not about my weight!) Size does not matter unless you have been used to bigger and might have to go smaller, which is exactly what I am vexed by today. I have not blogged in a while. I guess it is because I have exactly the same stuff to say that I said the last time I blogged. We are still in the "now-you-have-it, now-you-don't" test of wills we like to call "are we going to have to move in a month?" We have been playing this game for a year. But thanks to the economy and the timing of the paperwork it is suddenly our turn to make a move (either figuratively or literally) and we are not as sure we can win as we were when we sat down to play this game. Here we sit in our roomy enough house discussing the options. We will be downsizing in one way or another but do we want to be in a big house not able to afford to go anywhere or do anything fun or do we get a small house we can afford to run away from? Of course I am picking this time to pull my head out of the sand and look at the world, the economy, the political discussion about eliminating tax credits for home buyers, and the real possibility of lay offs at my husband's (and just about every other person's) job. The real and present danger of it all that makes me want to stay home in bed is the thing scaring me away from buying any home to put my bed in. I just want to go home! I am enormously blessed to have both people alive and well who taught me what a home is. My parents are across the country from my husband's job. Deciding whether to even visit them for the summer is an impossible dream if we buy this house or one similar. If we were to move there, then my mostly grown son would be the one living on the other side of the continent. It seems cruel to have to make these kind of decisions. I am usually good at trusting God for these things but I am also usually better at hearing from Him. So for now I am waiting with my hand poised over my game piece waiting for a signal to make my move and clarity to know where to move it, while fighting the urge to just quit. Maybe I will throw a fit, turn over the dining room table (where these grown up games are played) and just take all my stuff and go home! (Ironically, I would have already done so, if I could just figure out where that home should be!)

What's the use?

As I begin the process of merging my life as a mother/artist and positioning myself for future employment, I am updating the information on my social networking sites - Plaxo and Linked In.  I joined these sites because it is the business thing to do and well, because I was invited.  However, Facebook is the only one I love and understand.  Facebook is for friends, and a place to let it all hang out with all the people you wish you had more time to hang out with.  The other two sites are professional networking agents to enhance the ability to be more of a professional.  As one who is pretty transparent in general, I have found the duplicity of a professional/personal identity challenging - even back in the day before every thought a person had was written down and sent into cyber space for God and every other user to read (God prefers "Windows", by the way).

When I first started blogging, I was very private about it.  I did not allow just anyone to read it.  I now open it up to God and just about everybody.  I am not sure I should be so public with this blog. My attempts to be personal enough to be relevant and authentic, yet cryptic enough to maintain a healthy boundary, are feeble at best.  I must at the end of the day, just claim poetic license (whatever that means) or Popeyetic license - "I yam what I yam!" (At least at the moment I am blogging I yam what I yam.  I am not sure I still Yam what I Ywas!)

The good jobs I have gotten and loved have come to me warts and all from people who want warty people.  I suppose with this degree of self disclosure, I will not want to run for public office or school administrator or any other high profile office of responsibility; but really, is that something I should bemoan?   The office I seek, of "writer, mother, artist, friend" is one best held by people who are fearless about looking at their human failings and generous in sharing and celebrating the lessons they have learned in this petri dish called life.  That I have sought to do with this blog and feel I have done faithfully for a number of years.

So, whoever you are, reading this entry or the slumpy one that preceded it, or any of the ones preceding for that matter; I hope you find something useful or amusing to you and not judge me as a useful person based on my musings useful or not.

 

Better than nothing?

I don't feel particularly clever today nor very interesting.  I know that is not a compelling bit of advertising in the first sentence to hook you in and invite you to read more.  Perhaps you shouldn't.  I just read a blog by my friend Andrew Anker reminding me of the phrase "Dead cat bounce"  referring to the trend of the market to bounce up in a false recovery before slumping back down again.  I would like to write that rag (and it is now copyrighted so you can't do it).  At any rate, I feel like I can identify with that phrase.

Today it seems that buying this house is an unlikely dream.  The sad thing is, the short sale seems to be progressing nicely, our portfolio on the other hand is not.  My adventure with Celebrex love/hate relationship came to a screeching halt with a severe allergic reaction at Christmas which left me with a screwed up stomach and the same back pain that led me to take it in the first place.  So this month is all about lifting up my hood to figure out what the engine is doing.  I wish I could get a trade in on a newer model.

I am still enjoying facebook and have done some great writing on the side, but today I just feel like a dead cat looking for her bounce.  In times like these my husband likes to point out all the horrors in the world and in the lives of our friends and say "It could be much worse!"  That makes me feel ungrateful AND slumpy. Who would cheer someone up by telling them all the bad things in the world?  But he's right, I am lucky.  I look around at all the things I have to be thankful for and there are a gazillion.  The Bay area is gorgeous this time of year and my kids are gorgeous every day. My husband has a job.  My kids are healthy, my parents are wonderful.  And I, am slumpy anyway.  I think it is almost worse that there is so much good fortune...cause in a slumpy mood the logical next thought is, "it can only go downhill from here".  At least if life were slumpy I could generate sympathy for my slumpy state of affairs and my needless slump would go undetected or be validated.  Sigh.  Slump. 

Sure, there have been some bummers lately, but I wonder if this slump is really about the house and the economy and my health or if maybe some slump virus climbs in my brain at this time of year and makes me feel sorry for myself.  Maybe it is a precursor to the Spring Cleaning bug.  Perhaps this is the dark before the dawn or the cloud before the lining.  I feel an itch to do something shiny and exciting and have not signed on to my next creative gig yet.  Perhaps I am just dormant or germinating.  A slump by any other name still feels just as slumpy.

Whatever the cause, I would color myself slumpy and call it a day..except that it is early in this day, the sun is out, the kids are snugly and the day is mine to do with what I want.  So I am going to bounce my dead cat self down the stairs, which for now are still MINE, and make the most out of the blessings I am taking for granted.  I know this is not an inspired blog, but is it better than nothing?