thirty-year-itch sonnet

My husband's and my love affair began in November of 1981 or 2—I've forgotten, but does a year really matter when we're talking about a relationship that has spanned about three decades? 

We're still together, though it's been a far-from-perfect thirty years.  And some weeks are more difficult than others.  Is it possible, at this late stage in our lives together, to reverse the trend?  So many people around us can't and don't. I doubt it will happen if my husband continues to wake me at 6:30 a.m. with his acoustic rendition of "Crazy on You" booming through the floor beneath my bed, though I must admit I do dig it when I'm fully awake.  So I have faith.

It's been said that money is the number one cause of fights between couples—even in this relationship, where lack of money was never a surprise.  The one thousand or so of you who've read The Book know that when I met Marty, he was quite content looking like, and earning the income of, a bag man—and even told me once that his goal was to impregnate one beautiful woman in every country in the world to create the "international family of peace."  I know he loves me because he stopped after the first one.

Now that I've gone through menopause (I'm not old, I'm early; it's genetic), I'm even more convinced I need a wad of cash, if not for the repairs of the pesky and irritating flaws of my home—the spatter-warped cabinets and cracked kitchen floor tiles, the rotten bathroom floor, the absent hot tub—then to fix my drooping eyelids and pay the personal trainer to work off these extra fifteen Facebook-exacerbated menopause pounds.  But we're both financially underemployed.  I don't want anything frivolous—not stuff like a new guitar or camera, though, privately, I dream.  

The sonnet I just wrote (only the second in my life, the first about eating the contents of an ashtray, which was the basis for a song I performed with my band in the eighties) captures what it's like when two people choke each other out with alternating arguments and silence.  There's no blame; if one has mood swings and flab, the other has unkempt hair and makes chewing noises.

I couldn't have written this poem—well, wouldn't have—without the help of a few of my Facebook friends.  For the past year, I've been requesting random words in my status updates.  Those who feel like it submit a word, and when I think I have enough, I write a poem using one of the supplied words in each line.  They take at least a week to write.  Much of the time, they've been good poems—surprisingly good—so I'm saving them for a book, rather than publishing them here.  But yesterday, I asked for seven pairs of rhyming words for a sonnet.  This is the poem that emerged.

It is no more autobiographical than any other poem I have written.  That is: there's a mix of true for me and true for you. Poems take liberties.  They are life stories, but they do not concern themselves with facts.  And they are only a single moment, not thirty years.  We can tolerate five minutes of crack-of-dawn "Crazy on You" because of years of good times, good smells, and good tunes.





thirty-year itch

I hear unspoken words in every sigh

and in your heavy footsteps on the floor

I hear the truth you never tell.  The lie

instead is uttered while the rotten core

infects the flesh—where once was love is pain.

we’re ugly like the belching of a trumpet

prisoners of notes that make it strain,

exploding on the other notes that bump it,

cacophonous like falling silverware.

together, honey, both our names are mud.

though some might say we have this savoir flair,

I can promise this: there will be blood.

If we’re to stay together through this jinx,

I'll need a couple carats and some minks.

old yeller

My name is Leslie, and I yell.   (Please don’t call me a yellaholic; I prefer ale to yellahol.)  If there were a club, a deity-free 12-step program, a debriefing, a detoxification, a reprogramming, I’d be in.

I don’t need anger management.  I’m not particularly angry (though perpetual pain does make me snappish); I’m frustrated.  Most of the time, I yell to get people to listen, to recognize that I’ve asked three times nicely already.  CLEAN YOUR ROOM! I AM SICK OF YOUR PILE OF CLOTHES!  Or I yell to stress to them that I really did tell them last week we were going to dinner at Beth's.  I TOLD YOU LAST WEEK WE WERE GOING TO DINNER AT BETH’S!

Sometimes I yell at the dog after I step on him.  I yell at the TV when the news is on.  I yell at people to get out of the kitchen, to stop using my computer, to PUT MY FUCKING CAPO BACK ON MY GUITAR WHERE IT BELONGS. 

Yelling is more love than hate. It is more caring than not caring.

Sometimes the yelling is the reaction of a control freak trying to control areas that she can’t control (people) because she’s unsuccessful at controlling what she can control (pizza).  Today I yelled at an acquaintance.  Instead of being the trainer barking obedience into a dog, which is the way it’s supposed to work, it backfired, and the dog ran away, which is the way it sometimes goes.  Because this was a person, not a dog. 

I could blame it on my family.  I was raised by a pair of yellers.  My first words were yelled.  When my sister was about to be born, my parents drove me to my grandmother’s house.  I fell off the back seat when we went over a bump, and I yelled, “OH, SHIT!”  I was four.  The old familiar familial yelling bothered me when I was little, but I couldn’t beat them, so I joined, yelling at my sister, my parents, our dogs and cats.  I moved out when I was seventeen, and, though I yelled a little less with the help of mellowing agents, I yelled more because of my punk rock band.

Yelling is an exorcism of sorts.  GODDAMMITRASSUMFRASSUM  is usually followed with Hi.  I don’t yell to hurt anyone’s feelings.  In fact, I hate that about yelling.  But I yell if you’ve hurt mine. 

I don’t mean to excuse it.  I just want to explain it. I often resolve to stop it.  But I don't know how.

I tried to quit yelling once a few years ago.  My therapist (he retired, or I’d be on the phone with him right now instead of talking to you) told me that every time I yelled, I had to do some housework I disliked.  I chose to wash the filthy kitchen floor.   For two weeks, I had the cleanest fucking floor in Baltimore.  Sometimes I would yell with the wet mop in my hand.  And soon, like the skinny bitch I put on the refrigerator to remind me not to eat the pizza, the mop became invisible. 

My name is Leslie.  I yell, and my floors are dirty.

missing

I've temporarily disabled my Facebook account.  Could be a day, could be a week.  Place your bets here.

beer googles

Beer and cake are the most heavenly foods on earth. How do I reconcile my worship of a bitter, carbonated nectar with my equal rapture in the presence of the sweet, dense manna? Hell is having to choose between them.

But I can choose, and I choose beer. Nearly every day. But beer has a stigma: it's undignified, manly, aggressive, unlike its more refined counterpart, wine. It's associated with frat parties and thick-necked guys and redneck softball teams, where the outfielder has a cigarette in one hand and a can of Natty Boh by his feet. Tell someone you drink a glass of wine every night with dinner, and she'll tell you how healthy it is. Now tell her you drink a beer every day at 4:00, and she'll think you're an alcoholic. Even though beer is good for you, but soda is not, beer still loses; no one thinks you're a drunk if you have a can of Coke with lunch.

You should know that when I talk about beer, I don't really mean beer; beer is, typically, lager—that piss-water-colored stuff that tastes nasty. I always mean ale. I like hoppy, bitter, light brown beers—no food-thick stouts with weird additives like chocolate. Give me some Flying Dog Doggie Style or some Harpoon IPA or some Rogue Dead Guy (perfect for Good Friday) or the holy grail of ales, The Brewer's Art's Resurrection (perfect for Easter Sunday).

I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the alcohol in beer. Coffee tastes delicious, but most of the people I know drink it for the flavor and the caffeine. Look, in a world that's as fucked up as ours, we need all the legal drugs we can get. Back when I suffered from insomnia, my therapist told me I should live like a starlet—popping uppers for breakfast and downers for dinner. And I do. Did.

On Monday, I took a beer-drinking hiatus, at least during the week, so of course I can think of nothing but beer. I quit because it's obvious I have a problem. That's right: I can't fit into my fat jeans. My problem isn't an alcohol addiction. If I had to pick from among Budweiser, Miller, Coors, or even Yuengling, I would abstain. If all you had was wine, I'd chew gum.(Possible exception: Riesling. Hey—I was raised on Maneschewitz, which spoiled me for Merlot.) Don't even mention diet beers. Blech.

Last night, my husband cracked open a Resurrection. Curses! I went upstairs and got in bed to wait for The Good Wife. The defendant had a drinking problem, and there was a picture of him with a beer in his hand. Last night I dreamt I was cooking eggs for breakfast—while drinking a beer. This morning, I found a pair of Flying Dog caps in the silverware drawer. I am Flying Dogfaceboy.

It's going to take the patience of Saul and the faith of Job to get to Friday with two six packs of Resurrection in the fridge. I like beer. A lot. But there's something I want a little more.

I want to fit in those white dragon pants.

I made this.

The first time I saw the press-kit photo of Jimmy Page on the wall of the School of Rock, I was in love. Not with Jimmy, though his sloppy, many-layered solos and his squinty eyes are timeless and sexy. With the suit, the suit of dragons and poppies. It's not a suit just any man can pull off, especially without good reason.

But a girl? A girl could wear the hell out of that suit! So when Serena signed up for the School of Rock's Tribute to Led Zeppelin, I knew what had to be done—and, true to form, I waited until the last minute to get on it. Last Saturday, with a week to go, I dragged a friend to some thrift shops in search of white pants and a white jacket, and when I blew ten bucks on three pairs of too-tight white jeans, I dragged my kid with me to the Belair Road Goodwill. I hit the jackpot.

In case you want to know the details so you can try this at home (and you can!), I did a Google search for "dragon" and "dragon art" and "dragon clip art" and "dragon suit" "jimmy hendrix." I didn't find a single beast I liked, so I combined the perfect clip-art dragon head with the body of some guy's back tattoo, using a cut-out filter to turn the photo into art. When I liked the results, I printed the dragon out (it took four transfers—it's about 26" long) three times, and ironed it on the clothing. I did the same thing with some clip-art poppies. Then I painted over everything with fabric paint, slopping some glitter-filled house paint on the dragon scales.

Every day, my daughter walks by the pants hanging on the door of the armoire in the living room, and she says, "Those are some fucking awesome pants."

Hey, I make some good stuff. My kid is the best of the best stuff I make.

Serena—and her suit—are on about a third of the songs at this weekend's School of Rock tribute to Led Zeppelin (4:00 Saturday, 1:00 Sunday at the Recher; $10). If you are in the area (and not watching the playoffs), come watch these amazing teenage musicians show off the chops they've been polishing since September, and throw yourself right back to 1975, at the Capital Centre. If I'd been born yet, I'd have gone with Andrea Palefsky.

I heard Page didn't wear The Suit that night. We've got that show beat.

hermommie and the order of the feedus

Today, my daughter, Hormonie, is thirteen. She may think January 6th, the Epiphany, is about her, but it’s all about me. Hermommie woke up looking like a Death Eater, the Dark Mark under each eye, evil roots black as night, and skin of—what else?—elder. Overnight, I became the parent of a teenager. A teenanger.

It won’t be all bad, will it? It could hardly be worse than last year. And there’s evidence that she’s outgrown her parseltongue. Last night, at dinner, she told me she loved me. And I didn’t even have to give her money.

But it’s not about her, a girl whose favorite bands are Pink Floyd, Sweet, and the Records, while other girls her age are drooling over Justin Bieber; a girl who can nail the sax solo in “Us and Them,” then hit the drums on “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and then play the lead guitar on “Over the Hills and Far Away” and then sing “Use Somebody”—while drumming!—and sound like the record; a girl who is so quick witted that when I apologized yesterday for my foul language (“The crows are fucking amazing!”), she replied, “I don’t give a shit”; a girl who—wait! It’s not about her.

For Christmas this year, Serena got me a gift certificate for a facial. My appointment is today, but I doubt that even Gina’s powerful elderflower and polyjuice potion can turn back the withered, arthritic hands of time. I guess that's OK. Truth be told, I wear my marks of motherhood with pride (and just a dash of Photoshop magic).

All of this is just a fancy way to declare my continuing love for my daughter, despite her age and disposition, and to say, in the clearest way* that she will understand:






*Happy Birthday, Serena!



If you want to translate English to parseltongue, go to the parselmouth.

the joy luck club

I forgot to resolve. I'm sure I was supposed to join most of the rest of America and engage in the annual ritualistic declaration, but I have been tiptoeing around the baby new year, afraid I'll wake him; 2010 was just that good—at least in comparison to the last batch of years. On Monday, I hope to stop eating like I have two assholes. That's about it.

Twenty ten began with an attitude adjustment, a concerted effort not to tell myself I suck with every passing minute. I focused less on whining my ailments to the world and more on putting them to music (C, G, D, usually, but occasionally D, A, G and sometimes Em). I have liked living this way. The benefit to feeling pain but not sharing it all the time is that you get to create some pretty twisted poetry and still have a bunch of friends with whom to share it.

Twenty eleven is much harder to say, but I hope it will be no less easy to do. The morning began like last year's, with an incredible sunrise and the serenade of crows, followed by a brisk walk in the park. It will end with Harry Potter at our favorite theater. In between, I stood around in the street gabbing with friendly neighbors and eating a roasted pig sandwich and chocolate truffles, drinking ale, telling jokes, and taking pictures. Perpetually-pink-haired Paula Willey, Your Neighborhood Librarian, was the pig tender—and boy was the pig tender! (Sorry.) I tasted brains for the first time (creamy and rich, with a little metallic aftertaste; almost delicious, except for the part about them being brains), though I'm pretty sure black-eyed peas are slightly luckier.

I've put in a request for lots of joy this year, a heaping helping of good times with friends and family, smooth skin, good hair, deep relaxing breaths, a pinch of luck, and just a tiny dash of strife to keep the art interesting. Happy New Year!