Funny People

Written May 2009

Upon returning to work after an amazing weekend with the women, I find myself chatting with the coworker who covered my shift on Friday. I am feeling grateful for his help and loving a chance to express how great the retreat was. He tells me how happy he is that I had a good time and begins detailing his weekend fighting the sottish Memphis in May crowd. In the middle of a story about two women whom he caught trying to urinate in the garage, he stops and says, “But they were funny people.” He then shrugs his shoulders in a “and you just can’t expect any better from them” gesture. Immediately, I think, oh please don’t go there. My silence leads him to believe that I need educated on the matter. He continues, “They were women lovers…you know, dykey dykes?” I take a deep breath, focus on the building across from us, clench my pocketed fists, grind my teeth, and answer, “Yes, I know what they are.” From that moment on, the conversation was nothing more than his litany on how nice it is to be on a retreat reading the Bible and other such glorious things.

What is it they say about assuming?

Oh right…

Dear Mr. Pee-Pee Stopper,

We weren’t reading the Bible. We did read tarot cards and each other’s poetry, though. Certainly, if someone had wished to bring along a Bible, she could have. But as far as I know, no one did.

You know what else no one did? No one ranted about who wears too much or not enough make-up. No one gossiped about whose husband is sleeping around or which wife he’s doing it with. No one made anyone feel inadequate, ugly, inferior, unwelcomed, or out of place. No one condemned anyone else to hell. .

These women talked about their children, their life lessons and experiences, saving the planet, and the men they love or have loved. And some of them talked about *gasp* the women they love. But shockingly, no one peed on the staircase.

Funny People? Dykey Dykes? You mean lesbians and sapphists…carpet munchers, muff divers, bulldykes, butches, femmes, queers, lezbos, and lezzies? Oh, I know what those are! I just didn’t know that being one explained unscrupulous behaviors such as using a public garage stairwell as a toilet.

I know what women lovers are. But obviously, you don’t.

Sincerely,

A Woman Lover Who Uses the Toilet (as do most dykey dykes)

PS Thanks for covering my shift!

The Toe

The only way I can get JJ to get out of the tub without having him throw one of his drama queen parties, is to wrap him in a towel and cradle him as if he were a newborn. While rocking him from side to side, I must also chant, “bitty baby, bitty baby…you’re my bitty baby.” This is usually followed by a quick snuggle on the couch which ends with his sudden ejection from my “bitty-baby cradle” as he realizes that he must now run full-force from me, or he will soon be in a diaper.

Recently, during one of the quick snuggles, I noticed a scratch on the “baby” toe of his left foot.

“Oh, my baby! What happened to your foot? How did you get that boo-boo on your toe?”

I asked him this as if he would actually do more than give me the confused “uh-oh” expression he’s become so fond of lately. When the “uh-oh” was followed by a blank stare at his foot, I pointed to his toes and repeated:

“Toe. This is your toe. Say toe…toe…toe.”

He said nothing.

He looked back up at me and grinned and wiggled, preparing for flight. As his towel fell open, he stopped and looked down at his lap. After a few staring, contemplative seconds, he then yells, “Toe!”

“No, baby, that’s not a toe.”

And once again I am amazed at how many times a day this kid can make me smile.

I can't do it.

Walking up the sidewalk, I spot her. She’s sitting on a bench just outside of the garage. As I get closer to her, I try to smile at her, but she won’t look at me. She’s afraid I’ll do it. But I can’t. She doesn’t know that I can’t, so she keeps her eyes focused on the street. As long as she doesn’t look at me, maybe I won’t notice her. Maybe I’ll think she’s busy. But her head is tilted downward and sideways just enough to betray her obvious façade. She’s afraid I’ll do it. But I can’t. In fact, every inch of my being begs me to do the opposite. I want to sit next to her, put my arm around her, ask her how her day has been, invite her in for some warm coffee, take her home and offer her my bed and shower.

She won’t look at me, though. My spirit is overcome with sadness. I can’t walk away from her, so I sit on the bench next to hers. For nearly ten minutes, I sit there facing the street wondering what got her to where she is and what makes me different. I wish she would look at me and see me, not the uniform that she fears. She probably wishes I would look at her and see her, not her circumstances.

When I took this job, I was told what I’d have to do. “It’s an easy post. Guards love it there. The only thing you’ll ever have to do is run-off homeless people.” I knew then that I could never do that, but I needed the job, so I pretended that I could. I hid my immediate repulsion. I hid my anger.

My first day of training, I was instructed on just how to run-off homeless people. “You can’t let them stay on the benches. Just go out there and tell them that we can’t let them be there. They will leave. They’re nice about it. They know they can’t be there.” Again, I hide my reaction. I want to ask what is so wrong with tired people resting on benches. I want to ask why the benches are even there, if not for rest. I want to yell that they are not nice about it, they are humiliated by it and so they move on. But I nod and keep walking…I need the job.

But here I am three weeks later and I have to face my responsibility. I just can’t do it. Fire me. I am not going to make her leave! She isn’t hurting anyone. So what if some people don’t like to look at the sidewalk and see someone actually sitting on one of the benches? So what if the building manager is afraid to touch the spot where she sat? How can I make her move? What if the only rest she finds today is on that bench in this moment? What if her shoes are too small and her feet are sore? What if her back hurts from walking all day? What if she is about to pass out from exhaustion and just needs to catch a small nap? What if she is weak from hunger and can’t possibly take the steps to someone else’s bench?

How can it be my job to make her leave?

I can’t do it.

For the Love of Breasts

About a year ago, my son decided he was finished with my breasts. He was eight months old. He’d spent the first four months of his life surviving exclusively on mommy milk. He’d lie in my arms or next to me on the bed and look up at me with adorable, brown eyes that seemed to say, “Gee this stuff is good.” And when his little tummy was full, he’d turn his head to the side, fling his arms out, and give me a little smile that I took to mean, “Thanks, Mom!” But as he tried more and more solids, he needed less and less of me. Though he still wanted to start every day with a dose and end every day with a dose, he gradually weaned himself from mommy milk. At eight months old, he completely refused it. I tried to cradle him and coax him into latching on. But this time, he tossed his head from side to side and refused to acknowledge my aching, leaky boob. He squirmed his way out of my lap and tossed me a look that said, “No thanks, Mom.”

Heartbroken, but relieved at the same time, I decided my boobs deserved something nice. After all, my girls and I had just spent over half a year keeping this child alive! So, a couple weeks of “drying up” and I was off to Victoria’s Secret. WRONG. Apparently, the folks at Victoria’s Secret don’t know what breasts are for! There were no bras to fit my highly accomplished boobs. There I was sporting my epaulettes with pride, walking with my shoulders back and chest out. I wanted to tell everyone I passed, “Hey, these things are awesome!” But the sales woman was stumped. She had no idea what to do with boobs that couldn’t even fit into a padded D.

Standing in the dressing room, looking in the mirror at the unsightly overflow, my spirits sank. I wanted to cry. Not only does JJ not like them anymore, but neither do I. I didn’t have sexy cleavage; I had four boobs: two large ones crammed into the cups and two more sitting on top of the cups. To make matters worse, the little stick-person sales lady looks at me with a frown and says, “I know how you feel. I can’t find one small enough for me.” I picked up my homely nursing bra, hoisted myself together, and left screaming under my breath, “no, you don’t know how I feel, you skinny bitch. A year ago, after five years of carefully managed weight, I was a size six and wore a 34B. Now, I’m wearing maternity pants and my son is nine months old; I have stretch marks in places people will never again see, and my son, the reason I could bear all the changes in my body, will never have any memory of what this body has gone through for him; And you can’t even sell me a nice bra!”

Don’t get me wrong. I certainly can show some love to itty bitty titties…but not that day.

Yes, I am! No, I'm not!

I never even tried any drugs. I consciously chose to avoid sex in high school. Yes, I tried it back then, but realized immediately that it wasn’t worth getting pregnant and dropping out of school. In college, I tried again. Same conclusion. I worked every night that I didn’t have school and some that I did. I saved money and paid bills for my mother. I spent every Saturday serving chicken and chasing down teenagers, trying to convince them that work ethic is a good thing. I’d stay up late and get up early to study or work on a paper. My sisters laughed at me because I’d stay home and study instead of going out and learning how to drink alcohol like a real Ole Miss student. I did try that a few times, too. But again, realized it wasn’t worth it. I worked my tail off to buy a vehicle dependable enough to drive to school. Many, many times I had to choose between going to work in order to make enough money for the gas to get to school, or staying home and writing a paper that was due. Five years of this. For what? Here’s what: I earned a full scholarship for a Master’s. But what did I get from the people I’d spent my life trying to make happy when I got this scholarship? I got a puzzled, “How can you go back to school when you know John wants a baby?” What?!? I just spent five years and $50, 000 becoming the first person in my family to earn a Bachelor’s degree, and this is what they want me to do? Have a baby? The very thing I avoided!

Well, John got his baby. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my son with all my heart. If you take him out of my life, I don’t want to be in it anymore. But I could’ve used that scholarship, started a career, and then had him. Couldn’t I? Never mind now. Birth Control doesn’t work, and he’s here. I spend my days wiping his nose, feeding him, changing his diaper, picking up things he’s thrown down, searching for things he’s lost, taking him off the table when he climbs on it, cleaning his messes…the list goes on.
Somewhere in the middle off all this, I lay out something for dinner and try to pick healthy, filling sides. Bouncing back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, I cook the dinner and keep an eye on JJ, making sure he doesn’t break any bones. (He climbs out of the play-pin.) When it is all done, I’m starved because I only had a slim-fast shake for lunch four hours ago. (I still have nearly 30 pounds of “baby” weight to stay conscious of.) I wait for John to come home so we can eat like the family he wanted. Finally, he’s home. I start to fix plates, and he says, “I’m not hungry. You go ahead and eat. I’ll get something later.”

Yes, I’m that horrible word women get called when we have something to say!!! You know what it is.

What am I not? Straight and Christian. Don't assume I am!

Two Dots and a Broken Heart

Yesterday, I took my niece, Destiny, to visit the Mississippi School for the Blind and Deaf. She will be attending school there in January. She has spent the last two years in our local public school system, and she just isn't getting what she needs there.



When we walked into the building, my sister instructed my niece to "trail the wall". For those who don't know, this means to walk along the wall, touching it with your hand, using it for a guide. Upon being told to do so, Destiny sadly grumbled, "No, momma. They'll make fun of me." My heart was broken. How much can one child suffer? Never mind the myriad surgeries. Never mind the bumping and stumbling injuries. Never mind the pain of having an eye removed and having a prosthetic fitted. Never mind not understanding why she can't see like her brother and sister. But let's also add the heartbreak of being made fun of by classmates, children whose parents don't bother educating them on disabilities and human compassion.



We joined Destiny's class for lunch. If you ever need a humbling experience, go watch a class of blind children. Watch them make their ways through classroom and down halls. Watch them locate things on shelves. Watch them help each other. Watch them do all this with not a single complaint. Watch them become excited about holding a new friend's hand and guiding her down the hall. Watch them love to read...



After lunch, the teacher and my sister needed to speak to the principal. I remained in the hall with the class. Behind us, on the wall, there was a large display of essays written in braille by the students and translated into typed paragraphs for others to see. In the essays, the students had responded to the following prompt, "Learning is important to me because..." As I scanned the essays, I noticed that nearly all of the essays included this response, "...because I want to read."



One of the girls in the class asked me if I'd like her to read to me. "Please do," I asked her. She placed both hands on the wall and ran them across the display until she could focus on one essay. Meticulously, she guided her index finger over what looked like dots to me. She spoke the words she read, never missing a beat, until something stopped her. She stood quietly and pressed the side of her head closer to the wall, as if she could will the braille to speak into her ear. I wondered what was wrong. She'd been doing so well. Did she come upon a letter she doesn't know? Finally, she whispered, "They blacked this one out." She moved on to another essay and began reading. I leaned into the wall and focused on what she'd been reading. There in the middle of the paragraph, the typically raised braille had been depressed. Even her skillful, tiny hands couldn't decipher the letters, now.



Two Dots...and I have the nerve to complain about my reading assignments taking up too much of my time.

I believe I am his mother.

Written Thursday, July 31, 2008

Yesterday, I somehow figured out how to get JJ dressed, strap him in his car seat, drive to the store, unbuckle the car seat to get him out, and finally, strap him into the baby seat on the shopping cart. But, while waiting for the cashier to ring up my stuff, JJ, being the 10 month old that he is, began to fuss about having been in that seat for more than 20 seconds. The cashier apparently figured that I am just not capable of raising this child. She exclaimed, "oh, mommy," and proceeded to walk around the cart, put her hands between JJ and the harness, raise him to a more suitable height and adjust his posture. She then completes her task with an exalting, "there". I watch this woman. I am too stunned to say anything. I want to ask her, "Excuse me, could you hold my things while I check my vagina for that scar that I'm pretty sure came from his entrance into the world?"
Is this normal? What gives her the right and audacity to: 1.) put her hands on my child and 2.) School me on how to keep him happy? Am I not the one who gained 70 lbs creating him? Am I not the one who couldn't sit straight for 8 weeks after his birth because episiotomies are pure hell? Am I not the one who sported very heavy, sore breasts for 8 months to see that he got the very best start to life? Am I not the one who stayed up with him until 4 am when he was colicky and screamed all night? Am I not the one who doesn't own a single piece of clothing without some sort of infant by-product stain on it? Am I not the one who has the scent of ruined diapers permanently stuck in her nostrils?
As I finish this rant, I am surrounded by a sea of toilet paper which JJ has discovered, strung across the room, stuffed into his diaper, and soaked with teething saliva. Where are those cashiers when you need them?