The Late Arrival

Even though my ears couldn't pick up the buzz, I assume in Bug World the panicked hornet's buzzing thundered like a storm as he hovered at a window trying to escape. I, on the other hand, was soaking in the sun while waiting for my friend to arrive for a an all-too rare lunch. She arrived and we hugged. It'd been way too long since we had gotten together. She settled in and soon noticed the panicky hornet buzzing at our floor length window. I saw a look in her eye. Leave him alone and he'll leave us alone  I advised. I can now confess this was an untruth, as a beekeeper friend once said honeybees will only sting if provoked. Yellow-jackets and hornets, on the other hand... We continued chatting unbothered. Until our frustrated hornet friend hovered and lit upon my index finger, and then flitted over to my friend's shoulder. She jumped up and I was like Oooooh...you done messed with the wrong person. Next thing, the hornet's on the gro...

Well, I'm a new kid, I'm just comin' up. A lot a rappers think that I can't tear it up, but I'mma show 'em, and ignore 'em... I was lost in the middle of throwback bliss perhaps induced by a menthol bubble bath when my daughter, who was in the basement doing her workout during this too-brief minute of sillyness and relaxation, came upstairs and threw a wrench in it all: MOM, THE BASEMENT TOILET IS OVERFLOWING!!! My head and body's towel-wrap along with my rapping was interrupted. I sprang out of my makeshift sauna down the stairs to find that, sure enough, our basement toilet was springing like Old Faithful. Then a funny thing happened. The rapping in my head stopped, and the water seemed to gurgle in slow-motion. The water was going to keep on doing what it was going to do and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was helpless, and it felt okay. You know what? Get all the towels out of the linen cabinet and we're just gonna soak ...

Dig if you will the picture: On a ordinary Saturday, kids show up at high school detention to pay penance for any number of infractions. They're all there: the Jocks, the Stoners, the Brains, the Perpetual Outsider and even the embittered detention monitor. A poisonous explosion blankets the town or the world, and our kids are now on lock down. The explosion didn't cause deaths, but it left multitudes of Undead ravenously hungry for the living. It's The Walking Dead meets Breakfast Club. Actually, it's  Freakish , a series on which my daughter was binge-watching over Christmas Break. Because I wanted to be the cool mom, I watched it with her. " A group of high schoolers struggles against predatory mutants who have taken over their town after a chemical plant meltdown. " It was a predictable, corny plot: Undead people crazily run in stopmotion and feast on the living -- of course, in between the survivors' teen romance, angst and anxiety. Just ...

The 1987 prom court was lined up in the hallway leading to the gym: gangly teenaged boys in rental tuxedos and girls whose heads and arms were adrift in seas of poofy frilly antebellum dresses. None of us knew who would be the first, second, third, fourth attendant or king or queen until it was announced on a stage in front of parents and other well-wishers. One by one, names were called and people disappeared through the sunlit hallway into a pitch black gymnasium where they’d ascend the stage and fidget nervously in a spotlight as woots, hollers and cameras clicked away. My nerves glitched up as each name was called. I don’t get it. This is only for the pretty people. I'm not pretty. I’m awkward, overweight and nerdy. Then another name. This is totally bad news... Then the last attendant's name was called, and it wasn't mine. I knew that meant the next name announced would be the person who was prom queen. Me? I whispered to the only person left...

My uncle was the best storyteller. He’d regale us with Sunday Dinner Stories of his Mama Sara and growing up in Tennessee. Sometimes, it’d just be pure fictional silliness, like the time his frenemy “Blue” had enough of his teasing and bashed his head in with a brick. He was a master of hyperbole and comedy. Somehow, we all ended up in stitches over his stitches. Other times, my great aunt, a Jehovah’s Witness, would join us after a Kingdom Hall Sunday meeting. Inevitably the doorbell would ring with Jehovah’s Witnesses witnessing. On my way to answering the door, I’d tell my mom “It’s Jehovah’s Witnesses” and just as I’d open the door, my mom would yell “Tell ‘em we got one already!” I’d die a slow embarrassing death looking into the innocent eyes of the witnesses while everyone at the table laughed. Including my great aunt. After dinner, we’d end up in the living room around the upright Mason piano adorned with our baby pictures and miscellaneous sheet music. My uncle plunked ou...

On a rare childless night, my husband was out running an errand, leaving me in solitude save for the Animal Planet's drone about people and their preposterous pets. A man somewhere in the British Isles who was a falconer and a classical guitarist was featured. He strummed exquisitely as the camera panned from his fingers to a majestic golden eagle perched just above his right shoulder. As the guitar playing faded, a voiceover narrated the eagle’s story. The bird, once a resident at a zoo, had been stolen and then hidden in a closet of the thieves who spirited him away. The eagle was kept in this closet until he was rescued and adopted by the falconer. Upon rescue, the eagle was alive, but had plucked himself nearly bald -- in fits of madness, I guess -- when he realized the fruitlessness of his escape attempts. The falconer nursed the eagle back to health and after a few months, the bird's plumage returned. The next step in rehabilitation was teaching the eagle flight a...

Sometimes I think about it. Sometimes it's a fleeting thought in the seconds before I drift off to sleep and glance at his arm around my middle and my brown hand resting on his not so brown arm. It always looks like a painting to me. Simple and beautiful. Sometimes it's the rare occasion when all three of us are captured in a candid picture. Our daughter between the two of us, making the picture look as if we're posing in graduating skin colors, from lightest (his), to medium (hers), to darkest (mine). Her face, her skin a blend of both his and mine. Sometimes he thinks about it when I'm oblivious. Like when I give him a little extra room at a checkout counter, but am still within his personal space, and the clerk helping him asks if she can help me. He lets her know that "uh...that's my wife " in a stern, sharp voice before I can answer. He's my protector, a sensitive set of second eyes. But most of the time, I don't t...

A little over one year ago for the kid barely in his twenties. A month ago for the forty-nine year old rock star’s girlfriend. Barely a week ago for the twenty-two year-old entrepreneur. Come July, it’ll be seven months for the thirty-some year old mom of little ones not yet in their teens. Sometimes death by suicide makes headlines. Sometimes, the loved ones drowning in its wake are the only ones who know about it. When it’s a headline, count on news anchors to assume a pseudo-sad tone as they report the tragedy with heads cocked to one side, staring through the camera’s lens and into the eyes of whoever is on the other side, and asking Why? …and then moving on to the next news bite for popular consumption. "There are such things as dumb questions, and in suicide’s shadow, Why is the dumbest of question of them all." Answers to Why are never productive. They don’t restart the heart, cause oxygenated blood to course through the body to...

But. It’s the lovechild of Truth and Denial , second cousin to Nevertheless . A simple three letter word that takes up less than a half-inch of nine point Arial font. Easily read and pronounced unlike the billion dollar, multisyllabic words. And so we use it a lot. Maybe the sheer convenience of But is why we default to it so often. At the same time, And - another short, easily recognizable word - is used sparingly. I can’t help but think the world would be a better place with less Buts and more Ands . With But , everything is a mutually exclusive event, and everything is an either/or proposition. This pot roast is good, BUT it needs a little seasoning. Can’t you just see crotchety Aunt Sally (or whoever is notorious for critiquing your meals) grimacing as her words mask her intent to say your pot roast is barely palatable and far beyond the help of a little seasoning? And , on the other hand, is a connector. In the land of And , things happen in tandem and mutually excl...

A comedian once said that meteorologists have the only job where you can be: evasive: There's probably maybe kind of sort of about a 50% chance of rain ambiguous: We'll have 2 to 12 inches of snow... and wrong: Looks like the storm we've been anticipating just missed us... and still keep your job. I should've been a meteorologist. But this isn't a time for ruing over unfulfilled wishes. The weather guys and girls are predicting a Mini Ice Age. Shouldn't come as a shock. I grew up here, it's just winter in the Midwest. But despite that, I still had my undies in a bundle with the incessant cold-weather-warning harping. In fact, I got depressed. Starting wishing we had deeper pockets so we could flee to someplace warm; and then seriously considered going into debt so we could do it. Finally, I decided that neither wishing nor being buried under a stack of bills were viable options, so I did the next best thing: perused warm-weathe...

The easy way. The path of least resistance. Admittedly, it's my route of preference. Conflict? Confrontation? Any sense of discomfort, and I'll go over the hills and through the woods and three times around grandmother's house to avoid it. Especially at this time of year, the easy thing is kvetching about the endless running, the needle on the scale that threatens to inch ever forward, the expectations put upon us by our kids, our significant others and ourselves. Not to mention the music. Which I did. Right here . In this post . But sometimes you have to dig and do the hard work. The antithesis of the easy way. I mean get dirt under your fingernails to find the joy -- even in the holiday music, since most of it beckons us to joy, happiness and peace. Peace in the midst of reality. For me, that reality is having terminal illness and death in some shape or form breathing down my back and lurking around every corner. Too many people in my circle will have one less ...

I can't remember it. It's in addition to packing and taking lunch instead of buying the over-priced-over-greasy-over-daily-caloric-intake quick lunch. Which is also in addition to remembering to sign Georgia's homework assignment book before we leave for the morning. And that's on top of remembering to remind her to take the envelope with the signed class trip permission slip inside. Oh, and the bottle of water. I've slacked off in drinking water lately, so I definitely have to remember that. But I can't remember The Other Thing. The Other Thing that doesn't have to be at my fingertips, but it'd be nice if it were at least in reaching distance of my mind's eye. Can you remember it? You know, that Other Thing. Or maybe it was a feeling...or a time. Like the time when you broke out into a run, and I mean a full-fledged-out-and-out Run . Not because you were pushing yourself. Not because you were proving something to anyone. But you ran because...

A bird's-eye view of the ocean, a blanket of blues and violet. Could be dawn, it could be sunset. There are no undertows, no threat of menacing aquatic life and tidal waves look like silent ripples in a pond. In the middle of it all is a tiny speck of white -- or maybe yellow. It's Diana Nyad somewhere in the in the sojourn of an over fifty-eight hour swim toward the Florida Keys.   Now zoom in. Further into the journey as she reaches her destination greeted by wading well wishers and you see her emerge from the waters swollen and dazed. This scene isn't as serene as the imagined one. In fact, there's even a trace of ugliness and gritty reality there, but within that scene, we're able to hear Diana reminding us to "Never give up" and that "You're never alone." That's something that can't be heard in the idyllic birds-eye view. Everything's prettier from a distance, don't you think? Doesn't mean that the zoomed-in gr...

You ever read a headline even though you know the news is going to be bad? I did. The headline was “Many Americans Have No Friends Outside Their Race” based on results from an online poll administered in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: non-white people have a low percentage of close friends who are white, and white people have an even lower percentage of close friends who are non-white. The west coast is a little better in this regard than the rest of the country and the southern part of the country is worse. DUH. I think the knee-jerk reaction to this is for people to mentally shuffle through their racial rolodex and start ticking off friends who don’t look like them. Heck, I did until I remembered that I’m married to a white guy. (he’s my husband so I guess he counts as a friend, right?) But throw race out of the equation entirely, and you end up with a much bigger question: Of the people we consider friends, do we consider any ...

Oh, I’ve done a couple of 5Ks and a mud run or two, but honestly: I don’t like running. What I do like is the feeling of “Wow I really can do this” when I run for a longer distance with each workout, and the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a race. By now you’ve heard about the marine who fell back during a race to help a little boy who was struggling to finish running that same 5K. Just imagine it: the finish line tape in sight, sensing that you’re beating last year’s time, pulling ahead of the pack with your running buddies when you hear someone ask “Sir, would you please run with me?” It’s the right thing to do so you do it. And the marine did. The story’s blown up on social media channels and nationwide newscasts, and the marine has received well deserved recognition for doing the right thing. But what about the boy? This kid could’ve asked the marine to carry him --  after all, marines are tough guys. That scene alone: the kid on the marine’s shoul...

In the few years under my belt as a hack writer, I’ve read a lot of posts from a lot of other bloggers, hoping to pick up on the things that make a piece great or gripping. This nonprofessional research has turned up one thing: honesty. Honesty, as in Are-you-sure-you-wanna-say-that-out-loud honesty. Yeah. That. The great pieces have always been from writers who speak from their hearts and say things that are ironically funny, sometimes painful, but always glaringly, transparently, and sometimes embarrassingly, true.   Bare. Truth. Transparency. That takes courage akin to walking on a frozen pond during the spring thaw.  Think about it: we’ve all got stories that could make us great writers – even the hacks like me, but it’s all a question of courage: what are we willing to share? Are we willing to bare some uncomfortable things?   In my case, it’s missing my mom. Oh, the coward in me will casually refer to losing her at a young age and wax philosophic a...