introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K

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Remembering Sunday

in sunday sunshine - eighth of april, 2001-LIKE A LOBSTAH

i am ruthless and persistant with myself; with my skin. this happens every summer, in an alternating fashion. this time of year makes me think of dave a lot. of how the end of the spring was so near at hand. that was a spring when i abhored sunshine and maintained that i would keep my skin fair and white and silver because, silver, after all, is more beautiful than gold. to me. heh. i stayed out of the peak sun in exchange for a job in a dry cleaners that made me sweat and smile and appreciate the heat of summer that never seemed as hot as the steam from the shirt press i operated happily, listening to my own music. it was a workout every day from dawn til night and i loved to hate it. deep down, i loved that job more than any i've ever had. i felt a feeling of accomplishment and i felt a part of a family of women that i will never forget. there was margie, the seamstress. she was in her fifties with a kid my age that was just as young and headstrong as i. she was from climer (a town only a mile or two from where i sit now only somehow, more scary. i only get a fondness for it because it makes me think of her.). there was sandy, a woman with enough racism and misunderstanding in her for an entire county that dissipated over the years that i spent employed there. it was amazing to see an old dog learn new tricks, new ways to understand and see the world. she, too, was in her fifties. she gave me the hardest time, but only because i know she knew that i could make it if i really tried and stopped just talking about it. i watched that old lady (i called them that: my old ladies) cringe when i started dating a black man and then, welcome him in to see me over time; i watched her talk to my gay friends and ask me questions about what it was like to kiss a girl. that was a great thing, to me. my favourite question that she ever asked me was why i would want to put my mouth on a girl where she pee'd. i don't think i stopped laughing for days over that one. it was such a blunt way to put it. it amused me greatly. then, there was dot.....DOROTHY. i loved her, my dot to dot. she was newly divorced that first christmas that i worked there (the christmas that they bought me groceries, for i was poor and in a bad way) from a man who, after nearly 25 years, left her on her own for a younger woman. it broke my heart to see her some days, trying, for the first time in her life to be independant. she is probably nearing sixty something, but after all the time we spent, she still never told me. she was the most beautiful woman i've ever known. i once saw her with her hair down on a night when my parents were away and she came to go swimming. she was as empassioned with hair as I, and after her husband left, she never took it down. i was glad that she felt safe enough around me to do it. i used to take her out every week...either to dinner or a movie. she always said she wanted her tongue pierced. she listened to my music. i listened to hers. i loved to watch her dance. my heart sunk when she had to stop taking ballet classes. there was ruth, a bitterish woman in her thirties or so, married to a younger man who dug on race cars. there was cyndi, a former road construction worker with the arms that i loved to watch move hangers and hangers of clothes around. she was also really funny and i dug how she would borrow my cds and honestly tell me what she thought of them. there was cookie and heather, the eccentric owners with a computer that never seemed to work. i liked it there. that summer, i maintained my silver (pasty?) glow happily.

then, there are other summers when i can't be kept inside for long and love the way my skin bronzes darkly. i can get so tan i look dirty; my hair bleaches out blonde and lovely. it reminds me of being little and living in syracuse and playing in the sun all day; of playing down by the raspberries and mashing grapes and other berries in little play dishes and making a day of it; of wrestling with the other kids in the small neighborhood behind the p&c warehouse in the side yard with the soft white grass. its strange that i can remember the names of the "tag team" wrestling teams that we made up....the KILLER QUEEN BEES and the BOSTON BULLDOGS. I dont know if those are really names of teams on wwf, for we were not allowed to watch those things. i don't think that any one of us had ever been to boston. i'd like to think we were just really creative kittens. i remember taking the big fat sticks of chalk out to the corner (we lived on a dead end street) and drawing a line across the street from the street sign at the corner of our yard with the big maple all the way across the pavement to the other side, to the Nowaki's driveway. We weren't allowed to ride past that line. The chalk was always in a yellow cup or pitcher looking thing on the counter that held the pens. it was next to the tomatoe that held our quarters for lunch money. next to my mothers crystal butter dish that i broke one spring. I think my father brought the chalk home from work. I sometimes think its so strange the memories that weather brings me. Memories of netting over the cherry tree to keep the birds out, memories of a grass snake sunning itself in the gravel driveway that wrapped around our house (the driveway, not the snake, darling); memories of my father being away on the road and my mother making tuna noodle casserole or, better still, "party plates" that consisted of rolled up lunchmeat, cheese, applesauce and cottage cheese. those were the best summers, probably. i remember thursday nights and being horrible to my favourite grandmother who'd drive the half hour to come watch us while my mother went to choir practice. i remember climbing a tree in the woods while she chased me with a fly swatter to smack me in the ass with the handle. i remember waiting for her to go back in because then, it was safe to come back down; all was forgotten. i remember my grandmother walker mixing the raspberries we'd picked into a lovely whip and putting it on the angelfood cake that my mother despised. i remember a see-saw sort of thing that my father built that spun as well as went up and down. i remember falling off of it the first few times before he dismantled it because it just wasn't really safe, i guess. i remember when erica and michelle used to come and visit their grandparents, the o'neils. michelle was young and her hair glowed white-blonde. every summer, we'd spend two weeks playing together before they'd go north again to the adirondaks (i think?). i remember the smell of mr. o'neil's basset hounds in the sun. mr. o'neil died a few years back, i think. i wonder if the other neighbors are alive, still. they'd have to be so old and paper thin like onion skin. i'm nearing twenty three now. we moved south to pittsburgh in 1990. my life has changed so much and its on days like today that i realize it most.

ah, yes. but i am sunburned and happily remembering silly details....details that remind me of my best friends....of being grounded for a whole summer, of mark and jim, the orange haired kid, wearing my father's swim trunks when we went impromptu swimming...of mark and i laughing incessantly about stupid kristen baker, who i will never forget. i smile when i think of all of these things....i've had a very rich life in what is nearing twenty three years, i'd say. people are coming into my life that make me think and make me happy and make me feel so good about me. i like that feeling. i like liking me. i like others liking me for who i am rather than who i pretend to be. i like the blatent honesty.

i look forward to the warm days to come. i look forward to the pilgrimage to tennessee that will take my best friend(s) and i on a road trip into the sunset....a singalong, a music fest, a wonderful boy at the destination point. what more could a bald headed lobstah girl ask for?

oh, yes. i was getting to that. i am burned. badly. but i have been using my mothers old remedy: apple cider vinegar to pull out the toxins that make my skin red and burning. it works and in a few days, i will have the best going tan ever for april. my hair will grow back and bleach blonde in the sun. i have a lot of things to look forward to, i have a lot of good memories to ponder over. i have a good book, and a great person that i adore to talk to at the end of the day that i'm really falling for...i've got a few good friends that i will love forever...i've got good conversation with uncle m and trevor...i've got trails to walk, and days that will come and go til the sun sets so late that the kids get to stay up til ten o'clock. i've got a lot going for me and i finally realize that maybe sandy was right. i'm not just going to make it for me, but for those old ladies who believed in me, for my friends that inspire and support me. on days like today, i have a lot to remember; on days like today, i have a lot to look forward to; on days like today, i am full of appreciation and glad to be alive.

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.what came before. - .what happened next.

a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017
baseball season to football season, abbreviated - 25 september 2017
the doodles - 11 july 2017
at arm's length - 4 july 2017
like a sea-mammal needs a bicycle - 30 may 2017

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