My sister and I look a lot alike. Of course, she’s got darker hair and bluer eyes (which make for a ridiculously beautiful contrast). She’s slighter of build. And three inches taller. But if you see us together, you’re not going to go, “Hmm, I wonder how those two ladies know each other.”
Today, my sister had a meeting to go to. The “big kids” (ages six and eight) were at day camp so I got to babysit my 14-month-old niece, E, all by herself for a few hours.
When I arrived, she was napping, but she started stirring about 20 minutes after my sister left. I went in, and she had smooshed herself up against a corner of the crib, one sock on, one nowhere to be found, her little knees tucked under her belly, butt stuck up in the air. (I nearly died from the cuteness, of course.)
I said, “Hi there!” and she looked up and gave me the wrinkly-nosed smile she gets from her daddy. She still looked a little groggy, so I picked her up, and we went outside to say hi to my dogs.
“Ff ff!” she said.
“That’s right, woof woof,” I said.
My sister had said she’d be hungry, so I put E in her high chair, set a chopped-up piece of string cheese on the tray, and plopped down on the stool in front of her to supervise. She picked up a couple pieces of cheese and chewed them in a contemplative fashion, all the while staring at my face.
After a minute, her little eyebrows lowered, eyes squinted just a bit, in a universal “I’m confused” look. Then a tear welled up in her eye; the corners of her mouth turned into a tiny frown. She brought her elbows to her sides, palms turned toward the heavens.
I mean, it couldn’t have been clearer if she had spoken it in the Queen’s English:
I JUST REALIZED YOU’RE NOT MY MOM. WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOM?
In my little neck of the woods growing up, a lot of the houses looked like this:
That's a brick ranch.
Or this:
That's a single-wide.
At best this:
Before you get excited, I did not draw this.
That is, they were made of brick, wood, or aluminum, and squatted, the opposite of ostentation, in the crevices, set back from the roads.
But there was one that looked like this:
Except there was blood oozing out from under the gate.
Maybe I’m exaggerating. It was definitely big, definitely made of stone, definitely had a pointy roof line, and definitely sat close to the road.
It belonged to Mr. Nelson. Mr. Nelson was a mean man, a bad man. He would come out and yell at us if we made too much noise.
My siblings and I were so scared of Mr. Nelson that, when we wanted to cross the bridge and ride our Big Wheels on the road in front of his house (the road in front of ours had a blind curve, and people drove really fast), we had a method. We would skid to a halt at the edge of his property, pick up the trikes between our legs, and tiptoe the forty yards past his house before setting them back down and tearing off again.
Mr. Nelson had a gun. And he drank a lot. At some point, his wife divorced him and moved away.
Mr. Nelson didn’t like people on his property, especially fisherman despite the fact that he had a perfect little peninsula that jutted out into the deep part of the creek. He posted No Trespassing signs and came out hollering at people who disobeyed. He even tacked up a sign on our side of the creek on a tree right above a rock so perfect for fishing we called it the fishing rock. Risking execution, we took it down.
One morning we arose to find a perfectly-arranged pile of dog shit outside our front door. Turns out, the day before, our dog had crapped next to the road across from his house. He had shoveled it up and deposited it on our deck.
(Note: I have a moral code about dog poop now. I’m all Atticus Finch about it. It can be dark, and raining, with no witnesses around, and I’ll still pick up my dogs’ doo-doos. But this was in the days before people carried bags, and we lived way out in the country anyway. This was where folks’ pets could live their whole lives and never see a vet, much less have their poop scooped.)
Safe to say Mr. Nelson was an angry curmudgeon. I don’t know if I ever verbalized it, or if the thought just banged around in my little brain for decades, but I always wondered how somebody got that surly.
When I was up for Christmas a week ago, I saw Nelson come out to walk his Yorkshire terrier—one of the rare times he comes out of his stone manse now. (I don’t know if he picks up its tiny poops or not.) I said to my dad, “There’s old Nelson.”
Dad looked up and said, “You know he’s got a boyfriend who comes in from Mountain City a couple times a week to spend the night. Parks his truck in the back where people can’t see it.”
(record needle screeching across vinyl)
All of a sudden, I had such a different—compassionate, even—view of the old sorcerer. He was gay in rural Western North Carolina in the 1980s.
Man, there must be nail and teeth marks on the inside of his closet. No wonder he was such an asshole.
Mine, like any family, has its mythology. There’s one story in our folklore that we call The Legend of Tanglewood Mall, wherein lives were lost and all hope was despaired of.
Let me preface this by saying that before I understood the cause/effect relationship that dairy products had on my system, my innards were capable of producing some pretty offensive smells.
But my dad, my dad—maybe it’s because the surgeons lopped off a hunk of his intestine when he got colon cancer in ’86, I don’t know, but my dad’s lower digestive system can emit noxious fumes that I can only compare to…I’m searching here…week-old carrion omelet?
Back to the legend.
The Tanglewood Mall is a two-story, indoor shopping center in Roanoke, Virginia, and like others you’ve seen, the second floor is all balcony. That is, you can peer down on stores, fountains, and kiosks on the ground floor.
Well, after an impressive plate of bacon at a brunch buffet that morning, Dad let loose a cloud of stench, which, legend has it, sent innocent shoppers flinging themselves over the balcony railing and plummeting to certain death, nonetheless a more pleasant fate than the olfactory assault of my dad’s farts.
No remorse from my father after the fact.
This year, The Fambly, because of in-law scheduling and whatnot, was to celebrate Christmas on the 27th of December. And in the run-up, I found myself at the old homestead in the mountains of North Carolina, alone with my dad. For three days.
That’s hard enough because he’s a registered Grumpy Old Man and pathologically incapable of maintaining a space. Seriously, after one upbraiding, a few years ago, about not at least wiping down the kitchen, he argued, “I did wipe down the kitchen!” to which my brother replied, “With what? A porkchop?”
That will tell you about the state of the house. And every time I get up there, I start skating across the floors on Clorox wipes and scrubbing down cabinet doors, but it’s just so demoralizing because no matter how much you try, it’s only going to look sort-of clean, and the moment you leave it under my dad’s stewardship, the whole place will start collapsing in on itself again.
So on the 25th of December, still twenty-four hours before anyone with whom to commiserate would arrive, snow was falling in great fluffy flakes, threatening to incarcerate us in the house. The old place is in the middle of nowhere and lacks internet access. This is our “entertainment system”:
Yep, that’s a 13-inch color television set and a VHS player. I’m not sure what those rabbit ears are.
Needless to say, Dad and I were going a little stir-crazy.
Dad decided he wanted to go to town to buy Pledge. His version of cleaning is spritzing lemon-scented furniture polish around to convince people’s noses to deceive their eyes. (When I told my mom this story, she added, “And vacuum the center of the room.”)
Remember, it was Christmas Day so everything was closed, but in an effort not to sink an ax into each other’s chest, a laThe Shining, we piled into my Outback and drove to Boone in the blowing snow. Some of the convenience stores were open, but we made a wide loop searching for something better, and on the way to Blowing Rock sat a Walgreen’s, open 24 hours.
Even on Jesus’ birthday.
God bless capitalism.
Walgreen’s was hopping. Dad shuffled toward the cleaning supplies aisle, and I wended my way through the store, looking for a few last stocking stuffers. When we had both found what we needed, we headed to the front of the store.
I had already paid for my stuff, and Dad was just taking his receipt when the little hairs in my nostrils curled upward in revolt; my eyebrows flexed involuntarily. There was no mistaking, my dad had let one go in the check-out line. I backed toward the sliding doors, and when he turned toward me, I scowled at him.
He chuckled.
“Dad!” I said. “How could you?!”
Chortles.
I hissed, “It’s Christmas!“
Guffaws.
I tried to reason with him: “That poor cashier has to stand there until his shift ends!”
By this time, we were in the car. Dad was tearing up and slapping the dashboard.
I appealed to his sympathies: “The Mexican guy behind you looked like he was reconsidering his life choices!”
No use. Dad quaked with laughter all the way home.
This email, from my sister, Wa, talking about my niece and nephew, nearly made me pee myself.
R said, as she often does, that we should open a cupcake shop. I asked what other muffin/cupcake-shaped things we could make so we could serve lunch, too. She and I came up with meatloaf muffins, quiche, pb&j, etc. N, not quite getting the game, kept suggesting meatloaf in various forms: “meatloaf pies…meatloaf Christmas trees…meatloaf roll ups!” Later, R came running into the kitchen and waving an arm in her best Broadway “your name oughta be in lights, kid” style, said, “Mommy, I’ve got it. It will be ‘N—‘s Meatloaf World: The Future of Meatloaf!'”
On a phone call the other day, the guy I was talking to mentioned a couple he knew…they had met on Friendster…and the woman was—
Wait, what?
Friendster? Who even remembers Friendster?
And, in a weird coincidence, my friend Sean posted on Facebook that day that he gone back to Friendster and found—remarkable!—we were all still there! Just five years younger than last time he looked.
Well, of course I had to take a peek at my 2005 self. Nothing crazy different, except that I had pictures up from when I was still blond. And Friendster itself is pretty dumb; it’s no wonder it tanked. Back in the day, there was no dynamic aspect to it—no “walls” to write on, nowhere to post links, no games, no reason to log in every day. But those Friendster folks had one cool idea: they had a section where people could put up testimonials. Come along with me on my Ego Trip!
My friend from college, Anthony: Amy is one of the good guys. If you walk in a room that she is in, you will be happier than you were before you walked into that room. And I assure you – it’s not because of her choice of rooms.
Another friend from college, Ehren: The first thing you notice about Amy is her voluptuous, no –sumptuous– hotness. She is built for speed. But beneath all that sugar and spice, she is savvy and sweet, and on top of all that, she’s actually a conscientious human being who is actually giving of herself to make the world a better place. I just wish she would invite me over more. *Sigh*
My old roomie, Dan: There is no one in the world like Amy – I couldn’t adore her more. Bright, compassionate, charming and witty, and does she have an ass on her? DAMN. I’m talking bout a ghetto onion to make a brother cry…[Ed. note: Dan is a Jew.] Sweet, smart, and beautiful. Amy has it all in one amazingly-assed package. She may also be one of the prettiest women in the world – though I couldn’t tell you for sure cause I’m still looking at her butt…
Patricia, a gringa friend I met during my study-abroad semester: I met Amy at a World Boggle Tournament in Mexico [Ed. note: WBT took place in her living room.] and she blew me away with her smarts, her salsa, and her use of diagonal tiles. And then I lost track of her and I thought- Anyone who gets to live near Amy is lucky and should never complain about anything. She is outrageously beautiful, funny, generous, real, and has really good vocab. Those third graders are the luckiest of all.
A New York friend, Caroline: Amy has, quite possibly, the very best laugh in the history of the universe.
Yet another UNC friend, also named Amy and probably the funniest woman I know: amy’s heart is as big as her laugh. she is beautiful and thoughtful, she makes lethal baked goods, and she’ll never tell you, but she’s a damn good actress.
And last but not least, TWO from my sister-in-law, Melissa. The first from 2003: amy is one of the most genuinely caring people i have ever known. she is beautiful in every way a person can be beautiful. and her laugh is contagious. and her ass is worshipful. i actually worship at the altar of her ass.
And the second from 2005: amy makes the world a better place, on purpose and with meaning. amy constantly challenges herself. she inspires awe. she climbs mountains, solves puzzles, makes pronouncements and never settles. amy is wicked smaht but will never make you feel small. amy decided i should marry her brother and i decided to go along with it. she just knows what’s best.
What did I learn from this experience?
Back then, I used to laugh a lot. Sad, but I don’t think I do anymore.
My ass was huge. That’s still true.
It’s really fun when people say nice things about you. Let’s say nice things about each other more often!
Here’s the thing about CrossFit: it makes me feel bad.
I know, I know. I’m getting stronger, and I should feel good about that. And as long as I’m doing the goddamn Workout of the Day, I should be proud of myself.
But I’m just not.
Yesterday’s WOD was three rounds: run 1 km, 10 muscle-ups, and 100 air squats.
Well, of course, I can’t do muscle-ups—listen to how it sounds: it involves muscles taking one in an upward direction…for the record, from a dead-hang to a straight-arms-by-your-sides position on gymnastic rings. I don’t have any muscles that can do that. So I took the modification. Or the modification of the modification.
And air squats, I can do those, though I did only 50 each round. (Honest to god, I blocked the 100 out of my mind. I didn’t realize I was doing half of the prescribed number until the end, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to go back and do the rest.)
And running. Man. I am just not a runner.
You know, my sister and I trained for and walked a marathon, not once but twice, in 2006 and 2007. We also, two years ago, “ran” a half-marathon. Wa got us both commemorative donkey necklace charms, to symbolize how we trotted like burros for 13.1 miles.
She’s kept it up—god love her. She’s into it. But I just hate it. I just hate it so much.
For one thing, I’m not built like a runner. I’m built more like a…shot-putter maybe, or a hooker in rugby.
Or a burro.
Or a gourd.
Anyway, between not muscling-up and modifying everything down and watching everybody disappear into the distance in front of me…well, I just feel bad about myself.
