aim's Open Salon Blog

The Ghost Cats

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:04:26 -0400

The ghost cats walk through the house as if it is the Serengeti and their watering hole exists under the table. They keen like the cries of a baby, masking their intentions to simply break hearts. I want to welcome them but they vanish into the walls as though they were made of nature. They unsteady my sleep as they come out and in.

They jump through the window, one by one, and walk in a gang towards the door, as if I am a migratory path, as if my heart should feel every soft footstep like a splinter.

Ballad of the Broken Bottle

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:04:12 -0400

The other night I had a friend over and she spilled a glass of wine. It was late, and my laptop was still on the table, but I had a flash of anger that was beyond the event. Tonight a friend opened a can of ginger ale that , well, was a disaster and again I was angry for a moment before doing what I did in both situations – quickly clean up the spill.

When I was a very little girl, probably five or six but not seven, I was sent home from school because I was sick. My father was the minister at the Congregational Church in this small town, and I suspect he was called to get me. This may or may not have been the day that I was to recite two poems that I had memorized. I mostly recall getting through the performance and running to the girls room to vomit. Not from nerves, but from something we were not allowed in my family – illness.

I know the teacher was concerned as I asked to go on.I may have whispered, begging, to her to not call my parents the day of the poems. So let’s assume it was the same day.

When I, youngest of four children, went to school my mother returned to her teaching career. Our home, the parsonage , was about six blocks away from the elementary school, with the church located about midpoint. It could not have been more ideal or idyllic – except for the fact that my father was drinking to the point of utter inebriation every day. I loved him fiercely, but so much was disintegrating.

Why did the ginger ale set me off? That day that I was sent home sick my father gave me money and said I should go to the store and buy some ginger ale. I was six, not seven, so I walked to the candy store at the other end of the street and purchased a bottle of ginger ale. And on the way home I dropped it. I dropped it. And on the way home I dropped it. Just like a sing song nursery rhyme.

I might have considered running away at that point, knowing what I would face. My father was furious – and sent me back to the store to replace the bottle, with no money. I walked back and asked the owner (Miss Elsie, if I recall) to give me another bottle because I had dropped the first one and broken it.

She knew our family, and I think she must have wanted to send a message, because she explained to me that I could not ask her to replace the bottle of ginger ale since I had dropped it, and so I was responsible for it. Although I told her my father said I should get another bottle of ginger ale, she remained firm.

I guess I must have vomited everything out at school, because I don’t recall any embarrassing throwing up (which would be cause for punishment). I suppose I walked home slowly, knowing that I would once again not meet expectations, and once again be a very slight and tiny glitch in my fathers other world.

This story is absolutely true, yet I am a six not seven year old narrator. My mother confirmed most of it when I was particularly confrontational with her . (My parents divorced and my father moved back to his homeland, Scotland, when I was 11). My mother confirmed coming home to me sobbing and my father confused and defensive about his actions.

I tell this story not because I want sympathy, although I accept it readily. I mean, really? I accept it – unlike pity. I would love for you to love little me. I needed it then and probably still do.

I tell it because I went on to love my father, who physically and emotionally abused me many more times. Actually, I never stopped loving him. Hate the sin but love the sinner.

For me, the greater action was to know this person and find out what I could. We never talked about that day, or the day he failed to show up to pick me up from Kindergarten graduation (for hours), or how he would ask me to wiggle through the window and under the altar to get the extra key to the church where it was hidden beyond his inebriation and behind his faith.

We became friends, I suppose. And maybe he always wanted that anyway.

I can be my own failure or success now. I can clean up the ginger ale, the wine, and the memories. I can carry my bottle, for better or worse.

Occupy the Dodgers and other thoughts

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:03:53 -0400

1.) Two BILLION dollars for a baseball team? As my friend pointed out: that's $7 for every person in the US and 35 cents for every person in the world.

2.) The DODGERS? I like that name! Dodging this and that, the curve balls of life, the fastballs of bills. I AM a Dodger! Artful even...

3.) Charles Dickens: Created the character Artful Dodger who led a team of young ruffians in "Oliver Twist" under the tutelage of Fagin.

4.) Fagin was a thief who trained boys to steal. In modern terms he was either disenfranchised or an entrepeneur.

5.) Fagin did not believe in banks. Much easier in 19th century London I suppose.

6.) I do not believe in BIG banks; I would rather be robbed by dirty urchins. Or actually not robbed at all.

7.) I'm pretty sure my/our tax dollars went to bailing out the big banks that are:

8.)Funding the billionaires who are purchasing the Dodgers which means:

9.)Ergo: We own the Dodgers.

Congratulations! We own a baseball team! I kind of wish we could have spent all that money in a different way. But whatevs - we can't say what the banks do. Just demand some box seats.

The Tica Wives

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:03:18 -0400

San Jose, Costa Rica. I walk and walk and walk around in circles, trying to know this place. Sometimes I get it – a park, a monument. I walk up a hill, wanting an experience or a glass of wine.

I enter what I now call the bad man bar. Super Bowl Sunday. I should care if the Patriots win, I suppose. Large men everywhere – I suppose I have landed. Vino blanco by the glass. Si, yes, and agua por favor.

I didn’t get it, at first. The ex-pat bar, the big men and the small women in heels like skyscrapers. I learn things – like this guy knows a guy who can drive that fucking truck to Nicaragua and then he says “Timber!” and everyone laughs.

These women are not drunk, or maybe they are. My eyes follow them to the bano, they don’t fall as easily as trees.

The next day I walk and walk and walk through parks, past monuments, and up the hill to the same bar. This time it is not intentional. Last time wasn’t either. The guidebook says a great café is located at this nexus. I duck under azaleas to find that they are closed. And so I see the bad man bar, and walk in. “Vino blanco, por favor.”

I take a seat among the men, wondering how I must seem plain and American to them. Compared to the beautiful Ticas who are not around at this moment. The men talk amongst themselves as if I am deaf. “I told you I have a guy who can drive that mother fucker up there!”

“Now, where’s my wife?”

They explode in laughter.

Later, the women walk in on shoes like the Empire State Building. They nudge me aside to sit on daddy’s lap. I refuse to move. Over. I am equally entranced by their scent and their hair and their knowledge of things both mundane and indiscreet.

When I leave I am full of tequila, shots poured for the Tica wives, who included me in the party. “Yo soy una feministe!” They laughed and winked and said uno mas for me.

At my hotel I smoke a cigarette with a German girl who has stayed at the bad man bar. She confirms my suspicions – they are Tica wives. One weekend a month, all expenses paid. She was reviled for having her friend stay with her – as if, as if…she can’t quite say it.

Of course, I return.

These are the men who left my friends crying on the side of the road. The men who laughed at those tears. The men who think their wives don’t know; the wives who are possibly thrilled to never suck that thing again. At this point the owner, a gringo, probably thinks I’m a spy.

And I am. The Tica wives come in, flashing their teeth like dollar bills. They are beautiful, they are strong, they are like architecture and venom and music.

They first say hello to me. Me. One who was left crying at the side of the road.

Our eyes meet, and we all know who really controls this world.

Terrible But True Haiku

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:01:04 -0500

Kitties on opposite knees

snoring like sailors

how come I cannot get up?.

Hummus is not my friend, yo.

White beans good for heart.

Art James weighs in with advice.

Drinking dirty martinis

while doing laundry

Oh no I forgot that load!

Snowfall in Massachusetts

does not yet negate

complicity in Romney.

Those Puritans remain bunk.

We build casinos

All around Plymouth rock.

The snow thinks it's important.

HA HA HA HA HA.

Costa Rica in two weeks.

Please share your own haiku generously here .