Just Rambling...

There's a sink full of dishes.
And I can't find the dish soap.
Look in it's usual spot, then under the sink, then in the bathroom, the laundry room & then do it all over again.
I break down into private tears... I want to do the dishes.
I gotta do something.
Hands pressed against the brick island, hips squared, I kick out into the air. Kicking up and out at the face that doesn't exist. Kicking again & again, conscious to keep the knee back, the toes pointed, I kick as fast as I can. 300 times.
Pour myself a cup of tea and do it again on the other side.
Smoke a cigarette.
My 9' ceilings allow for a 7' high archway.
I stand, stradling the archway...one foot on tile & one on hardwood & reach up grasping the doorframe with my bony little fingers.
I pull myself up ... then curl my knees in towards my chest and then let them down to hang. My back pops. And then, I do it again & again & again.
My fingers have dents that last longer than my next cigarrette.
So I smoke another one, contemplating 'what to do.'
I lay on the tile. It's cool and hard...it's reminds me of how bony I am.
Smokie and Marbelene come to snuggle, slapping me with their tongues. Vilulah nudges in and rests her head on me. Ander plows through wanting to join the dogpile & Brodie starts to howl. I have sacrificed myself to the dogs.
Pulling myself up, I plop some Korn into the stereo.
I daydream of a man I knew who called himself Freedom.
And then I give the air 300 more kicks.
Waking up in the morning after 4 hrs sleep, my muscles are sore and I stumble to the phone.
I call my most missed soul-mate... 'Do you mind....?'
I stretch, reaching for the bellies of unseen stars.
And jump on the computer & order some brown and some black Henna.
Gonna have a Henna Tatto party.
I just gotta do something.

Sentencing...

I've never been to jail & I have never been arrested.
Not to imply that I have never boken the law, I started doing that at a very young age.I have NEVER had control over my DH, but I have tried to support, love & influence him to make healthy choices.
I knew the police were coming.
Suzie's mom-ality had called my Mother to tell her that it was only a matter of time.
I hid in the back bedroom with an Beatles album...deciding now would be a great time to read every word on the cover, on the sleeve and in the insert.
I was five.I've never called the cops. I'm not a control freak, but feel like I am losing control.
I heard the knock at the door & heard my mother pad her slippers across the sandy floor.
'Paige it's for you...'
I asked her to tell whoever it was that I wasn't home.
'I love you baby, but I cannot lie for you.'
Bam! Bam! Bam! More knocks at the door.
'It's for you. It's two gentlemen. You need to go answer that door.'
And, I did.
My first run-in with the cops.
1972.
Vandalism. Destruction of public property.
My name, my hand prints and some numbers...6-72, I think. If my heart were the sidewalk, he has not only walked all over it, but has also vandalized it with the names, dates & handprints of 1000 lies.
Scribbled and smooshed into the fresh concrete that paved the latest extension to our neighborhood sidewalk.
Suzie's momality yelled at us & we didn't understand why.
She said she was calling the cops & we looked over our shoulders for the 'bad guy,' the stranger, the vicious stray dog.
But all we saw was her...eyebrows wild, hair blowing, arms slapping her sides.
Control freak out of control.
How did she ever make it to adulthood without ever being a child? I filed for divorce & feel like the next 5 weeks are a jail sentence.
Photos compliments of Google & the WWW

Spit Again

'You know, my son started out just like that & now he does it all the time.'
'Ha, yeah... I figure he'll figure out not to do it facing the wind soon.' 'It's a disgusting habit.'
'It really is. I do it all the time, especially when I'm in a mood.'

La Florida, as named by Ponce de Leon...Spanish for 'Place of Flowers'

...where I born & raised. Where the bulk of my clan continues to reside. A place I only visit or vacation to.

Timmy Toes marks a line in the sand that covers the well-worn-anyways walkway that leads from the crushed periwinkle parking lot to the decades old Tiki Bar....with our rooms sprinkled in between the two.

Armed with thick slices of ice-cold, hot-pink watermelon, an afternoon breeze & a slow-setting sun, we all plopped our bigs toes right on that line. Seeds tumbled, spewed, sped & shot out of our mouths. Tiny black teardrops from the heart of the melon... bounced, skipped, skidded & plopped their way into the sand & seashell shavings that would later pay host to the various vehicles of the nightly guests.

Objective? Spit your seed the furthest.

Three seeds into it, I sit out...I really have no desire to spit & three slices of watermelon later, the boys finally give, announcing the winner.

20+ feet was the record and Skinny had it by a long-shot.

Tattoo You

15 years ago, when I was 'closer to thirty than I was to twenty,' I went out & got my belly button pierced. I wanted a tattoo, but decided a belly-ring would be less permanent. It didn't take long for me to realize that I still wanted to get 'inked.' I had a little drawing of sunshine, I had carried in my velcro wallet as a teen. Every six months to a year, I'd pull it out & change it up a bit. After high school, it stayed the same for years & the corner of my folded up drawing frayed. In college, I added thorny, spinning braids as accent & stuffed it back into my my more adult-like wallet. A years or so after the belly-ring, I finally got inked. The drawing I had toted around in my ever-changing wallet became something more permanent. It's mine & I love it.

The rip-tide at the beach was strong. The waves slapped me like a big old dog licking a newborn, dousing me in the salty seas' saliva. Sometimes the undertow sucked my feet right out from underneath me. And sometimes it slammed me back to the sands. At one point, the seas saw fit to slip my belly ring right off of me. The belly-ring that I had in place for 15 years. The belly ring that marked my youth. The belly-ring that doctors simply taped down during surgery because I didn't have the nerve to remove it and their technician decided that he didn't either. Mother nature saw fit to steal my turquoise away, splashing salt water upon the wound & leave me with a new freckle right above the navel thus marking another stage in life.

So now, I want more ink & I'm not alone. (Singleton, I found this little yellow butterfly just for you)
Little Jose, one of the wayward boys, I took to the beach is six years old. He had 20 bucks to spend as he saw fit & his materialistic desires were two-fold.
One...he wanted a hermit crab
Two...he wanted a tattoo.


One of the surfshops offered henna tattoos at a not-so-reasonable rate. Jose was SOLD! He thumbed through the books of flash & found a pic he liked. It was big... well, twenty-two dollars big. But the henna-artist pointed out that he had the same design in a fourteen dollar size. Jose looked up at me. I shrugged my shoulders...'It's your money babe, just remember you want a hermit crab & he'll need food.' Jose looked back up at the artist and concluded. 'No, I want this big one & I only want to spend ten dollars.' He sighed heavily, 'You're just gonna copy it, right?' The artist smiled, 'OK kid...I get it. Ten bucks for the big one.'
He chose a scorpion because they are red and red is his favorite color, even if the tattoo only comes in one color~ henna.


Mermaid, dragonfly & fairie tattoo's just fascinate me.

My brother has a male fairy holding a violin and resting his head upon his bow...it's beautiful.

Inked by Eric Roberts of Prodigy Art in Silverspring, Maryland....I love the realistic appearance of this dragonfly. Give me a little more green in the wings...a little less black & a little more periwinkle blue in the body & make my tail two segments longer, please.


Above is a picture of a statue of a mermaid. She's beautiful & she looks like Kimbies. I know there are tattoo artists out there that could work wonders at bringing this basking beauty into the skin.

Wading

Leaving at midnight. Taking two wayward boys with me.

Off to see my girls at the beach... until next time, I think I'll Wade in the Water

Perhaps you'd prefer to wade through this....


or maybe even this...

Robbie & the Devil

Robbie.
The only person I have ever said 'I hate you' to in a emotional fit.
Gawd, I loved her... following her from watermelon patch to kitchen and garage, to the fishing spot under the banana tree.
Robbie helped to teach me a lot of things ...
how to spot fresh soil and how to make fishing poles,
when to say Thank You, Your Welcome & God Bless You and
the wheres and whens of spitting.
Until it was the end of her day, I would follow that little old woman around.
And then, I would follow her to the faded sedan that blew blue smoke when it came to fetch her.
I guess Robbie was a good sixty or seventy years older than me.
She'd say to my mother, 'I dont know wut you gonna do wit dat chile...she got duh Devha in hur.'
;) Now with a developed ID & ego, I guess this is the same thing that my mother now calls 'spit,' the cops now call 'passion,' my girlfriend calls 'conviction' or just the part that my brother calls the pitbull in me.
When particularly rotten, Robbie would lead me to the bathroom.
'You got duh Devha in ya chile, you bedda spit dat devil 'n out!'
I would spit & spit & spit into that toilet.
'I don't see any devil!' I would defiantly proclaim.
'Awwwdnow, you caint see 'em, but he's inya... keep own spittin chile.'
She'd flush that toilet & I would spit, always looking for that little devil in me to go plunging into the water.
I confided in Singleton & Kimbies that I never did see that devil get flushed.
Yup.
I was convinced that he had taken root somewhere in the world inside me.
They confirmed my beliefs, yup gotta spit that devil out.
And then told me about the water rats.
The ones that come up the pipes & suddenly appear in the toilet when you are right there... but when you still can't see them.
These evil little creatures that come to bite little girls who spit, but don't spit the devil out, right in the ass.
Living on a lake, I am sure that I have seen the water rats outside before & the thought of those beady eyed, knobbly tailed beasts coming up the commode to bite me in the ass was all too believable to me.
Stranger things have happened in this world.
Although, I have yet to be bit in the ass by a water rat and
I have yet to see the devil,
I still spit.


I guess that it's just the devil in me.

The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio

A book and a movie... The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.

I don't do TV...can't stand it, in fact. But since I got married and DH brought a static filled black box into this home, I have found myself subjected to it...if even only in the background.
Hannity is not Baby Jesus & Paris Hilton is not beautiful... despite what I hear creeping out from that manipulative plastic & glass box.

Since I have only been to a movie theatre maybe 3 times in my adult life, I don't know how I end up renting such great movies from Netflix, but I do... The Magdellan Sisters, Secondhand Lions, The Motorcycle Diaries, Real Women Have Curves (even though I don't) Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Children of Heaven, Matchstick Men, Lackawanna Blues & The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio are all movies I can appreciatively recommend to any of you.

I watched The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio & immediately purchased it. I have seen it 3x now in about as many months. I made my husband watch it with me, then my boss, my girlfriend and now, my parents. My boss, my friend, my own mother... they are all prize winners in one way or another. One day soon, I will have my sisters watch it too...for they also are Prize Winners.

Based upon a true story, I found myself cussing, crying and giggling through the various scenes within this movie. The characters, escapades & experiences of this film were far more real to me than any Family Jewels or Real World could ever be.

'If the car didn't break down baby, I wouldn't be sitting here, enjoying THIS moment with my beautiful, defiant, young, daughter. I beleive things happen for a reason & this is where I am meant to be at this moment. I intend on enjoying this moment and might I suggest you do the same.'

'You still have 8 more years of school to attend before you graduate, but right now Paige all we have to do is attend each other. So there. I signed you out of school so we could spend the day together & I have five dollars, now where do you want to go eat?'

'There's bugs in my soup.'
'Those aren't bugs, they are spices.'
'They have legs though.'
'Don't be silly, spices don't have legs.'

Richness of spirit, feeds the heart and soul and, yes, even the rumbling belly when sprinkled with a little bit of defiance & determination.

God Bless all the Beautiful, Courageous & Defiant Women in my life.
I believe.