People who like to hear themselves talk

Los Angeles: land of movie stars, mansions, uncomfortably large salaries and the overwhelming egos that come with them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a cynical Angelino (well not yet anyway). I appreciate our close proximately to the mountains and the beach, the beautiful weather, the wide assortment of fabulous restaurants and constant, tangible exposure to the arts. All of these fine qualities aside, I do have some grievances.

My annoyance of the day: people who like to hear themselves talk. They're everywhere, shouting their way into your conversation. They stand behind you in the coffee shop line, viciously engaged in a multitude of conversations ("I know it's not her husband's kid, I mean he's impotent right?" Oh hang on a second Mom I've got to order my latte.")

Perhaps one of the biggest offenders is the speakerphone blabber. I know some people are more annoyed by the Bluetooth, but I've got to say the speakerphone is way more obnoxious. Sure with the Bluetooth you have that split second where you wonder if the person is talking to you, talking to themselves, or just plain crazy, but at least you only hear his or her side of the conversation. Why would anyone want to walk around with their conversation blasting from both sides? I don't want to hear the muffled laughs of your BFF on the other line as you drone on about something too personal to be discussing in the frozen food section of Vons at midnight.

She was my sister

She was my sister
When we were kids
She pushed me down icy hills,
Into parked cars
Blood dripped on white mounds of snow
Built with tiny hands
But she was my sister
When I would cry
Shhhh she'd say, it's not that bad.
When we wore matching clothes
Jumpers and knee high socks to school
Church to cover up hatred
And my sister,
She bore no disguises
She harbored it, but it permeated her
My sister with this burden
Tied inside of her like a carefully woven ribbon
Things were normal..
The way we lived,
The things we did
The teenage rebellion that caused us to sneak sandaled boys into our windows
Did she know I looked up to her when she hated herself?
That the boys thought she was pretty,
With her long legs and her careless hair?
She was my sister when she dropped out of college,
And went to live with an older man,
With depression and an agenda to die
When she shaved her head one Easter Sunday
When she ran out of medication and the room spun,
Amidst cigarette smoke and cable TV
She knew I was her sister on her wedding day,
With a baby in her stomach and Mom and Dad shaking their heads beside me
When we slept on the pull out sofa,
The night our mother died..
And sneaked cigarettes in the 68' Mustang
When her son was born with a hole in his heart
When she divorced her husband,
And introduced me to Charlie
But I wasn't her sister on her second wedding day..
For the birth of her second child
And now she sits in a hospital room
A baby ripped out of her stomach
A wound she will soon run her fingers across
Remembering the jagged edges of the surgeon's knife
I long to be her sister again
To trace the wounds that haven't healed,
And seal the open seams

A Thanksgiving Memory

A Thanksgiving Memory


It was a couple of days before Thanksgiving when we got the call. I knew it was bad when I saw my father rest his body against the floral print wall in our kitchen. It seemed as though he was letting something hold his weight for the first time, his sturdy hand following the rips in the screen door. “I understand,” he said in a voice that seemed to chill every inch of the warm kitchen. “My brother died,” he explained as he cradled the receiver in his hands like he never wanted to hang it up. Dad’s brother had made it through Vietnam, the life of a cop and he was shot to his death while picking up some beer at a gas station in Boone, North Carolina. Mom tightened her grip on the dishtowel. Her hands were dry and chapped from years of washing dishes without the aid of rubber gloves. We were silent as my father gazed out the window, his eyes resting on the worn clothesline, hanging low from generations of jeans and comforters.

I found myself repacking the suitcase I’d just unpacked in the room that used to be mine. I’d stenciled each pink flower that lined the walls of my former sanctuary with care, taking breaks only to turn over my records or take another hit from the joint I’d hid outside my bedroom window. We were going to drive up to Boone the next morning. I realized that I didn’t bring anything to sleep in as I sifted through my suitcase. I went through my old chest of drawers and found a slew of tee shirt-style nightgowns my father had bought me for various holidays, each bearing an unoriginal and even sexual connotation laced saying. I finally settled on one he must have bought on one of his trips to the local hot dog stand, it said “Hot dog! It’s Milton’s!” There was a dancing hot dog complete with a Milton’s chef hat on the back of the night shirt. “I’m glad he knows me so well.” I muttered as I slipped into the shirt. I’d been a vegetarian since I was seven- years old.

The next morning I awoke to the smell of coffee brewing and bacon frying in the old cast iron skillet. I padded down the stairs to find my sixteen-year-old sister Mary in the kitchen. We hugged awkwardly and then she was called away when her colicky baby started to cry in the next room. Our mother didn’t believe in pre marital sex, birth control or abortions. I guess the Catholic guilt got the best of Mary when she sat in the adolescent boy’s dirty bathroom, cupping the drug store pregnancy test in her clammy hands. She was still pretty beneath the pregnancy weight and the pimples caused by late night fast food and poor hygiene. I offered to let her ride up with me and she looked grateful when she accepted. She was jumping at the chance to get away from my mother’s looks of disappointment and my father’s sad eyes.

I was packed and ready to go before everyone but my father. He’d been up since 5:30 AM, had breakfast, walked the dogs for exactly 30 minutes, zipped up his various array of plaid shirts and yellowish undershirts into his musty suitcase and now he was sitting in the car looking at his watch. I knew that as soon as we were all out the door and ready to go my mother would pause, look squeamish and announce that she absolutely must go to the bathroom one more time before we left. My father of course would grumble and announce that he’d been up since 5:30 AM, had breakfast etc and thus the repetitive speech that was my childhood would commence. It was a speech about being on time, about being prepared, but most of all it was about my father hearing himself talk and my mother inserting pitiful looks to convince us that yes she was indeed a martyr and she would one day become a saint.

“I just don’t understand why we can’t all ride together,” my mother said as I started walking to my car. “It will be good to have two cars up there,” I explained with my back to her. The truth was I couldn’t take a car ride with my parents. I was finally at the point where I could say no to them and the car ride was without a doubt a no.

“What kind of music are you into?” I asked Mary when we pulled out of the driveway. She just shrugged and twirled her long black hair around her fingers. I put on a Bob Dylan album and she didn’t say anything, but from a teenager I guess that’s a good enough response. “Pretty screwed up about Uncle Jim huh?” I asked her as we merged onto I-40. She nodded in response. “It’s just amazing to me that you could wake up one day, go about your normal routine, take a shower, go to work and then you make one impulse stop on the way home and just like that you’re dead.” I shook my head and waited for her to say something. She seemed to be deep in thought, and then she said “can you believe I have a kid?” She sighed and turned to look out the window. Baby James must have known we were talking about him because he decided that very moment was the best time to let out the most high-pitched scream I’d ever heard. Mary turned and looked at me. She didn’t have to say anything. I knew what she was thinking. She was exhausted. My sixteen-year-old sister had bags under her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She should be hanging out with her friends, not pushing a stroller around. Her eyes should be tired from late night cramming sessions. Instead Mary decided that she would drop out of high school and get her GED so that she could work full time and support her baby. I couldn’t believe my parents allowed this to happen. I was so mad at them, and in part blamed them. If my mother hadn’t made Mary so petrified of all things sex (except for the act itself of course) she could have used birth control and none of this would have happened.

“We’ve got to pull over!” Mary yelled over the baby’s screams. I saw signs for a McDonalds and took the exit. The McDonalds was in a strip mall that could be anywhere in America. It makes me sad to see these places, these cookie cutter malls. I began to wonder what mom and pops shops were there before the town was raped of its individuality. “Want anything?” I asked Mary when I peered inside the surprisingly clean women’s restroom. Mary was changing James’ diaper on the orange plastic changing table. “Yeah a milkshake.” “Thanks Karen.” She said as I shook my head no when she reached in her pocket for money.

It’s interesting to go to these small towns, I thought as I was standing in line waiting to order a milkshake for Mary and a large black coffee for myself. It seemed as though this town was in some sort of a time warp. The way people were dressed, even the music I heard blasting out of passing cars, it very well could have been ten years ago. Somehow the corporate chains were the only signs of progression. Maybe I’d forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town. Maybe my years of living in New York City had turned me into a snob. The woman in front of me placed her order in a thick southern accent. I sometimes wonder if that’s how I sounded when I came to NY, with my eyes wide and my belongings in a hand-me-down suitcase.

Once we were back in the car I decided to take another stab at talking to Mary. “So your boyfriend…is he helping out at all?” “Not really.” She said. “I think he’s just scared right now.” “He’ll come around.” She looked at me to see if I agreed. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to fight with her, but I knew this boy was not going to mature anytime soon. I was familiar with men abandoning their families. I was about to go through a divorce. After twelve years of marriage, and thankfully no children, I’d caught my husband cheating on me. We had only been separated for three weeks. I stayed in the apartment we’d resided in for years and put him out to fend for himself. “Do you want to talk about Trey,” Mary asked as if reading my mind. “I don’t know…I’m at a loss here Mary. I was happy with him, sure he annoyed me and sometimes I wanted to give up, but I was in this marriage for the long hall.”

Truth be told if anyone was ever going to break up the marriage I assumed it was going to be me. I remember the days when Trey practically worshiped me. Those days were long gone though. In recent years I was the one patting the empty side of the bed in the middle of the night. Crying as I touched the groves in the mattress where his body used to rest. I guess I knew it was coming for a while and now that I think about it he really didn’t try to hide it from me. Towards the end I think he wanted to be caught. And so I came to pick up the phone one day when she called. Trey was not there of course, he was on his way to meet her. I heard her breathing into the phone before she hung up. I called the number back, she answered and I did the same. I knew it was her and I knew my marriage was over.

Trey had been seeing her for a year I believe. She worked for one of his company’s vendors. They probably met at one of the company functions I’d made some excuse to get out of. I bet their eyes met as they sat around the blandly decorated hotel banquet table. Trey would have touched his wedding ring as he thought about how it would feel to run his fingers along the curves of her body. They’d find themselves at the bar together, he would have ordered a jack and coke and she a martini. He would think that she was different from me. I always order a glass of red wine, a pinot noir. Trey used to think it was cute when we were first married and I would try to order wine in a dive bar. After a while it annoyed him and he didn’t understand why I couldn’t just drink a beer. They probably just talked that first night. She was younger than him, a bit younger than me I presume. Her breasts were still perky underneath her suit jacket. She didn’t have the laugh lines around her eyes like I did. Her skin would feel soft when Trey shook her hand at the end of the night. They must have lingered there, holding the handshake for longer than is acceptable in business situations. Trey would have thought about her touch on the drive home when he reached into his pants pocket to make sure her business card was still there.


“We’re going to be there soon.” Mary announced snapping me out of my head and back into this trip we were taking. “Do you think they’ll shoot guns …at uncle Jim’s funeral?” Mary asked me. “I imagine so. He was in the military and a cop, so I guess there’ll be men in uniform there.” I said adding “Don’t you think it’s kind of ironic that a man who lived his whole life with a gun on his hip, dies from a gun shot wound and we choose to celebrate his life by firing off a couple rounds?” “It’s supposed to be a respect thing…a tribute right?” Mary asked. “I guess so, but it seems like the man would want a break from guns…at least at his own funeral.”

I’ve always hated guns. I remember visiting uncle Jim when I was a kid. He had this glass case full of his most precious guns and hunting riffles. Uncle Jim loved to hunt. Animal heads lined the walls of his hallways. When we would spend the night I wouldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom…I was so scared of those animals mounted on the walls. It felt like a graveyard to me with all of the deer heads and birds hung in mid flight, their glass eyes forever focusing on some distant object.

The gravel bounced off the car as we pulled into uncle Jim’s driveway. Mom and dad weren’t there yet. Jim’s wife was smoking a cigarette on the porch and she waved to us when we pulled up front. She smelt like liquor and stale cigarettes when she hugged me. “And this must James,” she said cooing as she peered in the backseat where James was peacefully sleeping. “Mary you’ve grown into quite the young lady” she said putting an arm around her as we walked up the steps and into the cabin. Dad and Jim had grown up there. Dad’s father built the cabin and since Dad was still in the military when my grandfather died, uncle Jim inherited it. The cabin hadn’t changed much from when I was a kid except for some new furniture and maybe a paint job or two. As we were walking up the stairs to our rooms I whispered, “I’m so sorry Aunt Peggy.” We paused and she hugged both Mary and me. I could feel her tears wet my cotton shirt, but she didn’t make a noise to let us know she was crying.

I sat on my twin bed and looked over at Mary in the bed next to me. Aunt Peggy had brought in a crib for James. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get much sleep that night. I knew the image I was going to see in a few hours was going to keep me up anyway. I’d been to one wake before, when I was in high school. A friend of mine, Devon, got in a car accident one night and died when he bent down to pick up his cigarette, flipped his family’s station wagon and landed in a ditch. I kept thinking about how I’d kissed him only days before as I peered into his coffin. It was so strange to think that we’d breathed the same breath, our mouths melting into each other. His mouth was sewn into a general expression of neither unhappiness nor joy. He looked like a pasty, clay version of himself. The preacher read from Devon’s poetry book about how he just wanted to do the right thing and find some way to better society. I wondered if like the contents of my journals, the preacher had to dig through poems about how much he hated his parents and how he never got what he wanted before he found anything positive or worthy of reading in a church.

“I like that dress.” Mary said the next day as we were getting ready. “Thanks,” I replied as I fastened the straps on the black silk dress. “That looks nice on you.” I said to Mary. She was wearing one of my old dresses. Her entire life she’d had nothing to call her own, always wearing my old clothes, playing with my old toys, until now. She finally had something I’d never had… a baby, something to call her own. I wondered if part of Mary had wanted to get pregnant. I thought about the trashy teenagers on daytime talk shows. No Mary wasn’t like them.

I could hear my parents arguing in the next room. I used to think they would get a divorce when I was growing up. As I got older I realized that my mother’s Catholicism would prevent her from ever getting a divorce. She would rather sit and suffer than sin.

Uncle Jim’s wake was at the funeral home in town. The place smelt musty like mothballs and attics. There were generic paintings on the walls hung in cheap plastic frames painted gold. A large crucifix hung in the room where uncle Jim was. People were already in there, cautiously walking up to the black coffin with the silver trim. A woman I didn’t recognize was standing over Jim whispering something. She turned and sobbed into her handkerchief. She was an attractive woman in her sixties. She must have been quite beautiful when she was young with her dark hair and emerald green eyes.

There was a table set up in another room with various arrays of vegetable trays and appetizers. I didn’t recognize most of the people in the room. They must have been friends from town. A woman in a seasonal sweater with smiling turkeys began to make small talk with me. “We’ve known your uncle Jim and aunt Peggy since they moved into that cabin in 1967. You weren’t even born yet were you?” She asked sizing me up. “Yes actually, I was born in 1965.” The seasonal sweater lady lost interest in me and moved on after a while.

“Oh thank God it’s you.” I said to Mary as I saw her approaching. “Yeah I’m getting sick of making small talk.” Mary agreed. We went in to say goodbye to uncle Jim together. The hardwood floor creaked as we slowly walked over to the coffin. Uncle Jim looked like Devon did, pasty, even though the mortician tried to paint on rosy cheeks. Uncle Jim didn’t look too bad though, considering he’d had a hole blown through his chest only two days ago. Memories of running around on uncle Jim’s land came flooding in. Uncle Jim helping me find Indian arrowheads buried right in his backyard. My cousin Kevin, uncle Jim’s son, laughing along with me when we played cowboys and Indians. Kevin was put into a mental institution after he shot a high school bully with one of uncle Jim’s guns. I remember visiting him once when I was a teenager. He looked like the same person, but when I searched his eyes, I didn’t see any sign of the old Kevin. It was like he just faded away and all that was left was this empty shell.

Mom and Dad were coming into the room as we made our exit. My father was making fists so tight his brown knuckles were turning white. Next to him my mother was folding a gum wrapper into tiny squares. Neither one of them knew what to do with their hands and neither one of them thought to hold the other one’s hand. My father hugged Mary and me in his usual stiff manner. I whispered, “I’m sorry daddy” in his ear. He patted me on the back.

“I guess we’re going to stay here for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.” I said to Mary as we were getting into our beds that night. “I’m sure it’s going to be a lively group.” Mary added and we both laughed. “I’m glad you’re just as cynical as I am.” I said as I drifted off to sleep. I was dreaming I was chasing Trey all over New York. I had on dark sunglasses and a brown trench coat. “Follow that car!” I yelled as I jumped into a cab. Suddenly this screaming noise came out of the baby monitor the cab driver was holding. “I’m sorry Karen.” Mary said as I sat up rubbing my eyes. It was 4:00 in the morning and James was screaming at the top of his lungs. “He just does this.” Mary said as she tried to calm him down. “I don’t know how you stay sane.” I said to Mary when she finally got James to stop crying. “I’m on the edge of insanity every day.” Mary said and I knew she meant it.

The next morning I went downstairs to get a cup of coffee before I got ready for the funeral. Dad was reading the paper at the old farmhouse style table. Aunt Peggy was drinking her coffee out of a mug that said “there’s no place like home.” “Good morning sugar. Want some breakfast?” Aunt Peggy asked. “No I’ll just grab some coffee if that’s okay.” I said reaching into the cabinet for a mug. The funeral was in a couple of hours and the floral arrangements and baked goods were pouring in as I sat with my cup of coffee and the front page of the local newspaper. “They’re expecting snow tomorrow,” I said. My father nodded in response.

The funeral was at the Baptist church a few miles from the cabin. It was starting to sleet as we pulled up to the front of the church. “Ya’ll go on in. I’ll park the car.” My father said. I felt the goose bumps rise all over my body as we walked up the church steps, and suddenly I was sixteen again, holding my friend Stacy’s hand as we walked into the church for Devon’s funeral. I’ll never forget seeing his parents walking away after the ceremony with their arms around his little brother Joey. I wondered if they were all together when they got the phone call that Devon was dead.

My father sat stiffly in the pew beside me while a friend of Jim’s played “Morning Has Broken” on the organ. The organ echoed in the otherwise silent church and the sound was haunting. I felt my father tremble and I linked my arm through his. My mother’s hands were resting in her lap. I wished she would comfort Dad. I looked around the church in search of familiar faces as the preacher talked about heaven opening it’s gates for uncle Jim. I was shocked to see a man I’d gone to high school with, John Allen. He saw me and we smiled the awkward smiles of recognition.

After the ceremony we went a few miles down the road to the graveyard where Jim would be laid to rest. I hadn’t cried through any of this, but when the preacher said “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” I started to cry and I couldn’t stop. I sifted the dirt though my hands and it fell on Uncle Jim’s grave. I thought about everything that was dying, Uncle Jim, my marriage, my sister’s innocence. I wished we could all just start over. There’s so many things I would change. I’m sure Aunt Peggy would give anything to go back to that night, to get Jim not to stop at the store on the way home.

After the ceremony we all went back to Aunt Peggy’s for dessert and coffee. I couldn’t eat anything so I sat out on the back porch even though it was freezing. I’d been pretty generous when I poured the Kaluah in my coffee and I was starting to get the buzz I’d been too familiar with the past couple of months. From the looks of my recycling bin you’d think I’d been having a lot of parties, but that was not the case. I’d gotten into a pretty bad habit of drinking a bottle of wine at night, alone. I knew it was becoming a bit of a problem, but the only way I was making it through the lonely nights was drowning myself in a bottle of grocery store red.

I heard the door creak open and I saw John behind me. “Mind if I sit down?” John asked. “Of course not” I said. “I was in town visiting my grandparents when I read about your uncle in the paper.” John said, explaining why he showed up. “I’m really sorry.” He said giving me a hug. “How’ve you been,” I asked. “Great” he said with forced enthusiasm. “And you?” “Oh everything is really good,” I said adding a fake smile. After a few more spiked coffees I started thinking about how attractive John was. “Why didn’t we ever date?” He said, reading my mind. “Beats me.” I said, blushing a little. “I lied to you, John, when I said everything is going so great. The truth is I’m pretty miserable. I’m going thorough a divorce. I caught my husband cheating on me.” “You’re not the only miserable one.” John said adding, “My wife died of breast cancer two months ago.” “Oh god John. I am so sorry.” I said shivering. “You’re freezing.” John said, taking off his windbreaker and putting it over my shoulders.

After I exchanged numbers and polite promises to stay in touch with John, I headed inside. All of the guests had left and my father was busy making his sweet potato casserole, while my mother was stuffing a turkey. “Your Aunt Peggy’s taking a nap.” My father said as he saw me scan the room for her. “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked. My father shook his head no while my mother forcefully over stuffed the turkey.

Thanksgiving dinner didn’t start with a blessing or the usual talk of the many things we had to be thankful for that year. We sat in silence. The only sound was the rhythmic scrapping of our forks against the porcelain plates.

The ride back to Raleigh had an eerie silence that reminded me of our awkward Thanksgiving dinner the night before. There was so much I wanted to say to Mary. I wanted to tell her that she’d made the right choice, that she was going down a hard road, but everything would be OK in the end. Truth was I didn’t know if anything was going turn out right for Mary anymore, at least not in the way I’d envisioned her life. Would she one day meet someone who loved both her and James? Perhaps she would go back to school and eventually get a degree. Or maybe Mary just didn’t need the same things I needed to make her happy. I didn’t know when we’d see each other again. I knew I wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Maybe another death would bring us together again.

Why fake it?

I just don't understand why some people feel the need to edit their personality in the company of others. Granted, some behavioral instincts must be contained (i.e. my desire to scream expletives at random strangers who annoy me on the street, in passing cars, restaurants, my place of business etc.). But why shouldn't I have five glasses of wine at a family dinner? Sue me, I'm Irish. I just don't see the need to tone down my personality outside of the situations in which I absolutely must.

I was raised by a Catholic and a Southern Baptist. Haven't I suffered enough? I'm done with the guilt and the repression.

Better late than never, and other things cliché

To be a modern writer is to have a blog, so they say. I feel somewhat narcissistic creating this thing, but what the hell. So I'm a writer in L.A., and I'm working in a coffee shop because (let's face it) there's not much else I can do right now. Ah let the blogging begin...