Things my dad told me…

When I was growing up my dad said:

Eat that, it will put hair on your chest.
Are you wearing perfume, you smell like a $2 hooker.
I wonder what those poor bastards on shore are doing? (when we sailed away from a harbor.)
Get a degree in computer programming. It’s the future. (1977 to my sister, but I wish I had listened to him. I got a degree in English Lit.)
Children are to be seen and not heard.
I used to swim with bow legged women.

My father had three daughters. He expected all of us to go to college. He expected us to work when we graduated. He didn’t say that, but it was planned for. What do you want to do when you grow up, where do you want to go to college were conversations.

It wasn’t until I graduated from college in 1988 that I realized that this was not a normal expectation.

He didn’t treat us as girls, but neither did he treat us as though he wished we were boys.

I don’t think he ever said anything that made me feel I was limited in my options by gender roles.

Easter and Grandma Allen

I loved Easter when I was little because my Grandma Allen always came to visit us in Puerto Rico over Easter. She loved the sunrise service they did on El Morro (the old fort in San Juan). I loved going to that service as well, because it was beautiful and sort of mystical. But mostly Easter was wonderful because it was the season of Grandma Allen.

Grandma Allen visited for a month at a time. She liked to make the cost of the trip worthwhile, I guess. She was known to stretch a nickel until it screamed. Even if the nickel was my father’s, which in this case, it was.

My parents often took their “no children” vacations when grandma came to visit. At least, they did until my grandmother got the notion to upholster the couch while they were on vacation. She chose the cheapest, most durable fabric she could procure. Sadly the fabric was hideous, which was not a factor my grandmother considered. She raised a family in the depression. Beauty was not a consideration when you had to clothe and feed 3 children and a husband.

It turned out that my mother, despite growing up in the depression, did not feel the same way about beauty. As a result, the surprise was not so much a happy one for my mother. Her bitterness lasted for decades.

After that a woman named Mrs. McGillicuddy came to stay when Mom and Dad took vacations.

Grandma always brought energy to the house. She always played games, she was always up to see a new place (as long as it wasn’t on a boat) and she never ever yelled.

We had a sailboat. However, my grandmother tended to get seasick just standing on the pier. So she couldn’t go on the sailboat. So my father, who paid for my grandmother to come visit us, couldn’t go sailing for the entire time she was there. I was an adult before I recognized how much of a trial that must have been for him. But he, like everyone, adored my grandmother.

Well. My mom did have some mother /daughter issues.

Anyway, Easter makes me think of Grandma.

“I don’t trust fanatics.”

My mother told me that when I came home from church talking about a sermon. The preacher was condemning pornography in mainstream movies. He and several church elders had gone to see Porkies as a ‘research project’ and were “appalled” at its content. (yes, I was a teenager when Porkies came out.)

I had been inclined to self flagellation because I saw Porkies and thought it was hilarious and had not been all that worried about its over the top nudity and sexual situations.

“I don’t trust fanatics.” That was all my mother said. But it made me wonder about whether the dear reverend was a fanatic. I wasn’t sure. I always assumed he must be good because he was, after all, standing up there preaching.

Fanatics. Extremists. They paint narrow lines of conduct, often conduct that is against our very nature. They define right and wrong and do not admit that sometimes its neither or both. They don’t care about people, they care about ideas. They talk about love, and act on hate. They aren’t about helping, they are about proving their point.

I think there are lots of fanatics in the world. Folks like my old pastor, who go looking for things to condemn. They hurt people in many ways. They create social and legal barricades against people who aren’t like them. They promote hate and fear. They do it all in the guise of morality.

When the belief gets strong enough, they blow up buildings and shoot children. When it is strong enough and supported, they send armies out to war. And they think its OK. Because they believe in something.

They are standing next to you.

Funny Story…

I used to be VERY VERY fat. 400lbs.

I wore dresses to work, but not pantyhose because being that fat and putting on pantyhose is similar in effort to walking up Everest.

I had a drawer full of underwear. And I hated to do laundry. I didn’t do the laundry until I had no underwear left to wear. I never threw out underwear. And so toward the end of the cycle I would be down to the “emergency” underwear. Underwear with little or no elastic at the waist and legs. Ugly, Granny underwear. Giant Ugly Granny Underwear. Probably with at least one hole.

One day, I wore my emergency underwear to work, with a dress. All day long the underwear slowly slid down my body. I would find subtle ways to hold it up while walking, by keeping my hand on my hip. But mostly I focused on holding my legs together as much as possible when walking, so that even if the waist fell down and was hanging below my crotch, I still had the damn underwear on.

Several times a day I would go into the bathroom to correct the upside down Giant Granny Underwear situation.

After work, I stopped by the grocery store and then drove home. I lived in a small uptown area. The streets are lined with Mercedes, Range Rovers, the occasional Rolls. Lots of upscale restaurants and boutiques. People would stroll the sidewalks and socialize.

I parked my car across the street and down the block from my building. The Giant Grannies had slowly crept downward while I was shopping. But when I got out of the car, my hands filled with grocery bags, I could feel it was pretty bad. Emergency Giant Ugly Granny Undies were moving into the upside down position.

I walked carefully, with my thighs clenched together, my hands too full of groceries to try and hold them up. Then I had to cross the street. I stepped off the curb without incident. I still had the Ugly Grannies held up at the crotch, but the waist was hanging down half way to my knees.

I reached the other side, stepped up on the curb, my legs parted and that was the end of it. Giant Granny Underwear floated down to my ankles.

I stepped out of them and left them in the gutter, without a backward glance. Like nothing had happened.

It was a defining moment in my life.

The next morning they were gone. Someone picked up my Emergency Giant Ugly Granny Undies and took them home.

Why I was homeless 3 years ago.

I certainly never thought I would be homeless in my lifetime.

I grew up in an upper middle class family.

I have a college education.

When I lost my job in 2009 I was making 62K a year. In Cincinnati that is comfortable for a single person.

I had an excellent management job that I expected to keep and continue to be promoted in.

I had lots of friends and family. In fact a few month ago, I found something I wrote about being grateful which included something to the effect that I was grateful that I would never face homelessness because I had family and friends, so if everything else went south I was at least safe from the depths of hell.

I think no one would think that I was the person who would be homeless. So what happened?

Depression.

Non Functional Depression.

It didn’t start as nonfunctional, of course. It started as an irritant in an otherwise rather lovely life. I found myself unable to focus. I didn’t want to go to a job I loved. I began to call in due to the depression more often.

But I didn’t do anything about it. Because Depression. That’s what it does. It makes you both irrational and unmotivated. And I was convinced that I wasn’t depressed because my life was pretty damn good AND because I was big on projecting how strong I was and I didn’t want people to know I was actually a fucked up mess.

So I ignored it. And it got bigger and stronger until one day – I couldn’t get out of bed at all. That’s when I thought it might be a good idea to call the doctor. She referred me to the psychiatrist who told me to take 6 weeks off and get my brain back online.

This is a career melting thing to do, but I didn’t have a lot of choice. I wasn’t getting out of bed. When I got back to work I was feeling pretty vulnerable and exposed and I was NOT feeling a whole lot better. But I was DETERMINED.

Until I fell apart again 6 months later. And took another 6 weeks off. At this point my career was shot, but I still had a job. They sidelined me and this gave me a chance to work on a project dear to my heart. It didn’t require much interaction and allowed me to just wander down a labyrinth of writing up documentation. I also spent a good deal of time training people.

My project was a success and the VP decided to forgive me, so she gave me a department that was drowning in a backlog of work and bad process. So, despite not really loving that job, I did it. While I did the job, the work got caught up, I got the employees engaged in making a better process, promoted several who needed the recognition, and improved the overall quality of the work.

And I was late to work everyday. To be fair, I was actually late because I was working from home, but this wasn’t a particularly enlightened company and my new supervisor was both very old school and not particularly fond of the fact that I fixed a department she had run for 10 years without any change of the issues I fixed in 6 months. But you know. Different styles. I cared and I asked the folks doing the work what would make it better. She showed up on time but couldn’t be bothered to talk to them. But I’m sure being on time is helpful.

Anyway, she didn’t like seeing emails from me timestamped 630am and then having me walk in at 9am. I liked working at home because I wasn’t interrupted. At the office, if I wasn’t in a meeting, I was on the phone, or there was a line of people at my door waiting for me to solve a problem. Its impossible to do any productive things in that environment. And there were things I needed to get done.

So. She put me on warning for being late. Eventually she fired me.

I should have been on time. She had a boundary and I couldn’t seem to make myself adapt to her boundary. That was the depression. You see in depression – its hard to change direction. Imagine you are driving somewhere and you realize you missed your turn. The fastest solution would be to turn around but instead you feel compelled to drive 6 miles out of your way to get there by NOT turning around. Depression is like that. Its on a track and once its on the track it doesn’t want to turn around or change tracks.

That’s why people with depression don’t take out the garbage or clean the house or get lots and lots of things done. Because they are in a track that doesn’t include that task. Its sort of like OCD but usually without action. Usually the track is just non-movement.

For me getting ready for work was a change of track. I was sitting in my pjs at my home computer getting a lot of stuff done. But getting ready for work was an a different track. And it was so hard to do. So I decided to stop doing the work at home. But then it was hard to get out of bed and get ready.

In anycase. I lost the job. And the depression then enveloped me like a black fog. I got in bed and lay there. If my mother hadn’t become bed ridden I don’t think I’d have moved.

But she did and so my life took on a new purpose. I cared for her. But she died 2 years later and that was the last tether holding me up. I sank into the abyss and I haven’t been out since. I lay in bed for 2 solid years until I had no money left and I was evicted from my apartment.

When I told my sisters I was deeply ashamed. I was expecting to be evicted in 10 days when I finally made the call. They came over to my apartment and this is what they said.

You need to put your animals to sleep.

You need to go into the hospital for depression.

You need to go to a homeless shelter.

I only heard the first part. For the first time in 5 years all of my soul roared and I exploded in anger. I refused to kill my pets because I was broken. It was unfair. It was wrong. It was awful. One of my sisters agreed to take the dog because she thought her son would adopt it. But the cat, Lily, was not part of the deal.

I called my friends and one of them agreed to take Lily until I could find a way to get her back.

That relief was palpable but it was followed by the realization that the last part of their plan was for me to go to a homeless shelter. They didn’t want me in their homes. They were rejecting me.

They used terms like “you have to hit rock bottom” and “tough love”. But I firmly believe that those are just ways to make their choice feel righteous. They certainly had the right not take me into their homes. I recognize that. I even understand why they would be reluctant to do it. But I HATE that they want to feel righteous about it. Because the act of putting a mentally ill person on the street is NEVER the helpful choice. EVER.

I was spending 23 1/2 hours a day in my bed and they put me in a situation that would overwhelm a mentally healthy person. I couldn’t cope with even minor things.

I drove myself to the hospital and they never visited me in the week I spent there. I’m not sure what their logic there was.

They put a bit of a cherry on the rejection by renting a uhaul and a storage locker, packing up most of my stuff and putting it in storage. They paid to keep my things safe and sheltered after I had already told them it didn’t matter to me if I lost all of it. I just watched them numb and useless.

They drove away from me after handing me some money and a map to the homeless shelter. I slept in my car. It was early March and it was cold.

On the 2nd or 3rd night I was arrested because I hadn’t filed my taxes in the town where I lived. I went to jail for a night. The judge, upon recognizing that I didn’t actually OWE any money, I just didn’t file the form for 3 years (yeah depression), let me go. When my sister picked me up from the court afterwards, she asked me if the friend who was taking care of my cat could take me in. She also said it God’s blessing that the judge was kind and that I was arrested on the night that it snowed 6 inches so I was inside on that night. I was arrested at 3am.

She gave me a gift certificate for a couple hundred dollars and I used it to get a night in a motel, so I could wash off the jail and sleep. It turns out sleeping in a car was mostly NOT sleeping for me. And there is NO sleeping in a jail.

My friends on tumblr set up a fundraiser and got me 3 weeks in a motel. And then I was in the car again. I did that for about a few weeks when my friend who took the cat in, got me a job with her sister. The job I currently have.

Another friend got me a week in a hotel after I got the job. His position being that as long as I was trying he was willing to help me with some money.

After I had the job a couple of weeks I got a paycheck and was finally able to move into a rooming house.

I have just barely sketched out what happened. I was homeless for about 2 months. Its was a terrible experience from a lot of points of view, but it doesn’t even come CLOSE to how terrible it can be for people who live on the street. I own my car outright and I lived in it. I never went to the homeless shelter because I was terrified of them.

In the end, I was still depressed, I had a dramatic increase in Anxiety and whole new boatload of emotional pain associated with my sisters. I am now functioning. Sometimes barely, sometimes reasonably. But I am not well.

Adam Savage reminds me of my Grandma Allen

He has a youtube channel called tested. On it he occasionally buildS something that intrigues him. I love watching people make things and so I always watch whatever he is building, even if the things he is making have no particular interest to me.

My grandmother was a maker. Of course in her day they didn’t use that term. But she and Adam would have gotten along like a house afire, as she would say.

She would have loved his cave of infinite tools and machines. She would have enjoyed spending hours working out the solution to a particular maker issue.

Unlike Adam, Grandma would not have collected every possible thing that she might use on some future project. She was frugal to her bones. She raised a young family during the depression. So having 10 of the same type of pliers would be an unwise use of her money. But she would NEVER project any of her own frugality on to him. She would enjoy his 10 nearly identical pliers and more so enjoy the fact that he enjoys them. Grandma’s gift was accepting people for who and what they are. She never wanted the world to be her way.

In this latest video, he’s making a car seat bed for his dogs to keep them from ripping up the leather. As he measures and cuts, its apparent that he is no longer going to a TV set where a makeup artist is making him and his hands presentable. His nails and hands are a MESS. He’s obviously been working on something that stained his hands and nails. Not something we get to see him make sadly.

Grandma, being a woman, had a very hard time with this aspect of the maker life. Because when you work with oils and stains and just work with your hands, they get grimey. Its the natural outcome of the work. She had more types of nail brushes, pumice stones, and horrible harsh handwashes than I can bear even remembering. But she never sat down to dinner with her nails dirty. She would not have criticized him for his though. She would only have wanted to know what he was making.

I wish I had the natural energy that permeates Adam and Grandma. That energy that makes things. That has an idea and then just MAKES it. I have ideas and then I realize I can’t do it. Before it even lives for long in my brain it dies. I think most people are like me. We don’t walk dauntless into a project. We recognize its many mistakes in embryo and abort the idea before its flaws are made into reality. Grandma and Adam, the makers of the world, they are OK with the mistakes. Its part of the process. Its OK. Because they love the process as much the finished product. More probably.

I miss Grandma a lot. And of course she would never had met Adam. But its fun to imagine her in his cave discussing ways and means for some project, unafraid of the huge buzzing machines, revelling in creating a new thing or revitalizing an old one. I think he would have liked her too. Well, to be honest, I don’t think there was a soul on earth who didn’t love Grandma. She was just one of those people.

Clean Sheets and Clean Nightgown = Bliss

I just washed my sheets and put put on a clean nightgown and now I’m sitting in bed feeling all kinds of lovely.

Its these tiny familiar moments – little things that can be savored that make life worthwhile.

There are quite a few of these moments in life, but we tend not to savor them. To take a moment and just luxuriate in their comfort.

I would argue that these moments are very best moments in our life.

The very safe warmth of being cuddled by someone you love.

The feeling of being gifted something precious that is created when a cat curls up and purrs next to you.

The feeling of unbroken love that emanates from a toddler who hugs you.

The feeling of home and nostalgia that comes from a familiar kitchen smell.

The feeling of love from seeing something created for you by your grandmother.

They are everywhere. Look for them. These tiny moments that make you aware of life being rather fine after all.

You can usually find or create at least one per week if not a solid half dozen.

Have I ever told you about my Mom?

My mom spent most of her life being a bitch. When I was born, she was an alcoholic and my first memories of her are her being cruel to service people and rude to neighbors.

I hear stories of her teenage and young adulthood. She was beautiful. Mostly she had presence. One of those women that everyone looks at. ”They have style, they have flair” kind of thing. Incredibly popular. But she was high strung and often mean. Those are the stories.

Growing up, I was embarrassed that everyone must hate my mother.

When I was 21 my mother sobered up. I met a different person. She wasn’t mean anymore…well, mostly not mean. People gravitated to her. I was astounded, because I thought of her as a not particularly enjoyable human.

But I was wrong. People loved Mom. When she sobered up there wasn’t much trace left of the outer beauty, but all the style was still there. And she still had that elusive allure of charm that made people want to know her. Want to be her friend.

But occasionally, she still got these irrational dislikes of people. People she didn’t trust. To those people she was still not nice.

And she still had these ridiculous expectations. Or so they seemed to me. But now I wonder. She walked out of doctor’s or dentist’s offices who kept her waiting for more than 10 minutes. She walked out on a Nurse Practitioner she didn’t like.

She was quick to tell any service person who was an idiot, that they were indeed an idiot. Although, I admit she did it with such subtlety that its unlikely that they fully realized they had been insulted, but I’m sure felt they were dealing with a bitch.

On the one hand, she irrationally felt the world should work as she expected it. Computer failures and unexpected emergencies be damned. On the other, she NEVER had to wait at the doctor or the dentist after walking out the first time. You get what you demand.

All of this sounds like my mother was horrible. She wasn’t.

She NEVER once demanded, bitched or complained to me in the years I took care of her.

She was always appreciative and often sorry for what she perceived to be the burden of taking care of her.

She never ONCE interfered in my life or my choices. (or my sister’s)

She lent me money many times in my 20s when I was both poor and stupid about money. Never once said no, never once demanded it back, never once berated me about my money management.

I didn’t have an ideal mother growing up. She was neglectful and often cruel. She was, after all, an active alcoholic. I forgave her. And one day she sobered up and I met the different person, the one who was worth knowing.

She wasn’t perfect. And I don’t think I will ever be able to see her the way all of her friends and even my friends do. I feel like they are looking at a different reality than mine.

But, the person I knew, was worth knowing. And perhaps we can only know the part of people that our own lens on reality allows. Sometimes, you can watch and deduce from other people’s reactions that something is happening that you don’t see. But you are not able to see it because your view is blinded by certain experiences, certain beliefs.

I miss her a lot.

My one and only marriage proposal

I thought it was a one night, possibly a two night stand. Right before he came, he said “Oh My God. I love you. Will you marry me.”

I didn’t think much of it, because, well, I hardly knew him. But also because that is almost an exact duplicate of what my group of friends said to each when we were really grateful for anything. Sexual Orientation and Current Marital Status did not deter this from being our standard “I really mean it – I appreciate what you did” line. He wasn’t part of that group, but I was just very used to being proposed to when someone was happy with something I did.

So…I was a little caught off guard when, later, he followed up with – I mean it – will you marry me?

I laughed. Which, perhaps, is not a very kind way to handle a proposal. But I don’t think the man loved me. I certainly didn’t love him. And I tend to laugh inappropriately in awkward situations.

I don’t really count it as a marriage proposal. But it does make a story.

I used to have a Blind Deaf Dog

A friend of mine dubbed her the “Helen Keller Dog”. Molly was born deaf and with progressively bad eyesight. In the last years of her life she was probably entirely blind. 029

This is of course where you sigh, feel bad, look at me like I’m the the Mother Teresa of Pets. I’m not. And she would have had no idea why you feel bad. She didn’t.

For the most part, she cheerfully bounded through life, banging into furniture, falling down steps and and poking her eyes on low hanging branches. You see she thought that was how life worked. It would never occur to her that it worked in any other way. Happily, she couldn’t even see other animals navigating through life without mishaps.

Life was not always glorious for her. She didn’t always get along well with other dogs. I think because dogs use visual cues when meeting. She never learned those cues and so didn’t present her intentions quite right . She certainly couldn’t read them in others. Because sight was of such limited support to her, anything visual would have small meaning as a filter for her view of the world. Touch was a huge thing to her.

Because she had repeated bad encounters with other dogs reading her wrong, she became tense and easily over reacted to a touch she thought might turn violent with another dog.

She was the easiest dog I ever owned. She was an Australian Shepherd. A small one. I guess people call them mini. Aussies are SMART dogs. They also want to please you. It took two times MAX to teach her a behavior. She knew that different people used different signals for behaviors. She responded to all of them. All of them were touches.

She loved touch. She wanted to hug and be hugged. She had a bit of a habit of climbing half onto your lap for a cuddle. She also liked to put her paws in your hands when she greeted you. But she NEVER did that to my mother, who was fragile and had skin like paper. She always just nosed her under the hand for attention or nosed her knee in greeting.

I used to leave the door open so the cat could come in and out when I was gardening. She would NOT leave the house unless I invited her to.

On the other hand – she was an absolute nightmare about getting her nails cut or being held down in any fashion at all. I don’t know what happened to her before I rescued her, but it was awful. But… as much as she would struggle and flail in fear, she would NEVER growl or snap. She was always ultimately kind and gentle to people, even at the vets office.

In the end, she and I worked out a barely tolerable system for brushing her and doing her nails, but we both were frustrated and upset at the end of each session.

She was the best dog I ever had. Its frustrating having a dog that can’t hear. More so than one that can’t see. Because we communicate so much through our voice. I talk to my animals a lot. I talked constantly to her even though she couldn’t hear me.

Molly was good. She bounded through life oblivious of obstacles, cheerful and loyal. I didn’t deserve her.