Frenzy Forfended

Talk about harried! I've had Mark's car to paint since Wednesday night. Thursday was spent the way it always is with a new car -- pretending it isn't there. Okay. That's not accurate. But I do act like I'm ignoring it when, in fact, it's got my full attention. It's like being in love in, say, seventh grade. Well, and in the fourth decade, too, I'm afraid. You just ignore the object of your affection until s/he finally realizes that you're smitten. If s/he glances your way, you quick! turn your head. You glance at the sky. You whistle an aimless tune. The advantage of this being a car instead of a love object is that it actually can't glance my way. What a relief!

I walk around it, rubbing at spots, pulling at the Honda logo, bending down and snapping the bumper with my finger. I mutter things like, "Okay, but then where would the yin-yang go?" I spread my arms and swirl my hands like a conductor, helping myself to envision what I'm talking about. Then I hear silverware clinking from the neighbor's kitchen and realize that she can hear me murmuring and see me gesticulating, so I stop it for a while. It doesn't last long, though. If she thinks I'm a nut-bag, she won't be the first.

I have to turn my little kitchen into a little studio. The two feet of counter space have to be cleared off. I want the little rugs to be the non-skid type, so I switch them. I line up paper plates, jar lids, frozen-meal and Meow Mix containers -- anything that can be used as shallow reservoirs for paint servings that I'll stick the sponges in. I arrange stir-sticks from the paint store and plastic spoons. I crack open a new box of latex gloves. I grab the Gojo and then remember that this is the first time I'm going to use non-toxic paint. I put it back, not quite trusting that action. No Gojo? No paint thinner? No big fat mess that will never go away because 1-SHOT, the sign-maker's paint which causes cancer in California, is a thing of my past?

Wow.

I get out the big rubber mallet, my pride and joy. I feel so competent owning that thing. I've got the big flat-nosed screw driver, too, for prying off the paint lids. These two tools look like twins, they're so bespattered, head to toe.

Another mismatched twin set is the canine contingent at Stefan and Lissa's house. I've painted two trucks and a golf cart for their new nursery, Banyan Scapes. They've got a short fat bulldog (because that's the only size they come in) who's brindle, and a matching GREAT DANE. They look so funny together!

My studio's ready. I've added the blue painter's tape and scissors, my pica stick (which I had engraved with my name at a jeweler's a hundred years ago), the white China marker. I'm set.

I only need to drive the car to the car wash, and then pull it up between the houses, up to my kitchen door. That will wait till Friday.

And Friday came. With it came a big dark funk that I honored by feeling fat, ugly, and stupid all day. Still, I went out in the morning to wash the car ... and couldn't release the parking brake. What? It's got a standard transmission, which I know how to drive (don't I?), but still, who uses the parking brake in flat Florida?

Well, I asked that question -- more as an indignant, rhetorical rant than a question -- of a handful of people, and they all said, "Well ... I do."

Oh.

I let Friday slip by but that's okay because I have a whole week to paint the car and who can do good work when she's feeling horrible?

Actually, the answer, I'm pretty sure, is: I can. Yeah. I don't think I need to be in a good mood to do good work. I might have to be in a good mood to write, but not to paint. In fact, the first paint I ever put on a car was when I was angry and heart-broken and hopeless. And I remember years and years ago, I got on this huge rave about freaking men. All they do is TAKE, y'know? Not a single one gives. They all take! take! take! I was so mad! The only halfway artistic thing I'd ever done was papier-mache (my queendom for some accent marks!) piggy banks for my ten nieces and nephews way back in my married days, so I made a papier-mache, um, breast, using my actual, ah, chest for the model. I intended to have a whole series of them, each with something hanging off them, draining them -- men! babies! -- and then I couldn't think of anything else, and I've never had babies, but I should think they'd be kind of cool and not really a bother, at least not so young, so I gave it up.

I also envisioned a series of peniseseses. Do I have to mark this as an "adult" blog if I say "penis"? God. I hope not. The penes would be stand-alone units, like a hat-rack sort of. And the tips would have:

• a screaming, raucous, wide-open baby bird mouth (because men are so greedy)


• the muzzle of a rifle (because men use sex as a weapon)


• the head of a squalling, pissed-off baby (because men are so demanding)

Actually, I remember having at least half a dozen of those ideas, but, as with the breast, the idea came to naught. I'm sure it's just as well. I can't guarantee it, but I suspect a wall full of angry penes would put a pall over a party.

Plus, that was in the Olden Days. Now, of course, I see men as kind and gentle and strong and sensitive and cooperative and understanding.

Not to mention: I digress ...

Saturday, I ran off to an all-day drumming session. It was taught by Buddy Helm. Just go to http://www.buddyhelm.com/ and see for yourself. It wasn't a plain old drumming circle. It was great and I'm glad I went. I got to eat at The Summer of Love, too, on South Pasadena just after the Palms of Pasadena Hospital. It's a nice enough sandwich joint, a place where lunch can be a ten-dollar bill instead of two of them, as is normal for dear old Gulfport ...

And my buddy Mike was able to release the brake, so I finally got started on Sunday. Whew! And by the way, don't tell Mark any of this, okay? Thanks.

All that muttering and hand-waving did me some good because I made more headway on Sunday than on any other first day of any other car.

And today's Monday. Suddenly, I was inundated with work for Liz's book. It sort of blindsided me. I was just making corrections, and there weren't that many, but still, I sat down here at eight in the morning and didn't get up again until six. I was starting to panic. I've got some really complicated things planned for Mark's car and I need all the time I can get. I'm just sick about those days I wasted. Okay: that day. Day One and Day Three were not wasted. But I hadn't counted on having to work on the book and I started to think nothing would get done.

How quickly I went from well, this is a surprise to this will never get done! auughhhhhhh!

And then Mittens, my beloved cat, sat outside and screamed for entrance. She came in and sat on my, um, studio -- a 20x40" folding table that I was using for the two hundred and eighty-eight times two pages I was dealing with. I moved her off the studio four times. There just wasn't room for her and the book. And I was getting insane about getting things done. But Mittens just made herself comfortable in the way of the cat, and there was nothing I could do but take pictures of her being so cute. She saved the day. I lightened up.

I made a huge mistake on the cover of the book, but Liz caught it and it took one minute to fix. I'm going to get to bed at a decent hour tonight. Tomorrow and Wednesday will be all for Mark's car. There will surely be last-minute touches on Thursday morning, and then I'll pick him up from the airport at three forty-five and he'll never know how frenzied I was for a couple hours today.

Liz's book is the ultimate pet sitter's guide named The Little Bastard Won't Bite ... and everything else your pet sitter needs to know. You'll want several copies of your own, one to keep and many to give. Many of Liz's friends have the honor of having their pets' pictures included in the book. I'm one of them. I swear that this photo of Mittens sitting on her own page was not staged. I didn't have time or inclination for it. It just happened. Again, that cat saved my day.

Mea Culpa

From French to Latin in one short day!

It turns out that the bit about French's Mustard Company from yesterday was a "prank," according to Mister Snopes, so there's one more reason not to blog ... or is it "post" ... or "post a blog"? Man, it's bad enough that I have to monitor myself (and when have I ever watched my mouth?), but now I have to be accountable, too. Dang!

And I'm the one hitting REPLY ALL when I get one of those fear-mongering emails about yet another scam or another missing girl (boys seem to stay home) or another brand new spankin' thing for women, in particular, to be afraid of.

He's UNDER the car! He's in the BACKSEAT! He's behind the SUN VISOR!

I call those people emotion vandals and I think they're bad. So there.

When I get a sensational email like that, I Snopes it, find out it's a lie, and REPLY ALL. I'm such a missionary! That's kind of a two-birds/one-stone thing for me. I'm also hoping that whoever sent it will figure out that she should BCC (blind carbon copy) next time.

I was going to leave the BCC unexplained, but a smart, young (thirtysomething) businesswoman asked me how to do it the other day, so I'll assume nothing. Today, I confess, I was killing time, waiting for Liz's manuscript, and I looked in Craig's List under Personals. Boy. Mea is culpa today, huh? Anyway, I saw "NSA" too many times. I was pretty sure is wasn't No Sex Allowed, but that's as far as I could figure. I had to go to too many pages to learn that it means No Strings Attached.

Oh.

So now I've learned that even a Snopes-intensive person like myself can be too hasty, too believing, too naive ... uh ... too high up on a soapbox ...

But isn't it nice to be able to respect French's Mustard again? Yay!

Well, heck, as long as I'm here -- and you can thank Steve in Minnesota for that -- look what I bought today. I bought five quarts of paint at Healthy Homes on 22nd Avenue North, across from Mazzaro's. It's green paint -- non-toxic paint -- for Mark's car, which I'll start painting on Thursday. I wish I could show you the paint chips. Hmm ... perhaps I can ... The flavors are Cozumel (turquoise), Electric Orange, Citrus Splash (yellow), and Grenadine (red). Well, and black, of course, which I want someone to name Whipped Licorice, please. Thank you. Black is what holds it all together. I took the chips from Behr, so I guess we should applaud them, too. I'm going to scan the colors. Since everyone's screen is different and blah blah, let's play it like this: If you like the colors, the scan was good. If you don't like the colors, something's wrong with your screen.

I know the men at Healthy Home were intrigued by the colors, not knowing that they were for a car. This particular car seems like a real challenge to me right now. I hope I'm up to it. Mark assures me I am, but he's not strolling in my flip-flops, is he?

Prepare to swoon.

The Cressida for Peace

I'm plowing through a bunch of photographs because I've got to get things to John, who's building my website. I ran across this picture of my '87 Toyota Cressida, my first art car. How I loved it! I had forgotten all the changes it has gone through. Someone mashed the trunk and the rear passenger side, so I had to re-do some things.


Look at my Peace Sign Flag. I had completely forgotten about that. I was just so pissed that, because of DevilBoy mentioned in an earlier post today, our country's flag came to mean The War-Monger's Flag, The I-Don't-Listen-To-ANYBODY Flag.


That blob in the middle of the flag is the gas-cap door that somehow wasn't harmed. Do I know how to take a good photo or WHAT? I don't know how to crop the pix for this blog thang, either.


I needed to add this on today because, I swear, I am never talking about politics again. Ever again. For real. I mean it.

Uh ... la Jour de la Bastille

I'm not a particular francophile, but I was disturbed, as you'll recall, that my calendar has no listing for Bastille Day, which is today. Ole. Today, according to my Women of the African Ark calendar, brilliantly purchased by Mike at the Museum of Modern Art, is merely a bank holiday in Northern Ireland. Or is that just North Ireland?

My lovely datebook from the Sierra Club has nothing planned for today, either.

What's up with that? My mind -- ever ready to blame B's collection of demons and idiots (I can't bring myself to mention that lame-brained duck's name here) -- wonders if perhaps all mention of Bastille Day was stricken from all the calendars right about the time that French Fries became Freedom Fries. Do you remember that? Can you imagine such inanity coming from the government of one of the most powerful nations in the world? Well, of course, that power's been draining away -- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly -- in part because of such things, although I don't suppose B and his thugs made the changing of the name of our favorite junk food an actual law. (God. Sometimes it really sucks to be a Libra.)

Still, how third grade! And not quite half the citizens of B's own country were praising the French for having zee bolls to just say non.

But wait! I can't be talking about politics! It makes me sick! Let's rush back to the French in general, shall we, before I cough up a hairball?

Dismayed by the absence of Bastille Day on my calendars, I did some extensive research on the topic. That is, I asked Liz. She has a datebook from American Express and it has Bastille Day noted. Whew. I feel a lot better, don't you?

Right after high school, I went to junior college in Rochester, NY, where I lived on the third floor of an orange house on Argyle Street with Margie French and Pat French. (That's where I lost my virginity, but I only bring this up because Janet might be reading.) I mention these young women separately because they weren't even related. And get this -- they both worked at the French Mustard Company. I merde you not!

I just googled French's Mustard because I'm pretty sure my roommates went to work on Mustard Street. I was young. I'd never imagined that companies would build their factories and then name streets after themselves. I had the idea that streets belonged to everyone, so I was impressed with that.

For my wedding, Margie and Pat gave me a gift set from French's, a wicker basket which included boxes of, oh, instant mashed potatoes and instant scalloped potatoes, but also tins of spices. I thought the whole thing was very elegant. I envisioned using the basket to go off on romantic picnics with my new husband, drinking French wine and eating French bread and, well, really, eating Velveeta because I couldn't imagine something as bizarre as, say, Camembert. I wasn't fantasizing about French wine because of French's Mustard, but because -- at least in those days -- French equalled romance. The end.

So I went to check on the address of the company, and look (or don't!) at what I found from 2003:

"We, at the French's Company, wish to put an end to statements that our product is manufactured in France. There is no relationship, nor has there ever been a relationship between our mustard and the country of France. Indeed, our mustard is manufactured in Rochester, NY. The only thing we have in common is that we are both yellow."

Let's see if we can ignore the terrible diction. "We are both yellow," indeed. It should have been "our mustard and the French are both yellow." And those commas around "at the French's Company" hardly need to be there, while one after the second "relationship" would be a comfort. But I digress ...

Again I say unto you: How third grade!

Well, I suppose that's something we can say for The Duck: He brought a childlike flavor to our nation.

I clipped a great article about la Tour Eiffel to give to a friend who's an aerospace engineer. It was something about all the lights on the Tower and the intricacy of the blah blah. I don't remember the content, except I knew an engineer of any sort would probably be interested in it. I told him about it but he didn't want to read it because -- you guessed it! -- that Tower is in France.

Oh, I click my tongue and moan out loud at the idiocy of some people! I can't believe such morons exist, let alone that some are my friends. What are they thinking? Well, they're not, of course. Their minds are so closed that --

And then I realize, of course, that I'm exactly like they are. It's only a different flavor. I am just as convinced of my side of the issues as they are. They shake their heads at my ignorance as often as I do mine at theirs.

My apologies to third-graders everywhere -- even in Texas, even in France.

Outdoor Showers

I've heard of outdoor showers before but I've never actually seen one. I assume that there are four walls but not a roof, that you can shower with the great outdoors above your head, with no one to see you but birds. You'd have the fragrance of all your blossoms right there, and all the outdoor sounds. I'll bet even traffic sounds pretty pleasurable from an outdoor shower.

Well, my friend ... uh, let's call her Sally ... has an outdoor shower and I got to see it today. It is absolutely glorious. And maybe this is how all outdoor showers are. I don't know. This is how many walls it has: ZERO. It has the same number of ceilings.

Yep. She just steps outside, strips off her clothes, and turns on the water. Can you imagine the freedom that provides?

I stood there and looked all around. The only way anyone could see her -- a neighbor out to mow his lawn, a missionary knocking on her door, someone on the street -- would be if they're in a helicopter. The hot-and-cold shower is attached to the house, with a completely private privacy fence on the other side. The other two sides are Sally's yard, but between the foliage and the setup, it's totally secure. She's as protected out there as if she were inside the house in the bathroom with sea horses on the shower curtain and a lock on the door.

I hate to have to talk about the differences between men and women, but, you know, we women never get to walk around with just a pair of shorts on, so this outdoor shower, this amazing permission to be totally naked OUTDOORS is just mind-wobbling.

I did it once a thousand years ago outside of Utica, NY. I was out in the country, walking near my trailer (yes; I know), and it just seemed like no one was around, so I took off all my clothes. I didn't actually do anything. I just stood there naked, feeling the air and sun and shadow on parts of me that never got to be outside. Then my boyfriend showed up and the rest is cliche. (My queendom for an accent mark!)

This isn't about exhibitionism, of course. I'd burst into flames if someone saw me. But it is about, well, freedom, I guess: freedom in the outdoors. Anyone can be naked inside. But outside? Whew!

I suppose the closest I ever get to it is when I'm swimming, which I haven't done in years. Water makes me feel naked even when I'm not.

But back to Sally's shower ... I'd almost be afraid of that kind of freedom. What if it felt so good that I'd never want to give it up? What if it got so that I wouldn't even put on a robe to go back into the house? What if I didn't wait till I got outside to skin off my clothes? What if I started accepting The Watchtower in the altogether? I suppose some conversions might take place.

Now here's a bit of synchronicity ... Mike and I were having a too-caloric, too-late giant wad of fat and sugar at IHOP a couple nights ago with our friends John and Janet, whose names don't have to be disguised because if they're doing anything untoward in their backyard, I don't know about it, not that Sally's behavior in her shower is anything but envy-making and goddess-given and completely rapturous. I casually mentioned that I'd love a job at home, a job I could do "in my jammies -- not that I wear pajamas."

Janet put up her stop hand and said, "Now, that's too much information!"

So now I'm wondering what she'd think of this outdoor shower blog ...

Toxicity Toxic City

I had to poison my cat today. Well, I'm presumably poisoning her fleas, of course, but I'm sure it poisons her, too. I put the poison on her on the first of the month. Some of you calendar-oriented folks out there might want to point out that today is the eleventh of the month, not the first. Yes. But then Mike might read this and become indignant because I scream at him for not poisoning his pets with regularity. It's really a challenge to maintain hypocrisy.

A couple days ago I received a big, big box that was holding a folding magazine rack. I'm going to use it to display the papier-mache Ashanti tribal symbols I make. They're wall-hangings and will fit nicely. I'm pretty thrilled with it, actually. It came swathed in bubble-wrap which I had to peel off it like a wet sock. I tossed it into a corner because goddess forbid I should take care of things as they come up.

And that's where Mittens is sitting. She's nested, poisoned, in a pile of plastic.

I dug out some little areas rugs recently that had been stored in a big plastic tub from RubberMaid. The smell was awful. I tossed the tub out on the porch where it's probably staving off everything from raccoons to iguanae to mosquitoes from its stench alone. That's when I decided that I'm going to slowly get rid of the nasty things that live here. If it's not good for the earth, how can it be good for me?

I used to drink bottled water, but then I became self-employed (ahem) and didn't want to pay for it. For a while, I drank tap water, blessing and thanking the water a la Dr. Emoto (look him up -- he's great!). I let some people talk me into believing that tap water's really bad, though, so I've started with the Brita pitcher-and-filter getup. The filter lasts for two months for the average family of four.

Think about that for a minute.

Okay. Now let's translate for the average family of one. You'd think that would mean that my filter will last for eight months. But wait. Maybe the average family isn't home all day long. Okay. Should we knock off half a day? More? Less? And what if the average family drinks eight cans of soda each every day and the water they drink is limited to what they accidentally swallow while brushing their teeth, which are rotting away from all that soda but would be restored if only they'd drink tap water, which contains fluoride?

You see my dilemma.

Going to Brita's website is no help. I don't have the patience to wait for the screen to settle down. It takes forever to download because, look! there are faint little bubbles everywhere! Aww. How clever! Yeah. By the time the site's ready to go, I'm ready to delete.

Well, I put the filtered water into my ice cube tray and I've discovered that, after a while, the cubes leave teeny white flakes of, what? Water? What's going on with those white floating things? They remind me of fish food. I've decided that when my cubes start leaving those flakes, it's time to begin the preliminary procrastination for changing the filter.

But how nice not to have dozens of plastic bottles to recycle! The more I don't buy bottled water, the happier I am about it. Whew! Talk about over-packaging!

In Ghana, I was riding a bus ... Don't you hate it when people who've traveled once in their whole lives have to say things like I just wanted to say, which is: In Ghana, I was riding the tro-tro when ...

Tro-tro. Please.

Not to mention, I'm missing a question mark up there. God.

But still, in Ghana, we never ever said "bus." The thing was a "tro-tro," the end, amen. And it was one of two words -- "fu-fu" being the other, as you know if you've been hanging on my every word, which you should be if you know what's good for you -- that I actually remember from Twi, one of the sixty languages spoken in that country.

I used to think that people were just being arrogant when they'd use foreign words when telling a story of their travel. I thought they wanted us to say, "But wait, O Mighty Traveler! O Thou Most Superior One, pray, I beg thee, explain thine use of tro-tro!" Now I think that the use of those words is for the traveler's sake. It reminds her of being there and how fine it was. It makes her tip her head, eyes unfocused, while she remembers and smiles. That one word, tro-tro, was enough to make Ghanaians start pointing or, more likely, take my arm and bring me to the tro-tro and strike a deal with the driver and pick out the best seat for me.
Just "tro-tro." Wow.

So, really, then, when I was riding the tro-tro, we drove by a woman on the dusty roadside drinking a bottle of motor oil. Yes. She was drinking out of one of those thick, black oil bottles with the nice long neck for easing pouring. I have no doubt it was water in the bottle, but still -- what a startling sight. They use everything in Third World countries.

That statement was brought to you by the wide experience of two (2) Third World countries, unless Colombia's one (1), too (2), then make it three (3), Panama being one (1)

I was in Montreal one (1) (sorry) time with a boyfriend. He knew someone who had a cousin who ran a boarding house or some precursor to the B&B. This was in 1974, I think. I wonder how many of you weren't even born then. Jeeze. This is middle-age talk.

Anyway, we stayed there for a night. The next day, we wandered the grounds, looking for the marina we'd been told about. We saw a little girl, maybe five years old. We also saw a broken dock that couldn't have been six feet long in its heyday. Goodness. What if this were the marina? By now, I was used to the idea that not everyone spoke English, so I said, drawing upon my days and days of high school French, "Bonjour."

"Bonjour," she replied shyly.

"Marina, um, ici?"

"Oui."

Wow. Look what I had done. It was very satisfying.

One thing I've really enjoyed about being around non-English-speakers is the great lengths to which we'll both go to get the message across. The whole body in involved in the question and answer. You end up looking like a couple of clumsy mimes, I suppose, but it's really fun. I tried to get water in Fuso, Ghana. A young man approached me when I got off the tro-tro (!). He simply offered his services, in case I needed anything. I did. Water.

His English was better than my Twi, but it still took a while to get water. I said "water" and we ended up at a little store -- like a flea market stall -- that had nothing like water. I then said, "Voltic," which was the brand name of the bottled water. Ah! He brought me to a battery place. I made the gesture of drinking! Oho! He took me to a bar. Happily, an empty Voltic bottle was there (believe me -- it wasn't in the recycling bin; no need for that). I pointed and smiled happily, and he brought me to a place that sold ... WATER. Yay!

I love that stuff.

So now my area rugs are on a shelf in the bedroom instead of in a big evil toxic yucky plastic box. I'm going to offer it to my neighbor, though, who's moving out of this duplex after nine years. Obviously, I don't like her much.

Spin

I'll soon have to write a couple paragraphs about what I've been doing for the last forty years. Photos are requested, too, for an exhibit at the farmhouse where the fortieth class reunion of the class of 1968 at Letchworth Central Junior-Senior High School will take place.

I remember my mother's fortieth class reunion. We both were in awe that such a thing could be taking place. I never really thought of my mother as old -- even when she was -- but I also, when I was thirty-four, didn't think about her feeling younger than her years, or of having sex at age fifty-eight.

Not that I have sex, you understand, or even think of it.

Well.

Anyway, I've got some exotic pictures of me in Ghana from ten years ago. THEY certainly will go in the exhibit. There I am in native garb (in which I look stupid, as all white people do, in my never-humble opinion), surrounded by a sea of little kids. There's another one of me pounding fu-fu, or was I just watching someone pounding fu-fu?

What surprised me more than anything when I got back from those five weeks was that I hadn't ever attempted to hold a baby on my back the way the women do there, with the cloth, leaving themselves free to, well, pound fu-fu and gather paw-paws and pineapple. I never tried to carry anything on my head, either, but that doesn't surprise me. Next time, I'll at least try the baby thing.

I was with Habitat for Humanity for two weeks, and then on my own for three. We dozen white women traumatized an entire generation of Ghanaians in the village of Kushea. These kids on their mothers' or sisters' or grandmothers' backs would take one look at us and lose their minds. They'd stiffen and shake and shriek as if we'd dropped them in ice water ... or as if they're stuck their fingers in electrical outlets, had there been any.

The older kids, toddlers big enough to toddle, thought we were most interesting, but those babies are still having nightmares about us.

I have a picture of me grinning between two soldiers in Bogota, Colombia (again: my queendom for an accent mark!), German shepherds at attention.

Hmm ... I have wedding pictures, too, but no divorce pictures. Doesn't that seem strange? Really, now, divorce is at least a big a deal as a marriage, but we just duck off to a lawyer's office and get it done alone. My then-husband didn't even know he was divorced. He got a notice in the mail from the court that said his case had been heard, but that's it. He didn't know if the divorce had been granted -- like a wish, like a scholarship -- or denied.

I have pictures of me in my art car. How screamingly cool is that?

I don't have any pictures of me sobbing on the way home from work, night after night, crying so hard I thought I'd snap a rib, while my mother wandered the halls of Alzheimer's.

I don't have any pictures of my broken heart, either. I almost said broken hearts, but yeah, I guess I only have one. Seems like more, though.

There's no picture of that one boyfriend smacking his own head against the window of my [painted] car because being with me can make some people crazy. No pictures of me smashing my beautiful blue-and-white teacups on the floor, gouging the linoleum, because sobriety doesn't always bring sanity.

On the other hand, no pictures are needed of our tenth class reunion when my drunken boyfriend beat up his equally drunken girlfriend -- the Queen of the Prom, by the way -- right in front of the class of '68.

So I'll bring my way-cool photographs of Africa (Africa!) and South America and the cars and trucks I've painted. I'll write that I'm a member of the St. Petersburg Writers' Club, that I've actually edited a novel. People who got married and had children who now have children will look at the exhibit and think that their lives are boring. They'll think that putting their kids through college is no big whoop, that staying together for thirty-five years is a sign of boredom and fear, not maturity and love. They'll note that I included a picture of my cat but not of my non-kids. Oh. They'll imagine their lives without their kids and just frown, not quite able to do that. They'll have their noses pressed up the glass of my life, and they'll see me peering longingly into theirs.

But whoa! what if we're old enough now -- wise enough -- to realize that the grass really isn't any greener? At forty, I was occasionally sad that there wouldn't be children for me, but at nearly sixty, I just shrug. So what? That simply wasn't my path this time around. What if all of us at good ol' LCS think that way? What if we've already learned that different is just different -- not better or worse -- and that happiness really is wanting what you already have?

What're the odds of all that being true?