A Tale of Hula Hoops and Toaster Ovens

In lieu of the traditional methods of weight loss which require denial and sweat and vegetables, I have decided to take up Contour Tanning.

Contour Tanning, or CT, is based on the artists’ concept that dark areas recede while lighter areas move forward.  Dark = invisible. Light = not invisible. Pretty simple.

With this in mind, I stood in front of the mirror and took a quick inventory of the things I wanted to make go away.  Thighs, inside and out. Wiggly inside of upper arms. Waist. Hips… ugh. I would like for them to disappear entirely, but that would leave me looking like one of those shimmering heat mirages. So, okay…just the outsides. The outsides definitely have to go.

Plan in place, I bought a pass to one of the tanning salons and, armed with ultra-dark bronzing lotion, I crawled in the toaster oven and begin the disappearing process.

Problem:

It is nearly impossible to expose those specific areas to radiation at the same time unless you are a pretzel. Notice I said ‘nearly’. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Lay on back. Flatten arms against glass on either side of torso. Twist hips and legs 90 degrees to the left. Bend knees or your spine will break in half. Bake 7.5 minutes, then rotate to the other side. Continue baking until skin is sufficiently browned and/or you are unable to feel your legs.

After one of these disappearing sessions, I was wandering through Walmart with my roommate in search of nourishment (we are single, and therefore hunter-gatherers) and we stumbled across a display of hula hoops. In a moment of weakness, I challenged her on the hula.

What was I thinking?

Hoops in place, we distanced ourselves appropriately and began to swing. Well, she began to swing. I took one half-hoop and froze, pain piercing my left hip.

Two days later, as I tried to explain the hula hoop incident to the chiropractor, I began to wonder whether those CT sessions might have played a part in my injury, but I could tell by the expression on his face that he was already sufficiently freaked out by the mental image of Hula-Hooping Grandmas and decided I would not further frighten him with my theory of CT.

Besides, I’m not sure it’s working the way I planned, anyway. I may think my hips are smaller, but when I try to squeeze by the filing cabinet in my office, I’m reminded (painfully) that reality supercedes illusion. In other words, I think I’m going to have to go back to the old fashioned way of doing weight loss.

Or maybe I’ll just move the filing cabinet.

Losing our Balance, Part II

Excerpted fiction - copyright 2011

The Wall.  I have this Wall, you see.  It’s at the cabin.  I started building it back when I first started losing my balance.  It was my first wall and my husband - well, now he’s not my husband, but he was my husband then - David, that’s his name, anyway David said I couldn’t do it, but that just made me want to do it more.  So I got Wesley to help me carry the rocks. Wesley’s my son.  He’s thirteen.  He’s—not here anymore. 

They say he’s dead.

You know, if Jesus can raise people from the dead, what’s the point in dying?  What makes it any different than, say, sleeping?  We sleep, we wake up.  When you’re dead you just sleep longer, that’s all.  I hate funerals. 

David always called it The Wall, like it was the Berlin Wall or something.  I hated it when he did that; we used to fight about it.  Married people fight about the stupidest things.  Funny, because I call it that now, too.  The Wall.  Only not Berlin.  It’s the Wailing Wall.  Because I cry there.  And I write things and when I pray, I sometimes put my prayers on paper and fold them until they are very small and slide them into the cracks between the rocks.  When the cement is wet, it works best, because then the words become part of the mortar that holds it all together.  And holding it together is important when you’re building a wall.

It’s also important to me.  Very important. 

Because I’m not that great at building walls.  And sometimes I lose my balance..

Losing Our Balance

Excerpted fiction - copyright 2011

It’s been said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  By that definition, we’re all a little bit crazy, aren’t we?  I mean, let’s talk about dieting.  Or dating.  Or credit cards.  Credit cards are crazy, aren’t they?  But, okay, that definition might be true to a point, but don’t you have to take into consideration what we’re doing over and over again or even why we have to keep doing it?  Edison did not create a light bulb the first time he threw a bunch of wires together, but that doesn’t mean he was insane.  It means he was patient.  It means some things take repetition.  And then, let’s face it; sometimes the most insane part is thinking it up in the first place, doing it the first time.   Like, loving the wrong person.  Loving too much.  Or loving at all.  Loving.  Yeah, love can definitely make you crazy.

By the world’s standards, Jesus was insane, you know.  He said he would raise the dead.

I think insanity is when you want something that isn’t real so badly it becomes real, at least to you.  And then you live in that reality.

Oh no.  That’s faith.  I always get those two confused.

You’ll have to cut me some slack.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that people out here don’t talk about that kind of stuff.  They talk about the weather and movies and news and coffee—what’s the deal with coffee, anyway?  All I see is gourmet coffee—everywhere I go, gourmet coffee.  Whatever happened to plain old Joe?  I mean, coffee is coffee, right?  There’s a Starbucks in my bank for heaven’s sake.  Can you believe that?  It’s crazy.

There I go again.

I’m not supposed to use that word.

Native Americans, I learned, do not have a word for insanity. They call it being imbalanced.  I like that.  It feels right.  You know how you can be walking along and you trip and lose your balance and you do the arm-cartwheel-dance trying to get back to normal, trying not to fall, but you fall anyway?   That’s what crazy feels like.

It feels like falling.  Falling and falling and you can see where you were, and where you don’t want to be, but nothing you do changes anything.  No matter how hard you dance or how fast you spin your arms, you fall anyway.

I build walls.

I used to be an artist, but I’m not anymore because when you’re an artist you see things differently from other people and that is almost as dangerous as loving.  So, I build walls now.  And I like them.  They hold everything inside them.  Especially what I’m hiding.

Hey, that would be good to put in the wall...

It's Impossible

Mornings are the only part of my day that follow a routine.

Boot up the computer. Start the coffee. Warm up the printer. Pull the sign ins from the day before. Check the email. Copy the receipts and scan to the office. All while fielding the typical early morning banter. Morning Stella. How You Doin, Sunshine? Oops spilled the coffee. Where’s the paper towels?

Enter yesterday’s time into the cards. File. File. File.

Safety meeting.

It’s an interactive soundtrack that repeats itself every morning. Like the dialogue from “It’s a Wonderful Life” I have it memorized right down to the pauses. On occasion, Civil Soup will whistle a few out of tune bars from some country song but that’s about as exciting as it gets.

This morning, as I was making the coffee, however, a different soundtrack wafted in from that end of the trailer.

Strangers in the night. Two lonely people, they were strangers in the night.

I frowned. Sinatra? Really? The voices in my head don’t usually do Old Blue Eyes.

Tendrils of Sinatra curled beneath the closed door of Mechanical Soup’s office, wafting toward me in buttery streams. Just then, the door opened and Zorro emerged, all six foot five of him, moustache and all, singing in a strong rich baritone.

 Up to the moment we said our first hello, little did we know, love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away…

He was deep in a set of drawings, his brow furrowed in concentration, but his steel toed boots weren’t feeling the isometrics. Instead they heel-toed their way along the vinyl in perfect time to the beat. Never looking up, he shifted seamlessly from one song to the next, like an old vinyl 72.

Heaven, I’m in heaven. And the cares that hung around me through the week seem to vanish like a gamblers winning streak when we’re dancing cheek to cheek.

Zorro. Sinatra.

Sinatra. Zorro.

I poured myself a cup and returned to my desk but my brain refused to reboot. I just sat there, feeling the universe shift beneath me. Hardhats and safety glasses don’t sing Sinatra. They just don’t.

Call me irresponsible. Call me unreliable. Throw in undependable too. Do my foolish alibis bore you? Well I’m not so clever, I just adore you.

Call me unpredictable. Tell me I’m impractical. Rainbows I’m inclined to pursue. Call me irresponsible. Yes I’m unreliable. But it’s undeniably true. I’m irresponsibly mad for you.

Seriously. The power of music is astounding. I was transported out of the dingy trailer to another place, where the world turned to black and white women wore crimson lipstick with clip on earrings and men tipped fedoras and actually knew how to dance. It was all I could do to keep from kicking off my shoes and twirling across the floor.

And for the rest of the day, I couldn’t look at Zorro without wondering ...
Who are you? And with a voice like that, why aren't you on  Broadway? 

Simple Mans Simple Prayer

I love this canyon country

Love the sacred in the land

Watching a new calf learn to stand

The acrid smell of burning brands

Soft feel of leather in my hands

And I am nothing - just a man

But Lord, I love this land

I love standing on a rimrock

With an updraft in my face

As I thank God for this time

And I thank Him for this place

And I think that there is nothing

Like an eagle on the wing

The promise of early spring

The best horse in the string

 I know I’m just a simple man

But Lord, I love this land

I love sitting on the front porch

When the thunder rolls to town

Lightning flashing all around

And the rain comes pouring down

Broken canyons, broken hills -

Broken people.. God, and still

I know I’m nothing - just a man

But Lord, I love this land

I love to see Old Glory

Snapping proudly on the breeze

And that lady in the harbor

That calls across the seas

Saying “Come, share in our bounty

In our fields of fruit and grain

In the grassy covered plains

And the crimson colored stain

that flowed so every man could be free

even me

and I’m humbled.. I’m just a man

But God, I love this land