The Apres-Bar Will Be Held in the Alley

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) turns five next Tuesday; and as you can imagine, preparations are underway. The National Guard has been alerted, anything of value has been wrapped up and stored in the basement in boxes marked “Taxes: 1990-1999”, and the catnip grown in and around Hennepin County has been bagged and marked at inflated prices.

Inexplicably, the Office of Homeland Security insists that the threat level remains at “orange”.

Liza Bean is turning five.

You remember Liza Bean Bitey, don’t you?

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) is a symmetrically striped, tiny-pawed catcher of mice and demander of cream, a cat with a sharp tongue and a penchant for umbrella-ed drinks.

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) is a cat who once returned my car with a typewritten manuscript in the trunk purporting to be a collaboration between her and Hunter S. Thompson. When I pointed out to her that Hunter S. Thompson died the year she was born, she simply raised one eyebrow and said, “Did he, now?”

That Liza Bean Bitey.

Two years ago I took her out for sushi for her birthday, a debacle still fresh in my mind, particularly since I cannot walk past any of the local police without them making clawing motions at me while chuckling the words “Meow! Meow!”

Philistines.

Frankly, the guy Liza attacked had it coming – after all, any lout suggesting that Liza Bean “go back to where she came from” deserves the restaurant-clearing brawl that he gets; and while her bail money – the money I was saving for a flat-screen TV, dagnab it! – was considerable and we still cannot show our faces at the Origami, I carry the memories fondly.

Last year’s birthday celebration was a quiet affair: a houseful of her friends over for “paw” food (trays of puree of mouse on Ritz crackers, bird bits on toast points, gin and tonics). The party eventually moved to the roof and Squeak Toy played until the police were called, but no charges were filed; and as I had enjoyed the drinks as much as anyone else and had agreed to not write about it, the details have moved into the fuzzy-and-disputable category.

Which brings us to this year’s celebration.

A pub crawl – or, perhaps more accurately, a pub slink.

The plan? She and her friends - including members of her last musical endeavor, A Band of Biteys, now that she and the drummer have settled their legal dispute - will leave the house Saturday night at 8:00. With a dozen bars in easy slinking distance, they will go to one after another, waiting for that moment when the door opens whereupon they will shoot in, four and five at a time, winding 'round ankles, dodging the good citizens of Northeast Minneapolis and pushing their fuzzy bellies up against the bar.

Ad hoc neighborhood watches are being formed as we speak.

If last year’s celebration is any yardstick for this year’s, I will awaken early to dozens of cats strewn about, on couches, atop the fridge, in the tub. I'll make scrambled eggs and ham and buttered toast. Coffee will be made and aspirin offered; and despite my protestations, I will find ten-dollar bills attached to handwritten thank-you notes tucked throughout the house after they leave.

Cats.

They know how to party.

Now If I Could Just Harness My Inner Jackass

The weekend, my friends, approacheth; and to ready ourselves we consult my iPod, known right here in my very own head as a perfectly normal and reasonable way to foresee the events of both my and your weekend.

And it’s absolutely free.

The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine
Love Train by Wolfmother
Electric Feel by MGMT
Shout Me Out by TV on the Radio
Ramble On by Led Zeppelin
Black Soul Choir by 16 Horsepower
Neat Neat Neat by The Damned

What have we learned here? The word this weekend is “relax”. Prepare yourself for drop-ins, interpretive dance, existential conversation, and guacamole.

It’s weird, but I see guacamole in everything.

So I was laying on my yoga mat the other day, pressing my forehead into the ground, as is my wont, when it occurred to me that I had entered a new stage in my life.

The stage?

The stage wherein I successfully cage my inner monkey.

There we were, perspiration rolling off us, contemplating the next move (“you will plant your hands on your mat, shoulder-width apart, tuck your knees up into your armpits and simply lift yourself off the ground”). We were inches from each other, breathing deeply and rhythmically.

The temperature in the room was this side of a hundred degrees, the humidity just short of awakening the vestigial gills I’ve been holding on to for just such an occasion.

Yessiree, Bob, there I was: just me and 49 of my favorite people (between the hours of 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.).

And it wasn’t long ago that my brain would’ve chosen this very moment to ricochet with panicked, chattering thoughts. It’s too hot! Is that guy looking at me? It’s too hot! What’s the temperature in here? How much longer before I can lay down and play dead? Have I mentioned to myself that it’s too hot?

But indulging my inner monkey is not why I go to yoga.

The monkey casts a sideways glance at the tepid moat of sweat surrounding the mat of the man eight inches to my right and begins to work on the comment that will keep me from concentrating. I successfully fight her back into the same corner of my mind where I keep Metallica songs and the closing times of local fast food joints. I promise her that we’ll look for cigarette butts on the way home (I may have quit, but she doesn’t know that) and watch Cops afterwards.

The monkey loves Cops.

There are advantages, I think, to choosing where and how you’ll let your monkey run free.

The bus, for example, is the perfect place for monkey thoughts.

Don’t get me wrong. The monkey keeps me entertained, says terrible things I cannot repeat about the woman in the gold Spandex and the odds of finding loose change in the folds that make up much of her topography.

The monkey was the one who suggested I turn off my iPod Wednesday morning and listen in on the fight between Pookie and Boo.

Frankly, Boo’s trippin’.

The monkey also, however, makes obscene references during solemn moments and encourages me to eat uncooked cake batter. The monkey likes to inline skate drunk and quit my jobs.

She had a good run, that monkey.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there isn’t room, now and then, for her chattering.

I’m just not buying her bananas anymore.

I Wouldn't Mind A Small Taste, No

It’s still around the corner, I know, and you’re probably going to go crazy with jealousy, but I’m going to taunt you with it anyway.

I have tickets for the upcoming Autumn Brew Review.

Thirty dollars for all the beer I can, um, taste?

I can taste a lot of beer.

The truly lovely part, of course, is that the historic Grain Belt Brewery is less than one hiccupping, singing, possibly knee-walking mile from my house.


I feel almost guilty: lagers, pilsners, ales? All for me?

I’ve put myself on a strict training regimen for the event. I patch one eye for several hours a day so as to be ready for the shift in depth perception sure to accompany the first dozen beers. I’m allowing only two visits to the bathroom per work day. I’m practicing a number of witty one-liners for the event, among them “sez you!”, “hey! don’t you owe me money?” and “you dance divinely”.

But what does one wear to an afternoon of brew reviewing? “Track shoes” leap immediately to mind. Pants, naturally. Mustn’t forget to wear a shirt.

Fall is coming, after all.

The air will be sharp and cool, the leaves turning from green to red, and the Grain Belt Brewery will loom in the distance, awaiting the happy shouts of adults with tickets to an afternoon of trying the latest beers from brewers around the nation.

Of course, it’s as much about the company as it is about the beer. Walking down the streets of your neighborhood with your friends next to you is a delicious occurrence, with or without the promise of malty, hoppy goodness waiting at your destination.

And like I say, it’s just around the corner.

You! Over There! Amuse Me!

People have asked me how I can find something to write about every day.

Sometimes, I wonder that myself.

And that got me thinking.

Where does inspiration come from?

For me, it’s not the margaritas, the impressive genealogy (including farmers, a postal worker and a high school teacher) or the kissy-lipped face of concentration I’ve been known to adopt while writing.

No, my ideas start outside of myself, spurred by muses. And while “spurred by muses” sounds like something that could be taken care of with some sort of burning soap and a tiny-toothed comb, I’m glad I have them.

The thing that has surprised me most about discovering the concept of the muse is that anyone can be one.

Take T for instance.

T says things that make me think, make me look deeper. The following exchange has stayed with me for years:

Me: I just can’t believe Scott screwed me over like that! After I’ve gone above and beyond for him!

T: You know what the problem with the world is? There aren’t enough people doing stuff for Scott.

That comment inspired a story and helped me drop the attitude I had been working on.

And there are other muses! Take, for example, my friend Diana, who once suggested that I could pass for Canadian.

For some reason, that tickles me.

You can't buy stuff like that.

I think everyone has muses, but I’m not sure everyone sees them. It would be best, of course, if muses were easily identified, if they were required to, say, wear those shoes with the little bells on the toes, or present printed cards, little gold-embossed cards calling them out as licensed and bonded inspirers of creativity.

But maybe we just need to open our eyes to the fact that sometimes muses aren’t readily identifiable.

Sometimes, they look just like the people next to us.

A Golden Day

Today is the quintessential summer day.

Every leaf waves, every flower smiles. The rabbits are leaving gifts of “smart pills” in my backyard, having eaten some of my tastier flowers; small birds gossip in the raucous and disrespectful grape vines that have engulfed the “good-neighbor” fence; and the kitties sit in the windows on the second floor, slit-eyed and content, dreaming of slow-moving mice.

Northeast Minneapolis, after all, is a lovely place to live; and the sidewalks and the park across the street are summer personified in that dog-walking, soccer-playing, ice-cream-truck-melody way of summer in the city.

Today is the quintessential summer day. And tonight is the quintessential American night.

Today is Independence Day, AKA “The Fourth of July”. We are flag-waving, red-white-and-blue wearing patriots, grateful for our soldiers, our volunteers. Winter is a memory, summer is a warm, heady reality; and as the sun sets, the pyrotechnic among us gather, in large and small parks, in yards and alleys. Some of these are sanctioned events, simulcast to John Phillip Sousa and the Boston Pops on the radio and attended by thousands in open fields; and some of these are unsanctioned, groups of children running through yards, spelling their names with Sparklers, throwing Black Cats and shooting Bottle Rockets.

I steer clear of the large events, personally. The mosquito-to-drunk ratio in an open field is too high for my blood, and I tend to attract both.

I’ll be celebrating the anniversary of The United States, as so many of us will: at a party with family and friends, eating grilled food, drinking cold beer.

And when the sun sets, I’ll be found in the alley behind my house – where there is a clear view of Minneapolis’s fireworks and the pavement tends to be unfavorable to mosquitoes yet provides sturdy footing for drunken patriots.

The United States is another year older, people.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Man Those Cats Can Jam

Pet doors are swinging wildly today all over Minneapolis regarding news that Squeak Toy, the all-cat band out of Northeast Minneapolis, will be playing a surprise gig in the alley between Jefferson and Adams this coming Saturday night.

And all the coolest cats will be there.

It is with a healthy mix of both excitement and trepidation that I report this – exhilaration over seeing Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) on the violin again, and perhaps a touch of anxiety over the crowd that Squeak Toy pulls in.

Have you been to a Squeak Toy gig?

It’s not common knowledge, but Liza Bean trained classically as a kitten, playing her way through the cabarets and pubs of Eastern Europe. She has always been light on the details, although she did once tell me, after too much absinthe and not enough cat nip, that she shared a rail car with Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello “somewhere cold” in the early 90s.

If asked she still insists he stole her lighter.

Those days are long behind her, of course, and she’s moved on to less strenuous pursuits like espionage, jewel heists, and the pursuit of, if my high school French serves – and I believe it does – “the best damn pastries in Belgium”.

Honestly, it’s right there in her diary, although that spiky, old-world script is hard to read.

And who could she possibly know in Belgium?

This still leaves, of course, Squeak Toy.

They’ve been practicing in the basement now for weeks (or, as the drummer calls it "the abasement"). Look around the room: Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) on violin; Stumpy “Lucky” Strikes on drums; Ignatz D. Katz on upright bass; and a large long-hair with yellow eyes on piano that was introduced to me, less than cryptically, I thought, as “Hairball” .

I’m playing this off as if I’m not excited, but in all honesty Squeak Toy’s gigs are great fun: wild music, unrestrained revelry, four-legged leapings from garage roof to garage roof, and, I swear to you, two years ago a cat who slipped down a neighbor’s chimney and came back up with a full-sized couch.

I’m not saying that kind of behavior is right. I’m just saying it’s nice to have a couch in the alley.

What’s that? Oh, yes. Of course. He put it back first thing the next morning…

The preparation starts today. I’ve already drunk more water today than in all of last week and shall continue to do so in the hopes of diluting the hangover that lies at the end of this particular party; I’ve got plans to go to yoga every day this week; and I’ve got a 3:00 appointment with Donna on Saturday, allowing ample time for the creation of what we like to call “party hair”.

Meow.

Squeak Toy’s in town! Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I'm Gonna Need Your Support on This One

On an almost daily basis, I reflect on how much I'd enjoy bending people to my will. There are those of you who will disagree with me, of course, but once you've been through the retraining camp, you'll see that you were wrong.

So I've been thinking, and I've started a list.

Feel free to read these with your modifications in mind. I may want to be the ruler of the world, but I'm going to need minions.

1. People exiting the bus -- always with the bus, Pearl! -- will be required to do so through the back door as opposed to going back through the front. It makes sense. Since you can only board by the front of the bus, you leaving through the back is the only logical thing to do. You're bunging it up for the people trying to get on. Think, people!

2. Anyone on the bus that can be pinpointed by an unreasonable body odor can be asked to leave said bus by any reasonably non-offensive-smelling person, such decision to be enforced by stern looks of disapproval - a pursing of the lips is also allowed - by others witnessing the stink, all disputed decisions to be decided by me or, in my absence, a proctor chosen by a two thirds majority vote.

3. The written use of the word "Xmas" to replace the word "Christmas" will be punishable by means not yet defined but open to debate. Since when do we pronounce "X", "criss"? The daily use of the term "Peds X-ing", however, will be encouraged. It's just fun to say.

4. Women over the age of 12 shall not wear hairbows. I'm sorry.

5. Any description of a dream cannot last longer than 15 minutes. I would love to hear more about it, but I feel it only fair to tell you that the blank look on my face and the vague nodding motion I've been making are a smokescreen. I have no idea what you just said. And I'm sorry to say that we've reached the end of our session but we can make another appointment if you like.

6. Those people wearing sagging pants allowing exposed/visible butt cracks will be promptly visited and "fixed" by folks armed with caulking guns and senses of humor. Repeat offenders will be visited by retired surgeons without senses of humor. One way or another, we're fixin' that crack.

This is just off the top of my head, of course, but it's a start.

Are you with me?

The Epantsipation Proclamation! May All The World Hear!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m gonna need Monday to recover from the weekend.

It’s spring, after all, in a land where summer – our reward for having lived through another winter bent on destroying us – lasts less than four months. Every shift toward our full-blown and well-deserved compensation is precious.

You want to be awake for all of it.

The moments toward summer-in-earnest can be measured via clothing. And why not? Ask anyone from a northern clime about the moment they no longer have to dress with maximum skin coverage paramount, about the sense of ceremony as the winter boots are retired to the basement, the solemnity attached to the ice scraper’s removal from the car.

And now, well into spring, the raincoats are nearing the end of their usefulness, sandals are being worn with abandon, and the windows have been thrown wide.

Yesterday the temperatures in Minnesota inched toward 80 degrees, and I did something I haven’t done in over 200 days.

I took my pants off.

I wore shorts.

That’s right: I was epantsipated.

Brothers and sisters, throw off the shackles of long pants! Liberate yourself from your trouser-ed prison! Free those pale shins and let your knees breathe! Join me in the joys of unfettered stems!



Epantsipation, baby. Heady stuff.

How Much for the Leetle Girl?

Here we are again, hurtling headlong into the weekend. The excitement palpatable, a hush settles on the shoulders of the awaiting masses, AKA my mom and Cousin Shelley, as I turn over the tea cup that is my iPod to read the crushed and sodden leaves of my future.

In other words, I’ve gotten it into my head that the songs “shuffled” through my iPod on my way to work Friday morning has bearing on my weekend.

Let’s look, shall we?

Come sit close. Closer. No, not that close. Sheesh.

I Wanna Be Your Dog by Uncle Tupelo
Hang You From the Heavens by The Dead Weather
Outta Harm’s Way by King Khan and the Torturers
Neat Neat Neat by The Damned
Attention by The Raconteurs*
Travelin’ Band by Creedence Clearwater
Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie
I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again by Gogol Bordello
Shore Leave by Tom Waits

Today's list is a little longer than usual, as this is not just from the moment I get on the bus but from the moment I leave the house and walk to the bus stop.

Hmm. I see a tall, dark man. His name may start with an “M”. An “N”? No, wait! A “T”. He misses you very much and wants you to know that he’s very happy where he is and is no longer angry. He says don’t worry. He says invest in gold. He says your first cat Kitty is here as well and clawing up the good furniture. He says tip the nice gypsy a fiver and check your pockets before you leave…

The economy is on my mind again; and while Wienie Water Soup is a semi-delicious/semi-nutritious addition to the week’s supper menu (also freezes in ice cube trays for a quick and easy bouillon!), supplementing one’s income is of primary concern during these hard times.

This is not to say that you should cancel your bread-heel-and-potato-peel casserole plans – seriously, no one whips up a fiscally responsible hotdish like you do! – but you may also want to explore alternatives.

Like selling your stuff.

This weekend is Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis, a weekend of artists and their wares, bands indoors and out, excited bartenders, excited drinkers, and garage sales.

Garage sales, people! I’ve gone through my house and have priced-to-sell all manner of books, art, knick-knacks, gee-gaws, and doo-hickeys at Kurt and Kathy’s annual Art-A-Whirl garage sale.

That's where I'll be: on their porch, drinking their beer, telling stories/exaggerations/outright lies, and selling my stuff.

And if you’re in the neighborhood?

Stop by for a doo-hickey.



*If I had to pick a song for you to listen to, if you were feeling adventurous and whatnot, I would pick this one. A side project of Jack White’s (from the White Stripes). I’m in love with him, but our parents disapprove.

The Gravitational Pull of Turkey Gravy is Measured by the Number of Necks in the Roaster

I live in a three-storied House of Aroma, and I say this in the nicest possible way.

Close-approximation living is a learned behavior and is not for the overly sensitive.

The House of Aroma has, as I say, three floors. Curries float up from the first floor astride a conspiratorial acoustic guitar; spaghetti and color-crusted oil paintings with chips on their shoulders waft down from the attic. On my floor? This week it’s boxed pizzas and the faint electric smell of sparking brain synapses.

And therein lies the beauty: Each place has its personality, its own energy. Maybe it’s the direction the house faces, where the windows are, that attracts people to the city.

I don’t know what it is and I don’t care but it’s Saturday evening and I smell turkey, people!

Turkey!

Turkey! Beckoning arms of buttery goodness. Who can be sad when there’s turkey? I’ve been swept away by a river of turkey gravy, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It is as if part of my mind has been seized, seized with vivid, visual memories of Thanksgiving tables, tablecloths and mismatched folding chairs and cousins, women with dishcloths and men with cigarettes.

And the other part of my mind? The other part of my mind is puttering around the house setting things aright only to find itself considering the complexity of canned cranberry jelly versus the whole-berry-style cranberry sauce. Why, the vintage appeal alone of the canned jelly, the way it retains the shape of the can? What could possibly be more kitsch than cranberry jelly? And so perfect for spreading on sandwiches later, too! That’s not to say that there’s not room for change, for some attention to the true taste of the untamed cranberry itself...

Ah. Did you hear that? This is what it has come to. My mind has been turned on end, and all by the heady bouquet of roasting turkey.

I give up. That's right. I’m just going to sit here, my feet up and my eyes closed, and think about plump golden goodness and tables of people happy in knowing that they’ll soon be eating with people they really like, and that later, there will be pie.

And that reminds me: Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. You’re the lilac-scented air on a warm day, and the turkey-dinnered meals of my life.

Hot Chicks Are Just A Phone Call Away

Oh, hi!

I’ve been waiting for you.

Be honest with me – did you ever think you’d find your soul-mate at a bar?

Me, neither.

But on a 1-800 number? Oh, yes.

So why haven’t you called? I’ve been waiting for you, and so have all my drop-dead gorgeous friends, all luscious blondes, red-heads, and brunettes between the ages of 18 and 24. There’s just so much more to us than our beautiful faces, our firm, taut bodies, and our ability to recline seductively while talking on the phone.

What, you say? Why in the world would there be hot chicks on the phone, waiting for me to call?

Because, silly, we’re just like you. We’re lonely, we’re scantily clad, and we’re tired of the run-around at the bar, just like you! It gets so tiring, being continually hit on, having men buy us drinks in the hopes of seeing us again, answering the same tired questions on what cup size we wear, what it would take, money-wise, to see us again, fielding questions regarding who we live with and whether or not he’s armed.

It’s so tedious being beautiful and well built, don’t you think?

I can just tell that we’re going to get along.

So why haven’t you called?

I’m waiting.

And Right Behind The Bird – Is That Marlon Perkins?

I live in the city. The houses are close together, the lawns are small. Things are rather orderly on my side of town: thugs and wannabe thugs alike are identifiable by their droopy drawers; bums sleeping under pine trees are required to clean up when they leave; dogs are on leashes, for the most part; cats creep along life’s wooded edges, eyeing juicy birds and untended grills; and children run free until curfew.

City wildlife.

Winters in the city are much quieter than the summers, of course. The bums go to Florida, the thugs lie on couches in their moms’ basements, dreaming Kool-Aid-and-cough-syrup dreams; and the downstairs folk took in a freezing cat this last January, a black-and-white they nursed back to health who now lies in the sun that pours through their living room window, eyes closed and smiling.

But outside of the luckiest kitty in the world and the wily city bunnies, the odd raccoon, and the occasional park-bench drunk, there is little in the way of city wildlife.

Until now. Because now there are turkeys.

Monday evening, I watched a turkey hen run past my house and down the street, a large and rather ugly bird, strikingly out of place.

This was actually quite exciting. Not as exciting as the raccoon I surprised whilst he was rooting through my garbage a couple years ago, but then again it wasn’t 2:00 a.m., I wasn’t pleasantly inebriated and walking down the alley, and the turkey didn’t rear up on its hind legs and show me all his teeth.

Wild life in the city! My sister – who claims to see enormous “dinosaur” birds in the open fields around her house, by the way – wanted to know if I had plans to trap and eat it. I do not. I have no idea where that bird’s been, what it’s been eating, or who it’s friends with.

You cannot be too careful.

It is the city, after all.

And Then I Ask Myself: WWEBD?

I flew into Minneapolis from Dayton Sunday afternoon, after the Erma Bombeck Writing Conference.

It was a big responsibility, this conference.

The weight one feels, when operating with the knowledge that others are counting on one to behave outrageously, drink like Hemingway and write like, oh, Erma, is crushing, I tell you, absolutely crush– hold on a second.

Hello? Yeah, yeah! I’m home. Yesterday afternoon. What? No, I’m not drunk! Of course I learned stuff. All kinds of stuff. Saw Erma’s house. What? Yeah, big yard. Really big yard. Did you know the City of Dayton had some guy streaking through it a couple years ago? The taxi driver told me. Yeah! Lots of witnesses. Didn’t catch him. What? Oh, very funny. No, I’ve never lived in Dayton – and the streaker was a guy, not a gal. Sheesh. Make a coupla confessions and suddenly you’re a suspect every time someone runs through a yard without their trousers. Anyway, I gotta run, so to speak. I’m utilizing my education. TTYL, baby.

Now where was I?

Oh, yes. The crushing weight of expectations – and the accompanying exhaustion of paying full attention all day for three days.

Honestly, people! Have you been moved recently to pay attention, I mean really pay attention?

Yow. It’s so much harder than working.

But I did it. I participated and took notes, amused and was amused by my new friends, kept my mind open – and now I feel a weight to write something fabulously outlandish, something ridiculously fictitious. Something Gatsby-esque.

Should I?

Or shall I just report the events, as I swore to everyone I would?

And just what are these events, you ask? In no particular order:

1. The discovery that a hotel, much like a hospital, a park bench, and the workplace, is no place to get any rest.

2. The quality of writers (Wade Rouse - listen to his "At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream", a funny and touching memoir of he and his partner's move from the Big City to rural Michigan, despite, to paraphrase Mr. Rouse, having been born without the qualities that really mattered in their new world yet having the innate ability to detect quality leather goods...; Gail Collins, columnist with the New York Times whose lunch talk one day got me thinking, laughing, and buying her book "America's Women, 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines"; Craig Wilson, columnist with USAToday, whose sense of humor and firm yet gentle way of looking at things is just a joy; Bill Scheft, 15 years as a stand-up comedian and as many as a writer on the David Letterman Show, a natural speaker and genuinely witty writer with a new book out called "Everything Hurts" - follow the link!) at the conference was outstanding.

3. I rediscovered my love of listening to a lot of smart, funny people all gathered together. My face still hurts and I think my ears might be higher now than when I left.

4. I've found that I am doing a lot of the right things as far as writing goes. Next logical and horrifying step? Publication.

5. I've found that I am doing a lot of the wrong things as far as my writing goes. Word on the street? I am, and I quote, "giving it away for free". It's highschool all over again.

6. That's a joke, Mom.

7. I am meeting with a publisher in a month. That gives me 30 days to schvitz (thanks, Bill), chew my nails, wear my best friends out with this news, and gain a couple of pounds.

8. I have determined that the odds of me practicing yoga in a hotel room has been calculated. The odds are none out of none. None odds.

9. I think I may not be clear on what “odds” means.

10. It's been revealed to me that it is possible, faced with all-day large-group sessions, to hold one's wind for absolute hours. For cryin' out loud those auditoriums can get quiet, can't they?

OK. So that crushing weight I was feeling. I lied about the weight. The weight’s not so heavy. It is, after all, a self-imposed weight – I can make it as heavy or as light as I wish.

Happy Monday, everyone.

It’s another day above ground for you and I, and that makes it a great day. I hope you wore your good socks.

Eastward, Ho! No, Wait…

I left home for the Erma Bombeck Writers Conference in Dayton, Ohio; and from the outset, the experience is designed to determine one’s readiness to fly.

How are your navigational skills? Have you any talents in the areas of interpretive sign analysis?

Do signs that advise you to both go up and go down worry you?

Do men in uniforms, no matter how wide their smiles, asking you to remove your belt and shoes cause you concern? Are you accustomed to partially disrobing in public? If the answer is “yes”, is aforesaid disrobing done while sober?

If the answer is “no”, how much would beer would it take before you would voluntarily disrobe and where can I get those pictures?

You aren’t carrying more than three ounces in liquids, creams, or salves, are you? What about that new Clinique powder – you know, the one you tell yourself was totally worth the cost, the one that brings down the levels of your freckles just so? It’s 4.5 ounces, one and a half ounces more than the three-ounce limit on the rest of your cosmetics. You don’t think it will qualify in someone’s mind as something that might possibly be made to explode, do you?

Speaking of which, I have 11 cigarettes saved for just such an occasion and four matches. What is the carry-on status of a lighter?

After determining that my shoes were harmless, my belt not likely to be used for felonious purposes, I sat at Gate C16, a lovely bit of property in the Delta terminal where the three-year-old of an angry man on a cell phone ran a tiny truck up the right side of my body more than once.

It was nothing personal – I’m sure I look like a roadway to a lot of three-year-olds – and honestly it’s the closest I’ve come to a massage in a long time.

But I cannot be stopped by inconvenience! Confusing signage? Shoes and belts? Weeding out the moisturizers and mouthwashes that may lead to in-flight incidents? Acting as the dead-end on a tiny truck thoroughfare?

It’s just part of what I do.

I’m a patriot, people.

Hey! The People Look Like Ants From Up Here!

When you fly as often as I do, roughly with each new dusty loop of Haley’s Comet, you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to find the amazing progress made concerning these new-fangled aeroplanes!

Headphones? Carbonated drinks? And you no longer have to fire up the propellers manually?

Chocks away, ol’ girl!

I don't get in airplanes often, but I spent quite a bit of my childhood in them.

My father was a crop duster when I was small. You remember crop dusters, don’t you? Those crazy young men, flying under power lines, spraying the sugar beets with insecticides?

That was my dad up there.

I spent many afternoons in two-seater airplanes. From the top of the sky, the white clouds below us were scoops of ice cream, the dark clouds where barely visible men waited to throw lightning bolts at unsuspecting two-seaters, hoping to knock out electrical systems.

Up on the Red River Valley, the storms, with no trees to slow them down, no hills to divert them, come upon you quickly.

“Tell me when you see one, Pearl!” my dad would shout over the roar of the Cessna; and I’d stare at the thunderheads, eyes open wide, because you just knew that those men with the thunderbolts moved so fast that something as slow as a blink was all they needed. As Dad explained, I wouldn’t see the men – they were too fast – but I would see the lightning.

“So what are you gonna yell when you see danger, Pearl? What are you gonna say?”

“I’m gonna yell DANGER! THREE O’CLOCK!”

“That’s right,” he’d yell, nodding. “Just like on the clock. You tell me where it is.”

My father was always poised to slip a life lesson into the day.

“There can never be enough lerts in the world, Pearl,” he’d say, thoughtfully. “Ya gotta be a lert.”

And I was the designated lert. I had a role to play, dagnabit; and at five, I took that responsibility seriously, knew that the fate of the two-seater lie in all four of our capable hands: with my father at the yoke and my eyes trained intently on the clouds on the horizon, through our devotion to our duties we landed, rubber-side down, every time.

Of course, it is years later, many years later, and it has become clear to me that my father used those clouds to give me something to do outside of worry, to give me something on which to focus.

We were never hit, of course; and I’m sure my imagination has exaggerated, as is its wont, any danger we were in; but to this day, I keep an eye peeled for the men in the clouds.

Because if you’re not looking for it, you won’t see what’s in front of you.

And because the world needs more lerts.

And Then I’m Having Lunch With the Pope

I spent the majority of Tuesday, not at work, but on my living room couch, cradling my head with a skull-splitting headache.

Some of this pain was due to some sort of flu-type situation.

Some of the pain, I suspect, was as a result of the stuff oozing out of my television set.

Let me begin by saying that I realize that I am the one at fault here. After all, I turned it on, yes? Heaven forbid I just lay here and be ill!

Afternoon television is rife with damaged people suing each other, desperate women looking for favorable paternity-test outcomes, people shrugging their shoulders and repeating things like “it is what it is”.

It is what it is. Why I oughta…

Judging from the afternoon television line-up, it both is what it is and is what it ain’t. There’s a lot of self-deluded people out there, people wearing clothing several sizes too small crowing, “I look gooooood”, people sure that they’re big break is just around the corner…

And speaking of people who believe their big break is just around the corner, I get on an airplane tomorrow morning for the first time in, oh, ten years or so, whereupon I will be on my way to Dayton, Ohio and the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Conference. I’ve made a list of what to pack; I’ve written my name and address in indelible ink on my forearm, in case of disaster; and I have made my peace with the kittehs.

I am ready to fly.

And I look goooooood.

Curbing Your Downward-Facing Dog

I was upside down the other day, contemplating my hamstrings and their relationship to the universe.

Yoga is a wonderful exercise, both physically and mentally; and if you’re not focused, the chatter of your monkey mind does its best to interfere.

It’s very hot in here. Very, very hot.

When’s the last time you had a pedicure - or better yet shaved your legs? Would it be wrong to glance at the woman next to me to see if she has shaved her legs?

Oh, come on, Lady (which is what I call myself when I'm disgusted). What’s it to you? Shut up and breathe, O Unshaven Child of the Universe.

Breathe!

I’m a big fan of yoga. Yoga is a series of discoveries. For instance, I can now bend forward and place my forehead on my shins; and my physical discipline has translated to disciplines in other parts of my life.

My newest discovery?

I no longer smell the yoga studio.

For the first several weeks, the smell of many sweating bodies stood out for me each and every time I went.

Amy, my friend, confidante, and yoga mentor, tired, I’m sure, of hearing me talk about it.

Words are my, um, thing; and I used a number of my favorites to describe what the smells reminded me of.

“Smells like a burlap bag of wet taco chips, perhaps buried under a back porch, don’t you think?” I’d whisper.

“You smell that?" I'd chuckle. "Is that more of a Roquefort or a feta smell?”

“Hey there’s a real special kind of smell going on over here,” I’d murmur. “I’m thinking someone’s keeping a large number of ferrets in the same room they’re storing their yoga clothes.”

Amy is too polite to respond to such rude silliness.

Most of my observations, of course, were exaggerated, as is my wont. I enjoy a good exaggeration, after all, and what better time to do it than just prior to a serious commitment to physical and mental exertion?

Just short of three years into it, I am still discovering new aspects of my yoga practice.

Today I’ve realized that I’m no longer noticing particular aspects of my physical surroundings while exercising.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow never knows.

I See A Bad Moon on the Rise

Holy Hannah, another Friday! What have I done to deserve all these Fridays?! It’s like I keep winning the lottery over here and I haven’t even bought a ticket!

So let’s see. Friday? Check. iPod? Check. Ridiculous belief that I can predict the course of my weekend through the songs I hear on the bus on a Friday morning? Check.

Washed Away by Arrested Development
Hypnotize by The White Stripes
Strange Times by The Black Keys
Rock Lobster by The B52s
The Green Manalishi (Live) by Judas Priest
Hallelujah by John Cale
Somebody Told Me by The Killers

I can’t begin to guess what it all means, but if you’ve a mind to, I recommend the John Cale song. Makes me want to weep.

And it’s Friday!

In a bid to test our weather mettle one more time – or perhaps in just a perverse display of “because I can!” – the temperature at the bus stop dropped to a meat-preserving 24 degrees yesterday morning.

And frankly, I was against it.

It was a shock. While 24 degrees in February is almost cause for an open window or two, 24 degrees at the end of March is grounds for hot baths, discussions pitting wool against “thinsulate” and introspection regarding attempting a life lived entirely indoors.

My response, if it can be called that, was to add a cap, gloves, and scarf to my jaunty spring jacket and shiver miserably.

“Local Woman, Smug in her Ability to Dress Properly for Winter, Fails to Carry Common Sense Through to Spring”.

It’s not much of a headline, but then again, there’s not a lot going on.

March is a fairly quiet month. The thugs are just rising from their hibernation, their tobacco-stained fingers rubbing their squinty little eyes, yawning their cough-syrup-and-Tahitian-Treat yawns toward the far walls.

Shhh. Shhh, my pretties. There will plenty of time for you to spray paint your creatively-spelled “tags” on my garage.

Can summer be far behind? And speaking of behinds, what are the odds that I will actually make it to a beach this summer?

In the meantime, of course, there is litter to pick up and a sidewalk to be swept, neighbors to be reacquainted with after a season of run-away indoor-ness and charcoal briquettes to be purchased.

“Local Woman Waxes Rhapsodic About Spring, Excitedly Contemplates Trying on Swimsuit.”



Let’s not go crazy just yet.

Clean Your Bathroom for Cash? Sure!

As unbelievable as it may seem, I don’t make a whole lot of money.

I know, right?! Surely you envision me, when you envision me, as reclined on a sable-covered chaise lounge, sipping whatever it is the wealthy sip and snapping my fingers in time to the four-piece musical ensemble I keep chained to the radiator in my boudoir.

Alas, it’s not true, this vision of me that you’ve created for yourself – although I appreciate the effort – and I must regularly turn to work outside of my full-time employment to supplement the cheese rinds and apple cores with which they pay me.

This weekend’s foray into financial fulfillment?

Cleaning. The Wily Mary and I will be cleaning. Eighteen straight hours’ worth of cleaning, by our own bid.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Picture, if you will, a 5350 square-foot home. Two full kitchens, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two living rooms, two fireplaces and an attic full of ponies.

I’m just kidding about the ponies.

I’ve done it to myself, and I know it, but raise a glass to Mary and Pearl this weekend, won’t you?

I’ll be thinkin’ of ya.

I’m Going Through An Awkward Stage Right Now

Today – and for the first time in, oh, three or four hundred years – not only have I not worn winter boots, but I’m wearing a skirt.

Ankles, people. Ankles! Out there for just anyone to see!

I feel reckless and wild, so 1920s. Next thing you know I’ll be bobbing my hair and smoking tea with some palooka.

It’s a heady day the day the winter boots come off and the neck-to-ankle down coat stays on the peg at home rather than riding your winter-worn shoulders.

And there's more! Of course, I feel as if I’ve already thrown too much at you – all this excitement could easily lead to high-fives, the clinking of glasses, and other displays of emotion – but if I don’t tell someone, I’m going to burst.

You ready for this? Brace yourself. You may want to get a firm hold on a large bit of furniture…

In the next couple weeks, I’m going to swap out my winter clothes for my summer clothes.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I do feel the word “giddy” is over-used, but it keeps springing to mind.

It’s tricky business, this changing of the wardrobe. The month of March cannot be trusted – and frankly, April’s a suspicious looking block of time as well – but who can resist the lure of the under-the-bed storage boxes? Will it snow again? It might! Do I care? No, my friends; I do not. The end is near and it looks like a strappy sandal.

Just think. I have clothes that I haven’t seen in six months, so basically what I have is new clothes!

Do I like them? I’ll bet I do!

Will they still fit me? I certainly hope so!

If I don’t like them, can I borrow yours? Thanks, buddy!

You see? This is how it starts. One glorious step at a time.

And first we take our boots off.