Sunday, April 17, 2011

There's No Place Like Home

     So I had an interesting experience last weekend.

     Went to a regional writer's conference to meet up with some people, get some work critiqued, and have some quiet time to write (that means without cats or dogs between me and my laptop). The workshops were Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but I drove up on Thursday and booked my room until Monday so I'd have time to work.

     The conference was being held at a historic inn located in a small country town. I chose not to stay in the main hotel since I knew it would be crowded and noisy and instead booked a new little cottage with a queen bed, full kitchen, and small living room. When I called to make the reservation, I asked if I would be able to get room service since I wanted to eat while I worked. I was told yes. The day before I left (Wednesday) the hotel called to confirm my reservation and again I asked about room service and was told it would be available.

     After a two hour drive, I arrived and went to the front desk to check in. As I was signing the forms, I read the small print and was bewildered to find that even though the inn charges extra for the rooms with the kitchens, they flat out tell you that you aren't allowed to use the kitchen. Huh? The form stated that even though the room contains a refrigerator, stove, oven, dishwasher, and microwave, they don't allow cooking and have provided no pans or utensils for use in the rooms. If you want to cook, you must make arrangements through them for a different room. So you lure customers in by offering a full kitchen and even charge them extra for it, and then when they show up, you tell them it's just for show? What's next--"There is also a king size bed in the room, but all sleeping must be done on the floor." "You'll find a toilet in the bathroom, but . . ." well, you get the point.

     I hadn't planned on cooking anyway and had just brought some basics to keep in the fridge--fruit, cheese, milk, etc., so I didn't make a big deal out of it. I moved my stuff into the room and got to work. Around seven p.m., I took a break and decided to order some soup and a salad from room service. I called the number and reached an answering machine. Room service was available until nine, so I was surprised that no one answered. I called the front desk and they said, "Oh, the restaurant is only open on weekends." Seriously? The two times that I asked about room service, they couldn't say, "Yes, we have it available, but only on the weekend," so I would be prepared? Now it's seven-thirty on a Thursday night and I have to drive around a strange town looking for food. I felt like a high school boy whose date rubbed up against him all night only to push him away when he tried for a kiss goodnight. The word "tease" comes to mind.

     The next morning, I took a shower before dressing for the first of my sessions. The owners of the inn had little notecards all around with environmental messages on them. Suspiciously, most of the messages might have helped the environment, but mainly seem to save money and work for the inn. I had to turn the water all the way up for it even to be lukewarm and then within five minutes, it was chilly. You know how important my Herbal Essence is to me, so I wasn't thrilled with rushing through my lather, rinse, repeat. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my hair, then starting drying my body with another one. Ouch! These towels must have been recycled bamboo or reconstituted pine nuts or something because they would take the skin off an armadillo. I patted the spots that still had skin and got dressed in my writer's uniform--black dress pants, black books, and a black sweater. Now all I had to do was dry my hair, put on my makeup and I could face my fellow writers. I unwrapped the towel and rubbed my hair with it, then looked in the mirror. It was as though I had rolled on the floor of a cotton factory. I was covered in bits of towel. I'm not talking about your normal everyday lint. I have cats and dogs, so I'm used to pulling fur off myself. No, this was chunks of towel covering most of my sweater. A lamb would have had to explode to get this much fluff on me.

     I changed my sweater, finished getting ready and headed out. The conference part was good. I had fun talking with the other writers and there were some interesting talks. I met an agent who I think would be a good fit for my work and who seems to get me (I know, terrifying thought, right?).

     After my meetings, I stopped by the general store to see if there was anything I could take home for my husband and the daughter who still lives at home. I found a bronze bear that I thought my husband would like. Oh, brother, no price tag on it. I took it up to the cashier and asked for the price. She called to one of the male workers and told him to find another one with a price. He wandered around the store with the bear in his hand, but couldn't find one. He picked up a fairy and with a serious face said, "These weigh about the same, so just charge her $20 since that's the price on the fairy." Talk about time travel. I thought I was going to have to come up with some gold nuggets to throw on the scale to pay.

     I bought the bear and went back to my room to get to work. It was Saturday night, so I decided I would give room service another try and then put my nose to the writing grindstone. The cottage was with a group of buildings that were away from the main inn, but still within walking distance. The front desk had told me that I could park in what is usually the luggage drop-off zone because there wasn't anyone else staying over in those buildings. Since I was so isolated, I was surprised when there was a knock on my door that evening. I opened the door and found a six foot plus state trooper in full uniform. He said he was sorry to interrupt my vacation, but he was investigating a burglary in the building attached to mine from the night before and he wanted to know if I had heard anything. Say what?

     It seems that while I slept in my little cottage, a person or persons had broken into the room next to mine and had taken everything--sheets, pillows, blankets, the TV, the lamps, and yes, even the crappy towels. The trooper wanted to know if I had heard or seen anything suspicious. I told him that I hadn't as my knees shook and my mind tried to wrap itself around the fact that only a cheap hotel room door had stood between me and criminals. If they had thought those towels were worth stealing, how much would they have risked to get their hands on my laptop and other technology? Yikes!

     I gave the trooper my contact info, thanked him, then shut and locked the door. Fifteen minutes later, my bags were in the car and I was pulling out of the parking lot on my way home.

     Peace and quiet in a country setting is overrated. I would much rather be at home trying to type around the dog on my lap, a dog who will bark like his tail is on fire if anyone shows up here looking for crappy towels to steal. Hey, maybe I can leave the ones my sister made dingy on the back porch and the burglar will take them and leave.

     Two birds--one stone.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Who Can I Count On To Suck Out The Poison?

     Psychoanalysis-Stage Two.

     Some people have a natural confidence in themselves and wear it like a second skin. Others never find confidence no matter how great their achievements. I fall somewhere in between. Mine's more like a sunburn that peels easily. Or like the shell game you find on street corners-now you see it, now you don't, and even when you see it, it's not there for long. Definitely a sucker's bet.

     It was distinctly not there for most of my school years when I was too shy to peek out from behind my curtain of hair. In my junior year, I was chosen as a majorette. Not top tier popularity like the cheerleaders, but moving up the ladder just a bit. In my senior year, there was the combination of being head majorette and realizing this was it, I would probably never see most of these people again, so what did I have to lose? I stepped out of my shell a little and gained a thin layer of confidence.

     Then I left for college and a whole new life. It was a very small school, but these people hadn't been there for all my awkward years, hadn't seen my Cousin It impression, hadn't known my family, and hadn't had front row seats for every embarrassing puberty-driven humiliation life had dealt me. I could start fresh. And I did.

     I had great friends, I was in plays, I dated cute guys, and even when my confidence flickered, I had discovered the secret that most successful-people-manuals share with you--fake it. That's right-fake it. I became the queen of faking confidence and surviving faking it made me more confident.  I challenged myself all the time-- if nobody wanted to be the one to ask the cranky professor for more time to complete an assignment, I volunteered. Nobody wanted to approach the group of hot guys to find out where the best party was going to be--send me in. My knees would be shaking and my head would be spinning like a seat on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the town carnival, but I'd grit my teeth and do it.

     By the time I graduated from college, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had a college degree, a guy who thought I was pretty special, lifelong friends, and my whole future ahead of me. The guy asked me to spend my life with him and everything was coming up roses. Besides, that was part of that brief period when my lumps and bumps were aligned like the stars.

     So when exactly did that layer of confidence start splitting like the skin on an overripe banana?

     Maybe it was when my future father-in-law told me to be sure my coal-cracker family wore shoes to the wedding so he wouldn't be embarrassed. I could be wrong, but I think IBM required that their executives, of which my father was one, wore shoes to work.

     Or perhaps it was when my future mother-in-law said she wouldn't come to the wedding if it was in my church because she wasn't going to sit through a "heathen" ritual (you know us Methodists are always beheading chickens and smearing the blood on our infants to appease the pagan gods).

      Could it have been in the middle of my bridesmaids' luncheon, when in front of everyone, my soon-to-be sister-in-law announced that no one in her family was happy about the wedding going forward (she could have just given me a toaster, but this was a nice gift, too).

     Or maybe it was the first ten Christmases or so when I arrived at their house with bags of carefully chosen gifts for all of them and left with bags of gifts for my husband and children, but not one item in there for me. I guess the Grinch took all mine up the mountain and they fell off his sleigh. (Oh, to live in Whoville where we can all join hands and enjoy the Roast Beast--Yahoo torres  . . . ) (Note to mother-in-law--Yahoo torres is a phrase from a Christmas cartoon, not a chant from one of our pagan rituals. That goes more like Ba boo zorres. Just want to make that clear.)

     These are just a few of thousands of examples, but this steady drumbeat of "You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, and gosh darn it, we just don't like you," was more than enough to break my thin shell of confidence. I responded by vowing to prove them wrong, but the more I tried to be what I thought they wanted, the less I was myself and the unhappier I grew. I don't remember what the straw was that broke the camel's back, but one day I realized that I didn't want to be like them, I didn't care what they thought, and being around them was like sprinkling arsenic on your salad, toxic and self-destructive.

     I couldn't cut them out of my life altogether because that wouldn't be fair to my husband and children. I do show up for the important functions a couple times a year and I never try to talk my husband out of going to as many of his family's get-togethers as he wants (well, except for the time I was only a week out of the hospital after major abdominal surgery and they insisted he leave me to participate in a family photo at their house). Sometimes my girls go with him, but most of the time they don't. They are smart girls and have witnessed things for themselves.

     At some point in the years after I stopped caring if they liked me, they started liking me. My in-laws went from "no gifts for you" to bidding on and winning a signed Joe Paterno football for me just because they knew he's my favorite coach. They call me for help and advice and actually respect my opinion. Sometimes, they even tell people we're related.

     What caused this change? I have no idea. It all happened around the time my first book was published, so maybe the move from hick/heathen/mutt to author was the turning point. Maybe it was because my kids turned out so well, despite their predictions to the contrary, or maybe it was because my marriage survived past all the dates in the betting pool estimating it's eventual failure ( I hear my mother and father-in-law put a crapload of money on six months). I don't know the reason why, but I do know it makes me very nervous.

     After all, what other creature does a rattlesnake cozy up to? Only a victim or another rattlesnake.

     Trying to figure out which one I am keeps me awake at night.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

When Exactly Did I Move To Crazy Town?

     Last week was full of stinky bits---stress, sadness, exhaustion, and strangeness.

     But I haven't moved so far into crazy town that I don't realize that a lot of that was my own fault. I can complain about all the food I had to cook for my family (who I love, really I do), but who asked me to cook so much? Yeah, I had to feed people, but I could have pulled out the lunch meat or thrown hamburgers on the grill instead of trying to impress with crab-stuffed cod and homemade rolls. I spent hours on the music for the slideshow, but I could have just found a nice instrumental piece and made it work instead of searching for the ultimate funeral music. I could have just appreciated that my towels were clean and not cringed over the fact that they are now a different shade.

     Why do I obsess over making everything so perfect? I wasn't always this way. I used to be semi-normal (I know, hard to believe, isn't it?) So let's psychoanalyze my need for perfection. Hmmmm. This could take many, many blog posts, so let's start with just one possibility.

     Did it start with the "You could be so pretty if"'s my mom used to throw at me. You know the ones--"You could be so pretty if you'd only pull your hair off your face," or "You could be so pretty if you'd only dress nicer," which leaves you with the only possible deduction--I'm not so pretty now. I need to try harder, up my game.

     Moms aren't the only ones who use this phrase. Dads-guilty.  Boyfriends-guilty. Sisters, best friends, strangers in line at Dunkin' Donuts-guilty, guilty, guilty. Everybody thinks they have the magic secret to what's keeping you from being so pretty.

     I never got the you-could-be-so-pretty-if-you'd-only lose a few pounds, exercise more, stop eating, bleach your mustache, get highlights, have a nose-job, or change sexes, but I know people who did. I'm sure I've said a form of those dreaded words to my own daughters and shame on me. My daughters are beautiful as they are and they don't need to change a thing.

     Now that I'm a mom, I know that my mother wasn't trying to be cruel or make me feel bad--she just wanted me to be the best I could be and to her eyes, I wasn't using all my potential in the looks department. She was probably right. I probably would have been prettier without scraggly hair falling over my face, but I wasn't confident enough to believe that and the scraggly hair made me feel less vulnerable. It was my invisibility cloak. Of course, it didn't make me invisible, it just made me look like Cousin It from The Addams Family, but to my puberty-stricken mind, it was a place to hide.

     My ill-fitting clothes hid the body that was all strange lumps and bumps and odd angles. Once I hit seventeen and the bumps moved to the right areas, I no longer hid them in baggy shirts and pants. I had a few good years of showing off those bumps until I had four children and now I'm wearing anything that would camouflage an army tank in battle.

     I see young women now who throw on a hoodie and a pair of wrinkled sweats, finger comb their hair, and they are out the door. I want to run up to them screaming, "You are wasting the very small window of attractiveness you have been given. Do you think anyone is going to want to see you in a tank top in ten years? You're past the gangly stage and headed straight for the even my wrinkles have wrinkles stage! Strut it while you've got it, girl!" But of course I don't because that would be crazy and wrong. So wrong. So very wrong.

     My mom passed in 1991 and I loved her dearly. She was my biggest fan and for some reason, she thought I should be a movie star. She started telling me that when I was just a little girl and continued until I got married and had kids. I guess she gave up on the idea at that point.

     I have no idea why she thought I would make a good movie star. I think maybe it was because I liked Shirley Temple movies and I had curly hair ( I couldn't dance or sing and I didn't have the skills to be an ambassador, but she didn't let that get in the way). I had never shown any interest in acting or performing, I had never shown any skill for it either. I didn't have some mysterious "it factor" that drew people in. I was just a shy, awkward little blonde kid whose mother had big dreams. 

     She even talked me into signing up for a drama class in college by convincing me I could work behind the scenes. I did it to make her happy and then on the first day, I found out everyone in the class had to audition for the plays. What? I just wanted to paint scenery and get a free ticket to the show. I did the audition and won the role of one of the main characters. Life can be so cruel sometimes. 

     I went on to enjoy acting and to have roles in a bunch more plays during college and even had a role in a TV commercial, but I never tried to be a movie star. That was her dream for me, not mine. I can admit though, that if she hadn't seen something in me that I didn't, I would never have signed up for drama class and had the experiences that I had. So I guess her gentle little nudges didn't make me psychotic, just less shy and less hairy. 

     In my next post, I'll explore Possibility #2 in the search for the reason I can't say, "Make yourself a sandwich. If you need me, I'll be taking a nap." 

     

     


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