Last night.....

Dog Fight! Mouth Wars.round 1

NOVEMBER 4th, 2009

Lepidopterist
By Lorna Goodison

-I've done my best to immortalize what i failed to keep.
-Joseph Brodsky

And now I am a lepidopterist
with my rows of bitter pins
securing here, now there
the flown species wings.
If we soak the memories
in our bile
they will keep and crystallize
come clear
in the heat of this now poisoned air.
I thought I had you/ where are you?
You gave up on us/ I gave up on you
You changed your mind/ I'm changing mine
Lord, even in death the wings beat so.
Hold still.
let me put this las row in.

This Question Hides a More Important One, Rephrase and Ask Again.

this weekend was one that really broke my heart...so here i will leave you with an oldie but a goodie...

This Question Hides a More Important One, Rephrase and Ask Again.

the function of my eyes don't require the stars which have faded anyway
we all are on this lifelong quest-
discovery, believing, love
an infinate cycle
but no can take it so they swallow it in half the dosage
and go on with their half hearted fake smiles
ridding themselves of enemies
expanding rapidly like those little sponge animals in water
these are the people that consider the flame and not the shape of its shadow
and here i am, strung along by the common bond
that everyone is ticklish somewhere
incomplete and complex
irratibility reigns
because all too often my question goes unanswered
and i am forced to make friends with my unconcious urges
a quick personality check
self analysis with a fork
and all of a sudden i have faith like a senior citizen
its not good, but sometimes its necessary to get lost in the anonymous
and I always do
too many souls are lost in this land
but now i'll keep you wondering about the world, on your tippy toes
as long as my cup is filled with flavored tea
endless refills.

Sound Waves

I have recently found one of my biggest pet peeves to be noise. I don’t think I ever quite understood the phrase "Silence is Golden" to be more than the the cheesy intro that flashes on the movie theatre screen until now--and now as I grow older that shit has gotta be 14 karat! This discovery is new to me, as it recently first came to light when I was at my older sister’s house. My young niece and nephew got to playing some game of chase and the squeals grew higher and more shrill as they tagged and tackled each other. It was foreign to me how annoyed I was, but I was also perplexed at how no one else seemed phased by the shrieks. Like a dog whistle to a dog, I seemed the only one affected. I am a person that has been around young children as I was a nanny for years, but I now found myself snapping at my cheery niece and nephew “the louder you are the quicker Aunt Lauren leaves!” I sneered. This annoyance had been forgotten but had recently topped my list again on my early morning flight to Chicago. I begrudgingly rolled out of bed at 3:30 am where I zombie walked to the bathroom, tore my clothes off and stepped into the shower where I slathered shampoo in my hair. I stood asleep, half leaning on the cracked tiled wall as water pounded on my skull. I am sure the cucumber shampoo had hardly rinsed out of my hair when I was already dripping through the hall into my bedroom pulling on clothes over my still wet body. I kissed my pups and headed to the airport relieved I could sleep for maybe another 2 hours on the flight.

Upon collecting my boarding pass, I relaxed as I saw my seat assignment- 16A. The 16 bothered me a little, as this meant when the plane landed there would be at least 30 assholes in front of me trying to be first up to grab their bags. I hated watching this fiasco. There are always those people that have to squeeze in the line before its rightfully their turn. I don't understand why they can't just move in an orderly fashion like we were taught in grade school. Ohh noooo jerk in seat 12 has to throw the whole synergy of exiting off by standing in the aisle before seats 6-11 even have a chance to unbuckle their belts. This action just pisses me off and I am normally left having zero faith in and hating the human race. Regardless of the strife the 16 would bring me, I was releaved to see the A. Ahhh what a perfect little letter I thought. It is the first letter of the alphabet. It is that grade you strive for on a test. But more importantly, in my case-it is the window seat! This means I had a place to lean my head, so I don’t have to look like those other morons whose noses are in the air, mouths open like some giant Venus fly traps, heads bobbing to the left than the right like half deflated balloons in a slight breeze. These sleepyheads did it all wrong; haven’t they learned that you always want the wall for support. I mean come on, I’m sure this wasn’t their first flight. Yet, it is here against my beloved wall, that my discovery was made.

It was nearly 6am and it was still dark. The hum of the plane engines lulled me into a deep sleep when I heard that first crackle. It confused me at first as I struggled in my state of sleep to figure out what the noise was but I was also too lazy to open my eyes. The noise subsided and I sunk again, eyelids still heavy, on the verge of that deep slumber. This nirvana was short lived as again the crackle of paper yanked me from the unconscious. This time it seemed to crunch and crackle for a good 10 minutes. "What the f**k is this guy doing"! I screamed in my head at the man in 16C, as my eyes shot open. Ahhhh, a newspaper, and with each page he turned he had to fold and smooth and smooth again until he was left with a creaseless, crinkleless periodical. I surveyed the man, eyeing him up and down like a hungry snow wolf might do to a cornered bunny after a long winter with little food. Ohh Mr. Businessman here in his tweed jacket and loafers, that in my mind, were a shade of brown much to light to look decent with that outfit. By the time the man reached the Life and Style section I was about ready to whip off my 4 inch heel and stake him through his inconsiderate little black heart. I waited until he finished perusing the paper and again I drifted off to what I mistakenly thought would be an uninterrupted sleep. Again I was awoke by a slight crackling. My mind still in the fog of sleep had imagined some chilly passenger had started a fire in the back of the cabin. The snaps and crackles of the flames growing louder, but my eyes shot open to reveal the man’s hand in his Starbucks bag. I watched as he tore a piece of a pastry from the bag and munched on it. With each buttery bite the bag rustled. I stared for a moment, in utter shock that this man would not think to remove the pastry from the bag to tear off each nibble. If he was going to eat like a God damn mouse he didn’t have to sound like a freaking pack of rats in a garbage can!!

Lesson here: In the wee morning hours when you rats are undoubtedly out, please try to consider your neighbors!

happier times....

there once was for lil ole l p. :( i miss my family and my friends so very much. and i need to start writing on this moreeeee!

NOW BOARDING......Racism.

I was off on my first big business trip as I rounded the corner to my gate at the JFK airport, anxious to board and get on my way to Nashville. I was extremely jittery as there seemed to be an unusually large amount of people gathered around my gate. I found an open seat and plopped down, sipping my apple juice at 7am, as I was not a Starbucks grande latte kinda gal. Some time passed and my boarding time seemed to near. Frantic thoughts raced through my head. Am I at the right gate? I checked my ticket for the fifth time in ten minutes. Gate 25, and then in smaller print “subject to change”. Did I miss something?

I frenetically glanced around for some telltale sign that I was indeed waiting outside the correct gate, to Nashville. I only saw one cowboy hat which worried me. Come on, there have to be more Brad Paisley fans than this headed to Tennessee. It wasn’t enough confirmation for me without getting up to trek to the desk and ask the pleasant attendants. I scanned the room, someone give me a toothless grin! Nothing. But then I saw a purdy, young girl nails all done up, hair slightly bouffant in the back of her pony tail, and a sparkly little cardigan that would have made Dolly Parton proud. She must have deemed this outfit appropriate for her visit to the Big Apple. Next to her sat her goon of a husband in camo shorts, loafers and socks. There fingers dawned wedding rings. Married and younger than me, possibly related. I slumped back in my chair and relaxed, grabbing for a magazine, now that I was completely assured that I was indeed on the correct flight.

If this sounds as if I am casting stereotypes, well, I am. All grossly inspired by the scene that would unfold on the little plane in just a few minutes. Once boarded, all seemed in order, until an Indian family filed onto the plane. A teenage boy came first, then his younger sister and brother, followed by the mother and then the father. As the

Father passed heads turned, and hands shot up to cover mouths as if to vomit. The scent was something of exotic spices….and dirt, with a very sharp tang to linger on. An over dramatic woman who had flung a cloth over her nose and face, as if someone had just proclaimed the swine flu was airborne in the cabin, tried to squeeze into the empty seat next to me. She began to make loud, rude remarks expecting me to join in her comedy routine, all at the expense of this Indian family. “This is going to be one funky flight, and I ain’t havin it” she quipped as the four wanna be Nashville stars in front of me turned to join in. The stewardess had caught wind of this (no pun intended) and quickly went to shuffle the man and his family to the back of the plane. With a twisted face she walked the tiny aisle spritzing the air with sanitizing spray to the cheers of the mongaloids around me. “Thank you, thank you” Billie Rae squealed as if Jesus Christ had just come and offered him a place in heaven. A sprinkling of sanitizing chemicals gently settled on my skin. Oh good, I was trying to give my hair some extra sheen this morning but ran out of time to condition.

After marinating an extra half hour in the supposed stench and sanitizer, another attendant came on the plane to escort the family off. Mind you, we should have already landed in Nashville by now, and the smell could not have been worse than the woman’s (who sat next to me) half eaten bag of Wendy’s, or the woman in 7B, who had doused herself in some cheap Wal-Mart version of Chanel #5, or how about the baby that clearly just crapped his pants. Are you going to throw these people off as well? I might mention, that the woman who originally complained was now fast asleep, wrapped in a sweet, little blue airline blanket cocoon.

Now that this ridiculous ordeal had ended I was a mix of irate and sad, my eyes averting to my ipod playlist, when suddenly the door reopened. Was it the man coming back, fist in the air to give some speech on degradation, and how he was embarrassed in front of his family and children, how could we be so racist? I slumped down in my seat thinking, don’t associate me with these people, please don’t. What could his children think of all this? Imagine the perspective they have on people in the world now? Sir I will go with you and together we will fight these airline racists I thought, as I slathered on watermelon lip-gloss in hopes of smelling nothing but my own upper lip. No need though, nothing could quite cover the stench of the bacon cheeseburger that filled my nostrils, and besides it wasn’t Muhammad Stinky anyway but 2 new passengers chosen to share our flight, white ones too!! I could feel the air of approval the passengers around me must of felt as they saw the fair skin turn the corner. A big white man and his hillbilly tween daughter came a meanderin in carrying a box. Of lobster. Shouldn’t those be kept refrigerated?