At Least They're Committed

I used to be funny, I did, I swear. I do laugh a lot, honest. I’m not really so dark as my writing would indicate. I mean it.

I have the headphones on and I’m singing “Sweet Love” with the Commodores at top volume and my husband is looking at me with his mouth hanging open. Amazed I can carry a tune with headphones on, no doubt. He waves me down. “You gonna go get me more beer?” Eh, I’ve had enough. I thank him for the suggestion. (He doesn’t really think I’d put out that much effort for anyone but me, does he? Sheesh.)

So when I was walking earlier today I was thinking how much more friendly women I passed were today than yesterday and what a mystery it had been that they’d been so downright dismissive and rude to me on Saturday and how men kept slowing down and the hot guy in the convertable with long hair and a perfectly attractive woman next to him had smiled big at me at the red light as I crossed and how it wasn’t until I got home and realized I was wearing my new black Hooter’s tank top with no bra. OK, that wasn’t me being funny, that was just other people being funny and me figuring it out after the fact. 

I DID remember today that when I was about 4 Brad Gunnis told me that the term ‘misery’ meant that you were neither dead nor alive, and you were trapped between heaven and hell and life. He was a year older than me, so he HAD to be right. I thought of this as I walked past the garage sale at the Church on 136th and Lowell. The treadmills were both there, same as yesterday. Chubby people looking them over, same as yesterday. The rest was pretty usual, old chairs, archaic lamps, mismatched plates and bowls and Christmas lawn decorations. And, of course, racks and racks of old clothing for but a dime or two, clothing that as I walked past reeked of closets in neglect.

Anyway, there I was, 4, with a stick but not wanting to make it any worse. I stared down at the Seven-Year-Locust, one of millions that filled the Michigan nights with a pulsing buzz, but this one was covered, its legs twitching but its body otherwise immobile. Finally I ran to my dad who was helping Uncle Bud with something that involved wrenches and a hammer and maybe an engine on the front lawn while Beau sat guard.

(10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love,’ just came on. It’s the fourth time I’ve heard it in 12 hours. I’m not in love, so I don’t know why something out there has to keep reminding me, especially since the song means just the opposite.)

“Dad!” I squealed, excitedly in my two-piece brown and gold halter set because, I mean, how many times to you actually find something, anything in misery? “There’s a locust and the ants are eating its head and I think it’s in misery!”

My dad, slender, handsome, boyish in his blue jeans and clean white T-shirt, smiled a second then chuckled saying, “Well, I guess I’d be in misery, too, if ants were eating my head.” I think I figured out then that Brad was full of shit.

“Oooooh, you’ll wait a long time for me!” I’m singing aloud again, but they’re not even looking back. Not even my dog, the Mexican Refugee. Alas.

In junior high, we had to read this article and write a summary. It was called, “The Print and the Populace” or some such thing and it had something to do with a candidate from some offbeat political party and by the time I was done reviewing it, I’d actually rewritten it and the populace candidate had fucked everything from the reporters — male and female — to his opponents’ wives to the hotel mattress and he was having to fight paternity suits from six women, four of whom were married, and a pregnant mattress. I remember showing it to Randy Zellner on the bus on the way home and him, being Mr. Perfect Catholic, choking back a laugh and ultimately accidentally drooling on it as he read.

“You don’t know what it’s like, BABY you don’t know what it’s liiiike!!! Dante sing with me!” I call out. He mouths back, “I don’t. And I don’t know the words and I’m extremely bored!” He’s right. He doesn’t know the words, which is too bad because he thinks the BeeGees are hilarious.

“C’mon! Fuck!!!” the Broncos are playing the Chargers and blowing a sound lead and my husband is not happy. He tells people he’s not so much of a fan . . . yet another dirty family secret.

So, really, Caitlin and I laugh all the time, mostly about men, but not my male friends. I love them. And when Lily came up and told us about playing ‘Catch Phrase’ with Madison and six guys she didn’t know real well and her definition was “It’s something between your legs!” and Madison yelled out “Vagina” and the answer was knees and all the young men I’ve not seen since gasped, I laughed all night, I laughed until my jaw locked and I feared I would have to go to the doctor.

I’m not so dark. Really, I’m not. I get to be on my blog so that maybe I don’t have to be in real life. My husband is clapping and pulling at his hair intermittently. “Gee my life’s a funny thing, am I still too young?” Heh. Here’s hoping.