Life as a Twenty-Two Year Old Spinster

The Facade

2011-02-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have one of those weird flashbacks from the most random image? Last night I saw a picture of a tuxedo cat. Tuxedo cats have black fur and a smidgen of white on their neck. It reminded me of my pet cat that died when I was in kindergarten. I couldn't sleep, so I wrote down everything I remembered about that day, then drifted off at four in the morning. When I woke up, I found this on my laptop:

My pigtails whip against my face as I run to my mother’s car in the school parking lot. Giddiness hums in my knees, radiates in my calves, begging me to start skipping.

My five-year-old heart is bursting with joy because we found him. Last Wednesday, my kitten, Priest, disappeared. We tore apart the neighborhood searching neighbors’ yards and posting lost signs with Crayola portraits of the black cat. Then after three days, my father heard a weak bleating beneath the house. Priest had been right under our noses (and feet) the entire time.

Poor Priest had trembled on his legs. His normally dulcet mewls were raspy screeches. Instead of dancing with excitement, his bright green eyes cast listless stares at us. Mom insisted on taking him to the vet today, but assured me he would be back to his old self by the time I came home from school.

I was already imagining Priest’s ebony fur against my palm as I slid into the Chrysler Voyager. My feline friend might still be weak, but surely he had the energy to cuddle? I could place him over my flat chest, feel the vibration of his purrs over the beating of my heart.

My mother looks in the rearview mirror. Even though her chocolate brown sunglasses conceal her gaze, I know she is looking at me in that mirror.

“Bridget,” Mom begins. Her voice is hoarse, scratchy like when she smokes. “Priest died today.”

The car seat sinks beneath me. I am stunned, I am frozen by this revelation. Yes, I am old enough to understand death. Death is the hooded specter that lurks near the elderly, the obviously sick. Death is the force in my feet as I crush pesky grasshopper and roaches in the backyard.

Years later, I will understand that death had always been hovering over the sickly feline. He was the runt of a street cat’s litter. Priest hadn’t been trapped beneath our house for three days; he’d sequestered himself so that he could die in peace.

After I absorb my mom’s statement, my blood boils. I am whipping through the stages of dying in a single car ride. It only took thirty seconds for me to change from denial to anger. Priest was a baby; death only strikes the elderly or the wicked. And he was not even sick, only starved and tired. The vet should have fixed him. My mother should have fixed him.

I whine. I shriek. I accuse my mother of taking him to a bad vet, of not taking him to the vet at all. Surely there was some way to fix him.

My mother does not respond to my accusations. She keeps her sunglass- covered eyes on the road. Her face is stony. Her mouth is frozen into a frown.

By the time the car pulls into the driveway of our brick house, I have transitioned into the bargaining stage of dying. I pray to God that Priest will be miraculously revived. I close my eyes, try to focus my will on Priest being alive again. Disney has convinced me that mere willpower can make children fly and turn peasant girls into princesses. Surely it can reverse death?

“I want to see him!” I demand.

Mom sighs and massages her forehead. “Come on.” She sighs. “We have to bury him.”

Mom disappears into the garage and returns with a shovel and a flower box. I furrow my brow in bewilderment before I realize that the box doesn’t hold roses. Priest’s body is in the box.

The earth is moist and black from this morning’s rain. The shovel sinks into the ground like a hot knife through butter. I watch my mother dig, listening to her frustrated grunts. She has not bothered to change into her Timberlands. The soles of her sandals bend each time they slam into the top of the shovel.

A dark red circle blooms on her oversized t-shirt. I gasp. “Mom, you’re bleeding!”

My mother glances down at her waist. The hole already reaches her knees.

“Shit,” she mutters, just loud enough for the curse word to reach my ears. I bristle at the word.

Without any explanation, my mother climbs out of the grave and stomps into the house. My juvenile mind is cast into confusion. How did Mom cut herself? Did she whack herself with a shovel? Unease twists my stomach.

My vision skitters over to the plain white box. Morbid curiosity overcomes me. I lift the top off the kitten coffin inch by inch, my fingers trembling in anxious anticipation. The smell hits me first. Only a few hours dead, and already the scent of rot covers him like a second coat. His slight, sinewy figure looks even more emaciated. Priest is just skin and sharply jutting bones, like an old leather glove filled with sticks.

I stroke the marking on his neck, a dash of white on his black coat like a priest’s collar. My fingers tingle, then the skin on my arm crawls. I imagine germs from Priest’s corpse crawling up my body. Bile rises up my throat.

I race into the house, desperate to escape his corpse. I wonder if whatever illness killed Priest has infected me.

“Mom!” I cry as I sprint into the kitchen.

I can hear the shower running upstairs. She will not hear me. My eyes roam around the kitchen for any distraction, any momentary pleasure that will erase the feel of Priest’s matted fur on my fingertips.

The cabinet beckons me. I tear open a red box and start shoveling crackers in my mouth. The crackers sharp edges scratch the roof of my mouth, but I keep on shoving them down my throat. I have to get rid of the dread in the pit of my stomach.

My fingers hit cardboard. I stare at my fingers, coated in cheesy crumbs, then at the box. I have polished off the entire container in minutes.

I glance up at the ceiling and realize the dull hum of the shower is gone. I trudge up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom. The upstairs is completely silent. Usually the hallway is filled with the sound of the radio. Now all that breaks the silence is the faint tempo of my sneakers on the hardwood floor.

The master bedroom door is ajar. I creep up to the doorway and surreptitiously peer into the bedroom. My mom is sitting on the bed completely naked, gazing at the mirror. Her golden brown hair cling to her back in wet tendrils. Beads of moisture course down her breasts. She slouches, forcing her abdomen into thick fat rolls.

My mom’s pink complexion that usually glows with warmth now looks sunburned. I can see the pale, hairy thighs above her toned and smooth calves. Her laugh lines have become wrinkles. My mother looks frail and weary.

Is this what all adults look like in private? Are they all frail and weary when they think the door’s shut?

The rest of the afternoon drips by into the early evening. I hug my stuffed animals and pretend they are my dead kitten. My skin continues to crawl, but now it’s because I recall my mother sitting on the bed.

Despite my anxiety, I manage to fall asleep on the stained area rug in my bedroom. A knock on the door awakens me.

I cast a bleary look at my father standing in the doorway. His hand still rests on the bedroom door. His tie hangs loose around his neck. He has already unbuttoned his shirt. Dad always tears at his tie as soon as he steps in the front door, as if that thin piece of fabric is a noose.

“Where’s your mother?”

I shrug and rise to my feet with a groan. I follow my dad on his quest through the house to find my mother. We eventually locate her in the garage, deep in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Kathy, you’re not supposed to be smoking,” Dad says, his voice stern. “It’s bad for the baby.”

Even through the smoke, I can see Mom’s eyes fill with tears. “The baby’s gone, Greg.”

My father’s face turns to stone.

They talk in cracked, raspy voices. I can tell from their tone that they’ve forgotten about me. I’ve already learned that if I don’t speak, people forget that I’m there. Silence grants me superpowers; I am the invisible girl, the ultimate bug, gathering intel on all the adults. Last month I learned that Caitlin’s dad has lost his job, and that the male florists likes to kiss other boys.

Later that night, my father tucks me into bed. Mom’s stuffed with pain pills and already passed out on the living room couch.

Dad reaches over to turn off the ceiling light, then hesitates. He turns to me, but his hazel eyes won’t meet mine. “Bridget, you know how to be a good girl, right?”

I nibble on my comforter. Dad usually says this when he’s found out I got in trouble at school, or snuck into Shelton’s lawn. My mind flashes to Priest’s stiff corpse. Would Daddy punish me for touching a dead animal? He chastises me for touching “unclean” things. Last summer he slapped a beautiful light blue feather out of my fingers because it could carry a disease.

“Yes, Daddy,” I reply with trembling words.

“Good.” He pats the crown of my head with a warm smile. “You be extra good the next few days. Mom’s very sad about the kitten dying.”

My father thinks I’m stupid, I realize. I’m too young to understand naiveté or ignorance. It doesn’t occur to me that my parents want to protect me. Anger washes over me. I want to tell him that I’m not as stupid as they think I am, that I know what it means when Mom says the baby’s gone.

But I hold my tongue. I’m not sure if my father can see me biting my lip in the darkness as I hold back my words. I nod, because pretending is easier than telling the truth.

I’m starting to understand why my mother looked so different when she was alone. Adults do this all the time. They’re always holding back their words with a smile. They pretend to enjoy wearing a tie even though it feels like a silk noose. They pretend to give a fuck about a dead kitten when they’re bleeding out a baby. And they grin and bear it when someone thinks they’re stupid.

That weekend, we went to the hardware store and found an orange tree to plant over Priest’s grave. It took over a year for the tree to bear fruit. When I finally plucked an orange from the tree, it was a huge disappointment. There was no sweetness, only a sharp bitterness that made my skin crawl.

Why You Should NOT Eat Black Rice

2010-08-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

I recently found an article on the newest superfood, “black rice.” Apparently, black rice is supposed to contain those ultra-goodness antioxidants, some chemicals that are supposed to prevent cancer, make your skin healthier, increase longevity, and give you a 22’’ waist. It’s like Acai berry, except it doesn’t come in ridiculously overpriced pill form. Yet.
Unfortunately, I could never eat black rice even if it gave me the awesome ability to shit money and pure happiness. First, it looks like this.


Put a leaf next to it. It'll look less disgusting.

Remember when your Dad used to take you fishing and he used a huge lump of soil- coated, slimy earthworms he shoved into the tackle box as bait? Black rice looks like that. Moreover, I can never get used to the idea of rice being any color besides white or light brown. When I look at that picture, I feel like I’m a lion seeing a zebra for the first time.
Just imagine being a lion that is used to feasting on horses, the occasional donkey, an anteloupe, annoying humans on safari tours. Then you spot this.


A horse dressed like Beetlejuice

Do you know what the lion does? It DOESN’T EAT THE ZEBRA. Because basic logic tells the predator that if it looks different than its normal food, maybe it’s not a good idea to eat it. Humans use this same principle to avoid eating the unfamiliar, probably poisonous berries in the forest.
Unfortunately, our instincts fail us in the modern world. The average supermarket is a plethora of imported gourmet oddities that is unfamiliar to only the most cultured gourmand. Here are some other zebra foods.


"Blue" potatoes are really purple

Blue potatoes. Remember in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the overachieving blond girl chewed gum that turned her blue? Well, it happened to these potatoes too.


How does this look like a dragon?

Are they seeds? Are they mold? The first time I saw dragonfruit from afar, it reminded me of a dark- haired guy’s five-o-clock shadow. Not appetizing.


A "tree tomato"

This fruit looks pretty pedestrian until you cut it in half. Then, BOOM, you discover it’s sporting some Gaelic art motif popular with tattoo artists.


Where your organic lubricant comes from

Did you ever wish your fruit were slimier and covered in sharp spikes? Well, you’re in luck! Head to your local Whole Foods and discover what it’s like to eat the slime monster from Ghostbusters!


The other kind of Frankenberry

This lab-synthesized abomination is supposed to taste like pineapple. What bothers me most about this fruit is that someone spent years and thousands of dollars developing a fruit that not only looks like an albino strawberry, it also doesn’t boast any remarkable health benefits like black rice.

Why the Kindle is a Godsend

2010-08-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

Despite being an avid reader, I rarely set foot in a bookstore. Yesterday was the first time I went to a brick and mortar bookstore in at least six months. After I browsed for a few minutes, I was reminded why I made the transition to e-books.

Based on the cover, what would you assume Bridget Jones’s Diary is about? A beautiful young lady training to be a nun in a 1930’s boarding school? A fourteen-year-old trying to overcome her oppressive Puritan background so she can pursue her love of Ed Hardy- style graphic design?

For anyone who’s read the book, or even just seen the movie trailer, this cover seems radically inappropriate. In case you lived under a rock the past ten years, this is Wikipedia’s summary of the book: “written in the form of a personal diary, the novel chronicles a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something single working woman living in London. She writes (often humorously) about her career, self-image, vices, family, friends, and romantic relationships.” This cover in no way conveys that the main character is “thirty something”, hangs out with a gay, aging popstar and a woman that says fuck a lot. It also does not convey that her vices include heavy drinking.

Yet this is better than most of the covers I’ve been subjected to as an urban fantasy fan. At least the new Bridget Jones’s Diary cover is creative. That is more than I can say for the average urban fantasy cover, which seem to come in three versions, max. I first noticed the unoriginality when I saw this cover.

Then I walked two centimeters along the same shelf and spotted this cover.

Both covers feature presumably the main character with her back turned to the viewer. But it could still be a coincidence, if it weren’t for ten other series’ covers featuring almost the exact same pose.

Of course, sometimes the publisher feels that showing this much of the main character reveals too much. So they just opt for showing the main character’s legs standing near something mystical.

Or maybe if the cover artist has been watching a lot of Matthew McConaughey movies lately, they decide the readers want to see the main character’s well-toned abdomen.

These covers tell me NOTHING about the protagonist. Occasionally, I can figure out if the book is about a werewolf or a witch. But most of the time, all the cover tells me is that the main character probably spends a lot of time at the gym. For books that feature a lot of combat and running, they also seem to wear a lot of inconveniently tight jeans and stiletto heels.

The worst part about these covers is that they are often VERY sexual. I can sort of understand some racy imagery on a paranormal romance cover. However, I cannot comprehend why a cover would be so explicit if the book featured NO SEX and an auxiliary romantic conflict. For example, take a gander at this urban fantasy cover.

This looks like softcore porn about that woman Jesse James cheated on his wife with. The main character, besides being celebate through most of the series, has only one tatoo.

So now I buy ebooks so I can read my urban fantasy books in public. Even if I stick to the adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, I still can’t buy any more books with needlessly sexual, ambiguously nude people on their covers. Because even if I don’t judge a book by its cover, someone will judge ME if they see me reading THIS.

How Lovely To Be A Woman

2010-08-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

Today my mother went to the OB/GYN for the fifth time in one month (and we were out of the country for half the month). Frequent visits would be normal, if, say my mother was pregnant. But no, my mother has sandwiched herself between farting, bloated, waddling masses of fertility because she can no longer have children. And now that she may finally be free of the biannual gyno visit, her doctor is determined to diagnose her with something and snare an insured patient for life.

It all began with the abnormal papsmear. If you are unfamiliar with a papsmear, take your sharpest fingernail and stick it up your nose. Now drag your fingernail inside your nostril until you almost draw blood, then remove your nail. Look at what disgusting bodily fluid you have mined. A papsmear is like that except twice as much disgusting, humiliating, and painful because instead of your finger, there's a scary metal instrument. And instead of your nose someone is probing your VAGINA.

After suffering through this indignity, she moved onto her first ultrasound. Having an ultrasound when the oven is bunlessness is less pleasant because patients have to drink half a lake at least an hour before their appointment and not pee until the ultrasound is finished. This may seem only mildly uncomfortable if the patient has to actually endure only one hour, and the office is not behind schedule, which is never the case. The gyno's office, like the DMV, is the ironic ninth circle of hell reserved for incredibly impatient people. Here's a breakdown of my average ultrasound:

10:30: Arrive at waiting room for 11:00 appointment after dutifully drinking two liters of water. Settle down in ridiculously uncomfortable seat and drown out sound of proverbial wailing infant with iPod.

10:45: Cross legs and begin biting lip in discomfort. Look down at iPod and assure self that will only have to tolerate distended bladder for fifteen more minutes.

10:52: What? Only seven minutes have gone by? It felt like eternity. Ok, must distract myself even more. Watch the television.

10:53: Bad idea. It seems like 90% of adverts involve showers or large bodies of water. And toilets. Toilets being scrubbed, toilets flushing, toilet paper. Oh god, that dancing cartoon bear is taunting me. Charmin is the devil.

11:01: What? It's past eleven. I should be back getting my ultrasound, and several steps closer to being able to pee. Someone must pay for this grave injustice.

11:08: The person next to me is drinking a bottle of water. Very slowly. I can hear her gulping. I want to move, but I'm scared that if I do, the floodgates will open.

11:12: I'm not sure, but I think this is what my nerdy guyfriend from the seventh grade meant when he mentioned Chinese water torture.

11:15: I'm praying now. I'm praying that the next time the lady with the clipboard comes through that door she will call out my name, and I will not pee in front of a bunch of strangers.

11:17: I envy the child across from me that wear a diaper. No one cares if SHE pees herself, damnit!

11:21: How have I offended you, my Lord? Why have you brought this agony upon me? This must be how Job felt.

11:30: I'm going to do it. I'm going to pee my pants. I'm probably never going to see these people again. And the people who work here are used to dealing with WAY grosser fluids than pee. I bet a woman's water breaks once a week here.

11:32: I CAN'T DO IT. It's like my urinary tract went into lockdown mode.

11:40: YES! She called my name! I'm going to the examining room and taking off my clothes and putting a suit on. There's even a bathroom right across the hall.

11:44: Where'd the tech go?

11:50: Why'd she lead me back here only to make me wait, half naked and alone, for ten minutes.

12:01: Finally. She's back. And she's taking out her wand and- oh God, don't put that thing on top of my bladder. Stop pressing down. Stop pressing down! ::Ultrasound tech comments on how full my bladder is. I begin to cry.::

12:22: Ordeal is finished. I race to the bathroom, and make orgasmic sounds of joy as I finally relieve myself.

I think I go through all the stages of grieving there. Anger, denial, acceptance that I may pee yourself in a public place.

Anyway, so my mother just got her second ultrasound to top off many other degrading procedures. And now one of her ovaries have "disappeared." Now, I have heard of guys occasionally having a testicle recede, or lose one to cancer. But losing an ovary is especially disconcerting because there's NOWHERE for it to go. It's already inside of you.

So while I'm imagining scenarios involving weird ovary eating viruses and abduction by organ- stealing aliens, my mother explained that when a woman gets to menopause, their ovaries "change."

"How do they change?" I ask

Then Mom averts her gaze and changes the subject. So I went to Google and typed in post-menopausal ovaries. Now I wish Google would have an option to disable image search, because I'm now determined to die before I hit menopause. I will not describe the images that assaulted my eyes and shattered my innocence.

I'll never eat beef jerky again.