The Times, They Are A Changing

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Brown Skin

It's around this time of year that I start to really dislike White People.  White People, you suck!  Yes, I am *technically* also a White Person, but I tend to fall on the darker side of white.  Inevitably, in the spring and summer I tend to tan quite well.  I become so dark, that it seems that White People can't contain themselves.  The questions start; the darker I become, the more questions I receive.

"What nationality are you?"

@#$%!!!!!!!!

"If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me that in my life, I'd have enough money to buy your pasty white ass for my slave, mofo!"

Okay, so no, I don't really get to say that.  But how awesome would it be if I did?  *vows to remember to say that next time*

Not only are White People so audacious as to ask what nationality I am, if I choose to just tell the truth and say that I'm a Canadian, or go further and say that I'm a fucking W.A.S.P., they can't be satisfied.  Said White People can't take that for an answer.  They need to suggest nationalities for me.

"You look like you're East Indian."

"No, she looks like she's Italian."

"I think you could pass for Greek."

"I have a friend from Singapore who looks like you!"

"Are you sure you're not Jewish?"

Ooh, and my own personal favourite, "Are you sure he's your dad with that red hair and freckles?  Was your mother overly fond of the milkman?  Bwahahahaha!!!!"  Yes, because apparently calling my mother a straight up ho who would pass off my questionable paternity onto her unsuspecting husband is sooooo totally hilarious.

Argh!  It's taken me a lot of years to become comfortable in my skin.  A lot longer than it should have taken, as far as I'm concerned, and I work hard to make sure that I stay that way.  I have come to love my "brown skin", and I've almost forgotten the teasing I had to endure when I was younger on account of not being "white enough" for the other white people.  I take pleasure in the idea that I look "ethnic", and that I can travel to many other countries and just blend in with the locals.

I am able now to laugh when people ask me the 'nationality' question, and have great fun telling them lies.  Currently, I'm from Sweden.   If they're going to be so rude as to ask me such a question, then I am not going to feel bad about deceiving them.  

Hej, älskare!

That's all,

Twills

XOXO

An Earth Life

Both kids came home from school yesterday with a flower pot.  Inside was a seed from a scarlet runner bean, and it was in honour of Earth Day.  They watched a movie about the Earth and talked about things they would do on Earth Day in order to help the planet.  Well aren't we twee?!!  One day per year, we get to care about the planet.  Don't even mention to the little kiddies how we should be doing this shyte every day that we are blessed enough to breathe whatever clean air is left on this earth.  Why aren't we drilling this into their heads every single day?  Or better yet, leading by example?

All this week they've been encouraged to send them to school with a "litterless lunch".  Litterless lunch sucks donkey balls!  In our family, we don't watch much tv, we dry our clothes outside in fine weather, we eat nearly everything home made and grow a lot of our own food in the summer.  We voluntarily walk to places we need to get to.  It almost makes me puke every time I go near it, but we have a compost pile as well!  We even have an all-consuming, manic passion for recycling.  If one didn't notice how groomed our armpits are, one could actually accuse us of being "hippies"*.

To me, litterless lunch is a huge smack in the face.  School lunches are about the only things in our house for which we use packaging, or single-sized servings of anything.  Even then, only rarely do we do such things because our kids eat like fiends and need mass quantities.  If I were to load them up with water bottles and storage containers every day for school, they'd need a separate backpack to hold organic carrots alone!  Seriously!  

As it was, all this week their backpacks were so heavy.  I couldn't manage to jam the zippers shut on their lunch bags because their reusable containers take up too much room.  I swear, the middle kid was unbalanced all the way to school in the morning.  I kept having to shove him from behind when we were walking up hills so that he didn't topple over, roll down the hill and land in a sodden heap of sandwiches and orange juice at the bottom.

I've been hearing radio announcements all day suggesting things like, "Hey fat fuckers, today it's Earth Day, so how about you recycle that soda can instead of chucking it into the nearest garbage bin, only to have it stay there for several million years polluting the earth for the children you can't have since you've gone sterile from eating so many TV dinners?".  They may have used slightly nicer language, but the same sentiment is there.

One day, one week, one month or a year even, is not enough.  We should be doing this shit every single day that we are alive.  We owe it to our children and other peoples' children, even if you're like me and don't like other peoples' children.  Heh.  Just kidding.

But not really, because they're bastards.

Our family is not perfect.  Shocking, I know!  We still have a great deal of room to improve.  However, being more environmentally conscious is something that's very important to us.  It should be important to everyone, quite frankly.  I suggest that instead of having an Earth Day, how about we have an Earth Life?  Devote your entire life, change your entire way of thinking and living, and just do little things like walking to the corner store, use cloth shopping bags, eat less meat, buy local produce from farmer's markets or grocery stores, shop once in a while at a thrift or consignment store, or reuse something several times before you recycle it.  The list goes on, but other people are better at it, so here are some links:

50 Green Tips

EPA

Earth Day Canada's Site

Teach your children well.

That's all,

Twills

XOXO

*Twills is aware that there are many hippies that do not have hairy armpits and that stereotypes are wrong, even when they're funny.

I Told Y'all I Was Down

I took my son to his first rock concert last week, as we had bought him tickets for Christmas.  I knew that the tickets were for him, but in reality I really, really did want to go.  It had been so many years since I'd been to a concert that I can not for the life of me remember which one it was, and I actually do really like the band that we went to see.  We go to outdoor music festivals a lot in the summer with our kids, but they're more the kind of thing where you'd see people wearing either tie-dye, mullets, or both.  This was going to be mayjah.

Several things have changed since I last went to one of these shindigs, though.  Well, this concert was geared mainly towards teenage girls and tweens with parents in tow.  When I was a teenager I was more used to the types of venues where they frisk you on the way in for illicit firearms, shanks, drugs and/or alcohol.  They did check my handbag, for which I apologised, mom-like, for it being so messy. 

Some things have not changed.  Teenage girls scream really farking loudly.  They don't wear very many clothes.  They will cut a bitch for the opportunity to rub up on the lead singer when he comes near the crowd.  They almost always dance, and know all the words to all of the songs.  Some of them sweat profusely and smell like armpits when they wave their hands over their heads.  You will leave a concert thinking you've caught the plague from all of the sweaty germs and your ears will buzz for a week.  Or is that just me?

We had floor seats, which I thought would be good because we were fairly close to the stage, but it's not good if you're nine and the teenager in front of you is 6'2".  Note to self:  When buying concert tickets for short people, no floor seats.  I didn't mind Tall Stuff being in front of him so much, because every time a beach ball or a bottle of water (we'll get to this later) hurled towards my baby's face, Tall Stuff would inadvertently act as a cloaking shield for him.  He did take short shifts standing on his chair to see better, because the teenager behind him told him that she didn't mind.  So yes, some teenagers are really nice.  There is hope for the world after all.

Remember how people would wave their lighters around during slow songs?  Well nowadays they tell the kids to take out their cell phones and digital cameras to wave those around.  That, and instead of saying, "Buy our album", they say, "Go home and download our album, burn it from a friend or pirate that mofo because as long as you're listening to our music we're happy".  I'm sure their bank accounts are quite happy, also.

The entire time, I kept thinking back to when I used to attend a lot of concerts when I was a teenager.  How I used to love boys in bands.  Punk bands, mostly.  Remember how your parents would be horrified if you brought home a boy with baggy pants and an earring?  I can just imagine how horrified my father would have been had I brought home boys with flat-ironed hair, skinny jeans and eyeliner.  Jeesh!

Not to mention how the three opening acts had songs about throwing your hands in the air, and waving them as if you just don't care.  Years!  Years, we've been listening to different variations of throwing your hands in the air and waving them like you just don't care.  Is it possible that this phenomena is not entirely played out by now?  Could it have been cool to raise your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care throughout the eighties, nineties, and today?  Classic, yes; but how great is their sense of entitlement to think that they have the ability to improve on such a classic?  Ah, youth.

I did feel like getting all Mom on their asses, though.  Every time a band member would finish with a guitar pick or drumstick, they'd toss them into the audience.  They'd take a sip out of a water bottle, and toss those into the audience, too.  One sip!  Would it kill them to reduce, reuse, recycle?!!  I swore to myself that if a water bottle was hurling toward my son's head and Tall Stuff didn't end up taking it in the head first, then I was going to sue their asses!  As for us, we paid six bucks for a bottle of water that they then poured into a giant paper cup.  Bottles are life threatening, apparently.  Not to be used without supervision.  If I'd known they were going to give me a paper cup regardless, I would have rode their asses and told them to give me tap.  Mama recycles, yo.  *throws up gang signs*

See how hip I am?  Mama is down.  Recognize.

That's all,

Twills

XOXO

Part Two, which will come to you later:  How I accidentally found myself wanting to rip the clothes off of the incredibly young lead singer and ravage him like a cougar and the only thing that stopped me was The Child.

Willy Wonka: Womanizer

Zen:  Mama your hair so nice.

Twills:  Thank you, baby.

Zen:  Your hair so nice and it's wild.

Twills:  You mean curly?  Because I didn't straighten it today?

Zen:  Yeah, your hair is curly ta-day and it's wild.  Yeah, your hair is wild and you have a fro.

Twills:  Mm-hmm.  *It's not a fro! It is not!*

Zen:  You have hair like Willy Wonka, but not when it's wild.

Twills: Pardon?

Zen:  Willy Wonka hass red hair and your hair black, but you also can have Willy Wonka hair.

Twills:  Do you mean when I have bangs?  Because Willy Wonka has bangs?

Zen:  Yes.  You hass bangs and Willy Wonka hass bangs.

     *Puts hands in hair*

     Mama?  Willy Wonka not have wild fro, Willy Wonka is womanizer.

Twills:  Pardon me? What did you say?

Zen:  Willy Wonka a womanizer.

♪♪♪  Womanizer womanizer oh womanizer oh you a womanizer baby ♪♪♪

Twills:  Zen?  What do you mean about Willy Wonka?

Zen:  Willy Wonka hass red fro and Willy Wonka a womanizer.  He likes ladies.  He likes their boobs.

Twills:  *face|palm*

Zen:  ♪♪♪ You you you are!  You you you are!  Womanizer womanizer you're a womanizer baby! ♪♪♪

Twills:  Oh, far too much Britney.

Zen:  Mama, you put on Womanizer for me please?

     * bats eyelashes *

Here you go, Zen.  Enjoy.

Contagions

My grandmother has recently moved into the new nursing home that they've built in our town. It's easier for her there, because though none of us are from this godforsaken place, there are many more family members here than there are back home to care for her. We are better able to visit, or we can spring her out from time to time when we're having a function.  I go there as often as I can, and it's always a riot. 

My grandmother has her good days and bad days though. Sometimes she'll be completely lucid... other days she'll be telling you about the hot young stud that she's met that she's about to shack up with. Sometimes her supposed paramour is the Reverend (he's frisky!). Then there are the days when she's sad, which are the hardest to take.  The last time I went to visit my grandmother, I was not prepared to have it affect me so deeply as it did.

When I walked in, she was sitting in her recliner as she usually is but she wasn't in her usual jovial mood, ready to laugh and joke about old times. We talked as we usually do about how she was keeping, how many pills she takes, if she takes more pills than the lady next door, (she doesn't but hers are bigger, for the win), the bingo game she won big money at that morning, how she'd had her hair done since I'd seen her on the weekend, and then we stopped after a short chat about the latest geezer gossip. Man, those old birds love to bicker!


Then it took a serious turn. 


She spoke about how hard it was for her when my dad died; how hard it was to lose her favourite son. How hard it must have been for me to grow up without a father. I started to get teary eyed when she did, and I pictured how it was that day at his funeral. As she told me about how windy it was at the cemetery, I could picture her and I holding each other at the grave site, weeping.  How the fact that it was a sunny day seemed like it was the Universe spitting in my face.  How can the world go on?  Why did the entire world not stop when my father died, since mine had? 

I hugged her and told her it was going to be okay, that he was in a better place and so on because I know she believes in that kind of thing, that he was waiting for us in heaven and all that, like you would... But I started to break down, crying and thinking about how much my dad means to me. I was thinking about his funeral and how we played "Electric Avenue" because it was his favourite song and the sole reason that Daddy always assumed that he was a fan of Reggae music.

I was getting really into the crying. Not just dainty little tears, but big ugly sobs with dripping nose included. I must have needed a good cry, and being a naturally melancholy person I was up to the job of letting a good one out. Grandma and I cried a little, and hugged each other. She may have rocked me at one point, but the rest becomes a little hazy; this was when I started to snap out of it.


The problem is, you see...

My dad is not dead.

My dad is very much alive.  He can attest to that himself and knowing him, I'm sure he'd tell us more information than is really necessary to prove how young and alive he really is. 


Yes, I can picture him dying, and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. The very thought devastates me entirely! I got so swept up in the moment that I lost all form of self control and logic. Not to mention what I myself must have inflicted on my poor grandmother, needing to be comforted by her! I was a liability to her in her grief because even though she's knows that my dad is alive, to her at that moment her grief is real.  I was not supportive in the least and felt terribly for it later. 

Shame on me for being such a flake! I think from now on I'll make sure my visits coincide with Bingo or pub night, and I'll stick to the tried and true subjects when I'm talking to Grandma. Like who takes the most/biggest pills, who's the hottest ticket in the place, and who does the minister favour more? Always winners, and not quite so likely to make me emo. She deserves to be happy and joyful at the age of 90, otherwise, what do you have?

My sister always did joke that Dementia was contagious, and I didn't believe it until now.  So in that spirit, I will offer you a musical selection in honour of my Daddy:

That's all,

Twills

XOXO

Last Week

I saw my best friend last week. This would be an ordinary occurrence for most people, but it was strange for me due to the fact that I haven't spoken to him in twelve years. We're not separated by physical distance, in fact we've lived in the same town this entire time minus the short while I spent away at university. We pass each other occasionally, but normally we don't even glance at one another.   In fact, it's so extreme that we pretend not to recognise each other at all, and it's not in a cruel way; it just is.

Nobody knows that he was my best friend other than him and I. He was the kind of friend that I could talk to about anything, and he just "got" me. There are precious few people in this world who have every really understood me, and back then the list was even smaller. When he would call me, just by the way I said "Hello" he would know exactly what kind of a mood I was in, and what to say to me to make my day better. I've never had a friend since who had that same knack.

Every time we spoke on the phone, he would comment about how smart and funny I was, and coming from a home with a verbally abusive mother, that meant a lot to me.  He would always say, "Well, you learn something new every day.  Of course that's because I talk to you every day."  It was the first time in my life that anyone really made me feel especially good about myself, that I made someone's life brighter simply by being in it.

We spent several months in the summer before I moved away for school, just driving around in his truck. Entire bright, sunny days driving really slow on deserted dirt roads... sipping on a beer, chain-smoking menthol lights. You know, like you would. Doing a lot of talking, and a hell of a lot of laughing. Some of my fondest memories from my youth are from this time.

I've carried these memories around in my head for years now, and still there is not one other soul in this world that knows about this other than him and I. You see, he got himself a girlfriend. I was happy for him at first, because I did start to fear that he was starting to fall in love with me and I knew that there was no way I would ever feel that way about him. The girlfriend sensed this, and being the jealous type and a stage 5 clinger, she strove to cut me from his life like a bad weed.

I receded from his life quietly, because I knew that since I was moving away soon and starting a new life, he needed to have someone back home to start a new life with as well.  At the time, I felt that it was more or less like a natural progression of our friendship to end that way.  I didn't have any hard feelings towards her, and I still don't. 

I got a frantic call from some friends six months later, asking me to come home because he was about to marry her.  They thought that I was the only one who could break up the wedding.  Not being one for that kind of drama, I refused to do so.  He was an adult, I felt he was fully capable of making his own decisions.  Besides, in the movies when that happens the people usually end up together.  The thought of that was repulsive to me; too much like incest, not to mention showing up at a wedding and storming the place, which quite frankly is not the proper time to object!  I never did want things to get messy.

So we've continued on in our own lives like this for a good ten years, passing each other on the street, at different functions, having mutual friends... but still not talking.  We both have our own lives and families separate from one another and by all accounts he looks happy.

Fast forward to last week:  We passed each other on the street.  I was with my kids, he was with a group of people I didn't recognise.  For just one instant, we made eye contact.  After 12 years.  I looked at him, he looked at me, and there was an understanding:  We were best friends once, long ago.  We don't ever have to be again, we don't even have to speak; and that's perfectly fine.   No regrets.   We both smiled.

Life goes on, seemingly, without fail.

That's all,

Twills

XOXO