the brownie and its crumbs

We are not feuding
Silently or otherwise
There is no deep-seated resentment from my youth,
An uncovered rage from falling off the diaper-changing counter as a baby.
My mom and I don't even fight much in adulthood, but when we do it's like your pot and your kettle butting up against one another for a few minutes, then sighing, crying, and spending an equal amount of time taking responsibility for the argument in the first place.

You can't fight fire with fire.

A pot with its kettle.

A brownie with its own crumbs.

I don't write much about my mom because it's redundant.
It's a story that's already happening
In the sound of my sneeze
-- for instance--
In the shapes of my fingers and hands.
When we're apart, I hardly notice, because her knees are looking up at me every single day.

I could spend pages raving about how loving and supportive my mom is.
I have a hundred appropriate Mother's Day essays.
But I prefer write the stuff I can't quite figure out.
And I can't quite figure out
Why I don't write more about Shelley Coonen Hoben.

Physical likeness aside, I have these traits of my mother's,
For better or worse
Via nature and nurture
That freeze me mid-gesture in recognition.
My sister is the best at identifying it-- she, who has a collection of her own "mommisms"...

The Shelleyness lives, thrives, most fully and frequently
When I sit across from someone, and nod and nod in empathy,
Occasionally repeating back the feelings,
Paraphrasing the sentiments I hear,
And often finishing sentences.

And then there is this need to "jot things down"...
I used to tease her relentlessly about the odd disconnected phrases in her handwriting left all over the house, the product of phone conversations that date back as long as the house itself:

"Ginna, Chicago, 4:00, January, optometrist?"

"Carrot & cream cheese.  Discount.  Also, gloves."

"Roof repair.  Charlie.  $$$????"  

But, I cannot tease anymore.
My clone-ish handwriting now decorates the notepads and scraps of paper in my own apartment:

"33rd St. and Madison.  Birthday.  Yoga.  What ####????"

"Midsummer and Henry.  Cheryl.  Shoes?"

"Foot-pack."

The Shelleyness is always with me.
It expands with every year.
And, so, rarely does it occur to me to put the matter down in print:
Why write the thought, when the thought is illustrated in the very handwriting!
Like the way you tell a tale so often that you assume everyone knows it...
Even the people you've just met...  Today.

In Reverse Brownie-Crumb Protocol,
Mom has recently taken up some of my favorite practices:
Yoga, creative writing, and a host of my favorite slang.
(That's what I call "the crumbs calling the brownie 'brown'.")

I know I am not as good as she.  I'm not.
I'm not pious or nearly as cheerful.
She eats like a little bird and stops after one glass of wine.
I'll never be as selfless a mom as she was.
But ...
I've been a good friend to many people
And I've been told I'm a good hostess and that my home is warm and welcoming.
And when her friends meet me for the first time they are shocked by the likenesses,
Mostly, "the mannerisms!"
And I like that.
Also, cuz she's very pretty.
And I'm very vain.

So that the traits of hers that live within me do no go unstated, I state it here:  I'm a lucky crumb.

Bakeway is on Broadway in Astoria, right off the Broadway N/Q stop.  The coffee is only okay, but this place is really about the baked goods.  I mean, it's called Bakeway!  25-21 Broadway, Long Island City, NY 11106.  (718) 545-2120

Good Ones

7/22/2015  The short play below has been slightly altered and entered into a contest.  It is now a finalist for The Actors Theatre of Louisville 2015 Heideman Award.  I'll leave the first half of it here until the contest results are in.  Thanks for reading!  

MIRANDA:  What are you doing?

CHLOE:  Feeding the fish.    

MIRANDA:  That’s gross.

CHLOE:  Not if the fish eat it.

MIRANDA:  Your toenails?  Chloe!

CHLOE:  You don’t know.

MIRANDA:  I know.  Gimmee a sandwich will ya?

CHLOE:  Beef or tuna?

MIRANDA:  You brought tuna to the beach?

CHLOE:  What is that wrong, like politically incorrect to the fish?

MIRANDA:  No, it just, sounds gross.  Tuna salad in the sun for a couple of hours?

CHLOE:  But beef in the sun is better?  It’s what they had at the café.

MIRANDA:  Just give me the chips.

CHLOE:  (Looking)  I don’t … see… any potato chips.

MIRANDA:  (Takes the paper bag from Chloe)  I didn’t get potato chips.  They’re terrible for you.

CHLOE:  They’re good for me.

MIRANDA:  No, they’re not.  Here try these.

CHLOE:  What are they?

MIRANDA:  Kale chips.

CHLOE:  Kale?

MIRANDA:  Yes.

CHLOE:  On vacation at the beach?

MIRANDA:  Am I insulting the seaweed?

CHLOE:  You’re insulting my taste.

The Rarely and The Never

She was already pissed.  The coffee shop in Astoria, Queens didn't offer soy milk as an option, and dairy is simply out of the question for Alison J. Rockford.  The J. is for Josephine, which she can't stand, so "J" will do.  She likes its imagined versatility:  Janelle, Jaqueline, Johannah.  So, she is undercaffeinated and grumpy.  She wouldn't have been running late except that she decided to squeeze in a workout at the Queens Gym.  Not because she liked the gym so much (greasy guys), but because it is one of the few fitness establishments left that still houses a Butt Cruncher machine.  Most places have given them up with claims of "dangerous," but Alison J. Rockford knows the proper form. 

And suffers genetically from a somewhat (a very)...  Flat.  Ass. 

The Butt-Cruncher is worth a visit to the gym in her sister's neighborhood, which, let's face it, is otherwise kinda lame.  Getting to and from Queens isnightmare.  Always.  No matter what.  The trains to get there are the N and the R, also known as the "Never" and "Rarely," for their lack of frequency.  But, Shayla was "going through it," was in the middle of it, sinking in it, with J. P. moving out, and now dating that insane girl back in North Carolina.  Whatever.  Alison would do just about anything for her sister.  Even a trip to Queens (gag).  On a weekday (cringe).  They shared a bottle of wine and Thai food takeout and Shayla cried.  Alison did exactly what was expected of her, ceaselessly insulting J.P. and The Madwoman of Charlotte, as they've taken to calling her.  The nickname was Alison's invention.

june bird

Early June is a separate little gift from the rest of June.

Early June is promise and closure all at once. 

It doesn't know if it's a bookend or the beginning of a book.

And it doesn't much care.

in the presence of the king

I arrive fifteen minutes early for my noon appointment.  I am given a stack of papers on which I answer about thirty personal questions of a somewhat sensitive nature regarding my reproduction system and personal habits.
Then wait for thirty minutes.
I am here to see an OB/GYN they call "The King."

He is called "The King" because his patients always get pregnant.  There is nothing dubious, here.  It's just an appointment or two with The King, and parents-to-be from all over the tri-borough area are celebrating.  Legend has it that, after years of trying unsuccessfully, one woman...

I get stupid, I mean outrageous.

I heard Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two" today.

"Right about now... you're about to be possessed... 

Remember this one?

...by the sounds of MC Rob Base and DJ... EZ... Rock...  

and I wept.

Hit it!"

I wept for my high school cafeteria where had my first braces-clad kiss on some Friday night just inches away from the same spot where I ate Fiesta Sticks in flourescent lunchtime lighting every Thursday between '89 and '92.
I wept for the teenage brain that I can never get back.  The one that was the Secretary of Student Counsel and President of the V-Club.  The one that was totally happy believing that sushi was gross and America was great.
Of course, I weep for my teenage waist, too, but I am not strong enough to face that tonight...  "Bartender...?"

Three-Whiskey Hotel

I do a lot of traveling.  I love traveling.  I have stayed in a lot of lodging.  I don't always love the lodging.  Good lodging is like home away from home.  Bad lodging is like an attack on all of your senses and a desire that your skin not make contact with anything.

The things I love include tight white sheets and shades that block out sunlight in the morning, then spring open to reveal abundant natural light when I am ready to get up.  I don't give a rat's ass about room service, but a continental breakfast that includes fruit is high on my list.  I just want one food-thing that is not over five years away from its life source.  A hard boiled egg counts...  unless it is over five years away from its life source.

Cheerleader Me

The Angry Baker, Columbus, OH, is on the corner of Oak and 18th, just East of Downtown in "Olde Towne."

It is a question I have been asked repeatedly in my adult life.  It is a question for which I am never quite prepared.  It is a harmless question.  To anyone else, it is meaningless:  "Were you a cheerleader?"

Often it is not even posed as a question.  Often it is half accusation/ half "I-know-your-type":  "You were a cheerleader, weren't you?

It's been 20 years since high school.  I am a grown woman.  And I am frightfully flattered by the question.  What is it they see in me?  Am I little and peppy?  Am I popular?  Am I cheery!?!

In 1988 as I prepared for the Bishop Hartley Cheeleading Try-Outs, I believed in my heart and soul:  I am a cheerleader.   I  knew all the words to all the cheers, I had the right hair, (well, I had big hair, but that was acceptable), my big sister Katie was already a BHHS cheerleader and coached me mercilessly in the weeks prior to the try-outs ("straighten your wrist, straighten your leg, more to the side, more to the front, higher.... higher.... higher!!!!  Well, you asked me to help; don't get mad.")  I can still remember the first 16 counts of choreography we learned to a New Order instrumental.