W is for...

W is for... Whittaker.

 Roger Whittaker.

Nemesis of my childhood, voice of my nightmares, demon of the dinner hour.

In case you aren't aware, Roger Whittaker was "a Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician. His music can be described as easy listening or perhaps best as ballads. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability." Yowsa. Whistling ability. Yeppers.

When I was little (and perhaps before he knew better) my dad insisted on having calm, relaxing music playing while we had dinner together. His definition of 'relaxing music' veered closer to 'elevator music' than, say, something spiritual, transcendent or even classical. Instead of Enya or Debussy, we had Roger Whittaker.

I never knew how my dad had discovered Roger Whittaker. It's very likely he just picked up the cassettes at a gas station checkout on impulse. For the most part, my dad had some pretty awesome taste in music. Growing up, the cool kids next door would come over to borrow my dad's Who albums. I grew up recognizing the R. Crumb artwork on Big Brother & the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills album as much as any of my children's books. But he had a dark side. In his record collection amidst the Derek & the Dominoes, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Paul Simon, Blue Oyster Cult, James Taylor, and Grateful Dead albums sat anomalies like the Sandpipers' Guantanamera and that creepy Orleans album featuring the whole hairy, shirtless band. So apparently my dad had a subversive, easy listening side which led us to Roger Whittaker.

Eww. Just.... ewww.

I will always associate Roger Whittaker with the taste of brussels sprouts- two things that were forced on me at dinnertime that I loathed with the very fiber of my being and am totally unable to reconcile with now as an adult.

Eww. Just.... ewww.

Yes, I've tried brussels sprouts since. Prepared in many different ways, skillfully seasoned and cooked. I still think they're gross little cabbages, and I still hate them. One of the benefits of being an adult is that I no longer have to eat brussels sprouts and I exercise this right vigilantly. I hated them so much that I used every weapon in my arsenal to avoid eating them. I would lodge one in my cheek, ask to go to the bathroom and spit it out in the trash. (I had a very round face and there was little you could do to make me more chipmunky.) I would slowly over the course of the meal slide one off my plate and onto the floor (even the dog wouldn't touch them). Using all the slight of hand I could muster, I would palm one into one of the tiny little drawers in the hutch in our dining room. (This tactic had poor end results for me, as my mother would have no idea until the offending vegetable alerted her to its decomposing presence with a stink that made you worry someone had died in the floorboards. Upon finding it, I would be instantly blamed.)

And along with the sulphurous, cabbagey taste of brussels sprouts was Roger's oily, creepy voice singing old folk songs and new songs that he sang so laboriously they sounded like they were hundreds of years old. I hated "Dirty Old Town" the most because it seemed to me the most depressing tune in the history of the world, and this coming from a kid who would burst into tears over "Somebody Come and Play" from Sesame Street.

I was not alone in my loathing; my siblings shared my repulsion for Roger and his crooning. Although united in our purpose to rid 50 Russell Street (as well as the world) of Roger Whittaker, we employed different strategies. My brother Kevin's method combined misdirection and denial. He would pop every cassette we owned in the stereo- except Roger Whittaker- and feign confusion at his mistake.

"Kevin, this isn't Roger Whittaker."
"What? Are you sure?"
"This is 'Hot Legs' by Rod Stewart. Find the Roger Whittaker tape."

Close enough, right?

*pause*
"This is not Roger Whittaker."
"Yes it is."
"No, it's not. It's 'Oye Como Va.' Come on, now, focus. You know what the Roger Whittaker tape looks like! Just find it and put it on so we can eat our damn dinner."
*Sigh*
"This is the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Kevin."
"Same thing, right?"

Katie employed a tactic that was later adopted by the military in dealing with drug kingpins and middle eastern warlords. She would enjoy the music so loudly that in effect, my father would be punished for playing it. She'd sing along with Roger at the top of her lungs, mangling the French words to "Mon Pays Bleu," braying the chorus of "River Lady" with all she had, building gusto and volume with each successive song. My dad would drop his head, shake it in mild disgust and mutter, "Jesus," under his breath until side one finally snapped off and left us in quiet.
"Do you want me to flip it over and play side two, Dad?"
"God, no. Just leave it."
Success.

My role in all this was to hide the cassettes so Kevin didn't even have to pretend he couldn't find them.  Inevitably, old Roger wound up in the same drawer with my orphaned brussels sprouts.

Eventually, the tapes were lost for good, to our great relief, and except for Christmas Eve dinner, my dad gave up on playing music while we were gathered around the table. Years later, my sister and I were poking through the bargain cds in a display at a grocery store and came across The Best of Roger Whitaker on cd. We exchanged one horrified look and hid it deep amidst the Celine Dion karaoke tracks and Michael Jackson compilations.

I thought Roger's music existed solely to torture me and my siblings, but apparently, he has a devoted fan base. They post reviews like this on Amazon:

 

Yeah, Roger took us to other thoughts, too, most of which were not utterable amongst decent folk.

No. You were wrong.

V is for ...

V is for Valentines.

Any of you who have been reading this blog all along know that Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays, but not for the reasons you might think.

When I was ten years old, my family lost our house to a fire two days before Valentine's Day. I've written and posted extensively about it and I'm not going to repeat myself here. This past summer, I did a PSA for the Red Cross about how they helped us out after the fire. With my family, we relived the whole night and for the first time, really discussed everything that happened. I knew most of the story, obviously, but there were some details I wasn't aware of. The most important was the truth about what happened to my dog, Murphy.



I had always assumed he escaped out the fence that night in the chaos. He was hit by a truck and suffered serious injuries, including a crushed pelvis. Our vet felt he should be put down, but my dad said there was no way that after the trauma his kids had been through and along with losing not only their home but all their belongings could he also tell his kids that their dog was dead. So we put him on cage rest and supplements for months and eventually he was back to jumping six-foot high fences. He lived another 13 years after that.

Anyway, I'd always felt horribly guilty that I didn't remember to snap his leash on him and take him with me. I wondered about my state of mind- after going back and forth upstairs and down after my siblings, holding my panic at bay and trying not to think about what was happening, was I pushed to the cracking point and that's why I forgot to rescue my dog? My beloved dog, whose license number I had memorized in case it might help find him when he got away.

But last summer, as my family sat around our kitchen table with a bottle of champagne and went over what happened that night, I heard for the first time that our neighbors took Murphy when we left the house. He was with them. We didn't just abandon him to escape when the firefighters arrived. He apparently kept running away from them and trying to find us, which is when he was hit by the truck. I cannot tell you how relieved this made me feel. For so long I'd felt so guilty about not rescuing him as well.

I love Valentine's Day because getting the valentines my classmates had saved for me was one of the best things in my life. It made me feel normal again, and made me realize that the world would go on and things would be ok again.

So, I'm really bothered by the Valentine's Day haters who seem to dismiss this holiday as a sort of 'rub it in the face of single people' kind of day. It's not to me, and I don't think it should be about that. It should be a reminder to tell the people in your world that you love them- your parents, your kids, your siblings, your friends, etc. And I'm totally on board with Leslie Knope's idea for Galentine's Day- a day dedicated to celebrating your lady friends. Let's get on this, shall we?

U is for ...

U is for... underpants.

Yes, I received many wonderful suggestions for U words to use as a subject (really surprised that "uvula" was so damn popular) but underpants, as they often do, won out.

For reasons good and bad, underpants seem to play an invasive role in my life.

Admittedly, when my siblings and I were little, we loved nothing better than running around in our underpants. I believe we have some old family movies of us tearing about the house in winter wearing sweaters and heavy socks... and underpants. There's absolutely beautiful footage of my brother at about 3 or 4 years old chasing after butterflies with a net in our backyard in Endicott, wearing a white shirt, pale blue underpants, knee socks and saddle shoes, happy as can be. (The irony of my brother chasing after someone with a butterfly net, that silent film symbol of gleeful craziness, was not lost on any of us.)

When I was in elementary school, there was a line of children's undergarments called Underoos, that advertised themselves as "underwear that's fun to wear." Mostly designed to look like superhero costumes, the Wonder Woman version was the one to have for the girls in my class. You always made sure to wear your Underoos on the days that we had swim lessons so you could run around the locker room in your underwear and leap off the concrete benches (yes, onto the slippery tile floor) and pretend you were Wonder Woman.

In high school, there was of course that famous scene from Sixteen Candles that touched upon teenage girls' worst, deep-seeded fear- having your underpants on display. (Or for the more exhibitionist among us, maybe a fond fantasy?)

In the late 90s, a local newspaper began printing hysterical write-ups for their police log. I collected these with fervor until the never-identified writer left the job and the police reports went back to Jack Webb-Dragnet-just the facts ma'am boringness. One of my favorite recurring reports involved someone reporting that their car had been vandalized. Key scratches? Nope. Broken windows? Nope. Slashed tires? Of course not. These criminals had covered the car with 'soiled underpants.' On a separate Tuesday, also in Corning, "someone spread ground beef on the driver's side door of her car." They produce creative criminals in Corning. I've always thought that if I write a memoir, Ground Beef and Underpants would be the title.

And now, underpants continuously pop up in my life. I have a beagle-Jack Russell terrier named Minchy with copious amounts of energy. When I can, I try to take him for long, exhausting walks, usually taking advantage of the numerous gorgeous state parks in my area. For whatever reason, on a regular basis, we encounter discarded underpants on our adventures. One day when I was hiking along Six Mile Creek, I came across three pairs. They never seem to be a harbinger of a crime scene; there's never any kind of bad feelings associated with these lost garments. They instead seem to give off more of a joyful vibe, a symbol of a good time that was had.  Living in a neighborhood with a lot of college kids means we frequently encounter abandoned underpants on our side streets as well. About 90% of the time they're men's underpants. I don't know what this fact says about the underpants' egress. I'm assuming that because women's underclothes tend to be more expensive than men's we take better care of our underpants and are less likely to just leave 'em somewhere.

But beyond my own experiences, underpants are everywhere. South Park had their brilliant "underpants gnomes" episode. Underpants play a pivotal role in many iconic movie scenes such as in Lost in Translation, Risky Business, and Weird Science. Pee Wee's Playhouse regularly brought out a pair of giant underpants (best used as a comfy swing or nun's habit!). There's Dav Pilkey's so-twisted-I-wish-I-would've-thought-to-write-it Captain Underpants series, and Archie McPhee, the darling of novelties aficiandos, has a plethora of underpants-themed products such as Handerpants, Vinderpants, the Emergency Underpants dispenser, and of course, Squirrel Underpants (althought I doubt they make them in a size large enough for our enormous squirrel, Michael Collins).

And yes, although it may sound old-fashioned or childish, I prefer the term 'underpants.' They lend the garments a gravitas that 'panties' or 'briefs' just don't convey.

With the possibility of perhaps sharing a bit too much personal information, I prefer to write in underpants. Granted, this usually happens because I prefer to change into an oversized tshirt or sweatshirt when I get home from work, although in colder weather, I'll add sweatpants. It was good to recently learn that I'm in good company, however:


In a 1978 Newsweek essay, John Cheever wrote, “To publish a definitive collection of short stories in one’s late 60s seems to me, as an American writer, a traditional and a dignified occasion, eclipsed in no way by the fact that a great many of the stories in my current collection were written in my underwear.”

T is for ...

T is for... tattoos.

I got my first one waaaaaay back in 1993.
A bunch of girls from my dorm decided to go downtown and get tattoos, so we all paired up to be safer. (Getting a tattoo was not as commonplace as it is today.)
I watched as sets of girls came back from the place we'd researched and selected with their fresh tattoos. One girl who was on crew got two oars crossed, another got a star and moon, I think someone got a palm tree.

Our designated day came and... my partner pooped out on me. She was sick, she couldn't make it to our appointment. (I should mention here that this girl, who became my roommate foolishly the next year, was a hypochondriac and also pretty suggestible. And possibly not so bright. She insisted once that she couldn't go out for ice cream because she had mono, lyme disease and pneumonia. All at once. Suspicious, we asked her if she'd been to see a doctor. She insisted she had been to the Health Center on campus and that's what they told her was wrong with her. We all wondered about the professionalism of a health care provider who would let someone with that trifecta of diseases just walk back to her dorm room with nothing but advice to take an occasional advil. Later in the semester, when she bailed on going to dinner with a bunch of us, we suggested that her abdominal pain might mean that her prostate was swollen. She apparently went to the Health Center with this self-diagnosis. I never heard what the health professionals' reaction was, but she wouldn't speak to us for a week.)

Anyway, even though we had all promised to go in pairs, I wasn't about to cancel my appointment. So I took the bus downtown, walked a couple blocks and found the place. There were a few intimidating looking dudes there, along with a huge fishtank full of enormous snakes. But as I sat waiting for my turn, one of the dudes turned to look at me and asked, "First one?" I nodded. He broke into a huge, goofy grin and said, "Awww, man, you'll be back. It's addicting!" From the looks of him, I guessed that he found lots of things addicting, but it turns out he was onto something.

Yup. We're totally connected.

I got a little green shamrock, about a half-inch high just inside my right hip-bone. It took about all of five minutes. And he shaded the shamrock with three different kinds of green and two yellows. When I showed the artist what I wanted- I used the shamrock from the Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo- he told me that John F. Kennedy Jr. had had the exact same thing done, but his was on his inner elbow. He apparently had been in town to speak at Cornell a few years prior and had come to this exact same shop to get the exact same tattoo I was getting! I never verified the story, but it went a long way toward getting my grandma's approval.

Because that was the most awesome thing about getting a tattoo for me- everyone was shocked that I did it. I thought that was kind of hysterical because I knew six other smart, motivated, nice girls also had just done the same thing. But apparently it totally went against everyone's expectations of me. My family in particular were shocked. I remember coming home the weekend after I'd had it done and showing my dad. He laughed, spit on his finger and tried to rub it off, thinking it was a fake temporary. It was still kind of puffy and sore, so that hurt like a sonofabitch. He knew it wasn't a fake when I jumped back and yelled and it bled a little.

Uncle Jack

My cousin John arrived at school one weekend a few weeks later with my grandma in tow to bring me to Binghamton for a weekend with my uncle, aunt and cousins. John joked about my tattoo the whole ride there. When we got to my aunt & uncle's house, my grandma pulled me aside in the kitchen and said, "Let me have a look at it." She was the first person who actually ASKED to see it. I showed her and she tapped it with her crooked little finger, nodded and said, "Oh, that's not bad at all. That's nice." Then I told her about JFK Jr. having the same thing, done allegedly at the same place, and I was golden. (We're Irish Catholic. My grandma had so many pictures of JFK in her house that until I was nearly nine years old, I thought he was an uncle I'd just never met. Any association with the Kennedys met with instant approval from my Little Gram.)

The guy with the goofy grin in the waiting area was right- it was addicting and I already wanted another. I don't know if it was a burst of adrenaline or just the exhilaration of changing people's ideas of who you are but when I left the shop that afternoon, I felt like I was walking on clouds all the way back to the bus stop. I had an evening class that night and all throughout it, I kept thinking to myself, "I have a tattoo" and feeling the slight soreness on my hip. It was a kind of secret badge of honor, my superhero costume disguised under my street clothes. It was proof that I could be whatever kind of person I wanted to be, and more than just the quiet, shy, smart kid everyone thought I was.

Seven years later, I got my second one, Kermit the Frog, on my right shoulder. The guy who did it told me about how he had Elmer Fudd tattooed on his lower back, on tiptoe with his hunting rifle, along with accompanying rabbit tracks that went all the way down into his butt crack. He kept going on and on about how much those last few rabbit tracks hurt.

This is pretty. But smaller.
And somewhere else.

I've been wanting a third one for a long time now. I promised myself I could get another after I finally finished my novel. I thought about getting a claddaugh around my original shamrock, but I like the simplicity of that original one. I don't want one on my other shoulder- it seems too matchy-matchy. I've been thinking of my lower back, just above my hipbone like where my shamrock is, but on the back. Somewhere that's not too 'tramp-stamp-y.'

I've toyed with the idea of getting Picasso's Owl drawing ('owl' was my first word, so I think that's nicely symbolic to commemorate finishing my first novel) but since the drawing is all one continuous line, you'd have to have a damn fine tattoo artist to pull it off. And there's nothing worse than a poorly done (or misspelled) tattoo.

I really think I may end up getting Graham Roumieu's Bigfoot with HUNT. GATHER. WORRY. printed underneath. I think it's fitting.

Or maybe a nice Natalie Dee comic: 

S is for ...

S is for Sasquatch.

Or Bigfoot. Whichever name you choose.

My friend LB and I have this obsession with 'Squatch.


I even had my awesome friend Gary Rith make this Bigfoot tea set for LB's birthday a year or so ago.

My favorite is Graham Roumieu's Bigfoot books (and awesome Twitter feed).

One must be careful reading them, however, as one is very likely to soil one's drawers from laughing. (Season 3 of Downton Abbey starts Sunday. Shut up.)

The first is "In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot:"
America’s favorite crypto-zoological hominid is hilariously recast as the modern-day everyman, struggling with eating disorders, casual cannibalism, pop culture, and philosophical quandaries (“Me once believe in good. Now, no. World go shit, just like Bigfoot screenwriting career”).

And then "Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir" says:

Like many reclusive celebrities, Big Foot is misunderstood. In his touching memoir Me Write Book he wants to set the record straight, proving that although he’s larger, hairier, and more foul-smelling than most of us, he’s really not so different underneath.

Only the most coldhearted among us could look on without compassion as this hirsute Everyman struggles bravely with casual cannibalism, Pringles potato crisps, embarrassing moments with peach Schnapps, the desperate loneliness of personal ads, and philosophical quandaries.

Readers will never forget the plaintive voice from the wilderness that howls from every page of this searing, intimate account of a man-beast in the promised land.

And then there's "Bigfoot: I Not Dead":

In his eagerly anticipated follow-up to Me Write Book, Bigfoot returns from exile to share his inspiring, hilarious, and often deeply disturbing experiences as a misunderstood forest gentleman and tragic media darling. These entertaining and often grizzly stories stand not only as a testament to the greatness of the legendary man-beast, but also as a chilling cautionary tale of the downside of a life of celebrity, cannibalism, celebrity cannibalism, wanton violence, and lack of toilet training. As in Me Write Book, full-color glossy spreads depict every intimate, disgusting, and downright insane moment of Bigfoot’s life. Bigfoot: I Not Dead is an unforgettable memoir that will stay with readers long after his foul scent has dissipated.

 Roumieu also does a hysterical Twitter feed, Hello Bigfoot, whose description just says "HUNT. GATHER. WORRY." (By the way, this is totally my next tattoo.)

The toys are pretty funny, too (except that idiotic Fisher Price Bigfoot that came out a couple Christmases ago).

I bought LB this Bigfoot action figure one year- it comes with a stamp pad so you can make real Bigfoot tracks!

There was also a Bionic Bigfoot: 

And this super-creepy Yeti toy:







And this won't give you nightmares:

R is for ...

R is for... reading.

Actually, this post started out about Religion.

It was a response to the people after the presidential election who were wringing their hands and moaning that the US was no longer a Christian country (uh, read some history, folks, freedom of religion means you get to practice the faith you want, not have one religion dictated over all of us) and then again as a response to the people who had the nerve to say that if God was allowed in our schools, tragedies like the Sandy Hook massacre wouldn't have happened (no comment).

Then I saw the film version of Life of Pi, which ponders religion, at least three of them, as well as the likelihood of survival when one is forced to share a lifeboat with a 450 pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

And after seeing and re-reading Life of Pi (one of three completely perfect books, in my opinion, the others being To Kill A Mockingbird and Charlotte's Web) I got thinking about the meaning of religion, especially in regards to myself.

I've never found the things in organized religion that others do: comfort, guidance, reassurance, trust, joy. And as I wondered if there was something else in my life that might provide those things to me, I realized that yes, there is. It's been there all along. (Well, since I was 2 1/2 years old, anyway.) It's reading. Reading is my religion.

When I'm upset, I turn to books. I'm never happier than with my nose buried in a book. Books remind me of how I want to live, instruct me on how to become the kind of person I strive to be. They bring me joy, allow me to experience others' suffering, teach me about the world around me and the beings who inhabit that world.

Books are where I turn to when I need inspiration, salvation or direction.

Books save.

Never have I been so despondent that a book wouldn't pull me from the depths. Ernest Hemingway said, "There is no friend as loyal as a book."


And beyond the joys of owning books, of treasuring your own collections, is the vast embarrassment of riches that is our public library system. A big building- or a small storefront or a van, it doesn't really matter- full of books that you can just take, read and then give back for others to use. What a miraculous concept.

I've always believed libraries pumped antidepressants through their air vents. A few minutes in a library and suddenly the world isn't quite as bad as it once seemed. Maybe there's a special compound that's released from the marriage of ink and paper of large groups of books. Holly Golightly got it wrong- libraries are the real Tiffany's. "The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there."

And so, in salute, here's an abbreviated list of the books I keep coming back to, that I've read and re-read a minimum of five times, most more. Books that warmed me, shook me, frightened me, enchanted me, made me happy to be on this planet, made me long for other worlds. Books that made me thoughtful, sad, and hungry. (Minus the three perfect ones I mentioned above. They are in a class of their own.)

1. A Prayer for Owen Meaney- John Irving
2. The Twenty-One Balloons- William Pene DuBois
3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn- Betty Smith
4. Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
5. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay- Michael Chabon
6. Where the Wild Things Are- Maurice Sendak
7. Outer Banks- Anne Rivers Siddons
8. Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry- Elizabeth McCracken
9. Haven: the Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees & How They Came to America- Ruth Gruber
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings- Maya Angelou
11. Carter Beats the Devil- Glen David Gold
12. The Final Confessions of Mabel Stark- Robert Hough
13. Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates- Tom Robbins
14. The Wind in the Willows- Kenneth Grahame
15. Ramona Quimby, Age Eight- Beverly Cleary
16. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe- Fanny Flagg
17. Fortunate Son- Lewis B. Puller, Jr.
18. No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years- Sinead McCoole
19. The Outermost House- Henry Beston
20. The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven- Sherman Alexie
21. The Prince of Tides- Pat Conroy
22. Anne of Green Gables- L.M. Montgomery
23. In the Castle of the Flynns- Michael Raleigh
24. Johnny Got His Gun- Dalton Trumbo
25. The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases From a State Hospital Attic- Penney, Stastny, Whitaker & Rinzler

And honorable mention: Mister Dog- the Dog Who Belonged to Himself by Margaret Wise Brown