the mini-series of urbanity: my tiny window to the world seen through my stoop

What she got out of it was the world can be seen from her stoop. For the duration of half a burrito, swimming in extra green sauce with avocado her favorite green stuff, and the reminiscence of an ice coffee slurped through a straw sitting next to one of her closest friends, she had seen more and a lot in the last few moments. She and her sit together their bodies curve the shape of the stairs both residing on the 4th step, the top. Legs outstretched and covered by additional jackets for the breeze of a san francisco evening has begun. They sit perched in their own picture window to ebb and flow of urban life.

A man and woman walked by with in unison towards valencia to the right. The man carrying a surf board. The woman carrying a overstuffed bag. Next three runners in varying heights and in varying gender and a similar slender build run by. One of the girls recognize them but it is too late, they are gone. They return to the back and forth of bench time now no longer on a bench but a stoop. The catching up of life of work of love of dreams of all of it. Until the next image swirls by again. A smallish asian women with a pack of yap dogs start going crazy upon seeing another breed. She stands still with the barking mob mentality until they pass. Owner of other breed and friend laugh at the ferocious brawl. Small creatures barking like it might be their last. Then the roommate of one of the girls comes out of the house to talk of lost cats and happy hours pending and birthdays to celebrate. And then she is gone.

There is then space to just watch and see the glisten of the sun as it begins to dive to to the depths of the earth. The light is diagonal on top of the building makes the pastel painted projects look new. She and her look to the left and see a man, a man who looks at them and makes eye contact but not in a checking you out kind of fashion, eyes that are waiting to do something. And she turns to her and glance away. There is a pop. And a look to the left and there stand the shortish man around manhood stabs the tire again. The air releases out. He never looks at them again. And runs around the corner. What to do when you see a man pop tires of a family who parked not but a few minutes earlier? Random. Or not. What to do? When someone has a knife and long gone? Pause. A man and woman walks by the woman with a guitar the electric variety hugging her hip.

Until a car double parks light pulsing in and out until one, two, three women walk the red carpet home. Two of the three dressed in vibrance of colors of wigs of high heels and intoxicated in laughter. Two drag queens her neighbors are home. And in as the sun sets and the burrito foil is wrapped and as the two stand up again what she got out of it the world could be seen from her stoop. A few steps outside her home. She could sit there and observe it all. And how quickly she can turn around and open the door and go back inside. Deciding again when to come and sit and observe the picture window of her own making. Her own show of urbanity.

flashback: guess who is coming to dinner: round dos

so my brother didn't bring home another cougar but i revisited this piece and did some flip and flopping for a writers conference app and i thought i'd bring you a new version. this was a fav on a blog and in my class the first time around so let's hope you like the changes. i took into consideration questions such as how can the reader know what you look like kate in comparison? (unless you know me) or what did you parents think?- them being born agains made it all the more interesting. sorry i haven't been posting regularly the end of grad school and the end of the school year caught up with me. i am going to get back to my more regular posts! i promise! thanks as always for stopping by and your support.

What do you do when your brother tells you; he is dating someone closer to your age, someone closer to the age of your stepmother, and also your father? You have two choices after the surprise falls out of you again, to either: 1) throw judgment out the window or 2) judge, judge, and judge some more. Well I wish I could say I did one, but that just isn't part of my older sister makeup. I still want to protect my brother even if he doesn't think he needs it. So I opted for two, plus some lectures later, and to get through some herbal sedatives, lots of herbal sedatives. If I knew what I had in store, I would have gone to the doctor and begged for some prescription freedom. Lesson learned.

All I see is three to four inch heels, well manicured feet, jeans with sequins on the bottom and little on the rear just to make sure you are paying attention, they glisten in the light of the hotel bar against our overpriced champagne. Then the boobs, huge obtrusive boobs, cleavage that makes Pamela Anderson stalkers even swoon. No, it keeps going when I see her face. Her face is covered in makeup, makeup like you used to wear when you couldn’t be comfortable in your own skin. That was when I was 15. She is 42. Very tan skin, almost too tan, and hair, her hair is perfectly done, almost bleached but still shockingly pretty. Not one knot, not one hair out of place. The OC embodied in one woman is sitting next to me, next to me as my brother introduces her to me and me to her.

My younger brother, my brother is 20 years her junior. She tells me as she speaks with her half-British, half-Laguna Hills dialect about her surgeries, “I have had two boob jobs, my ears pinned back, a nose job.” Holy fuck, I just met you 5 minutes ago I think. If I had all that work done, I hope I would be hotter. More unique. Less Barbie, more exotic.

The older sister. Me. Melting in this fancy hotel couch. Mental music plays of why me and fuck my life on repeat. I want to take my brother under this wing to shelter him from this storm of his undoing. I helped raise him for God sakes don’t I get to partake in the all-important role of badgering him and providing unsolicited advice as all parents do. I was once upon a time a child raising a child – a mother role left to a motherless child, me then, and me now.

As we sit next to each other- we are the polar opposites of femininity, of womanhood. My skin is pale and pasty from the fog and mist of winter reality against her fake and bake orange. My body parts all real. My breasts still perky even over the age of thirty without a doctor’s help or assistance, but my lips are fine markers of lines. And no personal trainer to perfectly sculpt me. My dark hair dyed only to hide the gray of an early grayer and it is done up because I didn’t wash it and barely brush it.

It wasn't just our looks, which left us on opposite sides of the line drawn so regularly in womanhood. There was more. The more part never stopped pushing my limits of needing prescription freedom or needed to regress into the fetal. She worked up to the important things when we had known each other a little longer like 24 hours or something. “Have you had your boobs done? They are very nice.”

“Excuse me. No, they are real.”

“Well I’m thinking of getting mine done again,” she sings in a high pitch.

Shoot me. Please take me to my dead place. Whatever I did universe, God, Buddha, in my former life please, please forgive me. I will do whatever penance required, live more simply, be kinder to my neighbor, get rid of material possessions-just make this lady go away. I spew, “If you make them any bigger, you are going to fall the fuck over.” Aloud. Not in my head. She laughed her uncomfortable laugh. Can I vote her off the island of my genetics? This is a joke of the worst kind. She tells us how she renamed herself. Renamed herself? Because too many women in the salon, too many women in the salon had her name. Is anything about this woman real? Anything at all? What does my brother see in her but her boobs her huge boobs? I can barely avoid my eyes from glancing there. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

She liked to flash her goodies to all. Even to my family. She wore a nighty around my uncles and parent’s homes, homes against their own judgment they welcomed her in, and didn’t pause for one moment to evaluate the appropriateness of it all. Here is a tip- black lace and silk and seeing the top of your thighs or maybe your thong not so good for the family visits especially not the first one.

The cougar didn't just advertise she took it to the next level. With my brother as a willing participant of course. While we try to act “normal” around the wildlife dating my brother, she and my brother cuddle like teenagers so much my parents had to intervene. See my parents- my father and stepmother are born again Christians so they are not really down for making out or semi-dry humping on their couch. In their home, they require a prayer before meals and the four minute discussion/lecture entitled: Why don’t you go to Church as part of their list of duties as Christians. “I don’t want to be speeding up around in heaven and not see you,” preaches ever so subtly my father. My father has given himself a timeout in his bedroom listening to his peace of blaring Fox news and flying airplanes on his computer. As my brother and the cougar rest on each other’s bodies upon the coldness of the leather sharing a square reserved for one. My stepmom has to request backup from my father to deal with their inappropriateness; my father yells from down the hall, annoyance reverberated against the walls of our family home.

No one tells you how to deal with this, no one writes books about what happens when your brother or son brings home a cougar. Maybe I should write one. It would include the following topics in the series: How to deal with your brother when he brings home a cougar, or becomes part of the conservative movement and is on the O’Reilly Factor before he can drive or gets deported from Africa and you are notified by the Drudge Report and Huffington Post not your next of kin. The cliff notes on my brother are as follows: this isn’t the first stunt he has pulled- and it most defintiely won't be his last. I am in shock. In shock about myself. Why am I as surprised as much as I was at his first attempt at oppositional defiance disorder?

The surprise of me, his mini-mother, is fueling the fire of this rebellion. I want to protect him. I want him to be okay. I want to know my attempt at motherhood was not failed. Even if it was a result of circumstances beyond my control that I became his mother. And as this visit ends, something changes inside of me. I grew distaste of course for OC woman with fake tits who are orange, but also I need to let go and realize the shock will keep happening. If it isn’t a cougar, it will be something else and it will be soon.

So next year, next Thanksgiving, I’m going to my local coffee shop or nursing home or senior center or maybe I’ll just make a house visit to Hef’s mansion and really take it up a notch. I mean I might not be the girl next-door kind of girl material- me being a brunette and all and don’t forget with no silicone or saline to call my own. Hey it is worth a try. I hope to find my own boyfriend to borrow, to rent, to fall in love with and to take home. He might be 70 or 80, but it’s my turn to be the talk of my family.

in the middle of it: my own reality tv show of two lovers reunited

i am back! i finished a year of grad school and my relationship with the library made it impossible to post and write. but i broke up with the library but sadly we might get back together sooner than i would like. here is piece about me being able to see lovers reunite and i just couldn't move and had to listen and write. enjoy! all my thanks, always!

In the middle of it. I am the middle of a conversation of reunited lovers after twenty years. I find myself by the happenstance, the providence, the fate of life. I am not either said lover. Just a bystander who can't move from this seat. Stuck here. Because what will happen next seems like it might be too good to actually move. Scene begins as: man walks in start of beard sprouting, motorcycle helmet in hand, he glances at me and gives me a half soft smile. He finds a seat behind me. A moment or two pass. And then she walks in. In the business causal attire of work. Full of movement and talking. He raises up to meet her. Embracing her around her shoulders. I just never thought I'd see you again. In person. He confesses. In quickness she responds guess you have been giving that a lot of thought. And I'm in. In the middle of this. Because what will happen next is what movies are made of. Not the kind you can rent old school at the video store or netflix or hulu. No the real life of reuniting. I must watch. And see.

And so it begins. The man waits as she orders. She refuses his offer to buy her coffee. She talks at a rapid pace to all those around her, a co-worker, the barista, and even me when I get up for a moment. He sits waiting patiently. To sit across from her again. And then she returns to the seat. They are behind me so all I can hear is their words now. No facial expression or movements. The NPR radio show of love affairs lost. And found.

She begins. And talks and gives the synopsis of her life the last years. Fast and furious and the gentlemen rarely speaks. He tries to give her a morsel of him. But she refuses. The bio of places she has lived. The CV of jobs she has acquired. The snapshot of starting her witty yoga site and her current job. He takes the pause as an opening, when I was shooting those kids. My own eyes crinkle. Oh he is a photographer. And then it gets interesting when the job interview pauses and real life begins.

It begins in a story where she realizes her sister set him up with someone after they broke up. I can't believe she did that. I am still going to talk to her about it. Years past not mattering. Are you single? The nod happens but I can't see behind me just in the pause in the back and forth. Next to the discussion of marriage and kids. Have you done it? Will you do it? Conversations of years had before. And had again. She never married and never wanting kids. Until now maybe. I would shit my pants every time I thought a serious boyfriend would want to get married. I would freak out around the holidays. I am not a commitphobe, but scared. Him marrying a woman due to the realities of immigration. I did get married. But it wasn't a real marriage. We treated it as dating plus legality. And more words in between until he said we treated it as a real marriage. Everything was great expect the one part that always worked with everyone else. The sex. I thought she would come around. I thought she would open up.

And as I listen and write down on my napkin my only piece of paper a great on the fly notebook. I can't help but think what happens next. Next for them. In this talking. In this reuniting. In this thing called love. But although I am in the middle of it, I got to get up and go. To do what I have to do. In the middle of their thing, I needed to move on to mine. And in watching them. I find faith and remember my own lost loves. Reuniting doesn't mean happily ever after but it fixes the space broken in disconnection. I walk away and feel lucky to have seen. Someone else's reality. In remembering my own.