Buying shoes on line

How insane is it to buy shoes on line. Think about it, you look at a picture of a shoe, can’t touch it, feel how flexible it is, can’t smell the leather, if it’s even made of leather but you buy it anyway, without trying it on and walking in it. That’s crazy.

So the shoes come and you put them on. What are the odds you will like them, they fit, they are comfortable and you can walk in them without feeling like you have cinderblocks strapped to your feet? Buying shoes on line is as stupid as buying a car without taking a test drive, as idiotic as serving chowder without taste testing and as dangerous as marrying a blind date before the sun comes up.

Okay, so the shoes don’t fit, feel like shit, and you have to ship them back. So what do you do? Do you learn…don’t buy shoes on line, always test drive before you buy, taste before you serve and get to know the guy your mother set you up with before you commit to a lifelong relationship between the sheets. Or do you take the first offer to come along and sign with the agent you found on line?

I’d sign.

I'm a little bit...what?

I queried an editor once, ‘…if Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck had a love-child, I would be the writer which emerged from their illegitimate tryst’. It didn’t get results, I didn’t want to write for that editor anyway, but it did get me to thinking…when I get older will I have bushy eyebrows, oh wait, I am already older and I haven’t had to tweeze in years.

With apologies to both  families of the dear-departed I am beginning to hum the old tune by Donny and Marie, I’m a little bit housewife, I’m a little bit pain in the ass.

Now that I’m writing a weekly column for a great local paper I’m beginning to realize that my writing is indeed morphing into a kind of mix of down-home Bombeck witticism (updated) and Rooney’s darted-wit (I smile more). When I read my columns out loud before I send them I hear the lilt, the rhythm of Rooney’s voice. It’s oddly comforting, I miss the old guy on Sunday nights.
I can see myself behind a desk speaking into a camera, ‘so when did pregnant women start calling their big bellies, bumps and when did we start to wear scarves, inside the house in June, instead of outside when the weather goes arctic? Stuff like that.

Not much more to say on the subject…the phone is ringing…maybe it’s 60 minutes...nope, it's a Republican neighbor.

I love caller ID?  I remember when phones were big black hunks of plastic with a dial and a cord and no way of knowing who was calling. It was kind of like not knowing whether you were having a boy or a girl. Whose calling, which bill collector, which kid asking to send money? Oh, it's the Republican neighbor, complaining. Some things are still the same.

HAppy, HAppy, HAppy

You know it’s not like painting, hang it on a wall, like it or not like it, eye of the beholder and all that.
It’s not like singing, nice voice, magnificent, funny sounding, or shrill. I hear, everybody that can hear hears and has an opinion.
It’s not like playing an instrument, practice, practice, practice and you might be good enough to perform on the stage of Carnegie Hall.
It’s not like sculpture, or quilt making, or knitting or whatever is considered an art.
Of what am I writing, you may ask.
Because of how this works I cannot tell you.
I love tricks with words.
It is something we can all do. So, to keep you quessing I will now shut up.

Imagine

IMAGINE, the post I recently removed is now part of a larger piece published today on Divine Caroline, LHJ's on line componet. Thank you to those who commented. This simple essay from the heart was inspired by a friend's dicovery of her mother's talent long after she was gone.

It is within each person's heart to dream, within each dream to imagine.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/24133/130035-imagine-when-regret-passed-generation

It's dark in here but hopeful

I have come to the decision that I am nothing more than a bobbysoxer waiting for the phone to ring.

Sitting on pile of dad’s shoes in hall closet, phone on lap waiting… “Oh mom, I just know the captain of the football team is going to call and ask me out.”

Sitting on stairs, staring at phone, “I’m not hungry mom. I’ll just wait here by the phone because I know he’s going to call soon.”

Running in from outside, “Moooooom, did he call?”

Pick up phone, listen for dial-tone. No it’s not dead. Maybe he tried to call when I picked it up to see if it was working and he got a busy signal. Pick up phone again and listen.

In bed, pillow wet, “why doesn’t he call?”

Fuck him. Who the hell does he think he is anyway; to toy with my heart this way? I knew I shouldn’t have gone all the way but, well…

Sitting on floor in hall closet, phone on lap waiting… “Oh mom, dad’s shoes are upstairs, they were way to lumpy. I’m more comfortable now…waiting…

Actually I'm not comfortable at all in the dark, waiting or otherwise.

I am holding my breath

I have removed my latest post, thank you all for your comments, because it's on to bigger and better. I won't know the outcome for a few days but if this were years ago I'd be tackling the mailman or breaking the hinge on mailbox, opening, closing, opening, closing... you get the picture.
I will be checking my email like...well...you know.
Well...I'm off to email, maybe just maybe...

That book, that boy

I was given a year, not to live, but to write…a book. I didn’t have to get a job, cook or clean, unless I wanted to prove I wasn’t a freeloader. For that year I didn’t prove anything. Tried. Failed. Learned.

My parents gave me a choice, finish college or live in Johannesburg, South Africa, with my aunt and uncle for a year. I packed my bag; one suitcase which could not exceed 44 lbs., was a challenge, considering it had to hold a year’s worth of clothes, but I did it. (Mini skirts don't weigh much). It was a great experience, a year living under apartheid, but as I’ve often said if I had a do-over, I would have stayed stateside and finished college; Rutgers.

My year 12,000 miles from home, taught me a lot about how the world works, about how what we see and hear on the news isn’t actually what really happens. No matter how free we think we are, how informed, how sophisticated the internet, (no internet back then), we see what someone else wants us to see; government, media, individuals. Political diatribe aside, this is not what this is about, it’s about that book I had a year to write, that book which tuned out to be a miserable attempt at a failed education. That book which started it all.

I don’t remember the plot, probably because it didn’t have one. I do remember the name of my main character, Violet. Where the hell did that name come from; the color of her eyes maybe? Don’t remember, don’t care.

I do remember the hum of my uncle’s electric typewriter, plugged into a transformer the size of a New York City phonebook. The transformers were used because US power was different than RSA power. Enterprising Yanks and South Africans stole the transformers out of the US Coke machines. My uncle didn’t steal it but he bought it from someone who did.

After a quick tour of the beauty which was South Africa back then I spent two months pounding out the story. Don’t remember what the story was about, probably because it didn’t have one. Day after day I communed with those keys dreaming about fame, fortune and a flight back home. I hated South Africa. I wanted no part of system which not only strangled blacks but the whites who ruled them. I should have kept a journal, a diary; I should have jotted down my experience like a good writer does, but I did not because I was so wrapped up in misery.

I wanted to go home more than I wanted to breathe.

But as life does and people do, I switched things up, got a job, fell in love and then went home with a marriage proposal and a dream of living half way around the world forever. Couldn’t do it though, couldn’t give up freedom both personal and political.

And the book; gone to the memory of a girl named Violet. What did I learn? That writing can replace loneliness for a while but by the time you reach a hundred pages you better have something of value to hang on to besides the hum of a typewriter and an unrealized dream.

Writing a book is a project, a serious project taking dedication, discipline and time, lots and lots of time alone in your head and away from people. I’ve written two. Loved almost every minute spent creating something other than myself and almost love it as much as life.

South Africa is free now. It’s wonderful the news reports say, it’s beautiful Oprah sings, but I’ve heard about the ghetto which once was my beautiful neighborhood. I’ve heard about their Aids epidemic. Do I ever want to go back, maybe someday?

And what about that young beautiful Swedish South African boy I fell in love with. I think he died; if not from life than in my mind. It never would have worked. No transformers for hearts.