Natasha Alexander » friendship

Game Time revisited – just in time for the Super Bowl!

Natasha — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:08:37 +0000

I first posted this story exactly a year ago. As Super Bowl Sunday approaches, it seems worth posting again, even though posting it pretty much nails it that no one will be inviting us over for a Super Bowl party, Tom Brady or no. Oh well.

Anyhow, here it is. Maybe I’ll finish writing my reflections on rehab (I’m home! I can walk with my new knees!) during the half-time show.

Game Time

All eyes were on Deirdre when she walked into the room. She hated times like this. Those stares, what they were thinking behind their glassy eyes – always made her uncomfortable. Wet circles began forming under her armpits.

Great. Now they could make fun of her hygiene as well as her clothes, her chewed nails.

The room was quiet a second too long; then Jed stood up. “Glad you could make it, Dee.” No one called her Dee. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a Bud Light. He handed it to her and she nodded thanks, took a short sip of the watery liquid. It wasn’t even cold. Ugh, how could they drink that shit when there were so many decent beers out there?

Conversation started again. Larry launched into a monologue that left Deirdre dazed and everyone else entertained. She’d probably interrupted him by showing up. He finally stopped to take a breath and everyone except Deirdre laughed. He must have gotten to the punch line.

Tammy and Britt held their bottles up to Larry in a mock salute and clicked their bottles together.

They were drinking India Pale Ale from Deirdre’s favorite microbrewery. Then Deirdre noticed that everyone was drinking good beer – Larry, Jed, the rest of them.

WTF?

Deirdre imagined pouring her warm Bud Light into the big bowl of chips on the coffee table, or better yet, down Jed’s back. It was the first time she smiled all day.

Instead, she walked to the bar sink and tipped her bottle high, watching the foamy liquid swirl down the drain. She caught Jed staring at her as she opened the refrigerator and got herself a bottle of IPA. She took a long draught from the bottle and stared back. Much better.

So this was the “man cave” Jed talked about incessantly at work. She looked around. Testosterone oozed from the black leather couches, the big flat panel TV, the dartboard hanging on the wall.

She’d been included – inadvertently, she’d assumed – in an email inviting the staff to his house for potluck and the game on Sunday. Deirdre hated football, thought she’d leave before the game started.

But her new year’s resolution had been to get out of her own skin more, to act normal. This was an opportunity for her to at least try. Even her therapist would be pleased.

Her clothes were, as usual, all wrong for the afternoon. She’d worn dark slacks and a twin set. Everyone else was in jeans and a logo team shirt.

“Who’s playing?” This was wrong; she realized that even as the words were coming out. The looks ranged from incredulous to pitying. Well, screw them. They probably had no idea what was happening politically halfway around the world, let alone halfway across the city, if it wasn’t carrying a football team banner.

The silence lasted an instant too long. Tammy rolled her eyes for Britt’s benefit, and Britt barely stifled a chuckle. That did it.

Deirdre would play her own game.

“Hey!” Deirdre’s voice was jovial. “Who wants to play darts before the game?” Her co-workers looked at her. They’d never heard that upbeat voice. No one spoke.

“I said, who wants to play darts?” This time her tone was different. Tammy shifted uneasily in the leather loveseat. Jed stood up. No one spoke.

Deirdre grabbed the darts from the corkboard. They were expensive darts – heavy, weighted just right. The kind she liked. At least Jed had picked those well. She aimed for him first. He dropped silently to the shag carpeting.

Were they all really moving in slow motion, or was it her adrenalin? Deirdre was able to aim slowly, carefully, accurately. Soon she’d used all the darts, and the room was quiet.

She stepped over Britt’s body on her way to the refrigerator. She wanted to grab a couple of beers to take home.

She might watch the football game after all.

Winter Solstice 2010

Natasha — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 02:12:37 +0000

It’s the Winter Solstice, happens every year about this time…. And honestly, I can’t do any better than re-post last year’s Solstice message, with Rebecca Parker’s beautiful Winter Solstice poem.

Happy Holidays, friends! “Let this be the time we wake to life.”

WINTER SOLSTICE

Perhaps
for a moment
the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
gracefully
tilts.
Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One
whose gestures alter earth’s axis
toward love.
In the immense darkness
everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars,
cradled in a swaying embrace,
rocked by the holy night,
babes of the universe.
Let this be the time
we wake to life,
like spring wakes, in the moment
of winter solstice.

~Rebecca Parker

The man in the green house

Natasha — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 03:32:54 +0000

Before moving to the South, I lived in a nice upscale Boston suburb. I was pregnant when we bought the ‘barn red’ Cape Cod style house and moved out after my son started college. My street featured lots of curves, stone fences, big wooded lots and old houses — a quintessential New England small town.

Right after moving in, someone — I think it was his next door neighbor, the woman who tied her dog to a tree in the front yard and used way too much salt on her food — told me to watch out for the man in the green house. He was kind of creepy, she said. Might have snapped a bit after his wife died.

Over the years, I spent a lot of time going down the street — pushing a stroller, walking the dog, riding a bike, driving to work. And each time, I’d pass the green house.

Sometimes I thought about the creepy old man as I walked or biked or drove down the street. Mostly, though, I was so busy racing from one thing to the next that I didn’t have much of anything on my mind but my ‘to do’ list.

There was a rock ledge in front of the green house, and every year the man would plant red geraniums in the little crevices so an unexpected blast of color erupted from the rocks all summer long.

I was driving home one day and passed the green house. The man was lying in the front yard, his legs leaning at an awkward angle against his front steps. It took a few seconds for the scene to register in my brain and I’d already driven several hundred yards by the time it did.

I pulled into a driveway to turn around and a minute later I was getting out of the car in front of the green house.

“Are you all right?”

The man looked at me, then sat up and smiled. “Oh! You startled me. I’m fine – sometimes my back acts up. If I stretch it out like this as soon as it starts I can usually nip it in the bud before it gets too bad.”

He scrambled to stand up and held his hand out to shake mine. “But thank you so much for stopping to ask. I appreciate your kindness.”

I told him how much I looked forward to seeing the geraniums in the ledge and what a beautiful garden he had.

He thanked me again and told me to stop by any time I wanted. He became Don, not the creepy old man in the green house.

Every day from then on when I passed the green house and Don was outside, I waved. He’d wave back. Sometimes I stopped just for a minute to admire his flowers, say hello.

Fifteen years.

I wasted fifteen years not getting to know Don, shutting him out until he had a back ache on his front yard.

How many times, I wonder, had I done just that — get some misguided notion of a person, an idea, a place — and shut the door before realizing what could lie on the other side?

My loss.

W.I.N.O.S.

Natasha — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 02:38:33 +0000

I took this picture at a neat little art gallery/shop in Berea, Kentucky during our last road trip. Unfortunately the place was closed, so I didn’t get a chance to peek inside the book or at least purchase a package of the cocktail napkins, which looked like a real bargain at $4.95.

But I can improvise. Here on the East Coast of the U.S., it is 9 PM right now. I am lifting my glass ( inexpensive California chardonnay) to you, my fellow W.I.N.O.S., in praise, gratitude, humility and a load of hooey for traveling together on this writing journey, NaNo or not.

And I propose a toast: Care to join me each evening at 9 (your time or mine – or what the hell, both) for a quick toast to all the friends we’ve made in blogland and beyond? (W.I.N.O.S. is gender-neutral, in my book. That “W” can stand for Writer, Wing-nut, Whatever — and that should cover most of the bases.)

Ya’ll in?

Cheers!

(If you need a laugh with your wine and you are on Facebook, check out the NaNoWriMo page, where hundreds of people are offering (with varying amounts of shame) short summaries of what they are writing this month. Enjoy.)

Blog tag — I’m it!

Natasha — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 03:43:16 +0000

Thanks to Linda Cassidy Lewis for getting this game of blog tag started around this galaxy and for Dayner for tagging me for this fun Getting to Know You quiz.

1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?

I would have super-suck power. That way I could wave that wand thing in my hand and all the cat and dog hair (see #7 below) covering my clothes, the furniture, the floor, the car seats would magically be sucked into a giant wad and maybe I could knit socks or something if I spun the whole mess into yarn first.

Oh, wait. I live in the South now. Don’t wear socks.

Actually, I’d like to be able to fly.

2. Who is your style icon?

Lady Gaga, of course. I’d like to see what she could do with a pair of Birkenstock sandals, shorts and a T-shirt, my current uniform.

3. What is your favorite quote?

Not exactly a quote, but I’ve had this cartoon taped to the bottom of my computer screen for years now:

4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

My son wrote me a letter this Mother’s Day that said “You’re my best influence and my biggest hero.” Whatta guy.

5. What playlist/cd is in your CD player/iPod right now?

Eva Cassidy singing Somewhere over the Rainbow, Patterson Hood singing Depression Era, Wendy (my niece!) & Mikey singing Hellstomper mixes, and a podcast on Relationship Development Intervention for autism treatment.

Really.

6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?

Most definitely a morning person. I love the light in the morning and being part of that big cosmic rebirth-y thing with the birds and the sunrise and the dew. The coffee’s better when it’s fresh-brewed, too.

7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?

Oy. They’re both hanging around, Polly and Lola, waiting to see what I’ll type. It’s not a preference – it’s a lifestyle thang, and I have to have at least one of each – dogs and cats, that is. Next time, though, I’m getting pets with transparent fur (see #1 above).

8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?

I grew up reading and living Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew Too’s been my moniker and alternate persona for years now. I’m always searching for clues. Clues for what? I dunno. Sometimes that’s a mystery, too.

I think most of my regular blogging cadre have taken part in this eight-step dance now, but Merrilee? Want to get started with the Southern hemisphere? You don’t have enough already on your plate. And I’d love to see what you write.