Vicarious Rising

Hanging the Dirty Laundry

Tonight I was washing clothes and dutifully hanging my delicates on the wooden clothes rack I have had since I went to college. My bras, which get severely abused by my rather generously proportioned chest relative to my petite size, last longer when the elastic is not cooked by the dryer. I learned everything I needed to know about doing laundry from my mother. Most of all, I learned that I do not do it right. But please don't ask me what exactly that means. It has something to do with her exacting standards and I think she mentioned that I didn't use her brand detergent and so when her machine died, it was my fault and she wouldn't let me bring my clothes home from college anymore (I wasn't allowed to use her stash of detergent and she used that Amway stuff). It made sense to her. The fact that the washer was 15 years old had nothing to do with it.

I will heartily admit, I am a very bad folder, especially of sheets. To resolve that problem, I usually just put clean ones on the bed and have the set of dirty ones in the laundry. As for my weekends home from college, my boyfriend's mom gladly let me use her machines. I think she thought I just wanted to spend more time with her son and try out letting our undies take a spin together.

Although my mother was stingy about sharing her laundry detergent and use of her facilities, she did give me a hand-me-down clothes drying rack. It was in fine condition, but she thought she needed a new one. It's one of those plain wood ones. She had three and all of them had Saran Wrap carefully covering each bar and taped securely with Scotch Tape. You see, the wood would warp otherwise. Due to the wet clothing hung to dry. You cannot have warped clothes racks. Naturally.

I was thrilled as punch to get this clothes rack, as my mother seldom handed down anything, and yes, this clothes rack is still with me now. It made it through all the moves and construction and even the sale of most of my earthly possessions last year when we sold the New Jersey house. What also lasted up until last summer was the original Saran Wrap and tape, almost pristinely intact, protecting the wood from the evils of damp brassieres.

My mother probably had that clothes rack for a good five to eight years before passing it on to me and I've had it for nearly, egads, 20 myself. I'll tell ya, that wood was a whole lot less warped than I am.

And in a beautiful act of freedom and defiance, last summer I took that plastic wrap off.

I wonder if the Guiness Book of World Records has an entry for the World's longest exorcism.

Esoteric Ephemera, et Cetera

Since all I've been able to think of the past several days is how much I would love to go on a vacation someplace, preferably outside of the U.S., I think I can start my list of Eight Things You Do Not Know About Me (But Didn't Ask) with my rather unusual honeymoons.

1. I have been on three honeymoons. The first one was with my first husband on a cruise. I didn't drink at the time. My second honeymoon was with my second husband and our  then two-year-old son. We went to Disney World.

My third honeymoon was also with my second husband. This was the grown-up honeymoon. We went to Turkey. But I still didn't want to go alone. I invited my best friend Allen and his then girlfriend to go with us. I drank way too much the whole time. Didn't realize it, but experienced my first withdrawal sickness. Thought I was having a heart attack. Of course it made more sense for a 27-year-old woman to be having a heart attack.

My husband and I just had our 10th anniversary and it just occurred to me some time last year it might be a little odd that I didn't want to go on our honeymoon(s) alone.

2. I always eat the cake before the icing.

3. When I was a tween, I wanted to be a travel agent. I would fill out the forms in the New York Times for free travel brochures and once I filled out a form for learning to become a travel agent. What I didn't realize when I provided our home phone number was that they would actually call. My parents were less than happy when they tried to recruit me at age 12.

Now, I still love planning rather elaborate trips. I'd rather do all the itineraries up front so I don't have to think once I am on vacation. I sometimes get called "travel bitch" when I am planning trips because I get a little demanding about people making decisions. I like the title.

4. I hate my breasts. I was going to go into a whole diatribe about this topic, but maybe some other time. They are too big. 'Nuff said.

5. I have a weird thing about the side of the bed I sleep on depending on the room. As soon as I walk in a room, I know exactly where I have to sleep or else I will not be able to sleep at all. Must be some Feng Shui thing I'm unconsciously doing. My husband just defers to me and lets me take whatever spot I want in a new room. He could probably sleep on a bed of nails.

6. I've been on one blind date and I bailed out early because my date and the other couple we were out with were smoking pot in the car on the way from dinner to the night club we were headed to. I freaked out and faked ill. My girlfriend (who was part of the other couple) said my date really liked me and wanted to see me again. He had no clue I'd just skipped out on him and that I was a scaredy cat.

7. I occasionally get silly crushes on guys that serve to just amuse me, but my last one ended up just crushing me. Most of my crushes are on celebrities or even made up characters, such as from fiction books. Unfortunately, the last one was on a good friend of mine, perhaps a shade or two more than a crush, plus I was in the throes of early sobriety. And without a sponsor. Suffice it to say, confession is not always good for the soul. That has been an unmitigated disaster from which I have still not yet extricated my head from the wall. I have a feeling there are pieces of me I won't ever really get back.

8. My eyes are so dark brown that they look almost black - as if my pupils are constantly fully dialated. Or, as a smooth operator told me, as if I am in a state of full arousal. That was an interesting pick up line. Didn't work, but it was memorable.

You are bound to be disappointed after the wait, but that's what I've got, dear readers. I don't remember seeing instructions on how many people to tag. I'll poke around and see who hasn't been tagged yet. Thanks for your patience... and sorry. Next time I will wear a lampshade.

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Taggees: Lea of Geisha, Interrupted, Serizy of The Judgemental Whore, and Nael of Another Door Opens.

Prince Lindworm's Ecdysis & Other Cool Tales

I have an abiding love for fairy tales. My mother approves of education and reading was an excellent way for me to stay quiet and out of trouble. Going to the library remains one of my favorite memories from childhood. I still adore the scent of old books. I get palpitations going into rare used bookstores.

I loved reading variations of the same fairy tales. I think I liked finding the commonality among cultures. Maybe I was looking for ways to identify, even when young. As much as it seems like hyperbole, I was something of a Rapunzel locked in a tower, looking for an escape. My mom kept foiling me with haircuts, but seeing universal truths threaded through stories helped me find faith that I might find a way out of the place I was imprisoned.

The past couple weeks, I've been feeling really good, but also slightly uncomfortable in my skin. But not in a bad way. More like a need to shift something, like perhaps I am on the cusp of something new. Yet at the same time, I am uncertain what it is I need to do, what it is I want to do, and really don't know that I want to change anything at all because I feel so terrific right now.

One of my favorite fairy tales is a Scandinavian version of Beauty and the Beast, called Prince Lindworm. I will save you my summarization and you can read the quick and dirty in Wikipedia, if you so wish, although my favorite telling is by Ruth Manning-Sanders in "The Book of Monsters". The important part of Lindworm's story for this post is that the dude is born a snake because his mother was less than optimal, and his wife-to-be has to help clean up the mess. However, Prince Lindworm's got to do some work too, and it involves shedding some skin, also known in the scientific world as ecdysis.

What I love about this analogy (aside from the titilating bedroom scene of the maiden shedding her nightgown and the snake-man shedding his skins on their wedding night... oh, don't ask. So, I liked fairy tale porn as a kid. My life sucked otherwise. My imagination needed feeding. Oh, shoot, I am getting completely sidetracked now...) is the trade off between the couple, each taking down a layer equally. Of course, then the maiden beats the guy down with a brush and milk bath and reshapes him, and, well, ok, that sounds like fun too, especially since the story ends with a handsome naked guy in bed.

What was I talking about again? Shit, I think there was a personal growth story in here somewhere.

There's a book I want to check out called "The Inner World of Trauma" by Donald Kalsched that dedicates an entire chapter on Prince Lindworm called "Prince Lindworm and Transformation of the Daimonic Through Sacrifice and Choice." The book is about post-traumatic stress, but it also uses fairy tales to promote healing. The chapter includes sections on rage and compassion as well as "refusal to change." Somehow I think this book will speak quite personally to me.

I wish I could identify what exactly is not fitting me right now, but I do think I may have outgrown some skin. I have a temptation to hibernate, but that is old behavior, not how I wish to act now. I was reading about how to tell if shed skin is being done properly, and the way to check on a reptile is by whether the skin is shed as a nice whole piece or in flakey shreds. Healthy shed is when it is done in a less flakey way. I may not be a snake, but I think that may be true for me too.

The scary part is that I shed a layer and that leaves me vulnerable and somewhat naked. It takes me back to feeling more powerless, and I don't care much for that. I suppose that is why I am hesitating. And maybe why a part of me doesn't want to know what the next growth spurt will bring.

Books were my parents, my saviors, my higher power. They still kind of are. But a book isn't going to tell me what's next for me. I've just got to take a leap.