Margot is spring cleaning:

I am cleaning out my office and unearthed a forgotten card that has Maxfield Parrish’s painting The Reluctant Dragon, of a gentle dragon sitting with a peasant boy, a small fiefdom in the distance… I bought it years ago because it reminded me of a dream I’d had. Much to my surprise, I’d forgotten that I had written the dream inside the card. My dream more or less as follows: Once there were many dragons…There was a small dragon (I seem to recall the “littlest dragon” bandied back and forth) who was fond of humans, especially one child. When the time came for dragons to leave this realm, the little dragon wanted to stay behind be with the kid. An elder had compassion for the little dragon and told him that if he wanted to stay behind, he could, but he would be bound in another form. He bade the little dragon to sleep, and when the dragon opened his eyes, he saw that he was a cat, safe to watch over his boy.

When I woke from the dream, my cat was on the bed, licking an extended paw, as if to say, “Now you know.”

****************************************************************************
A light rain is falling outside tonight. She knows I seldom sleep. Margot knows my dreams are so vivid I wake up exhausted when I *do* sleep. My dreams have three different plots I won’t get into without a psychologist waving a prescription pad, but there’s one I will tell you. It’s so specific I hate to think about it.

In this dream, I am a tall, thin blond girl with very white skin. My ragged dress, filthy and smeared with something brown, is very light blue. Smoke is in the air. A crowd gathers. I am sick, so sick, with fear, but the thing I am sharply, painfully conscious of is that I am standing on raw wood, sticks and twigs. My feet – in the dream and in waking life – are used to being bare, used to the snap and give of the smallest bits of wood, but now this sensation comes with a flood of churning horror. It feels like it’s happening now; it doesn’t feel like a dream. I wake up gasping for breath.

It may come as no surprise that every person I tell this to averts his or her eyes and says, “I’m sorry.” You may find yourself doing it now. The Wiccans look fatigued. Christians make dubious faces but say sleeping pills really help, which is kind of telling. Catholics wince. Buddhists like Margot, who accept the idea of the past leaking into the present, nod. Eyes still averted, but they nod. Apparently, if you believe in reincarnation, you accept that you’ve been publicly murdered in brutal, disgusting ways at least a time or two. I don’t know. I have no way of knowing anything worthwhile in this life. Margot, well-adjusted and sanguine, dreams in lovely Japanese fairy tales, but I dream about being slowly burned alive.

Maybe this accounts for my lifelong belief that nothing bad will happen to me when it’s raining.

Let’s welcome our new Pope, shall we? His little red wagon, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is the face of the Inquisition in our lifetime. I have the terrible feeling we’ve faced one another before.

This morning, my email is out of commission so a number of people are, fortunately or unfortunately, not receiving the kind of verbal beatings that follow this:

1. We’ve been friends for thirty years. You keep a secret from me. Not an ordinary “I slept with your boyfriend” kind of secret, but a really big one.
2. I find out. And I find out you specifically didn’t tell me.
3. After the murderous impulses subside, after I’ve stopped picturing you as a bloody pinata, after I’ve stopped trying to think of where I’m going to dump your corpse so as to confuse law enforcement officials in New Jersey where household pets received casual training in how to locate bodies downwind of the largest garbage dump in the world, after I’ve calmed down enough to make eye contact without trying to put soup spoons through your contact lenses, I rehearse conversations in my head. In these conversations, you get the point and never keep another big secret from me again, even if you *are* sleeping with my boyfriend.

Miss Sasha has inherited the quirky temper, but her fiance lacks the patience for diplomacy:

Hey,
How’s life? Things around here are crazy…David saw that I was stressed when I got back and did the responsible thing…he took me shooting! I got to use my new .22, it is great!

Well, it’s nice to see my beautiful daughter carry on the tradition of violence-based peacemaking.

******************************************
This time, I doubt I’ll get past the stabbity stab stabbing fantasy anytime soon. I almost feel sorry for my colleagues at today’s business lunch.

Perhaps there’ll be lobster bisque?

I’m on the cordless while putting away my laundry when I pick up the hamper near the window.

Me: Oh. My. God. There’s a giant dead bee on the floor! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Him: A what?
Me: A giant dead bee. It is the size of Zimbabwe.
Him: A B? Like the consonant?
Me: No, like “bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!” If something were flying around my bedroom stuttering, “B-b-b-b-b” do you think I’d be squealing like a fool?
Him: I think a flying H would be better. You’d feel the menace.
Me: I’d call Easy Reader to exterminate.
Him: So it’s a bee. Yellow and black?
Me: Who the hell knows? It’s gone tits-up!

Will someone please come over to my house, remove the dead bee from the premises and explain to me when I became such a pussy?

Project: Princess & the Pea(tm) is a most exciting sustained undertaking to improve the quality of life for – well – Me, because isn’t that what’s really important? That I am happy? Of course it is. Let’s review some of our terms, objectives, procedures and projections so you can join Project Princess & the Pea(tm) and add to the project’s success and My happiness.

Terms:
1. Hereafter, I will refer to myself as “Me” and “I” with concommitant use of related possessive pronouns. The reader should expect to see such references as “I don’t see how this relates to Me” and “What about My needs?”

2. Hereafter, the reader will accept his or her responsibility for adding to My happiness or accept the consequences. Such consequences may include but are not limited to public ridicule, private ridicule and brief, embarrassing marriages in the Bahamas. Responsibilities vary from reader to reader, but lavish gifts and extravagant praise for Me are good places for anyone to start.

3. The persons occupying the house directly below My bedroom, bathroom and living room windows are in fact known to Me for many years. It’s an interesting coincidence that they purchased this property. I actually like them very much. They’re part of the local polyamory crowd. Hereafter, I will refer to them as “Those Fuckers Next Door” (TFND). I couldn’t mean that more fondly.

4. Hereafter, the term “happiness” will always relate to Me, My or Mine; as in “Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!”

Objectives:
Project: Princess & the Pea(tm) seeks to improve My quality of life through simple, limited forms of revenge against TFND. The need for revenge stems from a 2004 incident in which TFND chopped down a very large, very old tree directly below My windows. I really liked this tree. When a purple lounge chair blew off the top of My apartment building, landed atop the tree and remained forty feet from My bathroom window for months, I was amused, and being amused measurably improved My quality of life. The tree also concealed – as I discovered when it was gone – two barrio-grade backyards I now see every time I gaze out the window. This view has a deleterious effect on My happiness.

I must avenge the death of this tree; preferably in a way that polishes up My karma. My intentions are the very best!

Procedures:
1. I open the living room window screen and lean way out.
2. I fling seeds as far across the row of backyards as the winds of revenge will carry them.
3. I wait.

Note 1. Timing is critical. Procedures 1-3 should be undertaken under the cover of darkness and when the threat of rain is imminent. Without rain, seeds are bird food. While that may amuse birdwatchers and their arch enemies the lovers of stray cats, dry and blowing seeds do not further the aims of Project: Princess & the Pea(tm).

Note 2: Choice of seed types is crucial to sustained amusement during the long waiting periods. After the dear tree came down, I was horrified to discover that the barrio-grade backyards contained layers of garbage, auto parts and discarded construction materials. Fortunately, this was keeping the mud in place during rainstorms so New Brunswick was in no danger from erosion. There’s also a homemade doghouse for a large pet that no longer inhabits it. I say it’s a doghouse because someone painted on a name:

H E R C U
L
E
S

It’s a nice touch. With the dog gone, I worried TFND and their Neighbors, and *their* Neighbors might be lonely. Loneliness anywhere diminishes My happiness. The first time I threw seeds out the window, they were fast-growing and fast-spreading plants. The seeds were for fragrant, instantly recognizable plants everyone loves. Yes, everyone loves them, and I thought with the stray animal population TFND might find new friends. Yes, I gave them mint and catnip. My quality of life improved at the very thought of it.

Later, I thought, ‘Why limit the bounty? What about some color?’ Though I enjoyed the concept and the exercise, I admit the watermelons have been a disappointment. They require more care than the unsuspecting Neighbors devote to their curious foliage.

More recently, I threw out leek and carrot seeds in the hope that this would attract vegetarians. They too have their place on the food chain.

Projections:
The future of My amusement is bright, a stated objective of Project: Princess & the Pea(tm). Suggestions and donations of interesting seeds are welcomed by the management.

You may find Project: Princess & the Pea(tm) has a practical application in your own neighborhood. It is important to remember that no harm must come to animals or their dumb humans as this would violate the objective of bringing Me happiness. And mint.

Thank you for your interest in Project: Princess & the Pea(tm)!

Margot was living the dream of a clearer conscience. Then one day, the crystal ball fogged, someone cackled, “Poppies…poppies…” and the nightmare came to her:

Hi darling, how are you?

I think that I wrote to you that my company was bought by a mega corp that is heavily invested by Monsanto, 2 pharmas, Phillip Morris, Entergy Nuclear, Waste Management Inc, Citigroup, Bank of America, and a few others. What is scary about this? The nukes are for irradiating food, the WMI wants to use treated human waste as fertilizer for organics, Monsanto was the creator of genetically modified soy and corn…Hain-Celestial owns 100+ companies in the natural products industry, including a large soymilk company and several food companies that use grain, soy, corn…On and on it goes, the daisy chain of horror and end times. Me, I am reminded of the story of the fox and the scorpion…and our inevitable surprise and shock when we are indeed stung mid-river, only to have that ugly truth of self-responsibility reflected back at us as we sink into swift, deep waters.

The other night I actually had a work nightmare. I haven’t had one in many years, and it was the work dreams that preceded my leaving my previous employer that first time. And I am tired of the mega pressure, no longer does it seem a worthy challenge. I long to be reflective and quieter. Where the 100 watt smile illuminates loved ones rather than for customers, and the eloquence and beauty that lives in my soul is used to inspire greatness, compassion and imagination rather than a smoother complexion or a sunless tan. (I ask myself: What is wrong with aging, anyway? We sell our souls to look like we are something we are not. And right now, it doesn’t seem very important at all.)

I have become a distant dreamer that is trapped in the waking world, lost to sleep and dreams. I acknowlege that I got/get caught up in the material, the maya, the illusion. It is times like that this that force me to wonder: what happened?

I don’t wonder what became of the old me(s), I don’t think I could go back to being a hippie wanderer vegan herbalist, or a cog in the entertianment industry, nor any of the other many incarnations, even if I wanted to. What does the caterpillar think while it is in the chrysalis, does it know what is happening, changing into something that it can’t even imagine? What it will become? That the necessary struggle to break free of the very thing that enabled its transformation is the very thing that will make it strong enough to fly?

I somehow doubt that it sits in its cozy sac watching CSI and XFiles and crying its uncertain little heart out, but who knows? Maybe. Perhaps this is the struggle that I must endure to find out if I will be strong enough to fly.

On the brighter side, I have been eating a lot of vegetarian food, not drinking coffee, and not smoking the chronic, so I am slim and thinking clearer, though incredibly emotional. That’s a funny thing too. Sometimes I would kill to lose 10 pounds, but when I do, it is shadowed with the despair that for all that emotional struggle, what does it mean other than my pants fit better? No worlds were saved in the making of this waistline. I think the weed suppresses the expression of negative stuff, so it can build up like a septic tank. Today I dreamt that I touched my belly and it had actual abs. That’s a first.

In the words of the austere wise man Austin Powers: “I’m spent.”
**************************************************

It’s like coming to a personal crossroads and finding the Devil’s already paved.

She’s a tough little mystic in thigh-high boots. I have every confidence she’ll be hydroponic farming and goat shearing in no time, and somehow, she’ll be totally hot doing it. I admire her determination to live both well and ethically, and her resistance to becoming a faceless corporate butt monkey.

Banana, anyone?

That shoe thing was a real blast, especially the part where my sisters cut off their toes to shove them into my stilettos. Thank God we’ve got Lysol, huh? Now, I’m sorry to send you a note via carrier pigeon from the other end of the castle but it’s going to take me all day to walk over there and I couldn’t wait to tell you: this is no way to conduct a torrid affair. Criminy! I may be the ginchiest girl in the land, complete with talking mice and a fairy godmother waving magic sticks around like Jackie Chan on steroids, but that’s all the magic stick waving we’re doing around here. We haven’t tried melding our record collections. Charming, we haven’t even shared a bathroom or divvied up underwear drawers, so how can we say this ever after is so happily? I want some empirical proof, and you are going to give it to me, in person. Got that? Now, peel off your tights and and think of pumpkins.

Love,
Cindy

When you’re an accomplished trollop, you either own it or pretend to have a prior engagement during Fleet Week. Mamie and I tried counting our lovers once and it was like we’d dropped a box of toothpicks. We gave up counting when we got down to fun details like, “Remember that guy who idolized you at that convention?”

“Who? The Chew Toy?”

“We were sharing a hotel room. That was the longest breakfast I ever ate.”

“Yeah, thanks for clearing out. Did you know I’d hooked up with him the year before?”

“Maybe. Was I there the year before?”

“The year before, we turned a corner and found Emmy shampooing a bass player in the hotel sink.”

“How did that whole man fit in a hotel sink? I swear he was nothing but broad shoulders and soapy bunny ears.”

“Miracle. Best not to think too much about it. Can’t be re-created in non-convention reality.”

My memory is not great. In fact, if Mamie forgets the last fifteen years it could be argued by almost anyone who is not a blood relation holding Christmas gift receipts that I never lived. She and I have this conversation on at least a weekly basis:

Mamie: We were at this cool place and *this* was going on and that person was doing such-and-such, and this totally unbelievable thing happened next and we were all terrified and you –

Me: Me? I was there?

Mamie: And you did THIS UNIMAGINABLE THING! We evaded capture once again!

Me: I have no recollection of that. Huh! I’m SO interesting!

After the World’s Best Divorce(tm) from my truly wonderful ex-husband, I was sure I’d never get remarried. It’s been more than ten years and now I’ve started to wonder. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have that list of ex-lovers, so no one believes for a minute I’ll be alone very long – or so I learned recently.

Me: Did you know that statistically speaking I stand a better chance of being struck by lightning than I do of getting married again at my age?

Mom: …statistically, yes…

This is somewhat comforting: Mom thinks I’m enough of a harlot to find a new spouse if I want one. She would also prefer this time the spouse not be someone else’s, but she’s picky. Well, it’s a fact you can’t please everyone, because some people are members of your family, and that’s illegal.

*With apologies to Mrs. Betty Bowers, whom I love with my whole black heart.

Last night, Blogger gave me fits and I couldn’t remember if I knew how to fix the problem. After our tiff, I polished my nails – which takes hours; I’m from Jersey – and refused to make eye contact until Blogger saw things *my* way.

Last night, a man rang my doorbell. Through the peephole, I saw a face I didn’t recognize. I saw it in profile. I asked, “Who is it?”

“Is mrhthhspphh home?” he asked. I almost laughed.

“I’m sorry, who?” I asked again.

“Is mrhthhspphh home?” he repeated. I’m not slurring a real name. He wasn’t pronouncing one. This is the oldest trick in the home robbery book. You’re supposed to open the door and politely ask your obviously speech-impaired visitor what he said and direct him to the proper address. He in turn pops you in the head, steps over you and steals your stuff.

I could’ve sent him to the door of the guy directly below me. His mail sometimes ends up in my mailbox and I’ve knocked on his door a few times to deliver it. He’s gigantic. On the mental movie screen, I imagined the guy at my door twisted like a pretzel in the parking lot below my kitchen window where the guy downstairs tossed him and the interloper neglected to bounce. I didn’t do that.

I could’ve sent him upstairs. “Sixth floor,” I could’ve said. My building only has five. I’m not on the top floor so he might not have noticed on his way up. I didn’t do that.

I could’ve said, “Second door on your left.” That apartment’s empty. He could’ve knocked all night but I would’ve gotten sick of him as an in-home percussion source pretty quickly so I didn’t do that either.

“There’s no one here by that name,” I said, trying to sound really tall and as if I might have a black belt in something besides the Old Testament, though I wasn’t exactly unarmed. He turned and left in a hurry. As they say, “I was born at night, but not *last night.*”

Sometimes you just want to say, “Hey, kid. Get a paper route or something because this larceny thing is just not gonna work out for you. When you rang the doorbell after ten o’clock everyone on the floor got a weapon and went their peepholes. Do you really want to explain to your friends how you were stabbed by a mob of old ladies and gay scholars?”

Miss Sasha calls almost daily with explosive wedding-related revelations. Did I know so-and-so said such-and-such and swore blah-blah-blah? There are only so many times I can hear soothing words fall from my own lips – “Don’t worry, sweetheart, they’re just fucking jealous of your classic beauty. I know how it can be…” – before I start chortling like Butthead and smashing my forehead on the coffee table. It’s so difficult to be a caring Mommy!

Mamie and I decided to join the New Jersey Bloggers Ring, since we’re blogging and can’t make a break for the state line – something in the plea agreement, it’s all a blur now…You’ll find a tab in the righthand column connecting Poor Impulse Control to the rest of the dancers shouting, “It’s electric!” So welcome, people who found us by accident! I hate to embarrass anyone, but even Miss Manners frowns gently when guests show up emptyhanded.

Next time, bring me a shiny object. I demand it.

“I get nervous when you speak French, because you’re not from there.”

– Mamie, reformed polyglot.

And you know those quitters, they’re the *worst.*