Pink Craftsman Trap House

 You said you'd build me a house.

Can it be a pink Craftsman trap house?  Wait-scratch that.  I just looked up "trap house." I think I mean a pink house next door to that one.

Can we take care of everyone who visits?  Can there be a rooftop lounge - wait put a high rail on that thing.  You can go up at night and teach the happy stoned ones about stars, while I roam through the house swaddling the sleepy ones in soft blankets.

And can we take turns choosing the playlists?  Different rooms need different vibes.  Put a pin in that for now, all I know is that I want to take care of the ones that are stoned and earnest.  Oh, that's all of them?  I guess I've never been stoned, but I know all about earnest.  

And then we tuck them in beds - or at least tight sleeping bags, so they don't roll off the roof.  And we go to our own bed to sleep under a pile of sloppy dogs.  

When everyone wakes, we make sausage and eggs and hydrate them with electrolyted coffee.  And I will tell them about the years that, almost every night, I went to bed melancholy like them, but how in the morning, anything is possible.  

 Afterwards, you take them out in the sunshine and let them chop at the big tree stump, so they feel capable and accomplished.  

Then I will dress them in soft sweaters knitted by the vegans next door, and they start the day with hope.  

Because what I'm really saying is that somedays this world is the trap house, isn't it?  And everyone gets weary.  But every morning is a clean slate in the pink craftsman house.🖤

the best kind

I wake having slept,

the best kind of waking.

I slept having worked,

the best kind of sleeping.

I worked then I played,

the best kind of working.

I played, laughed, and hugged,

the best kind of living.

And now I start again,

at a desk with a fat mug of coffee

and colored pencils standing tall in a jar,

their little heads pointing up 

in a sun salutation

saying, "Hey, c'mon, Honey -

let's do it all again today!"

 

When I say "moms," I guess I mean Maurice. But maybe you have a mom like Maurice too. I hope so.

My mom is 34.

In my mind, my mom is frozen at 34.  This would be an ideal start to a dramatic ode where a woman died tragically young.  In reality, my mom is trucking right along at 81 today.  But that's the thing about moms.  You just count on them to be there, the way and age you need them to be.  And if you're a lucky child - and I was - and if they are healthy, they are just there being your mom, quietly making the entire world work around you.

And that's okay.

You don't really need your mom to be exciting or cool or hot shit.  And you don't find out how cool they are 'til later.  

And that's okay.  

Because your mom is also the only one in the house who knows what suppositories are, and when they are necessary.  And you don't need that person to be flashy or theatrical.  You just need them to be determined enough for both of you to fake a little amateur medical practice.

Moms worry about everyone in the family, including the dad.  So sometimes the kids worry about the dad too.  But no one really worries about the mom.

And that's okay.

Because remember, she's 34 and 34-year-olds are pretty tough.

Moms are always quietly staying in shape, sneaking off to some Jane Fonda workout class.  Because they are the ones in the family in charge of knowing about things like osteoporosis and how to ward it off.  They hold this information until you are 40, and need to know it.

Moms are sweet and can teach you how to swaddle a baby as tight as a Chipotle burrito, but also dark and belly laugh at Fargo when the body rolls down the stairs tangled in shower curtain.  

And that's okay.

Because moms have seen things, and need to laugh hard to balance it out.  And by the time you notice them laughing, you are old enough to notice how tough and clever they are.

My mom is the only one whom I've let read the little book I wrote.  It was not funny or cute.  I didn't want to inflict it on anyone.  BUT I did inflict it on my mom.  See?  See how we don't worry about moms?

They are the keeper of the all their kids' struggles.  And if you're a lucky child - and I am - you've got a mom you can tell them to.

And she wants you to.  

 

This is the tiniest bit about moms, but did I mention that at my new job I have to be there at 8am to unlock the doors to the clinic?  And if I don't, other people's moms who are patients will just be standing around outside waiting to get in?  Because moms are also on time.

Happy Birthday to Maurice.  Today she is 35.

how to love

Teach me how to love you,

then let's teach each other how to love ourselves.
Let me show you my favorite pet,
show you how she has six different types of fur,
touch each one, from the roughest to the softest,
and even one stripe that grows backwards like
a super hero.
And as i guide your hand to feel the secrets of her,
you see how I love her, don't you?
Somehow, I think that may be the secret of learning to
love a person:  to learn how they love.
We take each way we have been loved,
and pass it on the best we know how.
It is fumbly and messy, but the effort shows
the love.

tree skirts

My new trees wear skirts of ivy.

I don't know them yet, but I will.
Today I sat on my new porch and 
I can't say I studied them, because my mind
was too still.
Too spent.
I just leaned back on the step and received.
I named them for us - for our kids - for our life.
I remembered my first trees named for the women
who guided me.  Jes, Stacey, Hendrix and Pat by proxy.
I remembered the day I led Walker to one and told him
he had to see the crazy weird eggs I'd found in the hollow of one.
It took him a minute to realize they were chewy mini Sweetarts 
I'd planted earlier that morning.
I'm still proud of that prank.
I wonder what these new ones will hold.

you are an amalgamation.  
don't for a minute believe that anyone knows you completely.  
even the people who study you closest, 
even you yourself, 
as soon as you assume you are finite, a new part of you peeks out 
or maybe even forms.  
you hold eternity inside.  
call it god, call it the stars, call it science and the wonder of biology, 
but know that it's true.  
there's no shame in wanting a person to find you fascinating.  but remember when you had to learn it first?  don't forget it now.

The Hot Dog Chronicles: Pac Man Fever Birthdays

It was the 80s.  The world had Pac Man Fever.  And Sandy's caught the first strain.

While Dad was traveling, he saw a tabletop video game called Space Invaders.  He said to himself, "This is going to be big, and we need to get on board."  By 1981, there were over 40 video games in the Sandy's shop across from the USC Horseshoe.  

That Sandy's location began as one fourth of a little apartment building.  Not long after opening, Dad  rented another fourth next door, and filled it from front to back with arcade games.  USC students filled the space.  One entire half of the store was like its own arcade.  

In 2025, you may not realize how exciting this was for a 5th grader.  Go ask your parents.  In the early 1980s, we had two past-times:  roller skating and the mall. At the mall, my friends and I were heading to Hallmark to buy Snoopy posters and Smurfs, but the boys from school were at the arcade at the other end.  They played games for as many hours as they were allowed, or until their quarters ran out.

Imagine a hot dog shop  slammed with customers lining up outside to buy Super Slaw Dogs.  Then imagine doubling the size of that shop, and filling it with every new arcade game.  And you can bet we had every new game, because Bud Sanderson does nothing in a small way.  He goes big, and when possible, he goes first.

Simultaneously, two brothers were becoming local radio personalities.  Woody and Leo Windham had a show called "Woody with the Goodies."  They were fun and hilarious, and we all listened to them.  It was South Carolina in the 80s, and we were all about beach music and shagging. Woody and Leo were playing the music and joking in between.  

Dad got an advertising spot on their show, and Woody coined the phrase, "How 'bout them dawgs?!"  He and Leo would bellow it over the radio during morning traffic.  It was catchy, and people would call it out to my dad in the store and on the street.  By then, there had been some tv news spots and articles in The State newspaper about a little hot dog business that was growing like crazy in Lexington and Columbia.  Eleven stores opened in eleven consecutive years.  But at this point, we were only into the first few.  Woody and Leo did great advertising, but were all also big fans of the food and friends with my dad.  I think we may have gotten a lot of free advertising based on how much they liked the food.

Sandy's was growing, but so was I.  Back to the birthday parties.

My birthday parties were basically a hot dog, ice cream, and video game free-for-all.  My most memorable involved George Rogers who had just won the Heisman Trophy while playing for the USC Gamecocks.  Okay, I'll admit I had no idea who he was at the time, but you can bet some of the kids at the party did.  On my 11th birthday, Rogers was at Sandy's eating dinner like he regularly did.  My dad knew him as a great customer.  In fact, he had a two-player football video game Rogers loved to play.  Recently I asked Dad, "Who played with him?"  My dad said, "Whoever he wanted.  He was George Rogers."  So as they chatted and said hi, kids started arriving for the party.  He signed Sandy's napkins for all of us who met him.

After ordering whatever we wanted, Dad gave each kid a giant Sandy's cup full of video game tokens, or maybe they were still quarters at that point, I don't know.  I just remember pie-eyed sixth graders receiving them as if they were sacred offering and running to spend them.  Some of them were deciding so carefully which games to play that Dad said, "You know you can just come get more when you run out, right?  I know where to get more."  

Later, we went upstairs to cut the cake with John Travolta drawn in icing.  I'd taken a photograph of him in the movie Two of a Kind - no it was not a hit with anyone but his die hard fans - and the confounded bakery woman did her best.  This was before any kind of icing technology and it was a mess of black icing.  You really don't want a headshot of someone with black hair on a birthday cake.  We ate, and with black teeth, ran back to play more games.

It was a good way to turn 11.