Waiter, there's a foot in my mouth!

Oopsey whoopsey! Here's the awful truth about me, once again.

For some unfathomable reason, I believed I could go back to work in law. With lawyers. In a law firm. Crazy, ain't I?

Our local rag had all of five help wanted ads and one of them was for a legal secretary, "excellent pay, part time, flexible hours." Hey, just the thing, right? I called and left a message saying I was interested in speaking to him about his job opening. My kick-ass resume and cover letter had been mailed in order to be on his desk by Monday for review prior to his calling me. That's what professionals do. Keep that in mind as you read on.

Sooooooo, last night he calls me back. Let's just say the poor bastard is now a little wiser for having spoken with me, and I can cross law off my list once and for all. Here's how it went down.

Little Sir Whipper Snapper calls, all self-important, saying how gosh-darned busy he was all weekend, blabbity blah, asks about my credentials. I suggest my resume should be on his desk. He retorts he doesn't have time to look for it. (Say what, you gumptionless turd?) So I rattle off the many fields of law in which I've worked, realizing I should have started with the short list of law I've not done. I tell him who I've worked for and he's quick to say he knows the "big guys." (Groveling kiss-ass.) Then he drops the bomb: "I'll want you to take a typing test."

Oh ho ho, wait just a minute there skippy boy! Polite as I can muster, I say, "I think at this stage of the game, that would be unnecessary with my level of experience. That's a bit offensive."... [insert dead silence on his end of the phone]. Or in the words of a master,

"All great truths begin as blasphemies." George Bernard Shaw.

Sir Snapper's Spideyman underroos are now riding up and he's stymied for the moment. He finally splutters back that no one has ever refused to take a typing test. He just keeps repeating in different ways that he's never heard of anyone being offended, mutter, mutter, mutter. Now I just feel sorry for him and he knows it. I reply, "Wait until you see my resume and perhaps then you'll understand." HIII-YAH!!! Right below the belt, kiddo! How'd that feel?

You must realize at this point, I could not care less. The tone of this kid's voice, his eagerness to ride on coat tails of the "big guys" I mentioned, and his obvious lack of organization speak volumes to me without meeting him face to face. My desire to babysit a cluttery, muttery wet-behind-the-ears braggart are ZE-ROH.

We end the call after I tell him if he finds in his eighteen applicants a no-hitter, to call me. Ha ha HAH! Like that's going to happen. That little punk had nightmares: "Hither came Joni the Barbarian! Curly-haired, sullen-eyed, lipstick in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, and tiny fists, to tread the jeweled thrones and typewriter of Sir Whipper Snapper under her sandalled feet!!!"

"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold." Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

The Universe wants me to write every day. She wants me to listen to Heaven's mandate to create. For whatever reason I keep trying to make an outside work life, it is in vain. My work is here; my writing life is my work. That is the golden truth.

Father Times

Captive Ashes
Above my head white birds soar
in silver sky etched
with teal and gray
swirling fast like water white
flowing from far away

Seldom now do tears take me
down the long road of
my memory
Smiles then laughter filling space
feeling finally free

Captive ashes, in silver
urn rests like death and
quiet now and sees
all, it sits just marking time
with both of us at peace

Wild River
Sunbaked rocks, picnic blanket sand,
Hydrox cookie crumbles on our lips.
Sandwiches made special for these times
and these alone, with root beer floats to celebrate
our return home.

Daddy always jumped in first so's we'd
be braver someday soon.
Playing silly games to teach
us swimming skills, and nature lessons
along side watching minnows nibbling toes.

Picture-taking Momma on the shore,
not so much a beach as sandy spots
among the rocks and tree debris
from winter's slashing fury of spring
turned to summer's glory.

Others swim for the huge rock ledge
The wicked wild water's fast and deep
Memories of peanut butter and jelly
never tasting more like heaven here
in days of Wild River swimming.

Ding, Dong, Heaven Calling!!!

Caroline Myss says in her book, "Your Power to Create,"

"When your whole system fills with this 'I've had enough,'... that is your first indication that Heaven is about to move you. That is your first sign that the power to create is something you better start animating. You may think that the power to create is your choice. You are absolutely mistaken."

I have read most everything that Caroline Myss has written over the years. I bought this book in audio form not long after I left my job. I was headed home after visiting my mom and when this passage came on, I started weeping and had to pull over. I played this section of the CD, entitled "Creating begins with revolution," over and over, and sat crying on the shoulder of the road. Heaven had moved me, I felt the revolt and I did something - - I quit my job and I started my writing life. To hear Caroline Myss speak the words of her book is more powerful than simply reading it. This is a woman whose plain talk appeals to me, and she believes what she writes.

What reminded me of this wonderful book was an e-mail I got from a new friend, whom I'll call Abella. This name finds its roots as a Catalan byname for beekeeper or "small and active." She is my one and only follower of this blog to date and is becoming a good friend I've never met. Not yet anyway. I've offered her a pitcher of our Island Blaster's if she'll cross the country to visit. These drinks look so benign, pink and fuzzy like a ballerina, and I'll even throw in nice blankey to curl up in when her limbs and limbic brain no longer speak to one another. Our next door summer neighbor, Solana has sworn off the Blasters because she teleported home once from our house which is maybe, and to her advantage, fifty feet away and didn't remember how. We're the people Solana visits when she wants to let her hair down, come over without makeup in her gardening clothes, eat potato chips with abandon, drop the "F" bomb, etc. We're the fun neighbors who love her for who she is.

Anyhow, so Abella e-mails me and says "...you risk so much with the potential of being judged, or misunderstood, or hurt so deeply," in reference to my blog. It was then I remembered what drove me to this thing I call my muse. It was Caroline Myss' voice saying Heaven had moved me and I'd better start animating this power to create because I had no other choice. I recalled the "cosmic fry pan to head" emotion I felt that afternoon, sought out the CD and listened again.

I e-mailed back to Abella that I suffered from episodes of panic where I wondered what people thought of me and my writing; most fearful of the opinions of my family and friends. I've come close to abandoning the blog many times for fear of my identity being discovered, particularly around here where I live. My not-so-inner jackass always thrashes around at those times, slinging hyphenated obscenities at my ridiculous anxieties so I can continue writing.

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying "Do one thing everyday that scares you." I think this qualifies.