It’s only twenty or thirty steps from a warm spring day in the park to a pink tiled jail lobby. Twenty or thirty steps, give or take a falter or ladder rung due to circumstances that may or may not be in your control. It’s only ten or so more to an actual cell. It’s not far away, it’s right there in all of us; the justice center where we all try to find our piece of fair, our fair share of peace our own personal set of rationalizations and neurosis and law. I stared at the pink tiles to avoid contemplating the dark smudges on the walls. The kicking that must happen when someone realizes where their feet or a loved one’s feet had taken them. The sudden wall between them and the end of the road. The sudden visible divide between guilty and innocent between right and wrong. The only sounds from the metal detector gates erupt when officers of the law stroll in and out.
The pink seemed an odd choice for a jail lobby at first. You had to wonder if someone intended the ladies restroom effect, if they realized the deputies behind the glass would be female, if they pictured the women arriving with children to sit on this hard wood bench and wait for a man’s name to be called, if there had been a discount on dignity. At first I sat up straight against the hard wood but eventually I slumped into a corner against a stain on the wall watching the people coming and going.
There’s a little girl with pig tails watching herself in a large round mirror in an upper corner. She’s smoothing her shirt down repeatedly and admiring the shine coming off her sandals while her mother fills out a slip to put money on her dad’s books and they wait to be called to go up for their visit. She practices her smile and twirls around to watch her skirt float up around her and as she comes back around she catches her need and want in the reflected eyes in the mirror and rushes over to hide behind her mother with her skirt landing in a whoosh.
Every bit of research I can find thus far advises that children should visit incarcerated parents. And so I sit in the lobby checking things out. Memorizing procedure so that if I decide it’s the right thing I can prepare my daughter for the pink tiles and the deputies , the procedures and the way a skirt will eventually fall flat no matter how fast you spin.
April 26, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Burning Desire
Why do people stay in the same line of work when they hate it? Because that’s what they’re trained in. That’s what they know how to do. That’s become who they are. In a job interview they want to know what your experience is, they want to be sure you match the job.
It’s the same in relationships.
Say you’re a firefighter but you hate it. You hate the smoke. You hate the sirens. You hate the people jumping out of buildings onto your trampoline. You hate the heavy protective gear. You hate all of it.
But if you show up for any other job you’re overdressed. There’s no place to plug in your hose. People make disparaging remarks regarding your helmet. You’re not saving any lives.
If you somehow manage to secure a position in a field unrelated to fire fighting you could be suspicious. Why the fuck would anyone hire a highly skilled fire chief to work in an office unless there are hidden fire hazards everywhere? At the very least you should check the batteries in the smoke alarms. After all, a fire doesn’t give a fuck what it is so long as it burns.
And in the absence of any real fire duties there are those who find they can't live without using their hose. They have to become the arsonist just for a chance to hop in their big shiny red truck. They will burn the fucking building down for the chance to bring out all their former job skills.
Thoughts? Jokes about the hose? Can anyone work the dalmatian angle here?
April 12, 2010
It’s the same in relationships.
Say you’re a firefighter but you hate it. You hate the smoke. You hate the sirens. You hate the people jumping out of buildings onto your trampoline. You hate the heavy protective gear. You hate all of it.
But if you show up for any other job you’re overdressed. There’s no place to plug in your hose. People make disparaging remarks regarding your helmet. You’re not saving any lives.
If you somehow manage to secure a position in a field unrelated to fire fighting you could be suspicious. Why the fuck would anyone hire a highly skilled fire chief to work in an office unless there are hidden fire hazards everywhere? At the very least you should check the batteries in the smoke alarms. After all, a fire doesn’t give a fuck what it is so long as it burns.
And in the absence of any real fire duties there are those who find they can't live without using their hose. They have to become the arsonist just for a chance to hop in their big shiny red truck. They will burn the fucking building down for the chance to bring out all their former job skills.
Thoughts? Jokes about the hose? Can anyone work the dalmatian angle here?
April 12, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Paternal Doubts
“Mom.” Her eyes were huge with the gravity of her news. “I took a test today.. And…” She was looking at me like maybe I might want to consider sitting down for this. “There’s an eighty to ninety-nine percent chance that I’m half god.”
*begins tallying therapy bill* “Wow. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
“It’s sometimes called a demigod. My father is Poseidon.”
“What makes you so sure the god half is paternal? What about ME?”
“Moooooooom.”
“Of course if I were a god I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you. And I‘d need an elaborate mortal disguise.”
“Mom. It can’t be you because gods have to be separated from their children at BIRTH because of the smell.”
“The Smell?”
“Yes. The smell. Besides the test was very clear that my father is Poseidon.”
“Still… wouldn’t I know about it?”
“Not necessarily. That was a long time ago and maybe you forgot."
"It was a long time ago."
April 08, 2010
*begins tallying therapy bill* “Wow. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
“It’s sometimes called a demigod. My father is Poseidon.”
“What makes you so sure the god half is paternal? What about ME?”
“Moooooooom.”
“Of course if I were a god I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you. And I‘d need an elaborate mortal disguise.”
“Mom. It can’t be you because gods have to be separated from their children at BIRTH because of the smell.”
“The Smell?”
“Yes. The smell. Besides the test was very clear that my father is Poseidon.”
“Still… wouldn’t I know about it?”
“Not necessarily. That was a long time ago and maybe you forgot."
"It was a long time ago."
April 08, 2010
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