I Think My Head Is Going To…Well…EXPLODE.

I Think My Head Is Going To…Well…EXPLODE.

When I sat down to write this, I thought I was just going to say something like, “I sure do get a lot of flyers from psychics.” I mean, especially for someone who is NEVER going to visit one. And you know how some people say, “Never say never?”  Not me.  I’m sayin’ never.  Yessiree, sir.

So, obviously, I have gotten another flyer. I wrote about one of these just a couple of months ago. This is the toniest one yet, though. A thick, glossy cardstock—postcard style—crammed full of pictures and info. It’s a little hard to tell what is being advertised. It could be the city of Beverly Hills.  It could be some Kama Sutra love thing.  It could be a vacant apartment for rent.  Honestly, if you could see the flyer, you would have the same questions that I have about what’s going on here. And, in order to get all of the important information onto the front and back of the card, the layout includes like twenty-five different fonts and sizes of type.

It appears that out of the 346 words printed on the flyer—I tallied them by hand, trying to keep count by pointing a finger on each one (not including the street names on the Google map)—roughly eighty four of them appear to be written by someone who has a basic understanding of everything from “A to B”. (“A” being the English language itself; “B” representing when to capitalize the letter “i”.)  I think that a basic rule of thumb when it comes to the letter “i” is this: Do not capitalize the “i” if an Apple product is involved. Do capitalize an “I” if it is a whole word and if you are not E.E. Cummings.

I need to spotlight a few of my favorites.  It’s a basic need.  No doubt, I’ll have something to say (in italics).  Here goes:

                      Have You Ever Has A Psychic,

                           Palm, Tarot, Aura Reading?

Well, have you ever has one? ‘Fess up.

                      Are You Un  Happy Marriage  , relationship

                                                family  ,friends  ,co-workers.?

I would say that my marriage is happy.  I’m not pleased, however, about some comma issues, upper and lower case letters, and spelling problems that have come into my life.

                     

                      [Name deleted]

                        holds a Master degree   In Psychology

                        by the National Spiritualist Association

                        of Churches (NSAC) \ along with her

                        passion  ,skills studies

I don’t…I can’t…I just read NSAC and thought it said NCIS.  Why is the psychic talking about a CBS television show?  Just remember this, the psychic is a “her”. Right?

                  [Name deleted] uses his Psychic abilities to…

I think the professional should use “his Psychic abilities” or “her passion” to come to an important personal decision.  If the psychic can see his/her own future, it ought to be a slam-dunk as to which path will make him/her the happiest. Go for it.

Here are some other things the psychic feels you might want to discuss:

Am i on the right path for career I’m working for?

I’m going to suggest not bringing that question.

Im confused lately cant seam to make a proper decision

for my self or my future!

Hello? Give your money to me.  This could be menopause or thyroid—or any number of other things. Just give your money to me. I know about apostrophes…and spelling…and other stuff.

You might ask why I gave this post the title, “I Think My Head Is Going To…Well…EXPLODE.”  I’ll tell you:

YOU WILL BE ASKED YOUR

FULL NAMES AND DATE OF

BIRTH of which who u would like

her to read.

Okay? Okay? Was EXPLODE too strong a word?

It’s 6:49 p.m. on Friday evening. I see some scrambled eggs and pajamas in my immediate future.

Fashion (Sub)concious

Every once in awhile—okay, like maybe once in the last twenty years, until one recent day—I will look at a word and not know what it is I am seeing. The letters seem vaguely familiar, but that’s about it.

Sure, I have often seen a word and been bothered by the fact that I don’t know what it means. I have some four million year old SAT scores as proof.  But there is context and a dictionary to solve that sort of problem.  And with a son on the verge of taking his own SATs, I am overcome with the urge to learn a whole bunch of new words.  Really.  Maybe with a glass of wine and a nibble of cheese.

But, what I mean to discuss here is this:  Even if only once or twice, I have looked at a word, one that I have both seen and used before, and then turned it into something it is not.  The first time it happened, the word was heredity.  Heredity.  The noun.  Genetic makeup.  You know what I am saying.  Heredity. 

On one particular day, though, all I could see when I looked at the word heredity [huh-red-i-tee] was something that sounded out in my head as [here-ditty]. Rhymes with, “Here, kitty.”  This was a long time ago.  I have even laughed about the experience, unusual only in that I did not see it as a sign of some sort of fatal brain malfunction.

Now here I am, some (plus a few more) years later. I go out to my car. Folded over in the door handle is a flyer.  Ordinarily, I would crumple up something like this without reading it.  I don’t know why I look.  Maybe it is the joy of it not being a parking ticket. 

I don’t know how to scan things, so I am going to try to recreate it here, in my own, old- world way.

                       PSYCHIC

             “SOULMATE SPECIALIST”

                    Reuniting Lovers Permanently,

                              even if taken by another.

                         i    can    help     you

                   In Love Business and Health

                Palm and Tarot Card Readings $5. Special

               CALL NOW!

This is exactly how it was written.  I have left off the phone number and address for obvious reasons, the first two being to save you the $5 and to save you from making a fool of yourself—because, yes, I am that nice.

Here is what I saw in first looking at the flyer: PSYCHIC, which had turned into a word that sounded like [sy-sheek]—a made-up word, perhaps, but not one without meaning. I do believe that what I thought was being advertised were the services of a fashionable person who is also in the business of psychology.  Maybe, I surmised, the woman was a psychoanalyst with that extra ounce of panache—or, someone who was offering their expertise to a psychiatrist in desperate need of a wardrobe makeover.  Finally, it started to sound like the title for a magazine article about what the well-dressed psychologist might wear.

Obviously, I was wrong.  This was just another psychic flyer (no, the flyer itself was not psychic), one of the many that finds its way to the windshields and door handles of cars all across Los Angeles.  I read on.

“SOULMATE SPECIALIST”

Reuniting Lovers Permanently,

even if taken by another.

I guess it’s got something to do with “soulmate” being the important distinction here. Yet, I started to wonder about what would happen if a person were to be reunited with his or her lover (“even if taken by another”).  What if the “another” came to the psychic afterwards, looking to be reunited with the lover who is now “permanently” back together with his or her ex?  Isn’t this already a Taylor Swift song?

Then I started to worry.  Three years ago, I wrote a blog piece about a fortune-teller and her daughter who had been murdered by a client seeking to be reunited with her ex-boyfriend.  I don’t know what worried me more—the prospect of another homicide or the fact that I thought I had written that other blog piece like, maybe, a year ago, not three.  I thought about calling the psychic from the flyer to warn her about crazy people, but I decided that if she were worth her salt, she’d know already.  Clearly, the deceased fortune-teller had lacked some critical seeing-the-future skills.  I read on.

i    can    help     you

In Love Business and Health

Let me first say to the psychic whose flyer was on my car, “I can help you with grammar and punctuation!”  Not only because you need help, but because I want to know, are you able to assist in only “love business” or did you mean love and business? Bring on the comma if you meant the latter—which might bring you a larger client base, as well.  Just trying to help.

One thing is for sure.  I don’t want any information from the psychic.  No future stuff.  But if she can tell me whether it’s okay to wear blue suede boots with a black dress, I’m going to call Bloomingdale’s to see if the Stuart Weitzman’s are on sale. Come to think of it,  she should be able to tell me that, as well.

Big Love: The Clean(ing) Version

Remember the TV show, Big Love?  The one where the Mormon guy had a bunch of wives and there was always some kind of trouble happening? It’s not really that hard to imagine there’d be a lot of “issues” under those circumstances.

This makes me think that Mitt Romney must have more than a presidential campaign to think back upon when you consider that somewhere, tucked into the branches of his family tree, there are—supposedly—six polygamous men with forty-one wives between them.  Unless you are the descendent of a Mormon or a sheik, these kinds of figures are probably not applicable to your own family tree.  Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true.  In the garden of ancestry.com (if you were my husband or me), you might find forty-one spouses rustling about in the leaves and boughs, but, thanks to the invention and option of divorce, you wouldn’t necessarily find them eating the same piece of fruit at the same time.  Although, that might not be entirely true, either.

None of this was really of any concern to me—until recently, that is.  My husband sent me to Bed, Bath & Beyond a few months ago to purchase, well, I guess there’s no other way to say it: his new wife.  I call the Dyson, handheld, cordless mini-vacuum his new wife because he told me, after using it to dust-bust his recording studio, that he wanted to marry it.  All I know is that he gave me assurance that he did not want to end our marriage—comforting, you can imagine.  Rather than taking the whole thing too personally, I suggested he bring the new wife around to the house and let her clean up some shit there, too. 

And, you know what?  I have to say that I saw what he saw in her.  At first, I let them hang out and do stuff together.  I didn’t mind not getting in the way.  Really, let them do the cleaning.  I still had the laundry, the cooking.  Actually, I take back that last part.  A long time ago, our son said, “Mommy, you are not a cooker.”  Fine, let’s make it sewing.  I still had the laundry and sewing.  The only other thing I needed was a fairy godmother—and, maybe, someplace to go.

After a little while, though, I felt like I was letting my prince-of-a husband down.  Aside from the fact that he had thrown me over so easily, what kind of woman lets her man and his new wife do all the cleaning?  “A thoughtless bitch,” is what I hear you saying.

When you get right down to it, I wanted my husband back.  He is no Mormon.  He is no sheik.  One wife per customer where I come from, buster.  The trick was going to be how to snatch him back. In this type of case, it had to be a fight fire with fire thing. (Or, should I have said vacuum with vacuum?) I would have to bring home a new mate, one that would make my husband jealous.

I slapped on a little make-up, found something nice from my closet to put on, and took myself to Bed, Bath & Beyond.  The salesman had to contend with a lot of questions about all of Dyson’s full size models before I chose the DC40 multi-floor upright.  Mostly, I wanted to know about the DC41 Animal because when you’re shopping for a new mate, the Animal part might be important.  Just so you know, it’s made to clean up pet hair and that saved my husband a hundred bucks.  Yes, I made my husband pay.  I reasoned, if my plan worked and won him back, it would be our money.  And, if things didn’t turn out as hoped?  Well, he started it, you know.  You can’t just say you want to marry something else and not expect to pay. 

(I'll) Drive, He Said

There’s nothing like a good road trip down memory lane when you get to the intersection of “I Love This” and “Fuck, I Hate This” and you can’t decide which way to go.  And so it is that my husband and I did a little reminiscing this past week.  My husband is Bob.  I say that just in case he gets more than one mention.  Then I don’t have to keep saying, “my husband… my husband… my husband”.

When our son, Owen, was around five or six years old, we took him to LEGOLAND.  That made us, like, “The Best Parents In The World For A Day”.  Actually, I think it was the weekend at the nearby Four Seasons with the mini terrycloth robes that made more of an impression.  “Fance,” is what Owen called the place upon his arrival.  But it is LEGOLAND that we thought about this week.  Specifically, the Driving School ride.  Like the sign says, “Strap on your seatbelt and put yourself in the driver's seat in real electric cars to earn an official LEGOLAND^® driver license.”  Hahahahaha.  A driver license. So cute.

Owen got into the real electric car and off he went.  He was doing pretty well for a five or six year old.  He stopped at the traffic lights, which I took as a real sign of ability in the driving department. Bob and I watched from the railings along the side.  I’m sure this is how people do it at the Indy 500 or the Monaco Grand Prix.  Good job, honey! 

It was midway through the ride when Owen approached his first left turn. We yelled to him—a little motivational support, if you will.  I remember it as something like, “…turn the wheel, turn the wheel…now, straighten it out. Straighten it out so you don’t hit the curb…” Our suggestions were welcomed like those from a backseat driver, only worse.  He finished the turn, jumped out of the car in the middle of the road, and ran, shouting the words, “I never want to drive. EVER.”  And how happy was I?

Our next discussion on the subject of driving came when Owen was around twelve.  We were in the grocery store parking lot.  He made the announcement from out of nowhere.  “I think I’ll wait ‘til I’m eighteen to drive,” is what he said. 

“Okay.”  That’s what I said.  Then I called Bob.  He agreed—it was one of the greatest days of our lives.

Kids have a way of not remembering the things they’ve said.  Parents remember because we need things to recall later on, when we have nothing better to do.  Or because… oh, forget it.  We just do.  So, when Owen was a young teenager, forgetting that he was never going to drive or not drive until he was eighteen, he decided it was time to learn how to drive a real car.  Bob thought it would be great to teach him in a rental, at midnight, in the K Mart parking lot in Bridgehampton.  I thought so, too, because there’d be no other cars around.  Apparently, there are a lot of people who have the same idea. I’m going to put this scene in a movie if I write one.

Bridgehampton, to Owen, became synonymous with driving.  By the next summer, I was willing to let him drive us—on the back road—from my sister’s house to my cousin’s. Under strict orders NOT to get in the car until I came out of the house, I found him backing up and turning around in the driveway, his twelve-year-old cousin shouting instructions.  That ended the driving for that summer.  I’m now wondering why he was willing to listen to my nephew and why he did not jump out of the car like at LEGOLAND.  Kids.  They must like each other more than they like adults.

And then odd things started to occur.  Owen turned fifteen. He passed the fifteen and a half mark without any interest in getting his learner’s permit.  As a matter of fact, he didn’t care about driving in the K Mart lot or on the back roads that next summer.  His sixteenth birthday came and went.  He could have had a permit and a license by then. The shift only took place as more and more of his friends started to drive.  The first two or three didn’t faze him.

One day over the break from school last winter, Owen announced that he had finished his online driver’s education course and had booked an appointment for his permit test. He took it and passed.  I booked some of the required behind the wheel lessons and he took over booking the rest of them.  He drove and drove and drove some more. And he took care of the arrangements for his behind-the-wheel driving test for last week. I know he would have made it for the day he was eligible to take it, but there was no availability until a week later.  It appeared to be the longest week of his life.

Leading up to the day of his test, we did a lot of things together, all at Owen’s request.  I would ask if he wanted to bring a friend.  He said no.  I think it was exactly like when kids are little and start to separate, only to come running back. It was exactly like that.

So, last Friday, the boy who jumped out of the car at LEGOLAND got his driver’s license.  And, like I said at the beginning, it’s completely great and completely, fucking not great all at once.  I have more time for me but I don’t like it yet.  I slept until eleven o’clock this morning and almost climbed back into bed at three this afternoon.  This is ridiculous, though, I have things to do.  Like rob a bank to pay for the additional auto insurance.  But at least I know who can drive the getaway car.