No Method, Just Madness

I distinctly recall being eight and thinking that people in their 20’s were old.¹  People in their 30’s were washed up has-beens.  And actual old, wrinkled people?  They were already dead, just hanging out until there was an open slot in purgatory.  Or outer space. 

Then again, when I was eight, I also thought that I had my finger on the pulse of the 1980’s fashion movement.  There was this one outfit that I put together all by myself.  It combined an aqua tie-dyed Minnie mouse t-shirt that came to my belly button with a pink tank top underneath (I wasn’t allowed to show my belly button because only sluts showed their belly buttons.) with a white floral-print denim knee-length skirt (I wasn’t allowed to wear above-the-knee skirts because only sluts wore mini-skirts.  Only sluts watched Dirty Dancing too.  Pearls of wisdom from Mamacusa.) with three pairs of tube socks (pink, blue, yellow…to match the flowers on the denim skirt) scrunched down to look like tri-colored leg warmers and white reebok high-top Velcro sneakers.   Man, I rocked that shit.  I had to beat the boys away with my enormous, blue, plastic/metal combo framed grandma glasses. 

If I had a time machine, I’d travel back to my eight year old self, counsel her on the future photographic ramifications of that outfit, and then I’d sit down and watch Dirty Dancing with her.  (I was eight in 1985 and the movie wouldn’t even come out for another two years but, fuck it, nobody puts Baby in the corner!)  Then, I’d give her a post-movie talk about how 20 is not old…and, you know what?  Neither is 30.  In fact, in the future, this is how we will regard one’s 30’s:

The Thirties: 
30 –late, late, late 20’s
31 – early early 30’s
32 – mid early 30’s
33 – late early 30’s
34 – early mid 30’s
35 – mid 30’s
36 – late mid 30’s
37 – early late 30’s
38 – mid late 30’s
39 – late late 30’s
40 – late late late 30’s

So, see!  I’m only in my late early 30’s…I’ve still got AGES before I should start carelessly spending my retirement money and telling people what I REALLY think of them!

1.  This may have something to do with the fact that when I was 8, my Mamacusa was 27.  God, she was a loose woman!  one might think.  Perhaps, yes, but more importantly, she was a MARRIED loose woman.

There’s a small cluster of about a dozen cherry blossom trees near work, nearly all of which are still bare.  Except for this one. 

The first one to bloom.  She’s quite beautiful but she’s probably all embarrassed to be the first one in her class to have her buds showing.  Probably a case of precocious puberty.  Before you know it, she’ll have pubes.  Then it’s only a matter of time til she starts caking on the mascara, teasing her hair, skipping class, and dating that tattooed guy with the Honda Prelude  just to spite her mother.

I’ve never experienced The Rapture before but if I had to wager a guess, I’d bet the transcendence is similar to that which I underwent tonight when I came home from work to find this:

Behold.  Clean floors. 

Usually, all along the footboard, there are tumbleweeds made up primarily of my hair and a combination of dust, pubes and whatever MRSA, diptheria, hepatitis and/or syphillis has attached itself to the bottom of my work shoes (my hospital shoes not my brothel shoes).  The rest of the house is usually in a state of moderate to severe disarray…mostly as a result of neglect due to each of our 80 hour work weeks but also because of The Brit’s insistance on leaving beer bottle caps wherever he pleases and my God given right to leave tea mugs wherever I please. 

When The Brit first suggested we hire a housekeeper to help ward off the hallway tumbleweeds and whatever was growing out of our kitchen sink, nothing seemed more ridiculous.  I come from a long line of Cubans who wholeheartedly believe that no one is above cleaning their own toilet.  The Cuban solution to running out of hands to help with the housework?   It’s simply to have another kid.  My brother and I came out of the womb complete with utility belts stocked with Pine Sol, Ajax and a Brillo pad…we knew our place.

So anyway, it seemed like an insane idea…I’d never before hired anyone to help with housework.  But then, one day, something slimy and amorphous rose in a finger-like flagellum from the depths of our sink drain, tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed out to me that it was probably time.  So we got a housekeeper to come in once a month and do some general clean up.  I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that but the concept of coming home to lickable hardwood floors might just be worth it.

Note to self:  You think you’re saving time by combining the trip down the hall to the water cooler to refill your green tea mug (which, incidentally, is clear glass) with a trip to the bathroom to pee, but don’t.  Skeptical and/or perverse officemates will think that you’ve just emptied the contents of your bladder into your mug.  Which, let’s face it, you’d only do if you really, really had to.   Like in the event of a natural disaster or something.