Don’t Ban Gay Marriage, Ban Divorce
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
Don’t Ban Gay Marriage – Ban Straight Divorce
I am a lesbian. Correction, I am an out and proud lesbian, a card carrying member, in fact. As such, my opinion on the subject of gay marriage most certainly will be met with skepticism for its biasness. But as my cyberspace alter ego Ms. Tralwind says about her glowing reviews of her favorite band Heart, “Just because I’m biased don’t mean it ain’t true.”
You straight folks took a little time out of your day on Election Day to impose your will on the big bad gay people by allowing a ban on gay marriage. I think it’s only right that you allow me a few moments of your time to impose the will of my foot up your… wait. Where’s my manual? Sense of humor…I know it’s there somewhere.
Do straight people have a manual? Lesbians do. There are important rules contained within. A sense of humor is a must. Really, it’s in the manual. It’s right there between the “must not carry a purse” and the “occasional flannel shirt required” clauses. Still don’t see it? Do you see that line in bold, the one that reads “wallet and chain optional” just below the handy phone information for U-Haul? Yes, right there, “must have and maintain a sense of humor.”
There are many reasons for this. First and foremost it allows us to respond to the stupidity with which we are often met without becoming your worst PMS nightmare personified. The above mentioned stereotypical facets of lesbianism, or as I like to say, stereotypical facets of the Lesbanese culture, are blunt hits to my funny bone. Sure, those lesbians exist. That’s what makes a stereotype a stereotype isn’t it? Like a cliché is a cliché for a reason. There’s a truth there. Widely spread truths also create stereotypes. Those stereotypes have provided many comedians easy pickings over the years. I personally think having a sense of humor should be in the straight manual as well.
You straight people really are funny. The concept of allowing me to marry the woman I love having any bearing on your straight marriage what so ever is just the funniest damn thing you straight people have ever thought, said or done.
What are you silly, small minded people so afraid of? It’s not like if you allow us to get married we’re going to suddenly start breeding like rabbits. If you want to protect the sanctity of marriage then ban divorce. It’s that simple. That’s what’s demeaning and devaluing the ideals and the sanctity of marriage. We deserve the right to screw up our lives just as much as the next person.
It would have been nice if you had tried to find out a little bit about me before you made an important decision that really has no affect on you in any way but an abstract way. And while we’re at it, it would be nice if for once, one of you bible thumping conservatives could explain to me how allowing me to get married is going to ruin your marriage? What business is it of yours? Have you met any gay couples? Seriously, have you socialized with gay couples, or gay people for that matter? We are people you work with. We are people in your churches, banks, and stores. We are your sons and daughters. We may even be your fathers and mothers. Damn it people, we cut your hair! Trust me, you don’t want to piss off a drag queen and then give her a pair of scissors and allow her free rein on your locks. I would find another stylist until you vote to allow gay marriage. Your scalp will thank you.
Surely, you must know one of us. Why do you want us to have fewer rights than you?
Maybe that’s it. Maybe you don’t know any of us. I’m only one person, but like we told everyone on Election Day, one person can make a difference. Look how that turned out. Maybe if you get to see things from my perspective it might open that narrow little mind of yours. Maybe it’s my fault for putting the bourdon of proof on you. Maybe I should step up on behalf of all homosexuals and attempt to point out the absurdity of your views. Maybe by the end of it all you will change your mind and we can try this again on the next go round.
You might wonder why I am an “out” lesbian. Why have I decided to invite you into my bedroom? As a lesbian, it would be my responsibility to stop you in your tracks and most humbly correct you. It has nothing to do with the bedroom.
Ok, it has something to do with the bedroom. To be a lesbian one must, in fact, be a woman and she must like having sex with other women, and not necessarily at the same time. News flash: We can be monogamous. And for you straight guys who stumbled on this because you were looking for porn, your stereotypical male fantasy of two women together is all wrong. Who are these women, with their purchased triple D boobs, cheesy thongs and stiletto heels? They are porn stars. Real lesbians don’t look or dress like that. Where the hell would we keep our wallets?
Yes, sex has something to do with it. But what about the asexual lesbians; How do you explain them? I know you are really confused now. “Asexual lesbians, how can that be?” Oh, they are out there – you’ll find them with the lipstick lesbians and both are about as elusive as Bigfoot and Ol’ Nessie.
My point is that physical and sexual attraction is not the only thing there is. There is an emotional connection to women that we cannot achieve with men. I can be great pals with guys in a – greet him with a punch in the arm and you don’t care that he adjusted his package in front of you, and you might bond over a good belch and looking at a great pair of boobs walking by – kind of way. But intimacy requires emotion for most women. And I have yet to meet a fellow lesbian who can actually connect emotionally and intimately with a man.
And for the record, it’s not a choice, it’s not a preference, it’s not a lifestyle; It was how I was born. But you can still pray for a cure. Yes, I said a cure, like it’s a disease. If we are looking for genetic proof to back what gays and lesbians have been saying all along, that we were born this way, how much of a stretch will it be for these idiots to try and find some way to genetically remove us from existence, eradicate us like polio? Maybe they’ll come up with a vaccine. And maybe they can make us all cookie cutter versions of what they think everyone should be. We live in dangerous times my friends.
While being gay is not totally about sex, it is also true that what happens in my bedroom is none of your business. So why, then am I out, you might ask?
Quite simply, I got tired of lying about who I was. I got tired of inserting he’s for she’s because I sucked at it. I’m an ok writer, but a horrible speaker. My mouth can’t keep up with my thoughts. Before I know it, I’m stumbling over a recap of the weekend, spinning this pseudo-lie about this manufactured life that doesn’t exist. Sure we went to the movies, my girlfriend Mary and I. But that’s not what I tell them, these co-workers I spend 40 hours a week with. I say “We went to the movies.”
I’m not that good a liar and I have no poker face. Surely they would eventually notice I never actually say this phantom boyfriend’s name? Wouldn’t they? And if they did? I can’t make up a name!
It was Marc. Yes, my fake boyfriend had a fake name. It seemed fitting to pick a male name that had the same three starting letters as Mary’s since they conveniently shared the same last name. Lying is an art I have not mastered. Mark with a C, I thought it was unusual enough to sound real.
Living in the closet presents entirely too much work for someone who has a genetic predisposition to laziness. The unused spare bedroom for your “roommate” just in case company comes. Using code words on the phone because the person who answered knows it’s a woman on the other end of the phone and if you get all ga ga over the phone, you’re afraid she’ll figure out what unspeakable act you and your girl were doing just an hour earlier. After spinning so many lies, keeping up with them becomes almost comical. I’d always start sweating like I’d just done the five finger discount in Wal-Mart just as a security guard rounded the corner. For the record, this has never happened to me but I imagine there are few situations that would make my behind pucker more than that.
My decision to come out came when I switched jobs. It seemed fitting considering it was a new job with a fresh start. The funny thing is, when I did announce it to the people in my training class, no one cared. Coming out was the best decision I ever made.
But I look back at the people I worked closely with at my previous jobs, the ones I cared about and lied to daily, and I realize that I sold them short. Maybe they wouldn’t have cared either. Maybe if I was just who I really was… me, Andrea, short, Hispanic, dedicated worker, funny, entirely too obnoxious, sometimes cute and charming, but yes, very much a lesbian…they might accept me just the same way my new work family had. And dollars to donuts if you asked any of them if they would mind if I married my lesbian partner they would say, “No, and where the heck is my invitation?” and not “Oh no honey they let the lesbians marry, let’s get a divorce lawyer!”
But we are not afforded the opportunity to have any bearing on what you see. All you see strangers you’ve never met and don’t know so it’s real easy to ignore the person behind what you see and make a blanket statement about banning gay marriage. But if you knew us, and you saw Andrea and Mary, the neighbors you’ve had for 20 years, who feed your dog when you go on vacation, who wake you up at 3a.m. to tell you some jerk did a hit and run on your car, who trade garden tips and the garden crop, who allow you to pick up pecans from our yard any time you want, maybe you wouldn’t be so quick to limit us access to the same rights you and your third wife have.
Sadly, my relationship with Mary ended after 20 years. It would have been nice to marry her and it would have been just as nice to divorce her when it was all over. I just want the same rights to ruin the sanctity of marriage that straight couples have. Is that too much to ask?
Ms. Tralwind @ November 7, 2008
Save The Music
Posted in: Heart Posts, Music | Comments (0)
I can’t sleep. My body clock thinks I should be at work, so I’m up early writing this because I was surfing the channels and ran across VH1 Classic’s Rock Band 2 countdown, a count down of the most popular songs featured in version two of the popular video game. This issue is a burr under my saddle. How many commercials have we seen recently with musicians somberly pleading into the camera to help "Save the music"? Schools are cutting back music programs left and right and all the while VH1 Classic is counting down music from a video game!
My friend Jude recently found out that he has to buy a cello for his daughter who signed up for orchestra this year. When I was in school, the school provided the instruments and you’d sign them out for the year. These days the financial responsibility lies with the parents. Jude is worried because of the state of the economy and potential layoffs happening. He said if he gets laid off, the cello’s the first thing to go. He may have been joking but I’m sure that’s the case all over. When money’s tight, it’s hard to justify that kind of expenditure. And yet these video games are selling at an alarming rate.
More on page 30
Ms. Tralwind @ October 30, 2008
Fate and Friendship
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Do friendships come to us by coincidence? Are we people who just happen to be in the right place and time, stumbling through what we do or don’t have in common, tripping into friendship like lovers fall into love?Or is it fate, almost as if our souls are so closely meshed, as if by design, by some divine intervention we are led to the exact moment in time that will impact us so profoundly that our lives will literally be changed forever, for the better? Ursula Lawson came into my life in exactly that way.
Ms. Tralwind @ October 20, 2008
Where’s Bambi?
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The building housing Travelocity’s San Antonio offices is a concrete island surrounded by a wooded ocean that used to be the home to many critters. We’ve seen raccoons, rabbits, skunks, and several herds of deer in the area since we moved here about three years ago. Little by little that wooded area is disappearing and unfortunately so are the critters.
About two years ago, the wooded area shrank after Bank of America put in a call center on the lots behind our building. No doubt they will meet the same demise most customer service facilities in the US have met and they will be outsourced to India or Manila, leaving this eye sore where trees used to be.
Early last year, they started clearing the area right in front of our building. Speculation in the office ran rampant with most people buying the rumor that they were going to put up a Wal-Mart on the bare plot of land. The general consensus around the office was “screw the critters; I hope they open up a retail shop so I can go shop during my lunch break.”
I didn’t share this view and to me the whole thing seemed symbolic on a much greater scale. This had been happening all over the city for years. Retail parks started popping up seemingly overnight. Little by little those wooded areas that made San Antonio feel more like a town than a huge metropolis were being swallowed up by ugly concrete structures so people won’t have to drive quite so far to the next Wal-Mart. How many Wal-Marts does one city need?
After about 8 months, no work began on the project. We guessed that work stopped because of the economic slow down. The weeds started growing again but it wasn’t the same. Many trees had been removed and the view became a beautiful sight of Interstate 35 which is especially breath-taking during rush hour. It’s almost two years since they cleared that area and I haven’t seen the deer in months. And I’d rather see them running in those fields that these empty buildings housing the ghosts of prosperous times gone by.
Ms. Tralwind @ October 19, 2008
Haunted
Posted in: Love Passion and Desire, Poetry | Comments (0)
Like hurt beneath anger
You lie just beneath the surface
Under my skin
Heating my blood
Sparking my desires
Throwing me off balance
Confusing me
I want to drink you in
Memorize every inch of your body
Vivid memories of your smile
Distract me in my day
Visions of my hands on your flesh
Invade my sleep
Blurring the lines between reality and bliss
I am always aching for you
Haunted by a desire that grows
Weed-like consuming everything in its path
Thoughts of anyone else eradicated
In passion filled fantasies that leave me
Ravaged by my hunger for you
Weakened by my need for you
Frightened by my love for you
Very much alive but still haunted
Ms. Tralwind @ October 11, 2008
When it rains it pours, and it’s raining men
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A while back I was doing some community service work at Goodwill as part of a ticket dismissal agreement. While working there I was hit on by a sweet but rather gangly and slovenly looking gentleman also doing community service. He said he loved my smile and he thought I had a very pretty name. It was the first interest anyone had expressed in me since Mary and I broke up. And I wasn’t even looking.
He asked me out and I considered it for all of about 10 seconds. Hey, maybe all this time I’ve been looking for Ms. Right and I should have been looking for Mr. Right, I told myself. Besides, everyone gets a rebound, right?
More on page 33
Ms. Tralwind @ October 4, 2008
Remembering 9-11
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My Mom used to tell me stories about what it was like when JFK ran for president. She said he offered such hope and promise to the country at a very tumultuous time. Like most people with working brains who were old enough at the time, my Mother remembered exactly what she was doing, wearing, and where she was when she heard the news about JFK’S assassination.
9-11 was my generation’s JFK moment. Honestly, I’m glad my Mom wasn’t alive to see that. No matter who you are, if you are an American, you lost someone in the attacks. We all did. We lost that part of ourselves that believed, like Anne Frank, that despite everything, people are really good at heart. It was a wake up call like no other we had ever had. And while I personally still believe in the good hearts of people, here lately it’s hard to remember that. Part of it is the lingering fear, or at the very least nagging concern, that it could happen again. Part of it is just me getting cynical in my mid-life years. Either way, like a lot of people, 9-11 changed me.
Word reached me right before the 2nd plane hit one of the towers. My sister Tina, who assumed I was not as blissfully unaware as I actually was, called me to let me know that our best friend Ursula and our cousin Tim were fine. Why wouldn’t they be fine? I remember thinking that through my ‘you-just-woke-me-up-and-I-barely-know-my-name’ haze. “Why wouldn’t they be fine,” I asked out loud this time.
“You haven’t heard?” Tina asked like I had been living on some island.
“Heard what? I just woke up when you called.”
She told me to turn on the news and didn’t offer an explanation.
“Which channel?” Clearly I had no clue.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s everywhere.”
I did as instructed and turned on the TV and was literally stunned and speechless with what I was seeing.
“We’re under attack, girl!” Tina has a flare for the melodramatic, but this time it felt like she was dead on.
The call was short but the day turned into a 20 hour marathon of news watching for me. When the first tower fell, it was surreal. I had been to the top of one of the towers during spring break my freshman year of high school. For all I know it was THAT tower. It wouldn’t matter because later, as we all know, the other one would fall too. I was in shock. A few hours later, I did something I’ve rarely done as an adult. I called my father. Only it really wasn’t my father I needed. I called my DADDY!
He hadn’t been Daddy for over a decade at that point and he hasn’t been Daddy again since. But on 9-11, the asshole I call Frank who I love but really don’t like, wasn’t Frank, Jeanie’s husband, or Frank Vanguard’s CEO, or Frank the cheating bastard… he was Daddy. He was the man who used to come home for lunch and right before he would leave to go back to work would pretend to be angry with his 3 young daughters, tell us to line up (pretending to go for the belt) and then give us a kiss on the cheek. He’s was the man who, no doubt in an effort to impress his daughters, played chicken with a rattle snake on the banks of a fishing pond. I needed to hear no other voice that day but his and my Mom’s and she wasn’t around. So I called him. The last time I spoke to him before that was about a year prior.
"Vanguard," his commanding voice said on the other end of the phone.
"Daddy?"
"Hi," he sounded really surprised, as if he too was aware of the last time I actually called him Daddy.
I didn’t bother with bullshit. I got right to the point. "I was just watching the news…"
"Yeah, unbelievable."
"I know I don’t tell you often enough and we’ve had our differences, but I love you and I just needed my Daddy."
He was quiet for a few seconds … perhaps letting it sink in.
"I love you too Baby."
Baby? I was 15 the last time I was Baby. This phone call is as vivid in my memory as the images that were playing on the screen. It seemed like I was living in a different world, and in fact, I was. It’s now the post 9-11 world and most of us are still trying to adjust.
Ms. Tralwind @ September 11, 2008
Finding Inspiration
Posted in: Essays, Music | Comments (0)
The first time I held an acoustic guitar I was probably 13 years old. My father had borrowed a guitar from his friend so he could see if he really wanted to try to learn how to play. I remember the guitar sitting in the corner of the living room for two weeks. I don’t even really remember my father picking the guitar up but I’m sure he did because he was trying to learn the Marty Robin’s song Streets of Laredo. I think he got frustrated and just quit trying.
What I distinctly remember though is feeling drawn to that guitar. Nancy Wilson of Heart was and still is my guitar hero. The first time I heard the Dog & Butterfly album - particularly the song Dog & Butterfly, I knew I wanted to play the guitar.
One day, in direct defiance of my father’s instructions to leave the guitar alone, "It’s not a toy" he’d say, I picked up that guitar and started trying to figure out the song which had frustrated my father into submission. My father wasn’t used to failure. He dropped out of high school in the 9th grade, lied about his age and joined the Air Force long before I was born. When he got out, he worked at a steel manufacturing company, and worked his way up and eventually started his own business which to this day is very successful. How my father let this piece of wood and steel get the best of him is still a mystery to me.
Ms. Tralwind @ August 28, 2008
Breathless
Posted in: Love Passion and Desire, Poetry | Comments (0)
I had planned to take my time
To savor every sensation
To will myself into a hyper state of awareness
I wanted to remember every touch
Every taste
Every breath
Every beat of your heart
The door opens and all thoughts escape
Like the breath I held awaiting your arrival
The vision before me too much
Too powerful to feign nonchalance
My vision a blur of movement
As I touch you with my eyes
From every curl
To every curve
Waiting has never held such worth
In a wave of desire too strong to resist
You are in my arms
You are in my senses
You are in my blood
Every touch a warm shot of electricity
I am dizzy and unsteady under your pull
Torture has never been so deliciously sweet
7/18/08
Ms. Tralwind @ August 16, 2008
Sleeping Beauty
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
Are you vulnerable in the peaceful quiet of your slumber?
Where does your mind go when it is still from the stresses of your day?
Do you dream in color?
Do you remember your dreams?
To see you lying there,
Eyes closed, relaxed and unguarded
In all your exposed beauty
Would be like looking at the sun too long.
Eyes closed, that vision would be all I could see
Wait. Yes, this is a lovely thought.
Sleep. Rest your hiding mighty heart,
Weary from holding your soul earthbound,
The weight of responsibility holds you like gravity
Rest your sentry standing poised to strike.
Close your eyes and slip away.
Let the calm take you like a lover
Quietly, soothing you into submission.
Sleep well beautiful one.
But wake soon.
The colors on my canvas
Are always more vibrant when you are in the painting
The textures more interesting
The strokes more titillating
Yes, sleep well angel full of fire
And wake to a brighter day
Tue 1/8/2008
- For O
Ms. Tralwind @ August 16, 2008
Awakened
Posted in: Love Passion and Desire, Poetry | Comments (0)
You have awakened my dreams again
Blissfully ignorant of reality
Passion filled visions of you arouse my senses
I am helpless against your sway
Captivated by your presence
Lingering between gentle slumber
And supple thighs
Awake?
Asleep?
It matters not
Gentle kiss ignites the flame
Tongues dancing, dueling for control
Your lips are soft, moist and welcoming
Inviting me to explore further
Tension building
Sultry eyes glazed from hunger
I want you to beg
Could I make you beg?
You move against me
Into me
Around me
Above me
I move inside you
Savoring the slow deliberate caresses
Devouring every inch of flesh my tongue discovers
You have mastered the tease
Taunting me with retreating full lips
Baiting me with perfect breasts
Awake
I am definitely awake
Sweet ache of longing
Craving
Wanting
Desire pulsing through my body
Driving me
Enticing me
Compelling me forward
Urging me deeper
Salaciously moving to the erotic rhythm of your breathing
You rise to meet my curious tongue
I bathe in your pleasure
Bask in the sweet pain of your delight
As eager nails engrave my fiery flesh
Blindly tracing the curve of your hips
Abandoning all remaining self control
I am a prisoner to all you stir inside of me
And yet I have never felt so free
Ms. Tralwind @ August 9, 2008
Getting Healthy Getting Fit
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
- Getting Healthy - Getting Fit - Getting To Work On Time
It’s Saturday morning, a day usually reserved for R & R for me, but with the recent shift bid at work, I got royally screwed – or should I say I royally screwed myself or circumstances royally screwed me. Either way, I was pretty much screwed period.
We have a shift bid every quarter and one’s ranking in the shift bid is based on several factors including attendance. With the last shift bid, between my performance scores and call monitoring (100% I’m proud to say) and perfect attendance (for the prior quarter) – I was ranked 11 out of 40 agents who handle the same accounts. That was nice because that meant I would pretty much get my first shift choice.
Unfortunately when my car died I had to take several days off. This counted against me for the current bid. It’s amazing how two days can affect a shift bid ranking. I went from being ranked 11 out of 40 agents to 37 out of 45 (I guess we hired some peeps between then and now). I wound up with a shift that normally I would love. Four ten hour shifts with Mon, Tues, Wed off. But when you consider that I’m still busing it, once you start tallying time – it’s no longer a 10 hour day.
There’s the 45 minutes they require us to take for lunch – which I can’t understand (30 minutes is long enough but they took a poll and I guess other people didn’t agree). Add to that a total of 30 minutes on two different busses to get to work, and 30 minutes on two different busses to get home – throw in the two 15 minute waiting periods between busses and the 15 minutes to walk to and from the bus… I think I’ve lost count… and that 10 hour day just stretched to almost 13 hours. That’s the downside of my new shift.
I don’t mind working weekends so much; the suits are gone, and there’s only one supervisor and as long as it’s not the one I can’t stand, the weekends are pretty relaxed and low key – and thankfully the call volume is low. It’s like getting paid to surf the internet or work on my book.
Ms. Tralwind @ June 28, 2008
9 Years
Posted in: Poetry | Comments (0)
You passed by again
A shout out the window to the memory of me
Nostalgia filling your mind
Music and memories filling your heart
Too long has it been
Since I felt your strong arms
As I nestled my ear to your chest Your heart beating in perfect 4/4 time
Everything was perfect in our little world
Nothing has been perfect since
But my heart remembers dancing
My skin remembers the burn
My soul remembers soaring
My body still longs
After 9 years
How can the memory be so fresh
- For Root
Ms. Tralwind @ June 22, 2008
Surfing Spiders
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
Writing exercise: Write a story about someone that has an unusual phobia. Write a scene that causes that character to face his fear.
Surfing Spiders
It was mentioned in passing, sandwiched between the usual banter filling the smoking area daily. It wasn’t a surprising fear as fears go. But learning that this woman who carried herself with a confidence rarely seen in 29-year-olds was actually afraid of large bodies of water was both entertaining and intriguing. There was no explanation for it, she said. She just didn’t like being on, crossing over, or swimming in large bodies of water. It wasn’t my deep love of the ocean that made this difficult to comprehend. If any one of my other friends had confessed to this phobia (is there even a name for it?) I might not have thought twice about it. But this was Olivia!
Ms. Tralwind @ June 6, 2008
Bright Neon Pink
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
There is no one that I know or have ever known that would accuse me of being a girly girl. The only visually feminine thing about me is the fact that I have breasts, and as a kid, if I could have stopped them from growing I would have. I was too comfortable in my tom-boy skin and was horrified at the reality that my father seemed to enjoy torturing me with… that eventually, like my two older sisters, I too would grow boobs. As if I could somehow prevent that, I rebelled against it in every way I could as a kid. I had Tonka trucks and played with dinosaurs that would run over and attack my older sisters’ Barbie dolls. I read my bother’s comic books and wanted to be a cowboy! I did NOT want to be the girl that I was. Dresses… forget it! Makeup… hell no!
While I’d like to say that I fought the good fight and was never actually photographed in a dress, sadly, it would be a lie. There are a few pictures of me in a dress; one particular atrocity is of an embarrassing moment taken at my 4th grade square dancing performance, me, dorky as I have ever looked, in a country bumpkin floor length contraption complete with a bonnet on my head. It would take years for me to recover from the humiliation of being teased by my older siblings.
So why am I sitting here, writing this with bright neon (HOOKER) pink nail polish on my fingernails? Boobs! Not my own, of course. The tom-boy all grown up is now a healthy lesbian with a salacious appreciation and love for the very thing I loathed as a kid. Boobs. Yep, I’m a boob girl. I’m not picky, really. Any size will do, just as long as they actually appear to be boobs and not enormously large pimples and of course, they must must must be real.
Ms. Tralwind @ April 25, 2008
Tales From The Bus
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
I may have mentioned that my car has died and I am between vehicles at the moment, relying on MASS TRANSIT to get to and from work. If I have not mentioned it, I just did.
This is a whole new world to me. I’ve always had a car since I took driver’s ed. at fifteen. Some cars were certainly better than others, but I always had wheels man. This is something I never realized I took for granted. The freedom that comes with that hadn’t really had true meaning until now.
Too many times in the past I’ve run out of ciggies at 2am and been able to just hop into trusty ol’ Red, my Toyota Corolla, may she rest in peace, and shoot off to the store, returning not only with a pack of ciggies, but munchies to satisfy… ok I won’t say it because there are kids here, but if I have the munchies, you can do the math.
Too many times have I broken a string on my guitar after putting off a trip to the music store one too many times, and been able to hop in the trusty ol’ Mazda Pickup (may he rest in peace [why was the truck a HE? I don’t know]) and cruise on down to the music store returning, not only with guitar strings but another guitar strap I really didn’t need.
Just having the freedom on a whim to hop in the car with my telescope in tow and a few Heart CDs heading for the darkness waiting beyond the city limits only to get frustrated that the damn moon moves entirely too fast to really enjoy the experience…ah, but the music was bichin’ and the drive was peaceful, especially with the windows rolled down in the middle of spring.
The list goes on and on and on and on.
Am I spoiled? You bet your bippy I am.
Ms. Tralwind @ March 31, 2008
Mirrored by the Day
Posted in: Essays | Comments (0)
A soft gentle mist has grayed my day, soaking through the protective sheath of musical distractions which keep my emotional turmoil hidden beneath layer upon layer of pretense that everything will return to normal and I will be myself again.
I have chosen, this time, to feel the pain instead of delaying the inevitable with numbing substances altering my perspective. This path is better, I try to convince myself.
Why then, when I close my eyes, like looking at the sun too long, is your face the only thing I see, your voice, which is deafening above the silence this moment must contain, the only sound I hear? And yet, I haven’t heard that sound, I haven’t felt your embrace or inhaled your perfume for far too long now.
I am not convinced.
What if I forget? What if this time and distance erases you? Would I finally be free of the only love I have ever craved, the only soul I have ever loved? Would our history be in vein?
“Failure is not an option,” has given way to a sad resolve that fate may have other ideas. I am too tired to fight you this time – even if fighting you means saving us. I feel the rain upon my face, masking the tear that escapes as I let my guard down, forgetting for a moment that I am all cried out.
© Andrea D. Gonzales 2007
Ms. Tralwind @ March 11, 2007
Toenails
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She peels away protective layers of disesteem
Wistfully, replacing them, a gift for herself.
The crimson décor that shines at her feet
Reflects the smile her scowl has eroded in to
With spurts of attention adorned upon her by her own hand
Hope prevails
Ms. Tralwind @ August 9, 2002
Pages
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These pages
Plain white lined from top to bottom
Are bored
They have not been visited by pen often enough
No one has taken them on a journey
To some distant place the mind created
Or the heart remembered
They lie dormant in their bed
Between red and cardboard covers
Bound by silver wire
They can not escape
They wait patiently for someone
To give them new life
To free them from their ordinary
And meaningless existence
They can’t even be trees anymore
Andrea Gonzales 4/17/02
Ms. Tralwind @ April 17, 2002
Jim’s
Posted in: Essays | Comments (2)
It was on a busy street corner in
His sky blue beat up old car was his loyal horse patiently waiting in the background. He carried a lasso in one gloved hand. The other was covered in wrinkles and history.
Cars passed by. Some people waved or honked at him. Some laughed and some smiled awkwardly. Others drove by deliberately looking away, afraid to notice him, afraid to acknowledge someone so out of place, too busy to be bothered.
Ms. Tralwind @ February 18, 2002