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Mar 12, 2021 09:44
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| # ¿ Jan 15, 2026 10:49 |
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 My (38F) husband (34M) is jealous of my brother (38M) and it’s causing strife 992 words And it’s not because my brother is around so much. Zeke doesn’t even have to be around when it happens. It starts with something simple. Like, Roger and I will be driving somewhere, a song comes on the radio. I turn it up and Roger says, “Oh, is that like your song? You and your soul mate?” I mean, what am I supposed to say? I could be like, “Who are you talking about anyway?” but I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. Of course he means Zeke. Having a song implies something that’s just not there. my brother and I share musical tastes, except for Rush. We don’t have a “song” and Roger knows it. That implies a romantic element that just does not exist. Roger and I don’t have a song either. We never did. Why does he think that’s a thing? Or I’ll want to see a movie, and it’s not one Roger wants to see. If I went with a girl friend there’d be no issue, but if I go with my brother? Roger gets all scratchy. It’s not like it’s a date. Okay, “brother” is not entirely accurate. It’s complicated. His father and my mother got together when we were 11. There are good reasons they were both single parents up until that time. But the relationship is definitely a sibling one, nothing more. At that age I wanted three things I knew I wasn’t going to get. I wanted to be a boy, I wanted a horse--and yes, I realize I was a little inconsistent there--and I wanted a brother. And then there was Z, filling that one need perfectly, and we went on from there, living as siblings from age 11 to age 18, putting up with our parents’ individual and collective insanity, and getting into and out of jams as a team. Try to explain this to Roger and he’s all, “Oh, so Z completes you, maybe you should have married him! No blood relationship, no legal relationship, you could have.” Ewww. He’s my brother. But in a sense Roger is right, at least that Z and I complement each other. Like, together we would have made one hell of a baseball player. I was afraid to catch the ball, and bad and wild at throwing it, but put a bat in my hands and I was lethal. The outfield did not back up when I came to the plate. Also, I led our league in stolen bases. Z was not a great hitter, but he could catch the ball and throw it fast, hard, and dead accurate. We each tried to coach the other but these seemed to be innate gifts that did not transfer. And this is a thing I can’t explain to Roger, one of many, because of the flak I get if I mention my brother at all. And if I don’t mention him then I get accused of being secretive. I’m not secretive! Rather than sneak around and pretend I am going somewhere with a girlfriend when really I would be hanging out with Z, I invite him over. My daughters adore him. I had them close together, 14 months apart, to give them the chance to grow up with the kind of close relationship Z and I have. I’ve never told Roger that’s why, maybe he intuited it, maybe not. I have to be careful not to ever call Z by any of the myriad nicknames I used when we were kids, even though he still calls me by one. Z and I also avoid talking about those times that were hell to go through but make good stories. Like when we spent almost 20 hours scrubbing soot from the side of the house, doing many loads of laundry, or rather one load, over and over, and raiding our piggy banks to replace the things that got destroyed or used up--a bottle of detergent, several brushes, the gas can that exploded, and the tarp we used to smother the fire once we realized that spraying it with water just spread it, and all this on a very strict time limit because we didn’t know when our parents would be back. And they never suspected a thing, not even to wonder why laundry that was hung out on Friday had still not dried by Monday. Okay, that’s not a story I want my girls to hear, at least not just yet. But the point is that we can’t share these stories at all or Roger will feel left out, and will get all sulky and give me a bad time after Z leaves. I could point out to Roger that Z is not completely sold on him, either, but accepts him because I do, even though Z thinks it’s strange that I married a cop. We didn’t do things that would attract the cops. When Z’s dad just didn’t show up one day we didn’t call them because what were they gonna do, go and look for him? My mom was like, either he’ll come back, or he won’t. Nothing the police can solve. Best thing is that cops never show up at your door at all. A marriage counselor would probably tell me that I chose Roger and I need to choose Roger again, and put Z aside. Put my husband first. So Roger gets what he wants, and I lose a brother. I know that whatever happens in my life I will always have Z’s back, and he’ll always have mine. I wish I felt like that about Roger, but I’m just not sure. Sometimes it seems like Roger is never on my side. It’s not like Z is disruptive, and even if he was, I would put up with Roger’s crazy relatives. Why can’t he put up with mine?
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Mar 14, 2021 20:55
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150 words My dog, with one of the world’s most sophisticated sniffing systems, a large snout and highly developed canine olfactory epithelium with specialized neurons for a superior ability, and what does he like to sniff? Where does he go first? You guessed it. Butts. First, other dogs’ butts. Any and all. Mm-mm good! What is wrong with humans anyway, shaking hands? That's no way to learn anything about anybody. Smelling butts is the way to go! Second, people’s. Bonus points if the person in question was wearing a dark silk skirt and he left a nose print. Yes. Yes he did. I don’t know if it was permanent because we got the hell out of there even though he wanted to continue his investigation. This animal on the other end of a leash, I don’t know him. Never saw him before. Bad smells smell good and butts rule, the gospel according to dog.
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Mar 17, 2021 07:30
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In https://horizon.scienceblog.com/1663/bottling-the-smell-of-happiness-to-help-treat-depression/
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Mar 18, 2021 06:21
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https://horizon.scienceblog.com/1663/bottling-the-smell-of-happiness-to-help-treat-depression/ Aromatherapy 1221 words Whatever you had, you got more of. Whatever you lacked, you got less of. The end. No. That was the depression talking. But who wouldn’t be depressed, working retail as a side gig, hoping to earn extra money, and continually being exposed to all the things you couldn’t afford, talking them up. Claire thought of it as spending her customers’ money for them, but at the end of the day the customers went home with stuff, and she either walked or spent extra money to take a cab home because the bus stopped running ten minutes before her shift ended. The extra money to buy shoes that both fit the dress code and didn’t make her want to cut off her feet halfway through the shift. The ladies who shopped didn’t have to worry about spending their cash on something that caught their eye. They could buy what they wanted. They had something, after awhile she could feel it, see it on them. Something that attracted money. They could spend it all day and they’d just get more. What did they have? And could she get it? You could see it on them, you could smell it, why would they need to buy fragrance when they had that, whatever it was? The way—Claire remembered this, from what seemed long ago—the way nobody was attracted to you until you managed to get something going with someone and it lifted you up, being crazy in love and having it reciprocated, and then everybody was attracted to you. If you only could bottle that. Not that people didn’t try. In fact Claire was selling it, bottled hope, and people were asking for it by name. Joy by Jean Patou. Joy by Dior. Happy by Clinique. Beautiful by—whoever. They didn’t stock Beautiful, although a lot of people asked for it, along with another one. Jolie Madame. Pretty lady? They didn’t have that one, either. And of course there were Diamonds Forever, White Diamonds, Black Pearl, Diamante, Emeraude, Bright Crystal, Golden Delicious. Of course there were also Poison and Wicked and Opium and that old favorite My Sin. Each one beautiful and uplifting to someone. Hang around it for four hours though, all these scents mingled together, and it gave Claire a whopping headache to nicely balance her swollen, tattered feet. The worst of it was, she really loved a couple of these scents. She could see herself, before the holiday season was over, using her employee discount to buy a couple of her favorites, to be able to smell them in isolation without the intrusion of the others. There was one in particular she loved, and a lot of the customers liked it, too. She guessed it smelled like money. Not actual cash—the stuff in the till had a scent, too, when she counted it at the end of the day, maybe the leather, or the paper, or the ink, or all of it together. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it wasn’t one you’d spray on in the morning, either. Was there maybe a fragrance named Cash? Claire didn’t think so—but if there was, she’d probably buy it, in the hopes of attracting more. Naturally, when she worked six hours after her regular eight-hour shift at her day job, the next day she went in at eight a.m. a bit bedraggled. Her boss gave her a sharp look, she worried so hard that she’d make a mistake that she was bound to make a mistake. Sometimes she was tempted to beg for mercy. To tell her boss she’d be much more efficient if she didn’t have to have a side gig just to keep things going, and how about a raise? But that would lead into a whole realm of questions about why she couldn’t manage her money, and the reason she couldn’t manage her money was that her ex had left her in a big financial hole, not to mention a big hole in her heart, and all her supposedly extra earnings seemed to go to interest, the principal never got smaller, she was swimming for shore as fast as she could and the undertow was taking her farther out to sea. The only saving grace, if there was one, was that she had to be relentlessly cheerful and upbeat. No one was going to buy fragrance from someone who looked like her feet hurt, her head was pounding, and her brain was sunk in despair. No, wait, that was the other saving grace—she was depressed, sure, but at least she had a reason for being depressed. It was being depressed without reason that was the killer. This was a bad time, she would get through it, and grit her teeth three times per shift when the intercom sang out the blatant lie that this was the most wonderful time of the year. She would get through it one way or another, or maybe she would fold, capitulate. Skip a month on the debt cycle, buy some cheap used car, maybe give up her apartment and live in the car for awhile, because what with working pretty much around the clock she only went there to sleep anyway. Sleep in the car, shower at the Y, put the money she wasn’t spending on rent toward retiring all that debt. Or maybe deliver pizza, because surely you could get a few slices from things they were going to throw out anyway. You couldn’t eat perfume. Or maybe just drive away from all of it, change her name, declare bankruptcy maybe—although the bankruptcy lawyer she’d talked to had told her, during her “free” consultation, that he needed $1000 to get things started, which seemed like a pretty high bar. In fact, backwards. Three women approached, three women who did not have that rich gloss and who weren’t going to buy anything. These three were going to ask for one sample or another, then say this one smelled too much like soap, and this other one should be eau de toilette instead of eau de parfum and also in a smaller size, and they’d end up not buying anything, but leaving the place smelling good. And she would smile and put some energy into it, basically for nothing. She couldn’t keep this up, she just couldn’t. after the holidays she would just quit. But realistically what would she do with all that extra time? She’d probably just go home and drink, which actually, when she thought of it, didn’t seem like that bad of an idea. And if she was going to quit after the holidays, when they’d probably cut her hours anyway, she might as well quit right now. And if she might as well quit right now, then she might as well at least leave early and make the drat bus, if they wanted to fire her they jolly well good. So she did. She walked out into the fresh air, took a deep breath, and headed for the bus stop, and didn't have to run. She stood there, watching the snow fall. It piled up like money, sticking and building up, where there was old snow left from the last storm, and melting and disappearing into the concrete where there was none.
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Mar 22, 2021 05:50
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in I'm Drunk and I don't wanna go home
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Jun 9, 2021 07:00
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Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home) Elle King and Miranda Lambert 990 words Yes! And? Jude pulled her vintage Jaguar, British racing green, neatly and efficiently into a fairly tight space at the Glendale Country Club. Then she reconsidered, and parked it again, in a different spot, at a crazy angle. An observer might surmise that its pilot was perhaps a tad inebriated. Perfect. Jude grinned at her companion, one Michael Kim. He looked about half her age, although actually he was 56. She could work with that. “So,” she said. “You’re a Japanese businessman, although there’s really no way I would actually know that because you only speak about four words of English.” She pulled her jewelled sunglasses down her nose and gave him a flirty look. “First rule of improv, do not deny,” he said. “You’ve given me a very easy role, I think I can handle that.” Inside, she grabbed the bartender and handed him a bill. “One straight one, and the next one that just looks that way, you get me?” She winked. “And, same for him?” Michael nodded. They sailed through the dining room, Jude leading, with the calibrated precision of a habitual drunk. She banged into a table set for four, knocking over a water glass, before caroming into the four-top where her daughter and son-in-law stared at her open-mouthed for a satisfying few seconds before turning polite. “Hell-ohhh,” she said gaily. “I believe I told you I’d be a little late. This is, uh, I can’t pronounce his name. Nishi something?” Michael bowed, nodded, and said nothing. He pulled out Jude’s chair. She plopped into it, just as a waiter arrived bearing drinks. Gwen pursed her lips and shared a look with Kyle. Jude tasted her drink, then downed it and held up her glass. “We met at--“ “Let me guess, the bar,” Gwen said. “I’m entitled to a life, you know. Short, nasty and brutish as it is. What’s with the no appetizers already? I think we might want some appetizers here!” “A little something to soak up the booze,” Kyle suggested. “Perzackly!” Jude agreed. “But then we’re probably not staying that long.” She fluttered her lashes at Michael in the most obvious manner and leaned confidingly toward her daughter. Second rule: Make a strong choice. “You know, I’ve just always had a fascination with oriental men. Oh, I guess I should say Asian.” “Mom.” Gwen looked nervously toward Michael, who smiled and nodded. “Oh, don’t worry, he doesn’t speak a word of English,” Jude said. “We can speak freely in front of him.” “Mom,” Gwen said again. This time she made eye contact with Kyle. Kyle lowered his voice, to further conceal his words from the man who didn’t know English. “What if he’s a, you know, gold digger?” “It’s only a one-night thing. I’m an adult and I think I get to decide that,” Jude pulled a case out of her handbag and pulled out a cigarette. She held it between two fingers and looked around, just as the waiter arrived with her second drink. “Sorry, ma’am, no smoking in here these days.” He was an old guy, probably remembered the days, not so very long ago, when he would have been at her side with a lighter as soon as she pulled out her smokes. Her dejection as she stuffed the cigarette back into the case was real. Never get old. But, scene. “It’s kind of like being a teenager again. You know, sneaking the guy into the room, or waiting till the parents are gone. Only now it’s waiting until the children are out. I’m just saying this so you know I’m not sneaking.” “An I-L-U.” Jude turned toward Michael. “Doesn’t that just sound like it should stand for I love you? Independent living unit. Sounds like something they’d have in a jail, right? Except for the independent part. Which is kind of a misnomer.” Kyle frowned. “I think we should take you home. Right now. Drive you. Come back for your car tomorrow.” “Absolutely not!” Jude stood up and downed her lime-infused tonic water with a flourish. “We are just leaving now.” She made a sharp motion with her head and Michael stood up, again bowing and nodding to Gwen and Kyle. He offered his arm; Jude took it. Kyle and Gwen followed them, and were right behind as Jude swerved in behind Kyle’s boat. She let the Jag nose the trailer hitch, just enough to move the boat, but only slightly. Kyle jumped out of his car yelling. “Are you trying to knock my boat off the trailer? What’s gotten into you?” “I did not so much as disturb the shrink wrap. Why’d you do that anyway?” She looked around at an imaginary audience. “Awww, his boat got wet, somebody get this guy a towel so he can cry into it.” Kyle stared at the ground. “Come on,” Jude growled. “This will make a great post on your anti-mother-in-law message board. You could even bullet-point it.” Kyle stepped back looking stricken. “Yeah. I know about it. You wouldn’t even have to embellish it. Maybe add I poo poo my pants or something.” “Oh my god.” Kyle leaned against his BMW. “Come on, man. My generation started with the Vic 20s. But apparently you kids think I’m so computer illiterate that I would never encounter the garbage you’re writing about me.” Gwen stared at him. Apparently he’d kept his internet rants a secret from her, too. “Talk about embellishing,” Kyle muttered. “You could have just told me.” Told him how hurt and embarrassed she’d been when she found it? No. she could never have said that. Third rule of improv: You are you. Jude felt light, and fierce. And better! Forgiving, even. She got back in the car, ready to drive Michael Kim home. “Sorry you didn’t really get to shine,” Jude said. “Oh, hey, no problem. Your show,” Michael said. “Can’t wait till the second class!”
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Jun 14, 2021 03:43
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In, and happy birthday!
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Aug 28, 2021 00:35
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| # ¿ Jan 15, 2026 10:49 |
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FML part MMXIX 1205 words It had already been a bad day by the time I got to the office and all I wanted was a new cartridge for my printer so I wouldn’t have to pull out the old cartridge and shake it every time I printed a page. I got on the bus to go downtown and it was dark, after the sun-shot snow at the bus stop, and I had things in my hands so couldn’t remove my dark glasses. As I groped my way toward a seat the driver launched the bus forward. I lurched backwards and grabbed for the nearest vertical bar. And then realized the vertical bar was moving. Because it was not a vertical bar; it was a white cane. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s so dark in here, and the sun blinded me…” Holy poo poo, did I just complain about the sun blinding me, to a blind man? I did. The bus lurched again, and the blind guy reached out to steady me, and grabbed me by the breast. You wouldn’t think that would provide a lot of stability, and I stumbled, but I didn’t fall. My shades did fall off and I realized it wasn’t all that dark, most people on the bus could see, and were somewhat amused. My shame lasted the entire ride. I walked into the office and Marina, the world’s dumbest receptionist, told me, with a very sad face, that the cleaning staff had thrown away all the office supplies she’d ordered the day before. “Why?” Marina pursed out her bottom lip and looked sideways, where two brand-new gray plastic trash cans sat on the floor next to a beat-up old trash can. She waved her arm toward these items, only to have said arm slam into the file cabinet behind her with a lot of force, and stay there. “What the hell?” Marina pried her arm loose. “Oh. It’s my magnets.” She pulled up her sleeve to reveal some kind of wire wrapped around her arm. Lots of wire. Going way up her arm. I couldn’t decide whether it looked like a cyborg thing or like a bondage thing. “It’s to keep me from getting carpal tunnel.” She wasn’t going to get carpal tunnel from answering the phone and sniping eBay items on her computer. The rest of us typed our own stuff, even Clint. And, magnets? I should note here that I mean Marina no ill will. Maybe she’s not dumb. Maybe she’s just very literal. For instance once she asked with a straight face, “I know this is a dumb question but are there clams in clam chowder?” Our boss, Clint, said, also with a straight face: “No. Clam chowder is made of worms. And bees.” And Marina was all shocked, and “Really?” I bet she never ate clam chowder again. Or there was the time the water in our building was turned off because of some emergency in the pipes, and if we needed the john we had to go down fourteen floors and cross the plaza to Building Two, in freezing weather. Clint said, “I think it’s due to those clowns who are out there tearing up the street.” Marina: “Clowns?” And she ran to the window to look. “I don’t see any clowns, just some guys with jackhammers…” Back to the office supplies. “I have no idea. They delivered them right before I left.” She looked at the new trash cans again. I had an idea. Among the office supplies she’d ordered were those two trash cans she’d just pointed at, and the delivery people had put the rest of the new office supplies into the trash cans, and Marina had left them there when she vacated the office at 4:42pm, as was her wont, so she could catch the bus. And the cleaning staff had emptied them along with all the other trash cans in the office. I told her to reorder. “Wait,” she said, “there was one really expensive thing in there. It was like two hundred bucks.” The laser printer cartridge. “Maybe I should ask Clint.” “Yeah, do that.” Before I could get into my office the door opened and an old lady in a mechanized wheelchair shot in and made for the reception desk, a crescent in the center of the office, with steely determination and an excess of speed. She crashed into the reception desk, altered her course, and crashed into it again. Marina jumped out of her chair, leapt back, and both her arms slammed into the horizontal file cabinet behind the desk. The old lady hit something on the arm of the chair and it whizzed backwards. I hopped out of her way as she lined up another assault on the reception desk, behind which Marina was crucified to the file cabinet by her magnets. Ignoring this, the old lady said, “The key, the key to the observation deck, do you have it? The door up there is locked.” The observation deck was on the nineteenth floor and was not open to the public I put my hand over my mouth and leaned against the wall for support. Marina struggled to free her arms from magnetic captivity. And presumably to comply with the old lady’s request. Grandma slammed into the reception desk again, this time leaving a visible dent. I had a sudden vision of the kind of mayhem this maniac in a motorized wheelchair could cause on the observation deck. She might actually go over the edge. I managed to choke out “No!” just as Marina opened the drawer that held the keys. A whole slew of paperclips attacked her arm like angry bees. And just then a well-dressed but grim woman came in the door. Saw me having a hysterical fit on one side and the old hag in the chair banging away in the middle of the room, and a receptionist doing a jitterbug trying to shake off by paperclips. “Mom,” the lady said. Of course this old lady had a keeper she’d slipped away from. This woman grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and steered the old lady out, pausing only to tell me I lacked empathy and ought to be ashamed of myself. I was helping Marina pick paperclips off her arms when Clint came in and told me I had to go look through the dumpster and maybe find the printer cartridge, before we ordered another one. “I can’t climb into the dumpster,” I said. “You’ll have to help me.” Half an hour later, filthy and dejected, Clint and I came back inside, having recovered a packet of sticky notes and a box of rollerball pens. “Oh,” Marina chirped, “I forgot to tell you, before you left. The office place had the printer cartridge on back order. They’ll send it over later today.” Clint and I looked at each other. “They called you, when?” Marina looked puzzled. “I guess right before that old lady crashed into the place.” “So,” I said. “When we went out to look through the nasty dumpster for this cartridge, you already knew it wasn’t in the stuff they delivered?” “I’m telling you now though! And there was other stuff.” “’Cause we were really concerned about these sticky notes,” I snarled, and waved them at her. Marina beamed like a demented angel. “I know!”
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Aug 29, 2021 23:32
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