Living Proof

My father should start blogging. I can hear the roars of laughter coming from my mother and three sisters as I write this. Dad is still adjusting from the rotary telephones. My sister Carla gave him her old cell phone, which has the little number pad on it. His big fingers try to struggle to punch in the correct number. My cell phone rings. I see “Dad” coming up on my caller id. Oh Lord. I know he is out on the job working on some machine doing excavating. Why does he want to chit-chat with me now? “Hello?” “Ah, yeah—is this Dempsey Pipes?” “Dad, you dialed me idiot!” “Ha-ha-ha-ha!" His big wheezy laugh was blaring out of my Nextel speakerphone, as I shook my head in disbelief. He had mistaken “Debbie” from “Dempsey”. I’m going to bring him to an eye doctor if he calls me one more time. My dad is a talker. He can talk your ear off sometimes. That’s what we love about him though. He has stories that are so incredible, sometimes too graphic; nevertheless, entertaining. Often enough...

What a rambler I am; simply talking about my life. Why would anyone even care? Did you ever hear someone say, “Oh she told me her entire life story?” Maybe it’s because I don’t talk much about what really bothers me. I don’t even tell my psychiatrist half the sh*t I tell the blogger world. Interesting, huh? Maybe it’s because I get more feedback from posting than I do with telling Lurch. (My psychiatrist) Now, if someone who is a reader of my blog can prescribe me my meds, I’ll leave Lurch and stick to this. No one knows me. They think they know me. They don’t. I’m the loudmouth lipstick lesbian who gets into controversial political and religious conversations just to get a rise out of people. I’m the girl every bartender in town knows. “Where’s Deb tonight? She always sits right in this seat.” I have my own assigned seat in over five local bars. I have my own assigned seat in Provincetown, MA in another five. All the bartenders know me there too. Why? I’m the big flirt. I’m flirtatio...

"Come on Deb, you’ll be late for school, let’s go!” “Coming! Hold up!” I said, fumbling for the rest of my stuff trying to make it out the door. The bus never came to pick me up because I lived on a mountain that was one mile high up a dirt road. My mother had to drive me down to the bus stop every morning, or I could have walked. I never walked. There were no kids my age on that hill and it was too desolate. Never mind the bear problem- the neighbor’s dogs were to be feared. My parents never let me walk that hill alone anyway. I was sixteen years old at the time and always managed a way to miss the bus. I did this purposely, because I didn’t like the kids I rode with. They all irritated me and I would isolate myself almost next to the front seat, so I wouldn’t get agitated. I always got carsick sitting on a bus for some reason, and my poor mother always ended up driving me to school. If I could catch my sister Cathy with her awesome little white pimped up Dodge Daytona to drive...

“It’s simply not what the object is. You’re not drawing the actual subject.” Miss Griffen says, looking over my shoulder to see my replica on paper of what was sitting in the middle of the room. There was a pile of two by fours interlacing one another. We were supposed to draw these pieces of wood ‘as they were’; in the exact perspective that was given. Each person had to draw the same exact thing, but in a different point of view. We all sat in a circle with our big art desks and materials, trying to muster up something that looked like a pile of nothing. “Your shading is off. The light is coming from behind the pile, not in front of it. Change the lighting.” She badgers me once again, as she took her enormous eraser, and made my shading disappear herself; as though I was just some little kid trying to finger paint. “Deb, you’re an artist, why can’t you get this down right? This isn’t correct and I don’t want to give you a low grade.” “Is art supposed to be ‘right’? I’m not into ‘d...

“I can’t believe I’m going to sit there for forty-five minutes again, Madelene.” “I’m thinking the same thing.” “I mean, he just sits there and stares at me as if I had two heads.” “There’s no other psychiatrist. They’re all booked up, Deb.” “I’m going to sit there, and play with his plants like I usually do.” Driving up the thruway heading towards my doctor’s appointment, Madelene starts sneezing her head off. By the twentieth sneeze, instead of “God bless you”—I was simply going to tell her, “SHUT UP!” She’s too cute though. Besides, she is coming along for the ride to be bored out of her skull waiting for me to get analyzed by some quack. We get into the office. It’s a very large square office. Each door has a different type of doctor inside. You walk into this square room, full of chairs surrounding the door of each doctor. We head over to where my psychiatrist’s door is. It’s usually dismal and dark over in that corner; quite eerie to tell you the truth. “Psst, you think he’s...

The flu? Or not the flu? It’s definitely the question as I sit here still recovering from being sick all weekend. It started Saturday afternoon. I continuously kept fleeing for the bathroom every five minutes. I couldn’t keep anything down. I kept backtracking what I ate that morning, and the night before. Madelene and I got take out from our favorite restaurant. We ordered a thing of mussels, and pasta. How wrong can you get with that? I know you can really get sick of clams, but mussels? Anyway, that Saturday evening was horrific. I didn’t sleep. I just kept upchucking my eternal organs because there was nothing else I ate that day. My head began to pulse like a drum; as if my brain was being smacked around my huge scull. My body ached from all the hurling and coughing that night. It was awful. I don’t wish this on anyone! All I wanted was my bed. Here’s my discoveries while being sick. Lifetime. Oh yeah. Big top ten on my list for those entire three days. If I see another wife beate...

WARNING! Before you read this post, please keep an opened mind. I’m of Christian faith, and this post holds many beliefs of mine that I am sharing. If you are of another religion, please take this with a grain of salt, or you may want to skip this post. “Honey, where’s my cream colored blouse that I just got out of the drycleaners?” “It should be in the pile of the clothes that you brought back, Deb.” “ No… Nothing.” I said, fumbling through garments wrapped up in bags. “Well when did you last see it?” Madelene asks. I hated when my mother used to ask me that very same question when I was interrogating her for a lost item. That question alone has to be more absurd than, ‘Are you sleeping?’ “Never mind, I’ll just wear this.” I replied, avoiding all arguments regarding that stupid question. I wasn’t about to reply, ‘Well if I knew where I last saw it…………” (You know the drill) At the age of twenty-three, I thought I would have a little more tolerance for life. I was agitated and way ...

“Thank you for your patience, Debra, we do apologize for taking so long to call you back on this matter.” “That’s no problem, as long as I get the status of where my book is, and if it is in the printing process, I’m fine. Do I need to correct any errors that you can see?” “Not at this time, Debra. It is in the ‘acquisition’ stage, and you should be hearing back from Rebecca shortly after that.” “That’s fine, Robert, as long as I am informed so we can get this moving, I’ll be more than happy to make additional corrections as needed.” Having this be my third time around with my editor correcting punctuation and margin errors can get frustrating. The most challenging aspect of this all, is dealing with four people at a time who are working on my book to be published. Great, four people, right? Wrong. I got shuffled around to four people handling matters that were frustrating. I first went to Brian, who then sent me to Tammy, who then sent me to Susan, who then sent me to Rob. All of them...

“I never knew Deb—you just don’t look like a lesbian.” “What does a lesbian look like?” I ask, even though I already knew Diane’s stereotypical assumption of what a lesbian ‘should’ look like. “You know—more masculine features, more tomboyish, and just rough around the edges.” “This is what you go by? I asked, chuckling at how many people she has missed on her way to Naïveville. “You and your girlfriend are really pretty and feminine.” “Well, thank you.” “I could definitely see myself experiencing my first with someone like you. I’m so curious, I find women to be so sensual and sexy.” She says, as she gleams at me with her big green eyes. I knew where this was heading. To even entertain the thought of being her guinea pig for a one night experiment was inconceivable. The fact that she knew I was committed to Madelene somehow made me lose all respect for her. I felt as though she disrespected my relationship; as if it was make believe, or playing house. Diane lived with her boyfriend...

Fumbling around, tossing old shoes out and rummaging through old clothes, I made my way into the closet to discover the those four words blurted out by every woman alive, “I HAVE NO CLOTHES!” The leather boots from last year were crinkled up from being sat upon by other shoes. “I can’t wear these!” Tossing the pair of shoes that I loved so much. “Madelene!!!” I call out. “What’s wrong sweetie?” “We have to go shopping.” Subconsciously, Madelene starts to put her hands above her pockets, holding them tightly, as if I were about to attack her for the plastic. I know what you’re thinking-- you mean her purse, right? No. She doesn’t carry a purse. She carries around a little folder-like wallet. This thing is so packed (not with money) but with business cards, receipts, credit cards and other miscellaneous items. She keeps it closed with a headband. When we go out for dinner, she throws her ugly wallet inside my nice purse. It’s a lesbian tradition I guess. I'm just thankful she doesn...

“How can you tell who's calling?” “Ma, you look on the screen.” “What screen?” “The one that is on the receiver of the phone.” “Do the callers know I can see their number?” “Not unless you tell them…” “When will the number display.” “WHEN YOUR PHONE RINGS MA!” Fancy gadgets and high tech computerized equipment are apart of our lives now. Or is it? For some, they are still living in the dark ages. Most prefer living back in the day where it was just as if you received a wrapped up present from someone, when your phone rang. “Oh! My phone is ringing! I wonder who could be calling!” No surprises anymore. We know who’s calling, and if you don’t want to show your number, then we just block your call. Simple as that. The thrill of the phone ringing, has now lost its novelty. We now leave the phone ringing four to five times into our voice mails, because we saw who was calling. It was no surprise, it was just a dreadful thought that we may have picked this phone up, if it weren’t for our ...

“Have a good day sweetie.” Madelene says, as she kisses me goodbye to leave for work. “You too, got your phone?” I ask. “Yeah, it’s on.” “Ok, call me later.” I walk into the bathroom to wash up. Barely seeing a thing, I put some drops in my eyes, and splashed some cold water on my face. I look up in the mirror; my face puffy from too much sleep, my eyes almost closed, and there were a few ‘pillow lines’ drawn on my cheeks. I start rubbing my face to get those pillow lines off. I can’t walk around looking like this. “What the???” I say out loud, staring at the unknown object in the mirror. “Where the hell did you come from?” It was a hair! On my chin! And from the length of it-- how long has this sucker been there? I immediately try to tug on it. It was so long, that I didn’t even have to pinch my two fingers together tightly to get a good grip. Forget the tweezers. This puppy was long and mean. I grabbed it with my hand, and closed my fist, and tugged hard. No lie- this ‘chin hai...