Going Out Dancing

My mother, in her dying days (by which I mean just a handful of them since she was not one to sit in waiting rooms for long) told me in a peeved voice that she "wanted to go out dancing." And I believed her. I think "out" meant more than one thing. Come on, what do you think she meant?

After all, she had danced all her life. She had been a red-headed, hot-blooded ballroom dancer, many years later a round dancer (I don't know know what that is, but I know it didn't have anything to do with those super-celibate 19th-century Shaker dancers so often to be found, until they all died out, in our New England/Mid-Atlantic area). Among her other engaging activities, Mom had always danced.

And she was pissed as hell that she couldn't during those last days since she was a) on oxygen and b) dying.

Who knows if she's dancing now? Who knows what "the great perhaps" holds in store for any of us? Maybe nothing. Maybe dancing. The truth is, if invitations are forthcoming, we haven't been issued ours just yet. So there's no use packing our suitcases right now. We must sit tight in our plastic bus station chairs for the time being.

As for me, I want to go out dancing. Whatever that might mean. After all, aren't our bodies meant to be used and used well? Even without our trying, they already do a splendid job. For example: peristalsis. Need I say more? And let's not forget sex, childbirth, dreaming. Let's not forget writing and the other arts, playing sports, singing. Let's not forget the ne plus ultra of human effort: composing. (But let's not let it go to those musicians' heads!)

So let this be my last time, for the time being, of saying requiescat in pace.

Right now--and the odds are slim--but what I want is to go out dancing.

A Story that is Barely There: Half-life

            I tried vomiting. I knew other girls who did it. They were assholes, but it isn’t only assholes who want to be thin.

            I didn’t like the vomiting, but for what it’s worth, it worked. I’d eat, go to the bathroom, gag myself, vomit, take a breath mint. I’d be back in the cafeteria or in class in just a couple of minutes. It takes me longer to shit than it did when I used to make myself puke.

            But I hated it. And I gave it up. Because I like—no, I actually love—the way things taste. Throwing them back up again just messes it up completely. Nothing tastes like a cheeseburger or a bagel with lite cream-cheese or Mom’s carrot cake after it’s been acidulated or whatever by your gastric juices. Everything ends up tasting like puke. Because by that point, that’s all it is. And it makes you never want to eat it again in its original state, either.

            So I gave up the vomiting.

            The last thing that was supposed to happen was for my sister to find out. She’s my little sister, but she loves me like a mother cat loves her kitten, skewering it by the scruff of its neck. It’s love, I guess. But it hurts. I’d never be that kind of mother.

            According to my sister, I’ll never be a mother at all. I’ve messed up my periods According to my sister, I’ll give myself ulcers. According to her I have bad teeth. Except I don’t have bad teeth. It’s that my mother had pneumonia when she was carrying me. They had to put her on antibiotics. The milder ones didn’t work, so they ended up giving her drugs that crossed the placenta and left me with a yellow tinge to my teeth and enamel that’s softer than normal.

            So I’ve always flossed. And especially when I was vomiting I always flossed. And brushed. I’ve never even had a cavity. Maybe vomiting would have given me a cavity if I hadn’t been so careful. But I had been.

            You couldn’t tell that to my sister, though. Not that I even tried. She found out about the vomiting and told Mom and Mom called my dad and told him, though he had very little to say on the subject. He has very little to say on any subject.