Free at Last

it's no fun to get benched. the coach trusts you - four-foot something, 6th grade point guard, number 21, jv high scorer - to make it happen. get in there little o'brien, she says, foamy spit gathering in the corners of her mouth, grotesquely obese woman chastising frail little girls for not moving their hips fast enough. but inevitably, some days you just don't have what it takes. the ref blows the whistle - you see janet donahue at the scorer's table, number 5, tube socks pulled up above her knees - and the coach points to you, motions, "sit." you run over, head high, slap janet's sweaty palm but don't look her in the eye, then watch the game from a metal fold out chair. you want your team to win, but you can't help secretly wishing airballs, travelling calls, and vicious fouls on janet.

i think i got benched today. after many months of harried writing with no solid final product in sight, i received an email from the coach's crummy little toady that i would be turning the project over to him. my first reaction - they think i suck, and that bothers me. my second - this information in an email? my third - i'm free at last!

i have not realized the pressure and stress this job has put on me until i contemplated freedom from it. unless they change their minds, which they have been known to do on a weekly basis, i will suddenly have time for school again, time for my writing, time for my life, time that is not clouded over by a looming deadline for something i'm not enjoying doing. but as i slap their hands, i hope to wish them well. of course, i wish them maybe a stolen pass or two, an elbow in the ribs, so they can appreciate my difficult situation and hard work. but beyond that, i hope it turns out to be the most phenomenal coffee table book that no one will ever read. after all, it will have my name on it.

Fear Not, Lindsay Lohan

so the topic is fear. i have some petty fears, such as fear of vomit and/or stomach flu, witnessing a plane crash (when i see one in the air i am always certain it is going down), being trapped in my car underwater, and being taken over by andrea yates frustration and tossing one of my children over the railing from the second story of the mall. but the chance of any of these things happening to me (save for the vomit) is unlikely. just don't get offended if you are hunched over the toilet in need of a friend and i disappear to bathe myself in clorox, refusing to see you for at least two weeks.

perhaps all my real fears can be summed up into the fear of exposure. fear i will be exposed for not being as smart as my mother has always said i am. fear that in my english major, i will be discovered for being severely under read and for continuing to use sparknotes.com at the age of 32. fear that, while i put carrot sticks in my son's lunchbox to look good, he will tell his teachers that i sometimes let him eat cocoa puffs for dinner. my inadequacies, my failures, my bad habits, my idiosynchrasies. so much of the way i live is out of the fear of being seen for who i really am.

and what does all this have to do with lindsay lohan? absolutely nothing. that was just a cheap ploy to up my site meter. and if you happened upon my blog by googling linsday lohan, it's time to stop. your obsession is getting out of hand.

If I Were a Ghost

when i lived in clearwater there was a desolate street with a rundown, supposed haunted house near the end. the legend was, if you drove down this street at precisely midnight with your lights off, a female ghost (i guess an inhabitant of the house, i can't remember the specifics) would appear in front of your car. i never did this and can't say i know anyone who did, but it was enough to drive by the street in the daytime and imagine it might be true. i also never made it into the bathroom at midnight during a slumber party to say "bloody mary" three times and see a bloodied female ghost appear in the mirror. i was afraid it was true.

i watched plenty of "creature feature" as a kid (hosted by dr. paul bearer). i remember watching "13 ghosts" which was particularly scary, although all i remember is a scene where a man gets trapped in a canopy bed and the top closes in on him, crushing him to death. he screamed a lot. it was very unnerving. but equally unnerving was watching whoopi goldberg almost make out with demi moore. patrick swayze's ghost, while kind and attractive, still had this notion of "unfinished business" that seems to be associated with ghosts, perhaps a human invention that gives us hope we will have some kind of second chance to set things straight. haunting for haunting's sake seems unlikely; ghosts are either tormented by not having a home in the afterlife so they have nothing better to do than torment us, or they cannot go to their final resting place until they have completed some task or reparation.

if i were a ghost, i think i would be much too busy to waste my time scaring people. assuming my task could wait, i'd probably spend the first three days or so flying through walls. or just flying period. i'd go to disney world for free, ride all the rides, have an especially hearty ghostly chuckle in the haunted mansion. i might look up ex-boyfriends and spy on them, maybe pull their pants down in a public place, but nothing too sinister. i could hop a plane to almost anywhere, see the world, only aching at the fact i could not eat. and, i would not have to fear a plane crash or even snakes on a plane. i suppose i would eventually get back to my "task" of exposing my murderer or contacting my mother to tell her i love her because my last words were unkind, something about her speaking out of turn regarding how i rear my children. and, if i had a passionate love in my life who i wanted to kiss one more time, if i really loved him, i would spare him the unpleastry of having to make out with the male equivalent of whoopi goldberg.