Letter to Teagan

"Chris Bass told FOX8 he lives at the complex with his wife and two children. He was on his balcony when he spotted a man in a white mask, red curly hair, yellow dotted shirt, blue clown pants and clown shoes in the wooded area. Bass tried to chase the clown but could not catch him. He called his actions his "fatherly instinct."

http://myfox8.com/2016/09/06/third-clown-sighting-this-time-in-greensboro/

Dear Teagan, my precious niece,

There is a clown loose near my home in the Piedmont Triad. 

I had envisioned a future – you’d be older and able to handle bathroom things on your own, my dog who bites children will have succumbed to the long nap – in which you’d visit me here. 

I’d make you watch movies I think are important.  We’d bake cookies and eat pizza for every meal.  I’d probably cuss too much and beg you to not tell your parents. 

But it’s not safe here.  I’m afraid, until the clown is apprehended and pilloried, I’m just afraid.  What kind of world have we made for you, dear girl?  A clown, Teagan.  A clown is loose. 

In a perfect world, you could forge your own path, march to the beat of your own drumming, conjure and pursue your own ambitions.  I want that for you; of course I do.  But we’re not there yet. 

And so I must insist that you begin your martial arts and weapon training immediately.

Your father tells me you are able to hold a spoon but have not yet mastered getting the food to your mouth.  That is good, that is really good, but I need you to focus Teagan.  We have lost a lot of time already.  While it is not impossible to maim a clown with a spoon, it requires sophisticated dexterity. 

Until such time as I have procured a suitable sensei, please devote yourself to the classics.  I have included a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  Devour it, sweet girl.  And do keep hammering away on those core muscle groups.  They are the foundation on which your victories are built. 

With all the love in my heart, I am your justifiably concerned aunt. 

Pardon Our Dust

I haven’t had anything to drink in 21 days and I feel pretty good about it.  I’m not brave enough to say that I won’t drink ever again but I’m excited to keep it up.

This is good enough.  This is a BIG project.  It is a step in the right direction.  It is laying the groundwork.  It is establishing a foundation. 

It begs a question: So, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?

To date: I have sweat to the oldies.  I have step and tapped.  I have grapevined.  I have found my flat road and the base of my hill. 

My dog has never been so walked.  My clothes have never been so put away.  I have never seen so many consecutive 6 ams. 

I have watched all the movies in theaters in Greensboro.  I have read every article and seen every photograph on Facebook. 

So far it is all good news.  Not the actual news.  I mean for me, personally, it is good news.  I feel like Neo in The Matrix only instead of bending around bullets I am navigating mundane life-skills.

But I have not written anything. 

Every now and then half of a piece of an idea floats to the surface and makes me smile. 

One was: sometimes I don’t like my house because it is small but if I pretend like it is a Weasley tent I think it’s great. 

Another one is: If I ever had to talk my way into a crackerjack ensemble, I’d say, “I’m no thoroughbred.  But I’m like the goat you put in the stall with the thoroughbred to keep it calm.  Ask anyone, I’m a great goat.”

I think more idea are coming.  I will practice and get better at sitting down to make time for them without the anchoring assistance of PBR tall boys.   

I will I will I will I will. 

Shitty Product Reviews: Black Pantyhose I Bought at the Grocery Store

The best part of my day was throwing you away.  I thought about fishing you out of the bathroom trashcan so I could throw you away again in the kitchen trashcan. 

I would like to say that putting one leg inside you was as soothing as stepping all the way into a tent worm nest but I don’t want mislead anyone into believing that you have a fraction of the design integrity of a tent worm nest.

How demoralizing that when I called upon you to perform the task for which you were created, you ran.  Is my calf so imposing?  Is my skin so coarse?  Are my hands so monstrously ungentle?

“Horror!” I heard you scream.  “Horror!  This is no woman’s leg!  I cannot!”

I would whirl you above my head and toss you on the barrel fire in solidarity with the bra burners who came before me but I think you are made of plastic and we’re in enough trouble with all of that as it is.

Maybe something good will come of you.  Probably, you’ll be cast out to sea.  There you may tangle with like-designed shitty plastic things and create a breeding sanctuary for vulnerable plankton.

This possibility will help me sleep nights.  It will fortify me when I look our children in the eyes and beg their forgiveness for buying you when I knew better – for asking our ecosystem to accommodate another ridiculous piece of trash.