two lesbians and a bagpiper walk into a bar
Really?
THIS IS THE SKY. THIS IS THE SKY IN KATE'S BRAIN.
I'm 37 plus one day and I didn't know what to say about it, and so I told you about how other women are afraid their aged horniness brands them without particularly discussing my own aged horniness. Then I put up a photograph of the sky and said Here's how I feel about being 37 which is pretty much like writing a tribute to my mother's hands, and about all the mothering she's done with those hands, and how soft they are, and how they stitch quilts and authors, and then call that a treatise on motherhood, and give you sugar cramps.
Being 37 incites equal measures of panic and confidence. That's all.
In a hurry to eat cake, I dragged the sky into it and it's bothered me ever since. I laid there at night and had a nightmare about a posse of radioactive suits who said, in robot-voices, METAPHORICAL OVERLOAD. DECONTAMINATION COMMENCING. I woke up and tweeted about the writers' remorse and some dude in Scotland said, "You can delete that, you know." And I said, "Scotland Sucks!" And he said, "But six months ago you wanted me to wear nothing but a sporran and spoon porridge off my bare chest! I'm GLASWEGIAN!" And I said, "That was before you agreed with me that I should delete a crappy piece of writing! Which is agreement on the crappy part!" And he said, "You called it crappy, not me!" And I said, "Scotland Sucks!" And he said, "You're a tart for sheep and everybody knows it." And I said, "FINE, GOD!" And he made that guttural disapproving sound and I totally swooned.
I made you hum showtunes against your will. I made you think I was talking about blueness or clearness or sunshine. I'm not going to delete it, though. My Gershwin stands, even though it's not at all like a good stiff porridge. All is resolved. That's the first and last time I post because I feel like I should have something significant to say when all I have is "Woe, the bloat!"
Wait. Crap.
+++
Two lesbians and a bagpiper walk into a bar.
The bagpiper's name is Iain with an extra 'i' because everybody knows that the extra 'i' gets you a lot of tail, at least outside of Scotland.
As we walk along we gather more. A gaggle of women. A crazy old guy dancing by himself on an empty floor, beet red, his shirt unbuttoned almost to the waist. Everyone watches the crazy old guy. Everyone is beaming. He does pelvic thrusts more earnestly than I've ever seen anyone do anything. His shirt is soaked. We cheer. A college kid insists the lesbians Need To Find The Right Dick. One listens earnestly because she is kind. I know what she's thinking. She's wondering how a boy like this will make it in the great big world. He's wondering if he might be The Right Dick.
We stumble from a pub to a gay bar to another pub to the waterfront and then I'm crushed on a dance floor and they're playing this and I'm just drunk enough, just barely (because I am a mother and am, therefore, alcohol's kryptonite), to be truly thrilled. I have never been so thrilled. NOT EVER. We sweet talk our way past the lines. The bagpiper does this, naturally, a prince of New Scotland with the extra 'i'.
There is no punchline.
Two lesbians, a bagpiper and I walked into a bar, and then another, in each encircled by very old stone permeated with the drunken sweat of two hundred years of Haligonians. I don't do this anymore. But I did. Time elapsed. Consumption. And then, lemon-flavoured revelation washed down with a 3:00 AM burrito: "There is no cougar. Only being. It's like... just like... THE SKY!"*
*With appreciation for Justin, who always features in my sky, who stayed at home with the kids, and who tolerated my story of the bagpiper just barely, and not without arguing the impossibility of the bagpiper having been a gentleman practicing ciad mile failte.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Reader Comments (19)
And I didn't mean to imply clear skies. More just expansiveness. That's how it feels to be this age, for me. No longer expecting stuff to be taken care of magically, feeling responsible for my own momentum. Which is kind of exposing and scary and invigorating at the same time.
I turn 37 next month. I feel the expansiveness. 30 was the hard one for me. Someone told me, "30 is good! 30 is Respectable!" Like that. Capital R. Turns out, though, that one must actually BE respectable to earn respect. I dyed a big purple swath in my hair last year in an attempt to lose the respectability. It was fun, and I'd still have it if the maintenance weren't a pain in the rear. Purple, good. Faded lilac, bad. Neither respectable, though. Not really.
Responsible for our own momentum: fantastic.
My second moneymaking scheme is to open a tasteful marital aid shop in the historic downtown core. It will be called The Right Dick. Woh-oh-ah-ooh-ah, woh-oh-ah-oh.
Happy Birthday. It sounds like it was a good one, what with all the lesbians and bagpiper, and burritos.
That extra i is making me really hot. But not as hot as, you know, the BAGPIPES.
You're a tart for sheep!?!? And here I'd always thought you were more of an "ASS" woman.
Ka-BOOM-ch! (Waa-waa-waa-WAAAAAAAA)
also, my father-in-law (himself, a glaswegian) is an iain with an extra "i." his middle name is "rankin." which, you know. kind of sounds like the name of person who could kick the shit out of you with just his forehead. for a 70 year old, it's a pretty badass name, but it has never occurred to me to ask him if it got him a lot of tail outside of scotland. maybe i should. which would either be hilarious or grounds for getting uninvited to christmas.
Sorry for randomness, but you said cougar and Scotland in the same post, so what do you expect?
And I liked the sky image.
My Scottishness is limited to my red-ish hair, easily sunburned skin, and general disliking and short fuse for all things irritating. But, Lady Nova Scotia, you could truly say anything. I love every word you say in your beautiful accent. (Especially filthy ones, and I've heard all of the good ones. And it makes me like you more.)
I understand the unease in creating a metaphor for the space in your head. I've used trains and carousels and Grand Central Station, but really, it's all just noise without a face and the only known cure is beer, pizza, Inglis boys, profanities in a Nova Scotian accent, bitching about crazies, fresh air, and the cloud bed in the cabin.
So, clearly, the only thing you need to be doing differently is to sleep in the cabin.
She's a lesbian AND a bagpiper. Pretty cool, eh? Oh, the jokes that come from those two qualities!
Tipping my apple beer to you in honor of 37 :)