I have always loved kisses.  All kinds of kisses.  A lick on the face from my dog when I ask her for a kiss.   Slobbery kisses from babies.  Loud kisses on the cheek.  Continental kisses to both cheeks.  Kisses to the top of the head.  Kisses to the forehead.  Kisses to the eyes, the ears.  Kisses to the hand (don’t experience many of those around here).  I've always paid attention to lips--from whence kisses arise.  When I was little, I was quite taken with my Mom's beauty, and I wanted nothing more than to grow up to be as beautiful.  That desire was especially fueled by adults who constantly told me I was the "spittin' image" of my Dad.  I didn't wanna' look like my Daddy.  After all, my Daddy was a boy, and I didn't want to look like no stinkin' boy.  I wanted to be a beautiful woman, just like my Mommy.  I'd sit for what seemed like hours and watch Mom put on her makeup.  First the eyebrows, then the rouge, the powder, and finally the lipstick.  With her lips parted, she'd glide that tube of color along the lines of them, outlining a perfect and beautiful smile.  After putting on the lipstick, she'd take a piece of tissue and blot her lips, then dispose of the tissue in the waste basket.  That was just so darned fascinating.  I recall, perhaps in kindergarten and first grade, waiting until Mom had left the room.  Then I'd sneak that tissue out of the wastebasket and hide it on my person.   When I'd get to school, I'd take out the tissue that contained my Mother's lip imprint, and travel around the classroom, showing it to the teacher and my classmates, proudly proclaiming, "Lookee.  These are my Mommy's lips."

 

But I digress.  So I continue...I love thrown kisses, similar to the ones modeled by game show host Gene Rayburn.   Kisses over the phone.  Nonsexual on-the-mouth kisses from family or friends.  Steamy, lingering, and hungry kisses of the French variety.  Love ‘em all.  But I think I love most of all the sweet kisses on the mouth—the starter kiss from whence all other kisses come.  The starter kiss is especially sweet when delivered while the face is caressed by both hands—such an expression of intent and tenderness.  Of course, kisses on the throat and back of the neck are always welcome—well, that is, as long as I’m acquainted with the kisser.  Kisses south of there, we won’t discuss here.

 

As a longstanding kisser and kissee, I am perplexed by the fact that TV or movies almost always never show us the sweet starter, test-of-passion kisses.  They almost always go directly to the full-tongue-to-mouth penetration kiss.   I’ve often wondered if those actors/actresses use their own tongues within their own mouths to portray that kiss, or if there is truly an exchange of “tonguetry.”  Sometimes the kisses look pretty fake, and the side shots remind me a lot of the kissing gouramis my Mom and Dad had in their tropical fish tank a hundred years ago.  Actually, sometimes I think the gouramis were far more attractive.

 

Lotsa’ different ways to kiss.  And while some kissers get old, a kiss never does--and some of us can never have too many.  Of late, though, mine have been of the Hershey’s variety and XXXOOOs at the bottoms of emails and letters.

 

                   S.W.A.K.

 

   

 

 

I’m feeling a little emotional right now and want to ramble, so bear with me.

 

The wedding was today.  In spite of being rained out and having to stage the ceremony indoors, it was lovely.  The bride was—as most girls on that special day are—simply luminous.  The fact that she is just cute as a button made her even more precious.  The bridegroom is a cutie pie himself, and they made the sweetest couple.  As the groomsmen and bridesmaids lined up and began walking down the aisle, I had to smile. They were so very young, so very darling.  And in the midst of the ceremony, I turned to another wedding-goer and remarked, “Isn’t it something?  All that youth?  That freshness?   That promise?”  At the reception it was fun to watch the groomsmen and groom dancing, blowing off steam and having such a good time together.  Their energy was absolutely awesome.  While sitting there enjoying them, my mind floated back to the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.  And I started thinking—if we were re-living those times, those boys would be blowing off steam because they’d know that the majority of them would be heading at some point for Nam.  And some of them might not return, and others might return but still be lost to us.  I guess that’s a blessing of an all-volunteer army.  Only those who opt for it (for whatever reasons—wanting a college education, lack of jobs, poverty, promise of travel, training, etc.) get sent to war and risk their lives, their sanity, their futures.  I think a part of me is still visiting the Viet Nam era, and that is a big reason for my sadness right now.

 

Several attempts were made to bring off the outdoor wedding, but Mother Nature refused to cooperate.  Certainly that must have been a disappointment to the bride and groom, but I figure that over the years to come in their marriage they will have to weather other, much worse storms.  I just hope they will remember that between each of those downpours today, the sun reappeared (along with rainbows).  It will be the same in their marriage.  Nothing ever stays the same—not the good weather, not the bad.

 

To my friends--the mother and father of the groom--I thank you for having invited me.

 

As a rule, I don’t do weddings.  Nor do I do wedding or baby showers, or Tupperware, candle, cooking, or basket parties.  Perhaps you've already guessed that I'm not much for tradition.    However, I do go to funerals.  After all, I  figure if you don’t go to theirs, then they probably won’t come to yours. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   Biker moll Halliepena

                Cheesecake, senior style........

 

 

 

 

A dear friend of mine, a several-time survivor, described cancer in the most eloquent of terms.  “It’s a thief,” she said, “It robs you of peace of mind, security, and promise.”  I’m only a cancer novitiate, but she hit the proverbial nail.

      

Cancer as a thief is an apt description.  It was prowling around my body for a good year before I sought medical treatment because I lacked insurance coverage and could not afford doctor visits or testing.  As the year wore on, the symptoms worsened, and I pretty much knew what they’d find once the testing began.  I received the diagnosis on December 7, 2007, after a procedure in which approximately 20 bladder tumors were removed.  That same friend joked with me afterward that the inside of my bladder must have looked like a morocca.  That was a good joke.  I needed the laugh.  Shocky though resolute, I determined to stay as positive as possible.  Instead of the cancer I focused on buying clothes to fit my “new” body that came about because of the associated weight loss.  (And honestly, I’m okay with the thief stealing pounds.)  And I fantasized about falling in love one more time, perhaps one last time.  February came and I underwent another procedure.  There was good news and bad news.  While there were no large tumors present and it still was not invasive, the cancer was widespread and high-grade.  The surgeon advised that most other surgeons would have gone directly to bladder removal, but because of my age and other medical problems, he wanted to try a specific treatment that had excellent results in less aggressive cancers.  The fantasies diminished, once again thanks to the cancer thief.

 

On March 31^st, I started BCG (immunotherapy) treatments.  These were delivered once per week for a total of six weeks.  I felt blessed that I didn’t have to suffer through chemotherapy or radiation.  The treatments were really quite easy and I had to modify my life only one day per week.  But that thief cancer started robbing me of energy.  Was it actually stealing my energy, or was it a mild depression?  As the weeks ticked by and I neared the six-week completion mark, I found my anxiety increasing incrementally.  Now the cancer was stealing my peace of mind.  On May 5^th, the treatments ended.  I celebrated the day by taking myself out to a Mexican meal and doing what I wanted to do for that day.  The next day, I realized that all that was left was promise.

 

Oh, I know that we humans like to fool ourselves into believing we are in control of our destinies.  To some degree we are, through some of the choices we make.  But, think about it.  Here we are, held to a spinning top by a gravitational force, hurtling through space at unimaginable speeds.  So much of our lives are left to chance.  I guess the only thing we have left is promise.  In another few days, I'll undergo yet another procedure to discover whether or not the cancer treatments worked.  My worry now is that the next time the thief comes around, it may use a battering ram and steal my promise.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow I’m having lunch with a friend of mine and her very young-for-his-age, distinguished-looking father to celebrate his birthday.  Actually, I’m a little giddy about our get-together.  I always enjoy seeing him.  He’s intelligent, entertaining, and an independent thinker.  Has a good sense of humor (a MUST in my book—I like to laugh).  He’s also “quite fresh,” as his daughter tells him (in my presence).  Sometimes the flirtations are outrageous, even to my sometimes bawdy way of thinking, but for an “old guy,” he has some pretty good lines AND moves.  Perhaps on his part it is a game.  On my part, it sorta’ is and it sorta’ ain’t.  I gave up on men many years ago, but within the last year I’ve experienced a re-awakening.  Maybe it’s because I realize that the end is drawing near.  In the best of circumstances, I’ve already lived more years than I have left, for certain.  And, now, with the cancer…well, who the heck knows?  Maybe I’m looking for my last hurrah.  Anyway, I enjoy the attention, and even with my white hair, the extra weight, the wrinkles, the sagging (for you youngsters out there…after a certain age, the skin starts looking like melting candle wax at best, or a mud slide at worst), I am more confident than ever in my womanhood, my sexuality.   Now, if only there were a man as confident with himself, and himself with a woman my age….

 

I never married.  I saw no need for it.  Oh, at one point in my life, I did want children, but then I realized that I’d only pass on my neuroses.  Why would I choose to do that to an innocent creature?  Before arriving at that point where I considered legal binding ‘needless’, I considered marriage several times.  A mistake.  My very first ‘fiancé’ left me to fend for myself in the A&P parking lot on a cold, misty night.  Back then I was a good girl (still am, only in a Mae West kinda’ way) and intent on “saving” myself for marriage.  He was not at all interested in marrying a good girl.  So, fed up with my resistance, he told me to get out of the car.  Said, “When you come to your senses about it [giving up my virginous ways], give me a call,” and then he drove off into the night.  I was absolutely heartbroken and not prepared to deal with that.  And I decided that would never happen to me again.  So the next boy who came along got the “goodies,” and, as luck would have it, I became pregnant.  When I told him about the pregnancy, he offered to pay for a backstreet abortion (they were illegal back then).  I told him to cram it, and walked away.  Fortunately--harsh as that sounds, I mean it--I miscarried several weeks later.  Then there was this other fellow who proposed to me after a several-year courtship.  I asked him one day what he wanted out of marriage.  He said, “I want somebody to take care of my things.”  Things.  Things.  He did NOT say, “I want somebody to take care of ‘my thing’.  That would have been no problemo.  But, no, he said “take care of my things.”  I told him he needed to get a maid, and then I departed (but not before he tried to strangle me.  Evidently he had abandonment issues).

 

Things got so bad at one point in my life, as to the choices I was making in men, that I decided to let my miniature poodle make the decisions whom I should date, and whom not.  I figured my dog had to have more sense than I.  That actually worked for a while, and then the dog's judgment became as faulty as mine, and a few slippery eel-like males made their way into my life.  That was when I gave up dating.  Now, years later, I am coming out of that self-imposed deep slumber brought on by those miserable choices my dog and I made.

 

I’m convinced that we humans either seek out or repel those who remind us of our opposite gender parent.  I really don’t know what the hell I was doing for the 25 years I dated—seeking or repelling.  Fortunately, for my mental health at least a couple of relationships were healthy.  I enjoyed being IN relationships, but not OF them.  Hated the way a relationship complicated my life.  I never wanted to “belong” to anybody, like a material possession.  And I didn’t want to “own” anybody either.  I do think a lot of people view relationships in just that way—they stake a claim of ownership—they slip the bit on.  I always chomped at the bit.   I heard a line the other day that it takes an untameable man to recognize an untameable woman.  I guess I’ve not yet met that individual, if he does exist.  I’m wondering if the very young-for-his-age, distinguished-looking gentleman knows an untameable when he sees her.

 

 

Old Halliepena with young friend-January 2008

 

 

 

 Some CDCPTR folks--my family......