Fancy Don’t Let Me Down

…as in the Reba Mac’s song about prostituting your daughter:

“Here’s your one chance, fancy, don’t let me down.”

That’s what it kind a feels like just before a showing of our house when I do my last walk through to make sure counters are clear of clutter and everything is tucked away behind a cabinet door or in a closet. Clean, orderly, open spaces sells homes.

We have our second viewing today since our home went back on the market and I’m trying to whore it out so that it shows well. Reba’s song keeps buzzing in my head. Which is funny because I had another country song jabbing my cerebrum just this weekend. I’m not much of a country music lover, but what can you do?

Here’s the column that was motivated by a Statler Brother’s tune:

She Let Herself Go

Published in the May 27, 2009 issue of The Tribune.

I once heard a man comment that his ex-wife had, “ … let herself go.” Hmmmm … I thought, I wonder where she we went. She could have gone to the grocery, list in hand, picking up all the foods that she was going to spend the week going to her kitchen to cook

Maybe she had gone to her 4-year-old’s pediatrician’s office to a prescription of antibiotics for the ear infection that kept her daughter (and her) awake all night.

She may have gone to school, to work, to daycare, to the vet, to Target, and to the million and one other places where women spend their days completing the endless tasks that go along with being a mom.

If she had let herself go, then she must not have been going to the gym, the salon, the nail place, or anywhere else that would offer the slightest bit of pampering for her own needs. What we often fail to see during the honeymoon stages of being a mom is that we’ve signed up to let ourselves go. It’s the nature of being so consumed with someone else that we forget to take care of ourselves.

I remember when my daughter was first born, I felt more comfortable taking her with me everywhere, carrying her around on my hip as if she were a badge of evidence to explain why I had gained so much weight. “Yes, my jeans are three sizes bigger, but look what I created,” was my thought process.

Women complaining about weight issues are about as fun to listen to as tax lawyers talking about their work. I tend to avoid writing about why I don’t love the way I look, but a song by the Statler Brothers came across my radio waves the other day and sparked an angry fuse in me.

Oops…I meant to put this up yesterday

After the whole we’re-not-closing-on-our-house after all issue, a good friend helped me turn my negative thought process around by telling me, “Don’t think of it as something that has happened TO YOU; think of it as something that has happened FOR YOU.”

She’s a wise one. Not only did she shock-wave me out of my pity-party, she gave me a column topic which I’m always in need of! Here it is for this week. Enjoy!

It’s All in How You See It

Published in the May 20, 2009 issue of The Tribune.

After getting some hard-to-swallow news recently, a friend e-mailed me to say, “Don’t think of it as something that happened to you; think of it as something that happened for you.”

It was the same line I dish out frequently — the idea that everything happens for a reason — but her spin was more original. It caught me off guard and made me rethink my situation.

When I received her e-mail I was smack in the center of my disappointment and frustration. I wanted to fume. I wanted to find blame. I wanted to let my ego stomp around and make a bunch of nasty door-slamming, fist-pumping noise.

If you have read anything I have written in the past, you know that I try my best to practice rational, clear thought. Just a couple weeks go I wrote how it works best to, “Go with the Flow,” (that was the actual name of the column). But every now and again my ego checks out because it has had enough of me. It wants its own stage to display its own juvenile emotional outburst. My ego was not in the mood to reconsider what had happened. It wanted to punch someone.

Alright, Enough with the Pity Party Already

Yes, our house is going back on the market.

Yes, we may not get the house we (think) we want…or, maybe, we just have to wait longer to get it.

Either way, there is a reason for everything and the universe knows more about what’s best than I do.

I had a minor chink in my armor yesterday and did a bit of whining writing. And while I still believe that as a day, May 14 is not in my top ten, it’s just a date and good things have happened on it (Happy Birthday M.)

After getting the news, I was reminded quickly that it’s best not to worry about what’s happened, but look forward to what is next (thank you, Aunt V.). And this morning my email inbox had another inspiring note from another one of my most lovely aunts (thank you, Aunt L.).  I’ve got the best collection of aunts in the world…the whole word…and many of them are reading this right now, so to you I say, “Thank you with all my heart for reminding me what a magical and brilliant world I have.”

So what?! Our house goes back on the market. If this is the worse thing to happen in awhile I’ve got it grand. I have my health, my husband, my babies, my work, my writing, my family, my aunts, my friends, my coffee, my books…which, by the way, I just got a good one last night after enjoying a delicious dinner out with my husband. (We had Jack Fry’s and it was so, so, so good I forgot all about the house stuff).

The book? What would Keith Richards Do. Perfect, right? Let me leave you with a pearl of Keith wisdom:

“To me, the main thing about living on this planet is to know who the hell you are and to be real about it. That’s the reason I’m still alive…I’ve lived my life my own way, and I’m here because I’ve taken the trouble to find out who I am.”

Amen. Thank you, Keith.

Good GOD, This Day SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS

Sorry for all the blasphemy and inappropriate language in my title; but, really, I’ve about had it with this bullshit of a day May 14 tends to bring about.

I got a call from our realtor that we will not be selling our house tomorrow. Our buyer’s financing fell through and we will, in fact, have to re-list our home and hope that someone else will fall in love with it. I’m crying right now. It’s a huge disappointment. Not only will we have to go through the process of selling our house again, but now there’s a pretty good chance that we won’t get the house we wanted to buy.

I loved that house. LOVED IT.

This is not the worst that could happen. The worst that could happen happened 32 years ago on this very day when my dad drowned. See how bad this day eff’ing sucks?

I’m going to go drink an entire pot of coffee (since i don’t drink vodka tonics anymore) and wish I had a cigarette. Do me a favor and don’t ask me when we’re moving. I may start sobbing like three year old in the middle of a temper tantrum if pushed at this point.

Be Forewarned: I’m asking for donations

I know someone who is walking 60 miles over the course of three days to raise money for breast cancer. Her name is Julia Lega and she is 19 years old. Her mother died of breast cancer at the heart-breaking age of 36 when Julia was only two years old. If you would like to donate to Julia’s fundraising goal, you can pay by credit card at:

Julia Lega’s 3-day Walk Website Donation Page

I did the same walk in October 2002 down in Atlanta. My article for the week is about my experience there, enjoy:

A Walk in the Park

By Amy Gesenhues (Published in the May 13, 2009 issue of The Tribune)

In October 2002, I naively signed up for a three-day/60-mile breast cancer walk in Atlanta. I raised the $2300 every walker was asked to give. I walked 15-mile treks from my house in New Albany up Moser Knobs Road to Floyds Knobs to train. I bought all the necessary amenities walkers were told to bring (travel size bottles of shampoo, mole-skin bandaging for blisters, sleeping bag).

And then I nearly gave-up after the first 20-miles.

Randomocity

I walked down Spickert Knob Road today. If you know the road then you probably think I’m off my rocker. If you don’t know it, then you can assume I’m off my rocker. It’s about a mile of twisting, winding road down hill from Floyds Knobs to New Albany.There’s not a lot of room for walkers and cars. There’s not really all that much room for cars.

And as dangerous as it may sound, it’s a beautiful walk. The entire road is canopied in trees and you can look out over Louisville the entire trek down. Walking it reminds me of lucid, happy dreaming.

Walking down that hill, I kept thinking about the last two lines from a Muriel Rukeseyer poem:

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.

It’s still stuck in my head. I balance it with words from my most favorite dewey cox song, Royal Jelly:

Dairy Queen and Vaseline and Maybelline, Paul Bunyan and James Dean.

Wonder What that Tastes Like

So somebody at my work has stocked our employee refrigerator with Sex Drive Energy Drink.

Nice.

Not exactly what I want to have in the forefront of my stream-of-work-conscious thinking while trying to come up with b2b marketing copy.

And because I’m doing a little research this morning on the economy for some work stuff, I’m stuck thinking about where all the money went. If the entire world is in an economic slump…where did the money behind the economy go? It’s not like there were global bon fires where individuals and corporations took shitloads of actual money out to pasture and burned it. Right? I mean, somebody had to end up with it, didn’t they?

Is this what they whisper when they speak of the New World Order in hushed voices? Are there literally ten white males in long robes holed up in some cave somewhere counting the gazillions they stole from the world…all in euros? Where did it all go and can’t we ask for some of it back, just to get things rolling again?

Whatever. I’m going to go steal one of those sex drive drinks and hope it doesn’t actually work as I sit here typing my b2b marketing copy.

Do You Ever Mine that Bird?

Real quick before I post this week’s column…the editor for my college alumni magazine found it online and asked if I would mind doing a version of it for the next issue. Nice, right? Anyway, hope you enjoy it as much as she did!

Against All Odds

Published in the May 6, 2009 issue of The Tribune.

Sometime shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, we got a new turn of phrase around our house. From here on out, “believe in the impossible” will now be summed up with a Mine That Bird. Yes, it takes just as long to say but drives the idea home so much better.

Mine That Bird took this year’s Kentucky Derby with 50-to-1 odds, a staggering win among equine royalty. He was more than an underdog (Underhorse?); his odds were so low that dead in the water was a better definition than underdog. The best part was that he didn’t just win. He killed it. The horse was so far ahead of the game that there was no doubt during the last seconds of the race who would be donning the garland of roses.

And so now, whenever someone complains about a certain goal or task being too far out of reach to achieve, they will receive a simple Mine That Bird.

When my daughter claims that her room is too messy to clean all by her 5-year-old self; when my husband gets a late start only to complain that he doesn’t have enough time to mow before the rain; when I have a pile of laundry taller than a racehorse — all will be approached with a Mine That Bird attitude.

There have been many times when I have Mined That Bird in my life.

I Needed a Good Ending Anyway

So it looks like we will be selling our house after all (and buying a new one).

The entire process had a slight hiccup when we found out that the closing was going to be delayed a bit. It took eleven days before we knew anything. The eleven days felt more like 264 hours to me…it was a looooong eleven days. But today, during the proverbial eleventh hour (it was really more like 6:30 p.m.), we found out all systems are a go.

My plan has always been to write a memoir one day about the experiences of moving into my childhood home and renovating it from top to bottom. I had this whole idea to switch back and forth from chapter to chapter between the years I was here as a kid and the years I was here with my kids. And now, I have this great, edge-of-your-library-seat cliffhanger—will they sell it or won’t they. It will be like Tom Cruise copying the files in The Firm or Tom Hanks decoding the DaVinci Code.

Thank you to everyone who jumped on my positive train and dispersed the positive vibes. They worked!

My Most Zen-iest Monday EVER

Tomorrow, I plan to be as zen as I can be.

I will wear my buddha earrings and touch buddha’s toe as soon as I get to work (for good luck, of course).

I will keep a smile all day long, no matter what I hear, no matter what I see, and no matter how slow the person driving in front of me is going.

I will listen to happy music and think thoughts of the times when I was most happy from a babe to middle-aged adulthood.

I will remember that no matter what, I’ve got it good. Better than good. I’ve got all I need and want at every moment of every day.

I will say thanks for all the abudnance in my life.

I will do my very best to understand that all is as is should be…so be it.