Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Ruby Speaks


Seems to me that the hottest new thing in blogging (and I could be years behind- who can keep up with this stuff?) is to have a guest blogger. Or to be a guest blogger. And the status is to be found in who is doing the asking or the guesting.

Like this- the highest of the high would be if Dooce asked you to sit in and do a guest blog for her. I can't even imagine the circumstance where Dooce would sit in and do a guest blog for YOU so let's forget that. It would be like trying to look at God with your own eyes and we all know where that leads.

But Black Hockey Jesus has gone on vacay and he's gotten some BIG NAMES IN BLOGGING (don't click that, it's not a link) to sit in and do guest blogs for him.

He also has a new link on his site where you can just directly go to PayPal and send him money and I really sort of love that idea. Two of my kids went to a high school that had the same idea, sort of, in that they didn't do stupid fund raisers like car washes or candy sales, they just asked the parents to send them fifty dollars a year and be done with it, which is brilliant and it worked and the parents loved it.

But of course, that was a school and they used the money for things like landscaping and computers and trips for kids who couldn't afford them.

I don't know what Black Hockey Jesus is using his money for. Perhaps to pay the BIG NAMES IN BLOGGING to guest blog for him while he's on vacation.

I'm not sure why I'm bringing all of this up except for the fact that some days Ms. Moon just doesn't have a good blog in her and a guest blogger would be nice to have on those days. And then it occurred to me that it would be pretty funny if Ruby could sit in and do a guest blog every now and then because Ruby can say things that Ms. Moon never would.
Let's pretend:

So Ms. Moon asked me to sit in and do a guest blog for her. No, she's not on vacation. Unless you call checking out of reality and checking into Chez Loony Bin is a vacation and perhaps for her it is.
You know that woman. She can find the darkness in a jar of fucking sunshine and angel glitter and she will.
She will.
That's just her way though and Lord knows I love her, even if I don't understand her.
Now me? I'm the sort of woman who can look into the darkest inky night sky and find a cell phone tower, blinking, blinking, blinking, it's little white and red light like a small beacon in the blackness, like a tiny ray of hope in the darkest heart.
"Honey," I tell Ms. Moon when she gets like this, "Quit your bellyaching and put on a bra! Okay? And some lipstick! And let's go have a drink, maybe meet up with a few cute fellas, maybe play the jukebox, have a little dance-"
And then she'll be like, "No, Ruby. I don't even feel like getting out of bed, much less putting on a bra. And I lost my lipstick at the Legion Hall. Go away. Leave me alone."
And I'll sigh and sit on the edge of the bed and rub her sweaty little head and say, "Okay darlin', tell Ruby what's wrong," and she'll start to cry, which is exactly what she needs to do and then she'll suck the tears right back up into her head where they aren't gonna do anybody on this earth one bit of good and are probably going to give her a headache and she won't say a word.
She'll just turn her head so I can't get to the good part to stroke and stare at the wall with those blue watery eyes until I hit on the right thing to say to get her to crying.
"Is it your birthday?" I'll ask her.
"No," she'll say, gray and cold and heavy like a stone would say if a stone could talk.
"Are you missing Sue?" I'll ask her, because I know this is right around Sue's birthday and she sometimes starts in to missing Sue right about now although it's been fourteen years or something since the poor girl died.
"No," Ms. Moon will say. But then I'll probably hear a sniff.
"Are you worried that you're gettin' old and you haven't done a damn thing with your life and you're thinking that maybe your husband only sticks around out of habit and that you've forgotten all your dreams and half the recipes you ever knew and that it's all downhill from here? Are you thinking about the skin on your neck and the way your arms do that flappy thing no matter how many weights you lift? Are you in mourning for your lost youth, your old dead drunk daddy, your joy, your spark, your tits and your ability to go out in public without having an anxiety attack?"
And that'll do it.
Call me cruel but I know the woman and I know she just needs a good cry and so I'll sit there on the bed while she's sobbing her poor, pathetic guts out and after about ten minutes of that, I'll get up and go make me a drink and put on some lipstick and sit on the porch and swing my legs and sip my drink and wait. Eventually, she'll get up and go splash some cold water on her face and make a cup of coffee and come and join me.
"I'm old," she'll say.
"Honey, we're all old. Let's go make some biscuits and put some of those fig preserves on 'em and enjoy this weather."
"It's hot," she'll say. "And I'm having a hot flash."
"Well why in hell are you drinking coffee then? Make you a drink and make me another while you're at it. Get those catalogs off the counter and let's find us something new and pretty to wear."
"Why?" she'll ask and I have to tell you that my patience will be wearing thin.
"Because we're girls and girls like pretty things to wear," I will say.
"I don't go anywhere so I don't need anything pretty," she'll say. "I don't wear the clothes I have."
"Well maybe if you'd put something pretty on now and then someone might ask you to go somewhere," I'll say, pointing out the obvious. "All you ever wear are those ugly-ass man pants that I wouldn't take you to watch a dog fight in."
And then maybe, with any luck, she'll start laughing and we'll have that drink and eventually she'll make some biscuits and we'll eat them with plenty of butter and some fig preserves and I might even get her to put on some lipstick and a bra.

Okay. Stop. Get the fuck off my blog, Ruby. What planet do you live on and what color is the sky there because you're not helping, you're not making any sense and the people who read my blog are not interested in this sort of made-up trash. I am not going to put on lipstick, I am not making biscuits and you know as well as I do that I don't sit on the porch and have a drink on a Tuesday afternoon.

In fact, Ruby, you are never guest blogging for me again and don't even bother coming around unless you've got Maxine with you and y'all have a plan and some good looking men to take us out somewhere pretty-clothes-and-bra-worthy.

In the meantime, I suppose I will just resign myself to writing all my own blogs.

Check here tomorrow. Maybe you'll find a recipe.

And a link to PayPal.

10 comments:

  1. "if Dooce asked you to sit in and do a guest blog for her..."

    I feel slighted!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, Juancho. This is all made-up stuff. In the real world, Big Ring Circus will always be my definition of what a blog should be.
    And if you ever need a guest blogger, either Ruby or I would be so honored to sit in that I can't even tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ruby - you did a great job. It's too bad that Ms. Moon isn't handling this upcoming birthday very well. I don't know why she's worrying about getting old - she hasn't been young since she turned 40! Oh well, if you could post that recipe for biscuits with fig preserves, I'd appreciate it, as long as I can use Bisquick! I only found out about 2 weeks ago that not all figs come dried - you can buy them fresh - and I'm dying to try them that way (but I ain't making biscuits from scratch!).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Biscuits from scratch are almost easier than with bisquick. They are so easy in fact that I used to make them at two in the morning when I'd find my house full of a passel of drunken boys who'd just helped me close the bar down. At that time of night and in that state they are far easier than cookies and a lot less mess than eggplant parmesean from scratch, which I also tried to make once, with limited success. Drunk boys will eat anything.
    Mama and Ruby, you are welcome to guest blog on my blog anytime.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MOB- it's not the fact that I'm old. It's the way that birthdays offer a window into that other universe. I think they are wormholes. I may blog on this later.
    I am thinking I will post a recipe for angel biscuits tomorrow. Unfortunately, they are not as simple to make as the ones I usually make and the ones Miss Maybelle probably refers to but I swear that they are worth four times the fuss.
    And maybe I'll do the recipe for fig preserves, too. Why not?
    And Maybelle, you have totally given me another subject to talk about, which is How To Be A Goddess To People Who Smoke Dope.
    Always an inspiration, you are.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Who the bleedin' hell is Dooce? Is she Scoobie-Doo's mother in law?

    And who is Ruby?

    I am trying to keep up..I am really am.

    ReplyDelete
  7. May - that reminds me of the time Taylor tried to make lemon squares for a bunch of drunken fools and forgot the cake part, leaving us to eat lemon goop with spoons.

    Mmmmm, lemon goop.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mr. P- scroll down to find out about Maxine and Ruby. This is not rocket science!
    And it is refreshing to hear that a blogger has no idea who Dooce is. Or what Dooce is. Just google.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mrs Moon

    Remember - Mr P lives most of His life in the Never Never....in a plain above that of normal folks.

    Dont forget too that Mr P is a UK citizen and "Dooce" is not on the lips and in the minds of us Brits.

    But He is learning.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Actually, Mr. P, Dooce is hardly on the lips of most people here. Just on the lips of some bloggers. She's like the Mama of Bloggers or something.
    Although I will say that she's gotten some pretty big mainstream press lately. Anytime any of the big media want to try and define the blogging world, they go and interview her. She's good looking and articulate.

    ReplyDelete

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