Color My World

I just returned from a short (I hate that word) visit to Alabama to visit my parents. No, I am not from there, which you may have figured out from my accent.

The K-12 there have been on spring break this week, even though spring doesn't officially start until tomorrow. Then again, in Alabama it feels like spring. There are these funny things, ideas, that I think I remember are called "colors".

Allow me to give you a few examples:

Yellow: Daffodils!

• Not like the faded plum sized bruise on my arm which is kind of a gross pale yellow now, but a real bright happy sunny yellow that just makes you want to pick out of the neighbors yard.

Red: Tulips!

• Not the icky red of the burn on my left arm that I managed to create by burning myself taking crab cakes out of the oven. (The list of injuries may indicate an interest in red wine)

Green: Grass!

• Not the bright emerald green of a tacky plastic hat worn on St. Patrick's day.

Blue: Sky!

• Not pool water.

White: Pear blossoms!

• Brighter and whiter even than my winter legs, the cat hair on my black winter coat, or my gray hair (which I colored two weeks ago - did anyone notice???).

Back in Albany: at least the snow is retreating. But the world here is still brown and gray and windswept and smells like thawing dog shit as a winters worth of littering reveals itself. But I can tell it's spring because I work on a college campus. It think some of these kids ain't just been holdin' hands lately, but maybe I'm just jealous.

My spring was great. It was loverly to get a dose of warm weather and sunshine, to run outside, to sit on the porch and drink a cold glass of wine, to take in the sun and the flowers and the colors. It's coming folks: NY spring should be here anytime in the next few months, minus at least a bit more snow and sleet and hail.

I’m tired of pretending like I’m not special. I’m tired of pretending like I’m not bitchin’, a total freakin’ rock star from Mars.

Charlie Sheen is in the news. Who cares.

When I wake up I'm just another nameless middle class white woman pushing 50 complaining about hot flashes with wrinkled PJs and a bag of cat shit to put in the trash on my way out the door. But, and this is so cool - my key is in the ignition, I hit the road, it's 4:45, I'm off to the Y, and by the time I pull into the parking lot I'm younger, stronger, determined, proud, littler and bitchier. I turn into S.L.B. I'm rockin' and ready to save the world!

No one knows my Secret Identity. I push it, 2 or 3 hours working out. I feel great. I cool down and shower and dress and dry and style and I go to Do My Face and whoooooa! Who is that old lady looking back at me in the mirror??? She looks like a freakin' librarian! Good. I'll have them all fooled. This is really just a disguise. I quietly enter the workforce.

The Roadrunner and I finally exchanged first names this week. This is the first step to revealing our Secret Identities. Her comment was, that after a while, Y groupies become like family. I corrected her: we are more like fly by night lovers because we never know a last name. She laughed but I didn't get her phone number.

Foxy Roxy finally got her Pool Name. She kept trying to get me to giggle in Pilates while I was lying on my back, trying to balance a stability ball on the bottom of my feet. I made it look easy, but what she doesn't know is that I have a secret superpower: sweaty sticky socks.

Sadly, by 5:00 pm, M-F, all the magic has worn off. I am finally revealed. OH MY GOD, I AM A LIBRARIAN. I am shorter, fatter, wrinkled, irritable, wearing glasses with a string attached, and I need a drink. The only competition here is to be the quietest and the oldest.

But there is always tomorrow morning, when the transformation will again turn me into S.L.B., and at least for now I don't have a bag of shit in my hand.