Friday, December 01, 2006


I'm a recovering crier.
It has been months since I cried but this week I spent some time at work crying in the bathroom.
A former co-worker whom I won't mention named Lee Reinsch taught me that trick. If all else fails, head to the bathroom.
It's preferable to crying at your desk, which confuses and embarrasses people (much like the dog-nosed woman at Halloween in Wal-Mart), especially the guys and there is nothing worse then showing your weakness and crying in the business world.

The problem is it's our main women's bathroom, the one with the magazines in it, the good hand lotion and a window.
(Only you, and you know who you are, would take that the wrong way).

I used to cry buckets all the time but with age comes a kind of not-giving-so-much-of-a-rat's-you-know-what anymore.

So prior to my hardening heart and my kids exclaiming "she's crying again!" name a place. I've probably cried there.

Despite the usual life, death, birth situations some bizarre major crying jags of epic proportions:

When my younger sister scared me while I was playing the play-by-number electric organ, which she has never let me forget.
Neil Young concert, weeping like someone who needs to be medically sedated.
Cried through the entire wedding of my older sister, my face swelled and distorted in the family photos.
Most television shows, movies and commercials. At the end of "Shenandoah," my father made me leave the room. "What's wrong with you?" he said. "Are you smoking marijuana?"
When Lassie comes home.
The day Mr. Rogers died. The country should have shut down.
"The eagles are coming, the eagles are coming..." reaching that point in Tolkien's trilogy. I was reading to my kids and I had to put the book down and leave the room.

Now, of course, I resort to other emotional outlets.

Colleen, when is that cheesecake getting here?

1 comment:

Chris B. said...

Every time -- and I mean every darn time -- I see my mom's Aunt Marge she reminds me that I spent an entire family party on July 4 (also my birthday, and I was probably about 6 for this one) bawling my eyes out.

Then, when it was time to go home, I gave her a hug and said, "Thank you. I had a wonderful time."

This usually comes up at the poker table as Aunt Marge drags my money away.