I’ve never told the beginning of my story before, about how I came to be an accidental stepmom. There honestly aren’t even very many people in real life who know it.
When Trish Eklund connected with me about becoming a contributor to her new site, Family Fusion Community, she suggested for my first post that I tell how it all started. I’m sure she didn’t realize at the time what a big freaking deal that was going to be for me.
I believe that there’s too much secrecy and stigma associated with mental illness, and I believe it gets real dicey when you’re trying to talk about how someone else’s mental illness effects you and people around them. You want to be discrete and not tell someone else’s story. But how can you tell your own story without mentioning that part at all?
I woke up yesterday at 6:15am to give #2 money to go to Atlantic City.
Don’t judge me. Her high school choir was performing in the Miss America parade.
Beauty pageants pretty much represent everything I’m against: overemphasis on outer beauty, popularity, conformity, and vapidness. I’ve always had a closed mind to them. Then I was forced by my children to watch enough of one episode of Toddlers and Tiaras to be totally okay with my mind slammed shut against beauty pageants.
Until this week, that is, when CC sent me a link to an article on one of the contestants in this year’s Miss America pageant. I started digging around and found more that made me open my mind just a little.
Sergeant Theresa Vail from Kansas, whose platform is Empowering Women, Overcoming Stereotypes, and Breaking Barriers. She’s an expert M-16 marksman, a bowhunter, and field dresses her own game. When she walks in the swimsuit portion of the competition, you’re gonna see her tattoos. She’s my favorite, so she gets two links: the People magazine article and her own blog post explaining why she chose not to cover up her tattoos.
Nicole Kelly from Iowa was born without her left forearm. Her platform is The Power of One and she wants to go on the road as a theater stage manager. Nicole, I know people! We can set you up. Here’s a link to the Today article.
Jennifer Smestad from my former home of Arizona was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome at age 10. She keeps it in check today with acupuncture. Her platform is Tourette’s Syndrome Awareness and Advocacy. Here’s a link to the Daily Mail article.
All the contestants do their own hair and makeup for the final televised competition tonight. This is because, during her reign, Miss America has to do it all herself anyway. And every time she walks out the door, she has to look like Miss Freaking America. Can you imagine? No running out for half & half in last night’s mascara and the yoga pants you slept in, no swinging by the dry cleaners when you just ran five miles at the gym and are drenched with sweat.
I may still not be completely enamored of beauty pageants, but Miss America has my attention tonight. 9pm on ABC.
There’s a statistic that says if you make it into the latter part of your 50’s clear of cancer and heart disease, there’s a good chance you’ll live well into your 80’s.
But there’s a corollary: all the other stuff that can take you out before you ever hit 60. Things you can die from at 18 or 53, 31 or 45, birth or 27.
No matter how many times it happens, it’s devastating when someone dies unexpectedly.
An acquaintance of mine– a really great stagehand– died all of a sudden last week. He was only 45, putting up a show, and his heart gave out. No warning. I can’t get him out of my mind even though I only played through his town twice.
How does someone you’ve worked with exactly twice leave a mark like that?
When you’re a stagehand on the road, everything changes with every move: Your home, your workplace, your co-workers. An awful lot of how it goes depends on the local crew in the new town. They can make your life easy or make it a living hell.
They can either tell you how to get in & out of the best BBQ joint in town on the lunch hour, or give you wrong directions on purpose. They can load your show in like a dream before you even ask for anything, or they can unplug cables on the sly. They can tell you how to make friends with the head carpenter or set you up to unwittingly play into their long-held feud.
When you played through Providence, Pop didn’t make your life easy or hard; he made your life interesting. He was a truly unique individual and had so much in his life in addition to being a stagehand. Outspoken doesn’t even begin to describe him. If you played through Providence and he liked you, he made sure to stay in touch through email and text before there was Facebook. His was, of course, one of the first Facebook friend requests I received.
He was so punk rock, in the truest sense: no bullshit, and never concerned about what people thought of him. His ideals, his friends, his family, and his work ethic were sacred. He always helped people get what they needed.
He was a staunch union advocate. He backed artists and spread the word on Kickstarter projects. He turned people on to local bands and was quick with gems of history from the scene. He sent comic books to little kids when they had surgeries. He spread the word for fundraisers.
When I posted about #4 being Gene Simmons for Halloween, he sent me a picture of himself as Gene from back in the day. He emailed me when a new guy I had trained played through Providence to tell me what a good job he was doing, how he was holding his own. When my niece Colby died, he shared with me how he was born prematurely and his own twin didn’t make it.
My favorite Pop memory was a small, perfect moment on a work day. We started the show call and I put on Queensrÿche’s Operation Mindcrime to test my sound system,quite possibly the most ridiculous thing that feeds my soul, and walked the house. When I went back to the console I saw Pop sitting in the seats with another stagehand. For some reason I thought they were having a meeting and said, “Sorry, Pop, I’ll cut the music,” and Pop goes, “Nah nah nah, leave it. Turn it up.”
I turned it up. Someone dimmed the house lights. Other guys drifted out and sat down in the dark to listen. We played the album out until they opened the house.
People die young and you’re left there going, What the fuck?
Would they give anything for it to not be over yet, or in the moment they passed, did they suddenly understand everything they came here to remember?
I don’t want to spend much time thinking about that. I’ll get my own answer soon enough. I picture asking Pop that question and him saying, “Nah, nah, nah, leave it. Turn it up.”
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 