Richmond Arm Wrestling for Ladies + RYW!

Who: RYW + RAWFL

What: Arm wrestling bouts, haiku thumb wrestling, a silent auction and a lot of smack talk

Where: the fabulous Dixie Donuts in Carytown, 2901 W. Cary Street, RVA 23221 (across the street from the Byrd Theatre)

When: Saturday, May 25th, 1-4pm (we are using our raindate!)

Why: to raise scholarship funds for young writers in need

The Richmond Young Writers' spring scholarship fundraiser approaches and trust us: YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT. We're going to be hanging out at Dixie Donuts, cheering on Princess Slaya, Patty Cakes, the Swiss Missfit, Atomic Mom and more - for several bouts of LADIES' ARM WRESTLING! The event is free and open to the public, but come ready to “bet” on your favorite wrestlers and support the RYW Scholarship Fund!

We’re also introducing a new sport that we’re certain will make it to the Olympics one day: haiku thumb wrestling, of course. What’s that, you ask? You’ll have to come find out.

Plus, you'll have a chance to win a Kindle, a writers' pack, restaurant gift certificates and more at our silent auction!

Can't make it to the fundraiser? Donate online! RYW Scholarship Fund.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned Waiting Tables

If you’ve ever woken up in a cold sweat realizing you forgot to bring mustard to table 3B, you may have waited tables. If you’ve ever paid for your own birth control pills with a roll of nickels, you may have waited tables. If you can read faces, memorize legal documents, calculate complex equations in your head, juggle time management for a small empire, run in heels and make the happiness of others your number one priority, you have definitely waited tables.

My first job at the age of 16—beyond my mother’s metaphorical apron strings—was as a Waffle House waitress. I had been in my mother’s employ for some time but she’d gotten the idea that my “attitude” might be improved by working for someone else. She was right. The summer after my junior year I was hired by an actual man named Bubba and even though he’d be busted and fired on drug related charges before the summer was out, I was to learn a lot under his care. For example, almost immediately I learned that it’s possible to smoke through a tracheotomy while frying eggs and flipping bacon, that themed juke boxes are the second cousins of water torture and that you can actually wear a bonnet and an apron at the same time without dying of eternal shame.

 As the months passed surrounded by that smoky orange, yellow and brown décor, I learned some other stuff, too. I’m now of the opinion that just as nursing students are required to attend AA, sociologists, anthropologists and students of the mental health field should be required to work in food service. Because nowhere is the truth of human nature more apparent than between a fork and its mouth. Serving people from every walk of life—or at least those willing to eat potatoes that have been smothered, covered and chunked—I learned how to make small talk, big talk and when to hold my tongue. I learned how to keep my head above water even when it felt like I was drowning in the weeds, what it meant to serve  and the importance of withholding judgment—at least until after dessert. And, as an aspiring writer, I learned how to pay attention to detail, that what I remembered and what I said mattered and how to get by on what I could bring home each day      

My next stints waiting tables were with the aid of a liberal arts degree—on a dude ranch in Colorado, at a five star resort in Arkansas, on a cruise ship in Alaska and then, lastly, at a small tavern within walking distance of my own house back home. Each was a continued education in communication skills, life lessons, gratitude and humility. And when I finally met my future husband I was relieved to discover that he passed muster: he’d waited tables at Pizza Hut on Jeff Davis Highway during Little League season. And I have no greater respect than for anyone who could survive that.

It’s been a long time since I’ve worn an apron, bonnet, tuxedo, cowgirl hat or life preserver but every time someone brings me hot coffee or a plate full of dinner, I know I will never forget what it felt like  when the tables were turned.  

Goodbye, Good Girl

Photos by V. Haggard, Photo Illustration by Joel Smith

We were obedience school drop-outs. Never having been a dog owner before I accidentally enrolled in the Marines when I would have preferred the Peace Corps. The general gave us choke-chains and barked orders. We rebelled, dropped out and did it our own way which was pretty much no way at all-- but did involve lots of hotdogs and licking. Rescued from an abusive situation by old friends, I’d agreed to foster Alizé, the red nosed pit named after a malt liquor for one weekend- nearly 13 years ago. It was 2000, I was 24, my future husband and I had been dating for one month and we’d all just finished reading the first in the Harry Potter series. We renamed her Hermione, though that went through a million permutations: Miami, Mione, Her-me-own-ee, Mayan, a detail that did not escape our attention when we made the heart-wrenching decision to have her put down on 12/21/12, the date the Mayans supposedly proclaimed The End of the World.

For us, in many ways, it was. She had been a flower girl in our wedding, a garland nestled between her short blonde and white locks. She’d adopted first our kittens—allowing them to nurse and knead her-- and then a few years later our son, allowing him to ride her and teach her spelling words. As a couple we had few memories separate from her—from the largesse of holidays and anniversaries to the mundane of the everyday—sleeping, eating, walking from one room to another. She was embedded in the blueprint of our lives, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the back, but as constant as the foundation. When I mentioned that she’d ferried me from my early twenties into my late thirties, my eight year old son said, “Think how I feel, mom. I’ve never had a day in my life without her as my dog.”

The impact of this first up close and personal death on our son was profound. Usually disgusted by hugs and kisses he began to seek them out, uncovering a deeply affectionate side of himself that hasn’t vanished since. He elected to orchestrate her funeral, selecting red roses to hand out to each mourner to be placed on her grave. He wrote a eulogy on his new dry erase board: “You were the best sister I ever had. You were so sweat [sic]. I will miss you forever.” My father brought donuts and a roasted chicken. Several friends came with readings for the graveside. My step-father, father and husband wept openly as they shoveled dirt into her grave and through my own tears I was grateful that my son had such remarkable male role models and that every one of us had the chance to love our dog fiercely enough for such grief.

We received a beautiful outpouring of support—phone calls, cards, detailed experiences from others who’d been through this before, an anonymous donor even paid for a portion of our vet bill. Even so, in the days that followed I wrestled with the terrible feeling that I had failed her—not only in her death (a choice I willfully never imagined having to make)-- but in her life. She was the only person I had never once tried to be anyone else around. She saw me at my most selfish, ridiculous, small and ugly--without judgment or recrimination. She was the keeper of my secret selves, a witness to the worst of me—but also at times the best. Discovering what really matters, what’s truly important, what should come first, I feel as if I was just learning how to love her half as well as she loved me and I hadn’t managed to keep her alive long enough to finish learning—in other words, forever. We may have been obedience school drop outs but our dog was one magnificent teacher.

How to Find Love When One Thousand Donut Holes Are Not Enough

Start by learning what love is not. Learn the hard way. Find out that love is not defined by temper tantrums, drunken stupors, screaming hysterics, underpants left fetchingly on anyone’s front lawn or any of the other flu-like symptoms associated with that first rosy blush. Nor can love be ordered, tracked or dropped off by courier on an agreed upon delivery date. Hallmark and the Bible may make stabs at defining love but you’re going to have to live into your own, more particular versions of this word all by yourself.

Discover that no combination of Schlitz Malt Liquor, Carlo Rossi red wine, Old Crow whiskey, Marlboro Reds or little multi-colored pills equal love. Not really. Nor do barbeque potato chips, chocolate éclairs or lemon meringue pie. Glazed donut holes do not good lovers make. You may have no idea if love is an action, a feeling or an ideal, but you do learn that anything you can swallow, ingest or throw back up, probably isn’t love at all.  

Read that in order to truly love anyone or to be truly loved by anyone you must first learn to love yourself. Wonder what that means, exactly. Practice the affirmation, “I love myself the way I am” in the mirror, without sticking your tongue out, gagging or adding any clauses, footnotes or addendums.

Put all of your complicated, unresolved feelings for X, Y and Z onto the page instead of into your mouth. It’s more important to get the next page than to have the last word.

Accept that Prince Charming couldn’t have had more than two or three hundred lovers in his lifetime and that none of them were you. Even Jane Eyre had to wait until Mr. Rochester was blind and broke before they could get it to work. Practice loving your own assortment of imperfect, scarred, tender heartbreaks and misadventures, especially the ones that demanded you tear everything apart before you could build again.

Learn to look for love in unexpected places. Blow a kiss to the man in the elephant nose mask who wishes you a Happy Father’s Day in the dead of winter. Accept a flower from the woman in the wheelchair who looks like she’s been waiting all day just to hand it to you. Bring bittersweet chocolate to friends who have recently suffered loss, illness, heartbreak or tragedy. Recognize when you leave that love attached to your coat and followed you out the door.

Look into the face of the kitten, the child, the old man holding the door open for you at the gym even though he’s older than God and walks with a cane. But don’t clutch at these new, fresh faces of love and try to keep them for your own. They may bite, drool or hit you in the rear if you grab too much, too fast.

Finally, remove “unreciprocated love” from your lexicon. Try on new terms until you find one that fits like a perfectly tailored dress. Eat away your preconceived notions-- along with your donut holes. Be humbled, blown away, changed entirely by the new words that come to define you. But remember, when you feed the ones you love, don’t forget to feed yourself.