Day 4 - your favorite book. has it changed since your loss?
My favorite books change and stay the same. I can't quite pinpoint one.
After Lucy died, I definitely felt a strong connection to Elizabeth McCracken's Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination. She is an amazing writer, and after I finished that book, I went on and devoured all her other books--the Giant's House (amazing) and Niagara Falls All Over Again (funny, lots of dead babies) and her collection of short stories Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry. And then found out the friend she refers to is Ann Pachett, whose Bel Canto was such an amazing read, it was easy for me to go on and devour her books too, which I did. That is what I do, I suppose, and if I were a Japanese Super Monster, I would be GodBookDevourerRa or something. I basically plow through authors, and then wallow and mourn the end of their books. It is like getting dumped by a really great boyfriend. You can't help but compare the next one to him, even if they are halfway decent, they still aren't as good as your last book.
Funnily, until writing this right now, if you had asked me what I read after Lucy died, I would have said crap, except Exact Replica. But none of those books by EMac or APatch (they have automatic Rap Names when they get mentioned on Still Life) were crap. Not a stinker in the bunch, in fact, I loved all of them. And it was even hard for me to discern which I liked best, because, while they were all uniquely their own, they all touched something in me, like nostalgia for a time I didn't live, or love for a character...Anyway, I think I read crap, because the crap is what I talked about with others more often than not. Because for Christmas, Sam bought me Twilight, thinking I would like mindless reading, and I did. I did like it at the time. She really did an amazing job of putting you into the mindset of being a teenage girl again, all weedy and weird and obsessing over the hot guy. I giggled in bed when I was reading it. My breasts were still engorged and leaking horribly sad milk, and I actually fucking giggled like a little teenage girl who a vampire just checked out.
So there is that.
But I now loathe the series, because I think it is so anti-feminist and anti-woman, and wish that teenage girls would not read it, or if they read it, stop at the third book. The fourth book destroys all semblance of the world she created in the first three. See, there are literary affronts for which Stephenie Meyer will never make right no matter how many Oprah shows she does and how much money she gives to needy folk. I love when I read a book where the author creates a world with laws and physics and supernatural crap. I will suspend my disbelief for you. I won't poke holes in your universe. If you tell me it rains spaghetti, I will play along, but don't just start making it rain spaghetti from Earth to cloud in the fourth book because unbeknownst to your readers, you follow and upside down spaghetti religion. Stephenie Meyers just fucking DESTROYED her universe in the fourth book. She spit on it, danced about, kicked it in your face. She flaunted her god-like author powers, and it ruins everything she has ever written. She creates laws of this Twilight universe, then breaks them. Okay, vampires exist. And so do shapeshifting Indian tribes. I get it. I am with you, Stephenie Meyers. Cute. When you reaffirm over and over again that the vampires are dead people, I get it. They must drink the blood of humans to continue walking the earth. They crave blood because they are dead. Without life. No living cells. No pulse. No actual human-like characteristics besides being perfect predators to feast on the blood of living people. And there is a spoiler coming up so SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH if you aren't interested in having me spoil your fun.............................Stephenie Meyer, if you want me to believe that Edward Cullen and all his people are dead, do not make his sperm live. That, to me, is like an upside down spaghetti storm. The thing is, the living sperm is for a religious agenda that seems unnecessary in a book already about vampires. Make up your own mind, but you know, I disapprove of Book Four so much that I cannot abide by any of it anymore. All that being said, they are truly terribly written to begin with. I think that is why it reminds me of being a teenager, because I also wrote terribly when I was a teenager.
So, I read the Twilight series, then I read all of the Harry Potter books in a row for the first time ever. (I know, GAWD, I AM SO LAME AND BEHIND.) But they were awesomely magnificent, and that is part of the reason Twilight and other series books bug the shit out of me. JK Rowling really knew what was happening at every turn. She is the Goddess of that universe. She is Fate. She is Physics. She is the Puppetmaster. And nothing breaks stride. It was amazing, even with the elves. I then read the Sookie Stackhouse series. All of them. In a row. They were so much fun. Not particularly well-written, but great sex scenes, and I like her universe a great deal. About or around Book Seven, to juxtapose with Harry Potter, I actually put the book down and said, "She is making this up as she goes along."
Anyway, so, yeah, pretty crappy entertaining books. It helped me, though, to be less pretentious about books, and less, uh, judging of series and people who read them. They have been a hoot, and my sister keeps poking me to read fantasy and more elf-y books, and sometimes I think I might. I just want to be entertained. I don't need my mind expanded every book. Mindless drivel has its place. Lucy's death taught me that amongst other wiser insights.
But my favorite top five books before Lucy died are: Written on the Body by Jeannette Winterson, Independent People by Halldor Laxness, The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham and Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and as I press publish, I will think of fifteen more of my favorites. I did reread The End of the Affair and the Painted Veil after Lucia died and they both were so different and also absolutely maintained their standing on the top five list.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Day 3--A television show
Day 3 - a television program that helped you either get through hard times or that moves you.
Really, my television experience since Lucy died has involved crappity crap crap. I love crap. I will watch it for hours and not cry. Mostly that was all I was looking for in the early days, to find something that got me out of the relentless drumming of "Lucy is dead. Lucy is dead." And so I obsessively watched America's Next Top Model whenever it came on, which was usually a marathon on Ox.ygen. I love it and loathe it. I do not pretend to approve of ANTM as a feminist, or a mother, but I love me some Tyra and Mr and Mrs Jay, and Nigel Barker and Janice Dickinson, who cannot get any more bitchy and fabu. Where else can you hear someone say something like, "If this doesn't work for me, then I'm definitely going to go back to pageants because I think that really helps you develop more as a woman, where modeling is just more of a career."
Let's face it ANTM isn't on every day, so I also used to spend much of naptime (when I would watch crappy television) catching up on the reality shows of Bravo. I watch reality competition shows like Top Chef and Project Runway. I do love watching people do the thing they love to do, and I love challenges. (Ahem, see still life 365, people.) People being snarky and competing as a stylist? Hell I'll watch it. Designing a room? Making art on demand? Alright that one was awesome. Pretty much if it is marketed to gay men, I am so there. And yes, I can talk about the Real Housewives of almost anywhere. Actually, my sister and I were live blogging those reality shows, because we are aware how terribly vacuous they are, but they do make great snark fodder. And we make each other laugh.
Sigh. I'm not proud.
I have to say, though, this does feel good to admit I'm not watching public television all the time. I love pop culture and television, even if mostly, I feel out of the loop. Anyway, the wrap-up of this post is that if it gets me out of my head for an hour, I love it. Remember I didn't come here to make friends. I came here to be America's Next Top Dead Baby Blogger. Actually, I did come here to make friends.
(I realized last night that I did want to catch up and be Day three on the third, because otherwise it will confuse me. So, I missed day one, but made up by posting FOUR TIMES IN TWO DAYS. Sorry for the Reader Flood.)
Really, my television experience since Lucy died has involved crappity crap crap. I love crap. I will watch it for hours and not cry. Mostly that was all I was looking for in the early days, to find something that got me out of the relentless drumming of "Lucy is dead. Lucy is dead." And so I obsessively watched America's Next Top Model whenever it came on, which was usually a marathon on Ox.ygen. I love it and loathe it. I do not pretend to approve of ANTM as a feminist, or a mother, but I love me some Tyra and Mr and Mrs Jay, and Nigel Barker and Janice Dickinson, who cannot get any more bitchy and fabu. Where else can you hear someone say something like, "If this doesn't work for me, then I'm definitely going to go back to pageants because I think that really helps you develop more as a woman, where modeling is just more of a career."
Let's face it ANTM isn't on every day, so I also used to spend much of naptime (when I would watch crappy television) catching up on the reality shows of Bravo. I watch reality competition shows like Top Chef and Project Runway. I do love watching people do the thing they love to do, and I love challenges. (Ahem, see still life 365, people.) People being snarky and competing as a stylist? Hell I'll watch it. Designing a room? Making art on demand? Alright that one was awesome. Pretty much if it is marketed to gay men, I am so there. And yes, I can talk about the Real Housewives of almost anywhere. Actually, my sister and I were live blogging those reality shows, because we are aware how terribly vacuous they are, but they do make great snark fodder. And we make each other laugh.
Sigh. I'm not proud.
I have to say, though, this does feel good to admit I'm not watching public television all the time. I love pop culture and television, even if mostly, I feel out of the loop. Anyway, the wrap-up of this post is that if it gets me out of my head for an hour, I love it. Remember I didn't come here to make friends. I came here to be America's Next Top Dead Baby Blogger. Actually, I did come here to make friends.
(I realized last night that I did want to catch up and be Day three on the third, because otherwise it will confuse me. So, I missed day one, but made up by posting FOUR TIMES IN TWO DAYS. Sorry for the Reader Flood.)
Day Two-a Movie
Day 2 - a movie that helped you get through the hard times, or one that jumps out at you after your loss.
This movie doesn't quite describe my grief or anything, but it is my favorite movie of all time. The Razor's Edge with Bill Murray. Basically, I love anything with Bill Murray in it, and this one is one of those movies that knocks it out of the park. Humor. Drama. Buddhism. I think W. Somerset Maugham is my favorite writer, or definitely in the top ten. I love the makes of his books. Anyway, there is so much to love in this movie, but my favorite line by far, which I remind myself of daily, is a line uttered after the main character's true love dies.
I thought (she) was my reward for trying to live a good life. Uh uh. There is no payoff - not now. Not ever.
Basically, every aspect of that movie moves me in some way or another. The traveler in me. The Buddhist. The writer. The reader. The seeker. The lover. The compassionate person. The friend.
And having just looking up on IMDB what that quote was exactly, I found out that Bill Murray agreed to be in Ghostbusters if Columbia Pictures would make this movie. And you can tell, without a doubt, that he believed in this movie.
This movie doesn't quite describe my grief or anything, but it is my favorite movie of all time. The Razor's Edge with Bill Murray. Basically, I love anything with Bill Murray in it, and this one is one of those movies that knocks it out of the park. Humor. Drama. Buddhism. I think W. Somerset Maugham is my favorite writer, or definitely in the top ten. I love the makes of his books. Anyway, there is so much to love in this movie, but my favorite line by far, which I remind myself of daily, is a line uttered after the main character's true love dies.
I thought (she) was my reward for trying to live a good life. Uh uh. There is no payoff - not now. Not ever.
Basically, every aspect of that movie moves me in some way or another. The traveler in me. The Buddhist. The writer. The reader. The seeker. The lover. The compassionate person. The friend.
And having just looking up on IMDB what that quote was exactly, I found out that Bill Murray agreed to be in Ghostbusters if Columbia Pictures would make this movie. And you can tell, without a doubt, that he believed in this movie.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Day 1 - A Song
Day 1 - a song that reminds you of your child, or one that you can't listen to anymore and why.
There is something about the slacker generation, Generation X, or whatever you call it, that seems to take music like some kind of quick overview of one's personality. What kind of music do you like? What are the five albums you are stranded on a deserted island with? Are you a ABC person or what? Sarah Vowell has a great essay about it, hilarious and poignant, can't for the life of me find it, but whatever. She is worth the read or listen. I basically know her work from This American Life, so I listened to it.
I do happen to like bands/musicians/singers in almost every genre of music. And I listen to a lot of music, over and over again. I sometimes would just put on song on infinite repeat for an entire day. I never tire of my obsession, until I do, usually the next day, when that particular song was sooooooo yesterday.
When Lucy died, music all but dried up for me. Lyrics are my thing, as a writer, and suddenly every song was overwrought and heartbreaking and seeming to be so fucking sad. Leonard Cohen is a perennial favorite, and yeah, even Suzanne broke my heart. What can I say, I was emotionally fragile. Cell phone commercial gutted me on a good day. I was hollowed out, filled with tears, readying for a piece of music to come along and poke holes in me. Salt water flooding my cd collection.
Still, there were a few things that I listened to over and over again. I loved listening to Tegan and Sara's album the Con when I began painting. It helped that Bea would listen to it without demanding that They Might Be Giant's ABC album get put on, so there is that. My musical choices are often trumped by a toddler. I tried desperately hard to sneak Bikini Kill in, but Beatrice told me that Bikini Kill scared her. Shit. Basically, the only time we would listen to music during the day after Lucy died was when we painted. It became that we either put on Tegan and Sara or Bjork.
Ever notice how dang applicable breakup songs are to babyloss? Shit. Tegan and Sara are amazing. Anyway, I used to ache to hear one of Tegan's songs, and I would put it on, then start it over, just so I could have myself a good tear up. It was like pushing a black and blue. It hurts. I am still alive. It hurts. I am still alive.
Anyway, the lines really have nothing to do with babyloss, but these lines remind me of Lucy and not getting to be her mother.
Maybe I would have been something you'd be good at.
Maybe you would have been something I'd be good at.
But now we'll never know.
I won't be sad, but in case I go there everyday to make myself feel bad,
There is a chance I'll start to wonder if this was the thing to do.
The song is Call It Off. Here is the video.
There is something about the slacker generation, Generation X, or whatever you call it, that seems to take music like some kind of quick overview of one's personality. What kind of music do you like? What are the five albums you are stranded on a deserted island with? Are you a ABC person or what? Sarah Vowell has a great essay about it, hilarious and poignant, can't for the life of me find it, but whatever. She is worth the read or listen. I basically know her work from This American Life, so I listened to it.
I do happen to like bands/musicians/singers in almost every genre of music. And I listen to a lot of music, over and over again. I sometimes would just put on song on infinite repeat for an entire day. I never tire of my obsession, until I do, usually the next day, when that particular song was sooooooo yesterday.
When Lucy died, music all but dried up for me. Lyrics are my thing, as a writer, and suddenly every song was overwrought and heartbreaking and seeming to be so fucking sad. Leonard Cohen is a perennial favorite, and yeah, even Suzanne broke my heart. What can I say, I was emotionally fragile. Cell phone commercial gutted me on a good day. I was hollowed out, filled with tears, readying for a piece of music to come along and poke holes in me. Salt water flooding my cd collection.
Still, there were a few things that I listened to over and over again. I loved listening to Tegan and Sara's album the Con when I began painting. It helped that Bea would listen to it without demanding that They Might Be Giant's ABC album get put on, so there is that. My musical choices are often trumped by a toddler. I tried desperately hard to sneak Bikini Kill in, but Beatrice told me that Bikini Kill scared her. Shit. Basically, the only time we would listen to music during the day after Lucy died was when we painted. It became that we either put on Tegan and Sara or Bjork.
Ever notice how dang applicable breakup songs are to babyloss? Shit. Tegan and Sara are amazing. Anyway, I used to ache to hear one of Tegan's songs, and I would put it on, then start it over, just so I could have myself a good tear up. It was like pushing a black and blue. It hurts. I am still alive. It hurts. I am still alive.
Anyway, the lines really have nothing to do with babyloss, but these lines remind me of Lucy and not getting to be her mother.
Maybe I would have been something you'd be good at.
Maybe you would have been something I'd be good at.
But now we'll never know.
I won't be sad, but in case I go there everyday to make myself feel bad,
There is a chance I'll start to wonder if this was the thing to do.
The song is Call It Off. Here is the video.
Thirty posts in thirty days.
October kicks off Pregnancy Loss and Awareness month and Virginia at In the Land of Broken Hearts is posting about some aspect of stillbirth and pregnancy loss and awareness each day of the month. She challenged herself to post everyday to raise awareness. I thought that was an incredible idea, and yet, I don't really know much of the factual end of stillbirth, except what I have googled about stillbirth. I don't have google alerts set to stillborn, and it is an issue close to my heart. My daughter Lucia Paz was one of 26,000 babies born dead after week 20 of pregnancy (defined that way in the US and after 24 weeks in the UK) in 2008. We never found a reason for her death, which is why awareness and education and research is so desperately needed. So, what I can share, however, is my experience as a woman and mother and my experience with stillbirth.
A few weeks ago, loribeth at the Road Less Traveled, which is one of my faves, posted a thirty posts in thirty days meme type thing, which was awesome. I just loved learning more about her and her experiences in the world. I thought I would combine the two, transform her thirty posts in thirty days idea into thirty posts in thirty days from a dead baby mama. Here was her jumping off point for her thirty posts:
Day 1 - a song that reminds you of your child, or one that you can't listen to anymore and why.
Day 2 - a movie that helped you get through the hard times, or one that jumps out at you after your loss.
Day 3 - a television program that helped you either get through hard times or that moves you.
Day 4 - your favorite book. has it changed since your loss?
Day 5 - your favorite quote.
Day 6 - twenty things that calm you.
Day 7 - a photo that makes you happy.
Day 8 - a photo that makes you angry/sad.
Day 9 - a photo you took since your loss.
Day 10 - a photo taken over 10 years ago of you and how it makes you feel seeing it now.
Day 11 - a photo of you recently and how it makes you feel seeing it now.
Day 12 - something you are OCD about.
Day 13 - a fictional book that is meaningful to you since your loss.
Day 14 - a non-fictional book that is meaningful to you since your loss.
Day 15 - what you like about your house.
Day 16 - a song that makes you cry (or nearly).
Day 17 - an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc) that moves you.
Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding.
Day 19 - a talent of yours.
Day 20 - a hobby of yours and how it changed since your loss.
Day 21 - a recipe.
Day 22 - a website that has been meaningful since your loss.
Day 23 - a youtube video that makes you laugh.
Day 24 - where you live
Day 25 - your day, in great detail
Day 26 - your week, in great detail
Day 27 - your worst habit since your child's death.
Day 28 - what's in your handbag/purse
Day 29 - hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 - a dream for the future
A few weeks ago, loribeth at the Road Less Traveled, which is one of my faves, posted a thirty posts in thirty days meme type thing, which was awesome. I just loved learning more about her and her experiences in the world. I thought I would combine the two, transform her thirty posts in thirty days idea into thirty posts in thirty days from a dead baby mama. Here was her jumping off point for her thirty posts:
Here' s Loribeth's master list:
Day 1 - your favorite song
Day 2 - your favorite movie
Day 3 - your favorite television program
Day 4 - your favorite book
Day 5 - your favorite quote
Day 6 - 20 of your favorite things
Day 7 - a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 - a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 - a photo you took
Day 10 - a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 - a photo of you recently
Day 12 - something you are OCD about
Day 13 - a fictional book
Day 14 - a non-fictional book
Day 15 - your dream house
Day 16 - a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 - an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 - a talent of yours
Day 20 - a hobby of yours
Day 21 - a recipe
Day 22 - a website
Day 23 - a youtube video
Day 24 - where you live
Day 25 - your day, in great detail
Day 26 - your week, in great detail
Day 27 - your worst habit
Day 28 - what's in your handbag/purse
Day 29 - hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 - a dream for the future
Day 1 - your favorite song
Day 2 - your favorite movie
Day 3 - your favorite television program
Day 4 - your favorite book
Day 5 - your favorite quote
Day 6 - 20 of your favorite things
Day 7 - a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 - a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 - a photo you took
Day 10 - a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 - a photo of you recently
Day 12 - something you are OCD about
Day 13 - a fictional book
Day 14 - a non-fictional book
Day 15 - your dream house
Day 16 - a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 - an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 - a talent of yours
Day 20 - a hobby of yours
Day 21 - a recipe
Day 22 - a website
Day 23 - a youtube video
Day 24 - where you live
Day 25 - your day, in great detail
Day 26 - your week, in great detail
Day 27 - your worst habit
Day 28 - what's in your handbag/purse
Day 29 - hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 - a dream for the future
Basically, I am transforming some of them into more loss/grief related questions and using it as a springboard to write everyday, and since this blog is ostensibly about my loss, though gnomes sneak in there, I will answer these questions with that lens.
My new master list:
Day 1 - a song that reminds you of your child, or one that you can't listen to anymore and why.
Day 2 - a movie that helped you get through the hard times, or one that jumps out at you after your loss.
Day 3 - a television program that helped you either get through hard times or that moves you.
Day 4 - your favorite book. has it changed since your loss?
Day 5 - your favorite quote.
Day 6 - twenty things that calm you.
Day 7 - a photo that makes you happy.
Day 8 - a photo that makes you angry/sad.
Day 9 - a photo you took since your loss.
Day 10 - a photo taken over 10 years ago of you and how it makes you feel seeing it now.
Day 11 - a photo of you recently and how it makes you feel seeing it now.
Day 12 - something you are OCD about.
Day 13 - a fictional book that is meaningful to you since your loss.
Day 14 - a non-fictional book that is meaningful to you since your loss.
Day 15 - what you like about your house.
Day 16 - a song that makes you cry (or nearly).
Day 17 - an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc) that moves you.
Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding.
Day 19 - a talent of yours.
Day 20 - a hobby of yours and how it changed since your loss.
Day 21 - a recipe.
Day 22 - a website that has been meaningful since your loss.
Day 23 - a youtube video that makes you laugh.
Day 24 - where you live
Day 25 - your day, in great detail
Day 26 - your week, in great detail
Day 27 - your worst habit since your child's death.
Day 28 - what's in your handbag/purse
Day 29 - hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 - a dream for the future
Feel like joining me?
I'm starting today, after this post, which I am going to count for yesterday since I missed Day One. Put it in the comment section of this post, and I'll come learn more about you. It'll be fun. (DO IT!)
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The things we have forgotten
Yeah, last night, I wrote vaguely stupid, bourbon-fueled post about nothing in particular, and saved it in draft form, or rather, I, inadvertently, maybe, accidentally, actually, published it. (See the word between stupid and fueled for a perfect explanation.) It wasn't heart-exposing or unkind or even gripping. It was drivel. A one-night stand that looks ugly and only talks of the World of Warcraft in the morning. I was winding down from a long week without my husband, who went to Atlanta to see Rush. I wanted to write. I wanted to explain what this was like, but it is kind of fine, and sometimes overwhelming, but mostly just fine. Really, I ended up writing about nothing in particular, and when I saw it live in my own reader, I shook my head, grumbled, and resaved it as a draft.
Pretty much my tweet this morning sums it up:
When I drink and write, I like to have coffee with my post in the morning before posting. That one was doing the walk of shame.
Oh, I know the walk of shame well. Yeah, yeah, ethics. Caches. It really is not anything anyone would want to read, so that whole cache thing, knock yourself out.
Here are the highlights: I complain about Rush, not the angry, conservative jackass, but the wacky Canadian band. I explain how my husband loves them and has traveled to Atlanta to see them with his brother. I call myself the Mr. Magoo of parenting and have been sleeping alone in my own bed for the first time in three years unintentionally. It scares me to have so much mattress. And I muse on how amazing it would be to be married to me.
It would. At least for a while.
Tonight, for example, my ex-husband (G.) and I were chatting on the "My Face" (Mother of Pearl, that sounds dirty). He found a short story I wrote when I was 19. See, we fell in love writing actual snail mail. I wrote on an old typewriter, like any pretentious goth teenager worth her sallow-complected weight would, and he hand wrote on the back of old scripts from the independent experimental plays he was acting in. Our mail also involved alot of altered art, found objects and strange tokens of our very opposite worlds. He was a painter and videographer with a few CDs out and a budding acting career. His letters and art made every part of me embrace the idea of a life that was impossible in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
Anyway, he kept this cache of old writings of mine and I have a few old, odd pieces from him, that even in my most blazing anger could not destroy by flame. We wrote to each other for six months before ever kissing. It was very romantic, and strange, and doomed us to unrealistic expectations from the beginning. This was pre-internet for normal people, so we occassionally talked on the phone, which was hella expensive in those days, but mostly wrote down our stories everyday and mailed them off. Days lapsed between sending the mail and getting it, and life changed quickly in those days. One night of debauchery, and the next night of holiness. Even years after we married, we still would send each other postcards from work to our home address and pretend we didn't know where they came from. "I dunno know, dude, it is just addressed to 'DJ Dumbass', I can only assume that means you."
It was the highlight of my day, the mailman. I still get a jolt of excitement when I hear the kuclunk of the mail slot opening. It is why I participate in so many swaps, and am willing to send things to anyone at any time. Because I am like a puppy--MAILMAN!!!!
One piece of altered art I still have from G. is a photocopied picture of him painted blue with a highlighter and glued realistically to a postcard of Shiva where he wrote on his T-shirt, "I'm with the Blue Guy." and an arrow pointing to Shiva. On the back he wrote, "Dear Angie, Me and the Blue Guy are just hanging out emanating flowers. Stay Brown. Love, G." It still cracks me up. I actually was recently reminded of this postcard in the local post office last week where I overheard the woman in front of me making chitchat with the postal worker. They talked about the humidity, and at the end, she said, "Well, alright, stay black."
The postal worker replied, "I will. I will."
G. says he will scan some stories in for me, if I want, which of course I want. It is like opening a time capsule. Me before the fire. Me before the marriage, divorce, sickness, betrayals and lies. This one story he found, he claims, is legendary. The very best of the stories I sent him. He calls it Batdog, and claims it is a Beatnik rambling through existence, identity and quantum physics.
Yeah, here is the thing. I have absolutely no fucking recollection of this story at all. Even after he posted quotes, then told me the entire story via chat, I have no memory of writing it, reading it, or sending it. Funny that. Now with the advent of the personal home computer, I reread my crap over and over and over, edit the shit out of it, until it is palatable milquetoast drivel. Until it has no cajones, or tetita power. Sure, I keep drafts, but when you are facing twenty versions of the same crap, you usually just go with the latest. When you type on an old fashioned typewriter with a bunch of old flyers you collected from the local cafe, you either start over fresh on a new sheet of band announcement, or just go for it, dude, and make it work. So, I'm sure I just often went for it, especially with him, because he brings out the brazen fool in all of us. The snarkier and more insane the better.
I do kind of pride myself on my memory, my rationale, my decent sense. I am good at faces and names and details of people's lives, except, apparently, my own. I frequently ask my sister to tell me that story of something that happened to me. But this is weird. To create and forget. One wonders how much creation is floating out there absolutely forgotten. And what that means for art and existence when you create something meaningful to someone who you married, and it means almost nothing to you, except that it means something to him. Is art art when you create it for one person? Is it important? Should it be shown?
It reminds me of that Paul Auster novel, the Book of Illusions, which totally and completely made me believe in existentialism again. If you read it, just know that there is a child and wife death in it. Grief. Desperate, beautiful grief.
Last night's post and subsequent demotion to draft status reminded me that the me at 19 would have left it up, and probably added a few dozen more inflamatory remarks, and the me now just drafts the damn thing and figures it is unpalatably bad.
Anyway, here is the portion of Batdog G. posted on my Facebook profile.
So what have you forgotten lately?
Pretty much my tweet this morning sums it up:
When I drink and write, I like to have coffee with my post in the morning before posting. That one was doing the walk of shame.
Oh, I know the walk of shame well. Yeah, yeah, ethics. Caches. It really is not anything anyone would want to read, so that whole cache thing, knock yourself out.
Here are the highlights: I complain about Rush, not the angry, conservative jackass, but the wacky Canadian band. I explain how my husband loves them and has traveled to Atlanta to see them with his brother. I call myself the Mr. Magoo of parenting and have been sleeping alone in my own bed for the first time in three years unintentionally. It scares me to have so much mattress. And I muse on how amazing it would be to be married to me.
It would. At least for a while.
Tonight, for example, my ex-husband (G.) and I were chatting on the "My Face" (Mother of Pearl, that sounds dirty). He found a short story I wrote when I was 19. See, we fell in love writing actual snail mail. I wrote on an old typewriter, like any pretentious goth teenager worth her sallow-complected weight would, and he hand wrote on the back of old scripts from the independent experimental plays he was acting in. Our mail also involved alot of altered art, found objects and strange tokens of our very opposite worlds. He was a painter and videographer with a few CDs out and a budding acting career. His letters and art made every part of me embrace the idea of a life that was impossible in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
Anyway, he kept this cache of old writings of mine and I have a few old, odd pieces from him, that even in my most blazing anger could not destroy by flame. We wrote to each other for six months before ever kissing. It was very romantic, and strange, and doomed us to unrealistic expectations from the beginning. This was pre-internet for normal people, so we occassionally talked on the phone, which was hella expensive in those days, but mostly wrote down our stories everyday and mailed them off. Days lapsed between sending the mail and getting it, and life changed quickly in those days. One night of debauchery, and the next night of holiness. Even years after we married, we still would send each other postcards from work to our home address and pretend we didn't know where they came from. "I dunno know, dude, it is just addressed to 'DJ Dumbass', I can only assume that means you."
It was the highlight of my day, the mailman. I still get a jolt of excitement when I hear the kuclunk of the mail slot opening. It is why I participate in so many swaps, and am willing to send things to anyone at any time. Because I am like a puppy--MAILMAN!!!!
One piece of altered art I still have from G. is a photocopied picture of him painted blue with a highlighter and glued realistically to a postcard of Shiva where he wrote on his T-shirt, "I'm with the Blue Guy." and an arrow pointing to Shiva. On the back he wrote, "Dear Angie, Me and the Blue Guy are just hanging out emanating flowers. Stay Brown. Love, G." It still cracks me up. I actually was recently reminded of this postcard in the local post office last week where I overheard the woman in front of me making chitchat with the postal worker. They talked about the humidity, and at the end, she said, "Well, alright, stay black."
The postal worker replied, "I will. I will."
G. says he will scan some stories in for me, if I want, which of course I want. It is like opening a time capsule. Me before the fire. Me before the marriage, divorce, sickness, betrayals and lies. This one story he found, he claims, is legendary. The very best of the stories I sent him. He calls it Batdog, and claims it is a Beatnik rambling through existence, identity and quantum physics.
Yeah, here is the thing. I have absolutely no fucking recollection of this story at all. Even after he posted quotes, then told me the entire story via chat, I have no memory of writing it, reading it, or sending it. Funny that. Now with the advent of the personal home computer, I reread my crap over and over and over, edit the shit out of it, until it is palatable milquetoast drivel. Until it has no cajones, or tetita power. Sure, I keep drafts, but when you are facing twenty versions of the same crap, you usually just go with the latest. When you type on an old fashioned typewriter with a bunch of old flyers you collected from the local cafe, you either start over fresh on a new sheet of band announcement, or just go for it, dude, and make it work. So, I'm sure I just often went for it, especially with him, because he brings out the brazen fool in all of us. The snarkier and more insane the better.
I do kind of pride myself on my memory, my rationale, my decent sense. I am good at faces and names and details of people's lives, except, apparently, my own. I frequently ask my sister to tell me that story of something that happened to me. But this is weird. To create and forget. One wonders how much creation is floating out there absolutely forgotten. And what that means for art and existence when you create something meaningful to someone who you married, and it means almost nothing to you, except that it means something to him. Is art art when you create it for one person? Is it important? Should it be shown?
It reminds me of that Paul Auster novel, the Book of Illusions, which totally and completely made me believe in existentialism again. If you read it, just know that there is a child and wife death in it. Grief. Desperate, beautiful grief.
Last night's post and subsequent demotion to draft status reminded me that the me at 19 would have left it up, and probably added a few dozen more inflamatory remarks, and the me now just drafts the damn thing and figures it is unpalatably bad.
Anyway, here is the portion of Batdog G. posted on my Facebook profile.
I go to bed early. But later that night I'm awakened by a racket outside the house. Stumbling to the window, I see my brother and his friends file drunk across the moonlit yard and pile clumsily, and with much merriment, into MY car. As if this is not bad enough, it is my brother – my abstemious, licenseless brother – who climbs behind the wheel, waving a beer bottle. I am just about to run downstairs when I hear an ungodly howl. And that’s when I see it, swooping low out of the shadows of Mr. Gordon’s oak tree only to rise, gliding gracefully, into the bright yellow moon above Stoop Conover’s place. I only see it for a moment, but it looks like a Chihuahua with wings…The original Chupacabra, no doubt.
So what have you forgotten lately?
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Trees from still life 365
As most of you know, I am the editor of still life 365. We have a new feature today called Ten Questions. Ten Questions around the monthly theme, and a blog roundup over there. I really envisioned the Ten Questions being ten questions to work with for writing, or just answering like a meme. So, I really wanted to use these questions as jumping off points for a bit of exploration.
My own family tree twists and turns around cultures and places. My mother emigrated to the United States in 1968 from Central America and my father was born in the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. One of his great uncles was the last of the Molly Maguires hung in Pennsylvania. My father's families are both Irish and German. My mother's family, both sides, emigrated to Panama. Her father was originally from San Salvador, and his brothers both moved to Mexico to become film makers. My grandmother's family emigrated to Panama from Spain and Italy. Her father was the son of olive farmers outside of Turino, and when he fell in love with my great-grandmother, who was living in Panama already with her own family but training in Spain to be a teacher, sent Luka's sister to live with them in Panama. Celestina was her name, and she never married. Her duty was to live with my great-grandfather. She lived to be 103 and always spoke with a heavy Italian accent, but she kept the stories of the family and often told them to my mother when she would come to visit her, so then my mother told them to me, and I have written some of them down. I always saw myself that way, which is strange. But even as a child, I tried to commit the stories to memory, retell them to myself, and weave yarns about what I saw. I never could see myself with a family before I met Sam, but I could always see myself as an old woman, telling stories about my family, stories without me involved, but what I witnessed. Family folk legends and myths. I don't know if it is a long process of whisper down the alley, or if one hundred years ago, there was more magic.
It's funny to think about family tales when I think about family trees, but I do. I feel like I can visualize this huge, lopsided tree, and the tales of each branch. My family tree on my mother's side is so heavy--my mother has eleven siblings, 49 nieces and nephews, 57 grand nieces and nephews. And my father has one half sister who died in her early 40s. She never had children. It was not too long ago that I found out that my father's family isn't quite what we thought it was. Respecting his privacy, I won't go further, but I will someday tell that strange, sad, crazy story. I only wished I known there was a missing link there when I was being tested and treated for pre-cancer services.
I find genealogy fascinating and genetics even more fascinating. There are times I look at my children and wonder whose nose that is, perhaps my great Spanish grandmother's nose, after trying to fit my own and my husband's features over them. But my relationship with family trees, most recently, has been to figure out our medical history to see the genetic markers for Lucy's death. So, instead of stories, I see strokes and cancers. Heart conditions and high cholesterol. When we met with the genetic counselor at the beginning of Thor's pregnancy, we had to fill in our family tree. Well, not ours. Lucy's family tree. It gave me a kind of calm to imagine all these people coming together for one little baby girl. And so I kept thinking, this is Lucy's tree. A tree of personalities and diseases and ages and life spans all long enough to have babies of their own.
8. Trees have also been used to represent families. Talk a bit about your own family tree.
9. What are your feelings now about family trees and exploring your own lineage?
My own family tree twists and turns around cultures and places. My mother emigrated to the United States in 1968 from Central America and my father was born in the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. One of his great uncles was the last of the Molly Maguires hung in Pennsylvania. My father's families are both Irish and German. My mother's family, both sides, emigrated to Panama. Her father was originally from San Salvador, and his brothers both moved to Mexico to become film makers. My grandmother's family emigrated to Panama from Spain and Italy. Her father was the son of olive farmers outside of Turino, and when he fell in love with my great-grandmother, who was living in Panama already with her own family but training in Spain to be a teacher, sent Luka's sister to live with them in Panama. Celestina was her name, and she never married. Her duty was to live with my great-grandfather. She lived to be 103 and always spoke with a heavy Italian accent, but she kept the stories of the family and often told them to my mother when she would come to visit her, so then my mother told them to me, and I have written some of them down. I always saw myself that way, which is strange. But even as a child, I tried to commit the stories to memory, retell them to myself, and weave yarns about what I saw. I never could see myself with a family before I met Sam, but I could always see myself as an old woman, telling stories about my family, stories without me involved, but what I witnessed. Family folk legends and myths. I don't know if it is a long process of whisper down the alley, or if one hundred years ago, there was more magic.
It's funny to think about family tales when I think about family trees, but I do. I feel like I can visualize this huge, lopsided tree, and the tales of each branch. My family tree on my mother's side is so heavy--my mother has eleven siblings, 49 nieces and nephews, 57 grand nieces and nephews. And my father has one half sister who died in her early 40s. She never had children. It was not too long ago that I found out that my father's family isn't quite what we thought it was. Respecting his privacy, I won't go further, but I will someday tell that strange, sad, crazy story. I only wished I known there was a missing link there when I was being tested and treated for pre-cancer services.
I find genealogy fascinating and genetics even more fascinating. There are times I look at my children and wonder whose nose that is, perhaps my great Spanish grandmother's nose, after trying to fit my own and my husband's features over them. But my relationship with family trees, most recently, has been to figure out our medical history to see the genetic markers for Lucy's death. So, instead of stories, I see strokes and cancers. Heart conditions and high cholesterol. When we met with the genetic counselor at the beginning of Thor's pregnancy, we had to fill in our family tree. Well, not ours. Lucy's family tree. It gave me a kind of calm to imagine all these people coming together for one little baby girl. And so I kept thinking, this is Lucy's tree. A tree of personalities and diseases and ages and life spans all long enough to have babies of their own.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Autumn
Thor stares at Beezus' post-nap fake oreo like he has been hunting cookie for weeks. I put him on his belly, and he arches his back, mouth extend------o. Or while sitting up, he swipes, and misses. Beez, she of the ninja reflexes when it comes to anything with *sugar*, darts left, inserts cookie, and she smiles at him, tauntingly.
It reminds me of my favorite Onion article, "Hey, You Got Something to Eat?" by a Goat. "Uh, you gonna eat that, sis?"
It's not that he has mastered the solid, or even the mushy food. Cripes, I feed him like one meal a day, if that, so he doesn't even really eat much real food, it's just that deep in him, like an instinctual, genetic memory, he knows the cream-filled chocolate cookie are the way of his people.
I delight in him. His perpetually moist bib, his drooling lip, his faint scent of milk and bread. His chubby feet. His absolutely insane nom-nom thighs. His smile and giggle and even his scared little scream when the dog barks too loudly. I am still amazed he is in my lap most days. I still feel like I am borrowing him and some angry archangel is going to knock on the door and demand him back.
"Do you have a really adorable baby who is perfect? You don't get him. We made an error."
Today, a torrent of tears came. The emotions I mostly push into a ball in the back of my head until they finally build up and explode out tear ducts and nostrils and open mouths in one rush of everything. I cried because he is really here. I cried because I love him. I cried because he is happy. I cried because he lived. I cried because Lucy didn't live. How did Lucy not live?
Recently, I have tried to friend some other mothers from around the hood and other kid-like venues. Hey after three kids and four years or whatever, it is time to have a lasting mama relationship. I have no fucking idea what I am doing. Did you ever realize you were coming on too strong when you were coming on too strong and not quite be able to stop yourself? And my brain rationalizes it all. I want them to know that we are flexible and want friendships and also have no idea what we are doing.
We are installing a woodstove which means building some slate thing for the stove, and then a stacked stone backdrop and this meant moving everything around--all the furniture and altars and rugs and toys. We also moved the antique secretary that houses my daughter Lucy's ashes. I hate moving my daughter like she is one of my things, even though she is in one of my things. Is an urn something you own? You buy it, certainly, but is it yours to own? It feels otherworldy, somehow, like sacred and profane, and it bothers me that someone inscribes their maker name on the bottom of it. I didn't notice that before. That the inside of the urn was touched by someone before it housed the ashes of my baby.
I moved her and tried to keep to business, even though it still surprises me that she is dead. Now we simply put hands on each others' shoulders, look at the ground and nod, "I know, honey. I know." I keep going, putting the ashes somewhere they won't knock over until we move everything. I realize today is the 22nd. It has been a long time since I have thought about the 22nd as her day of the month. Funny that. Like babies, you mark their weeks, then their months, then only their years of age, and same with Lucy, I guess, I mostly only mark her years now, except when the seasons change it reminds me of her death.
So many things changed after Lucy died. I both lost and gained a sense of the holy. Marking her death by the seasons have given me a kind of earth-centered spirituality and seasonal mourning. Delighting in and appreciating the seasons in a way I never have before. I took that a step further by buying some pagan seasonal activity books with Beezus. Yesterday, we made a Mabon altar. It suggested going into the wild and picking some plants going to seed for your altar. And we headed out into the backyard, Thor in the backpack, Beezus with scissors, and we stared at our weed-y yard. Christ, it is a mess back there. But suddenly, with our eyes open to beauty and flowers and the seasons, those weeds transformed. We had goldenrod, and butterfly bush, and even our fuzzy grasses looked stunning together. I was in awe of how truly beautiful our bouquet became. Then we had a basket of our Lucy altar (from moving everything to build a hearth), and placed things that meant something to us on the altar. Beatrice put a glass heart from her shiny rock basket on the altar. "This is for my family," she said.
We then collected acorns and pinecones, and grape leaves from our vines, and colored leaves, and created a centerpiece with candles to remind us that autumn is here. We ate earthy, fall foods, and drank red wine, and told stories and laughed. Later, we lit our firepit and said things that made us grateful. The moon was bright last night, and yet the stars were clear and alive. I couldn't remember a day that was happier than yesterday was for me. I remember my friend relating a story of morning. It was a simple morning, where she had a cup of hot coffee and sat on the porch of her rented beach house, watching the sun rise over the ocean. At that moment, she thought, "Is this the happiest moment of my life?" She told me this story in her sixties, and she still isn't quite sure, but she thought it might be. And yesterday I had this sense of that, touching a contentment of adulthood that seemed unobtainable even five years ago. And I wonder if the profound grief and sadness of losing my child has given me the ability to feel content when all is content.
I fought against the world for taking my daughter. I felt like by taking that one baby, the universe took everything. I can admit this now, but I tried to manipulate the laws of physics and the universe with my mind. I tried to turn back time, and save her. Magical thinking and superstition haunted my every move. I crossed myself, and threw salt and promised to never do anything bad again. I starved myself. I meditated. I wished on every fucking star, and blew every dead dandelion head to bring her back. I pushed my eyes so hard some moments, watching the stars behind the lids, wondering if I punished myself enough, if I could bring her back. Now, when a star streaks across the sky, I wish for a long life for my kids. May they outlast me. Oh, I am still fucking angry, but I also am grateful for what I have, the abundance of love and good fortune, even at the end of the harvest season when all the sweet fruits dry up and we eat roots for six months.
The little I have is enough. That is what the point is. The little I have, not all of what I thought I should have, not with all my children, but the little beings I do have, and the love with my husband, and a chill dog, and a little hearth, is enough. And it is not just a little. It is a fucking lot.
Autumnal equinox is a time that people read the story of Persephone taken to the underworld--kidnapped and raped, really. Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of the grain and the harvest, searches for her. She hears she is in the underworld, taken by Hades as wife. And Demeter's grief causes the crops on earth to die. She mourns, and wanders the earth. And it is said that she is taken in by a family who asks no questions of her grief, but simply sit and love Demeter as the old crone. They simply abide in her grief, and she blesses them. The world's abundance dried up and Famine roamed the lands. Persephone holds out in the underworld, tries not to eat, hoping to be saved, but eventually she sees her husband as a good man, a decent man who tempts her with six pomegranate seeds. She eats them so is doomed to spend six months in the underworld, without her mother. Mabon marks the time she travels with her husband, and her mother Demeter, the goddess of abundance, mourns again.
I have spent twenty-one months mourning my daughter, roaming the land, causing famine and anguish. Honoring my daughter with the change of seasons feels so right and important to me, that this is what feels soothing, I think, to imagine that a mother controls the world, a grieving mother at that. This is my season of mourning. This is my season of grief. And it is right to come into it through a day of pure contentment.
It reminds me of my favorite Onion article, "Hey, You Got Something to Eat?" by a Goat. "Uh, you gonna eat that, sis?"
It's not that he has mastered the solid, or even the mushy food. Cripes, I feed him like one meal a day, if that, so he doesn't even really eat much real food, it's just that deep in him, like an instinctual, genetic memory, he knows the cream-filled chocolate cookie are the way of his people.
I delight in him. His perpetually moist bib, his drooling lip, his faint scent of milk and bread. His chubby feet. His absolutely insane nom-nom thighs. His smile and giggle and even his scared little scream when the dog barks too loudly. I am still amazed he is in my lap most days. I still feel like I am borrowing him and some angry archangel is going to knock on the door and demand him back.
"Do you have a really adorable baby who is perfect? You don't get him. We made an error."
Today, a torrent of tears came. The emotions I mostly push into a ball in the back of my head until they finally build up and explode out tear ducts and nostrils and open mouths in one rush of everything. I cried because he is really here. I cried because I love him. I cried because he is happy. I cried because he lived. I cried because Lucy didn't live. How did Lucy not live?
Recently, I have tried to friend some other mothers from around the hood and other kid-like venues. Hey after three kids and four years or whatever, it is time to have a lasting mama relationship. I have no fucking idea what I am doing. Did you ever realize you were coming on too strong when you were coming on too strong and not quite be able to stop yourself? And my brain rationalizes it all. I want them to know that we are flexible and want friendships and also have no idea what we are doing.
We are installing a woodstove which means building some slate thing for the stove, and then a stacked stone backdrop and this meant moving everything around--all the furniture and altars and rugs and toys. We also moved the antique secretary that houses my daughter Lucy's ashes. I hate moving my daughter like she is one of my things, even though she is in one of my things. Is an urn something you own? You buy it, certainly, but is it yours to own? It feels otherworldy, somehow, like sacred and profane, and it bothers me that someone inscribes their maker name on the bottom of it. I didn't notice that before. That the inside of the urn was touched by someone before it housed the ashes of my baby.
I moved her and tried to keep to business, even though it still surprises me that she is dead. Now we simply put hands on each others' shoulders, look at the ground and nod, "I know, honey. I know." I keep going, putting the ashes somewhere they won't knock over until we move everything. I realize today is the 22nd. It has been a long time since I have thought about the 22nd as her day of the month. Funny that. Like babies, you mark their weeks, then their months, then only their years of age, and same with Lucy, I guess, I mostly only mark her years now, except when the seasons change it reminds me of her death.
I fought against the world for taking my daughter. I felt like by taking that one baby, the universe took everything. I can admit this now, but I tried to manipulate the laws of physics and the universe with my mind. I tried to turn back time, and save her. Magical thinking and superstition haunted my every move. I crossed myself, and threw salt and promised to never do anything bad again. I starved myself. I meditated. I wished on every fucking star, and blew every dead dandelion head to bring her back. I pushed my eyes so hard some moments, watching the stars behind the lids, wondering if I punished myself enough, if I could bring her back. Now, when a star streaks across the sky, I wish for a long life for my kids. May they outlast me. Oh, I am still fucking angry, but I also am grateful for what I have, the abundance of love and good fortune, even at the end of the harvest season when all the sweet fruits dry up and we eat roots for six months.
The little I have is enough. That is what the point is. The little I have, not all of what I thought I should have, not with all my children, but the little beings I do have, and the love with my husband, and a chill dog, and a little hearth, is enough. And it is not just a little. It is a fucking lot.
Autumnal equinox is a time that people read the story of Persephone taken to the underworld--kidnapped and raped, really. Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of the grain and the harvest, searches for her. She hears she is in the underworld, taken by Hades as wife. And Demeter's grief causes the crops on earth to die. She mourns, and wanders the earth. And it is said that she is taken in by a family who asks no questions of her grief, but simply sit and love Demeter as the old crone. They simply abide in her grief, and she blesses them. The world's abundance dried up and Famine roamed the lands. Persephone holds out in the underworld, tries not to eat, hoping to be saved, but eventually she sees her husband as a good man, a decent man who tempts her with six pomegranate seeds. She eats them so is doomed to spend six months in the underworld, without her mother. Mabon marks the time she travels with her husband, and her mother Demeter, the goddess of abundance, mourns again.
I have spent twenty-one months mourning my daughter, roaming the land, causing famine and anguish. Honoring my daughter with the change of seasons feels so right and important to me, that this is what feels soothing, I think, to imagine that a mother controls the world, a grieving mother at that. This is my season of mourning. This is my season of grief. And it is right to come into it through a day of pure contentment.
Friday, September 17, 2010
new look
As you may have noticed, my blog got an overhaul. The new header has photo from the amazing Marco Braun's photo series Squared Circles. I was absolutely mesmerized by that set. I initially began looking for ensos and then found these. Anyway, long, incredibly boring story made a tad shorter. I like it. What do you think?
This morning, I woke up with the immediate thought, after, "Holy crap, I can't believe it is morning already" was that I needed to redesign my blog. I don't know why, exactly.What I really wanted to do was sit down and write, but I ended up designing instead. Maybe the old painting of me just wasn't working anymore. It seems so old. Well, as old as a year old painting can feel...still when you live with it everyday it gets, well, tired. We are also overhauling our house, moving furniture, going through old things, building a fireplace/hearth for the new woodstove we have purchased. We are laying stacked stone bricks and using slate. It is all so earthy and cozy, I swear the Capricorn in me is about to explode with cellular contentedness.
Anyway, I have more stuff to update, like the young Thor has popped out two teeth, which means he is sleeping, and that brings its own level of contentedness. I am enjoying more fall-like weather. I have more, but no time. So, I leave you with this perspective:
This morning, I woke up with the immediate thought, after, "Holy crap, I can't believe it is morning already" was that I needed to redesign my blog. I don't know why, exactly.What I really wanted to do was sit down and write, but I ended up designing instead. Maybe the old painting of me just wasn't working anymore. It seems so old. Well, as old as a year old painting can feel...still when you live with it everyday it gets, well, tired. We are also overhauling our house, moving furniture, going through old things, building a fireplace/hearth for the new woodstove we have purchased. We are laying stacked stone bricks and using slate. It is all so earthy and cozy, I swear the Capricorn in me is about to explode with cellular contentedness.
Anyway, I have more stuff to update, like the young Thor has popped out two teeth, which means he is sleeping, and that brings its own level of contentedness. I am enjoying more fall-like weather. I have more, but no time. So, I leave you with this perspective:
Friday, September 10, 2010
Clogs
I have yet to find an occasion in which Dansko clogs do not work. I wore them to my own wedding, and probably to yours, if you were so decent as to invite me. It all started at the Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors meeting in which I manned a transportation engineering booth for my firm, chitchatting with township engineers and supervisors from all over the state. When the Bucks County Township Engineer walked up in a tweed jacket, corduroy pants, and clogs, I felt my brain split open. He told me the name of the Scandinavian specialty shop where he bought them, but remarked how they were almost identical to Danskos. A suited Dansko person?! It hadn't even occurred to me that I could look smart and sassy in a suit AND clogs. He projected an air of self-confidence and professionalism mixed in with, dare I say, whimsy. Even though I had a three hundred dollar pair of uncomfortable peeptoe wedges on my feet right at that moment, I wanted to be dressed like that dude. Beard and everything.
I started gradually integrating them into my life, first with a pair of the professional black clog, then some Mary Janes, then some more business type styles with semi-heels, now I have six pairs. Not long after my clog obsession began, when I was single, working a professional, extremely conservative corporate gig, and my mostly paired up friends ached to get me into a relationship, a co-worker/friend invited me to a picnic that promised to have lots of single men. To be honest, the single men meant nothing to me. It was the spectacle of the vodka ice slalom was the real draw.
I skipped that part of college, the drinking as sport part. My friend hadn't, and neither had her friends. She absolutely knew how to take binge drinking to a new level--she designed themes and take home supplies to go along with her parties. In college, I did my drinking alone in the ghetto across town after a long shift waiting table while listening to "Blue Train" and writing poetry like, "Death Surrounds Me Like a Shroud , No. 487." Seeing an ice sculpture designed specifically to get people drunk intrigued me. The closest I had gotten to a sorority party was working as a graphic designer for t-shirt promoting sorority events. (Yes, I really did that in my twenties.) I feared this party was going to be much like watching a Wild Kingdom special entitled Mating Rituals of the Suburban Corporate Professional, in which, like most Wild Kingdom episodes, I'd like to watch, but not participate.
I showed up and it was even worse than I suspected. Red Bull was involved. Jello shots. There was also a large ring in the middle of the yard where people were to put on fat Sumo Wrestling outfits and wrestle each other, I suppose, while drunk on shots that were just administered by a stranger pouring Raspberry Stoli on an ice slide as you knelt in front of them, tongue extended waiting for your dignity to pass out.
I was woefully out of my element. The hostess was my friend from work, and one of the funniest people I have ever met. But we were, uh, different. I lived in the city, rode my courier bike everywhere and frequently would walk around with one pant leg rolled up to my knee with nary a thought about it. I drove a beat up VW Jetta that flooded every time it rained, because of an uncaulked sunroof. I just named the car Jacques, as in Cousteau, and bailed him with my Nalgene if I needed to drive, otherwise, I just opened the windows and let him air dry. She, on the other hand, wore those pointy elven shoes, drove a pristine Beamer and was without fail, done up to the shizzle. Nails. Hair. She even had a mirror in her cubicle that had a little crown painted on it so when you looked at yourself, it appeared that you were wearing a tiara, and it said in Puerto Rican gangsta script, "La Princesa." She agreed with my mother that my black hair needed to be dyed down to light brown, so I didn't look so old.
*sigh*
I was really looking forward to the picnic, I admit. It was like being able to experience the drunken revelry I missed in college. I admit I drank once in high school, never smoked pot. I went to university and began working night shift at a restaurant. I just missed all the debauchery that defined youth. I wore my red dansko clog sandals, white capris and a black v-neck sweater. My friend sidled up to me when I walked in.
I gave her the vata nod. "Hey."
"What the fuck, Ang?"
"What?"
"Ang, I love you, but those are the fugliest shoes I have ever seen."
"I really could care less what you think. I think they are cool. Not to mention comfortable." She began explaining to me in Spanish, as she was Dominican and I am half-Panamanian, and when she was serious, she turned it on. She said she had men she wanted to introduce me to, and now she can't. She told me that she would grease my size ten feet up and stuff them into her size six strappy numbers, if she had to. She told me she was going to do my hair while we are at it, and maybe put me in a short skirt.
"Who the fuck wears pants to a picnic, Manita?" She roared in English.
"Uh, me. Lay off, dude. I look fine."
And to her credit, she did. She proceeded to give me a drink, then show me around the place. And by show me around the picnic, I of course mean that she walked me around the house and yard, systematically asking every man in the party what they thought of my shoes, my pants and my hair. I suppose this was her version of Shock Therapy. It would have worked if I were attracted to the type of man that enjoys vodka shots off of ice slaloms, kicking someone's ass while dressed in a fat suit and Red Bull mixed drinks, but in general, I tuned out. It is a beautiful escape hatch of the brain to suppress traumatic events. Having that type of honest insight into every man's brain at that given picnic, hearing what they think of my shoes, my white pants, my cleavage and my hair made the introvert in me pull the fucking ejection seat.
I imagined I laughed nervously a lot. I am positive that I drank heavily. What I do remember is thinking, beyond writing snottily feminist manifestos in my head, as well as horribly insulting and downright snobbish things about each person I encountered that night is this: "There is a man out there in this wild, cruel world who understands the red Danskos. A man who finds sensible, Scandinavian footwear as sexy as the reasonable, early-to-bed person who is wearing them. Who doesn't judge a woman by the content on her feet."
"You really have the coolest shoes. I especially love your red sandals."
"Thanks." We stare into each other's eyes and make out again. I am so in love with my husband. I think he complimented my shoes every date, and got this impressed, curious look when I explained how they were great when I rode my bike too. I was instantly enthralled with his particular brand of confidence, humility and kindness. Our first dates were bike rides, walks to the dog park, watching Sigur Ros in concert, and campfires out of the city.
I have never met anyone or dated anyone who believed in me as much as this man. Who thinks that my artsy, weird take on the world works. Nor had I met anyone who wears that rare combination of capable and vulnerable as sexily and fashionably as my husband does. I should say, I have never met anyone that I believe in as much as this man. We celebrated our four year wedding anniversary last week. We don't give each other gifts as such. No surprises, really. He sends me flowers enough from work that when they came on our anniversaryn the flower man said, "Happy Anniversary, Angie." And I blushed. And my gift is always that I write a blog post that he won't read for a few weeks. So, husband, I love you more than red Dansko clogs.
I started gradually integrating them into my life, first with a pair of the professional black clog, then some Mary Janes, then some more business type styles with semi-heels, now I have six pairs. Not long after my clog obsession began, when I was single, working a professional, extremely conservative corporate gig, and my mostly paired up friends ached to get me into a relationship, a co-worker/friend invited me to a picnic that promised to have lots of single men. To be honest, the single men meant nothing to me. It was the spectacle of the vodka ice slalom was the real draw.
I skipped that part of college, the drinking as sport part. My friend hadn't, and neither had her friends. She absolutely knew how to take binge drinking to a new level--she designed themes and take home supplies to go along with her parties. In college, I did my drinking alone in the ghetto across town after a long shift waiting table while listening to "Blue Train" and writing poetry like, "Death Surrounds Me Like a Shroud , No. 487." Seeing an ice sculpture designed specifically to get people drunk intrigued me. The closest I had gotten to a sorority party was working as a graphic designer for t-shirt promoting sorority events. (Yes, I really did that in my twenties.) I feared this party was going to be much like watching a Wild Kingdom special entitled Mating Rituals of the Suburban Corporate Professional, in which, like most Wild Kingdom episodes, I'd like to watch, but not participate.
I showed up and it was even worse than I suspected. Red Bull was involved. Jello shots. There was also a large ring in the middle of the yard where people were to put on fat Sumo Wrestling outfits and wrestle each other, I suppose, while drunk on shots that were just administered by a stranger pouring Raspberry Stoli on an ice slide as you knelt in front of them, tongue extended waiting for your dignity to pass out.
I was woefully out of my element. The hostess was my friend from work, and one of the funniest people I have ever met. But we were, uh, different. I lived in the city, rode my courier bike everywhere and frequently would walk around with one pant leg rolled up to my knee with nary a thought about it. I drove a beat up VW Jetta that flooded every time it rained, because of an uncaulked sunroof. I just named the car Jacques, as in Cousteau, and bailed him with my Nalgene if I needed to drive, otherwise, I just opened the windows and let him air dry. She, on the other hand, wore those pointy elven shoes, drove a pristine Beamer and was without fail, done up to the shizzle. Nails. Hair. She even had a mirror in her cubicle that had a little crown painted on it so when you looked at yourself, it appeared that you were wearing a tiara, and it said in Puerto Rican gangsta script, "La Princesa." She agreed with my mother that my black hair needed to be dyed down to light brown, so I didn't look so old.
*sigh*
I was really looking forward to the picnic, I admit. It was like being able to experience the drunken revelry I missed in college. I admit I drank once in high school, never smoked pot. I went to university and began working night shift at a restaurant. I just missed all the debauchery that defined youth. I wore my red dansko clog sandals, white capris and a black v-neck sweater. My friend sidled up to me when I walked in.
I gave her the vata nod. "Hey."
"What the fuck, Ang?"
"What?"
"Ang, I love you, but those are the fugliest shoes I have ever seen."
"I really could care less what you think. I think they are cool. Not to mention comfortable." She began explaining to me in Spanish, as she was Dominican and I am half-Panamanian, and when she was serious, she turned it on. She said she had men she wanted to introduce me to, and now she can't. She told me that she would grease my size ten feet up and stuff them into her size six strappy numbers, if she had to. She told me she was going to do my hair while we are at it, and maybe put me in a short skirt.
"Who the fuck wears pants to a picnic, Manita?" She roared in English.
"Uh, me. Lay off, dude. I look fine."
And to her credit, she did. She proceeded to give me a drink, then show me around the place. And by show me around the picnic, I of course mean that she walked me around the house and yard, systematically asking every man in the party what they thought of my shoes, my pants and my hair. I suppose this was her version of Shock Therapy. It would have worked if I were attracted to the type of man that enjoys vodka shots off of ice slaloms, kicking someone's ass while dressed in a fat suit and Red Bull mixed drinks, but in general, I tuned out. It is a beautiful escape hatch of the brain to suppress traumatic events. Having that type of honest insight into every man's brain at that given picnic, hearing what they think of my shoes, my white pants, my cleavage and my hair made the introvert in me pull the fucking ejection seat.
I imagined I laughed nervously a lot. I am positive that I drank heavily. What I do remember is thinking, beyond writing snottily feminist manifestos in my head, as well as horribly insulting and downright snobbish things about each person I encountered that night is this: "There is a man out there in this wild, cruel world who understands the red Danskos. A man who finds sensible, Scandinavian footwear as sexy as the reasonable, early-to-bed person who is wearing them. Who doesn't judge a woman by the content on her feet."
"You really have the coolest shoes. I especially love your red sandals."
"Thanks." We stare into each other's eyes and make out again. I am so in love with my husband. I think he complimented my shoes every date, and got this impressed, curious look when I explained how they were great when I rode my bike too. I was instantly enthralled with his particular brand of confidence, humility and kindness. Our first dates were bike rides, walks to the dog park, watching Sigur Ros in concert, and campfires out of the city.
I have never met anyone or dated anyone who believed in me as much as this man. Who thinks that my artsy, weird take on the world works. Nor had I met anyone who wears that rare combination of capable and vulnerable as sexily and fashionably as my husband does. I should say, I have never met anyone that I believe in as much as this man. We celebrated our four year wedding anniversary last week. We don't give each other gifts as such. No surprises, really. He sends me flowers enough from work that when they came on our anniversaryn the flower man said, "Happy Anniversary, Angie." And I blushed. And my gift is always that I write a blog post that he won't read for a few weeks. So, husband, I love you more than red Dansko clogs.
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