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June 2004 Ya know. By the way. In case anyone wonders. I am not a Buddhist. I don't even play one on TV. I had a few years of Buddhist practice way back. I loved the ritual. I loved the smell of incense in my hair.
In some ways my life has been a religious studies program. In my book I write about how my search for a better relationship with God was really a search for a better relationship with my father. And once I met Baba that search felt satisfied. When my dad died I knew that search had never been satisfied.
Whiskey River posted a bit from Thich Nhat Han.
Was I reconciled with my father? In some ways. In the big soul kind of way. I had more or less accepted him for who he was. I called him on Father's Day and Christmas and his birthday. I almost always hung up and wept. It's not simple. I don't blame him for making me suffer. But I did suffer. When I am at the pool I watch father's playing with their children. Teaching their daughters how to swim. I know that I don't have a sense of what that feels like. The feeling of having a man who is there, loving you and teaching you and delighting in you. It feels like missing information. It feels like something I have to learn on my own. I feel lost to it. There's a laundry list of things about who I am many of which can be filed in the was-not-fathered file. Not all of which are bad. Basically. For the most part. I like who I am. I'm always working under the hood but I do like who I am. So it's all good.
Except...
It's not really.
There is no doubt in my mind that my father is inside me. No doubt. He lives there as an object of desire. An absence. I feel the need to apologize for the hole he left in me. I feel like it shows. I feel like it causes problems. I feel like I have to find a way to fill it up.
In the big soul way of looking at it all I am a narrative line that will trail off. I will leave photos and words on a page and a bunch of stuff that will be distributed to ... oh I don't know. Anyone want some salt and pepper shakers? In the big soul way of looking at things he was a fatherless boy. No one there to teach him how to do the job. How can I blame him? I can't. I love him too much.
Years ago I read a story, written by a father, about a tantrum a child was having just as the family was about to leave the house. It was an inconvenient time to have to deal with the need of a child. But the whole family sat down and listened to the child's complaint. Apparently that was all it took. A few minutes of listening and the child was comforted and willing to move on. The story stayed with me all these years.
No doubt because I am trying to teach myself to swim, but I am always wondering about the times when we need to have a tantrum. My feeling is that no child has a tantrum for no good reason. I understand negative attention getting. But, really, children cry for a reason.
Sometimes my feelings of loss are so overwhelming. I can't imagine how I'm going to take the next breath. But I do. Or, rather, my body does it for me. My body eventually sucks in oxygen. With or without my conscious agreement. And sometimes I wish I could have one time with my father in which he could have taken my hand in his and said, "I'm sorry." It wouldn't have had to taken a lot of time. No pillory. No trial. Just a moment of acknowledgement between humans. A moment to pay attention to what didn't go well.
I take refuge in ideas. And the beautiful hearts I find everywhere. I take refuge in the way we work to express it all.
But. It is not simple. Things do go wrong. We make holes in one another. It's Sunday morning and I am churchless, fatherless and my spiritual practice involves lots of clicking on hyperlinks. We are one in a stream of life. But we are also many. Reconciliation is a process. Best done heart to heart. And often left to philosophy. Sometimes the family grabs the kid and drags them out the door. Sometimes the family leaves the kid behind.
I'm just trying to understand how to do two things at the same time. Reconcile with my father and still tell the truth. I'm just chin stroking today. Chin stroking is usually done by people with beards, I suppose. But that's the way I'm feeling. Chin stroking. Ponderous. Wondering about my place in the whole what-ever-it-is-that's going on.
As usual, Monday bring the tension of finding a job into focus. It isn't that I don't pick through job sites over the weekend but I don't feel the tension in the same way. And writing? I certainly could write over the weekend and often do. When the tension of needing to look for a job is lifted the blood flows back into my head and I actually can write. Sometimes.
Last night I was cooking yellow beans. They were pale and beautiful and I wanted to find a way to write about them. I wanted to commemorate them. I blanched them. Hot water and then into ice water. The ice water stops the cooking process and the beans stay crunchy. They also retain their color and I was so intoxicated by the pale yellow.
That's how my blog gets written. Something becomes vivid and I want to point to it and say, look. In some ways, it's easier to write about pale yellow beans than the machinations of my inner life. Especially when my inner life isn't ... mmm ... how should I say this? Seemly?
I've been introduced to some new blogs recently. I'm enjoying getting to know new people. Some of them seem quite dear. Many of them are heart wide open. I find myself feeling a bit shy and yet trenchant. It's the way I feel at a party. Part of me want to be nice and make small talk and part of me want to act out. I don't go to parties. I don't like the way there are things that aren't being talked about but hang in the room like balloons that are losing helium and falling. Slowly. My awareness of the things that are being said and the things that aren't being said is messing with my writing. I want to talk about the balloons. I'm reading these new people with an odd hyper vigilance. My teeth chewing my lip. Wondering. Some of this is because of how I found them and some of this about events in June in which I felt stung and has nothing to do with any of them but has everything to do with the nature of relationships forged online and some of this is because of the dang balloons.
So I am chin stroking.
I need to turn my thoughts to the job search. I need to think about submitting more writing. I need to make another push to find a publisher for Avoirdupois. I need to do laundry and clean the apartment and go the store and call Barbara and ...
But I'm clicking. And reading. And chewing my lip.
Relationships will be what they will be. I'll stumble along. Smiling and acting out and sometimes finding myself heart to heart. I know that there's no way to know someone, until you know them. And even then there are surprises. I'm just wondering about my part in it all.
So begins a post. Paul has blogged it. April has blogged it. I've been thinking about it. There's just so much to say.
I've been remembering a time when I was flying. I go to great lengths to not be a problem to anyone when I am flying. I've been remembering a trip on which I was sitting in a row of three seats. There was an empty seat between me and the other person. I try to make sure I can sit in a seat with a movable arm rest, on the aisle. I shift my weight so that if I'm going to take up more than my seat I am in the aisle. I get bumped by carts and passersby but I deal with it. I travel on redeyes, or during times when there may not be as many people traveling. If the arm rests don't move. I just get squeezed. I pull my arms tight across my chest. God forbid I touch anyone. I get off airplanes so tense my body feels like it might be made of granite.
But anyway. There was a seat between us and a movable armrest so I was almost comfortable. The other person was comfortable. I never eat on a plane. The food sucks. I carry my own bottle of water. I read a book and try to ignore all the images of crashing and burning that are inevitably filling my head. The fellow in front of me was leaning back and pulling forward and leaning back again. The head rest of his seat was under my nose. He stood in the aisle for awhile. The people across the aisle from me actually leaned across and commented on how annoying he must be to me and how nice I was being. I was barely noticing him. I was too busy trying not to annoy anyone.
Now, if you read this story and you are fat you might relate. You might have a similar story. If you are thin, or average sized and my friend, or someone who reads me and likes me, you might notice the part where I'm uncomfortable. Your concern would be for me. But if you see me walking down the aisle on an airplane headed towards your seat, you might care less about my comfort. And I wouldn't blame you.
Here's what I wonder. I wonder why you're mad at me and not the airlines. Seats are smaller than they used to be. Asses may be bigger but seats are also smaller. The space between seats is smaller. I realize that airlines are struggling. I also realize that when the airlines get bailed out my tax dollars are in that pot. The right to access on means of transportation is written into law. Whether or not we're comfortable isn't mentioned. But don't you imagine that they can find a way for us all to be comfortable?
And news flash. Even the medical community, knee deep in diet and pharmaceutical industry money and pulling down piles of cash sawing stomachs into barely functioning organs will tell you that the size of my ass is not just about how much I eat.
I just never get this. The taxes part I really don't get. The insurance rates part? Well. Again. Why aren't you mad at the insurance companies?
I often wonder how many kids are going to have extreme eating disorders in the next few years. With the constant hammering away from the media about how terrible it is to be fat I'm imagining a rise in eating disorders. And make no mistake. People die from eating disorders. Even when they don't die they suffer damaged emotional and physical health. How about if instead of talking in terms of limiting we talk in terms of a fully engaged relationship with food. If no kid ever walked into a fast food restaurant again there would be no one happier than I. Kids who hang out with me know that this is the time of year to eat lots of heirloom tomatoes. Unless you don't like tomatoes. In which case, let's talk about peaches. Kids who hang out with me listen to rants about the difference between real food and crap food. Make kids exercise? How about if we stop jamming them with Ritalin and telling them to sit still. How about if we fund after school programs and school sports.
This guy is just not happy with any of us, is he? My fat grandmother worked in her garden well into her seventies. My fat mother goes swimming three times a week. Watch out for me though.
The post was also was linked here and the comments are worth reading. For awhile. It all makes me tired. I can't even summon up the energy to argue. I have no argument with the people who want to take down the fast food companies. I have no argument with the people who think we spend too much a time in front of screens and in cars.
That's where my argument begins. If you see me on the street and think yelling, "Watch out Fatso" is way to make sure your taxes and your insurance rates are low, think again. If you don't know me and you see me on the street and decide that you think you know how I eat and how much I exercise you're a bigot. When you start rationalizing calling children names you're something much worse. The movie channels that I didn't realize I had are not a good thing. They are Starz channels. I never ordered them. The cable line up changes from time to time and I don't always track it well.
I have the TV on, off to the side. I have the radio on in the morning. KPFA or KQED or KALW. The TV is on much of the day. I listen to city politics, Book TV, Moyers, the news channels. I have my junk television and I can watch reruns of the West Wing again and again. But it's all off to the side. I tune in and out. I leave the room and don't worry about missing anything. I'm either reading on the screen or from a book and the TV is off to the side. I do yoga with the sound of public policy making.
The movie channels aren't easy to tune out and I've been flipping them on, just to see what they're playing and then I end up watching a movie. There are no commercials. I think I'll just watch for a minute and suddenly an hour has gone by. It's just not good. They run movies for a few days in a row so you can tune in at a random point and see the rest another day. I end up watching the movies in patches. Generally speaking they aren't great movies so it's not a problem to watch them that way.
Yesterday they were showing The Accidental Tourist. It's one of my favorite movies if only for the last scene. In the last scene there is an expression on William Hurt's face that I could look at forever. He's really happy to see someone. And there is this deep recognition in his expression. It's like he sees the person in a way that calms him to his core.
Ahhhhhh. It's you. What a relief.
I watched the last twenty minutes of the movie so that I could see that expression. I've seen a few movies that I would not have seen. Movies that weren't so bad. But I get sucked it. It's not good.
The thing about music is that I can't tune it out. If I have music on I'm listening to it. And I do. When I cook or clean I listen to music. I listen to music in the evenings. Adrienne (who I just want to hug) read my post about Steve and realized that since I've been unemployed I probably didn't have my own copy of the new disc. So she bought me one and I've been listening to it. It's so good! Steve wrote to say that three people bought a disc because of the post. Thank you! I'm so happy to turn people on to his music.
Silence is good. I probably need more silence. It's just that I've been in this struggle with fear and loathing and loss. I know I am using the noise to distract me from the fear and loathing and loss. It doesn't really work. And it's the movies that really bring that home. I watched twenty minutes of a movie I'd already seen just to see the expression on a man's face. An expression of deep recognition and relief. I'm not sure why I'm doing this. But Cyndy said to do it. So I am.
The guy who started it says "it will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected." He's speaking in terms of the technical process.
Last night I had a dream in which Susan and I were sleeping in a dorm. We were awakened by the sound of someone crying and we were worried because we thought it sounded like Dru. You are all on my mind and in my dreams. That's how we are connected. Sometimes when I out myself on the blog about stuff I do, I don't do it. I turned the TV off and put on some music. The disc player was loaded up. Linda Ronstadt, which I put on when she got kicked out of Vegas. Cat Stevens, still on from the Harold & Maude evening. Todd. Been on there for awhile. The reasons are not good. Nora. Steve. (Thank you Adrienne.)
My voice is shot. I have no upper range. But it still feels good to sing.
Head back. Eyes closed.
Yeah.
I've been so miserable. And I knew I had to be less miserable. So I worked really hard. It feels like I've pulled myself onto a ledge and I've been pressed against the wall. I can't really rest here. There's more climbing to do. And I'm just pressed against the wall, trying not to look down. Even music feels dangerous. Kristina has been going through her books and packing for her move to LA. I'm trying to be positive about the move since I think there are great things about it for them. It just feels so far away.
Sigh.
I got to go through the books she is getting rid of and pick the ones I wanted. I ended up with four bags full of books. Picture me dancing around the room, drunk with books. That's how I feel.
I love to look at people's book shelves. It may be rude. It may be true that I'm making judgments about a person based on their books but it's also about looking at titles and seeing if there are books I don't know. In Kristina's case it takes a long time and there are many I don't know. She reads more poetry than I do since she is a poet. And she knows so much about who is writing what. Her book shelves are like a library with all the best stuff in one place. She also shares my preference for hard backs. Some of the books in the four bags are hard back editions of books I already have. Four bags full. It makes me giddy. I feel drunk.
I went down to see her on Caltrain. I ended up sitting backwards on the way down so everything was rushing away from me. Despite the fact that A Terrible Love of War has been in my side bar as a book I am currently reading, the book has been sitting on my table untouched. I saw Hillman on book TV talking about it and got it with a gift certificate from Margaret. (Thank you Margaret.) I took the book on the train. It's a long trip so I had plenty of time to read. Hillman writes:
I thought of Kurt's morning verse. Intellectually I hold the idea that I need to see myself in the thing or person bringing hate to my heart. I'm revolted by the hate in my own heart and I'd like to ignore it. But it lives there. How can I know myself if I don't look at it? The trick I think is not look at it with contempt but rather with a desire to understand.
This doesn't mean I don't want to vote Bush out of office and see an end to war. I just don't want to make war to end war.
The most difficult part of the book is the detailing of how war like we have always been. Lists of wars and genocide. Descriptions of atrocity and damage. But even as Hillman pushes the detail in our face he sits back and asks us to consider things in terms of how we hold them. What does normal mean? Is war normal? What does inhumane mean? He talks, as Jungians are wont to do, about metaphor and archetype.
I may write more about this. My head is full of thought.
When I got off the train we went for coffee. There was a man playing flute as we talked. People walked by. Beautiful children and lovely senior couples. The people who aren't at jobs. One woman stopped quite near us to adjust her bag. She was wearing a leopard print jacket and there was a tiger applique on her bag. I imagined her in an apartment full of faux fur and wild cat figurines. I wondered what would be on her bookshelves.
Then we went to the condo for the book festival. It was like Santa opening his bag and saying, "Take what you want." Four bags full. Have I mentioned that? I am drunk with books. Borges and Lopez and a book about Sontag and Kael and so much more. I am dancing around the room.
We had a wonderful lunch. Carnitas and nopales. Plantains and jicama. Drank Mojitos. I flirted with our effusive waiter, Jason and was over come with the need to speak in my not very good Spanish.
The train ride home was faster. We were skipping stops. I read more Hillman. I was facing the city as we came back in. I love that feeling when you see the first landmarks signaling you are almost home and then the vista opens and there is the city. Glittery and tall.
I was home in time for Amish in the City.
Belly full. Head full. Heart full. Still on the ledge but fortified for the rest of the climb. I'm so happy. I went to see if Rana had watched Amish in the City and she had taken this test. Rana finds the best tests. Rana is Gandhi. At first I wanted to be Gandhi. But guess who I am?
I haven't been this happy since it turned out I was Eugene Debs. But it is also odd in light of my reading yesterday. Gandhi or Che? Hmmm. Gandhi is big for me. But Che? Che makes my heart beat faster.
I like to think that I would rather be killed than kill. But I know that the body responds. I don't know how I would react in violent situation. And I know that if someone were trying to hurt someone I loved my reaction would be aggressive. At this point in my life I'd be more useful in a pacifist political movement than in a mountain revolution. But I have to admit. There is romance in revolution.
But.
You know.
War by any other name...
There was a woman on the train yesterday talking on her cell phone. Loudly. I thought about all the times in the day when people were annoying. The car that moved too slow out of the parking space or wouldn't let us into the lane. The woman in the grocery store, blocking the lane. We get on each other's nerves. We arrive in each other's day at inopportune moments and want things from each other. Things that aren't easy to want to give. When I've worked in service jobs like waitress I've felt such rage at people's demand on me and my invisibility. Spend one year of your life being a wait-person or a sales clerk. It will change the way you see people.
We are so estranged from one another. The first brother of the world struck down his own because he couldn't get the approval he wanted from dad. And I am trilled to be a guerrilla leader fighting a righteous cause.
I remember hearing Bruce Cockburn in concert right after he wrote If I had a Rocket Launcher. Suddenly it seemed to me he knew where the lions were. And he was taking aim. I felt sad. And yet I loved the song.
It's too true. Dying tragically on a mountain does appeal to me.
But I am going to get off this ledge.
And maybe I'll learn to spin. Wednesday night I had a dream in which I was living in a hippie commune farm kind of a place with Viggo Mortenson and Bette Midler. I had just woken up (in the dream) and walked into the yard in my nightgown and big snow boots. Viggo had a tray on which was a croissant and some coffee that he was bringing me. He said, " Go get back in bed."
I laughed and ran back to bed but I passed the kitchen table and Viggo and Bette were kissing. Bette followed me to the bed room and said. "Are you getting back in bed so Viggo can visit you? " I said, " What is he to me?" He was in the shower next to us and he heard me say it. Bette put her hand on my face and smeared me with paint. She said something about us all covering our bodies in paint and playing but she called me Trish. I don't like it when people call me Trish. I said I was going to call her Betty but she just laughed and ran off to play. I curled up in bed to cry. Viggo came in with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth and began to wash my face. In this very tender but insistent manner.
And then I woke up.
I know there will be people who think me quite mad but I've never thought Viggo was attractive. Oh but now I do. I thought about him all day yesterday. I may join a cult. Is there a cult?
I hate it when you wake up right at the sweet part. I was wishing I'd dream about him again last night. But no. I am wondering about it in Jungian terms. Can't say I'm coming up with much. Maybe it was just wish fulfillment.
Insistent tenderness?
Yeah. Probably it was wish fulfillment. Renee had all four wisdom teeth taken out. So she's staying with me and my gazzillion channel television. The narcotic trance of screen is a welcome distraction from her sore jaw.
We stocked up on things that didn't need to be chewed. I made ginger carrot soup and mushroom barley soup. I blended both so that they can be sipped. Today I'm making corn chowder.
It's not as big a deal as we thought it might be. I thought she might be groggy. She's fine. Especially right after she takes her Vicodin.
We're watching The Last Days of Chez Nous and eating blueberries and yoghurt. Me from a bowl. Mine with a spoon. Her from a glass. Her's blended.
It's a tucked in kind of a day. I've seen The Last Days of Chez Nous before. It's not a great movie but the acting is great and there are interesting themes.
My assumption about relationship is that hurt will happen. Not because I think people are mean, or bad inherently. I just think shit happens. For me everything turns on what happens after the hurt. All I need is presence and communication and I can let go of tons.
But I know it's hard for some people to find words. Sometimes it is for me.
The thing I have a hard time with is when someone can't hold a part of what's gone wrong. There are times when what's a great thing for one person really hurts another. There are times when we say things and we don't mean to be insensitive but we are. All I ever need is to hear that the person knows how hard it is for me. Trying to make me feel like I'm crazy isn't a good idea.
There's a character in the film who is fumbling through life. All questions and doubts. I can relate. But she is not able to hold her fumbles. She can't just cop to fucking up. And one a way of looking at things, she didn't really fuck up. She just needed attention. I just wanted her to say that she knew what was happening was causing her sister pain but it was making her very happy. And she wanted to know what she could do to bridge that distance.
Obviously the movie plugs me in. Look at this picture and then look at this one. And then come back and tell me how to find a place that looks just like both of them so that I can take a walk. When the song starts I imagine them dancing. I'm sure they are beautiful together. He swings her and she spins. The fire ignites in my heart and I have no choice but to let it burn. I quit trying to reason. I am burned into ash. The wind blows the ash across the floor into corners. I am scattered and meaningless. When the song stops I feel the weight of the book. I am more aware of myself as solid mass than I have ever been. I am dense and meaningless. I cannot support the weight of the book. It is too sad anyway. Like everything else. The cutest part of the day was when Renee realized that one hour after she took the Vicodin the world was a wonderful place to be. Where I can spend the day in a dark room curled up and sulky she wanted to open the blind and let in the light. As a general practice, her diet is vegetation, almost vegan. But she eats everything. Except tomatoes. She likes projects. The lay on the futon watching television life isn't fun for her. And really, after two episodes of Will and Grace in a row, I feel warped.
We have watched a lot of home decorating shows and The Simsons and we ate soup and mashed potatoes. I make myself smashed potatoes. Cook them. Drain off the water. Put some butter, salt and pepper and smash. Lumps and peel are fine. But for Raybay I peeled them and heated milk and butter in a separate pan. I wished for a ricer. The way to get lump free mashed potatoes is almost over cook them. But I never can. I like chew in my food. The more you mash potatoes the mote the starch comes out. If you add the milk and butter too soon and keep mashing the protein bind with the starch and they can get glue like. If you put them through a ricer you get smooth potatoes even when they are just cooked. So they have substance and they are smooth. But I don't have a ricer. And I'm not as patient as I could be. So the potatoes had a few lumps. Not that anyone was complaining. It's just funny how cooking changes for me when I'm doing it for even one more person. I want everything to be perfect.
On the first day the television was a welcome distraction but yesterday we got tired of it. Renee says everything is about people being mean to each other. Twice yesterday we turned off the TV and read.
I'm just enjoying the time with her. Too soon she'll be back at college. Sniff. My apartment is the perfect size for me. Sometimes I wish the kitchen were a bit bigger but for the most part it's just right. But when someone stays over I wish I had another bedroom. Just because I feel like they'd be more comfortable.
This morning the apartment feels big and empty. Which is more about knowing that time is passing and things are changing and Renee is growing and everyone is growing. Am I growing? Some days I think I am. Not so much today.
It's not a big bad deal. I'm preoccupied with things like laundry and cleaning up. I just feel a little mooky and slow. And just a little lonely. Already, as August moves on, the fog is thinning with each day. Come September and October, the sun, unencumbered by the whims of fog, will make up for lost time, bearing down with a hot vengeance that will wilt and wither gardens and fill the skies with haze. Some days, that haze will be thicker and more acrid from fires that will rage, as they do every year, to the north or west of us. Still, here at the border of sun and fog, where the winds patrol shifting borders, where strips of land shrink and grow with tides that mix the salty waters of the ocean with that of creeks from the mountains ... I feel in awe of so much bounty. - From Maria's 400th post. I'm a little bit drunk. To be clear, I'm not really, really drunk. I don't think I'm up to really, really drunk any more. I'd like to be. But. That ship has sailed. Still. I'm always hoping that I will get really, really drunk again. Act out. Be uncool. Off balance. I'm three Bombay Sapphire martinis drunk. And I think the last one was big. Like maybe there was some kind of unwritten thing about lunch martinis being one size and dinner martini things being another size and we were crossing over from lunch to dinner. I'm tellin ya. The glass was bigger. Really.
I also ate a burger and fries. So. See. I'm not really, really drunk.
We were at a groovy place where everything is done just so. And when the waiter handed us the desert menu I looked at but all I really wanted was another drink. That's how I ended up with the big glass.
When I came home I thought I'd make another drink but I needed to call Deb back and tell her what to take to a baby shower and when I was done with that conversation drinking more seemed like something that was going to take more energy than I had available to me. But I kept thinking I must have something to say. I was feeling profound. And a little wounded.
The glow is dimming and I've lost the profundity. Which. May turn out to be a good thing.
Heh. I stopped subscribing to Utne awhile back. In part because I don't have money and in part because I think the magazine changed, got thinner and more glossy. It's kind of the USA Today of progressive media. When Kristina and I were in the book store I saw an Utne with an article on blogging, so I bought it.
It bugs me that Utne isn't more generous with their articles on line. You'd really think they might want to put it where it could be linked. But no. It is, however, available on the Village Voice web site. It was originally published there. I didn't get much from the piece but some of it made me laugh.
That made me laugh. Blogging relationships might be a good thesis for a psychology student. Sometimes I sit with a comment box open for a long time and can't find the words. All I want to do is nod. There are so many people in my blog roll about whom I have strong feelings, relationships that have developed after a time of reading.
Some blogs are so personal. I'm stunned at the intimate nature of the writing. Other blogs don't seem to reveal much about the person writing. And still I feel a relationship. Maybe I need to sign up for a psyche program somewhere. I slept well for the first time in awhile. I woke up dreaming about being on a bus in Dormont trying to find my way around from decade old memories. There were friends helping me but they were from an entirely different time in my life and I couldn't understand how they knew anything about it. Still it was sweet and I woke up feeling happy. I drifted back into another dream in which thoughts were arranged by a hierarchy of insects but then changed into butterflies.
Sometimes you have a dream and it feels like a page from a text book. And sometimes dreams are written in code and you wake up with your eyebrows knit in effort. This one just felt odd and yet, calming.
I spend so much time, waking and sleeping, trying to understand. Sometimes you just hafta feel through. Kristina brought me the four bags of books. OHMYGAWD. I think there may have been entertainment value in watching me trying to get them all on the shelf. I am surrounded with books. It is lush.
We did our Dim Sum/Book combo ritual. Kristina bought me a book. Four bags plus one. I just want to be able to buy her everything on her wish list.
I finished A Terrible Love of War and want to read it again but there are now so many other books calling to me. When I'm reading it my head roars with thought. I read parts to Kristina on the way to dim sum. We are in a protracted conversation about the problematic nature of forgiveness.
There is no one I can't forgive and nothing I won't forgive in the big soul way of being with things. But I need to have the moment of eye to eye recognition. I need to hear that the person gets what happened. I don't even need to hear a promise that it will never happen again. I just need to hear the person say something like ... I see how that sucked for you. I'm sorry it did. Without that moment it's hard to want to be with the person. I have a ... see you next time (assuming there is a next time) attitude. I mean, either we are going to come together again, or we aren't and some of that is choice and some of it is the gods playing with us. I'm always trying to understand when I have to stretch myself to hold problems in a relationship and when it's OK to ask the other person to meet me in the effort. What if the other person isn't up to it? How do you go on?
Hillman writes about a man who saw his brother killed during the Armenian genocide. As a pacifist he sought no revenge but he was haunted by nightmares. Years later he invited two Turkish men to his home and shot them. His nightmares went away. So does that mean we need revenge for peace of mind? The Armenian genocide is rarely spoken about. When Hitler was asked if people would remember what he was doing he said, "Does anyone remember the Armenians? " I don't think it was the act of killing that did away with his nightmares. I think it was the feeling that his action would bring attention and memory to what had happened. He called the police and told them where he was and what he had done. He wasn't trying to get away with anything. He just wanted someone to share what he had witnessed.
The problem with pacifism is that you need to be able to hold complexity and a faith in an ultimately fair universe.
This always brings me back to my fractured spiritual life. Jeane sent me a couple of books for my birthday. I've been trying to read them. There is a kind of lucidity in the notion of now. I know that when I sit and repeat a mantra, or watch my breath, or just try to be quiet, I feel an inner calm. Lately it's been easier to use yoga and feel myself as stillness. I can't seem to quiet my mind otherwise.
Lot's of abstract thinking. No conclusions. A belly full of dim sum, a room full of books and heart full of questions. A friendship ritual day with Kristina. Everywhere I look I see books she has given me. I remember conversations we've had about IT ALL. We'll have more.
But things are changing. It's late. My mind is spinning and stalling. I need to talk. I need to sleep. I think I'll take a book to bed and see how long my eyes stay open. We ate Armageddon dim sum yesterday. We ate dim sum like we might never see it again. We walked out of the place with boxes of the stuff, which we ate later and I'm still eating today. If Armageddon had happened last night I'd be the one with the last few pieces of dim sum. And a hella buncha books.
Starz has been playing the first two Lord of the Rings movies back to back again and again. At almost any time of the day or night you can watch the battle for Middle Earth. Because I've been reading the Hillman I'm seeing the romancing of war in the movies. Not to harsh on them but the endless battle scenes did wear me out. Especially in the last one. Still, I get sucked in by the ideas of fellowship, honor, mission, yadda-yadda.
Way back in high school I had a debate with a teacher about being able to like everyone. Perhaps it's a Christian notion. I believed for years that if I could talk with someone long enough I could work through any problem. I still think we can work through things but I think it's a complicated process that takes time and presence and time and ... did I mention time?
One of my favorite episodes of the original Star Trek was when Kirk and his crew are battling Klingons to protect a planet of pacifists. Eventually the leadership of the planet say we just can't deal with you guys. Please go away. And they make all the weapons too hot to touch. I LOVE that.
The challenge Hillman is issuing is that we imagine why we are seduced by war. It's not hard for me. I have rage and hurt and a need for justice. Sometimes I feel like I'm angry all the time. And. I'm sick of it.
But. There's always a but. What about that need for witnessing? And acknowledgement of a wrong.
Meanwhile. If Armageddon happens today. And you get a craving for some steamed shrimp dumplings. Come see me. It is sad. And I would feel worse. But I'm telling ya. It's just a matter of time.
I like Friday the thirteenth.
Renee was going to take me to get a shelf for the kitchen to replace the one I pulled into the living room for the books. I'd seen one in a sale ad. And Siona was coming to visit. I thought Renee and I could shop after my visit with Siona but Renee had plans. And we thought we could get to the place for the shelf and then to the train station in the time we had but it was a little bit close. And we're both early birds.
SoMa can be hard to navigate. One false turn and you're on the freeway. Despite the fact that she and I have both lived in the city for years and I lived in SoMa for the first two, we get quite lost down there. And still we got the shelf and got to the station, found Siona and headed back to my apartment. We had lunch and talked and then Renee took Siona back to the train station. It felt a bit whirl wind but also fun.
I've only breached the third wall with one other blogger. I am actually kind of shy. It was great to meet Siona. She's as smart and kind and beautiful as she seems on her blog. I feel lucky to have had a bit of time with her.
The whole week has been very social. It's been fun. And. I sort of have the spins. When I opened the back door this morning I saw a pigeon sitting in the middle of the street. It's not unusual but there was something defiant about his stance. I was charmed.
By the time you're fifty-one you really wanna hope you don't crumble after a conversation with your mother. But crumble I do. Mom is a child of her generation. She thought going to college was the magic bullet. She thought I'd have a job the day after graduation.
When I first said I was going to college she wasn't that supportive. I was in my mid-forties, working at a restaurant in the evening. I went to three classes on Monday, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday morning. She thought it was too much for me and I feared she might be right. But I did it. Then I left the job and opened a coffee cart at school. My work hours were off the scale. Three and a half years later I had a BA.
In some ways I thought I was going to have a job the next day too. But no.
Mom was proud. And yet. Six months later when I entered the MFA program she was not too supportive. I had money from selling the coffee cart to the school but it wasn't going to last long. Half way through the program she began to help me with money for the first time in my adult life. She was thrilled when I graduated. When she talks about me going to school she says that I woke up and decided to get with it. In other words, everything before I went to school was teenage rebellion and everything after is me as a real person. There are ways in which my whole life is a teenage rebellion. A BA in the humanities and a MFA in writing isn't exactly grown up. Not in her terms. She keeps talking about "the companies." Can't I just knock on the door of "the companies? "
All of the things I like best about who I am she likes not at all.
Last night she went into a litany about how I should have gone to school sooner. Maybe my worst fear about my life is that my timing is all wrong. By the time we were done talking I was flattened.
Oh and then there's the diet talk. She is on a diet. She's been on a diet for most of her life, many of which were liquid diets. She was on a liquid diet a few years ago. She's seventy-eight. I can't think it's a good idea for her to be on a diet. Her manner of eating is always healthy. Lots of fruit and vegetables. Whole grains. She eats chicken and fish and meat but she will often just eat veggies. She likes sweets. She bakes. She says that all she's doing is cutting calories. My feeling is that she's doing Weight Watchers but who knows? She also swims three times a week. Goes for walks. Is on no meds. She's a really healthy person. When she talks about the two pounds she's lost last week there is a part of me that feels like she's saying I should do it too.
And this is complicated. Once, years ago, when I was on a diet and losing weight, she said I would get thin and not like her anymore because she was fat. There has always been a weird competitive thing coming from her on how much I weigh. It's confusing for me. I know she thinks I might not be getting a job because of my weight and she might be right. She once told me that I couldn't blame genetics for my weight because she'd been fighting it all her life. I knew what she meant. She meant that if you eat less and exercise more you lose weight. The fact that she's always gained the weight back doesn't mean she is genetically predisposed to being fat; it means she was bad. She commits the great sin of eating cookies.
There are times when I hang up the phone and I feel like I must be defective. Somehow she convinces me. It's not that she convinces me that being fat is about being bad. She just convinces me that what ever it is that I am, there's something off. I don't know how she does it. When I feel like I need her it's always worse.
So I couldn't get to sleep. I was awake at five. I've got two loads of laundry in the dryer and two more in the wash. I'm trying to detox from the bad phone call. I'm trying to remember that she is who she is. I am who I am. It must be hard for her because she doesn't know how to help me. She feels like her experience isn't useful to me. And. In some ways. It isn't.
Oh. It's all so fraught. And it may be why I anthropomorphized a pidgeon. I feel like I'm in the middle of a road. Flattened. Maybe I caught a germ or ate something bad but I felt terrible all day yesterday. My joints hurt. My digestive system was whacked. My nose was runny and my throat hurt. I took a nap and had a terrible dream featuring my mom. It all seemed horrifyingly metaphysical.
In the evening I checked in and saw the comments. Thank you. Took a deep breath and tried to relax. I turned on the TV long enough to confirm what I suspected. There wasn't anything on. But I saw a few minutes of a movie in which an adult goes back to help himself as a kid. I'm not sure how it happens. In the part I saw the adult was helping the kid to understand and reshape the events of his youth. Wouldn't that be nice?
That's always been my idea of what inner work is all about. Going back into the narrative of the things that shape us and finding a new way to read it. And jeez I feel Like I've made every effort to do a lot of rewriting.
I slept. A lot. I feel better. And. I still have laundry to fold. A few nights ago I had a dream in which Donald Trump wanted to give me money to open a restaurant. He was asking me questions and I was trying to ignore him. The dream stayed with me in part because it was weird and in part because there are ways in which it would be a great relief for me to be given money and told to open a restaurant. I would just go to work. But I don't have the drive to beg for the money.
I woke up thinking about Donald today. I was thinking about how I really have no strong opinion about him. I just don't care enough. His world is so not real for me. It's mildly disturbing that he was in my dream.
But that idea of being given what you need to do something that you want to do ... well.
I also woke up with a song in my head. It's Annie Lennox singing and the hook is: I wanna be right by your side. It has this sort of island feel to it. I've looked through my discs and I can't find it. But it's a fun song. Makes me feel like dancing.
All of this makes me feel quite loopy. Maybe I've gone round the bend.
Heh. Yesterday I woke up with a pain in my side. It doesn't hurt when I'm still. It hurts when I move. But it's weird. I stand up and then it hurts. I walk around and it sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn't. It might be my gall bladder. I think it's better today. Yesterday I drank miso and ate beet greens and tried not to move too much.
I keep getting these things like pleurisy and my shoulder and this pain. They only hurt when I move. My life feels like it's at a stand still and my body keeps modeling that.
Willa got a new computer and loaded up on Sims games. I hadn't played for quite awhile. I thought I might have lost interest. But reading Willa gave me a nudge and I got caught up in playing with a family. When you can't move the Sims is a good distraction. The other day I was playing Sims and listening to the Bill Moyers/Joseph Campbell conversation. That was a fun combo.
So yesterday I was trying to delete some files and I must have deleted the wrong thing. When I try to play the game crashes. I can go into an empty house or an empty property but I can't make new people, or enter a house that has people. My theory is that I deleted a key file having to do with the people and if I knew what it was I could get it from my lap top. But I don't know. I may have to reinstall the game but I lent out my first two discs. You can't just buy the first two one at a time now. You have to buy a set. Which just seems crazy.
Willa's Sims stories are how I learned about the Sims and then became obsessed. But it has been months since I played. Still, I'm having trouble letting go of the idea that if I just knew which file it was I could fix it. But I should probably just chill out and see if my friend can find the games I lent out and reinstall. Or better yet quit playing and do something like look for a job or write.
I hate when my body is hurting. I'm never sure what to do. I can't really afford to go to the doctor. I went through something like this once before and had an ultrasound. They didn't find any gall stones then and it cost so much. So I'm super cranky and frustrated.
Swear to god. I'm gonna change the name of my blog to the Perils of Pauline. I was wrong about feeling better the other day. It's been a rough week. But I did start to feel better yesterday and I do feel better today. Just a few twinges.
My mood caved inward. I've been reading and watching movies and pretty much feeling sorry for myself.
I had lunch with Renee yesterday. She's leaving for college on Monday. I was happy to see her and sad to think about months not seeing her.
I'm mooky again.
But. I am reaching saturation. There's always a point when I just want to stop feeling bad and I start reading inspirational stuff, or something.
Maybe I'll have something interesting to write. Eventually. so sheer between what's rightand will be wronged - David Meltzer Karen Armstrong and Arundhati Roy were both on Book TV. I listened to them like they were the last drink of water in the desert. It was the spiritual/political combo that worked for me. And my need to be called back from four days of pain and frustration is big. I'm not sure why the two talks made me feel so much better. Perhaps because both women have such clear and agile thinking and I've been in this fuzz.
Armstrong talked about her regard for the T.S. Elliot poem: Ash Wednesday. I've heard this talk at least two other times and maybe three. Each time I hear it differently. I heard the poem differently.
It seemed dour to me at first and I took refuge in the crankiness. But yesterday it didn't seem cranky. It seemed calm.
David was telling me why he liked me once. I can't member why. One of the adjectives he used was my doubt. He liked my doubt. I think it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.
I've been trying to push myself in ways that are not natural to me. I am not a positive thinker. I am always a little reticent. Well. I dunno. Maybe that's not true. I do love to go for the swoon. I love to put my faith in something, or someone. I love to believe past the point of reason. And I suffer my need to believe.
It's not so much that I feel lucidity is about doubt. But there is a way in which lucidity is about deep consideration. I love the swoon. But I love the pragmatism of deep thinking.
Arundhati Roy and Karen Armstrong and Joni Mitchell and Joan Didion. That would be a great dinner party. Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place you go in your head. It's the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon. - Ann Patchett The other day Maria wrote about her son. In the post a woman makes a racist comment about some music. Why I was shocked by it, I can't say. You would think I would know that people think that way. But I am shocked by it. I am stunned.
In the past few weeks I've noticed how tense we are in public spaces. My very lovely gentle friends seem to grow long spiky teeth when they get behind the wheel. I grow them when I'm in a grocery store.
In her comments Maria pointed me to a comment in a post by Loren. I had mild cases of the rash Loren describes years ago. It's one of those ailments that makes me feel like my psyche is revealing itself on the surface of my body. My recent bout with what may have been gall in the week after my conversation with Mom felt like a Freudian slip.
I'm of two minds when it comes to things of the body being read as expressions of the psyche. Probably because being fat is pathologized and that annoys me. I was thinking about it earlier.
I have a friend who came back from living in Hawaii a little bit fat. She had been raped while she was there and it did seem to us that she was holding weight as protection. She had never been fat before then. She lost the weight quickly and has never been fat again. There may have been some truth to the weight as gain as an emotional reaction. But, as I have said before, if every woman who had been physically abused was fat there would be way more fat women.
And then there's Victoria's story. She was tall and fat but suddenly began to gain a lot of weight all at once. Her story details a variety of health issues all of which converged. Her weight gain wasn't a reflection of any emotional issue. Her weight gain could be seen as a pathology in terms of how many endocrine issues she suffered. Clearly something went wrong. And yet.
Pathologize?
I have the same reaction to both stories. My friend may have gained some weight in a reaction to a trauma but she was never a fat person. Victoria was a fat person who became extremely fat. I've always been fat and I am more fat right now than I've been in awhile and that may be because I'm older and I'm less active than I was when I was working and ... I have the same reaction to all of our stories. We are people with bodies and individual stories not women trying to hide from sex.
Having a possible gall bladder attack after a galling conversation with my mom feel like my body talking to me. It should be noted that I ate a spinach pizza the day before the pain began. In the last three years I've noticed that I don't digest that much dairy well. So maybe it was the cheese.
Heh.
Our ideas about health are suspect. I think our bodies tell us things in subtile ways. When I make my own pizza with fresh mozzerella I never feel bad. If I order from the local pizzeria where the cheese is greasy I almost always feel bad. I could say that I'll never eat pizza from that place again and I won't for quite a while. There was also my really social week in which I ate way too much dim sum and drank some martinis and I may have just maxed out. Now I'm drinking lots of miso and eating leafy greens but I may eat greasy pizza again. Some day.
I ask myself the same question Loren asked in his post.
Not so much about things like whether I'll ever succumb to the urge to order pizza and not cook but patterns of behavior I employ that aren't useful and are often harmful and just don't serve me, or the world.
In the comments Loren says the Bush administration and political news makes him feel angry all the time. Me too. And I think we're all feeling it. I bet even people who like Bush are feeling it. The list of reasons why might be different but I think this election is amping up the divisions between us.
Listening to Arundhati yesterday reminded me of the list of things that are wrong. Listening to KPFA often does the same. Democracy Now. All the stuff I use to keep myself informed. Sometimes it just feels like we are too far gone.
Deb came over today to take me to the store. People were nice on the road and nice in the store. I made a wise crack to the bagger about how all the niceness was confusing me. I'm shocked when people are mean. I'm shocked when they're nice.
Ah me.
But I am feeling better. My side is a little sore but I don't have the big throbbing pain. I've been making really beautiful food for myself all week and doing yoga. I'm going to enjoy the calm. Just in case there's a storm on the way. Rob's amazing poem generator says...
Via Whiskey River. Arundhati is talking to me from the radio. It's the same thing I listened to on CSPAN the other day. You can listen to it here.
I did prep. Which is cook speak for having cut the cantaloupe and the strawberries last night so that I could pile them into the bowl with the yoghurt, honey and granola with ease. I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. That and a blueberry muffin, green tea and my vitamins are all on the desk waiting for me to stop typing and take another bite. Arundahti is slowing me down. I keep stopping to listen.
It's Monday.
I'm sad the way I like to be sad.
Not really but I had to link to that. It's just so good.
I mean, I dunno. I'm always a little bit sad. But I have this beautiful breakfast and the voice from the radio and reasons to be happy. And lots of thinking about writing. And stuff to do this week. And even what clouds may be are comforting in their melancholy. And the same Monday problem.
What do I do?
It's like the poem said. Like her terms. She is about doubt. But also fun. Willa to the rescue. She had copies of the first two games for the PC (she's on a mac) and she generously sent them to me. I uninstalled and reinstalled yesterday. I lost my families, which at one time might have really bummed me out. But I'm just happy to be able to play again. I spent hours palying with dolls when I was a kid. The Sims are just like that. I'm telling a little story the whole time I'm playing. Maybe later I'll post some new pics. So. I have been in a Sims coma for a day and a half. When I first played the game this would happen. Hours went by. I wrote about it and sent the piece out but I was a little bit late and I got rejections saying that the Sims had been covered. Right now I think I can write a new piece. Something about playing God: the crashing character of a fifty one year old Sims freak.
The thing is, I really don't play well. I take it all way too seriously. The two things that hook me are building the houses and the stories I tell myself while I'm playing. The stories I like best are about Sims who raise their own food and do art all day. Sound like wish fulfillment?
You have to have a cat to chase the bunnies away or the bunnies eat all the carrots and lettuce. And it take a lot of energy to be a farmer. So I cheat. I lost my magic mirror in the uninstall. I thought I'd saved it on a disc but it wasn't there when I looked. The mirror made life so easy. You just stand in front of the mirror and refresh their energy and then send them back into the fields for more planting.
There are a number of fan sites with crazy hacks. But the site with magic mirror seems to be gone. This site has a coffee machine that brings your energy back but leaves you uncomfortable. So it kinda works. And they have a magic candle which makes it possible to summon a new lover. You can summon every Sim in the game. Makes it easier to make friends.
The truth about the magic mirror is that it's the reason I stopped playing for a while. Everything was just becoming rote. Fire them up and make them work in the garden.
I got some fun hacked things from this site. I got a mat that they do a funny looking martial arts kind of thing on to gain body points and a meditation picture. They levitate in front of it. It's VERY cute! I also got a cigarette smoking thing.
They smoke and get logic points. I know. It's not good. Is it?
Heh.
Oh. I guess if you don't play all of this sounds pretty goofy. It really a zone out. It makes me smile. I try to tell myself that if CSPAN is on in the background my brain won't completely decay.
The best hacked download is a typewriter on which they earn ten dollars a page for novel writing. Ohmygawd. The class of students right after mine did their big final reading last night. Sonya was going to read and I wanted to hear her. I didn't realize that Cheryl was also reading and a few others from my class who had finished the program a little late.
When we arrived one of the directors saw me and ran to get a chair with no arms. I made a big deal about having chairs with no arms in every room while I was there. I even took the complaint to the accessibility people at USF. I hoped that me, my story, my advocacy had made a difference there. But no. It's very nice that the director saw me and got me the chair. But what if he hadn't been there? Am I the only fat person who ever goes there? It's not about me personally. It's about having a system that makes an effort to make sure that all people have access. So first thing I have do is process the complex bunch of emotions around how it feels to not really fit in, having someone make a kind effort that really only solves the problem in that moment and is not a real TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY response, and then be the one sitting in the chair that doesn't match. And I'm supposed to be grateful for my chair and understand that the school can't provide for every special need and ... whatthefuckever.
One full row of chairs from the room down the hall. The ones with no arms. Not a big deal.
To be fair the woman who runs the program tried that once. I usually go places early to make sure I get whatever chair is comfortable. But I couldn't get to that event early and when I got there the row was full of students. It wasn't a full row but it was an effort. I was grateful but still. The attitude I got was that I should be grateful that they tried. I should be grateful that I can sit in a chair and not be in pain. Hmmm. Well. No. How bout I just don't go to event in the place where I can't count on being considered?
Obviously I'm still processing.
It's complex. Like many human things. And I want to think that reading, writing, thinking people get this. I want to think that people who know me and may have read me get this and don't make it about me but make it about a larger view of how the world could be. Gracious. Welcoming. Big enough.
Oh well.
And then there was the reading. It's hard to take in twenty-two pieces of writing in one sitting. It is for me. There were parts of novels, short fiction, poems and nonfiction. The program focuses on using the tools of fiction and narrativity in non-fiction. So the non-fiction sounds like fiction. It drove me crazy when I was there but I do have to admit it makes for nice writing. I really enjoyed everyone. And I really thought about why some people were easier to listen to than others.
Being a writer doesn't mean that you are going to be a great public reader of your writing. There is a stagy thing that happens and writers tend to be the kids who want to be home and alone in front of the keyboard or with your nose in a book and not standing in front of a group of people. Some people are just better at it than others. And then there's the fact that we all come to writing from a different place and for different reasons. I can get when writing is good even if it doesn't appeal to me in terms of content or even style. And these were all good writers.
And of course I loved the people I knew the best.
Cheryl is so dear. And her writing is full of sentiment and heart. Sonya is mighty and subtle. Her work is full of things that catch me and pull me in. And there were a couple of men who I had ten minute crushes on who were reading, a really wonderful woman from South Africa, good poems from a friend of Kristina's. Good, good, good.
People kept asking, "Are you writing?"
Uh.
Well.
Uh.
Am I?
So I mention that I have the thing coming out in YI in November and the thing coming out in Yoga for EveryBody in January and Sonya reminded me that this little kooky blog was voted best (which I still don't get) and every time I said it I felt like a pimp/whore combo and ewwwww.
Gee. It sounds like I'm doing OK. Huh? Why don't I feel like I am?
I have a piece in this months issue of New Mission News (no way to link darn it) about yoga. It's just a short informational thing. I didn't even read it when I saw it but Sonya did and she was having trouble with the last sentence.
In every pose, there is something to learn about a way to be in your body: lessons that people of size can carry into a problematic world, about balance which looks good on them.
She was reading it to me and I realized that it didn't sound like what I had written. And that's because it wasn't. I wrote: In every pose there is something to learn about a way to be in the body. Lessons, that people of size can carry into a problematic world in which balance looks good on them.
Mine is better. Isn't it?
It's a small free paper. I can't get too worked up about it. But it make same worry. YI changed my title from Fat Woman in Warrior Pose to Life in an Imperfect Body.
Hmmm.
I wrote and asked if there was such a thing as a perfect body and, to their credit, they changed it to At Home in Your Body. And they were a bit contrite, which made me feel better. This whole shift in the way we talk about fat people and think about fat people is an uphill battle. You win some. You lose some. But I am learning that people who publish you may change your writing. Sets my teeth on edge.
This was funny. More than one person, after I said the thing about having the stuff in the yoga magazines asked what the piece was about. Well. It was about yoga.
Ai. Yi YI.
I wish I felt more connected to the program. I made a few new friends. Two of my teachers were very special for me. When I first got out of the program I felt like I had to purge myself of everything I learned there about writing. The second thing I did was realize that some of what I had learned was useful and even good and I might want to hang onto it.
Yep. It's all a balancing act. There was one moment last night. I forgot to write about it. In the front row there was an older gentleman and (I'm assuming) his partner. She was in the program and read a piece. He was taking pictures with a very nice camera. He looked like he knew what he was doing. Later I saw him outside aiming the camera at the top of the building in the fog. I decided he was going for a really beautiful fog shot. In the middle of the reading she reached over and stroked the back of his head. He had white-grey hair and was bald on the top and somewhat in the back. Her hand on the back of his head and neck, running through that white-grey hair charmed me.
I may be telling myself stories in my head about people. It's a Sims reflex.
The game comes with a few premade charecters. The Goths are the first family and the goth seniors arrived with one of the expansion packs. They have a ton of money but I hated their house. So I made a new one. I thought they should have a conservatory.
It doesn't look great in the game. The walls come down on the wrong side when you want to look inside. But it's a great place for breakfast, or work on your art. (Notice the butler cleaning the parrot poop and the maid getting ready to clear the table.)
He's the Dean of a college and she's a novelist.
See that little blue square above her head? That's the ten dollar per page sign. Yeah!
My new charecture is Malena Molenspink. How did I get that name? I do not know. She's a romance novelist.
She lives in a rustic log cabin with lots of plants and her two dalmations.
She has a very nice bathroom,
and iguana, some love birds and a gold fish, (not sure why the picture has all the little dots)
and she has the nasty smoking habit. (hehehehehe)
Oh my. Doncha love that hat? New music. There was a day when I'd be rushing to Tower. These days I commit my fiscal acts of sin in book stores. Buying music isn't sinfull unless you don't have a job and are in the process of building credit card debt larger than the national debt. I didn't even run out for the new Joni and that is just not like me. They are all song I have on other CD's but I still want it. Some day. The new Leonard is also full of remix. Oh these Canadians! I just love them. If I got a job today I'd be at Tower before it closed.
Sheila Kuehl does a talk show on public TV the name of which is Get Used To It. She interviewed Lillian Faderman back when Professor Faderman had released her memoir. The interview was in rerun yesterday and, despite the fact that I'd heard it twice before, I listened again. I loved that book. Not because of the writing, although the writing is fine, because of the story of a life in the margins.
I've been reading Truth and Beauty and finding it quite comforting for a number of reasons. It tells the story of a friendship born in a love of writing and reading and it is also a portrait of a woman lost to the pain of feeling ugly. Autobiography of a Face was another book about a life in the margins. Another book I loved. I love memoirs that put the lie to the happy ever after story.
Lucy Grealy said: "I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."
I understand that.
I don't feel ugly. Maybe sometimes but not as a rule. But I know that there are people who think I'm ugly. I know this because they tell me so when I'm walking in the street. I relate so completely to Lucy's story and the portrait of her psychological mayhem. I want to think that my book does what these books do. But I've been so tired. I've kind of given up on the book.
And in too many ways my life in the margins is seen as my failure. I'm pushing against that. All the time. And I'm tired.
Last weekend I had a little break through. I thought the book would be out by now. I thought the gods would make it happen. And I've been stung by the rejections. Reading about the literary and publishing rejections both Patchett and Grealy went through sort of snapped me out of it. I have some ideas about things to do and some energy to do them.
But. My side acted up again. And it's been easier to play and be distracted from the pain. I felt better yesterday and I feel better today. So. We'll see.
There are two things I've just never figured out. Sex and money. I know I'm not alone. But I gotta figure out money. Now. The guy who came up with the Sims said that the first thing most people do is make themselves. And, indeed, that was the first thing I did when I first began to play. But there really wasn't a fat woman who looked anything like me. Times have changed.
I got a skin on this site (scroll way down and look for the woman in the blue jumper) which still doesn't exactly look me but ...it's closer. And so today I moved into a little brown stone cottage.
There's a pool of course. Now I wake up and jump in the pool every morning. I found some fat skins once that I didn't really like, specifically because when the Sim went to bed or jumped in the pool they were suddenly thin. But on the same site there is also a very nice bathing suit in my size,
a sexy sleeping thing,
and some shorts to wear while gardening.
Heh.
I have a dog named Ralph.
I have that picture in my actual living room, although it's not that big on the wall. I have a nice bathroom,
kitchen,
patio for eating and smoking.
two desks, one for work
and one for play
oh I have a nice little Sims life. I read
and paint.
And when the bills come in I pay them with money I made writing and painting. I eat food that I raise in my own garden. Yep. It's all good. The first time I made myself I also made myself a husband, modeled on the great love of my life. Right now I'm not feeling too good about any of the men I've ever loved. Big dummy heads. So. We'll see if love comes for me in my simulated life.
This is all quite silly in so many ways. But being able to make a Sims that looks like me was really fun. I made heavy use of the cheat code to buy everything I wanted but the house is a little small. Ralph and I are always tripping over each other. If I write and paint a lot maybe I can make it a bit bigger. Of course that means I need to play a lot.
Oh.
Dear.
What have I done?
I've also been listening to CSPAN's coverage of the protest today. I wish people hadn't been shout expletives. I use them all. But I just want the protest to be more dignified. Right before I went to bed I saw a little bit of a CSPAN panel on the organizing of the demo. There was a lot of great work done to make sure that it remained peaceful.
Back when the anti war demonstrations were happening I read a blogger from another country talking about how wrong headed he thought the they were. His characterization of the people who marched pissed me off so much that I stopped reading him. It wasn't immediate. I just found that I couldn't let go of what he said and couldn't read other things he was writing clearly. Yesterday, watching CSPAN, I remembered what he wrote again.
Demonstrations are like street theater. There were lots of fantastic puppets and signs. It's a carnival. For the most part I saw very serious people, of all types, walking somewhat stoically. And then there were the waves of people shouting expletives.
I'm so frustrated with my country. I wish people were in the streets every day. And I think demonstrations can be educational. I'm so tense right now I want every thing to be perfect. But it never is. There will be people who watch the demonstrations and are turned off. There will be people who will begin to think about why so many people are out there and maybe they'll vote. It feels like a crap shoot. But it also feels like hope.
After all the negatives and positives are added and subtracted, it feels like hope to me. It feels like people are out there. Engaged. Involved. Impassioned.
The next two months are going to be ... phew. I dunno. Just a lot. A lot of it all. Sally called a few weeks ago and said we could come up with a trade for class. I started going back to class three weeks ago. My home practice had crumbled for a variety of reasons. Being back in class feels great. Although I've lost some ground in terms of ability. I did practice this morning. Yesterday was the first day my side felt absolutely better. And even as I wrote that I was feeling like I might be wrong and it might be bad again. I think I am better. I think I am. I think I am.
The bus takes me past a corner of Market street on which a young couple has two show shine chairs and a small amp. When they aren't shining shoes he plays guitar and she sings. A few feet away from them a fairly burly man sits at a card table on which are displayed a variety of crocheted items. He's making them. He's also wearing them. I get off the bus and walk to Mission to catch the next bus.
Yesterday I got to 16th and Mission a little bit early so I sat on a bench and read for awhile. I have a patch of sun burn right by my neck as a result. Not a bad burn. Just odd looking. I don't really mind the ubiquitous cell phone thing anymore. It was shocking at first. There are days when everywhere I look someone is talking on phone. It's still a bit disconcerting when people on the bus are all talking away. While I was sitting on the bench a woman sat down and took out her phone. That bugged me. I was reading. And now someone is sitting beside me talking on the phone.
Years ago I head an interview with Fran Leibovitz in which she was asked if she wasn't worried that she annoyed others when she smoked in public. She said she thought people had forgotten what the word public meant. She said that to be in public was to be annoyed.
Yep.
As I walked up 16th I saw a bedraggled baby doll in a window box. As I crossed the street I saw another in the top of a trash can. Must be some kind of bedraggled baby doll art project.
To be in public is to be entertained.
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