July 2004 I've given up on my brain. Rumi -(via Whiskey River) I watched Thirteen and then I read some Joyce. I may have done permanent brain damage. Heh. Thirteen is stark and tragic. But there are filters on the film so that sometimes it looks almost black and white and sometimes it looks very blue, or grey. When the color shifts you wonder about the meaning. In some ways, and this is an oblique way to say it, there are times when things look more real than others. Things look very stripped. I might watch the director commentary to see what they had in mind. Which isn't to say that it isn't clear. But there was the feeling of layers. Joyce? Well. There are layers. Most of the day I did laundry and struggled with my perspective. I really do feel better than I have in awhile. But sometimes these pockets of steam release. I made a promise to someone. Someone who made declarations of care for me. I made a promise to keep my heart open and was left sitting in the middle of the highway. Waiting. Sooner or later you realize that you're waiting for someone who isn't going to show up. And then you wonder why you were so quick to give your heart. Most of the day I sat on the edge of my bed folding underwear, walked around the kitchen taking dishes from the rack and putting them on the shelf, pulling the last of the meat off the roasted chicken. All the while trying to negotiate an internal minefield. And then I watched a movie. And then I read some. And then I went to bed. And then I woke up. Ta da. Someone paid me the compliment of telling me I was honest. It's a compliment that I take to heart and treasure. At the same time when I read it I thought about truth I wish I'd never told. A time I wish I'd kept myself to myself. And not believed what I was told. And when I woke up this morning I didn't want to wake up. I kept pushing my face back into my pillow and trying to get back to dream space. But I was awake. I sat up and took a deep breath. And then another. Sigh. The moon right this minute is 99.9 percent full. There's something about that that simultaneously charms me and makes my teeth chatter with fear. Yesterday I was trying to come up with something else to write about. Something other than the yammer of my own inner process. I get tired of listening to it myself. And given my penchant for extremes I kept thinking about the Sudan. Comparisons between the suffering of my little heart and the suffering there are not useful. It would be disingenuous, more solipsistic than I normally am, just wrong. It's not about comparison. It's about the times when I'm learning about what's going on there and everything in my own heart and mind stops short. I don't feel competent with political analysis. I feel overwhelmed. Move On sent an e-mail suggesting that I call and or send e-mail to Colin Powell (also Fienstein, Boxer and Pelosi) and urge him (them) to declare what's happening there a genocide. The idea that stating the obvious will make a difference kinda makes my head hurt but I sent the e-mail. It felt like nothing. Showing up with food and medicine would feel like something. Mike has some useful links. And there is a blog. Caroline is interviewing Naomi Shihab Nye.
Yes. Craig!!!
One of the things I like about this series is that when you first look at them you see the cartoon quality and you walk right in. And then it hits you. Words are not flowing outta me. I type. And then I look at the page and there are letters missing. Sentences that don't make sense. Wasn't it Alice who said it takes all the running you can do to stay in one place? Yes. Well. It does feel like that. Craig's art is so interesting to me. We live in an icon culture. He has created icons that look familiar. They seem initially welcoming and playful. And then you realize that there is something too real and too uncomfortable. I don't think it's his intention to trick anyone. I think he's subverting the use of the icon. The easy image. Art that is suppose to make us dreamy and distract us from what's going on. I think art that makes us dreamy is also important. I think we need to relax and space out and drift. But sometimes we cling to that space. I do. Morning is so odd for me lately. I really try to stay asleep. I don't want to be awake. I've never been that good at sleeping. I used to run to the computer, anxious for my on line community. And I still am in love with most of my on line community. I was thrilled to see a post from Susan after too many days gone. But. Some stuff has gone wrong. So now I sit in front of the computer and feel the need to control my desire. What a drag. And yet... Amber sends word about a campaign at Working For a Change.
Amber's world has been a source of healing for me lately. First there is the mighty Trinity Doughnuts Tarot and then there are the tales of purple yarn and spruce and pine trees. It's so alive. I dreamed about the TD last night. I dreamed about a king and there were olives on the card. I dunno what it means. But it was fun. And while at Working For a Change I saw a campaign there about the Sudan. It's the same intent of the one I mentioned yesterday. Oh I hope these words get through. The Fiore is good.
Yeah. Other peoples words are in my head these days. Saying everything better than I can. Mom sent an article about a guy who drove truck all his life and then, in his forties, went to college, got his BA and then his MFA. Sound familiar? A week after he graduated he got a job teaching and is living happily ever after. Uh huh. I'm not sure why she sent it. I guess she was just thinking it would give me hope. And I guess it should. I guess. Because things do work out for some people. So. You know. What? Things work out for other people. What does that have to do with me? I was listening to her on the phone last night and I had the TV on with the sound off. I was mindless flipping through the channels and came upon a free preview of a movie channel on which was Eight Mile. And there was some stand up mad sex goin on. Know what I'm sayin? So I'm watching this while Mom is talking about making muffins with the sour dough starter. And my brain feels like it's splitting. Like I can't contain all the things that are going on the world and hear about muffins. What would Freud say? Oh, it's a joke. A friend and I used to say that to each other all the time. What would Freud say? But it was a moment that could be analyzed. I would think. Probably wouldn't take much. Not much at all. In the last half of the first Anais journal she writes a lot about meeting her father and the relationships she has with men. It's so resonant for me. Romance and bad faith. Yeah. I hadn't read anything so full of psychological thought in awhile. Or maybe just not that kind of way of thinking. Ah, parents. By the time you're fifty-one you hope you won't be processing stuff about your parents. And here I am. Idiot-savant of the self.
Deb and went to see The Corporation. Half way through it if you had handed me a suicide pill I woulda swallowed fast. Things just seemed so grim. But by the end I was feeling ... oh ...I don't know. Still scared and angry but hopeful. There is good work being done. There is resistance. It wasn't new information for me. And still it freaked me out.
In the evening, the grrrl gang showed up with BBQ and pie. Flinstones food. The biggest plate of ribs and chicken ever. And little bowl of potato salad. The pie was strawberry rhubarb that they had baked. Very good. Ala mode. Of course. Chocolate rum and orchid vanilla ice cream. Ooooo.
The fog was thick. We went up on the roof to watch the fireworks but they were muted and eerie. Instead of dandelion puffs in different colors it was just fog with a red hue and sparks. Sometimes it looked like the aurora borealis. Kate said she kept thinking about the bombing of Baghdad. Smart grrrls in my gang. After we were all a little creeped out. Renee and I said we like the gathering together for food but not the jingoism and feeling of war zone.
I think everybody I've ever known was in my dream. We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the grief's that are in me and what do I know of yours. And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me that you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell. - Kafka (via Wood_s Lot) I was thinking of changing my tag line to blogging the breakdown. I almost did. But that was when I was in the worst of the free fall and feeling like I wasn't going to survive.
I have. Survived.
I get such wonderful support for people. I got e-mail from someone the other day that brought the blush back to my cheeks. It's really just too wrong to stay in free fall mode. I wrote about needing to learn to walk on my birthday. More than a week later I was talking about being on my knees and it seemed like progress.
A friend adopted a Korean child years ago. The adoption people told her not have too many people in the child's life at first. Something about bonding. But the mom and dad were in the beginning of what would be the end of their marriage and they were in therapy trying to work things out. I got to baby sit when they were gone. The little girl would crawl into the bathroom where her mother's robe was hanging on a hook. She would press her face into the robe and cry such a heart wrenching cry and look at me as if to say, "You are not the one I want. I want her. Where is she?"
I would talk in my best soothing voice but to no avail. I was not the one. Finally I came up with a new idea. I sat a few feet away from the bathroom door playing with her toys. I didn't look at her. Eventually she came out to see what I was doing. If I looked at her she went back to the robe. Slowly she came out and began to play with the toys. Slowly we began to play together. We got through therapy night every week but first she had to let me know that I was not the one. Love like that is amazing.
In some ways I've had my face buried in someone's robe and weeping and no one is the one I want and I want everyone to know that. But I have very smart friends. They just keep playing, close enough to me that I am tempted to join them. They let me know they are there. They witness my weeping. And they wait. Love like that is amazing.
Sadness is just a part of the deal. I was sad all day. But it didn't feel terrible. It just felt real. I wasn't struggling with it. It wasn't pulling at me. It was just sadness. Having a day. The quality was different from the way I've been feeling. Depression is rather more insipid. Depression is global and full of generalization. Sadness was just what it was.
It seems to me I've said enough is enough about twenty times a day for about a month. Funny, the heart. The heart must listen to the efforts of the mind the same way a thirteen year old listens to her parents. Enough is enough. Yadda yadda. What ever. Leave me alone with my face pressed into this robe. Leave me to breath in the scent of loss and sorrow. There is only one thing I want.
Well.
I bought myself one of those mini artist model things and spent some time trying to remember how to draw. It was a good idea. Pulled my head out of the robe for awhile. The place where the grrrl gang got the BBQ gave them bags full of wheat bread to soak up the sauce. It's more like brown white bread. We didn't use it but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. I toasted it. It's like eating cardboard. It's not terrible but it lacks substance. The wheat bread that I normally eat has substance.
I'm thinking about it in part because I'm eating the not that great toasted wheat bread and because I got the news from Susan. I'd like to be more excited. I'm just not. But OK. Now I know who I'll be voting for. I'm still keeping my Kucinich button up. Just to be ornery.
Kate showed me how to knit. While she was here I felt like I had the hang of it. Last night I went back to try again and it was comic. I just don't have it.
I watched All The Real Girls. It is such a wonderful movie.
It feels like Monday. Knitting and tarot. Yours for the wearing. Is that the coolest? I swear. My vocabulary reduces to three words. That's so cool. And you have to count the contraction as one. When I first began to watch DVDs I was fascinated with the expanded features. I even watched an actor commentary for Steal This Movie. I wasn't interested in sitting through a film twice to hear commentary again until my Egoyan festival. I'd like to have dinner with him. And his wife. I like the way they think. Yesterday I listened to David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider talk about All the Real Girls. I put George Washington in the queue. Again. I like the way they think. In all of those films it was about the sentience. It's hard to say what the films are about. There are stories. But the stories aren't the most important part. The feelings. The moments. The images that grab your eye and take you somewhere.
Joerg Colberg linked these photos. I've always loved the way a wall can look. Something you might walk by everyday and then one day the light hits it in just such a way and you feel like your eyes are opened.
When I was a kid, in my high school years and even in my early adult life, I spent a lot of time writing in journals and drawing. The writing came and went but the drawing really fell off. When I was at NCOC I took a couple drawing classes. I noticed that I became giddy after three hours of drawing. It shifts me into a very blissed out place. That's part of why I'm trying to draw. I need that out of my thinking brain place.
There's something about seeing. Really seeing. My best moments have not been about anything. They've been a moment of being aware. Often stimulated by a shift of light on a wall.
Of course one of my best moments was hanging out in the park with George. Happy birthday, George. More than once I've been told to do some kind of food writing. I've been trying to come up with something. The problem is that when I'm depressed I lose my appetite. I know fat people are supposed to eat more when they're depressed but I just get the fat-people-are-supposed-to stuff wrong. Which is not to say that I don't comfort myself with food. I absolutely do. But at a certain level of depression food doesn't get it done.
There will be a point in the middle of the day when I realize that I feel terrible and even my body feels terrible and then I think about if I've eaten and I realize I haven't. It's really hard to think of what to eat at that point. Because I am hungry but nothing sounds good.
Planet O brought some white peaches and nectarines. They are giving off a perfume from the big purple bowl in the kitchen. I find that comforting. A white peach is a reason to live. I am, in fact, eating one in a bowl with some blueberries and two strawberries and some yoghurt. I have some rye toast and green tea. it's a good way to start the day. My bout of anhedonia may be letting up.
Which brings me back to the problem of writing. Food writing. I guess I could start with the purple bowl full of white peaches and nectarines. Although, I was thinking about a piece about my childhood love of baloney. My grandmom would give me two slices of baloney cut into fours and eight saltines. And I sat at the dining room table matching the perfect corner of the baloney with the perfect corner of the saltine. and eating each one as if it were pate on toast points. Every once in awhile I get a craving for baloney. But now I eat it on a baquette with heirloom tomato and watercress. This just in.
Signed: Another person in the world who thinks you're very cool but just doesn't feel that way about you. I keep trying to post. I'm just a little bit blank. It's not just the rejection. It's a build up. I'm OK. I'm just in a zone. People, in other parts of the country, keep telling me that it's hot. True to form, SF is not hot at all. It is, in fact, a bit chill. I noticed the other evening when I opened the back door to put some things in the recycling box and the gray, damp air hit my skin in a poof. The days aren't too cold but the evenings are bury under the covers time, which suits my mood. For the past few days I've been under the covers. Sometimes actually under them and other times metaphorically.
Yesterday Ari took me out for lunch at Samovar. I had a grilled gouda and tomato sandwich and some veggie samosas. Everything is done in a tea shop manner. Small. Delicate. Very beautiful. The sandwich was sliced baguette and there were four little parts with crunchy outsides and oozing smoky, tangy insides. Mmmm. I also had Monkey Pickled Iron Goddess of Mercy tea. Because the name was so intriguing. All served by beautiful, fey boys with break your heart wide open smiles.
And then we went swimming at the JCC. We did an aerobics class. I thought I might be sore today but I'm not really. Which, I suppose is a testimony to how good yoga is for the muscles. And I've been doing a little routine with hand weights lately. So when we did arm things my arms were strong. We did lunges and squats and kicks. Things I couldn't do on dry land. The water makes all things possible.
Ari is one of those fat woman who I imagine people think eats junk food and never moves. She's a vegetarian with a great sense of good food and no love of junk. She does yoga and swims regularly. I dunno. I guess when you really take the time to know fat people you realize that there is no one type. I certainly have met fat people who don't eat vegetables and don't really do much. I've met thin people with the same profile. And let me be clear about how I feel about those people. I don't care what they eat or how much they move. It's none of my business. I will say that when people tell me they don't like vegetables I want to cook for them right away. It is hard for me to accept that people don't like vegetables.
Watching Ari in the pool made me smile. She's a cutie.
With all that Zen calm and water and good talk with Ari I find it easier to breath today. But I still feel the heaviness in my eyes. The storm that's been living there for what feels like forever. It really hasn't been forever. And I can still smile and giggle when I'm in a pool with a group of women doing run in place like a football player exercise. It's just so cute.
A friend who is a teacher told me about the notion of a shit sandwich. First you tell them the good things. Then you tell them the criticism. Then you praise them. It made me laugh because I think I do something like that when I'm trying to tell someone something difficult.
The thing about the letter that got me was they way in which it complimented the book and then said but I don't wanna help you get it published. It seems so arbitrary. It seems like something that is said in such a way that implies it's no big deal. It's no big deal that I know how to navigate the waters of the publishing industry and you don't but I won't help you. It's no big deal that your book is readable and maybe even good but may never get attention. I mean, I know I'm running all these things out in my own head but it's hard not to. I'm still waiting to hear from another small press. And there are other agents. And self publication is looking something that I ought to think more about. I mean, sometimes if you wanna get something done you just gotta do it yourself.
That's certainly the corner stone of my sex life.
Heh.
See? I can sill crack wise. I'm OK.
I need to do a long blog crawl. I'm outta touch. I did check Wood_s Lot out to see if Mark was linking Neruda. He was. Of course. Lots there to read. Including a link to one of my favorites.
Looking around the desk I see the detritus of days spent in a zone. Stacks of mail. Dental floss and hairbrush and kitchen towel sitting on the desk where they were dropped rather than put back where they live. Tarot deck with the card of the day from a week ago on top. The bed is unmade. There are dishes in the sink. The day is almost over.
And there ya have it. I'm making it sound worse than it is. But I am moving in slo mo. The covers are calling. And the urge in me is to get back under. I guess I'll do the dishes before I do. and maybe go through the mail. And maybe little actions will move me to the next thing. And the next thing. You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? I had a long talk yesterday with a friend who no longer watches the news because it brings up negative thoughts. She talked about choosing to be positive. I thought about her this morning when I turned on the radio and heard about the car bombing. There are two things you almost expect to hear every morning. There was a car a bombing and/or someone was kidnapped. I often wonder how it's possible to hear those words and not be upset. I'm not always upset when I hear them. I have the detachment of the safe at home. Imagine if there was a car bomb in an American city. Then we'd be upset.
It's not so much that I am advocating for being upset. It's just that there is a part of me that wants to be mindful of the problems of others. Participation in the sorrows of life with awareness. I also know that there are days when I can't hear it. There are days when I can't hold it.
Depression has a physiological attribute. The brain is trainable. Certainly I think the best thing is to have a generally positive outlook and be aware that there are things I can't do much about. I have been making efforts to work with my brain. But it isn't my intention to become less aware. I think a deeply integrated balance can hold the sorrows and the joys. And I don't think I'm doing a great job of maintaining perspective. It's been a rough year.
The first noble truth. Life is suffering. I remember being somewhat horrified by that thought when I first heard it. I remember the face of the woman who said it to me. She had such a dour look on her face. Such a hang dog look. And my reaction was to pull away from her and her idea of how life was and seek a more joyful approach. I hear the first noble truth differently now. I hear it as a matter of fact kind of thing. Just a truth. Very simple.
When I was in the pool the other day looking at the earnest faces of the women, most of them older and not particularly fit, concentrating so hard on right foot/left arm lunges, I felt joy. They were all so intent. So committed. And it was also kinda silly. Right foot/left hand? It made me giggle. I caught the eye of one of the women and we burst into big smiles and giggles.
There are floods and bigger floods. There are wars. And rumors of war. And for me there is a lost uncertain feeling. What do I do? What can I do?
But there are also moments of grace.
It's interesting. After I talked to my friend I wasn't particularly interested in thinking only positive thoughts. I certainly wasn't going to never listen to the news again. But I did feel recommitted to strengthening myself internally. Which today means doing laundry. It's the chop wood carry water approach to enlightenment.
Heh. The mighty Paul Campos wrote an article about Anamarie. Paul blogged it. Nothing like a little outrage to snap a person out of lethargy.
There is a page with links to updates about Anamarie. She seems to be fine, although I read somewhere that she was afraid of being taken out of her home again. It's stories like this that bring home the problematic nature of the way we view fatness culturally. To say the least. On the same web site there is another story about a three year old who died and how her death was wrongly used to sell the idea that kids are eating themselves to bad heath. It's just too simplistic. It doesn't take into consideration the whole range of possibilities in terms of why an individual is fat. There is no one fat body.
It was interesting for me to read Mindy's comment the other day. I thought it was nice that she took the time to tell me that she liked my writing despite the fact that she doesn't like my politics and finds my "size acceptance ideas to possess a narrowness that belies your apparent intellect". I wasn't sure how to take that last bit. Someone once left a comment that was something like - you're too smart to think like this. Huh? I was also confused because Mindy is associated with Abundance magazine. I guess I could write and ask her which of my ideas are the narrow ones. But I haven't felt up to any big discussions and I really did think it was kind for her to be so supportive of my writing. She is a fine writer herself.
My ideas are narrow I suppose. I NEVER think it's OK for a fat person to experience discrimination in employment, housing, medical care, access to public facilities, and, and, and ... and I don't think the thin and average size people of the world get the extent to which fat people experience discrimination. I think it is true that people eat crap fast food and spend too much time in front of screens. But some of those people are thin. So let's talk about those bad habits but let's be fair when we're having the conversation. Let's leave the fat phobia out of it.
Anamarie was TAKEN OUT OF HER HOME..
I remember when it was happening. The family was on some morning talk show looking terrified. And where is that talk show now? Why aren't they telling the rest of the story? She's still fat. She's healthy, active and relatively happy except for the bad dreams about being TAKEN OUT OF HER HOME again. It just makes me wanna scream and yell. Strange day. I got the laundry done. And the dishes. And this. And that. Everything seemed to take a very long time. I'm still in a fog. Not really with myself in some fundamental way. Every once in a while I notice that I'm moving. But I can't remember why. I just watched Camp. It's not a great movie. But there are things about it that make it worth watching. Especially if you were one of those kids in high school who was in the musicals.
Uh hem.
You know.
Like me.
The singing is fantastic. Some of the dancing is pretty great. Some of the plot lines are sweet. There was one character. She's a fat girl who is at the camp despite the fact that her father wants her to be at diet camp. The compromise they have is that she has her jaws wired shut. Through most of the movie she's talking through her clenched teeth. And then they have her sing a song. The camp counselors take of her braces because she is the only one who can take over when two other girls can't perform. Of course those kind of braces wouldn't come off that easily. But what ever. The song is about taking a stand. She's singing to her dad. She's a wonderful singer. Despite the cliche quality of it all I was weeping. She was so beautiful and she was saying this is who I am. Deal with it. A fat girl singing - here I am. I loved it.
I was in both my high school musicals. I played the queen in Once Upon A Mattress. Heh.
Watching the movie took me back to a time when everything was possible and if the odds were against you then all the better. Yesterday I went down to Market street for coffee with Sonia. We were on a part of Market that I don't usually go to. Very business. I kept thinking about how years ago I used the word straight to mean someone who was stuck in a conservative way of thinking. The word still comes to mind when I'm watching herds of people walk by, many of them in suits. But the codes aren't really clear any more. The guy with the suit and brief case and cell phone has a Thursday afternoon session with a dom in Soma. The guy with the long hair has a portfolio full of oil stock. It's the guys with long hair who really break my heart. If I have one physical quality that I am almost always attracted to it's long hair on men. But it doesn't mean what it used to mean. It's not an automatic signal of counter culture. What's an aging hippie chick suppose to think?
Even knowing the codes are all mixed up I feel out of place in the business world. I worked in a restaurant in the World Financial Center years ago. I always felt like serving class. I was. I was happy to be.
On the bus there were two other people. We all ended up clustered in the middle. In part that was because the two single seats were there. But somehow it felt as if we should know each other. We were in that close but invisible relationship you experience in the city. I looked out the window at the lines of folks at bus stops and at tables on patios and on steps of buildings and walking so fast with somewhere they needed to be. So many people. And me. Drifting. Watching. I've been remembering this time, years ago, when I was standing in front of my apartment building looking up into a sky still sparking with storm. I was upset about something. I can't remember what. And I had the thought that somewhere in me I understood everything that was going on. Or maybe someday, somewhere. I'd find myself in some place where it all made sense.
I have always had a sense of something larger. There is something going on bigger than what we can grasp and at the same time very simple. Something understood in the quietest moments. I mean this in a mystical sense but I also mean it in political sense and in a chaos theory sense. So many things are moving around us. My personal theology is best summed up in the words - I don't know. But I do know that there is mystery.
The place where I get confused is when I look for a narrative line. The butterfly flapped its wing and then ...
In my big soul, big mind, big heart place I believe strongly in the need for forgiveness. In fact I think it's the most important thing to me. And in my big soul, big mind, big heart place I think forgiveness is almost easy. Because the narrative line is just a story. And there are many stories being told. Most of which will be forgotten. But in my right here and now place I often find forgiveness problematic. There is no one I wouldn't forgive and nothing I wouldn't forgive. But that doesn't always mean that I want to be with a person. There is a saying about Sufis. Sufis forgive but they never forget. I don't know enough about being a Sufi to know if it's accurate but I know that there's something in it that rings true for me.
I have a desire, an intention, that when I reengage with a person I will know that they may be a wholly different person. Possibilities abound. But I also know that people don't change. Some people don't even want to change. I'm not even sure if I can describe what I mean by change but in my own life I've actively sought change. Not because I think I'm so terrible but because change seems the only certain thing. The alive thing. And I like people who seem like they get that. People who think about possibility. People who are willing to look deeply in to the mechanics of who they are and who we are. I need a feeling of mutuality. A commitment to telling and hearing deep truth. I know that without that moment of deep, eye to eye, heart to heart truth telling I never fully engage.
It's certainly true that relationships happen on different levels. I know and love many people with whom I've never needed a deep conversation. I love Dorothy, the woman who is the crossing guard for the middle school across the street. I'm crazy about her. She makes me feel better about life. But sometimes you meet people and you know that things are going to go deep. And with those people I have different need.
This week I've been thinking about forgiveness that I need to work on. I'm not sure if it's ever complete when you do it alone. It's so much easier when you can have that moment of deep truth telling. For me, it really doesn't take much. I just need to know that someone is looking at it with me. They don't even necessarily need to see things the way I do. But they need to be with me. Looking. And there is another part of me that thinks that requiring anything from anyone isn't true forgiveness. Which takes me back to the big soul, big heart big mind place. The place where it's all OK. The place where I know I don't fully understand and might not even be able to fully understand.
All of this happens inside my ever rumbling head. And it keeps me busy and distracted and spaced out. I read a few things about writing last week. One a quote from Lorrie Moore and the other a post from Maria about her own hypergraphia. When I was younger I wrote reflexively. These days I'm finding it so hard. I can barely get a post together every day. Mostly because I'm sick of the sound of my own story. And my struggle for perspective isn't going well. The only thing I can think to write about is how hard it is to write. And that pulls me back into the thinking about why I've been feeling so bad and the need for forgiveness and the process of forgiveness and how much I long for really moments of deep truth telling.
Ahhhhh. Well. Deep breath. Sometimes it's best to just let go.
I'm thinking about Maria today. Sending thoughts of calm and hopes for clear and useful information. Years ago, if you wanted to find me on a Sunday night, you went to the mezzanine of Hotel Boulderado. I would be there listening to Steve play piano, sing and do political commentary. On Mondays I'd be at McCabes listening to he and his band, Gris Gris, play New Orleans style rhythm and blues. I would have spent every night of the week listening to him. I still would.
Once in your life I wish you could hear him sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. It will change the way you hear the song. Steve made other people's music more real for me. I was going through one of the two great heart breaks of my life. Heart break that make this last one look like a teenage crush. And given how much I'm suffering that one you can imagine how bad it was. Steve would sing songs for me. Songs that would soak up the pain. Songs that I still hear in his voice, even when they are sung by the people who wrote them.
Steve self produced his last two discs.
He's worked so hard for so long. I got e-mail from him in which he sounded fed up. Worn out. Talking about giving up. I didn't even ask why. I feel too close to why a person gives up in my own life.
He would laugh about this. When I first met Steve I didn't think I was cool enough to be his friend. I was a wanna be and he was the real real. He could sing. He could play. And he could write songs that stayed in your head for days. And he was so handsome. No one was more surprised than I when we became friends. I think it changed the way I felt about myself.
The list of people with whom he has played is long and, oddly, (heh) does not include the recording of Please Come Home for Christmas he did with me. I made a Christmas card with a cassette of me singing that song. His piano playing is better than my singing.
Last night I listened to his music. It was Sunday night. I needed music that soaks up pain.
I want to be able to plead with him to not give up. I want to make the case for staying the course and being who you are and giving your gift to the world. I want to talk about the loss it would be if he gave up. But first, I have to convince myself of all those things for myself. As I was listening it occurred to me that all of our dreams are so bound up with one another. I need to imagine him at his piano. I used to watch his throat when he sang. I used to imagine I could see the vocal chords sending out all that glorious tone and feeling and passion. I can't imagine a world without his voice. I don't want to.
I hate Mondays the most. Monday is the day when I wake up without a job. Without a publishing deal. Without a sense of what to do next. All those things are true every day of the week. But Monday it feels more urgent. More pressing. I given up on too many dreams in my life. Some of them I had to give up on but I'm not sure I always made that choice wisely.
I'm not sure what makes it feels like it's working. I want to feel the weight of my book in my hands but what then? I'm not sure what would make the difference for Steve. I'd tell you to buy a disc but that would be for you as much as for him. Maybe more. We all need music that soaks up the pain. Takes us away from it all. Tells us a story. Makes us wanna dance and spin. His music is like that.
Oh. Oh. Oh. We need a little joy. A little mirth and frivolity. Bon temps, cher. Bon temps. Toi et moi parmi les esprits de la lumiere. Beloved Pan, and all you other gods who dwell in this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry. Anything more? The prayer, I think, is enough for me. -Socrates (via Whiskey River) Linda Ronstandt said she liked a movie and was booed off stage. Really. it's true.
OK. The movie was political. She was being political when she said to go see the movie. And the guy who runs the casino in Vegas where she was singing said they hired her to entertain not be political. Which is why he felt justified escorting her out and telling her she's no longer welcome.
I almost don't mind the booing. People have a right to express themselves. I think silence might have been a better choice. Some people walked out. That's their right. Defacing her posters? Well. This crowd just seems juvenile and belligerent. What gets me is that she is no longer welcome to play there. Apparently she has endorsed the film before and not gotten this reaction. The reaction from the crowd was divided. Some of the people agreed with her. And none of that is the point. She didn't go on and on. She simply said the movie was a good one and people should see it. Do we remember Mc Carthy?
And what really, really bugs me is that the person who wrote the article I linked goes on to slam her performance. Is this a news article or a review?
I haven't seen the movie yet. In part because I agree with Jill about Michael's hyperbolic style and I didn't want to deal with crowds. It isn't new information for me. I know I will see it. I'm very glad he did it and that it's getting the attention it's getting. But, again, like Jill, I worry that people will see the movie and do nothing. And the movie is doing well so it doesn't need my support. I just feel like some of the reasons Michael is successful is because he does that mean thing so well. He badgers and makes fools of people. Despite the fact that he's making points that I want to see made I just tense up around some of the method. And still. I think people should see the movie. I'll see the movie. And Linda should be able to say go see the movie.
Michael has written an open letter to the guy who says Linda can't sing in the casino again. The casino is being bought so who knows if he'll have a job. I think the people buying the place are fairly conservative themselves so he probably will. I think one of the people involved with that group is the governor of the state in which I live. He would be the one who thought he was being so funny the other day when he used the phrase girly men as a slam. It's a world gone mad.
Do I think he has a right to say such things? Here I am going on and on about Linda's right to say what she said. So do I think he has a right to say what he said? Well, I think there's a difference between a torch song singer and a governor. This guy is blurring that line. He's using his star power to manipulate. But. I actually do think he has the right to say what he said. I want him to say the stupid things that show him to be the person that he is. I'm hoping that people will hear those things and vote him out of office. One of the reasons Michael is so successful is that he plays the same mean spirited game that these guys all play. He meets them in the school yard with a snappy come back. I wish we had a more reasoned intelligent dialogue in this country. But we don't. So meanness is the method.
This is the thing about Democracy. It's messy. And human. Twice today I've heard Tom Ammiano refer to himself as a girly man. Makes me wanna go to city hall and give him a hug.
I want to be clear that I would hope that a person who finds themselves in a leadership position in government would know better than to say such things. I find what the governor said enormously offensive. But look at who he is.
The board is talking about the budget. EEK. I have a friend who calls me up from time to time for relationship advice.
I mean.
Come on.
Clearly.
It is not my area of expertise.
There has never been a time in my live when it was more clear to me that I have no idea why anyone gets together with anyone ever. I have no thoughts about it. If you have someone to love in your life, you are lucky, lucky, lucky. Go an hug them right now. Give them a kiss. Even if you aren't getting along. Just coz.
The weirdest thing is that when I'm talking about it all with her, I almost sound smart.
Almost. My health history. Odd. Or maybe not.
I'm a sixties kid. We did drugs to be revolutionary. Or to attain enlightenment. (You believe me don't you?)
Really. I've been thinking about this. I've been thinking about how I used to put ginger ale in a wine glass and pretend it was champagne. I remember pretending carrot sticks were cigarettes. I was eight. I couldn't wait to be able to drink and smoke. And it wasn't because I had parents who were drinking and smoking. I just liked the glamour I saw on Saturday afternoon movies. Garbo and Bacall. Plumes of smoke pushed through lips that seemed to say yes and no at the same time.
I was smoking by the time I was fifteen. Cigarettes. Smoking pot at sixteen. Drinking by seventeen. Acid. Mushrooms. Speed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was also swearing off refined sugar and chemicals in my food, eating brown rice and wheat germ. See the balance in that?
And so it went. In the most drugged out time of my life I was explaining to a friend that I didn't want to take an aspirin for headaches because I thought it was bad to medicate symptoms. I didn't want MSG in my Chinese food but I put stuff up my nose that was in no way pure. I smoked European cigarettes because they didn't put chemicals in the paper. I'd get massage and acupuncture and then go out for margaritas. I believed that physical immortality was possible but I contemplated suicide regularly. None of this seems contradictory to me even as I write it. It all made sense in context.
I think, in part, being a fat kid gave me a sense of my body as a problem. I was never sure that caring for it would make a difference. You wanna help fat kids be healthier? Don't estrange them from their bodies. Give them the wisdom of diversity. Teach them about good food and teach them about the joy of movement. But don't teach them shame.
I've had the don't you think people who are really, really fat are unhealthy conversation a couple of times recently. It seems like such a simple and obvious thing to most people. But they aren't thinking about everything in the persons life up till now and they aren't thinking about the health impact of what people do to lose weight. I read a thing a while ago about a kid who had the surgery. His mom and dad had the surgery as well. In one part of the article it was noted that now he could only eat a few chicken nuggets for lunch. Chicken nuggets. Frozen. Fried. Crappy chicken nuggets. His mom made note that he still didn't like to exercise. But everyone was so happy for him because he was thinner. Since he was thinner he must be healthier. He eats chicken nuggets and doesn't exercise but he must be healthy.
Yeah. Well.
These days my body communicates to me in no uncertain terms. If I do even a little bit of yoga I feel better. If I do nothing I become stiff and hobbled. If I eat too many carbs I get a stomach ache. If I'm smoking it's because something is wrong. I hadn't smoked this year. Until June. I smoked four packs of cigarettes in June. I haven't smoked in July. Yet. When I do I feel it immediately. Not in my lungs so much but in my stomach and in my heart.
My drug and alcohol history really was about some kind of reaction to notions of social control. I never wanted to be one of those people who played it safe and did all the right things. Tofu made sense to me because it was alternative. But even the New Age seemed like social control to me in some ways. I always wanted to be able to walk in the shadows. I wanted to know that there was nothing I couldn't live through. It was, no doubt, often misguided and fraught. And I have scars. But I also have memories. Not all of which are bad.
The other thing being a hippie chick and a feminist gave me was the idea that I didn't have to be ashamed of my body. And lots of the psychological work I did helped me to own my body. I think that's healthy.
I still have a tendency to ignore my body. Self care doesn't come naturally. I'm not as interested in the back alley any more. Been there. Survived. Lived to tell the tale. I'm content to do yoga and feel my aches and pains and eat my fruits and veggies and drink occasionally. I'm content with a moderate amount of moderation. I still need too much of everything once in awhile. It's all OK. I survived June. I survived empty promises of friendhship. I survived my instictive implulse to self distruct. I've learned how to pull myself off the ledge. Although clearly I'm still working on it all.
In a perfect world we'd all get massage no less than once a week. That would be healthy. Touch. Touch heals.
I just think our ideas about heath need to include some acknowledgement of what makes life rich and glorious and kooky. I think health as a method of social control is stifling and wrong headed. Every once in awhile you just hafta whoop it up. Be a little dangerous. Sustain a little damage. Blow smoke through lips that say yes and no at the same time. Be uncertain and not all together clear.
Or. Maybe that's just me. There was a very angry post here a few minutes ago. I took it down. If anyone stopped by during the few minutes that it was up they might wonder about my mental health. They would have a right to wonder. I did the same thing a few months ago. Posted a reaction to something I read and then took it down.
I'm very angry with someone. And I don't feel conflict about the anger. I think the anger is what it is. I think if I told the whole story people might say I had a right to the anger. But of course they'd only be hearing my side of the story. And maybe if they heard both sides they'd still think I had a right to the anger.
I'm tired of being angry.
I took the post down because it served no purpose except to allow me the chance to vent. And I think venting is good. Even when I vent I try to acknowledge the fact that there is more than one way to look at a thing. Especially stuff between humans.
The thing about anger and hurt is it helps to feel as if you have a witness. Someone who can tell you that you aren't crazy. And I got mad. I lashed out. It was an oblique lash out. No names were named. It was a crazed and manic rant. And after a few minutes I succumbed to my need to not be a raging maniac.
I tried to create a place where I could write my less than perfect emotions but that got messed up. And I'm pretty honest here. I don't see the need to hide any part of who I am.
There is a part of me that wants to let the rant stand. But the part of me that wants peace is always yammering away in my head.
So. Ya know. That's it. I was pissed. I still am. But I'm going to take a walk. And do the never ending work of letting go. No need to worry about my mental health. It's safe to assume I've gone quite mad.
Heh.
With his never ending generosity George hooked me up to g-mail. Write to me. Please. I wanna see how it works.
A few weeks ago I noticed that I have a bunch of movie channels. Mostly cheesy stuff. But I have seen The Recruit Blade Two and About A Boy. None of these are movies that I would put in Netflix or see in the theater. But I turn the channel and there's the movie and I'm only going watch for a few minutes and then an hour has gone by. Not good.
The Recruit was OK. The acting is good and it's suspenseful. Blade Two was yucky. It's not enough for a hero to kill one thing any more. They have to be swarmed and kill and kill and kill. What is that about? About A Boy was sweet. And OK. But. I dunno. Not compelling. And still. I watched.
Not a good thing.
I got all pissed off and then I lost the little bit of focus I had and then I watched a dumb movie. Ah. Well. Not the worse thing in the world I suppose. Linda Ronstandt is playing in a few different venues around the bay. If I had the money I think I'd go see her. Just because. I saw her twice, years ago. Once in a small venue.
When I was younger I spent hours listening to records and singing along. Joni. Of course. Bonnie Raitt. Billie Holiday. Janis Joplin. Tracy Nelson. Tina Turner. Judy Collins. Blues and rock-n-roll and folk. I loved it all. I put the earphones on, closed my eyes and sang my hear out. And Linda's early records were in the stack.
She and Bonnie both recorded an Eric Kaz song, Blowin Away. I can still close my eyes and sing that song. When I got involved with the New Age and ideas about positive thought it seemed like a bad idea to sing the song with as much feeling as I had so many times.
Now I wonder if it was foresight, or affirmation. The neighborhood is full of meanness tonight. I walked down the street to put some stuff in the mail and four young boys sitting on the hood of a car started sayin stuff. I shot them my best kissmyfatass look. I probably shouldn't do stuff like that. They shouted worse stuff at me as I walked on down the street. This kind of thing never brings out the best in me.
Around the corner there were three women talking about some kids and I asked them what they were talking about. Some kids had pulled the flowers out of a woman's flower box and knocked over her motorcycle. I don't think it was the same kids but who knows? There are lots of tourists here. And people come from other neighborhoods to hang out on the pier. I feel safe most of the time. I felt like something could have gone badly tonight. I have all this unprocessed anger doncha know.
It's true. I am waiting. I think I always have been. I can explain it to you psychologically. But I always feel it. Some part of me. Waiting.
This is a very sweet movie. I'm going to get to vote for Nader. Oh don't panic. We have IRV in SF. I'm not sure if it will be in place for the election but it looks like it might.
That is if they don't cancel the election.
All week long Democracy Now has been playing sections of a documentary A Passel of Pomp & A Circus of Circumstance. It's been so interesting. The thing that I'm remembering is how much goes on around each of the conventions. Fanny Lou Hamer. Chicago police. Shadow convention. Some stuff has gone on. It's important to remember what an active process it has been. And how much repression has been brought to bear. Democracy is a process.
Oh but the fear is big. My use of IRV might almost seem token. There are still only two choices. But it's going to make me feel so much better to have the option to vote for what I wish we were as a country. First I'll vote my fear and then I'll vote my hope. Seems backwards. But. It's a step. Matt has been in my dreams a lot lately. No. Not those kind of dreams. Although I don't know why not. Last night he was telling me he was going to adopt me and I got mad at him because I didn't think he was taking me seriously.
Sometimes the dreams are just kooky. There are many things about the 911 commission report that I don't like. But it's the overriding conclusion that there was something that could have been done that I find really troublesome. It may well be true that there were things that could have been done and I have no problem with the idea of trying to improve things. But sometimes I think we believe we can get to the point where nothing ever goes wrong. The line that we track is often mechanical and seeks to place blame rather than shift sentiment. Apparently there is one paragraph about how U.S. foreign policy does much to create the atmosphere in which these thing occur.
Sometimes I think we should put up signs everywhere that say: something may go wrong. Then we can point to the signs after every bad thing. There are already warning signs everywhere. We drink coffee in cups that warn us that we may be burned by hot coffee.
I just wish we would do the inner work. As a country. I wish we were reflective. I wish we could accept that there are things that go wrong and still work on telling the truth and making amends. Things do go wrong. And sometimes we do need to hold some of the blame. And sometimes there's things we need to change. And some times things will still go wrong.
I'm talking in circles. A sex-loving monk, you object! Earlier this week Amazon sent me a box full of products from their beauty line. It was fun to get a box full of free stuff. I looked through it all with actual glee. There was lots of bubble bath and shampoo and skin cream and there was this little thing of makeup.
I used to wear makeup.
Check out the eye.
Heh.
Oh yeah. And check out the hair. It's really hard to see what was going on in the photo. It was shaved close on the sides, permed in the back and spiky on top. Sections were dyed black, blonde and red and my own hair color was still in there some where. There were three braids in random places. It was really fun hair. It was fun makeup. I'm not sure why I was trying to look like was about to whoop a gris gris on someone. Maybe I was.
All this stuff from Amazon smells like chemicals. Really. It's overwhelming. Even the bath stuff has a chemical smell. I'm going through it trying to decide what I'll keep. The perfume samples are the worst.
I had a friend who was a real new age hippie chick. All natural. Very cute. Slowly, as the seventies became the eighties, she began to perm her hair and wear a little lipstick. She got married and moved away. I saw her one more time. She was wearing a ton of make up. She looked hard and mean. I'm not really blaming the makeup. I still think makeup can be fun. But there was something going on. Something not good. A kind of masking that was not intended to conceal. It was intended to communicate a notion of sophistication. A really loopy notion of sophistication.
Still. Maybe I'll put on some make up this week. Just for fun. A bit of Kabuki. If only I stand the smell. I don't know if there are more high pitched noises in my neighborhood than there usually are or if I suddenly have dog ears. There is an interesting conversation going on. There is a line in the post that I want to extrapolate for my own use.
The line hits me for reasons of my own having nothing to do with the post. It rings in my bones. I am living with a silence in which I am making many assumptions. None of them are delicate or beautiful. But I am staring at them as if they are. They are more true everyday. Once in awhile I think I might be wrong. But after another day of silence they are beautiful to me again. Beautiful and deadly. I use them the way a person uses cutting to feel a pain more real than the abstract pain created by the silence.
And perhaps it is in the fact that I take one line from someone's writing and use it for my own meaning that joins me back to the conversation. We all read each other through our own need and limitation. And our need may blind us to anything real about the people we love. And anything real about ourselves. I take the line and wander off into my own wood to stare into my own pond and marvel at lilies floating just above the murk of uncertainty.
The problem for the heart is always one of sorting. Some Joni for N.
Book TV had some panels from the Harlem Book Fair on yesterday. Lot's of people saying, "my book." I liked the conversations. And I tightened every time I heard the words, "my book."
There are books and books and books.
Following the on going conversation about self and ego and construct and assumption. (phew) There may be a need to define terms. But I'm reluctant to become too intellectual in this. I referred to a joke. I knew I'd read it on line but forgot where. It was at Whiskey River.
See now. I didn't even tell the joke quite right. I remembered Descartes being drunk and unable to think. Oddly, I've never been so drunk that I was unable to think. And believe me I've tried to get there. I wasn't thinking well. But. I was still thinking. Thinking. Thinking.
For me this conversation is more visceral. It's about the experience of letting go. Letting go isn't always passive. Often it's willful and violent.
When I first got back from India I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and I felt as if the top of my head had been cut off. And I felt like I was rushing back into my body. My head was doing a list of things. My name. My age. Where I was. The names of everything in the room. It was as if I had to relocate myself. Maybe this was some kind of astral something or other. I really don't know. But it left me with the sense that all these lists of things I use to describe who I am are, in a manner of speaking, invented. Does that mean they aren't real? Maybe. But I still wake up in them. So I need to work with them.
The other day someone contacted me after reading my piece about my political development. They found it doing searches for Jeremiah Mosher Sample, my great, great, great grandfather. The person was also a great, great great grandchild of Jeremiah. Isn't that cool? It hasn't changed my life. I'm not in line for a previously unknown fortune. The person didn't even mention if they liked the piece of writing or related to the ideas. I may never meet them and if I do we may not like each other. But I still think it's cool. It doesn't mean anything about who I am. And yet. It does. It was a reminder of a lineage. People who wake up everyday with a list of identity markers.
Somewhere I heard someone talking about what unemployment does to your sense of self. It is not a good thing. I am as thread bare as I've ever been in terms of identity markers. If we took a measure of my mental health it would not be good. But what would be the metric? The DSM? In which case I'm doomed.
When I tell people I've written a book they often say something like, "Oh.." Usually in the tone of someone talking to a child who has just made a drawing. "Oh. Isn't that nice?" Yeah. OK. There are books and books and books.
One day Baba called me into a room where he was sitting with Gor Devi. Gor Devi translated everything he said.
He asked me. " What do you do in America?" I said. "I cook." He asked. "What do you cook?" I said. " Eggs." He said. "We don't eat eggs here. What else do you cook?" I said. "I make soup." He said. " How do you make soup?" I mumbled something about garlic and onions. He said, "We don't eat garlic and onions here. What else?" Uh..... He said. "Nothing special." I crashed. It was true. Nothing special. I did nothing special. He said. " Only you are special." I soared.
Puffed up and strutting when I think I win. Down and shaken when I think I lose.
I think we make each other real. And yet I know we need to be real when we are alone. Sorting. Always sorting. And waking up with a list. A few days ago I scanned a big graphic into Word. When I went to close it I didn't get a do-you-want-to-save dialog box. I have Word open almost all day. I get these run time errors and the program crashes. When it crashes it does a save. I can't tell you how many times that last-thing-saved thing that Word does has saved my ass but once before it saved something that it couldn't reload. And it happened again with the graphic. When I tried to open Word the computer would lock up.
I have to say, it did seem like the gods were having some fun with me. Here I am. Wanna be a writer when I grow up. And I can't open Word. I haven't been doing much writing, other than what I do here, but now I can't even if I want to.
Because it had happened before I knew that there was a way to delete the "normal" file. I just couldn't remember how to find it or what it was called. I knew I had to call tech support.
I just would rather walk across glass.
So much so that I would probably have lived with it for days, my hand pressed to my forehead, saying, see, I can't write. Big sigh. But I got something in an e-mail that I wanted to read. Saved by a literary friend and a generous share of a story. So I dialed the number. An hour later ...
I was right. We deleted the file and it was all good. But first I had to listen to lots of muzac and reminders that if I have a virus tech support won't be able to help me and yadda yadda. I had to go though the first guy's efforts to fix things without finding the file. I had to go through all the same things with the second guy. Three guys in all. My sense is that they have a check list of solves that they have to go through. They were very nice. I did get mammed into a coma. But all's well that ends.
Heh.
An hour. An hour of my life. Sheesh. Not that I was doing anything that interesting. Not that I was in the middle of some great writing spurt.
I'm still caught up in N's self. His lovely self. And his thinking about self. And my self. Of course. As always. This morning I was trying to remember a Neruda poem. I Googled the only line I could remember and I found it. I love that!
Yes. Indeed.
And. One more thing. I listened to some Democratic convention stuff. Larry was at the Boston Social Forum. CSPAN was at a forum in honor of Paul Wellstone. A whole table full of progressive luminaries. It's going to be quite a week. Free speech zone? What the ... I've been working on another piece of writing about doing yoga fat for another yoga magazine. It seems like it's taking along time and I'm struggling. I called Ari for some feedback. As luck would have it she was on her way to water aerobics and was willing to come get me.
I love swimming.
And I love being with Ari. She made me laugh so hard my cheeks still hurt. And she gave me good feedback on the article.
When I came home I was tired and it was relatively late. I went to bed at 10:30, slept till 11:30, woke up wide awake and unable to sleep for the next two hours. It was a long night. I'd try to sleep. Give up and read for while. Try again. Read some more. When I finally did sleep I had crazy dreams. Now it's morning and I'm achy and fuzzy brained and I haven't even gotten my yogurt or my tea. Sigh. Why can't someone else get my yogurt and tea today?
I watched as much of the Democratic convention as I could bear. I'm so not feeling it. I heard Gloria Steinem on the radio talking passionately about voting and elections and voting for Kerry. I'm as passionate about voting and elections but I'm just not feeling it for Kerry. Which isn't to say that I won't vote for him. I will vote for him. I am making an effort to let go of my bad attitude. I'm sure I could do a better job if someone would just bring me some yoghurt and tea.
I also heard a women on CSPAN talking for a very long time about Eve Ensler and the Vagina Monologues. She didn't think much of Eve or her play. She was spending quite a long time to explain why in somewhat snotty terms. I didn't remember her name. Not because I'm loyal to Eve. I'm a little irritated with Eve. I heard Eve on KPFA the other day talking about her new play. She said something about obesity (her word choice) and physical abuse history. I get so tired of this connection. If every woman who was ever physically abused was fat there would be way more fat woman. And if being fat protects woman from abuse then let's start encouraging woman to be fat. It's tiresome. I'm not saying that there might not be psychological reasons for weight gain. Some times. But for me Eve was just joining the chorus of people who want me to pathologize the size of my ass. Sorry. I'm not going there. The woman, whose name I can't remember, went on to talk about how good things are for women these days. She must not know any women who work at Walmart.
And. Also. I liked the Vagina Monologues. And I like the activism that came out of it. And. Also. I thought the woman, whose name I can't remember was snotty.
So. Hours and hours of progressives talking about how we gotta get Kerry in office and then we have to pressure him to be progressive. OK. What ever.
I'll be getting my tea now. And my yoghurt. Nectarines in the yoghurt. And some honey. Some rye toast. Yes. That'll be good. OK then. I'm just achy and fuzzy brained. But it's Renee's birthday. A day to be joyous. A day to celebrate. I just need to have some tea first. I've mentioned before that I started watching this show because Ari liked it. It bugs the crap out of me most of the time but I become engaged with some of the women and their stories. Yesterday one of the women was on a date for the first time in years.
The guy said, "I like to make money." She said, "I like to spend money."
Ew Ew Ew Ew.
I swear it was like chalk on a blackboard for me to hear that.
George has these cool new buttons on his side bar and I was reminded about Orkut. I thought I might back in and look around. I don't know why I'm so shy. While I was in there I noticed all the communities for singles. EEK. I just don't relate to the idea of single. Or maybe I relate too well. Even if I were in a relationship I would be single. Ya know?
These days when I go out with friends the likelihood is that they are paying for what we do. It's not always true but it's often true. Everyone has more money than I do right now. I look forward to the day when I'm the one picking up the check.
I will say that the woman on the TV show and the guy were doing some great kissing. The kissing is good. I've Jessamyn is blogging the convention. She's not alone. I just like her best. To celebrate her birthday Renee and I went for dinner, desert and a movie. Ohmygawd. I forgot what a great movie it is. And I can't stop singing.
And dancing around. She's a smart kid. She knows how to celebrate life. I don't know how I got to sleep last night. That song was on instant replay. Over and over. My body was tapping and twitching along.
And. Right before I went to bed I read a few blogs and my brain kicked in with so so so very much. Response. Reaction. Need to talk. About. It all.
Awhile ago I noticed that I was getting a few hits from Eatonweb, specifically from the word sex. When you sign up with these things you fill out little boxes about what you're writing about. I never know what I'm going to be writing about. I remember at the time I wrote sex because I was in a mood. It seems to me that people don't think fat women are interested in sex. People, like Eve Ensler, imagine that fat women gained weight to protect themselves from having sex. After all fat women aren't sexually attractive.
Cough.
Sometimes I feel the need to take a swing at that idea. I feel the need to talk out loud about my own sexuality. But I don't really have much to say. It must have been a terrible disappointment to people who followed the link and saw nothing explicit. There was that one time ...
Yeah. I know. Not even that was too wild.
The last blog post I read was by Dale. His post in response to Kurt and Andi. So many blogs. So so so many. I liked Kurt's post so much I grabbed one of the lines for my epigraph. I love it when Kurt writes about longing.
There is a scene in the movie which opens with a blissed out looking and obviously naked Harold blowing bubbles. And then, the slow pulling back of the camera and there is the blissfully sleeping Maude. I liked the way the movie portrayed the physical relationship between the two. Very subtle. I remember when I was younger it was a hard scene to take in. And, frankly, even now, it is a hard scene to take in. In light of the posts I'd just read I thought about the seditious quality of that scene. I thought about the narrow (literally) band of women who are portrayed as sexual and the way in which so many women have their sexuality erased. Older women. Fat women. Women who like to think and talk about what they think. For everyone one of these women there are men who are attracted to them but it's thought of as a fetish. No one doubts the sexual attractiveness of (fill in the blank with any woman who is thin, probably blonde and has large breasts) but outside of that description desire is read as off beat.
I'm talking in generalizations. I know I am. I'm talking about heteros. I have a high regard for the way sexuality wraps around appearance in the lesbian community. I may even idealize it. I'm also saying that I had a hard time taking in the idea of the young mad, Harold and the eighty year old woman, Maude and ... sex. Even me. I had a hard time.
When I lived in New York I knew a woman who was fifty and was living with a man who was in his early thirties. They were absolutely charming together. It was clear that they were well met intellectually and emotionally. Why wouldn't that work for them in their physical life? She once told me that they were sometimes distracted in the middle of love making by an urgent need to talk about the French revolution or Russian literature. They did always get back to it. Charming! The relationship was spoken about with a roll of they eye and a cringe. Sadly, I thought.
All this talk about the nature of desire. The problematic nature of desire. In a comment on Dale's post Andi begins with a thought about freedom from agenda, ego, the pain of wanting and not getting.
Ah, yes.
The next to last post I read was N and Suzanne. Their posting leaves me longing to have them to my place for dinner. A very long dinner. Many courses. I just want listen to them talk. They began with the notion of metaphor in the creation of self and last night I thought about metaphor in the creation of relationship.
I wrote about having fallen. I was thinking last night about how much metaphor played a part in my descent. It was not about physicality. To this day I do not know what the person looks like. It was about the mention of a song, a book, a movie. A shared cultural treasure box. It was about the way in which erotism was articulated. It was about language and the way words that I read were words that I had been thinking moments before. It was about shared metaphor. The feeling was so resonant and clear. How could I not want to have more of it? And I felt it in my body.
That happens. A sentence so perfect and lush. You shiver. You draw in breath. You feel your ... self. And you think surely that moment of connection must have meaning. And it does. But. Whatever the platform of shared metaphor I perceived was, it wasn't even strong enough to sustain a friendship. Finding that to be true felt like having all that metaphoric structure burned beneath me. I felt murdered. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we are all murdered by our metaphors. Maybe we need our foundations to burn down every once in awhile.
Freedom from agenda, ego, the pain of wanting and not getting.
Yes. Well.
How can I hold the idea of Harold and Maude and sex? What makes that desire and engagement obvious? Wasn't it life? Harold thinks he prefers death until he meets someone who is fully alive. Even her death is a fully alive death. A choice. Isn't there something in all that? Something about the little death? That moment of annihilation? That moment when you forget metaphors and lists and individuality and are expanded into something ...
Oh. Gosh. I don't know.
Right in the middle of this post I got a call from the friend who calls to talk about relationship. It was unfortunate timing because I'm feeling more disabled than ever in that regard. And it knocked me off track. I feel sad suddenly. Like it's all too hard.
Last night I wanted to talk. About the seditious quality of a movie in which an eighty year old woman is so alive she draws in a lifeless young man. And in the end there is loss. But the loss is part of something. Something about life. Something important. And then. The dancing.
Or maybe I didn't really want to talk. Maybe I wanted ... and was not getting.
I'm going to power up the Cat Stevens. Someone. Please. Please. Come and take my television out of the house. Or else I'm going to commit Hari -Kerry.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
OK. See. This is what happens when you listen to too much of the convention. The only break I've was Rules and City Services. I never got the Cat Stevens going.
Right now they're all dancing to We Are Family and waving flags. I dunno. I just. Can't. Deal. Jessamyn says they're not zombies. They're just happy.
Dennis? Was he on Prozac?
I know. I know. I need to get a better attitude. I seem to have slept on my shoulder in a not good way and it hurts. That's making me cranky.
Margaret told me about this. And now I see that Rana is watching it. So. That's the plan. I think it will be good for me.
Oh I know. I could read a book. Or put on the Cat Stevens. Or take another shower.
Sigh.
I lack the will. It's been sucked out of me by alliteration, jingoism and hyperbole. But. I guess I need to get through Edwards. My favorite moment was when the vegan girl who can't bear the idea of eating animal flesh doesn't want to put on the Amish clothes and says, "I don't want to know how you guys feel."
Alrighty then.
It was interesting in many ways. The Amish kids are so moved by everything. And the city kids are so in their thing and they're mean. What does that suggest?
I slept funny on Tuesday and woke up with a knot in my shoulder. I just thought it would go away. I did take some Wobenzyme N. Mostly it hurt when I moved my arm. Last night it got much worse. I couldn't find a way to sleep. Finally I got it together to use some Arnica, which seemed to help. But I'm still sore. I can't raise my arm to get my hair into a ponytail.
Ow. Ow. Ow.
Jessamyn says the pen is empty. Although I think there has been some interesting moments.
The streets are busy today.
Hope is on the way? I think Edwards is charming and hard working. There are two Americas. He's right. I wonder how he justifies the pen? He didn't sound like he was going to end the war.
I didn't get Dennis with the we are one - we are one - thing. We are not. Unity is the wrong way to talk about this. It's the let's pretend nothings wrong way to think. Someone needs to talk about the fact that there are issues. We are not one. Kerry needs to reach out and talk about the fact that there are people who will be voting for him who are really voting against Bush. He needs to at least imply that he will be open to the progressive end of the party. If he did even a little token bit of reaching out I would feel more excited. I would know it was election rhetoric but it would be easier to bear than this unity thing. I don't know why we can't talk about electing Kerry and acknowledge that there are issues.
More Arnica. More Wobenzyme. And less DNC. Maybe the pain in my neck will go away. If I don't move. At all. It doesn't hurt.
I called Deb and we went to see The Mother based on M's recommendation and because George let me know that it was still in the theaters. It's a beautiful movie. The sex in the movie had me sliding off the seat.
It's sort of shocking how much a knot in your shoulder can impact every move you try to make. If everybody I've ever wanted to have sex with walked in the door right now saying - I want you now - all I'd be able to do is weep. Maybe because my body is about pain right now and my heart is about loss and my head is trying to find a reason to believe ...
Maybe because Kerry is talking about health care for all (remember when Clinton talked about health care for all?) and valuing families (but he's not saying anything about families with two mommies or two daddies) he's talking about smarter war and reminding us again and again and again that he was in a war...
And I am trying to find a reason to believe...
Maybe that's why I feel this ...
I dunno.
I dunno. A few months ago I said something to someone that hurt them. It might not have been what I said so much as how I said it. I was feeling extremely vulnerable in the relationship and I drew a line in an attempt protect myself from getting hurt. Looking back I can see how the idea that I could protect myself from hurt in that relationship was just wrong. Not because the person was hurtful but because I was hurt before I ever met the person. Knowing them just kicked open the wound that does not heal. Fisher Queen that I am.
I have spent many hours wishing I had not said anything at all. I have spent many hours imagining ways I could have said what I said in more controlled and gentile manner. In the end I paid a price.
But ya know ... I don't regret what I said.
I grew up in an environment of silencing. I grew up being afraid to say things. I can't live my life being afraid that I might not say something in just the right way. I'm not willing to do that. If my relationships can't survive my less than perfect moments then I'll have to live with that.
I'm thinking about it tonight for reasons not having to do with the relationship. I'm thinking about it because I'm thinking about the ways in which we silence one another. I'm not out of that fray. There are times when I can't hear things. I have my own limitations. I'm aware of it and I try to work on it. Because I want people to be able to hold my less than perfect times.
The thing is, that when it comes to things about identity, like race, class, weight, gender, sexual preference and on and on, I think we need to extend some extra ... uh ... generosity. I think we need to know that things are gonna get tense. It might not all be nice. It shouldn't need to be. I think some of those conversations ought to feel uncomfortable. And we ought to be able to hold the discomfort.
Suzanne says that sometimes I write oblique posts and she wonders if I'm talking about her. She know they aren't but she's pointing out to me that people, reading oblique writing might wonder if I mean them.
Oh well.
I'm not bragging when I say I don't regret the thing I said. Believe me. I have paid the price. There are prices to pay. I think the price doesn't always have to be so dear. When it is. It is. And again, when it comes to larger issues, I think we need to summon up all the capacity we can summon up.
We miss too much. OK. So.
Ow. Ow. Ow.
Sigh.
Dolley says pain changes who you are. Hmmm. I'm pretty snarly today. But. I can be pretty snarly. I'm also kind of dazed and distracted. Trying not to move. I feel so slow. And I've been feeling that way for about a year. But I do agree. The pain ramps it all up. I feel like someone has grabbed me by the shoulder and is holding me still. I have a bit more range of motion. But everything feels off now.
I think Dorothea is right.
Heh.
When I started writing this I had more to say. But it's gone.
Ow. Ow. Ow. |
