| March Most things about being older don't bother me. In terms of beauty I was never really in the beauty mix. I mean, you know, I had such a pretty face if only. I've never measured all that by the main stream proxy anyway.
I like the bit of gray hair I have. Achy joints are a drag but I feel like those aches and pains make me more attentive to my body. I was a party girl and a work horse. I asked a lot from my body. Now I'm taking care of it in ways that I haven't before. So that's good.
But my left thumb hurts. My left thumb is the thumb I use to push the yarn when I'm knitting. And I have been knitting for hours at a time. And now. My thumb hurts. It's not that bad and I'm just going to stop knitting for a day and it might have happened at any age but it feels like old thing. Like my body just can not deal with anything, any more.
It's funny though. When I first realized that I wasn't going to recover from too much debauchery as quickly as I once did I was bummed. Now it's about being able to work on a scarf. There is something about being older in that as well. But it just makes me laugh.
K3 went to see The Gate for Kobi's birthday. The woman with the blue coat and the stroller is Kara. Kara went to Berlin to see the Reichstag wrap.
The cultural event I want to attend for my birthday is The Ring when Atom Egoyan directs it. That won't be until 2006. So there's time.
Heh.
It's funny for me to think about 2006. It seems so far away and yet I know it will arrive. Just like the first of March arrived before I was ready for it. I guess I ought to have a vision. Huh? But I don't really. I have some wishes.
Deb saw I, Curmudgeon recently. Fran Lebowitz is in it and says something in response to a question about what Americans think. She says (quoting Deb, quoting Fran) Americans don't think, they wish. She goes onto say more but I laughed so hard when I her just this much. It's true, as a cultural generality. We wish.
Mostly I wish for the book to be published. And I guess I can do that myself. I guess.
Other wise . Well. I'm at a bit of a loss. I think I want to teach. I think I want to write more. I like where I live but I'm open to moving. I'm not really generating a vision form within.
The nice thing about having a ritual that you make up is that you can't do it wrong. I feel very funny while I'm doing it. Like I'm trying to solve a puzzle. It just is what it is. Me. Grabbing at little bits and pieces. Trying to see something clearly.
My book fairy (for whom I say thank you to the gods daily because every day I'm reading a book she gifted me) sent me the book and another. I read back and forth between the two. Interesting because one has political and economic history of knitting in which women knit to make a living and keep clothes on their families and the other has a history that talks about hand crafts done in convents. All of which is true. One is instructional and the other is a memoir.
When I was nineteen I stepped off a curb and into a truck. My foot went under the wheel and I ended up needing surgery and a long convalescence. A friend bought me a book on crochet, some yarn and a hook. I made a few afghans, one of which I worked on (or actually didn't work on) for more than ten years. I picked it up again last year during the week that my dad was dying. It was deeply comforting. And that's when I became interested in knitting.
After all that reading about knitting I wanted to do some. And my thumb was better. Is better. Although my hands do get stiff if I knit too much. It's all about balance. Everything. All the time. It seems to come back to balance.
The books are both more readable than the first two books I tried. And they are about the same size and have similar covers. Also interesting. Reading them in tandem felt like having conversations with both writers. I am at the baby step level of knitting. One stitch at a time.
The memoir about knitting as a spiritual practice ends with the woman unable to knit because of pains in her hands and wrists. It isn't clear whether she still knits a little bit. Her focus becomes the notion of spiritual path and the knitting as a metaphor is in service to that story. It is a nice read.
The chef who taught me how to make Hollandaise was very particular about how things got done. You need some kind of double boiler thing. We always had a hotel pan full of water on the stove in which we would poach eggs. I put egg yolks in a metal bowl and held it over the hot water while I whisked.
If you cook the yolks too fast you get scrambled eggs. You are trying to incorporate air faster than you cook the eggs. At a certain point the yolks are a pale yellow and then you slowly add clarified butter. You're trying to create an emulsion. Then you add lemon juice and cayenne pepper and salt and it's done. Lot of whisking. Lots. Over a steaming hot pan. And I would get cramps in my fore arm.
I worked in another restaurant where we made the sauce in a blender. We microwaved the butter so that it was clarified and very hot and added it very slowly. It works. But I always felt it wasn't good enough. Like I hadn't suffered enough for my craft.
And then there was the place where I pre fried orders of fried chicken. Sometimes as many as fifteen or twenty orders, three pieces to an order. I'd finish them in the oven when the order came in. All that frying is done with tongs, as are many other things in the kitchen. I sometimes called myself Tish tong hands. But, again, the chicken frying often gave me searing pains in my forearms.
And then there's chopping parsley.
After all that I go to college and spend hours at the keyboard and with the mouse and taking notes. My hand writing is illegible. My hands and arms have done some work, I'm tellin ya. And now I'm holding knitting needles. What can I be thinking?
It is about balance. And stretching. And resting. And ointment. Heh.
Funny. The body. We ask much of it.
There's been a bit of ire about this "love" letter expressed on a list serve I read. Before you follow the link I hafta say that I almost didn't write this post because I didn't want to link to the letter. It's just full of hate speech couched in what the culture likes to call self improvement. But I'm sitting here on a sunny (thank gawd) Saturday morning feeling OK, listening to KQED, as is my habit on Saturday mornings. They do these little segments called "with a perspective" and some guy is talking about global warming. You can listen to it here. (But I wouldn't recommend it) It's called: Global Heart Attack.
The guy is using the metaphor of a fat person who knows he shouldn't eat and should exercise more but he doesn't for a variety of reasons and one day he is having a heart attack and dies wishing he had. The speaker is going on and on about this fat guy. I begin to wonder if we're still talking about global warming or if we've begun to talk about the obesity epidemic. His points about American consumption habits in terms of natural resources (when he finally gets around to making them) are apt. Why he had to kill off a fat man in the process of making his points is beyond me.
I resent the way in which my individual health is aggregated with the health of every other fat person and used as a metaphor for death. Have thin and average people discovered some new thing that I don't know about? Have they all become masters of the physical universe and overcome death? Are only fat people going to die now?
Sandy Swartz has written another wonderful article (link via BFB) in which she mentions something Paul Ernsberger says. He says "the most morbidly obese woman has a longer life expectancy than "normal" weight men." I don't know how he comes to that conclusion and I am tempted to say that, assuming the writer of the love (cough) letter and the guy with a (cough) perspective are both "normal" weight guys, it may be that they cause their own death with the ill will they wish upon me and every other fat person.
But ya know. I don't really want to go there. I don't want to wish death on anyone.
If you talk about fat people in that one size fits all manner you have stopped seeing individual people with individual life stories. Is the fat person who exercises and eats healthy food going to die faster than the thin or average sized person who never exercises and eats crap? I always think about Jim Fix. He was a runner. He died of a heart attack.
Health is process. Do all the right things and what? Die a week later? OK. That's great. Unless you spend that week wishing you had eaten more cake. I mean really. Let's have some perspective.
And health can be negatively impacted by hostility. I feel negatively impacted by the love of a man who wants to tell me that I'm going to die because of all the food he imagines I eat. I feel negatively impacted by the tale of the inevitable death of one imaginary fat man. I think I'll do some yoga and take a walk to shake it off.
Of course. Ya know. I was going to that anyway.
I did wonder what Zora might think as I watched the movie last night. I thought it was a good enough film. I don't watch movies made from a book (especially a book I love) to compare. Reading a book and watching a movie are two different things. I remember when Mambo Kings came out. I loved the book. I loved the movie. I loved Oscar. The movie didn't hold the whole book. I'm not sure any movie can hold a book. But they can be good.
I didn't care that it was an Oprah production. There is a way in which Oprah now means something really good to some people and really bad to others. Neither is true. Oprah says she made the movie because it was such a great love story. I think it is a great story about love but it's also the story of a woman's life. The choices she makes. The times she compromises and the times she doesn't. It is such a good story.
I stumbled on a movie the other night and got sucked in by the acting and the camera work and then the story. I didn't realize it was based on short stories written by Arthur Miller's daughter. There were several moments in the film that I wondered about once I did know. I wondered how I would have read them. There is a moment when one of the women says something very cold. The actress is crying as the voice over (a male voice) says the cold thing. If I didn't see the tears I might have taken the words in a different way. I might have felt more negative judgement about the woman. Hard to say. I'll have to read the book.
Yesterday K3 came over to eat a lunch that I made for Kobi's birthday. It was great to see Jan. He's bigger. Hard to believe that it's been a year. I made a pizza with white bean and roasted garlic puree, panchetta and arugula on a spelt and cornmeal pizza crust. And pork loin rubbed with smoked paprika, spring onion and tangerine marmalade and mashed potatoes and parsnips with the tops of the spring onions. And I made chocolate short bread cookies, which we ate with coconut ice cream. All good. It was a lovely visit.
I've been weepy. And I'm not sure why. Not that there aren't a gazilion reasons. Still. I cry so easily and so often. When I was young I had a hard time crying. Not so much any more.
I gave Kobi the scarf, flawed as it is. It looks good on him. And now I'm working on something else. So. There ya have it.
It turns out I have a free preview of Showtime. So I was able to watch the first episode of Fat Actress. Of course just coz I could watch didn't mean I shoulda. I thought it might be as irritating as it is when the ad for Jenny Craig with Kirsti comes on and she entreats us to join her in pursuit of weight loss by eating fettuchini and chocolate cake. She says something like - "Hey, you're chubby too." - in a very hopped up trying too hard to be cute voice.
The show was just goofy. Too goofy to even be annoying. There is this very interesting thing going on in it though. The show is making fun of her weight and showing how fat hating Hollywood is but she is the star of the show. And she looks good. Although I do wonder why fat women are so often wearing lots of satin and lace and big flowing things like they're all off the cover of a romance novel. So the reaction shots to the size of her ass are insulting and dumb but in some ways it's the people reacting who seem dumb. It's not a show that I would rush to watch again but there is a way in which it's pointing out by exaggerating how exaggerated the whole thing is. Best possible outcome for me would be if she never really loses weight and still has the show. Better yet might be a show in which a fat actress gets dignified roles in interesting films. Ya know what I'm sayin?
I also got to see a little bit of Supersize Me about which I have mixed feelings. Eating fast food three times a day is bad for your health? Who woulda imagined that? Picture my eye roll. I'm as anti fast food as this guy is but he uses fat people to make his case. The case can be made on health and quality. There is a part of the film in which a man is getting gastric bypass surgery at which point I stopped watching. But before the surgery the man talks about how much soda he drinks. It boggles my mind.
The other day I read an interview of a woman who has written a book about kids and weight. It's really the same stuff we hear all the time. Too much fast food, soda in school, yadda yadda. And I agree with that part. Because fast food is crap. And soda is good every once in a while but not in gallon cups every day. Kids do need oppourtunities for physical activity. I agree. All kids. But.
So only fat kids and their families need a program? I'm just guessing that thin and average sized kids might need exercise too. So can we talk about it in those terms? Eating well prepared locally produced, seasonal food and getting some exercise is good for EVERYONE..
There was a kinda fun show from Penn and Teller about the false claims of the exercise and supplement industry. After all the fat bashing the irreverence made me laugh.
Other than Cameryn on The Practice fat women are only in media if they are wiling to be humiliated. It's slightly better for fat men. Slightly. There are more than a few sit coms in which a fat man has a "beautiful" wife. His weight is often a source of humor and humiliation but somehow he still has a job and someone who loves him. Fat women are alone. I know there is a show on which a young woman is supposed to be "plus sized" but I've seen her picture. She looks less than average sized to me.
Even if you aren't a TV watching person, think about how it might feel to never see anyone who looks like you in the media. People of color know how that feels. There is somewhat better representation for African Americans but Asian and Hispanic people are not seen. It just seems like we should be beyond all this. Diversity should be the default not the exception. And weight should be in that mix.
And ya know, Fat Actress is about fat woman allowing herself to be the joke. Pass the shoe polish. It's time to get the people laughing.
Last night, on the local news, there was a woman from NOW with criticism for Fat Actress. I was happy to see that. I don't always feel like the organized feminist community is as supportive as they might be of fat politics. I also wish the organization which purports to be our civil rights organization might have been out there with some press releases.
Alley is saying two things at once. She thinks people should be happy with themselves the way they are and she's not sure she will feel better when she is thinner BUT she is going to work to get thinner. That kind of double speak always raises my hackles. It's like you don't care if I'm fat but would you want me to marry into your family? Alley is quick to say that she is NOT a fat advocate.
The women who wrote the memoir that had me all wound up said exactly the same thing. I'm not a fat advocate. Having heard that out of the mouths of two fat women I am now wondering why the need to distance oneself from advocacy. What does it mean to be a fat advocate? Does it mean to advocate being fat? Alley says it isn't fair that fat men can get acting jobs. The women who wrote the book doesn't want thin people to be disgusted by her. But they don't want to advocate.
I am a fat advocate. What that means to me is that fat people shouldn't be denied jobs, housing, adequate medical care, harassment free environments, particularly harassment free work environments, representation in popular culture and, and, and.
Paul linked to one review of the show that doesn't like the show and ends with the reminder that obesity is an epidemic. (cough) And as always, I am struck by the language. Epidemic makes it seem like you can catch being fat. There is some idea of a fat germ. So maybe there is some truth to that. Some. Maybe. Being fat begins with genetics. How much a person eats and exercises has some part in how fat they are but it's not a simple thing to access. Many fat people eat far less than what is imagined. Many fat people exercise regularly. And it isn't a useful metric. It only serves the diet industry. I might agree that there are more fat people than there ever have been. Might. I just don't think it's one of the signs of the apocalypse.
I thought I'd said all I had to say about the show yesterday. I fell like I'm saying the same thing over and over. But I'm hearing the same thing over and over. The same old thing. And I wonder when it's going to turn around.
In my soap opera there are two out of six women who don't talk about feeling fat. And for all of then being fat means being ugly and uncomfortable with their bodies. It just makes me wanna scream and yell. All day. Every day.
I don't know why. I just can't stop singing it.
If you could gently replace her distorted mirror with your eyes so she could finally see herself and she from you take your false measuring tape, the world might unravel in one common embrace: death and his diminutives, the clock and the seasons now mute and powerless to count the ways of lovers lost in the beating heart of spring.
In my dreams I am problem solving. I don't want to wake up until I've finished. But I never do finish.
Yesterday I turned on CNN and there were two women in front of monitors reading from blogs. It's probably not a new thing. I just haven't been watching CNN. How mo-fessional we are.
It seems like I hear about bloggin all the time now. Warnings about bloggers losing their jobs sound like culture of fear hype. Although, it has happened.
I was happy to see Laughing Knees back with a new look. I went to post a comment and found that I needed to register. No big deal. I clicked to send and got some stuff that made it seem as if it hadn't worked. So I clicked again and got a message that I could only post a new comment every 15 seconds and to "slow down cowboy." I laughed. Out loud. But hey. I'm a cowGIRL.. My comment showed up with some weird tag in one of the sentences that I didn't put there.
George also has a register to comment thing. You have to register to comment at BFB. Thinking back on the comment spam issues Maria suffered the register system seems like a good idea. Mo-fessional, I'm tellin ya.
One of my favorite public officials is blogging. Oh my!
In ten days I will have been doing this for four years. Raggedy and maladroit. Solipsistic. Fuzzy headed. But I make no claims on mo-fessionalism. Just a need to form words out loud.
When I woke up this morning you were on my mind.
No.No. That's not what I was gonna write. That was just another lyric taking over. Let me start over.
When I woke up this morning I had a zit right on the top of my nose. What is that about? I guess I thought I'd be done with all that once puberty was over.
My body and I have not been getting along this week. Not at all. Every other night I can't sleep. Everything I eat gives me a stomach ache. My joints hurt and it isn't raining. I dunno. Could be stress. Could be hormones. Maybe I caught a bug.
And just last week thing were going so well. I was doing yoga and taking walks and eating well. After so much good self care it seems like things shouldn't be this out of whack. Unless it's a bug. Or hormones. I thought I'd take one of those over the counter menopause tests but they're twenty bucks. I don't need to know. I mean, it's likely that I am in some stage of menopause. So. What ever. I already take some herbs.
But a zit? Right in the middle of my nose? Good thing it's not prom night.
Heh.
How many boggers does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one but there will be six or seven others talking about how their light bulb changing system is better.
Cris started his blog and now everyone talking about how he should use Blogger or MT or what ever. Can we call what Cris is doing a blog? Or is it more like a few columns? I don't really care what we call it. If Cris is doing it everyone is gonna pick at it and few are gonna talk about what he's actually writing. It's just the way we ignore issues.
I am fussy.
I don't want to play with my dolls. The bugs in the game bug me too much. I had this whole thing about having houses in which generations of a family grow up. But the older the house the buggier it is. There's a new expansion pack in which the teens can go to college. I might get it some day. I'll play my current teens up to the time when they can go and then get the game. I guess. That will mean hours of playing and I'm not really playing at all right now.
There's been stuff in the news about how people buy houses, fix them up and sell them. I have this romantic idea about buying the house in which you live for your whole life. Not even my Sims do that. We live in a restless world. We change jobs, partners, homes, identities. I guess I can't be too critical. I've done my share of all that.
I'm all over the place. But really. One day this week I woke up, turned on the radio to hear that the Dems are supporting anti choice candidates for the upcoming election and Kristina sent me e-mail about Russell Crowe. It was too much for me so early in the morning.
And when I woke up this morning you WERE on my mind. And you were on my miiiiiiiiiinnnnnnd. I got trouble. Whoa-u-oh. I got worries.
OK. I'll stop now.
I had a tornado dream last night. I had lots of them for awhile and then they stopped. I'm always safe in the dream but it is scary. Last night dream was long and baroque. There was a huge statue made up of smaller lawn statues in the middle of Market street. I was on a bus and the bus driver didn't stop where she was supposed to. I was going to a place where I could get part time work. But I went to the wrong place and then I ended up in this house with these very nice people who I didn't know. And then the tornado came. There were more than one and we could watch them from the windows. They were right beside the window but the window didn't blow in.
I tend not to think about symbolism as much as I think about how I felt in the dream. I was afraid but not terribly. I had a feeling that I was going to be OK. Still. It's hard to wake up from dreams like that. It's like leaving in the middle of a movie.
For a while now Kathryn has a had a group of links to literacy and reading sites on her side bar. I've been working my way through them. My favorite is:
Good idea.
I was startled by how many there were. I was reminded of them again while checking out the staff profiles for the SFist, one of whom is the art director for Literacy Works. Oddly enough, I wondered if literacy was such a big problem. You would think I know it is.
I remembered a train trip I took years ago. There were two kids traveling with their mom sitting across the aisle. Mom and one kid fell asleep and the other was looking bored and nervous. He began to ask me questions. There was a Amtrak magazine with a kids page and I asked him if he wanted to read it with me. Some of the details of this story may be warped in memory. I'm not sure how old the kids was but I think he was seven or eight. And it was clear that he couldn't read. We sat there working on sounding out words. His sister woke up and joined us. I remember being shocked and sad that these kids didn't have reading. Reading with kids is so fun. Every kid I know has books. When I was young reading was comfort.
When K3 came over I had a little book to read with Jan at the ready. It was in Spanish and English. It was about a cat. Each page had something to touch: fuzzy cat fur, scratchy cat tongue. When he first came he didn't remember me. So he and his mom sat with me and looked at the book. I went into the kitchen to do something and suddenly he was there at the door with the book in his hand and a big smile. He's too young to get the reading part but not too young to love the feel of a book in your hand. Not to young to get the intimacy of spending time together with a book. And I know he sees his parents reading. So he will get the idea of reading as a part of life.
On the literacy works site there some scary numbers.
I was reminded about all this again this weekend while listening to Bernie Sanders talk about his Freedom to Read Protection Act.
When I was in school I was startled by the number of fellow students who didn't read. When I was getting a BA it was shocking but it was more than shocking in my MFA program. How do you write if you don't love to read? But. I guess. There are writers who don't love to read.
It's just so important. So central to my own sense of well being. If too many days go by with no reading I become dull. I don't mean externally but internally. I need the feel of words. Need it like I need water and air.
The nice thing about a made up ritual is that you can't do it wrong and if you don't do it you don't need to feel too bad about not having done it. My ritual reminds me of the tyranny of other rituals I've done in the past. I didn't do it once last week. I didn't feel well all week so it just fell away. Maybe I shoulda pushed but I didn't have it in me to push.
This morning I felt better. Not great. But better. It wasn't a struggle to get out of bed. Breakfast seems to be sitting well, so far. And I did my ritual.
It's unlikely that I'll ever do it first thing in the morning. I like my morning radio/blog/breakfast ritual too much. But when that's all done I take a shower, get dressed and then I'm ready. I don't know why I fill a water cup, except I always liked that when I had my alter. So I empty the old water into my plant.
Now. If you've been reading me for awhile you may remember that I have one plant. Once a year it drops leaves and one year it dropped all of them. So it was just this stick in a pot and I thought about tossing it. I didn't and it came back with more leaves than ever before. It has one spot in the apartment that it likes and if I move it, it get very fussy and starts to drop leaves. But it isn't too fussy about how often I water it. And I can be very bad about that. Now it gets this cup of water from the ritual. I like that.
Then I fill the water cup, light a candle and some incense, put on a disc, (sometimes) put a piece of fruit next to the candle and do some yoga. I drink a glass of water before and after and I eat the fruit later in the day. I added the music because it slows me down and if I don't feel like I'm going to be able to go slow I my not have anything on, or I may listen to a meeting, or my soap, or nothing. Today I had the disc on.
The other thing that disc does is to evoke reverence. I'm not sure what the ritual is about, except that I know I need to formalize my relationship to possibility and awe. It remains as it began. A bit flailing. A bit wistful. I just don't want it to be rote.
Twice a day at the shram we would gather up and sing. Baba came in and a line formed of people wanting to spend a few minutes with him. When we got right in front of him, we would pranam, which is to lay prostrate. Some would touch his feet. Last night I tried to remember if I ever touched his feet. I can't remember. I think I was too shy. Westerners often objected to the idea of acting in a submissive manner before anyone. I found it hard not to fall and touch the feet of everyone I met. Not because I felt lesser. Because I was so drunk with love.
When I got back I would sit across from people in cafes and listen while they talked about the things we all talk about. Jobs. Love interests. Hopes. Fears. But I was blissed out. I listened but nothing seemed important. In a way. The only thing that was important was the love that I felt for the person. It was a happy way to be. But it wasn't whole.
Still, that time anchored something in me. Some sense of eternality. Some sense of mystery. Some awareness of the way the details and story lines matter and the way they don't matter. I got a kind of strength. Sometimes I think people imagine that a time like that will mean that you never again feel sad, or angry, or lost, or frightened. I thought that before I went.
I'm not sure why I'm thinking about right now. I am musing a lot about my sense of eternality and mystery. What remains useful? Substantive? Even vital? I watched people get stuck in the bliss. I watched people lose the ability to interact with people, unless the people used a handful of buzz phrases. It didn't seem ... whole. Substantive. Vital.
So I fumble through my made up ritual. Sorting. Parsing. Wondering. Because I need a source of strength. And a way to focus my intention. Because I drift in ambiguity. I resist. Not even knowing what it is I am resisting. Or why. And I don't get things done.
OK. So. Hmmm.
On Sunday I jumped to something from Wood_s Lot. The person was riffing off of something Dale said. (Such an instigator that Dale.) Earlier I'd read something from Jeff. I had that feeling I often get when I read people who are smarter than I am. Well It really isn't about being smarter. But it is about having more muscle tone when it comes to thinking about things, writing about things, in a social theory (or somthin) kind of a way. I feel like I want to join in but I'm not sure what to say, or how to say it. Because I'm reading it all and adding it together in a way that may (or may not) have anything to do with what they're writing. And then this morning I read K.
So. I'm just gonna stammer.
It's about writing, writing as identity, writing as one side of a conversation, writing as practice and so, for me, it all begins to poke at my ... uh ...issues. Working backwards. Sort of.
Well. I'm of more than one mind. But. Still working backwards.
Exactly. But.
Nobody? I mean. I kinda try to. Sort of. And I can think of others. I struggled out loud with a heart break last year. I write about disorienting dreams and sore thumbs and what I made for dinner all because I am writing toward the center of my experience. It probably is of little interest, more often than not. Unless you have become interested in me. Or unless you had a tornado dream yourself. Or had the same song stuck in your head. Or been depressed and worked your way out of it and fell back into it and worked your way out of it.
I'm not writing as an expert. I'm not trying to find the answer. Well. sometimes I am but mostly I'm just writing. Sometimes I lay in bed wondering what to write about when my days has been filled job searches, eating, sleeping, reading, knitting, watching something on TV, listening to something on the radio, yadda yadda. I wonder about and I zero in on the one thing that forms into a thing to say. I marvel that it is read by anyone. Ever. But I know why. I know because I read other people's blogs. What some call quotidian I call sedition. Sedition to the idea that intellectual rigor isn't represented in the musings of a daily life.
Working still backwards but closer to today.
Yeah. Mutant offshoot. Yeah. But then.
And here's where the Jeff post came back to me
When I read that I thought about the time when I first noticed that there were conversations going on between blogs. I gave myself finger cramps trying to keep up and get in on it all. But there were problems. I didn't have comments. I didn't have perma links. I wasn't technologically "in it." I was just trying to write in public.
Think about that. It seems so easy once you're in it but the technological stuff is a barrier.
I think I was more cordial then, in a way. I'd write something in a riff off something someone else wrote and I'd get no response. No one linked back to what I said. And then I got comments. And then Dorothea helped me with perma links. And then and then and then.
There have been a few "conversations" that have occurred in my comment boxes. Mostly around fat politics. But the more I wanted that, the more I courted that, the more my writing felt ...oh...strained. I guess. Just off. But I did want the contact and affirmation of the reader/commenter. So. But. How to write in a manner that didn't beg? Because.
Sigh.
I don't check my stats quite as often as I used to but I do notice that I am still a rat. I hate that I notice. I wish I didn't. I REALLY don't want to start thinking about why. I hate what happens to my writing when I think about all that.
And there is a yucky now-you-see-me now-you-don't quality to the blog world. I've made and lost friends. More than a few times. Sometimes it's about disagreement and sometimes it's about misunderstanding and sometimes I don't get to know what it's about because I'm not getting answers to my questions. And sometimes, as Jeff said, I get busy, or preoccupied and don't read someone and miss stuff. And they miss stuff from me for the same reasons.
Text is limited. I can type myself into finger cramps and not reach someone the way I can reach them if I can just look them in the eyes. If you have to see me at work, or in the neighborhood you might find a way to work through stuff with me. Or not. Obviously this isn't always true. But in the blog relationship you can just stop reading someone. Stop leaving comments. Stop writing e-mail. You can slip in and out of the door and maybe it isn't noticed. But maybe it is.
But now I'm closer to today. When it all added up to this post. This ramble. Now I'm to what Dale said.
And what K said.
Am I a writer? It's just another question that makes me squirm. And it should. Because in the time I've used to write this I could have finished that piece I started a month ago, or written a query letter, or searched for placed to submit writing. But I wanted to have a conversation. A conversation with a few bloggers, three of which I doubt have ever read me and two of which don't read me often and only two of which I feel comfortable enough to leave them a comment, or send them an e-mail.
HA !
What a thing. What a crazy thing.
I'm going to go do the dishes now.
Last year Jeane sent me a couple of books. I looked through them, put them in the pile of to be read soon and at some point moved them to the pile of to be read someday. Yesterday I thought I'd add reading from the practicing book as a part of my ritual.
I get tense when I read books like this. There was a time in my life when books like this were the mainstay of my reading. And when I say books like this I mean books that talk about metaphysics, meditating, a way to view the world with spiritual intent. These days I think that if religion is the opiate of the masses, these kinds of books are the crack of the privileged. It's one thing to get up out of your warm bed, eat your scrambled eggs and scone and drink your tea, take a shower with your favorite shower gel, dress in comfortable clothing, light a votive and a stick of your favorite incense, and read about embracing the now for a book you received as a gift from a loving friend. But how useful is it in the world? How useful would it be in Darfur? So I get tense because I am reminded of my privilege and wonder how to use the practice in a way that doesn't lull me into somnambulism.
And I get tense when people talk about thinking and thought in a way that makes thinking and thought sound like a bad habit and not a useful and important part of being alive. But. Then again. Thinking and thought can be habitual, noisy and just pointless. So it isn't so much about not thinking as it is about thinking well.
And I do need more intentional silence. I need to turn off the TV and the radio. I need to shush the fear and worry and what-if thinking. I need to experience myself in time. Or. In other words. Be here now.
Heh.
So I pushed through the tension and made an effort to read with an open heart. And I thought about how much I did learn as a result of my restless spiritual wandering, psychoanalytic tendencies and books just like this. The last sentence in the first chapter says to take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. Good thing to read before you are about to do yoga.
When I do yoga I sometimes am able to find silence.
Is silence possible?
The other day I was admiring the Listening To on Veronica's page. When I tried to keep an LJ I loved the Listening To part. I put on music in anticipation of writing there. It wouldn't be hard to add Listening To here. But it would be telling. At this time of day I'm usually listening to my soap. This week they are in reruns so I'm listening to Against the Grain. Not much music at this time of day when I tend to write.
When I'm done writing I will do my ritual and some yoga and I may put the disc on, or not. If I don't I will hear the sound of the kids playing in the yard of the middle school across the street until the buzzer sounds calling them to class, the sound of a bus going up the hill, the sound of the guy doing some work in the back of the building, the sound of the window and wall cracking in response to the increased heat from the sun at this time of day, the whirr of my hard drive.
Now. I know enough about mediation to know that I can incorporate all of these sounds into my experience. They are, after all, a part of the now. I also know that when I am concentrating these sounds are all part of a background of which I am barely aware. If my attention were truly, deeply inner I might not notice any of it. We'll see how it goes today.
It's already late. I got on the phone for awhile and now it's past noon and still no ritual. Good thing I made it up. Good thing there are no rules. It feels late. I feel the pressure to get to the store and get back and ... why? Uh. Not so sure.
Take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. My body continues to mess with me. I feel better but now I have a sinus thing going on, which is making my head hurt. Who was it that used to say it's always something? But I am reminded of Barry Stevens who I read when I was still a teenager. Barry talked a lot about feeling the aches and pains of the body and moving into a deeper awareness with them. Not resisting or ignoring. Being in them. Now.
There is power in holding these ideas. I do know that. After I grouse about my privilege (which you really need a lot of privilege to do) I am grateful. Grateful for my friend. Grateful for the time to do the ritual. Grateful for all candle and the incense and the disc and the guy in the back of the building with the rake, grateful for running water and the apple I will eat when I'm done. Grateful for you.
Post Script at 1:30 PM.
Just as I sat down to the sitting part of my yoga there was a moment of complete external silence. And then all of the noises that I mentioned occured, plus a plane over head, plus someone taking to a neighbor in the hall, plus the creak of the chair and the floor boards. And I did have some aches in my back and my knees and my arms. And each thing became a point of attention. My mind wandered about and was pulled back by all these things.
Sometimes it works.
I watched a bit of In Cold Blood yesterday. Which, I must say, is ironic. I've read the book three times. Of all the books I want to read and reread I would never have picked this one.
The first time I read it was when I was visiting my dad on his ranch and his wife had been reading it. I had not much to do and nothing else to read so I read it. Out there on the ranch. In the middle of no where. It was just all fear and loathing. The second time I read it was because I was assigned to read it in a class on literary journalism when I was getting my BA.. And I was assigned it again in a class for my MFA. So. Three times.
It is a great book. I'm glad I read it. I'm glad I got to do the kind of deep reading that three reads gives you. But that's just about the writing.
I'm pretty sure that I've also seen the movie before. I don't know why it caught my attention yesterday. It is a story that reads (for me) as anti death penalty. I've read that Capote's identification with, or maybe love of Perry caused the sympathetic portrait drawn of Perry in the book. But it isn't just sympathy for a man who had a life of bad faith and luck that does it for me. It the description of the impact on the whole community. The impact of the murders and the impact of the hanging of the murderers. By the end of the book it's just all too sad.
For me it's a wonder that this family and these two men wander into my life again and again. I've looked at the story for the mastery in the writing but the story has now become a reoccurring dream. I really don't know why I watched yesterday. I'm not a true crime kinda girl. I guess was drawn into the familiarity. Wondering if it would feel the same to me.
Yesterday's reading from the practice book was about the origins of fear. The antidote for which, at least in my life yesterday, was gratitude. And it held up through the day. Through a sad story and the news and the change from sunny to cloudy in the sky. Which, I think, is the reason to have a ritual and a practice. Anchoring a sense of the mystery and an experience of being. And. Like I said. Sometimes it works.
Years ago I lived in a new age retreat center in northern California. One day I took some mushrooms with the intention to meditate on a picture of Baba. I was having some wooozoooom fun until I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom.
The bathroom was down the hall and I didn't want to see anyone. Even people walking past my door seemed to pull too hard on my awareness. There weren't really that many people around but everything was amplified and exaggerated. You may, or may not know what I mean.
Heh.
So I'd go back into the wooozoooom and then I'd feel the need and hear the noise of others and at a certain point it just became ridiculous. I had a body. I needed to go to the bathroom. That was the big mystic truth of my mediation.
I don't remember the sequence of things but at some point I went down stairs and sat on the porch. There was a big tree. I could see the tree as particles. A gazillion points. Moving. And I could see the tree as wave. Long strands, deeply rooted, extended into the sky, connected and rocking gently in the wind. The rhythm of that rocking was soothing.
Some years later I saw the movie Phenomenon in which something similar happens with the main character. He's all wound up and then he looks up at a tree and sees the branches gently rocking and calms down.
Last night as I was trying to go to sleep a car engine revved up and then just sat there sending out its mechanical hum. It wasn't that loud. It's the kind of noise I tune out all the time. But I could feel my body pulsing with the sound. I noticed it for awhile and then turned over and lost track of it. I didn't notice when it stopped.
I lean forward. Slightly. When I walk. When I sit. When I stand. I think it's because I lead with my head but after years of doing it my knees and back hurt when I try to lean back. I've made efforts for years to correct this. After I do yoga and if I do yoga every day I am straighter. But. Habits. You know. All I need to do is lean back and take a breath and I feel more ... uh ... present.
Funny. In the practice book he posed the question - what problem do you have right this minute? I read it the other night in bed and thought - I can't go to sleep. And then I laughed. Why was I in bed if I couldn't sleep? I'm not that good at sleeping but I know I need to get some sleep. I spend a certain amount of time tossing around. It's rare that I just lay down and go to sleep. Even last night when I reluctantly accepted that I was too tired to wait for Now and went to bed I didn't go to sleep for awhile.
Funnier. But not really. A few weeks ago I realized that I had no plan. I had no imagined future. Now, that might be good in terms of a be here now way of being in the world but right now it feels like a loss of will and intention. And it feels like fear. Not fear of what might happen. Fear of what might not happen. Which I suppose aren't that different.
Sometimes what comes from Netflix comes in odd clusters. I toss things into the queue with no thought about what will come when. So when I received What the Bleep Do We Know and The Lost Boys of Sudan at the same time and so soon after my hand wringing post I thought the gods might be trying to tell me something.
Both films are interesting. What the Bleep has a loopy little narrative running through it featuring Marlee Matlin, in which there is some fat hating imagery. It is in service to a good point but still. Why does the point need to be made using size? Most of the film is geeky science people talking about quantum physics. I could listen to geeky science people talking about quantum physics for hours. The narrative with Marlee is useful. And The Lost Boys is heart wrenching and inspiring. The films worked together for me given the balance I've been trying to find.
There is a chicken and the egg quality to the quantum conclusion of how we create out reality. What I'm always left with is the idea that I need to stay awake. Pay attention. Be willing to be surprised.
I lead with my head because I'm trying to understand it all. And I mean IT ALL. But some of it all can't be understood with the head. Not in and of itself.
We've been in a war and an occupation for two years today. Every day the news has something that makes me wanna run screaming from the planet. And yet ...
In What the Bleep one of the stories is about a group of 4000 people coming to NYC (or was it DC? ) with the intention to meditate en masse and observe the impact on crime in the city. Crime went down by twenty percent. And there was information about this experiment with water crystals.
So today as I light my candle and change the water in the cup and do standing mountain pose I will be in solidarity with many other minds.
Listening to: Larry This is the first day of the forth year of this blog. Does that mean I'm four? Or three? I can never figure that out.
I wanted to do a new design. When I go to a new blog I look at the side bar. I look through the blog roll and at all the buttons. One of the reasons I never got hooked on Bloglines is because I like that moment when I see the "face" of the blog. But if I've been reading someone for awhile I'm really looking for the posts. There is a way in which the stuff becomes like too many bumper stickers. So I put all the stuff at the bottom. Then you get the post up front and can choose to check everything else out. Better. Maybe. On the other hand, if you don't scroll down you might not see something I want you to see. I dunno. I like the less cluttered look. For now. We'll see.
I made the banner from a link I got from Scribbling Women. I'm trying to decide if I need to make a note of that on the page that will always be there. Lest people think I can take photos. I cannot. I liked the one she made with book covers but I couldn't get it to work.
The big question is whether to put more than one post on the main page. I know there are people who check in everyday and others who check in now and then. I think it's clear that if you click on the month you go to the whole month, so you can read old posts there. I think it's clear. It's clear. Isn't it clear? I do have an archive button, which links here. But I'm not sure that's clear.
I thought about adding a news feed. And I kinda wish there was an All Consuming thing for music. Although, then you could see how long I listen to the same five discs.
And the epigraph (Which really isn't above the writing anymore so what do I call it now? A ladogragh? ) I grabbed from K because it seemed like the perfect prayer.
Anyway.
So. First post of the forth year. Hmmm. What do I have to say?
I could complain about how the nightly news down played the protests. But. We knew that was going to happen.
I've been meaning to say something here that could be my living will. Ya know. Like. If I'm in the hospital and living only because of feeding tubes and wires, PULL THE PLUG. I have had this conversation with people in my life who need to know. I am appalled by the actions of the Congress and the president yesterday. I do value life. My life. Other lives. But what is life? If she could communicate in any way I might feel differently. Of course if she could communicate we wouldn't be hearing about it. And why do I feel like the same people who wanna keep this women in this state of neither here nor there are the same people who support the death penalty and the war? Oh wait! They are the same people.
Last Sunday Deb came over to watch Bent. (I'm about to ruin the ending so if you don't want to know avert your eyes!) After much affirmation about how he was going to survive the main character chooses his own death. And it is a choice that is about love and agency and will and honor. (So maybe I didn't ruin the end coz you hafta watch to get all that.) The movie has stayed in my mind all week. It's so well written. And the music fits it so well. And there are these ideas about love and passion and how we connect, all in the woeful environment that was the camps.
I don't have a belief about what happens when we die. I'm gonna wait and be surprised. It does seem logical to me that something about who we are in these bodies is eternal. I hope it isn't our greed, our hatred, our ignorance.
The quantum physics/metaphysical intersection talks about the observer as the source of creation and the oneness of all things. So I am one with those people who aggravate me so. Not in an abstract way but in terms of the way cells work, the way air and water work. And I am co-creating with all of those parts of me. Caroline has a great way of saying this. The (fill in the blank with the name of someone you loathe) part of myself is (fill in the blank with something you loathe about the person you loathe).
And so?
The observer/creator part of ourselves is the part I think might be eternal. The thing about being a part of something larger is that it's difficult to imagine the whole of the thing. And it all gets a bit zoomy. And who really knows?
Maybe we could someday choose not to die but to just change the form in which the part of the whole we call us is. (Huh?) But if we aren't there, then we're going to die. Some day. Some how. And if we are going to die, then it's part of life. So how do we feel about that moment? Is the body the most important part of our existence?
And now I have to write a living will so that some jamoke with an idea of life that they think is more righteous than mine won't use me to act out a (cough) more moral keep me alive no matter what and despite the cost (money and emotion) purpose. My body is not here to serve your ideas of what is right. Even if I am one with you in some big how energy works kind of way.
Zoomy, I'm tellin ya.
I've been meaning to write about how it's been rainy and a good time for the oven to be on all day. I baked a butternut squash for soup and made some blueberry/pecans scones and roasted fingerlings. I like putting fingerlings (when they're hot) in a salad of mixed greens. I like the hot/cold crispy/smooshy combo.
First day of spring. First post of the forth year. It's been harder lately. And I keep wanting to do it. I keep wondering why. And I keep doing it. My first post was about problems with design and politics and what I was eating. Consistency. More or less.
March 21 2005 3:30 PM I posted this morning. I added to it later in the morning. Something I did at that point messed things up. Big. I've been working on it all afternoon. Adding stuff. Taking it out. Whatever was wrong seems to have been in the second half of the post. So I took it out and I'm not sure if I will rewrite it for tomorrow, or what. Right now I'm just really frustrated. But things are back to ...uh...normal. Except the perma link means nothing right now. I'm still working on that. March 21 2005 10:02 AM I'm glad the page loads faster. I think that might be because all the slow stuff is at the bottom. It may still be loading long after you finish reading the post.
Heh.
I thought about the possibility that the link to old entries might not be as clear as I think it is so I took the link off of the month, added a link to yesterday (at the bottom of the post) (which takes you to the page of the whole month) and made a permalink link. It seems graceless. I'm still trying to think of a better way to do it and I'm open to suggestions and it might be much ado about not much. I also changed the way my YAACS displays. Respond always seemed a bit strident.
I got the Make Poverty History banner from Cyndi.
Speaking about much ado, I'm trying SO hard not to get in on the recent where are all the women bloggers thing. Because. Sigh. Oh. Just because. The blog world is HUGE. There are clusters of bloggers who have never read me and who I have never read and we don't link each other and it's really OK. I wish I were more like Cleis. I wish I weren't aware of who links to me and how many people stop by and on and on.
It's so interesting. If you asked me if I were competitive I would say no but I think I am. More than I care to admit. But when I find myself getting too wound up, I back away. And take a breath. And settle down.
I will say this much. No body is gonna talk me into taking down my blogroll. I USE my blog roll. I guess there are other ways to keep a list of who I want to read but I use my blog roll. I rarely get through it but it's there for my use. When I see myself on someone else's roll I feel good. When I see that I've been taken off someone's roll I feel sad. And then? And then nothin. Life. Goes. On.
When I started blogging I didn't realize that I was going to be part of a community. I didn't really know what I was getting into. I feel some sense of ... oh ... I dunno. Responsibility? So I link to other people now and then and I have a blog roll. My big post was about the complexity of participating in this community. It is complex.
How is taking down a blog roll going to advance the cause of people who aren't linked up? It's going to further isolate people who are writing things that may not be writing toward a politic, or technology, or what ever. I sometimes go through other people's blog roll to meet new people.
Amp does this thing periodically in which he links a few people at a time in a post. May be I should do that. (Speaking of Amp, check out this cartoon.) (Speaking of Amp again, in the new design I seem to have disappeared from the blog roll. Maybe I'm not topical enough. I'm trying to think that it might have just been a space out. But since Barry is one of my blog crushes I am feeling a little pouty about it. Do I need to launch a topic campaign? )
Maybe instead of talking about where are all the women we might talk about is the personal political? Is this more of a journal than a blog? Perhaps. And is my life political? I hope it is. One of the most political things on the web is Dru's To Do list. It's the details of the life of a single mother trying to care for her kids, her home, make a living and still have time for herself. Where are all the women bloggers? They're there writing about their lives and only a culture that values rhetoric above lived life doesn't see them.
And, ya know, even that's a generalization. Women can pundit-off as well as any man. And they do. Dru does. Often. One of the marvels of the blog world is that I spend some time wondering if Dru will get the fridge cleaned out this week. I wonder about it because I wonder about Dru. There's a marvelous weaving of the mundane and the profound on many blogs. Maybe I feel like these where are all the women discussions put pressure on women to write more about ideas and less about their lives.
Speaking of Cleis. I got this from her. Although, I did see it here too.
1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Port Moresby. Which, I'm pretty sure, is just not a good thing.
3. The last book you bought is:
Thanks to Kristina and Adrienne I haven't been tempted to spend money I don't have on books I just hafta have for quite awhile. But I did find a hardback of The History of God on sale not too long ago. I had the paperback, which I gave away. I have a thing about hardbacks.
4. The last book you read is:
Lolita, which I finished just last night but parts of which I may need to reread. It was a hard book for me to read. The writing was wonderful and is the reason I kept reading. But I did check out while reading. A lot.
5. What are you currently reading?
I'm going to read Pnin in the Nabokov, The Joy of Knitting, The Color of Summer, Colette, Fat Girl and the practice book. In no particular order.
6. Five books you'd take with you to a deserted island: NO! Don't make me choose. Sigh. I guess I'd take Proust but only if I can count it as one book. Shikasta. Giving Good Weight. Emily. This is just too hard. OK. Mapmaker of Absences. Ask me again in ten minutes. I'll give you five different answers. Except. I think I would always take the Proust.
Elayne has been posting links to lots of women bloggers and I have been scared to go through her links because I can't keep up with the blog roll already have. Last night I read through some. Phew. There are some mighty writers out there. Mighty.
Deb took me to Rainbow and then to Last Supper Club for lunch. As I was getting out of the car I jammed my thumb into the door! My knitting thumb! Dang! I could still knit but I had to be really careful. That's sort of a cool thing about an injury. It makes you pay attention.
I wanted to knit because I thought it might keep me calm while I listened to the debate. It didn't keep me calm. It's just heartbreaking. And terrifying.
Remember my tornado dream? Well. Gulp.
March 22 2005 9:07 AM Arg.
I had such a good morning yesterday. Posted. Read blogs, listened to the radio. Ate breakfast. Showered. Did the ritual/yoga. And decided to add to my post. Such a simple idea.
It seems like the problem might have been in the YACCS code. This after hours and hours of taking stuff out and putting it back. If I was more literate with HTML.I might have been able to fix it faster.
And then it was rainy and cold and I was in a very bad mood. I had things I was gonna do and I was off to a good start and then I was just stuck. I hate not knowing what I need to know.
So I ate some butternut squash soup and salad and corn tortillas. I took the apple from the ritual shelf and put it in my pocket with the intent to take it in the kitchen and cut it into four and eat it. I needed my hands to carry the dishes and glass to the sink. Once I was in the kitchen I couldn't remember where I'd put the apple. When I did remember I laughed and my mood shifted.
I don't always pull out of a funk that quickly.
I guess I could try to reconstruct the second half of the post from yesterday. I had jumped to this post from a woman writing a paper in which she is exploring the idea of web log as autobiography from Bookish. And I remembered this article linked by Willa. The article is written by a woman who used to blog. In the article she wrote about the urge to confess and expose oneself on a blog. And I read that Catherine doesn't think she'll do personal writing any more for some interesting reasons. It just got me thinking. But I've been all meta all the time for a few days and now I've lost the groove.
This morning I had a hard time waking up because I was trying to get things done in my dreams. All those hours yesterday working on something without the knowledge I needed to do it. All the trial and error frustration. I think it just whacked me out. Life has felt that way for a few years now. Like I'm trying to do something. It can be done. But I don't have the knowledge I need and I don't know anyone to call. So I just keep trying things. And the whole time I'm tense because the voices of notgoodenough and whatif are loud in my head. But, ya know, sometimes the apple is in your pocket. You just forgot you put it there.
March 23 2005 9:53 AM As a result of the where are all the women bloggers stuff I find that I have been linked on The American Street (in a long list of other women) compiled by Jude and linked on her site as well. Which is very nice. I'm always grateful for a link. I do kinda wonder if I got linked because I'm interesting, or did I get linked because I have an in-ny instead of an out-ty.
The question of where are all the women bloggers and the notion of links as an act of support is problematic. It comes from a perspective on blogging that I don't entirely get. It feels like the question itself tries to draw a line around something wild. It's being asked inside a specific blog cluster and in some ways ignores the fact of the mommy blogs, the knitting blogs, the poetry and art blogs and on and on.
The idea of a blog as an autobiography made me smile because it does seem like many people begin blogging in response to something. Often during a time in their life when they have a need to connect and express. Even blogs with a specific purpose (knitting, poetry,art, cooking, politics) are about expressing and connecting. There are lives being written.
Maybe some people care more about expressing and others care more about connecting. But I really don't think that's entirely gender specific.
I think memoir might be a better way to say it. Autobiography is the story of a life. Memoir is the musings of a life. Although even that is too tight a frame.
Musing in this life today is about my failed hot crossed buns. They taste OK but they just did not rise. So they're a bit dense. And the dropped stitch in my knitting project and my almost disastrous effort to go back and get it. I seem to have entered some kind of inept zone. I feel like I should wrap my self in protective clothing and sit very still.
Sigh.
Not terribly interesting. Dang. I'm failing my gender.
Heh.
March
24
2005
12:28
PM I'm still fond of American Dreams. Last night's episode featured old footage of the Mamas and the Papas and Van Morrison. It just makes me happy. But there was something else.
In this episode Jack's (the father of one family) brother is in a car accident and ends up on a ventilator. Jack has to decide whether to pull the plug. I'm thinking the show was written, filmed and scheduled before the Schiavo case became top of the page news. And I imagine there were some network executives that were chewing their nails before it aired.
The show takes place in a time when having someone on a ventilator was new technology and that was the metaphor on which the episode pivoted. The newness. In a parallel story line another character is trying to sell TV's by focusing on the NEW remote control gadget. I remember the general suspicion of new things. Hard to imagine in a world where the new gadget sells out before it hits the market but back then there was a drive for innovation pushing against a culture trying to cling to a norm. And newness was everywhere, in the food, the music, entertainment, transportation. One of the kids in the show was eating a cheese slice. There was a time when cheese slices were new.
Taking someone off a ventilator and taking someone off a feeding tube are somewhat different. But the process of making the decision was similar. Of course, it's television. Everything has to wind up in an hour. Jack decides to pull the plug because he wonders if they should let happen what "God intended in the first place." Again. I remember that kind of thinking. And I think some people still think like that. So here was this show "pulling the plug" on a life during a time when the country is in heated debate about that very thing.
Listening and reading to the coverage of the controversy about Terry is heart wrenching and often infuriating. So many people are using the debate to advance causes of their own. Even Paul Campos, who I much admire, wrote about the case, wondering why there isn't much discussion of the eating disorder that caused her condition. I think I mentioned her in a rant I wrote once about the deadly cost of fat phobia. But it troubles me to talk about it now. It troubles me because we are in this very tender time now. We are collectively sitting watch while this women's life passes from one way of being to another. It seems like a time for quiet. Instead there is a battle raging.
I listened to a debate the other day on Democracy Now between a bioethicist and a disability rights organizer. I have been thinking about a film I saw once about a man who lived in a life support tube. I can't remember the details. His head was out of the tube. He could talk and read and write with a stick in his mouth. He was amazing. It doesn't seem like Terry is disabled. But, I am not a doctor. I keep wondering if Terry's body can bear the weight of all the agendas stacking on top of it.
Late last night I was trying to put my mixer back on the shelf and a glass fell from the top shelf and broke. It was one of the last two left from a set of four given to me by a friend years ago and it was one of my favorite glasses. So I was bummed about it but not that bummed. On the way down, however, it knocked into a cup and saucer and some little spreading things with bunnies on them that Renee gave me. The saucer was cracked in half and two of the bunnies lost their ears. It seems like I might be able to glue them back together but last night when it happened I was tired. It hit me in some fissure of sentimentality and I was so sad. Really. My ineptness continues and the protective clothing sitting still option seems like wisdom.
This morning I swept the kitchen again. I'd slept off the drama. I think I have some glue. It really wasn't a big deal.
I have this patchwork theology of my own. I try not to attach to forms. I try and yet film footage from my youth makes me wanna dance. Dancing is good. Attachment is just attachment. And I am sentimental.
Kobi sent a couple of pictures of Jan wearing the scarf. I made the scarf long because Kobi is so tall. It amazes me that Jan isn't tripping over it. Tall dad. Tall boy.
March 24 2005 12:28 PM My back hurts. It's been hurting for a few days. At first I did what I always do. Ignore it. It's hard to ignore pain. So I started with the Advil, ice pack, Arnica and rest. I really did sit still yesterday (although I can't figure out protective clothing). Knitting and movies have been keeping me sane.
No ritual. No yoga. No momentum. It is frustrating.
I can't sit at the computer for too long. And sometimes it seems like my whole life happens on the computer. Knitting. Watching Che and Angels, reading. Probably sounds like a nice life. Except. I'm not getting anything done. And there are things I need to do. Really. Really.
Mostly I'm just trying to make it worse. And not to get cranky. I'm just trying to be still.
March 27 2005 7:50 PM I think I made too many jokes about sitting very still in reaction to my spate of things going not so well. And now all I can do is sit still. Kinda makes ya wonder. Here I've been. With an ice pack and a heating pad. Pillows under my knees in bed. Advil. Arnica. Knitting. Movies. Books. Radio. Deb came over with Indian food and ice cream one day and a sandwich and cookies the next. Except for the pain and the occasional bout of self pity, I'm really OK.
And I've been on kind of unintended walk through history. Beginning with a film about Shirley Chisholm and then Angels in America. The whole time I was having this - wherewasI- feeling.
I didn't vote for Shirley Chisholm in the Democratic primary because I was registered Independent. That presidential election was the first election I was able to vote in and I wish she had been on the ballot.
Watching the film the parallels between that election and the most recent election were surprising. Maybe they wouldn't be if you were paying more attention then and now. I was just out of high school and more interested in the Woodstock Nation and boys with long hair than I was in anything happening inside the beltway. But there is was. A hand wringing Democratic party unable to support a person of color, (especially a woman) a right wing, untrustworthy, Republican in office, a divided nation, an unpopular war, threats to social services and women's rights. It was all going on.
I've written about how checked out I was during the Reagan years. Maybe checked out is too harsh. I just remember thinking politics were corrupt and impossible. Angels, much like when I saw And The Band Played On, left me stunned by how much I didn't know.
I found it all oddly reassuring. Because it has always been going on. The right. The left. Party politics. Back door deals. And there have always been people pushing at all of it. Challenging all of it.
I was born the day after Ethel Rosenberg was executed. In Angels Ethel says Kaddish for Roy Cohn after his death from Aids and I wept. So radical and healing.
My back hurts the most in the morning. I can't sit in my desk chair for very long. I'm not up to much blog time. And now I'm going to get a fresh ice pack and get back in the cushy chair. Tomorrow I'm going see if I can get an adjustment. It'll be OK.
March 29 2005 9:40 PM First the bad news.
My chiro is on vacation till Friday.
However.
Kristina suggested I take four Advil at once and WOW! It felt pretty good. It might not be the solution but it was nice to have the ragged edge taken off the pain. I'm funny about things like Advil. It's like I think it's a gateway drug or something.
I'm still not good for much. I do now know way more about the Mongols, the Huns, the Goths and the Vikings than I ever thought I'd know.
I'm trying to think of something interesting to write but all I can say is ...ouch.
March 31 2005 7:04 PM When I first wake up I think I'm all better. But then I stand up. And with every step the pain is more acute. I get a muffin, the Advil and an ice pack and wait for the throbbing to stop. By the afternoon, after the Advil kicks in and after some ice and then heat and then ice, I begin to have more range of motion. I can walk with fewer twinges.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I get an adjustment from my miracle working chiro. A friend asked me if there wasn't someone else I could have seen. And I guess there is another chiro in my chiro's office but I just didn't want to see anyone else. So I guess I've chosen for this to go on all week. I have been wishing it would just fix itself. And the pain is disorienting. So I might not be making the best choices.
I was struck by how much I didn't want to be adjusted by anyone but my chiro. I still have some agoraphobia going on. I think. I don't know. Before this happened I was feeling so upbeat and focused and over all the bad juju things that I'd been working on. If not over, at least I felt like I had things compartmentalized.
Now I'm a little shaky. I feel a little beaten up. And unsure.
Kristina sent me Fat Girl, which I've almost finished. I have to take breaks from it because it is full of body hatred. But I want to be clear. It's a well written book. I do relate to lots of it. I just don't relate to the relentless hatred of fat. Relentless. I swear I want to hug this woman. I don't think she'd take it well but I just want to hug her and beg her to stop hating her body. Please. Please. Please.
That is, of course, easier said than done.
The Times review has a good enough summery and a radical quip.
Yes. Well. Let's just NOT take it. OK?
And then the review ends with a slam.
I'm not sure what that means. Something you would pawn off on a fat girl? I'm not sure how to assess the editing. My complaint about the cover is that it is the same old head chopped off image of a fat person.(although really. I was fatter than that when I was a kid. The image is not really fat. I know my perspective may be different from ...oh, I dunno...everyone else. Heh.) It is harder to hate people when you hafta look into their eyes. I'm not sure that I would call the jacket design uninteresting though and I can't help but wonder if it isn't the image of a "fat" girl that seems uninteresting to the person. I'm just not sure what she means.
In my current mood reading a woman bang on herself for having an appetite and being fat isn't good. I'm feeling too vulnerable and sad.
In her description of her father's appetite (and her own) there is the suggestion of pathology. I know that there are people who eat for comfort. Food is comforting. I know there are people who eat massive amounts of food in an attempt to self comfort. I also know that some of those people are thin. And many fat people don't eat that way. Sometimes I eat for comfort but I've never found the food that can really take away despair. Judith Moore believes she over eats for comfort. Who am I to argue? Her writing has been compared to MFK Fisher and Kristina says her first book is like MFK. But in this book food is the sin. There are laundry lists of sumptuousness that don't add up, except to signify sloth. MFK loved food. Wrote with honor and respect and fondness. Not shame.
I needed to do some laundry yesterday. No more clean underwear. I knew I couldn't do the stairs too many times so I gathered up a small bag. I ran into my neighbor and we chatted about backs. Mine and his. He's had problems too. And he asks, "Can you lose some weight?"
I mean. Ya know. I just.
It's just such a not useful thing to say. 1) Even if were trying to lose weight I couldn't lose fast enough to help my back today. 2) While it might be easier on my back if I weren't fat it isn't true that only, or all fat people have back pain. When I go to see my chiro I rarely see fat people in the waiting room. So why take advantage of the fact that my back is out to say something about my weight? The only thing I can do is stand there and take the blame for my back pain as a result of my weight. And I still have a back ache. So what is the point?
Years ago I picked up a box in a walk-in cooler and turned and ...pop. My back went out. I had a great chiro then. My first. He fixed me right up. Years went by with no big problems. The next time I went to a chiro it wasn't even about pain. A friend was doing massage in a chiro office and I decided to get adjustments. On my first visit the women adjusted me and then said, "I bet you didn't think a little woman like me could adjust someone as big as you."
I said, " Well I would hope that if you thought you couldn't you would let me know that before we worked together."
And then she told my friend that she was afraid I'd break the chairs in her waiting room. Oh yeah. That was enough of that.
I had another chiro for awhile who was good but the office he worked in closed. And then one day when I was getting the BA and working more than full time and I was tired and worn out all the time I had one foot on the side of my tub and I moved my hip and pop. Out again. Big time. It was SO painful. And that's when I met Barbara. And she is the BEST. Ever. She will make me all better tomorrow.
What did I say to my well intended (cough) neighbor when he asked if I could lose some weight? I said, " It would seem not."
I just hafta make myself laugh sometimes.
So. It still hurts to sit in my desk chair. And I'm feeling it. Back to the cushy chair and the heating pad. Tomorrow I'll be ALL better. In fact, maybe I just was just missing Barbara. Maybe that's why this happened.
|
