Daniel Johnston song
Listen to this great song. Here are the lyrics:
your picture
is still
on my wall
on my wall
the colors are bright
bright as ever
the red is strong
the blue is pure
some things last a long time
some things last a long time
your picture
is still
on my wall
on my wall
I think
about you
often
often
I can't forget all the things we did
some things last a long time
some things last a long time
it's funny
but it's true
and it's true
but it's not funny
time comes and goes
all the while
I still think of you
some things last a long time
your picture
is still
on my wall
on my wall
the colors
are bright
bright
as ever
things that we did
all we forget
some things last a life time
some things last a life time
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
she was horrid
My mom read us poetry sometimes instead stories. And she was into sing-song-y riddles. She got hold of a book with funny poems about manners that she really loved. To tell the truth, us kids didn't love the poems about manners but my mom sure did.
There was one poem that went like this:
I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife
That one made us giggle. Why wouldn't someone eat their peas with a fork? or even a spoon? Why a knife?
And then my mom had little diddies that got from gosh knows where. Here is one I despised. She only said this one to me. I was the only girl in the family, with four brothers, until I was fourteen. By the time my baby sister came along,mom had stopped her kiddie poetry. I don't think she ever said this one to my sister:
There was a little girl
Who had a little girl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good
She was very very good
And when she was bad
She was horrid
I already heard my mom telling me I was horrid when she said that one.
And I am feeling horrid right now.
There was one poem that went like this:
I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife
That one made us giggle. Why wouldn't someone eat their peas with a fork? or even a spoon? Why a knife?
And then my mom had little diddies that got from gosh knows where. Here is one I despised. She only said this one to me. I was the only girl in the family, with four brothers, until I was fourteen. By the time my baby sister came along,mom had stopped her kiddie poetry. I don't think she ever said this one to my sister:
There was a little girl
Who had a little girl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good
She was very very good
And when she was bad
She was horrid
I already heard my mom telling me I was horrid when she said that one.
And I am feeling horrid right now.
Friday, December 23, 2011
male unfounded entitlement
I know a little prick -- I have never seen his member but I bet it's a dinky one -- who
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
O Christmas Tree
I have not celebrated Xmas since 2000, the last year I had my daughter in my life at Xmas. It is oft said that time heals all wounds. This has not been my experience. The wound of losing my daughter is as deep, as cutting, as ever, I have just learned to live with it. It's a bit like living with a large blade in my side; like my body has adjusted to having the blade in it and if I move very carefully, mindful to avoid letting the blade shred any new flesh, I have stopped bleeding. Take just one injudicious step, and the gash bleeds anew. God, I hate my sadness. How I hate that it won't go away.
In recent years, I have tried, not very seriously, to acnowledge Xmas. Last year, I asked a friend to go to a holiday concert with me. He agreed to go but then he never committed to a date and time, so it was worse than having never tried.
This year, I have been thinking about gifts. I have seen comments on Facebook, such as an old friend writing "just have one or two gifts left to buy". I remember, as if I were remembering a novel, buying lots of gifts, investing much thought, time and money into the selection and purchase of gifts. I never bought gifts for any but my closest ties. I once had a roommate who shopped all year for Christmas, buying all kinds of super cheap junk on closeout, like decaying 'gift' soap bars on closeout at a dollar store. Then she'd give everyone in her whole world a piece of junk at Xmas. I don't understanding 'giving' away pieces of junk that no one wants, just so be able to say "I gave everyone a gift". I love giving gifts. And I have been known to give some very generous ones. But, except for a few gift exchange deals in adolescence, where everyone in a clique gifted everyone, I have never given junk gifts. Although now I am remembering a year when, my family moving away, I gave my best girlfriends in the old neighborhood some junk: I gave each of them a gift package that came with scented powder with a puff, cheap cologne and soap: all the same scent. Junk gift packages from Walgreens. Yuck. But I was 13 and believed that was something grown up women wanted. I believed I was giving my emergent adolescent girlfriends a girly-but-grown-up gift. And, in that case, it was the thought that mattered. I was sad to be moving away from the neighborhood I had grown up in. Those gifts were for me.
I don't give Xmas gifts now. I have not given any since my daughter left me. I don't even think about it. I know women living on SSI (welfare for the elderly and disabled) who suffer for months to give lots og gifts. I long to ask them who they gift to, and why, and what. How can an old lady who likely runs out of food money sometimes think she should give trinkets at Xmas? To a gandkid, sure, but who else?
Today, on my way home from one of my endless medical appointments, I bought a Christmas tree. A gift to me. It is just a Christmas tree ornament. But it is a tiny green-wired tree, with a tiny, shiny red star and a red bell hanging down.
It is hanging on a knob on the land where I surf, where I can see it all the time.
Oh Christmas tree.
It is not starting to feel a lot like Christmas.
In recent years, I have tried, not very seriously, to acnowledge Xmas. Last year, I asked a friend to go to a holiday concert with me. He agreed to go but then he never committed to a date and time, so it was worse than having never tried.
This year, I have been thinking about gifts. I have seen comments on Facebook, such as an old friend writing "just have one or two gifts left to buy". I remember, as if I were remembering a novel, buying lots of gifts, investing much thought, time and money into the selection and purchase of gifts. I never bought gifts for any but my closest ties. I once had a roommate who shopped all year for Christmas, buying all kinds of super cheap junk on closeout, like decaying 'gift' soap bars on closeout at a dollar store. Then she'd give everyone in her whole world a piece of junk at Xmas. I don't understanding 'giving' away pieces of junk that no one wants, just so be able to say "I gave everyone a gift". I love giving gifts. And I have been known to give some very generous ones. But, except for a few gift exchange deals in adolescence, where everyone in a clique gifted everyone, I have never given junk gifts. Although now I am remembering a year when, my family moving away, I gave my best girlfriends in the old neighborhood some junk: I gave each of them a gift package that came with scented powder with a puff, cheap cologne and soap: all the same scent. Junk gift packages from Walgreens. Yuck. But I was 13 and believed that was something grown up women wanted. I believed I was giving my emergent adolescent girlfriends a girly-but-grown-up gift. And, in that case, it was the thought that mattered. I was sad to be moving away from the neighborhood I had grown up in. Those gifts were for me.
I don't give Xmas gifts now. I have not given any since my daughter left me. I don't even think about it. I know women living on SSI (welfare for the elderly and disabled) who suffer for months to give lots og gifts. I long to ask them who they gift to, and why, and what. How can an old lady who likely runs out of food money sometimes think she should give trinkets at Xmas? To a gandkid, sure, but who else?
Today, on my way home from one of my endless medical appointments, I bought a Christmas tree. A gift to me. It is just a Christmas tree ornament. But it is a tiny green-wired tree, with a tiny, shiny red star and a red bell hanging down.
It is hanging on a knob on the land where I surf, where I can see it all the time.
Oh Christmas tree.
It is not starting to feel a lot like Christmas.
Monday, December 19, 2011
a Luciferic vortex
Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian scientist and visionary, was, in a way, an early "New Age" thinker. I say this because he was a prolific thinker, writer, leader and founder of many things.
He founded anthroposophy, published 67 or more books, and founded many initiatives that thrive and grow. He created anthroposophical medicine, biodynamic farming, eurythmy, Waldorf Schools, a Christian Community, The Camphill Movement, Threefold Economics and more. He also spoke and wrote extensively about how humanity unfolded on this earth. And he talked about the human future.
He didn't have particularly good news about humanity's short-term future. He tended to talk in terms of cultural epochs, which span
He founded anthroposophy, published 67 or more books, and founded many initiatives that thrive and grow. He created anthroposophical medicine, biodynamic farming, eurythmy, Waldorf Schools, a Christian Community, The Camphill Movement, Threefold Economics and more. He also spoke and wrote extensively about how humanity unfolded on this earth. And he talked about the human future.
He didn't have particularly good news about humanity's short-term future. He tended to talk in terms of cultural epochs, which span
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
“Mushrooms”
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiples:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiples:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Various Portents
VARIOUS PORTENTS
by Alice Oswald
Various stars. Various kings.
Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.
Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,
Much cold, much overbearing darkness.
Various long midwinter Glooms.
Various Solitary and Terrible stars.
Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.
Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.
More than one North star, more than one South star.
Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems.
Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thickness of Dark,
Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.
Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and or water, snowflakes, stars of frost …
Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,
Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,
Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,
Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in Braille.
Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,
Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,
Various crucifixes, all sorts of nightsky necklaces.
Many Wise Men remarking the irregular weather.
Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,
Watchers of whisps of various glowing spindles,
Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,
Seafarers tossing, tied to a star…
Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.
Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.
Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening
Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.
by Alice Oswald
Various stars. Various kings.
Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.
Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,
Much cold, much overbearing darkness.
Various long midwinter Glooms.
Various Solitary and Terrible stars.
Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.
Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.
More than one North star, more than one South star.
Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems.
Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thickness of Dark,
Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.
Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and or water, snowflakes, stars of frost …
Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,
Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,
Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,
Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in Braille.
Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,
Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,
Various crucifixes, all sorts of nightsky necklaces.
Many Wise Men remarking the irregular weather.
Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,
Watchers of whisps of various glowing spindles,
Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,
Seafarers tossing, tied to a star…
Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.
Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.
Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening
Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.
gosh golly
It is Saturday evening. I stayed up all night, which I do more and more. So I just couldn't get to the farmers markets. Now I have no food for the week. I'll have to go to a grocery store. I have gotten to quite dislike going to grocery stores.
Darn darn darn.
My phone rang sometime during the day. I hoped it would awaken me but the person hung up before the answering machine could even pick up. I was hoping listening to my machine and the message would awaken me. A few seconds later, I was sound asleep once more.
I slept until 3 p.m. So I'll be up again all night. And now, no food.
Next Saturday is Xmas Eve. I absolutely have to get to the market next week.
There is a market a few blocks from my home in Berkeley but I like one in Oakland, Grand Lake. Next Saturday, I'll have to get there very early. On Xmas Eve, there will be rushes on my favorite things.
Gosh golly darn. I think this might have been my last week for pink lady apples. What will I eat all week?
Darn darn darn.
My phone rang sometime during the day. I hoped it would awaken me but the person hung up before the answering machine could even pick up. I was hoping listening to my machine and the message would awaken me. A few seconds later, I was sound asleep once more.
I slept until 3 p.m. So I'll be up again all night. And now, no food.
Next Saturday is Xmas Eve. I absolutely have to get to the market next week.
There is a market a few blocks from my home in Berkeley but I like one in Oakland, Grand Lake. Next Saturday, I'll have to get there very early. On Xmas Eve, there will be rushes on my favorite things.
Gosh golly darn. I think this might have been my last week for pink lady apples. What will I eat all week?
insulate
insulate: To cause to be in a detached or isolated
position.
It is interesting to note that insulate and isolate are so similar.
isolate: to set or place apart; detach or separate so as to be alone.
I was emotionally abused two weeks ago. The vicious unkindness triggered a relapse of very old psychological vulnerabilities. I am not able to brush the abuse off. I am in trouble.
It is interesting to note that insulate and isolate are so similar.
isolate: to set or place apart; detach or separate so as to be alone.
I was emotionally abused two weeks ago. The vicious unkindness triggered a relapse of very old psychological vulnerabilities. I am not able to brush the abuse off. I am in trouble.
Friday, December 09, 2011
When it's over, it's over
The principles of Open Space:
Whoever shows up are the right people.
Whatever happens, is the only thing that could or should.
When it starts, it starts.
When it's over, it's over.
I think the principles of Open Space, which were first published by Harrison Owen, although Harrison does not quite claim to have 'discovered' Open Space -- Harrison is too generous and humble to stake such a claim. He recognized that the universe operates in a kind of harmony. The study of physics is giving more and more credence to the principles of self-organization, which are the same as the principles of open space.
If you meditate on these principles, and begin to make all your life choices, moment by moment, in the present, you might begin to see that these principles work as effectively, if not more so, than most religious belief systems. And their simplicity, like all great thinking, are powerful.
All roads lead to open space. All relationships embody the principles of open space.
When a relationship is over, it is over. Accept it. Love the lost friend or lover but let them go if it's over. When someone is repeatedly emotionally abusive to me, I tend to hang on. I get 'hooked'. I feel that I have to prove that I don't deserve to be treated like shit but, pathetically, sadly, I keep eating someones abusive shit in a crazy, codependent attempt to get them to, get them to what? Magically see me? Magically stop seeing their projected imaginations of who I am?
I am a good person. I am trustworthy. I am loving. Anyone who does not think so is not my friend.
I'm hurting. I begged the person I am talking about to simply be polite to me. Begged. And this person refused. And the whole time this person was being an asshole, I was blaming myself.
Whoever shows up are the right people.
Whatever happens, is the only thing that could or should.
When it starts, it starts.
When it's over, it's over.
I think the principles of Open Space, which were first published by Harrison Owen, although Harrison does not quite claim to have 'discovered' Open Space -- Harrison is too generous and humble to stake such a claim. He recognized that the universe operates in a kind of harmony. The study of physics is giving more and more credence to the principles of self-organization, which are the same as the principles of open space.
If you meditate on these principles, and begin to make all your life choices, moment by moment, in the present, you might begin to see that these principles work as effectively, if not more so, than most religious belief systems. And their simplicity, like all great thinking, are powerful.
All roads lead to open space. All relationships embody the principles of open space.
When a relationship is over, it is over. Accept it. Love the lost friend or lover but let them go if it's over. When someone is repeatedly emotionally abusive to me, I tend to hang on. I get 'hooked'. I feel that I have to prove that I don't deserve to be treated like shit but, pathetically, sadly, I keep eating someones abusive shit in a crazy, codependent attempt to get them to, get them to what? Magically see me? Magically stop seeing their projected imaginations of who I am?
I am a good person. I am trustworthy. I am loving. Anyone who does not think so is not my friend.
I'm hurting. I begged the person I am talking about to simply be polite to me. Begged. And this person refused. And the whole time this person was being an asshole, I was blaming myself.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
just around the corner
The lyrics from a song popular during the Depression is singing in my being today:
just around the corner
there is a rainbow in the sky'
so let's have another cup of coffee
and let's have another piece of pie
Someone I have foolishly, blindly, cluelessly and without foundation believed to be my friend has finally treated me so shabbily, with such insulting, humiliating behavior, that even I, clueless codependent moron that I can be, see him for the predatory pig that he is.
It feels pretty good, surprisingly. I'm hurting. I've been emotionally fucked by this man. But at least I am awake to his true nature. So, there is a rainbow in my sky. Things are looking up. I feel pretty good to have my blindness come to an end. The reason this relationship has felt awful was cause this asshole was treating me like a piece of shit. . . . and I have practically been begging him to go on doing it.
I'm done, thank goddess. Out. Out. Out.
just around the corner
there is a rainbow in the sky'
so let's have another cup of coffee
and let's have another piece of pie
Someone I have foolishly, blindly, cluelessly and without foundation believed to be my friend has finally treated me so shabbily, with such insulting, humiliating behavior, that even I, clueless codependent moron that I can be, see him for the predatory pig that he is.
It feels pretty good, surprisingly. I'm hurting. I've been emotionally fucked by this man. But at least I am awake to his true nature. So, there is a rainbow in my sky. Things are looking up. I feel pretty good to have my blindness come to an end. The reason this relationship has felt awful was cause this asshole was treating me like a piece of shit. . . . and I have practically been begging him to go on doing it.
I'm done, thank goddess. Out. Out. Out.
Friday, December 02, 2011
The Muppets
I am going to see the new Muppets movie. I was feeling a big sheepish about it. Then over Thanksgiving weekend, I talked to my baby brother (age 48). He mentioned he was headed to the movies. And when I said I was going to see the Muppets, he shyly laughed and admitted that was the one he wanted to see.
I love The Muppets. They weren't around when I was little but they were around for my brudda Dave.
So that's what I am doing today. Or maybe tomorrow after the Grand Lake market.
I love The Muppets. They weren't around when I was little but they were around for my brudda Dave.
So that's what I am doing today. Or maybe tomorrow after the Grand Lake market.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
reincarnation
Recently, I read a column on Slate.com (I think) critical of how Buddhism has unfolded in modern America. Pretty much everyone I know has been influenced by the rise of interest in Buddhism, plus I have found myself close personal friends with a chick Zen Buddhist priest with her own little zendo/church. One of my current best friends has considered herself a Buddhist for almost forty years, although recently she has started going to weekly mass at an Episcopal church.
Everyone I know, just about, espouses rhetoric that is definitely Buddhist influenced, such as the belief that each human is totally responsible for creating their own experience. Or equanimity. Everyone I know uses the word equanimous, typically when they are telling me I am not being equanimous enough, which is not, um, very Buddhist of them. What happened to their self responsibility? If we are completely self responsible for our own experience, we aren't, in a logical belief system, responsible for other people's experiences. But what about the Buddhist attitude of affirming happiness for all beings? That can be interpreted as influencing another person's experience, right? Maybe it is okay, for a Buddhist and, maybe, non-Buddhists, to have positive wishes for others but to be equanimous about whatever happens to others and ourselves?
I am not presenting Buddhism accurately, I am sure. I don't want to. I am not a Buddhist. I have not studied Buddhism. But I have been to lots of Vipassana ten-day silent retreats, which are definitely Buddhist.
And that reminds me of another thing about Buddhism. There are endless streams of Buddhism, just like there are all kinds of permutations of "Christian". There are Roman Catholics, there are Southern Baptists, there are Seventh Day Adventists. I have heard, from the Showtime television comedy show called 'Big Love', which is about a polygamous family with one husband, three (and sometimes four) wives, three houses, lots of kids and complexity. Polygamy is not 'allowed' in Mormonism anymore but it used to be and I guess some folks still practice polygamy, although they aren't allowed to consider themselves, technically, Mormons. It's bad PR for Mormons to allow polygamous families to say they are Mormon, plus they aren't Mormon if they are polygamous. Anyway, I am aware, honest, that a television comedy is not a good source for my knowledge of Mormonism but I don't want to invest any of my life force in learning more. My silly point, which I base on a TV comedy, is that, based on episodes in the comedy show that presented some details of Mormon faith, is that Mormons consider themselves Christian. I guess they believe Jesus Christ existed and had some good ideas but then the Mormon founder came along and enhanced on JC's work? There is some very crazy shit in Mormonism but they present themselves as Christians.
And what about Scientology? One thing I like about Scientology -- I know more about Scientology than Mormonism because I have been proselytized by some fervent Scientologists plus when Tom Cruise flipped out on Oprah about Katie Holmes, some news stories mentioned weird aspects of Scientology. And then there was Tom Cruise's weird insults to Brooke Shields who said in a tv interview that she used antedepressants for her post-partum depression. What business was it of Tommy's to lecture Ms. Shields to not use drugs for depression? And then, still with Tommy, I read that Scientologists are not allowed to use any pain killers while giving birth. So I know weird shit details about a weird shit religion.
And then there are cults that fly below the mainstream media radar, like the John Rogers cult, which is still going. Ariana Huffington used to be one of John Rogers' top followers. Her involvement with that cult damaged her gay husband's campaign to become a U.S. Senator. The Rogers cult sounds a lot like science fiction.
And we all know, or we all can know if we care, that Scientology was 'founded' by a guy who started out writing science fiction. Then he realized he could get rich quicker with religion.
Hey, I am not saying that the wild explanations for life that Scientology or Mormons or Buddhists or Catholics offer are wrong. Nobody knows this shit for sure. Humans long for explanations to the meaning of life. Nobody knows what's going on, why we are here. Why are we here individually and collectively?
The column on Buddhism upset me because the writer was very critical of Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist. I am not anything. But I have grown attached to the idea of reincarnation. Reading one short column critical of Buddhism, I felt a wave of despair. I don't remember anything the column said but I guess I got the impression the writer was skeptical about the idea of reincarnation.
I think this life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and way too fucking long, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. I think life sucks. I can also think life is magical, majestic, reverent, celebratory, loving and gobsmacking gorgeous.
But when I read that 'column', which was not even as long as this blog post I am writing, and I read skepticism about reincarnation, suddenly I believed in nothing. I reverted to the atheist I believed myself to be for several years in my early twenties. Back then, I believed I was a meaningless speck of matter in a meaningless, albiet sometimes incandescent, cosmos.
I don't want to be a meaningless speck in a meaningless universe. I want life to have meaning. I want life to be about love. Mostly I want to be loved and to be loving. Nothing is stopping me from loving but being loved seems like an elusive, impossible magic that other people get but I don't. Even as I write these dreary thoughts, I am thinking of people who love me.
Life is hard. My life sucks. Let me have reincarnation.
Everyone I know, just about, espouses rhetoric that is definitely Buddhist influenced, such as the belief that each human is totally responsible for creating their own experience. Or equanimity. Everyone I know uses the word equanimous, typically when they are telling me I am not being equanimous enough, which is not, um, very Buddhist of them. What happened to their self responsibility? If we are completely self responsible for our own experience, we aren't, in a logical belief system, responsible for other people's experiences. But what about the Buddhist attitude of affirming happiness for all beings? That can be interpreted as influencing another person's experience, right? Maybe it is okay, for a Buddhist and, maybe, non-Buddhists, to have positive wishes for others but to be equanimous about whatever happens to others and ourselves?
I am not presenting Buddhism accurately, I am sure. I don't want to. I am not a Buddhist. I have not studied Buddhism. But I have been to lots of Vipassana ten-day silent retreats, which are definitely Buddhist.
And that reminds me of another thing about Buddhism. There are endless streams of Buddhism, just like there are all kinds of permutations of "Christian". There are Roman Catholics, there are Southern Baptists, there are Seventh Day Adventists. I have heard, from the Showtime television comedy show called 'Big Love', which is about a polygamous family with one husband, three (and sometimes four) wives, three houses, lots of kids and complexity. Polygamy is not 'allowed' in Mormonism anymore but it used to be and I guess some folks still practice polygamy, although they aren't allowed to consider themselves, technically, Mormons. It's bad PR for Mormons to allow polygamous families to say they are Mormon, plus they aren't Mormon if they are polygamous. Anyway, I am aware, honest, that a television comedy is not a good source for my knowledge of Mormonism but I don't want to invest any of my life force in learning more. My silly point, which I base on a TV comedy, is that, based on episodes in the comedy show that presented some details of Mormon faith, is that Mormons consider themselves Christian. I guess they believe Jesus Christ existed and had some good ideas but then the Mormon founder came along and enhanced on JC's work? There is some very crazy shit in Mormonism but they present themselves as Christians.
And what about Scientology? One thing I like about Scientology -- I know more about Scientology than Mormonism because I have been proselytized by some fervent Scientologists plus when Tom Cruise flipped out on Oprah about Katie Holmes, some news stories mentioned weird aspects of Scientology. And then there was Tom Cruise's weird insults to Brooke Shields who said in a tv interview that she used antedepressants for her post-partum depression. What business was it of Tommy's to lecture Ms. Shields to not use drugs for depression? And then, still with Tommy, I read that Scientologists are not allowed to use any pain killers while giving birth. So I know weird shit details about a weird shit religion.
And then there are cults that fly below the mainstream media radar, like the John Rogers cult, which is still going. Ariana Huffington used to be one of John Rogers' top followers. Her involvement with that cult damaged her gay husband's campaign to become a U.S. Senator. The Rogers cult sounds a lot like science fiction.
And we all know, or we all can know if we care, that Scientology was 'founded' by a guy who started out writing science fiction. Then he realized he could get rich quicker with religion.
Hey, I am not saying that the wild explanations for life that Scientology or Mormons or Buddhists or Catholics offer are wrong. Nobody knows this shit for sure. Humans long for explanations to the meaning of life. Nobody knows what's going on, why we are here. Why are we here individually and collectively?
The column on Buddhism upset me because the writer was very critical of Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist. I am not anything. But I have grown attached to the idea of reincarnation. Reading one short column critical of Buddhism, I felt a wave of despair. I don't remember anything the column said but I guess I got the impression the writer was skeptical about the idea of reincarnation.
I think this life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and way too fucking long, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. I think life sucks. I can also think life is magical, majestic, reverent, celebratory, loving and gobsmacking gorgeous.
But when I read that 'column', which was not even as long as this blog post I am writing, and I read skepticism about reincarnation, suddenly I believed in nothing. I reverted to the atheist I believed myself to be for several years in my early twenties. Back then, I believed I was a meaningless speck of matter in a meaningless, albiet sometimes incandescent, cosmos.
I don't want to be a meaningless speck in a meaningless universe. I want life to have meaning. I want life to be about love. Mostly I want to be loved and to be loving. Nothing is stopping me from loving but being loved seems like an elusive, impossible magic that other people get but I don't. Even as I write these dreary thoughts, I am thinking of people who love me.
Life is hard. My life sucks. Let me have reincarnation.
Friday, November 25, 2011
existential angst
In 1972, I spent a semester in Guanajuato, Mexico. Guanajuato is the name of a state in Mexico and the name of the capitol city in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. Guanajuato is a very beautiful, old city. Like many European cities, it has urban warrens where the passageways between houses are so narrow that cars don't fit. Plus it is a step city in some places, with lots of stairways. A happy city tradition, at least in 1972, were callejoneadas. A group of musicians and singers, dressed in fancy performing outfits like many associate with mariachis, lead long streams of people walking through the city singing. The cllejoneadas snake through the city, up and down public stairways that comprise the only public 'roads' in that stretch of the city. Sweethearts hold hands. The pace is very slow so old and young are accomodated.
Another tradition alive in Guanajuato in 1971 was serenading. Young men regularly hired singers to serenade outside their sweethearts bedroom windows.
The gringas in my college program all hoped to be serenaded in this way. Yikes, what a gorgeous practice.
All of Mexico goes crazy for Day of the Dead but Guanajuato goes even crazier. There is a cache of old mummies found in caves surrounding Guanajuato. There is a gruesome mummy museum. The little city goes crazy over mummies and Day of the Dead with a particularly energetic callejoneada.
Why shouldn't groups of people get together, bring instruments and walk and sing their way through their town or neighborhood?
Gosh, I lost track of what I was going to write.
I smoked quite a lot of marijuana when I lived in Guanajuato. Smoking marijuana was a major motivator in my decision to study in Mexico. I went there my sophomore year in college. A friend, Mary Sue, heavily pressured me. I was planning to wait until my junior year and spend a whole year in Europe but she wanted to smoke a lot of dope. And we did.
We paid for room and board with a local family. Our family's father was a dentist, with a homemaker om who had one full time maid helping her do everything. Those two women seemed to do house work and meal prep 24/7/365. The reigning beauty queen of Guanajuato was the eldest daughter who, perplexingly, did not live at home with her family. Her mom bragged about her constantly. We asked, a lot, why she lived with relatives instead of in the house. Maybe the family wanted the income from us? There were three Americans living with this family. Maybe the daughter was packed off because they needed her room? The family was very mysterious about her.
Also, the dentist father did not spend all his nights at home. You know we American college girls wanted to know that story.
The oldest son in the family was a student at the national university in Mexico City. But he came home for a weekend visit as soon as the three gringas moved into his family's house. We were thrilled. We wanted to buy marijuana but were afraid to approach anyone. For some reason, we felt safe asking the son. Maybe he offered? I don't remember. He said he could buy us a full brick of acapulco gold for a price that seemed paltry to us. I seriously think it cost us about twenty bucks. He took our money, went back to college and the next weekend, he gave us a brick of acapulco gold.
Acapulco gold, at least the stuff we bought, was gold-toned, the color if golden wheat. The brick was the size of a large, old-fashioned building brick, the kind of large stucco bricks used in Mexico homebuilding, not the smaller ones in brick houses in my childhood Chicago. The brick was about 8 inches long, three inches deep and four inches wide. The dope was tightly bound by wire. The wire had clearly been machine-packed. Whoever made that brick of marijuana ran a professional operation.
When we cut the wire, the marijuana exploded, quadrupling, at least, in volume. It looked like a bushel of marijuana. We had heard fabulous tales of how good the high was on acapulco gold. Our acapulco gold was awesomely great dope. Plus the altitude in Guanajuato was high, and we were not yet adapted to the elevation so we got high very easily. We smoked that stuff constantly, when we could. When you lived with a family, you can't light up a doobie in the living room. Where do you go to smoke marijuana when you can't smoke in your living accomodations? Looking for places to smoke was a perpetual challenge. Usually, we would walk to the edge of town, lighting up as we got to the suburban areas with little foot or vehicle traffic. In our part of town, the street kind petered out, drifting up a mountainside. We went down there to smoke dope, walking to the end of the bus line as we got high then hopping the bus downtown where all the action was. Action you ask? What action? Just being around people, discovering the country and culture. And eating.
Gosh, I am so sidetracked. I'd almost like I am high and my mind is drifting. But I am not. I pretty much stopped smoking dope when I left Mexico but while I was there, I smoked quite a lot of marijuana. I also tried peyote.
The son in our family, after giving us our brick, asked us to give him some. We only wanted to give him a lid, which was an ounce back home. But he pulled out a bag that looked pretty big to us and helped himself to a huge amount of our dope. He said it was only fair, his commission. He ripped us off. Of course, he could have just taken our money and completely ripped us off. But after he extracted that tip, we did not buy from him again. But by then, we had discovered all the college boys in town. Or, to put it more accurately, the local university which was almost all guys in 1972 (it was a university with an engineering focus, besides sexism in a more culturally conservative country), the guys had discovered the two stoned blondes that were always roaming around town.
There were sixteen kids in our college program. None of the others ever got high. All of them knew, of course, that we were stoned all the time. And our professors knew. I am amazed we didn't get arrested. Two stoned blonde gringas with the munchies, and a trail of college boys hanging around. All the Mexican college boys thought all gringas were very sexually promiscuous. Mary Sue and I were both virgins, at least when we arrived. I don't know if she ever had sex in Mexico but I lost my virginity in Guanajuato.
After the family son took a lot of our dope, we bought from college boys, who were plentiful and all of whom were very eager to please us, hoping they would get lucky. No kidding. Mary Sue and I would stagger through the town every afternoon and evening and we almost always had a cloud of boys trailing us, waiting to wait on us.
During that fall, there was a major international cultural festival in Guanajuato. Performing arts from all over the world trekked to Guanajuato to perform dance, music and theater. And the prices were very cheap in 1972 Mexico. I am pretty sure the US dollar exchanged for about 66 pesos to the dollar so if a theater ticket cost 30 pesos, it was nothing to us. We went to lots of stuff at the cultural festival.
In downtown Guanajuato, right off the town square, there is an elaborately baroque (is that redundant?) theater, a theater a bit like I imagine Shakespeare's Globe theater was like: the main floor was not very big, the balconies rose straight up, with little booths like you see at the opera in movies. The higher up you went, the cheaper the tix and the poorer the view. The balconies of the booths had lots of gold paint, lots of elaborate paintings. And the style of the theater imitated European appearance, not Mexican. It was an odd cultural experience. We were there to experience Mexico and then we went to that international cultural festival. Troupes from Russia, China, Latin America, Europe. I don't think there were any Middle Eastern acts.
We barely did our academic work. After we got high, we'd head down to the town square, which is where everyone seemed to turn up to check to see if there was any action.
There were a couple hotels on the square, one kinda fancy.
Oh, in those days, females could not go into bars. Only men. Except the bar in the fancy hotel. The bar in that hotel had a piano. Mary Sue was a fairly accomplished piano player. She asked permission to play there and the bar was happy to let her play. We would get high, go to the bar, she'd play and I'd hang out. In the bar, the men were older. When you are 19, blonde, American, slender and stoned in Mexico, men hit on your constantly. Men in Mexico in 1972 were much more aggressive than I have ever seen men in this country. I handled the attention in a fashion similar to how I deal with panhandlers in Berkeley, which are about as ubiquitous of men trying to get my attention in Mexico in 1972: I blanked them all out.
I talked to boys some but the main reason I wanted to connect with boys was to (1) have access to buying more marijuana (2) practicing Spanish, which at first was harder while stoned and then when I got more fluent, easier when stoned and (3) the boys realized we wanted to try other drugs and a group promised us peyote, which they eventually delivered.
I started this post to write about a moment in Mexico that I have never forgotten.
We always returned home every night. Our señora had made it clear that we could not stay out all night. She was convinced that staying out all night meant we were having sex. We did not get so intimate with her that we told her we were virgins. But we got the message: we could not stay out all night. We pushed the limits. It was hard to drag outselves home when we were stoned out of our minds but we always dragged ourselves in, albiet often quite late.
One night, while very very baked (we did not use the word 'baked' back then!), we straggled in very late, maybe 2 a.m. The third gringa in our house, Miriam, must have had a very different experience of Mexico.What did she do all the time? She did not approve of our dope smoking. Did she study? Did she hang out with the other Americans? I never figured out what the other Americans did. There were several African American girls in our program. They seemed to just spend all their time with their families. We never saw the other Americans around town in our partying. And Miriam? What the heck did she do all the time? I'll never know.
We had a two room suite. Wisely, Miriam had chosen the inner bedroom. This worked well, since Mary Sue and I came in so late all the time. We could tip toe in and not disturb Miriam but the señora was like a mother hen and always knew when we rolled in. At breakfast, she would give us an angry stony silence, giving us the evil eye, signaling her opprobrium without saying much. She was not, after all, our mother. We were boarders, not even exchange students. A business arrangement. She was not the boss of us, but, in a very token way, we tried not to offend her too egregiously but we did.
So this one night, we come in. Mary Sue used the bathroom first. She always changed in the bathroom. We shared that tiny bedroom for about four months and she always changed in the bathroom. So I did too. Isn't that weird modesty? And she always went first. She was a sucky friend. In those days, I only chose sucky friends, friends who treated me poorly. I stopped choosing friends who treated me like they were doing me a favor to put up with me but used me. Mary Sue had pressured me to go to Mexico with her. She wanted a smoking partner. She turned me onto dope to train me for the trip. And she seemed to think she was in charge of us and I seemed to think so too. Now I hae friends who act like they are glad I am their friend, like they like me, with one exception. I have a 'friend' in my life these days who treats me in ways that remind me of Mary Sue. But mostly, I stopped choosing friendly enemies.
Anyway, we come in late, MS gets into her jammies and into bed and I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I would change in the privacy of the bedroom while she was in the bathroom. It was late. We were high and tired and had class early in the morning. And we wanted our breakfast and the señora would not feed us late.
I brushed my teeth. I was very very high. Instinctively, I felt fear when I would see myself in the mirror. I felt such fear. I felt drawn to look directly into my eyes in the mirror. Instinctively I tried not to look directly into my eyes but it was like a force field drew me in. I gave into the impulse and soon stared directly and closely into my eyes. I put my face as close to the mirror as I could and stared into my pupils, which, of course, were widely dilated. I stared into those black limpid pupils.
And I had a psychedelic experience, like a 'trip'. But I was only on marijuana.
Another tradition alive in Guanajuato in 1971 was serenading. Young men regularly hired singers to serenade outside their sweethearts bedroom windows.
The gringas in my college program all hoped to be serenaded in this way. Yikes, what a gorgeous practice.
All of Mexico goes crazy for Day of the Dead but Guanajuato goes even crazier. There is a cache of old mummies found in caves surrounding Guanajuato. There is a gruesome mummy museum. The little city goes crazy over mummies and Day of the Dead with a particularly energetic callejoneada.
Why shouldn't groups of people get together, bring instruments and walk and sing their way through their town or neighborhood?
Gosh, I lost track of what I was going to write.
I smoked quite a lot of marijuana when I lived in Guanajuato. Smoking marijuana was a major motivator in my decision to study in Mexico. I went there my sophomore year in college. A friend, Mary Sue, heavily pressured me. I was planning to wait until my junior year and spend a whole year in Europe but she wanted to smoke a lot of dope. And we did.
We paid for room and board with a local family. Our family's father was a dentist, with a homemaker om who had one full time maid helping her do everything. Those two women seemed to do house work and meal prep 24/7/365. The reigning beauty queen of Guanajuato was the eldest daughter who, perplexingly, did not live at home with her family. Her mom bragged about her constantly. We asked, a lot, why she lived with relatives instead of in the house. Maybe the family wanted the income from us? There were three Americans living with this family. Maybe the daughter was packed off because they needed her room? The family was very mysterious about her.
Also, the dentist father did not spend all his nights at home. You know we American college girls wanted to know that story.
The oldest son in the family was a student at the national university in Mexico City. But he came home for a weekend visit as soon as the three gringas moved into his family's house. We were thrilled. We wanted to buy marijuana but were afraid to approach anyone. For some reason, we felt safe asking the son. Maybe he offered? I don't remember. He said he could buy us a full brick of acapulco gold for a price that seemed paltry to us. I seriously think it cost us about twenty bucks. He took our money, went back to college and the next weekend, he gave us a brick of acapulco gold.
Acapulco gold, at least the stuff we bought, was gold-toned, the color if golden wheat. The brick was the size of a large, old-fashioned building brick, the kind of large stucco bricks used in Mexico homebuilding, not the smaller ones in brick houses in my childhood Chicago. The brick was about 8 inches long, three inches deep and four inches wide. The dope was tightly bound by wire. The wire had clearly been machine-packed. Whoever made that brick of marijuana ran a professional operation.
When we cut the wire, the marijuana exploded, quadrupling, at least, in volume. It looked like a bushel of marijuana. We had heard fabulous tales of how good the high was on acapulco gold. Our acapulco gold was awesomely great dope. Plus the altitude in Guanajuato was high, and we were not yet adapted to the elevation so we got high very easily. We smoked that stuff constantly, when we could. When you lived with a family, you can't light up a doobie in the living room. Where do you go to smoke marijuana when you can't smoke in your living accomodations? Looking for places to smoke was a perpetual challenge. Usually, we would walk to the edge of town, lighting up as we got to the suburban areas with little foot or vehicle traffic. In our part of town, the street kind petered out, drifting up a mountainside. We went down there to smoke dope, walking to the end of the bus line as we got high then hopping the bus downtown where all the action was. Action you ask? What action? Just being around people, discovering the country and culture. And eating.
Gosh, I am so sidetracked. I'd almost like I am high and my mind is drifting. But I am not. I pretty much stopped smoking dope when I left Mexico but while I was there, I smoked quite a lot of marijuana. I also tried peyote.
The son in our family, after giving us our brick, asked us to give him some. We only wanted to give him a lid, which was an ounce back home. But he pulled out a bag that looked pretty big to us and helped himself to a huge amount of our dope. He said it was only fair, his commission. He ripped us off. Of course, he could have just taken our money and completely ripped us off. But after he extracted that tip, we did not buy from him again. But by then, we had discovered all the college boys in town. Or, to put it more accurately, the local university which was almost all guys in 1972 (it was a university with an engineering focus, besides sexism in a more culturally conservative country), the guys had discovered the two stoned blondes that were always roaming around town.
There were sixteen kids in our college program. None of the others ever got high. All of them knew, of course, that we were stoned all the time. And our professors knew. I am amazed we didn't get arrested. Two stoned blonde gringas with the munchies, and a trail of college boys hanging around. All the Mexican college boys thought all gringas were very sexually promiscuous. Mary Sue and I were both virgins, at least when we arrived. I don't know if she ever had sex in Mexico but I lost my virginity in Guanajuato.
After the family son took a lot of our dope, we bought from college boys, who were plentiful and all of whom were very eager to please us, hoping they would get lucky. No kidding. Mary Sue and I would stagger through the town every afternoon and evening and we almost always had a cloud of boys trailing us, waiting to wait on us.
During that fall, there was a major international cultural festival in Guanajuato. Performing arts from all over the world trekked to Guanajuato to perform dance, music and theater. And the prices were very cheap in 1972 Mexico. I am pretty sure the US dollar exchanged for about 66 pesos to the dollar so if a theater ticket cost 30 pesos, it was nothing to us. We went to lots of stuff at the cultural festival.
In downtown Guanajuato, right off the town square, there is an elaborately baroque (is that redundant?) theater, a theater a bit like I imagine Shakespeare's Globe theater was like: the main floor was not very big, the balconies rose straight up, with little booths like you see at the opera in movies. The higher up you went, the cheaper the tix and the poorer the view. The balconies of the booths had lots of gold paint, lots of elaborate paintings. And the style of the theater imitated European appearance, not Mexican. It was an odd cultural experience. We were there to experience Mexico and then we went to that international cultural festival. Troupes from Russia, China, Latin America, Europe. I don't think there were any Middle Eastern acts.
We barely did our academic work. After we got high, we'd head down to the town square, which is where everyone seemed to turn up to check to see if there was any action.
There were a couple hotels on the square, one kinda fancy.
Oh, in those days, females could not go into bars. Only men. Except the bar in the fancy hotel. The bar in that hotel had a piano. Mary Sue was a fairly accomplished piano player. She asked permission to play there and the bar was happy to let her play. We would get high, go to the bar, she'd play and I'd hang out. In the bar, the men were older. When you are 19, blonde, American, slender and stoned in Mexico, men hit on your constantly. Men in Mexico in 1972 were much more aggressive than I have ever seen men in this country. I handled the attention in a fashion similar to how I deal with panhandlers in Berkeley, which are about as ubiquitous of men trying to get my attention in Mexico in 1972: I blanked them all out.
I talked to boys some but the main reason I wanted to connect with boys was to (1) have access to buying more marijuana (2) practicing Spanish, which at first was harder while stoned and then when I got more fluent, easier when stoned and (3) the boys realized we wanted to try other drugs and a group promised us peyote, which they eventually delivered.
I started this post to write about a moment in Mexico that I have never forgotten.
We always returned home every night. Our señora had made it clear that we could not stay out all night. She was convinced that staying out all night meant we were having sex. We did not get so intimate with her that we told her we were virgins. But we got the message: we could not stay out all night. We pushed the limits. It was hard to drag outselves home when we were stoned out of our minds but we always dragged ourselves in, albiet often quite late.
One night, while very very baked (we did not use the word 'baked' back then!), we straggled in very late, maybe 2 a.m. The third gringa in our house, Miriam, must have had a very different experience of Mexico.What did she do all the time? She did not approve of our dope smoking. Did she study? Did she hang out with the other Americans? I never figured out what the other Americans did. There were several African American girls in our program. They seemed to just spend all their time with their families. We never saw the other Americans around town in our partying. And Miriam? What the heck did she do all the time? I'll never know.
We had a two room suite. Wisely, Miriam had chosen the inner bedroom. This worked well, since Mary Sue and I came in so late all the time. We could tip toe in and not disturb Miriam but the señora was like a mother hen and always knew when we rolled in. At breakfast, she would give us an angry stony silence, giving us the evil eye, signaling her opprobrium without saying much. She was not, after all, our mother. We were boarders, not even exchange students. A business arrangement. She was not the boss of us, but, in a very token way, we tried not to offend her too egregiously but we did.
So this one night, we come in. Mary Sue used the bathroom first. She always changed in the bathroom. We shared that tiny bedroom for about four months and she always changed in the bathroom. So I did too. Isn't that weird modesty? And she always went first. She was a sucky friend. In those days, I only chose sucky friends, friends who treated me poorly. I stopped choosing friends who treated me like they were doing me a favor to put up with me but used me. Mary Sue had pressured me to go to Mexico with her. She wanted a smoking partner. She turned me onto dope to train me for the trip. And she seemed to think she was in charge of us and I seemed to think so too. Now I hae friends who act like they are glad I am their friend, like they like me, with one exception. I have a 'friend' in my life these days who treats me in ways that remind me of Mary Sue. But mostly, I stopped choosing friendly enemies.
Anyway, we come in late, MS gets into her jammies and into bed and I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I would change in the privacy of the bedroom while she was in the bathroom. It was late. We were high and tired and had class early in the morning. And we wanted our breakfast and the señora would not feed us late.
I brushed my teeth. I was very very high. Instinctively, I felt fear when I would see myself in the mirror. I felt such fear. I felt drawn to look directly into my eyes in the mirror. Instinctively I tried not to look directly into my eyes but it was like a force field drew me in. I gave into the impulse and soon stared directly and closely into my eyes. I put my face as close to the mirror as I could and stared into my pupils, which, of course, were widely dilated. I stared into those black limpid pupils.
And I had a psychedelic experience, like a 'trip'. But I was only on marijuana.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The Descendants
I went to the new George Clooney movie. He has a full head of gray hair. He looks his age.
It's a good movie. I don't think it is an all time great movie. I doubt if 100 years from now it will be on 'best movies of all time' lists but it is my idea of a good movie. It tells a realistic-seeming story about human beings. This story is set in Hawaii, giving the movie-goer pretty scenery, plus playing off some Hawaiian culture. It is always interesting to me to have glimpses of culture unfamiliar to me.
I have read that the movie is already getting Oscar buzz. One of the main characters is a teenage actress, whose name I don't know. I read that she is getting Oscar buzz so I watched her performance a little more closely. If I acknowledge that Academy Awards seem more like a marketing/popularity prize than recognition of artistic achievement, then I can totally believe the young actress will be nominated. What do I know about acting?
It's a good movie. I don't think it is an all time great movie. I doubt if 100 years from now it will be on 'best movies of all time' lists but it is my idea of a good movie. It tells a realistic-seeming story about human beings. This story is set in Hawaii, giving the movie-goer pretty scenery, plus playing off some Hawaiian culture. It is always interesting to me to have glimpses of culture unfamiliar to me.
I have read that the movie is already getting Oscar buzz. One of the main characters is a teenage actress, whose name I don't know. I read that she is getting Oscar buzz so I watched her performance a little more closely. If I acknowledge that Academy Awards seem more like a marketing/popularity prize than recognition of artistic achievement, then I can totally believe the young actress will be nominated. What do I know about acting?
The Muppets
I met The Muppets when I watched Sesame Street with my daughter. Sesame Street wasn't around when I was a kid. We became a Waldorf family. In Wally World, parents are strongly encouraged to ban tv. Some Waldorf schools literally ask parents to sign a written pledge that they will not allow their children to watch tv because if just a few children watch tv, it can influence the other children. I remember a parent information evening when a passionately dedicated kindergarden teacher told us that there were studies that demonstrated that watching television literally generated nerve damage in humans' vision system.
Like someone acknowledging their addiction in a twelve step meeting, I admit that I allowed my daughter to watch television, even when she was very young. I also want to speak in my own defense and assure my legion of followers (47? do 47 people, according to google blogger, actually follow this blog? who are they? and why?) that I did not let my kid watch as much tv as some parents.
I have never had a tv in my kitchen. When my daughter was just one, while visiting another mom and her one-year-old daughter for lunch, I saw that other mom, a very good parent, turn the kitchen television to Sesame Street. The TV appeared to be positioned so the kid in the high chair would have optimal viewing. It had never occurred to me to stream tv at my baby when she and I were alone together. You know what I did in the early years when I was home alone with my baby most of the day? I interacted with her. All day long. We did not always talk, esp. when, ahem, she was not yet talking. The first word she said that I thought I recognized was a brilliant attempt on her part to say Snuffleupagus, the big, and yet somehow cuddly, elephant-y creature then on Sesame Street. I am still sure she was trying to say Snuffleupagas. She was maybe seven months old. It was brilliant. All the baby books said I could expect one and two syllable words. My little genius started out started out with five syllables!
Although, having said that, I feel compelled to qualify my bragging. I believe babies are talking long before most of the adults in their lives clue themselves into the baby's talking.
When I was about fifteen, I dated a boy that I met at a dance at St. Leo's, a boy's high school in my teenage world. He took me to his homecoming dance. Invitations to a boy's homecoming dance were high status, just one step below a prom invite. It was my first fancy dance. This boy, whose name I have forgotten, asked for my number at some sock hop. And he called. Gosh, so many boys asked for my phone number that never called. And it was such a pleasant surprise when he asked me to a big dance, to homecoming. After the homecoming, with neither of us having a particularly good time or bad time, we kept on 'dating'. I did a lot of this kind of 'dating' in high school. A boy and I would get together on a Saturday evening, go to a movie, grab something to eat. Or do other stuff. But we never really connected. It was more like both of us were going through the motions of what we thought we were supposed to do. We were supposed to date. We dated.
So this homecoming boy and I kept dating after the fall homecoming, through Xmas and into spring. It got so 'serious' that the boy would sometimes come by my house on a Saturday afternoon, without having a date to go 'out' and we would just hang out. When this happened, though, I always had my baby sister around. Caring for her was my top priority in high school. This boy seemed okay with having my baby sister around.
One day, with this boy, my baby sister and I hanging out on a warm spring afternoon, he remarked that my sister was talking gibberish. She was not. She was talking quite a lot but nobody understood her but me. I had figured out that she had been talking for some time, but no one else in the family understood her. For some reason, I had figured out that she was rolling her verbal sounds off kilter. I will write two sentences, one in the regular language way and one to demonstrate what my baby sister was doing when she was early verbal:
I like to play in the sand. REGULAR WAY.
I ike pay sa. BABY WAY.
She thought she was saying, "I like to play in the sand" but everyone heard baby talk, gobbledegook.
Since I had that epiphany, I have always been able to understand babies before most people do. I adjust how I listen.
So, back to the boy in high school. He said my baby sister wasn't talking, that she was uttering gibberish and I was just pretending she could talk, that I was making my dialogue with the baby up. I went to our front door opened it and gestured for the guy to hit the road. I could barely speak. First I had asked him to take it back. I was so indignant that he had insulted my baby sister. I don't think I was offended for my own sake, although, in hindsight, I see that he was commenting about me more than her. I doted on the baby.
He stood up and said "You are kidding, right?"
I shook my head in solemn silence, pointing out the door like the Grim Reaper.
He left. I never heard from him again. As I have already indicated, we were not really involved with one another. We had both been going through the motions of dating without actually having a relationship.
Like someone acknowledging their addiction in a twelve step meeting, I admit that I allowed my daughter to watch television, even when she was very young. I also want to speak in my own defense and assure my legion of followers (47? do 47 people, according to google blogger, actually follow this blog? who are they? and why?) that I did not let my kid watch as much tv as some parents.
I have never had a tv in my kitchen. When my daughter was just one, while visiting another mom and her one-year-old daughter for lunch, I saw that other mom, a very good parent, turn the kitchen television to Sesame Street. The TV appeared to be positioned so the kid in the high chair would have optimal viewing. It had never occurred to me to stream tv at my baby when she and I were alone together. You know what I did in the early years when I was home alone with my baby most of the day? I interacted with her. All day long. We did not always talk, esp. when, ahem, she was not yet talking. The first word she said that I thought I recognized was a brilliant attempt on her part to say Snuffleupagus, the big, and yet somehow cuddly, elephant-y creature then on Sesame Street. I am still sure she was trying to say Snuffleupagas. She was maybe seven months old. It was brilliant. All the baby books said I could expect one and two syllable words. My little genius started out started out with five syllables!
Although, having said that, I feel compelled to qualify my bragging. I believe babies are talking long before most of the adults in their lives clue themselves into the baby's talking.
When I was about fifteen, I dated a boy that I met at a dance at St. Leo's, a boy's high school in my teenage world. He took me to his homecoming dance. Invitations to a boy's homecoming dance were high status, just one step below a prom invite. It was my first fancy dance. This boy, whose name I have forgotten, asked for my number at some sock hop. And he called. Gosh, so many boys asked for my phone number that never called. And it was such a pleasant surprise when he asked me to a big dance, to homecoming. After the homecoming, with neither of us having a particularly good time or bad time, we kept on 'dating'. I did a lot of this kind of 'dating' in high school. A boy and I would get together on a Saturday evening, go to a movie, grab something to eat. Or do other stuff. But we never really connected. It was more like both of us were going through the motions of what we thought we were supposed to do. We were supposed to date. We dated.
So this homecoming boy and I kept dating after the fall homecoming, through Xmas and into spring. It got so 'serious' that the boy would sometimes come by my house on a Saturday afternoon, without having a date to go 'out' and we would just hang out. When this happened, though, I always had my baby sister around. Caring for her was my top priority in high school. This boy seemed okay with having my baby sister around.
One day, with this boy, my baby sister and I hanging out on a warm spring afternoon, he remarked that my sister was talking gibberish. She was not. She was talking quite a lot but nobody understood her but me. I had figured out that she had been talking for some time, but no one else in the family understood her. For some reason, I had figured out that she was rolling her verbal sounds off kilter. I will write two sentences, one in the regular language way and one to demonstrate what my baby sister was doing when she was early verbal:
I like to play in the sand. REGULAR WAY.
I ike pay sa. BABY WAY.
She thought she was saying, "I like to play in the sand" but everyone heard baby talk, gobbledegook.
Since I had that epiphany, I have always been able to understand babies before most people do. I adjust how I listen.
So, back to the boy in high school. He said my baby sister wasn't talking, that she was uttering gibberish and I was just pretending she could talk, that I was making my dialogue with the baby up. I went to our front door opened it and gestured for the guy to hit the road. I could barely speak. First I had asked him to take it back. I was so indignant that he had insulted my baby sister. I don't think I was offended for my own sake, although, in hindsight, I see that he was commenting about me more than her. I doted on the baby.
He stood up and said "You are kidding, right?"
I shook my head in solemn silence, pointing out the door like the Grim Reaper.
He left. I never heard from him again. As I have already indicated, we were not really involved with one another. We had both been going through the motions of dating without actually having a relationship.
weird bloody nose
While sleeping earlier this night, suddenly I became aware of having a very runny nose. At first, asleep, I decided to just sniff hard, assuming the running would stop. But it didn't. For some reason, I put my hand out feeling for a tissue. I'm not sure why. I guess some part of me had seen the napkin that my hand found. I was awake by then. I take the napkin and blow my nose really hard and fall back asleep.
Then I forgot about what had happened.
Several hours later, awake, I became aware that one nostril felt dry, I touched it and a couple dark tiny spots came off on my finger: dark as in dried blood from a bloody nose.
I know this is a very odd little thing to put on my blog but I am intrigued that while basically asleep, I avoided a gushing bloody nose that would have left blood all over my bedding. When I saw the little black spots, I found the napkin I had used and, sure enough, it was all red.
I had a bloody nose while sleeping and dealt with it, basically asleep.
Then I forgot about what had happened.
Several hours later, awake, I became aware that one nostril felt dry, I touched it and a couple dark tiny spots came off on my finger: dark as in dried blood from a bloody nose.
I know this is a very odd little thing to put on my blog but I am intrigued that while basically asleep, I avoided a gushing bloody nose that would have left blood all over my bedding. When I saw the little black spots, I found the napkin I had used and, sure enough, it was all red.
I had a bloody nose while sleeping and dealt with it, basically asleep.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
ack!
I have had a very sucky day.
Last week, I called my bank, which is in Washington State (I live in CA). Well, fuck it. I don't want to write my story of woe. I want to cry about it out loud and hear someone murmur sympathy. Like that is going to happen.
One time, when I was living in Ann Arbor, near my sister and niece, my sister had a crap day. We often had dinner together when we lived in Ann Arbor so I was at her house putting dinner on the table when she came in, bringing the delight (Isabelle, then age three) home from day care. Sis bursted in and bursted into tears, telling me all about all the things that had gone wrong. Nothing serious. All was well.
Sometimes you just have one of these days, when many things go wrong. On some days, the most trivial snafus can overwhelm me. And my sister.
This particular time my sister did her crying act was a revelation to me. She is fourteen years younger than me. She grew up two states away from me. Plus I left for college when she was four. She has only the most fuzzy memories of ever having lived with me when she was a toddler. And we had no memories of being grown up persons. I have lived alone, or with my daughter, most of my adult life. I've never had roommates, although for a few years I had a husband.
I had no idea people could behave the way my sister did that day, that they could fall apart a little, cry and get sympathy. I have still never had that experience. I don't talk to anyone when I have a sucky day. I tend to bitterly blame myself.
Well, I will whine a little.
I needed to do some life administration work. I needed my September bank statement and it has to be in the right office by Monday, Nov 28th. So ten days ago, I called my bank in WA State and requested my September bank statement. I know, now, that I could have spoken with more precision. By 'September bank statement' I meant the statement the bank mailed to me in September. Today -- talk about the ever slower u.s. mail service! -- the October bank statement arrived. The statement was dated October 5th, it posted my October income which is automatically deposited into the account. Why would anyone consider a statement dated in October as a September statement?
In a panic, I called the bank and asked them to FAX me the correct statement. The October statement was two pages. The September one, presented in computer print-out format instead of the kind that comes in the mail, was five pages. I pay a buck a page to the little Chinese man who runs a strange business across the street from my building. He rents mailboxes, ships UPS, acts as a notary. He does not packaging, like the modern shipping stores for UPS and FedEx. His UPS shipping is not computerized: you get a handwritten receipt with a tracking number. The tracking number works just like the ones spit out by computer but he gets them from a book of receipts. When the truck comes for the packages, it scans the number into the system. All the equipment is old and looks like something out of a great movie from the forties. Everything is very worn. The floors have shallow dips where pedestrian traffic has worn it over the years but we are talking about a kazillion years. I have patronized this shop about a dozen times in the past three years or so. I have faxed a few medical releases, shipped a couple items via UPS. The old Chinese guy sits in the back, with a green tinted visor shading his eyes but I wonder from what: it is dingy dark. He looks as his computer all day long. If he owns the building, then I could see it being some kind of income for him. If he pays rent, I can't figure out how he could get enough income from renting mailboxes. I think many homeless and 'drifter' types use his post boxes. There are other, modern stores with mailbox services, shipping, etc.
He is a nice guy. He charges a buck a page for faxing. Once I faxed nine pages for a medical thing. He only charged me five. Today, with five pages, he charged me three. He used to allow his church to distribute sack lunches on Saturday, free to anyone who wanted one until they were all gone. That doesn't happen anymore. I wonder if hungry people in Berkeley have somewhere else to line up for free sandwiches on Saturday. I always liked seeing that line. I have a nice feeling about this odd little business.
My bank agreed to fax what I needed to the Chinese guy. The bank clerk wrote down the wrong phone number. She dialed 848 instead of 845. So I had to call back. The only number on my other bank statements is a 1-888 main number that had kept me on hold for twenty minutes the first time. I looked up the direct dial number online, for my particular branch, but my prepaid phone service kept telling me the number was no longer in service. So I dialed the 1-888, for the second time, waited on hold for what felt like way too long cause I was on my pay-as-you-go cell. It's not really a waste of money because I virtually never use up the minimum minutes I am required to buy every month to keep the phone. I hardly ever use the cell because it is so expensive but it is one of life's many weirdo things: I have to spend seven bucks a month to keep the phone line. I tend to pile up the money. I think I have about eighty bucks on the phone right now. So what the heck if I spent five bucks on hold today? The money is spent, cannot be returned to me.
Last spring, an old friend from Minnesota visited. Her traveling companion remarked "There is no such thing as a cell phone without a camera anymore!" I pulled out my three-year-old freebie phone -- I only had to pay $20 to get this free phone but then I got $20 in phone credits, good to keep the line working for three months. Every three months, I have to pay $20.
God, this is a boring rant, huh?
All these stupid little things went wrong. I am sick. I am very aware that everything wears me out much, much more when I feel sick. I have been feeling very sick for what seems like forever and which is, I am able to trace, based on doc visits, dates back, at least, to last spring. No wonder old people get crabby. When you feel really lousy and very weak much of the time, it shows.
So. I finally get through to my bank gal a second time. She had fax'd the thing to the wrong phone number, which means my bank statement is sitting in someone else's fax machine right now. They could use that to steal money from me. Once in the past year, someone used my bank account to pay a $200 cable bill. Of course my bank corrected the error. I guess there are people in the world who would not notice $200 missing from their checking account? I will have to watch my bank statements carefully.
Last week, I called my bank, which is in Washington State (I live in CA). Well, fuck it. I don't want to write my story of woe. I want to cry about it out loud and hear someone murmur sympathy. Like that is going to happen.
One time, when I was living in Ann Arbor, near my sister and niece, my sister had a crap day. We often had dinner together when we lived in Ann Arbor so I was at her house putting dinner on the table when she came in, bringing the delight (Isabelle, then age three) home from day care. Sis bursted in and bursted into tears, telling me all about all the things that had gone wrong. Nothing serious. All was well.
Sometimes you just have one of these days, when many things go wrong. On some days, the most trivial snafus can overwhelm me. And my sister.
This particular time my sister did her crying act was a revelation to me. She is fourteen years younger than me. She grew up two states away from me. Plus I left for college when she was four. She has only the most fuzzy memories of ever having lived with me when she was a toddler. And we had no memories of being grown up persons. I have lived alone, or with my daughter, most of my adult life. I've never had roommates, although for a few years I had a husband.
I had no idea people could behave the way my sister did that day, that they could fall apart a little, cry and get sympathy. I have still never had that experience. I don't talk to anyone when I have a sucky day. I tend to bitterly blame myself.
Well, I will whine a little.
I needed to do some life administration work. I needed my September bank statement and it has to be in the right office by Monday, Nov 28th. So ten days ago, I called my bank in WA State and requested my September bank statement. I know, now, that I could have spoken with more precision. By 'September bank statement' I meant the statement the bank mailed to me in September. Today -- talk about the ever slower u.s. mail service! -- the October bank statement arrived. The statement was dated October 5th, it posted my October income which is automatically deposited into the account. Why would anyone consider a statement dated in October as a September statement?
In a panic, I called the bank and asked them to FAX me the correct statement. The October statement was two pages. The September one, presented in computer print-out format instead of the kind that comes in the mail, was five pages. I pay a buck a page to the little Chinese man who runs a strange business across the street from my building. He rents mailboxes, ships UPS, acts as a notary. He does not packaging, like the modern shipping stores for UPS and FedEx. His UPS shipping is not computerized: you get a handwritten receipt with a tracking number. The tracking number works just like the ones spit out by computer but he gets them from a book of receipts. When the truck comes for the packages, it scans the number into the system. All the equipment is old and looks like something out of a great movie from the forties. Everything is very worn. The floors have shallow dips where pedestrian traffic has worn it over the years but we are talking about a kazillion years. I have patronized this shop about a dozen times in the past three years or so. I have faxed a few medical releases, shipped a couple items via UPS. The old Chinese guy sits in the back, with a green tinted visor shading his eyes but I wonder from what: it is dingy dark. He looks as his computer all day long. If he owns the building, then I could see it being some kind of income for him. If he pays rent, I can't figure out how he could get enough income from renting mailboxes. I think many homeless and 'drifter' types use his post boxes. There are other, modern stores with mailbox services, shipping, etc.
He is a nice guy. He charges a buck a page for faxing. Once I faxed nine pages for a medical thing. He only charged me five. Today, with five pages, he charged me three. He used to allow his church to distribute sack lunches on Saturday, free to anyone who wanted one until they were all gone. That doesn't happen anymore. I wonder if hungry people in Berkeley have somewhere else to line up for free sandwiches on Saturday. I always liked seeing that line. I have a nice feeling about this odd little business.
My bank agreed to fax what I needed to the Chinese guy. The bank clerk wrote down the wrong phone number. She dialed 848 instead of 845. So I had to call back. The only number on my other bank statements is a 1-888 main number that had kept me on hold for twenty minutes the first time. I looked up the direct dial number online, for my particular branch, but my prepaid phone service kept telling me the number was no longer in service. So I dialed the 1-888, for the second time, waited on hold for what felt like way too long cause I was on my pay-as-you-go cell. It's not really a waste of money because I virtually never use up the minimum minutes I am required to buy every month to keep the phone. I hardly ever use the cell because it is so expensive but it is one of life's many weirdo things: I have to spend seven bucks a month to keep the phone line. I tend to pile up the money. I think I have about eighty bucks on the phone right now. So what the heck if I spent five bucks on hold today? The money is spent, cannot be returned to me.
Last spring, an old friend from Minnesota visited. Her traveling companion remarked "There is no such thing as a cell phone without a camera anymore!" I pulled out my three-year-old freebie phone -- I only had to pay $20 to get this free phone but then I got $20 in phone credits, good to keep the line working for three months. Every three months, I have to pay $20.
God, this is a boring rant, huh?
All these stupid little things went wrong. I am sick. I am very aware that everything wears me out much, much more when I feel sick. I have been feeling very sick for what seems like forever and which is, I am able to trace, based on doc visits, dates back, at least, to last spring. No wonder old people get crabby. When you feel really lousy and very weak much of the time, it shows.
So. I finally get through to my bank gal a second time. She had fax'd the thing to the wrong phone number, which means my bank statement is sitting in someone else's fax machine right now. They could use that to steal money from me. Once in the past year, someone used my bank account to pay a $200 cable bill. Of course my bank corrected the error. I guess there are people in the world who would not notice $200 missing from their checking account? I will have to watch my bank statements carefully.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
a troubled heart
Something is wrong with my heart. I have decided to not pursue further diagnosis. I do feel lousy all the time. Heart problems go with diabetes. My doctor has warned me that my quality of life could diminish.
I wish I had declined treatment in 2006 when I had pulmonary emboli. My doc had called me late on a Friday afternoon. Right away I thought "I could check out
I wish I had declined treatment in 2006 when I had pulmonary emboli. My doc had called me late on a Friday afternoon. Right away I thought "I could check out
Sunday, November 20, 2011
a cold wind
Yesterday, I dashed to my most-local farmers' market about twenty minutes before it closed. I am sick. Serious health challenges. Most of time, I am content to stay in bed doing nothing but being sick. It's a little scary to watch myself go day after day preferring to be still. It's not laziness. Sometimes I drag myself to the pool; once I get there and jump in, my body moves through laps on autopilot and it feels good. Once I am back on land, I feel as sick as ever. The walk home from the pool, which is, seriously, about a block, can seem quite far on my bad days. On the 'bad days', I have so much fatigue that I can barely move. I feel lousy most of the time but the deep fatigue is almost worse. When I become aware that I have thought about the effort of reaching over to pick up my water bottle beside my bed, aware that I am thirsty but dreading the work of taking a drink, I am sick.
Yesterday was such a day. But I needed some food in the house.
I have been digging pink lady apples. Yesterday was probably the tail end of the pink lady season. I like these apples for their taste but also they come smallish, at least smallish compared to supermarket apples, which seem to get bigger and bigger. Has anyone else noticed that grocery stores, even places like Safeway, sell gigantic premium apples? These big ones are too big. The pink ladies are perfection. I have been eating one for breakfast with two tablespoons of almond butter. I count my carbs beforehand and then two hours later. Testing glucose two hours after eating is called 'post prandial' testing. I wonder what post-prandial (PP) means, eh? Somedays, post pink lady with almond butter, my sugar is still okay. Other days, eating the same thing (with unavoidable variations in apple size, naturing insisting on its independence in sizing fruit), my sugar PP skyrockets. How come?
So I bought one pink lady per day. After I had paid for my apples, I noticed a box of irregular, and bruised, apples for a buck a pound. I paid $2.50. A woman was buying enough buck-a-pound apples for a pie. I love to make pies, esp. apple. I really wanted to buy a bunch of those cheap apples and bake a pie. But I need flour and lard and a whole pie is a lot of pie. Still, I much prefer my own fruit pies cause I use lots more fruit. So my pies are always 'deep dish'. If the recipe says 8 apples, I use 14 for the depth. Baking apple pies makes me lonely, though, for when I had someone to share pies with, which I don't have now. If I were to bake a pie, I'd eat the whole thing. Plus I would have had to shop for flour. I always have butter in my freezer but I tend to buy flour from organic pins at Whole Food, two or three cups at a time.
I really wanted to go to the Grand Lake market yesterday but I felt too sick for all the effort involved.
I still have a butternut squash from last week. I intend to bake it and turn it into squash soup. Lots of carbs but good carbs. Why is a creamy orange-yellow squash soup so satisfying? I could spice it with a little curry, or keep it soothingly plain. Choices choices. But soup is a lot like pie: it suggests shared meals to me. I should cook well for myself, right? But I want to cook for shared eating.
I'm so sick of me.
Anyway. As I waited in line to pay for some tomatoes, the two young adults behind the pay location both felt a gust of cold wind. The gal shivered and said "It got cold all of a sudden." Then the guy acknowledged that he has also shivered. They both tried to pull their hands into their sweatshirt sleeves, tried to pull down the hoods on those hoodies. I restrained myself from telling them, matron-like, that they should have another layer, at least have one on hand. Of course they were cold with only a sweatshirt. Winter has arrived.
I think winter arrived in Berkeley about 1:45 p.m. yesterday. I swear I felt the first cold winter wind around that time, as I shivered over to the market. On Friday, it was not freezing. On Saturday, freezing. Today, Sunday, freezing to stay. Winter has come.
Tomorrow I get some tests done on my heart. I am considering telling my doc, when I eventually talk to her about the heart tests, which will not be tomorrow, that I might not treat whatever she decides is wrong. Maybe people are supposed to accept illness and die off. Maybe we aren't supposed to use 'medicine' to defeat the will of the goddesses, of the cosmos or whoever the heck is in charge, if anyone is, which likely no one is. And if no one is in charge, what does it matter if I just let myself die off. No one would notice.
I hear friends assuring me that they would care. BFD. Will any of them invite me for Thanksgiving? Or even for lunch during the holiday season? No one ever does. Since I lost my daughter, I step into the holiday hellhole from Thanksgiving to New Year's and no one socializes with me. I am exaggerating. I have done some socializing in December but it's pro forma. I have tried, in the years since I lost my daughter, tried to trick myself into believing the human race wants me on the inside of it but it is a trick, a delusion. Trickster work.
A cold wind. I am reminded of that great Ray Bradbury young adult novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes. I think a cold wind rumbles through the town just before the carnival arrives. And with that carnival, evil also arrives in town. A cold wind. I feel it.
Yesterday was such a day. But I needed some food in the house.
I have been digging pink lady apples. Yesterday was probably the tail end of the pink lady season. I like these apples for their taste but also they come smallish, at least smallish compared to supermarket apples, which seem to get bigger and bigger. Has anyone else noticed that grocery stores, even places like Safeway, sell gigantic premium apples? These big ones are too big. The pink ladies are perfection. I have been eating one for breakfast with two tablespoons of almond butter. I count my carbs beforehand and then two hours later. Testing glucose two hours after eating is called 'post prandial' testing. I wonder what post-prandial (PP) means, eh? Somedays, post pink lady with almond butter, my sugar is still okay. Other days, eating the same thing (with unavoidable variations in apple size, naturing insisting on its independence in sizing fruit), my sugar PP skyrockets. How come?
So I bought one pink lady per day. After I had paid for my apples, I noticed a box of irregular, and bruised, apples for a buck a pound. I paid $2.50. A woman was buying enough buck-a-pound apples for a pie. I love to make pies, esp. apple. I really wanted to buy a bunch of those cheap apples and bake a pie. But I need flour and lard and a whole pie is a lot of pie. Still, I much prefer my own fruit pies cause I use lots more fruit. So my pies are always 'deep dish'. If the recipe says 8 apples, I use 14 for the depth. Baking apple pies makes me lonely, though, for when I had someone to share pies with, which I don't have now. If I were to bake a pie, I'd eat the whole thing. Plus I would have had to shop for flour. I always have butter in my freezer but I tend to buy flour from organic pins at Whole Food, two or three cups at a time.
I really wanted to go to the Grand Lake market yesterday but I felt too sick for all the effort involved.
I still have a butternut squash from last week. I intend to bake it and turn it into squash soup. Lots of carbs but good carbs. Why is a creamy orange-yellow squash soup so satisfying? I could spice it with a little curry, or keep it soothingly plain. Choices choices. But soup is a lot like pie: it suggests shared meals to me. I should cook well for myself, right? But I want to cook for shared eating.
I'm so sick of me.
Anyway. As I waited in line to pay for some tomatoes, the two young adults behind the pay location both felt a gust of cold wind. The gal shivered and said "It got cold all of a sudden." Then the guy acknowledged that he has also shivered. They both tried to pull their hands into their sweatshirt sleeves, tried to pull down the hoods on those hoodies. I restrained myself from telling them, matron-like, that they should have another layer, at least have one on hand. Of course they were cold with only a sweatshirt. Winter has arrived.
I think winter arrived in Berkeley about 1:45 p.m. yesterday. I swear I felt the first cold winter wind around that time, as I shivered over to the market. On Friday, it was not freezing. On Saturday, freezing. Today, Sunday, freezing to stay. Winter has come.
Tomorrow I get some tests done on my heart. I am considering telling my doc, when I eventually talk to her about the heart tests, which will not be tomorrow, that I might not treat whatever she decides is wrong. Maybe people are supposed to accept illness and die off. Maybe we aren't supposed to use 'medicine' to defeat the will of the goddesses, of the cosmos or whoever the heck is in charge, if anyone is, which likely no one is. And if no one is in charge, what does it matter if I just let myself die off. No one would notice.
I hear friends assuring me that they would care. BFD. Will any of them invite me for Thanksgiving? Or even for lunch during the holiday season? No one ever does. Since I lost my daughter, I step into the holiday hellhole from Thanksgiving to New Year's and no one socializes with me. I am exaggerating. I have done some socializing in December but it's pro forma. I have tried, in the years since I lost my daughter, tried to trick myself into believing the human race wants me on the inside of it but it is a trick, a delusion. Trickster work.
A cold wind. I am reminded of that great Ray Bradbury young adult novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes. I think a cold wind rumbles through the town just before the carnival arrives. And with that carnival, evil also arrives in town. A cold wind. I feel it.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
persimmons become hoshigaki
When I lived in Mountain View, which has a great Sunday farmers market -- widely touted as one of the best in the whole bay, and I agree, I discovered Hamada Farms, which sells fruit and dried fruit. When I first lived in MV, I had a great time savoring all the local produce I was not used to seeing much of back in the upper Midwest. You don't see persimmon and fig trees in Minnesota. I am sure you can buy them there, and now, food fussiness is on the rise so I am sure persimmons and figs are more common in MN than when I lived there until 1998. But there is stuff sold here that was definitely not sold back there when I was there.
And that brings us to the gooey persimmons, which I did not know about until I moved to CA. And then, trying Hamada's wide range of great dried fruits -- I used to fly back to Seattle a lot and always brought CA food hostess gifts so I was looking for new, interesting things.
Hoshigaki is dried, massaged gooey persimmons, derived from Japanese culinary culture, although the Koreans dry the gooey persimmons in a similar way. The Japanese hang endless walls of persimmons in the sun, after they get all gooey wet ripe and then someone comes along daily and massages each persimmon. So, yes, it is a spendy food.
But it is awesomely delicious. It is nature's candy, the best natural candy I have ever eaten. The dried, massaged, gooey kind of persimmon (I should look up the proper word: two kinds of perimmons, one a little like an apple and one gets gooey and you wait until it seems to be rotting and that's when you eat it or make persimmon pudding or something). I bet persimmon would make an interesting pie and interesting fruit bread. Maybe I'll try some. But as long as there is hoshigaki, nature's perfect candy, why would I?
You get five or six persimmons for five bucks, unless you buy four, then the guy gives you the fifth box for free. When he said that, I bought out his entire stock for the day: fifteen boxes of hoshigaki for sixty bucks (instead of the full retail of $75) -- such a deal. My mom used to say that my dad would buy six left boots if the price was right, meaning dad could never resist a bargain. It might have seemed like I behaved daffily, but I really love hoshigaki, Hamada Farms always runs out long before I am sated. And I have friends I love who love them. I have already wrapped half of my new stock to mail to these friends: free hoshigaki if you convince me you love me.
I have to count the carbs, of course, but I can eat these in moderation and they are really, really yummy.
I saw them online for sale for $43/pound plus shipping. I think I got at least 2.5 pounds for my sixty bucks but I don't care: these are awesome perfect food.
And that brings us to the gooey persimmons, which I did not know about until I moved to CA. And then, trying Hamada's wide range of great dried fruits -- I used to fly back to Seattle a lot and always brought CA food hostess gifts so I was looking for new, interesting things.
Hoshigaki is dried, massaged gooey persimmons, derived from Japanese culinary culture, although the Koreans dry the gooey persimmons in a similar way. The Japanese hang endless walls of persimmons in the sun, after they get all gooey wet ripe and then someone comes along daily and massages each persimmon. So, yes, it is a spendy food.
But it is awesomely delicious. It is nature's candy, the best natural candy I have ever eaten. The dried, massaged, gooey kind of persimmon (I should look up the proper word: two kinds of perimmons, one a little like an apple and one gets gooey and you wait until it seems to be rotting and that's when you eat it or make persimmon pudding or something). I bet persimmon would make an interesting pie and interesting fruit bread. Maybe I'll try some. But as long as there is hoshigaki, nature's perfect candy, why would I?
You get five or six persimmons for five bucks, unless you buy four, then the guy gives you the fifth box for free. When he said that, I bought out his entire stock for the day: fifteen boxes of hoshigaki for sixty bucks (instead of the full retail of $75) -- such a deal. My mom used to say that my dad would buy six left boots if the price was right, meaning dad could never resist a bargain. It might have seemed like I behaved daffily, but I really love hoshigaki, Hamada Farms always runs out long before I am sated. And I have friends I love who love them. I have already wrapped half of my new stock to mail to these friends: free hoshigaki if you convince me you love me.
I have to count the carbs, of course, but I can eat these in moderation and they are really, really yummy.
I saw them online for sale for $43/pound plus shipping. I think I got at least 2.5 pounds for my sixty bucks but I don't care: these are awesome perfect food.
Friday, September 09, 2011
sacrificing virgins
A few cultures have, historically, sacrificed young female virgins to the gods as a form of worship. I never focussed on the details so I don't remember why sacrifices were believed to be needed. Maybe for a good crop season? Or water?
Here's my question. How's come it was never male virgins sacrificed for the community?
And this. If a female becomes a Muslim jihadist, committing some atrocity in the name of Allah in a suicidal effort, does the female get 72 virgin males? Or however many virgins the suicide guy jihadists are promised? Somehow, without having done any research, not even a google, I'm guessing that chick hijadists don't get virgins when they die for Allah.
Here's my question. How's come it was never male virgins sacrificed for the community?
And this. If a female becomes a Muslim jihadist, committing some atrocity in the name of Allah in a suicidal effort, does the female get 72 virgin males? Or however many virgins the suicide guy jihadists are promised? Somehow, without having done any research, not even a google, I'm guessing that chick hijadists don't get virgins when they die for Allah.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
more on racism in New Mexico, in Gallup
My daughter and I spent about ten days in New Mexico her first year at college. On her way back east, she stopped in Omaha for New Year's with her dad. My sister was teaching in Gallup that year. We spent a week in Gallup, just hanging out loving one another including my niece who might have been the cutest, more charismatic toddler that has ever lived. Seriously, she was one awesomely adorable kid.
For anyone reading who does not know this, Gallup, NM is in the heart of a massive Navajo reservation that sprawls across a large chunk of westernmost New Mexico and goes on deep into Arizona. And if you don't know much about Indians in America, it pretty much goes without saying that if you are living in the heart of a huge chunk of Indian country, you are in a poor region.
The day after Christmas, I headed straight to Walmart, to buy my sister some kitchen stuff. Watching her prepare Christmas dinner with inadequate kitchen stuff had hurt me. And I had money at the time.
As I mentioned, in a previous post, the Walmart kitchen department in Gallup NM was picked over the day after Christmas. I have always thought kitchen stuff does not count as presents but that kitchen department was stripped clean, which suggested to me that poor people consider a new cheap frying pan gift worthy. I did not consider some cheesey pots and pans gift worthy. Just a nice thing to do for my sister.
The point is that I went to Walmart the day after Xmas. It was mobbed. Everyone in Gallup and most of the rez were there to return stuff they got that they didn't want and to try to score after-Christmas mark downs.
I picked up whatever I saw that I thought my sister could use. The stuff was such poor quality. A crappy pan is better than no pan. When I went to check out, there was one very long line and then, as a cashier became available, someone from the single line would advance to a cash register. But as soon as I got in line, and a cashier saw me, the only non-Navajo in line, the cashier waved me over, indicating that it was my turn even though I was not at the front of the line.
That's what life was like in Gallup, NM in December 1998. All the Navajo took it as a given that it was okay to waive a white person to the head of the line. All the whites did too. And the cashiers looked white. I imagine in a place as poor as Gallup, a job at Walmart is seen as a good job. Jobs would be scarce in such a place.
I refused my privilege and waited my turn. No one around me seemed to notice. I was repeatedly offered a chance, by one cashier after another, to jump to the front of the line. What? White people odn't have to wait in line?! When it was my actual turn, I ended up being waited on by the woman who had waived me out of turn. I told her I thought that her behavior was outrageous and she did not seem to understand why I thought she had done anything wrong. Racism seemed the norm to her, I guess.
White people get waived to the head of the line? That's normal? That's apartheid.
I later regretted buying that crap at Walmart because we went to Santa Fe for a few days and could have gone to Target and bought better stuff. But by then, my sisterly kindness budget had been depleted.
For anyone reading who does not know this, Gallup, NM is in the heart of a massive Navajo reservation that sprawls across a large chunk of westernmost New Mexico and goes on deep into Arizona. And if you don't know much about Indians in America, it pretty much goes without saying that if you are living in the heart of a huge chunk of Indian country, you are in a poor region.
The day after Christmas, I headed straight to Walmart, to buy my sister some kitchen stuff. Watching her prepare Christmas dinner with inadequate kitchen stuff had hurt me. And I had money at the time.
As I mentioned, in a previous post, the Walmart kitchen department in Gallup NM was picked over the day after Christmas. I have always thought kitchen stuff does not count as presents but that kitchen department was stripped clean, which suggested to me that poor people consider a new cheap frying pan gift worthy. I did not consider some cheesey pots and pans gift worthy. Just a nice thing to do for my sister.
The point is that I went to Walmart the day after Xmas. It was mobbed. Everyone in Gallup and most of the rez were there to return stuff they got that they didn't want and to try to score after-Christmas mark downs.
I picked up whatever I saw that I thought my sister could use. The stuff was such poor quality. A crappy pan is better than no pan. When I went to check out, there was one very long line and then, as a cashier became available, someone from the single line would advance to a cash register. But as soon as I got in line, and a cashier saw me, the only non-Navajo in line, the cashier waved me over, indicating that it was my turn even though I was not at the front of the line.
That's what life was like in Gallup, NM in December 1998. All the Navajo took it as a given that it was okay to waive a white person to the head of the line. All the whites did too. And the cashiers looked white. I imagine in a place as poor as Gallup, a job at Walmart is seen as a good job. Jobs would be scarce in such a place.
I refused my privilege and waited my turn. No one around me seemed to notice. I was repeatedly offered a chance, by one cashier after another, to jump to the front of the line. What? White people odn't have to wait in line?! When it was my actual turn, I ended up being waited on by the woman who had waived me out of turn. I told her I thought that her behavior was outrageous and she did not seem to understand why I thought she had done anything wrong. Racism seemed the norm to her, I guess.
White people get waived to the head of the line? That's normal? That's apartheid.
I later regretted buying that crap at Walmart because we went to Santa Fe for a few days and could have gone to Target and bought better stuff. But by then, my sisterly kindness budget had been depleted.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
do I have a daddy?
My daughter and I spent Christmas 1998 in Gallup, New Mexico. My sister and niece were living there. My sister had just moved there, working as a school teacher, not really earning enough to live on. She survived cause our mom paid for her childcare. This meant, among other things, that not only did she not have guest beds, she didn't have enough blankets for all of us. I picked up a twin air mattress at Target in Albuqueque after we got our rental car at the airport. I slept on the air mattress. My daughter slept on something else, but I forget what. Katie slept on something on the floor next to my niece's bed. I slept in the living room. My sister, renting one of the cheapest apartments in Gallup, which is a poor town so dumps are really dumpy, did not control the heat. And her landlord basically cut off the heat at night.
The first night in that place, I think I was the coldest I had ever been. The coldest for many hours. Up until then, if I had ever gotten that cold, I did something about it but there was nothing to do. I cried out about freezing, half asleep but half fantasizing that my sister would invite me to get into her queen size bed with her just to get under the blankets. But she didn't.
In the morning, she voiced empathy for me being cold, apologized and pretended it had not occurred to her to invite me to get warm. She just said 'there was nothing I could do for you so I ignored your cries about being cold'. I didn't want to buy blankets. I had already bought the air mattress, which was, admittedly pretty cheap. I had brought my own air pump from home. I guess we could have gone to Walmart to buy blankets -- my daughter had also shivered through the night. Since we were going to be there a week, we had to do something.
I suggested my sister ask some teacher friends to lend her blankets. And that's what we did.
Get this. My sister chose the best borrowed blanket for herself. Her friend had given us two wool blankets. One was soft, pliant. The other wool was like a horse blanket, stiff, scratchy, not really a sleeping blanket. The stiff wool blanket was more like something you might have used in an ancient sleighride or maybe had literally been a horse blanket. Sis chose the soft one -- she already had blankets! and gave me the stiff one. You can't really curl up warmly in a stiff, unyielding horse blanket. It was an improvement. I made a kind of stiff tent of warm air for myself on my air mattress. But I still shiver as I recall that my sister took the best borrowed blanket. I actually said something to her about my surprise and she said "Well, she's my friend", referring to the teacher who had lent us the binkies. And I was her cold sister.
My sister did not have enough cooking utensils to really cook. So the day after Xmas, I went to Walmart, determined to buy her a few basics. The Walmart in Gallup was, pretty much, the only place in Gallup to buy anything. No Williams Sonomas. No Target. No mid-market department stores. Just Walmart. And the kitchen department of that Walmart was sold out. First, that Walmart only carried crappy kitchen stuff. Well, maybe it had some higher quality items before Xmas but after Xmas, the picked over selection -- and the product signs for the sold-out kitchen merchandise -- indicated only the cheapest stuff, like very lightweight 'frying pans' covered with the cheap teflon that flakes off immediately. I wanted to buy sis one real frying pan, at least one with a copper core on the bottom but there were none.
I bought her a bunch of stuff the spatulas, cheap pots to boil pasta. I didn't spend much cause there wasn't much to buy and what was there was crap.
Gallup, of course, is in the middle of Navajo country. Navajos are mostly poor.
In 1998, there were rich white folks, like doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers. It was widely reported that the richest families were the white ones that sold tourist crap. The tourist crap also included authentic Navajo rugs, kachinas, belts, wall hangings. Some of those Navajo rugs were priced at sixty thousand, seventy thousand and more. We toured those stores, to see the Navajo culture. We wondered how much the 'real' Navajos that sold their real stuff to the stores got paid. We wondered why Navajos didn't just set up their own shop.
And, sure enough, there was a shop run cooperatively by a tribe. I bought a Corn Maiden at that shop. But that Navajo co-op did not have any of those sixty thousand dollar rugs.
Apartheid exists everywhere. We think it's gone. Somehow we have a collective spin of how life works in this country that often erases the day-to-day reality in human lives.
An old white-haired, rich white lady waited on us at the fanciest store selling authentic Navajo arts and crafts. Her granddaughter had a class with my sister. The grandmother talked to my sister about her granddaughter. I guess the granddaughter was a problem kid.
For some reason, I hated that old lady. She had referred to the country club a couple times in her exchange with my sister. It seemed to me that she was reminding my sister of my sister's low status compared to her, reminding my sister that the pain-in-the-ass teenage slut granddaughter doing drugs at school was a class or two above my sister who got a Masters from Stanford on a full fellowship.
I had a strong urge, that, thankfully, I suppressed, to ask that old lady to invite my sister to socialize with her. The only people my sister got to know while she lived in Gallup were other teachers. The white middle class in Gallup did not seem to see public school teachers as part of the white middle class.
We drove around Gallup a lot during our visit. At the time, my niece only napped on snooze cruises. She was always like that. When we had all lived in Minneapolis, my sister and I, with our napping baby in the back seat, drove up and down the boulevard lining the Mississippi River on both sides, driving up and down for miles, while the baby napped. This is an old trick. I used it with my kid when she had ear infections. Sleeping upright was easier on the ear pain, it seemed. Somehow, my niece got hooked on napping in a moving car. Maybe it's analogous to becoming dependent on sleep medication.
So we snooze cruised around Gallup. But also, I was evaluating a move there. Could I dare to set up shop as a lawyer? Clearly I could not earn a living in Gallup as an OD consultant, which I was getting a degree in at the time. But I could have motioned into a lawyer license in NM. Would anyone hire me? I didn't want to end up starving doing heartbreaking work for impoverished Navajos. Not that I don't have empathy for impoverished Navajos. I needed to earn a living. And something told me that the people with middle class incomes in that town -- very few Navajos fit this category -- already had white lawyers.
I guess all towns are the same. It's who you know.
I have veered far off course.
On Christmas Eve, the four of us, me, my daughter, my sister and my niece, went out to the only Chinese restaurant in town. There aren't many restaurants in Gallup. The main one is Earl's, which is an ordinary roadside diner, with booths, burgers, fries, fried chicken. In Navajo country, of course, you could get fry bread most places. Earl's is 'famous' because while you eat, Indians walk through selling Navajo crafts. Mostly cheap crap. Jewelry. Lots of turqoise. Beaded things, but little things, not elaborate expensive beaded pieces which passing travelers were unlikely to buy.
We found that if we bought something, that meant more traders would come to our table. You start to feel like you have to buy something to pay for the show. These traders were mostly females, dressed in native outfits, performing for the mostly white tourists. I doubt if many local folks bought very often. But if a traveler was barreling through western New Mexico on Route 66 -- and who has not dreamt of barreling along Route 66 -- Earl's was where most of them stopped. And Earl's had decent food so we ate there a few times during the week. We did not do much cooking, except for Xmas. I was on a trip and my sister had no cooking utensils. And we were all on vacation. My sister, after all, was on vacation from her very grim job teaching in that school.
My sister visited the mother of one of her students at the mother's job at Dunkin Donuts. She thought the girl had some potential but was making no effort whatsoever. She thought that if the family just gave the girl a little bit of support, the kid would graduate high school and could think of college as a realistic choice. It is hard to visit families who live on the res, which spans hundreds of miles, so she visited parents at their jobs in town if she could.
The mother who worked at Dunkin Donuts told my sister she was the first teacher that had ever talked to her about her daughter. The daughter was in high school. The white teachers were not necessarily blatantly racist but they all bought into the culture at the school which was that the Navajo were lazy, did not care about education, would likely never graduate, the parents didn't care. The school did absolutely nothing when a kid stopped coming to school, even the underage ones. The administration said it was impossible to find people on 'the res'.
Anyway. That Dunkin Donuts mother cried when my sister told her that she thought the daughter, with a little faith from her family, could graduate high school, even go to college. I don't think the mother believed her kid would graduate high school. She was crying because my sister's gesture touched her.
I don't think my sister pointed out to that Navajo mom, working one of the few 'good' jobs in Gallup for Indians (good in the sense that it was a job), that the mother could have gone to parent-teacher conferences.
Back to the Chinese restaurant on Xmas Eve. When we left Gallup, we spent a few days, all four of us, in Santa Fe, then I flew back to Massachusetts and my daughter flew to Omaha to spend a week with her father. We talked about Katie's upcoming New Year's visit to her father during our Chinese Christmas Eve dinner.
My niece, age 3, said "Mommy, do I have a daddy?"
My sister, my daughter and I probably all blanched inwardly but we all maintained the same composure on the outside. I knew that was a question my sister had to handled.
"No," my sister said firmly.
There was an awkward pause. Should we go on talking about Katie's visit to Omaha? Change the subject? No one wanted to verbalize any cues.
"Bobby at my school says everyone has a daddy, that's how I was born. Who was your boyfriend when I was born, Mom" Isabelle persisted. "Your boyfriend was my daddy, that's what Bobby says."
"I didn't have a boyfriend when you were born and you don't have a daddy."
Then I offered, "I was married to Katie's daddy when she was born." hoping to reinforce my sister without actually telling Isabelle anything related to what Isabelle really wanted to know.
In 2006, when my niece was 10, I spent a week with her, my sister, my sister's new husband (and Isabelle's adoptive father) and my sister's infant son. My sister was living in Kuwait and had come to the states for a job fair. My job was to be child care during the three or four day teacher job fair. It was frigid, bleak midwinter in Northern Iowa. For some reason, the University of Northern Iowa is where the main teacher fair for jobs in foreign English language schools is held.
Sis and her family flew into O'Hare, we rented a monster SUV, that was actually called 'The Armada'. It was designed, we concluded, to appeal to the market that bought Hummers. Sis had requested a minivan but when we got there, we were given the Armada at the minivan price. This was not such a great deal cause it sucked up way more gas, making it much more expensive. It was like driving a tank.
We stayed in a place with a beautiful indoor pool and hottub. The kids and I spent lots of time in the pool and hottub. There is not much to do in bleak midwinter northern Iowa in February. We did a Target run, looking for a new sippee cup for the baby. My sister showed me the specific feature she liked in her sippee cups. Some sippee cups, she pointed out, had a feature that prevented spills if the baby dropped the cup. I am smart. I got the instructions. That Target did not stock the no-spills-guaranteed sippee cups so I bought one that spilled. Later, she yelled at me for the mistake, doubting my story that I had carefully checked.
Anyway. Finally I am getting to my point. In 2006, I had not seen my niece since 2000, when she had moved to Korea with my sister. After two years in Korea, they had moved to Egypt for two years, then on to Kuwait. My niece is a brainiac, like all my clan.
"My mom has told me all about my dad, now, Aunt Therese," she calmly, too casually announced as we bubbled in the hot tub. "So you can tell me everything you know about him. I want to know everything I can about my father."
One trait about my niece that she shares with me is she seems to remember far more detail than most people do. Like me, she is a writer. I think part of what makes writers write is the way writers notice and remember detail that many either don't notice or forget. During our week in that hotel pool in Northern Iowa, my niece had reminded me of a time she and I went swimming at my sister's then-first-husband's horse farm in New Jersey. Peter, the first husband to my sister, was quite wealthy. His family owned a bunch of apartment high rises on Central Park. Yes, on Central Park. Plus he and his mom owned a twelve-stall horse farm where they raised sheep.
In August 1999, my sister had moved from Gallup and spent the summer in NYC. I was babysitting my niece while her mom and Peter had gone to Ireland for ten days. We spent most of the time in NYC. It was an adventure to go to the horse farm and, since it was hot and August, we got into the pool.
Isabelle wore some kind of floating device. I have been an avid swimmer my whole life. I had my own daughter in a swimming pool when she was three months old. My daughter was jumping off the diving board when she was a year old. I wanted to encourage Isabelle to lose her fear of being in the water. So I kept a little distance between us.When she voiced some anxiety, I verbally coaxed her how to move in the water if she wanted to be able to grab the side. I was never so far from her that she was in any danger. No way I would have let her drown, right?
In that Iowa hotel pool, I employed the same technique with Arthur, hoping to foster his comfort in the pool. And Isabelle recounted in detail how I had almost let her drown at the farm in New Jersey when she was three or four. I explained to her, in Iowa in 2006, how I had not been far from her, that I was watching her like a hawk but pretending not to. I wanted her, I explained in 2006, to realize she could take care of herself in the water. I was trying to get her to feel her own power, to instill confidence.
"Really?!" she exclaimed in Iowa in 2006, "I thought you were not taking care of me. I was scared. I told my mom all about it."
In that pool in Iowa in 2006, I pointed out to her that her brother was about three feet away from me, that it would take me an instant or two to get to him if he seemed to be in the least bit of trouble. One slightly wrong movement by Arthur and I would be there to 'save' him. I told her that no way would I have ever failed to save her in 1999.
My niece thought she was being very subtle when she tried to coax me into telling her everything I knew about her biological father. I knew that if she remembered the precise details of the one time in 1999, when she was four, of going swimming with me on that farm in New Jersey, that if she knew any real details about her bio dad, she would have asked me very different questions. She was pumping me. She was trying to trick me into telling her about her biological father.
My sister and I had had many private moments on that Iowa trip. The subject of what had she told Ruby about her father had come up because the question of Ruby's father is a big deal. I won't write what I know about Ruby's bio dad on this blog just in case my niece reads my blog, which I doubt she does. I don't use my last name on it these days. She might have found my blog when I used to have my name on it. My last name is the same as hers and my first name, my legal one, is about as unusual as Ruby's first name.
The story of her bio dad is not my story to tell.
When she tried to coyly, cleverly, lure me into telling her everything I knew about her biological father, I answered her with a true statement. "I never met your father, Isabelle. I don't know anything about him. I know what he did for a living when your mom met him but if, as you say, your mom has told you everything, you know what he did for a living. And that's about all I know. I don't even know his name."
I wonder if my niece knows more now. She's fifteen now. In a school for brainiacs. Sharp as anyone ever gets.
The whole truth is that I really don't know the story of my niece's biological father or my sister's relationship with the guy. My sister has told me, convincingly, versions of the story that are significantly different than stories I have heard from my brother Dave or our mother, both of whom actually met the bio dad. One thing I keep learning, but this lesson always seems brand new, is that there is no one right version of anything. One of the many shared illusions humans share is that we have lots of shared meaning. But we don't.
If I point to the sky and see a clear, perfect blue sky, how do I know the next person sees the same blue I see? I don't.
What a mystery to carry through childhood, to have no idea who one's father is. And to have the added burden of realizing there were secrets being kept. I guess all kid given up for adoption go through some struggle like this but adopted kids at least know they were given up. My niece does not know, or didn't, the last time she and I broached this subject in 2006, know even that. For all she knows, her bio dad does not know she exists. And lots of kids grow up with their bio dads unaware the dads sired kids.
There is no one right way for anything. No single interpretation of anything.
I have always thought that once Isabelle became an adult, if she were to ask me again to tell her everything I know about her biological father, I would tell her the various versions of what I have been told. I would be constructing a story.
In my first semester in college, I took a course called Introduction to History. Instead of being about a particular time in history, the course inquired into how humans write history. We looked at a couple events in history, and discussed the various documentary traces that a historian might use to write a history. I was a freshman in college in 1971. We were still in the Viet Nam War. I remember watching the fall of Saigon in the student union, where the only televisions on campus could be found. I think frat houses had TV's And I think nowadays, lots of college students have TV's in their dorm. When I was in college, no one had TV's. We spent our evenings studying. Seriously. I went to a serious college. And my kid did not ask for a TV when she went to college in 1998.
The student union was packed. It was dreamlike, watching hordes of frightened Vietnamese people being stuffed onto planes, lots of helicopter noise that gave the scene a scary soundtrack. The helicopters, though, were most likely news helicopters, capturing the scene. I didn't know any Vietnamese people but I remember urgently, fervently wanting everyone that wanted to get out to get out. I remember feeling fear. Why did so many want to escape? Was it just a chance to go to America? Or were they afraid of what would happen when the Americans left?
Anyway. In my Introduction to History class, which was taught by a brand new PhD from the U. of Chicago, a guy who felt like he had stepped down pretty low to take the gig -- he smugly, elitely told us that it was a good job for most professors but he expected to only be at our school a short while before he scored a prestigious university. He shocked me by giving me an 'A'. I still remember the gist of what I wrote on my final. He had asked a general question that gave students a chance to recite the various kinds of sources available to historians to construct a history. So I mentioned official records, personal diaries, personal correspondents written by people during the period of history the scholar is studying, blah blah blah. But then I wrote that the most important choice that a historian made was her own perspective. I wrote that the historian's perspective shaped all her choices. I wrote that a rigorous historian tried to be as conscious as possible of her own bias, and to acknowledge, in whatever she wrote to inform her readers or students of a history of a certain time, that everything she wrote was shaped by her lens. I wrote that stuff down cause he had said it in class. And as he said it, I could tell he was really into it. I wrote that stuff in my final cause I was doing the kitchen sink approach. I didn't think I had done a very good job discussing the various kinds of documentation or evidence or artefacts available as tools to the historian so I tossed in the grand theory to cover my ass.
Turned out my instinct was right: he actually stopped me on campus as we passed one another the next semester and told me he had given me an 'A' because I was the only student in the class who had understood his whole point which had been that line about how the historian's perspective shaped every choice in any history she presented. He even said the rest of my final had not been very good, not well written or well organized but he gave me the 'A' cause I had understood him.
I had accurately read the guy and flattered him. My perspective, that the guy was a smug elitist with an inflated sense of his own genius, shaped my final essay.
The first night in that place, I think I was the coldest I had ever been. The coldest for many hours. Up until then, if I had ever gotten that cold, I did something about it but there was nothing to do. I cried out about freezing, half asleep but half fantasizing that my sister would invite me to get into her queen size bed with her just to get under the blankets. But she didn't.
In the morning, she voiced empathy for me being cold, apologized and pretended it had not occurred to her to invite me to get warm. She just said 'there was nothing I could do for you so I ignored your cries about being cold'. I didn't want to buy blankets. I had already bought the air mattress, which was, admittedly pretty cheap. I had brought my own air pump from home. I guess we could have gone to Walmart to buy blankets -- my daughter had also shivered through the night. Since we were going to be there a week, we had to do something.
I suggested my sister ask some teacher friends to lend her blankets. And that's what we did.
Get this. My sister chose the best borrowed blanket for herself. Her friend had given us two wool blankets. One was soft, pliant. The other wool was like a horse blanket, stiff, scratchy, not really a sleeping blanket. The stiff wool blanket was more like something you might have used in an ancient sleighride or maybe had literally been a horse blanket. Sis chose the soft one -- she already had blankets! and gave me the stiff one. You can't really curl up warmly in a stiff, unyielding horse blanket. It was an improvement. I made a kind of stiff tent of warm air for myself on my air mattress. But I still shiver as I recall that my sister took the best borrowed blanket. I actually said something to her about my surprise and she said "Well, she's my friend", referring to the teacher who had lent us the binkies. And I was her cold sister.
My sister did not have enough cooking utensils to really cook. So the day after Xmas, I went to Walmart, determined to buy her a few basics. The Walmart in Gallup was, pretty much, the only place in Gallup to buy anything. No Williams Sonomas. No Target. No mid-market department stores. Just Walmart. And the kitchen department of that Walmart was sold out. First, that Walmart only carried crappy kitchen stuff. Well, maybe it had some higher quality items before Xmas but after Xmas, the picked over selection -- and the product signs for the sold-out kitchen merchandise -- indicated only the cheapest stuff, like very lightweight 'frying pans' covered with the cheap teflon that flakes off immediately. I wanted to buy sis one real frying pan, at least one with a copper core on the bottom but there were none.
I bought her a bunch of stuff the spatulas, cheap pots to boil pasta. I didn't spend much cause there wasn't much to buy and what was there was crap.
Gallup, of course, is in the middle of Navajo country. Navajos are mostly poor.
In 1998, there were rich white folks, like doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers. It was widely reported that the richest families were the white ones that sold tourist crap. The tourist crap also included authentic Navajo rugs, kachinas, belts, wall hangings. Some of those Navajo rugs were priced at sixty thousand, seventy thousand and more. We toured those stores, to see the Navajo culture. We wondered how much the 'real' Navajos that sold their real stuff to the stores got paid. We wondered why Navajos didn't just set up their own shop.
And, sure enough, there was a shop run cooperatively by a tribe. I bought a Corn Maiden at that shop. But that Navajo co-op did not have any of those sixty thousand dollar rugs.
Apartheid exists everywhere. We think it's gone. Somehow we have a collective spin of how life works in this country that often erases the day-to-day reality in human lives.
An old white-haired, rich white lady waited on us at the fanciest store selling authentic Navajo arts and crafts. Her granddaughter had a class with my sister. The grandmother talked to my sister about her granddaughter. I guess the granddaughter was a problem kid.
For some reason, I hated that old lady. She had referred to the country club a couple times in her exchange with my sister. It seemed to me that she was reminding my sister of my sister's low status compared to her, reminding my sister that the pain-in-the-ass teenage slut granddaughter doing drugs at school was a class or two above my sister who got a Masters from Stanford on a full fellowship.
I had a strong urge, that, thankfully, I suppressed, to ask that old lady to invite my sister to socialize with her. The only people my sister got to know while she lived in Gallup were other teachers. The white middle class in Gallup did not seem to see public school teachers as part of the white middle class.
We drove around Gallup a lot during our visit. At the time, my niece only napped on snooze cruises. She was always like that. When we had all lived in Minneapolis, my sister and I, with our napping baby in the back seat, drove up and down the boulevard lining the Mississippi River on both sides, driving up and down for miles, while the baby napped. This is an old trick. I used it with my kid when she had ear infections. Sleeping upright was easier on the ear pain, it seemed. Somehow, my niece got hooked on napping in a moving car. Maybe it's analogous to becoming dependent on sleep medication.
So we snooze cruised around Gallup. But also, I was evaluating a move there. Could I dare to set up shop as a lawyer? Clearly I could not earn a living in Gallup as an OD consultant, which I was getting a degree in at the time. But I could have motioned into a lawyer license in NM. Would anyone hire me? I didn't want to end up starving doing heartbreaking work for impoverished Navajos. Not that I don't have empathy for impoverished Navajos. I needed to earn a living. And something told me that the people with middle class incomes in that town -- very few Navajos fit this category -- already had white lawyers.
I guess all towns are the same. It's who you know.
I have veered far off course.
On Christmas Eve, the four of us, me, my daughter, my sister and my niece, went out to the only Chinese restaurant in town. There aren't many restaurants in Gallup. The main one is Earl's, which is an ordinary roadside diner, with booths, burgers, fries, fried chicken. In Navajo country, of course, you could get fry bread most places. Earl's is 'famous' because while you eat, Indians walk through selling Navajo crafts. Mostly cheap crap. Jewelry. Lots of turqoise. Beaded things, but little things, not elaborate expensive beaded pieces which passing travelers were unlikely to buy.
We found that if we bought something, that meant more traders would come to our table. You start to feel like you have to buy something to pay for the show. These traders were mostly females, dressed in native outfits, performing for the mostly white tourists. I doubt if many local folks bought very often. But if a traveler was barreling through western New Mexico on Route 66 -- and who has not dreamt of barreling along Route 66 -- Earl's was where most of them stopped. And Earl's had decent food so we ate there a few times during the week. We did not do much cooking, except for Xmas. I was on a trip and my sister had no cooking utensils. And we were all on vacation. My sister, after all, was on vacation from her very grim job teaching in that school.
My sister visited the mother of one of her students at the mother's job at Dunkin Donuts. She thought the girl had some potential but was making no effort whatsoever. She thought that if the family just gave the girl a little bit of support, the kid would graduate high school and could think of college as a realistic choice. It is hard to visit families who live on the res, which spans hundreds of miles, so she visited parents at their jobs in town if she could.
The mother who worked at Dunkin Donuts told my sister she was the first teacher that had ever talked to her about her daughter. The daughter was in high school. The white teachers were not necessarily blatantly racist but they all bought into the culture at the school which was that the Navajo were lazy, did not care about education, would likely never graduate, the parents didn't care. The school did absolutely nothing when a kid stopped coming to school, even the underage ones. The administration said it was impossible to find people on 'the res'.
Anyway. That Dunkin Donuts mother cried when my sister told her that she thought the daughter, with a little faith from her family, could graduate high school, even go to college. I don't think the mother believed her kid would graduate high school. She was crying because my sister's gesture touched her.
I don't think my sister pointed out to that Navajo mom, working one of the few 'good' jobs in Gallup for Indians (good in the sense that it was a job), that the mother could have gone to parent-teacher conferences.
Back to the Chinese restaurant on Xmas Eve. When we left Gallup, we spent a few days, all four of us, in Santa Fe, then I flew back to Massachusetts and my daughter flew to Omaha to spend a week with her father. We talked about Katie's upcoming New Year's visit to her father during our Chinese Christmas Eve dinner.
My niece, age 3, said "Mommy, do I have a daddy?"
My sister, my daughter and I probably all blanched inwardly but we all maintained the same composure on the outside. I knew that was a question my sister had to handled.
"No," my sister said firmly.
There was an awkward pause. Should we go on talking about Katie's visit to Omaha? Change the subject? No one wanted to verbalize any cues.
"Bobby at my school says everyone has a daddy, that's how I was born. Who was your boyfriend when I was born, Mom" Isabelle persisted. "Your boyfriend was my daddy, that's what Bobby says."
"I didn't have a boyfriend when you were born and you don't have a daddy."
Then I offered, "I was married to Katie's daddy when she was born." hoping to reinforce my sister without actually telling Isabelle anything related to what Isabelle really wanted to know.
In 2006, when my niece was 10, I spent a week with her, my sister, my sister's new husband (and Isabelle's adoptive father) and my sister's infant son. My sister was living in Kuwait and had come to the states for a job fair. My job was to be child care during the three or four day teacher job fair. It was frigid, bleak midwinter in Northern Iowa. For some reason, the University of Northern Iowa is where the main teacher fair for jobs in foreign English language schools is held.
Sis and her family flew into O'Hare, we rented a monster SUV, that was actually called 'The Armada'. It was designed, we concluded, to appeal to the market that bought Hummers. Sis had requested a minivan but when we got there, we were given the Armada at the minivan price. This was not such a great deal cause it sucked up way more gas, making it much more expensive. It was like driving a tank.
We stayed in a place with a beautiful indoor pool and hottub. The kids and I spent lots of time in the pool and hottub. There is not much to do in bleak midwinter northern Iowa in February. We did a Target run, looking for a new sippee cup for the baby. My sister showed me the specific feature she liked in her sippee cups. Some sippee cups, she pointed out, had a feature that prevented spills if the baby dropped the cup. I am smart. I got the instructions. That Target did not stock the no-spills-guaranteed sippee cups so I bought one that spilled. Later, she yelled at me for the mistake, doubting my story that I had carefully checked.
Anyway. Finally I am getting to my point. In 2006, I had not seen my niece since 2000, when she had moved to Korea with my sister. After two years in Korea, they had moved to Egypt for two years, then on to Kuwait. My niece is a brainiac, like all my clan.
"My mom has told me all about my dad, now, Aunt Therese," she calmly, too casually announced as we bubbled in the hot tub. "So you can tell me everything you know about him. I want to know everything I can about my father."
One trait about my niece that she shares with me is she seems to remember far more detail than most people do. Like me, she is a writer. I think part of what makes writers write is the way writers notice and remember detail that many either don't notice or forget. During our week in that hotel pool in Northern Iowa, my niece had reminded me of a time she and I went swimming at my sister's then-first-husband's horse farm in New Jersey. Peter, the first husband to my sister, was quite wealthy. His family owned a bunch of apartment high rises on Central Park. Yes, on Central Park. Plus he and his mom owned a twelve-stall horse farm where they raised sheep.
In August 1999, my sister had moved from Gallup and spent the summer in NYC. I was babysitting my niece while her mom and Peter had gone to Ireland for ten days. We spent most of the time in NYC. It was an adventure to go to the horse farm and, since it was hot and August, we got into the pool.
Isabelle wore some kind of floating device. I have been an avid swimmer my whole life. I had my own daughter in a swimming pool when she was three months old. My daughter was jumping off the diving board when she was a year old. I wanted to encourage Isabelle to lose her fear of being in the water. So I kept a little distance between us.When she voiced some anxiety, I verbally coaxed her how to move in the water if she wanted to be able to grab the side. I was never so far from her that she was in any danger. No way I would have let her drown, right?
In that Iowa hotel pool, I employed the same technique with Arthur, hoping to foster his comfort in the pool. And Isabelle recounted in detail how I had almost let her drown at the farm in New Jersey when she was three or four. I explained to her, in Iowa in 2006, how I had not been far from her, that I was watching her like a hawk but pretending not to. I wanted her, I explained in 2006, to realize she could take care of herself in the water. I was trying to get her to feel her own power, to instill confidence.
"Really?!" she exclaimed in Iowa in 2006, "I thought you were not taking care of me. I was scared. I told my mom all about it."
In that pool in Iowa in 2006, I pointed out to her that her brother was about three feet away from me, that it would take me an instant or two to get to him if he seemed to be in the least bit of trouble. One slightly wrong movement by Arthur and I would be there to 'save' him. I told her that no way would I have ever failed to save her in 1999.
My niece thought she was being very subtle when she tried to coax me into telling her everything I knew about her biological father. I knew that if she remembered the precise details of the one time in 1999, when she was four, of going swimming with me on that farm in New Jersey, that if she knew any real details about her bio dad, she would have asked me very different questions. She was pumping me. She was trying to trick me into telling her about her biological father.
My sister and I had had many private moments on that Iowa trip. The subject of what had she told Ruby about her father had come up because the question of Ruby's father is a big deal. I won't write what I know about Ruby's bio dad on this blog just in case my niece reads my blog, which I doubt she does. I don't use my last name on it these days. She might have found my blog when I used to have my name on it. My last name is the same as hers and my first name, my legal one, is about as unusual as Ruby's first name.
The story of her bio dad is not my story to tell.
When she tried to coyly, cleverly, lure me into telling her everything I knew about her biological father, I answered her with a true statement. "I never met your father, Isabelle. I don't know anything about him. I know what he did for a living when your mom met him but if, as you say, your mom has told you everything, you know what he did for a living. And that's about all I know. I don't even know his name."
I wonder if my niece knows more now. She's fifteen now. In a school for brainiacs. Sharp as anyone ever gets.
The whole truth is that I really don't know the story of my niece's biological father or my sister's relationship with the guy. My sister has told me, convincingly, versions of the story that are significantly different than stories I have heard from my brother Dave or our mother, both of whom actually met the bio dad. One thing I keep learning, but this lesson always seems brand new, is that there is no one right version of anything. One of the many shared illusions humans share is that we have lots of shared meaning. But we don't.
If I point to the sky and see a clear, perfect blue sky, how do I know the next person sees the same blue I see? I don't.
What a mystery to carry through childhood, to have no idea who one's father is. And to have the added burden of realizing there were secrets being kept. I guess all kid given up for adoption go through some struggle like this but adopted kids at least know they were given up. My niece does not know, or didn't, the last time she and I broached this subject in 2006, know even that. For all she knows, her bio dad does not know she exists. And lots of kids grow up with their bio dads unaware the dads sired kids.
There is no one right way for anything. No single interpretation of anything.
I have always thought that once Isabelle became an adult, if she were to ask me again to tell her everything I know about her biological father, I would tell her the various versions of what I have been told. I would be constructing a story.
In my first semester in college, I took a course called Introduction to History. Instead of being about a particular time in history, the course inquired into how humans write history. We looked at a couple events in history, and discussed the various documentary traces that a historian might use to write a history. I was a freshman in college in 1971. We were still in the Viet Nam War. I remember watching the fall of Saigon in the student union, where the only televisions on campus could be found. I think frat houses had TV's And I think nowadays, lots of college students have TV's in their dorm. When I was in college, no one had TV's. We spent our evenings studying. Seriously. I went to a serious college. And my kid did not ask for a TV when she went to college in 1998.
The student union was packed. It was dreamlike, watching hordes of frightened Vietnamese people being stuffed onto planes, lots of helicopter noise that gave the scene a scary soundtrack. The helicopters, though, were most likely news helicopters, capturing the scene. I didn't know any Vietnamese people but I remember urgently, fervently wanting everyone that wanted to get out to get out. I remember feeling fear. Why did so many want to escape? Was it just a chance to go to America? Or were they afraid of what would happen when the Americans left?
Anyway. In my Introduction to History class, which was taught by a brand new PhD from the U. of Chicago, a guy who felt like he had stepped down pretty low to take the gig -- he smugly, elitely told us that it was a good job for most professors but he expected to only be at our school a short while before he scored a prestigious university. He shocked me by giving me an 'A'. I still remember the gist of what I wrote on my final. He had asked a general question that gave students a chance to recite the various kinds of sources available to historians to construct a history. So I mentioned official records, personal diaries, personal correspondents written by people during the period of history the scholar is studying, blah blah blah. But then I wrote that the most important choice that a historian made was her own perspective. I wrote that the historian's perspective shaped all her choices. I wrote that a rigorous historian tried to be as conscious as possible of her own bias, and to acknowledge, in whatever she wrote to inform her readers or students of a history of a certain time, that everything she wrote was shaped by her lens. I wrote that stuff down cause he had said it in class. And as he said it, I could tell he was really into it. I wrote that stuff in my final cause I was doing the kitchen sink approach. I didn't think I had done a very good job discussing the various kinds of documentation or evidence or artefacts available as tools to the historian so I tossed in the grand theory to cover my ass.
Turned out my instinct was right: he actually stopped me on campus as we passed one another the next semester and told me he had given me an 'A' because I was the only student in the class who had understood his whole point which had been that line about how the historian's perspective shaped every choice in any history she presented. He even said the rest of my final had not been very good, not well written or well organized but he gave me the 'A' cause I had understood him.
I had accurately read the guy and flattered him. My perspective, that the guy was a smug elitist with an inflated sense of his own genius, shaped my final essay.
