Miss Dixie comes to town

I drew two tarot cards.

“The first will tell me what this weekend will be like with Johnny, the second will tell me what to do about it,” I said to T.

Johnny is T’s old friend. They go way back. I was dreading his visit.

The first card was the ten of wands. Ten bars cross one another at harsh angles against an orange background. Fire. Malice. Ill will. Weathering a difficult situation.

I drew the next card and turned it over. It was the fool.

“That means you should roll with it,” T. laughed

“I was hoping to get one that said ‘run away,'” I grumbled.

I met Johnny for the first time almost ten years ago. T. and I were just starting to date. We drove down to Memphis to spend the weekend at Johnny’s place. I spent the weekend listening to the two of them talk computers, gaming. Johnny chain smoked cigarettes; his fingers were stained yellow from the tar. A visit to the bathroom made me wish I’d brought my flipflops and my own towel—dirt, soap scum, use tissues and q-tips, bristles of hair—this bathroom had never been cleaned. The toilet hadn’t even been flushed.

It was the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. day, and the Klu Klux Klan was planning to march past hotel where the civil rights leader had been murdered. African-American leaders were planning a counter-march. The police were being called in to keep the peace. Johnny wanted to go. We parked several blocks away from the march route, and got out of the car with helicopters whirring over our heads. Every one was walking in the opposite direction we were. I heard some one say bullets were being fired.

“I’m not going any further,” I said, so Johnny and T. left me standing on the corner. That’s the thing about adventure-loving, Sagittarian T.—he loves the novelty that Johnny provides—there’s just no talking him out of going along with the wacky plan of the moment. In the end, not much happened. T. and Johnny didn’t see any rioting crowds, and my corer stayed quiet. But I couldn’t stop myself from crying the entire rest of the day, even after we’d left Memphis far behind.

About a year later, my relationship with T. in a more solid place, Johnny showed up in our little town in Illinois. He was helping two teenage runaways across the border—a Romeo and Juliet situation. T. took them to a hotel that night, but not before they’d checked their e-mail from his computer. The next morning, we were eating pancakes when there was a knock at the door. The police had traced them through the IP address to T’s house. I was asked to provide identification to prove I was not Juliet. The cops searched the house, asked T. some questions and left. I hoped Johnny would get caught and put in jail.

He didn’t. Instead he moved into our small town. And when we moved to Cleveland together, he followed us there. T. and I had too many arguments about the amount of time Johnny spent on our couch. It seemed that just about every weekend I’d wake up to find him in our living room. When we moved to Portland a year later, I was terrified he’d follow us yet again. Instead, he went to Vancouver, B.C., then back to Cleveland, and finally on to New Orleans, everywhere stirring up chaos. Marriages, divorces, fathering children, giving them up for adoption, getting hired, then getting fired. At one point, he called to say he was working at an S&M brothel. T. would relay new details after each time they’d talked, and I’d think, “What a train wreck. Thank god he’s not here.”

I tell you all this to give you some background about who Johnny is. Was. I don’t know how to ease into the next part. Maybe I shouldn’t try to ease, because when Johnny became Miss Dixie it was a pretty abrupt transition for me too.

Maybe the S&M brothel should have tipped me off. Or I should have put some of the other pieces together—Johnny’s leather and latex fetish? The kind of kinky stuff he’d allude to doing with his girlfriends? I don’t know. I can try to search for clues, but I think we’re trained to be oblivious to a boy signaling he really wants to be a girl. When T. told me Johnny was taking hormones and going by the name “Dixie,” I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I didn’t really expect it either.

I mean, I’m a former English grad student. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in gender theory, queer theory, feminist theory, psychoanalytic blah blah blah. Two points for you, Judy Butler. Gender is a performance, you say? I bought into Johnny’s performance, and performed right back, picking up on his masculine signifiers, perhaps passing over his feminine ones, and behaving the way a woman is supposed to behave toward a man.

And so now, Johnny…or Miss Dixie was on her way to our house, and I realized I didn’t know what to expect. How would he show up? As a she? Would he want me to call him “Dixie”? How should I act? What should I say? And oh yeah, I kind of didn’t like the original person too much, so I wasn’t so excited about this new person either. I braced myself.

I didn’t see Dixie until Sunday morning. She was supposed to arrive Friday night, but she missed her flight and had to fly stand-by. So she got into town late on Saturday, long after I’d gone to bed. I must have slept with my jaw tensed all night, because I woke up with a headache. I was making coffee when she appeared, scrambling to find her purse and answer her cell phone.

I expected her to look more like a woman. An awkward woman. I mean, Johnny was, after all, over six feet tall. He had big feet, and long arms and legs. He played goalie on his high school’s soccer team—his long reach was perfect for blocking shots. But Dixie was just a long-haired version of Johnny. Maybe she was wearing a wig? Her hair was red and purple, and looked stiff. Her makeup smeary from sleep. Cakey eyeliner, eye shadow and clumpy mascara. She wore women’s jeans, and a striped v-neck sweater that wasn’t exactly feminine, but nothing a man would wear. Her purse a bad Gucci knock-off—a patchwork of logos, black leather and a silver studded shoulder strap. She was a bad imitation too.

She was nervous. A scared, awkward deer. I offered her coffee.

“Thanks. And it’s even French press,” she whispered in a weird, conciliatory way, then skittered into the back room where her cell phone was ringing again.

T. got up and we made breakfast. He’d already spent some time with Dixie, since he picked her up at the airport. I was so impressed—he wasn’t phased at all. Dixie’s just an old friend as far as he let on, and we sat around the table listening to stories about New Orleans, hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. She loved the city, but left it to go back to Vancouver, B.C. There’s too much poverty, too much crime in New Orleans. It’s not a safe place for Dixie to be. She told us “lagniappe,” isn’t something good, like I thought. It’s not a little something extra for free, at least any more. It’s more like those guys in New York who wash your windshield while you’re sitting at the traffic light, and want you to pay even though you didn’t even want them to do the job. Everyone in New Orleans expects a tip, a handout, she said. Nothing is for free. Nothing is done just to be nice.

Before she left Louisiana, the FBI shook Dixie down. They discovered one of her “business cards” in the pocket of a dead man. He’d been shot twice in the back. I didn’t ask what line of business Dixie was in. I already knew she’d joined the oldest profession in the world. I’d never considered that profession would require business cards.

I didn’t know how to address her, feeling too bold to come out and say her name. I just said things like, “Would you like more coffee?” “How was your flight?” playing the ambiguous pronoun game to save me from offending. I’m sure it didn’t give me cover—she knew what I was doing for sure. She even seemed nervous about it. She said the last time she was home, she didn’t go see an old friend because she didn’t think he could deal.

“You know, because I’m a girl now,” she added, almost in an unsure tone. Maybe she was testing us out. Seeing how we’d react. It must have been be weird for her too.

She told us a story about a really attractive girl she once knew. The world seemed to bend around this girl—people acted differently around her. She could have anything she wanted. Dixie’s goal was to be just like the girl. She wanted that kind of attention. She was going tanning, doing yoga, had created a whole maintenance routine.

“You judge your own progress by looking in the mirror,” she explained. Yeah, that is kind of what it’s like to be a woman, I thought.

As I sat there, I felt she was a spinning top, flashing a separate possible identity on each side as she whirred around. She said she’ll infiltrate the lesbian crowd in Vancouver. That’s where she’s found the most acceptance so far. Gay men don’t like her. Lesbian women seem to have a “you go girl” attitude. But honestly, I don’t know where she’ll easily fit in. I was a little sad, because for the first time I realized that all of Johnny’s chaos, his moving from city to city, and now this identity crisis is just an attempt to find a home. Dixie’s a spinning top that’s longing to come to a standstill. After the hormones, the surgeries she’s talking about, will she be able to stop spinning?

I remembered a prediction I made years ago: Johnny’d end up an old man, still wandering around, couch surfing, relying on the others to help him out, give him a few bucks, put up with his shit. And the older he got, the less patient he’d find people to be. People may put up with a teenager crashing on their couch, but feel less generous toward a middle-aged man. (Dixie’s already lying about her age.) But I took little pleasure in being correct. It was not a schadenfreude moment.

She sorted through her luggage—four footlockers worth of crap—deciding what to take, what to leave behind with us. She planned on telling the customs police that she was vacationing in Canada, so she couldn’t take everything with her. Four footlockers would have screamed “illegal alien.”

Her boyfriend came to pick her up. A Shell Oil executive from Houston. I don’t know why he was in Portland, how long he was planning to stay with Dixie. Once again, if this part of the story seems to come out of nowhere for you, just know it did for me too. All of a sudden a purple Chevy pulled up in our driveway. A 55-year old man with a gray beard got out. Refered to her as “Dix.” Said he was happy to see “her” without a hitch. Gave her a silver ring. I think he's the one who is going to pay for those surgeries. At least the breast implants. I wondered how would they describe their relationship? Dixie was a woman with male parts. Is it homosexual? Heterosexual? Maybe there’s another word? Maybe there’s no word.

Those tarot cards were right on. I really was the fool.

Here's a new piece I'm working on

I haven't been posting much lately. Mostly because I've been working on some longer pieces. Actually revising and finishing pieces! (And sending them out to journals so editors can reject them.) But here's a first draft of something I'm calling "A Cliché" for now. Some of you might read the completed piece in Praxis next year.

I noticed the honeybee on the lip of our water barrel. Water had caught in the lid of the barrel, and the bee was resting on its edge, sipping water through its proboscis. This feeding tube was thicker than I’d ever imagined and red too. He balanced and drank for a long time. Two of his relatives had come to drink before him—but had perhaps stayed too long—sipped too much. Their furry little bodies lay at the bottom of the water. This bee didn’t seem to notice his kin had drowned.

That’s one thing you have to do when you start a hive: provide a water source. Bees collect water like they collect nectar and bring it back to the hive. I’d purchased a cement birdbath for the purpose; one with a lovely Celtic design at its pedestal base, but hardly ever saw bees drinking there. It seemed they preferred my water barrel instead, or sometimes I’ve seen them congregating on the damp garden soil after I’ve watered.

We’ve had three hives in the last three years. The first, a European breed, lasted through the winter, which is good, because the second year is when you can begin harvesting honey. They died going into the second winter from a mite infestation. We brought in more bees, a Russian strain this time, and started a new hive in a different part of the yard.

The old hive, a tomb of dead, moldering honeybees, and slowly crystallizing honey sat dormant, but soon attracted attention. I noticed a few rogue bees hovering around the outside of the hive one morning last May. I later learned these were scouts on the lookout for new quarters. Later that day, I returned from a trip to the garden center to a swarm of bees at the back of the house. Thousands of bees swirled in the air. A beard of bees clung to the side of the old hive. I ran into the house and made sure the windows were closed tight, then called our beekeeper friend.

“There’s a swarm of bees at the back of my house!”

“That’s fabulous!” he said. I was confused. I thought this news would cause him to panic too. Instead, he was delighted.

“Don’t worry, when they’re swarming, it’s like they’re drunk. They’re completely docile. They’ll calm down in about a half-hour.”

And they did. These new bees were pioneers. They had set off from a neighboring hive in search of new territory. What better place than an old hive, already set up for all their needs. They swept out the carcasses of the dead bees, and made it a home. It was insect ingeniousness that they could sniff out a new hive, and fly all the way to my house. Nature is so smart.

And so, for a summer, we had two hives. A Russian one, and who know where the squatters came from, each zooming around the neighborhood, keeping the plants pollinated and producing fruit. A bee’s territory has a radius of about three miles. I imagined my bees up on Mt. Tabor, then buzzing by the hive on their way over to Mt. Scott. I felt protective. I wanted them all to return home safely at the end of the day.

Honeybees need their entire first year’s honey as a food store over their first winter. It’s only after that they make more than they need, and you can begin to collect it. So we’ve only harvested honey once so far. I’m not sure if it truly tasted better, or if it was because I understood all of the work that went into it. Our beekeeper friend came over and suited up in a pair of white coveralls, tucked them into his boots, placed rubber bands around his sleeves, and shoved his hands into thick, protective gloves. He lit a few cedar chips on fire for the smoker, and pumped the bellows to produce a few puffs of gray smoke. Once the bees were sedated, he lifted the top off the hive, and inspected the supers—the layers of the hive above the brood chamber—for honey. He pulled out several frames dripping with amber sap, brushed any lingering bees away, and packed the honeycomb away in plastic bins.

He came back a week later with two quart jars of honey. I took a spoonful and placed it on my tongue. Flowers! I could taste flowers…millions of them! I’d always known honey was made from flower nectar, but it wasn’t until I actually observed the process, step by step, that I truly tasted the connection.

Visitors seem squeamish when we tell them we share our yard with 14,000 honey bees. But I’ve grown comfortable with them. I hardly notice they’re around unless it’s a warm day and they spill out into a cone to fan the hive. The bees exit through a small hole and shoot up and over the laurel hedge—up 12 or more feet and out of the yard.

About a year or so after getting the first bees, a man showed up at our front doorstep. He was from the Oregon Department of Wildlife. He wanted to know if we had a beekeeping permit. We didn’t. Luckily, he was an easygoing Portlander, so he told us we could file the paperwork within the next six months.

Part of getting the permit meant getting the approval of all our neighbors with a certain proximity—several homes across the street, houses on either side of us, houses behind us. We geared up to walk door to door, and I imagined encountering fear. Overly protective parents, frightened elderly people, zealous home owners afraid of bees in their rafters.

Most of the neighbors were excited to hear there was a bee hive in the neighborhood. The old lady across the street has once kept bees herself. One made looked forward to their effect on his fruit trees. Several people just wanted to help us “resist the man.” It turned out to be a great way to get to know our neighbors, including the man who greeted us, “Yes, I AM a medical marijuana cardholder, and NO, you can’t have any!” then invited us in.

Bees are dying, you know—pollution, mites, pesticides. They are dying in great masses. This means plants flower but produce little fruit. This means we could all be in very big trouble. And so I guess I feel like I’m doing a good thing for the world, regardless of what my neighbors think. I watch the bees resting motionless on the leaves of a tomatillo plant, drunk on nectar (and let me tell you—tomatillos must have some good nectar because the bees always seem to get stuck there. It’s like a college quad them morning after a huge frat party, littered with inebriated bodies.) and somehow feel connected to the whole world.

It’s a strange thing to care for a creature that either does not recognize your existence, or views you as a threat. I will not get the love back from a honeybee that I will get from my dog. We cannot share an emotional bond, so instead we will share a practical one and provide each other with something we need. Food. Shelter.

Respect is what I have for them, more than love, I guess. I’ve taken the time to learn about them. I know I must wear light clothing and keep my breathing even and calm when I must get near their hive. Centuries-worth of honey stealing by snuffling, snorting black bears has made honeybees quick to anger at the color black and the presence of exhaled carbon-dioxide. I notice them—notice when they get active in spring, notice to birds who hop close to feast on the dead bees that have been pushed from the hive, notice when the hive seems to be weakening from illness.

Birds and bees. It’s an age-old cliché. They’re the story of life. We humans are so far removed from it that we forget how true the cliché really is. New brood is born, and then they die, and in between they create life all over the earth. This is the only thing that stays the same.

Continuing to look at old photos

If you'd like to see some of the photos I've been writing about, I've posted them.

Looking at old photos

Looking at old photos, take two

Still looking at old photos

Here's Uncle Floyd and Aunt Lois, bathing in the St. Mary's River. That's where we took most of our baths, since there was only one shower for 15 people. We took our floating Ivory bar of soap, and Prell shampoo out to the river, and watched the suds float downstream.

I loved Auntie Lois. She always had a bowl of candy ready for me--smooth, egg-shaped mints, celophane-wrapped sour balls. But Uncle Floyd scared me a little. Maybe it was his laugh, which was half sly chuckle, half whistle. We did have something in common though: we were both swimmers, and each summer I would show him how fast my butterfly had gotten.

This week, I learned that Floyd died in Hurricane Katrina, and it took several weeks to locate his body.

Pay attention?

What does it mean when I hear a woman read a piece about her march on a nuclear test site, where she notices the beauty of the desert, recounts that the land once belonged to the Shoshone, speaks of the power of walking over land that no one ever gets to walk over because it's surrounded by barbed-wire fence...and then the very same day see Ali-G do a skit about marching on a nuclear test site, located on land that once belonged to the Shoshone? Should I pay attention to that odd coincidence? It's Ali-G for goodness sake. Is the universe trying to tell me something via Ali-G?

What does it mean that S. has a dream he's at the zoo, where there's three William DeFoes all wearing hats, who then proceed to turn into our relatives...and then in real, waking life, gets a call from one of those relatives, the very next day?

Now, if we find out that our relatives want us to go protest a nuclear test site, that's really going to be weird.

Getting the bird out*

There is a little bird where my heart should be.
Sweet little thing, but it's killing me.
Tiny bird with fragile wings,
it can't fly out, it's tied by a string,
sitting in my ribcage, trying to sing.

It's quite a dilemma for me.
I'm always dizzy,
pins and needles in my hands and feet.
I've got to get it out, but it's so sweet.
My life or it's life, I can't decide.
I wish my chest would open wide
enough for my heart to beat
and the bird to sing.
But it's the bird or me,
or we both might die.
So little bird--goodbye.


*I saw a Kiki Smith installation at the Whitney a few weeks ago. This poem was inspired by one of her works of the same title.

Still looking at old photos

Aunt Leslie is drunk and sprawled out in the rocking chair--laughing--about to pee her pants it's so funny--her patchwork pants. She's got blue keds on her feet, the left foot is pushed out in front of her like a forgotten part of her body. The beers made her leave it behind.

In another photo, Uncle John sits alone on the couch, drinking a stubbie and smoking a cigarette.

Maybe the two photos were taken just moments apart. I know that the rocking chair is just across the room from the couch. Though they sat there together, the camera could only capture them apart.

I am always moved by how young they look. Uncle John wears black socks, scuffed shoes. He looks like one of my friends. Aunt Leslie has long hair, wears little jewelery. She's a plain girl who likes to have a little fun.

My memory of them is different. So one sided. Gruff Uncle John--we weren't supposed to bother him. Aunt Leslie was tough. She took no bullshit. In the photos they are vulnerable, young, alive. I wonder if they remember those people?

Do they remember that linoleum? Red, black and blue overlapping geometric shapes. Do they still smell the knotty pine the whole cottage was built with? Do they trace the walking paths in their minds? From Aunt Lois' place to Grandma's? From the old dock to the new one? How do they walk back through their lives?

My photo daydream is interrupted by sounds from the kitchen. It's the mouse trap. A mouse is caught in the trap. Squeals for life. Loses life.

Maybe that's what's bothering me about these photos. They all feel like the instant before entering the mousetrap. The next moment the hinge comes down, and everything is fixed in place. But in these photos, they're not taking the bait. Everything is left open.

At least my list is only a set of crossed out lines...

I recently read a study that people who make piles are more creative than people who make files. That some randomness in the disordered order actually has meaning and function. Those far-too-organized, Tupperware-bin-loving, file-folder-hanging, Steven Covey disciples are actually the boring freaks you always knew they were anyway.

This news gave me comfort about how I live my life. My desk at work is littered with scribbled-upon papers. My car always full of clothes to be delivered to Value Village, books to be returned, water bottles, barrettes, chapsticks, receipts and all the other detritus of car travel.

At home, I pile unread mail, bills to be paid, reminders from the vet to take the cat in for her rabies shot, Jiffy Lube coupons and anything else that comes through the mail slot into a big basket. Sometimes, if it gets too full, Bela the paper-obsessed Labrador retriever steals whatever is on top and shreds it into pieces on the living room rug. If I spot her in the act, I make her bring it to me and say, "Thank you!" as if she were doing me a big favor. I don't know if it's discouraging her or not.

I try to make lists: dry cleaning, new tires, look for a low bookshelf, buy b-day present, open savings account. I do half the list--the things I can do on the way to Powell's or Portland Nursery--and I throw the rest away. You know, I never have to make a list of things to do in the garden. Don't need to. Never have to make a list of things I want to write someday, dreams I want to have, music I want to hear. There those things are--they present themselves--line up for me to wander past and notice. Weed this patch, clip that back, sew new seed, water, search for pests, harvest fruit. It's all there like one instinctual mnemonic device. It's so embedded it comes naturally.

Do you remember when you didn't have to remember anything? How seconds stretched out? When you had no idea the difference between a month and a moment because they sounded an awful lot alike anyway?

Piles. Just put it down and I'll take care of it. Don't move it or I'll forget all about it. Don't move it or it will have never existed.

Chinese herbs

Chinese herbs taste like compost tea. The arrive in compact, brown paper packets, and their aroma invades the house immediately. Pungent. A bit sweet underneath. Like worm casings.

I dump the contents of the packet into a pot--twigs, dried fungus, seed pods--a dried and dessicated forest floor. I add water and soak the mix, and boil the contents into a dark, brown liquid, then strain the solid matter out and divide the tea into two strong doses.

The first day, I was depressed with each sip. "I have to drink this crap twice a day?" I was a four year-old faced with a plate full of mushy peas. I held my nose, made gagging noises each time I swallowed. This is ass tea. This is dog coffee. Cigarette butts, mud water, graveyard earth, battery acid.

The fifth day and I could taste more. Licorice, maybe? Still bitter, still earthy fungus, but somehow healing. The tea fills me up and satisfies my hunger. Surprisingly there are no more nighttime cereal raids, no wine binges, no need for second helpings.

There is power in continuing to do something you believe you cannot continue to do. There is power in running one more block, in getting up early each day to write, in drinking bitter, brown liquid every morning and night.

Maybe the tea makes my life better? Every moment I am not drinking it is a gift. I am taking out the trash, but not drinking tea! I am washing my face and flossing my teeth, how glorious! How precious--this moment before I have to take another sip. How enjoyable--this row of knitting before I force myself to drink again.

Snow day

It's snowing here today and the city has shut down. I've been at my desk at home all morning, mostly watching the snow build up outside my window, and e-mailing clients some of the time. I left the wheelbarrow in a corner of the yard last fall, and there it still sits, filling up with inch after inch of snow.

Yesterday was a different kind of snow day. T. and I took Bela up to Mt. Hood for an afternoon of skiing. Here we are, taking a rest in front of frozen-over Trillium Lake, the mountain rising up in the background.

Looking at old photos, take two

I'm getting a little obessive about those photos...

I have a photo of my mother. She is laughing, her eyes closed tight. Someone has just pushed her onto the bed--my father. They are playing and she pushes her backward and snaps the photo just as she lands. She makes a soft divot on the mattress. We all know what must have come next.

This is our own little apartment, she thinks. It's just the way I want it. The bed's from a garage sale, and the rest from the Salvation Army, but it's ours. It's neat. The bed stays made all day, the bedspread a smooth surface I can peel back before I slide under the cool sheets.

This was before I existed--perhaps just a heartbeat before my conception and I'd like to believe so. I manufacture my own mythology. I was conceived in joy and as I divided cells one after another, my parents contentedly lay next to each other.

What is it about these photos that attracts me? I can't get over how much my mother looks like me, how handsome my father once was. I recognize myself in them--my own life--I see their desires through my own eyes.

In one photo, my father sits in his study. A set of Encyclopedia Brittianica shelved neatly behind him. He's bought a globe and it sits atop the shelve that houses the great books. There are three books on the desk before him, and is studying. I am a knowledgeable man, a man of the world. I've gone beyond all expectations, risen above my promise though no one's asked me to.

I remember being a young child, paging through the that same set of encyclopedias. Anteater. I wanted to see a picture of their long snouts. I sat on the floor of his room waiting for him to come home. Anteater. Antelope the next entry, and not as interesting an animal.

I'm struck by how playful they are. How they honestly smile--they are not smiling for the camera--they are smiling for each other. In pictures taken now, I see fear, distance, self protection.

Looking at old photos

I have a photo of my mother and father together. It's the only one I've ever seen. Usually, dad took pictures of mom, or mom of dad. But in this one they are sitting together on someone's lawn. A number of other people sit around in lawn chairs in a circle in the background, and the grass is green, so it seems they're at a summer party.

Mom sits in a lawn chair, her shoes kicked off and several months pregnant. That's me in there, just a few months old. She wears red pants and a red-and-white checkered smock-style top to cover her growing belly. Her hair is so 60's--a smooth short bob tucked behind her ears. That was when her hair was still a shiny strawberry blonde. So pretty. She's got a red-and-white can of generic cola in her hand like she chose it just to match her outfit.

She's not looking at dad. Maybe he just asked her a question and she's looking off into the sky, thinking of the answer, or maybe she's mad at him and is avoiding eye contact, or maybe it's just a strange moment in between. It's hard to tell. But he's looking right at her, waiting for something from her. Dad's sitting on the concrete stoop of the patio, Budweiser in hand, thick sideburns frame his face, looking kind of cool in some white Adidas sneakers. He is looking at her as if they are having a conversation. As if they know each other. As if he really sees her. As if he loves her.

I'm not as angry with my father as I used to be. Ten years of silence between us has turned my anger into something that's both easier and harder to live with: a recognition of loss. Easier because I don't have to be strong about it any more. Harder because I let myself feel it.

There are other photos. Dad opening presents at Christmas. He's got a big foil bow stuck to his forehead. Mom doing dishes, a newfangled electric can opener on the counter next to the sink. One where she's laughing--it looks like he's pushed her down on the bed, and the photo doesn't show what happened next.

Those photos are different of the ones that came later. They were playful. Honest. They were seeing each other. How can I say this? It's like sometimes photos don't show you what's for real. They show you what people want to remember. But mom and dad were alone in their apartment, alone in their own little world and you can tell they weren't posing or trying to hide from one another.

How surprising it is to see them that way. My memories of their relationship begin post-divorce: hurt, betrayal, bitterness, estrangement. It's almost comforting to have proof they really did love each other. There was something there, for a little while.

X-mas triptych

Oh no! The new fancy washing machine is broken!

I've pushed every single button but nothing works!

How about we try reading the manual?

Bodies

I've had bodies on the brain lately, probably because last weekend, I traveled to Seattle to see The Bodies exhibition. If you haven't heard about it, its a exhibit featuring the corpses of unknown Chinese people. The skin has been removed from their bodies, and they are displayed to best show a particular system: circulatory, nervous, digestive, etc. Most people I tell usually scrunch up their faces now. "Ew. Dead bodies. I wouldn't want to go see that." That reaction was surprising to me, but then again, I never had much of a problem dissecting rats in high school science classes. But what's the deal? Everyone has a body ... how can one not be interested in what's inside it?

And anyway, the bodies are prepared by removing all cellular water, replacing it with some sort of plastic substance, so they looked more like scientific mannequins anyway--with the exception of their eyelashes and eyebrows, which for some reason were left on. Grossness is accomplished by bad smells, or slippy/drippy tactile sensation, and there was none of that. It was pretty hygienic. I was more grossed out by the Amtrak bathrooms.

Here are a few poetic facts I learned from Bodies.

• Children's bones grow faster in springtime
• Pulse is the artery wall, stretching with each heartbeat
• You are always shorter at the end of the day, and tallest just after rising in the morning
• After conception, everyone spends one half-hour as a single cell

There were two rooms that most intrigued me: the circulatory system and fetal development. Perhaps it's what they had in common: color. Tangles of arteries and veins were dyed bright crimson and electric blue, and were suspended in a glowing liquid. They displayed the vessels of different organs: the lung, the heart, the small intestine. Most interesting was the kidney. It was stuffed with vessels like pot holding a root-bound plant. I guess it's due to all that filtering the kidney does. In the fetal development room (which was introduced with a big sign warning you not to enter if you were the type to get disturbed by unborn babies), a display showed bone development over a period of weeks by dyeing the bones a deep red. I could still see the outline of the fetus, the developing tissue that held the unformed bones in place.

Womb: a conversation

lazydaisydays: did you see the creepy stuffed uterus, on the same knitty.com page as the wrap link?
kablammie: i wonder if that would go over well as a get well gift for someone who had just had a hysterectomy
lazydaisydays: now you'll never be without one
kablammie: just keep it in your purse
kablammie: it won't cause as much trouble there, as it did when it was inside you
lazydaisydays: plus it's machine washable
lazydaisydays: and matches your outfit
lazydaisydays: you could have several ... some pink, some striped, some with rhinestones for evening wear
kablammie: i bet you could make it into a coin purse
lazydaisydays: can you imagine pulling it out in the checkout line?
kablammie: or you could make it into one of those tampon-holding things
kablammie: ha!
lazydaisydays: that's AWESOME
lazydaisydays: i also kind of see it as a hat
kablammie: wombs are multifunctional!
lazydaisydays: who knew?
lazydaisydays: you could adorn it with little sperm fringe
kablammie: ew
kablammie: maybe the sperm is a tampon cozy
lazydaisydays: a tampon cozy?
kablammie: now i'm freaking myself out
kablammie: the shapes go together
lazydaisydays: keep your tampons at the perfect serving temperature
kablammie: i dunno!
lazydaisydays: i see it now...we get home...what did you do today honey? oh, i had a conversation about the fashion accessory potential of the womb
kablammie: a cold tampon is not a good thing
lazydaisydays: with the right marketing strategy, people will buy anything
kablammie: i am cracking up
lazydaisydays: you should write about this in your blog
kablammie: maybe. can i post the conversation? it's funny
lazydaisydays: absolutely
kablammie: i'll also post a pic of the knit womb
lazydaisydays: definitely

Have you ever taken three birth control pills at once?

I remember the instant it all fell apart--like a perfect storm. I had come home Friday night, exhausted from a week's worth of difficult work and sick to boot. My nose was a red, sore bulb; my lips were chapped and cracked. In the car on the way home I realised I had missed two days of birth control pills and pulled over to the side of the road to find the pack. I popped three in my mouth--the two I had missed plus one for that day--and swallowed.

When I got home, I dragged my suitcases inside and left them by the door. Pete was in the living room, sitting on the floor with his back to me. I circled and sat on the couch to face him. He didn't look up or say anything. He continued reading his magazine, picked up his glass to take a sip of beer, and placed it back on the table as if I had never entered the room.

I slumped backward.

"Are you punishing me?" I asked. A moment passed before he answered. He did not look up to meet my eyes.

"I'm reading the Nation." He took another sip of beer. The dog whined and stretched out. It was her sign that she was ready for her evening walk.

"Mo needs a walk. Want to take her with me?"

"No," he said. My eyes filled with tears.

"Why not?"

"I took her yesterday. It's cold." I stared at the ceiling. Waited a minute. Finally he looked away from his magazine, rose and went to his shoes.

"I can see this is a losing battle," he snapped.

"Don't bother!" I yelled. I ran for the leash so that I could get out the door before he could get his coat. He barred the back door. "Get out of my way!" I screamed. I ran to the front and unlocked the deadbolt. Mo was scared, but she had no choice but to follow. I dragged her out the door.

A perfect storm of exhaustion and estrogen. Three days of hormones surged through me and spilled out my eyes. Most of the time, I cry for brief moments. But this time, I could not stop myself. I wept the way Shakespearian heroines weep for their dead lovers. I walked in the dark, talking out loud and gasping and wailing, crossing the street or turning the other way anytime I encountered another person. A raving lunatic on birth control let loose on the streets.

Process

I've been working on Ghost Story recently. It came out of nowhere, but that little piece I wrote in workshop struck something deep, and so I've been trying to do something with it.

I made a little headway. But I was doing something I often find myself doing: I'm great at setting the scene, the atmosphere, but when it comes to writing what happens, I suck. It's almost like I want to write stories with no plot. I just want readers to infer the plot. I kept asking myself, "What's this story about?" "What happens?" And every answer feels wrong and contrived.

Then it hit me. I'm writing around the story. There's something really scary about actually writing the story...the real one...the one that's asking to be written. It's about stuff I don't even like to think about. That I've told no one. And I guess I don't want anyone to be hurt by it when it's written down.

But now that I know what the problem is, I've decided to write the story, and perhaps I'll never show it to anyone. Maybe I will. Who knows. But at least it will be written.

How I love Jane Kenyon

This poem says it all. If I've been delayed with responding to your e-mail or phone call, now you know why...I'm stuck under the rubble.

Indolence in Early Winter

A letter arrives from friends. . . .
Let them all divorce, remarry
and divorce again!
Forgive me if I doze off in my chair.

I should have stoked the stove
an hour ago. The house
will go cold as stone. Wonderful!
I won't have to go on
balancing my checkbook.

Unanswered mail piles up
in drifts, precarious,
and the cat sets everything sliding
when she comes to see me.

I am still here in my chair,
buried under the rubble
of failed marriages, magazine
subscription renewal forms, bills,
lapsed friendships. . . .

This kind of thinking is caused
by the sun. It leaves the sky earlier
every day, and goes off somewhere,
like a troubled husband,
or like a melancholy wife.

--Jane Kenyon

On blogging

It's curious...the things that get commented on, and the things that don't. Most of what I post here is poems, bits of writing from my writing practice, drafts of stories, and I don't get many comments on those. I'm not sure why. Maybe because people don't feel comfortable for some reason. (Or my worst fear is that I'm boring the crap out of you.) I get lots of comments on my rants, which is fun.

I've wondered about those bloggers who get double-digit comments on a single post. What does that mean? Do I have to go out and comment on other people's blogs to get comments on mine--like--is it a communal thing? Do I have to start up blog relationships? Or do I just have to write about more scandalous things, like excrement? (Not to knock it...for a good, fun, raunchy blog-romp, don't miss Gone Feral.)

Maybe I will. A completely new and inappropriate direction for Tchotchka Palace. Stay tuned...

Five things I could write about but I'm too tired to take the time

1. My obsession with making pumpkin muffins.
2. T's obsession with his new cell phone.
3. The dream I had last night where I was trying to fly to Mexico but forgot to renew my passport.
4. The rain.
5. The election.

Everyone laughed at the second sentence

Just four walls at the top of a long stairway. The perfect attic turret for a madwoman to pace before she throws herself down the stairs. Window panes radiate the chill of the night inward. Condensation runs down the glass to hunch on the sill. Brown, heavy curtains can't decide whether to open or shut. They hang uncertain of their future, their purpose.

The light is bright--too bright--it exposes every crack and flaw, every seam and joint. It beats down relentlessly and drowns out the soft sounds of traffic. It sits up in the corners of the ceiling, watching, waiting for something to happen.

A poem for you on the eve of the election

Let My Country Awake
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

E. said I should document my life

And it was a good reason to blog everyday, I agree. Except when I have days like today. I began the day with the worst conversation I've ever had with my mother in my entire life.

Should I even go into the details? The short of it, is that she's known for some time that T's dad was at the courthouse with us when we got hitched. Although I asked him to keep quiet about it, dad-in-law apparently blabbed on and on about it to my parents, making my mom felt excluded and unimportant.

Granted, I umderstand why she feels this way. It's because she has a traditional notion of weddings. You get married in front of your family. It's a family affair, and if you don't have family there, well then it must mean that you don't like your family.

I feel even more strongly about it than I did then, that a wedding...our wedding and our marriage...is too personal and intimate to have observers. I don't regret not having her there. All I regret now is that we didn't wait to do it until T's dad went home. I just let it all happen and I should have known better than to rely on the "it was coincidence" excuse.

I'm just pissed that now, my marriage, is about her. About my excluding her. I'm pissed that I'm feeling guilty about it, and fearful that I'm some sort of freak show who has emotional issues, and I'm pissed that here I am again for the umpteenth time in my life asked to put her needs ahead of my own. I'm pissed that I'm constantly asked to live up to someone else's standards, even though they are not my own. Goddam, and I'm pissed at T's dad for not having the sense to keep his mouth shut.

I heard about this guy...this American Arab...not sure if he's a citizen or not but he's been in the US for a long time (yes...this relates, I assure you). And some how he got on the terriorist watch list. Not just extra security checks, but major restrictions on his life. At least for a while. Until he decided to document the daily minutia of his life online. He's made his life publicly transparent. Now, the government leaves him alone.

It's a genius solution on his part, but disturbing at the same time. No privacy. Nothing you can keep to yourself. Is it the American mentality? Or human nature that the masses don't like individual secrets? I feel like Winston Smith from 1984, where I'm struggling to keep that one, small thing to myself. Just a thought, a feeling that I hold alone. Have you ever tried to keep a secret, or ask someone to keep a secret for you? How long did that last before they outed you, or you felt compelled to come clean? Or someone finds out and it becomes a huge insult to them, even though you never intended it to be one. Maybe not even a secret...just something you didn't want discussed. You just want it to be without sharing it? That's how I feel about T. My truest, deepest feelings about him are not to be discussed. They are for me alone.

48 Things You Could Care Less About

Aw man...I already failed this NaBloPoMo thing by missimg a day. Oh well. I didn't have much to say anyway. I'm going to eek through today by lifting a meme from E.

1. FIRST NAME? Kablammie

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? I've always wished for a good story to tell, but alas, no.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? Two weeks ago in the middle of my writing group. I was reading a short piece I had written out loud, and all the sudden foumd myself crying out of control. It was as if one person wrote the piece, and another totally different person was reading it. What I mean is that while I was writing it, I didn't feel emotional at all about it.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? If I have the right pen, yes.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? Ewww.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I ask myself that all the time. Maybe, but I'd think I was a pain in the ass.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Yep.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I think I would.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I used to love Golden Grahams as a kid. I have trouble eating cereal now. It makes my tummy unhappy.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Sometimes. But it takes too much time.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I call T. to open pickle jars.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Come on! Chocolate.

14. SHOE SIZE? 8.

5. RED OR PINK? Huh?

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? My obsessive self-doubt.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? E., D., my bro, S.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Steal if you must.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? I'm in my pjs right now.

20. LAST THING YOU ATE? Pumpkin pie and champagne.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The last thing I downloaded on iTunes was a Nike running mix. 45 uninteruptted minutes of beats. The other day, I listened to a CD of ghost stories from Art Bell's radio show.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Aquamarine.

23. FAVORITE SMELL? Pine needles on the forest floor.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? T.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? Rebelliousness, height,.

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from? Love her!

27. FAVORITE DRINK? Non-alcoholic: Irish breakfast tea with milk and sugar. Alcoholic: fruity/sour concoctions.

28. FAVORITE SPORT? Triathlons

29. EYE COLOR? Blue/gray

30. HAT SIZE? Big. I have no idea.

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Glasses.

32. FAVORITE FOOD? Right now, I'm hot on middle eastern foods like hummus and tabouli.

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? These questions are getting silly.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER? I'm more energetic in winter. It's the scandinavian in me.

36. HUGS OR KISSES? Depends who is giving them. Mostly hugs.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT? Chocolate chip cookies.

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Dunno

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Don't know...

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? Crescent, by Diana Abu-Jaber and The Poetics of Space by some french dude.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE Pad? A black bump for resting your wrist.

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? Lucky me...I didn't. I wne to a fun party instead. But I'm obsessed with DVDs of All Creatures Great and Small right now.

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? Rivers and streams, cats purring

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? Beatles

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Barcelona

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? I've got a green thumb and animals like me

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? DuPage, Illinois

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Stole it from E.

One a day

It's NaBloPoMo...national blog posting month. (When I told T. he asked "Who decides these things?" I dunno. This person did. Some blogger somewhere decided it and it spread like a virus.) It's sort of a take off on NaNoPoMo where people try to write a novel in a month, but instead, you write a post every day.

Not sure whether I'm committed or not to posting everyday. Maybe I'll make like an Oregonian and commit now, but flake out later. (Ha. That's supposed to be a funny.)

Ghost story

I am upstairs, alone in my room, alone in this whole big house. My window looks out over the back yard toward a stand of glittering trees caught in the moonlight. It's light is so bright it x-rays the whole house and makes the walls dissapear. I am a toy-sized doll spotlit on the second floor, my fear transparent.

This house makes me do things I know are crazy. I run up the stairs away from nothing. I sleep with a crucifix under my pillow. I leave the light on all night long.

I talk to her. "I don't want to see you," I say inside my head. I don't need to say it out loud.

I think about her sometimes--my stepbrothers' mother who died in this house. I think she is here. I know it, and I imagine she sits at the edge of her sons' beds and watches them sleep.

But they aren't here now, so she has nothing to do but stand outside in the hallway and watch me. She looks at me and wonders what I'm doing there in that room and makes me think twice about crossing the hall to the bathroom.

That's where she is. In the stairways and the halls. She stands at the threshold and never crosses over.

My whole time, I hardly remember any one else in that house. I know they were there, but what I recall are rooms without people. I knew the contents of every drawer and box because I spent my time searching through them. I cataloged the whole house--the linens, the candles, the old clothes, the heavy box of coins in my stepfather's drawer. I went through them and then back through them looking for what I might have missed, what had not appeared before.

And it makes me think now that she was sending me where she couldn't go. Placing in me the desire to open up closets and dig through to satifsy her own curiosity. How much of her was still there, how much was gone?

I surprised myself

I surprised myself by bursting into tears as I read this to my writers’ group last night.

I love to brush my dog. It’s instant satisfaction. She rolls over and stretches out her white belly and straightens her long hind legs and points her toes. If I could keep brushing her forever, she’d stay that way—give up food and walks just to feel the brush’s bristles over her skin.

If she were a painting, she would have great whorls like a fingerprint in her fur where the brush left a path behind. She’s a map—a topography of shoulder blades and hip bones. Brushing her, I walk a landscape away from messy human details toward what’s really important: simple warmth, touch, softness, pleasure.

I wonder at our world’s hard surfaces. How buildings are made from steel and glass instead of round earth. Gleaming cars drive across rough concrete and I wonder, where is the soft water? The gentle wind? The warm sun? We’d be better off walking through tall grass. Why do we make the world this way when what we really want is to be cradled?

At night, my dog nestles into sleep on a soft pillow near the foot of my bed. She circles once or twice. It’s a comfort to hear her steps on the fabric. To hear her sigh as she settles in. All is right with the world. She is safe, I am safe. We can all rest for the night, dreaming next to one another.

Things I know about love

(An early draft.)

1.
Dear God,
let me be damned a little longer, a little while.
I've read all about nirvana and the books say
you don't get reborn, but I'm not ready.

Turn me into a cow, a fish, a blood-sucking leech,
but let me come back, yet imperfect to this imperfect place.
Let me taste the muddy water, crawl up on shore
into the frigid air, burrow into the river bank
pack myself in mud for the long winter.
Keep my gills moist and my body warm.
It's better than nothing.

I'll take it. It's a bargain if in spring the slanted sun
begins to thaw my side, beats my heart with salty, slow blood,
blinks my eyes open just in time to catch the dew dissapear
from the grass.

2.
Your name has all the markings of a church.
It's a sacred space.
A word I can't say out loud.
I keep it in a little box,
set it up where I can just see it,
use other names instead.
Like God's name, it's only to be
spoken in drastic circumstances.

Glass, fall, river, ring

He lost his ring in the river. His platinum wedding band. It was there somewhere between the bridge and the falls, but that was a long stretch.

Who would have thought his hands would shrink in the cold water. It was there when he started, and suddenly he noticed it was gone. She'd never forgive him. He needed a plan.

He would hire a team of divers to search the river! Every muddy wallow and algae-covered rock. Though he wasn't sure they'd ever find it he had to try. She'd kill him if she didn't think he'd done everything in his power. He'd drain the river if he could.

They had only been married a few short months. Thinking about their wedding day, it seemed he was just an observer watching the scene from above. He watched himself shower and dress. He watched himself walking down the aisle before it all began, bridesmaids and groomsmen wheeling around him. He was out of control--at their mercy. Stand there. Smile. Say this.

They were married in her church, a modern building of angles and glass. Her priest a small little man who was too fond of red wine. Going to church to these people was like putting on a hat--a Sunday bonnet of wisps and trim, nothing to keep his head warm. It had been years since he had been in a church. But he remembered the dark wood, the smell of the oil they used to polish the pews, the way the darkness in the room forced his eyes toward the ceiling in search of light. Here, in this church, fluorescent lights ensured he could see his neighbor's brand names, their glassy stares.

He's taken this trip on a Sunday too. It was almost impossible to get her to let him go. She didn't much see the value in floating down the river with his buddies and a six pack each when the good lord called. He he argued it was just one Sunday and he would be back in church next week and maybe he'd even think about going to that progressive dinner she'd been talking about.

This was a punishment. A sign. Maybe he should just go tell her that. Forget the divers. He would say he had a moment with God right there on the river and he understood the importance of church now. It would be better than weathering her anger.

Learning about sex

I
My Sunday school teacher is Larry. He is a gray, long man without children of his own. On Sundays, he teaches us about the Bible while all the grown-ups are in church. There's me, my best friend Ann, a girl named Candy who's the daughter of the minister, and some boys.

Larry about talking about Jesus's mom, Mary. He keeps calling her, "the virgin Mary."

"What's a virgin?" I ask.

The room stops. Everyone is looking at Larry who is now a shade of pink.He looks at me for a moment before he answers.

"It's when a woman has never had intercourse."

"Oh." I nod. I don't know what intercourse is either, but somehow I know I should not ask. Larry has moved on to something new and eveyone's eyes are locked down on to their Sunday school books.

II
My cousin Shelly and I play Barbies. We set up a whole Barbie house--making coffee tables from ashtrays and beds from the little boxes my mom gets her checks in. We spend more time setting up the house and dressing Barbie than playing with her.

Shelly is three years older and knows more than I do. Like one time I told her about meeting some boy by the creek and one of them pulled his pants down and showed me his penis, but she told me I must have been egging them on. She listens to Van Halen. She has one of their tapes with an angel smoking a cigarette on the cover. If I had that tape, I would hide it, but Shelly just leaves it out for her mom to see.

She tells me we have to undress Barbie because Ken is coming over. She makes them lie together on the check box. She makes noises for them.

"MMMM. Ah. Smack."

Shelly calls this "making love."

When she leaves I keep setting up the Barbie house, and now it's hardly worth it to dress her because I just have to undress her for Ken. Making love is the only thing she really does besides sit next to her coffee table.

I start asking my mom to buy me records. I want Oliva Newton John's Physical. I ask for a 45 of Survivor's "I've Been Waiting." Then I take my records over to Ann's house and we listen to them on her Mickey Mouse record player.

Harvest time

I found myself waiting to dig through the moistest earth, where I knew the most potatoes would be, like a child waits to eat her most favorite kind of candy last. I've never grown potatoes before. Once I started digging, I found dozens, lying under the earth like treasures.














I love this time of year. The watering is done. There's nothing more to tend to, except the harvest.

Oh yeah...and making jars upon jars of pasta sauce with all the tomatoes.

You're telling me about energy?

It's like I am a dog--my body turned slightly away from him and I do not make direct eye contact. I see he is wearing a plaid shirt, and that the pitbull is in the doorway and another man in dreadlocks stands behind the pitbull, but I do not know the color of the first man's shirt. He is saying things at me, things about positive energy and how animals can sense your energy, and he understands--stereotypes and all--but it's all about staying cool, you know?

The pitbull is in the doorway but it wasn't just moments ago. It was muscling its body toward me silently. I saw it and yelled.

"Hey! Hey! Your dog!"

And the man in the plaid shirt came running yelling "Vicious! Vicious! Get inside!" He was slapping and pulling at her.

I just want to get away. It is a dark night and it is too late but he is lecturing me as his precious Vicious hovers just inside the house.

The most important thing I have to do today: a book meme

Via Elizabeth:

1. One book that changed your life: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg.

2. One book that you've read more than once: The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: His Dark Materials trilogy, by Phillip Pullman (it's technically three books, but oh well)

4. One book that made you laugh: High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby.

5. One book that made you cry: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker .

6. One book that you wish had been written: The book that I will write someday. But if it were already written, I'd just have to write another one.

7. One book you wish had never been written: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

8. One book you're currently reading: Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose

9. One book you've been meaning to read: Other Electricities, by Ander Monson

Two things I thought of today

1. A co-worker of mine recently lost her older brother. Her parents were both long passed away, and this left her with only one surviving family member, also a brother. It occured to me what that must feel like...only one other person in the world who shares that special family bond. Who knows exactly how you grew up and those certain things your parents used to do. How, in the midst of that loss it might make you feel closer to those that are left.

I still have both parents, my brother; the people who have known me for my whole life are still here. I just saw S. and when he was here, I couldn't help thinking about that scar he used to have on the bridge of his nose. It's gone now (my mother--semi-obsessed with erasing physical flaws--had a doctor sand it down). I'm one of the few people that remembers that scar. We share a similar mental topography. The same corridors, kitchens and basements line our memory.

But, what I thought today, is that I wonder if the knowledge that they are still alive makes me free to travel the world, to live far away, to wander in my thoughts away from my family. Will I feel more tied, more relucant to put so much space between us when some of us are gone.

2. I was reading Cary Tennis' column in Salon, Since You Asked, and learned that there is an unspoken "tradition" among men in communal bathrooms. Men leave reading material for the men that visit after them. I asked T. if this was true, and he said "Yeah...I guess so." What's up with that? How is it that men get indoctrinated into this tradition, but it doesn't carry on with women? What does it mean, exactly? It's rather intimate, actually. It's like "Hey, I read this while I pooped. Now you can read it while you poop."

Rambling tchotchka

I was driving home from work this evening listening to one of my favorite books about writing--If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. E taped it for me, maybe more than a year ago. I listened to it then, and then recently rediscovered it in the pocket on the driver's side door. I love Ueland because she encourages me to be dreamy, and resist stereotypical ideas of what good writing is, and how good writing gets done. She's like an encouraging grandma, who says "just be you...everyone will love you for who you are," and for a moment you believe her.

Anyway, she's talking about being authentic in your writing, and never lying...always writing down your true experience and I'm thinking "Okay...my experience right now. The traffic keeps stopping for no reason. We're traveling at 60 miles an hour and suddenly it stops in front of me. Why? My throat hurts. It feels like someone excavated a hole somewhere near my nasal cavity, and I know that's how I usually feel after work...like someone's scraped out the inside of my head with the edge of a blade. I keep dreaming in excel templates...because that's what I do all day and so it's infecting my dreams. My dreams are orderly and stacked, and I think it's impacting my creative life. Uh. there's a giant brown dumpster outside that house. I wonder what's going on. T will be gone tonight. Should I knit? Write? Swim? Clean?"

Anyway...I'm hoping to spend a little more time in the upcoming weeks being dreamy. I committed myself to too many real things this summer. I should know better. Triathlon training takes up much of my free time, so does gardening and all the while the half-poem about the elephant funeral sits in my journal unworked on.

But speaking of lying...it's not that I've been lying on this blog, but I've been concealing the truth. I started out wanting to be courageous and tell the truth...no matter what the cost. What did I say "go for the venom"? I have not done that. I've been scared. I am scared. So what should I do? Pick one thing a week that I'm scared to death of writing down and just do it?

Iraqi signmaker

He has put his colored ink away.
Black is the color of the day.
No one orders a bright funeral sign.
He traces out the curving letters
naming lost uncles, brothers,
wives and daughters--in memoriam.
Not writing who killed them, how they died,
death squads close in his mind.
Timid customers choose the smallest size,
their tribute will be in flames by sunrise.

Found poem

It's a ripple effect,a tantalizing carrot
sounding like chirping light rail wires
tasting like cigars and leather loafers.
Feeling like cool glass and clean metal.
A big hit for block 8.

The old fire station sits in the middle
of the trickle down development.
A cost.
An asset.
A decision.
A building?
The way they talk--in opportunities and promises--
you wonder if anything is real.

But they've brought bocce to the city,
an old, fat man's game
made new and sleek for dazzling neighborhoods
teeming with young professionals.
In their lime green and silver clothes
they toss the palino over oyster shells and sand,
speak of pinot and port.

Santa Fe wedding

Yes. We have a friend named Kip. Kip married a girl named Fancy, which is apparently a popular name in Texas. Here are some of the highlights of Kip-wed, 2006.

1. Kip's dad is named Chip. I wonder if Kip's grandfather was named Flip. Or Skip. If Kip and Fancy ever have a baby boy, I hope they name him Rip.

2. The day of the wedding, I heard my cellphone ringing, just as I was beginning a one-hour massage. I ignored it. Later that afternoon as I was sitting in Santa Fe at the Atomic Cafe, waiting for my fish tacos, I listened to my voicemail. It was Kip. "Hey! I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Can you pick up some pies? Like, four or five pies? A chocolate creme pie, key lime, coconut... maybe a pumpkin pie?"














3. Kip and Fancy held their ceremony on the Nambe Pueblo, at the Kiva Bear campsite. Kip told us twice that his shirt was designed in Japan, made in Italy. At their ceremony, the women were asked to scatter rose petals in a circle around the bride and groom. The men were asked to scatter corn meal. This represented sweetness and plenty. I cried the whole time.















4. Nimba, Kip's 15 year-old dog, cried too. She's a very emotional canine.














5. The ceremony started after seven p.m. We learned the gates to the Pueblo would close at eight! We drove our car 2.1 miles out from Kiva Bear, just past the gates, so we wouldn't get trapped for the night. But we'd have to walk those 2.1 miles to the car through the very dark, New Mexico desert. I imagined encountering scorpions and coyotes.

6. D'oh! Another wrinkle. The woman bringing the food was delayed. Her transmission died. We were afraid the wedding feast would consist of this (plus some pies and beer):

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We lucked out though because her husband was a state trooper, so the potato salad, pork and beans, and brisquet arrived safely in the back of a squad car, just before the gates closed (Mmmm. Good).

Jane Eyre on dreams

S. and I discovered we have a similar dream about haunted houses. The difference being that in her house, there's always only one ghost/scary thing. And usually she knows what it is and how to avoid it. In mine, it's always several ghosts. I'm in a big house with lots of windey staircases and hidden alcoves. I never see the ghosts, but I know they are there, and I dread having to go into the rooms they haunt.

It's always puzzled me, what these dreams mean. But maybe I just need to pick up my dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre to figure it out. Course, it's known among English majors everywhere that Bronte used the house as a metaphor for the mind. The madwoman that Jane discovers in the attic is just her own wild alter-ego.

Maybe, those haunted rooms are places in my brain I'm afraid of going. Maybe next time I have that dream, I should just march right in, proclaim I'm staying until the ghosts get out.

Suuuuuuh-mer

It's summer. Which means a few things. 1) I commute to work once a week on bike (18+ miles, one way). 2) I start conning myself into believing I'll actually lose a few pounds and be back to my normal weight by the end of the summer from all the biking. 3) I drink copious amounts of sangria, thereby negating all the positive benefits of the biking.

It's worth it though. Because here's my commute.



Usually, I'm driving over this bridge on my way to work each morning. When I bike, I get to zoom under it, then pedal along the Columbia River. Often, I see nervous rabbits and stately herons. Little birds pop up out of the tall grass after eating a breakfast of grass seed. They zoom alongside me and skim across the water's surface.



Also, another signal that it's summer: my garden is just on the brink of going absolutley Little Shop of Horrors. In another month, I'll be thinking to myself, "Oh my god, how could I let it get this way?" But right now, I have my first sunflower of the year. Oh--and the biggest banana slug ever, taking a snooze in the watering can.

Move over, Lois

Last night I was transported back to my youth when I saw the latest Superman film. What is it about Superman? No Christopher Reeve, but I got the same sort of swoony feeling. Oh, I wish Superman would fly around the world with me in his arms. Sigh. Look at his biceps. The new dude is pretty amazing looking, even if it is in an airbrushed sort of way.

I asked T. if, as a man, he wanted to BE Superman. He sort of chuckled and said "Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it?" As a woman, I want to be with Superman. There's some powerful mythology going on there.

Revelation...duh

It's a dream I've been having for ages. I'm running frantically, trying to escape or get somewhere. I'm able to leap vertical, but make no movement horizontally. I'm going nowhere even though I'm taking tremendous strides. Up, down. Up, down.

As I was doing some real-life running this morning it hit me. Maybe it's not just an anxiety dream. It's trying to tell me something. Even though I may be having great successes, achieving great heights, I'm really just running in place.

Three beginnings, one end

Here's the beginnings of three different stories. You tell me which one you want me to finish.

1.
My paws are cold. The grit at the side of the road we've been trotting feels like thorns each step I take. He kept us going all night. Nowhere to rest anyway so I guess it's not so bad to keep going. Except a thunderstorm is building. I sniffed it. Smells like a lake up there it's such a big one.

He's got me worried. Just like the rain ends up in my nose, so does he and I can tell he's not feeling so good. When we do stop, he sleeps long hours. He sleeps so deep that trains don't wake him. I have to stay awake then, or I can drift off to sleep but keep one ear up and ready. I sleep on my tail so it's not so comfortable or I lick my paws to stay awake.

Once, during the best time we were together, we were in the mountains. It was summer. The air was cool though and we slept on pine needles and thick bed of them. My fur would smell like a tree and I'd bite the slivers out of my fur. There were wild strawberries and he'd spend hours collecting them and I'd find mice and small birds and gobble them up. It was quiet at night and I could drift off pushed up against his side under the dark night, a canopy of trees. I'm not scared of big animals like I am people.

We walked all the way here from there. Except sometimes we ride in cars. When we do he opens the window for me and I get to stick my head into the wind and feel it whoosh through my teeth and over my tongue.

When I dream I dream I'm running that fast I'm hunting mice and rabbits and birds and swimming in mountain streams.

I dream of wild wolf howls and I howl back an answer I run away with them. He becomes a wolf too. We are part of the pack we live in the den. We hunt at night and sleep in a huddle during the day. He chews through my collar and it drops to the ground. I lick his wounds.

2.
Bun was a doubtful cat. Always questioning her feline abilities. She'd hesitate before jumping on to a chair or window sill as if she were judging, then rejudging the distance; gauging the height she'd need to jump again and again.

I never doubted her. She always made it. She always heard my keys at the door and sat waiting on the step as I entered the house. She knew me and she was always there.

Even now, buried underneath the bright forsythia she is ever reliable. She is there in my dreams each night, brushing past her scratching post, curling around my ankles and warming my toes as she perches near my feet.

Bun still needed to tell me something it seemed, and so I paged through the yellow pages looking for pet psychics. I needed to know! What was it she was meowing to me in my sleep?

There was only one. Reginald P. Bryce, C.P.P. (Certified Pet Psychic). And so I dialed his number.

"Hello?"
"Yes, I'm calling to make an appointment."
"Oh yes! Your...bird...She's not eating."
"No. My cat."
"Oh, of course! I see it now. Your cat's not eating."
"No! My cat's dead!"
"Well, good god, honey! Why are you calling me then?"
"She keeps coming to me in my dreams! I think she's trying to tell me something."
"That's serious. You better come in right away."

3.
Jack stretched his long legs out and unwound them from around the bar stool. He kicked them out in front of him and looked around.

Smoke filled the rool, making the far side filter out like it was behind a gauzy curtain. He loved this place. Nothing better than a stiff drink in a seedy New Orleans' bar.

Madame Julia sat in one corner at her usual table. A blinking tourist sat across from her enraptured by her dramatic tarot reading. The Madame was a little black cat of a woman who could bristle and purr on and off like an alternating current. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she read the magic cards and wove them into fate.

The old bum from the corner crouched other end of the bar. Seemed he was always there spending the change he'd collected by honking out some made-up garbage on a rusted harmonica. The songs were so bad that Jack swore the man must be deaf. He never talked to anyone--just sat there swilling cheap beer all night long.

Jack got up and walked round the bar and sat down next to the old man. He could see the wrinkles in his face, creased with grime. Jack threw a few coins down on the bar. "How about you play us a little tune?"

Suspended

I am a friend to deep lakes and running rivers.
I swim out to their middles and tread water,
spin 360 to take in the view. The low view,
my body sunk beneath the x-axis of the earth,
only my head above.

I am a friend to soft sand, piling up over my feet,
buried deep beneath it. My brother covers me and runs
away and now I feel my heart beating through my whole body--
pulsing.

Someday I will be a friend to moist earth.
Earthworms and tree roots at my side.
Tucked in for the everlasting night.

I am a friend to the sky.
What color is the sky?
Silly--the sky is the color of the sky!
As a child, hanging upside down on the monkey bars
I would pretend sky was down and earth was up
and feel the universe spin around me.

Vacation tchotchka

Bee dance

Bees
The bee hive lives. I returned home on Thursday from Portland Nursery to a swarm of bees in my back yard. I had just been remarking to T. that morning that we should call Tom, the beekeeper, because the dead hive was attracting the attention of local bees. Well...those local bees were scouts for a hive that had outgrown their current digs. The scouts led the pioneer honeybees to their new home, and marked the occasion with a swarming ceremony. It was terrifying and beautiful. The world around us works to it's own logic and rhythm, even as we humans attempt to ever increasingly control it.

Sadness
I've done little writing this week. Sadness. Especially since I've been on vacation. I think my body and mind both needed a break though. I drive so hard throughout the week, and then I don't even let up on the weekends. I'm the girl who wakes up at 6 am even on Saturdays. After a week of vacation though, I'm amazed to find that I can sleep in. I woke up at 9:30 today.

I'm afraid to go back to work. Not only because I've been having a hard time and I'm not looking forward to what and who awaits, but the idea of getting back on that moving train. Do I even know how to have fun now? Do I know how to relax? I watch The House of Elliot, and think "I'm just like Beatrice..." who obsesses about her business, whose marriage has failed, who is angry and worried all the time. Egh. We even have the same hair.

Movies
If you haven't seen Cache yet, you should. The best film I've seen in a while. Subtly political. The conflict between France and Algeria, and the current conflict in the Middle East form book ends to the story, and the film manages, through the story of a bobo family that starts getting creepy parcels and anonymous phone calls, to call attention to the way conflict can build up over nothing. Paranoia, distrust, leaping to conclusions without evidence...human failings that have global consequences. It made the war in Iraq feel very personal, in a way that no amount of CNN coverage can. Don't go if you're sleepy though. It moves slowly.

Fog
Early Friday morning, T. followed me out to Gresham in his truck, so I could take my car in for repairs. But he had a meeting at Leach Botanical Garden to start some web work for them, and didn't have time to drop me off at home. So unshowered, uncaffinated, unbreakfasted me took a hike through the garden. I was hoping it was early enough to avoid humans, but I was greeted by the groundskeeper Scotty, who told me just how many species of ferns and birds were living in the garden. I nodded politely, and sought escape in the woods. Every spider in the garden must have spun a web across the trail, because after awhile, I could feel them building up on my skin. Tiny invisible filaments everywhere. I'm sure I had a spider or two in my hair as well.

I also saw a snail crossing the trail and a cat hot-tailing it down the path as it was chased by some very angry birds. Eventually, I picked a bench and thought about what it would look like if I were to take a little nap. Would I get kicked out for vagrancy or something? But a bus of grade school kids on a field trip soon saved me from appearing homeless. And in past years, I would have felt uncomfortable under the critical eyes of children, sitting there alone on a bench--hair wild, and drowsy--but maybe I've truly grown up because I didn't really care. I just sat there and listened to the teacher until T. was finished with his meeting.

Destination: Austin

Hmmm. Let's begin with a technical confession: the software I use to loads photos on to blogger isn't working, which sucks, because I have gazillions to share. I'll have to load them later when I have patience and T. is not annoying me by prowling the kitchen, wondering whether to eat the rest of the tortilla chips, or glug milk straight from the carton.

We spent the last few days visiting our friends, A&E (so appropriate an abbreviation for them) in Texas. We timed the visit specifically so we could go to the Houston art car parade (pictures! lots of them! imagine Wacky star shaped cars and cars with huge, pink poodles on top, and funny rollerskating characters!) It's surprising Portland doesn't have anything like this, but maybe the freaks here have grown too comfortable and don't need to announce their freakiness anymore. In Houston, the land of the air conditioned tanning booth ("Darque...so good you can almost eat it"), the freaks need a once-a-year event to rally around. I felt right at home.


My fave of the art cars


M peach bush...a bold move in W-loving Houston


Who wants a tasty cupcake? Me!

We saw a few of the crazy cars later, all the way in Austin, when we were crossing South Congress. "Hey! We know those cars!"

Besides eating and drinking our way through Texas, we did some super cool stuff, including hanging out at the TGI Friday's on the river. Hey! That's not cool. Except we were there to wait for the moment just at dusk when a colony of 1.5 million bats that lives beneath a nearby bridge made their way out into the night sky. I was anticipating they would come out as a cloud and begin swarming the area around the river. Instead, a slow and orderly stream of them rushed East, beginning at one end of the bridge and made its way toward us. It felt choreographed, as if each bat knew when to take its turn and fly off, away from the fading sun. The whole thing took almost 20 minutes. It was stunning. I've never seen animals so seemingly conciously organized.

They were certainly more organized than the four of us, who by this time had each consumed two ultimate margaritas and at least one fried mozzarella stick. We headed to a local music and soul food joint and shoved our faces full of fried catfish, cheese grits and beer and listened to a great, twangy, swingy band. We clapped and hooted and hollered. We closed the place down. Then more beer at the Spider House. I floated my new story idea by E. "Hey! Do you think it'd be a funny story if there were this big old dude, and he was in the bathroom, sick with food poisoning, and he heard someone breaking into his house?" She laughed, perhaps politely. And after all the beer, we topped it all off some the sugariest donuts in all the land at Ken's donuts. Wow. Can you say "shitfaced"? How else can you explain that I ate two of those sugar bombs in less than five minutes?


Donut zombies

As if I didn't eat enough, now I can think of nothing but tamales and tequila. I can't complain about the cuisine here at home. I get all the strong beer and coffee I want, the salmon is fresh, and the berries are divine. But sometimes...I crave heat. And now that I've had some, it's gonna be hard goin' back.

A clear sign of gentrification

It's raining, and my neighbor is running her brand-new sprinkler system. Last week, several brawny hispanic men dug trenches in her lawn to lay the pipe. Now, it runs every morning and evening, whether the grass is parched or not.




Oh yeah...and the newly built rowhouses that are starting at $495k. Half a mil for a freakin rowhouse???? Ohmygod i need to run away to the mountains and never come back it is all too much.

I never thought I'd say this but thank goodness for the other neighbor who has a washing machine on his lawn and I've never been so glad to see a stray dog taking a crap in our front yard.

Fingers on silk scarf

The skin on my fingers catches against the silk--rough skin, hangnails, dry fingerpads--hands worn with work.

The little red hen ground the grain, made the dough, baked the bread. The fruits of her labor fed her chicks. The goose, the cat and the rat stood by as they ate and felt their bellies rumble.

My hands are more and more like my mother's with each passing day. A surprise to me--to recognize her there. The pattern of her veins, her red knuckles, the skin with hatchmarks like they've been drawn in rough pen and ink. These are mine now. Passed down without ceremony. Received with prayer that they will know better when to hold tight and when to let go.

I still recall a warm summer day when I was only thirteen. I stood at the washtub in the cool, moist basement, sorting laundry. I asked my mother I should use bleach on the whites. She said yes, but never get it on your hands. She regretted the damage it had done to hers. It made her look old, she said.

But she was old. At least that's what I thought then. But she was not much older than I am now. She was young and looking at her own hands, thinking of her own mother. Looking at the wide, smooth scar from her wrist all the way up to her thumb on her right hand, and once again hearing the sound of flying metal and warm, wet trickle of blood running down her fingers. Seeing the scissors he mother had thrown now lying at her feet. Feeling the rage of her mother. A bull, not a hen, but a bull.

Monkey business

Watch this.

Tooth

Dear Erika,

We've known each other such a long time. Long enough that I know you've lost your big toenail more than once. In fact, you lost it the very first week I met you, after you dropped a table on it. But I don't know much about your teeth. Did you ever have braces? How old were you when you lost your first tooth? Did you ever get a tooth knocked out? I suppose you use whitening toothpaste. And I've seen Crest Whitestrips in your bathroom.

Take good care of your toofies.

Pamela

Dear Elizabeth,

I know you're a keen observer--it's the Virgo in you--fetching out the tiniest details and cataloging them in your brain. What do you notice about teeth? Have you ever thought about them? The stained ones, the uneven ones, the ones that are too big or too small? What kind of teeth does the walking man in Chicago have? Do you think the people at the clown house brush their teeth? With what? Balloon toothbrushes?

Pamela

Dear Doug,

Tooth. It's a funny sounding word. A double "o" brings humor to an otherwise mundane meaning. Say it. "Tooth." Extend the middle and croon a little. At the end, your tongue meets the back of your teeth and gets a little lispy. Some words are like instruments. They carry a melody all their own. Funny, I just realized the act of saying "tooth" involves the use of them. Maybe that's on purpose. Who, exactly, planned it that way?

Pamela

Burgerville on a sunny day

A warm, spring day in the PNW and Burgerville is hoppin'. The parking lot is jammed with contractors--their dry wall-caked boots and carhardts line up to feed. The cashiers call your name when your order is ready. Three men before me are all named Steve.

Bee carnage

inside the hive


bee carnage

Last weekend, I took the blue wooden top off the hive. Dead, mouldy bees were scattered about. Looking down into the hive, I could see honey dripping from the frames. It smelled sweet but tainted. It felt like walking into the scene of a mass murder. Bodies everywhere. I could imagine the bees in their final moments, crawling feebly to where they finally lay.