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.