INNER GRAFFITI

On Vanity

2012-01-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

Twice this week, I've heard the word "vain" as it relates to me. I've never thought myself vain. In fact, I've always thought myself the opposite. When I think of vanity, I think of those who love their looks. They cannot pass a mirror without looking and liking what they see. The truth is, I think it's the attentiveness, whether positive or negative, that matters in the discussion.

I look and I hate. That's problematic.

Here's an example that popped up last night: My boyfriend was doing our laundry. He'd sorted the clothes into darks and lights. I thought nothing of the first load, as they were mainly whites: his socks, underwear, and t-shirts. The colored loads, however, were a mix of both our clothes. And I was immediately aware of the tags in my clothes. Do I let him see what size I wear? I mean, he's not a moron. He's not blind. And even if he was, he knows every inch of my body like Braille.

The trouble is, I struggle with the idea that there are too many inches.

At one point during this normal domestic process, I considered cutting out the tags. Lord knows I've seen those cut out tags while thrift store shopping. I know there are an army of tag cutting women out there who feel, if the tag is gone, they are small.

I didn't cut the tags. I stifled the anxiety. But it reared its head once again when my boyfriend came back from the laundromat. We typically fold the laundry together. I hang his shirts, fold jeans and underwear. He went to pick up a pair of my pants, and I freaked out and told him I would fold my own clothes. He raised his sexy eyebrow, pronounced me weird, and went on about his business. I couldn't have explained that I feared seeing him raise a pair of my jeans in front of him and seeing, for instance, how wide the waist is.

It's absolutely ridiculous for multiple reasons:

1.) I'm 6' tall and fairly proportionate.

2.) There are a helluva lot of women out there with bigger body problems than myself.

3.) I've always gotten my fair share of male attention, which seems to suggest that I'm not the monstrous blob my mind tells me I am.

4.) I'm in love with and loved by a man who thinks I'm sexy AS IS.

So how do I quiet this mind?

It's tough. On one hand, I am opposed to the groups out there who celebrate fat. They say fat is beautiful. I'm not saying it can't be, but I think those people need to be realistic: carrying extra weight is symptomatic of poor eating and lack of exercise and can shorten your life.

On the other hand, I think there's nothing wrong with doing a little soul exploration and trying to figure out why you feel the way you do. I don't see anything wrong with writing about it or trying to work it out via art or even counseling. In fact, there are some pretty sweet online workshops out there about the subject. I'm interested in the Body Restoration workshop offered by Brave Girls Club.

I also think it's important to take inventory of those factors that make you feel the way you do. Acknowledge them and then dismiss them. Don't wallow in them. Take charge. Find positive role models who live the way you want to live. Find women (and men) who inspire you with their positive outlook on the body.

I have a lot of these. In no particular order, let me introduce a few:

1.) My sister, Tori. She's in Hawaii right now, and one of her dream gigs down there--the job she was hoping to land (when not swimming and surfing and hiking, I might add)--was a job on site at place where they grow organic fruits and vegetables. She was really jazzed about listening to her body and eating straight off the land.

2.) My Missoula friends: Jacque, Ally, and Ici. I cannot count the number of times they talk about going for dog walks or to yoga classes or to boot camps. These are some of the strongest and happiest women I know--and their dogs are ecstatic, I'm sure!

3.) My Spokane friends, Jonquil and Michael. They both wow me with their dedication to healthy eating and exercise. They help me remember that it's a lifestyle. Slender Uma Thurman-esque legs and six (or is it eight) pack abs are not available in pill form. They're not genetic. Yes, they started with beautiful marble, but there's nothing that says you and I can't do a little chiseling of our own.

4.) My friend, Denise who shows strength each day in avoiding the pitfalls of dieting and quick fixes in favor of hard work. But she reminds me that it's normal to occasionally indulge in your favorite mac and cheese or perhaps a huckleberry milkshake.

5.) My friend Lesa battled cancer, won, and stayed strong mentally and physically throughout that ordeal and after by MOVING.

6.) The lovely Donna Greenberg inspires me to create and to do yoga.

7.) My Hollywood inspirations range from Madonna with her dedication to yoga to Adele and Kate Winslet, who both eschew the idea that their bodies are a career liability because they are not a size 0.

The point is, I need to remember that I am a work in progress. I will have good days and bad days. In fact, it might be more accurate to say I have good seasons and bad seasons. By now, I know myself well enough to know that winter is a time of hibernation. I pack on the pounds and then take them off when spring rolls around. I need to stop comparing. I am not them, but they are not me.

Finally, I want to acknowledge a couple things that came up in an art journal group I'm in.

One of the members recently completed a spread that said "I may not be perfect, but parts of me are AWESOME." I love that. I need to remember that.

Finally, my friend Gigi did a layout about her parents. One of the group members pointed out that her parents seemed to be naked (although tastefully hidden behind some artfully placed calla lilies). Gigi provided background, telling the group that she had taken the photo of her mother during a trip to Palau where they were diving. "And my mom just decided to take off her top. At 76 years old. She does that," said Gigi casually.

"My parents taught us not to be ashamed of our bodies...Nudity is natural. I'm grateful for that," said Gigi.

It's not yet 8 a.m., and I've already learned a powerful lesson.

Thank you, Gigi, and be sure to thank your mom for me too.

Tossing Out the Marriage Bed

2012-01-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

This is our second big purchase (the first being a trip we plan to take in August). For him, the reasoning is more practical. He has a bad back, and the crater on his side of the bed is either the cause or is making it worse.

Big purchases are a cause for research. This begins with a casual stroll down the Costco aisle. The price tags make it a drive by. Also, there is the question of how, even if we had $1000 in our pockets, we would get a mattress home, considering that he drives a sub-compact car.

The next day, he is consulting Consumer Reports online--the Last Word on any and all items one might need to purchase. The only trouble is, the mattress is the only item they pretty much refuse to rate. Consumer Reports explained that pretty much all mattresses are constructed in a similar manner. After all, it really falls to a matter of personal taste: Do you like soft? Or do you like hard?

This question resulted in a bonafide date. We showered, dressed, and braved pre-rush hour traffic on Division to test mattresses. At the second store, we were shown our first bed: marriage bed replacement #1 (MBR1). MBR1 contained springs which were specially made so as not to make a crater. Our shiny salesman instructed us to lie down and see how it felt.

Good. It felt good. Better than the bed we have now (which contains the residue of a past marriage). It is residue free.

The shiny salesman walks us over to another bed, a bed he predicts will be too soft. We concur. It is too soft. At this point shiny salesman tells us about his wife, Katie, who has an unspecified nervous condition. She, it seems, prefers a softer bed. I begin to wonder about Katie's health. I find myself wanting to see a photo of her.

The shiny salesman walks us over to a bed made of foam and space-age gel. This bed has no springs. The salesman offers us a square of the foam to squeeze. He tells us to lie down and then completes the illusion with pillows. My man and I are flat on our backs, a bit out of our elements, considering that this is a storefront, with a group of salesmen over in the corner around a small TV watching a football game. Journey's "Open Arms" is playing overhead. This isn't the slightest bit romantic, and the salesman comes off as the waiter in search of a good tip. He leaves, comes back, leaves, comes back. Upon every return, he asks, "How's that feel?"

Eventually we end up in the best and most expensive model. This is the model I've seen on TV. It has a remote. The bed is remotely operated, with each side able to be manipulated according to its occupant's desire. You want to sit up and read while your lover sleeps? Buzzzzz. It is done. You want your legs elevated? Buzzzzzz. It is done. You want a g-spot rocking massage? Buzzzzzz. It is done. This bed has us glaze-eyed, sleepy, and strangely feeling like we should be smoking a post-coital cigarette even though there has been no coitus.

"How's that feel?" Indeed.

Alas, this bed costs as much as a new car, especially if one decides to buy mattress, box spring, and the remote-control pleasure center.

It is decided. We will buy bed number 3 of 6. We are Goldilocks. We have tried the soft beds, the medium beds, the hard beds, the spring bed, the foam beds, the non-motorized beds, and the motorized beds, and we have decided that one is....just right.

Shiny salesman leads us to the front desk. Before we know it, we are filling out paper work, deciding on delivery dates. Somewhere in there, I recognize that feeling that's been coming on more and more lately as I settle blissfully into domesticity. I've been nesting, and I know it. But what happens in a situation like this is that OTHERS--complete strangers, sales people, cashiers, waitresses, etc.--recognize that we are a solid unit. We are stable. We do normal things. We buy groceries. We eat out. We buy beds together. We make purchases that speak of a future.

Shiny salesman staples our paperwork together. He reminds us that the bed will not initially feel like the one in the showroom. He reminds us that you can break the bed in by taking your shoes off and walking around on the mattress, or you can break it in by sleeping on it. We smirk at this, as we both know there are other ways to break a bed in.

He informs us the delivery company will arrive with the bed on Thursday, and he sends us off into the evening, but not before reminding us that, technically, that's the last bed we may ever need. He reminds us that it has a 25-year warranty. He reminds us of its 90+% satisfaction rate.

We leave a bit exhausted from having tested so many beds. We leave a bit giddy. We aren't done. It is out with the old and in with the new. Why should we dress a new bed in old clothes? We shop for new bedding, visiting 3 or 4 stores until we settle on a charcoal gray quilt with intricate stitching. Operating under something akin to a sugar high, I make the bed. I cut the tags off. I stuff the pillows into shams. I smooth the wrinkles. I invite him to look at what we've made.

We both think these new blankets and this new bed will work miracles. We will sleep better than we ever have. Truth is, since we've met, we've slept better because we're at ease. We've slept better because we are in love.

Just When I Think I Can't Get Any "Grinch-ier,"...

2011-12-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

The Season is usually the reason for me to get disgusted with all the consuming--too much of EVERYTHING.

I'm not judging. I do it too.

But then comes word of the do-gooders, those who dance to the beat of their inner drummers drumming. It compels them to toss something other than a random handful of coins in the Salvation Army donation kettle. They drop in gold coins and diamond rings. They include cryptic notes. Sometimes the heavy-handed donations are memorials. Other times, they seem to be odes to survival. They list off their bad luck, but they say something to the effect that, despite all that has befallen them, they know there's always someone who is more needy.

The gold coin trick isn't a new one. They've documented it for the last 25 years. And for as many years as I've been a spectator, these sweet little mysteries has been breaking my heart in a good way.

But here's the rub: I shouldn't remain a spectator--someone who gets all choked up when someone else does good.

I should be doing good.

I often tell myself the following lie: I'm poor. I'm broke. I have no insurance and medical bills. I have student loans.

Technically, those are truths, but the lie part has to do with a sensibility that, because I cannot donate BIG, I should not donate at all.

Lies.

What I'm learning is a new math:

Big donations can create big change, but small donations can create...big change.

I also seem to operate under a double-Dutch mentality. I'm the kid watching the rope turn and am unsure when to jump in. I'm waiting for the RIGHT moment when, in fact, NOW or ANY TIME is the right moment.

Do you believe in omens? Signs?

In addition to the "treasure in the red kettle" signs, this week I witnessed two more Random Acts of Kindness (RAK):

1.) Yesterday, I made a trip to my local drive-thru coffee hut. I ordered my usual and then waited with my credit card and frequent drinker punch card. The barista handed me my coffee and motioned to a gentleman waiting at the other hut window. She said, "HE paid for your coffee." I was shocked. Puzzled. A bit uncomfortable, I thanked him. He shrugged and mouthed, "Have a nice day." I felt as if I was going to burst into tears. Seriously.

2.) In Spokane, the news has been covering the story of woman out walking her dog, when the dog was attacked by 2 pitbulls. Nightly, I've been subjected to graphic video of the attack, which includes the owner and her friend pummeling the pitbulls to get them to let go of the tiny dog. Eventually the dog did let go, but not before it killed the woman's dog. I wept. I wept for the woman and her trauma and loss. I wept for the pitbull, who didn't get that violent on its own. I wept for all the pitbulls in the world who will wear that Albatross around their necks and be subject to hatred and discrimination because of the actions of a handful of bad apples (or more likely, bad owners). I wept because my dog rested at my side, chewing mindlessly on a bone. That could have been me walking my dog. The epilogue, though, is that a woman whose Yorki just had a litter of puppies offered the victim dog owner one of the litter.

I cried.
I cried.
I cried.

And then I resolved:

Before December 25, I will pay it forward because progress isn't necessarily about quantity. It's about one. And one. And one. It's a simple math--that and momentum.

In the Interim

2011-11-27T11:57:00.000-08:00

After wine, the investigation begins.

I sit down at the table and work my way

over the Braille of a thousand X-acto cuts.

Precise: China has no place here, nor eating,

only kanji of canvas and the strokes

that bought his daily bread gone stale.

These, his tools for living, brushes askew,

some tips the width of a spatulate thumb,

mustache-like tufts of hair,

each tip makes a special mark

just as each sip of Moscato

has its own dumb warming in his absence.

The best I can do is to make what music I can.

She's with the band. Give that girl

a tambourine! Rolled beneath the palm,

there is the staccato of the brushes'

metal cuffs on the wooden table.

There is her wine glass beside the

murky glass he cleans his brushes in.

Earlier, the cat lapped at the tinted water

with a tongue not unlike a brush.

The cat is now a comma on his pillow.

The girl is pouring another glass of wine.

Full Disclosure

2011-11-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

Snowqualmie is calling

in a voice disguised as

Thanksgiving.

It's still dark, and leaves

come in russet waves

across rain-slicked

pavement. Two days ago,

the breeze blew you in.

I hosted the feast,

but you fed me.

Now silence has fallen.

I fear the starting over--

the dread of again

being an only child.

Sister, each visit is diving

for the first time

into the deep end.

Each meeting,

the steep descent

into who I am

and who I fear I'll never be:

not brave enough

to live the way you do:

fully entrenched,

the mind's eye gleaming

with the next big adventure:

you are Teton winters and Hawaii

on the horizon, and I am lost

in some Idaho mist, fitful,

fretting over how long

the trip is and counting

on borrowed fingers how many

firsts I haven't had.

My stories are always filled

with last year,

and how powerful a foe

the past is. You seem

to have no history,

or if you do, you've

written it in a glorious

blaze the first time.

To my no-regrets sister,

I love you. I love your accent,

mile-a-minute mind,

frenetic hands fluttering

at the ends of arms

attached to body

in constant motion.

I look to the hands folded

placidly in my lap and think

clods, heavy, jealousy.

I'm ashamed in my sleep--

bad dreams, but I tell

you over coffee about

nightmares that aren't even my own.

When we meet again, I want

to be less breeze and more blow.

I want to be the steady light

of high beams but

also welcome night.

I want to pack lightly

every once in awhile.

I want the jumble of

maps I can't ever

seem to fold and the luxury

of choosing not to look.

I want not the reflection

in the rearview mirror

but open roads and

the courage to travel them.

I want you to play North.

Next time, you be host.

Smile your bright smile

and hug me when, tired

exhilarated, I make it

to your door.

Life's Little Elections

2011-11-20T22:20:00.000-08:00

In explaining how to write an argument, I tell my students about the Toulmin model of argumentation. I talk about the 3 most common claims: claims of fact, claims of value, and claims of policy. Given the fact that my students aren't supposed to use outside sources, I often steer them away from claims of fact. I also steer them away from claims of value. I tell them I don't want them trodding down the same path as those who are trying to argue evolution versus creationism or gun control or abortion or stem cell research or wolves...all those have been argued to death.

Additionally, I try to explain that it hardly ever works to try to argue a matter of personal taste. For instance, there will always be the die-hard Pepsi fans and Coke fans. There will always be those who wear Nike as opposed to Reebok or New Balance, and you won't convince them otherwise. There are truck fanatics out there who wear their preference. Surely you've seen the Calvin and Hobbes stickers in which Calvin is pissing upon some brand name he doesn't like.

The point is, it's hard to convince someone to dislike something they like. And vice versa.

So having laid this foundation in which I try to encourage my students to deal mainly in claims of policy, it was a bit disappointing to have a student turn in preparatory work for his essay, an essay arguing that Spring is the best of the seasons.

Sigh.

It's not that I disagree, and because he is a farm kid whose argument stems from an agricultural standpoint, I'm even more biased and preferential. Nonetheless, I had to ask the student to start over. I had to ask him to offer up another, less subjective argument.

I wonder what kind of a world it would be if we philosophized on the level of Montaigne. What if we were in the habit of starting essays on whatever happened to strike us at a particular moment?

That student had written a meditation on Spring. And despite the fact that I couldn't allow him to do so as a means of demonstrating that he'd learned anything about classical argumentation, I think everyone should at least internally take stock of their preferences, their values, their rights and wrongs, their vote in life's little elections.

Today was the sort of day where I might have cast my vote for winter. Cold clearly won. It kept me in bed until 11 a.m. It held me hostage in the kitchen most of the day where it became my goal to cook things that would warm the insides of those I care about. It was the sort of day where the cat laid on top of technology, which whirred beneath him and kept him warm. It included a neighborhood walk wherein I saw a gentleman performing all manner of ninja kick in order to rid the undercarriage of his car from icicles. It was a walk in which I shuffled along, alternately unsure of my footing on top of ice or plunged deep into a snowy park. I marveled at the ghost of activity--the footprints of man and dog and bird once here but now gone. I enjoyed the quickening of my heart, the chill not quite fended off by coat and gloves. And I was all in favor of my rosy cheeks and the opportunity some don't have--to come inside out of that cold.

Yes, winter. I stand whole-heartedly behind it. Today, anyway.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears...Oh My

2011-11-19T16:30:00.001-08:00

It is said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. And I'm pretty sure that the way to a girl's heart is via anything adorable, be it baby or furry, or if you're lucky, a furry baby.

Or maybe that's just me. I'm a sucker for a good kitten or puppy YouTube video. In real life, I sense the presence of animals, honing in on them like a heat-seeking missile. And I can't leave them alone. I must 1) squeal with delight, 2) talk to the owner about every last detail of his/her pet, and 3) love up on the animal. Likewise, if I see an animal without a proper human guardian, then I'm all worried and can't stop thinking about it.

So Tobe scored mad boyfriend points for deciding that we should go on a date to Spokane, Washington's one and only zoo dedicated to big cats: Cattails. Located just off the Newport Highway, Cat Tails is tucked into a stand of pine trees, and it's about as far from the animals' typical habitat as you can get. The driveway is fence-lined with blown up pictures of the sorts of big cats housed in the zoo itself. There was also a banner announcing that you could spend Thanksgiving at Cat Tails, where they apparently have a turkey toss. I imagine that being initially fascinating for spectators and then becoming a bit too grisly for the young and the squeamish. It also brought out the first fascinating debate between my boyfriend and me: are the turkeys frozen? Do they literally toss them at the animals? If they're frozen might it not result in a concussion if mis-thrown? Most certainly it would be a Thanksgiving to remember.

For $8, visitors get to walk within 8 feet of the animals. Visitors can wander around on their own, or they can take a guided tour. We happened to arrive shortly after a group of children and their stroller-pushing Stepford mothers (the zoo's blog promotes that "infants that cannot possible escape from the stroller or infant seat" get in free). We could have broken away from the crowd of little ones, but we decided to tag along.

It was snowing, and I couldn't stop thinking that the majority of these animals weren't meant for snow. A tiger from India is not supposed to know cold like this. And the cold made for finicky cats. The tour guide called our attention to a bobcat. We all peered into the 10' x 10' enclosure and saw nothing. The tour guide remarked that it was cold outside and that this particular cat was old. Eventually the old girl came out and rubbed herself along the chain link. She struck me as stiff, humped up against the cold, and bored.

Over and over, we heard similar stories of origin from the tour guide. The key theme in most stories was hubris or God-Complex. Men thought they could have a wild animal as pet and then eventually realized they were in over their heads. The cute cougar or tiger cub later grew up and became harder to handle. Over and over, she told stories of human ineptitude. She told of animals confiscated from places where animals were in small, dirty, "excrement-filled" cages. I wondered how much of this the small children were taking in. I didn't hear any of them gasping in horror. I didn't see any of them looking for comfort from their mothers. In fact, I'm not sure how much the kids were taking in except that I could hear the words "cute" and "pretty" being tossed around liberally.

The children did notice some things. When the tour guide asked if there were questions, it seemed the children most often noticed physical troubles. One noted that a spotted leopard had a "ouchie" on the end of its tail. The tour guide explained that sometimes they get bored and worry the same area too much until they make a sore, or the hair falls off. There were too many stories about things falling off. None was more disturbing than the cougar with the stubbed tail. When one of the children pointed out how the cat seemed to be lacking in the tail department, the tour guide told the story of how it had gotten frost bite on the tip of its tail. The frost bite perhaps bothered the cat. The next morning, it had chewed of 8 inches of its tail.

Among the things I'll remember: wondering what it would be like to be a tour guide, my back turned to these beasts, feeding them chunks of chuck roast on what looked like a dull skewer. I wonder if I would be tempted to call them cutesy nicknames like she did. I wonder if I would be comfortable clanking my keys against their cage in order to get the animals to make an appearance.

I will remember the black bear whose nose seemed like an ant eater's. I couldn't get over its range of movement. They found him in the Spokane area in an orchard. I remember two boys having a snowball fight. I remember the white tiger taking everyone by surprise by sounding a growl that no one expected from cats gone docile in captivity. I remember 3 Siberian siblings pacing their cage in unison. It looked like Vegas showgirls or can-can girls, and I expected them to put their paws on each other's shoulders and kick and perhaps to don a top hat. I remember the flocks of birds in the tiger cages and wondered if the cats ever killed birds. I marveled at how the birds didn't seem nervous. I noticed the tiger sleeping who opened one amber eye to gaze at us. I will remember the huffing sound of the lion and how his mane reminded me of an 80's hair band. I will remember the dreadlocks hanging from his belly. I will remember Tobe's plan for his own zoo. He said he wouldn't have any animals at all. He would simply lead people through, and when they asked where the animals were, he'd make excuses...that they were sick or sleeping.

It's crazy, but it just might work.

Life Is Good

2011-11-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like a visit to a nursing home to make you realize life is good.

Is that mean?

It's true. You are out here and not in there (for long). It's a locked facility. The keypad lets you in and keeps them from leaving.

Once inside, you note that it's the Cadillac model, not like where your mom worked. You'd walk there after school and wait for her in the TV room, where you'd sit on a scratchy plaid couch and twitch a bit when residents sat beside you and found no good reasons to touch your young skin. The selling points back then were the quarters in your pocket, the soda pop machine, and the potential for TV remote domination. You'd find Benji or Lassie and nurse your bottle of Orange Crush until your mom got off shift.

Then you'd walk down the waxed hallways and try not to stare at the grown ups gone the way of babies. They were all sitting out in the hallways in their wheelchairs, airing out, as it were. Those who couldn't sit upright laid in wheeled contraptions that reminded you of big city flower carts. There was all manner of moaning and drooling and palsied hands. When you left, the smell of overcooked vegetables and urine clung to your mother's polyester uniform--a smell it took you years to disassociate from her.

You're a grown up now, and supposedly mature--

It's a straight shot to his room, but it's also a gauntlet of sentimentality--touches meant to say this is home (now). Outside each room, there is a locked curio cabinet. A time capsule. When I teach my students how to write profiles, I teach them about dominant impression. I teach them to interview an individual and boil down all the data into a dominant impression--the one overarching characteristic of the individual. A stereotype. That's what the curio cabinet displays do. They are memorial to the person this person once WAS. What would my wall decoration look like? What will it all boil down to at the end of my days?

It boils down to a big screen TV that no one is watching, blaring. It is a single bed. It is a son-in-law remembering to trim the hair inside your ears. It is veal parmesan displayed beneath a glass dome outside the cafeteria and not remembering that's what you had for lunch. It is a dish of pumpkin pie with coconut sprinkled on top, uneaten and congealing. It is the lone man in the dining room still chewing. It is the dog you no longer own but who remembers you still. It is the woman with the barrettes in her hair, who scuttles along in a walker with tennis balls on the legs. The woman fears the dog and loves it. She says, "You love me, don't you?" to the dog, who cannot sit down and whimpers at the end of his leash.

It is a tour of the last resort, of sorts. Here is an empty movie theater that will play Top Gun at 6:30. Here is bingo. Here is the mailroom, the library, the vastly underutilized computer room. Here is arts and crafts. Here are photos of the Veteran's Day ceremony. It was beautiful. Here are the chairs gathered around a piano for singing. Here is an in-house coffee shop with a latte and popcorn machine. Here is the game room, with its ski poles and fishing nets tacked up just so. Here are the pool tables, poker tables, shuffleboard. Here is the place where only the family plays games. Grandkids play Wii casino games. Here is a self-serve ice cream shop, where the treats are for residents only, please. Here is an ice cream sandwich that someone unreels for you, and it feels awkward in your hands and sets you to worrying a napkin in your hand. Here is the place where your grandfather remembers you were once married and and not to this girl. You are the new girl he keeps trying to place. Here is where he says, "So it didn't work out, huh?"

All this, and then the long walk down that hallway with its locked door. This is where he wants to go along, and you say you'll be back tomorrow. Outside you've never seen anything as beautiful as a sky threatening snow. You are thankful for knowing November and all its idiosyncrasies, its balm and briskness, its temperamental leaves and sunshine. You give thanks for the giants on the hillside--windmills churning what isn't visible into precious energy.

There Shouldn't Be Any Sensation...

2011-09-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

After all, I am not clay, and there'll be no laying on of hands. He is over there, in his stiff chair, and I am here beside the mirror image of a girl with too many flaws to be offering up her body for the sake of art.

I don't know how to do it, but take my cue from the other thick figures in the fat stack of notebooks. Some--the notebooks and not the women--are so old they're held together with silver duct tape that, itself, is coming apart. Maybe the women, too.

Who were they? And where are they now? Where can I be? How long can I stay?

Heavy. If it weren't for these pillows, I might fall through the mattress. Vulnerable. I am thin as the skin on the inside of the wrist. You could daub perfume here, and the heat would set the scent on fire. I am a pulse with a voice who isn't using it right now. What would I say? There's discomfort in the draping over. I draw my knees up and am acutely aware that doing so will gather things I don't want gathered.

I am acutely aware.

I more than care about this man. That scary L word is a lozenge on my tongue. His black cat is settled into a sliver of light all magical-like. The windows are slightly parted, almost silent lips. The birds and lawnmowers that wake us have gone away, but there is the ganga cough of a neighbor and kids teaching themselves football while their parents play poker in kitchen chairs they've moved out on the fire escape.

The first time I took off my clothes, I tried to hide behind Bob Dylan. His grizzled mug stared up, and his nasal songs didn't sooth me. Today there will be no music, only the scratch of pencil across paper and the occasional sharpening. I think how delicate--those pencil shavings look like tiny skirts--petticoats edged in yellow. I'm trying too hard. They don't look like that at all. They are the remains. Or the beginning, depending on how you look at it.

How is he looking at me? I asked once, a stupid question, I know, and he talked about being more interested in negative space. He said he'd know just how to draw my proportions if he paid more attention to the painting behind me. It made sense.

If I had any talent at all, I'd draw him drawing me. I'd capture that question-mark eyebrow.

I'd incorporate the whole morning, with its coffee breath and hunger. Each day we spend together is a halo we wear above our heads. It's not that different from the cafe decorated with black and white portraits. We ate and looked each other in the eye and held hands across worn wood. Tab paid, we grabbed peppermints from a bowl beside the register, walked out into the noon glare with starbursts on our tongues, and that sweetness lingered, telling us all we needed to know.

"Tell me a story..."

2011-08-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

When he asks, it's as though the bedroom is a blank page. In the jungle damp sheets, we try to disentangle--return to our single selves. We grow shy, and he tucks an unruly hair strand behind my ear, which is all that is needed to clear my vision:

You are never so alive as you are when you are young and unsupervised. I was a ward of the neighborhood. You could find me outside, learning the fine art of the BMX bike from David, a teen who probably shouldn't have wanted to hang out with a little girl. Or I might be picking dandelions bouquets with Jody and selling them door to door to makes some quick candy money. Or maybe I was in Charlie's backyard, eating canned peaches on saltine crackers and pretending they were fancy sandwiches at an English tea.

I don't recall who I was with when the cemetery seemed like a good destination. A playground, really. I can only remember that the town was on edge that summer because women had gone missing. People were on the lookout for vans. Parents went on safety lesson rampages doling out stranger mistrust and curfews, which is probably exactly why we'd broken free and were exploring.

Where the cemetery butted up against saw mill and golf course, in some remote corner still free of marble grave markers, there was a knoll of grass and shade trees that seemed just right for resting after our child gang adventures. I don't remember who discovered the black garbage bag, and honestly, I'm not sure if I really looked inside or if I took someone else's account and made it mine. At that age, the blood one sees is contained to skinned knees and elbows or a steak your dad (if you have one) throws on the grill. This wasn't grocery store meat. There was too much of it. It was too messy and writhing with maggots. I don't think any of us were old enough to make excuses or meaning.

An adult would have a backlog of cruelty to draw from. In the file cabinet mind, they would pull the folder for poaching, reason that a hunter may have killed something out of season and dumped the innards where they wouldn't offend. An adult would know that sometimes household pets breed and are too many and too much to handle and so are dispensed with. This was no burlap bag of kittens thrown into a river or a box of puppies left roadside.

An adult might have thought to call the police. But we were children who squealed and dared each other to have a closer look. To touch 'it'. We were children who rode bikes with banana seats, tassles on the handlebars, playing cards tucked in the spokes. We could hear our mothers calling. I'd pretend to hear mine. Lunch was almost ready, and our hunger would erase what we had or had not found.

The Man Next to the Best Man

2011-08-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm too far from sea for shipwrecks. Here, the yachts knot themselves in circles, so the party never ends. It's just a matter of stepping to the next vessel when company gets old or the alcohol runs low. Elsewhere, skiers trail behind small engines, drone during the most important part of the wedding ceremony. At a certain time of day, they seem to glide on sunshine instead of water. All eyes are on the bride and groom, but he--a groomsman and my date--looks out on the lake in the same way some fortune tellers look into a cup of tea to read the leaves.

Where is he?

The day before, I'd accompanied him to the tux store for the final fitting. I sat on a couch and waited. Frat boys with faux hawks spilled out of dressing rooms, already high on the idea of sowing their wild oats. I busied myself looking at the technicolor vests and posters of grooms serenading their brides on guitar. A little boy with bed hair ran around the room as him mom and dad got ready for their big day. He had red hair and skin so pale I thought I could see through it.

When he came out, the woman looked down at her clipboard. She noted his weight loss from the initial fitting. He required new pants, and the woman cinched his vest as tight as it would go. He paid the lady and left with a body bag draped over his arm. "Are you all right?" he kept asking.

He's the one who wasn't eating. And I kept thinking, I wish it was as easy to make him happy as it was for the mother of that pale-skinned boy. When he'd fallen and skinned his knee on the tux store carpet, all it had taken was a box of animal crackers in the shape of a cage.

I had nothing of the kind in the car. No remedies. I imagined feeding that hurt, that gauntness like we had fed the car earlier, stuffing it with backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, and a box full of booze that rattled and chinked when we took corners too quickly.

And it seemed the drive was all corners if that was possible.

When we arrived, he unpacked a bottle of tequila first. He took a pull and grimaced a bit until it turned smooth behind his lips. "Ready?" he asked. And we walked hand in hand down that gravel path to where it was all happening. The camp had been double booked, wedding party and bible camp. Activities were oddly parallel. In some cabin, foal-legged pre-teens were turning yarn into eyes of God, while the women were arranging sunflowers in blue vases.

Beneath a neon cross, children were pledging their love for God and their crushes on fellow campers. And we had our own neon. We called it the moon, and we swam beneath it the night of the wedding. He was no longer looking out across the water to avoid
it. He was wincing across sharp rocks until he'd reached the deep with me--the deep where the rocks turn smooth, where the water turns inexplicably warm, where the past is as distant as the shore, and in the arms of the right person, shipwrecks are the stuff of children's books: the pirates are on some page you've already turned, and treasure glints on some future page.

DEER LODGE

2011-08-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

DEER LODGE

Temperatures low in the high country,
deer wintered here, still do
in the natural salt lick
of Warm Springs mound,
stepping over abandoned tracks
oozing tar in the Big Sky sun.
Once these rails would take you
to Chicago,Milwaukee, St. Paul--
I can still feel the pull of it and yet
they made a home of it.
The Cattle King and his million acres
whispered and some heard.
It wasn’t a hard life unless
you landed in the castle.
Sandstone ghosts still
adhere to the code of silence,
working in groups by day
and confined at night.
I don’t need to walk inside.
I know the soft brick and lack
of light,30 below, oil smoke, the rank
of too many bad men in one place.
Idleness bred insurrection,
so he made them build their own walls.
I can testify, fresh air changes a man.
I was falling asleep at the wheel,
so we pulled over at the edge of Deer Lodge,
where the horses seemed wilder
than they were. It is not a lie
that they ran in tandem
as we kissed. It wasn’t the sun
that caused the heat
that became unbearable. We fled,
got locked up next to a Volkswagon bug
with rust in the shape of starbursts.
And who knows how long
we would have stayed beneath that sun
if it had not been for the old man
returning from a stream that probably
always run clears. I swear he carried
his pole like a rifle. He’d had no luck.
Caught, we were shy. And I wish
we’d taken him at his word.
He’d said, “Don’t let me stop you.”
But damned if our separate homes
weren’t calling.

Yesterday's Lessons

2011-06-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

There are 3 types of tears: 1) the type you produce constantly in order to keep the eyes moist and free of foreign bodies, 2) reflex tears, the type that occur when a foreign body (think eyelash or onion or pepper spray) enters your eye, and 3) what they call psychic tears, the tears produced when you are emotional (sadness, anger, humiliation, joy, etc). The last type of tear has a different makeup than the others. Psychic tears apparently contain a natural pain killer for the eye, since otherwise, all that crying might cause pain or damage your sight.

Research suggests that tears might serve evolutionary purposes as well. For example, The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel concluded that emotional tears from women have been found to reduce sexual arousal in men. From an evolutionary standpoint, it suggests that crying may have been a way to drop testosterone, thus reducing aggression, and potentially stopping a male from violence that may get him killed or that may interfere with mating and perpetuating a species. This effect also seems to hold true in animals. Blind mole rats rub tears all over their bodies as a strategy to keep aggressive mole rats away.

When we're born, we lack the ability to cry psychic tears for awhile. We don't yet have the brain and nerve wiring that allows it. Thus, you see the infant or child who wails and gets red faced, but there are no tears rolling. We expect infants to cry. We allow it through toddler stages, seeing temper tantrums and emotional meltdowns as par for the course. Even teenagers are given leeway, as tears are pegged as part of adolescent angst. Moodiness and emotional outbursts are expected and depicted often. Think James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

Adult crying is a different story. people fall into different camps. The stereotype that women are emotional seems to have a backbone of truth, and there still seems to be the mindset that men should not cry.

Some are uncomfortable with seeing people cry in public, and others are cheerleaders, encouraging tears as beneficial. Essentially, they assume once you've had a good cry, you'll feel better. Crying is therapeutic.

Is it? Frankly it makes me feel weak and out of control. And I can't control it. Trying to contain tears seems akin to those people who stifle sneezing. It seems...dangerous or bad for the body.

So they roll.

Crying makes you ugly: red face and nose, puffy eyes, saline streaks on the cheeks, makeup running. Come to think of it, those researchers in Israel might want to factor ugliness into their tears-reducing-testosterone theory.

In the last few days, I've conducted my own involuntary research about crying and the reactions to it.

* Tears aren't produced while industriously cleaning the pantry down to its intricate nooks and crannies. They don't come while alphabetizing your spices and rearranging rice grains.They aren't produced while pulling weeds. But the moment you stop working, and you have a moment to think and remember, there they are, and they seem to have brought friends.

* Tears infere with speech. You may be trying to communicate your sadness to others, but they haven't a clue what you're saying and will ask you to repeat yourself because your sobbing is basically a foreign language.

* Tears make others uncomfortable. They have no idea what to do or say. When they do speak, they will inevitably say things that are not helpful. This includes but is not limited to:
- there are plenty of fish in the sea
- name calling the person who caused your tears or attacking his looks or something not
remotely related and are comments which make you fierce and defensive because you love
him.
- they remind you to do things that aren't possible like eating and sleeping
- they compliment you and tell you how awesome you are when you feel like a piece of shit
- they check in with you and trigger more tears with the simple question, "How are you
doing?"
- they tell you each day will make you better, but they do so while out at a concert with their significant other or while playing with their children
Basically, they also are speaking a foreign language, and you can neither process nor apply their suggestions.

* Animals acknowledge sadness with an abundance of love. They follow you everywhere you go. They sit on your lap more. They look up at you with wet noses and big brown eyes and a wrinkle in the brow, and you suddenly become an animal behavioralist and think they KNOW. They understand, when really they want to ensure that you'll get your ass out of bed or off the couch and feed and walk them. It's survival of the fittest, and they know, in your condition, you are not fit.

* When there is a pause in your crying, you will hit Play by reviewing the final transcript of texts. Or you will look at photos or, God help you, you will play songs all of which are sad. Black Keys and Dan Auerbach will rip your heart partially out of your chest, and then fully when you remember Him imitating Dan Auerbach and singing a particular song.

* You will cry thinking about the day you won't cry over your loss anymore because that, too, is a scary day--that limbo day when you've healed your heart sufficiently to take the risk of opening it.

Audrey's Army

2011-06-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Audrey Hepburn once said that she was born with an enormous need for affection and a terrible need to give it. I don't know the quote's context. I don't know whether she saw that as a positive or negative attribute. The word "terrible" suggests that she saw it as a flaw. And it is, especially in a world that may not provide that affection or welcome your "gift" of affection.

It seems disastrous to have an army of Audrey Hepburns out there seeking out affection and trying to strong-arm others into taking it. Hepburn said she was born that way. I buy that to a certain extent. After all, if you walk up to any hospital nursery, there will be some babies red-faced and screaming to be held, fed, changed. But you will also find the peace-faced babies fast asleep.

I believe its more nurture than nature. I believe our families establish how affectionate we'll be, how needy we'll be, how confident or insecure we'll be. Perhaps the families establish the mindset by example, or perhaps we choose to operate in polar opposites to what we witness growing up. Some have mothers who've married multiple times, and the children of those mothers decide marriage is to be avoided. Others have mothers who, beyond finding someone to conceive a child with, seem doomed to be single their entire lives. The child of that mother decides to chase love tirelessly.

Once we've left the nest and have gained independence, I would say that friends and lovers, past and present determine the extent to which we need affection or the measuring cup from which we pour (or dribble) affection on others.

We refer to those who need little and dribble out affection to others as independent. And usually we admire those people who have their emotions more in check than those who wear hearts on sleeves, those who can't keep their emotional germs to themselves.

Singer, Ani DiFranco, theorized, "People need something or someone to fasten themselves to in order to reassure themselves that they are real." I'm scared by the word, "fasten," and I'm worried about the word, "reassure." The first word carries with it the connotation of a singular action rather than a shared action. A leech fastens itself to a host, while the host would prefer leechlessness.

Then "reassure." Of course it means the person is not sure him or herself. The person has not arrived at a conclusion, is puzzled, is in the dark. I think I do what she's talking about, and that is only made clear when I am alone. When alone, I have the distinct feeling that I am ghostly, transparent, not of this world, invisible.

To be clear, that is not the opposite of independent, as some might quickly conclude. Co-dependent? No. I simply think one light shines better and brighter when another light joins it. That why we have two headlights on our car. Yes, we can see with one, but it's a clearer and safer drive with two.

Ani DiFranco talks about forming attachments so we feel real, which isn't that different from Margaret Mead, who said, "One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night." I know every day people go about their lives alone: brushing their teeth, making their own breakfast, going to work, coming home from work, eating dinner, sleeping, shitting, masturbating, etc. Yes, it can all be done alone, and some welcome and cultivate that solitary life.

I'm not a fool. I know being alone is easier. There's certainly no drama, no sorting out of feelings, no negotiating, no examining one's own behavior, no trying to please someone, having to care about another's needs. In fact, there's barely a footprint. I don't want that. I want to care about others and celebrate their existence and let them know they matter and would be missed if gone from the world.

I don't want to be one of those people you read about on the news. You know the ones. The neighbors rarely saw the person. The person kept to herself. Then the cloying smell came, and they alerted the authorities. I don't want my life to go unnoticed by others.

Leo Buscaglia said, "We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death."

When alone for large periods of time, I feel that--I feel stagnant, stunted. I feel like I wither. It's not that I neglect my development when alone. I read, I write, I make art. But the passion and emotion and thought process that goes into those outlets is stopped in its tracks. I want to share what I've read. I want to engage in the sort of relationships and life adventures that make me want to write. With art, I want someone who admires how hard I work, who appreciates the end product, even if he doesn't fully understand the method behind my madness, who encourages my artistic growth, and someone who is equally passionate about his own art, whatever that may be.

I can eat alone, but I love cooking for others and being cooked for. I can move my body on my own, but how sweet is it to share the air on Mica Mountain or to point out a landmark on a hike to someone else? Sexually, I can please myself, but it's the difference between a firefly and a bolt of lightening. One can accomplish the big O, but I cannot hold my hand, cannot massage my back, cannot spoon myself, cannot kiss myself 3 times before I go to sleep.

To be clear, I HAD that. And once one has that, being alone is devastating.

There are no medals of honor or commendations for wanting to be loved or giving out love. There are usually only scars and sometimes casualties. So why do it? A friend told me, "It will burn and hurt like a motherfucker, and then you will feel shitty and tinny for awhile, and then you will be okay. Hold fast." How funny is it that he could just as easily be talking about walking on hot coals or getting a tattoo or having a child, but instead he is talking about heartbreak?

Again, so why do it? Why sign on for another tour of duty? Why march purposefully through territory fraught with landmines and booby traps?

Actually, the metaphor isn't right, is it? Love isn't war. And there shouldn't be marching but spontaneity or serendipity--realizing that what you may find is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. It happened once upon a time (a.k.a July 11, 2010). I didn't seek it out, but there it was: bright as tie dyes flapping in the summer sun. Love was unmistakeable. My world was tie dye bright for one year, and now it's not. And the Audrey in me is half-heartedly wishing she was colorblind because the absence of brightness now brings a harvest of tears, sleeplessness, and a mind mired in memories.

Mona Lisa in a Different Light

2011-06-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in Marion Bockelmann's annual blog swap. The challenge is "Altered Mona," which is to say that she'd like participants to create ATCs re-envisioning the work of Renaissance artists. Participants send 3 ATCs to Bockelmann in Germany by mid-July and will get 3 ATCs in return.

I worked with Botticelli, turning the rather prim woman sitting in front of a window into a streetwise, tattooed woman in front of a brick wall covered with graffiti.

Next I worked with Raphael. I replaced the pastoral scene in the original with a Route 66, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives kind of feel.

Finally, I worked with a famous reclining nude. In this case I gave her a contemporary (or maybe timeless) concern: her weight. I included an illustration from an old text, Refashion Your Figure, as well as text that suggests that extra weight makes you socially inept.

She's Crafty Like That...

2011-05-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

Ever watch MacGuyver? The TV show, which ran 7 seasons, from 1985 to 1992, followed the ever-resourceful secret government agent MacGyver. This guy is a hottie scientist (is that an oxymoron?), a bomb technician, and a Vietnam vet. He's constantly in situations where he has to solve complex problems--problems which often could kill himself or others if not solved IMMEDIATELY--with everyday materials he finds around him. He can use chewing gum, duct tape, and a Swiss Army knife to get himself out of pretty much any situation. He fights the bad guys without a gun. He fights them with his mad intelligence. He's calm, cool, and collected, never breaking a sweat or mussing his awesome mullet.

About now, you're wondering why I'm sharing this. Well, I fancy myself a modern-day MacGyver, only instead of duct tape and a Swiss Army knife, my tools of trade are the sorts of things you find around your house or, at the very least, at your local thrift store or yard sale.
Over the years, I've honed my squirreling skills. I squirrel away items I think will be useful in my art. To the untrained eye, these items might seem useless in that capacity:

Here we have a spaghetti measurer (for those people who actually concern themselves with carbohydrate portion control)

And here we have a plastic doily--the type most of your grandma's have covering up any and all surfaces.

Any game players here? Brand new games often have pieces which need to be punched out. I save the pieces of cardboard after punching out the pieces. Or I ask friends to save them for me. These are special friends who probably secretly roll their eyes or think I'm crazy, but they do what I ask anyway, which is the best kind of friend...don't you think?

This is a 49-cent metal star. I'm not sure what its intended purpose is. It's really too small to hold anything.

This is a paper plate holder. It was 20 cents.

This is a beheaded fly swatter.

Sometimes my dog helps the artistic process. He found this badminton shuttlecock while out on one of our walks.

So aside from sounding like a candidate for Hoarders, what do these things have in common? Awesome patterns! I use them to stencil. I use Glimmermist or make my own colored mists using reinkers and perfect pearls. Or if I'm in a graffiti mood, I take the whole operation outside and use spraypaint.

Have I mentioned that I save everything? This is the paper towel I used to dry off my stencils after each application. I later stamped the paper towel with a foam butterfly stamp and acrylic paint, which yielded a Batik-y look.

And what was I working on in the first place? Well, I'm in a collage group, and each time I send off a collage, I like to send it in style--with colorful envelope art. I'd like to think I'm momentarily making the post office workers happy. If this was a TV series, I'd be using my art to bring those workers down from the metaphorical edge. I'd be stenciling to prevent them from "going postal."

Even if you can't imagine yourself sending out mail in decorated envelopes, can you imagine the money you'd save on wrapping paper if you created your own? Or if you're at a loss for a project for the kiddos, why not let them lose with some household stencils and a large sheet of newsprint out in the backyard?

So what household items are you ignoring? What new tools can you add to your studio?

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

2011-05-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, I happened upon an interesting Facebook page, The Collage Collaborative. The group is the brainchild of Ohio-based artist, Nikki Soppsela. Group members live all around the world. For instance, the other collage I feature in this blog entry originated in Western Australia, went on to the Phillippines, then to the U.S. (Ohio), to Wales, and finally back to the U.S.A where it landed in my mailbox!

Participating members create a 5 x 7" collage--a skeleton really. The original collage gets sent on to four other members who each flesh out the original skeleton by adding an element or two. The fourth member then sends the finished collage back to its originator. The group documents each step of the process on its Facebook page. I was mesmerized by the metamorphosis. And who could resist the ability to travel the world for the price of postage? So I requested to join.

Since joining, I've created my own collage as well as helped four collages on their journey to completion. Yesterday's mail yielded 2 collages. Not even envelopes are safe from crazy collage artists. Each member decorates the outside envelope, and often they include some sort of art for the next member to keep. You wouldn't believe how getting one of those envelopes amongst bills and junk mail can change the course of an entire day. Well, that might be overly dramatic. At the very least, your soul smiles for a second before you race home to see what the next creative challenge will be. I'm kind of a nut, so I generally add to the collage on the same day I receive it.

The first collage originated from Ma.nimfa Maligaya Ursabia, who studied fine art at the Phillipine Women's University. Three others added to it. When it got to me, it looked like this:

I added a haunting set of eyes. The eyes are a stamp from B Line Designs. I did a packing tape transfer, so the beautiful handmade paper would show beneath. I colored in the irises with alcohol ink. The result:

Australian's Sue Byrne was the mother to the next collage I worked on. The "baby" then went to visit 3 "aunties," until finally the stork brought her to my doorstep. When I opened the envelope, this is what I saw:

Well the creative process for me always goes something like this: "flowers, a set of female hands pulling back a curtain, a bird, butterflies, flowers, and NOW the Queen of England?! Oy!" The mind sort of explodes for a moment, and then you act. I found that I was most inspired by the element I was initially most flustered by. Then it becomes, for me at least, a game of association: "Queen" leads to queen of hearts card, which creates a problem with color. The playing card was simply too bright and brought in a yellow I didn't like, so I sanded the yellow parts of the card and colored them in with Faber-Castell PITT pen in a shade that complimented the butterflies and flowers. Then the phrase, "Queen for a Day" popped into my head. I followed that imaginative trail by looking for rubber stamps that might suggest royalty: a crown, which I whimsically put on the bird and the number 4. Finally, I was uncomfortable with some open spaces to the left and right of the butterflies, so I decided to add a couple more. I didn't want to cut out the image of a butterfly, so I added a couple using some face-painting stencils I recently purchased. I traced the outlines with Permaball pens and finally colored them with watercolor pastel. Was I done? It's my feeling that a piece of artwork will always let you know when it's done with you and not the other way around. As a finishing touch, I added some clear glitter glue to the bird's crown and to the stenciled butterflies.

I will be sad when this project comes to an end. I hope to wriggle into the good graces of group leader and collage goddess, Nikki. I hope to plead my case that I deserve a seat on her next creative train.

She Art

2011-05-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

I signed up for Christy Tomlinson's She Art class. You can read more about it HERE. Or go see the art pieces her students are creating in the She Art Flickr group HERE. You can find her blog HERE.

Students create layered, collaged canvas backgrounds comprised of scrapbook papers, personal ephemera, stamping, painting, stenciling, and more. While I don't know that the girls are my thang, I AM excited about the techniques Tomlinson teaches. Though I often refer to myself as someone who employs mixed-media techiques, I realized after taking this course, I've been lying to myself. I rarely venture beyond a straight-forward collage technique and, if anything, I only dabble in terms of adding sewing notions or sewing on my work.

Christy has opened up new possibilities and a new-found confidence in playing, in getting messy, in creating with a pure heart and reckless abandon. Future work will, no doubt, be affected by this 3 months in the online classroom.

Disappearance

2011-04-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

It began with little changes. At first, I noticed his cat seemed to be outside more often. Then the strange cars began to appear. I assumed family was visiting. Yesterday an oxygen vendor made a stop there. Today, another car was there. Its license plate holder bore the word, "Hospice." Now it makes sense. My neighbor is sick. Leaving-the-world-soon sick. I feel guilty. I've never talked to him. All I know is not much. One should not live feet away from another human and know so little. Observation shouldn't be the lifeblood of my memories of a man making ready to die. Goodbye to the man who lives in the house with its bright turquoise trim. Goodbye to the lawn mowed in perfectly straight rows. Goodbye to front-porch whirlygigs glinting in the sun. Frost said, "Good fences make good neighbors." Why, then, do I feel so bad?

Design

2011-04-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

Design says
red
is bestowed upon
the male while
the female
perfects the pheasant art
of blending in.

Design says
if any root remains,
the fallen tree will
grow sideways,
curve sensuously
around the standing.

Design says
wind can be seen
and swaying
is the loudest sound
in the forest--proof
that strong doesn't mean
not bending.

Design says
nothing is immune
from dying,
even a little at a time
whether lightning struck
or riddled
from the inside.

Design says
that mushrooms
are hard like mussel shells
or shingles hanging
and so hard--a house
and a door
you can knock on
but you'll never be
let in.

Design says
there is no such thing as
too muddy, for
you can always
cross over
the bridge you make
of what's fallen.

Design says
soft hair of moss
you held in your hands
stays green long after
it's stopped living.

Design says
you've strayed too far
from the country
because you can no longer
name what needs naming.
Each pussy willow
is merely a bud.

Design says
it doesn't matter
who made the poop.
The pile is wildness
come and gone before you,
maybe still in your midst.

Design says
lungs will burn
you winter clean, free
the cobwebs from
summer memory
remind you
are alive and dying.

When Your Mother Goes Square Dancing

2011-04-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

What does age do to the wallflower?
Does it make it any easier?
She leaves in her elastic-waist jeans
and orthotic shoes, having stood before
the mirror for only a minute--
long enough to draw on lips and to
run a brush through her silver hair.

Every Thursday I consider playing chauffeur
because I fear she won't get there safely.
Not long ago, our cars passed, I waved
and she seemed oblivious. I was traffic
and not the familiar, her daughter.
Does she notice the sliver moon and
the clatter of stars above her? Does she

sing along to the radio? At 64, does
she sit in her car, steaming up windows
until courage is a corsage she can wrap
around her wrist? Does she mingle
or sit in some dark corner alone?
She tells me she is one of the young ones,
the swinging single surrounded by

wedding bands sunk into skin. These are
swans who mate for life, and she
sashays left or do se dos
and someone swings her only
when the caller says so. It's hard to recall
a time she truly had a partner.
I wonder what cruel luck allows some

to dance all their lives, over so many
waxed wooden floors and what sweet sadness
must she suppress in order to keep flying solo
knowing each outstretched hand is artifice,
offered for these few fun hours.She never sours
of trying and told me once that I should come with her.
She said, "You'd like it. There are people your age."

Everything, it Seems, Is Pink

2011-04-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

my recovering lungs,

this Lewiston sunrise after rain,

the 2 lopsided apples sitting

at my desk, the lips

I painted this morning,

and after having found

the Audubon calendar

stuck on March, I turned

the page to find

the outstretched wings

of the roseate spoonbill,

whose legs, even in flight,

seem grounded, whose face

only her hungry child

could love, and whose nest,

for all intents and purposes,

must look as if it's blushing.

Meditation on Brown

2011-04-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

It's April brown. It's cabin-crazy, Sunday brown

and we haven't seen the sun

for seasons. We'd rather see brown

than be blue, and so we are driving

the gravel-sparse county, not knowing

where we're going. We feel the pull of it.

It's caution that turns our music down

and makes us realize our stories

have no end or beginning.

It surrounds us: ditch and patchwork fields:

the straw and the clod, the fissure and crack

of a wet wound healed and reopened. We ride

parallel the slope and climb. We tic off time

in terms of sand and loam and clay unbaked.

We witness slide, the silt, and off-kilter hills.

Run off makes for unplanned ponds.

The feathers of ducks are the only green thing.

Otherwise, it's dead grass

in the unfenced yards of people who

know no neighbors. If they planted flowers,

they planted them long ago. Wild bulbs

make their maybe promises of crocus,

hyacinth, daffodil. The house on the hill

is a fortress, whose fence opens out to field.

This dirt is machine worked

or hand sifted by winter that knew no

letting up. Don't shoot the messenger.

Winter is a precursor to that thing

we've been waiting for. I'm sure Spring

is tucked somewhere out here

past the city limits signs. Bless its softness.

Bless the sometimes disappearance of snowflakes.

Bless the impressionistic tracks

and the roads still closed to traffic

that doesn't exist. Bless the paw print

and the hoof beaten sod, the dust we grind

into the welcome mat. Bless the boots

drying outside the door, bless the cat

who chatters at squirrels. Bless the cold

linoleum. Bless the steeping cup of tea,

and the hands making prayer hands around it.

Bless the returned lovers trading heat

and hoping winter will soon be over

under this familiar white blanket.

Memento

2011-04-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

Isn't every kitchen yellow? And doesn't everyone have a radio sitting on that room's version of a mantle? It was there like clockwork, like whatever saying explains reliability. The day began and ended with that leather box. KRLC 1350 and coffee, call-in classifieds while sitting around the table eating weekday Shredded Wheat and toast more butter than bread or weekend feasts of meat and eggs served sunny side up and dark with the grease she cooked them in.We were unapologetically country. She whistled mainly, but occasionally I heard the rasp of her voice working its way over a choice line. Hank and Waylon and Willie offered advice for living, and I took it. You can't be a daddy's girl with no daddy, but thankfully there was always grandma and the country. Then cancer and its own gravel roads: radiation with its tattoo scars and peeled skin, the pain pump, hospice and that final January day. I'm not sure if music was playing when I cooked the food she couldn't eat. Grease was its own medicine we'd pretend and she'd move it around on the plate as if spreading it out was taking it into her body. There was no sound at all those nights I watched as she moved her lips, speaking to no one I could see. When she could no longer drink, I learned to wet her tongue with the sponges they gave me which reminded me of childhood lollipops. There was no soundtrack then, only my dog sleeping beneath her bed and crying coming from other rooms. I can remember when I thought it morbid that she had it all planned out: flying over the farm, my uncle and her friend tend to her land once more in this different way. But things don't always go as planned. Sometimes young die before old, friendships grow cold, and a plane becomes a hand. Sky becomes the distance from hip to winter-killed grass. What songs were humming through my head then, holding ashes with more bone than I'd imagined? What songs were echoing through a house being emptied of all she'd ever owned? What songs were contained in that tough leather that I took when told I could pick 3 things to remember her by?

Ethnography

2011-04-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

It's perfect timing that the little stranger has accompanied her daddy to class this day when I introduce ethnography. It's about why do we do the things we do. We'll study one bird to have something to say about the flock. Earlier, this little bird piped up. As I turned my back to write on the board, I heard, "Are you the wicked witch of the West? 'Cause that's what my daddy says." Her honesty is perfect and my cheeks burn beneath it. Her father dances a jig. He's danced before in a discussion about the power of words. We'd read an essay encouraging women to think themselves queens in a world where rappers pronounce them ho's and bitches. He compared those words to nigger at which point the static roared and I couldn't hear. When he was done, he apologized to the one black student in the room and the discussion resumed as if they were collectively trying to bury a body. There are days when they say what I could never teach, when the lesson isn't written in the plans. Then and now, I feel helpless. I want to erase it from the air, where it hangs long after they've left. I think witch stings a little but it doesn't burn like nigger must. It's not skin. I go on: Susan Orlean brought us "The American Man at Age 10," and I model technique on his daughter who has spent the hour doodling. She is 6. She likes 'ghetti best for dinner. Yellow is her favorite color. I ask, "Who is your favorite person in the world?" thinking she will say it's her dad, but she says "dog" instead and the students laugh and soon the air is lighter. At the end of the hour, the students leave with whatever they gather. I'm erasing when I feel the smallest pressure around my thigh. She is hugging me. She says, "You aren't really a witch at all."I'm left spinning, circling the way my dog does when he's trying to find the soft spot of a hard floor. My dog is, indeed, the world's best person because he doesn't speak but knows the certain number of rotations that makes the slumber easier. Whether my lesson plans hit or miss escapes him. He doesn't have time. He lives even in sleep: running limbs, the whimper, the always satisfied sigh.

Idaho Springtime

2011-03-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

Partially bragging, I tell him three decades
might as well be a lifetime. I say I know
these roads like the back of my hand.
The truth is, I never get used to
not knowing margin from text. Where
does the road end and ditch begin?
And what about this wildness
that earlier said "Spring," yet the fields
aren't made of soil but sky,
and there's no horizon. Earlier,
I might have pointed to a hawk
atop a speed limit sign
or the farmhouse where border collie
runs herd, nipping at the heels of
his two horses who run like there's no
fence line to be pressed against. These
are my mile markers those mornings
after coffee disappears and the daily bread
is packed in a cooler. I bless his day,
kiss him clean of the sins we practice nightly,
this fine art of loving without saying
that word. This language of snow is so
fickle. He's wearing shorts
because the sun was shining earlier.
Now, the heater hums, and we bask
while forging the tracks that say we are
here, and thankfully, nearly there.

Big Ups

2011-03-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

Lately, there have been glimpses of summer. I swear I'm not imagining it. I wore a t-shirt today...and a long-sleeved shirt...and a fleece vest...and a coat. And even though the wind fingered its way down through each and every layer like some handsy pervert, I felt the pleasure of the sun on my cheeks. My inner Veruca Salt was saying, "But Daddy, I WANT it!"

The trouble is, nicer weather brings anxiety. I rue my hibernate-in-winter tendencies. Sure, at the time, it feels good to hole up in a warm place. At the time, I feel no shame huddling under blankets like a grandma.

Add to that, my boyfriend perfected the art of hot chocolate. We've become, in fact, hot chocolate connoisseurs. Over the winter months, he has served up cocoa in all its sexy variations. It's been a kama sutra of chocolate hotness, as it were. Never was it made up of water. Once it was made with chocolate soy milk. Mainly it was made with cow milk, which I remembered, after a long stint of vegetarianism and anti-dairy, was good, even though I sometimes had to fight the mental thought of it tasting "cow-y," as if I was sucking at the cow's udder. I shuddered at the very thought of it, but that thought was fleeting.

I think I lost all judgment because of the accoutrements: the powdery marshmallows (much like the blue diamonds, yellow moons, green clovers, and red hearts in a box of Lucky Charms), the real marshmallows, the marshmallow fluff. This was the boxed, packet-o-cocoa but elevated to elixir status. Food of the Gods status. Youth serum.

Those were halcyon days. Alas, most good things cannot last. It began to unravel (as did I) as my boyfriend and I traveled back home after our weekly grocery shopping trip. The drive runs parallel to a path where people RUN and BIKE and wear tank tops and short shorts, and their arms aren't flappy like mine. Their thighs would not best be described as thunderous. In short, they are fit. I found myself thinking out loud about riding my bike along that path. This led to my boyfriend talking about joining the gym.

Before I knew it, I was crying. I was crying for the devil-may-care winter days when it's okay to carb load when there's no marathon in sight. I was crying for the formerly fit self who used to run five miles a day. I was crying because I have been paying for a year for a gym membership I've rarely used (I considered it a fat tax). I was crying because I knew the party was over. The fat lady had sung. I was crying because the fat lady (a.k.a. Aretha Franklin) is no longer fat.

As my poor befuddled boyfriend groped for the origin of my sadness, I found myself saying that it had to stop. It was a funeral of sorts. I was crying and unpacking the groceries we'd bought and mourning the purchases. Bye bye pesto and smoked mozarella potato chips. Bye bye deli cheese. Bye bye grease. Bye bye delicious coffee creamer that has absolutely no cream in it.

We didn't have our cocoa night cap that evening. The mood was somber. In the same manner that the Zen master wonders if one can hear the sound of one hand clapping, I wondered if I could cook and still eat.

So it begins. Soon, one cocoa-less night will lead to another, and before I know it, I won't miss it. Maybe. Let's not get crazy. I'm aiming for baby steps. I just have to keep reminding myself that eating healthier always leads to exercising, and those things lead to sleeker Wendy. And sleeker Wendy is sexier Wendy, the Wendy who seems to build herself up each winter only to whittle away at herself in Spring. I wouldn't say it's like the phoenix who rises out of the ashes--it's more psychosis than symbolic.

But oh I do love the rising. The rising is incremental. In so rising, there will be many days when I am not enough: not thin, no model, not statuesque. But then it happens. The curves begin to disappear from where they shouldn't be, thus emphasizing the curves in the correct places. The sun whispers to my skin, and my skin listens. I burn. I bronze, which is kind of statuesque. I shed my clothing like a snake sheds its skin. Mentally, of course. Mentally.

Mentally, I am the woman who walks past constructions sites and brings about wolf whistles and non-politically correct sexist pig commentary, which I, in fact, dig. In actuality, I really only want one construction worker thinking I'm hot, and so I'll shed winter mindset, one day at a time, sweet Jesus (or because my boyfriend is an atheist who does not want people to say, "God bless you" when he sneezes, he should insert "Good luck" here).

Tomorrow I'm taking up a friend on her offer. She teaches kick-boxing. On my second official day of spring break, when there's no earthly reason to get up early, I will be clearing the dancing sugar plums from my head by playing kicky punchy. And I will walk my dog which will hopefully turn to running with my dog.

The Ipod is ready. Fresh batteries? Check. Motivational music? Check. And I won't be alone. Black Keys are coming along. Michael Franti will be there. Shaggy will be there, singing "my" praises:

"BIG UP" - SHAGGY
Now this one dedicates to all the women that I please just big up for themself
Them the man them know say that the flush a bomb extra buff and rough
Shagsman and Rayvon is one new brand 'bout to become number one
Watch this

[Rayvon]
And you fi
Big up, big up
All of the women them big up, big up
All of the girl them big up, big up
All of the women them big up, big up
Whooey

See me go
Watch it go cop
Teaching it please stand up, please
Viva Apache full of pure make-up
When she walk pon street a whole heap of man big them up
Big up, big up
Gal you're fat and you're buff

[SHAGGY]
Gal you're fat and you're buff, expensive and rough
A put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, I know your comfort
Put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, another virgin bluff
Well put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff and you're buffer or dapper
Put your hand inna the air and just big up

Say wa
Jump and skin out 'cause you know I say a sexy
Shout it out 'cause a you have the vinery
Bawl it out you big thing and healthy
We brought you up a man we called so leave I man me
Your hair style man it look well fancy
Tell the all of them say you have your man a ready
Your face a look like fi vow a night monkey
Hid no pain, top just like Apache
Come, come take it from the one named Shaggy
Tell the world you big thing and healthy

Fat and you're buff, expensive and rough
Well put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, I know your comfort
Put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff and you're buffer or dapper
Put your hand inna the air and just big up

Well I don't want no man tell me woman no nice, ey
And I don't want no man tell me woman no sweet, eey
Don't want no man tell me woman no nice, woman no nice
Don't want no man tell me woman no sweet, ey

Well you fi
Big up, big up, now your poom-poom shorts
Big up, big up, now your body lick shirt
Big up, big up, now your catwoman-suit
Big up, big up, mini-skirt look cute

So me say Brooklyn man helped me big them up
And a Manville man helped me big them up
And a New York man helped me big them up
And Flatbush man say helped me big them up

And a big up yourself because you're fat and you're buff, gal (Big up)
Tell them say that you're fat and you're buff, gal (Big up)
Tell them you are the god of buff, gal (Big up)
Tell them you're expensive and rough, gal (Big up)
Tell them say that a you confess, gal (Big up)
Tell them say you're the virgin bluff

Fat and you're buff, expensive and rough
Well put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, I know your comfort
Put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff and you're buffer or dapper
Put your hand inna the air and just sight, aha

Watch it go cop
Teaching it please stand up, please
Viva Apache full of pure make-up
When she walk pon street a whole heap of man big them up
Big up, big up, big up
Because you're fat and you're buff

Shagsman girl man she fat and she buff
Rayvon gal man she fat and she buff

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, ey
And me don't want no man say I fi work Angela
Oooh, oooh
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, ey
And me don't know King Kong, what if she know him, ya
Oooh

Big up, big up, now your poom-poom shorts
Big up, big up, now your body lick shirt
Big up, big up, now your catwoman-suit
Big up, big up, whooey

Raw Materials

2011-03-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

raw [rɔː]

adjetivo

1. crudo(a) (food, silk); sin refinar (sugar); en bruto (statistics)

to be raw -> estar crudo(a) (meat, vegetables)
raw materials -> materias (f pl) primas
raw recruit -> recluta (m) novato

2. agrietado(a) (skin)

to get a raw deal (sentido figurado) -> ser tratado(a) injustamente
to touch a raw nerve (sentido figurado) -> dar en lo más vivo

3. crudo(a) (weather, wind)

The Artist as a Young Woman

I'm talking about little Frida--she
of la casa azul she
of the unibrow she
of the disappearing leg she
before she was the "ribbon around the bomb."
She was once just a girl rubbing elbows
with revolutionaries she
pre"naive" art. She
not yet the eye of the storm she
not yet ground zero or the trailer house where
the most damage is done she
before she was Mrs. Diego i.e. shadow she
not yet his fuck you very much muse she
not yet a wife yet a lover to many. She
before she was an accident she
not yet the broken one she
when the womb might still hold she
pre bed ridden she
when mirrors weren't a friend she
who might have wielded a scalpel
instead of a brush she
who could swim in colorful skirts
not to hide her uneven legs but because
they were pretty. This was before she
parted her hair perfectly before she
sprouted flowers before she
courted parrots and black cats
of skulls and ripe fruit. This was before she
was the hunted the easy prey when she
wore her heart inside her blouse when she
hadn't yet cultivated a green thumb,
the ability to groomed jungles. I mean she
who painted monkeys which were not symbols
of lust but merely cute she
who drew stick trees and unicorns like
any other she. This was before the perpetual
self portrait before the ball and chain
before chasing the pain. This was youth
before she had five rings if we gauge a life
the way we measure a tree's growth. The she
not a half century, almost. She at life's entrance
and not in the end writing in a diary
hoping the exit was joyful. I mean she
who was too young to hope she'd never return.
I mean the she whose mouth
would be too small for too many pills.
I mean the she whose bed was messy
and filled with dreams still and not
whose death bed became
a tourist attraction.

--W

My History of Fire

2011-02-28T17:04:00.000-08:00

What qualifies me to talk about it? Perhaps it is the fear of it--a fear I have for no good reason. If only my fears were reasonable. There weren't any childhood fires. That's not exactly true. If memory serves, there were conflagrations, but they weren't of the actual sort. Let's just say, I never got burned.

Sure I played with it. Who wouldn't? It's so beautiful, burning like anger, burning like hunger. Burning like. Burning like.

Burning like a burning, if you know what I mean.

Sometimes I held the magnifying glass. Other times, I was the ant feeling the heat.

Most of the time, however, I played it safe. I kept it contained. In the stomach pit. In the fireplace. A letter charred and sifting to the sink's bottom.

But we don't always burn our letters in sinks. Sometimes you need a forest. Tender tinder of trees, swaying, and a breeze to help it along.

That's not my story.

In order, here's what I knew to be true: Pine pitch chews like gum. You can't wield the axe; you can only look at the axe. It's your job to stack. Don't bother a sliver; it will work its way out eventually. On the mantle, there's a starburst clock that radiates its own heat. The Sunday paper may be thick, but it's the daily doings that catch best. If it isn't old enough, it will smoke. Pull the damper out, or it will smoke. You can buy powder that teases a rainbow from fire. When the electricity goes out, the fire is the only God you pray to. Chimneys eat smoke and send it skyward, so long as it burns clean. The smoke will break from the house like an SOS. There are things that look like smoke but aren't, like the queen bee and her minions who abandoned their meadow boxes. The fire smelled like honey for awile. The volunteer fire department will burn the chicken coop down and then fight it for the practice.

And then you grow up.

Fires are few and inbetween. You live your days in front of a furnace. Forced air heat. Forced.
You romanticize it. In your mind, the campfire blazes, and every ember pop is an opportunity. You think you love the one who can build a good fire. The skies grow dark every summer. You can't breathe. You're told not to go outside. You are in a valley, and you are fully engulfed with the idea of being swept away by fire. But the fires are burning miles away. The lingo is acres, helicopters, buckets, retardant...and then it's gone.

The fires you know now are the stuff of 6 o'clock news. They are neat. The fires fit tidy between sports and weather. Hardly anyone ever dies. You light candles with an apparatus that may as well be a third arm. It keeps the flame far from you. Fire comes in a jar, sits obediantly on the wick, and sizzles out when you're sloppy with the bath water. You don't know when you felt a burn last, and because the mind likes it and knows it more than the skin, you fear it.

Your heart beats faster when something on the burner begins to smoke. The alarm sounds, and you beat it with your open palm and scream, "Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!" How do you extinguish it? Salt? Throw a towel over it? Water? Water and oil don't mix. Don't give it air. Yet it's over before you need to choose. It's always over before your knowledge is tested.

And what of that fear that makes you go back and check over and over the burner that is always
never on?

--W

Maya Angelou said anger is fire.

Winston Churchill invoked fire when he said anything that attempted to fly should be set on fire.

Thomas Jefferson used fire as a means of talking about war and being tenacious about defending ourselves: "If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it."

Benjamin Franklin realized that what makes a home is "food and fire for the mind as well as the body."

He also found fire a necessity in terms of finding a life partner: "Never take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in."

"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself," said Mark Twain.

"As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. " --William Shakespeare.

Mae West said, "A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him. "

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." --Robert Frost

George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience. " --George Washington

Napoleon knew of trial by fire. He said, "When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes."

Emily Dickinson used fire as a means of describing poetry: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

T.S. Eliot knows that history and its ghosts speak louder than the living: "The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living."

"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it. " --Tennessee Williams

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark." --Victor Hugo

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. "

"Every idea is an incitement... Eloquence may set fire to reason. " --Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. " Jorge Luis Borges

"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell," said Joan Crawford

"So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us." --Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard

"To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm." --Harry Houdini

"Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat." --Harry Houdini

"Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements." --Harry Houdini

"I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames." --Andy Goldsworthy

Shoots and Ladders in a Candyland World

2011-01-31T19:25:00.000-08:00

In 1943, Abraham Maslow came up with his hierarchy of needs, and I was introduced to it in an educational psychology class. At eighteen, I had no idea how I was to use the data in order to be a better teacher. At 35, I see it less a teaching tool and more a tool of introspection. It can be an enlightening and scary proposition to sit down and take inventory of which of your needs are and are not being met.

Maslow divided our needs into five categories: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

Basic needs are the tangible ones. In a story, they'd be the showing and not the telling details. They'd be the props on the theater or movie set. Sort of. The most basic requirements are those that allow us to survive. They allow the body to function properly. We need air, water, and food. We need clothes for our bodies and a roof over our heads. And, interestingly enough, Maslow placed sex in this category. Of course, he meant the basic sex act--the sort needed in order to perpetuate the species. Nonetheless, he drew criticism for placing sex as just as important as the air we breathe.

If we think of Maslow's needs theory as a ladder, then the next rung is safety. Safety is equated to predictability. We want things to be consistent and fair. We are drawn to the familiar and are scared by the unfamiliar. This safety applies to all areas of life: personal security, financial security, health and well-being, and protection against accidents and illness. When we are young, we cling to blankets that are special to us. We cling to our mother's leg and peer out at strangers. When our mothers serve cake, we get mad if the slices are not even. We get angry if someone doesn't play by the game rules. As adults, we are supposed to be better at this. I might be stuck here, to some extent. I still cling to the familiar. I build a world and know how it works and am off kilter if something or someone doesn't act as they generally do. I get angry with the world and cry "No Fair!" to no one's ears in particular about all the atrocities in the world. But it is what it is, and you either adapt, or you are stunted--left behind.

After those two levels are reached, we want to be loved and feel like we belong. We work to establish friendships. We value family. We crave intimacy. We begin our search, if we are monogamous, for The One, the one we want to spend our days with. We start to join groups and clubs. Or maybe take our place as one sheep in a flock at a particular religious gathering. Maybe we play on an athletic team or at the very least fervently follow a professional team. Maybe you join a gang. When we go to work, we don't just go to do our jobs but find ourselves seeking out relationships with co-workers. At the very least, we want someone to pass the time with, to joke with, to gossip to, to commiserate with. At the most, maybe we get real friendship or even a mentorship.

Maslow broke esteem down into 2 types: the type that others can give you and the type only you can have (i.e. self-esteem). So does your identity rest on the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention? Maslow labeled that "low" esteem, as opposed to the "high" esteem--the ability to gain strength, to be competent, to master, to be independent, and be self-confident. Of course, Maslow saw the two types of esteem as interrelated. Neither, it seems are healthy in and of themselves.

Finally, there is self-actualization or realizing your full potential--becoming what you are meant to become, whatever that means. Maslow said that full potential varied from person to person. Maybe it's your gift to be a damn good stay-at-home mom. Maybe you're meant to be a painter. Or a waiter. Or a teacher. Or a construction worker.

The trouble is, we can spend our whole lives trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. And then we are grown ups and still wondering why life doesn't feel right. Well, Maslow would probably say that, in the board game of life, you've got to lose a turn and go back to START, or at the very least, he'd say that you have to be honest about whether your other, "lower" needs are truly being met.

That said, Maslow acknowledged that there are people who actively operate in phenomenal ways at the higher needs levels, despite the fact that their most basic needs aren't being met. I'm fascinated by his concept of metamotivation. This term describes the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of basic needs and strive for constant betterment. You've encountered those people, right? Throughout my life, I've met people who, as my grandmother would have said, "don't have a pot to piss in," meaning they were poor. They had no money, no things, or at least none of the things those around them had. Yet, they seem happy, content even. Or maybe they are the fighters of the world--the scrappy ones--the ones who ignore the hunger gnawing at their own bellies in order to fight for the basic freedoms of others.

I look at the colorful depictions of Maslow's pyramid and am reminded that it bears a striking likeness to the food pyramid. I realize that's not an accurate comparison. In the food pyramid, the highest point are those things we should avoid--the things that are abundant and tempting yet which will kill us. In Maslow's pyramid, the highest point is something we should strive for, though seemingly very, very hard to reach. The bottom rung for both is building blocks--the origins of energy. And of course in both, there is the murky middle ground between bottom and top. In that murky middle ground, most of us struggle. We cheat. We take more than we need. We starve ourselves, both physically and metaphorically. Or perhaps we act mechanically, treating our bodies and minds like a machine. We abide by the serving size but the goal--the perfect dress size or the enlightened mind--remains out of reach, either by a hair or by a mile.

Linguistically Limited

2011-01-28T07:38:00.000-08:00

Recently, as a getting-to-know-you activity, and because the students are getting ready to write an identity essay, I asked my English 101 class to write a Six-Word Memoir. This isn't my brainchild. Ernest Hemingway's version is probably the most quoted. Though his wasn't memoir, I think the idea was that you could embody all the necesary elements of fiction or story in six words: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

The online magazine, Smith, continues to provide a cyber nest for those who feel compelled to try to encapsulate their experiences. While the entries aren't pouring in as they initially did upon the launch of the project, they still trickle in HERE. And the newest entries seem to have morphed from trying to capture a lifetime to trying to capture artistically the moment or the day.

There have even been books published which compile the 6-word offerings of the everyday Joe as well as well-known writers. And you certainly can find the cinematic versions online via YouTube.

These are the versions I came up with:

"Vintage girl in
the modern world"

"Wore her heart
on her sleeve"

"She always noticed
the little things"

"She taught; they
taught her more"

"Yoga mind even
off the mat"

"For art she
purposely made messes"

"Collaged mind
collaged heart
collaged soul"

"Hummingbird heart
Eagle eye
Ostrich body"

"She whispered often
to the animals"

"Poet at heart
not on page"

Some have described the six-word memoir as like Postsecret, but with less angst. I see them as freeform Haiku. Or perhaps they fit the bill as A River of Stones material or perhaps the abbreviated version of Three Beautiful Things projects. Ultimately, they are impractical, yet I'm tempted to continue this as a daily project, perhaps an art journal project. I think it would be beautiful to look back on 365 of these little bits in which I tried to sum up what resists summing up.

...So, which six words would YOU choose?

On Waking to Robert Burns

2011-01-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

I woke this morning thinking about Robert Burns. I don't typically have these literary awakenings, but I went to bed knowing that my friend, Nancy's birthday was the next day. And I kept thumbing through the filing cabinet that is my brain, remembering a snippet of a poem I'd once read in which the poet addresses a Nancy.

By morning, I'd found the missing file: Robert Burns. Don't get me wrong. That particular folder is a thin one. I may be an English teacher and a lifelong lover of poetry, but Burns never did it for me. In fact, the folder held the two poems that everyone--poetry lovers and non-poetry lovers, alike--knows: "O My Luv's Like a Red, Red Rose" and "Auld Lang Syne." And of course commercialism is responsible for us knowing those two poems when appropriate to the season. The dust is shaken off the first poem around January in preparation for its use for Valentine's Day. And we know the second and sing a version of it on New Year's.

At other times of the year, poor ol' Robert Burns sits waiting in the tissue-paper thin pages of literature anthologies, only read by Scots, students who are made to read it, and by scholars.
So why doesn't Burns enjoy the rock star status that Billy Collins enjoys? Hmm. Well, of course modern man and woman are anti-rhyme, unless said rhyme comes in the form of a Hallmark card or a song trapped in one's Ipod. But I don't think that's the only reason. If I had to guess, I'd say cynicism disallows us from relating to most of what Burns has to say. We are a culture that disbelieves in true love, and we are at a Patriotic low.

No matter what our romantic status, we resist something that says love is like a rose or a tune. Ick, we say. And we are a culture that quits when the going is good. We are a culture of throwaway marriages and divorces done via website, so why would we believe, as Burns wrote, that someone's love could last "Till a' the seas gang dry...And the rocks melt wi' the sun!"? The cynic comes out when reading the last few lines of the poem:

And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

We say, "Ah ha! Of course you can love her that much because you aren't even with her. You are 10,000 miles away!"

If you read Burns, you know he loved the ladies. Let's just say there are many bonnie lassies who didn't escape Burns's attention. The modern day thug would be labeled a playa if he was caught thinking about multiple ladies and their fairer qualities. There's Jean, who has made Burns' speaker love the West because that is where she lives. Incidentally, this makes me think of my man, who though he is from the East, is often caught saying the West is the best, though his reasoning has nothing to do with me and everything to do with The Doors' "The End." This Jean of Burns's takes up all his mind: "But day and night may fancy's flight/Is ever wi' my Jean." Flowers and bird song remind him of her.

Maybe we resist Burns because we have never had that experience. We have never been so infatuated that every damned thing leads our thoughts back to a particular person? I'm not THAT cynical, especially being 7 months into a relationship. I can't say that I think of My Man when I see flowers or when I hear birds singing, but I suppose there are modern-day versions of that because, let's face it: I'm not exposed on a daily basis to flowers and birds. My triggers are decidedly more urban: NFL football commercials, can openers, seeing a truck that looks like his, tie-dye, bacon. It is those things, not birds and flowers, that trigger a smile and a warm feeling in my belly.

Modern man and woman could not get away with some of Burns's poetic actions. For instance, his actions in "Mary Morison" are the modern-day equivalent to stalking. I'm not sure any of us really remember the idea of admiring someone from afar. What, with all our modern-day love warfare, we simply go forth and conquer. We add someone as a Facebook friend. We text someone. We subscribe to online dating services and write ads that read as recipes for what we want in a partner. Or, if we are me, we walk up to the fellow we are interested in and admit that we've been eavesdropping on a conversation he was having with someone else. We say, "Why would someone choose to live in Moscow, Idaho when one has previously spent the rest of his life in Connecticut?" Come to think of it, maybe I am not that different from Burns. Burns's speaker admired Mary Morison from afar. He spies her from her window and thinks just being able to see her makes him rich. She is gold! I feel that way sometimes--like I've won the lottery.

Even if you are a scrooge, miserly about the idea of love, at the very least I guess we can hoist a glass Burns's way regarding his celebrations. He celebrates the friendships of men. He celebrates women. He celebrates past and future. He celebrates country. He celebrates love won and love lost. He celebrates arrivals, and he celebrates departures. He hoists his share of glasses. "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet," is his motto, and that cup filleth over with the four important things: "Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!"

Wait! Aren't enjoyment and pleasure saying the same thing? God damn, yes! Cheers to hedonism. Raise a glass to the idea that this writer didn't listen to his inner editor and erase one of those words. There is room in life for enjoyment and pleasure both!

It doesn't take long for me to like Burns. Don't tell any of my colleagues, but I like to conjure him much like Mel Gibson. I'm not talking crazy Mel Gibson of late, the one who spews racial slurs and the one who allegedly knocks out his woman's teeth. I'm talking Braveheart Mel Gibson. I like to imagine Robert Burns astride a horse and screaming, "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

I suppose what really gets me is the idea of this macho man who marches off to battle. His speaker is not afraid to die for what he believes: "By Oppression's woes and pains!/By your sons in servile chains!/We will drain our dearest veins,/But they shall be free!//Lay the proud usurpers low!/Tyrants fall in every foe/Liberty's in every blow!/Let us do or die!"

Yet for all that warrior swagger, he is also the poet touched by the little things--mice and daisies turned over while plowing. Burns helps me recognize the type I like: the gentle giant. His poetry is testosterone-filled yet every bit as much filled with the awe part of Bush's "shock and awe" war sensibility. He is pleasantly surprised--moved--by the things most wouldn't notice.

I raise my cup of Joe this morning to those barbarians who let themselves succomb to love and all the other "wee beasties" in the world.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, APRIL, 1786

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I

EE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonie gem.

II

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' spreckl'd breast!
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.

III

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth
Thy tender form.

IV

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random bield
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.

V

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

VI

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,
And guileless trust;
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.

VII

Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!

VIII

Such fate to suffering Worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n
To mis'ry's brink;
Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,
He, ruin'd, sink!

IX

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine -- no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall by thy doom!

TO A MOUSE
ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I

EE, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

II

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An' fellow-mortal!

III

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
And never miss't!

IV

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

V

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

VI

That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

VII

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

VIII

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I cannot see,
I guess an' fear!

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

2011-01-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

I recently gave my students a writing exercise in which they are to take inventory of the contents of a small space (a wallet, a purse, a gym locker, a desk drawer, a kitchen drawer, or perhaps their car or glove compartment) in order to see what the contents say about them. Likewise, the idea is to consider what people might miss or NOT KNOW about you if they relied only on the objects.

I'm going to try my best to complete the assignments along with my students. For this exercise, I'll use my purse contents. The purse itself is a beautiful black leather purse my boyfriend gave me for Christmas. He knows I like girly things, and I think it's quite special that he entered into testosterone-deficient atmospheres where such items are sold. I can only imagine the discomfort his big macho self felt when ensconced in purses and perfumes and jewelry.

This purse has two outer side compartments. Additionally, there's more storage on the inside of the purse in one zippered compartment. There are also three "pouch" areas sewn into one side where you can place glasses, a phone etc.

Outside compartment #1, I found the following:
*a Christmas card I was supposed to send to a swap partner (in a Ziploc bag and with postage sticking to the Ziploc bag)
*another Ziploc bag filled with ATCs I made
* two ATC's made by Shawna (for which I still owe her two ATC's in trade)
* Seven self-adhesive foam thingies that I saved from the garbage during a crafting session with my friend, Shanda's little girls. They were making foam gingerbread men. They used the little circles for buttons on the gingerbread mens' bellies. I saw them as something to repurpose. I thought i could stick them to a base, paint each rectangle with a different color paint or ink and use the resulting print as interesting background for art projects.

Outside compartment #2, I found the following:
* Three pens (a Sharpie Ultra-Fine Point, a blue Uni-Ball, and a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine in black)
* a package of Eclipse spearmint gum with 6 pieces left
* checks , starting with #2001. It should be noted that I rarely use checks (who does?) but chose to order them. I ordered them via phone. They sent the checks to my previous address, so they never came to me. Thus, this caused panic when the checks never arrived. It caused worry as to where they where sent, who had them, if anyone used them, etc. So, long story short, the whole series was cancelled and reported stolen and a whole new batch had to be made and sent. I haven't used one since the whole drama unfolded.
*silk mittens I bought at the Moscow co-op which were to expensive but I'd coveted them every winter and had recently lost my gloves, so I bought them on impulse. Alas, I suppose my punishment was that I didn't try them on (who tries on mittens?), and they are really large...like sloppy, can't feel my hands kind of big. I've only worn them once as a result. I wonder if I could shrink them. I wonder if I could sew them in....but I'm afraid to try.
*a Moleskine notepad in which I tracked my sales for farmer's market this past summer, in which I write recipes, in which I make lists of books I'd like to read, movies I'd like to see and CD's I'd like to have. Additionally, the notebook contains notes for my first visit to Natalie and concert information on Michael Franti concerts this summer.

Inside Zippered Compartment contains:
* a jar of pistachio golden shea butter by Baublebath.com that I bought at the Women's Work craft fair.
*Lancome Juicy Tube lip gloss
*Revlon Color-Stay Ultimate Lipcolor in Platinum Petal
*eye glasses
* Mucinex pills
*two bottles of Warfarin (2 mg and 10 mg, since I am supposed to alternate taking 12 mg one day and 14 mg the next)
* a barette

In the compartment with three compartments, I have one black bandana belonging to my boyfriend, which I used to tie around my hair prior to Christmas, which I keep intending to give back (sorry honey!)

Finally, in the far reaches of the purse, in the dark, cavernous maw, I found the following:
*one wallet (the contents of which would merit another separate inventory and posting, perhaps...or perhaps not)
*4 Tampons
*1 apple
*1 bag Halls Triple Action soothing cough drops in cherry
*1 bottle Tussin DM Cough and Chest formula (this is contraband, as I'm not supposed to use anything other than Mucinex and a Nettipot to fight my cold, which is currently in its third week)
*a strip of gradebook paper, on which I've written the prompts for an online PAD Poem-a-Day challenge (for which I never wrote a single poem)
*a notepad (with magnetic closure) given to me for Christmas which reads: "The problem with doing nothing is you don't know when you're done." I got it on Monday, and I've yet to write in it.
*an orange notebook with turquoise elastic cord closure which apparently was a free gift with the purchase of REAL SIMPLE magazine. I bought it at Goodwill for 49 cents. I also got this one on Monday, and I've yet to write in it.
*a set of monogram sticky notes that I found in the dollar bin at Michael's. I've lived for 35 years without seeing a use for sticky notes, and suddenly I decided, apparently, that I would need to leave notes everywhere.
* a black and white photo of a family of 4 that I rescued out of the Staple's recycle bin. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but I didn't feel like it should be destroyed.

If I look at the contents in a positive light, I'd say that I'm a woman of many passions. My mind teems with ideas the likes of which require multiple pens and notebooks. I never stop thinking about art: creating it, trading it, selling it.

If you had only to look at the contents, you might suppose that I am the luckiest girl in the world with a boyfriend who treats me like a princess because I am a beautiful smelling goddess, with nary a rough patch on my body and pouty lips that cause car wrecks.

But obviously, things in my world aren't as smooth as my skin. I'm less a goddess and more a pale-faced, pale-lipped sickie and a pill popper whose boyfriend deserves a medal of honor for his sweetness and patience. I was hospitalized at the end of August, where they found a blood clot which they blamed on my oral contraceptives. As such, I was taken off birth control and placed on bloodthinners in two forms: shots administered to stomach fat and pills. My life has changed drastically. In addition to incurring 2 ER visits sans health insurance, I am now ruled by regular office visits to make sure my blood is just right (kind of the Goldilocks and the 3 Bears things: so hard, too soft, just right). It gets thinned. It gets too thin. They thicken it. They experiment. And the Warfarin is poison. It's dangerous and touchy. I have to avoid foods with high levels of Vitamin K. Everything has vitamin K. I'm not supposed to drink, though I occasionally do. It's changed my heating and cooling system. My circulation is bad, so my feet and hands get cold easily, much to the chagrin of my boyfriend who knows too well the feel of ice against his skin at moments when he's seeking heat.

And most recently, Warfarin has compromised my immune system. More accurately, I got sick Christmas Eve, and I've been fighting the good battle since then to get rid of a cold that I would normally be rid of instantly. Normally, I'd either go to the doctor and get a prescription or get an over-the-counter cold medicine. I no longer have that luxury, as everything reacts poorly with Warfarin. Thus, when I felt I was going to die from this sickness and called my doctor for help, she "prescribed" Mucinex and a Netti Pot.

So I eat apples to keep the doctor away. I two-fist the cough drops. I nurse the cough drops and drink the cough syrup in secret like the bum on the street corner with his forty in a brown bag.
The bum description isn't just for dramatic effect either. I feel down on my luck in terms of health, and I use the illness and lack of energy as my excuse for not finishing things. I am a dreamer. I have high aspirations and best of intentions, but the contents of my purse say that I don't often follow through on the things that matter most to me. Empy notebooks are useless. Pen collections are useless. If I want to write, I have to write. Period. The same is true of my commitment to art. If I want to have a business, I need to be more regimented. I need a daily art practice. Though farmer's market is not until May, I need to work NOW on building up inventory. I need to produce things leisurely rather than stressing myself right before deadlines.

All this would discourage me, except the purse reminds me daily that these things are possible. It says I am loved. It says I've got the tools and supplies to do what I want to do. I've got the skills. Now I need to make the time and stop making excuses and START.

The Young and the Combless

2010-12-30T20:51:00.001-08:00

Bob Marley

John Butler Trio

Michael Franti

My sister, Tori

My Man and the peachy footed kitten

One of the most hurtful statements my grandmother ever made on a fairly continuous basis was, "Are you going to comb your hair?" And the thing that made it sting the most was, I had inevitably been in the bathroom combing my hair.

Let's just say my naturally curly hair didn't always cooperate. Sure, I went through an 80's phase where people coveted my hair. Others braided their hair and then combed it out. Or they crimped it. Or they spent $100+ on spiral perms to get my ringlets. But that was short-lived and haphazard at best. It definitely couldn't be counted on, and like some sort of mythical beast, it was only captured in perfection in my senior pictures. On any other given day, it was just a glimpse of Bigfoot or just the tail of Lochness. It was a fleeting measure of coolness often squelched by the seemingly always en vogue straight hair style.

To be honest, most days I looked more like Slash from Guns n' Roses or triangular perfection like Alice in the cartoon Dilbert. Combing didn't help. Add to that a propensity for knotting, and what you get is a girl who fantasized about just giving up on it. I considered starting a hat collection. But trying to conceal an abundance of curly hair with a hat is kind of like trying to hide an at-term pregnant belly with a bikini.

I also considered letting my hair go wild. Back then, I sort of envisioned the dreading process as a matter of giving one's self over to nature. I figured the hair formed itself into those glorious hanks of hair, much the same way that a blackberry bush was a tangled, dark, dangerous mass of delicate tendrils abuzz with life. They beckon with their fruit, but they say, if you pick this fruit, you might get hurt, which makes the fruit all the sweeter. And isn't that what teenage girls do anyway? Don't they emit hormonal come-hithers while at the same time with a jail bait, Lolita-esque risk?

Though I managed to unintentionally rock some pretty mean tangles which eventually I had to cut out, I never officially partook of the dreadlocks. I just admired them from afar. I remember falling for a man, not because he had dreadlocks, but because he had done his doctoral work in the mountains of Jamaica. Once finished with his studies, he found that he couldn't leave and so bought a cobalt blue house in the jungle. There he spent his days listening to reggae, smoking ganja, and counting as friends and mentors the old men who had dreadlocks down to their knees. He showed me photo after photo. The hair looked like tree roots. They look like cigars. It looked like a mop. It looked like bungee cord. It looked like Predator. They tied it with one strand. They piled it atop their heads like a geyser. They tucked it into a crocheted version of what looked like a cross between fishing net and cafeteria worker hair net.

It's not as if this boyfriend was the first to introduce me to dreadlocks, but I think he was the first to make me see their beauty. His admiration for the men helped me understand that the dreads are less a hairstyle and more a way of being. And so it goes without saying that I am an admirer of the dreadlocked ones: Bob Marley, John Butler Trio's lead singer, Michael Franti. My sister has them. My boyfriend has them.

I am compelled and repelled.
I am in awe and dubious.

I'll admit, my boyfriend's dreadlocks are the first I've touched or been in contact with on a daily basis. And I feel sometimes like Jane Goodall must have felt when studying the apes. Among my findings:

* Dreadlocks can be like a rosary or worry stone. He fiddles with them, sometimes absentmindedly and some times methodically. Sometimes he rolls them between his big palms in order to compact them and to make them more distinct.

* Do not ever expect to run your fingers through your lover's hair in the way made popular by movies and paperback novels. The result is less than romantic. You must be careful how your hands and fingers operate in the head vicinity. An errant finger can snag, catch, pull, or put pressure on them and cause pain, which makes for a grumpy macho man. It's kind of like a self-induced cock blocking. The lady goes in for a sweet or sexy gesture, accidentally causes pain or discomfort and is thus DENIED. Therefore, approach with caution.

* He uses a special shampoo that makes me feel like a koala in a grove of eucalyptus. The bottle has a picture of a cartoon black kid that looks very much like the main character in Boondocks. It is expensive and must be special ordered, so don't go using it like a hotel courtesy sample bottle of Prell. Above all, if you do snitch a little, under no circumstances should you put your hands near your eyes or your genitalia. If you disregard my friendly reminder, the unfriendly burn of the shampoo on those sensitive parts will be your punishment.

* It's an ordeal to wash them every day, so on days when he doesn't, he gets into the shower with a neon green shower cap. This is the least attractive he will ever look but also the most vulnerable and thus cutest.

* He doesn't dry them with a towel. Instead, he shakes his head like a dog or more accurately, like a heavy metal head banger. He does this outside, in the midst of winter even, and I find it sinfully sexy. Some day I expect him to come back inside looking as if he's returned from Everest expedition, with frost on his beard and icicles hanging from his....rock pick.

* When he scoops the cat up in his arms, the cat sees the locks as toys. Likewise, every once in awhile you'll find her playing animatedly with something. She'll bat an unidentified object about the kitchen linoleum until you take it away from her. Upon further inspection, you'll see it's a tuft of hair . I might lose a strand of hair, but he loses little knotty furballs.

* They come with presupposition and judgment. People naturally associate the hairstyle with other behaviors. Thus, when he travels through the airport, he'll be the one they "randomly" search. Likewise, they'll be the subject of awkward dinner conversation for old ladies who mistake them for cornrows. People will associate them with being dirty, no matter how many showers you take. The subject of bugs and critters will come up, both as joke and in all seriousness. When he travelled to meet with his conservative grandparents who live in Florida, he worried that his grandfather would disapprove.

* They are most beautiful
when he hovers, my night sky:
display of Peony, Chrysanthemum,
Dahlia, Willow, Horsehair, Spider, Palm.
A visible trail saying: This
is where we ascend. This
is the descent. This
is the spark, flash powder,
the stars, he, me long-burning
glowing, free-falling in the glitter
trail, named for the shape of its break.
It is a timed rain. A salute, nightly.

December Metamorphosis

2010-12-20T22:18:00.000-08:00

I was an equal opportunity Scrooge. For several years, I banned Jesus, Santa, snowmen, trees, lights, blow-up polar bears, snowglobes, ugly sweaters and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." The year MY grandmother died, I thought, "Keep it." Keep the absence. Keep the sadness. Keep away the rift that developed in the remaining family members. Keep the loneliness. Keep it all.

But THIS Christmas is different. I feel a bit of a buzz. A high. I feel light-hearted and smiley and able to propel myself through crowds I'd normally shun. I dig deep in my pockets for change to give the Salvation Army bell ringer. I open doors for people whose arms are filled with consumerism. I don't automatically change the channel if I catch a whiff of Charlie Brown and his sad little tree or a little boy wanting a bb gun or some little twit talking about angels getting their wings.

It's the sort of thing that makes me want to wrap cardboard boxes with Christmas wrap and then fill those boxes with loads of homemade baked goods a la my grandmother's tradition. I won't go so far as to say that sugarplums are dancing in my head, but I'm teaching and grading and buried in paperwork, yet also salivating over the idea of peanut brittle and peanut butter fudge and pillowy clouds of divinity and sugar cookies and, and, and...hoping the notes I'm writing on students' papers won't look like recipes.

It's the sort of thing that makes me want to shop. It's the sort of thing that's making me MAKE my own goddamned wrapping paper. I bought a stocking for the cat, and I'm SEWING his stocking out of old jeans. A few times I've caught myself humming the normally annoying soundtrack to the season.

And when My Guy returned from his trip back East and admitted that he kind of hoped that I would have surprised him by decorating his apartment for the upcoming holiday, I realized I was a true Christmas sap because I had considered doing so, despite his self-labeled Atheist.

Don't judge. Atheists can have other reasons for the season. Perhaps he misses family Christmas. Or perhaps it's just another step in this thing called US. And I'm down with that. So there I was digging through my storage unit for a faux tree and decorations. Eventually, I found it: box warped with age, broken open at the bottom, cobwebby. Perfect.

And this is how Christmas threw up at Mike's (cue sitcom laugh track):

He held the cat (currently an escape artist because she's randy--due to be spayed and thus wanting to get out and get some tail--or get her tail gotten, I guess) while I maneuvered a 3 foot long box with its contents spilling out...inside his small apartment. And then it turned out that 2 of the 3 feet on the tree were missing. Apparently, they'd dropped somewhere between the storage unit and Moscow.

We had discussed the idea of a real tree but had "exnayed" the idea for two reasons: 1) I'm a semi-serious tree hugger who likes the smell of a real tree when the tree is planted in a forest but not the idea of killing and wasting a tree for a month of our own satisfaction and 2) we feared the aforementioned escape artist, crazy-with-sexual-energy kitty would climb it, chew it, topple it, etc.

So with no option to go out and buy a real tree and with being too stubborn to consider my faux tree crippled with one of three legs, I went into engineering, make-do mode. I brought out My Guy's mop bucket, tossed in the tree, some books I'd gotten from the recycling bin to weight the tree down, and filled in the other areas with bubble wrap. I then covered the non-festive bucket with festive tablecloths.

Did I mention we decided to put the tree on the kitchen table? (SEE hormone-crazed cat section above)

Did I also mention that the faux tree is comprised of 3 sections, but we were only able to use 2 sections before the tip of the tree hit the ceiling?

Did I mention that tree section A didn't fit properly into tree section C and thus required some sort of security measure for which My Guy offered up SCOTCH TAPE? He did. And of course I had to tease my football-watching, chest pounding, macho man club member for not having any MAN TAPE i.e. duct tape. [Epilogue: he came home the next day with man tape, as I had immasculated him with my joking.]!

Did I mention that I have apparently entered into a new writing phase in which I (sometimes randomly) emphasize certain words by typing them all in uppercase letters? IT'S THE EQUIVALENT TO YELLING, YOU KNOW!

So I decorated the tree with a new set of LED lights, which My Guy pronounced as "trippy." And they are. They are piercing and annoying as the newer cars you meet on the highways who have the NEWER, BETTER headlights...the ones that blind you and make you sick to your stomach and trigger Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (or treat PTSD) with their white hot lights. And then I hung the blue balls, the balls with harbingers of peace (a.k.a doves), bears with log legs and pine cones for feet, a football, a panda bear with a basketball, a snowman just chillin, African American angels. You know. Standard Christmas Decorations. And then the moment came when I placed the topper on. The topper sort of resembles a gingerbread cookie star. And the whole thing nearly toppled under the weight. So no gingerbread cookie star.

My Guy came home later with a lighter topper, which he ceremoniously placed atop the tree. He turned off the lights and commanded me to do the honors of plugging the topper in.

Nothing.

His brand-new topper didn't work. He said a Christmas curse, which is like a Christmas carol, only with a different sound than Fa-la-la-la-la-la. I took out and replaced every bulb in the topper and then plugged it in. And it shone with all the pomp and circumstance of the star of Bethlehem. And there was no manger, no crib for a bed, but there we were in My Guy's crib, chillin', looking at this little tree.

And at that very moment, I looked down and I swear there was a puddle beneath my feet. Hello metaphor! Yes, this man has taken December and warmed it. He had thawed this heart...Shut up!

I can say it. If Frank Capra can have It's a Wonderful Life, I can too.

Well, maybe a Decent Life.

A Pretty Good Life.

A Partly-Cloudy Life with a Chance of Wonderful.

A Thrift Store Christmas

2010-12-17T03:14:00.000-08:00

It doubles as both decoration and fire wood.
I think this Santa is supposed to be winking, but he looks like Pirate Santa or as if he had an accident.

Drunk Santa?

Nutty Professor Santa? Love those crooked glasses.

This is what happens when you mix quilting and excess Christmas spirit.

Zombie Santa

Anything with felt and googly eyes has to win your heart, right? And I don't think they're missing eyes....I think the winking santa is a popular figure. It's all part of the jolly image, I guess.

And this one struck me as kind of sad. Did you notice that this cute little mouse is sitting atop a mouse trap!?!

Reasonable and Prudent

2010-12-14T03:48:00.000-08:00

I can remember when Montana had a non-numeric "reasonable and prudent" speed limit. Montana Code Annotated (MCA) Section 61-8-303 said "A person . . . shall drive the vehicle . . . at a rate of speed no greater than is reasonable and proper under the conditions existing at the point of operation . . . so as not to unduly or unreasonably endanger the life, limb, property, or other rights of a person entitled to the use of the street or highway."

Of course, people wrung their hands with worry, assuming that no speed limit would mean unsafe roads and lots of accidents. I'm sure more than a few sighed in relief when the reasonable and prudent idea was challenged, and it was after a 50-year-old guy got stopped in midlife crisis in his Camaro doing 84 mph on Highway 200. He was given a ticket, which he appealed in supreme court. Basically, the court ruled that the limit was too vague and violated the Due Process Clause of the Montana Constitution. So by July of 1999, Montana roads had posted speed limits of 75. And I'm sure all the Nervous Nellie's emitted a sigh of collective relief. Whew! Thank God! We're safe! But you know what? The opposite was true. Research found that Montana roads were at their safest when there was no limits. Why would that be?

And you're also probably wondering, Wendy, why are you talking about something so boring?

I guess I think we all need to keep this "Reasonable and Prudent" idea in mind when walking down the street. No, I'm not talking about walking speed. I'm talking about living day to day. On a daily basis we have laws and rules to follow--rules issued by government, by work places, in schools, in our very homes, and most importantly, there are the rules that we self-impose and never question.

I'm not advocating a shrugging off of all rules. I'm not advocating anarchy. I'm advocating operating the human vehicle in a way that is the equivalent to the way things are currently stated in Montana law. Montana law still contains a section that says "a person shall operate a vehicle in a careful and prudent manner and at a reduced rate of speed no greater than is reasonable and prudent under the conditions existing at the point of operation, taking into account the amount and character of traffic, visibility, weather, and roadway conditions."

In other words, the way you operate day-to-day is very much a product of you being able to read and gauge what's going on around you. How's the mental traffic in your world? Is it mental rush hour? Bumper to bumper huh? Well, God damn it. It's your life. You've got choices. So maybe your first instinct is to get pissed, to pump your fist at the sky and curse your situation and those who seem to be responsible. Yeah, you can do that, but if there's one thing I've learned, cursing a traffic jam doesn't get it unjammed. So stay home. Or take a different route. Or meditate.

Sometimes the traffic isn't mental. Sometimes, it's literally those immovable clods around you or the ones who make poor decisions, the ones who ride your ass, the ones who leave their metaphorical blinkers on. You know the ones. There are all these people around you who don't do the right thing. Again, you've got choices. Are you going to road rage? Or can you see behind their windshield and know they've got their own things going on? Yes, they just sat for an hour at a green light. Yes, they waved for you to go at the 4-way stop when it's not your turn. Yes, they took up two parking spots. The point is, you've probably done some of those things yourself at one time or other. I'm not saying you have to be all nicey nicey or that the Golden Rule always works, but it's worth a shot.

I think the most important thing to keep track of is weather. It only makes sense to slow down in a blizzard. It makes sense to put the pedal to the metal when the sun shines. Some days the hazards won't be as obvious as a blizzard. Sometimes it's black ice. The black ice is a tough one. Of course you don't want to be too careful, too fearful because it might not be there at all. There are some risks. If we all drove every day according to what might happen, we'd be driving 5 miles per hour and in bubble-wrapped cars.

It recalls for me the scene last Thursday night as I drove my boyfriend home from the airport. It was raining hard. The rain made it impossible to see at times, and that was amplified by the steady serpentine of headlights coming in the other direction. Every time a car or truck would pass in the other direction, the windshield would be obscured for a brief and scary moment until the windshield wipers did their job. And perhaps scariest, the chances of hydroplaning were high because of the everyday condition of northwest roads. People use studded tires for traction in snow, and those tires leave deep ruts during other seasons--ruts that fill with rain. We drove home in silence, except for Mike pointing out my strategy: to keep up my speed by straddling those rain-filled ruts. He's a product of the East. He said he'd never thought of that. I don't think it's in any driver's ed manual; it's something I feel like I've grown up knowing. It the sort of reasonable and prudent decision that comes with age--it comes from driving the same roads all your life and knowing those curves by heart.

Of course the same roads you've driven all your life will look different on different days. And of course life dictates that we can't always take the roads we're familiar with. But the beauty of "reasonable and prudent" is that you deal with it as it comes. After all, you're the one in the driver's seat, the one with your foot on the gas. You're the one with so much potential, with so many places to go.

11 Things I Don't Need

2010-12-11T07:02:00.000-08:00

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The concept is to use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. The website provides 31 prompts to coincide with each day of December. I've been reading some pretty amazing blog entries based on Reverb 10 musings, so I decided I'd play along. Obviously, I'm several days late, so I'll get started with today's prompt:

"What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?"

1. I DON'T need boredom at work. It's partially my fault, as repetition is both comforting and safe. It's easy to use the same book, the same lesson plans, the same lectures, the same jokes inserted in those lectures until it begins to feel a bit like Groundhog Day. It's a matter of baby steps, though, in terms of getting rid of boredom. If I completely overhauled both classes, I'd be overwhelmed by a mountain of work (i.e. creating new lesson plans and all the accompanying paperwork). So I decided to change my English 101 class. I'm using Remix, a new book that spends less time explaining a type of essay and instead concentrates on modeling good writing.

2. I DON'T need inactivity. Every year, I struggle with "medicating" my stress by eating. And surprise! I gain weight. I need to get back to that feeling of exhileration I felt when I ran, lifted, and practiced yoga daily. Some of the people I admire the most make no excuses. Yes, they lead busy lives. They have jobs, families, an art practice, yet they manage to work exercise into their lives. My plan for correcting the activity is much the same that it is every year: start small. Make sure you walk the dog twice daily. Work on your abs and do pushups and basic stretching because you know that leads you to want to do more. I'd like to add the series of Zumba videotapes or P90X into my life because I know two things about myself: 1) I like to shake that ass, and 2) I respond well to boot-camp style structure in a workout. Likewise, there's that sweet connection between exercising and eating better. After all, once you've committed to working out, you don't want to sully the temple. I love that!

3. I DON'T need to put my foot in my mouth. Case in point: this morning, my boyfriend was holding the cat in such a way that she looked like she was doing a yoga move. It triggered me to talk about a calendar I saw at a local bookstore. I went on and on about how I had seen a ghastly calendar featuring cats in yoga poses. I like yoga. I like cats. But I don't think the two should be one, if you know what I mean. Being a writer and a fan of lively description, I went into a full-length analysis of it. I think "cheesy" was the icing on the descriptive cake. Well, my boyfriend fell silent, and then said "There's something I need to tell you." I got a terrible feeling in my gut. I knew what he was going to say. I had made fun of a Christmas present he had bought me. How terrible is that? He was totally thoughtful, having bought me something that incorporated two of my passions, and I had squashed it. In 2011, I want to minimize that feeling. I don't want to be the inflictor of wounds that need to be licked. I have some major making up to do, especially if I don't want coal in my stocking, or nothing at all--I wouldn't blame him.

4. I DON'T need to be such a consumer. Even though I don't shop in the conventional ways, even though I don't inhabit malls, I do make rounds at thrift stores and collect art supplies that never seem to get used. I have too much and get frustrated at not being able to find things. I need to resist the temptation of haunting those favorite places and recognize that it's as much about the social experience as it is the actual purchase.

5. I DON'T need to be as disorganized. My boyfriend once looked into my car and said it looked like a homeless person lived there. I got all "butt hurt" as he would say, but I knew he was right. I mean, it was November, a full month after farmer's market, and yet my farmer's market booth display was still in my car. That's nonsense. Likewise, there are Cooking Lightly magazines that a friend had given me. I never even looked at them. They need to go to the recycling center, yet I never seem to make it over there. The trunk is full: books, sheet music, ledger paper, and other ephemera. You'd think, based on all those supplies, that I spontaneously create art wherever I'm at, kind of like the circus clown who produces a balloon and twists it into a weiner dog on command. It's nonsense, I tell you.

6. I DON'T need to keep obligations based on some sort of perceived indebtedness to others. Sometimes it is okay to be selfish. I can't take responsibility for this insight. Ever-wise Mike once again gets the credit. He reminds me, "It's business." This philosophy is much needed, as I enter into situations where my intentions are good and find they simply aren't working for me. Such was the case with a business where I had my cards on consignment. The business owner allows vendors to work in lieu of paying a booth fee or taking a percentage of your profit. You work 3 days per month. So I worked 24 hours per month. And don't get me wrong. It's not back-breaking work. There are really no responsibilities other than ringing up the few customers who shop there. Otherwise, I used the time to grade papers or to work on my art. The problem was, if I was working a minimum-wage job, getting paid $58 a day, I would earn a total of $174 pre-tax per month. And that would be fine if I sold a maximum of $20 per month and a minimum of $2. I bitched and moaned about the unfairness. I vowed to create more goods to sell. And then Mike calmly said, "Quit." Epiphany! I can cut the cord, with maximum benefit to me, AND no one will think any less of me. AND who cares if they do think less? Fuck 'em.

7. I DON'T need a lot of mediocre, half-ass, case-specific, fair-weather friends. I need a handful of kick-ass true friends.

8. I DON'T need to get down about a world that doesn't function in the way I'd like it to. I spent much of this year feeling Bah Humbug-ish about the disappearance of morality. Does no one want a relationship with ONE person anymore? Does everyone long to munch the more verdant grass in a yard other than their own? Is sex with a bunch of strangers more important than romance and the possibility of longevity and security and love of a particular person? I ended up feeling much like Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgmont High: "Everyone is on drugs!" And I don't mean that literally. Yes, I'm aware humans are the only species to choose monogamy. I'm aware that men have longings. I'm aware that spontaneity and newness trump the" same ol' same ol'," but I also think there are ways to keep a relationship fresh and exciting. I don't think straying has to be a given. It's a choice with consequences that reverberate in so many directions and that hurts more than the main players. It's okay for me to be old-fashioned. It doesn't make me square or lame. It makes me a solid choice for the kind of man who sees loyalty as a virtue and not a character flaw.

9. I DON'T need to be so sensitive. Sometimes I feel like a live wire. A casual comment is not a diss. It's not criticism. It's just an observation. I also needn't think that everyone is articulate or a poet. I'll give it to you hypothetically. Let's say a certain teacher normally wears perfume and make-up and typically wears a dress to teach, and she does on THIS particular day, but she spends EXTRA time getting ready one morning because she plans on going straight to the airport after her class to get her lover. She hasn't seen him in three weeks. She hasn't had sex in 3 weeks. She's abuzz with knowing the famine will soon be over. Soon she'll be satiated in every possible way. Full. She envisions one of those scenes they show in movies where separated lovers are reunited. It involves the two running open-armed to each other. It possibly involves being twirled in someone's arms, kissed, maybe a few tears shed. But the reality is an oxymoron--a mind-blowing combination of lovely and ouch. He says, "You look good....kind of like a snobby bum." Your cheeks grow hot, and you feel like you could bawl, but you say, "Thanks," This change will take time. It's all about context. He's a DUDE. He's tired. He's got an excruciating headache. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he speaks positively about you. His tongue is usually golden. Let it go. Chalk it up. It's an anomaly. Don't linger on it. Don't fret. Don't let it distract you from the truth: he's home, and you are what he wants. His kiss means more than a few misplaced words, when your fingers retrace the Braille of his body, they'll erase the sting of your insecurities.

10. I DON'T need let the behaviors of past lovers affect the fantastic thing I have going. I need to put the fears away. They hurt me, but he hasn't. I wasn't good enough for them, but he thinks I'm wonderful. Thankfully, I am a living video of this song by Orianthi.

11. I DON'T need to follow the rules. If Reverb 10 requests that I write 11 things I don't need, I can choose not to waste another hour of my day on this blog post and to write 10 instead.

The Everyday Expedition

2010-12-05T07:32:00.001-08:00

More and more, it strikes me that the best guides are the ones who feel they've lost their way. Those guides make sounds of incredulity when you tell them they have worth. They say don't follow me. They are the fallen athletes who warn you "I'm no rolemodel." True enough, there are paths you wouldn't want them to lead you down, and you wish for them their own sherpa at times--a beast of burden who can help them shoulder the load as they make their breathless way up personal Everests that seem, at times, insurmountable. The air gets thin up there, but damned if their cheeks don't manage to still glow. And isn't that how it is? It can be cold--the sort of cold that makes you brittle, the sort of cold that threatens to numb your very soul. Yet, if you look out across those berms, it looks like a diamond field.

My friend, Shanda, is that way. A diamond. Borne of the same sort of coal as anyone else, but squeezed, pressured, shaped, configured until a stone. The diamond wears a diamond. She glints, and so does that ring on her left finger. I'm no jeweler. I have no idea how many carats, but that ring is heavy. When I met her, I was jealous of that ring. I thought, "She has EVERYTHING."

Now I know that everything can be too much sometimes. Sometimes I see her give it away. The shrugging off of wealth, on the surface, reminds me of a college friend of mine, Sara. Sara was so deep into her Buddhist study that the idea of impermanence had its own pulse--a complusion to not be of the world that manifested in constantly giving herself away. If you said, "Sara, I like that necklace," her hands would contort behind her back as she unclasped that necklace and presented it to you as if she'd never wanted beauty.

Shanda's charity has nothing to do with impermanence. In fact, it feels the opposite: she's trying hard not be erased. Maybe it's like another friend of mine who daily submits to the gym's hamster wheel to "fight entropy." He know's he is going to die, and he wants all he can get from this life before he has no more.

Her giving is not what compels some to box up the so-called unneeded things in our lives and take them to a thrift store. It is not meant to save the unfortunate around her but herself. And quite honestly, I think she's onto something. We all need to stop stuffing coins into the metaphorical bell ringer's kettle. We need to stop thinking that focusing on charity will save the world when our own private worlds are in need. It's all about triage, caring for gun shots before paper cuts. The Dalai Lama and all manner of enlightened people will disagree with me on this point. They would say we should focus on others as a means of helping ourselves, but I often think it's shell game, slight of hand, trickery.

Let's be real. Sometimes the path is exhausting, and the lack of oxygen makes you light-headed. All you can do is seek out a resting spot. Make a temporary shelter until you catch sight of base camp. Some days, seeking shelter looks a lot like dumpster diving. She goes to the recycle center, bends over the book bin, gathers raw material for her art. Other days, it looks like a natural distaster. A stranger looking in the window might see the victim trapped in the rubble, but in this case, the victim is not a victim at all. This is not destruction but construction. She sits surrounded by bits of paper, metal charms, inks, glues. She is at peace here. And lately, she is a version of Alice's Mad Hatter. She can breathe easier when the sewing machine hums and makes whole what others see as scraps.

She shared her make-shift shelter with me the other day. It involved a camera and a few precious kid-free hours. To an untrained eye, we were just two women having hot chocolate with no problems or worries. But one just happened to be taking photos of the shadows the handle casts down on the saucer and the faintest hint of lipstick on the rim. We drove deserted backroads, so she could take pictures of startling red barns that slashed out against snow and a sky so faded that it might as well be snow. She put her car in reverse, backtracked in order to take a photo of the most beautiful turquoise door. The shack on which it hung looks like it will blow down with the next big storm. But in my mind, it holds. It holds because she has it in her to recognize its beauty. But the part of the mission I remember most is her standing with her back to a busy street. The traffic rushed behind her, but she was still. Her mouth was open as she looked into the lens. She saw the irony of an alley corner where two one-way signs seemed to point in opposite directions.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 3

2010-12-04T21:05:00.001-08:00

My tag (see blurry photo above)

Tim Holtz tag (see music-backed tag above)
In my version of Tim Holtz's 12 Days of Christmas challenge, Day 3, I used a $1.99 ArtWorX box (markers, colored pencils, watercolors, oil pastels) I got at Goodwill to make the green color on some script paper. I didn't have any of his tissue tape, so I cut up some old sheet music and applied adhesive tape to the back side. I created white speckles with the white acrylic paint included in the ArtWorX kit.

I used part of a zipper (50 cents), some green netting (50 cents for many yards), some crimped metal ribbon (24 cents for multiple yards), and a bird ornament (47 cents)I got at the Hope Center thrift store. The nest is a Tim Holtz clock sticker I cut in half. Likewise, the December calendar beyhind the bird and the photo in the left-hand corner is a sticker from Tim Holtz.

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas: Day 2

2010-12-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

So Tim Holtz is on to Day 2 of his 12 Tags of Christmas project, and so am I. I have two things to say about it:

1.) This one frustrated me. It frustrated me so much that, several times in the isolation of my "studio," I invoked the advice of bad-ass comedian, Daniel Tosh, who suggested that you should try to find ways to sneak in the phrase, "Suck It!" Well, several times, I found myself saying, "Suck Tim Holtz!" But I didn't mean it. Holtz is a good and talented fellow, even if there is some weird thing going on with his name, and his fans spell it "T!m"--oh no he didn't!?! I digress.

2.) My frustration is my own fault. Tim's tag has a music stamp on it, and boohoo, I don't have one. So I found myself some real sheet music. Then I thought the music was too bold to be able to stamp on it, so I cover it with some favorite shiny irridescent paint. Trouble! Both old paper and the shiny new surface did not take to inking. Gah! This resulted in a mussy, smudged "Seasons Greetings." I had to re-stamp it in black with the only permanent ink I had. Staz-on is my savior (tis the season....ahem).

Hmm...what else didn't work out? Well, I didn't have a metal bird. I have about a bazillion bird stamps, but none of them fit in the space, or they covered the sentiments....just didn't work. So I went back to my Re-Used Muse sensibilities and added a photo of two girls who look sassy and seem to fit the title of the musical piece, "Free Spirit."

But I STILL wasn't satisfied with my copy. I wanted a bird in there somewhere, damn it. So I got out my collection of cancelled stamps and added a couple stamps. One was an Alabama stamp with a flower and a bird, which I liked because then these two girls seemed to have a story, a background. They're Southern belles now, and they're trying to make their way home for Christmas, or perhaps they've gone away from Alabama and are having to make their own Christmas in some new place. Whatever. The other stamp just suggests travel.

And I wanted to use metal, but no bird. So I used an earring that had lost its back and was missing a strand of beads. It used to have 3 strands of beads, but only has two. I thought the 2 strands kind of echoed the two girls. I pounded out the top circle so it would be flat, and then I added a green button to lighten things up.

Anyhoo. This is what you do when you wake up at 4 a.m., and if you don't like it, you can "Suck it!"

Kidding.

Imitation: The Sincerest Form of Flattery

2010-12-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

So Tim Holtz began his annual 12 Tags of Christmas (see first image above)

Not to sound snarky, but I've never seen the point of tags. I mean, it's not like people are going to go through all this trouble in order to make such beautiful and intricate tags for the typical purpose of tying on a package for the purpose of identifying the sender and the recipient.

So I've decided to play along, but my plan is to attach the tag to something I see as more practical. In other words, I'll make the tag and attach it as a card front for a card I intend to give this season. Or, I'll find a way to incorporate the design into a home decor item, with the hope that the result might end up being a Christmas decoration for years to come.

My other gripe is that I don't have all the supplies, and frankly I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff. You can see that I incorporated old dictionary pages as a background for the tag. The definitions are season and holiday appropriate. I made my wreath out of buttons. I didn't have wire to fashion into a tree, so I used a Holtz tree stamp. I didn't have a die cutting machine or the die that cuts that particular house, but I did use two of his stamps (a notebook paper stamp and a texture stamp) in order to fashion a paper house. He used some sort of flocking to indicate snow on the house, the tree, etc. I used glass glitter. He used a rubber stamp to make the admission ticket. I used some of his ephemera stickers.

And the fence....

The fence is pure Wendy. It's pure Re-Used Muse. It's actually an aged book binding. It's the stuff behind the spine in really old books...it looks like some sort of gauze or mesh adhered to thick cardboard.

A Fucked-Up Winter's Tale

2010-11-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

Leave it. The shovel stands against the door, dripping. The cat licks at it, though her water bowl is only feet away. Kick off your soggy shoes. Resolve to find your winter boots. For no particular audience, begin.

The unsexy strip-tease. Peel the gloves off with your teeth but note that this only leaves little black wool balls on your tongue. The houndstooth coat, hat, and scarf get hung on the vacuum. You look back and realize it's a bit like a scarecrow....a half-stuffed scarecrow, and the vacuum looked better than you did.

The cold huffs against the glass. Steamylike. Truthfully, it weeps. Condensation. Dense. Problematic as the upstairs neighbor who took a liking to you. At first you talked to him because you hadn't talked to anyone all day. You were scared you were going to start talking to the cat. You made small talk. You found yourself saying your boyfriend wouldn't be home for another two weeks and then scared that you did so. He said he was a student taking journalism classes, and having nothing better to say, you said you were an English teacher. You could see his eyes light up. He asked if you'd published. A poetry book. Does that count? He said he wrote Romantic Sci-Fi, and he emphasized Romantic, and you felt a little nauseous, though it could have been the peanut butter and cranberry sauce sandwich you ate before you went out to shovel.

You are polite, and say, "Well, publishing is publishing." And before you know it, he's taken the stairs by two or three, has disappeared into his surely dungeonous apartment, and is back just as quickly with a copy of The Book. He suggests that he shovel while you read his book. You say, "No, I'll keep shoveling." So he opens it and reads about human slavery. He skips a part and mumbles something. You are sure he said the word "sexy," and you know one of two things is true:
1) He stopped reading because he'd reached a part he thought was too sexy or
2) He thought reading aloud to you was sexy.

You dig deep, putting more into the shovel than your back would like you to. You are fat, and your body likes you to take things slowly, if at all, when it comes to exercise. He asks if you are in a writing group, and without waiting, he tells you that HE is in a writing group that meets Saturdays at a local coffee shop. You keep shoveling and remark that writing groups are like book groups...that they end before they start because no one can commit. And then you think you just said something that sounds like you're talking about a relationship.

You are now at least 20 feet away from him. You're shoveling like you've never shoveled before: head down, shoulder literally to some sort of grindstone. You are moving that snow, by God. You think you might be bent in half. You are a woman warrior. Bad Ass. If he touched you right now, you'd rip off his head and shit down his sci-fi writing neck. You know that you should feel sorry for him because he's wearing a jean jacket, and the bottoms of his jeans are flannel like a jean/pajama combo, but instead you feel creeped out. Invaded.

But your only violence is verbal. You will stop this flirting he's doing by mentioning your boyfriend approximately 30 times in the space of 30 seconds. You're not quite sure how you managed to cram in all those mentions. You said something like, "Mike is in Connecticut, but boy he calls me day and night. Mike will be home soon. Mike loves the snow. Mike hates to shovel. Mike will be glad to get home to US--the kitty and me. Mike sure is a big bruiser. I will be glad to be in Mike's big muscular arms--I think Mike said he killed a man just for looking at him wrong. I think Mike said that once. "

But this guy's is MORE verbally violent. He says, "Isn't he like TWENTY-FIVE?" And he sort of hisses it, and it wriggles up my pant leg and bites me on my ass.

"Yesssssss," I hiss back, but it's not a comeback.

"So you're a cougar?"

And before I can say anything, Creepy Upstairs Neighbor Sci-Fi writer goes upstairs, and I'm left in the cold, with another half of the driveway to shovel. So what's a girl to do? She comes inside and takes the only antidote she can. She turns on some Black Keys. She peels down to nothing but skin. She's not a bubble bath kind of girl. She's a water-so-hot-it-nearly-scalds-you kind of girl. She's a get-in-before-the-water's-finished-running kind of girl. She's a fuck-you-age-doesn't-matter girl.

Okay, as pointed out earlier, she's not a girl at all. She's 100% all-natural, "bring home the bacon, fry it in the pan....I'm gonna show you how to be a man" woman. And this woman is slippery when wet and washing away winter. A bath a day keeps the rude neighbor away, and hopefully it will speed the clock until her "boy" is home.

A Phoenix Pair

2010-11-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings is "What a Difference a Day Makes," which of course makes me think of the song lyrics to the song they're referring to:

"It's Heaven when you find romance on your menu."

It's not hard hard to find romance, though it's not as easy as the song lyrics make it seem. I found it early this week while on a thrift store shopping adventure. I found a 1985 daybook, planner, organizer, whatever you want to call it. I don't know much about the previous owner. In the first 3 pages, there are lines reserved for the owner of the daybook to write bank account information, the names of credit cards and numbers, health insurance records, etc--the sort of data that none of us in our right minds would record in the front of a book. We might as well write the information on our foreheads right after the salutation, "Dear Identity Thief:"

She wasn't worried about this, though. Apparently, 1984 was a gentler time. It was a time when we we could leave doors unlocked, and identity theft was the stuff of futuristic TV movies of the week. She had a savings account (last 4 numbers of her account number are 2887). Likewise, I know she had a J.C. Penney's credit card, and she wrote that number dutifully in the space provided. She began her entries on December 8:

"Debbie Peterson had a house warming party at her new appartment. Shawn T. was there. Party wasn't fun. Deb and I went to T.J.'s and talked."

This, of course, makes me curious who Shawn T. is, and I wonder why the party wasn't fun or if the owner of the diary was simply being bitchy. Later, we'll find that, while Deb seems like a confidante, she's got a dark side.

Another clue as to the identity of the planner owner comes in the next entry (12/10/84): "Got my name in the Idahonian's newspaper. It was about Campus Mail Room."

I think that must have been a really boring newspaper article. Maybe she was employed there. Maybe she was a student, and they asked her opinion on the mail room, reporter-on-the-street style.

I won't lie. Things are pretty boring for awhile. A week passes, with an entry on 12/16/84 in which she apparently attends an auction. Or so it seems. You see, the auction is identified as Dave Mattoon and Ed Mclam's. That Monday, there's a mention of a Dave, so perhaps the auction was the beginning of romance:

"Dave came over to my house. We went up to my room and talked. I showed him my art pictures."

Hmm. It appears she took home more than merchandise from the auction. The naughty minx in me partially wants for that last sentence to be purely euphemism. You know. It's where I'd make air quotes by making peace signs with two fingers on each hand and then bending those peace signs. I'd be implying that, if this was a mathematical equation, art pictures is equal to NAUGHTY BITS.

This is a romantic girl for sure. Her next entry (12/19/84) explains that her mother and father celebrated their 20th anniversary. She gave them her two favorite pictures (pieces of her artwork or photos?) and her father gave her mom a diamond ring: "One with 4 diamonds."

Thursday, December 20, all hell apparently broke loose in the Campus Mail Room: "Joanna got put down. Debbie and Mike railroaded her. Debbie's a low down Bitch! She's a big trouble maker and loose with different guys. The 24th of November she hit up on my boyfriend. Dave told her I'm not interested."

Woo-whee! But this complicates things. If Dave is her boyfriend, why did earlier entries make her seem as though they were fresh and new? Perhaps having just met? Is there more than one Dave?

Friday 21, 1984: "Christmas party in the Mail room. There was a lot of food. Dave and I went to the Moscow Motel to drink. Dale and Ed was there. Then we went to that new place by toco-time. Too many frat rats. Ugh! Then to the Capricorn. Dave and Ed were there. Ed was drunk. I put ice cubes down his shirt and pants. He put them down mine. The twit! Had a lot of fun. Dave and I made love in his car in front of my house."

The plot thickens. So the owner of the journal is obviously old enough to drink, but she's living at home. She is dating Dave, but she seems to be tracking two other guys. And she did a guy in front of her house! Saucy!

On the 22nd through Christmas Day, she doesn't write a lot. Sure, she went to her grandparent's house , opened presents, had a nice time, ate a lot, but she doesn't have a lot to say.

She writes again on Thursday, December 27. In a lined journal, it's the only wonky entry. She doesn't write on the lines but instead scrawls her entry diagonally in crimped fashion: "I really liked Dave. I really never told him. I'm glad I didn't cause that would probably be the end of the relationship. He taught me how to love lovemaking. I never got so excited like that with any other guy. Well, he's gone now so I have to find another guy that will make me feel good."

Hold the phone! Wait one cotton-pickin' minute! What happened? And if he meant so much and was so good in the sack, then why not hang on to him? Instead, she's on to the next!

Before you get too sad, she mentions Dave again on the 28th: "$165.31 left to pay on my car. Dave and I went to the shop and talked and made love many times in the camper. We had a very nice time. Dave gave me phone numbers of some of his friends that I have met."

I'm so confused! Exactly how many is many? Oooheh. And you'd think that if it was MANY times, it would be described as more than a "nice time" (true. she does use the qualifier, very...but we all know that very is a lazy writer's best friend. It doesn't add much to the description, and you're better off choosing a stronger noun, etc.). And if they had such a nice time, why did Dave give her his friends' numbers? Guy friends? Was he brushing her off? Playing wing man to his friends?

And it gets even more confusing. The next day, she writes: "Dave and I went to Club Troy in Troy and ate breakfast. He took me home. On the way, he got stuck at the beginning of the road going to my house in the driveway. Mom helped push. Gave him one last kiss. Never will see him again. Debbie Peterson's Birthday party. Didn't go."

The final entry takes place on Sunday, December 30: "Debbie Peterson's Birthday, her big 19th."

I read these journal entries, and I wonder how things turned out. I wonder if those two weeks matter to her anymore. I wonder if Dave does. I wonder if she continued her writing in another book, or if the incident ended her journaling tendency. I wonder how this time in her life reflected on her later in life. Did Dave's awesome lovemaking pave the way to other great lovers? Or did he ruin her for any future lovers? I wonder if she works in a better place, a place free of put downs and and railroading and low-down bitches. I wonder if she broke free of her love/hate relationship with Debbie. I wonder if she comes home to visit her parents if still alive. I wonder if she looks up Debbie or Dale or Ed when she comes back into town. I wonder if she came home for Thanksgiving and what she's thankful for. I wonder why I assume she left town.
I wonder how the day planner made its way to a thrift store. Did she die? Most people who give away diaries or journals tear out incriminating pages before they give them away. O wonder what she'd think knowing that someone read (and later wrote about) the two weeks of her life she deemed important enough to write about.

I wonder why I read notes I find in supermarket aisles, parking lots, and tucked into library books. I wonder why I care about people I don't know. I wonder what I would say to these people if I could track them down. I wonder what they'd look like. Sometimes I like to imagine they'd look an awful lot like me. And I bet we wouldn't have to say a thing. It would be a knowing glance, a look that said, "I know who you are. I've been there." It would be two phoenix's coming face to face, each having risen from their respective fire.

The Lonely Apprentice

2010-11-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving Day 2010, I miss my guru, my teacher, Sensei. The apprentice still has much to learn and frankly, is enjoying the lessons.

I've done lots of learning in my 35 years, most of it conventional book learning. I took the expected path: high school, college, and grad school. Well, maybe I shouldn't say it was the expected path. I grew up in a small town, and the expected path for small-town girls is wife and stay-at-home mom, hopefully in that order. I never got that degree. I failed those courses. Every time I'd go home for holidays, I'd run into classmates, and they'd ask what I'd been up to. I'd say, " I'm getting my [fill in the blank] degree." They'd say, "Oh...but are you married?" I'd say no. They'd look down at the kids in their grocery cart, tussle the hair of the child clinging to a leg, and nod politely with that tight-lipped, smug expression I've come to know as pity.

My uterus only twinged occasionally, usually upon notification that another friend had become part of the sorority of motherhood. Mainly, though, those twinges could be numbed by spending an afternoon with a friend and her kids. It was partially like an innoculation: getting a mix of sugar and spice, with enough poison that it didn't kill me but enough to make me careful. Or maybe it was more like the driver's ed Blood on the Highway films: a scare-me-straight tactic that ensured that I'd keep my eyes on the education prize and so be methodically accurate in all matters of sex and birth control.

It wasn't that I wasn't focused, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd never sit at the table with the grown-ups. I was the kid set up with the cardtable lemonade stand outside the Starbucks selling it's green tea lemonades for $5. I was the one playing catch-up when I'd go home to my apartment, researching all the philosophers and literary critics classmates tossed casually about in classroom conversation. I just couldn't cut it.

And I was okay with that. I watched friends exit academia with their Ph.D.'s in hand, only to embark on rounds of unsuccessful job hunting that made speed dating look like a walk in the park. Or occasionally, you'd see the Ph.D. put to total non-use: a brilliant woman who was working in public transportation. To quote from the famous Mike Myers, I said, "Someone get me off this crazy thing called love." I loved learning but loved my sanity more.

I won't lie. It's an uncomfortable exit, and those who spend their lives in school know the skin-crawling feeling of non-academia. You feel like the knowledge you have will drain out your ears or emit from your pores like garlic, and you worry that you'll suddenly turn instantly dumb. But the truth is, you still learn, just not in the most structured of ways. You're no longer paying to learn, and so all the pressure's on you to get out of life whatever you can. I read copiously. I surf the Net. The poet and writer in me is the opposite of those See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil monkeys. Contrary, I see everything, hear everything, and say whatever I feel. Likewise, catlike, I rub up along all the wonderful people I can. There's knowledge everywhere and in everyone, especially in those who don't consider themselves knowledgeable.

Of course, you downplay an English degree around some. You know their inadequacies will squirm around in them until they blurt out things about poor spelling skills or having failed English classes--things you basically don't give a shit about. Thankfully, there are the brazen few who don't give a shit whether you have a degree. They consider a degree a piece of paper, but toilet paper also an important piece of paper and infinitely more useful. I love those people. My grandmother was one. My Uncle Dick was another. And my boyfriend is of this kind. Yet these 3 people are among the most influential in my life. They share teacher status.

My uncle and grandmother are gone, lost to cancer, and so my main teacher is my boyfriend. He is his own University, and I'm working at a degree. This semester, I've got a full load:

*I'm taking wrestling, with an emphasis on forehead slaps. If I am lucky, I will avoid an archaic torture form that involves "mushroom stamping," an archaic form of humilation that works well as a verbal threat.

*I'm enrolled in Baconology 101. This is an in-depth study of how many dishes can include bacon, even if the student has expressed a vow to avoid eating meat.

*I'm auditing History of Xbox. I'm noticing it is a bit like religion...with a box shrine-like and occupying a sacred space next to the professor's bed. It seems to involve lots of talking to the TV screen and writing notes about recruits in a special notebook.

*There are several classes on football. I'm struggling with calling the professor's beloved team The Saints even when it's the Patriots. When I'm quizzed about the colors, I say white, blue, and red...and I get one wrong: it's silver, not white. There are pop quizzes on first down, second down, etc. And the teacher insists that I choose a favorite player (Woodhead!), and we take field trips wherein I'm immersed in real-life scenarios of watching a game with real football fans.

*There's Masculinity 240: farting, being able to pop knuckles, packing a good chew, watching South Park, and selective listening when around girlfriends. Strangely, this class also includes sensitivity training: how to hold a kitty like a baby, how to make your girlfriend feel like the most beautiful, special girl in the world, and an addendum to selective listening: listening and remembering what really matters to your girlfriend.

* There's Musicology: how to mix NIN, Eminem, ICP, Led Zeppelin, and The Black Keys without losing your mind. There's a seminar class on how to desensitize your girlfriend to the lyrics that feature violent acts to women and cats. Additionally, there's a lecture on weird times to play Johnny Cash and how to sing silly and wonderful songs to your girlfriend in the darkness, just before you both drift off to dream.

* Lovemaking 400. This is a Master's Level class. A lab and many practicum hours are required. There are infinite opportunities for extra credit.

This is the sort of class that makes the student wish there was no Thanksgiving break. A week is too long, and 3 weeks is torture. This student is eager to get back to the classroom. She misses it very much.

Fortune Teller Barbie

2010-11-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

The kitchen table is a Barbie-scape: partitioned microcosms of activity of the plastic goddess variety. It's a feminist world, with only 1 Ken per at least 20 ladies. In all honesty, it reminds me of a conversation that once took place while on a dog walk with the Missoula Human Society ladies. They joked that there needed to be an all-woman commune: a city block of houses owned by women and only visited by men when in need of repair or when the libido was in need of repair (wink wink).

This Ken in the middle of the table, however, doesn't look as if he could repair anything. Sure he's smiling, but I don't get the sense that he's handy or that he's getting lucky. Don't get me wrong. He's handsome, but there's something offputting about those mitten-like hands and the eunich state of his crotch.

No Ken. This world is for the ladies, and they seem to have it under control. In one sphere, a svelte hottie on tippy toes is being gawked at by her two labs, and the little girl nearby (her daughter, though adopted judging by the different facial features and hair coloring) is playing with two lab puppies.

In another picnic-type area, there's a woman in an evening gown lying down, a child doing a handstand, and another woman propped up. She can't stand on her own two feet in the most literal sense. This is an equal-opportunity world. This woman is severely disfigured and disabled, yet smokin' hot. She is stylish, also apparently later attending a black tie affair, regardless of the Band-aid on her foot and her left hand. The damage is already done on the right hand, which appears to have been slashed. I've never known whether it's appropriate to ask how someone became disabled, but curiosity got the best of me. I was informed that Luna, the dog they had a long time ago caused the wounds to Courtney. And Courtney is special because she was given to Sydney when Sydney had to go to the hospital for breathing problems.

All the world is a stage, and these particular stages are built out of the styrofoam packing materials computers come in. On one stage, there's a girl in a prom dress, apparently either waiting for her prom date or having gone stag. On the other stage, there's a woman clearly still trying to bring the 80's back. Her hair is crimped. She's wearing a jean jacket and leggings. And she's a single mother, as evidenced by the toddler playing in her lap and the two infants curled fetal beside her.

There's also a nod to nature. A floor lamp serves as a tree on which there are swings and gymnastic devices. One little girl is suspended from what appears to be parachute line or bungee cord. Below her, a girl has fallen on her scooter. She's on her back and looking up at the tree branch, perhaps envious of the girl who is doing flips. I have a feeling she has fallen before, as she has a Band-aid on her leg, and her top is missing. Luckily, the park seems a safe, perv-free zone in which little girls can ride their scooters topless.

It's likely that she was riding her scooter over the bridge. Or maybe she was swimming in one of two clear above-ground pools. Or maybe she was visiting the Goop tourist attraction. It's a test tube of navy-colored blob. Hayley informs me that I can get my own Goop for $4. She takes it out and tosses it on the table. I move to touch it and quickly recoil from the wet-yet-not-wet oddity. I ask, "What do you do with it?" She nods at the blob on the table and says, "That's it." It has a smell. I put my hand up to my nose. She says, "Yeah. I try not to touch it." Oh.

Finally, there is the all-monkey zoo. It's a bowl resting atop a cooling rack. There are 3 monkeys in an atmosphere made up of a toy bed, cotton balls, rocks, and trees that look suspiciously like wilted celery tops. The monkeys wear bows in their hair--pink bows--and I come to understand that even the zoo in this Barbieland is woman-exclusive.

I survey the landscape and the two girls who built the landscape, and I find myself wondering what kind of women they'll be. If their play is any indication, they will be:
* animal lovers
* physically active
*nurturing mothers
*self-sufficient
*compassionate and inclusive to those who are different
* fashionistas (or nudist colony members)
*architects
*lovers
*dreamers
*visionaries

I realize that one can't predict the future of a child in the same way that some can look into a cup of tea and read the swirling tea leaves, but as self-proclaimed Auntie, I can't wait to watch their lives unfold and to see if some of their future wasn't foretold by what would appear to many as simply a mess of dolls on a kitchen table.

Merry Easter, With Gratitude?

2010-11-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Whose BRIGHT IDEA was it to skip through seasons? It is November 19, and the turkey hasn't come out of the proverbial oven. No wishes have been fought over the wishbone. I haven't yet had a chance to count my blessings.
One expects the marketers to fast forward to Christmas quicker than you can whip up a batch of Paula Deen's Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake, but who knew that spring was so close behind? Yet, the catalog you're looking at proclaims "Everything you need for Spring is here!" By everything, the catalog means bunnies: stuffed bunnies, bunny wreaths, bunny ornaments, Crinkle-legged bunnies, long-legged bunnies, bunnies with room for candy in their bellies, sequin bunnies, bunnies made of dried lavender or grape vine, bunny finger puppets, cotton mache bunnies, bunny picture holders, stretchy chenille bunnies, knob hanger bunnies, bunnies with bunny slippers, big-foot bunnies, bunny pairs riding a see-saw, bunnies with bouquets of flowers, bunnies with carrots atop which graze ladybugs, bunnies wearing knickers, shirtless bunnies with beer bellies protruding over blue jeansand bunnies wearing no clothes. Would you like your bunny to sit in a wagon or to be pulled in a rolling carrot cart? Or maybe you prefer your rabbits to be workers who push wheelbarrows, or to garden with watering cans and shovels. You can step on bunny stepping stones. Depending on your bunny needs, you can buy your bunnies per each or get them by the dozen.
And don't forget the bunny accessories: metal carrots, easter eggs, pinwheels, and watering cans. The watering cans are ostensibly to water the many flowers blooming on adjacent pages: metal flowers, hanging flowers, and a sack of flowers whose purpose is only limited by your imagination. It's all associational. Where there are flowers, can butterflies be far behind? Nope. There are butterfly wall hangings, yard stakes, plant stakes, garden rocks, candle holders, magnets, and garland. Also flying the spring-friendly skies are dragonflies, hummingbirds, owls, and birds of undisclosed species whose bellies open to hold candy. There are country birds sporting bonnets or backwards baseball hats (kind of ghetto, if you ask me) and a country bird riding a bicycle. And I'm not sure whether they're country or city or perhaps suburban, but there are also resin birds bathing in a resin bird bath. Finally, there are those other winged creatures: angels. Angels, apparently don't take angel baths, and I'm not sure where they take on water.
If you can take your eyes off the skies for just a moment, you'll see the snails, turtles, and mushrooms afoot. And don't overlook the frogs, most of which seem to be"country" frogs sporting overalls and straw hats, because those in the country always wear overalls and straw hats, and they're of course chewing on a shaft of wheat.
The non-country frogs are tealight holders, rain gauges, key boxes, and strangely, frog houses. Can you imagine if we had human houses that looked like humans (naked or clothed)?
The catalog explains that Spring isn't the time to sit around daydreaming and watching the bunnies and frogs butterflies go by. According to the catalog, it's about time you got off your lazy ass and built a work ethic. You need to understand that "Flowers are not planted by sitting in the shade." Console yourself knowing that your hard work will pay off, though, because "God bless[es] the hands that work in the garden."
As if that's not enough work to do, the catalog wants you to do inner work....Dr. Phil-type work. Get your head straight, in other words. In the imperative, they command you to act (in groupings of four):
"hope, believe, enjoy, laugh"
"trust, love, dream, peace"
"believe, hope imagine, dream"
Spring must also be a depressing time because the catalog entreats you to "Do one thing in the garden that makes you happy." Can you feel the love? No? I bet you don't even know where to find love, but signs explain, "Love lives here" and if it doesn't live here (which is wherever YOU are, by implication), then you can grow it: "Love blooms where kindness is planted."
The catalog asks you to go deep. Self-assessment is key. Are you an ungrateful swine? Spring is the time, apparently, to remind yourself to "Count your blessings" and to become a better parent. Your child is NOT a pain in your ass but is, instead, one of "God's flower buds just waiting to open." Not a parent? Well, perhaps it's time to ring up your parents and remind them exactly how special you are. And who are they to argue? It's all there in pastel writing.
　
　

Curious

2010-10-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I was a detective searching for signs of a woman who'd disappeared, which was interesting, considering that the woman lived at my address. My mother hadn't disappeared in the conventional sense. Her face hadn't appeared on the back of a milk carton. This was before the days of Amber Alert, and she was too old for that sort of all-points bulletin anyway. She'd gone to the land of men, which meant that she was gone mentally to that place where women go when they are single mothers and miss the touch of a man. She'd gone to Randy Land, which was like CandyLand, only without the sweets.

He was a co-worker, a white polyester-clad worker bee like her at the local nursing home. I don't remember them dating. I don't remember courtship. I remember him moving in all at once, as if the date and the co-habitation occurred on the same day, and instead of bringing candy and chocolates, he seemed to come bearing a car load of belongings. His belongings intermixed with our own, and just as quickly, his need for her began its competition with a child's need for her mother. It seemed that every time I was hungry, he was more hungry. Every time, I had a story, he had a better story. When I was hurting from a skinned knee or some unseeable inner wound, she gave her attention to an unwounded man.

So I often found myself looking for her in the strangest places. When I knew she was downstairs, cuddled up on the couch with him, I searched the neighborhood. When they were at Smitty's Tavern, I looked for her in the apartment. I searched for her in her loopy handwritten notes. I searched for her in the refrigerator in the carton of eggs that became the fried egg sandwich dinners I'd become an expert making. I searched for her by picking up the phone and pretending that she was calling me to tell me she was coming home. I searched for her in her bedroom, which had been my wonderland and was now strictly off limits.

Historical documents refer to B.C. (before Christ), and my mind often went to the time period I dubbed B.R.--Before Randy. The Bedroom B.R.was a place to come running early in the morning. I'd climb into bed beside my mother and revel in all that was woman: silky nighties or bare skin--breasts I wondered at, in awe of dark aureoles and black bush. If she had been out the night before, she might still have the residue of night about her: mascara and eyeliner migrated below lashes, cheeks and lips semi-rouged, perfume whispering come hither half-heartedly. Before Randy, she wasn't adverse to me trying on clothes or standing before her dresser and scooping up handfuls of pearls and gold chains and baubles that reminded me of cartoons--pirates, wenches, chests full of treasure, and walking planks.

Sparkling more than any jewel was my mother's porcelain Elvis. When you turned the base, it plinked out "Love Me Tender." My mom loved Elvis, and when you are a little girl, you love what your mother loves. In coming years, I would not love Elvis. I would make fun of this puffy-haired, sparkly jumpsuited man. I would say he couldn't act. I would condemn him for his sneer and for his suggestive swiveling. I would laugh at the thought that anyone could worship a fat, sweaty side-burned Elvis whose scarf alone could bring a girl to her knees. In coming years, I wouldn't even be able to say for sure if I loved a mother who chose a man over me; I would not be sure if I could forgive her for being the reason I went, at the age of 7 to live with my grandmother.

But in those B.R. Days, when forgiveness wasn't a word yet invented, I begged my mom to tell me about the time she went to see him in concert. She told me they sold vials of his sweat. The thought of it made my nose scrunch. Still, I asked her questions I already knew the answers to: "Did YOU buy sweat?" and "Did YOU catch his scarf?" The answer was always no, but I liked to imagine it anyway: Elvis singing only to my mother. And he did, sort of, as long as we kept that figurine tightly wound. The notes would wrap us both in nostalgia, and she would sing. She knew all the words by heart. I wanted to hold Elvis in my hands and watch him twirl in perfect circles. I wanted to present him to her. I wanted her, for once, to have something she wanted and for what she wanted never to leave. She'd warn me to be careful. "Put it down," she'd say. "It's not a toy." Reverent, as if setting up some holy altar, I would set The King back on his throne.

But during one of those nights when I was investigating a missing person's report, I found myself where I was not supposed to be. After Randy, the room wasn't sacred anymore, anyway. The door was always closed now. On those mornings when I wanted to pad across the cold linoleum and crawl into my mom's bed, I couldn't now because he was there. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them. And it was a confusing sound. It was a needy sound, the type when pups still blind try to find their mother's milk. It almost sounded like pain, and there were many times when I wanted to fling open the door and clobber him, but even then, I think I knew that pain sounds sometimes like pleasure.

On one of the last nights I'd live beneath that roof and before anyone had a chance to call the three of us that terrible word--family--I twisted Elvis until he could twist no more. And he played and played and played. And I sang the song like I knew the words. My world was topsy-turvy, but Elvis would always be constant: perfect pompadour, his bee-stung bottom lip, the guitar literally glued to his hands. And then I could hear the sound of keys jangling in a lock, the sound of laughter, the sound of a man and a woman's voice outside the front door. I had to make it right. I had to make like everything was in its proper place. I was her good girl, so I was going to set the still-turning bisque crooner onto the dresser, but an edge caught. My hands weren't big enough.

The song fell to the floor and continued to play, though distorted among the wreckage. Solemn, I waited for them to find me. I waited for her to mete out my punishment. Surely, a spanking was in order. A grounding. Maybe she'd take away some toy I loved. She picked up the pieces--right guitar-playing hand in one of her hands and the rest in her other hand. She said something about super glue. She said something about tomorrow. She disappeared. She left me stinging with lack punishment. More stinging still: she hadn't even noticed the crime.

What's Essential?

2010-10-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

It's that which we take for granted. It's the things we don't notice or value until those things are taken from us. I think of this every Sunday when I make the hour-long trek to Orofino. For an hour, I have the privilege of listening to the radio station of my choice, or when the distance takes that away from me, I have the choice to listen to silence or to pop in a cassette tape (a CD is not a choice in my 1995 Toyota Corolla). I have the choice to sing along, badly. I have the choice to brood about whatever is worrying me. I have the choice to cast my worries out and away, somewhere along a bend in the road or out over the Clearwater--my worries as thin as the filament the fishermen cast from their boats or their solitary spots on the shore.

I think of what's essential when I see the railroad cars and the blackberry brambles and the crooked path the patients at State Hospital North built. I think what's essential is the ability to travel by car, rail, plane or boat when I choose to, with my only concerns being destination and for how long I'll be gone. I think what a blessing it is to be able to walk any path I choose, whether it's that rick-rack sidewalk or Warner Avenue with my dog or across America to raise awareness for a cause. Even those blackberry brambles are essential. Not a month ago, I parked my car and walked along the railroad track and picked those blackberries. They were big as the end of my thumb and sweet, and I had every right to stain my hands with their juices, to scratch my skin with their briars, and to feel their weight on my tongue. I was free to sit and eat them as naturally as the bear or the deer. I was free to gather them and take them home to bake later into a pie.

Contrast this with the tall Americano with one shot of raspberry flavoring that's sitting in my car's cup holder. That's what the patient requested. In the past, what's essential to her has been anything she can get from the outside. I've brought her these coffees before. The first time, I brought the coffee and later found out the second-degree burns on her hands were from her pouring hot coffee on herself--intentionally. I've always known that safety is essential, but I rarely think about keeping one safe from one's self, which obviously is vital too.

I've brought banana nut muffins. I've brought cheese quesadillas and bags of chocolate and more recently a box of graham crackers and a jar of vanilla frosting. Food is essential, but comfort food, moreso. It isn't about nutrients or the food pyramid. They are fattening and not the best fuel, but they are essential to the preservation of one girl and the life she used to know outside the hospital.

The State Hospital North, however, begs to differ on these items being essential. As of October 1, I can no longer bring some of these foods and drinks. They cannot be homemade. They cannot be something wrapped in foil or covered over in a plastic coffee cup lid. They must be manufactured, sealed. When I motion to the coffee I brought (not knowing the new rule) and tell her they'll be confiscating it, she says what she has said before when the take away something she finds essential: "That's bullshit." I distract her from what she's lost by asking her what she'd like next time. Nacho cheese Doritos are essential.

Generally, they place us in a room with 3 locked doors. The room contains the essentials: a table, two chairs, a phone (which the worker instructs me in front of the patient that I can use to call in case I need help), a garbage can, and a clock. The clock ticks, and the red second hand reminds me how essential it is that a person can direct her own use of time. I think that clock must be vast as the ocean for her. I feel a certain sense of guilt that I waste time doing nothing, and yet if I was in here and had nothing to do, I'd feel the difference between my own ability to do nothing with time versus not having the option to fill the time with activities.

Sanity is essential, though I've known my share of writers, artists, and musicians who would not accept sanity as a gift because insanity is a gift that keeps on giving, inspiration-wise. I've had my own bouts with trying to figure out what is real and what is not. I've crawled under the dark quilt of depression and found it simultaneously smothering and comforting. I've taken my share of antidepressants and visted my share of green-sweatered nodders, the ones who say nothing but take copious notes. But it's always been situational, explainable. My sadness could be pinned on the death of my grandmother or the loss of a job or a boyfriend who drove me hard until he wrecked me. Bad times passed, and that quilt got folded and put away. I have never, though, known the sort of darkness that doesn't go away. Keeping the darkness away is essential.

When I started the project, I was told that regular visits and the ability to do art was essential to the patient's mental health. It's something I take for granted. I can do it any time I want to. And I'm not limited on projects. Only my imagination limits what I can do. like In here, patients can paint on a shirt with puffy paint or tool a belt or sew, and if you don't enjoy those activities, well, you're out of luck. In the 3 hours we spend together, we glue, paint, and rip. We rip because I'm not allowed to bring scissors. If we paint, we need to use the cheapest paintbrushes possible, the type without a metal ring that holds the bristles in place. The metal ring is considered dangerous. And with all these restrictions on materials, I realize what is essential. I realize there's no need for fancy products or tools. In some ways, it's the ultimate "fuck you" to the long list of rules, because god damn it, we made something beautiful anyway. Making beauty out of the ordinary is essential.

During my most recent visit, I watched her write messages in the cards we made, watched as she ran her tongue across the envelope flap, sealed it, and handed it to me. She asked me to mail what she'd made, and I realized that the most essential thing is having someone to send that letter to. Mail it, blog it, say it on Facebook, say it into the phone or say it to the face closest to yours. We all need a recipient, that someone who hears what you're saying--right or wrong, crazy or sane, boring or infinitely interesting--and is so glad you're around to say it because you are essential, and the world wouldn't be the same if you weren't in it.

The Sound of Sunshine, Saturday Morning

2010-09-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

The Sound of Sunshine is arriving drowsy at 6:30 and greeting the other drowsy vendors--some stoking their fires for BBQ, or arranging produce in edible rainbows, setting out loaves of bread still warm from some distant oven, or hanging their tie-dyes to whip in a technicolor breeze.

Some days, they soldier in wind and rain. Other days they bask in summer's glow and come home with sun-kissed necks. They wait out a breeze, knowing it will pass. It always does. And if it doesn't, the day's money was that much more earned.

The sound of sunshine is the soft hush of money passing from the hand of someone who worked for his money to another who worked hard to make something worth that money. It is the sound of bills getting paid for some and the sound of pocket change for others. It's the sound of the free exchange that takes place among vendors at the end of the day: a plate of tacos for a loaf of bread, a bar of huckleberry soap for a pair of earrings. It is the sound of mutual respect. It sings, "I am just like you."

The sound of sunshine is what I can't see but hear while "manning" my booth: over in the Square, the man in the checkered shirt calling square dance moves to women shaking crinoline stuffed skirts. Or perhaps the old man who isn't a scheduled act but shows up anyway to crack open his case to reveal his set list, which always includes some Dylan.

The sound of sunshine is the sound of shoes of all sorts hitting pavement. They are frat boys and farmers. They are office execs, teachers, preachers, and whores. And all their shoes sound alike. There are babies being wheeled and babies being carried in the blossom of their mothers' bellies. There are women who make their own dresses, who keep their hair in kerchiefs with little girls trailing behind them who look Godly and purposely plain. There are leather-clad, the tattooed and dread-headed. There are motorcycle mamas and soccer moms. There are squeaky clean men and the moses man who seems wise just based on the curve of his spine, and you're sure his walking stick always points him in the right direction, whatever that is.

The sound of sunshine is the leather patter of dog feet. All types of dogs: Great Danes, guide dogs, puppies still learning the ropes. Dogs caught in the intoxicating stew of scent...a food booth wafting Mexican or Egyptian or Greek...the smell of the dogs walking in the opposite direction...the smell of sorority girls walking en perfumed masse.

The sound of sunshine lasts from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from May through October, until half past the return of the college kids. And then it moves on, carnival style or gets packed away or forgotten altogether in favor of "the real world" or a real job. Shorts morph into pants. Tanks and dresses divest themselves of warm bodies and get packed away. Mornings get crisper. There's dew on the windshield. Men blow into their hands to keep them warm when putting their tents up. The leaves fall from the trees, and the whole world seems wrapped in a sweater.

The sound of sunshine is a whisper in the ear of those who stroll the aisles. They know it won't be long before the sunshine is gone completely. There's only so long to savor the peach and how its juice drips down your arm. There's a time and place for huckleberry pie, and that time is closing in. Some try to preserve the sound of sunshine in Mason jars or in freezer bags. Some prefer to eat the sound of sunshine while it's ripe. Some know sunshine is best when we miss it most.

Recycling Envelopes

2010-03-10T04:55:00.001-08:00

Confession: I've always loved the patterns on the inside of bills. They come in anything from houndstooth to woodgrain to stripes, and they come in many colors. I've been saving them for a long time and thinking there has to be another use for those patterns. After all, scrapbookers spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars a year to buy patterned paper for their projects. So I decided to embark on a card-making project using the recycled envelope insides.
I'm not finished with the actual cards, but you can see that I've already cut the envelopes to make 3 3/4 x 5 card fronts. I generally left edges ripped from where I'd used my thumb to open the bill. I like the texture. I'm also interested in the clear acetate windows in the envelopes. I think I can tuck vintage images or sentiments behind those.

I have lots of punches, and I used those to punch out flower and butterfly shapes. If you don't have punches, you can generally find them at your local scrapbooking store. I know our local stores offer studio time, which includes use of such tools.

Finally, I've inked the edges.

This is what insomnia brings! However, I'm now actually getting tired, so making the actual cards will have to wait. I hope my blog readers haven't given up on me and will check in for REGULAR updates. I promise.

Attack of the 50-Foot (But VERY Sexy) Woman

2010-01-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

It all started when a friend of mine posted that she was preparing for a wedding. She'd bought some cute shoes and was breaking them in. Her Facebook status boasted, "I've been walking around in them in the house and just chillin in them so that when Saturday comes I can wear them without looking like I'm walking with a stick up my ass......its a pretty funny sight, me in lounge pants and slopp...y tshirts and black pumps.....but my feet will be used to them come saturday atleast ....hopefully!"

For whatever reason, I felt compelled to air my shoe jealousy--I was wistful, bemoaning my inability to wear high heels because of my already stilt-like stature. I'm already 6 feet tall, and I've always felt it I'd look a bit like a transvestite or drag queen if I wore them.

Before I knew it, my friend had posted what amounted to advice column encouragement: "Wendy, 6 ft. Or not, who cares as long as u feel beautiful in the get up.....u just have to find a 6'4" man....mine make me 6'2" and I think its a tragedy for tall girls not to wear them.....we deserve to look cute too!"

Yeah! Damn it! A tragedy! I deserve to look cute too!

Wait! I don't think my concern had ever been that I would be taller than my boyfriend. Actually, I knew what my boyfriend would think. From a testosterone perspective, he'd pronounce it hot. However, his analytical, physical therapy degree seeking self would balk at the footwear for reasons that they wreak havoc on the feet and the body in general.

I'm all for comfort and making sure my feet are happy, but to be pronounced hot...well, that trumps the aforementioned politically correct choice.

I've been wearing orthotically correct (i.e. ugly) tennis shoes and flats my whole life. And I can say that my shoes have never garnered a second look.

We've heard that the suit makes the man. Does the shoe make the woman?

It's not really that I envied those wearing high heels. In fact, I often felt sorry for them. I witnessed the colt-legged college girls teetering from one class to another, ankles doing their ankle version of whiplash. I'd seen my fair share of small-town girls aiming for adult and high class, only to achieve For Adults Only and working girl/high-class hooker.

Yet there's a certain allure, even if the high heel has sometimes negative connotations.

Maybe the negative connotations were a little bit appealing as well. I'm always the good girl. Might high heels make me bad (in the best sense), if even temporarily?

Via boyfriends, I've seen my share of adult entertainment in which the only piece of clothing left on in an intimate encounter is hooker boots or stilettos. They are props, to be sure, and relatively unimportant to the action on the screen or in the pages of a smutty magazine, but still having come from a one-play high school drama background, I can see the importance of props.

I went prop shopping.

Lest you think that I morphed into a sex kitten, I must admit that, the higher the heel measured, the more comical and unsexy I became. I tried on 2", 3", 4", 5" heels, mentally thinking, "Yes, I am the sexy librarian type" and "He'll retire that well-worn copy of Specs Appeal." But then I looked into the mirror and saw all 6 feet of me. Less than ideal. Shopping-worn. Disheveled. Imposing. Out of control. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. King Kong. I tottered over to the little stool/mirror thinking my gait was some cross between baby taking first steps and the scarecrow in Wizard of Oz.

Maybe if I don't have to walk anywhere in them, I reasoned.
Maybe if I can just strike a sexy pose in them and then sexily take them off.
Then I reasoned that high heels have nothing to do with reason, and so I bought the more modest pair that I'd tried on: strappy, shiny patent leather, open-toed, a solid rather than dagger-like heel.

Like my friend, I'm breaking them in by wearing them around the house. I've spooked the animals more than once with my instability. But instability is sexy, right?

Memory, Pulling

2010-01-08T13:13:00.000-08:00

Walking is chaos, not peace. Such is the case, anyway, when walking Zeke. It all starts when I get a pair of socks from my dresser drawer. This is The Sign. It means I'm not going to school, not going out to socialize with others, but I'm going out with him. The sight of socks sets into motion great leaps of anticipation along with a few "woo-woo's."

Then I put on my shoes. The trick is, I can't put them on the floor. If I do, he grabs them and races around the house with them. So I have to hide them behind my back. All the while, he is alternately keening and huffing and puffing and lunging at whichever shoe I happen to be tying.
This is my fault. When I first brought him home from Helping Hands, I was into running. And I thought it would be cool to teach him how to get my shoes for me. I wasn't thinking. I did not know he would bring a shoe to me no matter whether I planned on running or not. I did not know that he would continue bringing one shoe and then another and then another--convinced that, if he brought the right shoe, we would run. Suffice it to say, one cannot let shoes lounge around this house.

Zeke follows me across the kitchen floor to the pantry, where I go to get 3 bags from the poop bag supply. Yes three. One has never been an option, and the couple times I went out with 2 bags, he managed to perform again in a yard, leaving me unprepared. In fact, I had to pull a MacGyver and take the plastic sleeve off a stray Moneysaver and use that. And I had an audience. The homeowner of the yard Zeke had chosen stared out the window, his arms folded in front of his chest. And as I was finagling the waste into the bag, the owner leaned out his screen door and yelled, "I hope you plan on cleaning that up!" He couldn't help himself.
So keeping this uber poop conscious neighbor in mind as well as knowing that Zeke has some sort of supernatural poop producing capabilities, I take 3 bags, which I shove in a coat pocket or in handwarming compartment of my favorite sweatshirt.

And this adds considerable bulk. Visually I gain a few pounds, which is disconcerting, considering that I'm walking to lose a few pounds. And with that we're off. There is no such thing as heeling. Zeke launches to the very end of the leash and digs in. The pose he strikes is much like those strong men you see pulling cars with a chain. He hunkers down, determined. This determination often also results in a sideways lean. He very much wants to dictate which side of the street we walk on. One side smells better, I guess. One side needs to be marked more than the other.

His determination is squashed periodically when another dog barks. This sends him into psychosis on a grand scale. The first time I ever heard there were dog psychologists, I laughed. But I'm not laughing now. If I had the money we'd go. Zeke, part pitbull, is scared. Every time a dog barks, Zeke hunkers down even more and pulls with all the fear in his heart. And I can't shake the need to go all pop psychology. I wonder if he had a good relationship with his mom and dad. Was there some sort of crisis in his puppyhood that scarred him for life? I wonder if there isn't some dark secret hiding in his puppy closet. Was he the puppy from the wrong side of the tracks? Did he get into fights? Or maybe he was bullied (or bull-dogged). I don't know, but it's put the fear of Dog in him.

What I find most interesting is that he fears dogs that aren't there. He fears the memory of dogs. For instance, we go past a yard that used to contain two German Shepherds. Maybe they came out last summer. Maybe they no longer live there. Maybe they are warm inside with their owners. But Zeke still reacts as if they are out in the yard and barking. He pulls. He chokes. He makes me look like an asshole to cars who are driving by. He makes me say, "Would you stop?" He pulls maybe 100 feet beyond that particular yard with the ghost dogs, and then he is normal.

The same is true with his girlfriend. Yes, I am anthropomorphizing, but I believe this would be his girl or baby mama if they had access to each other. She shoots out the dog door, races down the ramp they've made especially for her and sets into motion doggy whirling dervishes. If she was human, she'd be a cheerleader for sure, or at least the popular girl on campus. She's a Lassie dog, a collie with flowing locks and a svelte figure. He wants her, so again the pulling commences. And truthfully, it makes me sad when she doesn't come out. He pulls us to the memory of her.

Which leads me to my main realization for the day. I'm not that different. I'm haunted. I alternately hunker down and try to get as far as I can from the things that scare me, yet I pull hard to get back to what I want--I pull toward beauty. Or a least the memory of beauty. I pull toward the hope that I can get the beauty back. I pull wondering if there ever was any beauty, or if it was a ghost or something I conjured. I pull feeling pissed off that beauty seems to be just beyond where the leash will let me go.

I know. I'm leashless. But more and more, I understand that memory is its own sort of leash. Sometimes it's a comfort to be led. Other times, I feel like I'm being choked.

Home Improvement: 2 1/2 x 3 1/2" at a Time

2009-12-15T22:14:00.000-08:00

I've been following Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. You can read more about it here.

Day 13 Prompt: Write about the best change you made to the place you live. [Yes, I have skipped Days 11 and 12...I'll try to tackle those tomorrow, after I taken a photo or two to accompany the entry]

In terms of living space, as I've said before, the space is not my own. It's a spare bedroom. As such, it's not something I can remodel and decorate too much. Not to mention that I don't want to get too comfortable here. This is a transition space, after all, and not home.

Meanwhile, I try to make the most of the space I have. The room is cramped with all the items I either can't fit into my storage or items I was positive I needed access to."Necessities" fall into two categories: books and art supplies. As such, I keep an overabundance of books on a headboard that I'm using as a bookshelf. I use the large space below the two shelves as storage space for items with card-making or collage-making potential. I also store such items in clear plastic containers under the twin bed. This is my half-hearted attempt at organizing all of the yard sale and thrift store finds that I bought intending to use them in collages or other mixed-media pieces.

Next to the bed is a large wooden desk, but you wouldn't know it--it's nearly covered over with craft items and projects in all stages of completion.

The room is an exercise in opposites, as it is at once cramped and overflowing with stuff, yet it is also spare. You could use the word plain or maybe austere to describe the wall space. There are no decorations hanging on the walls, but I recently changed that.

For years, I have traded Artist Trading Cards (ATCs), and I've got a collect of them sitting in plastic baseball holders. But I can't see them unless I decide to get the album out and flip through it. To remedy the bare wall condition and the inability to view my ATCs easily, last week I bought a black metal frame that displays 20 baseball cards. I loaded 20 of over 100 ATCs into the holder, and voila! I've got my first official decoration.

It's not a night-n-day change, but it's a step in the right direction. I figure I can budget (even with a 40% off coupon, the frames are $15...) and buy more of the frames until I have a collection of frames housing the collection of ATCs. There are also some interesting ATC display ideas on Flickr.

DJ's Assistant

2009-12-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

I've been playing along with Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. You can read more about it here.

Day 10 Prompt: Album of the Year. What's Rocking Your World?

My music collection used to grow by leaps and bounds during every school vacation, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas, when A. would sign up for a slot or several slots at KUOI, University of Idaho's student-operated radio station. During those vacations, the building would be abandoned except the two of us and the occasional janitor. Generally, we'd make our way to the station after stopping for coffee at One World or sometimes after a beer or two.

Last time, I was introduced to artists like Abe Vigoda, Adem, All Girl Summer Band, Brazilian Girls, Camera Obscura, Common, Dim Dim, Dragon Fli Empire, Gemma Hayes, Hello Seahorse!, Hot Panda, Jared Mees, Loquat, M. Ward, Mi Ami, Polka Dot Dot Dot, The Black Ghosts, and Vetiver.

While it's certainly possible that I would have eventually heard about these bands -- perhaps they might have gone mainstream -- it's doubtful. That's the beauty of college radio. You hear some of the greatest music that not everyone will get to hear. You hear the opposite of what the music business believes that you should hear. Sure, some of it is crap, but a lot of it is great, and these bands deserve recognition, but I'm also glad they don't become part of the industry machine--a bland, non-discerning entity that pushes what will sell and image over substance.

More than the music, I think I valued the experience of being able to witness someone I love doing what he loves. I sat there and watched him in action, marveling about how his voice, which was nice anyway, became so smooth and professional, when occasionally he had to take scheduled breaks to make announcements to listeners: identifying bands and song titles, commenting on the weather, explaining that he'd been a long-time KUOI fan and had DJ'd in the past, and wishing people well during the holidays.

I felt like an insider. I wasn't just some schmo driving around in her car and listening to the station. I wasn't washing dishes or cooking dinner with KUOI on in the background. No, I was there. In The Wizard of Oz, we look behind the curtain and find out that The Great Oz is JUST a man, but I can truly say that I never lost my sense of awe about the inner workings of a radio station.

While he worked, I studied CD art, read the band descriptions, enjoyed being privy to KUOI's in-house system of sending CD's home with DJ's, who scrawled little reviews on office labels. A. always let me be part of the CD selection process, even though he knows I'm a fan of a specific vein of music, so it was a given that I'd ask him to play folk-y, accoustic-y, or angsty chick music.

However, I also tried to choose CDs whose blurbs compared the band to bands I knew A. already liked or bands that described them in a way that sounded like A.'s taste.

I can't settle on one of those CD's I like best. The experience itself--being a DJ's assistant--finds its way to my Best of 2007, 2008, and 2009. This Christmas, A. will work his KUOI shifts solo. And I'm sure I won't be able to resist logging into KUOI online, listening to my favorite voice wishing strangers well.

Sweet Aftermath

2009-12-12T20:01:00.000-08:00

I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. You can read about it here.

Day 9 Prompt: Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge for you?

I lost my best friend. I guess what makes it the best challenge--a challenge that will continue in these final days of 2009 and on to 2010--is that I am trying my best to put things in perspective. I'm trying my best to remember all the shining moments. I'm trying to remember that I did my best. And I want to be sure that, unlike him, I am not hateful. His personality dictates that those shining moments are now tarnished or erased. And that is his choice. I, on the other hand, know that I gave my all in 4 years and that there were tons of beautiful moments.

In honor of that challenge, I present a diary entry I wrote August 3, an entry I wrote while on his family farm. The entry captures the tail-end of a fight and also the sweet aftermath:

"I awakened first, per usual. I went and sat on the porch and read, letting the sun bear down on my legs and shoulders. It felt good, as though baking out all my discontents. Two hours later, after 10 anyway, A. woke up. I could hear him in the kitchen and wondered if I was going to get the silent treatment. Maybe 10 minutes passed until he decided to say good morning. I came in, got dressed, and started working on one of the upstairs bedrooms. A. came in and hugged me, said, "I'm sorry. I try to be a good man," and the combination of those words and the contact with his hairy chest made me teary. My only response was, "I know." I tried to continue working in the room, but really I wanted to be with A. I walked out into the kitchen and found him watching a movie on my laptop. I stood behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. He put his hand on my calf and squeezed. I sat down and watched the rest of the movie, Small Town Ecstasy, about a dad to 3 kids who was addicted to ecstasy and the rave scene, and he shared that habit with his kids.

After, we worked on the basement. We took a break to eat lunch then went back to work, this time on Kim's bedroom. Near 5, we quit. A. invited me to walk up the driveway with him to call his mom and see when she was coming the next day. Around 7 p.m., we climbed over a fence to cut weeds. At first, A. did the cutting, and I stuffed the clingy little fellows in a feed sack. Then we swapped. When finished, A. was the worse for wear, with weeds sticking all over his arm hair, head hair, and clothes. I felt a bit like a mama ape helping him pick burrs off himself, but it was also quite intimate and reminded me that there's pretty much nothing I wouldn't do for him. I think he knew it. As such, he kissed me, and we continued picking burrs.

Later, I told him that I wanted to bake his mom a pie, which he approved of and also volunteered to pick them with me, so for the next hour or so, we traipsed out into the stickery blackberries, even making a second trip up to the top of the driveway near the spring. When we returned, I made him quesadillas with TVP, onion, green pepper, with a cabbage slaw on top and hot sauce. We watched the dumbest movie, Freaks. Then we went to bed. We both made a point of showering, which crassly means that we'll likely make love. And, thankfully, we did."

Moment of Peace

2009-12-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

I've decided to participate in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. You can read about it here. As per usual, I started late, and I'm already behind, but c'est la vie.

Day 8 Prompt: Moment of Peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a 34-year-old woman who had to live with her mom. Had to? She'd had an apartment of her own, many apartments of her own, yet the last one was subterranean, dank, depressing. And finally, symbolically, it flooded, so we moved to higher ground.

But it wasn't really higher ground of her own. She took on a housesitting gig from mid-January through mid-July, and lived on a farm between near Colfax, Washington. She planned to find another apartment after that, but time and money ran out. She'd spent most of her money on car repairs and the expenses related to visiting her Prince Charming, who was living and going to school in a far, far land (well, actually two hours away...).

She consoled herself with the mantra: only for a semester, only for a semester, only for a semester. But it is the second week in December, and her prospects don't look good. No fairy god mother came and made things right. Instead, there were more car troubles, student loan payments, bills, and a heart that was too big for her body (damn heart on damn sleeve and damn those who plucked heart from sleeve and then decided said heart was not suitable). So she's revising her thoughts on Prince Charmings and is not sure she believes in Happily Ever After.

This realization means she cries a lot and bides her time and talks to mirrors and herself. She gets lost between stacks of books. She gets lost between the sheets. She thinks it is strange that she hasn't lived with her mother since the age of 7. And yet there she is, sleeping on a twin-sized bed with an 80-pound dog and a blue-eyed cat.

If one didn't know any better, you might think that mattress an island. An oasis. In the morning when she swings her feet over the side, there is only ocean. Danger. But in the small space of that mattress, among the blankets and warm sighing bodies of those creatures, there is peace, one evening at a time.

Recycling X-Mas Cards

2009-12-09T14:18:00.001-08:00

So I scout out local thrift stores and buy large mish-mash packages of Christmas card leftovers. Generally, they group anywhere from 3o to 50 cards and envelopes into a baggie and charge $1.99. I don't particularly like these cards, but I like to get envelopes this way, and sometimes I snag the sentiments and use them on my handmade cards.
I really liked the texture on the inside of the card, and I decided I wanted to use that texture for some Christmas cards.
I'm going to show you how to use 90% of this card to make your own prettier (I think) handmade cards.
There were four distinct textures. I cut the card backs into 1 1/2" squares.
Then I inked those squares. I used Ranger Distress Ink in brick and Marvy Heritage Ink in Pond Green.
Notice how my card front is a panel I cut from the inside greeting of the original card. I cut it to 3 3/4" x 5". Then I mounted 3 of my inked squares. Finally I decorated the top with green and gold ribbon.
Finally, I mounted the card panel onto a green card. Voila! A re-purposed Christmas Card! What do you think?

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Day 7

2009-12-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

The prompt for today, December 7, is "Blog find of the year. That gem of a blog you can't believe you didn't know about until this year."

I don't know how to paint, but I'd love to know how. I'm particularly drawn to abstract painting and graffiti or graffiti-inspired painting. I'm constantly experimenting with techniques I find online, in magazines, and on blogs and internet sites.

I'm also interested in how mixed media finds its way into other types of crafting like sewing. I'd love to make my own clothes or to be able to give existing clothing an artsier feel.

This time last year, I bought the book, Canvas Remix by Alisa Burke. Burke imagines a world where art isn't passive. Canvas, when cut to form, becomes apparel and journals and crowns and household decor that is not necessarily relegated to a wall.

I visit Burke's blog often and am taken by her need to re-purpose common everyday objects into beautiful pieces of art. Cereal boxes get turned into beautiful napkin rings. Sweaters that have seen better days get turned into funky new pieces of winter wear.

You should check out her blog and her book.

Gearing Up for Best of 2009 Blog Challenge

2009-12-06T17:22:00.000-08:00

Blogger Gwen Bell challenged herself to write a blog about the bests of 2009. I'm going to try to play along. I think it will be a challenge. First, it's been a shitty year, so I think it will do me some good to try to separate the good from the bad and the ugly. Below you'll find the rules of the challenge, the prompts for each day in December, and finally my entry for December 6.

How to participate in 5 simple steps:

1. Write on one or all thirty-one of the prompts for the month of December

2. A post can be a sentence, photo or 3,000 word essay

3. Link up your blog or Twitter account if you're going to tweet your bests, on the list below (add your name to the bottom where it says: You are next...CLICK HERE to enter your link)

4. Tag your posts and photos #best09. (These are the posts I've read so far, saved on Delicious daily.)

5. Share your best moments of 2009 over the course of December. Don't get hung up on details or length - if there's an aspect of the question that doesn't resonate, change it to meet your needs.

(Read the Q&A for more.)

The #best09 Prompts

December 1 Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?(+ giveaway)

December 2 Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?

December 3 Article. What's an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious'd and reference throughout the year.

December 4 Book. What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies? (+ giveaway)

December 5 Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

December 6 Workshop or conference. Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

December 7 Blog find of the year. That gem of a blog you can't believe you didn't know about until this year.

December 8 Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

December 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

December 10 Album of the year. What's rocking your world?

December 11 The best place. A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?

December 12 New food. You're now in love with Lebanese food and you didn't even know what it was in January of this year.

December 13 What's the best change you made to the place you live?

December 14 Rush. When did you get your best rush of the year?

December 15 Best packaging. Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

December 16 Tea of the year. I can taste my favorite tea right now. What's yours?

December 17 Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. "2009 was _____."

December 18 Shop. Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?

December 19 Car ride. What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?

December 20 New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?

December 21 Project. What did you start this year that you're proud of?

December 22 Startup. What's a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

December 23 Web tool. It came into your work flow this year and now you couldn't live without it. It has simplified or improved your online experience.

December 24 Learning experience. What was a lesson you learned this year that changed you?

December 25 Gift. What's a gift you gave yourself this year that has kept on giving?

December 26 Insight or aha! moment. What was your epiphany of the year?

December 27 Social web moment. Did you meet someone you used to only know from her blog? Did you discover Twitter?

December 28 Stationery. When you touch the paper, your heart melts. The ink flows from the pen. What was your stationery find of the year?

December 29 Laugh. What was your biggest belly laugh of the year?

December 30 Ad. What advertisement made you think this year?

December 31 Resolution you wish you'd stuck with. (You know, there's always next year...)

December 6 Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

In the 6 1/2 years I've worked for LCSC, I've always been afforded the opportunity to attend either a conference for college-level and secondary education teachers, or I attended the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference. Due to budget cuts, funding hasn't been available for me to attend these conferences. Or to be honest, because I'm lower on the academic totem pole, my chances of applying for and getting such funding are nil. Preference is going to go to professors.

In non-academic areas, I also dropped off the radar in terms of teaching art-based classes. I no longer work at Paper Pals on weekends, and even though I am tied to 2 Degrees Northwest and was propositioned to teach classes, I have to admit, I feel like I've lost my mojo. My confidence in my abilities is just not there. It's not that I don't have the skills. I am creative and produce lots of art during a year. However, it's as if I have stage fright. The thought of having all eyes on me is terrifying, which is ridiculous, considering that I teach college-level English and have all eyes on me on a daily basis.

I have the best of intentions. At the end of summer. Laurie, one of the directors of of 2 Degrees Northwest, asked me to develop class ideas, and I did. Yet even after I proposed the courses, I backed out before the classes could even be advertised. Maybe the fear is that I'd go through such work and be excited about the classes, and then no one would sign up for them.

I also stopped attending any conferences and literary readings sponsored by the college and the Humanities Department. It's not that I'm not interested. In fact, I looked forward to seeing Scott Russell Sanders, yet when the time came, I skipped it and bought his newest book--the book from which the lecture sprang: The Conservationist Manifesto.

So to finally get around to answering the question posed by the Best 2009 Blog Challenge, I guess my best conference came in book form, where I could enjoy it from the comfort of my own home.

If you'd like your own private Scott Russell Sanders conference, you may want to read this.

I appreciated his take on the possibilities for meditation in nature:

"Although I have tried meditating for shorter or longer stretches since my college days, forty years ago, I have never been systematic about the practice, nor have I ever been good at quieting what Buddhists call the “monkey mind.” Here beside Lookout Creek, however, far from my desk and duties, with no task ahead of me but that of opening myself to this place, I settle quickly. I begin by following my breath, the oldest rhythm of flesh, but soon I am following the murmur of the creek, and I am gazing at the bright leaves of maples and dogwoods that glow along the thread of the stream like jewels on a necklace, and I am watching light gleam on water shapes formed by current slithering over rocks, and for a spell I disappear, there is only this rapt awareness."

This conference--the one I attended in my pajamas, with a cup of tea in hand and a dog curled at me feet--reminded me, no, alarmed me: it has been far too long since I've been in the woods. I miss it. And I need to reclaim peace in my life, perhaps one trail, one tree at a time.

A Card for Kate

2009-12-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

Jennifer McGuire has created a new card drive for sick children and their families. I encourage you to read each of their stories and to make time to create just a tiny little bit of sunshine in their lives. You can read about it at:

http://jennifermcguireink.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/11/i-am-so-very-excited-to-announce-the-start-of-our-newest-card-drive---cards-for-kids-we--are-hoping-to-collect-a-ton-of-card.html

For those crafty souls out there, it may help to know that they are giving away craft items once per month. For every child you write to, you are entered into a drawing for some really great products.

However, I think if you read about them and look at their photos and visit their blogs, that will be the only motivation
you need. I read about 5-year-old Kate this morning. This beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed girl likes to paint, and she loves her puppy. She should be spending her time doing things all 5-year-old girls do. Instead, her world is blood counts and hospitals and all things that revolve around brain cancer.

The card at the beginning of the post is what I created for Kate. I plan to create a card for each of the 8 kids. I hope all my friends will consider sending cards too.

Help! I Can't Stop Saying the Word, 'Creepy'

2009-11-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

They found a 23-year-old WSU graduate out on Albion road (between Pullman and Colfax, Washington)? She was bleeding and unconscious. Her injuries led authorities to believe that she fell out of a car or that she was hit by a car.

This is disturbing for multiple reasons:
1. It's mid-week. It's not like a weekend when a young girl might go out and whoop it up into the early morning hours.

2. It's in the boonies. I know that some WSU faculty, employees, and students live there and commute the 15 or so minutes into Pullman, but it's still relatively remote and small town.

3. It's not so far from where I housesat for 5 months last January through July.

She's in Spokane and still in bad shape--still unconscious.

Is it weird that I want her to wake up so that she can solve the mystery? I've done a lot of thinking about that sort of stuff lately. Victims and bad guys alike so rarely get a chance to speak after something awful happens. For instance, I'm glad the gunman at the Texas Fort Whatever survived and did not kill himself or wasn't gunned down. That so rarely happens. I would like to hear him explain his actions.

And the same is true with female victims of violence. It would be nice if this girl could recover and solve her own crime, thus putting away the person/people who did this.

Yesterday was creepy news day:

1) the WSU girl was discovered bloody and unconscious

2) a WSU frat boy fell out of a window and seriously injured his back (although that's almost expected these days--so much so that it seems prudent to design/rebuild fraternities so they are single-level with bubble wrap lawns and trampolines for further cushioning...)

3) a 77-year-old man hit a bridge on the Snake River while boating and died (and there's a creepy follow-up article in the Tribune this a.m. that ends with reassuring readers that no damage was done to the bridge...I bet that makes the family feel great...)

4) This is my fault: I caved and watched the interview Oprah did yesterday with the woman whose face was ripped off by a chimp...While I should have been disturbed by the face behind the veil, I was more disturbed to witness the usually cool, calm, and collected Oprah so totally uncomfortable. Case in point: at the end of the interview, she wanted to sort of shake hands with the woman, but the woman not longer has fingers (only one thumb on one stump), so Oprah sort of grasped one of her stumps and the woman's one thumb sort of went over Oprah's hand. Oprah laughed nervously and called attention to the thumb. The woman said something to the effect of, "It's a little piece of me." Yee...

Even more disturbing is the letter Oprah read from the owner of the chimp who did all the damage. The last sentence of the letter wished the woman a "fully and speedy recovery." Isn't that the most insane and insensitive thing to say? Of course this woman will never recover fully. She has no eyes. She has a mouth big enough to fit a drinking straw through. She has one finger. Her scalp is still open. Her nose is a big chunk of thigh skin they grafted onto her face. I don't think she will fully or speedily recover. Even if she becomes eligible for a face transplant someday, will she ever recovery emotionally? Will her daughter?

New Cards - August

2009-09-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

All of these cards involve my nail polish technique. I basically buy old nail polish at thrift stores and yard sales. Then I put some water in a shallow pan. I drizzle the nail polish in interesting patterns. The nail polish clings to the water's surface. I then place a piece of glossy cardstock down on the water's surface. The nail polish then clings to the paper. It's beautiful AND it's recycling.

Sunday Scribblings: Poetry

2009-09-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT HORSES

They're measured in hands,
which is not that different
from that dark assessment
I conduct nightly, if lucky:
my one hand spanning
between breast and breast,
covered over with the softest
salt and pepper hair
and sweat, the summer's doing
(or mine). One hand,
moving over stubble
and full bottom lip. Yes,
this is a one-handed kiss
that misses nothing. This,
a hand bandage around the bicep,
with its ink gone green with age: caduceus,
a skin oath. Do no harm
I and your tattoo say. Let me
be the nurse this night, release
what hurt I can find by inching
where I know you best
in my own tall way. Let me
offer pleasure as its own sort
of whisper, or gauzy
as the curtains billowing. Let me
with this hand let in night,
dry hillsides, and apples scattered.
They've gone to alcohol.
In sun, there was the buzz of bees
drunk on that sweetness. And now
sugar is on the soft lips of the horse who lives.
He lowers his head to windfall and I, to mine.
We all glow white as the backbone
we found at property's edge--a puzzle
of femur, hip, and head, all resting on a bed
made bare by want. You said scavengers
and left me with the skull's weight
still in my hands.