Need to Get Away

I haven’t felt much like blogging because:

1. My dad is in the hospital. He’s been there for weeks, battling pneumonia that just won’t go away. He’s on oxygen and forbidden from moving around (he doesn’t have enough breath for any exertion at all). We went to visit him last weekend. He was happy to see the girls, of course, but he slept a lot and the mask made communication nearly impossible.
2. Meanwhile, we are to go on vacation this Saturday for a week. I’m worried that he will take a turn for the worst while I’m away. Or before, for that matter. The girls have been looking forward to this for months. Last year I had to abort a trip to LA because my nephew died. Dear Husband and the girls will go without me, and that will be a great disappointment to them. And of course I want a vacation, too. But I want to be there if my dad needs me.
3. I have to have an excisional biopsy. What the stereotactic biopsy revealed is benign, but it can’t be left and watched because it will inevitably transform into cancerous cells. So, another excisional biopsy it is. And there’s always the possibility that the tissue recovered in this will show ductal carcinoma, in which case I will have to seriously consider another mastectomy. Given my history I don’t think I would feel safe with a lumpectomy or something less radical. Sigh. In any case, I will be revisiting tomoxifen. The oncologist wasn’t all that keen on it, because it offers either no or slim benefits for ductal carcinoma (studies are mixed), which has a low recurrence. But if it does recur… Double sigh. On the positive, I guess I would have a matching and gravity resistant set.
4. Summer. I hate living in a sauna. I loathe being outdoors for even a few minutes while the hot wet blanket of air closes around me. I hate the sticky vegetation and persistent wasps. I hate garbage ripening in the heat. I hate the sickly smell of cut grass. I hate climbing into my car and gasping while I wait for the air conditioner to kick in. Summer in Georgia is utterly disgusting.

So I’m a bit draggy these days. Did I mention that school starts August 9? Preparations for that are breathing down my neck.

I really want that vacation, even though vacationing with kids is more like engaging in a strategic exercise than actually relaxing.

In which I briefly discuss being a human pincusion, and how much more fun it is to be alive than dead

The sky has drifted from blue to gray over the course of the afternoon. I love overcast days and the promise of rain. The greens look greener and the asphalt looks less harsh. No doubt it its still hot and steamy, but at least it appears more bearable – the light isn’t boring into my skin.

Speaking of boring, I had to have another biopsy yesterday, of my left breast. I am always amazed at medical science. They make such extraordinary leaps in technology and yet they cannot design any device for human comfort. Stereotactic biopsies aren’t painful – they shoot you up with lidocaine and then the extraction needle itself continues to inject lidocaine – but the contorted position you must hold for 30 minutes or so is. Perhaps it wasn’t that long. Perhaps it was just the incredible tension in my neck, which I was forced to twist to one side as I lay face down (“Don’t move!”), and the creeping numbness in my right arm, or the fact that the positioning device felt much like an unending mammogram. I greeted the lidocaine with some relief, although after a number of minutes of immobility, I began to imagine the remarkable discomfort had disrupted the flow of time and I was not entirely in the room but was perhaps also inside that computer screen just out of my line of vision. At times like these, doctors and techs display a remarkable serenity and deliberation, as if they are not in the same reality with you, the reality in which you are being compressed with some force into an unnatural state of being. Instead, they are in a world without limits, with an infinite amount of time to adjust, examine, adjust again.

Afterward the tech told me that they inject epinephrine along with the lidocaine. I asked why and she told me that it reduces bleeding. “When we have someone in here who can’t tolerate epinephrine, this whole room is covered in blood by the time we’re done.” I gave myself a little mental pat on the back for my good relationship with epinephrine. I was very grateful that I did not have to stumble out of the room slipping in my own blood.

I’m supposed to have the results in 5 days. I’m not unduly worried, because I simply do not have the energy to worry about it. It has reminded me, however, of how much I like life and this world and how uninterested I am in heaven. Sorry, but I would much rather be with my family than with God, and given that He created us to have fierce ties to other people and our own lives, I don’t think he should expect anything else. Lately I’ve wondered if I have any deep belief in an afterlife. When I was younger I thought it didn’t much matter – once you were dead you had no consciousness with which to be disappointed. It matters while you’re alive, while you’re alive and someone else is dying. You don’t want them erased or even “to live on in your memory.” Really, that latter is pathetic. I don’t want someone in my memory – I want them in the flesh. I find heaven difficult to believe in. I won’t even bother with hell, which is so obviously some sort of sick fantasy dreamed up to satisfy both our bloodlust and our sense of justice.

Besides the obvious desire not to miss watching my children grow up or travel around the world with Dear Husband, I find myself hoping that I don’t die without seeing the final Harry Potter films. And what a shame if I were to miss the next technological advance, or the emergence of the next great actors or writers or artists. Or even the next morning’s coffee. There seems to be so much to look forward to, even when I lag and am weary and depressed.

The wind is growing wilder and the sky is drawing close. I expect to soon see the first dark marks of rain against the pavement. I’m looking forward to watching movies with the family, or perhaps reading a bit, and then sleeping in as much as Firecracker will allow (DramaQueen would sleep until noon).

Make Mine an O+, Please

Dear Husband and I have been catching up on Season 2 of True Blood. I do love me some vampires, and we’re just a-poppin’ with ‘em these days. I revel in it. Well, I haven't been able to get into The Vampire Diaries. Seems too much like Dawson's Creek with fangs. I think I will have to revisit it because of Ian Somerhalder, who plays bad-boy Damon (and with that name could he be anything but bad?) - he's dark, sexy, snarky and so much more interesting than his goody-two-shoes vamp brother. A goody goody vampire? Seriously? I mean it’s nice to be all noble about not killing people, but you need to at least let your potential menace shine forth.

Now True Blood, it’s crazy-ass Southern culture with fangs, specifically bayou culture with fangs, and that’s just perfect in my opinion. The idea of red-neck vampires is truly scary, and then there are the Southern gentleman vampires and foreign exotic imports to lend a bit of class. Lots of sex and naked people - these vampires are strictly adult content. And they look really, really sexy in a menacing way full of promise. (Well, not the red-neck ones, who look like they hide their coffins in double-wides with tires in the front yard.) Vampires are all about sex, anyway, and the deep dark recesses of the subconscious, your own private bayou, so to speak.

The great thing about these popular genres is the way they mirror the issues and obsessions of the time. While the literary novels are busy being cool and minimalist, or grungy and despairing, or poetic and earnest, the genre writers are down on the streets, not hesitating to be playful and trashy and ephemeral. In True Blood, vampires mirror gays. The vampires have “come out of the coffin,” and are trying their best to integrate into regular society. Meanwhile the completely cuckoo Fellowship of the Sun (a more genteel and better-armed Westboro Baptist Church) is all “God hates fangs” and sharpening stakes after Bible studies. Despite the fact that the vamps are swigging synthetic blood and really putting their all into living in the open and not sucking on unwilling humans (they seem to have enough willing donors to keep them from starving), they are still loathed and feared, when folks aren’t exploiting vampire blood as a recreational drug. People hate them yet profit off them. Yeah, that sounds like the world.

Sometimes these genre entertainments step into the sublime. In the midst of all the delightfully gratuitous sex and fighting off the bad guys, True Blood has its philosophical moments. Lately they’ve been rolling in some Greek mythology, a maenad hosting huge orgies and ripping out folks’ hearts in the hope of calling down Dionysus to devour her (and presumably everyone else). Yet when she talks about mysticism and how our culture roots out any whiff of the ecstatic, she makes perfect sense, even while she’s sauteing a human heart with butter and scallions. Truth and evil mixed up.

And, of course, you can’t have vampires without some reflections on mortality and the soul, evil and redemption. I found this scene of the vampire Godric choosing to meet the sun strangely moving. First there’s the sad parting between him and his "child" (and damn these two are gorgeous), and then there is this dialogue about God between him and the heroine Sookie:

“Do you believe in God?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re right, how he will punish me?”
“God doesn’t punish - God forgives.”
“I don’t deserve it, but I hope for it.”
“We all do.”

Then he says that in her tears he sees God.

Man, it’s just full of awesome.



And did I mention that these two men are really, really hot. I mean, I would happily lick away those tears of blood. I have a very giving heart.

Musing

Through my window I can see across the street to the nondescript office building, which, dull as it is, still reflects the trees in its sleek black windows. In the median of the divided road stand a row of bushes with deep red flowers of some sort. They look brushy and tough – not delicate flowers. There are two trees shading my window, thankfully. Sitting in a cubical next to ceiling to floor glass gives you a good view, but you suffer the fluctuation of temperature. Right now those trees are producing a very pleasant deep green shade. I love shade. The clouds are smeared along the horizon but building up to billowing storm clouds further up in the sky. Despite the traffic I can still hear birdsong.

I watch the cars pass and I wonder about the lives of the people inside. Are they boring or interesting? Do they have fond memories of childhood? Are they obnoxious? How many of them are murderers? You see, I figure some of them have to be murderers. When I lived in New York, I liked to go for walks in the evening, just as people were turning on their lights. Because this was New York, I would usually catch glimpses of bookshelves as I walked past. I found that very comforting. You don’t see that here. Suburbs aren’t comforting in that cool, intellectual way. They offer instead a haven without connection: planned communities, cul-de-sacs, community pools, a common belief in keeping your yard well-groomed and your cars washed. You may or may not know your neighbor, but together you present a united front against the messy, obsolete suburban sprawls of earlier years, now revealing their age.

You might think that I don’t like suburbs from what I just said, but that is not the case. We live in an obsolete sprawl, and I would prefer to live in the more polished neighborhoods with fresh sidewalks and shiny black street lamps, the sort of neighborhood where young women roll out the baby strollers in the evenings and the cars have to drive slowly. DramaQueen envies her best friend, who has a huge, beautifully decorated house with a pool. She would much rather go there than have her friend over to our house. I remember feeling the same way as a girl, once I got a glimpse of some of my classmates’ homes. Ours was pokey and dingy with no redeeming features at all. Where there was carpet, I wanted yards of glossy wood. Where there was scrubby grass I wanted a smooth velvety lawn. I wanted to trade up my parents as well, for some who were more sophisticated and younger.

Dear Husband has been feeling sad lately, as he watches DramaQueen become more independent. He feels the relationship shifting as he’s gently nudged out of the center. I don’t feel this so much. Mom’s remain the go-to person by default. Still, I notice the contrast between her and Firecracker. DramaQueen is growing less inclined for goodbye hugs and kisses, happy to spend time away from home with friends, but very protective of Firecracker when they are somewhere together. Firecracker is still intensely affectionate, uneasy without her family, particularly uneasy when her big sister is away. She remains very much a little girl, eager to curl up on my lap for a cuddle.

I was hoping I might stumble upon some concluding thoughts, but I haven’t the time to ponder further if I ever want to actually post this. Make of it what you will.

Thank You God for Air-conditioning

I haven’t felt much up to blogging, tweeting or hopping onto FB. I’m navigating summer. I’m not a big fan of summer. Well, I am for about a week. Then the full force of a Southern summer begins to hit – sweltering humidity. The air clings to you like Saran Wrap. The burgeoning grass and greenery feel itchy as you walk through them. The trash can ripens. The mosquitoes, ants, flies and unknown flying and crawling entities multiply. The playgrounds sizzle. The pools are crowded. Under no circumstances do I spend any leisure time outdoors in the summer. It’s too miserable.

So this would be a perfect time, you would think, to hop online and poke about. Instead I’ve been downloading free books onto my Sony Reader and watching Roswell Season 3. And of course the girls are free agents in the summer. This weekend Firecracker used her birthday money to purchase Zhou Zhou Pets. These are toy hamsters that whir about their little hamster abodes, chittering to each other in a way I doubt hamsters ever manage. They wheel about the kitchen until they snag in the shag rug in front of the sink, when they begin to sound distressed and I have to rescue them. I thought the cats might chase them, but they seem indifferent, or perhaps too lazy. We also purchased a game called Chess without Stress, which I can tell you really overstates its claims. Firecracker and I began snarling at each other and never did finish a game. I was reminded of why I’ve always avoided chess – I can’t remember the rules from one minute to the next, and strategy bores me. Whatever part of the brain chess is supposed to activate donned flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt and kicked back with a martini years ago.


Go ahead, click above to satisfy your curiosity about this little critters.

Dear Husband is annoyed that I never mention him on here. I’m not sure why. He is a continual source of entertainment. His recent transformation to Emergent still has me rather bemused. I suppose I’m wondering if this is a temporary stop on the line to who knows where, or perhaps back to the original station. He has also developed a great affection for Glee, although that isn’t so unexpected. He has always like the quirky. Though he still doesn’t like Torchwood and refuses to even think about Dr. Who. Still, he’s a good man.

Summer and Broken Bells

Summer stretches before me straight and flat as a North Dakota highway. I feel pretty much like jumping in the backseat and taking a snooze until the scenery improves. I’ve always had a problem with summer. While the other kids were exuberant about free days of swimming and playing, I was faced with the enforced isolation of Bleak House. Now the countdown to summer stirs vestigial anxiety.

This summer I put the girls in a summer camp at an indoor rock climbing facility. Yesterday DramaQueen showed me how she can belay Firecracker, while Firecracker scooted up the wall like a little monkey. I imagine myself clinging forlornly while someone tries to talk me down. A number of dogs hang about, some of them as large as ponies, I swear. DramaQueen tells me they are assistive dogs trained to help climbers in distress. Firecracker loves them. I stooped to pet one of them and Abby grinned up at me, “He smells like dog.”

I used my birthday money to buy a digital reader. Any purchase over $100 makes me nervous. What if something better comes along? What if I didn’t do enough research? I finally settled on a Sony Daily Edition, but of course I’m still looking it over anxiously. There’s a bit of glare – will that bother me? B&N has better free books – would the Nook be better? But I don’t like the Nook’s interface. Still, you can switch fonts on a Nook. And the Kindle, well, I can’t check out books from the library on a Kindle. And on it goes. Meanwhile I’ve found the places to download books in the public domain, and that makes me very happy. Some of them are out of print and too eccentric to be on a library shelf in our little suburb. And then I found a writer named Cory Doctorow, who releases digital editions of his books for free on the same day as the print editions. I have not yet read any of his works, but I found that he has a daughter named Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow. Show off.

Now, for some music. One of my current favorite songs:

The Softer Side of Smut

I ran across this article in Relevant about emotional pornography. That title was an immediate draw, because I thought I knew exactly where the author would be headed, and I was so there. But then I began to read and reflect and look over the comments and realized I am not so much there after all. In the end, I’m not sure the article is even in the ballpark, much less hitting the target (mixed metaphor – so bite me).

First, the author’s eschewal of Glee just gives me the giggles. We aren’t supposed to root for the husband to cheat on his deceitful, manipulative, narcissistic, bat-shit crazy wife? Oh, sorry, my evil sin nature is showing. I’ll have to remember the next time I watch Camelot to avert my eyes from Guinevere and Lancelot. No, perhaps I should just switch the channel, because this evil musical seems to be – gasp – sympathetic to Guinevere’s illicit love! Oh, right, Camelot probably is part of the problem as the article paints it, being about fantasy, shining knights and all.

On the other hand, I do have an aversion to the emotionally turgid movies he alludes to and I’ve even thought of them the same way, as emotional pornography. The Bridges of Madison County, The Notebook, whatever else gets served up as a “chick flick.” Yep, I’d say that a lot of movies and books set up unrealistic expectations about romantic love. However, that’s been going on since the ideal of Courtly Love was all the rage in the Middle Ages. In the 18th and 19th centuries novels came in for a lot of criticism for promoting unrealistic expectations of love and life. Why? Well mostly because the novels were written by women and read by women, those sentimental, mentally unstable, hysterical women. I particularly like this line in the article “many girls never grow out of the idea that one day they will be rescued from reality by some magic and a fictitious prince.” I won’t even go into the irony of a Christian magazine talking about idealizing a magical, fictional prince. Instead I draw your attention to the focus on female delusion, which he tries to elide with an afterthought about men believing they are supposed to be the prince. Uh huh. Hey, is there a pattern here? Something about women – what women read and write and watch? Oh poor muddled women, put down that Twilight book at once. You have no idea the damage you’re doing. (I'm springboarding off the article now, as it nowhere mentions Twilight, although it comes in for plenty of discussion in the comments.)

Everyone points fingers at Stephenie Meyer. Boy do people love to tear apart her writing, her beliefs, her aesthetic – they are fuming that people (uh, teenage girls and their irresponsible moms) read and enjoy the Twilight series. Twilight is responsible for deluding populations of teenage girls into thinking that Edward is the epitome of desirable manhood. They begin to think there’s one right undead guy who will adore them and they’ll wait until they’re married and…oh wait, that sounds a lot like Christianity - God will reveal the right spouse for you and no one will get between the sheets until the honeymoon (and who’s a better undead spouse than Jesus?). So it’s Hollywood, not Christianity that sells THE wedding day? Are you kidding me? Aren’t they selling kids on how sacred sex is? So sacred that it must not happen before the ceremony with the white poofy dress and the tower of cake. Don’t you know that if you have sex before marriage it will be a disappointment? A demeaning experience? A soulless, heartless mockery you will regret the rest of your life? Because sex in marriage is a spiritual event, a holy event. You know the honeymoon has got to be OFF THE HOOK with all that build up. It’s not just a honeymoon, it’s a sacred rite. And marriage? Well, marriage is like the marriage of Christ and His Church.

That’s not unrealistic at all.

Poor Stephenie. Really, all her elements are in keeping with traditional vampire stories – sexual appetite, repression of desire, pursuit and resistance, heroic self-sacrifice, obsession – pretty transgressive stuff really, however you sweeten it - but she’s come in for such criticism. I’m not saying there’s nothing to criticize in her imaginary universe. There’s plenty to make you go “hmm.” But in case you didn’t get it, teenage girls and women in general are incapable of delineating the elements of fantasy fiction from reality. It’s all just one big luscious cake that they gobble down unquestioningly.

I’m a bit snarky there, but in truth, we (men and women both) do not question what we consume nearly enough.

I say let’s skip the novels playing the tropes of Romance and get down to the serious emotional pornography. We’ll start small, with the crap that is Precious Moments, designed to make you go all “awww, isn’t that just the cutest little wipsie bipsie?” Or, how about the “Christmas Shoes” song, carefully crafted to wring tears from the eyes of people who wouldn’t give a crap about a real child with no money, say a Mexican immigrant child with no money standing in the aisle of an Arizona Wal-Mart. Half of every Christian bookstore is full of emotionally rancid merchandise. The targets are so numerous and obvious I won’t bother to name them. They degrade human experience, make it cute or maudlin, easily digested.

Then, we can look at sporting events. Hockey, for example, with an audience salivating as they await the first outbreak of violence. Wrestling. During the Olympics, the endless nattering on about the mishaps, the dreadful mishaps that demolished the chances of X – no Olympic gold this year. All those hopes, dashed. Yummy.

If we want to talk about TV shows, forget about Glee, the show with a tart shell but a soft squishy center. Consider Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a show happy to deliver both graphic sex and enough graphic violence to make you think twice about eating before viewing. Are you thinking this is cynical pandering to a ravenous hunger for everything ugly, brutal and vicious, a blatant manipulation of the connection between violence and sexual arousal. Not at all - it’s authentic. We would be doing viewers a disservice if we toned it down. Those freaks screwed anything that moved, you know, and we do mean anything. And if they castrated their prisoners, by golly we will take one for the home team and let you experience genuine Roman perversion, just like the Romans experienced in the Coliseum! Thank God we didn’t live back then, huh?

Now many good Christians would balk at Spartacus anyway as too lewd. So how about 24 (ever popular among Christians), a show that all but does a tap dance of joy every time Jack Bauer gets the opportunity to torture someone? How many people watch it and consider how it mirrors a culture invested in the idea that it’s okay to torture sometimes – if you need the information, if your country is in danger, if you’re short of time? Jack’s a hero for leaping over those tiresome hurdles like due process and the Geneva Convention that let terrorists run amok. Jack Bauer could kick Edward Cullen’s undead ass.

Wow, our entire culture seems to slurp up a hearty helping of emotional pornography every day. It’s served up by TV and Fox News and, dare I say, church. How adept are we at recognizing it? Do we really look or do we choose our targets rather carefully?

Naw, I suppose the greatest enemy of genuine, realistic human relationships has got to be the Bridges of Madison County.

In the Church of the Great White Noise

Upon the summit I can see
The one I worshiped as a boy
The Creator, the Great White Noise

Last night Dear Husband and I went to see Owen Pallett (the most wonderful, most mind-blowing musician I have ever seen) in concert. The concert was held in a large ashtray. Or so it seemed. I smoked 2 packs and a cigarette never touched my lips. The large ashtray is a much loved bar/pub/venue called The Earle. The Earle looks just like such a place should look – grubby on the outside, with old concert posters crusting over the building face. It squats like a wino in a little parcel of newly renovated boutiques and shops. Earle had lost its sign, the waitress told me, when the last tornado went through. It sounded as there were no plans to replace it. A rusting bicycle hung from the ceiling for no apparent reason. The food was actually good (except for the French fries, which had the tang of old grease), and the waitress (who had impressive tattoos on both arms) was actually able to absorb the request for gluten free suggestions.

I don’t know why Dear Husband and I still arrive early to these events when no one bothers to show up until at least 20 minutes after the stated start time (which is still 10 minutes or so before the opening band actually starts), and often until the main act is onstage. But there we were, rattling around the empty room with a few other eager beavers. It was dim. It was shabby. It was relatively small. Stickers and posters covered most surfaces. Almost everyone was younger than us and were pretty much indistinguishable from each other. Definitely not the sort of audience that focused on being seen or looking hip, thankfully, as at these events I prefer to scuttle into a corner or pretend that I’m invisible. It became increasingly murky, with not even the scent of a clove cigarette to break the monotony.

Owen Pallett was magnificent. The songs on his most recent album are all backed by an orchestra, so he had to adapt them for a single violin with loop pedal and a guitarist/percussionist. What an incredible job he does with recording and playback, so that the sound is layered. I also really enjoy a musician who knows how to use a microphone without creating that hideous scratchy muffled sound that singers produce because they think they have to hold the mike somewhere near their tonsils, and who changes his distance from the mike when he increases the volume (why on earth don’t all singers do that?). He has a lovely voice, too. Magazines always refer to is as a “music school voice,” whatever that means. What does that mean, anyway? That it is trained rather than natural? Pretty?

There was a peculiar man in the audience. I’m not sure if he was high, or perhaps had been high so many times he was permanently affected, or if he had some unusual motor issue. Sometimes he held his hands in front of him as if he were about to take a dive into an imaginary pool, or perhaps launch into the Sun Salutation. Sometimes he took a shank of hair in each hand and made himself a set of horns. Sometimes he moved his hands to sculpt a cube from the air. And sometimes he shot his left arm straight up, jabbing at the air with his index finger, lowered it and then repeated the movement with his right arm. In the time-honored tradition of city dwellers, everyone studiously ignored him. Early in the show, when Mr. Trippy was particularly frisky, Owen did say, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I wish you’d stop doing that.” I’m not sure if that reined him in or if I just stopped noticing. Now and then I caught a bit of air sculpting. I assume that Owen entered into whatever musical zone he enters and stopped noticing as well.

Isn’t that cute? “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” I love Owen’s stage presence. He always says “Thank you” after each number, which is charming. He’s confident without being cocky about it. If he makes a mistake he acknowledges it with a laugh. He doesn’t try to be showy and seems perfectly comfortable being sort of geeky.

Dear Husband teases me because he thinks I’m besotted with everyone I get obsessed with. Owen has a British schoolboy appeal – very cute - but what I really feel is awe. The angels themselves can’t make more beautiful music. At least that’s how I feel listening to it. And to watch a musician play live, walking the tightrope of performance, leaping into space and then flying away, that’s a holy thing. This smoke-filled cave felt more holy than a church. Churches are filled with schmaltzy, cloying praise songs, three-point sermons and a utilitarian approach to the great mysteries. A true artist lives in the mystery.

Sadly, concerts are as ephemeral as cotton candy, melting quickly into memory. You chase the music and then it slips away with a regretful smile.

Flying

A small girl is outside on a warm day, a quilt on the grass where she can play with her toys - a phone with moving eyes and an orange receiver, that clicks when you dial a number; a blueberry colored dog that she loves because it is long and filled with small pellets that make it squishy and floppy. Then an airplane passes overhead with a sound that cracks open the sky. The small girl looks up and she feels suddenly that she is floating, that she is no longer quite there, there with the scratchy grass poking at her legs through the quilt, or her mother watching over her through the kitchen window. No longer definitely herself, with her shape that fits into certain clothes, that can hide in the linen cupboard or lie completely flat in the bath if she likes. Her heart, her insides feel funny, not bad funny but the sort of funny she feels when her daddy swings her up over his head, and then back down. She is moving beyond her own body somehow, as if what is inside is pressing gently through, flowing out into that bright sky with the beautiful ribbon of cloud trailing behind the silver plane.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

I’ve spent the last couple of days reading a nearly impenetrable article on Lacanian psychoanalysis. You know, for fun. Because I like nothing better than an intellectual challenge, except maybe reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, chocolate, music, sex and…well, I like lots of things more than an intellectual challenge, but while my mind was drifting along it happened to snag on Lacan and by golly I had an elite education that I’m still paying for and I was going to nail this sucker to the wall.

I am not a systematic learner. I skim and dip. I nibble. I can grasp some things quickly but superficially, particularly if I stay with secondary, pre-digested sources. I’m not a deep thinker, but I can be clever. I like shiny things. There’s nothing shinier than a mirror, and Lacan has a mirror. Plus I get to look at myself – my favorite subject.

But fuck it, I don’t understand this stuff. When you desire, you desire the other’s desire, which is their lack (something blah blah about castration). Oh, that should be the Other, not the other. The other is an object and the Other is a subject. I think. If you’re a pervert you deny desire and if you’re a neurotic you flee desire. Something like that. The pervert refuses to desire but torments the other (not the Other) by discovering his desire and refusing to fulfill it. The neurotic just freaks out at the uncertainty of what the Other might desire, and I guess bites his nails and plays Dungeons and Dragons.

I think it’s possible that French philosophers are full of shit, and they would be willing to discuss the metonymy of shit and its role in the current political structure as the shifting location of meaning. Then they would go out and smoke a lot of cigarettes, drink very strong coffee and sleep with undergraduates.

Me, Myself and I

When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so...

~Peter Handke

Besides watching episodes of this fascinating BBC teen drama Skins on Netflix (you'll be glad to know I'm using my time so wisely), I've been slowing turning over various thoughts. My mind is not like a rock tumbler - the stones don't come out polished and shiny. My thoughts are more like the clothes you forgot in the dryer, so wrinkled you need to put them back in the wash.

The wrinkled laundry includes: ambition and desire, artistic production, doubt and longing, God and creativity, God and desire, emotions versus values, and my stupid tooth. I'll get that last out of the way first - I had a root canal and now another tooth hurts. All expressions of deep sympathy are welcome. On the positive: I now have a bottle of Lortab.

I keep thinking about that Insurrection event. I've already mentioned Peter Rollins' take on doubt, which I found incredibly comforting and challenging at the same time. I've been practicing not leaping in to fix negative feelings. You know how therapists will tell you to rewrite the tape or recognize the distortion and rebut it? Well, I'm giving that up. My thoughts and emotions are what they are and if I try to correct them at every turn I'm just getting more enmeshed in myself. So, no beating up doubt with the cudgels of faith. I'm tired of always trying to soothe myself. No wonder my memory is crap - my eyes are pretty firmly fixed on myself.

At one point, he said something along the lines of "I desire your desire." At the moment he was alluding to the human need for approval, love, and admiration, but it made me think of God's desire for us. If we yearn for Him, he must also yearn for us. I guess that's Christianity 101, but it isn't something I get. It's like doubt, which we say is important and understandable but we really just tuck it away with the ugly Christmas present from Aunt Agnes. We act as if God were a frigid, purse-lipped missionary who drops by to say the occasional hello, leave some pamphlets, and check the sheets. Or perhaps as the smug and glib CEO who drops by on a Sunday morning to graciously receive our applause and drop a few inspirational words in our ear in return for dippy praise music. If God wants us, really wants us, that's kind of...weird. Why would He?

Desire, ambition, yearning, creativity. I desire your desire. I am reminded of that interminable book I read many years ago by Deleuze and Guattari, which spoke of desiring machines. I only read it because I had a crush on my lit crit professor. It was over my head, or full of crap, or both - something about production and schizophrenic capitalism. It was very French. But that in turn made me think of a friend who told me she got turned on listening to a lecture about Paul Ricoeur. I guess we all have our kinks. I tried reading Ricoeur and it did nothing for me. Which made me think about the excitement of ideas, because I actually totally get what she means. Why else did I have a crush on my lit crit prof anyway? He wasn't all that cute, but he was a purveyor of interesting ideas. That's why we have celebrities that people obsess about. If you hear music that completely floors you, that breaks open your heart, and there in front of you is the musician, that musician becomes the most desirable person on earth. You would like to be their best friend ever, or have their babies, or just a few hours in a motel, whatever. You think that surely God swept through that person, and maybe He's waiting there for you. Or at least I think like that. I have the urge to yank the divine out of the people I lust after admire.


He also talked about how the stories we tell don't always match up with how we actually are. The way we appear online, but also in person, is highly edited. Of course. Otherwise everyone would hate us. I have one story at work: straightforward creedal Christian, dry sense of humor, something of a scandalous past that I've fully repented. I know the lingo and I can use it. With others I would downplay the Christian part, because I'm way too cool for that. It's just decoration. In general I want people to think I'm witty, intelligent, a good writer, insightful. I'd rather be smart and clever than nice, but I would rather be nice than contradictory. I want everyone to like me. I desire your desire, only that sounds as if I want to sleep with you, which I don't. Well, some of you maybe. I reveal a lot about my weaknesses and foibles on here. But, in fact, I am the definition of "disingenuous." It is, I find, quite easy to deliver over parts of myself; I can transform them in the writing, give them a bit of panache, and it's all about me. I've always been fascinated with me, even when I've loathed my very existence.

Peter mentioned Columbo in connection with making the story told match the events that actually happened. Well, Columbo reminded me of the great film Wings of Desire, in which Peter Falk appears pretty much as his TV persona. There - desire again, the desire of angels to experience being human, which is the desire of humans to experience being human, the suspicion that this world should be heaven, because the leaves turn brilliant colors, and cats sleep in the sun, and there are paintings by Caravaggio and Rothko and poetry by Rumi, John Donne and Mary Oliver and music by Bach and Schoenberg and Owen Pallett. Shiraz and Chardonnay, strong coffee, chocolate chip cookies, romance and love and friendship. Heaven should be that, for everyone.

But the problem is, I'm all talk, and I really have to change that.

The Human Abstract

Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor:
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;

And mutual fear brings peace;
Till the selfish loves increase.
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears:
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Caterpillar and Fly,
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain

~William Blake

In which Peter Rollins totally rocks, Dear Husband surprises me, and Netflix provides palliative care

I would like to say that during my blog absence I was pondering the deeper mysteries of life. What actually happened is that we received a CD from Netflix that allows us to download movies via our Wii. I've had a candy box of movies open before me, and I'm taking a bite out of everything. Don't bother watching The Passengers, by the way - totally lame. I am now working my way through the BBC teen drama series Skins.

On a more serious note, Dear Husband and I went to the Atlanta stop of Peter Rollins' Resurrection=Insurrection tour. I like Peter Rollins very much, and I'm still thinking about that event. What I found very profound was his statement that it is in the very midst of experiencing God's absence that God is most present. He used Jesus' "Why have you forsaken me" as an example. He also mentioned that churches don't appreciate doubt - it's all happy clappy affirmation. I wrote down this not quite direct quote: "Church as a desert in your oasis, not an oasis in the desert of your existence." I think this is connected with his statement that "God is the wound that births your yearning." Get rid of the painful yearning and you've pushed God aside. He also described how often we say doubt is important and necessary but in fact we let the institution believe for us. Oh, yeah, direct hit there. Oh, and then he answered complaints that his thinking would lead to denying the resurrection. He said that yes, he denies the resurrection every time he walks by someone who needs help without doing anything. Wow.

A little frustrating to me is the fact that Dear Husband actually cornered him and talked to him at length, whereas I only managed a quick "thanks oh so much I'm an idiot who thinks you are oh so swell and really hot and jeepers you actually gaze into people's eyes when you talk to them which is completely rattling me so I'll be off now." Uh, yeah. I'm a total dork around cute men with Irish accents.

Now, Dear Husband has always been the conservative, orthodox bulwark of our home. We've clashed on many an occasion. I've fussed and fumed about penal substitution and inerrancy and the focus on personal salvation. Well, you think you know someone and then they go and read Brian McLaren. All of a sudden half (or more)of what he has up to this point believed has been overturned and replaced with, well, pretty much what I believe. This is not as comforting as you might think (see above about letting institutions believe on your behalf). I've rather relied on Dear Husband as a foil to my fanciful theological pondering, attacks of doubt and general faithlessness. Now he's gone all emergent and progressive.

Easter itself was not quite as cool as the Rollins event, but the sun shone through the church windows (oh God I am so happy to go to a church that actually has windows), and we rang bells and shook key chains and some of the ladies had fantastical hats like something out of Dr. Suess. But this isn't our church. We don't have a church.

Now, I wonder what's on Netflix...

In which I decide that everything I do is wrong, and most likely will end in disaster

Oh dear Lord, why do I live my life in a friggin firestorm of anxiety? Today I feel like a fish who’s just found herself washed ashore and the tide going out.

Sample internal conversation:

Me 1: We’re going to lose our jobs and have no money and we’ll be forced to foreclose and live in a cardboard box under the overpass.

Me 2: Deep breath. These are emotions that come and go.

Me 1: What if Dear Husband dies? You know what you’re like – you freeze. Do you even know where your car insurance cards are? See, you’re screwed.

Me 2: Focus on the now.

Me 1: The now totally blows! I’m bored, and my eyes hurt. I need new glasses, and they cost a fortune. My vision’s so bad eventually there will be no glasses strong enough.

Me 2: What?

Me 1: And detached retinas. I’m at a very high risk for detached retinas. And there’s nothing I can do about it! There are no preventative measures!

Me 2: Maybe you should concentrate on finally setting up dental appointments for the girls.

Me 1: And orthodontics. Sure as anything Firecracker will have to get braces. How the hell are we going to afford braces? And they eat too much sugar. The dentist is going to secretly condemn me because I can’t figure out how to floss their teeth or teach them to do it themselves.

Me 2: Perhaps you should read a book over lunch break…

Me 1: Library fines – can you believe I had to pay over $30 in library fines? I’m so irresponsible and disorganized. And my house is impossible. I hate housework. The countertops are sticky. No matter how many times I wipe them, they’re always sticky. And the kitchen table is always piled with papers glued to the surface by pancake syrup. Which I really shouldn’t let the kids eat – real maple syrup has to be better for you, but it’s so expensive (remember the cardboard box). And now the doctor tells me they have to cut back on dairy products, which just reminds me that I’m a bad mother and my kids won’t eat anything because I haven’t, well, done something. I don’t know. Nothing works. They hate everything. They hate things they used to like. We’re going backwards. My kids are going to be fat and have rickets.

Me 2: You need a valium.

Me 1: Yes, I do. But I can’t even afford the medication I take. What if I’m on the wrong medication? Maybe my diagnoses are all wrong. What if I’m not really bipolar and instead managed to bamboozle the doctor because it really seemed that my symptoms fit and nothing else worked and then we threw in ADD but perhaps I’m just really lazy and don’t get enough sleep and both of those are over diagnosed because doctors like to diagnose you with stuff. And I think my mom was bipolar but who knows because she was in an institution in the 50s when they shocked everyone and put them on lithium and they said she was schizophrenic but then how did she get by without any meds at all? None, zilch, zero. And she swung like a pendulum. But I don’t – I’m not that bad, really. I just get depressed over and over. I don’t gamble, I don’t empty the bank account, I don’t stay up all night, I don’t think I can conquer the world (although sometimes I think I can drop the meds because it’s really okay, I’m really okay), and I don’t behave recklessly (unless you count the years of taking whatever drug was handed to me, getting drunk in unsavory situations, cutting myself, and that rather weird episode of unprotected sex with a series of men, which pretty much clinched matters for me because that was totally out of character for someone as generally uptight and painfully timid and anxious as I am, but at the time it just seemed rather free-spirited, and then just really really skeevy), and how do you know if your thoughts are racing if that is just the way they are and have been all your life? What would you compare it with? Doesn’t everyone think like that, with thoughts galloping across the plains? The speed of my thoughts feels normal. A little exhilarating sometimes, when I’m surfing them, but who wants slow thoughts, anyway? That’s the cold depths of depression, when thoughts are stiff-legged and lag behind. But it could just look suspiciously like bipolar, because that’s how I’ve arranged all my memories, now, whereas before they were all arranged for dysthemia and no one, no one, would have considered otherwise. Maybe because I lied a lot. I lie to therapists. I leave out stuff. I rearrange it. I exaggerate or understate. I actually understate a lot. If I’m really really ashamed of something, I never ever admit it, or it takes years, or I honestly don’t think it’s relevant even if it shaped me in some way. Being bisexual, for instance. I don’t mention that. Is it relevant? I don’t know. Maybe I’m not really. I mean, sheesh, I’m married here. Maybe I just hang onto that identity for some unknown reason, because it’s kind of cool to be secretly different even though it has zilch impact on my life now, except that I find it hard to imagine being completely straight. How can you be completely one way or the other? How can you find one gender undesirable? What exactly is that like, anyway?

Me 2: Do you even hear yourself?

Me 1: I hear almost no one else, because I’m totally self-centered and don’t know how not to be, because here I am with myself, keeping myself company, and whatever I do, I’m stuck in here, worrying that I’m not very giving and can’t seem to make friends and I talk a lot about compassion blah blah blah but I never really do anything, unless you count writing to my congressman twice or making donations doing something, and the only thing I’ve ever done at church was work in the nursery sometimes, because I feel really weird trying to do volunteer work, everyone else is so genuine and caring and I’m cold and remote. Trust issues you know, fear of commitment, which is why I don’t make friends. I don’t want anyone to know me, at least not the people I meet now. I’m afraid I’ll be exposed for a fraud and lose my job. And how the hell did I end up working for a denomination that partners with organizations that try to “cure” gay people? WTF? That’s not me. That’s an abomination. But here I am, 100% cynical skeptic working for people who believe in 5 point Calvinism.

Me 2: Are you done yet?

Me 1: Yes, I think so for now, because I have cherry nougats.

School Bus - 1977

On the way to work today I heard the song "Fly Like an Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band. In a flash I remembered sitting on a school bus in fifth grade and hearing the song over the bus’s radio, which the driver had obligingly turned up for us. It was the sort of song that made me feel odd, as if I had suddenly acquired a vision of infinite wisdom that I couldn’t communicate. The school bus smelled of warm vinyl bus seats. We were on our way back from a misguided enrichment class put together for the good students. This was the 70s, and even in the backwater I lived in, some loopy educational programs leaked in. I remember making candles, learning to count to 10 in Spanish, and eating churros. Making the candles was great, although mine looked crooked and lumpy. Melted wax has a very comforting smell. If I actually learned anything substantive, I don’t remember it.


Anyway, we were on the bus with 'Fly Like an Eagle" on the radio. Stephen Walker (I still remember his name) was turned around in the seat in front of me, making some sort of withering commentary. He was a skinny kid with long dirty blond hair that he wore in a ponytail. Sometimes I saw him riding his bike to school – one-handed or no-handed, of course. He was the most sarcastic person I had ever known, and I was filled with awe and admiration. I was also rather scared of him, since it was no fun to be the recipient of one of his verbal barbs. I remember an art project in which we made placemats for our family members, decorated with drawings that said something about that person’s life. He took one look at my mom’s placemat, which I recall had a drawing of a vacuum cleaner and cooking pots, and sneered, “I guess your mom doesn’t work.” Of course I knew women weren’t just housewives, but I hadn’t considered what it would be like to have a mom who worked at a job. My mom was pretty much incapable of holding a job. Given that I had already vastly inflated my mom’s housekeeping skills (I had to draw something, after all), I suddenly felt deficient. My mom didn’t work.


I don’t know what became of Stephen Walker. After fifth grade, my mom put me in a private school, to keep me away from the “bad elements” in the local public schools. That was code for “black people,” but also demonstrated a bit of class snobbery. My parents were from a very humble background, but my mom, at least, was determined to impress upon me the importance of taste, intelligence, and keeping the right sort of company. She did this to counter the "trashiness" of my dad's side of the family. Thanks to my mom I don't live in a trailer on the front lawn of my parent's house, with a meth lab, a skoal chewing husband, a shotgun and two grimy children.

I'm Waiting

I am not the sort of person who lives with stories crowded in her head and characters shouting for attention. I do not. It is not like that inside me. The rooms are quiet, dust motes floating through sunlit air, and I walk them, sometimes bored, sometimes peaceful, and other times I walk an abandoned soot-choked city with no stars. But sometimes I am visited by an unexpected urge to write. I don’t know what about. I have to wait. My soul is looking for some story or image it wants to speak through and is disturbed by the expansive expectations of the first days of spring. Buds are unfolding, the air is softening, but the season is restless. When? it asks, over and over.

Some think that creating channels the divine. It’s the sort of thought you entertain after the fact, or when you are confronted with some extraordinary work of art and your heart gallops away in a fever of love and desire. Surely, surely, surely God has marked this writer or painter or musician, because he or she awakens a longing so strong it can’t be sated by drink or drugs or sex, a longing that goes on and on and feels like a penalty as much as a pleasure. When I create, it doesn’t feel divine. It is like finally finding out how those maddening pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together. The pleasure of discovering and resolving a pattern. Stories may never resolve, but the writing of them does.

And then, so soon after, the craving.

Good Times, Bad Times

The more you don't write, the more nothing there is to not write about.

I have a new car. And by "new" I mean "used." My Sedona finally stuck out its tongue at me one too many times. I love my new used car. It reminds me of the cute little Neon I drove when I was young.

Firecracker had her yearly brain MRI, which made me feel weepy. But it doesn't change anything, so I'm back to sneaking peeks at this illness from the corner of my eye.

A rather annoying situation at church has developed. Dear Husband was working on a Seder and was feeling that the church was not very supportive and hardly anyone was registering, so he thought he should back out. He was so miserable that I thought it the best course. Well, that resulted in a mean spirited and unprofessional email from one of the staff. As a result he's been feeling pretty wretched, but the response didn't make him feel like sticking around, that's for sure. Now the church wants us to write some sort of letter airing our concerns. Jolly.

The 4000th episode of Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden has come and gone, yet the angst remains. Lucas and Noud are still star-crossed, and I fear I will be stuck in this tangled story line until Christmas. Please note: never undertake a building project alone, at night, in an abandoned sanitarium, with a flashlight the size of a pickling cucumber, and be assured that those odd noises you hear are the sounds of someone sneaking about for an inexplicably long time instead of just jumping out and slitting your throat right away. Finally, keep your bloody cell phone on your person. If you are concerned that there is a possibly dangerous someone lurking, don't think, "Hey, I'll just leave my cell phone here while I go investigate that noise upstairs. Meanwhile, why don't you leave your cell phone next to mine and head off in that direction and look for X, who has not been seen since she wandered off without her cell phone. See ya in a bit."

February 25

I feel like if I don’t write something soon, everyone will forget I’m here. Including me. Life seems full of holes at the moment, a bit ragged, and rather dull. Slumberous times, but not refreshing. I do things I don’t enjoy. I do things I usually enjoy but don’t enjoy now. I think enjoyment might require more energy than I have at the moment. It’s very difficult to let discomfort simply be, when it feels like a garrote wrapped around my neck. Perhaps I should stop trying to reassure myself. Why do I try to reassure myself? I’m very unconvincing. I live my life trying to pretend that I am not deeply afraid of: being alone, losing the people I love, being friendless, entering depression and never exiting, passing my mental problems along to my children, having no money, having no faith, living with Firecracker’s disease, looking for meaning and finding nothing, trying to create meaning and being stymied. Being me, just me, as in this is all there is – me anxious, floundering. There is no better me, no me with improved synapses and joie de vivre, no me who is more productive and less defective.

When I was younger, I used to think about being a mistake, that I was shoved into this world with some sort of ontological defect that prevented me from holding the world loosely rather than facing it stricken, as if it were coming after me with claws bared. More people than I realized feel this way, which isn’t much comfort, really. We are always busy leaping out of the way of the industrious, the ambitious, and the determined who think us weak and tiresome.

Some days my thoughts are like the sound of footsteps receding down an empty hallway.

The Mysterious JQ

Someone with the initials JQ has been going through my archives, leaving pleasant comments here and there. But the initials don’t link to a blogger profile.

Who are you, JQ? Do you have a blog somewhere? I appreciate you visiting and taking the time to leave messages. I haven’t left comments in response because I don’t have a decent computer at home for the moment, so I have to squeeze everything in during down times at work.

And in answer to one of your questions, I’ve heard of Ann Sebold, because of The Lovely Bones, but I haven’t read her. I suppose I should…

This Book Could Use a Better Writer

My Vitamin D levels are very low. My thyroid is a bit wonky. Perhaps that is why I feel so little inclination to do anything at all. I have reached a boring patch in the book, the lackluster part you have to slog through – no skipping ahead in this one – before the story picks up again.

Despite my complete lack of ambition, I have a story in a journal

To all my bloggy friends who aren't on Twitter or Facebook (these can just ignore this post), I have a story at Blue Print Review called "Coffee." I think I posted it on the blog some time ago, but now it looks all shiny and new. So stop by and have a look, and then look at the other works - it's an interesting issue.

So go have a look, because right now it feels as if I may never write anything again.