Season's greetings

Here's to lots of love for all of you, hope your multi/non-denominational holidays are fulfilling, relaxing and all that you hope for. And here's to a fabulous New Year, (and sticking to our resolutions!) with Love from I. and Me.

Sky writing (variations on a theme)

Reflections





On the water

It is never too late

So, Gary Trudeau has done it again... High stakes admissions essays and all that jazz (God I am glad that my services as satellite admissions officer were not called upon this year). And Idealist Savant was so kind to pass it along: Penn... home of my first experiences in molecular biology in my dad's graduate lab.

But here is the really funny part, a small person convinced me to bend to her desire for a happy meal (TM) (please don't flog me with a wet noodle, I don't usually feed her such vile garbage, but she begged and it seemed like a reasonable compromise since I have been telling her no, no, no in all other realms) Incidentally and totally unrelatedly in an effort to stay with the times they now offer "healthy alternatives" and she got a chocolate milk and apples instead of fries and a coke... anyway. that isn't the point. Not that there ever is one, but that was still not it.

So as some of you may have now ascertained, getting dressed is getting harder and harder, (sign of mild depression, why yes, I am fully aware.) but I threw on a long sleeved t-shirt rescued from one of the famous end-of-semester free piles in the Haffner halls that reads in lovely cursive letters "Bryn Mawr College 1885-1995 110 years of women on top" which is highly amusing to me for its cheekiness, but most people don't expect such brazen double-entendres from a reputable university of that caliber, and thusly fail to be titilated with the words that dance across one's bosom. Ah yes, so the woman in front of me, an older black woman says, in a fabulously East Coast accent, "Oh, Bryn Mawr, I spent a lot of time there, before you were even born." and I replied, "Well I was born there." "No, I meant, that I was there before you were born, " she clarifies. "No, I heard, but I was born there." "So you're a Main Line girl?" "No, I was just born there, my mom's doctor was at Penn, but he was at Bryn Mawr hospital that day, I guess. I grew up near Swarthmore." "I went to UPenn," the lady replies with a deep smile, I smile back, I feel at ease. "So you're from the East then?" "Boston," she replies, "I started at Penn but transferred to UC Davis to do vidiculture. That's what I wanted to do." "Yeah, I don't imagine that Penn was big on vidiculture." "That was back in 1955, especially not for women, a black woman to boot. But when I got here, I did an internship at (unnamed so as not to promote) vineyard and everybody acted like I had three heads. My advisor finally told me to give it up, he had hoped I would just get discouraged."
This made me sad, but I refrained from speaking, I let three people step in front of us in line just to keep listening to her story. "So I ended up studying urban studies..." she sighs, "But that was my passion, vidiculture... I see the young girls that are doing it now, there is a woman at Riddeau..." "Well," I begin, and she seems to see where I am going. "Honey, I'm 69," she laughs - she doesn't look more than 50, robust, beautiful dark skin, lustrous hair. "But," I insist, encouraging, "it is never too late." She smiles and reflects for a minute. "Maybe if I win the lottery, and start a business of my own," she muses. "It isn't too late," I repeat, "you don't have to give up the one thing you love." She stops and looks at me, really looks at me, "Thank you sweetie, for those words of wisdom and encouragement. You have a merry christmas and a wonderful new year." I feel as if I have been hugged by a stranger, I let another person pass by us in line before ordering for the nena. I watch her retreat with a bounce in her step.

And I truly believe that: it is never too late to find happiness, it is like letting yourself be loved, you just have to let yourself dream it.

Left behind

My munchkin, still sick, but doing a bit better comes down with a big smile on her face, "Look what I wrote!" she holds up a piece of paper that reads, "I wont my daddy." And I smile at her, despite the ravaging pain of lack that I am feeling, for, well, I'm not quite sure what.

She is frustrated and it seems that everything reminds her of México, "Oh, I wish we could be there! I bet Daddy is having much more fun than I am!" "I'm never gonna get to go back to Mexico!" "I know I am sick and I have a fever and you cancelled the tickets but couldn't we just go?!"

Now she is sleeping, at 5:30. Four hours too early for her bed time. She really isn't well. I took her out for a few hours today, to get some sunshine on her skin after days of bed-ridden half-light. I promised her a picnic by the water, after the errands that I needed to do at the University. My car did not want to start, but I willed it to do so, and on my very last attempt the motor sputtered to life. It seemed that things were going my way. I picked up a gift for I. from a profesora who is always so kind and constantly giving me little presents (as if I somehow deserved such gifting). I also had to deliver a present for a friend who is leaving for Argentina, actually a staff member in my department, I burned him a bunch of Rock argentino, so he would go prepared, for a year of living there. I am so envious, I wish I could go back, but then, you can never go back, there is always something lost and left behind.

But the true tragedy in all this, despite what one may think, is that my fridge is overflowing with food, and I have no one to feed it to. (If you were Jewish you'd understand). I inherited all the contents of Laura and Líber's fridge when M. left, which included two more loaves of bread (above and beyond the three in my freezer - I goofed, though I was out and bought two loaves, a poppy-wheat bread and the usual sprouted soy.) I don't even eat bread, hardly ever, I. is a toast addict, and it is always a quick fix to have a sandwhich handy, but really, I will have to make one heck of a round of French toast because there is no more room in the freezer with all the frozen soups and stocks that I have made. As I said. No one to feed is a big problem, and I.'s apetite has shrunk. Our picnic consisted of the following though I. only ate a kiwi, a mandarin and part of a bag of chips that she begged me to buy: mini whole-wheat pita, hummus, herb-chevrie, an avocado that has been taken for two rides with no takers, kiwi, satsumas and string cheese, and of course the left-over turkey salad, that I whipped up to be eaten as my new favorite dinner for one - tostadas de tinga a la curry...

The turkey was from Thanksgiving, frozen in small manageable bags for quick defrosting and emergency meals. It was chopped and added to diced onion, celery, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries and a chopped Fuji apple (I am rather particular about my apples - I only like them hard and sour). This was added to a curry dressing of mayonaise, a bit of sour cream, garlic powder, salt, a spoonful of sugar, a teaspoon of dijon and lots of curry powder. This has lasted for several days and will undoubtedly last several days more. There is a boloñesa, and a stroganoff and mole and three packages of tortillas, which I might as well start drying now for chilaquiles, but then I remember. Right, no one to eat any of it. Fuck.

One friend suggested that I start a lunch special menu and feed otherwise hungry grad students. Tempting, tempting, but most everyone has fled the university, too. It is funny, this is the first time that I have had the deep sense of missing out on something, though I am not sure quite what. I dream of midnight visits, rainfall, urgent napkin poems. I feel dusty and opaque.
And my head hurts. I forget to buy groceries for 1 and a half, and instead buy for three and guests. (But I will not go back for the next three weeks, I swear! well, I can go to the co-op for onions) I have a defrosted turkey stock for a curried lentil soup and defrosted sausage for a bean stew, and salad greens and more cucumber than I can use in any kosher fashion, and no desire to eat any of those things if it will be standing in front of the window in my kitchen, watching cars drive too quickly, or not at all, wondering if maybe I should dress from the waist down, if people walking by can actually see in. I don't really care too much.

I remember the movies that I rented, hopeful of some interest in a story that isn't the same story of a thousand times before, but they always are the same stories, just with a few pieces readjusted, shifted, jiggled, reassigned. I am eternally bored with the lame narrative that unfolds, with my predictable reactions, with my inability to behave the way I would like to. I hate that I can tear up just as easily with a children's book, as with a commercial on depression or a sappy sentimental movie. I talk to an old friend, but I don't really want to bother anyone else. I think I might like to bury my phone in a ditch, like a dog with his bone, and maybe discover it again, next year, when things don't seem so bleak.

Some people have work to do, they are busy in the lab, doing research. I can't even make myself pick up a book. Three whole days, not one book. I feel guilty. I will read now, I will make myself. I. sleeps fitfully, stirs and cries for me, I say in my silkiest voice, "I'm right here baby," and she settles back in to the bed, her eyes fluttering shut. The doctors are morons, I take that back, the doctor's office staff are morons, whether or not the doctors are remains to be seen, as it is virtually impossible to get an audience of any sort with a medically trained professional... They call back 6 hours late. How is that for punctuality? They tell me, on voice-mail, exactly what I already know. I don't want to take her in for a check up, because I have NO MONEY and NO INSURANCE! I am fucked. I tell this to I. in other words when she is hassling me for something warm and fuzzy with a lot of hair. "No, you don't need another stuffed animal." "Just one, I want to hug something warm and cuddly." "I'm warm and cuddly... isn't that good enough?" "But with a lot of Fur!!!" "Baby, Mama can't buy you anything that you don't absolutely need because I don't have any money." "Well you have some," she replies. sullenly. "Yeah, but only for things like the rent and that *@^!) phone bill. "Ok, I'll have a donut, then." Damn, I remember that I have to call and have them recalculate it before paying. I also remember that I won't get paid until the 2nd this month because of the way direct deposit works. I guess it isn't a total waste of time to wade through the three-hundred emails our CSO sends on a daily basis...


And it gets dark so early, I retreat up into the half light of my bed, which consumes practically the entire square footage of the bedroom. I suddenlt realize thatI could redecorate, move the bed against the wall. (I have always loved sleeping against the wall and having a freestanding bed is like a secret torture, because I can't curl in against the cool paint and feel the hard embrace of its non-give) I get a surprise call from Costa Rica and my cibernetic double makes me laugh like only a true friend can. I leave someone else hanging, but am forgiven (I hope).

And I feel sad, sad, sad for Baudelaire and Corleone who were left behind, for the first time, in a split level "kitty condo" instead of being left to destroy my parents rugs, and I wish that they could be with me, and/or that I could get I. the cat that she would like, and she reminds me, "we're not allowed, remember?" when I suggest that we secretly procure a kitten to asuage my affective needs, as if one small lap-child weren't enough.

And then it really begins, the night that stretches out into nothingness: when I fail to produce anything more than impoverished attempts at writing or editing, but no reading... And I realize that maybe if I just read one book for pleasure it would kickstart me back into gear, but the one book I really want to read (I will embarass myself here) is the last Harry Potter, and I won't buy it because I have promised myself that I will wait until there is a 7 book set, just like the Chronicles of Narnia, that consumed my endless summer days of pre-adolescence with high fantasy, for several years (over and over), and buy if for I. Meanwhile, there is no one around to lend it to me, and sending a tome of such monstrosity through the mail, well, is pointless and stupid.
I should go back to my "real" reading, or edit, or do something productive, but all I can think about is the fact that I am left behind and sitting in my (briefly but trying) clean house with only one recurring thought on the brain, like a goddamn short circuit that leads back into itself tautologically.

Who I was before I really knew who I was

AKA The Lusty Lady




Photo courtesy of Kirsten Thompson (circa August 1997)

Fomenting Fantasy Flutterby Fotos

Wishing for a swift death

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

So, "bah humbug" may not be in my repertoire of catch phrases, but if you thought I was making grumpy faces the other day, well, I must have looked like I had Ebeneezer Scrooge superimposed on my countenance last night.

Slow, painful misery.

The presents have already started coming. I. got her second Barbie in a week (and she knows very well that I would never, ever get one for her). Of course leveraging the opening of presents against her completion of homework tasks was minimally successful, but alas, we had to brave the ice-storms of consumer hell for other reasons.

A hair cut. She didn't want it and I had to bribe her with the subsequent shopping trip (which of course was already a foreseen necessity, but I never fail to get mileage out of necessary evils - parenting tip #213). She wanted new shoes, but I did the proverbial "we'll see". Horrible, horrible holiday music. Gaudy lighting. Bad haircuts. I.'s wasn't so bad, but the stylist seemed to be agressively criticizing the fact that she had a cold. Yes? She has a runny nose, what do you want from me? Please don't piss me off with obnoxious small talk. Ok, so I said none of those things, but I was thinking them. Some people just don't know when to stop trying. And I hate that you have to tip for haircuts. It isn't about the money, just that it seems so counterintuitive. Here, thanks for not shearing her scalp... so what if it is a little uneven... yeah, my kid can't keep her head still, if you had let her face me, she wouldn't have kept turning.

Then on to the unnamed huge chain store of torture. My throat begins to close and the Salvation Army bell, that doesn't stop ringing in my ear no matter where in the store I am splits a hole in the side of my cranium. Meanwhile I. is in her element. "Shoes!" she declares. "No, we need to get your costume." Damn school play. That is what I get for having my child do enrichment activities. And you would think that in such a store they would sell simple white shirts for girls. No such luck. I got the LAST PAIR of black tights, and ended up buying a white leotard because there was not a single shirt without gaudy pink writing or multi-colored sequins. So much for simple classic lines and solid colors. Then of course there is the law that no matter what line you choose you will be made to wait the requisite half hour, regardless of whether there are 2 or 22 people in front of you. There should be a motto "Ineptitude is our claim to fame". GAH. I contemplate leaving all the merchandise behind, including the gum that my child has wangled, as we stand in the stagnant check-out line. But where would I go? No, I am bound by motherly duty, even though I managed to avoid the purchase of yet another pair of shoes.

And the bell grows louder as we draw near the entrance. "Merry Christmas" calls the woman. Yeah Merry #@$%! x-mas. I have given up on correcting people's religio-imperialistic assumptions, and simply grumble, "You too."

On reciprocation

I don't believe in the holiday season. Truly. All the crass consumerism makes me ill. And yet... there is the need to reciprocate in some way and to demonstrate our gratitude to people that have cared for us. (And for some reason we do bend to seasonal pressure).
Nevertheless... This idea that Idealist Savant passed along tickled me. Too bad I gave up my iPod, or else I might even be tempted to buy a present for me.

I, however, tend to opt for things I can make myself, like letters, music or food. Take for example Friday night. Ok, so I have been ordered by my therapist to take a few days off, and take care of myself. Problem is, I can't really do that. I wanted to do something for Kirsten who has been forcing me to eat for several weeks now, and I had food that absolutely needed to be used. I hung up the phone, rested my head on the pillow for a brief moment, which turned into a half hour and I jumped up to prepare the large salad that I promised. I. and I walked around the outside of the courtyard to her front door only to discover that no one was home yet. Strange. When we had spoken they were on their way home.

What is my first thought always? "Oh, God, they were in a car accident!" Which unfortunately, in this case, was absolutely true. We met her and Pepe in the parking lot, shaken, but ok, and even though she had planned on not eating, her friend Christa showed up too, with beers and cigarettes, and with some nourishment of all kinds her headache went away and she was able to relax. It felt good to be able to take care of someone else for a while, especially when she has been so kind to me. I wish I were a more thoughtful person, detail oriented - she bought me an orchid two weeks ago and brought me a bath foam shell (which I have yet to use... a luxuriant bath is still too over the top for me) and I wish I could show affection through purchases, but it isn't me. All I could do, was make tea, watch the kids while she snuck outside to be "bad", and wash up the dishes. But still.

So, Saturday Becca came up from Santa Monica, and I spent the morning cleaning, and cooking, but actually with desire. Cooking for one is not only unmotivating, it is unreasonable. I have been subsisting on little more than hot tea, cheese and crackers when not being made to eat. But I had a slew of opened olives and tomatoes that needed to be cooked because they had spent the last three weeks in my fridge being ignored. I decided on a Puttanesca sauce, sauteed onion, garlic and tomatoes with chopped olives and capers and a bit of ground oregano. The recipes that I scanned called for spicy pepper flakes, but I had none, so I split a jalapeño and sauteed it with the other ingredients until it was wilted and then I removed it. Just enough piquancy. I cheated, I know, but then because the tomatoes were a little old and the sauce was too thick, I threw in a little month-old Shiraz - I keep old wine around for just such purposes. We had shrimp in a butter, garlic, white-wine sauce and Fusili. After our day of sun and water, she reciprocated by bringing far too much sushi, tempura and salmon teriyaki to the dinner table before heading back to her hotel.

So I am torn between taking care of myself and others. Today I could do nothing more than lay naked in my livingroom and stare at the ceiling while my child played with clay on the balcony. I am hoping that tomorrow I will be ready to face all the work that has been accumulating at an alarming rate. I am trying to strike a balance.

Today in pictures

Hoping for peace

In every way possible. I just want peace. I had forgotten this song altogether, I would listen to Joni Mitchell's Clouds on the beach every day, looking out across the Atlantic. Now I need the Pacific to bring me back to myself. This song has never been truer to me than it is right now.

Prayin' for snow

NOT. Indulging in outdoor swimming on December the 4th? I do live in paradise, even if it sometimes dresses itself up like inferno.

The crimes of the father...

Thinking on the incredible impact that we have on our children (by we, I mean the collective we as a loosely affiliated society, and me, personally as an individual within that larger group).

Well, as any sentient adult knows, there is no way to avoid being screwed up by your parents, that said, there are issues and then there are ISSUES. Right? I would have loved, for example, for my parents to have shielded me less, to have forced me to be more self-sufficient at an earlier age. What age would that be? You wonder, no, I did leave the country to live in another hemisphere alone at 16, but in this sense, I mean economically. Dad never let me work shitty jobs for shit wages during school because he sat me down and did the math and it made more sense for him to support me, and pay my $6 an hour wage himself and let me dedicate that time to my studies. Don't get me wrong, I am not ungrateful, in fact perhaps too grateful, but I think in some ways it spoiled me too much, not because I am not a hard worker, but because it turned me into a work snob, that is, my expectations are way too fucking high for everything. I expect fulfillment, not just remuneration. Now, in fact, I like what I do, for the moment, but I also have this deep fear of some day being cast out, unable to do what I love or want and being totally incapable to support myself in any other way. It has also created this inordinate sense of pride, a sort of "I don't want anyone's else's help" attitude, despite that I would be lying to myself if I didn't accept that I have the absolute luxury of knowing that should I need to fall from my tight-rope there is a safety net, albeit 300 feet below me.

But, despite Dad's workaholism and my Mom's neuroses (and her deeply generous and loving majority) I never felt anything but safe in my house. I was never treated unkindly by anyone but myself (at home) and yet I still turned out the way I am, with all kinds of codependency issues and a deep sense of unworthiness of love. And I KNOW that they did not do that to me, and I want to know why! But what most breaks my heart is that I can't fix, or even fathom, the pain of people whose fathers (or mothers though all the hurting men I know -and there are so many- received their punishment directly from their fathers) treated them unkindly. I was observing several fathers in action yesterday and I was fascinated. Fathering is a skill so underestimated in its importance, and it is so fundamental to a sense of complete self, I think.

Listening to Beleza Tropical and this song seemed to speak exactly to me with relation to this train of thought.

Cálice
Composição: Chico Buarque e Gilberto Gil

(refrão)
Pai, afasta de mim esse cálice
Pai, afasta de mim esse cálice
Pai, afasta de mim esse cálice
De vinho tinto de sangue

Como beber dessa bebida amarga
Tragar a dor, engolir a labuta
Mesmo calada a boca, resta o peito
Silêncio na cidade não se escuta
De que me vale ser filho da santa
Melhor seria ser filho da outra
Outra realidade menos morta
Tanta mentira, tanta força bruta

(refrão)

Como é difícil acordar calado
Se na calada da noite eu me dano
Quero lançar um grito desumano
Que é uma maneira de ser escutado
Esse silêncio todo me atordoa
Atordoado eu permaneço atento
Na arquibancada pra a qualquer momento
Ver emergir o monstro da lagoa

(refrão)

De muito gorda a porca já não anda
De muito usada a faca já não corta
Como é difícil, pai, abrir a porta
Essa palavra presa na garganta
Esse pileque homérico no mundo
De que adianta ter boa vontade
Mesmo calado o peito, resta a cuca
Dos bêbados do centro da cidade

(refrão)

Talvez o mundo não seja pequeno
Nem seja a vida um fato consumado
Quero inventar o meu próprio pecado
Quero morrer do meu próprio veneno
Quero perder de vez tua cabeça
Minha cabeça perder teu juízo
Quero cheirar fumaça de óleo diesel
Me embriagar até que alguem me esqueça

I don't want to be responsible for an unhappy or incomplete child, and so I let her be away from me, despite her wailing that she can't bear to be away from her mommy, despite my loneliness in her absence (though we spent the afternoon swimming and biking and for a few brief moments I felt really, deeply content with the world, looking out at the mountains under a blue sky). It is amazing what a mysterious bond we have with our children. I only hope that I am doing the right thing for her, if for nothing else.

Indulging oneself

I am told that I have the next six months to be self-indulgent and mope around :)

I think I will limit myself to 6 weeks, tops. That's the goal anyway.

So, Friday night, yeah, doesn't feel very different than the rest of the endless days. Did little more than lounge around naked in my bedroom in front of my 12-inch companion for most of the day. We do what we can, you know? Didn't even get any good editing done, but I did get to "talk" to several people which made the day bearable, and encouraged me to be duly indulgent.

Focus on I. and myself you say? How's that? My department was having its end-of-year get together, but I feel decidedly un-get-togethery. And I realize exactly how few "real" people constitute my pantheon. Mostly, I realized that it is just going to be me and I. - who didn't want Italian food, but rather Crepes. Since James so kindly knocked on my door to tell me again that I had left my lights on all day, I had to jump start it (actually M. came and did me this favor) and then drive down town to recharge the battery. We tried to get there, I swear, but our efforts were thwarted at every turn. Unbeknownst to me there was some sort of Holiday parade (god I hate parades and cheesy, kitschy americana, like marching bands, I even fucking hate apple pie) that shut down all main central arteries, and it was impossible to go to our little predilect creperie, so I turned around, and took her to rent a movie, and the super market instead.

This is where my night takes a turn for the exciting (Note the heavily laden sarcasm). But, I did rent Ma Mère (I love Isabelle Huppert) and I am functionally meeting the material needs of my child, no? So, Friday night at Trader Joe's, what can one justifiably do but self indulge? So what if I won't actually eat most of what I bought for several months?

Most of the $83 dollars were spent on nuts, cheese and wine in that order. I got a mushroom brie thinking of Kirsten who would make me a kickass risotto if she weren't galavanting about Brazil, mascarpone thinking about my mom, though I must say, I wish I could find the mocha flavored kind that she always gets, and a variety of crackers mostly for I. but some for if my neighbor comes over to reciprocate on the eternal wine and cheese she doles on me as our children wreak havoc on one another. My freezer was devoid of nuts and thusly salads have been absolutely unappealing. Low sodium cashews, candied almonds (at I's request) and walnuts for toasting. There is still an unopened garlic herb Chevrie, so I may just convince myself to make and eat salad in the next few days. I have literally not eaten greens (or anything much else, beyond meager attempts at decimating the left-over turkey) in the last week, so, this is a big step, you see. I also bought dried cranberries to complete the cycle. What did I forget though? The grated romano. Sigh. It is always something, which meant that the mediocre ravioli I made for I. was administered in quantifiable bites. At the end I made her take as many bites as she was old, plus one because soon she will be six. And if she didn't finish, she didn't get her fruit juice popsicle or the movie. Gah. The things one does to blackmail one's child into nourishing herself. Al burro didn't cut it for her, but with pesto they weren't terrible, if a bit dry on the inside :(

Yes. I fed myself. Even if it was something like a half portion, I even ate once in the morning, too, and didn't get nauseous. (So if you were worried, I didn't need the doctor). Now that my foot is feeling 90% better, I realize that my supple skin is growing quickly flaccid, (who said weight loss is a good thing?) and that I need excercise! I crave physical activity after this month of sedentary novelling. I. says she'll come hiking with me tomorrow, now if the weather only holds up and I can think of a low-impact nearby trail, all will be right in the world. Er, well, not really, but isn't part of self-indulgence self-deception?

I am trying to envision ways to get my reading list done while not being totally lonely and miserable over the break. Solution one, go stay with Alison on the beach for a little while. Good solution, but I can't do it for three weeks. Solution two, Kirsten will be with Becca and Adrian in the Bay Area for New Year's, therefore I need only invite myself up to their house and then spend a few days on the ranch and let K. indulge me - I'll have to eat if she's cooking!

More immediately, I am going to take myself out to the movies tomorrow night, alone. It has been a long time since I've done this, but if M. is going to have I., I can't bear to sit at home utterly cloistered on a Saturday, so a little filmic escapism is in order. Something French, it will have to be.

Ah. And maybe, I can actually get a whole night's sleep. There is a plan.

Love will come to you

A little Indigo Girls for those of us who are blue.

I.'s poems

She asked me to read her the poems that I wrote, but then she decided that she'd prefer funny ones. I can only pretend to be funny in narrative, it would seem. She asked to dictate these poems. I asked if they would be funny and she said no, they had to be sad, but at the end she decided to be silly.

I.
This girl
is a story that you never heard before
about sadness
and the peace
of a hand that never could come
back to this body
it was a story
that is the saddest story.

II.
Una vez en un cementerio
había una tumba
de los muertos
y esos muertos no podían
descansar sus sueños
de la muerte.

III.
Fiddle faddle faddle
this girl was playing on the street.
when she saw the car she ran
she ran faster and faster and faster
and then til she got to the middle of the street
she had no way
to get back now
so that was the way she came
that's the way her house was built
she went the right way and her
house wasn't there.
Mr. Pirate was a mean pirate
he picked his nose and
he could never calm down
so that's how it goes
and that's how it goes,
and fiddle faddle faddle
this is the end.
stick stick stick
this is one day
when the girl was walkin'
the girl was sleepin'
and when that girl was sleeping
she was saying, fiddle faddle faddle.
When I see the girl awaken,
but that's how it goes.




And a story:

One time, a long time ago there was this party and there was skeletons. They were dancing and dancing and dancing together. They had so much fun, they stayed all night. And one day there was this skeleton that was too shy to dance, he went to his grave and there he saw when he was alive, in the mirror. So, he just stepped aside and that's how it goes. I don't care a thing if that's how it goes, I don't blame you a thing, but do you know that thing? was a shy thing, I wish it wasn't but that's how it goes. I wish it was not like this that was how the skeleton was walkin' and walkin and walkin' so far. and that's how it goes, the end, the end, the end.

I don't understand anything

I can't really trust my own emotions to remain stable for even an entire day. I feel sick, every time I eat. But I feel weak and cold when I don't. I can behave rationally, I move through my day. I teach my last class for the quarter and I leave smiling. I am always energized by my students. But the energy wears off. A few come to my office and I am resparked for a few minutes more. Before I go home, I speak to people that make me smile, who make me feel like I am not such a bad person. But then they are gone. And the night falls so early, and the hours stretch out endlessly. It is that time around 7 o'clock, that the panic sets in and begins to choke me. And there is no one to help chase it away.


God I feel so sad. I can't even explain it. Why should I be able? I am told that I have never loved. That I don't care. Not so. I just have to shut this off because I can't live this way any more I can't. I am watching PBS, it is a documentary about Peter, Paul and Mary. The tears are pouring down my face and I can't turn it off. I. growls in anger. She is bored. I want to sing. I have lost my accompaniment. I don't know if I will ever sing again. "Why are you crying like a baby?!" she demands. And I have no answer. I just try to wipe the tears away with the back of my hand.

"The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind" the familiar melody, she looks over and smiles. "I know this one!"

"The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast..." There is a harmonic melding in the words of Bobby Dylan that makes my heart ache for all the times that the music was our only saviour. Now it is no more. There is silence.

In my Portuguese class this sweet little girl who has a university radio show offered to play me whatever I wanted, and I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to hear. Everything makes me think of what I have left behind. I desperately need new music that I have never heard before, that I can't even understand, because it is the only thing that won't hurt.

Done is Good! (updated with sample:)

Back at good old Bryn Mawr College, at finals time there is a saying that has been passed down from generation to generation, one more of the secret society traditions like the bra dances and the may hole? Singing in classic greek and latin?

Perhaps not.

Just being grateful for a task done without the questioning of whether it is good or not. That of course comes later, but there is a moment of pleasure, ever fleeting though it may be, that we need to indulge ourselves for the simple fact that we have completed yet another of our HERculean tasks. This next week will have to be about paper writing and syllabus creating, (and piece picking upping) but for now, I am pleased to announce that I have a 56661 word novel that is for all intents and purposes complete. Will I go back and revise? For sure. Will I add and polish, indubitably. But for now, I will go to sleep, if not happy, at least a little bit proud of myself for my resolute will power and sheer ability to overcome. Sure, tomorrow may be another hard day, but today is over. Done is good. That's what I say.


*** since I am not posting the whole thing, I can at least direct you all to an excerpt. ***