Undefined

I seem to have a lot of time on my hands this Memorial Day weekend. I suppose I like it that way. When I'm with people I can't wait to be alone. And alone is fine aside from a few boundaries that seem lately less defined. Skittering shadows, the blurring of what I have written and what is. But what's reality anyhow, right?

I have been reading slowly to prolong my sojourn into Brooklyn on recent sleepy nights (my comfort always invaded with thoughts of rising at 4am, driving off to work in the dark morning), but Motherless Brooklyn came to an end yesterday. What is not to like about this book?

Assertions and generalizations are, of course, a version of Tourette's. A way of touching the world, handling it, covering it with confirming language.

Funny. I need to cover this book with my own version of ownership. Claim the sense of fairness and compassion it offers, the sense of knowing ones purpose, the sense of place and time, acceptance of ones identity. In the end I need to own each character's transition into allowing the other to define himself.

So it was that each of the Minna organizations, Frank's and Gerard's, were gently and elegantly steered past the shoals of corruption by their quietest disciples.

You know, I really admire the virtues of selflessness, quiet wisdom, insight into anothers character, humility... And of course strength. And even brute force. Hmmm... and sexiness. But this can only happen when someone doesn't know they're sexy. Unexpected sexiness. (And of course sexiness isn't found in the usual places. It is always found where it is least likely, like a big ticcing guy with Tourette's. And it always depends on the man's total obliviousness to knowing he's sexy. Men who think they are sexy or try to be sexy or work too hard at being sexy just aren't sexy.) And this book is delightfully sexy. I wasn't expecting that. Sexy sexy sexy. There. I got that out of my system.

Before Julia could calculate the meaning of my action I darted as if for an elusive shoulder and grabbed the muzzle of her gun, then twisted it out of her hand and hurled with all the strength in my legs, like a center fielder deep at the wall straining for a distant cutoff man. Julia's gun went farther than Tony's, out to where the waves that would reach the rocks were just taking shape, the sea curling, discovering its form.

So I'm done with that now. And I'm in that weird undefined "between books" place, wondering what's next. Yesterday I thought I might be dying, but I suppose not. I guess I will go on living for a long time. I picked up a couple of books for 50 cents at the local library. It's sort of my way of letting destiny deal me books. I keep my eye open for Matthews and Carver on the sale shelves, but it isn't time for them, apparently. I've got to be guided by some strong force to buy a book at full price. Haruki Murakami is the only one to hold that distinction in recent history. My latest fifty-centers are Berlin Noir, by Philip Kerr and a book about Alaska called Coming into the Country, by John McPhee. I have always been attracted to Alaska in the abstract. Who knows if I may actually read these, but I think I wanted the Alaska book because lately I find myself longing for cold weather. These recent 90 degree days leave me wishing for crispness. Winter is the time for interiors, for figuring things out. I need to go inside. All of the green life bursting forth around me, all the unseeing energy of vacationing people, RV's, lakes, picnics, boats, rest stops and running to catch memories is exhausting.

I think today I will sit quietly in the center of an empty concrete parking lot, cooler next to me on the ground, and drink a six pack of beer. Budweiser would work. Midwestern Zen with Alcohol. My own little still life.

I Need Medical Marijuana. Stat.

I saw The DaVinci Code today, but it wasn't the movie that left an impact. In fact, I hardly remember it. By the time the feature presentation began, my psyche had shut down to protect itself.

The problem was that I arrived twenty minutes early, thereby witnessing the most horrifyingly bad locally produced advertising ever created. Seriously. Is their strategy to repel customers? It's working! The jingles were made by monkeys. Wait. That's a compliment. And why are there so many wedding-related ads in the freaking theater? Maybe we will subliminally decide that getting married is a good idea and suddenly want to rush out and buy the worst dresses imaginable. If they accenctuated the worst features of the chubby local models, I'm sure they'll look stunning on us. Fuckin-A. What is with the jewelry store "revolving wedding ring" presentation? It was ugly from one angle, did we need to stare at it while it turned? I almost vomited. Really. And did you know they are now shooting profanity-inducing ads for local churches? The one that finally turned me away from God featured some lifeless white guys singing a stiff "worship at our place" ditty while we watched a black choir tear it up on screen. Which could represent everything that is wrong with our country. And the Christian church.

Movie theater advertising is the 'bargain basement' of local TV advertising. Which means it's almost fascinatingly bad. By the time the movie started I was exhausted by a loop of unsurpassed visual and aural offensiveness. It was amazing. My mind twitched everytime the volume changed. I was spooked. I felt like I was getting shot at. I couldn't sit still. Wiggling in my seat next to a family of five who were heartily chowing-down on the popcorn-candy-pop special, I was traumatized. I had acquired PTSD from hideously conceived and poorly produced advertising. Who knew this could happen?

The Almighty Almost or I Was Seduced in a Bar by Jean-Paul Sartre

what we have here (he said) is imperfection
which is all we have
which is perfect
actually
count it
one life
one day
one minute
one breath
joined (join with me, he said) with intense longing

the product of which is unimportant, think about it
the process
the struggle
the almost (he said factually)
is all we have

Pasiphaë's Last Day on the Shore

"The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth."

Red sand
lead me down
to giant blue

monoliths
deep blue eggs
scattered monstrous shells
resting on treeless shores

sacred stone relics
plundered
collected
transported
abandoned

massive minotaur
muscled son
labour
take me down
again among fishhooks
stone adzes
cover me in cowhide

carry me down
once more
to giant blue

Surprises

One Sentence Can Make All the Difference

One sentence can make all the difference. That revelation, which stopped me in my tracks when I was fifteen years old, occurred on the fateful day my boyfriend wrote these six words:

"Please let's don't fight no more."

Struggling with the self-realization that my estimation of a good human being had immediately taken a nose-dive due solely to their (mis)use of the English language was disturbing. What kind of person was I? After all, he was still cute as hell. He still had grease under his fingernails from working on cars, he bought me presents, he adored me and he was polite, obviously. But the moment those crumpled words on 3-holed lined wide-ruled paper hit my eyes, he was gone.

Well, not really gone. He is the star of my reoccurring 'rejection dreams', never seeing me when I approach or in other versions ducking away to avoid me, but I strangely always find myself glad to see him in those dream encounters. I am disappointed at his lack of interest. Funny he has existed in my dreams all these years. He still lives in the town where we grew up, and Dolly runs into him now and again, always telling me how friendly he is and good-looking. Weird, huh? I don't imagine he writes much anymore as he never had much need of it.

Later I married a man simply because he wrote me a poem. Twirl a few clever words around in mid-air and like magic... I'm mesmerized! I believe the verse included these words:

"I love you MJ
I wish you could see
exactly what you mean to me"

Perhaps the high school commencement program on which it was scrawled, dug out from under the seat of my car parked in a cemetery, was what did it. Quality parchment can lend dignity to even the simplest of rhymes. This boy was cute too, but the presents and the adoring part went missing. Well, you can't have everything, now can you?

I was reading Jonathan Lethem last night and came across these words:

"Conspiracies are a version of Tourette's syndrome, the making and tracing of unexpected connections a kind of touchiness, an expression of the yearning to touch the world, kiss it all over with theories, pull it close. Like Tourette's, all conspiracies are ultimately solipsistic, sufferer or conspirator or theorist overrating his centrality and forever rehearsing a traumatic delight in reaction, attachment and causality, in roads out from the Rome of self."

Immediately I was struck down. Head over heels. One never knows what words may appear to move one to deep passion. Go figure.

"Touching touching. Counting counting. Thinking thinking. Mentioning mentioning Tourette's. It's sort of like talking about telephones over the telephone, or mailing letters describing the location of various mailboxes. Or like a tugboater whose favorite anecdote concerns actual tugboats."

Words. How they are strung together. How they mix-and-match, jump, swing, reverse plunge rise scream and die. Move over Haruki Murakami. Any man who has me dreaming of sex with a character with Tourette's has my heart. Totally.

What if my high school suitor had written these words:

Come. Eat Count Chocula with me, for the day is young and you are hungry

Or how about this sentence:

Girl beauty I give
your love back a thousand-fold

Hell, we would probably be raising thirteen children on a dirt-farm littered with cars up on blocks. We would be in heaven.

$ Monsters + Little Gifts

I woke up in the night thinking about money. This isn't the first time. The monster periodically lurks under my bed, poised to grab my foot as I desperately leap onto my mattress and fumble to the safety of darkness under the covers.

During waking hours I can talk myself down. "The student loans aren't going to kill you." "You will be able to enjoy life." "What is the worst that can happen?" "They aren't going to cut off your fingers, now are they?" "Day-to-day it will all work out."

But sometimes in the night the demons catch me by surprise. I remind myself again that it is useless to fret. Why get jacked out of shape about the fact that 1% of the population in the US possesses equal wealth to the other 99%? It is pointless to be frustrated that this administration is taking away all safety nets for ordinary people. It is useless to think about the cost of the Iraq War, or Halliburton kickbacks in their Iraq contract, or government screw-overs, corruption, needless spending, $450 hammers, all of the shit. It is useless to mourn over what could have been.

Look reality in the face. This is here and now. And this morning the birds are beginning to sing outside my window and I can forget how hard it is to move up the class ladder in this country of ours. I can forget the toll that it has taken on my family for me to work so long so fucking hard, full time school, full time work, full time energy-sucking monster on the day side.

Ha. Sometimes I console myself with death (don't you?). Well, we are all going to die, does it really matter how we get there (rhetorical question)? All of the struggles, all the bullshit, all the inequity, all leveled. I find the thought at times quite soothing.

At other times the future welcomes me, bursting with busy happiness.

Yesterday, standing before my students, arms crossed and threatening (the ADHD crowd needed to do some work!), my mohawk-boy caught my eye from the other side of the room and winked at me. I couldn't help it. I grinned and winked back. Using all of their self-control, they worked diligently for five more minutes, holding onto the promise of 4 minutes of freedom at the end of class... a time with permission to get up, move around, speak when they felt like it. A small gift, and the least I can do.

An Open Discussion of Class Warfare--"Of Course You Realize This Has Meant War"

Necessary Viewing for all Americans

If we are complicit in this war, we should look at the effects of this war:
Uncensored Images from the Iraq War

- via Information Clearinghouse

How Can We Possibly Endure Another Two Years of George W Bush?

You know it's coming...
US spells out plan to bomb Iran

- via Information Clearing House

For You on Mothers Day

click on bleeding heartsthen proceed to passion flower

These are the Days of Alone

This place is mine today. People keep sensibly away on these unseasonable days. The garden has reserved them only for me. Dirty wet pantlegs kneel on acorn mulch, rich moist dirt full of earthworms alongside dripping bracken, jack-in-the-pulpit, trilliums, and a carpet of white blossoms to welcome little things out of the rain. Jumping, my feet land planted on stone cold rock, chilly toes wiggle and at once I am home. Tadpoles dart under lilypads. These are the days of alone.

I give you tumultuous days
powerful dark skys
roaming sheaths of rain
soaking bones
wild bursts of sunlight
to stop your thought,
a bird's simple song
your companion

Knee-Deep

Media Matters for America helps us wade through the latest bullshit: "Myths and falsehoods on the NSA domestic call-tracking program".

Summary: Media Matters documents the misleading or false claims advanced by media figures and Bush administration supporters in the wake of news that the National Security Agency had since 2001 been secretly collecting records of phone calls made by millions of Americans.

What a great site!

A Small Purse of Pure Earth

A headline I came across this morning, "Woman Prefers Eating Dirt", got me thinking about food again, and food prejudice. Eating dirt sounds like a pretty good idea to me if it's not full of contaminants. The pathological practice of eating nonfood items, called pica, is considered "abnormal" by some scientists, but does that make it so? In my mind, a society that condones the pathological practice of eating Cheetos is abnormal. And criminal for spreading their pathology of eating junkfood to other countries.

Gerald N. Callahan, in his article "Eating Dirt", says:

In the United States, many of us believe that humans should only eat food. We consider the consumption of nonfood items pathological, even though we know that what people define as “food” varies dramatically by region and ethnicity. We call the pathological act of eating nonfood items pica. Pica is a disease, but a disease different from polio or smallpox. No infectious agent is obviously associated with pica. Pica is a disease only because we believe normal “undiseased” persons would not eat anything but traditional human foods; some of those who do, some of the time, are at considerable risk because of their unusual appetites.

Pica includes eating things like lead paint chips, obviously not a healthy practice, but the type of pica called geophagy, the act of eating dirt, Callahan says may actually be good for you.

Eating dirt, then, rather than being abnormal, may be an evolutionary adaptation acquired over millennia of productive and not-so-productive interactions with bacteria—an adaptation that enhances fetal immunity and increases calcium, eliminates gastric upset, detoxifies some plant and animal toxins, and perhaps boosts mothers’ immunity at times when the hormones of pregnancy (13), factors produced by the fetus (14), changes in the complement system, replacement of MHC class I antigens in the trophoblast (15), and who knows what else suppress the mother’s natural immunologic desire to destroy her fetus—a miracle, nearly.

Our frenzy to kill bacteria (the popularity of anti-bacterial soap for example) destroys good bacteria and creates weak immune systems. And our senseless pollution and destruction of the planet kills our medicine, the earth itself.

So, maybe a small purse of pure earth found in the heart of Bhutan (where the people have a saying, 'If it is medicine, you should take it from an enemy. But if it is poison, you should refuse it from a friend.') will be the third perfect food tucked into my backpack with care as I prepare to set forth to roam this world.

Other than water, what little stuff we humans have inside us is largely dirt. Admittedly, this dirt is sometimes highly processed before we receive it, but most solids that make up humans and other creatures either are now or recently were dirt (the simple stuff that stripes the outer surface of our world, the thin paste that raises us above rocks) transformed by sunlight into plants or animals. Most of us prefer the dirt we eat in the form of cows and sheep and carrots and squash and bison and sorghum. Other dirt we’d just as soon scrape from our feet and leave at the door.

Perfect Food

I just keep accumulating bad karma, just stacking it up like stale doughnuts. For instance, wasn't that "obese people" reference in my last post uncalled for? Wow. That post and its potential to offend got me thinking about Karma Concentrate as an antidote for bad karma, sort of like Tang, the drink of the astronauts! Packed full of vitamins and minerals! "Gimme Some of that Karma Concentrate" would be a good song, I think, and I can already begin to hear the advertising jingle, which would include some bluesed-up chanting and a touch of cymbols.

This food thing isn't new to me. I periodically long for perfect food. The preponderance of heinous food around us everywhere (you should see what passes as food in the school where I work!) makes me long for truly nourishing and healing food. (And the switch from regular cola to diet cola in the schools is just choosing one disease over another for our children.) Sometimes it feels like we are swimming in a toxic environment. But let's not go there.

Boring and lifeless food is destructive, but there is a food that is perfect, and one that always comes to mind when I contemplate perfect food... lembas! I imagine it heavy and thick, a round brick of concentrated health-giving energizing soul-satisfying living "bread" (this sounds like communion, doesn't it?). Just a few crumbs would bring mighty strength and endurance.

No. I'm not a Lord of the Rings geek, damn it! But lembas just stayed with me. It created a longing. So now I have another perfect food to add to my fantasy provisions and a perfect compliment to lembas... Karma Concentrate. They will fit nicely in my backpack with all of my earthly possessions as I set forth to roam this world.

Karma Concentrate

Painting” with colored sand is one of the most exquisite art traditions of Tantric Buddhism, and the opportunity to view the creation of a sand mandala is one experience not to be missed. The Museum is privileged to have Tibetan and Mongolian monks from the Gyudmed Monastery in Mongolia in residence for one week as they create and ceremonially destroy a sand mandala. The mandala will be created over a period of seven days during which millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid in place using hollow pipes called Chak-purs, through which the sand is vibrated into the design. When the mandala is finished it will be ritually dismantled during an impressive ceremony to symbolize the impermanence of all that exists. The grains will then be released into the River behind The Museum. - Museum advertising

On the Fringes
Standing on the fringes of a small crowd gathered around a colorful sand mandala, it suddenly occurred to me that I was now inhabiting my most recent "rejection dream". Not an impersonal hotel, but a museum full of ancient and modern artifacts was the setting (of course) and it wasn't a Christian gathering. A Buddhist monk encouraged the onlookers to pray for peace and compassion. But it felt strikingly similar. I was in the same white-walled place, facing the same direction (north-east, to be exact) and in the same context.

Think of It as Art
I was at once keenly aware that I couldn't fully inhabit this dream, either. My mind withdrew from participation but I enjoyed watching the monk, wearing crimson and gold robes, who walked around the mandala chanting and tapping cymbols lightly together and then destroyed the design.

Down By the Riverside
The crowd walked outside to the riverbank by the muddy water where the colored sand was tossed into the current. Downwind, I inhaled a lung-full, and wondered what sort of dye they used for the bright colored sand, and whether it was a carcinogen. It's like cremated remains I thought, as another cloud wafted toward me, leaving a thin layer of the powder which, after the bright colors were mixed together during the "destruction ceremony" became a uniform yellowish-green, which reminded me of the insides of nightcrawlers. Nightcrawlers with guts that leak out when you put a hook in them and slither around in your fingers.

All One
The rest of the ashes sank into the brown polluted river and were carried slowly downstream like some glowing radioactive algae headed for distant lands in search of beings who need peace and compassion. The idea is that the peace sand will float down the river and connect with other waterways and migrate into the ocean and become one with everything. Or Something. I'm not really sure, but it was a "happening" nonetheless. Impermanence. Death. Renewal. Peace. Compassion. Such heady concepts, I needed a rest. Just let me zone out.

Bad Karma
The throng walked back across the grass toward the museum where the monks, holding their pillow with the hat on it that covered the bowl that once held the mandala sand but which now held river water that was to be used in a later ceremony, reached the door to the building only to find it locked. "This is unseemly", I thought! Undaunted and reverent to the end, the believers continued their procession around the building and up the hill toward the front door.

People Suck, Especially the Guy Who Crowded in Front of Me to Take His Fucking Pictures
Cameras clicked, cell phones trilled, people milled stealing glances at one other and I noticed again that there sure are a lot of obese people in the world these days.

I May Not Cut it as a Buddhist, but I Sure Do Want Some of that Karma Concentrate

As Much As I Know Right Now

I don't write about my job much on this blog, mostly because I'm paranoid (or not) that the "powers that be" would find it and use it against me in some way. They (the two men in charge of our building) love to use things against us, it's their favorite. And they love to write things, leave paper surveillance trails in your files and they love to be inconsistent and arbitrary with students and staff alike. I guess it's just "power" gone to their heads. Non-tenured hires cower before them. A union rep told me long ago that the admin at our school give preference to tiny women with blonde hair. So you can see what we're dealing with here. But the year is nearly over, kids, and I made it without too many scratches and bruises. I think we have something like 25 days left (there are a lot of people counting, but I never was good at remembering numbers).

One of my classes is full of beautiful ill-behaved ADHD-ridden loveable cast-away boys (my favorite!) who must use every ounce of strength not to explode during the last hour of the day. Yesterday one of the cutest, a kid with a mohawk who is really trying to get good grades (and who doubles as my phone/door answerer and is pretty confident of his ability to beat the crap out of each and every student in the class), exploded forth with a "great idea". "Ms _____! I've got a great idea!" (The organization of parties in the classroom is a recurring preoccupation for this particular hour.) "We could put the desks in an octagon and have ultimate fighting on the last day and whoever wins gets an 'A'!" I must say, it's tempting.

Another wonderfully funky little student stood at the board with a collection of dry erase markers, happily working on a drawing of Yoda and Jar Jar Binks gazing adoringly at each other, hands reaching out and fingers almost touching. It was accompanied by "Romeo and Juliet" conversation bubbles which were filled with the most mushy balcony scene dialogue imaginable.

A third student, who holds the infamous honor of being placed close to my desk through every seating chart change this year, a surfer-dude-bad-behavior-worse-reputation kid who has failed every class this year (but is also one of the smartest dudes in the class), asked if I had any papers he could hand out. I passed him a thick stack, knowing his limits for sitting still had reached maximum tolerance.

The boys like to read Shakespeare aloud. They get a kick out of reading the girls' parts with emotion and funny bad accents. Then they like to have their acting abilities praised with enthusiasm. They like to complain. (Especially the boys. I'm always telling them to "Get a backbone! Act like a girl!" And they, with minimum grumbling, take it pretty well.) The few girls in the class, busily working on the latest assignment, are sometimes oblivious to this exchange.

So, with 25 (or so) days left, I am looking ahead to summer. I will visit Veronica in Florida for a week in June, where she will turn my staid life upside down with late nights, intimate conversation, romping days on the beach and blenders full of "wackos". After that I intend to occupy myself with the most practical of matters. The house needs a new roof. I think I will create stone walkways in the garden. I want to work with my hands.

I don't want to talk (as much). Ideas and dreams that used to occupy my consciousness no longer interest me (as much). I'm not so lost in the pursuit of happiness, not as preoccupied with thought, or the idea that my thoughts are important (as much). I have abandoned the idea of being special. I'm not searching for anything, or anyone (as much). When I am alone, living simply, I tell myself, everything will fall into place.

Flower Boy

Auggie, not to be outdone by my flower-posting and my wordiness, texted me the following (after I sent him a photo of a tulip):

I'm going to call it "The passionate springlike squall of flowerlike luminecenct longing: Draft three". What do you think? I think I spelled luminecenct wrong. If I did, it was for artistic effect. Or affect. I don't remember.

Watercolor Flower