My Natal Tongue

Vermin and High School Football, the Event of the Season?

2009-09-02T05:51:00.005-05:00

I'm mid-second week of adjunct teaching way too many Comp classes than the human brain could possibly handle. In fact, a friend of mine - a sweet, fellow adjunct often seen sporting a bow tie - explains it all to me as "Teaching malpractice!" He was sincerely worried about my health. And understandably so. Last night, I was up until 3AM again to only wake up at 6AM. It's only these nights before my big days - Mondays and Wednesdays (on my feet 8:30AM - 8:50PM). And, really, it could be worse. I'm not having to wear a hair net, inhale the smell of old meat, or risk waving the under-flesh of my upper arm past sharp spinning/grinding/slicing blades (God bless my mother). BUT, I haven't had much time to write. And I've had NO time to get back to CEllA's. I'm calling it "technical difficulties." We've lost our Comcast - our internet, tv, and telephone - because the bill had snowballed all summer until it became abominable. I am picking up a wireless signal from somewhere, however . . . and I think it's the PS2 of the teenage twin boys who live across the street (note: please keep my secret).

Meanwhile, I went to a high school football game last Friday and found something moving in it. My youngest teenager was the most dignified flute player on the field come half-time when they performed the scuttle that their band director has so creatively - oddly - titled "Alpha and Omega." It's a vicarious kind of marching band step-show. The flag core is awful. Come next home game, they'll be incorporating a plywood pyramid.

I'm out of practice with writing - just been teaching it like I know something (scribbling the latin words for the three appeals on chalk boards, reading poetry and imposing responsive "free-writing" to the sound of grumbling Nursing and Welding majors, etc. etc.) - but I've replayed a bit of the evening in my head until I finally had to write it down . . . Funny - I forgot that this blog can be a capitalized Escape. I'll get to my other work later.

~

Feasts. June bugs. Mayflies. Meaty moths. Mosquitoes. What is eating them is flying – spastic – above a smalltown green and white mini-war – Arabians versus Cougars. First game of the season. Home. It's all chippy shoulder pads and fresh knees and elbows. I’m really there for the half-time show. There’s a freshman flute player in the band who’s tossed away her summer to march and finally - on this day - wear a forest-green plume and heavy, brass-buttoned polyester in front of a set of crowded football stands. And before the sun went down, a news helicopter out of Indy dropped in and made us all feel special, made us all imagine our faces on the tube (when I was growing up, we NEVER had any helicopters drop in at our school). And the Arabian defense keeps sacking the Cougar quarterback, lifting him up off of his cleats and "planting him like a daisy" (Matt's words), and it should be fun to watch the quarterback get more and more nervous, to watch him think too quickly and throw the ball into the ground just to get rid of it, but I’ve got a bag of fresh, over-salted popcorn. My oldest daughter – who’s no fan of any sport really, but a fan of the opposite gender – is giving me names to pair with the numbers on jerseys. But my eyes keep drifting up to what seems like a parallel existence – a more brutal arena – where lazy, beady-eyed aliens with their exoskeletons are being eaten up by flying blind mice with sonar. The bats are flipping and twisting, dipping and lifting. The bugs are stunned into a stupor by the possibility of more than one vivid moon. In fact, there are a hundred moons, and they're all brighter than any moon they've ever aspired to fly close to. Maybe their deaths are blissful. They die believing there IS a Utopia, and the bats hit them fast enough that the bugs are denied the chance to think otherwise.

Matt and I argue for a few minutes at first. They looked like birds to me – like killdeer. Their wings seemed striped white, but maybe it’s a reflection. But I realize they’re not crying like killdeer would (so Matt wins). The things are just flying and circling. Search and seek. Dip and flip and eat. Having the time of their lives right above the heads of high school Pep Club (where the Silly String is flying out of cans, where the chants are less creative and far less moving than the All Black's Haka [but what do you expect?], and where sophomore boys have painted their nipples purple to impress their upper classmen. It is a new year).

There is a boy in the stands, standing in front of us in the undecided rain with a group of his girlfriends. He's creamy black and tall and thin, and neon stars and circles light up his tight white t-shirt. He's wearing dark "skinny jeans." All three of his girlfriends, in the football spirit, have painted thick black stripes under their eyes, and they're all leaning on the fence that lines the front row, making occasional fun of the cheerleaders.

A white boy with spikes of gelled hair sticking out of the front of his cap, slides by on the ground in front of the gang and shouts up “nigger!” And the black boy lights up like a Bic and jumps at him, diffident and thankful that his girlfriends have his back. The girls grab their friend’s skinny arms and call the little white boy an asshole. The white boy stops and does a quick Hitler salute to the Friday Night Lights. He says “White Power!” but it is without power and full of waver; it is limp enough so that the crowd can't hear him. It would seem that he says it not because he knows much of Hitler or ever wants to follow in his footsteps. He knows there's evil in the words. He's catering to his intended audience and taking the necessary actions to bring about reaction. He has probably tried similar things on his mother, maybe called her a Bitch to get slapped or stole her liquor. He probably melted in the attention of punishment and directed anger - probably has developed a craving for it that will require incarceration later. And the chain link metal surrounding the stands is a shield between the two boys; it protects the white boy’s pimply face – like he is imagining himself taunting a junk yard dog from the other side of the no-trespass zone. When the black boy reacts, the white boy darts – through a tunnel that leads under the stands and under the behinds of a hundred parents, most just as narrow-minded.

The white boy disappeared. But not before the black boy stomped off, head high, mind high because he KNOWS what’s wrong and what’s right. And his girlfriends were behind him. They expected him to. They didn't know what they were doing either. Their stomps shook the aluminum columns and rows that we sat on. Then we scored another touchdown, and the crowd exhaled with shouts and cheers and whistles, and the gang stopped to watch a minute before they lit the steps. The black boy was an epitome of hesitance meets determination. He was feminine but a feminine angry. He’d kick some ass if he had to. He’d been waiting to. Maybe the other kid had no idea what he’d walked into, how much piss had been waiting to pour itself out of creamy black fists and into the face of “typical.”

But nothing happened. Nothing happened that I saw, and I had even followed them - discreetly - under the cover of wanting a pop to swallow with all of the popcorn salt. I was going to break something up if I had to. I'd tell all that I saw to a local, white officer (that's all we have around here). I struggled for the next hour with the thought of telling the school counselor about the scene (he was hanging out down there on the track with a walkie-talkie on his belt, keeping his eye on the legs of the varsity cheerleaders). I imagined myself voicing the words "racial slurs." But then I don't like the school counselor at all. He reminds me of my ex-husband - crispy clean-cut, Lands End clothes, high-nosed. I doubted much would come of it. And this is the stuff that I grew up with. This was a repeated scene, and it was old.

I saw the black boy later standing with his arms crossed not far from concessions, still with his girlfriends huddled around him, and his face and white t-shirt looked clean. I didn’t see the white boy with the gelled hair again. My daughter says he’s not from this school. The black boy and his girls were all laughing, sucking on straws and dipping nachos. It had passed for now. I told myself the other boy won't come back, but I know that, if he did, he'd bring friends.

Back in the stands, I went back to munching on my popcorn - wishing I had a cigarette - and I drifted back up occasionally to the bats and bugs. And as the rain kept stopping and starting again, I opened and closed my dysfunctional umbrella, watching the score as it played out in the lit-up ecosystem that whirled above all the trim, planted grass. Finally, the rain fell hard enough to chase the bats away. The rain fell hard enough to make the second half of the game a sleeper. Nobody scored.

But we won the game – 28-0. Impressive. Everybody was wet, pouring out of the stands and towards their SUVs and minivans (even WE have a Windstar). The adrenaline had been lovely. But the fog had been building since half-time, reminding me of my bed's comforter. We slipped out early, just after the losing Cougars made a decent-enough punt for the hell of it.

Muzorama

2009-08-21T14:44:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, normal settings appear way too trippy and so we require a glimpse elsewhere. I am all orientationed-out, and the head ache granted to me via textbook salesmen and their "digital assets" (outdated, cheesy, condescending avatars) gave me the creepiest dreams . . . Not far from what I found here:

Muzorama from Muzorama Team on Vimeo.

Routines . . .

2009-08-19T00:16:00.002-05:00

. . . are those same four pills every night before bedtime and that space that exists in between thoughts the next day.

. . . are computer word games and quizzes with radial buttons.

. . . are the big things breaking - the toilet, the air conditioner, the oven - breaking the flow of simply "going" or simply sleeping or melting the cheese on homemade spinach/tomato pizzas.

. . . are a method called avoidance; Scrub re-runs; empty job agent result newsletters; forgotten names; missed phone calls from my mother; piles of bills; neglected literary fiction; My Lunch Money Low Balance Notifications; Anderson Cooper 360 (Obama looks tired); my children whining and wanting; roast beef, mashed potatoes and sweet corn at Mamaw's on Sundays; Orientations; Julie miserable; dirty dishes and laundry; not writing.

Today, we broke out and drove the four year old to the quaint little water park in Middletown. We bought Pepperidge Farm cookies and Goldfish and had a picnic amongst the bumble bees. We observed the locals and their anti-social children. We gave yogurt to babies. We drove home in wet blue jeans. :)

I'm behind on too many things (not new news). My journal is requiring a bit much of me. Namely: printer ink and personal focus. But, I'm determined to turn it into something BEFORE the official end of summer. It will be my own birthday present to myself. It's hard when you start reading through things and find poems about farting or written in creepy medieval voice or illustrated with a pic of naked chick with nothing but a pot leaf covering the depth of her split. I'm feeling a little strapped and alone on this one.

I've been staying up late to catch virtual fish.

“Not everyone can live on the hill.”

2009-08-16T20:21:00.003-05:00

There was no flood this summer. There was no flood of anything. A flood would've been monumental (especially if it reached way up here) and leveling; it would've brought us all eye to eye, had us sharing our shovels and sweeping out the mud in teams. Instead, we all just seemed to swim around in the humidity, across the kitchen to open the fridge, up and down the stairwell, dogs hairs stuck to everything with a texture (black hairs on the white things, white hairs on the dark things) - with the ac broken and all. The downstairs toilet is still broken - you have to remove the top to put the floaty back in place over the hole (and, no, I can't just buy new toilet innards - I've tried it - they don't fit. The toilet is ancient and likely cheaply made in the early sixties, like the rest of this house). I wish this house was haunted - maybe we could sell tickets to seances. Frogs are haunting the above-ground pool. We haven't touched the checking account for weeks (crickets chirp there in the empty darkness). But there are plans in motion.

I'm taking on a new title - "full time teacher" (albeit the title's hooked with the ugly and nonbeneficial term "adjunct") as opposed to "full time student" - a role which I had filled for eighteen years (off and on, here and there), a role which I thought defined myself quite well. I slept off some chest congestion and a headache yesterday. Wasted the entire day curled up on the couch (because the upstairs was 130 degrees - and the bed felt like a swamp) with my lavender-scented eye cover on, but I walked through possibilities, and I talked myself out of being pissed off at the world come 9PM. This morning, I got up and took the dog for a walk. I cleaned house. I organized things. I've declared the kitchen table "my office" because . . . it feels right. I have a milk crate for files. I have pre-formatted syllabi to claim as my own. A McGraw-Hill book that's seemingly worthless. Open shell, step in, fill the plaster.

I found an astrological prediction in Nuvo that made me stop and cock my head (these things usually don't do this to me - I read them, but I've all but rejected the prissy-ness of the Virgo and declared myself all Chinese Astrological - The Year of the Tiger was a good one and, besides, it sounds more powerful). Here's what it said: "Two annoyances that had been bugging you before your exile have been neutralized. But you've still got at least one more to go, so don't relax yet. In fact, I think you should redouble your vigilance. Check expiration dates on your poetic licenses and pet theories. Scrub the muck from your aura, even if your friends seem to find it 'interesting.' And learn to read your own mind better so you can track down any disabling thoughts that might still be lurking in remote corners." It didn't seem as though I'd neutralized any annoyances since my exile, but . . . if I thought about it hard enough, I could find them. Maybe I just liked it because it used the words "exile" and "vigilance" and "poetic licenses." Maybe I liked the cue to "scrub the muck" from my aura and the suggestion to read my own mind better. Of course. Hence, write, right? Give it to me, and let me see what I want to see in it. Death to the Author.

This evening, my son tried to get me to watch a bootlegged version of Tranformers II that his girlfriend got for him (filmed in a German theater), but I couldn't do it. Ya' know, I have accomplished a lot this summer. I haven't written much on here - but I was deemed a "teaching consultant" by the Indiana Writing Project. I just wish it had gotten me a little more to live on in regards to loan money. I've scribbled and scribbled and filled up two half-sized mole books - surely there's something worthy in there. I read "Cousin Jimmy's Onery Services" to a crowd of blank faces. And Matt managed to pull off a life-altering trip to Vietnam.

Meanwhile, I think my mother has taken my sister's cell phone away from her, and I want to slap her around for it. I need to hear my sister's voice. She had a plan to start college in our hometown in the Fall - where I started and where she got her AS in secretarial duties so many years ago. Our mother might've wrecked her plans. Mother may be annoyance #3, waiting to be tackled in the rickety construction that is the paragraph. Wait, I've already done that (once or twice). It helped . . . a little.

2009-08-06T12:28:00.002-05:00

I feel like the biggest loser. My poor neglected blog. My poor neglected writing self. Being in "job limbo" has sucked away my creativity. I've written cover letter after cover letter, pleasant e-mail after pleasant e-mail. Meanwhile, we've had to pack up and hang out at flea markets to gain extra cash. Meanwhile, we had to miss the trip to Atlantic City, the chance to drive for twelve hours (by ourselves) and watch talented writers read with the twinkling Taj Mahal behind them. I shouldn't even begin to write all that I've been through. Our yard sale was a flop. Our camping trip down south for the 4th was a flop. In fact, I think that's what has made me avoid blogging - this evil chain of thoughts that erupts at night, telling me that I have to write about a thousand things if I write about anything.

What it all comes down to: exhaustion. I blame the computer and I blame cigarettes. I blame the three slobby teenagers and the needy Border Collie. I blame the television. I blame Chuzzle on Pop Cap games and Word Path on Facebook. My minutes just burn away, and I feel enormous amounts of guilt. The fall is not bringing new classes with it, and it depresses me. The best I can hope for is a few adjunct teaching positions at the community college - central indy locations. I am being negative here. There are still resumes and cover letters in the works. Administrators are slow.

I have been doing all of these parental things. I'm trying to be a band booster (which is really hard when you're poor). Tonight, we're going on the buses with the high school band to see a drum core or two march around the bottom of the Lucas Oil Stadium popcorn bowl.

At least this little blurb is a start to writing again. Sorry it sucks. I can't say I'll try harder next time - I would just end up intimidating myself.

Sunday Morning

2009-06-28T09:39:00.003-05:00

For once in days, I am the first one up, the only one up. I made the coffee. I filled up the big urn that we use on the weekends and I'm waiting for the little red light to kick on so that I might fill up a large mug. I ate generic Oreos with blue icing (Spring!) for breakfast. I restarted the dryer. I turned off some lights that had been left on all night. I didn't want to do it, but I smoked. It made me dizzy.

This morning, before I got out of bed, I tried talking to God. I tried to rename it. I tried to see it as a woman. Draped like Lady Buddha, I guess. I tried to recognize all of the buzzing cells in my arms and legs, toes and fingers. It didn't work so well. I needed a true breeze on my face. I needed to hear the birds over the fan. I needed to convince myself that I was comfortable.

Now, I've read a little. I felt inspired for a minute. I had an idea . . . What if I took my memoirs - my creative nonfiction - and twisted them? added to them? changed them here and there as I see fit? as I wish? I have had this sinking feeling that I'm neglecting my imagination, attempting to capture all of these half-truths in what might've really happened, in what I half-remember. I should perhaps just shake the term "nonfiction." I want to paint.

In the Summer Institute, this invitational course filled with smiling teachers around one long stretching table, we've been asked repeatedly to write about our childhood. I'm burnt out on it. It doesn't interest me much anymore. I feel like I've already scraped the bottoms of all memories worth scratching around about. This weekend - for the 4th - we'll be traveling south to camp and hopefully catch another crash-up derby - at best, a trip to a local bar.

This morning, I am attempting to talk myself into talking a walk. I'll have lots to do when and if I return.

Monday Morning

2009-06-22T09:10:00.007-05:00

A four year-old in the middle of your king-sized bed does little for re-discovering the lost love that's been hanging in limbo since that second night after your husband returned after being in Vietnam for three weeks (yes, it took us two glorious nights to catch up - then it was over). The upstairs is too hot for the little one to sleep in her little room without a fan. By morning, she's usually sideways, twisted in a sheet, with her feet between my shoulder blades and her head on his sweaty, half-hairy chest. Today as he and I were driving in (both attempting to start a class for second summer semester without losing the house), he tells me "We've got to find another place for that girl to sleep. Because you and I are drifting. I can feel it."

I think he added "And I'm really REALLY hot for you" or something like that . . . I wasn't listening.

I was smoking, staring out my window at the passing, budding cornfields, wondering if I'd get enough time at lunch to run papers over to the Payroll office, wondering if my last attempt at getting a student loan would fall through and - if it did fall through - can the whole family work at Blockbuster's? Because we would.

The AC is Out

2009-06-21T07:35:00.004-05:00

The AC is out. And we don't have the money to replace it or even attempt to fix it. And it has been so fucking hot. The AC had been whining and clunking since we'd first turned it on. Ball bearings were grinding or the fan needed greased or . . . something. It was vintage. A solid invention of the late 60's. It ran hard and faithful for decades. The back sticker claims a Quaker corporation. It's a block of metal with a fan that blows outwards instead of upwards. It was painted forest green to match the shutters (by the savvy old, too-tan couple who lived here before we did - who, unlike us, were able to keep the pool from becoming a frog sanctuary).

For the last three winters, it never occurred to me to cover the good ole' AC; obviously, it never occurred to Matt either. Ah, we first-time home-owners. Outright stupid. So the AC sleeps now in the rocks that frame the small back deck, surrounded by the mushy maple and poplar leaves of too many Octobers without a leaf blower. It's a damp, quiet condo tower for earwigs and June bugs.

With the heat hanging in the house, time seems to move more slowly. The humidity makes the floor and tables feel wet and sticky - we're swimming between rooms in a brick ranch oven. The toilets are sweating. The house is positioned so that the breezes barely seep through the window screens. The dog is sad.

We borrowed a tiny window AC unit from Grandma. The only window that it would fit in (without having to seek out an extension ladder) was the kitchen window. The only windows that open in the living room are too small and align to a large picture window (for some ill-creative reason). So we positioned window fans between the kitchen and the l-room and hung sheets up to block off the hallways and the upstairs. The temp rises five degrees between the kitchen and the living room. It rises ten more when you move through the sheets and upstairs - up there it's 100+. Has to be. And we didn't notice the gaps left up top of the window once the unit was in place - Bugs filtered in and we had a buzzing circus on the kitchen ceiling the first night. We stuffed old towels into the gap. Now, there is only the loud hum of the unit and the fans. You'd think we lived next door to a droning oil rig.

I feel like I'm living in a wanky trailer with all of these patterned sheets hanging and fans blowing. It brings up bad memories. I am totally restless and broke. If you saw my stack of bills and the lack of summer prospects for cash, you'd see the ironic symbolism here immediately.

Dreams: Trains, Purses, and Dead Leaves

2009-06-04T06:45:00.005-05:00

I had strange dreams this morning between moments when I was punching the snooze button - in and out, knowing it was another daylight, knowing my four year old had crawled into the king-size with me again and instead of taking advantage of all the room, she'd snuggled up against my back. Being up early to take my 16 year old to summer P.E. (geez, can't they at least give her a week?), I made myself remember the dreams. I pulled them up as best I could and reviewed them, driving back from the high school, no coffee in my system, with the dog in the car - hanging his head out the window and whimpering (wanting so damn badly to jump and run). Last evening, I was reading Storming the Gates of Heaven - an anthology of spiritual writings by women - and dreams were mentioned over and over again. The dreams of Native Americans, Jews, Baptists, Catholics, and Wiccans. Okay, I'm searching - Jill encouraged me again, Tuesday at Vera Mae's over our basted shrimp sandwiches at that fancy table by the window. "You should write a book," she said more than once. So, as I consider talking myself into it and talking myself out of huge insecurities (which piss me off most days, the way they show themselves - sweet apologies, denials, flush face - can be so fucking lame), I want to examine examples as to how I might reveal the search and discovery in words. I hid upstairs in the bedroom most of the evening reading. Downstairs was messy any way - here only a week and a half after my monster cleaning. I remember now why I became depressed last year. The four year old had a hard time letting me be alone in my space. And then her two teen sisters disappeared into their own rooms (one with the telephone) and up and left her alone in the living room with Garfield, The Movie. So I put her to bed early without receiving much fuss. I read her Moonhorse.

I remember three distinct parts of this morning's dream - all three parts occur within a larger city (lots of commercial buildings, weaved streets, tall skinny houses with small yards) and all seemed somewhat devoid of color - either it was dark or the setting was barren (dirty white houses, pale sky, gray streets).

Part I: I was holding the hand of my four-year-old daughter walking down a busy street, seemingly window shopping, but we were caught up watching old trains move in and out of a large station across the way. At times they appeared to be stage coaches, connected car after car and pulled by large groups of filed horses. In fact, it seems as though it was the horses that drew the attention of my little girl. At other times the trains appeared to be noisy trams, more like freight cars. Regardless, they were unique. I promised her we would ride one for fun. We walked quickly down sidewalks and waited anxiously to cross traffic to reach the station, but we missed the train. The train wouldn't run again until the next morning. I tried not to make a big deal of it. Although disappointed, my daughter did not cry. It seemed as though the trains had scared her any way. My spontaneous decision had made her nervous, moved her out of her comfort zone. In this way, she reminded me of her father.

According to Dream Moods Dictionary: "To dream that you miss a train, denotes missed opportunities or nearly escaping your death."

In Part II, I simply realized that I had forgotten my purse on some bench where we'd sat, watching the trains go by. I pray within the dream "Please let it be there Please let it be there Please let it be there" as I drag my four year old along behind me by the arm. We pass menacing strangers on the street. Some comment, whistle, approach us, whatever. I don't listen and so they dissolve. I am focused on the prayer, certain that if the prayer runs unstopped, the purse will be there. I stop to tell my daughter that it was, obviously, a good thing that we didn't get on that train because I never would've found my purse then. She might smile at me, but I only remember a sense of her approval and then returning to repeating the prayer. Please let it be there. The prayer becomes a struggle with what lies underneath it - awful thoughts creeping up of all that I will have lost if the purse is gone, of how violated I will feel if I find it on the concrete ripped clean of its innards, of all of the tasks that I'll have to go through to replace everything. But I was praying. And it would be a miracle if the purse still lays there on a bench in the middle of the dark city, untouched. The odds were against me. (I pray like this at other times as well. My mother taught me how to do it. I've taken out the names "Lord" and "Jesus" but I still chant with just as much conviction . . . to something . . . ). The prayer worked! At first, this is my thinking when I see the vision of a fat, brown leather purse sitting on the bench just as I must've left it. Then I tell myself (as always) that the prayer was useless; I was just lucky. I can't will anything to happen with my words, with my mind. Relieved. Semi-thankful. Why only semi-thankful? I believe I did will something to happen. It was a dream. Within the dream, I saved myself even if a small part of me - a secret on the underside of the chant - wished for the worst to happen.

According to the Dream Moods Dictionary: "On a symbolic note, losing things in your dream may signify lost opportunities, past relationships or forgotten aspects of yourself. Your personal associations to the thing you lose will clue you into the emotional meaning and interpretation of your dream."

"A purse in your dream represents secrets, desires and thoughts which are being closely held and guarded. It symbolizes your identity and sense of self. Consider also the condition of the purse for indications of your state of mind or feelings. Alternatively, a purse symbolizes the female genitalia and the womb . . . To dream that you lost your purse, denotes loss of power and control of possessions. It also suggests that you may have lost touch with your real identity."

Strange . . .

A loss of opportunities and/or control . . . the train, the purse. But I prayed a chant (either I willed it to be or luck was on my side) and I found it - and it was a fatter, more expensive purse unlike one I have ever carried.

Part III: I'm not sure if the dream dictionary (which I believe doesn't hold any truths - just suggestions. Symbols = to each her own) can have interpretations for this one. I was on the street, still walking - maybe it was hours or days later or maybe it was another dream altogether because what was once night had turned to day. And my sister was beside me. We came upon a young woman, surrounded by her children, living in a large white broken house in the middle of the city, and crying about her trees. All of her trees were losing their leaves, but it was just Spring - they had just bloomed from flowers (some blooms were still there - oddly full with petals like the discrete blooms on a Poplar tree). Now, the leaves had turned dry, dark red and orange, and were falling, spinning from the trees in the breeze. The trees were almost bare. She told us that her husband had sent her these trees from another country, and she did not want them to die. My sister and I became detectives; we sat on the street corner and began searching through our books to identify the leaves and the bloom. I found what I thought was the name of the tree (something unpronounceable - Hawaiian maybe?), and I concluded that it was simply a new climate for them. The trees were not used to such a harsh winter - or changing seasons at all for that matter - and they would not necessarily die; perhaps their life cycle would simply change and they would eventually adapt. My sister didn't agree with me at all. She insisted that she'd seen trees like these with this exact same condition, and it was deadly. They were simply dying and the woman would have to deal with her loss. I cannot remember if we approached the woman with our conclusions - It seemingly became more of our own quest and then perhaps the snooze went off again, crying in my ear.

According to the Dream Moods Dictionary: "To see brown or withered leaves in your dream, signifies fallen hopes, despair, sadness and loss."

Now that I write these images/visions out, they seem to make more sense - or I have given them more sense for a reason. The interpretations of the purse make me a little nervous. The disagreement with my sister is also interesting. Two nights ago she and I spoke on the phone and she told me that once a woman - a traveling visionary - in her old church (she was once Pentecostal) told her that she had a vision of her as a writer. My sister thinks that to write would be romantic (like being a sex therapist). On the phone, she tells me she wants to write, and I give her suggestions and encouragement (namely: "write your ass off first" and "instead of just thinking about it or expecting an epiphany to come to you, just write"). But a part of me figures she's never listening. I entertained the idea of writing a novel in partner with my sister - told myself for a moment that this could be how I save her. But then I always kick myself after I think such things. Who says she needs saving? Who am I to assume I am someone worthy of saving any one? Would she even want me to? And then I tell myself I'd probably screw it up or couldn't carry it through. In my dream, the lady's trees lost their leaves regardless of either of our conclusions, and neither one of us would know what was truth until Spring came around again.

More Than 48 Hours

2009-05-17T23:57:00.004-05:00

On Monday May 18th . . .

I'll be driving him to the airport in two and a half hours. 3:30AM. He'll catch a flight to Denver to LA then Seoul then Ho Chi Minh City. He'll be gone for three weeks touring all of Vietnam from one end to the other with eleven other students and two bearded anthropology professors, helping to film streets infested with whirring mopeds and vendors, figuring out the act of chopsticks and rice (isn't it lift the bowl and scoop?), nervous around communists, disliking chaotic cities, celebrating his 38th birthday. Really, I have no idea what he'll be seeing. Neither does he. Tonight, we've watched The Wrestler and waited for our toddler to fall asleep. The Wrestler made me shrug.

He's packed minimally. Now, he's pacing the house and rummaging for sunscreen.

I haven't been by myself for so long in years. We have never been apart from each other for more than 48 hours. I'm tempted to break down. I think about crying a little - being left here, jobless with one last check coming, taking care of the house, finishing up that massive mountain of laundry, taking care of three teenagers who like to argue and can manipulate me way too easily and a four year old who is addicted to computer games, possibly his chain-smoking 17 year-old stepdaughter with her turquoise faux-hawk dropping in if she feels like it and always wanting things on her terms, taking care of the dog, likely letting the dog fill his empty space on our king size bed. But I don't break down. Just don't. Never have. I'll be fine. I know the trip overseas could be life-altering for him. And maybe I'll be a better person too come the end of it. I keep thinking it will remind me of something.

On Sunday May 24th . . .

This morning, I finally received an e-mail from my husband. I quote: "This is so out of character, but I have been drunk every night. College kids?!?" Yikes. I smell mid-life crisis in full swing. ;) He says he bought a Rolex from a street vendor for $14. He says Hoi An is beautiful. I am so fucking jealous.

The mountain of laundry is gone. Of course, there will be more.

The dog hair in the corners is gone. But, there will be more.

Sleep sucks.

I have read nothing aside from an Entertainment magazine. Eminem is making a come back after being addicted to pain killers. Who cares?

And, in case you haven't noticed, I haven't felt much like writing. Instead I've been watching old 80's movies or playing Pop Cap games. Last night, myself and my daughters went on a desperate search in the Castleton Mall for a two-piece swimsuit that could support a set of ample breasts (they're not mine). From this trip, I learned. Also, the capitalism (the tall ceilings in Dick's, the Macy's Memorial Day Sale, the skinny mannequins, the spending crowd and their ritzy purses) made my stomach upset - or maybe it was the Fruitlatti and the Asian Bourbon chicken . . .

Wednesday of next week I'm going to a job fair. I really don't want to have to work at Marsh or Meijer for the summer. :(

I wish I had it in me to do some self-cleansing. I don't even get a moment alone to meditate. Being "by myself" was an allusion. Funny how I was scared of it. I can't even shower in peace. I thought maybe I'd quit smoking (again, for real this time) while Matt was gone - no luck. I'm loving the personal moments. Oddly enough, I'm clinging to the teenagers. How do I cure such a thing? The coffee's not working.

Blisters, Deer Ticks, Pressure

2009-04-28T22:44:00.004-05:00

I have a huge blister in the center of my palm from mowing the yard with a push mower on Monday. I mowed for hours - the stupid mower kept dying on the hillside. I bought three young beautiful Blue Colorado Douglas Fir trees to plant in my yard and never got around to it. $4.95 each at Lowes. They are sitting on my back deck, drooping a little.

On Sunday, we made a trip down south to see family. It was to celebrate my Mom's birthday and to take my sister our old e-machine (she was thrilled - thought Windows Vista was like entering a new world). My family, my sister's family, and Mom and her sugar daddy (Virgil, who was at loss after Fern's unfortunate pressure-cooker incident - Mom calls it a suicide). Mom with her dry skin and pink polka-dotted tank top - Virgil with food all over his shirt and missing teeth. Both in matching motorcycle racing caps. I'm not sure why or how they had matching motorcycle racing caps. I insisted that we all gathered at Pike County's park for a picnic - what was once a state forest - a nostalgic place where I remember American Legion drinking parties, climbing the fire tower to the top and then throwing off our shoes. In the time that we were there - a few hours - we saw a total of 287 deer ticks, picked them off of our pant legs, out of our hair, sneaking up our arms. Well, maybe not 287 - more like 20, but 20!!! 20 blood-sucking deer ticks. When we got home (after the three hour drive in the dark), I had to pluck one off of the back of my 16 year old daughter's thigh.

The trip was hard - as usual. All was as usual - worse in fact maybe. And it hurt. My chest has been in a knot since Sunday. I keep blaming it on graduation and the pressure to get a job.

the lost groove of the blog

2009-04-17T09:35:00.003-05:00

I didn't quit smoking. I quit blogging (sorry) . . . in the name of completing my one hundred page thesis, but I kept smoking. I did slow down immensely. And I started smoking vanilla clove cigarettes (more properly referred to as "Golds") at first meagerly, but then - come evening - I was all about inhaling fiberglass (and whatever else they put into those awful things) as a means of concentrating - especially when I'm writing against the clock (I lie). They cost twice as much, I could only buy them at the Tobacco Depot, and they nearly killed me. I've never coughed so much in the mornings. They were changing my voice. I felt like a hag. But I did find out, in this, that my habit is more than nicotine related - it's a physical let-me-busy-myself-with-something-stupid kind of thing. I feel so immature. So . . . I bought regular cigarettes again - ultra lights and no wicked menthol shit - in a neon orange box - 100's with really long filters - and they're okay. Only thing is I am having a difficult time only doing the evening thing. I had a rule I was abiding by - no smokes until after dark, but now that I have real tobacco in my purse, and it calls to me. Smoke goes so well with coffee . . .

I have a ton of shit to grade this weekend AND I have to take one of my daughters shopping for a prom dress this evening. She wants one full-length and "vintage." Yes! Used dress shops here we come! Tomorrow, I have to ride along on a campus tour of Purdue with my other daughter (she doesn't want to go to Purdue - she's thinking Ivy League - but the trip is free). I hope the day will be as pretty as this one.

I talked to my sister on the phone the other night, after not talking to her for weeks. I mention right off that we'd just bought a Wii with our tax refund money. She follows up, telling me that they won't get their tax refund again this year (her husband still owes back child support), and she just had to borrow cash from our dad to cover their mortgage. Her husband got a job, but he hates it, and they cut his unemployment at day one and didn't take into account that whole two-weeks-with-no pay-check thing. My lovely sister has this incessant ability to make me feel like an ass. And, once again, I can't drive down and visit her this weekend nor the weekend after next. I stutter these things to her and my neck grows hot. I owe her a computer and some Office software. I'm bumbling her plans to get moving. She may be blaming her depression on me. I hung up the phone and wanted to send her a check. Money works for something. Of course, in two weeks, I'll be unemployed.

My desire to write about whatnot kinda' sputtered there for the last few weeks, as I was having to worry about things like "flow" and "unity" in the whole of my thesis - which was actually all of these "miniature narrative essays" - some very short. All nonfiction - many centered around my sister. Arranging them and figuring out what was missing was the hardest. The thesis was handed in Monday. All done with proper margins and caps on the title page. Any way, I am out the groove of the blog. I am out of the groove of lots of things. I'll work my way back into it. It might take me a few days/weeks.

The Interview

2009-03-12T01:04:00.004-05:00

“Do you wanna’ hear something gross?” Her voice turns secretive, hushed.

She had been talking politics, bragging of her newfound faith in Obama. She’s picked up one of his books and even Hilary’s It Takes a Village. She thinks the liberals might cure her financial crisis. She blames the republicans for her husband's lay-off at the cabinet factory in Jasper. She's hoping the stimulus bill will trickle down to the gutter. Her husband thinks Obama is the Black Horse mentioned in the book of Revelations.

I push the ear piece of the telephone closer to my ear lobe. I say, “Sure.”

She tells me how she was interviewing at a temporary job agency, answering questions, smiling without showing her teeth, keeping her legs crossed in a floral skirt and sandals, no hose. She says the interview went well. She felt that the girl on the other side of the desk was impressed, but looking back, maybe overly impressed; maybe she had intimidated her. Maybe she was too lofty in her speech or she glanced too often too anxiously at the chic’s computer screen. She recalls how she couldn't stop shaking her knees.

She adds, “I was on my rag.”

I know her periods are dismal, literally draining her of everything. They disable her. She becomes anemic, takes iron vitamins and ends up constipated. Her husband slips pain pills into her coffee, and she mostly sleeps through the days, all heavy seven of them, ruining sheets.

She says she stood up to move to a separate desk where her words-per-minute would be officially computed and dually noted. She has amazingly nimble fingers, long and skinny with a flexible pinky. She can morph herself to a keyboard. She took a blizzard of office classes in high school. She has an associate’s degree in “Legal Secretary” or some shit. She’s worked front desks and cubicles in Seattle and Evansville, never for a law office, always for energy companies managing gas bills or invoices for repairs on pipe leaks. She can work Excel like a garden. I imagine her on the other side of the phone line picking at her teeth while she speaks or smoking a menthol, blowing her smoke into the glass pane of her closed kitchen window, a pair of flies buzzing around the ceiling fan’s light bulb above her. All four of her kids are sleeping.

She tells me that, when she stood up, blood dropped from between her legs and landed on her toes. Some kind of sick hello. Two thick, wine-red spots. A royal gift from Gaia.

She tells me she excused herself properly, quickly. Surely no one noticed. She tells me she hurried to the bathroom and locked herself in and threw her foot up on the sink and washed herself clean with wet brown paper towels. She says, luckily, she didn’t stain her skirt. She says she padded herself up enough and then walked back out, sat down at the desk and kicked ass on the typing test.

One week later, she calls me to tell me she didn’t get the job. Her work experience makes her too pricey, she says. She says these employers all want young, cheap, unburdened novices behind their front desks. And I know she's right. I stutter that she should "open her options." I ask her about her prospective website business. I toss out the word "hope" and remind her of her crush on the new president.

How Now Green Pall Mall?

2009-03-02T08:48:00.005-05:00

I think I might've quit smoking. It sort of hit me like an epiphany this morning amidst the 8AM sunshine sifting through the dusty kitchen window (in the mornings, the sunshine can hit this small tear-drop crystal I have set on the window ledge and shoot mini rainbows all over my bright yellow kitchenette walls - quite a spectacle, really - one mini-rainbow tinkled smack dab in my eye). While making the coffee, I took a deep breath and felt buzzed by it. Not groggy buzzed - energetic buzzed. I've gone two days in which I've smoked maybe two cigarettes. For the last week, I've been on a steady slow-down during the day - letting more time stretch between my menthol 100's and mostly just chain-smoking at night (staying up late to make up for lost daytime opportunities - never actually smoking "less"). Yesterday, I was down and out with a migraine - one nasty bitch of a migraine like I haven't had in months upon months, maybe years. It made my legs twitch. It made me sweat and cry. I could actually feel that my brain was swollen at the base of my skull and behind my right eye (typical). STRESS. PMS. Combined and evil. Dual forces. The Joker and Two Face. I was drifting in and out of dreams about a massive mechanical brain pincher with big silver, terminator-type fingers pressing my temples together, trying to pluck my head off my neck like it was some juicy gooseberry (no lie). The migraine was light for the first half of the day (I woke up with a slight sense of disorientation, in the hospital room with Justin), but then I smoked one cigarette later after coming home -- I had to -- my daughter was chin-deep into the Lifetime movie "Fifteen and Pregnant" (!!!!) and it was stressing me out -- and the fall-out from the ciggy was massive. I should've vomited. The effect was Pavlovian. I tried burying my head in the cushions of the couch until the others got tired of tip-toeing around me. The four-year-old and the puppy have a guaranteed solid hyperactive hour between 8PM and 9PM - and even if I tried to hold my position and deny them this in the livingroom, they would only explode in the kitchen, and these walls hide no sound, and, when they jump and spin (take turns trying to catch each others' tails) the whole house shakes. So I crept upstairs and found my beloved lavender-scented eye-pillow which literally presses my eyeballs back into my skull to the point that when I wake up they feel like they might be pancakes. My vision is blurred for hours, my eyelashes are always stuck together, and the strap hurts the tops of my ears. BUT the smell of lavender and the cool press works. Earlier, I had whimpered and prayed that I might discover just one more Imitrex in the cabinet; my generic Excedrin was only giving me the shakes and I was certain nothing would work. But I woke up at 2AM and my headache was gone. This morning I think I'm liberated of even more.

The night before, Justin had called me from the hospital because he was suffering, weak, and scared - since he's had the epidural removed, the pain meds weren't working all to well and he wanted his mommy to spend the night with him in the room - to hold his hand, kiss his forehead, watch South Park with him, etc. etc. Tubes are still in place to drain excess fluid from his chest cavity, and now he's feeling every plastic intrusive inch of them. Of course, feeling needed is something every mother instinctively jumps on. I took the call and threw all else aside. The nurse made a bed for me in a fold-out chair. I had to walk in through the ER entrance at 10PM and acquire a visitor's tag. I saw a helicopter land on the roof as I was walking in. I might've slept two hours total in the room with him, BUT I missed my typical smoke-filled evening and I lived. I'm not sure if I even thought of smoking until lunch time the next day.

I should probably stop writing about it so that I might stop thinking about it. I should get up and go for a walk or start grading papers or clean up the house a little. But there is a greater issue at hand. This will have an effect on my marriage. Our smoking habit is something Matt and I claim in fun, something that drains our extra money and our energy and makes our breath and clothes smell nasty but something that we treat as some sort of nimble reward. We use it so that we might steal a few minutes alone, apart from the crowd when we're among crowds, or to find a sense of community when we're seeming oddballs (which is often). When we first started dating, he - an avid smoker since fifteen - had managed to quit smoking for six months and I had just restarted, having been smoke-free (sorta') for three long, miserable years. We were both peg-legging it out of failed first marriages. He picked up the habit again for me, I think (although he has denied it). Still, he was eager for a green light and picked it back up easily. When we first started dating, he'd stop by my duplex after I'd put the kids to bed (or we'd find a bar or spot to camp if they were gone for the weekend) and we'd just smoke and smoke, one after another. It was the filler for our conversations. Still is. He would have every right to be upset with me now. It may be like tossing a grenade in his comfy bunker. We have tried quitting together before -- It worked three months tops but then we realized that we'd stopped talking and freaked out and enjoyed the rebel nature in beginning to sneak them when no one was looking. It was like having an affair. How immature-ish, eh? This time, I hadn't even discussed the plan with him. But I don't want to smoke one - not now, not this morning, not later. I don't want to feel nauseous. I'm so sick of feeling drained. I don't want to be a smoking mother. I know how stupid it is and I've been kicking myself over it for years. And I want energy. Often, I talk myself out of doing creative, productive, or more rewarding things so that I might take a smoke break. Later, I say - and then I lose the focus and interest. I want to be in control of something.

Note: this might or might not work. He's not up yet and has yet to blow smoke into my air so that I might sniff it and my addiction kick in full-throttle. Last night, he brought me home two fresh packs. They are here, staring at me, shiny in their cellophane, on the end table five feet away. There's a full ashtray here on the desk under my nose. He stayed up late last night working on a paper while I slept off my headache, and he must've smoked a whole pack. I'm afraid to empty the tray because I don't want to touch it. I tell myself often that I don't have an addictive personality. I even insist this to friends and strangers. I've quit a dozen times now - all fairly easy endeavors. If I manage to quit now, with all that's going on, I will stun the mother fucking shit out of myself. Sorry, for the harsh language. I'm feeling a little irritable. I think I need another cup of coffee . . .

I poked around on YouTube for a cheesy old smoking commercial and found this (above), but I also found a bazillion other videos of people smoking - just smoking - puffing and inhaling and french-inhaling and hot-boxing and blowing smoke into the camera for no apparent reason. In silence. How cruel. How gross. For what purpose? Here is a creepy dude "Pall Mall power smokin" perhaps for his swanky internet lover (?):

Icy Roads, Predatorial Birds, Catholic Hospitals

2009-02-27T19:14:00.004-05:00

I’m watching “Ice Trucks” on the History Channel with my son in his hospital room. Those arctic truckers are nuts, crazy brave, driving on a frozen river, distracted by the aurora borealis, gasoline crystallizing in the engine, radiators cracking and dripping antifreeze and melting snow, toes gaining frost bite because the floor heater dies. The TV is twenty feet from the boy's bed and it’s tiny. I’ll make a comment on the show, laugh at loud at the candid CB language or something, and then look over to see if he caught it, but my son’s sound asleep. At least he’s drifting in and out, in and out until the next nurse comes to wake him up, poke and prod him, reload his IV drip bags, scan the barcode on his wrist, set off beeps on a machine, or some chic in a hair net struts in to go over the menu for his next meal. Supper is rice pilaf and broccoli. The boy didn’t even sneer.

We both just ate hamburgers for lunch. I had to take the south elevators to the basement cafeteria for mine. Whose idea was it to place the cafeteria in a basement? At least the concrete block walls are painted baby blue. The low ceilings are still suffocating. There’s a Spiritual Guidance office down there. I hate knowing that a hospital cafeteria is coming to be not so bad. I’ve been in and out of it all week. I know where they keep the slices of plastic cheese and the bags for a to-go sandwich. I know the fountain Diet Coke is over-carbonated and foamy. Their coffee is decent. I’ve been keeping cash on hand because the cafeteria won’t accept cards.

I was glad that the boy ate something. This morning, he looks awful and was complaining of nausea. He said, for breakfast, all he ate was a half-slice of white bread. His eyes have sunken. His drainage tubes are pumping steadily. So much red. Four days after the surgery to remove several “weak spots” or “blebs” from his left lung, and I was expecting him to be more repaired, to have more energy. I was expecting him to have moved the bed into the shape something more like a recliner by now. I almost brought in Boggle because I couldn’t find his chess board. Instead, I brought in the laptop. He didn’t even ask for it. He didn’t ask for anything. He’s keeping the chocolate (?) scented teddy bear that his girlfriend gave him in the bed beside him. I’ve stopped teasing him about it.

I was searching for the crucifix in the room and I found it. Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, home in my own bed, I reminded myself that I had yet to see one in his new room on floor number five. This crucifix is not as intimidating as the one that hung in his room in ICU. This one’s smaller – a petite crucifix – and the cross is stained oak and Jesus is silver, tiny and almost faceless. He shows no pain.

He is sleeping with his glasses on. I leave them on because I don’t want to wake him.

This is truth: On Tuesday morning – the day of his surprise surgery – I saw a golden hawk – maybe a paragon falcon – gliding over the hood of a beat-up pick-up truck in the hospital parking lot, and I wished hard that I was Native American or at least semi-earthly-spiritually-connected so that I might interpret it as a vision, find some precious symbolism in it. I wanted the bird to be a sign of strength and quick healing. But, truth is, it just scared me, this hawk in a hospital parking lot, scanning or swooping for mice or some other mini-creature. It lives by surprising the small and the oblivious.

There is a reminder of this bird every evening as I walk out of this place in the dark towards our little used foreign car (praying it will start just one more time with its half-burnt-out ignition). There are recordings of squawking and screeching predatorial birds that make the night even creepier. The sounds peal out of giant speakers or horns placed somewhere up there, high by the glowing white cross that rocks in the wind and shines over all the quiet cars. And the caws and shrieks fly off of the top of the building across the street too – St John’s Ambulatory Services. If the sounds weren't so steady, you'd think the place was infested. I’m not sure why they run these recordings – to scare off nesting squirrels? poop-dropping pigeons? circling vultures? As if the campus of this catholic hospital wasn’t creepy enough . . . All those clergy persons in white petticoats asking if they can offer assistance with prayer; the crucifixes staring down from blank walls in every room even onto empty beds; walls and floors pine-soled and bleached so often they might turn clear; bronze/green statues of the young, handsome Jesus, palms always open and uplifted; and all of those old black and white framed photos of nuns and nurses that line the hallways. There’s one of a nun handing over a baby – swaddled tight in a thermal cocoon – to a mother dressed in paisley and lace. The mother’s hair is ratted and flipped and molded perfectly; she’s smiling like she belongs on the cover of LIFE magazine. The nun is smiling too, but even in black and white, her teeth look yellow. There’s another of a nun – black robe loping to the ground – holding up a crippled little girl in a floral nightgown by her armpits as the child tries to get comfortable with her new stiff walker. This nun isn’t smiling; she looks burdened. And the nurses in their group photos are all quaint in their paper caps, but it’s those caps and those tight white dresses that remind me of the deformed zombie chics in Silent Hill.

Tomorrow morning, he gets his drainage tubes taken out and then his epidural. Our family doctor stopped in to see him and made him feel better by telling him that Abraham Lincoln may have had the exact same condition. This evening, he wants me to bring him back a box of Girl Scout cookies and my laptop with the demonic game Diablo ready-to-play on a flash drive. I hope he knows to keep such hell-ridden tendencies a secret, else someone calls an exorcist. ;)

Tall and Gangly Syndrome

2009-02-25T08:26:00.003-05:00

I have a heating pad on my neck. I woke up some time in the night with a massive charlie horse in my neck muscle - I'm sure it was due to all the tension of the last two days. I must've screamed in my sleep (which isn't odd of late, actually). Funny how our body makes such things physical. I have a heating pad on my neck and my eighteen year-old son has a six inch surgical wound and 20-25 staples in the side of his rib cage. He has drainage tubes filled with milky blood, a catheter, an epidural still hugging his spine, a restricted diet - clear liquids. A short, pleasant surgeon removed several "weak spots" from the top of his left lung - this same lung that has spawned spontaneous holes - pneumothorax - over the last couple of years. This time the hole was a little bigger and led to a collapsed lung - during Economics class . . . or did he say it was during Current Events? When my son goes to the school nurse, it's serious. They might as well have called it "tall and gangly syndrome." The lung specialist said that often such physical traits (125lbs, 6'2") can cause long, weak lungs. He made him stretch out his arms, considered the notion that his arms were longer from fingertip to fingertip than the boy was tall. I've never heard of such a thing. Truth is, I keep trying to connect the weakness to my ex-husband. But that's another story. Not one for the blog, for this morning when I should be in his room now.

The word that spun in my mind yesterday, repeatedly was "mother." I called my sister; she said I'd done good to have so many children and not one serious hospital event for all of eighteen years. I called my mother; she literally gasped when I uttered the word "surgery" and Justin in the same sentence. She has a shrine of baby pictures dedicated to my son on her painted paneled walls. She still has every single one of his toys - including Star Wars bedsheets on a set of bunk beds in the attic. I half-expected her to hop in her bright blue Dakota Sport and head on up Highway 64, never-minding Indianapolis (and then perhaps crushed on 465 because she can't get it up over 40 mph), but she has the flu and she's recovering from her own cataract surgery and keeping a gauze patch over one eye. Mother, mother, mother. Even with the son, there were too many responsibilities - when all that I wanted to do was sit beside him in his room, scratch his itches caused by the morphine, make sure that his blankets are straight, make sure that he has the TV remote and a Sprite with a straw on hand. I got a little bitchy to the others. During the surgery, we had too many people in the waiting room. Dr. Phil and Oprah were hot on the trail of the Octo-Mom - the "Octuplet Controversy." Is Nadya of good mental health? Does she only want these babies to "complete her"? Does she understand the full-consequences of her actions? She won't have the time or money - EVER. Blah Blah Blah. There is another story connecting this to that. I'll pull it out later. Last night, all I could - when I was finally in the room and all was dark and the other children were home and fed - was play Spider Solitaire and jump when the boy moaned.

This morning, the dog freaked out a little. He's used to sleeping with Justin in his room. He pulled everything out of my purse, crunched one of my hair clips, and chewed up a pack of my cigarettes. Then he climbed in bed with us, whimpering and tossing and turning. He's not taking this so well. Dogs are amazingly sensitive. Justin won't be home until Monday.

What I'd Rather Be Doing

2009-02-20T10:58:00.002-05:00

Writing. Really writing. Revising. Lost in it. In a cabin somewhere - surrounded by Blue Spruce trees. Painting with watercolor in a messy studio with big windows that could be mine. Sniffing paper. Reading something escaping. Really escaping. Stretching out my legs. Lighting a candle and then an incense stick. Cutting pieces out of magazines until my fingers ache. Playing with my glue stick. Playing my sister's old viola (in a good way). Playing my granny's organ with the lighted keys (Snowbird). Eating an Egg McMuffin. Walking in the sunshine with my boots on, through muddy, empty cornfields because it's all finally thawing. Drinking at the Bob Inn with my cousins (drunk with their love for karaoke, passing the mic). Waving my hips at the Slippery Noodle, sipping on Sloe Gin and Sprite and smoking one after another, just for show really. Driving down roller coaster road, summertime, windows down, shoes off, toes on the dirty gas pedal. Buying myself a Jeep with straight-up cash, then pulling the top off. Jumping off a lake's dock into green water, holding my nose. Walking south on a railroad track, past the backsides of houses and zen-laden horses in fences and head-dipping oil pumps that don't smell as badly as I remember. Napping in a tent with a mesh top for a view of the stars, no mosquitoes or flies. Napping in the hay in a barn loft, after an hour of incredible sex. Yoga (and it's working, not painful). Discovering an island with not one beaten trail on it. Sailing on a catamaran, full run. Sipping real coffee, bittersweet. Or real ice tea with a fat lemon wedge in it. Or gulping a strawberry margarita (it's been so long). Leading the way up a jungle gym, my babies all following, with clear faces, all smiling, teeth still crooked - pre-braces.

I woke up with the sun in my eyes, with a four-year-old wriggling in my arms, and with a dream fresh in my head. In the dream, there were small gardener snakes caught in my coat, and everywhere I sat I would leave a few on a chair. This shocked my friends (faceless people), but I wasn't worried about it. It happens, I told them.

I do have a bag of fresh English Muffins sitting on top of the refrigerator. And eggs in the refrigerator. And deli ham. And cheese. And hash browns in the freezer.

What's Left Come Tuesday 1:55 AM

2009-02-18T00:36:00.008-05:00

Chicago IS windy. So many writers in one location stirs things up. Eclectic electric. I'm still twitching. So many bearded men in earth-colored vests with scarves. So many Venuses. Thai Spoon wasn't as good as I had hoped, or maybe I just ordered the wrong thing. I saw Peter Cole there in his dark beard and long coat, waiting on carry out. I never officially met him. No big deal, I guess. I heard somebody punched him on a dare. I wasn't cool enough to be in the right spot to see it. I saw a billboard almost knock the L-train off it's tracks. I saw a hefty rat in the alley between the Hilton and the Downtown Travelodge (our common thoroughfare - alleyways either break the crosswinds or become suction tunnels, dependent). It didn't bother me really. I saw snow sculptures. We walked away from the Innertown Pub because I hate standing in bars, even cozy artsy bars where there are good readings. Instead, we walked into the Moonshine on Division Street, which wasn't as swanky as we'd hoped, and spent too much money on a pizza that was not Chicago-ish in the slightest. Oh, and seven dollars for a glass of Riesling. Oh, and thirty dollars round trip to ride in two of the city's scary-ass taxis.

I wasn't all that impressed with the Field Museum - so many dead stuffed animals. Depressing. Poor Sue, the dead Tyrannosaurus. Even the tiny little skeleton of a humming bird, posed on a twig. Even the skeletons of mini-monkeys which looked like humanoids with tails (Matt said this was where myths of demons came from. Remember the horn of the Narwhal/Pegasus?). I did discover that the Aztecs honored women in childbirth with the same respect as they honored men who fought wars. That was cool. I should write a poem about it. I liked the Eskimo totem poles. I want to carve my own. I did dance a little (not at the Field Museum, at the Hilton, 3rd floor, under those pretentious crystalline chandeliers). I shoved my lime into a Corona at Buddy Guy's. Li'l Ed and the Imperials kicked ass, but after all those Corona's, it's likely that I didn't truly appreciate them. Smoking outside so many times gave me a nasty cold. I brought it home. Teaching comp only makes chapped lips and a sore throat worse.

I nearly killed myself to finish another issue. It's pretty damn good (if I do say so myself): www.cellasroundtrip.com/issue02.html. I still have lots of promo work to do, and I didn't send out every rejection letter like I should have. I hate rejection letters.

I need a job that pays. I may have an editor's blood. Not a manager's blood (I'm bad with numbers and tossing out orders), just an editor's. I have no idea where I got it from. Unless we can somehow relate this skill to my father's obsessive-compulsive love and care for his dress-up cowboy boots, his summer garden, and his black chickens. I need more space and time. I wish my teenagers were more unpredictable. All of this drama irks me. There is a continuum. My sixteen year-old chopped all of her hair off while I was gone and now looks like a chubby-faced Pat Benatar. I admire her balls. I still haven't made myself get that nose ring I've been wanting for the last five years.

I need new trees. We never should've bought this house. I don't think I'll be included in the stimulus bill. I'm not afraid of socialism. I was considering applying for a job - webmaster for the American Legion (Indy division or some shit). It paid frighteningly well. My daddy would surely shed a tear and brag to all of his vet friends. That may be a good enough reason not to do it. I'm thinking like me, at age thirteen (I hated the American Legion - stupid beer well). Last night and again tonight, I forgot to call my mother to check on her after her cataract surgery. She should've been banned from driving at night years ago. Surely, she thinks I do not love her any more.

At the conference, I fell in love with Barry Graham and Peter Schwartz (and would like to hug them both one more time). I fell in love with Sarah, Corby, and Elizabeth (again) and wish they could've stayed just one more night to dance with me. And I fell in love with Kim Addonizio (again, from afar). I have tried to befriend her on Facebook. I listened to her funky CD twice. They were handing them out for free, wrapped in contradicting, pastel-spring-patterned plastic bags.

I want a hippie bus to drive to AWP next year in Denver. I want to paint flowers and Haiku on it in fat, bubble letters. I want to have a futon in it. I should start another fundraiser for it. I hate fundraisers. I wish I could inherit something. Writing such a wish reminds me of the Twilight Zone. I should wish to win the lottery. Then start playing (essential). Or betting on the beaten thoroughbreds at Hoosier Casino (just up the road). I was never lucky at winning like my mother. Last year, my mother won a new electric stove. She always wins a ham at the turkey shoots. She doesn't really shoot turkeys.

I have to get myself out of this practice of staying up past 2 a.m. It's fragmenting.

My Reflective Narrator Astray

2009-02-05T01:20:00.007-05:00

I have launched an official search for my reflective narrator. Apparently, my creative nonfiction master thesis needs it. Anybody seen it lying around out here, somewhere? Be weary! Most times it is just a self-pitying, manic-depressive bitch. Really, when it starts dissing itself, I want to shoot it. But then when it does that upbeat thing and starts over-using exclamation points, I want to slit its wrists. It's ugly when it doesn't wear make up, but, trust me, it doesn't look anything like me. It smokes like a fiend in the early morning hours, drinks sloe gin when the children are sleeping, and slaps priests (damn confessions!). Oh, and pages upon pages are also disappearing from the thesis collective. I think they hooked up with my reflective narrator and they're buying each other drinks at the Recycle Bin (a blues bar kinda' place, lots of cheap beers). My reflective narrator might've picked up the harmonica.

Dear master thesis advisor, I promise, I'm not really thinking of running away to Canada to find a shit job waitressing on a daily basis. That was my reflective narrator sticking its tongue in my mouth again. I mean, I am somewhat familiar with the whole "fight or flight" thing, and, honestly, I'm not a fighter. At least, I never claimed to be and my reflective narrator always agreed with me. Despite my reflective narrator's bad habits, however, I would still like to find it and coax into hanging around a bit - to at least see me through this. If you see it, tell it to come home or at least call me, then add "A stranger sent me." We can make this work.

Blondie - New Music - More Music Videos

Broods of Snow

2009-01-29T22:49:00.008-05:00

Snow. Snow and more snow. Walking through it today felt surreal. I think this is the creamiest snow I've ever seen. It mushed under my black boots like dirty ice cream. And the drive in this morning was even more strange - every ten miles or so, there was a Ford Taurus buried on the side of the interstate and facing the wrong direction. Fish-tailed and spun circles. Semi-truck lights barreling up behind them. I once owned a Ford Taurus. My sister bought it from me, hit a deer with it, but still drove it for another year with the dented hood fastened down by bungy chords.

What an odd week. The snow and I are drifting, feeling congenial, like kissing cousins. I keep drifting back to Monday. There is no out-of-body experience comparable to taking your teenage girls to Planned Parenthood for the first time. They giggled a lot, seeing as they were nervous. They filled out their questionnaires in private because I told them to. I watched the nurse practitioner give them both "the shot" in the arm and then hand them each mini brown paper bags full of colored and flavored condoms. I listened to her explain to them that oral sex was just as risky for STDs. There are no words to coin how hard this was. Then we celebrated - for simply making it through it - and we went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (a slow, so-so movie, in my opinion - but then my heart wasn't really in it). I felt squirmy, but I tried. We all three put our feet up on the seats in front of us. I sat in the middle. What kind of a mother am I? I had to keep reminding myself: This was a good thing. A Fact: Sixteen year-olds have sex with their soldier-school delinquent boyfriends after they've been seeing each other for over a year. Especially if their friends are having sex. It's a given. I was right again. I bought them Sour-Patch Gummy candies to chew on through the movie and, for the ride home, Steak-n-Shake milkshakes half-price at Happy Hour. I crossed my heart for their virginity and in hope that I hadn't soiled the wavy definition of "love-making" somehow, but such prayers went unheard. They were lost in the roar of the Nissan Maxima's muffler (which has a gaping hole in it).

Another flipper: watching the PhD application deadline for assistantships float by. Looks like I'm taking a year off to join the working world. The traditional working world does not accept me well. Sorry - what I should've said was vice versa. I've been in school for years for a reason. Up and coming problems: resumes and vitaes, updated website stuffed with PR bullshit, interviews and telephone calls, a dark and drabby personal blog that might rise to haunt me in background checks and google searches. More up and coming problems: an expensive trip to Chicago to show off what I may not get finished (talk about being buried!). Coffee is no help for all-nighters to get stuff done - I have built up a wicked tolerance. I'll figure it all out. Today, Dr. Preibe sat at my desk's side and in her lovely Australian accent told me, "You're not like the others" (good or bad?? I think I saw her wrinkle her nose), and then she told me to quit second-guessing myself. Problemo Numero Uno.

I need a new snow shovel or one of those flat round butt sleds and a tall, tall hill.

My Inner Voice is a Crazy Monkey

2009-01-23T14:28:00.002-05:00

Buddhists say "the inner voice is like a crazy monkey." I found this on a How To Meditate website that wouldn't even give me free mp3s. The phrase has been reverberating unspoken ever since. I give up (again) on the likelihood of finding a meditative state. The site said "find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted." I haven't had a place like that for eighteen years.

Here soon we're heading to Shadeland Avenue - the heart hospital. Grandad had a surgery to remove a dark cancerous spot on his lung this morning. He's all spit fire for 81. He still rides a motorcycle and chops his wood with an ax. He has a tattoo on his forearm that looks like a blue bat, but, really, it once read "Mary Jo" inside a heart with wings. I hate the thought of having to see him weakened. We'll be leaving once the kids are dropped off from the bus. We'll be returning eleven 99-cent movies to Family Video before we hit the interstate. I watched all but two of them. Some (The Jungle Book, Iron Giant, and Balto) I might've watched as many as five times. Last night - late - I made myself watch Gia. I thought it would have more sex.

Meanwhile, I've been drinking coffee all day. I had a small Totino's Triple Meat pizza with my coffee around noon. I've had a kink in my back, just below my right shoulder blade, and I've been stretching all over the house trying to work it out. I hung my head and shoulders off the edge of the bed until I thought my eyes might bleed. I tried ballet with the kitchen cabinets. I made Matt - the Yeti - squeeze me until my back popped. Nothing worked. It's still there - crowding out my inner voice which isn't all bad.

I was going to reserve a Hotel room this morning, but received a letter in the mail from my bank that there was a possible breech in security somewhere so they've limited my charge rate to $100 for the next five days until they can get me a new card. I called and bitched to no end or purpose. There are no suspicious charges. I am one on a long list of many. I got us caught up on the bills. I cussed about the cell phone contract. Once again, the student loans have saved us. Easy come. Easy go.

I am happy about the warmer weather and the melting snow. I almost took a walk this morning, but I woke up with the four year old (somewhere in the night, she had crawled into the bed between us). She was smacking my forehead saying "Mommy, the sun is up! Mommy, the sun is up!" Instead, I put the dog out and took a deep breath. I should've taken them both with me and ditched this ranch.

Sweet Sixteen

2009-01-20T00:19:00.009-05:00

My daughter turned 16 today. I know the picture to the left is dated May, but she just took it the other day (faulty camera settings?). Tonight, I made her a super chocolate brownie cake with chocolate frosting served with chocolate ice cream. We bought Reese's peanut butter syrup to pour over everything (it was orgasmic - try it). For her birthday, I bought her an eight pack of tall Pepsis (she could live off of Pepsi and chocolate) and a scrapbook with "Once Upon a Time" on the cover in glittery letters. I paid more for a stack of Rock-n-Roll patterned pages to go in it than what I paid for the book itself. She wants to make magazine collages. She wants to be a photojournalist. She wore piggy tails and a neck tie with peace signs all over it to school today. She wore tube socks with rainbow stripes and big yellow smiley faces on them. She likes looking a little silly - she told me this weekend, "Mom, I'm running out of time to play dress up - I have to do it now while I can get away with it." I'm not talking her out of staying young.

Her birthday has to be at the shittiest time of the year. I can't remember her ever having a birthday when there wasn't snow on the ground and bitter cold winds. I told her tonight that we should start celebrating her "half birthday" in July. I remember her second birthday . . . I was living in a tiny blue house in Vincennes, six months pregnant with Erin, with no car and jobless (in a self-pitying stupor because I was pregnant again and refusing to go back to seeking an associates degree - I was hopeless). I kept a grocery cart in the alley that I pushed back and forth to the grocery store - no kidding. Ashleigh was for-the-most-part bald and still chubby. At two, she had finally started walking - she had been rolling herself around the floor instead of even crawling. She was still having "night terrors" - waking up in her crib at night screaming yet in a dead sleep. We had just made it through a battle with head-lice; the kids had picked them up at the local daycare -- shared cots at nap time. Justin had just turned four. On her second birthday, the weather was so bad that we were snowed in for days. I couldn't get out of the house. The grocery cart in the alley was knee deep in a snow drift. We were playing lots of Sonic the Hedgehog on an overdue rented Sega system. I couldn't afford cable. I think Highway 41 got shut down, but my mother made the forty minute drive over on the back roads to see her that night and bring her a present (I can't remember what). Mom driving on ice and snow was never a good thing, but on that evening it was. I only have one Polaroid picture to mark the occasion. We're sitting in the tiny kitchen with its dark wood paneling and yellow lighting, and Ashleigh's on my lap in her PJs, giggling at her homemade birthday cake (I'm surprised I had the milk and eggs). I'm in an oversized sweatshirt and have on my huge plastic-framed glasses - my hair is limp and streaky. There is a rosey blanket hanging over the back door that led to the back porch to keep out the drafts. That little blue house was always cold.

On her MySpace profile today, Ash posted this:
"Remember when getting high, meant swinging on the playground? when protection, meant wear a helmet? when the worst thing that you could get from boys, were cooties? dads shoulders were the highest place on earth, & mom was your hero? your worst enemies were your siblings? race issues were about, who could run the fastest? war was only a card game? the only drug you knew, was cough medicine? wearing a skirt didn't make you slut? the only thing that hurt you were, skinned knees? AND WE COULDN'T WAIT TO GROW UP."

A cheesy bulletin. She read it to me out loud in the living room while I was attempting to work. I stopped. Has she grown up? Looking back NOW? What is she looking forward to? At least she's made it to sixteen and held on to a bit of freedom. I asked her if I wasn't her hero anymore - jokingly, but a tad serious. She had cried at the table earlier because her brother and sister were fighting in the hallway while she was blowing out her candles. She is often accused of being overly emotional (sometimes by me). But she tries to be a common voice of reason; when things are chaotic, she'll go do laundry. She can be very mothering. She told me she'd always wanted to sing me the Bette Midler (Did you ever know that you're my hero?) song, but she thinks she'd screw it all up. I teared up. I told her I'd sing it right back to her - in fact, there in the living room, I tried - I got a little operatic and silly. She winked at me fondly like an old lady. Most times - and since she was a shy baby - it seems to me she has had that kind of spirit.

Digital Literary

2009-01-16T11:16:00.002-05:00

Wow - here is one freaky piece of digital literature. I felt compelled to post it. I wish I had created it. I still have slight Adobe Flash phobia - mostly because it has the power to suck me in for hours upon hours upon hours.

It's often times hard to be impressed with the words when such awesome visuals are whirling around and stanzas are appearing and disappearing in a piece like this. The words didn't impress me - maybe if I could read them outside of this activity and interactivity. What is that saying . . . ? Maybe if I clicked through it five more times . . .

Dim O'Gauble
by Andy Campbell

launch

Old Snow

2009-01-15T11:50:00.004-05:00

The kids got a free day - school was canceled. So, I left them all at home - in their PJ's and wrapped in comforters - with one computer to argue over. Justin was told not to start a fire in the fireplace. Erin insisted that there was nothing whatsoever to do ("This house sucks."); she will have no choice but to monopolize the phone. Ashleigh was baking chocolate chip cookies by 7AM. She insisted on babysitting Jo so we wouldn't have to make a trip to Grandma's and get her out in the cold. On Monday, Ashleigh turns 16. She's made it to the great dominion of car dating and, therefore, more womanly choices (like gynecologists and birth control). She wants me to take her to the movies on Saturday - her and her soldier boy, her best friend and my son (a double date for which I will not hang around - let them make out in the back of the theater if they must). Her soldier boy doesn't have a car. She's still hell-bent on seeing the movie, Unborn. I heard it received some awful reviews. I can't talk her out of it. She wants to see that dog with his head on all upside down.

The drive in to campus wasn't so bad. We brought along big tumblers of coffee. Matt wore his fuzzy Moose Hunter's hat. I found some gloves. The car started fine. The roads were fine. What's with all the hub-bub? School buses have managed worse. I parked on the top floor of the parking garage again - seeing as we're driving the Maxima and NOT the van. It's not so bad up there - reminds me of being in downtown Indy (namely that one garage not far from the jailhouse where I stood on the roof and watched them implode Market Square Arena), but it's wasting cash. Wasting cash (*sob*). It's killing me. On the walk over, my eyes watered and my nose watered, and then the water froze as soon as it hit air. I could've had icicles hanging out of my nose if it wasn't for my sleeve. :)~ I worried that the lenses in my glasses might crack. I'm not sure if they can even do that.

Yesterday, the snow coming down in giant flakes, making little cyclone snow whirligigs in the cornfields and parking lots, was gorgeous. Last night, we made snow ice cream; we ignore the ill-repute of likely air pollution and add sugar, milk and vanilla. All of this snow will grow old. It won't be melting anytime soon. Instead, it will hang around and be soured by tires and boot tread. It will all get stomped on and pushed aside. It will turn gray and mud brown and grow all crusty around the edges. All of the little glitters will give up on being reflective and grow dull. Yesterday, I couldn't properly explain to my four year old the scientific factors and conditions involved when building a snow man. She stuck out her lip and bawled (threw herself on the floor, rolled around until she hit walls, etc.) and thought that I was horrible for building her up to the possibility of forming Frosty in the front yard and then squashing all of her hopes with the confusing response "It's too cold for a snowman." What freakin' sense does that make? She has actually become quite skilled at giving me the fish-eye (fish-eye came just before rolling bawling fit).

I'm dreaming of May. Sort of. With May, comes warmth and short sleeves again and sandals. Open windows. In May, I'm done with everything. It will be time to move on to . . . something.

Ah, Sailing

2009-01-13T08:24:00.006-05:00

I finally got my hands on a book by Bobbie Ann Mason. Of course, I haven't even cracked it yet (it's used, but still looks uncracked). The cover is so-so. Pretty colors. Instead of reading literature, I've been doing this. My syllabus looks like a teeny-weeny font hell, but I like that pic of myself all tan in 2004 - back when I was teaching sailing on a man made lake with duct-taped-up sunfish to overfed executive fledglings dropped off with plastic lunch boxes and 30SPF sunscreen from limos or jaguars (while Mom and Dad wandered off to Rick's Cafe at the Boatyard). Talk about foreign. Ah, sailing. I think I always liked hiking the kids through the woods better. There was something vengeful in it. There were walking sticks, slithering ferrets, and those mosquitoes. I might've lost one or two kids to what I thought were swooping Blue Herons. Luckily, no one ever drowned.

Today is my first day of my first comp class. I'll have to wear a turtle neck shirt in case I get all nervous (as usual when speaking in front of any amount of people) and my neck and chest turns all red and gets hot and scratchy. Woah, my neck is growing red just thinking about it. I call it the heeby-jeeby hives. It's like a tell-tale curse. When I'm feeling uncomfortable, I'm not allowed to hide it. A turtle neck will work. I might be wearing one for the remainder of the semester.

I am so behind on everything CEllA's Round Trip, and I feel like an ass. I bet there are writers out there who submitted back in September who are giving me bad reviews because I haven't gotten back to them soon enough. I know it's rude. I also know that I need a few more bad-ass poetry submissions to balance out the flash and the coooool art. I may have to change the output plan - maybe the whole flashy layout thing is too much work to keep an online journal going - especially when you can only put it out once a year. I may have to start playing with Adobe Flash again. The new year may call for experiments. I just want to make good writers and artists happy. :)