How many women I crammed into my attic apartment last night: 13

How long Kate and Tim have been in love: 20 months
Days till their wedding: 55
Time Kate will rise on her wedding day in order to put on her gown and hike a leg up on a tree (we’ll be camping) to strap on a garter belt in the middle of the wilderness in time for her dawn ceremony: 4:30 AM.
How many penis shaped cakes I baked yesterday: 2
How many Ben dropped on his foul kitchen floor: 2
How many penis-shaped cakes Ben baked yesterday: 2

How many women I crammed into my attic apartment last night: 13
How many jell-o shots someone brought to my house: 8 million
How many I consumed: 2
How many the bride consumed: approximately 9
How many times she yacked: 0. That I know of. [Update: Make that 2.]
How many times she drunk-dialed the groom: 2

How long my parents have been married: 35 years
How long they were engaged: 3 months
How long it’s been since my younger sister disappeared for a month and came home married to a man 25 years older than her: 5 years
How many family members have been married in the same small town church with the most gorgeous stained glass windows ever: 8
How many babies those couples had: 20

How many dance clubs we attended last night: 3
How many we rides we took in a black stretch limo: 1
How much we paid for said limo: $6
How many times I had my ass pinched: 3
How many bathrooms I peed in and, using the well-honed skills I learned at college frat parties, managed not to touch a single thing except TP: 3
How many guys bought me a drink: 1
Number of times we heard the song “Baby Got Back”: 4
Number of women in the “Baby Got Back” video who actually have a large ass: 0
Number of times I thought to myself, “Dear God, I am too old for this”: 1,000,000
How many trips to the spa my friends are getting me to thank me for hosting this madness: 1. Yay.

In my 4th grade diary, how old I said I expected to be when I got married: 30
How many times I’ve informally been proposed to: 3
Age I was when my grandmother told me she’d never live to see the day I found a husband and gave me my wedding gift early: 23
Her age on her wedding day: 29
My age now: 29
How often I use the non-wedding gift she gave me: Almost daily

How many times I’ve been asked out this year: 3
How many dates I said yes to: 3
How many of these men are gay: 1
How many of whom had a degree: The gay one.
Days since I heard “I love you” from a man: 1 day
Miles apart I am from that man: 10,629
How many internet dates I’ve been on, total: 4
How many I had a second date with: 1
How many were totally freaks: 0
How long its been since I went on an internet date: 10 months
How many men I’ve met not on the internet (since I moved here) who turned out to be freaks: 5

How many feather boas were in my bed when I woke up this morning: 2
How much random shit I found strewn about my house when I got up:
1 stray sock
1 make-up bag
1 purple bra
7 lemons
1 vibrating cock ring
1 card that said “I dare you to kiss a stranger”
2 jars of frosting
1 t-shirt
1 bag of shredded coconut
6,958 nearly empty cups of God-knows-what drinks
1 dry-erase marker.
How many gallons of warm, sugary, rummy, nauseating Mojito mix I dumped down the toilet this morning: 1
Leftovers I am most excited to chow down on: Mexican layer dip, mixed nuts, wedge of brie.
What’s left of the penis-shaped cakes: 2 cherry-chip testicles
How many bags of trash I hauled to the dumpster: 6
How many drinks I mopped off the floor: 1
What I am going to do with 7 lemons: I have no idea.

The number of years that will pass before I do another jell-o shot, make a penis cake or dance to “It’s Getting Hot in Here/So Take off All Your Clothes”: 3,593,559,293

How many friends I’ve held up the giant hoop of her wedding dress for so she could go pee at her own reception: 3
How much more important it is to have a great partner than any of the wedding stuff: 100x
How nice it is to have both, if that’s what you want: Quite nice, I'm sure.
How much better it is to be single right now than in something that isn’t right: 16 tons
How it feels right now knowing that I’m not vulnerable to or responsible for a relationship: Light as a Feather
How jazzed I’ll be if I find an excellent partner: Super, super jazzed
How urgent is it to find a partner: Not at all.

How it feels to see two wonderful friends fall deeply in love and make each other very, very happy: Amazing.
How it feels to have your friend tell you 10 times in one night that she loves you, and that this is just the kind of girl’s night she wanted: Worth every dropped and re-baked penis cake.
How sure I am that these two punks are a fantastic match: 100%
How weepy and happy will I be at their wedding: Very.

The Delights of Anger

"Something happens to people in the sunbelt. I believe the constant overdose of vitamin D has softened my skull and turned me nice, so that I've started to act like a nice person--though maybe with a little more of it I will overdose and just come into my own nastiness. For it is innate, at my core. The true flowering of my being is bored and acidic and annoyed with the incredible idiots who surround me." --Stacey Richter, "Christ Their Lord." Tin House, v21


The AC in my car is dead. My car is sitting, unrepairable, in the parking lot of the shop, to which I have no ride. I have 20 people coming to my house for a barbecue in, oh, a half hour, and my GRILL is in my TRUNK. Of said car. In said parking lot. On the other side of the TCs. [Update: I left a half-dozen friends at my house to go pick up the car, which had my grill in the trunk, but it was locked in the mechanic's lot. Ever heard of a Wok-a-que? Me neither.]

CAAAARAAAAAP.

My parents were here last weekend. When they arrived, my mother sent my father back out to the car to get the flower they’d picked for me from our back yard and hauled all the way up here in a wet paper towel from Indiana. When Dad was out the door and out of earshot—and you have to understand that my father is the calmest, sweetest, mellowest, most serene fellow alive—my mom leans over to me and says, “Honey, your father had road rage on the way here.” Road rage? I picture someone screaming explicatives while pointing a shotgun out a pick-up window at an old granny going too slowly in her Oldsmobile. “Dad?” I said.

“We were somewhere outside Madison,” so they’d been in the car for, oh, 6 out of 12 hours, “And someone merged and cut your dad off, and he said Fuck You, Goddamnfrickinffrackingblahbluhdeblah.”

That’s the thing about being pissed: he’d been on the road for hours, there was no end in sight. He’d been stuck with my mother, which can be enough to set off a string of F-bombs in itself, and was tired, hungry and had just braved the Dan Ryan on a holiday weekend during construction. We all have the capacity for so much annoying shit before one small, last thing will set it off. When the cup-o-anger is full, the smallest thing can cause it to runneth over.

That is me. Right now. My boss touching my computer screen with her grimy Cheetoes fingers one more GD time would send me through the roof. Furthermore, the fellow I’ve got a giant crush on just asked my friend out, and she told me aaaalllll about it. I feel like I’m in the sixth grade again, when My True Love, Shane, asked me to ask my friend Toni if he would dance with her, and I misunderstood him and thought he asked ME to dance, so I said yes, I’ll dance with you, and he said, No, I said Do you think TONI would dance with me. Not you. That’s how good I feel about today’s episode. However, unlike the sixth grade, I am now old enough to know he is not the love of my life, or even close to it, and I am old enough to come home and drink the white wine that is cooling in my refrigerator, instead of walking the three blocks home in tears. I mean really.

It isn't just those little things, y'all. I've had a winter that, let me tell you (without the details), has filled my cup-'o-tolorance to the brim. Anger. Growl. I find myself wrapping myself on the knuckles for the venomous, bitter dialogue of nastiness running through my mind on days like today. A chipper suburban moron in khaki pants gives me a Minnesota-fake “Howdy!” in the hall at work when I’m on my way out the door to Chili’s (I loathe Chili’s) for a business lunch, and I want to tell her (but don’t tell her) to get a GD personality and a decent pair of pants. It’s not pretty, and it is all quite illogical. However, it feels good sometimes, and frankly, nastiness holds significant value. First of all, because nastiness, on occasion, just feels damn good, especially when one does not apologize for it. There is far too little irreverence in life, and faaaarr to little in Minnesota. Once, I went to the CC Club hoping for an infusion of irreverence, but the almost-intimidating, overly-pierced greaseball who carded me gave me advice on how to keep my engine block from freezing. Minnesota. Jeesh. Portland—now there’s a town for a good whopping dose of satisfying irreverence. I love both cities for very different reasons, but I digress.

Forcing oneself to see the bright side, to make lemonade, to appreciate every single thing one has every frickin’ minute of the day, that’s crap, my friends. Reigning in the ‘tude may be good for general day-to-day attitude maintenance, but sometimes, it is best to freak the hell out for a while. Break a few plates, perhaps, or scream FuckYouYouFuckinFuck to the guy who merges wrong in Madison. For the love of God, don’t smear fake Cheeto goop all over my cubicle, and If you’d rather date a woman whose favorite song is ‘My Humps,’ then bloody well go for it. When the glittering fabric of life shines about as much as the roller towel in a Tijuana men’s bathroom, then, hey, tell off your mechanic or smash something expensive or bitch out the wench that stole your cab at 5 a.m. when you’re late for the airport (Hi, Relish!). Freaking out dusts life off, and before you know it, it’ll start to shine a little bit, and you’ll be better equipped to deal with the dirt.

So, back to my dad: He came back inside with a most gorgeous iris for me, his middle daughter, and he hugged me, and smiled really big, and he rested. I made him some tea, and we talked. Minutes after I went to bed, my dad came into my room and was scuffling around near the open door to my balcony. “What are you doing?” I said.

“I found a little lady bug,” he said, “so I’m trying to shoo her out the door.” He gently picked her up and placed her on the leaf of my petunia on the balcony, and went to bed, and slept very, very well.

dang, dang, da-da-da-da-daaaang

Atomic Dustbin

My junior year prom date was named Zach. I really didn’t know him. He used to sit behind me in CCD (that’s bible school for Catholics, peeps) and bag groceries at the grocery store. I sort of knew who he was.

He called my house and told my mother that he’d like to ask me on a date. My mother gave me the message, so I called back and he asked me to prom. For that very same night. Why not?

I was out somewhere during the day, and it must have been a pool or something because when I came home I was super sunburned. Zach was there already, sitting on the porch swing with my mother in a gray suit he’d bought at the Bargain Hut for $11 after I’d said yes to prom. While I got dressed, he and my mother made a most gorgeous corsage for me out of lilacs from the back yard, and he pinned it to my dress. We took pictures, and we’re both smiling uncontrollably and I’m red as a lobster.

We went to prom. We danced and stuff. Then we went to Fort Wayne, the nearest metropolis about an hour away, and still in our prom threads, and went to an underground punk bar named Monkey Lust. It was fabulous amounts of badass fun. He lifted me up on his shoulders so I could see the band, and I gave him a fake tattoo in the parking lot. Then we drove down Hoosier country roads, the narrow ones with the dips where the tall grass flattens as you zoom through. They had an enormous trampoline in the back yard. We jumped on the trampoline in the middle of the night in our prom clothes, then we laid down on the trampoline and ate ice cream out of the container. The sky was black and full of stars and more stars the longer you looked at it, just millions of them.

We became great friends. I went to Europe that summer and he sent me giant packages with mixed tapes (Fugazi, Nine Inch Nails, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Nirvana). Four months passed till I saw him again, and I was dating a boy named Ted. Ted and I dated and Zach and I were friends. Once, home from college for Christmas, Ted and I were having troubles. Zach and I went to a party and drank too much and kissed. And we both felt weird. So, whatever, we were drunk and it was stupid and we agreed to pretend it never happened, and I pretended I didn’t hear him say he loved me. Maybe he didn’t say it at all, but I’m pretty sure he did.

I dated Ted more. Then Ted and I broke up. I wanted to date Zach, but he was dating Anna. All summer Zach and I went swimming and ate ice cream and lounged in a hammock. He dated Anna, and Anna was beautiful and wonderful and I liked her. Once, a bunch of us were swimming at his house, and for reason we were in his bedroom (the whole big attic) and I don’t know how it happened, we hugged or something, and we could have kissed. But we didn’t.

Then I went to Europe again, to study, and he sent me letters. The old fashioned kind, remember? Hand written on notebook paper with clippings from the small town newspaper that he thought were funny. “Pig Falls from Three Story Window.”

In the first letter, he said he had broken up with Anna. I sent him jam from Herrods and pictures of books that I thought were beautiful and he sent me collages and pictures of the awards he won at art shows—he was always winning awards at art shows because his art was fabulous.

I was gone again for four months. I went to Prague the weekend before finals with my friend Erin, from Oxford. We were talking about Zach and she convinced me that this crazy him-loving-me-when-I’m-not-available and me-loving-him-when-he’s-not-available stuff had gone on long enough. What? FOUR years? She was right: When I got home, I would tell him enough was enough. I loved him. And he loved me. It’s time. Yes, I would do it.

When Erin and I got back to school, there was a letter from him waiting for me.

He was engaged. To a woman named Erica.

I did it anyway. It was hard. I didn’t tell him we should be together. I took him to a park and I remember that I was wearing something hooded, because I kept stalling and pulling the hood down over my face because I couldn’t look at him. I said something like…. I promised myself I’d tell you this before I knew about Erica, and I’m going to tell you anyway. But I want you to know that I’m not intending to upset anything, or to date you, or to harm your relationship. I’m telling you because I need to tell you. If you want to marry her, I want you to, too. I love you. And I’ve loved you since the ice cream on the trampoline.

And now he’s married and has two kids. We aren’t friends.

I wish him well. And I can’t smell lilacs or eat chunky monkey or listen to Gray Cells Green without thinking about what a really great guy he is.

The end.

Ten things I love about my mother: A very incomplete list

She names her plants.

She tells dirty jokes.

She’s brilliant, both enlightened and creative.

She gets rural Hoosiers to appreciate and create art.

The woman is a domestic magician. She got candle wax out of my favorite skirt. She can pack a huge load of stuff into a single suitcase. She can make an awesome set of curtains out of two rags and a stick pin. Her lasagna? Wow.

She’s thrifty.

She married the best man ever.

When my heart got broken, she asked me what I needed, and when I said, “Get me out of this country,” she did.

At Notre Dame football games, she’s the loudest person in the crowd.

She's the Trivial Pursuit champion of the world. And I'm so jealous.

For a different party, she made a miniskirt out of fruit rollups.

Here's one for the “That Was Suppposed to be a Joke and Now It’s on the Internet?!?!” Files

My best friend sent me an email yesterday with the subject “OH MY GOD.” Last winter she went to a costume party. I don’t know what the theme was, exactly—some sort of construction-worker-meets-Burning-Man-artist kind of thing. She made a fringy miniskirt out of containment straps (used in building) and a sort of a tank top… with much less covered up than a tank top. It was iridescent orange, revealing and, while it sounds scary, it was fun and, well, strappy and not something one would be caught dead in anywhere but a theme party among friends.

Yesterday, she hopped onto the Web site for the organization that threw the party to look up an event date or something, and there she was, in all her glory: a GIANT photo of her in the orange strappy ensemble with one high-heeled-boot hiked up on the wall, give the camera man a (fake, joking) sultry dirty-girl look. On the internet. Yes indeed.

I wish I could post a link, but she’d KILL me. Hey: If you wear a bra made out of construction-worker-strappy things, chances are high that it'll end up online. Oh, it was very, very funny.

Shout out to the St. Paul Photoblog

This semester will be over in two days, 22 hours and 58 minutes.

How I Learned to Knit

I lived in my then apartment with my then husband who, then, comes home from work at 3 a.m. smelling like sweat and smoke and exotic dancer perfume.

My husband drops his clothes by the bed and curls behind me. The neighbors are screaming. They started at about three in the afternoon with vodka, I tell him, and were onto whiskey and with a break to walk to the bottle shop around 8 p.m.

The day we moved in, I locked myself out. I was outside trying to light the pilot for the water heater when the door slammed shut, and there I was in my shorts and bikini top and no shoes, and I needed to borrow a neighbor’s telephone book.

I didn’t know. How would I?

The biggest one, the fattest and hairiest, opened the door in his underwear. He said if I ever needed anything else, anything (wink), I could knock any time.

The locksmith took an hour to get there. I could’ve hugged the locksmith and kissed the top of his head. It took two hours to get the place open. My apartment was the hardest place he’d ever had to break into.

James was his name. The drunk neighbor with his gut hanging over the rim of his underwear.

I cleaned houses during the days, a cleaning lady. I took a calculator to the grocery store because I could spend no more than $45 on food for my husband and me for two weeks. At home alone until 3 a.m., I read books on the porch and hung wet socks over the backs of chairs to dry. I rubbed mold off the bathroom ceiling with a mop and swirled sand down the shower drain. The neighbors were drunk by 5 p.m. every bloody day, and sometimes they weren’t just drunk. But my apartment was the hardest one the locksmith had ever broken into, the locksmith said so.

Even half asleep I knew the sound of my husband’s car coming up the bump into the parking lot. I knew the sound of his door slamming and the sound change made in his pocket when he walked up the stairs. And my favorite sound: his key sliding into the deadbolt, and the turning of the lock.

Now, he curls behind me. It’s a big night for James and the boys. Now they are really screaming. There is body-shaped thud against the wall next to where I sleep. Someone is getting pounded.

My husband gets up. Enough, he says. You’re going to Penny’s, and I am calling the police. No, I say, I’m not leaving you here with them.

I was worried about him. I think about this now, not then.

Get dressed.

No.

Get dressed.

If they know you called the police they’ll kill you.

I agree to get dressed because my husband calls Tiny, the best bouncer they have where he works. He is not so Tiny at all, and he is our friend.

I ask to wait there long enough for the police to come, but my husband knows too much about the police here to allow that, and they’re outside now, the neighbors, I mean, and they’re thudding and punching and snapping the railing to the stairs into pieces. Something like a skull might have just cracked pavement.

Something Happened. The drunks are panicking. Suddenly Penny is honking out front and someone yells Get Rid of It and they thump back inside their place.

From our place, we have to cross their door to get out. Now we can make a run for it, outside past their door with my husband and Tiny—when did Tiny get here?—on either side of me, toward the car. They do this for a living, but I am not a stripper and these aren’t everyday drunks. My sandal slips and I yelp and Tiny yanks me up by the arm so I don’t fall. A hunk of hair runs down the steps in the blood like a mouse in a flood.

Turn around. Through the apartment now, I hoist a leg over the balcony and I am down the fire escape and jump the last 10 feet. Penny’s car goes slow, and I look out the back window at my apartment, where my husband and Tiny are. It is all very quiet.

Penny is my husband's friend, but I have met her once before. My sticky sandals are out on the steps by the screen door. She offers me a beer and I say no. I cross my legs on a pillow on the floor. She makes me tea, and adds a splash of whiskey.

Penny’s house is pink and yellow inside, and she has big pillows and fresh flowers and some music playing that should make me feel better. I sip the drink and Penny declares: I'm going to teach you how to knit.

She sits across from me, and I mirror her because I am left handed. She teaches me to cast on, and I don’t get it, so I try a few times, then how to stitch. Maybe a pot holder, or a scarf, or, you know, it doesn’t have to be anything right now.

So I start, and I’m still sniffling, and the needles click and she goes quite fast. I click and click without thinking and then I stop for the first time and look at it. What have I done? I have made a mess of things—loose loops and holes and tight spots all the way through. She says I have to unravel and start again from the beginning.

I go for a bit without stopping, but can’t go a stitch further once I see I’ve only repeated the same mistakes as before. I unravel and start over and unravel and start over and I don’t feel like I’m getting any better at this. I am slow and concentrating very hard and it is always a mess. I undo my work. I begin again. The telephone rings at dawn.

"The Root Problems of the writer...

...are personality problems. He or she cannot get started, or starts a story well then gets lost or loses heart, or writes very well some of the time and badly the rest of the time, or writes brilliantly but after one supurb story or novel cannot write again, or writes brilliantly while the creative writing course lasts but after it is over can no longer write. The root problems, in other words, are problems of confidence, self-respect, freedom: The writer's demon is imprisoned by the various ghosts in the unconscious."

a quote from John Gardner (in the Forward), Becoming a Writer

[Substitute "writer" for artist or "anyone trying to do what they really, really love."] Discuss:

I handed in 65 pages of work on Thursday.

And I'm glad to have that pile of paper outta my face, I'll tell you that much.

I'd love to write something clever and witty, or funny or... Anything. I want to talk about how I went to the cabin last weekend and the basement flooded and we all scooped water out with snow shovels. Or how my best friend from undergrad just bought her gown for her PhD graduation, or how I spent so long in a lavender-scented bathtub yesterday that I shriveled up to a happy, white, good-smellin' prune. But. I want to eat. Then I want to call my Dad back brush my teeth and crawl into my freshly-changed bed and read my big ole book with the sunflower on the cover and fall asleep.

Sigh.

The Bath

During my visit home for Easter, I dropped into the creative arts center my mother manages. She wasn't in her office, but I saw she hung a print of Mary Cassatt’s Mother and Daughter over her desk. I went to the ballet room where 20 five-year-old girls in tutus played duck duck goose. I saw my mother bend down, unzip a five-year-old’s pink jacket and lifted her up so she could reach the coat hook. She said “Okay, now go put your shoes in the cubby and find a spot on the floor,” with the same tone she used to use with me. I remembered myself at five, reaching up to pick a honeysuckle blossom off the vine in our back yard. "Pinch the bud," she'd said, "gentle, gentle. If you pull the style through the bottom of the petals you can taste a drop of nectar.”

I was raised with my two sisters in a creaky old Midwestern farmhouse, now surrounded by the town that grew up around it. During my sophomore year of high school, Mary Cassatt paintings started showing up around the house. The Bath hung above the bureau full of picture albums. Mom bought a print of The Bath for $5 at a rural library she found while researching her ancestry. Years later, she saw originals at an art gallery, and a photograph of Mary Cassatt. "She looks like your great aunts," she said. "Just like some of our relatives."

In The Bath, a mom holds her daughter on her lap and washes her feet in a wash basin. Cassatt’s an Impressionist, among the ranks of Degas and Renoir, best known for a period where she painted mostly mothers and children in everyday scenes. Like most art, what makes them brilliant is the something else, and here, the something else is the ease of being between these mothers and children. Cassatt communicates a very specific kind of love through the relaxed way a child rests a hand on her mother’s knee, the way a mother holds the child up on her lap with a secure but gentle hold.

I remember my mother taking me out to the garden when I was young to dig my little hands into the dirt while she planted tomatoes. There was no lack of these every day moments, or of love, in our house. When my parents moved me into my first dorm room, she cried and hugged me out the window of the car as they pulled away. “I never even taught you how to make a roast!” she had said. I said, “Its okay, Mom. I haven’t eaten meat in six years.” More recently, when I came home from a year abroad heartbroken and emotionally steamrolled, she sat with me in my old bed, wrapping and unwrapping pieces of my hair around her finger until we both fell asleep.

I suspect that my mother’s love for Cassatt’s work has less to do with her life as a mother than as a child. When my mother was eight, her mother died of a massive brain aneurysm. Grandma was about my age then, 33. Over time, Mom's early memories have blended with stories she's heard or things she may have made up: Her mom trying to curl her hair to look like Shirley Temple’s. Dyeing eggs in a cup of vinegar and food coloring, A fight over an onion.

I returned to Minneapolis after my Easter visit. The ground thawed and tulips popped up as they do. I called my mother to find out how to get candle wax out of my favorite skirt. (Hot iron. Newspaper.) I asked her what the deal is with her Mary Cassatt obsession.

"I dreamt about a painter who was my mother, and the next morning I looked in an art book and saw the painting of the mother bathing the 7 year old girl," she said. "I just cried. Finding that painting did more in healing my childhood than anything has, including being a mother." I had identified with the daughter in the paintings they express a maternal comfort I’d received growing up. My mother loved Cassatt’s work because through the child and mother, she drew out a little bit of the maternal love she had missed.

Today, I miss my sisters.

When we were little, Easter meant it was warm enough to go outside in the early morning in bare feet to search for eggs without getting too terribly cold. It meant that the bush in the back yard would have pink blossoms on it, and we would dress up in our Easter dresses with hats and hose and shiny shoes and have our photograph taken. We would gorge on candy, fidget all through mass and go to our grandmother’s, where she’d give us more candy and our mom would insist we’d had enough and my grandmother would say, “Look at them! They’re too skinny,” and give it to us anyway, which pissed my mother off, also a part of the holiday tradition.

Yesterday, I found an old photograph from about 1982 of my sisters and me. We’re in our old family room (mustard colored shag carpet, plaid couch) watching Mork and Mindy on our big old television with no remote control. We’re all in our footy pajamas and we’re all on the couch upside down, like Mork. We liked Mork. We spent a lot of time upside down—on the couch, at the dinner table, and occasionally we slid down the stairs upside down. It was riotously funny.

With three girls, is often lots of hard laughter. My oldest sister is kind of quiet and introverted very smart and hugely sensitive and occasionally hysterical. The youngest was absolutely hyper active—pretty out of control now that I think about it—and she was always getting sent out of classrooms and away from the dinner table and failing class and making up rediculous words and saying things out loud that everyone secretly knows that you just don’t say out loud and she was creative and nuts and also hysterical. Once, she got sent home with a nasty note from the home ec teacher because she refused to use measuring utensils while baking. She’s an amazing cook—but that didn’t matter. So my mom wrote back to the home ec teacher: “We don’t ever use measuring utensils in our house.” Which made me happy.

My little sis is a worry and a headache and totally lovable and unique and ornery and awesome. She is sensitive and sweet. The week after college graduation, I was in the driver’s seat of my car, which was packed to the gills, ready to high-tail it out of Indiana for Portland, indefinitely. I rolled my window half way down to say goodbye and she cried and blubbered all over the place and left tear streaks all over my window. I didn’t wash the car for a long time because I didn’t want her sweet tear streaks to go away.

So, I miss them, that’s all.

Squirrel Fur Coat, Anyone?

I'm engaged in an ongoing battle with squirrels. I live next to a park, and there are millions of them. They have parties on my roof. They've busted into my place and broken my stained glass window and clawed up my window sills. When I moved in, I had a refrigerator on the balcony (long story) and they used to break into it and put little teeth marks in the butter and steal whole eggs. A few days ago, I put my orchid on the deck to get some sun, and when I went outside to collect it, all the leaves had been munched on.

I want to take them all out with a sling shot. But do I? No, I do not. I am nice.

Last winter, I planted 6 tulip bulbs in pots on my balcony. Everyone's tulips but mine are growing. So today, I decided to dig one up to see what the deal was--Are there roots? Are they all duds? What?

The tulip bulbs are gone. GONE. All six of them. In their place I found a peanut (in the whole shell--two little peanuts) and a stone. The squirrels stole all freakin' six of my tulip bulbs and planted a G.D. peanut and a frickin' rock.

Growl. They have not heard the last from me.

Apocalypse

"WASHINGTON - Call it a coincidental sign of our digital times or a reason to stay up late and stare at the clock. Either way, early Wednesday morning the time and date will be 01-02-03-04-05-06.

At 1:02 a.m. and three seconds on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, it will be the first hour of the day, the second minute of the hour, the third second of that precious minute in the fourth month and the fifth day of ... uh oh. It's not really the sixth year. It's actually 2006 — only in our shorthand is it '06."

Wow. Journalists in Washington have time to write whole articles about this stuff.

LOOK! It's a Mr. Potato Head Darth Vader!

Adjustments

Okay, so I'm working 8 hours a day and taking one class and teaching one class. Two nights a week (in a row) I leave my house at 7 and get home at 9:30. I did almost all my homework for last week, but because I was cramming, I didn't retain anything I read. During class discussion people were talking about stuff in the reading I didn't even have a faint recollection of. The work room? Annie Dillard's deflated frog? What?

It'll only be 6 more weeks--then off of school for summer, then just 1 class in the fall. But Lordy. I'm so tired and so behind and my apartment's a mess. My Creative Process is in severe distress.

Those of you who've done this or are doing the work/school thing now, how the hell do you do it?

Day 1 Report

So, I woke up at 5 a.m. after a nightmare that I arrived at my new job and instead of it being THIS job it was my OLD job, my WORST job, where everyone was 3 years old and I had to teach them the alphabet and make sure they didn't eat play dough and that they got to recess/lunch/the bathroom/gym class on time. And, like my old, worst job, I there were a million out of control brats, I had no assistance whatsoever, and they were all pooping their pants and screaming "Fuck you!" (Three years old. I do not make this up.) and I was trapped in miserable hell.

In reality, I got to work where the sweetest receptionist in the world took my coat and offered me coffee and then a smiley fellow named Bill took me on a tour and told me about his air force days. On my tour, I noticed that all of the machinery—printers, copiers, etc.—has a laminated photo from Office Space taped to it. Milton clutching his stapler. Ron Livingston kicking the shit out of a copier. Kind of funny.

On the tour, there were many introductions and more smiles and hi-in-the-halls and I got to stop by my friend Stef's cube and say hello and then I got taken out for a yummy lunch with my boss and 3 co-workers and we all ate till we were stuffed and I drank far too much caffeine which may be why I'm having problems dividing my thoughts into clear sentences.

My boss, she drinks LOTS of caffeine. She's loud and a little shrill but really nice, if a touch self-absorbed, and her cube opens up to my cube and she has a dorm fridge under her desk. The dorm fridge is full of Coke and girl scout cookies and Twizzlers. She drank 5 Cokes and ate an armload of Twizzlers throughout the day and I drank water, but I did buy a box of Samoas from her kid. We all must do our part.

Then, a big man also named Bill brought me my computer and I spent the afternoon editing surgical instruction manuals. I don't know a damn thing about surgery, but there you go. I am partially responsible for surgeons knowing where to drill screws into people's spines. I have already been nicknamed the Grammar Gestapo, which is kind of funny, as you may have noticed that my grammar isn't great, but it's WAY better than scientists'. People were bragging about my English degree, which has never happened, and they respect my intelligence (!) and I share a sweet, elf-like assistant who will make my copies and order stuff for me and do whatever I ask. That was all quite new to me.

When my boss left, I asked her what time she wanted me to come in tomorrow and she said "Eh, whenever. Before noon."

So far, I like it.

Tomorrow I start my new job.

(I stole this picture from Tom.)

Sunshine.... on a Cloudy Day

A Dozen Things I Really Love
(In no particular order)

1. My friends. I know I've droned on about them before, but my Lordy, how did I get so blessed?

2. Big Fat Lazy Breakfasts. Especially the one I just ate at Bad Waitress with Hayes, my brunch buddy who always orders for me and pulls out my chair like he's all chivalrous.

3. My future. I was telling Hayes about my new job and my school plans and all how great summer will be and the possibility of doing an independent study in the Caribbean. It is so bright, I gotta wear shades.

4. My home. I live alone. I was recently reminded of my old roommate, and I am so very thankful for privacy and space and, well, not having her anywhere near me or my stuff.

5. Book ideas. Thoughts are germinating about a thesis (scary) and some other very interesting projects are starting to float to the surface. Wow. This whole studying-my-ass-off thing just might pay off.

6. Cheetoes and Coke. Together. Perhaps I should just make "great food and drink" its own general category.

7. Massages. When the glittering fabric of life begins to look as shiny and fresh as the roller towel in the CC Club men's bathroom, it is high time for a massage. I hold all my tension in my shoulder muscles, and massages do wonders for my outlook on life.

8. Living in a relatively safe, free country and having opportunities and rights. The US of A has a fair share of problems, for sure, but wow--in my work, I see people who come from serious oppression, war, and poverty like nothing I've ever imagined. We are blessed, indeed.

9. Plants and flowers. See "Eat Dirt" below.

10. Forthcoming financial security. And the forthcoming shopping trip with my stylin' personal shopper.

11. The internet and laptop computers. I love e-mailing and looking up stuff on the internet--especially stuff that just bugs you (Who remade Aerosmith's "Walk this Way"? Oh, right, Run DMC). Imagine life without the internet, or having to walk to a computer lab to use dial-up like we had to in early college. Weird.

12. Good weather. Playing in the first snow. The way autumn smells. Thunderstorms on rooftops. Walking outside on the first day it's warm enough to wear a skirt. The big tree out my bedroom window that gets little buds, flowers, then leafy green, then bright yellow. A cold beer on a hot balcony.

Eat Dirt

I have a window box of dead plants hanging off my balcony rail. I tried to pull them a few weeks ago in preparation for spring, but the hunk of soil came out in a big rectangular chunk: frozen solid.

Today, I went for a sunny walk with my friend Michelle, and she’s got little green shoots poking up through the ground outside her house. Not just poking out, but actually moving little stones to make their grand entrance. She thinks they’re daffodils, but they might be tulips.

I found this very exciting.

I have tulips in a pot on my deck, too. They’re not poking up yet, but the soil in my window box was soft today. I pulled out the dead roots and shook them, crushing the hunks to save as much of the fresh dirt as I could. It was wonderful. So cool and refreshing and relaxing.

I had just watched a program on Nova about how the astronauts, trapped in Mars-trip simulators for 6 months at a time. They were under severe emotional and physical stress. But they were given light boxes and tongs and gloves in which they somehow (with no gravity and funky air) grew and tended to little stalks of wheat. Scientists found that touching the dirt and the plants, especially in order to care for them and eat them fresh, radically improved stress levels.

I could see how. I took a moment to dig my fingers in my pot of dirt, stick my nose right down in there. The extreme cold of Mars, the extreme cold of Minnesota winters: My stress levels radically improved. Oh—it smelled so good. Dirt smells so wonderfully good.

My sister eats dirt. She has digestive troubles, and she is slightly obsessed with alternative supplements. These days, she eats dirt. She pays a lot of money for the dirt, which she buys online. I presume it arrives in little packets at her apartment. Does she mix it in yogurt? Stir it into her martini? Just munch it from garden trowel? I don’t know. Recently, she went a few weeks without her dirt and she felt horrible. This could have been compounded by her PMS and the stress of putting together and art show and a fight with our mother. She blamed it on the dirt. She swears she instantly felt at peace when she got her dirt fix. I told her she’s officially gone over the deep end. But hey—she could be onto something. Dirt is great stuff. It makes us feel better. To which I say: Dig in, sister.

I have procured gainful employment!

Not at T@rget, rather at a company that feels quite intuitively good. I'm a communications specialist. The company make surgical devices and trains surgeons, and their/our purpose is to ease pain, heal injury and help people have happy, independent, active lives. The schedule is flexible and a laptop will be provided for regular cubicle escape.

Eureka! This is very good! The interview process has been ridiculously extensive, and I am glad it is all over.

NOW, a pop quiz.

If you get a good grade, perhaps you will get a present. Perhaps a key-lime pie martini with a graham cracker crust rim from Chino Latino. Maybe a Luke Skywalker Pez dispenser. Maybe a high five.

History of Cavu's Career:

1. My first job was:

A. Babysitting for a family of 7.
B. Sorting worms into bait tins for $1 an hour at my dad's hardware store. (How cheap is he?)
C. Selling paper bags of string beans out of a wagon that I wheeled around the neighborhood.
D. Life guarding.

2. I have been shit-canned from exactly one job. Why?

A. I can't cook.
B. I can't do math.
C. I had... um... a wordrobe malfunction.
D. I punched the boss' kid.

3. I have smooched exactly how many colleagues*:

A. 1
B. 3
C. 5
D. 7

4. Which of the following has not been a nickname given to me by colleagues:

A. Moon Beam (Beam for short)
B. Rutabaga (Ruta for short)
C. George (After the Abominable Snowman cartoon: I will hug him and squeeze him and call him George.)
D. Helium

5. How did I really get my first job out of college?

A. I applied for a job, got rejected, called the hiring manager and asked him to explain himself and he found a different (crappier) position for me.
B. I totally lied on my resume. I prefer to call it "embellishment."
C. I went on a date with the HR guy. I got him drunk on greyhounds and made him promise to put a referral on my resume.
D. My college roommate's dad worked there and he totally got me in.

6. I did not work as which of the following while I lived in Australia:

A. A waitress.
B. A maid.
C. A writer.
D. A nanny.

7. My new place of employment has offices in 24 countries around the globe. Paris! Singapore! Bangkok! Oddly, they're headquartered in:

A. Perth, where I tried desperately to get a real job for a year, but couldn't, so I moved home.
B. Tokyo, Japan, where my ex, Josh, moved, causing us to break up.
C. West Dorp, Holland, where my ancestors moved to America from 2 generations ago.
D. Warsaw, Indiana, an hour away from my parent's house.

8. I've already had a new-job anxiety dream. In it:

A. My boss was our dipshit president, GWB.
B. I was told I could only really have the job if I passed an algebra test administered by my creep-tastic high school math teacher, Mr. Kaylor.
C. I had on no pants.
D. I got to work only to find out that my entire job consisted of a lifetime of filing. That's it. Forever.

9. At one of my jobs, I met:

A. Scott Baio.
B. Martina Navratialova.
C. Everclear, the whole band.
D. Ha Jin.

10. And I didn't even get in trouble! Which one of the following is true:

A. My co-workers and I used to rig up the drinking fountains to beer kegs. Whoop!
B. I accidentally bought my boss a ticket to Portland, Maine instead of Portland, Oregon. Nonrefundable.
C. I dropped my laptop in a swimming pool.
D. I lied and said I was stuck for 3 days in Switzerland because of a snow storm and my flight was delayed. Really, I was partying my ass off.

*Not while I was working with them, people. I'm not that stupid.

No more double fluffy mocha caramel espresso java java latte macchiatos for me.

I cannot sleep but I am so very tired. It is 3:54 a.m. I REALLY want to be asleep right now and it is not happening. I tried reading some really boring stuff, then praying the rosary. I’m usually out by the third set of Hail Mary’s, but no. I made it through the whole thing tonight. Minnesota winter skies glow orange in my skylights and it’s too bright in here and there is no Benadryl in my drawer and does my old roommate Molly still have my red scarf? What about the giant jar of Costco pickles, does she still have that?

I’m going to call Josh in Japan and Dan in Oz and if they’re not around, I shall start reading the dictionary. Josh might make me laugh too hard, then I will really be awake, but Dan might do the trick. If I can get him to talk about cricket, maybe give me a 10 minute play-by-play, I will be in good shape.

Bullseye

Immediately upon entering T@rget Headquarters for a job interview, one is faced with a long, tall escalator, as though one may be on the long trip to heaven, should the trip to heaven start with the scent of Starbucks triple mocha lattes and end with a dozen security guards the size of The Fridge who have wire curled around each ear, presumably to communicate with whomever will drag you back down, down, down the freezing metal tube to the cold Minneapolis streets should you not give adequate reason to be Checked In.

There is a vase of tropical flowers at the summit, with pointy, angry, fur-tipped pussy willows that thrust upward like claws that, if they could talk, would scream “Haw haw haw! Now I’ve got you, my pretty!”

To get past the escalator, one must choose a lane: the lane for T@rget “family members” or the one for “guests.” “Family members” go through what looks a bit like airport security. There is much scanning and beeping, and clenching of Starbuck's cups and rolling of luggage. No joke: some of them must be carrying product samples, but a good deal of them are rolling with actual suitcases like they're going to stay for a week or two.

I chose the guest lane.

"Why are you here?" The Fridge said, deadpan, no eye contact.

I said I’m here for an interview in room 617, but that was not enough.

"With whom? At what time? For what position?"

"I don’t know. The temp agency sent me. Room 617, man."

His forehead scrunched and he looked at me like a kid who was suppose to know that that means I knew I was in trouble for something I now knew we both knew I did wrong.

"What?" I said.

"Your appointment was at 3:00,"The Fridge said. It was 3:17.

"No, it wasn’t," I said. "I don’t want this damn job anyway. You people freak me out, and I’m not afraid of you." Okay, I didn’t say that last part, but I really wanted to.

"It was at 3, he said." He picked his teeth, like he just polished off the girl who interviewed at 2:30.

"No, you’re wrong, I said. It’s at 3:30. In 10 minutes. If you could just let them know I’m here."

He handed me a badge. I sat on the couch embroidered with bullseye logos. The coffee tables, too, were also bullseye shapes. It all was. Everywhere.

I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be in any corporate office ever again, and there I was, interviewing for an admin position. My heart wasn’t in it. It never will be. For a long time, I thought if I tried hard enough, I could make my heart be okay with fucked up places like this. I know now that that will never be. Yet! Here I was. Here I was, in the lobby, ten little T@rget logos imprinting themselves onto my butt.

Do not despair: I won’t take the job. I have another offer coming down the pipe, and I’m only here for a backup, Just In Case of Financial Emergency.

Now it was 3:45, and no one had collected me for my interview. The Fridge headed toward the T@rget Café and returned with a gallon-size T@rget Soda in a T@rget branded up. When he walked, a mass of keys big enough to be the morning star on a medieval ball and chain bounced on his rock-hard thigh. The Fridge smiled at me, and nodded. I imagine, if I got in, this man has been trained to throw himself in front of a speeding train to save me. After all, I would be in charge of one of the 79 Vice President’s Blackberry.

A gaggle of chicks scanned their cards and dragged their luggage past me, and I swear, 9 of them were streaked-blondes with knee-high black boots pointy enough to pierce one’s coal-black heart. I saw that most of them had similar hair highlights as me. I became very afraid. FINE. It’s true. I have the exact same Goddamn hairdo. I could be one of them. With only 80% more morphing, I, too, could, gulp, fit in here. I wanted to run, but it was too late.

I have a confession: I dated one of them. The men, I mean. Yes, yes, very briefly when I first moved here. I’ll call him by the first two letters of his last name: Ew.

Ew was dashing. On our first date, he pulled up to Zeno in Uptown in a 2005 Jetta (it was 2004) and a three piece suit, just after work. He had that hair thing going on—the one where guys look like they tried to open the bathroom stall door with their forehead? He was gorgeous, romantic, attentive. He told me he didn’t vote because nothing mattered except music and… shit, I don’t remember. Then… suddenly he seemed so metro. He had a suspicious disinterest in boobs. Then, he revealed his serious obsession with New Kids on the Block (I’m not exaggerating. Kate? Kate was a witness. She can back me. Once Ew requested “Hangin’ Tough” at the Wild Onion and flailed about the dance floor alone while we watched, aghast. Carson Kressley would’ve been proud.). Then this one time, we were walking through the MF skyway and he said “Oh, that pink purse is awesome! I wish I’d been born a girl!,” which sent him straight from Questionable Sexual Orientation-ville into Questionable-Sex ville, and onward into increasingly distant history.

I thought I saw him coming through the skyway now. I buried my face in my Creative Process book. I had to know, so I looked up. Oh, thank Christ. Not Ew, but a guy who looked like Ew. Then another guy who looked like Ew. Then another. And another. And OMG—except for The Dozen Fridges, they ALL looked like Ew. Ew! Ew! Ew!

My generalizations were disproved immediately. “Cavu? I’m Turtle.” My interviewer was old and balding with gray teeth. He looked like The Turtle (The one Samantha dated?) on Sex and the City. He didn't look plastic and probably did not get manicures. Despite the fact that he was in a t-shirt that said “Welcome Home” on the back, with the two “o”’s the shape of the bullseye logo, I liked him immediately.

He led me back to a conference room. Everything one would need is here: a branded café, a gourmet coffee shop, a gym with showers.

I asked Turtle what department the job was in, and what they did, and what he did. “Well, we’re somewhere between IT and business unit managers, the BUMs, and we’re kind of the liaison group that takes care of the tracking of data and scheduling for things, you know, executives and, well, business and so forth.”

And?

“You wouldn’t really understand unless you’re familiar with the systematic organizational development hierarchical demographical flow-chart of our corporation. Do you have any experience with Microsoft products?”

This is how the interview went.

Then, “Great, well, we hope to add you to our team. Is $40,000 enough to start out?”

Okay, the last part isn’t a direct quote, but the job is basically doing NOTHING and it is for far too much money considering the tasks at hand.

Later, I stood under the bus stop heat lamp reading Creative Process until my bus came. Eunice, my recruiter called. “Are you still interested?”

“I’m considering a few offers,” I said. I am. I’m considering working for a company that eases human pain and suffering and feels really right and good. I should have an offer from them soon. “But you can call me and let me know what they have to offer,” I say, sincerely. I’d really like to know what on God’s green Earth they think they actually have to offer. If they come up with anything, I’ll let you know.

This Just in from My Fucked Up Hometown

My parentals have lived in a small Indiana town for about 6 billion years now. It’s rather conservative. For example, my mother’s tai chi class got boycotted because the locals thought it was satanic. Even after that, the townies never cease to amaze me.

Madre is the arts administrator, in charge of all things artsy from little kids ballet classes to theatre to painting classes to the annual Christmas tree decorating contest. Most weekends, my dad drives busloads of artistically deprived people out to cities that actually have real art.

So: My mom organized a very cool historical architecture expert to come give a talk about our amazing county courthouse and all the gargoyles and green faces and very cool designs therein. A fellow who is new to town came to the talk—we’ll call him Jason. Jason, 25, just moved to BackAsswards because he married a local woman he met in college. Jason and his young wife are currently shopping for a house.

Jason is into photography. You know, as a hobby. A creative pursuit. So, after the gargoyle expert gave his talk, Jason was fascinated, and he returned to the county courthouse with his camera to photograph the artwork. That’s all, He was just milling about outside shooting photographs of gargoyles and buttresses and stuff.

SIX PEOPLE CALLED THE POLICE.

While Jason comes from, like, Colombus, Ohio or something, he is of Italian heritage. People called the cops saying a dark haired man who might be a terrorist was taking photographs of the courthouse because he might be plotting to blow up the lone government building Paranoid, Indiana. Six separate instances of this frantic phone call, my friends.

Jason was ambushed by screaming sirens and bored cops and taken in for questioning. I imagine Jason in a serious discussion with his lovely wife about moving far, far away right this very minute.

I would like to officially nominate the members of my hometown for the American Terrorist and Buckeyes and Anyone Who Doesn't Look Like Them Protection Committee because they do such a thorough job of protecting their territory from invasion by both terrorists and by 25 year-old photographers from Ohio. I’d also like to nominate them for the Biggest, Dumbest, most Paranoid, Close-Minded, Irrational-Fear Mongering, Narrow, Judgmental Freaks award, because (with a handful of exceptions) they’re a heap of Bush-loving morons.

Kookaburras are really loud birds.

They lived in the tree outside my window in Perth. They sound like this.

Millicent the Philodendron: Hostess with the Mostest

The Voix laughs louder and better than just about anyone I know. At parties, she puts a tiara on her house plant, Millicent, and carries Millicent around the room so Millicent can meet everyone. Millicent has a French accent (all the inanimate objects in Voix's house have a French accent): "How do you do? My name is Millicent. I am a philodendron. Welcome to the party. Can I get you some Pinot Noir? Do you like my tiara?"

The Voix hosted a very fun girl's night last night. She has great scarves, lots of shiny things, a great collection of Prince music and when bad shit happens, she will get you drunk and dedicate songs to you on the radio. She cooks mashed potatoes in my bitchin' (bedroom/kichen), e-mails me photographs of my uvula and helps me pick out French wine and stinky cheese. She fears no church basement or Irish pub. She writes a shitload and isn't afraid to show the whole world that even though she's smart and productive and strong and has a gigantic heart, she's also sensitive and open and honest.

She also made the mistake of giving me a little notebook, which I use to collect some of her fine one-liners. I shall post a sampling of them here for you now, and I will keep them PG-13 so she doesn’t kill me:

“I bought a blender so I could make hummus. No, wait. I bought a food processor to make hummus. I bought a blender for the margaritas.”

“I’m addicted to kitchen appliances, but I can’t bake. Sifting flour? What is that? I refuse to jack off the flour.”

[In church basement.] “Where the hell are the catholic boys who don’t look like they tried to scrub their face off? Well, we’ll have to go to the next logical place. The Irish bar.”

“So then, when I bring a date home, I can just say, ‘Oh him? He’s just the gay boy that lives under my bed.’”

Perhaps one day I will collect enough of them to publish a book. Hm.

Another Story About Nachos

When I first moved to Australia I had no friends and my boyfriend worked until midnight. So his best friend Rob took me out, even though he didn't know me. We went to an aboriginal music festival. It was amazingly cool--outdoors at this place that had a glass floor and water flowing underneath it. There were about 10 short shows, all of different kinds of aboriginal music and dancing. We drank a lot of beer and had a fantastic time. Then we went back to Dan's and my house and drank more beer. Then we got baked, and I formally introduced Australians to nachos.

While I give them credit for all foods Asian, Mexican food in Australia sucks. They confuse it with Spanish food and try to serve you tapas, and they don't get the concept of layering stuff onto the nachos to make them gooey and good. They put weird stuff on them, like baked beans. They'd put beets on them, too, if you let them. They put beets on everything. So I showed them how it's done.

Anyway: the nachos were in the oven. We drank more beer. It added up to quite a shitload of beer in the end, and Dan came home from work and took off his work boots and he got a beer, too. A mere moment after Dan set the boots down by the door, Rob, quite drunk by now, accidentally but with much force, knocked a pint glass off the table. The pint glass, as if in slow motion, tumbled through the air in a wide arc all the way across the room. The glass landed (this is true, I tell you) upright in Dan's boot. It was amazing.

Einstein thought up Relativity while shaving.

So, I was in the shower this morning getting in touch with my subconscious (Shut up, Brian.) and I’ve decided to do an independent study before I start my thesis.

It will involve travel to some place amazing and wonderful. It needs to include a writing/art combo of some kind (Music? Theater? Dance? Visual arts? I don’t know.) and some cultural study and immersion.

Here is what I know. It’s still vague and flexible and without solid structure, so if you have traveled or have a suggestion or guidance or a favorite book I should read or anything, feedback is most welcome. I’m trying to get it sorted out enough to start a proposal, and possibly apply for a grant.

What I Know So Far:

When: Jan-May of 2007. Spend 3 or 4 months reading and writing, then 2-4 weeks (depending on work schedule) in the country/town I studied.

Where: I’m narrowing it down to the following regions, and I’ll need to narrow it down more from there—Northern South America, Central America, Caribbean, Mexico. The more I think about it, I’m drawn to the Caribbean, but I don’t want to go anywhere infested with tourists. Also, maybe Costa Rica? Belize? The small beautiful town Gabriel G. Marquez grew up in? Where can I go that is welcoming/accessible but not infested with a bunch of people on a Carnival Cruise?

What: This is tough. I want it to be interdisciplinary and involve both art and writing. I’m also interested in art that is a result of oppression. Not the "Shout out against oppression!" cathartic kind, (which has it’s place, of course) but more the art that people who are oppressed use to bond with one another and both express and soothe themselves. Like, what are the stories parents tell their children during war? What secret arts to they keep from their oppressors?

Example: Steel drums were invented because the local people were being forbidden by the US military to practice their religion, and when the locals adapted Christianity in a way that was deemed blasphemous, music was then forbidden. Ludicrous, but true: humming? Big trouble. So the oppressed secretly stole the empty oil drums that the Americans had littered on the shores, and made them into musical instruments because all the other music-making materials had been confiscated. This i what I mean. The way art and the joy of it can’t be squashed, and that sometimes adverse conditions create a unique environment for creative work that wouldn’t have come about otherwise. I find this interesting.

More “What”: So, I suppose I’d study the chosen area’s art and culture, history, politics, music, you know, EVERYTHING (I need help narrowing this down for sure), and then go there and live in it. And, I suppose, attend lectures or take a class or interview people. I insist that several days be spent in a small hut near a beach wherein I write in solitude. When I’m not swimming in solitude.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of music and writing. Stories and poems about music? I don’t know. I don’t know. I need to have a meeting with DK. She brings it all out. She could just sit there next to me and brilliant ideas float up. She’s the reason I started the refugee project, which I love. I shall beg her to be my IS advisor.

And, the Big Question really is, how could I use this project to become a better writer? What would my final project be and what purpose would it have? I don’t just want to do a bunch of research and write essays. I want a creative piece in the end, at least, but I’m sure I could do an essay or CNF piece, too. That’s a lot. I want to get something out of it for my fiction writing (and poetry, I hope) but also would want to report on the experience. What can I do and how can I do it so that, in the end, I have something creatively rich and valuable to contribute?

If you guys could just solve that for me, that would be great.

Maybe this IS a thesis? Okay, okay, now I’m totally overwhelmed. Starting to melt down. Must stop. Must think about something else. AHHH.

Nachoes are delicious.

A few Marches ago, I went to Mexico with a bunch of junior traders from Enron. They were fun and loud and rich, and I was friends with them, so they took me along. I am not loud or rich, but I am fun. I snorkeled. I learned that I am allergic to lobster. I saw a pod of gray whales. I stayed in a condo that said (yes, it spoke to me), "Recepción a Cabo San Lucas, Srta. Cavu" when I walked in the door.

Two of the fellows were twins (one with flaming red hair and one with no hair). Sipping pina coladas by the pool, Red Hair told me he and his brother been raised on a commune in rural Oregon, and had both run away from home at 17 to join corporate America. I kid you not.

Then, the shit hit the fan. I got a call at work from Red Hair at 2 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, totally drunk. They'd all been laid off. All good friends. All of them swore they'd never known anything about the mischief going on, although an acquaintance (Who we called Mr. Slapass. He was creepy.) is on trial.

They scattered. Some to New Zealand (suspicious), some to LA, one to Texas, one to Connecticut. I still have my collection of tiny drink umbrellas. And an allergy to lobster.

My grandmother turned ninety freaking seven yesterday.

Yep--Gram is 97. So yesterday I called her during happy hour (she always drinks a glass of $3/bottle cream sherry with two ice cubes at 5 PM), which was right around when B. and I got home from playing Frisbee golf (his idea) in the g.d. icy rain, which started pelting us in the face around the second "hole." We (and by "we" I mean "I") only lasted 4 holes. I did not enjoy yesterday's rain. I digress.

So I called Gram while I was waiting for my ass to thaw out and B. was making us tea. Gram had had a rockin' birthday party on Sunday with 30 guests, most of whom she was responsible for putting into the world (catholics, you know). Sons. Daughters. Grandchildren. Great Grandchildren. And I said, "Wow, lady, you've done your part to keep the globe populated!" and she said (really loudly), "Yeah, so when are you going to start doing your part to populate the globe? You're not getting any younger either."

The new guy was standing 4 feet away, my friends. Who is Catholic. Which I didn't tell her. I have learned my lesson. The last guy I dated once saw the Pope, and Grandma still begs me to drag that poor chap down the aisle. You're almost 30! He'll do! Go get him!

B. thought the comment about me doing my part to populate the globe was pretty funny, although he does not recommend spitting hot tea out your nose.

I have to say, Gram says this stuff, but she's kidding. My grandmother and I talk about dating and marriage fairly openly, and she's got a giant heart and isn't actually applying serious pressure (although I suspect she prays the rosary for me frequently). We have an understanding that she only wants what's best for me and that I'm going live how I want. Even though she doesn't always get my choices, she respects them. We've discussed.

Anyway--I love my grandma. She's a badass. She still lives alone. She still has a valid driver's license (she chooses not to drive) and she still prunes her own humongous rose bushes. During the depression, she wanted to marry my grandpa but "wasn't allowed" because he had no job. So SHE got a job, used her paycheck to buy coal, which he sold on the street. Selling coal counted as a job for him, and they could get married without pissing off her parents. So she gets it. Sort of.

When she turns 100, we're partying in Jamaica.

Falling on your fire escape

I want a thunderstorm. Not really the steady pouring or the drizzly NWestern stuff—I want a nice, loud, pound-the-windows, roaring kind. The kind that puts you to sleep at night. The kind that wakes you up a few hours later. I want crashing booms and a flash of blue light in the dark. Then, I want it to keep getting warmer and humid so that when you walk from the car to the house it feels good to get wet and better when you get in the air conditioning and your sundress is sticking to your legs and you get goose bumps, then you dry really fast and your hair’s all curly. Yeah.

No, not a tattoo, people.

Check it: Yours truly is featured on Minneapolis Photo Blog.

Three girlfriends and I had henna done at the Somali Mall (Carmelle's?) in Uptown. Somali people are warm and kind and smile a lot. I taught many of them this week at the learning center near Hiawatha and I love them.

So, the henna. It's applied like frosting and the artist works very quickly. It's a bit like mud--kind of cakey and cracks when it dries. Then, after you sit around with the other’s and have an hour or so of women talk (the same worldwide), they scrape it off with a knife. The black burns a little like a sunburn and kinda itches, so the knife-scraping feels good. This photo doesn't do it justice, really. It is very ornate and gorgeous. My artist was quite talented.

Then everyone tells you you're beautiful. Walk around the shops, people come out and hold your hands and look you in the eye and smile and say you're beautiful a thousand times. Your date might tell you he wants to eat your hands. In the Somali mall all covered in scarves and drapey things, it looks more flowery and elegant. In the real world of Minneapolis, it is still beautiful, but often mistaken for a tattoo of, say, a spiderweb, until you look up close.

My friends commented, so did a waitress, the parking garage attendant, a stranger in an elevator, someone at the doctor's office and the checkout boy at Kowalski's who said, "Not to be weird, but that's kinda sexy." The young gentleman who overcharged me for an air filter at Jiffy Lube took my hands, held them close up to his face and said "Wow. Wicked awesome." Then he gave me ten bucks off. It’s art. Powerful stuff.

My Beautiful Sister

My big sis Emily Jane is a painter. She's opening an exhibit on First Thursday at Urban Wine Works in Portland, Oregon. All the paintings are from her recent 6-month visit back to the Midewest where we grew up.

She's a talented lady. Oregonians, do stop by! Tell her I sent you.

Urban Wine Works
407 NW 16th Ave.
March 2, 2006
5:30 to 8:30 PM
More Info

This is My Uvula

Lesson

autotelism
n : belief that a work of art is an end in itself or its own justification

An exercise in procrastination

Especially for the Voix, per request.

1. What time is it? 9:12 pm
2. What is your Full name: Mary Katherine Blah blah blah
3. What are you most afraid of: Dig right into the big questions, eh? On the Big Scale: World War. On the day-to-day scale, harm to my family (and I consider many friends family).
4. What is the most recent movie that you've seen in a theatre: Uhhhh… The Fastest Indian. Nice flick.
5. Have you ever seen a ghost? Nope, but I’ve always kinda wanted to.
6. Where were you born? rural Indiana.
7. Favourite food? Thai red curry with veggies and fresh tofu. If your nose ain’t runnin’ by the second bite, it isn’t hot enough.8. Ever been to Alaska: Nope
9. Ever been toilet paper rolling: No, but I have put toothpaste under a couple car door handles.
10. Loved someone so much it made you cry? Of course.
11. Been in a car accident: Nothing major.
12. Croutons or bacon bits: Croutons
13. Favourite day of the week: Sunday
14. Favourite Restaurant: Bai Tong in Portland. Or… oh, what’s it called? That great Thai place on SW Hawthorne and 45th or so…
15. Favourite Flower: Cala Lily. My friend Matty sent me two big bunches for V-day.
16. Favourite sport to watch: Rugby. Go Wallabies!!!
17. Favourite Drink: London Fizz.
18 Favourite ice cream: B&J’s coffee toffee
19. Disney or Warner Brothers: Warner Brothers. I once owned Pinky and the Brain underwear.
20. Favourite fast food restaurant : Huh? Does Escape from New York pizza count?
21. How many times you failed your driver's test? None.
22. Before this one, from whom did you get your last email: Australian Dan.
23 . What do you do most often when you are bored: E-mail. Eat.
24. Bedtime: 11
25. Who will respond to this e-mail the quickest: Voix, Brian, Julie, Jessi and Zetta are about the only ones who ever post comments, so….
26. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? Who cares?
28. Who is the person that you are most curious to see their responses??? Oh, anyone, I guess.
29. Favourite TV shows: Jeopardy
30. Ford or Chevy: Schwinn
31 What are you listening to right now: Lyle Lovett
32. What are your favourite colours: Today, sky blue.
33. How many tattoos do you have? Zero
34. How many pets do you have? The Bird (my cat) lives with his Uncle Matt in P-town.
35. Which came first the chicken or the egg? The burbling mass of oceanic jelly.
36. What would you like to accomplish before you die? Really, the whole point of incarnation is love, growth and helping each other. [Cue sappy music here, but it’s true.] We’re more one unit here than we realize, so I’d have to say I want to touch lives for the better and ease suffering somehow. Maybe it’ll be by contributing something artistic, or through relationships, I don’t know.

Pineapple Cake in the Oven

I have a job interview tomorrow from 10-12.

You know how when you're looking for an apartment or, lets say you're trying online dating, sometimes it's not what you hope. (Digression: What's up with my second person thing these days? Brian, have I driven you insane yet?) You see the ad, talk about it and kinda get exited and hope that it's all as good as it appears to be. Then you go and check it out in person. Sometimes it's exactly as awesome as it sounds, like my old job at the winery, my current attic apartment, Jon the baseball player whose online photo does his rock-solid abs no justice. Most of the time it blows chunks, like my evil-lawyer job, infomercial products (Avoid the leg-waxers, ladies. And gentlemen.) and the blind date I went on where the guy had a mustache and wore a t-shirt that said "Co-ed naked firefighting: Find 'em hot and leave 'em wet."

I really hope this job is as good as it sounds. And that they love me as much as they should, of course.

Say a prayer for me, some love, cross your fingers, consult Buddha or send me vibes or chi or whatever version of holy goodness is that you dig.

I do not want to do homework today.

Twilight Zone

I'd like to inform you that the Mall of America is a vortex of evil. It takes non-materialistic souls like myself, sucks you in and before you know it you're in some dressing room with a massive pile of cool stuff you can’t afford. You go in for one thing—a nice, affordable outfit for a job interview. You go on a Monday because you hate throngs of stupid people. You aren’t overly fond of shopping in the first place.

MOA may pump sanity-altering chemicals through the vents. Your eyes glaze over like those folks hunched over the slot machines all night in Vegas. Before you know it, you’re stumbling around with 50 pounds of shopping bags muttering "I can't carry anything else... but there's H&M... and that cool place I've never heard of... and the sale at Bloomies. I thought Anne Taylor was just around this corner, but it’s a whole wing of more, more more stuff…" Since when do you wear Anne Taylor? Since when do you use words like "Bloomies?" Never. Now you’re plopped down in front of the giant roller coaster made out of Legos or whatever sipping an Orange Julius to refuel.

Rather like the Bermuda triangle, you go in prepared to get what you need and get out quick, but all your money somehow disappears and you're lucky if you get out alive. Beware, that’s all I’m saying.

A Love Letter to Saddam Hussein

A hunger strike? Are you KIDDING me? Why are they feeding you in the first place? The world is full of starving homeless people and you’re on a hunger strike? You're getting food and clothing and shelter? OH MY GOD this is one messed up planet we live on. Saddam, clawing for the last bit of power… There is nothing left, Saddam. Nothing left. You will never last. I’d like just 5 minutes alone with you to scream in your face. Okay, maybe not alone. Maybe we could get a guard in there or something, or maybe I could be okay screaming, SCREAMING at you through some metal prison bars. Oh, I would so let you have it. Starving yourself. Go for it. Go for it. You are not worthy of an ounce of pitty or aid this world has to offer.

Eye of a Hurricane, Listen to Yourself Churn

I lived with Emily and Patrick in a grubby apartment complex next to an alligator infested pond in South Carolina. It was during hurricane Felix. The rain came in sideways and just about drilled holes through your shirt. The alligator floated on its belly all day long, its stubby arms and legs spread out. We saw it travel from end to end all day from our living room window.

Emily was sick. Patrick called me at the restaurant and told me to come home. She couldn’t keep down applesauce. She couldn’t keep down anything.

I stunk like French fries and ranch dressing. The wind threw the door open and I kicked off my shoes and my keys slid across the counter and crashed against the kitchen wall. “Emmy, Em are you okay?” She was awake with a fever and a trash can of vomited up water.

She was in the hospital for 5 days a week ago. They thought it was food poisoning. They couldn’t find anything else wrong. This wasn’t food poisoning. I was 18. I had driven the two hours to the hospital after work and then back to work in the morning for the 5 days she was admitted. They sent her home because she was fine. Now, a week later, she is not fine again. I called the man who had been her doctor before. It was 4 a.m.

“Bring her in at 8 AM. Leave home with her at 6.” The phone rang at 4:15. It was the doctor again. “I changed my mind. Bring her in now.”

She was curled on the back seat. The traffic lights swung precariously from their threads above. Stop signs quivered and the rain and wind were smashing. What do you do? She didn’t move. I had a tape of REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” I played the first 5 seconds and rewound it until I memorized it:

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs.

Then played the next 5 seconds until I memorized it, then the next until I got to the hospital. It was all hurry and fury and take the corners slow so it doesn’t hurt her and the wipers going at high speed, keep that glass clean! and then it was into the hospital where they whisked her away from me then it was me sitting alone in a plastic covered chair with a Styrofoam cup and silence and more silence and the buzz of fluorescent lights and I am alone. Alone. Alone for a long time. Then the lady tells me to come in here and sit down at this desk and fill out this stuff and I filled it out. Is the pregnant? No. Is she allergic to anything? Does she smoke? How much does she drink? And I had some questions, like Where did you take her? Why didn’t you figure this out the first fucking time? Where are our parents? What are you doing to her? Are you going to save her life or not? What is wrong with her? How will I ever survive if she dies? Why didn’t I do something sooner?

The doctor came in and told me they didn’t know. They didn’t know what was wrong but there is a mass in her abdomen. For a second I thought Mass? The Pope and candles and Glory Glory Hallelujah and smoke? I hadn’t slept all night. I still had on my orange-tinted panty hose and waitress apron. What do you mean mass? I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, and the change in the apron jingled.

I mean, there’s something in there and we can’t figure out what it is, so we’re going to do surgery. We don’t know what we’re going to do in there. We have to look inside to see what’s wrong, then we’ll fix it. If we can. And we’ll know more then.

I’m calling our parents. They can be here in 18 hours.

We’re taking her to surgery now. Are you a legal adult? You’ll have to sign here.

I paused and thought, “I’m signing a piece of paper so this doctor can slice my sister open and do something, we don’t know what, to an unidentifiable mass in her abdomen.” The doctor said, “If we’d have had any idea how bad this was, we wouldn’t have had you drive her. We’d have sent a helicopter to pick her up.

I signed it.

Teaching Poetry to Refugees

We go slowly. We get good at waiting and listening.

We repeat.

Last night we talked about metaphor. We read a poem where a man compares himself to a tiger. The tiger lives in the woods and stalks animals, kills them and drags them to its young. The man, because of the war, escaped to the woods, stalked animals, killed them and dragged them to his children. I am you, tiger. I am animal.

Can't we just write stories? Why didn't he just say "The war is bad. I hunt rats."

Lets think of a metaphor for winter. Homelessness, they said, winter is the inside of a dark cave. They wrote a poem about what they like and don't like. They wrote I Hate Metaphor.

We had a talk about why poetry is art, and why it is more powerful to use a comparison to express a feeling. The poem isn't just about acting like a tiger, hunting for rodents in the woods. It is about being reduced to a primal level, being treated like an animal, watching your babies starve. It's about oppression. War. Desperation. Writers use poems and comparison to tell stories that aren't just about a man in the woods in Laos. There is more there. Do you see now that there is more?

A man from Sudan said Yes, I know how this man feels. I have felt that. It is same. All over the world war feels same. Learners nod at each other--they're from 8 countries and 4 continents all together--then look back up to me with a respectful You don't know. They're right--I don't.

In the end, they put on coats and gloves and walk to catch busses and go to work at the stop sign factory and day care center and tall office buildings where they dump trash and sweep coffee grounds in the middle of the night. They go off to do their homework, to underline words for me to define next week for them: What is distance? What is glow? What is this: has made all the difference?

Did anyone understand? I get in my car and drive home with a stack of I Hate Metaphor poems and think next week, I will try something else. When I return to the stack, there is this:

A Poem by Wang Chue Xiong, Hmong freedom fighter living in Saint Paul, Minnesota:

Catch a dove
to lock in the cage
It lonesome (lonely)
endure suffering, It
live in the cage is a
silver cage, gold cage.
but a dove doesn't forget
the wood (tree).

same as me. moved to live
in the propress country.
I'm lonesome (lonely) and
endure suffering. live in a
big house, big apartment many
floor, but I don't forget my
homecountry, don't forget my
native language, don't forget
ricefield, fence and garden,
don't forget my cousins, my
friends, my Hmong people that
risk in fighting to protect
themself, from killing and
destroy by communist vietnam
and lao communist military
power, and they still fighting
untilnow.

We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.

Snowhills are good for fort building, tunnel digging, and hiding behind fortresses and nailing your sister in the mouth with a butt load of snow from close range. They are good for saucer sledding. They are not good for shoving matches. They are not good for coming over from another neighborhood, acting like you own the place, especially if your name is Megan and no one likes you anyway.

Bossing people around on their snow hill and announcing to me that Santa Clause doesn’t exist will result in a verbal assault by my older sister, Emily. If you insist that Santa is a big fat lie, you will be shoved by Emily and told repeatedly to Shut Up. It is not recommended that you shove her back and cause her to tumble down said hill and split her lip open on the Telephone Company’s parking lot asphalt.

It is hard to run 5 blocks to your father’s hardware store in Moon Boots. Nineteen-year-old, probably high, bicycle mechanics named Tim do not like being the only adult around on such occasions, and they do not like calling the neighbor girl to baby-sit you while he takes your older sister, who is bleeding down her chin and throat and onto her shiny yellow snowsuit, to the emergency room. Tim does not like that the reason your father was not at the store is because he was in the house right next to the scene of the incident, but happened to be untangling Christmas lights in the attic and not hear the commotion.

Tim will hold her hand through three stitches, and your dad will leave you with the neighbor, walk to the hospital and carry her home. Later, he will feed you hotdog pizza, toss you both into the bathtub and play the Entertainer on the piano while you splash around because it’s Emily’s favorite and she’s had a rough day.

When you’re choosing pajamas (you father’s t-shirts, that come down to your knees), you will let Emily wear the Eagles one from the 1978 concert Dad went to at Comisky Park in Chicago, because that is the most coveted nightgown of all.

Your sister doesn’t need to know that you already knew there wasn’t a Santa Clause, but she does need to know that when she needs a warm, comfy Thank You, you will provide it in the form of your favorite shirt that lists “Witchy Woman” as song number 10 on the play list, right under a picture of a giant Eagle, wings spread wide.

What to toss. What to keep.

I was driving down Hennepin at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. praying that the needle on my—what do you call that?—thermostat on my car would go down. It creeped up slowly from Franklin to Lagoon, paused right before the red, then started coming back down.

There was a guy on the radio who may have been some evangelical preacher of some kind giving advice to people. Not so much a preacher as some kind of psychic who could apparently heal through the airwaves.

“Janice, Janice, Janice!” he said. “You have a block like a river dam. You’re attracting creeps into your life because you’re still in love with someone else! You’ll never move on until you let go, Janice. This man you love? It’s never going to happen. I’m here to help you.”

“Really?” Janice said. “Oh, how did you know!”

There was a pause.

“There. Feel that? Did you feel that Janice? A tingling sensation throughout your body?”

“Yes!” Janice said, “Not really a tingling, though, more like my hands got hot.”

“That’s it,” he said. “Just like that I tore down that block and you have let go. You’re free to move on. I see you starting a romance with someone within the next month. Someone who is in your life right now who you haven’t ever noticed before. You two will be happy together.”

The guy went on like this—proclaiming the truth of people’s problems and tearing down blocks and predicting all the good things that would happen to them now that their internal alleys are free and clear. The DJ occasionally interrupted to tell us how jammed the phone lines were.

So last night I was driving to a gathering in another town. It happens to be very close to the house of someone I dated. He’s probably the only guy I’d actually throw a drink in the face of, or perhaps punch in the eye, if I saw him today. Every other time I’d driven this route was full of happiness and comfort because I drove it to see him. Driving it now, my anxiety level now increased in some sort of Pavlovian way.

Oh, it all came back—the automatic way I turned here and there. Then, the mental movie reel of The Scene of Disaster wheeled out from its corner and started to play in my mind. I stopped it—the playback—because now I have the ability to intercept the thoughts. I wished some nice evangelical psychic nutjob would come and blow the movie reel downstream with a power washer and make my head tingle and tell me that now that the dam has been broken up and swept away. All will be clear and the future will only be good. That sounds nice. But it doesn’t work that way.

Frankly, I want to hang onto some of the Bad Experience river dam. I've already hacked through most of it, and unless you practically drop me in front of his house, I'm in a great place. We've all go them. Parent stuff, relationship stuff, friend stuff, our own stuff. Yes, Old Stuff hurts, but it also does us some good: If a caveman goes into a cave and gets munched on by a tiger, chances are he’ll learn something about what caves not to go into ever again. So: Do we need the bad things to entirely go away? Is remembering and reliving and “working through” them all the best way to do that?

It leaves a lot of questions about what stays on our minds—what to let go and what to hang on to. And how, how, how, unless we enlist the help of Evangelical Guy, do we let go of what needs releasing ourselves? Is it deliberate? A choice? Something that happens naturally over time? Can we help it happen faster? That’s what I’d like to know.