That the big becomes the little
That's the way it seems to go
That they make up a larger thing
Is something good to know
It’s nice to know that, though we’re small
There’s always room to grow
And that’s about the size of it
That's about the size
Where you put your eyes
That's about the size of it
I love these projects. I love that I've managed to have the stamina to finish them--the 365 people project and this one. I cannot measure how much it has developed my writing ability, because I stand too close to myself to know. But the big becomes the little when you see it back a bit. And every ending gives way to a new chance at a beginning. What to do next? I'm not quite sure. Mike's had some suggestions. I'll keep up with Alphabridge. I won't delete anything. I've sort of told my life story here, though, so there's not much else I can do with that. There's always room to grow.
So I don't know. I will certainly, with complete vanity, post my decision on Alphabridge. It never seems to quit.
6.03.2008
6.02.2008
364/365 Gone Till November - Wyclef Jean (Fugees)
Tell my girl, I'll be gone til November
January, February, March, April, May
I see you cryin, but girl, I can't stay
I'm a typical American, I think. Probably. And I probably do have more in common with folks on Tiki Island, Texas, than I do with the typical resident of Tokyo or Madrid. Anyway, like every generation has their turning point moment, whether it's Pearl Harbor or Kennedy's assassination, mine is, of course, September 11, 2001. It was like waking up from a lengthy dreamless sleep, sitting in my living room watching CNN. My sister came home from college a few weekends later, and she brought me a mix tape. This song was on it. It's about rappers going on tour (or, some think, drug dealers going up and down the eastern corridor). It's not about leaving forever, it's not about my brother telling me about one his frat brothers, working for Cantor Fitzgerald, never answering his cell phone again. It's not about the friend who mentions that his cousin knew a flight attendant who died on one of the planes. It's not about tenuous threads of relationships and friends-of-friends and the change in daily life for weeks afterward.
I got a letter from Sophia's godparents sometime in late September, sent from Nicaragua on the 10th, and I saved it. It was like a time machine. Maybe it was post-partum--Sophia was 2 months old. We baptized her the Sunday after the attacks and I could barely keep it together. It was like being on pause. It took a long time to come out of this.
I said to my friend Mary on the one-year anniversary: When is it going to seem normal again?
Oh, she said casually. They'll drag it out every September 11th. The 5th anniversary and 10th anniversary will be a big deal. Eventually it will be background noise.
She was right, of course. I still feel like I was gone a long time.
January, February, March, April, May
I see you cryin, but girl, I can't stay
I'm a typical American, I think. Probably. And I probably do have more in common with folks on Tiki Island, Texas, than I do with the typical resident of Tokyo or Madrid. Anyway, like every generation has their turning point moment, whether it's Pearl Harbor or Kennedy's assassination, mine is, of course, September 11, 2001. It was like waking up from a lengthy dreamless sleep, sitting in my living room watching CNN. My sister came home from college a few weekends later, and she brought me a mix tape. This song was on it. It's about rappers going on tour (or, some think, drug dealers going up and down the eastern corridor). It's not about leaving forever, it's not about my brother telling me about one his frat brothers, working for Cantor Fitzgerald, never answering his cell phone again. It's not about the friend who mentions that his cousin knew a flight attendant who died on one of the planes. It's not about tenuous threads of relationships and friends-of-friends and the change in daily life for weeks afterward.
I got a letter from Sophia's godparents sometime in late September, sent from Nicaragua on the 10th, and I saved it. It was like a time machine. Maybe it was post-partum--Sophia was 2 months old. We baptized her the Sunday after the attacks and I could barely keep it together. It was like being on pause. It took a long time to come out of this.
I said to my friend Mary on the one-year anniversary: When is it going to seem normal again?
Oh, she said casually. They'll drag it out every September 11th. The 5th anniversary and 10th anniversary will be a big deal. Eventually it will be background noise.
She was right, of course. I still feel like I was gone a long time.
6.01.2008
363/365 So Far Away - Carole King
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
This was on the first mix tape I ever received. My friend Marita sent it to me when I was in 9th grade, right before I moved to Georgia. We were friends from the previous place I'd lived, in central Missouri, and I was currently living in Dallas. The message was not lost on me.
I walked into the house this afternoon, in a day of errands and waiting for errands (like birthday parties to go to) and said to Mike, "It's time to plan our next move."
"Ok," he replied, sitting down next to me.
"I'm thinking maybe a downtown loft." I was joking--our next move was for me to go water plants at church and then drive Sophia to the birthday party. But we both paused for a moment to consider this suggestion.
"Sophia and Maeve would never forgive us," I noted. "I mean, they're growing up in the absolute perfect situation on this block."
Maeve's bestest best friend, if a 3 year old can have one, is moving away, though, next week. We haven't told her yet because it'll probably be just fine: they're moving one block east, the third house from the corner. I'm thinking that's not far away enough to matter. If 7th grade friendships can survive Columbia, Missouri all the way to Dallas, I think two little ones can survive "across the street" to "ten houses away."
I hope so.
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
This was on the first mix tape I ever received. My friend Marita sent it to me when I was in 9th grade, right before I moved to Georgia. We were friends from the previous place I'd lived, in central Missouri, and I was currently living in Dallas. The message was not lost on me.
I walked into the house this afternoon, in a day of errands and waiting for errands (like birthday parties to go to) and said to Mike, "It's time to plan our next move."
"Ok," he replied, sitting down next to me.
"I'm thinking maybe a downtown loft." I was joking--our next move was for me to go water plants at church and then drive Sophia to the birthday party. But we both paused for a moment to consider this suggestion.
"Sophia and Maeve would never forgive us," I noted. "I mean, they're growing up in the absolute perfect situation on this block."
Maeve's bestest best friend, if a 3 year old can have one, is moving away, though, next week. We haven't told her yet because it'll probably be just fine: they're moving one block east, the third house from the corner. I'm thinking that's not far away enough to matter. If 7th grade friendships can survive Columbia, Missouri all the way to Dallas, I think two little ones can survive "across the street" to "ten houses away."
I hope so.
5.31.2008
362/365 Tom's Diner - Suzanne Vega
"It is always nice to see you"
Says the man behind the counter
To the woman who has come in
She is shaking her umbrella
And I look the other way
As they are kissing their hellos
I'm pretending not to see them
And instead I pour the milk
We started at Hartford. It was extremely child-friendly, a full third of the coffeehouse given over to a play area in a semi-Waldorf style. Kids love it. We stayed awhile--more than two years, I think--every Wednesday, or every Friday if Wednesday wouldn't work for us, Ann, Janet, some of the other St. Ambrose moms. But Hartford started getting a little too first-time-mom for us. Lots of shaky young moms grabbing their children away from Rough Maeve. "She just needs to be monitored!" one woman shrieked at me. That, plus the school year was about to start, plus the coffee was getting really bad.
Then we went to Shugga's. Almost always had the place to ourselves. Free refills and you didn't have to get a latte to get the stuff down. Decent coffee. No kids, and definitely not a kids' place, but that was ok because Maeve was at school on Wednesday mornings with her sister now. We sat and worked on our knitting and complained about stuff and passed the time. But then the woman who ran Shugga's decided, for a number of reasons, to shut down. Now what. Mokabe's? But they smoke. Van Goghz was going to start serving coffee...but it's a martini bar at night (=smoke). What about the gelateria on Grand?
So we gave it a try. No free refills, but Bethany behind the counter makes a very nice espresso anything. And do I really need to drink 8 cups of coffee every Wednesday? How about just one large cup of good coffee? Perhaps a cinnamon roll. And an opinion or two.
It's down to just Ann, Janet, and I for the moment. Sometimes Sr. Mary comes by. Lisa's met us there once. Ran into our parish priest, a few homeschoolers we know. Ann's neighbors run the joint and they have good gelato, too, after dinner and we think maybe we can mosey on down the 8 blocks.
Like now.
Says the man behind the counter
To the woman who has come in
She is shaking her umbrella
And I look the other way
As they are kissing their hellos
I'm pretending not to see them
And instead I pour the milk
We started at Hartford. It was extremely child-friendly, a full third of the coffeehouse given over to a play area in a semi-Waldorf style. Kids love it. We stayed awhile--more than two years, I think--every Wednesday, or every Friday if Wednesday wouldn't work for us, Ann, Janet, some of the other St. Ambrose moms. But Hartford started getting a little too first-time-mom for us. Lots of shaky young moms grabbing their children away from Rough Maeve. "She just needs to be monitored!" one woman shrieked at me. That, plus the school year was about to start, plus the coffee was getting really bad.
Then we went to Shugga's. Almost always had the place to ourselves. Free refills and you didn't have to get a latte to get the stuff down. Decent coffee. No kids, and definitely not a kids' place, but that was ok because Maeve was at school on Wednesday mornings with her sister now. We sat and worked on our knitting and complained about stuff and passed the time. But then the woman who ran Shugga's decided, for a number of reasons, to shut down. Now what. Mokabe's? But they smoke. Van Goghz was going to start serving coffee...but it's a martini bar at night (=smoke). What about the gelateria on Grand?
So we gave it a try. No free refills, but Bethany behind the counter makes a very nice espresso anything. And do I really need to drink 8 cups of coffee every Wednesday? How about just one large cup of good coffee? Perhaps a cinnamon roll. And an opinion or two.
It's down to just Ann, Janet, and I for the moment. Sometimes Sr. Mary comes by. Lisa's met us there once. Ran into our parish priest, a few homeschoolers we know. Ann's neighbors run the joint and they have good gelato, too, after dinner and we think maybe we can mosey on down the 8 blocks.
Like now.
5.30.2008
361/365 Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cindy Lauper
I want to be the one to walk in the sun
Oh girls they want to have fun
Sophia's been out of school for a week. It's been four days home (three days on the Gasconade). It's been four days of playing with neighbor kids. Intensely. The three little girls her age and she are already plotting out their summer. Last night was the first "can Sophia eat dinner with us?" The first "Ask your mom if I can spend the night" is only a few days away, I predict.
Summer. When children resent chores and errands. The trip to the cafe and to pick up the little sister from preschool (which went through this week) is an imposition of the worst kind: but they're playing without me. Yes, Sophia. It sucks.
Summer. When it's easy to wake up at 6 a.m. even though through the entire spring, Mom had to drag you from your bed at 7:50 in order to get to school on time. Trips to grandparents' houses, Girl Scout Camp, the river.
On Wednesday, Maeve and I went to the library. Sophia stayed home to play. The tornado sirens went off whilst we were gone. Maeve and I hid out in the library basement until they turned the check-out computers back on. Sophia hid in the neighbor's basement and Mary reassured her kids and mine that the tornado was out of our area.
Can't forget that part of summer either.
Oh girls they want to have fun
Sophia's been out of school for a week. It's been four days home (three days on the Gasconade). It's been four days of playing with neighbor kids. Intensely. The three little girls her age and she are already plotting out their summer. Last night was the first "can Sophia eat dinner with us?" The first "Ask your mom if I can spend the night" is only a few days away, I predict.
Summer. When children resent chores and errands. The trip to the cafe and to pick up the little sister from preschool (which went through this week) is an imposition of the worst kind: but they're playing without me. Yes, Sophia. It sucks.
Summer. When it's easy to wake up at 6 a.m. even though through the entire spring, Mom had to drag you from your bed at 7:50 in order to get to school on time. Trips to grandparents' houses, Girl Scout Camp, the river.
On Wednesday, Maeve and I went to the library. Sophia stayed home to play. The tornado sirens went off whilst we were gone. Maeve and I hid out in the library basement until they turned the check-out computers back on. Sophia hid in the neighbor's basement and Mary reassured her kids and mine that the tornado was out of our area.
Can't forget that part of summer either.
5.29.2008
360/365 America - Simon & Garfunkel
Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike
They've all gone to look for America
Mrs. Slocombe has just started a new project, going through all the postal codes where he's lived or been. I thought about that. Zip codes where I've been. All gone to look for America. I remember when I was in 10th grade, we went down to Disney World with my parents' friends, the Flowers family. Karen's a year younger than me, Tommy's Ian's age, and Claire is between Bevin and Colleen. I was a tad old for Disney, sure, but it was a good trip. But the point is, when we were entering some parking lot, the guy in the booth was giving us the ticket for the windshield or what have you, and he asked my dad what our zip code was.
"31201" my dad answered. I figured from the back of the station wagon that it was for the ticket somehow.
"That somewhere, middle Georgia?" the guy in the booth asked
"That's right," my dad told him.
"Just keeping busy."
Gone to look for America. But what do I have in common, here in south city St. Louis, with someone living on Tiki Island, Texas? With someone in central Montana? New York City? Western Michigan? It's unwieldy. But at the same time, with the suburbanization and Wal-Martization of this country, we are becoming all the same. Right? Is there really anything different anymore besides whether we say catty-cornered or kitty-cornered or how we pronounce the word "sundae"?
A few mah jongg evenings ago, Kristin told me I should get a passport and broaden my horizons. Not in a mean way--I'd mentioned that I'd never left the country. And there are places I'd like to go. But oh my goodness there's so much I haven't seen, right here.
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike
They've all gone to look for America
Mrs. Slocombe has just started a new project, going through all the postal codes where he's lived or been. I thought about that. Zip codes where I've been. All gone to look for America. I remember when I was in 10th grade, we went down to Disney World with my parents' friends, the Flowers family. Karen's a year younger than me, Tommy's Ian's age, and Claire is between Bevin and Colleen. I was a tad old for Disney, sure, but it was a good trip. But the point is, when we were entering some parking lot, the guy in the booth was giving us the ticket for the windshield or what have you, and he asked my dad what our zip code was.
"31201" my dad answered. I figured from the back of the station wagon that it was for the ticket somehow.
"That somewhere, middle Georgia?" the guy in the booth asked
"That's right," my dad told him.
"Just keeping busy."
Gone to look for America. But what do I have in common, here in south city St. Louis, with someone living on Tiki Island, Texas? With someone in central Montana? New York City? Western Michigan? It's unwieldy. But at the same time, with the suburbanization and Wal-Martization of this country, we are becoming all the same. Right? Is there really anything different anymore besides whether we say catty-cornered or kitty-cornered or how we pronounce the word "sundae"?
A few mah jongg evenings ago, Kristin told me I should get a passport and broaden my horizons. Not in a mean way--I'd mentioned that I'd never left the country. And there are places I'd like to go. But oh my goodness there's so much I haven't seen, right here.
5.28.2008
359/365 Think it Over One Time/Walking Shoes - Robert Earl Keen
I've read a thousand books, I've been behind the wheel,
I've known you all my life but still I can't feel how you feel.
You always hope it can be saved. Let's just be friends. Can we start over from here? Little girl, think it over one time. But I'm not good at that and sometimes too much passes between two people to make casual friendship possible.
I've written about her before, but now as it comes to the end of this year, I feel like I need to sew it up a bit. She was my best friend, of all the close friends I've ever had up until that point. We met when we were 15, both of us outcasts at the snotty central Georgia school we were trapped in. But she'd been trapped there since she was 8, while I'd shown up at 15. Her mom was chasing down her deadbeat father. They weren't from there anymore than I was. Lots of loss in that childhood that I couldn't comprehend and she was hardly starting to share. She was the first friend I'd ever had who didn't have any baby pictures.
We moved the same summer--out west for her, Texas for me. We talked on the phone, shared equally hypergraphic letters, ruminated about our high school existence, and were early doubters of the first Iraq war.
When we parted ways, it had become inevitable. I was trying to fix her life, inappropriately, and she wasn't strong enough to tell me to butt out. Until finally she did. She was hoping to move to St. Louis, fall into my prefab life for her, but we weren't high school Best Friends Forever anymore. We were semi-adults and it was time to stop pretending.
She fell away from me, and I from her, instantaneously with a single exchange of letters. There was no looking me up later, even though I have the same phone number as I did back then. Every so often I google her, but her name is too common to narrow it down. Even tweaking it with what I know. So she slips away like so many others: Ariel, Misdy, Jennifer, Jenny, Leslie, Carol, Helen, Lillian, Megan, Johnny, Ann, Michelle, Tracey, Desiree, Debbie, Katy, Monica: all those people I used to know.
I read a book last night in which one of the main characters asks, "I wonder how long we'll know each other?" and the response is, "Silly, we know each other. You can't unmeet someone."
But I can.
I've known you all my life but still I can't feel how you feel.
You always hope it can be saved. Let's just be friends. Can we start over from here? Little girl, think it over one time. But I'm not good at that and sometimes too much passes between two people to make casual friendship possible.
I've written about her before, but now as it comes to the end of this year, I feel like I need to sew it up a bit. She was my best friend, of all the close friends I've ever had up until that point. We met when we were 15, both of us outcasts at the snotty central Georgia school we were trapped in. But she'd been trapped there since she was 8, while I'd shown up at 15. Her mom was chasing down her deadbeat father. They weren't from there anymore than I was. Lots of loss in that childhood that I couldn't comprehend and she was hardly starting to share. She was the first friend I'd ever had who didn't have any baby pictures.
We moved the same summer--out west for her, Texas for me. We talked on the phone, shared equally hypergraphic letters, ruminated about our high school existence, and were early doubters of the first Iraq war.
When we parted ways, it had become inevitable. I was trying to fix her life, inappropriately, and she wasn't strong enough to tell me to butt out. Until finally she did. She was hoping to move to St. Louis, fall into my prefab life for her, but we weren't high school Best Friends Forever anymore. We were semi-adults and it was time to stop pretending.
She fell away from me, and I from her, instantaneously with a single exchange of letters. There was no looking me up later, even though I have the same phone number as I did back then. Every so often I google her, but her name is too common to narrow it down. Even tweaking it with what I know. So she slips away like so many others: Ariel, Misdy, Jennifer, Jenny, Leslie, Carol, Helen, Lillian, Megan, Johnny, Ann, Michelle, Tracey, Desiree, Debbie, Katy, Monica: all those people I used to know.
I read a book last night in which one of the main characters asks, "I wonder how long we'll know each other?" and the response is, "Silly, we know each other. You can't unmeet someone."
But I can.
5.27.2008
358/365 All Together Now - The Farm
The same old story again
All those tears shed in vain
Nothing learned and nothing gained
Only hope remains
My grandfather died in November 1991. The following spring, I went up to St. Louis with my mother and my boyfriend to look at a couple of colleges--he wasn't going, but I was, and it was college visit time. We stayed with my grandmother, whose health was rapidly declining. We sat down with a box of photographs and looked through them. She identified some of the people--friends from her early days in St. Louis when she dated Art, friends of her brother Roy, a few pictures from her time in central Missouri. Then, a whole group of snapshots of young men.
"Are these brothers? Cousins?" I asked, spreading them out. She looked at them obliquely--living on a chicken farm her whole childhood had given her histoplasmosis of the eyes and she only had peripheral vision.
"Oh, no, that's---" and filled in a bunch of names. Boyfriends, friends of her brothers, neighbors, boys from her high school. All dead in the war. Then the picture of Fred, her first husband, shot down by "friendly fire." She talked about it all with a distinct lack of sentimentality.
Before we left, I took a small box of war medals from my grandfather's dresser. Medals and ribbons, no documentation. Took them home and showed them to my Russian teacher, who had been a captain in the army and was still in the reserves. He laid them out on the table for me. Sharpshooter. Some theater medal--probably could look it up--a purple heart. A bronze star.
"Whoever your grandfather was, I salute him," he said, saluting me instead. I took the box home, bewildered.
He just didn't talk about it. And now it's too late (and it's really too late--all his records are part of the great records fire in the 1970s here in St. Louis).
All those tears shed in vain
Nothing learned and nothing gained
Only hope remains
My grandfather died in November 1991. The following spring, I went up to St. Louis with my mother and my boyfriend to look at a couple of colleges--he wasn't going, but I was, and it was college visit time. We stayed with my grandmother, whose health was rapidly declining. We sat down with a box of photographs and looked through them. She identified some of the people--friends from her early days in St. Louis when she dated Art, friends of her brother Roy, a few pictures from her time in central Missouri. Then, a whole group of snapshots of young men.
"Are these brothers? Cousins?" I asked, spreading them out. She looked at them obliquely--living on a chicken farm her whole childhood had given her histoplasmosis of the eyes and she only had peripheral vision.
"Oh, no, that's---" and filled in a bunch of names. Boyfriends, friends of her brothers, neighbors, boys from her high school. All dead in the war. Then the picture of Fred, her first husband, shot down by "friendly fire." She talked about it all with a distinct lack of sentimentality.
Before we left, I took a small box of war medals from my grandfather's dresser. Medals and ribbons, no documentation. Took them home and showed them to my Russian teacher, who had been a captain in the army and was still in the reserves. He laid them out on the table for me. Sharpshooter. Some theater medal--probably could look it up--a purple heart. A bronze star.
"Whoever your grandfather was, I salute him," he said, saluting me instead. I took the box home, bewildered.
He just didn't talk about it. And now it's too late (and it's really too late--all his records are part of the great records fire in the 1970s here in St. Louis).
5.26.2008
357/365 No Man's Woman - Sinead O'Connor
I don't wanna be no man's woman
I've other work I want to get done
I haven't traveled this far to become
No man's woman
She told me:
It was my senior year of high school and Rosie and I went down to her family's place to look after it, make sure it was ready for summer. We were almost about to graduate. The house was fine, musty, but just how we remembered. We stopped by the chapel, the one we used to have in central Illinois, and after mass that Sunday, I told her, "I think, this is where I have to be."
"Good," she told me, "because I'm coming here in July. You can go with me."
I wrote to the sisters, here at Clyde, and I asked them to please write to me via Rosie's family. You see, my sister had left for the Dominicans already, and they'd sent her home that Christmas. She was too nervous, they said. And my father had just had a stroke a few months before that. Fell in a ditch on the way home from work and people walked right past him. By the time they got him to the hospital, it looked hopeless. So I was supposed to stay home after I graduated and take care of him. My life's work. My sister was going to get a second try somewhere else. But she was recuperating, my mother was barely holding all together, my father was an invalid, and I was sneaking around trying to figure out how to become a Benedictine.
Of course the sisters sent a letter home to my house, with their return address plain as day. I walked into the kitchen that evening and my mother was frying hamburgers on the stove. She waved that envelope at me and demanded to know what the hell I thought I was doing to my family.
I told her: "Did you ever have to do something, even if it was crazy, but out of love?"
She turned to me with the frying pan in her hand and gave me a look like I have never seen. I'm surprised she didn't hit me with it. I took my letter, which gave all the directions and information I needed. She and I didn't talk the rest of the month, and in July, Rosie's dad pulled his car up in our driveway and I walked out of the house with my suitcase. My mother was weeding in the front yard and didn't look up when we drove away.
"I'll go around the block," Rosie's dad said. "She'll be standing on the driveway when we come back around." But she wasn't. She'd gone inside.
I didn't go home for 5 years. They never answered letters. Then, finally, I went home to visit. My father had gotten out of his sickbed. He was back at work, halftime. When I left, friends came out of the woodwork to get him back on his feet. He lived another 20 years. But my mother died without ever forgiving me.
My sister, by the way, married a man who dropped out of the seminary and they have 7 kids. I spend a week with her every summer and come back here glad to be back.
Would I have done it this way again, knowing what I know? I don't know. It helps that Rosie's still here--she's Sr. Lioba now, of course--but it was a costly decision for me.
I've other work I want to get done
I haven't traveled this far to become
No man's woman
She told me:
It was my senior year of high school and Rosie and I went down to her family's place to look after it, make sure it was ready for summer. We were almost about to graduate. The house was fine, musty, but just how we remembered. We stopped by the chapel, the one we used to have in central Illinois, and after mass that Sunday, I told her, "I think, this is where I have to be."
"Good," she told me, "because I'm coming here in July. You can go with me."
I wrote to the sisters, here at Clyde, and I asked them to please write to me via Rosie's family. You see, my sister had left for the Dominicans already, and they'd sent her home that Christmas. She was too nervous, they said. And my father had just had a stroke a few months before that. Fell in a ditch on the way home from work and people walked right past him. By the time they got him to the hospital, it looked hopeless. So I was supposed to stay home after I graduated and take care of him. My life's work. My sister was going to get a second try somewhere else. But she was recuperating, my mother was barely holding all together, my father was an invalid, and I was sneaking around trying to figure out how to become a Benedictine.
Of course the sisters sent a letter home to my house, with their return address plain as day. I walked into the kitchen that evening and my mother was frying hamburgers on the stove. She waved that envelope at me and demanded to know what the hell I thought I was doing to my family.
I told her: "Did you ever have to do something, even if it was crazy, but out of love?"
She turned to me with the frying pan in her hand and gave me a look like I have never seen. I'm surprised she didn't hit me with it. I took my letter, which gave all the directions and information I needed. She and I didn't talk the rest of the month, and in July, Rosie's dad pulled his car up in our driveway and I walked out of the house with my suitcase. My mother was weeding in the front yard and didn't look up when we drove away.
"I'll go around the block," Rosie's dad said. "She'll be standing on the driveway when we come back around." But she wasn't. She'd gone inside.
I didn't go home for 5 years. They never answered letters. Then, finally, I went home to visit. My father had gotten out of his sickbed. He was back at work, halftime. When I left, friends came out of the woodwork to get him back on his feet. He lived another 20 years. But my mother died without ever forgiving me.
My sister, by the way, married a man who dropped out of the seminary and they have 7 kids. I spend a week with her every summer and come back here glad to be back.
Would I have done it this way again, knowing what I know? I don't know. It helps that Rosie's still here--she's Sr. Lioba now, of course--but it was a costly decision for me.
5.25.2008
356/365 Twilgiht Zone - Golden Earring
Yeah there's a storm on the loose sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence all circuits are dead
I cannot decode
my whole life spins into a frenzy
So we went canoing again. Bevin, Colleen, and I. Memorial Day 2006. We went down the steep rock hill to the eddy where the canoes are locked up. Scoffed at the life preservers--we were all excellent swimmers--and grabbed our paddles, put the boat in the water. Colleen didn't want to leave the eddy, having learned that the current can get to be too much out on the river. So we lazily dipped and turned around the eddy, under beautiful trees that arched over and met in the middle. We talked about the river, about summer, about dinner. Whatever.
Then Bevin stood up. She was sitting in the middle, on a vinyl pad on the floor of the canoe--Colleen was in front on a platform, I was in back on the same.
Bevin, Sit Down! I yelled. Bevin's fear of spiders or something must have kicked in, damn it.
There's a snake in the boat! She explained.
And there was. It was small, but it was dark and menacing. I had gone to enough state park ranger talks to know it was unlikely to be the dread cottonmouth/water moccasin. Most likely a diamond back water snake. Black snake. Something else. Anything else. I thought quickly, though. We were in the middle of the eddy, Colleen was melting into a puddle of panicked goo, and Bevin was standing in our canoe.
We will have to kill it, I decided.
Oh, Colleen replied.
Do you have a better idea?
Bevin then took her paddle and tried to scoop with it. The snake fought back. Unhappy snake in our canoe is not an improvement. I told Colleen to keep paddling! Keep paddling!
But I don't have enough strength! We're going to hit the bank!
We hit a log in the middle of the water, kind of came to a standstill for a minute. Bevin scooped, and my paddle caught the snake when in wriggled off. Then hers caught it, and then mine, and we launched it out into the water. It swam towards the canoe. Brought its head out of the water, menacing.
Then it swam away, head out of the water.
We got to the bank. Locked up the canoe. Walked up the hill. Got to the cabin, and I looked up cottonmouth.
The first words in the entry for cottonmouth are:
Do not disturb! Do not attempt to handle!
And then: Unlike other water snakes, it swims with head well out of water.
We sank into chairs in the living room and calculated. If it had bit one of us, or if Bevin hadn't taken a kayaking class (when? when did this happen?), we'd been in the water. And then dragging each other to the shore. Up the hill? Then to the van? To a hospital in Rolla? How long?
We would have been dead.
I'm wrapped up in silence all circuits are dead
I cannot decode
my whole life spins into a frenzy
So we went canoing again. Bevin, Colleen, and I. Memorial Day 2006. We went down the steep rock hill to the eddy where the canoes are locked up. Scoffed at the life preservers--we were all excellent swimmers--and grabbed our paddles, put the boat in the water. Colleen didn't want to leave the eddy, having learned that the current can get to be too much out on the river. So we lazily dipped and turned around the eddy, under beautiful trees that arched over and met in the middle. We talked about the river, about summer, about dinner. Whatever.
Then Bevin stood up. She was sitting in the middle, on a vinyl pad on the floor of the canoe--Colleen was in front on a platform, I was in back on the same.
Bevin, Sit Down! I yelled. Bevin's fear of spiders or something must have kicked in, damn it.
There's a snake in the boat! She explained.
And there was. It was small, but it was dark and menacing. I had gone to enough state park ranger talks to know it was unlikely to be the dread cottonmouth/water moccasin. Most likely a diamond back water snake. Black snake. Something else. Anything else. I thought quickly, though. We were in the middle of the eddy, Colleen was melting into a puddle of panicked goo, and Bevin was standing in our canoe.
We will have to kill it, I decided.
Oh, Colleen replied.
Do you have a better idea?
Bevin then took her paddle and tried to scoop with it. The snake fought back. Unhappy snake in our canoe is not an improvement. I told Colleen to keep paddling! Keep paddling!
But I don't have enough strength! We're going to hit the bank!
We hit a log in the middle of the water, kind of came to a standstill for a minute. Bevin scooped, and my paddle caught the snake when in wriggled off. Then hers caught it, and then mine, and we launched it out into the water. It swam towards the canoe. Brought its head out of the water, menacing.
Then it swam away, head out of the water.
We got to the bank. Locked up the canoe. Walked up the hill. Got to the cabin, and I looked up cottonmouth.
The first words in the entry for cottonmouth are:
Do not disturb! Do not attempt to handle!
And then: Unlike other water snakes, it swims with head well out of water.
We sank into chairs in the living room and calculated. If it had bit one of us, or if Bevin hadn't taken a kayaking class (when? when did this happen?), we'd been in the water. And then dragging each other to the shore. Up the hill? Then to the van? To a hospital in Rolla? How long?
We would have been dead.
5.24.2008
355/365 Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies
It's the perfect time of day
To throw all your cares away
Put the sprinkler on the lawn
And run through with my gym shorts on.
Take a drink right from the hose
And change into some drier clothes
Climb the stairs up to my room
Sleep away the afternoon.
We spent the weekend down at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm, on the Gasconade River. Took some naps in the hammock. Walked Clifty Creek. Took a nap. Walked to the river. Compared it to previous years--not the highest we've ever seen, but the highest since Memorial Day, 2001....
There we were, I was 8 months pregnant with Sophia. Her incoming godparents were with us, and Brian, Mary, Maloki, my sisters. We went down to the river to canoe (except for Mary and Maloki). Rachel and Marvin were our resident experts. But I was the native guide. I never had gone upstream before--the water was always low enough, we went with the current a little ways and then headed back. Never a problem. So we floated down the river to a sandy beach. Got out, looked at rocks, waded in the water, which was quite high. We realized we'd been out about an hour and thought it was time to head back. This time, the water was so high, the current so strong, we had to cling to the shore and play a two feet forward one foot back game. When we reached the Rock in the Rock Eddy Bluff (it's built on a bluff next to an eddy created by a natural rock that is usually 10 feet above the water level, shaped like a gigantic layer cake), the current diverted my canoe away from the eddy where we were headed. I was trapped on the sandbar on the opposite side.
So I waded. I waded in the disgustingly muddy water, chest high, dragging my canoe behind me. I got into the eddy, which is essentially a still backwater, but didn't bother to try to get into the canoe. I walked it to the launch point and then headed to the van, dripping wet, hugely pregnant, bloated like probably many dead things that had passed me in the water.
We all loaded in the van, exhausted. Mike started up the vertical hill. One of those rock roads, one car wide, straight up the hill. And then we reached a big rock that stuck out of the road. The van couldn't go over it. Marvin got out and started coaching Mike. Rachel, Bevin, Colleen, and I ran out of the van and started running up the hill with energy we did not have. We did not want to tumble down the side of the bluff into the river.
We all made it, obviously. We got back to the cabin and I drank a half gallon of gatorade. And then I slept, slept, slept. I swore I'd never canoe again. Until I did.
To throw all your cares away
Put the sprinkler on the lawn
And run through with my gym shorts on.
Take a drink right from the hose
And change into some drier clothes
Climb the stairs up to my room
Sleep away the afternoon.
We spent the weekend down at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm, on the Gasconade River. Took some naps in the hammock. Walked Clifty Creek. Took a nap. Walked to the river. Compared it to previous years--not the highest we've ever seen, but the highest since Memorial Day, 2001....
There we were, I was 8 months pregnant with Sophia. Her incoming godparents were with us, and Brian, Mary, Maloki, my sisters. We went down to the river to canoe (except for Mary and Maloki). Rachel and Marvin were our resident experts. But I was the native guide. I never had gone upstream before--the water was always low enough, we went with the current a little ways and then headed back. Never a problem. So we floated down the river to a sandy beach. Got out, looked at rocks, waded in the water, which was quite high. We realized we'd been out about an hour and thought it was time to head back. This time, the water was so high, the current so strong, we had to cling to the shore and play a two feet forward one foot back game. When we reached the Rock in the Rock Eddy Bluff (it's built on a bluff next to an eddy created by a natural rock that is usually 10 feet above the water level, shaped like a gigantic layer cake), the current diverted my canoe away from the eddy where we were headed. I was trapped on the sandbar on the opposite side.
So I waded. I waded in the disgustingly muddy water, chest high, dragging my canoe behind me. I got into the eddy, which is essentially a still backwater, but didn't bother to try to get into the canoe. I walked it to the launch point and then headed to the van, dripping wet, hugely pregnant, bloated like probably many dead things that had passed me in the water.
We all loaded in the van, exhausted. Mike started up the vertical hill. One of those rock roads, one car wide, straight up the hill. And then we reached a big rock that stuck out of the road. The van couldn't go over it. Marvin got out and started coaching Mike. Rachel, Bevin, Colleen, and I ran out of the van and started running up the hill with energy we did not have. We did not want to tumble down the side of the bluff into the river.
We all made it, obviously. We got back to the cabin and I drank a half gallon of gatorade. And then I slept, slept, slept. I swore I'd never canoe again. Until I did.
5.23.2008
354/365 Cry Freedom - Dave Matthews Band
The future is no place
To place your better days
I had a friend back in college who was always living in the future. Her daughter would go to the best private school. Never mind that she wasn't doing anything about her development at the monent. She and her husband would drive fashionable cars and live in the best part of town, even though right then they had to shovel out their apartment to move to yet a worse apartment. She was going to leave her husband. For someone better who would make lots of money and be exciting, engaging, personable, great in bed. But at the moment she was stuck in a dead-end relationship with a man who was none of those things. And I figure neither was she, frankly (I don't know about the last, but the first ones for sure).
There was always this sense that everything was going to be perfect, right around the corner. I would just listen. I was younger, unmarried, not saddled with a child, still in college, dating a decent guy. I didn't know what life would be like for me down the line. And I wasn't going to make myself--or anybody else--any promises. I have my plans, but I don't often share them. Maybe it's misplaced pride--I don't want to be proven wrong. Maybe it's the Irish-American doom I catch myself in sometimes. Don't wish for too much. Or maybe it's just the south St. Louis unworthiness that pervades this area. Yet I don't find myself pessimistic. I have great hope for the future. I just don't want to spend too much time wishing for good times to come. I want to have good times now.
Sophia and Maeve are in the backyard, swinging on a hand-me-down swingset instead of one I may or may not have managed to convince Mike to build (which would have been imaginary for many years). Split pea soup is in the crock pot. Mary and her kids just got home. I might break open a bottle of the "good" wine here in a minute. But I probably will leave the wedding stemware inside. I mean, live in the moment, sure, but have a lick of sense.
To place your better days
I had a friend back in college who was always living in the future. Her daughter would go to the best private school. Never mind that she wasn't doing anything about her development at the monent. She and her husband would drive fashionable cars and live in the best part of town, even though right then they had to shovel out their apartment to move to yet a worse apartment. She was going to leave her husband. For someone better who would make lots of money and be exciting, engaging, personable, great in bed. But at the moment she was stuck in a dead-end relationship with a man who was none of those things. And I figure neither was she, frankly (I don't know about the last, but the first ones for sure).
There was always this sense that everything was going to be perfect, right around the corner. I would just listen. I was younger, unmarried, not saddled with a child, still in college, dating a decent guy. I didn't know what life would be like for me down the line. And I wasn't going to make myself--or anybody else--any promises. I have my plans, but I don't often share them. Maybe it's misplaced pride--I don't want to be proven wrong. Maybe it's the Irish-American doom I catch myself in sometimes. Don't wish for too much. Or maybe it's just the south St. Louis unworthiness that pervades this area. Yet I don't find myself pessimistic. I have great hope for the future. I just don't want to spend too much time wishing for good times to come. I want to have good times now.
Sophia and Maeve are in the backyard, swinging on a hand-me-down swingset instead of one I may or may not have managed to convince Mike to build (which would have been imaginary for many years). Split pea soup is in the crock pot. Mary and her kids just got home. I might break open a bottle of the "good" wine here in a minute. But I probably will leave the wedding stemware inside. I mean, live in the moment, sure, but have a lick of sense.
5.22.2008
353/365 Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode
Reach out and touch faith
Freshman year, I lived with the vestiges of another time in the dorm referred to as "The Opium Den." There was a lot of drug use. There were some very strange people on my floor. A kid who didn't go to school there, in fact, just lived in the halls or sometimes in someone's room if he had drugs to buy a night. This was in an era between the 1950s in loco parentis no boys allowed and the current paranoid don't let young adults take responsibility for their own lives. The very end of that interim era. Probably part of the reason for the current era, in fact.
Dan had a velvet painting of Colonel Sanders in his room. You know, the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy. Susie and Maria and he built a shrine around it, complete with those pseudo-Catholic candles that ward away the evil eye, incense, the works.
One night, it caught on fire. They were all high, and Sonia tells me she turned around in this creepy silent moment to see the Colonel in flames. They managed to put out the fire before the smoke detectors noticed (the one in Dan's room, obviously, had been dismantled for his own protection).
The whole shrine was in the garbage room the next day. At lunch, Dan mentioned that he'd lost his faith. The Colonel had been his personal Jesus.
I think he was joking around.
Freshman year, I lived with the vestiges of another time in the dorm referred to as "The Opium Den." There was a lot of drug use. There were some very strange people on my floor. A kid who didn't go to school there, in fact, just lived in the halls or sometimes in someone's room if he had drugs to buy a night. This was in an era between the 1950s in loco parentis no boys allowed and the current paranoid don't let young adults take responsibility for their own lives. The very end of that interim era. Probably part of the reason for the current era, in fact.
Dan had a velvet painting of Colonel Sanders in his room. You know, the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy. Susie and Maria and he built a shrine around it, complete with those pseudo-Catholic candles that ward away the evil eye, incense, the works.
One night, it caught on fire. They were all high, and Sonia tells me she turned around in this creepy silent moment to see the Colonel in flames. They managed to put out the fire before the smoke detectors noticed (the one in Dan's room, obviously, had been dismantled for his own protection).
The whole shrine was in the garbage room the next day. At lunch, Dan mentioned that he'd lost his faith. The Colonel had been his personal Jesus.
I think he was joking around.
5.21.2008
352/365 La La La - Ernie & Bert
I taught Bert. First grade. Way too smart. And a little off-center. I ran a somewhat alternative classroom--there was a daily list of work to do, but everyone was on a different page (except in math--the math program we were forced to use was highly inflexible, although quite effective). So this kid was off the charts in reading and writing and related skills. I had him reading "chapter books" in September and designing his own I-Spy sets by November.
In November, though, he stabbed another student in the hand with his pencil. The lead got buried deep into the kid's hand. When I demanded to know why he'd done it, he told me flatly, "he wouldn't stop jiggling his desk." And that same month, I noticed that he kept coloring on his desk, this one gash towards the top, filled it in with crayon wax. It started to dawn on me that he was more than just really bright. I went through the school until I found a desk with no blemishes. He stopped drawing on his desk.
We had him tested after he gave me a watch for Christmas. We were always late for PE and he would freak out, flap his arms, run around. He told me, as I opened it, "Now we'll never be late again!" I made sure we weren't, and I scurried to fill out the forms for psychological examinations. No eye contact. Doesn't understand humor. Upset by changes in routine.
His IQ came back above 170. I sat there staring at the paperwork. Holy crap. And while he didn't actually qualify as Asperger's, the anecdotal notes by the testing psychologists noted how odd he was. How close to the line.
After that, every day was the same for my class. And he blossomed. His parents were easy-going and kinda geeky. Last time I ran into them, at a fish fry, he didn't remember me, but he was attending a top boys' school in town and trying to grow facial hair. He still wouldn't look me in the eye.
5.20.2008
351/365 Cocaine - Eric Clapton
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; cocaine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.
I stubbed my fourth toe on my left foot about a month ago. It still hurts. I wonder if it is broken. But I'm going to my doctor (she's a DO, she'll know what to do) in the next two weeks because everything about my health has ground to a halt. I sleep too much, I'm exhausted, my joints hurt, and the woman who cuts my hair told me it was thinning. Standing on the scale last week confirmed what I thought might be true. A slow steady gain for no particular reason. And then, as I started putting these things together, I noticed that my fingernails are flaking. Sigh.
The doctor emailed me back immediately. Come in. Wait. Get this blood work done first. I think back to the first time I met her: "if it's not your thyroid, I'll eat my hat." So anyway, I'm going to get it fixed--my thyroid is slowly dying just like my grandmother's did and it's time to tweak the synthroid amounts.
But my toe hurts, and I don't know if it's because of that horrific stubbing (if a stubbing of a toe can be horrific) a month ago or because of the general joint pain that's sneaking up on me. As I write, the ankle and the outside of that foot hurt as well. But the toe most of all. I keep complaining to Mike about it. It throbs and stops, throbs again a few hours later. Mike has taken to singing. Often. Actually, every time I complain. Which is getting rarer because it drives me nuts.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie: toe pain.
When your day is done and you wanna run; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.
I stubbed my fourth toe on my left foot about a month ago. It still hurts. I wonder if it is broken. But I'm going to my doctor (she's a DO, she'll know what to do) in the next two weeks because everything about my health has ground to a halt. I sleep too much, I'm exhausted, my joints hurt, and the woman who cuts my hair told me it was thinning. Standing on the scale last week confirmed what I thought might be true. A slow steady gain for no particular reason. And then, as I started putting these things together, I noticed that my fingernails are flaking. Sigh.
The doctor emailed me back immediately. Come in. Wait. Get this blood work done first. I think back to the first time I met her: "if it's not your thyroid, I'll eat my hat." So anyway, I'm going to get it fixed--my thyroid is slowly dying just like my grandmother's did and it's time to tweak the synthroid amounts.
But my toe hurts, and I don't know if it's because of that horrific stubbing (if a stubbing of a toe can be horrific) a month ago or because of the general joint pain that's sneaking up on me. As I write, the ankle and the outside of that foot hurt as well. But the toe most of all. I keep complaining to Mike about it. It throbs and stops, throbs again a few hours later. Mike has taken to singing. Often. Actually, every time I complain. Which is getting rarer because it drives me nuts.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie: toe pain.
5.19.2008
350/365 Glamorous Life - Sheila E.
Everybody knows from the coy little wink
The girl's got a lot on her mind
She's got big thoughts, big dreams
And a big brown Mercedes sedan
Conversations with my daughter lately:
Mama, you want to hear my married song?
Sure, Maeve, go ahead.
Ooh, when you're in love, you get married. I'm in love. I'm married.
Ooh, I'm getting married!
Umm, Maeve, what, I mean, who taught you that song?
I did.
And who is this person you are in love with?
Ian. He is the lucky guy!
It's like she's turning into my sister Colleen before my very eyes.
I have many lots of boyfriends.
Oh really?
Lots of them. And I have girlfriends, too.
Of course you do, honey.
She is 3. She wants to lead a glamorous life. As long as she can beat the boys up and pick her nose, too.
The girl's got a lot on her mind
She's got big thoughts, big dreams
And a big brown Mercedes sedan
Conversations with my daughter lately:
Mama, you want to hear my married song?
Sure, Maeve, go ahead.
Ooh, when you're in love, you get married. I'm in love. I'm married.
Ooh, I'm getting married!
Umm, Maeve, what, I mean, who taught you that song?
I did.
And who is this person you are in love with?
Ian. He is the lucky guy!
It's like she's turning into my sister Colleen before my very eyes.
I have many lots of boyfriends.
Oh really?
Lots of them. And I have girlfriends, too.
Of course you do, honey.
She is 3. She wants to lead a glamorous life. As long as she can beat the boys up and pick her nose, too.
5.18.2008
349/365 Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World - U2
Six o'clock in the morning
You're the last to hear the warning
We weren't dating yet. It was only freshman year. I'd broken off the half-hearted engagement with the boy in Texas, but I didn't know what else I wanted to do. He was still with Vanessa, at least in theory.
He'd come home from his job as an escort (not that kind of escort--he walked people to their cars in the dark of the medical campus armed with a walkie-talkie) and knock on my door. Or sometimes I'd be in his room since he had a TV. Nothing much to say, I guess, just the same as all the rest. We'd talk about anything. Watch The Prisoner or whatever else he had lying around. Or what might be on PBS at the moment. Didn't get good reception in the cinderblock building we lived in.
It was warm in May. And the Spaniards were frisky. I'd fall asleep on his couch, and wake up to the fire alarm. The Spaniards were in the hall. Smoking enough to set off the smoke detectors. Mike rolled out of his loft and we walked down to the parking lot to stand in the breeze for 10 minutes. Back upstairs. I went to my own room. A half hour later, the alarm went off again. Trudge down the four flights to the parking lot.
The third one, just before dawn, was the last straw. Mike asked if I wanted to go for a drive. Try to wake up or something. We drove down Kingshighway and went through a drive-through. Got vanilla shakes that tasted like sickeningly sweet strawberry flavoring. Drove around in that era of cheap gasoline until the sun rose. Your head hurts and you can't breathe, indeed.
It was a theme for the week. Spaniard parties, fire alarms, sleep deprivation. I was starting to think it was some kind of psychological warfare.
You're the last to hear the warning
We weren't dating yet. It was only freshman year. I'd broken off the half-hearted engagement with the boy in Texas, but I didn't know what else I wanted to do. He was still with Vanessa, at least in theory.
He'd come home from his job as an escort (not that kind of escort--he walked people to their cars in the dark of the medical campus armed with a walkie-talkie) and knock on my door. Or sometimes I'd be in his room since he had a TV. Nothing much to say, I guess, just the same as all the rest. We'd talk about anything. Watch The Prisoner or whatever else he had lying around. Or what might be on PBS at the moment. Didn't get good reception in the cinderblock building we lived in.
It was warm in May. And the Spaniards were frisky. I'd fall asleep on his couch, and wake up to the fire alarm. The Spaniards were in the hall. Smoking enough to set off the smoke detectors. Mike rolled out of his loft and we walked down to the parking lot to stand in the breeze for 10 minutes. Back upstairs. I went to my own room. A half hour later, the alarm went off again. Trudge down the four flights to the parking lot.
The third one, just before dawn, was the last straw. Mike asked if I wanted to go for a drive. Try to wake up or something. We drove down Kingshighway and went through a drive-through. Got vanilla shakes that tasted like sickeningly sweet strawberry flavoring. Drove around in that era of cheap gasoline until the sun rose. Your head hurts and you can't breathe, indeed.
It was a theme for the week. Spaniard parties, fire alarms, sleep deprivation. I was starting to think it was some kind of psychological warfare.
5.17.2008
348/365 The Joker - Steve Miller Band
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one
My third roommate in college, Debbie, used to play the Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits album on repeat. That and her Andrew Lloyd Webber Greatest Hits. It would be on when I came in to go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning. It would invade my dreams. Wild Mountain Honey. Dance Dance Dance. Oh God. I'd wake up, roll out of bed, go to class. Come home to Fly Like an Eagle.
Our dorm was allowed to choose, by floor, how to decorate the walls in the common areas. Ours was record albums. Steve Miller Band's rainbow pegasus was at the end of my wing. Beautifully rendered, but I wanted to splash black tar on it by May.
My neighbor down the street let me know that her daughter, who is Sophia's age, has decided her favorite song is The Joker. But that she's conscious of the word "smoker" and wanted to not sing that when she danced around their front hall singing this song. I came up with some other choices. Croaker. It could be about frogs. Soaker. Perhaps they go swimming. Choker. Umm, no. Sophia and she danced danced danced to this in between moments of tying up their hair for Irish Dance shows. Cutest thing I ever did see.
Nevermind midnight toker.
Fatboy Slim does a lovely rendition here.
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one
My third roommate in college, Debbie, used to play the Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits album on repeat. That and her Andrew Lloyd Webber Greatest Hits. It would be on when I came in to go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning. It would invade my dreams. Wild Mountain Honey. Dance Dance Dance. Oh God. I'd wake up, roll out of bed, go to class. Come home to Fly Like an Eagle.
Our dorm was allowed to choose, by floor, how to decorate the walls in the common areas. Ours was record albums. Steve Miller Band's rainbow pegasus was at the end of my wing. Beautifully rendered, but I wanted to splash black tar on it by May.
My neighbor down the street let me know that her daughter, who is Sophia's age, has decided her favorite song is The Joker. But that she's conscious of the word "smoker" and wanted to not sing that when she danced around their front hall singing this song. I came up with some other choices. Croaker. It could be about frogs. Soaker. Perhaps they go swimming. Choker. Umm, no. Sophia and she danced danced danced to this in between moments of tying up their hair for Irish Dance shows. Cutest thing I ever did see.
Nevermind midnight toker.
Fatboy Slim does a lovely rendition here.
5.16.2008
347/365 The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks - The Eagles
She was the pride and the passion of Dixie
She did exactly what her daddy had planned.
Kim and Kevin and Paunchy Greg aside, it was all because of who we were. My parents were recovering hippies. My mother did not put on makeup to go to the grocery store. She misread social cues (good manners are highly praised in central Georgia, but it doesn't mean they want to know you--the same approach in St. Louis would mean, "come on over, let's have coffee and complain about our kids and husbands," but in Macon it meant, "go home, you forgot to put on your pearls"). I totally failed to incorporate myself into the school community or neighborhood. My friends--including Robin, which turned into one of my deepest relationships--were outsiders. Freaks. And we were totally unwelcome.
My parents knew it was time to think about moving--although the final blow came when the medical corporation my father worked for was investigated by the Feds--was when we got the letter. An anonymous letter from our "neighbors" letting us know that while they appreciated that we took down the dead walnut tree from the side of the house, it was "unsightly" to leave the large logs piled up next to the stump.
My mother hired some homeless guys to move them for her.
And then, when we sold the house, it was to an African-American family. They asked us whether there was any neighborhood statute against parking a big rig cab in the driveway.
"Nope," my mother answered truthfully.
We packed up the tacky station wagon, towed the low-class triumph, and followed the U-Haul down I-10 towards Houston. Great big smile on these rosy cheeks.
She did exactly what her daddy had planned.
Kim and Kevin and Paunchy Greg aside, it was all because of who we were. My parents were recovering hippies. My mother did not put on makeup to go to the grocery store. She misread social cues (good manners are highly praised in central Georgia, but it doesn't mean they want to know you--the same approach in St. Louis would mean, "come on over, let's have coffee and complain about our kids and husbands," but in Macon it meant, "go home, you forgot to put on your pearls"). I totally failed to incorporate myself into the school community or neighborhood. My friends--including Robin, which turned into one of my deepest relationships--were outsiders. Freaks. And we were totally unwelcome.
My parents knew it was time to think about moving--although the final blow came when the medical corporation my father worked for was investigated by the Feds--was when we got the letter. An anonymous letter from our "neighbors" letting us know that while they appreciated that we took down the dead walnut tree from the side of the house, it was "unsightly" to leave the large logs piled up next to the stump.
My mother hired some homeless guys to move them for her.
And then, when we sold the house, it was to an African-American family. They asked us whether there was any neighborhood statute against parking a big rig cab in the driveway.
"Nope," my mother answered truthfully.
We packed up the tacky station wagon, towed the low-class triumph, and followed the U-Haul down I-10 towards Houston. Great big smile on these rosy cheeks.
5.15.2008
346/365 Close To Me (1990 remix) - The Cure
I never thought that this day would end
I never thought that tonight could ever be
This close to me
I will not scan my sophomore year picture for you. There is enough sorrow in the world already. Robin had introduced me to the Cure and I had taken most of my hair and makeup tips from Robert Smith. The picture for the math and science bowl teams (I belonged to both) there's another Cure fan, a boy a year ahead of me, and you have to look at the caption to tell us apart. It was pretty amazing what we could do with a dress code that rivaled the tax code for complexity and a bunch of teachers who were wary of us.
I was in a carpool with 3 freshmen who lived in North Macon nearby. Kim, Greg, and Kevin. They did not approve of me. I was a dropout. A punk northerner. Which is so amusing in retrospect when I was learning to two-step and becoming valedictorian two years later. They verbally attacked me in the car with Kim's mom driving. She drove around several extra blocks on the way to my house so that Kim could get in all the words she wanted. We were Yankee hoosiers* and it was time we knew it. My father's pastime of disassembling and reassembling a Triumph Spitfire in our garage was scandalous. I can still recall Kim's high pitched little student council bitch voice in my head if I try hard enough. She had stiff blonde hair like a triangle set on top of her neck, and a face that looked like it had already seen some plastic surgery. Greg looked like his father, including a paunch.
Oh, but Kevin. Kevin was too big a loser to play sports, so he volunteered to be scorekeeper for basketball so he could get a letter jacket. I was statistician (think scorekeeper with better skills) and we had to sit next to each other in the bleachers to share the book for the girls' game (for the boys' team, he sat down at the table with the timekeeper). We actually had to occasionally brush up against each other. This was post-bitch-out in the overly clean red sedan. I'm sure it was mortifying for him. For me, it was just SSDD all over again.
But the best moment was when he warned the boy (the scandalous boy) about me. About my totally inappropriate family. About the spitfire. About how trashy we all were. Boy and I had a good laugh about it.
Wait. No we didn't. He didn't have to tell me, and I told him that. I took him home. Showed him the car, the little red sports car I would inherit to drive to high school (after we moved to Texas). Showed him the "horrifying" woodpile we had piled up along a cyclone fence in the backyard. The "tacky" station wagon we drove. I actually defended myself. Not only were they convinced, they'd managed to convince me.
*hoosier: St. Louis for white trash
I never thought that tonight could ever be
This close to me
I will not scan my sophomore year picture for you. There is enough sorrow in the world already. Robin had introduced me to the Cure and I had taken most of my hair and makeup tips from Robert Smith. The picture for the math and science bowl teams (I belonged to both) there's another Cure fan, a boy a year ahead of me, and you have to look at the caption to tell us apart. It was pretty amazing what we could do with a dress code that rivaled the tax code for complexity and a bunch of teachers who were wary of us.
I was in a carpool with 3 freshmen who lived in North Macon nearby. Kim, Greg, and Kevin. They did not approve of me. I was a dropout. A punk northerner. Which is so amusing in retrospect when I was learning to two-step and becoming valedictorian two years later. They verbally attacked me in the car with Kim's mom driving. She drove around several extra blocks on the way to my house so that Kim could get in all the words she wanted. We were Yankee hoosiers* and it was time we knew it. My father's pastime of disassembling and reassembling a Triumph Spitfire in our garage was scandalous. I can still recall Kim's high pitched little student council bitch voice in my head if I try hard enough. She had stiff blonde hair like a triangle set on top of her neck, and a face that looked like it had already seen some plastic surgery. Greg looked like his father, including a paunch.
Oh, but Kevin. Kevin was too big a loser to play sports, so he volunteered to be scorekeeper for basketball so he could get a letter jacket. I was statistician (think scorekeeper with better skills) and we had to sit next to each other in the bleachers to share the book for the girls' game (for the boys' team, he sat down at the table with the timekeeper). We actually had to occasionally brush up against each other. This was post-bitch-out in the overly clean red sedan. I'm sure it was mortifying for him. For me, it was just SSDD all over again.
But the best moment was when he warned the boy (the scandalous boy) about me. About my totally inappropriate family. About the spitfire. About how trashy we all were. Boy and I had a good laugh about it.
Wait. No we didn't. He didn't have to tell me, and I told him that. I took him home. Showed him the car, the little red sports car I would inherit to drive to high school (after we moved to Texas). Showed him the "horrifying" woodpile we had piled up along a cyclone fence in the backyard. The "tacky" station wagon we drove. I actually defended myself. Not only were they convinced, they'd managed to convince me.
*hoosier: St. Louis for white trash
5.14.2008
345/365 Why - Annie Lennox
These are the contents of my head
And these are the years that we have spent
And this is what they represent
And this is how I feel
Do you know how I feel ?
My neighbor just had a cat put to sleep. He was old--when I took care of their cats, I was stunned by how old he seemed. But still lovely. He had 3 legs and arthritis. And he was dying.
She's having a hard time.
We brought home our first cat, Wiz, when I was 8 years old. Little black cat. Little bad black cat. But loving and easy-going. And he taught me to keep my stuff off the floor. He came into our lives before my sister Colleen did. Before we had a microwave or a VCR--not to compare him to appliances, but he was there a long time.
He essentially represented my growing up. These are the years that we have spent. I went from an 8 year old spazz to a 12 year spazz to an awkward early teenager to, well, something else. But he always lay on my bed or in my closet or by my head at night. Never purred. Just lay there patiently, listening. I can still read what you're thinking.
He had rules, and he was difficult (cats live up to their names, after all). He tolerated Colleen's brief stint at animal cruelty (not really--she was 3). He would play with my brother like a dog. He was a great cat.
And of course, cats die. He got cataracts and arthritis, but was still fine. Still well-groomed and happy. Lost a few teeth, but still managed to eat. Lost his voice--his meows were just little breaths. Suddenly, in a 6 week span, he went from healthy but aged to dying. His kidneys failed and that was that.
I went to school the next morning--I was teaching school by then, I was 26 and pregnant with Sophia--and did ok until I sat down in the cafeteria with my coworkers. Burst into tears. I couldn't believe it. It was so silly. He was just a damned cat. I had my own cats. What was my problem? But they still turn me inside out turning inside out turning inside out.
And that's when I knew for sure I was an adult. The last vestige of childhood gone, the last constant--and there were few constants--had passed and I was on my own. Of course that's overstated--I was married, pregnant, I had friends, family, a job, a house, and so on. But I think there are private symbols we all have that cannot be explained easily--And this is what they represent--and Wiz was my symbol of growing up.
And these are the years that we have spent
And this is what they represent
And this is how I feel
Do you know how I feel ?
My neighbor just had a cat put to sleep. He was old--when I took care of their cats, I was stunned by how old he seemed. But still lovely. He had 3 legs and arthritis. And he was dying.
She's having a hard time.
We brought home our first cat, Wiz, when I was 8 years old. Little black cat. Little bad black cat. But loving and easy-going. And he taught me to keep my stuff off the floor. He came into our lives before my sister Colleen did. Before we had a microwave or a VCR--not to compare him to appliances, but he was there a long time.
He essentially represented my growing up. These are the years that we have spent. I went from an 8 year old spazz to a 12 year spazz to an awkward early teenager to, well, something else. But he always lay on my bed or in my closet or by my head at night. Never purred. Just lay there patiently, listening. I can still read what you're thinking.
He had rules, and he was difficult (cats live up to their names, after all). He tolerated Colleen's brief stint at animal cruelty (not really--she was 3). He would play with my brother like a dog. He was a great cat.
And of course, cats die. He got cataracts and arthritis, but was still fine. Still well-groomed and happy. Lost a few teeth, but still managed to eat. Lost his voice--his meows were just little breaths. Suddenly, in a 6 week span, he went from healthy but aged to dying. His kidneys failed and that was that.
I went to school the next morning--I was teaching school by then, I was 26 and pregnant with Sophia--and did ok until I sat down in the cafeteria with my coworkers. Burst into tears. I couldn't believe it. It was so silly. He was just a damned cat. I had my own cats. What was my problem? But they still turn me inside out turning inside out turning inside out.
And that's when I knew for sure I was an adult. The last vestige of childhood gone, the last constant--and there were few constants--had passed and I was on my own. Of course that's overstated--I was married, pregnant, I had friends, family, a job, a house, and so on. But I think there are private symbols we all have that cannot be explained easily--And this is what they represent--and Wiz was my symbol of growing up.
5.13.2008
344/365 When The Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin
If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break
It keeps on raining. It is raining a stunning amount, in fact, here in St. Louis. My mother mentioned this morning (overcast, 64 degrees, but no rain) that it's been 23 inches of precipitation this year. We usually about about 12 or 13 at this point.
Last night at a church meeting (not about rain), the committee chair said "we're due." Are we? Really? We had the Flood of '93, followed by a less powerful but still important Flood of '95. That's only 15 years ago. If we're judging by their titles: 25-year flood, 50-year flood, 100-year flood, and the infamous 500-year flood, I don't think we're due.
But of course nature doesn't care about odds and statistics. My backyard is a marsh. We've pulled everything away from the walls in the basement--we have one "wet" wall. My tomato plants are a lush green, but itty bitty. And the bikes wait for us. Sit in the front hall and wait.
It hailed yesterday morning. And of course Saturday night tornadoes and high winds killed, what, was it 20 people, in southwest Missouri.
I brace for the summer thunderstorm & tornado season. I'm officially tired of weather events.
It keeps on raining. It is raining a stunning amount, in fact, here in St. Louis. My mother mentioned this morning (overcast, 64 degrees, but no rain) that it's been 23 inches of precipitation this year. We usually about about 12 or 13 at this point.
Last night at a church meeting (not about rain), the committee chair said "we're due." Are we? Really? We had the Flood of '93, followed by a less powerful but still important Flood of '95. That's only 15 years ago. If we're judging by their titles: 25-year flood, 50-year flood, 100-year flood, and the infamous 500-year flood, I don't think we're due.
But of course nature doesn't care about odds and statistics. My backyard is a marsh. We've pulled everything away from the walls in the basement--we have one "wet" wall. My tomato plants are a lush green, but itty bitty. And the bikes wait for us. Sit in the front hall and wait.
It hailed yesterday morning. And of course Saturday night tornadoes and high winds killed, what, was it 20 people, in southwest Missouri.
I brace for the summer thunderstorm & tornado season. I'm officially tired of weather events.
5.12.2008
343/365 Stay - Dave Matthews Band
Wasting time
I shall miss this thing
When it all rolls by
What a day...
Wanna stay, stay, stay, stay, stay here for awhile.
Carlos got married. In Milwaukee. We drove up in a 15 passenger van, a whole bunch of us. The rehearsal dinner was kind of stressful. It involved a school bus full of SCA folks rehashing filked songs and this one very long, very annoying set of quotes from Star Wars involving replacing nouns with the word "pants"
Han will have those pants down. We've got to give him more time!
It was actually excruciating. The next day was the church wedding, and I was on the groom's side, but instead of getting to go in some funky rental tux (like my aunt Chris did for my uncle Glennon's wedding), I had to wear the same dang purple two piece itchy dress. Pictures afterwards. I look like a nurse from 1945. A tea and cake reception downstairs. Bore. Ring.
But then there was the barbecue. Yes. A wedding picnic. It was 4th of July weekend in Milwaukee, which meant it was about 65 degrees. We played hunkerhausen and sat on a quilt and drank and drank and drank. I was back to drinking--we'd gone through the bad teaching year, and the sober year that followed, and now it was summer. I don't even remember what I was drinking, actually. I just had the alcoholic idea of getting to a plateau and staying there.
I french kissed the groom.
I ate spam.
I lay on that denim blanket, smooth with the patina of age and use, staring up at the sky as the clouds rolled overhead. I was drunk and happy and fun and lovely for the first time in years. I never wanted to leave.
I shall miss this thing
When it all rolls by
What a day...
Wanna stay, stay, stay, stay, stay here for awhile.
Carlos got married. In Milwaukee. We drove up in a 15 passenger van, a whole bunch of us. The rehearsal dinner was kind of stressful. It involved a school bus full of SCA folks rehashing filked songs and this one very long, very annoying set of quotes from Star Wars involving replacing nouns with the word "pants"
Han will have those pants down. We've got to give him more time!
It was actually excruciating. The next day was the church wedding, and I was on the groom's side, but instead of getting to go in some funky rental tux (like my aunt Chris did for my uncle Glennon's wedding), I had to wear the same dang purple two piece itchy dress. Pictures afterwards. I look like a nurse from 1945. A tea and cake reception downstairs. Bore. Ring.
But then there was the barbecue. Yes. A wedding picnic. It was 4th of July weekend in Milwaukee, which meant it was about 65 degrees. We played hunkerhausen and sat on a quilt and drank and drank and drank. I was back to drinking--we'd gone through the bad teaching year, and the sober year that followed, and now it was summer. I don't even remember what I was drinking, actually. I just had the alcoholic idea of getting to a plateau and staying there.
I french kissed the groom.
I ate spam.
I lay on that denim blanket, smooth with the patina of age and use, staring up at the sky as the clouds rolled overhead. I was drunk and happy and fun and lovely for the first time in years. I never wanted to leave.
5.11.2008
342/365 The Truck Song - Lyle Lovett
I went to high school
And I was not popular
Now I am older
And it don't matter
I went to three high schools, actually. The first, only a half year, in a northern Dallas suburb. The last was junior and senior year down in Houston (most of what I say about high school comes from there). The middle was a year and a half at a private school in central Georgia.
It's the middle high school that was so excruciating. Every day that first semester I'd get in the car and tell my mother I wanted to transfer to the large public high school in town. The dress code was baffling. The people were more so. I had moved so many times. This was the only time I did no social climbing at all. In fact, I climbed down a ladder instead of up. It got worse with time.
Sophomore year, I was one of 6 girls who took a second, unnecessary, year of P.E. It was fabulous. It was co-ed (the first of its kind). Archery. Flag football. Yoga. Some bastardized form of stickball. Volleyball. Racquetball. Different things. I loved it. Joanna and I had half our classes together, including P.E., and we were the only sophomores (the other girls were seniors who wanted a free period, which didn't pan out too well for them). It was the only class I liked that year.
It was February. I walked into the locker room after winning an archery contest, thus a guaranteed A for the quarter, pretty much, and there on the blackboard was Bridgett is a Dike. I remember the misspelling so clearly. It should have made me laugh, but I wasn't who I am now back then. Joanna went over and erased it, which made it worse, really, because it was one of those cheap green boards with yellow chalk that need to be sponged down to really erase. It was there the next day. And the next. Finally one of the women coaches washed the board.
Sometimes I wonder what the boyfriend from senior year is up to. Or what Megan and Ann and Tom and all them might be doing these days. Those people in Georgia. Not so much.
And I was not popular
Now I am older
And it don't matter
I went to three high schools, actually. The first, only a half year, in a northern Dallas suburb. The last was junior and senior year down in Houston (most of what I say about high school comes from there). The middle was a year and a half at a private school in central Georgia.
It's the middle high school that was so excruciating. Every day that first semester I'd get in the car and tell my mother I wanted to transfer to the large public high school in town. The dress code was baffling. The people were more so. I had moved so many times. This was the only time I did no social climbing at all. In fact, I climbed down a ladder instead of up. It got worse with time.
Sophomore year, I was one of 6 girls who took a second, unnecessary, year of P.E. It was fabulous. It was co-ed (the first of its kind). Archery. Flag football. Yoga. Some bastardized form of stickball. Volleyball. Racquetball. Different things. I loved it. Joanna and I had half our classes together, including P.E., and we were the only sophomores (the other girls were seniors who wanted a free period, which didn't pan out too well for them). It was the only class I liked that year.
It was February. I walked into the locker room after winning an archery contest, thus a guaranteed A for the quarter, pretty much, and there on the blackboard was Bridgett is a Dike. I remember the misspelling so clearly. It should have made me laugh, but I wasn't who I am now back then. Joanna went over and erased it, which made it worse, really, because it was one of those cheap green boards with yellow chalk that need to be sponged down to really erase. It was there the next day. And the next. Finally one of the women coaches washed the board.
Sometimes I wonder what the boyfriend from senior year is up to. Or what Megan and Ann and Tom and all them might be doing these days. Those people in Georgia. Not so much.
5.10.2008
341/365 I will survive - Gloria Gaynor
Now I hold my head up high
and you see me
somebody new
I stood on the back porch. I wanted to buy this house. Finally, we'd found the house. It needed work, but it was the one for us. Mary, the sick elderly woman who was selling the house, stood next to me apologizing for the backyard. The dalmatians had made a mess of the place. I didn't care.
"And the neighbors next door are gay."
I told her it'd be ok. Whatever. We put a contract on the house that night.
I met Steve and Jerry that summer, doing yard work. Offered me hostas. Told me to keep the porch lights on (that's what we do here). And that was about it. Until the Christmas party a few years later. All the neighbors were invited. Mike and I tag teamed with babysitting. A rented butler answered the door. I walked in, he took my coat and offered me a drink. I walked into the dining room, and every single person turned to look at me.
Everyone in the room was male. There were no neighbors here. I had this flash suddenly--this is a glimpse of what it's like to be the only non-white person in the room. And all these men. Dang.
"Hi," I said. "I'm the neighbor." Dork. But it explained why the hell I was standing there.
The next few years, every so often, they would surprise the hell out of me like that night. They were my neighbors. But instead of defying stereotypes like they were supposed to, they just kept confirming them. Again and again. Doing yard work in shockingly short shorts, listening to dance remix versions of Erasure and 70s hits. Redecorating their house for Christmas with the largest collection of Hummel figurines I've ever seen. Taking photos of their hybrid tulips. But we got to know them well enough that we joked about it: "Do you think you have enough Streisand?" I asked them at their yard sale. "Unicorns, Jerry, seriously, a unicorn collection?"
They moved to Amsterdam last year to run a bed & breakfast or some such thing. I know that's the stereotype about gentrification--artsy people followed by gay couples followed by yuppies followed by families. But I feel like they kept us honest. They were different from us and it made us more than what we are now. And they were the best friggin neighbors I could have ever had. Hot tub parties and all. I miss them.
and you see me
somebody new
I stood on the back porch. I wanted to buy this house. Finally, we'd found the house. It needed work, but it was the one for us. Mary, the sick elderly woman who was selling the house, stood next to me apologizing for the backyard. The dalmatians had made a mess of the place. I didn't care.
"And the neighbors next door are gay."
I told her it'd be ok. Whatever. We put a contract on the house that night.
I met Steve and Jerry that summer, doing yard work. Offered me hostas. Told me to keep the porch lights on (that's what we do here). And that was about it. Until the Christmas party a few years later. All the neighbors were invited. Mike and I tag teamed with babysitting. A rented butler answered the door. I walked in, he took my coat and offered me a drink. I walked into the dining room, and every single person turned to look at me.
Everyone in the room was male. There were no neighbors here. I had this flash suddenly--this is a glimpse of what it's like to be the only non-white person in the room. And all these men. Dang.
"Hi," I said. "I'm the neighbor." Dork. But it explained why the hell I was standing there.
The next few years, every so often, they would surprise the hell out of me like that night. They were my neighbors. But instead of defying stereotypes like they were supposed to, they just kept confirming them. Again and again. Doing yard work in shockingly short shorts, listening to dance remix versions of Erasure and 70s hits. Redecorating their house for Christmas with the largest collection of Hummel figurines I've ever seen. Taking photos of their hybrid tulips. But we got to know them well enough that we joked about it: "Do you think you have enough Streisand?" I asked them at their yard sale. "Unicorns, Jerry, seriously, a unicorn collection?"
They moved to Amsterdam last year to run a bed & breakfast or some such thing. I know that's the stereotype about gentrification--artsy people followed by gay couples followed by yuppies followed by families. But I feel like they kept us honest. They were different from us and it made us more than what we are now. And they were the best friggin neighbors I could have ever had. Hot tub parties and all. I miss them.
5.09.2008
340/365 Keep Your Hands To Yourself - Georgia Satellites
Cruel baby, baby, baby why do you treat me this way
You know I'm still your loverboy, I still feel the same way
Thats when she told me a story 'bout free milk and a cow
He was the first boy I really actually dated. I mean, there's "going out" and then there's "will you go to homecoming with me?" I look back now, like we all do, and laugh, but it was a Big Deal.
Because I stole him from my best friend. Didn't mean to. I was the statistician for the boys' basketball team (girls, too, but the boys were obviously more interesting). I was a leper down there in Georgia, trotting in from up north, one of the yankee untouchables, definite fringe. I just hadn't found my place yet (and that place was in Houston, not central Georgia). He and I would talk about her on the way to basketball games. And then finally he asked me out when she started getting suspicious (thus beginning a sort of theme for my dating life, actually).
He was on the basketball team. My entire hand could fit into his palm, and my hands are the same size as my husband's (I do not have small hands). He was over 6 and a half feet tall. And he was black. It was a scandal. I was a scandal. The whole thing. Walking around school in his letter jacket. All the juniors, all the people I sat through chemistry with, thought I was some sort of skanky usurper. I was messin with their reality, the basketball coach told me. Don't worry bout them. I didn't, but he did.
In the locker room, you know how guys talk (I know, because later, in Houston, I would be in that locker room). And he talked out of turn. In a big way. Chris said to him, she's a little much for ya, ain't she? Chris would go on to break my collarbone in PE class. The boyfriend didn't handle it well. Told them we had been together. Biblically. Lied to them. Don't gimme no lines. Of course this got back to me.
I wasn't strong enough yet to dump him publicly. I didn't do much of anything, actually. I realized I wore a big scarlet letter of some kind on my navy blue letter jacket. And I accepted it. I moved to Houston 4 months later and that took care of that.
You know I'm still your loverboy, I still feel the same way
Thats when she told me a story 'bout free milk and a cow
He was the first boy I really actually dated. I mean, there's "going out" and then there's "will you go to homecoming with me?" I look back now, like we all do, and laugh, but it was a Big Deal.
Because I stole him from my best friend. Didn't mean to. I was the statistician for the boys' basketball team (girls, too, but the boys were obviously more interesting). I was a leper down there in Georgia, trotting in from up north, one of the yankee untouchables, definite fringe. I just hadn't found my place yet (and that place was in Houston, not central Georgia). He and I would talk about her on the way to basketball games. And then finally he asked me out when she started getting suspicious (thus beginning a sort of theme for my dating life, actually).
He was on the basketball team. My entire hand could fit into his palm, and my hands are the same size as my husband's (I do not have small hands). He was over 6 and a half feet tall. And he was black. It was a scandal. I was a scandal. The whole thing. Walking around school in his letter jacket. All the juniors, all the people I sat through chemistry with, thought I was some sort of skanky usurper. I was messin with their reality, the basketball coach told me. Don't worry bout them. I didn't, but he did.
In the locker room, you know how guys talk (I know, because later, in Houston, I would be in that locker room). And he talked out of turn. In a big way. Chris said to him, she's a little much for ya, ain't she? Chris would go on to break my collarbone in PE class. The boyfriend didn't handle it well. Told them we had been together. Biblically. Lied to them. Don't gimme no lines. Of course this got back to me.
I wasn't strong enough yet to dump him publicly. I didn't do much of anything, actually. I realized I wore a big scarlet letter of some kind on my navy blue letter jacket. And I accepted it. I moved to Houston 4 months later and that took care of that.
5.08.2008
339/365 Losing My Religion - REM
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
Roman Catholic by birth. Baptized at Mary, Mother of the Church in January 1975. Attended St. Louis Church in Palm Desert, California. St. Benedict's in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Back to Mary Mother and then on to St. Bernadette's in south St. Louis County. Received my first communion from Fr. Jerry Keaty, made my first reconciliation the same year. In 1987, I made my first non-Catholic friend, Breeana Washington, who was attending Columbia Catholic School, attached to a Benedictine abbey in central Missouri. Br. Stephen. Fr. Lucien. Fr. Sal. Sr. Bernadette. Holy Cross down in The Colony, Texas. First anti-catholic nonsense I'd ever experienced. I was dumbfounded. St. Joseph's and Catholic high school for me down in central Georgia, and then Mt. Carmel High and Mary, Queen parish in Houston. Never a moment of doubt. Until there was.
College Church at SLU with the Jesuits. They just about beat any sense of Catholicism out of me. I had to go. No, I can stay. We were married at St. Cecilia's, the same Fr. Jerry Keaty saying the mass with Mike's uncle concelebrating. It was the teaching, I think, that made me seriously start searching for something else. Didn't find it. Got a job at St. Joan's, then one at St. Pius V. Confirmed at Easter Vigil Mass, 1999, by Fr. Mike. I believed. Right? But I went to confession a year later, no, I don't. His advice was to not tell any of the 6th graders I was teaching Old Testament to. No shit.
But I had to find a way. The call was there, it was just so quiet. I left. Then I came back. And then I left again. Mainstream and bible protestant churches wouldn't cut it; the Friends almost did. Then I came back. Fall 2005. I've been here since. I made some more promises. Oblation last fall with the Clyde Monastery in western Missouri. Here to stay? I hope. I feel like the faith adolescence is over, finally. Growing pains. I tend it more carefully now.
Come flailing around
Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
Roman Catholic by birth. Baptized at Mary, Mother of the Church in January 1975. Attended St. Louis Church in Palm Desert, California. St. Benedict's in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Back to Mary Mother and then on to St. Bernadette's in south St. Louis County. Received my first communion from Fr. Jerry Keaty, made my first reconciliation the same year. In 1987, I made my first non-Catholic friend, Breeana Washington, who was attending Columbia Catholic School, attached to a Benedictine abbey in central Missouri. Br. Stephen. Fr. Lucien. Fr. Sal. Sr. Bernadette. Holy Cross down in The Colony, Texas. First anti-catholic nonsense I'd ever experienced. I was dumbfounded. St. Joseph's and Catholic high school for me down in central Georgia, and then Mt. Carmel High and Mary, Queen parish in Houston. Never a moment of doubt. Until there was.
College Church at SLU with the Jesuits. They just about beat any sense of Catholicism out of me. I had to go. No, I can stay. We were married at St. Cecilia's, the same Fr. Jerry Keaty saying the mass with Mike's uncle concelebrating. It was the teaching, I think, that made me seriously start searching for something else. Didn't find it. Got a job at St. Joan's, then one at St. Pius V. Confirmed at Easter Vigil Mass, 1999, by Fr. Mike. I believed. Right? But I went to confession a year later, no, I don't. His advice was to not tell any of the 6th graders I was teaching Old Testament to. No shit.
But I had to find a way. The call was there, it was just so quiet. I left. Then I came back. And then I left again. Mainstream and bible protestant churches wouldn't cut it; the Friends almost did. Then I came back. Fall 2005. I've been here since. I made some more promises. Oblation last fall with the Clyde Monastery in western Missouri. Here to stay? I hope. I feel like the faith adolescence is over, finally. Growing pains. I tend it more carefully now.
5.07.2008
338/365 Season of Happiness - Joe & Blake
They say for everything there's a season
I know I've spent my season in hell
Folks think for everything there's a reason
Maybe some hard to tell
This is the season of our happiness
This is the time for our love
Declare it:
This is the season of our happiness
Share a little love
September 1993. I'd come back. I'd left Texas for good. My high school relationship was dissolving, mostly because I'd heard the rumor that Mike had broken up with Vanessa. I had great hopes.
He swears he was clueless. No idea I was interested. He told his mother over the summer, when he was bummed about the breakup: "Nah, I couldn't go out with Bridgett. That'd be like dating my sister."
I broke it off, over the phone, after the girls on my floor stared at me dumbfounded when I swore I wasn't interested in somebody new. Yeah, right. September 20, he comes back late from a class, but I'm already in his room. He comes in, and even though it's too hot to close off ventilation, shuts the door.
"Don thinks we're dating," he announces. "Why does he think that?"
I shrug. Don is a creepy old man who hangs out with college students and lives vicariously through their lives. What do I know about what Don thinks? Mike sits down on the couch--the same sad sagging couch that sits in the library/computer room upstairs at our house today--and looks at me seriously. I can't stop smiling.
"Do we want to make that a reality?" he asks.
I know I've spent my season in hell
Folks think for everything there's a reason
Maybe some hard to tell
This is the season of our happiness
This is the time for our love
Declare it:
This is the season of our happiness
Share a little love
September 1993. I'd come back. I'd left Texas for good. My high school relationship was dissolving, mostly because I'd heard the rumor that Mike had broken up with Vanessa. I had great hopes.
He swears he was clueless. No idea I was interested. He told his mother over the summer, when he was bummed about the breakup: "Nah, I couldn't go out with Bridgett. That'd be like dating my sister."
I broke it off, over the phone, after the girls on my floor stared at me dumbfounded when I swore I wasn't interested in somebody new. Yeah, right. September 20, he comes back late from a class, but I'm already in his room. He comes in, and even though it's too hot to close off ventilation, shuts the door.
"Don thinks we're dating," he announces. "Why does he think that?"
I shrug. Don is a creepy old man who hangs out with college students and lives vicariously through their lives. What do I know about what Don thinks? Mike sits down on the couch--the same sad sagging couch that sits in the library/computer room upstairs at our house today--and looks at me seriously. I can't stop smiling.
"Do we want to make that a reality?" he asks.
5.06.2008
337/365 Love Is Just a Four Letter Word - Joan Baez
Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Café
With a friend of a friend of mine
She sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
Bevin has found a new guy. Maybe. I hope. It's been a long time and I'm hopeful.
I look at her, and at Colleen with Tim, and I wonder. By the time I was their age. You know. I settled in fast with Mike and bought this house and had those kids. Sat with baby heavy on my knee and watched Colleen look at me, her thoughts obvious on her face: I will never have children. I will never become my hippie birkenstock wearing oldest sister. Never.
But maybe they might could. They would do it better, with more class, shave their legs more often, wear high heels and make up to go out. Bevin's been busy dragging me into a more respectable look, less la leche league. And maybe if I can stop being so very very weird indeed, maybe my little girls will get themselves some younger cousins someday.
Is love just a four letter word? Not really. But I still think it's a decision.
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Café
With a friend of a friend of mine
She sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
Bevin has found a new guy. Maybe. I hope. It's been a long time and I'm hopeful.
I look at her, and at Colleen with Tim, and I wonder. By the time I was their age. You know. I settled in fast with Mike and bought this house and had those kids. Sat with baby heavy on my knee and watched Colleen look at me, her thoughts obvious on her face: I will never have children. I will never become my hippie birkenstock wearing oldest sister. Never.
But maybe they might could. They would do it better, with more class, shave their legs more often, wear high heels and make up to go out. Bevin's been busy dragging me into a more respectable look, less la leche league. And maybe if I can stop being so very very weird indeed, maybe my little girls will get themselves some younger cousins someday.
Is love just a four letter word? Not really. But I still think it's a decision.
5.05.2008
336/365 Last - Nine Inch Nails
This isn't meant to last
This is for right now
I was the cool older sister back then. My little sisters, what, like, in 3rd and 1st grade when I graduated from high school, had me and the boyfriend listening to trashy grunge music in the car driving them around with friends to soccer games. That summer, the one spent on Galveston with the past--this was the soundtrack. Tori Amos and Trent Reznor and Nirvana and Hole and Pearl Jam and Henry Rollins and so on and so on. We'd pull up in the Chevy, waiting out on the parking lot of the dance class or the friend's house, ruining the speakers and scandalizing the soccer moms (surely those two...aren't that sweet little girl's parents...they can't be 20 years old...we imagined the thoughts going through their suburban minds and we were pleased with ourselves). Oh, was I slumming.
Then, you know how the student becomes the master yada yada yada. My sister Colleen remarks one day, she's in high school, I'm already married, that her friend Holly--the little kid we'd drive around with Colleen and Bevin--double dated with Trent Reznor a couple times. Went bowling.
This is for right now
I was the cool older sister back then. My little sisters, what, like, in 3rd and 1st grade when I graduated from high school, had me and the boyfriend listening to trashy grunge music in the car driving them around with friends to soccer games. That summer, the one spent on Galveston with the past--this was the soundtrack. Tori Amos and Trent Reznor and Nirvana and Hole and Pearl Jam and Henry Rollins and so on and so on. We'd pull up in the Chevy, waiting out on the parking lot of the dance class or the friend's house, ruining the speakers and scandalizing the soccer moms (surely those two...aren't that sweet little girl's parents...they can't be 20 years old...we imagined the thoughts going through their suburban minds and we were pleased with ourselves). Oh, was I slumming.
Then, you know how the student becomes the master yada yada yada. My sister Colleen remarks one day, she's in high school, I'm already married, that her friend Holly--the little kid we'd drive around with Colleen and Bevin--double dated with Trent Reznor a couple times. Went bowling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
