I started puking at midnight on the 14th as if in celebration. I puked through my entire special day. I haven't puked that much since I was a child. Buckets of bile. As a failed bulemic, it was kind of exciting, but overall, not that much fun. I did lose eight pounds. It is now, I think, the 17th, and I have missed two days of my life. The symptoms went south yesterday and another day devoted to rest and repair. Whew. It is not the norovirus, just in case you were wondering.
I am some better now.
For my birthday I got a diamond band to go with my wedding ring, which is really an engagement solitaire. We wanted it to look more like a traditional set, so added this band. It is sparkly. I love it. And a card covered with pink roses that said, "Beautiful as always" and I know he wrote it while I slept, puke in my hair and on my breath as he kissed me goodbye. Its good to have a husband.
My ailment is from working in a place with old people who catch everything, and young women with children who bring in bugs by the b'zillions and can't afford to stay home sick. A bad combination. Add to that, I always get sick at a new job. I think there are new bugs at each place, and I need to develop immunity to them. It takes time, and one hard hit at least. This was a doozy. But it is not bronchial, which is a huge relief. That scares me.
Time to wash my hair and try to leave the house for the first time in days. There are garage sales waiting.
Back now... got a bike in Boring. And strawberries. A flat for 15 bucks. I'll make freezer jam today or tomorrow. They are pretty good, but I think needed a little more sun to up the sugar content. So, I'll up the sugar content my own self.
OH! Big news. My son called and told me my house is gone. My first house in Talent. As I suspected, the bitch I sold it to was just a schill for a developer. Scooped it up and tore it down. My kitchen. My tile countertops. My sweet little cottage. I'll always think of it as Spencer's house, I think. His yard. His deck. His grave. I should have taken my mother's Peace rose, and the big hunk of rose quartz that Marky got for me. I should have taken more pictures. Ah, should have. What words.
Truth is, I didn't want anyone else to live in it. It was my house and now it is gone. I guess it is actually pushed to the back of the property awaiting demolition. Oh, well. I knew they were trying to put a road through from Talent Avenue to the highway, and that they'd go through Totem Pole trailer park to do it, and my property was one of the only things standing in the way. They would have forced me out sooner or later anyway. Progress. Sprawl. I'll never forget the view, or sitting on my deck of a spring morning, drinking cinnamon-laced coffee, listening to the meadowlark in the sycamore trees and petting my old dog. I thought I'd be there forever. I never thought I'd be here.
But, here I am.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Saturday, June 03, 2006
dropping betty
Last night the pager went off. I was riding on the back of our motorcycle in downtown traffic. It is the kickoff of Rose Festival week and everyone was beating feet to see the fireworks, or trying to get out of the city to avoid traffic, which creates traffic. Its endless. There are a lot of cars, and you just gotta get your best zen goin' and sit it out. I learned this commuting 3 hours a day to McMinnville. Do not rush hour. I listen to the drone of public radio and occasionally hear something of worth. Mostly I listen to the syntax of OPB reporters who say rad-i-O (emphasis on the third syllable) rather than RAD-i-o. Like most people do. They are so very very "this-is-Chris-tian-Fo-den-ven-sil" Everyone has an accent, accentutated, and I always love to listen to the social elite reporting oppression.
So there I was, in traffic, pipes rattling as we progressed light to light, and the pager went off. It is loud, thankfully, and I called in to find out what was up. "We dropped Betty." "Oh," I say. "Well, this happens." If you are uninitiated, humans are slippery when wet, and from time to time, they just get away from you. I don't want to live so long that someone has to bathe me, but if I do, I hope I understand. But the girls.... they work so hard, and care so much, so much more than is useful or productive, and get so attached. And dropping a whole person on the floor is astonishing. Whoosh, and there they go. And they are so breakable. Betty didn't break though, just a little tear on her paper skin. And Betty doesn't have the disadvantage of memory any longer, so it was over as soon as it began, for her.
We had dinner at Dan and Louis Oyster Bar. It was good to be downtown among the lights and noise and throng of humanity.
So there I was, in traffic, pipes rattling as we progressed light to light, and the pager went off. It is loud, thankfully, and I called in to find out what was up. "We dropped Betty." "Oh," I say. "Well, this happens." If you are uninitiated, humans are slippery when wet, and from time to time, they just get away from you. I don't want to live so long that someone has to bathe me, but if I do, I hope I understand. But the girls.... they work so hard, and care so much, so much more than is useful or productive, and get so attached. And dropping a whole person on the floor is astonishing. Whoosh, and there they go. And they are so breakable. Betty didn't break though, just a little tear on her paper skin. And Betty doesn't have the disadvantage of memory any longer, so it was over as soon as it began, for her.
We had dinner at Dan and Louis Oyster Bar. It was good to be downtown among the lights and noise and throng of humanity.
Monday, May 29, 2006
decoration day
A long weekend of nothing. I love nothing. I'm good at it, have had plenty of practice. I am meeting with an editor friend this morning and hope to uncover the origins of my writing discontent. She may not know this, but I am. I know it was always good to connect with other writers before and she is one. Just published another book on fiction writing. Due to my near-death-experience, which we will heretofore refer to as my NDE, I am invigorized, as those things are prone to get you. I am common.
But alive.
I hate writing about writing, but here goes.
I live in a house with other people and cannon find sustained time or space. It is not their fault--as much as it would delight me if the problem were that simple. It is logistic. It takes me four pages of crap before I even begin to hit my stride, as these pages prove beyond doubt, and that takes time, and they use the computer. So, do I get my own computer? A simple fix, but the house is small and the same troubles apply. Do I learn to write in the basement? Its coming along -- kind of an open and more inviting space -- do I write amid the camping gear to the sounds of the tumbling dryer? Which reminds me, I need to put the clothes in the dryer.
And a. will say, "Fuck the clothes. Write." and she is absolutely correct. I will. But I am a better housekeeper than I used to be, and it is not as easy to fuck it all off. I have witnesses, remember?
So I am writing. And the good and the bad thing about a blog is that it does maintain the flow-- does hold that energy. But it is also like a steam vent for a volcano. It never really blows because of the continual release. Not that my productivity ever reached volcanic levels... but the metaphor is the thing.
I can't seem to get next to a storyline. They all seem idiotic. And I am a fiction writer. I am also a poet, but poetry, while rich, is a vent. Do I write about all of the crazy people I've cared for? One? Do I travel back down one of the dark alleys I've been down and illuminate the rubble for the sake of posterity? Do I -- gasp -- make something up? I've said many times, I'm not a writer, I'm a liar.
So, my coffee is ready: french press with tons of cream and it is Memorial Day.
Used to be that Memorial Day was called Decoration Day. At the nursing home a bus would come to take people out to the cemeteries, bouquets of picked or purchased flowers, some with flags, some not so patriotic, just remembered. I don't think it was about memorializing only the war dead. It was celebratory. It was the reason for family plots. Nowadays you'd have to have to spend days finding the various cemeteries my family is buried in. My father is in Coosbay, brother and mother in Eagle Point, one brother floating eternally down the Applegate River where we played as children. He wanted to be sprinkled in the Rogue River, but my mother was afraid of the undertows. I didn't have the heart to point out that he wouldn't drown. A mother shouldn't have to bury her children.
Decoration Day. It was a nobler time and I'm not sure why. Maybe because it was before the Gong Show and the end of civilization as we know it.
But alive.
I hate writing about writing, but here goes.
I live in a house with other people and cannon find sustained time or space. It is not their fault--as much as it would delight me if the problem were that simple. It is logistic. It takes me four pages of crap before I even begin to hit my stride, as these pages prove beyond doubt, and that takes time, and they use the computer. So, do I get my own computer? A simple fix, but the house is small and the same troubles apply. Do I learn to write in the basement? Its coming along -- kind of an open and more inviting space -- do I write amid the camping gear to the sounds of the tumbling dryer? Which reminds me, I need to put the clothes in the dryer.
And a. will say, "Fuck the clothes. Write." and she is absolutely correct. I will. But I am a better housekeeper than I used to be, and it is not as easy to fuck it all off. I have witnesses, remember?
So I am writing. And the good and the bad thing about a blog is that it does maintain the flow-- does hold that energy. But it is also like a steam vent for a volcano. It never really blows because of the continual release. Not that my productivity ever reached volcanic levels... but the metaphor is the thing.
I can't seem to get next to a storyline. They all seem idiotic. And I am a fiction writer. I am also a poet, but poetry, while rich, is a vent. Do I write about all of the crazy people I've cared for? One? Do I travel back down one of the dark alleys I've been down and illuminate the rubble for the sake of posterity? Do I -- gasp -- make something up? I've said many times, I'm not a writer, I'm a liar.
So, my coffee is ready: french press with tons of cream and it is Memorial Day.
Used to be that Memorial Day was called Decoration Day. At the nursing home a bus would come to take people out to the cemeteries, bouquets of picked or purchased flowers, some with flags, some not so patriotic, just remembered. I don't think it was about memorializing only the war dead. It was celebratory. It was the reason for family plots. Nowadays you'd have to have to spend days finding the various cemeteries my family is buried in. My father is in Coosbay, brother and mother in Eagle Point, one brother floating eternally down the Applegate River where we played as children. He wanted to be sprinkled in the Rogue River, but my mother was afraid of the undertows. I didn't have the heart to point out that he wouldn't drown. A mother shouldn't have to bury her children.
Decoration Day. It was a nobler time and I'm not sure why. Maybe because it was before the Gong Show and the end of civilization as we know it.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
conspiracy theories
On wednesday night I was in the bath and noticed a strange spot on my right breast.
As I began to write my eulogy, which I will discuss later, a long couple of days ensued.
Its funny what you imagine, and, how if you don't say it outloud, it isn't real. I didn't tell my husband right away, and that is one way to keep it away. Once I said hey look at my this, it was on. He made me go to the doctor. I am so happy to be married to a pushy man. Most of the time. So, I am fine. It was just a wierd thing. But mortality... quite another.
My bio says:
"judybluesky writes."
my eulogy would be as follows:
"judybluesky wrote."
clear?
So it was a wierd day. And got wierder. I don't know if I can tell this story, but I'll try. Its pretty x-files.
To preface -- my husband's son David is in trouble sometimes. Currently, he is trying to outrun the trouble by heading south and staying with his grandfather. At first, these are seemingly unconnected phone calls.
First call: Tracy (to my husband) from the police department saying they had Dave's ID. He tells them Dave's down south but can he pick it up. Tracy tells him he can. When he got there, no ID, no Tracy that had made the call.
Second call: (to me on my cell while I am at work. I don't know about the earlier call) Someone looking for grandpa's phone number. I tell them Grampa lives off the grid, no phone. Can't help them. They tell me they need to give him medical information. I can't help them.
Third call: (to my friend Lorretta at her work number at a hospital down south.) They tell her they are looking for David, that they need to deliver a medical package to him. She emails me this information, thinking what an odd coincidence that someone looking for David would randomly call her number at work. and I still didn't make any real connection...
...Until we started reviewing the day. We got home. We talked about our day. Husband tells about the first call. I say, oh by the way, tell about the second call. Then Lorretta calls, tells about the third call. We are beginning to sense a pattern developing.
Next morning... call #4. My ex-sister in law calls. The same people have called her telling her they need to deliver the medical stuff -- this time for David. They give a call back number and a tracking number, but there is no website.
We ask sis in law to go off the grid to see grampa, tell him what's up. Haven't heard from anyone since.
I don't know if you can follow all that. What is so random is that there would be no way to connect David, my friend and my ex-family unless they had my phone records.
Creeps me out.
As I began to write my eulogy, which I will discuss later, a long couple of days ensued.
Its funny what you imagine, and, how if you don't say it outloud, it isn't real. I didn't tell my husband right away, and that is one way to keep it away. Once I said hey look at my this, it was on. He made me go to the doctor. I am so happy to be married to a pushy man. Most of the time. So, I am fine. It was just a wierd thing. But mortality... quite another.
My bio says:
"judybluesky writes."
my eulogy would be as follows:
"judybluesky wrote."
clear?
So it was a wierd day. And got wierder. I don't know if I can tell this story, but I'll try. Its pretty x-files.
To preface -- my husband's son David is in trouble sometimes. Currently, he is trying to outrun the trouble by heading south and staying with his grandfather. At first, these are seemingly unconnected phone calls.
First call: Tracy (to my husband) from the police department saying they had Dave's ID. He tells them Dave's down south but can he pick it up. Tracy tells him he can. When he got there, no ID, no Tracy that had made the call.
Second call: (to me on my cell while I am at work. I don't know about the earlier call) Someone looking for grandpa's phone number. I tell them Grampa lives off the grid, no phone. Can't help them. They tell me they need to give him medical information. I can't help them.
Third call: (to my friend Lorretta at her work number at a hospital down south.) They tell her they are looking for David, that they need to deliver a medical package to him. She emails me this information, thinking what an odd coincidence that someone looking for David would randomly call her number at work. and I still didn't make any real connection...
...Until we started reviewing the day. We got home. We talked about our day. Husband tells about the first call. I say, oh by the way, tell about the second call. Then Lorretta calls, tells about the third call. We are beginning to sense a pattern developing.
Next morning... call #4. My ex-sister in law calls. The same people have called her telling her they need to deliver the medical stuff -- this time for David. They give a call back number and a tracking number, but there is no website.
We ask sis in law to go off the grid to see grampa, tell him what's up. Haven't heard from anyone since.
I don't know if you can follow all that. What is so random is that there would be no way to connect David, my friend and my ex-family unless they had my phone records.
Creeps me out.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Granny and Irene
They call each other
"that old woman over there"
and I know I will be the same way
never as old as I am.
They wear beads and bangles
strings and strings of shiny things
terrible beads that don't go together
over layers of sweaters, flowered dresses
small wool blankets
that someone threw in the dryer
but didn't throw away
like gray-headed doll babies
wandering in and out of each other's rooms.
They feed each other
bits of sweet cake and cantaloupe
with ginseng root fingers
that remember everything
but cannot find the way home
j.
"that old woman over there"
and I know I will be the same way
never as old as I am.
They wear beads and bangles
strings and strings of shiny things
terrible beads that don't go together
over layers of sweaters, flowered dresses
small wool blankets
that someone threw in the dryer
but didn't throw away
like gray-headed doll babies
wandering in and out of each other's rooms.
They feed each other
bits of sweet cake and cantaloupe
with ginseng root fingers
that remember everything
but cannot find the way home
j.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
yard sale
We sold the farm. The cheesy yard art john deere green windmill, everything. I sold shit all day, and I am sunburned and my load is lighter. When we went to drop of the remnants at Goodwill, I stole two pair of shoes out of one of the bins. What's wrong with me? L. they will fit you and I'm sending them down. We sold the old girlfriend's set of black dishes and the red hassock. The signature item. I'm ready for a new bigger one. I'm lazier than ever and need more area on which to prop my feet. I sold the printer cabinet.
Its a story.
I bought my house in Talent, and a. came over to visit me. Have I told this story before? Anyway, she comes over, takes one look at my printer's cabinet, and announces, "That's mine." I disagreed, but she was right. It had been hers. a. had apparently started an indie newspaper long before indie was a word. Cutting edge.
So, I sold it. It is still here, but I have the money. An odd man with an antique business called "the Needle" bought it. He seems to be a conspiracy theorist, but who knows. It could be a conspiracy.
So, lots of shit is gone. It is remarkable how much crap accumulates over two years. I knew, when we had the first post-wedlock yard sale that more would come, but this much. The sidewalk was lined end to end. Books and blankets and clothes. Even the outfit the nearly homeless lady next door gave me. She thinks I'm a snappy dresser, so one day she brought over a white denim pants suit with gold buttons and open weave braided denim down the arms and legs. Elvis in Las Vegas. Nobody bought it. It would have been a great Halloween costume.
Its a story.
I bought my house in Talent, and a. came over to visit me. Have I told this story before? Anyway, she comes over, takes one look at my printer's cabinet, and announces, "That's mine." I disagreed, but she was right. It had been hers. a. had apparently started an indie newspaper long before indie was a word. Cutting edge.
So, I sold it. It is still here, but I have the money. An odd man with an antique business called "the Needle" bought it. He seems to be a conspiracy theorist, but who knows. It could be a conspiracy.
So, lots of shit is gone. It is remarkable how much crap accumulates over two years. I knew, when we had the first post-wedlock yard sale that more would come, but this much. The sidewalk was lined end to end. Books and blankets and clothes. Even the outfit the nearly homeless lady next door gave me. She thinks I'm a snappy dresser, so one day she brought over a white denim pants suit with gold buttons and open weave braided denim down the arms and legs. Elvis in Las Vegas. Nobody bought it. It would have been a great Halloween costume.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
mother's
It is Mothers Day. I am three hundred miles north of my son, but never far. Last week he called to scold me for not sending him an easter basket. He'll be 29 next year. It never ends. I rise this morning to anxiously await some form of recognition which is as likely to come as not.
In my family, it is so difficult to celebrate. I'm sure this is true of many families, but for us, the Drunken Waltons, the air was permeated with expectation of a life and familial bonds we just couldn't keep up with. We were too busy lowering our standards to raise our children.
So, I raised a boy who feels the weight of yet another generation of children, umbilical, wanting, and not knowing how to be part of something that has fractured, that is lost. They avoid celebration. They dread. And sometime's the phone call comes, and sometimes it doesn't.
I love my son. He is the best of me. I was cleaning out an old purse (yard sale...) and found this poem. There was a time it seems I didn't:
Ending Motherhood
Cutting what's left of the cord
not cord to my belly
not cord to my heart
but
cord to the phone
the MTV set
the fridge
the lights
the heat
the comfort of all that I provide
for him
and me
but not for us
not for a long time now
If he would only come home
I could tell him he doesn't live here anymore
and womb screaming rage could replace
the emptiness of this unfinished severance
Happy Mother's Day
In my family, it is so difficult to celebrate. I'm sure this is true of many families, but for us, the Drunken Waltons, the air was permeated with expectation of a life and familial bonds we just couldn't keep up with. We were too busy lowering our standards to raise our children.
So, I raised a boy who feels the weight of yet another generation of children, umbilical, wanting, and not knowing how to be part of something that has fractured, that is lost. They avoid celebration. They dread. And sometime's the phone call comes, and sometimes it doesn't.
I love my son. He is the best of me. I was cleaning out an old purse (yard sale...) and found this poem. There was a time it seems I didn't:
Ending Motherhood
Cutting what's left of the cord
not cord to my belly
not cord to my heart
but
cord to the phone
the MTV set
the fridge
the lights
the heat
the comfort of all that I provide
for him
and me
but not for us
not for a long time now
If he would only come home
I could tell him he doesn't live here anymore
and womb screaming rage could replace
the emptiness of this unfinished severance
Happy Mother's Day
Sunday, May 07, 2006
another katie story
Katie thought I was the greatest. Her brother, also a Russian-doctor-turned-lab-rat, thought I was great too. Katie lived at the end of Portland Street in Medford and I was homeless, pretty much. I had lived out my welcome at Renee's house, good old Renee, Renee who didn't even see me coming. It took me, oh, 25 years to pay her back, but that's another story for another time. Anyway, I needed a place to live, and as luck would have it, Katie had a house she didn't need. She told me I could live in it. "Aiee dunt ci vhy naat," she said. That's what she sounded like. Her brother thought I should be rewarded for my good deeds as a caregiver and they thought it would be a good idea for the house not to stand empty while Katie was in the nursing home. They thought it would keep out "de badt paypl."
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm the bad people. And in so many ways you are right. But that's not the point of this story.
So the brother, we'll call him Ivan, takes me over there to check out the house. It sat at the end of a quiet street with two huge cedar trees in the front yard. Centinels. Ivan tells me its furnished. Good, I think. I need stuff. What he didn't tell me is that it is furnished with priceless Russian antiques. "Are you going to leave all of this?" I ask. "Aiee dunt ci vhy naat," he answers. I could think of a million reasons why not. I hadn't the foresight to count my brother Doug among those reasons.
I know I haven't talked much about my broher Doug. Ever, really. He's my eldest brother, the only one still standing, and his drinking problem was one of revolutionary proportion.
So, when I found out about my new house deal, of course I wanted to share my good fortune with my family. They'd be glad because I didn't have to sleep on the couch anymore. Doug was especially supportive. He thought it was great. He asked where it was. The part I forgot to mention -- to Doug-- is that the deal wasn't quite done. I wasn't to move in for a couple more days.
I pulled into work the next day, happy to be 22, happy to have a place to live. When I got to Katie's room, Ivan was tapping the toes of his Russian shoes, looking at the floor. "Der vas a man in de haus."
I was horrified. A MAN? In MY HOUSE? "Oh, no!" I exclaimed in utter disbelief. "That is terrible!"
Well, as the truth descended on me like Russian shade, I realized de man was de brudder. Sacked out on the priceless sofa, drunk as a dog.
So much for the freebie house. But then, that was just one in a long line of near misses. For me and for Doug. I may still be mad at him.
Soon after, I began having what I call "the moving dream." Its a recurrent dream where I have agreed to give up the place I live and rent a different house. It is perfect and full of priceless antiques. It seems too good to be true. As I move from room to room, however, it seems as though something is wrong. The rooms run into one another like one unfinished room with half-walls and suddenly the ceilings are too low and it is dark and I notice things like an old hairbrush and a silver mirror: things that belong to old women. And I realize I've rented a house that is already occupied and when I get to the last room, there is an old woman in a rocking chair wearing red long-johns.
Any dream interpreter would tell you I fear death, that the old woman is my crone, but I know better. It's just Katie.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm the bad people. And in so many ways you are right. But that's not the point of this story.
So the brother, we'll call him Ivan, takes me over there to check out the house. It sat at the end of a quiet street with two huge cedar trees in the front yard. Centinels. Ivan tells me its furnished. Good, I think. I need stuff. What he didn't tell me is that it is furnished with priceless Russian antiques. "Are you going to leave all of this?" I ask. "Aiee dunt ci vhy naat," he answers. I could think of a million reasons why not. I hadn't the foresight to count my brother Doug among those reasons.
I know I haven't talked much about my broher Doug. Ever, really. He's my eldest brother, the only one still standing, and his drinking problem was one of revolutionary proportion.
So, when I found out about my new house deal, of course I wanted to share my good fortune with my family. They'd be glad because I didn't have to sleep on the couch anymore. Doug was especially supportive. He thought it was great. He asked where it was. The part I forgot to mention -- to Doug-- is that the deal wasn't quite done. I wasn't to move in for a couple more days.
I pulled into work the next day, happy to be 22, happy to have a place to live. When I got to Katie's room, Ivan was tapping the toes of his Russian shoes, looking at the floor. "Der vas a man in de haus."
I was horrified. A MAN? In MY HOUSE? "Oh, no!" I exclaimed in utter disbelief. "That is terrible!"
Well, as the truth descended on me like Russian shade, I realized de man was de brudder. Sacked out on the priceless sofa, drunk as a dog.
So much for the freebie house. But then, that was just one in a long line of near misses. For me and for Doug. I may still be mad at him.
Soon after, I began having what I call "the moving dream." Its a recurrent dream where I have agreed to give up the place I live and rent a different house. It is perfect and full of priceless antiques. It seems too good to be true. As I move from room to room, however, it seems as though something is wrong. The rooms run into one another like one unfinished room with half-walls and suddenly the ceilings are too low and it is dark and I notice things like an old hairbrush and a silver mirror: things that belong to old women. And I realize I've rented a house that is already occupied and when I get to the last room, there is an old woman in a rocking chair wearing red long-johns.
Any dream interpreter would tell you I fear death, that the old woman is my crone, but I know better. It's just Katie.
chuck barris
I almost forgot to post about Wordstock, the fabulous writer's wet dream. It was really not fabulous at all, just a bunch of book sellers and vanity publishers and actual publishers and none of them were selling MY book so why would I care? Anyway, the point is that Chuck Barris was there.
I loved the Gong Show. Try as I may, I can't remember when it was... I think it was the mid-seventies, but I was there and it entertained me, loaded as a rat. So, when I saw that Chuck Barris was going to be there, of course I couldn't pass it up. I saw Confessions of a Dangerous Mind in the theatre, which means I was really happy to pay money to see it. Anything about the Gong Show interests me. And there I was, sitting in the middle of a bunch of empty chairs waiting for the host of the Gong Show to entertain me one more time. The creator. The first reality TV. Blamed in large part for the decline of modern civilization.
There are predictable questions that an audience of would-be writers asks of established-if-not-really-successful other writers on the speaking circuit. One is: why did you become a writer? If they are honest, they say, "Because it looked easier than having a real job." But they usually claim to be motivated by a higher force-- they write because (in the immortal words of Rilke) they MUST. Barris answered honestly, to his credit. Another question often is: What do you want to be remembered for? And typically, the author will speak about a certain book or selfless act like childbirth as though giving birth were selfless. Chuck said this: "Hands down, I want to be remembered as an author, but I'll never be remembered as anything but the guy who created the Gong Show." And this is where I lost my question. Because I am guily of remembering him as just that. And I am sad that it is not his best memory. Mine is tainted because of it. If I had created the Gong Show, I'd wear a t-shirt that said it every day.
My question was going to be, "Are there any Gong Show tapes?" But obviously, it would have been a crass thing to ask in the face of his need to be seen as an author. The book he was promoting was a reprint of something he wrote in the seventies. See? Not memorable.
I loved the Gong Show. Try as I may, I can't remember when it was... I think it was the mid-seventies, but I was there and it entertained me, loaded as a rat. So, when I saw that Chuck Barris was going to be there, of course I couldn't pass it up. I saw Confessions of a Dangerous Mind in the theatre, which means I was really happy to pay money to see it. Anything about the Gong Show interests me. And there I was, sitting in the middle of a bunch of empty chairs waiting for the host of the Gong Show to entertain me one more time. The creator. The first reality TV. Blamed in large part for the decline of modern civilization.
There are predictable questions that an audience of would-be writers asks of established-if-not-really-successful other writers on the speaking circuit. One is: why did you become a writer? If they are honest, they say, "Because it looked easier than having a real job." But they usually claim to be motivated by a higher force-- they write because (in the immortal words of Rilke) they MUST. Barris answered honestly, to his credit. Another question often is: What do you want to be remembered for? And typically, the author will speak about a certain book or selfless act like childbirth as though giving birth were selfless. Chuck said this: "Hands down, I want to be remembered as an author, but I'll never be remembered as anything but the guy who created the Gong Show." And this is where I lost my question. Because I am guily of remembering him as just that. And I am sad that it is not his best memory. Mine is tainted because of it. If I had created the Gong Show, I'd wear a t-shirt that said it every day.
My question was going to be, "Are there any Gong Show tapes?" But obviously, it would have been a crass thing to ask in the face of his need to be seen as an author. The book he was promoting was a reprint of something he wrote in the seventies. See? Not memorable.
Friday, May 05, 2006
glee
Friday of my second week.
I remember when I used to work in an activity department in a nursing home. Years and years ago. I remember Katie Bolhivitzen. She was a Russian doctor who imigrated during the cold war and her credentials only allowed her to work as a nurse. My job was to make old people have fun; to create the illusion of gaiety, of propriety, life in the face of marching death. It was not an easy job, but to do it at all one had to believe in it and I did not. Could not. Had seen too much by then. Too much by far. When I finally told Katie she didn't have to do anything anymore -- didn't have to come to the party, didn't have to make the macaroni-covered bleach bottle vase -- it wasn't really my idea. She just said, in her little Russian voice, "I'm ninety six. I shouldn't have to play Bingo." And in that moment it was over for me. I could no longer, for the sake of the daughters -- because it is always the daughters and never the sons who pick up the pieces at the end of a life -- stall.
It is always like that for me: okay one day, gone the next. I don't think its because I'm not paying attention and I just look up one day and everything has gone to shit, and I don't think its because I have a low tolerance for crap. Quite the opposite. I believe I am tortured with certainty, and once I know, I can't unknow it. And the terrible thing is that it keeps changing. Which, in retrospect, makes me look like an idiot. Or it is as simple as this: I am willing to do just about anything for a buck for awhile, then, not.
The work is different this time, but is never different, not really. They are still dying and we are still hanging on. We no longer insist that old people have fun, but still we cannot endure the silence, the disengagement, the paper crackling absence that is the sound of life ending. We want music, dammit. We want cake. We want cheese and crackers and slices of spicy salami, we who have teeth. It makes us feel better. But those who cannot see and cannot chew and cannot hear and do not care... what of them?
Oh, who cares? I dig this job, and think I am probably old enough to finally appreciate the notion of stalling death, of masking the grim reaper and letting him pass them by for one more day. I won't let him in the locked doors. Not just yet. Not on my watch.
I remember when I used to work in an activity department in a nursing home. Years and years ago. I remember Katie Bolhivitzen. She was a Russian doctor who imigrated during the cold war and her credentials only allowed her to work as a nurse. My job was to make old people have fun; to create the illusion of gaiety, of propriety, life in the face of marching death. It was not an easy job, but to do it at all one had to believe in it and I did not. Could not. Had seen too much by then. Too much by far. When I finally told Katie she didn't have to do anything anymore -- didn't have to come to the party, didn't have to make the macaroni-covered bleach bottle vase -- it wasn't really my idea. She just said, in her little Russian voice, "I'm ninety six. I shouldn't have to play Bingo." And in that moment it was over for me. I could no longer, for the sake of the daughters -- because it is always the daughters and never the sons who pick up the pieces at the end of a life -- stall.
It is always like that for me: okay one day, gone the next. I don't think its because I'm not paying attention and I just look up one day and everything has gone to shit, and I don't think its because I have a low tolerance for crap. Quite the opposite. I believe I am tortured with certainty, and once I know, I can't unknow it. And the terrible thing is that it keeps changing. Which, in retrospect, makes me look like an idiot. Or it is as simple as this: I am willing to do just about anything for a buck for awhile, then, not.
The work is different this time, but is never different, not really. They are still dying and we are still hanging on. We no longer insist that old people have fun, but still we cannot endure the silence, the disengagement, the paper crackling absence that is the sound of life ending. We want music, dammit. We want cake. We want cheese and crackers and slices of spicy salami, we who have teeth. It makes us feel better. But those who cannot see and cannot chew and cannot hear and do not care... what of them?
Oh, who cares? I dig this job, and think I am probably old enough to finally appreciate the notion of stalling death, of masking the grim reaper and letting him pass them by for one more day. I won't let him in the locked doors. Not just yet. Not on my watch.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
clamming 102
Before I get to the new clamming information, I want to talk about lilacs. Our back yard is bursting with them, purple and white (my favorite) and with this rain, they are so heavy with blossoms they are about to snap.
So, here's a new trick about cleaning razor clams: when you get them home, dip briefly (4 seconds) in boiling water, then into ice water, and the shells will pop right off. This beats the hell out of hacking them out of their shells -- shucking. I suppose it is shucking either way. And I can't imagine that either way is easy for the clam.
So, here's a new trick about cleaning razor clams: when you get them home, dip briefly (4 seconds) in boiling water, then into ice water, and the shells will pop right off. This beats the hell out of hacking them out of their shells -- shucking. I suppose it is shucking either way. And I can't imagine that either way is easy for the clam.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
four
Gardening with Margaret. It is a silent endeavor, as is much of my day these days. She, like so many others, has lost her words. She can't find them anymore. And I panic with the writer's block that I have allowed for this long, which seem utterly self indulgent in the face of this distant possibility. Losing words. And I can't decide whether it would be tragedy or peace. Peace in not knowing, not having to search the cobwebbed backrooms, the attics and crawlspaces, for just that precisely descriptive modifier that no one would have thought of-- black as a bible, rabid neon halflight, the great flat hand of God -- these words that have entranced me my whole life. If I didn't have them, if they were lost to me, what would be left? Margaret can still pull weeds. "There is something..." she says, pointing to a sprouting bit of green that I overlooked on my side of the waist high bed. I don't make her say the word. I don't even embarrass her by knowing it myself. I just pull it. The something.
I like the quiet of it, the job, and in the words of Graham Nash, "... some of my actions remind me of me."
I like the quiet of it, the job, and in the words of Graham Nash, "... some of my actions remind me of me."
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
day three
I work therefore I am.
They are all named Doris, with halos of white fluff and watery eyes. They can't place me. Whatever they were, this is what they are now: the great undoing. It makes the methodic accumulation of my life laughable.
Ashes to ashes, Doris to Doris.
They are all named Doris, with halos of white fluff and watery eyes. They can't place me. Whatever they were, this is what they are now: the great undoing. It makes the methodic accumulation of my life laughable.
Ashes to ashes, Doris to Doris.
Friday, April 21, 2006
the weight
I pulled into Nazareth....
My body is my enemy. You could stand me up in front of a firing squad blindfolded and it wouldn't scare me as much as this ten pounds that is preventing me from buttoning my levis. If I had the power that I give this little bundle of unexpressed carbohydrates I could rule the world. And it isn't just ten. Let me be clear if not honest. It is ten on top of ten, which sits resistively atop the twenty I carry on a good day.
I will never be small. I want to disappear. It has been a long winter.
It is not the first time I have faced this demon, but it has been a long, long time. I knew peace for years, and now I am consumed with the desire to eat, to eat badly and in secret. I don't always succumb to my thoughts, but it is not so much the actual eating as it is the thinking thinking thinking. It seems the height of self centeredness, that I could live a blissful life and still find myself wallowing in the toilet of self-pity about am I pretty enough.
What is true:
I have been off work for two months.
I have been in pain for five months.
I can't ride my bike yet.
I eat when I'm bored.
I'm bored.
So, my little asian doctor says what she always says: Whatever you eat, eat less. Whatever you do, do more.
I'm sure she's right, but I am inclined to complicate things. Surprising, I know. I want a rigid diet to follow, something that I won't follow, that I can use like a baseball bat to beat the shit out of myself. It is a vicious and predictable cycle, common as ants. And I so hate to be common.
So, that's my happy thought today.
I am studying my Alzheimer's workbook. Its funny, (not Alzheimer's) each corporation designs a particular product (specialized dementia unit), with cutting edge thinking embedded into a physical setting, then markets it as the industry standard, all to care for people who do not and have not changed. We change. We worker bees. We caregivers. Over time (and I have been around the world of dementia care since I was a teenager) the provision of care has changed slowly. But they haven't --the little shell people, the vanishing, the subtle disappearing act that is Alzheimer's disease. They call it AD now, as though AD doesn't stand for anything else. And I suppose, politically, AD has been replaced by the acronym CE. PC, eh? I'm looking up acronyms for AD and medically, it is the term for the right ear. So, I think the Alzheimer's Association (AA) should keep on spelling it out or people are going to be mighty confused. Now, in relation to time, AD stands for what? Anno Domini? Something Gregorian like that. I don't find it on the list. I found After Death, and Agnus Dei, and a list a mile long that has nothing to do with the death of Christ, or the deliniation of time. What is it now? CE for current era? PD for present day? The lists are long. It gives me Alzheimer's to think about it.
I'm hungry.
My body is my enemy. You could stand me up in front of a firing squad blindfolded and it wouldn't scare me as much as this ten pounds that is preventing me from buttoning my levis. If I had the power that I give this little bundle of unexpressed carbohydrates I could rule the world. And it isn't just ten. Let me be clear if not honest. It is ten on top of ten, which sits resistively atop the twenty I carry on a good day.
I will never be small. I want to disappear. It has been a long winter.
It is not the first time I have faced this demon, but it has been a long, long time. I knew peace for years, and now I am consumed with the desire to eat, to eat badly and in secret. I don't always succumb to my thoughts, but it is not so much the actual eating as it is the thinking thinking thinking. It seems the height of self centeredness, that I could live a blissful life and still find myself wallowing in the toilet of self-pity about am I pretty enough.
What is true:
I have been off work for two months.
I have been in pain for five months.
I can't ride my bike yet.
I eat when I'm bored.
I'm bored.
So, my little asian doctor says what she always says: Whatever you eat, eat less. Whatever you do, do more.
I'm sure she's right, but I am inclined to complicate things. Surprising, I know. I want a rigid diet to follow, something that I won't follow, that I can use like a baseball bat to beat the shit out of myself. It is a vicious and predictable cycle, common as ants. And I so hate to be common.
So, that's my happy thought today.
I am studying my Alzheimer's workbook. Its funny, (not Alzheimer's) each corporation designs a particular product (specialized dementia unit), with cutting edge thinking embedded into a physical setting, then markets it as the industry standard, all to care for people who do not and have not changed. We change. We worker bees. We caregivers. Over time (and I have been around the world of dementia care since I was a teenager) the provision of care has changed slowly. But they haven't --the little shell people, the vanishing, the subtle disappearing act that is Alzheimer's disease. They call it AD now, as though AD doesn't stand for anything else. And I suppose, politically, AD has been replaced by the acronym CE. PC, eh? I'm looking up acronyms for AD and medically, it is the term for the right ear. So, I think the Alzheimer's Association (AA) should keep on spelling it out or people are going to be mighty confused. Now, in relation to time, AD stands for what? Anno Domini? Something Gregorian like that. I don't find it on the list. I found After Death, and Agnus Dei, and a list a mile long that has nothing to do with the death of Christ, or the deliniation of time. What is it now? CE for current era? PD for present day? The lists are long. It gives me Alzheimer's to think about it.
I'm hungry.
Monday, April 17, 2006
casablanca
I'd never seen it before. Like Apollo 13, I should have but didn't know how it ended, didn't know Bogart was Rick Blaine, didn't know the WWII intrigue or the Moroccan setting. Didn't know he didn't get the girl. So we sat around, watched the old movie, stunned that so many lines were so familiar that it pulled me out of the story and made it impossible for the story to take me anywhere. It is the task of the writer to be invisible, and by history, this one has become sadly opaque. We'll always have Paris.
On Good Friday we watched scary movies: The Haunting of Hill House (1950) and the first Poltergeist. As a child, I watched The Haunting almost annually, like The Wizard of Oz, in the days when movies came to town for a week, at the single theatre, when there was no guarantee you'd ever see it again, when the likelihood of a movie showing up on TV were slim to none. But The Hauting did. My mother, my pentecostal mother, disapproved of scary movies. Wicked. The Haunting scared the shit out of me, and I wanted to share the fear with the girls, new girls, urban girls, desensitized by the modern slasher mentality, bored with the genre, interested in what came before. I promised them they'd have to read faces rather than watch special effects, that they'd have to imagine. One of them left, one stayed, and stayed awake. That's good. I love that movie. My favorite line: "My dear, you confuse wickedness with foolishness." I spent so much of my childhood consumed with wickedness, seeing evil where none lurked. Foolishness, that.
Easter Sunday. Mother in Law, children, food. I am learning to moderate my cooking, let her help. Let someone else be fabulous for a change.
Here's the eggs, colored by me and my honey. The girls were too cool to participate in an undeniably mid-american ritual. I searched the house for all of the leftover egg dying kits left from years past and put all the same colored dye buttons in each cup. It went well, except that the kits were so old that I couldn't tell green from blue and got two pots of teal, which I hate, one a little bluer, one greener. I love colored eggs. I don't care who helps me.
Here's the eggs again. Thanks to Nicole for the photos and the graphic work. She's good.
On Good Friday we watched scary movies: The Haunting of Hill House (1950) and the first Poltergeist. As a child, I watched The Haunting almost annually, like The Wizard of Oz, in the days when movies came to town for a week, at the single theatre, when there was no guarantee you'd ever see it again, when the likelihood of a movie showing up on TV were slim to none. But The Hauting did. My mother, my pentecostal mother, disapproved of scary movies. Wicked. The Haunting scared the shit out of me, and I wanted to share the fear with the girls, new girls, urban girls, desensitized by the modern slasher mentality, bored with the genre, interested in what came before. I promised them they'd have to read faces rather than watch special effects, that they'd have to imagine. One of them left, one stayed, and stayed awake. That's good. I love that movie. My favorite line: "My dear, you confuse wickedness with foolishness." I spent so much of my childhood consumed with wickedness, seeing evil where none lurked. Foolishness, that.
Easter Sunday. Mother in Law, children, food. I am learning to moderate my cooking, let her help. Let someone else be fabulous for a change.
Here's the eggs, colored by me and my honey. The girls were too cool to participate in an undeniably mid-american ritual. I searched the house for all of the leftover egg dying kits left from years past and put all the same colored dye buttons in each cup. It went well, except that the kits were so old that I couldn't tell green from blue and got two pots of teal, which I hate, one a little bluer, one greener. I love colored eggs. I don't care who helps me.
Here's the eggs again. Thanks to Nicole for the photos and the graphic work. She's good.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
pre job jitters
It is a quiet weekend. Husband fishing in the rain: in the boat, on the water, water falling all around, no roof. And sadly, no fish. There really are no fish this year.
I am madly shopping for patio furniture in the rain. It is, much like my husband's fishing, an exercise in hope. The sun may come out eventually. I always get ahead of myself this time of year and think I'm behind, but the Law of Gardening is this: Don't plant tomatoes until May first. Period. So it is not May first and there is no need to worry. Yet I do. I have nine more days, or eight, depending if you count today, to lose 15 pounds and finish the back yard. If I finish the back yard, I will lose 15 pounds rain or shine.
Hey. You may have noticed I'm not whining about my shoulder or therapy. It is finally getting better. It doesn't hurt all the time anymore. I have my moments, but they pass and I find that if I stay busy, it is less troublesome. Thus, the shopping. It beats Vicodin.
I found an expandable willow fence, which I love so I bought two. A small patio table which I will probably take back because I really want the wooden one. I should know by now to get what I want. I am searching for pots, large planting pots, and I don't want to pay 70 bucks for one. I just don't. I may try to find cedar pots. That's what I used to have. They dry out fast, but I water every day.
So, I go in Tuesday for my orientation, then off until the following Monday. I am not panicked, but conscious of a potential shift in my world.
Here are some things I'll never know once I go back to work:
1. If the Abbotts ever find out if Gloria secretly tainted the new face cream with cleaning solvent to sabotage Jabot Cosmetics resulting in the untimely death of one of their buyers.
2. If Nick and Phyllis really call it quits, if Sharon forgives Nick for sleeping with Phyllis, of if Phyllis' son Daniel ever forgives her.
3. If Meg and Paul ever get together, if Dusty lives, if Emily is convicted for kidnapping him, and if Paul's fake marriage to Emily is ever consummated.
4. If Dr. Phil ever shuts up about his role in Scary Movie 4.
5. If daytime TV actually diminishes intellect.
You see the lengths I'm willing to go to to make a living? And give up all this???
I am madly shopping for patio furniture in the rain. It is, much like my husband's fishing, an exercise in hope. The sun may come out eventually. I always get ahead of myself this time of year and think I'm behind, but the Law of Gardening is this: Don't plant tomatoes until May first. Period. So it is not May first and there is no need to worry. Yet I do. I have nine more days, or eight, depending if you count today, to lose 15 pounds and finish the back yard. If I finish the back yard, I will lose 15 pounds rain or shine.
Hey. You may have noticed I'm not whining about my shoulder or therapy. It is finally getting better. It doesn't hurt all the time anymore. I have my moments, but they pass and I find that if I stay busy, it is less troublesome. Thus, the shopping. It beats Vicodin.
I found an expandable willow fence, which I love so I bought two. A small patio table which I will probably take back because I really want the wooden one. I should know by now to get what I want. I am searching for pots, large planting pots, and I don't want to pay 70 bucks for one. I just don't. I may try to find cedar pots. That's what I used to have. They dry out fast, but I water every day.
So, I go in Tuesday for my orientation, then off until the following Monday. I am not panicked, but conscious of a potential shift in my world.
Here are some things I'll never know once I go back to work:
1. If the Abbotts ever find out if Gloria secretly tainted the new face cream with cleaning solvent to sabotage Jabot Cosmetics resulting in the untimely death of one of their buyers.
2. If Nick and Phyllis really call it quits, if Sharon forgives Nick for sleeping with Phyllis, of if Phyllis' son Daniel ever forgives her.
3. If Meg and Paul ever get together, if Dusty lives, if Emily is convicted for kidnapping him, and if Paul's fake marriage to Emily is ever consummated.
4. If Dr. Phil ever shuts up about his role in Scary Movie 4.
5. If daytime TV actually diminishes intellect.
You see the lengths I'm willing to go to to make a living? And give up all this???
Friday, April 14, 2006
gypsies
I think Russian gypsies painted this house and I'll tell you why. You may have been worried that I wouldn't explain myself, but not to worry, I'll get right to it.
I am not attempting to sterotype anyone. I don't even know if there is such a thing as a Russian gypsy. I know there are a damn lot of Russians around here, and that Russians painted this house, but I don't know if they were gypsies. They dress kind of like gypsies, painted scarves and long skirts. I haven't seen any gaily painted wooden wagons or be-ribboned tambourines and mad dancing around a blazing camp fire, but I happen to know they hide their camps.
My husband saw them paint the house and said they did a shitty job, but that was when the old German woman Elizabeth owned the house and he lived next door. What could he do to stop them? All I know is that gypsies are known for fly by night work, for summer driveway repaving that washes away with the first rain, and this house was painted with a thin coat of yellow waterpaint. Not laytex. Just flat yellow paint. I know this because I've been scraping it off for the past couple of hours. It isn't difficult. There is only one layer. It peels off easily, really only yellow dust when hit with the wire brush. I'm not complaining so much as commenting. I hate hard work, and paint that falls right off, well all the better. I said I'd never paint another house, and here I go. I am limited, happily, to one area, about 10x10, that was never completed by the Russians. They stopped when they got to the climber rose. Not me. I ripped it down, wound it up and laid it on the ground. There is only one way to paint: thoroughly. You can scrape a little here and there -- hit the bad spots, but eventually, if you're me, you end up going back over the whole damn thing three times, and I'd rather just do it right the first time. I'm probably breathing lead based Russian paint, but its a small job if I keep to my boundaries. I've inhaled worse. Pam spray. That's way worse. Airplane glue. I remember this guy named Tom Brown who always had bits of brown paper bag stuck to his face and gold paint all over his hands. Huffers. Whaddaya gonna do?
So, I'm doing my project to the best of my ability, weather be damned. My husband is having white Hammerite paint tinted "not quite white" for me. It makes me nervous to leave color decisions in his big rough hands, but there was little else I could do. He went to the paint store yesterday and asked if they could tint the rust proof paint. The guy said no, it only comes in these colors. I didn't like that, so I called the 800 number and got a guy who said the same thing. So, I looked at the swatches, called them back, and said what about if I tint the gloss white with the almond to get off-white? This time I got a woman. She said, yeah you can do that no problem, but also, you can tint it, but you gotta use this certain kind of pigment.
So I call my husband back, who was at the paint store, and in the meantime the guy has admitted that you CAN tint it. AHA!! I knew it! So he's having it tinted.
Men.
I am not attempting to sterotype anyone. I don't even know if there is such a thing as a Russian gypsy. I know there are a damn lot of Russians around here, and that Russians painted this house, but I don't know if they were gypsies. They dress kind of like gypsies, painted scarves and long skirts. I haven't seen any gaily painted wooden wagons or be-ribboned tambourines and mad dancing around a blazing camp fire, but I happen to know they hide their camps.
My husband saw them paint the house and said they did a shitty job, but that was when the old German woman Elizabeth owned the house and he lived next door. What could he do to stop them? All I know is that gypsies are known for fly by night work, for summer driveway repaving that washes away with the first rain, and this house was painted with a thin coat of yellow waterpaint. Not laytex. Just flat yellow paint. I know this because I've been scraping it off for the past couple of hours. It isn't difficult. There is only one layer. It peels off easily, really only yellow dust when hit with the wire brush. I'm not complaining so much as commenting. I hate hard work, and paint that falls right off, well all the better. I said I'd never paint another house, and here I go. I am limited, happily, to one area, about 10x10, that was never completed by the Russians. They stopped when they got to the climber rose. Not me. I ripped it down, wound it up and laid it on the ground. There is only one way to paint: thoroughly. You can scrape a little here and there -- hit the bad spots, but eventually, if you're me, you end up going back over the whole damn thing three times, and I'd rather just do it right the first time. I'm probably breathing lead based Russian paint, but its a small job if I keep to my boundaries. I've inhaled worse. Pam spray. That's way worse. Airplane glue. I remember this guy named Tom Brown who always had bits of brown paper bag stuck to his face and gold paint all over his hands. Huffers. Whaddaya gonna do?
So, I'm doing my project to the best of my ability, weather be damned. My husband is having white Hammerite paint tinted "not quite white" for me. It makes me nervous to leave color decisions in his big rough hands, but there was little else I could do. He went to the paint store yesterday and asked if they could tint the rust proof paint. The guy said no, it only comes in these colors. I didn't like that, so I called the 800 number and got a guy who said the same thing. So, I looked at the swatches, called them back, and said what about if I tint the gloss white with the almond to get off-white? This time I got a woman. She said, yeah you can do that no problem, but also, you can tint it, but you gotta use this certain kind of pigment.
So I call my husband back, who was at the paint store, and in the meantime the guy has admitted that you CAN tint it. AHA!! I knew it! So he's having it tinted.
Men.
gainful employment
I got a job. I got the job. I am employed. When they asked me when I could start, I gave myself one more week off. Ahhh. Springtime. I start the 24th.
I am scouring nurseries, finding the clearance rooms. At 7Dees, they used to sell wire hanging baskets that were really wire, not kitchy little wannabe cast iron numbers with scrolling and ivy and shit that are already lined with coconut matting that sheds like Sid and never looks like anything but coconut matting. I just want wire baskets I can line with moss and plant flowers. I found them finally in the 40% off shed out back for a buck apiece and the moss was out there too. I got two leyland cypress for a visual barrier between us and the homeless shelter next door.
The dog house is gone. A big thank you to craigslist and the tasteless bastard who bought it. My husband kept the money. a. wondered if I'd split it with Sid, but I never saw a dime of it. That's okay. I'm certain he is the one who paid for it. Fair is fair.
It is time for Wordstock in Portland. A 3 day or maybe 2 day extravaganza all about words. Whoopee. I'm excited because Chuck Barris will be here. I don't know if he writes, but I just want to know where all the lost Gong Show tapes are. If I could get them, I would. I spent the better part of the (I'm guessing here) 70's? Watching that show: Gene Gene the Dancing Maching, the fish out of water, the singing chinese lady, the birth reality TV. I loved that show. And if you haven't seen Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, you should. Maybe he was a CIA assassin. How would I know?
Now that the deck is done, Sid can get a better look up into the tree next door and can finally make eye contact with the squirrel that has been fucking with him. I don't know if Sid has poor depth perception, but he seems to think the squirrel (and birds and low flying planes) are within his sphere of influence. He launches into the corner of the yard as if... as if this time it will be different. Sid and I have alot in common. He seems to like the deck. I think he was as glad as I was to see the plastic doggie condo go. He much prefers my furniture.
So, I have one week to finish the back yard. This involves scraping, primering, and painting a wall of the house, putting the big trellis back up, re-winding the climber rose into it, potting the plants, hanging the baskets, installing paving stones, finishing the edges of the deck, making a flowerbed off to one side with the dirt that comes out of the paving stones spot, which will be a buttload of dirt, painting the blue chairs white. Off white. Not quite white. Creme. Cream. And there is some kind of industrial strength paint called hammerite that covers rust -- no questions asked -- and it only comes in white white, and I want to tint it, and I guess it is some kind of industrial sin to do this. But I don't want gloss white chairs. That wouldn't do.
I can only do this project if it stops raining, so the good news is, I may get to lay on my ass for a week.
I am scouring nurseries, finding the clearance rooms. At 7Dees, they used to sell wire hanging baskets that were really wire, not kitchy little wannabe cast iron numbers with scrolling and ivy and shit that are already lined with coconut matting that sheds like Sid and never looks like anything but coconut matting. I just want wire baskets I can line with moss and plant flowers. I found them finally in the 40% off shed out back for a buck apiece and the moss was out there too. I got two leyland cypress for a visual barrier between us and the homeless shelter next door.
The dog house is gone. A big thank you to craigslist and the tasteless bastard who bought it. My husband kept the money. a. wondered if I'd split it with Sid, but I never saw a dime of it. That's okay. I'm certain he is the one who paid for it. Fair is fair.
It is time for Wordstock in Portland. A 3 day or maybe 2 day extravaganza all about words. Whoopee. I'm excited because Chuck Barris will be here. I don't know if he writes, but I just want to know where all the lost Gong Show tapes are. If I could get them, I would. I spent the better part of the (I'm guessing here) 70's? Watching that show: Gene Gene the Dancing Maching, the fish out of water, the singing chinese lady, the birth reality TV. I loved that show. And if you haven't seen Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, you should. Maybe he was a CIA assassin. How would I know?
Now that the deck is done, Sid can get a better look up into the tree next door and can finally make eye contact with the squirrel that has been fucking with him. I don't know if Sid has poor depth perception, but he seems to think the squirrel (and birds and low flying planes) are within his sphere of influence. He launches into the corner of the yard as if... as if this time it will be different. Sid and I have alot in common. He seems to like the deck. I think he was as glad as I was to see the plastic doggie condo go. He much prefers my furniture.
So, I have one week to finish the back yard. This involves scraping, primering, and painting a wall of the house, putting the big trellis back up, re-winding the climber rose into it, potting the plants, hanging the baskets, installing paving stones, finishing the edges of the deck, making a flowerbed off to one side with the dirt that comes out of the paving stones spot, which will be a buttload of dirt, painting the blue chairs white. Off white. Not quite white. Creme. Cream. And there is some kind of industrial strength paint called hammerite that covers rust -- no questions asked -- and it only comes in white white, and I want to tint it, and I guess it is some kind of industrial sin to do this. But I don't want gloss white chairs. That wouldn't do.
I can only do this project if it stops raining, so the good news is, I may get to lay on my ass for a week.
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