Ham

I ate with some of my favorite people last night - a ham dinner at my cousin's house in Concord, CA. His parents make the world go 'round for me. Really. And I feel pretty damned lucky saying that. Maybe it all starts with Bev, my mom's sister. She reflects the voice and giddy laughter of my own mom, but comes without the loaded implications of parenthood. And she keeps it so real.

First order of business = getting there. I tromp through SF's fat and warm spring rain drops until I'm waiting beaneath a bus shelter in China town. Two Missouri military dudes enjoying their first day off in a while, share the dry space with me. They are eating up and spitting out their surroundings. They do not seem so different from more distant family members. I grow impatient with the never-coming-bus and call my cousin; he picks me up from the corner moments later, after I've purchased $1.35 BARGAIN soymilk from the corner store. Fuck shopping in the Castro!

Blinded by the spittle of cars' tires ahead of us, we zip over the bridge and through the woods, to Concord. I'm surprised we don't crash.

Next step = I butter my uncle up with tales of how I've developed a discerning tongue for whiskey. He's grinning. I'm drinking. The politics are beginning.

Five of us sit around the round table edging in to our typical arguments over the state of the world. At one point my cousin describes us as "as republican as you can get, as directly opposite of that, completely anti-government, as anti-bush as possible," and then there's me. I'm beaming the whole time because my "I'll probably vote for Bush" uncle is "amening" every time one of us comments on how foolish the president is or what a sick mistake the war in Iraq is. I'll love him no matter how he votes, but I am relieved as my respect for him renews.

In the middle of our conversations my aunt asks me what it feels like to be barred from the right to marriage, meanwhile all of my college and highschool buddies prep for their own weddings. I'm surprised at how easily she and I get in to it, here, in front of the rest of the family. We don't even skipping a beat as her questions entitle me to take up all the room I need. For the first time I don't distrust it - my family, my words, my space - and for the first time I notice that nobody at the table is grimacing. I've shut this conversation down before. I wonder if they've always been this open or if they dare not step out of line in front of the matriarch. Either way, I melt in to the ease of the moment.

Soon we're gossiping about my brother and his g.f.

Then on to arguing the virtues of alternative media and the prevelance of state guided propaganda machines.

+ I remember/when

-97 A dog ran down the street and bit me at the bus stop, leaving a circle of little white scars.

-96 I devoted afternoons to learning how to climb sign posts.

-95 My friend Paul Mastroscuza’s older brother Jackie hit me in the head with a brick while squirrel hunting in my backyard.

-94 My brother tried to make me eat pine needles, or he wouldn’t cook me dinner.

-93 Pinecone battles in the backyard; getting sticky with sap.

-06 I made out with a pillow.

-03 Lou Trotta letting me in for cookies when I’d forgotten my keys.

-01 Scaling the Bahai’ temple in my backyard.

.01 Worrying that my hand would get crushed along with the cranberries in the antique grinder.

.02 Sliding down the carpeted stairs for hours and hours AND hours.

.03 Doing math problems on the roof and not wanting to go back inside.

.04 Trees falling on the roof and being glad I was inside.

.05 I saw my g-ma’s sunken mouth and learned that her pretty white teeth were fakes!

.06 Families of baby spiders occupied the ceiling above my bunk bed and I cried.

.07 I learned how to kill spiders.

.08 I learned to stop killing spiders.

0. I got sent home with lice. Again.

1. My boyfriend in first grade had the first name as me.

3. My dad and I held hands and ran off the roof of a houseboat in to the icy St. Lawrence, where the snakes swim too.

4. My whole family got in to wrestling matches in the hallway.

5. No one knew to look for me in the top shelf of the linen closet, which smelled better than the bottom of the laundry hamper.

6. I sat for hours on end with my little mouth gaping open in the student dental clinic at FDU.

8. I had a crush on my orthodontist.

11. My best friend and I got in to fights and then made lists of things to do, to overcome our boredome.

13. David yanked his dick out at me in science class and I was amused.

14. Being sent off for milk in a grocery store made me certain that I was being left behind.

16. I did things because I wanted to be just like Rob; I even limped when he hurt his knee.

18. The kids made me marry David Fitterman with a gumball ring and I cried I was so mad at his relentless crush.

21. I memorized the cracks and bumps in the sidewalk, learning to catch air on my dirtbike.

22. I wanted to be left alone in the woods to find the magical creatures that made it feel so comfortable and safe there.

23. My friend invented the fruit-rollup + pretzel combination.

31. Gummy worms and salted pretzels occupied my attention in the bleachers of the little league games.

38. Assuming that some day, people wouldn’t try to tell me to go in to a different bathroom.

49. Feeling super helpful when I stacked the wood in to piles outside the backdoor.

50. Pretending that the Barbies were always in trouble and always on the run.

55. Building spaceships out of Lego.

56. Chasing after the ice cream truck and buying fake cigarette gum.

58. Kevin Williams teaching me how to breakdance in his basement.

59. Walking home with Vicky, trying to catch the falling leaves in my hands, then playing with her nieces, the smell of frying food filling my nose.

65. Thinking that I didn’t have to practice the clarinet, cuz I was already good and then getting replaced by Caren in band.

68. Being too small to make the trampoline bounce.

69. Ripped callouses and chalky skin.

74. Learning the toothless jingle from the guys in my dad’s orchestra pit.

78. Teaching everyone how to make paper airplanes.

79. Wearing elastic tags around our ankles in the park pool to show we’d paid.

91. Steering the wooden sled wtih my hands and ripping freezy freakies on the the mix of asphalt and fresh snow.

94. Walking around town with my chest bare - shirt yanked above my head like the big boys.

99. Rifling through the supply closet at my mom’s theater and dodging cockroaches.



(M.Rose thanks for sharing. It's interesting what comes up with alittle gentle digging.)

MILLION $$ baby

this past weekend me and my are-we-siblings? friend went downtown to see "MDB" at the Metreon. it was a good movie, but left us gasping for beer. add to that that the Metreon is insane - filled with tourists and teenagers and saturated with the same blinking over-stimulation that keeps me far from Las Vegas - and you'll understand i was quite a mentalfuck. i wasn't sure either of us'd be able to concentrate enough to find a place to unwind.

but we did. luckily i work downtown and had a few ideas about bars with respite potential. to my delight, one was open. we sat there on stools, consuming burgers & beer beneath antique motorcycles, our conversation drifting from the movie to friends, living situations, and the evolutino of ambitions. we meander, she and i.

so have you seen this movie?

clint eastwood begrudgingly trains waitress hilary swank as a boxer. and of course, she's a total knockout. as in, everyone who steps in to the ring with her is knocked completely on their asses in the first round. the story traces ghosts, regrets, struggles, triumph, fathers, daughters and ultimately lets us witness a profound friendship.

a coworker called it "transcendant." welllll, as for me, i couldn't tell whether i felt empty or full at the end. isn't that just a confusing place to be? however i do recall walking away bitterly chewing upon the classic yu-es-of-a storyline showcasing a character who's risen up to become the champ. the best. the celebrated one.

you know this type of story right? i mean it happens all the time. personal triumph! over a painful past! !!!! it's that story of finally getting someone to pay attention to your great potential, and then soaring beyond where even your own dreams would have taken you.

that's how this movie goes for a while.

then there's the abrasive detour.

but anyway. this rise up story - it somehow irked me, triggering my own desire to be something great, something other than the rest, something no one expected. did i mention the bitter taste? is that just me? or are there others who've been told this story again and again? my reaction would almost be funny if i wasn't so annoyed by the way i eat up inspirational tales, hoping i too will grow big and strong, letting them hammer their way in to my head until one day it all just backfires.

apparently i was born this way tho. my collage of rising, sun and moon signs explains it all to me. see: "You have a strong restlessness and yearning for something greater than anything you've yet experienced, and you often live in your dreams and visions for the future. You tend to believe that the grass is greener somewhere else and you like to keep moving, either literally or figuratively. Idealistic and optimistic, you always expect something better ahead. You love to have a goal, something to aim for, but once you achieve it you are on to something else."

My roomate recently asked a bunch of us, "What do you all want out of life?"

our responses dragged out. she stood there with a beer in her hands. we sat on leather couches. i asked my friends the same question.

"to be significant," "to be proud of myself," "to be original and make a difference."

am i not alone then? i mean fine if i am, but what's with this culture of hyped up individual strides and measures of success or failure? do they make movies about ordinary people just doing their ordinary thing, and do we find them inspiring? or do we laugh at and maybe shrink from the ordinariness, the familiarity, the reality?

when i was a kid, my dad read me part of a story titled "ordinary jack," this boy in a family of geniuses who yearns to stand out. enter some un-memorable adult who suggests to jack that he pretend to be clairvoyant, thereby gaining attention and equal footing in his family. sadly, i don't know what happens next because for whatever reason, my dad didn't read the whole story. he probably should have as i've spent the rest of my life wondering when i'd ever discover my own superpower.

i'm just tired of wanting to believe it should happen to me too, you know. where's the acceptance in that?

1st book

so i just made a book. content. layout. bindery. packaging.
i've never done that before.

in process i discovered a small slice of what must be a very large culture of book makers and bindery aficionados, tricks and treasures! what a lovely craft. and i do mean that. i feel like the world has opened up new possibilities to me.

there're some folks in life who remind me that we move across this earth receiving the information that we need, when we need it and not necessarily before that - no matter how indignant we are (ok, i am) when it seems withheld.

that's one of those fatalistic everything-happens-for-a-reason sort of perspectives, isn't it? to be honest, i embrace it often. i think i feel safer that way, as tho the threads of my life aren't just some happenstance of knots and tangles.

on the other hand, maybe the treasures are really encountered in deciphering all of those threaded messes. you know, like when we lie on our backs and think it remarkable enough to share with whoever's near by that we've just found a cloud animal drifting above us in all its precipitation-potential glory. or like as a kid, when my mom would scribble her pen upon the backside of a playbill just so i'd keep still during the boring parts. she'd tell me "find the picture," and i would love to. but she never knew what she was putting down there.

"written," "supposed to," "for a reason," i don't know. today i think the magic is in finding what's worth holding on to and learning lessons along the way. and for those like me who find security in the concept that there is something bigger than the mindchatter filling our heads, that thing about receiving info when we need it most still applies. we're smart creatures when we don't try to override everything. i think our bodies know how to tune us out and take over when it's time.

on that note there's an interesting article on the topic of implicit vs explicit learning. If you're rushed for time, do this: CTRL F (find) this phrase: Human beings sometimes falter under pressure.

Now all you hafta do is read three paragraphs to appreciate my appreciation.

Word.

the way we conceive our attainments helps determine how we behave.

Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Columbia University, has found that people generally hold one of two fairly firm beliefs about their intelligence: they consider it either a fixed trait or something that is malleable and can be developed over time. Five years ago, Dweck did a study at the University of Hong Kong, where all classes are conducted in English. She and her colleagues approached a large group of social-sciences students, told them their English-proficiency scores, and asked them if they wanted to take a course to improve their language skills. One would expect all those who scored poorly to sign up for the remedial course. The University of Hong Kong is a demanding institution, and it is hard to do well in the social sciences without strong English skills. Curiously, however, only the ones who believed in malleable intelligence expressed interest in the class. The students who believed that their intelligence was a fixed trait were so concerned about appearing to be deficient that they preferred to stay home. "Students who hold a fixed view of their intelligence care so much about looking smart that they act dumb," Dweck writes, "for what could be dumber than giving up a chance to learn something that is essential for your own success?"

In a similar experiment, Dweck gave a class of preadolescent students a test filled with challenging problems. After they were finished, one group was praised for its effort and another group was praised for its intelligence. Those praised for their intelligence were reluctant to tackle difficult tasks, and their performance on subsequent tests soon began to suffer. Then Dweck asked the children to write a letter to students at another school, describing their experience in the study. She discovered something remarkable: forty per cent of those students who were praised for their intelligence lied about how they had scored on the test, adjusting their grade upward. They weren't naturally deceptive people, and they weren't any less intelligent or self-confident than anyone else. They simply did what people do when they are immersed in an environment that celebrates them solely for their innate "talent." They begin to define themselves by that description, and when times get tough and that self-image is threatened they have difficulty with the consequences. They will not take the remedial course. They will not stand up to investors and the public and admit that they were wrong. They'd sooner lie.

flipping through

edward abbey's "desert solitaire" ironically shares a themed title - i just notice now in typing it. but this book feels like embracing brisk air and the harsh scrape of redrocks under my knees. a different sense of being alone. actually, he writes about aloneness somewhere in the middle of the book.

apparently his method of coping with occasional pangs of missing friendly human companionship, is by recreating his home outside of his state-supplied trailer in the middle of arches national park, ut, and thereby... well, what does he say...

"inside the trailer, surrounded by the artifacture of America, I was reminded insistently of all that i had, for a season, left behind; the plywood walls and the dusty venetian blinds and the light bulbs and the smell of butane made me think of albuquerque. By taking my meal outside by the burning juniper in the fireplace with more desert and mountains that i could explore in a lifetime open to view, I was invited to contemplate a far larger world, one which extends into a past and into a future without any limits known to the human kind.... All that is human melted with the sky and faded out beyond the mountains...."

perhaps it is that i contemplate the desert often these days.
or maybe i'm just after the romance of being with my own self, in a space unclouded by noise, and full of respectful humility.

it could also be that i'm drawn to abbey's writing because of a most remarkable bookmark, found already in its pages. it's a photo of my old roomie's ex b.f. standing tall in green umbros, closed eyelids, an acoustic guitar, and valentines stuck to his belly. i daily resist scanning it.

meaningful meaninglessness

"I have some dreams
they were clouds in my coffee" - c.s.

i recently finished "100 years of solitude," which felt like exactly that. despite all the beauty of the narrative, the book quite overwhelmed me. maybe that's partly because i've been re-living my own discord with solitude - or as it would come from my own lips "my fear of being alone." so the book was timely. or more likely, the book brought this age old torment of mine to the surface for examination. i've come to realize that i've spent so many years running in to the company of others without considering what i was running from.

marquez's characters in this book - all descendants of eachother, with incest making the circle ever thicker - wove their stories, fates and failures in to and over eachother times and time again, like patterns on a looping quilt. inevitably they'd wind up back in their childhood home, stuck in dreams of the past and haunted by the same behaviors as the legacy of ghosts that brushed by them in the hallways... often alone, even in eachother's company, and as often exhibiting the same self-destructive patterns of their elders.

so imagine me, fearful of my aloneness even in the company of beloved friends, reading about these cycles of isolation page after page, character after mirroring character.

i had to put the book down sometimes for weeks at a time cuz the edge of my own brain became sharpened by these pages, and felt self-destructive. or maybe that WAS the very fuel for my own journey, cutting the roots of patterned thoughts apart with my disgust for the hampster-wheel of the characters' lives.

i feel much better now... maybe muddy up to my chin, but through it. even the last 100 pages were a brisk walk, held back by nothing. or less.

it's remarkable to me how creations can mean so much at different moments. some day, i should like to re-read "o.h.y.o.s." to absorb more of the beauty, when i can take the tragedy alittle less personally.

lingering guest

last night my friend fever came to town
and wouldn't leave when i asked. inconsiderate bugger.