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Archive for 1996
Bringing My Own Words
Shelly, aka The Online Diarist Formerly Known As Jessa, has a section on her site called Bring Your Own Words. The first page reads, in part:
the following pages are full of pictures from the early part of my life. they all evoke baskets full of stories when i look at them. and they make me wonder what kind of stories i’d imagine if i didn’t know the details to go with the pictures. consider this an invitation to see what stories these pictures tell you.
I looked through the photographs twice, and the two titled “cliff dwelling” fascinated me. I kept thinking about them, and the first line from Dar Williams’ song “Pompeii” kept going through my head:
I am thinking about the woman in a century of peace
on a bright mosaic she is washing on her knees
and I wondered if she wrote that song after seeing a drawing or painting and letting it inspire her, weaving a story around what she saw. So, after putting it off for days and being afraid I wouldn’t do a good job, I finally sat down this morning with Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum playing in the background and wrote the story I saw behind those two photographs.
Cliff Dwelling
Isn’t this supposed to look smaller? I thought I was going to feel like the proverbial giant, carefully stepping around and over the buildings and streets of my childhood. That’s what everyone says happens, anyway. In the books I read.
Instead, this exhibit in the Natural Museum Of History (Replica Of Cliff Dwelling Found In Southern New Mexico) towers over me in a way it didn’t at all when I was eight and here with my mother and sister. Nicole, who went on to an illustrious career as a research scientist, absolutely would not believe that we had not mysteriously traveled into the dust and sand of the real cliff dwelling, would not believe that the pottery and clothing inside were props, nothing more. She stood with one foot on the exhibit’s edge and one on the floor of the museum and said proudly, “Momma! Look, look, I’m in two different times!”
Today I’m in two different times too. My eight year old self, that bundle of dark scowls and the occasional tentative smile, is yelling, “Nicole, it’s not real, stupid!” while the me I am today is thinking that allowing people to walk all over the exhibit is a lawsuit waiting to happen, the me I am today is marveling at how well it’s held up over the years.
That day, years ago, I turned away and pretended to study the sign detailing where the original dwelling was found when my mother pulled her camera out of the bag she carried with her everywhere. One of those bags that seems to contain everything the world could possibly need, when you’re eight. Kleenex, an endless supply of quarters, a first aid kit, coloring books, crayons, even scotch tape. I often wish for that bag, for the comfort of knowing that whatever I need is right there with me. My mother stepped down off of the exhibit, laboring a little because her back was hurting, and said in her low voice, “Excuse me,” to the elderly couple passing. They looked like they’d just walked off the set of a tv movie about grandparents. My mother asked if they’d mind taking a photograph of the three of us. They smiled, nodded, took the camera and then whispered instructions to each other on how to use it while my mother gently posed us. “Here, Nicky, hop up onto this ledge. Sweetie, you go on the other ledge.” I hauled myself up, rolling my eyes for the benefit of anyone who might be passing by and think I was enjoying myself, and watched as the grandparenty couple found the right button and pushed it as my mother was stepping up beside the ledge where Nicole sat. Click. Picture taken. My mother turned and smiled. “Okay, everyone, say cheese!” I felt embarrassed for everyone; my mother, the couple, my sister clutching her new orange poncho as if it were her only possession in the world. I said “Cheese!” so heartily that even Nicole looked at me strangely, and the couple earnestly pressed the focus button, having lost track of correct one.
In an uncharacteristic urge recreate the past, I’ve brought my own Polaroid camera with me on this journey into my childhood. Yesterday when I asked Nicole to come on the four hour drive to the city we grew up in she said no, that she and Brian were planning to go apartment hunting. It’s a shame. I would have liked her to be here, I would have liked to stand here and tell her all about how she thought it was real, how I wished I’d thought it was real too. The first couple that passes the exhibit is eerily similar to the grandparenty couple. They walk faster and look at the floor when I say, “Hi there.” I realize I’ve frightened them and back away, mutter an apology.
A man about my age, bearing the trademark harried look of the weekend father, a disposable camera in one hand and a small child in tow in the other stops in front of the exhibit. “Peter,” he says wearily, sadly. “Peter, look at the nice…uh…” He glances at the sign. “The nice cliff dwelling.” The little boy stares at it dutifully.
I step forward. “It’s okay for kids to play in it,” I say. “I mean, in case you didn’t know.”
The man blinks at me. “Oh. Thanks.”
“Would you mind taking a photo of me? I was –” in the midst of launching into the story of why I’ve come here, I stop and offer my camera instead. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
He takes the camera and nods. “Sure.”
I sit quickly in front of the same ledge I’d sat on at eight, too tall now to fit there, and he takes the picture as I’m pushing my glasses up on the bridge of my nose. Disconcerted, I stand up and thank him.
More than anything, I want to squat next to the little boy and whisper, “This is real. If you step up onto the sand you travel back into the past.” More than anything.
Hypothetical Holidays
Taco Bell is not open on christmas eve. Pizza Hut is not open on christmas eve. None of the local restaurants are open on christmas eve. We know. We checked them all. Am the only one who roots for Scrooge while reading A Christmas Carol and is disappointed by the ending? We ended up at the only open store in town, which — given that all we had at home to eat was one box of veggie chili mix — unfortunately sold videos and not food. It was positively surreal; everyone in the store, including the clerks, was between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. We were the oldest people there. Todd said it looked like Emancipated Minor night and maybe there was a deal going, show your emancipation papers and get a free video. It was pretty cute, actually, they all had that Mean Teenager look, the empty eyes and slack mouth and the only two sorts of outfits people under twenty seem to wear these days, either “Help! My clothes are too big for me!” or “Help! My clothes are too small for me!” but one kid was saying to another, “Well, if you’re going to check out Flipper I am too. I wouldn’t want you to feel bad by being the only one watching it.” Aww.
One of my father’s chief complaints about the way I tried to prove my point when we debated any given issue was that I argued the way Kitey does. (I mean, really, what a drag to divorce someone you don’t like and then be stuck with a daughter who admires and does her best to emulate that very person.) He said that I’d take the idea we were debating and come up with a ridiculous extreme in order to prove my point. Todd and I both do this, which is one of the reasons why we’re never able to crab at each other without getting the giggles. I mean, when I say, “Well, I don’t want to try Ethiopian food, it doesn’t sound like the kind of food I’d like,” and Todd says, “Fine, we’ll just never try any new food for the rest of our lives and eat nothing but deli sandwiches!” it’s impossible not to laugh, tee hee. Anyway, I’ve been getting progressively more nervous watching Todd wistfully admire the christmas decorations around town and finally I said, “Am I a fool? Do you really secretly adore christmas and want to celebrate it after all and you’re not celebrating it to please me? What if we have the Hypothetical Child and you suddenly want to go to midnight mass and buy a tree and sing dumb songs and –” Todd grinned and said, “Yes, well, it’s tradition to chant around a dead tree for christmas, don’tcha know,” which made me laugh. “But seriously, have I been completely missing the point? Do you wish we celebrated christmas? Do you hate that we don’t?” He said, “No, no, not at all. I promise. The only thing I miss about christmas is decorating. When we have our own house I’ll probably put lights up, but that’s all I want to do. You know, tasteful lights the way our neighbor does them.” What a relief. Our neighbor has two little children but somehow still manages to decorate for every holiday in such a lovely way that even I like to look at their house.
Obligatory Film Critique:
- We thought Mars Attacks was hysterical, but that’s probably due more to the fact that the aliens, looked, acted, moved, and sounded just like Claire then any skill on the writers’ part. Not to mention that Todd’s grandparents owned and made him listen to Slim Whitman records when he was a child.
I have trouble enjoying non-goal-oriented games. It’s not that I’m competitive, just that if I don’t have a goal to strive for I tend to get bored. My all-time most favorite computer game ever was one I played for months in the late eighties on an old IBM XT. It was mostly text based and called something like C.E.O. The premise was that the player went from a mailroom clerk to C.E.O. of the company through a series of multiple choice questions having to do with work-related decisions all the way from office politics to how much stock to buy or sell. Todd, on the other hand, can and does spend hours playing Flight Simulator, which entails flying a plane from one place to another. That’s it. You don’t even get to work your way to Head Pilot. So we were talking about it and I said I didn’t get it, that I’d be bored to tears and what did he see in it? He pointed to the computer monitor and said, “Maps. Lots and lots and lots of maps. Interactive maps, even.” Aha! I should have known. “If there was a game with the same premise, but driving around in a car instead of a plane would you play it?” “Sure,” he said. “Interstate Simulator, I’d play it all the time.”
Jump into this cup, I’ll add some blueberries, and we’ll be all set.
As fascinating as it sounded, we passed up the opportunity to go to the Fire Extinguisher Museum in New York City this weekend in favor of The Museum Of Television And Radio.
I may be sour and cynical and dourly waiting for January second when all this idiocy will be over, but I’m a complete sap when it comes to the prospect of watching The Charlie Brown Christmas Special on a big screen in a big city in December with my sweetie. We had our shower, I wore my Lucy Dress in honor of the occasion (no, I’m not a Peanuts fan, but have had a special place in my heart for Lucy ever since hearing the song about how she’s going to grow up and have a Queendom on the “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” album) and we logged out. Todd checked the voice mail and his face fell. “We can’t go today,” he said, and sighed. “I have to go into the office and help with this problem they’re having. Want to come?” I said sure, and talked on the way about how strange it is to see him in Efficient Business Man mode because it’s a part of his personality that I almost never see, the same way he rarely sees me in Efficient Web Design Woman Mode.
People depend, to a certain extent, on both of us. Todd to wave his magic wand and solve problems, me to provide, well, whatever it is I provide here — a laugh, or a sniffle, or just a different perspective. Todd says he’d rather have his boss than mine any day, that the Rotted Monsters demand a hell of a lot more of me than his boss does of him. It was strange to see how much people admire what he’s able to accomplish, I think it startled me a little. I mean, I know he’s wonderful, I guess it didn’t cross my mind that everyone else knows too.
After everything was straightened out and we were too hungry to think we went in search of good food. Don’t be taken in by a big chili pepper on a Thai restaurant sign, or a “vegetarian corner” section of the menu. We were. The results were two disappointed people with icky stomachs. To console ourselves we went down the road to a coffee house where I saw my name on the blackboard menu. No matter how many times it’s happened, I’m still surprised when I see options like “Blackberry Sage Tea” or “Desert Sage Tea” (both of which sounded pretty good, actually, but I think it would be too bizarre to order them myself). I ordered an espresso and Todd ordered a double espresso. This took more preparation than you might think on my part, because I am an absolute moron when it comes to ordering something to drink. This started when as a child I tried to order sake in a Japanese restaurant because I thought it was that yummy soup with tofu bits in it and was insistent until the waitress, unable to help herself, started laughing and explained that sake was an alcoholic drink. To this day I don’t even look at the beverage section of the menu, I just order Coke or 7-UP and to this day I feel embarrassed about the sake. Yes, yes, very psychologically healthy of me, I know. As I’ve said before, I’m snotty about coffee. What I haven’t admitted is that I’m not a very good coffee snob. I basically know enough to get by and to appear knowledgeable, but when presented with a menu of coffee drink choices I don’t even know how to pronounce most of the options. After mispronouncing “cappuccino” (geez, not to mention misspelling it, I asked Todd just now and no, it is NOT spelled cuppacino) at the best coffee house in town I listened carefully to Todd as he ordered espresso and learned how to pronounce it and that’s the only coffee drink I order. So the man behind the counter told me that they didn’t have single espressos, only doubles, and did I want something else? I told him a double would be fine. “We do have half-cafs,” he said, getting out the cups, “If you don’t want all the caffeine,” which made me laugh harder than he probably thought it should have and I said “Believe me, I want all of the caffeine.”
On Sunday we were both feeling grumpy and out of sorts and couldn’t decide whether to go to a computer show or to New York. We had the Nothing’s Funs, which is an evil insidious disease that’s not only difficult to overcome but highly contagious as well. The problem with Nothing’s Fun is that everything that previously seemed like the most interesting, fun, fantastic way to spend the day suddenly turns dull and boring. If you decide to go out and spend the day the way you originally intended to after contracting Nothing’s Fun you’re so busy taking your internal temperature trying to figure out if you’re having fun or if you’re bored that you’re too distracted to have a good time anyway. The worst is when someone around you has it and you mistakenly ask them what would be so boring or uninteresting about doing whatever it is you’ve planned and by the time they’re finished explaining they’ve passed the dread disease on to you too. Sometimes, however, it can be overcome by sheer will and cheerfulness, which is what eventually happened. Unfortunately by then it was too late to see the Charlie Brown special, so we decided to go to the computer show instead.
Do you think the two women in the spike heels and green velvet dresses with borderline illegal hemlengths handing out fliers for Bill’s Internet Provider knew why they’d really been hired? Oh, yes, their great wealth of computer knowledge. Doubtless.
From the silliness file:
(Sage and Todd are sitting in a restaurant where a christmas carol medley is playing on and on and on over the stereo speakers.)
Todd: D’you know what the worst thing about christmas music is?
Sage: No, tell.
Todd: It never gets any better. If there’s a bad rock song on the radio that you don’t like it’s okay because you know it’s eventually going to go away. But that christmas carol you hated in 1982 is the SAME ONE you hate in 1996.
Recently a woman told me that she’d like to do what I do, be home and write during the day, then added that she considered herself a feminist and couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Curious, I asked what gender had to do with it, and she said that given the feminist goals of achieving positions in business, legal, and financial fields that being home and writing didn’t qualify as being a feminist. I’ve been mulling the concept over in my mind and trying to figure out what bothered me about it, and I finally have. Suppose my journal entry for tomorrow were to read something like this:
I was talking to my friend John on the phone and he told me that he’s seriously considering getting out of the rat race and pursuing his dream of staying home and painting. His wife Mary thinks that it’s a terrific idea and given how much she loves her job doesn’t mind a bit being the one to bring home a paycheck. Me, I’m unimpressed. People have been telling John — and rightly so — that his goals and dreams as a man should be focused on achievements that will bring in money. Yeah, painting is nice, but will that put food on the table? How can he do this and still call himself a man? In my eyes he simply won’t be masculine anymore, and I won’t be able to view him as the strong, courageous man I did before.
Ugh. I had trouble even pretending to be that closed minded. My point is that if I were to believe that, to write about it, no one would agree with me. (Or, god, I HOPE no one would agree with me.) People would say that staying home and painting had absolutely nothing to do with his masculinity and that he was very brave to follow his dreams. Societal ideals can only be taken so far. Yes, it was difficult for me to reconcile myself to not getting up every morning and making money. It was difficult to reconcile myself to not only not making money, but relying on Todd to do that instead of me. (Think about it: if I were in a lesbian relationship would people tell me I was going against feminist principles by relying on another woman’s money?) What I realized years ago, however, was this: that if I went out and got a paying job solely because I was afraid of what people would think of me that I would be just as guilty as those women who don’t go after a career as a doctor or lawyer or stockbroker because they’re afraid that people will tell them they aren’t feminine enough. ”
The comedic relief, that’s me.
Hearing a knock on the door usually startles and surprises me and I spill my coffee all over myself, but today instead of BANG BANG BANG it was a nice civilized little knock, and I grinned on my way over to the door. “Sarah!” I said, “I knew it was you.” She came in and cuddled the cats and I babbled away a mile a minute all about what’s been going on and she told all about the two boy-kitties that have recently taken up residence in her heart and in her house along with all the other kitties. She said that she was going to the pet supply store and then the grocery store and did I want to come? I said sure, so she went to the bank while I took a shower, then came and picked me up. While we were in the grocery store I said, “I’ve been meaning to call for about a million years, I almost called you a couple of weeks ago when we decided to go to Boston but I didn’t want to make you think you were being used to take care of the cats.” She rolled her eyes and smiled and said, “Geez, Sage, that would have been completely okay with me, don’t you know that?” and I felt glad that I’d mentioned it.
In the pet supply store I picked up a case of wet food because I swear Karma knows when we’ve been there and gets highly disappointed if we arrive home without wet food, and after Sarah had paid for her purchases I got out my checkbook and wrote out a check for the wet food. They don’t care at the grocery store if you don’t have i.d., so I figured they wouldn’t care at the pet store either. The clerk said, “Great, and can I see your driver’s license?” I said I didn’t have one. “Hmm,” she said, and then turned to the other clerk. “This girl doesn’t have a driver’s license,” she said. Clerk Two frowned and asked me, “Do you know the number from your license?” Clerk One and Sarah said, “She doesn’t have one at all.” Clerk Two’s face got befuddled. “You don’t have a driver’s license? At all?” I shook my head and smiled and said, “It’s really okay — I don’t mind not buying the wet food.” Clerk One and Clerk Two began apologizing in two part harmony, One explaining how the computerized cash register wouldn’t accept a check without i.d., Two explaining that it was store policy, and they were both very very sorry. Sarah said, “Hey, no problem, I can pay for it and you can pay me back, okay?” “Great! Thanks,” I said, and Clerk One said, “Are you sure? I’m so sorry about this,” and I beamed at her and told her that I completely understood and it wasn’t a problem at all, and they were STILL APOLOGIZING as Sarah and I walked out the door.
We went back to Sarah’s house where she made something called… kiblets? Kinnels? I keep thinking kibbles but I know that’s not right. Little delicate pastry bits with even teenier bits of walnuts stuffed inside. I love knowing people who enjoy cooking. She let me make one, and after I rolled the dough too thin, got it stuck to the rolling pin, put too much of the walnut mixture inside, and rolled it up with walnuts drooling out both sides we agreed that I was much better at sitting in the kitchen being entertaining by talking. (Not that my cooking skills aren’t entertaining, but in a different way.)
Buy Me Elmo — I mean, Tickle Me Elmo, is the toy of the week in this country. Buzz Lightyear is the toy of the week in England. People are putting ads in the paper, selling Elmo for upwards of five hundred dollars, getting into arguments in stores over who saw it first. What is wrong with these parents? What are they afraid will happen if they don’t get Little Sweetums whatever their hearts desire? If my father had given me a Barbie Doll (yes, there are Barbie Dolls hidden deep in my shameful toy past) for christmas and I’d whined and said, “Daddeeeeee, I wanted a CABBAGE Patch Doll, not a BARBIE Doll,” he’d have packed my bags and put me up for adoption by sundown. Hell, if I’d gotten into an argument in a store over who saw a toy first he’d have had me up for adoption by sundown! So I was saying all of this to Todd and smugly concluded with, “I never wanted the toy of the week for christmas, thank you very much,” and then had to take it back. I wanted an Atari video game system, complete with joysticks and paddles and Donkey-Kong and Pac-Man, so much I could taste it. And, to my great surprise, on christmas morning what should appear under after all the other presents were opened but an Atari? It’s one of my very best memories ever, playing the Ship And Plane game that came with the video game system, just my dad and I playing with the Atari for hours, laughing and laughing until our stomachs hurt.
look away, look away
I don’t know what happened. There I was, in a perfectly good sulk, feeling sorry for myself because the gums around one of my wisdom teeth are aching enough to keep me awake at night, hungry and crabby from too much black tea and not enough food, when I walked into the kitchen and decided on the spur of the moment to clean the kitchen and then make — yes! I don’t even need to tell you. I turned on the pop-psych show for laughs and within ten minutes was having great fun despite myself. Then, and I should warn you that this is the scary part, so avert your eyes if you must, Donna Reed started chanelling herself through me. It’s true! It sounds unlikely, but really, can you picture me deciding to make oatmeal cookies on the spur of the moment? I didn’t think so. Not only did I make oatmeal cookies, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, restrained myself from eating all the dough, and then… cleaned the kitchen all over again. Aren’t you afraid for my very soul?
Well, you should be.
Stephen! You go home now!
Most of this entry is likely to be about Stephen King, so brace yourself or skip to the end. But first…
Obligatory Film Critique:
I’m basing everything I have to say in this journal entry about Stephen King, writing, art, and money, on one assumption which could well be incorrect. Recently he came out with two books: The Regulators and Desperation. The Regulators was “written” by Richard Bachman, Desperation by Stephen King. Years ago I bought The Bachman books, this was after it’d been revealed that Bachman was King’s pen name, and was extremely impressed. To this day the stories “Rage” and “The Long Walk” rank in my mind on my top fifty list of excellent writing, and I can’t tell you how unsurprised I was when some kid tried to copy the events in “Rage” at his own high school — in fact, the first thing Kitey said after reading it was that some kid would try to recreate the events in the story. The Regulators begins with a note to the effect that Richard Bachman “died” in 1985, but that this book was found among his effects and updated. My assumption is that Stephen King, at a loss for new ideas, went back into his old boxes/disks (am I nuts, or is that a TRS-80 in the author photo at the back to Desperation?) and found The Regulators. It could well be that he wrote it last year and the whole 1985 bit is fabricated, but I doubt it.
As I said before, I read Desperation against my better judgment and regretted the time I’d wasted on it. It was, strangely enough, a Stephen King-ism that kept me reading: the Gotta, as in “I gotta know what happens at the end”. I mentally kicked myself for not sticking to my resolution to never read another King book, and swore that I wouldn’t touch The Regulators, which Todd had decided to borrow from the library and read. But I couldn’t resist the lure of a book written by the same person about the same characters in an alternate universe, so within an hour of bringing it back from the library I was deeply ensconced. It was wonderful. I don’t mean the horror aspect; I’ve never liked that about his writing, it’s boring and predictable and who-cares. I mean the characterization, the way people interacted, I mean the cleverness of the plot. Within three chapters of Desperation I’d correctly predicted the ending, and it wasn’t until I had ten pages left in The Regulators that I realized what was going to happen. Desperation is empty, with characters I found it impossible to like, relate to, or maintain any interest in. What’s so bizarre is the fact that they’re the same characters — sometimes younger, or older, but in essence the same characters as they are in The Regulators, which had me sniffling by the end, sorry that I wasn’t able to spend more time with the same damn people.
I’m mystified. Am I the only one who sees the vast difference in writing quality between the two books? Didn’t anyone in King’s immediate vicinity take him aside and go, “Listen, I know you wanted to put both books out, but let me read a passage from each and show you what a bad idea it is. Let’s not give the critics their own personal yardstick to measure exactly how your abilities have declined over the years, okay Steve?” Is he blind to his disappearing ability to write, obsessed with making money no matter how bad his books are, or does he have a running bet with his editor about just how bad a book with his name on it has to be before the American public stops buying and buying and buying and…
holiday cheer, only 3 dollars a smile
I should have had a warning sign around my neck when I left the house this morning:
THIS WOMAN IS A ZOMBIE. DO NOT FEED OR ATTEMPT TO SPEAK TO HER. SHE IS NOT DANGEROUS UNLESS PROVOKED. Yes, it’s true, I left the house without drinking any coffee, tea, or soda. (O The Horror!) In case any doubt remains about my fanaticism when it comes to routine, I should mention that the first time I hauled the laundry over to the laundromat I listened to the pop-psych show on my walkman while I walked. This morning, even though I was tired and was only able to grab a bowl of the chili Todd made last night, I could barely stumble around the house, much less think any coherent thoughts, I left for the laundromat fifteen minutes after crawling out of bed. Why? Because if I’d left any later the pop-psych show would have been over by the time I was ready to walk from the laundromat back home.
It took me a long time to walk all the way there, and once I arrived I dragged my duffle bag full of dirty clothes (including The Towel Of Doom, which has been looming in the bathroom for the past few days making the prospect of not taking a shower at all more palatable then using it to dry off) to the wall of dryers and stood in front of them. Eventually my mind reported that what I was supposed to do next was open the door of the dryer in front of me, and I leaned over and started to unzip the duffle bag. Before I started putting clothes into the dryer it occured to me that clothes needed to be wet before the dryer could do any good, so I slogged over to the washer side and started loading up the nearest ones. The Caffeine Police were obviously not on duty, or they would have come and hauled me back home, and rightly so. Just be glad I wasn’t driving.
And hell, I threw my shirt into the toilet after sharing a pot of coffee with Todd, so obviously I need to up my dosage.
We keep the toilet seat — the bit that some people think needs to have a fuzzy blue cover on it, which makes me imagine hundreds of panic-stricken Grovers running from the blue fur hunters — down because we never know what Anita’s going to do next, and given her fascination with the toilet flushing she might well decide to jump right in one day. When I went upstairs Saturday to take a bath (that way I could sit in the tub reading until I tried off and have no contact with the Towel Of Doom) I whisked off my shirt and dropped it, as I always do, onto the toilet seat, then reached up to turn on the light over the mirror so I’d have enough light to read by. So a minute later Todd, who’s downstairs, hears me say in a highly indignant way, “Todd, why the hell did you put a t-shirt in the toilet?” He started laughing and asked if maybe it wasn’t my shirt, which is was. Evidently the toilet seat had been up and I hadn’t noticed it when I was blithely throwing my shirt in.
From the silliness file:
(Sage and Todd are listening to Sting’s album “Mercury Falling” which they borrowed from the library.)
Sage: Wait… did he just sing, “early one morning with time to kill”? Haven’t we heard that before?
Todd: Yeah, I think so. Seems to be a reoccurring theme in his lyrics. I wonder how many start with “early one morning” or “I woke up this morning” or some variation?
Sage: Maybe his writing time for new songs is in the morning.
Todd: Yeah, either that or it’s one of the few things he can still talk about — “I know! I’ll start with ‘I woke up this morning’ — I’m not so rich I don’t have to do THAT anymore…”
I blabbed so much last year about the reasons that Todd and I don’t celebrate any holidays that it seems silly to repeat myself — if you’re curious, the details are in last year’s December 13 entry. Last night someone came knocking on our front door, I thought it must be Sarah, who we haven’t seen in ages, and ran into the kitchen because all I had on was a t-shirt. Todd answered the door and when I heard it close again I came back into the living room, where he was shaking his head and looking exasperated. “Evidently,” he said, “they now expect you to pay to listen to them sing christmas carols. The first thing he asked for was a donation, and then said they were there to sing carols.” A few years from now they’ll be charging a quarter a song, mark my words. Todd said thanks but no thanks. We shut the door and listened to Bel Canto instead and Todd told me about wanting to go caroling all by himself as a boy with his saxophone in tow in his small Vermont town, but his parents told him it was a dumb idea. I would have been glad to listen to him.
Push My Buttons, Babydoll
Yesterday I broke the computer. I’d finished recording myself reading Hail for the Queen aloud and started up the Real Audio encoder and suddenly everything … started . . . to . . . . go . . . . . very . . . . . . . . . slowly.
Not worried, I exited Windows and restarted the computer. Not only was it still going slowly, it took three times as long as it usually does to get from the moment it was turned on to the moment that Windows started itself up and I was able to use the mouse. After trying everything I could think of, including the possibility that it was a virus, I felt tremendously frustrated and in the interests of not smashing it to bits I went and made (everybody all together now) red beans and rice, then tried it again. If anything it seemed worse.
Calmly (ahem) I put Yentl into the VCR and sat down to work on the liner for my latest crocheted bag. I sat on the futon and willed myself not to get up and keep trying to convince the computer to work and for the most part I managed it. After listening to the song “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” seven times in a row, sniffling and singing along, my teeth unclenched and my shoulders went back down to their normal level, and when I realized that Mandy Patinkin was playing the male lead I really cheered up.
When Todd got home the first thing he said was, “How was your day, sweetie?” and I said mournfully through my now-unclenched teeth, “The computer’s broken.” He sat down in front of it and asked what I’d tried, and I went back to working on the bag liner while he muttered to himself and buzzed around with the mouse figuring it out. Then he started to chuckle. “Um, can you look at the screen and tell me if it’s working all right now?” I looked and it was zooming along beautifully. “What was it?” I asked, expecting something I could blame on those evil Microsoft people. He pointed to the big huge button, right on the front labeled:
| TURBO |
and said, “The top bit of your clipboard pushed this button and it was in non-turbo mode.” I may never hear the end of this one…
I am not pleasant to talk to when I first wake up. I’m lucky if I can string coherent sentences together, and if I don’t have a scowl on my face it means I’m awake enough yet to arrange my face muscles into the proper morning scowl. Todd, on the other hand, is monumentally cheerful. What did I wake up to this morning? “It’s mor-ning, it’s mor-ning, it’s better than bad, it’s good! Everyone likes a Sage, everyone’s favorite friend…” sung to the tune of the Slinky tv ad, better known as “It’s Log” from Ren & Stimpy. How did I get lucky enough to find this sweet man, and what in the world does he see in me?
Mary? I mean, Miss Warner?
Discussion of the childbirth/bearing issue has been moved to the section of this site reserved for subscribers to the Tyrtle Mumbles list and is continuing to be quite interesting. If you’d like to subscribe, you can find out how here. 
Originally I’d intended to post a story I wrote in college called “Depths” and talk about what it was like to grow up in apartment complexes but in the midst of looking through my filebox of old writings I found a story that was too apt to pass up using instead. The picture to the right is the one I drew at the time to go with the story; it’s not scanned in, but my graphics tablet has a tracing capability and my graphics program has a crayon brush, so it’s almost identical to the original drawing. I wrote the story while going to Kellogg school, in Mrs. Hoag’s third grade class. I remember being in that class quite clearly, Mrs. Hoag was my first public school teacher and was very patient with my complete lack of knowledge on desks, calling teachers Mrs. or Mr. so-and-so instead of by their first names and asking to leave the room instead of leaving when I felt like it. After two years of Montessori school going to public school was a shock. I mean, I’d never even seen a desk until my first day of third grade.
This assignment was one of the few she ever gave that I attacked with gusto. I’d written one other story before this one, about a mischievous prince named Nicholas whose parents despair of finding him a girl to marry until he meets one who’s as mischievous as he is, but also highly responsible and practical, and they become best friends, get married, and rule the kingdom together. I’ve always been big on equality.
When the entire class had written their short stories Miss Parker, the student teacher, typed them up and xeroxed them. We were given a copy of each story and stapled the lot together, then made a cover out of a large piece of white construction paper. I’ve been chuckling over what I did with my collection of stories all morning (not to mention the story itself) because it seems I was concerned with getting things right and being in control even then. I remember being upset when we were handed the typed up stories because none of them had page numbers on them, and of course it couldn’t be a real book without page numbers. What I didn’t remember until I found it this morning was that I’d also put an entire table of contents on the first page, complete with page numbers. I must have been a joy to teach. Ahem.
The themes I’ve talked about here are present in this story as well, although I hope my life doesn’t come across as such a soap opera. But you can see the beginnings of the future Galactic Web Empress in this story, if you look hard enough. You can either read “Hail For The Queen” below, or listen [link broken] to it (that is, if I can read it aloud from beginning to end without laughing).
Once long, long ago in London there lived a beautiful maiden. She lived in a nice tidy cottage right next door to the castle. Now, her name was Ann Rosecock. But everyone called her Annie because she was so friendly. In the olden days there was no school and so everyone worked. The children usually worked for their neighbors. But Ann worked for the KING!!!! She made the clothes for him. There was talk, even, that she would marry the King’s only son for the PRINCE looked at her like he loved her. All the girls were always asking how she ever got her hair that long but she was always very, very patient when they asked. The only strange thing about Ann is that she has a small nose and small ears and she was thin and very tall.
It’s time I told you about her family and friends. I’m not ashamed to tell you that Mrs. Rosecock had a deep secret that we will learn later in the story. Mr. and Mrs. Rosecock were deeply in love. They had already had 2 sets of twins and Annie. The first set was Mary and Maria. The second set is Barney and Bally. I’ll tell you about Ann’s friendship with Michelle now.
Ann loved Michelle and Michelle loved her. Ann could never have been separated from her. Michelle lived right next to Ann’s house. (I’m sorry I haven’t even told you how old Ann is. She is 10 years old.). Her friend Michelle is 10 and she lives in London, too.
Ann is very talented in singing. I guess the reason that she could sing so well is that she always woke up early in the morning at dawn and heard the birds sing. Ann also loved ballet and she used to sing for her dolls and have them do ballet. She just loved operas. She also likes exploring and climbing trees. There was a big tree in her front yard. And it was a Maple tree.
Ann grew up and it was on her 11th birthday that it happened……. Ann’s birthday was on Dec. 11th. The party was in the town square. Guess who came to the party?????? The King and His Son… His name is Prince Ryan and he was 12 years old. Everyone was having a great time and Mrs. Rosecock made an announcement. NOW HEAR THIS!!!! Ann’s great, great grandfather is Sir Nicholas II. A gasp went up from the party. For Sir Nicholas was The King.
Well some time passed by and Ann was 13 now and Prince Ryan was 14. Ann’s parents had died of old age. Sir Nicholas was dead of old age, too. Prince Ryan was King but he had to find a wife. Now, that isn’t as easy as you’d think. For he had to marry a girl of royal blood. He asked every girl in the kingdom. He couldn’t find one.
His page said “Oh master King. Your Majesty will you please answer this one question?”
“I will for you are very responsible.”
“Why did you tell us to skip Annie?”
“I did no such thing,” he roared. “Who is the traitor who said this?” He was almost yelling now.
“It was a wise old man.”
“He will be called that no more. He will be called Dead Man! Now I will ask her at once myself and see that nothing goes wrong.” The King himself went! Well meanwhile Annie was making some pies and Annie didn’t know what was happening when the KING knocked at her front door. The king said…… “Was what your mother said at your 11th birthday party true?” Oh your majesty I do not know honestly I think it might be true for when the party was over she heard her crying in the house. The King believed her and told her all that happened but his counselors didn’t believe her. So they decided to pray to her mother and father. They prayed for them to hear and speak to them. But finally the King heard it so the men believed it.
Those wonderful words were a blessing to everyone and Annie agreed to marry him.
Men are from Macy’s, Women are from Home Depot
Whenever Todd and I see or hear some description of people that’s gender-specific, i.e. “men are X and women are Y”, the opposite applies to us. I heard a list once of ten things you’ll never hear come out of a woman’s mouth, and ten things you’ll never hear out of a man’s mouth, and there wasn’t one in the women’s section I hadn’t said, or one in the man’s section Todd hadn’t said. So we got a big kick out of an article in the Boston Globe called “Real Men Don’t Shop”, about the ways men and women approach shopping.
The article centers around Neil Dunn, The Man With The Plan, who goes to the mall with his wife and hangs out in the car, reading and listening to the car radio. “Hurrah!” I said. “Smart man, smart man.” Todd rolled his eyes. The article goes on to say that women are grazers and men are hunters. Men like to get to the point and get it done, women like to wander around for hours. “Aha!” I said, “So that’s why I get so impatient when we go grocery shopping, you’re grazing and I’m hunting.” Todd grinned. Then there are some quotes from a woman who wrote the book “Perfect Husbands and Other Fairy Tales” (as a rebuttal to that insipid title see my highly pissed off rant about expectations of men) to the effect that men are only happy and patient when they’re in Home Depot shopping for tools, which really made us both laugh. Put Todd and I in any store in the universe except for a computer or home improvement store and I’m the one saying, “Can we go now? Are you finished? Yes, I think that this particular tea is the right one to pick, no, I don’t think you need to read the labels of the other eighteen, let’s go, let’s go.” He doesn’t even ask anymore if I want to go to the gourmet food store with him because I’m so obnoxious about wanting to leave. But put me in a computer or home improvement store, and I’m in raptures over the different grades of sandpaper, and can spend hours finding exactly the right paintbrush for the trim, or the ideal hammer. And don’t even ask what I’m like in the plumbing section. A trip to the computer store can take up two hours, even if we’re not there to buy anything. Todd’s the one following me around saying that yes, that hammer will be fine, and am I done yet? “Women dress for shopping,” the article goes on to say, “make lists, compare prices…” I’m lucky if I can remember to wear a shirt that Claire hasn’t put too many holes in, but Todd puts on nice clothes, makes a list, and compares prices too.
In other words, don’t believe everything you read. Neil Dunn and I have a hell of a lot more in common than Neil Dunn and Todd ever will.
My idea of shockingly daring spontaneity is to plan to go to one deli for lunch and decide on my way to go to a different one. Todd, on the other hand, says yes, let’s go to the deli and on the way asks if I want to spend the weekend in Vermont instead. No, really. So this Saturday I was asking how Todd wanted to spend the day and he said “Hey, I know what, let’s not plan anything.” I scowled. “Wait,” he said, “hear me out. What if we made every Saturday a day with no plans? We see what comes and go with it. Sunday can be full of plans.” Hmmm. The idea started to appeal to me and I wasn’t sure why. I sat and pondered it while Todd talked about the prospect some more and eventually figured it out — have you yet? Well, of course. It’s perfectly all right with me to have a day with no plans — as long as I know that we’ve planned for Saturday to be that day. Tee hee.
From the silliness file:
Sage: I’m really looking forward to this! Sunday, The Galactic Web Empress rules everything.
Todd: I can see it now. Everything will be scheduled.
Sage: Hurrah! 8:30 AM, wake up. 8:35 AM, pee. 8:40 AM, make coffee. 8:45 AM, read the 90210 Inquisitor summary. 8:50 AM, go into kitchen and pour coffee. 9 AM –
Todd: Oh dear…
In the interests of not planning anything on Saturday, Todd asked around four if I wanted to come with him in about ten minutes to a new foo-foo grocery store that just opened up. I hemmed and hawed and decided to go, because I know we always have fun together no matter what we’re doing (which means that I fully plan to have Todd in the room the entire time when I finally get brave enough go to the dentist and have my wonky hurty teeth looked at) and we drove there, it was about half an hour away. I was curious about what the store would be like, as always, I’m fascinated by the marketer’s point of view, and about what’s in a store that’s been recently built as opposed to a store that was built thirty years ago. I recently read a book about the history of packaging, and one of the things that the author talked about quite a bit was the fact that you’re exposed to thousands of packages when you’re at the grocery store. No wonder you’re exhausted when you get home. We weren’t exhausted at this new store, we were absolutely stupefied. We couldn’t think, it was beyond creepy. In the interests of not going over our food budget we bring a calculator with us when we go grocery shopping, and by the time we’d gotten through the produce section and into the second aisle we’d spent half of our budget. At which point Todd turned to me and said, “This is creepy, want to leave?” and I vehemently agreed, and we ran screaming to the front doors. We’d both been remarking on the complete absence of screaming children, and the explanation behind it was next to the front doors: a glassed-in hangout for little kids, complete with a computer and toys galore. What an insurance nightmare. “This is the kind of thing Neil Dunn and I need,” I said to Todd, “a hangout like this while our sweeties go shopping.”
