People are always clamoring for pictures of JoBiv. Why, clamorers? Why?
Well, the day has finally come. I chose an oldie but a goodie, and I hope you like it. There I am in the middle, with Cripps on the left (funny, he's left-handed) and Smacks on the right. This telling photo comes from what was likely to be someone's birthday, because we didn't have cake often in our house. Can you imagine, three boys and a little girl in one house. Would you give us sugar? And you shoulda seen Smacks on sugar. Alarming, I believe, is the most accurate term.
Anywaysss, my evil mother always kept the camera on hand just in case we broke down in tears, or this is what I've come to believe after sifting through our albums. Many a life-affirming moment has been caught on Kodachrome - Smacks' head stuck in the next-door neighbor's deck rungs, Smacks post blue chalk-eating experiment, JoBiv giving herself a bath in the bathroom sink and getting stuck there... etc. Okay, Cripps and Tom didn't cry as much. Cripps wasn't on Earth with us, and Tom was high. Or somewhere else.
In this case it's impossible to know the true prompt for this bout of tears, but my brothers sure do look guilty. Happily guilty. I mean, could I really be that miserable when I was given a piece of cake and free reign - sans utensil or parental help - to shove it into my mouth? And my ear canal and nostrils, apparently. Perhaps I was protesting the busy wallpaper, or the hand-me-down pants, or maybe I was simply being a two-year-old pain in the ass. If it weren't for those smiles and the strategically hidden hands, I could believe it was just a moment of artistically inspired tempestuous moodiness on my part.
Or perhaps this is early proof of my disdain for posing for cameras.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Home is where the ______ is
If I tell you about my annual journey home for the holidays, I will:
1. Cry
2. Hate myself for crying
3. Feel terribly guilty for any written attacks (direct or subconscious) that would inform you on the difficulty of being around my family
Instead I will tell you things (hopefully benign) that I remembered while I was home.
1. We used to have nougat at Christmas. Apparently this is an Italian thing, according to shops around Boston. My parents don't remember.
2. My mother developed a brilliant system for socks and hand-me-downs that she should have patented. It's not too late, actually.
3. Sunday mass, and waking, dressing, and getting there on time, was a predictably epic battle of Kids vs. Dad. Dad always won but he fought dirty. (So did we.)
4. Our phone would ring off the hook on holidays. Relatives and friends would call and whoever had the phone would call the next person into the kitchen to take a turn talking. It was torture, but it was explicitly forbidden to dodge the two-second conversation. Reluctance was tolerated. Hiding was not.
5. After we were already off to school, Mom would make herself a mug of tea with milk and a little sugar. Presumably she would carry it around the house while she put away laundry or cleaned, because we would find it on a closet shelf or a windowsill, half-full and cold. I use to love sipping it before I brought it downstairs to the kitchen.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
The crux
My grandmother passed away, finally*, at age 94 back in October. She died in her sleep. More importantly, she died dreaming of my grandfather (or rather in a haze of dementia) and repeatedly mentioned that he had asked her to marry him.
"What should I say?" she asked my father.
"For godssake, say yes, otherwise I won't exist," said my father. She laughed as though she got the joke, and she may have, because she was a sharp lady.
I love to think of her suspended in that giddy moment of young love, the moment just before her life settled into its track and took off barreling toward pregnancies and houses and addictions and celebrations. I see it as a conductor raising her arm for the downbeat, the gesture before the music, the instruction to draw bows and breath.
Yet, when my grandmother died, I had a sudden and explosive thought; I had been waiting for her to die before allowing myself to consider suicide. It was a simple rule, and it worked for years. While she was alive I could spare her needless pain and confusion. How would this woman, who only knew the kindest, most patient side of me, ever reconcile that image with the desperation of my truer self? Why force sobs from her? I assumed, too, that my father would very likely lie to her, and how could I make him do that. How cruel would I have to be to force him to make that decision?
And so she fell asleep, and so she never woke, and when that word popped into my head I had nothing handy to bat it away.
Suicide.
At first, the thought itself was so upsetting that the anxiety swept me into fits. Every moment of solitude or quiet brought on hyperventilation and tears.
Then I started really thinking about it; how I had drawn away from friends and I could recede even more, how I could sell my things, throw away papers. We already had a temp at work, which just proved (in my mind) that everyone is replaceable. I had already stopped enjoying the usual pastimes; reading, writing, singing, hanging out with friends, even eating. The world had become two dimensional, blank cardboard cut-outs of the actions of living. And so it was time.
Of course, I'm an asshole, and this is why.
My father hinted to it on the phone but I didn't believe him at the time. He was drunk. But then again, he had just lost his mother. I cut him a little slack, at least. He mumbled something about Grandma's will, and I decided to dismiss it. Then my mother mentioned something and credibility came into the picture. And then I went home to see my aching family and touch them to make sure they were solid and okay.
Mom and Dad were puttering downstairs, clearly waiting for me to get ready. I came downstairs to the two of them on either side of the kitchen counter, suddenly hushing themselves. My father had something in his hand, barely hidden.
"Johanna Mary... your grandmother loved you very much." He then went on to describe the many ways I was good to her; sending cards and letters, insisting on seeing her on my trips home, making sure my brothers remembered her at Christmas time and her birthday. And then he talked about his mother meeting his father, how dear they were to each other.
And then he showed me the ring, and told me Grandma wanted me to have it. She only mentioned four people in her will, and I was the only grandchild. She left her wedding band to Aunt Depresso, her pearls to Aunt Klondike (I think), and her engagement ring, a cushion-cut diamond flanked by the tiniest chips of diamond in an art deco setting, to me.
I cried. A lot. My parents hugged me. They couldn't know that every part of me wanted to reject the gift. If I had really been a good granddaughter, I felt, I would have called. I would have sent the card I bought for her last week and she would have loved it. I would have gotten my license and seen her on my own, and often. But then again, here was proof that she knew I loved her.
Four months later, my brother said the thing I needed to hear, and maybe couldn't absorb until this moment.
"Grandma didn't want you to be buried with that ring."
He also soliloquized about how special I am and how important I am and blah blah blah - nothing I could believe besides that one thing. I was given a ring in hope that I would have a piece of her, know she loved me, maybe someday find my own love. She could never have thought that I would kill myself mere months afterward and scramble to think of someone more worthy of the ring. She was clear in her gesture: I am worthy. Whether or not I believe it, I am worthy of her love and love from any direction.
I still don't believe it, but I do accept that she believed it. In her honor, I live.
*"Finally" sounds harsh, however, Grandma was fed up with birthdays and suffering daily shame from merely existing in a facility where she did not leave her room or cultivate friendships. Some of that is her own fault. I also find myself saying "finally" to continue convincing myself that death is quite final. It's a one-way street. Unless you're Wesley from The Princess Bride and you wind up "mostly dead," but I digress.
"What should I say?" she asked my father.
"For godssake, say yes, otherwise I won't exist," said my father. She laughed as though she got the joke, and she may have, because she was a sharp lady.
I love to think of her suspended in that giddy moment of young love, the moment just before her life settled into its track and took off barreling toward pregnancies and houses and addictions and celebrations. I see it as a conductor raising her arm for the downbeat, the gesture before the music, the instruction to draw bows and breath.
Yet, when my grandmother died, I had a sudden and explosive thought; I had been waiting for her to die before allowing myself to consider suicide. It was a simple rule, and it worked for years. While she was alive I could spare her needless pain and confusion. How would this woman, who only knew the kindest, most patient side of me, ever reconcile that image with the desperation of my truer self? Why force sobs from her? I assumed, too, that my father would very likely lie to her, and how could I make him do that. How cruel would I have to be to force him to make that decision?
And so she fell asleep, and so she never woke, and when that word popped into my head I had nothing handy to bat it away.
Suicide.
At first, the thought itself was so upsetting that the anxiety swept me into fits. Every moment of solitude or quiet brought on hyperventilation and tears.
Then I started really thinking about it; how I had drawn away from friends and I could recede even more, how I could sell my things, throw away papers. We already had a temp at work, which just proved (in my mind) that everyone is replaceable. I had already stopped enjoying the usual pastimes; reading, writing, singing, hanging out with friends, even eating. The world had become two dimensional, blank cardboard cut-outs of the actions of living. And so it was time.
Of course, I'm an asshole, and this is why.
My father hinted to it on the phone but I didn't believe him at the time. He was drunk. But then again, he had just lost his mother. I cut him a little slack, at least. He mumbled something about Grandma's will, and I decided to dismiss it. Then my mother mentioned something and credibility came into the picture. And then I went home to see my aching family and touch them to make sure they were solid and okay.
Mom and Dad were puttering downstairs, clearly waiting for me to get ready. I came downstairs to the two of them on either side of the kitchen counter, suddenly hushing themselves. My father had something in his hand, barely hidden.
"Johanna Mary... your grandmother loved you very much." He then went on to describe the many ways I was good to her; sending cards and letters, insisting on seeing her on my trips home, making sure my brothers remembered her at Christmas time and her birthday. And then he talked about his mother meeting his father, how dear they were to each other.
And then he showed me the ring, and told me Grandma wanted me to have it. She only mentioned four people in her will, and I was the only grandchild. She left her wedding band to Aunt Depresso, her pearls to Aunt Klondike (I think), and her engagement ring, a cushion-cut diamond flanked by the tiniest chips of diamond in an art deco setting, to me.
I cried. A lot. My parents hugged me. They couldn't know that every part of me wanted to reject the gift. If I had really been a good granddaughter, I felt, I would have called. I would have sent the card I bought for her last week and she would have loved it. I would have gotten my license and seen her on my own, and often. But then again, here was proof that she knew I loved her.
Four months later, my brother said the thing I needed to hear, and maybe couldn't absorb until this moment.
"Grandma didn't want you to be buried with that ring."
He also soliloquized about how special I am and how important I am and blah blah blah - nothing I could believe besides that one thing. I was given a ring in hope that I would have a piece of her, know she loved me, maybe someday find my own love. She could never have thought that I would kill myself mere months afterward and scramble to think of someone more worthy of the ring. She was clear in her gesture: I am worthy. Whether or not I believe it, I am worthy of her love and love from any direction.
I still don't believe it, but I do accept that she believed it. In her honor, I live.
*"Finally" sounds harsh, however, Grandma was fed up with birthdays and suffering daily shame from merely existing in a facility where she did not leave her room or cultivate friendships. Some of that is her own fault. I also find myself saying "finally" to continue convincing myself that death is quite final. It's a one-way street. Unless you're Wesley from The Princess Bride and you wind up "mostly dead," but I digress.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Joie de Jo?
English Jo is having a baby, a little nerdy baby with surely extraordinary musical abilities and terrible eyesight and a penchant for Americanisms with a London accent. This is such a good thing.
And yet with other friends of mine, the moment they become parents I tend to clam up and disappear. We all know I like kiddos; in fact, I usually prefer them to the bitter, non-curious, shut-off adults I run into much more frequently. I like watching a baby see things and hear things and touch things for the first time, because I want to remember that the world is always new to someone and there are good things in it.
But, there's also a part of me that feels I will never be a mother, never create a stable little nuclear family with a steady life mate and a mortgage and milk money on the table. I will sustain myself, not out of self-preservation so much as a keen sense of how much I would hurt others if I let myself fade. I will not be so irresponsible as to let someone love me, or create life with that person, or raise a child in such close vicinity to this omnipresent aura of poison that either follows me or is me. And so watching my friends creating their families, my brothers even, feels a little like a sick voyeurism and only makes me long for something I must not allow myself to have.
Turns out, however, that I still haven't learned one of the simplest and most repetitive lessons in life; I cannot control the feelings and thoughts of others. Influence, yes. Control... not even a little. Hell, most of my battles stem from my need and failures to control myself!
So a man grows attached to me. He doesn't know the depths of the shitstorm I carry around in my head, but he also doesn't mind that I'm dealing with one. He laughs with me and at me and worries when I have some small thing he can carry. He talks about "what we'll do for the holidays" in July... "When we move in together..." Not if. When. "We will have to figure that out," he says, like a man buying a slanting, leaky house with every penny he has in the world, simply determined to make it shine. And he has me thinking...
And yet with other friends of mine, the moment they become parents I tend to clam up and disappear. We all know I like kiddos; in fact, I usually prefer them to the bitter, non-curious, shut-off adults I run into much more frequently. I like watching a baby see things and hear things and touch things for the first time, because I want to remember that the world is always new to someone and there are good things in it.
 | |
| When L. Bloom was new |
Turns out, however, that I still haven't learned one of the simplest and most repetitive lessons in life; I cannot control the feelings and thoughts of others. Influence, yes. Control... not even a little. Hell, most of my battles stem from my need and failures to control myself!
So a man grows attached to me. He doesn't know the depths of the shitstorm I carry around in my head, but he also doesn't mind that I'm dealing with one. He laughs with me and at me and worries when I have some small thing he can carry. He talks about "what we'll do for the holidays" in July... "When we move in together..." Not if. When. "We will have to figure that out," he says, like a man buying a slanting, leaky house with every penny he has in the world, simply determined to make it shine. And he has me thinking...
Monday, October 10, 2011
fragile stuff
 |
| Faded Roses, Charles Rennie Mackintosh |
Elizabeth was the kind of girl who would silently hold a grudge for a good long while if you, say, didn't say "please," when asking her to pass the potatoes. It wouldn't be the kind of grudge that turns into a vendetta, just a strong demerit in her overall tally of your trustworthiness and respectability. So, yes, she would take it personally if you forgot her birthday. She would find a way to mention it in passing to send a shock of shame through you on the sly.
I've been trained, therefore, to start feeling guilty right around the beginning of September. I start thinking of sending her a card or a little gift - maybe a cookbook - and then I think of how she doesn't accumulate crap, really. She has maybe a dozen shirts and washes and wears them carefully. She purges her kitchen, her library and her office regularly, gleaning only the necessary pieces. Every space she rules is elegantly composed and purposeful. How do you give a gift to a woman who has chosen every small detail of her life?
Well, almost. She did not choose to get pregnant while she was here in Boston and had several credits to finish up on her Master's degree. She didn't exactly choose to move in with her in-laws in Santa Barbara. She didn't choose to have her sweet cat served up as lunch to the local coyote. She most definitely did not choose cervical cancer.
I suppose that by now we know that I have the fairly human need to distance myself from things that hurt. I practically shunned my friends from St. Bonaventure after Shane died. I can't bear to speak about my mother's mother, or even go into the part of my parents' basement where I cried myself nauseous after returning from the ER. And here I am again, in full ability to communicate with people I respect and love, who supported me in my intellectual growth and personal flounderings, but I do not want to talk about jLiz. I won't forget her; no, I will curl myself around my guilt for every birthday I missed, for the times I didn't call, for not knowing how bad it all was. I'll cultivate and feed that guilt and make very sure it continues to sink its teeth deeper into my flesh.
I asked the Current Man in My Life if he noticed that I know a lot of dead people. Then I immediately said, "well of course you have. I keep inviting them over." How can I know what I'm doing and not stop it?
A few weeks ago, Labor Day actually, I snuck home on an overpriced flight to see family. Remember when this was a terrible idea for my sanity? Well, clearly, I'm old. And things have changed. Possibly it's this sense of entropy... that if I don't take every moment I can to see my nieces and nephew and brothers and parents, they will wither away and fade from me. The human body, it appears, is made of nothing terribly permanent. We are composed of fragile stuff.
And so I got on that flight on a whim, asking my roommate to throw a few things in my backpack and meet me at work so I could make the trip. My Uncle Maui was home on what he called his "Aloha Means Goodbye Tour." My grandmother Biv is 93 years old and pretty much takes it personally that we allowed her to get so old and worn out. She doesn't want to make it to 94. Uncle Maui spent days with her, just letting her bitch and watching her nod off while reading, sitting by her while she slept. He got infuriated and bored and fell in love with her - all the truest familial feelings a person can have. And he said goodbye.
I didn't see her at all because his time with her seemed too precious. I didn't want to interfere with this capsuled moment that I wish I'd had with Shane or Elizabeth or... well let's not list. But on the flight back I found myself thinking of her hands, my mother rubbing lotion into the soft, lax skin. She likes rose scents and rosy hues, and the backs of her hands are so much like rose petals after they droop on the stem. Soft, too soft, and fragile. The coils of your fingerprint seem to bite into that thin and tender petal and it wants to rip or fall.
I am so painfully aware of the ephemeral. I am aching for the strong people who, ultimately, fade and rip and fall limp in scattered petals.
Clearly, shoving this awareness into a tiny Box of Awful To Hide Away... well, it's not working. Not only that, it's created a sort of mottled lens through which I obliquely see the world, one that I know is beautiful and captivating but have not felt I could bear to see at full strength. I'm vowing, again, to be alive, in full knowledge of the complicated contract we sign when we decide to be hurt, overjoyed, ignored and thrilled and disappointed. I'm vowing to allow all things, again; to be a cog in the machine in faith that it will produce incredible joy alongside the suffering.
I will try, anyway, and I will tell you about it. Maybe you will hear me.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
and also red.
I was up in my parents' room, Baby Bean in her christmas outfit finally, after days of wearing nothing but her pajamas. She's six now, getting longer but still so small next to kids her age. Her face has changed shape, gone from cute to astonishingly pretty.
I brushed her hair back from her face as she sat primly on my mother's vanity stool. She was busy messing with the three mirrors my mother keeps there now that she has trifocals.
"Whoa, I'm upside down," she said, leaning into the first and going silly on me.
"Get up closer until you're right side up," I said. She approached the mirror slowly, expecting a trick of some kind.
"There!" she said, her nose nearly touching the surface.
"Why does Gramma have three mirrors?" she asked.
"Because each one shows her a different distance. She sees in three distances."
She sat up again and told me she wanted her hair way up, "like this," she said, with a fist on the top of her head, "like a rock star."
I brushed and brushed her soft hair. It's brown with a red tint to it and lighter streaks. It would be impossible to replicate that color in a salon. As I brushed she moved her head a bit, leaning into the caress of the brush like a cat. I caught her eye in the mirror.
"Actually, I think," she said, "that with his outfit, maybe not the rock star hair."
"What do you want, peanut?"
"Umm... I dunno."
"Braids?"
"Yeah, braids is good!"
"Okay, but you have to sit still for a while."
She sat up straight again and put her hands in her lap. I chattered to her about christmas, her brother, grandma's amazing tri-focal eyes. At some point I noticed she was staring at me again. I thought suddenly of this role reversal, the many times I sat here while my mother wrestled with my tangles and attempted french braids, later on when she helped me blow it dry and straighten it. I used to watch her face, the furrow in her forehead and the hairpins in her lips. She would talk around them as I asked her questions, a ponytail holder tight around her strong wrist.
"Aunt Jo, why is your hair brown and also red?" asked the Bean.
I smiled at her in the mirror as I completed the first braid. "Because I am cheap and also lazy," I said. This joke was not funny to her, so I gave her the real answer.
"Because I went to the salon and had it colored, like your mommy does." She nodded. "But it's been a while since I had it dyed. Now you can see my real color." She squinched up her nose. "Can you tell which one is my real color?" I asked.
"Ummmmmmm... the brown!" she said, hopping a little in her seat.
"Smart girl."
There was another answer I could have given her. I could have told her I don't see the point in spending money on myself these days. I could tell her I barely notice what I look like from day to day, only keeping to my strict patterns and rules about cleanliness and order. How do you ever tell a six year old girl that her Aunt Jo is so depressed that she can't imagine investing even that little bit in herself? It was insufferable to tell this child, the one my mother calls Jo accidentally, the one sitting just where I sat so many years ago, that I have curdled somehow and I don't know how to fix it, that I'm usually in the middle of a gesture to give up entirely.
I finished the second braid and wrapped a tiny clear ponytail holder around it.
"Okay, shake to see if it stays," I said. She shook her head fiercely from side to side, laughing. "Good. All done. Go show Grandma."
She skipped, actually skipped out of the room. I sat in front of the mirror and pulled my hair until my fingers hurt and the fierce need to cry melted away.
I brushed her hair back from her face as she sat primly on my mother's vanity stool. She was busy messing with the three mirrors my mother keeps there now that she has trifocals.
"Whoa, I'm upside down," she said, leaning into the first and going silly on me.
"Get up closer until you're right side up," I said. She approached the mirror slowly, expecting a trick of some kind.
"There!" she said, her nose nearly touching the surface.
"Why does Gramma have three mirrors?" she asked.
"Because each one shows her a different distance. She sees in three distances."
She sat up again and told me she wanted her hair way up, "like this," she said, with a fist on the top of her head, "like a rock star."
I brushed and brushed her soft hair. It's brown with a red tint to it and lighter streaks. It would be impossible to replicate that color in a salon. As I brushed she moved her head a bit, leaning into the caress of the brush like a cat. I caught her eye in the mirror.
"Actually, I think," she said, "that with his outfit, maybe not the rock star hair."
"What do you want, peanut?"
"Umm... I dunno."
"Braids?"
"Yeah, braids is good!"
"Okay, but you have to sit still for a while."
She sat up straight again and put her hands in her lap. I chattered to her about christmas, her brother, grandma's amazing tri-focal eyes. At some point I noticed she was staring at me again. I thought suddenly of this role reversal, the many times I sat here while my mother wrestled with my tangles and attempted french braids, later on when she helped me blow it dry and straighten it. I used to watch her face, the furrow in her forehead and the hairpins in her lips. She would talk around them as I asked her questions, a ponytail holder tight around her strong wrist.
"Aunt Jo, why is your hair brown and also red?" asked the Bean.
I smiled at her in the mirror as I completed the first braid. "Because I am cheap and also lazy," I said. This joke was not funny to her, so I gave her the real answer.
"Because I went to the salon and had it colored, like your mommy does." She nodded. "But it's been a while since I had it dyed. Now you can see my real color." She squinched up her nose. "Can you tell which one is my real color?" I asked.
"Ummmmmmm... the brown!" she said, hopping a little in her seat.
"Smart girl."
There was another answer I could have given her. I could have told her I don't see the point in spending money on myself these days. I could tell her I barely notice what I look like from day to day, only keeping to my strict patterns and rules about cleanliness and order. How do you ever tell a six year old girl that her Aunt Jo is so depressed that she can't imagine investing even that little bit in herself? It was insufferable to tell this child, the one my mother calls Jo accidentally, the one sitting just where I sat so many years ago, that I have curdled somehow and I don't know how to fix it, that I'm usually in the middle of a gesture to give up entirely.
I finished the second braid and wrapped a tiny clear ponytail holder around it.
"Okay, shake to see if it stays," I said. She shook her head fiercely from side to side, laughing. "Good. All done. Go show Grandma."
She skipped, actually skipped out of the room. I sat in front of the mirror and pulled my hair until my fingers hurt and the fierce need to cry melted away.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Seventh grade. I carried six notebooks most days for each subject, six binders, the occasional steno pad and calculator, all in a tired backpack populated by whole villages of broken pock-marked pencils and non-functional pens. The school year waxed and waned and my notebooks became predictably tattooed with notes, doodles, stains and other batterings.
I carried one folder. Inside this folder I kept the loose leaf collection of the awkward stories I wrote and let no one see. They were halting, haunting and very likely unfleshed. At the time I thought writing could only be an organic process – an unplanned and unsupervised ride powered by some punch-drunk muse.
The stories were universally dark… about suicide pacts, deadly car accidents, people wasting away with horrible diseases. If I had known what Goth or Emo meant, I might have found a niche. Perhaps not… I was horrified by the nightmare highway my muse continually chose. I was afraid and fascinated by my own propensity for darkness. It was manageable, however, because no one else knew.
It was eighth grade. That was the year terrible things began to happen. A classmate, already socially shunned and ridiculed, found out that his mother died during the school day. He disintegrated before our eyes into a mass of howls. That same year another classmate’s obese sister was found dead. There were rumors; she’d overdosed on diet pills, she’d had a heart attack, she’d choked on a sandwich, her brother killed her with emotional abuse. I felt I knew the truth then. These horrible things happened because I wrote them.
I remember so well the feeling that the events around me were like a camera’s iris, closing into tighter focus. I was choking inside that aperture like it was a 360 degree guillotine. Now I see that my brain was ready for all of it. I was an open soul, begging to be trod on and tried. I didn’t create the events; they blazed inward, highlighting pre-existing sensitivities. It was as though I had an acute sunburn in the winter time and was utterly surprised when dishwater scalded me.
I think of this today because my vocabulary of this life has expanded once more and opened me to new sensitivities. Where before I thought of cancer as a general, unfathomable disease, I can now hear the word cancer across a crowded subway train and it sets my brain reeling. I think of the women who call me at work begging for an earlier surgery. I think of the wheelchair-bound patients in the elevator with their wigs askew and their fragile, bare ankles. I think of how a nurse talked of one of her patients, how he already smelled like death.
So at my brother’s wedding my ears twitched open to the family friend, the woman we call “Aunt” and whose husband we call “Uncle.” Her cancer, I hadn’t known, was one I deal with daily. She asked me if I could pull strings to have her seen at Mass General. I told her, honestly, that I’m new there, and I have no idea. I didn’t want to discuss it further. I hated the immediacy of knowing the possibilities.
And now, a month later, another family friend was claimed by cancer. I saw the New York
Is it possible I was so self-involved before that I never noticed that the women I love on this earth are dying? Is there some energy in the world that draws these coincidences together? I want to believe that it has to do with this sensitivity, like the honing of a musical skill. I can hear the pitch and color of the word cancer in its full spectrum now. It existed before I could hear it and won’t stop its cacophonous echo now that I can.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
In the immortal words of D. Bowie, "Turn and face the strain."
Wednesday morning and I woke up in an immaculately clean room. I stretched for an hour, got up and assessed the milk situation (completely out), made a cup of jasmine green tea and a serving of corn mush. Everything is different from the last time I was out of milk; that’s what I thought to myself. Just a few months ago I was getting creative with all I could afford – cheap, chewy bread, eggs, and heads of lettuce. I made myself eat the greenest parts. I hate the really green parts. They offer no resistance for the teeth, but that’s where the vitamins hide.
A few months ago I would check my bank account daily to make sure no weird little fees were going to incapacitate my rent check. A few months ago I would wake up before God for my daily corporate coffee catechism: “Good morning, how are you today? Would you like room for milk? Soy milk is on the counter now. Have a nice day!”
Here it is, June of 2009. My brother Cripps got laid off and just lost his work-from-home job, too. My dad is always reading on the back deck when I call him, “Waiting for a business call.” My friends are scrambling to keep jobs they hate. And I got hired at the hospital.
This feeling is something like survivor’s guilt, I think. I’m thrilled, on one hand, to have lucked out so completely; I temped in two places, loved the second one and they loved me back. It was a mutual fit with some time to luxuriate and research if it made sense for me. I’m still adjusting, of course. I went from working 6 hour shifts at a coffee shop, running to old lady sitting, running to the kids’ clothing store… Now I have one job to dress for. One place to establish friendships. One set of people to surprise or disappoint. I can faithfully say I’ve never had just one thing on my plate until now. It’s jarring and strange, but I tell myself it’s a good thing.
Here’s the extraordinary part: I write the rent check without looking now. I can do it with one hand tied behind my back. I’d have to hold down the checkbook with my nose, but still…
All of this puts me in a better position for the week to come. I’m still scared shitless, but, y’know, when people ask what I do I have an answer that doesn’t make me cringe.
My brother Smacks gets married this weekend. I’m headed home.
I actually took off Monday and Tuesday (and clearly Wednesday) to prepare myself. I couldn’t explain it to anyone at work so I told them I had to catch up with doctors’ appointments. The truth is I need this time to breathe and be sure of myself. I cleaned the crap out of my room, I went through old journals, I fed myself kindly… I want to think of Boston while I’m there and remember how well I’ve done. I won’t be able to say it much so I have to know it.
The truth is that these are still lonely, scary days. I know the day will come when I’ll have a panic attack at the hospital and they’ll have to know a few things I don’t want to share. And I still have to face the part of me that was so sure I’d grow up to be something different – someone completely in my own skin, creative and growing and bursting with extra love to give out freely.
I’m not there yet. I’m getting there. I can almost see that person behind my reflection, kinda waving me forward, encouraging my steps.
A few months ago I would check my bank account daily to make sure no weird little fees were going to incapacitate my rent check. A few months ago I would wake up before God for my daily corporate coffee catechism: “Good morning, how are you today? Would you like room for milk? Soy milk is on the counter now. Have a nice day!”
Here it is, June of 2009. My brother Cripps got laid off and just lost his work-from-home job, too. My dad is always reading on the back deck when I call him, “Waiting for a business call.” My friends are scrambling to keep jobs they hate. And I got hired at the hospital.
This feeling is something like survivor’s guilt, I think. I’m thrilled, on one hand, to have lucked out so completely; I temped in two places, loved the second one and they loved me back. It was a mutual fit with some time to luxuriate and research if it made sense for me. I’m still adjusting, of course. I went from working 6 hour shifts at a coffee shop, running to old lady sitting, running to the kids’ clothing store… Now I have one job to dress for. One place to establish friendships. One set of people to surprise or disappoint. I can faithfully say I’ve never had just one thing on my plate until now. It’s jarring and strange, but I tell myself it’s a good thing.
Here’s the extraordinary part: I write the rent check without looking now. I can do it with one hand tied behind my back. I’d have to hold down the checkbook with my nose, but still…
All of this puts me in a better position for the week to come. I’m still scared shitless, but, y’know, when people ask what I do I have an answer that doesn’t make me cringe.
My brother Smacks gets married this weekend. I’m headed home.
I actually took off Monday and Tuesday (and clearly Wednesday) to prepare myself. I couldn’t explain it to anyone at work so I told them I had to catch up with doctors’ appointments. The truth is I need this time to breathe and be sure of myself. I cleaned the crap out of my room, I went through old journals, I fed myself kindly… I want to think of Boston while I’m there and remember how well I’ve done. I won’t be able to say it much so I have to know it.
The truth is that these are still lonely, scary days. I know the day will come when I’ll have a panic attack at the hospital and they’ll have to know a few things I don’t want to share. And I still have to face the part of me that was so sure I’d grow up to be something different – someone completely in my own skin, creative and growing and bursting with extra love to give out freely.
I’m not there yet. I’m getting there. I can almost see that person behind my reflection, kinda waving me forward, encouraging my steps.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Once again, that deep ache has solidified my ribcage. It's the ache of impossibility, I think. By that I mean I keep wanting the course of my life to shift to something it can't be. I want it to shift to loving families and exciting work and a healthy body. How is it that I can't get there? It's this Alice-y feeling of frustration - just barely catching a glimpse of the right path and not getting my feet on it in time.
To clarify; the ache isn't merely that I don't have satisfying work, it's that I don't have the courage to find it. It's not that my body isn't functional, it's that I have one more layer added to the nonfunctionality of my already messy body. It's not that it's my brother's 30th birthday tomorrow and I can't be there, it's that he doesn't want me there.
I feel my ribs hardening and cracking and resisting the expansion of my lungs. I can't make any of it right. I can't write a script for my life that anyone else will read out with me. "Just do this, stand here, and say the following," I want to say. It never, ever works that way.
To clarify; the ache isn't merely that I don't have satisfying work, it's that I don't have the courage to find it. It's not that my body isn't functional, it's that I have one more layer added to the nonfunctionality of my already messy body. It's not that it's my brother's 30th birthday tomorrow and I can't be there, it's that he doesn't want me there.
I feel my ribs hardening and cracking and resisting the expansion of my lungs. I can't make any of it right. I can't write a script for my life that anyone else will read out with me. "Just do this, stand here, and say the following," I want to say. It never, ever works that way.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
a baleful bachelorette
Galloping toward me with terrifying velocity, here comes my ten-year high school reunion. Put aside the usual stressors of the holidays and think of the horror of facing high school all over again. I wasn’t so good at it the first time.
I freely acknowledge that I’m not actually going back to high school. It’s not like the movies – we’re not queuing up outside the gym in nice suits and shoulder-padded dresses, playing grown-up in the nursery. The class president (who’s actually not a douche, thank goodness) organized some space at a bar big enough to accommodate a crowd.
Not sure who will show up, but I know I won’t remember names or details. We will ask each other, “So what are you doing these days?” and, “How’s life in
It’s occurred to me that I should have a sentence prepared that I can repeat on command; something simple and only slightly artful where facts are smudged. I need something translucent but not transparent. No one need know how much I’ve struggled over the last ten years, right?
My parents, who were in town this weekend for a chorus concert, bless’m, reminded me that my view of my own life is a bit exclusive these days. My mother reminded me of grad school, travels abroad, publishing, non-profits,
Here’s the fascinating thing, however: my mother kept bringing up my single status. She said that I could tell them I was “in love, and now looking again,” to appease them. I know that a ton of people from my class are married or attached, but it never occurred to me to be uncomfortable as a bachelorette. She mentioned it enough to make me realize how preoccupied she is with my marriage prospects, or total lack thereof. This must be one of the things she worries about when she frets away with thoughts of me. To her, I must be lonely.
So I present to you yet another dimension of parent-induced insanity. While they’re here they not only convince me that I’m unstable, unable to support myself, sickly and pitiful, but now I’m also incredibly lonely – adrift in the world without a captain to steer me right.
Yes, I know that’s ridiculous. I know I should have some rallying anger against the very thought. I should dig up thoughts of all my excellent friends, tepid dates, excellent daily flirtings; all the things that show my own agency in creating connections in this city. Alas, there’s something tempting in my post-parental-visit emotional hangover that pushes me toward self-pity. I am alone. I am lonely. I am unloved… even (gasp!) ten years after High School. I am a hopeless case.
So this is the feeling that propels tv heroines to take a stranger to a party and pretend he’s the fiancée. Silly.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Oh holidays.
So.
I don't go home for Thanksgiving. I haven't been home for Thanksgiving since undergrad, I believe, and this has worked well for me. I have my little ritual: rent movies that I would be embarrassed to watch with other people around, watch the parade in the morning and cook recipes from friends for a mini-feast.
Last year I ended up at a serious feast after working the day at the cafe. That worked out alright. It was a huge crowd of friends and I enjoyed myself, but honestly, was pretty happy to get the hell outta dodge when it was all over.
The year before I spent with The Novelist's family in a quaint picturebook New England house. Roaring fire, spiked hot cocoa, fair isle sweaters included.
This year I want to work at the cafe, and I'll tell you several excellent reasons why:
1. I don't need to go home, and several other people do. Being available that day means other people can spend time with their families. That's cool with me.
2. I like to see my regulars on holidays when they expect us to be closed and are ever-so-happy when they see we're open. They need their coffee before they travel, they need a place to study for the paper that's due next Monday (there's always a paper due after Thanksgiving), they need a warm place to take the kids for an hour so their mother/father/caregiver doesn't kill them with a turkey baster. And the hospital doesn't close on holidays, does it? No sir. How pissed would you be if you had to do surgery on Thanksgiving and there was no good coffee around to start your day? PISSED, I tell you.
3. I like to laugh at foreigners who have no idea why the whole city closes down so people can eat turkey in celebration of a handful of religious zealots swindling the aboriginal culture. Poor foreigners.
4. We make mad tips, and we split them for that day. Whatever we're tipped we take home, on the spot. This usually doubles my tip income for the week.
5. It's a palpable excuse for staying in Boston. Maybe that should be number one.
Our manager conducted a casual poll on everyone's holiday plans and discovered that - lo! - all the college kids would be gone. Shocker. He scrambled to figure out everyone's availability. I told him that not only am I available, I would LOVE to work on Thanksgiving.
He... didn't schedule me.
Hmm. What now?
I could go on with my mini-feast, but I honestly can't afford the groceries. I could acquiesce to several impatient friends who have invited me to their assorted meals. I could beg some of the people who ARE scheduled to give me that shift.
Yeah. Think I'll beg.
I don't go home for Thanksgiving. I haven't been home for Thanksgiving since undergrad, I believe, and this has worked well for me. I have my little ritual: rent movies that I would be embarrassed to watch with other people around, watch the parade in the morning and cook recipes from friends for a mini-feast.
Last year I ended up at a serious feast after working the day at the cafe. That worked out alright. It was a huge crowd of friends and I enjoyed myself, but honestly, was pretty happy to get the hell outta dodge when it was all over.
The year before I spent with The Novelist's family in a quaint picturebook New England house. Roaring fire, spiked hot cocoa, fair isle sweaters included.
This year I want to work at the cafe, and I'll tell you several excellent reasons why:
1. I don't need to go home, and several other people do. Being available that day means other people can spend time with their families. That's cool with me.
2. I like to see my regulars on holidays when they expect us to be closed and are ever-so-happy when they see we're open. They need their coffee before they travel, they need a place to study for the paper that's due next Monday (there's always a paper due after Thanksgiving), they need a warm place to take the kids for an hour so their mother/father/caregiver doesn't kill them with a turkey baster. And the hospital doesn't close on holidays, does it? No sir. How pissed would you be if you had to do surgery on Thanksgiving and there was no good coffee around to start your day? PISSED, I tell you.
3. I like to laugh at foreigners who have no idea why the whole city closes down so people can eat turkey in celebration of a handful of religious zealots swindling the aboriginal culture. Poor foreigners.
4. We make mad tips, and we split them for that day. Whatever we're tipped we take home, on the spot. This usually doubles my tip income for the week.
5. It's a palpable excuse for staying in Boston. Maybe that should be number one.
Our manager conducted a casual poll on everyone's holiday plans and discovered that - lo! - all the college kids would be gone. Shocker. He scrambled to figure out everyone's availability. I told him that not only am I available, I would LOVE to work on Thanksgiving.
He... didn't schedule me.
Hmm. What now?
I could go on with my mini-feast, but I honestly can't afford the groceries. I could acquiesce to several impatient friends who have invited me to their assorted meals. I could beg some of the people who ARE scheduled to give me that shift.
Yeah. Think I'll beg.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
good grief?
Watching one of my closest friends deal with the slow whittling away of her grandfather, I’ve been a valuable support because I’ve seen it. I can sympathize. I can do what she needs me to do, which is mostly to exist in common knowledge; to share the onus.
And then, when she’s not looking, I choke on my memories and the freshly overturned soil of my past losses. I ache in that weird spot in my chest where my heart must be squeezing itself in useless, useless grief.
How is it that my life is most punctuated by funerals? I’m trying to figure this out: is it that there have been more in my life than in others? Or was it timing? I started going to funerals when I was eleven, so it’s possible that I’ve clung to those experiences because of the absolute shock to my eleven-year-old mind with the first one. Psychologically it makes sense that I’m still ruminating over something that was so bewildering then. It left a big messy pile in my brain that won’t right itself.
Then I think that maybe this is natural, too. The grieving process has no set time limit. Who can say how long a person can hurt? Memories can blindside you whenever they surface. I can catch a scent of beeswax and find myself transported to the Russian Orthodox church, kissing a paper crown on my grandmother’s forehead with my brain whirring away, trying to figure out if I killed her with inaction. Countless hospital patients come in and out of the café with their tired gaits and pinched faces, all evoking the Via Dolorosa of a passage to death. Without warning I’m eleven again, pressing myself against the too-clean wall of a hospital corridor, desperately seeking the courage to go in and look at my dried-out grandfather, speak to him, smile at him, bring him some last comforts, avoiding the leering ghosts in wheelchairs who cough around their dismantling bodies.
The truth is that I forgot about the healing process entirely. I’m separated enough from those family and friends, those with whom I mourned, to have forgotten the period of communal laughter and tears. My friend had piles of pictures with her last night. There she was with various embarrassing hairstyles and awkward body shapes, laughing and loved by her warm grandfather. Here’s the beach house where they spent their Augusts together, the whole family. Here’s the graduation party for her brother. Here are the countless times she got stuck or lost and he reached in to untangle the problem and deliver her to safety. Here are the jokes and the memories – stories she’d never heard before and the stories they’ve all memorized by rote.
The wake is tonight. Shane’s was the last wake I attended, inappropriately dressed and manic with proprietal grief. I remember the vast line, the clogged funeral home, his parents smiling and sharing memories, graciously, so graciously making a space for the rest of us to mourn him. I’d turned over a box of artifacts to them: livid paper towel doodles of inside jokes and odd notes that showed his bizarre and contagious sense of humor. I finally got to meet his high school friends and the all the people who’d watched him go through his childhood dramas. We all poured our love and grief into the middle of that space. We fed off of it desperately. I gave and took angrily, not knowing what I would need for my own stores in the coming years without him.
I hope for my friend that her process is more cathartic. God, that sounds almost clinical, but I do mean it. I hope she cries her heart out and then finds that space that hurts with emptiness, and slowly gathers memories to fill it in again over the years. There will be the spot on the pew where her grandfather should have sat at her wedding. She will tell her babies about how he would have loved to meet them. She’ll be caught off guard reaching for the phone when she needs to know which back road leads to her destination, realizing she can’t rely on Gramps this time. It will hurt, but it will also slowly heal.
Monday, October 20, 2008
October hauntings
Wes once wrote a supportive response to a post about nightmares I'd had (also in October, I noted): "I do think writing one's dreams - letting them out for others to see, too - takes away their power," he said. I guess I've dabbled in dreamlogging (like weblogging, right?) here and there, when my dreams force my hand. Lately they've been fairly forceful.
The night before last I was on a huge ship of some kind. There was a danger lurking, and a kind of us-versus-them tension. I'm not sure who made up the crew of people on my side, but the other side was rumored to be unnatural; maybe they'd attack as trolls, or bats, or shadows. When they did attack I thought they were visitors.
They walked onto the ship from the sea, normal people in boring clothes with welcoming smiles, easy conversations. At some point I became aware that they were specters of some kind - projections from the true fiends who hid somewhere else. We tried to attack them but their unreal bodies proved impermeable to hooks, broken glass, fireplace pokers, and even, I believe, some kind of heavy kitchen utensil I'd found. A meat mallet? Something strange.
When the real bodies of the enemies arrived we couldn't tell which ones to spend our energy attacking. They were identical to their specters and seemingly benign. They had placid faces and boring clothes. I still felt the need to attack. My poker would deflect off of a specter body and sink squishily into the real body, loosing blood and screams and pain. Meanwhile the ship steadily sank - not tipsy like the Titanic, but evenly, grade by grade, the way I imagine the coasts disappearing with global warming. I woke up with a Charlie horse, all my muscles tense and pulsing.
The night after that I dreamed about my father. He was much older, saggy and little. My brothers and I were playing a kind of serious game, keeping a wine bottle out of his hands. At least, I was keeping the wine bottle out of his hands - my brothers kept handing it back and forth between them, and occasionally handing it straight to him without seeming to notice.
When my father drank from the bottle we could all hear the liquid splashing through his dried-up organs. It leaked out of his chest and onto his chair and left holes. He never looked at any of us. His eyes were grey instead of their usual warm brown, and he seemed blind.
My brothers were talking and arguing but my voice, as in so many of my dreams, grew tinier the more I tried to shout. I tired to whisper to see if the opposite would be true, but found that whispering shut me into a different room. When I tried to yell the walls would vanish and I'd be back in the game, but useless.
I've had several dreams about my body lately. They seem to be about privacy - like not being able to find a bathroom to change in, or often one thought I have will expose a part of my body to the person to whom I'm talking. For instance, the person will be telling me something, and I'll think, "I should write this down," except every time I think that a part of my shirt goes invisible and the person can now see my left breast and a big scar on it. Everything hinges on word play and I can't figure out the code.
I have this repeating image, too. I wouldn't call it a dream. In the vision there's a little girl swinging in a dark space. She's clinging, actually, and I think it's a rope at first, but then I look and look at it and the image reveals itself. The girl is clinging to a long and delicate set of vertebrae that stretch upward into darkness. She's near the bottom, her legs laced through and her arms clutching like it's a swing or a rope ladder. She's stuck - she can't go up or down. There's nothing around her, just the bones and the stuff joining them, floating in that space.
My mother tried to help me with my nightmares when I was younger, because they've always been vivid. She told me that if I thought about the way the different dreams felt I'd get closer to their purpose. She thought of dreams as the brain's recovery time. In dreams, according to my mother, you let feelings surface that you were unable to feel during wakefulness. So, if the overriding sensation is anxiety, frustration, tenacity - that feeling is worth investigating, and you can kind of throw out the symbols that seem to point elsewhere.
I kind of buy that, but I think I've read too much to allow my dreams to just lie. My brain gives things purpose all the time because I like to think that way. I think this makes my dreams more pungent, in a way.
That being said, the most disturbing thing about the aforementioned dreams is actually my own disgust of them. I'm repulsed by my brain's ability to come up with gory, macabre and violent dreams. And so, unsurprisingly, I suppose it all comes down to my overall disgust with my lack of control - over my life, my body, and especially my own mind.
The night before last I was on a huge ship of some kind. There was a danger lurking, and a kind of us-versus-them tension. I'm not sure who made up the crew of people on my side, but the other side was rumored to be unnatural; maybe they'd attack as trolls, or bats, or shadows. When they did attack I thought they were visitors.
They walked onto the ship from the sea, normal people in boring clothes with welcoming smiles, easy conversations. At some point I became aware that they were specters of some kind - projections from the true fiends who hid somewhere else. We tried to attack them but their unreal bodies proved impermeable to hooks, broken glass, fireplace pokers, and even, I believe, some kind of heavy kitchen utensil I'd found. A meat mallet? Something strange.
When the real bodies of the enemies arrived we couldn't tell which ones to spend our energy attacking. They were identical to their specters and seemingly benign. They had placid faces and boring clothes. I still felt the need to attack. My poker would deflect off of a specter body and sink squishily into the real body, loosing blood and screams and pain. Meanwhile the ship steadily sank - not tipsy like the Titanic, but evenly, grade by grade, the way I imagine the coasts disappearing with global warming. I woke up with a Charlie horse, all my muscles tense and pulsing.
The night after that I dreamed about my father. He was much older, saggy and little. My brothers and I were playing a kind of serious game, keeping a wine bottle out of his hands. At least, I was keeping the wine bottle out of his hands - my brothers kept handing it back and forth between them, and occasionally handing it straight to him without seeming to notice.
When my father drank from the bottle we could all hear the liquid splashing through his dried-up organs. It leaked out of his chest and onto his chair and left holes. He never looked at any of us. His eyes were grey instead of their usual warm brown, and he seemed blind.
My brothers were talking and arguing but my voice, as in so many of my dreams, grew tinier the more I tried to shout. I tired to whisper to see if the opposite would be true, but found that whispering shut me into a different room. When I tried to yell the walls would vanish and I'd be back in the game, but useless.
I've had several dreams about my body lately. They seem to be about privacy - like not being able to find a bathroom to change in, or often one thought I have will expose a part of my body to the person to whom I'm talking. For instance, the person will be telling me something, and I'll think, "I should write this down," except every time I think that a part of my shirt goes invisible and the person can now see my left breast and a big scar on it. Everything hinges on word play and I can't figure out the code.
I have this repeating image, too. I wouldn't call it a dream. In the vision there's a little girl swinging in a dark space. She's clinging, actually, and I think it's a rope at first, but then I look and look at it and the image reveals itself. The girl is clinging to a long and delicate set of vertebrae that stretch upward into darkness. She's near the bottom, her legs laced through and her arms clutching like it's a swing or a rope ladder. She's stuck - she can't go up or down. There's nothing around her, just the bones and the stuff joining them, floating in that space.
My mother tried to help me with my nightmares when I was younger, because they've always been vivid. She told me that if I thought about the way the different dreams felt I'd get closer to their purpose. She thought of dreams as the brain's recovery time. In dreams, according to my mother, you let feelings surface that you were unable to feel during wakefulness. So, if the overriding sensation is anxiety, frustration, tenacity - that feeling is worth investigating, and you can kind of throw out the symbols that seem to point elsewhere.
I kind of buy that, but I think I've read too much to allow my dreams to just lie. My brain gives things purpose all the time because I like to think that way. I think this makes my dreams more pungent, in a way.
That being said, the most disturbing thing about the aforementioned dreams is actually my own disgust of them. I'm repulsed by my brain's ability to come up with gory, macabre and violent dreams. And so, unsurprisingly, I suppose it all comes down to my overall disgust with my lack of control - over my life, my body, and especially my own mind.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Labors of love
I've been working on projects for the little people in my life, because it's all I can do, financially. I can't even afford birthday cards, but I can sew a little, so I'm trying out my Project Runway skills.
Here's an apron I made for the little one I babysat:
She's officially THE Starbucks baby, so it seemed appropriate. I'd show you a pic of her wearing it but I don't think her parents would appreciate it.
I made this as a going-away present. The mean terrible parents moved to Seattle without asking me. How selfish!
And then Baby Girl turned the big FIVE this week. I called her up on her birthday and she answered saying, "I'm five years old and it's my birthday all day!" She'd had a bit of sugar at that point.
I went home this weekend and it wasn't terrible, considering my brothers are still douche booketts and my mother is chronically coughing and my dad is a bag of awful. It was all worth it to see Baby Girl in my latest creation. I give you... the princess cape!
I know you can't tell that it's purple brocade with a satin lining (which, together, cost me less than $10) but it IS and it's beautiful and she seems to like it!
Score one for Aunt Jo!
I'm back early from my trip home, by the way, because I have lovely white dots on my tonsils. Strep, I believe, to be confirmed after a 3:30 doctor's appointment that I cannot afford to go to. Sigh.
Here's an apron I made for the little one I babysat:
She's officially THE Starbucks baby, so it seemed appropriate. I'd show you a pic of her wearing it but I don't think her parents would appreciate it.I made this as a going-away present. The mean terrible parents moved to Seattle without asking me. How selfish!
And then Baby Girl turned the big FIVE this week. I called her up on her birthday and she answered saying, "I'm five years old and it's my birthday all day!" She'd had a bit of sugar at that point.
I went home this weekend and it wasn't terrible, considering my brothers are still douche booketts and my mother is chronically coughing and my dad is a bag of awful. It was all worth it to see Baby Girl in my latest creation. I give you... the princess cape!
I know you can't tell that it's purple brocade with a satin lining (which, together, cost me less than $10) but it IS and it's beautiful and she seems to like it!
Score one for Aunt Jo!
I'm back early from my trip home, by the way, because I have lovely white dots on my tonsils. Strep, I believe, to be confirmed after a 3:30 doctor's appointment that I cannot afford to go to. Sigh.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Just so ya know...
The following things, since I know you've been wondering, have crawled up my ass of late:
1. Lost my T pass. The monthly one. The $60 one. I'm simultaneously stranded and strapped for cash.
2. Just paid my September rent yesterday. Can't imagine getting the funds together to pay October, especially since rent goes up Oct. 1.
3. My roommate ignores me or returns all queries with growls and grunts. Won't explain why, but I imagine it has to do with her passive aggressive attempts to get ME to call our landlord about HER mouse problem. I did call, and got yelled at by the surly receptionist because someone else has been calling her nonstop.
4. Three panic attacks at work in five days. Bad ones. Crying, gulping, gagging bad. So fucking embarrassing. Usually follow my trip home to Brookline with a straight-to-bedroom-shut-door cryfest. Could contribute to roommate's testiness.
5. Local babysitting job drying up abruptly, as the family shall abscond to Seattle tomorrow. Dealing with my mini-bereavement because, as usual, I have fallen utterly in love with the little one.
6. Did I mention the money problem? Have no insurance, stopped going to physical therapy (or any other therapy for that matter), thus in pain. Keep selling my stuff hoping to boost my finances - s'long file cabinet, stereo, maybe guitar next. Returned PAYLESS shoes I bought for interviews because a) I can't afford $12 shoes right now and b) I'm too gutless for interviews. What was I thinking? Also can't leave the house because (refer to item 1) I can't afford to go anywhere, see friends, eat food...
7. The Baby Girl's birthday is October 9th. Raise your hand if you can afford (mentally, physically, financially, emotionally) a trip home to Le Victoire - NOT SO FAST JoBiv!
8. Losing weight. Not on purpose, but none of my clothes fit correctly. Paradoxically always feel dumpy and gross and fat in my clothes.
9. Election season. My wee brain and shrinking faith can't take another bad one.
10. Because there might as well be 10... JoCD is back in full force. Lists, scratches, bald spots, blatherings...
1. Lost my T pass. The monthly one. The $60 one. I'm simultaneously stranded and strapped for cash.
2. Just paid my September rent yesterday. Can't imagine getting the funds together to pay October, especially since rent goes up Oct. 1.
3. My roommate ignores me or returns all queries with growls and grunts. Won't explain why, but I imagine it has to do with her passive aggressive attempts to get ME to call our landlord about HER mouse problem. I did call, and got yelled at by the surly receptionist because someone else has been calling her nonstop.
4. Three panic attacks at work in five days. Bad ones. Crying, gulping, gagging bad. So fucking embarrassing. Usually follow my trip home to Brookline with a straight-to-bedroom-shut-door cryfest. Could contribute to roommate's testiness.
5. Local babysitting job drying up abruptly, as the family shall abscond to Seattle tomorrow. Dealing with my mini-bereavement because, as usual, I have fallen utterly in love with the little one.
6. Did I mention the money problem? Have no insurance, stopped going to physical therapy (or any other therapy for that matter), thus in pain. Keep selling my stuff hoping to boost my finances - s'long file cabinet, stereo, maybe guitar next. Returned PAYLESS shoes I bought for interviews because a) I can't afford $12 shoes right now and b) I'm too gutless for interviews. What was I thinking? Also can't leave the house because (refer to item 1) I can't afford to go anywhere, see friends, eat food...
7. The Baby Girl's birthday is October 9th. Raise your hand if you can afford (mentally, physically, financially, emotionally) a trip home to Le Victoire - NOT SO FAST JoBiv!
8. Losing weight. Not on purpose, but none of my clothes fit correctly. Paradoxically always feel dumpy and gross and fat in my clothes.
9. Election season. My wee brain and shrinking faith can't take another bad one.
10. Because there might as well be 10... JoCD is back in full force. Lists, scratches, bald spots, blatherings...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Nuggets
On the summer days or presidents’ week vacation, I’d follow my mother around the house, curious about what she did on a normal day. With the boys somewhat self-sufficient and me always more responsible than they were, she took on the onus of our stuffed house, her parents, and my father. We mostly took up emotional energy, I realize now, and actively undid all her work on the house without realizing it.
We always joked about my mother leaving glasses of water all over the house. In her bustling she’d realize she was thirsty, forget she’d already filled and left a glass of water around the kitchen, and bring the next cup of water with her wherever she was headed. She’d get busy or called away by her obnoxious kids, and later that evening we’d have to collect her water glasses when we ran the dishwasher. More often than not, one of the glasses would end up spilled before the day was over. Thus they were christened, “water bombs.”
I suppose in a house of six people the logic goes thisaway: Look, there’s a glass of water; I wonder if it’s mine. It can’t possibly be mine, there are five other people, plus guests, roaming this house right now. At least three of them have hacking colds, too. If I move it, one of the kids will yell about me throwing out his glass of water. I will leave it.
So when some skinny elbow or flailing overexcited hand brushed one off a shelf, or the hearth, or the washing machine, or the end table… the permutations are endless. We all did it, and we all smiled patiently, laughed together, and screamed out, “Water Bomb!” My mother rolled her eyes, surely thinking they couldn’t all be her glasses of water, and handed us the paper towels.
Just as a game, though, when I was following my mother around on those rainy vacation days, I’d count myself lucky if I found her morning tea. It was never anywhere near the kitchen. I figured out it was closest to the location of the first errand of the day, left cold and lonely in a linen closet, the basement, the shelf above the recycling in the garage, next to the stack of library books that needed to go back. I’d find it and rejoice privately, the real thing after ten false-gold nuggets in the form of water bombs. And before I’d wander back to the kitchen with it, or offer it to her wherever she was, I’d take a sip.
Black tea, English breakfast or the equivalent, not enough sugar for me, a lot of skim milk, stone cold. Maybe this explains why I can never drink mine hot.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Et voila!
Two versions, and this is merely the beginning...
1.
"Who's ever heard of a
parakeet funeral?"
Christopher asked as we
put the corpse in
Strawberry tupperware
(anti-microbial)
hoping against hope it
wasn't a sin.
Not bad, eh?
2.
Maybe it wasn't an
Avian heart attack:
We can't blame Dad for Doc's
tragic malaise--
Could be some allergy
anaphylactical.
Parakeet's seemingly
bescorn a cage.
So that one forces a rhyme, sentence structure, and sense, but it has promise, no?
1.
"Who's ever heard of a
parakeet funeral?"
Christopher asked as we
put the corpse in
Strawberry tupperware
(anti-microbial)
hoping against hope it
wasn't a sin.
Not bad, eh?
2.
Maybe it wasn't an
Avian heart attack:
We can't blame Dad for Doc's
tragic malaise--
Could be some allergy
anaphylactical.
Parakeet's seemingly
bescorn a cage.
So that one forces a rhyme, sentence structure, and sense, but it has promise, no?
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Regular customer: Hey, Jo, when's your chorus concert?
Jo: It's this weekend actually, on Saturday.
RC: Oh that's great! Are your parents coming?
Jo: Yep, coming in on Saturday and staying the night.
Mitch (from across the cafe): Goddammit!
RC: (bewildered expression)
Jo: Mitch hates it when I see my parents.
Mitch: She's freakin' useless for like a week after.
RC: That bad?
Jo and Mitch together: THAT bad.
Jo: It's this weekend actually, on Saturday.
RC: Oh that's great! Are your parents coming?
Jo: Yep, coming in on Saturday and staying the night.
Mitch (from across the cafe): Goddammit!
RC: (bewildered expression)
Jo: Mitch hates it when I see my parents.
Mitch: She's freakin' useless for like a week after.
RC: That bad?
Jo and Mitch together: THAT bad.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
silhouette nouveau
Got m'hairs cut. One of my regulars insisted on cutting it as I would be an instant advertisement for his shop. Smart, and he gave me a deeep discount. He also insisted on coloring it. I'm not so comfortable with the highlights, but hey, it's only hair.My brother's lung, oh worriers, is on the mend. They've blown it up, done some confusing surgery and sealed him shut. He's still in the hospital and they'll release him when he's able to take pain medication orally. Should be soon.
I'm going home for Easter.
Sigh.
Monday, March 10, 2008
My brother's lung
... went POP again.
He's okay, it's re-inflated, they're planning surgery, he's not in much pain, the babies are taken care of...
but I guess I'm going home for Easter.
Because I need to see him
and poke him for myself to make sure he's still alive. And then beat him up for not quitting smoking when he said he would. And then hug him but not too hard lest he burst something else important.
He's okay, it's re-inflated, they're planning surgery, he's not in much pain, the babies are taken care of...
but I guess I'm going home for Easter.
Because I need to see him
and poke him for myself to make sure he's still alive. And then beat him up for not quitting smoking when he said he would. And then hug him but not too hard lest he burst something else important.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)