Sex and the City

Okay, I'm addicted to "Sex and the City." I never saw it when it ran on HBO, but I love it on TBS (and don't mind the cleaned up versions. I like sex, but come on, who needs soft porn). The clothes, the drama, the friendship--it's all great. Carrie is my hero right now. She and I are wardrobe twins, separated at birth by a fluke of bank accounts. And fat cells. But still, if you want to know what kind of clothes I'm drawn to, just watch an episode of SATC. You'll see the crazy stuff I'm into.

Back in high school, I came up with some amazing combinations--pajama bottoms with body suits; silk shirts with wool shorts *and* leggings; men's hats and boys' blazers. And it usually worked, in my own whacky way. Then I went to college and got more conservative, although not too much more conservative, when I really think about some of the quasi-pirate outfits I pulled off my sophomore year. And then the year before last, when I made the Victorian-style skirt (with petticoat). But my inner fashionista is still champing at the bit. I need ... Gaultier. Fendi. Vintage. Or at least more hats!

Kissing Woolie Bears

Fi is so cute. The last couple of days, we've had great luck finding cool bugs on our walks. And what's really cute is that she wants to kiss them all. You have never seen anything more adorable than a toddler smooching a woolie bear caterpillar.

No, don't worry--I didn't let her lips actually touch it. I think they're poisonous or something.

When Night equals Day

Last night was incredible. Fiona and I went out for a walk around the neighborhood just as the sun was setting. The moon was already up, a perfect half-circle in the sky, and in the west, a peachy stain colored the odd wisp of cloud.

It felt so amazing to stand in the cemetery and watch the sun give way its hold on the world. It hung an extra wistful moment at the brink of the hills, then, in the moment I turned my head to watch Fi scrabble up an uneven step, plunged behind the trees. The moon was suddenly much brighter. All around, the world held its magical breath. And the seasons turned.

Tonight we stepped out for our stroll, the same sunset moment as the day before. But this evening's magic was a different shade of magic. The Crone stood unabashed in the sky, moon-face broader than the night before. Her cold wisdom was evident in the crushed leaves beneath my sandals, and the cruelty of our cat's snatch at a fat, grey mouse. The little animal shrieked with pain and fear as Omega danced around it; then, as we drew near, he snapped the creature up, not trusting us too near his treasure.

My heart shook inside me, aching to save the poor little mouse. But logic stilled my hand. Once bitten by a cat, there isn't much hope for an animal--there's just too much damage. But I felt winter-worn as we picked our way home. I can respect the Crone and her ways, but I do not love her.

A very cool boy

If you want a little inside glimpse of my life, check out my brother's webpage. He's such a groovy dude!

Safe harbor

Erin and I hooked up on Saturday, and when she wrote it up in her blog, it was amazingly touching. It hit a chord in me--that "she understands!" chord. The reasons she came home: they're mine. We came home to find safe harbor.

After years on my own (I started college at 16, and except for a handful of holidays, pretty much stayed out in the world), I felt so worn down. There were the overcomeable difficulties, like troubles with jobs and cramped, dingy apartments, and then there were the deeper scars, like the crippling loss of confidence after quitting music. It was starting to get harder and harder to get over the little slings and arrows of my fate (you know, dumb stuff like losing my boyfriend of 4 years); I was just too emotionally exhausted. And I guess I knew deep down there was no way someone as soggy and miserable as me could possibly do any justice to the sweet baby I was given. So I fled.

It's the best decision I've ever made. Sure, I don't have any money, and I feel like a mooch. But I'm whole again. Happy and confident the way I haven't been since I was in high school. And I've broken away from all the crap I've absorbed out there in the world. I'm writing; I'm living; I'm smiling.

happy reunions

Wow! I just had lunch with one of my oldest friends for the first time in years. It felt good. It wasn't like we were exactly the same people, but we had kept the same old connection. Sometimes when you get together with long-lost pals, you feel horribly uncomfortable. Not this time! Erin and I had a pretty good time.

I hope she feels the same way!

Really bad stuff

So I know it's wrong, but somewhere between July and Now, I've just become incredibly disillusioned with this year's election. Oh sure, I'm still going to vote--I'm not suicidal, after all, and I want to do something to get rid of Bush. But I just don't feel like there's much of a point in getting worked up about politics right now. When the choice is Turkey Ham or Turkey Salami, you just get sad thinking about all the turkey farms out in the world.

Mean Reds

I watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" a couple nights ago, the first time since I'd read the story, and felt a big surge of disapointment over the ending. I knw it's Hollywood, but the happy ending was so unbelievable. How could Holly Golightly ever settle down with any man? She's not even alive.

The mean reds--what a beautiful term, so eloquent, so evocative--ate Holly alive. She was an empty shell, just clinging to the world for her one last connection: her brother, Fred. With his death, she was cut loose. No man could bring her back from that abyss.

Sorry. This was a bad aside, poorly written, tres lame. But I've been thinking about the mean reds a lot lately. Sometimes they pick me up and swallow me whole. I worry I'll never be able to be a good mom because of them. They unhinge me, untie me from my mind. I hate to see myself swimming in a mean red sea.

But there's no Tiffany's on Oregon coast.

ewww

Just a humorous note. We have a standard desk chair in front of our computer, and the seat is stuffed with foam rubber. If you fart in this chair, is soaks up the smelly gases, releasing them in a revolting explosion when the chair's next user plunks down on the seat. I am frequently the target of this nasty prank.

My brother is an evil gas bag! My brother is an evil gas bag. My brother is an evil gas bag! My brother is an evil gas bag. My brother is an evil gas bag! My brother is an evil gas bag. My brother is an evil gas bag!

Not a lot

I can't think of much to write about--there's sort of an empty spot in my brain today. I guess it's because we went shopping, so I'm totally off schedule and a little bit drained. Isn't it funny how shopping will do that to you?

What was I shopping for, you ask? Why, shoes, of course. Something to go with the Pleasant Peasant dress I'm wearing for the Pennsylvania Wedding. It actually came the other day, and I had to send it back--much too big. Horrendously, nastily too big. I hope the small size gets here in time!

We found no good shoes (big surprise). I wanted a pair of little China-doll flats, which are easy to find in Portland, but a rare commodity on the coast. I thought maybe some whacky embroidered slippers would do the job, but they didn't even have any at the import store. Fred Meyer didn't even have any of those Isotoner ballet-style slippers. A complete strike out.

So I wasted a whole day on nothing. Well, not entirely nothing. I got a new sweater (orange!), a shiny skirt, and two black shirts. That has to count a little.

I suppose I should try writing, but I might just slob around and read a little. My brain just isn't up to my imaginary world right now.

The Dress

I have vowed not to get too fat for the bridesmaid dress. Operation Diet is in order. It already is bad!

Damn reading, anyway

So last night I was reading a book called "Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood," by some lady. It was a very insightful examination of marketing for children, and I honestly thought I was having a heart attack as I read it. My chest knotted; breathing was a struggle. My stomach twisted and heaved. Reading her words, I just couldn't see any hope for my child. How could I, a single mother with few resources, hope to shield her from a society bent on turning her into a mindless, heartless drone? A monster?

I thought about throwing all her toys away--at least all the silly ones that talked or sang or squawked. I thought about blowing up our tv. I certainly regretted buying her the "Sesame Street" overalls I'd picked up at the consignment store that afternoon. What was I doing to my baby, teaching her to love Elmo and Big Bird and all those other fuzzy puppets? Sixteen months old, and I have already failed her.

Maybe it's silly to fall into despair, but I honestly can't see any hope for a good life when society works so hard to undo everything good for human beings. The government serves the corporations and the corporations want nothing more than for us to buy, buy, buy--with no concern for our hearts or minds or expanding waist lines.

Damn reading, anyway. If I hadn't read that book, I wouldn't be cursing myself or predicting a new dark age. I'd have my head back in the sand, as I prefer.

Horoscope

Sometimes your horoscope tells you just what you need to hear. Take today's from Excite:
Counter your tendency to rehash the past -- instead, begin your day with a list of your hopes and dreams.... Now take this list in your pocket and refer to it often during the day. Make sure not to lose it. Look for signs that you are manifesting the future you desire.

I read it just before setting out to type this message, and it changed my post for the day. I was going to set out a rather depressing list of all my bad memories of poverty, all those sundry reasons I'm living with my mother (top of the list: a working washer and dryer--try living without one for five years, and you'll know what I mean). But now I think I'd be better off burying those in the back of my mind.

Maybe the future won't be as bad as the past. Maybe this spring, when I return to Portland to earn $$ to pay my wretched student loans, I won't have to live in poverty and stinking laundry and stomach-grinding fear. At least I'll hope so today.

Learning to fly

Okay, that's a cheesy title, but I loved the Rocky reference. Blame the cheese on my lunch (pizza) and the rust in my brain. This sick momma/sick baby business is for the birds.

Today's post will not wax philosophical, metaphorical or political. Instead, I'm discussing a topic large in my mind: house keeping. You see, after all my mother's grousing and back-spearing comments, I'm turning myself around--originally as a way to say "nyah-nyah!" to her, but now for my own edification. My lovely sister (the perfect one) turned me on to Flylady, and now I'm hooked.

I don't jibe with all the Flylady's notions--nobody is going to get me to put on shoes first thing in the morning--but she is very encouraging and just plain smart. Her ideas make house keeping fun and easier. I've loved Martha Stewart for years, but she couldn't get me to organized, and no wonder: she has three houses to stash all of her crap. Flylady understands how yucky life can be when you've stashed too much in your little two-bedroom.

Anyway, besides wrestling a feverish toddler, that's what I'm been doing. Cleaning house.

uggh

We are all sick here. Yesterday Fi was really unwell, with a bad fever, and now I am yucky. Ugggh. Pray for better news some other day.

i have tons to write, but it will have to wait.

Blog clog

Man, I've been trying to cook up a really great entry about how inspired I've been since reading "On Writing," but unfortunately, trying to be really great is a certain death blow for me. Just thinking those words--really great--ices up my fingers and turns my toes frostbite-green.

Yes, frostbite is green. My mother suffers from some post-frostbite circulatory disorder (like Reynaud's syndrome, I think), and when her fingers/toes get cold, her skin turns the nastiest green imaginable. It is actually the same olive-gray color as a corpse.

I know this because we went to the wrong funeral home. When I was a freshman in college, I took a class called "Death and Dying." The prof was about to retire in order to focus on his own literary work, and this was his last foray into morbidity. (He had actually broken new ground in the field--our school was the first to offer a class on D-&-D, which is now a common topic. But then, the man used to keep a coffin in his office and give out extra credit points to anyone willing to shut themselves inside.) Every year, the class organized a field trip to a nearby mortuary to experience first-hand the preparation which goes into a person's last party.

Our class screwed up. The girl in charge called the new funeral home, the one three blocks away from campus, not one. These people were educators in their field, eager to share their knowledge. They showed us every aspect of their work, from the emergency refrigerators in the basement to the frilly chapel. They showed us the cardboard boxes used to take bodies to the crematorium (Yes, you have to be in some kind of coffin to be burned. It's a law. But cardboard is okay for the uberfrugal). And we even got to see the embalmed bodies waiting for the makeup artist's touch, perched on beautician's reclining chairs.

One body--heavy-set and large--sat under a sheet, like a man relaxing at the barber's office before a shave. He hadn't made it through the embalming process yet, and the staff thought we might find him disturbing. (Although if the detailed description of how they suck out blood and replace it with toxic chemicals didn't bother us, I don't see how an ordinary dead guy would really shake us up.)

Anyway, what we could see of him was gray-green. Like my mother's hands, like my own, clenched on the keyboard in the desparate attempt to type something REALLY GREAT.

I'll settle for a tangent.

On Writing

So I noticed Erin was reading a Stephen King book called "On Writing." I'd never heard of it, but it piqued my interest. I'm on a big writers-on-writing reading jag. I started it 2 days ago, and let me tell you, it's amazing!

okay, i finished "O.W." and it is terrific. the awesomest book ever. i want it for xmas. i intended to write a great blog about it, but instead of writing a great blog entry, I've just had this one sitting around in the draft pile for about a week.

Sometimes you put too much pressure on your brain to be brilliant, and it spazzes out.

PS: I made plum jam last night, and not only was it delicious, all the jars sealed. I feel like a domestic *goddess*.

Inspirational Ladies

Just a quick note here. Gotta get back to work on THE BOOK. Lately I have been reading some great webpages by my favorite authors, soaking up some of their great wit and wisdom. Or something like that. Anyway, here are a couple and the lowdown on what makes them rock:

Jane Yolen: This is particularly good because she has a cool weblog, and also because there's a photograph of her on the site where she looks like my college writing professor (who made a huge difference in my writing and thus, my life). Jane is so awesome. I remember reading her stuff when I was just starting to read, shortly after the miracle-reading-breakthrough-of-second-grade. Her book, "Heart's Blood," rocked my world. The cartoon wasn't so hot, though ... Anyway, Jane is full of brilliant words and is really one of my personal heroes. Rock on, Jane!


Rowling Rock--sorry for the pun. No, J.K., the woman who brought us Harry Potter is tres cool (much better than the beer I just punned). This webpage discusses a bit of the logic behind the writing and editing process--it's very intriguing and helpful for those just starting to get a handle on character management and story development.

Cecilia Dart-Thornton is a brilliant writer, and her work inspired me to take a bold change of direction in my own stuff. The world she creates is just ... amazing. Even her webpage is breathtaking!

Tamora Pierce was the woman who made me a writer--damn her hide, anyway! Her book Alanna was the first fantasy novel I ever read, and also the first book where the point of view shifted between two characters. It about knocked me on my *ass*! But after that, I paid attention to the tools the author used in a story--not bad for a six-year old.

Well, to steal one of JY's ideas, it is now time for some BIC time: BUTT IN CHAIR time. She is so brilliant!

Discipline

I don't believe the word "discipline" is used properly when it is a verb. It suggests uptight schoolmasters and wooden paddles. Chew-spattered Southern baptists taking their children out back, shouting "I'll larn ya!" followed by the crisp sounds of leather on flesh.

Discipline should be a noun. It's a state of being, an achievement wherein one restricts the behavior into focused, functional activities. It's what happens when you learn to restrain all those beasty impulses and become civilized. Discipline should be the gift you offer your children and slowly teach them to appreciate.

My sister uses the word "discipine" every time she sees me and my unruly child. admittedly, this has only happened once. So far. She offers me suggestions on the phone, and has offered to buy me copies of the books she has found useful as a parent. They all sound hideous, with titles like "Think Space," or "The Dog-Trainer's Guide to Raising Children." I don't want to raise my child like a dog, even if she does need it!

My sister comes to visit tomorrow. I'm petrified.

Losing the Color Smog

I realized last night that there really was a reason for all my foolish depressive drooping this weak, and that I'd been blocking it from my head like an idiot. Or maybe I was just too wrapped up in Fiona and plans for the October trip and Crystal's wedding and writing and fighting with my brother, and oh, a thousand other things I'd rather think about. But there I was, laying in the darkness while Fi struggled against sleep, and it hit me: Smog is leaving me this week. I'm losing my best friend.

Best friend is an understatement. We met through our sorority, a nominal sisterhood with ties as strong as blood (that sounds dramatic, but watch a group of elderly women at a college reunion, and you'll see what I mean). We were roommates for 6 years, and in that time period, we took most of the same classes, and then upon graduation from school, worked forthe same company. We shared a library card. We watched most of the same movies and read most of the same books--if one of us saw/read something without the other and liked it, we shared it with the other one. We had the same friends. We spoke in unison. At work, we emailed each other over 30 times a day to exchange ideas and thoughts about customers and co-workers. We shared holidays with each other's families. We had the same haircuts, the same glasses (not exactly, but near enough to creep us out--and it was unintentional!). People called us twins.

We have the basically the same ethnic background (Germans from eastern Washington), and shared academic interests (music, living history, literature). Because we started in similiar places, and filled our lives with all the same details, we shared one world. One world for two people. And it was cool, because we understood each other effortlessly; we each knew just how the other person would react to any scenario; we knew just how to make each other happy. We could also exclude everybody else, who didn't know our little language and who couldn't take part in our universe.

Sometimes I was desperate to get away from Smog. It was hard to create an identity for myself within our little world, and it was hard behave sanely within such a closed circuit. And then I had Fi, and I was thrown out of my tiny universe into a much smaller one that only occasionally intersected with anyone else's. But Smog was there with us a lot of the time. The connection--the shared world--still existed. We just had to schedule visits to it.

But now she's crossing the country to start her new life, and she'll meet a ton of new people and learn a ton of new stuff. It's wonderful. I've been so excited for her, and happy for myself, too. I knew we were separating into our own special selves, and it seems right. We'll always be friends--we're certain of it. There's no way we'll let ourselves completely drift apart. It's only our planet that will crumble.

Without the constant reinforcement of shared experiences--one cast, one crew, one setting--there's no way our little world can maintain its borders. It's already mostly gone; I just hadn't checked before. The landmarks we built together are no more than nostalgic memories. Palio, Caswell, Cactus Club, Papa Haydn, Arco; Todd, Charles, the funny man at Laurelhurst, Mr. White Keys; little cookies, breakfast ring, lemon bars, taco night with the Anderson's. The Flys, Soul Coughing, and ever and always the American Girls. They fade away like smoke after closing time, leaving only the faint whiff of history behind them.

Well, every band breaks up. They leave their old albums behind them and go forward to create something new, something more meaningful to their artistic vision. But their legacy lives on in our CD collections and our hearts. So I'll throw on the Glory Daze soundtrack and think of the times we've spent together, my best friend and I. We were the best band of all time, black and white keys on the same keyboard.

Good luck and love, Smoggi.