Ridiculum

You said you couldn’t cut the mustard

As if it pained you. Did you even know what that meant?

How about, close but no cigar?

Uriah Heep is rising writhing in the forest of my mind

Illiterate mind, ascrawl with shorthand.

Scratchings of a bird foot in the dust.

Maybe Jesus wrote in shorthand at the feet of the prostitute.

Kate swears I’m madonna, the etchings of my furious thoughts

Combining, proving such impossibilities as

Sugarcane, banana, mango and papaya.

Innoculate the exotic.

Immanentize the eschaton.

Ignore the erudite.

Inter the erotic.

Ineffable Elysium.

Isolde the Extraterrestrial.

(Poor Tristan.)

A fig for your thoughts. Ahh put a cork in it. Baby’s sleeping.

the travesty of mass-manufactured clothing

This has long been a lament of mine, but it’s really come to the front this summer. It’s a personal opinion that spandex really came into its own when clothes stopped being made by normal people. Remember all those novels where the heroine yearned for a “store-botten dress?” Little Anne of Green Gables pined for puffed sleeves. (I think that particular trend sounds horrible, but no matter.) Then Matthew Cuthbert gets busybody but kind-souled Rachel to make her one? Then Marilla, not to be outdone, sews her more? I need a Marilla.

Anyway, like I said, spandex. Stretch jeans. Stretch tees. You can get away without tailoring if it clings to your body by itself. Who needs measurements when the difference in an inch is negligible? Anne’s horrible yellow wincey which was much too tight and much too short, sounds like an improvement on this summer’s dresswear. For the past several years, I think, all the college girls have been running around in dresses that cling at the bust but flare and flounce pumpkinily. It’s ugly. The styles have pretty names: babydoll, empire waist, etcetera, but they give everyone the same untailored finish. Even Anthropologie, an incredibly expensive store, has succumbed to the trend.

Oh! speaking of trends! The new shorts/tunic attachment thingies? Like we wore when we were seven?? They’re back. I have yet to see anyone wearing them, thank God. Robyn tried one on in the dressing room the other day. She looked like Carol Bernette in a negligee. It was ridiculous. They rode up the back something awful. That’s another instantiation of how mass-manufacturing can’t quite cut it. They took the average (I suppose) torso length of a teenager and cut all clothes accordingly.

Maria and I are going to combine forces. She’s going to teach me what she knows about sewing and I’m going to.. learn. When I stop to think about it, this proposal sounds very parasitic. Ah well. She already agreed. And then we’re going to make our own clothes. And they will be better than the ones at the store, they will be prettier, they will be more delicate and better made and of finer quality and finally I will be able to afford to wear what I want. She wore a dress she’d made herself the last time I saw her, at a show, and I could not stop ogling her. It reached mid-calf, a batik of some sort, with a beautifully rendered bust. Spaghetti straps. It was gorgeous.

That’s my rant for today. (Can I also say, real fast, that I think up much more interesting and beautiful patterns than the pieces in stores? Can I just say that?)

Beanius Pohlighayesius– a fine specimen

I just googled “best mommy blogs” and looked at maybe ten. They are Boring with a capital B. I was hoping for inspiration, but maybe I ought to stick with Thomas Wolfe and Garcia Marquez. Their little-bruited mommy blogs. Fortunately, while I am a mother, I don’t think of this journal as a mommy blog. Geez. What an awful thought. I’d prefer it to be about literature, lofty thoughts of mine, and my traumatic life.

Bubo’s been getting into the chickens down the road. Chickens owned by a struggling Hispanic family. I suppose they’re struggling. Why else would anyone own chickens? It makes me feel angrier at Bubo. He’s totally living up to his name. (Bubo as in, bubonic plague. Shady suggested it and it stuck.) I’d like to give him away but Annie’s awfully attached. They share Bubo’s breakfast and when she’s feeling peckish, she peglegs over to the sack of food and has a morsel or two. She’s also really good at feeding him. I planned this, I might add. Bubo is a pitbull mix, which are generally ill-reputable when it comes to babies, children, and little people. So I’ve taught him that Annie is the Littlest Mistress. It totally sounds weird, but “littlest master” is even worse. I’ll give Annie a dog treat and hold her hand out to the dog. Sometimes she gets mad because she was planning on eating it. Anyway, I think it’s working. I want him to know she is the Littlest Provider. Dogs respect Providers. They are subject to him/her as Pack Leader. And therefore, won’t bite their heads off. Hopefully. I’m sure Bubo, who is far from the brightest crayon, is bewildered at how Annie provides for him. I see perplex and vague envy in his shallow brown eyes whenever he notices that she is clutching a hunk of baguette. The Littlest Provider, I see him musing. So tender. So pink. So hairless. How does she manage it??

I know I said I’m not a mommy blogger, but apparently this post wants to be. I will embrace it. Continuing the peregrination, I want to bring to your attention the new name Ray Pie has bestowed upon little Annie. Beanius Pohlighayesius! Here’s the picture and thread:

Jen:

“And here we see the Annie in her natural habitat. They are really quite docile unless startled. Their diet consists mostly of dirt, milk and tree bark.”

Ray:

“Rarely sighted, this fine specimen, is now known as Beanius Pohlighayesius. A new species discovered almost a year ago in the wild, out back area of Carrboro, NC.”

Me:

“The Beanius Pohlighayesius, while generally a tolerant and easy-going specimen, is, when aroused, a holy terror. Paleontological evidence suggests they rarely sleep, and consume vast quantities of mango, banana, kiwi, and various other tropical fruit. Recent scholarship is still out on the question of how they consume so much dirt and canine food, having solely two bottom teeth.”

Ahh, that’s funny. Going back to my novel now.

the literature of an unsnobbish snob

My house is filled with books. They’re stacked crazily on the bookshelves and in piles on the floor. I read incessantly, voraciously. My friends ask me how to spell words but it’s not as though I have a preternatural memory; I just see thousands and thousands of words over time. They burn into my mind. I  have a love affair with the English language.  I love nonfiction and fiction, prose and poetry. I adore Barbara Has, Billy Collins, Walter Pater and Thomas Wolfe. I wept in a Southern lit course once, overcome by the thought that the only man who could ever understand my soul is dead and buried (Wolfe).

But I also adore Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and O. I suppose I never noticed before, but my taste is totally unsnobbish. Sure, I have my opinions on authors. I have a personal grievance against Jodi Picoult. What’s-her-name, Stephanie Meyer, the Mormon vampire trilogist, she’s got characters flatter than her heroine. The movies had more in the way of character development than the books, because it’s actually impossible to put a real actor on the screen and have him be as two dimensional as her hot vampire. (Which he’s not. Edward Cullen throughout the film leers at the camera from a corner angle. It’s extremely disconcerting. Even in the posters bedecking my little sister’s bedroom.) A human actor has  mannerisms that can’t be erased. BUT– Meyer can plot. She can move the storyline. I have enormous respect for that. My characters get stuck everywhere I put them. Briana couldn’t get a couple out of a diner for weeks. And I’ve read somewhere that Danielle Steele has had an incredibly tragic life. (NOT that that excuses her prose.) Ultimately, these paler authors get people reading. Again, however, I am absolutely not a snob when it comes to reading. Video games are probably more stimulating because you can play them with other people. I just happen to prefer reading. Did I mention that I wouldn’t cry if I wrote a string of awful novels that sold millions? Nope. Not a tear.

This is why I don’t mind when Ashley says, as he did tonight, that he wants me to put away O magazine when our friends come over. I don’t think it’s odd that Thomas Mann’s Dr. Faustus is open beside O magazine. I only noticed when he pointed it out. I happen to like Oprah. I like that she has enough money to pay some very well-read, tasteful people to pick out the books for her book club. It’s a pretty good recommendation, and I’m always looking for recommendations. Sure, it’s a moneymaker, as Ashley objected, for some reason. Since when, I asked, are we against people making money? This is America. I’m for the underdog and the entrepreneur. I am so for people picking up Isabel Allende because Oprah’s Book Club is stamped on the cover. Who cares! She’s a fantastic read!

Then I started thinking: there’s a few reasons Ashley might object to having Oprah’s literature (okay, I did smirk at that) lying around.

1. It’s addressed to him. My magazines are variously addressed to Her Royal Highness Pohlig, Her Delicious Excellency, Queen Lady Me. I thought it would be amusing to put in his name for as the addressee for O. Which it was.

2. Maybe he thinks that because the “commoners” read it, it’s poor quality. Well I bristle at the thought. Dickens was adored by the commoners, the plebs, what have you. He didn’t write down to them. He wrote up to them. There’s a lot of things Oprah is, but one thing she’s not is condescending. Condescension is hateful. (Unless I’m doing it or Bri is. Then it’s just funny.) It says, I have nothing to learn from you. Right now, I feel like I have everything to learn.

In sum, that’s why I won’t put away my magazines or my biographies when my friends come over. Unless I feel like straightening up.

Ashley said to me once, in a fight, that I was crazy, that I inhabited a fantasy world because when I looked at the world I was violently shocked at the evil and in awe of the good. I stopped then, and said I didn’t think I was alone in that. And he said maybe not, but that I was still crazy.

Why is joyfulness called naivete and pessimism called realism? Why am I the naive one? I think he is. I think he’s crazy to not be able to see beauty. I think he’s the crazy one. I am so sick of being called fantastical. I don’t inhabit a fantasy. I’m Dickensian, if anything.

I believe that men who hold anger in their hearts are small. That they hold onto anger because they have little in their lives. Great men and women have the world to think about, and anger takes up too much room.

I don’t know whether it’s better to try and live apart, higher, than I am now? To ignore Ashley’s slights and neglect, to push them down as I climb to a higher plane, one that doesn’t depend on his moods and infrequent good humor? To find solace in books and writing and Annie? Is that right? Or should I try, over and over again, to make him understand that I should be beloved? I’m tired of trying. It seems an impossible thing to teach. In and of itself, it ought to be impossible because  it should be self-evident. It would be like trying to make someone fall in love with you.

I want to believe in God because I want to believe these tribulations are being recorded. I want the pain in my chest etched on a stone tablet.

Does sadness cause resentment? I’m not a great woman. There’s nothing lofty or superior about me. Maybe my world is too small and that’s why I can’t let go of the resentment. I want to sublimate it, put it on paper or in poetry. I don’t want it. When it goes, though, I’m left with no spite, only a vacuum in my chest. Ashley says it’s self-pity. But I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m feeling sorry. I think it has to be like a reflexive verb in French, “elle se couche.” She puts herself to bed. For this to be self-pity, I would have to be one step apart in consciousness. But I’m not. I’m there. I’m not thinking about the sadness, it’s right here with me.

I’ve deleted the rest. The datasphere may be too public for my emotional retching.

Succulents in my garden

Succulents in my garden, potting soil under my nails. I’ve got a big bruise on my shin already from pushing Audrey on the tree swing. What a swing! I’m already plotting my own. Craigslist has tractor tires for free. I think I’ll drill holes and make it the sort that’s level with the ground– as in, parallel. Need bigger trees. Need to make money. Where did all the silliness go? I used to have it. Used to be romantic and brilliant, used to hop like a mountain goat from thought to thought, tying them together loosely, used to remember things, believed more strongly.

Now I read like my life depends on it. An excuse for not writing, perhaps. I used to remember the things I read, as well. Could recite a plot, a string of preceding novels. I doubt I can go back very far now. Let’s see: just finished Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake, before that was– eek– already choking– oh yes, reread James Herriot’s All Things Great and Small, then reread Turn of the Screw, then Traveling Mercies by what’s her dread face, then Rosie and also Crooked Heart by same, before that was, gee, oh, yes, Sarah Vowell’s delicious Wordy Shipmates, then before that was the Fatal Shore, a history of Australia (actually still working on that, got a hundred more pages to go, it slowed down crazily there), then Barbara Tuchman’s dusty (a la Django) Distant Mirror (which I got bogged down in), then before that .. oh. Who knows. I guess I did better than I thought. I know I skipped a few, but there’s a month or so recorded. Thank God my memory is still sputtering along, sort of.

Robyn and I got our toes done, her treat. I always take far too long selecting a colour; it’s incredibly stressful, actually. My fingernails still look like a palette. I’m always rushed by the Korean women (Korean?). It’s a personal flaw that I don’t know. An educated person ought to know. Briana, for example, would know. Anyway, they’re pink. My toes. A pinky-beige which isn’t so flattering.

Rebecca! Preggers again! Incredible. I thought it was supposed to be impossible while you’re still nursing. Nature’s way of giving you a break. And heaven knows Avila nurses enough. I’m thrilled and ready to commiserate with her in her never-ending pregnancy woes.

I cleaned my bepetalled car today. I park under the blooming redbud in the driveway. I felt like a princess for two weeks, then I just felt blind. It was like wearing rose-coloured glasses, only redbud glasses. Everything was blooming! I couldn’t see a damned thing.

I keep meaning to update Annie’s month-by-month journal but I get distracted. She’s messing with the records, chewing My Bloody Valentine and tonguing the plastic on Hadyn. The pollen on my laptop is a thin film of green which comes off on my fingertips and only QWERTY is black again. I’m thinking of the pool and how Annie was frightened yesterday, clinging like a monkey to my neck, chomping down on my shoulder with her two new teeth in a paroxysm of terror. Dan suggested she’s been too long out of the womb. Cath, in her forties after two children, has a better body than I do. Audrey cannonballed in a red life-jacket that looked actually stylish. It resembled a shrug with off-the-shoulder armbands. We used to call them waterwings but the waterbabies claimed they were only distantly related to water beetles. The pollen is sweeping the porch in green surf. I’d like to be a translator but my French is malheureux. Kate’s new baby may be named Olympia, which makes me worry that she’ll be tall like her parents. I love the supermarket where I select the prettiest local sweet potatos and the greenest green beans. The champage mangoes are tangier and sweeter, the demibaguette in the stroller is proportional and shoppers coo. I liked feeding the baby a peeled black plum, her tiny mouth sucking on the pit that I held in my fingers.

The lavender plants were not the same. The one on the left is American Lavender, on the right, Anouk French Lavender. We transplanted the lily to the sunny side of the yard, and I planted the red salvia to the border of the driveway. The irises are staggering but I think they’ll be all right. My hosta is winning the race with the Boy’s. I check his most mornings, walking over with my coffee while Annie bumbles around the living room. Ryan helped me pick out the Persian something-or-other at Lowe’s just before he quit, as well as some other shade plants. They didn’t know his name at the front desk; I would have quit too.

Phlox in the box and blue columbines next to the caladium. Jay detailed the difference between annuals and perennials, to my chagrin. He was surprised to see my African Violet outside in the incense holder, said most people keep them indoors. I’m glad to know– I’ve been treating my flowers according to a vague methodology involving their names; as in, I assumed that I didn’t need to water the African Violet much (it’s African and must love sun) and it’s been swinging in the incense holder in the sun. Apparently this is not correct. But it’s still blooming! There are websites devoted to the care and propagation of African Violets, by the way. I’ve already broken almost every rule.

Annie’s awoken and is getting angry. I’ll go pick her up and we’ll water the flowers.