Now You See Her
Finally got around to reading Now You See Her by Whitney Otto, a book about a woman who turns 40 and begins to disappear. When it came out in the 1990s, I had thought of buying it for a friend who was turning 40, but now I'm really glad I didn't.
For one thing, it has a problem like that in One True Thing: it's all about the traps women get into. Boy do I get tired of that rag.
Here are some lines:
There are a million things to desire and a million ways to be told no.
Their house was passed over without understanding why one is saved from sorrow; and without understanding why, one cannot guard against such events.
What happens when one an only express sadness with great noise, unable to keep it contained in as small a space as the human heart, while the other cannot locate an opening large enough in his own heart to let it all out?
Why do people expect so much from God and so little from themselves?
No one told her it was possible--no, likely--that she would hold a friend's baby and whisper to herself (as the small, newly made fingers wrapped around her own), "This is what I want"--only to awaken the following day, relieved that she was without a child to raise.
The novel did have an interesting structure--the chapters had headings from Jeopardy, and the main character was one of the people who made up categories for Jeopardy.
Kind of reminded me of myself, being a copyeditor. My sixth-grade class prediction for me was that I would rewrite the English dictionary. Even then, I was a know-it-all. If anything, I've mellowed since then. It's all a little creepy, since I didn't like a lot of the people in my sixth-grade class, and yet they seemed to have pegged me.
I guess writing is the thing I've used to escape from my fondness for detail. So I think I'll go an work on the poetry chapbook I'm putting together for a contest.
And then I'm going to find an action novel with lots of hot sex. Any good suggestions, puhlease send them my way.
Things that fit
Last night I was hangin' out, talking to my father on the telephone, when my husband walked in with two kayak paddles and two life vests. He bought me the one I want, the one specifically cut for women, which means it squishes my boobs only a little. It's also filled with kapok, a compostible material, so it's partly made from sustainable materials (the rest is plastic).
Poor Todd. He had to go to REI in Denver and discuss my chest size with the female clerk. I wonder if that was hard for him. Any guesses?
Is he wonderful or what?
I'm looking forward to trying out the kayaks this weekend. Eventually we'll be doing some whitewater in them.
I love playing in the water. I like swimming, rafting, snorkeling, diving--even though I can feel my heart rate rise when I first go under and have to breathe through the regulator. I have to remind myself to breathe slowly. But I don't like heights. I think it's the feeling of all that air around me that I can fall through. When it's water I'm falling through, though, that's almost comforting--even if I can see 60 feet straight down.
Diary of a Lost Girl
Went to see a classic German expressionist film tonight. Haven't seen a silent film in a while, so am writing like Annie Proulx (spelling?) in Shipping News.
This one dates from 1929. The star, Louise Brooks, hated the Hollywood system and escaped it by making films in Germany. This one was the story of the girl who is seduced and descends into "ruin."
Classic scene in the reformatory in which the girls smoke, play cards, crawl under the covers with each other (a quick shot, that one). But wait until the headmistress comes in and makes them undress and exercise in their skivvies! To the beat of a gong, no less! The girls all gang up on her in one scene. Can you blame them?
Diary of a Lost Girl was very slow, but the mood of the film made it worthwhile to me.
Apparently censors forced the director to film a more cheerful ending, in which the (now-redeemed) girl's husband declares, "If there were more love in the world, no one would be lost." The director wanted her to go back to the brothel and run it instead of becoming a countess.
Hmmm, what do you think? Would you rather be called madam or countess?
The senator and the Pharisee
Good for Salazar. He's standing up to Focus on the Family and James Dobson (yeah, the guy who says Sponge Bob is gay). Just call Dobson Pharisee of the week.
Salazar said the right wing is trying to turn this country into a theocracy after they took out an advertisement in the papers urging Salazar and other senators to "stop the nonsense" (it's all about judges to the appeals courts).
"Salazar Lets Fly""Angry Salazar"I'm going to send him a congratulatory letter. I'm so tired of hearing from these "Christians" who seem to have no concept of compassion or respect for democracy.
Nutritious Chocolate, Indeed
Sex, you asked for it, and here it is:
Chocolate Stops CancerFrom the article:
"Chocolate is made from the beans of cacao trees, and, like some other plants, are rich in natural antioxidants known as flavonoids. These antioxidants may protect cells from the damage caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals, which are thought to contribute to both heart disease and cancer development. The primary family of flavonoids contributing to the antioxidant benefit in chocolate is the procyanidins, and of the various types of procyanidins, pentamer seem to be strongest, according to a number of studies."
Courtesy of
Todd.
My first newspaper article
Check out the gardening article I published in the Rocky Mountain News:
Some prefer plants "on the rocks"They didn't change much, although they cut a few sentences at the end. That made me happy.
Predators in suburbia
Just as I'd settled down to finish G in Germany and the Americas (that's right, it's an alphabetical encyclopedia), a great horned owl flew by my window and settled in the neighbor's tree. Immediately a robin trilled a warning, and blue jays started mobbing it. I think one of them actually nipped it in the ear. So it flew to another tree, but still the blue jays wouldn't leave it alone.
I wonder if the mice notice all the racket.
I like being reminded of a little wildness in suburbia. I also wonder if the owls nest near here. I see them regularly enough that I assume they must have a nest somewhere.
There's something about raptors that brings out my ambiguity toward power. I really enjoyed watching a kestrel eat a starling once, but I love it when the small birds drive away hawks and eagles and owls.
Ridiculous things I want in no particular order
really expensive barware (at least $100 a glass)
a nose job, an eye job, an ear job, and cosmetic dentistry
Liv Tyler's hair
insta-publication of all my poems and stories that I think deserve it
a conversation with my grandmother, who's been dead since 1990, about what it was like to live in a Catholic orphanage after her father killed himself (that's why I was raised Catholic)
a good conversation about religion with my family members (good meaning "not involving proselytizing on either side")
copyeditors having the same status as Muhammed Ali
mandatory recycling of everything that can be recycled with today's technology
emptying of landfills
Joycelyn Elders for president (she was the Clinton appointee who said right-wingers have a "love affair with the fetus") and Patricia Shroeder for VP
Now I'm here, now I'm not
Finally, I post again! But only for the few seconds it takes to add this link:
Unitarian JihadHere's a sample:
"Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for 'balance' by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues."
Public transport
I went to a NARAL planning meeting tonight. As I was walking back from their office to downtown Denver, I felt so happy. Happy that it was still light after 7 at night, happy to be walking through the concrete and glass jungle, happy to be scooting across Broadway trying to avoid getting run over.
Living in suburbia, I miss walking everywhere. I CAN walk to the store, the coffee shop, the laundry, but I don't enjoy it because all I get to walk by are suburban homes. I think the suburb has to be about the most boring landscape on the planet. Not to mention that the Broomfield city council's idea of a sidewalk looks like it was laid out by a drunk. I suppose they're striving for the country effect:
"Oh, look, Virginia, a lovely winding sidewalk on the way to the strip mall!"
I'd like to be able to go out my door into a more urban landscape, hop on a bus and get to where I'm going. Driving is convenient, but sitting on a bus is usually pretty soothing to me, and I can read. The real drag about riding the bus comes when you have to take two buses to get to where you're going, sandwiched in between a long walk on either end. Or if you're doing errands--trying to get to stores all over a city is definitely not fun on a bus. I know; I took buses for years and years. It was reasonably easy in Boulder and in Washington, DC, but in Broomfield--naah. It's a pain in the ass.
Tonight I was wondering if I'd be happier having a job at an office. I think the answer is probably no, I'd get bored with that just as I get bored working at home all day. I guess I'm just a grass-is-greener type of person. Or a person with a need for endless changes of pace. And I've spent so many years not having to answer to anyone for my schedule--that would take some getting used to.
"Whaddya mean, I can't have vacation next week? Eat my Uzi!"
I can see the headline: "Former copyeditor goes postal."
"She was always so quiet," said Sex Scenes at Starbucks, playing with one of her piercings. "We never thought she'd do anything like that."
Empty highway
Finally, I saw The Motorcycle Diaries, after wanting to for months. It’s the story of a few months in the life of Che Guevara, when he was traveling around South America with a friend.
Movies about travel and what you learn from it always get to me. Maybe it’s because travel is a form of longing made physical by movement. I’ve always wanted to travel more than I have (though I’ve traveled more than most people: England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Mexico, plus the East Coast, the West Coast, the Deep South, and parts in between), and I’ve only ever been content once in my life, when I was living in England my third year of college. I felt that I could stay there forever (though my roommates were a little freakish; maybe they could have been replaced).
One of them was rich and always had great pot. After that year ended, he went on a walking tour of Kashmir. Can’t do that anymore because of the war over Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The others all got high on acid one day and “decorated” the flat. Then they had to clean it up.
One of my favorite places to be is on a train or in a plane, in the in between, as Sherman Alexie says. I always feel so free there. Driving down an empty highway creates the same effect but requires more work on my part. I like feeling that I’m not really anywhere, that I’m enclosed in this space that’s away from where I’m supposed to be. And when I’m in that space, I always want to stay there.
So I guess I could never travel just for travel’s sake. I don’t travel to get somewhere; I travel to get away from somewhere. And I suppose, if I ever traveled for long enough, that I’d start traveling to get away from all these new places that were supposed to be an escape to begin with.
***
Got the check back from the contractor the next day.
