LaurieWrites

quotable

"I privately say to you, old friend
(unto you, really, I'm afraid),
please accept from me
this bouquet of very
early-blooming parentheses:
(((())))."

        - J.D. Salinger

Random, emotive post...

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate I shall be content with silence." Ansel Adams

And you can tell that in his photographs. Amazing.

I think I finally hit upon it.

I'm completely, totally, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually bored. Even the Red Hot Chili Peppers don't seem exciting today. I hate to even type this because it's so much like whining but I need to put it out there somewhere, I guess.

It's not like I don't have great people and situations in my life, and I'm at just about my usual level of stirring up excitement. I had dinner with my most fabulous friend J. last night, a prince among men, this guy. It was awesome - really good wine, tapas, a charming waiter, outstanding conversation. We both had lots to share about what was going on in our lives, and he's one of those people who makes you feel comfortable and engaged just because he exists. I've met, maybe, ten people like that in 34 years, and I know a lot of quality people.

And I don't know why I'm talking about it now, except to say that I wish I could have those kinds of interactions every day. It just doesn't seem to be happening lately, for whatever reason. So much of the focus, everywhere I go, is on minutiae, and gossip (which I am coming to despise), and random things that seem to mean nothing. There's no productive dialogue going on at the national level, so maybe this is just a reflection of that. Who knows? I've spent some restorative time alone lately, which I find is very important. I literally hibernated from January til May. But now I wish I could be connected in some way to a community, or a cause, or an interest, that wasn't solitary...I'm not at all alone, hardly ever, and yet there's this sort of hole that I can't explain. It seems even stranger because I have so many interests, and love so many things. I'm reading something, or listening to something, or doing something, or thinking about something (maybe that's the problem) just about every second of the day from the time I get up until I go to sleep.

It might just be anxiety building because of the move, and the worry over how I'm going to get all of this stuff down ALL THOSE STEPS, when I'd rather almost just set it all afire. I'm tired of thinking about it. I hate moving so much, and since I don't have any desire to leave my place, this time it's hitting me particularly hard. I'm trying hard not to feel sad about it - and to get organized for it, mentally and physically, and that entails going through so much useless crap stuff. I'm admittedly not so good at the nuts and bolts of things like this. My friend Erica can tell a great story about me moving from Dayton, when she came over THE DAY BEFORE I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO, to find me sitting in the middle of my closet reading my saved greeting cards. She just started throwing my stuff in plastic bags and saved my life, truly.

Amazingly enough, my kitchen has stayed in good shape since it was arranged in January, and that's a good start. I'm thinking that I want to give most of the stuff away. Who knows how long I'll be home, and how long it'll be packed away. That's sort of a waste, and there's no room for it anyway. Most of the other stuff can be dispersed througout my parents' house. This means they'll get a great television for the first time in a long time and a brand-new entertainment center. I just don't really care about this stuff right now.

Maybe the wedding this weekend will hep (haha. I wrote "hep".) And vacation will surely help, although I'd rather it was a month instead of a week. Travel usually does the trick. I just need to focus on the positive outcomes of the move...more freedom, and the chance to do some things that I've been putting on hold for far too long. The doors will open. Something will trigger it. It's just difficult, and so frustrating, not to know what that is quite yet.

If I didn't already want to move there...

I think this is great.

With George Bush still in office and the weird state-by-state laws and protests to compare it to here (a country I love regardless, of course, don't be mistaken...The right would have us believe that we're all USA-haters, the vestiges of absolutist thinking that's gotten us into these pickles in the first place), Canada is hitting some major home runs.

The tunes. The politics. The culture.

Who wants to go?

Humorously Pathological

Who throws away a bunny?

After an exchange today about the juxtaposition of humor and pathos, I come home to this...

and it was a little bit humorous, but mostly pathological.

Poor bunny.

Blame the Christmas Birthday For This One

A friend reminded me last week that June 27th was coming soon - marking the halfway point to my birthday. Being born near Christmas means celebrations can get kind of lost in the shuffle, and let's not even discuss the whole "this is your birthdaychristmas present" situation...Like I'd try that crap on you in August...Not that I'm bitter...Anyway...So my mom had this habit when I was a child of celebrating it again with me in the summer...She'd take me shopping, and to lunch, and it would be very festive and happy and bluebirds would hover around me all day and the whole nine. Very nice, I know. She's like that.

A few years ago, this reminding friend threw me a party for this odd little non-occasion, because he was nice like that...and to tell the truth, I really haven't thought about the day in any special kind of way since.

But, since I had the opportunity, and I HAD BEEN REMINDED, last night I bought myself a hamburger at Whole Foods and went to the new Cold Stone Creamery near my soon-to-be-former-place (sob). I was destined for a hamburger, clearly. During my step class, I thought I heard the instructor tell us to do a "hamburger curl" during the bicep section...turns out it was a HAMMER curl. HAMMER. But the seed was planted all the same.

Let me just share that the obesity crisis is alive and well in Germantown, or, as I like to call it, "Little West Virginia" . My tiny block alone houses a Five Guys, California Tortilla, a Cajun restaurant, and a kabob place coming soon, plus the ice cream place. I couldn't even get into Coldstone on Sunday, when I attempted to give myself my present early, since I was off work and had the free time and all. The line was down the block. Last night was slightly more manageable. I was only the first person outside the door, which was still somehow acceptable. These lines in our mental sand. How on earth do they get drawn?

So I'm hanging out talking to this cute man with his boxer puppy, and I hear what sounds a lot like "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain". However, it goes, "We'll be mixin' - at Coldstone when you TIP....Tippin' at Coldstone while we mix...You'll be tippin' we'll be mixin'...." And so forth. I'll spare you the rest.

It was the singing of the little ice cream workers, who all looked to be 12 years old. It was like a band of slightly taller Oompa Loompas gone horribly wrong. But whereas the OLs are a generally cranky bunch, the Coldstone crew is so shit-simple happy it's like they've been injected with cookie dough by the time clock.

One young man with fashionably bushy hair was SKIPPING IN PLACE behind the cash register. There was much high-fiving and "woo-hooing" going on behind the counter.

"I want to work here," I thought feverishly, for one hot second.

And these kids were quite serious. They hade tools - metal tools - like spatulas and spoons. They clanged them together as they skipped around, mixing while we're tippin', doing Cold Stone rap performances and hugging each other between sundae constructions (I am so not kidding. Sometimes I am, but I'm so not at this point.) When my turn came, of course I got the skipping boy.

"May I help the next ice cream lover, please?" he said, grinning at me in a sickly, but somehow endearing fashion.

This would, of course, be me.

"I'll have the...uh...Birthday Cake one - in a waffle bowl."

"Would you like a "Like it" or "Love it" size?"

"I think a "like it"'ll do me just fine, thanks."

"Would you like that fresh waffle cone bowl dripped in chocolate with nuts, or plain?" he asked. First of all, just the phrase "fresh waffle cone bowl" does things to me that I cannot discuss in this forum. Still, I managed, "No dripping of chocolate - no nuts - just a waffle bowl. Thanks."

"Great!" he said, although I imagined he would have said "great" if I'd ordered a tripe sundae with foie gras topping. "Would you like to observe me as I create it?"

This place was not even real.

"Sure. I guess."

"Okay, then follow me."

He skipped down the big Coldstone Oompa Loompa metal mixing slab, still smiling.

"Would you like the fudge on top, mixed in, or..."

He leaned slightly into the counter for the kill.

"OR BOTH?"

Ha! I would not be flummoxed. Or something.

"Mixed in, that's great."

"That's the best way!" he said, such that I believed he meant this. And he took his big old spatula and kicked my little pile of ice cream's ass, mixing in sprinkles and cookie dough and smacking it around on the slab, and finally cramming it into the waffle cone. He handed it to me.

"Would you care to sample it in front of me so if there's any problem I can fix it right away?"

"I'm sure it'll be great," I said. It's ice cream. Who complains about their ice cream?

Certainly not the customer corps in this place, lemme tell ya. There were people in front of me who were draped over the counters, eyes glazed over, contemplating the "At the Cocoa Banana Cabana" (banana ice cream, YELLOW CAKE, banana, fudge, and whipped topping), "Candy Land" (cake batter ice cream, M&Ms, KitKat and Snickers) and so many other concoctions they can't even be taken in in one visit. It's really sort of ridiculous. There were people in that line who I guarantee would not have left if the building caught fire. The trucks would be coming down the street, and they'd be clinging to the freezer case, going, "Cookie Minster...Berry Berry Good...No fire. No. Fire. Ice. Cream. Now."

I asked my dude for some whipped cream on mine, which was totally not on the list for the Birthday Cake Remix, and he ACTUALLY WINKED AT ME. A 15-year old winked at me...and he said, "I'll make sure it's on there. Don't worry."

And you know what? I so wasn't worried. He mixed. I tipped. One more ice cream lover was sent out into the night.

it's okay to be unstable

So I was a reader in my cousin's wedding weekend before last, which is fine. I am the go-to wedding reader. I'm not sure why, but it's something that I always get asked to do. If I hired myself out to do this, it would probably be very lucrative. Hmmm. There's an idea - especially as one can be ordained in the Universal Life Church for 50 bucks. It really couldn't be simpler.

But it probably helps to actually be on time if you're going to run around marrying people. I arrived in Delaware too late on Friday for the rehearsal, but not the dinner. My ability to arrive on time for dinner is legendary. In this case, the beach traffic just sucked and I was lucky I made it as early as I did. 

After dinner, my cousin announced that the priest - who is married, which in my lapsed but still oddly traditional Catholic mind does NOT allow him to be a priest, but whatever he wants to call himeslf is fine with me - wanted to talk to me about my reading situation. "I don't know what he's worried about," she said. "I told him you're an educated person and you know what you're doing." Have her fooled, don't I? So I took my apple crumble dessert over to his table and talked to him.

He was sitting at the table with his wife. Together, they looked like a couple you might see on the Carnival Cruise commercials - middle-aged, disposable income, tanned, but not too perfect. At least that was my first take. 

"Hello. And thank you for taking part in this event," he said. "Have you read in public?"

"Yes, a million times," I answered, which amounted to lying to a priest but hoping that the fact that this was clearly hyperbole would only make it an exaggeration and not a total untruth.

"She has," my aunt added. "She reads at weddings, family funerals, pretty much anywhere."

The way it was all sounding, I had visions of myself screaming out scripture and poetry on the Metro, in elevators, at the 4th of July fireworks. "Hold me back - I'm a READER!"

He implored me to speak slowly - always a challenge - and warned me that the wind and the water (she was getting married outside by the bay) would "impede the flow and projection" of my voice. I assured him that anything short of a monsoon is rendered powerless by the flow and projection of this voice. Volume is just. not. a. problem. Then the conversation got odder.

"I just want you to know that if you need to express emotion, it's okay," he said.

"Okay," I said. "I think I'll be fine. I'm pretty comfortable reading in front of people."

"No," he said. "I mean, if you feel like you're going to break down, just go with it. It's better to express it than to repress it."

"Thank you," I said. "That's very reassuring."

Break down? Would he be shooting us with pepper spray? Was someone on deck to speak now, not willing to forever hold his piece? Who knew? I mean, I'm a cryer, that's for sure, but he had no way of knowing this, and I knew my cousin hadn't told him. I've been known to tear up while reading, but I've never had a problem working through it. And this was a first reading from the Old Testament, the one about God making Eve from Adam's rib, which I was fairly sure, at this point in my life, would cause no emotional reaction to at all. Besides, I was very, very chill this weekend. I was, ice. cold. I was Andre 3000.

He continued staring soulfully at me.

"Seriously. I just need you to know that it's okay if you're unstable."

I thanked him for being the only person in my life who has ever said that to me and meant it. And then I took my apple crumble and backed slowly, slowly away.

(PS My cousin's wedding was gorgeous and I'll have everyone know that the girl who read AFTER me cried. Not me. I was, quite simply, chill. Chill and loud. Score!)

My Girls

The Indigo Girls - "Fill it Up Again".

How these women have added to my life can't really be expressed in words.

Big As Life

I just almost don't know what to say about this.

I opened up the Sunday Washington Post last night, and was quite taken aback by the picture on the front page of the Style section.

I've had issues with weight for most of my life, admittedly never this severe (and funny enough, I wrote the rant that referenced the 500-pound man BEFORE I read this piece.) so I have compassion for the struggle.  But I'm still not sure that this man's nearly naked body needed to be displayed on the front page of the Style section. I'm not even sure it should be anywhere in the paper, but Style seems especially incongruent. It just seemed like a weird placement. I know it's human interest (at least I guess that's what you'd call it...) but I can't get my mind around it. Ever since the video of Terri Schiavo ran so many times that I can STILL see it in my mind without even closing my eyes (although thankfully I only had to see the footage of her stomach WITH THE FEEDING TUBE IN IT once, due to a freak viewing incident while on the elliptical trainer) I've been really wondering about our need to see everything in this country.

There is value of reading about this man's struggle - knowing there are people out there who suffer mightily is good for us, I guess, as it keeps life in some kind of perspective. And I'm a true supporter of freedom of the press. But I'm not sure that seeing him in this state in a rather fluffy section of a major newspaper is useful for anyone, including him. There seems a lack of dignity in it, for him, and a muddling of the issue, for the reader.

"There is nothing funnier to watch than a fat man dancing in bed," says his wife, bizarrely. The article itself is actually one of the saddest things I've ever read, and I find the family's squalid living situation of much more interest than anything else. Why aren't they getting help from a shelter, now that they're hooked into some kind of social service support? Is there any talk of support for the sister, who is developmentally delayed? I understand that it's all very complicated, and having worked in the social service field myself for quite a while, that it doesn't always move that fast - I just wonder, in a way - what's the point? The first question any editor (or good writer) should ask, is "why am I telling this story?" And from this one, I don't get any answer for that. It's not clear. Do I feel sorry for John after I read it? Yes. Am I shocked that he refuses surgery, while totally supporting his right not to have it? Absolutely. But am I also sitting here going, "Now what?" Yep.

Maybe the point is that Oprah or Maury Povich (who I'm amazed hasn't found this guy yet - but it's only Monday) doesn't always swoop in to save the day with life coaching and a personal chef. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm answering my own question. But the thing is, that point could be made without that photo. And I'm leaning towards thinking that it should have been. 

But, as the saying goes, I could be wrong.

Footsteps of Death

Godzilla has moved in upstairs from me. Or maybe it's Sasquatch, or a 500-pound man who will appear on Oprah soon, needing to be craned down from the fourth floor of an apartment building that has no elevator. My only question is how they got him up there.

Or maybe it's a very small person, who feels that he or she must walk very, very heavily in order to stay grounded, or to have people know that he or she is here. I've often found that with small people. I had a friend who weighed 100 pounds, and she slammed around like crazy. Little loud people.

They had a party last night, this SasquatchGodzilla500poundSmallPerson, who now live above me in what has been heretofore a blessedly quiet apartment-dwelling situation. They had a loud, loud party, with big men running up and down the stairs at 2 a.m. I started crying at 2:34, when I woke up with a start on the couch, (funny SNL, by the way...Will Ferrell repeat from the spring. He kicks so much ass.) contacts still in, realizing that I had turned into my mother...or, worse, my grandmother, my father's mother, who lived to look out the front door to watch whatever was going on on the street, even if it was pretty much nothing. I realized this when I crept to the front door, and kept my eye to the peephole for longer than two minutes but less than ten, which was enough to make me feel like I should be wearing a muu-muu and fuzzy slippers.

As the noise continued, I began to feel like Mr. Furley in Three's Company, a shrill voice in my head saying, "Why I oughta," as I paced the apartment and felt like shaking my fist at the ceiling, although I didn't. I did really cry a little bit though. It's a bitch to  be woken from almost-REM sleep, and you're alone, and big men are running up and down the stairs drunk, and you can tell they're big even though they're fish-eye tiny in the peephole, and they won't SHUT UP, and then there's a big crash and you don't know what it is? That's what it was.

I did finally get so tired that no noise mattered, and all was, of course, better in the light of day. But now those assholes are up there pounding around again, and I know I haven't made that much noise for the guy in the apartment under me in the whole two years I've lived here, and I'm not necessarily meek and mild. I actually have a primal urge to bang a broom on the ceiling - something ridiculous and old-fashioned like that, although I never would in a million years. Okay...I feel a little better now. : )

Barenaked Confessions

Choose a band/artist and answer only in song TITLES by that artist/band.

chosen band : BareNakedLadies
are you male or female : I'll Be That Girl
describe yourself : Some Fantastic
how do some people feel about you : Humour of the Situation
how do you feel about yourself : It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)
describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend : What a Good Boy
describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend : Get in Line

describe where you want to be : Another Postcard
describe what you want to be : If I Had a 1,000,000,000 Dollars
describe how you live : Everything Old is New Again
describe how you love : Falling for the 1st Time
share a few words of wisdom : Take it Outside