Artichokes

An artichoke is a laughable object. Roughly the size of a softball and deliciously edible, it nonetheless tries to ward off such eating with spiky ends to succulent leaves. There’s a joke that goes something like “I pity the poor hungry sod who looked at this spiky ball of green stuff and was hungry enough to try to eat it anyway.” My momma and I used to steam one up and she’d teach me how to peel the leaves, dip them in butter or mayonnaise and scrape the tender flesh off the husky handle. These were a treat, purchased sometimes as the center to a Saturday night’s entertainment while we watched bad B horror flicks on Tom LaBrie’s Waterbed Warehouse-hosted run of films.

Shopping the other day, I thought I’d pick one up for Dan and I. It sat in the fridge while we did something else that Tuesday night, had band practice on Wednesday, met friends for beverages and conversation on Thursday and then was still there when we got the call Friday that our young friend had lost her bout with cancer and that it was time to go North to pay our respects. There was only one problem. Connor was sick with a stomach virus and plane travel for him was out of the question.

So we sent Dan up to grieve for us while Connor and I struggled with his bad belly and a sore ear that was quickly turning into a bad ear infection. I held him while he fussed for hours, made meal after meal for him that he wouldn’t eat, fed him rounds of juice and water and little containers of yogurt while we watched Finding Nemo again and again. Finding Nemo is an underwater adventure and soothing to our boy, a Pisces. And every time I went into the fridge to get another carton of yogurt for him, there sat the slowly darkening artichoke, a testament to shabby handling of produce and missed opportunity. Saturday night I seated Connor down with his dinner and steamed this artichoke. It seemed a decadent thing to enjoy with a sick baby on one hand and grievous loss on the other, but had I waited much longer, the thing would have dried and rotted, no longer been good to eat. I tried to scrape a little of the green off the leaves to give to Connor, but he wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t interested. So I ate the whole damn thing by myself, but saved half the heart for Dan.

Ah, artichokes. They’re a wonderful, easy, cheesy symbol of a rich life – sometimes spiny on the outside but tender and succulent at the heart, where most of us love and have the richest dialogues with the essences of our selves and the ones we love. You always eat at a funeral and I hear that there’s something about the confrontation with death that often raises the libido. It’s a matter of proclaiming the vibrance of life in the face of loss, a thumbing of the nose and flash of the ass to Mr. Death. I can’t say that my illicit artichoke eating was anything near that, but rather not wanted anything else exquisite to go unappreciated. I had been complaining that my little boy was growing too fast, that he doesn’t stop moving much and that I don’t get to hold him much. Well, that weekend he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be put down. At the end, I didn’t mind much. Everything was moving way too fast and the best way to confront our loss for me was to hold onto one of my most precious people as if for dear life, eat artichokes and wait for his Daddy to come home and hold me.

Blogging with the Aliens

I walked Connor to daycare this morning. We call it “school,” and it feels a little better, even if all he’s learning is how to hang out with other kids and not bite them. On the way to “school” and on the way back with the empty stroller, which always feels weird, but is a necessity of walking a child to daycare with a stroller, I met five people whom I know either well or as acquaintances. Five. The first two commented on how big Connor is and how much he’s changing. Someone else was walking their dog and waved. Another was on her way to work and honked. Yet another said he hadn’t seen me in a while and asked how I’ve been. Man, I love this town.

But those who know me know that I’ve slowed down a little these days. A friend loaned me season three of X-files and I’m just as likely to be watching “Paper Clip” or “Nisei” or dipping into the Aliens Quadrology that I bought for the Monsters Ink course. When you get really successful, you know, because you can write your favorite toys off your taxes. So it’s a lot less porch, a lot less cocktail hour, a lot less late nights and beverages and more. I’m hoping this is more than the encroachment of age and responsibility, but it might just be a vestige of 40 creeping up a month or two early. Mostly, I think, it’s just fatigue. I’m too tired, too sad and too tired of being tired and sad. Think I’ll go watch something with Aliens eating people.

It used to be that when I was having a really bad week, I’d dig up my copy of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and reread it. It seems a funny choice except that no matter how hard your life is and how many people seem to be in threat if imminent or future demise by long, slow, bone-and-body eating diseases, at least the vampires aren’t eating your town. There is still a place in the imagination where it could be so much worse. To me, that’s comforting. Sick, perhaps, but comforting. The only caveat is the new ghost stories. I saw one (Silent Hill – thanks, Stephen!) that really creeped me out; kinda like The Ring meets Jacobs Ladder meets Hellraiser. And anything that the Japanese have dreamed up lately can full on give a ghost-and-dead-thing connoisseur nightmares. One most go gently into this good night or get the socks scared off ya. It’s enough to make you want to stick with the classics: Aliens, The Thing, Ghost Story.

Speaking of ghosts, I got to wander out and about this last weekend during our local Bragg Jamm music festival. Dan’s band couldn’t play because the lead singer had a wedding, but he sat in with a good new band and did a great job while folks danced and sweated. It felt like a kind of homecoming, an old home weekend. Everyone was out, dressed up, playing music, dancing, sweating in the Georgia summer heat that even new air conditioners couldn’t properly combat. But either side of Saturday night, I just couldn’t get my dancing feet up to their usual revelry. I’m sure it’s because some very good friends are about to lose their first child to bone cancer, and I just wanted to hold onto mine for a little while. It could also be that the thought of their losing their little girl and having to face the long, slow suck that this is going to be just made me physically ill. Either way, I was happy to take it slow this weekend, and then to take it even slower this week. My stomach is in accord, aching when I don’t eat and then punishing me heartily when I do something stupid, like take asprin on an empty stomach, or eat chili and eggs for breakfast.

So we’re going gently this week, playing with the baby, starting back on the manuscript, planning the Fall literary festival and watching movies about how the things that haunt the night eat the unlucky. Survivor’s guilt much? Sure, all the time. But that’s the full contract price for being lucky, then, ain’t it? Ain’t it. Aint it, just. Think I'll go watch The Mummy again.

Smashed Up Little Slushbox

Okay, so what’s with the lotion booger? You know, that hard half-congealed knot of goop at the end of the pump-nozzel of the lotion that, if left long enough, turns to concrete. What do they put into this stuff that the drying of it leaves a gelatinous booger harder to remove than that crust that forms around Jurassic fossils? Now this is not a problem, really. I don’t have problems these days. People with brain cancer have problems. Those with three kids, a broken arm and no health insurance have problems. Those with no homes around November have problems. I do not have problems, but I do have lotion boogers. In all of the bottles. I went through the house today and got rid of them all. It seemed like part of the Spring cleaning that’s a few months late but applies to closets, parts of the floor the babysitter’s puppy didn’t get to, and an occasional desk drawer that’s gone feral.
I am thinking about such things because I’m making a to-do list of all the crap I want to have finished by the time I head back to campus in mid-August. It’s things like switching the credit card for the gym membership, getting a battery for one of the calculators that gave up the ghost, getting a hotel for a conference I’m going to in October.
At the top of the list are two numbers, one for a mechanic and another for a body shop for my car. It all started so harmlessly. I backed into a lady in her new, red Honda Civic at the grocery store. A series of scratches on the back white bumper seemed hardly worth reporting, so I put an 11th Hour sticker over the biggest one and got on with my life. Years went by and we contemplated selling the car and buying a newer, slightly bigger one. With Boogs in tow and a large carseat to fit into the back, it seemed like the thing to do. I looked at Nissan Altimas and Toyota Camry’s, even the new Hybrid. After test-driving a lovely light-sage 2006 Camry Hybrid, I ran the math, got sticker shock and came home and detailed my little white slushbox for further use. It’s a good car, gets good gas mileage and aside from the fact that it’s white and has a cassette deck and no cd player, is a fine, practical vehicle.
Then in the middle of the night one night, someone bonked that rear fender. It was a little mashed, not badly, and I was going to get a dent doctor to come fix it. After calling him and verifying that there can be no paint damage in order for his fix-it to work, I realized that yes, I had some cracking and some rust and was going to have to get the fender fixed the old-fashioned way – take it to the dealer and have them bolt another one on.
Then my dealer screwed up. While driving to work, I noticed the car pulling hard to the right. I pulled over, adjusted all the inflation on the tires, and was bummed to find that it still pulled to the right. Since we were going to be heading out of town the next day, I figured that I should bring it in to have the dealer look at it. I barely made it before the tread flew off the tires that this particular dealership had been inspecting and rotating since I bought the little car. So, in a fit of umbrage, I fired them as my mechanics and am now using a well-recommended private mechanic. I figured I’d call them and get the number for a reputable body shop.
Then, we scraped up the poor little burro of a car yet again, getting out of a Taco Bell. My inveterate vehicle decided to take on one of those cement posts that stand along the curbs of many fine fast-food dining establishments. This post has obviously been hit often and cantilevers hard to one side, yet now there’s another piece of the car that needs to be bolted back on. Quel Dommage. It’s time, though, to admit defeat, get the insurance company involved and just bolt back together this poor smushed up little slushbox. She’s a good car, even if she’s a little boring, and I owe her that. That and it will give me something to do other than hunt down lotion boogers.

Spectres of Dancing

Fuck, why can’t I do this anymore? I’ve got all the focus of a three-year old with a World Book Encyclopedia Atlas. Sorry, my friends, I’ve become a bad blogger. To those of you who have been waiting to hear my wit and slightly caustic sense of humor, well, it’s missing these days. Or not. Mostly, I’m using those talents, when I have them, in the classroom or on the porch and have not reserved a lot of time out of those spaces to come in and write things down. This is supposed to be a log and instead it seems to be more like a message in a bottle, or a postcard from the middle – “Having a grand time, wish you were here.”

In the background, of course, is the fact that my mother is still seriously ill, but she’s bucked this last challenge (a bowel surgery) with all the grace and strength that she bucked some of the earlier challenges, so it’s still very serious, but she does not die today.

In the foreground is the edgy kind of anxiety you get when you have a lot to do and you’re playing hooky writing blogs. Maybe its because this blog was supposed to be a kind of translation from the world of those who have children to those who don’t about what the experience is, why anyone would do this to themselves and what the draw of the little boo-boo face and those little arms around your neck at bedtime really are. It’s a fool’s errand and I think only one who didn’t yet arrive there would think it were doable without getting squishy, sentimental or just plain dull. Nothing is so dull as those who go on about their kids, except perhaps those who go on about their grandkids. Dull. Like watching the dirt not move or watching kudzu. Always gonna be there, nothing much new there and by the way, when is lunch?

Monster’s Ink, my new course at the college, has been a blast. We’re doing ghosts next, hauntings, traces, poltergeists and things that go bump in the night. I’ve been studying this stuff since I was thirteen and can do this blindfolded. In fact, I owe those guys a final essay assignment that I promised last Thursday. I suppose, though, it’s not for nothing we’re doing ghosts this week. Trying to explain the life of being Connor’s mom to those who haven’t yet had the pleasure and torment of having an infant in the house is like trying to describe the green of Ireland or the round flavors of an Italian Chianti from the café off the Trevi Fountain before you’ve been there. Some things have to be lived. And in the midst of all this living, I’ll try to be better about dropping a postcard now and then to remind myself of how lovely the trip is being.

Monsters

It sits in the folder with the rest of my folders, reproachful, unmindful and indifferent. It’s a collection of pages called “blog.” That’s it – the name of the file and the title of my reproof. But without Georg Sand’s habits of a “nightly regurgitation of 10 pages” or Jack London’s self-imposed 10, 000 words, I just haven’t dropped any ideas or impressions here in a long time. I’m not really sorry – it was a bad time to write to a public, any public. Between my mother’s illness and my fatigue and scrappiness, I was bound to hurt, inflame or sound like I was casting about for pity; none of which I wanted.
Connor, at 15 months is delightful. He mostly sleeps through the night unless that magical mysterious something that makes him cough at 3am kicks in and wakes him. He’s tall and gangly, with a sweet face and those big blue eyes. And he’s a sweet boy, a hugger of other children and a reacher for all pretty ladies. He’s also in great health and spirits, a light in a sometimes tragic world. He’s also getting a sense of humor, making funny faces and blowing raspberries because it amuses him.
So the New Yorker ran an article about some dude who wrote about the “problem of evil” as a problem of faith for him in light of the recent tragedies in Asia. Between the Cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China, we have much to wonder about. Why would a beneficent God allow for such evil, dude ponders. I think about the horror that each mother and child, each lover who has lost somebody is facing and then multiply that by a body count times two and I start to wonder myself. What nature of a God is it that allows this. But I am too distracted by my own little drama to ponder much. I have a husband I love, a beautiful son and a mother whose health is slowly dribbling away like water poured on our wooden deck. I am currently distracted by what I have and what I’m losing. The rest of the world will have to wait.
I’m teaching a class called “Monster’s Ink” at my school. It’s being wildly successful and the students are really enjoying it. Mostly we’re looking at monsters of all sorts, including those who are actually helpful to human kind (the centaurs, the phoenix, the dragon (yes some are helpful rather than a menace why, we’re looking into) and others that aren’t (the hydra, the Cerberus, the mummy (though the first, Jane Loudon version was). So I’m finding after catching something about The Adromeda Strain that I hadn’t made room for disease, though we will probably talk about it when we hit 28 Days Later as an extension of our Zombie talk. Infectious Disease is indeed monstrous, but what about Cancer? It turns the body on itself and begins almost eating the organs. Our Xenomorphs in Aliens did something of the same, but rarely does horror fiction or monster fiction really depict this well. You need an external figure, like a vampire, to note a body that’s at war with itself, changing painfully into something else. Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher did something with an alien life that covered you with spores one of which grew into an ass-chewing larvae. That’s about as close as cancer comes to a depiction in the monstrous. It’s just too new, too quiet and takes too long to kill to have a good metaophor in our monstrous.
And in the midst of this sits my own little cupid, blowing kisses and uniting lovers, like Aphrodite’s Eros. Me, I’m just the sybil, fated to live too long and have to tell what happens next. A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but more isn’t necessarily better. It sometimes just gives you better names for the monsters that hide in your dark.

Blue Skies

The weather has been spectacular, thunder-and-lightning accompanied barrage of running water. This sounds like a good idea, given local drought conditions, but it’s a bit rough – the mood crushing gray skies and damp ground. I’ve retreated to a hot cup of tea, though my belly’s not great. It’s been a bad belly, for bad times and I’m treating it like a young and tender thing, maybe fresh out of a convalescence, and put a lot of milk in my tea. Almost “cambric tea,” as the old folks call it. I have delayed my writing here, as it feels a little unseemly, now that my life has turned into an Orestian tragedy put on by Mad TV.

National Women’s History Month is coming up and I’m working on drumming up that enthusiastic fire in the belly that celebrates all the Fortune 500 ladies, all the politicians who clawed their way through local elections and petty politics to become one of the big runners despite charges of either being too prissy or not being ladylike enough or just too bitchy to be likeable. I also like to celebrate all the entertainers who are still making contribution past their first five years and who didn’t self-destruct like that poor circus show, Brittany Spears. I think here of Madonna, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Reba McIntire (and I realize that regardless of how much I admire her, I have no idea how to spell her name) Cate Blanchette, Sandra Bullock, Rosie O’Donnel, Felicia Rashad, Beyonce, Martha Stewart, and all those ladies who, like Oprah, now belong in a category all by themselves.

I really just want to lock the door, pull the blinds and watch old Firefly reruns with Connor while we play with that toy that has a blue and red half with cutouts of shapes and yellow squares, circles, stars and hexagons that you poke into it, then pull it apart from its yellow handles to try again. Connor’s caught on that this isn’t entirely about him, that this is a distraction – and possible obsession – of mine. He will drop in a couple of shapes to amuse me, let me applaud him, then go bang on the floor with the wooden spoon he stole three months ago.

Now I could go on about Firefly for a blog or two, about how I love Zoe and Kaylee as good, positive characters for a growing womanhood who will have to learn computer programming and/or myriad complicated electronics to be financially viable in a quickly changing economy. Or I could just look at Nathan Fillian’s butt. Or enjoy Jayne’s one-liners. It’s all comfort food now that Mom’s in serious trouble.

On the plus side Mom’s having a good day, and when anyone asks me about my heroes, I’ve always got my Momma’s name at the ready and can brag about her decisions to go into the department of justice, become an analyst, fall in love with four kids and marry a guy to get them, became a tax collector, and when that bored her, sail boats. It was in the San Francisco bay that she met the love of her life. He’s probably the first man who’s treated her decently in a long time and at least we get our happy ending.

That’s my ending line, and I’m sticking to it. The baby’s going to wake up in a couple minutes and I get one of his gap-toothed, wide-mouthed, shriek-filled smiles. It’s like going around the corner to see the new Baby M. He’s a sleepy, long-legged, long-footed sweet little baby and although I probably should have been writing on my article instead of mooning about at babies, he’s seven pounds of half-lidded reason to keep your chin up and celebrate the good stuff. As helpless as he might be right now, he’s also powerful in his newness to remember, just remember that there’s a lot of life out there and that though the fates take with one hand, they always give with the other.

Take me to the River

My husband makes great coffee and recently got an espresso maker. I thought nothing of this until after this morning’s cup, I found myself scrubbing in between shower tiles with a toothbrush. Coffee is a gentle wakeup; espresso is dangerous. Some religious faiths even forbid the use of coffee (although chocolate is considered kosher) and I in some ways understand. Our ancient, resurfaced-but-peeling, leprous-looking shower probably needs a bit of scrubbing, but everything in moderation. The toothbrush action seems just a bit OCD to me. I stopped, grabbed a load of laundry and ran downstairs before I could react to the dust on top of the commode or the potential for reorganizing my underwear drawer. I know this madness and it must be fled.

Tom Hanks’s character in Castaway says “We live and die by time,” my favorite Rasta character in Neuromancer says “Time be time, mon,” and one of the visiting CEO’s at the Stern School of Business “Business and its Publics” lecture said “Time is the currency of love.” I hold all of these simultaneously true. Time IS the currency of love and I want to spend more of it with Connor and Papa Zook, but it takes leaving that living and dying by time and recognizing it for what it is: like a river of water that you can’t use all at once, but might still think about managing now and then.

It has taken a decided act of unclenching, though. Of all of the seasons of “Friends” reruns I saw, my favorite line is when Ross turns to Monica (I don’t miss the obvious here) and merely says “Oh, unclench!” I laughed so hard, tea came out of my nose. Although born dreamy and distracted by nature, when I decided to go to graduate school, I focused on getting organized. I taught myself order, systems, files, lists and excel spreadsheets. I have had to admit, though, that this is like the compensating mechanism of someone with a disability: I try to order my world against chaos by making lists of lists so I don’t let details slip and go back to the slightly unfocused and irresponsible character I was as a teenager with great potential but too little application. I think its because I realize how precious time is that I must learn to let it go.

Dan and I have talked about this irrational fear we sometimes get that something will happen to Connor. Some random act of fate, stupidity or life’s grind can take a child from you so quickly. I have a new horror that, like in all action-adventure movies, now that I am deeply happy and delight in my life, I will lose the most precious thing in it. I think of Eric Clapton who lost his two-year-old to a fall and my stomach twists. I cannot imagine surviving such a loss and don’t know how people do it. When I think of such things, I hold that little body close to my heart and soak in the joy of his being, the boundless energy that makes him want to jump out of my hands, and the smell of him, lest tomorrow they will be gone. Time will take him from me one way or the other; even if he survives to old age, he will morph and change and unfortunately lose that wild sense of wonder that he has now in leaves, sunlight on the wooden floor and my favorite earrings. He’ll lose that effortless baby charm and become grown. I’ll lose my baby and get a curious little boy, who I will lose to the teenager that I will give up for the man. I wonder how his eyes will look at 27. One thing I’m damn sure of is that I’d better give it time and pay attention because it goes way too fast.

I get Connor back at 3pm today and will enjoy all the hours between then and his bedtime. Sure, come Monday, I’m back on the lists again, but the deal I’ve cut and the balance I’ve made is that the lists cover the holes in the dam that keeps my life deep and rich. Without them, there’d be no water-sports with the baby, no teeming fish-jokes and no productive spinning of the turbines that keep this whole show powered. Still you can have too much damming up of your energies, that leads to too much damning of those around you for not being the perfect addition to your tightly clenched world. And that’s just too OCD, that way madness lies, and is to be fled.

My Little Bundle of Joy

I remember when I started this blog wondering about the changes that parenthood would bring and how my Wanna-Be-Lara-Croft self would adjust to the identity shift. Let me tell you that I needn't have worried: Parents are so much more badass than the rest of us. If you don't believe me, go to an airport and watch the guardian of a toddler negotiate the constant motion, insatiable curiosity, hunger and changing diets, diapers and Jekyl or Hyde mood changes of their young charge. Let me say for the record that I loved my holiday travels and the quality time I spent with my baby boy has me just gooey in-love with him. But bringing a toddler on a plane is like bringing a live salmon to a tea party and hoping no-one notices. It takes a finesse that I'm only beginning to understand.

All that said, Connor did beautifully on the trip and charmed everyone he met from the flight attendants to the ladies behind us who waved and smiled at his energetic attempts to climb the seat. Denizens of a great dim sum place in San Francisco fetched his toys for him when he dropped them. My mother's boyfriend, a childless fellow of great taste and a collection of antique toys found himself snuggling a friendly Connor one morning while his heart melted and his glass coffee table gathered fingerprints. My mother's heart is pleased that he has all of his father's charm and just hopes that he uses his powers for good.

I was telling some 19-year old kid in the airport that Dan and I struck up a conversation with that the one thing people don't tell you about kids is how much fun they are. Connor has gone from a charming baby-smelling blob to a lean-legged little boy with an impish sense of humor and a penchant for stealing things. At some point he took off with Mom's boyfriend's glasses and ran (yes, ran) for the dining room. Okay, the kid only learned to walk a few weeks ago. We have also noticed that getting down on the floor with him lets you play with cool toys and growl and chase him to your heart's delight and his giggling glee. He has also decided that he's a foodie, eating dim sum, Thai noodles, Satay and Tandoori Nan with equal relish. I love watching him try new foods. He gets the strangest look on his face and then sets about eating with a great concentration. Watching him is like getting to taste everything for the first time. And it's really making me appreciate how good things are, how much joy I get from food, from a good game of "flap the sock," from the dimple in his cheek when he's about to be a cheeky little monkey, from watching him climb stairs like they were Lake Tahoe's 90-foot wall, with the same energy and confidence with which he tries to eat leaves. I loved watching him open presents for the first time, just taking in stride the funny noises coming from Howard the Farting Dog. That's quality time, my good people.

In fact, all of that quality time with my family (extended and nuclear) was just what the doctor ordered. I got quality time with my in-laws and a good long week with my Mom. Poor Dad got short shift this Christmas and I hope he'll forgive me, but the rest of the trip was just great. I did a little work, but only a little and spent most of my time just eating, drinking and talking with the ones I love. Which brings me to the only resolution that I'm making this year. Sure, I quit smoking (again), but backslide too frequently to really make that count. No, this year's mission, should I choose to accept it, is to just unclench and enjoy life more. Period. Anxiety about what is getting done or not getting done is a soul-killer and I don't want that death on my conscience for me, Dan or Connor (makes me shiver to think of it).

So that kid in the airport asked me if Dan and I had learned anything from Connor – if he was teaching us anything. I think every time you love someone they teach you something. Right now, Connor's teaching me a great deal about what charming is, about courage and fearlessness, about giggling and play and about how much joy comes from simple things. I wouldn't say I'm content – too much left in the world to do and see -- but I'm definitely delighted and learning to appreciate it.