The Thanksgiving Blog... or how to make today seem funny instead of alienating and sad.

To be completely accurate I woke up this morning at 1:30. I went back to bed at 3:30, but since I (when left to my own devices take many small nap instead of sleeping 8 hrs.) I count !:30 as the beginning of my day. Well, I had a research proposal that was over due I had to write anyway, and I had slept all day Wednesday, so it all seemed logical at the time.
No firewood in the house meant I had to go into the woods and pull down more trees and drag them up to the house. I feel fortunate to have the woods behind my house that I do. I feel like pulling down the dead trees and burning them in my fire place has a double benefit: not only do I get heating fuel, but I clean the woods up a bit at the same time.
unfortunately I lost track of time.
I emerged from the woods at 1:00 (and I needed to be at Arrowhead Golf Course at 2:00) Still I somehow could not make myself rush. Passive aggressive behavior has been a specialty all my life.
I don't know when I got to the golf course, but no one mentioned I was late. I wandered around the parking lot until someone called me into the proshop. This is where my Step-mother's family where having their Thanksgiving.
My step-mother's family are all nice friendly people, but my dad was so quiet. It was a battle to get him to say even a word.  The quiet grim Finn. He just carries his burdenwithout letting anyone know how to help him. I suppose if he is anything like me, he has no faith anyone would. He thinks it's better to not ask for any help, than to ask and not receive any.
My step-mother has a lump in her breast. There has been blood on her bed sheets. This makes me wish I had been more generous about Ed when Mom passed. If I had maybe Dad would know how I want to be there for him if the same thing happens now.

Book Review: "I'm Down" by Mishna Wolff

“I’m Down” is a memoir by Mishna Wolff. Her story is about growing up in a poor neighborhood with a father who identified himself as black. On the whole it was an entertaining read, but I saw some problems with her narrative.

The writing style contained a balanced proportion of description and dialog. The story moved along without any jarring distractions. If you paid close attention you could see seams where Wolff made decisions about what was important to leave in and what should be left out. We hear that she has gone to France, but there was never any mention of it until it was spoken of in the past tense. This does not mar the story. I would assume that the most interesting aspect of Mishna’s trip to France was her step-mother’s reaction to it. It is interesting to notice this story tailoring by the author.

Wolff creates a black persona for herself that I only really broke from if I happened to glance at the author photo at the back of the book. Certainly, as I was reading, I pictured her as black, but the things that made her black in the authorial eye were not things exclusive to a black experience. Her poverty was the main tool she used to identify herself as black to the reader. An aggressive demeanor also played a role in her description as herself as black. These at least were the things that set her aside from the white peers in her stories. I was left wondering how much weight these things carry in the African American national community. Certainly poverty and violence are problems in that community, but is it how these would define themselves?

In a sense perhaps this book is a reflection of her father’s flawed perceptions about being black, perhaps that is what pricks me about this narrative. Wolff would not be the first author to trick their readers into identifying with the wrong character to make the point double deep when it is revealed. At no time was I tempted to side with Mishna’s father; I did, however, initially take his word on what it meant to be black.
It is ironic that Mishna's father only encourages her to pursue higher education when it is a form of reward in athletics. It is like Mishna's father gets all his ideas about being black from stereotypes. Even though sports is often seen as a way to escape the ghetto Mishna's father takes this to the extreme. He does not encourage Mishna in anything but what might gain him bragging rights in his neighborhood. "You don't know everything," Dad said. "You think you're all head, but you got my athleticism." (pg 179)

I think it is ironic that Wolff chose to end the story by painting all her white school friends with negative vignettes about their personal lives. I wonder why she did that. It makes me think it is a last ditch effort to convince her father that she is the girl he wanted her to be. Logically, if she had spent the whole book thinking her school friends where better than her or wishing she had their families then it would make sense to end this story like that, but from reading I didn’t get that she was dying to be one of them. Sure she wanted the nice things money could buy, but Mishna longing for a white upper middle class family was not depicted in this book. What was depicted in this book was Mishna wanting her father to love her, appreciate her and to be family. In a sense there is an answer to that wish in her realization that she could not live with her father, but this takes place too early in the story to be a conclusion.

I think what this story does best is to highlight the problems with constructing personal identity. We all have a consciousness about who we are. There are things we would like to see ourselves as, and things we think we know we are, and there are things we wish we weren’t. Deciding and striving to be something is dangerous, because understanding if you take on the benefits and problems of an identity that is not your own it is impossible to be sure you understand what you are getting into.

If “I’m Down” is not a perfect narrative, then it is at least a truthful journey into the mind of a girl trying to find her place in the world. In reading this story, I believe, a little truth about the human condition can be gleaned.

Getcher Torches Boys! (revision)

Fear. Will that be the motivating emotion in my life?

When I was young I treasured Aurora Monster models. I was also afraid of them. The versions I had were glow in the dark and I always felt there was something creepy about that glow-in-the-dark plastic. It was something about the combination of the smell, and the unnaturalness of a creature (even a monster) being glow-in-the-dark colored. In the early 70’s (when I had these models) the only color that glowed in the dark was a kind of sicky green. Imagine little hunchback glued onto a painted wall all sicky green. His cloths were sicky green; his hair was sicky green, his face, that same sicky green. It’s odd, but I feel like the color must have been somehow humiliating for them. I can’t explain why, but I pitied them and it disturbed me. I used to watch the fading glow of the monsters lined up on my bookcase: Frankenstein, Dracula, and the little Hunchback. I used to wonder what they did when the glow faded and I could no longer see them anymore.

I know I was afraid of them, but I don’t so clearly understand why I loved them. The day I made Mom move them into the living room was soaked with bittersweet ambivalence. I loved them, but I couldn’t sleep with them in the room.  They were little fears that could be conquered by moving them to the living room, how long has it been since my fears were that simple?

At that time I guess I had more complicated things to be afraid of. It was always scary when mom and dad fought. I would stand at their feet and stare up. Their faces disappear through perspective, lost in the clouds from my point of view.  They would holler. I would stand at their knees hugging one leg from each in my arms. I would say (doubtless) cute things and they would stop fighting. I thought I could solve all their problems. Their fighting was scary, but I had no idea what to really be afraid of.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb little lamb

It followed her to school one day

Which was against the rules

He drove a white sedan (sort of boxy in style) and he leaned across the bench seat and pushed the passenger side door open.

“Get in, Libby,” he would say. “Your parents Don, and Ellen sent me to get you. It’s starting to rain and they don’t want you to get wet.”

Sometimes he had candy, and he offered it in an outstretched hand. Margaret took some. Margaret always led a charmed life.

It was the doughnut shop lady who told at the school, so that the police were waiting at home when I got there. I must have been picked up at school, but I don’t remember it. It only makes sense though: who would let a little girl walk home when a strange man was trying to get her to get into his car.

I don’t think fear is the right word to describe the emotion that that man evoked in me. He seemed like a big blank space. He existed in a void, or a vacuum where there was no possible way to interact with him. He was like that place on the map that said here there be dragons. I was never tempted to say even a single word to him. If he had wanted me, he needed to run me down, but he never got out of his car.

The police came, and I can guarantee I was more afraid of them. My mother asked me, “what kept you from getting into the car with him?” She obviously felt the breeze of a close call, and wanted to pass on the wisdom to my sisters. All I could tell her was, “You told me not to talk to strangers.” But that’s not why I didn’t get in the car. He was wrong. I can’t explain it better than that; I didn’t get in the car because the man was just wrong.

I only experienced “the fear” of that man in later years, when I thought about how close I had come to destruction.  I’ve experienced lots of fear since then.

Adult fears are boring and mundane and one thousand times more terrifying that any boogie man in the closet, or horror movie.

·         How will I pay for school?

·         Do I have cancer?

·         How will I pay my mortgage?

·         Is the gas off or is the water heater just broken.

·         Will the pipes freeze before I get the furnace fixed?

·         Will I ever get another chance?

·         Is he cheating on me?

·         Will I be alone forever?

I have to admit that going to see a scary movie is a clear escape from these more frightening thoughts. For however long the movie is I don’t worry about anything on the list above. I let myself go and submerge into the movie. The movie fear is engaging, and for 120 minutes I don’t think about it.

I think I’ve lived so much of my life dealing with fear, that after a while I just tried to appear more frightening than the monsters so they would leave me alone. In a sense I think the reason I loved those aurora monster model was that I identified with them in some way. For as alienated as a monster can feel, they are the monsters, and they do not fear. They are feared.

My life with Isi

This first installment of what I have to expect will be an unceasing source of amusement and complaint, will the called: "This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things".

I should probably begin at the beginning and tell you about Isi, or as I carefully and thoughtfully named her Isilien, or as I call her after having carefully thoughtfully named her, Isi. I have to admit to being completely shallow and irresponsible where it comes to how Isi came into my life. Todd (one of my closest, dearest, old schooliest friends) had a neighbor, who had a dog, and who also had medical issues. Todd's neighbor had purchase Isi (who was at that time known as Soix, but I had to change the name. I was ill prepared to deal with the kind of issues that came along with a "Dog named Soix") and could not take care of her. I really didn't need another dog, but she satisfies several irresistible requirements.

• She is (was gonna be) a big dog. After 15 years of cocker spaniels I want and deserve a dog sized dog, not that I don't love the little guys, but I love a big dog.
• She is (was) young. I don't mind taking someone else's dog, and I've adopted adult dogs before, but you are always taking on someone else's issues. When I bring up a dog they behave.
• She is a beauty. Ever since I was five years old I wanted a wolf for a friend (it is of course is wildly impractical to allow a five year old child to own a wolf, so I never got one), but by some roll of the genetic dice Isi looks like a wolf.

I didn't need another dog. I needed Isi, and now I pay the price.

As I said this installment is called This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, and now I will get to why. Isi is a puppy. 8 months old now. Puppies like any babies need to put everything in their mouths. Isi puts everything in her mouth. We have already gone the mundane rout of: Shoes, boots, brushes, all manner of fruits and vegetables, the other dogs, and rolls of paper towels. This last entry on this list is particularly interesting because it results in what I like to call "Puppy Confetti" (picture roll of paper towels ripped into dime to dollar bill sized shreds. At least it's absorbent.)

But, of course that is not enough for Isi. Isi also eats several things not on the regular diet of canine destruct-o-maniacs.
She ate my cell phone, which does not make for an excuse that anyone is inclined to believe when you want to explain that you never got their call... "my dog ate my phone." it sounds too much like a joke to be believable, yet, here we are.

Isi is also a bit of a goat. Not a real goat. I have never seen a real goat eat a tin can, but I have seen Isi completely enjoy a tin can stolen from the sink. When she is done with it it is a little wad of perforated steel (or tin or whatever they make cans out of)

But oh, where miss Isilien really shines is in the realm of home destruction. I have speculated, but I cannot say what it is that lead Isi to sneak into the basement. I can imagine that once down there many things sparked her over grown curiosity, and one of those things was the Phurrrrrrrrrrrrrr........ of the sump pump. I can only speculate because I was not there. I don't know what possessed her to pull on the pump until it was unplugged, but then not chew it into oblivion. I am grateful to whatever higher power or whims of chance allowed me to solve this problem by plugging the sump pump back into the electric outlet and watching the 8 inches of water in my basement slowly recede. It's Isi, that I know for sure, and if she does nothing else for me she at least will keep me awake.

Cthulhu is Weeding the WildFlowers (workshop essay)

        I have recently been rereading The House of Seven Gables, and every time I read this book I am more amazed at how delightfully snarkey Nathaniel Hawthorne can be (over the past year or so he and I have become very close). I think every time I re-read one of his books, I know him a little better. I know the way he writes his men: weak, selfish, frail creatures; I'll know the kind of girl he falls for every time: strong, pretty, perfect in too many ways. I forgive Nate his failings for a chance to step into his mind, to see his America. I feel like his weird friend who stands in the corner and stares at people. No one talks to me, except Nate, who is there, whispering in my ear.
         If you have read The Scarlet Letter at some point during your high school career you may have developed the opinion that Hawthorne (in the way he writes his characters) is trying to show us the wages of sin. Oh, if only it was that simple. Did you believe that Hawthorne believed that for Hester Prynn and Rev. Dinsdale there should be no path, but degradation and destruction for their sin? That is, as I understand it, the way Nate wants you to feel initially, but in his perfect world, Hester and the Rev live happily ever after (at least that's what he told me). We imagine them in heaven, after all, at the final trumpet. It's the town's people that finally kill Rev. Dinsdale. He can't face the shame and judgment in their eyes, not God's eyes, their eyes. Trust me, Nate wants you to caste yourself as one of the town's people and he wants you to judge Hester and the Rev. and he wants you to feel terrible at the end of the book when you find out what a tool you have been. How could you feel that way? What kind of a world is it we live in? ...seriously. It's the same for the Blithedale Romance, but it's The House of Seven Gables when Nate gets subtle and maybe a bit too smart for the casual reader.
         I think sometimes it is tempting to not think very closely about art and the message any artist might be trying to convey. There is a temptation to think that things are best enjoyed peripherally. Why should something have to make you think? Why can't it be enjoyed on it's surface level? Well, I think my personal need to examine stories stems from a feeling of alien-nation-hood. That is to say I feel like an alien, like I'm from another world. I often don't understand you all, but I want to. You are all, after all, quite fascinating. I think examining literature is a way to understand human nature, not the human nature that they want you to understand, but the real human nature: where the rubber meets the road. Ol Nate and I, we're like two sides of the same coin. I am afraid of humanity because I don't understand, so it seems like a wild unpredictable animal; Nate is afraid because he understands you all too well. He know what you're capable of.

Nate does not believe you can think for yourself; he has no faith whatever in society as a whole. To him, you all are lazy dangerous people, but at least he feels like he can use your best fault against you, and make you feel the way he wants you to feel. (I want to say I don't feel this way, in general, but we were talking about Nate.) The problem comes when you all refuse to look beyond the surface story. Nate sees this as inconceivable (I keep telling him I don't think he is using that word correctly in that context.)
          The House of Seven Gables does the same thing as The Scarlet Letter, but instead of of ill fated Hester and Rev. Dimsdale going to a fate that Nate thinks they don't deserve, it is a monster hidden inside all societies tropes for beauty and desirability. Penelope. I was looking at my notes (I write them in the book as I read) from the last time I read 7 Gables, here is what I said about Phoebe: GOD enough about Phoebe. Phoebe is a house and Clifford want to come inside her... I get it. Phoebe is just so perfect isn't she? She whisks into 7 Gables, re-arranges the furniture, puts a few violets in a vase and Hey Presto! All the Pynchon's problems are on their way to being solved -- as long as we pay attention-- and follow orders. Judge Pynchon has to wait until Phoebe has left to go home visiting her family before he can enter 7 gables, and even then it finally kills him.
           Holgrave is perhaps one of the most appealing men Nate has ever written. His friends are revolutionaries and freethinkers. He practices mesmerism, and is currently making his money taking daguerreotypes (photographs) of people and studying how sunlight brings forward the truth in them. For a 19^th century man Holgrave is pretty fantastic. He is an artist, a free-thinker, and a mystic, and he gives it all up to marry Phoebe, who “can't stand a mystery”. The right kinda woman can really suck the wizard out of a man.
           In Phoebe, Nate has created his most destructive terrifying monster yet. He describes exactly how psychological death can (and usually does ) come in the most appealing form. I could imagine Holgrave, 5 years down the road, wistfully watching as the parade of abolitionists, comeouters, community men, poets and artists march by his door. He used to be an artist, he used to contact spirits. How he would love to join his voice to the singing throng, but Phoebe does not appreciate that kind of behavior. Those are unsavory types. She could not stomach them in her life. Scarey... Nate's got horror down, that's for sure. His monsters at ten times more terrifying than his almost contemporary H.P. Lovecraft's.

Probably a picture of Cthulhu, although, if your not insane... it might not be accurate.

           H.P. Lovecraft (if you have no heard of him) wrote horror that expressed man's inability to comprehend the entire scope of his world. To comprehend the world as it was would drive a mortal mind insane. Lovecraft imagined (or so we are reassured, although it is a matter of debate) the world that we perceive as a hollow crust barely containing: elder gods whose names have been forgotten for eons, blurred lines between mankind and his animal nature, and intelligences so vast that our mind could not comprehend them. His fiction is full of howling voids, alien dimensions, and protagonists that will be forever scared by what they have experienced, but for me Hawthorne's Phoebe will always hold more horror than anything Lovecraft could imagine. Phoebe, in a field of wildflowers, would be diligently weeding with no idea or desire to know which were the flowers or which were the weeds.

Also probably Cthulhu, but again...

While Lovecraft's unholy god's can only be unleashed when the stars are right, and can be banished from the world of sanity and daylight, Nate's monster's are sitting next to you at the DMV, they are making cookies for the church bake sale, they are picketing gay soldiers funerals and bombing abortion clinics, all in the guise of pleasant gentile femininity: unimpeachable, attractive, pillars of society.

So if your not a fan of horror, you can keep reading Nathaniel Hawthorn's stories on their surface, and never realize what he really wants you to see, or as I prefer (on this beautiful October day) you can revel in the horror of soccer moms as depicted in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables.

Yoggsogoth is Weeding the Wildflowers

    I have recently been rereading The House of Seven Gables, and every time I read this book I am more amazed at how delightfully snarkey Nathaniel Hawthorne can be (he has become a close friend of mine). Some scholars may disagree with me on this point, but I assure you there are some that would agree.
    If you have read The Scarlet Letter at some point during your high school career you may have developed the opinion that Hawthorne (in the way he writes his characters) is trying to show us the wages of sin. You might believe that Hawthorne believed that for Hester Prynn and Rev. Dinsdale there was no path, but degradation and destruction for their sins. I think Nate wants you to feel that way initially, but I think, in his perfect world, Hester and the Rev live happily ever after (at least that's what he told me). We imagine them in heaven, after all, at the final trumpet. It's the town's people that finally kill Rev. Dinsdale. He can't face the shame and judgement in their eyes, not God's eyes, their eyes. Trust me, Nate wants you to caste yourself as one of the town's people and he wants you to judge Hester and the Rev. and he wants you to feel terrible at the end of the book when you find out what a tool you have been. It's the same for the Blithedale Romance, but it's The House of Seven Gables when Nate gets subtle and maybe a bit too smart for the casual reader.
    I think sometimes I am tempted to not think very closely about art and the message any artist might be trying to convey. There is a temptation to think that things are best enjoyed peripherally. Why should something have to make you think? Why can't it be enjoyed on it's surface level? I think, I think this way when I am bowing to the rather frightening "anti-intellectual" sentiments that are quite popular today. (they'll try to make you feel "not cool", but to hell with them anyway..)
    If you try that with Nate he is going to make you out to be a big shallow tool, (and he will be sitting in that chair of his with that smug expression on his face cause he knew all along how to jerk your chains, he is such a pain in the ass when he gets like this). Nate does not believe you can think for yourself; he has no faith whatever in society as a whole. To him, you all are lazy dangerous people, but at least he feels like he can use your best fault against you, and make you feel the way he wants you to feel. The problem comes when you all reuse to look beyond the surface story. Nate sees this as inconceivable (I keep telling him I don't think he is using that word correctly in that context.)
    The House of Seven Gables does the same thing as The Scarlet Letter, but instead of of ill fated Hester and Rev. Dimsdale going to a fate that Nate thinks they don't deserve, it is a monster hidden inside all societies tropes for beauty and desirability. Penelope. I was looking at my notes (I write them in the book as I read) from the last time I read 7 Gables, here is what I said about Penelope: GOD enough about Pheobe. Pheobe is a house and Clifford want to come inside her... I get it. It's when Nate is hitting his slow readers over the head that I get impatient with him, but it's worth the wait, cause he gets ya so good at the end.
    At the end of 7 Gables, Pheobe marries the Daguerreotypist  Holgrave and Holgrave gives up his adventuresome traveling life of taking "magical pictures of things using nature's own sunlight" to be Pheobe's husband, and to live of the Pynchon fortune instead of working to create and contribute to the good in the world. The right kinda woman can really suck the wizard out of a man.
    You might be tempted on reading 7 Gables to think that Pheobe saves the day, but I assure you if you will look close enough you will see that Nate has created his most destructive terrifying monster yet. Nate's got horror down and his monsters at ten times more terrifying than his contemporary Good Old H.P. Lovecraft's, because while Lovecraft's unholy god's can only be unleashed when the stars are right and can be banished from the world of sanity and daylight, Nate's monster's are sitting next to you at the DMV, they are making cookies for the church bake sale, they are picketing gay soldiers funerals and bombing abortion clinics (god, you know Pheobe would bomb and abortion clinic). So if your not a fan of horror, you can keep reading Nathaniel Hawthorn's stories on their surface, and never realize what he really wants you to see, or as I prefer (on this beautiful October day) you can revel in the horror of soccer moms as depicted in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables.

A New Day

    For the first thirteen years I owned my horse I kept him at a barn that belonged to friends of mine. I have to say without their sponsorship in this sense I never would have been able to afford my own horse. Keeping a horse is an expensive prospect, and these friends allowed me to keep my horse with their horses and as long as I paid for my own feed (hay and grain) and kept the barn and fences in good repair and helped take care of their horses, they didn't charge me any money... not that their wasn't a cost.
    When I first got Fauxie he was a mess. I was working at the humane society and Fauxie had been seized in a neglect case. He was about as thin as a horse can get without being dead, but that was only the beginning of the abuse he had suffered. Fauxie had had some rough handling. He had anxiety. If you disciplined him he would panic, thinking that their was no end to the pain that had begun. He would run sideways down the road. He would wring his neck and tense so he felt like a rocketship about to take off. I work for years to form a relationship with Fauxie. We have come a long way.
    The hardest obstacle I had to over come with Fauxie has only recently been made clear to me. It was huge, and this obstacle kept Fauxie and I from enjoying each other as we really could. I was the negative attitudes of my friends.
     I was indebted to my friends for making it possible for me to have a horse, but when ever I went to ride I received such criticism that I began to doubt myself. Riding a panicy horse is dangerous. It is an act of faith. It is an act of faith in yourself. You must believe that you can stick in that saddle. You must believe that you can make a difference. You must believe that if you are quite and paitent and consistent you will make headway and it will not always be such a melodramatic horror show. Real injury and death awaits the faint of heart.
   By the time I moved my horse to my friend Cathy's this fall, I was riding for a half hour at a time and I never left the riding ring. I was undone by a negativity that made my death defying efforts impossible.
    Today I went for an hour and a half trail ride with my friend Cathy. She never judges. She asks me how she can help me and never questions my methods. I love my old friends, but they crippled my relationship with my horse (they are not internet savvy so there is little chance they would read this, thank God. I would never want to hurt them.) Negativity is so destructive. I wish I could purge it from my life. I guess my next lesson is to learn how to deal with people who insist on being horrible destructive negative people without letting it make me want to give up.