on pause

I’d say it’s inertia, but that’s not true. It’s merely the inconvenience of the district canceling school because the weather sucks. I learn to work around someone else’s presence in the house during these hours when I usually feel so free to do whatever the hell I want.

My daughter, my lovely child, has been sitting less than two feet away from me (when I’ve been sitting, which is less time than you might imagine if you imagine me as the sloth that I must appear to be on these pages). When I murmur something or ask a question or pat her leg, she mostly doesn’t hear me. Fourteen-year-old girls have amazing talents. One is to do about four different intense,mental activities at the same time (read, do algebra homework, watch television, have a several conversations going with friends through three different instant messaging applications… on and on). Another is to focus on something so intensely that they hear, see, feel nothing else. A third is that they (or this one, anyway) actually do resurface when you say something to them that you hope they’ll hear, something sad, something funny, something to let her know that she is your heart.

It’s 2 p.m., and she’s just now showering. I haven’t showered yet, but you can forgive me that because of this attempt to try to get healthy (yet again. I wonder how long this attempt will last?) and thought I’d sweat before I showered.

Cool water.
Warm slipper socks.
Old, old T-shirt is that is so soft from thousands of washings that it’s like wearing nothing. (It’s a Houston Oilers T-shirt. That’s how old it is.)

There is no good reason for me to be unable to focus on whatever I choose to do for the rest of the day. Even when my daughter sits less than two feet away from me, she’s not here. She’s just a pretty, little shadow, just fingers tapping on keyboard, the occasional quiet sighing laugh.

Yeah.

I guess I don’t feel like writing an essay about how language arts curriculum destroys some kids’ love of language.

Wow. That was a terrible sentence. Forgive me that, too, OK?

hold

I feel as if I have to dig my fingers in tight to those thought places that will make a difference to my…

to my …

well, whatever.

Snow day.

My 14 year old sits on the sofa in her pajamas talking to friends through instant messages.

I can’t complain because I was just doing the same thing (am still in my pajamas, too).

But now, I have to move my bulging body so that I can jump-start my brain.

Tomorrow, we’ll have another snow day with that “wintry mix” a-comin’.

blah, blah, blah.

I am drafting an entry in my head about reading and literature and language arts and young teenagers. I’m no education expert, but I love literature, love to read, love young teenagers. Someone somewhere has made a really bad decision about how to teach young adults to love to read.

Well, next post. Maybe. Maybe I’ll say to myself, “If you go 20 minutes on the NordicTrack (which I used to call Miss PIggy), I’ll let you write a whiny post about how language arts curriculum seems to discourage love of reading and writing.”

(reminder: this is not a blog; it’s a journal.)

run

The towels still run in the washer.
David Bowie took me through 25 minutes on the NordicTrack instead of the 15 I expected (Golden Years, Heroes, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Let’s Dance, and China Girl (“oh, baby just you shut your mouth…she says, “shhh.”)). I love David Bowie. His voice makes me shiver.
I drink a tall, cold mug of water. That probably makes me shiver, too.

(It occurred to me that I left “drink more water” off my list of healthy ways to help myself drop weight. But I already drink lots and lots of water. I don’t think I could actually fit in any more water without drowning or spending most of my waking hours peeing)

Oh. Towels are finished. I will toss them in the dryer, make a bed, take a shower, clean a bathroom…..

I like my handy little life. It’s comfortable and allows room for wing stretching.

*

quick note to self: Reduced-fat Swiss cheese. Can I just say, “ew?”

(reminder: this is not a blog; it’s a journal)

pattern

It feels as if there’s a hole in center of the project (whatever the project is. book? poem? life?). I remember trying to teach myself to knit then crochet. Macrame was all the rage when we lived in El Paso (but not because we lived in El Paso. It was because it was the late ’60s, early ’70s). I was good at macrame. But I wanted to crochet like my sister. Knit like… I don’t know who.

Dropped stitches. Clumsy fingers.

I go to sleep but don’t sleep. Don’t even dream the story I’m reading about the terrifying Count Dracula. Don’t dream Jonathan Harker’s style. I dream you are scolding me for my bad patterns that mean dropped stitches and messy work.

Oh, it doesn’t matter much.

My daughter comes back to me this afternoon.

Tomorrow, six or so hours in the middle school library (volunteer gig).

I have decided to turn down the speaking role in my friend’s film, the one the high school students are producing. I told her this before she admitted that she and the other teacher working on the project had a screaming match with the three teenage girls who are adapting the novel into screen play.

I’m giggling like a 13 year old as I type that. I think I made a wise decision.

to do list with parts on repeat

• NordicTrack for 15-20 minutes (4 David Bowie songs: “Diamond Dogs,” “Rebel, Rebel,” “Young Americans,” “Fame”)
• Shower
• Wash sheets
• Wash clothes
• Wash towels
• return DVDs
• read Dracula
• write (please?)
• Put away G3
• go to grocery store (tomatoes, grapes, lettuce, onion, feta, raisin bread, orange juice, large freezer Ziplocs, Woolite, coffee (only if on sale), Cheez-its, taco shells, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, gum, etc.)
• write some more
• read some more

a list of “re-” words that make me happy

renew
revive
recollect
remember
reimburse
reinvent
relax
rekindle
refer
refurbish
renovate
redouble
remind
readjust
reanimate
reactivate
reacquaint
rejuvenate
reaffirm
reupholster
rewire
reorient
reroute
reintroduce
reassure

a list of things done and yet to do

Have brewed and sipped coffee
fed and pet the pretty cat

read news
gathered and read email and real mail
washed face

toast
orange juice
water
Diet Coke

dusted off NordicTrack (1991 edition)
hauled to pleasant side of basement
35 minutes
wrote poems in head while Annie Lennox sang
“would I lie to you…”
wheezed (exercise induced asthma. some things are too easy to forget)

Lily (novel’s main character) wants to write me another letter.
After I shower, I will let her.
If she’s sarcastic and bitchy, I’ll only laugh.
She “inherited” these traits from me.

I miss my daughter, but can’t wallow. She returns Sunday.

Will pay a bill (two bills, maybe three).
Begin another book (reading, not writing).
Will write a bad poem just to stretch my imagistic muscles.

I won’t say that I’ll dust or vacuum or clean,
but maybe I will.

I feel renewed. I love my country, but for so many years, I’ve felt that maybe my country didn’t much love people like me back. Despite this frighteningly conservative place where I live, I feel happy about singing my fucking joy.

yeah.

man. There’s something wrong with my style lately. Too stilted or something. I think I need to write my next post after I’ve had a few glasses of wine.

or not.

(remember, this is not a blog; it’s a journal)

in response to an essay I read today

I’m sorry dear person. My view today is so different from yours. I think, for one thing, because I have a beautiful, brilliant, creative, hilarious, kind daughter who believes that her generation can work (“work” being the operative word here) to make her world better, I have to choose to be naive and hopeful and to feel joy today at Obama’s inauguration. But even if I didn’t have a child, I would choose to feel this way. This is my country. I helped choose this new leader who almost represents me or represents me more than the previous leader did. I feel inspired, invigorated, heart full. And why shouldn’t we/I?

I’m tired of being cynical. This doesn’t mean I’m blind. I see the challenges. I know failure is almost impossible to avoid. But I believe we learn from our failures. I think to believe that change is a bad thing hobbles our growth. I live to change. Growing is change. Evolving is change. I really want to love my country, my world, to participate. Despite my reclusive tendencies, I want to contribute, to work. It just feels like you’re saying, “Why bother? This change isn’t real. We might as well just lie down and die.” I’m not ready to be dead yet. The change is real if I make it real.

I heard an interview with a man, a normal middleaged man, like you, like me (if he didn’t have a penis), right after the inauguration ceremonies.

“What will you do now?” the reporter asked as he left the Mall.

“I’m going to pick myself up, dust myself off, go home and get to work!” he said.

And he beamed.

I do hold onto my skepticism. But … I don’t know, dear person. I’m happy today. My joy feels right. I don’t believe Obama is a messiah. I believe he’s just a man who now holds a symbolic position. But his holding that position makes me happy. My daughter, too, is happy. And after all, it’s her world to save. I want to feel joy in the possibilities, in her possibilities.

love.

feel like this needs an intro. posted bits of this elsewhere. It’s mixed up and messy and inarticulate, but …

I have to document today. I read around some places and feel that this joy I’ve been expressing? This relief that Bush is gone and a man I believe to be a good man has replaced him? Annoys some people. Oh well. I don’t mean to be annoying. It’s just that I finally feel as if my way of being, my liberal heart, doesn’t have to hide. I’m far more liberal than President Obama. But…

…

I will just post what I wrote off and on throughout the day, edited for format. (heh)

(started sometime around 1 p.m. ET):

The big theme of today’s inaugural ceremony seemed to be love (not just talking President Obama’s speech). But maybe that’s just me.

We have a new President!!

And a really foxy first lady.

(Can I just state for the record, that if I were to admit to a celebrity crush, it would be Yo Yo Ma? ::swoon::)

OK. I can go back to being a quiet, self-absorbed recluse now.

*

quick note (a little later):

Earlier (as in last night and this morning), I was thinking about the inauguration ceremonies in the same way I thought about the moment I married my “not”-husband, the anticipation leading up to the “I do”s. Both felt like joyful rituals filled with love and … spirituality (I don’t mean this, exactly, because I don’t mean to bring God into this, but I’m having trouble articulating why today was so amazing for me). The wedding ceremony symbolized the beginning of the marriage, of the hard work of living together and being a family. The inauguration ceremony symbolized the beginning of a relationship between country and President, beginning of the hard work of recovering, etc. This one does matter more to me than some in the past. It just does.

My marriage failed. We were the wrong people for each other. But I don’t regret the ceremony itself, anticipating it, being so blissful that day when I vowed to love my one and only.

It’s possible that the union of Obama and the American people will fail. But today is the first day, and even though we face frightening challenges, I choose to look for the possibilities rather the pressures of expectations (this thought comes directly from my brilliant 14 year old).

Barack Obama is just a man. He’s not a savior, not a god, not even, yet, a hero. Today, in that moment when he became President, the first thing I thought was, “He is not George Bush, and Joe Biden is not Dick Cheney! They’re gone!”

For me, that’s enough reason for a ceremony. So, I’m not going to question my joy. It’s silly for me to feel ashamed/naïve for being happy that we finally made it to this damned day.

And, yes, I cried. But then, everyone knows I’m a fucking dork.

*

(about 3:30, after my Girl left for her dad’s)

just need to document this. My daughter got to watch the inauguration at school, got to hear Obama’a speech. She said she didn’t finish her homework in class the way she usually does because she wanted to listen. She was annoyed because two of her good friends were muttering their hatred of Obama, didn’t want to have to see him. She was more annoyed when the one friend who is still, at 13, obsessed with Miley Cyrus, said she didn’t like John Williams’ composition, thought Miley should have performed (hahahahaha!).

My Girl told me she believes that the world is going to be a better place with Obama as President because so many people in other countries like him.

She listened to everything. “I liked everything. In fact, I almost cried, it was so cool.” She even liked Rick Warren’s prayer.

I don’t know. When a political figure inspires a 14-year-old girl to think about the world in big terms, to think about how she can be part of making the country a better place, well… really. I’m grateful to Obama.

She deserves to live in a country that can offer her all sorts of goodness. She’ll contribute in amazing ways because she’s the kind of person who engages in her world, who lives in a way that I never have.

*

Oh, it looks like Kennedy & Byrd had some health issues! I hope they are both all right.

letters from a pissed off character-in-progress

Jan. 16, 2009

Dear Elizabeth,

You have me stuck in the middle of two different unfinished scenes from different “moments” in the story. Both, you seem to think, are “break throughs.” Ha. You’re always thinking you’ve made some kind of break through. One you’ve been writing in your head for years. The other, well, fuck, I don’t know what its purpose is and won’t until you write through it.

Why do you write 500 words and then stop? Why can’t you write 3,000 and keep going the next day? What the hell is wrong with you, anyway? You say this is all you want to do, but you fucking well don’t do it.

Jan.17, 2009,

Dear Elizabeth,

Go you! You managed to shut me up before I even got started. I’m so impressed I could spit. So, here you sit sipping your coffee. You have a little time before you pick up your girl from her friend’s house, and you are washed with fear. Fear. What is this about? I mean, really, who’s going to see this if you don’t finish or even if you do? You don’t have to be a published novelist. No one but you said you did.

Look, I just want to know what’s going to happen to me, being all self-absorbed and everything. I mean, you’re the one who created me all those years ago. You started this. I’m fully fleshed, more interesting than you, more assertive, more proactive. I want to know. You owe me an ending.

Am I crazy or is Geoff really a demon? You seem to think Geoff is really a demon, but I’m not so sure. Isn’t it possible that he’s just a manipulative, controlling, smooth, nasty guy who has the ability to play-act for real and that his shift in personality drives me over the edge? Remember Corina’s first husband? Remember how you and your then husband and her parents and sisters all loved him and then he turned into something completely “other?” Couldn’t Geoff be that?

No? Well, OK, then. Let’s just write this. Please. You can write around your Girl when she’s here. You can write around missing her when she’s at her dad’s. You have to or I swear ….

This isn’t really what I was hoping to say, but I’ll let it go for now. I wanted to get into the nitty gritty, the details of what happens at the bar during the open mic, wanted to tell you how my conversation with Geoff ends after he survives that mortal blow to the head that he shouldn’t have survived. But I know you feel like you must start a load of laundry and scrub down the bathroom. So, go for it if laundry is your creative outlet. Just leave me here to hover.

Damned writers. Think they’re all powerful, but when it comes right down to it, some of them just don’t have any balls.

Love,
Lily