Maggy, 1st chapter

CHAPTER ONE
Gifts from Maggy

Lucy, my dog, sprawls across my bed and I'm nearly swallowed by a small mountain of down pillows. I'm waking up, sipping my second mug of espresso with two tablespoons of sugar and hot milk and having my first bong hit of the day. Not exactly the breakfast of champions but I like it. The Young and the Restless is on TV and Nick Newman is thinking of sleeping with his slutty secretary, Grace, when Lucy springs up.

She comes to full alert all at once, from a snoozing dog to a tall standing, hackles up, silent attack dog. There's a slight rocking of the bed and the delicate tinkle of her various dog tags. I lean over and look out the second story window of my bedroom to the yard, sidewalk, and street below. Nothing. No dog walking by, no mailman, car, or pedestrian. Then, before I settle back into the pillows and take my second bong hit, I hear the unmistakable sound of the UPS truck's slight screech as it rounds the corner and pulls to a stop in front of the house. The minute it rounds the corner, Lucy is off the bed, down the stairs, at the door and waiting when the UPS guy hits the porch. The second his hand touches the screen door she barks once--deep, loud and with authority. He still has to open the screen door, cross an enclosed porch, ring the bell, and all the time Lucy growls and barks ferociously. It's the confident barking of a very competent watchdog. Both participants know this ritual. She acts tough. He believes her, drops his package, hits the bell, and runs like hell. It's always the same.

I have a cold that's gone bad. I dial my doctor's office and get a busy signal. Hit off. Redial. A commercial comes on and I go down to retrieve the box. It's a big one. I heft it to my hip and grab a knife from the kitchen on the way back upstairs.

I know the package is from Maggy. She sends at least two a month. Thanks to Maggy, Lucy and the UPS guy get to play their ritualized game. Now I have to play the same sort of game with Maggy--different rules, different players, but no less ritualized. After I open the package and sort through the treasures I will have to call her and comment on each piece with interest and enthusiasm, but most importantly my gratitude will have to sound real to her finely tuned ear. I have the rest of the day to prepare my remarks. I'll definitely bathe and change clothes today.

Today's boxes are better than most. These are her rejects from this past weekend's garage sale purchases. It's her obsession. There are five cashmere sweaters. I probably have fifty or sixty cashmere sweaters. I keep the best and pass on the rest of them to friends. This box also contains a pair of Gianni Versace beige suede pants, size 4 (I'm currently an 8 but one of my model friends will be able to wear them) a beaver top hat, some glitzy clip-on earrings, and two pairs of shoes size 7 1⁄2, (her size, not mine). The top hat is my favorite item in this box. I can work up some genuine enthusiasm over a beaver top hat. Who knows, I might want to dress-up like Marlene Dietrich some night.

She's always had the power to wipe me out--mistress as she is of the eviscerating tongue-lash. I know she's just an old woman, opinionated and imperious, alone and hardly much of a threat to me, really. Without me she has no single, aging daughter. Without me she’ll have no one to take care of her when she can't take care of herself. Because of her I have no child of any sex to love me or hate me. Without her I'm home free.

A lifetime of expensive psychotherapy has taught me I can give her the power to hurt me, or not. All the rationality in the world can't make me not fear her, though I still wish it were so simple, since it's hard to love someone you fear. And I do love her. I love her most satisfactorily at a distance. The greater the distance, the more I love her. Once or twice a year I wish her dead with about as much success as I wish I could love her in an uncomplicated way. Not painfully dead, but dead nonetheless.

I'd like to outlive her long enough to know what it is to be free of the need to suppress my rage and be nice, bite my tongue, keep my feelings to myself. I’m so tired of being told I stink and I talk too loud. She has always expected me to share her passions and her prejudices. (She hates fat people and feels entitled to berate them for their food choices in line at the grocery store, while I try to pretend I don't know her.) In person, she requires my undivided, adoring attention. If I don't get that just right it ends in her extravagant crocodile tears and recriminations. I must endure her long rambling critique of everything wrong with me--from my fiscal irresponsibility to my poor housekeeping skills. When I object, whatever the tone of my voice, she says, "Please don't yell, your voice hurts my ears." It's often the only thing she says, but waiting, in case I open my mouth and suck in air, as if to speak, there is the next thrust, "Why must we always talk about the past? You'll never be a grown-up if you can't stop living in the past. Get over it. Move on."

Last time she came to Salt Lake to visit me, my first impulse was to kill myself. Instead I called the therapist I keep in touch with for just such emergencies. It cost four hundred dollars in therapy sessions, canceled bookings (and a pissed off agent), doctor's visits and a new anti-depressant. I spent a month in bed recovering after she left. Usually I can anticipate her impulse to drop in on me and beat her to the draw by scheduling a short visit to Santa Barbara. I can stay in Yankee Farm with my friend Jack.

I'm not proud of this pathetic fear of my own mother; it's such a loathsome admission, and not entirely the truth. What I feel for Maggy has never been simple fear and it's certainly not uncomplicated. Maggy has never been just my mother. We've been rivals since my conception. I worship and fear her as only a powerless rival can. To most people she's a fabulous creature. She was to me too before I got to know her.

Maggy 2nd chapter

CHAPTER TWO
In the Beginning

It had to be a weekend day because Maggy was home. The boys had come and gone during the morning and early afternoon. It was warm enough that I was wearing a short-sleeved dress. It was before my fourth birthday. I was playing on the front porch when a man came up the stairs and rang the doorbell. The door was open but the screen was closed. Maggy yelled from the kitchen, "Come on in, the door's open."

He was looking at me and smiling. "Hi. Remember me? I'm a friend of your big brother's. My name’s Clark, remember? I used to live up the street with my family, remember? What's your name? I forgot."

Maggy had come to the screen and was listening to him. "Clark, how are you? I heard you enlisted in the Air Force. How're you liking it?"

"Fine, just fine, Ma'am. Is J.R. around? I've got a couple of days in town to visit family, and then who knows where?"

"J.R. should be back any minute. I was just going to run to the market, would you mind watching Judy while you wait for J.R.? I won't be long." She turned to me. "You remember Clark, don't you? I'll be right back."
"Can I go?"
"No, you slow me down."
"I can carry."
"No you can't. I'll just have to end up carrying you. Stop this! Clark will stay with you until J.R. gets home and besides I won't be gone more than a half an hour. That's nothing."

Clark looked at me and said, "I can do magic tricks." He kneeled down and looked over his shoulder at Maggy as she started down the steps. I watched her, too. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore a white sleeveless blouse. She had a small white purse in her hand. She didn't look back.

Then he stood up and walked to the southeast corner of the porch. He leaned against the stone and concrete pillar supporting the roof and said. "Wanna see something?"

I backed up toward the house and leaned against its river-stone wall and rolled from shoulder to shoulder feeling the bumpy surface. I stuck my thumb in my mouth and stared at him.
"I've got a surprise in my pocket and if you can reach it, it's all yours."
"A penny?"
"You'll have to reach in to find out."
I looked from his pants pocket to his face. He was smiling and his arms were spread wide, palms turned up. He whistled tunelessly and looked around. He shrugged his shoulders and looked down from pocket to pocket.

I inched my way around the porch from the front window to the east side of the house, edging closer until I faced him in the corner. I reached my hand up but could barely grab hold of his pocket with my fingers.

He said, "Here, let me give you a boost." He put his hands around my waist and slid me up his leg until I could slip my arm down into the depths of his pocket. I felt around. There was a crusty wadded up hankie, a piece of paper, and a coin. I closed my fingers on the coin and pulled out my fist. He said, "Let's see what you got," and set me down. I opened my hand and found a coin smaller than a penny and a few bits of lint. The coin was shiny and silver. I looked up and said, "It's not a penny."
"No, it's better than a penny, it's worth ten pennies."
"I want a penny."
"I've got something else that's better than a penny."
"What?"
"It's a little animal."
"A kitty?"
"Better than a kitty. Come on and I'll show you."
"A duck?"
I took a couple of steps toward him and he reached out and pulled me closer. Then he picked me up and moved a little to the right until his butt was resting on the ledge, one foot on the floor and the other dangling. He sat me on his lap and held me with his right arm. With his left hand he stroked his left leg, high up on the thigh. A bump wiggled there. He said, "That's my little animal, wanna touch it?"
I shook my head no.
He said, "Look, I can make it jump. He ran the flat of his hand down the length of it and it jumped.
I leaned back in his right arm and laughed.
He said, "It won't hurt you. Honestly, you can touch it. Here, I'll put you down. You get right in front of me and reach up. It won't bite."
He gently slid me down so that I was positioned right in front of him. That lumpy, jumpy animal was above my face. He said, "Go ahead and touch it."
I reached out my finger and poked it gently. Nothing happened. "Why don't you try petting it like you would a kitty?"
I patted it softly and it jumped. I pulled my hand back and he said, "That's okay, you can pet it, he likes that." So I reached up and rubbed it. It moved again and it was warm. He said. "Wanna see it?"

I looked up at his smiling face, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of showing me his animal. I shook my head up and down. He said, "I can't take it out on the porch, I'm afraid it'll run away. Let's go inside." He took me by the hand and led me to the screen door, opened it and gently pushed me in before him.

He told me to lie down on the rug in front of the sofa. Then he kneeled down at my feet and unzipped his pants. He said, "Here, move your legs a little so I can get him closer to you. I don't want him to get lost in here. Now close your eyes. He's shy." He moved forward on his knees, bent down, reached up and pulled my panties down around my ankles where they got hung up on my shoes. He got them off one leg, and then he put something very warm and smooth on my tummy and wiggled it back and forth. I was nervous with my eyes closed, but it didn't hurt. Then he pushed it at my peepee and it hurt. I opened my eyes and said, "Ow, that hurt!" I tried to scoot away from him, but he pulled me toward his animal and tried to push it in my peepee. I screamed, and he put his hand over my mouth and tried to put his animal in my bum. Then the back door screen slammed. And he was running. And the front door screen slammed. And he was gone.

Maggy came into the living room after setting her package on the kitchen table. She said, "Judy, what the hell are you bawling about?"

I was curled up facing the sofa, blubbering. Snot and tears streaked my face. My dress was bunched up under my arms and my panties wadded around one ankle. I just kept sobbing. She came around the sofa, sat down and looked at me for a minute. Then she said, "I know what will make you feel better. We'll go on a picnic at Lindsey Gardens. I'll make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Now put your panties on and come help me. We'll wash your hands and face and you can put the jelly on."

I don't remember fixing sandwiches or walking to Lindsey Gardens, but I do remember having to pee. She said, "Just go over there behind that bush, no one will see you. Don't pee on your shoes."

I don't remember the bush or the picnic blanket, or anything else, but I do remember the burning. There was fire in my pee. I screamed and hobbled over to her, pulling my panties up and crying. She said, "That's what happens when you let boys do things like that. Don't ever let a boy do that to you again!"

I don't think Maggy told anyone about what happened to me. I do remember listening to screaming arguments between Maggy and Chuck about my behavior. I was afraid to be left alone, unless I was securely locked in the upstairs bathroom, and even though I could unlock the door, I wouldn't. Not for anyone. They kept a ladder on the west side of the house and left the bathroom window unlocked, which was too high for me to reach. Then my brothers told me that the Boogieman lived in the toilet. I found another hiding place, and started to wet my bed.

This bad behavior of mine ignited tempers in the adults. I became a problem for everyone. All I wanted to do was hide. But even late at night there was no hiding from fighting. It would simmer at the dinner table until I made some kind of mess. I might drop peas in my lap, or knock over my milk, and my father would swear, shout, and send me from the table. This dinner event would set the tone for the rest of the evening, until finally, exhausted, they all gave up bickering, went to bed, and silence would descend on the house. It was then, in the quiet of the night, with everyone at home, that I felt safe. But it was a rare night when we were all at home together at the same time. Most times JR and Pat went out after dinner.

Things got quiet for a little while after the big boys left. John spent his evenings at home in his room working on airplane models, and I was not allowed to bother him, but I wouldn't have anyway. All the boys had made it clear to me I wasn't welcome in their rooms. They had been mean to me in so many ways; I had long since stopped pestering them for attention. Chuck went out almost every night. His leaving was almost always accompanied by a lot of yelling. And if Maggy went out too, I was, in the core of my small self, alone in the house. John might actually be in the house with me, but even so, I was alone. It scared me so much to be alone in that big house with the boogieman in the toilet, and mean men outside who could just walk in the door and hurt me with their animals any way they wanted to, and it would be my fault.

One night, late, after all the boys had gone to bed, and the house was calm and quiet, Chuck came home and started shouting the minute he opened the front door. He yelled, "Maggy! Get your ass down here and fix me something to eat." In the silence that followed it sounded like everyone was holding their breath. Then he shouted, "Bitch!" And I heard his heavy clomping as he stomped up the stairs. I could hear his voice, but not the words. Then I heard her voice, loud and angry. "Shut up! You'll wake everybody." There was more indistinct shouting and then the sound of scuffling as they progressed down the hall, with curses back and forth. Then the noise of them coming down the stairs--his shoes loud on the hardwood, her voice saying, "No, stop it! You bastard! You're hurting me! Stop it!" Then a crashing sound and he said, "Get up, you stupid bitch!" By the time they entered the kitchen, one thin wall from my bed, I was trembling, thumb jammed into my mouth, eyes shut tight. I could hear her bare feet like little slaps walk to the table, a chair scrape across the floor. I heard him walk to the fridge and the door yanked open, then the sound of one bowl after another hit the floor. I heard breaking glass and a wet, squishy sound as the contents of the fridge were emptied onto the kitchen floor. She would say, "Shit," or "Stop this," but I was sure she was just sitting at the kitchen table smoking, while he dumped everything on the floor. He screamed, "Get up, you fucking bitch," and I heard the chair topple and her knees hit the floor. There were sounds of wrestling on the floor, like something the boys would do. She says, "No" over and over. He calls her names like, "Stupid fucking cow," and "bitch" over and over. Then he shouts, "Clean up this mess you worthless cunt!" and I hear his hard shoes stomp out of the kitchen and across the dinning room and then clomp, clomp, up the stairs, down the hall, and their bedroom door slams.

Then the only sounds are the quiet ones Maggy makes as she runs water in a bucket. The soft grating sounds as she scrapes the gobs of wet food off the floor and slops it in the trash. The soft muffled sound of a cloth swishing back and forth. Water gurgles down the drain. She picks up the chair and sits down. I hear her Zippo click, hear her intake of breath, a pause, her exhale. I hear my own heart beating. If she were not so fierce, I would want to comfort her. I know how to comfort. You put your arms around the one you love and say, "There, there. It'll be okay. I love you." I cannot tell you how I know this. It has never happened in our house.

In the fall of 1948, Maggy found me a nursery school for disturbed children.

Maggy, 3rd chapter

CHAPTER THREE
Running Away

The night before we ran away, Daddy came home late, long after I had gone to bed. He slammed the front door when he came in the house. That woke me up, and I listened as he stomped up the stairs to the second floor. He slammed the door to their bedroom so I couldn't hear what he was saying, but it was loud. I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing I knew Maggy was shaking me awake, and telling me to hurry and get up. She told me to get dressed, quick!

She combed my hair hard, yanking tangles out. I didn't say a word. She said, "Run to the living room, get your coat and hat and wait for me. The house was quiet. I stood by the front door with my coat and hat on, elastic tight under my chin, listening. She came from the kitchen, high heels clicking on the hardwood floor, with her coat on, and the strap of her handbag over her arm. She was dressed like everyday, for work. But we were leaving way too early, and we hadn't even eaten breakfast. As she crossed the hardwood floor of the dining room, she slipped and hit the back of a chair with her handbag, which fell with a loud crash in the dark, quiet house. She stood, frozen, slightly bent over as if she was going to reach for the chair and pick it up, but she didn't. I saw him at the top of the stairs. She stopped when she saw my head turn and my eyes look up, and then she ran towards me, opening the door with one hand as she grabbed my arm with the other. She pushed me out onto the porch, and I heard him scream "Bitch!", and a great thumping as he took the stairs in three leaps. She lunged forward to pull the door behind her, but he got there too soon, and grabbed her by the wrist. He yanked her back into the house and slammed the door on her other hand. The keys fell on the porch and I grabbed them.

I could hear him yelling at her "Bitch! You fucking bitch. Where are you sneaking off to, you worthless piece of shit." He must have fallen, or else she pushed him, because she opened the door, and I saw him scrambling to his feet, and she slammed the door, and we ran away.

We ran in the dark, up the sidewalk and across the street and down the hill, so fast that once I fell. I skidded on my hands and knees on the steep slope of E Street. I looked up and saw her ahead of me, then I looked at my palms which were skinned and gritty and starting to bleed. I felt the sharp sting of my knees. She stopped, turned, and said, firmly, "Get up, hurry!" She stretched out her arm and when I reached her, she grabbed my hand and we ran and ran. She kept looking over her shoulder until we got to Sixth Ave. The last thing I remember about that day was leaning against her on a seat in the empty bus. It was just the driver and us. The lights were on inside the bus, and we were going down the Avenues on E. Street in the dark of early dawn.

Back To The Drawing Board

I feel the need to re-edit the first three chapters of the novel. I want feedback from those of you who write and those of you who read fiction. After having been rejected based on my excerpt (the first three chapters) I know that excerpt has to be the strongest hook I can throw out there. I know there are excellent editors among you, Nan. I want to know how willing you are to participate.

So give me a little feed back here, please. Before I post those chapters one at a time, I'd like to know how you feel about a collaboration.

In Watching The AIG Hearings So Far...

I say, 'FUCK AIG! WE OWN AIG! AIG has been nationalized. Since we own it now, we should sell off or shit can the problem parts and revive what can be saved and never, NEVER, NEVER allow another entity to become TOO BLOATED TO FAIL!" We used to have anti-trust laws. What happened to them? We need them now.

I walk around the house listening, and find myself saying, "Lying motherfucker!" or "You stupid shit!" And things like that. I listen carefully and then hear such utter crap out of Mr. Libby's or Liddy's mouth, I say, "You moron! How fucking stupid are you? Who appointed you?" "Which administration?

Did I say I opened the windows today? Oh yes, I could be working outside. I have neighbors who might be able to hear me. I'm going outside to trim mint.

Too late--the words about Geitner catch me and then as I reach for a cigarette on the dresser by the open window, I hear something and shout, "Off with your head Geitner!" There are young children playing in the back yard who can no doubt hear me. I back away from the TV and head outside with the mint trimmers.

In for water, Hardball is in full swing. And he's interviewing Chris Dodd, wo turns out to be the one person who signed off on the AIG Bonus bullshit. At the end of the interview I scream, "Ever hear of Quid Pro Quo you prick, Dodd??!!!? "Pay to Play ring a bell bucko????

Either I've shrugged off yesterdays disappointment or I'm taking it out on my neighbor's kids or the dog walkers in the alley. But all this work and screaming seems quite cathartic. And just might be useful for the kids. The dogs find it interesting and can always tell when I'm screaming at them or the TV. I never scream at them.

Here's That Rainy Day

I know wallowing doesn't help, nor eating glazed donuts heated in the microwave for dinner. But we all have our ways of dealing with disappointment. Mine is to eat sweet "pastry," and listen to songs that used to get to me. When I was a young and melodramatic moony girl, this song appealed to me a great deal. Today it gets to me again for different reasons. And why not Frank Sinatra? It's hard to beat the young Frank.

Get Happy Dammit!

Bad News

Amazon has rejected my novel.

My Literary Influences, Part I

Randal tagged me with this meme. As I was reading his post, so artfully done, and all Frenchified, I thought it was brilliant. I thought if was fascinating, until I got to the very end, and saw my name at the end of it along with Beach, and some other poor blogger. I'll go back and look to see who else was tasked with this monster of a meme. I say "monster" because I did not write as a child. If that were the case, this would be one very short list. And even when I was taking all those bizzillions of Literature classes in various colleges, I still wasn't writing anything other than papers. I didn't actually start writing until I left my third husband, the writer. And by then there were thousands of books I could honestly say had an influence on my writing. And the older I get the farther back in my memory bank I must go to find the books that sent me on my way, armed with the need and the confidence to write. Truth be told, I still don't have a lot of confidence that I can write. Now I just write, for good or ill, I write.

Any of you who read the first hundred pages or so of my novel, know that I had a very strange childhood. I won't get into that here, but it did have a big influence on what I read, and my reaction to my reading.

Once past my Dick and Jane reader, I took to the reading life with a passion. I'm not sure how these books found their way into my hands--maybe at my Grandparent's cabin, or while spending boring Sundays at my Grandparent's house. But the first books I remember reading were "children's" books, but probably a bit too advanced for my young skills--this might account for my reading them over and over. First was Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson. I can still work up some tears when I think of that faithful friend and protector. The second of the children's books was The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnen Rawlings.

These two children's books were so emotionally powerful for me that I read them over and over. And it was with my experience of great sobbing emotional catharsis come to by reading that I developed a critical eye to the making of movies from very good books. Neither movie was as good for me as the books. It wasn't satisfying to find my imagination's involvement with characters and place were at odds with the film maker's interpretation of my beloved book. It is a criticism that has only been reinforced over and over. While reading a book, I could escape my own dreadful reality, but savor another's life and experience, hate another's parents. You can see where this is going I'm sure, and I could probably end this right here. But I take these memes very seriously.

It was during one of our last years in small town Oregon, while my dad had his high school teaching misadventures, that I overheard parents talking about two books. They were the play The Children's Hour, and the novel The Bad Seed. Neither book was appropriate for a ten year old, but that never stopped me. My dad had been fired from his first high school teaching job because of something I had said to a girlfriend of mine, which she reported to her older sisters and mother, and I got in a lot of trouble and he got fired.

We spent my 12th Spring and Summer back in Salt Lake living at my grandmother's farm. She had a library there and during that summer I read The Birds and other stories of Daphne du Maurier, and the several of the novels of W Somerset Maugham, and in this time a trend in my reading was established. Read writers, not books.

I read Nabokov's brilliant Great American Novel, Lolita when I was 12. Though this was highly inappropriate, and a book far beyond my childish understanding, I did get it. Oh, I misread a word like loins for lions, but it didn't harm the prose or the meaning for me. We had friends who smuggled the book into the country from France. The book had been banned in Boston, which increased tourist revenue for France, and guaranteed Lolita's success in the good old puritanical USA. And the fact that I heard all the adults in my parent's circle talking about it, made me determined to find the hidden book and read it. I have by now probably read it twenty times.

At twelve I fell for my first big crush. I thought it was a great deal more than just a crush. At twelve I looked at least my 16 year old boy friend's age, so before he knew exactly how old I was, he took me seriously and we traded reading suggestions. He'd read the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy. I caught up fast. Then Dickens. Oh yes, I could relate to Dickens' children. I could relate to Hardy's Bathsheba, and then Tess. I could see myself as Cathy with her doomed and tragic love for Heathcliff. And these books lead to an obsession with literature with a capital L.

Then I began reading as if I were gorging on literature. And I guess I was. I did read so gluttonously that I had always already read the books required in school. I gobbled all the great Southern Writers, from Faulkner to Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers. I found a writer I loved and then read everything I could get my hands on, which often led me to another writer of the era and area. I noticed the major themes, the common local. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, led me to Truman Capote, who led me to Tennessee Williams and so on. You can see how this goes.

Read one great Russian writer, read them all--From Dostoevsky to Bulgakov. France from Sarte, to Celine, to Leduc and Genet and more. I move across the world gobbling writers. It is a wonder I had time to marry, travel, to mate again, to work and earn a living, to take classes whenever I could since I had Proust, and Flaubert, and then Hermann Hesse, and Gunter Grass and Thomas Mann.

Whew! I am now in my late twenties, and though I haven't listed all the authors I'd plowed through by then, I plan to continue this at another time, since we need not know just what one read to get to one's writing style and content, we need to see it develop. But I have the start here, the background, the technique of reading all of one author before moving on. Now I have to take a break or I will go to Cincinnati and throttle Randal Graves.

My Inner Super Hero

I Visited DK Read yesterday and found she has become a Super Hero. Border Explorer gave her the link to The Hero Factory.

I always looked down my literary nose at the notion of the Super Hero as literature or any genre writing, for that matter. I read Literature with a capitol L. I hope I write literature. Yes, on this I am a bit of a snob. Despite the previous post, I am a very well read woman. And the comic book has never been on my reading agenda. I saw Barbarella in Italy. I went with Nino Cerruti. He liked it. I didn't. But I liked him, and so I was disingenuous about my feelings for the film, my thoughts about it as "art."

And yet I have always had fantasies of myself as a tough cookie. A broad not to be messed with. A woman with no fear. Honest to a fault, thus strong. I see the error in this. Often kindness works better at achieving ones goals than brutal honesty, but brutality has a place in my life and I did learn much from my brutal mother. It is very hard to escape the things we were taught very early and for a real long time. So when recently confronted with a bully, I found myself afraid and horrified that I reacted in fear. The fantasies of buying a shotgun and scaring some imagined intruder took hold in my mind. But now I'm more inclined to visit the extraordinary Germaine Gregorias and purchase a lovely pink Glock.

And You Thought You Knew Everything About Me

I think farts are hilarious. And the reaction of humans and their farting behavior is also hilarious. I have female friends who have been married serially and once for a real long time who claim to have never let one rip in front of the hubby. I think that's insane. But in doing an informal and not quite scientific study have found an alarming number of women who just don't get the humor of retaliatory farting.

I'm also a fan of the fart machine. Especially the fart machine with a remote control.


My longtime and recurring Ex and I used to take the fart machine to the Symphony. I would slip it in my elegant Armani pants pocket and he would use the remote control. You might think this sexist--giving him all the power, but I beg to disagree. The farter is always the one with the real power. The one with the remote just gives the farter the power at the moment of maximum discomfort for the people around the farter, thus bestowing great comedic power on the farter. Innocence feigned is best in situations like that. The elegantly dressed female farter going round the nosh table at intermission in the important peoples room, the big contributors room at intermission of the symphony is one of my favorite comedic moments. I lean in next to a women who is more than likeley wearing magic underwear and has her Temple Recommend in good order and Tom hits the button on the remote control and out comes a two or three tone blast of a sound that is none other than a fart. I slit my eyes at the matron in the gold lame and quickly look away and her face turns scarlet. My eyes are watering with suppressed laughter. I put two fingers to my nose and pinch it gently. I roll my watering eyes at the man behind me as I slit my eyes toward the unfortunate matron ahead of me. He smiles involuntarily. And I leave the table with a couple of cookies on a napkin to take to Tom.

We sit for a second and laugh decorously. A man sits next to me after we regain our composure and Tom gives the remote control two hits of the button. One long bleating fart and then a very loud single note blast. Tom and I move two seats away from the man and then we lean out to look at him. He turns his head away in shame. And so it goes. I do one trip completely around the table farting gayly every time I reach for something. I stuff my face and giggle as I fart my way around the table. I'm amazed no one ever had to do the Heimlich maneuver on me. Then the bell rings and intermission is over. I am doubled over with laughter as we take our seats for the second act.

I have so many heinous stories of farting this will have to become a series. Tom once smacked me for farting most foul in the bed. He started it, so my retaliation seemed quite reasonable to me. I did not cotton to the double standard. His smacking me hard on the ass for a particularly silent and stinky fart was such a grievous breaking of the rules of fair play that it resulted in my leaving him. Oh yes. There are rules of fair play when it comes to farting.

I Took A Little Nap

I worked very hard yesterday, don't ask me why. I cleaned the house, grocery shopped, cleaned myself up, did laundry, changed the bed linens, and cooked myself a delicious dinner.

Today I woke up just like usual about 10 AM. I had my two lattes. One of my girlfriends came over. I had a brief visit with the youngest daughter and at 3 PM I took a little nap. I just woke up at 8 PM. This could very well be me.


But I was lying down with this.
and this:

I had big plans to visit you all and make witty comments. But then I might be up all night, so the witty comment thing is still a possibility.

Orin Hatch, My Wingnut

Orin has been following Boehner's lead on the Mantan. He looks to be catching up with Boehner. By Summer they'll both be blacker than Obama. I've sent Orin a few hundred emails and he always answers with a letter telling me what he's doing that I don't like is what he's doing anyway. It's a form letter, I'm sure. I'd almost rather he just emailed me back with a cheery "Go Fuck Yourself!"

Orin used to be a pasty faced slight man with a lisping manner of speech. Now the lisping speech is just a bit manlier. Is this more of the Boehner influence? "Man Up!" Orin has even bulked up a bit.

I used to have fantasies that Orin would be discovered buggering a very underaged male page. A woman can dream, can't she. I'm almost certain that Orin is a very repressed and in the closet gay man, but we'll probably never know for sure.

I just watched Orin be interviewed by Andrea Mitchell about the budget. He was talking about how this taxing of "small" businesses would drive them overseas. Then he gave the example of one of his buddies with a pharmaceutical company getting ready to move to Switzerland. Did you say small businesses? Orin you are so full of shit. Everytime you open your mouth on TV you embarrass the whole state of Utah. Too bad the whole state of Utah doesn't know it.

The Five Browns

This is a family of kids from a Utah town called Alpine. They were all accepted to Juliard at the same time and they all play piano. Rhapsody in Blue is a sentimental favorite of my since An American in Paris is one of my all time favorite movies.

Donyale Luna

I did one photo shoot with this gorgeous woman in Milan in 1965. I was working on another shoot when Donyela and Veruschka were working with the same photographer. I watched them at the mirror, getting make-up touch-ups. They were living art. I admired them both merely for their beauty. I did not socialize with any other models. But I did think Donyela was extraordinary.


Thank You DK Read for finding her for me. And I did look at the moon tonight. These images of Donyale are exactly as I remember her. I had an erotic dream about her at the house in Zemi where a group of artists and I hung out on weekends. The house belonged to the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. He was my best friend during my year in Italy. I knew his brother, Gio, too.

For Tengrain

Tengrain, you always thrill me and after you, who?

After The Marriage That Ends Badly

Thanks Amos, this is just the piece of music I needed to end the story of my middle daughter's marriage.

Your result for The Ultimate Shakespearean Romance Test...

Sentimental (47%) and Low Infatuation

"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end."

Your romance quotient is 47% and you have a low propensity for infatuation. You're someone who can enjoy the finer points of a relationship, but you're also happy to spend quality time without romantic distraction. A quiet evening at home with someone you love is rewarding and fulfilling. Since you tend not to become infatuated, you make more sensible choices and are quite likely to appreciate a long-term, steady commitment.

Take The Ultimate Shakespearean Romance Test at HelloQuizzy

My Middle Daughter continued

I saw her twice the first year after the marriage. Once she was with him, and once I saw her alone. Both times at my house. The second time she invited me to go with them to Jordan over the holidays. I was depressed at the time, as is usual during the holidays, and declined her invitation. I also thought I had no business going on a trip with her and her husband. The almost mother-in-law on the almost honeymoon? No.

When she and I were alone, I asked her about the husband and heard things that worried me. I listened to her words and the tone of her voice as she denied being bothered by his spending days and nights and days and nights at his studio. He was experiencing a burst of creativity and had a deadline. Okay. I will not pry. If she's okay with it, why shouldn't I be? I'm that kind of mother. If you're ready to talk, I'm ready to listen. But I will not pry.

The third time I saw them was a little more than a year ago. I was trying to find a way to have my daughters near and to get my teeth fixed. Both the youngest and the middle daughter have expressed interest in owning the front house. It would make it possible for me to live out my life in the little house while not having the burden of the main house to deal with--no more taxes, no more insurance, no more repairs. Plus a bit of income and security. I liked the idea, but in talking with the middle daughter with the husband present she seemed worried about my long term care. He brother was one of her partners. I had no problem with that, but I didn't know the husband that well, and I suspected that he would be a problem. I'm not sure why. It was then I asked him to install a programable thermostat in the main house. He took it, said he'd read the instructions and get back to me. I never heard from him again.

Then I got an invitation to my middle daughter's graduation for getting her Masters Degree two days before the event. It came during a mild case of agoraphobia. I didn't go. But I did send her $50. in cash in a happy graduation card. It was the least I could do, and I knew it wasn't half good enough. I'd have liked to send her roundtrip first class tickets to anywhere she wanted with the partner of her choice. But I couldn't. And in my shame of not being able to do my best, I didn't do enough.

Friday she called me. She sounded good. She was at work. She asked if she could drop by afterwork. I said, "Of course." When I hung up I began to panic. The day before, one of my girlfriends had asked about her. When I told her how long it had been since I'd seen her, we speculated about the possible failure of her marriage. I also worried about her health and then her parent's health. So I went into a cleaning frenzy. I shopped. I tried to throw together a meal I thought she might like. When the youngest daughter came home I told her I was nervous. She said, "Don't be nervous. She knows how you live." I thought that was a little insulting, but recognized it as the truth and said nothing.

Four came and went, then five. The phone rang. It was my friend Z who is a real mother of grown children. I told her about my anxiety, and she said, "We're already on our way." "Who are you coming with?" "Queen Esther and Ms Miller." Two other friends who are real mothers of grown children. I was so relieved. Backup. And backup that was at least a couple of hours away since Queen Esther is always late.

When my middle daughter arrived I was alone. The youngest had removed the lock from the gate, had turned the outside lights on and taken Roscoe in her house. So my middle daughter could walk back here unmolested without having to call for help with the lock. See? I have very sweet children. She arrived carrying dinner. Pita sandwiches of ground lamb and greens and herbs. A huge order of fries. We hugged. She sat on the couch and started moving things off the coffee table so we could get to eating. It was delicious. But I had the feeling we were just getting something out of the way so we could get to the something important.

She has been living with a secret sneaky alcoholic who sleeps all day and stays at his studio all night. He has stolen a large bottle of the oxycontin she takes to manage the pain she lives with. Huge street value, so we speculate as to his reason for the theft. To sell or to take, that is the question. She says she talked to her father about the marriage and he said, "Go and get him and bring him home." I groan. I look her in the eyes and say, "Oh god no." She says, "I feel so guilty," and starts to cry. I take her in my arms and say, "You have nothing to feel guilty about. Your father is speaking from his cultural tradition. It's a knee jerk reaction. What did your mother say?"

This brings on more tears. "My mother had a heart attack. I had to fly home." Again I hug her and wait. "I left him with money to pay the bills before I left, I told him when to pay which bill. He didn't pay any of them. My mother's heart muscle was damaged. She will never be the same. You know she always smoked." Pregnant pause, arched eyebrow. "Yes, I know. She and I are alike in that." "They've moved into the new house. They finally got it built. And my Mom has to live in the garage because she can't live in her house." For a moment I'm confused. Which mom is she talking about and then I realize it's me. Then she tells me that the Palestinian women are so strong. When the women heard about her situation they said to divorce the bastard. And finally her father came around. But when she got back to Salt Lake she discovered that they are two months behind in the rent. He did not pay the bills. The prick she's married to has put her living space in jeopardy. The landlord is irate, but not crazy. She pays the back rent. She tries to get her fucked up husband to sit down and prepare taxes. It makes him anxious. But she does convince him to go to couples therapy. This surprises me.

The therapist tells him he must go to AA. He claims not to have a problem he can't control. He stole her fucking oxycontin. I'm thinking he should be prosecuted. He doesn't need help? So divorce him. Do it quickly. My middle daughter says, "I'm going to file the taxes and then I'm going to file for divorce." I think we're making progress here. She says he still comes and goes. I say, "Change the lock." "But his clothes are there." "Bag them and give him a call to tell him they will be in the entry." "I'm afraid he'll kill himself." "Has he threatened it?" "Not exactly, but he wrote me a poem and there was blood on it." "He's a blackmailing prick. It's a manipulation." He's a con. "He's self medicating, he works for days on end on an artistic endeavor. I'm thinking he might be bipolar." I always go there. If a child lived in the household I'd probably think he was a pedophile. I project male bad behavior to crazy, pathological men.

Then the "mothers" arrive. After the hugs and greetings, I give them the cliff's notes on middle daughter's marriage situation. And we settle in to examining this marriage. We want to give her the best advise possible. It is unanimous--the bastard must go. Then we talk about our own marital mistakes and how long it took us to admit the mistake we made in marrying at all. We call this time of staying, once you know you have no idea who the person you thought you'd married really is, the wasted years. My middle daughter has stayed with this man three years. She's done her best under the circumstances. Time to cut her losses.

Then we mothers entertain ourselves with stories of acid trips past. One story was told during this part of the evening that will turn itself into a short story soon. Someone was shot in Berlin at the Dead Goat. Trust me, it's hilarious.

The youngest and middle daughter made plans to get together, exchanged phone numbers and the middle daughter left around eleven. I think she's going to be fine. The next evening she called the youngest daughter to get together at a bar to meet a couple of male friends of middle daughter's. The daughters unite. There is work yet to do on getting disentangled from the bad husband. But she's now looking forward, not back at the mistake that started it all. I blame it all on the cultural notion that a woman must marry or she isn't complete. It is rooted in Religion and the universal suppression of the female that is at the heart of all religions, and that's political. Everything's political.

My Middle Daughter

I met my middle daughter at a party. Yes, darlings there was a time I was a sociable woman. It was summertime and the party was only a block away from my house in a neighbor's big back yard. One of my modeling friends and I walked over and within seconds of walking into the yard, I saw a young woman sitting at a table with a group of other lovely people, m0stly male. She and I made eye contact and I knew I liked her. I called out "Hello daughter, my Persian Princess." She answered, "Hi Mom." And that was it. We were instantly related. Later in the evening I went over to her table and met my new daughter who is not Persian, but Palestinian. I hugged her and have never smelled anyone who smelled better. We introduced ourselves and she introduced me to the crowd of gorgeous young men at her table. I gave her my phone number. She gave me hers.

I continued to see her at parties the rest of that summer. By the end of the sumer we had talked enough for me to know that she was a student with a job at the U. None of the rest of her family lived in Utah. I know I asked her "Why Utah?" but I can't remember the answer to that question. She has an older brother who lives in the Eastern US--maybe Michigan or Illinois, and two sisters in the Middle East. Her real mother and father live in Jordan.

She came to parties at my house, and always brought interesting men. She seemed to have a posse of great looking very fun gay men--mostly North African or Lebanese. All the people I met through her were multi-lingual, multi-cultural and charming. As I grew more and more reclusive over the years (bipolar disorder gets worse as you get older) she brought the party to me. And then I saw less and less of her.

One day the doorbell rang and when I answered the door, there stood a woman who looked familiar standing with two men I knew through my daughter. When the woman spoke I realized it was my daughter. The changes in her appearance were the result of Cushing's Disease. I knew nothing about Cushing's Disease, but over the years of her life with Cushing's Disease have come to know a great deal about it. She was getting ready for her first surgery at the Mayo Clinic at that time.

The next time I saw her she showed me her scars and she looked like someone who'd had open heart surgery and a hysterectomy or appendectomy or a C Section. The scars started at the base of her neck and ended at her pelvic girdle. I have never seen scars like that. But she was beginning to look like herself again. The physical beauty was returning. She was now taking all the drugs her missing endocrine system was supposed to produce if working properly.

I was still modeling throughout this time. Tom and I were still friendly, though he was living in Costa Rica. I was living alone in the big house and was renting the cottage to a female friend. One day I got a call from my daughter asking me if she could rent my spare room. I said, "Of course." She insisted on paying rent, and for almost a year we lived together. She has always been more sociable than I, so we had a few parties, but I would often hang out in my rooms reading. It was one of the times in the cycles of my illness that I was teetering on the brink of a big depression. So when not actually working, I read. My daughter comes from a culture where family members have roles that they perform seamlessly as is their duty. I lived with a daughter dealing with a life-threatening illness who went to school, worked, had a social life, cooked and cleaned, while I worked once or twice a week and read. I like it cool in the house and she was always cold. I lived with a dog and a cat in the house and she comes from a culture where animals are not invited into the house and especially not to sleep with you on your bed. One day she came home especially tired and hungry and I was lying in bed reading. The house was not spotless and nothing was in the oven. It is possible to leave ones culture behind, to liberate oneself from the strictures of a lifetime of one's families expectations. Like I said, I'm a mother who neither expects nor responds to strictures of duty or obligation. If asked, I will probably say yes, and I will probably haul my ass out of bed and comply. But without the request, I will not realize that I'm not living up to your expectations. I'm not the world's best mother, but I will never invade your life. If you ask for something and it is within my power to give it to you, I will. It's wasn't long before she moved into an apartment.

Over the years I have met her real parents many times. I adore them. I feel related to them. The call me her American Mom. She calls me Mom. Sometimes we go years and do not talk, but if she calls me and wants anything I'm capable of providing, I comply, happily. One day she called and told me she was getting married, and wanted to have her wedding at my house. I asked when, and she said in a date not far off in February. That is the ugliest time of the year here and I have a lovely big yard. I suggested May. She said, "No, the date is set, and everyone is coming for February." Fine. Done.

By this time my youngest daughter, Ms M is living with me. So we grew excited about having a traditional Palestinian wedding in my house. My middle daughter's best friend was taking care of the planning. All I had to do was provide the location. Middle daughter had family coming from all over. It was very exciting. But I had not met the groom. I met him once before the wedding, briefly, and was very surprised by her choice. He was a man from a Mormon background who had left the Mormon Church when he was in his late twenties. His parents were assisting with the preparation. This is all I knew of the groom: His late rejection of his religious heritage, his interest in the Middle East, his travels there, his leaning of Arabic, and last, but not least he was an artist--he does metal sculpture and has a studio. I asked my daughter if he made a living as an artist and was told he supplemented his income by doing construction work. If she loved him, who am I to tell her I have misgivings? I'm her American Mom. Maybe I should have told her, but the wedding preparations were in full swing. It's too late to throw cold water on her happiness. Her real parents have met him and haven't objected, so who am I to object?

We had live music. We had a Palestinian religious leader called a Sheikh. We had much ululation and dancing. The food was great. The bride was gorgeous in a traditional Western style wedding dress. The groom wore a kilt and played bagpipes. It was gorgeous and very moving.

Everyone smokes in Palestinian culture, so the men stood outside into the night in the middle of my Slat Lake neighborhood and smoked, laughed, and gossiped in Arabic. The women smoked in the house. One of the striking things about Palestinian women is their style and beauty. They go all out--hair, make-up, jewelry and gorgeous clothes. The men wear suits and ties and nice shoes. They all have lovely manners and are charming. They know how to party.

To be continued...

Please Take This Short Trip

I just started my blog reading time with this. Thomas Freidman: The Great Disruption.

This blog post by Mauigirl is one of the best I've read in quite awhile on the economy and the ecological disaster we are creating. I'm so impressed I've linked it thrice. I only do that when I'm trying to order you to do something because it's good for you. Say, "Yes, Mother."

I Have Three Full Grown Informally Adopted Daughters

Oh yes I have. One of them is living in the suburbs but I don't travel that far. She does indeed have another mother and a mother-in-law. Once she started having children, I figured she was on her way. I met both children, saw them reach toddlerhood, and my job was done. Her name is Dao. She was a boat child from Vietnam. Adopted by a couple of doctors.

She wanted to model, but wasn't tall enough to do runway. I helped her as much as I could until she she chose having babies over having an acting/modeling career. When her husband got transferred to the Pacific Northwest, and she had her infant son with her, living in an apartment, while it rained incessantly, she called me in early November and asked me to come fix Thanksgiving dinner for them. I did. She also asked me to talk her husband out of taking her away from her breast feeding infant son for a ten day trip to Paris. It was her wish not to go. I would have cared for her son, but she didn't want to leave him for a second. I completely understood her need and finally was able to explain it to her husband who was firmly convinced they needed the trip to Paris without the baby to reconnect again. I calmly explained that they would never connect exactly that way again and to decide if he wanted to be a father and a husband to this fabulous woman. He said yes. My work was done. I left. I'm that kind of mother.

I stay out of the lives of my daughters unless they initiate. I do not remember dates like their birthdays unless they are connected to some other event that makes it instantly memorable to me. I mean that in the way I remember my birthday--like Tom's daughter's birthday is the 8th of June, four days before mine (but this does not guarantee that I will send her a card or call her). I can never remember Nick's birthday because I can't orient it go some other event or memorable thing near his birthday. Same with my girlfriends. I had to remember my mother's birthday; it was two days before the baby Jesus's. But I have never remembered one of my wedding anniversaries or my husbands birthdays. I remember Tom's because for two months and two days I'm older and so very much wiser than he, but I often don't know where he is to wish him happy birthday--I'm that kind of friend.

I remember my youngest daughter's birthday because she shares it with her biological mother. And when I heard that I thought, "Poor darling, she will have to spend the rest of her life celebrating her birthday with her mother. It sits neatly between Thanksgiving and Christmas so the fact that they live near one another means she will grow old with that yoke around her neck. I hope someday she moves far away at least for awhile. No daughter should be so duty bound to her mother. At some point duty is a very heavy burden.

These Are a Few Of My Favorite Men

I have probably embarrassed a few of you with my shameless crushes. In some cases I'm probably lucky you didn't take out a restraining order against me. I love funny men and some of your are very funny. I love smart and serious men too, just because you're funny doesn't mean you aren't smart and serious too. Some of you have stopped visiting me. I understand. If I were you, I'd probably stop visiting me too. I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But you are mine. So here goes. Your placement on this list does not indicate how much I love/like/admire/fear you. (You all thrill me in one way or another.) It's just the workings of a disordered mind. If you know I love you and you're not on this list--speak up. I can't remember every man I ever had sex with, let alone every man I've ever had a crush on.
Phillip
Tengrain
Randal
Unconventional Conventionist
MrMacrum
Jon Swift
Vigilante
MadMike
Beach
Steve Emery
Kulkuri
James
Okjimm
Bubs
DCap
Dr Zaius
Bob
Kevin
Ghost
Pidomon
Wee Mousie
The White House Plumber
Mathman
Boukman
Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstern
thepoetryman
Paul Krugman
DrugMonkey
Andrew Malcolm
The Cunning Runt
Dadda
Darkblack
Jazzlog
IlliterateElectorate
Simestone
Gary
SnuffDoggyDog
Nihil Obstat
DaveDubya
The Station Agent

Sisterhood Appreciation Day

Rather than list and link you all inside this post I will list and link you all in a line. I know some of you have already received and passed this award on. See? I have one thanks to Susan. La Belette Rouge sent one to Susan and to Lisa, or Lisa got hers from Susan. Who knows? This award does not require that you do any more than post it and be happy that you are part of the Sisterhood. If however you too want to pass it on--please do. Freida and Scarlet wish to remain incognito, but their out there. My not linking them is to protect their privacy.

If you don't see your name here, please keep in mind I'm both crazy and a little bit senile. Help me out, scream at me--I'm hard of hearing too. I'll correct the omission. Because I love you all and you're all pretty to me.
Lib
Linda Sama
Susan
Stella
Lisa
Suzi
Dusty
Anita
Naj
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rienne
Scarlet
Freida
Katie
Blue Gal
TheMom
Border Explorer
Nan
Kathleen
Soairse
DK
Enigma
Pagan
Linda's Vulture Peak Muse
Gail
Sunshine
Sherry
Madame Z
Giggles
The Crow
Ingred
LeAnn
E, The StarSpangledHaggis
FranIAm
PENolan
La Belette Rouge
Diva Jood
Mauigirl

Hello Quizzy, Death Takes Us All

Your result for The 'Untimely' Death Test...

Asleep...

28% Heroic, 61% Alone, 85% Asleep, 36% Immortal, 39% Embarrassed and 48% Loved!

Some say its a cowards way out of the world, others say its the most peaceful and thus the most ideal.

Hopefully you agree with the second view rather than the first, because that is the path you are headed down. Sweet Dreams little one.. Sweet dreams.

Take The 'Untimely' Death Test at HelloQuizzy

It Was A Lackluster Day

I hate days where I have to roll out of bed before 10:00 and have to hit the shower. I like starting my day with my mug of coffee and a handful of pills, and at least one smoke and then I take the dog out. I took Cyrus out at 9:00. He peed and ran back in the house. I fixed his breakfast, got my coffee and watched maybe a half an hours worth of news. Not nearly enough.

Well, that's not exactly true, but not much and it wasn't all that interesting.

I had to go out into the world today and the wind was especially strong and buffeting. It set my teeth on edge, blew grit into my eyes, and pissed me off. I had to stop at Office Max for a legal form and they were out of that precise form. I had a doctor appointment to test my clotting factor. I wasn't wheezing or coughing until I went out into the wind. It was a too long wait at the doctors office so I stole their new Time. I did get permission to start taking my allergy meds again. I must be better.

At 2;00 in the parking lot of Staples I realized I was starving. I went to Chillies across the lot from Staples. It was awful. Except for the gorgeous black guy with a great smile. He was spectacular, but not spectacular enough to make up for the wait and the crappy food. Not half cheap enough and awful. I took my order home to eat it and discovered that great enormous Cryus had taken a very large, very large crap in the middle of the room. Cleaning crap off the floor is not a great prelude to a meal. Maybe that had something to do with my lack of enthusiasm for the crap from Chillies.

My friends from New York have been here for over a month working on a little house they have not all that far from me, and I have yet to visit them. They leave tonight at midnight for a month in New York and then back here again. They've made such changes in the house I didn't recognize it. I drove into the drive way and backed out, thinking I was at the wrong address. But now, just time and hard work. They have transformed a falling down piece of crap house into a treasure. I'm amazed and they seem to be just getting started. I can't wait to see them again, but I felt so crappy this visit I nearly missed them this time.

And when I got home our new tenant, a very nice woman with a good job, a cool car and a young yellow lab. She was over to sign a rental agreement and to introduce her dog to ours. She works down Cal's way, but prefers to live in Salt Lake because we're such a cosmopolitan place compared to Orem. DK, if you read this feel free to comment. Cal, you too. She, the new tenant, teaches at a college. Has for nine years. Her boss had lovely things to say about her. She seems very nice in that cosmopolitan, slightly edgy Utah native kind of way. DK, care to comment? No actually I like her. It's not her, it's me. It's been that kind of day. I sound so bitchy. Does that make me a bitch? Cal?

Cyrus is upset by the wind. Cyrus hates anything that makes a loud noise in the outside world. And someone in the neighborhood is using a nail gun on a construction job. I too hate the sound, but I barely notice it. Cyrus notices it when he's outside peeing, so he runs for the door as fast as he can. Poor Cyrus. Shell shocked Cryus. I can't get a shot gun as long as I have Cyrus. But I'll keep my straight edge razor on the bed side table. Cyrus likes the TV or music on at all times. When I read he whines softly.

Mr Stupid still has not picked up his money from Western Union. On Friday it's mine until he sues me.

Two and a Half Men

I think it was on The Daily show that I saw that title. Jon Stewart gave us a little Rush, and a little Colter, and a little of this guy.


Ghost delivered that clip along with this one. I have readers who make it look like I have a thought in my head.

Thank you Susan for the previous post and thank you for the lovely Sisterhood Award which I will get about passing on soon. It will be a pleasure. I'll start with a few of my women writers of the deadly sort. You know who you are.

Rush The Ruler of the Gopers

Rush grows ever more grotesque. He has always been repulsive to me, but now he's turning into an enourmous boar, sweating and grunting, begging for adulation, claiming to be the new face of the Republican Party. I'm wondering how Mitch, "turtle man" McConnell feels about this? Is that a peace sign Mitch?



If you didn't watch DL Hughley's new news show on CNN Saturday night, you missed Steele calling Rush an "entertainer and inflammatory and ugly." Even Steele had to apologize to the bloated, sweating, hideous face of the Goopers, but so far there isn't a Republican with the balls to say, "Rush doesn't speak for me."


And from Susan via Alter Net we have:

Boehner Turns Black Before Our Very Eyes

It seems to be a new tactic of the Republican Party to get their inner other on. I'd even posit that Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh are getting their Porky Pig on. Rove is more Porky and Rush is a gigantic giggling sweaty bristly porker, but a pigs a pig. But the "other" I'm refering to is their inner "other color." So far they have Bobby Jindal and Michael Steele, but the one that really amazes me is John Boehner. Here he appears to be closely examining the exact level of spray on tan he'll need to equal President Obama.

Who Killed the Electric Car

This link was sent to my by my fierce and fiery Persian blogger friend and fellow writer, Naj of NeoResistance. I saw the documentary when it first came out and remember how furious it made me. What is curious to me is that we're hearing nothing about it now. So for those of you who haven't seen Who Killed the Electric Car, here it is. Thanks Naj.

From My Favorite Twittering Blogger, Top of the Ticket at LA Times

Loyal Ticket reader Lydia, one of thousands of newcomers now receiving Ticket alerts via Twitter, sends this brilliant Direct Message suggestion about the nation's looming financial obligations:

"Can we leave the federal deficit just to the generation that wears their pants so low in the mall?"

Additionally, there's a new bumper sticker being sold by the Tennessee Republican Party "to protest the bailout-mad Congress's rush into fiscal madness." We'll add it on the jump (scroll down or click on the "Read more" line below).

And thank you, Lydia. You made our weekend. Anyone else have any recession/depression humor to share?

-- Andrew Malcolm

Bring It On

I've just evicted a male renter for claiming having a penis exempted him from certain chores entailed in sharing a house with a female. He claimed there were male chores and female chores and even the chores he claimed he was good at, he was too lazy or too busy watching sports to do. My notice of this fact and the irate letter I left him really pissed him off and thus, the unfortunate reference to his royal penis. I've been married to guys like him. I have no patience for the "I've got a penis" defense.

Ms. M is now in need of someone to share the house with since I evicted her roommate. She does the usual things in this sort of situation and posts ads on the usual sites. One of the people who responded was a U of Utah med student getting ready to go on rotations. Ms. M works at a hospital. She is also a student. She knows what this means and thinks it's a good sign--this person will be too busy to be a problem. He sounds like someone with ambition and drive. So she agrees to meet him. He seems nice enough and she brings him over to look at the house and to meet me. He likes the house, but in the walk from a local coffee house, he says things that contradict his ad. He was 34 in the ad. He's 32 in person. This doesn't alarm her terribly. She asks for references. He says he'll get them together. She asks him if he wants to leave a deposit. He does. He pays it in cash.

She comes to me and gets the receipt book. I go out to meet him and within three questions, I get three terrible answers. I ask him if I can contact his last landlord. He says, she won't give him a good reference since his roommate's cousin was smoking weed in the basement, got so stoned he set the house on fire, plus he still owes her back rent. Not his fault? My inner umpire calls out "Strike One."

I ask him where he works, and he goes into a long explanation of how he's not sure if he has his jobs right now because he's living with his sister and her family and there are seven of them in a small one bathroom house and how he can't get bathroom time to get ready for work. (The address he gives on the reciept say Apt. C--not a house at all). I asked him where he worked and he said, McDonalds and so and so's nursery school. He'll have to call and find out if he still has his jobs. But he has plenty of money since he's got five grand on his tax refund. Five grand! I owned a nursery school for a year and the very best of them pay help crap. And I know he isn't making much at McDonalds. So how does he have a five grand tax refund? These thoughts run through my mind but I don't say them aloud. I think, "Strike Two!"

I say, "So are you a full time med student?" He's not sure at the moment because of the problems where he's living. "Strike Three!" But here is really where my shallow self comes in to play and fucks me up one more time. This guy is a very nice looking well built young man. Instead of saying "Here's your deposit back," I say, "Get back to me with the references and I'll think about it."

Big mistake! I should have said right then, "Here is your deposit back. I'm sure you're very nice, but this won't work for me. And there are other people interested." But I didn't.

When Ms. M gets home Sunday evening from her long day at the E R, the first thing I say to her is "NO on the renter. He just won't work. Too many red flags." Then she tells me about the six text messages he sent during her work day. So she calls him and he hangs up on her. Then he proceeds to call her five times to tell her how angry he is and then hangs up on her each time. Charming. There is no doubt that this guy is not roommate material. Now she's in tears and the hairs are standing up on the back of my neck. This guy is not only not roommate material but he may also be a little bit crazy. She just wants to give him his money back and he's threatening court action. I try to call him and he picks up, then hangs up. This is a technique that does not endear him to me. He calls her back and tells her she talked me into turning against him. Quite the contrary, he has done this very nicely all by himself.

On Monday, two days after his visit with us, and after all the harassing text messages and phone calls Sunday that end up in his hanging up on her, he calls me. I tell him the decision not to rent to him was mine, not hers and that nothing she said to me influenced my decision. It was his answers to my questions that made me decide not to rent to him. But his harassing her with calls that end in hang ups has only made me more sure that my decision not to rent to him was a good decision. I ask him how he'd like to get his deposit back? He tells me he's going to sue me and hangs up on me.

I call a male friend of mine who used to be the Director of Legal Services. I tell him the little saga and he says, "Call the police a let them know this guy is harassing you. He's trying to bully and scare you. Don't let him get away with it. This is all bullshit! Call the police now."

So I do. The female police person I talk to says, "So far he isn't really harassing you. You're tenant has a better case than you, but I'll give him a call and tell him to stop calling you." She gives me a case number.

And throughout the early part of the week he continues to text and call Ms M. His phone calls consist of his telling her how angry he is and that he won't talk to her when he's angry and then he hangs up on her. Finally he agrees to meet her to get his deposit back. She gets a male friend to go with her as a witness and as protection. Mr. Scary calls her the morning of the meeting and says he can't make it. She changes her phone number. So he calls me.

He starts by saying, "You're a really nice, angelic lady." Now for starters this really pisses me off. I'm not that nice and though I might be angelic, I'm definitely no lady. In fact I find the word "lady" particularly offensive. We live in a democracy with no monarchy and thus no lords and ladies. But I say nothing about how offensive this reference to royalty is to me. Then he launches into a rant about Ms M and how unfair she's been to him. I say, "When you call her over and over to tell her how angry you are with her and then hang up, she finds this frightening and not only does not want you to share a living space with her she wants to stop your calls." I don't mention that his calling me is grounds for me to call the cops and report him based on the police case number I have. I do tell him we want to get his deposit back to him. I say we will send his money to him via Western Union. He hangs up on me. When the women at Western Union calls him to tell him his money is there he hangs up on her. She thinks this is funny since in all her years at Western Union no one has ever been irate that their money is waiting for them. Usually people are either relieved or thrilled that money is waiting for them.

The last call I got from him was to tell me he's found another place to rent in the neighborhood and will be walking by my place every day and he drove by the house last night to get the address for his law suite against me.

Ms. M has every call and text message saved on her phone. And every call that comes into my house is logged onto my computer. So we're pretty well set with evidence that he has been harassing us. The Western Union woman isn't likely to forget his reaction to her call. I'm thinking, "Bring it on, asshole." But since we know he's driven by at night, we're leaving the house lit up like a Christmas tree--front motion sensor lights are on as well as the front porch light. The lights at the back of the house are left on all night. My outside lights are aimed at the back gate and front porch and I'm leaving them on all night. The gates are locked and if the prick calls me one more time, I'm calling the cops again.

I now have a whole new process for screening prospective tenants. And I've taken it out of Ms. Ms hands. I'll be the dragon bitch from now on.

In the meantime I'm thinking about getting surveillance cameras for the front and back of the property.

Synecdoche, New York

I've finally seen Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, and jeezus. I thought his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was trippy. How this film didn't sweep the Oscars I don't understand. Wait, yes I do. It's relentlessly bleak—in that Woody Allen 'obsessed-with-death' way—but it's also belly crunch hilarious. I had to stop and rewind a dozen times because I missed things, overcome by a wheezing laughter. There is not a feel good moment in the film and yet it left me strangely uplifted.

Charlie Kaufman is a contortionist of the mind. Again, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he stretches and reshapes time (and space, to a degree) until you just have to let go, and yet, a firm narrative structure is always present, never abandoned. It's an amazing feat of screenplay-ism.

The film is remarkably cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman is, well, he's one of the best actors working today and he is perfect for the role of representing, on film, the introverted, insecure because he's seen the abyss genius of Charlie Kaufman. His performance is better, ten times better, and funnier, than anything he's done before. Imagine that! Catherine Keener? Has any one ever had a bad word to say about her? The pièce de résistance, however, in a creepy as if it were meant to be but will never happen again but seems like it may have, or should have, been done before kind of way is, Emily Watson playing Samantha Morton. You'll have to see it to understand. If a fifth wall existed, this film would shatter it.

Casual movie-goers will find Synecdoche, New York difficult, dark, pretentious and hopeless, but if you like film, if you like writing, if you like artistic commitment, if you like mind-fuck hilarity, don't miss it.

A Night Out With My Friend Samantha

Samantha (not her real name) and I have been having excellent adventures for decades. If I told you how many decades, Sam would have to kill me. She's still working in the fashion/entertainment industry where how you look really really matters. I don't, thank god.

Late yesterday afternoon, Sam called and asked me if she could drop by around 7:30 for a glass of wine. A friend of hers, Missy Goldberg, had produced a documentary that was premiering last night at the Tower Theater the old art house theater that figures prominently in my strange adolescence.

Hell yes, I said. I seldom get to see Sam because she is now working harder than ever juggling as many production jobs at a time as possible. This keeps her buried in work and traveling a lot. She worked four jobs during the Sundance Film Festival. And that's where she heard about the documentary film, A Snowmobile for George.


Sam knows I don't like to go out, so it's unusual for her to invite me anywhere. But the Tower is three blocks from my house. So we spent an hour and a half catching up and laughing our asses off, losing track of time. We ended up sprinting to the Tower. The film had just begun when we got there so we entered a darkened theater. But it soon became clear that there were only two other people in the theater and they were two men in the row in front of us.

The film is every bit as good as Michael Moore's best documentaries. It's written and directed by Todd Darling and takes the deregulation of the BushCo years from the monumental fuck-ups of deregulating everything, especially everything in the Environmental Protection Agency to the dismantling and neutering of the EPA by filling it with Bush toadies. And Todd's symbol of this is the snowmobile. It's a very effective symbol. It's a very smart way to show us just how awful an idea it is to put lobbyists from the industries the EPA is supposed to regulate and oversee, in charge of the agency.

Todd begins the film with the purchase of a snowmobile and then takes us from California to New York. From the snowmobile and it's enthusiasts and dealers and industry advocates to New York and the environmental catastrophe of 9/11 where the EPA's Big Lie that the air and dust was safe for first responders and office workers to breathe. Thanks Christie Todd Whitman! The film starts light heartedly and builds effectively toward the absolute horror of what the Bush years have done to us in the name of corporate profit at the expense of the public health and welfare.

The two guys in the theater with us were Todd Darling, the writer/director of A Snowmobile for George, and Tim DeChristopher, the man known as bidder #70 who single handedly stopped the Bush administrations plan to quietly sell off cheap drilling rights on public lands set aside as part of the Canyon Lands, Arches, and other national parks lands in southern Utah for oil exploration. Bidder # 70 outbid every single bidder on those drilling leases. He's now being sued by some very heavy hitters who are feeling like chumps. Bidder # 70 was not a well financed or wealthy environmentalist. He was an outraged citizen betting on President Obama to stop the last minute national parks lands for huge profits for the oil industry at the expense of the rest of us. It was a good bet. And he's got great lawyers representing him and willing to hang in there no matter where it goes. It was wonderful getting to talk to these two talented, passionate, interesting men

If you get a chance to see A Snowmobile for George, see it. You will discover another layer to the dark underbelly of the BushCo years that you never saw or even imagined.

A Snowmobile for George