Migraine Sunday

Two flies buzz around quick and darting. I'm trying to sleep away a migraine and the damned things keep lighting on my face. I pull the sheet over my face and try to go back to sleep. Cyrus snaps at one, but is not quite fast enough. It's hot in the house and finally I give up and roll out of bed. I have been too interested in blogging to clean my house for over a week. Small spaces need order. This is now no longer ordered. Must make progress. After I find a hammer and smash one of my toes so my headache isn't the focus anymore, I might start working on creating a little order and beauty. Until then I'm going to show you my dirty little house from the comfort of my bed. Arrgh. Pain.

A Bit of Domesticity

There is really nothing to say. I just wanted to bring you in to my small domestic life. These days that includes cornbread, espresso, and some concoction for dinner. Always involves a cast- iron skillet with melted butter....

Not yet a vegetarian there will be meat. I have just begun to bore you with the small details of daily life.

Soon I will get back to Judith and Junior Blue. We're not through with him yet. The man needs meat on the bone, back story so to speak. He is husband number three. I have skipped husband number one and two. Nick, the history professor, has requested an accounting of husband one and two. Someday. Maybe. If I'm feeling really brave.

Inside Looking Out

I Have Done It In Under Twenty Four Hours.

I thought I was writing it here, but like the good little student I am, I was actually writing it as a new post under Savage Stories. It's called "The End of Love." Labeled Dorothy Parker, Leonard Cohan, and Stella.

Since I did this in such a short time, it probably needs editing. All writers need editors. I am my only editor. This is not ideal. If you want to help, jump right in there with the comments. If I misspelled something, despite the functioning spellcheck, feel free to point it out, but please be specific. Randal is a perfectionist in his own writing. He trusts himself, or else his wife is his editor. I need a good editor. And an agent, and a publisher who would provide the sorely needed editor.

"Big Blond"

This is the first time I've read Dorothy Parker's brilliant short story Big Blond. As I was reading it I kept think of the many versions of Big Blond I could write. Not just my own, but those of women I've known.

I think I've written a short version of the failed suicide attempt and the pain of finding yourself alive that comes after in Maggy. The chapter is called Crazy. It is for me, always the back story that I need. I want the map of how you got to be "Big Blond." How did I? It's a crazy childhood and a strange culture that gets a woman to that location. I have model friends in their early fifties by now who have gone MIA. Maybe into their Big Blond faze. I hope not, but fear it. Now I am again inspired to write more short stories. It was husband number three's metier, sacred territory for him. It took me twenty years after leaving him to dare to try. Still Life was my first attempt. I'm getting braver all the time. I'm itching to kick my drunken ex while he's in a drunken coma after pissing the bed. I'm wearing high heeled boots. My name is Judith Blue. His is Junior. We live in Springfield, Missouri, which I pronounce misery. It's in the works.

Honeysuckle Summer Evening

Mint and white roses with aspen and a wall of creeping Jenny in the background on the fence. The familiar garden path from the cottage to the maim house. And two panes out of three of the greenhouse--one pane with a trellis leaning and covered with honeysuckle, and reflected in the glass the incredible invisible woman. This is a very peaceful place.

There is a tangle of honeysuckle covering the open bathroom window and when the breeze blows, the scent of honeysuckle fills the room. The glass needs cleaning, the vines pulled some from behind the trellis and the grill over the bathroom window.

The weeds need to be pulled from the spaces between the stones. But I am lazy, and it will wait.



Anyone care to take bets on who gets the job of hosting Meet the Press? We've had the week long wake. It's a fair question to ask. Let's get on with it.

Can the Funeral End Now?

I'm going into a little seclusion, staying in, reading Dorothy Parker, hoping the long deification of Tim Russert will finally end soon, so we can get on with the business of electing a President to clean up the mess left by the eight years of Republican rule. Notice I didn't say governance?

Tim must have been a swell guy, but honestly I can't ever remember anything lasting this long in the way of State Funerals. So goodbye Tim. Now it's time to move off the stage, and let the living get on with living.

It's getting hot here. Swamp cooler weather. (This is the kind of thing I need a man for). I can appreciate a man's many talents, like writing poetry and such, but if he can't hook up the swamp cooler and hang the hammock, well... Not so much. My one big love could play any musical instrument, well even, could compose and write songs, could, in fact, do anything, and do it well, and was smart, too, but... I need to live alone. Short visits are fine, so long as my guest is willing to sleep in the hammock alone, or get a hotel room. And in the hottest of weather, it's almost always cool in the deep shade of the gazebo. Then, late in the evening, the breeze that blows down Emigration Canyon, brings the scent of honeysuckle into the house through open windows.

My Love Tells Me

My love tells me I snore
Make sounds like a Tuva singer and the sonar sound of mating dolphin
At odd intervals of no breathing, counted fourteen seconds
Total silence, no intake or exhalation of air, no breathing then
A lung shattering, vibrating, long, tuval gasp
Then the otherworldly dolphin squeal
This seems to emanate from the back of my nose so
It would be called nasal
He has tape recorded this sound
He isn’t exaggerating
My love tells me
It’s a deal killer.

Just One Damn Thing After Another

I've had a series of computing problems that would stump the skilled among you, but stopped me in my tracks. I was posting the final chapters of the novel Maggy and the chapter part of my layout vanished along with all the thirty something chapters already linked. For most of you this might not be a big deal, for me it requires a visit with my charming, talented, handsome (I'm sure from his voice) Administrator, Phillip, who lives in San Francisco and manages companies' computer problems for a living. We have become unlikely friends, I, the computer illiterate, and he, the umber mensch of computer wizardry. He hates politics and political writing, he hates a lot of what I write about, and yet he loves my writing. Well, sometimes he loves my writing. But he is a patient and kind teacher and so generous with his time. When I told him I lost my chapters element from my novel blog he came over and restored it. Somehow, somewhere he found the list of chapters I'd linked so far and set me up to restore the list. Then off he went to watch basketball and drink beer. I linked almost thirty chapters and then decided to stop to fix myself something to eat. Then a brief walk for Cyrus and me. When I got home I watched a few minutes of TV and during those few minutes, for a brief few seconds I had a power outage. Alarmed, I went to my computer and it started up again. I signed in and tried to restore what I'd been working on and could not activate any of my functions. No Ichat, no Camino, no Utah Savage, no chapters. Phillip was not available and so I went to bed and sucked my thumb. No, not quite, I watched old reruns of Lawn Order, which is a version of thumb sucking for me.

This morning I emailed Phillip, but he was busy. The Unconventional Conventionist emailed me offering to help. Then the crucial question, mac or not mac? Brand new Imac, I proudly said. "Too bad, no can help." It really is the thought that counts. Just the offer when you're in distress is helpful. Thanks UC, I will forever think of you as a gentleman. Chivalrous and kind. Generous and good hearted.

Phillip called me in the afternoon walking to one of his clients to see what what my problem was. Said he'd call as soon as he got home. Longer story a little shorter, after hours of work restoring my functions and bidding me good night, all is well again and the book is finished. The charming Unconventional one performed a solo piece on the piano with rolling lyrics for the chapter Body Warmth. I need Phillips help to link that. There are more pictures for the book--I will add them slowly. I need to unlink some things and link others, but basically the book is done. The last chapter, The End Of Life As We Know It, is huge and probably should be published in it's own location as a novella.

I'm now hoping a literary agent will read and like it. If you know anyone who fits that description, let me know.

June Sunday

Father's Day

"Kid's see through you," he said. ( Mother or father, you should know this--kid's see through you.) I have heard this said about Tim Russert, in the shocking aftermath of his sudden death Friday. Tim Russert will be remembered by so many of his colleagues as a man who encouraged them to be good fathers, good mother's, since it is that job that matters most. That job that will have the most lasting legacy, that will change the world, that will pass love into the future. That job is the one that will change a life, and then the lives that flow out from that life.

I am frightened about what the loss of Tim Russert might mean for the political season to come. Could one man matter so much? How will we know?

But what moves me most right now, are the stories his colleagues tell of Tim Russert the son, and Tim Russert the father. And it is this aspect of Tim Russert, the man, both father and son, that has moved me most.


Father's Day was always a difficult day for me. I had not one bad father, but two. Abandoned by both. With never a backward look as far as I knew. No birthday gift, or card, or call for an abandoned daughter. A silence so profound for me, it was deafening. It made me sad, and lonely at first. It made me feel unloved. And finally it made me angry. It wounded me, and so profoundly, it damaged every relationship with every man to come later in my life. The little girl who got left by her daddies, left every man to come after. I became the woman who leaves.

I left my first love, just when I knew I loved him. I married men I didn't love and left them, too. I made love without loving. What did I know of love? What did I know of men? That no matter how much you loved them, they'd leave you? I knew that no matter how much you needed them, they would leave and never look back. And this is the woman I became.

I got pregnant once in my mid twenties. Pregnant by a man I feared. How can you love a man you fear? A better question might be, how can you make love to a man you fear? But that's a longer story. For now, I'll simply say, I knew I did not want this man to be my child's father. I did not want to be tied to this man for the rest of my life, trying to force him to be a good father. What did I know of good fathers? And I worried that I would not be able to protect a child of mine from the wound that broke and hardened my heart. And so (pre Roe v Wade), I chose to have an abortion. I can't really say I regretted the choice I made. Because, late in life, grown up daughters have found me.

Now one of my daughters is having nightmares that there are tanks in the streets, a knock at the door, a gun to her head. Apocalyptic nightmares, recurring. And in the last few days she said in passing, that her father has been calling her. Her father, the man who walked out on her and her little brother when they were small, leaving her mother to raise them alone. He fathered other children. Left them, too. Now that she is almost thirty, this fatally flawed father wants to talk to his daughter. There is desperation in his plea. She does not answer the phone. She does not return the calls. He texts her, he pleads. He wants to bring her back to God, he says. She listens but doesn't hear. And now I believe I understand the nature of her dreams. The unwanted invader at the door, forcing in his way. The gun in the face.

A father's abandonment leaves a wound that might not heal. It might leave you childless, alone. It might hold you hostage a lifetime. Fathers, your kids see through you.

Tim Russert Dies Today at 58

That Was Then, This Is Now

Sort of. With the little tricks of the trade, the special effects of Iphoto, the clean hair, the glasses that disguise the circles under the eyes, the crows feet, we pick ourselves apart. A little make up. A little photoshop magic and I might not be so bad. Notice I didn't say look?

The first thing that happened this morning was the usual ritual of coffee to take outside with Cyrus. I smoke, and sip at a little metal cafe table, back to the wall off glass that is the greenhouse part of the cottage. I face South, morning sun well up. Cryus does what Cyrus does then runs like a happy bear up the steps to stand before the door waiting for the next exciting part of our morning together. Breakfast for Cyrus. A bit of news for me and then a bath. It's too cold this morning for a shower. This is the first June of my life in Salt Lake I remember being cold on my birthday. So a hot bath. And the ritual of moisturizer, deodorant, brush teeth, dry hair, it's all so dull. I take Cyrus for a walk. We walk the alleys so I don't have to be pleasant.

Another home-made latte, another smoke, and the phone rings, twice before I pick it up. I answer, it's Tom, first love, last love, calling to wish me a happy birthday. No small effort since he's calling from Costa Rica, and the first time the phone rang, I said hello, and there was silence, so I hung up. He asked me if men follow me around because I smell so good. I said, "I see no men on a day to day basis, so no, no men follow me around." But when last men did, I tried to scare then off. I was quite successful. Men have called me things like, "edgy," which is, I guess, a nicer way of saying, "she's such a bitch." If worst came to worst, I could always say, "I'm just not into guys." But now, these days I'm pretty much a ghost of a woman. I walk among you on shopping day and you don't even know I'm there.

Nick, the history professor, brings me flowers, lilies. My favorite cut flower. They last and smell good. He brings me presents and a card in a leopard print bag. The man has class. In the bag are two books and the card. And one of the books is the Complete Stories of Dorothy Parker. Thanks Stella, since you told me my writing reminds you of Dorothy Parker, I needed to know who I'm channeling. It's a gaping hole in my education. I have read all of Colette, but not our own Dorothy Parker. And another book I'm sure to love, since we share the same taste in literature. And the card is perfection. I will try to get Melea to scan it for me. How is it possible I have a male friend this sweet and generous. He's taking me to lunch and has offered to take me to a nice, expensive new Italian restaurant, but I want to eat cheap Mexican food in a place where we will be the only ones speaking English. There will be a TV in the background with a Mexican soap opera playing and music from the jukebox will compete for dominance. We sit across the small room from four guys, probably in their mid twenties speaking Spanish loudly. Unless I gaze out the window, I could be in almost any Mexican town. It's as if we're on vacation for a moment--which is all I could take of vacationing anymore--too much work.

He pays while I stand outside smoking. Then we walk across the parking lot to the Spoons and Spices. I buy a couple of small items, he browses the fancy cookware. We talk about our own ancient history. Last time we went to a movie he asked me about my second husband. The one I never talk about. I said I'd try to write about him, but haven't got very far with that story. It is one of the darkest periods of my history as an adult woman, and I'd rather not think about it. But I am in favor of full disclosure. If only to edify myself. What made me do it? Why did I marry him? And now that unfinished story is like a wound that won't heal. So I guess I'll have to work on that.

Thanks to all who came to comment, and those of you who sent me email. There are two men in my blogging life who I have a little thing for. Randal, you know who you are. I know you're spoken for, and too young for me anyway, but still..... And you, Mr. Unconventional? Yes you are. A most extraordinarily talented and generous man. Just those qualities make you unconventional, but come August we'll see what kind of Conventioneer you are.

It's been a lovely birthday, and now I have to take Cyrus for a walk.

It's My Birthday, And I'll Cry If I Want To!

I started blogging six months ago, and when I started this blogging thing, I didn't think I'd have much to say. Now I'm kind of bummed that I haven't made it to that magic number of 200 blog entries. But, if I keep padding my entries like I did a few days ago, I might reach it by the end of the month, but that's really just cheating. Speaking of cheating, my mother told me I was born on D Day, June 12, 1944. I believed her until I took my first history class from my friend the history professor, to whom I bragged about being born on D Day. Imagine my embarrassment to discover that I believed that heinous bitch all those years. Granted, I was an early admissions student, and so was only seventeen, but by then I should have learned not to trust her about anything. And though I did take history in high school, Hazel Witcomb, my history teacher, spent so much time making me feel like shit (I was getting excused from her class to go rehearse for the school play) by lecturing me on being pretty and my thinking I could skate through life on my looks. She managed to reduce me to tears so often, I learned nothing in her history class except to fear the wrath of Miss Whitcomb. But she did, however, teach me to expect a raft of shit about the way I looked from just about everybody. And when I look back over my life, I'm amazed how accurate this expectation turned out to be. That is, until I turned sixty. Then I became completely invisible. And it's odd what a comfort that's been. I don't make the slightest effort anymore, since it would be a waste of time--I'd still be invisible. And that too has been a comfort. Now I save a lot of money, since I no longer buy cosmetics, or go to a stylist to have my hair done--I cut it myself. And I don't read fashion magazines, so I don't know how shitty and out of fashion my clothes look. All I require of my clothes these days is that they're comfortable and appropriate for the season. This really simplifies a lot of things.

Odd that now all my dreams are of when I looked like this, (see above) at seventeen, an early admissions student at the University of Utah and was free, at last, from my family. In my dreams I'm already living in Italy and traveling around on location shoots. In reality I was working three jobs and going to school. Dreams are where it's at. I did get to Italy. I did travel around on location shoots. More pictures of my dreamy life will be posted in the novel, Maggy.

Please email Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed

contact@wexlerforcongress.com

I've been writing letters to the DNC and specific Senator's and members of the House over the past primary season. So I am on many lists of suckers to go to for a signature on a petition or to ask for money. This was what I received in my first email of the day, yesterday. It was the first thing I did. I signed this petition, and then went about my business of working in the garden, but I will copy it here and hope you take your own action. it is probably too lay, but maybe not. It's never too late to speak out. In my own email attached to this petition I expressed my outrage at Speaker Pelosi for her cowardice in taking impeachment off the table in order to get the approval of enough Republicans to become Speaker of the House. Please take your own kind of action.

Dear Concerned Citizen,
Our effort to hold the Bush/Cheney Administration accountable has taken another dramatic step forward. Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced the first Articles of Impeachment ever to be introduced against President Bush. It includes, in total, thirty-five Articles detailing this Administration's blatant abuse of power. Today, I enthusiastically co-sponsored this vitally important bill.

I am grateful for Dennis' leadership on this issue and for the steadfast support that countless Americans have given to both of our efforts to redeem our government and expose the crimes of Bush and Cheney.

I will now expand my efforts to secure impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee for these new Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Many of the charges against President Bush are well known – and would shock the conscience of everyday Americans if only the national media would be willing to report on these stark facts.

The Articles present a stunning narrative of offenses that have go well beyond previous crimes committed by any US chief executive. In fact no President or Vice President in history has done more to undermine our constitution.

These charges are broad, with 35 separate allegations including the deliberate lies regarding WMDs that led us to war and the approval of illegal wiretapping of American citizens. The Articles also include new allegations of high crimes – including the explicit approval for high Administration officials to violate treaties and US law banning the use of torture.

The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House and Senate due in large part to our promises to end the corruption of the Republican majority and to hold the Administration accountable to the law. This courageous bill is a crucial step towards fulfilling this promise, but – like the Articles against Cheney – they require your support to convince Democrats and open-minded Republicans to support this bold but necessary action.

Time is running out so we must work together to spread the message and apply pressure.

First, please encourage your friends and family members to sign up at WexlerWantsHearings.com – as it will allow us to keep in touch with you and speak to a wider audience. If you haven't yet put in your phone and address, please sign up again, as we will be doing telephone town halls in the near future.

Second, call your representative and urge them to support Impeachment hearings.

Finally, contact newspapers, news stations, and your favorite bloggers and urge them to report on this movement. We need to keep Impeachment a significant news story until the Democratic leadership sees the value in it.

McClellan Agrees to Testify:

I was pleased to inform you yesterday that Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers met my call to have Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan testify under oath. I am thrilled to inform you that McClellan has agreed to testify on June 20th at 10AM. This will be the first step in what we hope will be ongoing and deepening examinations of the stark evidence and charges against both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Thank you for your continued passion and advocacy. Your support means so much to me.

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

Big House Patio and Hammock

This is the back yard patio area for the big house. The hammock is a purchase I made on a trip to Costa Rica. Yard furniture is picked up at at yard sales--odds and ends. You can't really see this, but in the background is a wall of mock-orange--sweet smell, no fruit. If I had the resources I put an adobe wall around the entire back property like homes in Mexico. It's fenced and locked and guarded by two great dogs, but it's the living indoors/outdoors aspect of an adobe enclosure that appeals to me. My property is not near heavily trafficked streets, so it's quiet. And the forested quality to the back yard makes you feel as if your living in the country, when, in fact, we are in the middle of it all. Country living in the heart of an urban neighborhood.

Today I plan on working in the garden in front of my deck on the cottage. Get out the blower and clean up all the messy downfall from the weekend rains. I'm ready to beautify the gazebo, clean everything up for party season.

Bicycle Awaits Lazy Woman

This is a view of my bicycle leaning against the gazebo.
Today is a day of easy domesticity
A little grocery shopping
A walk for Cyrus
A nap if I'm so inclined
The joys of early summer

Roscoe Guards the Door

Roscoe guards my cottage door.
The wall of green is Wisteria covering the gazebo.
Lazy Monday

Just Saying.....

I was just making suggestions as examples, but lets say Hillary at Health and Human Services; John Edwards at Labor; Al Gore (if he wanted it ) at EPA; Chuck Hagel at Homeland Security, Bill Richardson at Interior or maybe State, Jim Webb at Defense. The idea is to put together a great team and let the team run for president. With Obama as the team leader. Lots to be learned from Lincoln here.

This was emailed to me this afternoon from my matinee date for really good movies. We are old friends--have known each other at least forty five years. His was my favorite history professor at the University of Utah. He married one of my best friends. His son was born on my birthday, June 12, and died when he was six years old in a tragic accident. The history professor went in the Peace Corps and then moved on to DC during the eighties and stayed. When he retired a couple of years ago, he came back to Salt Lake. We started going to movies and talking politics and history.

He told me this idea last night in a phone conversation. I loved it. It's a brilliant idea. I asked, "Who would you like to see run with him as Vice President?" He said, "Ed Rendell." Wow!

What do you think?

The Best Speech of Her Life

Today Hillary Clinton redeemed herself and assured herself a lasting place of leadership in the democratic party. It was the speech she should have given the night Barack achieved the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination, but better late than never. She has again promised to campaign her heart out for his victory in November. It was a moving, powerful speech. If she had congratulated Barack Obama every time he won a primary state, she might not have had to give this speech today. It was her lack of grace throughout this long primary season that alienated me. I am her demographic, and I am not alone in having abandoned her because of her behavior throughout the campaign season. There are niceties to be observed. Small gestures to make at every loss, every win. It was this absence of graciousness that alienated me and many other women.

One of the problems with her campaign was a massive dismissal and diminution of Senator Obama's achievements and accomplishments throughout his life. It was her giving the republicans the ads they will use against him in the general election that made me so angry at her. She put herself side by side with John McCain, and Senator Obama on the other, as if he had no stature, no right to challenge them. Experience versus Change. Well, it all depends on the kind of experience and the kind of change, doesn't it?

Her judgement has been a problem for me all along. It was her failure to work collegially to give us universal health care when she first had the chance to make that a reality. It was her vote for the Iraq war resolution without reading the intelligence reports that made me question her competence to govern. It was her justification and rationalization for that vote that made me wonder if she wasn't the wrong person to lead us forward. It was the lies, and her dismissal of her lies when she was called on them, that made me question not just her judgement, but her integrity, her respect for us, the electorate, that finally made me dislike her on a visceral level.

But today she gave a speech that just might rehabilitate her career as a leader to be respected again. I'll watch with hope, and wish her well.