Jasmine Blossom: The Flower of Truth

Tell the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to Apologize for Fanning Flames Against Tortured, Trafficked Woman

2011-03-13T22:22:00.002-05:00

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What's Scarier, The Truth, or Poems About The Truth?

2011-01-30T20:38:00.001-06:00

There's a difference between studying art and studying social work, but I haven't figured out what it is. When I was getting my MFA I was pretty definitely pushing on boundaries, like I am now, and as a matter of fact dealing with the same issues, pretty much, just in poems instead of The Real World. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my poems hadn't freaked some people out so much, or if I'd have been strong enough to let them be freaked out and just keep on going. But I couldn't, really, then. The poems were unbeknownst to me addressing the experience that has led me now to study trauma and human trafficking. So of course it freaked people out. And their freaked outness was a rejection that the trauma triggering it caused -- unbeknownst to the freaked out people of course who were blameless in their tastes and limitations -- wouldn't let me tolerate. I lost my voice because the voice was too tender, then.

The poems were sometimes very beautiful, though. That line from Patti Smith's new memoir Just Kids for some reason pulls the heart part of me right into the essence of what those poems were doing and what they looked like to me:‎ "The room reflected the bright mess of my interior world, part boxcar and part fairyland." "Looked" being a pretty multi-level term here, where you know that the boxcar and the fairyland love one another and can't be separated, ever. Reading the Patti Smith has made me miss writing, and that of course is good.

Except that it brings up other issues, like what it's like to make art when you have a trauma disorder, and questions about how art affects people differently than "objective" work, like, say, public speaking about what it's like to have survived being kidnapped at 13 and sold for sex and then later decide to open a house for girls who've had something similar happen to them, because back then it didn't have a name so I gave it all these lights and lints and words piled on one another and pretty.

I don't know. All I know I guess is that I want to write this story, and I'm scared to write this story. Which I think means I have to write it this story.

And My Girl Friend Agrees

2009-06-22T11:00:00.007-05:00

As example of the ethic of Art in Spite of Crazies and the complexities The Mundane will not grok I offer the genius of (my friend) Simone Roberts's forthcoming book: Poetics of Being Two.

Also see:

http://www.artworksforchange.org/otbp_virtual.htm
http://bitchmagazine.org/
http://www.saidit.org/archives/jul01/mediaglance.html

Art in Spite of Crazies

2009-06-21T13:18:00.013-05:00

Varo, Ruptura, 1955

Last night I looked at my google analytics account for the first time in months. Grad school has kept me kind of out of the bloggyness since January. But watching some kids dancing with horse-shaped balloons at a Gumbohead concert yesterday, and the one balloon flying off into the sky and the child's broken face and my sweety's insertion of the word Pegasus into the lyrics of the song he was singing on stage and the whole miss-mash of that moment that seemed to me like it should have been captured on film for some reason got me thinking about art, and performance, and those who don't know when they're encountering that. This thinking took me to three instances that have pissed me off on principle: one, the flack I got in my MFA poetry program for writing "confessional" or "the wrong kind of" poetry -- i.e., anything that made people uncomfortable; two, the crazy stalky woman who was reading this blog and then interfering in my life is freaky ways based on her "impression" that I'm a nut case, based on my blog writings (there was also the incident with that obsessive x-lover, but why go into that). That is the reason I closed the blog to public viewing for a while.

An invitation from my food blog employer to dine out for free if I'd blog about it got me inspired to do some posting on my other blog over the last few days. So I promoted that a little bit, then went in to google analytics last night to see how that promotion was working (and yes, very well, thank you). Doing that, I noticed a lot of activity reported on that blog from a network location that corresponds with her physical location. No big surprise, I guess. I just hadn't thought about looking before.

Now, I'm not claiming to not be a nut case. Personally, I don't know anyone who isn't, once you get to know them. But I am claiming for all of the stand-up right to our art, and the right to laugh at people who want to confine art to whatever boxes keep them comfortable, whatever inane things they give themselves permission to write, and whatever equation they work out in their heads wherein the art equals the artist. Mr. Tarrantino, John and Paul, Mr. Picasso, Senora Allende, Ms. Rice, be careful what you write, be careful what you paint and don't get too carried away with those movies if you care about what frightened people are going to think of you as a person. And if your art happens to fall between genre lines, if it's hard to tell fact from fiction, or god forbid you should write something auto-biographical be aware there is to be no fudging, no embellishment, or else. Everyone knows that artists are the sanest people around. So we never expect writers of the not-inane to challenge us or make waves in are consciousnesses or incite our anger or our tears. Personally, if I ever publish my hard copy memoir, which I fully intend to do, I am going to put a disclaimer all prominent on the front page about how memory is flawed and besides that my life hasn't been so thrilling that no embellishment is necessary and so I make no claims for perfect accuracy of the movement of things around for dramatic effect. As a matter of fact, I'm not even going to call it a memoir. I'm going to call it an embellished life.

In the mean time, dear readers: judge away. Decide if you like me or not, if I'm a good person or not, if I'm worthy of someone you covet's time, go ahead and try to convince them otherwise if you want and tell yourself you're trying to protect them from themselves; decide that the art = the artists, decide that art should be inane (unless someone famous or Other made it), use people's art against them when it serves your interest. I can't tell you how tired I got of being censored in grad school. One unfortunate fallout has been that my internal editor became more powerful than my creative voice. This blog has been part of my work to free that voice again. It isn't easy. And I say "Fie!" to anyone who would try to make me stop it.

What I'd like for you, my fellow bloggers (and you are the people who mostly read this stuff, anyway) to take away is this one little lesson: google analytics is your friend. If you get a stalker, you can track how many times they came to your blog, what days they came there, what pages they read, how long they were on each page, how they got there, what service provider they're using, where it's located, where their computer is located (by city), what kind of operating system they're using, what their screen resolution is set at, and a whole slew of other stuff. It was months before I knew that this person was doing what she was doing, but I am now able to go back and look at the pattern of it. Let's just say she's been this blog's #1 visitor this year. Ya, I know.

And to you artists who are crippled, or think you might be undermined even a bit by that voice in your head that says Don't write that! or Bad girl! or Bad boy! or Be nice! or Don't tell people too much about yourself! or Be careful! or even That sucks, write/paint/film/play something else, to you I say: Fuck all that. Do what moves through you. Bitches and assholes and the generally frightened, contracted, jealous and crazy can find their own way in the world, God Bless Them One & All.

(Oh, and P.S. We can debate all day about what is and is not art. Good luck.)

Boredom

2009-06-11T14:57:00.004-05:00

Bored. Feel like writing from the soul. Wondering how many more weirdos are going to crawl out of the woodwork to subject me to their convolutions. Wondering about reciprocity and instinct and double standards. Feeling like some people just won't let you be nice to them. Wondering if sisterhood is still possible, or if only myself and my close friends even understand what this means any more (know for sure that can't be true). Feeling a little overwhelmed with school and the charge of my latest project. Feeling very overwhelmed by my mother. The macro.

Deflecting the Negative Intentions of the Jealous and Weak

2009-05-05T12:09:00.005-05:00

The thing Gandhi did was fight. A kind of fighting based on ahimsa, the Sanskrit word for non-harming. To stand one's ground, to not be moved, to refuse to be fucked with, but to never strike back directly -- that is non-violent resistance. It can be applied to one's own life as well as to revolutions.

When people send out negative energy, the most actively productive thing one can do without violating ahimsa is to simply deflect it back. Keep the heart strong and clear, and from that clarity erect a field off which the negative energy will bounce back to the sender. Do not wish the sender harm. In fact, keep compassion in your heart as you erect this protection. The energy the sender projects is her own karma. You are deflecting it so that it doesn't get tangled up in your karma. Your compassion may defuse some of it and end up helping the sender, but really it's not your responsibility. It just Is. Deflect it and let the negative sender deal with her own consequences.

The other important protection is to always remain in Truth. If rumors, hurtful words, irrational actions, or other direct attempts at harm are levelled at one just remain in the center of Being that is Truth, and those words will be meaningless.

Non-violent resistance is not passive, nor pacifist. It is the impenetrable wall of pure intention.

Human Trafficking is Hidden Even From Us

2009-03-17T13:59:00.002-05:00

I know I've been remiss, but starting a new grad program -- completely outside one's previous field -- at 49, in the same month moves and one's mother moves in, is tough.

That said. I met with Becky today, another MSW student here are The Brown School (TBS) to talk about our studies and practicums. I was very, very heartened to hear that she too has been overwhelmed and lost-ish, feeling that she's floating out here on her own, since our field is so new and there is really not a codified program or library or even that much research in it yet, and yet she is making headway. She's working for in a position with a legal and victim's services focus, and I think I may follow her there. She does get to work with women and little girls coming out of prostitution/trafficking. Also, she and I seem to agree on the issues of demand (buyers of sex services should be prosecuted, not sellers), denial (no one want to know how many slaves there are in the world), and what's wrong with the trafficking law.

Last week I met with Peter, the third trafficking student in the school. He was very helpful as well.

I think we've all agreed that we should form a little support group -- one another -- and meet regularly. Before I set about seeking them out none of us even knew about one another.

And so now I go back to slogging my way through this paper. I'm analysing that law, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, for my policy analysis class. It's tough. There's way too much in the law to cover in 15 pages. I think, after speaking with my prof and TA that I will look at either prosecution or, even more narrowly, the military aspect. It's just, well, is there enough literature on the former? Off the search -- we'll see.

Keep the faith.

NO, thank YOU!

2009-01-11T11:18:00.005-06:00

Gee whiz, it was really great to see all these thank you notes, from volunteers, to the organizers who worked in the Obama campaign's Pershall office in North County (St. Louis). I was only an organizer there a little while, and there are others much more deserving of accepting such thanks, but I do recognize many of the names on the list, and am really touched by notes, nonetheless.

Here's the link to the thank you's: http://pol.moveon.org/thx/office.html?office_id=12021

Belles Artes Tea Party -- What Fun!

2008-12-28T16:29:00.002-06:00

Just came back from a tea grazing experience at Belle Artes. Really nice. Stations were set up with teas from around the world, and we tasted, described, and rated them in a booklet as we moved through the space sampling.

Cynthia LeRouge, from my neighborhood, put it on with Ciléia Miranda-Yuen, the owner/president. Cynthia's husband, Dave -- a fabulous cook -- did a nice assortment of finger foods and scones, he of the forethought and wisdom to provide lemon curd with the latter. Go Dave.

I hadn't realized what a commitments to diversity and unity Ciléia brings to that place. I've been there for a couple of events, but hadn't spent much time around Ciléia.

I also met a wonderful and lovely biochemist who works on looking at protiens under MRA, and we had a great talk about my brain imaging/therapy idea!

If I get time (ha, that's laugh) I'll do a blog about it on smithfamilyrecipes. But if I don't, here's the link anyway. Check out the art: http://www.belas-artes.net/1.html.

consider the probable reality that all time is simultaneous

2008-12-26T11:16:00.002-06:00

Melancholy season. The first year my Papaw is gone; the first year of Christmas with the family home sold. The first Christmas in many years I've gone to sleep alone, uncuddled. Boo-hoo, I know. But it is hard. And this morning I find I'd rather stay under the covers than begin any of the trillions of tasks I need done to complete the move and the preparation for grad school and... you know. Many questions arise, about the fragility of connections, the holding at arms length, Gangji's story of Papaji's open arms when they met the first time at the River Ganges; his saying to her, simply, "What took you so long!" and the caution we're conditioned into and how we step so lightly we miss a thousand opportunites for love; and "Thetan," the Single Gun Theory song with the spoken word semi-chorus under the trip-hop lushness that says to us, simply: "All limitations are self-imposed."

Dogs Gone Wild

2008-12-25T23:00:00.005-06:00

This is an odd rant for Christmas day. But my God. After watching someone's dog walk around on the kitchen table and that person weakly "ask" the dog to get down then do nothing when the dog ignored her, well, when that's what was part of the Christmas meal I really have to come away slightly annoyed.

So I suggested to her that she get a trainer to come over and work with the dog.

She says, "We've worked with a trainer! Bitzy can roll over and shake and sit and everything!"

Ohmygod. There are only two dots here to connect: misbehavior + training. Wow.

A couple of weeks ago I was having dinner with friends, when one (very cool and intelligent, by the way) woman displayed the bite marks and bruises on her arms. Ya. Really. Bite marks and bruises from her husband's Cocker spaniel. It likes to randomly attack her. She covers her head in with her arms and screams; the dog goes to work on her arms. They claim there is nothing they can do about it. And again, suggestions of training? Nothing, no one home at all. And I have to admit that in that instance my training suggestion came after they looked weakly down at the table when I suggested flipping the dog over on its back, putting a hand on its throat and saying "No!" the next time it freaking attacked. And to continue doing this consistently. No go.

Apparently this assertion of authority in the face of a dog's physical attack is "cruel?"

I don't understand what's happening here. Do people want to be dominated by their tiny domestic animals? What emotional gain comes from this? Is this feeling of powerlessness, well, what is the need for this feeling/creation of powerlessness?

Dogs are pretty easy to train. They are generally good natured beasts, intelligent, and live to please their alphas. When they are given the alpha spot in a house of humans they tend to become insecure and weird and play all sorts of behavior games -- rather like a human child would in that situation.

I don't know. I'm just saying. What the hell is this about?

Briefing the President Elect on Slavery/Shop for Freedom (for real this time)

2008-12-04T13:26:00.005-06:00

If you're new to trying to understand human trafficking, the link below is really helpful. It's a great teaching tool. In case you don't know, according to the UN and the US Justice Dept there are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in recorded human history. But we can, and are taking action to end it! So read up, then get up. It's time to work.

From Sarah Symons's (The Emancipation Network) newsletter:

"Action Group To End Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery, which we are an ally of, has put together a great briefing for President Elect Obama. This is also a wonderful tool for anyone who is interested in learning more about what the US can and should be doing to fight slavery."

http://www.madebysurvivors.com/nl/ActionGroupTransitionMemo2008.pdf

AND DON'T FORGET! Your holiday shopping can support, rather than hinder, freedom:
http://store.madebysurvivors.com/category-s/24.htm

But Look, Don't Get Carried Away!

2008-12-03T16:48:00.003-06:00

'Cause really, my ode to change and all that [last post] was written in a moment when I was feeling particularly cool with whatever, all Zenned out and had probably just had a nice dinner or someone had given me focused attention or something. The other side of the coin is sort of like, ok, jeez, can things just sometimes not run me around like an unstable quark? Said another way:

Dear Universe Or Whatever,

Please take mercy on me here, alright! I like stability! I've learned plenty about how to weather change.

Thank You,

M

Trying not to sound goofy while applying Advaitic philosophy

2008-11-18T15:57:00.013-06:00

Transitions are the hardest parts of life? All those stress quizes definitely want to point to that. I'm not sure I find it so. I think without these transition moments I might get a little bored. If I let myself get into some dualistic thinking, this could lead me to a big monkeymind run-around about whether enjoying a transition is a good or a bad thing. Capiche? Check it out, etymologically: transition, transformation, transformative.

No, it's not aversion to stability, either. There is nothing inherently unstable about transition, because the core of Self remains as it is, regardless of experience or conditions. There is the illusion of instability that comes with the trance of believing that external conditions are the thing upon which stability is grounded. But if that's the case then we're all in trouble, because there ain't one single thing that is stable. Capiche? Every frigging molecule in this machine I'm typing on is in flux. Any non-movement I perceive is either illusion or an effect of my own limited abilities of perception.

Now apply above principle to humans and jobs, economies, social what-ever standards, anything. Anything that you/I/one has been conditioned to believe will provide that thing we're talking about: stability. You think the job provides it? your best friend? The freaking American economy (think back to what you may have thought a couple of months ago about that one)?

None of these things can be depended upon, not really. They can be met as they are, with love, with compassion, with the understanding that their imperfection is integral to their nature. One meets one's self with this, too. You know, it's all sort of Einsteinian. There is only one constant: change. But then one has to add: there is one other constant, which I think Einstein grokked and tried to express but didn't quite get there -- the ground of consciousness that is the true self. Hmm, maybe this is the paradox we need: Change and Self (ground of Being) are the same thing, even though the only thing that is unchangeable is ground of Being. (That's the thing I want to know: if duality is illusion, then why does everything always kernel down to paradox?)

Sort of. Because it's also perfectly reasonable to argue that the glowing perfection of that thing is so full of movement in its nature that even its stability is illusory. But it's a different kind of movement. Whatever Being is can't be damaged or destroyed. It is always what It is.

So, this transition of mine, this place in which, over the last couple of months, the major points of reference in my life have changed or vanished completely has not shaken me up, really. I mean at times, for sure! My god. Of course. But the core? No.

And I've witnessed some remarkable things. Instance: this election, in which the better natures of so many people emerged. One long-time Republican friend of some means told me that she and her husband voted for Obama because they decided racial healing was more important than their personal finances. That's remarkable. And that happened, I'm pretty sure, more than we know. Another friend, a dedicated Democrat, who early on in the primary process subjected a room full of people to a loud rant about how the party would be throwing the election away if either Clinton or Obama made it onto the ticket, because the red-state hillbillies would vote for neither a black man nor a woman of any sort is now celebrating his error, and re-evaluating exactly how widespread he thinks racism and sexism really are. This is all transformation.

And I have witnessed the wrenching pain of a friend as he works his way through a deep self-examination, brought on by loss, at a level that (my bad) I never thought I'd see him have the balls to do. This, too, is transformation.

I, then, can feel that potential of my personal life's transformative moment and just try to ride the wave. Or be the wave. Or recognize that there is no separate me/wave.

And, yes, there is certainly sometimes fear. Maybe even sheer terror. It arises, it is met, it dissolves. Sometimes I act out of a pattern, and sometimes I observe the mechanism in slow motion in time to meet that, too, in love, and let it dissolve into that ground of consciousness.

Point being, I don't see anything neurotic about allowing myself to enjoy this transition moment. I have, on purpose, chosen an unconventional life. A couple of times I've tried the "safer" approach, the soul-killing job-for-security, the "correct" marriage, whatever. Naw. Not so much; not for me. And that being the case it seems a matter of common sense to note that I may at times have the opportunity to observe this mind observing the "instability" (flux, blooming, Kingdom of Possibility) of my external circumstances. And then to open the heart to it. And invite in all the perfect manifestations that gratitude will allow to arise.

Jeez. I know that sounds all The Secret-ish and stuff, but that's not it at all. I'm not saying anything about the "goodness" or "badness" of whatever is. I don't believe that all I have to do is think "good" thoughts and "good" material things will appear to me. That's a load of crap, and smacks pretty annoyingly of a blame the victim philosophy, maybe. I'm just saying, what's the point of being afraid? What's the point of holding onto things that are by their nature impermenant, anyway? Why not just trust?

Catching up on sleep

2008-11-13T18:09:00.003-06:00

I know! Whatever. I was really busy.

Wish I could write more about it. Working for the Obama campaign, that was just one of the true highlights of my life.

And now. Just. Wow.

Thanks, World.

McPalin Campaign Takes Refuge in Torturing (Us)

2008-10-06T12:20:00.019-05:00

So, the European markets start to tumble, and The McPalin's go to fear tactics because their strategists say they can't win on the economy. I'll tell you what, McPalins et al: right now, if you can't make a case for yourself on the economy, you need to go home.

Jeez. That campaign has been brainless all along. I almost wish I was running it for them, just so I wouldn't have to suffer through the pain of witnessing their lame-brained fallacious reifications.

Ya, I know, I've been gone a while. A lot has happened. Metal Ox is gone. Bon débarras & God bless him anyway. I'm through the worst of the actual grieving, which may have been accelerated by all the previous grieving in regards to him, and by the simple act of just actually taking the time to be in it while it was here. Anyhow, I don't feel like telling the story. Let's just say the old patterns returned and by the time he realized what he was doing he'd destroyed the trust he'd convinced me to revive back in the Winter of [Fragile] Epiphany. I'm sure none of you who know me and the history of this relationship are surprised. I was and I wasn't. Truly, I feel saddest for having watched him open up and then close back down again, because I think there really was that W[F]E, it really did happen, he really did think that he could sustain, live from the loving part of himself, but in the end his conditioning got the better of him, and he failed. It's heartbreaking. (Don't worry, I wasn't nearly so objective when the shattering hammer first came down.) And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Still on leave from work. Health is pretty much back to normal. I am finally feeling really energetic again, exercising every day, my normal self. Scared to death of sitting in that exhaust. But company has made no offer to fix anything. In fact, they are being as rude and intimidating as the law allows them to be. But, you know me. It may be possible to scare me or make me cry, for a minute. But real intimidation is another matter.

Doing some freelance writing and design, very happily. Would be much pleased to continue in this vein for as a while. If you see work, especially editing, I'm your girl.

A couple of other interesting moves and developments. One might even say exciting. More later on these matters when the time is right.

In the mean time, pay attention. Things are afoot in the world. Remember: the only shelter is in Truth.

She Lives With Birds

2008-09-16T20:30:00.006-05:00

Did you know Heidi Fleiss is living in the Nevada dessert in a county where prostitution is legal, with a murder of tropical birds she inherited from an old, sick madame, now dead?

And like, Heidi is there in this crappy building in the dessert, where she'd come to open The Stud Farm (a cat house that caters to women (by providing men) (wait, would that make it a dog house?)) but things didn't go that well (looks to me like the male whore house owners and their peeps in that county didn't dig Heidi's inversion of the natural order) and then the madame died and left her these birds. And Heidi didn't want the responsibility, "There's a reason I don't have pets," she said. But she took them, because, she said, the old woman counted on her.

Now she's all about the birds. It's really sweet.

http://www.heidifleiss.com/

And no, this is not an endorsement of anything. It is a comment on the beauty of a person opening her heart.

History! Woo!

2008-08-28T20:05:00.002-05:00

I know, it's been like forever. But here we are on the night of the the acceptance of the nomination to the candidacy for the office of the President of the United States of Barack Obama, the first blak candidate not only EVER in the US, but in the Western world as far as I know. Dick Durbin is introducing him. I once shook that guys hand. Asked him a hard question at the Society of International Independent Newspaper Editors Conference at which he came to speak. It was a question about the draft, 2005. After the Q/A I went into the hall, shook his hand, gave him my card. I figured: he's a good man. I dig his positions on policy, except for the draft thing (ask me), so I may as well take this opportunity to give him my card. I may never have another opportunity like this one, here in central Illinois. So I did it. No, he never called me. But I don't have to wonder if.

BTW, J. Jackson Sr. is so obviously bitter that it's painful. I wrote the man in in 1988. Seriously. And here's what I'm saying and it applies to Edwards, too: Infidelity looks like weakness. We don't want weak leaders. If you're not strong enough to keep your pants zipped, to maintain ordinary integrity, then you're not strong enough the lead the country.

Go, evolution.

Live from Detroit

2008-07-10T11:48:00.002-05:00

In short, Detroit is way cooler than the press it gets. We took a tour, kind of a "Living Downtown" tour, yesterday. Kinda nice. The city has, it's said, more pre-Depression era skyscrapers than any other city in the U.S. Does that include NYC? Not sure. Will look up.

Also, Motown Museum is wonderful. Members of Van Morrison's band were in our group as we went through -- Vanessa (I'll look her up later, too) sang into the echo chamber. Did ya know reverb in recording was invented by a Motown engineer? Yip.

I've had Thai, Cuban, and Greek. Today I'm hoping my stomach is up to the Coney Dog, which is the Detroit native food. Sadly, when I arrived my recent tummy delicacy was in effect. But, wow, being away from the jet fumes at work a few days has perhaps contributed to the return of my appetite?

And check it out -- Detroit's city crime stats are skewed for the same reasons St. Louis's are -- small city footprint, over one hundred incorporated towns surrounding. The visitor's bureau claims crime is 33% below the national average here.

Where is my camera? Did I leave it at home?

Love From Motortown,

Margarert

Waiting for Bridgid

2008-07-01T18:11:00.004-05:00

A dear friend has suffered a grave illness, and we are waiting for her to regain consciousness. This candle was lighted for her last weekend, while she was in surgery. The petals laying around the candle come from poppies from my garden, which were picked the day she fell ill. At my house that weekend (before last) we watched the poppies mark the passage of time, as the petals fell and settled themselves around the candle this way. Another friend took the picture. Please send your love to our B.

Go, Me!

2008-06-28T07:13:00.003-05:00

I won! Today I'm off to the Missouri Botanical Gardens to accept a little award, Best Individual Plot, I think -- though I've seen nothing official so it's hard to feel secure saying it, but Linda came over and told me, so -- in the St. Louis city-wide community garden contest. Woo-hoo! Really, it makes me very happy. I'll expand this post once it actually happens. And I'll post a picture, though the peek of the garden that was in existence when the judges came through is over, and it's in a bit of a transition moment right now. Anyway, gotta go get ready!

Too Sad

2008-06-13T19:25:00.003-05:00

Because the Angel of Death did stop in this afternoon for Tim Russert. Newsmans's newsman, he was the one who set the standard for Washington journalism. He was the measure. And the word. And the man who met me every Sunday morning for good conversation. I kinda feel like a member of the family is gone, and I'll tell you, I'm going to miss him real bad.

Stone Temple Pilots & The Angel of Death

2008-06-11T21:05:00.012-05:00

I don't want to jinx him by saying it, but Scott Weiland looks as close to death as any animated being I have ever seen. You can see Death hovering over him, heavier than the stage lights, vectoring out on his breath when he sings. From his outfit I would say it's likely he's travelling with a stylist: well coordinated big hat, big glasses, scarf, layers of shirts and jackets that he stripped off throughout the show, until he was a pale-skinned skeleton in low, low jeans and nothing else. But Death hasn't gone after his talent. He was mesmerizing, and the band itself kicked ass. Though his voice weakened considerably as the set wore on. I wondered why sound didn't crank up his mic levels, but in a way the fact that they didn't sort of confirms what I heard. Maybe it gets more than weaker. Maybe it gets off key, too. Still, back in the '90s when I was a music critic (and stuff) for the Nightlife, most of my co-writers and musician friends looked askance at my love of STP's work. I've always thought they were under rated, and now I'm sure of it. Those are great songs, and they do them really well.

While Weiland seems to live with Death as a Familiar, I, as everyone knows, (knock on wood) scare It off no matter what I do. It's not on purpose. I have no problem with Death. But I do have further confirmation that my presumed diagnosis of the black widow spider bite was correct. The strange symptom of the skin looking and feeling burned on the bite area? Then blistering and peeling, exactly like a sunburn? And then ending up (now) discolored (tanned, and pink where the peeling occurred)?

:

Annals of Burns and Fire Disasters - vol. XII - n. 1 - March 1999
BURN-LIKE SYNDROMES
Atiyeh B.S., Kayle D. I., Nasser A.A.
Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, American University of Beirut Medical Centre, Beirut, Lebanon
http://www.medbc.com/annals/review/vol_12/num_1/text/vol12n1p39.htm

Skin disorders manifested by blistering and exfoliation mimic burn injuries in their clinical presentation and behaviour as they are characterized by sloughing of the epidermal layers, which uncovers the underlying dermis. When extensive epidermal loss occurs, the condition exceeds the capacity of general medical wards as well as medical intensive care units, necessitating transfer of the patient to a surgical intensive care facility or even to a burn unit. Such burn-like syndromes may be congenitally inherited, such as epidennolysis bullosa, or they may be a manifestation of severe viral, bacterial, or fungal infections. They may also be a post-vaccination reaction or a manifestation of a neoplastic process such as Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukaemia, or ovarian and prostatic carcinoma. Similar conditions have been observed in graft-versus-host disease, in severe forms of lupus erythernatosis, and following black widow spider bite [emphasis mine].

So, to the skeptics I say: when are you going to learn? How often do I get a diagnosis wrong? Uh, huh. That's what I thought. And when I was cramping and puking and achy and feverish, and I knew that if I went to the ER they'd just get it all wrong, I didn't feel the ole Angel of Death coming in, not really, though I did kind of feel Him pull the curtain back for a sec to take a peek at me -- anyway, faced with the alternating prospects of either taking myself to the ER or calling a friend (who would surely insist on taking me to the ER), I pretty much just said fuck it, if it's time it's time and waited Him out. Then, it turns out that people rarely die from black widow spider bites, anyway. Though they can be debilitating. And I did find, as well, confirmation of my experience of diving into depression and major emotional rollercoasterness for those first few days after: BW spider venom seems to effect neurotransmitters, quite specifically, including norepinephrine "and all neurotransmitters" (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=392921)! That would include serotonin, I suppose. Duh. I knew it. I said it to Metal Ox and to Springblossom. [btw, one can find additional sources of both my claims, in the googles; I've just sited the two because I'm lazy).

So, well. It's pretty interesting, I think. Life, Death, rock, venom. How close do we get to these things? Close as we want, if we're willing to look, stop pretending we didn't see that curtain move. Sometimes Death just, you know, wants to see how we're doing.

And Scott? You, too, buddy. Hey -- heads up. I wish you well.

Tell Me I'm Not A Survivor! Tell me the world isn't changing!!!!

2008-06-06T20:47:00.007-05:00

Go ahead, just try. Two weekends ago I made it through my in-laws, a dual-interstate full speed tire blow-out, and a black widow spider bite.

But before we get there: Go, Obama! My God! Can you believe it???????? To paraphrase Tim Russert Tuesday night, I would loved to have been a history teacher in the inner city on Wednesday. The potential here is that every black male in the country will see an entirely different set of possibilities every time he looks in the mirror. I know I do. And I'm neither. And the DNC announced yesterday: No more money from lobbyists or PACs. Guess what? TRUE paradigm shift may be underway. Shut up. Don't be such a cynic. Evolution comes in leaps and bounds. And ya, I do think it's white people who need to evolve. Virginia can catch up later. For now, let the enlightened and the hopeful lead the way.

Now. Back to my personal survival of every possible disaster. It's true. On the way back from Chi town I was passing a semi-truck and its tire blew out. I hit the gas to try to get around it before I lost control (it was a front tire), but not quite in time. There was a lot of debris flying in front, and then behind us, one bit of it being a hub cap (I saw it), which I think is the thing that hit my back right tire and, yes, blew it out. My God. But all was well, no one lost it, Metal Ox changed the tire while I stood guard to push him out of the way if some space cadet veered toward him, and we drove the rest of the way home under 45 MPH on the secondary roads.

Black widow? Short version: they cleaned out his mom's attic. There were dozens and dozens of boxes, mucho grande dust, and the next day my hand was red and swollen. I got sick, stomach cramps and muscle aches and fever. Once well enough I looked it up, and the symptoms (plus the range) spelled black widow. Took the TCM herbs Leigh recommended, used a potato compress, got better. The skin peeled off, the puncture wounds are now visible (swelling subsided), and the skin is very dark. I think it may scar, stay dark permanently. But here's the up-side. I took a bullet for nature. It's kind of romantic, in a swashbuckling, Raiders of the Lost Ark kind of way, isn't it? Now I've been bitten by a black widow spider and lived to tell it?

The down side? Pretty soon I'm going to be nothing but scars.

Oh, and thank you, Leigh, for not questioning mu diagnosis. Given that you are the person (non-relative) whom I've known the longest, and that we once did women's health together, and that you are a doctor yourself, what do I care whether other less smart people looked skeptically at my diagnosis? I don't. And anyhow, much of their lack of faith vanished as they watched the damn thing progress.

Representing Smith Family Recipes & Stories, Margaret Travels to Webster Groves

2008-04-02T17:16:00.020-05:00

These wonderful professional photos from the Food Bloggers Potluck were taken by Jonathan Pollack, the spouse of Stef from Cupcake Project. Go check them both out. If you type the word "FOODBLOG" into the little field at the bottom of Jonathan's home page you can see lotso' photos from the potluck!

As is obvious from the looks on the faces of these cooks, there was a lot to oo and ah about!

The cake I want to marry.

Kelly and I listen. I think.

I serve myself my own dish. It was my favorite, other than the cake. That's just how I am.

My own dish, close up. Italian. Bechamel and chicken livers -- what could be better?

What's a Food Blogger's Potluck? Well, maybe it's something like a Teddy Bears Picnic! A lotsa fun! I fell in love with a coconut cake by Natalia. She has a restaurant in downtown St. Louis, and I can see why because this cake is just, I don't know how to say it. I want to marry it. Those were the only words I could think of while I was eating it. Ok, and that I want to fill a bathub with it and get naked a rub it all over my body for hours, while dipping my fingers in and licking and... Natalia has a recipe on her web site! Go get it! It's like a drunken heaven in the tropics, only in wedding lace. It's Argentinian, I think, as is Natalia.

Kelly was there with her mac&cheese, which was of course super-yum. There are she and I, above, apparently listening quite intently to a nice young woman who's name I cannot recall, but my hands are certainly blurring around the wine, now aren't they? Action, anyone?

I took the Italian blini-like dish (as Alanna tells me), which is the thing I am slicing here, and of which you can see a close-up. I think you can read the little card I put by it on the table, which gives a run-down of the ingredients.

There were rather more vegetarians than I expected at a foodie event, so next time I'll take something meatless. Anywho -- lovely night. Fun people. Great to be part of a food bloggers group, even if I am the oldest person there!

A Baseball Icon Disappoints, but the Rainout is Tolerable

2008-04-01T15:29:00.007-05:00

Opening day baseball, threatening sky. An RBI by Yadi, helping my fantasy stats, and Albert’s home run. But none of it counts, in a rainout.

Mike Shannon’s restaurant was going to make up for it. I was soooooooo looking forward to sinking my teeth into a perfectly cooked filet. It’s been a while since I went to a steak house, and my steaks are, well, still in development, one might say.

But not so much with the steak. I mean, it was alright. But at $38 or so for an 8 ounce fillet (and that’s just the fillet, too, no sides) it was, for me, not worth the money. I ordered it medium rare, which is was, but a tad on the side of rare, not being really fully warm inside. This is OK, not a deal breaker. But the sear on the flesh really wasn’t all that favorable. I detected virtually no up-front seasoning, for one thing. And for another, well, the thing was kind wobbly. That is to say that the sear was weak, and the meat tended to mush rather than slice when I put my knife to it.

Metal Ox and I shared two sides, the creamed spinach and a baked potato. I’d heard that Shannon’s did a fabulous baked potat, and was rather looking forward to it. It was nicely cooked, the perfect fluffy insides and slightly crispy skin one wants, but “the works” side of things – sour cream, bacon, cheese, chives – were as mediocre as the steak. The bacon really did taste like Bacos! The spinach was pretty good. Maybe the tastiest thing we tried.

And the wine. I ordered a split of cava to start, though the otherwise efficient waitress didn’t know it was a split when I asked her directly. When my steak came I ordered what I thought would be a nice pinot noir (I would have rather had the cabernet, but it was $15 a glass). It was delivered without ceremony, and was as unremarkable and the other bits of the meal.

To be fair, it was a rainout. The place was completely swamped. But you’d think an institution such as this would be able to handle the swampiness. On another point of view issue, though, there is the simple fact that MO and I aren’t really into the whole Loud Bar and Yelling Sports Fans As Ambiance thing. Maybe it was far worse than usual, given the rainout rush, but really we agreed that a quieter atmosphere might have lent a bit more enjoyment to the meal.

Well, and then there was MO’s disappointment that Mike Shannon didn’t stop by the table. He stopped by both the tables flanking us, and we were kind of looking up longingly to signal him that we’d love to shake his hand or whatever, but he just passed us by. I felt sad for MO, ‘cause honestly there’s no bigger baseball fan in the world, nor a more big hearted one. Just that day, Chicago boy that he is, he’d bought a regulation Cardinals home game cap. How many Chicago guys do that? I told him maybe we were looking too anxious, maybe we spooked Shannon; maybe he thought we wanted it too bad, smiling at him over our menus that way, our scorecards and pens in hand.

No dessert. Really, I wouldn't have wanted to spend the money, given what had appeared so far. And anyway I'd made a yummy chocolate ganache, poured over lady fingers, with little dollops of thick organic cream and chilled parfait-style, that was waiting at home. It was, by far, the most delicious thing we ate all day. Something magical happened to the lady fingers buried in that ganache. They turned rather homemade marshmallowy, and when they got into your mouth they melted into a divine crumbly-springy cakieness! And really, the Dove dark chocolate Easter Bunny that MO gave me had a fabulous flavor in that ganache! I highly recommend it. Shannon's? If someone else wanted to pay, I would give the icon one more chance. But on our dollar? I don't think so.

Unions and Preachers and Desperate Rants

2008-03-19T13:28:00.006-05:00

I completely sympathize with Black America. I want to go visit Barack Obama’s church in Chicago, and tell Reverend Wright that I do not take his rant against White America personally.

Where I work, the only woman in a room full of engineers and technical writers (I’m a technical writer myself), I deal with bigotry every day. Or almost every day. I don’t claim that my hurdles are as high as they would be if I were a black women. Not even. But I know the times are there, those times, for instance, when my opinion is completely dismissed because of my sex. And there is one black engineer here (I overheard some controversy around hiring him; a quote: "Once you hire one it's hard to get rid of him.") And not a single woman engineer.

Recently we hired a little batch of contract technical writers (all men). Apparently, our company doesn’t feel it’s necessary to give contractors the sexual harassment speech permanent employees get when they come in, so these contractors come waltzing in often thinking -- I swear to God ‘cause I’ve heard some of them say it – that as contractors they’re not liable under the same laws as perm people.

Anyway, so we get this batch of contract writers. Second day, here comes an email from one of them asking me out. Full of “compliments.” I forward it on to my boss, then to the next boss. I still don’t know if anyone actually talked to him, but he stopped it. Subsequently though he goes right ahead and offhandedly dismisses 85% of what I say. Just today I tried to save him so grief with the boss by attempting to show him how to do something correctly, but no dice. And this is not unusual. Generally, those men who have worked with me for a while (like more than a year) behave as if I might accidentally know something.

Aviation is a conservative field. I’m surrounded by rapid anti-tax, anti-feminist, pro-war, pick-up truck driving good ole boys with engineering degrees. Sure, there’s an occasional exception. And some that are quite nice in spite of their wishes for extinction upon everyone unlike themselves. But I have to tell you that this is a hard time to work in such an environment, and I am working hard to keep the heart above water, here. Especially since the company itself is floundering under poor management, there is no union here at all (to work as an engineer at Boeing one has to join the engineers’ union), everyone complains about how shitty the company treats them but God forbid anyone says the word “union” – you might as well say, “Call Karl Marx!” But they bitch constantly about poor management, poor treatment by management (they’re right – our upper management treats even us highly skilled, highly educated workers like share croppers); we’ve lost nearly all our tribal corporate knowledge due to defection of 90% of the high-level engineering and planning staff. It just goes on and on.

And yes, these are people who think Hillary Clinton is a socialist. For the love of God. She is about as deep into Washington lobbyist hell as it’s possible to get. No one gets bigger donations from the medical industry!

I don’t know. I’m feeling depresses. My beloved fiancé is now expressing severe hesitation about moving to my beloved city, and the thought of leaving my new-found home neighborhood make me want to curl up in a ball and expire. Add to that the first woman presidential candidate in history playing a kind of racial hardball that wouldn’t have given Jackie Robinson even a spot on the bench, and the daily grind of general and political negativity and intolerance I am almost literally forced to live with at work (they’re still holding us here under mandatory overtime), and, well, I don’t know. I have a constant feeling of sadness these days, little motivation to move. Some of this is due to the lack of free time I have – that mandatory overtime. I’m tired. There’s not that much to life when all you do is work and go home and sleep.

Hillary, please stop it. Please. It’s not that important, you being President. Can’t you just let something good happen here? Can’t you just let the next generation have some hope, for fuck’s sake? I mean, have a campaign, but please, get on the wave of the new paradigm. Let’s you and I step out of the way and let our kids have it. Or let’s have you and Barack join up and break down all the boundaries – but don’t take this moment away from out kids. This is the very moment at which we either shift to something new, or fall back in exhausted disgust. Which will it be, girls and boys?

Anyone Can Paint

2008-03-07T09:00:00.001-06:00

And here's proof.

You Never Can Tell!

2008-02-15T11:22:00.007-06:00

My Hand on Metal Ox's Magnificant Shoulder

Yes. This is my new engagement ring. Isn’t it pretty? Yes it is. And yes, Mr. Metal Ox is the lucky guy. The one I have loced all along. He, the perennial bachelor, has transformed and now just doesn't know what he was doing all those years, being scared of intimacy and commitment. Love always wins! Sooner or later. Naturally, there is a story to tell, and one day I will tell it.
Until then, let the picture speak.

Oh, and yes, the diamond did come with a statement claiming that it's conflict-free, through the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme.

In Memorium

2008-02-06T23:59:00.007-06:00

My dear Papaw passed away to another life, today at 5:05 PM. He died peacefully at home with his loved ones around him. He was 98,
and the most wonderful of men.

I love you, Papaw. Say Hi to Mamaw for me, K?

It's All About Simplicity

2007-12-18T15:33:00.000-06:00

Item 1: Teenaged Daughterness
This is a quote, from my beloved teenaged daughter, as explanation for why she'd requested that I discontinue speaking: "The vibration of your talking is irritating my sense of well being." This is why ego is useless.

Item 2: The Quality of Simplicity
Here is my menu for an upcoming very small holiday dinner at my place, as demonstration of the principle that quality ingredients prepared simply are the secret to culinary happiness:

Menu

Champagne

Caviar on crackers with crème fraiche

Very Light Salad

Cheese soufflé with lobster sauce

Hot chocolate with peppermint Schnapps or Frangelico

Gingered Sugar Cookies, Peppermint Sugar Cookies

Yes, all simple. Nothing to cover up, nothing to obscure. If any of these ingredients were less than fresh or less than fine the meal would suffer horribly (and thus the guests). So, we'll work with live lobster, fresh (even though the inexpensive domestic kind) caviar, good eggs, local cream and milk, fine cheese and chocolate, homemade cookies baked that day, and the freshest salad makings (Kelly is bringing them, and I know she won't go astray). That's it.

Seasonal Seasonness

2007-12-12T13:29:00.000-06:00

This is a fun holiday season for me. My second winter in the Square, I am beginning to get into the swing of the rhythm of the Parlor Tour and a few parties and changes in the park and the people and it's really all just quite nice. Oh -- one of my food blogs was picked up by a portal. Go look! While you're there please click on the VOTE icon. Please?

And 'tis the third year for going with Metal Ox to Powell for the SLSO holiday concert. This year it will be the "Holiday Songbook," traditional carols and hymns and things. I really can't wait! This weekend. And see my pretty tree:

It turned out well, didn't it? All silver and white and blue decorations. It's the first year in may years that I've had a "real" tree. In the past many, well, when the kids were little we had very real trees -- with the root balls on, which were later planted in the yard at the South Forest house. Then I found a marvelous huge stick, branch, whatever, barkless, and put lights and the ornaments on that, and it was quite pretty. Then I lived in smaller places and had a very small fiber optic tree (ya, I know, ick). Then last year MO picked up this nice, tall artificial tree for me after the holiday, on sale.

So, one trip to Hobby Lobby and one to The Future Antiques later, wa-la! A tree! Happy me! Too bad I'm an empty nester and must enjoy it all alone. With my little glass of Bailey's. And the quiet. And the peace. Smile.

Just as a Matter of Record

2007-12-02T14:00:00.001-06:00

Poor me, I never did get my tomato soup and grilled cheese. There just wasn't time in the day to make it happen. But, yesterday, with the help of an aesthetically astute friend, I did get my Christmas tree up! And decorated! And it's very pretty.

Oh! Oh! And one of my food blogs, Smith Family Recipes and Stories, was invited to become a featured publisher on the food blog portal foodbuzz.com! And they pay me! And they are pretty cool and so far I'm likin' it, ya!

Sick and the Single Girl

2007-11-28T16:54:00.000-06:00

Look, I can own from the starting line that I am a wimp when it comes to being sick. That’s why I’m so proud of myself for bearing the Burn Ordeal so well. But the thing most men, all married men in fact I’m betting, save one or two with really mean, drunk wives, don’t understand is that having the stomach flu and working a 10 hour day after coming back from 24 hours of total stomach flu misery and then thinking of having to go to the store to buy those tomato soup and grilled cheese makings – the only thing that sounds even vaguely palatable and after a day of one donut and one orange section – that prospect just is, well, it just wants to make me cry.

See, these men (my bosses here in Corporania) all have wives at home. If their wives get sick they stop off and buy them their tomato soup, and maybe even make it for them. If they get sick their wives certainly make it for them. And really, I would have been happy if I could have just worked nine hours and had that little jump start that would have put me at the store and maybe even home before dark.

But no, see, there’s this directive that we all have to work 10 hours every single day. And there was a memo, and the memo stated quite clearly that no one could work less than that without permission from Himself. And really, truly, if the company hadn’t gotten itself in this position through very poor management, and if they would let us hire the people we’ve been saying we needed for the last two years, then everyone could work eight hours and all would be well. But it’s their fault. And the icing on the cake is that, in my department, we’re not behind. We never are. But we still have to work the overtime because upper management only looks at the numbers, and if our little three or four people (we’ve been short one for several months because they haven’t let us replace the one who quit, even though we interviewed) don’t do the overtime it pulls the overtime numbers stats down for the larger department.

OK, all that said. You get my bitchy drift. But the main point is, these managers are men. They don’t know what it’s like to be sick and have to fend for themselves totally. All I want to do is leave early so I can get to the store before dark and get a little rest for my fluey body before tomorrow comes and here I am again.

French Thanksgiving Touches

2007-11-16T10:00:00.000-06:00

It's less than a week until Thanksgiving, menu planning is in full swing, and as usual my determination to KISS (keep it simple stupid: turkey, oyster and non-oyster dressing, roasted root veggies, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, slaw, corn casserole, cranberries, pumpkin pie, cherry pie, tiramisu) is under erosion from the torrent of fabulous recipes I somehow encounter during the course of a typical day. Steely resolve is mine, however, and so far I have succumbed to only one gully leading to the weediness of our traditional wildly straining-under-the-bounty holiday table. But I still haven't received from my kids their dishes of choice requests. In the mean time, since I know you want to add a touch of French country savory goodness to your own table, here is the magical tempress of a dish that's led me off the path of KISS. If you know me, you know that by the end, unless my discipline is well-tempered and it usually isn't, I will have added several "small, simple little touches" and the menu will have doubled (actually the tiramisu was the first sign of erosion -- the recipe in the latest Cooks Illustrated was just too tempting to ignore). And now it's this Chestnut-fennel purée (Purée de châtaignes au fenouil) from Le Jardins Francais : http://www.frenchgardening.com/cuisine.html.

Chestnut-fennel purée (Purée de châtaignes au fenouil)

3 lbs. fresh chestnuts
2 medium heads fennel, bruised and tough parts removed, sliced in sixths
1 tsp. fennel seed (wild fennel seed if possible)*
4 T. unsalted butter
1/2 c. crème fraîche
Salt and pepper

*Wild fennel seeds are smaller than the usual variety, nearly black in color, and incredibly flavorful.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cut a slit across the rounded side of each chestnut and place them on a baking sheet. Roast for 20-30 minutes, until peelable (they don't have to be perfectly tender.)

Cover the chestnuts with a towel to keep them hot while you peel them. If they cool, the inner skin won't come off. (If the skin refuses to come off a few of them, don't throw them out. You'll be able to remove it after the next step.)*

Place the peeled chestnuts and the fennel and fennel seeds in a heavy saucepan and just cover them with water. Add a good pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium low and simmer until the chestnuts and the fennel are very tender.

Keep the pot covered to conserve the cooking liquid.

Drain the chestnuts and fennel over a bowl, reserving the cooking liquid. Remove any skin that is still clinging to the chestnuts or has come loose among the vegetables. Pass the vegetables through the fine blade of a food mill back into the saucepan. Add the butter and crème fraîche and whisk until incorporated. Then whisk in enough of the flavorful cooking liquid to make the mixture nearly pourable, or to a consistency that pleases you.**

Note that the purée will thicken as it stands, so don't throw out any remaining cooking liquid until serving time. Correct the seasoning with flakes of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

*The technique of roasting the chestnuts before peeling, and then boiling them with the fennel allows you to develop the delicious cooking liquor essential to the flavor of this dish. Boiling the chestnuts in their shells and then peeling makes peeling more difficult in my experience. Reboiling them after peeling gives a less flavorful result. And you can't use the liquid from boiling them in their shells because it has an acrid taste.

**You can reduce the amount of butter and cream if you desire by increasing the amount of cooking liquid you incorporate into the purée. The result will be less unctuous but still flavorful.

Note: This is the most delicious puree I've ever tasted. It's worth the effort, and unfortunately using vacuum-packed chestnuts seriously diminishes the result. A guaranteed star of the Thanksgiving table. You probably won't have leftovers, but if you do, thin them with homemade chicken broth for a fabulous soup.

What is it?

2007-11-14T16:54:00.000-06:00

CNN says it may be a ghost on a gas station surveillance video. What do you think?
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2007/11/14/lai.gas.ghost.woio

Bye-Bye, Coffee, Bye-Bye House Help

2007-11-13T16:27:00.000-06:00

Now that coffee is supposedly good for you, I’ve suddenly lost my taste for it. Now, contradicting my recent purposeful declaration to several friends that I, in fact, didn’t like tea and all and was tired of trying to, I now love tea and wake up craving it. This, after several years of unsuccessfully trying to get off the coffee.

It was a conversion of factors. Chronologically it went down like this: The guy who’d cleaned my house a few times just stopped showing up, and stopped returning my phone calls. At first he pled strep throat, true. But it’s three weeks later and he’s as gone as the May moonlight. Coffee connection? I worked at the coffee house in my neighborhood – that’s how I found him. And I liked him a lot! He was ok. I trusted him in my house. And he blew me off! Even after I recommended him to the whole listserv. Maybe he didn't like our arrangement of one room a week, but I was flexible on that. And I don't think there were that many skeletons laying around that he'd be that frightened of my house. Anyway, he doesn’t work at the coffee house any more, but the association remains, and I can't help but wonder if whatever I did to make him disappear has bled over to the coffee house? I don't know, because I have no idea why he disappeared! Some people are just irresponsible, I guess. Darn it.

Which on it’s own would be scant force to break the coffee addiction, so then comes factor number two. The burns. While I was on house arrest (the doctor’s orders week for healing) I had no way of getting my coffee. At first I was scared to death – how was I going to make it? Would I get gruesome caffeine withdrawal headaches? But on the second day I decided to do a bit of a cleansing diet and put it out of my mind.

Emerging, the first thing I did was stop by the coffee house and get my ritual Americano. But it was bitter, I didn't like it, and I didn’t finish it(!). The next day I woke up wanting a cup of tea. So I stopped by the Park Avenue on the way to work to get one. I know, way more expensive than making my own tea, but I really used to enjoy going to the coffee shop first thing in the morning, for there I was always greeting with a smile, someone saying my name, maybe even telling me that I looked nice or pretty or something, asking me how things were, telling me about their life or their day. Living alone, this friendly way to begin my morning trek to work really gave me a morale boost. But the staff has turned over and the guys working there now are, though completely competent and decent seeming, just not exuding the warmth that I used to feel from Chad and Cole and Dale and Marilyn. I don't even think they remember my name. It's kind of depressing. Not once has one of them ask me how things are, or complinented my outfit, or whatever. That may sound babyish to say, but the thing is it was a big part of why the coffee ritual there was important to my life. The charm of my morning coffee stop is gone, it doesn’t feel so personal any more, and no one made a Thai iced like Chad did, and he’s long gone, and now they are weaker and waterier and don’t have the love in them that made them so fine, and no one ever even asked if they are ok. So now I feel just as happy making my tea at work.

Which is all sad, but also good, in that my health will probably improve and my budget certainly will. And I'm enjoying the birth of this new tea ritual, which itself is full of rich potential. There is so much in tea. So much history. So many tangents. I could pick a culture -- Turkey, India, Japan, Persia -- and explore the life of tea in it. One culture at a time. Slow little journeys through the east, coming home again, the land and the dishes and the mannerisms and the importance of community, which is the other thing that makes me sad about the House Help and the coffee shop. Those were parts of the fabric of this community I've grown fond of. The motions and sounds of connection, little waves, touches and brushes on my quiet little shore line.

Nornan Mailer's Mother Wouldn't Hear A Bad Word Said

2007-11-07T14:47:00.001-06:00

Regarding persons criticizing one's children. I recall an interview with, I think, Normal Mailer in which he said that his mother, like any mother, would always defend him. I paraphrase: "If someone ran up to her screaming that I'd just opened fire on a crowd of people in a shopping mall, she would probably say something like, Well, somebody probably made him mad."

Teenagers are a special breed. I used to pride myself on being able to turn touchy situations with teenagers along totally around by simply taking them seriously as human beings and not judging them. They would appreciate this so much! It could really save the day for the parents on a trip or at a meal, whatever.

I think part of what sent me to that response was the memory of my uncle at a Sunday lunch when I, as a teen, was just cranky and so appalled that I had to sit at the table and listen to all the stupid things my family had to say. I was getting dirty looks from everyone, when my uncle leaned over and said, "You want to get out of here and get some ice cream? Let's take a ride in the Yellow Submarine."

The Yellow Submarine was his beat up Porche, yellow of course, and it was very fun to ride in. Mostly, though, I was so touched at not being judged, so amazed and thrilled and grateful that someone had, even for a moment, understood my pain, that, really, I think it opened a door in my heart that has never closed. I have great sympathy for the pain of the teen, and my uncle showed me a way to ease life up for a teenager, for a moment, here and there.

I don't get the opportunity that much any more. One's own children don't buy it; through that phase of life they need to push against us, and their friends are usually pretty darn well behaved around me. But sometimes all it takes when I see one of them struggling is a question and a look and a smile. Something that tells them they are not being judged, that they are still lovable people.

Teenagers are not adults. While bad behavior shouldn't be indulged, of course, annoying teenage angstishness does not need to be pointed out at every turn. It's a useless power struggle, anyway. Lead by example. Have a bit of compassion. It's the only thing that works, anyway.

Finally, Healed.

2007-11-05T15:55:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's taken all this time to get the burn wounds healed. Last week, due to the un-unconfinable-in-public nature of two remaining wounds, I was forced on doctor's orders to stay in my house with my, um, bosom exposed to the air. I'll spare you the icky details.

All in all I really have to say that even though I thought I was rather stoic through the whole thing and soldiered on darn well, in truth it was pretty traumatic, all told. The sight of all that bleeding and the not-healing wounds and, yuck, it was just all really yucky and horribly, horribly painful. Plus, I received scant sympathy, save from Metal Ox, who was the most patient and let me tell him those icky details nearly every day -- go figure. And Miss R brought me aloe plants from her house in a lovely pot (Thank you, Miss R!) and tried to get me the book club book for while I was confined. And Scorpie I came over a couple of times and was really sweet and helpful. Once he even did the dishes without me even asking! Wow. And SII was kind and visited, as well, and fetched some organic bottled aloe from C'dale. And the Princess was gracious about missing Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which we were slated to see the very day I did the deed. But the main point is that I don't think I whined or felt sorry for myself hardly at all, and you know what a baby I am when I'm sick. But I got the first throughthemail Get Well Card I've gotten since, I don't know? since I had my tonsils out in 5th grade? Thank you, STLST!

I think I've finally come to a place where i don't really expect someone to leap through the door with a hot toddy and lovely soup every time I don't feel good. Which is progress. I'm sure if I were really practically dying or something someone would show up. But the point is that these days instead of thinking Why isn't so-and-so coming over to help me? I think Now how in the hell am I going to get X and Y done when I can't even put on a shirt? And that is progress. And I'm happy for it. Anyhow, extended visitations were impractical in this instance, given the bosom exposure mandate and all. Of course this is all tied in with being single. Wishing for the gentle, nurturing, manly mate. And acceptance of the beauty of life as it is.

The Dalai Lama was wonderful, of course. But the two redheads do not get along, and they both made their grievances quite clear, such expression first manifesting from the peer-aged redhead. Of course I love the peer-aged redhead, but when push comes to shove I will always adore and protect my lovely daughter. This is the nature of motherness. And frankly, for her 17-year-old self, I thought she was fine, especially considering riding in the back seat for four hours up and four hours back, with not even her own music to listen to and all. Still, I tried to be neutral and not participate in their little girly sniping. Ironic that they chose to be so judgmental of one another on the Dalai Lama trip. Compassion, anyone?

Work is crazy. I wish for a job offer else where. Preferably for more money.

Don't Cook Naked!

2007-10-17T14:22:00.000-05:00

At least not when hot oil is necessary. I ended up in the emergency room this morning after carelessly tossing a hamburger into smoking oil as I, still half asleep and dreaming of our upcoming trip to see the Dalai Lama, was trying to make lunch for work. Splattered super-hot oil all over my torso and the tops of my thighs. I ran to bathroom, turned the shower on cold, and let it run over me for five minutes. Then a dousing with aloe, then another five minutes with ice cubes wrapped in a cloth.

Then is a daze I got dressed in a little black dress I usually reserve for evening, but I needed something really lose and there it was, and went to work, worrying that I would miss the 8:30 meeting I’d called. Before presenting my material I told my boss and coworker what had happened, explaining that I may be a little less coherent than usual because I was in some degree of pain, and requesting that they tell only their wives and not spread the image of my frying hamburgers naked and half awake first thing in the morning all over work(!), when my boss responded by telling me to get my ass to the emergency room and that we could deal with the meeting issues afterward. Thanks, boss. I do appreciate that.

So, a few laughs from the emergency room staff later, I’ve got some red hot welts but luckily the burns are only 1st degree. Tetanus shot, codeine, aloe, fish and chips at the Tap Room and back at work.

Honestly, as I was jumping around the house cursing and crying, thoughts of His Holiness kept popping into my head, and I would calm down a bit, imagining how he might be equipped with a mantra or two that would help with the pain. Funny.

So really, I’m serious. There is a reason why one should not fry food in the nude.
Only I could have a moment that blond. Only I.

My Dreams Are Trying to Help me

2007-10-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

Thanks to The Princess for this:

Kali says, "Men of Earth, sexual responsibility is yours too. This sense you have that women are sex, are responsible for your sexual urges and choices, is wrong, deadly, stupid, childish, and simply not up the par of any real or serious masculinity. I will crush you like bugs."

The thing is, the dreams keep putting it pretty clearly. He is either not answering the phone, or he’s telling me straight out, “I can’t help you.” Or, he’s off, all dressed up, and won't tell me where he's going.

I've been having these dreams since I first got to know Metal Ox. Almost six years ago. In one early one, he was an astronaut on the space shuttle. All the astronauts' partners were calling them to say hi to them in orbit, and it was on TV, like it used to be during the Apollo program. But he wouldn't answer my call. I kept calling and calling, and he kept ignoring me. We could see him doing it on the TV! Finally, he answered. Told me he was busy, hung up. This is the pattern of the dreams. They follow life. But I stick around, off and on. Friend or lover. What am I hoping for? That he'll learn what he was never taught?

So the dream I had on Sunday night after I called him and asked his help exploring the possibilities of paying his mother a visit on my way home from Michigan, the dream in which there was a gang rape in progress, on me, and led by his brothers and buddies (though I doubt there is little to the presence of his brothers in a way that’s personal to them – it has more to do with MO's failure to stand by me with his siblings, and their way of ganging up on “outsiders”), and when I pleaded to him for help he said, turning his head away from me, “I can’t help you,” right there, in the dream – it was clear that his concern was that he look tough, look like he’s one with the men who are doing something manly, that he was not "pussy whipped" -- standing up for me would demean his standing with his brothers and buddies. “You’ll be alright,” he says, “There’s a long tradition of this.” (This "tradition" thing sounds close to arguments for stripping and prostitution, that they've always existed and so will always exist and ending them is just a silly endeavor; this is logical fallacy, of course -- that something has always existed is not a valid argument for the impossibility of ending its existence.)

Now, having this dream at Joyce and Tony’s had a particular effect. I know, from years of being near them, that while theirs is not a perfect relationship (since such does not exist), it is one I would be more than pleased to have. Largely, this is directly due to their integrity as individual human beings. For whatever reason, I have not been exposed to copious amounts of integrity in men. Nor politeness. And politeness, to one’s partner in particular (for many people seem to overlook the role of good manners in a successful relationship of that sort), is, it becomes more and more clear as I mature, critical to harmony in the home. If you will.

Good manners. Taking responsibility not only for one’s own actions but also for one’s own thoughts, for Christ’s sake. Seriously. The way I see Tony, he has accepted the necessity of controlling his own mind. Joyce and I talked about this, referring to ourselves. Then he and I talked about it a bit. If this sounds like repression, it’s not. It’s integrity. Yoga and other forms of meditation teach it – part of these practices is keeping the mind focused and clean. The man who was just arrested for trying to make arrangements to have sex with a five year old? He had clearly allowed his thoughts to follow a train they should not have. At any point, he had the choice to stop, move his thoughts in another direction. In my view, people like Metal Ox who have a porn habit and all the other roads that leads to (while denying to themselves the harm that comes from it, on a jillion levels) are displaying a weakness of mind and a lack of integrity, and the two operate hand in hand. Strength of mind that leads to integrity need not be repressive; one needs, though, to be intelligent enough to understand oneself in the context of all the aspects of one’s environment. Refusal to consider one's role in the functioning of that environment is a kind of denial that makes self-regulation seem like repression. In the end it's an adolescent mind set: "I'm a free person so no one call tell me what to do!" and is unproductive. The mature, intellegent mind/personality can see and accept the consequences of its words and actions and it has accepted its own investment in helping to create a harmonious environment, and environment of trust, in order to benefit itself and its co-inhabitants.

Or, maybe it will work is one is just innocent and protected enough, but dumb. Most dumb people, though, aren't innocent. Not any more.

The way I see it, Metal Ox. having not accepted any responsibility for his integrity and its impact on his relationships, is allowing himself to follow unworthy thoughts. And he has never been taught the role of manners in relationship. These two factor together, though i thought at first they wouldn't do so, are depleting even my wish to be his buddy. It’s just tiring. There’s never a time when I can count on him not to get rude and selfish (much less seedy and gross – but the idea was I’d leave behind caring about that when I left behind being his “girlfriend”) at really bizarre moments. You would think that, even if he didn’t care about helping me out, he would have wanted to facilitate helping his mom. And it’s not that he doesn’t want me to visit her. He’s always suggesting I call her, or asking me to go with him to see here. It’s not that. It’s carelessness. It’s lack of Home Raising. It’s mind caught on tracks that require secrecy and selfishness.

So maybe it does matter to me that Metal ox, “as a friend,” is a porn and strip club frequenter. Maybe it’s just an iciness I don’t want to have to tolerate. And maybe I do think that there’s addiction there, and that addiction feeds his insulation against really sharing his life. And that growing up watching people treat one another with rudeness and disregard, and having never questioned that, he is continuing it. It sucks that there’s this generous part of him that makes him, for instance, one of the few “friends” who felt it important to remember my birthday. There is the sweet side of him. But isn’t there always?

So, visiting J&T I get the reminder: it’s possible to have a relationship that’s not conflicted issues of basic integrity. There are men who feel, and not because of a religion or a fear of freedom, that responsibility to integrity is indispensable. That there’s no excuse for violating that responsibility. And that, damn it, good manners are important.

I don’t get that close to many other couple’s ways of seeing, behaving. And even outside of coupledom, just visiting them as friends, it’s very comfortable to know that issues of mind and manner are at an agreeable baseline. This reminds me how conflicted I feel on this level when I’m spending any time at all with Metal Ox. Sure, I love him like a brother, and he’s important to me. And sure, he is one of the few people who remembered my birthday and he brought me very sweet and thoughtful gifts. But there’s a price for all of that, and ultimately it’s my peace of mind. For there is always that moment when he turns his head away.

What are the words to this song?

2007-10-08T08:58:00.000-05:00

You know, the one about "I met a girl from Kalamazoo...?" In Hannibal a few weeks ago I was talking with this cheese shop guy and he played me the song while I ate his cheese samples. Benny Goodman's band? I can't remember.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. It's pretty nice here. Visiting Joyce and Tony. Meeting some of their friends, had them over for dinner, all English faculty at Western Mich, so of course I was right at home with that. Everyone calls the Upper Pennensula "the UP," which I find funny 'cause it's sounds like some Midwestern version of "the OC."

Went to The Lake (Michigan) last night for sunset picnic -- very scenic. Feels like the ocean. Took the back roads.

There's a big foresty nature preserve a few minutes from J and T's house, getting ready to go explore that. And things are cheap here. Aritsan bakery: Scottish Something bread, tripple espresso, cappiccino, two Danish: $7.25. All excellent quality. Good Lord. I could live like a queen here.

So, adieu momentarly while I return to vacationing, and the long drive home tonight. (Sorry about the typos -- I'm on Joyce's laptop and the keyboard is awkward and I can't get this blogspot spellchecker to work.)

Notes

2007-10-02T07:46:00.000-05:00

1. First private cheffing gig. So much fun! Learned so much. So lucky to have been engaged by a kind and gentle client. Couldn't have been more lovely gushing about the food from the guests. I worked about twice as hard as charged for it -- charging money is still hard for me. Something to work on. I worry so much about people's budgets. Not like mine has much wiggle room, so I can't explain why. But at any rate it was a good and happy experience, in spite of the fact that I lost my help at the last minute to SII's sudden pukiness, and my clothes drier broke the night before with all my clothes for the event wet in the washer so I had to spend part of my planned morning prep time in the laundry where the bitchy laundress declined to put a rush on drying them for me so that I could get back to work and go get the baguette and cut the figs even when I offered her a $20 tip to do so. And then I did find a darling friend who was able to give me 2.5 hours of prep help, and thank you dear really it would not have come together on time without you. So: lesson learned: have a back-up plan for help! Time to call the culinary school and ask for a list of willing chefs in training.

2. Must see movie: Trade. An engaging and well-made narrative film about human sex trafficking. Kevin Klein lends his well-trained acting and cache to the project. This film is not for kids, though. It's pretty graphic and grueling. But for those who are only marginally or even completely unaware of this horrendous injustice that's totally rampant in the world right now this is a pretty effective way to get them engaged. Especially since it manages to be uplifting in the end, though I won't say why so as not to spoil. http://www.tradethemovie.com/

3. Alice Waters has a new cookbook. Of course she is the local, simple, sustainable foods pioneer who inspires us all. I just read the introduction to the book and I must say that her words are so close to my feeling about food that I'd love to share them with you all: http://beta.bordersstores.com/online/store/ArticleView_artofsimplefood.

4. I was unaware that I had won a Best Individual Garden Award from Gateway Greening for my little plot in the Lafayette Square Community Garden, back in the earlier summer. I guess I read the email wrong! I am so happy. Inspired by this recognition I've decided to create little micro-worlds within the garden, starting in this fall/winter planting and organization, then hopefully coming to a fuller fruition in the spring. I went in last night and did a lot of pulling up of plants for fall clean-up. But I left the flowered-out basil because My God the bees are just loving it. I was at least three types of bee enjoying the flowers, especially the purple basil's tall blooms, while I was working. There were dozens on them, the bees, and it was really nice to work along side them. I have always found bees to be very friendly and cooperative, you know, as long as one doesn't frighten them or accidentally step on one or something. But who can you not say that of? I planted a sage plant, and two winter savories. I've got the idea to get a good variety of culinary herbs going. The globe basil is perennial and I will definitely leave that in. I also planted some pansies. Little violet colored ones. A little fall color, and if we're lucky they'll peak back out in spring. Oh! And I finally bought a Allium Giganteum! I can't wait for that one to bloom in spring! I've wanted one my whole life. My grandma Nonie grew them. The blooms are as big a softballs (or bigger) and they are just as magical as a moon growing in the garden. I may go down to Bowood and get some more. It's just that they're $5 a bulb, which actually isn't a bad price, but still. And five hyacinth, four white and one purple. I also took all the twiggy bamboo staking materials that had been supposedly supporting the okra, eggplants, and leggy sunflowers and made a couple of mystery-looking spots. And a brass Tibetan Buddha, small, under the skeleton tee-pee, a rock circle, some shells. I am beginning to feel my little garden as a sacred space. Cultivating that has to make for even yummier herbs and vegetables.

So, love and the joys of knowledge, compassion, earth, food, and growing things. Fall. Change. Never to forget change. The only constant.

The Letter Writer Strikes Again

2007-10-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

Dear Dr. Bollinger,

I am saddened to see how ungraciously our country was represented by you in your introduction of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Regardless of what one might think of him as a person or a leader, he was, after all, invited by you to speak, was a guest in your "house," and deserved respectful treatment.

My liberal arts education led me to believe that we who hold advanced degrees and live the life of the mind are to represent ourselves and our way of life as rational and more fair than the emotionally driven lives of religion and jingoism. It is a shame that we have been degraded by your behavior. President Ahmadinejad's own words would have done all that was needed to show the world the sort of person he is. It would have been nice if we'd come out looking like the civilized and well mannered ones.

You've added another elemental bit of ammunition to those who desire to disrespect the United States. I wonder what you might do to repair it?

Perhaps you should consult Ms. Manners?

Sincerely,

Margaret Howard

If you'd like to drop him a note, pro or con his manner:

bollinger@columbia.edu

Phone: 212-854-9970

Ko htike's Prosaic Collection

2007-09-28T07:39:00.000-05:00

Non-violent resistance is alive in the world. Now that the monks are being jailed (and who knows what) by the military government, though, I pray that the people, who will surely keep protesting, have the strength and presence of mind to continue in a non-violent manner. A modern form of peaceful resistence: information dissemination against the will of an oppressor; getting the truth out at risk of life and limb. Like Ko Htike. Evidence that it matters: the Burmese government just shut down internet access and cell phone communication.

http://ko-htike.blogspot.com/

From CNN:

By Wayne Drash and Phil Black

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Armed with a laptop, a blogger named Ko Htike has thrust himself into the middle of the violent crackdown against monks and other peaceful demonstrators in his homeland of Myanmar.

Ko Htike runs his Myanmar blog out of his London apartment and says he's trying to stop the violence.

From more than 5,500 miles away, he's one of the few people getting much needed information out to the world.

He runs the blog out of his London apartment, waking up at 3 a.m. every day to review the latest digitally smuggled photos, video and information that's sent in to him.

With few Western journalists allowed in Htike's blog is one of the main information outlets. He said he has as many as 40 people in Myanmar sending him photos or calling him with information. They often take the photos from windows from their homes, he said.

Myanmar's military junta has forbidden such images, and anyone who sends them is risking their lives.

"If they get caught, you will never know their future. Maybe just disappear or maybe life in prison or maybe dead," he told CNN.

Why would they take such risks?

"They thought that this is their duty for the country," he said. "That's why they are doing it. It's like a mission."

Htike, a 28-year-old who left Myanmar seven years ago to study in England, said about 20,000 people visit the site every day.

On Thursday, as soldiers reportedly fired into crowds and beat Buddhist monks in the nation's largest city of Yangon, Htike's site posted photographs of the violence and some messages from the region. One sent at 1500 local time said, "Right now they're using fire engines and hitting people and dragging them onto E2000 trucks and most of them are girls and people are shouting.

Hillary Tasering Too, Sort of

2007-09-20T14:12:00.000-05:00

She's trying to taser the Bill of Rights, anyway. No pun intended.

I just sent this letter to her campaign:

Dear. Ms. Clinton,

Is it true that you are setting up "Free Speech Zones" at your speeches and rallies and/or screening for "dissidents" at these events? I saw a member of Code Pink on cable news this week who made this claim. Wow.

I have to say: If this is true, if you are following the Bush administration's template of suppressing free speech and assembly, if you are doing anything other than working hard to reverse the damage to civil rights and democratic discourse the Republicans have done, then you can count me out of ever voting for you under any circumstances. As a matter of fact, if I don't see you openly addressing this issue immediately and reversing your policies in this matter I hereby commit to do all my campaigning against you, henceforth.

My family has been staunchly Democratic since the party has existed. Even though a woman President in my lifetime would make me very happy, and I have been leaning toward voting for you in the primary until now, I will not let you ruin my party or codify the ruin of my country that Bush & Co. have undertaken! We need someone who can lead this country back to its core ideals, and those are based on the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, for God's sake!

Then I sent this to the Obama campaign:

I just sent Hillary Clinton the underlying [it's overlying for you, dear blog reader] letter. I am wondering how your campaign is handling this issue.

Travelogue Tazered!

2007-09-18T11:08:00.001-05:00

On my lunch break today i had really hoped to write about my solo trip north to Hannibal, the day spent on my boss's land, my re-found joy of travelling alone, the crazy so-called B&B I stayed in, my drive down Highway 79, along the Mississippi. Not to mention the birthday present my brother gave me: Green seats to last Saturday's day game against the Cubs! But alas, looking around on CNN I see this video:

Student Tasered at campus forum for Kerry
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/18/student.tasered.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview#cnnSTCVideo

Tazers should be outlawed. They are being used in situations, too often, where there is clearly no danger to anyone. There are being used, as in the above example, just to shut people up.

John Kerry, what are you going to do about this? Why didn't run you rush into the audience and free this guy? Are you going to get behind him, now?

And besides, I am so busy at work that there's no time, even at lunch, to really write the way I want to.

More Gibson, More Food

2007-09-07T09:59:00.000-05:00

Wow. Busy week at work, little time to post.

So much going on this weekend. This- and That-Fests all over the city. Fab! Near my house: Taste of Lafayette Square, of course, from noon to 8PM on Saturday. Free concert in the park, samples for our wonderful restaurants. You simply have to come. Call me. We'll go.

Over in Benton Park, just around the corner, Schaffly will be sharing free samples of it's fall microbrews at Blues City Deli: www.bluescitydeli.com.

St. Louis Art Fair is happening over in Clayton: http://www.saintlouisartfair.com/.

And that's not all. There's no excuse for being bored around here, no there's not.

What other news? Cards are one game back. Cubs in the lead. My brother has given me green seat tickets for my birthday(!) for the Cards/Cubs game on the 15th! Ya, those are the seats where you get all your eats and drinks for free from real waiters, not to mention the behind the scenes buffet, and the fact that their right behind home plate. Ya, hate me. Go ahead. I can't wait! Nice brother. Or: nice, brother.

Finished reading my second William Gibson novel on two weeks. He's brought me back to my love of reading, after some disgruntled months coming in and out of boring books. Spook Country. Not quite the perfect thrill ride of Pattern Recognition, but lots of total fun as well as a pretty cool take on the current administration's ridiculous, wasteful, ugly, dangerous, and just plain stupid handling of intelligence, money, the Constitution, and "war" prisoners post 9-11. As seen through the eyes of artists and, well, Spooks, otherwise known as spies. With another fun woman primary protagonist.

Cayce in Pattern Recognition, that novels female lead, so much reminded me of me that I wish everyone who knows me would read it in order to know me better. I know, that's narcissistic. Also partly tongue-in-cheek. But really. Hollis, in Spook Country, doesn't so much remind me of me, and further more is a less well developed character all around. There are certain inconsistencies in her intelligence, for instance. She does a stroke of genius figuring out the nature of the VR box floating in the air above her head where a virtual giant squid covered in gorgeous and disturbing imagery in supposed to be, but she proves incredibly dense are other moments about things that would seem pretty darn easy to decipher. Or even to notice. Or suspect. I suspended my disbelief, however, because riding with her and the other characters was so much fun.

I do find it interesting that Gibson so often sets up a guy with a receding hairline as the most "attractive" male character to the female protagonist. Have you seen Gibson's photo lately? Funny. He has to know this is completely transparent.

Happy to have been invited to join a neighborhood book club. The monthly meetings include food made more or less to "match" the book. I love this neighborhood. Any excuse to make good food is immediately pounced upon! So, this weekend off to get Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning.

Come on by this weekend, K?

TI's Firday

2007-08-31T11:33:00.001-05:00

And it's a good thing. Work this week required rather a bit of brainpower. A long project that is stimulating to the sleuth in me but would likely be intensely boring in description so I won't subject you to that. Let's just say: minutia. Minutia, airplanes, parts fitting together properly.

And so now I can barely spell, and will not take long here.

As a matter of fact I had something to say but it's left me. Check the baseball standings. Be friendly to your neighbors. Have a good holiday.

M

P.S. OK, just remembered. The souffle poll. Having had three brave souls vote (thanks for visiting -- I love you), 'tis perhaps not a representative sample. Still: 66% for chocolate; 33% for lemon.

More St. Louis TV Fame

2007-08-30T09:31:00.000-05:00

So, Alton Brown, on his road show "Feasting on Asphalt," ate at Fast Eddies and Pie Town Stomping Grounds in Alton (with a whole fun goofy thing about the pronunciation differences), and then went on a donut tour of the 'Lou. Cool. Pie Town, not everyone knows about it I'm guessing, is in a tucked-away part of Alton near to where I lived in Bethalto. I went there rather a lot, only place within five miles making espresso. Two observations from Mr. Brown: Fast Eddies makes the only chicken wings worth eating he's ever had (that's the Chick on a Stick, BTW), and Pie Town the only pecan pie north of the Mason-Dixon line he's ever had that stands up to scrutiny. As to the donuts, that was very fun. I've looked for a list of the ones he visited but no luck so far. Definitely he went to World's Fair and Drive-In Donuts.

We Have Taste!

2007-08-28T12:20:00.000-05:00

Let it be known that of the five eateries chosen by Bon Appetit magazine to best represent the five iconic American foods, -- pizza, ribs, steak, hamburgers, and tacos -- yours truly has eaten at two of them. Woo-hoo. 17th Street Bar and Grill in Murphysborough, Illinois won the amazing honor of best ribs in the whole freaking U.S., M'bo being, of course, right next door to my second-home-town of Carbondale, where I lived for 17 years. Yes, we are there all the time.

Best pizza went to Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, where of course Metal Ox and I vacationed last summer. Thank goodness for my persistent insistence that we eat there. It was truly wonderful in every way, even though they don't take reservations. They were quite kind even considering his obvious annoyance at having to wait in a separate building while I drank a glass of wine (which was fine by me) and then as we sat at the bar and watched Bianco himself craft the fabulous pizzas as we ate our own. It was, I admit, one of those times that one might have wished to be with someone who might get some enjoyment out of lingering and sampling, which MO is not into, his sensual abilities and senses being quite underdeveloped, poor thing, and him unwilling to be tutored... but I digress. I'm just glad I got to try this food-fired deliciousness.

For some reason Bon Appetit is not showing this "contest" prominently on it's web site, so I'm linking to Serious Eats in case you want to take a look.

Scorpio II is thrilled by the 17th Street development, as she has been on a quest to find the best ribs in the STL area since she's quit the vegetarian limitation. Bon appetit, Miss Girl!

Red Herrings, Dogs

2007-08-24T11:29:00.001-05:00

I'm going to try to say this with brevity.

Regarding the Michael Vick thing. I saw some guy on FOX news the other night saying that he thought hunting was even worse than what Vick et al allegedly did to the dogs, and that therefore we should not get so excited about dog fighting in general, and we should lay off Vick specifically.

Two things: Numero Uno: Ethical evolution has to start somewhere. If we continually assert that one action is "not as bad as" or even "just like" some other action, we get no where in our development as human beings. What we should do is look closely at the action we're disturbed by, ask ourselves if it is related to another action, find the points of relationship that are relevant, look closely at those, and from that investigation consider plans of remedy. To suppress our revulsion or whatever for the initial action seems to me some species of denial, and unhealthy. Shading this FOX guy's reasoning, of course, is the logical fallacy it develops from, the old red herring that two wrongs make a right, and it amazes me that there are still people using this argument.

Numero Dos: To address the hunting issue briefly, I would only say that in my view there is humane hunting and inhumane hunting, just as there is humane animal farming and inhumane animal farming. I mean really, there is a quick death with respect for the animal, and then there is torture. Torture is always inhumane. Yes, perhaps never killing any creature is more humane, period, but the truth is we're not there yet, and it may be anyway that some of us have the physiological need to eat animals, 'cause, hey, that's how we evolved. But, is it possible that our collective ethical understanding might be at the point at which we're getting tired of torturing animals for our own convenience and entertainment? Maybe! More people are buying humanely raised and killed meat. And maybe this huge reaction to Vick's torture for entertainment of dogs is part of that consciousness raising.

And no, I can't see that this is happening because Vick is black. That argument just seems silly to me. As silly as the same argument was when it got tooted all loudly in the O.J. trial days. I, personally, am really tired of seeing awful people treated like heroes, and football seems to be a really active sphere for that sort of thing. Personally I hope Vick never plays ball again.

Soufflé, Faire des Progrès

2007-08-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

Finally, progress on the soufflé front. Last night, soufflé class at the Viking Cooking School. What fun! Five participants, two men, two other women, me. Two chefs -- both kind of cute, by the way, which doesn’t hurt the experience at all. This class is part of their “Cooking without a Book” series,

But here’s the real goods: I asked head chef about the problem of my soufflés rising only in the center (see the photo below, left) and he had the solution instantly: I wasn’t giving the mixture adequate foothold to climb the sides of the dish!

I watched him as he buttered each dish (he used individual ramekins), then coated each in either sugar, cocoa, or bread crumbs (depending on the recipe), paying close attention to the coating of the dish sides. This addition of texture is the scaffolding that the soufflé climbs as it rises. Voilà.

You see, I have so far tried making only one kind of soufflé, a cheese, from, if you’ve forgotten, Julia Child’s basic recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She does say to coat the sides of the dish in butter, then parmesan cheese, yes. But she gives no explanation beyond that. Really, I thought this cheese coating analogous to adding flour to a cake pan’s coating, and I didn’t really pay that much attention to it. Also, I used parmesan I grated myself, and so it may have been moister and less fine a crumb, if you will, than it would have been if I’d bought it already grated.

Another tip: wipe the edge of the dish clean of butter/crumb/whatever, so that it doesn’t climb that last ¼ inch or so. This will help it not overflow the dish.

And so. That information alone was worth the price of admission. Never mind that we had three soufflés to devour: Grand Marnier, Cheese and Spinach, and Chocolate, with accompanying sauces, a lovely appetizer of parmesan and artichoke (way better than the usual artichoke concoctions I’ve previously had thrust upon me), and all the wine, basically, one could drink, which in my case was three glasses. All of this while drinking good wine, seated comfortably in a big kitchen, watching pleasant looking men prepare delicious food in an instructive manner. Gee, if I can do this regularly maybe I don’t need to find a husband after all, since such a scene is indeed part of my dream of the perfect relationship. Of course, I don’t get to kiss the chef-instructors after they feed me. A considerable down side. A man who can cook for me then kiss me? Me want. Que sera.

So I’m hoping to go to their pastry class, part of the Without a Book series, for I can use a little help with my crust confidence level, and this one is all about crust.

Maybe you want to take a class, too? Maybe we can go together? Here’s the url – scroll down for the schedule: http://www.vikingcookingschool.com/hc-cgi-bin/hc?templ=new_vcs/calendar.html&store=37.

Apophenia

2007-08-20T07:49:00.000-05:00

"Apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. The term was coined by K. Conrad in 1958 (Brugger)." -- The Skeptics Dictionary

Spontaneous. As opposed to looking for. Ran across apophenia over the weekend in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Googled it, found that many sources, probably including (though I'm not sure yet) he who coined it (Conrad), really mean it -- the "ia" part -- as an illness, as in the "ia" in "paranoia," where of course "ia" is the Greek meaning state or condition, and a condition is a bad thing to have, a state, a bad place to be, in current usage, I suppose. But don't get all in state about it.

Which is all, of course, perception (back to the definition). The word perception, recent-modernly, has come to facilitate the put-down. As in, "Well, that's your perception." This being a corruption of the use meant for it when psychotherapy introduced it to us as a way to acknowledge one another's moments in the world without giving up our own ("I hear that you perceive me to be saying that I dislike you, but in fact I am trying to say that I dislike the toothpaste you leave on my blow dryer every morning.") but has been corrupted into a sly responsibility deflector ("You may think that I am yelling at you, but that's just your perception" -- said in a very loud voice; or gaslighter ("I didn't wink at that woman. You perceived that I winked" or "Footsteps upstairs? There are no footsteps. That's only one of your perceptions"), so that "perception" begins to mean "crazy," rather than "the act or faculty of apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind."

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source perception 1483, "receiving, collection," from L. perceptionem (nom. perceptio) "perception, apprehension, a taking," from percipere "perceive" (see perceive). First used in the more literal sense of the L. word; in secondary sense, "the taking cognizance of," it is recorded in Eng. from 1611.

In this manner the word "perception" itself has been corrupted. One could interpret the Skeptics definition above through that lens, and thereby grok the connection between Conrad's concept and assholes using the psychological meaning to deflect one's attention from their assholedness or lying.

I like these two definitions of "perception" from dictionary.com:

1. the act or faculty of apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding.

2. immediate or intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological, or aesthetic qualities; insight; intuition; discernment: an artist of rare perception.

Now, noting the introduction of "intuitive" into the mix, we move to the obvious "feminine" flavor of this apothenia idea. From there it's not hard to see how the concept is undermined. But I like Gibson's character Cayce (pronounced Case; a woman), for her job is apothenia. She is hired by branders to intuit "cool" -- to see emerging patterns of commodifiable, well, whatever. Fashion, music, habit. Even deeper than that, Cayce can "sense" whether or not a logo is going to make it for a company simply by gaging her body's reaction to it. One could argue that this is a form of apothenia,even though the logo response is not to a currently available, concrete pattern, but rather to the potential pattern (that would emerge if the logo were dissemenated), or to a pattern underlying a current but sub-whatever (liminal, terranean) pattern of connections (since in some theory all potentials are current). Perhaps a sensing of connections that could lead to a discernible pattern (even if that pattern is discernible only to the apothenetic -- apotheniod?). Which plays pretty naturally into themes or questions of Time, which are there, too. As in the discussion of the possibility of changing the past. All of this is pretty spot-on to some New Physics stuff, of course, and why we love Gibson even beyond his ability to, as the Princess said on Friday, "grab you around the throat" with his story telling.

He really does write women well. I am going to be thinking a bit about this. Maybe get back to you on it.

Maybe this writing women so well is partly due to, as with Cayce, his willingness to let them have their femininity in the way it is real -- as in making spontaneous connections and drawing meaning from seemingly (under the patriarchal, linear model) unrelated phenomena. This, rather than expressing themselves through the questing after A Man or A Child or A Toilet To Scrub or, as is the current fashion in how women are perceived in the world, Someone To Screw. Yes, believe it or not, there is more than one way for women to push against what's expected of us. Not surprising that, in a world still fashioned more than not by The Patriarchy that we'd be manipulated into believing our best defense against oppression is to engage in sex with as many men as possible, or take our shirts off in crowds as often as possible. Gee, I wonder who would have thought that up? And besides that, it has now become so commonplace, this perception of women as collectively embracing our inner sluts and therefor quite ready all the time for sex, if the man is just attractive... I mean hot enough, that it's just boring already. And yet another way to remove from us -- just as effectively as putting us in the kitchen permanently (and I don't mean the professional kitchen) -- our three-dimensionality. Another boring expectation based on stereotype, just like becoming a housewife was expected and boring and repressive when I was growing up. Fogetaboudit. Anyhow, in a word, Cayce is neither hyper- nor a- sexual. Neither a ballbuster nor a pushover. Neither obsessed with her looks nor unaware of them. Neither kittenish nor manlike. Imagine. She just is. And for that alone, WB, I salute you. Never mind the rest of your genius, which I'd all but forgotten the specific channels/nodes/depths of, given I hadn't really read you since grad school.

Maybe there are manners of liberation that would benefit us a bit more than being hypersexual, which is just another way to be on call for men, not really all that different in the end than being on call to make coffee or iron the clothes or whatever (well, except that sex is a lot more invasive and risky than making coffee)? Ya think? Maybe a way, like, say, honing our faculties to make discrete connections between seemingly unrelated objects/events/memes and to intuit our environment's trends, fault lines, directions; use that together with some logic and thereby get an edge on, well, everything, but in such a way that we could actually, like, maybe improve things rather than dismantling and dissolving them?

Think about this: to discern patterns is a priori to put things together.

Hmm, I wonder who might be threatened by that?

___________________________________________________________

Here's an interesting woman who has taken the word for her scholarly/professional use:
http://www.apophenia.com/.

FCC Kindly Clarifies

2007-08-17T13:23:00.000-05:00

No, not the Federal Communications Commission (don't we wish they'd be more clear, and fair, and less inclined to OK monopolies, etc.). Instead I mean my friend as referenced in yesterday's post. Here are the other rolls we had at Wasabi, and their contents, from her own keyboard: "Jeff's Roll" (white tuna, seared tuna, black tobiko, sesame oil, cucumber, avocado, and soybean paper), "Shogun Roll" (Deep fried lobster salad, tobiko, asparagus, cucumber and avocado. Served with sweet wasabi soy broth), & I think the "Rasta Roll" which had tuna (and maybe crab) with mango and jalapeño."

The Princess is working on this side of the river today and tomorrow and is going to sleep over, thus saving herself the drive home and back again. Nice. Company. Nice company. Perhaps I'll make a quiche. I can stop by the garden and see if I've got any tomatoes to toss in it. God knows I've got the basil.

For my mom's birthday tomorrow I'm going to put together her all-time favorite Lemonade Cake. I've not made it before, but my god it looks so simple. I think, were it up to me, I would make it in a cookie sheet rather than a 9 by 12 pan. I haven't had it in a while, but it seems to me the sort of thing that would benefit from thinness. I'll try that another time, when not making it for mom. She won't be pleased if it's not as she expects it. Anyway, basically it's just a yellow cake with frozen lemonade added in place of some of the liquid, then glazed with a frozen lemonade and confectioner's sugar glaze. How hard can that be? I got her An Inconvenent Truth, to go with the DVD player Gemini got her for Mother's Day. She earlier expressed an interest. Also, another NYT crossword puzzle book. Had to resist getting her novels. In the past five years I think I've given her at least 30. Happy Birthday, Momsey.

Wasabi or I Love Mr. Sushi? Guess Who Wins.

2007-08-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

Scorpio II was skeptical. "How can you beat a sushi chef who sings Sinatra?" she implored, as I quickly agreed with, "And a catepillar roll that looks just like a catepillar?" But then, I added, everyone just keeps raving about Wasabi! She and I and her older brother have been going to I Love Mr. Sushi forever. Always perfect. Mr. Sushi is perfect. The catepillar roll has actual antenna, you see. Sprouts. Eyes of salmon roe. Lots of yummy acodaco "skin." An elegant curve to its body. Anyway....

Everyone I know has told me that Wasabi, the Washington Street sushi place, is just devine and the very very best and has no local competitor and so I have been trying to get there for, like, two years and for some reason have been stopped short by karmic impulse every time. So when Former Colleague Cook asked me to lunch the other day I suggested we meet at Wasabi.

We had the catepiller and three other rolls -- one with a seared tuna and something quite hot, one with some mango, and something with a flesh-colored skin that in texture was most like nori. Sorry, FCC was telling a pretty interesting story and it didn't even enter my mind to write these down.

They were good. But not divine. Given, I have not had anything there yet that would highlight the possible perfect freshness of the fish, and I do intend to. But as for these rolls, they were very heavy on the rice, to such a point that I felt way too carbed out at the end of the meal. There was plenty of opportunity to lead the rolls in directions other than major rice-edness, and those opportunities were lost. The rice itself was really pedestrian. A little too dry and seperate from itself, bouncing around my mouth and getting in the way of the fish and the fruit and the yummy roe. It didn't even have the kind of delicate sweetness that perfectly prepared sushi rice should have. Even that I've made at home has been more flavorful. So, what's up with that? And the atmosphere is nice enough, but again, not divine.

As to my old favorite, I Love Mr. Sushi, way out on the presently inaccessible gallactic beltway of Olive, between 270 and 170 (9443 Olive Blvd.) the rice is great, the atmosphere sweet but cramped, and everything I've had on the menu the best in town. In the pinches between I'll keep going to Sekisui (3024 S. Grand), which is close to my house, and usually has the ballgame on.

Baseball, by the way, is a lot of fun watched in a sushi bar. The chef at Sekisui is pretty into it. Does anyone know if there's a really into baseball sushi bar in town? As with a scoreboard over the bar and that, like in Bourdain's show when he goes to Tokyo and gets with the Tigers fans at the Tigers sushi bar?

Dick Cheney? I Never Said He Was Stupid.

2007-08-15T14:32:00.000-05:00

Pretty sure the word was "liar." So here he is, telling the truth about Iraq, though way back in 1994. Check it out.

And in Our "Christian Country" the Judgement Increases

2007-08-14T13:26:00.000-05:00

Two really gross pieces of news:

1. Vet's Funeral Canceled Because He Was Gay
Church Says Homosexuality A Sin
http://www.local6.com/news/13880376/detail.html

and

2. AT&T censors Pearl Jam, then says oops
Band says lines cut include ‘George Bush find yourself another home’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201788/

On (1): Pretty sure Mr. Jesus wouldn't be behind it. He didn't hang out with tax collectors and prostitutes for nothing, man. There was a point to all that. WRITE THIS CHURCH and TELL THEM HOW YOU FEEL: http://www.churchunusual.com/address.html

On (2): If I'm not happy with how this all turns out, Pa Bell, I will drop my contract with you as soon as it runs out (what a crock, anyway, these contracts!). WRITE AT&T and TELL THEM HOW YOU FEEL: http://www.corp.att.com/contact/forms/inquiries.html

Thanks Again, Flannery

2007-08-14T11:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a paradox:

1. Karl Rove has resigned. That's good. He is an incorrigible liar and relentless imperialist.

2. On Sunday, Jeanette, in her sermon, quoted Flannery O'Connor as saying, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." Karl is odd. But it's not the truth that makes him so. Because he's a liar. But wait. Maybe it is the truth that makes him odd, but in a way different from what O'Connor meant. You know that spooky feeling one gets around a person who is into not telling the truth, like, as a manner of living? In that way, the truth is making that person odd because it's hidden, and so there's this icky opaque veneer over everything? Do you feel me? Others are odd, though, because the things they say don't sound like what most people are used to hearing (i.e., The Usual Propaganda). I think that's more like what O'Connor meant. Yes? Anyway, me loves it and is putting it on me email signature.

The heat is relentless, too. I had a second heat-related illness episode, and I think that unless I can manage to get this thing behind me my future fighting crime on tropical islands is limited. Which sucks. I'm serious. But one worries about all the old people and all the homeless people and the world just getting hotter and hotter. One tries not to be sad about it all, but alas.

Thank God for the bits of love and happiness that come one's way. The bits and the showers. The luckiness. The droppings off of juice and cookies; the invitations to sudden salmon and steak. The unexpected kirs royale (like courts martial?). Did you know that in Monaco all subjects are given a residence from His Highness? Next life, may I please be born a subject of His Serene Highness Prince Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre, Prince of Monaco, Marquis of Baux? Do you know how really pretty it is there? You see, this is what confuses me: Those who would damage the earth, can they not see all its beauty? Do they not know that without beauty there is no life? I just don't get it.

Alarmism 4 me 2

2007-08-07T14:45:00.000-05:00

I don't know. Isn't it just a little intimidating when weirdo anarchists squat on your blog? Just a little? How do I know it's not my crazy ex-husband, Ken, who told such egregious lies about me when he was divorcing me, who had me followed by PIs (boy, I bet that was an exciting gig for them), and just basically defamed and terrorized me in the hope that he could coerce me into "paying him back the money he spent courting me." Right. Me: grad student single mother. He: Mr. Richie Rich childless don't have to work unless he wants to guy. And like courting comes with guarantees. And like, if you hadn't harassed my daughter into fearful tears or been a generally abusive horrible person once we got married? Anyway, didn't happen. Coersion of me didn't work. It tends not to. He had to go off along his deluded, lying, creepy way. How much money did he waste on attorney's fees trying to get revenge on me for leaving him? Point being, he's just obsessively psychotic enough, I know from experience, to create some web page to frighten and harass.

Or, how do I know it's not one of those icky guys I went out with from eharmony before I got tired of that silly scene? (See Rules for a First Date With Me)

And even if it is just what it looks like, which is quite likely, this cyber-squatting, that's bad enough. And anyway, I don't intend to stop until they are gone on their icky way as well.

They were gone yesterday afternoon, then back again this morning. I contacted all sorts of Federal agencies, the company their domain is registered with, the FBI, everyone I could think of. So we'll see. Again, I can only say that they are not very cyberpunk if they have to steal from someone like me. Pussy-boys.

Oh, and here you go: enjoy looking at unphotogenic, chubby me as I prepair to win second place in the pie contest! : http://www.claytonfarmersmarket.com/piecontest.html

And, if you wanna, you can see if you see me or the pussy-wannabe-punkettes when you go to my catering blog: http://unseenorchard.blogspot.com.

Chuse.

Squatting on Tiny User Blogs is Not Punk, Punk!

2007-08-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

Wow. Just as I thought I was having a happy birthday, I go to post my fabulous second place win at the Clayton Farmer's Market pie baking contest on my Unseen Orchard site, and low and behold there is some b-hole squatting there! Someone who claims to be cyberpunk! Guess what? If you're really a cyberpunk, Mr. Big Time, you would squat/hijack/hack somewhere BIG, somewhere EVIL, like Halliburton or whatever. Not on my little site! And I already have cards out with the URL on there, for my budding private cheffing biz. How ugly! What a sissy-boy! And just try to find a way to report this to blogger or google. It's not so easy. Message: read William Gibson. Ask yourself if he or his characters would think that squatting on a single mom's blog that she is using to try to give people info so that she might, I don't know, be able to help her kids go to college, ask yourself if they would think that was in the spirit of the genre/philosophy he created, for God's sake. So, Mr., you are not punk. Punk does not attack the small and weak. Pussy-boy, is you have any balls then go hack into some deep pocket's site. Go head, I dare you. What? What? Too scary? Makes you want to keep hiding in mommy's basement forever? That's what I thought. On the other hand, you could vacate my blog and we could have peace.

Though, here is an odd little matrix intersect point: At the party on Sat. Princess and Beat Poet and I played a teensy madlibs game which P designed from -- wait for the Theramin rif -- Neuromancer.

In better news, We Girls had a pretty fun time at my B-day party on Sat. night. I put too much vermouth in the Shrimp, and the sauce tasted better the next day, but I don't know that I've had better corn on the cob since I was a kid and got it out of my great-grandpa's garden and ate it half an hour later. This was great corn, from the Clayton Farmer's Market. My pie winnings included $25 of "market money," which I spent on a dozen ears of corn, a gorgeous fresh chicken, and some of that delicious lamb meat I usually get at the Tower Grove market. Princess brought some yummy potatoes with pine nuts, Beat Poetess a lovely white Bordeaux, and Chef some raw veggies and dip. Thank you, girls, for celebrating with me.

Metal Ox came by and gave me a Freda Kahlo doll. How can that be bad?

Scorpio 1 took me out to lunch on my b-day, then for dessert. I don't know what's wrong with S2, but she really wasn't very kind. Kind of hurt my little feelings, she did.

So, happy and sad. Good and bad. What else is new? Love and peace will prevail, even if it takes till death.

Love,

LB

Wanna Be Pissed At Me?

2007-07-30T16:52:00.000-05:00

Inflammatory Observation of the Month: Educated women are easier to get along with than uneducated women. And I don't mean this in an elitist way. I mean, most women, maybe, have a hard time being all Sisterhood! when they've never heard of Sisterhood, and so they go on competing -- to the benefit of The Patriarchy and those who would like to keep us from talking to one another. (Listening, Metal Ox? The Amy incident?) Divide and conquer. It's how they've kept the upper hand. We won't have "equality" until we stop being catty, girls, and stabbing one another in the back. So stop it. If you work with me at The Job, you know what I mean and you know who you are. Any how, I didn't run in to this level of catty bullhockey in my academic jobs. Not that backstabbing ambition doesn't exist there, I don't mean to imply that. It certainly does. But, overall, those terminal degreed women seem to try to stick together and not be catty bitches and also, well, there are other things to talk about in that world than men and make-up and how everyone else is a slut or whatever. Here, in corporate world, not so much. So go ahead, tell me I'm generalizing and am wrong. Cool! We'll be talking about something other than men or make-up!

Happy Observation of the Week: Cards! Did you see those games on Saturday (Sunday, too)? At the second, wow, was everybody fired up! Way to hustle, guys! That's some beautiful ball playing! You so rock!

Oh, and speaking of rocking: ! Last night, in this order: Gin Blossoms (2); Stray Cats (4); Pretenders (4); ZZTOP (5)! Fun. What a concert. I'm so happy to have seen my gender-bendy girlfriend Chrissy Hinde before I did die. So Happy.

Love!

M

Ani and The Night Raiders

2007-07-23T14:56:00.000-05:00

Ah, the Cubs are here this week. I'm going, damnit. It's especially fine because they -- the Arch Rivals, are back 3.5 games, tied with Atlanta and Arizona, all of them then second behind San Diego in the NL, while the Cards are back 8.5 at 45-50, all as of 3:00 PM today. So things should be pretty fired up for these games -- the Cubs fans have something positive to be on about, unlike their usual just being on because they're Cubs fans. Personally, I don't like to engage in a lot of knuckled-headedness at such times, and I very much prefer it when everyone on either side is polite about it confines their ribbing to good natured banter. So, what I'm saying it, maybe since the Cubs fans will be happy they won't be mean. Visualize whirled peas.

Speaking of arches and fire, interestingly there have been two incidences of broken mechanical whatevers and thus stranded people at the height of our High One. Wow. Rather silly or something that after the first one, which those in charge of the Arch admitted immediately and apparently without the slightest embarrassment they had no idea the cause, they let the thing climb up again the next night (I think it was; might have been two nights) and -- gee wiz -- it happened again. Only this time they had a clue -- broken cable, electrical short. Why that time and not the first? Sometimes it's so hard to tell the difference between a cover up and ordinary stupid people.

Princess, I love you, but from now on when we go out I have to have a curfew. I just can't be staying up all night, and it seems that I can't be trusted without a Midnight at which I Pumpkinize. Chatting 'til dawn was divine, but it threw me off for the entire weekend, including not being able to get to sleep on time last night -- inconvenient for getting up at 6AM. But we had fun, didn't we. Ani DiFranco is the bomb. I knew she was a song writer, but didn't know she played such kick-ass guitar! Wow. Really, really fine.

Scorpio1 had fun at this film shoot, ending up as the "lead" extra, with a speaking role. Yeah, S1!!! Maybe you'll be discovered now! Let's get you an agent! You're certainly fabulous-looking enough, and undoubtedly talented. ---- Any acting or modeling agents out there want to rep a 6', blond headed, blue eyed, buff and handsome 22-year-old? Duh?

Mildness, Wildness

2007-07-20T12:22:00.000-05:00

Blissfully uneventful week, minus the being an extra thing.

Saw the Moody Blues on Tuesday. What lovely, calming music. A treat to see the flute in the spotlight.

Change of guard at work, looks positive. Old boss good, new boss good. What's to complain?

Princess over tonight for Crabmeat Maison and something I'll concoct from my second batch of that "Most Extraordinary" French Lemon Cream (as discussed at length, last post). Made it last night. Am looking at layering it with cookies (who needs crust). Just need to drive over to Bob's for the crab, dressing already made, left from the weekend (thanks, daughter dear). Fresh tomatoes from my garden. And basil (instead of parsley).

Then we'll go see Ani DiFranco at the Arch. Yippee. I'm ashamed to say that I really don't know her work that well. I've heard a few songs and liked them. And I know I like what she stands for. But I've never owned an album of hers. So, really looking forward to it!

Weather is most fabulous. 65 last night. Barely 80 today. All is blessed and good. Please pray for my children, who are growing, and searching, and beautiful, and feeling the tugs and tides of youth upon them.

Of Family, Pork Fat, Integrity, and Being an Extra

2007-07-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Insight: Doing yoga for the movies is not the most balancing activity in the world. Examples: no warm-up; many takes of down-dog to warrior one, all but one on the right leg (so the comedic actress could tumble over to the right out of warrior – it was funny!); after 10 takes of shoulder stand with no transition into or out of or counter pose, one’s shoulders feel, well, tight and sore. And, yes, I did do some of my own counter posing but was, all in all, kind of lazy about that.

Lesson: Go do a real yoga class after the film shoot, if possible. I had a margarita and some deep fried tamales instead and that didn’t work all that well. Franlky.

Additional Note: It’s not a myth that the camera adds weight (I watched the rushes). Because of this, if possible, one should avoid spending three solid days eating butter and sugar and cheese and pork fat before the filming day, as I did. Sure, I knew in advance the result. But honestly enjoying all that lovely food and company was more important to me than immortalizing myself on film five pounds thinner. Questionable judgment? You decide.

Still, what a novel experience, to be in a real feature film shoot. It was an interesting process to watch! No, no speaking lines. Just a slightly chubby yoga extra in the back of the room.

Chubbiness inducing factors aside, the family reunion was fun! Sure, I got a little cranky now and then, which is apparently my way. But it was nothing that a few hours alone in a quiet room couldn’t cure. As Gangaji would say, “this form” in which I am currently incarnated is just too sensitive to take in large groups of people for long periods of time. Hey, we get the nervous system we’re born with. The trick is learning to manage it.

I was really pleased by the response to my meal on Friday night. Cousin Miami told me the next day that people had used words such as “artistry” and, well, I don’t remember what else but it was cool to hear it, whatever it was. And I had a ton of fun putting it all together. Brother’s shrimp was good, too, but I am disappointed that whatever new chef they have at the Centralia House has corrupted his vision of the dish. Apparently they served it to him out of the shell, with rice. This is not the dish that won accolades in the New York Times even though the restaurant is in totally unknown Centralia, Illinois. The shrimp are, authentically, are large as it is possible to get them, served in the shell with finger bowls of water and a huge cloth bib. There should be tons of sauce to dredge the bread in. And, critically, the sauce should never be allowed to emulsify. It’s the separation of the tomato-based cocktail sauce and the butter that makes the dipping sublime. I have half a mind to call the chef and ask her or him what the hell happened, but I doubt I will. Still, it was really tasty.

I did several new recipes. Two appetizers that are reportedly from old New Orleans restaurants, Oysters Bienville and Crabmeat Maison. Bob’s Seafood in Saint Louis provided me with some really wonderful, sweet fresh Maine claw meat, flown in just that morning, for a mere $10 and change for a pound. They also solved my half-shell but I-don’t-want-to-shuck-them problem (couldn’t talk Brother into it, either) by stocking frozen oysters on the half shell. These worked beautifully for the Bienville, which is a bread crumb topping with aromatic vegetables, Parmesan, and cream; the full shells are baked on a bed salt with rosemary and cloves until the topping is golden and warm. I would have put some bay leaves in the salt if they hadn’t disappeared from my kitchen. What’s up with that? Scorpio 2?

Also, happily the crowd dumbfounded Mother and Brother by adoring the collard greens. Flash: cooking them with onions and bacon and ham hock is a lot tastier than my usual onions and garlic and olive oil. The collards from my garden have tasted really bitter to me, but those I cooked in all that pig fat had no bitterness at all. That I cooked them for more than six hours might have been a factor as well. Time for further testing! Also of note: pretty sure I’ve got the macaroni and cheese thing down.

The most lovely dish: French Lemon Cream Tart, from Dorie Greenspan. You can see the complete recipe at http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/ild/2006/1106/lemon-cream-tart.html. In the mean time, here’s a bit of what she has to say about it:

Of Lemon Cream and Pierre Hermé

I am thankful to Pierre Hermé, France's king of pastry, for many things, chief among them his friendship—we have written two books together—and his lemon cream. When we were just beginning work on our first book, Pierre explained the cream to me. In his typical fashion, he spoke softly, explained thoroughly and added just the meekest editorial comment: "It is nice," he said, with a sly little gone-in-a-flash smile. I immediately put two stars next to the recipe, a note to myself to try it right away.

At first glance, you would think that the lemon cream is just another version of lemon curd—the ingredients are almost identical. What's different is how they are treated, and it makes an enormous difference in the taste and texture.

In a curd, the eggs, lemon juice, sugar and butter are cooked together until they thicken. The result is silky, lemony and, above all, unmistakably rich and buttery. In Pierre's lemon cream, the eggs, lemon juice and sugar—but not the butter—are cooked together until they thicken, just like curd. The mixture is then poured into a blender and allowed to cool for a few minutes. Then the butter is added, in pieces, and the cream is whipped around for a few minutes. Here's the genius—instead of melting as it does in curd, the butter emulsifies (just as oil does in mayonnaise), so that the resulting texture is velvety and deceptively light. It is a stroke of culinary magic.

Like curd, lemon cream is a utility player. It can be spread on toast, used as a filling for cakes and pies, spooned over fruit desserts or just eaten off the spoon when no one is peeking. And, it can also be played around with, which is what I've done to create Creamiest Lime Cream and Meringue Pie (see the book) as well as Fresh Orange Cream Tart (see book).

And I will second her: this is the loveliest lemon dessert recipe I’ve ever encountered. And it’s not difficult to make. It came out perfectly the first time I tried it, and it wasn’t even in my menu plan. It emerged as a back-up after I broke the double batch of custard for Black Bottom Pies (it becomes clearer all the time that I can’t chat and cook focus-sensitive dishes at the same time), and didn’t have enough chocolate to make another double recipe, so had to come up with another pie. I had all the ingredients for this lemon tart. And I am so glad I did, it is just simply fantastic. Even my mother had no “tips” for me to improve it and believe me that just doesn’t happen.

I got great help from the Texas and Nashville Girls, and Brother-Wife was a great help, too, though I must say rather easily distracted. Hey, it’s the thought that counts (I think that’s what the Buddhists mean by intention).

Cousin Miami made a wonderful Sunday Brunch. Several breakfast casseroles, some sweets, salads, mimosas. Really nice.

But wow, that Sunday church service (we’ve developed a tradition of making our own private “church” on Sundays at the reunions). Mother set the perfect tone in the tribute that was given for my grandfather. She told a story about how, when they were teenagers, the minister at their church initiated a push to get the teens to sign an “Abstinence Card” promising that they wouldn’t drink alcohol. Apparently Papaw told his kids that they shouldn’t sign it unless they really thought they could stick to their promise. He could have used the whole card thing to try to corner them, and I can imagine how the religious right would advocate such as thing, as they do these days with sexual abstinence. But, even though Papaw and Mamaw were certainly not drinkers (though not teetotalers, either), the lesson about keeping one’s word outweighed even the preacher’s mandate. None of his kids signed it.

Additionally, as the story went, he was teaching Sunday school at the church at that time, and gave the same advise to his class: don’t sign if you can’t keep your promise. As a result he was fired from the job.

Not inconsequentially, that minister didn’t last long at the Grace United Methodist Church. Such strictures, and the others he tried to impose against dancing and other general liveliness, are decidedly not typical to “our” Methodist ways, and the congregation was fed up with him pretty fast.

My grandfather’s response to the whole thing, though, really illustrated the kind of integrity he has, by example, taught (or tried to teach) all of us. Being real, being true to one’s beliefs, being honest, keeping one’s word – all of these, I could see on Sunday, have been sent down as part of the family legacy. And I am grateful. Thank you, Papaw. And Mamaw, too. This is no small potatoes in this world. And no wonder I find the yogic prescription to unify mind and heart and word so resonate. Regardless of all the differences I’ve had with my family over the years, I can see now that this integrity is the foundation upon which I was wrought. OK, maybe my immediate nuclear family came close to undermining it. True, that crack in the floor was what I was rebelling against as a child, and now I see that it is a large part of my distaste for being around my father and his friends. Still, there is a reason or at least a larger prespective for or gained from that. I sense of choice: whom shall I learn from? With the solid ground of being true to one's word and self that I saw through my grandparents, I am now confident that I can learn from myself.

So, in short, way fun reunion, again. Love to see my coussies. They are all so fun and nice. And the men in my family, my generation, I must say, are extradordinary. Reading "women's" novels, cooking, thinking, nuturing their kids, loving their wives. Glad my kids love to come, too.

I remain afraid of speed boats, though, I am only now admitting it out loud. I really think the only fast things I trust are airplanes!

In other bright news our darling Princess is back from her humanitarian mission to Texas, and while there started a new e-mag of some philosophical weight a third of which she’s suggesting I edit, and her collaborator/friend will be reviewing me to form an opinion of her own. Wish me luck. and Yippee! More later as I discover!

Rules for a First Date With Me

2007-07-09T11:18:00.000-05:00

After polling several women friends I find there is universal agreement that the whole slipping of the hand onto the back of the neck on the first date is creepy in the extreme (see Monday, July 02, 2007, More Precious Than Rubies ). With this in mind, I’ve developed a set of First Date Rules to help our disabled brothers navigate the cobwebs in their own brains and not sink the ship before they’re even out of the gate.

Ya, true, I’m still out of the dating game at present -- and have specifically eschewed all internet guys, whom so far I’ve found consistently creepy. Nonetheless, I feel it my social duty to use the ridiculous experiences I’ve accrued in the field to educate those men who just can’t seem to, well, stop being foolish and disgusting.

Note: Of course most of these apply to subsequent dates as well. But remember: you never get a second chance at a first impression!

Margaret’s First Date Rules

1. Do not show up to take me out in your shorts and T-shirt!

Are you kidding? Unless we are going on a true hike (and a stroll around the park or through the Botanical Gardens is not a true hike), you are still on a date and should at least show enough motivation to wear decent clothing. Seriously, I’ve had men meet me at nice restaurants in their freaking shorts and baggy T-shirts! Grown, 45, 50-year-old men, for Christ’s sake. What did this communicate to me? It said, “Hey, babe, you’re no big deal,” for one thing, and for another it said, “I’m a careless rube.” So, put on a casual button-down shirt, or a Polo shirt, or at least something creative, so heaven’s sake. And if we’re going out to dinner then wear a pair of slacks. Jeez. Believe me, I’m worth dressing up for. And if you’re all averse to dressing appropriately for the occasion, then let’s just save ourselves the trouble and, like, not go out.

2. Learn to make a plan.

If you ask me out, have a plan. Don’t sit passively on the phone with no idea where to go or what to do. (If I ask you out, I’ll have a plan.) Leaving it all up to me does not make me feel “in control.” It makes me feel like you still need your mother to tell you what to do. If you’re a man, act like one and make a plan. Show me that you can ease life’s stresses and show me a good time. I know you know how to use the internet! So use it. And when you have an actual idea, then call me.

3. Don’t be putting your hands on me, creepizoid, in any way, shape, or form!

There is only one exception to this rule: if I put my hands on you first.

4. For God’s sake, don’t cry, OK?

You just met me! I cannot possibly be important to you! Tearing up or looking dejected or getting pissed off (even silently) if you see or I say that I’m not going to want to have another date just show me that you are some kind of an emotional mess. Who is the guy who sits outside a woman’s house with a remote radio and a box cutter and six pair of cut-up panty hose? (Um, really, so far pissed off or tearful has happened three of the five times I’ve had these stupid internet dates.) (Oh, and by the way, tearing up or getting red in the face when you talk about your ex indicates you’re not ready to date again – and, yes, I CAN see these reactions!)

5. Don’t be wimpy about food.

In my sensibility, Food=Sex. The passions are the passions. If you can’t be brave and intense and playful in one, you probably can’t in the other, either. Food wimpiness, therefore, is as much a turnoff as a limp dick. More. At least the latter has some work-arounds.

I realized that the handontheneck guy, he was wimpy about food, and that’s part of what made his grabbiness icky. At Mangia Italiano, where I was raving about their fresh home made pasta, he ordered a freaking salad. Now, that might be ok if he were passionate about salad or really just wanted a salad, but it was clear that it was because the thought that was the only thing that was “good for” him. He wanted pasta, talked about the pastas, considered ordering them, salivated, hemmed and hawed, then ordered a salad. Then stared like a guilty orphan at my lasagna (ya, I gave him a bite). God. It wore me out.

I have nothing against salad, I love salad, but I said clearly on my eharmony profile that I was into food and wanted someone who could be adventurous about food! Being scared of any food that’s not salad? That disqualifies you. Also, this guy looked askance at my glass of wine. That is not ok. I will have a glass of wine with my Italian! And this is the too-touchy guy?

Now look: I could forgive, let’s say, Mario Batali or Anthony Bourdain if they touched me a few times on a first date. Why? Because those are guys who live for passion. They are no-holds-barred, travel the globe, eat pure pig fat and thirteen courses of slow-cooked shin and sauted thymus and twenty three bottles of wine in a sitting there-is-nothing-I-won’t-try-if-it’s-been-cooked-with-love, full-bore take no prisoners grab-ass students of the senses. These are guys who would rather die than confine their palates to some strict cold nihilistic wasteland of chill and bland. And I admire them for it. And if either of them were single I’d be calling them, in spite of the fact that neither is particularly good-looking and both are way too loud and obnoxious for me. It would be worth it. They would approach, [uh-hum] everything, I’m sure, as if it were the most hellacious and mindblowing once-in-a-lifetime meal.

But if salad guy touches me, well, it’s just creepy. He’s not living in his body. He’s not playing in the fields of the Lord if he’s tending toward all raw food. Sorry. It’s a prejudice. But guess what? When it comes to who touches me – and even who I date -- I get all the prejudices I want, for free! So, if you’re wimpy or frightened or you don’t know how to have fun with food, I won’t like you! And if I don’t like you, you can’t touch me! Stay home and eat a salad.

6. Tune in.

Don't be a jerk. Be sensitive. Learn to care for others. If a woman looks away or stiffens up when you touch her, don't do it again. Apply this principle to everything.

I think that’s it, for now, for the first date guidelines. I hope it’s been helpful.

Read the Declaration! Click Here! Interesting Current Relevance

2007-07-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

Fun holiday! Scorpio2 and I went, first, to the St. Louis Art Museum, and browsed around the free exhibits. All the usual ancient artifacts, then the impressionists, the pointillists, the depressing Dutch, some interesting German post-constructionists. We’ve seen them a million times, of course. I find I always love seeing Van Gogh, though. He really packs a punch. Still, it’s fun roaming museums and galleries with my girl. I like watching her take it in.

My boss gave me tickets to a Gateway Grizzlies game, a minor league baseball team right over the river in Illinois. That was super fun. It was nice of S2 to go with me, as I know that she hates sitting out in the sun, and could careless about baseball. We were right behind the visitor dugout – feet and purses props upon it. I taught her some rules and showed her a little about how to keep score. She was quite a trooper, never complaining, and had to admit that such a good view of the cute batters was quite enjoyable.

Then, crossing the bridge back to the city, we looked over at the levee and saw the THRONGS of people along the riverfront, at the fair. “It’s Cindy Lauper tonight,” I told her. “What! You didn’t tell me it was Cindy Lauper! You didn’t tell me there was actually somebody good playing!” “You wanna go?” “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” she said. And so we went. Ten block walk from the parking lot, absolutely intolerable mash of a million people. Far away view among very rude people who cared nothing about blocking the view of those behind them. But still, it was fun! Cindy Lauper is adorable, totally. I’d seen her early in the year with Metal Ox, at The Pageant, and loved her. So, fun.

Friday night, I was a bit sad not to meet The Princess’s friends from Dallas. Apparently they craved a private audience with her. Understandable. In the absence of She and Her Court, S2 and I went to Fat Tony’s for BBQ. In spite of the apparent endorsement from Bill Clinton, S2 declared the ribs inferior to Hammerstones. Indeed, Fat Tony’s did look too pink for my taste, too. I like the meet falling off the bone. I had the pulled pork, which was really good, though not quite greasy enough for me. The frozen fires were good enough, and slaw really tangy and fresh S2 love the baked beans. Service was amusing, too. I think the counter lady thought I was seriously IQ deficient, since I couldn’t find the water on the self-serve beverage station. Brainstorm, though, when we decided to make a summer quest for the The City's best ribs. This post-vegetarian version of S2 is very into ribs. I sure there is something in there she needs. So, how fun will that be?

After the BBQ we took a drive through Forest Park, then I talked S1 into going over to Sqwires to watch fireworks. I don’t know why there were fireworks on the 3rd, but there you go. There were. I had noticed earlier a great view of The Arch from the Sqwires patio, and indeed, it was a pretty good place to view. Only about 10 other people seem to have had the idea, so there were no crowds. We had coffees and dessert (chocolate ravioli, mediocre but pleasant), and watched the pretty pyrotechnics. Fireworks are better from farther away, I’ve decided. At the riverfront the next night they were going off as we were leaving the Cindy Lauper concert, and it was deafening and quite unpleasant. As S1 said, if a person had just come from a war-torn country it would be a head-burying trauma all over again. Though the way the percussions echoed through the canyons of downtown was pretty interesting. In an apocalyptic sort of way.

S1, more painful bad luck. He needs a karma switch. And he needs to man up and get out of his mommy’s house. I wouldn’t mind if his attitude were better, but oft times he’s just amazingly unaware of other’s needs and feelings. How does this happen? Did I not raise him otherwise? I often think that all this insensitive posturing is his defense against his own deep sensitivity. And that just sucks. The world needs sensitive men, so badly. And yet it has convinced him that it’s totally uncool to be so. You know, I wonder about all the things I thought would make my children grow up happy and well-adjusted. Pristine pregnancies, home births, breast feeding, relaxed childhoods at home with mommy. But then there was divorce, single parenthood, years of relatively genteel, but still, poverty (though they were never hungry!). I don’t know. All I know is I love them, at that never stops.

More Precious Than Rubies

2007-07-02T09:15:00.000-05:00

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
-- The Christian Bible, Proverbs 3:15.

On the dates I've had during the Metal Ox lulls, I've almost always come away with the impression that men my age seem to think that women my age, for whatever reason (ennui? desperation? apathy?) are all cool with getting jiggy wit it on the first date. Or at least that we are so crying out for touch – or something! what? – that laying hands upon us is just as welcome and inconsequential as, say, a smile. Why is this?

Example: yesterday I had what I thought was a harmless engagement with a man to walk through the Botanical Gardens. He seemed like a nice person. Clean, educated, professional, attractive enough. Well spoken. As we were walking, a few times he laid his hand on my back in that sort of guiding way that can be comforting if a man one is truly with does it, but that, frankly, for me, is a bit of an invasion from someone I have met five seconds ago. I didn’t much like it, but it’s a common enough social gesture that I didn’t think it necessary to say anything. Perhaps I should have. Half an hour into the walk we were standing among a scattered group of people, looking out over the lotus pond, when he slipped his hand very lightly across the back of my neck, then sort of left it there, buried in my hair.

Now, call me picky, but this felt to me like quite an intimate physical gesture. The touch, as I said, was light, too sensual in its intention, and far too familiar. It gave me the creeps.

A chill went down my spine. My hackles went up. Bad vibe. I wanted to leap into the loti, but I was frozen. I blurted out, softly, "Please don't do that. I don't know you well enough." He apologized and took his hand away. I tried to give him a chance after that, and even went to lunch with him, but it was no use. I continued to feel creeped out. When I got home I saged off. It was icky.

What would make this man, a stranger, think that he could touch me this way? Seriously? It was the first time we’d met, it being a blind date, and no conclusions had been drawn or enunciated in any way. What, I wonder, did he have to assume in order to feel that I would welcome him touching me in any way, much less this stroking of my neck? When I go to the community garden, men don’t touch me that way. At the neighborhood socials, men don’t touch me that way. Even if I’ve met someone several times and they are flirting with me, they just don’t touch me that way. I don't give off any vibe that says it's ok to touch me, as a rule (the exceptions being when I am in a relationship, 'cause then I really like to cuddle and hold hands and stuff ; and I would certainly cuddle my kids if they'd ever let me, which they don't any more of course, though sometimes Molly and I will cuddle a little bit which is really nice). Even my women friends sort of give me a look to see if it's ok before they give me a hug. It's just the way I am. I have to filter energies, because I feel them pretty intently. And if I don't know someone, then I don't know about their energy. I may or may not want it to mingle with mine. Energies, see, are as potentially life giving or life threatening as body fluids. And anyway, even if I weren't that way, there are certain modes of touch that just aren't what one does with an acquaintance. Placing one's hand sensually/possessively on the back of another's neck is in one of those modes of touch. Points being, first, there's either a social disconnect there or the guy runs with a way faster crowd than I'm into, and, again, I know for sure I was giving off no touch me signals. I've spent years training to be aware and in control of my energies.

But why do so many of these guys that I've met at Eharmony behave this way (OK, I've only been out with five, but only one of them was not icky this way)? My kids say it's because guys that are looking for a woman online are a priori desperate guys. Can that be true? Maybe I should give that consideration. Lunging at a woman right off that way does definitely have an air of desperation to it. And opportunism.

And maybe these guys are used to those desperate, jaded, I've-given-up-so-what-the-hell women. Could be.

Even so, I thought eharmony was supposed to be the refuge for those persons who aren’t looking to get laid right off the bat. Maybe I’m wrong. But that’s what I thought. If I'd wanted those kinds of men I’d have gone to match.com or lavalife. Ick fest! At any rate, on the off chance that the online thing does spawn these desperate-ados, I think I'll hang it up for a while. I have no desire to try to sate my need for love by engaging in soulless or soul-killing adolescent acts of farce with lonely baby-men. Sorry, Charlie! I can get higher quality "love" just doing yoga or sitting on my fire escape watching the squirrels play. More true intimacy picking basil from my garden, making a divine pesto, and feeding it to my friends and family.

All I know is, if I'm going to give a guy a second date then he needs to behave like a gentleman on the first.

P.S. And I don’t want to hear any “oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it” or “you really should give these men a fighting chance” crap, either. Women, when we hear one another iterate creepy feelings about situations, should validate one another, period. Trusting our instincts is what saves our lives and our psyches. Not trusting them is what gets us in trouble. If I had not second guessed some of my early impressions of Metal Ox, for instance, I would not have spent all those years being emotionally battered and betrayed by him. This need to trust the body’s knowledge goes double for everything having to do with touch. A person’s touch is the movement of their energy into one’s own energy, it’s their calling card. If an alarm goes off, either that person is out of line or the touchee is grokking some energy that is not – in whatever way – good for that touchee. If a touch feels bad, it needs to stop. This sounds like something one tells children, but that’s only because it’s that elementary. And any “Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way,” or “I’m just being silly” or “What a bitch I am” shooting through our minds after an initial response of “Ick!” or “Don’t do that!” is our cultural conditioning to disregard our intuition. And who gains from that? Who loses?

Here’s another thing that occurred to me: any guy worth half his salt would have felt my body stiffening up the first time he laid his hand on my back! Did Mr. MoBot not even try to tune in to whether or not it was ok to touch me? I did finally speak up, and perhaps I should have after the first unwelcome grope, but I doubt the man’s sensitivity to others – especially on matters involving touch – if he didn’t note at all I wasn’t digging his grab-handing. And keep in mind, some men get off on invading a woman.

Really, though, it’s not that this event was particularly traumatic. It's life being life. It’s a blip on certain screens of self. It's illuminating. But it’s a blip worth talking about, for me, because (1) it was not the first time, but it was the time that made me feel fed up; (2) as itself and as analogy for other invasive and insensitive action and assumption on the part of humans toward and regarding other humans, it’s illustrative; (3) I’m proud of myself for speaking up to the guy; and (4) I feel good saying it out loud: I don’t want guys I don’t know touching me! Stop it! Now! Be gentlemen, you insensitive clods, or remove yourselves from my presence! I am not here for your entertainment, for Christ’s sake, OK? At least not until I freaking know you.

Flowers of

2007-06-27T11:14:00.000-05:00

I’d really like to write something positive and productive. But, given recent events big and small I keep thinking about the nature of good and evil, of the difference between “bad” and “evil” behavior, of my own flaws, what manifests. And seriously, right now, though I feel fairly peaceful, and there is no lack of love in the core of things, when it comes to positive, I’m not sure I’ve got it in me.

The push to positivity is not the same thing as hopefulness. Really, I’m not even sure I could define “positivity” right now. It’s taken on the unhealthy gloss of a faux-wood veneer. Are you a positive person? What does that mean? For me, it sounds as unpleasant as “upbeat” or “peppy.” It’s what’s underneath that I’m interested in. And at present I certainly don’t feel upbeat. What I am feeling is much deeper than anything that could express itself as a bounce. But before you start going all dualistic on me, I am not saying there is anything negative in this mindstate. It’s not dark or gothy or scary in any way. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit of a satisfied glow right now. It’s just not a glow that wants to tolerate idiocy or lying or back biting or cruelty, and, having seen more of these in the last several weeks -- correction, that last year and two months or so -- than I would have liked, maybe I’m a tad suspicious of anything that rings, however softly, of pretense.

Even in myself.

Out of the Metal Ox corral for more than a month now, I find myself craving the warm light of truth the way I craved red meat when I found myself pregnant after five years of vegetarianism. I had attempted to close down my brain’s truth clock in order to not go insane while I was with him, and now I’m enjoying letting it tick away in its naturally thoughtful, happy way. And I do mean attempted, for anyone who knows the history of Earth Pig and Metal Ox knows that the alarm would go off from time to time, no matter how many pillows and blankets I buried it in. Let’s just keep in mind that I’m the one who buried it. He kept trying to put his hands over my ears, it’s true. But still.

So, having read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road while I was sitting with Scorpio 2 in the hospital (interesting juxtaposition in itself), and having in the same stretch had the arisings that led to the letter of the earlier post, I emerge from all of that feeling angry at the laziness of lying and heartlessness and selfishness and cruelty. And wondering where the line is between simple badness and actual evil. And wondering about the mundane evil of lazy tortures of the mind fuck kind Metal Ox constantly undertook on me (and I say lazy because I think his veiling through lies of who he really is was simply easier for him than telling the truth and becoming, though the work the truth demands, his best self), wondering if those might be in the same group of evils that allow people to practice physical torture with as little thought as MOx gave to what he practiced on my mind with his violations of the truth (imagine how much more work diplomacy is than torture, how much slower the "result"). I just wonder where the line is. So, right now, I'm angry at the weakness of the lazy.

Add to this the more obvious evils/lazinesses: war, trafficking, violence against women and children. I don't know. What is the human race? Really? Really?

Once I saw on one of those home decorating shows that if you paint your swimming pool a certain color of grey, the water appears as the most luminescent color of blue. There is this action of color interacting with the water and the light. It's a set of phenomena more complicated than one might at first consider, having pool water in just the right color. And I see it pretty clearly, right now, the difference between light (strength/effort) and dark (weakness/laziness), and I know which pool I want to swim in. And it’s not all that much to do with what one sees on the surface. It’s more like what color is the stone that lines the pool. What creates the color you see when light hits it? then the dark. You can’t see only what you expect to see to pick up on this.

And it makes me really sad that sometimes evil doesn’t even know it’s evil, and he who may want to be a good person doesn’t even know how to start. And that giving love doesn’t cure the darkness in someone, nor the delusion. And that I am still learning this after all these years. And I am ready for the only-real, and am waiting here, and will not stop thinking or feeling and the clock is on the headboard again and all of this is positive enough, but wouldn’t exist without the negative, and so there we are with The Balance again, Girls.

Write a poem. Be real. Remember that I love you.

Letter Written to Metal Ox While in Hospital With Scorpio Two

2007-06-19T10:56:00.000-05:00

Dear Sir,

It’s sad, going through all this without you. At times I wish I could pick up the phone and tell you all about it, the image of my little girl here in this cold white room, the IV in her arm, the pale skin of her, my weepy heart. There is so much that can be done. Maybe you could go get me a tooth brush (three days without one). Or something to eat. Or hold my hand. Maybe you could tell a joke to cheer her and me up a little. Maybe you could check on my other offspring, at home and still recovering from surgery.

Then I remember, you wouldn’t do any of that. You wouldn’t be here, anyway. You wouldn’t drive out of your way to help any of us. If we were together, you would never stoop to coming to my side in such an instance as this. I know. It’s been tested. You didn’t.

OK, once you did. With the breast scare, you were very good, though you made it clear that it would be inconvenient to miss the wrestling match should I need to go to the emergency room. But at least you tried, and I am grateful.

But then, well, next was my dad’s memorial, at which you’d said you’d support me -- then you backed out. So, one time there? Compared to the many times not? Reliable? No. Evidence of learning? Not.

And so then I’m glad, because here, in these hospital rooms, in that apartment back home where the work and stress of two hospitalized children in a month is all overcoming me, there is no vacuum in the shape of you, no empty space where you should be. If we were still together, that Phantom You whom I lived with for five years, He Who Appeared By Disappearing in Every Crisis, would be right over there in the chair, next to my darling girl’s sick bed; He’d be visible only to me, a place with the air sucked out of it, the molecules revolving backward, dark matter shooting from His outline like wooden darts shaved to a needle's stick, the very vibe of Him smirking at me, saying: “See how little regard I have for you? I could give a damn how you feel. You will never count as high as all the other things in my life. Those are so much more attractive than you. Sucker. Idiot. It’s not my fault if you can’t read the writing on the wall.”

And so I sit here, alone, peacefully. No empty form, no screeching voice, no sucker punch. Just the knowing that without someone invisible to need, my heart is safe and clean.

Yours,
M

Enough, Already, Huh?

2007-06-18T13:40:00.000-05:00

Ya, first Scorpio One ripped apart the major tendon in his right pectoralis, and that required surgery. Now he can't drive until the sling is off, at least four more weeks. Then last week Scorpio Two got sick and was in the hospital for three days. Two days after that I spent at Their Dad's house, taking care of her. The whole time, including while she was in the hospital, Their Dad was at my house, driving S One to work and physical therapy. Needless to say, we are all beat. But you know, it's nice to get to take care of one's offspring. Especially so with S Two, since I don't get to see her nearly enough, and constantly long to nurture her. In truth, sitting there in the hospital with her, hard and painful as it was to see her ill, in some ways a joy. In a selfish way. She needed me. At her age, of course, her whole manner of being is to not need me, and to give her my love and care feels like a privilege. S One, of course, in older and male and the definition of "taking care of" is different. It's all practical stuff. But that's ok. He's launching, at his pace. It's still all the stuff of motherhood, which is the most joyous of burdens.

Even if one does use up all of one's vacation days caring it.

Everything Untitled

2007-05-29T13:03:00.000-05:00

I know. I have not been writing. Things have been huge and tiny here, all at once. Painful and yet, I wake up feeling my wings opening. Most days.

The Scorpios are both broken hearted.

I made a stock of lamb bones, rosemary, and various odds and ends from the freezer I'd saved to stock making, and intended to do up Julia Child's lamb stew recipe yesterday, but I woke up feeling icky and stayed in bed. So, tomorrow. Lamb stew. The stock will keep. Surely the stew meat will, too, for one more day? The recipe isn't complicated, I'm just still too wiped out. In the morning I'll pick my fresh peas from the garden for the stew, and make it in the evening. It may be that Scorpio I will be around to share!

I read today on CNN that Cindy Sheehan is hanging it up. She’s tired. She’s broke. And nobody’s listening anyway. That’s what she said, they say. Particularly, the Democratic Congress isn’t listening. I know exactly how she feels --they're such wimps -- except that my son and daughter are still here and alive, knock on wood. It’s hard to fight trivialization. And those in love with war, it seems, have learned that to trivialize is to suck the power right out of most displays of solidarity and protest. It was a brilliant insight, and they use it well.

Update: Here's the link to her resignation letter: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/28/12530/1525

But the heart continues. And no one can make war happen in there, if you don’t let them. And the more peaceful hearts we get, the more peace we get.

These are the things I’m thinking today.

The Kingdom of Ends

2007-05-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

Oh, dear. What does it take to make me walk out on Britten's War Requiem, that magnificent work of pacifist disgust at war and hope for what's beyond? Ungentlemanly behavior, that's what. Metal Ox has failed the tests of Kant's Categorical Imperatives many times, and the Requiem Failure will have to be his last; especially, preceded as it was by the Comply Sexually or be Spurned Failure of last weekend. "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." If such is the thought of Metal Ox regarding the treatment of women at concerts and in bed, then he will have to proceed in his delusion sans moi. Later I may tell the story. At present I am recovering. Just imagine this: shocked by his ungentlemanly and manipulative act I walk off, wordlessly, through the suits and pretty dresses, the gold leafed white and soaring walls, the buzzing promise of the music to come, in the direction of the ladies room, then lo! -- beyond, and continue out the side door of the symphony hall and to my car, leaving him to, I suppose, take a cab home. I am giddy with the power of finally taking care of myself.

And then The Chef takes me in for the evening and we have wine and the best fresh peach cobbler (thanks, Uncle) I have ever had and wonderful talking -- girl power!

See, Kant argues (as I understand it) that once all layers of motivation (material gain, sexual favors, feeling good about oneself, etc.) to do good are peeled away, the person acting from true duty, a truly higher or unselfish purpose, is the person who acts to help others for no other reason than it is the right thing to do. Metal Ox, it seems to me from the way he treats me, always wants something in return. It's a tit for tat proposition. He can't do something for me without expecting something in return. And no matter what I try to give him, it's never enough, or it's not the correct thing. He wants me to dust his house even though I'm allergic to his cat. He doesn't want me to cook for him, even though I'm really good at that, because "Banquette can do the same thing." He is in both of these things either disregarding my health or devaluing my gifts. Also, he knows I would cook for him even if he wasn't doing me any favors, so that lessens the cooking's value even more. In no case is my love and comapnionship enough. Ever. He doesn't even seem to get satisfaction from taking care of me or helping because it makes him feel good, which puts him in some pretty superficial layers of motivation. The point is, though, that all this mathematical relationship record keeping is not about giving and loving, it's about getting something back or else not expending the energy, and that's just not how I want to approach things. And so I say: he has failed Kant's test. This is The Kingdom of Ends. One is to never treat another person as if they are a Means (I will do X for you if you will do Y for me; I will spend time with you because it will get me Z; etc.); one is always to treat another person as if they were an End (you exist therefore I will do X for you; you are the reason I do X for you; doing X for you is right, therefore I do X for you). When one behaves in this latter way, one is eligible to be part of the Kingdom of Ends, where one dwells in the higher realms of true Reason. I love this trope.

I may be over-simplifying Immanuel, or otherwise misreading him. If you're reading this, Ms. Reason, or any other Kantian, please correct me freely.

Now, I must thank Ms. Reason for her reminder of my love of Kant, she being a Kantian scholar and one third of our newly minted Smart Pretty Girls Club, that mold being struck by our poet-scholar Princess and first enacted on Friday night, thanks to the grace and goodness of her compelling parental units and their gorgeous home. What fun! My God, I love Pretty Smart Girls. We are to read Iris Murdoch's The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, which I am so far, fittingly, loving. And the scope of possible discussion with these two seems endless. And they're pretty! Do you know how much fun it is to watch pretty people talk smart? I could do it forever. I do have to thank Tim for the meeting of The Princess. What a boon. (Of course I like to watch pretty boys talk smart, too -- but where are they?)

My girl cousins have also been quite charming and lovely, lately. Ms. Oklahoma sent me the most fabulous package of Arbonne products as a thanks for helping her daughter with a crucial college paper -- whoopee!!!! You can't imagine how happy this present makes me. And my skin already looks better, I swear to God. And Ms. Miami has been the steadiest and most glowing of lovely moral supporters, in so many ways, since we started emailing. The only sadness is that we see each other so seldom, of course. But this is the modern sadness. Communication without contact. Unless you believe that the heart chakra opens, receives and gives without regard for physical space. Which I do. And so there.

And my daughter, lovely thing that she is, so helpful and sweet and there she is giving me a BBQ grill for Mother's Day! How perfect! If only I could see her more, too. And then my mommy, always the lifesaver, waiting patiently for her pearls (they're in the mail, I swear!).

And, UPDATE!: My lovely son got me Guitar Hero II for Mother's Day! How many mothers can say that, eh? Huh? Tell me? How many! It am sooooooo happy! This is the best music game ever!

I am all aglow with good will toward my fellow women, and my son. I am open to feeling aglow toward my fellow men, but it's a little less on the surface right at this moment. Still, good luck, Metal Ox. I do love you, but I think you might be crazy in the not so good way that makes me feel unsafe. And in my personal Kingdom of Ends, which I hope is universal, well, that's just not what one should will.

I draw a bath, enter the water as a god enters water:
Fertile, knowing, kind, surrounded by glass objects
Which could break easily if mishandled or ill-touched.
Everyone knows an unworshipped woman will betray you.
There is always that promise, I like that. Kingdom of Kinesis.
Kingdom of Benevolent. I will betray as a god betrays,
With tenderheartedness. I've got this mystic streak in me.

--Lucie Brock-Broido, from Domestic Mysticism

A Whiney Girl Wishing

2007-05-09T10:47:00.000-05:00

Always I feel torn between beauty and sadness. Sometimes I feel so spoiled, other times so deprived. Actually, I only feel spoiled as a guilt reaction to feeling deprived. Example? I have this beautiful photo of a lotus flower on my computer desktop. Staring at it just now, I really wanted to be out in the Botanical Garden, walking around, examining all the perfect details of its flowers and plants. How can something as transparent as a pink lotus petal be so sturdy? I want to touch it. I'm tired of the fakeness of the photo. Of all fakeness. Of even the fakeness of cruelty and disregard -- I know these are fake, because the core of us is light, and the meanness is what we use to isolate ourselves from ourselves, because the light means that we know better than the cruelty we engage in.

And the sadness. I do still believe that the disappearing bees could be the canary in the coal mine. The hubris of humans, the ingratitude, abusiveness. It’s too much.

And then something happens, someone says something, and I’m thrown back to another time; I’m stunned for days, lost, a child, cold metal on my throat. The only refuge I have, my heart, light, but I want to remove myself from the world. I want more, forgetfulness, illusion that there is some nurturing for me. I want something savory in my mouth, a pampering meal, an art I can taste, the wine of forgetfulness, then a walk with the sun and the wind. I want to remember that the world is, core-deep, something more than this inescapable cruelty and selfishness. Why do humans so rarely know what is precious? Why can’t we hold those things gently, quietly?

I wish that in my life no one would ever raise his voice to me again. I wish for some shelter, some sheltering, some home of my own, or some sharing of that, some cupping in the hand of this little flower of me, some art I can feel, some thing consistently gentle and kind.

And then I feel sad and selfish for these thoughts, because I know all too well how privileged my physical surroundings make me. And it’s spoiled/deprived all over again.

The simple Is. It’s the flower that takes me closer to That. Thank you, Universe, for those flowers. Please help the bees find their way home.

And me, too, if you please.

:-)

Sexual Dysfuntion, My Ass!

2007-05-02T15:26:00.001-05:00

An article from Reuters,
dated April 9, 2007:

“Low hormone level linked to sexual dysfunction:
Menopausal women twice as likely to report problems, study finds”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18024478/

So, now they're tagging menopausal and post-menopausal women as “dysfunctional” if they aren’t horny and don’t come fast like bunny rabbits every time they do it? Jesus. Can we get a break here? First, all the poor old men are told that they aren’t man enough if they can’t get it up until the day they day, spurring the unrestrained manufacturing of what I like to call “Grandma Bane,” and what the drug companies like to call “erectile dysfunction medication.”

See, the thing is, a natural aspect of menopause is that drop in hormone levels that leads to the falling away of the sex drive’s intensity. It’s what’s supposed to happen! It’s not a dysfunction!

And it’s logical. We’re not child bearers any more. We don’t need to keep screwing five times a day. Neither do our honored companions, the Grandpa’s. This is the time in life when we are supposed to put our energy elsewhere – like in leading our grown children toward productive parenting, or world travel or whatever; like contributing something meaningful to the world, now that we’ve matured enough to realize that life isn’t all about getting laid all the time and buying new clothes to attract men’s attention.

But, now that grandpa is running around with his stiff member sticking out in front of his old pudding belly all the time like a wrinkly, blotchy old rhino horn, grandma’s got to get with it, too? Ehew. Give it rest, Grandpa.

And you, too Pfizer. Focus on curing, oh, I don't know, ocular histoplasmosis, maybe? Or inflammatory breast cancer? How about a test for early detection of ovarian cancer, maybe? Or, I know, an antidepressant that will create the sort of brain changes that allow a person to get off the drug eventually? With fMRIs, I think that's possible now, folks. Get some Tibetan meditators in there, use them as your baseline sample.

And really, even when we’re talking about the 50-somethings (as 50 is the new thirty), how ready to perform do we have to be, ladies? OK, I’m not quite 50 yet; I’ve got a couple years to go. But I’m starting to look in that direction, see where I’m going, and to identify more with the 50 set than the 40. And I can tell you, my sex drive is not, at almost-50, anything near what it was at 40-ish. (And 40-ish felt like normal, after twenty years of a sex drive so annoyingly and persistently strong that it would have made Hugh Heffner look like a slouch.)

Identifying, then, upwardly, I feel compelled to demand my Lady-Rights. I have finally reached an age when I feel comfortable wearing a silk scarf around my neck, and pearls in the day time. I have reached Lady Age. It was hard work getting here. I’ve kept myself, minus occasional journeys into chubbiness, fairly nicely preserved, I believe, and without “work” of any kind upon my physical form. In other words, I’ve passed entirely out of girldom, and while I will always be a woman, I can now also claim to be a Lady. As a Lady, I refuse to be pressured into taking drugs to up my sex drive by exactly the same jerks and cultural forces that are leading my sisters to anesthetized self-mutilation ("cosmetic surgery") on operating tables the world over. I just refuse. The Cult of Youth is way out of control: Look young. Screw young. Be horny like you’re young or you're not worth the skin you’re using up. Wrong! There is so much beauty in age. There is wisdom and kindness and the joy of taking one's time. And I really do think that wrinkles and grey hair, on a healthy woman who glows from the inside, and cares for herself because she loves who she really is, well -- I think that's all beautiful. And on men, too. And a man who appreciates a woman who is his equal, even in age? That's sexy. And sexy, BTW, doesn't always mean hopping in the sack.

Yes, sometimes I still feel like looking the Hot Babe part. And sometimes I do still feel like, well, having sex. Ok. Fine, if it’s internally motivated. But if you’re going to tell me that when I come out on the other side of menopause I’m supposed to be ready to get it on as if that menopause never happened, well then, you can just go jump in a lake somewhere. That’s just silly. If I happen to want to all on my own, well, that’s another story. But my God, can a woman just get some rest around here, please? And I'll tell you what -- horny old men? Or old men so weak in the ego and preternaturally immature that you must keep fucking every six minutes in order to fell good about yourselves? Or you can't stay out of the porn or the strip clubs long enough to deflate that Viagra-induced blasphemy you call a Johnson? We don't need you, anyway. We prefer a little more substance to our men. How about a conversation? Or a good meal? We'll wait around for those guys. They're more fun, anyway.

Or how about a man who is sick of seeing women promoted -- or promote themselves -- as objects of pleasure? After all, this I'm talking about here? This is what that's come to. And, Hey Ladies! if we're going to buy into it -- all the implants and botoxes and drugs to make us horny and stripper poles and youth cults and blow jobs on first dates and any other "Just let me make myself into what you want me to be, Baby," crap you want to point to -- we're just about as guilty as any They we can name.

I say:
Ladies of the World Unite!
We will not betray ourselves with surgeries and drugs!
We will let neither the culture, men, nor one another convince us that:
We have to stay firm and wrinkle-free forever,That we have to behave like adolescent (or even thirty-something) girls,
We must have bosoms of a certain size to be beautiful, or
That grey hair is ugly.

Instead, we Pledge that we will:

Love our wrinkles!
Love our movable flesh! Love our natural hair!
Love our wimpy sex drive!
We will love ourselves as we are!

Mugging, A Bee-less Einstein, and Ouches

2007-05-01T16:01:00.000-05:00

As far as I've been able to determine, looking at other people's efforts to confirm attribution, Albert Einstein did not say: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Einstein or no, now that the bee story has emerged into the general consciousness, I wonder if, collectively, we’ll care enough to do something about it? If this so-called Colony Collapse Disorder is, indeed, caused by, let’s say, cell phone radiation, will be all drop out cell phones? Will the towers come down? Or will we tread the global warming path, and watch business and government together trivialize the phenomenon in order to save the mega-com companies’ profits?

I liked that Metal Ox said simply, when I asserted that if it is truly shown that cell phones are messing up the bee’s homing mechanisms, that I would get rid of my beloved cell phone, “We might not have a choice.” There is a beautiful innocence in this moment. It’s sweet that he would trust that such a thing would be so. I don’t. I’ve watched evidence of global warming, deadly and irreversible water source degradation, and blah blah blah ad infinitum get ignored and propagandized away for approximately 25 years now. I’ve seen a trillion people roll their eyes every time I tried to suggest we might want to take some responsibility in there matters. Unless it’s in the mainstream news every day for a month, it doesn’t exist, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t trust that humans, collectively, will sacrifice crap for the larger good. Sorry. I know individuals who do it. I just haven’t seen it happening en masse.

______________

In other matters, it was reported to me that a woman was approached from behind and hit in the head with a brick, by some unknown man, a block or so from the yoga studio yesterday in broad daylight. She was on her way to class, carrying nothing but her matt. The man apparently did not try to rape her, or steal anything (why would he want her yoga matt, unless he didn’t know what it was?). So why did he do this? Simple insanity? Rage at income disparity? Gentrification-angst? Race rage (the two were of different races)?

I emailed Art Holliday at KSDK, to ask him if he’d heard about it, and if they were going to report on it. He’s answered email from me before, and he’s always been really sweet. Haven’t heard back from him (yet?) though. Then I dropped another email to Harry Levins at the Post-Dispatch. He wrote me back, saying, “Normally, we don't report on muggings. There are so many that they'd cause the [P-D web] site to overflow. Sorry.”

Wow.
_______________

Here’s a shout-out to The Princess, who had shoulder surgery yesterday and is rather down and out: Hey, Your Highness-Girl. I’ll be out there pretty soon and we’ll hang. K?

Crack It Open, Mother Bird

2007-04-24T08:17:00.000-05:00

Ya, so. The whole thing with the mastitis. I'm convinced this part of me that needs to give is massively frustrated. My kids are grownish -- certainly at the stage where they don't allow a lot of overt mothering. Especially Scorpio II, who needs it badly, and will absolutely not admit that she needs it. But I feel it every day, how much she needs me and won't let me give to her. Scorpio I, a little better. He will accept some mothering, if I use the correct strategy. But then again, I am trying to launch him off on his own (he is 22, after all), and don't want to over do it. Plus, too much mommy behavior and he gets self-conscious, needs to assert his maturity. This is all "normal" and fine. But I feel their pull, perpetually, and the sadness of their leaving, like the bottom dropping out, at least in some manner, from the nest of my heart.

Metal Ox, he won't accept a lot of nurturing, either. I mean, he's a metal ox. He thinks he's got it all under control. He won't even let me rub his feet. The most I can do is take him soup -- which he says he doesn't need but I bring anyway --tell him he's a sweetheart and a big strong magnificent. Still, I always wish I could give him more.

My mom and grandpa. Too far away. Can't live in my home town, no I can't. Deadly depressing. Send them love through the air. Go when I can.

Everyone Else. The walls of the world are cracking. Too much violence, lies, poverty, slavery. Or is it consiousness trying to emerge? Either way, there is still the suffering, which seems, at these extremes, grossly unnecessary. One feels wildly impotent, to use exactly the wrong word for a discussion of breast frustration and cracking walls. It's not penetration of the problem that's called for -- it's a cradling, a warmth. So much need, and here I am making fancy airplanes for rich people. Facilitating all sorts of crushing nitrogen debt.

And the doves! They launched their first round of fledglings, then came back and laid a second clutch of eggs. Then, the day after I found out that the actual lumps in my breast are from all appearances benign, the parent doves were gone! As if they'd left the night before, abandoning their two perfect white eggs, snowy little breasts of things, in their nest on my window sill. Why? Has one of them been killed? Did the eggs die? This is so sad! Should I have brought them in and tried to incubate them?

So really, I do think that my desire to give has finally outstripped my ability to thoroughly that my breasts simply swelled up with the imperative. Add to this what I discovered about Xanax: it suppresses dopamine; dopamine suppresses prolactin. Guess what too much prolactin in a breast with no baby can do? So, though my taking of the Xanax was certainly not a daily thing (and yes, it was prescribed to me by my doc!), it's possible that this was a contributing factor! The combination of too much prolactin and too few roads to the expression of my motherly and human urges to give, and WHAM! Clogged milk ducts. Fever, swelling, pain.

This is not to say that I'm Ms. All-Giving-Mother-Earth-Woman. I'm not. I often want to be given to, as well. But lately I've been thinking that even some of that is its opposite. Or, feeling better cared for of late, I can see through to the other, deeper thing, maybe?

Still, I'm convinced that the solution is not to shut down, but to open up even further. Just keep opening up. Letting love replace fear. Sitting in the stillness. Believing that really helps everyone else. Does it? It's hard. The world is either crumbling or hatching. We'll see what emerges.

New: Writer Searching for Meaningful Employment

2007-04-20T15:04:00.000-05:00

Darn. Cancer scare. Don't really want to write about it right now (is this a postmodern moment?). All is well, though! Seriously, I think I'm going to live to be 100. And in the mean time, I want to find a job with a non-profit, or a foundation. Something. New feeling of not wanting to waste my life sitting in this cube doing nothing of any lasting value whatsoever. Not an entirely new feeling. Intensification of a feeling I've been having for years. But the kids are mostly raised up and now I can be selfish and work to help people instead of just put bread on the table, maybe. From time to time I scour the online job postings at non-profits, publishing houses, etc. Haven't turned up much yet. If I were a grant writer... how hard is grant writing, anyway? Maybe I should take a course. There are lots of great sounding jobs for grant writers, all over the place. It has to be more meaty than, well, what I'm doing now, which is like trying to live on chicken bones. Or if I had the personality to go to NYC and lead a publication team. Not. In that job I would be the chicken bones. I need a quiet little job, a brainy, researchy, I'm-going-to-fix-this-part-of-the-world-with-my-incredible-writing job. A shy, English major person's job. I wonder if the Southern Poverty Law Center would take me? I love their work, of course. But then, that's in Alabama. Honestly, though, I saw literally nothing in the STL area. Nothing. Nada. Not at all. A job has to open up in my town and then it has to come and get me! Is anybody out there? I'm here! I'm full of passion and vinegar and lots and lots of words!

Stupid White Lady

2007-04-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I interviewed for an artist in residence gig in the St. Louis public schools. I would go in as a poet. It would be awesome. I would inspire the kids and inject color into the dowdy world of public ed in which they’re trapped. Fourth and fifth graders. The littlest ones. The ones who maybe still have a chance?

My idea was to have them write through their experiences of food. Learn sensory description, metaphor, through a subject they can, well, already sink their teeth into. We would explore cultures through cuisine, learn tolerance through looking at how others eat, -- even the “others” in the classrooms with us. Et cetera. I had measures in place for all sorts of negative sides – I’d thought of people having to work so hard that they couldn’t make dinner so the kids were on their own; I thought of a poverty that might limit meals to what comes from the food pantry, or the cheap, deadly diet of the (growing) American poor: lots of refined starches (white bread, fake macaroni and cheese, noodles, hot dogs, sugar). And there is always the kid whose parents are too stoned to care, no matter where you go. I kept all of that in mind.

Five minutes into my pitch the nice woman interviewer stopped me:

“Margaret,” she said, looking immensely pained and apologetic, “I hate to stop you, but….” and she went on to explain that fully 10 percent of the children in our City schools are homeless, and a far larger percent are getting probably their one meal a day from the subsidized lunch program. “A lot of their experiences with food are not good.”

Ten percent? What? How in the hell can that be? What in God’s name are we doing? Are we insane? And where are these children? Why can’t I see them? If they were visible, would we feed them? What kind of place is this, anyway, where we spend money on useless wars and give the wealthy and corporations immense tax breaks while we let little children go hungry??????

I instantly realized that I could not do such a program unless I could afford to feed these kids every time I held class. Which, of course and unfortunately, I cannot even begin to do. Which is a shame, because I still think that the pain they have around food needs addressed, acknowledged, given a light to heal under. But you just can’t ask hungry people to sit around thinking about food!

Ok, so I left crying, feeling like the dumb white lady. The woman I interviewed with couldn’t have been more gracious about it. I felt like a schmuck. I went home and got in bed, let myself sob for all the abandoned (and I mean by us, not just by their parents) children in the world, and for the mothers who have to watch those babies go hungry. All over the world? Yes. And right in my neighborhood. These hungry babies within steps of my door? They are less visible to me than those so very far away.

The next day I came down with a raging mastitis. Seriously. Driving home on the rainy highway after a lovely wedding celebration in the Missouri hills, my left breast just started throbbing. I went home, took off the Angel push-up bra, put on a soft self-bra-ed tank and, well, within a couple of hours I couldn’t even handle having that on, it was so tight on that breast. Finally getting the bright idea to look in the mirror I saw these odd tracings of bright red coming out of my aereola. By Sunday afternoon the underside of that breast, toward my armpit, was red, too, and hot, and soar.

It’s been 15 years since I nursed a baby, and I didn’t even get a full-blown breast infection then. Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think that my spirit is rebelling against this idea of all these children I cannot feed.

And my own daughter, too far away.

But the knowledge of the 10 plus the 25-40 percent equals a way too high percentage of hungry children in my town? This is just too much. It’s just too damn much. Where is this that I live? What country is this? Who runs this joint? What do we believe in? Who do I talk to? And where are the TV cameras? And where is the mayor? It’s not like I’m an innocent! I’ve been fighting these fights my whole life! How could I not have known this? Why does my heart not just give up? Mr. President, I know these babies have to say it, Mr. President, why won’t you help us? Really, what do these children think at night as they fall asleep? How alone can a person feel before the only option is to turn to stone? Remember, you mothers, the feeling of milk letting down? Flooding into your nipples, blasting forth at the very thought or cry of your hungry baby? My breasts, my old and empty breasts, both of them, ache like widowed hounds with these thoughts.

"Whore" Is Not Synonymous with "Woman"

2007-04-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

Regarding Imus. First, about First Amendment issues. Here's a concise treatment of the general legal question, by the Princess from her blog:

On The View this morning, I was listening to four women talk over each other and get the point about freedom of speech completely wrong. The First Amendment prevents the Government from censoring speech. Not corporations, not fans, not consumers, not your neighbors. You can be booed off-stage. You can be fired should your speech tarnish or endanger the reputation and the profit margin of the corporation for which you work. Lots of kinds of speech are proscribed: threats of violence, fraud, perjury, liable, defamation, verbal/emotional abuse, sexual harassment, and cetera. These kinds of speech are actionable. You might say anything you want, but to imagine that speech does not or should not have public and communal and legal consequences is childish and silly. http://kalidharmashaktidharma.blogspot.com/

So, let's not conflate rudeness with freedom. Now, that said, I don’t want to tolerate a lot of crap on the airwaves, but I don’t think that Don Imus is the King of the Demons of racism and misogyny. We need to look deeper, into the movement of culture that has allowed the release of the memes that make the interchange of the words “woman” and “whore” mundane.

I am looking for a world where no one is called by that name. Indeed, I am looking for a world wherein no woman ever has to be treated so lowly that she must either be called by that name, or practice that profession. If I were a black woman I would be sorely pissed. I am pissed enough as it is. The way black women are portrayed by some black men is awful. And, yes, the way they portray themselves or allow themselves to be portrayed. But that is the point. These kinds of words and attitudes and abuses wouldn't be as harmful if they didn't affect the people they describe or attack. Verbal abuse takes a deep toll on a person's self-concept. Enough conflating of woman and whore has a catastrophic affect on women's and girls' self-concepts. Such a deep affect that some of us end demeaning ourselves in videos or clubs or on the street or with our men or with cutting or drugging or dangerous sex because we can no longer see that what we are doing demeans us. We've been conditioned to see those insults as either true or harmless, but all the while the self-concept is falling and the damage is being done.

So stop it! No more calling women ho! First, let's get the very idea out of our minds. Then, let's create a world where there is enough economic opportunity that women don't need to hook, enough true respect for women that they don't lose themselves to themselves so completely that they want to sell themselves to icky men, and enough true respect for women that no man will want to use a woman that way. Without the demand there is no market! That is the world we must create. A world where women are not objects to be bought and sold. The normalization of the word "ho" into the language is only a symptom of a growing attitude that it's perfectly fine to buy and sell women for profit. Just stop it. Now. We are not for sale.

All one needs to do is to spend an hour on MTV or VH1 and my point will be clear. And that portrayal of black women bleeds over to all women. And “entertainment” is no excuse!

There is too much low and disrespectful discourse circulating at present. It’s good we’re talking about it. Otherwise, all the sudden my daughter doesn’t even blink when her boyfriend calls her “ho” in fun, and this combines with the egregious propaganda that stripping is empowering for women (if you think that, ask yourself how happy you’d be if your daughter were doing it) and that “sex work” is no more damaging to a woman than waitressing. Anyone who calls women by those names or promotes in any way those means of earning money is guilty of harming and of demeaning women. Period. And keep in mind – what Imus said, as Clarence Page (black Chicago Trib columnist) said on Diane Rehm’s show this morning, is nothing compared to what we hear from Snoop Dog or on some hip-hop radio stations generally. Don’t believe me? Give it a listen. My God. I’m not going to be such a pansy white liberal that I refuse to hold anyone of color accountable for this "ho" phenomenon.

It does seem that humans have to grab a scapegoat in order to change a cultural movement. Not that Imus isn’t guilty. Clearly he his. And I wish the country didn’t think people like him (and Rush, and Ann Coulter, and Howard Stern, and that Simon guy on Idol, and rude people generally...) were entertaining. We seem to think that "telling the truth" means being horribly rude. But it doesn't. The Truth is never rude, doesn't need to be rude. It might be painful, but it is never rude. Truth is the mother of Love, is part of the fabric of everything, right along with carbon. The Truth that underlies Imus's comment has more to do with his fear of those athletic Rutgers women than it does the words that came out of his mouth. The next time you hear someone be really rude, resist the temptation to think, "Well, at least s/he's telling the truth." S/he is not. The rudeness is a symptom of something else, some other pain or anger or fear. The rudeness is the drug that person is using to avoid the truth.

The market is taking care of Imus. He will probably move, like Stern did, to satellite radio where he won’t be regulated by the FCC or catch hell and can tap into another market. Entertainers who wish to degrade women and make racist speech (even against themselves) will sell as many CDs as people want to buy. For the rest of us, this is an opportunity to look inward. My hope is that when we do, we see that we don’t want to buy those CDs any more.

Can we just be kind to one another? Can we please just not think of women as objects for sale? And the term “nappy headed” should have left the language a long freaking time ago. I mean really.

Ohmygod the bees

2007-04-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

"For many entomologists, the bee crisis is a wake-up call. By relying on a single species for pollination, US agriculture has put itself in a precarious position, they say. A resilient agricultural system requires diverse pollinators. This speaks to a larger conservation issue. Some evidence indicates a decline in the estimated 4,500 potential alternate pollinators – native species of butterflies, wasps. and other bees. The blame for that sits squarely on human activity – habitat loss, pesticide use, and imported disease – but much of this could be offset by different land-use practices." -- Moises Velasquez-Manoff Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

It is very frightening that the bees have disappeared. I hate to say something this dire, but this could be a harbinger of real environmental collapse. Let’s hope it’s not. Let’s hope it’s a wake-up call. Global warming isn’t the only proof that “the environmentalists,” those demonized liberal tree-hugging hippie freaks, have simply been telling the truth all these many years:

Nothing can be abused indefinitely and survive. Not even this Earth.

And by “survive” I mean survive intact; a burned out and uninhabitable shell does not count.

Haven’t heard about the bees? Look here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0404/p13s01-sten.html

And here:
http://www.glrc.org/story.php3?story_id=3366

Or better yet, just google “disappearing bees.”

How many years have I been preaching the idiocy of widespread pesticide use? The risks of monoculture? The importance of biodiversity? At least 20?

And how many times have I tried to explain that bees and wasps and other creatures are necessary for human survival, in response to some friend or acquaintance’s assertion that he or she “hated” bugs and didn’t see the use of them, so what was the harm of killing them off. And yet I see people spraying Raid in their kitchens, putting Roundup in their gardens, thinking that because it doesn’t contain DDT it’s safe! Even grown hippies do this! People who should know better. It defies logic. Really.

Forgetting the amazement I always feel when I run into otherwise educated persons who are nonetheless clueless about the crazy spectrum of deep and lasting harm -- from cancers to ecosystem damage -- that pesticides cause… Well, never mind that. I can’t possibly forget about that. I really, truly do not understand how it is that people cannot see that killing off the native bugs will ruin everything. That the balance of life is delicate. That what’s poison to bugs is poison to us. And if it’s not a pesticide phenom, I guarantee you it’s related, some imbalance, so moving ahead of a another inspect or fungus or something because we’ve killed down it’s predator or the winters aren’t cold enough to kill off something.

The evidence is everywhere to be had. This discussion has been going on since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring 45 years ago. Studies are released continually on the matter. Perhaps the ignorance it’s partly due, as with the global warming issue, to business and its government allies efforts to place doubt in the public mind. But even this is nuts, because if we kill the ecosystem and can’t farm then how are those who make their living off agriculture going to keep turning a buck?

And, ya, like, without pollinators there aren’t crops, you know?

My God. The bees? The bees are disappearing?

Harbingers: Little Blossoms of News

2007-04-03T10:24:00.000-05:00

Newsiness.

Bird Report: The dove nesting in my dining room window now has one chick, that I can see. There may be more under her.

Garden Report: Peas! The peas are up in my garden! So is the spinach and rainbow chard, but the peas are cutest. And the hardest to get fresh (I read somewhere that if you don’t cook fresh peas within 24 hours of picking they’ll get starchy and lose their sweetness). Something has eaten all of the one little collard plant that lives on the southeast corner of the plot, but has not touched any of the other collards. Now there’s a low IQ bunny or caterpillar. Or a considerate one?

Flower Report: Lilacs! Some on my desk at work, some on the dining room table at home.

Game Report: Baseball, opening day! My first ever. Metal Ox’s first ever. (I just realized, this means we did get to lose our virginity together-- in a sense -- after all.) Metal Ox was so sweet. He told me about a couple he saw on TV who were going to their 50th (I may have the number wrong) opening day together, and how one day maybe we could say the same thing. And he bought each of us opening day banners and opening day balls. And, God bless his little heart, he bought me one of those crazily expensive Cardinals scorebooks! It doesn’t even matter to me that we lost the game to the Mets 'cause it was all so fun and sweet. And tonight – it’s World Series ring giveaway. Now there’s a (potential) once-in-a-lifetime thingy.

Meeting the Parents Report: It’s always a trip to meet a friend’s parental unit(s). On Friday The Princess (I’m back to calling you The P, my dear, because what with the M.H. Duchess’ picture living here now, to call you by The D might get confusing) brought her Mère to see the Pre-Raphaelites with us, then on to dinner. Delightful! We had a lovely time. And she even had something sensible to say about my soufflé project: Clean your oven.

And Now for The Bad News Report: Scorpio I is having the ocular histoplasmosis symptoms again. He sees the retina doc today. I can tell he is quite disturbed by this development. We were all hoping that the Avastin treatment had taken care of it once and for all. The implications of this reoccurrence are rather far-reaching. So, please, if you can, help him out with your positive thoughts and prayers for the health of his eye.

Update On the Vin

2007-03-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I wrote Vin De Set, sending them a slightly condensed edition of the previous post. I didn't hear back from Ivy or Elizabeth, but Jason wrote me back, then we talked on the phone. He said that he remembered me (we road up in the elevator together), and that I seemed like a "pleasant person." Which I suppose is to say that in spite of my whiny letter I didn't seem at first glance to him to be a raving bitch. At any rate, he was nice, and acknowledged that they have some problems with being prepared at start time. In all fairness, it turns out that the night of my visit was the first open patio night, so they were stressed. And, he said the bar and dining hours are listed separately on the door. Guess I missed that. Alas, he didn't offer me a comp appetizer or drink, which, being the (reluctant) American I am would have gone a long way toward healing my broken heart. Oh, well. Sometimes I'm just grateful when people are nice to me. Sort of.

Vin De Set Leaves Me Lonely

2007-03-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I’m behind in the soufflé project. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t had the moment to go again. Apologies. And now baseball season is coming and I’ll barely have time to sleep. We’ll just have to see how it goes. It may be fall before I re-embark. In the interim I have the Amish Friendship Bread that Baby Ox gave me, and it should be fun to play with. I’ll report.

Meanwhile, I have another kind of food rant.

I went to Vin De Set on Saturday afternoon for a bite and a glass of wine, and was severely disappointed by the service, which is unfortunate, given the restaurant’s reputation and, well, resources.

The posted hours said they opened 4:00, and I showed up around 4:20. The hostess would not seat me in the rooftop “dining section,” but instead tried to seat me in the bar. One cannot see the celebrated view from the bar, so I took a stool seat in the bar’s patio section, even though it was more in the glaring late afternoon sun than I wished. I asked her, the hostess, if she was expecting all the rooftop dining room tables to be filled within the next half hour (there have to be 20 of those) and she said with conviction, “Yes, we’ve been getting calls all day.” I hesitated. I really didn’t want to sit in the bar area. She just stood there. She seemed a little exasperated. She clearly didn’t care at all to try to make me happy. “Oh, I don’t know if I want to stay…,” I said. But I was going to a play later and really didn’t want to make a drive elsewhere. Finally, I just sat at the least sunny table, and waited to see how fast the dining section filled up.

The wait staff was so busy setting up for dinner that it was easy for them to overlook us bar flies, over in the ghetto section. They were clearly dedicated to getting things right over in dining, which is of course a good thing, but to the neglect of those of us already there? OK. But my waiter didn’t even know the appetizer special when I asked, and had to go ask the chef. Clearly, even though the door said they opened at 4:00, they weren’t ready at 4:00. Why? Why could the door not say, “Bar open at 4:00, Dining at 5:00?”

No one came in at all until 5:17. This means I could have had an hour to eat, nearly. At 5:31 a 4-top and 8-top were filled; by 5:35, another 4-top. By then I had lingered over my sirloin burger and Pinot Noir as long as I need, considering the less than great time I was having, and guess what? All the other tables were still empty. Only three were inhabited. I really took this as a slap in the face. Was my business not important enough for me to be treated well? Hadn’t the hostess told me quite clearly that all the tables would be full within half an hour? I’ve been in Vin De Set with other people and received excellent service, even late at night. This was my first excursion there alone. Disappointed.

Perhaps relevant is that I’ve had semi-similar experience at the sister restaurant, 1111 Mississippi. If I go in early (though during the posted open hours) the staff is not ready to serve me. There, I usually do sit at the bar, because I like the bar staff, and it’s friendly down there (though lately there’s been more cigarette smoke than I can take). But still, if we’re open, shouldn’t we be fully open?

I’ve done a bit of solo, drop-in dining in Manhattan, and have not encountered this ghettoization. Even at Babbo, though I had to take a seat at the bar, the service was great and I was made to feel fully included in the little community that is that restaurant. Yes, that is it – at Vin de Set, dining alone, refused one of the several empty tables in the “proper” dining section, I felt, well, alone and unattended. Is this what Ivy means to do?

Relevantly, on Friday I had recommended the restaurant to a colleague at work, and he took his wife. He said they were seated in the bar as well, and had a very hard time getting someone to wait on them. He finally had to go off on foot in search of a waiter. I asked him if he was offered a complimentary treat, and he answered in the negative.

I will say that the pomme frites with garlic butter dipping sauce were grand – what could be more decadent? And I liked the construction of the burger, with it’s béchamel-ish interior/exterior painted on and the mysteriously flavored fried onion topping. It’s just that, well, I don’t like to feel sad when I’m dining alone. I go out alone to dine so that I can feel more a part of something than I feel eating home alone. Vin De Set definitely did not provide that feeling for me. Given the genre it aspires to, it should. Maybe they need a dedicated bar wait staff, instead of asking the rushed and frantic dining waiters to try to manage the bar diners while also setting up for dinner? Maybe they should somehow really be ready to serve when they open? Maybe, when service does fall short they could consider trying to make up for it somehow? Can anyone say amuse bouche?

Creatures Reified

2007-03-23T08:50:00.000-05:00

Uncanny. Planning a poetry reading for the upcoming Lafayette Square Spring House Tour, and Her Grace sends me a link to Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market," as we were brainstorming about the reading in the InteliPub on the 17th. How close is this to my Creatures post of yesterday? Wow.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/gobmarket.html

Also, plans for Art4Emancipation are coming right along! I just secured my friend Jeanette, who is a Missouri State Rep, for one of our judges. How about that? A mix of artists and politicians? I like it.

http://art4emancipation.blogspot.com/

But What Bird, Innocence?

2007-03-22T09:37:00.000-05:00

We were at The Royale, an odd little InteliPub (you know, one of those places the liquored intelligencia seem to hang) on St. Pat’s Day, trying to listen to Americans read the Irish Greats (Joyce, et. al.) over the din of tipsy loud voices, when, through a silly little chain of events not worth the typing, a younger-than-I gentleman had couriered to me a note that read, “Roses are Red/Violets are blue/if Irish stands for beauty/then St. Patrick’s day is you."

Well. That’s nice. Left to my own judgment I would have simply smiled at him and considered it as skeptically as I consider most other human male sexual behavior. However, through the younger and less ennui-tainted nearness of the Darling Duchess, the look on her face, her proclamation that these gestures are grand and that the man obviously had more substance than one’s usual barfly, I decided to tell him Thank You for the little ray of sunshine. Our Duchess thought that some of my utterances to her privately regarding the note’s author were slightly less grateful than they should be, and I felt appropriately bad about it. I was, again, skeptical of the intention, but decided to take it as a compliment that my middle age could receive graciously but without obligation, and leave to meet Metal Ox for the symphony at the appointed moment.

Sadly, for one always feel sad when innocence is betrayed, once I left The Royale and The Duchess got to talking with Damion and his male companion, things were altered. The Esteemed Poet not only began to hit on Our Lovely Duchess Poet, but proceeded therewith to inform her he’d actually written the note for her, not me.

To Her Grace’s credit she did not believe him.

Still, we are sad for her glimpse into the world in which one cannot take much of what one sees and hears from certain humans at face value. It was interesting to me, quite, though, to see this innocence in action. It was like seeing an extinct birdlet emerge from a lake. The surface breaks, a shape forms and rises, takes flight, its shape informs nothing in the patterns recognizable to one’s brain save maybe wings and feet, and then, “Oh my God, it’s a bird.” But what bird? Innocence?

To turn it, innocence doesn’t recognize that other Creature, the one emerging from the tree line on the shore. The one that wants the bird for dinner. Doesn’t care if it may be the last bird of its species alive. The creature, Wolf perhaps or something like him, is hungry, and that’s all he knows.

Maybe this is where the fairies went. Or why they hide. For over and over from the woods comes the howling, Trust me. Trust me. Why don’t you just trust me? and then the laughter or ridicule from the Creatures themselves when the bird does trust. Couldn’t you tell I/he wanted to eat you? Stupid. This is the twisted heart. This is the mix of this assertion and that assertion that only the strongest and clearest of women can survive -- intact.

For there is the more common reaction: women who shut down their hearts entirely and become Creatures themselves. It’s like becoming a mercenary to fight the mercenaries. It’s the opposite of what Gandhi taught. It’s fighting violence with violence, fire with fire. Identifying with the abusers. Becoming the abuser to avoid the pain of the abuse. So women, girls, close their hearts and proceed to behave as they are treated, loosely and callously, and lose their true selves in the process. This is not to say that all men are loose and callous. It is to say that they appear for whatever reason to be able to disconnect their hearts from their genitals, for the pursuit of sex is part of their hunting instinct, and few of them have risen out of their animal natures. It is not progress, then, for women to behave as men do in this; to have sex without heart. It is, rather, a slip backwards in evolution -- becoming animal because the animal (The Creature, Male) gets more power and money and privilege and general validation than The Bird. Where maleness is considered the standard and womanness The Other, those who are participating in this belief will emulate the standard and distance themselves from The Other. Duh. So, no, I don't think random or loveless sex is progress for women. No more than I think young girls giving blow jobs on school buses is progress. Both are just evidence humans can be callous and animal like, and that women will identify with and pander to the power group if need be. Both are sanctioned by participating men becuase, why not? it gets them more variety of sex partners, though for women it's a compromise of their true power and beauty. This is not to say I have a prescription for who should be having sex with whom! It is to say, simply, that it would be better for the human race where we all to behave with more heart instead of less, and become more full of heart in our sex and pursuit of sex. That we all my benefit for greater awareness of ourselves and our true motivations, and that we look deeply into the eyes of anyone we are considering meeting with in such a profound way, and recognizing who that human truly is before we enter their vulnerable selves -- even, and maybe even especially, when that person is pretending invulnerability. Imagine if it became the norm to see sexual interaction as a sacred trust between two people? If we really had to see one another, really. Rape and slavery and eventually, even war (for war is a similar dehumanizing animal passion gone out of control) would just die away. If persons were no longer objects. No longer targets for sex. Or shooting. Or bombs. Violence would just... Simply. Vanish. Rape and slavery and eventually, even war (for it is a similar animal passion gone out of control) would just die away. Just. Simply. Vanish.

I must have done this to some extent myself, right, or I would have shown innocence rather than skepticism at the note? Or not. Maybe it’s possible to have the knowledge, but not become the pattern. At any rate, that is my challenge. The breathing through that temptation toward becoming the inflicter in order to avoid being inflicted upon. Indeed, the breathing through these temptations to be ungenerous or angry. Or even flippant, which I may have been in the case of the poem.

And so we are sad for the little bird. And happy for it, too. It swooped away from The Creature. But is it the same little bird, now? Our prayer for it is that the next man it meets is the only man it ever needs, and that man is Trustworthy. For to live one’s life long with that fine bird alive in one’s heart may be a very great thing indeed, for one’s heart. Would that innocence were never broken. Seriously. Can there be that much kindness in a world of humans? To never break innocence? Is it way too innocent even to hope for such a thing?

As an offer to the Gods of Men, to appease my dear Men Friends and Lover, to prove that in spite of Creatures I still love all humankind equally, scroll down to the video link below to see a lovely man do something awesome on the fiddle.

To be, or not to be.

2007-03-12T15:08:00.001-05:00

I don’t know why I have such trouble following through on things.

Yes I do. Fear of failure.

I swore I would apply to the Wash U MSW program, even went to a meeting, then to a campus visit. The whole thing looks sublime. They have a part time evening program and tons of scholarship money. But the deadline has passed and I did not apply.

My writing career has gone no where because I almost never submit anything for publication. I have nearly as much unpublished work as Emily Dickinson had when she faded off into her father’s eastern garden. I’m not kidding. Unfortunately, it is not under my bed nor in my wardrobe; it does not sit romantically in boxes waiting for my non-existent sister to find and publish when I die. It lives on various hard drives and inaccessible blogs that no one will want to sort through when I go, even if they can find them.

This all really bums me out. It’s like I can’t sustain the energy it takes to get through the fear. I made the album when I was going out with Kevin, I think, in large part because he kept telling me, over and over, “I believe in your art, Margaret. I believe in your art.” It was like having a patron, even if he didn’t give me money. Imagine Beethoven without encouragement. Tchaikovsky. I don’t know, maybe that’s lame. They would have written their music, but would it have been heard? What if all of Van Gogh’s paintings had lived on his hard drive, which was thrown away when he died? No one bought crap from him while he was alive.

Excuses!

Anyway, all this is a lead in to my desire to muse about how several people over several years but more so lately have suggested to me that I should perhaps do some personal cheffing. I want to. This sounds fun, and hard, and scary. But less scary than endlessly sending poems around until one of 100 gets taken and eventually there are enough published for a book. But I’m afraid that once I put it out there I will jinx it, ‘cause what have I ever finished since my MFA thesis? I mean, besides stuff I do at work?

Oh, ya, and what’s all this stuff about “The Secret?” Is this more New Age positive thinking crap? Is this more blaming the poor for not envisioning their wealth, the ill for not envisioning their wholeness? Or is there something more to it? Is there anything I want to do that I really believe I can do? I hate being so frail in this, but the truth is I wish I had someone telling me often and often that they believed in my art. Is that just too pitiful? Should I try it? Or not? Argh….

Eensy Little Soufflé Update

2007-03-07T14:33:00.000-06:00

You can see it on the left, soufflé iteration number two. Clearly, it’s risen. But not in the way one wants. This is such a strange science. Why would the thing rise on the edges for Julia and in the center for me? What entices a soufflé to rise where one wants it to rise? This is even more difficult than love.

Still, it did rise. Here’s what I did differently:

1. I did not open a bottle of wine just before beating the egg whites.

2. I folded the whites into the yolk mixture, but just barely. In number one I was quite gentle, but I folded until the mixture was more or less all yellow. This time I left large patches of almost-white. This did not seem to affect the consistency of the soufflé when I served it (to me).

3. I cooked it a bit longer. The absence of wine benefited my sense of timing.

4. I did fold some cheese into this one. Number one got a sauce on the side because I forgot the cheese (again, wine).

I don’t know if the cheese helped this one rise, but without doubt the soufflé with the sauce was yummier!

So, even though we do have some rising here, we must wait for the proper sort of rising around the edges before we count a soufflé as one of The Three.

Kill the Princess*?

2007-03-05T13:26:00.000-06:00

Well, I’ve asked Metal Ox to do my finances for me. I am awful at it. Left on my own I am constantly in the hole. It makes no difference the relative amount of money I’m making, I just don’t seem to manage it.

Metal Ox is doing a wonderful job. He is a wizard. And, it’s not easy. It takes time and energy. And talking to me about money, which is a little bit like trying to talk to an engineer about poetry (which I’ve tried severally, and sad).

At any rate, last night we were driving home from my mom’s and discussing. I had found a pair of $325 Italian brown suede boots, with a nice heal, but comfortable for walking (come on!) on sale for $52, counting tax. It wasn’t that he thought I shouldn’t have bought them (during this, my financial recovery period), it was that he was trying to get through some idea about making choices between things. Like boots and sending my daughter abroad as a graduation present. Apparently I can’t afford both. Nor, it seems, can I afford even a monthly fine dining experience and sending Daughter abroad. I can’t? Wow. I know that he’s not fooling, but it’s just that, well, it’s hard to explain my feeling: a world wherein I can’t have even a monthly fabulous dinner out? Really? I mean, I gladly forewent such when my children were young and sacrifices were necessary in order to stay home with them and blah blah blah. That was fine. But now? I work all day! In clothes! I mean, not in pajamas, like I did when I was being an adjunct professor and mostly working at home. OK, yes, we’re just talking about the short term future during which I need to save up for Daughter’s trip. But still! As I tried to explain this feeling to him, the importance of the monthly fine dining, boots, and daughters, he finally sprang out, “You just have to kill That Princess!! That Princess has to die!”

“She can be trained!”

“No.” He was skeptical?

I thought of the shadow, the Jungian one. How Former Therapist had said to me many years ago the thing about having the shadow in for tea. How one doesn’t kill the shadow, because the shadow is part of one's self. One brings the shadow in and makes friends with it.

I don’t think of my princess self as shadow, though I suppose she has aspects of that, for her intention isn’t always to forward my well-being. She is a bit selfish, easily distracted by shiny objects -- or more accurately, usually, enticing aromas. She gets me into all sorts of trouble with her ugly sense of entitlement. She is, I suppose, I mean maybe she is? something of a saboteur.

But she’s improved herself over the years. Really. She recognizes the futility and masturbatory silliness of existential despair, and won’t let herself fall into it when persons don’t respond to her needs the way she’d like. She now realizes that persons are autonomous, and may be ignoring her because they’re busy, not because they wish her to suffer, or are indifferent to her suffering. This is a lot for a princess. Especially for That Princess.

Gads. How can I kill her off now? How would I do it? Guillotine? Chopping block? Poison? Anyway, I am opposed to capital punishment on ethical grounds. Any exception is corruption, and must be resisted. Integration is everything. And anyhow, I don’t know that M.O. would love me quite the same without her. I’m pretty sure I see responses of endearment at some of her, well, non-monetary manifestations. So, my task is to let her live, but she can't cause trouble. She has to do what Marie Antoinette never did. She has to be more like Elizabeth I. Or even II. She must be a Practical Princess. She must schedule state dinners only when the coffers can support them. And M.O.? He will come to trust her over time. Hmmm... maybe it's time for her to grow into a Queen?

So, Princess, Metal Ox; Metal Ox, Princess. A bow. A curtsy. Her hand. His kiss. Work it out.

*I am not referring to the Princess of the previous post (who will henceforth be refered to as Stormierbones, her blog name). I am referring to the princess that lives inside me.

Channelling Julia Child... or Not.

2007-02-28T16:03:00.000-06:00

Well, apparently I'm not the first crazy woman to decide to work my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking one recipe at a time. A "renegade foodie" named Julie Powell set out to cook through the book (both volumes? not sure yet) back in the early Aughts (that means the '00s, as in the '60s, for you uninitiated), calling her endeavor the Julia-Julia Project ("365 days. 536 recipes. One girl and a crappy outer borough kitchen.)." Click the title of this post to get to her site. I haven't really read it, yet. I ran across a link to it in an old Forbes mag article called "The Best Food Blogs" or something like that. My project would be far more poetic if my name were Julia, too, but alas, I must content myself with the name of Anne Bolyen's mother. Poor me. All the Dukes of Norfolk -- do they frown that I am looking so fondly toward their French brethren and sistren? Or do they smile at my deluded pretensions of bastard offshootedness? Either way, I continue.

My goal is to work my way through both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But without timetable. You see, I intend to master each recipe. Why move on if a dish has not been mastered? Isn't the title a command, after all? What do we think Mrs. Child meant when she (and her et. als.) named the book? Mastering. A sub-intention is to memorize certain key recipes, like the basic souffle. This seems quite practical to me.

Since I've been making bechamel sauce from a tender age (thank you, Mother), I started there and mastered it all at the same time. The book was helpful in straightening out some proportion questions I should have dealt with long ago -- I've always just eyeballed it. I like the way Julia's turns out, though, and am memorizing the proportions for the various thicknesses of the sauce. Such a useful sauce!

Bechamel is the base for souffle, and so to it I quickly proceeded. The Princess kindly consented to be my taster. Julia is very reassuring in the recipe -- she's all about the simplicity of the souffle. And it is such a lovely, simple list of ingredients and pure flavors.

I figured getting the freshest eggs possible, the nicest whole milk, freshest unsalted butter, and nuttiest Swiss cheese would insure an non-mediocre project, and I'm sure I was correct about that. Luckily I can get same-day-laid eggs at the Soulard Market, just three blocks from my house. Once that was done, it was just a matter of following the "simple" instructions.

All seemed well, I prepared everything a just in advance of The Princess's arrival except for the whipping and folding in of the eggs, just as Julia said I might. We sipped a nice champagne-like Cava while I beat the eggs, then tenderly folded them into the bechamel-yolk mixture. But the souffle didn't rise above the top of my dish, looking all dramatic and French. It just sat there, looking like the fluffy omelet from the Better Homes and Gardens '60s edition cookbook. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's delicious. But it's not a souffle.

The Princess and I eyed it, suspiciously. What the .... I had been so painstaking. What happened? She said, "I have the same problem with my biscuits." I do, too! What's up wid 'at? Is there something in a certain human chemistry that interacts with the magic raising ingredients in biscuits and souffles and makes them sit there and not get all high and billowesque as they should? My eggs were, I was sure, beaten (yes, from room temp) to the perfect stiffness. I was gentle and focused in my folding of them into the bechamel/yolk mixture. Why didn't it work? What magic touch must I develop? Really, could it be chemical?

If it's not, then it is process. Or, if it is chemical, is there a process adjustment that might cure the trouble?

And herein lies the difference between myself and Julia-Julia. I am going to keep working on The Original Julia's souffle recipe until it comes out perfectly, three times in a row. That's my pledge. No matter how long it takes. As I said to the Princess, "The ingredients are cheap." Eggs, milk, butter, cheese, flour, salt, white pepper. No truffle oil, French chocolate, or Italian lemons. Can I manage one souffle a week? Probably. Because I'll tell you what, the one that didn't rise completely (it did get halfway up the dish) was delicious. Not a huge sacrifice to keep on trying.

So, onward to the souffle kitchen. I'll let you know how it goes. And in the mean time, if anyone would like to share their souffle experience, please do! Have you overcome a non-rising deficit? Or did yours puff up like Nixon on the first try?

Ta-ta for now!

M