People for the Ethical Treatment of Werewolves

My favorite holiday's comin' 'round again. Not sure what makes it my favorite: the season definitely has a lot to do with it, the crisp air, the wind, the dry leaves crossing the road in front of you. There seems to be an air of possibility on autumn nights, as though the thin veil between our world and others could be lifted if only we knew the magic words. The trees seem to be in on the mystery, with heads bending, arms waving and rustling. These sounds could be words in another language; I find myself stopping and listening quite a bit as I walk the neighborhood in the evenings.

Halloween has always seemed to be the culminating point for all the fall's mysteries. Participating in it was my last-ditch effort to find meaning in the way the season made me feel. As I grew older, I discovered some of the meanings behind the mysteries. I stopped looking to Halloween for answers, but I can still enjoy it for what it is: the pagan rites of a new season, an ancient peoples' way of dealing with the coming death of winter and by extension, of themselves.

I suppose the morbid side of me appreciates all the ghoulies and demons that people decorate with. I have a Department 56 Halloween Village that I normally set up this time of year. Skeletons, witches, vampires, cemeteries and tombstones. It always amused me to design my dead village, to make it a little spookier every year. I won't get to play with it this year since it's in storage, but the curious one-year-old puppy might have destroyed it anyway.

I don't care much for how Halloween's celebrated in my neighborhood. It's too crowded and noisy, with kids driving golf carts and trucks pulling trailers piled high with hay bales and kids. You can't drive through the craziness; you're either stuck at home for the night or you abandon ship and spend the night away from home. It was a quieter tradition in my day. We enjoyed venturing down dark streets and sneaking through neighborhoods unseen (or at least imagining that we were unseen).

As an adult, I prefer a much quieter celebration. I like to spend Halloween alone, with only my own thoughts to intrude on the silence. This seems to me to be the best way to observe this holiday. And eating a piece of chocolate shaped like an eyeball wouldn't hurt either. The morbid. The silly. The serious. Some combination of these three elements makes Halloween the perfect holiday.

This Ain't No Tea Party, Princess

Dear Tarani,

Where are you? Life is a waiting room without you.

I have to give up things. I'm afraid that there will be nothing to fill the space once I do this. I just ate a candy that I found in my pocket. It was a fortuitous find.

I am angular, jagged. The artist is only learning. I am his first project. He has no vision, only brute strength. Detritus gathers beneath me. I cannot stoop to gather the pieces. I end up misshapen, yet I am placed on a pedestal. I cannot remove myself.

Things that happen to humans are not all that interesting.

Love,
the animated experiencer, aka the aggressive player

One Time You Died, and I Ended Up a Mexican

The weather's finally changing, and I love it. The wind, the cool air in the evening, the leaves slowly changing. This is my favorite time of the year: from now until bitter winter, I will be happily in my element. I just spent a small fortune filling my closet with great new fall clothes: an army-green & sand-striped minidress with a snuggly cowl neck, two 3/4 length-sleeved shirts that are as soft as butter, a short belted denim dress with rolled sleeves, an animal print bag with leather tassels, super-skinny jeans, a royal blue v-neck sweater, a long thin navy cardigan that drapes like silk, a camo-print miniskirt, super-soft gray (and black: couldn't get only one pair of these babies) jeans that I can actually get my butt into without the waist gapping open. And then I went to Charming Charlie's and loaded up on new baubles: necklaces, earrings, cuff bracelets, funky rings. I keep eyeing the new boots, but I have so many already; my minimalist decorating style sometimes reaches over into the closet areas of my life and chastises me for having so many shoes. Must weed footwear.

Must weed everything, actually. I have to learn how to travel lighter.

I Wear the Cheese; It Does Not Wear Me

A partial list of things I must remember:

1) the image of two well-dressed gentlemen swinging high into the air at the playground,
2) living inside walls can get cramped,
3) a cherry-print dress goes great with a bag full of weapons,
3 1/2) sitting still is its own journey,
4) the underside of the leaf is riddled with bugs,
and 5) a weasel is a weasel is a weasel.

And so life begins again. Things are cast aside as material possessions usually are, and the real reason for breathing steps forth. The poodle dreams of squeaking purple monkeys without suspecting that the next day holds anything different for her. The mermaid squirms in her plastic cocoon, writhing with every human touch. The walls grow farther and farther apart, the bugs grow quieter, and the air becomes lighter. There is a need for whispering, a lust for deleafing. Selves fall away, neatly, as clothes fall to the floor at bedtime. This is the time of the id, the season of rebirth, the growth of a new skin to replace the one previously shed. Boxes are packed; rooms are swept clean. And the self emerges.

On a Desert Island

I was once asked in a Facebook survey what three things I would take to a dessert island. I said: a fork, a spoon, and a bib. I don't think anyone got it. Probably only another English major would care about a little thing like spelling. And not wanting to be a pedant myself, I guess I should just let shit like that go, no matter how difficult that might be.

I guess the gist of a question like that is to explore what is most important to you, not to actually test your survival skills. And while dessert is an important part of my life, I'd like to find answers for a few more categories of things I wouldn't want to live without. So here goes.

What I Would Take to a Desert Island

DVD: Harold & Maude . This is my all-time favorite movie and I'm not even sure why. I think maybe because it's sense of life matches my own. And Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon are adorable together. And Vivian Pickles as Harold's mother is priceless! I can watch it over and over and never get bored.

CD: The Concert in Central Park by Simon & Garfunkel. This CD has too many great songs on it from The Boxer to America. Paul Simon is undoubtably one of the best songwriters of all time, right up there with Bob Dylan and John Lennon.

Book: A History of the Modern World by R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton. I chose this book only because it's what I'm currently reading and I just don't want to put it down despite the space it would take up in my luggage.

Drink: Hot tea with lemon and a few ginger-flavored biscuits to dip into it. I mean, what's tea (or coffee, for that matter) without biscuits for dunking?

Outfit: I think I'd like to take my shimmery silver minidress and long black boots (There might be an abandoned discotheque on the island, right?). Also, I'd like to have one or two of my vintage nightgowns with me. And a brown felt hat. You never know when you might feel like being peruked.

Toy: Kennedy Pearl, of course. I can't leave home without her.

Piece of Jewelry: Shin Cleo. For those of you who don't know, Shin Cleo is a diamond ring that used to belong to a great-aunt. I used to dream about it when I was a little girl; it always held for me some sort of mystical significance. Can't be on a desert isle (or a dessert isle) without it. Plus, it looks great with the shimmery minidress.

Art Supplies: Oil pastels and paper. And a camera or two (one digital and one pinhole). And maybe some charcoal pencils. And colored pencils. Oh, some gouache and watercolors, too. It's hard to limit yourself when it comes to creativity.

Food: Another hard category to limit yourself in. I think the most I can limit here is to choose a cuisine; if I had to eat one type of food for the rest of my life, I would choose Indian (and no, I'm not talking frybread here). Chicken makhani, poori bread... this is the stuff heaven is made of.

Miscellaneous: I obviously need notebooks to write in since writing is my raison d'etre. And mechanical pencils (an instrument I fell in love with when I was an engineering student). And my rollerskates. Oh, and my Flonase and Ortho Tri-Cyclen; the island can't be that deserted, can it? And, of course, the poodle (aka The Ghost Pony); every island needs its own whirling dervish.

Okay, it's a pretty long list. But I really did try to narrow it down to the most important things. It's really an interesting exercise to try to come up with what you wouldn't want to live without. It helps when you need to prioritize so that you can put the things you love first and not let them get squeezed out by other seemingly important things. I realize it's probably easier for me than for most people to work these things into my life (by virtue of not needing a j-o-b or having a k-i-d). But I think that even people with less leisure time than I have can find a way to make time for the good stuff.

I've known people who worked their entire lives, saving time and money for retirement so they can "really live" only to retire and become sick, or to find that by that age they're really too tired to do the things they love. Or even people who didn't work, but just postponed gratification until they couldn't remember what it was they loved. I know I'm just a slacker who couldn't delay gratification if my life depended on it, but it just seems crucial to me to be able to identify those things that make you happy. What would you take to a desert island, what would you save in a fire? Same question, really. And I doubt that it matters what your answer is, as long as you know it and live by it.

I feel as though I'm being way too serious here. I started out with a spelling lesson and lapsed into a spiel about "doing what you love." Scary.

Anyway, enough desert island blather. I'd rather contemplate this mysterious dessert isle. A fork, a spoon, and a bib. It's all I need.

Even People You Don't Like Die

I figure I'm contributing quite a bit to global warming these days. I've been leaving the back door from the kitchen open AND running the a/c all day long. I like it this way; it means I don't have to get up to let the dog out every fifteen minutes.

Time and energy.... energy and time. Waiting is something that I detest, yet there is really no way to avoid it. Wait and see. Just you wait. Waiting for Godot. Watching and waiting. Wait Watchers Anonymous (okay, a bit of poetic license on that one).

At most funerals, no one mentions what a bitch the old hag was, or what a sleezebag he was. Everything said is kind and decent even if it's the furthest thing from the truth. My cousin Gary wasn't a druggie; he was a great dad and a sweet guy. My grandmother wasn't the meanest woman on the face of the earth; she was funny and a good cook. Maybe some of the reason for this discrepancy is the different faces some put on in public. My mother was a complete bitch at home, but was so good at disguising it that everyone else thought she was an angel. I'm sure this public facade is a social necessity if you want to stay well-liked in your community. But it sure seems like a lot of work. I think I avoid insincerity due to laziness and a complete apathy concerning what other people think of me. I don't desire to be liked by people I don't know. I'm not even sure I desire to be liked among people I do know. There just isn't time or energy to worry about trivial things like that. In You Kill Me, Tea Leoni's character says, "Even people you don't like die." Why hide the fact? Not everyone is likeable.

Sexist Male Fantasies on Ice

Heraclitus said, "One cannot step twice in the same river." The river seems to be constant, just as the moment always seems the same. But the water is always moving; the water that touches your legs flows on until it reaches the ocean, or some other destination. Those same water molecules will never be in that location again, along with the organisms that it carries with it.

I dream of the passageway that opens up like a gift, like a small stream opening suddenly into an ocean...

Stuff found today:
1. I have to let the dog out of the trunk.
2. Boy, is it a white day. It must be the whitest day yet.
3. He made her bark.
4. Ravi Shankar is tuning up somewhere.
5. Oh, waiter, my date is ice cold.
6. A. That's what she'd lke to do to him. B. Stir his olive?
7. We have a radioactive something-or-other.

I'm more suspicious than I used to be. Monsters can disguise themselves as postal carriers; postal carriers can disguise themselves as competent persons.

"Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to save it." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Dear Gershom Gillespie,
I realize you are dead. But if you could give me some idea of the workings of the universe in general, and of time in particular, I would forever be in your debt.
Love,
Your dead Uncle Eli

Dreams are nocturnal emissions, much like semen, but easier to clean up in the morning.

Off With Their 'Eads!

Okay, I've just fired the entire committee, every sorry last one of 'em. It started when I thought we were out of cinnamon graham crackers (Who lets a person run out of cinnamon graham crackers?) and escalated into choruses of "That wasn't part of my job description" and "Nobody told me to buy cinnamon graham crackers." Anyway, it feels good to be alone again. As it turns out, there was a box of cinnamon graham crackers hiding behind the sweet potatoes, but that's water under the bridge now, right?

Last night, I dreamed that I sold my beloved BMW (Birdy) and bought an unidentified (and evidently unseen) sports car. I had regrets almost immediately and asked if I could change my mind. Two ladies had very quickly typed up the paperwork and weren't to be deterred by my change of heart. "Do you want to get me fired?," the grizzlier one asked me. "No," I stammered, thinking that she looked far too old to have a job anyway. At the end, I decided that I would have a lawyer (Get ready, Jimmy!) look it over and see if the deal was legal. When I woke up, I was incredibly thankful that I hadn't actually bargained my car away. I now plan to drive that car until it falls apart.

For those of you in the know, the sale is now going to be at the shop in Marietta (evidently, when I decided otherwise, I had had one too many mojitos). For those of you not in the know, that last sentence is a figment of your imagination.

On a more personal note (and because I'm too lazy to send out multiple emails):

Dear Aunt Bobbie,
Please stop calling regarding dog money and your dwindling stock of Depends. We have only agreed to see you once a month, and currently, it is my brother's turn.

Dear Marc,
Will you ever return from Raleigh so that I can give you your Christmas present?

Dear Bill,
Please see the previous note to Aunt Bobbie.

Dear Grace,
Yes, you may come visit any time you please.

and, finally,
Dear Paul,
How does Longhorn sound?

Okay, enough typing for one morning. I have another busy day in the world of commerce ahead of me (and many changes to make due to the previously mentioned Mojito-induced decision).

Government Employees, Books, and Bamboo

No, there's not really a connection between government employees, books, and bamboo except that those are some of the things I've been concerning myself with lately. My last encounter with a government employee was earlier today at the post office. I'm pretty sure I aged visibly while watching her put together my passport renewal application. It took a full four minutes for her to get the fan situated as she liked it before she even sat down. It then took her another couple of minutes to find the staple remover (which was sitting on the desk in front of her). She also mumbled to herself the entire time about personal things that I couldn't have known, and/or cared about, laughing at her own private jokes at regular intervals.

The bamboo I've been concerned with, on the other hand, has been a good thing: a new floor in the front study. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. This matches the living room, dining room, back study, and halls that I had done earlier in the year. If the flooring store hadn't gone out of business, I think I would have liked to do the master suite in bamboo as well. Thanks, Paul, at Stone Horse Tile, for installing all of the floors for me.


As far as books go, I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately. I read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, a novel about a girl who attends a prestigious prep school in New England. It wasn't what I thought it would be, but the main character kept my attention throughout. I started reading Paul Toth's novel Finale, but I've put it down for the moment. I'm not sure that I care enough about his main character to finish the book. I'm currently re-reading Atlas Shrugged and loving it (again). It's amazing how relevant it is to what's going on these days in the political arena. I also have quite a stack of books waiting to be read, both fiction and non-fiction. I view all this reading activity as a precursor to writing. I've set myself a deadline for getting back on track with my novel; I've dallied enough.

Saint Patrick's Day: It's not just for the Irish anymore

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all the Irish laddies and lassies! I have to admit that I've done very little to celebrate this year. I have a corned beef in the fridge which will have to go into the crock pot tomorrow morning as I won't have time to cook it tonight. Got up late this morning; no time to fool with a beef brisket and a bunch of potatoes. My car's in the shop (just regular maintenance stuff, but it sure seems to be taking a long time). Anway, given all the constraints, I guess I did what I could to honor St. Paddy this year.

I think sometimes about the labels we give ourselves (as well as the ones given us by others). I guess I think of myself as Irish. My father's family was Irish and Cherokee; my mother's was German and English. Why do I think of myself as Irish more so than the other nationalities? Genetically speaking, I'm probably more German than anything. But I can't imagine myself telling anyone that I'm German.

As far as religion goes, I can't consider myself Christian since I was never baptised or otherwise indoctrinated in that religion. My father was Protestant; my mother was baptized into the Methodist church at the age of 40 (her family's background was Methodist and Jewish, and for whatever reason, she was never indoctrinated as a child either). I suppose, technically, that I am Muslim, having been "converted" in Jerusalem in 1996 (it made getting married to a Palestinian much simpler). Converted from what, though, since I didn't have any religious allegiance to start with? And still don't.

Okay, I guess I'm female, although I've had some difficulty identifying with that segment of the population. I was a Daddy's girl, spending most of my spare time following him around and "helping" him in the gardens or fixing mowers, tractors, and the souped-up go-carts that he built for me. I never understood, or quite honestly liked, my mother. She was a mystery; a bomb whose fuse you never knew was lit until she went off. I've never had any inclination to become a mother myself; it seemed like a punishment to me, spending your days (and nights) tied to another being, serving their every need instead of your own. I seriously doubt that most women do it as a "labour of love" or some self-righteous notion like that, but they do it so that they don't feel lonely, so the hours of their lives are filled and scripted for them.

I wouldn't voluntarily call myself a "sister," although I do have a brother who's six years older than I. I guess the age difference between us was too great; I felt like an only child much of the time.

I would classify myself politically as a Libertarian. I no longer belong to the Libertarian Party, although I once did. I normally vote for Republicans, but I would not apply that label to myself and I would never consent to being called a Conservative.

Other labels I would give myself might include: poet, writer, English major, poodle owner, American, OCD sufferer. Labels I've been given by others include: bookworm, egghead, anorexic, snob, slacker, wife, ex-wife, and girlfriend. I guess there are a few of those I didn't mind being called. I have to wonder, though, how this labeling process affects how we see ourselves and others. I think it's probably human nature to ascribe labels to things as we categorize the stimuli we perceive. I imagine this is a good thing. Without it, we'd be pretty inefficient (not to mention, confused). But maybe the issue comes when we stubbornly cling to a "title" of ours, even when it's no longer useful or even valid. Am I still a Daddy's girl, even though my father died a couple of years ago? Am I a Libertarian even when I vote for the Republican candidate? Is it meaningful that I continue to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day each year (however pathetic those attempts may be), even though most of my genetic material hails from Germany? Well, okay, everybody's Irish on Saint Patrick's Day; I think that's a rule or something. But I have to say I've never celebrated a German holiday or even a British holiday (that could be ugly considering the food) and probably never will.

I guess I've defined myself over the years with a conglomeration of labels that I liked or at least became accustomed to. I still think that I have the ability to recreate myself (and the right, too, damnit). Maybe I even have the duty to do this in the interest of being honest with myself. Okay, I'm off to try on some new labels to see what fits; I'll be taking suggestions as well, so if you think I have a blind spot, feel free to open my eyes with some labels of your own.

Joining the Others

I'm finally joining the rest of the world in being a proud iPhone owner. I can't believe I resisted for so long, but the new iPhone 3G S finally sucked me in. Sunny's picture above is the first photo taken with it; I have to say I'm happy with the resolution. Now I won't have to carry the bulky camera around in my purse anymore.

I've already downloaded a bunch of cool apps. For example CardStar lets you save all your rewards cards in the phone, so you don't have to carry them in your wallet. Mint.com keeps all your banking info in one place. RedLaser lets you scan barcodes and compare prices. MusicID identifies songs for you that you might hear on the radio or on a commercial, which has already proved useful. Anyway, I guess I've finally joined the club. Maybe now my brother will stop ranting about the powers of the iPhone. And he doesn't even have the new version (my turn to rant?).

Poodle Attack

Camille

My newest acquired head is Camille (named after Camille Claudel, Rodin's lover, because of the movie I was watching the day I found her). She was a thrift store find, which surprised me because they usually don't sell mannequins and their parts because they can use them in the store. But, I got lucky, and now Camiile rocks the bicentennial scarf from atop the jewelry armoire.

I've tried to figure out my fascination with heads, faces. I have several "ugly jugs", otherwise known as face jugs, that were made by folk artists. Nearly all of the artwork hanging on my walls includes a head or face in them, either human, animal, or otherwise. The assemblage art robots, the "Mona Lister" painting that the fifth-grader did, the stills of Arlo Guthrie from "Alice's Restaurant," the Matt Sesow painting (try imagining a Matt Sesow painting without a face in it).

Obviously there's something about the eyes that makes a face meaningful. I can picture a face without everything but eyes. Noses are not necessarily required, nor mouths. But the eyes must be there. Why do I like looking at eyes that are not my own? I'm sure it's not just me that feels this way; even babies like to look at faces above everything else. I wonder if other animals are similar in this; I wonder if my poodle would like her stuffed weasel as much if it had no face, no eyes.

Philosophically speaking, some believe that life begins when we are observed by the "other." Would we exist if there were no eyes to see us? What is love except being "seen" by someone else?

Didn't realize a plastic head would cause me to delve into the essence of love. Guess I should just say I think my new head, Camille, is funny and let it go at that.

Is Winter Over Yet?

Let's see: I'm tired of chapped lips, icy roads, and electric blankets. Well, actually, the electric blanket's not that bad. Kind of snuggly. And I do get to make fires in the fireplace (newly tiled by StoneHorse Tile). But my toes and fingers are over the cold weather already, and the poodle could be enjoying the dog park (making buddies, marking new territory, etc.) if it were just a little warmer. The odd thing about Atlanta weather is that in February you can be lying out in the sun in your bikini, and then in March be slipping on the ice all over again. Very unpredictable.

At the moment, I have this great desire to bake: bread, cookies, apples with butter and cinnamon. Unfortunately, as my kitchen is in the middle of a complete re-do, I have no oven to bake in. Once my new double oven is installed, I guess I can bake to my heart's content, but for right now, it's a dream deferred. I've been temporarily relegated to microwaving and eating out. So, basically, that translates into a life of oatmeal and sushi. Of course, I can still whip up some mean hummus, but who wants to live off garbanzo beans? And what's hummus without fresh flatbread coming out of the oven?

Anyway, here's hoping that my kitchen is finished soon (Paul, I hope you're reading this.). I also kinda hope winter's finished soon, too, although in Atlanta that can only mean summer's waiting to take its place. And I still haven't figured out which is worse: heat, humidity, & mosquitoes; or cold fingers & toes. It's really kinduva toss-up.

A Celebration