Getting To Know You Day at Create A Connection

Blogger updated me to New Blogger without my consent. This is hard for me. I don't like change. It took me a week to figure out my user name and password.

I've got nothin', so I borrow this, from http://www.bealivebelievebeyou.com/create/
(I've been messing around with the fucking hyperlink for about 30 minutes now, and I can't get it to work, so I'm giving up. The site is Create a Connection, and it's awesome. See . . . I told you I'm not good with change.)

1. What is your favorite word? Maryland (pronunced "Merr-land"). Or "booby-trap."

2. What is your least favorite word? Any word associated with the physical aspects of being a woman, including "period," "pregnant," and "pad" (mini or maxi). I am one of those people who go to the gynecologist with an arsenal of colloquialisms (i.e. "monthly visitor," "in the family way," and "female product"), so that I can avoid use of uncomfortable vocabulary.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Honesty. My favorite creations are based on in-your-face honesty and realism. I hate flowery crap that conveys nothing but superficial, hollow emotions.

4. What turns you off? liars and bullies

5. What is your favorite curse word? Fuck.

6. What sound or noise do you love? Gravel riccocheting off of wheel wells (takes me back to my school bus days).

7. What sound or noise do you hate? The hum of a furnace. I have the unrealistic (I hope) fear that the house will blow up.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Without a doubt, I would like to be a statistician. Or a hair stylist.

9. What profession would you not like to do? Masseuse.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Pleased to meetcha.

Putting It In Perspective, In This, My 200th Post (or is it 201?)

There are worst things in life than someone saying "no:"

outgrowing spoons shaped like airplanes; the last scoop of coffee during an ice storm; hangnails; coloring inside all of the lines; dog-hair tumbleweeds; a yeast infection; library fines for a book you returned, two months ago; dirty water filters; thongs; the commuter jet stalling--twice--on the runway; asparagus-barley soup (yecchhh); balsamic vinegar stains on a white tee-shirt; flat soda; a Miniature Pinscher eating your memorabilia; presentations; the click of a mouse's toenails across hardwood floor; dead authors; the end of the book; the end of the line; someone saying "yes;" and

not asking.

The Button Collector

Imagine being handed a jar full of words printed on little strips of paper. Imagine being told that your communication could only include those words, although you would be given the freedom to arrange them in any order that you choose.

You could slide "petty" next to "girl." You could make a word train out of "I," "need," "potatoes," and tack on a "please" for the caboose. You might even be able to formulate "I," "want," "to," "hibernate," if "hibernate" was one of the choices. But, if you didn't have "blanket" or a word that meant that, it would be sort of hard to ask for one. And if you didn't have "rickrack," you wouldn't be able to say, "I would like you to make me a shirt hemmed with rickrack."

Overall, the purview of communication would be pretty limited.

Right now, at this time in my life, I feel limited in what I allow myself to communicate. I feel like I've exhausted the options available from the jar, and that the jar was full of discount words, anyway. I want to say "I think that math investigations suck," but I murmur, "Ummmmhmmm" in response to the assistant principal extolling the program's virtues. I want to tell a girlfriend that I am tired of her constant off-color remarks, but I am silent, papercuts in my stomach from the words flickering, trying to get out.

This affects my writing. Instead, of putting all of my suppressed utterances into a story or an essay, I use it as proof that my ideas don't count, that I am not entitled to a voice. It is awful to feel that your own opinions have no value. I will even avoid leaving comments on blogs because I tell myself, Who cares what you think?

So, I am starting, today, to speak little truths. To be careful in the words that I select, and to arrange them in the purest way.

I might start out with "No, thank you" or "I disagree" but I will not limit myself to the words in the little jar that I have been using, over and over again, during the past year.

I want to say: I'm not comfortable with what you're saying. That's rude. It's not my responsibility. That's hypocritical. What's your point in telling me that I look tired? Here's my idea. That's ignorant. Who cares? I agree. I like that. This is what I want. I hate that. That's not right. Oh, you're amazing. Let's go. I'd rather eat seafood. I want a second helping. I'll pass on the sweet potato-pear bisque. Your poetry changes me. I will not tolerate a bully.

I'm tired of shortchanging my accomplishments because someone else is depressed about their own. I'm tired of pretending that my husband isn't exemplary, just because a friend's marriage isn't where she wants it to be. I'm tired of believing that I am not entitled to expectations/hopes/desires because I have a decent life.

I want to take risks with the use of language again, and I'm going to.

Time to recycle the word jar. Or, to start collecting buttons.

Sunday Scribblings: Yummy

Sometimes, my appetite for food seems insatiable--mountainous piles of mashed potatoes; fields of Italian bread, landscaped with bruschetta; oceans of broccoli cheese soup--but my appetite for the details of life can be just as relentless, though it waxes and wanes like lake effect snow.

Strawberry suds (courtesy Mr. Bubble) in the bath are delicious, as are Sally Hanson french manicures, (fake or genuine) diamonds, and cheapy high heeled shoes.

A potential blizzard--the possiblity of being snowed in with my husband, books, and a well-stocked refrigerator--is scrumptious, but so is the first snow of the season; diamond filled air sparkles in the streetlights.

Holding a grudge, for me, is delectable. Not simply maintaining anger, which destroys my own peace, but deciding that a relationship is over, and scratching someone off of the list.

Shower epiphanies are savory. Being rained clean both literally and menatally. Working through muddy thoughts until the path is clear. Finally realizing, like I did yesterday, that it is my refusal to speak up on some of the issues that I find the most important, that is polluting my well-being.

And finally, the yummiest of all: the taste of discovery. Finding a sentence in a book that is life-altering, recognizing that emotions can be managed through the writing of poem. Realizing that I can say "no," and doing that often, but also realizing that by saying "yes," I will not shatter into a thousand pieces.

Most palatable to me is the understanding that to-do lists and social recipes and the rooms in my mind can all be renovated on a schedule and at a price set by me.

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For a full course, mouthwatering meal, click here: Sunday Scribblngs.

Hi Sienna Sweater . . . Pleased to Meet You

 

My mom made this sweater for herself but she ended up not liking it, so guess what? I pilfered it, and now, it's mine. I like the color a lot and I think that the collar has a nice retro touch. Apparently, it's official name is "The Sienna Sweater," and it's from a pattern in Interweave Knits.

The temperature here is 30, but it feels like 7. I'm happy that "Sienna" and I will be spending the day together. 

Feeling Joyful

I love a list.
I love food.

A love list that focuses on food:

I love beer batter fish, rice noodles, cracked pepper medley, grape tomatoes, parmesan cheese, vegetarian sausage, crab balls, habanero peppers, peanut dressing, scrambled eggs, olive oil, Smiley Fries sprinkled with malt vinegar, barley, mashed potatoes, Kimchi , cream of asparagus soup, guacamole, sauteed broccoli, coconut donuts, No-Bakes, Spanish rice, chocolate chip pie, rosemary, spinach, spring rolls, vegetarian chili, penne arrabiata, reuben loaf without the corned beef, baked vegetables, twice baked potatoes, macaroni and cheese, black bean tacos, and risotto.

I can make most of those things, too (not the spices, or the sausage, or the donuts, or the spring rolls. . . okay, I can make some of that stuff). I love a cookbook, too--I can sit for hours, reading one like it's a novel. My current favorite is "How To Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman. By Everything, he means Everything. I've loved that book for over two years.

I'm hungry.

We're eating out tonight. I am picturing exquisite restaurant, dim lighting, cloth napkins, the subtle murmur of other patrons. Cocktails, appetizers, a light but filling dinner, followed by rich, decadent dessert.

Everyone else here is picturing Cracker Barrel.

Guess who will win?

Sunday Scribblings: Goodbyes

I have said goodbye to long hair, faithful cats, pounds, and credit card debt. I have said goodbye to people I've loved: some lost, like an earring; some cast away slowly, like continental drift. I have said permanent goodbyes to people who have died, running my fingertips across cold faces as though the voltage of my grief could warm them to back to life, and I have said permanent goodbyes to people I still see at Target, our carts on different paths in the same aisle. I have said goodbye to the ghosts of the babies that my children once were--they are "big boys," now, and with their need to sermonize, clad in SpongeBob underpants, about their observations/opinions, they certainly don't let anyone forget it.

I have said goodbye to my childhood dream of living, unmarried, on the Big Island of Hawaii, writing highly acclaimed and hugely successful novels in the company of a cat. I have said goodbye to the belief that by digging in the backyard, I might find stegosaurus bones or an underground village. I have said goodbye to being tended--with toast, Coca-Cola, Paula Danziger books, and a soft comforter--by my mother when I am sick. I have said goodbye to the ideas of true love, fairness, and loyalty, and the dream of belonging to a big family. I have said goodbye to a smooth complexion and uninterrupted sleep (is there a connection?), and very recently, I have said goodbye to the drug dealer who lived in the back apartment in the house next door.

But I have said hello to many things, too: a steady-rock partner who quietly asserts the most logical arguments and keeps me level; the clutch your chest, joyride that is motherhood; morning pages; the realization that old dreams can be replaced with new ones (we.will.have.a.beachhouse.where.i.will.write.stories.); a calm from Woody Allen movies, split pea and barley soup, black coffee, and dry biographies; bliss in the blooming family that my husband and I have tended to and cultivated; an appreciation for my childhood hometown and the university there, that I attended; a degree of assertiveness of which I had never believed I could be capable; a budget that has enabled me to save a tidy amount for my boys' education; a passion for Great Standards, pride in showing up; and the comfort from urging one handwritten word, then, another, to crawl like beetles, across a page.

And most importantly, I have said hello to the knowledge that goodbyes don't always have to painful or severing. That I can look back at the time that I had spent with a person or an idea and feel that, like books, they had been loaned to me, however briefly, and that, for a moment, it had been magical. Though I will sometimes be overwhelmed with the awareness of what once or could have been, I will be okay: I will love my memories, overflowing from my pockets, but there will be different things for me to love later on.
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To read other Sunday Scribblings, click here.