« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
November 30, 2005
The Well Dressed Man with a Beard
After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
the aureole above the humming house . . .
It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.
WALLACE STEVENS
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2005
if only in my dreams
November has not ended yet and the houses on my street have their Christmas trees and outside decorations up. The music, lights and decorations have the opposite effect on me than they are meant to: they make Christmas seem very far away, a tiny speck of a holiday, far off in the twinkling distance. My neighbors on the corner were busy tonight putting up lights in the glow of the blue spotlight on their lawn. Perhaps they think this makes their house look like it is lit by the Star of Bethlehem, but I think it makes their house look haunted and I'm glad it is not my house.
I'm sleepy, which is probably because when I got home tonight I ate the last pieces of apple pie and pecan pie for dinner. When I go upstairs to fold clothes I can hear that the radio in Herself's room is tuned to Wash FM--all Christmas music, all the time, right up to December 25. Alvin and the Chipmunks singing "Christmas Don't Be Late." Karen Carpenter singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas." Mannheim Steamroller mangling some hapless tune--everything they play sounds less like a Christmas song and more like a demented march.
"Spike!" says Herself sternly from her bedroom. "You bit my hair!" She carries him out to the hall and boots him down the stairs. He immediately sits down and starts to groom his ruffled fur, then stops to stare intently down at the front door, which is opening to admit Moo and Jack, home from their walk. It is nine o'clock at night and it is 60 degrees out and Moo has shorts on. But then, Moo usually has shorts on no matter what the weather. He sighs when he hears the radio. "Why does she like Christmas music so much?" Moo hates Christmas music. "It's just the same old songs all the time. Nobody writes any new songs so they just play the same ones over and over." Comfort and joy, I guess not.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2005
every day, in every way
As it turned out, the snow didn't last and it was warmer and sunnier than I expected it to be, and windy. As it turned out, there were 26 people here for Thanksgiving dinner. As it turned out, there was more than enough food and it was all ready at the same time and all of it was delicious although the turkey was eaten down to the bones before I got to have some, but I kept the bones to make soup stock. As it turned out, everybody had a place to sit for dinner and the only person who spilled anything was me. As it turned out, I bought too much wine because people seemed to prefer The Husband's martinis. As it turned out, everybody talked and laughed and seemed to like each other, mostly, and had a good time.
Every once in a while I'd stand in another room and listen to people talking and laughing and having a good time. I've decided that it is against my nature to allow myself the same reprieve from the things that barb my mind and mood every day, but it sure is nice that other people can manage it.
As it turned out, the friends who so kindly brought food and drink and cutlery and china took it all back with them when they left so I didn't have to store it or clean it. As it turned out, everybody stayed sober, martinis or no, including me, though I drank just enough to skim above the condescending looks from the 20-something's, who think they will never be what I am: a middle-aged woman with a problematic marriage and children, living in the suburbs of a city and making polite conversation at a party with condescending 20-something's.
As it turned out, the house was quiet by 9:00 and clean by 10:30. As it turned out, my friend T. left her half-gallon bottle of Bailey's here and the bottle of champagne I bought as a birthday present for myself is still unopened. As it turned out, Speedy the turtle was just playing, not dead. As it turned out, when The Other One's mother called The Husband's phone and I answered it, I didn't say "Can I take a message? This is his wife." As it turned out, I was relieved for The Husband to go because it meant I could stop wanting him to stay.
As it turned out, these are the things I am thankful for.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2005
and through the woods
It's getting dark and I get in the car and head out to fetch Herself, who is at a friend's house. On my way up the hill I see a clump of teenagers on their way down the hill. They are, to a man, dressed in black. I stop the car even though I don't recognize anybody, and I roll down the window. "Hi Mam," says Moo. Everyone clumps around the car and pokes arms in through the window and moans weirdly. The walking dead? "We're zombies," says a voice in the back.
"Mom," says Moo, "you still have your apron on." I look down at myself. So I do. I have just finished baking a cheesecake. I expect I will be wearing the apron pretty much nonstop for the next 24 hours or so.
When I get to the friend's house all the little girls are running around in the front yard screaming "It's snowing! It's snowing!" And yes, it has started to snow--tiny flurries, wet dots on the car windshield. Herself smells like cold when she opens the door. "Mom," she says to me, "you still have your apron on."
Driving down the hill toward home I look for the group of zombies, but the road is empty. The snow is heavier now, actual snow now, flying at the windshield like it has a purpose. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2005
falling leaves, the sycamores
It's cold out, and dark, and very windy. The thermometer says that it's 48 degrees but with the wind it seems much colder, and the day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The interesting thing (interesting to me) about this year versus last year is that last year at this time every day was a mountain to climb, quicksand to sink into, one awful revelation after another, like distorted mirrors in a fun house; and this year the days slip by like water on a teflon pan. Here they are, there they go. I can hardly believe it's not still August. Last Tuesday I walked to DuPont Circle at lunch and it was 75 degrees. I guess the cold weather is arriving for sure. It's getting dark when I get home from work and I turn on the porch light in the morning when I leave for the city, and Moo turns it off.
Herself and Moo are planning their Christmas lists. Herself has just three items on hers: slippers, a jar of olives, an iPod "shuffler." Moo wants software. When they ask me what I would like for Christmas I tell them I want just one day where they get along from start to finish. The gleam in their eyes tells me how happy they are that my present won't cost them any money.
But no Christmas talk yet--we still have the turkey to get through. There will be twenty-two people here for dinner, day after tomorrow. I have no fucking idea where I will put them; I have baking to do; the more wine I buy the less likely it seems that there will be enough; and when I get home from every trip to the grocery store I've forgotten to buy something crucial. Stores are mobbed with shoppers, all with tired, slightly crazed looks on their faces. Standing in line at check-out, carts piled high, talking on cell phones. "I'm feeding everybody at four," I hear one woman say emphatically. "What time are we eating, Mom?" asks Herself. Beats me.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2005
may the Lord make us truly thankful
I am driving The Husband to the airport on Sunday afternoon, on my way north up 395 and casting a skeptical eye toward the traffic going south, trying to predict how long it will take me to get home. The Husband says "I think The Other One was waiting to be invited to Thanksgiving dinner."
I'm sure I give an immediate response though I don't remember exactly what it is, at this point--probably something like a double-take and "Huh?"
Wait a minute; isn't Thanksgiving about ... well ... giving thanks? Exactly what about this person am I thankful for? A clean AIDS test? What about my relationship with The Other One over the past year gave any indication that an invitation to sit at a holiday table with my children and me would be forthcoming?
An image comes to my mind: The Other One sitting sadly alone, staring at a little table in the corner of the living room, on which resides an old-fashioned, black, rotary phone that is not ringing. (Not to interrupt but the other night Herself and I watched a movie where a character had to make a call on a phone like this and Herself said to me, perplexed, "How do you use those?") I find this vision strangely satisfying, even more satisfying than the image that immediately follows it, in which I lunge across the table with a meat fork and stab The Other One through the heart.
But to be honest, this conversation is not the first mention of this particular potential additional Thanksgiving dinner guest. A couple of the invitees and friends of mine have wondered out loud to me, casually, whether since The Husband will be here The Other One will be, as well. And just as casually back I have responded "No."
When I am alone I wonder why nobody but me thinks this would be A Big Deal. Is it that everybody but me has managed to put this situation into a perspective that I haven't been able to? Has everybody but me moved on to a new frame of reference, one in which The Husband and The Other One are the accepted couple now and I am the person in the photos who smiles across the table at an empty place? And if this is true, if despite my heart's denial that it could be true it must be true, what does it cost me to give in? Am I so small, so bitter that I could stubbornly refuse to do the one thing that would help everybody, let us off this fish hook where we've all dangled for a year: take a deep breath and give in?
I think about Thanksgiving dinner, I think about what it means, I think about all the people who will fill my house, I think about The Husband, I think about gratitude. And I just can't do it.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
PSA from the CDC
The Center for Disease Control has released a list of symptoms of avian flu. If you experience any of the following, please seek medical treatment immediately:
1. High fever
2. Congestion
3. Nausea
4. Fatigue
5. Aching joints
6. An irresistible urge to crap on someone's windshield.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2005
Lost
Spike is missing. Herself is in a panic. Naturally he must be lost for good, or dead. When I get home from the gym she makes me look for him. He's not in Moo's room, not in the basement, not in the laundry room, not in his bed. He's not in the TV room, not in the bathroom, not in the dining room. I turn on the outside lights and look on the decks. No Spike.
I pour a glass of wine, eat some cheese and black olive bread that I bought at Safeway and which is pretty bad. The cheese takes like sick. I throw it out but nervous, distracted, and hungry, not before I've eaten several pieces. I come back downstairs and ask "When was the last time you saw him?" "A couple of hours ago." Could he have gotten out the front door somehow? "Jack!" says Moo, "Find Spike!" Jack obligingly follows him from room to room. It's a good game.
But no cat. Earlier in the day he and I played fetch with a water bottle cap. Moo throws a cap; it bounces off the wall and lies on the rug. All over the house there are bottle caps on the floor. Spike does not make an appearance. Moo whistles for him, goes upstairs, walking from room to room.
Herself finds the box of school papers that I've saved since she was in kindergarten and sits on the floor going through them. Let Moo look for the cat. "Remember this, Mom?" she says. "Remember this? I drew this. Remember this? I wrote this. Look at this picture of me! Wasn't I cute?" Uh huh. But where is Spike? For a few minutes we sit and wait. Where is Moo, for that matter? I think about those movies where people disappear from a group, one by one. I think about sending Herself upstairs.
Moo comes downstairs. "I found him!" he says smugly. Where was he? "He was in your closet, Mom," he says, "rolling around in your clothes and purring. The light was on in there. Didn't you look?" Well ... no. I thought Herself had looked in the closet; that's what she said anyway. "Didn't you look in the closet?" I ask her. She shrugs, not very interested. Whatever.
Spike saunters in, relaxed after his interlude with my sweaters. Balance is restored. Herself crushes him to her breast. His meow sounds strangled.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005
nobody gets it like they want it
It's the end of the day and I'm curled up in an armchair downstairs with my bottle of water and the New Yorker, talking on the phone to The Husband and watching, kind of, The OC. He is urging me to let Herself, who has been sent to her room for the evening, downstairs to watch The OC with me and I am declining his offer. My knees ache, my head feels like it has been replaced with a mushroom--something gray and spongy and brittle--and my jaw hurts at the hinges. I have a scratchy throat and now instead of one swollen and painful gland in my neck I have two, and my earache persists. In short, I am not in a very good place.
I don't want to be sick, or even getting sick. I have a date Friday night that I cannot get out of even if I want to, since tickets have been bought and reservations made. And I don't want to get out of it. I want to go, and I want to be funny and girly; I want to feel pretty and have a good time and not think about my aching head. I tell The Husband "I have something to do tomorrow night" and he knows what it is, and I know that he knows. And after I hang up the phone I watch TV for a while and after a time I know I'm sad. I think Why doesn't he stop me? Why is he letting me do this? Why doesn't he care enough to say don't, stop, don't. Don't; you're mine.
I go upstairs and take three advil and some Cipro and go to bed. Toward the end of the night I dream:
The Husband has been here for a visit and he is about to leave and I suddenly can't stand it--can't stand the thought of him going--and remembering that I promised myself and him that I wouldn't do this, I throw myself at him, fling myself on him like a child, or a monkey, and I say "Come home, come home, come home. Don't go. Aren't you ever going to come back?" and he says, as distant and benign as the moon, "No, I'm not." And he gets in his car and starts to drive away. I call him on my cell phone and suddenly I am in a foreign country, someplace Asian, and I have only one shoe on and the other is in my car, which is being driven away from me. My purse is in the car. "Stop!" I cry and give chase, but it is too late.
I wake myself up sobbing, but there aren't any tears. The Cipro has reduced the swelling in my neck and my head doesn't hurt as much, but my throat is hot and scratchy. I lie in bed a long time after I should get up.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2005
here it comes, a better version of me
So things started to slow down on my pc last week and I thought "uh oh." Which apparently was the right thing to think because my computer had caught a virus called Klez, which over the course of a few days effectively destroyed everything on my C: drive and a goodly portion of my D: drive as well. I spent from Friday night to Sunday night deleting, defragging, despairing ... oh, it was so sad. The Husband rode in on his white keyboard and helped me out, but we still couldn't save anything on C: and last night when I downloaded transactions in Quicken, it downloaded everything from the past year and showed me twenty-one thousand dollars in the red. So I guess Quicken is hosed, too.
On the bright side, I have this big ol' painful swollen gland in my neck, an earache, and every time I stand upright my ears plug up.
"Can I call The Other One and say thank you for burning the cd for me?" says Herself to me this afternoon, her words coming like darts out of nowhere and catching me below the ribs and just above my pubic bone. I thought her father burned the cd for her; that's what he told me. She watches me, waiting to see what I'll do. "No," I say, "why don't you wait until you can say thank you in person." She has the phone number on a piece of paper; she didn't need to ask me if she could call. And the number's in our phone's contact list--not that she'd be able to find it, since it's filed under c.s.--she just wanted to see what would happen when she said it. Like an experiment: let's see how Mommy takes ... this.
She'll be spending Friday night with them; I need to start girding my loins now for when she comes home on Saturday. There's nothing that beats hearing how great the other woman is for a fingernails-on-blackboard experience.
To compensate for marching right downstairs after this conversation, calling The Husband and behaving like an ass to him, I go to the gym and have a really good workout and then take Herself and Moo to McDonald's, where we all get food that is really bad for us. It's delicious.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2005
el dia de los muertos
Come into my death, my death is always ready for you.
Should anyone chase you, stand behind my death.
In death, emptiness and omnipotence are one.
Love's death is at once infinite, everlasting.
In death, battleship and fortress become dust.
In death, the strong and the weak are companions.
Then your pursuer won't catch you.
Come, please come. It's time.
Manhae, Come
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2005
are they friendly spirits?
Last night was perfect for trick-or-treating: not too cold, no moon but lots of stars, and our neighborhood was completely decked out--my God, it was like Christmas with all the lights, except the lights were orange and purple instead of the tasteful white ones everybody around here uses at Christmas. Every house had a carved, glowing pumpkin on the porch or in the yard and one pumpkin smiled down from a crook in a tree. One house rigged the doorbell so that it screamed when you pushed it. One house had Halloween luminarias. One rigged up a giant spider wrapped in some gauzy stuff like a web.
I had scared Moo and Herself by telling them I didn't buy any candy to give out. "I think I'll give people crackers," I told them. "Saltines, Ritz--or maybe if I want to get fancy, Goldfish." This alarmed Herself especially, since she was afraid that not getting the desired sweet might push some trick-or-treater over the edge and the next thing you know ... Michael Myers is at our door.
But they were relieved to see that yes, I had bought candy, and lots of it. And I was stunned to notice, once I opened the bags, just how tiny candy bars have gotten. I mean, really; it's ridiculous. A whole bunch of wrapper, one bite of chocolate. I expect that eventually there won't even be any candy there once you open the wrapper; you'll just get, very faintly, a hint--the merest whiff--of chocolate, and that will have to do. Since we're all too fat, anyway, maybe this could happen sooner than later in an effort to curb the obesity problem.
But anyway. All the excitement, the costumes, the fake nails that kept falling off, the store-bought blood, the photos, the bustle out the door into the dark ... and that was that. Because although it was a perfect night and our neighborhood was dressed in its spooky best, there didn't seem to be any kids out in it but mine. "It was weird, Mom," said Herself when she got home two hours later, dragging her loot behind her. "Like there was nobody else trick-or-treating but us."
She was right; where had everybody gone? The candy in the bowl was mostly untouched. In the morning light, everything looked normal. No wrappers on the ground, no egged houses, no toilet-papered trees, all pumpkins intact and grinning. Like Halloween never happened.
On the way to the bus stop Herself waved like mad and hollered at a flock of birds, "Have a good migration!" She said to me, "So who were you for Halloween?" "I wasn't anybody else," I said. "I was just my regular old, cranky self." "You're not cranky," she retorted, "you're just bitter."
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)