Egypt: Neotonous

Empty script,

an empty score

the words are licked

till there can’t be more.

Transcendent tasks

constants depart

trials unmask,

breath beats, battles heart.

-

Singing, Dancing, Cross-dressing...

 Big A says:

Who knew cross-dressing was going to be the theme of this weekend.

(We chased Friday’s Twelfth Night with Beethoven’s Fidelio on Sunday.)

Me: (And yes, everything is about me, and I’ve asked some version of this question before. But I think about this a lot as a non U.S. citizen. Especially these days.)

If I were a political prisoner, you'd dress up as a woman to come rescue me, right?

 

Big A: (Knows I know his answer.)

Yes. But let’s make sure you don’t break the law, don’t get framed, and that we use our every penny to hire the best lawyer so you don’t have to go to prison in the first place. 

 

(Fidelio was powerful—dark and bleak, with none of the frilly, frivolousness I usually love about Western opera at all. The level of iconoclastic authority-questioning was particularly surprising—and extra brave given that Beethoven must have depended on royal patronage.)

_

Friday Frenzy

Two departmental meetings at 12:30 and 3:30 interleavened with classes at 12:00 and 2:00. After the meetings end at 5:00, I race home to bake some bean+spinach+chipotle+cheese pastries for the department potluck at 6:00.

Actually manage to get there at 6:30. Realize the cheese was a mistake because vegan colleagues cannot eat them now. By 7:00 the pastries are gone anyway. Stay till 7:30 to talk to various people I don’t get to talk to very much outside of e-mail. Drive the half mile home.

Big A and I have tickets to go see Twelfth Night by Human Race Theater, thanks to a friend. It starts at 8:00. I had promised to be home by 7:00. Big A is mad at me. On the half-hour ride over, it’s very silent in the car. Big A won’t talk because he’s mad. I’m kind of grateful for a silent space.

We get there ten minutes late (parking!) and get seated in the seats of shame (late arrival seats). At some point Big A puts his arm around me because I’m laughing helplessly (there were a lot of extraneous fart jokes). He also smiles at me (yay!). I’m vaguely aware that the rest of our party is making plans, but we split to wind up at our dive-y haunt.

One order of fiery almonds and jo-jo potatoes later, it’s as if happiness balloons around us and the cover band and the crowd just melt away. Actually, that would have been because of the hot toddy. It was good anyway.

_

Princess Bride (Two words I usually abhor)

[This snippet happened a few days ago and proves that I'm horrible. And that although our marriage bed is tiny, just one step up from a the kind they used to give monks, our married home occupies way more space than is necessary--or responsible.]

Anyway. After a big fight where I claimed not to like him at all.

Big A: I know you like me. A lot. [This is the single most irritating thing I've probably heard.]
Don't be mad at me. Can I go take a nap now?

Me: No. I don't want to see you in bed.

Big A: Ok. I'll go live in the basement.

Me: What? No! 

[Pause]

Me: That's where the exercise stuff is. You go live in the play room.

_

A Tight Tuesday

After a relaxing morning of back-to-back classes from 9-noon, my afternoon consisted of a women's studies meeting until 3:55, then a CASA meeting at the Children's Services two towns over at 4:00. Throw in a few kickers e.g. car needs gas, we're out of milk, Baby A needs to be picked up by 5:00, and Li'l A is hanging out at the public library after school but he needs to be picked up at 5:00, and dinner needs to start at 5:00 because it takes my kids forever to eat and they have a playdate starting at 6:00 and another playdate staggered at 6:30.

I got gas and a couple of small servings of milk (Non organic. Yikes.) at the gas station and tossed the milk into the trunk because in this weather that's at least as good as a cooler (right?), left the awesome women's studies students with discussion points at 3:40 (and the responsibility of signing out of my e-mail account--I must really trust them!), drove the 30 mins to the CASA meeting, arriving at 4:10, but not late because--well--it was Children's Services. After discussing the case plan for the CASA kids in question (who it turned out the new caseworker hadn't even met yet) for 30 minutes, segued with the brilliant, fake-smile-y: "speaking of kids, I have to pick up mine!" and did precisely that.

Dinner was dino-shaped chicken nuggets, yogurt, and milk from the car trunk (The yogurt had processed fruit!). My kids ate like champions for once--eating at home, who knew it could be like eating at McDonald's! Then they playdated all the way till bathtime with only brief breaks--once for cashew cookies and chocolate milk and another one for crying (and consequently puking--let the record show it was Baby A and not G.E.R.Dy Li'l A).

Everyone was in bed by 8:30 including me. I woke up at 9:30 to clean up for bed and went right back to the afore-mentioned bed with a short detour to text Big A, who was working the late-night shift, goodnight.

Goodnight.

A Monday (Spring, 2011)

These dreams are like demons

Where ice breeds fibrous

Before you were born

You were an ocean.

Here, everyone is moving

Their apologies like smoke

Still under the new road

An older one flows.

_

Sunday, YSO

This street reaches

all the way to the sun

These neighborhoods

are always memories

These doors half open

are half done grins

Blind, your own fool

and so ready for life

_