Sex and Stones (on Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone)

Abraham Verghese is a huge talent. He's saved and improved the lives of more people than I've ever even met, probably. And he knows more (about medicine, certainly, but also most other stuff) than I do. The new book--first novel--is an intense, politically questioning, resonant, transnational saga. The emotional yearning and sexual tension in the novel is immense. I loved it.

And I hated this:

In every account of sex, the women seem to sacrifice themselves. In both encounters that the plot revolves around, I wasn't sure if I were reading about coerced sex/rape: one woman has had a clitoridectomy and seems startled by the experience; another woman gives in to the fondling of a man she idolizes because he is in a drunken panic. Both women are younger and less privileged in a variety of ways including social position, education, and race. Unlike many other literary authors, Verghese is not averse to writing about sex (at length, even). So why then is the sex never playful and honest? Never HAPPY? Why is sex repeatedly the ultimate sacrifice a woman can ever make.

What is this shit?

Verghese's novel begins with twin brothers in the womb and ends with the an endorsement of a father-son connection. Whichever way you look at it, that's male centered (for the bros). Which would explain why all (all!) the women in the novel occupy subservient positions as mother figures (who sacrifice lives--literally by dying in childbirth or by neglecting their health and careers) or as sexual objects (those who share sex freely are typed as servient sex workers or literal servants; alternatively they are the sullied/undeserving siren who betrays).

Can it get worse?

Yes. Wait till the women die--in honest-to-goodness childbirth or of consumption. Some punitively patriarchal novelist could have written this... in the 19th century. I won't think about the acrobatic coincidences and biblical / spiritual / numerological rationalizing that occurs in the book--Verghese's writing can compensate for most of that. If there had just been one female character I could identify with or even one (one!!) female colleague who wasn't subject to elaborate sexualization and with whom the male characters had a respectful relationship, I'd have bought the book.

With more than just my money.

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Name Changer

Just now, from across another world (I'm heart-deep in an Abraham Verghese novel, about which more later), I heard the kids cheering their dad on as he got his bike ready for the hour-long ride to work tomorrow. "Go dad, GO~Go dad, GO." I could barely recognize their voices.

Baby A (4) doesn't sound like a baby or a toddler, she sounds like a grown kid.

Li'l A (12) doesn't sound little, and the amusingly high voice he seemed to have inherited from me has faded into a sound that's the drawl of a 24-year-old reddit denizen.

Renaming time. Henceforth, Li'l A is "At" and Baby A is "Nu."

So it is written.

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New neck of the woods

It's completely out of character in that I was born and bred a city kid and will never go camping in my life (if I can help it--all bets off in the zombie apocalypse). BUT I love this house miles from nowhere, nearly an hour from work, and miles down a dirt road. Big A doesn't believe me when I say I'd live there happily.

But the views are incredible. It's kind of a good thing, I suppose, that no moves are imminent since Big A still doesn't know where his workplace will be...

Because a 17-year-old shouldn't be shot to death for "looking suspicious"

Read Michael Skolnik's piece on race profiling.


Sign the justice for Travon Martin petitions at change.org and the signon.org.


Call someone.


Make a noise.


Cry.

_

A world is ending...

Sepia Mutiny (literally the reason I fell for blogging) has decided to fold.

Immense sad.

_

Innocently

innocently, I am being killed

hands wrap around me like prayer

the stretch of my arms losing all hope

happily it is done and gone

in intervals of rain, fallen breath

whirling fantastic, flying into release 

a comet's fragment of track

this hand across my heart saving me 

an empty room to understand everything

_

No Good, Very Bad Day

It's only March, but it feels like May. Warm and toasty. Earth's heating up. Global Warming.

And you can thank me (or kick me). I parked the car in the university parking lot at 9 (running late because Cousin N forgot that she'd promised to take Baby A to school), and returned to it at 10:45 (after several surprise student conferences). To FIND THE ENGINE STILL RUNNING.

The hybrid engine (yes, we have some half-assed intention of conserving fuel) is so quiet (and I had turned the radio down to ask for a visitor parking pass, because my parking permit was in the other car, which had to be TOWED to Columbus yesterday because it broke down) that I hadn't realized that the engine was on.

Home now with two kids sick with snot (and feeling like I deserve this).

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The Gift of the Police

The local police chief has grandkids similar in age to my kids--I rolled along in his wake this morning as he dropped off the older child at the middle school, and then turned around to drop off the younger one at the hippie alternative school Baby A goes to. Since he was driving under the 20 mph speed limit, I had plenty of time to notice that his license plates were the first three letters of Li'l A's name.

I told him in the parking lot that he has interesting license plates.

And... it turns out that the car is going to be auctioned.

So... if Li'l A wants, he can have the license plates.

And the best part is that they're undercover license plates.

I know at least one geeky tween who's going to be so happy on the ride back home!

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Phony 2012

At the behest of the student newspaper, my thoughts on the Invisible Children documentary, Kony 2012: (I didn't use swear words and fist shaking since I didn't want to scare the young 'uns.)

I would like to believe Kony 2012 is a well-intentioned exercise, but in execution it comes off as sensationalist and exploitative posturing. It's also jarringly narcissistic—and repetitively circles around the filmmaker, Jason Russell, instead of the eponymous subjects of his organization, Invisible Children (IC). Overall, it is yet another unfortunate example of the trope of the third-world child manipulated to become a justification for Western interventions. What makes this campaign particularly dangerous is that it calls for a neo-imperialistic military intervention. 

As a viewer, I would protest the condescending and paternalistic presentation of facts in Kony 2012. The explanation that Russell's toddler gets is, literally, what viewers get too. According to experts in the field (see International Crisis Group’s November 2011 publication in the UNHCR, for example), the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is no longer a significant threat in Uganda, so the information presented in Kony 2012 is misguided at its best, and willfully misleading at its worst.  Also paternalistic is the presentation of Ugandans solely as victims—the many successful efforts of Ugandan GOs and NGOs on the ground are completely ignored. One of the glaring examples of the ways in which it would appear the film is out of touch with basic ground realities is the way Ugandans are repeatedly referred to as "Africans." (Obviously, Africa is not a country; it is a continent with a myriad non-interchangeable nations!)

As a global citizen, I'm mystified by the focus on a manhunt instead of on relief and reconciliation issues. If 30,000 plus children are hurt and suffering, and the warlord who executed this is in powerless exile, shouldn't the immediate focus of this outreach be about the rehabilitation of these children? The Charity Navigator profile for Invisible Children suggests that as a charity, IC contributes 32% or less of its revenues to operations on the ground that actually protect and educate children. This is unacceptable. The Kony 2012 video urges its viewers to donate $30 to buy bracelets and stickers, donations that fund expensive air travel and other administrative costs for people from San Diego. A far more responsible and utilitarian donation would be to donate to local organizations based and staffed in Uganda such as GUSCO (Gulu Support the Children Organization), in Northern Uganda. 

A few questions:

·      Is Kony 2012 misguided? Yes.

·      Is it banal and sloppy in its presentation? Yes.

·      Is Kony 2012 evil? No. To many, especially young people, this video has brought an awareness and consciousness of realities in other parts of the world. This is welcome, and an example of what Maria Lugones has called “world traveling” or engaging with different ways of living.

·      But can we crowdsource our way to justice? Perhaps. The successes of the Arab Spring are rife with citizen documentaries. But as that example shows, there needs to be committed activism on the ground—being willing to show up to protest while being threatened with guns, for instance.

·      Can so-called slacktivism (the slacker activism of clicking "like," "share," or "retweet" via social media) and shoptivism (buying stuff to signal activist engagement) enable justice? It’s a beginning, but cannot substitute for engaged activism or genuine support. Clicking/Buying a button will never be enough.

Me, Michigan

I've been abruptly announcing to everyone that we're moving to Michigan. Mostly, I don't believe it myself, so saying it aloud and experiencing hearing it is an exercise in extreme dislocation.

Speaking of which--holy selling-house, packing-up, finding-place-to-live, enrolling-everyone-in-new schools!  Lag Liv has been doing this with the kind of aplomb that should be inspiring or frightening, but we're not there yet.

Also, at last parent discussion (that's me and Big A) we decided that we should probably rent for a year before we build our own house. Everything that's out there is either small and dingy with wall-to-wall or huge and ostentatious with wall-to-wall. (Little A has the kind of asthma that's terrified of wall-to-wall.) One house I've been looking at repeatedly, is a not-so-charming trifecta of vinyl siding, beige carpet, and ranch rambling everywhere. It bears little connection to my dream house on Pinterest. But it sits on a lake and one of the online pictures captures the rising sun dead center through the huge windows. I could live with that view for the rest of my life.

But as Big A pointed out, it's inside a gated community and sits on a private lake, and has an obnoxious number of rooms. Where we live now--we live on the edge of a small lake, but it's a semi-public lake and we have neighbors who walk across our yard to visit friends in the nursing home on the other side. That's who we should continue to be. (See, he's not always about fart jokes!) In any case,  Big A is interviewing in Michigan again at the end of the month, so we'll have a better idea of where we could live then...

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Mindful Embodiment

Spent yesterday in a wonderful workshop on embodied pedagogy with Jen McWeeny, learning and brainstorming ideas on how to enable students to allow experience to count as learning. I want to use more of her work in class, especially the witness circle as a way of getting everyone in class to speak (feel invited to speak).

Today, wished my parents a happy wedding anniversary and brought out the old joke about how I was born a full six days before it. Mindful embodiment, indeed.

_

Happy International Women's Day

Oh. I love Linda Wolf's "Full Woman."

Yet another reminder of how many different kinds of living there are in our world.

Indie Earworms

I canNOT stop listening to this on repeat.


A Facebook friend identified the ragas in Bombay Bicycle Club's "Shuffle" as a mix of Kalyani/Mohanam (Carnatic) and Yaman/Bhoopali (Hindustani), if you're into Indian classical music.

And yes, it sounds a lot like Matt and Kim's "Daylight."

_

Daybreak

There is a river

rubbled wrong

with illicit sun

there is a silence

mighty, fruitful

festering

there are lies 

and examples

legs trailing

into the temple,

comprehending 
monuments

in their unruly

matted and

sultry sleep


_

T(H)AT Seattle

When not being coached on how to interview by my lovely friend P, David Fleming drew me a pretty picture. 

I can't thank P and D enough.

_

Quiet

A rubble of such wrong
a refuge made

sitting here just talking
to me, just me

I say "love" again and again
careful (so full of care)

birthing past and future
star after star

the children define words
with pictures

branching color, fencing
feeling

the root green of difficulty
rooms of blue sky

Science

(for NuNu)

dusty as machines of snow
in rhythm already known

flowers, taller than towers
grown while everyone sleeps

wanting nothing, taking nothing
but the tiniest of mysteries

in the doorway the child stands
frightened by tread as of tigers

pulped in her squinting clutch
the gossamer of dryer lint

Hope (n.) Vs. Hope (v.)

Five students have followed me from last semester and into the new class that started yesterday, so I should be feeling validated as a teacher.

But the teaching gig that I applied to back in November and sent additional material to in December, and interviewed for in Seattle in January, and have obsessed about since I first heard about it in April of 2011 has completely passed me by.

Other scholars have received follow up interviews.

But not me. not me.

Disbelief and crying.

Crying and wondering.

L & N tell me there's something better in store.

I hope so.

-

A Warm

Open, open the door of sky
the sun waits outside

Welcome, welcome, come in
I've walked everywhere

Like the sand's memory
of waves are words

Pilgrims stuttering, saunter in
like blessings upon bread

_

Not Shake and Bake

For the first ever time in our marriage, Big A and I have equal school duty with the kids. I teach a MWF at 9, so Big A drops them off MWF, I pick them up MWF. TTH, I teach an afternoon class till 4, so I drop them off, Big A picks them up.

Equal. I'm launching into an aria of "At Last..."

But not so quick. He asks, "When I drop them off, I can do a Wake and Take, right?"
(Translation: They'll be ready to go, right? All I have to do is wake up and take them?)
(Explanation: He hates morning 'cos he works the late shift and is home around 2/3/4/5/ a.m. so yeah, I can do this.)
(Addendum: For the first time ever, the family schedule is being moulded by my schedule. Yay?)
(Addendum 2: Nope. It's being moulded by kid school schedules.)

_

Dream

The gorilla eating cereal
is real is real
I never knew him
but friends are falling
falling off really high ledges

Husband has been thanked
for something things
he says he never did. Never.
Paler than winter, the approach
of winter--these swells

In the space between wish
and nudged words, a miss,
a mispronounced reality--
an enormous medieval
leech wriggling its lure

_

Get it?

So.

There's actually nothing to see here, and absolutely nothing to get.
But I wanted to chronicle Baby A's endearingly goofy question.
She's watched her older sibling make his geeky little puns, and ask us if we "got it?"
So she's taken to making "jokes"and insistently shrieking, "get it?" at us.

The Cat in the Mat! Get it?

Dr. Moose! Get it?

Go to bed, go to sched; get it?

She's always rewarded with the laughter she wants, because the limpid earnestness of her question is kind of irresistible.

We've taken to yelling "Get it?" at each other with alarming frequency ourselves.

_

Hinge

The past's prelude
In the dark

a child's cough.
Breadth of beginnings
the point of decision
uncome

the phone call

the e-mail

falling is like flight

in my body,

and the earth's--

thoughts run wet

_

(Once)

They say the sky is on our side
greeting the pain uncomfortably.

I think the snow shoulders souls
snapping twigs and keepsakes

Into a flatter season of longing
springing and then re-learning.

Snowdrops by the handful are
already, guiltily offering hope

On our first view of this house
someone else's youth and life.

In a warm corner, like a flare
a picture of Gandhi and the
name "Michael Schwerner"
speak, then flower into trees.

______________
(Remembering the first time we looked at this house in the snow and found snowdrops and Michael Schwerner's posthumous Gandhi award from CORE sitting in the garage. Friend S has always said that--that's when the house spoke to us.)

_

Spin

Yesterday, after I'd dropped the kids off at school and was driving home to work at syllabi and class prep, I ran over a squirrel. I've braked-swerved-stopped for the suicidal little creatures before and would have this time, except that this one leapt out of the undergrowth before I could harness a reaction. Serves me right. I should have biked/walked the kids. I felt the thunk of its body under the wheel and could see its inert form lying an inch or so from the edge of the road. I felt miserable.

I called my mother.

She was horrified. And suggested that to make up for taking a life, I should scatter grain in the garden for other squirrels to eat.

I'm such a bad person, that all I could think of was--but I'm not the one who eats meat! 

_

Yea to Tea

Hello, Michael Graves for Alessi teakettle. How I have loved you from afar. Were you designed for me? For my blue and wine colored kitchen? Or were you designed for me because it's widely-known that I collect birds? 

O, Michael Graves for Alessi teakettle. Whoops. Did you forget I'm too skint/stingy to spend three HUNDRED $$ on a tea kettle? 

Oh hello, Michael Graves for Target teakettle. No birdies? No problem. I prefer your buttercup-yellow knobbed lid to the other one anyway. And $ 29.99 and discounted because you're being discontinued? Well, well. Welcome on in!

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Big A and I watched the Louis C.K. show after the kids went to bed. We're long time fans of LCK back from when he used to write for Chris Rock, had his show on HBO etc. So I was kind of taken aback to hear LCK say his self-marketed website show had gone so well that he had a million dollars all at once for the first time.

Me: I feel bad that LCK didn't have a million all this time.

Big A(outraged): Do you feel bad that we've never either?


(Not so much--I don't expect us to, and I guess I think people on TV are automatically wealthy. That plus he's made so many people laugh--that's worth some good karma in my book.)

_

Li'l Mr. Right

I returned from the grocery store, delighted that I brought back some Mrs. Meyer's products: aromatherapeutic, biodegradable, natural, never tested on animals, ammonia- paraben- phosphate- free.

Li'l A [horrified]: You bought cleaning products called "Mrs. Something"??? Because only women are supposed to clean, right?

At least I'm doing something right?

-

Baby A wants to know:

a) Are there *ANY* kids in India?

(b) What are their names?

(Four-year-olds are thorough!)

Gone

Dreams
of apocalypse
of apology

turn this sheet:
winds are witchy
twitch in tantrum

these sorries--base
and bloodless
  yet seduce

to always elsewhere
arrivals; hearts
apart from here

December--lucent and lost
is patterned frosts
and year's finish

_

Done

PreOCCUPY

It was a weekend of extended socializing--dinner and drinks and friends, and a pub crawl, and a movie and a gallery opening.

It's true that the only money I spent yesterday was on UNICEF, and the only money I may spend today will be on utilitarian Indie art. Yet through it all, there's the outrage of knowing that students were being brutally beaten and terrorized on a variety of campuses for non violent protests. Of seeing the howling courage of untenured assistant professor Nathan Brown's letter demanding the resignation Chancellor Katehi.

So earlier this morning there were some hasty FB exchanges with a colleague at Antioch College. And now, there's one more thing to put on the calendar. A post-kid-bedtime meeting across the kitchen table to draft a teach-in on the #occupy movement across campuses.

_

(Un) Speak

I pilot riposte storms
through landmarks,
the dust of excuses

cycle them past solar
broadcasts, sorrows
innocent as spiders

Soprano speech bides
ordinary time by this
boat on my breath

At a Tangent

We're driving from dinner with friends and towards drinks with friends.

We're supposed to meet at "Sidebar," which makes me giggle like a middle-schooler inwardly because it sounds like "sideboob." I tell Big A, anticipating having to explain what sideboob might mean, but he works it out for himself. I'm disappointed.

So. How did you know?

I see a lot of boobs, Puppy.

: / 

I also see a lot of dicks and balls and buttholes. I've had to stick my finger in a lot more buttholes than you ever will.

One of the many reasons I shouldn't be a doctor.

_

Lisp

Smaller than every sound
and consummating all.
Sorry, I think you have the wrong number
Oops.

Love is turned on
and then is gone.
Take this unlovely thing we call time
oh little child.

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(Un) Break

Almost everyday that I didn't write here, I felt terrible, as though I was breaking a promise I had made to myself. Other days, I felt terrible anyway, because there was just so much to do that I couldn't spare the time to feel bad about not writing. And although some other deadlines were being met (dinners, grading, family time, job searches), things have felt wrong, off-center, subject to a constant tension resulting from getting things done *just* in the nick of time.

So today, another jab at the restart button.

I'm surprised it's just a week to Thanksgiving. But that's nothing like the shock I got the morning of Oct 28th when I discovered that it was Baby A's Halloween parade in two hours. Both kids had to manufacture their own Halloween costumes--so unlike the years when we decorated, hosted huge Halloween parties, and had costumes picked out a month in advance.  It's a good thing Baby A had her heart set on wearing a sheet to be a ghost (Shades of E.T., plus the book about Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever!) and Li'l A wanted to be Lemonhead Zombie--the fact that I know nothing about what that means is a good indication that the kid's about to be a teenager. (I'm getting old--when I tried to link to my favorite movie of all time, Google gave me a Katy Perry song? Sacrilege!) 

On to pictures! 

_

Fall Fun (The Great Pumpkin)

Fall Fun (The Leaf Fight)

Happy Birthday, Baby A!

At Close

Some idle pleasures
but also, idle duties
unworthy of youth;
too old to be killed

Facts as confessions
perimetered clumsily
with great, odd love
receding every day

Betrayal is boundary,
wandering rebellion
listen to its arrhythmia
muted and unsuspecting

Feminists [super heart] Ryan Gosling

No one needs a reason to love Ryan Gosling. (Half Nelson. Drive. Lars and the Real Girl.) If you need a reason, there's this quote that went viral when he was on the Blue Valentine junket:

You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.

Or this Ms. Magazine Post. Or Hugo Schwyzer's Ode.

Or simply this genius mashup of feminist theory and the most dashing actor in Hollywood:

Sometimes the kids add their own decorative touches...

I don't mind the book-mess at all. Kind of love it. Don't even mind so much that the housecleaner left the elephant on the table facing forwards instead of in profile like the elephants on the frieze on the vase (I did say I have a problem :). The dingy guitar-socks, however...

Mid-term Break: Embers

Almost at the end of the midterm break and I'm still struggling to finish Sándor Márai's highly-acclaimed novel Embers. A very sweet (also assiduous) student gave me their copy because they "knew" I would love it.* It's only fair that I try hard to finish it, because I impose my tastes on those poor students all the time, after all.
_________________________________________________________
*Not to be confused with the student who, throughout his final paper, used my name instead of the name of the protagonist in the novel he was writing about. We weren't able to decide if that was ironic or ignorant or obsessive.


_

Embedded

The sex accomplice's
labyrinths, leprosy of lies

his intimacy of technique

his innoculation of anger

his reason is a mirror's body
there is never a void of words
always the cruelty of sounds
he has captured in his mouth

Graffiti

This skin my page,
guttural blasphemy

on the radio
voices are melting

who would you be
fair, ordinary light?

double helixed, sublime
under slight scaffolding

you wait, an injured violin
chiming a century of travel

then your answer reverses
moments I can hear myself

_

Back

Fair, hostile sky
grumble of wind

music wakes up,

miscommunicates

an umbrella of rain
splinters of silence

In the cramped cage
of childhood

My mothers already
see everything

_

New Bike Summer

Project

All morning, the kids and I walked around town putting up posters for Ubuntu Canteen.

A day perfect in so many ways.

A Taste of the Future

Today at 7:30, I was nearly the first one at the Farmers' Market and it looked completely different from when I typically show up with the kids a good three hours later after breakfast and dilly-dallying around. I must try to do this more often, although the only reason I was there instead of under covers was because I had to drop Li'L A off so he could take the school bus to a cross country meet. The hours vary, but he's usually gone most of Saturday.

We putter around, Baby A and I, doing Saturday toddler stuff, Big A not back from work yet, and it was a reminder that soon, this will be us: Big A at work as usual and Li'l A away at college, making a life. If those are the worst separations fate has in store for us, I won't complain--although they sound chillingly lonely.

_

Race, Class, and Gender

There's a lot of yammering about race, class, and gender in most of my classes, but that didn't stop me from being surprised by stuff people I really like have said lately. Friend X and I were talking about some other random stuff when he said:

Your parents must respect you because you married a white guy. 

It bugged me immediately that he would think that
(a) Race: Marrying a white person (like him!) is means of obtaining respect? And we're not talking people who might find me less alien because I happen to be married to one of their own. We're talking about respect from my own parents!
(b) Gender: Marrying "well" is the only way to earn my parents' respect?

I was fuming so I went home and told my mom, who proceeded to unleash the class bomb:

Nevermind, she said. Forget it. What does he know? He doesn't even have a good education, he's just a shopkeeper.

Mortifying.

_

Keepsake

boiling restless, this light
amber: caramel of rock

we two live twinned:
same room, one food

memory monsoons: pulp
hearts flatter flower flare

my name: the first intimacy
you have laid on your lips

_

If it's Broke Fix it

So I wrote a report asking that the mother be supported through parenting classes and asking for an extension on the permanent custody decision because--duh--she gets out of her transitional correctional facility in January and cannot prove that she can find housing for herself and her child next week.

I sent it off unshowered, having missed most of a night's sleep, raw from tears, having missed my morning run and not talking to my own kids at breakfast time because I was compulsively tweaking drat guardian ad litem report. The director called me in under fifteen minutes to convince me to change my recommendations to the simpler "give CSB custody right now."

We talked for over 45 minutes.

I changed my recommendation as my director directed.

I cried.

I took a shower.

_

Bombs

Came home today to a tiny, sweeeet arrangement of yellow and red Dahlias on our doorstep. No note. In a town that get frequently yarnbombed, I think we'd just been flower-bombed. Thanks, anonymous nice person.

It couldn't have happened on a better day, because all day, I'd had bombs going off in my head. I went to visit a mother who may end up losing her parental rights (CSB has filed for permanent custody of the child)  and when I asked her what she thought would be best for the chid, I could literally see her wrestle with her own shortcomings (incarceration, poverty, lack of education, bad parenting) compare them to the glowing report of the foster parents the CSB worker had just given her (partnered couple, solidly middle class, educated, very earnest and caring parents) and break down in tears saying, "I don't know. I don't know. You know?" It was raw. It felt like I had peeled her skin away from her body in one long swathe in the name of effective reportage and all-round meddlesomeness.

_ 

Two Scenes from a Marriage

The water pipes must have been flushed today because all the non filtered taps have been gushing muddy brown. Normally, I'd just deal, but since we lost our weekly housecleaner over a month ago, I've been doing a deep clean of the toilets on Sunday night. This is Monday morning. All that work wasted. I tell Big A.

Big A: I know, Puppy. I felt so bad. That's why I've been trying to direct my pee on all the muddy water marks.

Me: Yeah. You're a helper keeper.

***************

No real reason why, but when I got out of the shower this morning I simply had to ask Big A.

Me: You know how... when you orgasm... and it feels like everything is radiating from the pelvic area [I'm all scientific terminology and shit, apparently]... because a dwarf's penis... would be proportionately larger than his relative body size....  does it mean that his orgasm would be that much more intense?

[I think it says something about our level of discourse that Big A doesn't look surprised by this.]

Big A: You would have to ask a dwarf that, Puppy.

Me: You mean they didn't cover this in medical school?

Big A: No.

Me: What a woefully inadequate education.

_

Size Swap

Fun clothes swap yesterday: dedicated clotheslines, lots of noshing, unedited critique, even a curtained off dressing area--although everyone was stripping in the middle of the room by the end of the evening.

And I gave away my most "hoochie" shifts to someone all of a foot shorter and way more slender than I've ever been. And shazzam--the clothes looked adorable and right on their new owner! (Apparently, it's only questionably "skanky" when you're showing both leg and cleavage at the same time.)

V and H sized me up with exaggeratedly narrowed eyes and asked if I take a size ___ or ___. And I had to say I've no idea: it's been a while since I've shopped at places that sell stuff by numbered sizes, I'm not modeling anymore, and bonus plus--I have absolutely no idea what I weigh either.

_

The Youngest of Us

There was something off about yesterday--and for most of the day I just couldn't put my finger on it.

The grandparents were home instead of on one of their long walks (interminable rain); Big A was off work and in bed (and spent the rest of the day running a half marathon); it wasn't a teaching day for me (so although I was making phone calls and running errands, it was with a glorious lack of deadline); Li'l A was home too (teacher enrichment day).

Baby A--the littlest, most pampered of us--was the only one "at work" making her own playdough, eating it, and "puddling" to her heart's content hard.

Our extra sweetness to her yesterday was faintly tinged with guilt.

_

Sneaking into Greek Life

So I've been showing Jean Kilbourne's latest installment of Killing Us Softly to undergraduate writers and being touched about it when yet another student wants to talk about "how I never thought of it that way before."

I've suggested that they bring it up at their next sorority/frat meeting.

Jean Kilbourne is genius. I bring the evil.

_

Somebody

hide behind a plate of food
Athena, Medea, Cambodia
and spiteful

walk crippled and curved
rainbows, Bowflex, Botox
and spatial

big pans of market moons
orbit unobstructed, doubled
in riddle

About Things

I waited and waited for a CSB caseworker to show up with my CASA child and his mother newly released from prison and currently in a halfway house and working at a Subway franchise and unable to complete court-ordered drug testing or to find a stable house. She plans to fight for custody. Depressing. From any angle. And also, since they never showed (or called): irritating.

I edited the photos on my phone while I waited (no book) and found that apart from pictures of my kids or weird vanity plates (so that's a surprise theme too), there were so many pictures of things that--at some point in time--I had wanted to buy. Apparently, I take pictures of things I want to buy, but never get around to actually going back and buying anything. Win win?

Speaking of things, we had lots on hand to make Baby A's "Red Display" for nursery school. A Sith light saber (from her older sibling), a copy of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, a little Red Riding Hood puppet, her hand weights (2 lbs) that she uses in our basement gym when we're down there, a spirit level, a newly bloomed Hibiscus...

In the Second Week of Late Summer

A wonderful evening, a small potluck to welcome new Antioch College faculty, and the zen presence of Bill Felker--whom I've raved about previously--but had never actually met.

I thought I knew all the feministy English profs in this town, but it turns out there are more than I dreamed of. What if we're the single most popular profession in this town of 3500? Awesome.

_

The Little College that Could

Meanwhile--two hundred yards down the street from us--great events are afoot.

Reading about the resurrection of Antioch College in The New York Times, makes me realize all over again how much there is to love about this little village, how large and generous its soul is. (Looks like the reporter from The Times liked all my favorite village haunts too.)

_

Kathadi: Up in the Air

Pulling at the seams of words
one stitch at a time. Worrying
at gasp of steam of fog of cloud
of a sky made from all shadows

Soft as floating belly of mango
memory unravelling in the heat
stitch and mimic scent of night;
tug at flood of string, cut. Kite.

_

New Habit

New. Or "new to me" as Baby A says of the froggie gumboots handed down from the sibling eight years older than her.

Habit Blog: simple pictures; evocative words; no verbosity. And done.

--------------
Baby A's nanny from two years ago came by for a playdate this morning (she comes by regularly because she has two boys in college and sometimes she just needs to squeeze a toddler).

But really, nostalgia appears to have no age bar. Although merely three years old, even Baby A apparently has tons of things she looks back on with affection: "That's what I used to do, back when I was a baby. Do you remember that?"

Yes. Yes. we do.

In the arms of an old favorite wearing something else that's "new to her."
The Wild Thing Tee that was the first present Big A got Li'l A all those many years ago. 

-

TG(anesha)IF

Looks like my baby, the Mini, may need had to be towed to the dealership (leaking oil, engine light on, setting up the most terrific flapping-clattering sound under the hood). There's no way we're going to be able to drive the one hour to Columbus without hurting the baby.

Come back soon, little one!

But I ended the day at N&J's eating stuffed shells and cookie pizza and drinking big balloons of red wine while the kids played Minecraft ("not MinDcraft, Maya! MinEcraft"--Nine-year-old Pete corrects me, his voice dripping amused horror). And there--dare I say--I'm happy (even with Big A gone away at work).

To have friends with whom you can discuss whether women are always obligated to side with the only other woman in the room while being filled in on Game of Thrones is no mean blessing.

It's the stuff that keeps me warm as the year tiptoes away from summer.

_

Done!

I made it! 


Week two of three classes on Tues and Thurs broken only by office hours and the 30 minute drive to another campus with 15 minutes to spare before class (what happens if there's heavy traffic or an accident?).


I came home and excavated some frozen store-bought naan and some long-ago homemade bean-potato-eggplant curry from the freezer (stuck there because there were claims that people didn't like it when I made it--lo--those two months ago, although everyone finished up yesterday), got everyone fed, supervised kid showers and didn't feel dead by 7:30. 


Week 1 found me passed out at 6:30; but Big A was home then and took care of dinner and kids. Still, yesterday with no co-parent backup, I managed it. I did it. I'm reading something for pleasure.  I'm ok.


_

What She Said (2)

This thief--my child.

Her smile 

fills her eyes 

takes my heart

talks.

Rest warm

firecat fears.

Her cool hand 

diadems my brow

girds my sleep.

_

Privately

Flood my blood 
at the edges of bed
our naked feet splinter
saplings, new miracles


Ravines of sheets
spin ghosts of arrival
taut wrist, tattered skin
bud, bury, holler: home


_

Note to Self

If you're involved with the on-campus hospitality for someone who is--quite conceivably--the most famous ecofeminist in the world, perhaps you should make sure that she does not have to drink water out of a disposable plastic bottle. At the podium. While talking about sustainability issues. In front of the--rightly--tittering undergraduates.

That's all.

_

One minute of rant; one moment of funny

So... not a good couple of days. I think I may need more help than sympathetic ears and on-tap multi-generational snuggles. Can't really talk about it because (a) I already growled at my parents when they insisted that I tell them (b) mostly I don't know.

I do have a very strong feeling that my squeaky vocal delivery and my default-setting smiles are interfering with everyone's ability to take my weltschmerzen seriously. That and the suspicion that everyone has fallen for my protestations: Really, you guys! Really! Cooking and cleaning up after and chauffeuring and entertaining a family of six while prepping and teaching and grading three courses (90 students; at least twenty seem to e-mail me every day) is nothing. Really, it's easy!

The teaching and a houseful of family IS fun and I'm sincere about being grateful to be able to do it. Then also, feels like there is something I could/should do to care for myself--but I don't know what. Therapy? A drug regimen? More than six hours of sleep? Not caring if the house looks ready for the photo team from Architectural Digest every fucking minute? That the kids get assigned and balanced calories at every meal? What?

________________________________________

We're listening to the radio stories about 9/11 with tight throats and goosebumps. Amma breaks the spell with an earnest warning that none of us should go downtown today. Our downtown =  < 3500 people. Any terrorist coming for us would have to be lost. Or a total underachiever.

_

Bike Path (Out)

In vain is the art of rain
I'm too far away children.
Children: help yourself. Until

I come for you, elastic-ed back. 

It's only nine miles to Spring-

field on a bike. Can feel longer 

walking, walking, walking,

carrying with me my words.

From either side of summer

robin breast and leaf windfall

commune, conspire to beat

in ongoing song, my surprise

the downfall of buried life--

And awake, even wilderness

becomes shelter, so all alone--

every one inherently memories.

__

Glen Helen (Lost)

I imagined myself walking, 

morning made itself a hike

No one knows where I am.

So no one can help me now

(if they wanted to)

If today I woke up 

some other died 

in my place

(with my face)

These roots for rock

lean on mossy claws.

Open, distance unlocks:

the wrong turn every time 

and lengthens why I'm here.

Become beautiful. Unreliable

--like leaves aged and plaid.

_

Sometimes Only Mama Will Do

Beloved Grandson

Lucky Granddaughter

Kisses!

The What

Like the seasonal 

fretting of birds, their

riffs of maps and plans

friends at 11:30 p.m.

earnest, affectionate

suggest car pooling

and I honest with drink,

ennui and attachment 

to the one place and time 

--that I am ever unaccompanied and by myself save the ten minutes in the morning, on the chaise  with hot honeyed water. What? 

I'm never even alone in the bathroom anymore, accompanied as I am by entreaties and questions and barging-ins--

demur, characterizing myself 

to their surprise, possible affront 

as "So not a car pool person."

-- 

Augury as August Ends

The earnestness in this enjoyment

--calm, confused schizophrenia

of trees, changes: everything.

And here--right here--a fibrillation

of notes and sighs, of animus.

Brutal brightness, laid bare.

_

Starting September

There will be a story today--

for stories make better memories

alert as questions are the old ones

and distanced at every silence.

We have no capstones yet

and these corners are barely 

imaginary; no trumpets, better--

no victories--only stories.

One day soon, as we know

there'll be snow and television,

clumsy museums encased 

even more than their exhibits. 

For now flicker--babies, friends,

daily glories, automatique-- 

these sunrises of every day,

in skies hiding sudden heavens.

_

That's Hot

It was hot today. Really hot. A hundred times hot. So hot that when one of Li'L A's cross country teammates demurred about running with his shirt off because he was too fat, he was told, "Dude, it's too hot for bad self esteem today." (HeHe, Gulp, and Sad Face all at once.)

Nevertheless Baby A's first day of nursery school followed by a potluck at her sweetly hippy-dippy institution of early learning. After I got home from work, I wore a sari and Baby A wore a scarf draped as a "half sari" over her trousers. (I wore my favorite Rosie the Riveter button as a sari brooch.)

_

Press Start

Looking at the post counts for July and Aug and cringing. I re-remember now how difficult it is to get back to a routine after an emotional disruption. 

So, scrambling to get prep managed and presented. Really scrambling. The English courses (Colonial-Postcolonial Litt, Composition) started last week, the Women's Studies course starts next week. Thankfully, we (Big A and I) decided that I could take a break from the four ESL classes a week. I loved being in touch with newly arrived international students and we could use the extra money, but there's just not enough time. For me. Big A NEVER has enough time. OTOH, I admire resent admire/resent how Big A decides that he needs to do something and then goes ahead and does it. E.g. Finishing up a mountain of patient charts at home or training for the marathon. There's very little I can expect or bring myself to ask of someone who has worked a 14 hour day and run eight miles in training. 

But that still leaves three weekday mornings to do serious writing. So it is written. 

_

Things Can Only Get Better

Dad's birthday. Woke up at 5 to wrap presents before final class prep. And then begged two kids and an adult with increasing desperation and superhuman amounts of groveling to sign his card from 6:45 to 7:50.

Was away all day on campus and then too late and tired to stop anywhere to get a birthday cake. (Lazy!!) Did a drive through Tim Hortons for 40 donut holes that the kids and I stacked into a pretty impressive "cake tower," parked a tealight on top, and had a festive birthday party anyway.

Happy Birthday, Daddy :). (You're the first feminist I ever met.)

_

In the Middle

So Li'l A is in middle school now. And over the weekend, checking on cousin P directly in the path of Hurricane Irene, I was the one who got comforted. P told me that having this child in middle school would prepare me for when he goes away to college. Given the health insecurities of the summer, all I want to do is spend every moment with my kids lolling around, "snuddling," having picnics, but time is so tough. So tight. 


The middle schooler gets home at 6:30 weekdays (Cross-country training after school). Sidebar: And I hate that cross country trains five days a week and meets on the sixth day to race (like Christian gods) but my spacey kid turns out to be unable to play team sports that require him to visualize and this is the kind of activity where he can zone out and still get good-for-asthma exercise. I hate that for two hours a day I have no way of contacting him. He leaves his cell phone in his locker when he runs--naturally. And also, since they run all over the village, the glen, everywhere, I have no idea where he is. Feels so strange. But I am letting go. And then suddenly it's the weekend, but he's invited to some workshop on "facilitation" from 10-3 and then goes away to a friends sleepover. But I continue to let my peacock fly  baby bird go.

And I'm letting go sometimes out of necessity. School now starts at 8:45 and since my first class is at 9 and 45 minutes away, I'm trusting in him to gather his school things, let himself out, lock the door behind him, and bike to school. By himself.

That screaming is coming from inside my head.

_

Oh Thank Heaven...

I don't know if you remember this big kerfluffle when Biden correlated Indian Americans and 7-11s?

Li'l A's middle school sure doesn't, or they wouldn't assign the sole brown kid in their school the locker number... wait for it... "7-11."

We've been teasing him all week :).

_

I'm Special. So Special.

Because I can never remember the tunes to the silly songs I make up for kids, I have designated special songs for the kids borrowed (I'm a creative GENIUS!!) from the movies. My sister pointed out that they're both sad songs when situated narratively, but they soothe my kids, make them feel special (along with three other generations of Hindi-speaking kids).

Baby A has Chanda Hey Tu, Mera Sooraj Hey Tu, Li'l A has Nanhi Kali Sone Chali .  Last night as I told them what the words meant again, Li'l A growled with discontent:

Yeah. She (Baby A) is your sun and your moon, plus all the stars. And what am I? A flower. A little one. Nice."

_

Mind. Business.

Baby baby baby
snakes
taper taper taper

tight

wave happy, happy 

goodbyes gone

clank tears,

swing slaughter

Nothing to do here

Keep moving along

Nothing to see

rest shadows, exit.

_

Snapshot

There are oranges

the color of gossip

There is tea bruited

to honeyed brown

There is dreaming--

tastes like freedom

There is water shed

parading like blood

_

Control

Because I have so little control over the big things: my kids' health and their safety: if my fellow drivers on the road will drive wisely; how many chocolates I will grab in a day; etc.: I exercise alarming amounts of control over the small things--things so small that they wouldn't even register if I possessed a slightly saner mind.

For instance, every morning when I make the kids their cheesy eggs for a breakfast boost of protein and fat, I pick the biggest eggs I can find in the box. This is a huge admission of kooky here: I pick the biggest eggs in the box. I don't eat eggs, so it's not like the kids are saved from having to eat the smaller eggs, or that I ever buy a new box because I judge the remaining eggs to be too small. The smallest eggs in the box will be eaten, inevitably, by the very same kids--just on day six, when they are the only remaining eggs. That's bonkers.

From tomorrow I'm going to pick any two eggs.

Freedom.

In related news, we've lived here for three years now, and it appears that I haven't been to the doctor in all that time. (Naturally, I've been there multiple times as chauffeuse and escort.) I tried to make an appointment with our family doc who has taken care of Big A on and off back from when he was a kid and now gives Li'l and Baby A their shots and referrals, to find out that I wasn't even in the system. I've made a Friday appointment to ask about anxiety, neck pain, and lady part exams.

_

The Week Before School

Traveller, we could go
to Damascus. There.
Damn. Mass. Cuss.
It's my humming body

It's skin like chipped dreams
and questions, small cases.
I can wear a Kanjeevaram sari
you will wear a week's stubble

We'll soon travel all summer
in slumber, blessed stateliness
supplicant to windows radiant
with swimming celestial doubt.

_

Flight

No birds sing no birds sing... 
No birds sing no birds sing... 

a few new forms hover over

assaulted by their storm.

Quicksand shadows,

sounds basic as

screams:

fly

_

Vampire Diaries

It's another beautiful day of sunshine in the second week of middle summer as Bill Felker informed me on my way to work this morning. And literally, the couple of months I look forward to all year long--peek the weather tab on this blog.

And it turns out that (a) Lupus flares are caused by exposure to sunlight, so we ought to keep Li'l A under wraps and out of the light as much as possible. (b) Since Big A started to nightshift it, he sleeps all day and works most nights and he goes out even less than he used to, the blacked out  bedroom is one chord G away from being a crypt.


It's like living with vampires, with all the heartache and anguish and regret that implies.

_

SUPER 8

Loved it. And the shout out to Dayton was the highlight of our quiet midwestern phase of life.

We've been putting off seeing it because of the Lupus-suspicion related anguish and Big A's even weirder hours. And as we walked into the movie theater, Li'l A said--I look at that poster for Super 8 and  I have no idea what it's going to be about.

I should have taken that opportunity to give my mom a heads up, because she told me later that she kept counting and recounting the kids and kept coming up with just six, so how were they the Super 8? She was thinking of the kids clubs we used to read when I was a kid--like Secret Seven and Famous Five :).

_

With Caveats

After calling the derm for results repeatedly and being told that the results weren't in, computer was down, no one was available to read the results, we'll call you back (but no one called). After suspecting the worst, I finally received a call back. The nurse's assistant (nearly everyone had broken early for the long weekend) starts out by asking me how I'm doing. (How do you think?) And after talking to me about the weather, the upcoming weekend, apologizing for not calling sooner, says she went over it with a colleague to be sure, but it looks like the bloodwork appears to be in the normal range. So now we await biopsies.

Relief. Uncertainity. Not sure if we deserve this reprieve.

Knowing that if the biopsies come back clean, I'll be looking at shorter hair, and grandparents, husband, and eleven-year-old with shaven heads, and a life without chocolate.But it will be worth it to have a child with a host of other persnickety ailments that completely swallow our health services to the point where my dental work has been postponed for two years, but hey--perhaps not eating chocolate will resolve that.

_

Still in Shock

And feeling like things make sense. Li'l A's biological father died of ALS, which is another unpreventable, incurable disease, so this feels a bit like ugly deja vu.Like resilience is futile.

There's a constant argument on in my head. Is it? No it isn't. But if it were, it could explain the grades--poor baby. How am I going to motivate a child if the doctor gives him what amounts to a death sentence. Elzabeth Edwards's wisdom about how all of us are dying. I could be dead tomorrow driving home from work.

(I almost killed the entire family on the way back from the doctor's. At least three times. My mom riding shotgun didn't notice. But dad in the back with the kids, totally noticed and didn't say anything till we got home. I also forgot to turn off the engine when we stopped at Compunet to get the bloodwork done. And I was a total harridan to the cheery, perky, young person who tried and repeatedly failed to find a place to prick him.)

Completely blown away by how supportive people I don't know very well have been. Even people whose judgement I don't trust on most issues suddenly appeared to be full of compassion and wisdom. Except for the jerk who said the good news would be that Li'l A appeared to be skinny. Which (a) Since when is skinny--skin and bone-- a positive thing? (b) Fuck you. (c) Do you not know that Indian moms never think their kids can be chubby enough?

_

I thought we were going to a regular dermatological appointment this morning, but instead got to watch as four nurses dug biopsy samples out of my skinny 11-year-old's arms. They strongly suspect Lupus. Tell me how to explain an unpreventable, incurable, chronic disease with frequent and frightening fatalities to my sweet, funny little chap. (And if you know the secret, tell me how I can stop breaking on the inside.) 

Summer Clouds

Is that dusty skin smoke?
there's no word for sea
in the midwest, speak
from necessity, not fact

No flower chalices lie
warmed like your ear
pick one bird song--
run just one for life.

What would you match?
on some deserted island
what would you catch?
Everything seems parrots

repeating repeating:
immortal new names
now costly like blood
--orange sum of sun.

_