Nothing like goddamn bureaucracy to knock everything askew.

dd got a letter from her school--her alternative school, mind you--stating that according to Public Health Law, section 2164, she won't be allowed in school if she doesn't get immunized.

According to this same Public Health Law, she is exempt if immunization goes against our sincerely held genuine religious beliefs.

I went to the office to see if maybe they forgot to fax our letter. Maybe it's just some dumb little screw-up, I thought. (Of course, I stopped into the PTA office to donate a photograph to the Silent Auction/Holiday fair first. It's an 11*14 photo of the 2003 blizzard--Astor Place covered in white. The women there really seemed to like it)

The woman there told me that, as of last year, the director of public health for the region has been giving new students a hard time about exemptions. Last year, parents came with letters from clergy and other sorts of documentation and he still refused to grant them the exemptions. WTF? I was in shock, didn't think to ask, "Well, what happened to these families? Did their kids get kicked out of school? Did they immunize their kids even though it was against their religion? Did anyone take the Public Health people to court?"

So I'll have to see if anyone is in the office when I pick up dd this evening and ask.

I've been trolling on-line to see if any rules or laws got changed. And been calling my mama friends to see if they're undergoing the same scrutiny or have heard of any legislative changes. Seems so far that dd is the only one of this particular bunch that got singled out, although the women in the office assure me that we're not the only family to have gotten the letter this year.

One of my mama friends sent me this very helpful piece of information after I talked to her: "On September 29, with very little fanfare, the New York Board of Regents, which creates many of the rules and regulations that govern all schools in the state, changed state
rules so that a religious exemption will be automatically granted upon
the presentation by a parent or guardian of a letter stating religious
objections to vaccinations. In effect, the rule change abolished an
odious and un-American system of religious courts local school districts convened to force parents to justify their religious beliefs before issuing an exemption."

This doesn't mean that this director person with whom I'm supposed to meet on Tuesday (at eight fucking forty-five in the morning. I'm supposed to be thinking on my feet then? Gulp) is going to adhere to this changed rule. I wonder if he even knows about it, or cares.

ddd wonders if they're doing it because they think they can and no one has yet challenged them legally about it. Kind of like the cops--do it first and then get taken to court for it later. The damage has already been done and the most one can hope for is a little apology and mitigation.

And shit, dd loves her new school now. She's learning to read. She has been doing her reading game again and can read the early Hooked on Phonics books now and is damned proud of herself. She's got two good friends whom she loves and talks about constantly. She is learning and growing by leaps and bounds. It would be heartwrenching for her to be pulled out now.

Time to get off the computer and go pick her up. And grab something to eat since I spent all that time staring at the computer screen trying to figure out whywhywhywhy and no time eating.

i can't type properly because i cut my hand and the bandage restricts my movements. it's kind of embarrassing; i'm usually so picky about capitalization & all that. but it's type like this or don't type at all, so i'll learn to live with it. it will only be for a day or two.

i stayed in bed till past noon today -- can't believe i did that. and now i'm sort of sleepy-tired. it doesn't feel good. i need to get more exercise, but i can't swim for ten days, until i get the stitches out of my hand. maybe i'll try walking. the sun would be good for me, too. i'm worried that i might slip back into mild depression without realizing it. we're entering the darkest months of the year, and this is when i've gotten hit hard before.

i don't want to work on the novel until i can type properly. if i work on it now, i'll just have manuscript that i have to edit to make it just readable, and i don't want to do that. but i'm restless to work on it anyway. i suppose that's a good sign.

the kids usually go bowling on wednesday afternoons, but my car is a stick-shift, and i don't trust myself to drive it until i get my hand out of the bandages. i don't have much of a grip with my left hand right now. even when it comes out of the bandages i don't know that i'll be comfortable driving right away -- the cut is in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger, and driving will put a lot of pressure on that spot. so no bowling. maybe i'll think of something else fun to do here at home, although the two big attractions of bowling are bowling and having other kids around to play with. can't think of any way to have other kids around here to play with; they'll all be bowling.

i'm a little gloomy. that's not good. time to think of some way to get un-gloomy. me and eeyore.

Still seem to be trying to catching up on my sleep. Put the boy on the bus yesterday and went back to bed and slept until nooooon. Ah! Felt so good to wallow in bed and think, “I can sleep longer if I want to.� Still, even then, I went back to bed at 10:30 last night, got up at 7, put the boy on the bus again, went back to bed and slept until 10. Probably would have slept longer but I had to get up and be Lunch Mom. And now it’s 10:30 and I’m tired again! I think it’s a sleep begets sleep situation – but when I don’t get enough for extended periods of time, my body just craves it.

Speaking of which, The Boy took like two and a half hours to fall asleep tonight. Gah! He was so hard to wake up this morning and he so grumpy this afternoon – and I thought for sure he’d fall asleep right away – but no. Tossing and turning and talking and sending me out of the room and then calling me back in… it was annoying. Mainly because I know what a grump he’s going to be tomorrow morning when I have to wake him up.

The Boy’s birthday party is creeping up on me. Saturday at 2. So much to be done. But I guess I won’t write about that at the moment. I have my list.

My husband looks great in a suit. Have I mentioned this before? He’s very tall, but not awkward tall. He is 6’ 3� – which is enough to make him nice and tall –my body fits right into his, and even when I wear my highest heels I’m still not his height – but he doesn’t look strange or stand out tall (there are people in his family who are nearly 7 feet, so I know what I’m talking about. My own son may end up being on these people). And he has nice long legs, and when he puts on a suit he has this elegant line to his body that I love looking at. Broad shoulders, long leg, great proportions.. I like it when he wears his glasses, too. I note this because he wore his suit to the opera and I looked at him and thought he looked much better than any other man I could see around me. I also blame his broad shoulder for providing me with a comfortable place to fall asleep upon during the second act. And I am happy that he is just the right height and strength to have helped me hobble along in my six inch heels as we made our way back to the car after the opera.

When I married my husband, he was a boy. He was only 20 years old – not even old enough to drink at his own wedding. And I loved him for his boyish qualities. I loved that he was shy and relatively inexperienced, I loved that he loped when he walked, that he blushed when strangers talked to him. I loved his quiet and his private giddiness. He hadn’t even grown all his chest hair yet. He was that young. That was eleven years ago, and somewhere along the way my husband has grown from a boy into a man – and I think it was last couple of years that I finally noticed this transformation- that I noticed that my husband had become someone different - and I have to say that I was so relieved and I felt so fucking lucky. I felt so lucky that the person my husband had matured into was this dependable, this stoic, this responsible and strong and kind. Of course he retains elements of that boy I married – but thank god he grew into someone I am attracted to even more. He doesn’t like that he’s gained a little weight over the years, for instance – but to me it makes sense – he was slight when I married him and now he is solid – a strong, big man (not in the least fat – just big). I love to feel his weight on me. He’s no longer shy in the least - he's gained too much confidence to be that- but he’s still quiet. A thoughtful, strong quiet. He doesn’t really lope anymore – but he still has incredible grace. He hardly ever blushes anymore. But he is still passionate about me. My husband is insular – there are not a lot of people out there who know him too well. He definitely has a public mask he puts on. But I know him. I know him better than I have ever known anyone. And he appreciates that, I think. I think that the key to our happy marriage is just how much admiration we have for each other. We both feel lucky. I feel lucky. I feel that I barely knew what I was doing when we got married – I was just following a gut feeling that this was the boy I should be with – and that as it turned out, he became the man I could not live without.

Sometimes I’m embarrassed to talk about my marriage. Mainly because I feel like I might be construed as bragging or gloating. And I have a lot of friends who have troubled marriages, uneven at best, unhappy at worst. So when they pour out their feelings to me. When they talk about their husbands in such a way that makes me think that they don’t even like these men anymore. When they finish enumerating all the issues between them, the hopelessness they feel about their marriage, how much work they have to do, and how dissatisfied they are, and then they turn to me and seem to expect me to respond in kind – well, I don’t know exactly what to say. I feel like it’s not kind of me to say, “I love my husband more now than I did when I first married him.� I feel like I can’t say that I am more than content with my sex life – that, actually, my sex life seems to get better as we get older. That my husband gets me and accepts me in a way that no one else does. That I trust him implicitly. That I am deeply proud of him. That he is my best friend. That I can’t imagine ever being happier with another man. And the thing is, my husband and I know we are lucky. We often look at each other and comment upon our sheer luck that we married so young and still managed to find the person who could make us happy twelve years later. Sometimes I feel like this kind of happiness is like walking on ice – that I should be less careless about it. That it’s not as easy as it seems. And I understand it could all be taken away in an instant. This lovely life. This happy marriage. But the thing is, it’s easy. We are easy together. And happy. Because I still like to look at him in a suit? Because he wraps himself around me in our bed at night? Because he is tall? I don’t know. I just know that I couldn’t do without him. And I am fairly certain he feels the same way about me.

The house is a mess. Tomorrow I have calls to make. It is raining and they are threatening another flood. It is 60 degrees outside. Which is strange and eerie this time of year. My husband is not home yet. But he should be soon. And in the meantime, I am going to take a shower and go to bed. He will find me there.

Nothing is real until it is recorded.
-Virginia Woolf

even if it doesn't seem that way.

I read one of the many articles I"d printed out over a month ago that's been sitting in a box. Went through the bibliography and found out where to get the books I want and made notes on how to get them from at least one university library.

I sent an e-mail off looking for K to send her photos from her big send-off bash and got an almost immediate response. So now I just have to write her a letter and address the envelope and send them off to her. I wish I had more than just two to send; now I'm kicking myself for not having taken more pictures that night. Why the hell didn't I?

Typed up my notes from Sunday's midnight reading and research and figured out where to get a couple of old books about China that are cited in one of the articles.

I can't figure out how to get to my (rejected) Fulbright application on-line. I wonder if it even still is on-line or if they get deleted after the Fulbright people have made their decisions. Guess I'll have to actually go home and look for my notes and crib 750 words from that proposal. Or at least use that as a starting point for the 750 word proposal I need to start drafting.

I looked at my old e-mails that mention Fulbright. There are little things in there that I had totally forgotten about--I remember working on my Fulbright application in Toronto on E's laptop at their kitchen table. I don't remember some of the little dd antics that I described to one of my former professors, who was helping me word the application: like the fact that dd was obsessed with her stroller and would freak out if it were folded up or out of sight. Or that she was learning to say "crazy!" and her phrase for the weekend was "crazy puppy!"

This afternoon, I realized that my co-worker is going to be gone for three weeks starting Thursday. That means I get the office ALL TO MYSELF. Quiet time galore.

Hopefully I won't fritter it away. I think that quiet in the office (and having access to the computer and printer and not freezing my fingers and toes off) will facilitate working on this grant application. That is, if I don't get sucked into being on-line all day. I feel as if that's most of what I did this afternoon--clicked to this site and that, seeing if anyone had e-mailed me or what new things (or no new things, as it was) were going on.

Time to get out of here. I should write down that I need to dig out that Fulbright application. Otherwise, I'll forget and wash my hair instead. (And my hair does seem like it is in need of washing)

Why am I released? Those are the big two questions I think- why am I trapped and then why am I released? The first makes sense sort of- I keep trapping myself in an attempt at beauty. I feel too exposed so I had to erase most of this thought. I kept the one about beauty because I think its the most important thing for me to focus on. As I try to expand my reach I end up only trapping myself. But I have to remember that the point was also the explosion. At the point that it becomes so thick I am trapped but also appear to be exploding. hmm. Maybe the release is key. It's funny to try and verbalize a sculptural idea. I sound like a crazy person. The odd, well, I guess it's not so odd, thing I find about making sculpture is that the physical form won't work unless the idea behind it is solid. If I have any flaws in my thinking they show up in the physical form. It is a strange way to think though. Thinking in three dimensions. Must be more than three I think. What's that quote from [Hamlet I think?] "bounded by a nutshell, I find myself the king of infinite space." Something like that.

so i've been fervently avoiding, with gusto and a dash of 'mehhhhhhh', working on my "pixote" essay.
shit, it's only a ten pager. i have this terrible fear that i have forgotten how to write an essay. this happens every single time. i know i really do know how. but well, you know. i think on wednesday i am gonna realy buckle down. it was supposed to be due thursday, but she pushed it to the 6th. and thus, procrastination. i've done alot of research. too much really. i'm scared my research is over powering my original ideas and focus for the piece. i don't want to reiterate what i researched.
i want to write about the conditions in Brazil at the end of the military rule, just before democracy. that babenco was testing the waters with a film about street kids as an allegory for the issue of the corrupt military state, and police system and the situation of adult men in prisons, these are themes he revisited again twice after Pixote. some scenes in Carandiru echo Pixote, and i'd like to make those allusions.
yes, i also believe that the story is about the faliure of a the traditional family model under capitalism and abject poverty. the value of women in society=faliure of the mother, and the cult of violence=failure of the father.
pixote seaches for people to fill these roles, but ultimately comes up empty handed, or alone with a gun in his hand. he is 11.
furthermore, i want to focus on what happened after Pixote. the actor, who was a non actor (thus i also want to point out the obvious similarities to salaam bombay, kids, los olvidados, shoeshine, zero for conduct, 400 blows... people like movies about street kids. most recently born into brothels, city of god. but kids have no voice, no agency. in a fictional narrative, how much of 'reality' is going to get to the audience? not much, i think. fernando died at the hands of police. the calendaria massacre. sandro and bus 174. but 1991 over 1000 kids were being killed per year at the hands of police (on and off duty death squads).
i know what i want to write. but i'm scared it's to vague, to broad, with to many ideas instead of one clear focus.
if i had to focus i'd pick to choose a bit about pixote's search for mother and compare lilica to sueli and say why both fail as mothers.
i would talk about the history of FEBEM, which is the main direct criticsm of the film, and the aftermath of the film, fiction becomes reality and things get much worse. including talking about the follow up bio pic "who killed pixote" about fernando.
i can talk a bit about the style, cinema novo and neo-realism and otehr films within the street kid genre.
and finally the similarity of issues babenco returns to in carandiru and kiss of the spiderwoman. particularly in carandiru, where i want to actually compare two scenes that are virtually identical.
(feedback??)
see, i know what to do. i just need to DO it. fuuuckkk. i'll feel so good when it's done. i think i need to watch pixote again to. so that's my wednesday. if i can get it down to a good draft, i'll be happy. editing and fine tuning are dessert once i clunk out the 10-12 pages. i know that's not even that long. but it is scaring me this time around.
meanwhile, i'm working on a photo/spoken word project for my phil project. i did a series of self portraits of me applying make up to go out for dinner with jared, ending with a short 20 second video of him complaining i was taking to long and explaining this is not what i normally do. i want to interview harper for it as well, and do a series of photos of me eating my jelly donut. among other ideas. it's pretty un focused for now. but coming together slowly in spurts. i'm fine with that.
3 more days of school. wow wow wow.

although the condolence calls and murmurs always set me back.

I didn't end up sorting through the boxes of books under the Food Not Bombs table last night. I did get people to take the boxes of discard books out rather than have them all piled up on a ledge, so that's good.

Got home around 11:30. Read for a bit and found an interesting tidbit which I used in a little informational collage-type thing I made this morning. There's a call for mailart for a show about the murders in Juarez. The deadline is Wednesday and the show is in Mexico. I don't know if my piece will get there in time, but it was therapeutic to make it even though Titi didn't die because she was murdered or because she'd been assaulted. Still, the act of putting together words and colors and images helped.

It's not a stunning piece. It probably would be better as a zine or something that doesn't lay flat, but that was the criteria and so I worked with what I had. And I got it done and threw it in the mail when I went to meet Mr. Board Prez for lunch. Don't know if it will get there by Wednesday or if the curators will cut me some slack if it gets there a day or two later (the show opens on the 9th), but it felt good to make and get out there.

I didn't save a copy for myself. I could have run it through the xerox machine, although it would have come out one-colored rather than multicolored. I thought about it, but decided against it. Like I said, it's not a visually stunning piece. It's more an informational piece, something that might be seen in an exhibition geared towards kids or youth rather than adults.

Now I'm feeling full and sleepy. I have two more hours here and I *should* be typing up my notes from last night's midnight reading. I could be re-copying the one messed-up page in the zine I need to send to Katherine Arnoldi (I thought I had sent it. But I just found the envelope for her zine under a pile of other papers, so I guess not) I could get stamps to mail some other interviewees their copies of zines. I could be returning an e-mail or two.

At the very least, I should make some tea. I think I'm losing my voice. I'm wondering if it's psychosomatic--my good friend dies (and I wonder, Did I say good-bye to her after the wedding or did I just wander off to help stack chairs or whatever? We had been planning to go to the Rubin Museum to see the exhibit of photos of Tibet in the 1920s. She was going to invite the man who had escorted her to the wedding. Wonder if I'll screw up the nerve to go now or if it will always just be a clipping on my computer monitor)

Okay, things to do before I leave for this pointless meeting:

*stamp packet of zines
*address invitations for dd's birthday party
*return library book
*type reading notes from last night
*make copy of fucked-up zine page and send zine to K.A.

I think I can get all those done in the next hour and a half. and maybe even some data entry too.

Well, the turkey was a disaster but we had a great weekend nonetheless. Incinerated. To ash. Even the bones crumbled into dust when we touched them. I've never seen anything like it. We were up at the cabin and tried to cook it in the dutch oven covered in coals on the campfire. We did it once a couple of years ago when we were camping in Massachusetts and it came out fantastic. This time, I don't know what happened- we weren't paying attention and the fire was too hot. Apparently way to hot. Fortunately, we had some back up food and had a nice dinner of bbqued ribs instead.
Snow. It snowed the whole time we were there. We got about 8 inches. Ran to Walmart which was a novelty in and of itself and got a sled which served us really well. We were flying down the hill all weekend long. I haven't sledded in years and it was great to feel the speed and the cold. It felt like we were really alive. The neighbors came by and helped us brace the roof for the winter and they have a 4 year old. So the kids had a blast that night. They figured out they could sled down this really short but steep hill next to the cabin and then spent about two hours taking turns flying down the hill. I tried it too. It was scary but fun. I love it up there. It is really isolated from the rest of the world. Our nearest neighbors (the ones that came over) are about a mile away and since we are on a seasonal access road it became really clear as the snow and ice took over just how isolated we really are. We sat around the wood stove the first night and H said, "i wish we could live here all the time." I wish we could too sometimes. The land is amazing. It's the people that freak me out. The locals all appear to be heavily loaded [white] hunters. The neighbors that we have befriended are really nice but they are the only ones we have met so far. The big guys in the local diner wearing camo with 357's strapped to their hips kinda scare me. I'm not so sure I want H growing up like that. The city is stressful but at least it is diverse. And no matter how much of a terrorist threat there is- is it worth the tradeoff? I'm not sure. I miss the cabin though. I cried when we left yesterday.

A huge Sunday, but all is good. The Midget had her Sunday school class, and Q sang beautifully in the band. D sat out for once, and I was glad. He's been very overtaxed lately, he needs to stop performing for everybody (in this case literally) and just sit. Our buddy U was awesome in a drama and on the drums.
Had to rush out of church at noon to get M changed to dance clothes and get her to Nutcracker rehearsal. We got all the way out there ( a large auditorium at the U) only to find it locked up. So all the kids, parents and the 2 ballet teachers stood outside and waited. Eventually it was obvious no one was coming to unlock. No big deal, but The Midget also had a birthday party out at MOA that she was already late for - had told her she could go late to the party but she couldn't miss rehearsal. While we waited, the twins passed out nutcrackers to all the dancers - very sweet and M was thrilled. So finally we gave up and split and hurried over to the big mall. But it took us 15 minutes to even get past the on ramp into the east parking lot. yikes. I was lucky to score a parking spot and hurried M in to her party. She was 45 minutes late. With mall traffic so bizarre (is this how people really shop before the holidays?) I decided to just stay and browse stores during her party. Found a fun pair of French Kitty pajamas for Q's birthday and a new leotard for M.
Then after the party we drove straight to Childrens Theatre and saw Aladdin. My sister Pooze is in Mexico with BIL and both kids. She forgot she had season tix to CTC and gave her seats to M and I. woo-hoo. I knew several of the cast, which was fun. Decent show, not outstanding. But one friend in particular was fabulously funny, gorgeous, outrageous. He was definitely the highlight of the show.

Other news: my Dad. He isn't doing well. I am frightened. Have been trying to spend as much time with the folks as possible. His heart is not beating correctly. The device "interrogation" at the hospital showed that the atria have been beating at a fluttering rate since Sept 1st. Fibrillating? Something like that. So now he has to take meds for 3 weeks and then he goes in and they will administer a shock in an attempt to get it to beat right. His defibrillator keeps the ventricals from doing that, but not the atria. He is slowing down. Still brilliant mentally, and still so fun to be with. But slowing down and sleepy. My Daddy.

We had a great time with Mom and Dad at Thanksgiving and also the night before at Pooze's house. Funny how when it comes down to it, at a large event I prefer the company of D & my family of origin. It was BIL's 50th birthday on the 23rd so she had a huge - and I mean huge - party for him. My folks came and brother J even flew up for it. She had 80 confirmations and most of those were confirming for more than one person, but we have no idea how many people were actually there. Probably over 100. In her house. Ackkk! But it was fabulous. It was also D's birthday the same day, although he likes to point out that he is younger. Am so glad he doesn't ever want that kind of extravaganza. He repeatedly made it clear that I was never to do something like that for him. Good, because while it would be fun, we don't have the resources that Pooze does. She had the whole thing catered through her company, complete with chefs and servers. They even cleaned the house up when it was over so BIL and Pooze awakened to a spotless home. Her kids were here at our house with A's little sis, Little A, taking care of M and her cousins. Worked out fine. Little A is pregnant, due on Dec 25th. She'll be a great mom. She's very young, unmarried, etc and original A was not real pleased that her baby sis was expecting. But this girl is awesome and I think her kid will be lucky to have Little A as a mama. And her boyfriend is a good guy.

D has been doing a lot of healing lately. Unfortunately, my Dad is not receptive to it, or else D would be spending time working on him as well. And that's Dad's right. D is frustrated. He is sure that he could help him. But I have to respect Dad's wishes, so I won't ask again for D no matter how much he bugs me to do it. Some people are open to it, some not. Last year I would have been weirded out myself at the thought of reiki, healing touch, you name it. I might have still allowed someone to do it, but definitely would have been skeptical.

Work has been crazy. Quite entertaining actually. But it would take far too many words to explain right now.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -RW Emerson

Not that Thanksgiving wasn’t great – because it was – but after eating turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and pie pie pie – a good fat burrito with extra hot salsa is just the thing. I had two tonight and they made me very happy.

Monday night my sister G, her boyfriend and my other sister R were supposed to be here by midnight – the house was a big mess and I didn’t start cleaning until nine. At midnight I got a call from G and boyfriend, they had just hit the road – driving up from D.C. – plus they had to stop in Bronxville to pick up R – so they didn’t show up until 6 a.m. I stayed up until 4:30 cleaning – forgetting that I had to get up the next day and be lunch mom at The Boy’s school. So, I slept an hour and a half, got up to let them in and lead them to their beds, went back to sleep for another hour, got up to put The Boy on the bus, went back to sleep for two hours after that, and then woke up my sisters and made them come and be lunch aunts with me – which totally delighted The Boy. He was very excited to have his cool aunts come in and see his classroom and play with his friends. That night I made everyone bruscetta and salmon and roasted tomatoes and broccoli… and then we all went to bed early because we were all totally sleep deprived. The next day I got up again at 7 to take The Boy to school (no bus), then I came back home and woke everyone up and we all (boyfriend and R included) trooped to The Boy’s school to join in their annual thanksgiving festivities – the whole school crams themselves into this too small space and everyone gets a chance to say what they are grateful for and then The Boy and his classmates performed a song and dance about how they walk with beauty and how “may all my thoughts be beautiful, may all my words be beautiful, may all my actions be beautiful� and I cried even though my kid picked his nose and ate it throughout the whole what we’re grateful for part. He was not the only child doing this, by the way. It’s the plague of kindergarten. I keep telling him that he doesn’t want to be the kid who is known for picking his nose – and then I see that like ten other kids habitually do the same thing and I have no ground left to stand on. So, anyway, after the tear jerking performance and nose picking extravaganza, we all went into the boy’s classroom and had a little potlatch with his teachers and the other parents. Then we went home and had about two minutes before my sisters and I roused ourselves to shopping for baking stuff. First we went to the wine store and my sister G, who used to work as a bartender and also at a very nice restaurant and was trained in this stuff, picked out all the wine we were bringing to Thanksgiving. Then we stopped and fortified ourselves with fish tacos, and then we went to the grocery store, which was, of course, packed with people – all in the same boat – standing in front of the canned pumpkin saying, “But where is the fucking condensed milk? And why are there no pecans left???� It was kind of bonding, actually – everyone was talking to each other and trading advice and bitching about not being able to find anything. Brought together by the drudgery of cooking. After the store we went home and then my friend C (the one we were having T-day with) called and asked us to meet her and her family at a local Mexican restaurant (so I guess that was a preemptive strike on the food front). I said we would but first G was doing hair and makeup on me and my sister R. G has a way with these things – and the first thing she did was pluck our eyebrows – something I only rouse myself to do every couple of months or so when I notice that I’m getting a monobrow and that my eyebrows might join my hairline soon. But she REALLY plucked them – and I feel a little like a transvestite now – it’s kind of startling – or maybe I look kind of startled -and then she did super smoky eyes on both me and R, and did our hair, and then, finally we left for the restaurant – an hour late – where we found our friends finishing their meal but happy to order another round of margaritas and hang out with us for the evening. After that, we went home and started baking baking baking, only interrupted briefly when I had to run out and pick up my friend J from the New Paltz bus station. We made mushroom pate and spiced nuts (later to be christened “Crack Nuts� by C because she couldn’t stop eating them) and a plain pumpkin pie and a pumpkin pie with a gingersnap nut crust, and a chocolate pecan tart, and an apple, cranberry walnut pie, and then we went to bed (though at this point the only people up were me and R) at 2. Got up the next morning at 8 because it had snowed during the night – the first snow of the season – and The Boy was totally excited and wanted to go out in it. That was hard – I was feeling the lack of sleep – but we got up and The Boy went outside and I made stuffing, and R made the dough for potato rolls, and then slowly everyone else woke up – G made everyone eggs with spinach and cheese and sour cream and salsa (see, there’s that influence again) and then we gathered up all our stuff and headed off to C’s.

C’s house was beautiful in the snow and not only was all my group excited to be meeting this famous model but they were all enchanted by her amazing home and land. Everyone seemed thrilled to be there and C was as warm and sweet and welcoming as she always is –that’s her gift – she can make anyone feel comfortable in her presence even when they are initially struck dumb by her beauty and fame. We all commenced eating and drinking and watching the turkey be deep-fried. The dinner was spectacular – my pies included, I must say – my new oven really came through – the crusts were totally crisp and shattered when you bit into them. After dinner G’s boyfriend, who is a rap artist, chatted up C’s friend, who is a musician and a producer, and played his demo for him, C and I hung out in the kitchen and helped her husband D do some dishes, we all watched Rize, which was really good, The Boy and C’s kid squeezed themselves into superhero costumes (as predicted). Since The Boy is about twice the size as C’s kid he was particularly hilarious because his costume was TINY on him and gave him a severe camel toe. He didn’t care, though. The party went on and on and everyone was sated and happy and feeling great. Then we went home and collapsed into bed.

Friday morning we did something I have never done before and actually went to the fucking mall on Black Friday. I know, I know – but both my friend J and my sister R needed something to wear to the opera on Saturday and H and M was having a 25% off sale if we bought our stuff before 10 a.m. So we were up early again – and hustling off to the mall – me and G and R and J. R and G’s boyfriend and the The Boy stayed home and slept in. It was actually incredibly fun because R is only eighteen and G and I got the chance to pick out clothes and dress her up and spoil her a little. We bought her a white, fitted tuxedo and an orange camisole with gold sequins to wear under it. Plus a little gold sequined purse and gold spike heels to wear, too. She looked amazing. R is so adorable – she’s got this little hipster haircut – all shaggy and black with a blonde streak, and perfect skin and wide cheekbones, and she just shone in this outfit. Too cute for words. G also bought a bunch of clothes and J found the suit he needed, and I bought a little black sweater with a faux fur collar and a rhinestone clasp, plus a pair of black velvet open toed pumps with a smattering of rhinestones over the toe. I wore the shoes and the sweater, a red corset top, and a black a line skirt to the NY philharmonic that night. J had two free tickets because he’s friends with a bassoon player in the orchestra – so we took the train in that night, after G and her boyfriend went back to D.C. J and I got there early so we had drinks at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central terminal. Which was totally fun. Then we saw the show – which was lovely. I’m not a big classical music buff but J is a professional classical musician so he can explain things in a way that makes the music come alive for me. After the show we rushed back to Grand Central and just missed our train, so we killed another hour having drinks at Dolci and people watching. The train ride back was especially nice because J and I hadn’t had any time to catch up since he’d arrived and this gave us a couple of hours to talk and check in with each other. We got home at 2 and I went straight to bed. R waited up for me. I think he was a little jealous – he told me I looked TOO good before I left – but jealous in a nice way –the kind of way that makes him want to reclaim me by holding me tight and telling me I’m beautiful and his - not in a possessive ugly way. And he honestly has nothing whatsoever to worry about – I was happy to be home and back in his arms – but I still kind of like that he still does get a little jealous after all these years.

The next day J, R (my sister), R (my husband) and I got up in the morning and I made them watch Moonstruck to prepare for the opera and then we drove back to Lincoln Center to see La Boheme. Everyone was dressed up – R in her tux and me in my deep blue dress. The men were wearing nice suits. We had kind of a lousy tourist trap of a dinner, but were starving and R (sister) and I couldn’t walk too far in our enormously high heels – so we ate close by. We were in nosebleed seats but the show was beautiful. I felt elegant all dressed up with my beautiful sister and my beautiful husband and my beautiful friend, sitting in this beautiful space – the amazing chandeliers – they looked like exploded diamonds - and the gold leaf of the roof almost close enough to touch. The opera was this amazing spectacle – huge ornate sets and beautiful costumes and these wild voices soaring up to us, but the sad part was that by the time we got to the second act, I was so, so, so exhausted – five days of not enough sleep, that I could hardly keep my eyes open. I actually dozed off a few times and then snapped back awake – so I felt like a total philistine. I would like to see another opera under better circumstances. Sleep deprivation is hard for me to handle. J left that night – went home with the bassoon player – and R left this afternoon after a nice big pancake breakfast and watching Tivo’d Top Model with me. The rest of the day I have been lying in front of the fire thinking how nice this whole holiday was – how sweet everyone was – how great it was to have everyone together – but totally relieved that we’re done with all our guests for a while. I wish R didn’t have to go back to work tomorrow. But he’s taking Thursday and Friday off to help me get The Boy’s birthday party together (ah god, another EVENT) and so at least he only has a three day week.

Really long 300 words. Sorry ladies. Just kind of poured out. And I probably could go on but The Boy is calling for me and maybe tonight I’ll try to actually get a full night’s sleep.

Nothing is real until it is recorded.
-Virginia Woolf

Nothing like death to throw you off-kilter and make you forget that to-do list.

Spent the day in the darkroom. I hadn't been planning to. I'd simply planned to make proofsheets of the negatives I'd developed yesterday and then move on with my to-do list.

then I found out that dd's beloved Titi died last night. In her sleep. I hope it was a peaceful slumber.

We sat dd down and talked to her about it. She didn't seem that phased by it. Later, she told me that Titi would follow us to the museum from the sky, although she was a bit perplexed as to how she would be able to see the works *in* the museum from the sky. After all, museums aren't open-air, at least not the one we had been planning to go to.

dd made photograms while I fussed with the negatives and enlarger and tried to make somewhat decent proofsheets with fogged paper. She made four--at first, we were going to make one to burn for Titi along with all the representations of things she might want in her next life (paintbrushes, a digital video camera, a basket, a purse, a picture of us so she doesn't forget what we look like...). But I let dd use resin paper for the first one and then realized that plastic is going to be noxious, if it burns at all.

So she did another one on fiber paper. It's still going to be noxious because of all the photo chemicals, but at least it's paper and not plastic. Then she decided to do one for my Goong-Goong (her Taaaih-Goong) and another for Habu. Then she was done and went outside to the light room to draw lots of things for Titi.

I found the one image of Titi from last week's wedding. She is turned away from the camera, talking to her date. She is explaining something to him--her good hand is up, making a gesture. Her bad arm dangles beside her, swathed in a white bandage. He is listening intently. The sun was shining down on them, making him appear very contrast-y.

She had been happy to be at the wedding. "I'm glad I came," she repeated. We sat with her and, when I saw lone friends looking for a friendly place to sit, I waved them over and immediately introduced them to Titi. She talked with one radical librarian for quite a while; I'm not sure about what, maybe about documentary filmmaking. She admired my mama friends' newborns. She laughed at dd and dd's friends' antics.

This evening, while dd drew and I printed that one photo (and then another of an old acquaintance whose going-away party I went to the night before the wedding), we snacked on dumpstered crackers courtesy of Food Not Bombs. At one point, I emptied the box and a memory popped up.

When dd was two, maybe, Titi took an empty cracker box and called it "Mr. Box." She asked Mr. Box questions and Mr. Box answered in a funny voice. dd thought this was great and wouldn't let Titi stop. Everytime Titi tried to put "Mr. Box" down, dd picked it up and handed it back to her. By the end of the night, Titi was thoroughly sick of talking to a box and, when her partner came in, pleaded with him to rescue her from talking to this stupid cajo. He just laughed.

Of course, dd doesn't remember this. Nor does she ever remember a time when Titi was not sick. I remember when Titi's arm first started swelling up. dd wanted Titi to clap with her and was annoyed that Titi couldn't. She grabbed the bad hand and tried to slap it against the other.

"No, baby," Titi said. "It doesn't work."

when dd was a newborn, Titi used to hold her. both arms worked back then. Once dd was on a crying jag. Titi held her while standing and dd stopped. When she got tired, she started to sit, but dd began to wail again. So she stood. Each time she tried to sit down, dd cried and so she stood.

"What's the difference?" she asked. "Is the air somehow better up here?"

I told dd that tonight. Of course she didn't remember that either. "Why did I cry?" she asked.

"I don't know. You tell me."

"It's because it wasn't comfortable when she sat," dd decided.

Tomorrow we have to go to Chinatown to buy hell money. I forgot the box of zines for Microcosm and will have to fetch that tomorrow morning and drag it to the post office as well.

At least I got some printing done today. It helped clear my mind for a few hours.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Not quite sure what to do with this day off. I have dd, so spending a huge chunk of time in the darkroom isn't an option.

Yesterday, before we went to my mom's, I developed two rolls of film that had been sitting in my bag. I pushed the film a couple of minutes since I knew that a couple of shots had been taken in the basement of the Delancey Lounge last weekend and it was so dark that I couldn't even see anything through the viewfinder! Still, there was some light because *my* eye could see and so I knew I had gotten *something* on it.

The shots came out, although still a little thin. I need to harangue the darkroom tech about fixing the hot water now that winter is finally here and the water is barely at 68 degrees when you first turn it on.

I'd like to proof sheet those today. Maybe I will do that--set dd up on an enlarger to do photograms or give her lots of paper and crayons to draw with. I was looking at a photographers' message board yesterday and there's a whole thread on parenting and printing. Many of them said that they bring their little ones into the darkroom and let them do photograms. Many talked about collecting leaves to do photograms--that's an idea. I just sent dd off to collect things around the house that might be interesting shapes after asking "Do you want to do photograms today?" So she's climbing around looking for things that might make interesting shapes and I can do my 300 words in peace.

Also need to go to the post office today and mail a box of zines to Microcosm. I should also buy stamps since there are a gazillion packages waiting to be mailed and we have a little money in the package kitty right now. I'm wondering how long a line there's going to be since it's the day after Thanksgiving. Guess i'll see...

As for the rest of the day...there are a few options. One is to head down to Soho to find an artist who used to do an open mic and see if he'd be willing to be interviewed for a mini-zine. Not that I need to be doing a mini-zine right now...I need a new project like I need a hole in the head. but it came upon me the other day and I feel like I need to do this *now* while he's still around and on this side of the country and not sick or in trouble again. I'm kind of kicking myself for not thinking to track him down sooner since now it's coldcoldcold and standing around while he sells his paintings outside on the street and trying to interview him is going to be physically uncomfortable. Why couldn't I do it during the summer months? Or earlier in the fall?

Because I'm a big procrastinator that's why.

I also need to call one of the interviewees and drop off his zine and the two zines meant for his neighbors. That is less urgent, although his neighbor e-mailed me and asked if I'd ever sent it and reiterated that she really wanted to see it. So I should get on it today. Or tomorrow.

I could go to work today and make up some of the hours I lost from being sick last week even though the office is officially closed. I could also use the xerox machine and make more zines since I'm now officially out of the third zine in the series that O and I did a few years back (well, this particular issue is just O because we'd had a big falling-out by then about his living in the community center and letting his dog run all over the place while he was at work and his dog shitting all over and him not taking responsibility for her. I walked over to him one day and said, "You need to find a new place to live." He accused me of being ddd's hatchetman (his words, literally) and walked away from me. And, despite years of friendship and staying up till 4 am drinking vodka and forties together and talking about everything in the universe, we stopped speaking to each other for two yeras.)

Work will be warm too.

I should go home though and sort through photographs and negatives and whatnot. I had meant to send more to Coleen for the mamacalendar and never quite got around to it. I did want to send her dd's photo of all the mamas at the Mamaphonic reading in Brooklyn last year--taken too late to make it into last year's mamacalendar. I thought I had uploaded it onto this site, but maybe it got eaten with various site changes. I'll have to see if I have a digital file stored anywhere still...

Okay, time to finish drinking my coffee and heading out the door to start my morning.

I love how movie-like your life sounds. I know it isn't perfect, as no one's is, but it sounds so lovely. your home and the lantern walk, just adorable. I also liked the part about blackberry cobbler for a party. You seem like a very down to earth, sweet person. Oh, and your writing is very enjoyable, as well as being well written.
xoxo

do you know that feeling when your brian goes "zzzbbbrraacckkkkkkeerrpppllliiinnkkkmmmunnggrreeeepppbbbbtttffff...bzztbzztbbzzztt"?
yeh.
so today was the feminist pop culture fair, and oh yes, we did interpellate like althusser. mostly i think we scared people away as we yelled "fuck you gender fuck fuck your gender". i got up on a chair and called for everyone's attention and tried to teach teh smash the state call and response. mostly the people looked terrified.
occasionally a brave soul would come up to see our wicked awesome slide show, and be shocked, surprised, amazed that rad cheer is not something we just made up, but that really really exists.
it was amusing.
i've almost lost my voice, the carnival was extremely loud. someone even had big top circus music blasting. and that was hard to compete with.
mostly today was supposed to be my day off, so i slept till 11 and then sat down and forced myself to do a intro and outline of my Pixote essay. that felt good, even though i could've done more. on tuesday the prof gave the whole class an extra 8 days...since i was only one of two or three with films picked and actual topics. that was nice of her. then i picked up ashley and we went to emily's house to practice and perfect our cheers. too..much...for...brain...rhyming...hurts. ouch. no actually it was hella fun!
next up: feminism and popular culture final exam december 7th.
oh by the way, it's almost december isn't it?! yeh it was +12C outside today and my neighbors where cutting their lawn. i have NEVER seen that before. it's very very strange this weather.
so i was watching Ellen in NYC today and pining and feeling that pang deep in my soul, for a rainy fall day in central park. and long lost friends sharing extremely large turkeys and roasted chestnuts and yams in queens. that makes me sad. but what can you do?
yesterday harper said the funniest thing ever. i had a headache (have a headache) and she says "oh mummy, would you like a water? a cloth for your head? would you like to explain the word i just said?"
so, would you like to explain the word i just said?

or, what Arbus called, "that raw wild power" starting to come back after over a week of forced inactivity.

Last night, L and I collated zines till about 11:30 at night. It started with us just hanging out and shooting the shit. Then I mentioned that Microcosm wanted thirty each of the zines O and I had done in the past. She said that she needed more of one of the issues too and so we went up to grab some.

Then I realized that we were almost out of that issue, BUT that there were many uncollated copies waiting to be put together. So we spread out across the table in the light room and puzzled out pages (why the hell didn't O put page numbers on them? Yeesh) and folded and stapled and ripped the staples out of the copies which were missing pages and re-did those as well. I refrained from whining about how much I missed Mopey Puppy, only mentioning him about a dozen times in the course of a couple of hours. I feel bad whining to her since she's not in a relationship right now and is feeling strange at seeing those around her hooking up.

Got home around midnight. Washed my hair (which, in below-40 weather, is a HUGE accomplishment) and started to write a letter to a woman in prison who wrote me last month and whose letter I had stuck in an issue of VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW and then forgotten about. At 1, I could no longer really keep my eyes open and so I called it a night and fell into a lovely slumber without all the tossing and turning and yearning of previous nights.

Woke up this morning and finished that letter. Drank coffee while sitting in front of the space heater and wishing that winter weren't here yet. Or that there was a chance in hell that our building would at least get a boiler before spring.

Wrote another letter at work. Deposited my paycheck. Hung out with the receptionist, whose last day is today. We talked about food and growing up girls in Asian families and traditions and customs. She told me that her cousin (who is Indian) married a man who is Indian and their children are, of course, Indian. BUT they have no idea how to eat Indian food--they live off processed boxed food and so when they visited NYC, they had no idea what sorts of foods were put in front of them that everyone else had just grown up eating. I told her that that was kind of like what dd's American cousins were like--they don't know how to acclimate to different foods. Like when dd was one, we went out for Indian food. dd ate everything on my plate (much to my annoyance after a while. I would have liked to have had some papadam too, thank you very much) and her cousins just looked at the food and refused to eat. At all.

We exchanged contact information--strange, after 10 years at that dead-end job, this may be my first friend *from* the job.

C called me from her job in NM. She said that she recently saw a prisoner art exhibition and was thinking that, since she's stuck there for a time, of starting a books to prisoners program there. I told her that she should start small so as not to get overwhelmed too fast. I also told her to write to the Philly BTB people for their "how to start a prison book program" handbook since I could answer questions but couldn't give her an accurate step-by-step how-to that she would need.

We talked about the fact that the guy who killed her partner might be getting out in the next year or so. Apparently, he went up for parole earlier this year and flopped. She said it's strange that she's been getting into prison issues but is still very much wanting him to stay in. I pointed out that this guy wasn't incarcerated for lack of opportunity--he's a rich kid, son of a surgeon, went to fancy art schools and decided he should kill her partner because her partner called his girlfriend a fat pig.

It's not that he grew up lacking for opportunity to "live the American dream" or what-have-you. He was never in the position where he had to hustle to survive, to sell crack or heroin for a living, or where he might have had a habit that sent him spiraling to the bottom. No. He was just some rich white kid who thought he could get away with stabbing someone else to death. And who used his rich white privilege (and his daddy's money) to get the best lawyer that money could buy.

So it's not an oxymoron that C is wanting to do prisoner literacy and education work while wanting the man who murdered her partner and sent her life into a tailspin to stay in prison (and far away from her). Hell, *I* want him to stay in prison (and get totally fucked over and beat up and made miserable every fucking day of his life to make up for the fact that for four fucking months, we sat in that hospital room and watched our friend slowly deteriorate into a vegetable) and usually I don't believe in prisons.

dd is watching ALICE IN WONDERLAND now and wearing the princess gown that ddd's childhood friend made for her. I had been hoping that we could address all her birthday invitations tonight, but ddd looked at them and said that the directions were wrong and we'd end up getting all the guests lost in Bushwick. So we have to re-do them and xerox them at Kinko's since I won't be back at work until Monday. (Maybe I will go in on Friday. More zines need to be made and I could do the invitations then and then we could mail them out)

I do have a couple of more letters to write. Maybe I should do that while she's occupied. I just wish there were some way to make this room (which is still missing a window even though it's almost December) warmer so my fingers and toes don't feel frozen.

I'm sort of stunned by how quickly I can plop out 2000 words for NaNoWriMo. I don't know if they're good words -- I have a sneaking suspicion that once I have the whole thing down, front to back, so that I have a coherent plot-line, I'm going to have to rewrite it entirely so that the silly thing has a decent voice -- but I can do it.

I'm trying to decide what to do when November is over. I definitely want to continue the discipline of writing a set number of words daily, other than journal entries. But I can't decide whether to take the easy road and write 1000, or to stick with 2000. 2000 makes me tense, but I think that's also because I'm a bit hung up on making 50,000 by the end of the month. Once I'm just writing a set amount every day, and the book ends where it ends, I might loosen up. Or not. We'll see.

Got our turkey yesterday. Free-range and all that; the guy we get our chicken and eggs and pork from is branching out. It costs about 3 times a Butterball, but I don't really want to support Butterball. But I think that it's hateful that it takes a pretty snug income to afford decent food. Picked up the beef today, and ironically enough it's actually cheaper to buy a year's worth all at once, but you have to have the money in a lump sum right at the beginning of the year, and a big freezer, and it just isn't possible for the people it would help the most.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do on top of recognizing my privilege. Should be interesting, as I am a fundamentally lazy person.

B called the local food pantry for P. P wants to volunteer there, so they signed him up for Thanksgiving day, three hours in the morning. If he likes it, he can set up to volunteer on a schedule. B is also going to talk to the pres and vice pres of the board, because P wants to know how a charity like that operates, and if he continues to be interested, we'll see about them taking him as a junior member of the board, or as an intern (damn young to be interning at 12.) Or whatever. I'm just pleased that he wants to help.

I want to go to the library and ask the children's librarians, "Can you guide me to any subversive books about Thanksgiving?" In the past, people have given me ideas about books I could share with the kids, but me being me, I haven't written them down. Some of them may be in comments on my lj, though -- I should go and look.

My mother just stopped by to give me a transit pass to go to her house on Thursday. She asked me how the "parade" was.

What parade?

Oh yeah, the vigil on Friday.

"Was it against war?" she asked. And then launched into some inane rambling about how it's hard because, well, what about 9/11? And terrorist attacks?

What the FUCK?!?

Does she NOT read the newspaper or listen to the news? Does she really and truly believe that Iraq--especially the civilians being bombed in Iraq--had ANYTHING to do with September 11th? She was surprised--and probably didn't believe me--when I told her that Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11.

"Really? Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it?"

No. And neither did all those families getting bombed in Baghdad.

Ohhh, this Thursday is going to be *fun* (this is being typed in the most sarcastic tone I can muster)

makes me wish my brother were coming back a day early so that we didn't have to go up.

I still wonder how she really can believe such b.s. Maybe I'll ask ddd for some quick and easy links to e-mail her about 9/11 and the lies surrounding this bloody war. Wonder if she'd read them.

Thinking about what strange combinations come together for this holiday. This year I will have two of my younger sisters, (they arrive late tonight) and an old friend from high school (he’ll get in on Wednesday)l in my house to celebrate. Maybe my sister’s boyfriend as well (he was supposed to be coming but this is rather up in the air at the moment). The twist is, I will then take all these people, plus R and The Boy, to my friend C’s house – where she was supposed to have had two sets of her friends (two couples), her younger brother, her husband and her son (who is The Boy’s good friend). But there has been a drain on the guests – first my little brother canceled (he is in India and having too much fun to come home) then one of C’s couples canceled (the husband is in the window dressing industry and the day after Thanksgiving is really his biggest work day) then my sister and her boyfriend canceled, then they decided they could come, but they would have to leave half way through dinner, then they decided they could come and stay until Friday, then my sister called and said she is coming, and staying until Friday, but her boyfriend might only come until Wednesday, or maybe until Thursday morning, possibly until Friday, or perhaps not at all. Then C called and said that her remaining couple had their Chihuahua spayed and don’t feel they can travel with her so they are not coming, either. So, that leaves at least ten – perhaps eleven. And so my friend C is basically going to be throwing a party for my family at her house. I have offered to move the whole production to my house – but she has gallons and gallons of oil and is intent on deep frying the turkey and insists that we all join her.

So there it is – C’s small family – her, her husband, their child, and the brother/uncle. My small family with my two sisters – and then my old friend as well – who might as well be a brother at this point because I’ve known him for seventeen years.

I like Thanksgiving. My family was very insular when I was a kid. Holidays were pretty much for family only – my parents weren’t very social, there were a lot of kids, and so we were plenty as we were. We would often travel to my grandma’s and get together with my mom’s brother and his family. But that’s about as extended as it got. Once I remember one of my older brothers bringing along a friend of his who I had a huge crush on. But that was the exception. Since we moved to New York – Thanksgiving has always been about friends. The only year we didn’t have a group like this – friends, family, cancellations, last minute invites, always too much food - was the year Spike was born. I was less than a week away from giving birth and couldn’t imagine doing anything more strenuous than eating take out Chinese in the kitchen with R. Which is what we did.

So this year we’ve put this together – an odd conglomeration of people. Deep fried turkey, old stone house, there’s talk about the possibility of snow. I will make pies and tarts and stuffing, my traditional wild mushroom pate and candied nuts. R will make a batch of his family’s potato bread rolls. C will make corn pudding (she’s from Texas) and dip those turkeys in oil, and have everything else catered. We will get there early and stay for the day. I predict that many of us will drink a lot of wine. My sisters will arrive late tonight, and I will wait up for them, greeting them with my warm, clean house and soft beds. They will help me cook over the next two days. We will troupe as a family to watch The Boy’s little Thanksgiving pageant on Wednesday afternoon. On Wednesday night my high school friend J will arrive and R may be relieved to have another man in the house after a couple of days of three sisters. On Thursday we will arrive early and stay late and maybe watch the snow fall. My friend C will be ridiculously beautiful – because that’s what she is – and warm and welcoming to everyone – because she is very good at that as well. The Boy and C’s boy will race up and down the stairs, and wear costumes and show off for the grown ups. We will sit in front of a big stone fireplace and eat and laugh and talk – a little tipsy. On Friday we will take J to H&M and help him pick out a suit because he is a bachelor and I think he likes the idea that all these sisters will be around to help him dress. On Saturday we will dress to the nines and go into the city and see La Boheme at the Met. I have the most beautiful dress to wear – a dark purple blue – the color of the night sky – heavy silk, cut in a kimono style with a umpire waist and built in obi and trailing butterfly sleeves. The perfect dip at the neck – just enough to show a hint of cleavage. My skin looks very white against this particular shade of blue. I have black velvet stiletto heels – very high , very pointy toes, with a band of blue sequins across the front. A black velvet wrap lined with black satin to throw over my shoulders. My grandmother’s black velvet clutch with the pearl and rhinestone fastener. R will wear a slick black suit and a satin tie. My little sister will look beautiful, because she’s nineteen and beautiful no matter what, and J will wear the suit the girls will have picked out for him.

Yes, in some ways I feel that this holiday might be my favorite. There is something good about bringing these different elements together – family, old friends, new friends, total strangers… Something lovely about the ragtag nature of the day.

Nothing is real until it is recorded.
-Virginia Woolf

wrote: "You can see I've got suddenly more energy than I can use. I need a dam...I hope I can really do something, not just feel elated."

Later that year, she writes to him that she cannot go to England to work on a project exclusively about families (over there): "I don't think I can come unless I can make a little money to bring home. I am so behind in work. Reams to print." (And one of her projects, which never seems to have come to fruition, was to photograph vigilante women. The topic jumps out at me and I wish she had. I would have liked to see how she treated the subject)

I wish I had all that energy right now. I wish I had even a fraction of that energy. Instead, I have a gastrointestinal virus. And pain that I can momentarily chase away with an Advil. But no energy to pursue all the projects that I would like to be pursuing, that I know I should be pursuing.

My Diane Arbus coffee table book is now overdue as well. I tried to renew it, but someone else has placed a hold on it and so I will just end up owing the library a lot of money for the book. I wish I had had it with me when I was sick--it would have been nice to look at when lying in bed, something to think about other than worrying about whether this was an ectopic pregnancy (why do none of my herbal books talk about ectopic pregnancies? True, as far as I know, you can't treat them herbally, but wouldn't it be good to know what they feel like so one can possibly get medical attention right away and not think it's something totally different?) or whether I'd have to be like my friend and have half my stomach surgically removed and wondering how I would pay for that since I have no health insurance.

But I didn't have it with me and now it's five days overdue and counting. I'm only on 1968, which seems to go on for quite a few pages. Arbus seems to have left more documentation about that year than previous years, or maybe my brain is just slow and not yet used to reading so much after a week of nothing but pain and more pain.

today the sky is overcast, gray, cloudless. The kind of day where the colors come out more but black and white photos turn the sky white and one has to burn burn burn in a gray edge to distinguish it from the edge of the paper. I am thinking of all the Emir Kusturica gypsy movies set in eastern Europe, of gray overcast skies, of being on the road and what one might see there that is commonplace there but unusual and new for American eyes. I wish I were on the road there with a camera and a notebook, making a little road zine as I bump along following a gypsy punk band with a name I cannot pronounce. Getting out of the car in a strange town and trying to buy petrol or food, feeling the snow crunch under my boot and seeing my breath frost in the air and maybe even dodging a stray chicken or two pecking around underfoot.

Maybe it is because my brain has gotten soft and sluggish from spending all last week in bed, but I do not feel like doing bookwork. I told myself that today, I would dump one of my chapters into Endnote. I chose that specific chapter because I have one or two articles which are possible additions to what I have already written, but now that my co-worker is gone with her week of gossip and the radio is off and the space heater has made the place bearable and I have taken yet another ibuprofen to keep the pains in my belly and back at bay

I remain unmotivated.

I think instead I will look at this big coffee table book that I need to return soon. And scribble down more quotes as they come. And maybe later, or maybe tomorrow--I will work on that chapter.

Later that year, Arbus was hospitalized for hepatitis. Then she was sent somewhere to rest and recuperate ("Once in a while I feel a vague anxiety about what is happening around where I am supposed to be but then I remember that I am 'not supposed to have any responsibilities.' So I look once more out upon the lawn and see who is chasing whom and hope for the best," she wrote to her friend Caroltta Marshall, who was hospitalized in Europe at the same time.)

A month later, she wrote to Crookston: "I have started to work. In a way I miss being sick but during convalescence a strange rage developed in me. It especially appears every night around 4 AM like a werewolf. I don't know if it can be made to make something but it feels like raw wild power. I don't yet know how to make it energy."

I don't have that strange rage. I don't have that urge to *do* something, to make up for lost time. Earlier today, maybe, but I've also learned that if I fritter my morning away, lounging around in bed, drinking coffee, listening to records, putting away the laundry, instead of diving into the business of writing and reading and taking notes on my reading, then my productive day wont' be quite so productive. If, by 1 pm, I have done nothing on any of my projects, chances are I will remain unmotivated the rest of the day. That's not to say that the day is totally shot--there is still the possibility of a second or third wind later, but it's a slimmer possibility than had I started at 10 this morning.

But at 10 this morning, I was putting Guatemalan Antigua in the coffee maker and the Supremes on the record player and the dress I wore to the wedding on a hanger and my dirty stockings in the laundry bag. I wasn't writing, I wasn't reading, I wasn't even planning my work for the week. I was just happy and in the moment.

The Eagles lost. The season was looking lousy anyway, and now with McNabb on the injured list, pretty much all prospect of a winning season is out the window. Usually I wouldn't say so, because the team is big on teamwork and depth, and no "superstar" players that they can't get along without, but the team has been doing badly anyway, and I don't see them pulling it together now. That means that for the rest of the season, B is going to be hard to live with on Sundays.

Sunday is my "day off" from NaNoWriMo. I like having a day off -- otherwise I start to feel really pressured, as though if I miss making my goal for even one day, everything will come to an end -- but I'm a bit at loose ends. I've cruised the net, knitted a little bit, made some coffee, given F some extra love to make up for the fact that she was sick last night and today, and had to stay in her own room instead of being part of her sister's birthday sleepover.

I've been knitting froufy eyelash scarves for the kids on and off over the summer and fall. I'm finally finished with them and I've picked up my woolen sweater again. Boy, what a difference between light eyelash on size 13 needles versus wool on size 7. My hands have lost some strength over the summer, and doing sustained knitting on the sweater is hard. It doesn't help that I'm at a complex place in the pattern, so I need to refer back to the pattern constantly. I can't just knit; it's knit and look, knit and look, knit and look. It's slower, and more frustrating. Still, I should finish most of it by the end of the winter, unless for some reason I don't knit this winter.

Of course, if I'm writing more, I may be knitting less, but I don't think I'll be spending hours and hours writing. I do better doing two or three short but intense sessions during the day, and making a conscious attempt to do something else in between.

The writing has been interesting. The site (which is funny as hell) warns writers that the experience can be a real rollercoaster. I haven't found that to be true, although there are weird ups and downs that don't seem to have much to do with how things are actually going. But they aren't particularly extreme. Either that or my old ups and downs were so extreme compared to what the site calls a "rollercoaster" that I just take them in stride, because they're small potatoes.

repeat to self: go to bed go to bed go to bed.
seriously. it gets to a point after midnight where i'm desperately finding and searching for aimless things to do. excuses. i don't know what i resist about the concept.
so i'm surfing, making a mix cd, perfecting it for the holidaze to send to friends. thinking in spurts about this and that. essays to write and projects to do. too much to do. but i feel like i'm wading through thigh high thick oatmeal. can't get very far very fast. i think my ideas scare me. i'm scared if i start i won't be able to stop and i'll fall off the face of the earth into a black hole of essay obbsession. i think the term is "procrastination".
but what about this balatant avoidance of sleep, bed, this procrastination about rest.
i think i have some deep seated psychological issues around sleeping.
when i was really manic in new york, before jared, i would sit up on the futon in the living room and smoke unfiltered lucky strikes and make collages, cutting and pasting. or making word lists in my note book. or perfecting my answering machine message. until 3 or 4 in the morning.
just thinking about it brings back the smells, everything so vivid. i wish i could crawl out of this dimension and into that one, just as it was. it makes me sad.
or maybe this velvet underground is making me full of sorrow.
i'm having trouble concentrating on anything for more than 10 minutes at a time.
i couldn't even settle down and pay attention to any films at work. highly unusual. for the third shift in a row i put on the last waltz and realphabetized section by section and dusted shelves. cause i couldn't stand still.
i'm physically dizzy. but that may be an inner ear issue. more than likely it is seeing as my right ear has been going "whoosh" and the sound waving in and out like the tide. feeling full then empty. all day long. day three.
i think i could sit up and listen to the meat puppets all night. but i still wish it was in queens on the futon.

Well, I've popped 30,000 for NaNoWriMo. Put your hands up and give a few listless cheers. Listless 'cause I'm tired, and I don't feel like doing anything else I should be doing.

Poor V got sick yesterday, and she's sick today, and today is her birthday. She's spent the entire day curled up on the couch, except for taking P to and from class. I felt so bad about that -- every time she gets up she gets a splitting headache, and riding in the car does not help.

Usually we take the kids out to dinner for their birthdays, and we were planning to take V out today. She wants to go to a local ice cream place that has this huge creation called a "Kitchen Sink." It's served in this huge container shaped like a kitchen sink, and it's basically like a banana split with a big ol' ego. She's always wanted to order one, so we're going to order one and split it. But it's going to have to wait for another night. She wouldn't enjoy being dragged out for dinner tonight.

Right now her birthday present is sitting on the hearth for her to feast her eyes on. She's not allowed to open it until P gets home from classes. So all she knows is that there's a big bag with a big bouquet of roses and other flowers in it, with all the colors of a sunset. I'm pleased that B got her sunset colored flowers; she's been noticing the sunsets out the big bay window since she got sick.

Since she's not going out, B called on his way home from work to find out if she wanted something special for dinner. She gave her order, and out he went to get sausage, potato, cranberries, and asparagus. Not exactly a classic combination, but tasty enough.

So - the last of 3 plays in succession opens tonight. Hoo-rah, hoo-ray, foolsgold can play. After I get through today that is.

Had to get The Midget and Q off to school this morning. D has been making the lunches these days, which is indispensable. Then had to run off to my pedicure/manicure appt which had been so foolishly booked many weeks earlier. It was supposed to be my present to myself for having come through the past 4 wks unscathed. A little premature because I am not yet finished with the chaos. The appt ended up being just one more place I had to be. Then The Midget had her school play at 12:30. She was Redcoat #2 and scoffed at Paul Revere. She & her cohorts stole Sam Adams' horse (which Sam was riding backwards anyway) and galloped off to the wings.

Now I am supposed to be out at the theatre decorating a lobby area near the stage that is opening tonight. But - The Midget gets off the bus at 3. Hardly makes sense to drive all the way out there to only spend 30 minutes. Couldn't even get all the Christmas lights out of their packages in 30 minutes. Have decided to wait till Q gets off of her bus at 3:30 and drive out then, letting the 2 girls fend for themselves at home. Friday is the one day of the week that Q doesn't have her driving class after school so this should work well, for me anyway. And if they don't get along (when, rather) I will be miles away and won't hear the shrieks.

I started my first Fall show tech week on Oct 29th. And on Sunday Oct 30 the first fiasco occurred. To explain, it helps to know that I work in a very large complex with several theatres. I design them all. So, anyway, B & the B closed on Oct 29. The BB closed Oct 30. On the afternoon of Oct 30 I returned to the theatres having had 3 hrs of sleep, not bad. Only to discover an hysterical technician saying "did you hear? did you hear?". No, I didn't. Well, it seems the new ambitious technical director had assumed the 2 shows closed on the same day. Oct 29th. And on Oct 30, one of our actors had happened to stroll through the theatres on his way to rehearsal. He passed a carpentry crew who were headed out to the parking lot with the remnants of the BB set. Only problem was, it hadn't closed and had a sold out house booked for that very night, which was to be closing night. So it's not like we could hand out rain checks. We had to put the damn thing back. But the freshly painted stage floor was too wet for me to walk on. I couldn't get to the lights that they had unplugged in their hurry to strike the thing. One set of instruments was buried behind a wall that had been installed upstage. Others merely had their cords dangling. And the audience was due to show up in a scant 3 hrs. We flew. There was a show. But it looked nothing like the rest of the run.

And that was just the first of the catastrophes, but enough to write about in one entry. The important thing is that 2 of the 3 shows are now successfully open to good reviews. And the 3rd will hopefully follow in the same fashion tonight.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -RW Emerson

did i say it was winter? i take that back. between monday and today it has snowed, melted, rained, frozen, and sunshined. feels like september again.
oh fuck i hate this very stiff computer lab keyboard. ugh ugh ugh.
i finished a book on tuesday. as in reading that was for pleasure and not an english translation of the german translation of the original french lectures from notes as taken by yadda yadda yadda. as in 'for fun'.
so today, this morning i picked up palaniuk's "invisible monsters". it's a first person narrative. and i started off thinking assuming it was a male voice. about five pages in my brain did a stop, reread, rewind, replace and replay...now with female narrative. it was a funny realization. but i can't get through 5 pages with out my mind wandering away, no matter what book, and needing to write myself. maybe that is good.
i had a good day yesterday. my day off, during which i did no work on my essay, or any school reading. three of us, our group for the fem/pop culture fair, got together to work on our rad cheer presentation. so we hung around ashley's house half watched "bring it on again" (bet you didn't know there was a sequel!-oh there is...) and gabbed. it was nice. i don't have really any girlfriends here that i can do that with. without a 4 yr old interupting and without the conversation turning to breastfeeding or whatever. just girl talk, whatever that is. the last time i did it must have been in minneapolis at the gathering. seriously.
i have kevin, and we hang, and HP and glen, but it's more organized around after harper's bedtime and watching movies for serious. not hanging out sans kids midday talking and laughing. it was new and exciting....i'm sure only for me.
this keyboard is really pissing me off.
i've been wandering around in a haze, bleary eyed, with my mind jumping from word to word, image to image. observing life, disconnected. sometimes disassociated from my body. floating.
i'm ultra aware of my body as i sit in SUB and eat that jelly donut in the morning, all by myself. getting goo everywhere. white icing sugar everywhere. jelly. donut ripping. messy faced. it's carnage. it probably looks like i am feral and haven't every eaten a jelly donut in my life. it's very self consious. especially as i peek up to see who is seeing me. and no one seems to be. but i'm sure they are all laughing.
i try to do it in a way that will look like i know what i am doing. but i don't. then comes anxiety. the impending day.
morose quotes make me giggle outloud as a read and eat.
i wonder how weird people think i am. but i half know that i'm invisible. no one sees me or knows who i am.
i drove emily home yesterday and she's so organized. telling me about seeing her advisor.
shit, i signed up for classes and showed up one day. that's it. i don't even know my department head, or even where the department office is, let alone what the hell a student advisor is supposed to do for me. i should find that out.
but i don't know how much i care.
do i care?
i do.

Thanksgiving is next week. And we're so clever we scheduled V's birthday party on Thanksgiving weekend. Yeah. We're clever.

It will be all right. The dragon pinata, she is a-buildin', and the dragon cake, she is a plannin', and I need to sit down with V and plan a few things to do with the rest of the party, but basically it's going to be no big deal.

Thanksgiving, maybe, will be lonely. Last Thanksgiving, my family all got together at my brother's place in Denver. Thanksgiving before that, Penguin came out to join us, and Penguin is family. And so many of my Thanksgivings as an adult have been involved with family; it seems so strange that it is going to be just the five of us. And a free-range turkey, of course. We're finally starting to learn the area, and we've found the local providers. I'll be interested to see how free-range compares with Butterball.

Took the kids skating today. I should have taken my skates and gotten a round or two in, but I get so sore! I should go anyway, and if I only make it around the rink half a dozen times, fine. It's better than nothing. There are new moms with younger kids starting to come to the meetings. I enjoy the newer people -- most of them seem to be very cool.

Still moving along for NaNoWriMo. Still having trouble getting started, and sticking with it when the going gets rough. But I am sticking with it, and it's happening, and that's a good thing.

I'm at about 26,000 words for NaNoWriMo. That puts me a little over halfway to the NaNoWriMo goal, but it's become obvious that I won't be finished the book until long after that. 50,000 words is a novella, and this critter is shaping up to be an epic.

I forgot to set an alarm for this morning, didn't get out of bed, and slept through the furnace people knocking on my door and ringing my phone. Damn. At least it was a QC inspection after the installation, not the installation itself.

I swam my half-mile today, which was good, although it left me a little ... physical ... feeling. It's a funny combo of tension and weakness that isn't dreadfully unpleasant, but isn't much to write home about, either. I think about the novel while I'm swimming, but I never come up with anything. I never come up with anything except when I'm actually writing, but I think that the time I spend simmering it when I'm not actually writing does help. I can't stop myself from doing it, anyway, so I hope it helps.

P needs to get out and finish raking the lawn he started yesterday, but it rained all day today. That's what kept him from finishing the job yesterday, too -- rain. It's supposed to rain all week. By the time the rain stops, he's going to be picking up those leaves with a pitchfork, not a rake. At least the rain should get the last of the leaves off of the tree.

The drain under the sink popped apart today. It's not broken, exactly -- the sink drain drops down into the trap the way it should -- but it does occasionally separate, and I can't help wonder whether the drain pipe doesn't need to be a little longer so that it stays together. It's back together for now, though, and P finished the dishes, which is what I wanted, though.

I had a huge attack of cowardice about writing the novel today. Just fear. Partly because I've come to a transition and I don't know more than about a paragraph ahead what's going to happen. Partly because any challenging part of the book scares me. And partly, I think, just because the increasing weight of all those words makes the book more real, and therefore more scary.

I am having thoughts about publishing, though. Fantasies, like the book, right now, of course. But when I get it finished, if it looks as though it will rewrite well, then who knows? No point in writing it if I don't throw it to the wolves at least once.

Dinner out with B this evening. Tuesday nights, a whole hour and a half all to ourselves, and without having to pay a sitter. Gotta love it. Beef simmered in burgundy. Cheap chain joint, too. Delicious.

Okay, I'm starting to write like a telegram. Time to quit for the night.

i've been having restless, fitfull sleep for three days now, accompanied by nightmares. i'm overwhelmed, stressed out, depressed, flailing, floundering, exhausted and everything is too fucking loud.
i had a bright moment in my day at the garneau, as we sat around doing internet quizes. after M and C did theirs (and C'c said only 3% of people were less submissive than her, etc...) i took the test which i answered as honestly as possible given the ridiculous questions and multiple choices. i scored 93% dominant, free thinking, critical, and artistic. that made me happy for a minute.
we all had a good laugh about everyone being frightened of me in terms of working with/doing a good job at their fair share of the work. i'm a stickler for the way things should be done, about "what is clean?" and all that. i have no qualms about saying "ok, who the fuck cleaned the butter machine last night?...it's disgusting! NOT acceptable". yeh, i'm a miserable bitch, but hey. at least i clean the butter machine really well and take pride in the fact that no one will ever complain that i am a slacker. cause i'm not.
a bit obsessive maybe?
well perhaps it's one of the few areas of my life i have what feels like 'control' over. when the counter is wiped properly, it stays that way till the next shift/show. not like at our house, where, all parents will know what i mean when i say it never fucking ends.
i've been all consumed pondering this 'possessive-attackive' revelation. upon further discussion one friend told me, though he enjoyed the psuedo-psychological term, he would himself divide it as "obssessive-complusive" + "vindictive". wow. that stung a bit. shit man, i just wanna be loved. vindictive.
thus, i think stems the three sleepless nights and paranoia and nightmares. these nightmares range from feeling out of control in the workplace (you know those dreams where words shift on the page before your very eyes, things rearrange themselves so they are never where you look?), dreaming of dead friends, failing in public situations, begging forgiveness for past 'vindictive' behaviors, crying, emotional purging of 'sins'.
this also i believe is coming from a nervousness i have about the spoken word mp3 i have been working on, which deals with a touchy part of my life. and i had to ask a friend if i could use his music, which he agreed to, but i am scared/paranoid/nervous/anxious of what he will think when he hears the final product. or really anyone for that matter.
i generally feel like a really horrible person. i can't function. i feel as though i fail at everything. except maybe cleaning the butter machine and restocking the candy cupboard.
no seriously, i cried last night for the very fact that i am feeling all consumed with this grief about being a generally horrible person, who does everything the wrong way, or sucks all around.
yeh, this is not a very good week for me.

B is with P at a kyuki-do tournament; V has a friend over and is letting F play with them quite nicely. I'm thankful.

We taped together balloons and cardboard last night to make a form for V's dragon pinata. Today the various girls chopped up newspaper and I made flour paste and started plastering the form with paper mache. I've papered half of it, and now I'm letting it dry a bit before turning it over and letting the girls have at the second half. It will take several days to get a sturdy enough form out of layers of paper mache, but V will have her dragon in time for her party.

For her party this year she decided she wanted "Young Royalty." In other words, princesses and the odd prince or two. We don't know yet if the princes are coming -- there are only two of them, brothers. Pretty feisty young royalty we're going to have, too. They're going to play games, hunt for treasure, slay a dragon (hence the dragon pinata) and then eat the dragon (good thing I know how to make a dragon cake.) Dragon eating will occur as part of a formal tea, complete with china and little dainty sandwiches. But no tea -- probably juice or hot chocolate instead. We'll see.

I'm taking the day off from NaNoWriMo. I need the break, and I'm sticking to it in spite of the urge to pick up the laptop and write anyway. It's really surprising how addicted to writing I can get. Not so much composing my thoughts to get them on paper, but the actual physical act of typing. I just like doing it, and combining some solid typing with some solid writing every day seems to be a good thing.

I thought for a while today that I would light the gas fire and quilt in the living room, but the living room is a serious disaster, mostly because I've been spending a lot of my time writing down in the family room, and without being in the living room, I'm less inclined to make sure that the kids pick up after themselves. And yesterday, when we would normally have cleaned the house, we were busy doing other things. Maybe I'll quilt down in the family room.

I bought fabric for the current quilt when V was a baby. That means I've been working on it, on and off, for nearly nine years. P should get his quilt about when he graduates college, if he's lucky. And it's simple. Amish Rainbow piecing, with a sun/cloud/rain motif for the quilting. P picked the colors from the Rainbow Song -- "Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue; I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, too." It's about half-quilted, and when it's all quilted it's just a matter of trimming and binding the edges, which is a cakewalk.

I bought fabric for another quilt, for V, when F was a baby. That one isn't even all cut out, much less pieced. That one's been about six and a half years. It's a good bit more complicated -- Streak of Lightning -- but when it's finally piece I'll machine quilt it. No point in hand-quilting a bunch of parallel zigzags. That's why I have a quilting foot on my machine. This quilt is going to be spectacular, color-wise, because I let V pick all of her own colors, just helping her to make sure they match. She picked two shades of purple, pink with a splash of blue, a flower print with pink, purple, blue, and green, and an absolutely virulent shade of green. Interestingly enough, it all looks lovely together, and the green is going to make internal borders that will be very striking.

F hasn't gotten to choose fabric for a quilt, because I'm not starting a new one until the first one is completed and the second one is pieced. I hope F is feeling patient. I'll be interested to see what colors she picks, as she's rather fond of purple and pink, as well. But it's going to be a while before I find out, that's for sure.

I need to finish knitting F's scarf, and weave in the ends on all three of the children's scarves. It would be nice if I could finish my wool sweater this winter, too. No new projects until the current ones are finished. No new projects until the current ones are finished. No new projects ...

I had an interesting idea, although I don't know if I'll carry it out or not. When we're sitting in the big recliners in the family room, there's no place to put cups except on my work stool, which obviously I'd rather have left free. It occurred to me after we looked at candle holders for K's birthday gift yesterday that a tall holder designed for a pillar candle would hold a cup very nicely, if it doesn't have a spike in the middle for holding a candle. I didn't notice if any of the tall ones had spikes. And I'm not sure I want to spend money on it right now anyway. Maybe I'll look in the stores after Christmas and see if I can catch something on sale.

Last night, we went to the Code Pink vigil against the war. We were supposed to meet J and A and their kids there...

We got there and there were four people holding up a sign and a big American flag. Two had shaved heads and what looked like bomber jackets--when I looked more closely, the back of the jackets said "U.S. Army" or something like that. They were the counterprotest. I thought about taking a picture of them--standing there with their flag and their sign, just the four of them standing apart from the bigger anti-war vigil. It seemed like something Diane Arbus would do

But I didn't.

dd went around and took photos of the various vigilists. She wanted to take a photo of the pink wreath near the microphone and a woman was standing in the way. She walked up to her, tapped her on the hip and got her to move. Then she stood, aimed her camera and took the photo she wanted.

She used up all 27 exposures in less than an hour. I think I took less than a dozen.

Still, it might have been a good shot. Oh well...

Time to hit the darkroom and see what possibilities there are for the day.

So the kid and I went in to Manhattan yesterday. Shamefully, it was the first time in several months since we've been in. We used to go almost everyday. Now it just gets easier and easier not to. Easy to listen to all the scare talk about bombs in subways and suspicious smells of maple syrup in the streets. (Only in ny would it be suspicious when something nice is smelled in the air- if it were trash no one would notice it.) I realized on the ferry yesterday as we were approaching it that I missed the city. As you approach on the boat it towers before you, all glittery and sparkling. H yells out, "look Mommy, Manhattan is SO pretty!" Delighting the tourists of course. It was pretty yesterday with the afternoon light hitting the buildings. We walked up and dropped off my grant proposal and on the way he fell asleep in the stroller. Which was surprising- he never naps anymore but as soon as we hit the city with the honking cars, people yelling, etc., he dropped right off. It's not the sparkly city of Oz that I miss. Walking through the crooked streets of lower manhattan I realized it is the dingy, mass of it all that I miss. Somehow it makes me feel connected to the world in a way that I'm not in outer suburbia. I miss feeling in the middle of it all. Good bad and ugly. I was right near South St Seaport which is mostly just a boring mall but it was there, so I got a beer and parked the stroller next to a bench on the pier. And sat there while he slept. It was actually really nice. There were not so many tourists as there are in summer and the view of the big sailboats against the glittery city was pretty. Even though its been malled up, lower manhattan still has a turn of the century feel to it. I finally woke him up and we went and had pizza. Not the dumplings in chinatown as I planned but after sitting there for an hour and half smelling the garlic cooking, pretty darn good. Then we walked back to the ferry and stood on the back deck watching the city fade until we were too cold to take it any more. We went inside and drank hot chocolate the rest of the boatride home. Pretty good day.

They offered me another job at the boy’s school. I tell you that they will not rest until I work for them in some capacity. I’m actually considering taking this one – it would just be doing research/grant proposals for the non-profit arts arm of the school. I’m already on the board (gratis) for this organization – so I’m a bit tempted to say okay. This would actually pay something, too. Though I imagine it will be a dinky amount. But there’s this part of me who’s like – “this is a good opportunity to learn a new marketable skill� and “you need to bring some money into this household you Ho� and “Why Not?� But there’s another part of me that deep down knows I won’t really like this kind of work (it involved talking on the phone. I can do this very professionally, but I really loathe making business calls) and it’s just one more thing that will keep me from actually writing anything, and it could be a total, total time suck… still, maybe I’ll do it. I need to get a better grasp on what kind of hours this would mean. I suppose it might be nice to have some sort of actual job again. I guess. R was like, “that sounds truly awful� when I told him about it. So I don’t think he really cares one way or the other. I should have been a model – my friend who is a model gets to go to Paris next week. And she doesn’t have to make any business calls to do it. On the other hand, her car might get torched…

They are predicting snow showers this afternoon. I need to clean up the house because we’ve got a veteran’s day playdate tomorrow morning, but I woke up this morning with a totally awful pain in my back and neck. I slept weird, I think. Pinched a nerve, maybe. The only thing that feels okay is lying on my back and doing my best not to turn my head. Yay.

Getting a little stressed about the double whammy of Thanksgiving and the boy’s sixth birthday coming up. We’re actually having T-day at my friend’s house. After a “Why don’t you come to our house for the holiday?� “I was just about to ask you the same question!� conversation – she won by promising to deep fry her turkey, plus make a giant bonfire down by her pond and have a blazing fire in her huge stone fireplace in front of the dinner table AND accept all five of my houseguests (sister, sister, sister’s boyfriend, brother, old friend from Nebraska) who will be staying with me that week. Plus old friend from Nebraska and brother are both single and I suspect that they are hoping that my friend will have friends from her industry show up (models, in other words). They will be sad to discover that everyone she’s bringing in is married with kids or under 18. Ah well. It will be fun. But anyway, I have a houseful of guests coming starting the Monday before and I promised to make all the desserts (new stove! It better be installed by then, damnit!) and a bunch of starters and etc etc – so I’m still cooking – and that’s only for T-day – the rest of the week I will be cooking for a crowd as well. Then, a mere week after T-day is the boy’s promised Harry Potter birthday party with yes, count em, potentially 30 kids. He’s inviting his whole class (which is only 16) but then also two kids from the first grade (you invited me to your party so I’ll invite you to mine invitations) and three kids not at his school, plus there are a bunch of kids who automatically show up with siblings (and I learned this the hard way last year when I ran out of goody boxes and places at the table because of these stray kids). And then the parents will probably stay and hang out, too. That’s a whole lotta people. And when it falls so close to Thanksgiving – man – it’s hard to get ready for both.

Ah well. I will manage one way or the other. And at least these are all fun events.

So the other weird thing I’m dealing with right now is that I have had several different teachers at the boy's school approach me with a problem they’re having with the boy. And it’s not his fault. It’s just weird. This problem started last year and it’s been a continuing issue and seems to be getting even worse this year. The boy, apparently, is so popular in his classes that kids actually FIGHT to get to sit next to him. One teacher told me today that it took her twenty minutes to get her class started yesterday because all these different kids were either hugging or trying to sit next to the boy. And this happens ALL THE TIME. Both his pre-k teacher last year and his kindergarten teacher this year have had to institute all day seating charts for every situation (even like, lunch and circle time) because of my kid. And the thing is, my kid does not like this at all. I mean, it’s just a weird dynamic because he’s not a super social child. He’s a little shy. He’s pretty quiet at school. He’s not asking for or enjoying this kind of attention. In fact, I know that it really bothers and upsets him. And I don’t know what it is about him that brings this kind of stuff on. It’s constant and it never seems to go away. I have a couple of theories – one is that he’s very tall – taller than any other kid in the class – and the oldest, too - so maybe it’s a “I wanna hang with the big kid vibe�. Also? I think his name has a lot to do with it. He has an…er…unusual name. One which most of you know – it’s only recently that I stopped using it on blogs and stuff. But can I just tell you that when R and I chose that name we actually had this conversation – “We should name him “S� if he’s a boy.� “Yeah, the name “S� automatically makes you totally cool!� “Anyone would be cooler if their name was “S�!� And now I feel like some weird fairy godmother