I'm just F-ing beside myself. You are too, right?

 

The news, the news, the news. What if we are on a rocket going backwards? Do we want the rocket to safely splash down in the 1950s, say--or do we want it to explode in mid-air? I'm asking. 

I made the mail art card above for a dear loved one. The king lying under the rock in the lower right hand corner might have been too subtle of a choice. 

Last night the wind roared for hours in Minneapolis. I've lived here in this building for 17 months. The wind last night howled like a monster and shook the things on our balconies.

This is what I see from my balcony at night. Like other things I've more or less taken for granted, it too is in the process of disappearing. A new building is going up. Every day, this vista is one day closer to gone.

This is this week's collage. When I can't follow a thought long enough to write, I cut up paper and make things.

I just want to make things

My stress levels have been ratcheting upwards this week. Instead of sleep there's tossing, turning, and heart thumping. Maria Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill are living inside my TV and my brain. I try to write and there are 10 million ideas or no ideas. Either way the screen stays blank. I just want to make things. Why not make paper? Maybe I need more blank pages to sort out my thoughts.

At my internship, I made paper from old t-shirts.

I formed the sheets in the workshop and brought them home still damp.

They match my desk. I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Journal pages? Book covers? Collage?

Last night when I couldn't sleep I was googling portable paper beaters at midnight. 

And I googled Gordon Sondland's watch which let to some rich attorney flashbacks. Which lead to divorce flashbacks.

Both of these google forays were bad ideas. I don't need a portable paper beater (and I certainly don't need a $50,000 watch) because I have THIS PLACE blocks away and a paper making internship with a papermaker who is a genius. (Cave Paper will be part of an exhibition in 2022 at the MET in NYC called Paper Legacy.) 

I feel like an idiot on many days and yet life leads me to amazing people.

"...can cause confusion in the elderly"

my sick room

This is not a throwback post wherein I'm going to reminisce about my mom. I'm writing about me. 

I have pneumonia, and when I went to Urgent Care on Wednesday morning, I was pretty much out of it. I'm told I was there for three hours. I remember seeing the doctor, and explaining to the X-ray technician about the metal clips in my spine. I remember  getting my arm bandaged after the blood draw, but not the poke of the needle. I slept most of the while I was there, unable to sit up or stay awake. There was, I'm told, a very charming man in a neck brace in the waiting room, explaining to someone in Argentina with his phone on speaker that he couldn't make the trip. I didn't hear a word. 

That was Wednesday. I'm much better now, though still too sick to leave the house. My housemates are tending to everything. I'm thrilled to have insurance (Medicare)--though I don't have a supplemental policy like my mom's that covered every penny, I feel very lucky. I can't imagine how awful it would have been in the wee hours of Wednesday morning when my teeth were chattering like a cartoon skeleton's to weigh the question of whether or not I could afford to go to the doctor. What is causing the confusion in the minds of people like Paul Ryan who entertained cutting Medicare? What  caused the confusion in the minds of the Republican lawmakers who tried over and over again to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Maybe they need antibiotics. 

What is isn't, What isn't is

We're breaking records here. Hottest summer. Most fires. Now the biggest fire ever in California's is no longer the biggest. All over the globe there's been the highest high and the lowest low.

And this is the longest in my blogging history since I've blogged. I'm reading instead. Glued to the news. Thinking about how things look like one thing and are really another or, even worse,  that things are exactly as they appear and yet we are mired in inaction.

As still as this heron. How perfectly camouflaged, I thought. Nature is so brilliant. No fish will see that heron coming. Look closely. See it there against the wall to the left of the post on the boat dock? It moved its neck just a second before I went to get the binoculars to check it out more closely.

But it's not a heron at all. It's a piece of sun bleached algae or paper stuck to the wall. The "neck" moves because it's not completely adhered.

Remember this?  Can you tell a satellite dish from a heron? How about shit from Shinola?

Here's a beached sea lion.

And this, in actuality, is a rather crowded beach.

And this? That piece of stone there in the middle?

Well, it could be my heart--because don't we have to harden our hearts to survive this mess? I suppose there's an argument for that. But for now, I'm just letting the news break my heart every single day. If we can't feel the trouble we're in, our brains will atrophy too.

One thing for sure, I know whale shit when I see it.

Sunday Morning Beach Report

Who has time to walk on the beach anymore when gluing one's self to the news seems the most important thing to do? Somewhere in the distance there must be someone or something that can save us. Or so we hope. And hope. And hope. And we are doing things to support those hopes. But still.

We can't see the forest for the trees most days. This story. That story. Personally, I'm obsessed with Paul Manafort. I keep going to the website of the institution where he is jailed to check and re-check that he's still inside.

Meanwhile there is a place called Santa Cruz Island. I'm training to lead hikes there. On this island where there is no cable TV, there is the Channel Islands Fox. This fox is an island dwarf that does not exist outside of the Channel Islands. Smaller than a regular fox--a mere four pounds or so--due to it's fluffiness it appears to be the size of a house cat. There. I hope I've transported you to somewhere else for a moment. Let us ponder how things can get smaller when everything else looms large.

And when things loom large, perhaps we should think of this.

In any event,"my" beach looked like this today.

I hope you are well. Sending love.

Hoping for Words to Flow Like Water

Eureka Springs, Arkansas is the town that water built. Plaques mark the springs on Spring Street, and their entrances look like shrines, the stone arches set off with carefully manicured topiaries and pristine gravel paths bordered with plants. There are benches or stone tables where presumably once upon a time one might have been served the healing waters. Spring Street boasts bath houses that offer healing massages and steam rooms, and the sound of water singing in the limestone bluffs never seems far away.

I'm here to write, not bathe. But I know that words can also can also heal us.

Or dirty us. I'm trying to cut back a bit on reading our national news--or at least choose to read some things that offer a few drops of hope.

Healthcare, Selfcare, Taking Care of Business, etc.

Last Saturday's Sunset

Here's a pretty picture to distract you from the political madness. I'm sick to death of looking at pictures of men deciding the fate of women. This morning, looking at the news, I thought my head would explode just like Trump claims Obamacare is exploding. Or was that implode? I'm pretty sure he claimed both. I want ALL young women to consider politics as a career. Women have to take charge. If there were a headcount of all the women in this country who have NOT been raped, sexually assaulted, sexually harassed, suffered domestic abuse, or suffered economic inequality, would there be anyone to count?

Meanwhile, I've been taking care of business (taxes) and cooking ratatouille and making a salad from collard greens that a T'ai Chi Chih student gave me this morning.

And the best part? I'll be sharing all this goodness with friends while celebrating the demise of the Republican health care bill.

Wednesday Morning $%&*@ Report

Yes, I altered this photo.

Sometime it's great to tinker with reality. Sometimes it's not. When I read this morning's New York Times, I saw that of the top ten trending stories, all but one had to do with $%&*@. Almost the same was true of the most read stories and the stories selected just for me (a long time subscriber.) However, there were only or two stories about #$%&@ in the most emailed stories. Friends don't let friends drive drunk and they don't email one another about #$%&@. I'm not going to be blogging about him or linking to articles about him on FB. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. 

There's a lot to read. A lot of very important stuff. How about this heartbreaking blog post by my friend Elizabeth Aquino? 

Or THIS? There'a a very pretty picture there.

Or read about THIS BOOK, then maybe buy it.

Or instead of obsessing over $%^&* follow this hot advice:

1. Go buy a box of those Trader Joe's peaches right now. Seriously. Get up. Go. 

2. If you want to put texture on your walls, maybe don't use that powdered pour in the paint can texture. I have no idea what you should use instead.

3. If you are a MAC user and you're doing an online search on your state website for unclaimed property (well, California, for sure) use your CAPSLOCK key when you type in your name. Seriously. 

You're welcome.

I don't know what the quote of the day was in the New York Times today, because I often don't see it now that I read it online. But I'd vote for this from the article on Las Vegas real estate wherein the reporter interviewed this guy who is losing his shirt. “I just don’t know what this world’s going to be like in 90 days. I have never been more confused about my country.”

The Weekend Report

It would have been easier to stay home and mix my own drink.

I went out to a local bar last night to hear some music
.
My marriage was happier than this bar, I said to the friend I was with.

Ice, we need ice, the bartender yelled every fifteen minutes or so and it was lugged from somewhere in a yellow bucket that may or may not have been exclusively meant to haul ice.

Every other minute a member of the wait staff slipped behind the bar to fill water glasses for a table.
Get out, the bartender would hiss, you know the rules. You don't belong back here.  It happened over and over again, and the bartender went nuts every time. One waiter was particularly adamant with his rebuttal. Apparently there was no water for the wait staff to access wherever it was that they were supposed to get it, and the bartender could just fuck himself.

Kitchen staff came out of the kitchen, hot and desperate to quench their thirst. Get out, the bartender told them too. They weaseled by him and stuffed the bar water nozzle into a glass.

It took forever to get a drink.
The place ran out of the beer it shared it shared its name with.
The bathroom needed toilet paper.

The bartender laid out his tickets from the tables as the waiters put them in. We're out of ice. I don't have a martini glass. We're out of lemons. We're out of limes. You don't belong back here. Get out. I'm really busy he told any patrons at the bar that dared to usurp his attention to order a drink. He made two guys who wanted only a Bud Light and Corona wait until he'd filled the tickets laid out in front of him.

Waiters begged for their drink orders. I'm busy, the bartender would snarl. If people can wait an hour for a cheese sandwich, they can wait 15 minutes for a pina colada.

A guy I guessed to be the owner appeared. He reprimanded the bartender, sliced lemons and limes, hauled in another keg of the eponymous beer, all while looking slightly suicidal.

I finally got the fries I ordered after asking for them a second time an hour later. They were delicious.

The music was fantastic. Everybody in the bar was grooving there in the Kingdom of the Cranky Bartender. It was all of us against him. We won.

How was your weekend?

Have you read THIS yet? George Saunders writing about Trump. Left Land vs. Right Land. I recommend it.

We Gathered

And, of course, there was food, friends, and family.

And now that we live in Margaritaville, we inaugurated a new tradition of a Thanksgiving eve sunset trip to the beach before the longstanding practice of a super-easy dinner (pizza this year) followed by pumpkin custard.

But with the cranberry sauce already gone, my head is still digesting the conversation. There were plenty of things discussed. Family secrets, the landing of Curiosity on Mars. Classic movies, current movies, and James Bond movies. I think there was a weird joke or two about the Kardashians. And a long discussion of education in America, of the 60s assassinations, election fraud, and just about everything to do with the outcome of the recent election.

I had to do a little research this afternoon just to satisfy my whetted appetite. Here are some leftovers to chew on from The Atlantic Wire. Of course, maybe you already know all this--but I'll bet you're on your third piece of pumpkin pie right about now, so have some more of this, too. And there's more if you follow the link above. More! More pie! More!

Obama got 93 percent of black voters (representing 13 percent of the electorate), 71 percent of Latinos (representing 10 percent), and 60 percent of young voters. Thanks to the GOP's rape apologist caucus among other generally bad for women things, he also not too surprisingly won the female vote, getting 53 percent of women voters. But, other generalized groups of people went for the president that we wouldn't necessarily have expected to go for Obama.

I'm feeling so thankful that maybe I'll have an inauguration day party. I wonder if my friend Ellen could bring her fabulous wine jello and dye it blue.

"It'll be alright!" my mother said as she leapt from her narcoleptic stupor into fully awake mode. There's often a line of dialogue at these transitions from one state of consciousness to another. We were sitting on the couch last evening watching the Democratic convention when my mom snapped into her "deep sleep" mode. Our attention spans were waning. We wanted Barack, but there was Jill. And Joe. And John Kerry. Cocktails were in mid-stream, and the cheese and crackers were wearing off. We wanted dinner--but what did we want more? The president--or our avocado and chicken sausage quesadillas? Mom went out for a smoke now that she was awake again. "Shut up," she yelled into Joe Biden's face as she passed by the TV on her way back inside. More congenially, she told me that all the speeches were too long. We couldn't wait for Obama and sat down at the table.

My political heart needed a pacemaker today when I heard all the fact-checking reports on NPR. Can't the facts be checked before the speeches--at least for the Democrats so they look better than the Republicans?

My mother's other political proclamation of the evening: "We don't do enough for our veterans!" She told me about the suicides in the neighborhood where she lived before coming to live with me. Hanging. Shooting. "They need help," she said, "and they don't get it soon enough." She told me about her brother after he returned from being a tail gunner in World War II. " He shook so bad, he couldn't hold a half-cup of coffee without spilling it," she said. "And he drank a lot. But the military helped him." My uncle's therapy included crocheting. He made  a lot of crocheted lace tablecloths. By the time I knew him, he was alright.

I want Obama to be re-elected. That's my version of alright.

Why This is Important to Me

This is an excerpt from an open letter to Barack Obama from the writer Alice Walker:

Dear Brother Obama,

.........................................I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

'Til the Cows Come Home

The election is behind us but I'm still struggling with reconciling my political passions with familial allegiances.  I love my family and where we come from.  I tolerate our political disagreements even though I don't always understand why they see things the way they do.  But what really gets me is when a piece of shit like this gets sent around.  It's enough to make me want to burn my cowboy boots.  Not only is the factual content crap, but an anthem like this promotes the idea that farmers and other country folks are simpletons and gunslinging crazies. I've been a lot of places since I left Iowa, but I still think of myself as a country girl in a lot of ways. Just count me out when it comes to this bullshit.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S81brjpteDk 

You stink, Hank!

The country music political anthem I would choose would be Mary Gauthier's Mercy Now.

http://www.last.fm/music/Mary+Gauthier

The whole album is great. Buy it.  Let your American dollar support intelligence. Play it until the cows come home.

Blue Means Happy

Heading home to my blue state. Making new friends at BWI with my Obama sticker on my laptop.

Got TUMS?

I will most likely be having dinner out with my mom on election night.  There's a pretty good chance the parking lot of wherever we end up will have quite a few McCain bumper stickers--and some confederate flags, too.  I've already got indigestion thinking about it.  If I go to the links below every hour between now and then, maybe that will help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0JhEtzch4Y

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-top-ten-rea.html