Plugged in But Disconnected

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We are on the third leg of our journey. We somehow abandoned our cell phone chargers in another city, but that’s another story. Other stories waiting to happen:

  • Get a Room…oh wait, you have one
  • Treadmill in turmoil
  • Book connected
  • Touch-Me Houses
  • Sleeping Giant
  • Queen Mary Grounded
  • How well do you know Forest Freakin’ Gump?
  • Kobe Pizza and the Red Sox Fan
  • Seaweed Queen
  • I Used One of My 9 Lives
  • How Many Times Can you Call Me?
  • Which Zoo Did You Want?
  • Polar Bear Antics
  • Scavenger Hunt Failure
  • “‘You Got Sun”
  • Friends Don’t Let Friends…

 

Plugged In

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It feels like a sin to be plugged in on vacation. Connected while trying to break away. Truth is, I’ve been writing everyday, thinking about my words, shaping what I want to say. Here are some things I have been observing, feeling, sensing, experiencing- all worth mentioning at some point:

  • “Do you want to see a free show?”
  • Scavenger hunt antics
  • No slot machine?
  • Plastic bags make great music
  • Flicker Sex
  • Outdoor Natalie
  • Bananas again?
  • Orgasmic Mesa 
  • Where are the damn statues?
  • Caesar’s again???
  • Nothing with the name Kobe in it!
  •  I hate Penske trucks
  • Dock of the Bay
  • Gotta run

Okay, that’s really cryptic, but those will be the titles of upcoming blogs. I have a feeling Ruby will be able to figure out a few of them, thanks to her Vegas expertise. Seriously, I have been having a great time. We have been on the go every single second, it seems – so, I haven’t run. Yet.

Today is the Long Beach aquarium, some boat (forgot the name) and more sight seeing. For now, breakfast. More tomorrow – maybe a real blog if we can transfer pics (I’ve taken about 200 so far).

Love ya!

Mercy Me Mocha

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Serious FaceCar Cat
I wanted to wait a little while before writing about Sean’s gig because, well, because I needed to take it all in. It’s funny how music works that way on me. Sometimes it just reaches out and takes hold and won’t let go. Sometimes it thieves my heart away and other times it just leaves me silent.
In the past I wanted to drag as many people as possible to see shows. Promote, promote, promote! It got to the point where I had exhausted the friend list and got nothing in return. It got to that been-there, done-that, same ole-same ole routine. Some fans didn’t stick while others have stuck around to this day. It use to stress me out – that line of lovers and haters. These days I go where I want to go and don’t worry about the fan base, the fanfare. It’s gotten simpler. Much.
So, seeing Sean started out as something unexpected. Back when I first heard his music I froze in the middle of the floor. I must have looked ridiculous and I’m sure I got laughed at. I’m going to skip the oft-mentioned review of how his voice sounds and tell you what really grabbed me. I hear drums in this one-man, one-guitar show. I hear a beat so loud and solid I can do nothing more than stop and stare; barely breathe. Combine that with absolutely amazing lyrics and I have been hooked ever since.

So, the four of us made the tiny trek north. We wandered around town, peering into shop windows, our minds tasting the menus plastered there, lazily looking for the best place for a bite. We settled on a new place – first night open to the public. Good food, better atmosphere, great service. I made a mental note to come back. I know someone who would think it perfect.
Mocha Maya’s. Just in time for music. Sean Rowe (Speaking of perfect). 

I have to admit I had to ask Sean for a set list because a) he has new music I haven’t heard before & new(er) ones I have yet to commit to memory. Here’s what he remembers:
Surprise
Jonathan (the song I called ‘creepy’. I don’t expect anyone to understand that…It’s why I love Halloween). 
Wet
Rock me baby
Shorty
why i sing the blues

I also think In the Diamonds was in there somewhere, but I have no idea why. We did listen to Sean on the way up to the gig…

My new favorite song: Wet. Beyond beautiful. Sean doesn’t have it on his website as a free listen-to, but it will be on the new album due out Sept 4th, 2008 (hopefully)…

My next gig: July 4th!

ps~ I’m including Mocha Maya’s website because the people there are really super cool. They”ve let me know they loved Sean and will get him back as soon as they can. As soon as they do, I’m there!
Pumpkin Lights

Island Rescue

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art hill
I think the fates know I am homesick. Every so often I am surrounded by the reminders of where I really would like to be. Little reminders are dropped just outside my periphery. I catch glimpses of where I miss. A few weeks ago my family meandered around Boston, looking for a decent place to eat. By chance we stumbled on (and into) a cute noodle place with exotic offerings like seafood pad thai and mango curry. It wasn’t a first choice but we chose it. The tablecloths were nice. Fresh flowers on every table. Calming colored walls. Pleasant atmosphere. Within a few minutes someone noticed the paintings. Look! There’s home. The bell, the boat, the lighthouse. Same old in an unexpected new place. And there’s another. Same scene from a different angle. The wedding site. Art on the walls but more to me.
Yesterday I got an email from a professor in New Jersey. He wanted to know my opinion on a legal database I’ve only used once. His signature on the email was a link to a tiny art gallery in a town I used to frequent (way back in the day). Curious, I clicked on the link and was confronted by the colors of home. Red House. Pink Carina. Gray fishhouse. Yellow cochrane. The artist was asking $1,000 for each painting. It was if Jersey had never seen the coast of Maine.
Last night someone from New Hampshire invited me to an artist’s reception. He thought I would like the poppy paintings. Reminiscent of Georgia big flowers. That sort of thing. While trying to figure out the schedule (could I fit it in?) I noticed the gallery featured another artist I know and like and well, almost dated back in the early 80’s. Woops. Small world not really.

So, all of these reminders are here for a reason. Telling me to go home. Urging me to sit by the sea. Soon enough.

Never Should Have

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I never should have listened to you. I never should have got my hopes up or my heart set. Shame on me for being so optimistic, so g-damn hopeful.
This was her house. Sacred ground of a grandmother not mine. Home to the perfect grandparent. Cookies at Christmas instead of before-during-after cocktails amany. Real hugs and kisses instead of Don’t Muss the Makeup air fakers. She wouldn’t have bought me patent leather shoes and insisted on making us match. Twins not born on the same day, or even in the same year. I honored this woman because she was real. It would have been a real honor to live in her home. Her ghost walking my floor.
You never should have got my hopes up or my heart set. I dreamed of living with like a queen. A queen with an angel on her shoulder. You never should have convinced me this could work. the perfect lawn, the perfect garden, the perfect life – mine for the taking. I’m angry and hurtful for letting you allow me to live the American dream. I had a white picket fence in my sleep.
Disappointment hurts deep. I will walk away from the red house. Don’t hate me if I turn my back forever. Even if chance does change I won’t turn around. Condescending tones. When I was your age bullsh!t. I don’t need that. Not at my age and my intelligence. Don’t insult me further by saying there might be a chance because I’ve closed that chapter already. I’ve moved on from that nightmare. Let Grace haunt the halls for someone else.

Act of the Damned

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Antunes, Antonio Lobo. Act of the Damned. New York: Grove Press, 1995.

I have to admit this was not one of my favorite books this month. Maybe something was lost in the translation (literally from Portuguese to English), but there were too many layers of storytelling going on. Dr. Nuno Souza, a dentist, tells his story in first person, but his imagination works overtime to include an Edward G. Robinson, a cigar smoking, gun toting tough guy. Nuno is married to Ana, but has a drug addicted girlfriend on the side.
Even though Nuno is telling the story in the first part, it’s Ana’s family that is the center of the story. Her family is beyond corrupt. Incest and greed come second nature to these people. Ana’s mother is the voice in part two. I think what makes the story so confusing is that no one really uses names. When Ana’s mother tells the story she uses family connections, “my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, my husband, his father, her brother…” Later, Ana herself tells the story…then someone else who uses the same technique…

These are the quotes that caught my attention:
“I opened the drawer to take out a shirt and tie, and was met by enough sicks for an army of ankles” (p 5).
“I laid down the receiver while the two voices tussled, scratched and bit each other in an electric desert of screws and wires” (p 17).
“‘I want her out by the thirtieth at the latest. She can go to tell and listen to conversations down there'” (p 42).
“I wiped the smile off my mouth with a napkin” (p 71).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust from the chapter “Families in Trouble” (p 83).

Running Away

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How do I run while I’m on the road? This is a thought that has been bothering me for days now. I have been keeping up a schedule of running every other day (more or less), and I hate, hate, hate the thought of giving it up for a week just because I’ve been separated from Mr. G.
Option #1 is to hope and pray each hotel has it’s own G wheel for me to spin on. That would be bonus because lifting and all that other stuff will be much easier, too.
Option #2 is to get to know the neighbors while I hit their streets. I know Kisa’s not thrilled about that. How many wives have gone missing while just “out for a run”??? Okay, okay – all those wives were in their own neighborhoods, happened to be pregnant and ended up getting killed by their own husbands. I don’t fit into that scenario except for the fact anything can happen to anyone.
Option 3# is to find a running group and team up with them. Nope. I’m stubborn. I am a slow runner, plus I like the idea of doing everything by myself. No one helped me begin this journey so why change the plan now? Besides, we won’t be in one area long enough for me to “hook up” per se.
Option #4 is to scope out parks relatively close to every place we stay and opt for a quiet, no sweat 30 minute “thing.” This seems appealing because I have to admit, as I told Serious, I heard my knee talking to me after 3.8 miles last night. Not a good sign.
So what to do? What to do?

Maybe…and this isn’t an option I have considered for too long…I need a week off. My suitcase would be lighter and my schedule more open. Je ne sais pas.

Tomato Girl

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Pupek, Jayne. Tomato Girl. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2008.

What a beautifully written, tragic first book! The characters are so true to life and so compelling I was picturing them in a movie. It’s told in first person from the point of view of 11 year old Ellie. With the help of a series of seamless recollections Ellie recounts her life with a mentally ill mother and a cheating father. Ellie’s father is taken with, and soon overcome by, a teenage girl who delivers tomatoes to the store he manages. From the moment the “tomato girl” comes into Ellie’s life every day is stacked with another unbelievable tragedy, a level of sadness leading to horror much deeper than the one before. It is hard to imagine the amount of pain this child has to endure at such a tender age. Pupek writes with sentences full of foreshadowing. They hang heavy like dark clouds, bloated with the storm that will erupt any minute.
My only complaint is absence of addressing molestation. Ellie is “grabbed” by boy hard enough to leave a bruise. At the same time her period has started (her first). When Sherrif Rhodes discovers the blood, and Ellie tells him of the rough boy, the Sheriff doesn’t take Ellie to a hospital to be examined by a real doctor. She is brought to a black woman who practices witchcraft. Because the story is set in the late 60’s and racism is hinted at I was surprised Sherriff Rhodes would bring a child to her rather than the local hospital. This is the only part I wish was explained better.

ps~ there are a ton of those “gotcha” sentences that I love so much. Too many to mention.

 

Things We Hide

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Kisa’s in the bathroom murdering ladybugs without remorse; sucking them down with a vacuum. I think there are two survivors but I can’t be sure. They’re in hiding. Indy’s under the bed, watchful eyes in the dark waiting for the killing spree to be over. She hates the vacuum. She’s hiding, too. I’m learning to be a lady, which means keeping things like band aids, bra straps and blemishes…oh, and bad dreams…out of sight. Best foot forward or fall flat on your face.
What other things can we hide? I’m killing a friendship because I can’t deal with the consequences. Not my problem~all my fault. Walk away slowly and no one will get hurt. Or something like that. I spent a long time talking to a friend about it. Weird to talk to one friend about another friend and realize there’s only one friend in the picture – the person you are talking to. It bites to be so blase about the whole thing. What was once care is now so callous. Lies do not make loyalty.
All I have ever wanted is out and out honesty. Step up. Be an adult and tell the fukcing truth. Don’t make yourself or your life out to be something that it isn’t. Stand tall, be proud and show the world who you really are. We love you as you are.

Yet. And, yet. We hide. Hide behind bragging and bravado.

I stand in the mirror’s way and wonder what it really sees in me. If my bra strap slips off my shoulder would you sue me? If stress gets the better of my face would you avoid looking me in the eye? My bad dreams circle like black smoke I can’t blow away. I won’t hide. For better or worse I’m here. Be here, too. Please. I love you the way you are.

So, I’m in the bathroom. A ladybug comes out of hiding. My bra strap falls. I’m almost about to pull it back up and think again. Coming out of hiding I smile and leave it where it is. Fukc it.

An Academic Question

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Pym, Barbara. An Academic Question. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1986.

When this book landed on my desk I nearly laughed. It’s only 182 pages long with a decidedly easy-to-read large font. Needless to say I read it in a day!
Here are some things that intrigued me about the book before I read it: Barbara Pym died of breast cancer when she was only 66 years old. Her last book, An Academic Question was published six years after her passing and is actually a blend of two different manuscripts.
Here’s what I put on LibraryThing: An Academic Question at first read appears to be about a lonely, bored, mother of one, who is feels neglected her professor husband. Her friends are bland, her hobbies even moreso. It’s only after she agrees to help her husband find information to support an article he is drafting do things really start to get interesting. As with any academic, there is competition to get published and for Caro’s husband the pressure is on. Human emotion is played out in subtle detail as Caro deals with jealousy, betrayal, and the need for approval from everyone around her.

One of my favorite scenes is when Caro is in the audience, listening to a young professor give a lecture. Bored with the beautiful lecturer’s topic, Caro starts to focus in on how the striking woman is dressed. Upon noticing a pale pink rose pinned between her breasts Caro decides the color matches the roses she has in her own garden. Soon she is imagining her own husband placing the rose…and speculation and imagination create jealousy which becomes an accusation later on…It truly is a classic way jealousy manifests itself.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Barbara Pym: Too Good To Miss” (p 196).

 

92 in the Shade

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McGuane, Thomas. Ninety-Two in the Shade. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972.

June is fishing month. Go figure. Ninety-Two in the Shade is about a man (Thomas Skelton) who has always wanted to run a guided fishing tour off the Florida Keys. Not the fishing I had pictured for the month of June, but a form of it, I guess. Thomas is new to the business and even newer to competition. He is not without his share of problems. The opening “scene” is Thomas waking up in a hotel and finding four people standing naked in a tub. Right away you know this isn’t your typical River Runs Through It fishing story! Other quirks: violence that does (or doesn’t) happen, relationships that are (or aren’t) good, and the entire book is absent of chapters. I may have come across other books like this but never noticed this chapterlessness before. The only reason why this seems odd is because not having chapters makes it difficult to know where to stop!

I did a little extra research and found out that Ninety-Two in the Shade was made into a movie not long after it was written and while it’s Thomas McGuane’s third work of fiction many critics consider it his best.

I never did get used to McGuane’s “gritty” style of writing, but here are some quotes (and scenes) that caught me: “He walked to Homestead, then right on through town, tripping his brains out in the emptiness of 5 a.m.” (p 4).
A conversation between Skelton and “his girl.” May it confuse you as much as it did me:
Miranda~ “Tom, I had this incredible orgasm.”
Tom~ “Do I have to hear about your organism too?”
M ~ “Just this one. It was like a whole dream of sweet things to eat…Spun sugar, meringue, whipped egg whites…”
T ~ “How about when your chum shot off? Was it a blintz or an omelet?”
M~ “Ask him.”

To say that Ninety-Two in the Shade isn’t without humor would be a lie: “You should never kill somebody if it isn’t funny” ( 34).

BookLust Twist: In both Book Lust and More Book Lust. Book Lust: in the chapter “Montana: In Big Sky Country” (p 156) because Thomas McGuane is from Montana. This, by the way, takes care of a November read because that’s when Montana became a state and Ninety-Two in the Shade was on the November list. More Book Lust: in the chapter “Gone Fishin'” (p 101).

Pass the Party Perfect

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My aunt is Mother of the Bride for the first time. As I talked to her I could hear her nerves rattling along the wire. Nerves were bordering on wired nervous. A little over two weeks to go before her little girl becomes Mrs. Someone Else. She wants everything to be perfect. I tell her it’s not going to be. I’m not being mean, just meaningful. My mother wrote a list of everything that went “wrong” at my sister’s wedding. Live and learn I thought. When my day came two years later I tried to remedy all previously made “mistakes.” While I didn’t make my sister’s faux pas, I created my own. It was inevitable. My dress didn’t fit properly. The food line was too long. Father-in-law had the first dance…with his son-in-law. Someone stole a golf cart and a groomsman ended up sleeping the night off in a ditch. Yup. Classy. But the real question is did we have a blast? Yup.

No one has the perfect party. There will always be something wrong with something or somebody. Even if you don’t notice, someone else will. Kisa and I wanted to use stolen champagne flutes for our end-of-night toast. We opted for my great-grandmother’s glasses. Unbeknown to either of us one glass disappeared forever. That has become my deepest regret even though I didn’t know it at the time. So, pass the party perfect. It aint gonna happen. What it will be is a great time!

Things They Carried

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O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

I admit it. I have picked this book up three different times now. Technically, I should have read it in March to celebrate the day U.S. troops pulled out of Vietnam (March 1975), but as you can tell, there were plenty of other things to reach for in March…
Nope, I cracked this book open for no other reason than sheer boredom. I finished Peter Pan and The Ground Beneath Her Feet and decided I wasn’t up for The Joy Luck Club…at least not right now. The Things They Carried has been hanging around my office for months now. It just seemed to say “read me” and the time was right. I am so very glad.

This was an amazingly moving book. I had a hard time getting into it the first two times I picked it up, but the third time was a charm because after that I couldn’t put it down. Tim O’Brien writes with such ferocious honesty. He calls it a fiction but it easily could have been the truth. The shocking violence, the depths of sadness, the urgency to survive, the humble efforts to maintain sanity and the humor that survives it all…each chapter is a short story of all of these things. Each story stands alone, complete as it is, yet connects beautifully to the story before it as well as the one after it. Peter S. Prescott from Newsweek said the stories “bounce off each other…” and I would agree.
I could quote nearly each story, but here are my favorites:
“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terible power of the things they carried” (p 7). The reason why this quote stuck with me is because O’Brien spends the opening chapter listing everything a soldier carried in the Vietnam war. Both the physical and mental, the essential and the sentimental. This quote sums up how they never forgot why they were carrying everything else.
“The problem, though, was that a draft board did not let you choose your war” (p 44). I found this to be one of the most humanitarian statements of the book. O’Brien had just finished explaining that some wars were justified, like stopping Hitler, but in this case he was drafted to fight a war he didn’t understand.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Vietnam” (p 239).
ps~ one of the reasons for starting the Book Lust challenge was to find writers I could fall in love with. I wanted one book that would spark an obsession. Much like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams or Katherine Weber’s Objects in the Mirror are Closer than They Appear. All of these books created a rabid need to read anything else written by the authors. I found such an obsession with The Things they Carried. I will go on to get my hands on any and everything Tim O’Brien has written before and since.

June is…

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June is:

  • Fishing Month (92 in the Shade by Thomas Mcguane)
  • Barbara Pym’s birth month (An Academic Question)
  • National Family Month (Act of the Damned by Antonio Lobo Antunes)
  • The most common month to get married in (Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler)

If there is time I’ll also reread Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

June is also another LibraryThing Early Review:

  • Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

Personally, I ended May on a crappy note so June is ME month. It’s also vacation month! Hello Vegas! Hello San Diego! I’m hoping to see some very special people. June is also house-hunting month (like we haven’t been doing that already!). The farm starts up this month and I started a new blog about the fantastic four which I am really, really excited about, too! Like I said, ME month! 8)