Head Swimming with Wants

We're getting rain here in Los Angeles -- buckets and buckets of rain -- and the most beautiful winter sunsets. That picture above was taken on Saturday in Santa Monica. Carl and I were on the beach, and that's facing east, away from the ocean.

Turn around.

Today marked the first day of the second week of my new job teaching English to a group of eleventh and twelfth grade girls. I have three classes, two groups of eleventh graders and one group of twelfth. Each class is unique and one is particularly challenging. Anger and resistance make the air crackle in that room. Heads swim with wants. Take notes, I think. Keep taking notes. I have a mind and a memory like a steel trap, and these girls will join all the other hostages that wander the labyrinthine paths.

I get this newsletter every day from The New York Times newspaper cooking section. It's called What to Cook Right Now. I love it so much -- the recipes, the commentary, the links. Today I learned that it's the writer John Dos Passos' birthday (1896). I read nearly everything he wrote back in the last century, in my early twenties. I probably read him lying on a bed somewhere, maybe in the apartment where I lived with my first love, out in the country in Chapel Hill, a mattress on the floor at the top of the stairs, sandwiched between two walls and a window at the foot, a bookcase stuffed with used paperbacks. I might have been chewing on some Twizzlers when I read Dos Passos, red plastic mingling with brown must. Dos Passos was a hostage, though, wandering around my mind, lost down some dark corridor, until I read about him today.

Teaching these girls, doing the research for lesson plans, revisiting stories and poetry -- it's all packed in there, in my mind, and it seems that there's no end to what one can stuff into it. So, yeah. Take notes, I think. Keep taking notes.

Here's a passage from The 42nd Parallel that Sam Sifton, the guy from the NY Times newsletter thinks describes the writer's life. I agree.


The young man walks by himself, fast but not fast enough, far but not far enough (faces slide out of sight, talk trails into tattered scraps, footsteps tap fainter in alleys); he must catch the last subway, the streetcar, the bus, run up the gangplanks of all the steamboats, register at all the hotels, work in the cities, answer the want ads, learn the trades, take up the jobs, live in all the boarding houses, sleep in all the beds. One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life is not enough. At night, head swimming with wants, he walks by himself alone.

Hamilton

I know, I know, I know! So much has happened since I last posted! I got a surprise birthday gift from the Bird Photographer, I was blocked on Facebook by another high school classmate whom I dared to challenge (surprise, surprise!), there was a total eclipse of the sun, the POSOTUS held a rally in Arizona, part of which I watched, open-mouthed, on the teevee before grabbing my rosary beads and whimpering pray that I die, pray that I die, over and over like my Italian grandmother did in her senior years, and I'm currently helping MY SON to pack for college. We're leaving tomorrow, so I just kept the black dress and rosary beads and am praying to the Virgin Mary to sustain me through the transition.

But, Hamilton! Let's just dwell a bit on Hamilton! Anyone who knows me is aware of my curmudgeonly dislike of musicals (admitting that is akin to admitting that one hates animals or something, so I rarely voice it except here, for the world). But, Hamilton! Given all the hoopla, I admit to being curious about it and maybe even wishing, a teensy tinesy bit, that I could go.  Carl is to musicals as I am to musicals, but he surprised me with an early birthday present (I will be flying back from dropping off my son and will be wearing my black dress and rosary beads on my actual birthday this Sunday). I opened the card on Saturday night and gasped.

If you didn't already know it by now, The Bird Photographer is -- well -- the man, my person, my love, my friend, and now he's given me another gift that moved me to tears. Because this musical quite literally moved me to tears. The music, set, choreography -- all of that -- is fantastic, but to tell you the truth, that wasn't what really moved me. I kept sitting there thinking that someone had conceived of this, that someone had put this cast of beautifully diverse human beings into roles that would ordinarily have gone to white men, and that in doing so had quite literally brought America -- its very conception -- to life. I know that I'm not going to be able to do it justice, and I know that many people already have done so, but I was moved in a way that I have never been before as an American citizen. It was beyond radical and even sublime. To watch it now, given the shitshow that is Dear Leader et al,  is to be moved to tears. That's all I can say, and I hope so much that you get a chance to go, that young people get a chance to go, that young people of color get a chance to go, that the spineless of Amerikkka will wake the fuck up, that Dear Leader will disappear and that we can begin to heal from the national nightmare and make this place a truly equal country with liberty and justice for all.

That's my update. I need to continue with the mad packing, rosary bead chanting and existential dread.















P.S. I watched the partial eclipse at my friend Rain's house with her and Carl, and it was fantastic, but not as fantastic as seeing Hamilton. It was certainly as existential as having to drop my son off at college and the rest of his life, though.

It Never Rains in Southern California

Well, I guess I should say Happy President's Day!

I posted the following on my Facebook page for an Andy Warhol fifteen minutes and then decided to take it down because it's so vile. Someone I know asked me whether it was real. Yes, it's real. It's true and not alternative fact. It's a transcript of 45's comments from ten years ago, and even as I acknowledge my role as contributor to ugliness, it bears repeating because we're all responsible on some level. I still can't believe that 45 now represents all of us on the world stage.

Let's move on.

On Saturday night, I attended the first meeting of our local Indivisible group. We're called Active Empathy, and we're intent on active resistance to not just 45 but also to the extreme right Republicans in power whose agenda doesn't represent us or -- in some cases -- the majority of people in this country, in addition to its undoing progress to protect our environment and ensure equal access to our healthcare and threatening our first amendment rights. I'd have to make this a Faulknerian sentence if I kept typing everything that's under threat, but our intentions include flipping the legislature with methodical action. The group that attended the first meeting was diverse in age, race, religion, sex and sexuality, a mini-Los Angeles. We introduced ourselves and told the others what issues we were most interested or concerned. The range was wide. Some tears were shed and some expressed anger. Many attendees are originally from the "flyover" states and perfectly aware that not everyone who lives in those states condones some of the more egregious behavior of 45 or the conservative platform. Many expressed the need to be self-aware, to at least acknowledge our part in further dividing the country with our anger and sometimes condescension. Others had more of a screw that attitude, believing it is going to take the adoption of Tea Party tactics to be most effective. Here's the beautiful logo created by one of the founders of the group. Active Empathy is the name that's above the following:

We're not a moderate group, which brings me to the other thing I wanted to write about, and that's the personal war I have going on in my tiny little mother mind.™ I generally use the tiny little mother mind™ expression to describe the relationship between me and the Powers That Be in Neurologyland, how over decades I've learned just how hegemony works. The analogy has some use here, too. What does it mean to be educated? What does it mean to be an elitist? When did the open derision of intellect become acceptable? What does it mean to be moderate? Why is moderation a virtue? Why is moving to the center a goal? Is that a construct or something truly admirable? Are there certain principles that should not be compromised? What convictions do I have that are immoveable? I don't have the answers. I have a tiny little mother mind™ and some gut instincts, though, that have served me well and that I have to constantly be vigilant to honoring. To help me with this, I've been reading Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, and it's startling and fairly easy to draw parallels to what's going on today. I'm reminded of my instincts and of honoring them, how difficult it is to do so when I also have to deal with emotions, with a patriarchal culture and values that are more authoritarian than inclusive. There's a good discussion of Arendt's work here, including this choice passage:

“What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part . . . Totalitarian propaganda thrives on this escape from reality into fiction . . . [and] can outrageously insult common sense only where common sense has lost its validity.”

It's exhausting, isn't it?

Let's move on.

I saw the extraordinary documentary about James Baldwin called I am not your Negro. Everyone should watch it and the documentary 13. They're both antidotes to the superficial bullshit that reigns in this country. It rained off and on all weekend here in southern California. Everything is green, so green. I've been reading Ann Patchett's novel Commonwealth and love it. I told a good friend that I haven't been able to get into a novel in a long time, that I remain half in and half out, that that was worrying me because reading novels has been really the only constant in my life (that's NOT hyperbole). I'm in Patchett's story -- totally in. The man I love brought me pink roses, and the boys I love showed me how to take pictures with my new iPhone so that the background is blurred out. How wonderful is that! Here's a picture of the roses using this clever technique and one of the cinnamon bread I baked. The boys I loved showed me the scratch and sniff technique on the phone, too. Just kidding. That IS hyperbole.

Reader, what did you do this weekend?

Like Shining From Shook Foil

We've had a lot of rain here in Los Angeles the last month or so, and everything is greener than it's been in over five years. The sun glints off of green. I almost fell down into this patch of grass when I was out walking our dog this afternoon. I imagined myself face down and buried, lush. Lush. That's one of my favorite words. There's something sexy about it, about lushness. Something that gives me a frisson.

Love never dies. It just goes underground, a boy I loved a long time ago told me.



Grass. Green. Lush. Frisson




God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. 

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; 

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil 

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? 

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; 

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil 

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. 

And for all this, nature is never spent; 

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 

And though the last lights off the black West went 

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — 

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent 

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Rain on Dead Grass

As Denise says, "People take lots of photos of the rain in Los Angeles."

I left the sunny, warm Pacific Northwest and arrived home to the rainy, humid shitty. That's a photo of our back yard. We've let the grass die and plan on replacing it with drought-tolerant stuff. I'll make a couple dozen cupcakes for you if you design something for me because my creativity just doesn't extend to landscape design. I'm thinking a fire pit, some seating, maybe a meditation garden/labyrinth and a lap pool. Just kidding on the lap pool. The rain is nice, though, and today when I went to Trader Joe's, that's all anyone was talking about. As they stacked the avocados, two guys talked about the awesome thunder we all heard this morning, and pretty much everyone commented on how exciting it is to see water fall from the sky.

I'm finished unpacking and re-entrying. It's going well. I've only raised my voice once and badgered The Brothers over and over when they flew the small drone I had purchased for them outside before they'd gotten skilled at it, like I told them to, and it got stuck up in a tree. They connected about four long poles, broomsticks, lacrosse sticks and flagpoles together with duct tape, along with a citrus picker and managed to get the drone down, but the protective cage is still up in the sycamore. After raising my voice and badgering them, over and over, they informed me that it'll come down, Mom, in the fall.
My three weeks in the Hedgebrook wilderness have evidently changed me, though, because that response was adequate, I shrugged my shoulders and went back inside to read some more.

You know how when I got there it felt like I was hallucinating? After three weeks of solitude, intense writing, dreaming, walking, conversing with amazing women and having nearly every need met by the staff, I might be permanently stoned.

Rain in Los Angeles

All Your Horses

Say when rain
cannot make
you more wet
or a certain
thought can't
deepen and yet
you think it again:
you have lost
count. A larger
amount is
no longer a
larger amount.
There has been
a collapse; perhaps
in the night.
Like a rupture
in water (which
can't rupture
of course). All
your horses
broken out with
all your horses.

Kay Ryan

Rain Thoughts

Sophie's aide at school sent me these photos of Sophie with the message Sophie enjoys watching the rain.

It doesn't get much better than that, as they say.

Sophie, Recovering

Yesterday was a very quiet day despite Halloween. The Brothers were away for most of it, and into the night, too. It was the first Halloween without them, and while I hate to admit it, I cried a little, off and on, all day. Sophie was still home from school, and rather than moon around with her, I got busy cleaning her room, rearranging her clothes, purging the old and too-small and all the while listening to music and chatting to her while she sat on her purple beanbag chair and played with toys. She seems to be recovering nicely from the trauma earlier in the week. It takes days and days for drugs like morphine and Ativan to leave her system, I believe, so I'm hoping that next week will be even better. I'm grateful that we figured out the problem without more medical intervention, and I'm grateful to have these sweet and peaceful times with her alone in the house despite my own melancholy for little boys and Halloweens past. Last night it poured rain for what seems like the first time in years, as I went to sleep, and this morning lacrosse practice was cancelled due to sodden fields. What more could one ask for? The universe is abundant.

Good Fortune

I love a good fortune -- you know, something about the future and not one of those wise sayings like you are full of integrity and joy, a pleasure to behold. I got the above one in my fortune cookie last night, so I'm waiting here for any day. I sure hope the thirteen separate notices of action that I got yesterday from Medi-Cal, denying all the components of Sophie's wheelchair (and each notice of action was accompanied by a State Hearing Request Form in a separate envelope and each envelope had a $.44 stamp on it, which means there were 26 sheets of paper, thirteen envelopes and $5.72 of postage) won't become my "good news," when we finally get that wheelchair (and we will get it in this lifetime, I imagine). I'd prefer a book deal, a windfall or instant fitness.

It actually rained here a bit this morning as I was driving home in the wee hours from Henry's school. The drops were plops, really -- the fall more pathetic than robust, but, hell, it's a start! Good fortune for the earth in southern California.

Good fortune to you today, too!

Rainy day rambling

It's been raining, on and off, for a couple of days now. Actually, it's not really rain -- full-on rain -- but more like a sprinkling, and the air is hot and sticky and I'm reminded of the east coast and I just don't like it. I'm not fond of rain, really, ever, but I especially don't like rain in July in Los Angeles. Sophie doesn't either. She had at least five big, big seizures yesterday when she came home from summer school, and I'm going to blame it on the rain and humidity. Reader, if you have a child or young adult with epilepsy, do you see changes in seizure activity with weather?

On another note, one of my favorite cousins is visiting (that's her, above), so we've been busy talking and catching up. My cousin is intense, so we're sort of exhausting one another with conversation, but it's the good kind of exhaustion, the stimulating kind. She's a bit older than me, and when I was a child and she was a teenager I idolized her as a radical hippie who didn't shave her legs and wore maxi dresses. She might have even worn flowers in her hair. She wore out all the grown-ups, I seem to remember, with her hippyness, but even then I imagined her as my people. Now I'm all grown up, and we have so much in common. If you can believe it, she's considering the purchase of a van/recreational vehicle to wander the country and visit friends and relatives. I told her that I might call her to come by and pick me up one of these days, take me away.

I don't have much else to tell ya'll about. I'm finishing three different books -- Country Girl by Edna O'Brien and Transatlantic by Colum McCann are both great reads, one a memoir of the Irish writer and the other a brilliant novel by an Irish writer. To balance things out, I've begun Madame Bovary by Flaubert and translated by the great Lydia Davis. I read it in college in French and remember only the labor and agony of it all, but my god it's incredible reading now. I'm not sure if it's the thirty years that have passed and the cumulative life experience or the actual brilliant translation, but wow.

Read this incredible article in The Village Voice.

The letter p, Flemish paintings and rain with some f'-bombs

The Love Potion - 15th c. Belgium

It's raining in Los Angeles this morning, a soft, gray rain that doesn't stifle the crows squawking outside my back door but relieves the lot of us from the pressures of sunshine. I ripped a page off my tiny desk calendar, a copy of the painting that I posted above. Isn't it weird and fantastic? The man at the door, the curlicues, her shoes -- what's happening here? I have a few new readers on my blog or old readers who've chosen to comment. Welcome! One of them pointed out that she received the same email in her inbox about the drug Perampanel, the one I mused about the other day, wondering why its other name was Fycoma. Well, it turns out that I missed a letter p and that the drug is actually called Fycompa. So much for our wondering who the hell named an epilepsy drug suggesting the deadening of the brain. Here's the thing, though. I looked up compa on the Internets and saw this definition in Urban Dictionary:

1. compa: Spanish slang for compadre. Ei compa, get you ass over here.

2. compa: Pocho slang for compadre; pal, chum, dawg. Yo compa, bust out with the yesca... 

Fy in the Urban Dictionary stands for Fuck Yeah! and even Fuck You! 

Fycompa, then, could possibly suggest that after luring you to take it -- get you ass over here! -- there's the very obvious possibility that you will be seizure free -- fuck yeah! -- or fucked over -- fuck you!

New Reader, I stand corrected but ever valiant.

I should have been a drug namer, don't you think?