Within My Head There Arose Such a Clatter

T'was the night before the day after Christmas and my daughter is getting a tattoo tomorrow. It's her second one in less than twelve months.

I'm sitting on the floor of a bathroom using the closed lid of the toilet for my writing surface. The notebook paper I scribble on is damp and soft from the humidity of the warm bath I just had.

When my three kids were growing up I tried to be careful about those boy/girl double standard things. The most glaring of which was the common cultural, yet old school thinking that girls should wait to have sex, but that for boys, having adolescent sex is a right of passage. The flaw of this thinking is so blatant that it's hard to state aloud with out chuckling. Such a laughable bias.

But I have an overt bias of my own, when it comes to tattoos. My sons can get as many tattoos as they wish and it doesn't seem to hurt my soul. It may perplex me but not in a sad way.

My oldest boy has three tattoos that I know of. I'm fine with this. In fact maybe part of me, appreciates his wanting to express himself in a relatively, kinda sorta artistic manner.

My middle offspring will probably never have a tattoo. Not because he feels strongly about the principle of the thing, but because he feels strongly about staying as far away from needles as possible. I'm good with that too. Do what's best for you, I say.

My daughter is my youngest. She will be nineteen in a few weeks. She got her first tattoo just a few hours after she turned eighteen. I went with her for the first thirty minutes or so. Then I left. Devastated might not be a strong enough word for what I felt.

The design of her first tattoo is pretty and I appreciate the symbolism it has for her. The thought she put behind it. But that doesn't mean I wanted it on her skin permanently...forever and ever and ever.

But over time I thought I had come to terms with it. Okay, she has a tattoo. Silently I hoped desperately that this one would be enough for her. A few months after her first one she started talking about another one. Where she would get it, what it would say or what it would look like. These details changed from one conversation to the next and so I just hoped, crossed my fingers and burned incense to the god of porcelain skin that it wouldn't happen. Please, please, please......

As the year went by it began to sound more certain. My stomach hurt more each time the topic came up. I told her on more than one occasion that in my opinion one tattoo for her was plenty. Something like "....IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY...."

Tomorrow is the day. I don't like it. Before I crawled into my bed for the night, I went to her and said "Before you do this, would you do one thing for me?" "Yes, of course," she said. "DON'T DO IT!" I wailed.

Actually what I said is "Before you go to bed tonight, go stand in front of a mirror, pull your shirt off and look at the area of skin you're thinking of getting tattooed. Look at your beautiful perfect skin. Because if you do this, it will never be the same. Ever," I whimpered.

I began this post the night before....now we are a few days post tattoo. I was actually sick to my stomach about the whole thing. I thought if I started talking about it, I might throw up.

I can't figure this out. Why is this such a big deal to me? Why is there a difference between how I feel about my boys v. my girl getting a tattoo? I thought about this aloud and discovered maybe it's a vanity thing. I was so surprised by this possibility. Was I vain about her beauty? When I spoke of this, it felt like there might be something to it.

She is strikingly beautiful. Especially when she's not being a meany to her mom. She is tall and thin. Dark features, dark hair. Her skin is pale porcelain, like Nicole Kidman or Scarlett O'Hara. At a few different social functions over the years people have come up to me (and sadly her) and said that she should model. One woman tried to give her the card of someone who might know someone who might be an agent or something. I threw myself in front of that person, grabbed the card out of her hand and crammed it into my mouth, chewing furiously. (This is topic for another post, another day.)

I never thought of myself as a beautiful girl. I never carried myself as a beautiful girl. I was always the clever one, the witty, funny, smart (ass) one. I have always had a healthy capacity to make people laugh and smile and enjoy themselves. But I've never been the 'pretty' girl. I grew up wishing I were. Envying, hating those pretty girls. I always wanted to be a stunning beauty.

So when I had this gorgeous daughter born to me, I celebrated her beauty. I held it up in festive gratitude. Like somehow this beauty belonged to me, once removed.

I stood a little speechless as this concept occurred to me and as the words came out of my mouth, without premeditation. "Maybe," I said, "it's like the father who never got to finish high school because he had to go to work in the coal mines and his only dream is that his son graduate from college and become a doctor or lawyer. Anything but a coal miner." But instead of it being the son's dream, it's really only the father's.

Maybe this is me. Maybe I'm hanging onto a superficial, vain cosmetic rope where she's concerned. This feels terrible. I see her inner beauty, I see her magic side, her shiny heart. Why would I get so twisted up in her outward appearance?

Living vicariously. Not what it's cracked up to be.....

I Beg to Dream and Differ*

Lyric from Green Day's Holiday.

I find it interesting that when I'm angry, I write better. Well 'better' is probably not the best word. When I am angry, I find it far easier to write freely, or as freely as I am capable of writing. It is not necessarily good writing, but it is more abundant writing. Longer words, thicker paragraphs. Weighty accusation. And to some, size indeed matters.

When I've posted a blog three days in a row, you can be sure that one of two things is true:
Either I'm being paid per word, or I'm pissed OFF!

This interesting phenomenon does not seem to be limited to my writing. My work, my play, my chores all seem to be stepped up in production, when I'm angry. Come to think of it, aside from the state of pure bliss, a state I rarely get to visit, anger and numbness are my two most high-functioning states.

As long as I am high on anger, or numb from numbness I can get a great deal accomplished.

I clean like crazy, I organize to a fault. I shop quick, drive quick, decide quick. Quick, intense. Move over.

Productivity-wise, it's when the D-words happen that I'm screwed:

• Depressed,


• Discouraged,


• Deflated,


• Despondent,


• Dejected.


• (Don't you love synonyms? The only book I'll ever need on a desert island is a good thesaurus.)

Yesterday I was humming along to Michael Buble. Today I'm screaming to Green Day and Nirvana. This can't be a good sign. Smells like post-pubescent Decomposition and Deterioration.

Righteous indignation energy is even better. The most stimulating anger is the justifiable type.
Can I get another Amen? AMEN! ~ Green Day

Since I'm not in the mood for Christmas music this year, do you think, if I listen to Green Day and Red Hot Chili Peppers instead, that would count?

Stealing Stones

~ Bullet Points, my favorite ~

• I'm changing my official blog font from Georgia to Times.
• Everything written herein is relatively true. Give or take.



• I last blog posted in September.
• I blame Al Gore.
• I no longer have Internet at home. Could someone please take care of this, pronto?!
  
  
• I moderate book reviews for the organization for which I work.
• Apparently some wanna-be book reviewers' keyboards didn't come with a shift key.
• Nor the apostrophe key.
• I spent a good deal of my morning correcting people's punctuation and basic grammar so that when their review shows up on our website, they will appear to be intelligent and literate.


• I am having a crummy day. If that is not the way to spell 'crummy,' correct it yourself, I'm tapped out.
  
• I'm afraid someone put my new, shiny used car under some magic spell so that it would appear to run well after it left the car lot until it crossed over some invisible force field and then began dropping mechanical parts essential to it's well running and my well being.
• I blame all used car dealers. ALL!


• I want credit for all the obscenities and swearing that you didn't have to read in this post. At least so far, huh? Shit.


• What else, what else..... I know there's more. Hmmm.
  
• I keep forgetting it's December. I ate two Thanksgiving dinners, I feel the chill, I see the twinkly lights, yet it still feels like September to me. Maybe no blogging makes one's time stand still.
• I am without my Christmas spirit this year. This happens some years. I have previously been fine with this phenomenon but this year it just pisses me off.
• My heart is not into the season: decorations, music, shopping, gifts, giving, cheer and goodwill to men. Not like I was ever leaning in that direction anyway.
• God bless us, everyone. Some more than others.
  
• Diane Keaton, Marg Helgenberger, Frances McDormand, Barbra Streisand: Some women grow into their beauty. Better year after year. I don't care if this post seems erratic to you. That's the whole point of bullet points.
  
• "People call these things imperfections, but there not. That's the good stuff." ~ Good Will Hunting
  
• Everything is wrong. I am not okay with this.
  
• I had a dream last night that I was riding in a car with Kevin Kline. An old Rambler or Falcon. Kevin drove. I rode shot gun. We drove along a quiet residential road with quaint houses and pretty landscapes. Driving slow and easy down the street, he reached out his window and picked flowers for me. Sweet yellow ones with the roots still attached. I reached out of my window but there were no flowers. I reached out for a rock to give instead. But I didn't like the way the landscape looked without the rock. I put it back and grabbed a smaller rock. So instead of flowers I stole a rock to give him. The rock owners were not happy with me. Some folk seem to like their rocks exactly where they left them. I noticed that none of the flower owners seemed pissed. Stupid double standard. Men, they make all the rules. I am not okay with this.

"Claudia, what have we told you?"

Okay, here’s the deal. I have a couple of very important projects I must work on. I get to work on. This is not negotiable. Period!


One is a long standing piece with a ‘working title.’ Doesn’t that sound like a real grown up writer? “Working title.” Say it with your chin dropped firm into your chest and with a bit of Walter Cronkite in your tone. "Working title." Like you mean business.


The other piece is my strong desire and intention to post a blog in the immediate future. It’s time. It’s been long enough and it helps to clear my mind when I post. All good.


Last night held the perfect opportunity.

Well okay, perfection is apparently relative. But given the distracting, cluttery, crowded, boarding house nature of my immediate vicinity, it was as perfect as I could force it to be. I left a few hurt feelings in my wake, but hell people, exactly what is it about the Do NOT Disturb sign on my bedroom door that do you not understand?


With my laptop cocked and loaded, appropriately positioned across my lap, with my hollow, pre-fab bedroom door closed tight, I’m armed with the complete confidence that these two overdue projects are as good as done. Whew, that feels good.


Let me share with you an insight into my heartfelt priorities.

FACTS:

• I am not a Tom Cruise fan.


• Nor Brad Pitt.


• I have very successfully never seen any part of any Antonio Banderas film.


• I do not do horror flicks.


• And I am not infected with the highly contagious and common ‘vampire as entertainment’ virus.

That being said, the movie “Interview with a Vampire?” Holy cow. I have an involuntary, physical reaction to a man with long, flowing hair. Now let’s be clear, I am not speaking of just any guy who can grow his hair long. There are a frightening number of men who grow their sparse, thinning hair long, in denial of their receding hair line. And probably an equal quantity who attempt to cling to their heavy metal glory days with a pony tail and all his pre-sets on classic rock stations.

No. Not just any long hair can be the magic key to the kingdom. A man cannot coast in on his long hair alone. No, he must be a relatively fetching man to start. Like the perfect ribbon on a well wrapped package. The finishing touch on the original sweet substance. “All of this plus the added bonus of a long, powerful mane.”

I have not traced from where this attraction originates. Mostly because I don’t care. Is it a Jesus thing? A Fabio complex? Could be, I suppose. Who knows? Isn’t it a distraction to question such a pure reaction?

"Interview with a Vampire." Who knew? It came out way back in 1994, and all this time I had no idea.

This movie may be the Super Jackpot for my hair predilection. Tom, Brad & Antonio? These are admittedly pretty boys, although not my kind of pretty, still it’s a trip to bountiful for me, only with a really happy ending.

I’d never seen the movie before but as it was on my TV last night, I found that my very important ‘working title’ piece and my confident blog post intentions fell unceremoniously by the bedside. And an unexpected erotica piece happened to me instead. Huzzah!

Okay, well not truly erotica, I suppose. Since there was no actual sex written in anywhere. Will you quit taking things so literal?

So in hindsight, maybe “…not negotiable. Period!” is just a loose guideline.

PS: I do not know how old Kirsten Dunst is in this movie but I loved every bloody fanged frame she was in. I found her fascinating. Although her golden locks were a bit short.

Out of the Blue

One day last week as I was beginning my drive to work, I came upon an unusual sight.

After I pull out of my driveway, I get to start my commute each day on a quiet, forest-lined, country road. A few minutes along and the trees fade off, the view opens up to homes with wide horse pastures on the left and a vista of the Cascades to my right. A few seconds later, I crest a small hill and come to a stop at the road that will lead me into traffic and commuter stress and the beginning of my work day.

On this particular day last week, I crested that slight hill and saw a hot air balloon in the clear sky ahead of me. It was about 7:30 in the morning. The cheerful aberration floated peacefully, lazily, colorfully out over the horizon.

I twice lived in Anchorage. Almost every evening of the two summers I lived there, I could look out into the dusky blue sky over the city and see numerous hot air balloons. Anchorage is surrounded by some of the most beautiful examples of nature I've ever seen and these smiling, joyful nightly balloons were jewels adorning her native beauty like sprinkles on the frosting of the landscape cupcake. It's hard to believe now but I probably grew quite used to seeing them above and may have taken them for granted after awhile. Shame.

Needless to say, seeing this single unexpected balloon was a great way to start my work day. Instead of driving along thinking about the idiot who just cut me off, I was wondering about the occasion for such a mode of travel so early in the morning on a day in the middle of the week. Was it a proposal? An anniversary celebration? A whim?

By the time I arrived at work, I'm sorry to say the balloon had left my mind. I sat in my car, on the phone, getting a few last seconds of an encouraging conversation before I went in the building to work. I was looking at nothing in particular when right in front of me a fluffy white feather floated down from the sky. This would not be an odd thing if there were any trees around, but in the middle of this particular parking lot there are none. This feather came floating straight down from the sky on a day without a breeze. It was like a bird sent it down to me. Again drawing my attention upward in an unexpected way.

I put in my five hours of work before beginning my quick trip to my second shift at a different location. On this trek each day, I pass along the end of a runway of an Air Force base in my area. On some days, I get to see huge, gray, cargo-type planes, that look like they should fall right out of the sky with their girth and weight, land or take off directly in front of me. It's a bit of a thrill when this happens. The rush of noise and power just over my head. On even less frequent days, I will see the fighters. This is my favorite. When I get to see the fighters, it feels like good luck. It might not be the safest example of driving that I do, but I crane my head this way and that trying to keep up with their speed and maneuvers. I love the fighter planes. Always have.

On this day, the fighters were soaring, turning, speeding in the sky over me. I stared up at them until they were out of my sight. It was at this point that I began to marvel at the sky's efforts to pull my gaze upward. Maybe I've been looking down or around me too much lately. I don't know. It gave me something to consider.

After passing the air force base, I turned south on the last little leg of my drive before getting to the library branch where I work, when in the sky I saw paratroopers. Half a dozen or more. Conducting their military exercises in the pale blue above an Army base directly south of the Air Force base. They were off in the distant sky but it was wonderful to watch them floating over the urban landscape aiming for targets unknown.

Michael J. Fox has a new book out. "Always looking up : the adventures of an incurable optimist"

That day when I arrived at my branch, this book was waiting for me.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Birthdays, Deathdays and Woodstock

Many varying years ago this weekend, monumental events occurred. Each momentous in their own way.

One hundred and two years ago, Seattle’s Pikes Place Market was born. I love the market. I am ignorant of the details of its inception. Did it begin as a community farmer’s market? On the first day were there three vendors? Thirty? Is it still in it’s original location? Contrary to the popular thought I hold dearly, that I know everything, there are apparently many things I do not know where the market is concerned. What I do know, is that I love the electric, organic, bohemian, colorful, peculiar, exotic, palpable current of energy that runs through it. I always feel comfortable and light hearted when I visit.

Happy Birthday, Seattle’s Pike Place Market and to all who share August 17th.

Thirty-two years ago this weekend, Elvis Presley died. This was probably my first “I remember where I was when I heard the news” kind of experience. It was the summer after my freshman year of high school. I was vacationing at my Aunt and Uncles home in Davis, California. I was a bit young to have a full Elvis awareness but as we watched the news, I thought of my mom. I know there was at least one Elvis album cover in the stack of dusty 33 records by the ‘record player.’ G.I. Blues.

Forty years ago this weekend? Woodstock. 1969. I was seven years old and living in a small town in Eastern Washington. Yakima. It’s easy to blame Yakima for the childhood I never knew. I grew up unaware of most of the world around me.

The only real Current Events kind of moment I remember having as a small girl is standing out on our front porch looking up at the night’s sky, heavy binoculars held to my brow with the purpose of trying to see little black specs walking on the moon in the early summer of 1969. Neil Armstrong and friends.

I was one year old when JFK was killed.
Six years old the year Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr were shot dead.

I have some vague and fuzzy memories of the 1972 presidential election. I was ten years old.

The Vietnam war started in 1959 and ended in 1975. My awareness of Vietnam came near the very end, when our solders were coming back in one condition or the other. Some saying it was safer to change clothes on the plane during the trip home, hoping to arrive in their local airport without meeting the hostility and ridicule our county insisted on greeting them with if it was known they served their country in that unpopular war. (This is another blog completely.)

I was seven the summer of 1969. Woodstock. I wish I'd known to know such a pivotal, monumental American music celebration was in the making. I wish.

At the age of forty-seven years old, I look back and I wish I’d been there. I wish somehow by some magical, mysterious, cosmic adoption process I’d have been in the care of the types of parents who would have driven their Volkswagen Bug across the country to attend. I’d have been one of those cool, tanned, blond haired hippie children with no shirt and no shoes on. Sleeping in the grass, safe and nestled in the energy of love, music and social tolerance that permeated the weekend.

Or in a different space and place maybe the kind of cool, enlightened parent who would have taken her children. I have often liked to think I'd make a great authentic hippie. The genuine, granola-toting article.

This is all so easy to say forty years later. But the fact is, even if I had been older and capable of appreciating Woodstock, I would probably not have been smart enough, evolved enough to do so. Yes, I'm afraid I would have turned it down.

In spite of its frightening resemblance to a glorified, musical, hallucinogenic camping trip, I wish I'd been there.
I wish I'd swam naked in the pond.
I wish I'd slept in the grass of Max yasgur's farm.
I wish I could say, "I saw Jimi Hendrix play the national anthem at Woodstock."
Or "I saw Santana's Soul Sacrifice. with Michael Shrieve's unbelievable drum solo."
Or "Woodstock, where I discovered my undying love for the harmony of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young." I wish.

According to Wikipedia.com:

"After the concert, Max Yasgur, who owned the site of the event, saw it as a victory of peace and love. He spoke of how nearly half a million people filled with possibilities of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He states that "if we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future.."

Max was born in 1919. Does this make him 50 years old the summer he welcomed Woodstock and 500,000 people to his farm? His community? His legacy?
Yes, I think I can safely say "You are my hero, Max. Thank you."

Shortly after the festival that weekend, Joni Mitchell would pen the lyrics to the song Woodstock:

I came upon a child of God

He was walking along the road

And I asked him where are you going

And this he told me: he said

I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm

I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band

I'm going to get back to the land

And set my soul free...

Because of Max, the festival organizers, the musicians, the attendees..."We are stardust, we are golden."

Careful

I have conversation loops running in my head. Regularly.

I wonder if this is normal.

In fact, I have often (always) wondered if the various inner workings of my head are normal.

Do all people speak to themselves in their head?

Do they use "I" or "you" when they talk to themselves?

Do all justify their questionable behaviour over and over again until it sounds 'right' enough to live with?

Does everyone silently swear at themselves?

Do all people sing John Cougar Mellencamp Cougar in their head when they are feeling like a particularly conspicuous loser? If the answer is no, please don't tell me.

Quite naturally, most of the time, these internal conversations slash running dialogs slash virtual fist fights I have, are with those closest to me.

Mothers, Fathers, Sons, Daughters and Others.

But not always. Sometimes the 'talk' I have internally, is aimed at that individual who is driving his over-sized vehicle, in my immediate vicinity, as if he's trying to put as much distance between himself and the mental institution from which he quite obviously just escaped, where he was being unsuccessfully treated for Delusions of Grand Am, I mean Grandeur.

I win this argument every time, by the way. It usually ends with the words, "Just drive with grace, you intellectually challenged, inbred, bed wetting, bottom feeding, Bikini Barista patron, you!" That would be me talking, not the other guy.

But the solitary mental discussions I have with strangers are not as common as those I have with loved ones.

The two dominant and recurring mental conversations I've been having most recently are:

• Take Care of What You Love
• Shovel Your Own Shit.

For years, I've watched someone neglect the 'care and feeding' of all he loves, and then watched him lose those things. Then I stood stunned when he behaved as if he'd had no part in it, at all. It wasn't a complete void of care, but all care tended to be exactly what was required just to 'get by,' the very minimum maintenance needed and only then in a reactionary and obligatory fashion. I feel like I might not be speaking directly or specifically enough. Not like me, huh?

This is what I'm saying, in my head, a whole lot lately:
"Take care. Take care of what is precious to you. If you cherish it, if you want to keep it, care for it. Put your energy where your gratitude lies, whether it be a possession like a fountain pen once owned by John Steinbeck or Walt Whitman. Or a relationship with an amazing person whom you can never quite figure out. Take care."

You wouldn't use said fountain pen to clean the clog out of your kitchen sink. Or set it aside carelessly along with the ink blotch-leaving pens you've collected from doctors, insurance offices and bank tellers to collect dust until your relatives have to go through your belongings for the estate sale, unless of course you really don't care for the pen at all.

When you lose that magnetic, dynamic, crazy-magic girl who was completely devoted to you, until the day came when she'd had enough of your emotional indifference and apparent disinterest, it's because you did not take care. Or you were too cool to show it.

This brings me around to the part of the discussion where I start arguing with my own logic, which seems a little masturbatory in some 'queen of debate class' kind of way:

"You idiot. Do you hear yourself? If you have to remind someone to take care of something, it is already over. A reminder is of no use. We instinctively protect and care for those things important to us. If that instinct doesn't kick in naturally, we did not care to begin with. Although you might well be quite bummed when you are no longer in touch with that special friend, by then staying in touch was probably more of a principle kind of thing. You really didn't care enough to take care, so there you go. You get exactly what you get. Apathy begets apathy. Gratitude begets gratitude. Period."

I have some pretty involved internal conversations, no? Was it good for you too? My argument with the original 'offender' and then a conversation with my conversational self. Is that normal? Don't answer that, please. I have decided I no longer want to know what's normal.

It makes me sad to even write this. I think our society trains us very well to take things for granted. To behave with apathy and disassociation. We are discouraged from revealing our true joy and gratitude for that which we cherish. We are taught to dismiss. Treat the 'special' in our lives as if it is disposable and easily replaced. Somethings, some people, once lost, can never, ever be replaced. But we keep telling ourselves otherwise.

In the same vein yet on the other hand, I think we need to be honest with our self and others about what really doesn't matter to us. We feel like some things 'should' matter to us. If we are a good person, a good parent, a good citizen, then certain things should matter to us. Right? But sometimes they just don't, or they used to but they don't any more. Be honest.

Barbie's Digest Condensed version: If you are grateful for the person you're with, sing this. Sing it loud and sing it often. Besides simply being the 'right' thing to do, this is the way to give and receive gratitude. Everyone, I'm speculating, wants to be with someone who radiates "How did I get so lucky?" in their presence.

If you are not grateful for the person you're with, go. If you do not have a clear sense of your good fortune when you dine next to them, when you wake beside them, when you help them through their struggles, when they ask too much of you, then let them go. Someone else out there will feel lucky to have them but not if you refuse to let them go. Don't settle just because you are too lazy or terrified to try again. Hold out until you feel that 'how did I ever get so lucky?' feeling. And make sure you're with some one who cannot believe they got lucky enough to have you.

More on that 'shovel' conversation I mentioned earlier in the next episode......