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moving

what do you pack when you're moving from one niche in cyberspace to another?

i've been looking around my little blog, wondering what should stay and what should go. should i take the little half-thoughts that have been floating around and fold them into sentences, squeezing out adverbs and adjectives so that i can fit more into the truck? should i find a box to shoehorn in this wonderful color of ochre? should i stuff the whole web--all its tricksy links hooking one thing to another--into the carebear bag i've been taking everywhere since i was five? should i ask you to come with me? should i pull your little cyber-self from wherever it's waiting and ask it to come, to sit next to me in the front of my buzzing yellow penske?

you would come, wouldn't you? if i asked?

little italy

my next door neighbor is small italian grandma: gray wirey hair and quite the repertoire of house dresses and seersucker shorts.

me and hal were playing in the front yard yesterday when she pulled her buick up onto the sidewalk. after rummaging for a minute, she walked over to us holding two giant bottles of lemon juice.

"two eighty-nine," she said. "for two bottles!"

i smiled. "went out to sam's club again?"

she nodded. "and i've got twenty pounds of nuts!"

"do you need help carrying them in?" i asked.

"bah," she said, waving her hand at me.

"i've got eighteen loaves of zucchini bread to bake today."

our other neighbor walked up. "you're crazy, lydia," she said. "it's too hot."

"i don't even feel it," my little grandma said. "got the oven on and everything and i don't even feel it." she walked back toward her door holding a jar of lemon juice in each hand.

the next morning i found a loaf of zucchini bread neatly wrapped in wax paper, with a tiny label in curling script: milk chocolate.

the real problem

i've been thinking about this for days. (i know, i should be doing the laundry.) but what it comes down to is this: i just don't like edward. i don't think he's interesting. i wouldn't want to hang out with him for an entire saturday. i don't get chills whenever he walks into a scene.

so go ahead. enlighten me. what's so great about him?

howl

stephenie meyer has done it again. i've spent all morning debating whether i would sooner date a werewolf or a vampire.

it seems to me a tricky question, but bella, the heroine of eclipse doesn't seem to be having any trouble deciding.

now, go ahead and cast stones at me, but i'm a parent of a future teenager and i can't help twisting out the moral implications of young adult fiction. and when it comes right down to it, i really have a problem with edward, specifically the relationship between him and bella. it seems to be built around all the wrong things: looks, fate, muscles, curiosity. bella routinely describes edward as an angel, as if his admirable self-control and really hot body make up for the fact that he is what he is--a vampire. she constantly belittles herself around him, always pointing out to herself and to us that she isn't good enough. besides that, there's no real friendship between the two characters. edward never gives bella the full story and rarely allows her to take part in the decision making. it's a completely physical relationship that can't even get physical! (although, i have to thank ms. meyers for having edward so staunchly protect bella's virginity.) if bella were my daughter, i would be more bothered by her inferiority complex with this boyfriend than his vampiric tendencies.

juxtapose edward against jacob and i'm even more confused at the impetus behind bella's choice to remain with edward. bella frequently refers to jake as her best friend and is always down when she can't see him. with jake, bella is on equal footing. jake listens to her, respects her opinion, and while is perhaps a little more outwardly volatile, at least he's more real. and when bella is with jake, we finally see her being herself--free, open, and happy. from meyer's description of "imprinting," where the werewolf becomes exactly what his mate needs at all times, i can't see how edward's ice hard body and soulless existence can even stack up.

i haven't finished the book, but i'm crossing my fingers (most likely in vain) that bella won't trade her soul to spend her life with a very polite, perfect, and not very genuine seeming vampire, when she could be with a warm and comforting friend.

which life would you choose for yourself?
i'd take the werewolf.

feast

i've been watching my neighbors hose down sidewalks, wipe off patio furniture, lug beer, and set up tables for days now.
it's the feast of the assumption.

i pulled out my picnic blanket this morning and sat with henry on our lawn--waiting for an hour or more before the procession came by our house. we watched family greetings, children running up and down the street.

i asked my neighbor, "what does the feast celebrate?"

"i don't know," she said. "it's hard to keep track of those things."
she wiped her hand on her apron that looked like an italian flag: her name embroidered across the top. she's been making meatballs and stuffed peppers and pasta and pasta and pasta. her family is coming--sons and daughters and their sons and daughters and more and more sons and daughters and they will sit on her porch for five days and eat and drink and smoke and laugh and celebrate the assumption.

and me and henry just watched from behind our little chain link fence. wondering who this mary is that gets such an interesting type of devotion: her life celebrated by meatballs steeped in garlic and peppers stuffed with sausage and people soaked with wine.

she must be related to the man whose birth we celebrate with trees and foilage and ham and giant socks stuffed with toothbrushes and oranges.

tolstoy said it

My writing is like those little carved baskets made in prisons. And those unfortunates produce miracles of patience.

--Anna Karenina