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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

eclipse

there is rain outside heavy enough to purge sin.

it's flushing along the road. flushing along the students holding umbrellas, soaked anyway. flushing along the dirt in the cracks of the sidewalk, the dead heads on my petunia, the odds and ends left on the tree lawn (free!).

a frightening total eclipse of the day.

home

i underestimated how it would feel to take my little hal baby back across the mississippi to the place where i lost teeth and wore my hair in pigtails and played double-dutch in the rain and locked my sister out of my room and took my keeshound for wild runs through red rock and tumbleweed.

it felt all fluttery when i could see my rocky mountains out the west window of the plane. it felt so jumpy i could hardly hold the feeling inside when we caught sight of the strange circus tent of a roof that means you're about to reach final descent into denver international airport. it felt nearly transcendent when i deplaned holding my groggy and disoriented little guy and got a whiff of that thin thin waterless air. and i don't think there's a word for seeing my father outside baggage claim, waiting.

it all felt supremely good.

but if i underestimated how good it would feel to go back to the place i grew up, i really underestimated how good it would feel to come home. yes, cleveland. home. home to my impatiens and my petunias. home to my two bedrooms and leaky garage. home to my scratchy patch of lawn and peony bushes. home to the place where hal lights up and runs his eyes over everything, satisfying himself that everything is in place.

how can one person have so many places called home?

to finish up

movies i can watch over and over
first: cold comfort farm--"there'll be no butter in hell!"

second: big fish--epic tales about giants, blizzards, a witch, and conjoined-twin lounge singers

third: anne of green gables--i've been watching this since i was six years old: my dad sat on the roof holding our TV antenna all four hours [i still have that original VHS]

fourth: x-men--i have the hots for patrick stewart [does bald get any sexier than that?]

places i've lived
first: my parent's house, bedroom to the right of the stairs--i spent an awful lot of time in the walk-in closet [walk-in closets...remember those? sigh.] where i kept my stuffed-animal kingdom. [you think i'm kidding about the kingdom, but i really gave all the animals various kingdomly duties and assigned titles, etc. i still have the small notebook where i wrote out the details.]

second: the third floor of david john hall--i shared my bathroom with a member of the swim team, a cheerleader, and a very tall girl from hong kong

third: krasnodar, russia--i don't remember the street name, but i do remember that our front door was padded [a subtle hint of things to come]

fourth: cleveland, ohio--in an apartment above sarajane and next to valentino's pizza where we were lulled to sleep every night to the soothing sound of dishwashing

favorite tv shows
first: foyle's war
second: masterpiece theatre
third: the office
fourth: the cosby show

websites i visit daily

first: the new york times
second: the weather
third: craigslist
fourth: print & pattern

places i'd rather be
first: in a corner of hyde park, with a book, under a tree

second: on the top of a mountain in the uintas, with henry on my back, and joe holding my hand

third: driving the road from boulder to escalante

fourth: sitting on my parent's back deck watching the sun light up the red rocks in the south valley

people to tag, as it were
first: ioan gruffudd
second: diana rigg
third: dwight schrute
fourth: chili cheese polenta

swallowed

i sliced the tip of my index finger on something in the dishwasher.
[i know, i know. i have a dishwasher. it's amazing. it's a half-pint that rolls around on casters and hooks up to the sink and has changed my life for the infinite better.]

that's why i haven't been typing. really.

[although, i have this funny suspicion that even though my hit counter registers over 100, i'm the only person reading this and i sign in as various people in my sleep and make comments to myself. isn't that the nightmare of every writer? besides the one where i get swallowed by jaba the hut.]

four

call it the new moon, call it leftover roast beef hash, but for reasons inexplicable, i feel the need to tell you things about myself in fours. (look for installments, i wouldn't want to overwhelm anyone.)

employment history

first: hancock fabrics, cashier/general girl of all work, where i huddled next to the bulk fleece while someone robbed the bank next door at gunpoint and where i swept and swept and swept and listened to a lady named marge wearing a maroon apron tell me about her gall bladder and her hip replacement

second: the valley racket club, pool attendant, where i read les miserables and measured my life in fifteen minute increments, stamping the hands of small children covered in blue popsicles and watching them flex their muscles

third: at&t corporate office, personal assistant to the tech in charge of the Y2K switchover, where i ate yogurt and wrote out my boss's travel plans with a sharpie marker on giant sheets of paper

fourth: writing fellow, brigham young university, where i told other students that their papers sucked and spent a lot of time in a very small office laughing at a certain person named sarah olson who has now disappeared (or is at school in berkeley)

a small bout of heroism

i have a job chart for myself. you know, just to remind myself of all the daily household tasks i'm not accomplishing. at the top of the list is "cook dinner."

see, i think families should eat together. every night. i think they should eat healthy things. i think they should spend time talking. i think they should know about each other's lives. the only hitch is, i am now the mom. surprise number one: if my family is going to eat dinner together, i'm the one who has to make it happen. my mom, for instance, is not going to come over every day around 4:30 and start whipping up her famous gulash.

not to say that it wasn't an absolute wrestling match, but this past week i actually did it. i had a warm delicious and mostly nutritive dinner on the table at 5:00 pm every day. wowzers.

the menu follows:

monday-baked salmon with tarragon butter
tuesday-salmon cakes with mint and basil
wednesday-green leaf and endive salad with salmon and artichokes
thursday-linguine in white sauce with salmon and basil
friday-braided loaf bread with roast beef, provolone, and pepper jack
saturday-biscuits and gravy
sunday-chuck roast with mashed potatoes and carrots
monday-roast hash with rosemary and lemon thyme

i amaze myself. [i also have to thank my herb garden for its important contributions to the week.] and i never want to eat salmon again.

carnage

i ran over an earthworm this morning with hal's stroller. i stopped and went back to pick up the two pieces of its body and lay them to rest in the grass near the sidewalk.

later, when i saw one of those three-inch beetles on its back: red and black and giant pinchers opening and closing and legs reeling---i needed to nudge it over, back onto its legs, needed to atone for my earlier misdeed. i gave it a small push. but i didn't flip him, i squashed him. his legs went stiff mid-reel, his pinchers limp at his side.

i am a murderer.

a little secret

it's a little embarrassing to admit that i got snared by a pop culture phenomenon, but whether it fits my "do nothing everyone else is doing" attitude or not, it happened. i am in love with so you think you can dance.

let me first defend myself by saying i am not a TV sort of person. sure, i love the office and i've been known to spend afternoons in front of hgtv or the foodnetwork, but in general i'd rather be doing something else--like writing a book or reading a book or watching henry eat a book.

but there's something about the show. [it definitely isn't the host or the judges or the way they keep referring to "America" as though she has a national identity and a single unified purpose--at least when it comes to one of the nation's greatest popularity contests.] so putting all the tween girl appeal aside, i admit i love to watch people passionate about dancing, dance. and it's not because i think i can dance [i know i can't]. but i wish that i could. and somehow watching others carry out that same dream onstage lets me imagine for a minute that i can spin on my head and jump into a somersault and not only move around in heels, but move convincingly, like i was born with three inch spikes attached to my feet.

so, dance, i say. dance.
[and i'm going to feel real ridiculous if i keep crying like i did last night every time a dancer has to leave the show.]

the work force

after seven blissful months of postpartum unemployment, i'm back in the work force.

[in eulogy to dr. norton my grammar professor, i will now analyze the above sentence at every level.]

after: implies that i've finished something, like being a mother, when in fact i haven't finished anything -- i've just dipped my fingertips in the neverendingness of taking care of henry

seven: an interesting way to label time, "seven" seems to say that it's possible to quantify the hours and hours and hours i spent bouncing henry in front of the CD player while he screamed over the top of primary songs

blissful: the word can't hold the nuance of the past seven months -- the song i sang laboring my son into the world, surrounded by water, peaceful darkness, and the people i love -- the utter joy at hearing henry laugh for the first time (i held him in my lap and cried out of relief that he didn't hate me) -- the way it felt when he just wouldn't breastfeed and i pumped every hour, desperate for my body to make milk -- the afternoon meetings with the midwife to get my wounds cauterized, walking home in blizzards barely able to move my legs for the pain -- the nights i've watched henry in his bath grab his toes and suck on his washcloth and giggle

months: it has been months, or years, or enough time that everything has changed

of: self explanatory

postpartum: i still have the fluffy belly, the weight lingering on my behind, the squiggly vericose vein underneath my left knee

unemployment: they say that motherhood is a job -- they don't mention that it takes all your mental, emotional, and physical strength

i'm: is it me?

back: did i ever leave?

in the: i hope if i'm "in" it doesn't mean that i will never be "out"

work: work is finding carrots in your ears and your son's ears and along the molding and in the baseboard and on the linoleum and down your shirt and in your hair and sticking inside the seams of your pants

force: i will have to force it -- even after so many reasons (to stay current, hone my skills, keep my mind alive, fill the family coffers) i still hesitate -- will i miss henry when he is surprised by a butterfly or a ray of sunshine or a blade of grass? and if i do, is it worth it?


[the cold hard facts: i'm an online writing tutor for www.smarthinking.com -- i can work in my pajamas and smell like spit-up]

mom-ing

it was my fault to begin with. we kept henry out all day: skipping nap after nap. [the picnic in findlay park was worth it, but that's another story.]

when i finally wrapped him up and put him in bed, he blinked a few times and then started to scream. he's just really tired, i thought. i'll let him cry. so he cried. and cried and cried and cried. [and if you're a mom, you know the difference between the i'm crying but soon i'll fall asleep cry and the i'm crying and i will continue to cry until something about my life changes for the better cry.]

i sat down on his floor and tried to think of all the reasons i can't fall asleep when i'm exhausted. i rubbed his legs. i slid his fuzzy blanky down his forehead and over his nose again and again. i gave him his binky. he continued to cry scream flail etc.

then it hit me. the number one reason i can't fall asleep: i'm too darn hot.

i picked little hal up out of his crib and put his head right in front of the breeze from the window unit. he blinked. he blinked again. he whimpered. he stopped crying. he made a little half-smile. he closed his eyes. he went to sleep.

yet another mom-ing moment where words would have helped.

gotcha

just when you thought i had to be finished cleaning out my files ... i found this little bitty i wrote to apply for a scholarship a long time ago. the question in the application: tell us who you are.
i wonder, is it true ... was it true then ...
would i like it to be true ... ?

I accelerate on off-ramps. I have no trouble obeying the speed limit on the freeway, but somehow, after I pass that little green exit sign, I feel like I own those fifty yards. They are calling for a thrilling burst of speed followed by a punch on the breaks.

I live my life like I’m driving down a six-lane freeway, cruising in my own set of wheels and pumping music from the dashboard. Most of the time I’m collected, reasonable; I obey the law. I never need to hit the breaks when I see cop staking out the cars from the side of the road—I’m always going the speed limit, sometimes I’m going under it. But that’s all right with me.

When my father taught me how to drive he was relaxed and laughing in the passenger seat. He told me to pay no attention if people were tailgating me—I should drive comfortable. And if comfortable for me meant fifty-seven in a sixty-five, well, that was all right. I smiled when he told me that. And I’ve been driving comfortable ever since.

I don’t pay any attention when people want me to go along with the crowd; I just live comfortable. Happiness, I’ve found, comes from listening to myself. And somehow, I don’t have a problem with driving slower in a fast-paced world, or doing homework on a Friday night, or eating ice cream outside in the middle of a snowstorm.

But sometimes, life calls for a little craziness. So I push that accelerator all the way to the floor on those off-ramps. Those little detours in life that sometimes make or break us—that take our identity and stretch it out. I build up speed and excitement and passion until I’m certain that, at any moment, I will fly.

stricken

things i can no longer remember:

1. the date of the spanish armada's defeat
2. what my hair looks like blow-dried
3. when henry last ate
4. if he ate
5. if i ate
6. the name of the painting by whistler with his mother sitting in a rocking chair
7. the premise of post-colonial literary theory
8. how to analyze non-canonical english constructions
9. the name of my third grade teacher
10. what i look like without these extra 15 pounds
11. the taste of authentic mexican food
12. how it feels to sleep through the night
13. or eat a meal without holding someone on my lap
14. what mr. kurtz was referring to when he said the horror, the horror
15. who john galt is
16. whether i was disgusted or excited by ibsen's "a doll's house"
17. how empty the house was before hal's little laugh

cavity

i'm still wallowing in word document nostalgia. [i think only a bludgeon could make me stop.]

i wrote the following nearly eight years ago, in my very first fiction workshop [sniff], before i even met my dentist husband.

I think my dentist is trying to kill me. The way he looks at me—those murderous eyes. His instruments are so cold. The pick digs between my gums, leaving trails of blood to pool inside my lips. He wears a mask, but I know the dentist is smiling underneath the elevator music and sterile gauze. He loves pain; must have been the kind of child who tipped over beetles and let them die with their legs clawing at the air. He hands me toothpaste and floss, smiling, expecting me again in sixth months. I tell him never to expect anything.

I told Nana about the dentist, and she just nodded her head slowly, patting the wispy hairs on my head. She always hated the dentist too—the way he hides behind the diploma framed in the corner of the room. As if education gave someone the right to kill. She took my hand in hers, little knuckles and fingers swallowed up in wrinkles. She hushed me with her finger to her lips; I kept my mouth shut, smiling. It was our secret. I told her all my secrets.

But I didn’t tell her when my goldfish died. It turned up floating in its little bowl of water. Blue and red pebbles anchored with unforgiving gravity to the bottom. Nana got me the goldfish. She brought it home one day in her pocket bulging with the plastic bag full of water. Sometimes it was the only friend I had when Nana was gone. I loved to watch the way its tiny mouth opened and closed in constant surprise. But when my goldfish died, bobbing along the top of the water, I could only press my face against the glass, clouding my fishbowl with fingerprints and hot breath.

I reached in and pulled the goldfish out, holding it in my hands, watching the body motionless. I put it on the counter. My eyes level with the small pile of gold, as water dribbled out of its gills and pooled around its small body. Eyes red-rimmed and startled. So red, the capillaries had burst. Exploded.

Like fireworks on the Fourth of July, as I lay on the grass and spread out my arms, wide. Trying to hold the sky. But my little arms never stretched far enough. Even when me and Nana lay side by side, with our fingertips touching, just barely. Our skin grazing as we looked up and up and up. Into space. We always liked the way the fireworks popped and exploded across the darkness, sparkling and then fading black. Nana said I’m like the fireworks. She said one day someone will set fire to me and I will shoot from horizon to horizon, leaving a trail.

Nana said her ankles might explode—the way they swelled so. She sat in her armchair most of the day, resting. Her legs stuck stick-straight out from her body to the ottoman like red-hot pokers. With the blood pooling around her toes and feet and ankles and heels, waiting for her heart to decide to pump again. I laid with my head on her chest listening to the thump, thump, thump; whispering, pump the blood back up. From her legs. Pump it back up.

She fell asleep, mouth slack, hands limp at her sides. I tapped on her rib cage, steady. My index fingers to her bones. Pump, little heart. Take the blood back up the veins, up the veins. Make the blue blood red. Red.

Even then, her apron never came off; just in case, Nana said. Its garish blue and red flowers and bow in front. Most people tie their bows in back, but Nana didn’t like bows in back where she couldn’t see them. She didn’t trust them. Her hat never came off either, even when she brushed her teeth. Her way of hiding, I guess. I wore a hat too, brushing my teeth, smiling through the white froth smeared on my lips and spitting flecks onto the mirror. Then I laughed while Nana rubbed the white spots off with toilet paper.

But no one could rub Nana’s pain away—not those men in white jackets. They kept sucking things out of her and squirting things into her anyway. I waited for them to straighten Nana up, take the kink from her back. I waited. Even through the tears—hers and mine—I waited. But still her body bent forward and collapsed on the backs of chairs. And she gasped.

So they told Nana to lie in bed. She hated that bed, the way it penned her in her head all day. Couldn’t dance across the bathroom when the blood lived down in her feet and toes. I carried piles of books under each arm and sat on her pillow, touching her downy white hair. With a match, we could have made the bed a funeral pyre. Nana laughed when I told her that. Her wide smile bunched the skin up on her face; her teeth were missing and her lips curled around her gums. She ran her hand along my cheekbone.

But she got sicker. So much sicker. They forced her to the hospital with smells that reach up into your nostrils and won’t let you forget. She shriveled up in the hospital bed—so penned up. Small, crinkled, broken. I sat, holding her hand, smoothing her knuckles and tucking the thin, blue blanket around her bones. A metal tray stood next to her bed. Had different kinds of Jell-O in paper cups. Paper cups with bottoms that got weak and soggy. Red and blue. She hated Jell-O, the way it quivered and jumped. Nana couldn’t jump any more. Said she was like a wet noodle.
The dentist has a metal tray like Nana’s. But it swings around on a giant arm and he hovers over it. Delighted at the thought of torture. His hand trembles above each instrument; which one today, I’m sure he wonders. The sander is the worst. The way it rips the enamel from my teeth in tiny specks that flash around my mouth and then settle on my lips. He laughs and hands me a tissue as though I can wipe it all away and forget.

Nana never forgot anything—her memories were alive, always burning inside her mind. When she told a story, her eyes lit up like fire. She forced her memories to get up and dance in front of me; so that I could almost smell them, taste them, touch them.
But in the hospital, the fire was in her body. Spread from her lymph nodes, that’s what the doctor said. Lymph nodes sounded awful strange to Nana. Couldn’t see lymph nodes, couldn’t trust them. I blame those lymph nodes, those secret things that nobody sees, for the way her hair fell out. For the way her body hunched and crippled and tore itself from the inside out. When she spoke—small, quiet, little words. She missed apricots and string beans. And hanging from the oak tree out front to stretch her spine. She looked down at her hands, the fingers spread wide and the skin of her palms stretched taught. The capillaries burst underneath her skin. Spots of red. Their edges blurred and ran together. It was no use pressing my ear to her chest and begging her heart anymore.

They begged me to smile and wear a dress when Nana was laid out cold in her red mahogany box. The room moist and hot with tears. I covered my face, cursing the lymph nodes, the secret things. Between my fingers, I saw my relatives wrapped in black. Hushed. I stared at Nana, her legs stiff underneath her skirt. Flowers clogged the room. Bursts of red shoved into the corners. Like capillaries. Like fireworks.

I walked small and careful, step by step, up to her box. She didn’t much like to lie down, she would rather sit in her chair. I tried to tell them about her chair, tried to tell them. So many things, about Nana. About me. Even her downy white hair looked dead. Soulless. I ran my finger along her veins tracing lines across her arms, her hands—running after the blood. Not blue, not red. Sucked right out.
Sometimes the dentist sucks out my saliva. A white tube that he tucks in the corner of my mouth. My cheeks, my tongue, my palate—all dry as a cotton ball on the road in July. When he’s finished, he squirts a stream of water right on my incisors, my bicuspids. I jump; it’s so cold.

The dentist says that I have a cavity. A hole. A weak spot. An empty place.
I wonder what else the dentist knows.