i'm radioactive is what she says on wednesday. this is not a surprise. the middle sister has been preparing for this a while. she has been eating a special diet designed to direct the radioactivity that will seep into her body. her thyroid already knows what to do. it is waiting to soak up radioactive iodine as soon as she is ready. and so, on wednesday morning, her doctor opens a steel canister and then opens another bottle inside the canister. he shakes a pill out into her hand. he is wearing gloves. he doesn't touch the pill. he shouldn't. it is i-131. it has a halflife of eight days. but she swallows the pill and it sneaks its way into her cells looking for things to destroy. if it does its job well, the iodine will attack small tumors clumped up around her thyroid gland. bullies, these things have been gnawing at her poor, exhausted thyroid gland, sidling up to her trachea, shoving veins and arteries out of their way.
because the middle sister has come unacceptably close to death during a routine procedure in the past, there is a part of me that is scared that she has decided to become radioactive on purpose. but she has been talking about herself as something close to a science experiment now for a few weeks and the part of me that is made up of desire for scientific knowledge steps up and asks did you use the geiger counter yet? before i even think to ask how she feels.
she tells me she does not yet have the geiger counter, but it is on the way. i think about radiation sickness. i think about hair falling out and skin turning ashen. i think of eyeless zombies shuffling away from the burned remains of hiroshima and nagasaki. the middle sister is so far away and i can't see her to tell whether she is suffering but then she sends the photo. it is the geiger counter, blurry and yellow and looking a great deal like a relative of the old blue metal detector our dad has had our entire lives. there is a phone jack of some sort in the lower corner and a spectacular gauge at the top with a needle that, in the photo, is swung as far over to the right as it can get without falling clear off the gauge. i ask if she has any superpowers yet. she says not yet, although she hopes her spit will eventually be able to destroy the ivy marauding in her flower bed. she is not yet thinking like someone with superpowers.
she devours lemon drops because they are supposed to help. she sends updates on her status. i have begged her to let her child record the radioactivity of her poop over the course of this experiment and then record the level of his own poop as a control. i insist on normative data. what good does it do to measure the radioactivity of her own poop if she doesn't know what normal poop radiation levels are? she is not sure this is a good idea, but i know in the end the child is likely to wave the geiger counter over the toilet before every flush in the house, just to be thorough. he is like us. he will not want to miss this opportunity.
when i finally get around to asking how she feels she says she is a little tired. a day later, her salivary glands are swelling some. she continues to report. because she is temporarily a dangerous radioactive creature, she is isolated. she cannot touch anyone. making herself into this experiment takes the edge off the tedium. the geiger counter is overwhelmed. it has, somewhere on its insides, a tube full of inert gas. noble gas. maybe argon. maybe neon. maybe even helium. when they get up next to radiation, these gasses become, for a bit, ionized. they become conductive. the machine somehow translates the response of the ionized gas as a measure of the radiation around it. i like to think the tube is filled with argon because it is beautiful, glowing violet when electrified.
the middle sister sends texts with times and dates and distances. the radiation seems to be finding her thyroid gland. it seems to be zeroing in. she takes a shower. when she steps out, the shower does not register radiation but she does. it does not wash off. although she will only be poisonous to those she loves another day or two, she will continue to shed an invisible radioactive trail for a while. she will be a science experiment for some time. she is not worried.
this is no surprise. in this family we are children of the wild center of the country, folks whose words will sometimes roll into extra syllables. you can see spooklight and tornadoes and lead mines swirling in our blood. we are from a state with the insistent motto show me. we are science experiments and experimenters to begin with. it has always been this way and that has always been fine. show me.
but it is the middle sister who is radioactive. right now. this very minute. the geiger counter knows it. i imagine her tomorrow at dusk standing in her yard. it is warm and there are bats flying low to catch the first of the season's bugs. she is glowing. supernatural. she spits on the ivy tentatively and it hisses and sizzles.
Showing posts with label ridiculousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ridiculousness. Show all posts
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, November 24, 2011
baby daddy
the first time i saw him he was putting his fist through one of those glass panels embedded with chicken wire, the kind school stairwells had in the fifties. he shattered the glass pretty impressively but the chickenwire kept it from spilling all over the place. he cut his hand and bruised it a bit. he was mad, i heard later, at his girlfriend. i saw her in class a day or so after, tiny, eyes cast down, and she told me he has an anger problem. she smiled when she said it, shyly, like she was in awe of such power, like she was glad he'd expressed his feelings for her so well. high school girls like boys who will hit things for them.
so when i see him a few days later in the same stairwell he starts yelling at me, saying i ratted him out. evidently he got himself suspended for this impressive bit of drama in the stairwell. i tell him i don't even know his name and he continues to yell a little more, maybe to prove to me he has this anger problem i've been hearing more and more about over the weeks. but i was raised by wolves, or at least by people with a stubborn streak, so i let him yell himself out and tell him maybe he ought to go to class instead of wasting so much time standing in a stairwell that smells like broccoli farts. it really does, by the way. he is mad that he thinks this is even the tiniest bit funny and he stomps off so i will not see him smiling. i see him.
i hear the tiny girl who smiles when she thinks about him is pregnant. she sits in one of the classes i share with another teacher. she never raises her hand. she never talks. she sits quietly and hands in papers and reads short stories and might be focused enough to get into a college if she didn't have any other challenges staring at her. she stares down at her belly a lot lately.
when i walk through the halls and stairwells between classes i sometimes encounter clumps of children, most often boys, huddled together. usually they are doing nothing more than cutting class and when i walk up, especially in the stairwells, they look sheepish and scatter. there are seven in the group i see today, sitting all together in a stairwell, reeking of something that smells like cherry cough syrup. there is much shuffling and muttering and then a few of them shoot up the stairs. one or two just stand there, smiling the sort of dumb-faced grin i hope nobody ever has to see outside a school. and then there is mr. anger management. he stands up and starts to walk away.
i motion for him to stop and mention i hear he's going to be a dad. he looks at me funny because he doesn't have the skills with inferencing to know where i might be going with this. he nods, glares. tries very hard with his glaring to remind me he has anger problems. this is what you're doing? i ask him. this is what you're doing to get ready to be a father? i can see the confusion. i'm not fighting fair. the other boys are gone and i say softly your baby deserves a good dad. this is mean. every baby deserves a good dad and not many get one and it hardly seems fair of me to expect something from a fifteen year old boy most people don't expect of thirty year old men. but it's his baby. his choice. he yells back that he's going to be a good dad. i shake my head, tell him that if the best he can do is sit in a stairwell with a bunch of losers while he ought to be learning something, he will not be a good dad. your baby deserves a better dad than this, i say.
he looks less angry, more tired. he doesn't have even a tiny idea what is happening inside this small girl he might love. he has no way to know what a baby is all about or what it will need from him. he does not know he will need to teach it things. he does not know he can easily kill a baby when he is mad and not even see it happen. but i am not really worried about that. i know his anger is an excuse. it's a way to turn his back on responsibility for things. but it won't work here. he shoves open the stairwell door and stomps through, yelling over his shoulder that he will be a good dad. he will. he knows it.
i think about what i can tell him. what he might listen to. i have to plan ahead because i only see him times like this, when i am on my way somewhere else and he is where he isn't supposed to be. he must be a little scared, even if he doesn't really know how scared to be yet. he isn't the monster he pretends to be, but he tries so hard. maybe i should be asking instead of telling. is the baby a boy or a girl? what will you name it? what color sweater do you want me to knit?
so when i see him a few days later in the same stairwell he starts yelling at me, saying i ratted him out. evidently he got himself suspended for this impressive bit of drama in the stairwell. i tell him i don't even know his name and he continues to yell a little more, maybe to prove to me he has this anger problem i've been hearing more and more about over the weeks. but i was raised by wolves, or at least by people with a stubborn streak, so i let him yell himself out and tell him maybe he ought to go to class instead of wasting so much time standing in a stairwell that smells like broccoli farts. it really does, by the way. he is mad that he thinks this is even the tiniest bit funny and he stomps off so i will not see him smiling. i see him.
i hear the tiny girl who smiles when she thinks about him is pregnant. she sits in one of the classes i share with another teacher. she never raises her hand. she never talks. she sits quietly and hands in papers and reads short stories and might be focused enough to get into a college if she didn't have any other challenges staring at her. she stares down at her belly a lot lately.
when i walk through the halls and stairwells between classes i sometimes encounter clumps of children, most often boys, huddled together. usually they are doing nothing more than cutting class and when i walk up, especially in the stairwells, they look sheepish and scatter. there are seven in the group i see today, sitting all together in a stairwell, reeking of something that smells like cherry cough syrup. there is much shuffling and muttering and then a few of them shoot up the stairs. one or two just stand there, smiling the sort of dumb-faced grin i hope nobody ever has to see outside a school. and then there is mr. anger management. he stands up and starts to walk away.
i motion for him to stop and mention i hear he's going to be a dad. he looks at me funny because he doesn't have the skills with inferencing to know where i might be going with this. he nods, glares. tries very hard with his glaring to remind me he has anger problems. this is what you're doing? i ask him. this is what you're doing to get ready to be a father? i can see the confusion. i'm not fighting fair. the other boys are gone and i say softly your baby deserves a good dad. this is mean. every baby deserves a good dad and not many get one and it hardly seems fair of me to expect something from a fifteen year old boy most people don't expect of thirty year old men. but it's his baby. his choice. he yells back that he's going to be a good dad. i shake my head, tell him that if the best he can do is sit in a stairwell with a bunch of losers while he ought to be learning something, he will not be a good dad. your baby deserves a better dad than this, i say.
he looks less angry, more tired. he doesn't have even a tiny idea what is happening inside this small girl he might love. he has no way to know what a baby is all about or what it will need from him. he does not know he will need to teach it things. he does not know he can easily kill a baby when he is mad and not even see it happen. but i am not really worried about that. i know his anger is an excuse. it's a way to turn his back on responsibility for things. but it won't work here. he shoves open the stairwell door and stomps through, yelling over his shoulder that he will be a good dad. he will. he knows it.
i think about what i can tell him. what he might listen to. i have to plan ahead because i only see him times like this, when i am on my way somewhere else and he is where he isn't supposed to be. he must be a little scared, even if he doesn't really know how scared to be yet. he isn't the monster he pretends to be, but he tries so hard. maybe i should be asking instead of telling. is the baby a boy or a girl? what will you name it? what color sweater do you want me to knit?
Thursday, October 6, 2011
lightsaber, rock cycle, seventh grade
i do not know the whole story behind why there are lightsabers in the desk, but there are two. they belong to the teacher who is in this classroom most of the day and we sometimes use them as swords when we are acting out macbeth. we have been acting out macbeth the last week or so.
our floor, the english floor, is a quiet haven in the midst of wildness. except for the seventh graders. they come up once a day, on a schedule skewed 30 minutes from our own, so that they barrel through the stairwell door and come howling into the hall en masse. because they are seventh graders they have been taught to wait outside a room until their teacher arrives. there is no telling what mayhem they might accidentally get themselves into if they enter a room without supervision. so every day, midway through macbeth, this slithering mass of chaos swirls around outside the space between their door and our door. and every day i try to think of a new way to scare them into quietness without completely ruining them. annoying as they are, they're more fragile than eleventh graders. they take everything to heart. they believe me when i say things.
a few days back we are in class and the lightsabers are leaned against a wall. the seventh grade horde comes up, giggling and shoving and howling. the other teacher is in the middle of macbeth so i do what i can. i leap out into the hallway brandishing a lightsaber. this is not what i have planned. it is just what happens. there is a great squealing among the children, not enough of it from fear. mostly they think it is fantastic that a teacher is threatening to destroy them with a lightsaber. they love it enough to find it in their still-beating hearts to be quieter so that i do not have to slay them. as though this is a gift to me. although one little boy comes dangerously close to begging to be slain. begging, i tell you.
so today when i show up at a seventh grade science class to read a test about rocks for a group of students, there is some buzz and chatter. i have forgotten my adventures on the english floor, forgotten my attempts to slay an entire class of seventh graders. but they have not. in particular, one little boy has not.
oh, no! he howls, his grin crawling to the edges of his round face. are you going to chase me with a lightsaber? i look over at him, confused a little, as we walk down the hall, ten or so of them and me, headed for the library. it takes me a second to remember waving the blue lightsaber around wildly while he stood in the door to the stairwell, laughing. his eyes are the same now as then, bright puppy eyes, sparkling with hope of a lightsaber appearing during a test on rocks.
i tell them i love rocks, love tests about rocks. i tell them i absolutely love to read tests about rocks more than most things. some of these things are true and some are not. it does not always matter with seventh graders whether everything you say is true. all that matters is that you say it passionately. so i read the test passionately, questions about sedimentary, ingeous, metamorphic rocks. questions about luster, about fracturing. they do not work all at the same rate and as they finish, they head, one by one, back to their science class. but the child who recognized me earlier sits, test situated neatly under his folded hands. he is finished. i'm waiting, he says, in case something happens. and he is serious. he knows very little about me but that i'm unpredictable and my unpredictability runs to what is, to him, a magnificent scale. i have weapons from the future and i have spared his life at least once when i didn't have to. i might do it again.
we turn to a page with a diagram of the rock cycle on it. i think of the shower curtains we've had, the sweetie and me. the frog life cycle. the new york city transit map. the water cycle. i think of how right now i'm dying for a periodic table shower curtain, how i'd like to have a shower curtain with this rock cycle on it. but i know better than to say so. i am not stupid. what i say instead is, man, i think i'm going to have to get me a tattoo of this rock cycle. it's soooooo cool. because a tattoo is far more fierce than a shower curtain. and there are giggles. wide eyes. one girl shakes her head. the waiting child's eyes get so big i worry they will leap out of his skull. the grown up in me worries he may go home and try to make his own rock cycle tattoo with a sharpie. the teacher in me realizes this would demonstrate clear knowledge of the rock cycle, not to mention impressive spatial organization.
when it is time to go back, he says it again. you're not going to chase me with a lightsaber, are you? he says it the way little kids you've just tossed into the swimming pool ask if you're going to toss them in again as they run up to you, panting and reeking of chlorine, arms outstretched for easy throwing. maybe, i say, smiling. because who can tell with seventh graders?
our floor, the english floor, is a quiet haven in the midst of wildness. except for the seventh graders. they come up once a day, on a schedule skewed 30 minutes from our own, so that they barrel through the stairwell door and come howling into the hall en masse. because they are seventh graders they have been taught to wait outside a room until their teacher arrives. there is no telling what mayhem they might accidentally get themselves into if they enter a room without supervision. so every day, midway through macbeth, this slithering mass of chaos swirls around outside the space between their door and our door. and every day i try to think of a new way to scare them into quietness without completely ruining them. annoying as they are, they're more fragile than eleventh graders. they take everything to heart. they believe me when i say things.
a few days back we are in class and the lightsabers are leaned against a wall. the seventh grade horde comes up, giggling and shoving and howling. the other teacher is in the middle of macbeth so i do what i can. i leap out into the hallway brandishing a lightsaber. this is not what i have planned. it is just what happens. there is a great squealing among the children, not enough of it from fear. mostly they think it is fantastic that a teacher is threatening to destroy them with a lightsaber. they love it enough to find it in their still-beating hearts to be quieter so that i do not have to slay them. as though this is a gift to me. although one little boy comes dangerously close to begging to be slain. begging, i tell you.
so today when i show up at a seventh grade science class to read a test about rocks for a group of students, there is some buzz and chatter. i have forgotten my adventures on the english floor, forgotten my attempts to slay an entire class of seventh graders. but they have not. in particular, one little boy has not.
oh, no! he howls, his grin crawling to the edges of his round face. are you going to chase me with a lightsaber? i look over at him, confused a little, as we walk down the hall, ten or so of them and me, headed for the library. it takes me a second to remember waving the blue lightsaber around wildly while he stood in the door to the stairwell, laughing. his eyes are the same now as then, bright puppy eyes, sparkling with hope of a lightsaber appearing during a test on rocks.
i tell them i love rocks, love tests about rocks. i tell them i absolutely love to read tests about rocks more than most things. some of these things are true and some are not. it does not always matter with seventh graders whether everything you say is true. all that matters is that you say it passionately. so i read the test passionately, questions about sedimentary, ingeous, metamorphic rocks. questions about luster, about fracturing. they do not work all at the same rate and as they finish, they head, one by one, back to their science class. but the child who recognized me earlier sits, test situated neatly under his folded hands. he is finished. i'm waiting, he says, in case something happens. and he is serious. he knows very little about me but that i'm unpredictable and my unpredictability runs to what is, to him, a magnificent scale. i have weapons from the future and i have spared his life at least once when i didn't have to. i might do it again.
 |
| diagram from the kern river courier, because it's pretty |
when it is time to go back, he says it again. you're not going to chase me with a lightsaber, are you? he says it the way little kids you've just tossed into the swimming pool ask if you're going to toss them in again as they run up to you, panting and reeking of chlorine, arms outstretched for easy throwing. maybe, i say, smiling. because who can tell with seventh graders?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
drive
a 1970 chevy impala four door hardtop sedan with a v-8 engine is 18 feet of unbridled automotive fury. it is also just over six and a half feet wide. and in may of 1985 my own dear parents handed me the keys to more than 3,500 pounds of detroit steel and said happy birthday. i am telling you this so you will know that i know what i am doing. that i have known for a very long time.
however, knowing what i am doing and having a license to do it are two different things. let me tell you now you shouldn't ever let a driver's license lapse. ever. because without one it is difficult to get a credit card. buy a house. register a rowboat with the d.e.c. fly on a plane. it is very, very difficult to convince people you are who you say you are if you have no evidence other than the word of your parents who may or may not be of questionable integrity. so when my license lapsed without warning me about what would happen i decided i was not about to stand in a million person line and take that whole driving test over again just to prove to the state i know how to do something i'm not even planning to do so they can give me a license to do it. using the man and the man's desire to keep me jumping through hoops as an excuse to avoid doing something isn't such a good idea, either. but i got myself a fancy state i.d. non-driving. for walking around and buying bourbon and it suited me fine. for a while.
but recently i've become restless as a passenger and the sweetie has been encouraging me to visit the d.m.v. to get myself legalized. so i go every time i have a day off. rosh hashanah. winter break. spring break. summer. i go to the d.m.v. at atlantic center, downloaded license application already filled out and clutched in my sweaty hands. i get in line. and no matter what time of day i go, even thirty minutes before the place opens, there are hundreds of folks already in line. and i know what you're thinking. you've seen me exaggerate before. i am not exaggerating now. i believe that before lunchtime the d.m.v. in brooklyn processes more people than the total population of my entire missouri hometown, including stringtown and oscie ora acres. before noon. so i go and i stand in line until i can't breathe, until i've forgotten my name or until the screaming of miserable children cuts through the backs of my eyes or the anger between others somewhere further up the line threatens to boil over into spitting or purse throwing. and then i trudge back home, determined to go again the next day. depending on the length of the school break, maybe even the day after that.
but because we went wild and bought ourselves a new car in the ancestral homeland a week or so ago we had to do some licensing paperwork and the sweetie was willing to take a day off and do the work upstate, where the d.m.v. is a little quieter. because unlike me, he isn't even willing to attempt to stand in one of those lines. we go to the margaretville d.m.v. together. i cannot keep the terms standing, stopping and parking straight in my head, although i know i will never put my car in front of a sign that says any of those things, just to be safe. i feel clammy. it is a long time since i've taken a test and i think it may be the first time i've ever been nervous about how i'll do. yes, i was that sort of child. we are third and fourth in line, the sweetie and me. the first man is there to license a small farm vehicle because he was yelled at by a policeman. the d.m.v. lady says there's no way to license the vehicle but the man says the cop insisted it had to be licensed. kafka. dickens. dizziness. the man, who has already apologized to us for taking up so much time, finally decides this conversation will not change and goes home. this does not bode well for my own efforts.
the next transaction is quick and then the sweetie gets started with his paperwork and i am at the counter. i have my expired walking around i.d. from the state of new york. i have a notarized copy of my birth certificate. i have read and reread the forms of identification required and i know i have what i need but i am nervous. "you need a social security card," says the lady behind the counter. now, if i knew where my social security card was, i'd hand the thing over to her, but i don't. i do know that as soon as i have a valid license, i can get a new one and i will, but that doesn't help much right now. i smile my best smile and take a deep breath and tell her i don't need the card, that i checked the state website and what i have is sufficient. and yes, i did actually say sufficient. watch cops. awkward formal language is a common response to guilt and fear. she looks me over like she can't believe i haven't gone home yet and she clicks around on her keyboard. she looks surprised, then frowns, then takes my i.d. "this is expired," she says. already at 9:15 a.m. i have made her so tired she can barely think. i tell her i know, but that it still sufficient. i know for a fact it will work for three years after the date on it. she clicks around again and mutters three years under her breath and looks at me like i ought to be ashamed of myself. i am too nervous to be ashamed. she shoves the written test across the counter and tells me to have a seat.
there are twenty five questions. i begin to think like a ninth grader with a learning disability. i figure i can probably miss seven of the questions and still have a shot at driving. i answer them slowly and carefully. the fact that, as a high school teacher, i sit through at least one drunk driving seminar per year is very helpful. i reread every question, make sure i've answered them all. i put my name at the top and stand up. when i had the test over the counter the woman asks if i'm sure i'm finished. she is sure i am not. i was pretty sure but her tone is enough to make my insides feel all silvery and cold. she takes the paper, exasperated with me beyond words. but when she turns back to me everything has changed.
she says that in all her time working for the d.m.v. she can only think of maybe one other person who aced the test. i am so rattled by the taking of the test i'm not sure what she's saying but i can tell by her smile i passed. i mention i took the test once before when i was sixteen and that i've spent about twenty years of my life driving successfully but she is still happy and i can tell you right now i am happy, too. and yes, i am the sort of person who will text my sisters to let them know i got an A+, perfect, minus zero score on my written test. i am, indeed.
she puts me over in front of the camera and i stand there while we wait for the machine to warm up. she takes my picture and tells me when the formal permit will come in the mail. she hands me my temporary permit. she asks me if i want to see my photo to see whether i'm happy with it or whether i want another. now, this is an opportunity pretty much every single person i've ever met dreams of having. the opportunity to retake a driver's license photo. i can hear a choir of angels. i can see beams of golden light. i look at the photo on the screen. it is hideous. i look like a squirrel-cheeked crack addict. i look like a very tired drunk. it is fine, i tell her. and it really is.
however, knowing what i am doing and having a license to do it are two different things. let me tell you now you shouldn't ever let a driver's license lapse. ever. because without one it is difficult to get a credit card. buy a house. register a rowboat with the d.e.c. fly on a plane. it is very, very difficult to convince people you are who you say you are if you have no evidence other than the word of your parents who may or may not be of questionable integrity. so when my license lapsed without warning me about what would happen i decided i was not about to stand in a million person line and take that whole driving test over again just to prove to the state i know how to do something i'm not even planning to do so they can give me a license to do it. using the man and the man's desire to keep me jumping through hoops as an excuse to avoid doing something isn't such a good idea, either. but i got myself a fancy state i.d. non-driving. for walking around and buying bourbon and it suited me fine. for a while.
but recently i've become restless as a passenger and the sweetie has been encouraging me to visit the d.m.v. to get myself legalized. so i go every time i have a day off. rosh hashanah. winter break. spring break. summer. i go to the d.m.v. at atlantic center, downloaded license application already filled out and clutched in my sweaty hands. i get in line. and no matter what time of day i go, even thirty minutes before the place opens, there are hundreds of folks already in line. and i know what you're thinking. you've seen me exaggerate before. i am not exaggerating now. i believe that before lunchtime the d.m.v. in brooklyn processes more people than the total population of my entire missouri hometown, including stringtown and oscie ora acres. before noon. so i go and i stand in line until i can't breathe, until i've forgotten my name or until the screaming of miserable children cuts through the backs of my eyes or the anger between others somewhere further up the line threatens to boil over into spitting or purse throwing. and then i trudge back home, determined to go again the next day. depending on the length of the school break, maybe even the day after that.
but because we went wild and bought ourselves a new car in the ancestral homeland a week or so ago we had to do some licensing paperwork and the sweetie was willing to take a day off and do the work upstate, where the d.m.v. is a little quieter. because unlike me, he isn't even willing to attempt to stand in one of those lines. we go to the margaretville d.m.v. together. i cannot keep the terms standing, stopping and parking straight in my head, although i know i will never put my car in front of a sign that says any of those things, just to be safe. i feel clammy. it is a long time since i've taken a test and i think it may be the first time i've ever been nervous about how i'll do. yes, i was that sort of child. we are third and fourth in line, the sweetie and me. the first man is there to license a small farm vehicle because he was yelled at by a policeman. the d.m.v. lady says there's no way to license the vehicle but the man says the cop insisted it had to be licensed. kafka. dickens. dizziness. the man, who has already apologized to us for taking up so much time, finally decides this conversation will not change and goes home. this does not bode well for my own efforts.
the next transaction is quick and then the sweetie gets started with his paperwork and i am at the counter. i have my expired walking around i.d. from the state of new york. i have a notarized copy of my birth certificate. i have read and reread the forms of identification required and i know i have what i need but i am nervous. "you need a social security card," says the lady behind the counter. now, if i knew where my social security card was, i'd hand the thing over to her, but i don't. i do know that as soon as i have a valid license, i can get a new one and i will, but that doesn't help much right now. i smile my best smile and take a deep breath and tell her i don't need the card, that i checked the state website and what i have is sufficient. and yes, i did actually say sufficient. watch cops. awkward formal language is a common response to guilt and fear. she looks me over like she can't believe i haven't gone home yet and she clicks around on her keyboard. she looks surprised, then frowns, then takes my i.d. "this is expired," she says. already at 9:15 a.m. i have made her so tired she can barely think. i tell her i know, but that it still sufficient. i know for a fact it will work for three years after the date on it. she clicks around again and mutters three years under her breath and looks at me like i ought to be ashamed of myself. i am too nervous to be ashamed. she shoves the written test across the counter and tells me to have a seat.
there are twenty five questions. i begin to think like a ninth grader with a learning disability. i figure i can probably miss seven of the questions and still have a shot at driving. i answer them slowly and carefully. the fact that, as a high school teacher, i sit through at least one drunk driving seminar per year is very helpful. i reread every question, make sure i've answered them all. i put my name at the top and stand up. when i had the test over the counter the woman asks if i'm sure i'm finished. she is sure i am not. i was pretty sure but her tone is enough to make my insides feel all silvery and cold. she takes the paper, exasperated with me beyond words. but when she turns back to me everything has changed.
she says that in all her time working for the d.m.v. she can only think of maybe one other person who aced the test. i am so rattled by the taking of the test i'm not sure what she's saying but i can tell by her smile i passed. i mention i took the test once before when i was sixteen and that i've spent about twenty years of my life driving successfully but she is still happy and i can tell you right now i am happy, too. and yes, i am the sort of person who will text my sisters to let them know i got an A+, perfect, minus zero score on my written test. i am, indeed.
she puts me over in front of the camera and i stand there while we wait for the machine to warm up. she takes my picture and tells me when the formal permit will come in the mail. she hands me my temporary permit. she asks me if i want to see my photo to see whether i'm happy with it or whether i want another. now, this is an opportunity pretty much every single person i've ever met dreams of having. the opportunity to retake a driver's license photo. i can hear a choir of angels. i can see beams of golden light. i look at the photo on the screen. it is hideous. i look like a squirrel-cheeked crack addict. i look like a very tired drunk. it is fine, i tell her. and it really is.
Friday, July 29, 2011
burying ground
one day pretty far back, historically speaking, the good folks of the city of new york looked around and realized the wells they'd dug and the rivers and springs on their skinny island were browner and dirtier and more full of typhoid and the like than they'd been before. they'd been making do with beer and whiskey and tea, but that will only go so far. you can't have a big city without any fresh water and a city on an island in the ocean doesn't have as many choices as it might if it found itself elsewhere. so the city did what must have seemed like a reasonable thing at the time. it began a process of impounding water from on up the way, up in the mountains of the mainland where the city didn't think too many people were using it. after all, who on earth would want to live up in the middle of nowhere when they could live in a fancy city on an island? especially when you factor in all that whiskey.
impounding is basically the lassoing of water into big piles in one place for quick and easy use in another place. because water is water, these piles came about when the city built dams along parts of the upland rivers, creating spectacular snaky lakes sitting high above the valleys originally carved by those slithers of water. the first damming happened more than a hundred and fifty years ago and the most recent happened four years before i was born. the water reached up and stretched out tendrilly fingers all over the land in valleys, smoothing out the lowlands and reflecting the mountains pretty enough the city folks even began to be proud of themselves for creating a resort scene up there where there had only been cows and bears before.
but you have to know that all those lassoed and harnessed wild waters surely had little towns snuggled all up against them, dot after tiny dot along the ribbony valleys before the waters rose up. and when the city decided how tall they'd need the water to be in each valley, they took away all the towns sitting below the line they decided on. that's right. took them right off the maps. some towns relocated whole and entire up on the banks of the new water. some didn't. but at the edges of the water where the towns used to be there are signs. former site of olive. former site of arena. and before they left, the folks in all those tiny places had to dig up their buried ancestors and take them to higher ground. there are things you just don't think about until you're in the middle of them.
whole groups of dead and buried folks, alone and clustered by name, were packed up and moved from every one of those little towns. arena, brewer, cannonsville, cat hollow, duffy, edgett, granton, old arena, rock rift, rock royal, shavertown, union grove, wakeman. the water came up and buried the land and the trees and the roads to where things used to be. and a whole bunch of those dead whose families could not be found were carted off to a hillside just north of the water, west of the shavertown bridge, settled back again by what family they had with them underground at the time, and then town by town they were replotted, remapped.
you can see the history of the valleys right there on that hillside. the names of people that have given themselves over to be the names of towns. lamb after lamb across the stones of child after child living and then quickly dying in a time when a cough could mean losing half a family. masons and farmers and soldiers from the civil war. some stones weathered away to nothing because people had been living in those valleys so long and quietly burying their dead near enough by to visit from time to time. a few stones are set into the earth facing backward to all the others in their rows. there are small plugs of cement with metal signs skewered into the ground above the empty grass in some places with names typed onto white paper encased in plastic.
and those stones, markers for boxes of dust and bones, sit there on the side of the mountain. you can stand there in the middle of all of them and look out onto that valley below. you can't see it from where you stand at the edge of the clean lawn, but just beneath those trees is that lake glittering with impounded water.
impounding is basically the lassoing of water into big piles in one place for quick and easy use in another place. because water is water, these piles came about when the city built dams along parts of the upland rivers, creating spectacular snaky lakes sitting high above the valleys originally carved by those slithers of water. the first damming happened more than a hundred and fifty years ago and the most recent happened four years before i was born. the water reached up and stretched out tendrilly fingers all over the land in valleys, smoothing out the lowlands and reflecting the mountains pretty enough the city folks even began to be proud of themselves for creating a resort scene up there where there had only been cows and bears before.
but you have to know that all those lassoed and harnessed wild waters surely had little towns snuggled all up against them, dot after tiny dot along the ribbony valleys before the waters rose up. and when the city decided how tall they'd need the water to be in each valley, they took away all the towns sitting below the line they decided on. that's right. took them right off the maps. some towns relocated whole and entire up on the banks of the new water. some didn't. but at the edges of the water where the towns used to be there are signs. former site of olive. former site of arena. and before they left, the folks in all those tiny places had to dig up their buried ancestors and take them to higher ground. there are things you just don't think about until you're in the middle of them. 
whole groups of dead and buried folks, alone and clustered by name, were packed up and moved from every one of those little towns. arena, brewer, cannonsville, cat hollow, duffy, edgett, granton, old arena, rock rift, rock royal, shavertown, union grove, wakeman. the water came up and buried the land and the trees and the roads to where things used to be. and a whole bunch of those dead whose families could not be found were carted off to a hillside just north of the water, west of the shavertown bridge, settled back again by what family they had with them underground at the time, and then town by town they were replotted, remapped. 
you can see the history of the valleys right there on that hillside. the names of people that have given themselves over to be the names of towns. lamb after lamb across the stones of child after child living and then quickly dying in a time when a cough could mean losing half a family. masons and farmers and soldiers from the civil war. some stones weathered away to nothing because people had been living in those valleys so long and quietly burying their dead near enough by to visit from time to time. a few stones are set into the earth facing backward to all the others in their rows. there are small plugs of cement with metal signs skewered into the ground above the empty grass in some places with names typed onto white paper encased in plastic.
and those stones, markers for boxes of dust and bones, sit there on the side of the mountain. you can stand there in the middle of all of them and look out onto that valley below. you can't see it from where you stand at the edge of the clean lawn, but just beneath those trees is that lake glittering with impounded water.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
possum of destruction
the word possum refers to a beady-eyed, thumb-footed, stink-flavored american marsupial with no clear redeeming value. for much of my childhood i did not know that an o existed in the beginning of the word and to this day i do not know a soul who pronounces it. that o is a waste of time, just like the animal it's stuck on.
and now, our drama unfolds:
i head to the kitchen window because beyond it is the farm. two feet square on a third floor fire escape. the tomato plants are grumbling so excessively about water that even though the sky is threatening golf ball sized rain, i fill up my grandma's iced tea glass and head over to give them a sip. they remain wilted, ungrateful. the basil sits below the two plants, giggling that good smell out onto everything. the feathery carrots are ready to thin. the beets are still unsure about being so high up. they slide out one leaf at a time, tentative and small. the cucumbers are reaching out to the fire escape rails, plotting to take over everything with those still not yet tendrils. and my fig tree, lovely thing given to me by a favorite waitress at our favorite diner, has been putting on serious, lush leaves after a near death experience involving pigeon poop. the fig tree is the fanciest thing on the farm, the thing i love most.
i lean out to check those new ruffly leaves. i scan the farm but cannot find the tree anywhere. it is not likely the tree moved by itself and there have been no winds to speak of, nothing that would take one tree in the middle of a whole farm. there is an uncomfortable rustling among the other plants. the sullen sky squeezes two more shades of dark into itself before my eyes finally fall on the pot. and the stump. a four inch fig tree stump sticking out of the pot, sheared off clean at the skyward end. there is a frantic moment where i look around for the top of the severed tree, thinking foolishly that if i find it i can put everything back together with duct tape. or gaffer's tape. it comes in many pretty colors including, i am sure, trunk and leaf.
i cannot at first imagine what sort of monster would assassinate a baby fig tree like this but then i recall that fourth floor fire escape raccoon last month and also the rabid raccoon i saw in the park a week later. i begin to think hateful things about raccoons. i also begin to worry if somehow my plants are contaminated with rabies and how rabies might manifest itself in plants (hint: it does not. they are plants). i am imagining all sorts of ways i might meet up with and destroy this frothy mouthed murderer with the support of what i expect will be my now sentient and justice-seeking garden, when the part of my brain that actually does the real thinking taps me on the shoulder and starts listing off reasons a rabid raccoon wouldn't do this. mostly, it tells me, raccoons don't eat trees. and a rabid raccoon wouldn't be able to get all the way up to the farm. rabies makes legs into the enemy.
so i call my mother to lament the loss of my fig tree and she suggests a possum because of its hideous gnawing skills. there is some evidence to suggest she may have had past negative experiences with possums. she is very careful to mention, more than twice, that i should not approach said creature if i see it. i think a bit of how terrifying my childhood must have been for her if, more than thirty years after the fact, she still feels compelled to warn me not to touch a gnaw-mouthed slab of stink and hatefulness. and although i am careful to reassure her that i will in no manner engage any possum i might find poaching plants on my fire escape, i am already envisioning myself, looking strikingly like teddy roosevelt, engaged in a battle to the death with this freakish trainwreck of nature, north america's only marsupial, who has no business living the way he does, walking around on sidewalks, gnawing off people's fig trees when it's pretty obvious to anyone around that those fig trees are the centerpieces of people's fire escape farms.
i am pretty sure vengeance killing of possums is not yet legal in brooklyn and i am absolutely sure that if i attempt to stage the beast's death to look like i acted in self defense i would somehow end up knocking myself off the fire escape, securing my own hideous end. so i am forced to wait, steeping in my sorrow. the sweetie and i go away for two weeks. we visit both families. i water the farm plenty before we leave even though i know what i am doing will have amounted to very little when we return. i expect nothing.
when we get back i see the indoor lavender is withered as are the pothos scattered around the apartment. i hesitate to look out the window. it is a scene of ugliness. the cucumbers have given up their fight entirely, tiny tendrils still clutching at scorching fire escape rails. tomatoes and basil are brittle sticks, brown and ugly, smelling like nothing but a dusty car heater. there is a lone beet plant, a late growing shoot, peering up at the afternoon sky. and a fat pot of carrots is wilty but still entirely alive. i reach out to grab one of the two leafing sweet potato plants i set into the dirt of my dead fig tree. this is when i see it. a tight cluster of ruffly, dark green leaves. and they look unbearably like those little clusters of leaves on the broken trees in my own homeland. i am glad now i was too heartsick to toss out that stump of fig tree before we left but the ugliness is not over. there will be more to face. pigeons. possums. boll weevils. fire breathing robots. there is work to do.
and now, our drama unfolds:
 |
| pretty new fig leaves emerging above poop-smothered ones |
 |
| stump of sorrow |
i cannot at first imagine what sort of monster would assassinate a baby fig tree like this but then i recall that fourth floor fire escape raccoon last month and also the rabid raccoon i saw in the park a week later. i begin to think hateful things about raccoons. i also begin to worry if somehow my plants are contaminated with rabies and how rabies might manifest itself in plants (hint: it does not. they are plants). i am imagining all sorts of ways i might meet up with and destroy this frothy mouthed murderer with the support of what i expect will be my now sentient and justice-seeking garden, when the part of my brain that actually does the real thinking taps me on the shoulder and starts listing off reasons a rabid raccoon wouldn't do this. mostly, it tells me, raccoons don't eat trees. and a rabid raccoon wouldn't be able to get all the way up to the farm. rabies makes legs into the enemy.
so i call my mother to lament the loss of my fig tree and she suggests a possum because of its hideous gnawing skills. there is some evidence to suggest she may have had past negative experiences with possums. she is very careful to mention, more than twice, that i should not approach said creature if i see it. i think a bit of how terrifying my childhood must have been for her if, more than thirty years after the fact, she still feels compelled to warn me not to touch a gnaw-mouthed slab of stink and hatefulness. and although i am careful to reassure her that i will in no manner engage any possum i might find poaching plants on my fire escape, i am already envisioning myself, looking strikingly like teddy roosevelt, engaged in a battle to the death with this freakish trainwreck of nature, north america's only marsupial, who has no business living the way he does, walking around on sidewalks, gnawing off people's fig trees when it's pretty obvious to anyone around that those fig trees are the centerpieces of people's fire escape farms.
 |
| brave sweet potato, a friend to fig trees |
 |
| valiant possum-defying fig tree |
Sunday, June 19, 2011
father's day
warning: mildly salty language. because it's father's day.
we head over to the caboose around 9:30 because we wake up too late for 5am fishing and figure we ought to at least eat a good breakfast before floating on the water fishless and in the blatant daylight. there is a porch on the caboose and you can sit out there with some scrambled eggs and enjoy looking over at the mountains or just being next to a caboose. it doesn't hurt that you can eat the best home fries in town right there on that porch, too. generally, folks read the paper or catch up on local gossip. from time to time a big dog settles in under someone's feet. i find a table while the sweetie heads inside to order. i look around for a dog.
two tables over are two gentlemen. we will call one mr. gonna get drunk and we will call the other mr. nascar shirt. now, i would like to say right up front there is nothing at all wrong with nascar or with shirts celebrating the glories and drivers of the nascar world. to be honest, i like the crashes just as much as anyone else, maybe more. but i'm going out on a limb to say that pulling on a nascar shirt three sizes too small so you can go out for breakfast with your daughter on father's day is, well, not trying very hard. bringing her to breakfast with your drinking buddy whose every sentence focuses one way or another around the key phrase gonna get drunk is sorely missing the point of father's day. i see more of mr. nascar shirt's buttcrack than his proctologist. i look over at the mountain. unfortunately, mr. nascar shirt is not the ugliest father on the porch.
a family comes up and sits at a table between us and the table occupied by mr. nascar shirt and mr. gonna get drunk. a woman and man with a boy and girl, both under ten. they are joined a bit later by another couple with a toddler boy and a girl maybe eight. the men talk across the tables about their trucks, laughing at the mileage they get (ranging from nine to slightly more than 14 mpg). the mothers busy themselves with getting the children settled.
let's call father one mr. i hate marriage. let's call father two mr. i hate women. let's call them both the i have no regard for women, including my wife and my daughter club. mr. i hate marriage is wearing a shirt with the restroom symbol type man and woman on it, dressed in bride and groom wear. the bride is beaming and the groom looks miserable. above the couple is the phrase game over. i am sorry mr. i hate marriage is in a miserable marriage to someone he so clearly hates but i am unsure why he has chosen father's day to advertise this fact. mr. gonna get drunk tells mr. i hate marriage how much he likes the shirt. mr. i hate marriage says thanks, then explains the smiley face and frowny face. because he thinks mr. gonna get drunk is even stupider than i do.
his pal mr. i hate women is wearing a shirt even more spectacular. it has the head of a native american chief and under the face is the phrase chief bangerharder. wow. as a person who spends a great deal of time with teenagers, i can tell you that this level of charm and humor generally peaks in seventh grade. i am wondering about when he got dressed this morning. he asks mrs. i hate women how he looks. she says something along the lines of, "wow! honey. you look great. that shirt really tells folks what sex with you is like and that's what i'd like to advertise today, father's day!" he beams, thinking of how proud his children will be when they see him and sound out the words on his shirt that proclaim what he thinks is his skill with their mom.
here's the thing. i can take a joke. sometimes even a joke at my expense. but these jokes seem more like feeble cries for attention. and i'm fine with folks wearing stupid shirts. i understand everyone's right to be an idiot. but i like to think men of a certain lifestyle- for instance those with daughters old enough to read- would be willing to forgo shirts emblazoned with information that says, basically, "i am an asshole and i'm cool with being an asshole in front of my children. because it's my right as an american citizen." at the very least i'd like to think these men could do this the one day a year they get to sit across the tables from their little girls, skinny big-eyed girls, wild-haired and pink-dressed, in celebration of what it is to be a dad. i think of my own dad who wore snap front shirts during much of my childhood. my recollection is that he owned one shirt with writing on it. it said i survived the breakup of at&t. because he was a telephone man and he actually did.
and i know it seems like a small thing, these shirts. but to a little girl who looks up to and respects her dad, the shirts are lessons in how to be. in who to be. his philosophy emblazoned across his chest. so i would like to thank my own dad for knowing that everything you do as a father sends a message to your children. and for knowing what messages to send.
we head over to the caboose around 9:30 because we wake up too late for 5am fishing and figure we ought to at least eat a good breakfast before floating on the water fishless and in the blatant daylight. there is a porch on the caboose and you can sit out there with some scrambled eggs and enjoy looking over at the mountains or just being next to a caboose. it doesn't hurt that you can eat the best home fries in town right there on that porch, too. generally, folks read the paper or catch up on local gossip. from time to time a big dog settles in under someone's feet. i find a table while the sweetie heads inside to order. i look around for a dog.
two tables over are two gentlemen. we will call one mr. gonna get drunk and we will call the other mr. nascar shirt. now, i would like to say right up front there is nothing at all wrong with nascar or with shirts celebrating the glories and drivers of the nascar world. to be honest, i like the crashes just as much as anyone else, maybe more. but i'm going out on a limb to say that pulling on a nascar shirt three sizes too small so you can go out for breakfast with your daughter on father's day is, well, not trying very hard. bringing her to breakfast with your drinking buddy whose every sentence focuses one way or another around the key phrase gonna get drunk is sorely missing the point of father's day. i see more of mr. nascar shirt's buttcrack than his proctologist. i look over at the mountain. unfortunately, mr. nascar shirt is not the ugliest father on the porch.
a family comes up and sits at a table between us and the table occupied by mr. nascar shirt and mr. gonna get drunk. a woman and man with a boy and girl, both under ten. they are joined a bit later by another couple with a toddler boy and a girl maybe eight. the men talk across the tables about their trucks, laughing at the mileage they get (ranging from nine to slightly more than 14 mpg). the mothers busy themselves with getting the children settled.
let's call father one mr. i hate marriage. let's call father two mr. i hate women. let's call them both the i have no regard for women, including my wife and my daughter club. mr. i hate marriage is wearing a shirt with the restroom symbol type man and woman on it, dressed in bride and groom wear. the bride is beaming and the groom looks miserable. above the couple is the phrase game over. i am sorry mr. i hate marriage is in a miserable marriage to someone he so clearly hates but i am unsure why he has chosen father's day to advertise this fact. mr. gonna get drunk tells mr. i hate marriage how much he likes the shirt. mr. i hate marriage says thanks, then explains the smiley face and frowny face. because he thinks mr. gonna get drunk is even stupider than i do.
his pal mr. i hate women is wearing a shirt even more spectacular. it has the head of a native american chief and under the face is the phrase chief bangerharder. wow. as a person who spends a great deal of time with teenagers, i can tell you that this level of charm and humor generally peaks in seventh grade. i am wondering about when he got dressed this morning. he asks mrs. i hate women how he looks. she says something along the lines of, "wow! honey. you look great. that shirt really tells folks what sex with you is like and that's what i'd like to advertise today, father's day!" he beams, thinking of how proud his children will be when they see him and sound out the words on his shirt that proclaim what he thinks is his skill with their mom.
here's the thing. i can take a joke. sometimes even a joke at my expense. but these jokes seem more like feeble cries for attention. and i'm fine with folks wearing stupid shirts. i understand everyone's right to be an idiot. but i like to think men of a certain lifestyle- for instance those with daughters old enough to read- would be willing to forgo shirts emblazoned with information that says, basically, "i am an asshole and i'm cool with being an asshole in front of my children. because it's my right as an american citizen." at the very least i'd like to think these men could do this the one day a year they get to sit across the tables from their little girls, skinny big-eyed girls, wild-haired and pink-dressed, in celebration of what it is to be a dad. i think of my own dad who wore snap front shirts during much of my childhood. my recollection is that he owned one shirt with writing on it. it said i survived the breakup of at&t. because he was a telephone man and he actually did.
and i know it seems like a small thing, these shirts. but to a little girl who looks up to and respects her dad, the shirts are lessons in how to be. in who to be. his philosophy emblazoned across his chest. so i would like to thank my own dad for knowing that everything you do as a father sends a message to your children. and for knowing what messages to send.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
salt
the lovely pill i swallow daily to keep my wild brain content to sit still in my skull is salt based. it is the same chemical used to make the blood red showers of fire in fireworks. i like to think about it that way, me and the fireworks, full of this red sparking salt. i keep the salt happy with plenty of water and protein and chocolate and most of the time the salt does what it should, keeps that brain of mine from stomping right out my mouth or hurling itself from an ear. keeps it soothed and cool and tame.
but today the fire escape thermometer is saying ugly things about the air outside and my whole body begins to brace for what will come next. i have seen it looming and i have prepared. the salt is not happy about the heat. i can feel it seething even on days with numbers like 82 and 85 so i have extra bottles of water, a sandalwood fan and a silk fan for unairconditioned classrooms or buses. i have a cold bottle of rosewater to spray on my melting flesh. but the uglier the thermometer talks, the angrier the salt gets. it does not listen to my promises of more water. we are no longer on speaking terms. the salt is a time released pill so there is nothing i can do to tell it to stop stomping around in my body wrecking everything. it is in there. along with the water i offer raspberries. i offer an avocado blended with milk and honey. a cold bean salad with lots of cilantro. anything to make it happy. but i cannot make the outside weather go away. not while i'm at work. we don't have that sort of fanciness in a new york city public school. instead we have bedbugs.
the salt starts to strangle my brain. i can feel it withering in there, gasping for breath, a ropy slug dissolving in all that salt. the fighting gets ugly enough the world starts to swing in wide arcs toward me and then away. there is no way to tell who is winning at this point but i find it difficult to stand up. i regret my decision to wear challenging shoes to keep myself from accidentally walking home in this heat. i cannot walk at all in these shoes, red like the sparking salt.
i wait at the bus stop. the salt has sucked all traces of moisture from my body and left my brain broiling in my skull but
my brain makes one last valiant effort. it rallies the troops, urges them to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. my hands, feet and stomach absorb the cruel salt and swell until i look like mickey mouse. my wedding ring slices into my finger. the evil red shoes cut across my toes. the waistband of my skirt cleaves my stomach like a peach. i double over with cramps. this is my rescue, what my damaged brain has come up with. i wait. i know there's more. ah, there. waves of nausea. my cartoon hands begin to shake. the labored breathing i've been working on while waiting for my afternoon bus slows. i am breathing molasses. i am breathing a dishrag full of warm water. i do not want to die on a bus surrounded by teenagers i don't know and a guy drinking from a plastic bag. i will myself to wait until i get home.i stand there in all 97 nearly liquid degrees and watch four buses go by without stopping. there are blisters already swelling along the leather edges of both shoes. i have walked two blocks and then stood still twenty minutes. by the time the sweetie gets home i am a beached whale on the couch, guzzling pedialyte and emitting a stench i suspect approximates the vapors that leap out of those lakes that kill whole towns. the sweetie is kind. he rubs my back. my feet. he orders food. i continue to swell and swirl and spin.
i wake this morning still spinning, still cramped, still swollen as a parade float. i lie on the bed. the man on the radio is saying words like scorcher in a voice that does not suggest he really understands the nature of the words he's using. the weather website says heat advisory and air quality alert and even record report. i lie on my back and try to look over my stomach to see my sausage toes, to be sure the hideous pressure hasn't turned them blue or made them fall off. i get up and my stomach lurches. the world swings back and forth. there is too much movement from my insides. i chew some tablets to calm my swirling stomach but the salt just laughs. i can feel the tablets losing to the salt, can feel my insides getting chilly, then hot.
it is already 90 degrees when i manage to get myself upright and stuffed into the loosest clothing and shoes i own. i shamble to the market but the constant fighting between the salt and my brain has worn me out. my entrails work hard with my brain to defeat the salt but they are weak and confused. i put food in my basket but can't imagine putting it into my body. it is difficult to walk home with the bag and all that commotion on my insides. i am knocked every which way by the fight going on in there and struggle to get up the stairs with the bag. i am never good at being sick. i am even less good at being mauled by salt.
i do not know what to do. we have this fight every summer and eventually all my insides adjust
but the salt seems particularly angry this year. particularly cruel. i consider the food options. i stare a long while at the chocolate bar i brought home. dark chocolate with sea salt. the four block walk home was enough to melt it to the inside of its foil wrapper. when i try to snap off a square, the whole thing bends. it is smooth and soft and the fat and sugar wrap my brain up in happiness right away. my brain stretches, shakes itself. the grains of sea salt dissolve on my tongue and i can hear my brain hum and the medicine salt hums. they are drunks after a bar fight, arms around each other in the broken glass and spilled beer. they do not remember now why they fought and are surprised to see what a wreck they've made of the rest of my insides. still, they are calm now, chuckling softly from time to time. and i will take what i can get. i sip grape pedialyte. i nibble small squares of dark chocolate with tiny crunches of sea salt. i lie under the air conditioner. the sky outside turns dark and the wind bends the trees of heaven just past the window. the rain falls in fat drops onto the fire escape thermometer. it laughs and says seventy eight.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
lemonade
the seventh day of march last year i found three fat buds on the lemon tree i have nearly killed four times. a week later there were six. they bloomed and hissed out a tiny scent that is the way i want everything to smell. my house. my clothes. my hair. my eyes. the next week each white flower dropped into the dirt. all except one. that one formed a tiny green globe that grew so slowly sometimes i worried time might be stopping for it, starting again abruptly and then sputtering out for long, lazy stretches.in retrospect, leaving a lemon tree alone in a house where the weekday temperature is 40 degrees probably isn't the best idea i've had. but it lives even now in a sunny room looking south out toward the mountain. and because i see it only on weekends, it is relatively safe from the overwatering and excessive fussing that have been hallmarks of my
past lemon tending.i did nothing in terms of cultivation. folks encouraged fertilizer, offered suggestions on pruning, discussed the merits of root stimulator and explained the varied theories on styles of watering. everything i read and heard contradicted something else i'd read or heard.
so i ignored all that and i watered my tree once a week. i made sure the sun got all over it and figured the weekday coolness would be fine. it was except that the weekend spikes up into the sixties addled the poor thing. two days of frantic growth. five days of a very long nap. this is probably why the tree took more than a year to fully ripen the single lemon drooping from the end of a long branch. i was willing to wait. i have been waiting.
until today. i wake up early today and decide that more than a year has been more than enough time. the sweetie agrees and i take my pruning scissors to the stem. the lemon drops off, heavy in my hand. the overwhelmed branch it had spent the last year on snaps back through the air and stands up nearly straight, breathing easier now, waving a little like there's wind. the skin on the lemon is waxy and thick. i dig a nail into it and that smell explodes out of the waxiness. when i slice into it i am surprised to see insides the color of egg yolk. the rind tastes candied and breaks apart when i squeeze it. there is enough juice for one glass of lemonade. i add sugar and water. i stir and pick out three seeds spinning around the bottom of the glass. it is not fancy but it took a year to get here. i sip it slowly and it is very good.
Friday, February 18, 2011
on the way home
it started with the guy who was fighting with his tattoo. it was a newish looking tattoo, glossy and puffy and at first i figured he was on the phone, on some sort of earpiece, telling someone about it. he was staring at it, the design on his upper arm. the right one. but there was no earpiece and he was not chatting. his teeth were gritted and his brow was furrowed. his voice was low and angry. he had the tattooed arm in the grip of his left hand and was talking to the ink the way i have seen some parents in grocery stores grip their children by spindly arms so the can hiss low in their ears. when he began to rock back and forth violently, shaking his head, i figured there would probably be a quieter train coming along soon and i could probably hop off the one with this small internal fight and catch it. his face reddened and purpled and his voice grew angrier and louder and more frantic. he'd grip the arm around the tattoo, stare at it, growl and spit words, the only intelligible ones being words i'd rather not put down here. as i stood up to get off the train, he slammed his head back against the wall of the train behind him, exasperated. he rolled his eyes as though his tattoo just would not listen to reason.
so today i am hoping for a little calm on the going home train. nothing fancy. just nobody yelling and nobody covered in their own urine and nobody in the throes of any sort of withdrawal. after all, it's a school day. i make it to my destination without any hideousness and when the doors open an eighty year old lady and i, both trying to leave the train, are nearly trampled by a horde of teenagers leaving school. now, teenagers move in herds because it makes them feel safe and because, in all fairness, it's fun to have a constant audience that sees your every move as cool. because i spend my days in the classrooms and halls of a high school i am used to having to thread my way through the morass that is a clump of teens. but one girl shoves her way onto the train and puts her hand flat on the head of the eighty year old woman in front of me and slams the woman out of the train.
the woman stumbles and staggers but because of the crush of bodies is unable to fall down. she manages to get herself onto the platform in one piece. and what do i do? well, in my infinite wisdom, armed with the knowledge that i have teacher voice and teacher presence, i turn back into the car and say- are you ready for what i said in my best teacher voice? i say you can't do things like that! that's right. even my own students who know i am a nerd would be disappointed in the lack of power behind that. there is no swearing and no threatening and no sass. in addition, it does not occur to me that some teenagers might just be impervious to teacher voice. or teacher presence. it does not occur to me that there might be a sixteen year old girl out there so bored or angry or ugly in her own mind that she could disregard my elegantly phrased response to her behavior.
but she does. in fact, she goes beyond disregarding it. she reaches her hand up and shoves me hard, back out of the train. and i am very lucky the train doors close immediately and the train rolls away because i am my father's child and have a mouth that is sometimes bigger than i am. which means i stand there on the platform yelling things the sixteen year old girl who pushed me would have responded to with unkindness had she heard any of them. i'm not proud of this. i'm just trying to tell it like it happened.
you're thinking things did not end well if i got shoved off a train and my sassy, more gloriously phrased retort never reached the ears of my foe. but when that old woman went flying off the train i was the only one who made a sound. the twenty teenagers who got on the train with little miss angry stood there, open mouthed, wide eyed. and when she pushed me, the entire train was silent. and you may see silence as complicity, as disinterest. but being a teenager is tough. tougher than anything else we ever do. and, like i said, they move en masse, with a single brain sometimes. and she heard them all silent, unwilling to participate in her ugliness. she heard them turn their backs on what she did. they told her who she was better than i ever could.
so today i am hoping for a little calm on the going home train. nothing fancy. just nobody yelling and nobody covered in their own urine and nobody in the throes of any sort of withdrawal. after all, it's a school day. i make it to my destination without any hideousness and when the doors open an eighty year old lady and i, both trying to leave the train, are nearly trampled by a horde of teenagers leaving school. now, teenagers move in herds because it makes them feel safe and because, in all fairness, it's fun to have a constant audience that sees your every move as cool. because i spend my days in the classrooms and halls of a high school i am used to having to thread my way through the morass that is a clump of teens. but one girl shoves her way onto the train and puts her hand flat on the head of the eighty year old woman in front of me and slams the woman out of the train.
the woman stumbles and staggers but because of the crush of bodies is unable to fall down. she manages to get herself onto the platform in one piece. and what do i do? well, in my infinite wisdom, armed with the knowledge that i have teacher voice and teacher presence, i turn back into the car and say- are you ready for what i said in my best teacher voice? i say you can't do things like that! that's right. even my own students who know i am a nerd would be disappointed in the lack of power behind that. there is no swearing and no threatening and no sass. in addition, it does not occur to me that some teenagers might just be impervious to teacher voice. or teacher presence. it does not occur to me that there might be a sixteen year old girl out there so bored or angry or ugly in her own mind that she could disregard my elegantly phrased response to her behavior.
but she does. in fact, she goes beyond disregarding it. she reaches her hand up and shoves me hard, back out of the train. and i am very lucky the train doors close immediately and the train rolls away because i am my father's child and have a mouth that is sometimes bigger than i am. which means i stand there on the platform yelling things the sixteen year old girl who pushed me would have responded to with unkindness had she heard any of them. i'm not proud of this. i'm just trying to tell it like it happened.
you're thinking things did not end well if i got shoved off a train and my sassy, more gloriously phrased retort never reached the ears of my foe. but when that old woman went flying off the train i was the only one who made a sound. the twenty teenagers who got on the train with little miss angry stood there, open mouthed, wide eyed. and when she pushed me, the entire train was silent. and you may see silence as complicity, as disinterest. but being a teenager is tough. tougher than anything else we ever do. and, like i said, they move en masse, with a single brain sometimes. and she heard them all silent, unwilling to participate in her ugliness. she heard them turn their backs on what she did. they told her who she was better than i ever could.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
snowman
i am on the phone with my father because i have received several phone messages throughout the day reporting on his dangerous and bad behavior. now, he is no stranger to dangerous and bad behavior but his loving children have been trying, as he nears that venerable age of seventy, to rein in some of his more useless and silly bad behavior. and this is what these phone calls have been about. my sister leaves messages with these words: your father and blizzard and flip-flops and shoveling and driving in this weather.
when i confront him he pretends my sister is the sort to overreact. he tells a tale of himself in a pair of insulated hip waders going out to check the bird feeder. he calls for backup in the form of my own mother who picks up the line and says, "of course he wore the waders out later. the first time out he wore flip flops". so the stories are true.
i can see the man out in the middle of a blinding snowstorm- flip flops, jeans, t shirt, cotton hoodie, windbreaker, baseball hat. when i tell him this he protests loudly, exclaiming over these "waders" he's sporting for snowy weather. when i point out that real waders are felt bottomed and are not appropriate for snow he insists that this pair is not like that at all. they're some sort of special rugged lug-soled waders or something. they're double layer rubber so they're warm, he says. when i point out that rubber conducts cold he stammers a bit and comes up with a felt lining for these things. now, i am sure about few things in this world but i know that any waders this man bought in the great state of missouri are lined with nothing but the sweat of a lazy fisherman. it is not that he doesn't know what he wore outside. it is that he thinks i don't know him well enough to know what he wore.
i spend some time singing the praises of wool hats, fleece hats, alpaca hats. hats that cover a person's ears. hats not made of plastic mesh. he insists that the cowboys didn't wear wool hats and i tell him cowboys likely died more often from earaches and colds than from gunshots. he says they wore scarves wrapped around their heads, over their hats and he is like them, a cowboy. now i know the man has a cowboy hat or two so i rearrange my original image of him. he is standing in the yard with a bag of birdseed. he is wearing white sneakers and white tube socks. he has on a cotton hoodie, dark blue in my own image of him and over that is a maroon windbreaker sort of thing i saw him wear a great deal in my childhood. it is satiny nylon. he is wearing a light brown suede cowboy hat and the hood of the hoodie is pulled up over the back brim and its front edge is resting at the front of the crown of the cowboy hat. this, of course, pulls the nape of the hoodie up through the windbreaker, pulling the windbreaker up as well. this, in turn, exposes a small bit of skin just above his belt, his lower back. the part of a human body most vulnerable to snow and blizzard conditions. if he is not careful, this is how he will leave this mortal coil.
so i do what i know to do. i threaten to call the older grandchild, a child who worries that his dear grandfather will meet an ugly and untimely end on a lawnmower at noon in early august or in an ice and snow filled february driveway. i promise my dear father i will tell the child what he has done, all of it. the flip flops. the shoveling. the testing out of four wheel drive capabilities. i say i will encourage the child to question his grandfather's loyalty, even his love. what grandfather would play so recklessly with his own life when he knows a child counts on his existence? and this man, very soon seventy, old enough to know better, old enough to behave like he's grown, does what we all do. he makes deals. makes promises. tells things he thinks might be truths if i am willing to forget he said them. he says, "i won't do it again. i learned my lesson. i really won't. i promise". and he better be right about this because i know his grandson's phone number.
when i confront him he pretends my sister is the sort to overreact. he tells a tale of himself in a pair of insulated hip waders going out to check the bird feeder. he calls for backup in the form of my own mother who picks up the line and says, "of course he wore the waders out later. the first time out he wore flip flops". so the stories are true.
i can see the man out in the middle of a blinding snowstorm- flip flops, jeans, t shirt, cotton hoodie, windbreaker, baseball hat. when i tell him this he protests loudly, exclaiming over these "waders" he's sporting for snowy weather. when i point out that real waders are felt bottomed and are not appropriate for snow he insists that this pair is not like that at all. they're some sort of special rugged lug-soled waders or something. they're double layer rubber so they're warm, he says. when i point out that rubber conducts cold he stammers a bit and comes up with a felt lining for these things. now, i am sure about few things in this world but i know that any waders this man bought in the great state of missouri are lined with nothing but the sweat of a lazy fisherman. it is not that he doesn't know what he wore outside. it is that he thinks i don't know him well enough to know what he wore.
i spend some time singing the praises of wool hats, fleece hats, alpaca hats. hats that cover a person's ears. hats not made of plastic mesh. he insists that the cowboys didn't wear wool hats and i tell him cowboys likely died more often from earaches and colds than from gunshots. he says they wore scarves wrapped around their heads, over their hats and he is like them, a cowboy. now i know the man has a cowboy hat or two so i rearrange my original image of him. he is standing in the yard with a bag of birdseed. he is wearing white sneakers and white tube socks. he has on a cotton hoodie, dark blue in my own image of him and over that is a maroon windbreaker sort of thing i saw him wear a great deal in my childhood. it is satiny nylon. he is wearing a light brown suede cowboy hat and the hood of the hoodie is pulled up over the back brim and its front edge is resting at the front of the crown of the cowboy hat. this, of course, pulls the nape of the hoodie up through the windbreaker, pulling the windbreaker up as well. this, in turn, exposes a small bit of skin just above his belt, his lower back. the part of a human body most vulnerable to snow and blizzard conditions. if he is not careful, this is how he will leave this mortal coil.
so i do what i know to do. i threaten to call the older grandchild, a child who worries that his dear grandfather will meet an ugly and untimely end on a lawnmower at noon in early august or in an ice and snow filled february driveway. i promise my dear father i will tell the child what he has done, all of it. the flip flops. the shoveling. the testing out of four wheel drive capabilities. i say i will encourage the child to question his grandfather's loyalty, even his love. what grandfather would play so recklessly with his own life when he knows a child counts on his existence? and this man, very soon seventy, old enough to know better, old enough to behave like he's grown, does what we all do. he makes deals. makes promises. tells things he thinks might be truths if i am willing to forget he said them. he says, "i won't do it again. i learned my lesson. i really won't. i promise". and he better be right about this because i know his grandson's phone number.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
grown
the boy on the bus is struggling with something. "no, no," he would say if asked, "i'm not a boy at all. i'm clearly a man!" he would jut out his chin so the faint hint of beard there might catch your eye. he is dressed for church, for an interview. he is dressed the way boys dress for graduation, in clothes that look awkward, even though they fit. his black wing tip shoes anchor him to the floor of the bus while his black pinstripe pants work together with his diagonally pinstriped shirt to give the effect of an optical illusion collapsing in on itself. he is attempting to tie a tie. this, after all, is something men do.
the tie, too, is black. the pale pinstripes on it move diagonally the opposite direction of those on the shirt. he must be making himself dizzy swimming in all those stripes. now, i know how to tie a tie. i was raised a churchgirl and i sang in a choir that traveled from time to time to other nearby churches. those of you who know me a little know i'm tone deaf and have the vocal stylings of a drunk camel but king david wrote down "make a joyful noise unto the lord" and so nobody could do much but let me, all of them quietly hating king david just a little for not having been more clear about what might be joyful or how the rest of folks might have to listen along, sometimes, with the lord.
churchgirls know how to tie ties because churchboys do not. or maybe churchboys pretend they cannot. so a churchgirl can take an untied tie gently from around a churchboy's neck and can drape it around her own, tie it quickly with a four-in-hand knot, then loosen it just enough to slip it over her head and onto the boy. a churchgirl can do this the way everyone in the world can tie shoes. easily, without any thought and completely unable to explain the steps. so i know how to tie a tie but cannot really help this boy.
he continues to struggle. a sound like sportscasters buzzes behind me, my grandpa's transistor calling a royals game. the boy has his phone balanced precariously on his lap and is watching a video on how to tie a tie. it is seven am. his hands shake a bit. he watches the video again then he stands up, leaving the phone muttering to itself on the seat. he walks to the back of the bus and faces the huge round rearview mirror buses have by their back doors. he stares intently into the fisheye image of himself and tries again. the churchgirl in me considers crying. he is hopeless. he collapses back into his seat and returns to the video. it is only a few steps. around once. around twice. up. over. down through the loop. he does not give up. he tries five, six, seven times. at his stop he stands up, tie hanging in two flat ribbons from his neck.
the tie, too, is black. the pale pinstripes on it move diagonally the opposite direction of those on the shirt. he must be making himself dizzy swimming in all those stripes. now, i know how to tie a tie. i was raised a churchgirl and i sang in a choir that traveled from time to time to other nearby churches. those of you who know me a little know i'm tone deaf and have the vocal stylings of a drunk camel but king david wrote down "make a joyful noise unto the lord" and so nobody could do much but let me, all of them quietly hating king david just a little for not having been more clear about what might be joyful or how the rest of folks might have to listen along, sometimes, with the lord.
churchgirls know how to tie ties because churchboys do not. or maybe churchboys pretend they cannot. so a churchgirl can take an untied tie gently from around a churchboy's neck and can drape it around her own, tie it quickly with a four-in-hand knot, then loosen it just enough to slip it over her head and onto the boy. a churchgirl can do this the way everyone in the world can tie shoes. easily, without any thought and completely unable to explain the steps. so i know how to tie a tie but cannot really help this boy.
he continues to struggle. a sound like sportscasters buzzes behind me, my grandpa's transistor calling a royals game. the boy has his phone balanced precariously on his lap and is watching a video on how to tie a tie. it is seven am. his hands shake a bit. he watches the video again then he stands up, leaving the phone muttering to itself on the seat. he walks to the back of the bus and faces the huge round rearview mirror buses have by their back doors. he stares intently into the fisheye image of himself and tries again. the churchgirl in me considers crying. he is hopeless. he collapses back into his seat and returns to the video. it is only a few steps. around once. around twice. up. over. down through the loop. he does not give up. he tries five, six, seven times. at his stop he stands up, tie hanging in two flat ribbons from his neck.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
brown dog conversation
the brown dog is snuffling around on the corner. he's a small lab, old enough he's beginning to thicken in the middle and walk a little stiffly. he sees us, sees guthrie at least, as we walk toward him. he eyes the lizard in guthrie's teeth and his eyes brighten. his ears slide up and back.
guthrie prances past without a glance but the brown dog watches intently. we cross the street and guthrie is nosing through a pile of leaves when we hear what sounds like a herd of children running up behind us. we turn and see the brown dog coming up at a fairly impressive gallop, ears and tongue flopping, tail wagging. he gets up next to us and guthrie turns his lizarded head away, lowers his body some. the dog leaps around, puppyish, trying to play. guthrie gets smaller and smaller until he is a speckled brown ball of hostility with a big red lizard sticking out either side. the dog's owner gives up and walks on ahead but the brown dog looks back over his shoulder at guthrie and his lizard a few times, waits, then walks on down the street at the urging of the woman on the other end of the leash.
but the dog is undaunted. he stares into piles of leaves, sniffs an iron railing, considers nearby steps. pretty soon we are walking right up next to him. he turns his nose toward guthrie and they both keep walking. the brown dog is taller than guthrie but he is walking with his head low, so his nose is inches away from the tail of the giant red lizard sticking out of guthrie's mouth. he leans toward guthrie just a bit, touches his nose to the very tip of the lizard tail. his mouth opens so slowly guthrie doesn't even see it. they keep walking. the brown dog scoots himself just an inch closer to guthrie, mouth open, so he's walking with his teeth hovering all above and below that red lizard tail.
the brown dog's jaws close just enough that guthrie knows he's there and then guthrie does what is completely unexpected to most folks, to those who don't know him, don't know that his ancestral job involved catching something and bringing it back to someone. he does something that so entirely baffles the brown dog that the poor dog doesn't know what to do. as the brown dog's teeth sink gently into the tip of the lizard's tail guthrie's jaws relax and the lizard slides out of his mouth. the brown dog is waiting for guthrie to pull, for them to play, to struggle over the magnificent red lizard. the dog's owner apologizes for her dog but i know he is trying to play. guthrie stands there, looking away from the dog and his lizard, then back again, confused as to why the dog is not tossing the lizard in the air. the dog makes an attempt to get guthrie's attention, leaps around a little, dragging the lizard across the sidewalk. guthrie waits.
the brown dog drops the lizard, still bewildered, and i pick it up. when i toss is up in the air a bit guthrie leaps like a shark and his jaws snap down on the soft middle of the lizard. the brown dog trots on home with a laughing woman on the other end of his leash.
guthrie prances past without a glance but the brown dog watches intently. we cross the street and guthrie is nosing through a pile of leaves when we hear what sounds like a herd of children running up behind us. we turn and see the brown dog coming up at a fairly impressive gallop, ears and tongue flopping, tail wagging. he gets up next to us and guthrie turns his lizarded head away, lowers his body some. the dog leaps around, puppyish, trying to play. guthrie gets smaller and smaller until he is a speckled brown ball of hostility with a big red lizard sticking out either side. the dog's owner gives up and walks on ahead but the brown dog looks back over his shoulder at guthrie and his lizard a few times, waits, then walks on down the street at the urging of the woman on the other end of the leash.
but the dog is undaunted. he stares into piles of leaves, sniffs an iron railing, considers nearby steps. pretty soon we are walking right up next to him. he turns his nose toward guthrie and they both keep walking. the brown dog is taller than guthrie but he is walking with his head low, so his nose is inches away from the tail of the giant red lizard sticking out of guthrie's mouth. he leans toward guthrie just a bit, touches his nose to the very tip of the lizard tail. his mouth opens so slowly guthrie doesn't even see it. they keep walking. the brown dog scoots himself just an inch closer to guthrie, mouth open, so he's walking with his teeth hovering all above and below that red lizard tail.
the brown dog's jaws close just enough that guthrie knows he's there and then guthrie does what is completely unexpected to most folks, to those who don't know him, don't know that his ancestral job involved catching something and bringing it back to someone. he does something that so entirely baffles the brown dog that the poor dog doesn't know what to do. as the brown dog's teeth sink gently into the tip of the lizard's tail guthrie's jaws relax and the lizard slides out of his mouth. the brown dog is waiting for guthrie to pull, for them to play, to struggle over the magnificent red lizard. the dog's owner apologizes for her dog but i know he is trying to play. guthrie stands there, looking away from the dog and his lizard, then back again, confused as to why the dog is not tossing the lizard in the air. the dog makes an attempt to get guthrie's attention, leaps around a little, dragging the lizard across the sidewalk. guthrie waits.
the brown dog drops the lizard, still bewildered, and i pick it up. when i toss is up in the air a bit guthrie leaps like a shark and his jaws snap down on the soft middle of the lizard. the brown dog trots on home with a laughing woman on the other end of his leash.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
how to take a dog's temperature
a graphic and educational depiction of what can happen if the odds are against you.
first you decide whether you are person of faith or not. if you are, you do whatever supplicating is necessary to get the attention and favor of your god. you pray or fast or burn a lamb. then you ask for guidance and help on your mission. if you are not a person of faith, take stock of your life so far and consider that without some sort of miraculous intervention you will likely die and will surely be remembered for having been lost during a dog temperature taking accident. determine whether you are up to the task. it is absolutely okay to realize you are not ready to die.
go to the drugstore to get a thermometer. you do not recall the last time you purchased such a thing and you have no idea what kind to get. the clerk glares at you. tell her it's for your dog. tell her rectal, please, because that is what the vet said would give you the most accurate temperature. her glare intensifies and you know she thinks you are going to torture the poor animal. you are slightly bothered by the fact that she doesn't try to rescue the hapless thing since he is right there in the store with you. get some form of lubricant. vaseline. k-y. do not, no matter what your kinfolks may have said, use butter or lard. you do not want to risk losing butter as a thing you love because of this association and your dog already spends plenty of time licking his own butt without you adding seasoning to it. if you can find something with a flip-top, get that. walk home with your unsuspecting dog.
change into clothing you do not ever intend to wear again. this does not mean gym clothes or painting clothes. this means something you are willing to tear off your body and toss directly into a garbage can, if necessary. get a bath towel. this is to comfort the dog and create a work space, not to protect clothing you have already doomed.
sit on a couch with a table in reach. put the thermometer (out of its packaging and carrying case), lubricant (with flip top flipped) and latex gloves on the table. pick up the dog and put him on your lap. recall than when the vet does this, there's a muzzle for the dog, an (generally large and male) assistant holding the dog in a headlock, the vet and you all working to make this happen. realize this is not how things look now and call your husband to see if he knows where the muzzle is. when he does not know, sigh and put on gloves.
place the thermometer on your towel, which is spread over your lap, and pour more lubricant than necessary over it. pick up the thermometer in your left hand. wrap your right arm around your dog's neck, pulling his head gently toward you. lift the aggressively curled down tail up with any free fingers on your slippery, thermometer wielding left hand. realize you cannot see anything under the tail you have just lifted because the tail is in the way. peer around to the side. realize it is difficult to tell what is where from the side. lean as far to your left as you can, hoping to look under the tail. wonder why it sounds like there's a swarm of bees just above your right elbow. realize your dog is beginning his attempt to kill you. admire the recent dental work he had done as this is the first time you can see every single tooth he's got in that larger than you expected mouth. smile and breathe a little when you realize that although he has bitten down on you four or five times at this point, he does not have it in him to actually hurt you and he hasn't even left marks on your skin.
locate what you think, from where you sit, looks like the gateway to your dog's rectum. insert thermometer into this small, clenched space about an inch. be sort of impressed that it shoots out almost immediately and travels a fair distance across the couch. listen to that swarm of bees. it's getting louder and deeper, like a lion or a tiger or a helicopter about to crash. keeping your dog in your right arm grip, still holding the tail aloft, reach over with your gloved and, by now, very slippery left hand to grab the thermometer. reorient it to make sure you have the business end directed toward your dog's business end. try three more times to insert the thermometer and be proud of yourself that you're catching it sooner and sooner as it sails out of the backside of your dog. realize that putting a thumb on the outer end of the thermometer might keep the thing in place. insert thermometer for the fifth time. keep thumb steady. make a mental note to look into why your hands shake so much and wonder whether that will affect your dog's temperature.
notice that as soon as the thermometer is in place your dog stops struggling although he has achieved a facial expression of such incredible detached contempt you almost do not recognize him. look at the clock. watch the clock for three minutes. remove the thermometer, but do not yet release your dog. you will have to read the temperature to be sure you do not have to retake it. 102.5. although this is at the high end of normal, be aware that you and your dog just walked two miles and then wrestled a great deal. release your dog. destroy or clean and then put away all supplies. return to the couch. your dog will curl up beside you and go to sleep, having forgiven or forgotten all that transpired only minutes ago.
first you decide whether you are person of faith or not. if you are, you do whatever supplicating is necessary to get the attention and favor of your god. you pray or fast or burn a lamb. then you ask for guidance and help on your mission. if you are not a person of faith, take stock of your life so far and consider that without some sort of miraculous intervention you will likely die and will surely be remembered for having been lost during a dog temperature taking accident. determine whether you are up to the task. it is absolutely okay to realize you are not ready to die.
go to the drugstore to get a thermometer. you do not recall the last time you purchased such a thing and you have no idea what kind to get. the clerk glares at you. tell her it's for your dog. tell her rectal, please, because that is what the vet said would give you the most accurate temperature. her glare intensifies and you know she thinks you are going to torture the poor animal. you are slightly bothered by the fact that she doesn't try to rescue the hapless thing since he is right there in the store with you. get some form of lubricant. vaseline. k-y. do not, no matter what your kinfolks may have said, use butter or lard. you do not want to risk losing butter as a thing you love because of this association and your dog already spends plenty of time licking his own butt without you adding seasoning to it. if you can find something with a flip-top, get that. walk home with your unsuspecting dog.
change into clothing you do not ever intend to wear again. this does not mean gym clothes or painting clothes. this means something you are willing to tear off your body and toss directly into a garbage can, if necessary. get a bath towel. this is to comfort the dog and create a work space, not to protect clothing you have already doomed.
sit on a couch with a table in reach. put the thermometer (out of its packaging and carrying case), lubricant (with flip top flipped) and latex gloves on the table. pick up the dog and put him on your lap. recall than when the vet does this, there's a muzzle for the dog, an (generally large and male) assistant holding the dog in a headlock, the vet and you all working to make this happen. realize this is not how things look now and call your husband to see if he knows where the muzzle is. when he does not know, sigh and put on gloves.
place the thermometer on your towel, which is spread over your lap, and pour more lubricant than necessary over it. pick up the thermometer in your left hand. wrap your right arm around your dog's neck, pulling his head gently toward you. lift the aggressively curled down tail up with any free fingers on your slippery, thermometer wielding left hand. realize you cannot see anything under the tail you have just lifted because the tail is in the way. peer around to the side. realize it is difficult to tell what is where from the side. lean as far to your left as you can, hoping to look under the tail. wonder why it sounds like there's a swarm of bees just above your right elbow. realize your dog is beginning his attempt to kill you. admire the recent dental work he had done as this is the first time you can see every single tooth he's got in that larger than you expected mouth. smile and breathe a little when you realize that although he has bitten down on you four or five times at this point, he does not have it in him to actually hurt you and he hasn't even left marks on your skin.
locate what you think, from where you sit, looks like the gateway to your dog's rectum. insert thermometer into this small, clenched space about an inch. be sort of impressed that it shoots out almost immediately and travels a fair distance across the couch. listen to that swarm of bees. it's getting louder and deeper, like a lion or a tiger or a helicopter about to crash. keeping your dog in your right arm grip, still holding the tail aloft, reach over with your gloved and, by now, very slippery left hand to grab the thermometer. reorient it to make sure you have the business end directed toward your dog's business end. try three more times to insert the thermometer and be proud of yourself that you're catching it sooner and sooner as it sails out of the backside of your dog. realize that putting a thumb on the outer end of the thermometer might keep the thing in place. insert thermometer for the fifth time. keep thumb steady. make a mental note to look into why your hands shake so much and wonder whether that will affect your dog's temperature.
notice that as soon as the thermometer is in place your dog stops struggling although he has achieved a facial expression of such incredible detached contempt you almost do not recognize him. look at the clock. watch the clock for three minutes. remove the thermometer, but do not yet release your dog. you will have to read the temperature to be sure you do not have to retake it. 102.5. although this is at the high end of normal, be aware that you and your dog just walked two miles and then wrestled a great deal. release your dog. destroy or clean and then put away all supplies. return to the couch. your dog will curl up beside you and go to sleep, having forgiven or forgotten all that transpired only minutes ago.
Friday, August 20, 2010
dog teeth
when i pick him up from the dog dentist, guthrie doesn't know who i am. this may or may not be because of an intravenous cephalic catheter dripping valium into him all day. it's possible this catheter kept him anesthetized and the valium got into him some other how, but i can tell you he looked like a lot of moms did back in 1975 or so only without that blue eye shadow. i can tell you he likes the valium.
he looks so tiny in the arms of the woman who brings him out, a brown furry puddle with stubby legs dangling off at the corners. his eyes do not focus. the brown one looks straight ahead and the blue one looks up and out. the tech hands him over and then hands me a bag with antibiotics, pain pills and five small, ugly teeth, one with a root so black it looks painted, fake. i have no idea what the tooth fairy will say about this. five is more teeth that she usually deals with. five is a bar fight.
the woman who hands guthrie over tells me how adorable he is. just this morning when i
dropped him off, people outside the vet's office were snapping photos of him hanging off my shoulder. a few days before, we walked out the door to two neighborhood women who said they'd just been talking about us. by us they meant guthrie. they asked to get a few photos of him to put up in the window of the corner pharmacy. i feel like the mother of a teenage beauty queen. but i smile when the woman at the vet's office tells me about guthrie because she was snuggling on him when she brought him out and i know she means he's sweet.
i let him try walking and our five block trip is quite an adventure. we round a corner and come face to face with a red dachshund. it prances up to guthrie and steps back a little, probably offended by surgery smells and the luridness of valium. but guthrie suddenly remembers who he is, at least for a moment. his brain lunges forward and his body attempts to follow. he opens his deadly jaws wide to clamp them down on the sweet nose of this dog and the valium washes over him again. he forgets. his brain giggles. he sits a second or two in the middle of that smooshy attack, mouth open, some of his teeth bared, frozen a few inches away from the surprised dog. and then his whole tired, confused head slides back down on top of his lower jaw, shutting his mouth. the red dachshund walks on past, probably making a mental note to just say no to drugs. when we meet his archnemesis, the small black pug, on up the block, the valium is the only one at the wheel and guthrie strolls past on his wobbly legs. the pug's owner and the confused little pug both stare, wide eyed. i motion to the white surgical tape on guthrie's front paw and say "valium". they both nod and smile.
i carry his floppy self up the two flights of stairs and he does not once try to leap out of my arms and knock me back down the stairs. he sees little floating things that make him cock his head from time to time but i can't see any of them. because he's hopped up on valium and missing five teeth, the vet said he's not likely to eat much the next few days and if he eats, it should be soft food. i am prepared. i have food but will not worry if he doesn't eat.
but guthrie staggers down the long hall, through the living room and directly into the kitchen. he turns to the fridge (the dog food lives above it) and runs smack into the corner of the thing with his loose face. he nearly falls over. he tries again. his eyes are puffy and do not appear to be connected to his brain. his mouth is swollen and his lips are flapping loose around his face. not a single one of his sensory organs is fully committed to him at this point. he sits in front of the fridge, looks up at the bag of dog food on top. he starts to cry. it is low and wobbly and i think he is in pain but his head, if not his eyes, focuses on that bag. he has not eaten in almost 24 hours. i get a can of the soft food and put a small spoonful onto a plate. it is gone before the plate is on the floor. i do not want him to get sick so i offer a spoon at a time until the entire can is gone. we will start with the toothbrush and the dog toothpaste in two weeks.
he looks so tiny in the arms of the woman who brings him out, a brown furry puddle with stubby legs dangling off at the corners. his eyes do not focus. the brown one looks straight ahead and the blue one looks up and out. the tech hands him over and then hands me a bag with antibiotics, pain pills and five small, ugly teeth, one with a root so black it looks painted, fake. i have no idea what the tooth fairy will say about this. five is more teeth that she usually deals with. five is a bar fight.
the woman who hands guthrie over tells me how adorable he is. just this morning when i
dropped him off, people outside the vet's office were snapping photos of him hanging off my shoulder. a few days before, we walked out the door to two neighborhood women who said they'd just been talking about us. by us they meant guthrie. they asked to get a few photos of him to put up in the window of the corner pharmacy. i feel like the mother of a teenage beauty queen. but i smile when the woman at the vet's office tells me about guthrie because she was snuggling on him when she brought him out and i know she means he's sweet. i let him try walking and our five block trip is quite an adventure. we round a corner and come face to face with a red dachshund. it prances up to guthrie and steps back a little, probably offended by surgery smells and the luridness of valium. but guthrie suddenly remembers who he is, at least for a moment. his brain lunges forward and his body attempts to follow. he opens his deadly jaws wide to clamp them down on the sweet nose of this dog and the valium washes over him again. he forgets. his brain giggles. he sits a second or two in the middle of that smooshy attack, mouth open, some of his teeth bared, frozen a few inches away from the surprised dog. and then his whole tired, confused head slides back down on top of his lower jaw, shutting his mouth. the red dachshund walks on past, probably making a mental note to just say no to drugs. when we meet his archnemesis, the small black pug, on up the block, the valium is the only one at the wheel and guthrie strolls past on his wobbly legs. the pug's owner and the confused little pug both stare, wide eyed. i motion to the white surgical tape on guthrie's front paw and say "valium". they both nod and smile.
i carry his floppy self up the two flights of stairs and he does not once try to leap out of my arms and knock me back down the stairs. he sees little floating things that make him cock his head from time to time but i can't see any of them. because he's hopped up on valium and missing five teeth, the vet said he's not likely to eat much the next few days and if he eats, it should be soft food. i am prepared. i have food but will not worry if he doesn't eat.
but guthrie staggers down the long hall, through the living room and directly into the kitchen. he turns to the fridge (the dog food lives above it) and runs smack into the corner of the thing with his loose face. he nearly falls over. he tries again. his eyes are puffy and do not appear to be connected to his brain. his mouth is swollen and his lips are flapping loose around his face. not a single one of his sensory organs is fully committed to him at this point. he sits in front of the fridge, looks up at the bag of dog food on top. he starts to cry. it is low and wobbly and i think he is in pain but his head, if not his eyes, focuses on that bag. he has not eaten in almost 24 hours. i get a can of the soft food and put a small spoonful onto a plate. it is gone before the plate is on the floor. i do not want him to get sick so i offer a spoon at a time until the entire can is gone. we will start with the toothbrush and the dog toothpaste in two weeks.
Monday, July 19, 2010
little boy shopping
i am at the atlantic center. the atlantic center is what most of brooklyn has instead of a mall. i am in line at a discount department store, more or less, waiting to pay. there are thirteen people in line in front of me and three open registers. register three is occupied by a man who appears to be, fairly successfully, trying to pick up the woman behind the counter. i say this because the entire time i wait in line, he never leaves and she never calls a new customer. he keeps walking around the front of the store, getting more things for her to ring up, then he leans way over and talks to her in a low voice that draws lots of giggles from her. so there are thirteen people in line and two open registers.
so i am waiting. behind me i hear a fairly reckless cart rattling up and of course it slams right into the back of me. hard. i turn around to glare and there is a little boy, maybe eight, staring right at me, looking a little lost but also just a little triumphant. he is one of those children whose face is still cuddled in baby fat, with huge dark eyes set on top of cheeks that would make one of those pinching grannies nearly faint. if he grows up, if i do not strangle his sweet self right this minute, girls will write his name on their notebooks in bubble letters. but there is some question about his future right now. he looks thrilled to have hit me with his cart. his mother is nowhere so i sigh and turn around, tell myself i am off duty, that disciplining someone else's child is not my job during the summer.
he is joined a few minutes later by a mother who can only be described as frazzled. her entire life appears to consist of attempts to prevent him from doing things and then attempts to redirect or repair whatever he has done. in what will eventually seem like three hours that we are in line together she will be unsuccessful in every single attempt. the line is flanked by product- towels and soaps and books and things made of glass. he touches every single one, moving each item slightly with his tornadic little hands. he sees a backpack and screams out to all who will listen that this backpack has a character from a t.v. show right there on it. a show he watches! he emphasizes his proclamation by grabbing the backpack and whipping it up to his mother's eye level. but you already know that a backpack sitting on a shelf with towels and soaps and books and things made of glass will only have its straps wrapped around the glass things. in this case, a very large vase. which i shove back onto the shelf with my foot.
the child is excited about everything. "look, paper towels!" "hey, mom. MOM! look! brown flip flops!" and i can almost hear his mother wilting behind me. she gives in and gives him the cart again. now, i may be one to judge folks, but i try to avoid doing too much judging of strangers publicly. but then she already knows this child is going to slam that cart right into me again and she has decided she would rather sacrifice me than listen to her little angel any longer and this is ugly. selfish. so when she begins yelling at him to stopstopstop i figure he and the cart are pretty close and then he slams into me again and plows on past. i grab the front of the cart which surprises him. he sizes me up to see just how much alike we might be. i push the cart back, slowly, toward where his mother is waiting, saying and doing exactly nothing. i tell the child very calmly and clearly that his behavior is rude and he needs to stop slamming the cart into me. he looks at me like i am from somewhere he's never heard of, like i am surrounded by flames. he lets go of the cart but continues to smile. it is not a nasty smile. it is genuine and pretty and guileless. behind me there is a very low and tense conversation where his mom's voice goes on for long stretches and he punctuates things with his own little voice.
i am summoned to the register by a cashier and am paying when the child and his mother are called to the register two past me. she walks by pushing the cart, slowly, leaning on it heavily, like someone much older. he saunters behind her, thrilled to be in the world. when he is even with me, he drags his arm across my back, the way you see children slap their hands along fences or light posts. smack. drag. like i am something other than a person. i start thinking now about what we will do in a few years when he shows up in my class able to see and hear every single thing in the world all at once, worried that he will hear once again that these are liabilities, not superpowers.
so i am waiting. behind me i hear a fairly reckless cart rattling up and of course it slams right into the back of me. hard. i turn around to glare and there is a little boy, maybe eight, staring right at me, looking a little lost but also just a little triumphant. he is one of those children whose face is still cuddled in baby fat, with huge dark eyes set on top of cheeks that would make one of those pinching grannies nearly faint. if he grows up, if i do not strangle his sweet self right this minute, girls will write his name on their notebooks in bubble letters. but there is some question about his future right now. he looks thrilled to have hit me with his cart. his mother is nowhere so i sigh and turn around, tell myself i am off duty, that disciplining someone else's child is not my job during the summer.
he is joined a few minutes later by a mother who can only be described as frazzled. her entire life appears to consist of attempts to prevent him from doing things and then attempts to redirect or repair whatever he has done. in what will eventually seem like three hours that we are in line together she will be unsuccessful in every single attempt. the line is flanked by product- towels and soaps and books and things made of glass. he touches every single one, moving each item slightly with his tornadic little hands. he sees a backpack and screams out to all who will listen that this backpack has a character from a t.v. show right there on it. a show he watches! he emphasizes his proclamation by grabbing the backpack and whipping it up to his mother's eye level. but you already know that a backpack sitting on a shelf with towels and soaps and books and things made of glass will only have its straps wrapped around the glass things. in this case, a very large vase. which i shove back onto the shelf with my foot.
the child is excited about everything. "look, paper towels!" "hey, mom. MOM! look! brown flip flops!" and i can almost hear his mother wilting behind me. she gives in and gives him the cart again. now, i may be one to judge folks, but i try to avoid doing too much judging of strangers publicly. but then she already knows this child is going to slam that cart right into me again and she has decided she would rather sacrifice me than listen to her little angel any longer and this is ugly. selfish. so when she begins yelling at him to stopstopstop i figure he and the cart are pretty close and then he slams into me again and plows on past. i grab the front of the cart which surprises him. he sizes me up to see just how much alike we might be. i push the cart back, slowly, toward where his mother is waiting, saying and doing exactly nothing. i tell the child very calmly and clearly that his behavior is rude and he needs to stop slamming the cart into me. he looks at me like i am from somewhere he's never heard of, like i am surrounded by flames. he lets go of the cart but continues to smile. it is not a nasty smile. it is genuine and pretty and guileless. behind me there is a very low and tense conversation where his mom's voice goes on for long stretches and he punctuates things with his own little voice.
i am summoned to the register by a cashier and am paying when the child and his mother are called to the register two past me. she walks by pushing the cart, slowly, leaning on it heavily, like someone much older. he saunters behind her, thrilled to be in the world. when he is even with me, he drags his arm across my back, the way you see children slap their hands along fences or light posts. smack. drag. like i am something other than a person. i start thinking now about what we will do in a few years when he shows up in my class able to see and hear every single thing in the world all at once, worried that he will hear once again that these are liabilities, not superpowers.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
adventure boat
at ten thirty am i am sitting on the upturned bottom of a fourteen foot johnboat on a grassy median in the parking lot at a large sporting goods store. to be fair, the lot belongs to a variety of large stores but this bit of grass is directly across from the door to the sporting goods store which is where this boat was resting quietly just a few minutes before. the weather is nice and i am all decked out in a blaze orange tank top and a denim skirt. my bag, a monstrosity of a straw my students insist belongs to abuelas in markets, leans against the bottom of the boat and a ball of green wool threads its way from the bag up to my knitting needles. i am waiting for the sweetie.
you see, we got up early this morning and drove the forty or so miles in to kingston with a brand new roof rack on our little subaru so we could get ourselves a boat. now, i know what you're thinking. it's ugly to live like that. we've already got a boat. but our beloved boat is tired. we carry its nine hundred pound carcass down to the reservoir every chance we get and i come away cut and bruised each time because the boat struggles so much against us. the amount of bailing we need to do suggests the decrepit thing is beginning to lose its will to float (which, at 900 pounds, was never that easy, anyway) and we would like to let it spend its twilight years at the reservoir, going out only on rare occasions. which means we need a boat.
now, it turns out the sweetie and i have, each of us, a birthday and then we each have our wedding anniversary all during the same week. this week. and we have taken to celebrating those things all rolled up together. so this morning not long past ten we stroll into the sporting goods store and stride right up to the boat we know will be able to take over for our own retiring boat. the men who work there seem a little confused at first about how to get the thing to the front of the store. one of them, a man younger than me (and an employee of a sporting goods store, no less), seems particularly overwhelmed by the task of moving the boat and has to stop and rest. now, you know i am a sympathetic person and you know i have struggled under the nine hundred pounds of boat the d.e.p. has registered in my name, but i have also lifted this new boat. by myself. with one hand. i consider asking the men if they want help but one thing i have learned is that although they might indeed want help, they will not ask me for it and will say no if i offer. so they wrestle a boat that weighs less than i do through aisles and around displays and up to the front counter. we pay and they take it out and across to the parking lot where they hoist it up onto our little subaru.
and here is where math begins to fall apart. a fourteen foot car may seem
mathematically like it's capable of carrying a fourteen foot johnboat about forty miles at sixty miles per hour. but it isn't. the nose of the boat dips down in front of the windshield and may or may not be attempting to touch the hood of the car. the sides of the boat are within a half inch of sliding down over both sides of the roof rack and simply covering the car like a 
very dapper hat. the men from the sporting goods store suggest we rent a truck from the lumber store at the other end of the parking lot. twenty bucks, they say. not a bad deal. and so the sweetie hurries across the parking lot while i sit in a very dark car with an ominous stormcloud of a boat hovering over me, threatening to slide off into the grass at any minute.
he returns fairly quickly, truckless. the lumber store has one truck and it is out. they do not know when it will return. the sweetie, ever resourceful, finds a rental truck place that is open and asks about trucks. i remind him the boat is fourteen feet long and his mind does these magical calculations that include diagonals and imaginary numbers. we lift the boat up and put it on the median. it is light as a feather. light as air. i am in love and i sigh deeply to prove it. the sweetie hurries off to get what i know will not be a truck with fourteen feet of space in it. i sit happily on my beloved boat, working on my knitting and looking up from time to time to field questions from folks who have never seen whatever it is i am up to. when i explain to one woman why i am waiting there, she hollers back from in front of the sporting goods store, "i knew it would be a good story. i could tell."
and the sweetie returns. with a ten foot truck. we lift the boat up into the truck and the four back feet stick all the way out. the sweetie is sure, with some diagonal finesse, we can cram the whole boat right on in there. we can't. but we tie it down tight with ratcheted straps and we hop in the truck and head the fortysomething miles back toward home with four feet of boat hanging out the back of the truck like a bleached tongue. sporadically, we call the d.e.p. to see if they're open because you can't put a boat on the reservoir until it has been properly inspected, bathed and tagged by the good folks who keep an eye on the reservoir. the phone rings and rings but nobody ever answers. the sweetie finally gets someone at a different number who explains that they're not open saturdays. i know this sounds strange. that the place you get a fishing license and the place you register your boat, the place you get permission for recreation, is not open on weekends. i know. so we drive on back to the house and we unload the boat. then we drive back fortysomething miles to the truck rental place and then drive another fortysomething right on back to the house.
we put the boat in the grass. i sit in the rowing seat. the sweetie hands me my oars. the sweetie's birthday will come and go and we will not be allowed to put that boat in the water. our anniversary will fly past. on my own birthday i will have to sit in the boat on the grass and imagine rowing on the reservoir. but in a few weeks, we'll take a day off during the week. we'll drive up late the night before. we'll be the first folks waiting outside the gates at the d.e.p. (in yet another rental truck) for our boat bath and inspection. and after we put our new boat on the grassy bank right next to our old one, we'll drive the rental truck back (only twenty miles this time) and then make that same trip right back in our own car to where the boats are sitting in a cluster of other boats, still, listening to the water a few feet away. and we'll spend the day on the water, right in the middle of the week like that. extravagant and glorious. well, we are celebrating two birthdays and our marriage. and why would you marry someone if you didn't plan to have adventures together?
you see, we got up early this morning and drove the forty or so miles in to kingston with a brand new roof rack on our little subaru so we could get ourselves a boat. now, i know what you're thinking. it's ugly to live like that. we've already got a boat. but our beloved boat is tired. we carry its nine hundred pound carcass down to the reservoir every chance we get and i come away cut and bruised each time because the boat struggles so much against us. the amount of bailing we need to do suggests the decrepit thing is beginning to lose its will to float (which, at 900 pounds, was never that easy, anyway) and we would like to let it spend its twilight years at the reservoir, going out only on rare occasions. which means we need a boat.
now, it turns out the sweetie and i have, each of us, a birthday and then we each have our wedding anniversary all during the same week. this week. and we have taken to celebrating those things all rolled up together. so this morning not long past ten we stroll into the sporting goods store and stride right up to the boat we know will be able to take over for our own retiring boat. the men who work there seem a little confused at first about how to get the thing to the front of the store. one of them, a man younger than me (and an employee of a sporting goods store, no less), seems particularly overwhelmed by the task of moving the boat and has to stop and rest. now, you know i am a sympathetic person and you know i have struggled under the nine hundred pounds of boat the d.e.p. has registered in my name, but i have also lifted this new boat. by myself. with one hand. i consider asking the men if they want help but one thing i have learned is that although they might indeed want help, they will not ask me for it and will say no if i offer. so they wrestle a boat that weighs less than i do through aisles and around displays and up to the front counter. we pay and they take it out and across to the parking lot where they hoist it up onto our little subaru.
and here is where math begins to fall apart. a fourteen foot car may seem
mathematically like it's capable of carrying a fourteen foot johnboat about forty miles at sixty miles per hour. but it isn't. the nose of the boat dips down in front of the windshield and may or may not be attempting to touch the hood of the car. the sides of the boat are within a half inch of sliding down over both sides of the roof rack and simply covering the car like a 
very dapper hat. the men from the sporting goods store suggest we rent a truck from the lumber store at the other end of the parking lot. twenty bucks, they say. not a bad deal. and so the sweetie hurries across the parking lot while i sit in a very dark car with an ominous stormcloud of a boat hovering over me, threatening to slide off into the grass at any minute. he returns fairly quickly, truckless. the lumber store has one truck and it is out. they do not know when it will return. the sweetie, ever resourceful, finds a rental truck place that is open and asks about trucks. i remind him the boat is fourteen feet long and his mind does these magical calculations that include diagonals and imaginary numbers. we lift the boat up and put it on the median. it is light as a feather. light as air. i am in love and i sigh deeply to prove it. the sweetie hurries off to get what i know will not be a truck with fourteen feet of space in it. i sit happily on my beloved boat, working on my knitting and looking up from time to time to field questions from folks who have never seen whatever it is i am up to. when i explain to one woman why i am waiting there, she hollers back from in front of the sporting goods store, "i knew it would be a good story. i could tell."
and the sweetie returns. with a ten foot truck. we lift the boat up into the truck and the four back feet stick all the way out. the sweetie is sure, with some diagonal finesse, we can cram the whole boat right on in there. we can't. but we tie it down tight with ratcheted straps and we hop in the truck and head the fortysomething miles back toward home with four feet of boat hanging out the back of the truck like a bleached tongue. sporadically, we call the d.e.p. to see if they're open because you can't put a boat on the reservoir until it has been properly inspected, bathed and tagged by the good folks who keep an eye on the reservoir. the phone rings and rings but nobody ever answers. the sweetie finally gets someone at a different number who explains that they're not open saturdays. i know this sounds strange. that the place you get a fishing license and the place you register your boat, the place you get permission for recreation, is not open on weekends. i know. so we drive on back to the house and we unload the boat. then we drive back fortysomething miles to the truck rental place and then drive another fortysomething right on back to the house.
we put the boat in the grass. i sit in the rowing seat. the sweetie hands me my oars. the sweetie's birthday will come and go and we will not be allowed to put that boat in the water. our anniversary will fly past. on my own birthday i will have to sit in the boat on the grass and imagine rowing on the reservoir. but in a few weeks, we'll take a day off during the week. we'll drive up late the night before. we'll be the first folks waiting outside the gates at the d.e.p. (in yet another rental truck) for our boat bath and inspection. and after we put our new boat on the grassy bank right next to our old one, we'll drive the rental truck back (only twenty miles this time) and then make that same trip right back in our own car to where the boats are sitting in a cluster of other boats, still, listening to the water a few feet away. and we'll spend the day on the water, right in the middle of the week like that. extravagant and glorious. well, we are celebrating two birthdays and our marriage. and why would you marry someone if you didn't plan to have adventures together?
Friday, May 14, 2010
4pm
the drunk man staggers, arms outstretched, a wobbly jesus down from the cross, shakes his paperbagged beer at a little girl who pays him exactly no mind, then trips, veers into the pinkplastic all-the-time yard sale. two men drape across several steps of the stoop and watch him, watch over row after row of toys so filthy no amount of bleach could redeem them. five dollars says a sign attached to a wire rack with sliding wooden beads. five dollars.
the smell of paint from the body shop across the street is heavy enough to taste. it sits on the tongue like a spoon and the fumes may well wake the dead trying so hard to rest across the street in greenwood, bordered by black iron spikes taller than a reasonable person would care to reach, keeping the dead from running amok and keeping the living from spending time in a lush quiet place any time after 4pm. but walk along those iron bars long enough and there are escape hatches. subtle little gates built into the bars, invisible unless you're looking for such a thing. they are padlocked from the inside for absolutely no rational reason. who escapes a cemetery?
little boys sit on the steps of holy name church, three at a time or four, chewing straws, squinting against the sun and the lies they tell each other. they wait, all of them in blue trousers and white shirts, for the ice cream truck that will drive by playing "turkey in the straw". the ice cream truck that neighs is one block over and so they will never know about it. but it is friday almost 4pm. they are children. they will trip each other and giggle again as they run for the truck. there will be ice cream.
the smell of paint from the body shop across the street is heavy enough to taste. it sits on the tongue like a spoon and the fumes may well wake the dead trying so hard to rest across the street in greenwood, bordered by black iron spikes taller than a reasonable person would care to reach, keeping the dead from running amok and keeping the living from spending time in a lush quiet place any time after 4pm. but walk along those iron bars long enough and there are escape hatches. subtle little gates built into the bars, invisible unless you're looking for such a thing. they are padlocked from the inside for absolutely no rational reason. who escapes a cemetery?
little boys sit on the steps of holy name church, three at a time or four, chewing straws, squinting against the sun and the lies they tell each other. they wait, all of them in blue trousers and white shirts, for the ice cream truck that will drive by playing "turkey in the straw". the ice cream truck that neighs is one block over and so they will never know about it. but it is friday almost 4pm. they are children. they will trip each other and giggle again as they run for the truck. there will be ice cream.
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