Vestinambula - October Archives

October

10 Trial and error
11 Doubts; try a link
12 It's working
13 Frustrations
14 Social life
15 Major purge
16 Many books
17 "On the Road Home"
18 "The Reader"
19 Durga and Wallace Stevens
20 Ugly and laughing
21 Why?
22 Refrains
23 On the lips
24 "Fringes of beauty"
25 Two and two
26 Blessed with cacophony
27 Bad tempered
28 "An Anthology of Bad Verse"
29 Tired and Uninspired
30 "A black flame on a ruby field"
31 Eerie high-pitched moaning

October 10, 1998 Trial and error

"In the beginning it was trial and error. I was writing silences, writing nights. I scribbled the inexpressible. I pinned down vertigos!"

Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell

October 11 Doubts and adding a link

Lots of thoughts today about the web page. It's almost enough to discourage me from doing it. I'm bothered by thoughts of a "persona"; Do I want to create a persona? Do I have enough discipline to maintain a persona? I'm not sure I have enough discipline to write every day, let alone write in a certain tone. But I have lots and lots of ideas about topics. I've been trying to jot them down for times when I'm stuck for inspiration. I definitely want this to be anonymous. I'll work at the technical stuff a little at a time. I know I can learn this. I uploaded the index page after about 10 minutes of trial and error. That wasn't so bad, was it?

October 12 It's working

My vision is bothering me. Yes, I am seeing floaters and I'm doing too much close work on the computers. But more critically, I can't feel the size of this web vision. I seem to want to expect it to be much bigger than it actually is. After all, I'm just starting out with the really simple stuff. It's not like I have ambitions to be a web designer even. I just want to rule the world, starting from my little home. I want everyone to love me or hate me, to write to me, I want to start a new political movement, I want to found a new mythology. That's not too much to ask is it?

Meanwhile, I was successful at creating a Link last night. Today I learned that the background that was nice and light lavendar on AOL at home is a boring gray when viewed through MS Internet Explorer at work. In that way, it's appropriate I guess.

I think there was a directive from above to try to make people happier at work. Today Boss 1 scheduled a lunch with me, and Boss 2 offered me all kinds of new hardware. I'm taking tomorrow morning off to go to a bookbinding workshop. Let them think I'm interviewing … I'm spending a lot of time reading online journals. I'm starting to get really annoyed that just when I've decided I have a favorite or two, those people basically stop posting. What Gives?

(Later -- found out this went away if I hit reload. Why?)

Most of tonight I worked on my paper journal for graphics design class. I had a lot of fun with it. More fun than this.

October 13 Frustrations

I totally destroyed the pages last night. Only text would come up. I was playing around with editors and got messed up. No more editors! I reconstructed everything in .txt files today. I was able to get it working again. But the phantom bad page still pops up although I'm sure I deleted it with the FTP utility.

I attended a bookbinding demo today. It was wonderful. I took the morning off work to do it. Why Not? It felt great. I mailed a lot of bills and a letter to Olivia.

I also got a rejection today. I knew that particular story was a long shot for that magazine. I knew it just wasn't extraordinary. I agreed with P. Another friend liked it better! The voice just wasn't there. The rejection still made me feel queasy for a little while.

October 14 Social life

It's been a hard and junky day. I'm pushing, pushing, pushing, yet feel like I'm going backwards. I did manage to have B and her kids over for dinner. It's not easy for me. After they left, I felt de-energized, like I'd lost my evening. What I really want to do, all the time, is write. I showed some web stuff to B and she was quite underwhelmed. I always start to doubt myself even more when other people are not enthusiastic.

I do think it's a miracle that I've gotten as far with this as I have.

Then I talked to my sister-in-law on the phone. More socializing that I just squirm and wriggle about, it's obligatory, it's family, I dislike it. My sister-in-law is a lovely person, and I talk to her maybe once a year. But ... even that seems too much.

I'm thinking about spiritual writing. I saw an article in the New York Times Book Review by a guy who edited a book called "The Best Spiritual Writing 1998." I am intensely curious about what is considered the "Best," who it's by, who it's published by, what traditions it's in, etc. etc. Maybe part of my vision involves prayer books.

I meant to write several pieces of correspondence today. I got three out of four done, that's not too bad.

October 15 Major purge

Tonight I was inspired out of the blue to go through two old boxes of papers saved over the years. Almost entirely "career" stuff, all the glossy Andersen brochures, all my notes and correspondence in job hunting, all the proof of my work, final reports, binders full of details of projects that are long long over. I put almost all of it into the throwaway stack. It felt really really good.

How I could have made such a big mistake and kept it up for so long, I do not know.

Then I got caught up in looking at yearbooks. It did not bring back any good memories. I just had no-self back then. I don't know if having self is all that much better. But I am a lot more comfortable now. I don't know if pursuing a different way of living now would be any more successful than it was then. But at least I'm enjoying my extra-job activities. At least I have extra-job activities!

I read Doubletake last night. I forgot to write about an article by Nora Gallagher, "Things Seen and Unseen." I enjoyed the description of being in church as being in a "thin" space. I can understand that. But the sentence I enjoyed the most was "'You were in a seeking mode,' said a friend ... 'Now you are in a finding mode.'" That's what I want. I want to be in a finding mode.

I sent out some little bits of writing today. Potential for a collaboration with an artist. I have hopes for it. This is being in finding mode, to find a purpose in the little bits of writing that I already have, rather than to discount them as mere whimsy or trivia.

I was in "The Media Club" in high school. I have no memories of this club. Maybe we only met once. But I am surprised at the consistence of interests over time. How could I ignore this?

October 16 Many books

I went to the library at lunch time today. It's a dangerous place. I checked out five or six books from the new book shelf. I have an evening to myself, nowhere to go, nothing to do ... I decided to read a little. Most of the books I paged through quickly and found nothing to generate enthusiasm. China Galland affects me like I'm falling into a black hole however. And Ursula Nordstrom's letters were addictive.

I'm suffering from envy. China Galland is living my life. She is even telling the Durga story, which has been the force behind so much of my energy lately. My belief comes into the picture that there's only room for one of us in this world, and it's her. Unfortunately.

It takes so much effort to stick up for your own creative acts.

It takes even more effort to have patience with myself during what I am convinced is a long period of preparation, making ready, learning (learning what?), and steadfast waiting.

To amuse myself, I typed out part of a contribution to the Poetry Round Robin which arrived today, beautifully illustrated with PHOTOS! Lovely faces like sunlight. My contribution included the "Emily's color words" poem and two poems from childhood, "Leaves Under Glass," and "Two Birds." And I just sat at the computer and read my words over and over, loving them. I'm appalling myself with how enamored I can get of my own writing. I must be wrong. Just because I like it so much, does that mean it's good? I think a writer has to be infatuated with their own work to a degree. Why else go to all the effort to foist it upon others (like this).

I got what felt like criticism in the Poetry RR. Because everyone liked the original poem much more than the revision. I was downcast. Then I said, look at that, I am downcast. Which was an interesting observation to have. So I started to entertain the thought of revising it again, trying to keep some of what they liked in the original. I absolutely refuse to think the original is okay as is. I realized the original has an intolerably choppy rhythm. But the poem is about an evening intolerably lacking rhythm, so ????

October 17

I'm really writing this on Monday the 19th. I'm going to deal with the "missing a day" problem by posting a poem.

"On the Road Home"
by Wallace Stevens

It was when I said,
"There is no such thing as the truth,"
That the grapes seemed fatter.
The fox ran out of his hole.

You . . . You said,
"There are many truths,
But they are not parts of a truth."
Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.
We were two figures in a wood.
We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,
"Words are not forms of a single word.
In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.
The world must be measured by eye";

It was when you said,
"The idols have seen lots of poverty,
Snakes and gold and lice,
But not the truth";

It was at that time, that the silence was largest
And longest, the night was roundest,
The fragrance of the autumn warmest,
Closest and strongest.

October 18

Here's another one. It was a busy weekend!

"The Reader"
by Wallace Stevens

All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of sombre pages.

It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

The sombre pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.

October 19 Durga and Wallace Stevens

Sometimes a personage rises up out of the beta of every day life and whispers to me loudly all day, almost drowning out other sounds. Especially on Monday, after I've spent the weekend seeking, and sometimes finding, and I do want to avoid realizing I'm at work so badly. Today it was Wallace Stevens. Thom Ward recited a poem of his at the weekend workshop. Today I looked up the poem, then found another. I was thinking about W.S. working in an insurance company, what -- his briefcase full of poems? How did he separate work and poetry -- or did he? So I was going through my morning trying to see my office through Wallace Stevens' eyes? Or my equivalent?

I hated Wallace Stevens' poetry when I encountered it in college. I still have to be in the mood for it. It is just too strange. TOO STRANGE! Unfortunately, today I was thinking, like him or not, my own work is influenced by Stevens, and I really owe it to myself to get more familiar with him.

And then there's Durga. I found out she is described as "Hard to Reach," "The Inaccessible One." Figures I would choose a goddess of this nature to try to get to know. Last night I read China Galland's description of Durga Puja, and the enactment of touching the buffalo head, to participate in Durga's slaying of the Buffalo Demon. All day I've been noticing the Buffalo Demons which surround me and my friends. Nuclear waste, environmental destruction, silence, neglect, emotional abuse, even systems work! Helpless, I ask Durga's help in slaying them. I guess that's prayer for me.

BOA Editions, Thom Ward, Editor

October 20 Ugly and laughing

I started something today which will probably turn out to be a huge waste of time. When oh when will I know better?

I met with a technical recruiter. I know all the ins and outs of this by now. I know when he's snowing me, I know he knows when I'm snowing him. I was very relaxed in the interview, and a little jaded. I seemed to keep saying I knew nothing about technology. I actually ventured to describe myself as "getting less conservative," having "artsy and creative friends," and majoring in religion as an undergrad, now wanting to express more of that side of me. I doubt he really understood anything I was saying. Or maybe he did. But it won't make a difference. He'll still try very hard to fit me into a square hole because that's his business.

My hair looked very flat today. My forehead looked mottled and dented. The skin on my face is full of texture. My hair was separating into clouts like the tops of paint brushes. Whenever I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the restroom, the voice in my head said "ugly." The voice's next words were "and I don't care." I'm growing out my hair as an act of rebellion. I don't want a chic short haircut that takes 6-week maintenance anymore. I dislike salons. I want an old lady bun. My face is just going to be my face with all it's color and texture apparent. Sometimes I feel funny about going into the office ugly. I certainly felt funny about going to this interview ugly. But inside, I am laughing about it.

The recruiter asked the all-important salary question. I hemmed and hawed about its relative unimportance. He said he believed me, but he didn't believe me, even though I was telling the truth. Then he said "but you have a 'lifestyle' to maintain so you wouldn't take a cut of course" and I lied to him when I said "No, of course I wouldn't take a cut." I just couldn't tell the truth, that I have a lifestyle I want to dismantle. (I dreamed this exact conversation a few weeks ago. I'm having prescient dreams. I hope a good one comes true.) Of course I would take a pay cut. Last night my fantasy was to take a year or two off -- have No Income! Do an internship. Volunteer. Rest. Something.

So all of this recruitment is utter silliness and has nothing to do with real change. I am left baffled still by the nature of change. Changing jobs this way will lead to more of the same, I am sure. But I am helpless about doing the footwork necessary to ferret out the real opportunity I am seeking. I cannot even define it clearly. I wrote a contribution to NJN tonight complaining about this and describing the partial vision, at least. I did this recruiting meeting to see what I would say at this point, and to keep fumbling at the knots of these big hard ropes that bind me. And because it amuses me. My face was ugly, and I looked bland and composed, but inside my face, I was laughing with a wicked chicken cackling!

Taking stock of the web site: I have to learn to link to external pages. I have to explore adding graphics. I am so text-based. I would like to figure out how to narrow the margins; the lines of text are too long. I would like to have blocks of color on the page like Deb has. I might start to place the entries on separate pages like Willa does, because I want to encourage more lengthy, contemplative entries. I want to add the "spiritual resume." Possibly dreams log. And a place for poetry. And FONTS! I had such fun with even Wingdings, I really need to get more into Font Possibilities. So there's lots to do, but I am strangely contented to just type in these entries and leave it at that. Oh yes, one more thing I need to do. Tell someone I have this. Get some readers. Otherwise -- What's The Point????

One more comment. Before I went to the interview, the phrase "pink thunderstorms" popped into my head. I spun a whole scenario about it, as if I could really tell a recruiter that I'm a person who is really interested in pursuing a career in pink thunderstorms.

NJN, National Journal Network

October 21 Why?

I am feeling that almost intolerable lava buildup that means I have too many things to do. Or too many things that I care about doing. I have to stop caring about the cobwebs wreathing the house; the little gnat hovering over this computer screen; the problems of working with pencils, (I mean I was actually shaving a pencil into a chisel point tonight, it made me want to scream); the political problem of dirty dishes; leftovers; carpet stains; laundry; you know, that kinda stuff.

I have wondered about this lava feeling for a long time. A friend once asked me what it was all about and I couldn't answer her. The opposite feeling is satisfaction. Related feelings are despair and hunger.

The point of this entry was supposed to be: Why an online journal? I read the Metajournals article today by Kymm asking Why? My answer started out to be because I feel satisfaction in the morning, the opposite of the lava feeling.

Because I have a need to be creative.

That sounds worse than lame. I hate the word "need." Little kids are always misinterpreting "need" (or -- are they?) as in "I need that toy, mom, I really really nneeeed it" (complete with tears, grimacing, flopping, and maybe even screeching). The difference between "want" and "need" is now part of the grade school curriculum. My son brings home worksheets which want and need him to fill-in-the-blanks with "want" versus "need". When I try to help him with it, I get all bogged down in Maslow's hierarchy. Which then leads me into thinking about Moralities of Privilege. Which then leads me into thinking about highly evolved beings from science fiction stories who are pure love and float around without bodies as spheres of blue light. Needless to say, at this point I am not very helpful with the child's worksheet.

Since I obviously have everything I "need," why do I wake up so often with that feeling of fight or fright I mean flight, that I'm in danger, that I'm starving, that I'm lava, that I'm backed into a corner snarling? I must have invisible needs that aren't being met. I must have a need for creativity. Or I have a poorly developed sense of gratitude. Or a leftover sense of survival anxiety from childhood. Or a mind too ill trained in the better points of Buddhist meditation on impermanence.

Throw all this out the window, it's going nowhere. Let me try to be more straightforward. Instead of saying I "need" a creative outlet, I shall come from a position of power and say ... well, I'm not going to say "I demand a creative outlet" ... I think I'll say "I summon creative responses to come to me." I think I will summon a lot of things. I summoned up an online journal out of nowhere and it's provided a lot of satisfaction. I've had it with having invisible needs which are not being met.

Does that answer the question Why? I think so.

For the curious, Vestinambula is a word that came to me one morning when I was feeling satisfaction, not starvation. I like to think it means "wandering in the halls." I hope it doesn't mean something like "immobilized in the foyer." I'm sure there's people out there who would care to research the etymology of this word, or may even already know it!

October 22 Refrains

It happened to me again. I went to find my copy of The Years (Woolf) because I had a recollection of this great scene and I wanted to re-enjoy the details and the writing. This time it was the scene of Eugenie and the bonfire. The last time it was the scene with Eleanor and her new bathroom. Both times, I found the scene and read it and -- looked around for more, and didn't find any, and hunh? that's all there was to it? Why do I remember these scenes as being so full-bodied and vivid? Is it an effect of the writing? Or is it because my Woolf teacher said something mythical about them that fixed them as more than they are in my mind? I don't know, but I am not disappointed when this happens to me.

This happens to me over and over again: I futz with a particular problem with a software application for hours and finally give up and ask an "expert." The expert futzes for a while, first repeating everything I have already tried, even though I explain clearly that I've already tried that. I watch patiently. They often give up, have to go look something up, or talk to someone else, or answer another call. I go take a break and have a sudden idea. I come back, try it and voila -- it works. Then I can gloat, just enough, not too much, since I don't want to alienate the expert. Sometimes I claim I'm not going to tell them what I did. I like to think it's a peculiar form of software intuition at work in my head. Today's occurrence was particularly enjoyable since the expert was not only the company-wide expert on this product, but also Boss 2.

This has happened twice now: My dog is becoming notorious. Over the weekend we took him back to the park and the park attendant said "Is that Kirby?" with a trace of trepidation in his voice. Three weeks ago when we were there Kirby had tried to nip at the back of his pants leg. I guess you don't forget that type of incident even if you're a big burly park ranger used to all kinds of evil-doers. Then today, my back neighbor recognized him coming and called out "Hey, you little pisser!" She has the grand distinction of being the only person Kirby has ever favored with a warm stream to the pants leg. Why? Thank the great goddess of little doggies that this particular lovely woman didn't mind and still oohs and aahs over how cute he is, although she keeps her distance now.

October 23 On the lips

This evening, just when I'm at my weakest point, after a weekful of tedium at work has made my eyes gray and my jaw metal, after my optimism has rusted, after my initiative has ingrown and pierced its own body ... I looked up China Galland on the web and found that she's doing a workshop in New York on Sunday, November 8.

A rush of negative thoughts, like little redhatted, bayonet-bearing emergency footsoldiers:
I'll be disappointed to meet her in person;
I don't want to do a workshop, I hate the artificiality;
I don't want to feel in competition with people, especially New Yorkers;
I don't believe in any of this anyway, it's fluff and babble, not muscle and bone;
I'm overdoing it, I'm overscheduled anyway;
I don't want to be disappointed;
I don't want to meet new people;
it's probably too late to sign up anyway;
it's too hard to go into the city;
if I had a friend to go with me, maybe;

And this was only the half of them. They march nicely, don't they? Left foot, right foot, stepping in time, marching to the music.

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm afraid of competition. I'm really afraid of any kind of challenge. My main fantasy is to go work at a grocery store in a small Western town. To do something dealing with vegetables or dogs and cats, something tactile and straightforward. Just to do nothing for awhile sounds really good. You know, there's all this talk out there of creating a void and having something rush in to fill it ...

This is all I can say (well, it's not all I can say, but it's a conclusion of sorts anyway): My own thinking is totally unreliable and I mainly have to go along with what comes up. You'll notice that I refuse to say that I am praying for direction, or that I'm asking to be shown the will of another being, or that I'm turning it over. I'm so awfully resistant to stock statements of that type.

However, I will tell you a deep secret:

{I have been thinking about Isaiah.}

Oh what the hey, I'll go ahead and look it up, it's not like my hands are going to fall off if I touch the Bible.

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. ~~Isaiah 6:5-8

Now I am not a Christian, and I am not a Bible quoter, and I would change all the mans and hims and Lords in that text to womans and hers and Great Mother's breasts, but there is something there which expresses what I want. I want to be touched on the lips with a live coal by a seraphim, and have all my iniquities, of which I have many, removed, and then be able to say "Here I am! Send me!"

Images of Divinity Research Project

October 24 "Fringes of beauty"

I feel better today, more relaxed. I went to graphics design class. It was mostly soothing, except when I tried to defend to the instructor my use of the curly serif on the M as a fishhook in the restaurant ad. The instructor tried to say people didn't want to think about the death of the fish they were eating. I said, no it's supposed to remind people that the fish is FRESH and besides, the effect is stylized and subtle, no gore, no popping eyeballs. My table mate told me to get a bigger shovel, but I thought I was making a lot of sense. The instructor then brought up cows and steak as a comparison. I got a little testy, and said "Well, people don't slaughter their own cows, while you could go out and catch a fish." At this point, he moved on to another element of his critique. I was still pissed off and wondering for the 100th time why I'm taking this class. Later driving home criticizing my own argument, some people actually do slaughter their own cows, and some people probably don't want to be reminded of a fishhook at a seafood restaurant.

I did get to take some drives and a long long walk in the lovely fall weather with the dog. I started thinking about multiples. Fall leaves always make me think of multiples. There's apparently theories in art about the use of multiples, but I don't know them. I do wonder why I find the 100 or so leaves left on a tree beautiful, but I find thinning hair ugly.

I remembered Annie Dillard wrote some very horrible stuff about multitudes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I looked it up. It turns out the chapter is called "Fecundity." There's a sentence that describes some of what I feel about fall leaves: "For the notion of the infinite variety of detail and the multiplicity of forms is a pleasing one; in complexity are the fringes of beauty, and in variety are generosity and exuberance." She argues that multitudes are okay in plants but in animals (our competitors?) they disgust us: "'Acres and acres of rats' has a suitably chilling ring to it that is decidedly lacking if I say, instead, 'acres and acres of tulips.'" I think it might have more to do with the way swarming animals move.

I once struggled to describe fall leaves in writing without resorting to color words. I wrote some bad sentences trying to use sound words instead, blaring trumpets or something like that. But today I realized, no, it's the fading skin and hair of aging people that I want to compare to fall leaves. The extra texture and color in the skin, the mottling, the wrinkling. I'm practicing at finding aging characteristics beautiful. This might make a good poem, but I think it would be a better subject for a photograph.

Not really any reference to people in Hopkins' "Pied Beauty," unless you count this:

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change.
Praise him.

October 25 Two and two

A day of inner turmoil. I was determined to do two things I did not want to do because I am committed to them. One, church, and two, writer's circle. I sat in church and thought evil thoughts about every person who walked up with a Milestone. I don't think that's the point. Then I had to leave in the middle of the congregational meeting because I couldn't stand it. I'm wondering a lot about my commitment to that church. Today's writer's circle was very quiet. The leader was mysteriously missing due to the time change, so I sort of stepped in, and I was not in the mood. There were two new people there, plus Candace and I. My writing was very uninspired. Very. Candace was funny though, and one of the new people really seemed to need the support of the group. Being supportive -- it's a novel experience for me. But what about writer's circle? It's another commitment which offers me little. It's so hard for me to leave systems that are empty for me. When I left therapy, I did it with a mantra that went like this: "None of the systems I'm participating in want me to leave."

The best part of the day was taking my son and the dog to the beach. The water looked particularly beautiful today, glassy and sheer, stained pink and blue. Kirby got it into his head that the waves were alive and he barked at them and tried to bite them, while my son and I laughed and laughed.

Besides two empty commitments, I'm out of balance because of two other things. One, China Galland's book The Bond Between Women, and two, this journal. Whenever I read about retreatants or about activists serving the poor in exotic locations, I'm reading to go sign up. I spent most of yesterday in India and most of today in Argentina working with street children. I'm reading this book really fast. Something about it rings false to me -- I mean, for me. I can't just adopt another person's path, I mean. I don't know what I mean. And I'm too lazy to figure it out. Which brings me to -- this journal. It's demanding in a way I did not expect. It asks me to be clear. And to be not-boring. And to do this (almost) every day. It is still satisfying at least. It is a very unsettling activity. I have a slim hope that it will help elucidate a purpose.

End of the day -- groceries, laundry, dinner, correspondence, listening to B practice his trumpet -- the movie "Housekeeping" was on my mind. I read the book (by Marilynne Robinson), but in this case the movie affected me 100 times more deeply than the book. I would like to watch it again. The cover of the video bills it as a comedy but it couldn't be further from a comedy. I identify with all the characters, Ruthie, the other sister, and Aunt Sylvie, played by Christine Lahti. Ruthie is "sad" and awkward, very shy and withdrawn. The other sister (can't remember her name) decides to work very hard at becoming normal and actually succeeds at it, in spite of her strange family. She tries to fix Ruthie and it's just so painful for both of them. Aunt Sylvie cannot cope with the orphaned girls, makes terrible faux pas in housekeeping and social skills, embarrasses the other sister, and draws Ruthie into her peculiar sphere. She takes Ruthie out on Lake Fingerbone overnight and shows her how to train-scream with great excitement. It's just the most poignant movie I have ever seen. I'm Ruthie. I've been the other sister. Now I'm mostly Aunt Sylvie. I'm just weird. I'm out of it. I can't cope. I'm aimless. I could carry fish in my coat pockets. I just want to ride the rails.

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October 26 Blessed with cacophony

Breastfeeding came up twice today. A long article in the paper. And the woman at the after-school program was speaking quite openly about still nursing her son at 20 months. I felt blessed to be listening to her speaking of this activity, to be in a room filled with women and children. (I was in one of those meetings today, all men and me.) I told her I breastfed Older One until he could actually start to say "nuuurse, nuuurse" at very awkward times, while trying to undress me. I was trying to write a story about breastfeeding this summer, but I failed and put it away. Someday I'll go back to it, it's still hanging out there somewhere (discreetly, under a shawl I suppose).

Voices came into my life from everywhere today. Phone calls out of the blue, a thick packet in the mail, personal email, a good meeting at lunchtime, a new co-worker's anxiety, Younger One's groaning about his itchy feet... I am exhausted from listening and trying to process everything in less than 24 hours.

It takes a day or two to figure out what is really being said to me.

That's why it's hard for me to make phone calls, even to people I like to talk to. Why would I want to invite another voice to converse with me, when I'm already surrounded by a cacophony? Congratulations to me, I did call my lucky-charm mentor today. I realized I needed her help with some career related rumblings which started this morning. I'm having lunch with her Wednesday. The BEST thing about her is, she always immediately remembers who I am, even if it's been years.

I started rereading an old journal from a very unpleasant time, 1995. I seemed like a completely different person. I was possessed by demons, that's the only explanation. I'm going to have to put that journal away again. There are very few volumes I actually enjoy rereading.

In my handwritten journal I never revise my writing. In this journal I do. What if I tried to write this without revising? My heart clenches ...

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October 27 Bad tempered

I had a remarkably unpleasant day. I have marks from the bites of chickens all over me. It started out with both Boss 1 and Boss 2 all excited about a supposed error in conversion. I am full of pride about conversion, so I always get defensive, although I try to stay calm. As usual, the problem was in the source data. The conversion was even more careful than I thought with this particular data. Still, I hate how their first thought is always to blame my part.
Then I lied to Boss 2 saying I had a school function to attend and was taking an early lunch. It was really a meeting with the recruiter at the technical writing firm. The meeting went alright, I guess, although the recruiter was big and dweeby. I'm convincing myself it would be wise to stick it out until some of these promised financial goodies are delivered before I go off on my own. And do a bunch of practical stuff like refinancing, which appeals to me about as much as sticking my finger down my throat.

After the meeting I tried to treat myself to a quick trip to the art museum before I went back to work. The exhibit was extremely disappointing. It was supposed to be about the interlacing of art and craft, but I did not see much craft at all in it. It felt like a continuing slap in the face to craft in fact. Maybe it was just my mood.

A good lunch -- I'll miss that cafeteria -- of chicken francaise, rice, and carrots, but unfortunately while eating I was browsing online journals and ran across some really mingy Gen-X writing which lodged itself in my brain and is holding my own pure elderly tone hostage.

I realized they're trying to give me the computer of the dead programmer. I am a little freaked out about it. I carefully laid some of his papers to rest in the recycling bin, with respect. But I'm more superstitious than I like to admit. What can I say? "Please, please don't make me take the computer of the dead programmer, I have enough bad luck in my life?" Every time I look at the computer, I'll think of the dead programmer, I'm sure!

More chicken bites this afternoon. I was unable to concentrate on anything all day. I do not like production support projects. Unless it's acknowledged that I don't have to do anything but answer questions and fix little data problems. Today I dealt with one silly nit after another. About 4pm I said I give up, I'm just responding from now on, no more initiative will be attempted. Then the Russian programmer comes over. We talked (I mean he talked) for a long time, after which my jaw felt like a slingshot stretched to the max ready to fire a rock at his head. And his eyes and hair are the same colorless gunmetal color. We are not working well together. Yet. This is a challenge.

At home, lots and lots of junk mail. I wanted to watch TV to "relax," always a bad sign. So the whole evening just frittered away, I talked to B on the phone and felt pressured to go with her to a dance on Halloween WHICH I DO NOT WANT TO DO, talked about venereal disease and contractors and temper tantrums (nice). Then I paid some bills and balanced the checkbook. The whole day was shot anyway, might as well do this heinous chore now. Oh yes, and it's trash night.

There was a whole lot of other stuff. But that's enough for here, now. We are trying to name the kittens. Younger One wants to name them for cars, his current fascination. Camaro, Chevy, Mustang, Ferrari .... I want to name them for gemstones, jasper, onyx, opal, peridot .... We are bad at naming pets. At this moment, I could easily call them Mingy, Dweeby, Silly, Junky, Trash, and Bad Temper.

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October 28 "An Anthology of Bad Verse"

I woke up with these lines in my head: "All mimsy were the borogoves,and the mome raths outgrabe." I am sure I connected the word "mingy" from yesterday's entry in my sleep, possibly prompted by the kitten connection as well, to come up with something much more uplifting. Also, this line from "Jabberwocky" is remarkably apt in describing what it's like at work. The borogoves are mimsy and the place is full of mome raths outgrabing.
So tonight as a treat I got out the beautiful little two volume set of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. It's bound in red, with gold edging the pages. I glanced through and found Humpty Dumpty's explanation of Jabberwocky, which is an absolute delight! With furrowed brow, my inner perpetually-frustrated-writer wonders how I could write something in the lineage of Lewis Carroll. He brought a lot of poetry into a prose work, and also explicated it! Through the character of a speaking egg!

I remembered another line from a Wonderland poem: "You are old, father William." So I found that one, and read it. I never much liked "The Walrus and the Carpenter," so I skipped that. Then I found "I saw an aged, aged man, A-sitting on a gate." The strange thing is that this poem triggered a desire to look up the poem about "little Edward" in The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse. It's a hilarious little poem by Wordsworth which was of great help read ritually to myself during Older One's stormy adolescence:

Baffled

"Now, little Edward, say why so:
My little Edward, tell me why." --
"I cannot tell, I do not know." --
"Why, this is strange," said I.

This is an immensely useful bit of verse and makes me want to ROTFL! Anyway, to come to the point, two pages before Little Edward was another piece of bad Wordsworth verse entitled "The Aged, Aged Man." I don't remember it like I do Little Edward, but there must be a subterranean channel there making unconscious connections between poems about Aged, Aged Men. Not only that, but Rev. Dodgson parodied this Wordsworth poem! (If such a verse can be parodiable!) The Wordsworth poem goes like this:

The Aged, Aged Man

My question eagerly did I renew,
"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"
He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
The waters of the pools where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

And now I can't resist putting in part of Carroll's version:

I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
"Come, tell me how you live," I cried,
"And what it is you do!"
He said "I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night."

I think Carroll has Wordsworth beat in the exploration of the subject of aged men and what it is they do. Well, this has been a delicious and funny exploration. I'm so glad I started an online journal so I could do this!

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October 29 Tired and Uninspired

This has been the longest week.
I went candy shopping with Younger One tonight. I ate a large quantity of Good & Plenties, he ate Milk Duds. Other than that, we are not much into Halloween festivities this year. It seems too much for me.

I was not thinking about John Glenn when I wrote about the aged, aged men last night. Another pointless coincidence.

The Galland workshop was canceled. So much for my piercing sense of destiny about attending it.

This morning I woke up with a severe case of self-criticism. It was irrational, of course. It took awhile to go away. I received an eerie letter from one of my Dear Wise Ones, who wrote that it is okay to be flaky, to go ahead with it. I can't say how much this helped, and was what I needed at the moment.

It's a platitude to tell people, especially children, that if they want to get mail they have to write to people. There's definitely a deeper spiritual principle at work here. Why does it always take such an effort for me to write? to call? I'm consciously trying to increase the percentage of good mail to junk mail, and it's working. I often get at least one piece of really good mail. I realized I could also apply this principle to the phone. I have a dread of the phone because I am used to bad calls. What if there were a higher percentage of good calls in my life, that I would willingly answer the phone because I expected something great?

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October 30 "A black flame on a ruby field"

I want to rant and rave.
I'm accessing my Kali energy. It's scary. I feel wicked. I went to the church's speaker's forum tonight. The topic was Vampires. I dressed up, in black, and painted my lips with plum eye pencil, not having any dark lipstick in the house.

The speaker went to a lot of effort. The room was decorated with black tablecloths, bats, flickering light bulbs, and lots of Halloweeny goodies. He even brought a smoke machine.

The program was a strange mixture of literary history, bits of story, cultural lore, and truly gory descriptions. It didn't really come together. I got very very tense listening to him.

Kids were in the audience. I'm glad I didn't bring Younger One. The stories of Vlad the Impaler were a little too much. And the literary stuff would bore a kid to death. I kept trying to wean my mind from worrying about these kids' attention span and horror tolerance. I have been too well trained in intuitive perception of kids' comfort or discomfort, since they weren't even my kids.

In addition to this, I was roiling with stifled performance energy in my seat. I wanted to breathe fire. I wanted to act out the giggling sisters (and I did afterwards at coffee time). I tried to will the speaker to be more frightening, more transporting, more heinous. I was relieved when he started using his arms a little more. I was relieved to notice small effects like the eerie church windows backlit behind him, and the way his small reading light made shadows on his face. Well, basically I was bored. And the smoke machine made my throat sore and my head ache.

And I was disappointed in the audience. B made up half her face. But no one else made any effort at all. And the conversation bores me to death. I was becoming the living dead. What is wrong with me? What do I expect? They are laughing at things that can't possibly be funny. Why? More tense, more headache as I try to make conversation and pretend I'm having fun.

The speaker did mention Kali in the context of India's vampire lore. I never thought of the vampire connection, although I just recently read again about her lapping up Raktabija's blood. I latched onto Kali and "prayed" to her to help me.

Here at home, I look up some of Kali's story, and it puts me in touch with the real power and I am so relieved, my insides come back to life:

I strike that Pomegranate with my dart.
My Kali laps up his blood.
He strikes with his club;
it touches me like cotton.
I smite him with arrows, swords and spears.
Chamunda drinks the blood away.
Bloodless he falls to the ground,
a hollow white pulp, crumpled and dry.

So I with my Seven Great Mothers
kill King Shumbha's hosts
and Raktabija, mighty champion.
How we dance after that, black flames on a ruby field,
with the thrill of our gorging.
~Suzanne Ironbiter, Devi

Oh, how I want to watch Kali at work among all boredom, felling the tedious hordes, leaving hollow white pulps, crumpled and dry. Or maybe they already are hollow white pulps, crumpled and dry. Maybe Kali has already been through there, and then gone ahead. If so, I want to dance after that, a black flame on a ruby field.

What am I missing? I don't have anything against these people, honestly. I just know I need something different, so I don't get this tense face. So I don't get stifled Halloween spirit energy every year. My excitement goes inward, turns on itself, and makes me sick. My Kali, help me.

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October 31 Eerie high-pitched moaning

Tonight I unexpectedly got to hold a white hula hoop draped with yards and yards of white netting over my head and run in the street scaring little children with my eerie high-pitched moaning. I'm feeling much better about the holiday. Thank you, all my Dear Ones and all my Dead Ones.

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