November
01 "Crônicas"! 02 Love and a rose 03 Many reactions 04 Jamie and Marcy 05 Lactation and language 06 More Sucking 07 "Quotation" 08 St. John's 09 Trying to get everything fed 10 What hit me 11 Sarasvati 12 A Point, A Point 13 Cutting off my nose ... 14 Proficiencies and Deficiencies 15 Are you a poet? 16 This evening's vows 17 Normalcy 18 Positively Revolting 19 Tooth and Claw 20 Ma semblable, ma soeur 21 Vacation 22 Lovely names 23 Chore Day 24 If you see a woman frowning 25 Westwick is born 26 Mother Goose 27 My cornucopia 28 Down to earth 29 Beating the poachers 30 The poisonous and the radiant
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November 1 "Crônicas"!

A new author! Clarice Lispector was recommended to me by one of my new correspondents. I did manage to get to the library and browse some of her books before I went off to the bookstore and bought some. I bought The Stream of Life and Selected Crônicas. I haven't had enough time to read at length. But the back cover of Crônicas has the following information: The chronicle, a literary genre peculiar to the Brazilian press, allows poets and novelists to address a wide readership on any theme they like. Lispector's Saturday column from 1967 to 1973 in Rio's leading newspaper, the Jornal do Brasil, was, even by the Brazilian standards, extraordinarily free-ranging and intimate -- astonishingly so to readers of U.S. newspapers. The 156 crônicas collected here (variously taking the form of serialized stories, essays, aphorisms, conversations with taxi drivers, random thoughts, introspective revelations, memories) are endlessly delightful. I have found a "sister" format to the online journal! Except for the fact that I'm not a famous novelist or poet and God knows I'm not addressing a wide readership. I'm curious whether the online journal is filling a need for this type of writing in the U.S. audience. I can't ever recall seeing anything like this in a newspaper or magazine. We have columnists, for sure, but they write in a journalistic rather than literary vein.

This morning I was surprised again by writing. I took the morning "off" which meant playing hooky from church, staying in my room, reading some, sitting at my desk, being interrupted every 10 or 15 minutes by Younger One and/or the dog. When I got to my desk I was struck with an urge to write on my November topics for the journal group. I wrote something very quickly, following a golden thread through the quantity of topics. I was interrupted once and asked them politely -- no, there was a trace of frustration -- to leave me alone. I got right back to the piece. The tone of the piece was very exalted. Maybe a little too exalted. But it did get into a "that was then, this is now" approach to childhood, and my life as I've constructed it. I felt like it was a good summary, and "healing" whatever that means. Maybe I'll post it here someday.

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November 2 Love and a rose

Monday after Halloween weekend. I wore a black chenille sweater to work today. Black does nothing for my complexion. My hair is getting long and looks ugly. I tried to wear it in a ponytail but the grip of the band on my hair was giving me a headache. So I just let it hang. Often on Monday I express my difficulty in re-entering the work world by looking shaggily un-put-together. I did a lot of database work today. And I did it really fast. I wasn't thinking very hard and I wasn't being very careful, just whizzing through what I thought needed to be done. If there are mistakes, I'll find them later, or the programmers will find them and come over and complain to me. I'll laugh and comment on how silly I am, and fix it. Unfortunately, none of these skills are useful at all in the world of online journalling. And I went to a long meeting of accountants. I knew very little about the topic. I just wanted to go for a change of technology. Nostalgia for the language of accounting, intracompany transfers, topside adjustments, contra accounts. This stuff makes some vague sense to me, but not enough that I care about it. I know almost nothing about the language of insurance. This is also a technology. I can't believe what people come up with. To some extent I enjoy entering into these technical systems. But it's only as a surrogate for the musky juiciness of the wild grapes of, say, Clarice Lispector's writing. Or, in other words, it's a pacifier for my mind that is really craving the breast. I wrote some bold e-mails tonight, expressing my opinions on creative writing activities. The online journal makes this easier! I have risen in stature in my own mind through this simple action. And -- I spent about an hour cleaning the dining room. The detritus that accumulates after 18 years of living with boys, it's incredible. I threw out another large sack of miscellaneous broken stuff. I've got a bag of clothes to let B pick through, and three large stacks of books to go to the book sale. I took down all the small muddy colored pictures in the dining room. There were five of them. Well, actually there's six, but I have a sentimental attachment to the really badly muddy one of the interior of St. Paul's. It might come down tomorrow. What was I thinking, hanging all these small muddy pictures on the wall? The picture distaste I felt reminded me of college. A bad memory. Freshman year, moving into the dorm. I was excited about dorm life. I carefully packed two posters from my room at home. One was a bright sunny cartoony Garden of Eden type of scene. The other was a out-of-focus picture of a pink rose, with a dark greeny blue blurry background, and the word "Love" written ever so tastefully in white script... I was happy to hang these posters in my dorm room. I don't think my roommate said it to my face, but I distinctly remember hearing her say the "Love" poster was "trite." I know I was an unsophisticated little Midwestern-at-heart Catholic-raised good schoolgirl. And I still exhibit some really really bad taste because I fall in love with some strange aspect of an object. But I would never have called someone else's expression of self "trite." I wouldn't let myself care that much back then, and now I really don't care! So don't be surprised if I post some "Love" stuff here.

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November 3 Many reactions

I struggled most of the day. Periodically I was trying to compose this entry in my head; probably a bad idea. The topic was how to apologize for my lack of humility. Or how to refuse to apologize for my lack of humility. Or to discuss some of my other troublesome character flaws: unresolved racism, laziness, lying (I probably would in fact call someone else's self expression "trite"), occasional rages at my children (see Annie Lamott's article in Salon). Somehow a snively critic in a long black habit had invaded my interior haven. Right now, I think it's a backlash effect of stepping into this new venture. This passage from Clarice Lispector is a little much to quote here, but it is so apropos, and I am so grateful for such guidance on the obscure problem of humility/pride in writing, that I will type it in as my penance: ...I am referring to humility as technique. Holy Mother of God, even I have been appalled at my lack of modesty; but here there is some misunderstanding. Humility as a technique is as follows: things should be approached with humility, otherwise they will become entirely elusive. I have discovered this type of humility, which ironically is a subtle form of pride. Pride is not a sin, at least not a grave sin: pride is a childish failing which we succumb to like greed. Except that pride has the enormous disadvantage of being a grave error, with all the consequences which error brings into our lives, for it causes us to waste a great deal of time. (I am filled with curiousity about her prose, which was written in Portuguese. There is a stilted quality in the English which I enjoy; was it translated in, or a quality of the original? Being lazy, I doubt if I will learn Portuguese to evaluate this for myself.) Moral conclusions? Well, I have none, only that I have indeed wasted a great deal of time. BUT I did have time for this: I worked on my graphics design journal, tearing logos out of my stack of junk mail awaiting recycling, then cutting them more neatly with the exacto knife, then organizing them in groups, then pasting them in with a glue stick. I printed out some nice headings, and then drew blue borders around everything with a calligraphy marker. This was a soothing activity. I am pleased with the result and I look at it over and over. I am such a novice at activities like this; it's less tempting to to get trapped between the rock of pride and the hard place of humility regarding my clumsy artwork. And I read Lispector's chronicle on "God's Sweet Ways" about the madness of her maid Aninha. It is three pages long and completely devastating. At the end, I had my "violent urge to throw the book across the room, because the writing is so utterly powerful" reaction. And, you know, come to think of it, I had my "sudden shuddering intake of breath when I am awed by some simple evidence of growth in my children" reaction today. Younger One was home alone most of the day because school was closed for voting. His capable discussions with me on the phone triggered that reaction. These reactions are very distinctive and very pleasant, but also shocking. I don't have them often. But they are always the same when I have them. They are more rare than "the forceful springing of tears to the eyes combined with gut-wrenching rueful desire to laugh" reaction, which I experience often reading Anne Lamott, and which I also experienced today! Wow, I dug up buried treasure of involuntary reactions, three in one day! So there, black-robed snively demon! See what was going on underneath all of your bleating! Anne Lamott,"Mother Rage: Theory and Practice"

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November 4 Jamie and Marcy

Now they're both gone. I feel sadness, mixed with a small bit of awe, and a faint strange elation. Although I don't have a close connection with the family, I am stunned by wondering how their father, an aged aged man himself, will cope with the loss of two grown children in the same year. I am comforted by thinking that they were both accomplished artists. Their father became a sculptor in the late middle of his life, and must have influenced them. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but I think a life lived close to the eternities in art might make it easier to transition to the hereafter. And for the family -- the practice in self-expression, always available to release grief, to mourn? These are idle thoughts, I'm sure, and have nothing to do with the family's real experience...for all I know it will engender a wickedly painful creative block ... I hope not. But this line of thought does tell me (again) that I'm not going to go along happily if all I can look back on is a life spent hanging around Corporate Systems. At work today I really had a sense that I'm turning into a has-been. I can see it happening. I know I'm extraneous as of now, although people would tell me otherwise. A few years ago I would struggle for a "more meaningful role." Now I just laugh and talk to myself alone in my corner. I'm trying to be practical. Even though my head is caught up in a web all day.

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November 5 Lactation and language

I am feeling overwhelmedness creeping up behind my eyes. The weekday routine makes me a little jaggedy by Thursday. And I'm slipping into constant comparison mode. I can't believe people can actually draw. I can't believe people can actually write as much as they do on the web. I can't believe programmers can actually get interested in "child windows" and "losing focus" and other technical minutiae. I'd like to go out and sit around a campfire for several days. Breastfeeding came up again today. (Is this odd?) An intense female companionship moment between two women starved for it. The brief conversation brought back a lot of memories. It turns out there are lactation consultants. This term, so Latinate, make me want to hoot with derisive laughter. Can't we come up with more earthy words for this role? I also hate the idea of "lactation rooms" in the workplace. Even though one of my more embarrassing moments was having Lonnie (she was even an LPN for god's sake) barge in on me in my office while I was barechested pumping over lunch. It does look rather kinky. I got really good at pumping. I could produce 8 whole ounces in about 15-20 minutes. And I never used an electric pump, just one of those really simple plastic horns with a rubbery blue squeeze bulb. I think I was able to be absent-minded enough that I could drift off mentally and just let the pure sensation take over. And maintaining my milk supply was very important to me, since I so reluctantly went back to work when Older One was three months old. This was back in 1980. There was an earth-mother ethic in the air out in California. I still hold that ethic as an ideal, but I will never reach it. As kids, we called breasts "milk pods." Milk pods still sounds really natural to me. I don't know if we knew the word breasts. I think I like milk pods better, although I'm sure the word breasts has Anglo Saxon roots. When I first heard my next-door neighbor say the word vagina (except she mispronounced it "bagina"), I was fascinated. I thought she made up the word and was impressed by the exotic sound. Now I dislike all the Latin based words for female body parts, uterus, clitoris, vagina. These words are not very cuddly. I think these words scare children, I know they scared me.

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November 6 More sucking

I spent most of today learning Doc-to-Help. I am proud that I was able to figure it out. I was almost sure that the CD was defective and had not installed all the pieces because it was so mysterious. And the manual did not clarify it in the least. But I was determined in that grim way I get. By the end of the day, I had a presentable basic help file generated. I need this little credential for my resume, now I am a Doc-to-Help expert, you see. I think the hard work left me feeling empty. The emptiness creeps up on me through the week. By Friday night I am livid with emptiness. The news stories about Honduras are haunting me. I'm reading all I can about it. Unimaginably horrible. I want to go there. Not for any humanitarian purpose, just to observe and write about it. The death toll is very great. Yet the numbers sound like just another stock market report, 9000 is 9000 is 9000. I forgot to credit Rita Mae Brown's Starting from Scratch: A different Kind of Writer's Manual with teaching me about Latinate and Anglo-Saxon words. I like this book a lot, even though she comes on very strong with the advice, such as I must buy the 13-volume Oxford English Dictionary and I must learn Latin. (Do I know Latin? I studied two years of it in high school. I remember Julius Caesar's soldiers in the field -- campos -- and that the ladies of the night wore yellow robes.) But Rita Mae Brown's energy is very strong. I like that in a writing book. Goldberg, LaMott, Brown, and LeGuin. Writing books I look at over and over. I don't like Poemcrazy as much, it seems gimmicky. I like Goldberg for her Zen influence, LaMott for her hysteria, Brown for her taking no shit, and LeGuin for being opinionated, and wonderful and Eldress. They are all dedicated to writing. I read their books to suck cannibalistically on their spirits, not so much to absorb knowledge. Speaking of sucking, I finally realized all this breastfeeding resonance has to do with (triteness alert) learning to "nurture" myself. I'm wondering less about Durga and Kali and more about Tara, Prajna, Sarasvati. I'm not even sure of their names, but they are the sweet, close, compassionate. Why should I not have their presence in my life as well?

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November 7 "Quotation"

Quotation By Czeslaw Milosz, trn. by the author and Robert Hass "The poet Jean Valentine once said in an interview, 'Of course all poetry is prayer. Who else would we be addressing?' Part of me wants to agree with her, but I don't know that it's that simple. There does seem to be something essentially unsecular about poetry: both in traditional, oral cultures and in our own, people rely on poetry to convey truths about matters of life and death that are accessible in no other way. In contemporary America, poetry offers many people -- including poets -- the consolation they no longer find in traditional religion."* *Kathleen Norris, "Symposium on Writing and Spirituality," Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, 1995, p.116. I found this in The American Poetry Review, Nov/Dec 1998. I am baffled by the presentation as a "prose poem" by Czeslaw Milosz, when it actually seems to be by Kathleen Norris, via Jean Valentine. And certainly not what I would consider a prose poem. But, putting all that aside ... Poetry / religion / poetry / religion. I want to zero in on the intersection, where words burst into transcendence, like woodcocks flushed from the bushes, with a heart-stopping whirring. Do people without "traditional religious" backgrounds experience this in the same way? I don't consider myself "religious" although I am extremely interested in religion. I find religious words and images laden with power, and that's why I like to use them. Every religious word or image I use is also full of irony, because it's only a shadow, a stand-in, anyway.

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November 8 St. John's

Feeling very run-down and headachey, I still somehow managed to clean the upstairs bathroom and go into New York to visit the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I am squirming around to find an alternative to my Unitarian congregation. The cathedral made me feel strange. I am alienated from so much, yet attracted by so much. I was constantly sorting impressions and reactions: keep, keep, no thanks, keep, no thanks. Keep: the physical environment, dark and light, shadowy, the great stone pillars, walls, the beautiful stained glass windows, the floor tiles, the carved stone, the Green Man (especially the Green Man), the ecumenism such as it is, the smell of incense, candlelight, Evensong, quiet empty chapels, Artists-in-Residence. No thanks: the whole idea of church hierarchy which a cathedral represents, most of the theology, all talk of Lords and Kings, the robber baron inception and funding, Christian piety, moralism (more on this later), and I dare say the whole idea of religion. And then an article in the NYTimes magazine about Dorothy Day, keep, keep, no thanks, keep, no thanks ... I am too weary to wrestle with any more of this tonight. Cathedral of St. John the Divine

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November 9 Trying to get everything fed

I left work at 4:30 today to take Younger One to the dentist. It made him unhappy. He had to have a fluoride treatment and he couldn't eat for half an hour. After the dentist, we stopped at the grocery store for iguana food. The iguana has not had any greens in days. I bought him a squash and some kale. Younger One got a pack of wintergreen lifesavers out of me, although he made a strong pitch for a huge packet of sour gummy worms. We got home, he ate lifesavers since his half hour fast was now up. I realized (apparently for the first time) that I had a severe time conflict facing me. I had to go pick up Older One almost immediately if I wanted to have him sit while I went out for the poetry evening I had arranged with a mentor/friend, to feed my hunger for poetic interaction. I walked the dog quickly. Then Younger One fed the dog. Then he fed the iguana, chopping up the squash into little bits. I was panicking, trying to conceptualize dinner which was not dog food or raw squash. I offered to get the boys a bucket of fried chicken, and Younger One said "BLEAH" to me, and I said well, your brother will make you some macaroni and cheese, and I ate some leftover polenta with black bean sauce out of a microwaveable black plastic dish. Then I went to pick up the older one, who is not a nurturing soul at 18, and brought him back and dropped him off, and went to my poetry evening. My poetry evening was lovely, I was greeted with a red fruit popsicle at the door, and she listened to several of my poems, and I hers, and we played with words and concepts and told some stories of our lives, and at the end we looked at my strange surreal poem "November Invites" and it didn't scare her away, she delved into it. So I left feeling full, topped off even, contented. At home, Younger One is sitting on the couch in a deep funk, watching a wonderful TV show on Public Television about a master glassblower. I deduce that he's had no dinner, although he refuses to speak to me, and just looks at me rolling his bloodshot eyes and shrugging his shoulders and being choked up. I fall into a desert ravine of guilt, which I can't rationalize away by the fact that the house is full of food, and I've just had his teeth fixed so that he can even eat, and aren't all the pets fed anyway, and didn't I even buy Kitten Chow over the weekend to give the new kittens something to exercise their new teeth on? And what about that master glassblower, where are his children, and are they fed?

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November 10 What hit me

It's tough doing poetry on a Monday. It spoils me for the rest of the week. The best thing that happened today: I "refinanced" my mortgage on the spur of the moment. Actually, it was called a "Mortgage Modification" and it was with the bank that has my mortgage currently. For minimal cost, I got 1.25% reduction. Which was just what I wanted. I hated the thought of spending a lot of time "researching" this financial matter. I just don't have the competitive spirit necessary to "win" the best rates for the lowest fees. Keep it simple, save a little money, part of my plan to reduce expenses reasonably, so I can eventually approach free-lancing. So I took my son and B's two boys out to my parents' house tonight. Younger One will stay there tomorrow (another day off school) and get some extra nurturing, which he needs. I felt like exploding there, as usual, and I did gush a bit about the financing. I always feel I'm being unseemly (unseemily?) emotional, then I clam up. And I always have to listen to crime stories. Then at home blessedly alone for a little while, I sort of tumbled into Plath's The Collected Poems looking for some lines about pregnancy being like getting on a train. I couldn't find them. But I did feel an amazement which held hands with and soothed the feverish exploding sensation. She wrote some really awful poems. I mean great poems that are just so awful. I like reading them. They go too far. They make it okay for me to go as far as I do. I think of Sylvia frequently, in her cold English household, two small kids, sick, the darts of poetry tormenting her. It's a sobering line of thought, but also beautiful. I don't think people recognize how beautiful the awfulness is.

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November 11 Sarasvati

There are a lot of very annoying to-do's buzzing around my head tonight. I'm trying to keep my focus on inspiration like this: Sarasvati, "the Flowing One," is the Goddess of communication in the Hindu pantheon of India. She is the daughter and partner of Brahma and represents the union of power and intelligence that allows creation to begin. Her power is that of creation through the word, and chief among her other names is Vach, "Speech." In that form, she is the wife of the god Vision and the mother of the Emotions. She also gives birth to the apsaras, who are celestial water nymphs who represent uncreated potentialities. from Z. Budapest's The Goddess in the Office Sarasvati is the goddess for Wednesday. I read this this morning, after invoking Sarasvati (not knowing anything about her) last night in my journal. I was charmed and had the heretical thought that I wanted it to always be Wednesday. This energy is so good for me. The union of power and intelligence? Speech? (I love that a goddess gets the name Speech!) And the celestial water nymphs? I read a Plath poem last night ("Stillborn")that awfully compares the dead poems to stillborn fetuses: "They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!" I would rather think about celestial water nymphs, the uncreated. Although both forms are nonexistent, they are from opposite emotional perspectives. The nymphs are a lot more hopeful. I wish Sylvia would have connected with more Sarasvati energy. Another sentence from Z: "She is a good patroness for women involved in any aspect of the literary profession, arts, or entertainment or anyone whose job includes a lot of writing." Or a web journal-iste.

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November 12 A Point, A Point

Carbon monoxide, radon, sewer gas, asbestos, weapons of mass destruction!!!! Whew -- shaking my head to clear it!!!! I converted databases from Access 2 to Access 8 most of the afternoon. I managed to figure out how to switch from the 16-bit ODBC driver to the 32-bit. None of this makes any sense to me. I'm following some nonsensical instructions from some whimsical King to spin straw bytes into golden Year-2000-compliant bytes. Then I shall be set free from this little room as soon as I guess the name of the proper driver. For relief from boredom, I browsed Marcy's website. It's definitely the eeriest site I've seen on the web. It also had some information I could tolerate about graphic arts. Goodbye-world I also read a little about Cascading Style Sheets and other geekstuff. Then I had to come home and do my graphic design homework: draw 20 thumbnail logos in pencil on tracing paper for a mythical company called "Jump!" I guess it's possible to learn to be more visually oriented. I did find Marcy's web work very appealing. I wanted more. I had a brief fantasy of going to a design school with a lot of young kids to learn computer graphics. I wouldn't be able to do it unless I knew the Point. Younger One and I have a saying: "A Point! A Point!" (It's said in a whining, plaintive tone.) When he was about three, I ordered him snowboots from a catalogue. We had to try them on immediately upon delivery, and I was impatiently trying to jam his foot into the boot. He was plaintively calling out "A Point, A Point!" I was looking at him like he was a little idiot, until I finally realized the boot had a large wad of tissue paper stuffed into the toe. Tonight I was frustrated by the pencil sharpener. It just wasn't sharpening the 2B pencil I was jamming into it, and I needed to get to my Jump! thumbnails. Younger One took it apart, and -- that's right -- "A Point, A Point" had broken off inside it. The saying finally came into its own.

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November 13 Cutting off my nose...

I am wading through a swampy slough of my own making. I hate Friday nights. I am so tired of the conflict between going out and staying home with my child. My ex- is supposed to have him on Friday and Saturday, but has not been able to for two weeks running because his car got stolen and torched. (I love saying that, "torched.") I was supposed to go out to Poem Alley tonight. I couldn't bring myself to ask any of my friends from church to childsit. I couldn't bring myself to think of bringing him. Instead I convinced myself that I needed to be home with him. Then I convinced myself that the session tonight would not be very good anyway. Then I convinced myself that I always feel obligated to attend this poetry event and support it, and I hate that feeling of obligation. Then I convinced myself that I shouldn't be so hard on myself because I have trouble "asking for help" with him. Then I came home from work and walked the dog and went immediately to bed. I slept for a little while and woke up in a very foul mood with a bad stomachache. He made me a cup of tea, and we looked at his school pictures, which came out wonderfully this year, and we talked in the bed for awhile. Xoom has been refusing my uploads for two days. I started looking into other providers already. It's just too frustrating. I am feeling very hopeless. Friday nights are often the worst time of the week for me. Here's a link to my kind of website. A tiny ray coming out of the computer, although I am completely unaccepting of this frame of mind right now. Dana Reynolds, Sacred Imagination

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November 14 Proficiencies and Deficiencies

Graphic Design class today. I drew and redrew the Jump! logo about 100 times. It occurs to me that doing anything well takes a huge amount of practice. I feel a little panicky about that. Two soothing thoughts: one, I already have a huge amount of practice behind me in journal writing (30 years! in fact!) and two, you don't necessarily have to do something well to enjoy it. YO and I raked leaves this afternoon. I had to pay him. I have completely lost interest in the yard over the past few years. Now I do the bare minimum. I do like to carry the leaves up the hill into the back, where they can compost and keep down the weeds. I don't like the city to come around and suck up all my compost and take it away. But it's an effort to carry them up the hill. I felt chest pains this afternoon. I don't get a lot of strenuous exercise. Xoom is still refusing uploads. I started looking at Infoseek, but couldn't figure out how to upload without a Netscape or MSIE browser. I am really deficient in tools. And I like it that way! For now.

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November 15 Are you a poet?

Today, the mild Plathian blues I've been fighting off since Friday erupted in an ugly fit of tears and self-pity under a bush. But now, I'm feeling much better. I'll try to describe my day. Since I can't upload (still), I don't know why I'm bothering ... but hey ... I'm writing into a void anyway. The early morning was full of chores with my son and the dog, typical stuff. I was a little fretful, but I did get a quick note written to a correspondent which provided a bright ray of uplift. A strange conversation with the Older One before we left for church. I think he was asleep during the conversation. He was asking me to help him move some furniture. Then at church. I go to a Unitarian Universalist "Society" and it drives me crazy. I am not sure exactly why. I am greeted by Older One's failed mentor who is wearing an EMT uniform. He wants to kiss my cheek and, although he makes my skin crawl, I let him. L wants me to help her take up the collection and I agree. I can cope with this simple job. Peggy is in the pulpit! I am relieved. I love to see women up there. F is the service leader and she is marvelously inept, shuffling papers, losing the announcements. It turns out there will be an open discussion on "whether we should bomb Iraq." I'm starting to fume unreasonably in my seat. Younger One goes out with the other children for religious education. I am moved by Peggy's words. But I'm dreading the "open discussion." I am freaking out inside about the grandness of the topic and the potential for open conflict or chaos. I want to take the microphone and rant irrationally at the congregation to get "local", look at our own part, and maybe if you spent more time taking care of other people's children here at home, and less time worrying about faraway Iraqi women and children... Which is of course completely "my issue." And I feel even lamer about my inner words because many people in our congregation DO take care of other people's children. In fact, mine is in a nice class right at this moment. Peggy's working with runaway teenagers. L took in an extra teenager (I had another irrational bad reaction to that, another story...) D&B are going to a christening this afternoon, a grandchild of one of their taken-in teenagers. The mentor may have failed, but at least he volunteered in the first place. And there's a canned milk drive for Honduras, for which I, like a dolt, forgot to bring a milk contribution. So needless to say, I don't take the microphone to voice my thoughts. Then I feel bad about that. Choked. Speechless. Thankfully, a few female voices are heard. Thankfully, it's not too hard to get out of the social room afterwards. After church, I run a few completely frustrating errands.. Traffic is terrible, the parking lot is full, the checkout lines are long, Younger One is talking to me non-stop about cars, I am being really really stingy with him. I totally forget to get home in time to give Older One a ride to work, and I hate myself for that. I'm feeling my chest clogging and constricting with frustration. Speechless. I excuse myself from the kitchen with a choking excuse, and go up in the far backyard and lie down under a bush with my head in the dirt. I don't know what to do with myself! What is wrong with me? I stare at the yellow leaves against the bright blue sky and watch crows wheeling and fighting, while tears roll down into my ears. Nothing comes to me. No words, no prayers, no ideas, no mantras. I'm telling myself, "it's a beautiful day, why can't you enjoy it?" I'm still upset about the question "Should we bomb Iraq?" I'm still upset about Friday night. I'm upset about Sylvia Plath, for god's sake. So I just lie there for awhile and gradually the fit passes and a blessed little neighbor boy comes over to play with Younger One and I get up and go inside and go to sleep for a couple of hours to escape. I am trying to figure out a way to live a spiritually fulfilling life with children. It does not seem possible to me. I have been this way for years and I'm helpless to improve the situation. I don't want to say this, because I haven't read the book, and in fact I don't know if it does take a village, but I do know that it takes more than one looney introverted under-nurtured word-swilling mother. Another single bright ray: after his religious education class, which dealt with poetry, Younger One asks me "Are you a poet?" I've learned to say Yes when asked a question like that, so I do, and I even manage to wait for several more seconds before I qualify it with "trying to be." And, another single bright ray! I confessed to Fay that I want to play Mother Goose at the storytelling festival she is planning for the spring!

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November 16 This evening's vows

Here's what I got as a gift last night just before Sleep: Crying out loud and weeping are great resources. A nursing mother, all she does is wait to hear her child. Just a little beginning-whimper, and she's there. God created the child, that is, your wanting, so that it might cry out, so that milk might come. Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent with your pain. Lament! And let the milk of Loving flow into you. Rumi, "Cry Out in Your Weakness," in Delicious Laughter, Coleman Barks It's a measure of my alienation that I take this gift as amusing rather than as a miracle, after yesterday. Anyway, tonight I got to upload! And I got an unexpected free hour! I rushed over to the library. Emily Dickinson accompanied me in the car on the way there. I returned a lot of books, some overdue. Then I got myself over to a table and wrote like a fiend. I'm not sure what I wrote, some form of ranting which I'll reread later. I knew I only had about a half hour, so the fierce compression of time helped. In the car on the way home, Mary Daly accompanied me. I hereby confess that I have vowed several times to myself that I will read ALL of Emily Dickinson, but I have not taken my vow seriously. This time I will honor my vow. (I should give myself a time limit or formalize this in some way.) Not only that, but I have to annotate her so later I can easily find words and phrases that I need. Like the line about "In the name of the Bee..." And I wonder if there is any way I could meet Mary Daly in person. As far as I know she's still teaching in Boston. She has a new book out, Beacon Press. This also requires solemn follow-up.

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November 17 Normalcy

I had lunch with my best, best friends from work. It's a rare event when we get together for lunch. We always laugh a lot and vent a lot. I noticed, as I always do, that even in the midst of this festivity, I feel removed, almost to the point of catatonia, sometimes. I laugh, but I contribute almost nothing as far as stories. I listen. I often end up feeling I have no life because I tell no stories. Walking my dog tonight, making up journal. The image came to me of one of those rubbery tan air-filled toys. You squeeze the base and the eyes, ears, and nose pop out. I can't recall the name of them, and neither could my boys. But that's what I felt like at lunch. I was sitting there all polite, quiet, appropriate, listening, laughing. But squeeze me, and my whole face pops out with the strangest stuff: I'm considering free-lancing. I want to change my name. I'm looking into going to seminary. I'm crazy about a bunch of dead authors. I am keeping a flaming sweet-potato-colored online journal. When I look at this stuff from their point of view, I see that I have a tenuous grip on reality. But I don't feel that way from my point of view. I'm just comfortable with a couple different realities. Sometimes comfortable. I roboted through the day essentially. Lunch. Writing Help text. Browsing journals. Solving a few problems. I made dinner, paid bills, and took out the trash. Zero inspiration. Younger One got new clothes from the catalog today. He looked adorably cuddly in his new fleece robe and navy long underwear. He got these so he would have "normal" sleepwear for his 5th-grade excursion, a week away from home at the end of the month. Older One has figured out how he's going to learn to drive. He stayed home and washed the dishes tonight. Together we listened to a "They Might Be Giants" CD. They are a band the whole family enjoys. My favorite song: "Birdhouse in Your Soul." It's a song about a nite lite - "Who watches over you." My favorite lines: "There's a picture opposite me / of my primitive ancestry / which stood on rocky shores and / kept the beaches shipwreck free." I can't help it, I know it's a silly song, but this part gives me visceral chills.

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November 18 Positively Revolting

Mary Daly's Home Page In honor of the Be-Dazzling rays of influence issuing from Mary Daly (or "Merry Daily" for these purposes) onto this journal Gyn/Ecology had a more direct influence on me than any other book. It was 1993, Feminist Theory, at some point in the middle of the book, I started to laugh and immediately shed any remnants of the skin of Catholicism that was clinging to me. Today Mary Daly contributed to my headache. I believe every word she says but I find her work impossible to live. Her books are a Tremendous Challenge to me, so tremendous that they backfire into discouragement, despair, and denial. I start to hate her because my troubled little spooked self says she goes too far, she looks like a fool. I am curious if she has built any kind of continuing communal effort living out her philosophies. I am worried that the answer is "No." I want to make a pilgrimage to her office (if she has one) in Boston College (Theology Faculty) to find out. It makes me giddy just to see her name amongst the SJs on the Faculty there. Her new book is called Quintessence. She puts her finger right on my doubts here: "Quintessence," as she describes it, is the connecting fifth element, "the Source of our power to Realize a true Future." Tapping into Quintessence, she argues, can enable us to name and confront "the escalating atrocities ... against women and nature and [summon] Courage and Hope to transcend [them]." The Source of our power to Realize a true Future => whirlwind of doubt => belief => doubt => belief In any case, she has given me some useful words. Especially "beta" (I'm surrounded by it) and "cognitive minority of one" (I'm quite sure I represent it). I never quite worked my way up to being Positively Revolting, but I was a Hag for a few years there. I even had a button to prove it. "Hags Unlimited." It was a college group, and I was an honorary townie. We were an active group, formed out of the Feminist Theory course. We brought in some great speakers: Ntozake Shange, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eve Ensler. I wrote a proposal for the "Hags on the Loose Players" to perform a staged reading of Woolf's Between the Acts at the Woolf Conference. It was accepted! We were filled with excitement and joyful energy, and announced our participation to our professor as a wonderful surprise. Trying to get it together to plan this performance, the group disintegrated with lightning speed. I could analyze Why, but it's too depressing and I'm not that much of a theorist. I am left with even greater scepticism about Daly, and her "true Future." It's too hard. I still get mail addressed to "Hags on the Loose." And I might incorporate some of Daly's Third Passage into my website. "Sparking: The Fire of Female Friendship" and "Spinning: Cosmic Tapestries." Oh, they do sound beautiful, but oh so tremendously challenging...

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November 19 Tooth and claw

Today was a mixed bag. The journal does embrace variations in tone, doesn't it. I am intimidated by the thought of writing a novel or even stories, for a lot of reasons. But one of them is the need to maintain a sustained tone. The journal accepts the ups and downs, loves them really, needs them! I had my standard response to Mary Daly fever this morning. Felt myself entering that tight spiral of anger and remoteness from reality(?). Said unh-unh, don't go there. I had an image of myself -- it came from how I play video games, which I have only tried once or twice -- I get the little pixilated character boy into a corner and can't get him to turn around -- he keeps bumping and bumping stupidly into the wall in a dead end, while my sons die laughing. Well, that is me with Mary Daly fever. And since this is "Vestinambula," wandering in the halls, it does not do to keep bumping into the wall, so I will set off again on my wanderings. Maybe I just expect too much from my utopian visionaries. I talked to the woman, Donna, from Hartford Seminary today on the phone. I was expecting too much, again. I rang off with a mildly panicky feeling. Too much contact with "faith?" Did I feel a constriction of my vision? A risk to it, whatever it is? She didn't want to meet until after the New Year, which I could understand. That didn't bother me. It bothered me that I felt she was making assumptions when I told her I was an ex-Catholic. She said "or a Catholic worshipping elsewhere." Well, that's not what I said. I said "miscellaneous." Which is something completely different. Anyway, I was a little touchy and I didn't want to talk on the phone. I had to give myself a wee pep talk. "This is known as testing and refining your vision, it's normal, give it a chance, and don't plunge into the depths quite yet." Women's Leadership Institute at Hartford Seminary Oh come on, it does bother you to be around people that are religious. Geeez -- oh never mind. Then I decided to come home for a nice relaxing self-affirming lunch at my own table. When I got here, all hell was breaking loose in the basement. The dog had gotten down there and was terrorizing the cats. We have a dog-free zone and a cat-free zone in this house, you see. They are never allowed to mix, but I guess the door had been left ajar. The kittens were trying to swarm over Older One's bed. Their expressions were of goofy wobbling obliviousness to the whacko dog, who was attacking their mother under the bed. I suppose this had been going on all morning. My heart was pounding with fear that I would find a dead kitten somewhere, but they were all accounted for. I kept grabbing them and dumping them back in the box where they would supposedly be safe from the ravening monster. Back out they would climb, de-duh-de-duh-de-duh. It took me a long time to get the dog out of there because I was afraid of getting bitten or scratched or both. I tried to bribe him with beef, but he ignored it. I tried a couple of times to drag him out from under the bed by the tail, but that failed completely. I finally moved the bed enough so I could whack the cat out from under it with a pillow. The dog followed her into the clear and I grabbed him up with Older One's afghan, hoping it would cushion the biting. He immediately hushed and looked at me as if I had broken him out of a trance and he had no idea what he had just been doing. This "it must have been my evil twin" act didn't fool me one bit, and I stayed mad at him the rest of the day. At least the people in the house are getting along. It used to be me and the Older One going at it in the basement.

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November 20 Ma semblable, ma soeur

Back to Clarice. Last night I had insomnia due to a glass of Coke at around 6pm. Sometimes Coke doesn't bother me, other times I am plagued with wickedly racing thoughts and fight-or-flight symptoms in the bed after midnight. I am usually helpless to help myself and just lie there miserable. And then Older One got home late and decided to take a shower just down the hall. He apparently was taking each cell out of his skin individually and rinsing it down, he was in there so long. I finally got up and pounded on the bathroom door, yelling "I can't sleep." Then I went downstairs for a cup of chamomile tea. I went back upstairs, reminding myself that I have functioned just fine before on very little sleep, and not to get too upset about it. Then I settled into bed with The Stream of Life. In the bookstore, choosing among several Lispectors, I found these words in the first paragraph of The Stream of Life: "I still have the ability to reason -- I've studied mathematics, which is the madness of reason -- but now I want plasma, I want to feed directly from the placenta." That did it, I was taking her home with me. Last night I opened the book randomly toward the end. Her words just poured over me, like the most soothing silent aurality, they stroked away my tension. She is intensely intimate and spiritual without being "religious," that is exactly what I am seeking. And because this is my journal I can quote her here as much as I like! Now I'm frightened. Because I'm going to tell you something. Wait for the fear to pass. It passed. It's the following: to me, dissonance is harmony. Melody often bores me. So does the so-called leitmotif. What I want in music and in what I write you and in what I paint are geometrical lines that cross in space and form a discordance that I can understand. It's pure it. My being becomes completely soaked and slightly intoxicated. What I'm telling you is very important. And I work while I'm asleep: because it's then that I move in the mystery. Sigh. I love the instant of time between "Wait for the fear to pass" and "It passed." I laughed at how quick the instant was, and it taught me a lesson. I love the "you." I often wrote to a you in my private journal before I ever started this online. I don't entirely trust her you yet, that it's a general every-you, and not a husband or lover, but I'm pretty sure she's speaking to me. I understand the "Melody bores me" part. Elsewhere she writes "I love the ugly." I write about that all the time, the ugly, the boring, the discordant. And return return returning to the body, source of all sensations, she is soaked and intoxicated, my involvement intensifies. "What I'm telling you is very important." At this point, the sentence resonates with truth. It does not sound like begging, or propaganda. My sister is soaked and intoxicated, she is speaking to me, I immediately believe every word is important. And then she says, so surprising, "I work while I'm asleep." She moves in the mystery, paradoxical, impossible ... that is where I want to be. I feel a close bond with this writer. I'm reluctant to compare myself to her, but I have to say I'm relieved to find writing that sounds sort of like my writing. I feel more grounded and reasonable. I follow her guideposts. I know today's title words came from a poem but I'm completely unable to remember who or where and too tired from insomnia to look. I'm not even completely sure what semblable means, but I think it means "likeness," "similar one," "kindred spirit." I want to say "Ma semblable, ma soeur" to Clarice.

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November 21 Vacation

I have the whole of next week off. I'm not feeling in vacation mode though. I'm feeling a little desperate because I have no desire to do the things I really ought to do. Clean the house Strip wallpaper in the downstairs bath and upstairs hallway Get my web act together Investigate freelancing further; ask for help I may be using feeling blasted as an excuse. Maybe I'll perk up after another day. I do feel a slight interest in taking a road trip on Monday. Sometimes a change of scene is very helpful. Midway through graphic design class today, I noticed I had a huge spatter of what looked like goose poop going up my white pant leg past the knee. Unfortunately, I think it probably was partly goose poop. We took the dog for a walk first thing this morning to Black Swamp and he likes to kick up muck with his back feet. I tried to hide my leg through the rest of the class. My Jump! logo did look good, even though I was a filthy mess. And I'm sure glad because the next project is to use the logo to create a business system, which is letterhead, envelope, and business card. I'm learning a lot in this class, but I'd rather be taking a web design class. I'm finding it very tedious to learn about the web online. I need to reach a certain point of frustration with my environment before I will go through the pain of enhancing it. And I think I have reached that point. Tonight I downloaded WS-FTP. It did not work, of course. I'm very suspicious of my AOL connection blocking it out. Damn. I really get very annoyed at these glitches. I have enough experience to muddle through most of this stuff, but why should I have to? I have an update to do in the office and I know I'm going to forget to do it...

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November 22 Lovely names

Today I got WS-FTP to work, by upgrading to AOL 4.0. It's all a matter of a small bit of knowledge and that weird software intuition. I wish I could put that on my resume. WS-FTP is an improvement. Now I'm getting a new wrinkle from Xoom, an error message that there's no space left. I wait a little while and then try again, successfully. Very strange. I'm reading a book called The Yale Younger Poets Anthology. Actually I'm just reading the introduction. I have a morbid fascination with editors and what they think makes poetry "good." This book feeds into that and I'm feeling disheartened by it of course. But I did find one very interesting sentence! quoted from a letter Auden wrote to Frank O'Hara: I think you (and John [Ashbery] too, for that matter) must watch what is always the great danger with any 'surrealistic' style, namely of confusing authentic non-logical relations which arouse wonder with accidental ones which arouse mere surprise and in the end fatigue. Now, HOW, I ask you, is one to tell authentic non-logical relations from accidental ones? I would really like to know. Speaking of non-logical relations, yesterday my dog bit a boy named Angel. He's a bigger boy, almost a teenager, and something about that hormonal smell annoys Kirby. I was too horrified and embarrassed yesterday to even write about it. Only today did I realize the symbolic possibilities inherent in the incident. I am getting a little peevish with my synchronistic meaning provider. The other synchronicity of the weekend was running across Tanaquil LeClercq twice in different contexts. She was a ballerina, wife of Balanchine, her dance career ended by polio, written up in a lovely article in the New York Times Magazine. She was also the daughter of one of the earlier Yale Younger Poets. It's a beautiful name, Etruscan and French, but what am I supposed to make of running into her like that? After a long day, I dragged myself to the grocery store to do next week's shopping. Three clerks were gathered around the checkout station talking Creole. Their name tags said "Phara," "Mesidor" and "Andreecarme." The unusual beauty of those names gave me enough strength to get home.

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November 23 Chore Day

It turned out to be chore day. Sometimes I just have to go with it when that obsessive urge strikes, or I would never get anything done. Of course, tonight I am cranky as all hell because I spent the whole day on chores and did Nothing fun. I got my hair cut. I bought a new handle to replace the broken one on the back door. I bought a duffle bag for Younger One to take on his school trip next week. I bought a new vacuum cleaner to replace the one I tried to have repaired, but which turned out to be irreparably cracked on the base. Through all of these excursions, I had to listen to very long-winded people. One explained in excruciating detail how the Rug Doctor worked. Another tried to sell me the new Pentax camera (I was very tempted). The only person that was entertaining was the hairdresser, Odette, who was actually a remarkable raconteuse, and kept me interested in the story of her husband Orlando and her stepfamily one Thanksgiving. As I was saying goodbye, I topped her story by telling her, "Well, my ex- and I usually end up at Thanksgiving Dinner together," and she was suitably sympathetic. Then there were a bunch of extra boys in the house tonight. Kirby did not like Mike, so I had to keep him next to me on the leash, after the Angel incident. When Older One got home, I left 4 boys (Mike was not one of them) and the dog loose in the house for my Monday night out, and, insanely, I tried to go into the office about 7:30 to do that damn update that I keep meaning to do. I got an error message saying that my process was deadlocked with another process, and that my process had been chosen to be the victim, to please run my process again. Why didn't the message just say "Go home you stupid fool, you're supposed to be on vacation?" Don't play games with me like this, ODBC! I didn't know whose process could be running and I didn't want to try to find out, so I left. Then I went to the library quickly and was frustrated to the point of superhuman clenched-jaw patience because the online card catalog was down AGAIN, and the librarian who offered to do lookups for me couldn't spell Natalie and was trying to tell me how the lookup worked. And I couldn't find a collection of Auden's prose which contained anything about the surrealist essay which I know exists. And why am I trying to read Auden anyway? I don't have time to do any research of any kind, Internet, library or otherwise. I guess I shall just have to depend on my own thinking. It's hard to give that up, being Educated and all, like I have been. Meanwhile, there's a lot of paperwork I haven't gotten to, like the mortgage modification signatures, correspondence, and the Poem Alley advertising for December 11. I guess that will be tomorrow. Bummer. At least the carpet is a little cleaner.

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November 24 If you see a woman frowning

If you see a woman frowning in the city, that is me If you see a woman cloudy in the city, that is me If you see a woman singing in the city, that is me If you see a woman sitting in the city, that is me If you see a woman crying in the city, that is me If you see a woman flying in the city, that is me This is a little chant that came to me today. I hightailed it into New York this morning, not wanting to repeat any bit of yesterday. I started to walk up 5th Avenue and this chant came into my head, and it matched my steps very well, and it amused me all day as I walked, as I changed the one word and left the rest the same. This is my idea of fun! I visited the Asia Society. I walked thirty blocks from the station and thirty blocks back, burned a lot of nervous energy. I saw an exhibition of New Chinese art, "Inside Out," which did not grip me especially. I am leery of spending money as a means of spiritual exploration, but I did splurge in the bookstore nonetheless. Long considered purchases, however: A tangka of Green Tara and her eight manifestations A CD called "Trance Tara" with the Om Tara chant (all the Tara background I have comes from Galland's book, Longing for Darkness) Five postcards at 10 cents each A copy of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things which has been highly recommended to me And last but not least, that little $5 paperback edition of the Bhagavad Gita translated by Barbara Stoler Miller In the train on the way home, I started reading the Bhagavad Gita. I had resisted it mightily, even after the Poem Alley session I found so appealing. I thought-- another patriarchally oriented sacred text, about men and war, do I need this? And I had dull memories of reading it in college. But when I started reading today -- maybe it's the translation, which seems fresh and easy to read -- I was shocked to realize it's about my problem with my traditions, my family, my "sacred duties." It's about my problem with Thanksgiving with the family in fact. I was amazed how clearly I saw this. Now I'll be able to read this book, if I have the guts, now I have a "hook" into it. Arjuna says: It is better in this world to beg for scraps of food than to eat meals smeared with the blood of elders I killed at the height of their power while their goals were still desires. I read this as my years of fear of Being Myself around my family, not being the daughter my parents wanted. The work of separation or individuation, to use a psychological buzzword that I'm probably misusing, feels like killing the elders. And I would rather beg for scraps of food than cause some kind of big tension around the Thanksgiving table. Krishna's advice: If you are killed, you win heaven; if you triumph, you enjoy the earth; therefore, Arjuna, stand up and resolve to fight the battle! In other words, stop being such a damn wimp. And: Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action; avoid attraction to the fruits and attachment to inaction! In other words, stop worrying about their anxiety in reaction to your soaring free. (If you see a woman soaring ...) Panic, anxiety attack, heart failure. Well, I have never readily revealed my real face to people in my family. Just as one example, I am dissolving at the thought of sharing this website with them. I know it would be entertaining for some of them. But it's so Personal, so ME. Krishna says Action. It doesn't even have to go so far as sharing this site. Just mention some of the poetry activities I'm involved in. Just speak up about some of the difficulties I experience there. I'm no good at these actions. My little trial balloons have all turned to lead, falling on my toes and causing me to weep. You have no idea how hard it is for me to even say "Unitarian Universalist Society" in a Catholic household. I'm politely ignored for uttering such a faux pas. And here I am with burning questions about my background that I am afraid to ask, have been for years. I suffer over this undone. "The coward is ignoble, shameful, foreign to the ways of heaven."

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November 25 Westwick is born

I got back from dropping Younger One off at Grandma and Grandpa's about 8pm. First thing I did was log on and check email (not much) and next thing I did was buy a domain name (Westwick) and switch to a new service provider. I can be very decisive if I catch myself by surprise. I'm still feeling dazed about the domain. What the hell is a domain? Well, whatever it is I'm getting one. It's kind of a blind stab at my Internet future. It's embarrassing that I'm not a "business." What business or service do I have to offer? I answered "Writing, technical writing, editing." Yeah, that sounds good, I could do that. I'm a lot better at wandering. Westwick: the "wick" comes from my ancestor Cassandra Southwick. Someday I'll tell more of her story. The "west" comes because I love the western United States even though I live almost as close to the Eastern coast as possible (a few miles from Long Island Sound). I also liked the connection with The Witches of Eastwick even though I think it is an absolutely dreadful book and an even worse movie. I'm a little worried that more unknown connotations of this name may come up in the future and make me dislike it for some profound undeniable reason. But hey, can't let imaginary unknown future connotations hinder my work. I am the Wicked Witch of Westwick.

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November 26 Mother Goose

My favorite Mother Goose rhyme: There was an old woman tossed in a basket, Seventeen times as high as the moon; But where she was going no mortal could tell, For under her arm she carried a broom. "Old woman, old woman, old woman," said I, "Whither, oh whither, oh whither so high?" "To sweep the cobwebs from the sky; And I'll be with you by-and-by."

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November 27 My cornucopia

Since I'm too wrapped up in the family holiday to compose, I'm going to type in some words I've already written. If Ann Landers can do it ... This was written for one of my correspondence groups. It's very seasonal. (Here's the story of writing it on November 1st.) The fruits of my life! Somehow, through a miracle!, they do fall from within the emptiness of the curl of the cornucopia. I am amazed. I have been unaccountably blessed! The apples -- my two sons, and I have been able to look into their eyes, and I have been able to speak to them at night, and to calm their anxieties (maybe almost as much as I have caused their anxieties, maybe not ...), and to offer them access to many wonders. The red and green grapes, my writing, which has been voluminous in a journal battle against emptiness for many many years, and I have a strong right forearm for longhand, and I have nurtured a sort of shy smiling confidence in my writing, and I feel hope that someday my writing grapes can be pressed into wine. Pears and figs -- my sensuality, ability to take pleasure ... Clattering nuts fall to the table ... my zany side, my introverted lack of concern for following conventions ... And there's gold coins! My savings, somehow I have plenty of money from my years of slaving in computer jobs, although I never very consciously intended that to happen ... And then there's -- chocolates! My soul work, my connection to the infinite, the sacred, and after all, my unfounded continued Faith that the old woman in the basket will be with me by-and-by, or maybe I'll be with her, or maybe I'll be her, housekeeping in the heavens, preparing for the great thanksgiving feast of the luminaries above some cold November night. With all these fruits, how could I not be embarrassed to admit that I'm a raw beginner in the practice of giving?

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November 28 Down to earth

I spent most of the morning in bed. I worked over at B's yesterday painting a trompe l'oeil rug on the floor. It's turning out great, but like the Princess I am, everywhere my body touched the floor (knees, palms, elbows, butt) I have awful soreness. And all the muscles in my legs are stiff from unnatural bending. This is what happens when you do computer work in a chair day after day after day. When I finally got out of bed, I vacuumed a lot. I rearranged the altar on my dresser. I got Younger One's stuff together for the trip and marked it all with his name or initials. I went out and bought him travel size toiletries and a hat. I think he's almost ready, just packing tomorrow. I dropped Older One off at the bookstore and went in and bought Russell Edson's collection of prose poems The Tunnel. Just one quote from the poem "The Floor": "Dear horizontal place, I do not wish to be a rug. Do not pull at the difficult head, this teetering bulb of dread and dream ..." Maybe that's why I was so down to earth all day, I spent most of yesterday on the floor! Then I went to CompUSA and bought Visual Page. On the whole, it's been a good break. I am getting my web act together. I got some cleaning and some repairs done. (The carpets still need scrubbing.) I haven't done my graphic design homework. I spent about the right amount of time with the family. I spent a great deal of money. I got some "rest." I helped B out with her house. I didn't do much writing at all, except for a long and wiggy journal entry on Thanksgiving morning. I didn't do any work on the free lancing idea. When it comes right down to it, I'm just going to jump into it and scramble I guess. It's good to learn Visual Page. I had some fun with the Russell Edson website. I found out he supposedly lives in my town! He wasn't in the phone book though... Russell Edson

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November 29 Beating the poachers

Tomorrow I go back to work. This morning I woke up with some sentence in my head about the dawn having teeth, because of my pre-work-week anxiety. I was going to write it down, but I figured it was better just to get up and get on with it. I spent most of the day socializing. This leaves me feeling very very empty. Classic introversion, I know. B doesn't understand & it's too difficult for me to try to explain to her. She says I "isolate." Well, I do, but I don't like to call it that, too pejorative a description for what I absolutely need for my health. This balance is so hard to find. Yesterday, I was feeling lonely. Today I'm feeling empty from being with church people, then L, then B and her kids for hours...And on top of it all, on a Sunday I ran into three people I know from the office! The only interesting reading I did today was in the New York Times International pages, an article about the Bishnoi, "Nature-Loving Indians Turn Poachers Into Prey." The Bishnoi are a Hindu sect, followers of Jhambaji, a 15th-century guru. His teachings include rules that instill "a rare reverence for living things that forbids even the breaking of a twig." They traditionally express this belief by hunting down poachers and beating them severely!, although they are being pushed to leave punishment to the courts. Currently they are involved in a lawsuit against a movie idol, Salman Kahn, who is accused of poaching two black bucks. His lawyer says the Bishnois' "attraction to wildlife -- even worship of it -- twists their thinking." The Bishnois' legends include the story of Amrita Devi and 363 villagers who were decapitated as they hugged trees which the local maharajah had sent his army to cut. I'm struggling to impart the sensations this article brought up in me. I guess I am filled with wonder that these people have a long tradition of nurturing all living things. And yet despair that this value system will ever catch on in the broader world. The values of the movie idol and his female co-stars who "were said to have applauded giddily as the actor slit the throat of a wounded chinkara, an Indian gazelle," seem so much more powerful and prevalent. I am so pessimistic. I really have a great fear of confronting any prevailing beliefs or personalities. I go off and "isolate" in my own system. Today I was thinking about the website, and how soothing and wonderful it feels to be here working on it, because it's my own, and I feel safe (?) expressing myself here as I do not face-to-face. I guess it's my own wimpy inadequate lame-ass way of "beating the poachers," because I have given up on myself ever being an in-your-face activist of any kind.

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November 30 The poisonous and the radiant

Nothing is working. I can't get the Visual Page tour applets to work. I can't get FTP commands to work at the new host. I don't know enough to use Visual Page to edit the text files. So I'm just sticking with notepad and xoom for now. A few deep breaths... eventually it comes together. I have a large number of little paragraphs to write tonight. Younger One went off to Nature's Classroom for a week. I was surprisingly anxious about it. He's gone away before for long periods of time, but always with family. I guess I'm worried about his social skills. And just feeling like he's growing up, and really hitting that peer stage. I worked with the Russian programmer for a long time today. I think he's thinking in Russian. He's doing some very strange things to the database. I was surprised. We don't have the same mental map. I couldn't talk him out of what he was doing, although I tried. My only reasoning was that it was inconsistent. I'll have to run it by Boss 2 tomorrow. The word "Bishnoi" was in my head all day. Yesterday's entry was hard to write because it required a sensible synopsis of that article, I couldn't just rave incomprehensibly about the Bishnoi. Whew. Someday I will write about the Naxi, the other people who stunned me in a New York Times article, which I have saved somewhere. I was thinking a lot about introversion today. Why was Sunday draining, but not Friday, when I spent all day with B and another of her friends painting the floor? The answers I came up with: Friday there was a project to engage in, a goal, a tangible accomplishment. And it was okay to be quiet occasionally while we were working. And the most surprising answer: color. I was happy looking at all the color in the paint. Color is very very important to me. So I am unhappy at work in my beige cubicle. I'd like to write a book on the Care and Feeding of Introverts. But I'm struggling with ideas about the tone. I don't really want to write a self-help book. I couldn't treat introversion as a disability in any way. But I can't come across as superior either. I always resort to having to write metaphorically to solve this problem. But then I can't think of what that would look like. Besides just ordinary poetry. Should I take Graphic Design 2? Graphic Design 1 was very difficult for me, taking up most of 14 Saturdays, and learning skills new to me. Graphic Design 2 will be more of the same, but it deals with Color! It's still not computer oriented. I have carried around a little poison nugget inside for about 24 hours. It had to do with B's offhand remark about how much I would have to make to live as a freelancer. It was a higher figure than I vaguely had in mind. Why do I have to take these remarks to heart so? I was going around with my virtual hand to my virtual brow, enacting my famous "death of a dream" scene and thinking I'd have to work at this company for 20 more years. Then I realized I just need to do more research. I hate that. I went to the library tonight. I was in a little bit of a frenzy, and took out many more books than I can possibly read. Some of them actually make me nauseous to think of reading them: Careers for Writers and Others Who Have a Way with Words, Robert W. Bly How to Start a Home-Based Writing Business, Lucy V. Parker Work of Her Own; How Women Create Success and Fulfillment Off the Traditional Career Track, Susan Wittig Albert Job-Hunting on the Internet, Richard Nelson Bolles I'll look at these quickly and see if they make any sense to me. Career counseling has just about killed me before, so I am very wary. Then there's the books I feel attracted to: Claims for Poetry, Donald Hall (has an Edson essay) Surrealism, the road to the absolute, anna balakian (may be too philosophical for me, but the only book on surrealism I could quickly locate) Tick Tock, Short Stories and Woodcut, Russell Edson (a beautifully crafted book, handset type in red and black, 100% rag mouldmade paper, cover of pink handmade Mexican bark paper, number 25 of 200 signed copies! Holy shit! and it was just in the regular stacks, do you think that's wise? -- this is exactly the kind of book I'd like to create some day) The Book of Color, Julia Blackburn (for the title, although it has nothing to do with the color I was writing about above) and last but not least!!! Daisy Bates in the Desert, A Woman's Life Among the Aborigines, also Julia Blackburn, which is definitely in the running for my favorite book of all time. Daisy Bates is described on the book jacket: "not a biography in any conventional sense, but a radiant work of imaginative sympathy." That is exactly what I want to do with the story of Cassandra Southwick, a rather Daisy Bates like character herself, actually. "Have you quite finished?" ~~Mary Poppins Now I have about 10 minutes to read all these books before I doze off...

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