April 3, 2012 by Elle

Question

Sidenote: It drives me to distraction the way web sites bounce all over the place while loading these days. It looks like a page is loaded and you click on something, but no. It’s not loaded and the click results in something entirely different than what you wanted, which then forces you to go back, and then wait again for the page to load, making sure it’s completely loaded, which means sitting there. Okay. Long sentence.

In ANY case, my real point here is to state that I am writing a book with various journal entries throughout the book, and I’m wondering, should I put in dates? Or should I just say JOURNAL and then write it in italics so the reader knows it’s a journal entry. Since I’m not using the year because it could be any year (after a certain point when the internet and smart phones exist because the characters use these items), but should I add the month?

Anyone who cares to answer, please do. Thank you.

April 1, 2012 by Elle

Writing Over the Mountain

Most of the time I just write along on my book and I don’t concern myself with how much is left to finish it. Then other times, like now, I realize what is left and think Gads, there is no WAY I’m going to ever finish this thing. It’s like a damn mountain and I’m an ant. How the hell do those authors who sit and write for 2 days and finish a novel do it? I can type fast, but not that fast, and it’s a lot of work just putting it all together.

Oh well, plug plug. I won’t get anywhere if I’m complaining on here.

March 31, 2012 by Elle

I Remembered Insomnia

I remembered that I didn’t sleep last night, that I woke at 4 in the morning and that the brain turned on, even though I ran through every means I know to try and shut it off, short of taking drugs, which are not useful when taken at that hour because they leave me feeling hung over the following day and I could not afford to feel hung over.

I remembered that I lay there thinking about finishing my taxes, and whether I’m getting enough exercise, and money, and my children, and global warming, and the novel I am not writing enough of, and you, even though you don’t deserve my thinking. I also remembered that I thought “You don’t deserve my thinking” and took pains to steer my thoughts elsewhere, even if the alternatives were not very appealing either.

I remembered when I felt tired at 8 and couldn’t understand why because 8 is not that late that, oh yeah, I didn’t sleep last night, and that also, oh yeah, I didn’t go back to sleep, which I usually do, and that, oh yeah again, I had to get up at 7 a.m., but that when the alarm went off, I reset it for 7:20, but still didn’t fall asleep, so I reset it for 7:50, but finally gave up and got up at 7:30 because lying there and not sleeping was foolish and that if I did fall asleep I would feel misery at having to awaken. Yes, this is a too-long sentence, but forgive me because I’m tired.

March 27, 2012 by Elle

Book Reviews

I can say without equivocation that if I ever published a book, I would avoid like the plague reading reviews by readers on Amazon. Good God almighty some people are nasty! I just finished reading a book that was actually quite good. The plot contained elements that were highly unlikely to happen, but isn’t that the point sometimes, to read about what might happen, not what is? It’s just like going to the movies, often they are fantastical, but we want that for the escape. In any case, I googled the book and the Amazon reviews came up and boy, were some of the readers harsh! I especially love the ones who wrote reviews with terrible grammar and they were complaining that the author should have edited her book. Pot call kettle black much? And then of course the negative reviews complaining that the plot was so unlikely. Well, gee. If you want real life, write a memoir and read that. I suppose it is par for the course, and especially in today’s age of Twitter and Facebook status updates, everyone is an expert, so it is to be expected. I know though, that such reviews of my own work would drive me batty.

March 21, 2012 by Elle

My Eyes Cannot See

I am learning that my eyes cannot see. I have for so long had one view of how my body should look, that undoing that view requires changing my eyes. They simply cannot see me physically for how I am, or see that how I am is how I should be.

Nearly 13 years ago, after the birth of my first daughter, I gradually realized how much I had wrapped up who I am into how I look. When suddenly I did not look as I had, I had to adapt. I didn’t like it, but I had no choice. I weighed more than I ever had in my life. It was still below average, but I felt huge, and I realized that I had to accept it because no matter what I did, I did not lose those last 15 post-baby pounds. Considering I had always been below-average thin, it wasn’t such a bad thing. Just different.

When my daughter was four, she was in a baby ballet pageant with a bunch of other toddlers and small children. They looked like adorable little sausages in their fluffy costumes and wings. I thought they were precious.

Watching them dance on stage, my mom leaned over and whispered, “I can’t believe they would let all those little fatties dance in those tight outfits.” The words were a slap. I realized in that moment that I had been hearing similar statements my entire life. My looks had been commented on and dissected for as long as I could remember. Still weighing 15 pounds more than I had pre-baby, it was an eye opener, further realization that my eyes had been wearing the wrong glasses for my entire life.

Within another year I was back at pre-baby weight. It took nearly 4 years, and ultimately I shed the final pounds when I stopped breastfeeding my daughter at age four and a half. I was satisfied with this. I figured I had learned the lesson those four plus years of being bigger than I was used to. I also thought my eyes could see, that I had learned with a different prescription. I was learning so much more about life, and unlearning so much other early conditioning, the body image adjustments were simply part of all of it.

Since gradually understanding this, I have noticed that both my parents are still completely fixated on looks and the body. I have wondered what happened to them in their upbringing that this is how they think. They are raising my brother’s daughter. She is nearly 5 and somewhat clumsy. In terms of western ideals of beauty, she is not excessively beautiful or not. She is an average looking little girl, based on this definition. Personally, I think she’s darling. Her impish personality shines through in all she does. However, when my parents visit us, they compare her looks to those of my daughters. “Isabel is so dainty. She has such “feminine” features, just like you had and Milla has. Sara isn’t like that. Sara is a clod. She’s so much like her mother.” Comparisons, comparisons, all based on looks. It’s constant. During an entire visit I will hear how beautiful Isabel is over and over. I notice and it feels strange. I try to direct the conversation elsewhere. I know my parents. If I object, they’ll clam up and not visit for a long time and it will be because I was “too critical.” So to keep the peace, I don’t say anything and remember that their visits are infrequent. They will not have the influence on my children that was had on me. But not poor Sara.

In any case, here I am again, post baby at two and a half years. I have begun working with a personal trainer. I’m struggling to bring my weight back down to that pre-baby level. It’s not working. I’m getting a lot stronger, but I’m not getting thinner. I am still breastfeeding and this may be part of it, but yesterday when working on one of the many moves I struggle through in personal training (oh, it is so much more work at this age than 20), I finally allowed myself to look into the wall of mirrors and see what it is I saw. I have avoided these mirrors. When I’m facing them for whatever reason, I will not look at me. I do not want to see how I look.

Yesterday, I looked. I realized that the looking was completely uncomfortable, but I forced myself to keep looking. I realized that my hips are slightly wider than I want them to be, that my breasts are saggier. I kept looking away, but then told myself, NO. I looked again. I stared. I examined my body completely. I criticized the self there. Too big, too big, too big, I thought.

Last night and since, I have been thinking about that. If I saw a woman with the body that I have, I would not think she was too big. I would think she is fine. Why the double standard for myself? I simply can’t see physical body as it is. I then concluded that my eyes cannot see. They have never been able to see. It’s another layer of early conditioning I will need to undo. Our culture makes it much more difficult. My upbringing makes it more difficult. I’m not sure what the result will be for me, but I want to change my eyes so I no longer believe that someone with my shape who is not overweight, is getting physically stronger all over, and is still actually quite athletic is just fine, and that no matter what I weigh, no matter what I look like, it doesn’t really change who I am.

March 18, 2012 by Elle

One More Word on the Page

It is very hard to remain motivated to write when I continuously feel that I am simply not good enough. I realize the issue becomes one of what “good enough” actually is, but I’m constantly reading other writing, always reading so many books, and I see where I lack, and it isn’t a stretch to believe that I’m not good enough. I wish I had known in college what I know now. My participation in creative writing classes would have been so very different. I seemed to get the analytical writing thing pretty quickly, and still feel strong about my abilities in this area, but not so much creatively. I just have nothing against which I can compare except what I read in other books. I know part of why I suspect my fiction writing is not very good is that I’ve given it to many of my friends to read, all of whom are intelligent, capable women, and none of them have said a word. Silence is quite the communicator, and I hear it. Also I’ve submitted some of it for publication or to contests, and have been rejected and have not won anything. It’s disheartening.

I have asked myself why I feel the urge to write and I just can’t come to any simple answer. I just need to, that’s all. This is not helpful. Even when I decide I’m going to give up and never do it again, not much later I’m thinking of something to add to whatever I am currently working on, or something to revise. Maybe it is just habit, but I can’t seem to stop any more than I think I’m not that great. Maybe I’m like the character in the movie Mermaids who wanted to paint, even though his paintings were pretty terrible. Except painting seems more fun than writing. I don’t know.

I wish I could find an editor or some other such person who knew what they were doing in that arena and could tell me how awful my fiction really is. I go to conferences or writer groups or whatever, and it is all about how to persevere through rejection, that J.K. Rowlings was rejected a dozen times before someone discovered her. But at the same time, I have also known people who really are not any good at all and persevere and it seems really pathetic. I guess if the point is to write and not to publish then being terrible doesn’t matter, but as with any artist, I desire an audience, so my quality matters to me. I don’t want to put any more crap out there. The world is so full it already, why add to it?

Anyway, this is my constant struggle. It is always there. I’m not John Irving or Joyce Carol Oates or Stephen King or any of these other writers who can rattle off fabulous book in a matter of months. No. Not me. I have completed one that I know is terrible and needs work, and I am in the middle of another and it doesn’t feel like it’s what I want it to be, and I’m tired. I need motivation, but I don’t know how or where to get it. This is actually a theme in my entire life right now, except for parenting, so maybe I should not be surprised. I just keep plugging on. I don’t think life is supposed to be just plugging on, but it has been that for so long, I accept that thinking it should be something else is perhaps magical thinking. My life has not been like a movie, but I don’t expect it to be. I’ll keep putting one more foot after the other, typing one more word on the page. I’ll finish and then it will be something else.

Maybe I should hire a cheerleader. Craigslist ad: Needed, cheerleader to come to my house and say rah rah rah, sis boom bah. You can do it!

On second thought, no.

March 15, 2012 by Elle

There But for the Grace of God

Yesterday at the grocery store, the clerk asked if I would like to donate my bag credit to charity. Sure, why not. I said that the store should donate the money to the large numbers of homeless parents and children I have seen around the city in the last few months. The clerk said, “Well, they could go to a shelter. They just choose not to because they make more money begging.”

Her attitude bothered me a lot, and it is typical of many who see homeless people and presume that their way is the only way and that if the poor person just did what they were “supposed to” then maybe things would be different. It’s such a paternalistic, patronizing view. It presumes so much and absolves personal responsibility, not of the poor person, but of the holder of the opinion.

Just because someone is homeless, it does not mean that person is stupid, made poor choices, deserves it, etcetera. In today’s economy, where the super wealthy have gotten away with robbing us blind and they use our assumptions about the poor against us to achieve their agenda, slipping from the middle class to homelessness is not such a stretch. I see it all the time. In just the last two months, I have had six chapter 13 clients who had to convert or modify their plans because their employers laid them off or cut their income in half. Does this make my clients stupid, their choices poor, do they deserve it? No. The longer we keep blaming the victims, the longer we will allow what is happening to our world continue to happen.

I responded to the grocery clerk that just because there are shelters doesn’t mean the person can get into them. Having a child is not a sure thing. Shelters are full. Shelters are not easy to come by. But I realized after I left that this had been the wrong answer. What I should have said instead was, “So what? Just because they are poor, they have to take your version of how they receive a handout for their homelessness to be acceptable? Who are you to decide that your way is the only way for them? Why is it that because they are homeless they suddenly accede the self and the right to make those choices? Why isn’t making more money begging an acceptable choice, and how is that different than you choosing a different job because you might earn more? Why shouldn’t they be able to make that choice if it gets their child fed?”

I didn’t say this. As is often the case, I thought of the best answer after I was gone. I should have said it, and next time I will. We have got to change the supercilious theory that because someone is poor they deserve it. And in today’s climate, we should all be thanking the heavens and saying to ourselves, “There but for the grace of God go I.” It’s a slippery slope and it doesn’t take much to end up at the bottom of it, especially in this country where we give billions to banksters while we scold poor people for using food stamps. It’s truly obscene.

March 12, 2012 by Elle

Time Changes

Baby is perfect. She curls up her arms in sleep, her chin tucked, breaths even, and I want to nestle my face in her hair, breathing her in. She is utterly delightful. I love this baby like nothing else. I loved Milla like that. I still adore her, but it’s different from the crush of baby love. It is more established, the older child love. There is a solidity in her being there. She still lets me snuggle her, but not like the baby does. She doesn’t smell so sweet either. It’s like new marriage versus old, kind of. I love them both, dearly and completely, but the love for Milla has shifted into something like the love of an older marriage.

I have been keeping the self pact to write at least a page a day. It has resulted, every day, in more than one page, which I suppose is a good thing. What is different in the writing of this book from the last one is that I started the narrative knowing where it was going, then I veered off into other pieces. I now have these various pieces written as separate files that I will meld into the main later. Today I finished one of the pieces and had a place for it in the current narrative. What will be harder down the line I think is going through from beginning to end and reading it as one narrative because it is already so familiar. I am afraid I won’t know if there are holes. I need an editor. A good one. I need someone to read it and say This works or This doesn’t or I don’t get this, it needs more information, or You go on too much here, or Move this here. I need someone I can trust who will not criticize because they are not living up to their own potential and want to bring me down, or someone who will not criticize enough because they don’t want to hurt my feelings or they can’t see the flaws. I’ve experienced both. Neither is helpful.

Time for bed. The time change is hurting me. It always does, whether up or down. I wish we could leave our time on the sunny side all year around. I hate the dark winters, nights ending early. I could simply live the daylight time, but the world’s schedule would make this extremely difficult. I’d be at odds with it all the time.

It is time to snuggle the sleeping darling. I get to smell her hair, her skin, her breath. I feel this love for her in my belly. It’s the best way to fall asleep.

March 11, 2012 by Elle

Do we Have to Destroy Ourselves?

I sat down to work on my book and took a couple of minutes first to look at Facebook. First I saw a photo of a dead child in Afghanistan whose body was badly burned. Then I saw the story about the person who went on a murderous rampage there, killing women and children, mostly girls under six. Now I can’t write. I’m sickened and horrified. My heart hurts for these people. All we do in the name of our imperialistic superiority makes me completely ill. I can do nothing except object, and this is not enough. When the fuck are humans going to stop allowing this to happen, all in the name of greed and power? We need to LEAVE this country! We do not belong there, at least in the capacity as a marauding military. We can’t even take care of our own. Every day when I walk through my city, even to the grocery store, I am confronted with the consequences of allowing greed and power to destroy our race and this planet. Women and children. Men and children. Women and men. Homeless. Living on the streets. Begging for food. It’s obscene. There is enough to go around if we stop allowing the greedy and powerful to steal it from us, if we stop killing and maiming and destroying and robbing our world blind. Enough already! Do we have to destroy ourselves to get it to end?

March 5, 2012 by Elle

Pointless Rambling Number 24

I have made a pact with myself to write at least one page per day on my book. It seems daunting when I’m not doing it, but when I sit down and start, I usually end up writing more. I guess that is the point of forcing oneself to write regularly, especially in spite of jobs and children. It is satisfying and somewhat overwhelming at the same time. I know what I’m going to say, but when I think of all of it, it makes me feel like a mountain climber at the base of Everest. Good luck with that.

I wish I had a trusted adviser, someone to whom I could turn when things go funny or when I have serious questions about how to live my life. I don’t, really. Have an adviser, I mean. Today there was more added to the conundrum at work. I ended up feeling worse, rather than, if not better, at least the same. This was not satisfying. I don’t want to dwell on it, but there is no one to talk to about it, and I think talking would help take it out of my head somewhat. Maybe that’s the real reason we all pair up, so there is someone at home we can talk to about what is going on in our lives. Too often I have conversations I can’t have with anybody.

My baby has a cold and as a consequence, when she fell asleep this afternoon at 5, she just stayed asleep. She is still sleeping. I tried to wake her up, but she wasn’t interested. She drank more milky and went back to sleep. Three times. Her little nose is stuffed up, poor dear.

Big child is washing the dishes. She is plugged into my ipod and listening to the soundtrack of O Brother Where Art Thou. She is singing songs from it. I suppose that, while I’m dismayed she is plugged in and not having a conversation with a live human (namely, me), she is still listening to something I simply cannot object to. Even more entertaining is the fact that periodically, she calls out a line in a song and gives a little shake to her butt. Down to the river to pray! Butt shake. Oh sinners, let’s go down! Butt shake. Good Lord, show me the way! Butt shake. Priceless.

March 2, 2012 by Elle

Foot Tied

I don’t know why I did it. Curiosity mostly. I could tell from the opening scenes that it was probably a bad idea, but I kept on, waiting to see if it really was as bad as it seemed like it was going to be. Time proved to be no cure for my presumptions. As the thing went on, it only got worse. The sanctimonious preacher became even more of a blowhard. The naughty teen girl became even more frisky. The bad boy lead character became even more BAAAAD!

What is it I’m speaking of? Footloose, the 2011 version. The 1984 movie is certainly not Academy Award material, but it is a testament to the folly of its year. Everything about the 80s begs parody, 1984 was ubiquitous, and Footloose was no exception. Big hair! Big music! Big dancing! Big blowhard politicians setting up the destruction of future decades!

But this version, this 2011 version, has such a self-important air it too begs mockery, but it does so too many years too late. We are living what the 80s wrought. This new Footloose should have changed the title and the names of the main character and put itself out in 1984. It might have been a classic. Now we are too jaded and it’s just too awful. And not only that, the music of Footloose wasn’t really so horrible, but for this version, they took it and “updated” it. WHAT were the producers thinking, that viewers today are stupid? Apparently so, because the thing was released. They got me, for about 15 minutes. That’s all I could take before I shut it off and wrote this.

There is a bright spot in the crap that is this movie. It can be used in B-Movie Bingo! B-Movie Bingo is a game played at the Hollywood Theater near my house. You get a card with various bad movie stereotypes all over it, and then you watch a bad movie. Whenever one of the bad stereotypes shows up onscreen, you mark the square. If you get a line, it’s BINGO! Soooo much fun. This movie would be PERFECT for B-Movie Bingo. At last, a purpose for this really awful movie beyond another acting job for has been Dennis Quaid. B-Movie Bingo redemption.

Oh, and one other thing. The kid actors in the new Footloose are too young. They look like teenagers. The teenagers in the original Footloose looked like they were pushing thirty. The least they could have done was pay tribute by hiring some 35 year old actors to play teens. Jeez.

February 29, 2012 by Elle

February 29: Leap Day

February 29. Our odd little calendar balancing act. I feel as if I ought to commemorate it in some way. Today is leap day. Rather than take a day away from a 31 month here and there to give February 30 all year round, it gets only 28, but every four years it gets this unusual and special friend. I know it has to do with equinoxes and whatnot, but still. It does seem that it wouldn’t be difficult to let February have 30 days and maybe March and July could share one of their 31s or something, and become 30s, and it wouldn’t mess things up too terribly. Oh well, what do I know. It’s weird, but I always see this day as kind of green and kind of red. February is always red to me, mainly because of Valentine’s Day. Yet Leap Day seems green to me, mainly because of frogs. I associate it with frogs because of the leaping. It could just as well be some lords, but I don’t see them, I see frogs. Okay, I’ll stop.

I still want to move to Australia. I think about it periodically, go look up immigration rules and whatnot, but it’s a pipe dream I know.

My littlest dear is developing language skills so rapidly. Every day she takes it a step further. She can basically communicate nearly anything she wants to. Her words are vividly clear. Mainly at this point she leaves out determiners and prepositions, although sometimes they are there. For instance, she just took her doll to knock on Milla’s bedroom door, and she said, “Baby knock Lala’s door.” She calls Milla Lala. She can say Milla. She sometimes calls her Mimi. She also sometimes calls her Mimi Lala. She can say, “Milla.” Then she calls her Lala. I think she likes calling her Lala. We’ve taken to calling her Lala too. It’s sweet.

I found my diary from when Milla was this age. Isabel is quite similar to her sister. She loves counting and referring to things in twos. In my diary I read that Milla, who called her breastfeeding “Milky,” said she had “two milkies,” which meant my two breasts. She would tell me this all the time, just like Isabel now tells me all the time that I have one “Maa maa.” This is what she calls breastfeeding. Maa maa. It sounds like a sheep’s baa baa. I’m Mama and the boobs are Maa maa. Cutie.

Tomorrow is a big day for baby. She starts preschool in the morning, which she’ll go to every Thursday for four hours. Then later in the day she has her first swimming lesson. I expect all will be fun.

I’ve been personal training. It kicks my ass. There is no other way to describe it. I’ve been doing it a month now and I don’t notice that my body is any different. I don’t feel fitter. However I’m able to do many of the exercises with more ease, so the muscles must be strengthening. My trainer pushes me hard. Really hard. He has way more faith in my abilities than I do. He pushes me until my muscles are basically at fail. We do many different strengthening and cardio exercises for the full hour. I vibrate for hours afterwards. Tomorrow I have to go and then go to baby swimming lessons in the evening. I hope I can manage. I expect baby swimming lessons will be low key.

In any case, this is my update to no one. I don’t understand the urge to post goings on in my life in this manner. I have a private diary, but of course I won’t share what I say there here. No.

Time to go take Milla to get a bus pass. Fun stuff.

February 15, 2012 by Elle

Four Years

Four years ago I wrote a post on this blog on Valentine’s Day, and I was happy, at least happyish (if you’re interested, view it here). I was sitting at the desk in my own house, the one I remodeled by myself into a cozy home for myself, my darling girl, and my animals. Three of those animals lay beside me on the floor as I wrote. Milla played in the next room, and I wrote my strange post about the history of Valentine’s Day, examining it from an angle I think few have.

In any case, here I am four years later, and I barely recognize that person. Three days after that Valentine’s Day in 2008 I met the man who would become Isabel’s father. During the months that followed I lost all of my animals. A year later I was living in New York and barely pregnant. A year after that I was back in Oregon, changed, somewhat obliterated. Since then it has been a rebuilding of the self, but as if with sand, one grain at a time. I barely even registered Valentine’s Day this year. Oh yeah, I thought the night before. Go to the store and buy the girls something small, and so I did. No rumination. No examination. Nothing, really, except that I did remember the post four years ago and went back and read it, surprised at myself. I’d forgotten that I made Valentine’s Day presents with Milla, not only that year, but at all.

So much of the time then I was working to force myself to live in the moment. So much of the time now I am, but I feel like most of me is missing. I learned some hard lessons, with the result that I will never choose wrong again–I know that unequivocally. But I have to wonder at what price? Is there something to being in the cave and not knowing? Does not knowing really kill you? I can’t answer that. I must not forget that I was painfully, achingly, desperately lonely a lot of the time then, in a way I’m simply not now. Is it because I’ve stopped being lonely, or simply accepted that aloneness is a function of the human condition? Really accepted it? I don’t know.

I feel like a person who saw a river and jumped in to swim across to climb the mountain on the other side, but had no idea the dangers inherent in the enterprise. I thought I was prepared. I did what I thought would make the journey safe and doable. Yet during the crossing I was sucked into an undertow, and I nearly drowned. I bashed my head and body on rocks. I lost all the possessions I had tried to take with me. Finally, the river spit me out and cast me unconscious on the opposite shore, lying on the beach naked with grains of sand in my hair and my eyes, my body bloodied and scraped; beaten, but not broken. Gradually I dragged myself to my knees and crawled further inland. I waited, then stood. I walked ahead. I killed animals and ate them, making clothing from their hides, something I never would have done on the other side of the river. I kept going. I did not look back until a long time later, and when I did, I was up the side of the mountain, and there in the valley below was the river, appearing so serene, winding off toward the horizon. I was there, I think, and now I am here.

I know this metaphor is cliche’, but it fits. I feel like I’m still climbing the mountain, but I don’t even know what it was I’m trying to get to, except the pinnacle, and I wonder whether any of it was worth it. If I ever had to cross a river again, the journey would be very different. I wouldn’t even start at the same bank. I would take different tools. I might even choose a different river. I learned, but now I don’t know why.

I’ve spoken to my counselor about this, whether it is better to just stay in the cave. She reminds me that staying in the cave would result in making the same ill-fated choices, and of the reasons why making different choices will be better. Perhaps she is right. But sometimes I miss feeling the contentment I felt that Valentine’s Day, even if it was often countered with hideous, pitiable lows. Maybe there isn’t any better, there just is. That was how it was. This is how it is. Each has positives and negatives. In any case, I can’t change what has gone before so I might as well settle into how things are, which means that instead of a quippy, interesting post like the one I wrote 4 years ago, I write this.

February 12, 2012 by Elle

Who is Someone?

I don’t like it when people are secretive about who they are, at least when they are following me. So who are you, Someone? Someone’s email address is yawsimon33@yahoo.com. I know that much. Why would anyone want to stalk my blog without admitting who they are? I have some sociopaths in my past who have stalked me before. They can’t get a life and so they bother me electronically periodically. I also suspect a person I know through work, and a previous client. Creepy. There is something creepy and weird about stalkers who won’t admit who they are, yet want to know what I am up to. Guess what? weird stalker. I don’t write about you. I don’t give a damn about you. Yeah, I don’t like it that you are too chicken shit to own up to your identity, but beyond that, you don’t mean anything in the scheme of things. So go ahead and read my blog. More power to you.

February 11, 2012 by Elle

Mishappen

I got Isabel a new book called My Very First Book of Shapes. The problem is, it’s not her very first book of shapes. I wonder if in misleading her thus, I am causing her mind to become misshapen, let alone her understanding of what it really means to be first.

It’s a conundrum.

February 9, 2012 by Elle

Bipedal Sun Brain

I’m trying not to be grouchy. I’m trying not to react to a coworker who, in his own fear spiral, lashed out at me yesterday. I’m trying not to scream at the workers next door who decided to vibrate my house this morning at 7:15 a.m. with their power tools. I’m trying. It’s not working so well. I lay in bed this morning thinking of all sorts of responses to the coworker. I even began drafting an email in my head, but I reminded myself that I did not want to get sucked into his thing. Still not satisfying. I asked the workers next door to close the windows to the house so that it wasn’t so obnoxiously loud, and they did. Now I can hear the noise, but it isn’t vibrating my house. My little one is next door playing in her bedroom, talking to her toys. This squelches some of the grumpiness. Mainly it’s just this damn grey weather. We had sun for a few days and I started feeling normal again, but then the last two days, we have this droopy, cloud on the ground, grey colorlessness, and my bitterness returns. For someone of Scandinavian descent, I certainly don’t manage winter well. I have often wondered whether humans were meant to live in such weather. If we evolved in the deserts of Africa, maybe our brains are designed for that sort of light. Of course at that time we also moved an average of 12 miles per day, on our own legs. Now it’s lucky if we move 1000 feet in one day on our own legs. Bipedal sun brains. Anyway, the grouchy isn’t completely gone; it’s beaten back for a while. Baby is coming to see me. That should help.

January 22, 2012 by Elle

Nail Clippers

I just found some of Autumn’s nail clippers and felt a pang at the thought that these clippers could survive, but my dog didn’t. It seems unfair somehow, that this meaningless hunk of plastic and metal gets to be here and she does not. It’s such a strange feeling. I wonder if some of humanity’s desire to accumulate things comes from some underlying desire to have something that remains when we are no longer here.

My first inclination upon seeing the clippers was that I wanted to toss them in the trash; they are old and dull. Then I remembered that I had used them on Autumn, that they are one of the few things remaining that touched her, and I left them in the bag in the cupboard. It is the same with the last dish from which she drank water. The dish was a glass bowl from the kitchen where I rented office space. I had to take Autumn with me to work the day she died. An unpleasant consequence of working for oneself is that there is no one to take over when you have people coming in to see you on the day you awaken to your dog lying in a pool of neon-green ooze flowing from her bottom. I took her to work with me and laid her on a blanket beside my desk. I brought her water in that glass dish from the kitchen. She took some small sips from it. The next day when I returned, after Autumn was gone and her body buried in my friend’s yard 80 miles south of me, I saw that bowl and sobbed silently, tears running down my cheeks in rivulets. I brought the bowl home and I’ve kept it ever since, boxed along with other keepsakes, carried from one edge of the continent to the other when I moved to New York and then back to Oregon. Autumn’s tongue caressed that bowl; I can’t let it go even though it isn’t her, doesn’t even represent her. It’s just something else that got to touch her, something that may carry a molecule of her, and if that’s all I get, I’ll take it.

January 15, 2012 by Elle

STORM OF THE CENTURY!!

I don’t have a television, so I can’t watch the local news. It’s unfortunate. I miss out, I’m sure. I have little doubt that today I’m missing out on the STORM OF THE CENTURY!! There are pitiful snowflakes mixed with rain coming down in Portland. It’s barely at freezing and there isn’t enough precipitation to create any snow of any substance, but I’ll bet anything the local news stations have camped out at the highest elevations, looking for that razor thin layer of snow to indicate it’s sticking and a tiny flurry of flakes in order to justify standing outside in their perfectly matched snow bunny outfits to warn us all about the STORM OF THE CENTURY!! They probably also found some moron who drove too fast on a curve and whacked into a tree to warn us just how “dangerous it is out there, Bob, and back to you.” And back at the station, “Yes, be very careful. This storm will cause very dangerous conditions. Very dangerous. The world is full of danger. Watch out. Don’t go out.” It must be thrilling for the local newscasters to live in a state where snow is a major news item. They’d poop their drawers if anything ever really did happen. I guess they would be prepared.

January 13, 2012 by Elle

Life is Like That

I often think of new little products, waiting patiently in their boxes to be used. They’re so new and orderly. Pick me! Their calmness and order seems to say as they lie there in their box, waiting to be chosen. They have been waiting their entire life for use, and here you are, choosing. Will it be me? Their orderliness seems to ask.

I wonder whether a pantyliner or other hygiene product really wants to be used. They might think it’s what they want, getting out of that box or off that shelf. A new home! But then they come to realize that their use isn’t necessarily something desired. It results in the trash can or the sewer or the landfill.

I suppose a pantyliner or other hygiene product has no idea that being placed in someone’s crotch or in an armpit or between toes is a bad thing. They have no other existence to compare theirs to. Although the pantyliner might. It meets the underwear and thinks, Oh, a friend. A different sort of friend. Then the pantyliner gets covered in goo and is tossed in the trash, and the underwear gets to stay. It’s not fair on some level, but life is like that. You get to be a professor. She gets to be a mother. He gets to be an electrician. Someone is born and starves in Africa. Another is born and is obese in America. We are all on our different journeys. This really is simply how life is.

January 8, 2012 by Elle

I’m Glad I’m not from a Crime Syndicate Family

I’m so glad I wasn’t born into a crime syndicate family. I suppose had I been born into a crime syndicate family that perhaps I might not be aware how much the stress of the violence and constant disruption was harming me

I’m sitting here typing this and it sounds like a cat is growling outside my window. However I got up (got cold) and went and stood out there, but couldn’t hear anything. I leaned over to determine whether the moaning sounds might be some kind of deep whistle emanating from Isabel in her sleep, but it wasn’t. No. Definitely sounds like cat moan. I have no idea what it could be that I can hear it in my house and not outside, which is where it would have to be. I even checked upstairs and in the basement. Silence. Distraction.

My primary point isn’t the cat moan. It is supposed to be my gratitude that I’m not from a crime syndicate family. My family had enough problems without adding the stress of constant crime and murder and disappearing relatives and all that. I’ve spent most of my adult life reconnecting the disconnected parts of myself, becoming whole, examining patterns from the past and working to change blind spot reactions and all that. The result is that I’m beginning to see the splits all around me. If I had been born into a crime syndicate family (I’m going to call it a CSF for short), I likely would not have these insights without having experienced some incredible trauma, and even then, it would have been really difficult. In this regard, I’m so grateful to my family for only traumatizing me a little bit, in their own blind-spot way.

If I had been born into a CSF, I probably would have had to go live in Australia or some kind of witness protection program. That would be rough in any circumstance, but imagine it from the perspective of a person who grew up in a CSF. You have no normal moral compass. You realize something is wrong, turn against the family, and have to be put into witness protection, whereby you are forced to live in some other place with strangers, etc., and act like a normal person, only you aren’t. You’re used to seeing people handle problems with revenge and whatnot. Someone cuts in front of you in line at the grocery and you want to knock them in the head and throw them in the trunk, but you can’t, or you might get put in jail, whereupon the family would have you killed for turning snitch. Or the head hitting and trunking might end up on the news, at which point your protection isn’t so secret anymore. Being in witness protection as one raised in a CSF is simply fraught with peril. Perhaps there is some moral code if you grew up with the boss, and could see when the boss was lenient or whatever. But what if you grew up in one of the lesser families, one where revenge and drug use were rampant. Maybe because you were allowed to watch movies or something and you could see that others weren’t like your family. Or maybe because a school teacher or counselor was kind to you, you figured out there was an alternative, but really you have no idea. Or worse, you just turn against the family to save your own ass from jail. Real issues there. And then you get to go into witness protection. That would be tough. It really isn’t something I would want in my life, that’s for sure.

I got this all typed up and then I was typing up the tags and picked “Crime syndicate family,” but I’ll bet I’m the only person with that tag on any posts. That would be cool. The only person in the whole wide world with CSF for a tag. Awesome.

January 7, 2012 by Elle

Virtually Useless Post

This is one of those extra special posts where I say virtually nothing and put it in a blog post. Come to think of it, isn’t that what all of my blog is, actually? I’m gradually discovering that I have nothing of any value to impart via the written word. Nonsense, nonsense, all of it. This is not an attempt to fish for compliments from my friends, but truth. Really, going back through every single post, if none of it had been posted, no one would be any the worse for it, except maybe for the Pure Med Spa posts, and that was a complete accident. Happenstance. Fortuity. Anyone could have gone online and bitched about Pure Med Spa and it would have been them to whom all the traffic on the issue would have been directed.

Anyway, all this was a sidetrack. What I really wanted to say was that I have the most adorable little dog in the world. I love the adoration of dogs. I love how they pick you and you’re their person, which means you’re the one they follow when you get up to go in the bathroom or the kitchen or across the room. I love how when I climb into my bed, for whatever reason, little Ava isn’t far behind. And even as annoying as it can be, I love her shrieky little bark and licking. I wish she would not lick most of the time, but it’s her, and therefore I love it. I hold her little face in my hands and ruffle the bed head fur on her puppy head, and completely melt. Keeping a dog like this one is like having a baby around all the time. Having my baby around all the time is joy in and of itself as well, so the combination of the two of them makes life pretty sweet a lot of the time.

January 4, 2012 by Elle

More Stupid Things I’m Thinking

Yes, unfortunately, there are more. It’s how I roll. Stupid thoughts running in and out all the time. For instance, tonight the local bankruptcy bar in which I practice held a CLE, a thing to go to and learn legal things, continuing legal things. Hence the C in the CLE. A judge, a court rep, and a couple of trustees instructed us on the ins and outs of the new bankruptcy rules. Good times. After they invited us for snacks and drinks. I thought, free snacks? Sure. Social hour with adults. Why not?

Well. I never feel more a fish out of water than when I attend lawyer functions. I am terrible at small talk and stand around feeling self-conscious. Stick me in a room full of lawyers and judges and theoretical “peers” and I simply feel, well, peerless. I’m terrible at it. If there are issues to discuss, cases to analyze, things to talk about with a question to argue, basically communicating with the same people in my job, then I’m fine. But take any of that away and I’m just pathetic. I stand there holding a drink and feeling foolish. I think things like, “I’m standing here thinking this,” and “My pantyhose are too tight,” and “I can feel my ears,” and also sometimes things like thinking another lawyer is hot, although tonight that didn’t happen. I was too sidetracked by the tight panty hose.

Today while I was getting dressed, I posted a status update on facebook that said, I go for lawyer, I end up librarian. This about sums up how I am as a lawyer overall. I’m not suave; I’m frumpy. I actually asked a judge tonight whether he would kick back a brief because of bad grammar because I have gotten some really awful briefs from lawyers with terrible grammar and thought to myself that if I were a judge I would send back a brief for bad grammar. He kind of paused as he answered, “Well, um…” And I knew the answer was no. He probably realized in that moment that perhaps I wasn’t a normal person, but he did seem a bit tipsy, so that might have helped my case a bit. I like it when most of the people at such a function start to take on a bit more alcohol then they probably should. Then I figure they aren’t going to remember my standing there like an idiot holding some glass and repeatedly crossing and uncrossing my legs because my feet hurt, and not because I have to go to the bathroom.

I’m not sure why this is. When I was first a lawyer, it was lack of confidence. I had no experience and felt like everyone around me had tons. Now I don’t feel inexperienced. In fact I feel quite confident about my practice skills for the most part, and I don’t care when I don’t know. I just call someone up and ask. No big deal. It isn’t that I don’t have anything in common with anyone either. There are people in this group with whom I have enough in common to manage a conversation, and some of them interest me quite a bit. I really want to know about what they do. I just don’t schmooze well, and a lot of legal activities seem to be all about just that. Ah, such is life.

Tonight Isabel pooped on her bed. I have been letting her run around with a diaper because she has never pee-peed or poo-pooed anywhere except in her diaper or her potty. Tonight I think the poop surprised her. I heard her holler from her room, POOP! I went in there and low and behold, that is exactly what had taken place. She looked surprised and kind of scared, sitting there with a little turd on the bed and stuck to her bottom. Okay, honey, I said, I’ll clean it up. I was laughing so hard, I could hardly breathe, especially because I was trying to do it without her knowing I was doing it and it was strangling me. Poor little pooper! I got her all cleaned up and she helped me put on a new diaper and then take her bedspread to the washing machine.

On New Year’s Eve, I had the opportunity to venture outside my comfortable inner NE Portland bubble and visit the suburbs. My friend Rita invited me to a party at her friend’s house. Why not? I could bring the baby. We could hang out, bring a small hostess gift, and then head home after. My other option was movies at home on the computer after Isabel went to sleep. Not so fun. Life is kind of boring around here when Milla is gone. No one is around for me to boss around.

So out into the land of McMansions I trekked. Rita asked me to meet her over at her neighbor’s house because she was picking up her son. I parked at Rita’s house and bundled Isabel in her coat before trundling to the neighbor’s white colonial. Bundled and trundled. The door bore the words WE_COME. The L was curled up so it looked like a little dash. I knocked and waited. From within the house I could hear the sounds of children running and hollering. A moment later, Rita’s son answered the door, followed closely by Rita, carrying another son. Immediately in front of me were stairs up to the second floor of the house. Each stair displayed a word or an inspirational saying in different fonts and letter sizes. LOVE. KEEP Faith ALIVE. HOPE. God ANSWERS those who ask. Okay, I thought. Not my decor choice, but whatever.

Rita introduced me to the neighbor and we headed back over to her house. Inside, I noticed Rita had Faith, Hope, Love in stick-on letters on her dining room wall. Hmmm. I thought nothing more of it. We changed diapers, gathered diaper bags, bundled up children further, and headed out to drive over to the friend’s for the party. It was nearing 10 and we needed to get going.

I followed Rita’s Highlander as we drove out of her neighborhood onto a main road. A half mile up the main road, we turned and drove along a road with countryside on one side and houses on the other. We turned and turned and turned again. Mostly the roads stayed partially housed and partially country. Rita lives in Washington county. It is my opinion of Washington county that its perspective is to cover every available green space with a building, so it was actually quite refreshing that this countryside had not been tainted. The night was clear and the moon was bright, so I was able to see the grayed landscape.

Finally we drove into a neighborhood. Neighborhoods like the one we were driving into are popular in Hillsboro. I think it is Intel; its base is there. These neighborhoods are filled with houses that nearly obliterate their lots. They are mostly snout houses, meaning the primary feature one notices when looking at them is their rather large garages. We passed several such houses with three garages. Who needs three garages? I thought to myself as we twisted and turned, twisted and turned. Every house looked the same to me. I would never have been able to find my way there if I had been alone. Rita used to live in a neighborhood like this one, back when she was married to a man who worked at Intel. I kind of pride myself on my ability to find my way and that I rarely get lost, but every single time I visited Rita when she lived in that neighborhood, I made at least one wrong turn. It was uncanny.

In any case, eventually we arrived at a whole lot of cars and I knew the party could not be far. We parked and walked a block to a nondescript suburb house. Very large. Very snouty. The cars were parked outside, which I later learned was because the garage had been turned into a storage facility. Maybe that’s the purpose of the many and large garages, storage! Fill your garage with things you never use and won’t see just in case someday you might need them, but you won’t know you have them so you’ll buy more of the thing you can’t find, use it once, then lose it in the garage again. I get it!

I digress.

The point of this little tale is that upon entering, the very first thing I noticed was that all over the walls, in between the photos and floral hangings, were more stick-on, inspirational sayings! Lots of them. A little lightbulb popped on above my head right in that moment and I realized that this must be the in suburb thing. I’m really out of the loop about in things, and I’m especially out of the loop about in suburban things. I wondered, standing there, whether my many suburban Vancouver and Washougal and Camus had special sayings on their walls. Probably. Wow, I’m not in. But I knew that. I think about my pantyhose at lawyer functions, what the hell would I know about inspirational writings on suburban walls?

Now it is time to go to bed. Isabel has been very patient as I write this. Milla has been hiding in her room. She came down to sit on my bed and scold Isabel because Isabel wants to touch Milla’s homework and Milla doesn’t want her to, but rather than ask nicely or move to a place the baby can’t get to, Milla is acting all teenagery. Get a grip, Milla. Now baby wants to be on my lap. I have to brush my teeth. The stupid thoughts will just have to hang out in my head for now.

January 2, 2012 by Elle

Stupid Things I’m Thinking

These are some stupid things I’ve been thinking about recently. As I’m sitting here thinking of these things to write down, there are quite loud bangs going on outside. I’m not sure what the bangs are for, as it is not near midnight. However the sorts of people who seem to find fulfillment in loud noises are probably also the sorts to find that fulfillment at whatever time of day. They are just glad of the excuse for a holiday with which to cause extreme vibrations to reverberate through the air. I hope actually that this is what it is, because I would hate that these noises are caused by a shotgun or a canon or a home invasion or something of that ilk. This would be not good.

My cat is bulimic. If she’s gone bulimic to lose weight, it’s not working: she’s fat. Actually, the truth isn’t that she is bulimic, but that she is an irrepressible glutton who gorges on her food and doesn’t bother chewing it. This causes her to vomit all of it back up, whereupon she heads back immediately to the food dish for more. I have begun to believe she was a starving alley cat in a past life or something, the way she eats. And she has always been that way, for as long as I have known her, which has been since she was six weeks old. Glutton. Bulimic glutton.

It used to be when I typed in WordPress, I could option delete back to delete an entire word. They have changed something and now I can’t do that. I must write to support and ask why because it is really annoying not to be able to do it.

About a month and a half ago, there was a story in the Oregonian about how personal care and cosmetic products are basically unregulated. It cited many multiple ingredients in these products that can give you cancer and ultimately kill you. A spokesperson for the industry was quoted as saying that the industry does not need to be regulated because the products are all safe; no one has gotten sick or died from personal care products. The Oregonian left it at that. I thought the reporter should have pushed this point, although the article was probably written by the AP and not a human here and reporting in that manner is pretty shoddy. In any case, this statement was pure foolishness. All sorts of cancers have increased exponentially. Breast cancer continues to increase. Autism is at an all-time high. We have millions of people with all sorts of increasing physical ailments putting known toxins into their bodies by an industry that is virtually unregulated, and their representative claims there is no evidence these products cause harm? How about some long term studies to back up that claim, hmmm? That would be nice.

December 31, 2011 by Elle

Lara Fauth

When I was in college I rode on the University of Oregon equestrian team. We were all women and as is often the case with groups of women, there were arguments and disagreements that in retrospect seem juvenile and stereotypically female. In spite of this, I still remember one team member as a complete reprobate and have less than fond memories of one of the others. However, one of the team members has since become one of my dearest and closest friends. You win some, you lose some.

For some reason I cannot articulate, last night while expunging Christmas decorations from my home, I suddenly remembered one of the women I rode with. I remembered her with fondness and wondered what had become of her. Of course I jumped online and searched her name and made some discoveries as to her whereabouts. I’m hoping I can connect with her.

In any case, this got me thinking about the people I knew in college. What with Facebook and this blog and my firm website, with little effort, if anyone wants to find me, they can. I wondered then, why there is a whole group of people from my past who have not turned up as requesting my friendship or via emails and whatnot. Then it dawned on me. Duh, Lara. For five years, I had a different last name. Anyone searching for Lara Fauth wouldn’t find much at all. I changed my name back to my maiden name of Gardner as soon as I got divorced in 1999, which is before the ability to locate one’s former friends and acquaintances online became so ubiquitous.

I’m not sure anyone has looked for me. I searched for Lara Fauth and found a site linking Lara Gardner to that name, so it’s probable that if someone wanted to find me, they could. But I did have to look in the site to make the connection, it wasn’t just sitting there on the search page in google. The idea occurred to me that if I put the old name in my blog, if someone searched for that name, they would find me, and so that is what this is. It’s an attempt to put my old name on a site linking to my new name, so that if anyone who knew me while I was married ever wanted to find me, they could search Lara Fauth and perhaps this page would show up. It can’t hurt to try.

December 25, 2011 by Elle

Isabelli Bear

Today when opening gifts, with every gift that Isabel opened, she removed the bow and placed it either on her head, my head, or Milla’s head. It was darling. I love my girls.

December 25, 2011 by Elle

Laments

Alone. Alone. I spent most of Christmas alone. Milla went to her dad’s and Isabel went with her dad and I didn’t have either of them for about 5 hours. Last week when I was stressed I looked forward to the break, but I’ve had some time to relax a little and I was bored without them. I went to a movie and went for a walk with the dog. What was different in my aloneness this time is that I wasn’t achingly lonely, desperate for my life to be different. This is a huge shift from a few years ago, before my last relationship, when I would stand in my shower with my head on the tiles of the wall and sob.

As I walked along I thought about the fact that I’m spending no time at all with my parents, not even trying to maintain the charade we’ve kept up for the last 2 decades, and I was glad of it. It was so much simpler not pretending that I gave a shit. I was glad to be free of the resentment that every year my little family is given short shrift. A couple of years ago my mom stopped even pretending to try and see us on Christmas. My sister has been so relentless about everything being on her terms, even to the point that for years she would find out when I wanted my mom to visit me and then make sure that this was the time she asked my mom to visit her. I started keeping it a secret just so she wouldn’t know, but then that left my mom wondering and unable to schedule, and of course anytime I would allude to what I thought was going on, the denials would take over. So many years of me and my girls being the bottom of the priority list. If anything good has come of this backing out of any semblance of a relationship, it is the end of losing the argument over who gets my mother. My sister won. And it isn’t even me being sour grapes about it; I honestly don’t care. I have nothing in common with my mother, nothing to talk about of any substance, so there isn’t anything to miss or be sour grapes about. Our conversations are empty. There are long silences. I can’t talk about my life because she just doesn’t get it. My mom won’t talk about politics, or world events, or constitutional issues, or the kinds of movies I see, or the kinds of books I read, or any of it. And honestly, I don’t really like the kinds of movies she sees or the books or magazines she reads either. It isn’t all one way. I am just as disinterested in her interests as she is in mine. My mother is desperate to pretend the world is a perfect place. She sees movies that are so sappy and cloying, they make me want to vomit. She reads the Bible and books about how to be a good Christian, and I’m an atheist. I like The New Yorker. She likes Guideposts. She wishes I wouldn’t discuss the problems our world is facing or rail against greedy bankers, even if she agrees with the sentiment, and that everyone would just get along.

Me too, Mom, me too, but life is not a Rockwell painting. If she knew me at all she would know how deeply I lament the complexity of the mess this world is in. If she knew me at all she would know so much more about me than she does. I suppose it is probably a good thing, but she doesn’t even know I write this blog, and I’ve done so for years. I believe she doesn’t want to know me. She has avoided who she thinks I am for years, and the only reason I can come up with is that I scare the shit out of her, and that’s too bad. She doesn’t even know the simple things. Grey has been one of my favorite colors to wear for several years now. Last year she was going to give me some gift of an item of clothing, but said she did not because it was grey, and “Lara doesn’t wear grey.” Um, yeah, I do, I told her, marveling at how little she knows even the simple things.

With every failed relationship except the last one, she blamed me for the breakup, even when she had no idea what happened. She thought I should have been less independent and more devoted to the man, and that if I had taken better care of all of them, they wouldn’t have left, as if it was always so simple, always my fault alone, and always that they left. She doesn’t consider leaving a miserable relationship, so she can’t conceive that I would do just that. Funny how you can love someone and not really like them that much.

You know, the thing I’ve noticed about spending so much time alone, never having any conversations of depth with anyone, is that I find when I am with people, I have very little to say. It’s as if in failing to find relationships of the depth I crave, I’ve lost the capacity to have them. I don’t think that’s true, but it sure seems that way sometimes.

I am too much alone. I can be surrounded by people in my job or through the computer, but I am still alone. Blah blah blah all day at work, but nothing is really a meaningful conversation, the kind that nourishes my soul. I speak with people, but our words have no depth, and I am still alone. Of late, I can’t find anyone with whom to have these kinds of conversations. I think though, that this situation has more to do with not knowing how to meet people who have these sorts of conversations.

I saw an amazing movie called The Artist. It was a silent film about a silent film actor and what becomes of him when talkies take over. It was utterly brilliant. I could have discussed that film with someone for hours, but there is no one to talk to. I saw another great movie called Hugo with Milla. The two of us had a lot to say, and I loved discussing it with her, but I could have had even deeper conversations about that film as well, but there is no one to talk to.

I read The New Yorker. I devour The New Yorker. It is filled with amazing articles, but I have no one to discuss them with. I have one friend who reads The New Yorker, but he’s married with a small child and he doesn’t have time to discuss things like that with me. None of my other friends have those kinds of conversations, even if they do read the same things I do or see the same kinds of movies. If they do have those kinds of conversations, they certainly aren’t having them with me.

I read a eulogy by Ian McKellan about Christopher Hitchens. It described their last days together, how they dissected films and books, and I felt my insides move with desire for those kinds of conversations, friendships with that kind of depth. But I have no clue how to get them. None. I have thought and thought about it, but I don’t know how. I don’t do the right job. I don’t move in the right circles. I don’t have friends who have those kinds of conversations. I’m starving.

This was supposed to be a writing about being glad I’m not pretending Christmas needs to be with my parents, but it’s gone to a darker place. I feel too sloth-like, too fat, too alone. The intellectual part of my head says This too will pass, but another part, a darker part, thinks This is how it is for you. No one except Milla and Isabel would even notice if you were gone.

Reading back through this, it drifted inperceptibly into self-pity, as if I’m really desperately lonely, but it’s not true. On some level I think I was supposed to feel lonely because it was Christmas, but actually, except for our rushed festivities with one another in the morning, it was just like any other day (we had to rush because Milla had to be at the airport by 11). The only real difference between this day and others was that Milla left and that always causes some melancholy to float through me. Those days always end slightly empty, whether they are Christmas or not. In any case, I’m fine. No self-pity here. I’m going to snuggle my baby and get some rest and tomorrow will be another day.

December 24, 2011 by Elle

Oh, how lovely

I have such sweet and lovely children. Having a forum to gush over my babies is one of many reasons I enjoy having a blog. These are Christmas photos I took of the family tonight.

December 21, 2011 by Elle

The Internets Suck Out My Brain

Lately, as the days have shrunk further into darkness, and I feel even stronger the urge to settle deep into the comforters and down rather than getting up and moving around, ideas flicker in and out of my mind. Clever ideas. Interesting ideas. Ideas I used to write and percolate and develop and turn into something for publication. And yet I realized that I haven’t published anything in a really long time. I haven’t written anything in a really long time, at least nothing creative for myself. Oh, I’ve written work briefs and motions, but certainly nothing clever or interesting, and these lack even the slightest modicum of creativity. I used to write all the time. Little tidbits here and there would develop fully into ideas worth pursuing. I’ve been lamenting this, believing it is having a toddler and a 12 year old and a job and being a single mom and all that. But I did all this writing before while parenting and working and being a single mom. I didn’t have the baby while I was doing this, but I had a lot more dogs, so I probably broke even in the busy department. Really I can’t honestly blame these things. It’s something else. I had an inkling, but the idea never really germinated into a full fledged acceptance as to the reason for this creative apathy.

Then yesterday, a magazine I subscribe to arrived in the mail. I was sitting at our dining room table and the mail slid through the slot in the wall next to the table. Ah, reading material, I thought with a gleam in my eye. I’m something of a reading addict. I barely spend a moment without some grouping of words nearby to fill my brain. The New Yorker is my favorite. It comes frequently enough and with enough material to satisfy. This was another, Poets & Writers. I’ve only recently subscribed and this was my second issue. The first issue brought me a useful article, something I had been thinking about and needed confirmation about from another source. The second had something useful is well. Good subscription choice, I thought to myself.

The cover proclaimed all sorts of stories that dealt with this issue I’ve been facing of never writing much anymore, never developing these creative ideas that flit in and out of my brain like sparrows flying through the treetops but never landing. I immediately turned to the page with the article and read the author’s description of me. He isn’t a working single mother, but he is a working writer father and he has been for some time. It wasn’t this life that was sucking away his creative force, it was the internet, and the iPhone, and Facebook, and all these millions of distractions. He described how so many writers have to work on computers disconnected from all this connection to get any work done. Oh, ah ha! my brain cried. This is it.

I knew this. It was when I got the iPhone that my productivity slowed to a crawl. Since Facebook was added to the iPhone, my productivity has all but ceased. I used to write at least a blog post a day, sometimes even more. I haven’t done that in so long I can’t even remember. Now I have an idea, I might write it as a status update on Facebook, and then that’s all there is to it. On to the next thing. Nothing germinates. Nothing grows. Nothing becomes fully formed. And most of the time I don’t even bother getting to writing down the point because I open the Facebook and see an article, read the article, pass the article on, then read the next article, or the next status update of a friend, respond or share, then on. Then it’s 48 minutes later, I’ve done nothing of lasting creative effect, nothing that satisfies, and the time to do it is gone.

I have been feeling a strange, how do you say it? Dissatisfaction. Yes, that’s it. I’ve been feeling dissatisfaction with my iPone lately. Even before reading this article, I’ve been annoyed with the thing. The flat screen drives me to distraction. I’m constantly bumping it and doing something like calling a client who recently called me, and who I did not want to talk to. I rapidly hang up and hope my number didn’t show up on their screen. Or I’ll graze the glass with my wrist and bring up stock quotes. Who the fuck cares about stock quotes? Damn, that is one feature on an iPhone I’ll bet 99% of us could give a shit about. Seriously Jobs, most of us don’t care. I’ve been longing for buttons. I want to feel the satisfying click click under my fingertips as I dial or type something. And then there is the pain in my arm and wrist from typing on my iPhone. It hurts. All the time. My right arm has golf elbow from using the damn thing.

Ooh, I just realized I spent the last half hour writing instead of surfing Facebook. I might not have been writing anything clever or creative, but it wasn’t surfing uselessness, so that’s a start.

In any case, my iPhone has been giving me fits and I’ve toyed with the idea of getting rid of it and getting just a phone. The thought gives me a panic. It reminds me of going to Europe. The first couple of days when I could not access the data portion of my phone, I had these mini panics. It’s like some portion of my brain has come to depend on the instant gratification of looking and seeing that no one has called me. No one has emailed me. Oh yes. I got the same political emails I get every day. They are a let down. It’s like waiting for the phone to ring when you have a crush on someone, then discovering a salesperson on the other end of the line. All these things we’ve created for instant gratification when it comes to contact from our friends. Even in Facebook, the first thing I go to is the little red number in the top-right-hand corner of my iPhone to see what the notifications are. Was it someone actually writing to me? Oh no. Just someone liking a link. What a shame.

I’ve got to get off this train. I have to somehow disengage from this iPhone and internet dragging me away from my creative work. Even this morning, when I first sat down to do this, the WordPress page beckoned with its many new features. I wanted to surf away and figure out what they are. Distractions. Distractions all. Artists forever have had to deal with distractions, but never before, I think, have these distractions been so available and insistent. Even more discipline is required to keep them at bay. I can’t stop the job. I can’t push away my children. But I can work around them as needed–Like right now, Isabel awakened because of my fake sunlight lamp, crawled into my lap, and started nursing. I can type around that.

But I’m going to have to force myself to ignore the lure of the iPhone and the Facebook and the Internets. They will suck out my brain if I’m not careful. They already have, to some extent. I have these ideas percolating and dribbling and wanting expression. I’ve thought of so many ideas for my book I can’t even begin to count. TextEdit has several pages of notes where I’ve jotted something down, but then I haven’t gotten back into the habit of writing every night. I was doing it religiously before we went to Europe, and I was happy. Nothing else was different except I was writing regularly and this made me happy. Since we got back, school began, I had to catch up on work, the days shortened, we moved, and the iPhone and Facebook and the Internets began sucking at my brain and here I am, nothing further done on the book and desperate to write, and not very happy. I need that outlet for happyish to be a part of my life. I realized I’m out of practice. I used to actually practice writing, both here and in other journals. I haven’t done that. I have to rein in that discipline. Maybe it can be a New Year’s resolution I start now.

Anyway, I can’t think of any clever ending. Isabel is done nursing and it’s time to go to work. So I’m just going to stop. Hopefully I’ll write more again soon if the internets haven’t sucked out my brain.

December 5, 2011 by Elle

Who Took My Mother and Replaced her with a Lunatic?

Tonight while gathering up the boxes of unused holiday decorations to take to the basement, I had the thought that I would like to vacuum, and nearly simultaneously had the thought that I’m so grateful to now have a house again. The thought followed on the heels of the other because when one lives in a house, it is possible to do things like vacuum at 10:30 at night without worrying you will disturb the neighbors. Since selling my house in mid 2008, I have had to concern myself with nearby neighbors who would hear things like vacuuming, or hollering.

It is possible to spend your entire life doing something and not even notice you are doing it. Then one day you notice, and it is as if you are noticing yourself for the first time, wondering what in the world am I doing?

Twice this week I yelled at my Isabel. Yelled at her. I was in the car and she would not stop crying and yelling herself, and I turned and yelled, “Stop yelling!” I then realized immediately my hypocrisy in this statement. Yelling at her to tell her to stop yelling. She was so surprised by my yelling at her that she stopped immediately and stared. I faced forward to drive, then turned back to her and apologized, shamed and sorry. I love my little girl with my whole being. I don’t want to yell at her.

Then tonight, I was sitting in one of the chairs in the living room and begged Milla to push on my back and try to fix the cramp next to my right shoulder blade. It felt as if a rib was out. The pain was relentless, had been gradually increasing all day, and I could hardly bear it any longer. Milla agreed and I laid on the floor. Isabel immediately came and walked on me, her tiny feet making no impression in my skin. So soft, so dear.

Milla walked on the spot and I felt a pop and relief, but wanted more walking because the rubbing felt good to my sore muscles. While she walked, Isabel kept walking too, nearer my head, then she stepped onto the base of my neck and hair. She was wearing shoes with rubber soles and the rubber caught my hair she slid to the side, yanking my hair. I am a thorough tender head, and the pain was immediate and intense.

“Get off!” I screamed. “Get off! Get off now! Both off me now, off off off!”

More lithe and agile, Milla jumped off quickly. Isabel was slower. She slid off and landed on her backside, rolling to her back.

“That hurt!” I yelled at her. “That hurt so much! Don’t walk on my hair!”

Isabel looked at me as if to ask what had happened to her mother. Where had she gone? Who had taken her and replaced her with this screaming banshee? There was no fear in her eyes, only perplexity as she seemed to wonder whether I had gone insane, or had been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by a lunatic. I jumped up and ran to my bed.

Isabel and Milla kept playing. I fell asleep for about 15 minutes and when I woke up, I lay there and wondered what I had become. I don’t want to be a person who yells at my children. Yet I have. I don’t do it often, and this is the first time I have ever done it to Isabel, but I know I have hollered at Milla. It must stop. It’s that simple. I woke up today and saw myself in a way I have not before, not really. Maybe noticing is the key. I think it is.

November 29, 2011 by Elle

Century Link is Still Qwest and Still Shit

A little over a week before moving into my new house, I called the power company to set up service with them. They offered to help me “explore my options” with different internet companies. Because I am not thrilled with Comcast as a company, I decided to explore these options. The person who helped me claimed I could get a better deal with Century Link. I was skeptical.

Several years ago, over a series of months, I wasted more hours than I care to count on the phone with Qwest discussing the multiple issues I had with their DSL service. Ultimately an electrician from their company got me a huge refund for several months’ worth of service I did not receive because the wiring to my house had been so old it wasn’t capable of managing the service I was supposed to have.

When Mr. Power Company Helper Guy urged me to switch, I was more than reluctant. However, he assured me that more had changed than the name, and that I could get blazing fast internet for about $20 less a month than I was paying Telecommunication Monopoly, I mean Comcast. I went ahead and signed up. However, Mr. Helper then transferred me to someone at Century Link to set up my account who read a disclaimer about the speeds, and I began to have buyer’s remorse nearly immediately. The speeds quoted were apparently only the fastest possible, and not likely what I would get. Oh great. Here we go again.

After I got off the phone I called Comcast and without explaining why I wondered, asked what speeds my price was supposed to be getting me. They were over double the Century Link speeds. The guy then set me up with a better plan and even faster speeds. The Century Link deal didn’t even come close. I then called back the power company and explained I wanted to cancel the order. They said it was too new and to call in the next day. The next day I called back and was assured the order was cancelled, but the person said I should call Century Link to confirm, which I did. They said the order wasn’t even there yet, but the guy made a note for my address. I called again a couple of days later just to make sure. The person who answered said there was no account and that it must never have been set up. He assured me that there was no chance I would get the service I did not want. Still skeptical, but okay, if you say so.

The following weekend we moved into the house. On Monday I went to work. When I arrived home in the late afternoon, there was a package on my stoop. Curious, I ran up to grab it before pulling into the garage. What do you think it was? Surprise! A modem from Century Link. Damn. Not only do I already have a modem that is just great thanks, but there wasn’t supposed to be any Century Link anything in my life.

Back to the phone. Back to holds and voice activated services that couldn’t figure out where I needed to be. Finally a person who was able to give me a return authorization number and his assurances that the account was closed, there would be no residual expense, and that my time with Qwest, aka Century Link was over. Satisfied, I believed him. Fool I be.

A week and a half later, a thin envelope arrived bearing a bill for $34.95. I didn’t even bother calling the louts at Century Link. I wrote a short note on the bill stating that I had cancelled my service prior to installation and that there should be no charges. I mostly believed that the bill issuance had crossed paths with the modem return.

Wrong again. Today’s mail bore an even thinner, more demanding insistence that I pay Century Link, this time $19.99. I put on my boxing gloves and called in. I could not explain to the telephone computer person my reasons for calling in a manner that satisfied. It finally transferred me to the wrong person, for whom I had to wait ten minutes, and that person had to transfer me to the right person. They may not have programmed in “Your fucking stupid company keeps billing me for shit I don’t want, you lousy corporate, monopolistic bastards.” but that was the line that finally did result in a human, so I suppose it worked.

Once I reached a human who could assist, I explained my situation. He asked the usual litany of questions designed to prove I am me, then wanted to take a few minutes and “review the account.” Sure, I’ve been on hold for 20 minutes, what’s a few more? He said the bill was for installation, then let me know he would do what he could to see about getting me a credit. A credit? No, sir. A credit will not do. I cancelled your service before it was ever installed. I don’t want a credit. I want the charges gone, understand? He said I needed to be patient. I explained that I was thoroughly out of patience. That I lost patience the day I came home to a modem and hours of holds and transfers. That his employer had stolen time I could be spending with my children, walking the dog, doing my job, washing the dishes, anything except wasting hours on the phone with a bunch of incompetent hacks who couldn’t seem to get this right. And that I would never pay them one penny of my money ever, especially considering all of the experiences I had suffered at the hands of their incompetence. He was silent, then he said I needed to trust him. I said I would try, but his coworkers had not instilled much trust. He said the difference was that when he said he did something, he really did it. I hope so.

I did not mail back the second bill. I’m hoping the phone calls suffice. We will see. In the meantime, I thought I would use this opportunity to warn every and all that Century Link is still Qwest, albeit with a brand new name, and that like Ally nee’ GMAC, and Springleaf nee’ American General Finance (see my observations about this here), they are still they same crappy monopolistic corporation, the same customer no-service, the same mess up even the most simple of requests, the same stay-on-hold-for-800-years, the same transfer to 13 departments before getting someone who may or may not fix your issue piece of shit company they have always been. Changing the name didn’t change anything except a few letters.

Rant over.

November 24, 2011 by Elle

Thanksgiving Sonnet

It’s that time of year again, for me to repost a sonnet I wrote in college. I’ve gone back and tried again and again to get the exact syllabic format for a completely proper sonnet, but could not find words to replace those here that would maintain the imagery and metaphoric content that I wanted, so it stays the same.

Thanksgiving Sonnet

Turgid turkeys, strained into rickety wooden coffins, exit four-by-four from a ten-ton hearse. Into the turkey mill: mutilation, holocaust.

Perspiring hormones, Tom Turkey stares with one sad eye at a crumbling chimney tower belching death in putrid smoke, blackening holiday skies. Annihilating light.

Bodies, bones. None remain unfrozen. With elaborate precision he’s taken apart; neck, gizzards tied in a bag between his ribs, head ground neatly into pink hot dog slabs.

Holiday skies are crowded with turkey souls, ascending to heaven like deflated balloons.

November 10, 2011 by Elle

Dribble, dribble, drip

Oh, moving is such a chore. I haven’t done one creative thing in 2 weeks. I haven’t worked on my book. I have barely played my cello. I haven’t looked at my French lessons. I haven’t taken one photograph (except a couple with the iPhone). I certainly haven’t written any useless nonsense on this blog. I have spent all my free time packing and moving, then moving, and now unpacking. Really I would like to find a home to stay in for a really long time. This one would work for me if the owner would sell it, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I think next year I need to begin looking in earnest. I don’t want to move again, but I need to find my own place. However, I do like this house a lot. It is much larger than the space we were in and it’s weird to be able to move freely and have places for things. I loved the style and neighborhood of our little duplex, but the keyword there was little. It was just too small, and it was never going to be a permanent home, as it was a duplex and a rental and I did not want to buy it. Plus three weeks before we left, the owner cut down the lovely tree in the front yard that was the only thing keeping the place from being a total fishbowl. I had been feeling kind of sad about leaving the place, but the tree removal took care of that.

In any case, we are here now and the internet works, which is a plus. I have been looking online on craigslist for some rugs. I need one for Isabel’s room, the dining room, and perhaps up in what will be our family room. The house is hardwood floors,so rugs make the house a home.

Craigslist is weird. There are a whole bunch of ads for dead animal rugs. First of all, how weird and gross is that, to walk around on some dead animal’s head and body? I don’t get it. There were a couple of tigers, a bear, and a cow skin. Oh, last night i saw at Ikea that they were selling cow skins. I just don’t find that look attractive at all.

The other thing I don’t get are ads that are selling some nasty old couch or something, with the caveat that it has holes and is covered in cat hair and probably stinks, but it’s a great, old friend, so you should want it too. Oh, and it needs to be gone by this afternoon at 6. And it’s $200. Yeah, right. Good luck getting someone to haul your ugly-ass piece of junk to the dump.

Work has been overwhelming. I don’t know who I’m telling this to, but it has been crazy busy. When I’m at the office I spend every spare minute cramming in work. A lot of the work is above and beyond the usual, so it’s even more workish. I feel like a slacker for going to the bathroom or eating lunch, but since I’m one of those never-could-be-anorexic, desperate-for-food-every-five-minutes, kind of gals, I have no choice but to stop and eat. Oh, and did I mention I’ve suddenly gone even blinder? Last week after completely struggling to work because I could not see (this with + 5.25 prescription contacts in my eyes already) I got in the car and drove to Walgreen’s and bought some damn reading glasses for the office. I already have several sets at home for playing the cello because I was having such a difficult time reading my music without them, but none were at the office and Walgreen’s was closer and I have no time to leave work and go home for glasses and….okay, enough long sentence. You get the idea. You being like the big, unknown they. I don’t know who YOU is, or who I’m saying this to, I’m just saying it, or typing it, or something. Oh, maybe Kathleen. She said she reads these posts sometimes. Hi, Kathleen, if you’re reading this.

Anyway, I have to eat. My stomach is growling. I’m hungry. It’s getting late and I need food.

October 26, 2011 by Elle

Little Liar

My clothing today is bearing false witness thanks to spandex and nylon.

I have more to say, but no time. I must go spend time with my favorite trustee. Good times. Hopefully the only dishonest thing there will be my clothes.

P.S. The cream under my eyes lies too.

October 24, 2011 by Elle

The Turn of the Screw

Sometimes I feel like a screw that is wound too tightly into wood, at the point where the wood is strained but not yet cracking. One more twist and the wood will splinter. I’m the wood; life is the screw.

October 22, 2011 by Elle

Wish

I wish people advertising on Craigslist wouldn’t say Vintage for something that is really not that old and is just ugly.

Not a high priority wish, but there nonetheless.

October 17, 2011 by Elle

Another Brilliant Observation

What I have discovered from looking at loveseats on Craigslist is that most furniture looks really ugly after people have used it for awhile.

That’s all.

October 16, 2011 by Elle

BedandBreakfast.com is a Big Lie Site

I used BedandBreakfast.com, also Inns.com, to locate a B & B in Barcelona. The reviews for the B & B I ultimately chose were fantastic, not one bad one in the bunch. They raved about the owner, the cooking, the facilities, all of it. I sought reviews on other sites, but there weren’t many available for the place I wanted to stay. After searching for a month and gathering quotes, I made my choice, primarily based on the information on BedandBreakfast.com, as well as the email conversations I had with the owner.

Unfortunately, our experience did not line up with our expectations, so much so that when we returned home, I wrote a diplomatic, but negative review. The owner wasn’t there. The woman who replaced her was nasty. The only breakfast was a couple of slices of bread with jam. The location was a good one for Barcelona, but was situated next door to a fire station, not exactly relaxing for a vacation. And the rooms had no air conditioning or fans, which was next to impossible to tolerate during August.

After I wrote the review, I received a message back from BedandBreakfast.com asking for proof I stayed at the B & B. I sent the confirmation email from the owner. Not good enough. I sent the Paypal receipt for the deposit. Not good enough. I even sent a photo of us in the room. Not good enough. We had paid in cash, and since the owner was not there and her replacement could not understand my request for a receipt, I had no further proof. They would not post the review. I have sent the owner 6 requests for a receipt, but except for one response in which she claimed to be out of town and that she would send one upon her return, I have had no response. BedandBreakfast.com claimed I could have been a competitor trying to bring down that B & B. Right. I fabricated emails with the owner, I sent $45 through Paypal to some fabricated account. I made up the whole thing, just to give a bad review? It’s ridiculous.

Don’t trust BedandBreakfast.com. I looked through their listings, and could not find any negative reviews. They filter them out. Don’t use their site to make your travel decision because you won’t be getting an accurate picture. Their site lies.

October 12, 2011 by Elle

Laundry Shoot

I just saw an ad for a house with a “laundry shoot.” I wonder if it fires the laundry into its drawers and onto its hangers once it is laundered.

Laundry shoot. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I know. I’m easily entertained.

October 11, 2011 by Elle

The only time I will use staples will be in a stapler.

I have been very busy lately. I have to use a PC for work because the software I use in my job is only windows-based. As is the case with PCs, the damn thing started running really sluggy and slow. I knew it needed a cleanup and defrag and all that crap, but I just didn’t have time to sit around and stare at it while it wound its way through all that stuff.

One day while in Staples purchasing my latest round of toner and paper, I saw a circular advertising PC tuneup services for $9.99. Ah, I thought. Good deal. I’ll let them stare at the stupid thing for two hours. It would be worth it not to have to. I called and was told that if I dropped it off on Wednesday I could pick it up on Thursday morning. Even better. Wednesday after work I headed on over to leave my non-trusty-computer at the store.

It should have been clue one to me that there would be problems when, contrary to the information I had been given over the phone, I was informed nearly immediately that it would be three days to get the computer back. Oh no, that won’t work, I told them. If it was going to take three days, I was going to have to do this another time. The salesman hemmed for a moment then said it could be done the next day.

Clue one, Lara. Clue one. You weren’t paying attention…

I then said I had to get going because I had an appointment.

Clue two, Lara. Clue two. Mr. Computer Fixit guy kind of sauntered over to look at something else another Computer Fixit guy was doing, then went behind the counter and got a little widget to insert into my computer. He inserted it and stood there talking to me, telling me how my computer was the nicest he had seen come through the tune-up station in a while. He looked like Napoleon Dynamite, only without glasses. He kind of sounded like him too. In the end I spent a half an hour in there, in spite of my constant assertions that I needed to get going.

I explained that my computer had been running slowly. I explained that on vacation, my colleague had used the computer and claimed it had been infected with malware, but our office computer guy and she had removed this malware with some program from the web. I explained that in spite of this, the thing seemed to be running slowly.

Do you use Norton? No, I don’t like Norton. I have BitDefender. Bit Defender? Never heard of it. Well, it was top-rated on PC Magazine’s choice for virus protection, and I bought it based on that review, and I haven’t had any problems with it. (Incidentally, since all this went down, I perused the web and saw that PC Magazine had again rated it in their top three.)

Well, I have never heard of it. Okay, so that makes you a superstar. Can you just take my computer and let me go now?

They told me they would call me when my computer was done and sent me on my way. I wasn’t kidding that I needed the thing the next day for work. It is all I have for work and all my work is on it. Without it, I can’t do 99% of my job. Well, more like 85%, but you get the idea.

The next day, Staples had not called me by 7:30 p.m. I was beginning to worry, because I had a big response due on a file in less than five days and could not afford to be without my computer.

I called Staples and was patched to the computer center. The guy on the phone informed me that he hadn’t been able to get it to update. He had tried two times and it failed at the end each time. Okay, yeah well, I need my computer. I don’t care about the updates. I’ll get to them later. I need my machine. He said I could come pick it up. It was late and baby was going to bed, so I said it would likely be in the morning. Okay, fine.

The next day I got busy with a bunch of other things and since I didn’t have the computer, I waited to pick it up until after picking Milla up for school. When I went in, I was told it had three viruses, and that if I wanted them removed, I would have to pay $200. I asked what the viruses were and was told that they didn’t know, but it would cost $200 to have them fixed. The guy told me that the Staples tuneup hadn’t even detected BitDefender (See? It’s such a horrible program!) He said I should have gotten the Norton antivirus software, and was told that Norton had picked up the three viruses on my computer.

At this point I began to believe this was all a scam to get me to pay Staples 200 more dollars. Whatever, I said to the guy. I needed my computer yesterday so can I have it now? It was frozen in update land because, in spite of the fact I told them the night before that I was going to come and get it and to forget about the updates, apparently they had tried again multiple times anyway.

That evening I sat down to work. The computer had seemingly passed through its updates, although this proved false. Later when I had to shut down because of the other issues that arose, it turned out the thing still wanted to keep updating. I finally had to go in and manually choose updates, leaving off the last one. It’s still screwed up and every time the thing shuts down, it tries to install the last update and fails, freezing and requiring a hard reboot.

The machine ran slower than it ever had before I took it to Staples. Frustrated and worried I wasn’t going to be able to finish my work, I did something I should have done this in the first place, and called Costco support. Remember though, I was up against a deadline and out of time, so it did not occur to me to call them sooner. In this, please cut me slack for my lack of foresight.

After 45 minutes on the phone, the computer was running speedily again. However, there was one problem that the tech could not figure out. I now have to log into my wireless by going through the control panel, going into network preferences, and re-entering my security key every single time I log on. I used to be able to right click on the now disabled icon on my taskbar, click my network, and voila! Logged on. Not any more.

The worst thing though, did not appear until I sat down to finish drafting the response due in five days. My Adobe Acrobat did not work. Every time I opened it I received an error message letting me know the registration had been corrupted and I needed to uninstall and reinstall. I ran an uninstall repair, but this did not fix the problem.

Frantic, I called my office to see if they had a serial number. The only serial number they had for me was one for Adobe Standard. I had Pro and needed Pro. The Standard would not work. I kept trying to do my job around the error, but it wouldn’t work. I optimize scanned text. I insert and delete pages. I enter in text boxes and rectangles. I used Acrobat. A lot. No more. Finally today, up against the deadline and sobbing in frustration, I uninstalled and reinstalled a trial version. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow the user to do any of the functions I use. In tears, I called my friend Debbie. She took my documents, made them into PDFs, stuck in the Exhibit words, and bundled them all together, then emailed it back to me to file. I wasted so much time on this problem, the response wasn’t nearly as tight and good as it could have been, and I filed it near 4 in the afternoon.

During this, I called Staples. I have a salesperson online who helps me with purchases. I had written him an email on Sunday after wasting two hours slogging through computer problems. He called me Monday. We played phone tag until today. He said the store had told him I said the computer had viruses. No, I never said that. He wanted to three-way call with the store to get this straightened out, so we made an appointment for tomorrow, after the big monster response was turned in.

Today, during my frustration, I called the store and asked to speak to the manager. He knew my case. He said the techs told him I said the computer had a virus. I never said that. He said my computer was “riddled with viruses.” That’s funny, because that’s not what they said and if their “tune-up” was supposed to clean viruses, why didn’t they do it? Why did they say it would be $200 to do that or give me any information at all? He said the “tune-up” had failed. That’s interesting, because my receipt says it worked just fine, that only one update failed. Well, your computer is riddled with viruses. So you’re telling me that my computer, which worked just fine and dandy until the day I got my computer back from Staples, magically developed viruses that only affected Adobe after I got it back from you? No answer? And are the viruses the reason the internet hookup icon on my taskbar is disabled and that no amount of tech support with Costco will bring it back? Yes, it must be. No apology, only an offer to bring the computer back and let the trolls get their hands on it again. Not on your life. Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on me. I’m not G.W.

What a load of horse pucky. Seriously. These yahoos want me to believe that my computer was riddled with viruses and that these viruses worked their magic only after my computer was left in their store. That, my friends, is a pile of steaming poo, a lie, a foulness, a thing most unclean.

I decided then and there to tell my story. My hope is that even one other person will read my words and decide that staples are for staplers, not a place to shop in. Take your business elsewhere. I’m going to. Office Depot is right across the parking lot.

October 10, 2011 by Elle

More Pithy Observation

Why is it that so many people think that for a woman to be self-actualized and equal — in the workplace, in the home, in her sexuality — she has to act like a man? I don’t see how sleeping with a bunch of men and ignoring them later makes me any stronger or wiser. I don’t see how shattering the glass ceiling by working ridiculous hours and ignoring my children gives me any sort of independence. I don’t see how ignoring household chores and letting my children care for themselves before they really understand who they are offers me freedom. So often what is held up as equality isn’t equal at all, it’s reduction of the female self to an outdated patriarchal view of how the world ought to operate. And I’m simply not on board with it.

That’s all.

October 10, 2011 by Elle

I Miss New York

Most days I want to move back to New York. I miss New York. I wish I had an income to support New York. Even more I wish I had an income to support my children attending the Waldorf school there if I lived there again.

Ah, c’est la vie.

October 10, 2011 by Elle

More Pointless Rambling

I keep thinking that I want to start a page on my blog that is called Pithy Observations. It would be filled with the sort of nonsense one normally finds on Twitter or Facebook, but that I generally don’t say because really, who cares? No one would care here either, but since this is not read as much then my pithy ideas would go more unnoticed. These thoughts are the sorts of things that pass through my brain for a while, taking up space. If I wrote them down, they might go away. Well, maybe.

October 8, 2011 by Elle

Halloween Comes Early Around Here

Some person calls our office and presses the number to get through to my mobile phone…at midnight and 2 in the morning. Creepy, freak-show stalkers like that give me the heeby-jeebies.

September 26, 2011 by Elle

Long Day

Isabel turned 2 today. She’s my sleepy, snuggly bear, breathing into my side. So warm. So soft. I love my little girl. I’m so grateful she was born.

The long-legged daughter came and nearly fell asleep in bed with me tonight. Are you going to sleep here, Miss Milla? Mmmm, nooo. Then more lying there. If you are staying, I need covers, which drove her to her own room and bed with the dog.

For some reason I have grown a sign on my head that says HELP ME and many are utilizing this service. I’m happy to help, especially my best friend Debbie whose close friend Jan died today. Many loose ends. Debbie managing, but some of it leaves her at a loss. Indeed, some left me at a loss too. I had to call people and ask. Another friend is going through more crisis. It’s hard. I wish sometimes for her sake it would let up. Then many clients in crisis too. All money being taken from bank accounts because of fine print, and can’t pay rent now or buy food. Another cried out because of calls at work both embarrassing and frequent. Another is being hassled after filing. The bankers are winning, but that last one, I can help with.

And then there is me with these unusual feelings of attraction and the person is suitable. Mmmnn, unusual, these feelings. Haven’t felt this for a looooong time. More unusual that someone is suitable. And single. And not bankrupt. I’m like a rusty old bicycle. I can still get on, but the wheels don’t turn so easily and I am not sure how to steer. Ah, we will see. It could go nowhere.

Weird, my life.

September 23, 2011 by Elle

Isabel, a Polar bear, and a Giraffe

Isabel went to the zoo with her cousin Sarah yesterday. We saw lots of animals because it was early and the sun was hiding behind clouds (as opposed to the last time we went in the middle of a sunny day when they were all napping). I felt sorry for the animals. Many of them were exhibiting behaviors associated with severe boredom. Also I found it ironic that the zoo was filled with many signs describing the effects of climate change and the corruption we are causing our planet, and begging us to redefine our behaviors, yet at the same time they were selling tons of plastic junk. Something of a hypocrisy there…

Anyway, here are photos I took of Isabel, a polar bear, and a giraffe.

September 16, 2011 by Elle

Introduction to Brain Rules for Baby

This is an excerpt from Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina. I have fallen in love with his book Brain Rules, and discovered the baby version on his website. I wish the school system would read this and stop trying to stuff reading in five-year-olds like they are pate’ geese on the way to slaughter.

From the introduction. See it here:

Scientists certainly don’t know everything about the brain. But what we do know gives us our best chance at raising smart, happy children. And it is relevant whether you just discovered you are pregnant, already have a toddler, or find yourself needing to raise grandchildren. So it will be my pleasure in this book to answer the big questions parents have asked me—and debunk their big myths, too. Here are some of my favorites:

Myth: Playing Mozart to your womb will improve your baby’s future math scores.

Truth: Your baby will simply remember Mozart after birth—along with many other things she hears, smells, and tastes in the womb. If you want her to do well in math in her later years, the greatest thing you can do is to teach her impulse control in her early years.

Myth: Exposing your infant or toddler to language DVDs will boost his vocabulary.

Truth: Some DVDs can actually reduce a toddler’s vocabulary. It is true that the number and variety of words you use when talking to your baby boost both his vocabulary and his IQ. But the words have to come from you—a real, live human being.

Myth: To boost their brain power, children need French lessons by age 3 and a room piled with “brain-friendly” toys and a library of educational DVDs.

Truth: The greatest pediatric brain-boosting technology in the world is probably a plain cardboard box, a fresh box of crayons, and two hours. The worst is probably your new flat-screen TV.

Myth: Telling your children they are smart will boost their confidence.

Truth: They’ll become less willing to work on challenging problems. If you want to get your baby into Harvard, praise her effort instead.

Myth: Children somehow find their own happiness.

Truth: The greatest predictor of happiness is having friends. How do you make and keep friends? By being good at deciphering nonverbal communication. Learning a musical instrument boosts this ability by 50 percent. Text messaging may destroy it.

Research like this is continually published in respected scientific journals. But unless you have a subscription to the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, this rich procession of findings may pass you by. This book is meant to let you know what scientists know—without having a Ph.D. to understand it.

August 30, 2011 by Elle

Eggs in Spain, and indeed the Netherlands, too.

I have two observation about eggs from my trip to Europe. A couple of days after my arrival in the Netherlands I was dispatched to the grocery store to fetch eggs. I could not find them. I searched and searched and returned empty-handed. Both Milla and Anne told me the eggs were by the cereal, so the next time I was in the grocery store I looked for the cereal. Lo and behold, there on the shelf next to the cereal sat the eggs. They were not in the refrigeration section, which is why I had not located them previously. I had gone around and around to all the refrigerated sections in the store. No wonder I hadn’t found them.

This was quite a revelation, these eggs on the grocery store shelf. I have known my mother to toss out entire cartons of eggs because they sat on the counter all day. What a waste. I will let her know, and everyone else who might care, that Europeans leave their eggs on the shelf in the grocery store. There have been no major outbreaks of Salmonella in the Netherlands (I checked, via the internets, so if the internets can be trusted, this is likely the case), which must mean that leaving eggs out of refrigeration for a while won’t hurt anyone. I wonder how much money could be saved in the US on refrigeration if eggs were not kept cold. Or maybe it’s that the US leaves them out longer than the eggs in Europe. I will have to do some investigating and get back to that one.

I made another egg discovery in Europe. You can buy, off the shelf, actual eggs from chickens that are truly free-range. I’m not talking about the bullshit US version of free-range where they keep them locked up until they are 5 weeks old, then open a tiny door at the end of a long shed, knowing full well they will never leave that shed until the day they die. No. I’m talking true free-range from a field chickens who eat bugs and grass and scratch their little feetsies in the dirt. I get my eggs true free-range from a field chickens. I have to go to a neighbor’s house who has them brought in from a ranch and sells them to willing buyers. I pay $5 a dozen, which isn’t horrible considering true free-range eggs at the local farmers markets are usually $10 a dozen. The true free-range eggs in Europe were about $3 Euros a dozen, which was the same price as the non-true free-range eggs in Europe. Not bad. Imagine that, true free-range eggs sold in the grocery store on the shelf for a moderate price. And we’re told it can’t happen here. What a load of dooky (dookie?).

Finally, the absolute best egg discovery I made in Europe was in Spain. Every single huevo I ordered in Spain was perfection. They were fried, with the whites completely cooked but not burned, the yellows still runny, and salted. NO PEPPER!! Perfect. I could not have ordered an egg more to my liking if I tried. I have never, I repeat NEVER gotten an egg exactly as I like it at a restaurant in the US. It is seemingly impossible here. For some reason, either the whites not runny, or the whites not burned, or the yellows still runny, or the just salty part is a little too difficult for cooks here to manage. Cooks here also seem to find it nearly impossible, even when asked, to leave off the pepper, which drives me to distraction because I can’t stand pepper and I really can’t stand it on eggs. I don’t send the eggs back for having pepper unless the pepper is so heavy I can barely see the egg, so I’ve had to scarf down peppered eggs on many occasions even when I didn’t want to. Now I just rarely eat eggs out because it’s so hard for US cooks to figure them out to my liking. But not the Spanish cooks, and I didn’t even SPECIFY!! They just came to me exactly as I like them, every single time I ordered them. I loved it. Maybe I was a Spaniard in a past life and this is why I like eggs the way they make them there. I don’t know.

And another thing…the Spanish eggs, like the Netherland eggs, and like my true-free range eggs here, had the same bright orange, tasty yokes. I suspect these Spanish eggs were true free-range as well. Eggs that are not truly free-range, including the pretend free-range version in the US, simply do not have these healthy, tasty yokes. They are anemic and bleah, with no flavor at all. The Spanish eggs were utter perfection, through and through.

August 27, 2011 by Elle

Cracking a Head on a Barcelona Stair

We are in the Philly airport now. We will be home in about 9 hours. Nice flight home…unlimited movies chosen from our seat.

Yesterday we spent our last eve in Barcelona riding in an ambulance to the hospital. Milla slipped on some stairs right after it started to rain and banged her head on the cement. She required two stitches. Quite the ordeal, but two bright spots. One was the cost, only $53 euros for the entire thing, INCLUDING the ambulance ride. Two was the incredibly handsome Spanish men who were our paramedics. Both of them were handily some of the most incredible looking men I have ever seen. I can’t believe humans are that lovely in person. (: Anyway Milla is recovering and has an interesting story to tell her classmates.

August 24, 2011 by Elle

The Girls at the Castle at Montjuic

Isabel and Milla at Montjuic in Barcelona

August 24, 2011 by Elle

Barcelona

I have noticed since being in Barcelona, and indeed I have noticed in all of our European travels this summer, a lot more men carting around children than I see in the states. And here in Spain I have noticed many, many sets of grandparents or a grandparent caring for young children. I wonder if instead of placing children with daycare centers, more people here utilize family for childcare. I’m talking about babies and very young children.

Today while swimming in the Mediterranean I was drifting in from a swim out a ways from shore, when a turd floated by. I immediately exited the water, packed up the baby, and went to take a shower. I just could not swim with turds. Call me particular.

August 19, 2011 by Elle

Small White Dogs

There seems to be a proliferation of small, white dogs in this corner of Europe. We’ve seen many Westies, Jack Russells, Malteses, and Poodles. One even appeared to be a Maltipoo, which is the breed of our little scamp, Ava. Oh, I miss Ava. I miss cuddling her little fuzzy body and having her greet me upon entering every single room. We have also seen a number of Dachshunds, but they aren’t white. When I was last in Europe, there were lots of hairy Dachshunds. This trip I have only seen 2, but many, many short-haired versions. We also saw 2 greyhounds.

August 14, 2011 by Elle

Düsseldorf

We spent 2 days in Düsseldorf, Germany. Actually, we stayed in a suburb called Ratingan at the in-laws of my friend, Anne. However we went into Düsseldorf both days we were there. The weather the entire time was pretty abysmal, especially for August, but this did not stop us from exploring. Sunday morning in Ratingan we were all soaked on our way to breakfast at a lovely bakery. Breakfast, while damp, was quite delicious. There was a lot of construction going on downtown, which Anne says has been going on for years. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I don’t know enough to judge.

In any case, we made it around the construction zone and wandered up and down lovely alleyways to the Rhine. At the Rhine, the sky in the distance looked quite menacing, so we beat a fast track back to the car. We seemed to miss the rain, which was a first for the trip.

I snapped some photos of my beautiful daughter along the Rhine and with her umbrella. Her smile is truly breathtaking.

Milla in Düsseldorf, Germany, August 14, 2011.

August 14, 2011 by Elle

Amsterdam, I love you.

August 15, 2011:

Magical, magical, magical. I fell in love with Amsterdam nearly immediately. Exiting the central station and moving out into the sun was no more unusual than any other such exits, except that the sun was shining and we’ve been trudging through thick raindrops since we arrived. This alone made the departure special. We had planned to take a boat ride around the canals, but after a snack, I wasn’t so interested in sitting in a plastic, encased tube, which is how the canal boats are, so we headed off towards Dam Square with the intent to catch a boat ride later.

We wandered down a busy thoroughfare that was much too touristy, but fun in a campy way. Marijuana smoke drifted in and out of the crowd, and Milla wrinkled her nose and smiled at this. We smell marijuana when we visit the Last Thursday festival in Portland, but it’s not legal. We also passed a sex museum. Milla found this quite salacious, marijuana smoking and sex shops right out in the open, which of course gave her another giggle.

Dam Square was crowded and full of life. A Scot danced and played, then asked for tips. Around the square various persons stood attired in an array of costumes that must have been hotter than hell. One was a knight, covered in shiny, green stones, with a brilliant, diamond encrusted shield. Every few moments he shifted slightly to his left, then again, then again, until he circled and faced us. As he turned away I could see beneath his helmet. The skin there was red and sweaty. He must have been roasting there in the sun wearing such a heavy costume. Nearby Poseidon posed with a family of three. He allowed one of the sons to hold his pearly blue, shell covered staff. Darth Vader stood alone to one side. No one seemed much interested in him; modern gods pale in comparison to Poseidon and knights. I can only imagine the level of sweltering under his black cape and hood.

As we passed through the square and crowds, pushing Isabel in her stroller along the bumpy cobblestones, I felt a gradual welling of desire for this place in my chest. I wanted to get past the tourism and into the very old city. I did not so much mind the crowds, but had no desire for McDonald’s and other hideous modern entrapments. Come, I said to Milla. Let’s head off this way. We took a narrow road away from the square and moved along until we came to a quiet street along a canal.

As in Delft, a small town we visited a couple of days ago, cars parked right along the canal. There were no fences or other obstructions between them and the water. Surely parking must be a stressful affair, even when one is used to doing it. Later on our boat tour, we heard that an average of one car per week falls into a canal. Yikes!

We rambled along and came to a busier street with another, larger canal running through it and decided then to take a boat tour. We stood and purchased our tickets, and proceeded down onto the wooden boardwalk to wait our turn on a bench. The sun was really warm and I commented to Milla that I would take being warm any day over the rain. Isabel peeked over the edge of the boardwalk into the water, turning to tell me about the sloshing water and ducks. Hoo? she asked, pointing into the depths below.

We sat for ten minutes before a boat came to pick us up. The best part about getting to such a tour before the boat arrives is that you are near the front when it boards, which affords you the opportunity to choose the best seats. The boat was long and narrow, an aisle running between booths of vinyl benches with tables between. The entire thing was encased in a plastic windows. Two sets of the windows were open on top, and at the very front and the very back, windows were open on either side as well. We chose a booth at the very back next to an open window, and for the rest of the ride, i was so grateful for this choice and opportunity. The boat groaned, its engine grinding and smelly as the contraption turned to begin its journey, turning and snaking along the wider canal.

Moments later the boat turned down a smaller channel and as the sun shined upon us, the breeze gently pulling at our hair, with Milla smiling and Isabel giggling, I fell completely and utterly in love with Amsterdam. The boat ride was completely enchanting. We passed crooked, skinny houses, built on uneven piles driven into the sticky muck that is the city’s base. Our guide recited in four languages the story of early taxation based on a building’s width. He pointed out overhead the wenches attached to gables and used to swing furniture through open windows because the doors are too narrow to admit anything of consequence. We heard stories of ancient merchants and mariners, and cars falling in channels, and the cost to build small fences, and as the boat moved along, I thought, I would love to live in this place.

As we floated along, my 22 month old daughter waved at everyone. We passed groups of young men hanging out on the edge of the canal. Isabel waved and they all broke into bright smiles. We passed two old people snuggling together on a bench. Isabel waved and waved, and they smiled and waved vigorously in return. We slid beneath a stone bridge. A handsome, dark skinned man ambled along its side. Isabel waved at him and his smile was so genuine and lovely, my heart nearly broke at its beauty. My sweet child was making many people happy, if only for a moment. Her wave is flat-handed, like a royal waving to her subjects.

After 45 minutes, the boat moved out of the canal and into the broad channel near the central station. It passed a bicycle parking garage filled with thousands of bicycles, and the central train station. As we rounded the corner into the main channel, we looked up up up at the bow of a giant cruise ship. We thought we were going to hit it, it was that close! At the last moment, our boat curved round the ship and made its way further down the channel. It then turned back into the canal and back to where we began.

I loved Amsterdam. Then entire time we floated through the beautiful canals, I was in complete bliss. After our ride we wandered until we came across the Waterstones Bookstore. More bliss. Four stories of books, which for me is like putting a drunk in a bar, I’m such a book addict. I could never give up paper and covers in favor of some electronic reading device. There is so much more to the experience than the reading of the words. Milla and Isabel settled into the children’s section and I was able to have some free moments wandering by myself, which was heavenly.

After making a few purchases (of course), we left Waterstones and discovered two more bookstores, the American Bookstore and a small local shop. All were in Spull Square, a delightful place full of trees, birds, sun, and visitors. Dogs romped. Birds chirped and ate crumbs. Groups congregated. The sun shone. We sat for a while on a bench eating our purchases from the AH grocery. This was a fine discovery, minus the vomit on the stairs out front–ewww! We were able to purchase lunch meat, cheese, bread, and fruit. We ate these in Spull Square until a yellow jacket decided to chase us away. Milla screamed and some locals laughed at her. It was kind of funny. We then waited for Anne at a coffee shop and drank decaf Americanos. Isabel played and nursed. Once Anne arrived, we caught a train to the theater where we watched her fiance in an opera. It was all wonderful fun.

Good: Trains are fast. Weather is lovely. Buildings are charming and crooked. There are hooks from the tops of the buildings with which to swing furniture in through the windows of narrow old houses.

Not so good: Vomit in front of the grocery store and the smell.

Sublime: Isabel waving at people on the shore and their smiles and waves in return. She took them by surprise, this tiny person waving at them from a boat.

Isabel in front of a canal in Amsterdam.

Milla in Amsterdam.

July 27, 2011 by Elle

Legerdemain

Ah, WordPress. Every so often you feel the need to change things, to switch them around a bit, move words slightly left or slightly right, make lilliputian adjustments. One might not notice if one had not spent some time in this place. I wonder about this need to adjust and mark.

I have been working so much on the book that I keep wanting to hit the save button on this like I do on my word processing program, but the code doesn’t work here. It’s a useful habit, this saving of documents every few minutes, but it’s weird when the fingers do it without the brain making a conscious choice.

For many days I have been the proverbial chicken with a missing head. I often feel as if the body is carrying on without me, a pinball chicken body, bouncing and careening from moment to moment. This exhausts me. I made the mistake of checking work email a moment ago. Oh, how I wish I had not done that. It pulls my head from my body and throws it into my office, and right now, I want my head at home, with the body.

While I feel like my head is operating without my body, I think I’m giving the impression of managing it all, like a circus performer balancing plates on sticks, one here, another there, one high, another low. From the outside, I appear to have all the marbles in a jar, but really, this is an illusion, a sleight of hand. Move closer and one will see that the marbles aren’t together at all. It is just a picture of the marbles in a jar, the light adjusted somewhat to give the appearance of reality. Look behind the picture and you will see a chicken running without its head and the head is nowhere to be found.

July 19, 2011 by Elle

Lucky

Our house smells like roasted sugar. Well, burned sugar actually. This smell is the result of a confluence of unplanned events. First, Milla turned over a plastic bear bottle of honey in the cupboard above the stove in an effort to extract every last molecule of the stuff from the bottle. Second, I forgot to turn off the burner on the stove this morning after making eggs. Third, after heating the stove and the air above it all day long, the honey in the bottle began to melt and drip down into the drip pan — hence the name, drip pan, although I doubt this is what the stove designers had in mind exactly. Thus, the result was burning sugar. There is now in the drip pan a pile of charred honey. It is the color of hematite. It’s actually quite beautiful. We’re lucky we didn’t burn down the house.

July 18, 2011 by Elle

Anticlimactic

The interesting thing for me in finally finishing one of my books is how anticlimactic it has been. I finished it, then sat here and thought, Okay, it’s done. I will have to read through it and edit, but the bulk of it is complete. It seemed as if the occasion deserved something more, but it really didn’t. If there has been a sincere shift in my thinking over the last few years it is this: life is about the ride, not the destination. This book just proved to me how much this has sunk in and become a part of me.

Time to rouse baby and get her dressed. I love the smile she gives me when she awakens. This morning before I got out of bed, I was lying next to her and she wakened for a moment, then patted my chest for milky, and gave me her lovely smile before latching on and going back to sleep. Ah, baby love is the best love of all!

July 14, 2011 by Elle

European Vacation

I love that when European hoteliers, and beds and breakfasts quote you a price, it includes all the taxes and fees and whatnot, rather than the lying American version that tries to make the price look smaller by leaving that stuff out.

July 13, 2011 by Elle

Rick Santelli is an Idiot…Still

I posted this a while back. See it here. I was responding to this moron the first time he opened his idiot face and let venom spew. Of course, since he’s still slithering around out there, the post continues to garner hits, over two years later. I reread what I wrote, and I can’t really improve on it. All I said is still true. So I’m posting it again.

Rick Santelli is an Idiot

I can’t believe this guy. I heard him spouting off about how Americans shouldn’t pay for their neighbor to have one more bathroom. I wanted to reach into the screen and slap his ugly head. What an idiot.

Here’s a clue, Mr. Smarty Pants: People who are in foreclosure are in foreclosure because the system is a mess, not because they are “deadbeats” and want a free ride from the government or their neighbors. Want to point fingers, idiot? Point them at the banks that overvalued properties in the first place to get people into questionable loans so brokers could collect bigger fees. Point those fingers at the lenders for telling consumers that their ARM loan wouldn’t be a problem because they would be able to refinance in three years when the rates change (and hey, rates have been going down forever, so why shouldn’t this continue? Your payment will be lower!) while simultaneously neglecting to point out there would be no way in hell any traditional lender would refinance property that is mortgaged for more than it is worth. And oh, be sure to keep it a secret from the borrower that refinancing will not be an option if you lose your job. How about pointing the fingers at lenders who convinced people to take out that second mortgage or a HELOC to “consolidate their debt” without pointing out that trading unsecured debt for secured debt would make bankruptcy pointless should the need arise? How about pointing fingers at the pathetic and useless Bush administration who drove us into an economic crisis and higher unemployment than we have seen in decades? Let’s just blame the victim for losing their job. They should have known to move to China or India ten years ago so they would be there when their jobs were shipped overseas.

I heard the jerk in an interview claim that buyers should have hired lawyers. Guess what? Lawyers aren’t free. And assuming someone could afford $225 an hour to hire one, a lawyer wouldn’t hire an appraiser to know that the bank overvalued the property. Plus hiring an attorney when you buy a house is theoretically unnecessary anyway. Mortgage brokers and lenders have a fiduciary duty of care to their clients. This means they are held to a higher standard of care in dealing with the public. They are expected to act EXTRA honest because it is expected that they have greater knowledge about the mortgage industry than consumers. How does this work, Mr. Santelli? Are the consumers supposed to suddenly educate themselves so they can catch dishonest bankers and brokers? Would you hold a patient to the same duty before going to a doctor? Am I supposed to go get an MBA before I go to a financial expert to ensure they are upholding their fiduciary duty? Should I get an MD before going to the doctor?

I can’t stand the mentality that we are not obligated to help one another. Guess what? We are all in this together. We can sit in our foreclosed bunkers with our guns aimed at our neighbors and barbed wire wrapped around our hearts to protect us from the enemy, ensuring we keep that property because, hell, it belongs to us, right? We don’t need to share. Or we can grow up and realize that society at its heart means social. It means taking responsibility for one another. It means what we do for each other we do for ourselves. It means we care for and protect one another and when someone is down, we offer them a hand up. Taking care of one another is the stuff life is made of. The alternate choice is to live like Rick Santelli, cold and alone with his gun pointed at everyone, dragging his loot into the afterlife. Good luck with that, Buddy.

P.S. Being a stock-broker might be a high risk financially, but it is not hard work.

June 24, 2011 by Elle

This is Tonight

Milla, desiring to become the next FooPet idol, sings bland, corporate lyrics over and over while washing dishes. I am grateful she is washing the dishes; I am not grateful for her musical choice while doing so.

Isabel slumbers, stirring quietly as she dreams. She likes to stand on boxes. Tonight the box she chose was minuscule and unsteady, which caused her to topple over on her back, banging her head and making her cry. Only Mama and milky could soothe.

My body does not want me to eat pancakes. It lets me know in no uncertain terms that eating pancakes is not an activity it will allow, and that if I do, I will suffer.

Why won’t Safari give me the option of saving my passwords? The box that offers such a convenience is checked. I don’t like typing them each time.

June 23, 2011 by Elle

An Observation

I am rapidly discovering that if you spend most of your time listening to Ella Fitzgerald singing, then listening to most other singers will be a most unsatisfactory experience.

June 22, 2011 by Elle

Pointless Rambling

Do you ever have a day where it feels like there is a burr in your ass? I didn’t start out the day feeling that way, but ever since I woke from a midday nap I have felt increasingly cranky. I’m sure a lot of it is that I did not get enough sleep last night, and the other part is that I’ve got a damn cold again, and my voice is nearly gone, and by the end of the day I’m frankly sick to death of squeaking rather than speaking. I finally decided it would not even be a good idea to work on my book because my attitude would more than likely worm its way into the text and I don’t need that.

All this said, I have the cutest, sweetest, most adorable baby on the planet sleeping next to me and just seeing her fills my heart with love and joy. She is perfection. Tonight in the car, she picked up her chubby, sandaled foot and held it to her head like a phone. “Lo?” she said into her heel, her toes to her ear. What could be cuter than that? Sweet adorableness. I’m in baby love. Older daughter was actually kind today too. She had me come in and cover her with blankies before going to sleep, then I cuddled her and accidentally poked her in the eye. This required kisses and loves. At least she didn’t snarl at me. I’m not in love with this snarly, surly age. I hope we get through it intact. I foolishly believed I would be immune from adolescent angst in my child. Oh how wrong I was…

June 13, 2011 by Elle

It Continues Unabated

I have believed my entire life that good will prevail, that the greed of imperialism and corporatism would fail, that eventually in the battle against those who seek power for its own sake, who destroy this lovely planet for their own narrow gains in the moment, would all lose in the end and we would embrace one another and our home as sacred. I have believed that the selfishness of the individual who isn’t at the top of the corporate or power ladder would somehow dissipate and there would be more balance between feminine and masculine energies. Even though imperialism has spread from one place to another and destroyed entire populations on every continent, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake, I thought ultimately, those who seek harmony with our earth and one another would ultimately prevail.

Yet I realize that it continues to get worse, as it always has–Europe stole Africa, North America, South America, the South Pacific, India, and Australia. Europe’s North American protege steals from Asia and the middle east. Imperialism has taken the entire planet. My country is killing people all over the world. My country takes what it wants and cares not for the consequences to the people from whom it takes or the planet from whom it takes. My country steals from this planet, all in the name of greed and power, regardless of the long term result. My country does all this while waving its flag claiming its superiority over everyone and everything. What a mockery of true superiority. What a mockery of all that is decent and good.

The reality is that imperialism and greed have won, are winning, will continue to win until there is nothing left. Our race learns nothing from the mistakes of the past, because we as individuals did not experience them. The last victims of the Holocaust are dying off even as new versions of it have continued, nearly unabated. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, America and its citizens continue to ignore global climate change, pretending it isn’t man-made so they can continue to live as they want unabated because making any changes beyond clicking a button on a mouse or sorting out some recycling is the limit of what they are willing to do. We take from the Mexicans through imperialism and corporatism, leaving nothing for them in their home place, then beat their citizens in whatever way possible to keep them from trying to escape. We take from China and southeast Asia through imperialism and corporatism, allowing anything that makes us more money, while ignoring flagrant human rights violations. We take from our oceans. We take from our land. We take and take, and on, and on.

I look around at the world and, while I recognize that giving up hope of stopping what we are doing to one another and to the planet would be akin to joining the dark forces, I simultaneously realize that those who wish for something different are fighting a losing battle. I suppose there is some miniscule percentile of a possibility that we can stop them, but reality is grim. I fear it is going to take a global Holocaust, not just of people, but of the planet, to force people to realize that the pursuit of wealth and greed will destroy us.

June 5, 2011 by Elle

Oh for Cryin’ Out Loud

I’m a bankruptcy attorney so I am often in contact with collection agencies and whatnot. I have been doing it long enough that I have also seen a bunch of financial institutions come and go. It is amazing how many bottom-feeder, rotten-ass lenders turn around and change their name because they are such scum, even people with the worst credit ratings won’t touch them.

One of these is GMAC. They are now Ally! They announce it with an exclamation point on their envelopes and return addresses. Guess what? We changed our name so now you can pretend we aren’t the same law-breaking, loan sharks we have always been! Sorry GMAC, or Ally, or whatever. You still suck.

Another is American General Finance. Total loan sharks. Total bottom-feeder scumbags. Now they are Springleaf! Ah, how fresh! How springlike! How green and new! No. The only thing green about them is their diarrhea color. When I saw that they had become Springleaf, I actually exclaimed, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” Hence the name of this post.

People out there in America, if you happen to read this, don’t borrow money. If you do borrow money, only do it for a home loan. If you do that, don’t borrow it from a bottom-feeder loan shark. If you are borrowing from a bottom-feeder loan shark, you can’t afford what you are getting the loan for. Leave them all alone. They’re horrible and they don’t deserve your business.

June 3, 2011 by Elle

Ouch

I had a dental implant put in yesterday. It was fine as long as I was doped up on ibuprofen. Apparently though, that was keeping the pain at bay because it woke me up in the middle of the night hurting. I left the prescription ibuprofen in the car. Milla left the non-prescription ibuprofen somewhere besides where it goes. This meant I had to get up and go down to the garage and open the car in the middle of the night and get the ibuprofen. Just the act of rising and transporting myself to the car, retrieving the ibuprofen, and returning was enough to increase the throb to the point where I knew sleep would be futile. Now it is the middle of the night and I’m awake and this hurts.

I hope it stops soon.

June 1, 2011 by Elle

The Gap is so Dumb

The Gap is so dumb. Okay, I know my even saying that is dumb, but seriously, it is. I don’t love the Gap. I don’t like their business practices very much, plus some of their stuff is really expensive for what it is (although I realize their model is to price really high then get people to buy on sales).

Anyway, even though I don’t love them, I will go in there for t-shirts and things because they are one of the few places left that sell t-shirts that are not so thin you can see through them. I hate that trend. I think the stores want us to think we are supposed to layer them or something, but that’s a load of baloney. First of all, once a person is past 24, layering a bunch of t-shirts looks ridiculous, like you’re trying to be 19 again or something. Secondly, if you are more than 98 pounds, layering a bunch of t-shirts just makes you look bigger and if you’re already bigger than you want to be, why would you want to look bigger still? Finally, I think their pretending like that is what we are supposed to be doing is a load of crap. Retailers just want to charge the same price for a crappy thin t-shirt as we pay for one that is woven more densely, that way they make more money for less product. That’s the ultimate point, I think, to get us all used to thin, junky t-shirts so we think the thick ones are a luxury and they can charge more.

Again, anyway. The point of my saying the Gap is so dumb is that I bought this shirt at the Gap recently on clearance (their model, get you to buy on clearance because that is all their junk is worth), and it had this tag on it that read THIS FABRIC IS PURE SPRING, LIGHT AND AIRY WITH A SOFT SEXY DRAPE. Wow. Seriously? Having worked for my very feminine, gay uncle in his fashion designing business, I have to ask, “What drag queen came up with that bullshit, anyway?” Pure spring — seriously? Soft, sexy drape? Um, no.

Another reason the Gap is stupid is that lately they have been trying out this “sexy drape” thing on many clothing items by sewing in horrible folds and creases in places where there should be none. It’s like they want to permanently place an ugly wrinkle after wearing something to sleep in. For instance, they have these tank tops with straps that are bent, then sewn, then bent. Basically, it makes the strap not lie flat. I don’t want straps that don’t lie flat because they don’t lie in a straight line either, which means half the time my bra strap is hanging out. Now, there are tops I will wear with my bra straps showing because that is the look, but this tank top is not one of them. It looks like a dressy tank top only it has this ugly, weird twisty strap thing going on, and you can’t iron it out. Unfortunately, when I bought the shirt, I thought the strap was just messed up and needed to be ironed, so I bought the shirt. Unfortunately again, I bought it with some things I bought for Milla, she carried the bag, and she put the receipt inside the bag. This means that when we got home and she dumped her things out and I forgot about my shirt for a few days, by the time I remembered it and realized the strap was a big mess, the receipt was lost. This did, however, provide me with an opportunity to explain to Milla that she should place the receipt in my wallet from now on, so all was not lost in the cause, although I don’t think the lesson was worth $18.99.

In any case, I have this weird label here from another shirt I bought there on clearance. This shirt was only like $4.99, down from $78 — seriously, Gap? Seriously? Are you smoking crack? Do you think ANYONE in their right mind is going to buy this junk for that? — But I digress. The shirt in question is made from some kind of drapey fabric. It is made to wear under a suit jacket or something, which is what I bought it for. But it too has a weird flap sewn in that makes zero sense. When I bought it, I noticed the flap and examined it carefully to see whether I could sew or iron it into something normal. I could, and the price was right, so I bought it. I had also tried on many others with weird twists or drapes or whatever the hell that I did not buy because they were such big messes, there was no way ironing or sewing would work things out, but this one was okay. I also tried on some pants where they sewed in messed up, wrinkly cuffs. I don’t like messed up, wrinkly cuffs. I like my cuffed pants to have the cuffs lying flat and even all around. Ewww. Did not buy those even though they were only $7.99 or something on clearance. The ridiculous cuffs were probably why they were so cheap on clearance.

So I bring home this shirt and hang it in the closet, then take it out to iron the weird wrinkle thing and see this tag and have to wonder about the drag queen who wrote it. Actually, it was probably a committee of drag queens because corporations love committees to come up with stupid things to try and get people to buy. The drag queens are probably the kind who can’t get a job at Calvin Klein or Prada or whatever, so they are working at the Gap trying to break into the business. I don’t know. In any case, they come up with these stupid sewn in wrinkles and flaps then add a tag that says PURE SPRING, LIGHT AND AIRY WITH A SOFT SEXY DRAPE. Another aside, Gap, if you are going to use the one comma, why not go all the way and use them in other places too, like after the word sexy? But again a digression. I had to laugh. You think you can sew in weird flaps and the clothing item is now going to have a soft, sexy drape? No. It doesn’t work that way, especially on mass-produced, sweatshop from China crap from the Gap.

I’m just saying.

May 30, 2011 by Elle

Miscellaneous Blatherings

I have finished two chapters in two days, but now I have to work at the job that makes me money. I don’t want to. I’m burned out. I took a small break, but I think I need a vacation where I leave the continent. We are planning one of those, but it will not arrive soon enough. There are other things happening in the meantime that I look forward to. I just need to keep plugging away at the day job until I get over the funk. It will happen; it has before.

Isabel has taken to letting her dollies nurse on her, or nurse on me before she nurses. She is very generous, that one.

I have also been working on the second book at the same time as the first. Both are right there, in my brain, so when I want to work on one, I start typing and out it comes. The problem is that I want to finish both and there isn’t enough time in the day. But it will happen. I’m glad enough for the work that is coming.

Milla is getting taller and growing things like breasts. She complained about the bra I bought her so I just bought her some bigger ones. As has been the case since she was tiny she likes her clothing five sizes too big. I have to say that I prefer that to the opposite alternative.

Our next door neighbor is moving away. Ours has not been a cordial acquaintance. Mostly it hasn’t been an acquaintance at all, but what contact there has been has been unfriendly. She does not seem to like us, and we really don’t like her in return. We have vowed to take a pie to the new tenant, hoping that a beginning kindness will at least give rise to the possibility of a friendly acquaintance. We shall see. I am glad, though, that the neighbor who does not like us is leaving.

It is sunnyish today, which is an improvement over downpours. I’m glad that it is not brightly sunny or I would lament leaving work until the last day. As it is, I will get it done without grumbling that I’m doing it in exchange for good weather.

May 23, 2011 by Elle

Monday

One of my several books is finally coming together. I have been plugging away steadily and actually making a dent in getting it done. The result though, is that when I have time to sit and write, it doesn’t happen here. Many days, like this one, the choice is eat, write, cello, or French. Usually only eat wins. Tonight I bought plant starts for the garden, and since it was not raining I decided to plant those instead of all my other potential projects, so I managed only eat and plant. Oh, and pull weeds. First I had to pull weeds out of the planter boxes in order to plant the vegetables in them. The ground was soft and loamy, perfect for pulling weeds and also for planting. Oregon’s weather today was as schizophrenic as ever, unable to decide between warm sun and pounding rain. I’m a bit dismayed by the rains we are getting. They are more like east coast rains than typical Oregon rains, but things are changing in the weather world, so I should not be surprised.

In any case, it was pouring rain when I bought the baby plants, but by the time we got home, I made dinner and we ate it, the sun had decided to come out and stay out until dusk when I completed the planting. This was quite satisfactory. I love digging in the dirt and growing things. It makes me feel centered. Isabel came outside with me and helped. She scolded Ava whenever Ava barked at the wind, or the walking neighbor, or the squirrel, or the cat, or the way her fur fell across her face. Isabel also made her hoo sound and showed me plants, helped me to pick weeds, and showed me how her coat snaps. She liked pulling out the old leaves from the flower bulbs that have already bloomed for the year. She stacked them in the stack of discarded plant parts and old rooty things. Then she watched closely as I dug holes and placed baby lettuce or baby corn into them. Adorable.

I finished this gardening project at dusk and my hands were filthy, so I figured it was as good a time as any to take a bath. However, taking a bath and getting baby ready for bed took up the whole evening, leaving me basically no time for cello, French, or writing. Now I should be sleeping but I’m typing this. Why? I have no idea. I just pulled out the computer and started to go. I can’t say what insane motivation drove me to it. I am going to overcome this motivation now and go to sleep because the only time I’m going to get writing done during the week is in the early morning, which means getting up early, and if I am going to get any sleep at all (which is necessary in my brain for coherent writing), I have to stop this now and turn out the light.

May 18, 2011 by Elle

Interview with the Author of The Cello Suites, Eric Siblin

Described as “part biography, part music history, and part literary mystery,” The Cello Suites weaves together three narratives: the disappearance of Bach’s cello suites in the eighteenth century, Pablo Casals’s discovery and popularization of the music, and author Eric Siblin’s quest for the truth behind the suites today. Mr. Siblin graciously agreed to an interview, and we spent over an hour discussing his book, the music, and the beauty of the cello.

LG: I was fascinated by the Walter Joachim story. That was one of my favorite parts of the book. It was just timed so perfectly, and it seemed incredible to run into somebody with that kind of personal history. I was really curious about how that acquaintance went, how long it lasted, and what it was like to run into someone with his background.
ES: Walter seemed like the music fleshed out before my very eyes. It was wonderful to stumble upon him. When I heard about his story I was just amazed and spellbound that somebody living a few blocks from where I was living had such a profound connection to the music, and somebody who I was crossing paths with every week, but not knowing, had turned out to be such an embodiment of the music. It was just delightful to get to know him.

Unfortunately it happened late in his life. I think I met him in October and I think by Christmas he had passed away. So I didn’t get that much time to hang out with Walter, but I would regularly bump into him on the streets, the main street that he lived on, Monkland Avenue, and I would walk with him either to the cafe and have lunch with him, or escort him (because he walked with a certain amount of frailty) back to his high-rise apartment, and started to do some interviews with him as well with a tape recorder, but had only gotten up I think to 1938 or something, when he passed away. It was fairly short-lived my encounter with Walter, but it was really pivotal for the writing of the book because firstly, it just spurred me on and got me quite enthusiastic, and secondly, Walter urged me to take up the cello, so that also gave the idea of the book a shot in the arm.

LG: Yes, the timing seemed really fortuitous.
ES: Yeah, so it was wonderful timing and terrific to meet him at that stage. It was perfect to meet him period. He had a real joie de vivre, and he was a great raconteur who would regale me with stories of music history, his own life story, which was fascinating, and music gossip, cellist gossip. It was great. And he was right, by trying to pick up the cello, in a really rudimentary way, it was also gave me insight into the music and helped me, and helped the book get written, I think. I never sat down at the outset and thought, okay, what solid ground do I have to cover in order to turn this into a book? What activities can I do to make it readable? It was really an organic process that stemmed from own genuine curiosity.

I was really trying to connect-the-dots that comprised the music, and often it was by happenstance. The case with Walter, was one. There were other times. I was in Europe once doing other work and I would inevitably look around to see if there were other connections where I happened to be to the Cello Suites. Sure enough, often something would pop up.

For example, I was in Brussels a few times, and I would not otherwise think of going to Brussels to research the Cello Suites, but I was there for other work reasons and I would look around, and Brussels produced a few different scenes that made their way into the book. One, the first cellist I interviewed was living not far from Brussels in Belgium, Mischa Maisky, and I interviewed him. Then it turned out when I was researching Cello Suite No. 6 and grappling with the sort of mystery of the five-stringed instrument in Cello Suite No. 6, I learned of this fellow Dmitry Badiarov, a Russian immigrant luthier who was building violoncello piccolos, and had strong opinions about Cello Suite No. 6. In fact all the Cello Suites from his point of view were written for the violoncello piccolo. So I got to go hear him play and interview him. On another occasion I wandered into this store where I found a business card advertising a store called Prelude. Following my nose I had to go there. That was another serendipitous happening.

LG: Did you ever have imagine walking into some unusual little store and finding the actual Cello Suites?
ES: Oh, I suppose you could file that under fantasy. I’m not sure that I ever expected it to happen, but kind of operating at the fantasy level, I think when I felt it most vividly was when I was in the little shop called Prelude. I certainly didn’t set out to go to that shop with the idea of finding anything. But I had that sort of magical feeling that you’re sort of stepping into your own fantasy in a way and your own book where a 13-year-old Pablo Casals stumbles upon the Gruetzmacher edition in Barcelona in a second-hand bookshop. You know how that scene was so pivotal I think for Pablo Casals, for the history of the music, and in my case for imagining there was a story in the music. Here I was at sort of the end of my journey, kind of walking into, literally, a prelude of my own imagination. That was a really neat feeling. I can’t say that I seriously expected to personally find the manuscript. To do that, I think you would have to be rooting in castles and be very familiar with German history.

LG: And with the war, so much got damaged.
ES: Yeah. People do look for Bach compositions and things do turn up fairly regularly, but I never seriously thought that I would be the one to unearth it, beyond daydreaming. I did think that well, if somebody else found it while I was writing the book, that would have been interesting.

LG: While doing the research you said that you were often there on other trips, so was the book a sideline project you were working on while you were living your regular life and doing your regular day job?
ES: Yes, very much so. For most of the time I was a freelance magazine writer and an independent documentary film maker, during that period. It began when I was still writing for the daily newspaper The Montreal Gazette, but I quit that job while the book was being researched. I had a day job throughout the process and was writing in my spare time. [I’m glad the book took time to write] because there was such a learning curve for me that I think if someone said to me here is fifty-thousand dollars, write this book in one year, it wouldn’t have been a very good book. It certainly wouldn’t have been as developed as the book that got written, because I benefitted from having all this time. The ideas had time to marinate in my head, and I had time to just stumble upon people like Walter and accident upon business cards that advertised a shop called Prelude and make sense of what was essentially a pretty complicated story if you factor in eighteenth-century Europe and history and the slow unification of Germany, and the militarization of Prussia, and the Spanish civil war, and the life of Bach. There were a lot of dots to connect so I think it is good that I had a lot of time to do it.

LG: And Dimitry Badiarov, the fellow who believes the suites were made for a 5 stringed instrument, did he play all of them for you?
ES: No. I heard he has a recording out that just came out recently, but I haven’t heard it. No, he did not play them all. He is in Holland. He just feels that Suites 1- 5 were written for a 4-string violin piccolo, and the last suite was written for a 5 string violin piccolo. Part of his argument is that nowhere in the Anna Magdalena manuscript is there a reference to a cello. He could be right for all we know. It is one of the reasons this music works so fabulously well on so many different instruments. If you had only heard all the suites played on the lute, you would say, “Well, yes, this was a composition for the lute.” You wouldn’t even think of the cello if you didn’t know any better.

LG: I found especially interesting your description of taking cello lessons. It gave me a little boost to me in my own playing because to me so much of the time it just sounds bloody awful, and I wonder why am I doing this? But then I have moments where it sounds beautiful and I can feel it in my body, and I realize this is why I’m doing it. I was curious about your cello lessons, how much you learned, and how much you played, and why you stopped.
ES: I am a firm believer in amateurs. I think today society is kind of a almost instructing us to be spectators, not players or creators in life, and we get so taken up with the wizardry of virtuosos in all the arts that people don’t feel they can be good enough to play, or never develop the desire so I think picking up the instrument at any age, or any art form, is a terrific thing to do. I play guitar so I don’t play any other instrument, so learning the cello as you mentioned, as you alluded to, is kind of a daunting thing after a certain age.

I think the bowing in particular is a real challenge. It was kind of like a combination for me of calligraphy, golf, and archery, none of which I know how to do, and so that was tough, but my left hand was okay because I play the guitar. After getting over the trauma that there are no frets on the fingerboard, it wasn’t as bad as I might of feared. There is something really quite special about finding your way to the correct note, real or imagined, just intuiting the intonation. If you’ve never done it before and you’re used to frets, you would tend to think this is absurd, I don’t have a hope in hell of landing in the right spot, but you do, and it feels great.

Likewise, the great sort of rumbling and reverberations of this majestic instrument running through your whole body is a thing of great visceral pleasure, I think. So even though it doesn’t sound great at times, and you’re forced to play really Mickey Mouse material at the beginning, I think that the progress inevitably proceeds and it feels wonderful. That was my experience, and certainly when I got to the point where I could play some bonafide Bach ditties from this book called Bach for Cello, it’s great. However watered down and basic those pieces are you still get a sense of Bach’s music in the phrasing. The genius of Bach’s phrasing somehow comes out, and for me that was really exciting.

I didn’t stick with the instrument right to the end of the book, I think for reasons of time. I realized that I wasn’t going to learn a Cello Suite very quickly, and I at some point quite spontaneously got the idea that I could try to tackle this on guitar. I have just been a folk rock guitarist. I never played classical guitar. I took the cello notes and transposed them on the guitar. It was kind of goofy. I was playing essentially baselines on guitar, that mimicked the beginning of the first Cello Suites. And then it didn’t take very long to learn that in fact there were bonafide arrangements of the Cello Suites for guitar, so I bought some guitar tablature, which I don’t read, I don’t have facility for reading for guitar. I am used to doing what is called guitar tab, so slowly, measure by measure, in a real painstaking way, I was able to figure out the prelude of the first cello suite, so that sort of displaced the cello experience for me. Also I didn’t own a cello, I was renting a cello, and paying for lessons, and doing a lot of things in life, so that is how my cello lessons came to a close.

LG: How far did you get with them? Did you move out of first position and were you doing vibrato?
ES: No. I didn’t get beyond just those first few pieces in that book Bach for Cello. Ultimately it was a feeling that I’m a respectable guitar player, but I was really a beginner at cello, so I decided to devote what time I had in life to playing an instrument I was fairly good at, so that is what put me off. If I were ever to get a cello somehow, I would love to pick it up occasionally. I have actually dreamed about some of those Anna Magdalena notebook pieces.

I might get back to it someday in retirement. It was a case of spreading myself too thin. I don’t have that much time for music playing and I can do more with the guitar. I’m more ambitious with the guitar and I learned a few other classical pieces on the guitar. I still play popular music. It wasn’t a total irreversible conversion. After I wrote the book I found myself free to listen to all sorts of music which is what I do now, which includes Bach and the whole gamut of classical music.

Another thing I really liked about Bach was that if you try to get a sense of Bach, if you look at the people Bach was influenced by, and then Bach’s career, and his sons, and all the musicians Bach influenced, it is a pretty nifty way of getting a crash course in classical music. Also I had the career of Casals and the cello repertoire to add to that, so it was a great way of getting up to speed with something that I think intimidates people. How do I start with this colossal, sometimes intellectually intimidating, vast body of work, you know? People don’t know where to start. In my case I feel really fortunate that I had this really terrific, little spring board that I jumped on. I was just so genuinely and intrigued about the real story.

LG: The letter that Bach wrote to try and secure a position, and they are so obsequious, it grates against a modern mind. I thought it was funny too how he seemed to say, “This job doesn’t pay enough.”
ES: We have to be forgiving in someways because there are certain conventions that were de riguer, that were practiced and expected in those days. They are kind of unseemly. In fact, when you read about the life of Bach, he wasn’t some kind of wimp who was cow-towing to whatever authority happened to be around. He was kind of a rebellious type who really stood up for his own rights, particularly in the workplace, and his art.

He really knew the value of the currency that was used in those days. Some people have called him a bit of a cheapskate, but on the other hand, when you have 20 children and you’ve got a really demanding job that includes the music in a substantial city like Leipzig, and running the music of a Lutheran boarding school and churches, on top of busily cranking out what is going to be the greatest output of music for all time, you’ve got a lot on your plate and you have to check the bills and see how much money is coming in. He didn’t lead the sort of lackadaisical life of a sort of romantic and happily impoverished artist. I think that helps explain part of his genius. He wasn’t sitting around thinking what music is going to be popular or going to be considered a masterpiece. He was really busy in the here and now. He must have really been living in the moment, I think, he was so busy. It has a nice ending, his story. Even though he wasn’t considered famous in his lifetime, and he has been rendered ultra famous by posterity, a man who had his nose to the grindstone and was just doing his best on a day to day basis ended up producing this music that had such everlasting allure.

May 17, 2011 by Elle

Poem for Mine Enemy

Your hatred implodes.

Who is left malevolent and inauspicious, veiled with portent, menace, and shrouds of peril?

No clemency for your fury, nor chastisement for your wretched mediocrity.

The only soul experiencing your anguish is you.

May 13, 2011 by Elle

High School

A couple of days ago I listened to a story on This American Life about prom. It got me thinking about mine because the people interviewed kept remarking just how important prom was. One person even went so far as to say it was second in importance to a wedding. Seriously? I don’t know that I agree with that. Prom is certainly a ubiquitous high school event, but it wasn’t anything at all life-changing for me, and it wasn’t because I was an anarchist or anything. I just didn’t really care. I thought it was a dumb dance. I was not one of those people who spent all of high school looking forward to attending. I did finally obtain a boyfriend by senior year so I actually had a prom date. If I hadn’t gotten the boyfriend, I probably would not have gone. I was much more concerned with acquiring a boyfriend than attending prom, and much more surprised and shocked that this happened than I ever would have been at getting a prom date.

For me, the story of how I got my first boyfriend was practically out of a high school movie. Every February, our school hosted a Valentine’s Day school dance. For some reason, one of the most attractive, most popular boys in school asked me to dance. A lot. We danced together all evening. This was a surprise to me. He was Mr. High School All-American boy. Extremely popular, he had attended the schools in my town his entire life. This meant something in our little town; it meant you knew everyone and everyone knew you. This could be a bad thing, but for a lot of people, it accorded them with additional status. Eric had this status in spades, plus he was captain of the football team and President of the Senior class. Seriously. He also had blonde hair and blue eyes, lovely chiseled features, and an athletic build.

I, on the other hand, was not Miss High School All-American girl. I had the blonde hair and blue eyes, but my hair was short, and for the dance in question, I had tried beforehand to trim my bangs. After cutting, I realized they were crooked, so I cut them again and made them crooked the other direction. By the time I was done, they were about two inches long and still crooked. I was also skinny as a rail, with no breasts to speak of. Certainly not curvy. I imagine I was prettyish, but definitely not a beauty and never one of the girls the boys talked about or wanted. I spent most of my time buried in books, riding my horse, or acting weird because my friends thought it was funny and I liked making them laugh. My parents lived like they never had money, no matter how much they had, so my clothes were not name brands, which I cared about in those days. (One nice thing about growing up was giving up that ridiculous delusion.)

In spite of my average appearance and lack of social standing, here we were at this Valentine’s Day dance and Eric was dancing with me. My friends couldn’t believe it. “He must like you!” said Marie. “He keeps dancing with you!” I didn’t quite believe he liked me. Deanna kept giggling every time he came near. “Stop it,” I would hiss to her in a whisper before heading to the dance floor. Kari just smiled her poker-face smile.

Over the weekend after the dance, my friends and I spent many hours on the phone deconstructing the dance and its portent. Did Eric like me, or was he just being nice? I could not believe that he did. They could not believe that he did not. On Monday, I was embarrassed and terrified at the prospect of seeing Eric. We had a class together the last period of the day. I spent most of that day a nervous wreck, wondering what would happen in that class. I was terrified.

Later that afternoon, we were all in Mr. Fisk’s class listening to him drone on about who-knows-what. Mr. Fisk’s stories were fascinating as sophomores and stupid by the time we were seniors. I don’t remember now how it transpired, but somewhere along the line in the class a note was transferred to Eric. I think it was supposed to be from me to Marie or Marie to me, or something like that, but it was about how much I liked him. He sent me a note and we agreed to both ask to go to the bathroom at the same time. A few minutes later, Eric got up, asked to use the bathroom, and left. Heart pounding, 30 seconds later, I asked to go to the bathroom as well. Mr. Fisk was none the wiser and let me follow Eric. He probably didn’t even notice we were out at the same time. We were the good kids, the ones who always turned in our homework and would never leave to go fraternize and cause trouble, so bathroom passes were easy to come by.

Eric was waiting by the bathroom. He was wearing his Levi’s 501 jeans, a pink polo shirt, and white sneakers. I thought he looked amazing. He said hi and then kissed me. Exhilarating.

We were going out after that. We never had a conversation where he asked me to be his girlfriend or anything, I just was. I adored him. Completely smitten, I would do anything he wanted to do or go anywhere he wanted to, just to be with him. Compared to stories of teenage activities I hear about these days, our actions were so tame. I would never have considered having sex with him, not in a million years. Honestly, we never made it past second base, but to both of us, this was a lot.

How is it that I managed to get the most popular boy in school for my boyfriend senior year? I mean really? I think about this time and I have to wonder. I know part of it is that this most popular boy in school was unique in some respects. So often the popular kids are so idealized that we have a vision of how they must be, but to become truly popular and liked by everyone (which Eric certainly was), that person must possess some characteristic of some sort that makes people like them. Eric was truly likeable. Plus he’d been in the same town schools since kindergarten. Plus he was handsome. Really. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Captain of the football team. President of the class. I mean, come on, was this for real?

It was. That is what is so remarkable to me. I look back now and for the first time truly marvel at it. I mean, come on! Do you think he could have been more of a cliché? And it’s even more amazing that I, with my background and thought processes, could have had him as my first real boyfriend. That alone is a feat in and of itself.

One night, we were making out in the backseat of his housemate’s ginormous 70’s automobile. The thing was a boat on wheels. I was supposed to be spending the night at Marie’s house, and a group of us had all gone and done something that evening. Eric and I parked the boat outside her house and started kissing in the backseat. It was cold out and the windows fogged up. At some point, I realized there was a round light moving along the back window. We both sat up quickly and pulled on our shirts (each other’s, as it turned out). Then we heard a tap on the window.

Humiliated, Eric opened the car door and got out. The officer took him aside and scolded him. He then stuck his head in the car and asked me my name and where I was supposed to be. Terrified and humiliated as well, I told him. He said I should go into my friend’s house and go to bed. It was probably only 11:30, but I was scared and obeyed without question.

I spent the next week completely terrified that the stop would show up in the local paper. A weekly, the local paper did not have much to report on, and therefore contained a section listing every petty grievance to which the police force responded. I was certain our names would be listed with our transgression for all–especially and including my parents–to see. Thankfully, this never transpired.

Because I now had a boyfriend, prom seemed like it might actually be fun. My friends were all going and I looked forward to hanging out with them. My mom is an excellent seamstress, and after looking and finding no dresses that I liked, she offered to make a prom dress for me. I picked out a pink satin and some pink tulle. She made a long dress with a fitted bodice, with a pink ribbon around the center and tulle around the collar, which sat off the shoulder on my collar bones. I liked it fine. Looking at it now, I think it’s kind of boring, but I enjoyed getting dressed up. Eric looked amazing in his tuxedo, and he arrived in the boat to pick me up, a pink corsage in hand to match the boutonniere on his lapel.

The best memory I have of prom is that my best friend Marie won as prom queen. She had a huge crush on a good friend of Eric’s named Gary. Gary had a girlfriend, but for prom king and queen, there would be a dance. When it was announced that Marie was queen and Gary was king, I was thrilled to death for her. She was able to dance with the boy she liked for an entire slow song. I could tell watching her dance, her head against his shoulder, that she was in heaven.

After prom, we went to a party at some friends of Eric’s and sat in a hot tub before he took me home. Most of them were drinking alcohol and this scared me. I didn’t find that part of the night much fun. I can’t remember when I got home, but I don’t think it was very late.

One other huge aspect of my relationship with Eric was that shortly prior to our starting to date, he had become “born again.” Over the course of our courtship, he became more and more heavily involved in the church. In an effort to please him, I went along. I had been friends for some time with another girl who was extremely involved in her church. I started going with her, mainly because I had a crush on David W. and David W. was in youth group. David W. would flirt with me at youth group and I enjoyed this. Also, my friend’s parents would take us for pie after church. Having grown up in a family that went out to eat maybe once every two years, this was an immense treat.

Interestingly, while I was attending church and trying to be a good Christian, I was discovering a lot of hypocrisies that bothered me immensely. One morning, the pastor described faithful Muslims praying to Mecca. He spent a good deal of time describing the scene, to the point I could practically feel the warmth of the sun on my back and the rug under my knees. Then he dropped a bomb saying, “Isn’t it a shame that all these millions of faithful Muslims are going to hell? I could not tolerate or believe this. This sermon was a turning point for me. I had serious doubts about Christianity and organized religion in general anyway, and that statement made me start looking for inconsistencies, which were not difficult to come by.

However, I kept my doubts to myself. Eric would drag me to youth group on Wednesday and church twice a day on Sunday and I would go with him because usually after we would make out in the back of his truck and I liked doing that. I went along with the church thing, even so far as memorizing the entire book of Romans because he did so as well, and I believed that he wanted me to. I would pray with him, and discuss the Bible with him. Mainly I just wanted to be with him and this offered me the greatest opportunity.

Our small town, like many, had started offering an all-night graduation party to the entire senior class. The point was to keep teens from drinking and getting hurt or killed as a result. I was not a drinker and looked forward to graduation and the graduation party. My grandparents had flown in from Kansas for the event and I was excited by the prospect of all of it.

The day before graduation, Eric took me out in the afternoon to eat at a nice restaurant. When we arrived back at my house, at the top of my parent’s driveway, he got out and gave me a hug. Then he said, “It’s been really fun hanging out with you, but we are going to have to stop. I’m going to college in the fall, and I am afraid our relationship is interfering with my relationship with Jesus.” There were more words, but I don’t remember them.

I was incredulous. I had not seen this coming, not even close. Heartbroken and numb, I stumbled into the house and into my bedroom. I spent the rest of the afternoon lying on my bed in a pool of misery. We were to attend a Baccalaureate dinner that night. I dressed in the new outfit my mom had bought for me, a knit yellow sweater and white cotton skirt. I don’t remember much of the Baccalaureate dinner except there were some speeches. Eric was there, but he ignored me. I stared at my plate all evening. My parents and grandparents could tell something was wrong, but didn’t say anything.

Later, after we arrived home, I went again to my bedroom and lay on my bed, trying not to cry. My family wanted me to come in the living room and visit, but I just couldn’t do it. Finally, my grandma came in to talk. I confessed what had happened. “Oh, honey,” she said, rubbing my back. “It seems so hard now, but you’re so young. It is for the best.”

I still remember her voice and the way she stroked my hair and back. I also remember that graduation and the party were a drag. My friends kept trying to get me to liven up, but I just couldn’t do it. Forever after, when I think of graduation, the memory is colored by the fact that the day before the ceremony my first love dumped me for Jesus.

It was the best decision of course. Eric became a successful missionary in Africa. He is still there, working on a Bible translation of some sort, I think. I saw him at our reunion and it wasn’t weird at all. Time heals all wounds and we had grown up. I was such a baby at 17. I am immensely grateful Eric didn’t do something stupid like ask me to marry him. I would have said yes in a heartbeat and it would have been the wrong decision. We would have been divorced by the time we were 20. I’m so different from that person, I can barely remember how I thought or acted. Most of what I remember about myself at that time makes me cringe in embarrassment. I certainly could never have been a Christian. The seeds of doubt in organized religion had been planted, probably before I knew the ground was tilled.

In any case, this was my prom and the story around it. Nothing spectacular, just an old memory. It’s funny, as I’ve been writing this, how much I actually do remember. Life is interesting and so much is forgotten. I’m glad I remember this.

May 5, 2011 by Elle

Bedtime

Tonight I ran, pushing Isabel’s stroller, for a half an hour. Ava ran with us. We ran up and down hills and across sidewalks. Many of the sidewalks were bumpy because of large tree roots. I love the large trees; I do not love the large roots pushing up the sidewalk. However, given the choice, I would take the trees and the bumpy sidewalks over no trees.

Anyway. After I ran I came home, took a shower, and made dinner and washed the dishes, then Isabel was tired so I put her in jammies, changed her diaper, and put her to sleep. I lay there too for about a half an hour. It was only 9 o’clock. I could have completely stayed asleep, but I was still wearing contacts and had not brushed my teeth, and then Milla came in to kiss and hug me goodnight, and I knew if I stayed there I would wake up at 1 and not go back to sleep. I got up and started working on my book and now I’ve hit a wall, a tired wall. I can’t write anymore. I have to go to sleep. I still have not taken out the contacts or brushed my teeth. Ack. I’m going to have to do that before I can sleep. Instead I sit here and type this. Okay, I quit. I’m going to bed.

May 5, 2011 by Elle

Personal, Life, Weather

It’s raining again today, but it was sunny for three days in a row even though they said it would only be one, and I got to wear shorts yesterday it was so warm, so I can’t complain about rain today.

Apple took away my brand new MacBook Pro. I have to say, my apple products are on the shit list right now. I bought a new MacBook Pro. Immediately upon bringing it home it started having this issue where the screen would not light up when I opened it. It did not happen every time I opened the computer, but a lot of the time. I figured it was brand new and should not do this so I exchanged it for another one. What a mistake. The new one had the same issue, only it happened every single time I opened the computer, and it was difficult to get it to come on. So I called Apple. They said it was a “known issue” and told me some key fix while turning it on. It didn’t fix it. Every morning I have a tiny window in which to write before my baby wakes up. I spend most of that tiny window trying to make the computer wake up, so the other day, in complete frustration, I called Apple again about this issue. During the conversation with the Apple support representative, my ear touched my iPhone and hung it up. Ears aren’t supposed to hang up iPhones. I tell you, at that moment, Apple was at the height of the shit list and I was mad as hell. While on hold during my call back, the guy I had been talking to called me again. He apparently used my serial number to get back to me, which is a good thing because it was the only information I had given him before the call hung up. We spent the next half an hour working through a bunch of repair things behind the scenes in the guts of the computer’s programming.

Didn’t work. Yesterday I opened up the computer and the damn thing would not come on no matter what I did. Here I have been touting Apple products to anyone who will listen and I am having all these issues, although I can say I am typing this on my 3-year-old MacBook that still works just fine. I just wanted a computer with more space and RAM, which is why I bought the Pro. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

Anyway. In frustration, I made a Genius Bar appointment between court and my next client. I took it in there and left it with them. Of course the piece of shit opened up and worked just fine in front of the Genius Bar guy so I looked like a hysterical female. However, he looked at some history thingy in the guts and saw something that backed up my story, and agreed that they would do some tests and get back to me. They had not gotten back to me yet by late afternoon yesterday so I called, and they said it would not be ready until today. They said they “had not finished looking into the problem,” which means “We have not gotten to your computer yet.” Duh, I’m not dumb.

My small writing window is rapidly closing here. Isabel woke me up today, but she has been running around and is now eating the pancakes Milla decided to make for breakfast before school (I wonder who will do THOSE dishes?). It will not be long before I am the only person in the world with whom my baby would like to interact and there are other writing things I need to do that are more important than cheering the sun or complaining about computers.

May 1, 2011 by Elle

Have Mercy

I’m probably a lone wolf in saying this, but I don’t think we should cheer the murder of anyone, even someone like Bin Laden. Be grateful, perhaps, but cheering and flag-waving over the death of another is tasteless and crude. I felt the same at the death of Saddam Hussein, and also at the execution of Ted Bundy. There is just something vulgar about exuberance over the death of another, even one who has caused much harm. We should with mercy and grace acknowledge his passing, and be grateful that he can no longer harm another, but it is simply not the time for a party.

April 30, 2011 by Elle

Blue Valentine

I started watching Blue Valentine at the theater, but Isabel would not stay asleep and so I had to leave, but I wasn’t disappointed to be walking out. The thing was depressing and I could not get into it. I wanted to see what happened though, so a few weeks later I began watching again on video at the point I had left off, but stopped because I simply could not get into it. Finally tonight I decided to finish it so I could get rid of the video. I’m glad that I did.

Blue Valentine certainly captures the beginning and the end of a bad relationship. It brings back memories. Funny, they caught the things in the beginning that would go wrong later. Not all of the relationships in my life that have ended started in such a way that the ending could have been predicted, but the ones that have certainly seemed obvious in hindsight. The performances in Blue Valentine, especially that of Michelle Williams, captured that feeling of the beginning of a relationship you know is bad for you. You could tell that deep down she knew it wasn’t the best choice, yet she kept on anyway, living in magical thinking while simultaneously knowing she was headed for disaster. In my case, in the relationship that most closely mirrors that in the film, I knew. I knew and kept on anyway, compelled by some force within myself to try and make it work. At times I felt like I was living two lives, one experiencing and one watching mute and helpless as the train headed straight for the ravine with no tracks.

The woman in Blue Valentine seemed to know too. There were moments of pause before she smiled and responded to Mr. Disaster. She had that same silence about her that I did in the beginning. The scene at the dinner table near the end of the film, where she has brought him home to meet her family was a kind of personal deja vu. The man I introduced to my family wasn’t a high school dropout whose mother had run off with another man at age ten, but the way that he spoke to them and their responses left little doubt that they were just as shocked and wondering What the hell is she doing with this guy? What the hell, indeed.

There are some movies that are so bleak and without hope, I have no desire to watch them. However, there are often movies that hurt to experience, and I still think they are worth my time and energy. I am most certainly not one of those who only goes to see Pollyanna. I didn’t love Blue Valentine–I just could not get drawn in. Yet it is a good film and I’m glad I saw it. Even though one may know intellectually that everything experienced is also experienced by others, it does help to be reminded. For me, Blue Valentine was like that. I’m not the first person on this planet who knew going into a bad relationship that I was making a huge mistake, but I kept on anyway. One thing I know for sure–and I have reiterated it for myself having watched this film–I will never, ever compromise myself like that again.

April 26, 2011 by Elle

C’est la vie

I have writing ideas all the time and sometimes even start to write them down. Then my little bug comes and wants to crawl in my lap or wants me to get up and play or wants something, anything, and I get up and give it to her and don’t go back. I’ve lost the writing habit. It sucks. I love this time when baby is small, but sometimes I worry I will lose my ability to write because I don’t do it anymore.

Such is life.

April 18, 2011 by Elle

Not Much Done

Yet another day where it is over and I did not finish what I set out to finish. I did manage to complete one petition and start another, but that is all. I also made a pot of chickens soup, which is good since all of us are fighting some wretched sore throat that has gone on for days and days. I actually stayed home and slept half the day away because of it, which really cuts into completing all I wanted to. No Rosetta Stone. Nothing on the story I’m writing. No cello practice. Very little on the Eric Siblin interview transcript I need to complete. I played a lot with Isabel. I spent some time with Milla. I hope at the end of the day (figuratively), that this is enough.

April 9, 2011 by Elle

The Garden by Joan Miro

I obviously love this painting, I’ve been using it as my page art for a couple of years now. It is so whimsical. I can imagine the bird in the tree chirping to the other birds nearby, “This is my place!” Below, plants sway and lean towards the sun, while insects pause in their grazing. Hidden beneath fronds another bird waits, dreaming of flowers. A woman hesitates at the entrance to the garden, surveying all that lies before her. The sun, a star, gazes overhead.

April 9, 2011 by Elle

Favorite Scene in a Movie

One of my favorite scenes from a movie is during Fried Green Tomatoes after Kathy Bates has rammed the little car that took her parking spot, the two young drivers of the car come out and she says Sorry, girls. I’m older and I have more insurance.

I love it.

March 31, 2011 by Elle

Groupon Does Business with Pure Med Spa

After several commenters noted that Groupon in Dallas is giving out a Groupon on Pure Med Spa (aka Beauty Med Spa–same name, no difference), I sent them an email saying that they really ought to reconsider promoting a company that has done so much harm. Here was Groupon’s response:

Hi Lara,

Thanks for your feedback and sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We do our best to feature businesses that see Groupon as an opportunity to gain loyal customers as well as advertise their services.

We stand by all of the businesses we feature and the deals we offer, but if you ever feel let down in any way when using your Groupon, we’ll be more than happy to work with you towards satisfaction! Also, thanks for the information! I will be passing this on to the right people.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,

Sarah M.

support@groupon.com

I told them that I am not going to be let down, but others will be. Who wants to be a loyal customer to a business that has stolen thousands of dollars from customers, burned people with lasers, caused one woman to require surgery because they damaged her legs, and on and on. They are being investigated by several state attorneys general and have been profiled on many television news programs for the harm they have caused.

It’s a shame that this is Groupon’s response considering the negative publicity associated with this company. Groupon is promoting thieves and hucksters. Send Groupon a letter letting them know if you have been harmed and what happened. Maybe if enough people contact them, they will change their policy.

March 28, 2011 by Elle

My baby

My sweet baby holds a doll and rocks it back and forth and up and down exactly as I rock her, holding it in the same position as if it’s being nursed.

She then drops the doll with a thunk and goes and picks up the cat by the neck. There is a limit, I suppose, to the similarities.

March 27, 2011 by Elle

Women Dancing

Have you ever noticed that in movies that are “chick flicks,” billed and marketed to women, where there are women in a family going through something or women who are friends going through something, that the movie creators always throw in a scene of them dancing together, often on a bed, sometimes resulting in a pillow fight, usually for the montage of how special their relationship is, or sometimes it is to show how women who were enemies are now good friends, and then they use that in the preview to market the film? Damn, it’s dumb.

March 26, 2011 by Elle

Isabel

Isabel, have patience! Have patience, Mama? I’m only 1 and a half years old. How am I supposed to have patience? And then I realized, today Isabel is exactly 1 and a half. Happy 1 and a half birthday, Isabel.

Today Isabel also quacked at me. She picked up her new orange and white duck and said Wuack! We wuacked back and forth a bit. She is big into animal sounds. For the longest time it was only barking, but lately, meowing is the most popular sound in her repertoire. Maooooow, maooooow. And now the duck.

If we blow in Ava’s face, she tries to eat the air we blow at her. Isabel finds this completely amusing and has taken to blowing in Ava’s face as well, only she isn’t that great at blowing yet, so there is not a lot of air and Ava doesn’t respond quite as vociferously. Instead she licks at Isabel’s blows. Isabel, hoping for a bigger response, tries harder.

March 24, 2011 by Elle

Dazed

Have you ever gotten so buried in a book for days that when you’re through you’re in a daze? This is where I have been and where I am at now. It’s an odd feeling. I want to go to that world for a while and leave mine.

Ah well.

March 23, 2011 by Elle

HuckaBOO

If Huckabee is to be believed, I am causing more damage to the world than bombs because I’m a GASP! single mother!! I’m uneducated (except for that doctorate–oops, don’t tell!), I’m poor (except for my decent income–better keep quiet on that one!), I am stealing money from the state in the form of welfare (okay, I have to concede on this–I get Oregon Health Plan because I had breast cancer. What a loser!), and I’m raising damaged children born out of wedlock who will fill the prisons because I alone ruined them since no man was around to keep me in line. My lovely, well-behaved, HAPPY daughters are destined for hell. What can I say? I should just lie on the floor and waste away because I’m so worthless and so are my babies. C’est la vie. I love them anyway.

March 22, 2011 by Elle

Sugar

I have stopped eating most sugar and for the most part, this works just fine. However, there are some nights (like this one), where I long to eat a giant slice of chocolate cake filled with warm, chocolate filling, or banana cream pie, or a brownie, or chocolate mousse, or vanilla cake with thick, white, creamy frosting, or something else with sugar in it.

March 22, 2011 by Elle

Love

My little daughter is perfect. I have moments sometimes, when I’m holding her hand or looking at her, when I think to myself that I am a human and she is a human, she is my cub, my baby. I held her hand tonight as she lay against me in the crook of my right shoulder. I could smell the warmth of her body wafting upward, see the tiny curls forming in the sweat along the base of her neck. She held both my hands with her hands, each of her fingers warm and soft. I picked at her baby fingernails with mine, catching the ends and pulling off the sharp places. This is my cub, I thought. This is my little human. Here we are, two humans, lying together in this bed in this house in the twilight as she moves into sleep. The moment was so basic, so contented, so perfect in its simplicity. I love my human child. I love every moment with her. She brings me grace and contentment. She is perfect.

March 22, 2011 by Elle

Attitude Adjustment Bureau

I have got to do something to my brain so that instead of finding my job annoying, I re-appreciate the things about it that are so much more worthwhile than they could be. Probably a vacation would help. I haven’t taken one since I started a year and a half ago. I really want to go to Spain. Or France. Hell, right now I would love to head to Japan and help with cleanup efforts. Anything but the same old complaints from clients all the time all the time all the time. Gads, here I am wishing I could have a better attitude mainly because I’m wishing my clients had a better attitude. Not all of them, mind you. But the ones who drive me nuts obliterate the other 95%.

That said, I have several who are sweet, kind, and wonderful. One couple even baked me cinnamon rolls. That was good.

March 20, 2011 by Elle

Musing

Life is so weird. It has a feeling of layering, piece upon piece, seeming to repeat in places. But really, each moment follows the other in a line, second after second after minute after minute after hour after hour and on and on. We have moments where we create something or achieve something and in that moment it is the highlight, but then that moment passes and the highlight is old and forgotten. Strange.

March 20, 2011 by Elle

Caffeine

I weaned myself off caffeine. Then gradually, I would have a tea here, a tea there, to the point where I’m addicted to the crap again. It isn’t as bad as it could be; I don’t drink it every day. Yet I have gotten to the point that on the days I don’t drink it I feel like a rundown engine, like I’m in fourth gear heading up a hill, my parts clanking.

Today I haven’t had any, and while I have had a few uninterrupted hours while Isabel sleeps, I have not had the energy or spark to perform any of my creative tasks at all. I picked up the cello and played a bit. Blah. I sat down here to write. Nothing to say. I need to finish my taxes, which really won’t be difficult, but oh, so exhausting. I just want to lie around and watch a movie. It’s pathetic. I did manage a run this morning, and it’s a good thing I did it then, because I wouldn’t do it now.

Caffeine is insidious. It’s a drug, for sure. I’m debating just drinking some just to get over the hump. I need to work on my book. Baby is occupied. This is as good a time as any. But if I do, I’m just keeping the cycle going. When would ever be a good time? I just don’t know.

This post is about as blah as I feel in my caffeine-deprived state.

March 18, 2011 by Elle

Avocados

Pointless ramble of the day:

I have a feeling I might turn into a giant avocado. I have been eating at least one a day for over a month now. They are the perfect snack–they fill me up and kill any carb craving I might have been experiencing, and they are so delicious. Plus they are such a lovely, green color inside; sometimes yellow when not quite ripe enough, all the way to a deep, unripe apple green. Milla and Isabel enjoy them as well. I wonder though, what will become of the three dozen or so avocado pits we have tossed into the shrubbery next to the house, if they will sprout and become mini avocado plants that won’t bloom because it is too cold here, or if they will just die away.

March 17, 2011 by Elle

Shello Chopping

I have been dabbling with the idea of buying a cello. I have been taking lessons for a while now and renting a cello that actually sounds rather good. The rental price applies to the purchase of a new cello, but only for the first year. With this in mind, my teacher and I decided to head to the luthier’s to try some out and see what could be had within my budget. Cello shopping. Shello chopping!

When one goes to purchase a cello, there are usually practice rooms in which to try out various choices. I called the luthier ahead of time and let them know I would be in with my instructor to try cellos. When we got there, the saleswoman brought in six to try. None of them sounded better than my rental cello. Even when my instructor played, they sounded screetchy and flat.

A note about the rental cello. When I originally went to rent it, my instructor had informed me that the shop had an excellent rental cello, with a lovely, full-bodied sound. She hoped I would be able to get this cello to rent, and indeed I did. Nearly every week she comments about its pretty sound. After having gone now and listened to many cellos, I can see what she means.

Since the first six were not worthy, we asked to see a few more in the next price bracket up. These did not sound any better than the rental cello, and cost over a $1000 more. So we asked to see some in the next price bracket.

Another side note. About a week before this shopping trip, I had been to the same shop to purchase a violin for my daughter. I told them my price range, and they brought in 8 for us to try. One of the workers in the shop came in to play for us. Two stood out, and one of those was obviously superior. When we went to purchase it, however, it turned out the price was about $2000 more than I had intended to spend. We sent that one back and got the second choice, which was in our price range.

I bring this story up because while cello shopping, something similar occurred. The saleswoman brought in three cellos in the price category that was at the top of what I could spend (and this was more than what I really wanted to spend, but I figured it would not hurt to hear them). These cellos were far superior to the previous lot, and one Czechoslovakian cello shone above all. It had a full, round, gorgeous sound. When I picked it up to play, I felt a welling of emotion through my body and my chest. It reminded me of a dressage horse, eloquent and beautiful. Even my playing sounded lovely on this cello. I decided to take it home for a week when it turned out the price was $1000 more than I had told them I could spend. I wondered then, whether this was their m.o., to bring in a batch of instruments with one far superior to the others in the hope that an unwitting buyer would fall so in love, that money be damned, they would buy the instrument. I’m not so easily swayed, and my budget is my budget because I don’t have any more to spend, and I don’t use credit. I decided to take the gorgeous thing home, but I knew the visit would be temporary.

Another big part of the trip entailed trying various bows. It was not until that point that I realized how much a difference a good bow makes when playing a cello. The rental bow I have is a piece of crap. It is a lot of work to balance properly and requires effort to run along the strings. I tried at least a dozen bows that day and discovered how much easier it is to play with a decent bow. I could feel the difference. It was amazing. And the better bows sounded better. Even I, rough and new, didn’t sound half bad with a good bow. I found the bow that best matched the lovely Czechoslovakian cello and arranged to take them home.

During the week, I played both the Czech cello and my rental. I played my rental with the nice bow and while it sounded better than the rental bow, the good bow was not the best match for my rental cello (bows sound different on different cellos, so one has to find a good pair). I loved the beautiful sounds I made on the Czech cello. However, I realized that it was outside my price range. And having listened to a lot of cellos, I saw that my little rental actually did sound pretty good. I decided I would try to find my rental a good bow partner and keep her for a while. In the long run, I might spend a bit more, but for now, the cello I have does just fine. If I ever get to the point where my playing wouldn’t make people want to hide under a rock, I will look again at spending more money, and who knows? Maybe the Czech cello will still be there, waiting for me. I can dream.

March 15, 2011 by Elle

I want to help Japan

The devastation in Japan is heartbreaking. They got disaster times three, and it keeps on because of the increasing radiation danger. It’s even worse considering their history with Nagasaki and Hiroshima, like the horror has returned. I wish I could go there right now and start helping. I wish there were something I could actually do with my hands to make things better. I want to go start helping to clean up. I want to bring food, clothes, blankets. Yet I can’t. I’m here. Not only are flights in and out of the city not happening, I have a toddler and an 11-year-old. I’m a single parent. I can’t just pick up and leave them–I won’t. Every time there is a catastrophe, I reiterate to myself that I can never be so far from them that I can’t get to them on foot.

I saw a photograph of a rescue worker holding a baby he found. The next photo showed the child with her father, turning to escape a second wave of water. I hope they got away. My heart goes out to all of them. I wish I could do more.

March 7, 2011 by Elle

Lame Lara

A rare night when both children fell asleep early and I don’t know what to do with myself. I played the cello already. I cleaned the kitchen. I have now surfed the internets as much as I can bear. Yet I can’t think of anything clever to do or write. Mainly I would just like to go to sleep. How lame is that?

March 6, 2011 by Elle

My baby is kissing the mirror

Isabel is strumming the heater vent like she strums her ukulele, Milla’s violin, and my cello.

I have said it before, but it is true. I used to be prolific. Go back to 2007, 2008. You’ll see. Every day, all the time. Now the most writing I do is an occasional status update on facebook. Whoopee. That’s life with a baby. I actually had a real idea last week right in the dawn space before waking. I lost it. Then this morning I decided to write about cello shopping…shello chopping. Now baby is kissing the mirror, biting the ball, kissing the mirror, biting the ball. She is a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of gal.

Time to get going again. I will watch Isabel strum, and oh, now she is shoving the ball into the mirror and singing to it. Fun times!

March 4, 2011 by Elle

Growls

Whatever pitiful scrap of patience I maintain on a day-to-day basis is eradicated mercilessly by lack of sleep.

February 4, 2011 by Elle

The Sad Truth

The sad truth is that rich, power-mongers have been stealing and raiding from the earth and the rest of us for thousands of years. It only seems more imminent now because of globalization and easier access to information. The Romans invaded and stole all of Europe (and others raided and stole on a smaller scale before that), then Europe expanded and stole the rest of the world. At some point, the rest of us are going to have to go much more global than simply Egypt or Tunisia or any other small uprising and say Enough is enough! If we do that however, we can’t rise up and take their place. That story is old too.

This is what humanity does. Are we going to ever actually change it or keep letting it happen and lamenting when it does?

As an aside, I keep trying to stop drinking chai teas from Starbucks. I get there for a while, stopping for months. Then I get cold or whatever and drink one. Then I think one more won’t hurt. The next thing I know I’m back craving the damn things all the time again. Like right now. Insidious crap, caffeine.

January 13, 2011 by Elle

Jet

When I was 9 we lived in some apartments in Salem. I was not happy there. The other children did not like me and would not play with me. I spent most of my time reading. When I wasn’t reading, I was trying to get the other children to play with me. When they would not, I would hang out with local dogs and cats and imagine I had friends who were mostly horses. As might be apparent from this and has been mentioned elsewhere, I was somewhat peculiar.

Our apartment complex was surrounded by fields. A few years after we moved away, the fields were mowed to put in a GI Joe store, Bi-mart, and strip malls. Ugly places. But when I lived there, the fields did too, filled with scrub trees and brush high enough in which to make forts. Our apartment had a patio that faced the main road, which was lined with oaks. There was also a tall, thin oak in our patio area. On this tree, there were often buggy creatures.

One cool, fall day while sitting on the patio breathlessly discussing my latest gymnastic championship with an imaginary sportscaster, I noticed a movement on the tree. Always curious about things of this sort, I went over to investigate. The movement was that of a fluffy, brown-and-black striped caterpillar. She was crawling rapidly up the tree. Bump. Flat. Bump. Flat. On she moved to some unknown destination.

I was utterly enchanted. A friend! I picked her up and placed her in my palm. She rolled into a small circle, the two black ends of her body touching. I walked over to a lawn chair and sat down, waiting. Her fluffs were kind of prickly, but also kind of soft. She had a shiny, black hood for a head at one end of her oblong body.

Eventually, she wakened and began crawling up my palm and onto my arm. I picked her up to turn her around. She rolled back into a circle. We continued like this for several minutes. She would begin crawling until she started to get too far up my arm, then I would move her back to my palm. After several rounds, I placed her on the table on our patio and watched her inching crawl.

This caterpillar was fast! I knew if I did not keep an eye on her, she would soon be gone. She was so fast, I decided she needed a fast name and decided on the highly original Jet. I loved her. I wanted to keep her until she grew into a butterfly.

I went into our apartment and began to rummage around for a jar. I placed Jet into a bowl on the kitchen counter and located a small jar with a lid. I took the jar and Jet out back and looked for some nature-like things with which to furnish Jet’s new home. I found some leaves, sticks, old brush, and a few dandelion flowers, and arranged them carefully in the jar. Then I placed Jet inside and twisted on the lid. I then, however, began to worry that Jet would suffocate in her new home, so I reopened it and went back into the house to locate a hammer and nail with which to create a ventilation system. I found the tools and headed back outside once again.

A short time later, Jet’s home was properly aerated so she would not suffocate. At this point I figured she might also need hydration, and went in to get a cup of water, leaving Jet in the jar while I did so. When I returned, I placed some droplets of water for her on a leaf. Jet crawled around the minute space for a bit, and then just stood there on a stick. I thought perhaps the home was boring for her, and brought her out again to play. This went on for a couple of hours until my mom came home from work. I showed her Jet and Jet’s new apartment before she began making dinner.

That evening, as I sat and watched television with my sister, Jet sat with me in her jar. I would take her out to crawl, then return her to her house. Finally my mom pointed out that Jet might be tired. I agreed and took her upstairs to my bedroom window sill for the night.

The next morning, upon awakening, I immediately went to Jet and her jar. She was not there! I looked and looked, but there was definitely no fluffy, black-and-brown caterpillar in the jar. I ran hollering into my mom’s bedroom, sobbing. Jet is gone! She isn’t here anymore!

My mom looked into the jar as well. Then she pointed to a soft, brown cocoon. See that? She made her cocoon. So fast? I could not believe it. I looked skeptically into the jar. Lo and behold, there was a cocoon! In my frenzied excitement over the missing caterpillar, the cocoon had completely escaped my attention. Part of the reason may have been because the cocoon was much smaller than Jet had been, or so it seemed. It was about the same width, but only about half the length, and it was light brown.

I kept the jar in my bedroom for the next few weeks. At first, I checked it constantly to see if a beautiful butterfly had emerged. As time progressed though, I began to wonder if maybe Jet had died in the cocoon. The grass and leaves shriveled up, and the jar looked decidedly bleaker than it had when I created the nest. The cocoon looked so light and fragile, I wasn’t so sure Jet was still alive.

My childhood existed before there was an internet where one could go and look up the incubation time for caterpillars, or what kind of butterfly or moth would emerge. I had gone to the library to see if I could find a book about Jet, but was not successful. I had no idea how long it would take for her to grow. Little did I realize that Jet would be wintering with me for months.

One morning the following spring, upon wakening, I went immediately to the jar, as had become my habit. I never expected a change because it had been a very long time since she had moved into the jar and turned into a cocoon. But this morning was different. The cocoon was spliced neatly up one side. However, I could not see any butterfly inside the jar.

Having been fooled once into thinking Jet had left, I was not so easily deterred this time. I took the jar into another room where the light from the windows was much brighter than in my room. There, among the dried leaves, grass, and dandelions, was a brown, spotted moth. Jet was not a butterfly, but a moth! I thought she was beautiful. Her wings seemed still to be wet and not completely ready to fly, so I left her in the jar while I went to school. After school, I took the jar and placed it outside with the lid off so she could fly away. Later when I went to see her, she was gone.

Since thinking about Jet recently, I went and looked up this type of caterpillar on the internet. Somewhere along the way I learned they are often called woolly bears. I played with many more such caterpillars throughout my childhood. In my recent research, I discovered that the moths that grow from woolly bear caterpillars are called Isia Isabella, or Tiger Moths. I love it that these creatures who brought enchantment to my life as a girl share the same name as my youngest daughter. I also learned that I had created just the perfect habitat for little Jet to cocoon for the winter. They like cool, small, dimly lit spaces with dirt, leaves, and dandelions, and once they are ready, they will hunker down until spring. My cool window sill was to the west under some trees; the jar an ideal woolly bear habitat.

Interestingly, there are legends that the woolly bear can predict whether winter will be more or less severe based on the thickness of their stripe. Some believe that if the woolly bear’s stripe is wide, winter will be mild. If the stripe is narrow, winter will be severe. Others believe the narrow stripe arises from more moisture, while a wide stripe comes from dry conditions. Considering wet winters are also often severe, these two lines of thought seem in corroboration.

I don’t remember what the weather was like the year Jet wintered with us. I lived in Oregon, so it was likely a wet winter. Compared to the many woolly bear photos I have now seen, hers was a narrow stripe. If this one woolly bear’s stripe was any indication, perhaps the legends about the woolly bears are true. All I know is that she was an interesting companion and brought happiness to an introverted and often lonely child, and she gave me something fun to look forward to.

Here is a photo of a woolly bear. This one looks exactly like Jet did.

January 11, 2011 by Elle

Winged Gods and Goddesses

Little girls and horses. I think part of why girls fall in love with horses is to have someone big on their side, someone on whom they can fly. I fell in love with horses before I had a logical brain, then they just lodged there, between the myelin bulges. Later when I actually acquired a horse, they were my escape from a reality that was less than. Horses were my winged gods and goddesses, flying on four legs. I was naive, silly, and fearful, but with a horse I could forget all that and imagine anything. And I did.

Before a real horse actually came to live with me, I would ride my imaginary horse along next to the school bus in the morning and again in the afternoon. Galloping freely, jumping driveways, mailboxes, shrubbery, and drainage ditches; along we would glide. As the flattened shadow of the bus crawled in among the deep spaces, lengthening and shortening according to the landscape, I would fly over them, stopped by nothing.

When I was fifteen, my dad the auction-hound bought a thoroughbred off the track. He was handsome in the way of thoroughbreds, so we named him Prince. He was a nearly black bay, a Sam Savitt thoroughbred, with perky ears and an unruly mane. He watched the world sideways, as if to ask, You talkin’ to me? I love thoroughbreds; love their minds, their impossibly long legs, the way they are fretful because they can be, but give them an opportunity and they will prove what they are capable of.

As is often the case with thoroughbreds who have been racehorses, Prince was damaged goods. Something had happened to one of his legs–I can’t recall which one now–so he was not able to jump. However, he could still be ridden, and he could certainly run. I would ride him bareback, my skinny legs clinging to his slippery back, and canter around the field below our house.

One afternoon when Prince had only lived with us for about a month, I decided to take him for a ride down the driveway. Ours was a legendary driveway. We actually had to walk a mile, one way, to the school bus, regardless of the weather. Rain, shine, snow, sleet, you name it, no matter what, we did not get down that driveway by any means other than our legs. Down the long hill into the curve over the creek, up the steep curve, down the long, rocky stretch under oaks to the west and a pasture to the east, then through the gate at another bend in the creek, around the corner, and down the last flat stretch for another half a mile. This portion ran under a cove of cottonwoods. Once while walking to the bus a bird pooped in my sister’s hair. I imagined the birds up in the trees, taking careful aim and firing. We would see poop land nearby as we trudged toward the bus. I laughed hysterically when one finally hit. Melanie did not laugh. She was mad and she hit me in the arm for my glee. It was worth it because it wasn’t me.

The day I rode Prince down the driveway, it was severely overcast, but not yet the sort of gray where the clouds seem almost to meet the earth in their desperation to drain. The light was nearly fluorescent, and cold. I threw a small snaffle bridle on Prince, hopped on using an old tractor as a mounting block, and headed down the hill. We walked carefully along the rocks on the first part of the road. Prince was not wearing shoes and the rocks along the beginning of the driveway until it met the long flat place were large chunks, uncomfortable to bare horse hooves. Where I could, I guided him into the grass along the edges to protect the soles of his feet.

As we headed down the long stretch downhill, I felt the itch to run him, but I was also afraid. We hadn’t had him long and I wasn’t riding with a saddle. I did not know if I could get him to stop if he started to run. Yet I was an overconfident rider. I believed myself capable of so much when it came to horses and my family did nothing to disabuse me of this notion. Ignorance is bliss, obviously. If I had only any clue then what I know now. But I didn’t.

As we met the straight, flat place, I squeezed him into a real gallop. He was only too happy to oblige. I felt his energy surge forward, the strength of him move under my narrow thighs. Too late I realized just how fast he would run and what little I meant, perched there on his back like an organ grinder’s monkey. Wrapping my fingers into his black mane, I held on for dear life and screamed.

Rock. Cold. Fear.

The wind rushing at my face ate the scream right out of my mouth. It didn’t make a dent. I lowered my head and wrapped my arms around his neck. Wind lashed my bare arms icy. I had read of landscapes passing in a blur. Now I could see what this meant–the landscape really was blurry.

In spite of the speed, in my brain it was as if time stopped, like a narrator hovering above, watching a train veer off its tracks. First the engine, then the cars, and finally the caboose, whipping like a snake’s tail where it didn’t belong. There she goes, I thought. See the horse galloping? See the skinny girl holding on? I cannot fall from here. I will not live if I fall from here. I must stay here until this horse stops running. But how can I make that happen?

Yet the road at the end of our driveway was coming, and across the road there was a fence, then there was a field, and Prince could not jump, so at some point the train’s tail would whiplash and there would be a problem. On and on we thundered and I actually settled in. I was not falling off and had joined the rhythm. But there was an end. What if someone was driving on the road as I came to meet it? I controlled nothing. If a car was coming at the same time we were coming then there would be severe damage.

No car, just the road, hooves sliding on cement, then mud, grass, fence, and crash. I hit the ground with magnificent speed, I rolled over onto my shoulder, Prince rolled across me and up and continued to run, reins flinging wildly around his neck. I sat up and screamed and screamed and screamed. Prince slowed. I screamed and screamed and screamed. Only there was something about the cold light and the wide space that made the screams seem small and insignificant.

I could see far up the road, see a car, see it drive along, slow, then continue. It did not stop so I screamed again. Prince had trotted back over towards the fence, away from me, but not far. Another car moved along the highway. It slowed beside Prince, then sped along, then slowed as it saw me. I screamed and screamed and screamed. These sounds were so tiny, escaping me. I felt like I was putting all my lungs into the screams, but they were silent in the wind. The clouds moved closer. A drop of rain landed in my hair and then another. I realized my left shoulder was screaming too, in a different way.

The car cruised by, long and slow. Then it stopped and backed up. The people disgorged from all the doors. A gold sedan. I was rescued.

I severely bruised my shoulder that day, but other than that, I was okay. Prince was none the worse for wear. The only real difference was that for the first time in my life when it came to horses, I had fear. The next time I climbed on a horse, I remembered. I stayed on and kept going, but I could not ride bareback for a month. I would not go on the driveway. Over time, the fear faded. Horses came back to me as gods and goddesses, my protectors, my escape from a dismal reality.

For some reason, Prince came to me recently. I remembered the merciless run down the long road, the sharp, icy air, the cold, gray light. I remembered all of it except being afraid. In spite of everything, the fear was forgotten. In its place instead was this lightning god on four legs, flashing down the road at magnificent speeds.

No wonder girls love horses. They give us power and help us fly and they do so without brutality. Winged gods and goddesses, indeed.

January 3, 2011 by Elle

Booby Squishing

Today I went in for my annual booby squishing appointment. Having been a “victim” of breast cancer, I have to have them every year. Compared to the one where the cancer was initially discovered, these are a cake walk. In that initial visit, the doctors could see some specks at the top of the film and therefore assumed the specks were in my armpit. They spent the next hour and a half attempting to squish my skinny shoulder into the mammogram machine. It did not work. It hurt. Finally they figured out that it was possible that the specks could be on the other side of my breast, towards the center of my chest. One try at that location and voila! Pay dirt. A lesson learned that day that has since been reiterated is that mammograms are easier if one is fleshier. There is more flesh to grab in the flat, plastic jaws.

Today’s mammogram was relatively simple. I knew from previous visits that mammogram appointments mean waiting around, so I brought some knitting. This visit was in the new “Safeway Cancer Center.” I hate it when medical facilities or sporting facilities or any facility that isn’t what is being used is named for some corporation. If I go into a grocery store and it is called Safeway, fine. If I go into an office supply store and it is called Staples, so be it. However, I don’t want to go somewhere that is going to squish my boobs and have it called Safeway. It’s too much of a non-sequitur. But as is often the case, I digress.

The new booby squishing center was clearly designed with the needs of women in mind. In fact, it looked like they got together a focus group from Lifetime television and Oprah to create a calm, breathable space, in calm, mellow colors, with calm, earthy tones. All of this is spoken in a calm, monotone voice. One enters a lovely, spacious lobby with a fountain. Let the deep breathing and Ohms begin. You are escorted into a high-ceilinged, glass-enclosed waiting area. Nearly immediately you are called back into the “guest space” –a nice name for another waiting room. But wait, there’s more! This space is lavishly furnished with low-slung chairs and sofas. Surrounding this loungey place are all the doors to the little rooms where one leaves one’s top attire and personal belongings in a locker. Each “guest” has a personal escort to show them their own special dressing room. This person then informs them that there is coffee and tea in the corner for them while they wait. Dutifully, the guests remove their top garments, lock all of it in the specially-designed wooden locker (nothing like the banging metal contraption I had in high school, these are sleek, wooden, and smell brand-new). One exits the personal dressing room to wait in the low-slung chairs. Calm, watery, pan flute music fills the air, further adding to the illusion that one is away at a spa, awaiting a massage and relaxation, rather than waiting to have one’s boobs squashed beyond recognition. All of it is an illusion to distract us from the fact we are squishing our boobs to catch cancer. A couple of the women, when they spoke, betrayed in their quivering voices the fear that this could be their fate. I wanted to let them know that sometimes, it really isn’t all that bad, even when the mammogram is positive, but I remained quiet, focusing on my knitting.

For me, nearly immediately upon sitting after changing out of my top clothes, my escort came to take me back for the actual booby squishing. She performed her duties, creating the ethereal, opaque half moons from my breasts. I find it intriguing that mammogram photos are so moon-like when the moon has long been considered the planetary body for women.

I had a mammogram a year ago. At that time, Isabel was about three months old. When the plastic plate slid into place on the top of my right breast, milk squirted out in about five different directions. I loved that. It seems so appropriate that my gland was doing what it was supposed to while taking the photos. Today, my breast was emptier, Isabel having just supped shortly prior to my appointment. No milk came out at all. When no milk flowed, I realized I actually had hoped that it would.

After the photo-taking, my mammogram technician escorted me back to the waiting area. I gathered up my knitting, grabbed a cup of tea, and waited. And waited some more. During this time, a dozen women came through in the same pattern. The escort brought them in, showed them their dressing room, they sat for a moment ensconced in their pond-green dressing gown, then were called away, only to return shortly to wait and wait. In the meantime, some who had been there were called into their dressing room for a “private discussion.” I say private in quotes because we could all hear what was being said, that the films were clear and we will see you next year.

I expected this, that my films would be clear. Then I thought for a moment, what if they’re not? What if they call me back to squish me some more? I imagined me telling them that I knew something was up because this is what happened last time: they called me back for more and more and more, flattening and pressing and prodding my flesh. I imagined that if this were the case then 2011 would begin as awfully as so many of the last years have, and I wondered if this is how life would always be, and then I realized I was going a little off the loony end and returned back to the spa room with it’s trickling music, low light, and women in green gowns.

And no, they did not take me back for more squishing. My escort called my name, called me to my dressing room, and let me know the films were fine and they would see me next year. All was well.

I liked this place, this woman spa space for boob squishing. I could have sat there and knitted all day. As I waited with the other women, the only thing missing was some womanly conversation. If that had been present, the illusion would have been complete. As it was, this missing piece kept it from being all it could have been, but still it was all right. Let some grocery corporation pay to keep us from contemplating why it is exactly we’re hanging out with strangers and squishing our boobs in a modern day female communal space, creating moons and attempting to avert disaster. Whatever works, right?

January 2, 2011 by Elle

Growing Up Strange

Perhaps part of why I have not become a pillar of the intellectual community, aside from the fact I’m not thick enough to serve as a pillar, is that while growing up, I did devour books, but I was mostly interested in stories, particularly stories about horses or animals. As a teenager, I expanded my interest to include books where girls chased boys, but not much really. I was only interested in those if there was something especially intriguing about the girl–like if she had a horse.

I especially loved horse/girl books where the girl was the underdog who wanted a horse and succeeded through grit and determination in getting one. I wanted to be like those girls, and I was to the extent I succeeded in getting a 35 dollar Shetland pony.

Once I acquired the pony, I had big dreams for us. We would win competitions and show everyone it did not matter if my steed was forty inches tall. I imagined interviews with sportscasters. I would ask questions then answer breathlessly, as if interrupted in an effort.

Actually, interviews of this sort also extended to my gymnastic prowess. It mattered not that by twelve, I was nearly five foot eight. In my mind I had achieved gold in gymnastic floor exercises. I would breathlessly answer these sportscasters as well.

So while I indeed spent my childhood buried in books, I can say without equivocation it was only towards the effort of avoiding other children and immersing myself in worlds far more desirable than my own. If I happened across a great piece of literature, it was always the result of happenstance. I had no illusions about reading my way to fame and fortune.

Ironically, if I think of it now as I seek to live so much in the moment, I absolutely did so as a child. My parents’ chief concerns seemed to be to first ensure we did all of our chores, second that we did not bother them with sibling arguments, and finally that we entertained ourselves so they did not have to. I was very good at the latter.

I did the chores grudgingly. We were promised allowances that never materialized and performed jobs I still consider beyond the necessary scope for children. The chores usually resulted in fights with my sister. We argued prodigiously over whose turn it was to do what, then raced to be the first one done, if only to prove our superiority over one another. The race to finish jobs served my primary purpose, which was to either read a book or ride my horse, and preferably both. Melanie wanted to play with her friends. I didn’t really have a lot of friends beyond the horses in my imagination, so rushing off to live in my head was my priority.

Before I got a horse I would pretend I had one. i once cleared my closet, opened one side, and strung a rope across the opening to keep in my stick horse. I shredded paper for her bedding.

She was lovely. Her stick was yellow, her fur head white. She had large, brown button eyes with long, plastic lashes. I called her Snowflake.

I spent the time creating this stable, enjoying every minute I did so, imagining the conversations I would have with my trainer over her care. Again, I played both parts. As myself, I explained very carefully what would be the best plan for my horse’s future. My trainer would nod and take notes, her head cocked to one side as she leaned in the stable doorway, loose breeches puffed around her hips, a cap pulled low over her brow, alá Mickey Rooney.

Snowflake stayed in my closet for months. I was attentive for about two days, feeding and brushing. Over time I needed my room for other things and the stick horse was relegated to the corner again, her home prior to the stable.

Finally, when I was twelve, I acquired a real horse. Of course, this horse was only 40 inches tall and therefore a pony, but I did not care. She was mine and I loved her. Her name was Rosie. She was a bright, red chestnut with a thick, flaxen mane and tail. But she was tiny. I rode her anyway. My best friend Jodi and I both rode ponies. We made plans together to start our own pony farm as adults, no horses allowed.

December 27, 2010 by Elle

Life Goes On…

Man, it’s pathetic how little I write on this anymore. It seems like my days start so early and are filled to the brim until late and then I fall into bed completely exhausted, only to start it all again the next day. Work has been a living hell. I have been hating my job so much, trying to focus on what I like about it, trying to help people, but shit just keeps coming up that I have to deal with and it takes time away from the stuff that actually feels useful. Today a client told me she thinks I’m wonderful and that she knows I’m fighting for her, and that part is true, I do want the very best for my clients. But I’m not so sure about the wonderful part and I am barely keeping my head above water. It was nice to hear though. She brought a smile to my face.

My infant daughter brings the most smiles to my face. She is so happy and growing and changing so much. She smiles and makes a little hoo sound all the time about everything. She call me Maa Maa and says bye bye when she waves. She is the most adorable little person. She laughs all the time. She loved Christmas. She opened her presents one by one, handing me pieces of wrapping paper as she went. She and Milla are the reason for the holiday for me. They enjoy themselves so much and it is utterly delightful to watch them enjoy and experience everything.

I can’t believe how tall my Milla is getting. She has passed my friend Rita and is on her way to passing my friend Sara. She’s lanky and tall and completely gorgeous. Luckily she is also still very much 11 and into dogs and knitting and being as comfortable as possible so she goes around dressed like a hippie all the time, which is totally fine with me because I don’t need the boys chasing her yet. I think she will manage to be taller than they are for several years to come so by the time they figure out how amazing she is, she will be older, which can’t hurt. She is a smart girl. She knows how these things roll.

I have to go to bed. It’s 11 and I get to work all day tomorrow. Lucky me. I’m grateful to have a job, but I sure wish it wasn’t such a pain in the ass sometimes.

December 15, 2010 by Elle

Get to Work!

I think I’m going to have to install that application that blocks use of certain websites like facebook. To turn the site on again I would have to reboot my computer, and I don’t have any more time for that than I do to surf facebook.

Back to work!

December 10, 2010 by Elle

Ewww

Someone asked me how many times a day I have to change Isabel’s diaper, the implication being that I must change cloth more than I would change disposables. It should be the same. If someone is changing their child less frequently because the child is wearing disposables, that means their child is sitting around in plastic soaked urine. That is just gross.

December 9, 2010 by Elle

Accident or Intention?

It has been my experience that when one does something inadvertently or accidentally to another person and it causes harm, the person apologizes profusely. Perhaps it is a leap in logic to presume this is always the case, but I think in most cases, if someone causes harm unintentionally, apology is the appropriate and common response. Accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, apology. I can recall some instances where there was an accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, then acknowledgment of the harm, and acknowledgment of the action. However, I cannot recall any situations with accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, and defense of original action without an apology. If there was an accidental action that caused harm, there was an apology as well.

How common is it, do you think, that there is accidental action, unintended harmful consequence, then defense of the original action as accident without apology? For instance, I trip you accidentally, you fall and get hurt, then I don’t apologize, but instead say Ah well, it was an accident…? Considering cultural norms surrounding apology in this circumstance, it does not seem to be a stretch to presume that if I trip you and you fall and I don’t apologize, that the original tripping was not accidental. In this instance, it would be necessary to look to the surrounding circumstances to determine whether or not my action was intentional or inadvertent. For instance, I’m wearing big shoes that I’m not used to wearing and holding my feet out at a funny angle because the shoes feel odd. It would not be hard to figure it really was an accident.

However, if there is a footprint on the back of your leg in such a way that for that footprint to have landed there I would have had to have kicked you, and then you were harmed, and then I did not apologize, it would not be difficult to surmise that I intended to cause harm. I may have intended to kick and tripped instead, but the original intent was to cause some harm thereby negating the need for apology.

Ah, it is all speculation. I know it wasn’t an accident. If it were, there would have been profuse apology. The resulting damage may have been greater than predicted, but harm was still the intent. The fact there was no apology is just another factor that proves it.

October 24, 2010 by Elle

Blustery Day

There is something about blustery weather that makes me contemplative and odd. It creates within me a paradox of desires. On the one hand I wish to go be out, suffering the cold and sharp wind, delighting in its vigor. On the other hand I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold, and have trouble warming once it reaches my bones. However, I’m intrigued by the energy of it so when my baby awakens from her nap, I will likely venture forth and hang out with the swirling leaves.

I’m listening to Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg variations of Bach. Perfect music for a blustery afternoon. I love the light of a day like this. It’s sharp and cold, overly bright like a fluorescent bulb. Every so often today the sun peeks through and the light grows warmer, yellow.

Ack. I was sitting here working and writing some here, but my daughter came home with friends and I lost my momentum. This seems to be the m.o. these days.

September 29, 2010 by Elle

Thought for the Moment

I really despise cowards. I truly, honestly, completely despise them. I know I should feel some compassion that they are living their lives in fear and can’t be fully human and all that blah, blah, blah bullshit, but honestly, most truly cowardly behavior, the kind where self-preservation based on fear overwhelms integrity really makes me want to pound the shit out of someone.

That’s my thought for the moment.

September 19, 2010 by Elle

Third Person Lara

Lara is staying up too late. It is her own damn fault; she fell asleep with her infant at about 6:30 in the evening and slept until almost 9. Bad idea. Bad idea, indeed. Now Lara is awake. But Baby finally fell asleep at half past midnight, so Lara can go to sleep too, after she brushes and flosses her teeth. Poor tired Lara. Let’s hope her infant doesn’t wake up at the butt crack of dawn.

Lara thinks she should change her name, but she doesn’t know what name to change her name to. She doesn’t like the name Lara. It is such a wimpy name. Plus no one can pronounce it properly in the United States. It’s always LORuh or LAIRuh, not LARuh, like car, or bar, or far, or tar, or mar, or even the letter R. It’s not hard (or the word hard), or difficult even, but people here can’t do it. And even when she spells her name for people, they still stick in the damn U. What the hell, people? There isn’t a U. It’s not the same name. Laura is the feminine of Lawrence. It is a Latin-based name. Lara is a Slavic name. It is not related to Lawrence. But try telling that to the morons who refuse to call her by her proper name, dang it. Annoying.

Okay, awake is going to win if Lara does not head to her bed. First to the bathroom sink and the toothpaste and the toothbrush, then to the bed. Sleep. Sleep. Ahhhh…

September 12, 2010 by Elle

End of the Day Pointless Rambling

I love how every time I log in to my yahoo account there is some ad for online dating with all these photos of hot men. I’ve online dated before (NEVER again) and I can say without equivocation that the men on the online dating site were never as hot as the ads. If anyone thinks they would get what is on those ads, they are smoking crack.

Today it took too long to get one of the 8 dozen things I wanted done finished. I didn’t even get to most of what I wanted to do and now I’m really tired. I thought of a few things to write today while immersed in the aforementioned took-too-long activity. I don’t remember any of them, dang it.

Isabel fell asleep next to me. She is so dear. She sprouted a little tooth on the top today. So sweet!

I just want to brush my teeth and go to bed. I wonder if I should just skip all of the before bed stuff I usually do and go to bed, but I’ll pay for it if I do that so I won’t. Dang, again. Soooo tired.

September 12, 2010 by Elle

Pointless Rambling

Ahh, Lara never writes here anymore. I’m tempted to stop using this blog and use the other one I started some time ago. I like that one because the one person in particular who stalks me here doesn’t know where that one is at so I can say what I want without worrying I’ll get grief for it later. It’s the Pure Med Spa thing that keeps me keeping this blog going. I get a new note every few days from people screwed over by that company. It has gone through about four or five incarnations since being called Pure Med Spa, yet it keeps on ticking and stealing from the public. Seriously, the FBI needs to get involved.

My baby girl is getting bigger and bigger. I do write on her blog DaysofIsabel. I don’t keep it up as often as I envisioned in the beginning, but more frequently than I would have expected. I love my babies, both the 11 month old baby and the 11 year old baby!

This has been a weird week of running into and reconnecting with old friends. First, I ran into a lawyer friend I had lost touch with a few years back. Then I reconnected with a guy I dated so long ago, all the major grownup things in my life had not happened yet. Then I ran into my old paralegal from the toxic snake pit. Then yesterday I visited with a high school chum at his garage sale. It really has been interesting reconnecting with all of these people. I hope we can maintain better contact going forward.

We live in a neighborhood of old, lovely homes. They are high-end homes from the turn of the century. What I like about most of them is that they are sedate and solid, without being ostentatious or pretentious like so many of the disgusting mansions are these days. There are a few that are a bit too large, but mostly they are just really gorgeous older houses along a ridge that overlooks the city.

Apparently, one of our neighbors in one of these houses either passed away or moved to a nursing home. There has been an estate sale going on for the last three days. On the second day, after fighting yet again to get out of my driveway because of all the foot and parking traffic, I discovered what was going on and went over to investigate. It isn’t often I get to go inside one of these lovely old houses.

The surprise was how truly unspectacular this particular house is. It certainly has the potential to be restored back to its original splendor, but as is often the case with old houses, it has been bombarded by ugly from the last several decades. Hideous carpet covers much of the hardwood floors. The bathrooms are tiny, the fixtures old and nothing special. The kitchen is dated circa 1960, but not in a good way. And the worst transgression is that someone built a covered porch thing out in the back that blocks the view from the house. It’s hideous and large and seems not to accomplish much in the way of being a nice place to sit outside.

There were signs offering the house for sale at $632,000. If I had that to spend on a house, I would not buy that one. I think $400,000 is more its range, considering all the updating that will have to happen. I also overheard some discussion about issues with the plumbing. Of course, based on the prices these estate sellers were asking for simple junk, I’m not surprised someone is thinking they can get that amount for the sale price. There was a set of big, old speakers they had priced at $800. For some reason there was a lot of old stereo equipment and they wanted 100s of dollars for each piece. I have been looking for an older stereo and record player and based on what I have seen out there, those sellers were smoking crack to think an old set of speakers could bring $800. They had a couple of old amps similar to those I have seen at other sales for which they were asking $250 and $300. Nuts. That’s how most stuff was there. Some things were cheaper; they were offering 50% off anything under $50. I bought a Shaft record in perfect condition for $1.50, a ceramic pot from Italy for $6, and a stuffed bunny for Isabel for .50c. But most of the stuff was overpriced and nothing special. They are going to have to drastically reduce to get rid of a lot of it. Much will likely end up in a landfill. This is how it goes at the end of our life if we have collected a bunch of not much.

Today I have a lot to do. I have to finish some applications, pay some bills, finish an article, go shopping for baby party invitations, make a risotto, get the house ready for the busy week ahead, type a petition, and get some other petitions ready for hearings on Tuesday. Tomorrow I have “oral surgery,” what they call it when they inject bone into the hole in your head where a tooth fell out 15 years ago in order to make bone grow for an implant. Fun stuff. They say it won’t hurt as much as a filling, but we will see. I am not working though, in case it hurts more or for longer.

Isabel is up and crawling around. It is time to get started on our day. We cuddled for several moments when she first awakened. I love snuggling her. She is my joy.

August 16, 2010 by Elle

I Love My Baby

I love my baby. I love my baby. I love my baby. My baby is the sweetest, most wonderful, happiest little darling in the world.

I love my baby.

August 15, 2010 by Elle

Uncertainty…

It is normal and essential to proceed with our everyday life by utilizing perceptions that reveal only fragments of objects, the beginnings of action and bits of conversation, inferences as to another’s intent, and, as a rule, only a sketchy knowledge of his background. Such incompleteness of input leaves large areas of potential uncertainty. (Cameron 1974, p. 678).

August 15, 2010 by Elle

Softening the Edges of My Rage

Have you ever wished for someone’s demise? Have you ever hated with such intensity that if the object of your derision were to meet with an untimely accident you would have to hope there would be for you an alibi, because such an accident would draw suspicion upon you? I have been there twice. It is not a comforting place to be.

The first was the sociopathic girlfriend of my ex. She wanted to destroy me and in her attempts, I would imagine my revenge to help me cope. There were moments where I would fantasize her death, giving myself the satisfaction of picturing a silvery knife so sharp, its blade razor thin slipping along the surface of her neck, aligning with skin and veins, blood seeping and pooling around her nape. At other moments I divined her foot, uselessly pressing a brake line that had been cut, her car careening helplessly over a guardrail and smashing into a tree.

Eventually I learned to circle the wagons against this woman and she turned her attentions elsewhere, but not before making my life a living hell. After a time the revenge fantasies ceased and life continued not quite as before; I carried a little cloud about me for a while. I needed redemption. I’m not sure it ever came, but I did move to a new place where I could remove her from my head. She took up too much space there for a time.

In recent months I move in and out of hatred again. This one certainly takes more space than is deserved or warranted. For every moment it is in my head, I leave no space for love or creativity. It doesn’t come often, but when it does, it fills me with the intensity of a raging conflagration, burning and spitting and roiling. No wonder hell is described as fire; hating someone is a sort of hell and it blisters and scalds. I know enough pop psychology to know that such intense hatred only harms the one who is feeling it. On an intellectual level I understand its ramifications, and so I bend my body into yogi poses, pound my feet in Nike sneakers, force my mind away from conversations that can have no solution, breathe down into the soles of my feet. It works–most of the time. But then it doesn’t and with it I must contend again.

Into this hatred happened a very young, very naive and stupid girl. She was like some desperate and obsequious puppy, hoping to be liked, having no idea what the hell she had stumbled into. I wanted to kick her. I had no desire to befriend this naive creature trying so hard to be nice. I wanted to fold her in half, destroy her hopefulness, rub her face in the anguish and rage she could not know or understand. She tripped along, coy and carefree, like a puppy with her tongue lolling, tail wagging between her legs, hoping I would be friendly. Because she came from the one I so despised, I hated who she was and what she represented before she ever said a word. I wanted her to back away, to get out, to leave what she had found. She was not welcome. She had no business. I wanted her to go and to take her syrup with her. After I aimed several poison darts in her direction, she started to get the idea. For a moment I felt sorry for her and tried to warn her against where she was headed, but she wanted none of that, and nipped at me. For this nip, I bit. Hard.

I have been advised to write, to rend this vitriol from my veins. Write she says. Write. It doesn’t matter what you say, just write. If you can place this things that are in your head in a place outside of you then you will come to a place where they no longer matter. Write. Remove them from you. Link them to someplace else. And so I do. I have for today for this moment softened the edges of the rage.

	Agatha on In Prison for Taking a Liar…
	Brittany Hunt on I’m a Funnel Web
	goingroundandround on Substack
	Elle on Contact Lenses Make me Worse…
	Forrest Curo on Contact Lenses Make me Worse…

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