Neglect

I haven't been writing here because I've been writing here. If ever I had intentions of not writing to the "internets," I've successfully failed. Also, I'm seriously interested in knowing what you think about the books I posted about recently.

Anyone?

In other news: listening to The Walkmen, You & Me and digging it, really digging it.

Pie for You

God Bless America

Museum

In the news.....

As critical as I am about the role of the Mormon Church in the passage of Prop 8--and I AM critical--vilification is NOT a solution.

There are Mormons who support gay marriage. There are Mormons who spoke out and continue to speak out against the proposition. There are Mormons who WILL decide that it is discriminatory to deny gay people the right to marry.

Some very ugly things are being said. I hope that people will stop.

Blatant Discrimination

My Two Cents on the Passage of Prop 8

I am happy that we have a new president. I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm hopeful.

But at the end of this historic election I am also very sad.

I've read everything that I can on both sides of the Proposition 8 campaign. I've tried to understand how Christians justify their position of bigotry.

They argue that marriage is sacred and that it is between a man and a woman.
They argue that change is bad for our country, for our children.
They argue that children will be corrupted by learning about the love of a man and a man. Or the love of a woman and a woman.
They argue that our culture is being corrupted by this love.
They argue that this isn't about civil unions, but about marriage--that marriage is their term to define, their term to raise their children by. They argue for ownership of this word.

They live in fear.

This is not about children.
This is not about corrupting our culture.
This isn't about marriage and how it's defined and by whom.

This is about discrimination. And persecution. And about second-class citizenship.

It's about civil rights.

The exorbitant funding of Yes on Eight's campaign by the Mormon Church will be seen as one of the ugliest things 21st century Americans did in the name of Christianity, in the name of religion.

This discrimination committed in large part by the church of my upbringing and the consent of my loved ones leaves me indescribably sad.

This is a photo of Billy Bragg in concert at Somerville Theater--though I'm fairly certain that most people who view this photo will be thinking something like,"What the hell is that?"

The picture was taken at the end of the concert from the balcony with my cheapo camera phone and I admit to being a bit foggy--mostly because I'd fallen asleep during the lullaby like ballads and awakened for the rise-up-against-the-man songs.

I apologize in advance to Billy for what I am about to write. If you are here in search of a legitimate concert review, please redirect yourself accordingly.

I first met Mr. Bragg (in song) when I was teaching Animal Farm to unsuspecting high school freshmen. After a robust discussion about the different definitions of capitalism, socialism and communism over PB&J at the teachers' lunch table, Mr. Carlson the physics teacher proclaimed that there was an album that I needed to hear. The next day he brought in The Internationale. He'd recommended that I have a listen to "The Marching Song of the Covert Battalions," maybe even play it for my students in conjunction with my lesson on the -isms. It being my first year teaching I was unaware of the huge potential for major fun making of my music. Rap and "Stairway to Heaven" seemed to be safe choices, but most kids had never heard of Billy Bragg and they especially hadn't heard of "I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night."

I went ahead and played "The Marching Song of the Covert Battalions." They didn't really get that Bragg was making fun of the defense of capitalism and they somehow determined that I was a "communist" in the style of Mao or Castro, not in the fashion of Mother Teresa. On this day I also branded myself as having very bad taste in music. During the "tra, la, la, la" section there was a student I'll call Fernando who marched around the room pretending to play a trumpet while laughing hysterically.

The short of it is that the lesson was not my best of all time and in subsequent years I dropped "The Marching Song..." in favor of songs that students found less strange. However, I'd been hooked by The Internationale and Billy Bragg's nods to Woodie Guthrie and The Clash in his lyrics and music.

I bought a couple more albums and took them on long road trips. I thought about joining a commune.

Until recently when I learned that THE Billy Bragg was coming to a concert venue near me. I looked into going. This meant trying to listen to his new album for free and in doing so determining that it was terrible. I could no longer conjure up visions of the younger, protest Billy that I'd fallen for. I envisioned (sorry Mr. Bragg) an old (at 51--I know--I'm a bad, bad person), tired, post punk dude who had said all that he had to say. Or, that if he still had things to say, I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear them. On a whim, I purchased tickets.

And HE shoooooowed me. He kicked my cynicism and apathy on their asses and made me want to do something. Since my night with Billy, I've called the Democratic Headquarters in Gloucester and arranged to canvass for Obama in New Hampshire. I've posted videos on Facebook, where I'm in contact with my LDS family, about Mormons who are NOT for Proposition 8 (small things, but something).

It's not that I didn't care before I went to hear Billy Bragg. I do care. At least I think that I care. But sometimes it takes a swift kick in the butt to realize exactly how much I care. And that I need to act. It's not that I agreed with everything Billy Bragg said. Because I didn't. But there was a real earnestness in the way that he approached politics, cynicism, our election. It woke me up--literally and figuratively.

Billy Bragg--you showed me. And you kick ass. Yes, even for an old guy.

Five Things

1. We have a new toilet flapper. I never knew that a new toilet flapper could make me feel this way.

2. I turned the heat on this morning. For half an hour. I tried to make it until November. I tried. I promise.

3. Fru-fru coffee. I like it. I get a maple latte (usually) at the Lone Gull once a week. I think about my fru-fru coffee all week and then it's Sunday and I ride my bike to the coffee shop and buy a froo-froo (trying out different spellings) coffee.

4. Today is Sunday. The Sox are still in it. I will drink a fru-fru coffee soon. The toilet flapper is flapping. Or not flapping, depending on how I think about it. It's October. Cole and Aidan have been giving me red and orange leaves and asking me to keep them in my pockets. I'm wearing slippers. And sweaters. And thinking about all of the people I love.

5. Four is symmetrical and five is only kind of, depending on how I think about it.

Fall....

The next day...

Last night I drank from the effervescent, drunkenly adorable mug of champagne that was Sarah Palin.

Today I woke up with a headache. And a stomachache. And a lifeache.

Where's the substance? Beyond the bubble? Where, where and where?

Damn bubbly, making me feel so good and then so bad. So, so bad.

Summer where did you go?

What to do with a rainy day...

There's nothing that beats catching rain in Tupperware. While wearing a diving mask.

Downspouts are overrated. But snorkels aren't.

Especially if you are five and obsessed with water--toilet water, rain water, bath water, hose water, salt water, chlorinated water.

Water.

An addition...

Looking In...

Doing Numbers

The toilet has been clogged for 24 hours.
I have been looking for a job for 49 hours.
The fundamentals of the economy are not strong.
At 1 p.m. three men moved a piano out of the first floor.
At 2 p.m. three men and one woman and one baby girl moved a piano and accessories into the first floor of an 85-year-old house.
At 4 p.m. everyone stared.
At 4:01 p.m. everyone yelled.
At 5:00 p.m. no one cried.
At 6:08 she completed her math homework--the answer is 10.
There is one fruit fly in the bathroom.
There are 32 fruit flies in the kitchen.
At 6:09 the sun is setting.
He's due home later.
The answer is 100.
The answer is nothing.
The answer is extra credit.

Drinking from Aquariums

I am an American aquarium drinker
I assassin down the avenue
I'm hiding out in the big city blinking
what was I thinking when I let go of you

from I am Trying to Break Your Heart
Wilco

It being the last day of summer...

I took a lot of photos this summer and haven't done much with them, except let them collect dust in iphoto. In the next few days, or weeks or months, I am going to brush the dust off of some of the photos and post them here.

If anyone knows how do some basic photo layout through blogger, please email. I'm going to be dropping my flickr account soon and will not be using it to upload photos from here on out.

My Addictions

I am addicted to reading Craig's List--specifically--the job listings. My favorite so far...the person looking for someone to do some "editting"--as if to say in the ad--see--I need an editor. I think that some people are bored at work and post jobs for fun. Some of the listings are outrageously silly and ridiculous.

I am also addicted to reading articles about Sarah Palin. I'm waiting for her to be ready to speak for herself.

Maybe this will happen around the same time that I find a job that I want to apply for on Craig's List. I'm thinking post election.

Just a thought.

For Ernie

I have lived in Gloucester for the better part of 12 years, my former residence Salt Lake City, Utah, vastly different in terms of landscape, cultural makeup and economic sustainability. When I first arrived I got unusually lost on narrow, winding streets--in a car and on foot. I came to learn that New Englanders are quieter in many ways than the people I'd met in Utah and California and Colorado, but that many are very loyal and that beneath a reserved facade there are stories. I wandered through Dogtown in search of cellar holes and words carved onto rock and ate early evening picnic suppers at the water's edge of Halibut Point. I visited all of Gloucester's beaches--even the hidden ones and rode my bike around the cape and also downtown to go to work at a local coffee shop. When I took a job teaching English at the high school, I continued to learn about the complex fabric of our community--I taught sons and daughters of fisherman, bankers, local business owners, bartenders, developers, truck drivers, commuters. I heard stories about Italy and Portugal and Brazil and Puerto Rico as passed down from the lips of great grandmothers and great grandfathers. I went to my first Fiesta--including opening and closing ceremonies--and was struck by a deep commitment to family and place. The Fort teemed with confetti and celebration and shouts of joy. I felt part of something bigger than myself.

Soon my children were born, three of them. I made an effort to see Gloucester through their eyes and fell in love with the place all over again. I consoled fussy babies with walks along the Boulevard and through the Fort, stopping at the playground when they were old enough to climb. We watched boats come and go, spirited basketball games between locals, fish being hauled onto rocks by fathers and daughters. We played "I spy" the greasy pole and then made a game of finding the small plaque that marks the place where Charles Olson lived and wrote. We noticed the way the light fell on the ice house in late afternoon and we counted wooden pallets. If the tide was out we'd walk home along Pavilion Beach, crossing the Boulevard near the cut and walking along the canal towards the high school. We have made this walk hundreds of times. We have counted hundreds of pallets. We have seen the Fort and the Boulevard and the canal in fog, in ice, in sunshine. And we never tire of it.

Gloucester is a special place and deserves to be treated as such. It deserves to have care and attention paid to it in terms of development. People need to be smart about the way they choose to change Gloucester. The right people need to be consulted--not just the people who will financially benefit most. Residents need to have a say. It seems obvious that a large, corporate hotel and condos would change the nature of the Fort and Gloucester. It seems obvious that there are other ways to go about developing our city. It seems obvious that we ask the following questions (to name a few): What will this bring our city? What will this take away from it? Is there a better way? What is the price? And is it worth it?

Made Me Chuckle

Looks like someone corrected this as quickly as possible. Maybe even before jobs were lost. But still, it's funny to think about student groups ordering these up en masse and receiving them and writing with them and learning with them and supporting McCain with them. And while I'm not currently feeling very political and/or mean-spirited I must borrow a line from Nelson and say, "Ha, ha."

Big Day for Sesame

I'm sitting in the mud room/computer room at the computer while the kids watch Sesame Street. First Cole tells me that Jack Black is on. He knows that I like Jack Black. I get up. I walk out to the living room and I watch Jack Black count the sides of a stop sign. "It's an octagon," he says. "Octagon." I laugh. Cole laughs. Aidan laughs. Thea says, "That's Jack," though I think that she might be referring to my brother, her Uncle Jack. Who knows.

I return to the computer. I read. I type. I do stuff. Then I hear that ipod commercial. No, it's not the ipod commercial. It's Feist. And she's singing with Muppets on Sesame Street. I get up again. I watch Feist singing and dancing with Muppets.

I return to the computer to type this up. To tell the internet--if it doesn't already know--that Feist and Jack Black are on Sesame Street today.

To August birthdays...

Making Sense of It (whatever it is)

There are days when it all makes sense. Today was one of those days.

Happy Birthday Cole.

Love,

Your Mama

Hummingbird, Wilco

His goal in life was to be an echo
Riding alone, town after town, toll after toll
A fixed bayonet through the great southwest to forget her

She appears in his dreams
But in his car and in his arms
A dream can mean anything
A cheap sunset on a television set can upset her
But he never could

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird

His goal in life was to be an echo
The type of sound that floats around and then back down
Like a feather
But in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans
No one could hear him
Or anything

So he slept on a mountain
In a sleeping bag underneath the stars
He would lie awake and count them
And the gray fountain spray of the great Milky Way
Would never let him
Die alone

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird

Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird

A hummingbird
A hummingbird

Seven

Today is Aidan's 7th birthday and I am over the top sentimental about it. I have been trying to remember myself a few days before she was born, the way I waddled when I was over nine months pregnant, August heat, my parents eating Chinese food with Tad downstairs in the yellow dining room of the new house while I labored upstairs, Oh Brother Where Art Thou on the t.v. for distraction. I have been trying to remember her birth, her face, her cries. I have been trying to remember the person I was before my children were born--the teacher who could not stop talking about teaching, the book freak, a more patient, gentler, kinder me--so I imagine.

Our memories of things often fail us, or help us, depending. We remember what we want to--and this is the best way, sometimes. A bit of sadness wrapped up in sweet fondness makes for nostalgia, the kind that sits on our throats like a cat.

Of course I am very much in love with and proud of my baby girl. So much has happened in seven years that I couldn't possibly write about it here. O.k, yes, I have already written about it here and it is these memories and images that swirl around me and disappear into now.

Big B, little b, what begins with b?

I've been having vague notions of giving up writing here. Maybe because this blog (with a small b and I can hardly type this word) has fulfilled its purpose. It was useful for venting, raving, keeping track. For a while.

But now what? It's become a bit of a gnat for me. I try to shoo it away or swat it or catch it with a dustbuster--the same way I have been trying to catch houseflies. For the record, I have caught two flies this way. They were at the window screen and unsuspecting. Catching flies midair with a dustbuster is a different kind of occupational feat. Or hazard. Or sideshow (ask the kids).

I like writing. Or, more accurately, I like writing in the way that a lot of people who write love and hate it. But do I like writing here? Anymore?

This is a question that I am trying to answer. I probably won't make a decision one way or the other. I'll probably let go for months-or even a year--and then I'll be back. Like visiting an old friend. And it will feel like time hasn't passed. The blog and I will embrace and kiss on each cheek as people in Quebec City do--and we will go on as before--plodding, plotting. Always plotting. Always plodding. Because that's what people (and web logs) do.

The Rip

I should listen to my brother more often. Or more quickly. Or something.

Weeks ago he recommended that I check out the new Portishead. I've finally gotten to it.

This song is haunting and speaks to my day.

Embedding disabled--but the link should take you where you want to go.

There are things that I want to write. But then I don't write them. And then time passes. And then it all seems silly.

Sometimes I make notes to myself in my head. And the notes fly away.

Summer is a little over half over. I am going to try to write soon.

Summary

I'm back from Utah and what can I say?

Flying in an airplane is inhumane treatment of humans.
High school reunions are weird.
I hate it when people don't give a fuck. Or pay attention. Or make it always about themselves.
If you live in the east then you're "green" according to some.
Green is subjective, having many definitions and interpretations.
I love people....my grandparents and my brother kick ass.
I am happy to be home.

Pinwheels swirl and spin and rotate, subject to the whims of the wind and the breath and the air.

A toy, a game, a person.

Faces of Fiesta

Film lives on....

an open letter to the media

Dear Media,

You are out of control.

Not Yours Truly,

An annoyed high school teacher (former and future) in Gloucester

Summer

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Jane C. (title provided by Joe)

1. Watching Ernie the cat.
2. Watching Ernie the cat rub his body along the windows.
3. Watching Ernie the cat roll on his back.
4. Watching Thea watch Ernie the cat.
5. Listening to Thea say, "I see Ernie. I see Ernie. I see Ernie," an indefinite number of times.
6. Realizing that Ernie the cat has provided seconds and minutes and hours of free child care and that I should probably offer the cat owners some sort of compensation.
7. Singing.
8. Singing with Cole.
9. Singing "Surf Wax America" with Cole.
10. Finding "Surf Wax America" on youtube.
11. Dancing and singing in the mud/computer room to songs that we like that have been uploaded to youtube--the best semi free entertainment that ever there was.

PS Budweezer is a Weezer tribute band.

Preschool Graduation Wore Them Out

Breaking

I've been watching it for days now. In socks. Pitching cigarettes off of the porch. The sun is out but it doesn't matter. The pain is the same.

The routine is the same. Out in the afternoon, drink, stumble, pass out, smoke, sleep it off. All quietly. She leaves in the morning. She always comes back.

It is mostly the same. But today I think that I see him sobbing. And my heart breaks for him.

Wilco and Alpacas and My Mother

Today is Mother's Day. Or Mothers Day. Or Mothers' Day--depending on what kind of a punctuation person you are. So as not to offend punctuation-sensitive readers I will use all three within and throughout this post.

It is Mothers Day. But I am not going to write about mothers or being a mother or my mother or mother earth. Instead I will write about Wilco and Alpacas. If you do not want to read about Wilco or Alpacas, I advise that you click on something such as "next blog" or maybe scroll to the top of the window and click on something to go somewhere that isn't talking about Wilco and Alpacas.

I like Wilco. All five of us went to see them last summer outdoors at The Shelburne Museum near Burlington, Vermont. We then went on to camp at a campground near Lake Champlain where it was possible to hear the tent next to us coughing...but not at all possible to hear the refusing-to-nurse baby screams that exited from our tent. There are sound proof devices for this kind of thing. If you are interested, please Google sound proofing devices for screaming babies in tents and proceed to the nearest website.

The Shelburne Museum is a really beautiful place to see a concert...and it almost wouldn't matter who is playing. Go when the moon is full and the air is warm and it's summer. You probably won't be disappointed. But don't ask me for your money back if you are. I cannot be held responsible for the purchases made as a result of reading this Wilco and Alpaca-laced blog entry.

This is to say that we will again be attending a Wilco summer concert...this time in August at Tanglewood. It is possible to buy two adult lawn tickets for $26 each and to show up with three kids in tow and they'll be let in for free. This is what I would call a cheap date. We'll even be able to sit on the lawn. And we're bringing our pop-up circus tent in case it rains. If you haven't been scared off yet, here is the link to find tickets.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about was my new found love for Alpacas. I always knew that they were cute. But I never knew that they were this cute.



Yes, I've been able to overlook the moss growing into their fur and the green in their teeth which means that it is true love and that the Alpacas and I were meant to be. Don't tell Joe and Renee, but I couldn't help myself and bought a non-breeding male this weekend called "John Wayne". He is going to be living in our back yard.

But before there is worry, again, pictures. How cute are they with their fuzzy-bear features and their long-as-life eyelashes?





I love Alpacas. And Wilco. And maybe even my mother. Yes, definitely my mother.

Happy Mother's, Mothers', Mothers Day to all of you.

Of Roses and Thorns