Channeling Sam Kinison
Illustration
from YTMND.
MOMMY! I WANT MOMMY!
(here I am!)
NO! NOOOOOOO! I WANT DADDDYYYYY!
(ok, he’s standing right there; parents switch
positions)
NOT DADDY, MOMMY!
(well, Daddy is the one who is here right now. Would
you like robot pajamas tonight?)
NOT THE ROBOT PAJAMAS – THE SHARK PAJAMAS! I WANT THE
SHARK PAJAMAS!
(the shark pajamas, buddy?)
THAT’S WHAT I S A I D: THE SHARK PAJAMAS!
(parent
begins dressing child in shark
pajamas)
NO! I WANT THE ROBOT PAJAMAS ON!
(parent and child together):
AHHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
Another day ends in tears at the writing to survive
household. Maybe our three-year-old son is developing
neural networks at incredible rates and his thoughts
are pulling him in different directions. Perhaps he
is experimenting with control – how much does he
have? How will we, the beleagured parents, react to
his cries of frustration? It’s normal (right??), but
exhausting, and patience-trying, and sometimes it’s
hard to see the humor in it all.
Bath time last night was a screamfest. I wasn’t there
– baths are generally my husband’s responsibility –
but I could hear every outburst. I finally realized
what it reminded me of: my son was channeling the
long-dead 80s comedian Sam
Kinison.
Here is a little taste of my current home life, minus
the lunges and hair pulls, with a very young-looking,
relatively thin Kinison on the David Letterman show.
The comedian was known, as Wikipedia puts it, “for
his extremely vitriolic humor” and can be offensive,
so viewer beware.
writing to survive – where one day you can read about
Gertrude Stein and Edgar Allen Poe, and the next you
can watch Sam Kinison.
Now you know about my tasteless side.
People stop and stare
Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster
I had a nickname name for him, a code word really, so that I could write it in my notebooks without fear of discovery. Bertie Wooster. It’s embarrassing, but 100% true: I was a 12-year-old P.G. Wodehouse fan, with a huge crush on my ash-blond, hazel-eyed classmate. Even in high school, after the thrill was gone, after Bertie had metamorphosized into a six-foot tall pothead, after I fell hard for a senior basketball player (another unrequited love), I would blush when we passed in the hall.
Crushes, I’ve had a few. They have ranged from the silly (the hot dog stand guy, summer of 1984) to intense (first husband, early days). These infatuations have been distracting, fun even. Nothing, however, has persisted like my 14-year obsession with Mr. H.
We met at work, my first week at my first real job. Mr. H. was cute and asked a coworker if I was attached. And so the internal churning began. I was attached – soon to be married, actually – but I couldn’t shake the butterflies, the deep blushes, whenever Mr. H would show up in the library. There he’d stand, feet away, hovering over the fax machine (the only one in the office); or he’d actually stop by to (gasp) ask me a question. My heart would race: it races now, as I remember those chance moments. Knowing he spent time in our neighborhood, I would survey the sidewalks evenings and weekends, on the lookout. The soundtrack for that year was a strange mix of Morphine (Buena)and Holly Cole. Her version of On the Street Where You Live, with its stalkeresque undertones stirred up the ironic obsessive in me.
Today I am a happily married woman. Over the years, the crush has been mainly dormant, with a few volcanic moments. At this point, it’s academic – what meaning does this person hold for me? why do I continue to have those frustrating dreams? – but I am tired of it. And so, today, needing a new writing project to fixate on, I thought: why don’t I write a letter to Mr. H? You know, lay out my feelings in a literary sort of way, show them the harsh light of reality; get them out of my system. Maybe I send it, maybe I don’t. If I don’t, maybe I get it published. Everyone’s into reading about other peoples’ sick love obsessions! I can take this useless, ridiculous feeling and parlay it into art.
Yeah. I’ve been working on it for much of the morning, and I find that the writing process doesn’t purge the feelings: it makes them more intense.
My crush has morphed into a middle-aged thing, a yearning for escape from quotidian existence. I am ensconced in my (relatively) safe life, a housewife wannabe writer, parent to one tiring preschooler. Not much excitement here, though things are quite comfortable and loving at home. Maybe I need to take up bungee jumping or fencing, something to liven up the system.
So: Jennifer, let sleeping crushes lie. Oh, and Mr. H, if you are reading this (do you read this blog? I doubt it.), write me back, OK?
Only joking.
Writing prompt: Watch it!
The Metro is packed. The threatened end-of-day thunderstorms have arrived and I am jammed in with other hangdog federal workers, soaked tourists, and a crowd of high school students all wearing identical Smithsonian raincoats. I stare at a man’s hairy hand, thick gold ring on his index finger, as I hang on to the pole by the doors. We breathe in the heavy air, faint with adolescent sweat.
Picture from The Janus Museum.
As the warning chime rings and a disembodied voice tells us “Doors closing,” she walks in. I see her almost every day at Union Station sitting by the Christopher Columbus fountain behind a phalanx of plastic bags. “Got any money to spare today, baby?” she’ll ask. Before I encountered her there, she once sat next to me on the Metro, in one of those seats half hidden behind plexiglass at the back of the car.
She’s hard to forget, this middle-aged African American woman, probably homeless, maybe a little crazy. Every morning she gets up and puts make-up on her face, stripes of beige and dark tan, giving herself the face of a bland tiger. Her eyes are always hidden behind sunglasses. Today she wears a threadbare, stained trench coat, tan, stylishly cinched at the waist.
Commuters flatten themselves against daytrippers as the tiger woman forces her way into the car, except for man beside me. “Hey, you: watch it!” he yells. She ignores him, the doors close, and we’re on our way. Next stop, Judiciary Square.
The rampaging dog chair
Nick Cave in The Birthday Party days.
Ten years ago I read an article about ballet dancers. All I remember about it now is this sobering fact: most of them end their stage careers by the age of 30 (a 2007 New York Times article puts the average at more like 35). After a handful of years of twisting this way and that, leaping, bending and living under tight calorie restrictions, the dancer’s body is just worn out. “Another possible career bites the dust,” I thought to myself, but that was the extent of my worries about my thirties.
Today I turn 39 and I find that I am worried about the years ahead. And I feel totally ridiculous about it.
So, reassure me, people! Please?
Thanks, HaloScan and ... ominous piano practice?
Unfortunately, my elation at the retrieval of the missing comments has been tempered by the sound of one of the Neighbornator's offspring practicing the piano. Yes, it's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," though it's much improved from last year's attempts.
I am afraid that the annual jazz party preparations have begun. We have our bags packed in case we have to leave on short notice.
Jailbreak
It was the end of an incredible, challenging half-year. I’d spent June through October in New York, studying culinary arts at the Natural Gourmet Institute, living in a studio sublet in Chelsea. By day I’d take notes on “health supportive” food and create vegetarian gourmet fare with my fellow classmates. Evenings were for wandering Manhattan. The Hudson River was a few blocks away from my apartment, and the West Village was an easy, entertaining stroll. Sometimes I’d go the distance to Midtown where the streets were hopping with humanity and the buildings were a mix of architecture spanning three centuries, old brick storefronts intermingling with structures of concrete and glass.
The streets of Manhattan were overwhelming to me: too much stimulation, every block packed with shops and restaurants, with signs and graffiti (“Mama Loves Neckface”?), every address crying out for attention. Night subdued the signs, softened the calls. So I walked and watched, sometimes talked on the phone with my husband, who was back in DC. We’d go over the days humiliations and occasional triumphs. A few late nights in Brooklyn with my friend Jennifer – drinking, talking, attempting karaoke (never, never again) -- sealed the New York experience.
I went back to DC for six weeks before my internship at Greens Restaurant and spent the time preparing to start a personal chef business. During this break I appeared on a local television news program cooking contest, which led to a later on-air meeting with Anthony Bourdain. My world was opening up into something completely new. It was shiny and scary, anxiety-producing and freeing, a chance to create a business and change my life.
So. November 29, 2004. I was in my favorite city, San Francisco, about to work at Greens, my favorite restaurant. But something was distracting me from restaurant job panic. The day I started my internship, I also had to track down a drugstore. No matter how many tests I tried, the results were always the same. I was pregnant.
One new world slipped away as another one appeared. This was an alien planet created with an equal mix of worry, sacrifice and love. What would it be like to have a little creature totally dependent upon me? Was I up for the task? Was the pain I carried around hereditary, something involuntarily slipped in through the genes, a burden to be shared? I was terrified.
The 80-hour internship went by in a blur. I was a solitary, preoccupied figure, standing in place at the salad and dessert station as other employees, efficient in their clogs and hats, sharpened knives prepared for work, zipped around me. I would look at my slow, inexperienced hands as they grasped the serving spoon and tipped that night’s curry onto a plate. I methodically patted out tart dough as dinners were plated around me, carefully removed the skin and pith from scores of oranges in a haze of prep staff conversation, inexpertly mixed the ingredients for the filo pastry of the day in the cold of the isolated back kitchen.
It wasn’t enough time to even get my feet wet. My inexperience would never get the opportunity to disappear. I was going to be permanently interrupted.
But was I?
Since my son was born, I’ve been living as though all that was ever going to happen to me already had. I’ve let the experience of being a mother stop me from participating in the larger world. The stories I write here are about the past, about the life I had when I had a life outside of my house.
On the other hand, by writing these stories I am reentering the world, slowly emerging from my own head. And I find that my dreams have changed. That shiny new world of four years ago is no longer relevant.
I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Would you like bloodworms with that?
He sold the whirligig mallards and Canada geese at a produce stand on Route 213. They were solid moneymakers, big sellers with the weekenders who clogged the roads every Friday and Sunday night. Lined up outside the stand, a bank of lures staked to the ground against a backdrop of cantaloupe and corn, the birds would be set off by the breeze, wings turning frantically in a frustrated pantomime of flight.
Wing tracing was not enough to keep sixteen-year-old me occupied for two months, however. That’s how I ended up, after a lot of maternal arm-twisting, as the sole employee at Eastern Shore Marine, a small marine supply store in Chesapeake City.
Eastern Shore Marine was a muddle of motors and Docksiders, winches and water-skis. It didn’t know exactly what kind of store it wanted to be: hardcore marine supplies (motor oil, pumps, pulleys) or day on the water store (skis, shoes, inner tubes). For the fishermen, we had a refrigerator full of packaged live bloodworms. If you wanted to toss some cash at an Evinrude motor, we could get you one. And towards the end, Eastern Shore Marine became the local dealer for Motorola car phones, exotic objects with a limited range, toys for the gadget aficionado.
Every day at the shop offered me a new opportunity to feel stupid. I knew nothing about boating. People would question me about sailing pulleys, or what weight motor oil they would need, would quiz me on outboard motor horsepower and I would stammer through a non-answer, look dumbly at the shelves, hope for an epiphany.
The store’s owner, John Jackson, wasn’t much help. When he was there, it was mainly to down beers in the back with his buddies, an off-duty Maryland state cop and the rug cleaning guy from the shop next door. From the clenched jaw, one-sided phone conversations I overheard, I could tell that John’s marriage was disintegrating along with his business. Maybe the responsibility for both was too much for him, too many things to juggle.
Over the two summers I worked for him, John became more and more erratic. Though he hardly ever showed up during my shifts, my boyfriend Derek and I would sometimes run into him at Bennett's Liquors or at the Canal House, the local boater's watering hole. He'd greet us with a high-pitched hello and a tight grin, insist upon giving us ice or a drink. "Want some iiice?!" became our catchphrase for him, a reference to the night he filled Derek's cooler with an intensity beyond the task.
John was a no show for my last week of work, the week before I left for my freshman year in college. Even his wife was calling, trying to track him down. Then another call would come in on the line, John's distant voice over car phone static. He'd be at the store by noon. It never worked out that way.
Alone, I’d pace the aisles, line my white MIA shoes heel to pointy toe in a circuitous route around boating supplies. The occasional customer would show, hopefully with a simple request. I waited for business, drank diet Dr. Pepper, ran my finger along the bottles of teak oil. The sailing equipment fascinated me and I would finger the pulleys, try to figure out the knot chart.
When Dan, one of our suppliers, dropped by with beer for a farewell visit on my last day, I didn’t see a problem with cracking one open. We sat in the office and talked over a couple of Coors, had a meandering goodbye conversation about John, my college plans. At the end of my shift, I emptied the cash register, doled out my weekly salary. I locked up and delivered the keys to the rug cleaner, then hopped into my grandfather's waiting car.
Within six months, Eastern Shore Marine was closed. I never saw John again.
Louise Peevish
"Oh, Louise is being peevish again," we'd say. "Louise Peevish."
It was the move back to Maryland that did her in.
There were stories of other dogs that had cracked
after hearing the tests at Aberdeen Proving
Ground,
dogs that pushed their way through second story
window screens, desperate to escape the sounds of
the bomb and munitions tests across the river. The
aural bombardment contributed to Louise’s general
nervousness, but now when a thunderstorm blew
through town, she was absolutely inconsolable. No
drug calmed her. By the time you got the pill
down, the storm had passed.
One afternoon, my mother drove with Louise to the
local grocery store. Mom rolled the windows down a
safe distance, locked the doors, and entered the
market.
She was filling a plastic bag with green beans when
she heard a little girl’s voice. “Look, Mom, there’s
a dog shopping in the Acme.”
“Not my dog,” thought Mom, as she weighed the beans
and continued to the toiletry aisle. The little girl
spoke again. “Look, Mom, the dog is still shopping in
the Acme!”
“Not my dog,” thought Mom again. She glanced past the
row of shampoos to the plate glass windows – were
those thunderclaps she heard? – when she saw Louise,
panting heavily, on the run from one of our favorite
check-out guys, a kid who worked his way up from
bagger and always made friendly conversation. Louise
darted for the automatic doors, heading along the
sidewalk in the direction of the Chat-n-Chew.
Abandoning her cart, Mom also ran for the door.
Outside, storm clouds were gathering force. She
watched Louise scatter a school of carpenters, men in
dirty jeans and mud-caked work boots, as the dog
passed the restaurant and made a left into the
hardware store. Mom followed, pushing past customers,
until she found Louise in the back of the store,
trembling by the PVC piping.
My mother stayed there with her until the storm
passed, then walked her back to the car and drove
home, sans groceries. Apparently, the dog panicked
when she heard the approaching thunder, pushed
through an open car window and went looking for Mom.
We were grateful that she wasn't hit by a car.
About two years after the Acme incident, I came home
from grad school for a visit. Things were grim.
Kevin, my mother’s long-term boyfriend, had been
diagnosed with a rare bone marrow disease. My mother
was close to declaring bankruptcy. And Louise was
getting more peevish and skittish.
Her fits of panic weren't limited to thunderstorms;
now the dulled explosions from Aberdeen were having a
similar effect. She was terrified. If no one was
home, she would attempt to escape -- Mom was afraid
she would force her way through a closed window,
pictured a return home to bloodied shards of glass
and no dog. If someone was home, she would scratch
and pace, pant and whine. Louise was suffering.
I went with my mother to the appointment. We sat with
Louise, stroked her as the vet depressed the needle.
It was over quickly.
On the ride home, we didn't speak.
On the way to L.A.
Greetings from scenic
Cambria!
We're on a road trip down to the L.A. area, to visit
my father-in-law. This morning we drove out past San
Simeon out to see if we could find
elephant
seals.
We did!
More later. I have friends' blogs to catch up with,
too.
In the beginning ...
When I started this blog in late December of last year, I wasn't in a good place. All the things I've been writing about since then were burbling just below the surface, barely suppressed, waiting to be given form and shaped into a story. I used a pseudonym -- Anonmomous -- and wrote pretty freely about my angst at the time, my desperation, the stifled creativity that I blamed on my daily mundane existence mixed in with a childhood hangover.
I had no creative outlet, but a strong desire to write and figured that starting a blog would force me to do it on a regular basis. Maybe I would find others out there like me, or attract an audience (even an audience of one would have been wonderful). But nobody reads a blog if they don't know about it. I started using my real first name, joined blogcatalog, and things started to look up.
Most of my early posts are gone, but I recently found an interesting one from right before I "came out." I've reproduced it below.
Thanks to Geoffrey for asking some questions that got me thinking about the early days and how the process of self-expression has actually changed the story I've created for myself.
I also have to thank The Fearless Blog for her kind profile of writing to survive, and her words of encouragement. As usual, she got me thinking about how a positive attitude can change the equation entirely.
Manufacturing interest
18 February 2008
As I was thinking about whether I would post tonight, not sure if I had anything to say, I decided I would manufacture something of interest to write about: the manufacturing of interest in what I am writing here.
I have no idea how you arrived at this blog, whether you find it entertaining, or relevant, or worth five minutes of your time. I could probably come out of the closet, quit being anonymous, and invite people I know to read it, or at the very least passively put up the address in my facebook profile and e-mail signature. Perhaps then the blog would spread like a benevolent virus across cyberspace, e-mailed here and there: you simply HAVE to read this.
Would more people read? Maybe. Would it affect what I write here? Most definitely. In a good way? I am not sure. Currently, I can write corny or stupid or revealing stuff here without worrying about hurting anyone's feelings or worrying about looking corny or stupid. I would probably remove anything non-writing related, which may be the cleaner and kinder way to go. I still have much mulling to do on the topic.
H and I took advantage of our holiday Monday babysitter to go into the city. We wandered around North Beach, did some vintage shopping, had lunch. We ended up at City Lights and I was suddenly overwhelmed by all that fiction, non-fiction, poetry, ecology, etc etc, titles and authors I have never heard of and will probably never read.
What a crazy idea it is to write when there are so many talented people out there who can barely sell a book.
But I can't worry about that now, can I?
The Victorian Village slasher
We met him on a dog walk, a meandering stroll through our Columbus neighborhood, past a brick-solid hodgepodge of Victorians and gingerbread, Italianate rowhouses and cobblestone alleyways. This world was new to me, a stable life as an adult, with a fiancé, a dog, a professional job, living hundreds of miles from my mother. I was going to hold on to that stability with a death grip, make sure I would never fall back into the abyss.
But back on the East Coast, Mom was cracking up. I wasn't allowed to call her at home, so we’d talk at work. The conversations usually ended with screams (hers) and tears (mine). My cubicle was in the middle of the library, exposed. I would hold my voice tense and steady, then rush to the ladies’ room, smash the tears back with toilet paper, splash the redness away with cold water.
My mother was a frequent subject on our dog walks. I obsessed over our new rift, the rage unfairly projected, while my husband-to-be made sympathetic noises. I was to blame by choosing my fiancé, a snobbish WASP, loyal and overprotective. It was a slap in the face to my bohemian mother.
If my abandonment, my choice to betray, wasn't bad enough, she was also struggling with her long-term boyfriend, a difficult character in the best of times. Kevin was in the early stages of a rare illness that would eventually kill him. She had to support them both on a small salary and was stretched to the point of financial ruin.
On that cool September evening in 1995 Jared and I were having the usual discussion. Would Mom and Kevin follow through on their threat to boycott the wedding? Why was she being so cruel?
I didn’t notice the runner pass us. Then we heard it.
“Hey, jogga!”
The small voice was coming from a bush to our right. Whoever it was, they couldn’t quite pronounce their r’s.
“Hey, jogga! I am the O.J. Simpson! I am the O.J. Simpson!”
Suddenly, a little boy, no more than five, leapt out from behind the bush, making stabbing motions with his empty hand in the direction of the runner, who was long gone. He looked at us and just started talking. Yes, he could hang out in his yard after dark. His mom and dad were divorced and he was living with his dad, who liked to drink ice beer. Had we ever tried it? He had, and he didn’t like it. He talked on, aggressively friendly, clearly lonely.
Another runner flew by and the boy repeated the performance, enjoyed the effect. It was disturbing and amusing, this five-year-old's violent pantomime.
Beyond the open screen door of his house, I could hear canned laughter, the hiss of a bottle being opened. His father, up until this point a lumpy shadow behind a curtain, turned his head to the side and yelled, "Get in here!" The boy said goodbye, walked into the house, and shut the door behind him.
Over the next few months, we walked by that house several times. We never saw him again.
Crushed
For a long time I thought the dreams were messages from my subconscious, a sign of our untapped connection. But they were always full of anxiety, missed moments, twisting city streets, long distances traveled for dissatisfying conversations. The longing was mine alone.
In one dream, my mind created a labyrinthine mental institution for our encounters. We were both inmates, living in separate dormitories. The buildings were part of a Victorian-era hospital, dark and complex with hidden meanings, completely separate from the external world. We would meet and part, meet and part, sometimes with a glance, sometimes managing a quick kiss, always with that awful ache for what could never be. I woke up wondering: Do you care for me? Do I exist for you?
That was the hold he had on me: the pursuit of acknowledgment, the desire to be seen for who I was, while he existed as pure symbol, out of reach and impossible to know.
Last fall, when my marriage was going through a rough patch, we started e-mailing more frequently. I liked the exchange, felt my latent crush expand, fill the spaces I thought were empty. It was innocent fun – no lines were crossed. Then, without explanation, he stopped responding.
Over time the dreams went on hiatus. Until last night. I’m not going to get sucked into this game with my subconscious again.
I don’t need his acknowledgement to know I exist.
Dashboard confessional
That's right: I don't drive. Yes, even though I possess a driver's license, I have not been behind the wheel of a car since 1996. That was back in Columbus, Ohio, where I took driving lessons and passed the test -- in a stick shift, no less -- only to continue with my non-driving, pro-walking lifestyle.
The Ohio license was my ticket to a Washington, DC license, which in its turn practically guaranteed me a California license, both sans driving test. California required that I take a written exam, which I passed by the skin of my teeth, with a score just good enough to get my golden pass to the highways. But, don't worry. If you are driving the roads of our fine state this summer, or any time in the near future, you will be relieved to know that I will either be safely ensconced in the passenger's seat or hoofing it.
Though I am a big supporter of public transportation (how could I not be?) and I am happy not to have to plunk down an extra car payment, my decision not to drive has nothing to do with a political stance or with economics.
I am afraid.
Five people from my high school were killed in car accidents in the space of a year and a half. When I was fifteen, I was in an accident on the very same winding Delaware back road where two upperclassman had been killed a month before, though I got off lucky, with a few stitches near my right eye.
I concluded early on that cars are big, heavy, and fast and can cause a lot of damage. The possibility of killing someone with a two-ton, gasoline-powered weapon is terrifying. I can't suspend disbelief, act as if there is no danger involved. Everyone shuttles around in these shuddering heaps of metal and plastic as though it is the most normal thing in the world. And I guess I do, too, as a passenger, though I'm not exactly a relaxed passenger.
It's a phobia, one that was relatively easy to live with when we were in the middle of convenience, in a fantastic DC neighborhood where everything was within walking distance and if it wasn't, I could hop on the Metro to get there. No one even needed to know that I didn't drive, which was wonderful, because I'm embarrassed by it, this dependency on my husband, this weird fear of mine.
Now that we're in a less convenient place, I am feeling the effects of life without driving. I know what I need to do, but I don't know if I can do it. Hey, if Sarah Vowell can survive without driving, why can't I? (But then again, if Katha Pollitt finally did learn to drive, what's my excuse?)
Reality
True, I am happy not to be in the working world. I can't imagine anyone else taking care of the boy on a full-time basis. I am a worrier and a control freak and I would miss him. There is no job waiting interesting enough to pull me away and I'm a poor juggler. The rush to work, the rush home, the mad dinner dash -- I didn't like it when I was childless. Mix in a needy little one and I would be a raving lunatic, in a less fun way than I am now. A full-time care situation would also be less than optimal for my total homebody, somewhat mommy-obsessed son.
(Note: There are many reasons to be a working parent. My mother was a working parent. Most of my friends are working parents. I love them all and admire their ability to have a working life and a home life. Their kids are generally happy and well-adjusted. I have nothing against mothers who work.)
Then there is reality: money. Farting around with my fascinating life story isn't going to bring in the cold, cold cash. My husband bears the burden of supporting us in a very expensive part of the U.S. I haven't contributed to Social Security in almost four years (yes, I still cling to the quaint idea that Social Security will exist when my time comes to cash in). And I miss having an outside focus.
To make money writing salable stuff takes concentrated effort. A plan. It takes time to implement a plan. And seven hours a week of childcare isn't a lot of time.
My solution: stop sleeping.
Though I don't sleep much as it is.
All that jazz, Part II
I’m sure it was an oversight when Dieter neglected to give us an invitation to his jazz party. We had been out of town the previous week. Perhaps a strong wind had blown the slip of paper off our porch. Maybe Dieter, Jr. had inadvertently skipped our mailbox.
I watched from our upstairs bedroom as a small tent went up. Thinking back to Angelica’s mention of the party, I imagined flinging open the gate between the two yards. The hordes would spill in, clutching Coronas and Aquafinas, swaying to saxophone solos and smashing our sepia grass into the dirt.
Our landlord and Dieter were tight, friends from when
she lived in our house. The fence contains two
remnants of their relationship: a double-doored gate
connecting the yards and a 2x2-foot window. The
thick, beveled glass offers a view of birch and
bamboo, visual access to the back corner of Dieter’s
world. It's a sideways glance, no eye contact
necessary, thank goodness. The gate came with a shiny
new padlock. We’ve never bothered to remove the key,
so there it dangles, a symbol of hope gone sour, of
potentials never realized.
I was thinking about our poor neighborly relations --
where did we go wrong? -- when the dog nosed me in
the thigh. Oh yeah. Time for a walk. I put my son in
the back carrier, leashed Nora, and walked out into
frenetic Birdland preparations. The Neighbornator
family was bringing in more foodstuffs. I put on my
friendly face.
“You’re coming tomorrow?” Dieter asked, his tone
light. As we passed his dog, Nora growled and lunged,
putting on her vicious cur act. She’s insecure and
totally harmless, though you’d never know from her
bark. I pulled on the leash. "Nora! No!" My son
buried his face in my back. Dieter observed our
little drama with a poker face.
With Nora subdued, I got back to the conversation.
“Coming?” I asked blankly.
He seemed surprised. “I gave you an invitation! Are
you sure? Didn’t we talk about this? It must have
been your husband. Ja, that’s it! I talked to your
husband about it a few weeks ago.”
I shook my head. Nein.
“I am sure I talked to him about it. Ja, I remember
... Oh," he interrupted himself, realizing the
futility of this line of thought. "Ja. There will be
music of all kinds! It starts at 1:00 and goes on all
day. Invite all your friends!” Dieter was a little
flustered.
I tried to be nice about it, to muster up a smile or
some polite enthusiasm. We had just gotten back from
a trip to the East Coast. Everyone was jet-lagged and
sleep-deprived. My husband and I were in the middle
of a marital mess. Given I could hear this man’s
dinner conversation, what would an all-day jazz party
sound like? An all-day jazz party that started at my
son's nap time?
Saturday, September 29th 2007 was a beautiful day. The sky
was cloudless and the air dry and warm. A light
breeze ruffled the leaves in the trees, a pleasant
sound, easy on the ears. At 10:30 a.m., in a yard
hemmed in on all sides by houses, in a yard of
perhaps 500 square feet, in a yard next door, it
started. “Testing, testing, 1-2-3.” Someone was
testing a microphone. Attached to an amplifier.
Attached to speakers.
We were doomed.
At 1:00 p.m. sharp the warm-up act started. Gospel.
This was followed by a traditional jazz quartet. At
some point a pianist pounded out some classical music
(was that Dieter's son? The one who kept on
butchering "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"? If so, he
had improved.) Then an R&B band took the stage,
followed by a nod to Thelonius Monk.
During the intermissions, my husband and I would look
at each other: was this it? But it kept on keeping
on. The pauses were just long enough for equipment
changes. We watched as vans pulled up and spilled out
musicians and instrument cases, the next group on the
marquee getting in line. We listened for the
appreciative applause at the end of each solo. We
looked up the Berkeley city code on amplified music.
Dieter was well over his four hour limit.
From our backyard, the music was loud. Very, very
loud. No wonder Dieter didn’t understand most of what
I said: he was probably half-deaf from years of noise
exposure, Pete Townshend without the guitar. The
animals were agitated. Nora paced back and forth
until she found refuge in the bathroom, while the
cats would scratch at the back door to be let out,
only to rush back into the house with flattened ears
and disgusted expressions. My son skipped his nap.
And the bands kept on coming.
Our last escape from the wall of sound was at 8:30
p.m.. Hoping to gain back sanity lost, hoping that
our son would finally fall asleep, we went for a
drive up in the hills. No one said a word as the car
wound up steep inclines, pushed through
eucalyptus-scented air to a quiet, dark place with a
view. It was a surprisingly clear night and we could
see San Francisco. We watched lines of cars snake
across the Bay Bridge, felt wonderfully insulated
from the sounds of engines and car horns, saxophones
and vocalists. Our son was asleep. Time to go home.
Surely the whole mess was over by now.
But it wasn't.
It seems funny now, funny that we came home to a
Mexican band singing La Bamba, complete with horn
section and what sounded like clog dancing. It was
the most raucous gig of the day. It was almost 11
p.m. When would the madness end?
And then it just ended. As the song wound down, the
crowd whistled and stomped, screamed for an encore.
Ten hours of incredible music, well-performed,
well-appreciated, and very loud, and they wanted
more. It was not to be. Jazz Fest 2007 was over.
The hordes slowly dispersed. We brushed our teeth and
went to bed.
For several months, we barely looked at Dieter, whom
we christened The Neighbornator. We didn't confront
and he didn't apologize. There were no arguments
about the event or the noise level, just bitten
tongues and imagined amusing scenarios, all with the
self-centered surgeon as an object of ridicule, his
accent exaggerated and his mannerisms cartoonish.
We've gotten some good laughs out of it.
For Jazz Fest 2008, we'll be out of town.
All that jazz, Part I
Yes, our wayward next-door neighbor is originally from Germany, though his accent has been softened by thirty years in the U.S. “Dieter” is in his mid-50s, of medium build, tall, with white hair and sky-blue eyes. He’s a neonatalogist with a specialty in prenatal surgery. Maybe it takes his kind of arrogance, of surety, to operate on the not yet born. The hand must be steady and the conscience clear before you make the cut. You don’t toss that self-confidence aside upon leaving the operating room. Dieter prides himself on being a regular guy who does his own home and car repairs. He rides a sleek black motorcycle to the hospital. He blasts classic jazz tunes and world music while doing yard work. But these are not crimes.
Maybe we weren’t receptive to friendship. Perhaps we have nothing in common. There was talk of a barbecue that never materialized. He and his wife made a welcome to the neighborhood visit that ended at the front gate. Dieter didn’t seem to approve of our dog training or of our slow to smile toddler and most of our conversations left me feeling vaguely insulted. The relationship became one of brief smiles and half-hearted waves from car windows.
But we became very familiar with the patterns of Dieter’s life. We had no choice. The houses in our West Berkeley neighborhood are built tightly together. They tell the secrets of the lives held within: whose marriage is in jeopardy, who drinks too much, who cries before leaving the house every morning.
This knowledge of our neighbors' lives is forced, impossible to avoid. Unscreened windows let in fresh air and leak out unsolicited information. We hear the arguments, the sex, the banal exchanges on what is needed at the store. Glasses clink and sobs are suppressed into pillows. People curse during arguments and berate their teenagers for sullen attitudes. (As I type this from the deck, I hear a mother and daughter fighting. The daughter is screaming “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! “ over her mother's tirade. Closer, shoes crunch on gravel. Someone clears their throat as they open a back door. There. The door slammed behind them. Silence.)
When Dieter spent all of last August sprucing up the yard and power washing his house, I knew something was up. He was on the cordless phone all the time, speaking enthusiastically, making arrangments, using "Ja, ja" instead of yes. We’d heard about his annual shindig. “I told him that you’d be great friends, hanging out together, opening up the yard for his annual jazz party,” said Angelica, our landlord, naively before she took off for Arizona. Now I watched a small tent go up, saw the stacks of chairs and tables, observed as Mr. And Mrs. Dieter ferried cases of water and beer from the car.
My heart sank when the deliveries started. A medium-sized truck with ‘PIANO MOVERS’ in huge black letters on the sides was the first to pull up. Three burly men gently moved a wrapped baby grand to the backyard as Dieter supervised with pride. Over the course of the day, more trucks lined up, delivering equipment, microphones, lights and other mysterious things. The big event appeared to be imminent.
No one had said a word to us.
Continued ...
Schlump
Am I the only person in the world who needs time, real time to exist and think and be by myself, to write? Extemporaneous writing just doesn't do it for me. Just sit down and write ... but what if I have nothing to say? Sometimes I need to sift through my thoughts, to make sure everything is all clear, before words come out.
Write about what you know. Hmmm. Maybe I need to get out more. I don't particularly feel like writing Mom-lit. I love the little guy and find practically everything he does worthy of mention (did I tell you about his pteronadon song? "you are my friend pteronandon, you make me smile ..."). To write about him, however, would box me into this life. I need an escape hatch or, at the very least, a window to open to let in the breeze.
Just keep writing, 1000 - 2000 words a day, wrote a commenter here recently. I admit, I got defensive. It isn't so easy to just sit down and write so many words for me, partially because of the nature of my life (and I probably wouldn't be writing at all if I had a job outside the house) and partially because I've never written like that. I think too much, maybe, and the thoughts get tangled up in each other. My internal editor tries to sort things out, to make sure all is nice and neat before letting the words loose from my mind.
I have a friend (are you reading, Bob?) who shows up periodically in my in-box, long e-mails about his life, writing, academia, and philosophy. If he were working on the 2000 words a day quota, one e-mail would practically take care of it. Bob has always been this way -- the words flow. They're not always the most well-crafted, but he is a good writer and he gets there eventually. I'm jealous.
When I decided to start writing, Bob -- who has 3 children and teaches and writes for a living -- told me that he didn't know any writers who sit down for blocks of time and just write. Everybody fits it into the odd moment, writing ideas on a scrap of paper here, tapping away at a laptop there.
I'm creatively bereft at the moment. No ideas, no tapping. This is a theme here lately, but just writing about it makes me feel like I am getting back into the swing.
Say, how many words is this???
Watch this space
The hours were long and being exposed to the inner workings of the legislative branch got old. The head of our department liked her iron grip and crushed what little joy we had in our dark basement space. I quit and went to