I interrupt my indefinite hiatus from personal blogging, to bring you the following lulz.
I have new respect for Florida Congressman Hastings (D-Miramar)—not only for his ardent support of hate-crime legislation, but also for naming the following fetishes and sexual preferences to the House with a straight face.
"Apotemnophilia, asphyxophilia, autogynephilia, coprophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism, gerontosexuality, incest, kleptophilia, klismaphilia, necrophilia, partialism, pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, telephone scatalogia, toucherism, transgenderism, transsexual, transvestite, transvestic fetishism, urophilia, voyeurism, and zoophilia."
"This is serious business. Mr. Speaker, we can't legislate love!"
I confess, on first listen, I thought, "Hippotomophilia? WHAT?"
This is the unlikeliest of Christmas songs, but it's my favorite. And there's something about Robert Downey Jr.'s version of "River" that haunts me.
I'm pretty sure that Joni Mitchell wrote this song with L.A. in mind, but it sums up Christmas in Miami, perfectly...from the climatic tragedy of our "winters," to the sad little herds of plastic reindeer planted incongruously in the impossibly green St. Augustine grass.
And, oh, the escapism inherent in this place. Many of us have come here from somewhere else, but that's not it. It's hard to know who has settled here and who has come here to hide from another life, or themselves. I've always said that Miami is where damaged people come to die.
xo
Yvette.
It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, and putting up reindeer, and singing songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
But it don't snow here, it stays pretty green, going to make a lot of money, then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
I wish I had a river so long that I'd teach my feet to fly. I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
After a terrible and terribly hot day in Miami, it's turned into a cool, still night. I'm sitting outside with the dogs in the twilight, thinking about this day. I am thinking about my life and some of the hard, scary life decisions I must make, and I feel totally alone and completely unqualified to make them.
I've also been thinking about this blog and how I've abandoned it, and why. I miss it, here.
For anyone who's interested, we are having (what I believe is) the very first South Florida tweetup, on Saturday, September 29, at 1 p.m., at Morada Bay in Islamorada.
This is actually a very informal gathering of only a handful of people who have ever heard of Twitter. If you don't know a tweet from a rooster and you're simply looking for an excuse to spend an afternoon in the Upper Keys (at an extraordinarily beautiful place), please come and join us. Fanless says that he's "moist with anticipation". I'm bringing Wet Wipes, just in case.
There's no end to the kindness in the world that touches my heart. My friend Geno went to Jamaica in 1989 as part of a church mission, to help to rebuild the roof of a church that had been damaged in Hurricane Gilbert. He mentioned this after my post on Hurricane Dean, and I'm just tickled to share with you his gorgeous vignette of his first night on the island.
The first day.
We are in central Jamaica in the town of Bensonton, in the St. Ann Parrish, in the minister’s house, sitting down to dinner with him and his family. We are eating the fried chicken, rice and salad on the front porch, looking out over the valley. It is dusk on our first day here and we can barely see the rise of the next mountain.
Some of us will be sleeping out on the tiled, polished porch since there is not enough room in the house for the ten of us, a mission team sent by our home church in Georgia. Justin and I volunteered to sleep on the porch for several good reasons: the fresh air, the view, and the sights and sounds of the night.
Earlier this afternoon, as we drove the 80 miles from the airport to Bensonton, we saw many residences damaged by the recent hurricane – just shells with no roofs. I could imagine them as being under construction, so neatly had the upper structure been separated by the wind forces and blown away in the storm.
The area here is very hilly with “our” church, as we came to regard it, the one we would be working to repair, sat on the highest hill in the village. Built by the British in 1917, they couldn’t have chosen a better site for those worshipping here. I could imagine sitting in one of the old wooden pews, alternately paying attention to the minister, then being drawn by the beautiful view from the open door and windows.
Today, though – that required a lot of imagination. The hurricane had ripped the ancient tin from the roof, exposing the beams to the sun, as the rib bones of a corpse. There was water from recent rains still standing, pooled on the tiled floor of the sanctuary. The sad wooden pews, their finish clouded and peeling by moisture and the sun, stood piled near the back wall.
It is dark – a moonless night -- as the two of us lay talking in our sleeping bags on the cool tiles of the porch. The lightening in the distance occasionally illuminates the far away mountain face. The thunder rumbles convincingly as the clouds pass over into the valley and hide the one bright star we had seen a few minutes ago after we blew out the lantern. Tomorrow we begin work after walking the one mile up to the church – I fall asleep imagining our church, roofed, tight and dry, housing the small congregation, on a sunny Sunday morning not far away.
Ladies (in particular), this guy is kind, oh-so-handsome, whip-sharp, sweet, and apparently has a boat. Please give him a little blog love over at Facing Facts. Send him a hug from me.
I love Tom Ford. My current lifestyle does not support my having a closetful of cuture gowns but, if it did, I like to imagine having the ultimate wardrobe with a select few Tom-Ford-for-Gucci dresses elegantly hanging among the Vera Wangs. A girl likes to dream.
This is a designer who has a penchant for both erotic and homoerotic art. He has a flair for the sexy-dramatic. He is a connoisseur of sensualism in advertising, going way back. His ad campaign for the first Tom Ford fragrance for men kicks off in the October issue of Vanity Fair, and it's been getting some knickers in a twist. Pornographer, he is being called, pedophile, sicko. It's ridiculous. What he's guilty of is targeting the completely wrong audience.
At $14 billion a year, the fragrance industry is being described as "lethargic," these days, and there is a perpetual race to capture market share. I believe that this is where Tom Ford might run into trouble. Market research shows that women between 18 and 24 wear the most fragrance, but less than 60 percent of them purchased fragrance on a regular basis. In contrast, over 60 percent of women aged 25 to 54 purchase fragrance on a regular basis, with the majority being purchased by women between 45 and 54. It should surprise no-one that the largest consumers of men's fragrances have always been women. And guess which age group of women typically buy fragrance for men.
I suspect that these ads are going to alienate a lot of women between 45 and 54. In addition, the pictures so closely associate the fragrance with girl parts, that it would seem that buying this for your guy would make him smell like the girl parts of some other woman. Really, who the heck wants to buy for her guy something that has been wedged between another woman's breasts? Another woman with hooker nails, no less. On this basis, I object to the ads, but I do not agree that they are overtly pornographic. As a culture, we seem to grow more strangely puritanical by the day.
There is an argument to be made about the exposure that the ads are likely to provide the designer, but the bottom line is that these little bottles are less likely to be purchased for Christmas by mothers and girlfriends. And, mothers are likely to discourage their daughters from buying this particular fragrance for dad on his birthday. I'm not talking about a large-scale boycott, or anything of the sort. I'm talking about image. I'm talking about the statement made by the ads. The nudity would work if it weren't also overtly sexual (her hands are wet and glistening...why?). "Yes, honey, let's get your dad some of the cologne that we saw in Times Square. Remember the one with the naked woman with the hooker nails whose vulva has been replaced bottle of cologne? Dad will LOVE it!" I think the goal here is to appeal to men. The Tom Ford Web site is most definitely meant to appeal to men. The message seems pretty clear: buy this fragrance, and look at what you'll get, and look at where you'll get it. Look at the perfect breasts and the red, red lips, and the sexy-sexy fingernails, and...look! Look at where the pretty naked lady keeps your cologne!
Incidentally, Tom Ford is being called a pedophile simply because of the model's Brazillian wax. I don't really have the words with which to address this kind of judgment. I don't want to know who these people are, but they should know that the days of the fur bikini are over, and bare girl parts are thankfully here to stay. The campaign is considered by some to be so racy that it's being compared to Vulva perfume (I kid you, not), whose print ads are sufficiently racy that even I hesitate to post any of them, here.
In the end, both art and porn are in the eye of the beholder. I don't mind nudity in my art, but I do prefer my porn to be slightly artistic, for what it's worth.
At this very moment, the southern part of Miami is on lock-down. I know this, because I really, really need to go to the tile store, which is inconveniently located just south of the area that's been blocked off by the Miami police. This sort of thing doesn't happen here every day, of course. The city has a multiplicity of flaws and has the sorts of criminal activity that you might expect in any big city; however, today's criminal du jour is wielding an AK-47 and is busily trying to murder the police.
This morning, at around 11, the Miami police were investigating a burglary in an apartment complex when they noticed a man driving a white Honda in an erratic manner. When he was pulled over, Shawn Sherwin LaBeet, 25, pulled out an AK-47 and shot four officers, killing one. The Miami police promptly started a massive search for the armed and fleeing LaBeet. They found the Honda, abandoned. Reportedly, the car contained a stolen wallet, containing a driver's license, which the Miami police mistakenly assumed belonged to their armed suspect. They broadcast widely the name and photo of the man on the license and implored the public to help in their search. They then spent the next 4 hours in a desperate search for the wrong man. In fact, the majority of Miami police were shown no photo, at all, and spent the day stopping cars on their way into and out of specific areas. It is not clear, if they had no photo, who exactly they thought they were looking for. At some point, a Miami Herald reporter called the family of the "suspect" and found that he had been in Jacksonville, FL, all day, abiding the law and had recently had his wallet stolen. The police eventually found a photo of the real criminal (LaBeet) but continued to refer to him by the wrong name. Welcome to Keystone, Florida. Pull up a chair.
In the middle of this anonymous goose chase, and no doubt capitalizing on the confusion of the hapless police, LaBeet reportedly begged, borrowed, or stole a black Pontiac and high-tailed it to Broward country, about an hour and a half away, undetected in spite of the various road blocks en route. The Pontiac was finally spotted in the parking lot of an unspecified Target, being driven by a family of 5. LaBeet is currently still at large.
As is our way, whenever something exciting happens in Miami, every news camera in the city flocks to the scene at 4 o'clock to pre-empt Oprah and provide us with sensational "live coverage". So, in real time and narrated by the various news anchors, we normally get to watch random cars sinking on-cue into residential-area canals. We are regular spectators of irate alligators rolling around the asphalt in the streets somewhere, while the local alligator wrangler does his alligator wrangling. Frequently, we are witness to exhausted Cuban or Haitian refugees disembarking from their sorry inner tubes and rickety boats and walking across the Rickenbacker Causeway and scattering into traffic, like insects. It's typical for the news people to utter Pulitzer-prize-winning observations, such as, "There goes another one!" and "Remember, you saw it here first, live on Channel 4!"
Today, we know that an armed and dangerous -- and most probably frightened and desperate -- young man with a loaded assault rifle that he's obviously quite comfortable using, is on the loose. As is also our way, and as captured by the news cameras, there are all kinds of people standing around the streets in which the suspect is believed to be, gawking at the police and the news crews and all the pretty-pretty yellow crime tape. It's possible that the police are using the gawking crowd as human shields. Who could blame them. Perhaps they are hoping that an onlooker somewhere will point and yell, "Look, there he is!" I have no doubt, meanwhile, that LaBeet is sitting somewhere with his feet up, drinking a beer, watching the two-county hullabaloo on the news. If you see him, don't approach him yourself. Hide your car keys. Call 911.
I apologize for my long and unexplained absence. I am still trying to finish work on my house and, although I have only a few things left to do, these few things take a lot of time and require my full attention. I've learned this the hard way, of course. Once, the phone rang and so startled me that I fell off my ladder. Another time, the phone rang while I was using the mitre saw, and I almost accidentally cut off the fingers on my left hand at a perfect 30-degree angle. And the computer is like a drug for me...I can't seem to use it in any semblance of moderation, so I have turned it off and disconnected the phone, for the time being. There will be time to get back to my blog and time to get back to life, soon enough.
I'd like to thank those of you who were interested in knowing how my family fared in Hurricane Dean. Everyone is safe, and the only damage they had was to two trees, which will undoubtedly bounce back in no time. Thank you very much for your concern.
In observance of September 11, I'd like to defer to activist, songwriter, musician, dissenting American Ani DiFranco. Her poem, "Self Evident," is as relevant today as it was when she wrote it in 2001. Ani has captured, for all time, the images of the blasts, the smoke, the mass exodus uptown, the ubiquitous ash, the bodies raining from the upper floors of the buildings, as people made the decision to jump to their deaths rather than burn in the high-rise funeral pyres of the World Trade. She refers to the infamous fateful p.a. announcement made at 1 World Trade, in which people who were in the process of leaving the building were tragically told that everything was fine and to go back to their desks. She refers to our slavish dependence on fossil fuels, our refusal to learn from the lessons of the past, our national arrogance that probably got us into this mess, in the first place. Mostly, I agree with Ani that I wish our government would "pull its big dick out of the sand of someone else's desert and put it back in its pants," but that's neither here nor there. The politics of it are relevant but not everything. Today is a day for remembering our people.
If you would prefer to listen to the poem in Ani's own voice, click on the album art above to go to her MP3. In the meantime, may you be surrounded by safety and love on your September 11.
"Self Evident," by Ani DiFranco
Yes, us people are just poems. We're 90% metaphor with a leanness of meaning approaching hyper-distillation. And once upon a time, we were moonshine rushing down the throat of a giraffe. Yes, rushing down the long hall, despite what the p.a. announcement says. Yes, rushing down the long hall, down the long stairs in a building so tall that it will always be there. It’s part of a pair, there on the bow of Noah's ark, the most prestigious couple just kickin’ back, parked against a perfectly blue sky on a morning beatific in its Indian summer breeze, on the day that America fell to its knees after strutting around for a century without saying thank you or please.
And the shock was subsonic, and the smoke was deafening between the setup and the punch line, because we were all on time for work that day. We all boarded that plane for to fly, and then while the fires were raging, we all climbed up on the window sill and then we all held hands and jumped into the sky. And every borough looked up when it heard the first blast, and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed, and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar looked more like war than anything I've seen so far, so far, so far, so far…so fierce and ingenious, a poetic specter so far gone that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling over, “Oh my God!” and “This is unbelievable!” and on and on.
And I’ll tell you what, while we're at it, you can keep the Pentagon, you can keep the propaganda, you can keep each and every TV that's been trying to convince me to participate in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution. Perpetuate retribution, even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution is still hanging in the air. And there's ash on our shoes, and there's ash in our hair, and there's a fine silt on every mantle from Hell's Kitchen to Brooklyn, and the streets are full of stories, sudden twists and near misses, and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters with tales of narrowly averted disasters, and the whiskey is flowing like never before, as all over the country folks just shake their heads and pour.
So here's a toast to all the folks that live in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, El Salvador. Here’s a toast to all the folks living on the Pine Ridge reservation, under the stone-cold gaze of Mount Rushmore. Here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors who daily provide women with a choice, who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City, just to listen to a young woman's voice. Here's a toast to all those folks on death row right now, awaiting the executioner's guillotine, who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads to find peace in the form of a dream. Peace in the form of a dream. Peace in the form of a dream.
Because, take away our Playstations, and we are a third-world nation under the thumb of some blue-blood royal son who stole the oval office and that phony election. I mean, it don't take a weatherman to look around and see the weather. Jeb said he'd deliver Florida, folks, and boy, did he ever. And we hold these truths to be self evident: #1 George W. Bush is not President; #2 America is not a true democracy; #3 The media is not fooling me. Because I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation. I’ve got no room for a lie so verbose. Yes, I'm looking out over my whole human family, and I'm raising my glass in a toast. Here's to our last drink of fossil fuels.
May we vow to get off of this sauce. Shoo away the swarms of commuter planes and find that train ticket we lost. Because once upon a time the line followed the river and peeked into all the back yards, and the laundry was waving, and the graffiti was teasing us from brick walls and bridges. We were rolling over ridges, through valleys, under stars. I dream of touring like Duke Ellington in my own railroad car. I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches in a grand station aglow with grace and then standing out on the platform and feeling the air on my face. Give back the night its distant whistle, give the darkness back its soul, give the big oil companies the finger, finally, and relearn how to rock-n-roll. Yes, the lessons are all around us and the truth is waiting there. It's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets, and clear the air. Get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand of someone else's desert, put it back in its pants, and quit the hypocritical chants of “freedom forever”. Because, when one lone phone rang in Two Thousand and One, at ten after nine, on nine-one-one, which is the number we all called when that lone phone rang right off the wall, right off our desk and down the long hall, down the long stairs in a building so tall that the whole world turned just to watch it fall.
While we're at it, remember the first time around? The bomb, the Ryder truck, the parking garage, the princess that didn't even feel the pea? Remember joking around in our apartment on Avenue D, “Can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?” It was a joke at the time, and that was just a few years ago, so let the record show that the FBI was all over that case, that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face. And scoping that scene religiously, the CIA (or is it KGB?) committing countless crimes against humanity with this kind of eventuality as its excuse for abuse after expensive abuse, and they didn't have a clue.
Look, another window to see through, way up here on the 104th floor. Look, another key, another door, 10% literal, 90% metaphor. 3,000 some poems disguised as people on an almost too perfect day must be more than pawns in some asshole's passion play. So now it's your job and it's my job to make it that way, to make sure they didn't die in vain. Shhh, baby, listen, hear the train?
My parents lived in Germany before I was born. They moved to Jamaica because my mum wanted to be closer to her mother, and it was important to her that I be born in her country. When I was a few months old, they bought a house in a part of Kingston called Barbican. I don't know how long we lived there. There was an older couple next door, and they had a daughter my mother's age. When the daughter got married, they gave the house next door as a gift to her and her husband. And so it was that I came to have these four aunts and uncles.
My elder aunt is now widowed and lives with my younger aunt and uncle, in another house, in another part of Kingston. The house is lovely, with it's endless windows and perpetual breezes and it's spectacular rose gardens. It was built on the side of a mountain. I stayed with them there, 3 years ago, when I took my mother's body back to Jamaica, for burial, and I took the photo above from my bedroom on the second floor. In the day-time, you can see all of Kingston, the harbor, miles and miles of land and sea and mountains. At night, the dense darkness is punctuated by millions of twinkling suburban lights below and the most ridiculous number of diamonds in the sky. In the week I was there, I spent hours and hours looking at the views, regarding the unbelievable inimitable beauty of this place where I was born.
At this moment, a massive monster of a Category 5 hurricane seems to be heading toward them with horrific certainty. Regardless of the exact coordinates at which it makes landfall, it seems likely that there will be deaths. Without question, in Kingston there will be flooding, landslides, fear. My uncle is a retired Jamaican army Major. He seems to me ever-cool, unflappable. When I spoke to him yesterday, he was calm, he was unpanicked. I, in the meanwhile, am on the edge of my seat.
The ever-industrious Caveblogem from Pretty Good On Paper is conducting an ongoing statistical analysis of "the actual vocabulary in use in the blogosphere". It's a lofty aspiration, to be sure. A while ago, he was kind enough to include this blog in his experiment, and I couldn't have been more thrilled. Actually, I was a bit nervous, initially. Many of the things I write here are deeply personal, on one level or another, and seeing yourself through someone else's eyes sometimes yields a surprise or two. When I asked him to have a look at my blog, I confess to feeling like I'd invited him to peer into my medicine cabinet and report to the world what he found there. (For the record, the chicken-flavored toothpaste is for the dogs.)
As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Caveblogem approached the analysis quite clinically...he wasn't analyzing me, after all, just my selection of words. He also had this to say, which I thought was terribly sweet.
"Anyway, the blog under the microscope today is Miami Rhapsody, a truly fascinating read published by Yvette. I recommend subscribing. She won’t fill your inbox as often as many others, and seems to write only when she has something interesting to say."
Caveblogem's intricate method involves harvesting a number of words from the blog being studied, running the words through a macro comparing them to the (approximately) 500,000 words used in other blogs, and then isolating the "new" words that he had not seen in use before. Then he creates a vocabulary cloud, comprised of words unique to the blog. Here is mine.
I believe it's an unfortunate coincidence that those two words appear most prominently in the cloud, but what's a girl to do? The refer to this post and this post, so there's no denying them, I suppose.
Next, using a Venn diagram, Caveblogem isolates the words that no-one else used, the words that everyone else used, including you, and the words used by everyone but you. Here is mine.
Finally, as a tasty little treat, Caveblogem uses a handy-dandy algorithm to generate a haiku, comprised of randomized words found in the blog. My haiku...well, I couldn't have written a more fun one, if I'd tried.
You professor’s racists! The louder nuns not potted are the nuns you mow.
Excellent! The full blog analysis lives here. In addition, I am in very good company. Here are some other vocabulary analyses. You may recognize the names from my blogroll.
I thank Caveblogem very much for including my little blog in his experiment. He is welcome to look inside my closets, any time. Thanks, also to Dayngr for discovering Caveblogem's experiment, in the first place.
Years ago, in another life, in a different city, I was mugged at my front door. It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, full daylight, there was no-one around. I had just unlocked and swung open my door when I heard the running behind me. Someone whispered, "Give me your bag. Give me your bag," and I turned to face a slight, shortish man in a navy blue Members Only jacket and a baseball cap. I looked him squarely in the face. As one part of my brain processed what was happening through a dense haze of surprise, another part had the good sense to tell me to give the man whatever the hell he was asking for. Now. I wore the strap of my briefcase across my chest, like a messenger bag, and as I tried to lift the strap over my head, the Members Only man snatched it from my hand and started to run. In running, because I was still entangled in the strap, he pulled me down four concrete steps and into the street. The leather noose of the bag strap wrapped around my neck and choked me for only a second or so, until I pivoted and swung free of it. By then, my bottom lip had burst open like an over-ripe tomato, my right ring finger ached dully. There was a sharp pain in my chest wall and an even sharper pain, every time I moved my torso or took a breath.
Other than the cut lip, the broken finger and a few bruised ribs, this story ended well. But, since then, I always get a little nervous when I am approached by strangers in the street, in anything less than a crowd. It's just my luck that I am frequently approached by strangers. I know that I should probably smile less and avoid making eye contact with people I don't know. But I can't seem to help myself. And every now and then, I think of a stranger I've just met, long after the moment has occurred.
Yesterday morning, while I was filling my tank at a gas station, a white Pinch-a-Penny pool service pickup truck pulled up to the gasoline pump opposite mine. The Pinch-a-Penny pool guy walked past me, apparently on his way to the gas station convenience store, and there was a fraction of a second where our eyes met. I thought nothing of it. I went back to watching my tank fill, one incremental ticking penny at a time. In my peripheral vision, I saw the Pinch-a-Penny pool guy turn around at the entrance of the store and walk back toward his truck, as if he'd forgotten something. I went back to watching the gasoline drip into my gas tank, penny, by penny, by penny.
Suddenly, I noticed the pool guy's head emerge from the cab of the truck. In the middle of his face was a lit cigarette. The pool guy started walking toward me with the stick of fire in his face, and I could see that he had a purpose. The approach made my heart flutter. In an instant, I was en garde. As he got closer, the Pinch-a-Penny pool guy said, benignly, "Hey, you have a pool, right?"
Sometimes it takes a few seconds to adjust to normalcy of heart rate following an initial fight or flight. Stranger approaching for no reason equals fight. Stranger having something perfectly mundane and non-threatening to say equals calm the hell down.
In the slightly schizophrenic space between the question and my irrational fear, I regarded my attire to get a sense of what was it about me on that day that might have said, "Hello, World. I have a swimming pool." Because I do not, in fact, have a swimming pool. My standard daytime errands attire is a long sun dress, sandals, hair in a pony tail, giant sunglasses. I regarded this and registered nothing. Then I regarded my car, an older Honda Accord besmeared with bug juice and road rage. Still nothing. Meanwhile, the question was suspended there, like a ribbon of cigarette smoke. "You have a pool, right?"
"Not on me at the moment, I'm afraid," I said and turned my back to him as I looked at the slowest gas pump in the history of slow gas pumps. "But you HAVE a pool, right?" the Pinch-a-Penny pool guy asked again. "Nope," I said, "Sorry."
Then the Pinch-a-Penny pool guy stepped closer. The eye in my brain snapped to the lit cigarette and then moved and locked onto the open gas tank that I was standing beside and then moved and snapped again to the cigarette. The Pinch-a-Penny pool guy handed me a Pinch-a-Penny postcard on which he'd written "Smith" and a phone number.
"Smith" I said, "Would you mind taking that cigarette out of here? That would make me really happy." I smiled at Smith. Smith took a step back, turned on his heels, went back to the truck. He came back, without the cigarette. "You don't like the smoke," he said, more a statement than a question. "It's not that, but we're at a gas station."
I told Smith about gasoline fumes around the gas pumps and that his lit cigarette could ignite the fumes and blow us all to pieces. Then I pointed to the "NO SMOKING" sign, and Smith seemed genuinely surprised to see it. "And about your phone number," I said, "Thank you so much, but I won't be able to call you. We don't have a pool. My husband would wonder if I'd lost my mind."
"Well, you might have a husband," said Smith, "But today you made a new friend. You tell your husband that." And then he reached forward and very gently took my hand and very tenderly kissed the back of it. And then Smith the Pinch-a-Penny pool guy winked at me, turned on his heels again, and left.
I'm keeping the Pinch-a-Penny postcard with Smith's name on it, in case I ever get a pool. And when he comes home, finally, I am going to show the card to my imaginary husband.
I have already decided that if I were ever to run for public office (humor me), I would have to answer honestly if anyone asked whether I'd ever done drugs. I would have to look them right in the face and answer, "Why, yes, Tom. I shared a joint or two with friends while I was in college, but pot makes me paranoid and puts me straight to sleep, so it's not much fun for me." That's what I would say. Maybe if I were feeling particularly chatty, I would mention that I have a terribly addictive personality and that I'm afraid to ever try drugs that I might actually enjoy, like heroin or crack or methamphetamines, because I'm pretty sure that, after trying them once, I would be be a toothless homeless crack-head in under a month. In any event, I make no apologies for my youthful indiscretions. I am who I am today because -- or in spite -- of them. Besides, lying in public just means that you'll eventually be exposed in public, don't you think?
Anyway, if you own a television or have thought of walking past a newspaper or magazine in the last month, you know that Paris Hilton was recently released from the LA County Jail. As far as I can tell, she was arrested on a DUI charge some ago and then arrested again for driving on a suspended license, and an unaccountably unkind judge saw fit to throw her behind bars. Because we have all come to expect our celebrities to offer reposte after incarceration, Paris was invited onto the Larry King show last night. Below is a part of the dialogue from her interview, transcribed by me.
Larry: Have you ever been addicted to drugs?
Paris: No.
Larry: Taken drugs?
Paris: No.
Larry: Never taken drugs?
Paris: Mm-mm. (shakes head)
A few minutes later...
Larry: Do you have a drinking problem? Paris: No, not at all.
Larry: You must have had...you were just this one drink, this one time?
Paris: I'm not a big drinker, I'm not really into it. I think, socially, people do sometimes when they go out, but it's not something that I really care about.
Larry: So, how have all these stories gotten out about you...the stories of your use of drugs, parties, wild scenes? All wrong? Paris: People make up so many crazy stories. The things I read about and things I see is not the person who I am. It really baffles me sometimes when I read things, the places I have never been, people I've never met. It's really, it's shocking to me.
Larry: Did you hang around with people who did those things?
Paris: Yes, I know people who have.
Larry: Did people photograph you with people who did those things?
Paris: Um, I'm not sure, but I think a lot of people have that problem.
I thought this was a very informative interview. I know that a lot of young girls look up to people like Paris, and I'm glad that she was as candid as this. I mean, it's not like there is any video footage online, at this very moment, that shows a drunken, stumbling, falling Paris talking about people being chinks and niggers and "little jappy jews". Thank goodness there are not tens of hours of video footage online, right now, that show her doing ecstasy and 'shrooms and smoking pot in every frame. It's not like there's a video of her sister talking about how Paris' first boyfriend got her hooked on drugs. And, can you even imagine if Paris was slurring on camera about the fact that black people have fat asses and steal things?
Because those would be some crazy stories, Larry. Crazy.
My dearest Floridians, today's WTF moment comes to me from the middle of the state.
Can anyone tell me why it is that we keep sending the Army Corps of Engineers to drain Lake Okeechobee to such a level that we spend the rest of the year lamenting the "drought" and insisting that people shower once per week and only brush their teeth on Tuesdays?
If you have any knowledge of such things, I am also stumped about why this reservoir is allowed to be freely polluted with pesticides, fertilizers, and cow manure. Why have we allowed farms and pastures and a gigantic aviary to live along the drainage areas?
Does anyone know why the state of Florida is allowed to use poison and herbicides to kill the maleluca trees that it planted (on purpose) along the river banks, and why in God's name the Army Corps are allowed to spray pesticides directly into the river to kill weeds and blooms of algea? Are we aware that this doesn't happen in other places, because of the obvious stupidity of such actions?
Why, if the lake water run-off has eaten the flesh off of fish, in Martin County -- according to court records -- is this lake being used to supply drinking water to people in Florida?
OK, fine. I get that, as a rule, Floridians don't give a shit about the environment, so my crying for the state of the Everglades is pointless, but what about the health of our drinking water? What about the sustainability of our fishing industry and townships?
Does anyone have any information that would reassure me that I am misinformed or underinformed or delusional?
Before last year, I foolishly took for granted that people who are responsible for educating children would automatically understand the concept of age-appropriate content. Based solely on their arguments (that a book should be banned because it does not realistically portray life in Cuba), I still can't fathom how or why or on what planet anyone would expect second- to fourth-graders to read about political prisoners and murderous dictatorships and the violent oppression of a country full of people. What motivation could anyone possibly have for talking to a 6-year-old about violations of civil liberties? How would that be appropriate, exactly?
And the armed gunman, who was really a soldier in the evil dictator's army, made the man kneel on the sidewalk and shot him squarely in the forehead with an AK-47. Everybody got sprayed with blood and brain juice. And then the man's whole family disappeared. And all of their friends were sent to prison, for a very long time. Rats ate their eyeballs and bit their toes while they slept. Seven of their neighbors tried to sail to Florida in an old truck tire, and everybody drowned or got eaten by sharks. The end.
There. That's a more-or-less accurate portrayal of what happens in some parts of the world...and NOT just Cuba, by the way. If I wrote such a suitably "realistic" portrayal of events in a little book for children, with pretty-pretty illustrations, would you like me to read it to your fourth-grader? Do you think the Miami school board would buy lots and lots of copies of my book for all their libraries? It still boggles the mind.
Having already been named the dumbest city in America, shouldn't we be focusing on creating excellence in education? Should we really be mismanaging our financial resources by pushing these kinds of political agendas into appellate court? Our school board should be ashamed of itself, and we who live here should be ashamed of ourselves for not inundating our political representatives with letters, imploring them to help us to clean up the mess.
Then again, Miami has turned into a place where a small but vocal minority of radical Cuban fundamentalists seem to rule the world. These folks seem to believe that the sun rises and sets around a single Caribbean island, and they make (what seem to be) strictly political decisions with far-reaching consequences that affect the rest of us. And the rest of us, including the non-fundamentalist Cuban community, typically sit on the sidelines like beaten dogs with our mouths agape, resigned to accept whatever fate they throw at us. And then people like me act as if our outrage and indignation is enough to change the world, and it's not.
You stand at the grocery-store bakery counter for 5 full minutes, contemplating the state of your belly button, while 5 hair-netted ladies on the other side of the counter decorate a single cake while drinking coffee from teeny little paper cups, and you walk over, closer to them, and you say, "Excuse me, is anyone working in...?" and one of them turns and starts to speak to you in Spanish, and you say, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish," which you're thinking that you really should have tattooed on your forehead, to which she promptly responds by turning her back to you, so that she and the other hair-netted ladies can continue their secret Spanish conversation, and you repress the nearly overwhelming force of your impatience by telling yourself that it's only going to take another minute, and you say, "Excuse me," a little more forcefully, which fails to elicit any sort of acknowledgment from the hair-net bread nazis standing 4 feet away, and so you say, "Bread?" with the question mark hanging there as if it actually means, "What the fuck is matter with you, are your hair nets squeezing off the blood flow to your brains?" which you would NEVER really say (aloud), and then you find the hole in the fence, because the bread bin opens from the outside, you notice, so you reach your bare supermarket-contaminated hand in and grab the kalamata olive loaf closest to you, and you hold it overhead and wave it in the air at the hair-netted bitches and you say, "Is it free today?" with your eyebrow raised and unadulterated irritation dripping from your tone of voice, and the hair-net idiots, all 5 of them, abandon their cake and run toward you with their pants on fire, making disapproving noises (one of them grunting from the exertion), and one of them barks, "Ay! You ca' no do that," and you answer, "Oh, yes, I can," and, "May I have a label, please?"
My first memory is of sitting in the kitchen sink, looking through the window at the cherry tree. My mother's reaction to this, when I mentioned it years ago was, "You couldn't possibly remember that." She acted as if I had just informed her that I'd been adopted at birth, by wolves. I thought it was a strange way to negate what is as much a tactile as a visual memory, because I remember the coldness of the sink on my thigh, every bit as much as I remember the angle of the tree. She said they had stopped bathing me in the sink, when I was 3 months old. "How did you know?" she said. Well, I know, because I remember.
I remember that it seemed to rain a lot, when I was a child. I recall rounding up the animals and lining them up in a row. German Shepherds Kim and Kimmy (I named them, when I was 4), Cindy the Daschund, Thomasina the cat, all commanded to be an audience while I read to them out loud. Our house was raised on blocks, and we had a "cellar," which was actually a crawl space under the foundation. It was mostly pitch black under there, and I on my hands and knees, trailed by 2 crouching Shepherds and an uncrouching Daschund used to explore in the rocky "tunnels" for (what seemed like) hours at a time. The scars on my knees still tell the story. I would not be caught dead in such a place today.
Sometimes it feels like my entire childhood was about books and animals. (Not a lot has changed.) I used to climb trees and spend (what felt like) hours singing and reading. I remember the helmet of glorious blue flowers on our huge lignum vitae tree. I remember, on more than one occasion, climbing that tree with Enid Blyton's magical book, The Enchanted Wood, and pretending that I lived in that world, in the clouds with the pixies the brownies. I spent hours like a little monkey in the tops of our trees, including the mango trees, and the guava tree, which I also used as a direct path onto Mrs. Overton's roof, much to her consternation. I recently found a letter that I had written to God, as a child. It said:
Dear God,
Thank you for mummy and daddy and Kim and Kimmy and Fidel. Would you please help me to run faster in school? And could you please not put so many worms in the guavas? Thank you.
Sincerely, Yvette
(Fidel was the mean and growly German Shepherd who lived at Mrs. Overton's house next door, who was perhaps appropriately named.)
My mother was a nurse, and it feels like I spent a great deal of time with her at the hospital, though I can't imagine why I would have. In fact, my second earliest memory is of a hydrocephallic baby. The baby was alone on a stretcher in the hospital hallway. It's head was twice the size of it's body, and I couldn't stop looking at it. I remember asking a lot of questions. "Does the baby have a headache?" "Does his mummy love him?" When I asked why his head was so big, I was asking partly because I wanted to know what I needed to avoid so that my own head didn't swell up like a brown balloon. There were a lot of amputees in wheelchairs at the hospital. The hospital had a specific scent. Everybody called my mother, "Nurse," as if it was her name.
There was a lot of death, when I was young, a lot of sickness around. I was very close to my great grandmother. When she died, my parents and I were with her at the hospital, and I was terribly sad. I must have been about 6. One day, there was a huge flood in Kingston, and the gullies overflowed. My friend Natasha and her mother and brother were trapped in their car and drowned. Their photos were in the newspaper, on the kitchen table, when I last saw them.
When my father was ill and getting sicker, I never left his side. I was, then, 7. I remember that the nuns from school wanted to come to the house and pray for him. He didn't want them to come, but he agreed to be prayed for, because they were nice people. When they came, it was terribly somber. I remember that the nuns wore their black and white habits and Sister Magdalena's habit was black and blue. They were all from Malta, these nuns, and they had freakishly strong bony fingers. At school, when they held my face in their hands or squeezed my cheeks, it was meant to be a gesture of affection, but they always squeezed too hard and it hurt. I'm still a little face-shy. Perhaps this has something to do with it. Perhaps not.
I remember that the nuns taught us in school that, at the moment of our death, we should pray:
I remember that I didn't want to go to hell, so I practiced saying the whole thing in one breath.
I remember one day, in particular, when my father wasn't feeling well. My mother ran a warm bath for him, in the middle of the day. My job was to keep his company and comb his hair. When he started to bleed, the blood made bright red ribbons in the water. Eventually, the water turned a reddish brown color. Then it was red, red, red. An ambulance came and took him away. I remember being frantic, running down the driveway behind the truck, crying, "Wait, wait, come back. You left his blood. He needs his blood!" Someone (I don't know who) put their arm around my shoulder and explained that he didn't need that blood anymore, that his body would make new blood.
I remember I prayed all day. I prayed all night. I had such faith. I prayed to Mary, the Mother Of God, because she was a mother, and I thought she would understand how much I loved my father and that I could not possibly live without him.
The next time I saw him, he was at my mother's hospital, in a room, with tubes in his nose, tubes in his wrists, tubes strapped to his chest, tubes everywhichwhere. He looked terrible. I was there every day, and I never wanted to go home. The smell of the hospital sickened me. One day, the nurse brought in a tray of his medicines, but the pills were all wrong. I had memorized the sequence and the colors, and these were not the ones he was supposed to get. I said to the nurse, "Those aren't my daddy's pills," and she ignored me. I threw myself between her and the bed and said, "Those are wrong. They're not his pills. He's very sick!" and demanded that someone fetch my mother. My father pulled me close and said, "It's OK, Yvette. It's OK." When my mother came into the room, she very calmly took the tray away and came back with the right pills.
I was at home, sleeping when he died. My mother woke me up, and she was crying, and I knew, before she choked out the words. I had never seen her cry before, nor since. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn't think, couldn't move. If you had asked her, she would have told you that that was the day that I lost my religion. She might be right. I don't remember anything that happened for the next two years.
I'll be turning 150 on Monday (not really), and I miss my family. This is, of course, what's bringing back a lifetime of memories, both bitter and sweet. But it's a good recipe, overall. I look forward to spending most of my weekend with my books and my animals which, for me, is truly the most celebratory thing I can imagine.
A few mornings ago, I came across a headline that caused me to choke on my orange juice.
Semen makes women happy! The finding that women who do not use condoms during sex are less depressed and less likely to attempt suicide than are women who have sex with condoms and women who are not sexually active, leads one researcher to conclude that semen contains powerful-and potentially addictive-mood-altering chemicals.
Not that there is anything wrong with such a headline. It's just not what I expected, first thing in the morning. But my curiosity was piqued, and I had to see what the heck this was all about.
Apparently, this is old news, from a study published in the June 2002 Archives of Sexual Behavior. Basically, two research teams set out to determine what effect semen has on women. They divided women into groups, those that always, sometimes, or never used condoms. They asked the women a slew of probing questions about their sexual practices and relationships and thrill-seeking inclinations. Then they tried to figure out what everything meant.
Some of their findings were not surprising. For example, the women who were not in relationships and never had sex considered themselves to be generally more depressed than the other groups. (I'm wondering whether this was a light bulb moment for the researchers.) But some of their findings were surprising. The aforementioned women who never used condoms were significantly "happier" than the other groups, but they appeared to have a biochemical addiction to semen, to the extent that they reported having a rebound effect (in essence, symptoms of withdrawal) during periods of time in which they did not have sex. This group, the researchers say, were also "most likely to initiate sex and to seek out new partners as soon as a relationship ended." So, the conclusion is that some women may be semen addicts. Oh boy.
There is something mildly misogynistic about some of this. What do they mean by "most likely to initiate sex"? Does this imply that the condom users were sexually passive? And is this necessarily a bad thing? The fact that they were "most likely to seek out new partners" rubs me the wrong way, too, as it implies that the poor condom users curled up and died in response to the demise of their relationships. And the notion that a lack of sex leads to suicide...I don't like it, at all. But I may be reading a bit more into this than is actually there. I tend to get suspicious every time a group of middle-aged men sit around discussing the inherent mightiness of The Penis.
Meanwhile, outside the boundaries of long-term monogamous relationships, I'm a little concerned to hear that there are women who never use condoms, in this time we live in. Happiness should not depend on habitually putting your health and life at risk.
In contrast, I'll tell you what makes me happy. Not contracting a sexually transmitted disease makes me happy. Not catching chlamydia or gonorrhea, or (goodness forbid) syphilis makes me happy. Not having to live with any of The Three Hs (HIV, HPV, HSV) makes me very happy.
In our culture, breath is symbolic of so much. We say that the object of our affection takes our breath away, or that something was so frightening that we held our breath until we were safe. We say that we are breathless with anticipation. Needing a break, we say we need a breather. We say that someone who delights us is a breath of fresh air. Breath is life, after all. Sometimes, breath is joy.
Breath can also be a comfort. If you have ever been soothed by watching the rise and fall of the chest of a child or lover, then you know a sublime form of reassurance. And, silence interrupted by the sound of a loved one breathing tends to be a comfortable silence.
If you've ever had the honor of being with someone as they've given birth, then you know how important is the sound of baby's first cries. Because crying requires breath. A screaming newborn is a breathing newborn. It's a noise that calls for celebration. If you've ever had the privilege of being with someone as they passed out of this world, then you know that breath is, again, everything -- not simply as a life-sustaining involuntary mechanical action, but as an indicator that the moment of death is near. Specific changes in breaths at this fragile time signal that the beginning of the end is here.
Last year, I came across a blog post about breaths that I have not been able to stop thinking about. This memorial day, I want to share it with you, in memory of those 3,000 fallen soldiers who reminded us that our freedom comes at the cost of tremendous sacrifice, and also in honor of the specific few for whom this beautiful post was written.
BREATHS
Five years ago I participated in my first 10k race on Labor Day. It was also my first major practice with Tom, the running buddy assigned to me by The Achilles Track Team, whom I was to spot for. Tom was blind, and like me loved running, even though we weren't very fast. He had trained me on how to run tethered to him and also taught me how to listen to his breathing as a way to know how he was doing in a run without asking and wasting precious energy and time. Tom explained it was the best way to identify the first signs of trouble. That Labor Day, all my friends were there to cheer me on. It had been a high point for all of us, because we were all finally ready to compete in the NYC Marathon that fall.
I used that listening technique many times when running with my best friends. It really gave me insight into how they were feeling during a run. For years we had worked out together, but our running together gave us a closeness and a feel for each other that was uncanny. For the first time few words needed to be exchanged between us.
The morning after Labor Day we were all supposed to meet early at the gym to do a quick 5 mile run along the Batter Park City Waterfront that goes past the World Trade Center, but my plans changed.
When Mike called me later that morning he was on the 72nd floor of the North Tower. I had been on the phone with him for about 15 min. let him know what was going on with the South Tower when Larry called and asked me to conference him in on the call. We'd done that a thousand times on Fridays or Saturday afternoons when no one could agree on what we were doing that evening. This time it was for a different reason.
The FDNY radios were not functioning properly and it was total chaos inside the towers, so this time I was conferencing them in so they could communicate with each other. I listened silently and stood by as I'd done countless times during impromptu rescues. That day my role was once again as witness and bystander, but I was to be a messenger also. I interrupted only once to let them know the Pentagon had been hit and we all grew silent as their suspicions were now confirmed - we were under attack. Knowing they had walked into a "tinder box" they gave me messages and information for their families in the event they didn't make it out alive.
While Mike and Larry spoke, I heard their labored breathing from the strain of heavy equipment and acrid smoke getting through their masks. They continued going up the narrow smoke filled staircases in full gear, in spite of the rising temperatures and enveloping darkness. Hearing the loud creaks from the straining weight of the floors above, I began to panic. I broke in, calling out Mike's name. We'd known each other for so long that he knew what I was about to say, to ask of him.
"Don't say it, Michele. I know what you're going to ask, and you know we can't turn back now. So I clutched my cell phone, closed my eyes, and hung my head in prayer. A few times I bit down hard on my lips knowing that anything I said or any sound I made would only distract them and force them to talk and waste precious oxygen.
So instead, I listened... silently and intently, as Larry & MIke communicated with each other in quick short words. I listened as they gave commands to civilians on what to do. I listened as they reassured people that were frightened and choking on acrid smoke, that they would be fine as long they continued going down. I listened as they continued to climb through the thick dense darkness that enveloped them, and grew hotter and more difficult with each step they took. And in my silence, with my closed eyes, I had been with them as I had many times before, and was privy once again to the sounds of their breaths.
As the creaking sounds grew louder, everyone came to a standstill and their voices became quieter. I held my breath, as I listened to Mike and Larry's labored breathing. Everyone had stopped to listen to the sounds above them. Mike and Larry remained quiet even as the rumble of thunder from the upper floors began giving way. There was no panic, no screams, no frantic yells for help; there was only Mike's voice whispering a "Dear God" before the sounds of loud crashing ended in an abysmal silence that reverberates in my soul to this day.
It's taken a long time for me to break that silence. It's still not easy to write about it. And I still can't about it. But for some time now, this blog has helped me utter the first innermost sounds since that day. I remain hopeful that someday I'll be able to find my full voice again. Till that happens, these small whispers of pain will have to be the small breaths that open a closed soul to let the airy light in.
Darn. I have, until now, avoided being tagged by anyone, ever. Here, now, is my very first meme. And this one's going to make my brain hurt, thanks to my friend Balou.
Okay, the name of the game is SCATTERGORIES. You must answer each question using the first letter of your name. And it must be a "real" answer, nothing you made up. If you don't have an answer, skip it. Ready? Go!
Your Name: Yvette 1. Famous Singer/Band: Yanni? 2. 4 letter word: Year 3. Street: York Road, Knoxville, TN 4. Color: Yellow 5. Gifts/Presents: Yellow diamonds (dream big) 6. Vehicle: Yugo (do they still make those?) 7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Yo-yo! 8. Boy Name: Yves 9. Girl Name: Yolanda 10. Movie Title: Year Of Living Dangerously (one of my favorites) 11.Drink: Your Mother Was Good (an actual drink) 12. Occupation: Yellowstone National Park Ranger (Ha!) 13. Flower: Yarrow 14. Celebrity: Yasmine Bleeth 15. Magazine: Yoga Journal 16. U.S. City: Yarmouth, MA 17. Pro Sports Teams: I have no idea 18. Fruit: Yams (bite me) 19. Reason for Being Late for Work: Yellow Fever (try it!) 20. Something You Throw Away: Yesterday's junk mail 21. Things You Shout: Yes! (having flashbacks of When Harry Met Sally) 22. Cartoon Character: Could not possibly know
In case you're not here, I'll tell you: the weather in Miami was absolutely gorgeous today. The Miami Herald tells me that the highs were 82 and the lows were 72, and it's been a bright and breezy, sunshiny day.
So, this morning, I decided to take a mental health day. The most strenuous thing I did was load the dishwasher. Today, I didn't drop a single piece of wood on my head or get a single breast caught in a paint roller (long story). I didn't drop joint compound in my eye; I didn't get nauseated from the smell of oil-based paint. Today, I didn't paint anything, lift anything, or measure anything. Even the telephone was strangely silent, on this auspicious occasion. The only call I got was from the owner of the hurricane shutter company. He said he had good news and bad news. The bad news is that the roll-down shutter manufacturer informed him that my French doors are so large that I absolutely have to have motorized shutters (and motors automatically add $1,500 to my costs). The GOOD news is that he was giving me the motors for only $280. So, yay!
I have only fun things planned for the weekend. I hope you do, too.
Uh, whoever keeps coming here, after doing a Google search for "iguana tongue hanging out and swelling," please get off the computer and take your lizard to the animal ER, now. Or please tell your mum that this is a veterinary emergency and ask her to take your lizard to the animal ER tonght...
If I am in line in front of you and can feel your warm breath on my ear or the back of my neck, you are standing entirely too close. If you keep jabbing me in the back with your cereal box, you are standing entirely too close. If you keep bumping the handbag that's on my shoulder, you are standing entirely too close. If you keep stepping on the back of my shoe, not only are you pissing me off, but you are also standing too close. If I can smell your breath, you are standing way too close. If any part of your body is physically touching any part of my body, you are standing too fucking close. Stop it. And when I step forward or to the side, I'm actually trying to get away from you. Please stop moving forward until the line moves. There is more than enough room for all of us to stand in line like civilized human beings.
My dear Miamians, if what you are holding in your hands is hot, cold, or heavy, please feel free to share the conveyor belt with me. However, if I am ahead of you in line, the next time you start to put your groceries on the conveyor belt before I have finished taking mine out of my cart, I just want you to know that I'm going to pick up your groceries, one by one, and drop them on the floor. Just thought you should know.
Also, Miamians, would you mind trying to keep your squealy, snotty-nosed children with you, at least some of the time? Each time one of them darts out in front of me and I have to stop short to prevent running them over, it hurts my knees. And, one of these days, I won't be able to stop fast enough, and I might run over and damage your little darling, and then we will all have a bad day.
Furthermore, Miamians, it is customary to say, "Excuse me," or "Pardon me," or, at the very least, "Ooops!" when when your cart accidentally cuts off someone else's cart, or when you accidentally hit someone with your cart, or if you want someone with or without a cart to get out of your way. Also, elderly people sometimes move more slowly that the rest of us. They've earned the right. The next time you run over an elderly person with your shopping cart, I might have to "accidentally" run over you. Fair warning.
Finally, Miamians, I don't speak Spanish. I don't want to speak Spanish. And you can't make me. If you start to speak to me in Spanish, and I say, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish," why do you continue to speak to me in Spanish? You know exactly what I'm saying. Please allow me to translate my blank stare for you: I don't give a culo de raton de que tu hablas. And, frankly, I want to live in America. Where I should have the right to speak in English. All day. Every day.
"Shannon Malloy was critically injured January 25 when a car crash slammed her into the dashboard. Her skull separated from her spine, although her skin, spinal cord and other internal organs remained intact.
The rare condition is known as clinically as internal decapitation, and it left her with no control over her head.
Her injuries left Malloy with nerve damage that made her eyes cross, and she has difficulty swallowing. She was not paralyzed.
Dr. Gary Ghiselli, an orthopedic spine surgeon at the Denver Spine Center, said he and his colleagues had never seen such an injury in someone still living."
Every morning, I sit in the grass, in my pajamas, with a gigantic cup of coffee and my laptop, flanked on each side by a dog. If you told me, 5 years ago, that this is how I would one day begin my days, I would have thought you were delusional. Miami is difficult and hostile, compared to most of the other places I have been. When I left at 17, I swore that I'd never come back. I never noticed that I did, in fact, keep coming back. In college, I came home for every Christmas, Thanksgiving, spring break, and summer. After college, I came back for a summer, to begin graduate school. I came back when my long-term boyfriend and I broke up, in 1993. And again, at least twice before that. So, since I was 17, I have kept coming back. Home is where your family is, after all, and my mother was here.
My mother loved flowers. She loved her trees, the smell of newly mowed grass. Everything she planted in her little back yard was there for a reason. When she first became ill, it was difficult for her to keep up with the maintenance of the yard and the house. We hired for her a housekeeper and someone to mow the lawn. But for a year before and a year after she passed away, the house was empty. In that time, the yard returned to a natural state. The grass disappeared, completely. The weeds became large, robust plants, so much taller than the dogs that Apples would run outside and stop in his tracks, having a clear path to nowhere. The single surviving flowering plant was a tenacious pink rose that my mother planted, years ago. The fruit trees were hanging on, for the most part. One mango tree and a susumber tree were dying.
It took some time, but I cleared the yard, removed each weed by hand, created flower beds, tilled and loosened and leveled the soil to prepare for new grass. By myself, I removed hundreds of pounds of limestone bedrock from the flower beds, installed the line for a future a sprinkler system, lay two pallets of sod, cut down two trees, removing roots and all. I spent a lot of time imagining what I wanted to put here, designing the layout of this new space. I fertilized the existing trees and chose new plants, based on their height and texture. As a tribute to the rose that wouldn't die, I decided at some point that all the flowers in the garden would be pink and white. No other colors are allowed to bloom here.
But, rather than the rose, it occurred to me, this morning, that my garden is actually a tribute to my mother. She was the perpetual gardener, not I. She, of the seed collections and plant clippings and gardening tools and gadgets, knew innately what everything needed. I, having never planted anything in my life, learned everything the hard way. I think she would be happy to see how far I have come.
All along, I have been cataloguing my gardening adventures in a little notebook. About 6 months ago, I decided to write a booklet about gardening in Miami, in particular, since there are some unique benefits and challenges to growing plants here. Mostly, to growing flowers. I have posted the first 3 completed chapters here, if you are interested in such things. Now, I've decided that, should I ever find the time to actually finish the booklet, I might use the following E.E. Cummings poem as a dedication. I think it's fitting, though a little late for Mother's Day...
if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but it will be a heaven of blackred roses
my father will be(deep like a rose tall like a rose)
standing near my
(swaying over her silent) with eyes which are really petals and see
nothing with the face of a poet really which is a flower and not a face with hands which whisper This is my beloved my
Scatology, and the the long, slow death of my love life
Let me tell you something about romance. In the beginning, it's fragile. No matter what you hear or read, the first part of any relationship is almost strictly an assessment period and, for some reason, the men I have been meeting lately seem to be intent on grossing me out. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to meet someone and say, "Do you secretly have poor hygiene or some unpalatable medical ailment I should know about? And, by the way, my name is Yvette."
Here's what I'm talking about.
On our first date last year, M. spent 17 minutes telling me about his bleeding hemorrhoids. We were at dinner. I was eating. The conversation came from out of nowhere. I tried to tune him out and concentrate on my shrimp cocktail, but he went on to describe, with great flourish, how a person discovers bleeding hemorrhoids and the painful surgery one endures to correct them. When he started to say something about the "pleasurable pain" involved in the ordeal, I changed the subject as fast as I could. I have no idea what he was talking about, but I feared having to discuss the peculiarities of his anus throughout our entire meal.
(Incidentally, this was a man who tried to "forbid" me from using anatomically correct words when referring to private parts, in general, and expected me, instead, to use the word "pee-pee". But that's a whole other post.)
Normally, I'm fascinated by biology and anatomy and medical things. For example, I do a fair amount of reading about microbiology, for fun. And the weirder, the better. My little library includes books like Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague and Sherwin Nuland's How We Die. A friend of mine teases me about the "light reading" I brought on our vacation, one year -- 800 hundred pages about zoonotic disease. I also once absorbed myself in the study of filoviruses, like Ebola and Marburg. They were the scariest things I'd ever heard of at the time, people being liquefied from the inside, out; real-life human bodies turning into bloody bags of bones. The point is that I'm not particularly squeamish. And yet, certain things still wig me out.
For example, I went out a few times with a man who, on our third date, told me all about the bulging varicoceles in his testicles and about an episode of priapism he'd had some years before. Thus, our third date was our last. Not so much because I am a heartless person with no soul, but because I could not push the thought of this stranger's priapistic penis out of my head, and this made me very uncomfortable. Weeks after the fact, I had a dream in which this fellow's wormy boy parts were chasing me through Walgreen’s. When at all possible, I believe one should save the eccentricities of one's genitals for discussion with medical professionals or, at the very least, with those with whom one is intimately involved.
If getting a little too close and personal about penises and hemorrhoids hasn't killed my new romances, issues of etiquette and hygiene have. Not too long ago, I had dinner with a very nice man I had met on Match.com. We were at an upscale eatery. I was enjoying the most succulent grilled scallops, ever. He is a mental-health professional, and we were discussing the fact that I am slightly germ-phobic and how saddened I was to find that a former boyfriend of mine refused to wash his hands after going to the bathroom. The conversation shifted, then, to the necessity of washing one's hands. He said that he wasn't sure it's actually necessary for men to wash their hands after urinating. I said that each and every one of us should wash our hands after going to the bathroom, period. He said he thought I might have OCD.
When the waiter brought our bread, I asked my date how he'd feel if the fellow who put the bread in the basket for us had just urinated and failed to wash his hands. "That's different," he said. "People in food service should always wash their hands." But that's exactly the problem, I told him. Hand-washing is an ingrained habit. Either you do it religiously, no matter what, or you don't tend to think of it, at all. I'm pretty sure that the non-washing urinator at home only washes his hands at work if there happens to be someone else in the men's room, even if his "office" is a restaurant. And sometimes, not even then. I was pretty sure that my date had urinated before he left the house and not washed his hands. In any case, neither of us ate the bread.
After dinner, Mr. Mental Health stuck his index finger in his mouth and started rooting around his gum line. He did it for a full minute. He did it as if he was looking for last week's lunch in there. At first, I averted my eyes and tried to pretend not to notice. But immediately after dinner, he did it again. I pretended to look for something in my handbag, but thinking about the unwashed pointer finger in his mouth made me gag a little. I pretended to cough. He suggested that we have desert at the bar, so we left our table and moved to the bar. As soon as he sat down, the man molested his mouth again. I looked around to see if anyone noticed that he was sucking his finger. It went on for so long that, before I could stop myself, I grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand out of his mouth, hissing, "Pleeeeassse sssstop that." He looked at me, surprised by the sudden assault. He said that he thought he had an abscess and was trying to feel it. So, I found myself lecturing this grown man: "If you need to stick your fingers in your mouth, nose, or ears, please do it in the men's room, and wash your hands afterward." He said he'd never heard of such a thing. Mr. Mental Health and I were clearly not romantically compatible.
The next man I met was a professor at a Miami university. The professor and I seemed to have a lot in common. In addition, he is smart, funny, handsome. In fact, this guy looked very good, on paper. However, right away I noticed that the professor was the sort who walked around beating his own jokes like dead horses. If he made a witty remark, he'd repeat it multiple times. If you didn't laugh hard enough right away, he'd repeat it again, saying, "Get it? Get it?" An hour later, he'd tell you the same joke and expect to get the same reaction. The next day, he'd tell you again. If you failed to react, he'd say, "Did you hear me? I said..." By Day 3, you wanted to stab him in the eye. He could not grasp the concept that almost nothing is funny the fifth time you've heard it, much less the fifteenth or the fiftieth.
Two weeks after I met him, the professor's proclivity for repetition assumed a whole new dimension . He caught a stomach virus. He called and asked me how I was feeling, since dinner the night before. "I'm feeling fine," I told him. "Dinner was delicious, thanks again!" I said. He, unfortunately, wasn't faring as well.
I can count one hand the number of times in my life I have uttered to another human being the words, "I have diarrhea." There are lots of other ways to say that you are unwell. Saying that your stomach is upset does the job nicely. Saying that you have a stomach "thing" is universally understood. But the professor said, "I have horrible, horrible diarrhea!" We talked on the phone for half an hour and he said "diarrhea" every 3 minutes, literally. He told me what it felt like to have his stomach cramp because of diarrhea and the wateriness of his diarrhea and the fact that he was up all night (because of the diarrhea), going to the bathroom (sorry, "having diarrhea"), every 10 minutes, and the fact that every time he ate something, he had diarrhea, and about how awful it was to have diarrhea and that his diarrhea was awful and that he had diarrhea, all night. I felt terrible for him. I asked if he was drinking lots of fluids, and he said it didn't matter, because he had diarrhea. I asked if I could get him anything or bring him some chicken broth, and he told me that it would probably only result in more diarrhea.
I called him the next morning and asked how he was feeling. Again, he told me all about his diarrhea. We spoke on the phone 4 times that day. It was the same, each time. And the following day, there was no change in his condition. I started to get concerned for him. I suggested that he go see his doctor, and he did. For two more days, his stomach was upset, and he told me all about it, in detail. By the fifth day, he was feeling better, but he continued to talk about it, using the word diarrhea in every conversation, every 5 minutes. Eventually, my concern for his health turned into disgust with him for using word diarrhea, ad nauseum, for no earthly reason. Every time he said it, I cringed. I tried to steer him away from it, by saying, "You know, you don't have to keep saying that. I'd understand you just as well if you said that your stomach was upset. And you don't have to keep telling me when you're going to the bathroom." I struggled to find a way to tell him that I was beginning to associate him with fecal matter. It didn't work. For another week, he talked about "when I had diarrhea". The professor became a man obsessed with his own excrement. I began to refer to him, to my friends, as Diarrhea Man.
A full week later, I'd had more than enough. One night, I snapped at him, "Please STOP saying the word diarrhea! It's both disgusting and unnecessary." So the professor stopped saying the word. Instead, he began to use the expression "fire in the hole." He'd call about something and then say, "Gotta go! Fire in the hole!" He'd tell me about an incident in the classroom and find a way to interject, "I was just waiting to have...uh, fire in the hole." I was beginning to hate him.
We went to Sarasota. At dinner the first night, he said to our waiter, "How's the food?" "Excellent," the waiter said. "Anybody get sick here lately?" asked the professor. (I thought I could see where this was heading. I braced myself.) The waiter shook his head, quizzically, and the professor said, "That's good, because I had diarrhea for a week, and let me tell you, that's no fun!" And then The Professor told him all about his diarrhea. I lost my appetite. The professor was a man obsessed with telling the world about his excrement.
Back in the room, as could be expected, the professor talked about dinner and how he hoped it wouldn't affect his stomach. He wasn't hoping as hard as I was. Then I noticed that he never washes his hands after going to the bathroom. Then I discovered that he refuses to brush his teeth. You see where this is heading. I came down with a "sudden" illness so I wouldn't have to kiss him. Ever again. It was a short but rough trip.
We got back from Sarasota, just in time for the professor's first colonoscopy, ever. It was a week away, and I had promised to drive him. He continued to talk about his "fire in the hole," in every conversation, every single time I spoke to him. I was beyond disgusted, beyond irritated. I told myself that I only had to hold on for another few days. As the day approached he started talking about the colonoscopy. This was understandable, I thought. He was nervous. Who wouldn't be? But then his doctor gave him laxatives to take prior to the procedure, and his diarrhea dialogue begun all over again. I couldn't wait for the colonoscopy, so I could get rid of the damn professor.
So, the day came. I drove him to the hospital, waited with him. When they were ready for him, I left the hospital and ran some errands. After his procedure, the hospital called me to pick him up. He was awake and smiling, when I got there. "How are you feeling?" I asked him. "Right before you got here, I passed a lot of gas," he said. Then he started to tell the discharge nurse all about his diarrhea.
My friend Manola Blablablanik believes that, because I am a germphobe, I attract to me the kinds of people who are, well, disgusting, with poor hygiene. She may be on to something. I don't know. Ironically, the most normal person I've met in the last few years is Fuckhead...which is also a topic for discussion at another time.
Does this stuff happen to other people, or is it just me?
So, I have been very busily fixing my house. I don't know how I've lived this way, for this long. I have spent weeks now, measuring, ordering, drilling, sanding, scrubbing, priming, painting, caulking, staining. I have built wood shelving, patched drywall, installed lighting and a door bell. I have trimmed my hedges, ordered tile, pressure-cleaned the outside of the house. I have come up with (what I think are) ingenious ways to fix the problems that others have left behind. I have moved impossibly heavy things into and out of my car and then into the house and up a flight of stairs. At night, I am too exhausted to think. But in a few weeks, I'll be done, and life can get back to normal. Whatever that means.
As would logically be expected, while I have been scraping and hammering and smoothing and filling, I have spent a great deal of time wondering why I am single and why I'm nearly the only person on the entire planet without children. But I know why. And I'll tell you.
Two Saturdays ago, I was trying to beat the rain. I have new textured stucco around some French doors and, after having previously primed the stucco, I was hurrying to apply a coat of paint, giving it enough dry time before the alleged 30 percent chance of rain we were expecting that day. At some point, I went inside to get something to drink, and I noticed that my dog Apples' left eye was very red. And his mouth and nose looked bloody. And the inside of his ears were hot and red. And his paws looked like he'd used them to walk on hot coals, while I was outside working. I ran to the phone and called his vet, knowing that Saturdays at the vet hospital were the busiest days, and that all the vets are typically in surgery, all day. I said to the receptionist who answered the phone, "Apples seems to be having an allergic reaction to something. I need to know if this is an emergency, or if it can wait until Monday, when you have normal hours." I e-mailed them digital photos of the inflammation on my dog's face and paws.
I maintained my composure while I was on the phone, but while I waited for someone at the vet's office to call back, I was completely beside myself. The people I love have a horrible habit of dying. There's that. And I once had an anaphylactic reaction to capers that almost killed me and left my eyes swollen and bulbous, like a frog's, for a week. And I happen to think of my dogs as my only surviving family and, sometimes, as my only reliable friends.
In the two hours it took for someone to return my call, any common sense or logic or rational thought I have ever possessed completely escaped me. I imagined the worst. I imagined my sweet dog becoming progressively itchy. Then I imagined him vomiting, his airway closing, labored breaths, his heart stopping. I imagined how salty his nose would taste, when I had to give him CPR, mouth to nose. I imagined him dead in his bed on the living room floor, his swollen red eye open, his long pink tongue hanging out. I imagined my grief, my inconsolable despair. I imagined life without my boy dog. Quiet nights, with no-one barking at 'possums, no-one warble-woofing in his sleep, no-one howling at sirens, no-one rooing at me when I came through the door. I sat on the floor with Apples and sobbed in his neck, until the poor dog fell asleep.
When the vet's office finally called, they told me that his vet wasn't in but that Apples did, in fact, appear to be having an allergic reaction to something. They said if he seemed at any point to have difficulty breathing, I should take him to the emergency room. In the meantime, I could give him some Benadryl, at the rate of 10 milligrams per pound. They told me to have a good weekend. Right.
That night, I woke up every hour and poked poor Apples, to make sure he was still breathing. I dreamed of horrendous and illogical things. Apples was being chased by Hitler's soldiers. Then he was drowning in the ocean, and I had no legs. Eventually, I moved to the floor for the night and slept in his bed with him. I spent all of Sunday looking at him, from 2 feet away. By then, the redness and swelling had spread to the other side of his face and he was lethargic. He had no interest in food or treats. He drank water, if I brought it to him. On Monday morning, I called the vet and said, "The Benadryl's not working. I'm bringing him in." I drove the whole way there, begging the universe not to kill my dog. I knew I was over-reacting, but I couldn't help myself.
To make a long story less long, Apples is on the mend now, thanks to a round of steroids. A thousand dollars' worth of diagnostic veterinary medicine later, we still have no idea what happened to him. One batch of blood tests shows no abnormalities, for a greyhound (their blood values are a bit different than those of other dogs). One pathology reports shows an "unusual" allergic reaction, at a cellular level. We're waiting for the other labs to come back.
But, THIS is why I should never have children, I have been telling myself, in the minute and a half I have left of my fertility. I can imagine what would happen the first time my child climbed a tree and broke a leg...or got hit in the face with a baseball and broke it's nose...or had the flu...or skinned it's knee...or had a car accident...or had a broken heart. I would be totally unequipped to handle it. I have no problems when adult people have medical emergencies. Give me an adult in a diabetic coma, or an epileptic seizure, or a heart attack, any day. But when one of my dogs is in trouble I can't be expected to react rationally. I carry them too close to my heart. Reminds me of that e.e. cummings poem: “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart).”
I leave you, now, to resume my fixer-uppering. Thank you for your concern. This blog isn't dead, just on a temporary hiatus.
I love America, and I am immensely proud to be an American, but if you don't know the answers to ALL of these questions, ask yourself why. And then beat yourself about the head with a blunt object. And then stab yourself in the eye with your keyboard.
Though, I must say, it's nice to have affirmation that Florida is indeed in the "axis of evil". I have always suspected as much.
And, when the time comes, pay special attention to the large yellow country on the lower right corner of the map...
In my twenties, I had a long relationship that ended badly. And before it ended badly, we used it to waste an awful lot of time. We felt, like all respectable 20-somethings, that the mindless wasting of all the days of our youth obliged us to break up and then get back together again, multiple times. But the last time was different. I was angry, and I wanted him to feel like the opportunistic, soul-sucking parasite that I felt he was. As proof of why we would never get back together again, I sat down at a typewriter and plonked out a long, descriptive missive of every conceivable real, imagined, and implied way in which I had been "wronged" over the course of our relationship. I believe I included things he had considered but hadn't gotten around to doing. I believe I included things he had dreamed of doing and forgotten upon waking from sleep. I remember that the final version of the letter began with, "Dear Fuckhead."
The original letter had simple intentions. I had made a mindful decision to let down my guard and pour out my heart to he whom I loved in that all-consuming, suffocating, melodramatic way that befits love-struck 20-somethings. I began by reciting a litany of his good features. "I will always remember your strong hands, your soft lips, the sweet little brown freckle on the left side of your head, the way you hum in your sleep." I followed with my appreciation for some of the nicer things he had done for me over the years. "I will always remember the way you shared your bagels sticks with me and let me have the most of the strawberry cream cheese, even though it's your favorite and you don't like to share."
I went on like this for several paragraphs. Then, at some point, the wind shifted. I stopped playing nicely. I got furious. I began to write what was really on my mind, making no effort to shroud the pain, the anger, the unflattering raw emotion I was feeling at the time. I let my language go base. "What kind of fucking idiot do you think I am, you ugly imbecilic prick?" It was clear, then, that I was never going to show this letter to anyone, ever. And so I really let loose. "You have a much-smaller-than-average penis and the attention span of a basket of pubic lice. Furthermore, you smell bad."
I indulged myself this way for a page and a half. And then I noticed something strange. I began to feel a release, a catharsis, a sudden freedom of breath. The hurt I'd felt up until the moment before was replaced with gigglicious glee, as I wrote things like, "I would rather regurgitate a pint of chocolate pudding and half-chewed creamed corn than kiss your warty, herpetic lips, ever again, you syphilitic twatbag." I cracked myself up, hilariously writing that his head was too big and his legs were too short and that he spent too much time with his index finger rooting around inside his giant flaring nostrils to EVER amount to anything, EVER. The more absurd were my statements, the harder I laughed. And suddenly, or gradually, I wasn't upset anymore. I became calm. I came to see that he was not the incarnated evil that I imagined. He was a young man, only, as silly and angst-filled as I, and we shared equal blame for a lot of what had transpired between us.
And so it is with my new guy, Billy, who asked me to change his name to Tres, as in three, which I never got around to, because I have one only final thing to say to him.
One of my favorite bloggers, James Burnett, has inspired me to participate in my very first meme. The short list follows, in no particular order, of things I hope to accomplish in 2007.
Finish construction on my house. The long, sordid story of my house will have to wait for another time, but it's been under (re)construction since 2003. Inexplicably, contractor #5 disappeared in October of 2005, leaving all of his tools and saws and nail guns and things. Everything you can think of is about 75 percent finished: drywall, tile, electrical, plumbing, moldings and trim. I plan to continue finishing as much of it myself as I can and then hiring contractor #6 to do that which I cannot handle myself.
Begin the process of finishing my graduate degree. This is something I began in 1991, when I chose to join the working world, instead. At that time, the allure of a "corporate" income seemed more practical than pounding the pavement as a writer. I am ready, now, to pound the pavement. It's been a long road to where I stand today.
Make more time for blogging. This speaks for itself, I think. I have a fear of writing vapid nothingness, but even a little something goes a long way. Plus, if one will not perform the maintenance necessary to support them, then perhaps one should not have pets or gardens or friends or blogs. N'est pas?
Become less of a perfectionist. This is the underlying cause of an oppressive inertia I have had my whole life. Because of an irrational need to do everything perfectly, I spend a lot of time with things left undone. Sometimes, for the sake of accomplishing everyday things, I have to resign myself to just doing things, even if they aren't perfect. (This particular sentence, for example!) I am going to aspire to more mediocrity. I feel it will make me a better person.
Resume my poor 38x365 project. The irony here is that this project has caused my recent reunions with three unrelated people whom I have not seen for over 20 years. Thank you, Google! And how horrible that it has been abandoned, with no warning or fanfare or tearful farewells. Shame on me.
Install an automated DIG drip irrigation system in my garden. The DIG folks make modular do-it-yourself components for lawn sprinklers, hanging baskets, flower pots, and flower-beds. I am very exited about this. I have always maintained that one of the very few advantages to living in Florida is the ability to have a year-round garden. Automated irrigation makes things much easier, and drip systems are cost- and water-efficient. Good, all around.
In the past few weeks, I have been, as we say in Florida, up to my arse in alligators. We actually phrase that a little differently. The original quotation was, I believe:
When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
This is a Florida-ism. In other words, I have been very busy. I have meant to blog, but it's been hard to find the energy to write more than a comment here and there. Finally, today I spent time doing very little. It's nice to rest. Here are some of the highlights of what I have been up to.
I had dinner with my friend P., with whom I had lost touch after eigth grade. Using my very best online detective skills, I tracked her down earlier this year. No easy feat, considering that both her first and last names have changed since we were teenagers. She and her family are orthodox Jews. We met a Kosher restaurant (Sarah's Tent in Aventura), and I started the evening by hugging her and then trying to shake hands with her husband and sons, which I did not realize was completely against the orthodox rules. Luckily, they forgave my faux pas and we were laughing at the dinner table in no time at all. P, and her family are in the process of permanently moving to Israel. It's both dumb luck and serendipity that allowed us this tiny window of opportunity to see each other before then.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Brownamazon -- who is a very pretty non-amazonian -- during her short visit to Miami Beach. As she mentions here, some Stuck On the Palmetto readers have commented that Miami Beach is not a part of the city of Miami, and this is entirely true, in the same way that Ft. Lauderdale is not Hollywood, but it's a common mistake having to do with the unimaginative naming of the two cities and the fact that they are, indeed, in the same county. That the county was re-named "Miami-Dade County" only adds to the confusion. Regardless of this, we should all curtsey deeply to her for taking the bus all the way to Coral Gables, BY HERSELF. The state of public transportation in Miami deserves a post all of it's own. As does the conversation that she and I had with the woman at the table next to us, at dinner. And, for the record, I owe Brownamazon desert the next time she heads this far south. We had a ball. These days, I am dating a new guy. He's named himself, for the purpose of blogging, Billy. Billy seems so normal that I do not believe he will provide very much anecdotal material for me to blog about. Well, other than the fact that he knows about and refuses to read any of my blogs. It's possible that he's been channeling White Dade's girlfriend, though we certainly do not have any of the same problems. Not that we have discovered, anyway.
On Wednesday, January 3, Billy and I are going to hear my favorite local musician, Deblois, play at a moonlight concert at the Barnacle, in Coconut Grove. I love her music, and a friend of mine from high school often accompanies her on the drums, when he's not surfing in Costa Rica, so going to her shows is a special treat for me. In any case, her music is all original, and it's lovely...it's got a folk-jazz sort of groove to it, with a little ska thrown in. And she's got a rich buttery tone to her voice that creates a perfect narrative of her lyrics. I truly don't know why she's not every bit as famous as Norah Jones.
Preview some of her songs, here. ("Someone Like You" is one of my favorites.) The show is from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Admittance is $5 for adults and free for children under 10. This is a family event; picnic blankets (and picnics) are encouraged. If you've never been to this pretty state park, try to get there early to look around. The house was constructed when Coconut Grove was a fishing village, prior to the construction of the city of Miami as we know it. The hardwood forest that still guards the entrance is one of the last remaining vestiges of the original Miami hammock, including the 100-year-old banyan trees that I love so very much.
Deblois will be on WLRN's Folk & Acoustic Music, airing at 2 p.m. on New Year's Eve (Sunday). If you do make it to the concert and see us there, I hope you'll come by and say hello.
In the meantime, I hope your holiday season (in ALL it's flavors!) has been safe and happy. Someone sent me a link to this video for Christmas. It's not safe for work, but it sure is funny!
For the longest time, until now, I have been in an almost intractable funk. Maybe because I am almost 150 years old and I'm less resilient than ever, I could not dig my way out of the darkness. Some days I could not find anything to be happy about. Sometimes, for days, I wanted to do nothing more than curl into and stay in the fetal position. But the dogs always need to go outside; they need to be fed and watered; they demand to be loved. They won't let me get away with my retreat into this kind of silence. So, maybe I should dedicate this post to my elegant greyhounds who keep me from losing what little sanity I stubbornly hold on to.
A few weeks ago, the mother of a friend died. I think this is where it started. Since the relatively recent passing of my own mum, I find it difficult to deal with the death of any mother, anywhere. It's as if I have suddenly, magically, inexplicably claimed all the mothers. (Ironic that all of my life, I did much as I could to get away from the one I had.) I suspect that this is some kind of post-traumatic stress. I can't explore it any further. In trying to find a way to give word to it, I lose all of my words. There are some things you can't talk about before their time.
I also found out that an old friend of mine had died. When I was in college, my mother and I had (let's call it) a difference of opinion about how much of a monthly spending allowance I needed while in school. We could not see eye to eye, so I promptly went out and got (not one but) four jobs. C. was the manager of a pub where I worked, two nights per week. He was an interesting mixture of gentleness and strength. He grew up poor and Irish and street-fight tough in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Boston's inner city. He must have thought of me as some kind of prep-school princess, and he did not judge me for it. He drank hard. He was painfully thin. He was 10 years older than I, but he looked twice my age. Whenever one of my customers got a bit out of hand, he would look right at them, lower his eyelids, and growl. An odd gesture, for sure, but it kept everyone in check. His normal voice was whisky-rough and raspy. When he was tired or sad, his voice would diminish to a whisper. Even so, if we begged long enough or sweetly enough, he would get on stage with the band and sing a bluesy, melancholy version of Otis Redding's "Dock Of the Bay," changing the words of the song to say, "Over two thousand miles I roamed, just to make this bar my home". And you believed him, when he sang these words, that he had endured a hard and lonely life. Today, I am sad that I never thought to record his singing that song.
Eventually, I graduated from school and entered the corporate world and never saw him again. I am so sorry that he died without my ever once thanking him for his friendship or the great care with which he treated me. I did not ask how he had died, because I can almost assure you that it was a cardiac event resulting from his lifestyle and his use of alcohol over a period of decades. I will miss knowing that he is out there somewhere, doing fine.
A. and I have had a parting of ways. This was entirely his decision, reached out of frustration and a surprising amount of common sense. We had a calm, rational discussion, during which he expressed his dissatisfaction with our completely platonic relationship and the fact that I didn't make enough time for him. He seemed to be particularly unhappy that I didn't get my knickers in enough of a twist on the rare occasions when he'd cancelled our plans. He accused me of being disengaged. And he's completely right.
I'm not sure there have ever been two less compatible people than he and I. We want different things out of life. We want completely different things out of a romantic relationship. We don't understand each other. We are completely unable to communicate in ways that make sense to each other. We fight, all the time.
As confirmation of his resolve, A. promptly deleted me from the "top 8 friends" on his MySpace page. He views this as a great gesture. And I would, too, if I were 15.
So, on a Friday night, he told me that he never wants to speak to me again. On Saturday morning, I received this e-mail message:
From: A. Date: October 22, 2006 9:15:49 a.m. EDT To: Yvette Subject: You
Yvette, you are the type of person that puts everyone else first. You care more about what someone is afraid of and showing them that there is nothing to fear. You see potential in other people that they would never even consider. You boost the confidence of someone who has none. You would go out of your way no matter what kinds of issues or problems that you are dealing with to teach someone something new and you would see it through to the end. You would rather hear about someone's tribulations than to speak of your own. You know an incredible amount of information. You are an expert on music, fashion, trends, science, health, travel, beauty, fine foods and wines but definitely NOT fine automobiles. You are over the top sexy and your beauty is amazing. It's hard not to stare. You are an incredible kisser and you are unforgettable in bed. Your voice is soothing and smooth and calming. You have and insurmountable amount of patience when you are trying to explain something that the other person does not understand and the same when someone is trying to explain something to you. You have a strong veneer but you are extremely vulnerable which makes you that much more appealing. You are incredibly sensitive even though you don't always show it or portray it. You have needs but you don't want to interrupt anyone's life to let them know what they are. You would rather give than take. You give an outward appearance of not needing anything from anyone but when you receive a present or a favor you cherish it forever and your face lights up with joy. Even something simple as a handwritten note or card can tickle your fancy for a long time. You love when someone takes the initiative to surprise you with something that they know that you cherish. You love animals and they love you, especially dogs. You have an uncanny ability to train a dog that was previously disobedient like you are with Samantha. You are the Dog Whisperer. You love having conversations with all kinds of different people and you love to hear their stories of what they've accomplished in their lives and you are an incredibly good listener. You love to travel and if you do nothing except sit around and just talk with good friends that suits you just fine. Even though you won't admit it, you are very romantic. I could go on and on and on. I love you very much.
I say, if you are planning to break up with someone, this is the way to do it. Can you even imagine a more spectacular and unrealistic endorsement?
I cannot vouch for the veracity of any of the claims made here, except for the one where I whisper to dogs. I sing to them, too.
I'm thinking of beginning my conversations with strangers this way. I believe it might solve a lot of problems.
In truth, I am biracial. My mother was Jamaican and my father was Greek. You may not be able to guess my nationality by looking, but, at the very least, you should be able to see from across a large and crowded room that I am a person of color.
Most people assume that I am a cross of something and something else. In the course of my life, I have been described as multiracial, multi-ethnic, "mixed". There are, of course, other uncomplimentary ways to describe the state of being a human mutt, but I won't get into those. I recently joked to someone that I was "genetically engineered," like a hot-house tomato.
Being neither African nor American, I'm not a big fan of being called "African-American," but I am not offended by it in the slightest. I don't mind being called "black" or "brown". I am not offended when people assume that I am Indian or Pakistani or any other nationality that contains a number of brown-skinned people. I am never offended when asked about my nationality or heritage or the color of my skin.
But, for reasons I cannot imagine, I seem to attract a surprising number of racists. I don't understand why, unless racism is gene-driven and it's somehow coupled with genes for blindness and stupidity. Sometimes people actually try to talk to me about "niggers". Instead of those who would use this word about or against me, I object to those who use it in front of me. It's as if they assume that I am a like-minded bigot. It's as if they think they're going to get away with it.
A couple of weeks ago, I went with A. and a girlfriend to hear some local musicians at an outdoor concert. The music was fabulous. There were clear skies, a slight breeze. It was a beautiful evening.
At the end of the night, I was approached by a guy who said he recognized me from high school. I don't remember him from school, but I'm always open to making a new friend, and I asked what he'd been up to for the last 20 years. He said that he'd spent a few years in South Africa. I asked him to tell me some of his favorite things about that part of his life. He thought for a minute. Then he told me he'd figured out the difference between blacks and niggers and Africans. I choked on my red wine and can only remember parts of what he said after that. I found out later that he'd intended to ask me out. Which would have been unfortunate. I would not have been flattered at all.
I have a long history of this kind of interaction.
I went to college with a girl named Sarah (not her real name). Little miss southern belle, she'd had the sort of aristocratic upbringing that allows for use of the word nigger at the Thanksgiving dinner table, in front of God and grandma and everybody. Her daddy was a wealthy and prominent Southern politician. This is what life was like in his house. One Fall day, Sarah's room-mate rented a convertible and we all drove around for an afternoon with the sun in our faces and the wind in our hair. A black woman ran past us on the sidewalk and Sarah said, "Oh my Gawd, there's a negra joggin'. I didn't know negras JAWGGED," and contorted herself with laughter. I, sitting in the back seat beside her, looked at her, incredulous. First of all, who knew that the word "negra" was even in use in this century and, second, what kind of an idiot would say such a thing to someone like me?
After college, I lived for a time with my friend Amy. Amy grew up in middle-class suburban New York. Her parents were white artsy hippie-types in the 60s. Her adopted brother is African-American. She was conceived at the March On Washington, so she holds Martin Luther King, Jr., Day as dear as her own birthday. Her childhood was infused with love and civil rights.
One night, Amy came home with two guys I'd never seen before. One was the fellow she was newly dating and the other was his cousin, with whom she was hoping to set me up. It was 11 p.m. I was in bed, reading when they knocked on the door of my room. I stayed under the covers; they all piled on top of the bed and began to tell me about their evening. Amy said that she was excited about the Martin Luther King holiday tomorrow, and "my" guy said, "So, you like niggers?"
I saw an opportunity. I tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned to face me, I said, "Hey, I'm a nigger. Boo!" Wide-eyed and panicked for the next 10 minutes, he stumbled over himself trying to explain all the reasons I was NOT a nigger. I didn't have a "nigger nose," he said. I didn't have "nigger hair." I spoke "really good English," he said. I was "really pretty". I forgave him for being an idiot.
A few years later, I had a boyfriend named Judas (not his real name). One night, we went to a local pool hall with a few of his friends, and Judas drove us all home, I in the passenger seat and the boys in the back. They were talking about the last match, and one of the guys (let's call him John the Racist) said, "Did you see the look on that nigger's face?" Without taking his eye off the road, Judas reached into the back seat with his free hand and punched John the Racist in the head.
A few years after that, I ran into John the Racist at a black-tie event. As it turns out, he is quite handsome in a tuxedo, also charming, and even nice. At the end of the evening, he asked if we could have dinner sometime. "I'm afraid not," I said. I reminded him about the night that Judas punched him in the car. "So, I can't have dinner with you. Because I am a nigger. And that would be wrong." I'm pretty sure that if John the Racist ever saw me again at a party, he hid.
Contrary to popular stereotype, racists are not necessarily ogres. The ones to which I refer today are not gun-wielding, cross-burning hate-filled Klansmen. In the course of everyday conversation, they are indistinguishable from anybody else. I bet some don't even consider themselves to be particularly prejudiced.
I can handle racism, in itself. I am almost never directly affected by it in any tangible way. I have never had a problem finding a job, or getting help in a store. I am not sure that I have ever truly been discriminated against, in any way. What bothers me is the presumption on the part of these folks that I would accept their attitudes without protest, or that I would want to socialize with the kind of person who would use the word nigger in general conversation, or that I would ever date someone who thought in these terms. Why would I? It's preposterous.
So, for the record, I would like to state that I am a nigger. If you think that your race, whatever it is, is superior to mine or anyone else's, then please don't tell me about it. Because I am fed up. And I will embarrass you in public. I promise.
For what it's worth, I hear that Sarah is no longer a racist imbecile. It hardly matters. This negra doesn't jog.
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1953)
As outspoken as I am, I believe very strongly in the concept of free speech. I am also normally intensely supportive of educators in general and teachers in particular. I am nothing without the education that I have been fortunate enough to receive. But I live in Miami, Florida.
Earlier this year, the Miami-Dade School Board voted to ban 24 children's books from all school libraries in the county. The catalyst for their decision was a book called Vamos a Cuba (A Visit to Cuba), written by Alta Schreier for grades 2 to 4. In other words, the book is written for children age 7 to 9. In it, the author describes life in Cuba: the weather is hot; the kids wear shorts; children study Math and History; and white rice is the most common food. Our school board deemed the book an "inaccurate" portrayal of life in Cuba and banned it after being coerced by a Cuban-exile parent.
It's difficult to fathom the motivation for this kind of behavior. Surely the board would have been more outraged to find a book in the school libraries describing what life might actually be like in Cuba. "And the evil dictator's soldiers might torture you in the street and shoot you in the forehead with a machine gun," for example. Is this the sort of "accurate" portrayal of Cuban life that they want 7-year-olds to read in school? It boggles the mind. At least, it boggles my mind.
When the Florida chapter of the ACLU took the issue to court, the school board voted to spend $25,000 of our hard-earned tax dollars on their case. It made me wonder if any of them had ever studied civics, social studies, or politics. Banning books in America is a Constitutional issue. Not only does the First Amendment provide me with the right to be outspoken, but it provides us all with the right to read whatever we want to, AND it provides people like teachers the freedom to teach. It's a slippery slope that educators everywhere should be leery of sliding down.
In the end, a federal judge demanded that the school board return all 24 books to their shelves, but the whole saga left me with the unfortunate opinion that the people running the school system in Miami might be more politically than educationally motivated. I desperately hope that the board now understands that nobody gives a rat's ass about Cuba, if doing so in any way impedes the education of children in America. I wish they had spent that $25,000 on buying more books.
Which leads me to today's thought. Every year since 1982, the American Library Association has celebrated Banned Books Week during the last week of September. I dedicate this year's Banned Books Week to the Miami-Dade County School Board. And I leave you with an old quote that sums up the problem nicely.
"It's like illiterates telling you what to read...these people are wiping their asses with our Constitution, wrapping the obscenity of censorship in the cloak of 'decency'." -- Louis Rosetto, founder of Wired magazine
1. Do you drive around in the middle of the day, for no reason at all? 2. Do you turn or change lanes without using your turn signal? 3. Do you drive 10 or more miles per hour below the posted speed limit? 4. Do you speak on your cell phone while driving under 80 MPH in the left lane on any highway? 5. Do you drive under 55 MPH on the Turnpike, 874, 836, 595, I-95, or I-75? 6. Do you blow through yellow lights when there are cars trying to turn left in the intersection? 7. Have you ever stopped your car on Killian, Kendall, Sunset, Miller, Bird, Coral Way, or US1 to drop off a passenger? 8. Would you say that louder is better when listening to music in your car? 9. Do you listen to reggaeton in the car, with your windows open? 10. Do you have full-on conversations through the window with the car next to you? 11. Do you drive a Hummer? 12. Do you frequently use your car horn?
If you answered "yes" to one of these questions, you are an idiot.
If you answered "yes" to more than one question, you are an egregious idiot.
If you answered "yes" to questions number 4, 5, or 6, you are fucking idiot, and I hope you rot in hell.
I have been writing a lot recently. It makes me very happy, but sometimes it drains all of my mental energy. I have a date with A. tonight and we haven't spoken recently. I knew I should probably call him, but I was feeling a bit moody and wasn't really in the mood for idle chat. So, last night I called him.
Y: I just wanted you to know that I'll see you tomorrow night, but I'm too drunk to speak to you tonight. A: Really? OK. Y: OK, then. I'll see you tomorrow. A: Bye. Y: Bye
It took me half a second to realize I'd just told him I was drunk. I called him again.
A: Hello? Y: Listen, I'm not drunk, I'm grumpy. A: Well you sure sound drunk, you freak. Y: I don't know why I told you I was drunk. I haven't had a drop to drink, in weeks. A: Are you still grumpy? Y: Yes, so I'm going to go now. But I'm not drunk, I am grumpy. A: OK, Freakalicious. Y: Bye.
Ted is on my mind today. For many years, he and I worked together in Lincoln, Massachusetts, outside of Boston. He was a management consultant, which meant that he basically travelled for a living, teaching companies how to get the most from their business.
In the early years, Ted's desk was around the corner from my desk and whenever he was in the office, he made it a habit to say hello, on his way past. He was fascinated that I had a pet iguana. Our friendship really started because of his curiosity about her: Was she sweet? Did she bite? What did she eat? Where did she sleep? Was she really house-broken?
We had a routine, Ted and I. He would stop in front of me, raise one eyebrow, and say in dramatic sotto voce, "How's the lizard?" and I would give him a synopsis of the latest in the lizard's life and ask, "How're the babies?" and he would tell me the latest and greatest about Melanie and the kids and show me photos, if there were new ones. Then he'd head over to his desk and send me a joke, or the definition of something we'd previously discussed, or a cool link to something online, by e-mail. Ted and I were office friends. Other than our twice annual company retreats, we did not socialize outside of the office or call each other at home. But, he was a distinct piece of the fabric of my professional life, which was my whole life, then.
When the company eventually fractured, I went to work for a different management consulting company in same building. The consulting firm that Ted went to work for also moved into the building and shared our floor. I didn't see Ted as often, but when I did, he never failed to ask about my lizard and tell me about Melanie and the kids.
All four of the companies on the floor of our building shared the rest rooms. I worked late on the evening on September 10, 2001. I remember that I was in the office late enough to have to go to the loo three times. The front of Ted's company faced the rest rooms. That night, he worked on his computer at a table in a glass conference room. Each time I walked by, he looked up for a fraction of a second and went back to work. I went to the ladies' room one last time before heading home, some time after 9 p.m., and we waved at each other. That was the last time I saw him.
The next morning was beautiful. It was a bright blue, cloudless New England day. On my way into the office, I noticed a crowd gathered around the television set in the cafeteria. I asked what was happening and was told that a plane in New York had just hit the World Trade Center. I remember thinking, "God, that's awful," and while we pondered the tragedy of such an accident on such a clear day, we watched an airplane hit the second tower. I was deeply unsettled as I walked back to my office. I recall that I tuned into a radio station online and heard that our country was under attack.
In those confused minutes after the second plane made impact, I imagine that the news media in Boston were scrambling for facts. The initial reports were that four or six planes originating from Boston's Logan International Airport had been hijacked. The city of Boston was evacuated. People were basically told to go home and shelter in place.
The majority of our staff were on the road that day, as usual. We needed to know who had flown from Logan that morning and what had happened to them. Our travel agents were beside themselves, thinking they might have sent hundreds of people to their deaths in the sky. Like the rest of the world, they only knew what was being broadcast on the news. It was my job to somehow account for all of our staff.
Holding my breath, with my heart beating hard, I called every mobile phone number we had on file. If I could not reach someone this way, I called their home phone number. If their wives answered, I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible when I said, "Hi, this is Yvette. How are you? I’m trying to make sure that I have the right phone number for John -- would you happen to know where his meeting was today?" One by one, I found everyone. I did not stop until I personally heard every voice. Only one person had gone missing. He had decided that morning to drive to Manhattan instead of fly. He was in en route, in Connecticut, when I found him. I was so thankful that everyone was safe. I closed the door to my office and put my head on my desk, and I cried.
And then a plane crashed into the Pentagon. Then one of the World Trade Center buildings collapsed. Then we heard that fighter jets had been activated to shoot down a fourth hijacked plane full of civilian passengers. Then a plane crashed somewhere in a countryside. But which plane was it? Did it crash, or had it been shot down? By the time the second tower fell, it was almost more than anyone watching could stand.
It seemed like we got the facts slowly. There were four hijacked planes, not six. Two of the four had left from Logan Airport. They broadcast airlines and flight numbers. The flight that crashed in the field had not, in fact, been shot down by our military.
As usual, on my way to ladies' room, I passed Ted's office. Nancy at the front desk had an odd look on her face. Francis, the company’s CEO was standing next to the front desk. He was as white as cheese. They were listening intently to a radio. Ted and his associate, Paul Friedman, had been on American Airlines Flight #11.
That morning, Ted had flown to Los Angeles to see his client, a major record label. Coincidentally, one of the label's new artists, an a capella boys group, had performed at a concert in Boston the night before. Exhausted, they had overslept and missed their flight home, Ted's flight.
At Ted's memorial service 6 days later, the president of the record label brought the boys back from L.A. to perform at the service. They sang an incredible, jazzy version of Amazing Grace that made me melancholy for days. To commemorate the lives lost, the owner of our office building erected one flag and pole on each side of the entrance to the building. Each pole had a dedication inscribed on a plaque, one for Paul, one for Ted. Their children attended the dedication ceremony.
One of the women Ted had worked with had a brother who worked in the World Trade Center. We found out later that Ted's plane had breached the building in what would have been her brother's office. So many individual tragedies.
When my lizard died two years ago, I thought of Ted. He would have been one of only a few people who understood the unlikely magnitude of my loss. And now, five years after 9/11, I contemplate the magnitude of Melanie's loss. Rachel would be about 11 now, and Matthew should be a big boy of about 9. I hope they have found peace and normalcy in this new life, five years on.
I've decided to give one of my ubiquitous Vox invitation to the dogs. Literally. Because, really, how many people have pictures of their dog's ancestors, going back to 1796? I do, and I have had nowhere to put them, until now.
I'm in the process of uploading current photos, but I present to you, in the meantime, Goddess and Apples.
White Dade likes to jiggle the beehive, which is always fun, but it has me thinking...
I wonder if anyone's done a demographic study of bloggers. Who are we, really? What's the political/socioeconomic/religious/racial/moral/geographic difference between this community and any other group? Are we more liberal? Are we more socially aware? Are we better writers, by virtue of all that practice and feedback? Do we make better dinner guests?
Most of what we do is write about what we feel and think. Are we, therefore, more empathetic, as group? Are we more effective communicators? Are we more, or less, social than non-bloggers? Are we narcissists? Are we freaks?
We have computers and we know how to use them to upload, download, find, format, and evaluate things in ways that many people can't. Are we smarter? Are we technocrats? Are we geeks?
As a group, we are regularly required to invent or creatively regurgitate ideas and topics. Does that make us more interesting? More analogical analytical? Does that make us more educated? Are we more thoughtful?
A. has issues with my vocabulary. He believes I use "big words" to purposely patronize him. In the past few weeks, we have argued because of conversations in which I have used the words, "angst," "diatribe," and "superfluous".
When I used the phrase, "analytical reasoning," last week, he lost his temper, saying, "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANALOGICAL REASONING!" Analogical reasoning.
He may be right. Maybe I do patronize him. I'll have to keep my eye on that.
A. believes that one of his co-workers is an idiot. She is pregnant, yet again. On Monday, before the so-called hurricane, she went to the store for hurricane supplies and came back to work with six gallons of whole milk for her toddler, which she left in the car in 90° Miami-in-August weather, for 4 hours.
I asked A. why anyone would buy that much milk before a potential power failure. And, I thought you weren't supposed to give babies whole milk?
"She just doesn't think," he said. "There's no electrolytes going on up there."
Three of my friends are pretty much married to LiveJournal. Some of my friends are almost too illiterate to blog. Some of my friends are quite literate but would rather poke out their own eyeballs than blog. Some of my friends can almost figure out how to turn on the computer. And the rest of my friends should probably not know that I'm (probably going to be) blogging about them.
So, here I am, with all of these Vox invitations and nary another soul to invite. I feel like I'm in my party dress, with nowhere to go.
This should really be a post about the needless sensationalism of the news media in Miami but, instead, I shall try very hard to stick to the topic at hand. We, the hurricane-weary, are proud to report that nothing special has happened here.
We have had 2.5 days of overcast skies, and every few hours it has rained for 7 minutes. Not even the heavy, languid August Florida rain that we're used to this time of year, but an actual little sprinkle. Somehow, 1,000 people lost electricity last night in Miami-Dade county. I imagine that whatever aberrant wind gust caused the toppling of my bridal bouquet tree (Plumeria pudica) must have damaged something electrical, somewhere. It was almost certainly a fluke.
I have had a really "rough" couple of days, eating popcorn and ice cream bonbons, while snuggled up on the couch with my dog, watching back-to-back movies. Every now and then, I tore myself away from the hardship of a particularly squishy pillow, to take an inconvenient walk to the kitchen or bathroom. I decadently drank some Woodchuck hard cider (Dark & Dry flavor) while I caught up on my RSS feeds and replied to e-mail. I read a whole book, uninterrupted by even the telephone.
For the first time in, well, ever, my neighbors were not aurally assaulting me with that awful noise they call reggaeton, which they like to play outside, loud enough so that, in spite of the three layers of impact glass and double 2-ton A/C units that surround me at all times, I can usually barely hear the television I am watching, 10 feet away.
Seriously, for the sake of solitude, Ernesto should really visit more often.
Tomorrow, I will continue restoring my potted plants and patio to their pre-hurricane configuration and try to remember where the heck I got those delicious bonbons.
Ernesto has chosen to sit around in Cuba, thank goodness. It's not any kind of guarantee, but chances are pretty good that we're going to have a hell of a rain storm, or a minimal hurricane. We're hoping for the former. The county is still closing schools and opening shelters tomorrow.
There's been a fair amount of hysteria in the streets all day, with hours-long gas lines, and grocery stores selling out of food. The hysteria is inappropriate. We know the drill. Unlike those who live in tornado- and earthquake-prone areas, we get a minimum of several days' lead time, and it happens at the same time every year, like clockwork.
Last year, I watched Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Wilma through the French doors in my living room. Katrina was a Category 1 hurricane at landfall here. She mangled and uprooted my garden, collapsed a highway, and left over a million of us without electricity.
Hurricane Wilma, a Category 3 storm at landfall, quite frankly, scared the heck out of me and taught me to stop watching hurricanes through the French doors. For literally hours, the rain was a solid horizontal object. Worse, the canopies of my trees, which are higher than my two-story house were blown horizontal for hours. I am still in awe that they didn't all snap in half like plastic clothes hangers under stress. After Wilma, over 3 million of us were without electricity. Many were without power for weeks.
The prospect of living without electricity, as opposed to the fear of death or wind destruction, is secretly what mobilizes me each June to buy the things I need for safety and comfort. (I've even mastered how to make the 45 gallons of hot water in my electric water tank last at least 4 days.) Let tomorrow bring what it brings.
Well, damn. Yah, 'tis the season, and all of that, but (soon-to-be) Hurricane Ernesto really does seem a little ominous. If it lingers long over Cuba and all of it's mountains, it's possibly going to be a big angry rain storm, when it gets here. If it races over Cuba, it's possibly going to be the end of the world. Difficult to plan for such a thing, except to do all the stuff you're supposed to and hope for the best.
My windows and doors are all impact-resistant, so at least I don't have to worry about the inconvenience of hurricane shutters. Back in June, I stocked up on water, candles, batteries, battery-operated devices (I'm talking about flashlights and fans, BTW), canned foods, and camping equipment. I have enough dog food and bottled water for the next 3 months and all of my important documents sealed and water-tight. If Ernesto makes landfall here tomorrow night, as expected, I will have charged the batteries on my cell phone, laptop, and iPod; loaded batteries into my portable radio and flashlights; finished my laundry, vacuumed the floors, one last time; and brought in the potted plants and patio furniture. I will also have swapped out the cordless phones in the house for the old-fashioned, non-electric kind.
Car is full of gas. Check. Electric toothbrush is charged. Check. Everything in the garage at floor-level is water-proof. Check. Bug spray and trash bags are ready for duty. Check. Refrigerator and freezer have been turned to their highest cold settings. Check. Lawnmower is full of gas. Check. Don't laugh at that last one. In my experience, with no electricity and nowhere to go for 2 weeks, potentially, mowing the lawn is one of the things I can do for sanity's sake. Plus, I like to do it.
Last year, I figured out how to use my Verizon RAZR as a modem for my iBook, so even in the absence of electricity or traditional Internet connectivity, I can still check my e-mail and the news reports online.
Oh, and note to self: make sure to run the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink before the power goes out...
I started taking birth-control pills when I was 16, so that I wouldn't bleed to death on my way to college.
It was a difficult year. I was on the verge of graduating from high school, with all the usual trepidation and excitement. My mother and I could not spend 5 minutes together in a room without arguing. I was leaving home, and I knew even then that I was never coming back. It was a very stressful time.
Then one month, instead of lasting it's normal week, my period lasted the month, then two months, then three. My mother, the registered nurse, dragged me, whining and pouting, to see her gynecologist. He was young and handsome and eager to peer at my innards with his forehead flashlight and his cold medical implements, and I was young and embarrassed about having him see me naked. I wouldn't let him do the internal exam. He yelled at me. I scowled at him. He tried to frighten me with tales of, "I don't think you realize how serious this is!" I held my ground. He grumpily told me how important he was and that I was wasting his time. I kept my legs squeezed together. He threatened to admit me to hospital. I said, "Fine, let's go."
In the end, we made a deal. I was leaving for college in 2 months. I would go on the pill to see if it regulated my period. If it didn't, I agreed to have a complete gynecological exam.
After 4 days on the pill, the perpetual period stopped. Exactly 29 days later, it started again and lasted for 3 short days. It did the same thing the following month, almost to the hour. So it came to be that was on the pill for my entire adult life.
The patient information that comes with oral contraceptives explains that the possibility of stroke as a side effect increases dramatically for women over 35 who take the pill (and more so for women who smoke). On my 35th birthday, given my overwhelming family history of stroke, I chose to stop taking the pill.
Practically speaking, not taking the pill had no affect on my life. Yes, it's meant to prevent pregnancy, but in this age of sexually-transmitted disease, pregnancy has always been far from my worries. I have friends who've had Chlamydia and Gonorrhea; I have had friends with pre-cancerous lesions related to HPV; I have friends with herpes. I know people who have died from AIDS. In short, I'm no dummy; except while in my most serious relationships, I have always used condoms.
Yet, this is the way my life goes.
Without boring you with the details, I'll tell you that a few months ago, the condom broke. My partner and I have known each other for 25 years. I had previously dragged him to the doctor for a checkup and STD screening, and I found myself unconcerned with disease transmission and terrified of getting pregnant. The next morning I began in earnest to call my doctors to ask for a prescription for the morning-after pill. I called my gynecologist, my family practitioner, the internist uncle of a friend. I had a 72-hour window in which to take my first dose.
One of the doctors was confused about the difference between the morning-after pill and RU486, the abortion pill. He had a moral objection and some medical concerns. One of the doctors was on vacation and her secretary was sure that the physician on call would not give me a prescription without an exam. The next available appointment was in 2 months. In the end, the doctor-uncle came to my rescue and called in the scrip. I was surprised at how difficult it was to get the prescription, though it wasn't the first time that the direction of my life depended on a little pill.
Listening to the radio a few days ago, I heard that the morning-after pill is finally going to be available without a prescription. For people like me, I say Halleluja. My pro-choice sisters are considering this a victory of reproductive choice, but I'm thinking today about my right-to-life sisters. Viewed from any angle, there is little difference between the pill I took at 16 and the pill I took at 38. Both contain the same hormones, in differing amounts. Both are designed to prevent the implantation of an already-fertilized egg to the lining of the uterus. In both cases, it is assumed that conception has already occurred. Do traditional oral contraceptives violate right-to-life sensibilities? How do they justify objecting to one and not the other?
For the record, my friend with the failed condom would have been tickled if I'd gotten pregnant and had his child. Though he did not go so far as to volunteer the use of his own uterus or vagina for the incubation and delivery of a small squirmy bald person, he was indeed very supportive for the 2 days I spent sweating and vomiting, after taking the pills. I thank him for that.
Anyone who knows me can tell you how much I hate Miami. I "escaped" in the 80s to go to college and managed to stay 1,700 miles away for almost 20 years. Which was exactly the way I liked it. Sadly, I came back in 2002 when my mother was dying, and I'm still here, for reasons too complicated to mention just now.
There are some advantages to living in the tropics, for sure. My garden, for example. Small as it is, it's prolific. Something is always in bloom, every day of the year. Usually, most of the garden is in flower. Each year, I have gotten a reliable crop of mangos, avocados, ackees, and bananas. I have planted a mango tree in a large flower pot, and even this tree bore fruit this year. I am in constant supply of basil, oregano, rosemary, and most recently, lavender. As much as I loved Boston, this would all have been wishful thinking, there.
But, mostly, living here is surprisingly unpleasant. The heat is ubiquitous and oppressive. The people are mostly illiterate and ill-mannered and discourteous. Driving here is certainly not for the weak of heart.
What keeps me from grumping around on a daily basis is the fact that I know I'm only staying here temporarily. I should be writing more about it, as a means to make my peace.
I was actually surprised to find a few Miami-centric blogs in my travels. Here are some of my favorites.
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again
I move through life with songs in my head. It's always been so. I sing in the shower. I serenade the dogs. I hum in the grocery store. At night, I dance alone in the garden. I believe I inherited this proclivity from my mother. She, of the bad church songs and the old country standards, spent my lifetime singing around the house. We had different tastes in music, she and I, but the same appreciation for a singable tune. And we could dance to anything.
Certain songs are more resonant than others. Certain songs seem more inimitable than others. So, I was surprised to hear that India.Arie had done a new version of Don Henley's "The Heart Of the Matter" (from his album The End Of the Innocence). Even as I listened to it with skepticism, a few things became apparent. For example, if I'd never heard of Don Henley, I would think this was a terrific song. The vibe of India's version is more courant and has perhaps more soul, but it still makes feeling bad feel good.
Lyrics:
I've been learning to live without you But I miss you sometimes The more I know, the less I understand All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again I've been trying to get down To the heart of the matter But my will gets weak, And my thoughts seem to scatter But I think it's about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don't love me anymore
Like every other computer user on the planet, I am the regular and reluctant recipient of an awful lot of spam. Daily, I am inundated with urgent invitations to, "consolidate debt!" I, a somewhat skinny female Macintosh user, am bombarded with hard-sell tactics for products like diet pills, Viagra, Cialis, and Windows XP. Several spam hawkers want me to refinance my house. I am regularly promised that, if I click on this or that link, I will "achieve harder erections." How fabulous.
The spammers are bad enough, and then there are the phishers. I frequently get messages "from" Amazon.com, eBay, Pay Pal, and my very own ISP, telling me that my account will be cancelled immediately if I don't click on this link and enter my credit card information. One wants me to save an African dignitary by sending him a check for $5,000. Several banks with whom I have never had accounts are apparently interested protecting me from fraud. All I have to do is click here and provide my checking account information.
Over the years, these folks have been getting more creative with their bag o'tricks. Anticipating (I imagine) that increasingly sophisticated computer users are doing things like key-word filtering, they have started to misspell the the products they are trying to tout. One message without a subject line ominously stated simply, "L0an". There was no other text in the body of the message. I found it odd enough to ponder for the rest of the day.
Here is a list of some of the actual names in the From field of messages in my InBox.
Abbreviate O. Accidents Screwball T. Contents Polite I. Thief Unwinds G. Wife Chastens E. Cunnilingus Jed A. Uncorrelated Winter Ineligibility H. Outdone Funk J. Palpitating Proliferate E. Loveable Spelunker J. Crosscheck Clavichords G. Voronezh Spacious R. Specialized Magnitogorsk I. Bosnia Groveler Q. Chasers May Repealed L. Conspiring Absorbency F. Reminding Potpie L. Washroom Listening L. Bannister Refundable J. Trisects Derived S. Catcall Flory E. Domesticating Bylaw U. Baldest Genatalia Pugnacious
I like some more than others. My favorite was the phisher who signed his name "Polite I. Theif". Truth in advertising? Free association? Good stuff.
I am the kind of person who will re-read a paragraph to savor the good bits as if each were a piece of chocolate.
I love to read, and I love books. I enjoy prose. I appreciate the cadence and the syntax and the structure and the flavor and the mood of good writing.
I also love poetry, though these days I can't quiet my mind long enough to enjoy it. When I read poetry, I want to be still. I want to be in the right place, in the right mood. It's like studying stained glass from the third pew in church. You could admire the glass from outside the church, or from the first pew, but then walking and weather and other distractions can obscure important, delicate things.
I have no such issues with reading prose. I have hundreds of books, and it's nice to have a place to record and track them.
15 of the 30 children who died in the bombing, as well as some of the adults, were physically or mentally disabled. Does anyone else want to ask why the families (who were otherwise very poor) could not vacate the premises? or to suggest they should have assaulted the HA themselves? Arrogant armchair idiots.
At around 11 O'clock last night, M. called to reschedule our cancelled-at-the-last-minute movie date. He, a Jewish American, was all a'twitter about the failed health of Fidel Castro. M. was born and raised in Miami and has spent all but 4 years of his 5 decades here. That he gets his knickers in a twist about Miami politics is understandable. But.
I told M. that I've never understood why the hispanic people here seem to think that Castro will live forever. At 75 years old, it should have been no surprise that his health would fail one day soon.
Trying to change the subject, I mentioned recent Israeli bombings of Lebanon, that all day I'd been thinking about 36 dead babies and been deeply saddened. Nothing -- not the fact that M. thinks that people who recycle are "chumps," or even the fact that he thinks that John Kennedy, Jr., "should have been killed in front of his anti-semitic grandfather" -- could have prepared me for his cheering at my mention of 36 dead children. Cheering. When I started to protest the cheering, he said something about the Lebanese making their children sleep in missile silos ("What did they expect?" he said) and about their support of Hizbullah ("We have to bomb them before they bomb us!"). Then when I started to speak, he said, "Shht!" And I again tried to talk, and he said, "Shht!" And then he had the nerve to say, "So, we're on for Thursday?" To which I responded by placing the phone back in it's cradle.
"I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend."
So starts Riverbend's, Web log, "Baghdad Burning". It's a very optimistic sentiment. In real life, Riverbend is a 27-year-old Iraqi woman living in the middle of a war. Prior to the war in Iraq, Riverbend was just like many of us. She was a computer programmer -- urban, articulate, concerned with everyday things. Then the war began. Her first entry, from August 2003, is poignant and simple and unadorned.
"Waking up anywhere in Iraq these days is a trial. It happens in one of two ways: either slowly, or with a jolt. The slow process works like this: you're hanging in a place on the edge of consciousness, mentally grabbing at the fading fragments of a dream... something creeps up around, all over you- like a fog. A warm heavy fog. It's the heat... 120 F on the cooler nights. Your eyes flutter open and they search the dark in dismay- the electricity has gone off. The ceiling fan is slowing down and you are now fully awake. Trying to sleep in the stifling heat is about as productive as trying to wish the ceiling fan into motion with your brain. Impossible.
The other way to wake up, is to be jolted into reality with the sound of a gun-shot, explosion or yelling. You sit up, horrified and panicked, any dream or nightmare shattered to oblivion. What can it be? A burglar? A gang of looters? An attack? A bomb? Or maybe it's just an American midnight raid?"
When I first found this blog and started reading from it's beginning, I had a visceral reaction to it. I knew that I would be hooked forever. And I was. I want everyone to read it.
One of my very favorite bloggers, HotDrWife, has proven to be a reliable vector of Very Good Things. Today's discovery is Settle For Brian.
Quite frankly, I love this guy.
I wish every single man in America was required to publicly post an honest pros-and-cons list. I wish I could hand such a list (of my pros and cons) to every man I dated, so as to waste a little less time on their unrealistic expectations and my wishful thinking.
My pros list (meaning: some of the good things about me) would include:
Laughs easily
Loves animals
Is whip-sharp
Has an open mind
Is attractive (mostly)
Loves kissing
Likes to mow the lawn herself
My cons list would include:
Is impatient
Cannot boil water
Is easily bored with the undereducated and purposely ignorant
Doesn't like to be disturbed while showering
Reads way too much
Doesn't respect people who don't read books
Depending on who you are, I can see how some of my pros could be considered cons, and vise versa.
A friend of mine, who is an attorney, recently got in trouble for admitting in public that he preferred to date women who had graduate degrees, because he found that their thought processes were more compatible. It would never occur to me to verbalize such a thing, but, truthfully, I also find that I don't have a lot in common with people who have no passion for the constant pursuit of knowledge. Geek that I am, I do find that I have to dumb-down my everyday language, in certain groups of people. I find it exhausting. Sometimes I avoid those groups of people. I'm not sure that formal educational levels has anything to do with it; however, I do believe that the more cerebral among us are capable of richer conversations.
In addition to my pros and cons disclaimer, I would also like to add a wish list.
My wish list includes:
He may be an early bird but respects that I am a night owl (who needs at least 8 hours of sleep!)
He should really try to be at least 5'10", so that I may wear heels most of the time
Needs to read a minimum of two books (in any genre) per year
Must allow my dogs in the bed and on certain pieces of furniture
Must be gainfully employed
Must not require "mothering"
It's probably a mystery to no-one that I am still single.
OK, fine. I get that, as a rule, Floridians don't give a shit about the environment, so my crying for the state of the Everglades is pointless, but what about the health of our drinking water? What about the sustainability of our fishing industry and townships?
