Hitting the Triangle at the Right Time

I'm in the dining room, the warmest room in the house, back on Blogger, tapping the keys, attempting to hit something, anything (maybe it's the coffee pot—which I've already too often hit—or, maybe it's the pavement that beckons me, walk! or, it might be—or should be—the books, or maybe it's my damn forehead) at the right moment. Smack. Harder. Smack. As it turns out, I hit my forehead more than anything else. And it hurts. 

This snippet, from a paper cutout taped to a black and white photo found on Bennington alum Mary Ruefle's website, was this morning's flash moment:

Mine is like the role of a triangle player in an orchestra. 
Every once in a while, I have to hit the triangle at the right time. 

British musician/producer/composer Nitin Sawhney's answer to How does the orchestra's triangle player earn a living? (From The Guardian):

No one in an orchestra is paid by how many notes they play. They're paid, and rightly so, for the amount of time they spend in rehearsal and on stage. You might think a triangle player's job was pretty easy compared to, say, a first violin, but just think of counting all those bars' rest and what happens if you come in wrong.

Sometimes, I experience extended moments wherein the weight of time flattens me. The brows are thinning, people! I don't want to come in all wrong, I haven't the time! Jesus, how long do I have to wait before hitting it? And can you imagine if a writer were paid for the number of hours she put in sitting at her desk? Rehearsing? Waiting? Smacking her head with the palm of her hand. Repeatedly. Rehearsing some more. Waiting, waiting, waiting. To hit it. Smack, smack, smack. It might actually be worth all those hours of self-flagellation.

I'm going for a walk...



I'm back. Wait. Wait. Waiting... Rehearsing... smack.

- - - - - - - - - - - 

I'm going to pick up the kids at school...



I'm back. Wait. Wait. Waiting... Rehearsing... smack.

On Bennington:

Here's the best thing about a writing workshop: You cannot escape from what you've failed to include. There's an (rhetorical) inquisition: Why has the shell hardened? Are you rich? You have kids(!)? Is it dead or gone? Are you ok? Are you wearing snowshoes to write? 

Mute answers: I'm not sure (maybe I used the wrong adjective—or the wrong WIP altogether). Hell, no. Yes. Both. Yes. Hahaha... um, bad metaphor. Really bad metaphor.

Writers are reading between the lines. They are scrutinizing the subtext. This is good, yes, but I'm thinking, They are all so much smarter than me. How did I get here? Perhaps I hit the send button, with my writing samples attached, at the right time. Yes, that was a triangle at-the-right-time moment!

My two essays were workshopped on the last day of the ten-day literary vortex that was my first residency at Bennington. Pretty easy compared to, say, a first violin. From there, I lunched and vortexualized with my new writerly vortexees (and, boy, do you ever bond quickly with writerly vortexees), and then set out (a little weepy) for my three plus hour drive back home. Counting all those bars' rest. Lulu kept me company on the phone for the last half hour stretch through Rhode Island, right to my front door. What happens if you come in wrong? There, she waited for me with a great big zealous embrace. 

I waited a long time for that hug.

(Lulu knows precisely how to come in right.)

Happy, happy I was to be back home with the orchestra. Waiting, rehearsing, even smacking the head. You see, what I've discovered is that, as impatient as I am, I can wait. And don't I enjoy being a triangle player. 

Not the Usual Frolic — Summer Hours

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. 

-W. Somerset Maugham

But I did. As I do every day, even if it's a day in which I cannot take a seat at my desk. And every day that passes, every day of these last two weeks plus some, as such reminds me of how little I've accomplished—at least in terms of scribbling out anything cogent. But school, you see, ended. Summer began. Maine awaited. Celebrations befell. The beach beckoned. Flower and herb pots called (although I've not returned the message). My niece, the Magpie, stayed with us for several days. She loves to flit about and take one thing from another to build something of her own. Anything really. She's a wonder. Then, there was the search for a new car which quite literally gobbled time. True, it ate up every last morsel. And drooled some. (How in the world could I have expected less?) Mourning the loss of the ten-year-old car: entirely unexpected.

I've gone and done something ridiculous. Three rows. For the kids. Ridiculous. Less efficient. She's a beast. An ebony zaftig. A sphinx I can't seem to crack. But she gets six to the beach quite comfortably. And what a beach. Not the beach to which absolutely everyone-and-their-in-laws-in-the-burbs clusters. Oh no. I never liked that beach. Not even as a teen. Back then it had a crowded boardwalk, loud radios, gum-snapping dolls, the scent of baby oil, and lots of gold chains. (But the bus got me there and so I went.) I doubt it's changed much. Maybe it has. Regardless. It's still crowded. At the beach, I don't want to run into people I know. Unless I've planned it. Otherwise, I want Maugham in my lap and a lifeguard who watches the kids. 

He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. ~William Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage.

I stored chicken stock in an old glass milk bottle. Lulu thought it was lemonade and drank it. Seriously, Mom? Did you have to put it in a milk bottle?! It was not the sort of thirst quenching drink she'd anticipated. Should I have labeled it? I thought that it so closely approximated a urine specimen that she'd surely steer clear. Besides, who would drink something from a milk bottle that did not even remotely resemble milk?

At the graduation party for her granddaughter, the valedictorian, Aunt Sue (Mother's sister) came bearing gifts for her three nieces. A box of Grandmother's books with copyrights dated from the 1920s (W. Somerset Maugham's Short Stories) through 1979 (Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance). Backwoods Betty grabbed The Case of the Cautious Coquette, from Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason series. I took Roman MacDougald's The Whistling Legs, and Carter Dickson's The Cavalier's Cup. As well as the Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham. (Grandma, it seems, liked mysteries. Aunt Sue, it seems, was surprised by this.) Mary glanced at the box and quickly turned and walked away before any of us could put a hardcover in her hand. I don't blame her. The dusty novels are not allergen-free. Mother, curious as to the box's contents, pulled out a few titles but ultimately slipped them back in, refraining as well.

For a while, when I was a girl, Grandmother lived on a dairy farm. My goal for quite some time during those years was to finagle, each summer weekend, an overnight stay at her place on the farm. Once there, I stole eggs out from under the hens in the chicken coop, chased cats up trees, jumped from the third floor to the second in the hayloft, milked cows, hugged goats and played with the Wright girls at their homestead across the street from the barn. Sometimes, I got to ride Missy the pony. Back then, I welcomed the respite from the noise of the city and the opportunity to run wild while Grandmother baked a strawberry-rhubarb pie. I do not remember ever seeing on the bookshelves of Grandmother's apartment any of the amusing old titles that Aunt Sue had packed in a box. Come to think of it, I do not remember ever drinking milk there, but I do recall whipping cream with a hand blender to the thickest peak in the state. And pouring it over pie.

From the bottom of the stairs Max calls up to me. It's late and he should be getting to bed. Instead he's asking: Oh hey Mom, do you know what this stuff is that's in a dairy bottle?

What stuff, Max? I shout down to him, chuckling to myself, as I try to finish this piece.

It looks like pee. Do you know what it is? It's in that milk bottle? What is it?

Now, I cannot stop laughing. It's funny what one should decide to ask. Or what one thinks oughtn't (or needn't) be asked. I reveal the secret, and decide to close up shop and return to Maugham. I can no longer concentrate. So much for cogency.

Summer Hours: Here and there, like the Magpie. Friday Night Frolics optional. Time off with the kids, mandatory.

(By the way, is anyone reading Joe Blair? I like this guy, and he keeps a blog, too. See his latest post here. )

  Rusted Root - Send Me on My Way by wayne21

Speak Into The Microphone

A long time ago, when this blog was in its infancy—drooling, whining, and sticking anything within reach into its mouth—I wrote a little story about a big fish. In it I described how I had once asked a Burger King employee if he knew what kind of fish was in their fish sandwich. And Hubby, bewildered, said, Who asks what kind of fish is in a Burger King fish sandwich?

Sheesh! I know, Ok, I'm odd. I just like to know what I'm eating. I would think most people like to know what they're eating. Or at least if they're going to need a bib.

Weeeeell, over at analytics the other day, scrolling down pages of interesting and curious key word searches, such as "what's my purpose" and "postcards from Disney Florida" and "puddles the u of o duck" and "ms Voodoo Valentine naked" (I can imagine the disappointment at being directed to my posts), I stumbled upon this:

Yes, that! (McDonalds/Burger King. Same thing.)

That, that query above, demonstrates the benefits of keeping a blog. Evidence clearly indicating that if you write about every little thing on your mind, doubts, worries, relationships, children, work, spring cleaning, the market's produce section, every banal thing in your life (wait, that's reserved for Facebook), especially about things for which you've been mocked, sooner or later someone, some lonely or confused or desperate soul sitting at a computer in a dimly lit room, fog settling along the horizon, stubbing out a cigarette in a stolen hotel ashtray is going to ask the great gods of the internet a question like: What kind of fish is used in a Burger King/McDonalds fish sandwich?

And the gods will answer.

What's that you say, darling?

Just a little louder please.

Speak into the microphone!

Oh, you take back what you said? About me being the only person who would ask what kind of fish is in a Burger King fish sandwich?

Ha! Thank you.

Now I can rest easy knowing that I am NORMAL. I think.

Housekeeping

You need to live authentically, and you can't ignore that. 

~last night's fortune cookie

I'm doing a little housekeeping here today: deleting labels, cleaning up more than a few messy old posts and trying to figure out if there's any way to create real categories in which to store various labels (seems Blogger is more about form rather than function unless, anyone can tell me otherwise?), while the sauce simmers in the pot. Literally.

It's quiet in the house and as I sit here at the kitchen island all I hear is the slow simmer of the pasta sauce and the bubbles that rise and spit at its surface. The house is filling with the scent of garlic, tomato, oregano, basil and stewing meats, which prompts me to think of Grandmother, who would often come to our old house to help Mother cook dinner. Meatballs were not made with the pre-packaged trio of ground veal, pork and beef that I can find at the supermarket on any given day. Rather, Grandmother fed slabs of meat through the cast iron meat grinder that was clamped to a heavy butcher block my father had made, and I remember the amount of energy that was exerted and the dark, raised veins of Grandmother's hands as she turned the wooden handled crank.

While rounding globs of seasoned meat between the palms of my hands today, I saw Grandmother's hands. Or at least the beginnings of what one might call work hands. Though I never worked the looms of a mill, or really, a meat grinder (except out of  youthful curiosity, when it looked like fun, but it was not, it was work). And it was this work--grinding, weaving, canning, sewing, kneading, hanging clothes out back on taut-rope lines--back breaking work, that Grandmother, and my mother to a large extent, discharged on a daily basis.

We rarely went out to eat. And if we did we did not go out to restaurants like Chez Pascal, where fine and ridiculously good French food and wine are served, an art gallery is found in the side room, and whimsical vignettes starring cheese and miniature four-legged creatures are set out on a dusky pine buffet that serves as a room divider at the entry. And that is fine, for had we my fondest memories may not have been of the home-cooked dinners served in our small dining room, where Mother and Grandmother were the last to sit down.

Authenticity is found in the smallest, and sometimes the most banal, things we do. Daily minutiae. How we execute seemingly mindless chores tells us a lot about who we are. We mustn't forget. I wonder if my mother or grandmother ever even had to remind themselves. It's a pity they didn't have time to write about it while the stew simmered.

Raconteur

More about this to follow...

One of the benefits of living close to where I was born and raised is that I can easily return to the old quarter-acre city-lot homestead. There, I inevitably find myself sifting through bookshelves—of which there are many. My father built all of them. Three bedrooms and a bath can be found on the second level, along with a thigh-high bookshelf that lines the length of the half-open hall to the stairway. In it I find a blanched copy (1954) of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. 

In the sleeping quarters I shared with my two sisters—later converted to my parents' room—I find  a Second Edition of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction in bookshelves above a writing desk.  It contains stories by many of my favorite storytellers—just some of the Bs for instance: Bellow, Borges, Barthelme, Bradbury. I'm making headway. Higher up on the shelves, I find this and stop:

Circa 1960 3 ½" x 1 ½" Flashcards

Have I told you about my dad? You may remember I've mentioned him here and there.

With ample gesticulation, he loved to tell amusing stories that, usually, had a moral. After all, what was a story worth without a moral? (Said the teacher.) By way of example, there was this old parable he would tell about the Head:

Once there was this Head--just a Head—no body or appendages on which to drape fancy clothing.   The head was often sad and lonely, separate as he was from a world of full of bodies. Day after day the Head would roll to work, roll to lunch and roll home. Each day the Head would look longingly at the woman who worked at the desk next to his, but he could never work up the courage to speak to her—because, well, who would want to talk to a Head? Every night he prayed that he'd wake up as something different than a head. But every morning, he'd would wake as the same 'ole Head. Finally, late one night in the darkness of his bedroom, the Head could no longer contain his agony, and he cried out, "God, please help me. Why’d you make me this way? I don't want to be just a head. I want to be ANYTHING but a Head!"  The next morning, when he looked in the mirror he was amazed to discover he was no longer a Head. He’d been transformed into a Grape. 

“What great luck, he thought, now I can do something with my life—everyone loves grapes!" He happily rolled out his front door, and over to the house of the woman from work so he could ask her out. He bumped against her door   until she answered. She opened the door, but seeing as how she had legs and he did not, she looked out over the top of the Grape and didn’t see him, so she promptly closed the door. The Grape, however, refused to be denied. He again rolled up against the door until she responded. This time she opened the door, and again seeing nothing, stepped out the door to look around. As she did so, she stepped directly on the grape and squashed him.  

No, that's not true. Not entirely. The audience simultaneously frowned and chortled.  And they got the moral, too.

Whether oral, paper or electronic, stories are a ligament to our past—and often an augury of our future—that reveal the desires, beliefs and values of a culture. When we blog, we contribute our own unique narrative to the great library of anecdotes. The tales are important—moral or not. And you don't need to be Hemingway or Borges to tell a story.

Which brings me to the Liebster: I'd like to thank Tim, a middle school English teacher who chronicles wonderful, little slices of life at Life of Riles, for passing along to me some Liebster Blog (above award, or is it meme?) love. Go and see him, he's a very nice guy (one can tell these things, even in the blogosphere) and his slices always make me smile. I've received this awmeme in the past, but failed to adhere to the rules, which include award-passing, because I'm overcome with schoolgirl awkwardness and anxiety whenever I try choose a prescribed, finite number of recipients. There are just too many bloggers who pepper me with wit and consequential pondering. Once in a while, I'll make reference to them in my posts. 

For instance, today I stumbled upon Pueblo Waltz, a blog about the arts (music, literature, etc.) written by college student and Taylor J. Coe. He also writes his own music and plays it for you on this fairly new blog. His first post, concerning choice of blog name, describes the talented/tragic Townes Van Zandt (found on my Frolics page) as the real-life Bad Blake (the protagonist of Crazy Heart, written by one of my former professors whom, by the way, was a student of Barthelme's). I read the post with interest, of course, but that isn't how I stumbled onto Taylor's blog. To tell you the truth, I don't remember how I stumbled over there—I do a lot of stumbling— maybe it had something to do with art and literature. 

Oh, heck, I'm going to just get over my schoolgirl awkwardness and bestow upon Taylor his very first blog award. Congratulations Taylor, the Liebster is yours for the taking. Nice job, my friend. And good luck with school this year. :)

In any event, my talented raconteurs: Write. Spread the love through narrative, poetry, song, however your hearts desire. I love sifting through your well-endowed blogger bookshelves—what I find is valuable and treasured.

(Oh, and if you're looking for vintage vocabulary flashcards like the ones my dad bought all those years ago, turns out you can find some in the the other jungle, eBay!)

Passing By

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.                                                            ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One Exquisite Picture
(Or excruciatingly sad violin
farewell to Boston's downtown Borders.)

Oh, hello there. I wasn't sure when I'd make it back either. Then, there was the needling question: Am I prepared to come back?  One minor issue: I haven't settled upon a few sensible words. Which, incidentally, seems of no importance as I've once again misplaced my steno pad. And I'm surely not dressed for a big return—barefoot, in rumpled clothing and disheveled hair. As it were, my writerly chapeau is not fitting well and is in need of a large, pearl-topped hat pin to keep it sitting squarely, and securely, upon my head.

Frankly, I'm not fit to step out, to pass by if even briefly, into grid-swoosh. (Maybe I'm troubled by the potential for gridlock.)

But, I have one little song for you:



(Zaz speaks—or shall I say, sings—for herself. The song title means: passersby. Here are the lyrics in French and English.)

And more—one good poem:

Passer-By, These Are Words 

by Yves Bonnefoy

Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading
I want you to listen: to this frail
Voice like that of letters eaten by grass.

Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee
Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names.
It flits between two sprays of leaves,
Carrying the sound of branches that are real
To those that filigree the still unseen.

Then know an even fainter sound, and let it be
The endless murmuring of all our shades.
Their whisper rises from beneath the stones
To fuse into a single heat with that blind
Light you are as yet, who can still gaze.

May your listening be good! Silence
Is a threshold where a twig breaks in your hand,
Imperceptibly, as you attempt to disengage
A name upon a stone:

And so our absent names untangle your alarms.
And for you who move away, pensively,
Here becomes there without ceasing to be.

* * *

Today the children are back in uniform and at school. Everything passes quickly. Even the things we think will never pass, like babies in diapers, toddlers of the terrible-twos, threes and fours, and sleepless nights pass. I look back and can barely see where those moments once stood. I've not done much to record them but for photos and a few scribbled notes. I remember little bodies scampering about and firm biceps that could pick them up or stop them in their tracks. I remember little voices, loud and exuberant, and often, chafing. All these things pass.

Now, junior high and high school have become a slice of what is here.

My fourteen year old son still has his pre-pubescent early twelve year old voice recorded as a greeting on his cell phone. "Hi, this is Max. Leave a message after the tone."  I thought I might mention this to him before the start of high school. But I couldn't. The under-six-foot intonation is too cute. It makes me smile—and for the time being, is my oral token of what once was there.

We are all just passing by. I'm glad to be passing by here once again. But I really should get dressed and find my notepad and some sensible words.

The real Exquisite Picture
By Étienne-Jules Marey

August Ease and Interlude

Out at the tip of Sandy Neck, a coastal barrier beach whose duck-bill tip dips into Barnstable Harbor on the north side of Cape Cod, one can anchor a boat at low tide and walk long stretches of sandy, rippled tidal flat. This gorgeous and well protected stretch of Cape coastline is the result of thousands of years of littoral drift, that began as swept sands collecting around a small nub.

The tide charts tell us when to set out to the tip and when to return. The sun tells us the time of day. And I wonder what these warm New England months would be like had I the luxury of designing my entire summer by tidal charts and sun... 

If I didn't pick up pen and paper all summer long... 

What I might be learning through a quiet, sunny osmosis of these slowed weeks without trying to analyze everything I absorb, like the restoration of St. Peter's Church in Osterville—where my husband and I were married—which includes a raising of the structure to accommodate a real foundation (so I was told by a construction worker, as I drove the children past the chapel that sits, teeters actually, alongside Nantucket Sound).

Photo courtesy of the Gallery--St. Peter's Church

Is everything significant?

I think not. But then, I wonder.

Along the intertidal zone at the crest of Sandy Neck, Max and his young cousin dig a trench and construct a hermit crab hotel. They muse over the small, leggy creatures, explaining that they need to protect the crabs, keep the family together. But they know when the tide shifts the crabs will scatter beyond the hotel, abandoning their fabricated home. They know, even, that as the crabs grow larger, they will eventually abandon their own borrowed shell in search of a roomier one. Yet Max and his cousin do their best to protect them while they can.

It is August. In three weeks the children will return to school and all the harried scheduling that goes along with the same. Summer is short and my boy and girl are getting older. The sands continue to spread. Many waters wait to be explored. And so...

For the next few weeks of this warm interval, I'm going to take a much needed sabbatical—a hiatus from the Friday Night Frolic and other self-imposed blogging demands—to explore more of New England, including what's here at home, with my ever growing children. It won't be long before they shed their shells and inhabit an alien framework. 

And while it may not be feasible to live by the sun, or even the moon, or the tide, and whatever they may bring, I think it may be viable (if not advisable) to utilize these remaining summer days, which have been so unusually beautiful—almost like days borrowed from a tropical land—for the purpose of shoring up the foundation, and enjoying the little muses while they are still little muses.

I'll be back, though, come late August—or sooner, as I'm sure to return to the grid periodically to see what's going on here and with you. Until then, my friends, enjoy this splendid summer.

* - Photo taken from my iPhone (yes, I dumped the android!).

New Journaling

Fuck You and Your Blog Journal

This—illustrator/designer Ray Fenwick's darling journal—my daughter brought to my attention while perusing vintage cards and local artwork at an East Side gift shop. Oh. My! I said, and quickly stole the book from her purple-painted fingertips. The book is nothing more than near blank peachy pages, which is precisely the sort of instrument in which I used to journal (though my daily entries were not punctuated by profanity—the Catholic lexicon wouldn't permit, the backside of the wooden spoon deterred), back in another time when longhand was not a lost art. Back when I eagerly opened my fabric bound diary and looked squarely at the Date line, recording the time of arrival, and quickly, with little regard or fear, dusting the soot-swathed nooks of my psychic pipes.

This was where the deconstruction of each day began and ended. It's where I dismantled the events, the words, the thoughts and attempted to reassemble the scattered collection with lambent reflection. At some point during my college years, the journal was abandoned, the pipes left accumulating wending years of daily-minutiae-dust with little thought to the passing days. They came. They went. They happened. Without so much as a scratch of hand-forged verbosity.

I had stopped paying attention. I had stopped taking notes.

For a good while.

But desires, emotions and observations stockpile over time. And begin to restrict flow. Words smoldered for years—years—an incomplete combustion, neither enough heat nor light to stoke the fire, muck-lined tin smothering invention. The pipes needed to be swept. Cleaned. Scraped.

I don't remember when that primal urge to scratch black manganese stories on a slab returned to me, but thank goodness several years ago it did. It came rushing back, wafting at me like a great big smoke signal. Convert thoughts to printed words, it puffed, restore those pipes to good working order...

Muscle memory doesn't serve well for longhand journaling—I can barely read my own scrawl. So this blog, my techno-journal, is where it happens now. Not all of it. But some of it. And you can tell me to go Fuck Off, but I'm most likely going to hang in here, scraping away, pulling things apart and reconnecting a while longer. 

Deconstruct and reassemble—now that really lights my fire.

Old Typewriter - Photo by Todd McLellan,
from his Disassemby series

I do like Fenwick's witty little journal, though. Maybe I'll get it for bedside epiphanies. 

Tuesday's Trophy

Me & my cutie-pie, a few years back,
doing one thing I like to do.

(I'm going to tell you some things about myself in this post. But first, a bit about trophies.)

Wouldn't that be something to get a trophy every Tuesday? Oh, you made dinner last night?! Here's your trophy.  Look, you showed up for work! Here's your trophy. You didn't run out of gas yesterday?! That's right... here's your trophy.

I'd get a lot of trophies if this were true. Especially for the gas matter. However, I'm not normally the recipient of shiny metal objects perched on wood slabs. (Unless it's a butcher knife jammed in the cutting board.) I don't get trophies like my kids get trophies. I think the fanfare's a bit overdone, especially as it relates to sports. My kids aren't yet in high school and they barely have enough shelf space for all their trophies, medals, and ribbons. A few are hard earned, but some—most—are simply for participating. Interestingly, my kids are as confused as I am about this.

You participated in the pinochle tournament! Here's your trophy.

Huh? But I didn't win. I didn't even place.

Don't sweat the details, kid, just take the trophy.

I never got trophies like that when I was a kid. I know, oh woe is me.

But this isn't Tuesday's Tantrum, this is Tuesday's Trophy. My trophy! And I'm not sweating the small stuff.

Last week, I received my very own special Blogger trophy (prettier than metal and wood)—an award from the very kindhearted Barbara over at Notes from the Second Half.  Yes—thank you, Barbara!

Barbara has some very interesting stories, and she's the champion of introducing and welcoming new bloggers to the blogosphere, so make sure you pay her a visit.

Accepting the award means rule compliance, a show-and-tell-and-pass-along-thing, but you know I've a  little rebel in me, so those bloggers who receive this award from me are welcome to show-and-tell-and-pass-along as they please.

Thing 1)   I'm a middle child. Third in line in a family of six children. Middle sister. There you have it. That should explain a lot of things.

Thing 2)   I'm having an affair. (Don't tell my husband.) With Chekhov. You'll understand when you hear why: Not only is he a brilliant doctor and writer, but he is sexy and hunky. (Look at him!)

Do you detect a hint of Eric Clapton here?

I go to bed with him every night, absorb his every breath, caress each rune of his words, rest my head among his platitudes. He's gifted.  He's sweet, witty, soft-spoken and sensuous. Wields exquisite instruments of expression. And demands very little of me. What can I say? I'm mortal. I'm weak... darling Anton.

Thing 3)  But, I'm also fickle. So when I've turned his last leaf, crinkled every corner, see that the end is indisputably THE END, you know I'll be moving on... darling Anton.

Thing 4)  Many years ago, when I waited tables at a swanky Italian restaurant in New York's South Street Seaport, along lower Manhattan's waterfront, a very kind waiter and actor (they were all actors, except for me) gave me a set of six miniature Mexican warrior dolls, nestled in a woven, oval box. I think he felt sorry for me. I was/am a klutz. I couldn't open a bottle of wine, I fumbled over every plate, couldn't memorize orders, and certainly didn't earn my share of the tips we had to split equally. The worry dolls were good for me. They didn't magically make me a savvy waitress, but they made me feel special. I still have them. I think I lied a wee bit to get the job. Maybe that's why I was so worried.

Thing 5)   My hair was kinky back then. In New York. Very kinky.

Thing 6)   I listened to a lot of Grace Jones. In New York. She's kinky.

Thing 7)   I was engaged back then. In New York. To a man I never married. He was kinky. Too kinky for me.

Thing 8)   This is how I have fun with myself. Outside of New York. Just a little kinky.

And who would want an award from klutzy, kinky me?

Friends, I present you with the following "must sees":

Nessa Roo from Words from the Wench. Nessa's confused. And somewhat ordinary—so she claims. However, she's anything but. She's sharp and talented, and cranks out some engaging fiction.

Bth from A Little Light in London. Bth is a young London dreamer, whose visions are dusted with elegance and luminosity.

Billy Pilgrim, child of the universe, from Enjoy the Moment. Because he always makes me laugh. And anyone who goes by the name of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five protagonist (loosely based on Vonnegut himself) deserves an award. Now, I wonder if Billy is as tall and magnanimous as Slaughterhouse-Five's main soldier?

To whom—the above—I happily bestow The Versatile Blogger Award. Best to all of you. Bravo!
(Do tell us about your trophies!)

100 Commentaires and Merci Beaucoups

Source unknown

This entry marks my one-hundredth post. 100. I remember when my great-grandmother turned one-hundred and the family had a grand celebration that brought relatives to Rhode Island from across the country and down from the Province of Quebec, including Grand-mama's sister's family. I was fifteen at the time, and Grand-mama's birthday marked not only a century of living, but for me, a certain fin-de-siècle: the end of life as I knew it in my backyard, and the beginning of a life-long friendship with relatives in Quebec. It marked the first time I traveled by air with my same-aged cousin Pascale (Grand-mama's sister's granddaughter), whom I thought so glamorous—she still is—returning home from Montreal. Just the two of us.

It was a certain coming-of-age.

There was timorous footing on water skis. The long, measured drag of a cigarette. Sweet, raw honey scraped from its cut comb. Singing all things Supertramp. Driving a car. The taste of hashish. And beer. French television. A Grateful Dead concert. Dining on frog's legs. Summoning the spirit of Little Rose—a Francophone mystic-stigmatic—in her garden, by the statue of St. Francis cloaked in brown garb, his cupped hands doubling as a bird feeder. Spinning of the bottle. Learning every word to Bob Dylan's Hurricane. The dissection of a heavily formaldehyde-scented frog. And a first kiss. Ribbit.
  
Not to say I was corrupted by my French relations, or that any of these scenes were set in Canada, or with my cousin. Non, non. It was all so many years ago, and the haze hanging over those years is grey and dense, and who remembers when anything so long ago really happened, or precisely what happened. It could have been a hundred years ago. It might as well have been!

But it was not. It was most certainly when I was fifteen.

I have another special affair to acknowledge in this one-hundredth post. Though it didn't occur when I was fifteen. The matter being my recent receipt of an award—the Memetastic Award—from Caterpillar, a sweet blogger friend. Go see her. Darling and sparkly, she is.

Many thanks to Caterpillar for recognizing my blog, and passing this award along to me. And many thanks to all of you who've come along for the blog ride.

I'm not sure of the award's origins, but as with many blog awards, it's delivered with some rules, which in this case are as I like them—simple: a) Tell four lies and one truth and let your readers decide which one's the truth; and, b) keep the award rolling.

Well, there are fictional and non-fictional illustrations in the third paragraph of this post. I think. So, have at it.*wink, wink* 

To keep it moving forward, I shall lavish the lovely Kate—a stupendous sonneteer—at Suppertime Sonnets—with the Memetastic Award. Congratulations Kate! 

One last rumination: mememtastic—is that a word? Not in my dictionary, but it did remind me of the French term for grandmother: Grand-mère, or Meme for short. Which reminded me of Grand-mama (and her 100th birthday), who wouldn't permit me to speak in any language except French. En Francais!

Comme ce:



Bon soir mes amis. C'est tout!

Variable Angle Reflections

I've so many magical things for you today. Really. Little magical tricks. And yes, that illustration up there—the one that turns the world on its side—is one of them. But you're going to want to see all the magic here today. I promise.

My son penciled this sketch in response to a school project, and not the one for his Art class. The assignment was for Algebra. The directive: pick an Algebraic term (like axis, ordered pair, coordinate, slope, horizontal, etc.) and make a creative illustration of its meaning. The goal being to relate the term to something other than its mathematical meaning, while still accurately illustrating its meaning.

Had I been handed the criteria, I would have scratched my head for a long time. And then I would have drawn a tree. Or maybe a ladder. I'd probably forget to draw a straight line for grounding. And so my primitive art work wouldn't demonstrate a relation would it? It wouldn't show its horizontal axis of reflection. In other words, it wouldn't have perspective.

It would be much easier for me to just define certain angles, or use them metaphorically, as I did here (relative to age, ugh), because that's my comfort zone. I don't know if it's just me—and if you've been reading me you're aware of my mathematical limitations—or if its the fact that as we age we become a bit more set in our ways. Or maybe it's just that we like to stay in our comfort zones. We like the speed limit. We know what to expect.

But Max, he knew exactly what to do. Why did he know exactly what to do? Is it because he's still too young to drive, and therefore doesn't understand the concept of speed limit? Well, it's several reasons I suppose, but I think the main reason is that he's able to look at things from various angles and perspectives. And maybe that is because, at thirteen, he can't yet get his license.

So, what is magical about the illustration is that it reminds me that sometimes one has to turn a thing on its head, or its side, to really understand its meaning. It reminds me that tunnel vision is limiting. It reminds me to seek perspective through unobstructed peripheral vision. (Otherwise, I really should get off the road.) It reminds me to not take a thing for granted. To not jump to conclusions without first exploring all sides. Sometimes I need pixie dust thrown in my face for this to happen. That's what my son's illustration is. It is pixie dust. It is magic.

Hang on, more magic, the best is yet to come...

Sourced from internet

All right, the next bit of magic involves more lines, and arcs, too, and is especially for my writerly friends. BUT (big but) it is magic for ALL. It's something I read long ago, and something my friend Maria reminded me of not so long ago. Maria, by the way, is also magic. Really. She knows how to fling pixie dust. (And I'm so looking forward to getting me some of her dust this weekend!) So if you've any desire for a dusting, go see her.

Alright, are you ready? This is really exciting... pure magic... Wait. I'll give you a hint. It has to do with this guy:

Photo via www

Again, if you've been reading me, you know how I feel about this guy. *Hearts*  This guy is also magic.

Ok, here's that other bit of magic I promised you: Hocus Pocus. Don't be shy, go ahead, click on Hocus Pocus! And don't come back until you've been thoroughly doused with that silky, glistening dust, until you're entire body is sparkling.

Ah! You're back! Wasn't that awesome?!  Look how sparkly you are. Is that man not genious? Magic?

Now are you ready for the best yet to come? Voila, for my last trick, the final bit of magic:

Sourced from internet

You think I'm kidding don't you? Yes, it's a mirror. Look at it. Look into it. What do you see? Oh, you see yourself? YES! Correct! It is you. You, my friends, are the magic. You, over there on the right side of my page—my Google Friends, Facebook friends, Open Salon friends, Networked Blogs friends—and You, other friends who don't like to put your picture up on walls, but still stop by for a visit on occasion, and drop comments in the box (or maybe you don't, and that's fine, too). You, on the Blogs I Follow and My Favorites list. You, who may not be on any list, You are what keeps me coming back here, and what keeps me looking out there, to You. You didn't realize that you had pixie dust stashed in your back pocket, now did you? Well, you do.

Yup, You—the best of the magic, my friends—you who have such vision. You're perspective is important. You, we, who love to share perspectives, ideas, writing, comments, photographs, our soul, with the World. The whole World. How exciting is that? It kind of takes some guts, don't you think? I'm not necessarily known for guts, but You help. (Not to mention the internet which is also magic.) We read each other, we learn from each other, we become friends. Even if it's only in cyberspace, we still become friends.

And You and I—we know the magic of sharing. Thank goodness it's the one thing (hopefully, not the only thing) that we didn't lose when we stumbled, oh-so-gracefully, into that darker world of adulthood. We may have lost our innocence, we may have lost some perspective (but you know magic can bring it back), but we sure as heck still know how to share. We learned of its importance as a child, and we still know it to be true, effective and empowering. We know we need to share to make it all work nicely. We know that sharing can change the World. Just look at what happened in Egypt! (Not that I'm proposing a revolution, but you know what I mean.)

So keep sharing your perspective everyone. I love hearing from you, I love reading you. I love sharing you. (Hope you don't mind.) I love all of your angles and reflections. I'm so happy you share. It's nothing short of magic.

Anatomy Of A Blog Post by an Unreliable Narrator

Frontispiece

Preface

After a busy weekend of travel, post-holiday family gatherings, and lots of bubbly, I return to a box brimming with mail and good news. A while back, I mentioned that I believe writing comes with a certain responsibility. Turns out, in the blogosphere, there is an undertaking I hadn't contemplated. I've seen them on sidebars, or twinkling on posts, a little recognition from fellow bloggers known as: Blog Awards.

Over the weekend, I received not one, not two, but three awards (really! no kidding) from two very kind and generous bloggers; and it is now upon me to pass the same along to other deserved bloggers. Before I do, there are some prerequisites/responsibilities (for real) that go hand-in-hand with receipt of these honors; which include, among other things, writing something meaty about oneself. The big reveal. Whoa...  well, you can kind of get the gist of it here. And maybe below...

Introduction and Acknowledgement

Let me begin this Monday's post with a tall-glass bubbly toast to Ms. Barbarba L. of Notes From The Second Half who received and passed along to me the above Life Is Good Award, and The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award.

And another sparkly toast to Ms. June with the luscious locks, from Aging Gratefully for receiving and passing along to me the Stylish Blogger Award.

Thanks so much, ladies for this nod, and a nod back at ya. Well Done.

Part I - The Rules and The Two Award Winner 

In the case of the Life Is Good, and The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award, from Barbara the requirements are:

1. Thank and link back to the person that gave the award;
2. Answer the 10 survey* questions;
3. Pass the award along to other bloggers whom you think are fantastic (as many as you'd like); and,
4. Contact the bloggers you have chosen to let them know about the award.

Random Photo Break

*The Survey Questions (I'm listing them and answering them below - but don't include my answers as part of the requirements unless you are me and I am you. And I don't mean to make light of this—all three awards are an honor bestowed by serious bloggers who I faithfully follow—but I have, what you call, survey issues):

1.   If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this?  If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?   Answer: I didn't blog anonymously at first, but now I half do, and I don't know if I shall again. In short, I have an identity issue. It's not a crisis, sometimes I just don't know who I am and how I want to blog.
2.   Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side. Answer: Absolutely not. I refuse to.
3.   What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror? Answer: I try very hard to never really look at myself. Why in the world would anyone want to do that?
4.   What is your favorite summer cold drink?  Answer: Wine. Always wine. Hot, cold, lukewarm, red, blue, green or white. Wine.
5.   When you take time for yourself, what do you do? Answer: Is this supposed to be a G-rated Q&A?   No, yes? Really? I absolutely won't answer this one either.
6.   Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life? Answer: Holy cow, what don't I want to accomplish? I mean I still haven't jumped out of an airplane, or walked a tight-rope, or mounted a bull (at least not that I remember). 

7.   When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person or always ditching? Answer: I don't remember attending school. Kidding, I do, I just don't want to remember attending school.
8.   If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see? 

Answer: Seeing my babies for the very first time. This, followed by a blurry streak of denial, refusal, absentmindedness, insanity and wine. All, utterly poignant.
9.   Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events? Answer: Both. But this is not always the case. Sometimes it's difficult to differentiate between the two. But whether I'm writing about me or others it is usually obvious if it's fact or fiction. Sometimes it's neither, and sometimes it's impossible to tell.
10. If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why? Answer: It depends who the person is at the other end of the line, or the book I want to read. Sometimes I like to do both of them at the same time. Neither the caller nor the book would be the wiser.

And the Winner is....    Ms. Lin Ann of Vittles and Committals!!! (Applause.) (Now get up - standing ovation.) Lin Ann is a newbie foodie blogger, and my bestie friend. Check her out. She's gets around, people. In her garden, I mean. Sheesh. Where are your minds today?

Part II - The Rules and The One Award Winner (but you deserve two)

In the case of the Stylish Blogger Award from Miss June at Aging Gratefully, the requirements are:

1.  Write a post about the award including a link back to the donor;

2.  Share seven things about myself; 

3.  Pass it on to fifteen seven one blogger I've recently discovered.

Ya, I broke the rules, reducing the pass-along to one,  but feel free to bestow the award to whomever you please...

So, about the seven things in #2 above:  (Must I play by the book?) Since self-disclosure is like self-flagellation, I'm going to refer you to Part I above to satisfy #2 here. And I'll give you this:

And the Winner is... Dennice at Fringe. (Applause) (More standing ovations.) If you take a peek at her blog, you'll understand why. Go. See Dennice. She's fabulous, and she is creating some fabulous artisan wear.

Postscript

This is all true. Every word of it. And I am not often an unreliable narrator. Only when it suits me. I am now permitted to place the awards on my sidebar. Really. You'll see them there. 

Thank you to my fellow bloggers for these thoughtful awards. To the recipients: kudos to you. You can both grab your awards in the Frontispiece. 

Gosh we bloggers work for our awards. ;)