Fragile Industries

Love Understands, and Therefore Waits

A friend wrote me today about the emotions attendant on a possible visit from her father, from whom she was long estranged after her parents' divorce.  She wryly acknowledged the bathos of the idea of waiting for his arrival at mid-life, staring out the window like a child.

Her image of waiting at the window unleashed a flood of memories equally bathetic.

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In my early 20's I saw and immediately, in unexpected tears, bought one of those "cat" posters that are so kitch and corny.  I was too cool to admit to owning the thing, so it resided on the inside of my closet door, where only I was likely to see it.  It showed a little frowzy kitten from behind, gazing out a rain-streaked window.  You could tell that the perch was precarious and the kitten really had to work staying there.  The caption (in PINK script, I told you it was kitchy) read, "Love understands, and therefore waits." 

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Despite the rank sentimentality, it always moved me.  It seemed to sum up my childhood, which also included parental divorce when I was very young.  I at least had a relationship with my father --  a rich and delightful relationship -- but on Daddy visit days, I would wait by the window for the first glimpse of his car with the intensity of that kitten.  Going back further, in the year after my parents' divorce, I was, by special arrangement with the school, always the last one picked up at nursery school (or maybe this was kindergarten).  Mom now worked until 5, and in 1960 or so, working mothers were pretty unusual.  I was going through a hideously insecure, newly rocky and needy phase.  After the last other kid left, I spent the next eternity at the window (probably only 10 or 15 minutes) waiting for her, yearning.  It's more of a sense memory than pictorial, but I know I had to stand on something to see out of the window, I was a shrimpy kid, and my perch felt as shaky as that poster kitten's seemed to be.  No amount of teacher's encouragement would lure me down.  A  million other childhood memories (any childhood, I'm not unique here) involve waiting for the adults to be done with their adult stuff and get to the all important ego-dominant child ME.

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To this day, if I need to summon tears, I think of that poster.  (You know those times when you NEED to cry for something very real and immediate, you'll burst if you don't, but the internal editor has turned off the waterworks?  You just need a little nudge.  That's what an image like that poster is for.  Instant emotional release.  Actors do the same thing.)  I searched online, but somehow that poster seems not to have made it onto the internet.  I found a similar image, above.

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While searching, I found another image that made me laugh, and then think.  So much of my adolescent and even adult anger sprang from that same waiting.  Children do love, and they do wait, but they don't always understand.  That adult stuff is pretty important to the adults, and, in the case of my mother especially, important to me if I'd only understood.  Her job and absence was necessary to keep us both alive, literally.  However, sometimes there's still a bad kitten in me, waiting at the window with a Great Big Grudge:

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I sent both images to my friend, with the above explanation.  Hope it gives you a laugh too.

Merry Whatever, and an invitation to you, and my Whole Fucking Life Story In Music

A year ago, a Brit jackanapes posed a question on Yahoo Answers:

What is the soundtrack to your life story?

Answering this will take a little thought.

They are making a film of your life from birth to the present. You have been asked to select twelve songs that make up the soundtrack to your life. This is not necessarily your favourite songs, just those that mean something.

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I answered:

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In order:
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1) Sail Baby Sail (folk lullabye)
2) If Mamma Got Married (soundtrack - Gypsy)
3) Another Pleasant Valley Sunday (Monkees)
4) 12:30 / Young Girls are Coming To The Canyon (Mamas and Papas)
5) Cracked Actor (David Bowie)
6) She's Leaving Home (The Beatles)
7) Going To The Chapel (Bette Midler)
8) I Am Woman (Helen Reddy)
9) Wasted Time (The Eagles)
10) If You're Going To San Francisco (Scott McKenzie)
11) La Boheme [entire -- only opera can capture the over-emotional drama of this time] (Giacomo Puccini)
12) Since U Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson)
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And he chose my answer as best, although out of about 20 answers, mine was one of only a few that answered fully.  We've had some fun emails since, and he turns out to be a totally shameless Brit flirt and fellow attorney, stranger than fiction. 

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Here's the challenge, in case anyone's read this far (and Merry Christmas to me, I really have to go to bed to do the Happy Present Opening in the am):

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They are making a film of your life from birth to the present. You have been asked to select twelve songs that make up the soundtrack to your life. This is not necessarily your favourite songs, just those that mean something.

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12 songs.  What would they be, no explanation needed?

When All You Have Is a Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail

For some reason (see Fragile Industries Manifesto) stories about women with hammers catch my attention.

I reprint the Manifesto here:

The Fragile Industries Manifesto

• Why the hammer logo? "Hammers" was my maternal grandmother's maiden name, and I like the matrilineal symbolism. My great-grandfather was a blacksmith, so there's that family history as well. I consider myself ready to undertake the Fragile Industry of rebuilding my life with that hammer. Rebuilding the Insconsolable Secret “that hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence.” (C.S. Lewis.) In taking up this blog I raise the powerful tool of language, of exchanged ideas, of humor. I am readying other devices from my toolbox, rusty, disused. The hammer is an ironic symbol of freedom and new life, of encouragement to me. Take it up if you dare.

Those who know me really well also know that hammers, real ones, figure in my own history in a significant fashion.  So from time to time, when women with hammers make the news, I have a peculiar interest.

In just the past few weeks, there's been a spate of hammer news:

Chicago Police Taser Hammer-Swinging 82-Year-Old Woman

CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago's Police Department is investigating an officer's use of a Taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who police say was swinging a hammer when they arrived.

Lillian Fletcher was rushed to the hospital after being jolted by the Taser last week, but has since been released, police said Tuesday.

Officials with the city's Department on Aging went to her home Oct. 29 to make a welfare check, and called police when they saw Fletcher in a window swinging a hammer back and forth, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday.

Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Fletcher one of them used their Taser, Bond said. The department is trying to determine if the officer violated department policy regarding the use of stun guns.

On Tuesday, Fletcher said officers had pushed their way into her home. ``They shocked me,'' she said.

Fletcher at times sounded confused during the telephone interview. Her granddaughter Traci Taylor told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandmother suffers from schizophrenia and dementia.

``My grandmother is easily confused,'' Taylor told the newspaper, adding that the elderly woman can be belligerent but is about 5 feet 1 and no more than 160 pounds.

WOMAN'S HAMMER THREAT TO NEIGHBOUR

09:00 - 15 October 2007

A Bitter dispute ended up with a hammer wielding mum threatening her neighbour, a court heard.The bad feeling boiled over just before last Christmas when Gina Marie Rogers, aged 38, of Margam Street, Cymmer, is alleged to have brandished a hammer during an argument with neighbour, Kelly Ann Clark.

Following the incident on December 17, Rogers, pleaded not guilty before Neath magistrates to putting someone in fear of violence and common assault by threats.  However, Ms Clark, told the court the threat had been real.

She said she had returned from a day out with her ex-partner, Paul Simon, and their young son, to see Rogers mouth an offensive word from her window.  Ms Clark said she responded with a wave and went into her house then Rogers "came running out hurling abuse" at Mr Simon  She said the next thing she knew the door clicked open and Rogers was in her hall way with a hammer.  Ms Clark said that Rogers raised the hammer and said: "I am going to kill you" but she was quickly grabbed, first by Mr Simon, then by Mr Rumph.

In the witness box, Rogers, said she had been indoors when an argument started between one of her daughters and Ms Clark which she tried to diffuse.  Her partner, Wayne Rumph, told the court he grabbed Rogers because he "did not want any more trouble" and said she didn't have a hammer in her hand.

District Judge, Richard Williams, found Rogers guilty of both charges sentenced her to 84 days in prison, suspended for 12 months, concurrent on each offence. Rogers was also ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work and pay £250 compensation to Ms Clark.

Woman hammers home cable complaint

Mona Shaw, a 75-year-old resident of Manassas, Va., took matters into her own hands to get the attention of her cable provider.

It seems that Mona bought into one of those "bundling" packages that cable companies like to arm-twist you about through endless phone calls and mailings. The service combines phone, cable and Internet service.

Her provider was Comcast. Without saying anything more about Comcast's reputation in the cable community, I will merely point out that there's a blog called ComcastMustDie.com that does a lively business on the Web.

Anyway, Mona and her husband scheduled a service call. The company failed to come on the appointed date. When they did show up two days late, they left with the job half-done.

Two days after that they cut off her service.

Mona and her husband decided the best way to get this misunderstanding straightened out was to visit the local cable office. When they arrived, a customer service representative told them the manager would be right with them and asked them to please take a seat.

They did - for two hours. At that point, the customer rep cheerfully announced that the manager had left for the day.

Shaw told the Washington Post, "They thought that just because we're old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains and backbone."

So after a weekend spent at low boil, Mona, armed with a claw hammer, visited the Comcast office again.

But there was no waiting this time. Mona delivered a few well timed blows to a computer keyboard and monitor and, for good measure, to the telephone.

"After I hit the keyboard," Mona said, "I turned to the blond who had been there previously, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and I said, `Now do I have your attention?"'

In taking decisive action, she lived the fantasy many of us share who exist in an era when customer service is as forgotten a concept as chivalry.

For her outburst, Mona was led away in cuffs. She received a three month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct and a $345 fine.

But she eventually got the service she sought. From Verizon.

And won a place in our hearts

Woman Fined for Hammer Fit at Comcast

Oct 19, 2007

BRISTOW, Va. (AP) — She was fined and got a suspended jail sentence, but Mona Shaw says she has no regrets about using a hammer to vent her frustration at a cable company.

"I stand by my actions even more so after getting all these telephone calls and hearing other people's complaints," she told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

Shaw, 75, and her husband, Don, say they had an appointment in August for a Comcast technician to come to their Bristow home to install the company's heavily advertised Triple Play phone, Internet and cable service.

The Shaws say no one came all day, and the technician who showed up two days later left without finishing the setup. Two days after that, Comcast cut off all their service.

At the Comcast office in Manassas the next day, they waited for a manager for two hours before being told the manager had left for the day, the Shaws say.

Shaw, a churchgoing secretary of the local AARP branch, returned the next Monday — with a hammer.

"I smashed a keyboard, knocked over a monitor ... and I went to hit the telephone," Shaw said. "I figured, 'Hey, my telephone is screwed up, so is yours.'"

Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, disputes Shaw's version of its customer service record and calls Shaw's hammer fit on Aug. 20 an "inappropriate situation."

"Nothing justifies this sort of dangerous behavior," Comcast spokeswoman Beth Bacha said.

Police arrested Shaw for disorderly conduct. She received a three-month suspended sentence, was fined $345 and and is barred from going near the Comcast offices for a year.

The Shaws did eventually get phone and television service — with Verizon and DirecTV.

She said many people have called her a hero. "But no, I'm just an old lady who got mad. I had a hissy fit," she said.

Home invasion: Auburndale woman fights off attacker with hammer

AUBURNDALE --Polk County Sheriff's Robbery detectives are asking for help finding two men suspected in an Auburndale home invasion.

It happened Thursday around 12:45 in the afternoon at a home on Woodland Trail. The victim was in her home and heard a knock at the front door, which she ignored. Then she heard a knock at the back door, and opened the door to see who was there.

She says two black men, both tall and skinny and wearing business suits, were standing outside her home. One forced his way into her home and asked for the safe. He then punched the woman several times and pushed her into a table.

The woman grabbed a hammer and battered the suspect until he left.

Grand Forks Woman Beats Man With Hammer

A woman is in jail Tuesday night, after severely beating a man with a hammer. It isn't clear yet what sparked last night's brutal attack.  The victim, 49-year old Kirk Phillips of Grand Forks remains hospitalized with severe head injuries according to police. His current condition is not being released.

It happened at the Kirkwood apartments on Seventh Avenue South along Columbia Road. Police were called to a domestic disturbance just before ten Monday night. They found the victim, Kirk Phillips lying in a hallway. Police say 26-year old Tiffany Linnell of Grand Forks struck Phillips in the head several times with a hammer.

Linnell remains in jail, charged with aggravated assault and criminal mischief. Police aren't sure what motivated the attack. Lt. James Remer says, "There was a relationship involved. However, there wasn't a dating relationship that we know of between the victim and the suspect. It was somewhat domestically related. The person who was assaulted, the victim of that, was a roommate to the suspect's boyfriend."

Tiffany Linnell was just in Grand Forks District Court. She did not appear to be able to mentally comprehend what was happening to her. She has a guardian, and a history of violence according to prosecutor Jason Mccarthy. Linnell is now applying for a court appointed attorney. Linnell remains in jail Tuesday night with her bond set at 11-thousand dollars. Her next court appearance is November 21. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on the aggravated assault charge.

She tried to hammer home point in parking dispute, cops say

by Staten Island Advance

Friday October 26, 2007, 5:41 PM

A woman from the West Brighton section of Staten Island was arrested after she charged a neighbor with a hammer during an argument over a parking space, police allege.

The incident began when Willet Ziegler and Juan Hernandez had a beef over a spot on Bodine Street, near their homes. The dispute boiled over at around 5:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon, when Ms. Ziegler ran after him with a hammer, and threatened to pound him like a nail if he didn't move his car, police said.

Ms. Ziegler, 27, told police he threatened to pummel her first -- so she grabbed the tool from her home across the street for self defense.

The fracas was settled with Ms. Ziegler's arrest, on charges with second degree menacing and fourth degree criminal possession of a weapon, both misdemeanors.

She now faces up to a year in jail.

Woman in Wheelchair Tasered To Death

A Florida woman in a wheelchair is dead after being tasered by local police at least 10 times.

Emily Delafield was not well. She was 56 years old, used a wheelchair and was mentally ill.

In April of 2006, Ms. Delafield called 911 because, she asserted, her sister was on the front lawn and wished to do her harm.

When the police arrived to investigate, they found not her sister, but Ms. Delafield, waiving two knives and a hammer at family members and the police.

The police, dealing with a middle aged woman in a wheelchair who did not have a firearm, went for their Taser.

One officer, according to the official report, tasered Ms. Delafield 9 times for a total of 160 seconds. That is 2 minutes and 40 seconds of at least 50,000 volts into a 56-year old female who uses a wheelchair.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

The Delafield family is filing a lawsuit.

Order from Chaos: The Tide Has Turned

This is my story of STUFF.  I've been engaged, with varying degrees of intensity, in the process of dealing with STUFF since I moved here to Bakersfield-by-the-Sea in 2004.  I moved here literally with the shirt on my back and nothing else.  My first order of business the next day was to buy a few low-cost changes of t-shirts and undies at Target.  Through the kindness of friends, my cat and car arrived before the week was out.  I should have known when I was well off.  Within a month, virtually everything contained in a three-bed, two-bath house complete with huge and full basement and garage arrived in a giant Bekins truck and took up temporary residence in a storage locker.  I had packed some myself, the rest was done by my ex, and although he did an excellent job, I didn't know, for example, if the box marked "XMAS" meant wrapping paper, ornament, holiday dishes, lights or that giant wicker reindeer.  And so on, through "Kitchen", "Books" and "Clothes."  Not his fault, but the sheer volume of STUFF prevented a careful catalog or editing. 

A few months later, I moved the whole mess into a medium-size condo, and once I had placed the furniture, and opened the boxes obviously containing the necessities of life, I stacked the mystery boxes to the sides of the garage and explored them only to the extent that internal storage and deep depression permitted.  Once I had enough clearance for my VW Beetle, a certain paralysis took hold.  My former manic enthusiasms were painfully demonstrated by the sheer number of boxes labeled "Fragile: Cakestands" or "Eggbeaters" or whatever other collection frenzy I had embarked upon during my years in San Francisco.  Just reading the notations brought on blue fugue states   Instead, I indulged in a new buying spree for art and craft supplies, and since I make, among other things, assemblage from "found objects" (translation: anything and everything, dirty, tattered and rusty preferred) I had free reign to collect STUFF that defied easy categorization.   I kept up with most of it in the craft room/studio, with shelves, a closet and a huge wardrobe crammed with boxes labeled "Doll Heads, Medium" and "Game Pieces" and, in desperation, "All Kinds of Metal Shit."  Still, eventually, inevitably, it got away from me over the next two years, despite occasional efforts to organize.   Piles of STUFF nearly prevented any movement at all in the room.

When I knew I was moving into two rooms and a bath in my mother's immaculate house which she had organized with a Virgo's OCD intensity, I made a herculean push and succeeded fairly well in sorting all non-art/craft possessions into "Keep & Move In" "Sell" "Donate," a carefully disciplined "Store" category and an amazing tottering pile of "Toss".  I packed up new boxes, neatly labeled, or simply opened and closed the existing ones and moved them into the appropriate class.  I placed ads in the paper, called any charity that made pick ups, and bagged the "Toss" and made midnight runs to the dumpster behind Ralph's.  It was grueling and took the entire month  Then came the day before the move and I realized I had 24 hours to tackle the art/craft STUFF.   I swallowed my secret emergency stash of three hits of speed (overlooked in my sobriety housecleaning, found during the bathroom clearance and hoarded for just this contingency). Starting at the door of the craft room, I filled a box with what came to hand, scribbled "CRAFTS" on the side, slapped on tape, toted it downstairs and repeated the process.  By that time the next day, with no sleep, two pizza deliveries, and a run to Target for a car full of more big ass plastic tubs, I had reached the back wall and the movers were ringing the doorbell.  The "CRAFTS" stack dwarfed all others.  Mom had promised me the use of her small but immaculate office for a crafts room, so now I had three empty rooms and half a garage to fill at my destination.  Practicing the familial talent for denial that has served me so well, I said, "I'll think about that tomorrow," and spent six months sorting, shelving and dealing with everything BUT the "CRAFTS," which ended up filling, floor to ceiling, the half of Mom's immaculate garage not taken up with her big ass Mafia car.

It has now been a calendar year since I've done arts/crafts except for educational excursions with supplied materials.  I have made half-hearted stabs at unpacking, with the unhappy result that the living room AND the garage AND the craft room were filled with boxes, opened and abandoned in despair.   There was no easy starting point.  There was no starting point at all.

After my trip to Minnesota for my book art tutorials, I was newly energized.  In late May, I began.  The pace was glacial, and some days I only had ten minutes before my back was screaming, or panic, hyperventilation and nausea set in.  Some days were better, and slowly, generic "CRAFTS" became piles of categories, reorganization of which were required sometimes as new sub-categories emerged, or a newly decanted mystery box revealed a fundamental flaw in the system. 

In the meantime, the office-craft-room-studio-to-be was remodeled: the very '80's padded brocade came off the walls, requiring resurfacing before the repainting could be done; existing shelving and cabinetry was cleaned and reinforced; new book shelving installed, twelve (12) tall plastic drawer units purchased, file cabinet refurbished and filled with folders; and computer desk delivered and "EASY NO-TOOL ASSEMBLY" accomplished with a great deal of profanity and perspiration.  All of this awaited the "two-weeks-promised-but-two-months-in-practice" purchase and installation of the Pergo floor (Thanks, Lowe's, grrrrrrr...) to replace the carpet, destroyed by my mother's late cat.

Several of the category piles have been sorted to a fine anality and are in place: paper (oh, yeah, it sounds easy, but if you Google "paper storage" or "paper organization" for crafters, you'll see how obsessive an enterprise this is); jewelry and beading supplies, ribbon and fibers and lace oh my, "fasteners" (I know what it means, never mind), some books, some scrapbooks, some of the "All Kinds of Metal Shit," all stamps and ink and stamping accouterments, and my entire collection of collage images equaled only by the Library of Congress.  Still to go: general office supplies, adhesives, computer-related miscellany, cloth, knitting, "All Kinds of Wood Shit", game pieces and decks of cards (tarot, playing, Beatle and Diana Rigg Avenger Cards, among others), and the remainder of the unfinished categories mentioned above.

All of this has been slowly driving my poor mother around the bend.  She grew up with clutter and in reaction makes Felix Unger look like a piker in the neat department, and although she has one or two beloved collections (jewelry, lamps, vases), she would be happy in a single well-lit room with one spoon and one bowl.  Her mother's clutter gene skipped to my generation, so we are each other's karmic punishment for our respective schools of OCD.  I cannot harness her abilities to conquer this insanity, however, because a) she takes one look at it and runs shrieking from the room, erupting in hives, b) her preferred solution is to grab kerosene and light a match, and c) she's on an oxygen tank, for god's sake.  I may be certifiable, but I'm not a monster.

Now I have gotten my ass in high organizational gear, and I'm actually having fun.  The garage is empty but for the Mafia Car and a new "donate" pile which will disappear on Thursday to benefit the battered women's shelter.  My labeling machine is my new best friend, and better descriptions appear on the drawers than "Miscellaneous Smelly Crap" (that referred to some mildewy yardage purchased at a garage sale for a song, now washed, ironed, folded and Febreezed into submission).  I still have my idiosyncratic poetic bent in description, but I know the drawer next to "Beads" (color sorted!) which I have marked "Sparkletown!" holds sequins and rhinestones.  By size and color.

I am now at the stage I call "sorting pepper from fly shit."  For example, I have far too many buttons to simply have a "Button" drawer.  No, they must be sorted into those with holes and those with shanks, by color, source material (cloth? wood? plastic? metal? shell?) and "interesting" from "plain."  I sit in front of HGTV by the hour surrounded by those wonderfully useful plastic hardware/fish hook/etc bins making decision after decision, feeling hugely competent and accomplished.  This flush of success has its drawbacks.  Last night I had a single endless dream of sorting, what I don't know.  It was very boring.  This morning, diving back into the button process, I was nearing the end when a button of wood and leather with both silver and gold accents came up.  I screamed "FUCK YOU!" at the defenseless thing, startling my mother from her paper and coffee across the table.  We giggled, my giggles began to verge into hysteria, and I knew it was time for a calm, restorative walk on the beach.

Which did the trick of taking my mind off of things.  Mostly because I discovered a dead and rotting body half-buried in the sand.  Really, no lie. But that's another story.  I'll get to that later. First, back to the buttons.

Fun in Minneapolis? You Betcha!

Long absence, well spent time, many stories to tell.

One now:  I find myself in that hotbed of sin, that what-happens-here-stays-here city, that home of Norwegian Farmers' Sons, Minneapolis, Minnesota (say it all together in the local patois: Meen-eh-soh-tah).  Am I having fun?  You betcha, gosh darn it.

All right, we can all put on our "Fargo" accents, but really, it's darn nice here.  I've arrived in May, which I had been advised is the, er, most tolerable month for a California beach girl.  One month earlier and you're still at risk for scraping frost off the windshield and the odd tornado, one month later and it's already lethally humid, hot, and the sky is black with mosquitos.  I do not get along with mosquitos -- the skin has barely closed over the supporating, oozing sores decorating my legs after a mosquito swarm attack two months ago in Sunny So. Cal.  I am THAT allergic to the little bloodsucking bastards. And cold?  I like a cold ocean fog, I left my windows open all winter to the dismay of my mother, but that's mid-coast California.  I remember one short visit to Sioux Falls, SD, in March, crossing a parking lot without a hat, and my ears fell off.  They made a "ping" sound, rather like glass wind chimes, when they hit the asphalt.  So here I am in May, when, according to my friend who has a farm downstate, "it looks like Heaven, the Heaven they told you about in Sunday School."

With that in mind, I scheduled for May14-21 a week of tutorials ending in a weekend intensive class on the art of the book.  Time to stop pussy-footing around.  I don't know that what I do is art -- that's such a loaded word.  But while art depends on inspiration, the judgment of others, the fickle winds of trend,  the craft of what I do requires training.  Book making, book binding, paper making -- these are all trainable skills that will impact whatever I do.  Learning those skills under the auspices of a Book Art center seems the right approach.  I don't want to work for a library conservancy organization repairing important 15th Century incunabula (earliest examples of printed text in book form) although that might have its attractions.  I want to learn these learnable skills and go from there.  I contacted the few major book arts centers in San Francisco, Manhattan, Minnesota, and the University of Alabama ("they call Alabama the Crimson Tide, they call me Deacon Woo" -- Steely Dan) and Iowa.  No response from Manhattan.  Of course.  San Francisco replied that they had many course offerings, and I should simply come to town when something of interest was offered.  Very egalitarian.  U of A and Iowa both sent form letters that set out their University offerings and no more.  I already knew I didn't want another fucking degree -- I wanted to know what they knew without the 3-year investment in time and tuition and beauracratic BS.  Minneapolis, blessed Minneapolis, home of People Pleasing People, sent back a personal e-mail, signed by an ascertainalby real person, asking, "What do you want to know?  We'll teach you."

Better than 3 wishes from a genie.  Imagine that -- a free exchange of knowlege.  It only took the entire continent and the miracles of the internet.  Said ascertainably real person received my effusive reply, and I set up this week.  Real person (aka: Jeff Rathemel) has arranged for four separate book artists to teach me Tues-Friday for several hours a day and the rest of the day I get to play in their fully stocked studio, applying what I've learned.  I'm humbled.  And excited.  For me, this is the golden ticket to the Willy Wonka factory, the key to the FAO Schwartz toy store.

Tomorrow, I learn from a renowned book artist for three one-on-one hours about off-beat book bindings and using found objects in said bindings and books, with an eye to altered art and altered books.  This is my jumping-off-point, because I do altered books and I incorporate all sorts of weirdness into them, but I want to go 3-D -- flat stuff is just a matter of eye and color and glue.  Try to work in a computer motherboard, or driftwood, or a primitive fertility carving, or rusty metal, then I need help.  We are going to her studio for this because this obviously involves

STUFF

which requires storage and transport and hell, Mohammed has to go to the mountain.  I am currently crippled with stuff.  I can't wait to find out how a Real Artist Deals With Stuff.  And, I get to jump into 3-D, which is where I need to be.

That's just tomorrow.  Jeff has built me a week of magic, exactly and intuitively according to my interests, which I described to him over long heartfelt e-mails.

Wednesday: Coptic Binding: one of the most ancient book forms: a stitching of pages into book form that is more of a weaving art than simple page assembly -- so beautiful in its result along the spine that to cover it seems a crime.  One practical advantage of coptic binding is that the pages lay flat at any point in the book.  No swirling pages, a perfect flat relationship from left to right.  I love that.  Hands free.  For a business-related application, think of wedding guest books -- how frustrating to inscribe one's good wishes for the happy (ha-ha: it's marriage, how can that ever happen, never mind me, sorry, the cynic escapes)  couple while wrestling with preceding or following pages.  Or any number of other applications.  It is lovely, a braided macrame (forgive me, I mean that nicely) spine.  It is also mind-numbingly hard to learn just from the book examples -- you really need a hands-on instructor.  And again, I get to play with it for hours afterward in the Book Center Studio.

Thursday:Papermaking with Jeff.  I have a confession.  About 8 years ago, I was asked for my Christmas list.  I held my breath till I turned blue, kicked my tiny heels and threatened a full public hissy fit meltdown unless I got a papermaking kit.  My duly intimidated spouse came through and got me the standard, $30 hobby kit for papermaking.  I was as excited as I could be.  The thing gathered dust untill well after the divorce and last year I finally broke down and used it.  The result was three pages of grey pulpy flat material that disintegrated upon any attempt to manipulate it, nothing stressful, just folding.  I love paper.  Obviously, half my garage is devoted to amazing examples of the paper maker's art.  Maybe I just go for cheap showmanship, but I love paper with inclusions -- flowers, leaves, legible chunks of the original junk paper source material.  When I first moved into my loft in SF, in '93, I decorated the huge walls with the biggest examples of this amazing stuff I could find at Flax Arts (the motherlode of amazing paper).  I thought these 3x4 foot pieces stood by themselves as art pieces, maybe with the mere addition of a swath of threads, stitched randomly, or a single dried rose.  I approach beautiful paper with reverence.  The real practice of this requires overalls, blenders and beaters, a great deal of mudpie mess, and I'm jazzed. 

Friday: Japanese stab binding and other entry-level decorative bindings.  I'm not sure what this involves, although I decided to make a book in '94 and pulled a design out of my head that was in essence a Japanese Stab binding.  I spent days (and nights of creative dreaming) diagramming the threading.  I was, it turned out, reinventing the wheel.  This is the sort of gathering of pages that can use gorgeous fibers in a simple but neatly contoured web that never shoulc be covered. 

Hopefully the forgoing will serve as the intro for the Saturday-Sunday marathon of Bookbinding II, which gets into the technical areas of things that look like what we call regular books: stitching on linen, that lovely bit of embroidery between the spine's leather or bookcloth and the paper, especially the arcane piece that peeks over the back of the gathered pages into a lovely roll.  If you've seen really old books, the leather on the spine is rounded, with bulgy bits, little ridges that stick out.  That's about as formal as I want to get.  And that's the weekend lallapalooza that winds it all up.

So..... that's why I'm in Minneapolis.

There's more of this song to sing, more story of How Our Heroine Becomes Repeatedly Lost en route from airport, The Blood-Curdling Tale Of The Internet Bargain Lodging (bloody Q-Tip encrusted into carpet, etc.), and How To Heal A Lingering Ethical Lapse.  Stay tuned, I'll be checking in over the next week.  Let me just say that many prayers have been answered, the most pressing of which was whether May in Minnesota would cure me of a lifelong affliction.  Short answer: It did, in spades.  Fuck Lourdes, come to Minneapolis.  Gee, it's nice.

Friday Poetry Corner: Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

From Twenty Poems of Love, Pablo Neruda.

I can write the saddest lines tonight. Write for example: ‘The night is fractured and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’ The night wind turns in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest lines tonight. I loved her, sometimes she loved me too. On nights like these I held her in my arms. I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes. I can write the saddest lines tonight. To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her. Hear the vast night, vaster without her. Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass. What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her. The night is fractured and she is not with me. That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off, my soul is not content to have lost her. As though to reach her, my sight looks for her. My heart looks for her: she is not with me The same night whitens, in the same branches. We, from that time, we are not the same. I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her. Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses. Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes. I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her. Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long. Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms, my soul is not content to have lost her. Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer, and these are the last lines I will write for her. Pablo Neruda

It's been over three years since the Ex said he wanted a divorce.  That was while the ink on our prenuptual agreement modification in his favor was still wet. I can't summon up a thimble-full of bitterness any more.  In all sincerity, I wish him well.  This poem is a more literate version of my recent theme song, "Since U Been Gone."  It may not have a catchy beat, but I find it even more moving . . .

Friday Poetry Corner - "The Big D, And I Don't Mean Dallas"

It's been a week since the divorce was final.  Last Friday , I felt pure relief.  I had a dream the night before that was rich with symbolism.  I said goodbye to old relationships, personified by My First Love, who appears in my dreams as an icon of love.  He gave me a handcrafted bed as a parting gift.  Then I gave birth to a son, and I knew my life had changed forever -- overwhelmed by love and a blessed responsibility.  The bed morphed into a beautiful cottage in the country.  I wanted to do nothing but sleep and eat and feed that baby.  I told a friend, "His mother is bright and beautiful, and his father has more money than God."  (We're still in Dreamland, OK?  There's a certain amount of wish fulfillment allowed.)  His father was indeed infinitely providing, a vague figure full of love and safety.  My new life was vulnerable, needed my care before it was ready for the big world, but I could do this, wanted it desperately.  A dream full of emotion and promise.

I'm so moving on.

This poem started in 1993 as an exercise in prepositions.  I wanted to play with the idea of them, and remembered a grammar school teacher's introduction of this form of speech.  She told us "A preposition is anything you can do to a cloud."  I wrote it in the context of where I was then -- putting away the last remnants of my first marriage.  For those hard of hearing, this is not about the most recent ex, it describes a different person.  Still, I find it relevant again.

A HEATED FLUID WILL EXPAND

While the years emptied gravid bottles for my thirst,

you touched me everywhere and shaped my edges with you.

You did and did: around under above in and out.

While my breasts fell and the smooth

creased and the mercury in me rolled this way and that

girls boys boys girls

a wavy flicker ruled by the moon

you were constant: there and here and resting hard

around my liquids until you were ready again to mold

that quicksilver.

Alembic and vessel, you heated me and held

about my steam in your form.

steam builds pressure.  I pushed

but I never thought you could break.  You did, in time:

over and through.

I am mist.  I expand like crazy knitting.

A painful release held back too long.

I surge out my windows and flow up Twin Peaks,

curl down goddamn 24th street, pass through

chrome spokes of the bike, of the baby carriage

all those cycles we abandoned,

seep over every cat until they all seem gray,

yours mine hers.

Even so,

this vapor persists, more invulnerable than granite.

Thrust, if you can, if I didn’t break that too,

in and out and over and through.  Only the wind

wounds me now.  Tell me,

what can you do to a cloud?

Friendship, Friendship ...

“Just the perfect blendship” . . . (from some silly song my dad and I used to sing together, speeding on the freeway in his little red convertible, a Sunbeam Alpine, an untrustworthy English vehicle, or is that an oxymoron?) ….. “when other friendships have been forgot (beat beat) ours will still be hot.  Oh razzle dazzle dazzle ding ding ding!”

I have no idea where that song comes from or if my dad made up the end scat section.

I also have no idea why some friendships last and some don’t.  I’m reading Christopher Kennedy Lawson’s book, Symptoms of Withdrawal, which I highly recommend.  He and his late cousin David (RFK’s son, who O.D.’d) professed to be best friends “to the bitter end.”  It certainly was bitter.  I’ve had marriages like that.  Lawson felt he had abandoned David in the last few years, but I hope he has resolved his guilt, because Lawson was battling his own demons of addiction during that time.  I can identify with that too.  In fact, the book as a whole resonates for me, and I highly recommend it.

But back to friendship.  It seems the longer the history, the greater the tests it must face.  In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, “The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with bands of steel.”    In other words, once you’ve been through enough trials with a friend to trust them, hold on to them tightly.  But what happens when the other lets go?

That’s happened to me three times in the last week.  Clear renunciations.  And here I thought I was getting better at this stuff, at least in the last month.  I may explain my absence for the last month or so some other time, but in essence, I’m trying to reclaim myself, clear away the wreckage I’ve created in my past, and create a brighter, richer future.  At first, I was furious.  But some of the work I’ve been doing told me that anger is a symptom, and the cause is sadness, disappointment (which implies false expectations), and hurt.  Well, I’m a pain diva.  I can trumpet my woes to the world, poor me, and use it as an excuse for all kinds of self-destructive – not to mention other-destructive – behavior.  And I particularly fear rejection and abandonment to a near-pathological level.

People have told me, “don’t stop before the miracle.”  It’s hard.  As my last poetic post tried to express, there are times one reaches out for support and it is merely an illusion.  I think one of the key concepts of A.A., for example, is the idea of faith, or support from a Higher Power.  There is a non-theistic version of the 12 Steps that replaces external support with internal support found within oneself.  That takes a lot of strength that some people coming into the program don’t have, or at least haven’t discovered, so the Higher Power concept is comforting.  I believe in H.P.  I also believe that there is H.P. to be found everywhere and within everyone, including one’s Self.  (Note capital “S”.)  Not selfishness, but acting selflessly, gives one a true Self.  I have only woven a tenuous, spider-web fragile self thus far.  I used to have more, but I’ve managed to destroy a lot in the last few years.  I’m trying to rebuild.  Thus the title of this blogsite.  I guess that’s a Cliff’s Notes-version of the poem.

So I can’t blame the people involved.  I’ve been a particularly trying asshole.

The good news is that in throwing out my nets, my web, I’ve discovered some other strong supports, and – surprise – like Judy said in The Wizard of Oz, “they were in my own back yard all along.”  My mother, who is performing miracles on a daily basis for herself and me.  My brother Michael, who has certainly endured his own trials, yet has a miraculous and enduring compassion for others.  My cousin Ginny, another miracle.  Houston, who will surely gain space in heaven reserved for those who generously ladle out love and laughter in equal measure.  My friend Anna, a fellow super in the S.F. Opera, who has continued to maintain long-distance contact and love.  The same with Jaryn, my dear friend since law school.  (We have been each other’s bridesmaids and more, several times, with varying success, which is another story). My newer friends David, with his intelligence, affection and depth, and the Bubba, with his devotion, and Steve, another Red Cross worker, with his faith and old-fashioned goodness.  There are more resources available than I thought, and probably more that I’ve forgotten.  Listen up, guys, I am grappling you unto my soul with bands of steel.  And gratitude.

Still, “Scarecrow (and you know who you are), I think I’ll miss you most of all.”  Saith St. Judy, patron saint of the self-destructive.

Oh razzle dazzle dazzle ding ding ding.

Mmm, Mmm Good -- Salmon Chowder

  I used to live on San Francisco's Fog Line.  A completely sunny day was rare at our house.  The Pacific's eastward flow of fog and bitter-cold wind would engulf us by late afternoon, if not earlier.  The Mission District, a half-mile away, would bask in its warm microclimate while I, shivering, lit the fire and wrapped myself in sweats.  On such afternoons, when considering dinner plans, my mind would turn to bubbling pots of stews and soups.

I have always loved to cook.  An obvious reason to enjoy cooking is if one enjoys good food, which is certainly true for me.  But more than that, I enjoy sharing food, especially cooked in quantity, even with total strangers.  A bond is made when one breaks one's own bread with another.  I had watched my mother, a very good cook, receive strokes from family and friends for her efforts and set out to become a great chef, with sometimes comic results.  I prepared my first solo dinner when I was about 8 or 9 out of "The Betty Crocker Cookbook For Boys And Girls" (an early gender consciousness-raising title, considering this was the mid-60's) for my godfather and "uber-mench" figure, Hal.   I will have to write a separate post about Hal -- he was a good and beautiful man.  He was watching me while my parents were out, and I rewarded him with (and I am not making this up) "Happy Face Dinner."  It consisted of a meatloaf base baked in a pie tin with eyes, nose and mouth sculpted from mashed potatoes.  I believe peas figured into the mix somewhere, too.  I served this abomination to poor Hal, who consumed it with every indication of delight, and probably great lashings of catsup to get it down.  Out of my hearing, my mother apologized to Hal when she returned.  "But it was GOOD!" he said loyally.  I had nowhere to go but up from "Happy Face Dinner."

Nearly forty years later, I still come a cropper sometimes.  A few months back, I invited a friend for dinner.  This was the first dinner I had prepared for him, and I wanted to set the proper gourmet tone.  I knew he was vegetarian, with the occasional fish thrown in.  No problem.  I had been reading several books about Italy and its cuisine (Marcella Hazan's Complete Italian Cookbook, Italian Days, Under the Tuscan Sun) and conceived a meatless menu of Tuscan relish (featuring roasted garlic, olives and pimento, among other good things) to spread on baguette toasts as a starter, while I completed the polenta with wild mushrooms, and caprese salad (fresh mozarella, tomatoes, basil, with a dash of balsamic and fruity olive oil).  My friend sampled the relish and politely put down the half-eaten appetizer.  He asked about the main course.  With some embarassment, he told me, "I don't think I gave you a clear idea about my food limitations.  Not only do I not eat meat, there are three foods I loathe: olives, mushrooms and eggplant."  Shit.  If I had made the eggplant side dish I had considered, I would have hit the trifecta.  "Oh, well, scratch plan A, now it's time for plan B," I said gaily, but inwardly I gnashed my teeth.  I found some cheese to go with the baguettes, finished the polenta and set it aside, and put on a pot of water for pasta.  Plan B involved Trader Joe's bottled Marinara sauce and linguine.  Only the caprese salad was salvaged.  I'm not sure, but dessert may have included coconut, which I now know is also on the Will Not Eat list.  Henceforth, I check every ingredient before preparing food for my friend, and we have shared many successful meals since then.

What happened to the Tuscan Relish and mushroom polenta?  It was served with much fanfare the next night to an appreciative audience.  Like so much of provincial cuisine, it only improves by the next day.  (Incidentally, that meal marked the Bubba's first understanding of the concept of wine pairing.  The Bubba's idea of a good drink is lemonade or a Long Island Iced Tea, not wine.  But I served a Chianti Classico in the old-fashioned straw-wrapped bottle and told the Bubba that it, too, was from Tuscany.  The Bubba, eyes wide, cried, "Hey, this wine is GOOD with this food!" I saw a 40-watt bulb light over his head.  He now also likes Pinot Grigio with fish.  I feel like Annie Sullivan.)

So now it is fall, and even though I live in My Little Town on the California Coast, sunny and temperate year-round except for the occasional monsoon or landslide, I'm still dreaming of soups and stews.  Last night I made a fabulous Salmon Chowder.  It will be even more flavorful tonight after a day's rest in the refrigerator.  This is safe for the lacto-ovo-fish vegetarians among us and is fabulously healthy, except for the butterfat (and what is life without butterfat?).  As the cookbooks always say, serve with a crusty loaf or soup crackers (which I dislike, but to each her own) and a green leafy salad for a complete meal.  Great for casual entertaining.

SALMON CHOWDER

• 1/4 C butter
• 2 medium or 1 very large yellow onion, chopped coarsely
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1 quart vegetable broth
• 4 pounds red new potatoes, scrubbed (unpeeled) and sliced
• 1-2 C diced bell peppers (green, yellow and red for color is nice)
• 1 1/2 C corn (frozen is fine, even good quality canned -- save the juice and add to:)
• 1 quart milk (whole)
• 1 1/2 pounds salmon fillet, cut into smallish chunks (remove and save skin in one piece)
• salt and fresh ground pepper
• paprika or chives (optional)

In an 8-quart stockpot (non-stick is best), melt butter over medium heat.  Add onions and bay leaves, stirring occasionally, until onions are tender but not browned.  Stir in flour and cook and stir over low heat while it bubbles for a minute or two.  Stir in vegetable broth, 1 cup at a time, mixing until smooth after each addition.  Add potatoes, bell peppers and salmon skin and cook at a low simmer, covered, until potatoes are just tender, about 20 minutes.  Remove skin carefully and discard.  Add corn, milk and salmon.  Mix well and heat just below a simmer for another 20 minutes, covered.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  (Can be held and refrigerated at this point.  Just remember not to let boil when reheating.) Serve garnished with a dash of paprika or minced chives.  Makes about 4-5 quarts.

This is not a gluey-thick chowder, yet has a rich mouth-feel.  If you like your chowders to double as wallpaper paste, increase the butter and flour accordingly in equal quantities, but I will not be held responsible.

While I'm on the subject, TTSD#3: "Hymn 43," Jethro Tull

I'm listening to Jethro Tull and having a fully-sensory deja vu: I am rolling down some dark suburban street, nearly past my curfew, in Linda C's gently aged Toyota sedan.  The car probably also contains Patty aka: Patrice R., and Steve Hutchinson, my dear late poet friend.  I am 15 or 16.  We could be in a more sober condition, I must admit.  It would be Friday night.  Saturday night was date night; Friday night was Friends night, and this group gathered regularly, behaved stupidly, laughed immoderately.  We were all in love with one another in various spoken and unspoken ways.  We were all in drama class and creative writing, so obviously we were queer, and treated as such by a lot of the high school.  We knew we were better than the proles could ever suspect, and were precocious and not a little insufferable.

Like all children, I loved rituals.  One of Linda's rituals, which became our group ritual was her rhythmic pumping of the car accelerator to the chunky mid-chorus hook of "Hymn 43": ka-whacka-ka-whacka-ka-whacka (et seq.).  Unless we were really wasted (c'mon, it was the 70's, no lectures) the full expression of th