Sorry March 8, 2007

When I started thinking about making this blog thing a few months ago, I solemnly swore to myself that it would not be one of those “things I did today blogs”. This promise was probably some crazed byproduct of the meta-meta-social ego-contortions that I undergo every time I think too hard about blogging. So, when I promised that to myself, and by extension, to you, my readership, I think I was probably lying. Yeah, I was totally lying. Maybe I can at least make this commitment: I will at the very least try cop to my real motivations when I slip into days-of-our-lives-mode. Sure, ok. In honor of this realization and its accompanying commitment, here’s a list of things I’ve accomplished in the past week*:

*Really just an effort at bucking myself up in light my current chest cold/heavy workload. I am a star! Plus I do things!

This week I:

– Had several writing center sessions from which the student seemed to walk away with a renewed sense of purpose regarding their assignemnt and gentler/more confident/more ambitious sense of self as a writer.

– Wrote multiple entries in this blog thing, one of which I have not posted for fear that it is too maudlin but give me some time I’ll work my way up to it.

–Checked several items off my “I Never Knew I’d Always Wanted to Do That Until I Actually Did It” list. Things like “dancing around my apartment with two Palestinian friends, singing Hava Nagila”.

– Baked two batches of chocolate chip cookies, one for an event, one for consumption with aforementioned Palestinians. Extra radical transgression points: I used the tollhouse RECIPE but another kind of CHOCOLATE. Suck it, capitalism, I’ll use you how I want to!

–Celebrated my dead grandmother’s birthday by wearing the vintage rhinestone necklace she gave me a few years ago and wondering– is she 75 now? Or is she still 74? Decided that she is still 74. Felt bummed.

–Wrote a poem which does not seem to suck, two creative essays, 1/3 of a paper on Langston Hughes and several business-y emails.

–Cooked, apportioned and froze some food for later consumption.

–Attended a session at the DC Social Forum and (maybe?) made some new friends.

Ok, that’s enough.

OH WELL OK March 7, 2007

Well, kids, it’s snowing again in the district today and let me be the first to announce that jimmy crack corn and I don’t care. Or rather, I do care, or else I wouldn’t have set my alarm an hour early just so I could check to see if my class/work combo was canceled today (it is not). What I mean to say is that I refuse to get in a snit about it. I will not be bothered by this fucking snow.

Sure, it is annoying. And wet. And means I have to wear my hiking boots to campus, thereby ensuring that my ankles will chafe and it stings oh how it stings and my lotion bill for this month will probably skyrocket. It’s all good. I have a space heater. And a…lot of…many blessings for which I am surely most extremely thankful. And I refuse to shit on this exciting meteorological event! I refuse to be negative about an occurrence which has undoubtedly put stars in the eyes and roses on the cheeks of the seven DC area children who still give a crap when it snows!

Besides! Snow means long underwear! And I love long underwear! It’s true. Anyone who has seen me scour the lingerie section of a thrift-store, a special twinkle in my eye, knows that I love long underwear. If it is under forty degrees, I put a pair on, and I’ve never been sorry. Besides the fact that it is practical, it adds a certain cuddly feeling to cold, stiff blue jeans. So, in honor of today’s snow, by which i am not at all bothered, I offer you a short list of long-underwear tips.

1. Make sure that they are close fitting. They can’t be baggy or they will bunch and your pants will not fit.
2. Don’t buy them new. It is silly to do so when you can get them for fifty cents at most thrift stores.
3. Wash them on hot after you buy and before you wear. We’ve all heard the story about the guy who got the crabs from the pair of thrift store pants.

Ok, those are all the long underwear tips I have. The list seemed like a better idea in my head. Give me a break, it’s snowing. And I have a chest cold. Good day to you sir.

Get Ready March 4, 2007

Four weeks and three days ago my grandmother lay in a hospital bed in the apartment she shared with my grandpa. I sat on the queen-sized bed next to her, shimmied as close to the edge as I could get, my elbows asleep, holding one of her hands in both of mine. Everything about her looked different than I was used to– her skin, her eyes, her hair. I loved it all anyway. All I wanted was to be near her. Everything that I could do for her– and there was little– felt like the thing that I was born to do. I had never had that experience before– when you know with certainty that there is nothing more important than exactly what you are doing, right now, just this way.

It sounds strange to say it, but I have perhaps never been more content in my life than in those moments that I passed next to her, touching her shoulder, tipping the mug to her lips. It surely doesn’t make sense, because both of us– me and my grandma– were struggling mightily during that time. She was struggling to make an end for herself that felt right, I was struggling to find grace in the middle of cataclysm, preparing to watch my own life split wide open. I remember watching her sleep and thinking, this is loving someone. This is it. When you find that whatever they are at that moment, that is what you adore. When doing the smallest things for them is what you were born to do.

Four weeks and three days ago my grandma struggled to sit up in her her hospital bed. She couldn’t. I helped ease her back down.

I asked her, “Is there something you want, grandma?”

She said, “I want you to know how I feel.” She said, “I’m ready to go”.

I still don’t understand how someone can be ready to go. Selfishly, I don’t understand how she could be ready to leave me. But I tried, I am trying, to put my trust in her. I asked her, “Are you sure?”

She said, “Yes. I’m ready.”

I told her, “Ok”. I told myself, “I’d better get ready.”

And when it happened, in some ways I was. I certainly survived with soul intact. In other ways, though, readiness is a concept that just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. At every moment of her illness, I imagined a string of events that stretched before me, each of which I thought I would surely not be able to endure. I will not be about to keep my composure when I see her very ill. I will not be able to see her dead body. I will not be able to help put her body into the ground. But I could, and I could, and I could. And each time, I did. It’s now that’s the trouble.

There’s nothing left to do. There are no more obstacles left to mark. There is just a booming absence, and a life stretching far ahead. In almost all respects, it is a life I am excited about and grateful for. It feels expansive and fresh– her death has made my life seem limitless in ways that I had not previously considered. I look forward to living it– so many moments are so sweet. Why then, at odd intervals, do I long so much for that close room, and her strange breathing, the unfamiliar texture of her skin and the deep, deep terror of those last days?

Away We Go February 22, 2007

After tonight, after tommorow’s adventures with Baby-G and a few hours at my other job and a stint of packing and a round of dishwashing and another night’s sleep and a quick class, I will climb into the car and head home to North Carolina with my dearest of friends, Loyal (that is clearly not her real name, but loyal she is, and so she will be called).

It is with breathless anticipation that I look forward to the whole affair– both the trip with Miss Loyal, whose stellar driving skills and penchant for grrrl folk make her the ideal traveling companion, and the time in my homestate, whose dual affects of calming and inspiration on me cannot be overstated. Most importantly, of course, NC contains my family– my dearest friends and my surest due north– but there’s also all my my wonderful pals, exciting, inspiring movement and community oriented projects, delicious, nutritious and socially conscious foods and just that special something that comes from knowing just where you’ve ended up, if only for the weekend.

While there, I’m already lined up for some hard-core family davening at the old synagogue– my twelve year-old sister, Old Dog, is becoming a Bat Mitzvah in May and that means attendance every week, ma’am. I’m also imagining some sort of gathering late Saturday pm (into early Sunday am, mayhaps) involving the darts, pints and superior french fries that Milltown has to offer. Other than that I’m looking forward to celebrating my Mama’s birthday and getting in some good snuggling with my girls– Old Dog and our sisters Doodles (age fourteen) and Naughty-Cakes (age six). It’s been a hard year for us all and we do deserve our snuggles.

It will be wonderful to see and hug my Grandpa. I’ve talked to him frequently since I got back to DC after shiva for Grandma but I’ve often longed to be with him. He has lost his favorite person and all I want these days is to comfort him and try to make him happy, however I can. I think it will be pretty sad to go to their apartment and find everything rearranged, but I couldn’t be prouder of him for going ahead and setting things up according to his current situation. I try to remind myself that my grandparents talked often and with frankness about this very reality, and that my Grandma wanted nothing more than for us to be ourselves, as we are, right now. I was hit with a wave of missing her terribly during class today, so I allowed to myself to make two lists about her, which was really fun. One is a list of everything I could think of that she liked to eat best, the other of all the little names she used to call me. Doing this, living without her, is the greatest challenge I have ever undergone, but I am doing it, so good on me.

So, now. Those of you in NC, I’d love to see you on Saturday night, likely around ten or eleven. Drop me a line and I’ll fill you in. Those of you not in NC, who the hell are you and how did you find this blog?

Eight on the Scale, Stinging February 21, 2007

I miss my grandmother. I long for her in every sense– I want her touch, her voice, her smell. I wish for the past to repeat, for the future to compress itself and arrive with her intact. It is a consuming desire.

Someone told me once that people who truly have experience with pain have a whole language around it– these are the people that won’t just tell you that it hurts, but how– they can articulate the difference between a stinging pain and a burning one, a shooting pain and throbbing. Likewise, as I travel further into yearning, I am intrigued, almost comforted, by the diversity of my unfulfilled need. The soft waves of longing that roll over the terrain of hours. The tugging, breathtaking ache that grips my chest in a single moment of realization. I am ashamed at how alive I feel in these sensations– how alive my grandmother feels as well. I am struggling to find a way not to depend on them, but it’s hard. There is great pain in wanting her, but no boredom– I am enthralled every time.

Monday: Baking February 20, 2007

Today was Monday, one of two days of the week that I spend with Baby-G, my 19-month-old partner in crime. Baby-G and I have been spending time together since August, and he has quickly become one of my favorite friends in our nation’s capital. Although he has accosted many a stranger with his near-hysterical friendliness, I like to think he harbors a certain love for me. I am certainly fond of him, and with good reason. To start with, he graciously allows me to spend time in his large and well appointed suburban home, eating his foods, blasting vicious indie rock on his state-of-the-art stereo system and chop chop chopping veggies with his full set of razor-sharp Wusthof knives. When he is feeling especially generous, I am also allowed to cuddle with him.

More importantly, Baby-G posses all of the qualities I find most essential in a dear friend: he is a born communicator, has excellent social skills, tries very hard to be kind and is of diverse interests. It might also be worth noting that he posseses another quality that, while not among my foremost criteria, is shared by almost all my friends: he is very, very cute.

It’s a good thing he’s cute too, because he passed several hours of today in a snit such as you really can’t imagine, unconsolable except by the most random and unpredictable measures:

You want a hug? No.

A drink of water? No.

To read a book? Absolutley not.

Uhhhh, this filthy spatula? What took you so long?!

Hystrionics passed, it really is nice to sit down with a cute boy and a snack, and we happened to have prepared just the thing earlier in the morning. Monday is baking day for Baby-G and I (Thursday is Montgomery County Thrift Store And Destruction of Barnes and Noble Kids Department Day), and when we found Patricia Wells‘ cunning recipe for olive oil brioche, we were so immediatley seduced that we almost forgot how utterly uppity, bourgie, obnoxious and self congratulatory that fucking book is. This woman is a smug sandwich on smug bread:

I have a house in France!

I like to roast whole cod in a sea salt crust!

I host charming, effortless dinners for forty featuring wild squab that I slow-cook in my handbuilt outdoor woodburning oven over grape-vine charcoal because I am independently wealthy and spend all of my time ‘cooking’ and by cooking I mean fetishizing my peasant neighbors!

Never mind that every recipe we’ve ever made from her book tastes ambrosial, she really gets on our nerves. Baby-G stuck it to her just before nap by detroying the dust cover with his teeth.

Sadly, this brioche recipe was no exception to the rule– it was both easy and delicious. Damn her. After a quick jaunt to our favorite co-op, an akward incedent involving the Ergo and my exposed buttcrack, a graham cracker break and a diaper change, we divided our dough into two portions, mixing one with chopped parano cheese and dried dill, the other with chopped crystalized ginger. After the rise, during which we both napped, we formed our dough into tiny rolls, filling the ginger batch with a few squares of Green and Black Maya Gold chocolate per each.

I’ll post this recipe soon, because both varieties where totally killer. I would have liked to have maybe substituted a quarter wheat flour in the cheese batch for some added complexity and health blah blah blah but I didn’t think to do it. The co-op sells local Spring Mill wheat flour in bulk, which means those of us in the know can bake bread and revolutionize the ecomony at the same time. Now we’ve just got to set the DC area up with its own version of the Plenty. SO hot right now!

The fruits of our labor were quickly gobbled up by my evening class, and now I find my self in the library, smacking my lips and gearing up for a metro ride home. If I get home before 11 I will allow myself to watch the DVD special features for Saved while enjoying this amazing tea from my homestate. If I get home after eleven, I will probably still allow myself to watch the movie and drink the tea. We’ll see.

As for Baby-G, he’s back with his familial handlers now, but if he’s smart he’s resting up for Thursday because we are SO hitting the thrift store early. All the old ladies there love us (they give him free toys and call me “the cutest nanny I’ve ever seen”) and it’s the ONLY place in town to buy 35 cent sambuca glasses. Tally-ho!

Who I Am February 19, 2007

I am a young radical woman from the american south, currently living, schooling and working in washington, dc.

I am committed to and excited about being a sister, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, friend, teacher, student, organizer, doula and writer.

I believe in people’s ability to create change. I believe in words. I like to go on adventures and hear good stories. I think giggling is fun and so is listening to a very sad song. I don’t ever want to be a “professional” anything. I believe that mental health is as important as physical health. I believe in the talking cure. I am against the US occupation of Iraq, the US-supported Israeli occupation of Palestine and the destructive, opportunist interventionism of organizations like the WTO, the Worldbank and the FTAA. I acknowlege that nothing is simple. I want to be optimistic. I wonder often about cultures– how they’re made and how they change. I love live water (rivers, lakes, streams, oceans). I love old-time and folk music because that’s what I listened to as a baby. I love babies and kids. I like to go out to eat at delicious food-places, and to cook at home. I love local foods and am very proud to serve and eat all deliciousness that my home state has to offer. I believe that access to proper nutrition is a human right. I have little faith in the current political system and a lot of faith in my community. I love blueberries, brussels sprouts, fresh-caught perch and homemade noodles. I long for my grandmother. I believe that every parent should be supported by a community. I love to read. I love to make things. I am excited about the future.

I hope to use this journal to chronicle the things I do on a day-to-day basis, and perhaps distill my thoughts about them a little more cleanly. I’d like to make a commitment to write in this journal every day. Comments, responses and challenges are welcome.