Failing the Test for Witchcraft

Did I tell you all I have a witch’s tit? I’m getting it cut off in a couple of weeks. But I feel like I can now tell you the true meaning of the term “colder than a witch’s tit.” Because the thing does get creepily cold. I don’t think it has any blood going to it–it definitely doesn’t have any feeling. I can pinch it as hard as I can between my fingernails and don’t feel anything and don’t draw blood–and there are times when I touch it and it is so cold. It’s like touching a corpse, if you’ve ever done that. You’d think it’d be at room temperature or slightly warming, seeing as how it’s sitting between a warm body and the room, but no. No. It’s often cold to the touch.

And yet, out of morbid curiosity, I can’t quit touching it. And thinking, “Wow, this is what all of me will feel like when I’m dead. This is literally what my skin feels like absent pumping blood.” It’s both really distressing and really fascinating.

And weird to think that, in some eras, if I were accused of witchcraft, there’s the proof–the place where I suckle the Devil.

How’s that for heebie jeebies?

Things I Hear

–I hear that a couple of the stories I’m working on are good.

–I hear that Project X is chugging along.

–I hear that I’m somehow both not working ICMC this year and my parents aren’t coming down. So, I may have an actual Memorial Day weekend filled with… I don’t know. Whatever it is that people do on Memorial Day weekend other than go to Belmont.

–My roses are starting to bloom, as are the peonies.

–I’m feeling a little stagnant. I know it’s just the pending birthday blues. But lord almighty, I hope Mary Oliver doesn’t ask me what I’ve done with my one wild life this week or I will just have to cry and admit I spent most of it oddly and in ways I feel uncertain lead to anything.

–And yet, cool shit has happened. And I feel happy.

–So, I really do think it’s just the blues. Nothing is wrong. I’m just getting older and I feel a longing for something I can’t quite put my finger on.

You never know when you’re going to need a straw or an extra set of chopsticks at work.

Dancing with a Memory, Crying Teardrops of Her Own

I can’t remember the last time I heard Dwight Yokum’s “Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose.” It’s at least been five years. It may be closer to ten. But sometimes I find myself singing without realizing I am doing it and this morning, I was singing that song, from start to finish, like I knew it. Which, I guess I do. The brain is a funny thing. How music lives in us is strange.

I submitted a couple of stories.. I asked around about some others. I did all I can do by this weird thing that consumes me. And now I’m going to work on an afghan.

Here is My Bellybutton

Ugh, people. Sorry it’s been so crappy around here. The truth is that I’m lately feeling like it’s more interesting to listen than it is to talk, which makes for difficult blogging. It’s like, I wish I could read comment threads full of you guys without having to start them by saying something worth commenting on. I’m not down about it or anything. I also like listening. I’m just saying, being in a listening and reading mood is hard on a person’s writing. You can’t breathe in and out at the same time.

I’ve also not worked out a good system for writing when the Butcher is here, which means I’m feeling a little constipated in that regard. And, you know, it’s kind of weird. I went so long with having Project X to sweat over and then the Think Progress stuff and The Hooded Utilitarian that to have everything just be basically over all at once… well, it means I have to find a way to pick back up the work I most want to be focused on.

On the other hand, I got some good feedback on one of my stories, so, if I had some time to work on it, I totally could. And I think I’ve figured out the problem with another story. So, if I had some time to work on it, I totally could.

I’m hoping I can do this summer what I did last summer and take Fridays off. That would give me a good stretch of alone time I could count on. And I would love to go spend some more time in the garden at Traveller’s Rest.

I’m also secretly dreaming of a way to get into Glen Leven.

So, that’s me. Mostly listening and dreaming. The writing will come around again.

How I Know Spring is in the Air

I’m having a very lovely day. And it’s a Tuesday. Which is usually my worst day of the week. I hope we got some rain up at the house. I have tiny seedlings who need it. No sign of hollyhocks, yet. I’m anxious to get those back in place.

And I’m ready for flowers. So, come along, spring.

THIS!!!

This is exactly what I’m aiming for in my life, and the feeling I get looking at those is exactly the feeling I want people to have when they read some of my shit.

Just an Observation

It’s weird to discover that your life can make no sense in two directions at once–like this terrible mess can be happening on the one hand and on the other hand, you’re being asked if you want to come look at what some local artists are doing to see which ones might be the ones you want to work with.

My soul feels a little like taffy, “how the fuck is this my life?”ing in two directions at once.

The thing that is difficult is that, my whole life, my family has been in a defensive, protective crouch. Bad things are going to happen. Don’t do anything or say anything that might catch the attention of those bad things and make it worse.

And I have a strong instinct to huddle down right now. But it just can’t be done. I have to do this cool shit.

And so, I think, part of what I’m feeling, too, weirdly enough, is guilt. Because I cannot give this situation the attention it deserves. I am all out of more than a handful of shits to give, which I gave last night. And now, I have to focus on this stuff that makes me happy.

There should be a story about a guy who regularly drowns. Like literally dies. And somehow comes back only to drown again. Sincerely drowns and is sincerely dead and then sincerely returns to suffer and go under again, no matter how much help he gets. Would you blame the people who stop throwing life preservers, I wonder?

New York

After I got out of grad school, I went to New York to become a publishing industry bigwig. I pretty much failed. On a lot of levels. But most basically at the level of being able to live in New York City. It was too big and too different and I couldn’t find people I liked nor did I have any idea how to find people I liked. Everyone I liked there was just by accident and there just weren’t that many.

Eventually, I went to New Jersey and hid in my aunt’s basement and felt like a failure–like if I’d just been tougher or stuck it out longer or known to move to Brooklyn not Manhattan or whatever–I could have done it, but that I fucked up without even knowing what I was fucking up.

It was a really difficult time in my life. I’ve failed at things I wasn’t very good at. And I’ve failed at things I didn’t give a shit about. But I’d never failed to do something I really, really wanted to do.

But I did.

Tending

One day, many years ago–okay, maybe not that many, but some–I thought the ancestors said to me, “tend.” Which seemed a weird thing to get whispered in your ear and also, perhaps, a wise thing. Everything does need some looking after.

In that spirit the Butcher and I moved the rose to a spot where it should be happier. I planted astilbe where the rose was unhappy. I fed all the roses and cut out some privet. And then I was sore. So sore. Honestly, no wonder babies cry. All those muscles doing new things for the first time. Possibly they would be happier if we rubbed them all down with Bengay at the end of the day. I wrote a thing. I sent an email making sure I’d gotten a part of Project X right. I finished a book I needed to read to write the thing I just mentioned. I did some stuff to get the sunny end of the garden ready for spring. I picked out which plants I’m going to let flounder there again. Ha, no, this will be the year something grows there. I swear! And I vasolined the dog. Which is odd.

And the Butcher ate all the cookies. Which makes me sad.

The Song I Sang This Morning

I occasionally realize I’m singing toward the end of my walks. It just dawns on me slowly–that I hear someone singing and then, a few seconds later, that it’s me. I don’t know how often this happens. I want to say not very, but it could be that I’m singing all the time while walking and just only occasionally notice it.

Today, I realized I was singing right as I was singing “Take me for granted, leaving love unsure.” And I was like “What the fuck song is this?” It was weird. Like, clearly, this is a song I know well enough to sing to myself when walking. But, trying to play “Name that tune” from “Take me for granted, leaving love unsure?” I had no clue. And the idea of singing a song I couldn’t recognize was so startling to me that I, of course, stopped singing. Which meant that I couldn’t hear how the rest of the song went. So, all morning, I had no idea what fucking song it was.

Until I thought to google just that part.

But here’s what weirds me out most about it. It’s the same thing that always weirds me out when I have panic attacks or when I have those weird heights-related bouts. That feeling that I am just this thin veneer of this particular kind of consciousness riding around on an animal. Like 90% of the time, I get to have the illusion that my conscious self–me with all that being me entails–is the same thing as the body you see before you. And then, sometimes, almost all of them fear based, I get it slammed into me hard that there is this animal always with me that has its own opinions on things–like whether we can cross that bridge or step up to that ledge–and when the animal wants to be in control, it is. End of discussion.

It’s kind of terrifying. And this whole singing thing makes me also feel like it has its own opinions about music, about the things it likes. Aretha Franklin, apparently. Not that I don’t also like her. And it could be worse. What if this animal were a big classical music fan? Ugh, that would be boring as shit.

There are many cultures that have this idea that you don’t have just one soul–that, instead, your innards, your non-physical you, is split up into all kinds of interconnected overlapping parts. (Like in Haitian voodoo where you have a petit bon ange and a gros bon ange and your gros bon ange is what goes wandering around when you dream or what gets replaced when the lwa ride horse. But there are other people who divide the soul up into even more parts.) Even we in our secular way try to acknowledge this–ego, id, superego. We who are not one, indeed.

Anyway, its unsettling. But sometimes nice.

 

Social Anarchist

The other day, I decided that I’m a social anarchist. As far as I can tell, social anarchy isn’t a defined thing, but I ran it past the Professor, who laughed and told me to go reread Mill, and she seemed to buy it.

This came up, in part, because I broke my stupid rule about reading Pith comments and, in the middle of being insulted, I started to get fascinated. The dynamic is, somewhat, that commenters feel free to say terrible things about me, justified by the fact that they think I’m terrible. But the funny part is that they then are limited themselves to terrible me, because no woman who fit their definition of nice would read those comments and want to subject herself to them.

But that’s not the whole of it. There’s also the way the comments lay bear people’s social hierarchy expectations. It’s in part because people are anonymous that it’s easier to see, I think. When you’re face to face with an older white guy, for instance, and he kind of naturally takes the dominant role in the situation, it’s sometimes hard to tell if that’s just because of confidence, expertise, or whether it’s just the belief that, in any given social situation, it’s his job to be the leader.

But when those cues are missing–in other words, when you can’t tell he’s a white dude because it’s the internet–the presumption of being the social top dog stands out. And the anger at not being properly recognized as social top dog also stands out. Seriously, the next time you’re tempted into a long raucous comment thread, check out how many comments are “I’m always an asshole, but I am very, very upset about you being an asshole and I am, in fact, going to call you on being an asshole and then, be an even bigger asshole when you don’t shape up.”

We probably establish social hierarchy all the time by sorting out who gets to speak the most and who gets the most attention, but because in person it feels more natural, it’s not as easy to see it happening.

And, weirdly enough, I’m pretty sure I’m a terrible social anarchist in many ways, but I do believe in the knocking down and poking fun at of those social hierarchies.  Even at the same time that I reinforce a lot of them, all the time.

But there’s something funny to me about being a terrible social anarchist, so I’m sticking with it.

I am a Sentimental Fool

I picked up the things I needed framing last night. I’m going to make the Butcher help me hang them this evening and then I’ll get pics for the curious. I was surprised by how much I was moved by seeing the poster from Poetry Sucks in a frame. It just made it somehow seems like a real thing. I mean, it was, but… I don’t know. Last October was really amazing in so many ways. I just hope I get a chance to do more awesome stuff like that.

And the Tarot Cards look terrific. I can’t even begin to tell you.

Dizzy, My Head is Spinning

I was attempting to drive home from Gallatin, doing interstate speeds, when all of a sudden, I was hit by a wave of dizziness. And then, a few minutes later, another, and then, as I was searching desperately for an exit so that I could get off the road before I passed out, another.

I never did pass out. But I had the slowest drive home, ever. Then I ate and it seemed to improve, though I still had these intermittent moments where it felt like things were going to start spinning, but they didn’t.

I had chalked it up to low blood sugar because of the massive improvement once I ate.

But then, this morning, I’ve had a couple of bouts where my ear–inside my ear–feels really hot all of a sudden, and then I feel like I can’t quite tell what way is up. It doesn’t last long enough to develop into me being actually dizzy. But it’s enough to make me wonder if I’ve got some kind of inner ear infection. And yet, this is so much better than yesterday, that I’m going to give it a day and see if it doesn’t clear up completely.

The thing I want to talk about, though, is that I don’t really feel like I have a fucked up relationship to food. And yet, a year ago, when the doctor told me my Vitamin D levels were low, I didn’t really take it seriously because how could a person like me not be getting “enough” of anything? Oh, ha ha ha ha. And then a year later, I have dangerously low levels of Vitamin D. And then, yesterday, even though it was dinner time and I’d been basically snacking my way through the day, I didn’t eat because I wasn’t hungry and it’s not like I need to eat or anything, right? Ha ha ha. Again.

I think I nourish myself poorly, though not always intentionally, because it’s hard for me to believe that this body, which is so much, could lack things–could be malnourished.

And then I had the unfortunate opportunity to hear all about my Aunt and Uncle’s new diet, because I called to try to confirm a legend that my Grandpa’s uncle ran booze during Prohibition, which involves them going gluten-free and drinking at least 100 oz. of whatever liquids they like (as long as they’re gluten free) a day. So, three liters of Coke? Perfectly fine. Hell, I guess three liters of potato vodka is technically allowed, if you can drink it without dying. So, it’s like gluten-free but with a fad-diet twist.

Which I should go on immediately, because I’m fat, like my uncle.

They’ve been on their three-liter diet for a week.

But even aside from that, a thing that completely bums me out about PCOS is that I thought that it would buy me some “Something’s wrong with Betsy. We never talk about what’s wrong in our family, so let’s never talk about her” space. But no!

So, bleh. I don’t have anything more profound than that to say. Just that it stood out to me that, in a 24 hour period where I seem to have completely fucked up my blood sugar to the point of giving myself waves of dizziness by not eating enough, it’s still very important for me to hear about how much I should diet.

He literally said to me, “Being fat is fun until it isn’t.”

What the fuck? When does the fun start? Am I being cheated out of the fat-induced fun? I kind of feel like it. I have fun, don’t get me wrong. I’m just not seeing how being fat has brought that about.

Black Hairy Tongue

I woke up this morning with a black tongue, like I’d been sleep-eating licorice. I wanted to coin the term “Black Tongue Disease,” but the Butcher insisted I had moldy tongue.

Then, at breakfast, he found on the internet that “black hairy tongue” is a side-effect of Pepto-Bismal. So, everything is fine. Except that he keeps making fun of me for having a black hair tongue.

Brain Vacation Continues

Did I tell y’all that I got so sick of my brain that I decided to send it on vacation? Um, or maybe more realistically, lock it in its room? Seriously, by Sunday morning, I had had it with that brat and its piss poor attitude so I just decided to ignore it and the dog and I went to the park and then did some housework and then organized the individual squares of the afghan for making larger squares and got a couple of larger squares started.

Then yesterday I watched TV.

The brain is not allowed to read fiction or write fiction until the brain can hang out here with a better attitude about the work it does. Because, otherwise, I cannot bear it.

And you know what? Sunday night and then last night? I finally had some god damn restful sleep.

The Check Engine Light

Stupidity continues. My Check Engine light came on on my way to work. I can’t get it into the mechanic’s until tomorrow, though. My dad blithely announced that he’s going in for a CT scan on his head this afternoon, which will be fine, but when we’re playing “attack of the anxious funk,” it’s not helping.

Heh.

“Attack of the Anxious Funk” should totally be the title of my autobiography.

To the Big Tree

I think because it’s so cold the dog has refused to walk in the morning. Today we at least went to the big tree next to the AT&T building, but no farther. Things are happening. Project X is where it’s supposed to be at this point. I’ve got a blog post submitted one place (fingers crossed), a blog post ready for Think Progress, an interview conducted for another post, I’m caught up on Pith. Rachel’s squares are finally chugging along. All the big squares are tucked and I’m on to the medium ones.

I’m feeling a little frazzled, though. And sad. I think it’s just the weather, so I’m trying to just play through, you know?

Just sometimes I’m really aware that the world is changing and I’m not sure that my markers for what is successful matter much anymore. So, I need some new markers. But I don’t know what they are.

I mean, I think this is successful. I think this is everything I could have hoped for.

I’d like that to sink in to my stupid brain.

“Is there anything soft left of you?”

I had a dream. I don’t remember what it was exactly, except for that in it, I was walking backwards across a field to try to get to two men who were having a conversation without startling them.

And that was the question the older one asked of the younger one: Is there anything soft left of you?

It woke me up. I felt like I had eavesdropped by accident on a question the Universe had for someone else.

Dreams are strange. Over the holidays I kept having this dream that I was introducing people to a very casual acquaintance of mine (I like him, but don’t really know him and our lives intersect maybe once every 18 months.) as “my old husband.” Not, “ex-husband.” “Old husband.” Like we’d been married in some other life.

When I was in college, I knew a guy I always felt I’d known already. Getting to know him, I experienced it all the time as “Oh, I forgot you did that.”

I don’t know. Brains are weird. They do their own things, make their own connections. I don’t think I really believe in reincarnation, but sometimes I wonder.

So, who knows? Maybe once someone asked that of me–is there anything soft left of you?–and now all there is is softness and yielding and giving way.

Small Victories

The only thing I’ve used a Kleenex for in the past hour is to wipe my chin after dinner.

Knock on wood, I think I’ve turned the corner.

Still Sick

But at least I’ve moved on from the “watching the clock until I can take the next dose of cold medicine” portion of the cold. I really hate cold medicine. It helps, but I react to it poorly. Last night, for instance, I kept seeing a cat in my peripheral vision where there was no cat.

So, that was weird.

I’m feeling better today but still not great.

Happy New Year

I hope it’s not true that the first of the year is a preview of the whole year, because I am so very, very sick.

The Past Pulls Close

Nothing in this whole wide world is ever over.

I’ve got a beer sitting out for any Ancestors who want to stop by and a fire to keep the darkness at bay.

This is it, the darkest plunge into the deepest night. There will be colder nights, but none so long, not until we swing around to this position again, the spiral ever twisting–the moon around us, we around the sun, the sun in its arm of a twirling galaxy.

We have not been here before. And yet, we keep coming back here.

Have a drink, my old gone friends. Come on out, into the light. As Gillians says, let me see the mark death made. And I will show you the scars on my body in return.

I tell the same story over and over again. And always I put myself in the middle of it. So angry at the betrayal of Paradise. Still holding out hope I’ll find a comfortable way in.

Always ready to fuck over the people who have been so good to me for the brief affections of those who have fucked me over.

Spinning, spinning.  Waiting, knocking.

And who waits at my door? Who knocks to be let in?

I really hate this time of year. It just feels like grief–stale and fresh. And I wonder when it happened. I wonder what, exactly, it is. And I can’t say. Only that I recognize that it’s gone.

I miss those folks so much sometimes that it takes my breath away. Who knew me like they did?

And yet, it was me who let go. It’s always me who lets go. The dance ends, the partners switch and I am gone.

Spinning. Slipping. Gone.

Until we’re back again, in the longest night. Me and my dead things, waiting.

Trying to make peace.

Weird Dreams

I had a weird dream that the Haunted House at Disney Land was walk-through and I was there with some guy I know who I won’t embarrass by mentioning. But there was real danger and we were separated. And looking for each other to escape. And then he stopped wandering. He just went to the heart of the house and waited for me there. And I, who had not stopped running hysterically from room to room did find him, rather easily. And we were safe.

And it was so brilliant that it woke me up.

But then all today I kept thinking, “How would that work in real life?” How would you know which person should stay still and which should keep moving? I guess it requires knowing which one of you is going to stumble around like a chicken with her head cut off no matter what.

Like I Told My Mom, I’m Boring

My parents called last night to ask if I wanted mint chocolate chip cookies or regular chocolate chip cookies. Why they called to ask when they have their hearts set on making mint chocolate chip cookies, I do not know. But then they wanted to know what I was up to.

And you know what? I am up to glorious nothing. I’m reading a book. I have three squares on this afghan to finish up, but I’ll probably wait until I need something to keep my hands busy while people are here. And I’m resting Project X.

It’s very nice. Like a calm moment between busy waves.