The Summer of Promise & Enterprise

quiescent:

One entry found for quiescent.
Main Entry: qui·es·cent

adjective Etymology: Latin quiescent-, quiescens, present participle of quiescere to become quiet, rest, from quies

1 : marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest

2 : causing no trouble or symptoms

- qui·es·cent·ly adverb

I'm half in love already.

three wishes

Little Rat calls Squirrel to ask for advice about blonde girls since (sadly, obviously) his own brunette sister doesn't know the first thing about real girls. You know what I mean, just like real girls with blonde hair. Girls who are pretty he says as we drive to the library. I overlook this slight in light of his serious desperation and the amount of time he spends fighting his new nemesis: acne. He shakes his head. I almost cry.

Summer vacation is practically here. Yearbooks arrived last week and Little Rat carries his around everywhere, flipping between the grainy picture of her small, sweet face -- smack dab in the middle of a row of B's-- and the front cover where she wrote (purple pen, mildly bubbly cursive):

You are a pretty cool guy.

Computer class was fun!!!

Maybe we will have some classes together next year.

Have a great summer!!!

Squirrel gives him sound advice. She is a good best friend to me and this means loving Little Rat as much as I do. Oh, just be yourself she says and then listen to him describe her blonde hair, and how he can't dislodge her from his brain, no matter how time he spends watching cartoons or mowing the lawn. Since the year is about to end, Squirrel and Little Rat decide that he should start by asking her if she's coming back to CHS next year for tenth grade? Does she have any plans for the summer?

Summer. Little Rat knows that it is do or die now. That vacation will be long and lonely with only a 2x2 picture and a generic inscription to keep him company. When he hangs up he is resolute. I ask him what he's going to do and he recites the lines that Squirrel suggested; words, she assures him, sure to work on even the hardest-hearted blonde. He looks out the window for a minute, quiet. I just wish I could give her the moon so she'd know he says. He turns on the radio.

*

After he died, she put her skillets and quilts in storage and moved to Jerusalem -- about as far away from where she began and where she'd been in between. We all loved her more, if that's possible, for this display of grit; this proof of true pioneer stock in today's day and age. From around the world, we watched happily as she found friends and carved out a life of her own after so many years of smiling through truly hard, sad times. The State Department issued a warning: AMERICANS GO HOME. We worried a little, but pointed out to each other that you can get hit by a bus, crossing your own street. When it's your time to go, it's your time to go, whether you're standing on the banks of the Sugar Creek or the Jordan River. She called early on a Sunday morning, not with flight arrival information but with the request that we send her a party dress. Oh, I wish you could see this place in the spring, sweetheart. The desert comes alive.

*

We are dancing barefoot on the wide wood planks of the porch to Gillian Welch who, as he points out, (craning his neck back to look in my eyes) is strangely, strikingly beautiful with her buck teeth and knob knees.

Oh me oh my oh.

Look at Miss Ohio.

She's a-runnin around

with her ragtop down.

She says I wanna do right

but not right now.

There is the smell of the sea lingering in the air, mingled with pipe smoke and a little leftover rain. People are drinking whiskey, laughing softly, dancing. Someone throws a glass off the roof next door. It shatters in the street below but no one even looks. When I breathe in his shoulder, it is cotton and spice and sweat on his collarbone that fills my nose.

With your arm around her shoulder

a regimental soldier,

Momma starts pushing that wedding gown.

You say I wanna do right

but not right now.

His lips are the tiniest bit cold by my ear when he whispers. I'm sorry about today. I wish I could always love you as much as I love you right now. There are things to say but it doesn't seem the time. I look over his shoulder into the black sky where planes fly in circles over the water, tracing and re-tracing their holding patterns, waiting to find the firm promise of the Earth below.

Yeah I know all about it,

so you don't have to shout it

I'm gonna straighten it out somehow

Yeah I wanna do right

but not right now.

fine line between

nice & kind

wish & hope

hear & listen

dream & delusion

him & me

famous last words

John & Lacey were going out when school ended in late May, just before the start of hurricane season. A few days before she left for Europe I spent the night at her big downtown apartment and her parents took us bowling at the their Club. She was an phenomenally good bowler, even as a seventh grader, and I can still see her so clearly, standing there in perfect concentration, her purple shirt tucked into her gap khaki skirt, her socks rolled down until they touched the tops of her own red bowling shoes. Prim is a good word for her. Sweet. Nice. She thought we were best friends. He's going to be so lonely this summer. Take good care of him for me.

1989

On summer evenings, Jim mows the lawn after dinner and Nadine pulls weeds from the flowerbeds laid out along the front of the white house. Three small kids chase each other around the front yard. They love the dewy dampness between their toes, the spring of the earth as it pushes back against the meager weight of their cartwheels. Once the grass is mowed into rows of green velvet, Jim pushes the mower back in the garage and the kids run out from the house, fresh from the tub, and buckle in. Nadine follows. She leaves the door unlocked.

At Dairy Queen they order Mr. Mistys, the sweetest mix of ice and syrup that paints their small mouths immediate, raspberry blue. Jim takes a drink out of each cup before passing it to the back seat. I have to make sure its not poison he says and the kids yell Daa-aad! Nadine likes the salt and sweet of chocolate and peanuts together and takes quick, neat bites against the melty pull of heat and gravity.

They drive to the edge of the small town, past the high school, along the Snake River, through the stand of Russian olives, until they are in the hills and sagebrush. There is nothing but the sky and the colors of the desert--the muted greens and browns and golds--and the sound of small mouths taking it all in, drinking it down to the last drop.

write

I have no ambition and far too much imagination for my own good. This doesn't look great on a resume.

I am committed, however, to finishing my book in the next two months. I will give it to my mother and Squirrel to read and Oprah, too, if she'd like a copy.

Welcome to the Summer of Promise & Enterprise.

I need to find a job.

lessons

IF a homeless man tells you you're pretty, it's okay to smile as you walk down the block.

Don't have important conversations at coffee shops. Do you want Starbucks to be the backdrop for your entire life? Well, we were sitting there at one of the little round tables and a HEAR MUSIC NOW sampler was playing in the background and I was stirring raw sugar into my fair-trade coffee and next thing I know he's down on one knee...

There is such a fine line between saying something that you need to say--getting it off your chest--and wasting your breath. Learn the difference; pearls before swine and all that. Tell people what they mean to you, but know the value of reticence, the meaning of reciprocity and its place in the equaion.

Once I knew a man who was an artist, but who supported himself by teaching He was helping me (minorly) with a project and I mentioned that I greatly respected the work of a former colleague of his. He said Ah yes. He is a good man and was once a close friend. When we worked together he always loved a certain painting of mine but he could never afford to buy it. I will never forget this -- the sinking feeling as this man plummeted in my estimation. If you can give or do something for another human being that brings them joy or comfort or aid, shouldn't you? It's just canvas and paint, words and time, metal and earth. Moth and rust destroy afterall, and miser can never be cast in a more favorable light.

The notion that boys are more immature, or less mature if you prefer, then girls holds some water when you are 13, 14, 15. It's true. There are physiological differences, no denying it, that account for the discrepency in maturity levels and the ability to link action with consequence, behavior with outcome. Now we are 24, 25, 26, and older. Now, we need to stop pretending that this gap is anything other than willfulness, self-indulgence. We are the only barriers keeping ourselves from growing up and living happily ever after.

Charles & Beatrix

Charles packed his suitcase and traveled East. Beatrix met him at the airport with a sign drawn on thick cream paper with her best charcoals: Welcome Charles!

On the way home, Beatrix took a wrong turn and got them lost. Don't worry said Charles. I enjoy a good adventure.

During the day they went to school and work. At night, they sat on the floor and cut pictures from old magazines and turned the pictures into cards. They sent these cards back West, to Charles' sisters and their grandmother.

It snowed one night and didn't stop for the morning sun. They stayed home from school and work and Beatrix made them big mugs of tea with cream and just a bit of sugar. All day, Charles and Beatrix watched the snow pile up.

I think I'd like to have a doughnut Charles said. They mixed flour and yeast, warm water, sugar and shaped the dough into balls and dropped them into the bubbling grease.

Late that night the snow stopped falling, so Charles and Beatrix tied scarves around their necks and set out through the drifts, down the street and up the hill covered with trees. In the clear air, under the full moon, they could still smell the maple on their fingers.

for JCS.

no guts, no glory

It is SPIRIT WEEK and today at the pep rally, I was the teacher representative on the 8th grade team for the popsicle eating contest. Together, 10 of my students and I ate 83 popsicles in 5 minutes. I ate 8; 3 cherry, 2 orange, 2 grape, and 1 banana that almost did me in. It was one of the more painful and gross things I've done recently.

We lost to the 7th graders but came back and killed them in the tug-of-war contest. The Spirit Stick is ours for another year.

mixed tape sing along

5 points for each correctly identified artist.

Winner gets HUGE prize.

I can smell cheaters from miles and miles away.

Side A:
1. "So near but you're so hard to touch"
2. "I like you so much I talk to everyone but you"
3. "He said you are the highest apple in the tree"
4. "When routine bites hard and ambitions are low"
5. "There's too many people you used to know, they see you coming they see you go"
6. "So you're brilliant, gorgeous and ampersand after ampersand"
7. A dreamer of pictures I run in the night --You see us together, chasing the moonlight"

Side B:
8. "She's delicate and seems like the mirror but she just makes it all too concise and too clear"
9. "I try to see it in reverse --it makes the situation hundreds of times worse when I wonder if it makes you want to cry every time you see a light blue volvo driving by"
10. "I'll see you next fall at another gun show. I'll call the day before like usual"
11. "Let's get together before we get much older"
12. "There's always time on the telephone line to talk about things to come"
13. "If I couldn't flow futuristic would ya..."

HINT: Sean Paul is NOT the answer.

how Little Rat got his name

It rained the day we arrived in Thailand. And the day after, and then the day after that. It rained the whole first month (July) actually, and most of the second month, too. At first we, my family (a father, a mother, three brothers and a sister) and me, lived in a little bungalow (#7) on the grounds of the resort owned by the proprietor of the school where my parents worked. This bungalow faced a little lake where Chinese ducks paddled in circles and it backed up to a stream running along the bottom of a ditch. The guards (boys with machine guns) who patrolled the property said not to go back there for fear of cobras, but I never saw a single one all the hundreds of times I ran darted across the cement beam, stuck in the mud. The grounds of the resort and the school were greenest green, tended by an army of gardeners who lived in the adjacent village. Craggy mountains rose up around us and at night, when it stopped raining, the sky was yellow.

Every morning my parents set out for the school, through the torrential, defeating rain, to try to get things in some sort of shape and order for opening day. This meant that we (a bossy, dreamy oldest sister, a brooding 14 year old boy, a moody 7th grade girl, and 2 semi-lingual Bulgarian dirtballs, 9 & 11)) were left in the bungalow to drink coke and watch MTV Asia and You've Got Mail. This movie, stuck randomly in someone's carry-on as an afterthought, was the only one not packed and sent in our shipment which was, at that point, still five months from arriving.

At first the five of us kids were homesick and a bit shell-shocked. Soon enough, though, that gave way to a raging case of cabin fever. The maids came and changed sheets everyday while we stood there, pretending we didn't mind their stares. We counted snails and lizards and stood under the sala of the bungalow and threw bread to the ducks on the rapidly rising lake. Before long, littlest brother could say every line of You've Got Mail by heart and we could sing the top ten pop songs from Indonesia. We slammed doors, locked each other out in the downpour and fought on the cold tile floor.

The moody 7th grade girl and the littlest brother went at it the most. She would boss him around and he would buck under her authority and pinch her. She would squeal and push him out in the rain or threaten to put spiders in his hair. His vocabulary was strange and flexible; it expanded at odd angles to accommodate the words rushing through his new life, with us, and in this place. Finally, he decided that he'd had enough so he came up with the worst invective he could cobble together and hurled it at her with all his might: You are a piggish squealing baby rat Queen! You are just a fat pig cow snack! For full effect, you must stop and imagine this fully: these words being shouted across a bungalow in Northern Thailand by a wiry brown boy, in a raspy little eastern European accent, who is crying and who hopes, quite understandably, that this sentence is as mean and damaging as he is furious.

When they came home that afternoon our parents loaded us into a jeep and we drove down the mountain road, lined with black scrawny chickens and mangy one-eared dogs, to the city below. We told them about our day, leaving out the bitterest bits of fighting, and of the new insult we'd learned from P. We are a family that does many things together and that afternoon, we threw back our heads together and laughed and laughed at the oddness of people, and words, and places .

The "Piggish Squealing Baby Rat Queen" caught on like wildfire. We turned it right back around and aimed it for P. and he has never escaped it-- not even now, many years and miles away from that day. For a long time he was Baby Rat Queen, and then just Baby Rat, which has evolved (with one eye towards his American socialization and -- hopefully-- normalization) to the less mortifying nickname of Little Rat. My brother may have started his life in a small village by the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. But Little Rat-- he was most certainly born one rainy afternoon in small bungalow surrounded by the craggy mountains of northern Thailand

cl

possible vs. probable - 24 (DC)

---

Reply to: your anonymous craigslist address will appear here
Date: 2006-05-16, 3:55PM EDT


Is it possible to take a list of characteristics or attributes (real or imagined) and spin them into a neat little paragraph that doesn't read as though you, the author, are terribly insecure, a raging egomaniac, or just plain old dumb? And then, supposing that you do come up with this sparkling but modest gem of shameful self-promotion, will it really move the reader, sitting at his desk in the middle of the day, to action? Could he really turn out to be a good thinker, kind-hearted, with a warm smile? It's possible, I guess, but is it probable? Now, that is the better, more pertinent question.

You tell me.

searching for a heart of gold

"I promise you will not be dissaponted in terms of myself being as cool as you. "
-- single white male on craigslist in search of single white female.

pop quiz

In Dante's Inferno, people looking for a job are relegated to which level of hell?

** Pre-VITE **

Have developed helpful method for sorthing through headache and stress attached to party planning:

Say goodbye to E-vites and hello to the Pre-VITE, the simple tool (NOT YET SEEN ON TV!) to help you measure your REAL popularity score and your friends' true fickleness factor!! With Pre-VITE anyone can be a successful social engineer.

Simply send out survey below:

Please fill in and check blanks as appropriate:

___ I would love to attend.

___ I will attend as long as ____________ will be there.

___ I will attend as long as ____________ will NOT be there.

___ I will attend unless I get a better offer from ___________.

___ I will come out of a sense of duty but will bring ______ & _______ to make the evening bearable

___ It sounds like fun but I like to keep my options open, as you already know.

___ Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't be caught dead there. Dream on.

___ I can't make it but I'll send my intern.

(copyright pending.)

Keep your eyes peeled for a Pre-VITE for Memorial Day!

for my mother

Saturday the sun was shining when everyone and their mother expected grey and rain so I went with my own mother to the farm down the road to find plants for our garden. On the way there we followed a pickup and when it braked suddenly, my mother's arm shot out in front of me; her mere (freckled) flesh and bone standing guard between me and windshield and beyond that--the wide, cruel world.

She does this often, and I laugh: her futile attempts at thwarting the laws of physics. My oldness, my supposed grown up status. The love behind this gesture, the way that it has not changed through all the years, all the sudden stops and starts on new roads in strange towns.

At the farm I trail her up and down through the rows of plants. As with everything else in her life, she had a precise vision of the way it should look and a plan for how to get it just right. She holds up plants, examines their leaves, makes measurements with her mind's eye and coordinates colors and heights. Two old men, in worn, sagging wranglers and feed company T-shirts follow us around and smoke unfiltered Marlboros. She chats easily with them and they take the plants she selects from her hands and set them in flats off to the side.

All day my mother and I dig and plant. We rip up earth that has not been moved for years, pulling out roots as thick as our fingers and the worms that sleep in the cool damp dirt. If this blooms the way I envision it, it will be so pretty she says over and over. The feeling of dirt under my fingernails drives me crazy and blisters begin to rise in protest across my palms. I'd rather be reading a book. I am working side by side with my mother, though, in the clear, warm light and she is happy; this is something after these past months of sadness and turmoil. So I strip down to my underwear to work on my tan and concentrate on how I am finally putting all my reading of Wendell Berry to good, practical, dirty-hands use.

Late in the afternoon, thick grey clouds bunch up over the river. I kneel in the dirt and heap mounds of earth around the thin, green stalks of my tomato plants while my mother puts tools away and sweeps the walkways clean. Already, the stalks are sagging under the weight of their own limbs so I push stakes into ground and tie the vines to them with small bits of floss. The clouds open up and rain, then hail, pour down. The thready tendrils and the thin yellow flesh of the buds wilt and tear under the weight of the water. The force of the rain pushes against the tomato plants, beats them down. I think of my mother's arm in front of me as I cut another piece of string and tie the small, young stalk to the stake. There are things we do, maybe senseless and futile, when we love something and want to see it grow.

Bitter Pills

Ezra Pound was a fascist.

Not all adults are mature.

Arthur Miller married Marilyn Monroe.

Virtue is its own reward.

make a list

Jobs I'd like to have:
- spy
- governess at a country mansion in Shropshire
- WW I nurse writing letters from dying soldiers to their lovers and mothers
- advice columnist

Things I either nail or fail miserably:
- parallel parking
- leaving phone messages
- pie crust
- giving hair cuts (ask Little Rat)

Words I can't come up:
- the lack of satisfaction that comes with being right is known as ________.
- _________ means that something (say, a book) was so good that you just want to expire right now, to leave life on this high note.
- When we expect the worst but hope for and imagine a miracle we are ____________.

Happiness money can buy:
- colorful mixing bowls
- a pound of bing cherries
- a box of envelopes
- lipstick

Dumb phrases I say to my students:
- Mouths closed, books open
- Being rude is never clever
- Would you like me to discuss this with your parents?
- Perhaps you'd like to rethink your position.

My ideal man is equal parts:
- George Clooney
- George Will
- George Straight
- George Foreman (ha!)

I cry when:
- Someone yells at me.
- I think of my parents getting old.
- the smell freshly cut grass hangs in the twilight air
- I'm really, really tired and am helpless and out of laughter.

off the rack

You've given it some thought and have decided that you're ready. You look around your life-- at the holes and the threadbare spots, the places that could stand some accesorizing. You measure and jot down your color and size specifications. You start to imagine how much better things will be. You're ready to do this. You know exactly what you want. What you need.

So one bright Saturday morning (possibly in the spring) you grab your list and your wallet and head for the store. This is going to be great. You hum while you walk across the parking lot.

Once inside the store, your heart begins to beat fast and crazy. So many options everywhere. Bright colors and interesting textures. Beautiful fabrics. You can hardly contain yourself. You start to grab things off the racks, dropping and trampling some in the rush to not miss out on the perfect item. Just the thing you're looking for. You'll know what it is when you see it; you've got your list to guide your search.

As the morning goes on, however, your frustration grows. In your excitement you snatch things up, only to find that everything is a little off. Nothing is as great as what you had imagined for yourself. Some things are okay, but nothing is exactly what you had in mind. You toss things back on shelves, throw them carelessly over racks. You want exactly what you want; you won't settle for less.

At the end of the day you go home, empty-handed, to watch TV alone.


2006 SPRING COLLECTION

H: Ivy League educated, good at sports, faulty memory, attractive, incapable of emotional intimacy, can't cook

I: Color blind , strong work ethic, loves kids, obnoxious laugh, cries a lot, rich, bad teeth,

J: Hilarious, takes great vacations, excessive body hair, shares similar values, jealous, bad kisser

K: Well-respected, nice singing voice, estranged from family, beautiful, prone to depression, terrific gardner

L: Life of the party, messy, problem solver, insecure, gives good presents, high maintenance

M: Good thinker, snores, emotionally stable, smoker, poor dresser, socially awkward, generous, possessive

IT'S a seasonal affliction, I hope -- this desire to do nothing but sit on the porch and eat purple grapes.

cinco de mayo

The small apartment building on Grand Avenue has a courtyard always full of shallow puddles and sour smelling flowers. Dirtball, LD and I live on the groundfloor, with a wide window facing out on the comings and goings of our neighbors. Upstairs in apartment E there is Liz --usually strung out and shrieking for her dog (Diego, chihuahua) to stop yipping. She works at American Apparel; when Creeder and I go in and flip lustfully through the racks, Liz doesn't say hi. One night she comes home at 2 am and has it out with her boyfriend on the steps by my bedroom window. I hear her pleading and sobbing (these words aren't really strong enough for the sounds she's making) and then his truck door slams. What false, flimsy barriers we construct I think as I lay there and listen through the wall to her cry and cry for hours, her life unraveling itself 10 feet from my head.

The people next door in apartment A speak Spanish. Through the screen door you can see beds in the living room and, when we sit down and add, we count 9 adults, 2 little kids on rusty tricycles, and a fat baby girl. In San Diego there are certain conculsions you can draw and we draw them, right or wrong. Most of the adults come home in fast food uniforms. Some nights Manuel and Maria put their baby in the stroller and wheel her out to the alley where they stand and talk and drink Mexican beer.

On a Friday afternoon, someone in apartment A pushes the play button and turns up the volume for the first time. Creeder and I have just come back from the beach and we are lying on the couch, laughing. Walking home we'd seen a ridiculous car --a huge BMW--black and big as a boat--the entire thing covered in neon Louis Vuitton decals (like a purse) including the tinted windows. The song plays once, twice, three times, before we let go of the car and the absurdity of this town and begin speculating on why the song is blaring on "repeat 1". We start making hatchmarks on the back of a Chinese menu. We get to 23 and then leave for a party, the song following us down the block.

They play it over and over again. Again and again and again for almost a month. The courtyard fills with this song and and the music spills through the open windows and dooors, into our heads. Liz screams down the stairs that she's calling the landlord. LD tries to translate the lyrics and Dirtball makes up her own. We live our lives on top of it and the song fades into the background.

The music itself sounds like dancing under red lanterns on a hot night. The man's voice is somehow strong and wistful at once. There are high trumpets in fanfare and guitars. It's almost like a waltz. It is a carnival, a funeral, a picnic under a tree. It sounds like a first kiss and unrequited love. Like longing.

One morning Creeder and I are tying our shoes for a run when she looks up and asks when the music stopped. Before I can answer someone knocks on the screen door. It is Graciella from next door. and upclose, I can see that her shirt has the Jack-n-the-box logo on it. She hands me a package delivered to her apartment instead of ours and I say gracias. She stands there, though, looking sheepish before finally saying something about music that I don't quite catch. I nod and smile, two skills perfected during my own foreign childhood. She can tell I don't understand so she smiles and turns to cross the courtyard.

It's okay. I know what you're getting at -- where you're trying to go, I want to call after her. Instead I shut the door.

tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes

Gilbert Blythe said being smart is better than being pretty.

sunglasses

Some mornings
when I am feeling
particularily leveled

I like to put on sun glasses
and pretend that I am
a movie star

with a life so
sparkling and glamorous
that even the sun

shines in my honor.

Poem for May

This perfectly sums it all up.

The Orange
By Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.

bulgarians

I show my mom the picture I carry around in my notebook. It is of her, very young, holding a baby me, and standing next to my father, who is wearing a powder blue t-shirt that says "JACK". His hair is long and he has a moustache. Apparently, it was okay back then.

Little Rat peers from the back seat. Oh sick... Dad just looks so creepy like that, with that moustache. He looks like he's from Texas. Is he like really a Texican or something?

***

You'll be getting some money for graduation, my mom says to A. It would be wise for you to save it to help you get started with your new life.

I know, he answers. I'm planning on using it to buy a white suit.

the weekend: 3 movements

Dancing Queen

Alan wore a bright red shirt, like me, and said "Don't worry. You can tell everything you need to know about your partner by looking them in the eyes and I've been doing this long enough to know you'll do just fine." He was old, real old, but his grip was firm and sure and boy could he ever spin a girl! When the fiddler stopped, he bowed a little with that old style courtly/country swagger that skipped my whole generation and said "That was lovely. Thank you." He walked away and left me standing there, dizzy and half in love at the end of the first dance.

The long rows of contra dancers ran the length of the whole hall and my friends dotted the crowd --- lowering the average participant age a great deal and significantly upping the style quotient. Throughout the evening I counted 28 sweat bands, 67 pairs of special dancing shoes, and one man, hair cut to look very much like an elf, with a baby strapped to his chest. A quarter of the men were shorter than me, easily, and my fourth partner David (after Will who seemed to be catatonic and set me back a good deal in progress) most likely spends his weekends traveling the Eastern seaboard, going from Renaissance Fair to Renaissance Fair. He was about 6''7 and before he even approached me, I'd pidgeonholed him as a computer programs IT systems analyst "I can really mess with your mainframe" snort snort sort of guy. What the heck, though, right? So, the music starts and I stop thinking about the tye-dyed bandana around his head and simply hang on for dear life. He almost swung me through the stained glass windows two stories up. It was glorious.


Pineapple Queen

While we're painting Mrs. Ford's kitchen, MA asks me me about humor of the absurd and I falter. I'm tired and my brain is still spinning from last night and anyways--I'm trying to concentrate because my mom always points out what an unskilled (putting it nicely) painter I am. My Christmas in April shirt is already covered with freckles of latex. So I don't have a good example for him but the work and conversation continue just the same and the laughter is plentiful and warm.

The house smells like urine and something dead. C and I whisper about this in the kitchen and I make some comment about it being the smell of decaying hope. (These are exactly the sorts of half glib /half poetic statements that fall out of my mouth so easily and make me wish I had a better filter. Balled up papers and plastic bags stuffed into holes in the floor and me and my frivolous self saying ridiculous things). We lean in closer to get a better look, through the grease and grime, at the wallpaper and see that the psychedelic squiggles are really stick figure girls wearing crowns and holding fruit. "I'm so happy to be the lovely, lovely pineapple queen" one girl is saying while the girl with pig tails and a tiara says "Don't you love summer and watermelon. I am the queen." I'm not kidding. So much royalty on four slanted walls.

So the afternoon goes on and we paint and paint and wipe and sweep and talk and laugh and hum a bit, too. I get to know these people a little better. My respect for their knowledge and commitment grows, my affection and thankfulness surge. The fresh white trim makes the rooms seem hopeful. "This is fun" we say to each other.

When it's time for MA and J to take the painter's tape off the wall J says "You know that thing we feared would happen...well, it's come to pass" and we see that the pineapple and watermelon queens are coming off with the tape. I start laughing. And then: suddenly, I have to leave the room because I feel a streak of hysteria coming on, a giant sadness welling up even in moment of joy.

See, the thing is that there are situations (the world of Monty Python) that are funny because of their absurdity--the sheer unlikelihood of their occurrence, the ironic possibilities that form in our detached intellects. And then there is the real world where you find yourself in an absurd situation: painting over decay and pulling pineapple queens off the walls, while floating in a deep deep pool of joy, basking in the incredible love and provision in your own life. Do you laugh or cry in these moments?

Queen of the Warm Smile
for Celeste

Your renewed commitment to
appearing approachable is
quite admirable, I'd say,
knowing as you do, first hand,
the ways that people (boys, mostly, if
we're being frank) take and take
before leaving you to wear
your strapless dress all alone.

If you smile warmly at a stranger
on the bus, and if his shirt
is free from holes-- if his style
gets him through the door at Wonderland--
I hope he notices the way you start to
sing along with the chorus the very first time
you hear a song, how radiant your smile
is in the growing summer light.