My Bed

I carried my bed to the curb last week and threw it out. It had been consumed by my house's mold problem. Man, I hadn't known the mold thing was that bad.

That was the bed I had built myself. I went to The Home Depot (apparently the more ethical hardware emporium,) and picked the salesman's brain as to what cuts of wood I should purchase and how to attach them. When he advocated the use of a screw gun I said, "What would Jesus do?" and he actually thought of glue before showing me the heavy-duty nails. I was pretty proud of myself when I finished making that nice, comfortable bed. Now it's gone.


You know what I need? An extreme home makeover. Oh, sure, I could get rid of a two-year-old mold infection by returning to the dehumidifying and air-purifying tactics I had used before my sister moved in and pulled the plug. But the house was doomed from the start. It's the same age as me, and the folks who built it probably had no idea that some silly people in the 21st century would still be using it as a house.

You know what Ima do? #1 Get an old van to sleep in; #2 Move ahead with plans to build a treehouse, budget permitting; #3 Do a really cool fundraiser towards a self-funded home makeover; #4 Meanwhile, I could find someone with a home video camera and make a video for the Extreme Home Makeover show. My sister and I are pretty good-looking and that might give us an edge in the medium of video.

My job couldn't pay for home construction if I worked it until retirement age. The folks I work for are amazing because they work like dogs and have no professional future except more work and a few more nickels. Maybe top administrators get $22K or $25K (versus my $18K) but nobody seriously gets paid. They just take on so much responsibility as to proclaim that they deserve to be paid.

Brain Dump

Someone somewhere wrote something alarmingly stupid, and it wasn't even Mike Huckabee or another expected source. No, it was some woman, some journalist, I think. I thought I'd kick off a blog post by responding to it because it just begged for a response. I thought about it in the shower. Unfortunately, now that I'm here at the computer I have forgotten it. Maybe it will come back to me later.


There's a mathematician who works in the same office with me, at an answering service. I showed him a proof I was working up, one that I conceived years ago while working with another answering service. Q.E.D. = the more phone numbers there are in the pool, the greater the chance that any one number will be the author or recipient of a wrong-number call. At first this may seem counterintuitive since each number added to the pool changes the denominator to x + 1, diluting the chance that any one phone will be involved in that kind of minor accident. But this geometric "dilution" (for want of a better word, since I don't know a lot of math words) is set against the exponential increase in call volume caused by the addition of one phone or number to the pool. This time I graphed each, then graphed -- ooh, if only he would give my scratch pad back so I could remember! -- the product of both graphs, which was to represent the increase in call volume multiplied by the share of call volume attributed to each phone or number in the pool. And can you guess what I got? I got a 1:1 slope! Assuming that calling a wrong number is a function of how many different calls you could possibly make, each number added to the pool will directly increase the average caller's chance of calling (or getting) a wrong number. Now, Donnell (my co-worker mathematician, real name) seems to like this a lot and says we're going somewhere with it. He suggested I get some empirical data and I said our boss probably had some -- reams of it, now that I think about it!

I've long forgotten how to construct / format / put forward a proof, but I had a nice demonstration. Sometimes in college when I was awake in class and could manage a clear head (chemical interference notwithstanding) I would put together a nice demonstration. One I'm particularly proud of turned out to be completely wrong but it sparked a lively argument in class. The tutor (at St. John's we had "tutors" in preference to "professors") came at it as something that was different and unfamiliar but which actually seemed to work. Someone else found the weak spot, and it had to do with my mis-identification of a triangle. But that was really fun. I enjoyed the process of discovery even though at length I discovered that I was wrong.

Let me digress to say please don't anybody take psychotropic drugs unless you're certain you know and agree with your diagnosis and know everything you need to know about the drugs. After all was said and done I returned to the clinic that prescribed my disastrous meds and was told that my diagnosis had been incorrect (and not revealed to me) and that the pills "probably [hadn't done] me any good" (to put it mildly.) If you have an inkling that a doctor doesn't understand you, don't eat the pills they give you. And how could they understand you? They're doctors; they don't have time for stuff like that. In the end I was told I was suffering from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, period. -- nothing I needed to dope up like a hippie for. If doctors didn't hire armies of lawyers to cover their behinds, I'd try to sue them for another try at an education.

Another thing about drugs -- patent medicines are based on molecules that are tweaked to be different from their natural counterparts precisely so that they can be patented. So unless you're so desperate that the cure (treatment, really) isn't worse than the disease, find a naturopathic doctor instead. Your body knows how to heal itself; drug companies know how to make money and bully the establishment.



Sweet sixteen. Every young lady should have that one day to dress and act like a queen -- one day to hold in her heart so it doesn't become an elusive dream. Someday she'll be toiling away at a dead-end job but she'll remember that deep inside she is that queen and always will be. She will have some idea of what that means because of the experience of a full-blown sweet sixteen party. Personally, I didn't get mine and didn't really want it. But it's more about women in general than about me. I have enough imagination so that I probably didn't really need my day to shine like that. But if every girl gets her day, nobody will be without that nourishing inner reinforcement.

Anyhow, I had friends who lent me gorgeous gowns to wear to parties, which more than makes up for wearing corduroys and a knit top on my sixteenth birthday and falling ill in the midst of the modest festivities.

Following this stream of consciousness I see Grey Valenti (real name -- why not?) a dear friend and a talented performer who had lots of awesome costumes. I don't remember whether she lent me any, but she told me where to get them -- Goodwill. Spot on, baby. I started stocking up. Grey also sort of lent me her boyfriend, in a limited way. It's like, I had a crush on this guy Max (not real name,) who eventually turned out to be going out with Grey. I still had a crush on him. She was still nice to me. He was still nice to me. And remember, I'm the girl who did the Charlotte Goodall routine all over campus. Grey stood back and allowed me to be a gushing, flag-waving cheerleader for her Max. Later on she would say, "No kidding, Kitty! He was nicer to you than he was to me that summer!!" Indeed he was. So if Max ever called and asked if I could do him a favor I'd say yes first and then ask what the favor was to be.

And the other kid who had a crush on Grey -- where's that sweetheart? Don't tell me facebook. I don't have time for facebook. Friend requests keep dropping into my mailbox. It's like "This is Your Life..." I don't have time for that. And what would I say to these people? Would I tell them that this is my blog, connecting my writings with my real name?

I've Got A Friend in Pennsylvania

My Pennsylvania friend Dave (real name) wrote me a letter asking if I was still around since he hasn't heard from me in a while. I wrote him this:

Still here. I get more email than Santa Claus. I've heard of some of those bands you wrote about. I especially like 10cc, "Love is Like Oxygen." I think the idea was taken from Napoleon's life, from the writing of his memoirs and from his college chemistry notebook. I don't know what to do about loneliness. It's epidemic. I've become one of those people who work, commute, do chores and that's about it. So how can people cultivate lives and friendships? Society will have to figure out a way to fix this. There is an economic incentive to fix it, too. Think about it, Dave; there's unused economic capacity because people are too busy to shop! I'll try to catch up with my blog this weekend since I'm not going to Pennsylvania (= I'll have some time to relax for a change.)

Overcoming Writers' Constipation

It isn't writers' block. It's literally constipation. And as I work through it, I'll probably get a call from Mother Nature herself. Just relax, honey. Relax and write it all out... at least some of it. Relax.

I don't have time for all the crazy demands of this life. I think the next thing I scratch off the list will be eating. There's no more time for it. I'll just drink diet shakes from now on, adding fish, nuts and salad enough to keep things moving. Besides, if I were to keep eating as normal, winter could bring back pounds that were hard to lose. And, boy, did I lose. 24 pounds. My mother said that I looked fat when I came back East in April but that now I look thin. I could, she said (and I agree) wear a bikini now. I can see where ten more could come off, though.

Oprah has this new diet guru who's 86 and really strong. He advocates eating mondo salads, like a pint and a half or something like that. I have found headache relief inside big bowls of lettuce. The stuff is magic. No, it's doubtless (some of)what the Lord intended for us to eat. Fruit, grains, loaves and fishes too, maybe. And doesn't the Bible say there's medicine in herbs? Anyway, I read this guru's diet in a Women's magazine, and it seems to me there is one thing missing in it besides calories. To wit, saturated fat. Isn't there an RDA or Daily Allowance or something of saturated fat that your diet can't work without? Reading this guy's diet made me think of cheese. Where was the cheese? Maybe Oprah and her new friend don't need sat fats? But I think I do. I think most people do, don't we? I think these nutrients just got a bad rap because 20th century folks ate too much of them, and also because some bad fats just happen to be saturated fats. But surely there are good sat fats that we need.

If I do diet shakes, salads and lean protein all winter ... wow, I'll have to find a way to exercise, won't I! In the winter, too. Now, that's a challenge.

Thinking to myself all day of what to write, I could have predicted that I'd be tongue tied when I sat down at the keyboard. Where did all the words go?

I called Nicola today. He's celebrating the High Holy Day(s)so he didn't really have time to talk. To be fair, I imagine that not all Jews celebrate [the holiday that I can't spell] in such a way as to preclude phone conversations with Gentiles; so I don't think it was silly of me to call. Anyway, he asked if I had something important to discuss and I said that, no, it was more like I wanted a second chance to hear about his travels in Israel. You see, when we spoke a little over a month ago, Nicola got characteristically quiet, so I filled in the void with speech, missing my chance to hear his story. Now some night, late, after work, I will be pleasantly surprised by a call from Washington and stories of true life adventure.

Anwar was in my thoughts today. I hope I will remember to put him in my prayers tonight. I would love to write to him more often, but I don't want to disrespect his marriage. He welcomes my writing but I don't see how it could be anything but a distraction from his new wife.

And of course I thought of Jake... He's got secret reasons why I suck, but he isn't ready to talk about them. (That in itself hurts because that's really irresponsible on his part.) I think I've taken the flack for whatever it is already. Now to find out what all that was really about... I talked to my father. It's rare to talk to my father beyond family business, family members' health and concerns, stuff I'm worried about and "catching up." But I got some time to talk to him about Jake, and Dad said that, when someone constantly tells you that you suck, what he really means is that he himself sucks -- that it's a projection. I told him about this argument we had, and this is what I've most wanted to write about today. Let me see how far I get...

It all started back in college... I was in this situation where I was accused of stuff by a peer (I'll call him Pink, after the Floyd character in the movie, "The Wall," which he liked so well. He's a big anglophile anyway. He'd like to be called Pink.) and I wasn't being allowed to speak to him so as to set the record straight. Jake contends that I should have abandoned the campaign to get an audience with Pink and make my case, because nobody in that situation ever owes it to me to hear me out. I contend that they do, just as soon as they complain, or slight me, or signal that they have a grievance. Now, Jake knows, and hopefully Pink knows (although he might not want to hear it if it means actually hearing from me) that there are plenty of things that I'm sorry for where Pink is concerned. Like, for example, I learned how to relate to the opposite sex from Charlotte Goodall in "Night of the Iguana." Some of the stuff I did makes me cringe, really. And now how can I say to Pink that I'm sorry for all these little things, but the thing that is said to have upset him the most -- the thing that drove our dynamic like a flywheel -- my campaigning for my day in court -- that is the thing I'm not sorry for? It's hard. I dare not say a word.

Jake and I could find common ground on that if he'd put in the time. We wouldn't agree on much, but we'd probably do OK.

The Charlotte Goodall thing was something I made my own. I figured that, as long as I didn't ask a boy for a date or for intimacy, that jumping around like a cheerleader and starting fan clubs would be nothing but fun for everyone ... and this is too long a story for me to do it justice in the time I have, so I won't try (maybe later) ...

I'm especially sorry to Pink for the times I expressed frustration. Frustration just doesn't belong expressed. It doesn't get you an audience or understanding or peace. It's a sign I'd allowed my mind to become fried by a long-standing situation that I felt I could not escape without his help, which I finally got. Yes, I finally got my audience and, like idiots, Pink and I decided to try being friends one more time. (What were we on???) So now Pink and what was left of me / I were trying to get along with no paradigm except a long history of not being able to get along. (He quickly aborted that plan.) But the backbone of our trouble had been broken. My mind was still fried, though. I still gasped a few more notes of frustration before I finally made my escape like a moth through a hole in a screen. And it was glorious on the other side of that screen. Colin was right there waiting for me to emerge. But before I flew out...

Pink lost his lease and had his furniture confiscated. He got kicked off campus. He became homeless and rumors swirled about that he was in some kind of trouble and was wanted by the police. Now how in the world was I going to just fly away? Our meeting, our truce was supposed to be my exit -- no more worry, no more frustration. Yet what was left of me couldn't handle the continuing saga very well.

Even so, in this final frame I was able to confer a few benefits to poor old Pink. I saw the assistant dean and convinced him to let Pink back on campus. I fetched a dinner and a well-wisher, Clara, out to the bus kiosk where homeless Pink was hanging out. And finally, with the help of one of his close friends, I placed the call that ultimately got him out of Maryland, because I did believe the rumors that he was in trouble, and I knew that trouble would not follow him over the state line. Pink and I were both emotionally exhausted. And I was on the wrong side of his boundary line. I should have talked his friend into making the call all by herself, except that she was too chicken to do it by herself with me knowing that she had done it! She needed the collateral of my partnership in crime, so that neither of us would tell. (Never mind that she started talking about it soon thereafter. I suppose she couldn't help it. Maybe her mind was fried too.)

This needs more. I can't leave it like this. There is more. But there is no more time.

Getting back to where I came in, though, I do think I had the right to speak up for myself. My father agrees. He says Jake and Pink are wrong and that I shouldn't even worry that they could be right. Well, after all the embarrassing stuff I've done I don't need one more thing to worry about. It still bugs me, though. I think if I had it to do over again I'd say to myself, "I have the right to do this, but it will probably do more harm than good, so I'm not going to do it." No, even better -- I'd take frustration out of my emotional vocabulary, perhaps through brain surgery. And when I was all calm and reasonable Pink would say, "Hey, what's up? I think we should talk." I don't know. I think I must be dreaming about it every night lately. And there's even more to be said. So I suppose this is my season to say it.

Listening to the White Album

I worked up a good sweat and remembered happiness with The White Album. I think I must have re-discovered David’s famous dance to “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” You know the one, right? Did somebody paint it and that’s why we all figure he danced that way? That must be it. We all glimpsed this painting… Part of me wants to go find it on the web, but I’m more content just writing about my time with The White Album tonight. “Cry Baby Cry” I’m sure is about the fall of man, and how babies cry because they know they’re not in Paradise and they have a long road ahead. Someone who’s “old enough to know better” is old enough to know Paradise , so the Queen in the song is a type of Eve, and also an heir to Eve’s grief. Once I was jamming out with a soon-to-be ex-friend Punk Rocker and his girlfriend and I sang,

There goes the Queen of Marigold
You know she’s very, very old
She’s come a long way (baby) down that
Winding road
And she’s old enough
To know better
Hey yay yeah

The first verse of my ballad puts it in context:

As autumn leaves come tumbling down
I remember ‘bout a king who lost his crown
I look at you, shivering in my sweater
Wondering if you’re old enough to know better
Are you old enough
To know better
Hey yay yeah

The old punk – I’ll call him ‘Garene – was a splendid musician, and we made a pretty cool recording. He probably still has it somewhere. Jurassic Punk.

‘Garene impressed me by talking to people on my college campus about me, “Where’s that girl? Tell her I’m looking for her. I’ve gotta find that girl!” He carried my lost guitar around like it was Cinderella’s lost slipper. When I passed his house one day (not knowing it was his house) he hopped out the window and followed me down the street. I figured he must be pretty cool based on all that. Later I was singing at a club and ‘Garene’s friend Y’dong came and asked me to leave the gig and come to the club where they were celebrating his birthday, probably for ‘Garene’s sake. The following summer I jammed with them, wrote music, cooked for them, spent nights on the floor, painted Y’dong’s picture, fetched food out to ‘Garene at his job and fetched clothing out to Y’dong on his.

The problem with punks like that is, once they get tired of you and decide you’re history, they don’t talk about it or work things out. They just dodge you and complain if you try to talk to them. The same punk who crashed my campus telling everyone he was attracted to me was really miffed when I showed up on his campus unannounced. Dropping in unannounced is how we had always related to one another. There was no warning, no explication when things changed. And he never did redress the hurt. And don’t even get me started about Y’dong… I’m not going there tonight. OK just one tidbit: That jerk Y’dong, the same guy who asked me to bring his clothes to the record store where he worked, complained that it was inappropriate when I tried to surprise him by bringing him lunch (to his other job, at a kids’ camp.) But really, Y’dong is bad territory; I don’t want to be here. Back to The White Album.

The Beatles showed us tearful babies entering the Veil of Tears, but they had already given us, “It’s Getting Better All The Time,” in which they tell us that “[I] can’t complain,” presumably because the Lord has been through worse. And that is why I’ve so named my blog! In college I told a pal, Johnny (real name,) that I thought “It’s Getting Better All the Time” was about Jesus and at first he seemed skeptical, but then he went through the lyrics and was convinced and very amused.

“Sexy Sadie” is ostensibly about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, but I knew someone named Sadie who had good reason to believe she had helped inspire it. In 1993 we worked in the same office. She told me she had gone to see the Beatles in concert – probably their last tour, and that, after the show, Paul had called out to her, “Hey you! You, what’s your name?” And she called, “Sadie!” And then they came out with “Sexy Sadie.” You never know.

I didn’t get to hear “Rocky Raccoon” tonight, but I named (successively) a couple of the varmints who visited my house Sirach after the boy in that song.

“Long Long Long” will always remind me of my college boyfriend, Colin (real name, although he’s changed it since then.) It was so relaxing to be around him. He was wonderful – handsome, smart, artistic, adventurous, tall(er than even me,) affectionate and appreciative. He had a hammock in the backyard which is called to mind also by that song. Colin was an “A” boyfriend but an “A+” ex-boyfriend, because he broke up with me very nicely. If you’re grading on a curve you’ve gotta appreciate that. Too many people start the blame game when they want to dump someone, but sweet Colin only said that what we had was good but he wanted something different so he was going away hoping to meet someone else. And I saw him again once or twice. It was all cool. About three years post breakup he visited me at Garene’s house where I was then living, and Garene was impressed by what a looker Colin was. (‘Garene turned a few heads himself.)

Just reading that paragraph must make it hard to understand that I'm a virgin, but I am one.

"Honey Pie" reminds me of my Great Grandmother, who came over on the boat from Belarus and sang cabaret over here. I never met her. I must have heard her name, but I can't think of it. Her married last name was Narowanski. My cousin said she was a gypsy. My mother said that her parents sent her money from Russia with love, despite the horrendous exchange rate.

Tonight I danced with the dogs. Dogs are one of the things that make life worth celebrating so that it is possible to dance. We're sure all dogs go to heaven, so if there are dogs around, you know you're in a good place.

What else? I forgot.

Joy evaporated when I got over Nicola. Hope vanished with Anwar. Depression set in when I took Jake more seriously than I'd meant to. But it's still a beautiful world, what with Beatles and dogs. If I had more time I'd think of more to say. And if I had more time yet I'd go to YouTube and search for Beatles + Star Trek. No, I'm ending this post right here because the night is ending.

Bullies

My two week absence from cyberspace ended yesterday, to little avail. I still have no time for this. I was at my mother's house today and she was a big bully. Speaking of bullies, there's been no word from Jake. Jake feels strongly that people who treat me badly owe me no redress, so I suppose he's bearing that out now by not saying anything about how mean and (worse) unfair he's been (except briefly in his blog.) But at least I got to talk it over with my father, who said what anybody would say about a so-called friend who feels the need to tell me I suck all the time -- "He's a lightweight." In other words, consider the source. Would a person of integrity, secure and comfortable in his own skin, lash out at someone routinely? No. (Would he drink like a fish? Probably not that either.) So why did I ever take Jake so seriously? Everybody knows what my father says in this regard to be true.

I hope I get to finish this thought, but right now I have to try to fix my mother's computer and then do some other chores.