Is there a better scene in recent film than the “Russel gets on the bus after tripping acid and everyone sings ‘Tiny Dancer'”scene in Almost Famous? Makes you feel real good after a crappy day of terrorism. And a bottle of wine.
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BUI – Bloggin’ Under the Influence
Friday, August 11th, 2006I guess I should get used to this workout of the subconscious
Thursday, August 10th, 2006I have always had really vivid dreams, and i tend to remember them well after having them. The most memorable and strange ones are usually the ones i have when the world around me is in uproar. I guess my subconscious is trying to work out the problems of the world in my head at night.
My first recollection of my wild dreams were the week after the Challenger explosion. I was in 8th grade and we were home for a snow day. I remember my sister walking in the bathroom and telling me that the Challenger had exploded and I remember how unfathomable it was. For many people my age, i think that was the first realization that humans, and technology, and the United States as a superpower were not untouchable. More personally, I think it dawned on me that adults were just people, like kids are just people. I thought to myself, “wow, adults can miscalculate, and people get blown to smithereens while their families look on.” It was my first realization that I wasn’t bulletproof, that really fucked up things happen, and there is not a damn thing one can do about it except stand and stare, jaw dropped open, and thanking the heavens that there but for the Grace of God go I. Okay, I didn’t use the work “fuck” yet in 8th grade, but i definitely sensed that meaning of the word before I knew the word itself.
In the week after the Challenger tragedy, I had five nights in a row of the same nightmare. Mrs. Sparrow’s science class was being held in my front yard. We were sitting around in a circle and it was a beautiful, sunny cloudless day. The sun glinted off the silver of ever-increasing numbers of airplanes that were circling overhead. The circle became tighter and tighter, an eddy of airliners, the sky became grey and the wind stirred the leaves in the trees as if a storm was coming up, the leaves turning their undersides for the world to see. A black hole opened up in the center of the sky over our heads and the planes were increasingly sucked towards the drain it created, and then the whirlpool began sending them into the hole, and we all watched in horror and silence until the last plane was gone. The hole closed up on itself and the silence was broken by the sound of a large metal door clanging shut. And then I wake. Five nights in a row, I woke up in a sweat, frightened and breathless, and no longer a child.
I often think of that feeling of helplessness, in the face of something unimaginable taking place in front of one’s eyes, as what it might be like to have been present in New York for 9/11. Mostly, I try not to think about it at all. Lately, though, with the Middle East in turmoil, i think of those other events, of the horror and the feeling of helplessness, and the sense that things are uncontrollable and rolling towards certain destruction. I sense the same thing these days. And so I dream.
This morning, I awoke to Rollie climbing in bed with us, and realized that it was real and not the dream i had been having, where I frantically tried to find cover for him, Todd, matilda, and myself. In my dream, we were at Lenox Mall, in the parking deck where i usually park, the one on Lenox road, nearest the elevators, where they put the Pink Pig at Christmas. It was some kind of shelter, as if we were under attack, in the same way people must be in shelters in Israel and Lebanon right now. We were in our car (okay, we drive a van) and a man with a bullhorn was walking around giving directions about where to go and what to do. He was sarcastic in the face of danger, and I think he may have been David Spade. A woman in another car was telling me that she knew tons of people in the military, and they never miss their mark, and they never do things that aren’t necessary. Dream me was doubtful. David Spade started yelling on the bullhorn at a blonde, outrageously-dressed woman who was singing near the entrance to a stairwell and when she turned around, he said, “Pink! Get outta there! They are sending one right in here in minutes!” Pink took off running and her thighs were impressive and shapely in her miniskirt.
People became panicky, and cars were trapped in traffic and people started leaving their cars and then i realized that Rollie wasn’t in the car at all, that he was still with the rest of the kids in the nursery, and that they had gone to see the puppet show upstairs. I left Matilda with Todd and raced to find them. The children and their caretakers had heard of the incoming attack also and the children were being shuffled downstairs to the basment of the parking deck, down the very stairwell by which Pink was singing, the one that was going to take an impending hit. I raced down and found Rollie. I grabbed his hand and dragged him, scared and crying, to meet Todd and Matilda in the basement. People were coming towards us in a rush, like a river that we must swim against, and then I saw Todd under a dingy light bulb, and he was naked, and trying to wrap a dirty, wet rug around his waist to cover himself. He and Matilda had to desert the car and so he had her in the stroller, but as he used his hands to wrap the rug around himself, the throng of people carried her stroller along with them. I managed to grab the handle, as Todd’s eyes met mine, and I still held rollie’s hand, but when I woke up, i was losing my grip on both.
P.s. Mom. I’m fine. Promise.
Or Maybe
Thursday, August 10th, 2006I was just a little pre-menstrual. . . .
What the Middle East and I Need, or The Solution According to Rollie
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006I have been kind of down the last couple of days. I do get depressed sometimes, but have realized that my depression is usually situational, not chemical, although I do tend to get it a little worse around that time of the month. Most often, though, when I am depressed it seems to be the result of stress of some sort, or something sad happening in my life. The other thing that seems to effect me is boredom and monotony. I have had a little of that the last few weeks, too. The hot weather and our attempts to curb family spending have left me with a decidedly “rainy summer day, age eight” feeling. You know the one. The one where it is raining and you are bored (so much so that you have already built a fort out of chairs, tables, and blankets) and your mom keeps suggesting activities and NONE.OF.THEM.SOUND.AT.ALL.FUN. In fact, the only thing that would make you feel better is to be in someone else’s skin, and so you actually wiggle around and flail and try to get out of your skin, and it only results in you feeling worse and more trapped.
So, part of my depression is the boredom I am feeling right now, and part of it is the stress of keeping a house clean, day after day, while trying to sell said house, but then nobody ever comes until the one day when you DO leave it in disarray. So, I have been depressed and thought it might be the usual. As I usually do, when i feel a little down, I made it to the gym. Seems like sweating always puts things into perspective somehow – I guess it just makes me feel better being present in my own skin (and maybe a little endorphin boost is responsible, too). Oddly, though, today I ran a mile and was still just . . . blue. I actually felt, while running, that I could cry. Usually by the time i make it to a mile, I am already feeling better and thinking about how much farther i want to run. Today, though, I just realized that i needed to get the kids home to meet Todd for lunch, and I quit at a mile. (Okay, there was some chatting about the depression with Vanessa, which took a good fifteen minutes up before i ever started running. I can’t blame it all on the depression. I’ll blame Vanessa and the kids, too for taking so long that I didn’t have time to run.)
So, i was still feeling down, and then i was talking to my friend Harmony (yes, I was late as fuck for lunch), and she said that she was kind of down after hearing the news this morning and I realized that is the source of the blues. More than anything, I am depressed because no matter how good or bad my life is, it is still better at its worst than all the SHIT that is going on in the world today. Hell, I’m not depressed, so much as I am world weary.
Too bad that Rollie doesn’t run things. He was reading after his nap, and opened up to a torn page, and said:
“Mama, it’s broken. Rollie broke it.”
[He looks thoughtful and then something dawns on him.]
“Let’s get some new ba-err-ies [batteries] to fix it.”
Ah, if only things were that easy. If only everything that was broken could be fixed with new batteries, the way that Rollie thinks they can.
Little Miss Serious
Monday, August 7th, 2006This is our little miss serious. She does smile, but it isn’t quite as frequent as Rollie. It seems that she wants to check everything out first, before she gives it her okay. She’s not a pessimist, just a realist! Much like her mother.
Playgroup Goes to the Zoo
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006Matilda, Rollie and I invited our friends Camille and Tara and their kids to the zoo yesterday. It was hot as Hades, but pregnant Tara was a trooper, and it really wore the kids out. (Always a good thing.)
Tiller and Julianne, keeping cool in the shade
Charla and Rollie in the gorilla house
Chase looks on the Willie B statue with suspicion
Charla says, “I wouldn’t take the picture if i were you.”
Charla and Rollie with Willie B statue
This pretty much sums up what everyone looks like when they get hungry 
Long Live the Streak!
Tuesday, August 1st, 2006The last year or so, I have been lamenting the fact that nothing I have read or listened to has really lit a fire under me. I have to say that still holds true for the listening part – I am not sure if it is because I don’t have the free time for true listening immersion that I once had, or if it is that my persepective has changed so radically after having children. (I actually like it when REM does “Shiny Happy Monsters” or Goo Goo Dolls do “Pride” on Sesame Street; I even think the beginning of the Go, Diego, Go song “Rescue Pack” sounds like the beginning of Janes Addiction’s Had a Dad. I am sure you see how this is problematic?) Or maybe the music is just totally sucking. It seems that I used to have a love affair with a book or CD every month or so. To be fair, I must say that I am liking Band of Horses and Kings of Leon a lot right now. But am I in love with them? Not really. Anyway, if anyone has been blown away by something they listened to lately, for God’s sake, drop me a line and let me know what the fuck it was.
Then, suddenly, I read Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Magic! I had not been so excited over a book in years. (Well, excepting the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series, which is more of a crack-like addiction than something that sings in my soul. Okay, actually, that is not a fair comparison, but i will have to blog about Outlander some other day. Suffice to say, Gabaldon herself says that the best Outlander description she has read was by Salon.com:
“The smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting ‘Scrooge McDuck’ comics.”
Well said. Check them out. Fun reads.
Whoa. Tangent. Okay, as I was saying, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood excited me in a way no book had in years! I even blogged about it here. My sister and husband were not quite as thrilled with it as I was, but their tastes simply aren’t as refined as mine. Todd and I often share books with one another, because while we both have our own interests (I like redemption, he likes the dregs of society stories), there is a common ground where those interests overlap. Todd picked up a used copy of Ferrol Sams’ Run with the Horsemen at our local independent bookstore, Bound to Be Read. After he finished it, he mentioned that I might like it. I opened it, and a streak was born!
Run with the Horsemen was like reading Mark Twain for the first time. The protagonist, Porter Osborne, Jr. is as puckish as Huck and as smart as Holden Caulfield. Did I mention that he is laugh-out-loud funny? I may be in love with a fictional character. (Wouldn’t be the first time.) Porter struggles with adolescence, and education, race, and the realization that his parents might not be as perfect as he thought they were. And it all takes place in 1930s Depression-era Georgia, so it is close to my heart. Todd and I both couldn’t believe that we had never heard of it before, and wondered why it was never taught in literature classes. (This would have to take place at the college level, though, because Porter is quite preoccupied with breasts, wet dreams, and penis size.) For the second time in months, I was sad to see a book end.
Then, when I visited my friends James and Dana (a voracious reader herself), I looked up at their bookshelf to see Run with the Horsemen, and come to find out that they also love Ferrol Sams’ Porter trilogy. Trilogy? Trilogy!? Praise the Lord! There are more of them! We have purchased the second book, The Whisper of the River, and if it is half as good as the first, I will write about it here, I am sure
I picked up The Secret Life of Bees, with not a lot of hope for a repeat of the pleaurable reading experienced during Run with the Horsemen, but I was wrong. Sue Monk Kidd’s novel is smart, beautifully written and echoes with the emptiness an absent mother could leave in a daughter. It deals with being Southern, and with race, but also with the universal theme of love and finding it in the most unexpected places. Kind of like the way that the riches of a good read are found in the most unexpected places. Long live the streak!
There is No Fucking Santa Claus
Saturday, July 29th, 2006Okay, I realize I am way behind on this. It is old news, but it is so completely offensive to my sensibilities that I must comment on it. Todd and I don’t make it out to the movies much any more. Babysitters are hard to come by, and so usually we will see something on our own while the other watches the kids. We watch a lot of stuff on NetFlix, but are usually pitifully behind on watching new releases. For example, we just saw The Chronicles of Narnia last night. I have been looking forward to seeing it for a while now. The Narnia Chronicles were among my favorite books as a child, and after the success of childhood favorite Lord of the Rings becoming a film, I had high hopes. I couldn’t have been more disappointed.
I am assuming that if you wanted to see it, you would have done so already, so i am going to go ahead and tell you: They put a fucking Santa Claus character in the movie. I have nothing against Santa. I rather like Santa when it comes down to it. But there is no fucking Santa Claus in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe! Todd mentioned that maybe they wanted to delay revealing Aslan to the viewer, but as he pointed out, did they have to use a Santa to give the Pevensies their gifts? Couldn’t the fucking badgers do it?
Or, better yet, maybe the fucking arrogant assholes in Hollywood could realize perfection when they see it and not bother mucking it up. Does anyone actually think that they can improve upon the story-telling of C.S. Lewis? At least Peter Jackson showed proper respect for Tolkien when making his films. He couldn’t include everything, but he didn’t make random shit up to add to the film.
I think I speak for millions of Narnia Chronicles readers everywhere when I say that the makers of the film RAPED THE IMAGINED WORLDS OF MY CHILDHOOD.
You fuckers.
Pool Party
Friday, July 28th, 2006Yesterday, Rollie, Matilda, and I journeyed up to North Georgia (okay, Alpharetta) to go swimming at Dusty and Tara’s neighborhood pool.
Tara and Natalie, fearless moms
Matilda shows concern at pool
Tara and Kim seek shade
Anna Bobanna
Julianne – Pretty girl’s eyes
My four sorry attempts at getting a shot of the older kids; Just like herding cats.
(From left: Rollie, Beau, Carmella, Chase, and Charla)
Rollieism, Part II
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006Overheard today, near the child’s potty in our downstairs bathroom:
Me: “Rollie, do you need to go potty?”
Rollie: “Yes.”
[Takes excruciatingly long time to pull down pants and pullups. Sits down on potty.]
Me: “Are you peeing or pooping?”
Rollie: “Peeing. The poop is sleeping in my butt.”
Me: “Ah. I see.”
Thanks to Aunt Lisa, by the way, for teaching him to say “butt” instead of “bottom.” It sounds almost as classy to hear him say “butt” as it does for kids his age to say, “Oh, My God!”