Annie Proulx, Fiction, “Tits-up in a Ditch,” The New Yorker, June 9, 2008, p. 81
GO READ NOW!
It takes a lot to knock me on my ass as far as short stories go. Alice Munro does it. And Annie Proulx has done it once before, also in the New Yorker. But this is new story of hers is one of those that gives me this reaction: “That’s it. We’re all done here. Writing is done. We’ve said everything there is to say.”
So so gooooood.
Barbara Daly (played by Julianne Moore): worst mother ever. Nuff said.
(or, why didn’t I go see Bab’Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Own Soul instead?)
In summer it’s enough to lie on the back porch listening to the wind chimes and watching the fireflies light up.
One of the really great things about having a kid is that when he catches some random virus that kicks him on his butt for a week—so do YOU. And he catches everything. He does this by licking every kind of object he can get his mouth on (still! Even though he’s almost four). And I get it from him…well, licking him.
So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Some nasty GI thing that makes me not feel like eating, that causes stomach and intestinal pains, and makes me feel weak and want to sleep most of the day.
The Boy, of course, burned through his virus in about 4 days. Mine likes to linger (slower metabolism?). It likes to move in, stay for awhile like some down-on-his-luck relative who comes for a visit then can’t seem to get on his feet again, won’t help with the dishes or cleaning, but also won’t go away (read: generally make my life miserable.)
I talked to one woman who had similar symptoms (who also got it from her kids) who said she’d lost four pounds in just a few days from this thing because she didn’t want to eat.
If that weren’t enough, while I was sitting in the waiting room of The Boy’s Occupational Therapist (oh yeah, he started Occupational Therapy last week), I happen to mention that I’m not feeling 100%. It was 4 in the afternoon, which is usually my WORST time of day with this illness. By then, I’m completely worn out and just want to be horizontal. Plus the whale calls coming from down there were getting pretty loud. Anyway, the woman sitting next to me (well, three empty chairs over) withdrew a bit upon hearing that I was ill. I don’t blame her. SHE doesn’t want to get ill and she, like me, probably gets plenty of nasty things from her own son who was getting therapized in the next room.
I explained to her that it’s not a coughing sneezing kind of thing (I skipped the part about licking my son’s ice cream cones for him so that they don’t run down his arm and that unless she was sharing an ice cream cone with me, she was probably safe. Plus, it had been over a week…I was probably passed the spreading phase. This thing was squarely in my lower intestines now). I said, instead, that really it just made my stomach hurt and made me really tired and that I hadn’t felt like eating for a week.
She looked over at me and said, “Well that can be a good thing.”
Can it? I know as a woman it is my duty to ALWAYS be worried about my weight, to ALWAYS be on a diet, to ALWAYS be glad to lose a few pounds no matter how harmful that weight-loss was to my body. Jesus Christ! I know when I lived in New York, this was a pretty typical exchange: “You’ve lost so much weight. Oh, you’ve got cancer. Sorry to hear that. But you look great now!”
I would have smacked Waiting Room Lady upside the head, if only I’d had the strength.
Apparently many Hillary supporters are threatening to vote for John McCain in the fall if Hillary is not the Democratic Party’s candidate. For an excellent commentary on this, listen to Deborah Bolling. She points out that for these supporters, many of whom are women and see themselves as feminists and Hillary as their leader, it makes no sense to vote for McCain, a man whose record is very anti-choice, who has promised to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court who will potential try to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and who stands opposed to most issues that feminist currently hold near and dear.
So what’s going on here?
Are these supporters…?
1) Merely threatening to vote for McCain so that Super delegates and other leaders in the Democratic Party will be scared into choosing Hillary as the Democratic nominee because they assume without Hillary’s supporters Oboma cannot win in the general election (a calculated political move).
2) Completely ignorant of McCain’s anti-feminist, anti-woman record (not bloody likely).
3) Perfectly aware of McCain’s anti-feminist, anti-women record but are so enraged at the idea that their candidate will not be the nominee that they are willing to hurt themselves.
This last choice, sadly, might make perfect sense. As women, we still often think our only avenue for dealing with rage (other than actually DEALING with rage) is to hurt ourselves. We don’t punch people in the face, we cut ourselves, we get eating disorders, we self-destruct. WE become the bombs, often hurting those around us in the process. It is the ultimate passive-aggression. Unfortunately, this smacks of typical victim behavior, and speaks–not to how far we, as women and feminists, have come in this election–but, to how far we still have to go.
One of the exciting things about selling my wares at outdoor markets is that sometimes the weather is unpredictable. Other times the weather does just what the weatherman has said it would, and no matter how many times you check your blackberry, at this point we still do not have the technology to drag and click the storm clouds that are moving into your area to another region of the country…say, New Jersey.
Last Saturday was a prime example of this. Everyone I talked to at the Market had gone with the same attitude as I did, “I’ll stay until the weather looks dicey, then I’m outta here!” The predictions were for scattered thunderstorms and possibly HAIL. But the morning was gorgeous, the kind of morning that begs you to set up. It was hard to believe it could EVER rain, much less STORM. But sure enough, by lunchtime, the sky was dark and thick mean-looking clouds were rolling toward us. Still, Tom was giving us up to the second weather updates on his blackberry, and while everyone was on the phone with someone in northern Maryland of Virginia who was getting hammered by rain, we seemed to be in a dry weather bubble, with the rain visibly coming down all around us. Maybe God loves outdoor markets, we thought to ourselves. Maybe he realizes how important it is for all the vendors here to make a living. Maybe God just loves ART and doesn’t want to see it get wet… These were the vain musings we allowed to play across our minds as we continued to hawk our wares.
A little while later and we got the heads up from Tom. This time it looked like the storm clouds were not going to skirt us, they were coming right for us. Everyone immediately began packing up. I got as far as getting all my stuff onto a cart and was just about to roll it to the car when the rain hit: HARD. That was okay. I was safe and dry under the EZ Up tent. But then it started to lightening and thunder. And not that far off kind of lightening and thunder, this was the kind you could see hitting things just across the street. This was a little scary. People without tents were busy hauling their goods—tables and display and all–into the Market 5 Gallery. Customers ran for cover into the Gallery, children were getting drenched and crying…
Still, Andrea (who I was sharing a tent with) and I and a few others who had tents stood holding them down. The wind was beginning to pick up a bit. We were all just waiting for a break in the rain so we could make a dash to the car, load our stuff, and get OUT of there!
As the rain got harder, and the lightening closer, and the thunder louder, the wind started to really blow—and the rain came sideways under the tent. I was wet, but my wares stayed dry, wrapped up nicely in the middle of the tent area. Then the wind began to REALLY blow (think Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz). The tent next to ours—which was heavily weighted–blew 10 feet in an instant, and several people rushed to help its owner secure it. Another tent collapsed, smashing all the jewelry and displays under it and broken glass went everywhere. Someone inside the Market 5 Gallery yelled, “Leave it, it’s too late. Get in here!” An enormous umbrella got away from the two men who were trying to hold it down and blew violently toward Andrea and I. Objects were flying everywhere. This was scary. Andrea and I decided to get our stuff inside the gallery and bring the tent down, which we did, getting drenched doing it.
Inside, I looked around at all the tables that were set up and realized people were buying and selling goods.
Which just goes to show, even a scary lightening storm with destructive winds shouldn’t keep you from stimulating the economy.
So we had a lovely and relaxing Memorial Day weekend. We had planned on going to NYC for five days, but that fell through. It’s probably for the best because The Boy picked up a nasty cold and was sneezing and coughing/barking like a seal pretty heavily all weekend. Still, we had a wonderful time lazing in the backyard with books and snoozing on the hammock. I’ve been waiting four years to be able to snooze on the hammock. It was a rare time when we actually let ourselves do next to nothing, and where The Boy was calm enough (tired enough) to allow us to laze around. Ahhhhhh.
On Monday, we drove up to the Great Falls area, which is just lovely, and The Husband went kayaking a bit. The nice thing about this area is that there’s apparently ALWAYS someone there kayaking, so The Husband can go without a buddy and…well, find a buddy there.
Of course the place was packed because of the holiday; yet it was so lovely and big you didn’t mind. The boy and I sat by the water’s edge for a long time just enjoying the utter perfect ness of the weather and the fact that we were outside in it. He helped launch all the kayakers who were putting in there, then splashed and made fun with the water and mud, while clusters of yellow and black butterflies fluttered nearby. Then we walked a bit and found two water snakes swimming in the little canal, which gave The Boy a great thrill, since he’s all about worms and snakes these days. A little bit later we spread out our blanket and ate our picnic lunch (which The Boy had made—pretty much all by himself—for the three of us).
Soon The Husband came paddling back, a big ol’ smile on his face. Then we lazed around by the water’s edge some more while he dried in the sun. Finally, The Boy went down the way a bit and began digging in the mud again with some other kids while The Husband supervised. I decided to just doze on the blanket, enjoying the warm sun and the breeze, the smell of honeysuckle in the air. I was lying there thinking what an utter bliss it was to be able to enjoy an absolutely perfect spring day like that, and to be able to actually relax, thinking about how good my life is right now, and how it’s nice to be able to appreciate it. At some point while I was lying there in my blissed-out state, I felt a light touch of something against my leg and thought a leaf must have blown against me. A moment later, though, the touch felt more intentional, like something moving—fast—up toward the opening to the leg of my shorts. I reluctantly broke into my reverie and hoisted myself up to the sitting position to see what it was. What it was was a snake. A two and a half foot long black and red (and tan?) snake that I would later be informed was a Corn Snake. Perfectly harmless, I was assured as I screamed my head off. I’m not afraid of snakes, per se, but I prefer if they don’t crawl on me unexpectedly when I’m sleeping. Or when I’m awake. Call me uptight that way.
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve said anything. It’s gorgeous outside, I’m busy working, and I promise to write a few things very soon.
So I pretty much fell off the blogging planet during the month of March. That’s because there were responsibilities responsibilities and spring break. You know, their was my co-op job for the school, spring break, my birthday, wedding anniversary, taxes taxes and more taxes, oh, and my The Husband was literally in bed with the flu for a whole week (I’d never seen anything like that with him). In short, it was a busy month that left no room for the internets. But let’s recap shall we? (more soon)
So this week was totally fun. Not only did I have an excellent day at the Eastern Market on Saturday (where so many of the permanent vendors have been nothing but helpful, encouraging, and absolutely wonderful to me. In fact, one of them has done the near impossible and has stuck my foot into the door for a coveted and hard to come by (semi)-permanent spot, which would mean I no longer have to get up at 5 a.m. to drive down there only to discover I am already 19th in line!!!! and despite all the effort might not actually procure a spot to sell in!!! but that is a whole other story, one worth telling later, and we’ll see if it all works out–cross everything for me.)
But this week I also found out that I’ve been juried in to the Crafty Bastards show in Silver Spring Md in June (check my website for full details coming soon). This was my first time applying to the Bastards and apparently the competition is stiff. So I’m glad to have that opportunity to sell and I look forward to meeting some of the other Crafty Bastards around town.
If that wasn’t enough, I went to my reception at the Torpedo Factory today and there were my two pieces standing in the Target Gallery—my very first ART EXHIBIT. I walked into the gallery, which was packed and buzzing and hot under the big lights and this German photographer, Michael, said to me with a thick and serious accent, “Is that your work?” pointing to my work with a drink in his hand. “Ah, yes,” I told him, bracing myself for what he might say. “If I were a woman, I would wear that.” he told me. Wow. I can’t ask for a better compliment, can I?
Check out these photos of the show, including one with my work. Here’s a grab.
Loads of other people came up to tell me how much they liked my work, the whole atmosphere was very excited and supporting, and even the gallery director was nice and talked to me at length (wow, a nice gallery director! what will they think of next?) All I can say is that the whole thing was AWESOME!
