Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine

elm 51: theft, vandalism, and regret

2011-08-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

elm 47

2011-08-30T11:53:00.001-07:00

elm 49

2011-08-30T11:51:00.001-07:00

elm 48

2011-08-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Sac Icarus Group

2011-07-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Icarus Project
radical mental health by and for the mad community

support group / discussion group
for people with bipolar disorder and other dangerous gifts

Email robotmad@gmail.com
for info about our first Sacramento meeting.

The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.

We are a network of people living with experiences that are often diagnosed and labeled as bipolar or other psychiatric conditions. We believe these experiences are mad gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness, creativity, and collaboration can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.

The Icarus Project international collective: theicarusproject.net

ELM 50

2011-01-09T15:33:00.000-08:00

elm 45

2009-06-16T10:20:00.001-07:00

ELM #43

2009-04-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

ELM #44

2009-04-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

broccoli soup #43

2008-03-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been cooking and baking a lot. This broccoli soup Erik loves very much, and I love it too.

broccoli soup

2 heads of broccoli, broken up
1 or 2 chopped red onions
about 6 cloves of garlic
2 veggie bullion cubes
2 low salt veggie bullion cubes

Saute the onion in some olive oil until it starts to brown. Add the pressed garlic. Saute for a couple more minutes. Add all the broccoli and enough water to cover it. Crumble in bullion cubes. Cover. Once the soup comes to a boil, set the timer for 15 minutes. By then the broccoli will be really soft. Use a hand blender to make everything liquid. Serve ladles full to hungry veggie-lovers.

plagiarism #42

2007-09-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, I plagiarized a paper for Driver’s Ed. I feel most guilty for the way it must have made my teacher feel. Now that I’ve been a teacher, I know how it hurts when your student tries to trick you.

“It was a long time ago,” Erik said.

“It was,” I said.

“The person who did that isn’t you,” he said.

“I would never plagiarize now,” I said.

“You’re a different person,” he said.

“Show me the grave of the person I used to be, and I’ll bury my guilt there.”

I have a problem forgiving myself. The pain accumulates, and my memory is full of events like this.

pumpkin pancakes #42

2007-09-12T13:41:00.001-07:00

2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
regular can canned pumpkin
1 1/4 cup milk or soymilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Stir all ingredients together. If the batter is too thick, add more milk to thin it. Cook as pancakes.

These are delicious without syrup since there’s sugar in the batter.

prison visit #42

2007-09-02T14:13:00.001-07:00

My cousin S is in prison in Susanville. We wanted to go visit him there, so we applied months ago and got approval.

Saturday was the big day. We woke up at 5:30 in the morning and left at about 6:30. The drive is beautiful for the first half. We went up into the Sierras toward Reno. From Reno to Susanville is desert and not as pretty.

We arrived at about 10:15 and went to the visitor building. We were told we were in the wrong place, to go to the trailer for passes. At the trailer we were told to hurry because 11 to 12:30 no visitors are admitted. We filled out our passes and paper clipped our driver’s licenses to them, returned to the visitor building, and gave our passes to the guard there. He told us to sit.

We sat and waited. Other visitors were there. A man was delayed because of a Department of Justice flag. He and his wife had to wait while he was cleared. “Is there any way to find out why he has a flag?” the wife asked. There was a mom with her kids.

We sat on wooden benches. I was nervous. I didn’t know where to look.

Some visitors were called up to the guards to take off their shoes, empty their pockets and turn them inside-out, and pass through the metal detector. There are very particular rules about what can and can’t be brought in. A person can bring in two keys on a key ring, up to thirty dollars in ones and quarters, ten photos in a clear plastic coin purse or, more commonly, a ziplock bag.

When a visitor is done with the metal detector, they’re stamped on their right inner forearm, given back their pass and ID, and held in another room to wait for the van to take them over to the visiting area. That room is small with more benches.

We were called up by the guards. “The visiting room is full,” we were told. “It’s reached 150, which is capacity. You’ll have to go to the trailer and wait until 12:30 when we’ll start bumping people out.”

“Do we have to wait in the trailer?” I asked. I had no interest in spending an hour and a half in that trailer.

“No, you can go get lunch,” the guard said.

“Can I have my license back?” Erik asked.

“You driving?” the guard asked and handed Erik his license. We returned to the dusty gravel parking lot and headed toward Susanville—the prison is actually four miles outside of Susanville.

We were hungry--we hadn’t brought enough food in our little cooler. We don’t eat fast food, but I wanted Taco Bell. I wanted the predictability of bean burritos. Erik said no. We drove through town, looking for a real place, and decided to try a random Mexican restaurant. Then we saw Chinese and Japanese food restaurant. The idea of Japanese is what tempted me, so we looked at the picture menu outside the window. Erik wanted a teriyaki tofu chow mein bowl, while I wanted a teriyaki tofu rice bowl.

The food was unappealing. The tofu itself was nicely fried, but the teriyaki sauce was overly sweet, and my rice was soaked in it. I ate half of my food. “At least there was broccoli,” Erik said afterward.

We still had time to kill, so we drove through Susanville and saw a little cemetery. “Stop!” I said.

Erik parked and said, “The gate’s locked. We can’t go in.” I had seen a people-passage beside the locked gate and told him so.

We looked at headstones and calculated how old the dead were when they died. We marveled that someone who’d died in the 1930s had fake flowers on their grave. We realized that the grave we were looking at was of a baby, born and died the same day in 1936. As we continued through the cemetery, we noticed that all the babies had flowers on their graves. “Someone must have a baby fetish,” I said. All the veterans had flags on their graves.

We looked at the epitaphs, learned headstone designs, and pointed out unusual names. “What if there was a Taylor and a Lundgren and they were right next to eachother?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be weird?”

Erik said, “That would scare me.”

It was a little hot. We went to tree shade. We started getting bored. “Should we go?” I asked.

“Flowers and flags, stones and bones,” Erik said.

Back at the prison, Erik returned his driver’s license, and we waited on a bench. We were called up to take off our shoes, turn our pockets inside-out, and pass through the metal detector. I went first. There was no beep. I was stamped and told to sit in the other room. I put my ID and pass in my pocket.

Erik went through the metal detector just fine too. We waited together in the little room. Meanwhile, the person after us was told she needed to change her shirt. “Go to the trailer. They have clothes there you can change into.” The woman was furious and slammed the door behind her, saying “fuck.”

Another couple was called up. That woman too was told that she needed to change her shirt. Her bra was showing through. One of the rules is “no transparent clothing,” which means anything pale, like white or yellow—I’m glad I wore gray and brown.

This woman was upset too and started to cry. She and her husband left for the trailer.

Eventually these people came back, the women in non-transparent clothing. The first one complained loudly after passing through the metal detector. “Idiots work here,” she said. “Idiots! Idiots!”

“We don’t have to be subject to this,” a guard called. “You can leave.”

“Thank you,” the woman said.

“Very good,” the guard said.

The other woman was still crying. “This is just so humiliating,” she said.

“Yeah,” the first woman said. “It’s like, who’s the criminal here!”

Another couple came in. This woman had long, long dark brown hair. She was wearing all white and was told she needed to put on another shirt and other pants. She came back in new clothing but couldn’t get through the metal detector. “Are you wearing an underwire bra?” a guard asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“You’re not going to be able to get through,” the guard said. “Go back to the trailer and they’ll help you.” One of the rules is that “undergarments must be worn at all times,” but they can’t have any metal. “You can get another bra, or you can rip the underwire out.” The men were getting through just fine—it was the women who had all the trouble.

A van came. We piled in and were driven a short distance to another building. There was a lobby and a front desk where we had to show our IDs, a UV light was passed over our inner forearms to read the stamps we had been stamped, and we had to print and sign our names in a log book.

Then we passed into a hall and waited there to be locked into a holding place, a double gate. It’s a section of hall that’s blocked off with two big locked doors. There’s one gate locked at all times.

In the actual visiting room, a guard took our passes from us. We stood at the edge of the room, looking to see if S was there. The room was full of prisoners and their families and friends. The room was loud with conversation. People sat at low round tables with chairs. Erik and I took a table and sat to wait for S to be brought to us. It was about 1.

I was overwhelmed by noise, movement, and just being there—trembling, trying to look calm. But everyone around us was in a good mood, happy to see their loved ones. A photographer took Polaroids for duckets against the backdrop of a big square mural of ocean waves crashing on a rocky beach. A young prisoner stood proudly with his pretty girlfriend, his arm around her, as the photographer, who was a prisoner too, took their picture.

Prisoners wear light blue long sleeved shirts with blue jeans or dark blue pants. The prisoner at the table nearest ours had his back to us, and on the back of his neck was a tattoo of a crab. The prisoners were mostly young and looked like nice people.

The reason each visitor can bring in up to 30 dollars in quarters and ones is that there are vending machines in the visiting room. I asked Erik to buy us some water, and it cost $1.25. The food there in the visiting room is considered desirable by the prisoners, treat food.

We started getting impatient. I looked around and saw that the visitors who had come in at the same time as us didn’t have their prisoner yet either, so we tried to relax. “Do you want to play cards?” I asked. There were games that could be checked out. A group near us played Scrabble.

A door opened, a guard stepped out, and a line of prisoners entered the room. We looked to see if S was among them, but he wasn’t there. The visitors who had come in at the same time as us were reunited with their prisoner family member, but why had S not come? We decided there must be some delay and kept waiting.

It was 1:30, then it was 2. I was upset that we would only have half an hour with S. Erik was angry. His body language had changed, and I felt a rising panic. “You’re not helping me here,” I said. “You can be angry later, okay?”

I went up to a desk where a guard sat. I told her, “I’m here to see,” and then the full name of my cousin. “Do you know if he’s coming?”

“I’ll call his yard,” she said, but Erik says he didn’t see her make a call.

A little later another guard saw us sitting alone and said, “Were you never brought your prisoner?”

“No,” we said, and I told him my cousin’s full name.

The guard left the room through the door that the prisoners had entered from, and we hoped that he would come back with S, but he came back alone.

Soon it was 2:25. Visiting hours were over at 2:30. “Visiting hours are now over,” a guard announced. “I need visitors up against that wall and prisoners to that side.” Couples kissed, and family members gave last hugs. Eaters finished up their food.

We were reluctant to leave our table. We were the only ones who never got to be with our prisoner. We didn’t want to give up.

But we got up and went to the side of the room, watching the door where the prisoners had entered. It opened. A guard stepped out, and behind him was my cousin. Erik and I saw him and stared. The guard talked to another guard. They looked at the clock—it was 2:30. My cousin looked healthy and was smiling. We waved, but he didn’t see us. Then the guard who had brought him took him away.

Erik kept watching the door, hoping they would bring him back, and I stood there with my eyes full of tears, thinking that we didn’t get one word. “We didn’t even get to hug him,” I thought, not speaking to Erik so I wouldn’t cry.

The visitors moved out of the building in groups of ten.
We passed by the guard who had tried to help us. “What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

We passed into the holding area and back to the lobby, where we had to show our IDs and forearms again and sign out. A van came and brought us back to the dusty gravel parking lot. We got into our car and started out on the three and a half hour drive home.

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “All that way.”

“I knew it, once it was 2,” Erik said.

“Was it better, that we got a glimpse of him, or worse?” I asked. We agreed that S had looked healthy.

We drove back through the desert to Reno and got on the 80 to Sacramento. On the 80, we stopped at a forest rest stop and walked on a little trail by a pond. It was beautiful there, up in the conifers, and the air felt clean.

“There are worse things that happen in this world,” I said. “There was no loss of life or property.” We decided we would try again in a few weeks.

book reviews #42

2007-08-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
This book kept me company while I wasn’t feeling well. It’s essays—non-fiction memoir—many of them about being a kid, family, growing up gay. It’s all refreshingly concrete, fast paced. It has some heart-wrenching, poignant moments. It has some funny moments where I laughed alone. It’s easy, satisfying reading.

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
I heard this described as a novella, but I thought it was more like a short story. It has many big words in it, and lots of darkness, so I almost set it aside a few times, like when I realized it’s the kind of tale where you’re watching someone’s life spiral out of control. It’s painful to see, but it happens pretty quickly.

Something about Death in Venice is beautiful and moving. All the comments about art are stated with such authority and scream for debate.

I wanted to see what all the high school kids had to read for English class, I was interested because of the homosexuality, and it’s short enough that I could get through it with minimum investment.

On some level I enjoyed it. I couldn’t relate to the main character very much, but it was fascinating sort of like Lolita to watch someone feeling things they shouldn’t and to see how it destroys them.

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Speculative fiction, a kid’s book—Lowry is one of my favorite authors from my youth. I loved her Anastasia series, which is light and happy, as well as Us and Uncle Fraud, which is excellent and very much influenced me.

Gathering Blue is consistently serious and somewhat dark but definitely written for young people. I was hooked and fully inhabiting its world by about page 60.

A disabled girl has a special gift with thread. She’s living in a harsh, post-apocalyptic place. She’s smart and lovable, but not as smart as the reader—the reader figures out all the mysteries before she does, which is fine.

I like it—I recommend it, though it was a bit slow at pulling me in. Now I plan to read The Giver, Lowry’s other speculative fiction book for young adults.

Women in Love by DH Lawrence
I listened to this book on tape. I learned about how people feel and interact: the physicality of feelings, what we want, the ways we torture one another, the conflict of relationship. I never would have explained human behavior in the way DH Lawrence does, and I find it insightful. He’s not afraid to be meaningfully repetitive, and his characters are full of passion. I like the nudity and dreaminess. Also, DH Lawrence makes memorable scenes, and the characters are irritating but complex and lovable.

The Giver by Lois Lowry
“You should read The Giver,” a friend said. “It’s a good book.” Something about her tone of voice, a hint of challenge like a dare, made me feel that The Giver would upset me, and I was right.

Following in the footsteps of Brave New World and 1984, this book causes the reader to think about power in society and to look critically at cultural norms. I can see why it won so many awards. It also causes the reader to feel strong feelings. One of my problems with the book is that it’s sometimes too rough with the reader. I was profoundly disturbed by a particular nightmarish scene, and it feels sensational, keeping its audience interested in the worst way.

Another problem I have with the book is how I didn’t care about the characters until a third of the way through. The first third is all setting and plot. I would have liked it to be much longer. I would have liked to spend a lot more time with Jonas and The Giver once I got to know them.

Anyway, the second half is brilliant, even though the reader is sometimes tossed around like a rag doll. The ending is ambiguous and leaves much for discussion.

I would recommend this book to people who are feeling strong and tough. It’s speculative fiction with original ideas, and it does a good job with its project once it gets through the initial set up.

Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein
I skimmed the first half, which serves as a long preface. The 101 suggestions themselves are what I requested it from the library for. Also, Kate Bornstein is a famous genderqueer author, and I was curious about how she would address other things. It turns out that her genderqueerness comes up a lot in the first half of the book, which I did enjoy bits and pieces of. Bornstein (who I am myspace friends with, by the way!) is a bit sex-obsessed in this book, which might be its only drawback. Straight-edge kids and younger kids could feel put off. A third reason I was interested is that I’m curious about suicide as a subject, suicide prevention, and teenagers / youth culture. So a few of my interests came together. A fourth reason is that it’s caused a bit of a stir. She mentions some dangerous alternatives to suicide as last resorts, which caused some libraries not to include it in their collections.

As for the 101 suggestions, some are common sense, while some are more provocative. We all might need a little instruction on psychological self-care, and Bornstein is intelligent about it though sometimes facile. I found myself implementing some of her suggestions immediately, and my life was slightly enriched. The way she uses symbols to rate the difficulty and danger level is cute. And I admire the way she takes risks. I would have liked more detail, more true love, and less cross-referencing.

Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man by John Porcellino
This is a book of black and white comix about John’s time as a mosquito abatement man. Often heart-rending, often beautiful. John makes the zine King Cat and is Zen Buddhist. I met him a few years ago at the San Francisco zine fest.

Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger
This is a young adult novel that I read because it’s a good friend’s favorite book. It’s a story about a boy who falls in love with the girl, only the girl is a lesbian, so it’s not going to work out. Interestingly enough, the two main characters are zinesters, which is another reason I wanted to read it. There’s a lot about family trouble, but the characters’ pain doesn’t damage the reader. The last third is suspenseful: I went into a reading frenzy like any good novel makes me do.

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
Brilliant, disturbing short stories. Like story-length prose poems. Often sexually perverted—there’s some borderline incest and sex under duress that really got to me. The story that made me cry a lot featured a young woman who became a sex worker out of desperation for money, and I really cared about her character and didn’t like her to be in that situation. Often funny—I giggled, at times. Always insightful about people and how desperate we feel. It creates a quirky world. It’s dreamy and excellent.

Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell
I was charmed by Sarah Vowell in the They Might Be Giants movie Gigantic. She is so likable: articulate, insightful, full of personality. So I got this book of essays written by her, and I’m not disappointed. No, I have never heard her on NPR. I know it’s cliché, but I really feel like I can relate to her. I remember growing up with Reagan and being afraid during the cold war. I read On The Road and got into the Beats when I was a teenager too. I was raised Christian and moved away from it while retaining all the memories too. She and I have so much common ground, but she can talk about it all with ease where I’m still halting and unsteady. I admire her a great deal.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
This book is made of clever and funny spoofs of common fairy tales. The illustrations are gorgeous. I don’t know what age group is the target here: maybe children would like it face value, but someone would have to be very familiar with the fairy tale genre and probably a grown up or precocious kid to get many of the jokes. Favorite tales are “The Princess and the Bowling Ball,” “The Really Ugly Duckling,” and “The Other Frog Prince.”

Adam Bede by George Elliot
There is some solid storytelling here, but I feel unsure about the characters—are they more three dimensional than two dimensional? The portrayal of the only child character is painfully twee—I thought the same thing about Eppie in Silas Marner. But the narrator says sharply insightful things. The dialect is interesting, and I trust the settling, so I’m getting a peek at another time and place. I keep going to see what will happen.

The Fear Book by Cheri Huber
Huber writes self-help books influenced by Zen Buddhism. They include illustrations, and the text is in a handwriting font. Intended to be less heavy than usual self-help books, with less verbiage and more “ah-ha” moments. I find The Fear Book insightful, though I have the problem I always have with self-help books—I feel too unusual for the advice they give, that much of the advice doesn’t apply. But some of it does. I’ve had problems with anxiety throughout my life, so the subject is apt. I like this one.

The James Joyce Murders by Amanda Cross
Okay, so people don’t really talk like this. Erik objects to the dialog. (We read this book out loud together.) I enjoy hearing clever characters be clever. The mystery itself is compelling—we didn’t know who done it and wanted to know. I have a special fondness for Amanda Cross and her main character, literature professor Kate Fransler. I’d read all the other mysteries by Cross—this was my last one.

Fun Places to Go with Children in Northern California by Elizabeth Pomada
Erik and I don’t have children and don’t intend to, but I thought this book would talk about the kind of attractions I’m attracted to. It’s fun to flip through. I found a good handful of places I’m curious about visiting. It’s clear, detailed.

The Golden Ass by Apuleius, translated by Robert Graves
We only made it halfway through this book because it has so many gross-out moments. Graphic violence repulses us. There are good things about it too, like a smart retelling of the Psyche-Cupid myth that lasts three chapters.

two dreams from #41

2007-07-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

the blue glove

I dropped one of my blue gloves into the river far, far below. I asked a little girl to get it for me, because the river was so shallow there, and I could see it. I was too tired / busy to go. She said yes--then I realized this was a dangerous errand, and she might drown. “No, I changed my mind—don’t get it for me,” I said, but I knew she might try anyway, and it would be my fault if she died. How could I force her or convince her not to go down to the river for the blue glove?

captive

We crashed our car into a helicopter that was trying to land on the road. Then we got interrogated and captured by evil soldiers who thought we were spies. They were interrogating us in a language we couldn't understand. Then they beat and tortured us (the torture took place off-camera) and held us prisoner. They enjoyed hurting us. At the end, someone came around doing a form and found we were being held without cause, and we were let free, but we didn't know where to go. Many other people were let free at the same time, and none of us knew where to go.

more about my religion #41

2007-05-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that I respect Vedanta is that it’s non-recruiting. Visitors are welcome, but there is no missionary work. This is important to me because I need to practice a religion that views all religions as valid paths to god. The way missionaries go into other cultures, tell people that their native beliefs are wrong, and use tricks and bribes to win the natives over offends me. Even when better medical care results, or other benefits like more power for women, it’s still culture-destroying. Knowledge is lost forever, and there’s little more patronizing and paternalistic than white people going to another country and telling the brown people that their entire world-view is incorrect.

Related to the non-recruiting, Vedanta is not run on a business model. Giving money is not pushed. We have a bookstore at the Sacramento center, but it’s there as a service to the devotees (somewhere to buy books, incense, and statuary) rather than as a money-making venture. Also, meeting with Swami is free—all instruction in meditation is free. A private interview at Erik’s zendo requires a donation, but Vedanta has no expectation.

The personalities of the leaders vary, but at our center, Swami is calm, detached, and has a live-and-let-live way of being. Many religious leaders I’ve seen through the course of my life remind me of used car salesmen, and they seem to have been chosen as business leaders or actors rather than as deeply spiritual people. I have never seen any Vedantan Swamis who behave in this way.

I love Vedanta the more time I spend with it. It becomes more comfortable, like old blue clothes. The more I know it, the more I feel at home. My problems with gender trouble become less important as a result of my involvement with a religious women’s group, where strong women govern ourselves, and no men are allowed or needed.

That said, I have never felt more like an atheist. I’m an experiment in a super-religious atheist, an example of how to do a religion without any faith.

Some days, ritual feels like superstition. I think insults like, “Why are you waving that stick of incense at that picture? It’s just a picture.” Some days, it all feels like a waste of time. I think, “We should be doing something useful, helping the world.”

Some days, I feel so out of place and ashamed. What would my friends think if they knew I’m such an atheist? I feel like a drop of oil completely separate in a bowl of water. In the women’s group, I love my Samiti sisters, but after our monthly meetings, when we socialize, sometimes I don’t feel like one of them. They speak of Mother as a personal god, who answers prayer and watches over them, in a way that I just can’t accept as true.

Despite all this strife, Vedanta does makes concessions for atheism. Official written dictum at the Tabuco Canyon center in Orange County says that realization / enlightenment can be obtained without belief in god. Our particular center doesn’t state this, but Vedanta’s main prophet, Swami Vivekananda, who brought the teachings from India to the west, was an atheist sometimes, and he’s deeply loved, revered for his loyalty and intelligence. In that sense, I have safety. Skepticism is equated with sharpness of mind.

My best friend in town P, the one who runs the choir, knows I have no faith, and she says that maybe when I’m older, it will come to me. She says she’s found it only recently, and she’s 71. She’s said to me that hard-earned faith is the strongest when it comes, and what she says makes sense, because it didn’t arrive on a whim. Once I do have faith, maybe I can believe it with all my being, but that’s hard to imagine from my current vantage point.

The solution isn’t another religion. I don’t feel drawn to Christianity, though it would be so much easier, for the most part, to accept my local culture’s standard. I don’t feel drawn to any other religions either, though Erik’s Buddhism appeals to me in many ways, and Buddhist ideas become part of my own mind’s way of thinking from so many conversations with Erik about problems and solutions. His perspective is very much Buddhist, and I respect him entirely.

Over the past year I’ve attended two different interfaith events. One was held at a Roman Catholic church, and that was near Christmas. The other was held at a Christian church. Both had religious leaders from various faiths giving short talks, and listening to all of them made me feel secure that Hinduism is the only religion that could possibly work for me. What Swami said made complete sense. I never felt he was watering down the truth or getting side-tracked. He never behaved like a used car salesman, like I mentioned earlier so many other religious leaders do. His understanding of reality most closely matches mine, and Buddhism is a close second, which makes sense—Buddha was Hindu, after all, in the same way that Jesus was a Jew. Some think of Buddhism as an offshoot of Hinduism. I like the way contradictions and paradox are welcome. They can’t be wished away or forbidden away.

tomato rice #41

2007-05-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Of course you like garlic--we all do. You might think this recipe looks boring, and you want to put garlic in it. Well, you can, but it would be a new dish.

As it is, tomato rice is all about the tomato. Its subtleties and complexities are showcased in this delightful, any-time-of-the-day dish.

one ripe tomato
leftover rice
half a ripe avocado
salt
olive oil

Dice the tomato. Saute it in some olive oil for a few minutes.

Add the leftover rice. Break up any clumps, and sauté them together until the rice is heated through and then some.

Serve with avocado to taste and plenty of salt.

Melanie #41

2007-05-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

I was the smartest girl, from Kindergarten through second grade, at my small school, where we wore dresses every day. I read more, did math better, wrote well. I was the smartest girl except for one, my enemy.

Her name was Melanie. She was also more polite and reasonable than me. She was blond, soft-spoken, with freckles, and seemed rich at the time. Her family was a paragon of gentle whiteness.

I went to a slumber party at her big, clean house. She had a huge trampoline, and we took turns jumping in the middle until our moms came to pick us up.

She could sing in French and knew how to weave baskets. “I can weave baskets too,” I said, because it seemed self-explanatory.

After second grade, I went to a new school. But one day, in sixth grade, there was a special event, and we met, just the two of us, in a hallway.

She recognized me, and I didn’t recognize her. She said, “Don’t you remember me? I’m Melanie.”

She wore thick glasses and was no longer thin. Her skin seemed stretched tight on her body, and she had acne. She was so kind to me--gentle and good. “How are you?” she asked, despite the way I had been so mean to her those years ago and called her Mel’s Diner.

I was shocked. I swallowed all my jealousy, and we spoke warmly. We were adults for a moment.

Who knows where she is now, but she’s probably still better than me, which is fine.

philosophy #41

2007-05-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

Philosophy is like trying to get pregnant by talking on the phone. –Laura-Marie

DH Lawrence quote #40

2007-04-20T15:56:00.001-07:00

This is what I believe. That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will try always to recognize and submit to them.
–DH Lawrence

toll #40

2007-04-19T12:48:00.001-07:00

Eventually, handing three dollars
to a person in a yellow booth
becomes normal.

turning 30 #40

2007-03-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

I was so scared. It’s not death, because I know how death can strike at any time. It’s that people think 30 year olds should have a real job and know what they’re doing—I don’t have a real job, or know what I’m doing.

(And women are officially worthless at 30, no longer prime real estate, not that I ever was—and I don’t think about those things, but I can’t wash off the bad residue of my culture no matter how hard I try.)

However, on my 30th birthday, I received a wealth of kindness from family and friends. I got so many emails, cards, and messages of goodwill that I was moved almost to tears. My parents sent flowers. I feel supported and loved as I enter my 30s.

In my 20s I was so busy finding myself and healing from the pain of the past: I was turned inward. But now I feel secure in who I am, better able to engage the world as a full person, and ready to take care of myself.

Another of my favorite things about growing up is how I’m able to be close to people of any age. My closest friends range in age from 16 to 72. These people enrich my life.

The place where you turn 30 is a good place. Age is only a problem if you make it that way. If you’re blessed to have your health, it only gets better. As you grow up, you can find within yourself the resources to grow up.

art #40

2007-03-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

I like art to make me see things in a new way and make me think, but it can be beautiful at the same time. I like new kinds of beauty, resonant. I like some conceptual art (and made some as an undergrad, like the installation piece Bathroom of Love).

I like bookarts and collage, altered books, letter-pressed cards. I love mail art. I got my first artist’s trading card (ATC) a few months ago and was absolutely tickled.

Most large public sculpture looks ugly to me, an eyesore and wasted space. Public sculpture is obtrusive, and my eye can’t avoid it the way I could avoid a painting I didn’t like. I feel the urge to climb on things I shouldn’t. But well-done sculpture is very pleasing, something three-dimensional and very much in space.

I have a hard time appreciating modern building architecture, but I love almost any bridge, cathedrals.

I love everything by Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings. I like Chagall’s dream paintings.

I like religious--old Christian art, paintings of Mary, anything of the Virgin of Guadalupe, stained glass, headstones, angel statues in cemeteries. Christian religious art does fabulous things with light. I also enjoy Buddhist and Hindu art for the evocative images.

I like murals, graffiti, art in unexpected places. Old ads, old ads painted on the side of a brick building.

Folk art, outsider art—photography. Folk art from Latin America. Chicano art. Quilts. I have a weakness for photos of old condemned buildings, especially hospitals. Antique black-and-white photos of people, especially groups, a picture of the whole class at school, the expressions of the children and their old clothes.

most of the quotes from #39

2006-12-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
--Jane Austin

War is a time of heightened masculinity when women disappear off the public stage except as victims or supporters of their men. War in some terrible way is the final victory of gender hierarchies.
--Joan Nestle

Fruit is its own reward.
--Laura-Marie

Once something is written down it exists in a way that is more like us.
--Mara Snider

The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.
--GB Shaw

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.
--Howard Zinn

teaching dream, one of a thousand #39

2006-11-26T17:05:00.000-08:00

It was the first day, I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t have texts, and I was being observed. I was getting to know individual students. I liked them--they were a loud bunch, older than usual, less advantaged.

I woke up planning classes and refining my pedagogy, realized it was just a dream and I’m not a teacher anymore, fell half-asleep again and kept going with class plans and a revision of the entire arc of my composition classes. I think I would be a better teacher now, but I don’t feel like jumping back into that murky water.

love dream #39

2006-11-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

The three of us were sitting close on a lawn. I held your hand and rubbed your fingers on my face. I kissed your fingers--my heart was filled with love.

You and Erik were having a conversation about why we hadn’t heard from you, and you were telling him that we weren’t allowed to call you unless we were homeless or needed help. My body tensed, and I dropped your hand. “Are you serious?” I asked. You said yes--angry--then got up and left.

I went somewhere to look at jewelry. I was talking with a Pakistani woman. We were making fun of swami even though she was Muslim. There were onyx eggs and beautiful pastel stone eggs arranged in designs with silver.

Later, I wanted to leave and looked for my shoes. They were farther down the hall than I thought they would be. I found paper in one of them. You had written me two letters in brilliant blue ink. I read only the post scripts, which were very emotional and clear. You weren’t saying what I wanted you to say, but I felt so relieved that we were talking about it at all.

I woke up from this dream. In the morning I cried because it wasn’t true. It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you that my friends are telling me to move on. I tell them I haven’t loved someone the way I love you in a long time. I agree that there are other smart people in the world, but none of them are you.

chess #39

2006-11-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.
--Raymond Chandler

peace statement #39

2006-10-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

Erik and Laura-Marie are strongly against the war, the other war, and war generally. Killing people is not correct behavior and is a bad example to all. Children suffer--adults suffer. Animals and the environment are harmed. Money is wasted that could be used to help people and feed the poor. Mental health is compromised, art is destroyed, resources are wasted. War is ugly and wrong. Peace is how we all want to live.

Death valley in winter #39

2006-10-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Death Valley in winter, with ravens--sitting at the campfire and hearing coyotes walk by, their nails clicking on the asphalt. Looking at the full moon through binoculars. Walking in a crater, screwbean mesquite trees, seeing Saturn through a telescope.

call

2006-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here is someone's call for submission. Sounds good--I think I'll submit.

*********************************************

After much umming and ahhhing about its future, it has been decided that there *will* be a sixth issue of Reassess Your Weapons zine (the collective Manifesta zine that is open for all to contribute to. See www.manifesta.co.uk for more info on the zine, and on Manifesta).

We welcome all submissions from anybody willing to contribute. Submissions in the past have varied from writing to art, humorous to serious, interviews to poetry, cartoons to Ladyfest info, photography to sketches, reviews to recipes, political discussion to personal rants and beyond. Please do submit anything you wish to reassessyrweapons@manifesta.co.uk or m_k_maddison@hotmail.com

The zine is a feminist, queer positive space which enables *all* our lives and experiences, creativities and talents to be voiced and published without censorship; contribute to the zine and let *your* voice be heard.

The past few issues have benefited from dedicating a portion of the zine to a collective discussion. Previous issues have addressed Confidence, Burnout and Harassment with each discussion taking the form of individual thoughts, experiences and suggestions being printed alongside many other individual thoughts generating a bank of important discussions from which to hopefully take strength, inspiration and empowerment.

Issue six of the zine is focussing its collective discussion on myth busting feel free to contribute to this discussion by submitting articles in any medium you wish. Feel free to address the idea of taking commonly held perceptions and sharing alternative realities. Or how about writing about an idea youve challenged in your life and show how others could do the same? Or what about looking at a study of an individual who has taken an unconventional role and how they did it, and what drives them. Feel free to submit anything you wish on this theme and feel free to interpret the notion of myth busting in which ever ways you wish.

Submit all articles to reassessyrweapons@manifesta.co.uk or m_k_maddison@hotmail.com or email for a UK postal address to send work (in an A5 format) to.

Many thanks, and heres to a great new issue!
Melanie xx

N.B : Please post or forward this call-for-submissions anywhere you wish to try and broaden our base of contributors!

great reviews!

2006-09-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy to have received two good reviews from Zine World, so grateful that I was assigned reviewers who appreciate my project. Yay.

Erik & Laura-Marie Magazine #30: A perzine that reads like a letter from an old friend, or sister. Laura-Marie tells us about some memories, some books to check out, tea, recipes, applying for a job and more. Erik contributes neat short-short stories that are awesome. If you like zines, you should get this. It’s free, but send something. [28S :16]—mishap

Erik & Laura-Marie Magazine #35: This slim, spartan, personalzine consists of snippets of memories, excerpts from letters, and bursts of poetry. Well-written, congenial, and with a slight undercurrent of melancholy. Recommended—and free, so you don’t have to take my word for it. Laura-Marie Taylor, 1728 Richmond St. #9, Sacramento CA 95825, veralinnyumsweet@yahoo.com, erikandlauramarie.blogspot.com [free, trade, ftp 20S :18]—Karlos

disembodied #38

2006-07-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

extra zines #38

2006-07-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

particular #38

2006-07-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

tie dye #38

2006-07-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

What is it about tie dye that makes strangers talk to me? Last night at the co-op, we were setting our purchases on the conveyer belt, and the yuppie behind me in line required that I make eye contact with him. I thought I was in trouble.

“Did you make that shirt?” he asked. I was wearing my favorite shirt, which is pastel tie dye.

“No,” I said, “No, I didn’t.” They always ask this question, and they always want me to say yes. “But someone did,” I said, in an attempt to comfort him.

A heavily tattooed worker stocking magazines approved of my witty assertion.

“Do you know who made it?” he asked. “Was it a vendor?”

“Uh….” I risked disappointing him again. “I bought it at a grocery store in Bishop,” I said. The yuppie and his wife nodded in approval. “At Manner Market.”

“Got that 395 charm, huh?” the yuppie said. That’s the freeway that runs through Bishop like Bishop is a bead and the 395 is the string of the necklace. Or Bishop is a wart on the butt crack formed by the valley between the Sierras and the Whites, and the 395 is a road.

“Looks good against the Sierras,” he said.

“Everything looks good against the Sierras,” I said.

breakfast #38

2006-07-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

When Erik was a little boy, his dad would make him breakfast on the weekend. He loved French toast and bacon.

More common school-day breakfasts were peanut butter toast or grilled cheese sandwiches, sometimes with fried ham on the side. “Never ham inside the sandwich?” I asked. “No, on the side,” he said.

When I was a little girl, I loved eggs as I do now. I had a lot of over-easy eggs with buttered toast. Sometimes my mom would cut the toast into slices, which somehow changed the experience of dipping the toast into the runny yolk.

I also liked eggs in toast, which goes by many names the western world over, which is where you cut circles out of the bread and crack the eggs into the holes, the yolk going into the hole. It has a different flavor.

And I had eggs on toast too. Getting a dribble of yolk on my shirt was a common error, and I would change my shirt right before getting in the car with my backpack.

I loved French toast and pancakes too, but those were more for weekends. And we had fry-ups after holidays. I remember my dad in particular frying lunchmeat for me, which I later did for myself, as a side dish to eggs: salami, bologna, turkey meat. I never cared much for ham.

I have a curiosity about what people eat for breakfast. It’s the question I ask my penpals right away. It’s an intimate meal, usually eaten in the home. It’s an honest meal.

They Might Be Giants #38

2006-07-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

Innocence Mission makes me feel healed: Birds of my Neighborhood and Befriended. It’s safe and caring. Morrissey and The Smiths make me feel healed too, though the darkness is more addressed—cathartic as in going through the pain to get to the other side. With Innocence Mission, the pain is off-stage. And the lyrics are beautiful.

I love Bach for St Matthew’s Passion and more. David Bowie will always have a special place in my heart, and Hunky Dory might be my favorite album of all time. The music of The Mountain Goats is raw, stark. “Golden Boy Peanuts” may be the most moving song I’ve ever heard. But I’ve only just started listening to the Mountain Goats.

They Might Be Giants is my favorite band because of their creativity, which is pure genius. No one else is so consistently funny, and funny in the best way, a humor that helps me see life anew and stimulates me as validly as anything serious. I feel I can live. Their lyrics are often dark, often about death, but the humor makes me feel I can face it. The two Johns are like friends to me, and we can talk about these things.

You’re older than you’ve ever been
and now you’re even older,
and now you’re even older,
and now you’re even older.
You’re older than you’ve ever been,
and now you’re even older.
And now you’re older still.
Time is marching on.
And time is still marching on.

TMBG risks obnoxiousness with their exuberance. They take risks constantly and usually succeed. Infinitely musically skilled, they seem to be able to do anything they please, make music in any genre--any instrument, including the most obscure.

Playful describes them well. There’s not a big difference between their music for kids and their music for adults. They’re able to access and inhabit the minds of not only their current 40-something selves, but all previous selves also. That’s how I feel too, so we have that in common.

As a teenager I listened to Flood and Apollo 18 a lot, and they became part of my inner soundtrack. Lincoln was another favorite that stayed with me. “Ana Ng” taught me about love, longing, and made me consider ideas of fate: do we all have a soulmate somewhere, and is it possible that mine is on the other side of the world? “Mammal” showed me that a pop song could be about science and informed me about my own biology. My friend Amanda and I sang it repeatedly in the halls of our high school, annoying our other friends. “The Statue Got Me High” reinforced my feeling that art can have a huge impact on a person and pleased me with its transgressive drug analogy. “We Want a Rock” to this day delights me with its gentle kindness and insight concerning simple human desires.

Throw the crib door wide--
let the people crawl inside.
Someone in this town
is trying to burn the playhouse down.
They want to stop the ones who want
a rock to wind a string around.
But everybody wants a rock
to wind a piece of string around.

These songs are classics for me, and hearing them could give anyone insight to the workings of my mind because my mind’s ways of being are somewhat founded on the odd logic of these tunes.

Recently I got They Might Be Giants and Mink Car from the library. I’m currently in love with “My Man,” which brilliantly examines the strange phenomenon of finding oneself paralyzed: the spinal chord is compared to a trans-Atlantic cable, the brain to headquarters: the body isn’t following orders. Its light-heartedness belies the gravity of the subject, which happens often in their music, but not in a creepy way (creepy would be like The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma”)--more straightforward than that, not trying to shock anyone. I trust them entirely. And the strangest line will suddenly feel very moving, such as “for instance an anchor or mooring”--suddenly at this line, I could cry--you’ll have to hear it.

My best friend gave me Miscellaneous T. I’m taken with “Boat of Car” which is one of the strangest things I have ever heard, as well as “When it Rains, it Snows.” They’re literate, clever, more literate than anyone.

I took my boat for a car.
I took that car for a ride.

There’s a tape I found at a dollar store years ago and listened to over and over again in my truck. “In the Nightgown of the Sullen Moon” was my favorite song for a year and comforted me as I drove the back roads to and from teaching community college in Bishop.

Drug trip--it's not a drug trip
so you feel a bit insulted.
Space walk--it's like a space walk
with the corresponding weight loss
And you're nothing but air,
with your hand in the air
and your shoelaces tied
up together with care.
There's a feeling of boredom,
of the big whoredom
following dressing up.

My best friend recently gave me John Henry, but I haven’t listened to all of it yet, and we got a best-of anthology Dial-a-Song from the library to fill in some gaps.

As an adult, I’m less wowed by clever lyrics because I know lots of bands can do that. I’m now more into the music of it, the harmony and syncopations, the flawlessness of their execution. Or the way the music and lyrics come together. I prefer my lyrics to resist the intelligence, like in “Man, it’s so Loud in Here” where I feel strong emotions, but the text resists a simple reading—I like when I’m in tears but I’m not sure why—or an odd combination of feelings as in “Hovering Sombrero.”

Don't be burdened by regrets
or make your failures an obsession,
or become embittered or possessed
by ruined hopes. Remember when
you take yourself for granted, feel
rejected and unwanted: no,
you're never just a hat,
you're never only just a hat, you know.

Their songs are rich experiences, and they’re prolific, so the body of work is huge. Please pardon me as I compare them to Wallace Stevens. Something good is being done to you in a level of consciousness deeper than everyday, but listen to them enough, and this will become everyday for you, and your life will be vivified. You can spend a lifetime with these remarkable musicians, and I will.

peace #18

2006-06-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

I have never met anyone who built a bomb shelter and felt protected by it.
--Peace Pilgrim

pain #18

2006-06-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

The threshold between right and wrong is pain.
--Dalai Lama

stamps, postcards, friendship books #37

2006-06-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Do you collect stamps? I have a lot of duplicates from other countries, because of my penpalling, as well as from the US. I would be happy to trade or share.

I would also be happy to trade postcards.

And I need to swap friendship books too. Sometimes people send these to me, and I want to be a good sport, but I tend to be at a loss about where to send them next. So let me know.

truth #17

2006-06-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

The idea of truth is a fence that keeps out others who have a different truth.
--Thomas Moore

ghost #15

2006-06-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

You can’t have ghosts in your attic if you don’t have an attic.

poetry isn't prose #14

2006-05-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Poetry is concise, compact thought. It usually has line breaks—the line is the main unit of thought. Poetry is like prose boiled down and condensed. It’s more likely to address the reader. Poetry is usually more with a punch. Poetry has more to do with sound. Poetry is effective in both content and form. Poetry is about sound as much as sense. Sometimes poetry can be almost entirely sound with very little sense.

I dislike the way poetry is bad-mouthed by people who don’t get it. They admonish, “Just come out and say what you’re trying to say” because they value clarity. But what they don’t understand is that poetry can be clearer than prose. Good poetry is at least as clear as prose.

I also dislike the way some people use poetry to get sympathy. They write autobiographical poems about depressing subjects just for attention. That’s a misuse of art. It’s okay to be autobiographical, and it’s okay to be depressing. Making art about painful past events can help a person understand what happened. But I hate it when the writer is trying to make me feel sorry for him. It creeps me out and makes me angry instead.

I love the way poetry is brief. It’s instant gratification. You don’t have to muddle through preliminaries. Also, I love the way poetry can be accessible to all people.

Epectitus #13

2006-05-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
--Epectitus

why Califonia is the best #13

2006-05-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

awesome coastline
beautiful mountains
excellent deserts
variety of weather
variety of landscapes
variety of plant life
great food from many cultures
great size
best national parks
diversity of people
fertile farmland
superior public universities
good surfing
the Bay Area
sequoias and coast redwoods
whale migration routes

Sorry, Oregon and Washington!

anxiety #13

2006-05-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

The shared cornerstone of anxiety and depression is the perceptual process of overestimating the risk in a situation and underestimating personal resources for coping.
—Michael Yapko

movement #12

2006-05-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

In order to get my adult ed teaching credential, I had to take a test called the CBEST. Erik and I journeyed to Santa Barbara, and I was almost late, but I passed nicely. It was like the SAT test—sharp pencils, tension, lots of seriousness, and strict time limits.

Taking the CBEST and having a Master’s degree meant I could become a substitute teacher. Did I want to become a substitute teacher? I tried to figure it out. Somehow I went for an observation of a special school in Bishop called the Jill Kinmont Booth school, which I call Booth school.

Booth school is special. Most of the kids are there because they got kicked out of regular school. They’re tough, mostly, or very unmotivated, or unusual and impatient. They’re likeable. Booth school doesn’t run a regular program: the classes are smaller, music is a required subject, and some subjects are team-taught.

I might really like to teach at a school like Booth if I could handle getting a high school teaching credential and if I could get the kids to listen to me (which is doubtful).

But I wanted to talk about Movement. Instead of PE, they have a class called Movement. It’s not necessarily about getting sweaty. I’m not sure of the philosophy behind it. On the day I observed, the small group of students and their two Movement teachers were playing a game that involved as much thinking as moving.

When I was in high school, I had to take PE my first semester. Then in subsequent years, marching band counted as my PE credit.

But I was daydreaming about PE yesterday and thought how much better it would have been if PE was really Physical Education, if you actually learned things, if you could strengthen and better your body as opposed to simple physical torture like “go run a mile” and getting graded on that.

I would have loved to take yoga, a simple stretching class, or some kind of dancing like ballet. Maybe that would have changed my life for the better. Strength training might have been useful also, if the weightlifting room hadn’t been the domain of so much exclusionary testosterone. Self-defense would have been great, or martial arts, or gymnastics. None of these choices was offered to me.

Erik told me that in Minnesota, public schools do have gymnastics teams, which really surprised me.

All I have from high school PE are blurry memories of playing volleyball on asphalt and thoughts of running, running, running. I don’t think God made my body for running, but I don’t think my PE teachers really cared much about my body. They seemed unhappy, and I don’t think they liked teenagers.

My thought is that if you’re going to do something, do it right. Public schools should either make PE a real learning and growing experience, or just cut it. High school is such an empty charade!

#12

2006-05-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

It’s better to over-joke than under-joke.

the bagel #9

2006-05-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

I bought some onion bagels, and the next day I was going to eat one, but I saw a spot of mold, and I was mad, because I just bought them. I picked at the spot, and then I realized it was actually a blueberry.

bad day, good day #9

2006-05-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

I had a job interview at 9:45 on the rez. So I took a shower, put on a dress, had breakfast, printed a fresh resume, and then at 9:20 went out to my truck. I put in the key, turned it.... My truck tried to start but couldn’t start. I tried about 20 times. The sound got slower and slower every time I turned the key. A raven was in one of the trees in our front yard making a cry that sounded like laughter.

I called my mom on her cell phone, but she was at a meeting. “Do you know your dad’s number?” she asked quietly.

I called my dad on his cell phone. He said it sounded like the battery was dead, which I already thought. We decided the best idea was to try to switch out the batteries between my truck and the non-functional Oldsmobile that just sits there by the side of the house.

So I looked for the right size crescent wrench and didn’t have one. I needed 5/16, but my wrenches only go down to 7/16. I had to use a cheap adjustable piece of crap wrench that would never stay the right size. I adjusted it over and over.

At 9:45 I called the place on the rez where I had my interview. “Is there any way I could come in this afternoon?” I asked, explaining how my truck’s battery was dead (I probably sounded tearful). Someone called back and said I could come in at 3.

I got the battery out of the truck, but I couldn’t get the battery out of the Oldsmobile because the right nut was stuck. They have the battery right up against the plastic container that holds the windshield wiper fluid, and a person can barely get their hand in there.

I gave up for a while, changed my clothes because I didn’t want to get grease on my dress, and decided to borrow a tool from the neighbors across the street, the nice Vargases who have a mean little dog. Mrs Vargas helped me. Walking back to my house, I scraped my leg on a stick, and blood bubbled out. It was a warm day, almost 60 degrees out, so I wore sandals, and I got snow in my sandals too.

So I finally succeeded in switching out the batteries thanks to the Vargas’ 5/16 crescent wrench, but when I tried to turn on the truck, nothing happened—not a sound. I said curse words, put the truck’s original battery back in, and returned the wrench to the neighbors across the street.

“Is there anything else we can do to help you?” asked the nice Mr Vargas, who was home on his lunch break—by now it was noon. He speaks with a strong accent yet has strange light eyes. I explained how I’d tried switching out the batteries, but the Oldsmobile battery was deader than a doornail. “Do you want a jump?” he asked. I said, “Yeah, that would be great. But my truck’s kind of in a weird place.” “We can always push it to the street,” he said.

Our driveway doesn’t seem very steep, but when I took the truck out of park, it almost ran me over as it quickly rolled back into the street. Mr Vargas came over with his truck and hooked up the jumper cables. We tried jumping my truck about 10 times. “Seems like it’s just not getting any gas,” he said. He came into the truck and stepped on the gas hard about five times. That time, the jump worked, and I felt the happiness rise in me as the sound of the engine rose to a good-sounding thrum.

But all was not well. “You got a water leak,” Mr Vargas informed me. I looked at the huge puddle forming on the ground. “I can’t tell where it’s coming from,” he said, “But it might just be a hose.” I stuck my fingers in the puddle’s liquid. “Looks like oil,” I said. He shook his head. “Just oily water?” I asked. I sniffed my fingers then wiped them off on the ground.

We discussed what I should do. I said, “Maybe I should throw on my clothes and drive to town right away before it dies.” He wouldn’t advise me. “Do you think I can get to town with this leak?” I asked. He still wouldn’t advise me. I thanked him for his help and called my dad again.

My dad and I decided the best thing to do would be to fill up the overflow container with water, bring a bunch of water with me, keep an eye on the temperature gauge, and drive straight to the mechanic, then walk from the mechanic to my job interview. (This was after considering and rejecting many other options—Erik coming home early from work to give me a ride, calling a taxi—Bishop has no taxis—and that sort of thing.) “You got to get it to the mechanic anyhow,” Dad said.

I ate a quick bowl of cereal for lunch and put my dress back on. The truck was still running (I didn’t want to turn it off for fear that the battery hadn’t charged enough). I hopped in, put on my seat belt, and put the truck into reverse. It immediately died.

I tried over and over to start the truck again, but this time, it didn’t even try to start. It was dead silent. I said curse words and went into the house to call my dad again. He was with a customer, so I got the voicemail on his cell phone and left a message describing what had happened and saying that I had basically given up and didn’t plan on making it to the job interview.

Dad called back and told me that probably there was a bad connection and that I should make sure the battery was in there tight. I told him I already thought of that and tried to wiggle it, but it wouldn’t even wiggle. He thought it wasn’t making good contact. “Do you have a wire brush?” he asked. He told me to remove the battery again and take a wire brush or sandpaper and rub the connectors because they probably were corroded with acid, which was making the connection bad.

So I tried to take out the battery again. I had left my key in the ignition. When I turned the nut, I heard the buzz that means “put on your seatbelt” and felt happy because that meant I just needed to tighten it better and I could go to town after all.

The drive to town was uneventful. I kept looking at the temperature gauge, but the engine never got hot. I pulled into the mechanic shop positioned closest to my job interview and told the mechanic, “I think I have a water leak.” He looked under the hood and said, “It’s just your overflow leaking. See that right there? It’s cracked. If you want to fix it, go down to Kragen and tell them you need a new overflow container. We would put it in for, uh, 15 bucks. But if you have a boyfriend or husband, he could probably do it.”

I knew it wasn’t just the overflow container—I knew that was just leaking because I had put extra water in it to get to town. “Let me tell you the story of my day,” I said, and I explained a condensed version of everything I’ve told you.

“You have a fuel leak,” said a young kid on a bicycle who had been listening. “I can smell it,” he added. The mechanic agreed. “I didn’t see that before,” he said about a small patch of fuel my truck had dripped on the ground.

The owner John gave me a ride to the rez, but it was only 2, so I went to my old work, the Indian Education Center. They didn’t seem surprised to see me even though I hadn’t been there in about six months. Keith talked to me for an hour. He told me all the gossip and how the kids are doing.

A girl came in and said that a cow was loose that morning, and the school bus had to stop for the cow. She said a man was chasing the cow, and she saw it jump over the fence. “I never seen a cow jump before!” she said. I asked her how high the fence was.

#9

2006-05-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

There is no “objective” or universal tone in literature, for however long we have been told there is. There is only the white, middle-class, male tone.
—Carolyn Heilbrun

abortion #8

2006-05-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

I remember when my roommate in college got pregnant and decided to have an abortion. It was her Catholic mom who helped her decide and went with her to the clinic. My roommate never told her boyfriend, who left big bruises on her arms. When she told me, I just didn’t know what to say, and I still wouldn’t know what to say, but I wouldn’t say no.

weird things #8

2006-05-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

Erik was getting in the car to drive to work when he noticed my wallet was in the car. He was going to be late if he didn’t hurry up, so I asked him to throw it to me. He threw it so bad it went up on the roof and stuck there. I started cracking up. He ran into the house and got the broom, climbed up on the porch railing, scraped my wallet off the roof, caught it, and handed it to me. Then he ran back to the car and drove off to work (I waved).

I bought a tomato and left it on the kitchen counter. It got really ripe. When I finally decided to eat it, I cut into it and was disgusted to see little green things in it, which I thought were bugs. But they weren’t bugs--they were leaves. The seeds had sprouted inside the tomato. I didn’t know if I should eat them. I finally decided to plant them. But they didn’t grow.

Erik was driving to work one morning and saw the road was full of cows. He stopped. Then the rancher motioned to him and said, “You’re just going to have to get around.” Either the fence broke or he was herding them down the street, but it only happened once. Eventually a large truck was coming down the road in the opposite direction. Some of the cows got scared and moved over, so Erik finally got through.

One morning I picked my shoe up off the porch, and there was a huge black centipede under it. We have praying mantises too.

Last winter we had an icicle hanging from our roof that was more than five feet long, right by the front door.

#8

2006-04-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

If you don't want to drown, let go of the stone.

why I don't like movies #6

2006-04-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

Some people want to know why I don’t like movies, and it’s hard to explain on the spot. My students bring up movies often in class, to illustrate an idea or make a point. People use movies to explain things to themselves and one another. How many times have you heard someone say, “This is just like in that movie such-and-such when so-and-so says this-or-that and then blank happens.” Well, I usually can’t participate because I never saw the movie you’re talking about.

I don’t like movies because they’re mostly all the same. Also, they’re too long. I’m not a frenetic person, but about 20 minutes into most movies, I feel the need to get up and do something. I usually don’t like the characters. Violence makes me feel sick, and watching people have sex seems voyeuristic and inappropriate.

Most movies bore me. They’re too serious, misogynist, or stylized. The actors don’t look like me or anyone I know. Also, movies are over-stimulating. I can’t handle pictures, sound, people, music, and explosions all at the same time. I would need to take each of those one by one.

Maybe there are some movies I would like, but I don’t seek them out because I’m busy doing the things I already like to do. The movies that are smart and challenging usually make me feel depressed, and the rest of movies are so banal and unintelligent that I just want to get up and leave. I can’t stand the formulaic way the lead woman and man have to end up sleeping together.

I haven’t been to a movie theater in about three years (although I love the popcorn). Movie rental places like Blockbuster or even small, independent ones usually make me feel like I’m going to pass out. They play loud music, have five or six TVs showing movies, parts of movies, or commercials, and have bright colors everywhere: movie posters, yellow painted walls, red carpet.

Sometimes I think movies are the excitement in people’s lives when they should be living the excitement themselves.

#6

2006-04-21T23:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not racist. I think racism is gay.
--Kenny Smith

driving into town #5

2006-04-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

Driving into town
is like falling into a dream.
From the dark,
we see lights
coming toward us--
they pass. They were
angels. To the right
the casino is lit up
to shows us words
like, “Tu Ka Novie” or
“Coffee Break Time.”
There’s a truck on
the lawn--a person
can win it. Town has
stores and shops
and we see darkness again
when we pass
to the other side.

from the Chandogya Upanishad #3

2006-04-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

"Place this salt in water, and then wait on me in the morning." The son did as he was commanded.

The father said to him: "Bring me the salt, which you placed in the water last night."

The son having looked for it, found it not, for, of course, it was melted.

The father said: "Taste it from the surface of the water. How is it?"

The son replied: "It is salt."

"Taste it from the middle. How is it?"

The son replied: "It is salt."

"Taste it from the bottom. How is it?"

The son replied: "It is salt."

The father said: "Throw it away and then wait on me.”

He did so, but the salt exists forever.

rice and lentils #2

2006-04-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

It’s cheap! It’s got protein! It tastes good!

2 ½ cups water
½ cup white rice
½ cup lentils
2 tbsp butter
1 onion chopped
spices (2 tsp curry powder, for example)

Stir together then simmer 20 minutes covered. For variation, add some tomatoes.

I remember #36

2006-04-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

I remember my mom peeling her grapes. I liked my BBQed hotdogs burnt. She made potato salad and macaroni salad. Usually there were some good beans. Back then I picked out all my onions. Back then I loved tri-tip and tri-tip sandwiches, best on a french roll.

I realized that plants need water not because they’re wimps who want to be moist, but because they need it for the whole Krebs cycle to produce ATP. It gave me a whole new perspective on watering my plants.

My students mimicked me when I said, “For sure,” and laughed when I hugged the dictionary. My student was wearing a shirt that said “player” and I asked, “Are you a player?” He said no, when I was passing back papers.

candles #11

2006-04-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

vanilla-scented
pear-scented
mown-grass-scented
carrot-scented
goat-scented

snow-scented
apple-scented
horse-scented
earthquake-scented
pomegranate-scented
home-scented

relationship

2006-04-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Is a relationship made of words?
Words are important.

Is our relationship made of words?
Our relationship is made of soul.

Words are evidence of soul.
Words are little poop-pellets that the soul leaves behind.

acting

2006-04-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.
-Sir Ralph Richardson

September 10

2006-04-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

What exactly do you want us to remember
with a pretend yellow ribbon. Fear.
Remember to be angry. Remember just
a very bad day for a lot of people.
I don’t think we could forget that anyway.
Remember in some way to honor.
But do they know we’re honoring.
Remembering can’t put bodies back together.
Remember the sweetness of the day before.

economics

2006-04-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

I must confess that I do not draw a sharp line or any distinction between economics and ethics. Economics that hurt the moral well-being of an individual or a nation are immoral and, therefore, sinful. Thus, the economics that permit one country to prey upon another are immoral.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The Knot Spider #21

2006-04-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

by Erik Lundgren

There was a little boy. His name was Tim. In his room there was a wooden desk. At night, he sat at his desk and drew crayon pictures of Dr. Destiny, his favorite movie hero. He stayed up late. His parents didn't know he stayed up. He stayed up even though he started to be afraid. Televisions murmured in other rooms of the house.

When he got afraid, he got afraid of a knot that was in his wood desk. To Tim, it looked just like a curled-up spider, with its legs wrapped around the outside of itself. A cocooned spider. Suddenly it would uncurl and be walking across his desk. If he wasn't careful, it would get him.

If I pound the desk, Tim thought, I might kill it. But it might not really be dead. Instead, it might be really mad. Then it will wait until I fall asleep and come get me.

Tim put duct tape over the knot in the wood. He felt safe for awhile. But he couldn't see it. He couldn't see what it was doing. Maybe it was chewing a tunnel in the wood to get out. That was worse. It was worse not seeing it and instead seeing it in his imagination.

Tim got the duct tape off with a long stick. He taped over the knot-spider again, but this time he used see-through tape.

dinner #18

2006-04-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

Some people like enchilada sauce,
some people like ketchup on their tamales.
Everybody’s different,
what are you going to do.
Retreat into a world of nothing.
The Marine boy back from Hawaii
is going to bitch when he says
missing class last Thursday
was not his choice though I believe
he wasn’t drafted to explode things.
And one girl’s going to act like
class is the Oprah Winfrey show,
and a boy’s going to say we’re talking
too much about feelings.
I know the way everybody’s the same,
and I might as well play
a tape recording of the last time.
I’m going to keep listening,
I’m going to keep smiling,
then come home and
die over dinner though
by then everyone but me
forgot the whole thing.
I’ll keep pretending I’m teaching,
you keep pretending you’re studenting.

if you’re just letting me know #18

2006-04-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

If you’re just letting me know,
dye your dream red and say it at school.

Close to dead surfaces,
happiness is 1.3 weddings away.

libraries

2006-04-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

Public libraries are wonderful socialist institutions because everyone can get a library card, and it’s free. You don’t even have to prove you’re a citizen. But you might have to prove your address.

I used to hate libraries because they made me feel claustrophobic. The window is never open, sometimes they can smell bad, like mustiness, and the air is stale.

Also, I went to bad libraries in Santa Maria where they never really had the book I was looking for. I felt oppressed there. I was scared of librarians.

On the other hand, UCSB’s library is eight stories high, and I was overwhelmed by too many books. I didn’t know how to find what I was looking for. Security guards at the all exits creep me out.

Now I know more about libraries and love them because I can go to good ones. I even like to hang out there, writing and reading. And I like librarians now. I think they’re nice.

Librarians, here is some advice for you. Please keep many golf pencils available, and scrap paper, for the unprepared to write down call numbers. Please make sure the chairs are comfortable for all people. Please make everyone turn off their cell phones. Please be quiet, buy all the books I like, and buy all the magazines I like. That’s all--thank you.

christianity #30

2006-04-02T19:40:00.000-07:00

Christianity’s like a boat, and they’re throwing all the smart people off it, so the boat keeps getting dumber and dumber.
--Erik Lundgren

#16

2006-03-31T14:27:00.000-08:00

Greater than the massacring of bullocks is the sacrifice of self. He who offers up his evil desires will see the uselessness of slaughtering animals at the altar. Blood has no power to cleanse, but the giving up of harmful actions will make the heart whole. Better than worshiping gods is following the ways of goodness.
--Buddha

time #15

2006-03-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

I

Pretty girls are a dime a dozen,
but super-intelligent, kind, loving girls
are rare as a pearl the size of a grapefruit,
rare as pink diamonds,
rare as a pure white dragon
who lets you ride him in the night.
What’s all this concern with outsides
anyway? Don’t let your eyes
give you a problem.
Let your ears hear real conversations.
All forms of entertainment
are a royal waste of time.

II

Although we’re passing through a tourist area,
we’re not tourists--
we’re moving from home to home.
The worker gave us a bad look
as we drove through tourist town.
We don’t need anything from the tee-shirt shop.
Hamburgers would kill our life.
I’m sorry the tourists treated you like crap
and left on Sunday.

dogs #11

2006-03-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know how to make this display big enough, but I think you can click on it and then make it full size in its new window.

Dear person behind me in yoga class. #25

2006-03-27T20:34:00.000-08:00

I’m sorry
when I forward bend
you have to view
my huge butt.

I hope it reminds you
of the earth:
vast, curved,
and reliable.

from tag #29

2006-03-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

But kids argue about whether there was an actual tag. Do you have to feel the tag to be tagged? What if someone tags your hair? Sometimes a kid will lie. Sometimes a kid will get desperate and say that shoes don’t count. Or someone will invent a “safe” that was not agreed upon beforehand.

Sometimes I have been “safe,” which means kids would crash into me suddenly. My playground-watching days were brief, and I never decided to run from the kid who was running toward me as a safe. That would have been fun. But I liked being safe. I liked kids crashing into me.

Tag is probably common because chasing is a basic animal thing to do.

from Intuition and Process #19

2006-03-25T18:34:00.000-08:00

A dream cannot be crystalized into an opinion or moral. --Erik

Let your intuition say what it wants to say, then edit it later. --Laura-Marie

roses #25

2006-03-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

spring #14

2006-03-21T09:25:00.000-08:00

Overnight, the casino banner
has changed from WELCOME SKIERS
to WELCOME FISHERMEN.

dreams #21

2006-03-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

In my dreams, the things I‘m most scared of happen. It’s as if my sleep mind is trying to prepare me by rehearsing the worst.

I also dream variations on bad situations that happened in the past. For example, I often dream of being trapped in a relationship that I need to get out of, and I’m trying to find the strength.

Other dreams seem to come out of nowhere, like the ones where I’m in another country. Some are like vivid, strange movies. In real life, I don’t watch movies, so maybe my mind is trying to entertain itself.

The most reoccurring images / symbols in my dreams are water, hiking paths, toilets, cars, nudity, flying, gardens, babies, and smoking.

Usually, the water is dirty, full of biting bugs, or menacing in another way, like with huge waves or sharks. But I also remember beautiful whales.

The hiking paths are nice though sometimes daunting, like, “Do I really have to go that whole way?”

The toilets are filthy, and I need to find a clean one to use, and privacy.

Cars are going off the road or driving without a driver. I realize there’s no driver and panic. I’ve been having car dreams since I was very small.

Sometimes the nudity is fine, but usually it’s inappropriate and vulnerable. I ask myself, “Why did I think it was okay to go out without pants again? I need to remember to wear pants!”

When I fly in my dreams, I feel surprised, like, “Why didn’t I notice I could fly earlier?” Sometimes I’ll be jumping and realize I can fly, or I’ll be running and realize it.

The gardens in my dreams are usually gorgeous, and I need to water and tend them, or I forgot I had a garden, but when I go back, it’s beautiful and flourishing.

The babies always have something odd about them, like they talk even though they were just born, they turn into a cat, or they consist only of a head. I’m supposed to take care of them, but there’s some reason I can’t.

When I smoke in my dreams, I feel confused, like, “I thought I quit smoking.” Then I decide, “Oh yeah, it’s okay if I smoke just a little bit.” Sometimes I smoke two cigarettes at the same time.

When I was a teenager, I always dreamed that I was looking for something, on a quest. Usually I was with a group of people, and we were journeying through the forest. (This dreaming might have been influenced by the fantasy adventure novels I read at the time.)

Now I often dream that I left something behind. I need to go back and get it, but I’m not allowed back. I can sneak in, but what if I get caught? I’m going back for plants, books, clothes, or furniture that I left in our old house accidentally.

happiness #7

2006-03-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

Happiness is a myth created by the advertising industry.
--Laura-Marie

marriage #9

2006-03-17T13:12:00.000-08:00

A young woman who is the child of a miserable marriage will respond in one of two ways: either she will assure herself that her marriage will be different, a hope that is fulfilled about as often as the bank is broken at Monte Carlo; or she will avoid marriage, or conventionally acceptable marriage, altogether.
—Carolyn Heilbrun

the goose wants to eat a snail #8

2006-03-13T10:49:00.000-08:00

The goose wants to eat a snail.
The snail wants to eat a leaf.
The leaf wants to eat the sun.
The sun wants to eat a person.
The person wants to eat a cucumber.
The cucumber wants to eat a mineral.
The mineral wants to eat a molecule.
The molecule wants to eat a scientist.
The scientist wants to eat a fire.
The fire wants to eat a log.
The log wants to eat a sound.
The sound wants to eat the ear.
The ear wants to eat the air.
The air wants to eat a snowflake.
The snowflake wants to eat a cavern.
The cavern wants to eat a bear.
The bear wants to eat some honey.
The honey wants to eat some pollen.
The pollen wants to eat a bug.
The bug wants to eat a leaf.
The leaf wants to eat the moon.
The moon wants to eat the water.
The water wants to eat the bridge.
The bridge wants to eat a horse.
The horse wants to eat an oat.
The oat wants to eat a powder.
The powder wants to eat an expanse.
The expanse wants to eat the eye.
The eye wants to eat a distance.
The distance wants to eat time.

students #26

2006-03-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

You have to become
an expert at letting go.

Students are in your dreams.
All kids start looking familiar,

and you could have loved
any one of them.

Did you forget me,
after all these years?

Some details fade,
but the feeling’s the same.

WWJD?

2006-03-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

Let me answer
your question for you.
Jesus would give away everything.
He’d go to the bad part of town
and talk about God
with trans-sexual prostitutes.
He wouldn’t read sale papers.
He wouldn’t own a car.
He wouldn’t own anything.
So take off your special bracelet
and throw it on the ground.

kid #12

2006-03-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

I am healthy enough
to run circles around you,
as your butt gets bigger,
your back is hurting—

and I’m in a place
you cannot find me.
Other kids pull me,
and I leave home

until my entire day
is one long secret,
which hurts your
old, delicate feelings,

so used to control.
I don’t know how much
this hurts you
until you read my diary.

haunted playhouse #17

2006-03-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

Try to understand
the Haunted Playhouse.

Smell the ketchup
on the bodies of naked dolls
hanging from the ceiling.

The only real danger here
is a spider in the dark.

scoring #31

2006-02-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

A paragraph is like a body,
and the errors are wounds that need to heal.

A paragraph is like a crown,
and the errors are jewels that glow.

A paragraph is like a container,
and the errors are holes that let the meaning leak out.

Field Mouse

2006-02-27T08:45:00.000-08:00

by Erik Lundgren

In a pasture, a man was resting atop a slab of granite like it really was his own bed at home. Long grass waved to and fro in front of his eyes. The sky was the deepest blue.

He was a little bit afraid – he wasn’t sure whether to call if “afraid” – of the way he seemed to find himself alone on another planet. The life on this planet was grass. It spoke to him. He didn’t know if it was nice.

Towering clouds bloomed really, really far away everywhere. He felt like a mouse gazed on by many cats. He needed to go home and watch the news.

cosmetic surgury

2006-02-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

I was shocked when three students this semester wanted to write essays pro-cosmetic surgery. I think that having your body cut into, for any reason than health necessity, is disgusting.

Also, cosmetic surgery is so expensive. It creates a larger gap between the rich and the poor. It’s a waste of money: how could looks be so important? the complete opposite of my firmly-held idea that it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

Two of these students mentioned that they love to watch shows on TV where a person gets a complete make-over, including cosmetic surgery. So maybe these shows are like ads for the industry.

I love you just the way you are and hope you will never go under the knife to get prettier. You’re quite pretty enough.

the characters of my apartment complex

2006-02-25T09:58:00.000-08:00

I already told you last issue about the crazy white woman downstairs who owns Orange Cat. She thinks there’s a conspiracy against her involving furniture and people listening in on her telephone. I don’t feel sorry for her because she’s mean, and she scares me.

Another character is the old British lady. She has lived in this complex for 30 years. She has her own, real mailbox, with a flag and everything, as opposed to one of the narrow columns in the brass mailbox cabinet that opens with a key, like everyone else. She’s mean too. But she calls us “dear” while being mean, which is creepy.

Next door is one of the normal-est of the bunch. He has odd bumper stickers, though—Harry for President (in the Harry Potter font), WAGE PEACE (which of course I like), and Get a Taste of Religion—Lick a Witch. He plays his music loud, but I don’t mind some of it, like occasional Led Zeppelin, Enya, and John Lennon. He burns incense a lot, which smells nice. He’s not bad.

Directly downstairs is our quiet, young black female neighbor who drives a highly-oxidized-red car with a Mason sticker on it (I assume she’s not a Mason, though). She has a hard hat. When she has guests, they’re super-loud! She’s gone almost every weekend. Where, I have no idea—we’ve never spoken a word. She’s a bit mysterious and completely non-objectionable.

Then there’s a not-so-bad family across the way. The dad blasts terrible Christian music while he washes his car, but they are otherwise fine. The two sons are quiet. I saw the parents in Trader Joe one time.

The dad has a white truck, in addition to his black car, and it’s huge. It makes maneuvering the parking lot difficult, and we wish he would get rid of it, because he hasn’t driven it in more than six months. It has a cow bell on the front. Spider webs spun near the wheels prove the truck’s long period of disuse.

There’s the disabled woman who sometimes is visited by a guy I assume is her personal assistant. He drives a van. He wears an unusual Greek fisherman’s cap and black leather.

Then there’s the pure evil and her children and her dude. She is the white trash queen of the complex. She’s pregnant and screaming. She’s the one who I heard yesterday call her son a little fucker. She was yelling this morning at her dude for half an hour straight, and I don’t see how she doesn’t lose her voice. She doesn’t watch her kids for hours, and then suddenly she snaps and starts yelling at them with an anger that can’t be justified.

The kids are many and super-loud. The oldest boy is the worst--he likes to find a stick and bang on everything. Making noise seems to be his main way of having fun. The children leave trash everywhere, and their toys—a rake, small plastic chairs, half-naked Barbie in the grass.

What do you do about a neighbor like white trash queen? She symbolizes for me the reason our country is going downhill. The kids must be traumatized, and I think they’ll grow up to be like her. It’s clear that she’s stressed out to the max and needs some kind of help. Having another kid on the way was a terrible error. I wish I could lend a hand somehow, but I hate her, and I wouldn’t want to be around her. The sound of her voice is defeating.

Someone needs to give her a break, wash her dishes, and let her take a walk or do something nice, alone, but I don’t think I’m the one. It’s hard to start a conversation with someone whose dirty laundry you’re so familiar with via the screamed threats, accusations, and name-calling.

Her youngest daughter is so cute, and I wave to her sometimes. I wish I could help her too. Sometimes I hear her cry and cry. Life will only get harder for her when she’s no longer the baby!

The characters of my apartment complex have such a big impact on me because I am severely affected by sound. The walls are thin, and I’m forced to listen, but I’m isolated by shyness and aloofness. We all share poverty, and we all share the laundry room, and that’s about it.

deer morning

2006-02-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

This morning when we got up, it was lightly raining, and across the street I saw two deer standing in the neighbor’s yards. What were they staring at? They were staring at the big, orange-brown dog within a wire fence. The dog looked scared and didn’t bark. He slowly walked. Even though the dog’s big, the deer were bigger. They were two does. The larger doe walked toward the dog, and the dog backed away, which made me laugh. The deer’s ears were pointed forward toward the dog, and I saw both deer move their ears the way cats do to catch different sounds. Eventually the dog went around to the other side of the house, out of view. The deer relaxed. They walked slowly in a stiff, halting way. They munched, and the smaller one nuzzled the bigger one, almost as if she were whispering.

I noticed that the mushroom stems and apple core I threw on the lawn yesterday afternoon are gone.

Usually when I see deer, it’s on the road. They’re standing there, and I stop my truck. I think something like, “Are you going to get out of the way, or what?” The deer will eventually figure out what to do and cross, or run and hop the barbed wire fence in a way that looks effortless. I watch for the moment when they seem to hang in the air.

Today it must be snowing in the mountains. I see Mt Tom out the window, and a cloud is descending to obscure it, which means that when the cloud leaves, Mt Tom will have more feet of snow on it. It’s so cloudy that you need the light to read even though it’s morning.

How to know you've become rural. #7

2006-02-23T08:18:00.000-08:00

1. When you go anywhere in town, you look at the trucks in the parking lot to see who’s there.

2. You know the names of your neighbor’s pets.

3. When you notice an unfamiliar car in your neighborhood, you say, “I wonder who that is.”

4. You see more cows than people on any given day.

5 You start recognizing certain cows as you drive by.

6. When you meet someone and hear their last name, you say, “Are you related to so-and-so” and they are.

7. You start leaving “ly” off your adverbs when you talk, as in: “Drive careful.”

8. You know the names of the mountains.

9. When you tell someone you got pulled over, they ask, “Which cop was it?”

10. You’ve read and can remember every bumper sticker in town.

11. The pharmacist knows your name.

Why I don't want to have kids. #6

2006-02-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

Some people are mortified to hear I don’t plan on having kids. “Never?” I’m pro-choice but don’t think I would ever have an abortion, so the only way I could have kids would be if we got pregnant on accident.

I love children, and I love babies. I have our kids’ names planned, if we were to have them. The girls would be Talis Fern and Nest. The boys would be River Victor and Bram Channing.

I also think about how we would parent. We probably would send the kid to preschool then homeschool until the kid was old enough to choose, and then the kid would go to private school, not public school, if he or she wanted regular school…. We wouldn’t let the kid watch TV either, at least until they were ten.

These are the things I think about on long car rides when I get in a certain mood. Having kids is regular. Lots of mothers and fathers don’t think twice. They don’t need reasons—instinct is enough, or maybe they have thought about it but when they were little, or at an unconscious level.

I’m on the Shot, and it fails only rarely. I’m 27 now with still no strong desire to have my own kids—or rather, any desire to have kids is cancelled out by a stronger desire not to.

1. I don’t want my body to be inhabited. I’m afraid that being pregnant for me would feel like being parasitized. I’m afraid of pregnancy’s hormonal changes. I’m also afraid of the whole birth experience, especially considering how backward things are in the US—if I did have a kid, it wouldn’t happen in a hospital.

2. I don’t want to have the entire focus of my existence changed.

3. I don’t want to end up like Sylvia Plath with my head in the oven. I want to be able to write whenever I need to and call in sick at work sometimes. There’s no vacation from motherhood.

4. I don’t want to develop an oppressive relationship with Erik. Have you read stats on how relationships change after a child is born? Even the most progressive couple usually lapses into traditional gender roles.

5. I don’t want to sacrifice career and dreams.

6. Post-partum depression and the crippling feelings of isolation and worthlessness that many new mothers experience.

7. The possibility that I would abuse my child.

8. The possibility that I would resent my child. Loss of solitude, loss of privacy.

9. The possibility that my child would die (causing us the most intense grief imaginable).

10. The way people think they’re allowed to stare and talk to you if you’re pregnant or have a baby with you: “Oh, look how cute!’ etc.

11. Diapers, sleepless nights, pastel colors, and all that gender trouble with pink and baby blue.

12. Overpopulation, pollution, predators, the dangers of the world.

driving #5

2006-02-21T18:01:00.000-08:00

I’m driving slower than ever,
and the snow fall hypnotizes me
like a screensaver.
I’m so scared, but the secretary
at school said my truck is safe
because it’s heavier.
The snow by the road looks
scary because everything’s
white when yesterday
there was color.

friendship application from #4

2006-02-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

Name, place of birth, date of birth, address, email address(es), and phone number.

What’s your favorite mode of communication?

What are your normal sleeping hours?

What are your main moods? Explain.

What are your favorite foods, books, colors, and plants?

Describe your current best friends in detail. What do you value about him or her?

Describe your typical day.

What level of friendship are you currently seeking?

Do you hug? If so, how often?

Describe your pets and partners, if any. Will pets and/or partners participate in our friendship?

Thank you for filling out this friendship application. Expect to be contacted within two weeks.

two dreams from #16

2006-02-19T14:09:00.000-08:00

I
We were with astronomer John Dobson. He was lying on the ground with his head in my lap. I was stroking his long, gray hair. I said, “You don’t remember us, but we remember you.” I told him I loved him. Erik was sitting at John Dobson’s feet, asking him questions about astronomy.

II
We were in a large competition to see who could get closest to God. We had to do different activities over a period of many days. On the last day, Erik and I were in a river bed. Two beams of light shone down from heaven—one on Erik, and one on me. I was so happy because that meant we had won the competition. We went to see John Dobson. He told us that the last thing we needed to do in order to reach God was to become vegetarians. He showed us a pamphlet on different vegetarian foods we could eat.

Hat

2006-02-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

by Erik Lundgren

I'm sure you noticed my hat. Go ahead and take a good look at it. Almost all people stare at my hat. I once first realized that a man was blind by noticing that he wasn't staring at my hat. Children giggle and exclaim about my hat in too-loud-a-voice to their parents, who scold them but who also stare at my hat.

Don't you want to ask me about it? You do. Most peoples' questions are roundabout ways of trying to find out why I would ever put such a ridiculous object on my head. It's probably the silliest thing you've ever seen. Mostly only children actually ask me what they really, deep-down want to know.

I got this hat from a complete stranger. He was waiting for me in a narrow alley. He was looking at me with the face of a beaming grandparent. I thought to myself, I'm not going to look at him, I'm going to ignore his pleas for whatever he wants. But then I see it -- the hat. I'm staring at it and he wants to give it to me.

"You remind me of my grandson," he says. "You're just like him. He's been dead and buried these twenty-two years. I'd always wanted to give this hat to my grandson, and now I want to give it to you. I was supposed to give my grandson this hat on the day he died. I know God brought you here to give me a second chance. God bless you, my son."

I refused to take it. It was such a stupid hat. "Well then," he said, "let me give you something in place of the hat. Please, sir. Let me give you a gift. It'll represent the gift I wanted to give to my grandson." I went along with it but it gave me the creeps, especially when he asked me to close my eyes and open my hands. "It's a solemn occasion," he said. When I opened my eyes I was holding the stupid hat. And I could hear the old man's shoes clomping. He was actually running away. The old man ran fast.

The thing about it is, you can't just throw this hat away. That would be a waste. It's the sort of hat that you know an incredible amount of thought and care went into it, even though it was the wrong kind of thought and care. You can't just leave it somewhere with a note, either, because that would be just like tossing it in the dumpster, which I did several times and then retrieved it. Of course no one would pick it up if I left it anywhere. Now the hat is my responsibility.

Not that I didn't try to get rid of it. I asked everybody I saw to take it. I went to hat conventions. I visited hatter's shops. I tried to find the hat's maker, but the hatters would became angry if I even hinted at the idea that themselves or anyone else in their profession had made the hat. I tried to give it away as the prize of contests. I went to mental institutions. And I tried trickery.

Let me give you an example. I came upon a boy playing hopscotch. He was a young boy dressed up in his sunday school clothes. I come up to him. I'm holding the hat behind my back like this. "Now I want to give you a gift," I say, "but in return I want you to give me a promise. Do you think you can do that?"

The little boy nodded solemnly.

"Promise me that you will always take care of this gift I am about to give to you. I want you to keep this gift in perfect condition. I want you to be able to pass this gift on to your children and your children's children, just as I am about to pass it on to you. This is a big responsibility. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes," the boy said very seriously, and he looked wide-eyed in anticipation.

"Now close your eyes," I said, "and hold out your hands. Are you keeping your eyes closed?"

The boy nodded.

"Here," I said, bringing the hat out from behind my back, but the boy snatched away his hands.

"Yuck!" he yelled. Evidently he'd kept one of his eyes partly open.

"Here, take it, will you?" I said.

"No!" he said.

"But you promised," I said. He showed me that his fingers were crossed. I tossed it to him but he refused to catch it and let it drop to the ground. He abandoned his hopscotch court and ran away to a safe distance. This incident was how the hat got a chalk stain right here, but I think I've cleaned it off completely now.

For a while, I pretended I was carrying the hat for someone else. I thought it wouldn't look as silly to carry it as wear it. I said it wasn't my own hat. But I don't think it makes a difference, do you? Might as well not be ashamed of it. The shame part adds its own silliness. So now I always wear this hat on my head where everyone can see it, and I can now finally say that I'm proud of it. I alone accepted the responsibility for this hat. It is my own. I can even say this. If you were to ask me for this hat right now, I wouldn't give it to you. I won't give up this hat for anything.

is suicide the ultimate in selfishness

2006-02-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

Is suicide the ultimate in selfishness,
or is a person left without a choice?
When they get so sick—
hitting bottom, and no one can help.
I tend to think about the family,
who has to clean all that shit up.
No matter how well-intentioned you are,
the kids aren’t going to understand
why you “couldn’t do it anymore”
and jumped into the lake, off the bridge,
off the building, off the cliff,
into the fire, or swerved to hit the semi.
You’re going to fuck them up for life.
But in your mind,
you were going to do that anyway—
at least now, it’s less active,
more in their imaginations.
Is a choice something you can feel?
Is a choice real?
Can you blame anyone?
Maybe you should just thank God
the violence turned inward,
they didn’t hurt other people.
Or maybe it isn’t violence,
it’s just a mistake.

game

2006-02-16T19:09:00.000-08:00

I compared six clowns
who all looked the same.
I checked their ears
and eye-wrinkles
then counted the polka-
dots on their hats.
It took my wife to tell me,
"You’re a lunatic. Four is
missing a bowtie."
My career as a Mensa
strategist is over!

Mexican composer dream

2006-02-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

I dreamed my dad was a Mexican composer who only came to see us in California every few years. When he was visiting, I was supposed to be really happy, but I hated him. I spoke to him only in English, and he spoke to me only in Spanish, but I wasn’t really listening anyway. He waved a bell in the air and almost hit my mom in the head. I yelled, “DON'T HURT MY MOM!” and ran to another room, where an audience was assembling for a performance. I was supposed to watch and saved two seats for friends though I felt disgusted with everything and just wanted him to leave again.