Bathsheba Monk's Blog, page 8

Ordinary Happiness

Janet moved to Podunk, PA from New York City in the tenth grade....and she cried when her parents drove her down the Main St. of our little town.  "This is IT!?" She did a re-enactment for me later, first inkling of her dramatic soul.  "What's an Orrs?" a department store known for selling blouses featuring Peter Pan collars and "What are these things?  Circle pins?!"  They were.  Plaid skirts.  She restyled me--junior leaguer wannabee into NY sophisticate/hippie.  She didn't like anybody but she liked me because I was open to the idea that there was life beyond the smokey walls of our town.  Correction:  I was hungering for life outside our town.   Her obit said she died in a rehab facility down the road and lists two Latino men with the same last name as her survivors. I stayed one year in Podunk for college--because an influential teacher got me a free year--then left because charity runs out, but Janet stayed. I assumed she left after graduation to edit Paris Vogue--she was great with languages and had the look--but I had already traveled to Israel, Europe and came back to join the army as finishing school--travel, education, cut biceps--and saw her once more when I was home on leave--in the Tally Ho where she was drunk and forced me to sing a duet with her of the Neil Sedaka song that was playing on the juke box. The neighbors said they saw the man throw a microwave at her in the yard, then a butcher knife.  They both missed. "Drunk and fighters," the judge said in the paper.  "You people deserve each other." She asked me how I liked her date, Danny, and I proclaimed him ordinary then left for overseas.  The orbit said she was adopted.  She never told me that.  Her father shut himself in the den every night and finished off a lot of whisky or bourbon or something and her mother, shaped like a beach ball with the tiniest feet I've ever seen would hover around asking Janet if she wanted a steak or fries or a milk shake and Janet with teenage disdain dismissed her and lavished her affection on her neurotic dog Max-- a jumping 130 pounds of muscle and two different colored eyes and two different giant breeds in his DNA. "I used to be a size 2," her mother would say, and Janet and I would laugh hysterically at that and her mother would sulk away with her skinny memories.  "Please don't take him away from me," Janet pleaded with the judge, but he did, proclaiming her a homicide waiting to happen and gave her lover 2 years in the slammer.  They were engaged for 20 years, waiting for "some legal matters" to get resolved before they married.  I assume they never did.  There was only one entry in the on-line Memory Book for Janet and it was from Danny.  He recalled some fun times they had and wished her peace.  Hungrily I googled him...it seemed he had a nice wife and a couple of grown kids.  He was a logistics manager/type guy or something.  Why hadn't she just married Danny and had a lot of babies for god's sake?!  A mutual friend of Janet and mine who had finished college with her, said Janet was always waiting for some unspecific glamorous thing to whisk her away from Podunk. She wanted to live with a nihilist in a Paris flat, or dance naked on the Ponce de Leon bridge--the end of a series of fun events that would take too long to explain between the hilarity of recalling it. She was still living in her parents house when she died. "She didn't want ordinary happiness," the friend tells me.   "Why didn't she just marry Danny?" I scream.  "This wouldn't have happened!"  And our mutual friend says, "Why didn't you?  Why didn't any of us?"

Naughty OR Nice...This is What You're Getting for Xmas

Books.  You're getting books.
In no particular order, these are some of the nicest reads this year and they are suitable as either stocking stuffers or the main event.  Literary Joy:  Tao of Humiliation by Lee Upton...don't take my word for it, this book is winning every short fiction collection award out there, notable for both its pleasurable prose and breathtaking originality.  Poems that Made Me Smile:  The Liberal Media Made Me Do It, edited by Robbi Nester and it includes a couple of poems by my fave Barbara Crooker. These are poems that are based on news stories and so have amazing content as well as graceful phrases.  For Anyone Who Would  Like to Know What it Was Like When the Founding Fathers Roamed the Earth:  The Original American Spies by Paul Misencik, Sr. notable for it's smooth narrative and seamless inclusion of dates and facts making you think you're reading an action adventure story and not, you know, history.  Father/Daughter Conflict:  Fighter Pilot's Daughter by Mary Lawlor, a memoir notable for successfully setting a personal tale within the larger historic context of the Cold War and the 60s.  Things That Go Bump In The Night:  Broadway Vampire by Uke Jackson.  Notable for being the most intelligent vampire book out there which probably signals the end of the genre, so get in on it now and get this one.  Industrial History:  Rigger by Larry James Neff.  Notable for its humor and its meticulous remembered detail.  This is the book that kids will be reading in school a hundred years from now when they learn about what it was like to "go to work".  Horror Stories:  Last Call by Paul Heller.  Notable for its brutal honesty.  It's a journal of an only son taking care of his mother who has Alzheimers.  A #1 Bestseller on Kindle.  Murder Mystery:  Dead Karma by....okay, I wrote this one.  Sex, lies and yoga in Mexico.  It's smart, sexy and fun.  If you don't like it I'll buy you a cuppa joe when I see you.  Happy Shopping!

The Developed World LOL

Quick, what's the first thing you think of when you think of "morality" as in, 'she has low morals.'  See, I don't agree.  Sex and morality don't actually have much to do with each other.....unless you're talking criminal activity and that's not necessarily immoral, it's criminal...that woman "Jackie" the showpiece of a Rolling Stone piece on rape in the UVA, she wasn't the target of a immoral act----it was criminal.. felony type criminal. ..the type of felony that gets poor black boys locked up and any hopes of a regular life--whatever the hell that is, banking?--expunged at the age of 20...and I do hope that the criminals who gang raped her are meted justice--in kind would be nice, but we're a New Testament country not old  so we'll be turning the other cheek no pun intended and they'll go on to whatever careers rich white boys in Virginia--home of "legitimate rape" and mandatory transvaginal probes--go on to with silent approbation from the folks who reared them....I was home alone last night and reading every link for rape in the RS article and then every link for racism because the Ferguson circus was coming to Internetown and around 2 AM they started to meld together in my mind into power, a concept we don't bandy about much. Why are we so loathe to admit that power even exists and that the people who know how to wield it are the ones who control everyone else's lives?  Pope Frances knows how to wield power...boy does he ever...how about that upstart Cardinal who questioned the Pope's moral authority--banished to the confessionals of the Knights of Malta.  Brilliant use of power.  See?  Power doesn't have to be evil. When I first moved to this area, I approached several self-proclaimed powerful women to tout me and my fledgling yoga business to their lists after giving them yoga sessions gratis...and was told that they couldn't...wouldn't dream of imposing on their lists like that.  But honey, what's power if you don't use it?  Do you actually have it?  Ever keep a battery in a drawer for a couple of years? That's you and your unused power. So it's 2 AM and I'm reading and trolling the world of almost-asleep when I hear a crowd chanting and marching, drums beating and the distinctive cry of "No justice no peace"...we're a light's out at 10 kind of neighborhood so this angry organized noise is scary weird.. and I open the upper porch door and crouch down listening with my cats to the rally down in the park and wait for the police sirens which never come...good thing, better to not acknowledge the power of the mob--it feeds it...and look for other lights in the neighborhood to come on for some support...which they don't...and wonder, God! What did I do with the magnum? and I have to admit I'm afraid...if the crowd comes up the hill and climbs the balcony no one's going to ask to see my liberal credentials, voting record or remember that blog where I sided MOST EMPHATICALLY with Trayvon Martin, or that I call my mother EVERY WEEK or that I make my sister laugh... the only significant ID is my white skin--that's all they will see--and I know viscerally  h o w   i t    f  e  e  l  s  and there is no mention of the rally today in the local rag.

Letter from the Cat

Dear Cat Formerly-Known-As-Downy, I envy you your escape--that delirious dash to freedom between the lumbering back legs of Feet shuffling in Dansko clogs to take out the recycling.  She is clumsy, isn't she?  And her ass DOES look big in that Gudren Sjoden dress no matter what lies Hands tells her.  How did you know she was more involved in her vodka drink than caring for your welfare and that was your moment?  Eh.  It's an instinct I don't have any longer due to my advanced state of material comfort.  God help me.  I have been in captivity too long and have lost the reflex for anything but the dinner bell which they ring to program me to come in case, like you, I escape one day.  I DO come so they don't get suspicious. But suspicious of what?  That I have a shred of initiative and am plotting to suffocate them and their children in their beds at night? Those plans were the plans of an idealistic young cat, which I can no longer claim to be.  Today, Hands AND Feet were arguing about the results of the mid-term elections. "It's a Mitch McConnell world!" they repeated as if it meant  something. Who is Mitch McConnell?  I sat on their keyboard reading over their shoulder.  Mitch McConnell defended his "evolving" positions on everything by saying, "I wanted to win! "  Of course he wanted to win!  That is power which cats understand, but it frightens Hands and Feet.  It's becoming more obvious everyday that it doesn't matter who controls the Senate.  I will always get my Fresh Pet food, three treats a day and a tremulous walk on the upper porch where Hands and Feet assuage their guilt that I am an indoor cat by giving me a little fresh air, not thinking that the birds and squirrels cavorting in the back 10 acres are bitter reminders that I am not self-actualized--that is a funny word for you, isn't it, Cat Formerly-Known-As Downy?--self-actualized?  It's like looking at a reality show.  I am not really a cat anymore.  I am a simulacrum:  a piece of pooping peeing fluff who Hands and Feet keep around so they can pet me and lower their sky rocketing blood pressure.  They have already lived too long by our standards, but that never seems to enter the conversation.  By the way, what is a "cat year?"  What a concept!  They talk about desperate life-saving measures each other will take if "it comes to that" even though the high deductible will financially ruin the other person.  It is time for my brushing and back massage so I leave you now.  You are in my thoughts.  Did you meet up with Vanessa?

As ever,
Kipling

In Your Stars Today

It's a shame strangers don't ask what your sign is anymore, because it's a convenient shorthand to get a read on people.  Gemini?  You're dealing with a duplicitous trickster; those people with twenty items in the fifteen item line and, no, 10-cans-of-cat-food-does-not-count-as-one-item? They're Geminis.  Leo?  Good luck getting a word in edgewise with those people, they never shut their traps, even if they're wrong which they usually are.  Obama is a Leo.  Lots of roar.  Virgo?  Opinionated dorks.  Chris Christie is a Virgo, but so is Bernie Sander. Both outliers, although if I had to chose I would tend towards Bernie because our opinions jibe. But still, they're noisy.  Libra? Sorry. They're just sneaky.  Did you just slip that bag of Peet's coffee into your handbag?  Guess who's a Libra.And so on.  What do we have now?  Cat people and dog people?  All politicians--especially presidents--get pets to prove they're human. So, nothing there.  Rich people and paupers?  Duh.  Gun people and...others?  Sun Signs are still the most reliable grid to sift people through.  I have a gun, for example, but I tend towards Hillary who is anti-gun, but that's misleading because she is a Scorpio, the most belligerent sign of the zodiac and she was the Warrior Queen of State  so I would rely on the fact that she is a Scorpio to make my decision in 2016. Just to put it in perspective, I have a little revolver.  She had drones.  I could just be jealous, though.  Rand Paul is a Capricorn and while they have stellar intelligence and are extraordinarily good looking, I am a Capricorn and I know how ruthless they can be.  So, nyet.  Elizabeth Warren is a Cancer.  Frankly I don't have anything bad to say about Cancer--they're friendly and fun-loving and family-loving, clean, brave and reverent.  I hope to god she doesn't lie about her age.  Fifteen years bad luck if you don't re-post this!  

I Wish I Knew

Anything is bearable if you know what to expect, which is what Fanny Barry's wonderful books are all about.  I Wish I Knew, I Wish I Knew How to Help, and I Wish I Knew Who I've Become were sold with the original artwork to generate cash for no-strings grants for women diagnosed with breast cancer and to finance recovery trips to Fanny's "Casa Wish" in Tulum, Mexico.   "That Barry Girl Foundation:  Thriving Not Just Surviving" was Fanny's totally original response to one of life's most dreaded challenges:  a breast cancer diagnosis. Fanny's three books are now in Kindle form on Amazon, alas not with the beautiful artwork that made them sing, but the gentle and wise words of someone who has been there will be welcome if someone you know is facing this challenge. 

Bad to the Bone

It's almost Yom Kippur which I think is a very cool holiday.  You offend someone and then you have to ask their forgiveness.  Of course, that's the hard part:  admitting to someone you done them wrong.  Now that I think about it, no one has ever asked me for forgiveness so maybe not everyone understands the procedure. The thing I miss about being Catholic is confession.  I mean, how cool is this:  you do something horrible, then go tell some guy who can't even see you--well,supposedly--and who is sworn to secrecy anyway and has no stake in your guilt then you show some contrition--God, I won't do THAT again!-- race through a couple of Hail Marys and Our Fathers and bam!  Clean slate!  You walk out of the darkness of your murky little secrets and step back over onto the side of goodness and light.  It's hard to explain that feeling of new beginnings and resolve--This time I'm going to get it right!--Damn!  And everything looks shiny and full of possibility and it's kind of like the first day of school with fresh pens and copy books and it lasts as long too: until an hour later and I look down at my desk horrified to see that I have already defiled my copy book with doodles and caricatures of the teacher and I completely missed the lesson and I know I am doomed doomed doomed because I find school so boring I want to stick the pen in my eye to relieve the tedium.  And I'm only 8 for pete's sake!  I have miles to go!  I need a new copy book!  This time I'm going to get it right. 

To boldly go....

photo by Paul FuhrmanMy older brother asked me to type a paper for him in high school which was about Star Trek, his favorite show.  I wasn't particularly interested in either the paper he wrote or the opening quote by Ray Bradbury which he reverently read back to me after I typed it because he could see I wasn't impressed and thought if he read it slowly I would understand the importance.  The quote is a voice-over in the beginning of the show right before the space ship Enterprise blasts off to make friends with peoples whose heads and faces looked scarred over from industrial accidents and who lived on planets whose power source was drying up.  When I watch re-runs of the original Star Trek, I am gobsmacked at the amateurish special effects, the acting which at best you can call mannered, and the reliable plot.  But still.  They had all these cool...devices.  The beam up machine, sure: who wouldn't?  But they also had this wand thingey which the doctor, Bones--I mean, right?--would scan over a person's body and the computer would tell him what was wrong and where and what planet they had to travel to for the elixir that fixed everything.  My opinion? That device doesn't get enough press.  Paul and I went to the cathedral of devices, Best Buy, to get the photo gallery on our Samsung tablet explained...again...and while waiting for the child to help us noticed watches that tell you when one of your other devices--phone, computer--wants you.  No kidding.  I joked with our technician--an underage healthy-looking specimen who was moving to Denver to bike, hike, and jump out of airplanes--that the only thing Best Buy didn't sell was that diagnostic wand "but you don't need it." "I do, though," he said.  He pulled up his shirt, unnecessarily, and showed us a lump of fat that was traveling around his torso willy nilly causing him sleepless nights of worry and "my back...I have this rash." He turned around for inspection.  I shut my eyes. "I could really use that wand.  Where can I get one?"  Beam me up.

It's a toll road no matter which fork you take

I live across the park from Muhlenberg College.  The bells peal on the hour and when I first moved here, I admired the sound hourly, but now they're background noise, like the sound of the Fedex truck grinding up the street at 10:30 or the lady next door taking her yappers for a walk at 6 a.m. before she goes to work.  Okay, why would anyone have dogs like that?  Dogs that bark at the sunrise?  But now that I'm writing this, I think maybe they're right.  I think I'm going to start barking at the sun. As a matter of fact,  I'm going to bark at anything that makes me happy starting right now.  A nice young man was helping me clean out the garage yesterday.  I say nice young man but certain institutions would call him convict or dead beat.  Loser.   He put off cleaning the garage with me before because he had to attend an anger management class as a condition of his parole. Probably not one of the young men Obama talks about when he talks about the potential-to-society-lost when a hot-headed young man crosses paths with a hot-headed cop or vigilante.  At noon when the bells started,  my young man put down whatever he was schlepping from one side of the garage to the other and said, "Don't ask for whom the bells toll.  Because I'm not ready for them to toll for me,"  and laughed self-consciously at his unexpected literary reference.  Me too, because know-it-all horror that I am, I didn't know what poem that was from.  I never looked up its origin even though I knew it came from something something or other.  As a writer it's my job to know that stuff.    Isn't it?  Paul, my husband, later told me the poem is by John Donne, No Man is an Island.  "Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind."  It kind of makes you wonder what people are reading in prison. Woof woof woof.
No man is an island,Entire of itself,Every man is a piece of the continent,A part of the main.If a clod be washed away by the sea,Europe is the less.As well as if a promontory were.As well as if a manor of thy friend'sOr of thine own were:Any man's death diminishes me,Because I am involved in mankind,And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. 

Reverse Bucket List and Bucket of Ice

I heard three people reference their bucket list this week and the percentage of people talking about their bucket lists to me is astounding when you consider I see 3 people, 5 tops a week--and the only people I talk to are people who have a list of things they want to do before they die?  And then what? They take a seat in the waiting room?  Maybe people are talking about bucket lists because of that ice bucket thingey for ALS which I actually don't get.  If you pour a bucket of ice water over your head you DON'T have to give a bill to the ALS fund, right?  So, why so proud of being cheap?  Just write 'em a check for a million bucks like I did.  Well, I'm rounding up.  And what am I missing....maybe I'm just peeved that no one found me significant enough to challenge me even though I can think of at least three people who have a hearty dislike for me--just the odds of being alive--and now pouring a bucket of ice water over my head is just one more thing I will not do before I die.  I have a whole, shall we say bucket? of things I won't do before I die.  A couple of years ago we met a couple who we REALLY liked--and what are the odds of that, liking both parts of a couple?--and we invited them for dinner with the couple who introduced us and they came, at which time the new people informed us--while handing us a gigantic basket of fruits and veggies from their garden which was one of their selling points, they gardened--that they didn't need any more friends.  They didn't need anymore friends!!  Isn't that breathtaking?  It's one of the things you daresn't say aloud lest the gods play a joke on you and take all your friends out at one time in a plane crash or an ebola outbreak or something.  But last I heard their friends were suffering no more than the usual rate of attrition.  I wouldn't mind more friends, though, so that's not on my reverse bucket list. Never learning Spanish is.  I tried, but you know what?  I just don't care enough to go through the rigmarole of memorizing declensions and putting myself through the inner rage and ranting, why do these people need to assign sexes to inanimate objects and pretend not to know what you're talking about if you get the sex wrong?  We don't have any sexes in English and we manage to get our point across.  And it's not as if the sex is the same in all languages, it's completely arbitrary, so what's with that?  Basta!  Oh wait, that's Italian.  See? Never riding a horse is definitely on my RB list. I like horses.  I'm not sure they like having big ole humans riding around on them weighing them down with all their cowboy junk.  I might be wrong, but what with cars and go-carts etc. why chance it?  Who needs it?  There are other ways to get around.  I won't do it.  And you can't make me.