The Woman In the Doorway

She planned his last glimpse of her carefully. The door half opened to the cold morning, she on the threshold, leaning against the door but not too heavily. She wore her black silk robe, tied loosely enough to show some cleavage but not too much. Her hair was piled up on her head, with pieces falling, she hoped becomingly. She kissed him as he turned towards her. His kisses devoured her. There was nothing of departure eminent in that kiss. But she tasted goodbye.

"Wait for me." he whispered to her. She slipped her charm around his neck.

"Only if you wear this." she answered.

Every night at sundown, she laid out the instruments of her craft. The black glass bowl, fresh water consecrated under a full moon. She would sit in the dark, chanting words that no longer meant anything to anyone. And eventually, his image floated up to her. Sometimes, she saw the stars above him, and knew he was on the ship. Other times, there was a woman's face beneath his. The facies varied but not their expressions. She knew that look, the half-closed eyes, the parted lips. And she knew that his kiss would leave them hungry.

The first few women, she forgave him. She waited. His ship would come back to her. But as the women grew, she started to take a lover for each port his ship docked. She did not love them but she made love to them as if she did. She sent him dreams. He tossed under the dreams of her riding so many other men. His dreams caught her with her head thrown back, her hair caught in the dream wind, flying about her head like snakes. He dreamt her naked and laughing, beckoning first to him, but then the dream revealed it wasn't him but a strange man, a crude man with unkempt hair and beard. He woke shaking with rage, his body hard and longing for her. Every port, he tried to fuck her from his dreams. He fall in love a few times but she still haunted him. And eventually the thought of her drove him to think only of his return.

He planned his return carefully. He went through each action, each motion, each word as he worked the deck. He imagined seeing the land from a far. The cry that the port was coming into view. He would rush with the others to see the docks. After docking, he would gather his stuff, slowly, because he knew she would be waiting. Someone would carry the news to her. His walk down the street would be delayed by greetings to passing friends, merchants, and other women. He would eventually reach her gate, and she would be at the door as she had been when he left. He could see her black robe, the dark skin of her breasts half-revealed. Her hair, so thick and black, would be on top of her head, messy and waiting for his hands to pull out the long pins. Her black eyes would hold the secrets of other men. He would go into her house, and as he fucked her he would tell her about every women in every port.

But a storm came, and he meet his last lover. She dragged him under with her cold hands, her green and blue hair caught him like a net. And somewhere in a seaside village, a woman with black hair gave her love to the only woman greater than herself.

Tedious Mornings, or Everyday Is Like Sunday

"Everyday is like Sunday, Every day is silent and gray."

Another gray morning in the queen city. It's been gray all week but no sign of rain which we desparetly need. Every thing is not so much gray as brown. Sigh.

Yes, it's another mundane post. News flash time. How is Ginger managing everything without going totally insane update.

Well managing by not doing is the best way to put it. Right now I have a proposal, I promised to get out by the end of this month, about 37 tests to grade, and a big chunk of Discpline and Punish to read. But I have been thinking about things, and jotting down notes. I am starting to be able to formulate my thesis into one sentence which is an important starting place for me. I'm hoping to churn out a rough draft of the proposal tomorrow, and then begin serious writing by mid-October. My goal is to have half of this thing done by December. It is doable because once I'm at the place to write, I usually write fairly fast...it just takes me a long time to get to that point.

But the biggest relief came last night. Horacio and I decided to put off applying for graduate schools for a year. This gives us time to apply, retake the GREs and revise papers. We were making ourselves nuts trying to add this to our already busy lives. I don't think either of us were really prepared for how much work applying for Ph.D really is. I do remember our friend MTP talking about this...and we should have heeded his words then. We will also take his advice and listen to "The More You ignore Me, the Closer I Get" as it seemed to bring him most excellent luck.

Other news? Well a year off would give me some time to focus on my creative writing. I'm not sure about sending it out. H has been nagging me, and John B-R left a very nice note to me about it. I'm scared of rejection. I'm not really sure where to begin, etc, etc. But a year off would give me some time to pursue this area of my life. I updated Umberto's blog. I went to a children's party last night and survived (barely). I still love TAing even all the tests to grade. I'm feeling very benign today:P

Cheers dear readers. Hope your Saturday is nothing like Sunday.

We're Legal and Other News

Poor Umberto. His blog is frightfully neglected. There is definitely need for an update. And with pictures! Can I hear a hurrah?

First, we're legal. Yes, I finally got off my prociastrating arse and sent out the intent form. In North Carolina, once your child turns 7, you have to submit an application to run a private school (i.e, homeschool). No, it's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. It's one page, where you list the administrator and the owner, and best of all you get to name your school! We named ours in honor of Deleuze as he seems to best fit our educational philosophy: Academe les Mille Plateaux. Now we have to test each year and keep track of attendance. Umberto remains unimpressed.

Second, I bought a whole curriculum instead of just a math curriculum. H and I both decided that we were committed to homeschooling. This has been reinforced with me since beginning Foucault's Discipline and Punish. The book should be required reading for anyone with school aged children. Schools are meant to create good workers and good citizens. This is not something we want for any of our children. And yes I am aware that there many who don't have the ability to make the choice we have, which means that yes, I will continue to fight for better public education. I am not unaware of my revolutionary duties. But that said, and I will write more about the Foucault, etc....I bought a full year curriculum that covers all subjects. H felt more comfortable having each day laid out, and I knew that it was crazy to think that I could write my own curriculum on my already budgeted time. So we got a gentle curriculum called Oak Meadow.

It's a good curriculum....a little fuzzy in some areas but it's flexible enough to be worked with. It is Waldorf based and I like that it incorporates some elements of Waldorf without being totally sold on the entire theory. The lessons are presented through fairy tales and myths. So each letter has a fairy tale associated with it. The child draws a picture incorporating the letter. The same goes for math. Science tends to be nature/observation based which really works well for young children. Here's a few photos of our work so far:

This is Umberto's letter A drawing. The fairy tale was "Rumpelstiltskin" (have no IDEA if I spelt that right--this word was actually in the spell check).

Here's Camille's practice letter As. I'm not really pushing any lessons with her but she tags along. She's been asking to write letters and to read so I've been working with her until she gets bored. She loves the finger plays and rhymes that go along with the curriculum.

Third, UMBERTO IS READING!!!!!! No, it's not perfect but he's figured out that when you blend sounds together you get a word, and he's doing really really well in remembering his sight words. I feel, needless to say, quite relieved.

Fourth, all our our children are now obsessed with Morrissey. Camille was in the back of the car singing "Big Mouth Strikes Again" last night, and Umberto actually asked me to turn up "Ringleader of the Tormentors" in the car. And Piper? Well she just dances like a mad woman every time we put one of his Cds in.

Cruelty

Whenever he was like this she had to fight back rage. She supposed it was unreasonable to feel so strongly. Yet, each time he began to cry she felt, first repulsion, and then anger. It often happened after sex. They would make love, often well, and then his sobs would penertate the post-cotial fog. He would curl into a ball by her side, sobs shaking through his bony body. Initally, she cried too, curling herself around him, holding him to her. It killed her each time, this happened, made her desperate to make him feel better. After he would tell her about how much he hated himself. He was repulsive. "Can't you see how ugly I am?" He would ask her. "Why are you with me?" And he would come up with answers himself. It usually invovled his famousness. He did not think that his fame might arise from some talent of his own. Instead, the fame gave him yet another excuse for why people might be attracted to him. Initally, it made her feel slightly in awe of him. How someone so beautiful, so sexy, so talented, could hate themselves as much as she hated herself. She had imagined that having admirers at his scale would make her finally feel desirable.

Eventually, this proof that salavation did not lie in admiration made her hate him. Throughout the day she could love him. She loved watching him cook for her in the kitchen. She loved when they lounged about in the study, each with a book. She mostly loved watching him on stage. She loved the way he wrapped a character on himself. And she even loved watching the women, and men, mob him afterwards. She took a smug pride, then, in that she knew him in ways they never would. Often in the midst of that crowd, he would look up and smile at her. His mouth would be twisted into a slight smirk, and one eyebrow would be crocked.

But when they made love, after she touched his body, kissed it, worshipped it really, all the while feeling deep inside that her own body was not worthy of such perfection, he would cry. His tears came to be a mockery of her own feelings. If he was ugly, she thought, what was she. She already questioned everyday why he wanted her so much. He, who everyday had beautiful women, begging him to fuck them, choice her. Her, a rather mousy, short, blowsy kind of woman. She was no longer thick as she had been in high school but she still had large breasts and a bit of a tummy which always made her feel sloppy and dumpy. How could he cry? How dare he feel repuslisve in her presence? And ulimately, their insecurities made her cruel.

She became cruel, initally, in little ways. She would pretend to sleep when he cried. Eventually the cruelty manifested itself in greater detail. She began to critize his clothes, his cooking. She mocked his reading choices, and became superior when they discussed books, falling back on her degree when he attempted to disagree with her. She began to skip shows; especially the ones he asked her to be at. She flirted with his enemies at parties. And each small act of cruelty gave her power. Each act of cruely bonded him closer to her, until he was nothing without her cuts.

Heaven Knows I Really

Want this ice cream. Can you think of anyone else who could look at an ice cream cone with such smoldering lust? Is this what years of celibacy does to you? Suddenly ice cream starts looking really, really, really good?

Misery For the Road

Invisible Tonight

I am invisible tonight

Only certian shy women see me

All my hideous days of visibility

I longed for their smiles

Now they lean out of their shabby

plans-for-the-evening

so we may salute one another

Sisters of mine

of my own shattered people

going after third-choice lovers

they smile at me to indicate

that we can never meet

as long as we permit

this order of things to persist

in which we are the wretched ones

Leonard Cohen

Ugly in My Own Eyes

Whenever I happen to see you

I forget for a while

that I am ugly in my own eyes

for not winning you

I wanted you to choose me

over all the men you know

because I am destroyed

in their company

I have often prayed for you

like this

Let me have her

Leonard Cohen

Something Tame

Moving Bodies

"After all, I would be willing to admit that Sade formulated an eroticism proper to a disciplinary society: a regulated, anatomical, hierarchical society whose time is carefully distributed, its spaces partitioned, characterized by obedience and surveillance.

It's time to leave all that behind, and Sade's eroticism with it. We must invent with the body, with its elements, surfaces, volumes, and thickness, a non-disciplinary eroticism: that of a body in a volatile and diffused state, with its chance encounters and unplanned pleasures...Too bad then for the literary deification of Sade, too bad for Sade: he bores us. He's a disciplinarian, a sargeant of sex, an accountant of the ass and its equivalents." Foucault in Foucault Live
The Smiths were for me, as they were for most people into punk and indie music, an important foundation in my musical education. I was in my early teens when "How Soon is Now" got airplay in Maine. I liked it as I did "Panic" but kept it quiet as I was a metal head. Metal heads were not supposed to like pop. I also kept secret my love for Talking Heads. But I listened to them a lot during those early years. Then as I got into progressively heavier, industrial music, I let them go. Later when I started to do "goth" I got into Morrsisey. How could you not be goth and not love his tortured insecurity? But again, it was not quite hardcore enough for my taste.

Thus when H checked out a Morrissey CD, I was only mildly interested. I'll be honest, the first few times, I listened, I thought "Argh. It's so poppy sounding." But something happened a few weeks ago. The music crawled inside me. I felt that it was penetrating my body, and the more it entered me, the more armoured I became. His voice stopped sounding silly and began to sound sexy. The vocal plays he makes started to give me goosebumps. I found my body moving almost unconsciously. And as the sound began to possess me, the words haunted me. The loneliness, the vulnerability, and the intelligence spoke to me. Here was someone who cared about the words he put on his paper. Morrissey, it seemed to me, saw himself as a writer not just a rock star.

But love? Love came when I saw a video of his performances. Love came when I saw his body moving. It was unexpected. He's not a particularly handsome man, at least for me. He's big, bulky. The kind of person who leans towards fat as they get older. His jaw line reminds me of that stereotypical image of boxers. He looked like a meat head, a jock. But then I saw him move. I saw his gestures, the way he moved his hands. The way his body moved to the music. Unplanned, I fall in love...with a stranger. A famous stranger. I feel in his love with his fingers, his hands. I feel in love with the way his body undulates on the stage. With his old school theatrical gestures: the swept out arm that embraces the audience. The way he falls to the floor is enough to make me feel a bit weak. He has a way of looking out into a crowd of thousands of people, and making them all feel he's touched them. This unplanned love embarrasses me slightly. I'm still kind of stunned, that I cheap girl that I am, paid 80 to see him live. But I feel that I have to see him. I have to watch his body. I have to see him sing in the flesh.

And this is what amazes me about love, lust, even friendship. There is something about physicality that strikes me as vital in any relationship. As close as I feel to you, my dear readers, as much as I love to play with you, I need to know you in ways that not possible over the internet. There is something about encountering a body, be it from a distance or from nearby, that creates an unplanned intimacy. I shield myself from this, and this is what keeps me from fully embracing many people. If I threw myself open, I feel I would die from the intensity. But still I need this encounter. I want to feel the brush of hands on mine. I want to sit across from you and talk to you. I want to feel what will come, unplanned and maybe even unwelcomed. When this happens then I feel I will know you. I don't want to just know the sterilized mind but the messy body. I want to smell sweat, and the food you ate for lunch. I want the electric caress of attraction or the cold crawl of repulsion. There is only a half knowing without the body. I crave chance encounters. I want the unexpected shock of lust. It doesn't mean one has to act on it but rather that one opens oneself to what other bodies say and do.

This is a knowledge that both kills and gives live.

To A Lover

"To know life is given only to that derisory, reductive, and already infernal knowledge that only wishes it dead. The Gaze that envelops, caresses, details, atomizes the most individual flesh and enumerates its secret bites is that fixed, attentive, rather dilated gaze which, from the height of death, has already condemned life." Foucault in The Birth of the Clinic

Lying down before me, your body spreads beneath my gaze. I start at your feet, the less obvivoius place to begin such an inventory. The rough callous bottoms of short, hairy toes. The chipped nails, the one nail too long, the discoloring that comes from age. The veins rise up beneath your skin, pushing like worms through rain drenched soil. They form rivers and tributaires that divide that thin flesh into islands. The corase black hair of your legs begins to grow about the slightly protuding bump of your ankle. I part the hair to reveal hidden scars. Long, white, uneven stories of the past. Up to your knee, that rounded bump, smooth when your leg is flat. Now it's raised to cover the vulnerable softness behind. Your thighs are smooth, and strong with the muscles taut, and defined. They rise up in the front to the side making a small valley between outer and inner. And then my eye searches out that part we are told to keep secret. Right now, under my gaze, your dick is hard, standing erect from the bed of soft hair on your crotch. Your balls hang down, nestled against the start of your ass. You are curcumised, lost the protection of that extra layer of skin at an early age. The thigh creases where it joins the hip, and at the hip once can once again see bone. You are thin so the hipbone juts out, dangerous edges. Your stomach is taut, and moves slightly as you lay beneath me. The muscles are not so well-defined here but I can still make the ridges they form to the sides. Your chest is smooth with only a slight covering of hair between your breasts. Your nipples are hard nuts set in a brown pool. Your hands, lying loosely, at your side are spread out. They are long and big with even longer fingers. Your nails are short, cut, and clean. There is a bit of hair on the top of each hand. Your arms seem too long for you body, even for such a long body as yours. They are slender with the muscles defined delicately from the wrist to the shoulder. Your shoulders with that lovely cup of a clavicle entrall me but only for a moment. I must not lean down to sip from that depth. No, I must continue my inventory. Up the eyes go, sweeping over your neck, where the pulse beats so heavy it moves the skin.

Your face. The doorway to the soul they say. I say "Why the face?" Why not the lower body? Why not that clavicle? Why not the tiny bump of your wrist? But still your face is beautiful. The cheekbones, wide and flat, cup a strong nose. Your mouth with its thick lips, opened ever so slightly so that I can your teeth. Normal teeth, all staright, ready to bite. Your eyes are blackness so dark that there is no bottom. They slant ever so slightly to the sides. Above thick brows all rising to a forehead that is almost too big but not quite. Your hair is black but not silk....it's too heavy, to thick for silk.

My inventory is done. I have mapped this body as one would map a land. I have traced its bounardies with my surveying Eye. I want to claim it as my own. If I am the author of this map, who can take it from me? But sometimes, after we've fucked, I wish I could crawl inside. There is beanth that skin a secret world. I can hear it sometimes when I lie my head against his heart. But sometimes it does not feel like enough.

This kind of knowing kills.

This Morning I Ordered This...

This Morning I Listend To This...

And Be Ye Healed

At the end of my two week hospital stay, the Dr. came to talk to my mom and I about the possiblity of skin grafts. My legs looked awful...too awful for me to even look at. I would end up spending most of the next two years actively not looking at my thighs. When he came, it was a pain day. I could not focus on anything as the pain just rode my body in increasingly worst waves. The staff did not like to give me painkillers due to my age, so I mostly suffered. And I had to suffer silently or the nurses would come and yell at me to be quiet. I only heard glimpses of what the process: skin from my butt removed, and placed on my legs. It repulsed me. I already felt freaky and somehow the process would make me more of a monster. I told my mom no and insisted even when the Dr. argued with us.

"God will heal me." I said confidently. My mom beamed and the Dr. shook his head in disgust. But the converstaion ended, and I could back to the pain. If I focused and counted through the waves, it got better.

My grandmother came later that day with a Happy Meal (the first solid food I had eaten in two weeks) and green grapes. I managed to eat some of the food before the pain killed my appetite. My mom proudly told my grandmother what I had told the Dr. My grandmother began to plan the healing immediately for church that Sunday. I felt a bit guilty because really I had only said it so that the Dr. would go with his freaky suggestions. But by that night, once the pain subsided, I convinced myself that God would indeed heal me. One just had to have faith according to my grandmother. I had faith.

The hospital released me the next day. I still had to have phyiscal therapy, and my mom had to change my bandages once a day. Both were painful activities. Dread shadowed my days. We missed church for a couple of weeks. After a few sessions of physical therapy, coupled with bandage changings, I didn't feel like going anywhere. I spent most of my days, curled up on the couch watching cartoons and looking at books. I worried that missing church would be seen by God as a serious lack of faith. I prayed extra hard at night.

Finally, the pain subsided enough for me to go out in public. My mom dressed me in a brown curdory skit and a flannel yellow dress shirt covered in blue flowers. My legs were banaged from my crotch to my knee. My dad carried me to the car. My grandpa carried me into the church once we arrived. I sat patiently through the singing, and the service. I didn't even go to children's church. I was eargerly awaiting the end of the service. Finally the pastor opened up the altar. Everyone turned to me.

I got up, wobbly, holding onto the pew in front of me. I stumbled to the asile. Slowly, I hobbled down to the altar. No one came with me. I had to show my faith by walking up alone. People were mummuring , speaking in tongues, as I haunched over, bowlegged and stumbling. I couldn't walk upright yet. My legs couldn't brush together without sending me into screaming pain so I had to hold them far from each other. The muscles were weak from loss of mass. Still I walked. Every step hurt, and I held my tears back. Tears would be a sign of faithlessness. Finally, I could see the pastor, who was blinking back tears. He turned me to the congregation "God will heal her!" he declared. " We have to join our faith with hers." He laid his hands on my head and began, with the whole congregation, to pray.

I still wonder who had the lack of faith: the congregation or me.

Whiny Ginger Post

Alright you've been warned. If you don't like self-piting whining then just skip this post.

Three weeks into the semester and my to do list remains just that a to do list. I have a ton of things needing to be done. Like MY THESIS. Oh, and Ph.D applications. Nothing too major. Ha. And I keep doing these half ass things that normally get me going but this time the tricks are not working. I need to write a statement of purpose. I need to write a thesis proposal. But for some reason I feel amazingly ambigious about these projects. These projects that all have a rapidly approaching due date.

I realized today I just feel really insecure about everything. I am afraid to start writing because I've decided that my writing is childlish, well not childish, but just...I don't know...not intellectual enough? I don't use enough big words. My sentences are not complicated, etc, etc. I keep thinking "Whoever reads my statement of purpose is going to think I'm idoit." And then I start worrying about actually getting accepted. Will my pronunciation issues earn me the scorn of my fellow students? Argh, crippled by insecurity.

Mostly I just feel not enough to do a Ph.D program. It's a horrible feeling. I need to stop listening to Morrisey.

"There's a club if you'd like to go

You could meet someone who really loves you

So you go and you stand on your own

And you leave on your own

And you go home and you cry

And you want to die"

My insecurity used to lie in being alone in bed. Now it lies in being alone in my intellectual world.

City of Steeples

We have returned from Baltimore aka the city with a whole lot of steeples. No I didn't count them. But there are a lot. Anyway, it was a wonderful visit. Baltimore was cool after hot, steamy Charlotte. And also unlike Charlotte, Baltimore has not torn down every building older than 50 years.

But most importantly, the people I went to see were warm and welcoming. Ros and gang are proof that internet relationships are worth cultivating. I meet these wonderful, funny, smart women over the internet when Umberto was two and I was going to back to work. They supported me through two pregnancies, and the decision to go back to grad. school. And I also had a wonderful conversation about religion but that's for another post.

The woman in the store below totally freaked out over the kids. She kept coming out and giving us dirty looks. We weren't even going into her store. All that stress and worry for nothing.

The sex store we visited. Umberto was bummed he couldn't go into this toy store. It was very classy. And yes, I bought something but there are some secrets a girl needs to keep.

On the Road...

Like Kerouac before us, we hit the road. Unlike Kerouac, we did not hitchhike nor did we jump trains. Instead we rented a huge Ford, and packed it full of toys and snacks. No drugs. Just apple juice and M & Ms. We alternated music: They Might Be Giants for the kids (Pictures of Panda's painting and E eats Everything) coupled with Morrisey and NIN. I think H played Phish while I slept as I have foggy memory/dreams of their mellow lyrics along with those of Death Cab for Cutie.

Mostly, we talked while the kids slept. I fall in love with my husband yet again. I loved watching his profile as he drove. He's a beautiful man. And mostly there was that feeling of intense connection as we talked and laughed. I spend my days touching and loving this man. How amazing.

Images from the road:

Hey it is the South....

England comes to us...Ernesto, you there?

His licence plate says "So sexy."

And this one....

One more...Let Me Kiss You...

How I Feel Today

I have spent the whole day listening to Morrissey Live at Earl Court. I've been listening to this album a great deal but today...I don't know, it's moving something deep within me. Perhaps it's nostalgia? The music is wakening some kind of longing that has no words.

A Taste

I have so much to write about but I also have to get ready for my independent study conference call tonight. So while I'd much rather be frolicking with you, my dear readers, I have to frolic with Foucault (no not so horrible). But I had to share...

Shortly after a frantic drive to drop the huge rental car (sob...I hated to part with it), rush back home to get H off to school, there was a knock on the door. A loud knock. Delivery man always sound as if they are going to break the door down. I assumed it was a clothes order from Old Navy (or Oh Baby as U refers to it). But no...it was Fed Ex with a small package. I couldn't recall anything I had ordered through Fed Ex but there was my name. I felt some trepidation upon opening the package. How often does one get wonderful unexpected things from Fed Ex? But it was wonderful, and expected but also surprising. I had ordered a used Foucault book from an Amazon dealer. And he had sent it FedEx with all kinds of wonderful subversive things including an anarchist primer. And there was a handwritten note..."Hello Ginger, I am including some Free materials that you may also be interested in. I hope you enjoy them. thanks Thadeaus."

And I did enjoy them. I also enjoyed this bit of intimacy from a stranger. A note, handwritten with an intriguing and wonderful name. When life drops these tiny surprises on me, I am always awed and a bit humbled.

Add to this a little chat with E this morning, and life is smiling happily upon G.

Breathing

There is the sound of Green Tea Ginger inhaling, deeply, filling her body with peace, and just a moment of stillness. I apology for the long silence. Life is insane once again, and I miss my blog but just can't find the time to write except for these brief glimpses and observations.

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My weekend was spent a, cleaning carpets and b, working on an old paper. The carpet washing was hellish. I started at 11 and finished at about six. We celebrated having clean carpets by going out Mexican food. Tasty reward with a cold beer to wash it all down. The paper was also a bit hellish. A professor asked me to submit it for his edited volumne on religion and class. It was a bit to short so I needed to add some bulk. I hate, hate, hate creating filler. But it's done, and I'm very excited to be publishing an essay in a book!

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On the GTA front, I'm loving the job. Of course that might change when I have 40 tests to grade and hand back. The class is quite enauthastic, and I've been making an effort to get to know them. So far so good. SM, the professor I'm TAing for, is a great lecuturer, and I'm making note of how he does his classes. Plus he's just totally cool, and it's fun to hang out with him. I'm also glad that we're repairing the damage done when I switched advisors. My fellow GTAs are also great...maybe too great as we seem to be distracting each other a bit. I bought a fat Buddha for my desk. There was no sugar for my coffee today. I tried Splenda. It was the foulest tasting stuff on the planet.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I was in Target the other day, and sort of walking while looking. I felt this brush on my arm, and felt an surge of lust, I guess for lack of a better word. Looked up to see this kind of alternative guy, looking at me in a way that let me know he had felt the same thing. We just started for a moment before walking off. How strange those moments are. I didn't even see him really, just felt his arm brush mine. I felt and feel this way for H as well but with H it is much more intense. I can feel him from quite a way off.

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Charlotte finally got a Trader Joe's and silly us went Sunday afternoon. It was hideous. The store was tiny, and crowded with tons of snotty, preppy people. They gave us dirty looks which lead to me ranting really loudly about how much I hated fucking republicans, preppy, SUV driving morons. I got even nastier looks but it was so worth it. The store itself...well it's cheap. But it's also a chain. And we felt sort of like we were betraying the local health food stores like the Home Economist by even being there. And then most of the stuff was frozen which we don't buy a lot of...and we ended up deciding to support local. So Home Economist we love you. We love your workers who are cool, knowledable, and funky. We love your customers even the preppy ones because they get that people like us make the whole health food store shopping experience an expereince. And we love that we can buy bulk not just the processed crap.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We're going to Baltimore for the weekend to hang with Ros. I may have to kick some ass for her! Right now though I'm slowly getting ready for the trip. I packed snacks tonight. We're working on a mixed CD with the theme of guns and drugs. All ideas welcomed and encouraged. I'll post our final play list.

Love you all, dear readers, and I'll try to post something witty, intelligent, and mind blowing sometime soon.

Drunks

Por Ernesto

A Children's Game

Listen to the poet Sanai,
who lived seculuded: "Don't wander out on the road
in your ecstasy. Sleep in the tavern."

When a drunk strays out to the street,
children make fun of him.
He falls down in the mud.
He takes any and every road.
The children follow,
not knowing the taste of wine, or how
his drunkness feels. All people on the planet
are children, except for a very few.
No one is grown up except those free of desire.

....

Gone, inner and outer,
no moon, no ground or sky.
Don't hand me another glass of wine.
Pour it into my mouth.
I've lost the way to my mouth.

The wine we drink is our own blood.
Our bodies ferment in these barrels.
We give everything for a glass of this

Ginger's Emporium

My GTA position started yesterday. It looks like it will be fairly lowkey. I'm not teaching...just going to class, taking attendance, correcting papers and exams, maybe helping to monitor small group discussion. Oh, and some minor photocopying. All in nothing that will interfere too much with thesis work:)

I've begun reading Foucault. No doubt I'll move from my overload of posts on Deleue to an overload of posts on Foucault. Hold onto to your hats...

My dad called last night to wish me happy birthday. He told me this story: Your grandmother always said she was full blooded Native American. Her dad was on the tribal elders of the Passamaquoddy tribe in the North [of Maine].

Who knows if this is true. My family is on the dark side but I doubt if my grandmother was full-blooded as my Dad claims. Someone traced her to the MacArthur's who landed in Nova Scotia from Scotland. Someone married someone name Helen Smith (who is my great grandmother) there but there's no record of her birth, etc. I'm not sure if maybe somehow she moved to Maine and hooked up with the Passamaquoddy tribe? My dad also my grandmother remembers going to the reservation with her father who is listed as an MacAruthur. It's so convulted...these memories and stories.

And finally a wonderful quote about vinyl from the dark mind of John Rebus via Ian Rankin. For a bit of context, Rebus is left his brother's albums after his brother's death.

Rebus had waved him good-bye and stared at the gift. Then he'd eased himself down onteh floor beside the boxes and started going through them: a mono Sergeant Pepper,Let It Bleed with the Ned Kelly poster, a lot of Kinks and Taste and Free...some Van der Graaf and Steve Hillage. There were even a couple of eight-track cartridges--Killer by Alice Cooper; a Beach Boys album. A treasure trove of memories. Rebus placed the sleeves beneath his nose--the very smell of them took his back in time. Warped Hollies singles, left too long on the turntable after a party...a copy of "Silver Machine" with Mickey's writing on it--This Belongs to Michael Rebus--Paws Off!!!

And Quadrophenia, of course, its corners creased, the vinyl scarred but still playable.

35

35 years ago I was born to parents who were too young. I'm not sure if they really wanted me. I suspect my arrival for them was an ambigious arrival. My grandmother assured me that my birth was one meant with anticipation and excitment: "I remember the day you were born. You were the first grandchild. We were so excited." But I wonder who that we included....Still it doesn't matter in some ways. I am here now.

35 years seems like many years, and not enough. I have many stories to tell, and yet there still seems to be so much ahead....so many stories to come, so many new people to meet, to love, to know. It makes me feel anything but old.

The lead up to this birthday was making me feel kind of....I don't know...it wasn't old. It was just felt as if I was at this kind of middle point. How does one act at this age...I end up feeling dread at the thought of my birthday. I think this is why I planned the party. I thought that welcoming the day in with the company of friends would give me strength in the face of the dread. I planned a dinner at one of my favorite resturants, Catina 1511.

It was a lovely dinner, and in the course of being with good friends, good food, and frozen maragrtias, the dread disappeared. Instead, in the hot breeze I felt the future opening up to more...more stories, more love, more fellowship, just more. And after eating we went to drink at a bar, where we laughed, flirted, and celebrated.

Mary and Darren....

Mary, Darren, and his wife Kerri...what a lucky guy:) Kerri made me a beautiful knit carrying bag which will be great for vegetables from the farmer's market.

Martin and Ruthie who brought me a wonderful card and a gift card (which is about to buy me a birthday cake:) It was extra wonderful to see them as we hadn't seen them in awhile.



And I got to dress up!

And best of all, was H. My wonderful husband who took me out, and gave me the best present of all the morning.

Waiting....

Morning after a restless night. The melatonin ceased working a week ago, and was leaving me with a headache. Last night was worst than ususal. I was tired but just couldn't sleep. I would lay awake for a bit, fantasizing about whatever came to mind, the future, imaginary presents, etc but sleep stayed away. Eventually, I drifted into sleep but it was fitful and shallow. I woke up numerous times. And I had mulitple strange dreams that bleed into each other. In one, I had on this beautiful red dress with a full skirt. It reminded me of a dress J bought me years ago. A green 50's vintage cocktail dress.

Mostly I'm worried about money. We normally get our direct deposit refund Friday afternoon. This year they didn't even deposit until late Friday afternoon which means we might not get it until Tuesday. Argh. Of course now we can't order our parking tags which means paying for parking for a while. We have enough for food, and even for me to go out for my birthday so I shouldn't complain. But it also means that we can't go grocery shopping this weekend, and shopping during the first week of school is kind of a nightmare. Of course we'll have to fit it in or we'll end up eating out every night which is expensive and not very healthly. Sigh.

And we did get to take the kids to the movies. It was a perfect movie day; hot, steamy with rain in the air. I forget how wonderful and magical it is to go to the movies. The kids were in love with the whole experience. The dark theater, the soda, the popcorn, that wonderful moment when they curtains move to reveal the full screen, and the lights dim more and more until the music starts and there's your movie. P whispered to H "I'm scared!" She loved watching the line of projection and kept calling out "That's our movie!" We saw Underdog. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Umberto and Camille loved, and Camille almost cried at the end. It was expensive though! 50 for tickets, soda and popcorn! Defintely not a magaical experience for the wallet.

But I am going out tonight to celebrate my birthday! I

Past Lives

When I was younger, I was a Neopagan. This brought me into contact with a variety of interesting, and often odd people as a wide diversity of beliefs and interests. One belief seemed to hold sway over most: reincarnation. It's the one belief from my Neopagan years that I'm not able to quite shake. I have so many memories, and dreams that do not belong to this life. But I can not accept those as evidence, as I wonder if they were brought on by Neopagan years. There is no objectivity to memory, influences, etc. But there is a part of me that sees these moments as not fully belonging to myself.

I have a terrible fear of drowning. I'm not scared of water or even of swimming. I usually don't swim in the ocean but that's not so much out of fear but common sense. I'm not a strong swimmer, and I know the ocean would be hard for me. I have swam in the Carribean though, and felt no fear. What I'm afraid off is the actual act of drowning. It usually manifests itself when I'm on ships or boats. Once as a teen we took a ferry to an island off the coast of Maine, and I was paralyzed with fear. For obvious reasons, I avoid boats. I've had this fear for as long as I can remember, and can't find a cause for it.

One day at a pagan gathering, a woman I barely knew came up to me. She said "I know this is going to sound weird but when I look at you, I see a little boy in a sailor's outfit. You know those outfits you see in pictures of Victorian kids. You're on the deck of a ship." At the time, I thought it was strange and kind of brushed off. But that night, I had a dream that I was that little boy, and the ship sank, and I drowned. It was a horrible dream, and I discovered on waking up that one can actually "wake up in a cold sweat." The next time I saw the woman, she said "I had a dream about you a couple of weeks ago. You were the boy and you were on a ship. The ship sank for some reasons, and you drowned."

A Craving For Pain

Likely this craving is semi-brought on by Ernesto. No he doesn't inspire me to go out and hurt myself but he does seem to be sporting a lovely new tattoo (which he has said nothing about, instead he just leaves a tantalizing photo which leaves us guessing). After viewing the picture, I decided that it was really time to go out and add a few tattoos to join my lonely one.

For a while now I've been planning a black Chinese dragon as both H and U were born in the year of the dragon. And then tonight I found a couple of wonderful Ishtar symbols:

This one really resonates with me. I love that she is not totally "human" with the wings and clawed feet. And I also think that reworked on skin rather than stone it would radiate sexuality (appropriate for someone who has a "thing" for Ishtar). Obviously I'd need to do something to get this on paper, and since I have little artistic talent, I'm not sure I'm up to the task. But I'm going to try, and if I fail, maybe I can find someone who can do it for me. This is going to be a big one. I'm not sure where it would go. Maybe my arm? Any ideas dear readers?

The next one is smaller, and like the tat on my breast is an Ishtar symbol.

I think I'm going to go out next weekend and get this one. I'm not sure again where to put it but I have a couple of ideas....either my upper arm or on the inside of my arm/wrist....the wrist would hurt like hell but look so good...and okay in my sick little world, I'd enjoy the pain a little bit. Sidenote: Umberto

And since I'm in the spirit of decorating my body, I'm going to get my nose pierced when I get the star tattoo. I also have decided that when Piper weans I'll celebrate by getting my nipple pierced. And when I reach my goal weight, I'll do my navel again. Oh, I've missed the needle...now to keep myself from going nuts....

Piper's World

Piper got a hold of the camera today. I didn't know she could run it, but she can. Here's her view of the world...

Piper's Feet


Piper's view of our living room...

Impossible Distances

It was a simple case of misunderstanding. She thought he loved her. He said he loved her. But that was not what he meant. Or so he tried to explain. Explain. Could one really explain a kiss? A body pressed against another body? The rush that began in the stomach and traveled down until one's toes curled in anticipation? He wanted to make those things disappear in words. He wanted to drown them out. Pummel the feelings into dust.

But she remembered. She was on the bed, her hair spread out around her pillow, framing her, and he was above her. She remembered the way his eyes did not flinch from hers. She could feel his weight on her legs but he held himself up and away from her. That impossible distance between their two bodies was insurmountable. She could not lift herself to bridge that gap. He had to come to her. She would make him bend down to her. And with a sigh, soft and hoarse, he lowered his body onto hers, and kissed her. His lips were soft, his breath minty, tasting of toothpaste. He was pushed his hips into her groin, and she arched to meet him. But then he pulled away.

And now he told her that early declarations of love were misunderstood. He loved her, he explained as a friend, as a best friend, almost like a sister but closer than that. Words, useless stupid words came down, and needled her skin. She could still feel him over her, his mouth so soft it was almost weak against her teeth. He talked more and more but all she heard was the rejection. He would take that kiss away from her. He would swallow back into his own body but she refused to give up. It was hers to tuck away into the hidden part of herself.

What it comes down to, he said, is that I'm just not that attracted to you physically. I wish I was. I hate that I just can't feel that way for you.

Liar she thought. I felt how hard your dick got when it pressed into my body. Liar, she cried to herself, I know the feel of desire on lips.

Liar, she whispered the words turned onto herself, your body is gross and wrong and misshapen. You are ugly and smart. All men will love your mind and they will hate your body. Your body is the rotten vessel to something beautiful inside. Something beautiful housed in something vile. And with these dangerous whispers, it felt like something hollow imploded inside her chest.

They lay on the bed. She, blinking hard to keep the tears away. He shamed both by his desire for this ugly girl, and by his rejection of such desire. This time no one walked across those endless waters of such an impossible distance.

The Unreliability of Memory

My mom came to visit me on Saturday. I told her a bit about my blog, and the memoir writing I was doing. She didn't offer to read it and I didn't offer to share it. I'm not sure of her reaction. But it was interesting to place these events on some kind of timeline. She told me that the camp happened right after my burns, and that my dad came less and less often (he had a girlfriend no doubt). She also said that he didn't move us. We lived with some church woman until my mom could get us a place. And I have no memory of this woman.

My memories are not connected to time. They are fragments and glimpses of things that happened coupled with things and times that did not happen. I have a collection of scenes, and moments. They are disembodied though, and the only sequential sense comes when I engage in a narrative. Thus I think that the memoir writing I engage in here is not nonfiction at all but a fiction that draws from the world. So my self-indulgent is really the self-indulgent of all writers.

Bolano does this in The Savage Detectives. He uses the multiple memories of a wide range of characters. Some knew the poets intimately; others did not. They all have different tales to tell, and different perceptions based not just on their personalities but on the times and distances from which they tell. What one character says in 1976 undergoes subtle transformations in 1996. It's a beautiful experiment, and it leaves the reader with a sense that what we know is really just small.

"Repeat A Little"

Virtual objects belong essentially to the past...the virtual object is not a former present, since the quality of of the present and the modality of its passing here affect exclusively the series of hte real as this constituted by active synthesis. However, the pure past as it was defined above does qualify the virtual object; that is, the past the past as contemporaneous with its own present, as pre-existing the passing present and as that which causes the present to pass. Virtual objects are shreds of pure past" Giles Deleuze in Repetition and Difference, 101.

Last night, lying in bed between sleep and dream, drunk on Chilean white wine, and the a heady sultry summer night, I remembered something which I could not quite lay my mind on. Stories, half-formed, from books vaguley remembered. Stories of time lines running beside each other where other lives were lived. I thought about how somewhere there is another Ginger and H who married but have no children. And also a Ginger and H who did not make it. And another who never meet...and on and on...repeat a little.

And my thoughts did not end there because it is more complicated than just simply pararrell lives. There is not just the possibility of parareel lives but of mulitple lives that enfringe and touch upon each other. Those framgents of a pure past in which Ginger and H did not make enrich the lives of the Ginger and H who did make it. They exisit, fragmented, to haunt the lives that live out other possibilities.

It's Just a Movie

History is our lost referential, that is to say our myth. It is by virtue of this fact that it takes the place of myths on the screen."

Jean Baudrillard

in conditions under which the false becomes the mode of exploration of the true, the very space of its essential disguises or its fundamental displacement: the pseudos here becomes the pathos of the True."

Giles Deleuze

I enjoy reading people's responses to books and movies. The amazon readers review provide me endless delight as do the viewers reviews on yahoo movies and IMBD. It's interesting to see how people respond to various media. So when I first saw the trailers for 300 I went to check out what people were saying. The initial buzz was one of excitement. People raved about the special effects, etc. Once the movie was releases the reviewers fell into two camps. One group decried the lack of historical accuracy well the other camp said "Hey chill, it's just a movie." I find, after watching this movie, and being a fan of historical movies, that I fall somewhere between the two camps.

For the most part, I agree with Baudrillard that history is a myth. I don't mean myth as in lie nor do I think does he. Rather history has become the story that we tell ourselves about our origin. It is interesting to me that the arguments which arise over "historical accuracy" are quite similar to the arguments that arise between fundamental Christians and their liberal counterparts over the accuracy of the Bible. We seem to have a lot in stake over "fact." What really happened, and what stories are permissible about what really happened. Yet can we ever really know these answers? Are these answers even achievable? What is a date but a date?

Thus when movie goer begins a critique with "Well it was a good movie but they got this detail all wrong..." I smile a little. How can we possibly KNOW what happened when Leonidas faced the Persian army with 300 men at his back? This story comes to us from a history written thousands of years ago. It has been translated, re-translated, etc, etc. What I want to ask these reviewers is this: Whose detail? Frank Miller's? Herodotus'? This demand for historical accuracy in a movie like 300 strikes me as quite beside the point. There is no historical accuracy to be found in such a tale. Only a myth. And myths are meant to be retold.

On the other hand, I do not agree with the idea that: Hey, it's just a movie." Movies as myths are more than lies. They are the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves. What a good historical movie does is not give us accurate facts but rather takes lies, falseness, and gives us truth. The truth does not lie in any kind of notion of what really happened. Rather it lies in the virtual as pure past. It retells history in a way that tells us something about modernity, about our world. In 300, we see reflected back at us our attitudes about war and about freedom. The words from the Spartans' mouths have nothing to do with the myth of the Spartans (how can we ever know that) but rather these words reflect our own myths, and our own views on freedom. And I say "our" as in American. A good historical movie gives us what we need from the past. It takes historical myths and reworks them into the myths of the present. The false becomes the true. The reworking in movies like 300 and Elizabeth means that they are not just movies. They are our stories. They use history to create the aura of modernity.

Half Naked Men And Blood Lust

This is going to end up being one of a series of posts about the movie 300. It started off as one post but I ended up trying to cover about 3 different topics. Thus I ended up with one long, nearly incoherent post. And I have to rush off to work soon so I thought...I'll do a series!

Part of my reason for watching this movie was this:

This as in, WOW! Holy Shit look at that body! Look at the glare! Look at spear. And as in: What is wrong with me? I don't normally find guys who are built like this hot? And I'm a pacifist so why is my libido going nuts every time this guy makes a flying leap with his sword? Why in the hell do I have this disturbing sexual response to blood lust?

And then I started thinking...wouldn't it be great if these were the kind of guys who went to night clubs? Wouldn't it be something to see half naked, fierce, well-built men? Wonder if the guys were the ones only wearing underwear? Hell, I'd start going more often. Maybe I need to start going to different night clubs.

Yes 300 was visually stunning, and I'm not just talking about the special effects. The Spartan men were simply beautiful in their brutality, their strength, their blood lust. There was not a man in the group who wasn't rock hard. Hell!

But really I do find my response disturbing. I do consider myself a pacifist, and I find non movie like scenes of violence gross and sickening. But when I'm watching a movie like this, I find myself sexually aroused. Argh. It's not something I'm necessarily proud of but it's an honest response. Why is this so sexy? Nature or nurture?

Good Advice from Sabines

Considering it Carefully
They tell me I ought to eercise to lose weight,
that around 50 it's very dangerous to smoke and be fat,
it's important to keep your figure,
and fight against time and age.

Well-meaning experts and friends who are doctors
recommend diets and systems
for prolonging life for a few more years.

I thank them with all my heart but I have to laugh
at such vain dodges and petty concern.
(Death also laughs at all such things).

The one bit of advice that I consider seriously
is to find a young woman to have in bed
because at this altitude
youth can reach us only by contagion.

Jamie Sabines

And suddenly the behavior of those men at the club makes sense....now does this work in reserve as well? Will those middle aged men suck away the youth and beauty of those young gazelles on their heels? Will they wake up morning, tired and wrinkled? And then the middle aged men filled with the women's vigor will seek out more youth...

One Hundred

At midnight, at the last moment of August, I think
sadly about the leaves that keep falling from the calendars.
I feel that I am the tree of calendars.

Every day, my child, that goes away forever, leaves me
asking: if someone who loses a parent is an orphan, if
someone who has lost a wife is a widower, what is the
word for someone who loses a child? What is the word for
someone who loses time? And if I myself am time, what is
the word for me if I lose myself?

Day and night, not Monday or Tuesday, nor August or
September, day and night are the only measure of our
duration. To exist is to last, to open your eyes and close
them.

Every night at this time, forever, I am the one who has lost
the day. (Even though I may feel, in the heart of this time,
the dawn climbing, like the fruit in the branches of the
peach tree).

Jamie Sabines

My one hundredth post. Wow. It came so suddenly...came approiately enough with the end of summer. This time of year when that familar panic hits. So much to do...so much shelved in favor of the pool, the park, a good book. And now the time is gone...even now I should be doing something else.

And this blog...this simple thing, this untouchable space floating in cyberspace has come to have some importance in my life. It entered me into a net of other writers, other thinkers, some known in body, others not. This blog launched feelings long forgotten. It awakened a certain sadness but also brought the joy that always lingers around sadness.

Ginger Likes to Party All the Time...

My family has suffered these last couple of weeks. My hidden bitch crawled to the surface and wrecked havoc. At one point, it was so bad I called my mom and begged her to take one of my kids. They've endured snappiness, pissiness, and just general bad attitude type shit. I needed a night out. They need me to take a night out. I got dressed up. Well, okay I wore make up and a low cut tank top but it was dressed up for me. Two mommie friends and I headed over to NoDa. Every month they have a gallery crawl. We wandered around the funky neighborhood looking at art and drinking free wine. I am stunned at the cost of original art. I saw a couple of pieces I liked but both were well beyond my meager salary. The free wine wasn't. And as an extra bonus I got to see RenElvis. He was great. I should clarify that I am not an Elvis fan in general. I tend to agree with the accusations that he ripped off a lot of great black singers and song writers. And I just don't care for 50's and early 60s rock as a whole. I like Motown and I like Soul but that's really it. However, I am nuts for the whole Elvis phenomena. And I'm really nuts for the Filipino and Mexican Elvis so it was a real treat for me to see RenElvis.

We discovered soon, however, that our meager money wasn't going to last long in NoDa. Overpriced is an understatement. I paid seven dollars for a glass of Chilean Blanc. I expect bars to be over priced but this was a bit much. We were going to go to one of my favorite bars in another neighborhood. It's crowded on the weekends but it's relaxed, and you can talk and check people out. But one of the mom's decided she needed to go dancing. She had a cute little skirt so we agreed.

Mom2 pointed the minivan downtown (yes minivan), and we drove around trying to figure out where to go. We knew at that point we'd have to pay a cover and we didn't want to pay a cover. Mom1 knew someone who DJed this club, The Alley Cat. He was djing and got us in for free, and got us a free beer. The band sucked. His djing was standard. The crowd was young, half naked, and looking for sex. So not my scene now or ever. The only people close to our age, looked desperate (female) or with young blond things half their age (men). No one was doing much good at picking each other up. There was lots of Jr. High staring across the room. The band sucked. They played a Clash song and I was the only one bouncing. Sigh. Some gross moron tried to bounce like right on top of me, and I had to do some punk moves to get his skinny barely of the teen years ass off me. No I didn't get picked up. Okay one kid, and I do mean kid, said "You don't dance and you have a tattoo on your boob?" I said "Are you staring at my boobs?" and he shrugged and tried to sidled up. Sigh. I used my ice persona sarcasm to make him go away. And I got hit on by the 40 year old bouncer (big bald, likely drives a Harely) who told me in response to my "I'm too old for this club." "No you're not all the young girls here are douche bags."

Basically the experience was totally the same as when I was young. May be why I never went to clubs like this. What's funny is that I am much more confident now then when I was in my 20s. Those girls were so insecure and you could smell it on them. I remember feeling like. For all my insecurities now, it is nothing like it used to be. I realized that for the most part I feel sexy, act sexy, and am pretty confident that I am sexy. I'm healthier, have a better body, and eat better than I ever did in my 20s. And it scares people. I'd watch guys try to catch my eye, and when I looked directly at them they scurried. I don't think that had to do with me looking like some kind of monster. It just scared them that I didn't giggle, or act coy or hug my arms around my body. I like who I am so much more...

And I liked that I got to come home slightly drunk to my husband and my babies. Piper woke up as soon as I walked in and toddled out to me. H woke up soon after and we cuddled while I got Piper back to sleep. Made me glad I'm out of that meat market. But it was fun, and we're already planning our next night out...

The Camp

I am not sure how old I was when we moved to the camp. The camp itself is a vivid memory. It was a three room cabin, shack really, on a smallish lake. In order to get ot the shack, you had to drive down a long, pitted dirt road through the woods. The main road that lead to it the dirt road wasn't that main either. There was a general store on the road though that sold overpriced canned goods on dusty shelves, and bins of penny candy. The cabin itself was tucked into a grove of pine trees just a few feet from the lake. An outhouse stood far off to the right and up further from the lake. A dock extended into the lake which had no beach.

Inside, there was a small kitchen area set up in the front. There was a gas stove, and a sink with a pump. Mom sat up a rickety kitchen table in that area for the adults. We kids would eat most of our meals outside on the junky pinic table. The living room held a fold out couch and a chair. The room furtherest to the pack had two sets of bunkbeads. There were paint by number paintings all over the walls, mostl animals but a few nature scenes. The whole place felt damp and dirty no matter how much cleaning and airing out Mom did. There was no elecricity. We kids didn't mind though as we spent the summer days outside in the lake or in the woods.

The water was so cold that your feet when numb when you waded even in July. But the joy of youth is that cold water means nothing. We would swim until our lips turned blue. Then we would jump onto the dock, lying down on the warm faded wood. We would dangle our heads over the edge looking at the fish through the clear water. The sun would brown our backs, warming us, until we could jump in and freeze all over again. Sometimes we would run through the woods. The boys would want to play cowboys or wars, and for a while I'd play along with them. But soon I'd grow bored with their imaginary violence, and began to serach for fairies and elves. We would only come in when it was dark. My mom would feed us hotdogs and mac and cheese. We would then climb into our bunks, and go to sleep.

During the summer my family would come often. There were always dozens of cousins running around with us. The grown ups would sit outside drinking Tom Collins mix and beer, gossping while us kids ran wild. We were all long lean limbs, brown and covered in brusises, scabs, and cuts. For the most part, the adults would leave us alone. My dad was only home on the weekends, and then he would fish with us. We never caught anything but we liked to sit with him on the edge of the dock. Somtimes he'd bring his younger brothers or sisters home. I noticed that this would make my mom's go tight, and the lines around her eyes would strectch but she never said anything.

Once the fall came the camp wasn't so much fun. There was no heat in the cabin. In September, my mom asked my dad when he was going to move us. He promised soon. We weren't going to school because the bus only came along the main road, and it was too far away to walk too. At night it was cold. We started to all sleep with my mom on the fold out couch. We'd wake to see our breath on the morning air as we scurried to get on warmer clothes. My mom would run the gas stove for a little while at night so we could get warm. She stopped cleaning, and spent most of her time wrapped in a blanket, crying, sometimes reading a book. Our family stopped coming to visit except for my grandmother who would come once or twice a week with food. We'd run like puppies towards her car, sceaming and laughing as she pulled into the driveway.

My dad started to miss weekends which meant that we relied on my grandmother for food. She would tell my mom "You have to insist that he moves you." And finally, "Come with me into Skowhegan, and we'll find you an apartment. We'll sign you up for AFDC and foodstamps." But my mom wouldn't leave. When my dad did come he complained about the state of the house and asked my mother why she couldn't keep things up. They'd began to fight, my mother's rage flowing over the house. My dad would sulk, until my mom's sob brought him to her. Then he would began to promise: "I'll move you soon." "I'll get us a big house with a yard."

He finally moved us at the end of October into a small trailer. It did have a big yard but more importantly it had heat and elecricity.