I did not mean you to be hurt at all.

How silly and how dear, how very dear
To send a dehydrated porcupine
By letter post, with love. It did appear
That is was such --- a gift, but more a sign
Of love, from her I love, that girl of mine.

I did not think it too exceptional
(Acceptance being one part of being in love)
And yet I thought it strange, for you could call
It strange to send a dried-up porcupine
With love. My dear, I thought. O darling mine.

And stroked with love its quills so soft and fine
At which I saw is was not animal
But vegetable. Yes, it was a vegetable --
The prickly part of some old hoary pine
She had detached and sent me, plus a line

There scribbled in her dear and silly scrawl:
"I hope it did not prick you, dearest mine,
I did not mean you to be hurt at all."

--Ian Hamiliton Finlay

Making so much noise you don't know when to listen.

"I made my shoes shine with my coal
But my polish didn't shine the hole.
If you stand in a circle
Then you'll all have a back to bite back."

(I am only able to think through music at this moment.)

The View

"As life gets longer, awful feels softer
Well it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss
Well I feel pretty blissfully."

de ce

I just stumbled across this. It was written by the friend of a friend. Loved it.

de ce

it was the black glasses,

perched on her nose,

reflecting fluorescent light

in an office hallway

8 floors up, in a forgotten

wonderful past

they made her look like,

a soft professor,

a determined gentle wit

for the disinclined,

they made me throw away, succinctly

an empty future

i'm afraid nothing in my resolve

could compete

with

the black glasses,

perched on her nose.

Curl

It is a rainy day today. I have been struggling to amuse myself until my friend picks me up at 5:00. The doorbell just rang and, though I expected another false alarm as has been happening a lot the last few days, I unenthusiastically went and opened it. There was a small package sitting there in the rain addressed to me. I happily took it inside to find that my aunt had sent me a present. But the best part was folded up within the present. There was an old, yellowed envelope with the words, "Amie Marie, 12-2-78, Curl" carefully written across the front in my grandmother's precise, left-handed script. Inside was a lock of my hair that she had apparently snipped off just short of my first birthday. The thought that she kept it stored safely away all these years prompted a spreading warmth through my chest.

How?

I was sitting next to an elderly Asian man on the bus today, and I noticed that he was reading from a list on a small, folded piece of white paper. The words were in tiny and precise writing. The title at top was "How?" Underneath was a long list of bulleted points. Being quite the list-maker myself, I was incredibly curious. The first three read:

How do you open a bottle?
How do you make orange juice?
How do I dream in English?

I immediately whipped out a little book in which to jot them down so I wouldn't forget. I was totally intrigued but having trouble making out anything beyond the first three items. When a single seat opened up he got up and moved--perhaps he sensed me reading and taking notes over his shoulder?--and I felt desperate to see the rest of that list.

I found myself plotting how I could get another look. I fantasized about snatching it out of his hand and running with it. (Is that completely wrong?) I figured I could just get up and go stand beside him at his new seat, although that would be pretty obvious. As I was determining that I did not actually care if it was obvious, he got off at Judah.

And now I will never know.

Dirty Barbies

(Attempt #1, Draft #1, with not much of an ending, but here it is...)

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

Dirty Barbies

I think, like many girls, that my ever-changing understanding of the human anatomy, sexuality, and the complexities of relationships as a child was reflected in my Barbies.

For quite some time, I didn’t have a Ken doll. I was forced to create imaginary male figures—boyfriends, husbands, fathers, and brothers—or else to play at a friend’s house so as to take advantage of her Ken-doll-possessing good fortune. I often ended up at my friend Katie’s.

There were pros and cons to playing at Katie’s house. On one hand, she had fancier Barbie accessories than I, such as the dream house and the pink corvette. But much to my dismay she wanted her Barbies to do devious things.

“Let’s play like my Ken sleeps with another Barbie and you divorce him,” she would always suggest. I hated this.

“Can’t we just play like they love each other and take a vacation together?” I would counter.

“Nah, that’s boring.”

So we usually did it her way. I found I got into it very quickly.

We’d dress up one Barbie all slutty-like: in a short skirt, tight sweater, and high heels. She would saunter casually up to Ken, place an ever-rigid, outstretched arm on his, and say, “Hey baby, wanna come over to my place? My parents aren’t home.” Ken, of course, was always game.

We only had a vague understanding of what Ken and Slutty were supposed to do together, but we knew it was wonderfully bad and involved being naked with a lot of moaning. And we had very little concept of the seduction process. “Let’s pretend the air conditioner is broken and it’s really hot, so they can’t stand to wear their clothes,” I would suggest. So Ken and Slutty would lounge together naked in the dream house on a little plastic couch with their legs sticking straight out.

“Can I lay on top of you?” Ken would ask hopefully.

“Sure!” Slutty replied.

Sometimes that’s as far as we ever got; other times there were some little plastic “clack-clack” noises as naked, plastic body parts rubbed together. Once Slutty’s legs even ended up straight up in the air. But no matter what happened, Slutty always ended up pissed off and throwing Ken and his clothes out the door. “And stay out!” she would huff, angry and naked.

Meanwhile, Wife Barbie would be stuck at home blowing wisps of frazzled hair out of her face with three filthy, screaming kids, an old wood-paneled station wagon, a dog with chronic diarrhea, a burning dinner on the stove, and a husband missing in action.

One Christmas, I was thrilled to get my very own Ken doll. I was dismayed, however, that he wasn’t a “normal” one with a painted-on helmet of yellow hair. Instead, he had a sort of white man’s frizzy Afro of synthetic hair that framed his chiseled features like a puffy cloud.

While I was now able to enact my own Dirty Barbie scenarios, I was also increasingly disappointed with naked Ken’s flesh-colored, painted on underwear over his vague hump for a crotch. But I came up with a brilliant plan. I cut off his hair close to his head and glued it onto his crotch. I sat back to admire my work. I realized that Ken’s new pubic hair only told part of the story of what was down there, but I was still satisfied with the results. I pulled on his pants not really realizing how ridiculous he now looked with the hairy, bushy bulge that now made them too tight.

I rushed into the kitchen to show my grandma what I had just done, apparently feeling she would praise me for my ingenuity. She was talking to my great-grandmother on the phone, and waved me away while silently mouthing the words “I’m on the phone.” I tapped my foot impatiently for a moment, and then decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I thrust Ken into her face, and flashed her by pulling down the front of his pants so that his fluffy black and still glue-damp pubic hair dramatically burst forth.

“Oh, my God!” she cried. “Mom, you won’t believe what this child has done!” Some stray tufts of damp hair fell into clumps on her lap. I quickly realized the magnitude of my error, and ran with Ken back into the bedroom to hide.

Soon afterward, the glorious hair disappeared and I was left with an awkward-looking Ken with a bad haircut and a scaly crotch.

Horoscope for April

On a freeway, somewhere in Northern England, the central reservation suddenly widens. In the middle of this unexpected expanse stands a farmhouse. When they were building the road, the authorities tried to bulldoze it. First they offered the owner money to move. Then they used legal threats. Nothing worked. In the end, they just laid the tarmac around the house. Once, it stood in a rural idyll. Now six lanes of traffic hurtle past day and night. It is no place to live. There are times when we all should stand our ground and times when we are wiser to go with the flow. Don't end up with a hollow victory this month. Be reasonable.

I am so hung up on it

(I would like to move away from it.)

Did you know I lost two full nights of sleep after that statement? So much power in one sentence. But what can I say? How should I begin, and how should I presume?

Last night I dreamed I was showing you my temple

"Last night I dreamed I was showing you my temple," said Miss Lissie. "I don't know where it was, but it was a simple square one-room structure, very adobe or Southwestern-looking, with poles jutting out at the ceiling line and the windows set in deep. It was painted a rich dust coral and there were lots of designs--many, turquoise and deep blue, like Native American symbols for rain and storm--painted around the top. It was beautiful, though small, and I remembered going there for the ceremonies dressed in a long white cotton robe. I was tall then, and stately, with thick black hair that I wore in a bun. The other thing my temple made me think of was the pyramids in Mexico, though I'm satisfied it wasn't made of stone but of painted mud.

"Anyway, my familiar--what you might these days, unfortunately, call a 'pet'--was a small incredibly beautiful creature that was part bird, for it was feathered, part fish, for it could swim and had a somewhat fish/bird shape, and part reptile, for it scooted about like geckoes do, and it was all over the place while I talked to you. Its movements were graceful and clever, its expression mischevious and full of humor. It was alive! You, by the way, Suwelo were a white man, apparently, in that life, very polite, very well-to-do, and seemingly very interested in our ways.

"My little familiar, no bigger than my hand, slithered and skidded here and there in the place outside the temple where we sat. Its predominant color was blue, but there was red and green, and flecks of gold and cerise. And purple. Yes. Its head was that of a bird. Did I say that already?

"Skittering about the way that it did was so distracting while we talked that I took it up into my hands and carried it some distance from us and placed it on the ground with a clear-glass bowl over it. As soon as I'd come back and sat down, however, I heard a noise like a muffled shot. I went over to the bowl, and, sure enough, the familiar had broken through. There was a small hole in the top. I looked about and found another bowl, a heavy white one, very click and with very thick sides. My familiar was lying looking up at me curiously, resting up from its labor. It did not try to run as I put this while bowl on top of it. Almost before I sat down I heard another noise. When I went back, my familiar was rushing furiously about in the snow. Everything was suddenly now very cold. It was as beautiful as ever though, my familiar. How or even why I would do what I next did is beyond me, but I think it was a stupid reflex of human pride. For I understood quite well by now that all of this activity on the familiar's part was about freedom, and that by my actions I was destroying our relationship. In any event, not to be outdone--and suddenly there were dozens of your people, white people, standing about watching this contest--I next imprisoned my beautiful little familiar under a metal washtub. I paid little attention to the coldness or the snow and did not even think how cruel and torturous for it this would be. Surely it would not now be able to escape. I went back to where we were seated, you and I, and attempted to carry on with our conversation, which was about temples, and about my temple in particular. The sun was just setting, and it bathed the small, shiny coral structure in gold. It was a splendid sight. I felt such happiness that it was mine and I thought of the peace that came over me, deep, like sleep, when I entered its doors.

"Next we heard a rumbling, as if from a volcano, under our seats. As if power was being sucked along in streams from everywhere and converging at one spot under the snow. All of us, you, me, the white people dressed so strangely in high heels and fur coats, were drawn to the quaking washtub, which seemed now to be on the bottom steps of an enormous white stone building in a different city and a different century. We could not believe that a small creature, no larger than a hand, could break through the metal with its fragile birdlike head. We gazed in amazement as, with a mighty whoosh, and as if from the very depths of the sea, the little familiar broke through the bottom of the tub and out into the open air. It looked at me with pity as it passed. Then, using wings it had never used before, it flew away. And I was left with only you and the rest of your people on the steps of a cold stone building, the color of a cheap false teeth, in a different world from my own, in a century that I would never undersand. Except by remembering the beautiful little familiar, who was so cheerful and loyal to me, and whom I so thoughtlessly, out of pride and distraction, betrayed."

--Alice Walker, The Temple of My Familiar

Long, longer, longest longing

That's pretty much what's on my mind.

I know what you're doing, and it's wonderful.

A conversation with Anthony tonight stimulated this diatribe...

I was talking to a friend earlier this evening (the aforementioned Anthony). We chatted awhile, and he said, "What's going on?" I asked him what he meant. He said, "You're not yourself. You sound different. What is it?" At first I was kind of surprised, because I felt okay and was in no way deliberately trying to mask anything I was feeling.

He said, "Come on. I've known you long enough to know how you sound and you sound different. If you can't say it to me who can you say it to? You can't tell me anything I haven't heard or done before. Just say it, I don't care how crazy it sounds."

He ended up being right, and it started me thinking.

I would just like to say to various friends near and far, and whether you read this or not, that your efforts have not gone unnoticed. I know that you're looking out for me and I love you for it--for the phone calls, emails, IMs, extra invitations to go out or come over for dinner, for listening to me blow my nose while you're talking to me on the phone, for letting me curl up on your couch with a glass of wine or a cup of tea, for walking me home from the bus stop with your arm around me and making me tea and offering me chocolate. I know that I get myself worked into knots and am not always able put on a face to meet anyone, but thanks for not giving up. I love you guys!

[Now cue the Cindy Lauper music: "If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting..."]

The Under Toad

He stood ankle-deep in the foam from the surf and peered into the waves, without taking a step, for the longest time. The family went down to the water's edge to have a word with him.

"What are you doing, Walt?" Helen asked.

"What are you doing, dummy?" Duncan asked him.

"I'm trying to see the Under Toad," Walt said.

"The what?" said Garp.

"The Under Toad," Walt said. "I'm trying to see it. How big is it?"

And Garp and Helen and Duncan held their breath; they realized that all these years Walt had been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore, waiting to suck him under and drag him out to sea. The terrible Under Toad.

Garp tried to imagine it with him. Would it ever surface? Did it ever float? Or was it always down under, slimy and bloated and ever-watchful for ankles its coated tongue could snare? The vile Under Toad.

Between Helen and Garp, the Under Toad became their code phrase for anxiety. Long after the monster was clarified for Walt ("Undertow, dummy, not Under Toad!" Duncan had howled), Garp and Helen evoked the beast as a way of referring to their own sense of danger. When the traffic was heavy, when the road was icy--when depression had moved in overnight--they said to each other, "The Under Toad is strong today."

"Remember," Duncan asked on the plane, "how Walt asked if it was green or brown?"

Both Garp and Duncan laughed. But it was neither green nor brown, Garp thought. It was me. It was Helen. It was the color of bad weather. It was the size of an automobile.

The lost cause of words walks away with my nerves

('cause I'm gay as a choir boy for you.)

I feel like sharing a poem today. My friend Scott shared this with me awhile back (for which I am eternally grateful) and it immediately became one of my favorites.

Her Lips Are Copper Wire
by Jean Toomer

whisper of yellow globes
gleaming on lamp-posts that sway
like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog

and let your breath be moist against me
like bright beads on yellow globes

telephone the power-house
that the main wires are insulate

(her words play softly up and down
dewy corridors of billboards)

then with your tongue remove the tape
and press your lips to mine
till they are incandescent

Henry Winkler is not my cousin.

(Title to be sung to the tune of "Billy Jean" for maximum impact.)

I grew up watching "Happy Days." It wasn't that I particularly liked the show, it just always seemed to be on when I got home from school. When I was 7 or 8, my grandmother (whose maiden name was Winkler) told me that Henry Winkler was a distant cousin of ours. This was fascinating news.

"Really?!" I cried. "How do you know?"

She explained that his father was a second cousin (or something like that) of her father back in Germany.

I was totally excited, and for years this was the most interesting thing I had going for me. (Well, aside from eating boogers and obsessively counting things. Henry Winkler totally won the prize.)

As I got older, occasionally converstions would come up about encounters with famous people; other times there would be little ice breaker activities at various functions where you had to tell two true things and one lie about yourself so that other people could guess what you were lying about. Of course, I worked The Fonze in at every opportunity.

The first time I went to Hollywood (I was 24), I took a picture of Henry Winkler's star on the Walk of Fame and sent it to my grandmother. I couldn't understand why she wasn't more excited.

Chris always doubted my story. "Henry Winkler's Jewish," he said. "You're family's not Jewish." For me this wasn't a deal-breaker.

"So what? Maybe there's some Jewish branch of our family that never came over from Germany," I defended.

One day I saw him being interviewed on TV, so I decided to look up some information about him and his family on the internet. His dad was the president of some big company and his family had money. Certainly no one in my family had any money. I started to have my doubts, and expressed them to my aunt.

"She made it up," my aunt confided. "But don't tell her I told you!" So, of course, I confronted my grandmother.

"I'm starting to think that Henry Winkler is not our cousin," I told her pointedly. (And keep in mind this is my grandmother for whom cussing consists of "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!")

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" she snapped. "I just said that to entertain you kids! None of the others ever cared! You were the only one who remembered and you just kept on and on and on about it!"

I pretended to be really wounded. "How could you lie about something so important?"

"I didn't think it would go one for 20 years! You just wouldn't let it go!"

So. My grandma's a liar. I love that about her.

My antacid supply is running low.

But, damn, those cherry Rolaids aren't too bad!

Love and all it's harrowing travails

When I was in my early 20s, I asked my Grandmother what it was like to be with someone longer than you'd been without them. My grandfather had passed away several years earlier, and we were reflecting on their 40+ year marriage.

She responded that sometimes it had been really hard. "There were whole decades of our marriage when we barely saw each other, barely spoke. We were both working hard to raise six children. There was no time to just sit around and talk and learn about each other. We didn't get to do that until all the kids were gone and we were both retired. He didn't even know I liked baseball until then."

I found that pretty depressing.

Then she went on to say, "But you know, even after all that time, I still got excited to see him. When I'd hear the garage door open and his footsteps coming up the stairs, my heart still beat faster. Even after all those years."

I loved that part.

Over the years since that conversation, I've often thought about those two ends of the spectrum of their relationship to try to figure out if it seemed worth it overall. The younger I was, the more it seemed that it was absolutely worth it. Now I find myself thinking that its not. I don't feel like I have the strength or the stamina.

That really bothers me. I hope I don't always feel this way. I don't want to end up completely bitter and jaded and cynical about love.

Today its pretty easy to feel that way, though.

The cure for loneliness

Dan Savage recently suggested a cure for loneliness: "Masturbate. Hang out with friends. Repeat."

Hmmmm.

Big, clumsy feet

It turns out that I need to be careful when wandering around my backyard in the dark when its raining. I end up unknowingly stepping on squishy, delicate creatures that are left for me to discover and mourn in the harsh morning sun.

Some days, like today

I feel completely and unbearably crushed. It's all I can do to keep bitter and hateful little comments from overflowing out of me.

I hope Natalie Portman DOES taste like heaven.

(Oops. That one slipped out.)