Epiphany

My heart felt pinched and dry today.

My eyes wanted to close and sleep sleep sleep, yet my nerves were trying to crawl out of my skin. I’ve got work trouble, home trouble, man trouble, want-to-go-to-Whitefish-Point-and-probably-can’t trouble.

My heart couldn’t pull anything more out of itself to keep going and started to build a wall of its own dry red dust so maybe it would never have to go out again.

Please, can we just stay in tonight?

Then, while opening a can of chicken to make tacos for dinner, a gentle spark sent all my heart wall dust crumbling to the carpet:

I am part of the universe.

The only time my heart runs dry is when I forget that.

Aw, a Baby

My brother collected spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum). From a few long-lived specimens that have survived my mother’s macrame hangers since the ‘70’s, he propagated a whole jungle of the narrow- and many-leaved plants. Once I came home from oHIo and he had about two dozen of the “babies” taking root in yellow dixie cups, lined up on the sill of the bay window like carnival ducks. He even had a cultivar we had not previously seen: one with white leaves with central green stripes. We're pretty sure he stole it as a baby from someone in the neighborhood.

Part of that spider plant was put in his funeral bouquets. I think my mom still has the rest of it on the kitchen window. When I left after his funeral, I took a small piece of it home with me. That was three years ago, and Ethel has finally flowered and is having her first baby.



I also did not know her name was Ethel until just now.

Sylvie checks it out.

Usually They're Just Looking for Ted Hughes

Every once in a while, Hawk in the Rain (a blog, 'cuz everyone else is doin' it) receives a referral from Google. Most of these are people searching for quotations or information on poet Ted Hughes' book "The Hawk in the Rain." (And yes, I stole the title because I was reading Hughes at the time, and I like hawks, and it was raining, and I couldn't think of anything better when I opened the Blogger account, which I originally did only because I wanted to comment on Kevin's blog. Phew.)

Evidently the search terms "flapping pterodactyl" will also bring you here. But that's an aside. Today's referring link was just the best.



Ooh la la! Will be interesting to see if I move up from page 36 of the search results.

I Sprang Forward - I'll Fall on my Face Later

I hate Daylight Savings Time.

It’s not the “longer” period of light or the theory of Daylight Savings Time I dislike - it’s the three or four days it takes me to stop thinking that the clock shows one time, but it’s “really” an hour earlier.

I always feel nervous that I might not be changing time on the same day as everyone else and I will be out of synch, behind, embarrassingly late or early. Last week I panicked because my calendar, which shows international holidays and important dates, listed last weekend as the time change. Because it was, for most of the rest of the world. Except for Arizona and parts of Indiana.

The cat goes off her feeding schedule for a few days and fails to be a reliable back-up morning alarm. My own gastronomical clock needs to be reset. It’s 11:30 and I’m not even hungry yet. How will I know when it’s break time?

And tonight I probably won't be in bed until 12:30. It’s not me being a night owl - it’s me the creature of habit, following my sensitive rhythm, not to be comfortable in a new hour-later routine until, probably, Wednesday.

An Immodest Proposal

I got downtown too late for the main event on the Diag today, the Hash Bash, but I did have brunch with P. and a stroll around the Madison Street Fair portion of the Bash. There P. wanted to sign a petition to legalize marijuana, but couldn’t because you had to be a registered MI voter to sign, and I picked up a little card from the libertarians entitled “World’s Smallest Political Quiz,” which confirms my position on the spectrum as a liberal (and a shade closer to the center than to the sharp, pointy corner of the left).

As we wandered vaguely in the general direction of my car, I filled him on the events of 28 March. At one point, we stepped aside to let a visibly upset woman and an inscrutable man trailing behind her pass by.

“Schizoaffective!” she spat at him. She started to walk faster. “My doctor told me about people like you!”
The man didn’t answer. No way to tell what was going on behind the sunglasses.
P. and I fell silent for a few strides. The students ahead of us laughed.
“There’s a mark against relationships,” he said.
“Maybe I won’t date for a while,” I said, at almost the same time.
“My cats never yell at me like that.”
“Schizoaffective?”
“At least the insults are good in this town.” He waved his hands dramatically. “You’re a Chagall on a Matisse canvas!”

A moment later, he said, “I’m not sure I know what that would mean,” in a confessional tone.
“Still, I like it,” I nodded.

Then he volunteered, if C. should come over to get his toothbrush, to answer my door stark naked.

“Think about it!” he called out from the crosswalk as we parted ways.

I am thinking about it. But maybe not quite the way he meant.

Night on Bald Mountain

In the dream, I have just washed my hair and am combing it out in front of the mirror. My hair looks as it does every day, except that a three- to four-inch swath above my eyebrows is totally bald.

This panics me.

The online dream dictionaries take this as a warning. “If [hair] was thin, falling out, or worrying you in any way, it forecasts difficulties ahead,” according to Swoon.com. People on message boards interpret balding as a signal that something that was concealed must now be revealed, or a symbol of emerging consciousness. Myjellybean.com has this to say: “If you dream of a bald-headed man, it is a warning to use your intelligence to reject a romantic or sexual offer you are going to get.” But I didn’t dream of a bald-headed man, I dreamed of a partially bald-headed me. Does that mean I can accept part of the romantic or sexual offer? Ooh - I do hope it’s the part where we take our clothes off.

I admit that I am vain about my hair. It is thick, naturally wavy, and hard to control, so I don’t mess too much with it. The more product I put in it, the worse it looks. It seems to have a mind of its own, and I’m usually satisfied with what it decides to do.

The dream affects me because, unfortunately, my hair has decided to start falling out, and I am not at all happy with that.

Looking in the mirror in real life, I can see white scalp showing through where I didn’t before. Running my fingers through it, the individual strands feel thinner. There is always a clump in the comb. My hairdresser says my hair is heatlhy, that this is all normal, that hair does tend to get finer in texture as we age, and that as long as I’m not getting up in the morning with half my head still on the pillow, the shedding is probably nothing to worry about. But I do.

Even though I know baldness is passed from mother to son on the X-chromosome, I’m thinking there must be more to it than that simple explanation - multiple alleles or something. There is a very strong pattern for baldness in my family. My father has been bald since the age of 25. My brother started to lose his hair in high school and began taking Rogaine around age eighteen to try to slow the exodus.

So what’s a slightly vain but otherwise naturalistic girl to do? I find Rogaine, like many drugs, kinda scary. Nothing like exchanging thinning hair for high blood pressure and hives. Besides, I’ve always done my best to accept the parts of myself I cannot change. I’ve already decided that when those few strands of my “blonde highlights” start spreading out, I’m just going to let it go gray (although I admit I do pluck the one that stands straight up in the middle of my part).

But bald...I dunno.

Quote of the Day

We are here on earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

If He Hangs Up on Me

Does that mean we broke up?

The sloppy kissing was corrected. I was figuring out his quirks. I was having fun, making plans to introduce him to friends. But I guess I ask for too much (I want him to say something other than, "Oh well" when something bad happens with my work) and I'm demanding (I want to be asked about my work in the first place) and I'm unfair to him (I occassionally want him to drive, which he has done all of twice in the last four months) and I really get on his nerves.

Really? I did not know that. What have I been doing that's been getting on his nerves? Cooking him food that he's too cheap to buy for himself? Being the Ann Arbor-Chelsea shuttle for our sleep-overs? Attending his lectures? Listening to him yammer about baseball, which I do not give two shits about, but I'm listening to him because, you know, I like him?

The first time I heard that I get on his nerves was tonight, right before his words became a handful of marbles flung down a flight of stairs, a cascade of accusations, "Sorrys," "Can't do this," "Been here befores," tumbling over each other. Right before the *click*.

Now, I am not blind to my own failings. I can be moody, irrational, melodramatic, and judgmental. I am easily bored and tend to wander off. I get frustrated when I don't get my way. When I realize I have done one of these things, whether I have been called on it or come to my senses on my own, I apologize. I'm working on it.

We are all a work in progress.

Our personalities are such that I've been wondering how long a term this thing might be. But I never figured him for one to hang up and cut communication like that. I can understand him being upset. I can understand being gun-shy; I don't know what happened to him before. And I want to know. I want to know his stories, his experiences, what he's wanting from his life, from a relationship. It seems that expecting the same level of interest and regard from him in return is expecting too much. No matter what happens between us from here on out, that *click* will always be there.

Scrimp the Obscure (and Well-Formatted)

Scrimp (skrimp) a. and adv. [This and the related SCRIMP v. first appear in the 18th c. The origin is obscure; cognate forms are Sw., Da. skrumpen shrivelled, MIIG, schrimpfen (Mid. Ger. schrimpen str. vb.) to contract, trans. to wrinkle up (the nose), G. schrumpfen to shrivel; also SHRIMP sb., in ME., a diminutive creature. More remotely allied are OE scrimman to be paralysed, SCRAM a]
A. adj. Scant, scanty, meagre.
†B. adv. Scarcely, barely. Obs.

Scrimp (skrimp), v. Also Sc. skrimp. [See SCRIMP a.]
1. trans. To keep on short allowance; esp. with regard to food.
2. To cut short in amount; to be sparing of.
3. intr. To economize, to be niggardly.
Hence, SCRI•MPING vbl., sb. and ppl.a.

Scrimped (skrimpt), ppl. a. Also 8 Sc. scrimpit, -et. [f. SCRIMP v. +ED¹.] Stinted, contracted, narrow.

Scrimpiness (skri•mpines). [f. SCRIMPY a. + -NESS] “Scrimpy” quality, meagreness.

Scrimple, v. Obs. rare. [Cf. CRIMPLE v; also SCRUMPLE v. and G. schrumpfeln, schrumpfen] trans. To shrivel with fierce heat, to scorch. Also to crumple, crinkle. Hence Scri•mpled ppl. a.

Scrimply (skri•mpli), adv. [f. SCRIMP a. +-LY²]
1. In a niggardly, parsimonious manner.
2. Barely, scarcely.

Scrimpy (skri•mpi), a. [f. SCRIMP a. + Y.] Of meagre dimensions, scanty.

Author in Residence

Today I received notification that both of my submissions to the Huron River Review are accepted for publication in the April 2006 issue.

No autographs, please. Just throw money.