superconnected
My other mania was making brightly colored tissue roses. I couldn’t stop for days after shaky baby’s party. I was working out the trauma of all the crafts we didn’t do at her party because I was so disorganized. But somehow shutup or I’ll stack you, accordion pleat you, wrap you with a chenille pipe cleaner, and fluff you doesn’t sound as funny as shutup or I’ll frost you.
“when you’re finished with the mop then you can stop
and look at what you’ve done the plateau’s clean,
no dirt to be seen and the work it took was fun
well the many hands began to scan around for the next
plateau some said it was greenland some said
mexico others decided it was nowhere except for
where they stood but those were all just guesses,
wouldn’t help you if they could”
Meat Puppets Plateau
I rediscovered the Meat Puppets because I was trying to explain to my husband that he looks like Curt Kirkwood when he just lets his hair get all long and raggy and goes unshaved. He really does, too. Kinda.
Staring at photos of longhaired, five o’clock shadowed Curt Kirkwood, preferably in a pink gingham dress, was my greatest comfort during a particularly uhappy moment in my romantic life twelve or so years ago. And at almost fifty he’s still pretty damn delicious. And he’s in Austin, where all good rockers go when they die (oh or Nashville, not sure which is better, Austin by a hair, though Steely Dan had been working out of Nashville for a while, and Bon Jovi’s there now right???). And lo and behold! They just put out a new album! And Curt is spewing his abrasive, probably aspbergers, nobody’s going to impose their agenda on me language– yum.
Anyway.
Top down is just not me.
For a long time I’ve been trying to get on top of my life by doing the Flylady thing– flylady.net, you know. I have tried so hard to impose easy, one-size-fits-all, brief, doable routines on my life that could be accomplished in a small amount of work each day, as opposed to either major disgusting house or major housework misery all day on a weekend day, which I just refuse to do, routines which would make it all come together with a minimum of misery, angst and resentment.
Don’t get me wrong– it has helped. A lot. I throw away a lot of crap, and then I no longer have to organize, put away, or dust it. I try to go by the handle everything once rule- go ahead and decide if it’s junk mail or important and file it, whether in the circular file or the important file, right away instead of having to touch it once when I get it out of the mail box and again weeks later when I finally get around to organizing the mail pile. I keep certain surfaces clear or easy to clear so that they can be easily and quickly disinfected often so I don’t have to get out the flamethrower because I haven’t cleaned them since last year. My house is in much better shape (at least I think it is???) than it was before Flylady.
But as a general rule, no matter how well it works, no matter how much sense it makes, top down is just not me.
There was a study in the late 70’s-early 80’s about programming styles of boys and girls using logo. In a nutshell, probably the nutshell of warped memory because I haven’t looked at the thing in twelve years, the study differentiated boys and girls like so. The boys decided what they wanted to do and then attempted to cram the reality of the programming language into the desired result– top down. The girls looked at the reality of the programming language and used that as a jumping off point to create from there– bottom up.
I see this in my life every day. Husbands relax after work (imposing desired result, regardless of reality all around them) while wives bust their asses, becoming resentful and too tired for sex, parenting, housecleaning, working full time (embracing external reality and starting at the bottom). As my brother says, men just don’t have that take on too much gene.
Managers strive to bring together reality and top down desired result, attempting to encapsulate and convey the desired outcome to staff, who relax and don’t concern themselves with the desired outcome because they aren’t paid to and they just want to deal with their own little fiefdom. My best friend’s husband keeps putting glass in the city recycle bin because it makes no sense to him that they don’t recycle glass. I don’t guess I’ll ever be a process engineer or computer programmer, but my husband can’t build a fire for shit or string a kite that will actually fly. I can, as I demonstrated beautifully on cold, clear, windy Easter night after his kite kept diving earthward and his knots popped off.
When I load the dishwasher the dishes almost always come out sparkling. My husband loads the dishwasher chock full, even though when he does that half the dishes come out dirty. He says, I refuse to be held hostage by my dishwasher.
Held hostage by your dishwasher?
How about tuned in to reality so that you can be effective, so that your kite will fly and your fire will burn?
Is my friend’s husband’s stubborn refusal to embrace the recycling reality a stupid refusal to see reality, or a thoughtful protest? I mean, it is truly wrong that our city does not recycle glass. I get that.
Some see at what is and ask why. Others see what isn’t and ask why not?
Or something.
This is a very, very basic difference. It would be unproductive to say one approach is better than the other. Even if bottom up is better (and I believe, know, that it is), never, ever the twain shall meet. I can knock my head against my husband’s reality all day long but it will only piss us both off– me because he isn’t doing it ’right’ and him because I am helping him and that pisses dudes off.
Sometimes top down is even useful. I find that at work, dealing with the folks I supervise, top down is sometimes needed or else anarchy will prevail. Anarchy isn’t such a bad thing… unless it is accompanied by people forgetting why we’re there and failing/just not bothering to serve the folks whose tax dollars pay our salaries. So, sometimes I do have to go all top down on ’em.
But at home…
It just came over me Monday when I was off and home alone.
This constant attempt to impose routine, and the consequent unhappiness because I can’t/don’t want to do it and so my life is still in disorder because I failed to tick off the items on my to do list, isn’t helping. It just isn’t.
I’m knocking my head against some basic realities.
I’m struggling to find the right simile or metaphor for this. I haven’t yet, sorry.
These realities are just not going anywhere. We have so much time and so much money. We have certain needs– food, sleep, shelter, transportation, paycheck, emotional and physical and social comforts. My husband sees things a certain way. All of these are realities I can knock my forehead against until it bleeds. I stretch and stretch, trying to manage both ends. At the front end I impose a top down strategy involving lots of proactive things like buying in bulk and routine– and still find myself stuck on the other end, out of money and out of energy, with needs unmet.
I can make running up the slide a way of life if I want to. And I have.
The endless to do list, the daily and weekly attempts to finally game the system, hit the sweet spot, make routine work for me, just wear me out and make me feel like a failure.
So it came to me Monday to try something different.
How about just being where I am and paying tender attention to that particular thing? How about setting down all the balls I am just barely managing to juggle — work, home, my own mental and physical health, parenting, marriage– and giving whatever single thing I am doing my full attention.
Instead of doing fifteen minutes in each room in the house, changing rooms each time the timer goes off, how about cleaning the kitchen for a while, as long as I want, and then going into my room and cleaning there as long as I want?
How about going to bed when I’m tired?
How about being off ADD meds which help me be supermom and just being scattered me for a while?
I gave this a shot Monday. I felt like I was in some kind of superconnected state. I say this because healing school work is the only thing I can compare it to. I was flowing through my day, and it was sweet. It made me nervous, like the first time without training wheels or water wings… but I am convinced of the essential rightness of it.
Those realities were still there… I could stop any time I wanted and try to claw my way up the flinty perpendicular bank of that flow– not enough time, not enough money, day slipping by, have to go back to work tomorrow, must be proactive, must impose routine, must go work on my budget and short and long range forecasts and plans, must accomplish this and this and this in order to create this outcome, must convince husband to save time and aggravation by finally succumbing to the reality of our dishwasher, or our dogs or child or… but why?
I might even make some progress scrambling up the bank. But all those loose ends would still be waving sweetly at me in the breeze– my failure at top down, my reality at bottom up… scrambling up the bank would probably just make my fingers bleed.
I thought, you know, this shit is all going to be there. Why don’t I just do what I want to do right now, and later I’ll probably want to do something else, and it will all get done, or it will still be there.
I didn’t check email. I didn’t budget. I didn’t create a list or calendar of things that must be done on or by certain days in order for my life to work out. I was just … there. I did some dishes. I folded some laundry. I did some writing. I printed some photos. I did some reading. I ate. I just was.
I’m not describing it very well. It really was a moment of zen, though. I haven’t had one this big since I read Haruki Murakami’s Windup Bird Chronicle. Not that I can remember anyway. It’s so funny how a truly useful paradigm shift just sneaks up on you slowly and silently.
One more listen to Plateau… who needs action when you’ve got words?
Good night!
pick a fire goddess. Or, it’s either fuel or spark.
I don’t understand it, but it tickles me. My husband cannot get a fire to burn.
This man can make any combustion engine run, no matter how shitty filthy broken down it is. He’s from Cali, not where you’d expect your talented self taught shade tree mechanic to come from, but his stepdad’s people was from West Virginia, so maybe that’s where he gets it. He’s saved us a fortune on cars and lawnmowers. Literally. One time he and my brother (two anti-man’s men if you ever saw any) were talking about our broken lawnmower, and he said the profound words, ‘Well, it’s either fuel or spark.’
Wow.
In our wonderful Brady Bunch house (not really, just from the same era) we have a real fireplace.
I love it so much, although I am a bit scared of it cause I don’t know when the chimney was last cleaned and everyone knows the creosote builds up and eventually catches and burns your house down. And then there’s the carbon monoxide, of course–
Anyway. We had a huge dead tree in the yard when we moved in, and as men do, a little over a year ago my husband and about eight of his friends congregated to scratch themselves and take it down with chainsaws, rope, and beer. I was too frightened to be home that day. When I did muster the courage to come home the tree was just a pile in the grass. The house and fence appeared undamaged, and there were no head wounds or severed limbs to be seen, praise Jesus.
I should have known when I caught him attempting to throw away all these long pieces of bark. It was a huge amount of huge dry pieces of bark, and (I’m guessing) he thought it was useless because it wasn’t big smooth manly logs. Sigh.
STOP DUDE! I said. Why? he said. That’s kindlin,’ man! I said. I didn’t say, what the hell are you thinking, don’t you know how to build a f*ckin’ far? Okay, maybe I did say that, but quietly, so as not to embarass him in front of his dude friends. He gave me this look like I’m some kind of idiot and we boxed up the bark and saved it for months and months. (And I was picking bits out of the f*cking lawn for months and months, too, cause apparently if a chainsaw don’t cut it men don’t pick it up, and someone had to get it up in order to mow our jungle).
He took some of the big smooth manly logs camping with him– part II of the saga which started with scratching, chainsaws, rope and beer. No burns or severed limbs from that trip, either, unless there’s something he isn’t telling me. There was plenty, plenty more wood from that old tree, and we stacked it in the carport for the winter.
Last winter it seemed like it just never was the right time. This winter, part III, we’ve used it constantly since Thanksgiving, any time it was even a bit cold.
So, since I didn’t take the hint at the time of the manly tree topplin’, I let him build the first fire of the season this year. My stepson looked on. And it wouldn’t catch. I said, let mamma help.
Next fire of the season, I heard him telling my step son– want me to show you how to build a fire?
I couldn’t resist. I do have a competitive streak, which my stepson finds reasonably funny (at least I think he does). Not just that– but he really doesn’t know what he’s doing. I can’t let my boy go down like that. I said, don’t you think I should be teaching him how to build a fire? He (husband, not stepson) flipped me off and kept working. I can’t remember how that one worked out– not very well, I don’t think.
I love that fireplace so much, I took to cleaning the ashes out each morning after and laying a proper fire, so that it would be ready when I wanted it. I had a lovely dancing fire one night when my girlfriend came over for supper. I had a lovely dancing fire the night my husband left to go out of town for a work trip. Shaky baby and I built and lit it together and curled up on the couch with blankets and watched The Secret Garden (1993) for the first of, um, like five times so far.
So one night this week shaky baby was begging, can we set the fire? Can we set the fire? (Do I have a l’il pyro on my hands?)
Baby and daddy got to work. About ten minutes later it wasn’t working out. The frustration filled the whole downstairs.
I said, do you need help? He said, f*ck you, I mean, yes, I do.
Okay, you cook, I’ll start the fire. Off he went.
Later, I tried to explain it to him. It’s either fuel or spark, I said, just like the lawnmower. Then I thought about for a minute, cause he had spark and plenty of fuel.
Oh, fuel, spark, and, you know, air? I think that’s what you’re missing.
He loads that fire place UP. It’s so chock full of wood the fire cain’t breathe. The nice biguns. And how ’bout we clean out the ashes once in a while?
My fires are a tender, patient bricolage. First there’s a loose pile of bark. No, first there’s removal of ashes. Then there’s a loose pile of bark. Then some slim branches, then some slim logs. Then the coup de grace– a few balls of newspaper under the iron thingy that holds up the firewood, the touch of a lighter, and a dancing fire emerges in a minute or two. Then and only then do I throw on the big manly logs.
My fires burn fast and hot. But at least they burn!
Tonight I got a beautiful fire going with wet wood. Yes, wet. It has rained for a day or two and the woodpile is getting low and soaked. And with a little love I got that bitch going beautifully. I loved sitting there next to it, watching it steam and slowly catch.
I said, a couple of times, to be sure he heard me, did you know I’m the fire goddess? I made sure to tell shaky baby again when I had her to myself, too.
Pick a goddess, any goddess. Let’s see, there’s the outcast Pele, with her foul temper. I see that in myself, definitely. There’s Maman Brigitte, known for her hard work and cursing and drinking, could be me, and Li the lucid middle daughter, could also be me. Good so far. 
Izpapalotl seems to be resurfacing from the collective unconscious via graphic novel and other current art.
And I’ve always thought of St Bridgid as the patron saint of hospitality, always there for folks to come and be warmed and fed and comforted, and her kindness to stray dogs is spot on, but it appears fire was her special familiar. The stories are frightening if one thinks of them occurring now… but they resonate most for me.
I don’t know. There’s something precious and nurturing in building and enjoying a lovely fire. It’s evidently not the easy common sense I thought it was. My husband’s a bit of a star, in some ways (some more playground and some more to do with grownup skills and extremely accomplished in a world that completely leaves me behind), especially lately with his new job, and it’s comforting to me to know how to do something so basic, so, well, competent.
I think I need to invent my own goddess. Lord knows I’ve done enough studying of what qualities, destructive, freeing and healing, chaotic and nurturing, I have and want in my life. And what with reading Shirley McClaine’s Out on a Limb, I’m all ready to go review all the Biblical references to aliens assisting the tribes in the form of fiery wheels and burning bushes.
It’ll have to be another post, though.
I am supermom
I am super mom
So sue me.
Well it helps to be raising the coolest kid on this earth. But it’s really beside the point.
Here’s the icing on the cake. Or the proverbial straw, more like it.
Shaky baby loves pancakes. What have I done every morning for the past several days or maybe couple weeks?
Got up and made pancakes.
From scratch.
With non hydrogenated vegan butter and pure maple syrup, of course.
It has to be better for her than the refined sugar and flour in breakfast cereals– even the small amount in the generic cheerios we get.
Yep, cigarette smokin’, adderall-poppin’, scrapbookin’, curtain makin’, vegan cookin’, taking on to much-in’, highball swillin’, nightly story time-in’ beggin’ for a divorce, Spoon-lovin,’ world savin’ (one library book at a time), kitchen redoin’ super mom.
I don’t know how long it will last, but it’s been going on for a while and I am nearly at the top of my game.
I got up this morning shortly after four, after tossing and turning for quite a while. I made pumpkin muffins and got started on from scratch, vegan veggie burgers and sweet potato rolls to share with my girlfriend tonight. I made said pancakes. I updated my list of folks for Christmas cards– oy vey! I’m up to fifty four and counting! — and addressed and slipped photos inside several. I took the baby to school, went to Wal Mart and Dollar Tree, came home to finish our supper, and got started cleaning up the house.
WTF?
Shaky baby goes to gymnastics Monday and Wednesday, 4.50-5.45. For the past few weeks and for the next couple weeks she also has swimming lessons Tuesday-Thursday at 5.50. I cart her to school at 8.15 and go off to work, to return home about 6.20 exhausted. I have two wonderful days off– Sunday and Monday, today being Monday– and those go so quickly and I feel so bitter when they are over. I spent the luxurious days off of Thanksgiving week– working my ass off.
We got our kitchen mostly painted… I have one more set of curtains to make. I cooked a big vegan Thanksgiving dinner. We watched Santa Clause (can you believe Tim Allen’s a big cokehead? I’m in total denial. but I should have known.) and made some family portraits on our front porch that will do for Christmas cards. I took the kids to get scrapbooking supplies and let them print some photos on my computer. I’ve started my Christmas cards and I’ve started ordering gifts and I’m providing the table decorations, flatware and plates for my mom’s group Christmas party. I work constantly on the mountains of laundry and dog hair bunnies and dishes.
And that’s just the stuff I remember.
My husband and I have been going round and round. You know what’s sad? A housekeeper visit a couple times a month would eliminate about 85% of my gripe with him. Or, if he doesn’t want to pay a housekeeper he can pay me. He says no damn way will he pay me.
I called my (divorced, sadly) brother almost in tears to bitch about the situation, and one of the pithy things he said– he’s a man of few words, my bro, but they’re good words– is that men just don’t have that problem with taking on too much.
It was like the clouds opened to reveal the golden rays of sun.
Well at the time it wasn’t really like that. But as I’ve thought on it… it’s become kinda like that.
My husband is so much better than most husbands I know. That’s the other sad part. He brings shaky baby home from school most nights and there is never, ever a question whether I will have child care so that I can go do something important to me, baby free. He takes shaky baby to gymnastics and swimming lessons three times a week– I only take her once. (After five years of bitching and complaining on my part) he alternates weeks with me, cooking and doing dishes or getting shaky baby her bath and reading her a story and putting her to bed. He is patient and kind to her almost without exception. He’s a workhorse. When he wants to, he will work til he drops to assist me with something– like that damn kitchen, or the Halloween party we had a few weeks ago.
It isn’t that he isn’t working. He may be working somewhat less than I am, but he works.
I have *got* to start taking care of myself first.
I clean, cook, clean some more, fold, craft, cook, drive here, drive there, craft some more… I put everything outside of myself, first.
My attic office is a shambles. My bedroom is piled with laundry. I never take long warm baths any more.
Our kitchen looks damn good though.
It’s so clear, what’s happening here. I have got to put myself first each day. I can’t spend *more* hours on selfish pursuits than I do on family pursuits– well I guess I could but I won’t. But when I run out of hours at the end of the day, if something is going to be left undone, it had better not be my personal, emotional and spiritual work.
I can take care of myself– healing work, journaling, organizing and planning, bath and high quality paperback fiction, creating a comfort zone in my bedroom and office– before I set out to be supermom and the best damn library director, friend, and all round person *ever.*
I don’t know why I do this. And I thought I was well beyond the problem of being unable to say no. But it goes far deeper than I ever imagined. My inner house is a terrible mess, while I struggle to keep up appearances, do the right thing, make the world a better place, and buy the affection and admiration of the people I care about– and the people I don’t care about, too.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Doesn’t it suck to realize that one’s problems with someone else really do start within oneself? Sigh.
Okay gotta go finish those curtains, fold three loads of laundry, clean the bathroom, and veganize my favorite petits-fours cake.
Hahahahaha!
I really am going to do those things. But first I’ll clean my little office some, make it more of a haven of comfort and sweetness and less of a dumping ground for the ruins of my attempts to keep up appearances and make the world a better place at my own expense. I’ll get a nice warm bath today too.
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Currently listening : Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga By Spoon Release date: 10 July, 2007 |
a fine pair
(also on my myspace page)
We’re finally getting a Hooters.
I feel like what puts a city on the map as a part of the civilized world is a Target store. My husband feels the same way about Hooters. Yes, he only goes there for the wings.
I don’t know how I feel about Hooters.
In principle I think any business which hires only women to be service staff and asks them to wear some sort of cutesy clothing is exploitative and perpetuates stereotypes and perceptions our society doesn’t need.
In reality though… people can do what they want. Maybe the waitresses are making tons of money that will help them get through college. Maybe they’re having a fantastic time and lots of wonderful high quality socializing and bonding is going on there.
I don’t have boobie insecurity either… As a married matron and a mother, I think I can reasonably get away with saying that I have a fine pair, at least I think I do anyway, at least when they are hiked up in proper foundation garments.
Most guys look. Why shouldn’t we be honest about that? It’s not the same as actually being disloyal to the woman they truly love. It’s sort of like how women slaver over adorable and overpriced clothes at the baby store or the designer boutique, with no intention of purchasing. We look, it looks nice, we move on.
Wait a minute… wait a minute. No, it’s not.
You know what?
Women’s bodies are their property. Our bodies, regardless of gender, are our property. The opposite sex has no business judging.
I have become very sick of how judgmental our society is of bodies, especially when real bodies are nothing like that standard (unless it’s via lipo, plastic surgery, and implants, or just a very very rare genetic combination).
I don’t know why we can’t glorify breasts that have breastfed, or tummies that have birthed babies, or bodies that are healthy rather than just adding up to some kind of arbitrary measurement.
You know that automatic, reflex thought I think guys, okay all of us, have, due to evolution, whenever we meet someone for the first time? In a barely perceptible flash we decide whether that new person is either worthy of procreation or he or she is not. I believe it roughly translates to, I’d do her. Or, he would probably make great babies (no we do not actually think it in those words!! most of the time, anyway) or no dang way.
In reality, this is how we are. We’re human, with the entire spectrum of civilization and reptile brain that comes with it. We need to be honest about it, not be too hard on ourselves about it, realize that it’s one in an entire minefield of factors we use to choose mates, and move on.
But in principle and also in reality, when we look at someone’s body and, whether intentionally or not, judge it for its suitedness for procreative activity (with or without procreation), whether we find it beautiful or not, we are completely out of bounds. Completely. It’s that sort of willingness to define someone else that is part and parcel of abusive thoughtways (I love me some Patricia Evans).
And furthermore, guy who is putting down some woman for having a body you wouldn’t sleep with, who fucking asked you? Whether that body, or that pair, pleases you or not, do you think you’re on, or could ever get on, the list of procreatory invitees? Please.
You might… you might not… but keep your judgement to yourself, until you have grown to know someone as a person. One’s body belongs to oneself, and oneself only.
Signed, your postfeminist friend, who has slightly procreatory pictures on her myspace page, so sue me,
shaky
