Things I'm Thinking About Right Now: Mom Edition

1) The way my mom looked laid out at the funeral home - perfectly normal, like a person who had never been sick

2) Seeing Christopher cry at the funeral

3) The streak of white in her hair she wouldn't let her stylist color over because she thought it made her look more elegant

4) How much I now know about wheelchairs

5) The line "in our dying and our rising, until you take us home" from Matt Maher's "Leave a Light On"

6) Whether I really believe what I heard on a Bible podcast the other day from theologian Mark Hart - that each of us has a vocation, a calling from God, and after we've completed that vocation He takes us back home . . . thus far the only theory I buy for why my mom, of all people, had to have this happen to her. Maybe she was just . . . done. She had done whatever she was supposed to do (more than most people do in their lifetimes)

7) The relationship between kids and mothers. How does my identity change now? Am I still my mother's daughter? Can I be a whole person without the person who gave me half of my genes, my good hair, my love of antique stores, tea, Daphne du Maurier, and old rosaries, and my stubborn, judgmental nature?

8) Skin and hands. My mom's hands got prettier as she got sick - when she was healthy, she was out in the garden doing yardwork, or cooking, or washing dishes, or any number of other things, and her hands were a mess. As she used them less and less, they became white and soft like the hands of someone who's never done a days' work in their life. Like her entire past was just erased.

9) The correct system for Christmas decorations, which only she and I fully understood and which is totally on me now. There's no one to correct me if I screw up.

10) Something she said to me years ago, right after she was diagnosed, and was trying to get me to face up to the fact that eventually she was going to be gone - "My kids are good. They're good to each other. All the rest is just stuff."

Poem: Untitled (2007)

I will return to you
My eyes ablaze
My roasting heart
In the center of the inferno under my skin
Setting me aglow to the tips of my fingers
Like a red torch, an urgent light
That will lead me to you
Lead me ever back to you.

Poem: Thermostats and Pillowcases (2000)

I am missing you in front of the window tonight.
Every time it is someplace different—
I am slicing carrots
Or turning up the thermostat
Or changing the pillowcases on my bed
Or any number of other small things—
And suddenly it is as though I am
Somewhere else.
My hands keep moving,
But my thoughts shatter
And the pieces go flying
In a million directions, to see
If they can find you.

Tonight it happens while I am
By the window.
It is a clear night,
And the sky is gloriously star-laden,
And I hate you for not being there
To point out Orion’s Belt,
Which I can never find.
But I don’t cry,
Because the sarcastic stars have not earned
The right to witness my grief
The way homely things have—
Little things,
Like thermostats and pillowcases.

Poem: Borrowed Grace (2001)

or years they have occupied
these same two chairs—
he in the worn-down ancient rocker
with faded blue cushion
and scratches in the wood where the cat has been;
she, curled up like a cat herself
in the rose chintz armchair,
legs tucked beneath skirts.
he is reading about the slaughter of Iphigenia.
she is writing poetry about lighthouses
and ships at sea
and the way the soft sunlight
plays over his hair.
they are drinking tea from china cups
with mismatched saucers
and eating oatmeal current scones
she made herself, as her father did.

they are playing house,
making-believe they are grown up
and that the wild riot of color and sound
which races by every day
outside this peeling rose wallpaper
belongs to them exclusively.
he pretends the world’s secrets are his to discover,
like a hidden pearl.
she pretends that he loves her.

they are living in not-that-kind-of sin,
the sin of not knowing
what you want
and of pretending the way will always be clear,
the sin of faith which is misplaced
and unrecognized.
blindness is the deepest valley,
the worst way someone can be hurt.

she pours him another cup of tea
and goes back to her lighthouses.

My People #3 - Annoying Christians (a poem I wrote last fall after having dinner at the house of a really irritating couple from my church)

The first time I met them I thought,
I’m going to hate your house.


But the whole long drive I kept praying they would surprise me.
I thought,
Please God, let me be wrong, let them surprise me with their hidden depths.
Maybe he paints.
Maybe she lived in Bangkok for a semester.
Maybe they collect vintage salt and pepper shakers.
Anything.

But the further I got from the city –
From the hot glittering lights and noisy traffic
And gleaming office buildings by the river –
The smaller civilization appeared in the rearview mirror,
The shittier the taupe ranch houses with dead yards became,
The dimmer was the possibility of aesthetic salvation.

As I pulled up to a beige house,
With a beige ceramic cross in the window,
I panicked.
These are not my people.

I stepped across the cat-shaped welcome mat into a sea of cheap oak,
And felt a sense of foreboding as the door closed behind me.

The vile ceramic figurines I predicted the moment I met them –
Predicted when I first saw her awful hair and his too-short pants –
Filled an entire shelf next to the birdcage.

Jesus. The birds . . .

The house was a menagerie –
Birds, dogs, cats, ferrets, and a judgmental baby
Who stared at me with open hostility
Like a tiny, red-faced Joe McCarthy.
That was unpleasant enough,
But the birds were flat-out sinister.

As the mother fondled and chatted with them,
Stroking their bellies with a glaze-eyed smile like a serial killer’s,
I felt the walls close in on me.

God, this small sad life.

Their dead-end jobs, their bizarre marriage,
Their ugly mean baby and psycho boarder with her ferrets,
Their cheap oak furniture and their colorless lives,
Filled me with a kind of desperation
That was partly judgment, partly horror, and partly impatience.

I had truly wanted to be wrong,
To learn that that they only appeared beige –
That they wore it like a mask,
That inside they were colorful and passionate and brave,
That they had done things.

I sat there with my watery lemonade, chewing a piece of bread, cringing in shame
As they marveled over my salad.
Having never encountered raspberry vinaigrette,
They gushed like I had brought thousand-dollar caviar
Or slaved all day over a hot stove,
Rather than run into the grocery store on my way to their house
With five cheap ingredients I then dumped in a bowl.

I wanted to say,
No, you’re wrong,
It took no effort,
You could do this too.
Even with a baby you could buy shirts that fit you, you could brush your hair.

(Knowing it was malicious, knowing it was cruel.)

Still I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, endlessly, over and over,
God, do they think they’re happy?
You couldn’t pay me enough to live in this house.

I couldn’t give up Thai food or the theatre or the New York Times.
I couldn’t stand their look of polite disinterest and lack of comprehension
When I talk about politics or “Spinal Tap” or Leonard Cohen.
I couldn’t live so far from color and light,
So far from where beautiful weird people laugh and vote and eat and play . . .
Out here in what might as well be the void of deep space, except with less to see,
This beige nondenominational subdivision
In a house full of figurines and birds.

When I finally stepped outside and breathed fresh air,
I felt tears of relief stinging my eyes.

I thought,
Yes,
My life is painful.

I have sorrows no one else can understand, I have felt extraordinary loss.
My life is not perfect,
It can be black with emptiness or red with rage
Or the tang of metallic gray, like despair.

But it can also be cool, smoky blue like the voice of Louis Armstrong,
Butter-yellow with pink edges like a rose,
Or crisp grass green like the glossy skin of a lime.

Their lives,
I think with some small dark satisfaction,
Are nothing like mine.

The gulf between them and me is as deep as risk
And as wide as passion.
It covers all the interesting parts of the earth.

Photo Album - My College Graduation

Graduation - May, 2003 @ Whitman College

This is me with my friend Charlie. My brothers jumped into the photo just to be annoying.

There are some 1500 pictures from my dad's camera of my graduation weekend. There are like six of me smiling. There was a whole lot of Claire-with-every-conceivable-combination-of-relatives, thanks to my mother's efficiency and thoroughness. This is The Aunts. Aunt Pat (gray hair, on the left) is my dad's wacky sister, the person in every family whose job it is to second-guess your doctors and their medical advice. Aunt Kathleen (brown hair, on the right) is my godmother, the estranged sister of my mom who made a nuisance of herself at the funeral.

The Grandparents. Grandfather (my dad's dad) worked his entire life for Union Pacific Railroad. Grandma Melita (white shirt), my dad's stepmom, believes that global warming is caused by submerged alien spacecraft heating the ocean. Grandma Dorothy (black shirt), my mom's mom, used to have up to a dozen Christmas trees in her house, all with different themes.

This is me, in the big graduate parade, almost dead last because I wasn't any kind of cum laude, and I'm a W.

This was an attempt at a picture of my friend Evan and his girlfriend Beth, rudely interrupted by my brother Christopher.

This is me with Evan and Sarah, two of my housemates in The Labyrinth (our crappy 1950's ranch house, so named because all the additions to the house made it so you could walk from room to room in a complete circle around the laundry room)

Me and my parents, faking happy after like the one millionth picture.

Me and Charlie, who I would marry if we weren't both gay.

Graduation Night Mayhem With My Family at El Sombrero, Where Many Giant Margaritas Were Consumed By My Aunts and Grandfather

Daniel's poem about my mother

Rhythm

It’s a shock to see her like this:

Chair-bound. Blanket-wrapped.

Unable to turn to greet me,

To welcome me into her home.

My heart beats once –

A silence: something stricken –

Twice, and I step into view.

My mind races, back-

Pedaling, wildly grasping

Toward the past, the last

Time we met; the first time.

I can’t even remember the color

Of her hair then (now it’s orange,

Which is, I think, a change),

But I do remember her presence:

Strong. Serene.

Articulate and capable.

Serenity remains.

My heart’s in free fall

But she holds me still

With calm and smiling eyes

A very

Slowly,

Speaks.

Her tempo is a change.

Allegro ma non troppo,

The speed of Wilde and wit,

Has settled into a haunting

Largo,

And in shame I recognize it

As the speed, the speech

Of those whom I ignore,

Of those whom I dismiss

As babblers, fools

With nothing great to say

Because it takes

Me

Too much effort to listen.

I lose a word now and

Then, I respond cheerfully,

Honestly. She tells me of her frustrations.

Most have to do with social,

Not personal injustice,

Which is probably why

She is the top fundraiser for ALS statewide.

She chooses words carefully,

And doles them out, or gives them,

And if they take some unwrapping,

It is the least,

The very least,

That I can do.

Before long I am on my way,

Accelerating down the freeway

At 70 mph.

But before I go I see

A husband, supporter, helping her to stand,

A son, taking time to sit beside her,

A daughter, talking as fast as ever,

Talking with her mom exactly as before,

And some tupperware from the neighbors,

Full of watermelon.

The symphony continues:

Sweet, and slow.

Archived Chat: Daniel and I discuss making quizzes about our friends, OKCupid's subjective personality ratings. and favorite childhood toys

Chat with Daniel Stoltenberg

12:17 AM Daniel: Hi!

12:18 AM me: Hi! You're nuts!

Daniel: Every time I talk to you it's "crazy" this and "nuts" that. Yeesh.

me: "Every time" meaning "within the last three minutes when you IM'd me eleventy times?"

Daniel: Ah . . . yes.

12:19 AM me: HA/

I mean, HA!

Daniel: I took your quiz!

I'm jane!

me: That's what I thought you would be.

It was too much to hope that you would be Billie Jean.

Daniel: You should write a quiz just for me, that has a "Daniel" result.

12:20 AM me: I will do that. The questions will be things like: "True or False: Your last name is Stoltenberg."

Daniel: Haha! Doooo eeeeeet!

12:21 AM me: Actually, a "Which of my friends are you like?" quiz would entertain me greatly. Are you a Daniel? An Evan? An Eli (God forbid)? A Jesse? Only one way to find out. You know what would be HILARIOUS, though? If you took the test and WERE'NT Daniel.

12:22 AM Daniel: Oh! That's too cool not to do!

me: I'm on it.

Daniel: Make that your next project please :)

me: For you, anything.

12:23 AM Now I just have to think of good Daniel-like questions . . . like, "True or False: Frances the Badger RULES."

Daniel: TRUE!

me: YOU'RE TOTALLY A DANIEL!!!!!

Daniel: I win!

Heheh

me: It will be a short quiz. That was the only question.

12:25 AM Daniel: Well, that's alright I guess.

I don't know how you'd end up with "Eli" from that though

12:26 AM me: Okay, fine, TWO questions. "True or False: Are you a jerk?"

Daniel: Zing!

me: I know, I know, I'm a mean horrible person.

Daniel: Lol

12:27 AM me: Indeed.

Daniel: I'm trying to customize my fonts, which is why I'm being inattentive.

me: Nerd.

12:28 AM Daniel: OKCupid tells me that I'm "more attentive" under normal circumstances. I haven't gotten to "more geeky" yet.

12:29 AM me: "More attentive" than me? Jigga-wha? You mean I am not the world's most attentive person? Pshaw, is my response. I like that we're both more pure and more moral than everyone else, though. Take THAT, heathens.

Daniel: I'm level 9 moral!

me: Me too, I think . . . am I not?

12:30 AM Daniel: Uh, let's see

me: PS I can't get over that you're 20% my enemy. I love that.

Daniel: Hehe. You're only level 4 moral, sucka

me: Oh, shut up. I have other good qualities.

Daniel: Like "aggressive" and "greedy"?

12:31 AM me: WHAT?!?! Greedy? Damn you, OK Cupid! I am NOT greedy. That pile of gold in my basement is mine. (Beautiful, lovely taxes! AH-ha! AH-ha!)

12:32 AM Daniel: Uh, I was just kidding. awkward pause

12:33 AM me: No, it actually says that you're less greedy than me. It used the word "greedy." Those bitches think they know me. WELL THEY DON'T>

That was supposed to be a period.

Daniel: You just need to answer more questions!

And look at this: http://www.gigabeach.com/images/towel-or-dog.jpeg

12:34 AM me: Hilarious! Is that from cuteoverload.com?

Daniel: Hm, I don't know!

me: Everyone at my office is obsessed with that website.

12:35 AM Daniel: Now I, too, will be

me: It does seem like a website made for you.

12:36 AM Daniel: Aw shucks :)

Have any people hit on you randomly on OK Cupid yet?

12:37 AM me: No, not yet. I'm actually not having a lot of luck . . . most of the lesbians in Portland are, not to be a bitch, tacky butches with dreadful hair. I've got my eye on a 29-year-old Catholic in grad school for physics but she hasn't logged on since July so I'm probably out of luck. DAMN. Oh well, it's only been like 3 days.

12:38 AM Daniel: Heh, that's funny - the one guy I would even consider dating who I saw hasn't logged in since September.

Although someone from Maryland IMed me randomly at like midnight last night.

THat was odd

12:39 AM me: That is weird . . . I've reconnected with a girl from high school, and a bunch of random people who were all like "I love your quiz!" but that's it. I enjoy having a means of regular contact with Max and Val if nothing else, though.

Daniel: Grin is on too!

12:40 AM me: I found her and asked her to be my friend.

You know what you should be doing right now? Reading my play.

Daniel: That's true!

12:41 AM I just sent you an email

12:42 AM me: Hee! Nothing is as funny as ANYTHING with a shark fin strapped to it. Comedy gold, people.

Daniel: I certainly enjoyed it lol

12:43 AM me: Sometimes I feel like in a past life you were a stuffed animal.

Not like a taxidermy one.

Daniel: Hmmm. There are layers and layers to that comment.

12:44 AM me: No, there's really just the one layer . . . a fluffy stuffed animal layer!

12:45 AM Daniel: My favorite stuffed animal when I was a kid was a pea. Like a pea pod.

12:46 AM me: Ohhhhh, cute . . . I hope it wasn't a freaky Anne Geddes pea pod with a trio of babies in it. I LOATHE Anne Geddes. My favorite was the blue bear I still have that is smushed practially 2-dimensional from 20 years of my head laying on it. I also had a stuffed Mrs. Frisby from "NIMH" and a pink kitty named Pink Kitty. I looooooooved Pink Kitty.

I was not a good stuffed-animal-namer. That was not my gift.

12:47 AM Daniel: HAHA!

I like that you hate Anne Geddes.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

me: There are layers and layers to THAT comment. Are you accusing me of hating babies and cuteness?

12:48 AM Daniel: No. Just of hating Anne Geddes, who has found the modern niche for child exploitation for capitalistic and evil purposes.

12:49 AM http://i14.ebayimg.com/04/i/07/d7/c3/1e_0.JPG

me: Oh. That. Yeah, totally. She's the only person worse than what's-his-name who dresses up his dogs like President and Mrs. Lincoln or whatever and then takes their picture. Seriously, dude. Those dogs do not look happy.

Daniel: Heheh

me: Awwww, cute pea pod . . .

12:50 AM I have a great mental image of you at like four years old in footie pajamas walking around the house with your pea pod and ending every sentence with "said the little boy."

Daniel: LOL

12:51 AM I need to watch who I tell that stuff to

me: I haven't revealed your secret.

That's a lie.

I totally have.

Daniel: To whom?!

me: But only to nice people.

Um . . . let me think . . .

12:52 AM My mom, Catherine, Sarah . . . that might be it.

Daniel: Oh that's not so bad

me: Besides, I think you've spilled one or two of MY secrets in your day . . . oh, you know what I mean.

12:53 AM Daniel: Hmmm.

Touche.

me: Damn straight.

Daniel: Well 1:00 is sort of my bed time. So I should log off.

12:54 AM me: OMG, I had no idea what time it was. Ack!

Good night, babe!

Daniel: Night :)

Archived E-Mail: In which I wear a smock, criticize my relatives, and make up with my estranged BFF Nathan

Sent: Friday, July 12, 2003
Subject: "Claire Wears a Smock," a Cautionary Tale

So the big stadiums and arenas in the Portland area do this thing where nonprofit groups can work a concessions booth for a cut of the profits. It seems a little bit of a racket, since ALL the grunt workers are volunteers and I think we make like 8% of the profits. But that's still a lot of money if you do it enough. Anyway, my dad has become the Guy Friday to Nicole, the chirpy, cheerful twenty-something Mary Kay lady who is our church's new youth minister. (You are familiar with Mary Kay? It's like Avon. People go door to door selling makeup on commission. In the sixties top Mary Kay ladies got free pink Cadillacs. Oh, to live in that time . . . and be a top Mary Kay lady . . . with a driver's license . . .) Anyway, he and Nicole basically run all the youth ministry stuff and he signed himself--and his daughters--up for this fundraiser project at the new Clark County Fairgrounds Auditorium. Tonight was the Auditorium's first concert--John Mayer and the Counting Crows. Except THE COUNTING CROWS OPENED FOR JOHN MAYER. The Counting Crows, while not my fave of all time, are not what I think of as an opening act. I feel like for a band that's been around awhile--a band that USED to be headliners--to be demoted to opening act status, they must have lost several key members or have been a total flash-in-the-pan group. Like if Boy George opened for Madonna. Or the Pips without Gladys Knight opened for the Supremes without Diana Ross at some middle-of-nowhere Indian reservation casino. So I felt kind of bad for the Counting Crows, especially since John Mayer is like twelve and they probably see him as some weaselly little upstart. Anyhoo, so Dad and I went to work at the concert and I will list for you in bullet point form all the reasons it was a horrible evening--

--The dress code was tan pants and closed-toed shoes. Now, they lucked out because I haven't owned a pair of tan pants in about 6 years but I just bought a pair of very cute camel-colored slacks on sale for $20 so I did happen to meet that requirement. But the only closed-toed shoes that go with them are my mid-calf brown zip-up leather block heel boots, which are totally cute but a little uncomfortable when you're on your feet behind a window from 5 to 11:30 p.m. with only one 10-minute break.

--Also, we had to wear a smock. A SMOCK, Daniel. ME. In a SMOCK. A hideous tan polyester tan-and-black smock with the catering company's logo on it in enormous letters and they looked fine on the old guys but I'm sorry, anyone with boobs cannot wear a smock. All the girls were like, "Christ, we look heinous." Anticipating such a crisis, I took extra care with makeup, hair, and fabulous earrings, but still, I was like, "This is the ugliest shirt I've worn in the past two decades since my mid-80's fetish for polka dots." Blarg.

--It was the arena's absolute first-ever event, so EVERYONE--including the paid staff who should know what they're doing--was clueless. There were about 10 different people giving different directions about various policies until most of us were resorting to making shit up.

--Here is my job description: Stand behind counter. Smile gaily at approaching "guests" and take their order. Fetch their food, even if the came to me at the pizza window and asked for a Polish sausage which was at the snack section six windows down and I had to leave my till unattended to go get them their damn sausage. Calculate their totals--I prided myself on not having to use the calculator; I worked in retail for 2 years, I can give anyone change for anything under $50 in 5 seconds without a calculator. The trick is to turn it as quickly as possible into denominations of 5 and 10 and the rest is cake. Anyway, I was also at a counter that was serving beer, so I had to learn how to pull pints (well, not pints, 12-oz. plastic Portland Trailblazer cups of Bud Light, but still) so they weren't all foam, and get fussed at by people who didn't like the "one beer per person" policy. Hurrah.

--Immediately following this joyous 5 hours of food-selling fun came an hour of the even greater delight known as Throwing Away Massive Quantities of Untouched Food, Mostly Hamburgers and Slices of Pizza Turned Into Rubber Via Sitting Under the Heat Lamp, which was followed by the wonder of Everybody Sneaking Out Before Cleanup Started, and the piece de resistance of Having To Wash Piles of Grimy Fatty Pots and Pans Piled Practically To the Ceiling Because Nobody Else Would Do It and Dad Was Cleaning The Fryer. Oh, what a life. I came home spattered with grease--yuck--smelling like beer and garbage--double yuck--and perfectly contented never to eat another hot dog again. This, I believe, is God's way of telling me that no financial straits I find myself in are dire enough to necessitate taking a job in fast food. I do not want to have to refer to beer-swilling, hot-dog-chomping assholes who yell at me for removing the top from their juice (I'm sorry, sir, I'm not allowed to give you the lid, I don't understand either and I think it's a ridiculous rule but the supervisor is right behind me) as "guests." I do not want to permanently smell of burger. I do not want to wear, or suffer others to wear, anything that could be construed as any kind of smock. If you take into account that I spent the morning at the dentist, and that all day I have been thinking about the fact that tomorrow I have to go to the funeral of a family friend (a kid younger than me who I went to school with) who was killed clearing a minefield in Iraq, it is hard to imagine having had a worse day.

Upside (and oh, what an upside): Nathan and I are SO back. I had written him this looooong letter about two weeks ago--his e-mail's pretty limited and I like writing letters and he never gets mail, so I made a pretty envelope and used pretty stationery and wrote him this like 10-page letter that was basically like, "Okay, you hate confrontation, I hate confrontation, but our relationship is going to fall apart unless we start communicating, so here's what's going on and here's what I don't understand, and why do you not tell me what's going on in your life anymore?" and all that kind of stuff . . . not whiny like that sounded just now, but basically how I felt like we had been drifting apart and I didn't feel like I had any control over it and if something was wrong could we please talk about it and all that kind of stuff. And I kept thinking, it was an even 50/50 whether I would get the response I wanted, or whether having me bring it up would make him even MORE unwilling to discuss the problem. But he wrote me back--another 10 page letter--and he explained everything and apologized for not communicating and said he loved me and missed me and he was really sorry he'd been shutting me out and he just said all the right things and I was so happy I almost cried. I was so worried that we were going to be stuck where we are now, but the fact that he could look at the relationship and say, "I miss where we used to be, and we're where we are now because I shut you out, not because you're a bad person" made me feel a lot better. Not like I wanted him to say everything was his fault, but just so he would acknowledge that I couldn't do anything about the problem when he never told me what was wrong. But anyway, he told me everything and it's all worked out and I'm thrilled that he's so happy with his ministry work in Ohio and I can't wait to see him in two weeks. God, I miss that kid.

You know who else I miss? My wacko friend Daniel. How is he? Any more "Giant Sign!" or related goofy family stories? My family went to the beach for the 4th and played Loaded Questions. Catherine's boyfriend--Allen from the Peace Corp who was in Uzbekistan and Morocco before they sent all the Americans home after 9/11; very nice, very sarcastic and funny, thinks I'm hilarious--and Christopher's girlfriend--Amy, leggy blonde with slight ditz tendencies but a very healthy sense of humor and a very good influence on Christopher--both proved to be adept novices at Willett Loaded Questions. I have high hopes for them both as future Willetts. Oddly, Allen is the only person in or associated with my family to show any sensitivity to the fact that I was the only single kid in a group full of couples (well, Colin's single obviously, being 12 years old. We hung out a lot). Catherine and Christopher have never asked me if I felt weird tagging along with them as a 5th wheel (question: why 5th wheel, when you're the 3rd person? I've heard people say 3rd wheel, but you need a 3rd wheel so that doesn't make sense), and most of the time I don't, or if I do I make an excuse but don't go. But Allen kept asking Catherine, "Are you sure Claire's all right with this? Ask Claire if she minds." I thought it was either A) very considerate, or B) a sign that I give off "I-Hate-Couples" vibes all unawares. I'm hoping it's A.

In the past few weeks I somehow keep accidentally ending up in conversations about my parents' wedding. My mom and I would be talking about some celebrity wedding we saw on TV, or my dad and I were talking about how he looked for jobs right out of college, and it's like all roads lead to the Willett/Laskowski wedding. Partly it's because their anniversary was this week so they've got it on the brain, but I find it fascinating. I'm discovering all kinds of stuff I never knew about my parents as hard-headed, rebellious youngsters. For example, who knew that the cause of the slightly difficult relationship between Mom and Grandma stemmed largely from the fact that my mother paid for her own wedding? She paid for everything with her own savings to keep her mom from being able to wield any influence over the dress (which Grandma wanted to make herself), the cake (which Grandma wanted to make herself), the location (which Grandma wanted to be the Hilton Hotel because Grandfather worked there and they would have done it for free), the date (which Grandma wanted to be much later because of some old Polish custom she fabricated about the kids getting married in order of birth, and Mom's older brother Mike was engaged but not married yet). And on and on. It's very interesting to me that maybe my mom is as ballsy (some say bitchy, I say ballsy) as she is because she spent so much of her young adult life puttin her foot down to her own, passive-aggressive mother of the Feminine Wiles School of Getting People To Do Stuff For You. Which my mom has never bought into. I really love the idea of my mom, who is such the perfect Catholic socialite/hostess, as a smart-assed rebellious "career girl" who saved up money as a career counselor at the prison to pay for her own wedding to a long-haired liberal-arts-school hippie like my dad. And that then they became Bob and Suzy Homemaker. I find this thrilling. It explains a lot--like why my mom never really freaked out about Catherine's and Christopher's and my various rebellious phases. Though let's face it, my rebellion never got much worse than dyeing my hair black and having occasional snits. Anyway, I am fascinated by the seemingly endless streams of dysfunction swirling around the Willett and Laskowski clans, and every new fact I learn serves to convince me that both my parents were the ones in their families who came out the best. Dad has the angry divorced sister who dated drug dealers through most of high school and college and now has passed on her cynical, unpleasant life outlook to her incredibly bitchy daughter who is out to get my mom. Mom says, I will see your angry divorced sister, and raise you one deadbeat brother who stole $10,000 from Grandma and defaulted on 2 loans co-signed by my parents; to which Dad replies, I will see your thieving brother, and raise you one brother who did tons of drugs in college and is now a judge in Washington who refuses to speak to his family because he has "borrowed" thousands of dollars over the years which he denies ever having borrowed and if you ask him, he comes from a totally unsupportive family and had to pull himself up to success by his bootstraps. To which Mom replies . . . well, you get the drift. And yet my parents are not only reasonably normal, but very happy and successful. Who'd have thought?

And, SCENE.

Bedtime. Let's talk later. When are you going to come visit me and meet my much-ballyhooed family? I'd love it if you could come sometime in early August when we do the Claire/Colin joint birthday extravaganza because then you could meet the entire clan. You might become the only Whittie besides Eli to hear stories from Uncle Norman about "when I used to work on the farm with them Negroes," or the only Whittie EVER besides me to hear Grandma Melita's theory that alien spacecraft submerged in the ocean are causing global warming. (I get so much delight and entertainment out of these people . . .) Anyway, as soon as we have the party date I'll let you know, because I think only another person who thinks families are hilarious will appreciate my clan for their true humor value. Evan and Charlie love them to pieces, while Eli, Tylor, and Nathan find them a little overwhelming. Shannon always did too. Shannon is from a very small,very quiet, very civilized family whose main outlet is sports. I am from a huge, noisy, chaotic family whose main outlets are food and drink, nagging, sarcasm, and throwing Almond Roca at each other. (You can see where Shannon would have trouble.) But oh, they are delightful and you will love them.

Okay, bedtime for real. Talk to you later! I want to hear everything that's going on with you--how did your skits with Carla go? Were you Australian as per my earlier request? How is your summer thus far? Can't wait to hear from you!

Paper-Mache and Lupines,
Claire

Archived E-Mail: In which my Anglican minister friend Nathan unearths some hilarious Methodist temperance hymns

Sent: Saturday, June 5, 2004
Subject: Temperance Hymns

So, in sorting through my mounds of books, I came across this old Methodist hymnal I pilfered from Ohio last summer. I was flipping through it, wondering what kind of people used to sing "Go Work In My Vinyard To-Day" and "Don't You Want to Live with Jesus?" when I came across a whole section of gems that, sadly, don't get sung anywhere anymore. I thought I'd copy out the lyrics for your edification. Remember them, next time you're out getting drunk. "Cold Water Song" by Mrs. C. D. Martin and W. Stillman Martin: Some love the wine cup, tho' sharp is its sting, Water, cold water the song I shall sing: Sparkling and bright from the beautiful spring, Cold water the bev'rage for me! CHORUS: Water, cold water, the bev'rage for me! Water, cold water, my song now shall be! Never the wine cup, praise God I am free, Cold water, cold water for me. VS. 2: Made by the wine a poor slave and a tool, Robbed of all reason to be like the fool; Give me cold water, so sweeet and so cool, Cold water the bev'rage for me. CHORUS AGAIN. VS. 3 Come, friends, we'll sing ig, the cold water song; Temperance soldiers, the music prolong; Let this grand motto ring out clear and strong: COLD WATER, THE BEV'RAGE FOR ME! Etc. This one I like awfully well also. It's called "Waiting for Father" and it's by Lizzie Dearmond and W. B. Judefind. Watching for father, the light's growing dim Up in the room cold and bare (cold and bare) Only a baby afraid of the dark, No one to help or to care CHORUS: Down in the liscensed saloon, Breathing its woe to the soul, Hundreds of fathers are there; Death everlasting their goal! VS. 2: Watching for father, the swift falling tears Freeze on the little wan face (wan face); Dear ones must sufer because of the drink, Share in the woe and disgrace. CHORUS. That's for all you winos and lushes out there. Remember the little tykes at home, waiting for Father. I'm off for a glass of cold, cold water. Fighting the good fight, -Nathan

Archived E-Mail: In which my playwright friend Chris sits in on a rehearsal of his show for the first time

Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 12:51 PM
Subject: Marmot Jacket for Sale



Here's a new little play I wrote called "The Making of Call Me Bob."
Tell me what you think.



(Chris enters the Blackbox to see the first run-through of "Call Me Bob")
Josh: Oh man, I am so hungover. I just got up a hour ago. I've been partying all weekend.
Pat: Hey Alden, give me a dollar for chips.
Alden: No!
Pat: C'mon... I skipped dinner.
Josh: Hey Alden, we're not supposed to be off-book, right?
Alden: Yes! Yes you are!
Josh: Well, too bad.
Alden: C'mon guys... let's get this show shizigity-started.
Pat: Aldeeeen.... dollar.....
Christian (riding skateboard around the blackbox): Y'know what'd be really cool? If you had a stopwatch that could stop time...
Alden: You mean like on that Duck Tales episode?
Ben: Hey, I've seen that episode.
Christian: Have you seen that one where they find Atlantis?
Pat: Alden, this is part of my character. I need chips to be in character. You're holding me back.
Josh: Can we just leave? I'm tired.
Alden: You fuckers! I hate you all.
Christian: Scrooge had this huge scuba outfit. It was hilarious.
Chris (whispered to Max): Are all rehearsals like this?
Max: Pretty much.



I think it's got potential.

Archived E-Mail: My First Week in Jersey City

Subject: Greetings From Jersey City!
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 1:40 PM

Let me state for the record that I thought I would absolutely loathe Jersey City, but it's actually not so bad. Tomorrow's task is finding out how long it will take me, via a combination of various buses and trains, to get from home to work. I may feel differently then. But for now, I have a good-sized room with a view of a lovely flower-filled backyard, free internet and long-distance phone service, a great big electric fan (no air conditioning, more's the pity, but the fan and lots of ice water are doing all right for me), and every single pair of shoes I own. So I'm happy.

The journey itself was less than jolly, since I hate flying, airports, and carrying heavy things. I also had quite an adventure this morning with a cab driver who was supposed to take me from Jessica's Upper West Side apartment to Jersey City. This very nice man with an incredibly thick and unidentifiable accent asked me if I knew where I was going, and I told him the address, and then he goes, "What bridge do I take?" Like I would know. Like I wasn't carrying three massive bags containing my entire life, all clearly advertising "This Person Has Just Come From The Airport." So I explained that I had no idea what bridge to take. "Maybe we should just get into Jersey City and then ask for directions," I suggest helpfully. Mr. Cab Driver agrees. I keep count--we ask for directions nine different times, and everyone points us in different directions, until we realize that, on account of the thick accent of my cab-driving pal, people have been giving us directions NOT to Pacific Avenue, Jersey City, but to Passaic, New Jersey, which is nowhere near the right direction. So we finally get straightened out and I arrive at my lovely tree-filled street and my funky bohemian sublet.

My landlord is a college professor who rents furnished rooms, all utilities included, to interns and foreign students dirt cheap. The catch is that only the bedrooms have been remodeled. The kitchen and the rest of the house have probably seen nary a splash of new paint since the 1940's. It's very much a professor's house . . . the living room has a piano (Moustafa from Turkey was playing it earlier while I was unpacking) and walls of old classical records and strange old books. The kitchen has a decrepit gas range the likes of which I have never seen. But my room is freshly painted a very trendy pumpkin orange, and the whole house has lovely hardwood floors--which, combined with the pretty backyard, make up for the holes in the hallway ceiling.

I walked down to the grocery store this afternoon. On the way back, my bags broke, and just as I was about to totally despair, this high-school-age teenage boy dressed as every stereotype of black kids from the hood (the piece of cloth underneath the baseball cap so you look like you're trekking through Egypt . . . what is THAT about?) comes up and offers to carry my bags back. He's very chatty, and apparently has lived in this neighborhood all his life because he was telling me about how much nicer the professor's house looks now that it's been remodeled. He carried my bags all the way up to the porch and then, as he was leaving, told me, "Hey, you ever need anything, you just give me and my boys a shout." Welcome to New Jersey.

Work starts Tuesday, so I'm just kind of lying low until then, trying not to suffocate from the heat. I hope the commute isn't totally lethal, but we'll see. Anyway, I better get back to unpacking. Here's my new address:

285 Pacific Avenue

Jersey City, NJ 07304 (I think . . . I'm not sure about the ZIP but I'll get back to you)

I also don't know the phone number. But I have unlimited computer access so e-mail is probably the best way to keep in touch with me. And I'll send out regular updates any time something interesting happens. Like my shopping bags break. Enthralling stuff like that.

All right, back to unpacking, I have procrastinated long enough.

Later!

--Claire

Male Celebrity Crushes - Some Very Weird

My Top Ten Guy Crushes - Real, Fictional, and Historical

1) Fictional 1920's detective Albert Campion (created by Margery Allingham)




2) Gabriel Byrne


3) Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) from The West Wing



4) Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre (depicted here by Toby Stephens, from the recent smokin' hot Masterpiece Theatre version)




5) Sir Thomas More



6) Ciaran Hinds



7) Sydney's dad on Alias (played by Victor Garber)



8) Bobby Kennedy



9) Atticus Finch as played by Gregory Peck from the movie To Kill a Mockingbird



10) Robert Sean Leonard in all the late-80's-and-early-90's films of my childhood

Snake Dreams

I have a recurring series of dreams that snakes are thinking of new ways to kill me.

In my last apartment, a studio, my bed was up against a wall that was basically all window. I moved in the summer, so it was really hot, and I kept the window open to get some air. My very first night in the apartment, half-awake and trying to adjust to new noises, like you do the first night you sleep in a new place (especially going from a quiet dead-end street with no traffic, to a window that looked out on Burnside), I had a hard time drifting off and had a weird succession of half-awake, half-asleep dream/hallucinations. The most vivid of them went something like this:

IF my new neighbors across the alley had a pet snake, and IF that snake was kept loose in their backyard, and IF that snake escaped through their fence and slithered across the alley between their house and my apartment, and IF the snake could scale walls and get up the side of my building, and IF that snake was poisonous, then it could come right into my apartment through the open window and kill me.

In half-awake hallucination land, that got shorthanded to: Oh my God, snakes are trying to kill me. I didn't sleep at all that night, torn between not wanting to get up and shut the window because a) it was a billion degrees and b) that would mean I was a crazy person, and fixating on the open window and how much space there would be for pretty much any kind of runaway snake on the lam from its owners to come in and kill me, including a giant anaconda or one of those tropical snakes that can climb a tree and thus would have no trouble getting into my window which was less that 20 feet off the ground.

I did feel pretty stupid the next morning. But I had the same dream several times and it always seemed totally plausible at 3 in the morning. Then, a few months later, there was another one, which went something like this:

IF there existed a snake that was both super-tiny and super-poisonous, and IF one of them escaped from a home or exotic-pet store or lived in the wild, and IF a giant bird swooped down to eat it, thinking it was a worm, and IF that bird grabbed it in its talons and flew away, and IF the bird let go or the snake wriggled out, and IF the snake fell from the sky and landed on my windowsill, then it could slither right in through my window and kill me in my sleep with no warning.

This one, upon waking, was even more bizarre and ridiculous, but still terrifying in the middle of the night.

I don't get my thing with snakes. I have this kind of terror/fascination with them. When I was a kid I used to imagine that snakes lived at the bottom of my bed and would eat my feet if I slept stretched out, which is why to this day I can't sleep unless I'm at least partially curled up. When I was a kid, I used to look at pictures of snakes to scare myself on purpose; in our set of Encyclopedias, under S for Snake (or possibly for Scare the Shit out of you) there was a giant, full-page-sized photo of a cobra about to strike - like, right up close, with its fangs wide open, about to pounce and kill you. Basically a vivid image of what would be the last thing you would see before you died. The striking cobra was one of the three pictures from informational books I used to scare myself with as a child - the other two being as follows: a massive, garishly-colored illustration of an archaeopteryx (still my favorite prehistoric creature) swooping down from the sky towards you, talons outstretched like a reptilian harpy, to attack a cute harmless little prehistoric lizardy-type thing; and St. Sebastian on the rack, arrows protruding from his heart, from my Children's Book of Saints. (Side note: May I just say that a book of saint pictures that includes blood and gore is infinitely more interesting to children than anything published by the good people at the Precious Moments franchise . . . one of the best parts of growing up Catholic is the early exposure to all kinds of bizarre violence that your parents would never let you see in movies but which are totally kosher in the Bible or saint stories - beheadings, crucifixion, starvation, rape, dismemberment, evisceration, medieval torture devices, being burned alive, etc.)





Digression. But anyway, the cobra, the archaeopteryx and Saint Sebastian (poor guy) were my three secret childhood fears, but I kept looking at those books anyway. I think when I wasn't looking at them, I was thinking about them and imagining them, and maybe looking right at them and seeing them for what they were was less scary than imagining them. Maybe the giant cobra about to strike from the pages of the S Encyclopedia was less scary than, like, a tiny and crafty snake slithering through my window, utilizing stealth and cunning to sneak up on me. At least the cobra was kind of a blunt instrument - or the picture was, anyway. It did not sneak. I chose when I wanted to look at it, or not. I was in control. So maybe it was that.

Or maybe I'm just totally nuts and have terrible judgment. (I did once bring "The Collected Stories of Edgar Allan Poe" to read while babysitting, after the kids went to bed, and about had a heart attack when the family's grandfather clock struck midnight while I was in the middle of "The Tell-Tale Heart." I would not wish that ten seconds of blind terror on my worst enemy.)