Life's Bone

This is a ridiculous situation. A woman imprisoned in Burma. And a remarkable woman, at that. Many of the nations of the world have 'called for her release'. She is a woman devoted to non-violence, and has many awards for her courage and devotion to freedom, including the Nobel Peace prize. Yet, she is a prisoner to a repressive regime. "Calls for release' mean little, that is obvious by now. 2010. Enough is enough. Free Aung San Suu Kyi. It seems so many want to see her free, but no one has the balls to go in and get her. It will take more than talk, I am sad to say.

Read, if you like. The Woman in Alaska and Anomie Anonymously.

Last night, I went to bed with visions of sugar plums in my head. You may think that quite nice, but it was in fact, a nightmare. I don't even know what a sugar plum is! And they were dancing around in my head like some kind of acid-flashback. When I awoke in terror, I realized three things. There was a howling storm outside, and it was raining in my bedroom. I know that sounds horrific on the night before Christmas, but I have been there, done that before. It was a simple matter of putting a couple of bowls down on the floor. It's a lot better than wading through water, Christmas morning. Then, I realized I needed to pee. And then my dog realized that too. So, I let my dog out into the howling rain, and went to pee. Then my dog came in soaking wet. I grabbed a towel and rubbed her down. She thinks this is great fun. I just want to get back to bed. My dog curled up semi-soggy at my feet. When I awoke in the morning, Uma Thurman was in the kitchen frying eggs and bacon, and we had breakfast in bed. Thank you, Santa!

Dad: Snuggle up, sonny boy. Santa's coming soon.
Boy: Do you really believe in Santa, daddy?
Dad: Yes, of course I believe in Santa!
Son: So, Santa is real?
Dad: No, I wouldn't say he is real.
Son: So, why do you believe in him, if he's not real?
Dad: I don't know. I guess it gives me hope.
Son: What's hope?
Dad: Hope has to do with wanting things to get better.
Son: Will things get better, daddy?
Dad: I hope so.
Son: Are you Santa, daddy?
Dad: Nope.
Son: Do you really think Santa will bring me a hockey stick?
Dad: I hope so. Don't you?
Son: Uh Huh!
Dad: Good night, son.
Son: Good night, Santa.

(black vinyl electrical tape on matte board)

Four quick studies using black vinyl electrical tape scraps left over from another project.

An old red barn, probably constructed in the early 20th century, and a cell tower erected last year.

I must admit that I had a hard time working the concept into my Weltanschauung, (Am I spelling that right, Nicole?) until I heard this song by ABBA which sort of gave me a way to incorporate the idea into my P.O.V. Now, it seems, I see angels all over the place.

Santa Claus came to the nursing home today. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
He talked to each resident, and posed for photos. For one woman, it was her 104th Christmas!
My mom talks to Santa for awhile. On her lap she holds a present of Frango mints. These are melt in your mouth chocolates originally made by Marshall Fields in Chicago, where mom once worked. (Macy's has since taken over Marshall Fields, but the mints live on.) Mom loves these chocolates. So do sis and I!
Grandchildren, and great grandchildren had their time to sit on Santa's lap, and be interrogated as to whether they have been naughty or nice, and tell of their hopes and wishes for Christmas. (Notice that next child in line is holding a bribe in his hand for Santa. He must have been a bad boy this year! : )

Today was in the mid-60's! I had to peel off a layer of my winter clothing to cope with it. It so filled me with energy. It was like Winter had come and gone, and it was Spring! I worked outside all day. I could hardly bring myself to go inside, it was such a rare day! I don't know where it came from, but it was the sweet kick in the ass I needed to get some things done. I got so much done today, and just because of the hallucination of Spring! Thank you, wherever you came from, a Spring day in mid-December!

Dear Diary, Today I had breakfast, and went for a walk in the nearby woods. The air was full of the smell of cedar trees, and the moist mustiness of mosses and decaying leaves. I had a stare-down with a young deer. I finally blinked, and he/she was gone in two leaps.

I came across two large pumpkins, beginning to rot. They didn't grow there. Someone must have brought them from their Halloween festivities, and left them. Not a bad idea. They will likely feed some small creatures with their spilling pulp and seeds.

Went home and fixed more coffee. Made a table for the front room. Sweet Gum wood. Enjoying the smell of things, and the occasional sun on my shoulders.

Went inside for awhile, and worked on making a font for this Zine project on my mind. Cut letters out of black electrical tape pressed onto pages of my sketch book.

Went back outside to clean up the mess I had made working on the table. Picking up tools, happy as a clam! Picking up wood debris to save for some future night around the fire pit, and the liquid voices of others. Organizing tools in the shop with the radio on to music that made it all work.

My dog is happy. Rolling around in the grass. Thought about what kinds of cookies to make as Christmas hand-outs. Made a list of ingredients to buy.

And now, I am just making these notes of a rare day in December. 12/14/09.

Today it is unseasonably mid-60's warm. So I took a walk.

I was in the check-out line at the grocery store this morning perusing the covers of the lurid gossip tabloids when a photo suddenly caught my eye. At first, I thought the woman in the picture simply resembled someone I knew. But then on page two I saw another photo of her. She was standing amidst a large gathering of on-lookers as Tiger Woods approached to tee off. She was wearing red patent leather heels, and a matching red bikini. And she had on sunglasses and a white canvas sun visor that had Tiger's hand-penned signature on it. It was definitely her! I knew she hadn't been blogging much in recent weeks, But, I just figured she was busy with other things. Now, I see what! The unnamed woman in the photo was reportedly from Austin, Texas, and the headline above the photo said "The 14th Woman!". Another photo of her in a second tabloid, had the heading,"Tiger: 14 Over Par!"

Wet springs in middle Tennessee, dripping water through cracks in rocky cliffs, encase the vegetation in ice. Click to enlarge!

Nicole curled up serenely under her blanket as she dreamed. A gentle salty breeze through the open window fluttered the curtains. It was so nice, the sound of the sea rolling in. The wet sloshing of the water through the pebbles and seashells strewn about the beach. The warm sun beaming down. The dogs frolicking about so happily in the rising tide. The pina colada was so refreshing. The rushing waters felt so good swirling about her feet, as she sat up on the side of the bed. She giggled as she looked down at her toes, and wiggled them in the water. Suddenly her dog was barking loudly at her. "What? What?" she said. She returned her gaze to the water sloshing about her ankles. "Oh, my God! The plumbing has broken again!"

It was a hard day at the office. But, I was on my way to my apartment now, and my hot girlfriend. I looked at my watch, she would be getting ready for me. And sure enough, there she was. I stared excitedly, as she slowly began taking it all off. Peeling it off a piece at a time. Each piece falling to the floor. "Oh, baby!" I said, as the last piece fell. "I love to watch you peel potatoes." "It's almost ready, honey." she said, holding one up with a smile, as she dropped it into the boiling water.

Nicole woke up the next morning, exhausted by her muddy shower the night before. She was bloody-eyed, and still as pissed, as when she finally fell asleep. She sipped her coffee while sifting through the kitchen drawer for her favorite rolling pin. It was a big fat one, made of hard rock Maple. When this guy comes back to fix her shower again, he has no clue, how cracked his skull is going to be.

Worn months
I cry always
It's no wonder the baby came
Hearts rise
Like waterfalls
In the eyes
(Difficult in a bus
I'm sure)
Small steps are not accepted
Do not start
Each of your single words
Are true
But I cry in this country
And live on cucumber.

"..... you have to keep moving just to stay in the same place, and if you want to get ahead, you better start running...." Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Today, I wrote two more stories. It's been a nasty gray day here. Watched two movies. One had a happy ending.

Adam King entered the old bookstore, and walked the aisles of random books. The place was in great disarray. A nice place to wander through, on a rainy, cold day. Here was a book on diseases of cattle, next to a novel by Tolstoy. And a bunch of National Geographic maps of Central and South America, sloppily folded, and bound by a fading rubber band. Over there, was an archeological treatise on The Evolution of the Trilobite, leaning up against a well-worn copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover. A small box of baseball cards. A shoebox of old postcards. A stack of thin monographs, the writings of such as Eliade, Claude Levi-Strauss, Sartre, Marcuse, and Richard Sennett's weighty text, The Fall of Public Man. A table full of torn and tattered sheet music from the early 1900s.

And then there was the staircase. And the sign with the arrow that said, 'More Books Downstairs'. It smelled dry and musty, as he descended. The smell of pages yellowing to brown and brittle, on their way back to dust. The steps down were littered with paperbacks. And the lighting was dim. At the bottom, he looked about at a large dark space of hanging bare bulbs. It was quite surreal, the piles of books. They were like rolling hills, or, haystacks in a field. No shelves, anywhere. Just mountains of books.

As he meandered through the piles of books, he soon realized he was not alone. There were dozens of people nestled into the hillsides of books. Leisurely leafing through pages that seemed to be disintegrating in their hands. Some had carved cavernous niches into the hills, and were sleeping in curled up balls, open books clutched to their chests.

Adam found a hillside less occupied. He pushed the books about with his hands, making a shallow seat for himself. He reached lazily over his head and pulled a book from the pile, as he settled in. It was some dog-eared piece of cheap pulp fiction, from the fifties. 'They Also Serve, Who Only Sit and Die'.

It got exciting in the second chapter, when the author introduced a new and startling character. It was a guy named Adam King, same name as his own! And it got better, as it went along. Adam King was in love with a beautiful woman. A woman so enchanting, he was easily persuaded to kill the woman's treacherous husband. And then, in the next chapter, he actually did it. He killed the asshole. And now, he, Adam King, had the beautiful woman, and all her husband's money too.

Then came Chapter Four.

"They rolled around on the bed, as in some orgiastic reverie." And then, came the sharp, searing pain of her knife in his side. He was being killed off in Chapter Four! He was, but a minor character in one of many sub-plots in a story that went on without him.

The seemingly ageless proprietor, Mr. Joseph Hillman rustled his keys about in his pocket, and tapped his cane shakily on the dark stairs as he stepped slowly down to the basement. Time to close up for the day. He fanned the flashlight around at the piles of books.

"Ah,There's another one." he said, as his light fell upon the lifeless form of Adam King. He walked over to the body, and raked the overhanging books down over the corpse.

.

It is a small number in the global economy. A huge number in other ways. So, let's make these numbers into easy to delete dots. .................................................................................................I've lost count already. How many was that? 80? 90? We have a long way to go. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................all these dots are individual young men and women..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................I don't know their individual motives nor their........................................................................................................ names...................more.......................................................................................................................................................................... dots........................................................................................................................................................but suffice it to say, that many among them will die soon............................................................................. in Iraq, or Afghanistan. It is so stupid, I know. So, here are some more dots.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Am I to 1,000 yet? Not by a long shot. ............................................................................................................................................................Help me, if you are out there..........................I need more dots................................................

Why do things get so hard? How can so many things go so wrong in a single day? For starters, that morning Helen found, upon adding milk to her only cup of coffee, that the milk had gone bad. But that paled in the light of the rest of the day that followed. The car started just fine, but after driving a few miles to her stupid job behind the counter at a gas station, it sputtered and died. And was it raining? Yes, of course it was raining. And did she have an umbrella? Of course not. She was drenched by the time she made it back to her humble cottage. Such a dismal place, but she was so happy to see it, until she realized she had left her keys in the car.
"Fuck!" she screamed at the door, as she threw herself against it. "I am losing it." she muttered as she stomped around the side of her house and picked up a large rock.
"I am totally losing my fucking mind!" she yelled, as she threw the rock through her bedroom window.

She removed her wet dress, shivering head to toe, and hardly noticing the cut on her palm from the broken glass. She lamented the absence of arms to hold her in that moment. To rub her scared cold skin. Someone to say,
"Poor baby, don't worry." Even her cat had left her. He hadn't been around for several days now. She dug down into the second drawer of her chest for her grandfather's long underwear. She laughed hysterically, with tears in her eyes, as she looked at herself in the mirror stumbling about trying to put it on. She stood there for a moment, staring soberly at her reflection.
"You look ridiculous!" she said to herself. Her hands were lost somewhere up in the long sleeves dangling at her side. Her feet too, were nowhere to be seen in the red quilted cotton leggings that trailed behind her as she walked wearily into the living room, her arms wrapped tightly around her body.
"I not only look ridiculous, I am ridiculous." she said as she sank down into the large over-stuffed chair, which, more and more, seemed her only consolation. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them.
"Why do things have to be this hard?" She cried for several minutes.

Helen found herself sliding down into the warm confines of the chair. Curling up in it. Rubbing her face dreamily on the small pillow there. Just like kitty used to do, before he left her.
"How pitiful am I, to be abandoned by even my cat? How pathetic?" she thought, as she slowly fell asleep.

Her sleep was a restless one. Full of small, everyday nightmares, like curdled milk, broken cars, and broken windows. A lost cat, and a lost job. But she awoke on the coat-tails of a wonderful dreamed memory. Her grandfather's big meaty hands with such big knuckles, and so many big blue veins. How could such big, and seemingly clumsy hands make such a tiny thing? She was just a child then, watching as he played with several burned wooden match sticks. Tying them together with thread. And wrapping them in several colors of grandmother's yarn.
"What is it, Grandpa?" she asked.
"It is a doll. A doll for you." he said, placing it in her hand.
"It's so tiny." she said.
"Yes," he answered. "But with such a big heart. When you go to bed at night, talk to your tiny doll. Tell it all your worries. And put it under your pillow."
"But, why, Grandpa?"
"Because, this little doll will take all your worries, and hold them in its heart, so you can sleep and have sweet dreams."

Helen sat up straight in the chair, and rubbed her eyes. She stumbled into the bedroom, her feet mopping the floor with her grandfather's long johns. She opened the second drawer of the chest again, and rummaged about. There it was. A faded match box holding the tiny doll. She picked the little matchstick doll up, and held it between finger and thumb, as she sat down on the side of the bed.
"Hi," she said, holding it up close to her face. "I haven't talked to you in a long time. But I want you to listen carefully. " She sat there talking to the tiny doll for about fifteen minutes. She told the doll all about the curdled milk, the broken car, the broken window, the rain, her lost kitty, her lack of money, her lack of love. She laid down on the bed and slid the little doll under her pillow.

The next morning she awoke and wandered sleepily into the kitchen, shaking the tangles from her hair, and yawning. She sat down at the table and blew softly over the top of the steaming cup of coffee. She took a small sip and sat the cup down. And there on the kitchen table was the little matchstick doll.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in surprise. The doll didn't answer. But the sun was shining again, kitty was meowing hungrily at the door, and it was a much better day. And so were the days that followed. Every night she would talk to her doll, and every morning she would find it again on the kitchen table.

.

The old woman leaned forward in her rocking chair, and looked down at the wide-eyed children seated at her feet.
"Would you like to hear a story, children?" she said, in a raspy wet voice.
"Yes! Yes! Tell us! Tell us!" they exclaimed noisily, clapping their hands together excitedly. The old woman raised a gnarly skinny finger to her lips.
"Shhhh........shhhhh......it's quite secret, this story."

The children looked quietly up at her as she leaned back in her rocker, and lit a corn cob pipe. They watched in awe as she blew smoke rings that floated up toward the dim yellow light of the bare bulb, dangling from the ceiling by it's cord.

"There was once a little girl." she said, in a wet, gargling whisper. " A very special little girl, in many ways. She was different from the rest. This was a long time ago, when it was not a good thing to be different from the others." She paused to re-light her pipe.
"What was wrong with her?" one of the children asked.
"There was nothing wrong with her, really." she said, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth, and clenching the pipe with her stained teeth, as she spoke through her lips. "The little girl had done nothing wrong. She was, in fact, a very sweet and kind little girl." the old woman continued. "But, by the age of seven, it became clear to all, that she was different. And people began to avoid her. She became quite lonely, at this young age."

"How was the little girl different ?" one of the children asked, standing up, and tugging on the old woman's arm.
"Sit down, dear child. I will tell you." The boy returned to his place on the carpet, as she puffed several times on her pipe. She leaned forward and looked down at the children.
"Who here has teeth?" she said. "Raise your hand, if you have teeth." The children all waved their hands around in the air in front of her face.
"I have teeth!! "Me, too, I have teeth!"

The old woman reached down and patted their heads one by one. "Let me see." she said. One by one, the children showed the old woman their teeth. "Yes," she said. "Teeth and more teeth. Big white teeth. So many teeth! You see," she said, leaning back in her chair again. "This little girl had no teeth. Not even one. She tried rubbing on her gums with her fingertips, to make her teeth grow out. But, no teeth were ever to appear, and grow in her mouth."

"What happened to her?" a little girl with curly yellow hair asked. "Did she die?" The old woman shook her head.
"No, dear. She didn't die. In fact, something very extraordinary took place in her life. Something quite magical. A very old man who lived on the hillside above the village, heard of her unfortunate fate. He was a nice old man, even though many feared him because, he was said to be a wizard. He had boxes and boxes of teeth. He had collected teeth all his life. There were teeth all about his house. Boxes of teeth. Jars and cans of teeth. Drawers full of teeth.
"Why did he have so many teeth?" one of the children asked.
"Well," the old woman answered. "He just kept finding them, everywhere he went. And he didn't know what to do with them, so he just saved them. It became a hobby to organize his collection. Molars, in the box, here. Bi-cuspids, in the can, there. Incisors in the jars on the shelf, and so on." "So," she said, leaning forward again. "What do you think happened?"

"Did he give the little girl some teeth?" the little curly haired girl asked. The old woman smiled, and nodded.
"Yes. He gave her a whole mouthful of shiny pearly teeth, just like yours! But, that is only where the story begins. For, you see, he was, in fact, a wizard. In meeting the little girl, and giving her a mouthful of teeth, he realized that he now knew what to do with all the teeth he had collected over the years. He could give them to people who need teeth.
"Did my teeth come from the wizard?" one child asked.
"Let me see." the old woman said, peering into his mouth. "No, those are teeth you grew yourself. But, if one comes out, maybe the wizard will make a new one for you."

"Is that the end of the story?" the boy asked.
"Not quite." said the old woman. "For, what happened next was the most extraordinary of all. The old man gave the little girl a special mission to gather more teeth for him. The demand for lost teeth would soon deplete his collection, otherwise. So, he sat the little girl down on a milking stool. He walked all around her, mumbling certain secret words, and circling his wand around her head. And as he raised both his hands up high into the air, the little girl began to float up off the stool and into the air, and flew right out the window."

"Where did she go?" The children asked, excitedly.
"Shhhh..." Said the old woman, her voice falling to a whisper. "She goes to visit little children who have lost a tooth. She trades them a little present for the lost tooth, and brings it to the wizard, so the wizard can find a new tooth for that child. Do you know who that little girl is?" "The tooth fairy?!!!" the children shouted. The old woman smiled, and nodded, and re-lit her pipe. "Tell us another story! Tell us another story!" the children cried.