I love the passing of time

thinking outrageously i write in cursive
i hide in my bed with the lights on the floor
wearing three layers of coats and leg warmers
i see my own breath on the face of the door

oh i am not quite sleeping
oh i am fast in bed
there on the wall in the bedroom creeping
i see a wasp with her wings outstretched

north of sylvanna we swim in the palisades
i come out wearing my brothers red hat
there on his shoulder my best friend is bit seven times
he runs washing his face in his hands

oh how i meant to tease him
oh how i meant no harm
touching his back with my hand i kiss him
i see the wasp on the length of my arm

we were in love, we were in love
palisades palisades
i can wait i can wait

i can’t explain the state that i’m in
the state of my heart, he was my best friend
into the car, from the backseat
oh admiration in falling asleep
all of my powers, day after day
i can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
deep in the tower, the prairies below
i can tell you, the telling gets old
terrible sting and terrible storm
i can tell you the day we were born
my friend is gone, he ran away
i can tell you, i love him each day
though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
i can tell you i love him each day
terrible sting and terrible storm
i can tell you…

Live version here

Listen to the album version here (just choose one of the ‘listen’ buttons & a player opens up)

This song by Sufjan Stevens has been making me cry every time I’ve heard it for the past few days. It’s on a CD in the car that Jim mixed (and on the actual Illinoise CD that is in the car, now, too). I don’t know why it makes me so achingly sad at the end. I’m sure I’m interpreting the whole thing wrong. But, it leaves me feeling sad for every boy who learns that he has to hide his love for his friends - that boys don’t do that. For my husband, for my son, for the guy in the car next to me who probably went through the same thing to get from boy to man. And, even for the tiny bit of me as a woman that had to learn to hide my heart to protect it, although I know it’s no where as intense as it must be for boys who have to hide their heart just to live in our society.

Just read this story on this website

THE WORM
Ajahn Brahmavamso

There is a wonderful little story about two monks who lived together in a monastery for many years; they were great friends. Then they died within a few months of one another. One of them got reborn in the heaven realms, the other monk got reborn as a worm in a dung pile. The one up in the heaven realms was having a wonderful time, enjoying all the heavenly pleasures. But he started thinking about his friend, “I wonder where my old mate has gone?” So he scanned all of the heaven realms, but could not find a trace of his friend. Then he scanned the realm of human beings, but he could not see any trace of his friend there, so he looked in the realm of animals and then of insects. Finally he found him, reborn as a worm in a dung pile… Wow! He thought: “I am going to help my friend. I am going to go down there to that dung pile and take him up to the heavenly realm so he too can enjoy the heavenly pleasures and bliss of living in these wonderful realms.”
So he went down to the dung pile and called his mate. And the little worm wriggled out and said: “Who are you?”, “I am your friend. We used to be monks together in a past life, and I have come up to take you to the heaven realms where life is wonderful and blissful.” But the worm said: “Go away, get lost!” “But I am your friend, and I live in the heaven realms,” and he described the heaven realms to him. But the worm said: “No thank you, I am quite happy here in my dung pile. Please go away.” Then the heavenly being thought: “Well if I could only just grab hold of him and take him up to the heaven realms, he could see for himself.” So he grabbed hold of the worm and started tugging at him; and the harder he tugged, the harder that worm clung to his pile of dung.

It ends like this:

Do you get the moral of the story? How many of us are attached to our pile of dung?

And, I’m wondering if that was part of the original story? Or, was it added by the person who built the website?

Because, as I was reading the story, I thought the moral was something more like: How many of us are so caught up in thinking that *our* lives are so great that we can’t understand that, to a worm, a dung pile is heavenly paradise?

E-mail sent out by a guy at my church…

We’ve been hearing a lot that stores like Target are fighting
to eliminate all references to Christmas. While I support
encouraging employees to use religion-neutral greetings, I admit
it would bug me if I felt they were trying to wipe out Christmas
or any other holiday.

Just for fun, I decided to Google their website for some
standard holiday greetings. Here are the rankings:

“Happy Hanukkah” - 6 hits
“Season’s Greetings” - 37 hits
“Happy Holidays” - 63 hits
“Merry Christmas” - 332 hits

I also searched their site for just the names of major holidays:

“Diwali” - 3 hits
“Kwanzaa” - 130 hits
“Saturnalia” - 9 hits (OK, that one surprised me)
“Ramadan” - 30 hits
“Solstice” - 161 hits
“Hanukkah” - 278 hits
“Christmas” - 36,700 hits

Sounds like the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot to me.

In the spirit of lightening up for the holidays:
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/humor/party.asp

As Krusty the Clown says:
“have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah,
a kwaazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn,
dignified, Ramadan. And now a word from MY
god, our sponsors!”

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus…

Well, as a matter of fact, I know that Jim & I are both from earth (well, actually, there’s a chance that he’s part alien, but he’s taken on his adoptive planet completely).

I spend a lot of time on women-only message boards. I also spend a lot of time on a male-dominated message board. And, on both of them, there is a strong undercurrent that ‘they’ are different from ‘us’ in ways that we can never change & that make it so that ‘we’ will never understand each other.

I can’t be the only person who sees this as simplistic thinking, can I? Sure, there are traits that society has taught us are ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ and that we have internalized due to societal pressures in our lives. But, the exceptions to the standards, in reality, are so massive in number that I don’t know how anyone could think that these traits are inherent to the gender.

The type of woman that I aspire to be is kind, nurturing, thoughtful, intelligent. To me, that is ‘woman’. But, I know many women who take great pride in being hard bitches. And, I know many women who have no desire whatsoever to have children. I know many women who enjoy playing games with love, to fulfill their own needs & desires. And, to all of them, what they are is ‘woman’.

And, many women live traits that society says are ‘male’.

While, many men that I know are kind, nurturing, thoughtful, intelligent. Jim, for example. And, many men that I know don’t like sports. And, wouldn’t think of leaving a toilet seat up (and many women that I know wouldn’t actually care if they did). I know men who know nothing about car repair, who don’t really care about corporate success, who are not ruthless, who are gentle, who enjoy poetry, etc.

So, why do we (as a society of women or men or people) let ourselves believe the dividing differences and even try to find more or find more proof of them? Why do we need that?

On both male & female boards, pointing out gender differences usually helps to salve romantic wounds (”It’s not you - you’re ok - wo/men are just like that”. They also serve to protect a person’s place in the world or in relationships (”Men never help around the house - that’s why they need women” “Women just don’t understand money - you’ll have to watch her constantly”).

I’m sure there are more reasons for this kind of thing - it’s been going on since the beginning of time, I think. Hmm… Maybe I’ll have to take some gender-study classes if I ever get back to school (Although, just taking a class like that would be perpetuating the myth )

Kitten still doesn’t have a name, by the way.

But, Annie loves her. She & the kitten are buddies. If we can’t get the kitten, because she’s running away from us, Annie can get her. Annie reminds me to give the kitten her medicine every day (and brings the kitten to me). Annie’s arms are scratched up and down like a teenager with issues, but she doesn’t mind at all. She knows that the kitten just doesn’t understand, yet & is willing to take those scars as part of the whole kitten package.

I’m glad I got that kitten for my birthday

Help thy brother’s boat across and lo! thine own has reached the shore. Hindu Proverb

Last night I dreamed I was at a class reunion. (I’ve never gone to one in real life) It was a huge event. I was in the lobby, with Anna, Shelby, Allison and my younger sister Marla, who, in the dream, was still a teenager (really she’s only 2 years younger than me). There was a woman with a clipboard there & she asked me if I had kids. Marla said ‘Yes’ for me & the lady asked how many. I think Marla said ‘2′, but I added ‘and a stepdaughter’. The lady got excited about that & asked me if she could ask me more questions. Said they were getting more details about some people for something they were going to do later in the evening.

She asked about the kids names & ages, then asked about life events - when did you marry & stuff like that. I could see, on the clipboard, that one of the questions was going to be about 9/11 & was kind of excited about that because I’ve was in labor with Annie on 9/11.

Later, we were sitting in a room that was upstairs & just outside of the auditorium, where some kind of big presentation was about to happen. The room had windows where we could look into the auditorium and out to the parking lot. In the parking lot, cheerleaders were practicing for the show. They weren’t our classes cheerleaders, though - one of them was my niece Miranda.

Then, I noticed that Shelby was missing & started worrying about where he was, sending Allison & Marla to look for him.

Then… I guess I woke up.

I think that somewhere in the night last night, I dreamed that I had a beard. I trimmed it down to just stubble. Then, shaved it off altogether. I was thinking the whole thing was pretty funny, while it was happening.

Another fragment of dream - standing outside a Blockbuster. I think we were Christmas caroling or bell-ringing. Part of the dream I was in the store, too - working there. Talking to co-workers about giving to the bell-ringers/carolers. Woke up from the dream wondering what would happen if, for just a day, no one spent a cent in any Blockbuster store nation-wide - if everyone used gift cards or free coupons from the internet. Wonder how that would affect their business. Wonder if we could get everyone to do it…

Don’t know why I was dreaming about/thinking about Blockbuster, except that I had mailed out the gift card that we were sending to my brother-in-law yesterday.

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.” - Stephen Grellet

Kinda…

Jim & I were in a house (our house? - it was big like that last house I’d dreamed of - many, many floors).

No one else was there. We were going up many flights of stairs. I think we were trying to prove to ourselves that it was safe for some reason (don’t remember what lead up to it…) As we were climbing, we heard a kind of crazy laugh, and, thinking the house was empty, we went running down the stairs. I was jumping the railing at every turn, to get out faster.

We went running out the door, across the street to a police station (or to safety of some kind) & it was like they were waiting for us, knew we were coming. We were standing there in their doorway, looking back to our doorway & it was a big glass foyer, like at a business. He was standing in the doorway & said (or, we said to each other) “It’s ‘forgive_me’ from the message board” (like, that was his screen name). And, we were trying to remember what board he was from, but remembered him posting about Soviet orphanages all of the time.

Don’t know what happened to him - did he run away? was he arrested?

But, we walked back over & looked in the stairs going down from the foyer & there was a little child & an adult, lying there at the top of the stairs. They were his victims. Don’t know if he meant to get us, instead of them. Don’t know who they were. I hope they weren’t dead

New Baby Kitten

You need two people for it to be a race, or else it’s just running around