Film school

Sunday. Listening to Harold Budd and Brian Eno. Coffee and mini-jelly-donuts.

It’s a grey day with a wintry sky. An anomaly in Florida.

I can be back on Belden Hill. My cozy kitchen woodstove burning. Breakfast dishes in the sink. A stenciled fruit border on the walls.

My little ones are padding around in footed pajamas with their sippy cups of juice. My daughter sits down on her train and gives a push. Woo -woo. The red seat lifts up and if you look inside there are some rocks and a few cheerios.

My son holds a Peter Venkman action figure and chatters excitedly about slime and proton paks.

(He used to be) my husband pours his coffee to the very rim. “It’s going to spill,”  I say. “Why do you do that?” He just laughs, bends down and sips a little from the cup. Then he carries it into the living room. It doesn’t spill.

Batley (the catly) races through the room after a ghost mouse and my little girl takes off after her, pushing her train. Woo-woo-woo-woo.

(He used to be) my husband plays his guitar and sips coffee. His. Mine. Ours. We are our world.

Don’t mistake this for sadness.

It’s called a gem.

Thank you Katie I do find this information helpful

I ate another bowl of disappointment this morning and studied the mini-marshmallow blobs to try to determine their symbolism. So abstract. So Jackson Pollack.  

My discontent was noteworthy enough to garner an answer from Katie at General Mills.

Hello Ms. M:

 Thank you for contacting General Mills with your inquiry. The mini marbits Lucky Charms are a limited edition item. Once your store has depleted their stock of the mini marbits boxes they will receive the original Lucky Charms products again. We hope you find this information helpful. Please let us know if we can help you again.

 Thank you, Katie G Customer Care Specialist

Isn’t it funny how she refers to the charms as marbits? Bits – as in tads, morsels, crumbs, fragments, specks,  smidgens, traces. Do you know the way to the marbit exhibit? Why yes, it’s over in the Animals of the Rainforest Building. 

The fact that they made up a word for their mini-marshmallow-disasters kind of makes this experience worthwhile.

I  still have to try smelting the marbits. Maybe I’ll do it tonight, just  in time for Halloween.

Curse you General Mills

It all started Tuesday morning when I opened a shining new box of Lucky Charms…

Ah the magic! Wait a minute. What’s this? Instead of  the sparkling, sugary goodness I’ve come to expect from my charms there are some shriveled, careworn imposter lumps. It’s like my cat buried the charms in the litter box, licked them off and put them back in the box. Not magical. Not delicious. Just a box of deformed rickets-infected charms. 

I have a bunch of questions for the geniuses at General Mills:

1)Mini-marshmallows?

2) Seriously?

3)Since when does shrinkage mean better?

4)Was this Derek Jeter’s idea?

5)Did you think for one second about my burgeoning existential crisis?

6)What’s next? Virtual Charms?

Also, I sent this scathing comment to General Mills: Why did you shrink Lucky Charms? That’s not magic or delicious. It’s just a big bowl of disappointment. I intentionally made the comment short, since  General Mills respects the mini.

I’m considering trying to fuse several charms together to form some average-sized charms, a marshmallow smelting if you will.

Results of this experiment will be posted later.

My existential crisis is pointless

Just wondering about the point of all this – the bureaucratic paperwork, unraveling relationships, being reasonable and creating meaning out of  mundane repetition.

I think about train stations that smell like piss and an old man I once saw shopping for rosaries at the Salvation Army.

Yesterday I was content  making tiny pumpkin books and apple “brownies” and playing Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary among the dirt and flowerpots.  

Today I feel empty. I’m a  nihilist poseur, a label that means nothing because nothing has any meaning. 

I am familiar with this feeling, though I do not understand it. What’s needed is a slice of late afternoon sunlight. It’s not a remedy. It’s magic.

The part where the Dear Hunter saves me from starvation only to leave me hungry

I should have practiced looking casual & hip

I caught the Dear Hunter and a couple of other bands that I don’t care about at the State Theater last night with my beautiful daughter.

Midnight Masses from Brooklyn opened.  My thoughts were – I have no idea what they’re singing and they’re all about the drums. Besides the drummer doing his thing, the lead vocalist and the girl-pretending-to-be-a-guitar-player took turns banging on a drum. My guess is that they are fans of  taiko drumming.

Next my beloved Dear Hunter played. Their short set was akin to giving a starving person a piece of Godiva chocolate - delicious and mouth-watering but in the end you’re  left with gnawing hunger pangs. These guys are not only creative, technically proficient musicians but also gracious and humble. There were  so many more songs I wanted to hear live – and now I’m left with Dear Hunter pangs and only my ipod to satisfy me.

Fall of Troy screamed my soul to splinters.  Kids thrashed wildly around, bouncing off each other as the singer urged everyone to have fun. I fought the urge to join them. Kidding.

Thursday was the headlining band and they were head-throbbingly loud. My head throbbed through 2 songs until I was beckoned by gorgeous daughter to merch, where I met Casey and Josh, who seemed sincerely touched that their music touches me.

Good, bad, ugly

GOOD

The Dear Hunter, the band I’ve been listening to for weeks. Act I-The Lake South, The River North. Act II: The Meaning of and All Things Regarding Ms. Leading. Act III – Life and Death. If a fascist dictator took over and banned the Dear Hunter’s music I would probably risk imprisonment, that’s how much I love them.

Where the Wild Things Are. I’m so looking forward to this movie. Aowww – that’s supposed to be a howl. Are they his friends or are they going to eat him? If you ask me, this question is at the core of all relationships. Dave Eggers’ novelization, The Wild Things, was lip-smacking good. I think I’ll read it again tonight, and this time I’ll make comments to myself in the margins.

I love children’s books. They’re rich and colorful and as complex or simple as you want to make them.  Maurice Sendak just became my new hero.  When asked what he’d say to parents who think the movie is scary he said. “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

Good for him. Parenting involves making decisions, lots of them, right or wrong. You had a child – now stop being a coward and make a decision. Take a stand – movies, fast food, bedtime, pets, whatever - and leave the rest of us out of it.

BAD

I have a gimp thumb. It hurts and it’s ruining my chances of becoming a world class hitchhiker. I can’t straighten it. Who would take a hitchhiker with a permanently bent thumb seriously? Oh look it’s the half-assed, half-hearted hitchhiker. Now kids, I’m just joking…I don’t condone hitch hiking.  I need a teeny, little outpatient procedure to make my thumb stand tall and pain-free again. Why don’t they make viagra for trigger thumbs? Oh right, because it has nothing to do with sex. Where’s my universal health care?

UGLY

Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Mark Teixeira

she wakes

She wakes in the middle of the night, delighted that her toes feel a tiny bit cold. Slivers of moonlight come through the window and rest on the bed. She arranges herself so that the moonlight falls on her face.

She dreams of spiders. Big spiders with legs like yellow wax beans. In her dreams she kills them easily.

She wakes and listens to the radio. She is tickled to see that her hair looks sassy. She listens to the Dear Hunter and eats her cereal and wonders what it would be like to be the true love of someone whose music leaves you speechless and floating near the ceiling.

She drives to work with the window down and waits eagerly for her chance to escape to the park at lunch.

It’s September but it’s the first day of Spring for one cooped up too long. There are ambient sounds and scents. It reminds her of nothing and a thousand little things. Emerald Lake, cornfields, stacking wood, pushing the stroller, armloads of books, Mendon Ponds, deer,  the Heart, gravelly roads, sweatshirts, miniature golf, beer, grilled mushrooms, rooftops.

She wakes.

Life as a series of random numbers

On 9/9/09 I woke up at 1:11 and 3:23 a.m.

The relevance of this escapes me but some day it might be important.

Be here now

This is what makes me happy:

Making maple walnut muffins on a rainy night, listening to You Can’t Take It With You, the new As Tall As Lions cd.

Settling  into the corner of the couch with a cup of coffee and Dr. Vitolo’s articles on engrosser’s script while listening to You Can’ t Take it With You.

Driving just about anywhere in my car as long as I get to play You Can’t Take it With You.

There is an emphasis on As Tall As Lions for a reason. I love them.

These guys have it all, combining mad musical skills with thoughtful, intelligent lyrics.  All the things that make an album brilliant to my ears are here – complex textures, rich vocals, ethereal soundscapes and jazz and blues influences.

 Also my deep analysis of the lyrics revealed a connection to LOST. In Case of Rapture includes the line ”be here now” which is the name of a book written by Ram Dass, whose real name is Richard Alpert. Richard Alpert is a  character on LOST who has amazing eyelashes. Since ATAL makes a reference to LOST and I also like LOST, we could probably be best friends. Or at least share a laugh like we did earlier this year when I saw them play in Ft. Lauderdale.  They played in bare feet and visited with everyone after the show. That’s when Dan Nigro told me that his dad owns a paper company and I laughed and discussed The Office with him.

But enough about me, my moments of cool and bff’s. My fingers are itching to create a List of Favorite Albums of All Time and You Can’t Take It With You is going on it.

Super comeback to the rescue

I just ran a few errands during lunch and guess what? The I’ve Got My Knickers in a Wrinkle Brigade is out and about. The acting President and Crank at Large was in the drycleaner’s. She was dropping off one of those chenille-type throws that you can buy at Target for $14. Hers was special because it not only required dry cleaning but it was the color of vomit and had fringe. When she was told it might take 10 days she grumbled that it was an exorbitant amount of time – even though she admitted there was no rush, grumble, grumble. No - there probably wouldn’t be seeing as how it’s not predicted to go below 90 until maybe some time in November.

Then she was asked to sign a release.  This is where it gets interesting – or maybe just slightly less boring.  Long, deadly pause. Head shaking. “Sign a release for what?’ asked Crank at Large.

“Well there are some pulls in it here and there and there’s a possibility it could get damaged or it could fade,”  replied Dry Cleaning Lady.

(see Seinfeld “The Stock Tip”)

“So you’re not taking any responsiblity then,” said Crank At Large, “ Just like the doctors! Well I’m sick of it. No wants to…I, I…I’ll deal with it myself.”  With that, she began gathering up her vomit colored fringed throw. 

“Sorry, I’m just following procedure,” said Dry Cleaning Lady politely.

(I hate writing dialogue)

Crank at Large turned to go, then leaned in toward Dry Cleaning Woman aggressively and said “I’m just tired of everyone wanting to get off the hook by making me sign things, you know what I mean.”

Dry Cleaning Lady blinked and licked her lips.

At that moment heraldic trumpets produced a majestic fanfare that only I could hear,  and I stepped forward bravely and said “You should probably just stay home then. Because that’s life and you need to deal with it. ” Super Comeback Queen to the rescue.

“Not my life it isn’t!” Crank retorted.

She stormed out (or maybe she just left quietly). Dry Cleaning Lady thanked me and we bashed Crank at Large for a few minutes, chuckling about what a wretched, miserable old hag  she was.

Of course, my comeback was stupid. The worst. (see Seinfeld “The Comeback”) I could have said “You missed your chance to bitch, the Town Hall meeting was last night.” or “If I was retired and had nothing better to do with my time, I’d probably bitch a lot too.”

Or I could have just kept quiet, since she wasn’t talking to me. But I didn’t.

So there you have it. It’s Friday and I’m a hero.