30 de Julio 2008
rock and roll...
rock and roll.
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29 de Julio 2008
curiouser, as a concept, as a rule.
i've become more and more curious about what other people write about in seminary.
there is a sort of unspoken rule about papers at mars hill: if you didn't cry over it, don't bother turning it in.
which i guess means that i'm not the only one crying out in frustration, or innocently writing along until the end when it all came crashing down around me in the conclusion because i realized
i thought i was writing about divorces or an underdeveloped pneumatology but i was really writing about the really sad parts of my life and the broken parts of my faith.
goddamnit
so i spend all my seminary office hours at chocolati racking up the free drinks on my punch card and discussing my seminary induced bowel issues with my favorite barista... she called me crabigail and gave me some 'super cleanse' tablets today (she just had a spare bottle under the counter--which is reason #564 'why i lurv molly').
here is the text for today's assignment:
"A concept is a set of inseparable variations that is produced or constructed on a plane of immanence [not just a two dimensional plane as i had thought--which makes the rhizone theory work better for me] insofar as the latter crosscuts the chaotic variability and gives it consistency (reality). A concept is therefore a chaoid state par excellence; it refers back to a chaos rendered consistent... And what would thinking be if it did not constantly confront chaos?" deleuze p 208
write hard, die free
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24 de Julio 2008
smarties
my favorite candy.
did you know they come in a giant size, like necco wafers size? now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
go joe.
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22 de Julio 2008
how to: (keep) saying goodbye
[i've said goodbye to so many people, i guess that is why you called. and you remembered that i might know how to be a good friend or at least what i want from one. so i wrote this little poem because it usually helps and i put it here, just in case it helps you to feel (better?) too. I mean, i really did cry when you mentioned the ranch dressing memories, and then i thought, very quickly, how can i be crying over ranch dressing?]
when it happened they said,
she won't be writing any more letters.
she won't be calling or leaving messages or riding in your car or making plans.
but you will.
i keep going over the why in my mind
(kneading it, like a sore part in my heart, hoping it will relax and stop hurting me.)
even if you don't and one day i wake up and see that
you kept going even if i tried to make you stop.
how do we separate out all the friends and lovers and family members?
how do we organize them
so each gets the same number of sad memories or wild prospects?
over the phone
i told you how these things make me wish i had never moved away from you, never broke your heart,
i wish we could do this together
and wade again in the same creek(bed), as if the water had never moved on.
is that what she would say, is that what you want
to hear or tell even the saddest of her friends?:
i wish your heart didn't have to be broken
and what did you say to me?
you can have it all.
just ask me.
just tell me what you want (you never said need) and i will give it to you.
i've never done this before,
you said,
knowing
that it is the only way
i know to make friends,
and you asked me for help.
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4 de Junio 2008
vespers
remember this? i wrote it for vespers and then cried all the way through it...
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the families.
For the nose wipers
The shoe tiers, diaper changers
Handholders and shoulders to sleep on.
Thank you for the
Booger faces and finger paintings
Thank you for the people who cry whenever they bleed and hug us around our middles
Thank you for the favorite colors and sometimes thank you for wedding vows
For times we have to argue
With the people we love most and the holy conflict that our families endure
Help us to pass on what we know of you and to hold on and love what we know of each other
In the name of the father, son and holy spirit.
but today the prayer would sound more like this:
sometimes i get so fucking angry.
did you ever account for that?
because i'm not willing to punch people in the face today, which is why i can at least type about it. but at any moment i may explode into a million insults.
they call me volatile.
perhaps it comes from my love for conjunctions... i love conjunctions and commas. with the proper grammar it is possible to get it all out there, just keep going, listing it all off: grievances, desire, hateful cliches strung tenuously together ( imagine sausages in the barbarian butcher windows).
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8 de Mayo 2008
two of my favorite things.
martin elias jimenez
charlie rose jimenez
i think they like each other pretty well...
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21 de Abril 2008
*
sometimes things just disappear and you can't do anything about it.
i wrote a little poem and thought you might like to see it.
but you probably won't.
here it goes:
the evergreen branch lets go the old leaf.
one by one the tiny knives fall like three
days and i hear you drop, in disbelief,
the fingers you wore so proudly--how we
read, hoping, beneath the shade of ennui.
one word in my hand (heartache) sharp and tight,
balanced on my desire for one more tree
in the forest of hope, one line of light
on arms that once pointed out to the night.
the tip of a finger floats across one
morning, like this. dry leaves tumble in spite
of the yearning, bleak breathing confession
all wound in the breeze that whistles beneath
a dagger, used once, returned to the sheath.
i think it has a few brilliant moments, but it is sort of a lot of words, too many for my taste, but those are the constraints.
one of my many grandmothers died.
i spent a sunday morning at the hospital then at her apartment then at breakfast where we ate together on the day after her husband died.
we stood around the altar of her hospital bed while her mouth slowly fell open. the rigor mortis swept up from somewhere under the bedclothes.
it was a good week: family around. looking through her things
breaking patterns of behavior that never did suit us well
flipping through photos of my mother's first marriage, to my father.
not i'm sort of lost, though. and alone. and i don't like it much.
but that is how it goes.
what would i say to her now?
the same thing i would say to you, love:
stop. go. stop. go. stay.
this way you break my heart.
my head is a little foggy; perhaps you can tell.
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24 de Marzo 2008
martin's wish list
the Tequila book
radiant heat
more south park episodes
new collared shirts (not blue)
beer, not pbr
new pants
nintendo wii supersmashbrothersbrawl
big pointy dog [just kidding]
grace
phoff to stop trying to convert him to lutheranism
a hole in the fence so our big [not] pointy dog can be friends with Andy and Mary's burmese mountain dog [actually Yuba is a mutt, but when the list was composed they were thinking of a burmese, and Yuba who munches quietly on ornamental cherry blossoms, is better than some weird mountain dog anyway]
teeshirt from the grinder [his favorite coffee stand] with special long sleeves sown in
kleen kanteen
a circular saw
40 0f his bestest friends to come to the baseball game and see something poetic on the jumbotron in his honor.
~
his birthday is coming up.
4/25/08
we're going to see the M's & A's which is sort of funny because one time he scratched the very same thing into the bridge over the creek where i grew up, but it wasn't about baseball back then... i think he must have been in love with me or something.
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21 de Marzo 2008
Emma says:
Hello Abigail,
I just wanted to wish you a very good day today. I wish I could hang out with you today and hear you laugh. It just turned to spring this morning in Kansas. An army of invisible birds have come out of the woodwork to make a whole bunch of noise. It’s beautiful and I like to think it’s for you and your birthday pal Shantelle.
Love!
--Emma
Abigail says:
spring is the best time to be born, over and over again.
consider this your engraved invitation:
"Love!"
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20 de Marzo 2008
a poem like a to do list.
...
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4 de Marzo 2008
words cannot
explain what was so upsetting.
so he just sighed a death rattle sigh and i threw up my hands and took off my glasses
to try to let him off the hook and
i guess it was too late because the damage was done.
it would be nice if people who are having a bad day would just pass around duct tape before they begin the meeting so i could cover my mouth.
but they don't.
they never do.
you can't count on them to even think of bringing duct tape, much less pass it around.
my heart just goddamn hurts over it.
every hero has to fall sometime.
i feel like some big hope is trying to hatch.
these days feel like the last days of middle school--slow walks and sleepless nights. hunger pangs and nervous laughter.
don't get me wrong: i'm not expecting a grand commencement. i'm thinking more along the lines of some great short-lived show of gratitude or apology or someway to mark the time we spent together. or else maybe this is just the way life feels when, at last, i can feel again and nothing will come of it because this is just how things go up and down and up and down because there isn't a singular cause or result, just the up and down and the pain runs through me and then through you like electricity, it just comes and goes but we stay and do the work and cry and laugh and keep on.
so i think i'll just keep all this in my brain, store it away and not say anything right away. i'll just add it into the mix of things i know him to be capable of, and hold the whole situation real gently and keep thinking of what might be hatching and what kinds of things hatch from hurts.
i can't really say much else about it, not much else at all.
in other sort of related news:
sometimes people put all kinds of shit in their front yard and it looks real good, you know? like nasty old shoes and plants grow up out of them, and old bed frames and bits of broken glass and pottery, like something Job would scratch an itch with. and it all looks real welcoming; like they want you to know that even plants know that shittiness is OK in a way, so come on in and stay a while. like maybe shit grows there like plants grow there. oh, i don't know!
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28 de Febrero 2008
i miss you.
and all of this dreaming
the silver and gold
something to break this
winter so cold.
and these sorrows
i'm crying over
and these sorrows
i'm crying over
we go straight for the thunder
straight for the rain
-PG
the more i think about it, the more it behooves me to research the matter,
the more i think that it doesn't matter who you marry; you will always hurt over the love you let go along the way.
and that is sad for both of us, all of us, even the smallest of us. and it means naming love where it has been and fallen and broken just so we might know where the sad is coming from because somehow that kind of helps, a little tiny bit.
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17 de Enero 2008
you know who you are
recently a friend in a powerful position screwed up and then apologized to a large group of people.
he said that there was one section of people who were more gracious than the rest with his apology: the women.
why do you think that is?, i asked.
power, he answered.
i was nodding frantically.
looks like you agree, he said.
yup, was my super fem reply.
but now that i am thinking i wish i had told him:
well, they probably have bigger fish to fry than yours.
perhaps we are no more gracious, just choosing our battles.
and what you mistook for grace, was in fact, a little more like a nice way to say: i can't be bothered with your failure; i predicted it and it is fun to be right but please just, well, nail it to the cross.
the moral of the story:
unless you're going to apologize for years of victimization and an uncompromising global power structure, don't bother.
a couple days ago one of my girlfriends with super boobs and perfect hair ( she is amazing despite these assets) wore a tight yellow tee shirt made by her coworkers to commemorate their surviving another New Student Orientation. written in tiny letters on the back was the bumpersticker advice, edited, of course, to be worn by employees of the methodist school she works for:
Jesus loves you, but i want to slap your face.
one thing i am learning in seminary is that a good, old fashioned bitch slapping session may be just as helpful to us as it is to pimps, mothers of teenagers, you know: people who deal with bitches who need to be slapped. What i mean is i suddenly know how nice it would feel to haul off and spank the five o'clock shadow off some of those clergy bastardbitches. can we make it part of the liturgy again? wasn't it part of confirmation before? somebody look that up, willya?
i think of Britany's poor dad. He called in Dr. Phil to visit Brit in the hospital and i honestly wondered how badly the giant, don't mess with texas, Dr. Phil wanted to slap that girl silly. I'll bet the one thing stopping him was the fact that there is, in fact, a muppet made in his image and muppets generally leave the slapping up to miss piggy.
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4 de Diciembre 2007
little woman
Dear Emma,
the whispers of loved ones are unquieted tonight.
We will all bury the dead along the way. But will we also bury parts of ourselves?
the strongest parts?
and how will we mourn?
with tears and screams?
sheets spread in the wind, basements flood with inches of water.
sisters marry, cats purr.
lace turns brown and light bulbs pop when they are giving up.
things around are full of life, full of the winds and rain that come with December.
Advent is here. but i have given up smoking; how will i wait for the Christ child now? how will i keep myself warm among the dripping awnings and bus stops?
how will i wait?
how old will i be when i finally grow up?
i love you, and i hope you won't drink too much... and when your dreams come true you will get your washer and dryer back; i have faith in those kind of things... appliances and basements and double paned windows.
whatever makes it home, that is what i will believe in, that is where my heart waits for the christ
the baby in the hay.
Abigail
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12 de Noviembre 2007
chuck
mondays at 8.
i really like Chuck. and his sister told him on tonight's episode that it is time to cut his hair because she is beginning to see animal shapes in it (like the giraffes and rhinos in the fluffy clouds).
that is funny.
that is all you need to know for now.
other than that, we're tearing apart the bathroom and painting the walls green.
eat breakfast, listen to huapango, say the Jesus Prayer if you can't sleep and do your best.
those are the lessons I have learned this week.
that and some other stuff about postmodernism that I can't articulate very well.
I'm getting my money's worth.
and see the extended entry for the essay I wrote about my pastor/boss.
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12 de Mayo 2007
my
radar screen:
job
mother
husband
students
classmates
drinking buddies
family
ex-boyfriends
butt
grades
calf muscles
bad skin
therapist
appetite
dirty dishes
habits
gums
cat
hope
professors
love of lettuce
potential for narcissism as defined in the DSM-III
and then the green arm swings around like the hands on a clock and all these things blink up at me again and again in a cycle, not a line, as if they are in any order but just over and over. and i monitor closely like i am pushing tin, as they say. just once i'd like one of them to be a target rather than an enemy and all the others will be caught in friendly fire and blow each other up and i could go on vacation from the sweating and stress of it all.
i know you feel this way too sometimes and i also know that i want you to be OK with it. it doesn't stop and it won't stop and i'm in the process of defining it all and its taking me a long time so don't hold your breath for any good answers. we just have to try to be OK sometimes without really knowing.
OK is defined forthwith as just good enough to get up out of bed and sit in whatever chair you have designated the prayer chair in your house. which is not to say that sitting in the prayer chair makes you holy or anything but at least when you are in that chair you made it a priority to get the hell out of bed today... who knows about tomorrow but you made it out today and that has to be enough... that means you are OK--not super, not great, not good enough or expected to do great things but at least (what-the-hell?) OK.
that is all i have to say today, the day before another mother's day strikes like a giant heat seeking torpedo aiming to blow me out of the water.
lordhavemercychristhavemercylordhavemercy
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1 de Enero 2007
you can call me
but i'm not sure if i am called
children and family minister
(that is what it says on the job description)
children and families minister
or
children's and families minister
either way i start the 15th of january at phinney ridge lutheran church, ELCA.
i think i just want the nouns to be the same and can't figure out how to make them...
family's
families
children's and family's
child and family
i think i may just call myself the children's minister... i really belong to them anyway. (hooray!)
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11 de Noviembre 2006
following up
juliana posted the link so if you want to see what it looks like when someone chews me out on the internet go to the link juliana posted in the comments and look for Sept. 20th
but before you do that, read the entry she wrote about jules/juliana because it helps to combat all the mean things people say about each other, it is sort of an antidote.
but be warned: i don't like myspace so don't think this is some kind of endorsement.
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12 de Octubre 2006
not about murder
i probably need to redraw the images i have of myself slapping certain people across the face... i don't think slapping counts as "holding the tension" (welcome to the world of allenderisms).
is slapping like murder? thinking it is as good as doing it, and all that... i think so... i think there is something in the bible about committing murder by thinking mean thoughts, wink wink. its kind of like adultery in that sense.
so thinking these thoughts is pretty bad because i would never ever murder anyone, i don't even like to watch a movie if there is a gun in it.
violence violence everywhere...
and so i ask you with a tone of fear, as if i am asking about my pants making my butt look big:
does this blog make me look nice?
don't answer that.
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27 de Julio 2006
juliana made a mistake
she let me borrow her copy of blue like jazz and i made quite a few corrections to the text. so instead of underlining, i crossed things out and i am feeling a little snobbish.
and then, last night, my mother in law was telling us about her friend who broke up with a boyfriend and stayed up all night washing the windows-- two nights straight-- until two o' clock in the morning; she fell off the ladder into the rose bush. and the only thing i could think to say was "at least it makes a really good poem."
i am becoming a real jerk, it is a good thing i registered for a class on prayer.
i am leaving california on monday.
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18 de Marzo 2006
IntheNameofthe Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
i've been thinking about the idea of the soul as a kind of box
and something to do with second chances
which aren't all they are cracked up to be.
and when you are guilty or at least feeling it, like a fever and a wound which you really have, you are more familiar with second chance than first chance or even last chance
man, i have a pretty bad cold right now. but propas to the good husband who dragged me out of the house last night to watch Boondock Saints at Juliana's house (offering a couch and blankie much warmer than our century old attic apartment) and i woke up just in time to see my favorite part: Willem DaFoe looking very wild, straightening his wig. Between Les Miserables and Boondock Saints it has been a good Lenten season... i think that is possible.
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3 de Febrero 2006
In Everett...
drinking hot chocolate with my sister, she is wearing only green clothes. So she must have learned how to match sometime in our childhood; where was I for that lesson?
Interview on Monday. I'll be the one who looks like one of the applicant's teenage tagalongs. But if I don't get in, everyone at home will chalk it up to God's sovereignty, rather than ask me why.
That is nice of them, isn't it?
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31 de Enero 2006
miracles
One of my students managed to make eye contact with me at the exact moment he licked the toe of his tennis shoe. I was speechless. I left off explaining the letter m in all its glory. mmmmmmmmmmmm, there was nothing else to be said.
Another student has a car salesman for a father, upon his arrival said student began to cry, suddenly and inexplicably: the usual. Answering my blank stare--no amount of schooling can prepare you for this--superdadtotherescue asked if she was having the kind of problem ice cream can fix. Let me just say
yes!
yes! this is the kind of problem ice cream can fix.
Yes! I am glad to be back amongst the wild huggers. I had to take off an entire week to recuperate from the 102 degree fever. The royal shoe taster even remembered to hang up his coat on my first day back.
Miracles are all around.
For example: Martin and I became members of the church. Ha! Session said they were impressed by my reasons for joining. (I told them I can't figure out why this whole church thing isn't working, membership schmembership, why isn't there anyone volunteering to teach sunday school?) I figure I'll get in on the inside and attend some real important meetings, maybe even join a committee with a long name, like "projector has a broken lightbulb committee".
And then maybe the graduate school of my choice will accept me and we will move to Bothell just a few short months after becoming official members at the church we have attended and worked for the past five years. We lead a very fickle life, you see. We are glad to have the kind of problems we have, they lend themselves to some amazing solutions and this, I think, is stunning, like a new leaf unfolding. Not turning over, unfolding, miraculous.
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6 de Enero 2006
just this once
let it be supposed that I know how to write an essay and that I should be doing right now.
but I hear Rosemary's voice telling me to get out of my head and even though I finally figured out what that means, I am still the same selfish person who would much rather the reader get into mine. I like poetry much better because it isn't supposed to be so obvious.
my grandmother sent me a Christmas card that said:
this is gramps' first Christmas in heaven without the pain.
Ain't that great?
The inscription read "May the love of Christ be your gift this year."
and I know, because I was able to get out of my own head when I read this, that she meant it to mean "I'm not shopping." But she didn't want to write that out because that is exactly what she wrote last year... and consistency is only, if ever, hampered by the nuance of variety in my family.
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23 de Diciembre 2005
i forgot
to post the turkey bowl pictures.
My stepmom had good reason to worry (in spanish we say tiene razon, it means she is right but it also means she is always right because she owns the patent on reasonable).
but I have survived and am looking forward to Baby Jesus Bowl!
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30 de Noviembre 2005
prayers
there are some prayers tucked in the palm, in the creases. they get this way from holding my hands over my mouth from the shock of it, or the boredom yawn, or just trying to keep things from flying out my mouth when it gets out of control. And like the beads of sweat that collect there and then maybe shards of glass we are most afraid of sticking there, I think I might wipe them off but am afraid to cut small lines across lines and ruin the prints. I've been thinking about them breaking away from the lines stretched open across the taught skin, or rubbing them until they dry and peel like glue and I am bloodied by the friction.
The possible escape of these prayers reminds me of super hero hands shooting webs or balls of fire, maybe even turning anything into something else on contact. And the way kids put the kiss in their own hands first in order to blow it just a little farther, or maybe as a warning signal. And then expect you to catch it on your cheek or wherever it may land, the nose, perhaps, and clap over it so it sticks.
It still feels awkward to fold my hands when I pray, almost just a lonesome pose. I was taught to hold hands. I like the feel of stretching out arms and then clasping like a promise, or sliding palms across the table and just barely touching fingertips... I really like that. But anything to keep them still, I suppose.
Now, though, I touch the children on their heads and hands and cheeks and arms--you know how it is-- and they put their little hands flat on my shoulders to get my attention if I am sitting, or even just a poke (though it isn't allowed) on my arm and I think it isn't attention they want but before I get at that thought properly a little lightning snaps between us and we connect like we both get the joke about the banana not peeling well. I can't help but think that tiny boogered finger knows exactly where God is and how to point to Him and how to get His attention, and even open up the palm to land a kiss there and blow it right in His giant face while I stand here shrugging my shoulders and clenching my fists at the same time.
Of course there is the scar offer: to open up my hand and press it over where water came when we expected blood.
But it is tempting, and a fairly strong reflex, to keep my hands to myself over an offer like that.
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29 de Noviembre 2005
bird flu
There ought to be a box on the preappointment questionnaire for teachers to mark because I seem to get the same illness once a month. I have recently stopped calling the advice nurse--I have quit the usual doctor appointments to satisfy my hypochondriac drive too, you can see how unserious this has become.
But tonight I decided not to play pharmacist on myself. I made the call to ask if
it is okay to take tylenol sinus nighttime
and guiafenesin at the sametime...
and what if,
say I have this friend who likes to take sudafed but she isn't sure if the guiafenesin has worn off...
But immediately I am rushed through the halls of on hold to the appointment nurse who makes quick work of the usual maladies and she tripped me up... I answered wrong: one yes to tight something or other passageway, and no, she didn't say bronchial, I am a highly trained hypochondriac, I would have caught that one.
And now I have The Appointment for them to tell me there isn't anything anyone can do.
Shock notwithstanding, I look to my husband, the man who earlier replied to my request to finish my beer later by telling me to take it and drink it while I pedal the elliptical. He is now quietly singing along with his computer in preparation, as he says, to give me an ear whoopin this Sunday when I hear the worship band (I said: but how about if I just worship instead if I'm still alive?) and now, I continue while I have his attention, I have to go to the doctor but, for once, I'm not sure why
oh, he says, you've probably got the bird flu.
Thank you, Thanksgiving, damn it, are you even a holy day?
which reminds me: I will post thanksgiving day football pictures (Turkey bowl pictures, that is) as soon as they are available--Juliana is not superwoman, she is super and she is a woman but without that annoying patriotic hipster leotard so just be patient.
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23 de Noviembre 2005
Turkyish Delight
the temptation: is to assume we're friends, or maybe even family too, since you have by now seen pictures of my giant nose, my hairy husband and my cat who was accidentally colored outside the lines, and hope that you won't take the following comments too hard and suddenly lose faith in my abilities to cope.
but spending a day with family... that is, chatting and eating food (just think about what chewing actually is and how much I hate eating) with family (please read: the people who have had a serious role in messing you up for certain and for good) is just not my ideal.
but God knows He has a plan to get me through it, and you too (probably) so that is the encouragement I have for you tonight, after two fingers of Jagermeister.
oh, and last night, in bed, Martin was telling me about an ant colony living in someone's answering machine--just remember: it could be worse.
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31 de Octubre 2005
here's us
we are cutting Olivia's claws, getting ready for the holiday season, which we hate--everything past Halloween has always been terrifying--by making ourselves into blunt objects in hopes that we are at least snuggly outside when we feel prickly inside. I must confess we are considering All Saints Day as one of our new favorite days; did you know there is a patron saint for apple orchards? Is there a patron saint for calling in sick to Christmas?
Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:06 PM | TrackBack
my favorite holiday
and these are the people who indulge me by carrying on... they keep saying "ooooooo", but Martin only likes the candy, Jen just likes the costumes, and Joel could do without any of it.
I love the whole thing. There is a point in the evening when the kids begin to tuck their heads inside pillow cases to check the loot but they don't stop walking, so they run into their parents... tonight there were lots of parents. I saw a dad dressed as Daisy Duck tying a Power Ranger's tennis shoe, and several sets came out walking dogs with wings. One of the trickiest aspects of this holiday is that it isn't anything too exciting that any of this is happening--everyone is expected to participate and yet, if you don't that is all right too. It is as if the whole country is staying out on the porches to throw candy at wierdos without worrying about whether anyone else is playing along.
A Halloween Poem:
Pirate, pirate, Darth Vader, Power Ranger, Dragon.
Pirate, little witch, Tigger, Tigger, polka dot clown.
Spiderman, Superman, Cat.
Angel, Hellboy, princess, princess, firefighter.
I wish I could thank you properly:
Dear trick or treater,
I feel the plastic wet with sweat against your face and commend you for your commitment to candy.
Thank you for your wildest dreams, and wilting legs flopping down the sidewalk.
Your friend,
Abigail
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12 de Octubre 2005
umn
there is a word we use for children: shy.
does that mean won't talk? or just won't tell? or hope you won't look at me or hope you won't be listening or cries easily...
or wakes with a start? We don't often use the word for grown ups; we say withdrawn, anti social, quiet, busy, holding back.
and then the light changes and autumn is here and when you search for the sounds to make a word they are already hiding behind the mouth.
um... hum and you can close your mouth and still say the word properly.
so it isn't so difficult to try; welcome to my favorite season.
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24 de Septiembre 2005
What would James do?
James Bond is very important around here. He is one of the few things we can always agree on; even if he is a sexist bastard we marvel at his gumption and resourcefulness. We can't be troubled by certain things James does; I took a class on these films for graduate level credits (it was the only way to get my student loan, if you can believe that) and I still can't muster even a genuine distaste for him, that jerk.
Martin on the other hand, can't be bothered about James bad personality traits or his archaic beliefs. Martin is this type of person: He never bought any of those plastic bracelets to raise a dollar for anything, especially not the yellow one for testicular cancer. However, people thought he ought to be reminded of certain things so in the course of a few weeks he acquired two. Instead of wearing a big yellow rubberband in hope that we might one day find a cure for something, he has these two black things that look more like belts from the engine on a Barbie corvette. I find them whenever I try to straighten up his desk to look for the bills we have to pay: one has a little heart on it, right between "I" and "PIRATES." The other must have been left in the sun because it was cracked when he brought it home, says: REVENGE. It is plain to see what we worry about.
It gets a little confusing though, given certain scripture about "vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord" somehow intersecting with the idea behind those old WWJD bracelets that we might attempt to do exactly what Jesus did, VENGEANCE is really something we could consider wearing around, or trying to cure... depending on your theology, if the bracelet wasn't cracked and ready to break.
But on a less muddled line of thought: Martin says this whale is very funny.
I say Bill Murray would have made one hell of a Bond.
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21 de Septiembre 2005
test lesson
The sniffles comfort me. One tiny way and then another: like a backward sneeze. Instead of cleaning things out, emotion and ailment taking in everything close by which is not much at all, really. It is a mighty effort.
Sometimes when I am embarrassed, I sniffle a little because the idea of lifting the belly out and opening up to the air seems to take up too much space.
I think back to the times I found comfort at the end of crying, when I knew it would stop hurting, finally. The ebb of the drama and the flow of tears and triumph in managing to stave off the resulting hiccups.
The woman with the pretty lips and one purple latex-free glove took about 16 ounces of blood from my arm and I tried to be brave but I jerked. I thought of bee stingers stuck in my arm and cats holding on by the teeth and blackberry thorns grabbing through the t shirt, and a splinter deeply followed by one heroic needle dipped in peroxide. Oh grief, if I didn't flinch so hard she warned me she would do it again if I couldn't remember to be a grown up.
If you could have seen me today complaining to Juliana about a bruise the size of a blueberry muffin and nearly so ugly purple, you would have thought I really had one, but I suppose most of you know I am prone to exaggeration.
The preschool day is full of crying, it is absolutely breathtaking and burns the eyes, almost instantaneously contagious. We weep for one another and call it love and when the clean-up sniffles finally come, the real cause for the sobbing is washed away by the shock of hope. We convince the children to rise and put off the thought of stings and bites and pokes, open up their little belly bellows to breathe deeply and that too is as contagious.
So it is a good to know what is in your head and through your heart, even if it means giving a little up, because you never know what is catching.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:42 PM | TrackBack
31 de Agosto 2005
still mostly sickly
Either you get over it or you just are over it. In the parlance of our times, I am so over it.
And I realized that teaching preschool is probably more like manufacturing fireworks than it is like anything else.
Grace is mostly a commitment.
In between the sneezing and snoring I have, since Thursday, been reconsidering church membership as a serious option. Pastor Mark said such a funny thing; something to this effect: "There seem to be a lot of PCA churches down there, as if that area attracts people who believe the Bible is true."
From the look on his face and his admission that he was called to PCUSA to work for "renewal," I took him to mean that we all want to be on the winning team because that is just one of the things we tell ourselves and yet it doesn't change the facts that God is sovereign and doesn't need us to be members of any denomination... because the word of God is true, no matter who says what. I don't mean to oversimplify or offend, for all I know he was saying something different and I just heard what I wanted to hear; that would not be a bit surprising.
Or maybe, though I know he would never say this, he meant to say what I probably need to hear: Oh, Abigail just shut up and hold still, this will only hurt (your pride) for a second. Altogether it is an honestly subversive remark to make (if that is possible) and I am taking it to heart. I think I could get behind a church that is so big it (unknowingly?)allows people like pastor Mark-believing the word of God to be inerrant, like he does-to, um, join in at the risk that he might (gasp) somehow bring with him some kind of renewal.
Here is where I apply the old Groucho joke: I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have someone like me for a member... or something like that. But I am not sure that the church body knows we aren't members already. It has only been since we moved back into town that we quit the worship team on Sunday mornings. Martin was even on the payroll for four years. Which begs the question: do they know we aren't members and, simply enough, they don't care?
In which case, it might be fun to ruffle a few feathers and confess that we are, at last, willing to, well, confess?
Which leads me to my next question: where is the PCA when you need it, anyway?
The answer is that there are five in San Jose, but the closest is about an hour away and my husband has this idea that maybe we should go to a church in the community we live in (clearly, he is the brains behind the operation) and I am here afforded the luxury of submission. That too is Pastor Mark's doing, he married us after all. I just keep telling myself: membership will be what it is and who am I if I don't stand up on teal colored carpet between two brown pews and praise Jesus?
Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:45 PM | TrackBack
27 de Agosto 2005
Demolition Derby
You have to laugh if your car is crashed on the way to the demolition derby. Martin called and said he was in an accident and even though it wasn't his fault, he was in the car that spun him around so fast his glasses fell off his face and are probably somewhere in the ditch. The skid marks say the giant white truck didn't even hit the brakes until it was already in the intersection.
Good thing our car shot into the front yard of a man who sells fences (he advertises with the Pinnacle) and his wife said they were thinking of taking out the section martin drove through anyway. The skinny little tree he drove over bounced right back up into place.
They gave him a shot at the hospital, which he says is the worst part. He doesn't complain about the arm hair burned and bent by the airbag explosion, or the fact that he had taken the time to fold the laundry before it all flew out the rear window--the tow truck man had to sweep my clean underwear out of the street. Now I'm thinking maybe I should pass up the chance to put skid marks and underwear in the same entry.
This morning the man who would be dead except for the car my dad gave me in college, is sitting on the floor petting the cat telling her it is just to two of them today: Tetanus Arm and No Teeth. He looks up at me and says he just realized that the first thought that went through his mind was "well, we're not going to the demolition derby tonight, and I didn't even get to watch the airbag deploy."
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23 de Agosto 2005
only sometimes now
Sometimes I allow myself to remember the times when I have heard the whispering from inside that this is real, this is really happening something is actually happening and it is real. In the memories I hear myself answer, an audible whisper: this isn't real.
and the empty denial is what I think I want because there is always a tiny bit of this left to hold on to: A picture of what is ahead and behind like a landscape full of trees and moss and hope.
I have never been able to make this picture go away. I know I still choose it, but only sometimes now. It is denial cutting things apart.
The hope just looks so beautiful even when it is tearing me to bits. The consequence: it is not fully faith, I am not trembling against the landscape- if I am even in the picture at all. It doesn't diappoint me, but it doesn't ask very much either, from a character like mine. Faith, on the other hand, propels me forward, drives me toward commitment, the fear that makes my nightmares unbearable. My little relief comes from how crazy change can make me.
This is how I explain it to myself, hoping I will ...stop it.
This is from my wedding:
From Part of Eve's Discussion
by Marie Howe
It was like the moment when a
bird decides not to eat from your
hand, and flies, just before
it flies, the moment the rivers
seem to still and stop because a storm
is coming, but there is no storm, as
when a hundred
starlings lift and bank together
before they wheel and drop,
very much like the moment
driving on bad ice, when it
occurs to you your car could spin
just before it slowly begins to spin,
like the moment just before you forgot
what it was you were about to say
it was like that, and after that it
was still like that, only all the time.
Falling in love is real, I know this much: the falling, and the love, and they are hard to part and hard to stop so you don't.
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22 de Agosto 2005
Sick day begins
I took the day off to rest... but it is a joke. There are too many good things to do here. Moreover the cat just puked and is now back to carrying on the way she does: running up the walls and keeping watch from the high windows.
So I am ignoring her and her pukeitallupandjustgetonwithit way of doing things.
I bought this book for Martin because he really wanted it but then he didn't use it. I don't mind... I didn't know how good it is until today.
"Peach
Prunus persica Batsch
A well-known, small fruit tree with a
short trunk, spreading, rounded crown,
showy pink blossoms, long, narrow
leaves, and yellow to pink juicy fruit...
Leaves:...Lance-shaped or
narrowly oblong, finely saw-toothed, sides
often curved up from midvein; leafstalks
short with glands near tip. Shiny green
above, paler beneath. Crushed foliage
has a strong odor and bitter taste.
Bark: dark reddish-brown, smooth,
becoming rough, bitter..."
-
There are plenty of poems about peach trees and peaches, to be sure. But this I have found to be just as tantalizing as any, in spite of its prescient pose. High quality unintentional enjambment (hooray) blah blah blah... and the way such a fancy book would use the word twig with such authority. It is like an excercise in the subversive nature of four letter words: Screwbean Mesquite, Roemer Catclaw, Jerusalem Thorn, Silktree, Cliffrose, Oneseed Juniper and then you start to think this is your grammar school class picture, all your friends lined up, looking their best and such comforting common names: Tamarisk, Sugar Sumac, Saguaro, Lyontree, Little Walnut, Quaking Aspen.
What a great book to sneeze on.
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21 de Agosto 2005
New job,
new sniffles. There is a swarm of bees in my brain, each one angry and loathesome. I feel sorry for the four year old who had this cold before me.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 4:54 PM | TrackBack
18 de Agosto 2005
I have changed my mind
about some things.
I like to eat mussels now, as long as there is plenty of garlic involved.
Paid vacation with a photojournalist means you buy one disposable camera and hope for the best.
I made the mistake of watching Eternal Sunshine of blah blah blah (titles!) and now it is even easier to explain to myself about hiding things and trying to forget where I put them. After, I peeled apart some old pictures and was very glad to draw lines around lips and curls up on the small bed in my memory.... Gummy candies don't keep well, though. Those can be thrown out but wait until you change your mind about them. Give it time.
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16 de Agosto 2005
cello tape and fish bowls do not solve problems, even if you can see right through them.
when you have problems you are supposed to seek counsel so I remembered this poem I wrote about four years ago.
Takedown
They were married in a fishbowl--it would take Houdini.
and then recently I was reminded about this one, just as old, because a good title is very important. I'm sure it should not be so long it grates, I know, I just don't want to fix it tonight because it is really right--especially the annoying title. It feels like some kind of stupid prediction; as if shit everywhere is sort of okay.
I didn't know I could be a diarrhetic until I met you... but I must be: everytime we are together it is just shit, everywhere.
Shag carpet is like a treasure chest.
I keep finding things.
India ink
Hundred dollar bill
Milk
Wild animals like turkey, aunts.
Clear fingernail polish
Egg shells
the cello tape she called bandaids.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:09 PM | TrackBack
13 de Agosto 2005
most of the time
"I love you" means that all I can do is promise to feed your sheep as soon as I find them-every last one.
Sometimes (every once in a while) it means I don't want to turn over the tables in the temple but I will if I have to.
That is why it is so important to say it over and over again.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 2:12 AM | TrackBack
12 de Agosto 2005
Its Toasted
When I die, go ahead and cremate me, but not until anyone who wants to see the body has done so.
And please pass out cigarettes to anyone who wants one, just in case they are feeling right on the edge of dead themselves. I know that seems self indulgent but I think things are getting past that point by now.
Death makes me feel really alone now. I have been thinking about it the way we Mexicans think about it, if you know what I mean, and I am beginning to see the skeletons get up and dance without a care for who is watching.
The funeral must really be for the living, the dead are lucky enough: not at home, waiting for a phone call.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
10 de Agosto 2005
rockstar husband to the rescue
It is inconvenient to need someone around just to stand around, I know, but I think it might be exactly what husbands are for... by nature they become well aqcuainted with inconvenience--especially mine who is flying into Seattle at midnight tonight just to stand around my mom's backyard and look like a nice person and maybe play some hymns on guitar and then go home tomorrow evening. Good thing he used to be a rockstar, it was good preparation for this marriage gig.
And another thing I think I should put here just for your information because my mom was pretty surprised when I told her:
A memorial service party might be the best kind of party to throw because the host could just hole up in her bedroom, get really drunk, smoke a pack of cigarettes and never even speak to the guests... and no one would wonder why. So you know where I'll be when Martin dies, I have a plan, but you can still come to the party.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:04 PM | TrackBack
9 de Agosto 2005
bleh shoo
your prayer was answered! the memorial will be at my mom's house (phew) and maybe everyone will get stuck outside in bad weather
and there are so many gd raspberries in that f' ing backyard right now, i would love for my nieces to just make themselves sick at that kind of party on raspberries and strawberries covered in dirt and snail slime. and imagine them. the only family members with red faces for good reason!
but here is the main good thing:
Emily Mercedes, who, upon turning three years old, graduated to finger puppets in March: "achoo!"
Tia Abigail: "is that a real sneeze?"
"nope, now you sneeze!"
"achoo."
"gezundtight! Now I sneeze."
"bless you."
"bleh shoo."
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8 de Agosto 2005
Katherine Isabel 080804
today is the first birthday for my niece, katherine isabel, she was at her grandma mary's house and fell down and hit her head so damn hard she has a huge blue bump on her forehead. she is so tiny she is a few months shy of the clothes she should wear. but she plays a mean peekaboo.
my gramps died last night.
i had to get on a plane and for the first time i really listened to each of the sounds the plane makes during take off. they were so loud and beautiful and painful, i think that is what sound it would make if you could hear your own heart let go of a thing that really hurts.
before we landed the flight attendant told us to be kind to each other. and the plane touched down with such force and sweep i thought of swans: how mean they are and how i want to touch them when i see them. and of rose petals and how they feel in your hand when you grab the bud and pull. and, i thought, maybe i'll get this chance to do the right thing.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
2 de Agosto 2005
on apologies
I have been thinking a lot about apologies. I collect them the same way I collected sea shells as a little girl. I have many. One that coils around itself and comes to a point at the end. One flat round one that rattles whenever I shake it. Another one is just a broken off piece but its very colorful.
I think about them over and over like a security blanket
and just like when I receive them, I feel like they are never loud enough or strong enough to really solve anything when I make them.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 12:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
28 de Julio 2005
adult education
the sticker says let's stop arnold for our families
arnold just keeps pissing me off.
Laurel and Levy bravely in Africa.
Jasmine plant dies.
IRA to disarm.
Vicente Fox: what are you thinking?
These are the day's headlines.
Confession: I don't even read the paper when my husband the photojournalist
writes the articles... Sometimes he asks me to... but regularly, no.
but I did write an editorial once-its a little long.
Continue reading "adult education"
Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
27 de Julio 2005
forgive me
if i don't respond to all comments. I think it minimizes the embarassment factor if you don't have to worry about chit chat all the time.
Posted by crymytinyflood at 6:00 PM | TrackBack