A brand new day…
Went to a fab journal therapy workshop, and this is a poem they sent over, which I love.
In my line of work, one can’t help but notice how people trap themselves in the stories they tell themselves (narrative therapy, anyone?), and how they repeatedly cast themselves or others in the same, confining, tired, limited - but familiar roles.
Or get rid of one villain/addiction/habit, only to bring in another version of the same.
People fear being destroyed by new choices and risks.
Meanwhile digging their own graves of denial.
Look, I’m a bit of a control freak too-but I realized:
Almost everything worthy in my life was actually unplanned.
I just had to be open to what surprised me around the pike.
Had to stop clinging to what I originally had scheduled for myself.
And thus wound up with the most amazing cast of friends, & experiences all around our world….which I never could have imagined, which would have scared me to death or seemed nonsensical back when I was in Taipei, or Cupertino, Alameda, or even L.A. (most recent L.A. trip shall be fodder for the next blog)
The New Story of Your Life
Say you finally invented a new story
of your life.
It is not the story of your defeat
or of your impotence and powerlessness
before the large forces of wind and accident.
It is not the sad story of your mother’s death
or of your abandoned childhood.
It is not even a story that will win you the deep
initial sympathies of the benevolent gods
or the care of the generous, but it is a story
that requires of you a large thrust
into the difficult life, a sense of plenitude
entirely your own.
Whatever the story is,
it goes as it goes, and there are vicissitudes
in it, gardens that need to be planted,
skills sown, the long hard labors
of prose and enduring love.
Deep down
in some long-encumbered self,
it is the story you have been writing
all of your life, where no Calypso holds you
against your own willfulness,
where you can rise
from the bleak island of your old story
and tread your way home.
Michael Blumenthal
Copyrighted material used for educational and/or therapeutic purposes.
Compliments of The Center for Journal Therapy Inc., 888-421-2298, www.journaltherapy.com
Healing body, psyche, soul through writing
Beat & Birds
It hadn’t occurred to me until today that The English Beat, (Mirror in the Bathroom/Tenderness)
whom I have listed to for like 20 years is known as just "The Beat" on their side of the pond.
Duh.
Like Chinese food is just "food" in China…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iykbFFDd3ZU
I’m sacrificing a Saturday, getting up at the ungodly hour of 6am to Vulcan mindmeld with a bunch of other Psychologist Directors of trng. all day. Feels like a convening of powerful demi-gods who hold the fates of hundreds of innocent interns in our hands!
Actually I recall the traumas of grad school so well, I tend to my students fairly well.
At such conferences I usually feel like quite the spring chicken among my gray haired colleagues. And why do so many therapists dress alike? Am I destined to wind up in Dansko clogs and a fringed vaguely Eastern or Celtic shawl one day, and all my male colleagues in beards?!
Not that any of my students would tell me I’ve gone out of touch,
since I hold their evaluations and academic fate in my hands…but I do know many of them have told their friends and peers to come train w/ me so surely something is working.
The upside to conference? L.A., baby!
I am heading to see English Beat Friday night with my darling Pepper; whom I almost got in a fistfight with when we met in 6th grade.
Man, we should have thrown down. Who knows what kind of row two suburban little girls coulda had? We’ve both concluded we are workaholid freaks because of our F.O.O.s (Family of Origin).
But this weekend, after working hard I intend to play hard-at not answering my phone nor righting reports or evals or letters of rec, NADA.
And of course, I gotta look up my Korean homies whenever I am in L.A.
I will forever remember my 1st visit to Koreatown after the Northridge earthquake left us dorm dwellers outdoors on the basketball courts sans food & shelter all night. We drove past eerie shattered buildings to find sustenance in Koreatown the next day.
All of my Los Angeles friends currently fall into 2 categories: Those who are much cooler than I.
And those who have infants and are therefore uber cool for very different reasons.
The normal cool friends all work in TV land or live their music and art to the max whilst my passions are crammed incompletely into the box of dayjob conformity. Some of making wads of dough, others are starving artists, but I respect both of those states equally. For real.
Often I’m sorry that I never had the huevos to just dance and write for a living (or try to).
That pre-programmed practical geek inside would not relinquish her totalitarian reign-
the frontal lobes beat down the limbic urges and here I am…a respectable taxpayer with a comfortable life. (although when the moon is full…)
My parent friends include one couple who just adopted 2 babies at the same time(brothers). Their sleep deprivation and stamina humble me…
Both the artistes and the parental units are pretty gutsy in my book!
I also have to fend off this burning impulse, a siren song that is whispering for me to drive that compact rental all the way down to Long Beach.
This addiction? Birds.
I want desperately to barricade myself into the rainbow lorikeet exhibit & spend all my damned money buying birdie nectar. They are so incredibly vivid and bright and beautiful
I can’t ever get over the fact that they are real living creatures…but they are real, and curious too. I tempted them onto my person with nectar, but once upon me they were trying to crawl into my purse, chew the crystals on my bracelet and earrings, and play with my hat.
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/CURRENT_EXHIBIT/LORIKEETS/index.html
Alas, there are worse addictions and muses to be had, but I must resist.
As it is I seriously contemplated coming home with a Petco parrot I met last week. We sat there staring into one another’s eye (they can only stare with one eye at a time after all), chirping at one another. He’d call out loudly whenever I started to step away, and when he came to rub his scruff against the bars of the cage and be scratched by me- well, it was all over.
I fell madly in love.
But he was $1,500 dollars! There is no way I could come home with a fifteen hundred dollar bird unannounced. With a 30 yr lifespan that avian friend would be a huge commitment.
P already won’t let me forget how I came home unnannounced with 2 "babies", our hammies Panda and Puffy. But at least they weren’t over a thousand bucks!
In fact, they were free complete with cage courtesy of Craigslist. And then traumatized us by dying in 2 years.
sigh.
So I left that feathered love at Petco so as not to disturb the one I am currently nesting with, who of course, takes precedence over all other lifeforms.
Year of the Pig
Here’s a little blurb I wrote for the Human Relations Commission:
The Year of the Pig begins February 18, 2007!
FAQ’s about the Lunar New Year Celebration
Why does New Year not begin on January 1?
What’s commonly referred to as “Chinese New Year” is celebrated by many Asian communities. It seems confusing that Chinese New Year begins on a slightly different calendar date every year. The reason is that it is calculated on the lunar calendar rather than the more static, Western Gregorian calendar.
In school I was taught to say “Gung Hay Fat Choy” as “Happy New Year” to my Asian friends. Is this accurate?
Yes and No. In Cantonese, “Gung Hay Fat Choy” is an appropriate and common new year social greeting, but it literally translates into “congratulations and wish you wealth”. Who wouldn’t appreciate a wish for that!? In Mandarin, you might also say “Shing nein kwai luh” which is “Happy New Year”.
What do families do for Lunar New Year?
Around the world each Lunar New Year, Asians celebrate by enjoying big reunion meals with family, by cleaning their homes, and wearing new clothes. Married adults bestow lucky red envelopes containing cash to children. People decorate their homes and businesses with vibrant celebratory colors like red and gold. Lunar New Year is the biggest holiday of the year and many Asian countries take five days or more holiday so that everyone can travel home to be with family.
What are some ways I can celebrate?
In the Bay Area, everyone can join the celebration by watching local Lunar New Year parades, and visiting street festivals. Here you can enjoy the traditional lion dancers and the strings of red firecrackers. You can go to the library to learn more about the year of the Pig, or about your own Zodiac sign animal. You may be invited to a holiday celebration dinner. If so, show up in your new outfit bearing a gift of oranges or candy, and be prepared to enjoy a great meal in a family setting!
Yes, indeedy, this weekend I spent time cleaning the house, paring down the clutter a bit, handing out chocolates and red envelopes, and preparing for a family chow-down on Saturday night. At times it seems I am becoming somehow "more" Chinese as the years go by. Surely I am not the only who is slowly somehow turning quite a bit like a parent over the years…it’s stealthy, but I hear the echo sometimes and I have to slap a hand over my mouth or across my forehead to restrain myself from speaking…"when we were kids we never had stuff like that…people these days don’t know how to work hard anymore…these traditions really mean something…"
For those of you interested, if ya don’t already know-you can look up your sign below:
http://www.chinatoday.com/culture/zodiac/zodiac.htm
Take it all with an extra large rock of salt, but I admit I like that it reads that I "would be an excellent boss, explorer, race car driver, or matador".
Except I would never be a matador, I like large, 4 legged, mammals far too much-but geez it’d be stupendously cool to have an entire matador ensemble to stomp around in.
In the movie Talk to Her, there is a female matador, and damn, when that tiny lady gets in her matador gear she becomes a brick house! Great movie but a fantabulous director BTW, but it verges to "bizarre and unsettling" as one reviewer put it.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/talk_to_her/
Happy Year of The Pig!
Years
When I was a youngin’ (18), I thought I would be married by 26 & done with school.
In reality, post UCLA I re-institutionalized myself in school at 22 and did not emerge from that dark hole for 5 years. Not counting the obligatory post-doc and exams to boot.
I wed at 29 to a rare creature, a species utterly alien to myself: an engineer. And as oft said, a mystical "good man"- so much like finding a unicorn…but there are sometimes I wish we had waited; waited ’til I got to visit another 20 countries, and aquired the desire/talent to keep house. (Top 20 on my list not yet visited: Peru, Bhutan, Mongolia, Cuba, Espana, Tibet, Turkey,Greece, Siberia, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Panama, Brazil, Italy,Ghana, South Africa, Cambodia, Singapore, Phillipines.)
At 21 I never would have imagined all this.
Wouldn’t have believed that at 33 I’m physically healthier than at any time since, oh, I was a 9 year old tomboy climbing on the roof; and physically stronger than ever, ever. That my beloved friends are now parental units, that my favorite drink is green tea, not JD/wine/Kahlua/Asahi/Peet’s nor Coffee Society Blend.
I had hoped that by this age maniacal procrastination, mortifying discalculia, feline mood swings, the urges to eat cheesecake for breakfast would be things outgrown.
Alas, I regret to inform you that this is not to be.
Apparently car and floor washing compulsions, and bonding with TV do not naturally evolve with age either.
If you had asked me in 6th grade if I would have the same friends 20 years later, I would have said: "of course."
And would have been correct. My Thomas Edison Elementary school buddies, how I love thee, and how we stayed close through all those years in the quaintest of all fashions: postal service. Imagine, we were the last generation of American children to grow up without the internet! What a precious thing it is to remember your hair, your rollerskates,how you looked in 1st grade as we sat around the carpet for storytime. Or how the boy across the street whom I adored & made me my first mixtape, became the man living large in NYC, and now married with canine companion.
Monday I was grumbling to myself in the normal Scroogey way, about being a stupid workaholic-why am I going to the office on my birthday in the freakin’ rain for these ungrateful louts anyways…but I got a ton done, most of the day spent supervising my brilliant students & then my colleagues crashed a meeting I was holding & ambushed me with a Whole Food chocolate decadence cake. (!!!!!!!!)
Awwww…. I was speechless. Touched,of course. And just amazed that they managed to surprise me, and had made the effort to import a non-Chinatown cake to appease the foodie. The answer to why all of us work at ACMHS: the people. The clients and students we believe in, and the astonishing kindheartedness of the colleagues. And lucky me, I get to keep celebrating, with a lunch at Phnomh Phenh tomorrow.
In the Bohjalian book:
"In college, " Spencer was saying, "I never thought I would be a bald, angry man when I hit middle age."
"No one does," John answered, and he guessed it was the truth. Certainly he’d never presumed that he would hit forty with a receding hairline and eyeglasses.
That section of dialogue has circled in my head for weeks.
It seemed so true and sad, yet funny and intimate. What’s odd is that I actually did imagine I would be an angry, older dude. Yes, I said dude, I always felt so much more like a stereotypical weenie man than a sugar and spice girl back then. OK, I don’t anticipate going bald since I have hair density like a river beaver, but I am in eyeglasses and seriously pondering Lasik…
People keep "helpfully" reminding me that I am nearing the end of my natural reproductive years. I can’t decide if it’s amusing or insulting that my personal bits & organs are considered a matter for unsolicited commentary in the first place.
I wrote my dissertation about women in menopause. I read MORE magazine. I ALREADY have random hot flashes. Going gray does not concern me. My frownie lines, all right that’s an issue-perhaps we all find other people’s character lines more charming than our own! Crinkles on others, really cute. On myself-horrors! How to refrain from selling my soul to vanity for some Botox botulism?!
Things have rarely come out as I planned, and that control freak upstairs is slowly learning to live with the laws of unintended consequences.
Freewrite
Prior to the Plouf-garlic-mussel attempted homicide encounter, I was actually having a fantastic day soaking up the wit & wisdom of writers in a daylong course.
Pretty sweet deal, I volunteer to unlock and close the facility, check people in, and then be a sponge for nifty classes:
www.mediabistro.com
This is also how I managed to finagle my way into some incredible training opportunities & conferences throughout graduate school. It always puzzled me why more people did not take advantage of these frugal ways to pick the brains of the brightest. Sure, it was never required coursework-but who wants to do the bare minimum? Not I. If I committ, then I’m in. And I want to know EVERYTHING. (This, despite the fact that knowledge has a tendecy to enslave at the same time as it enlightens. Surely I’d be a cheerier gal if I swam in the average North American cesspool of celebrity tabloid ignorance.) Despite my moaning about the expenses of lifelong continued education…it’s one of the best things about my job/licensure. I am required to keep learning what I want to be learning…
I had spent the day with writer Sheerly Avni, and we discovered we both have connections to youth in and out of juvenile hall, a rabble rousing bent, and a home base in Oakland. She showered us with leads and info including the fact that some of the best personal essay writing should be read in The Best American Sportswriting anthologies. That had never occurred to me as I pick up a sports section of the paper or a magazine approximately 0.5 times annually (well, unless you count Runbner’s world/Triathelete/Women’s health/HerSports/Adventure…). She made a great point that in sportswriting one would be spared the tendencey for personal writing to slip into the navel-gazing, violins-soundtrack mode.
The class also featured two former attorneys in recovery, another therapist, and several other fascinating writers. They, were all more in the realm of "real" writers. Real in the sense of having been paid for their work, as opposed to my stuff which is the real deal of life but has no aquaintance whatsoever with dinero which interestingly seems to be the story of my life…how come everything I fall in love with is not-for-profit?!
(Must be atoning for some kind of past life wastefullness…)
Here’s my freewrite the morning with Sheerly. Be kind as you read-remember this was done in under 15 minutes with instruction to "write, no editing, no penmanship, just speed write."
01/27/07 10:50 a.m. I left school based clinical services in Oakland, despite my ardent unchanged belief that school based services are what most kids need and would benefit from most.. Like giving life saving measures with an eyedropper in the middle of a ghetto that needed H2O like a desert, saw the most beautiful, sassy, scary youth up close intimate-not caricatures,not always colored (but usually) laughed and was charmed;was witness and repository for tears and pain, played mentor/guide/surrogate/50 minute parent for kids who burned for, needed, and DESERVE a real parent. Perhaps it’s part of why I now do not long to be a parent-I’ve given so much to so many hungry hearts of babes and am teetering near total burn out, and I’ve seen the incredible damages a parent/guardian/"the adults" can inflict upon these little people we ostensibly love-I know too clearly the horrors that can befall children-I can’t imagine I’ve got the emotional stamina it takes to parent well, yet even I have wanted time and time again to take some of these kids home: I of the impatience and ineptitude and lack of maternal drive-but I know how to love and be gentle with people’s emotions, yet boundaries, I’m firm…but there were many, and then a select few-who nest in my heart, haunt and inspire me, burn a hole in my head-don’t judge it just share it-the admiration for these "flowers who will grow the stones away" and how it feels to be forced to bear witness as many are plucked and crushed.
I had enough.
Waterworld
Before you know what kindness really is,
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth
-Naomi Shihab Nye, "Kindness"
In a previous blog I already shared the Isak Dineson quote which I live by: The cure for anything is salt water: tears, sweat, or the sea.
Of all my outdoorsy endeavors, I flail most markedly in the water. Not that that lessens my attraction to it.
Surely if we did not all have a bit of masochism within us we’d never love nor run, nor swim ever again. I was not an impressive sight in Lake Berryessa during that first bit of Triathlon! The most fortunate side effect of my advancing age (another birthday lurking like a stalker) is that "ego beat-downs" have occurred so often by now, looking lame isn’t much deterrant anymore.
I’ve had moments…dipping my fingers in the salt water darkess, glimpsing sea turtles laying eggs in the darkness on Costa Rican shores. Lurching into the ocean off a dinky Belizean boat, straining the snorkel and on the verge of drowning amidst my own Darth Vader noises-until another sea turtle awed my breathing into grace and we slipped into the quiet murmurs of aquatic life. Being far, far from shore in the waters of Thailand and I became like a true ocean dweller, fearless, swift, sure…I could have swam there for ages until eras passed and it came time to sprout legs and crawl onto the primordial sand.
Some would say it’s the fetal and primal memory in our collective unconscious. We evolved from a salty bog, were conceived, then incubated in another perfect salt water brew, and now that we are out walking about - some part longs for that dark, silty, saline security evermore.
What does all this water have to do with kindness or healing? Well, what doesn’t water have a role in? We are roughly 75% h2o after all…
I make a living providing a therapy-room sized womb where others can cry rivers or curse out our respective gods.
The most healing coversations I have had with other humans have come in the context of dancing, running, hiking, camping, cycling, climbing, and yes, swimming. What doesn’t venture to the surface in tears emotes via sweat. The tougher life became, the harder the bodily push. Until salt formed on my technical gear, I’d come home in auras of dust, and I lost blood and those pinky toenails…but maintained grasp of the levity that makes life not only bearable but endlessly amusing.
A subject for another days’ writing bout: the year that almost everything of importance tumbled away in a minor avalanche.
Call it the scorched earth school of character development. I learned that year how kindess presents. I felt the scarcity of supply acutely-but also its remarkable presence in the least likely of sources.
And to wrap, this new watery tune I am so completely enamoured with…(although keep in mind I most definitely frown upon using the ocean as an avenue to "end it all"). Temporarily, being haunted by the rather mournful voice of Roy Orbison has switched to this tune that snared me during a KFOG morning commute:
Into The Ocean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34kgciQyGbk
OK, post script, to keep this from being way too much of an overall downer I just have to include a rather talented 4 year old’s intepretive dance of the same tune
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MnE9Q7O4aew&mode=related&search=
p.s. so as I read about Blue October on the VH1 website, turns out that lead singer Justin stated that one of his earliest childhood memories is: the voice of Roy Orbison singing Cryin’.
How fitting.
Darleen
One supposes that we are getting into the "glory days" frame of mind. Lately it seems there’s been a resurgence of high school friends looking me up, gathering, touching base on friendster, or having reasons to wind up in old haunts. It still stuns me that my peers have procreated, (are we REALLY old enough to be responsible for small sentient beings!? I know I’m not competent for such a trust) and that now occasionally I detect gray hairs & paunchy abs on folks whom I have known since we were all "like a virgin". I think as a whole we are holding up well, but time slithers by…
I had a friend named Darleen in junior and senior high school. Never hung out together. We were most definitely in different crowds. My memory of her is of a perpetually smiling, tall, sporty, squeaky clean gal with long, shining, brown hair that sang in the Madrigals. So wholesome and pretty without need for make up and accoutrements, she could have been on a cereal box.
Me, I could never leave the house without black leather or lycra, and an hour’s worth of time spent on eyeliner and futile hair curling efforts. Instead of singing with the choir I was off smoking in the streets somewhere pining over long haired boys and skaters and writing inflammatory debates about abortion rights that freaked out the English teacher. He also advised me that wearing too much black means a person is "negative". And he threw a total hissy fit once when I hugged a guy friend. I got hauled into a hallway for a lecture on how "you are a leader among kids, and bright, and you shouldn’t be ‘necking’ at school, you need to set an example." I was quite confused…not sure exactly what ‘necking’ meant since that term was outta vogue, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t doing "it" since last time I checked a hug was just a hug. Go figure. Ah, the follies of youth.
Yet somehow in classes, and separate universes, Darleen and I were friendly with one another. Isn’t that always how it is? One on one we often can find connection to one another. But when we all go back to our respective packs/cliques things are different.
We exchanged cards and school portraits a few times. I’ll always remember when Mom was looking at my assortement of photos she commented on Darleen’s signature and comment that I was "sweet".
"Compliments from other girls really mean something. You should take it to heart. They don’t have any agendas and they are always more honest than boys." Hmmmm. In some aspects I guess that was good advice, the part about valueing the wisdom of women friends & taking it deep into the heart. There’s not a doubt in my head that if not for my amigas I would have gone ninja-postal and graced the 10 o’clock news in infamy years ago. Yet sadly, I think all us grown ups know now that not all women are more honest than males.
I hadn’t thought of Darleen in at least 13 years. Today, L, my junior high partner in crime (recently reclaimed via friendster) forwarded this:
Dear Friends of Darleen,
If you haven’t heard, Darleen (Hansen) Loch is in the hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah in critical condition with the Strep A flesh eating bacteria. She is currently in a medically induced coma. Darleen does not have health insurance so a fund has been set up in her name at Zions Bank to assist with the medical bills.
If you are interested in donating to this fund, please call 1-800-974-8800 and tell them you would like to make a donation to the Darleen H. Loch Donations fund. They may ask you what city she is from - it is Spanish Fork, Utah (where she lives with her husband and 5 children).
I am also putting together a book of emails and get well wishes from her friends and family and anyone else who would like to send her a message. Send your messages to jenhowick@comcast.net
Please forward this email to anyone you know that knows Darleen or anyone that you feel would be interested in this.Thank you!
Whoa. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Holy Toledo, to think the last blog was about microwaving bacteria. This flesh eating bacterium thing is like my worst science fiction nightmare gone 3-D. And I just read the other day that some horrible percentage of those who file bankruptcy do so due to medical bills.
Say a prayer for this lovely stranger whose smile and voice lit up a room. I can’t even fathom the notion of 5 children and living in Utah (say the least of life without insurance-I would have been bankrupted myself post-surgery if not for medical coverage) but that doesn’t matter. Material and spiritual support (and food balms) are what’s called for here.
Random Housekeeping
Flaming sponges. Perhaps you have read all the gut-churning stats about how millions of bacteria live on your kitchen sponge so whilst you think you are washing dishes - you are actually spreading bacteria. The simple solution is to microwave your sponge periodically. However, some over zealous homekeepers created flaming sponges with this method.
Please be advised to WET your sponge before its 2 minutes in the nuke. Flaming sponges sounds kinda funny and perhaps would be a great name for a rock band or a contraceptive sponge manufacturer…but I doubt you want one in your trusty microwave.
Food Balm & Scary Matrimony
Today’s breakfast was homemade Pappo’s gnochi (potato pasta) dressed in cream sauce with fresh slivers of basil, fresh ground pepper, specks of crisp bacon, and white truffle oil. Accompanied by a teeny chocolate scone, biscuit, and gingery bread w/ peel-heavy home-done orange marmalade. After my week on the ascetic projectile diet, this is bliss.
Within a week of the food poisoning, I had become little more than a giant walking, talking, empty carb. Porridge in the brain, challah bread in my bones, Kashi crackers in my veins. Word retrieval and memory were fading fast, to say the least of my energy levels.
Ran 3 miles yesterday (So it’s half the usual Sat. run, but hey, I was still running on fumes), spent this morning at yoga with P, and then we joined all the nouveu Alameda yuppies for brunch at Pappo’s and in the Peet’s queque (although my great love of coffee is currently still being restrained by my stomach’s trauma. I’ve not yet subjected my guts to the caffeine acid test. Peet’s was merely a pit stop for Gingerbread). As the slogan goes, "Life is Good." Over the years, there have been more moments than I care to remember where I felt I might never stand up straight or feed myself again, to say the least of feel that post-run high or the lengthing of all my muscles & entire spine after a great dance or yoga class.
Food really is medicinal. Throughout my involuntary purge, peppermint tea, an anti-spasmodic agent, was my best friend. Ginger, an anti-nausea remedy long utilized by Chinese fishermen, was a fave ingredient in my tea and cookies. And aloe vera, like the lovely specimen in our yard, has become my drink of choice. Most of y’all are probably familiar with it as that gel you gunk onto suburn or skin lacerations, but it soothes & aids healing from the inside as well.
Meanwhile, I have been mulling over an odd Thursday that began with the scandal of Mayor Newsom’s affair with his campaign manager’s wife. Tsk. I ponder the wisdom of any man who would risk the wrath of the HR Nazis (not a term I coined) by behaving so lewdly with an employee. Let’s not even get into the sin of hurting his friend. But I find it impossibly lame that this snafu has garnered 2 days of front page headline news status. I think everyone is just secretly happy to gossip smack about someone shiny, powerful, and handsome who turns out to be equally (if not more) stupid as everyone else in matters of love and loins. As they say, those in glass houses should not cast stones…
Then a reporter from Sing Tao calls asking me for advice for her column. Last time she was asking me about how retirees should cope with rising divorce rates, mostly due to disgruntled wives not wanting their newly retired husbands around. This day’s topic? Office love affairs. OK, so I give the usual spiel and point out warning signs etc, etc. Not like I believe a newspaper article is going to deter anyone on the path to ruin, but they can’t say we didn’t warn ‘em. For repressed Chinese people it’s good that at least we are talking about our issues these days rather than pretending that such travails are "white people problems" to which we are mysteriously, wishfully, immune.
The interview with the reporter was followed by a couple in my private practice ending their session awash in tears and accusations. Whew. I was exhausted and felt more like a soccer coach than a therapist that night what with all the "time-outs" that had to be called. If I had had little color coded penalty flags handy I would have thrown them between the couches at them.
In the anthology of the Best American Travel Writing, there is curiously enough, a short article from a gourmet magazine. The authors parents bickered for a lifetime of arranged marriage, but expressed their love and bond in the preparation of exquisite meals and the hosting of gatherings. The author traveled between India to America, where she married for love, which culminated in a humiliating and painful divorce. Who can say wherein lies the greater risk? Arranged by your parents or chosen in a state of blissful insanity-who can say which is more practical? Stay alone or risk as one author put it" "here is my heart & soul, please grind it up in hamburger and enjoy"-type pain, who could say which is the more painful condition?
Bell Hooks wrote a powerful novel about writing & love. She got in her car headed for another state, away from her lover & partner of more than 10 years. He gave her a mango. Said she ought eat it when she got to her destination. And she did. I can relate to that. The textures and scent of a ripe mango could evoke all sorts of senses.
There are countless foodstuffs that immediately elicit memories practically intense enough to qualify as an acid flashback (uh, not that I would know. really.) There are people I have loved who are vanilla ice-blendeds, whiskey, beignets, exotic caramels, "fish sticks frying", angel food cake, "lien-oo" AKA wax apple, fried crickets, Thai food, "condiments", raw oysters, tree-fresh Bing cherries, conch, stinky Taiwan style tofu, Hunan ham, birthday cake(particularly the few home-made cakes I have been graced with)…at this rate everyone I know shall soon bear a foodie code name. (one wonders what I would be…? maybe something pickled. or flammeable.)
In times of both heartbreak, besottedness, bonding, nesting, traveling,parting…for better or for worse, there is food. Sustenance. Art Form. Offering. Erotica. Nutrition. Functional item. Cultural expression. Creative muse. Gift. Home.
I play with my food, and highly recommend it to others…
Telemundo
Developing cabin fever after all this infirmitude, I did something H never, ever does: I turned on the TV.
Mi esposo is working late yet again. I am one big, empty, walking carb since the encounter with food borne disaster. What a friend termed "the Projectile Diet" has left be barely eating all week long. All this porridge, challah, and herbal tea is getting mighty tired…and I don’t appreciate the waistband of all my pants getting loose. The suspenders look is most definitely not "in".
So, vamos a ver, Telemundo.
I gotta say, watching telenovelas has got to be the best way one can practice Spanish, short of a nice vacation. Watching Pedro Almovadar movies works pretty well too in the edu-tainment department.
Perhaps you’ve seen the giant bus billboards for "Marina". I’ve seen them cruise by at BART all the time. Giant ads featuring Marina (I presume) who is the fanatasy girl next door stunning yet que dulce brunette. It’s somehow wierdly assuring to see so many annoying and hysterical parallels between Telemundo and TV in the mainland.
Chevy has bought out not only our John (Cougar) Mellancamp, but as I watched a pastiche of moving, manly images flit by to the tune of Justicia, Tierra, Libertad (Justice, Land/earth, Liberty) I realized they’ve scored Mana as well.
And as for the telenovela, it’s great fun watching all these characters pitch hissy fits and have serious talks while decked out in hair extensions, make-up, push up bras, and clubbing gear worthy of the Fredericks of Hollywood catalog. Better yet when they show up like that in the local hospital to torment our suffering heroine. Listen babe, when an evil Barbie clone shows up to whisper how you’d best spare your man the suffering of your illness, you oughta check her references before making any life altering decisions…
And as for the hombres, well, as one co-worker put it, "I don’t trust any man who has too much mousse in his hair." (this little comment in reference to our beleagured Mayor Newsom, he of the rico suave, just-got-outed for being a very,very bad amigo fame)
Ya Volvemos…
