Mantra Yields to Question

Someone is not stupid just because you don't like them
Intelligence does not necessarily decline in inverse proportion to arrogance.


But the wicked cavewoman who inhabits my interior keeps saying But yes. Yes they are. And yes it does. And the trouble is, most of the time, I believe her. And why is it, that whenever I think of such people, I automatically think of bad Thai food? Always. Curious.

Friday Quote

"And them that don't know him won't like him
And them that do sometimes won't know how to take him
He ain't wrong he's just different
but his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right"

--Waylon & Willie & The Boys


True. True.

The-reaus in an American Landscape

Lately, I find myself spending a great deal of time thinking about this American desire to throw off material possessions and hit the road. I think of these Travelers who aren't satisfied with the comforts of a status quo. Who feel stifled by the comforts of American life. Who want to live just a little less well. It's an underground movement, of course. Always has been. The typical American is content to sit in his typical house (in the suburbs, of course), eat his typical food and show up at his typical job. Our bodies are only as fat as our minds. But beneath this Great Numbing Ordinary are rumblings of revolution that transcend time. All the time travelers run beneath the radar of popular culture trying to be different. Trying to find the Life beneath the confines of The Matrix. I think of these travelers as "The-reaus." They've taken some of these philosophies of Thoreau and Emerson in the U.S. and Wordsworth in the U.K. and made them real. Thoreau wasn't real. Emerson wasn't real. Transcendentalism wasn't real. But nobody told these guys. And it's interesting to watch the metaphorical rubber hit the theoretical road. I'm thinking Kerouac. I'm thinking Chris McCandless. I'm thinking Ed Abbey. I'm thinking me.

Across the ages we Beat Beat Beat on the constructs of civility. Give me life, not pleasure. Give me difficulty, not ease. "I want my happiness! Where is my happiness?"

Friday Quote (on Wednesday, I know)

"All hail the Dominant Primordial Beast. And Captain Ahab, too."

"Alexander Supertramp"/Chris McCandless, 1992

Rotten Apples, Rotten Pears

Lately, I find myself straining against the limitations of my own mental capacity. There is so much to learn and instinctively I know that with each bit of knowledge conquered, I'll gain an ability to learn even more. I've never had a challenge like this. I've never really come close to hitting the end of my intellectual tether. Not because my capacity is particularly vast, but because I've never tried. This is the first time my desire to know first, and then to use and apply has exceeded my ability. There is something to this, I realize. It is more than learning and then manipulating a jargon to sound knowledgeable. This is cool. I throw myself into deep waters with wild abandon. I have nothing to lose. I sink or swim. My instrument is yet untested, the limits of my ability unknown.

How much organic insufficiency can be surmounted with the will to work? Answer to follow....

Friday Quote

Bíonn grásta Dé idir an diallait agus an talamh

(The grace of God is between the saddle and the ground. )

Some of My Most Brilliant Thoughts...Ever.

I've been thinking about Oklahoma State Coach Mike Grundy this week. This is probably the first time in ten years that I've given so much thought to football. And even now, I'm not really thinking about football. I'm thinking about the differences between male and female in 21st Century America. (That sounds more like me, doesn't it?)

Sometime last week, Coach Grundy unloaded both barrels on a female sports reporter after she wrote a somewhat snarky column about one of his players. I worked for a period of time as a newspaper columnist, too, and that experience taught me that snark is magnified in print. So, what I'm thinking about is not whether or not this reporter's column was appropriate. I don't think it was. I think it was unprofessional. (And that's my professional opinion, professionally. What do you think, C.J.?)

Coach Grundy's irritation was justified. But was his behavior? Here, I have to ask the million-dollar question. Would Coach Grundy have unloaded on a man that way? I don't think so, and here's why. (Bear with me, I'm going to be offensive.)

The field of sports writing is one of the last remaining Professionally Male Spaces. What I mean is that a woman cannot easily operate in the profession of sports writing unencumbered with some kind of secret weapon. And when we're talking about sports writing, that secret weapon is often startling good looks coupled with a projected (however so deceptive) sense of sexual availability. Have you seen the women reporting from the sidelines on ESPN? Yeah, me too. While I wouldn't say they are stupid, I certainly wouldn't say they are ugly. (Not that the two are mutually exclusive. They most certainly aren't.) And what happens to a woman who dares transgress the P.M.S. (AWESOME!) of sports writing without her secret weapon? Well, Coach Grundy eats her lunch on national television. I'll just go ahead and ask the question you are. Would it have been different if the reporter somehow projected sexual availability? Yes. It would have. And you can figure out why.

One of the first things Coach Grundy says to the reporter is "you obviously don't have children." That's a curious statement. I've often heard it uttered from one female to another or from a male to a female, but never from a male to a male. And what am I to take away from that? Well, at it's core it's an offensive statement. Whether the speaker realizes it or not, it calls into question the gender identity of the person spoken to. "You must not have any children" could just as easily be "You aren't a real woman (or man)." And I don't know that I would have recognized how loaded that statement is if I wasn't vulnerable to it. So, is that my bias interpreting that statement, or did my bias open my eyes to what it actually means? I don't know. What I do know is that I've never heard it said when the speaker wasn't already angry. And that means something. So why isn't that statement used between men? Because it's tantamount to saying "You don't have any balls." And that statement could easily erupt into violence, especially in a testosterone-fueled P.M.S.

Coach Grundy did what he did because he didn't have to worry about a violent retribution. And that's cowardly.

But this gives rise to another question. (Which I'll answer more succinctly.) Would the reporter have written a column like that if she were a man operating in a P.M.S.? I don't think so. He article is emasculating to the player she writes about. In it, she's basically making the same gender-questioning statement that Grundy is. And if she were a male, she'd have to be concerned with a violent retribution. But, because she's a female, she can avoid violence so she doesn't censor herself. And that, too, is cowardly.

See how much better the world would be if we could just beat each other up? Sometimes, violence is the answer.

Okefenokee Ritz

The fall is coming on little cat feet. And with it, comes a tender desire to steal some time away from the bond market and the university and the dingy city and sleep alongside the Tellico river under the Tennessee stars. This afternoon, we dug our tent and sleeping bags out of the closet. We sat up our tent and climbed inside. We hung our sleeping bags over the porch railings like limp, but colorful, children. The seemed to chide us for having been gone for so long. But, we're back now.

We spent our honeymoon in our little tent in the Okefenokee Swamp and it suited us more than the San Francisco Ritz. (Although, the San Francisco Ritz was pleasant to say the least. And the turn-down service is better.)

We think the first four years of our marriage were somewhat traumatic. We experienced job stress (in spades), church stress, major illness and something else. This year, is going to be better. And I can tell because we're starting to act like ourselves again. This Saturday has been like a slow sink into a warm hot tub. I remember who we were, and who we are. I'm looking forward to knowing who we will be.

I'm so glad to be here. With you. Right now.

Into the Wild

I heard about Sean Penn’s new movie, Into the Wild, on CBS Sunday Morning and I was captivated by the story. It’s a story that has pursued my heart, in many forms through many incantations down the trail of my life through the forest of my dreams. It’s a story of being different. Of walking off the path and seeing from a different perspective. Some of us are born on the trail.

I read the article that lead to the book that lead to the movie. Jon Krakauer wants to give this hero, Chris McCandless, some kind of excuse for shaving his existence down too much to the edge of the razor and slicing his earthly tether. It doesn’t work, but I admire the effort. I, too, want to believe that he was really killed by a moldy potato seed, but I don’t. It was a valiant attempt at Life Abundant.

As read Krakauer’s article, I’m reminded of Edward Abbey. I first read his stories as a teenager. I was an island at a large suburban high school and I needed these book-friends to reach out to me through their words. It was my foundation and in many ways, although my mother would have me forget it and although I would have me forget that time, it shaped me. And it continues to make me. Or break me. Every year.

And here is something of Ed Abbey to cherish:

One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. 
I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."
-Ed Abbey

I have a new Mac Book. Her name is Pam.

This is what she says I look like when I come home from class at night.

I'm Telling LIES LIES LIES LIES, LIES LIES LIES!

I've always framed myself--to myself--as someone who must take special precautions to prevent herself from being misused. I've recently had a bit of an epiphany, however, about this lie I've told myself for so long. And it happened at the Atlanta Airport. (As I'm sure, many epiphanies do. At least on television and in some IFC specials.)

My plane from SFO pulled up to the gate about forty minutes from the time my flight to Birmingham was supposed to depart. Forty minutes, at the Atlanta Airport, isn't very much time. Especially when you've got to wheel yourself from Concourse A to Concourse T, and that's the task I had before me. So bent was I on making my plane, that as I was jockeying for a place on that little subway train that moves you between Concourses, I locked eyes with a woman whose heart was also bent on the one (or two) spot(s) left on that train. With my eyes, I plainly told her, I am willing to fight you for this. If you want this spot, it's going to take a lot more from you than your kindergarten-grade intimidation tactics can accomplish. And, despite her fancy shoes and the superior attitude won for her by her shiny shiny hair, she stepped out of my way. And at that moment, I'd say she made a wise choice. Beware the Susanator. Especially on the Ides of March. Susan, armed with a wheelie and an entirely selfish mission, can be fearsome, I admit. Merrily, I sallied forth across an elderly English woman and a family of four as it dawned on me that I am, in fact, not as much of a weenie as I would allow myself (or other people) to admit. And perhaps (of course this is a stretch being that I'm just so darn sweet) I've misused some people in my life. And, frankly, I consider myself to be entirely justified, so long as they started it. This isn't how Jesus would behave in the airport. I'm starting to think that telling me what a weenie I am was a great way for Evil to hide from me what a weenie I'm not.

It will be interesting, for the next few weeks, to figure out where this ephiphanic episode will lead. In the meantime, enjoy the Violent Femmes.

and it's so profound

and I like its rhythm

and I like its sound

it's by a very famous poet

no critic can criticise

and then I pause a moment

and I start to realize

he's tellin'

lies lies lies...

The Violent Femmes

Turkish Delight

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a little book called The Blithedale Romance about an adventure he had as a young man on a socialist commune called Brook Farm. He devotes his entire introduction to a passionate denial that the story is written from personal experience, but no critic has ever believed him, especially in light of the fact that many of his characters bear an absolutely uncanny resemblance to the original inhabitants of Brook Farm. As you can imagine it would, the Brook Farm experiment ended rather badly when Hawthorne realized the sheer volume of work involved in running a farm and sued the collective for his original $400 "buy-in" amount. He won.

There is a passage describing a certain man, Hollingsworth, who has committed his life to the seemingly noble cause of reforming prisoners. His singular devotion to this "philanthropy" puzzles the other members of Blithedale, being that they intentionally left society to escape the influence of such men. Hawthorne describes him as having taken a turn from his originally honorable goal and become so bent on "proselytizing" others and recruiting them into his work that his ambitions have ceased to be commendable and have instead become patently evil at the core. Hawthorne goes so far as to refer to Hollingsworth's state of mind as the work of a Deceptive Devil. If you join such a man for the first phase of his journey but refuse to continue on with him for the second and third, Hawthorne explains, his hatred for you will not know bounds. He will consciously seek to work you woe and extract a heavy payment for your desertion. It's a rather chilling passage.

When I read Hawthorne, I often want to jump out of my chair and exclaim Eureka! This is it! This is the ideal explanation for the woes of the world around me! Never has the work of any writer been so validating to my own observations as is Hawthorne's, and this is the basis for my love affair. Hawthorne's description of Hollingsworth's "bent," as I've come to think of it, strikes me in such a way.

In a religious context, I've often met men like Hollingsworth. At first (or second or twentieth) meeting, I perceived them as possessing a winsome affection for the people associated with their Cause. They might, as Hollingsworth does, nurse the sick with great tenderness, but it will always be with the goal of proselytising effectively. Once won, these modern Hollingsworths will, by the power of their fickle affections, make you feel accepted and complete. This, they seem to say (indeed they do say) is where you belong. And you believe it. Because you want to. Because all your life you've been wanting to belong. This insidious need to Belong is the Turkish Delight of Man's days Here Below. Though it might be Heaven's relic designed to guide us homeward, its charm is strong and we can't resist gobbling up a counterfeit should we be so fortunate to find one. And once so settled, it is hard to perceive that we are now entirely converted and equally monomaniacal in our aim and purpose to convert, by any means necessary.

But Hope Enters, stage left, and with a little clay and a little spittle opens our eyes. For a moment, we perceive that we aren't home. Like the missionary who arrived at New York from a long African deployment at the same time as a President and wondered why the celebration wasn't his, we aren't Home yet. Earth doesn't satisfy. In fact, our souls are often wooed to the desert intentionally, so we won't be deceived into settling for the false and icy palace of a Snow Queen. I've found that at the moment of despair, Hope comes like a cheerful father wanting to whirl me around with my eyes closes. You would think, says Karen Peris, that Hope would be tired. But it's alright. And it leads you away from the familiar, out of the boat, out of a comfortable home and places you on a path to Heaven. Hope holds my hand. Hope shines the way. Out of the crowd of Hollingsworths, Hope draws me away.

This has been a hard year, or three years, actually. When I look at my face in the pictures from our vacation, I see the hardness etched on my face. But I look carefully, and I see Hope, underneath it all peeking out like a row of women welcoming a war ship with flags flying out of the mist of the Golden Gate Bridge. You would think now that Hope would be tired. You would think now that Hope would be ragged and Oil Brown. But, it's alright. It's alright.

Grumpy Old Hippies and Dim Sum for Two

I landed in Birmingham last night, safe and sound. My father picked my up from the airport and I came directly home to write a paper. I didn't wake up until about ten this morning. My brain is still on the West Coast floating down The Embarcadero barking with the seals, flying over Alcatraz Island and over the Golden Gate Bridge. I love California. I love the health food stores, the excercise, the bright bay air and the green-thinking people. I even love Southern California with the beautiful beaches and high-breaking waves. I love that the people in San Francisco don't do the Chicago Walk down the sidewalk. (Although I confess, I DO perform the Chicago Walk down the street in Birmingham, in San Francisco, in Seattle, in Chicago. It involves looking over the heads of the people pushing past you on the sidewalk toward the place you want to go and sallying forth without mercy. The cardinal rules are as follows: Don't make eye contact with anyone. Don't change course. Don't break stride. Ever.)

I have a lot to say about my experiences in Sunny San Francisco, which is, incedentally the most beautiful city I've ever visited. I'm a little tired right now, though, and I've got to go outside and tend to the patch of weeds we call a yard before David flies home on Friday. I've lots of pictures.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Wise old Uncle Nate.

The fibers and sinews of my brain are as limp and lifeless as soggy spaghetti. (And you can tell it's true because I just wrote that sentence.) For the past two days, I've closely read something like 10 of Nathaniel Hawthorne's shorter stories and essays, written a position paper and compiled some criticism for a graduate student-lead class that's going to take place on Wednesday. I'm loving being back in the classroom. It's been so long since I've had a conversation about literary criticism that I'd almost forgotten how useless it is, and how I love to discuss it. My mind is being scratched in places I didn't know it was itching.

I'm particularly loving Hawthorne. I don't think I've ever studied his work completely enough to realize how relevant it is to modern (neopuritanical) American culture. Here's an example. And here is an excerpt of my paper:

Here Hawthorne employs the curious appearance of a veiled Pastor Hooper not only as a metaphor for secret sin, but as a criticism of a pervasive Puritan culture that by a near monomaniacal quest for perceived piety would prevent Hooper from “showing his inmost heart” to his congregation, his “best-beloved,” or even to his God. It is the act of hiding sin, rather than the occasion of sin itself, Hawthorne implies, that forces such isolation upon the individual. By carrying these effects of latent sin in the form of a black veil, Hooper exemplifies to his nonplussed congregation the lonely consequence of proudly and intentionally obscuring personal shortcoming.

I'm not a theorist, but I love what Hawthorne is getting at here. When we hide our sin, we isolate ourselves. It's a theme I see over and over again in the work of the 19th Century masters, and it's something I'd love to think about more. There's something cleverly profound in Hawthorne's work that makes me think I've found a new favorite.

Ugh.

I wish I didn't enjoy blogging so much. If I didn't, I'm sure I would quit. I think that for every ten blog entries I write, I have to explain, or defend, at least one. (I'm sure that Brian T. Murphy is even less a stranger to that phenomenon!) And sometimes, even I can see several meanings for one sentence and I realize that defense is futile. Thus was the case with my last post, so I killed it.

And now, with 150 pages of Hawthorne waiting to be read, I'll check out of here for today. Public Library, here I come. But, take heart, I'm sure that my desire to share the adventures of my first day of school as an Old Woman will best my desire to just buy a notebook for Pete's sake.

Rachel Ray: Perky Demented Food Chipmunk

What we need is a PUNK REVOLUTION!

Yesterday, I saw a Husker Du sticker on a Volvo stationwagon and just like that, I was again a twelve-year-old girl in the back of a 1988 Honda Civic hatchback on a fall afternoon. I remember the smell of horse (the smell of my childhood) on the saddle-blanket I was sitting on, and clinging to my best friend Erin as her older brother took too many turns too fast on the way home from the barn. Randall was a senior at Indian Springs that year, and he was determined to work some kind of corrupting influence on his little sister and her friend in revenge for being forced to pick them up. Listen to this, he said, and pushed a tape into the player.


What came out of the speakers and rattled the windows of that little car was Husker Du and Eight Miles High. I was consumed with terror, nausea and elation as I experienced my first taste of American hardcore punk rock. Certainly,this was forbidden territory for a sixth-grader at Briarwood Christian School and surely I was among some bad people. I was thrilled to near-death. This, I remember thinking to myself, is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. I didn't know Black Flag from Bad Brains, Husker Du from a hole in the wall, but I knew that I had learned something about myself and I knew that I couldn't tell anyone at school about it.

Over the years, I slowly figured out how British punk had given way to American Hardcore and learned to love bands from the post-punk era like Mission of Burma, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxie and the Banshees, U2, PiL and The Church. As I got older, I loved The Cure, The Smiths, Sonic Youth and REM. Now, when I hear people talk about U2, I laugh. Your U2 isn't my U2, I want to say. I hid this obsession with "secular music" (you've got to screw your nose up to pronounce that correctly) until I got caught buying Disintegration in Turtles when I was on a Briarwood Raiders outing. My Raiders leader told my mom I wasn't "walking with the Lord." My mom told her off. And I went back to my closet obsession.

Now, when I think about fall, I think about Husker Du and I laugh to myself about how long ago this music was popular. When I hear young musicians talking about their influences, I get that weird feeling that I'm utterly out of my era. Sure, I like Patty Griffin. Ryan Adams isn't half bad on a slow day. And I can get into Reg's Coffeehouse, but nothing, no nothing, blows my doors off like Husker Du on a bright blue morning.

Oy. Oy. Oy.

Sweetness Follows

Readying to bury your father and your mother,

what did you think when you lost another?

I used to wonder why did you bother,

distanced from one, blind to the other.

But sweetness follows.

Listen here my sister and my brother

what would you care if you lost the other?

I always wonder why did we bother,

distanced from one, blind to the other.

But sweetness follows.

It's these little things, they can pull you under.

Live your life filled with joy and wonder.

I always knew this altogether thunder

was lost in our little lives.

But sweetness follows.

We Will All Go Together When We Go: Or, One Night in Manchester

Sometimes, I have a rare sort of emotional rumbling best described as a belonging feeling. I've had no more than seven or so during my life on earth, and they always mark some kind of momentous occasion. Like most of life's momentous occasions, I don't recognize them as particularly momentous until their memories have gone soft and sepia in the rock-turner of my mind. It's too early to tell, but I think I might have had such a moment on Saturday night at the Cracker Barrel in Manchester, Tennessee.

I was standing by a display of pumpkin-and-vine dishware when a six-and-a-half-foot man dressed in a polyester leopard print shirt loosely laced from his navel to his Adam's apple wove past a cotton-haired lady in a brown apron toward the hostess station. I'm not sure he could have drawn more eyes if he had come walking in arm-in-arm with a camel in hot-pants, but I am sure he left plenty of dropped toothpicks in his wake as the vast variety of assembled Bubbas stopped to stare, mouths yawning in shock and glee, as they struggled to discern an appropriate insult to whisper amongst themselves. The man didn't seem to notice that the narrow aisle between the jar candles and old-fashioned candy had become his catwalk as he pranced past the appliqued t-shirts in his own personal pride parade. This, I thought to myself, is going to be interesting. And it was. This evening, it seems, was destined to be a foray into the surreal.

It wasn't long after we sat down that I saw a tall gray man walk past the window. He wouldn't have been particularly interesting if it hadn't been for his flat-top haircut and his shirt sleeves. It seems that the sleeves of his white button-up had been cut and hemmed until they were only about two inches long. His jeans were rolled up to reveal white socks in brown dress shoes. I caught his message. This, he seemed to say, was who I was. It was me who picked your daughter up in a '55 Ford and made doughnuts in your soybean field. When my mother-in-law's huge blue eyes got a few times larger, I just looked back at her and said, Nice. Which is what I say when something is either not nice at all, or when I just don't know what else will fit.

Soon, a white Ford 250 pulled up and an entire family rolled out into the parking lot. The two women had masses of hair flowing down their backs past the elastic waistbands of their skirts. I call this particular kind of people Churchagods, because that's usually where you can find them on Sunday mornings. (It's at this moment that I want to be able to write something witty about them. I want to be able to make some kind of remark about this kind of subordination--do they feel subordinated?-- of women, that will make you laugh and dissipate some of the internal tension I feel when I try to write about them. There was a time when I stood before a group of people and pledged to submit myself to the all-male leadership of a church. In retrospect, I am altogether embarrassed to remember this moment. I wonder if, even for a moment, we stop and realize what it is we're actually doing when, as women, we do that?) So, this is all somewhat of an aside, but when I saw these women walk in, I started having that belonging feeling and I started to realize why.

I thought about the man in the leopard shirt and I wondered if it's hard to be gay, and not only gay, but OBVIOUSLY, FLAMINGLY, HOMOSEXUAL in a small Tennessee town. I imagine he's built up a kind of toughness that would easily surpass that of my friend in the cut-off sleeves. What must it be to be like that? What must it be to be the object of attention always? And then, I remembered that Little Richard (yes, that Little Richard) lives just down the road. And I thought it interesting that he would choose to return to his small Tennessee town. And I don't have an answer for this mystery other than that it is some sort of mystery that not belonging sometimes feels comfortable. So, it becomes clear to me: the feeling of belonging comes from a shared feeling of not belonging. Not belonging in your body, not belonging in your era, not belonging in your church, and not belonging, ultimately, on this planet. So, I think my point isn't that I am weird, but that we all are. Like puzzle pieces, we fit together in our differences. And the image that I'm left with is that of an entire nation of weirdos struggling together to find a normal that doesn't really exist.

On a Happier Note...

I start school on Monday. My parents baby-sat Corduroy this weekend so that I could have one last swimming weekend in Tennessee. In addition to T.S. Stribling's autobiography (!!!!!) , my mother-in-law gave me two giant Pink Pearl erasers. I kind of have a thing for Pink Pearl erasers. She offered me two zebra erasers, but I'm an Old Fashioned girl. Abby gave me a folder with puppies on it and four animal pencils that I can't wait to sharpen. David bought me a binder with flowers on it, lots of quad-ruled filler paper and a composition book (also quad-ruled)!!! I could die in school-supply heaven.

I've also been given some good advice like that from Amanda who said "Don't be that old student who makes everyone stay late." I have to admit, I probably will be.

Though my body is twenty-nine (or thirty) though my mind is an old thing, I am always beginning the world. Karen Peris

Update on Corduroy, Part Two

Corduroy's electrocardiogram showed a beautiful heart thumping bravely and regularly. The veterinarian, Dr. Ingrid Straeter-Knowlen, is also an M.D. who taught at U.A.B. medical school until she decided to see animals full-time. (And you can't blame her, can you?) She recently did the heart transplant on Babec the silver-back gorilla at the Birmingham Zoo. Unfortunately, Babec died, but he was a very old gorilla. All that to say, I felt pretty confident in Dr. Straeter-Knowlen's ability to examine one red Golden Retriever.

Dr. Straeter felt that Corduroy has a fungal infection, so we were back to our regular clinic that afternoon for a fungal titer and a round of anti-fungal medication. Fortunately, the survival rate for dogs in good health with fungal infections is almost 85% with treatment. Unfortunately, the treatment is not inexpensive. We should have the results of the blood tests by Wednesday and we're headed back to the vet this afternoon for another ultra-sound and some additional blood work. If the fungal titer comes back negative, we'll do a auto-immune panel to determine if Corduroy has some kind of auto-immune disorder. (I think the prognosis for those disorders is not good.)

If you have a minute, please pray that Corduroy's white blood cell count will be down and her red blood cell count will be up.

We Smiths feel hopeful. Corduroy feels tired of going to the vet and I can't say I feel any differently. I'm grateful for the great care of this small army of vets. I don't think I get better medical care than they are providing.

Update on my Little Red Friend

Corduroy had the second series of x-rays today. When the sweet vet came back into the room, I could tell by the look on her face that things were pretty bad. Corduroy's spleen looked enlarged and her bloodwork came back worse than it had been before. She prepared me for the worst to occur in short order. David came from work to help make the decision. The vet ordered an abdominal ultrasound just to verify what she felt confident of seeing on the film.



Fortunately (and maybe miraculously) Corduroy's spleen looked normal on the ultrasound. However, the problem of white blood cells (way too many) and red blood cells (way too few) remains, so tomorrow, we're going to a vetrinary cardiologist for a thoracic electrocardiogram. We're praying not to find a tumor of the heart.



Things are not good for Team Smith. We are sad. We're not ready for our friend to go.



The only thing I don't like about dogs is that they never ever last long enough.

A Weekend Happening

Last Saturday, David and I went to the downtown library. Doing so is a simple pleasure in which we often indulge. There's something about all of that information, categorized and numbered and read and treasured and useful forever that makes me feel civlilzed. Intellegent. Hopeful that I, too, can grasp education and self-improvement with the aid of that universal passport, the Library Card.

As we crossed the parking lot, a wizened man shot toward us like some kind of black rocket intent on shaking us down for a few quarters. "Help an old nigger out." he said. David and I cringed, humiliated by the painful surrealism of being two white people in a nice car being panhandled by an old black man in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. "I'll get down on my knees." As he stooped to do so, David grabbed his arm and set him on his feet. I was thankful. At that moment, I couldn't have stood it. This city breathes history from every storm drain. Like coal dust and foundry soot and iron ore, we'll never cast off the scars of freedom riders and firehoses and police dogs. We'd never be allowed even if we could.

When I saw how the heat beat his head mercilessly and recognized his t-shirt from a formal I attended something like ten years ago, the desire to ease this man's burden pressed my heart into turning his scarred hand over and pouring the meager contents of my wallet into his upturned palm. As I did, I put my hand underneath his to steady its shaking and because I somehow wanted to cover those track marks so Jesus wouldn't see. I don't know where my head was. "Heal it from the inside out," I whispered to myself in case heaven was listening. Of course, at that moment, I knew where my quarters would end up. For some reason, I didn't care. I just wanted to make it better for him even if it meant staving off nighttime for a moment or two. Afterwards, he rocketed off to parts unknown for purposes certain.

Ironically, we returned to the library the next day. As we pulled (in our nice car) underneath the electronic gate to the parking lot, a black rocket man popped up outside David's window. "Help an old nigger out," he sang. "We went through this yesterday, remember?" David replied, "And we don't have any more quarters." At that moment, a muscular black security guard emerged from the air conditioning and expelled the man from the parking lot with a shaking fist and a harsh voice. "You the niggers!" shouted the ousted man. "You the white folk, niggers!" he said as he rounded the corner and out of sight. With lowered heads,we went inside.

As we drove home, we talked about who we are and what we do. We counted our blessings, realizing all the while that we can't help who we are any more than we could change our race or erase the reality of our privileged childhoods. We just are. Blessed and grateful, but are just the same. So, home we drove, past the men sleeping in Brother Bryan Park. Past the men and women standing waiting for supper at Highlands Methodist Church. Past Chez Fon Fon and Starbucks and the health food store. Home. Where we belong.

For Gene

Phoenix

Everyone who knew me before 9-11 thinks I'm dead. Sometimes, I wonder if they're right. In the evening when the sun sinks pink and the katy-dids start up, I sit on my front porch and think about that mystery: If every living link to your past thinks you're dead, can you really be alive? Sometimes, after a few drinks, I start believing that maybe I'm just writing now to satisfy some Celestial Jury in whose hands my Eternal Destiny has been placed. When I was little, I saw some movie on television about people who died and spent a week in heaven waiting on their final judgement. They rode on those open-door trains like you ride on in the parking lot at Disney. You know, the ones who are driven by the perky teenagers in flip-collard Polo shirts and white tennis shoes? If one of those things pulled up right now, I couldn't claim to be all that surprised.

If I had the chance to recast the past six years, I might. But then again, I've always heard the voice of destiny pushing me just this way. Destiny speaks with a voice you can't resist, even when you realize it might need a little help to keep turning the wheels it put in motion for you.

Far Too Close to the Bone

Corduroy Dog was sick this week. And not just a little bit. I plied her with scrambled eggs, lamb chops, turkey, peanut butter, leftover meatloaf, ham, hoagies, Parmesan and special (extra yummy, they say) dog food, but she only ate three bites in two days. She drank water, but couldn't keep it down. When we left the vet on Monday morning, I had to stoop and lift her compliant body into the car. Even her fur looked sick. Finally, her temperature is back to normal and she ate five hamburger buns, a chicken breast, seven green beans and a lamb chop before going to sleep last night. When she's finished her antibiotic, we'll go back to the clinic to have another x-ray and an ultrasound to determine if some suspicious-looking patches on her lungs are cancer or snot. Cancer or snot. That could be a metaphor for life. When we have bad things happen to us, we've just got to wait and see if they'll turn out to be cancer or snot.

Snot, of course, isn't pleasant and it can make us feel as if we're dying. But in the end, it's only snot, and when the ragweed dies or the virus runs its course, we'll be back to normal. Cancer, on the other hand, has to be dealt with aggressively and with determination to be cured. If it can be cured at all. I realize that what I've been dealing with for the past few months, that black cloud that's been over my head as I dwell contentedly in the quotidian* below, is probably cancer. I think my prognosis is good and my will to survive is strong, but it's going to take some effort to fully recover. I see signs of life when I realize I still do love people who I can't talk to anymore and when I realize that the hope that died has been replaced by a new hope I hold for myself.

When I went to Montevallo to register yesterday, there was hope. When I realize that the life I always wanted is starting to bloom around me, there was hope. When I realize that I'm still able to talk to God and that I still want to be part of a church family, there is hope. In spite of everything, while I no longer believe** people are good at heart (or anywhere else for that matter), I realize I'm still going to be able to love some of them and walk with some of them as a part of a church. And that, perhaps, is the greatest miracle of my life.

*The word quotidian is one of my new favorites. Elizabeth Dewberry used it in an interview I read recently (wow, Elizabeth Dewberry has had her business on the Internet lately!) when she was discussing her relationship to then-husband Robert Olen Butler. "But what I needed to know," she said, "Was how we would manage in the quotidian." It was so delightfully pretentious that I had to claim it as my own.

**Among the things I no longer believe are the notions that we were created to suffer and that God derives some twisted pleasure from seeing us thrown under the wheels of life. I don't know why I feel the need to add that. Perhaps it's because those ideas are also cancerous.

***It's sad that I make footnotes for my blog. I wonder what my thesis (which, by the way, I have to start working on NEXT SEMESTER!!!!!) will look like. I think I have a sad little footnoted brain.

Montevallo Confederation

Since David and I moved to Southside, we've noticed that a startling number of our dearest friends were students at the University of Montevallo. This afternoon, I was informed that I'll be joining their number later this month. This is a huge redemption for me. God is faithful to me.
WOOT!
Go ANGRY TEAPOTS!!!

The Thunder Storm

Today, I remembered that Friederich Burgmuller is good therapy. When I play alone, I sing along. One of my very favorite Burgmuller pieces is called "Ballade." When I play it I sing "NowI'mveryangry. NowI'mveryangry. Ha. Ha. Now I'm GLAAAAD!!! I'm GLAAAAAAAD!" (Here's a video of a little girl playing it, so that you can sing at home, too. Try it. It's good for you.)

My poor little piano hasn't been so abused in its entire life. I love my piano lessons because my teacher has an elegant grand piano that makes a beautiful sound--much better than my little spinet. Sometimes, my teacher plays her little digital piano and I play the big piano and we play duets. I love to see how loud I can make her piano get. I feel that if my piano was a person, she'd be a little old lady named Dottie and she would say, Do you have to mash my pedals so hard, sugar? My piano teacher's piano would be a man in a tuxedo named Captain Picard and he would probably, in an English accent, make fun of how poorly I play. Frankly, I find your Beethoven to be a bit twee, he would say. And I would say Shut up, Captian Picard, or I'm gonna mash your pedals.


P.S. They say that if you look into a mirror and say "Bloody Burgmuller" three times, a little Asian lady will creep up behind you and play a duet with you! I can't wait to try it.

“Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religiouscomplexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In itsstead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activitieswhich occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and theservile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testifythat we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcelyat all. If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must firstdetermine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as alwaysGod discovers Himself to “babes” and hides Himself in thick darkness from thewise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. Wemust strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). Wemust put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor ofchildhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond. When religionhas said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. Theevil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in fullrevelation. In the “and” lies our great woe. If we omit the “and”, we shall soonfind God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives beensecretly longing.” A W Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 1948

She's Filled With Secrets!

I've been writing a lot lately. I'm trying to put together some coherent body of work to use as a pole-vault to another goal. It's the dirt-work, if you will, of a greater ambition. It's good for me. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. And most of all, it makes me feel connected with other art. And that makes me feel alive. This weekend, David and I went to the Carver Theater to see the short films made as a part of the Sidewalk Scramble for the Sidewalk Film Festival. To be honest, we only went because our friend Jason had edited one of the films, but we ended up enjoying ourselves immensely.

This year, scramble participants based their five-minute films on the work of a particular director (Quentin Tarintino, Sofia Coppola, David Lynch, M. Night Shyamalan and Woody Allen), an assigned phrase and a particular object. With two exceptional exceptions (Jason's film and an interesting tale of corporate evil called "Branded") the Tarintino and Shyamalan imitations weren't very notable. Woody Allen had a good representation in a film called "Cutting Teeth." But my favorite films were based on those directed by David Lynch. Most of the directors had the same idea in copping the backwards-talking dwarf from "Twin Peaks," but one in particular had an irregular dream scene (what is a regular dream?) and even a reference to Garmonbozia! (You're gonna have to find out on your own. I really don't think I can explain it, except for that in my mind, it's going to be HARMONbozia from now on!)

Last night, I even had a dream about the Twin Peaks dwarf. He shuffled into our bedroom and said "This is where the pies go to die."

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Suicide...Lite

Sometimes, when people talk to me about theology, I want to kill myself a little bit.

Sad. Sad. Sad. And True.

The Artist in the Art

Boom-Go-Round, Remy Hanemann (At the Harleyville Project)

This is a photograph from the Matthew Marks Gallery. (That's Nan Goldin's gallery representation in the U.S.)

I had an opportunity to see an exhibit of photographs by Nan Goldin at the Chicago Institute of Art back in November. I didn't like them. I dismissed her work as cheap porn shot in "available light." Her work is cheap porn shot in "available light." Some critics are quick to point out that she used a slideshow exhibition because museums and galleries weren't really interested in photography back in the late seventies when she began to work, and she could exhibit a slideshow in indie film festivals. I think that's silly. I think she exhibited her work at little sticky-floored porn theaters. I didn't know anything about Nan Goldin back in November. I know a little bit more now.

She describes her work best: Every time I go through something scary, traumatic, I survive by taking pictures. You also help other people to survive. Memory about them does not disappear, because they are on your pictures. It is about keeping a record of the lives I lost, so they cannot be completely obliterated from memory. My work is mostly about memory. It is very important to me that everybody that I have been close to in my life I make photographs of them. Because these pictures are not about statistics, about showing people die, but it is all about individual lives. In the case of New York, most creative and freest souls in the city died. New York is not New York anymore. I've lost it and I miss it. They were dying because of AIDS.

It makes sense to me now. I get it. In that exhibit, I saw pictures of beaten women, dying men, people in the shower, people having sex. She even took pictures of herself having sex. In a sense, she made a record of her life in photographs. And then, she shared her life in whatever way she could. Perhaps, and this is where I could go off the existential rails, she thought she would cease to exist if she couldn't show her work somewhere. Anywhere. I still don't like Nan Goldin's work. Sorry.

This makes me wonder about what draws us to art in the first place. I consider the work of two artists I admire. One of them made beautiful sculptures in public places. He made iron reflect the sky and interact with the environment in which it was placed. I don't know him, though. I just know his work. And I like it. Another, makes art from iron scrap that looks like various weapons of mass destruction. He makes crazy little bombs and missiles and adds wheels and tires and propellers. What he ends up with are wonky little vehicles that look like toys (if toys could blow up and kill you.) I like his work. But, I also like him. So, is it possible that I like his work because I like him? Can the two be separated? I'm not sure. It might be that this is a conundrum even more readily applied to writers. Maybe.

You know who I don't like? Thomas Pynchon. I think he's having a big laugh at us. Somewhere, nobody seems to know where, Tomas Pynchon is sitting in a fancy living room drinking Courvoisier giggling at all the academics pretending to get his work. The joke is that there's really nothing to get. Sometimes, the emperor really is naked. But then again, I've never read an interview with Pynchon. I've never seen a picture of him. He's never given any explination of his work. So, I look at it in a vacuum and I hate it. But would I hate it if I really liked him? I don't know.

How much of who I am goes into what I do? Can something be just craft, or do we fingerprint things in an unavoidable way for better or for worse? Is art really art if you don't know the artist? (And wow, could I go off on the theology of that. )

The Flotsam and Jetsam of a Life

November 1976: A Little Girl's Answered Prayer

January 1986: The Restlessness to Come/An Explosion in the Sky

September 1995: The Ugly Ducking Deceives Herself By Finding Something True

December 1999: The End of Something Big/The Despised Day of Small Things

September 2001: The Confusion to Come / An Explosion in the Sky

October 2002: Resolution

May 2003: Confirmation of a Course

February 2005: The Green Green Rabbit Trail to Boneyard Beach

Let's Encyclopedia Brown This..Ahem...And Some Random Observations

I just saw 1408. I was the only person in the theater. I was so frightened that when it was over, I grabbed my bag and ran out of the theater waving my arms like a little kid playing Red Rover. Someone somewhere is laughing at the security tape of me sucking my thumb and running out of there. This movie is worth the $$ to watch in the theater.


Here are some things I've been thinking this week as I've been watching the Operation Rescue people protest. I haven't seen any NOW protesters. I heard that OR picketed Briarwood on Sunday and told the Birmingham News that they had permission from "a senior pastor." That turned out to be a lie, however, and apparently, no one from Briarwood was at all thrilled or inspired (to anything other than irritation) about the protest. This reinforces my belief that these people are crazy and tend to play a little loose with the truth. I'm also hearing that my neighbors who were actually here for the Eric Robert Rudolph bombing (it was about 5 blocks away from here) are a little traumatized by all the hoopla happening this week. And so am I, actually. Anyway...here's some randomness.

I'm starting to believe that the end of the world might actually be near. I see the harbingers of that great Apocalypse in Revelation. And they aren't in the candidacy of Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton. They're in the church, in our homes, in the heart of Christians. Perhaps the black doom I've been taught to watch for on the news and in Supreme Court opinions has been hiding in the church all this time. "We're Christians!" We say. But we don't read the scriptures. We don't speak to God. We don't believe in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We don't believe in anything but "Social Justice." And the problem is that we don't even believe in that.

Yesterday, I saw a woman blowing a ram's horn by the fountain on Five Points. This is a battle cry to end abortion! She said. I saw little children leaning over a wall at Vulcan Park holding a banner with a picture of an aborted baby for passers-by to see. End abortion now! And, I realize that this is the way the world has always been. Mothers have always sacrificed their babies to idols whether it be Molech or college. This is nothing new. What's new, I reason, is the flaccid response of the manic Christians who drive their cars with their pro-life bumper stickers and take pictures of grief-stricken teenagers being hauled into abortion clinics so they can post them on their blogs. The evil in America is us. The evil in America isn't the New World Order. The evil in America is us. And I feel crazy creeping through the streets like the black plague.


I need Jesus to return to save me. I need him to save me from sin. I need him to save me from Hell. I need him to save me from you. I need him to save me from myself before this world makes me stark raving mad.

T Minus 30 Years: Houston, We Have Liftoff

I always cry when I see yellow footage of the Apollo launches. It's something about American hope during that era. Maybe it grew from success in a collective push to defeat the common evil of Soviet communism. Maybe it grew from the naive ideas that America would always be for Americans, that our destructive impulses could never compete with Nature's power to heal itself, and that our consumer urge was propelling us toward greatness like a Saturn V rocket. Anyway, it makes me emotional. We don't hope like that anymore.

In my favorite view of what I think was Apollo 8, you can see the towers that tether the rocket to the launch pad give way in succession as the rocket rises toward the Wild Black Yonder in a cloud of fire and ice and steam. I don't know what those towers are called. My father-in-law, who is a genuine rocket scientist, does. To me, those towers represent fear. If my life were a Saturn V rocket, I would be prepared for liftoff.

If I were to name five of my greatest fears, I would realize that each one of them has come to fruition over the course of the past few weeks. I've faced demons and giants that have haunted me for years in a very narrow span of time. I've found them to be every bit as daunting as I imagined them to be, but I conquered them all. I'm left in the rather uncomfortable place of being without excuse. There really isn't anything left to dread. Of course,there are always unexpected disasters, but the old mountains, the really old demons, the fears I've treasured and fed and cherished all my life are conquered. I think there might be nothing left to do but launch.

And yeah, I editied this a lot. My previous draft really, really frightened me. And I try not to scare myself.

Listen to the Mandolin Rain

So, Bob Riley asked Alabamians to pray for rain. And it did. And it has been ever since. And all the grass on my street is growing tall, but no body can mow it. Because it won't stop raining. All of my roses are going to bloom again. My tomatoes are blooming again. My allergies are acting up again because everything is growing tall and green under the rain.

And I admit, I was as cynical as everyone else. I'm starting to really believe that God could do any miracle you can think of for everyone to see and if you didn't believe in him already, you wouldn't then either.

Susan Returns to the Piano

So, this is kind of embarrassing, but one night I was sitting at home and the little Story and Clark piano that sits against the wall in the living room said "Hey Chick. What am I here for?" So, I called Miss Jane, my piano teacher from childhood and she started giving me lessons. I have my lesson right before a very tiny girl with a giant music bag and uneven ponytails. I love her and I would like to keep her, but she loves her parents. She can play the piano better than I can.

I am trying to make my out-of-practice fingers play a song called "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" by Michael Nyman. They are struggling. They hurt and rebel, but they are starting to remember how to play. I admire people who can play the piano very well. I would like to be able to play as well as Bruce Hornsby. My fingers say I've missed my chance, if I ever had one. My piano says thanks for the attention. It hasn't been played regularly in something like 40 years.

Here is a video of that song. It was in the movie, The Piano.

Stay Home, Southsiders!

So, Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue, I think?) will be protesting the Planned Parenthood on Highland and New Woman, All Women Clinic on Southside (the one that Eric Robert Rudolph blew up) this weekend and next week.

The National Organization for Women will be protesting the protesters.

I think I will not be leaving the house. New Woman, All Women is a creepy place. I wouldn't take Corduroy Dog to a vet that looks like that. Every now and then, someone comes out of there on a stretcher and gets taken away in an ambulance with their medical charts pinned to their shirt. It is disturbing. Another thing that is disturbing about abortion clinics in Birmingham is that they kind of have a tendency to screw-up abortions. Operation Save America kind of creeps me out too, or at least Operation Rescue did. NOW also creeps me out. This is going to be a pretty creepy weekend, altogether.

Maybe we could get NAMBLA and PETA and James Dobson and Pat Robertson, too. It could be Birmingham's First Annual Convention on Crazy. Our entire city council could be some of the featured speakers. Valerie Abbot could give a speech about why she doesn't care about the crack houses in Southside, but writes silly letters to national chapters of silly fraternities when their members leave beer bottles in the yards of their unofficial houses. I always get so excited when we can entertain the nation with our crazy Southern antics. Let's ketch us a rattlesnake. I hear them fat uns fries up nice.

Oh, and if anyone can tell me WHAT is going on in that video clip on the OSA blog, I'd appreciate it.

UPDATE: Alabama’s favorite Senator, Hank Erwin and Alabama’s favorite Judge, Roy Moore will be speaking during our Thursday evening rally, July 19, 2007. I think an artery to my brain popped loose just now. Hank Erwin actually had an hour-long discussion on his radio program about women and tattoos. The question was "Can a woman with a tattoo be a godly woman?" People were fired up.

UPDATE AGAIN: When you get tired of Saving America, you can Save Wal-Mart! It's the same organization!

I'm done. For real. (If you subscribe to this blog, do you get an e-mail every time I update? If so, I'm sorry.)

Redemption for Rice

Some of the best advice I ever got regarding books and reading was from Mrs. Janney in the eighth grade. Read the first fifty pages before you make a judgement, she said. I still follow this rule. Last week, I read the first fifty pages of two of Anne Rice's vampire novels. I didn't finish either. Now, I know some people really love her books and, I admit, her attention to historical detail is meritorious. But, frankly, I think they might be harbingers of the Fall of the Western World. Seriously. When the appetite of the American reader is so easily whetted by the skillful substitution of superfluous erotica for good writing, the end is near.

So, I don't know why I stared Christ the Lord. I certainly didn't expect to finish, and I wasn't sure I could suffer fifty pages. But what I found in those first fifty pages, and in the two hundred sixty-nine to follow, was a work of art. There were times during my read (which took place in one spot on my comfy leather sofa over a period of a day and a half) when I had to remind myself that I wasn't reading the inspired Word. It is a craftsman's book, written by a skilled master of the language and capable of opening a hole in the head of the reader to expose her to a side of reality not previously considered. Rice writes the childhood of Christ, detailing how he came to discover his divinity as his ability to understand the will of God developed. Up until now, the best answer I had for the question all of us must ask (How did Jesus know?) was something like "Well, how did you know you were a girl?" I finally feel I have some sort of a real answer.

In the portrait of a very real boy, I saw a glimpse of divinity and gained a sense of the wonder of the Nativity that I hadn't considered. That God would make his son venture to earth as a baby and trust him to the care of ordinary people is more amazing to me then ever. To me, this fact dignifies the human condition in a way we long for. It purges the last hint of gnosticism from the religious ambrosia I've been concocting unknown all these years. Christ came to earth as a Child. A gift of God to be nurtured and cared for by ordinary people. To me, this is as much evidence of the love of God for his creation as Christ's eventual death on the cross. Rice offers a precious gift with her story of a boy-Christ growing in wisdom and knowledge. Come and wonder with me, she says, knowing as only a lover of Christ could know what joy comes from the contemplation of the greatest mystery of all: Christ came. Christ died. Christ will come again.

I wrote many novels without my being aware that they reflected my quest for meaning in a world without God. Anne Rice

Also Tune In When....

Susan meets Beau Guff Stuff A Son and prays he doesn't make her look like a tool. (I am comforted by the fact that no one on his website looks like a tool...except for maybe the baby in a bucket. I don't want to be photographed in a bucket. Perhaps I can avoid this.)

edit: No bucket.

Tune in next week when....

Susan goes to Becker Iron & Metal looking for interesting scrap iron! AND, ruins (if "ruins" means "to make authentic and 89% more cool by dirtying up and banging around") her extra stompie Frye Boots!

Good Evening, My Nemesis

I came home from the library with Louis Theroux's new book Call of the Weird. Theroux is a documentary maker from the BBC who has developed some kind of fascination with American Weirdness. This book is a follow-up to his series of documentary-ettes called Louis Theroux: Weird Weekends. Of course, I was compelled to dive in immediately, so I made a cup of coffee and sat on the porch to read. (It occurs to me that only a weird person would drag coffee out on an Alabama porch in the summertime.)

I looked up just in time to make out a familiar figure walking up the steps to the house next door. I couldn't resist. Laura, I said. Are you looking for your cat? She told me that her cat had gone missing when she had to go away. I assured her that her cat, albeit now the baby-mama of some wild ghetto kittens, was fine. The neighbors had been feeding her. She was relieved and walked down the street to find her.

She looked good. Beautiful even. A little less emaciated, still thin. Shiny hair. A denim skirt with a white t-shirt and a belt and espadrilles. Lipstick. She wouldn't have looked out of place at the Big Church on Sunday, but I'm willing to bet she would have felt it. You look good, Laura, I said. She told one of my neighbors that she'd been in rehab. I can't think she has been there nearly long enough, though. She's living downtown, now, with the same boyfriend. The cynic in me thinks she's clean for a week or two, but I hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be it for Laura. Godspeed, Girl. Angels on your body.

It comes at a weird time for me. Someone in the neighborhood set up a Google group for the folks living down on 15th Avenue. It got pretty popular pretty fast, and now there are something like 80 members of which I am one. These are some strange folks. Mostly upper-middle class, many yankees, most democrats. I'm not sure why they're here, though. Most of them seem to hate the Southside. The buzz of the past month has been about a house at the end of the street occupied by a group of fraternity boys from UAB. Or, more specifically, the beer bottles they leave in the yard, the window they broke the "illegal" fence they erected and the "party basement" they are building. (Just how the posters know about their basement is unclear.) Let's make a petition, one poster implores us, to get RID OF THEM! I have an image in my mind of a reality show: Survivor Southside! Better pick up your trash, or your neighbors will VOTE YOU OFF THE STREET! It sours my stomach. It literally makes me want to thump somebody. Right up a side of they head, if you know what I mean.

I want to reply to their posts, but I'm not sure how much difference it would make to them that I would literally have to walk past four crackhouses to get from my house to the frat house and we live about 300 yards apart. (Not to mention the felony sex offenders.) I want to hold their faces under water for just a minute and say You KNEW this wasn't a nice neighborhood when you MOVED here. WHY EXACTLY DO YOU STAY? It's the Paris Hilton scandal of the neighborhood and the "media" can't leave it alone to cover, for one measly minute, the fact that every night of the year someone is cooking a fix under a bush somewhere on their street. I don't think there was this much reaction when the police found a murder victim in the alley behind their houses.

This makes me think of the marvellous idea someone had to move here and plant a church for the city! For Southside! We'll LOVE our neighbors! What a bunch of naive crackers we turned out to be. What a colossal failure. The best of my life.

Iron Pour P.S.

And yes. It's true. David and I participated in our FIRST IRON POUR on Sunday. So, of course, there is more to follow about that. And of course, my hubby is HOT in welding leathers and a hard hat. Handling molten iron. Whew. (Even my friends said so.)

Two Faces Have I

All of the art I've wanted to make lately has had some sort of dual nature. Some sort of perfection contrasted with some kind of deformity. I'm dreaming of a perfect wing and a broken wing. I'm thinking of an angel's face with a scar running down the middle. My next sculpture is going to be a tree with a broken limb. An iron tree. That's a contradiction in itself, maybe.


I'm a creature of contradictions. I guess we all are. Something in me wants to bring evil to myself. I want to eat too much. I want to drink too much. I want to watch too much television. And that's a good day. Sometimes, I want to get in the car and just drive till I can't anymore. At the same time, something in me really wants to take two handfuls of life. I want to do art. I want to write. I want to be with friends. I want to celebrate my marriage. I want to pray. As I walk this path, I pray that Jesus will draw me to the life. I pray that he will save me from the dark. It scares me to admit that there is something inside of me that wants to kill me. But, I know it won't. It can't. Maybe that's what this "being saved" is about. Saved from hell? Sure. Maybe even better, though, is being saved from that three-stranded evil (flesh, devil, sin) that's wrapped around my soul. Saved. Delivered. Entirely. No matter how hard I try, I can't won't kill myself. But I might always want to.

I think I've really grasped life twice in my life. The first time was when I begged God to save me. The second time was when I married David. I want to live. And I want to live abundantly. I have life and death set before me. I choose life. Now, I pray I'll be able to make the little lifeward movements my everyday existence requires. As a habit and a way of being.

Amen.

Hey Little Bird, Fly Away Home. Your House is on Fire and Your Children are Burning.

The world is on fire. The smell of burning timber from South Georgia, East Alabama, and Central Florida has made a home in the Jones Valley and obscures the buildings and the television towers, Sloss Furnace and the far side of the Valley. I can't see farther than about 11th Avenue. The smoke is in my hair and eyes and it burns my nose when I have to go outside. David and I visited the Okefenokee Swamp something like four years ago this summer. I don't like the idea of the cypress and cedar and lilies and mosses burning, burning, burning all through the days and into the nights. We need some rain. Please God, we need some rain.

Lately, I've had the idea that something is very very wrong with the world. The very things that make us human, or at least remind us that we are, are missing. We don't talk like humans. We don't eat like humans. We don't love like humans. We don't fight like humans. This is a nation of automatons fighting over half-million dollar houses in manicured neighborhoods still longing for something. We bow to the idols of religion and community when what we need are friends. Perforate community and put it on a roll. What I need is one good friend. Or two. In this respect, I am a wealthy woman.

Blackberries Grow on My Grave

So, it's been a while since my last update. Several of the happenings of the last 19 days beg to be remembered, but I'll focus on one. Last weekend, we went to an iron pour at Sloss. It was the culmination of one of the summer's first open studio sessions, and there were something like ten artists actually suited-up and pouring. There were also a handful of Old People who had participated in a class offered by the Birmingham Museum of Art and were standing behind the safety line to observe iron being poured into the sand molds they made. I don't call them Old because they were advanced in years, but because they appeared to be cultured to near-death. They wore years of season tickets to the symphony, classes at the BMA, and museum-sponsored galas and banquets on their faces like they had been stamped there by a power hammer. Their presence confirmed my long-held suspicion that pretension is aging. I dare go as far as to say that Pretension Kills. I wonder at the prospect of making a mold and watching someone else pour the iron and crack the mold while you watch. In my mind, that's the art of the process. If it doesn't require a hard-hat and a welding jacket, it probably isn't much fun. And that's my opinion. Life necessarily means dirty hands. .

I think the wilderness is trying to imprison Sloss in a tangle of poke weed and blackberry bramble. Like a battalion of slow-moving infantrymen, the green encroaches on the casting shed and the old bath-houses now used as artist studios. I'm not referring to the refurbished number two furnace where you might go to see a concert or be scared out of your wits at a haunted house. I mean the old number one furnace on the other side of the blower-wheels and towers. The casting shed of the number one shelters something like four small furnaces, several mig and arc welding rigs, a forge or two and a large crane used for the metal arts programs. Here, iron is still poured at Sloss, and I think nature wants to bury the scar of it under green tangles and Virginia Creeper. There are still signs posted for the last men who worked at Sloss in 1971. Protect your hands. Your wage earners. You owe it to your family. Two soft, white hands are clasped together under the words. I wonder if anyone but me sees the irony (ha ha) in that. I made some jam from the Sloss blackberries last week and although it might be my perverted sense of taste, I swear it adds a metallic twang to my brown toast. In the end, when all of our industrialism has amounted to nothing, the world will end under a tangle of blackberry brambles, Virginia Creeper and poke weeds. Just ask Walker Percy.

On another note, here's a very cool exhibition in Auburn. My neighbor is one of the artists. You must go.

Tomato Heaven

There are something like seven baby tomatoes on my German Queen this morning. One of my neighbors calls it a "Drag Queen." She says that would be more appropriate in this neighborhood. When she tells a joke, one of her eyes does a little half wink and her mouth kind of puckers up. She plants sticks in her yard and they grow into Oak Leaf Hydrangeas. That's her spiritual gift. I think she sneaks around at night and takes cuttings of other neighbor's plants and makes them grow in her laboratory. It doubles as a kitchen. I imagine her mug-shot. She'd be posed front-side-otherside with gloves and garden shears.

I've a Better Bush plant as well. It's not an heirloom like the German Queen, but it works it's heart out making smallish red fruit out of air and soil and water. (And Miracle Grow, of course.) Last weekend, I planted a Super Fantastic and a Mr. Stripey. I'm wishing them well. They're my friends and I'll have to learn how to salvage their seeds to bring them back next year.

The hollyhocks are growing brilliantly. Last year, their flowers were pure white, but this year I've got some pinks too. They came off the same seed, so I'm not sure how that is possible. It makes me happy and reminds me of Marguritte who gave them to me two summers ago. I've got more than I can manage and I'm happy. I hope Marguritte is doing half as well as her hollyhocks.

The sunflowers look like weeds in the flowerbed. I wonder how long I can continue to grow unruly weeds in my flowerbed and strange vines in 5-gallon buckets on the front stoop before I get a letter from the city.

Maybe,Baby, The Gypsy Lied

Somewhere up north of here, there is a field full of strawberries in the middle of the sky. The best berries hide in the middle of the rows shaded by green-leaf fans and white flowers with buttercup centers that remind me of the dumplings with the buttery middles my father tried to steal from me when I was small. Pay seven dollars and walk down a sandy path past the Old Lady with Her Bum in the Air. (Don't say "follow the old lady bum!" Because that bum belongs to someone's mother.) Pick quick and try not to think of what it would be like to be a migrant picker. That just makes your back hurt. By this time tomorrow, I'll have jam. And shortcake. I left a bucket on my neighbor's porch. He spread them out and took a picture for his Big Love Thing who lives very far away and likes to eat strawberries and beef jerky for supper. He has sad eyes. She'll be here to stay soon. I'm glad about that.

Today as I drove back over the Mountain toward home, I saw the sun fall like a crimson comet into the western part of the city. Now, the moon is coming up under Vulcan and the WBRC sign, just to the left of the first tower. It's almost time to sleep, so I'll put on my white pajamas and crawl under my quilt. Lately, I've been sleeping underneath just the quilt. It makes me feel loved. Tomorrow for breakfast, I'll have strawberries and bread left on my porch by a kind stranger. I'm not used to affection of that sort. It feels like a massage: theraputic and a little painful. I hang on the cusp of anger and acceptance. This feels like grief. I send it to the Cross. Amen. Good Night.

Is that Me baby, or just a Brilliant Disguise?

I had just finished paying for two bottles of Safer spray and twenty pounds of soil when the rain started. The people in the checkout line scratched and pecked like yard chickens when the wind picked up and the clouds moved in. I think it's going to rain. Do you think it might? I hope I can get to the car in time. Where are the Venus Flytraps? Can someone bring them to me? I don't want to get out of line! The Holy Spirit and I shared a joke at their expense: do you remember that time we..? Yes. I remember. Are you going to make it rain? I might. Bring it. Bring it like you did back then. And the sky, ripped apart by His laughter in lightning, opened up and the rain fell down on the asphalt and the cars and the people who covered their heads inadequately. Sinners in the hands of a mirthful God. In the liturgy for Whitsunday, Jesus says ...and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. It's a strange and intoxicating thing to have the only Son of God be manifest. If it's something we're able to share with others, I haven't been able to. If it happens in community, I haven't seen it. I believe there's a margin between what human fellowship can offer and what a body needs to hold itself together. No matter how we idolize our human communities and try and make them stretch across that black expanse, they always snap back into their prefabricated shapes and forms. They can't span the distance and cover a lonely human soul. And that, I believe, is evidence of a merciful God. Because it's in the gaps and the margins that Jesus chooses to manifest himself to those who love him and are loved by the Father. No church, no community, no sermon, no communion, no sacrament is as sacred to me as the jokes we tell each other when the Holy Spirit and I are alone together. It's Jesus manifesting himself because I love him. And he loves me.

Neighborhood Part 11

Laura's belongings are piled up on the sidewalk. A model ship, clothing in tiny sizes, laminated posters and other detritus sit abandoned under the Chinaberry tree collecting rain and becoming bedding for the feral cats who make Southside their home. Piles like hers are all over Southside. I used to think they represented irresponsible neighbors who just dumped their junk in the street as they moved, but it finally dawned on me that they're the scars of hasty evictions. The piles look like junk because all of the tenant's valuable possessions have long since been traded for drugs or found their way to one of Birmingham's pawn shops. Each pile represents a person. Laura's pile is the collected flotsam and jetsam of her life. Her clothing. Things she treasured and couldn't trade. Marks of her identity under the rain, under the wind, under feet, under cars as if her life were a mark on a chalkboard that could be removed with one swoop of the landlord's eraser. I don't know if it's wrong, but I'm glad she's gone. And I don't blame the landlord for evicting her. She didn't leave him with a choice. It's just that I feel compelled to eulogize her murdered future somehow. Here lived Laura. She is a wrecked shell of a human being, but she is still a human being. She murdered her dreams, but she still had them. Once upon a better time, here in this house, under these Chinaberry trees.

I've learned a little more about Laura's dreams over the past weeks. In an unsurprising twist of fate (unsurprising only because nothing is very surprising anymore), I discovered I have a friend who worked with Laura before she relapsed back in January. My friend actually found Laura a little intimidating. I found her intimidating, too, when I used to see her leave her apartment in a suit and heels off to her marketing job. She was a graduate student. Intelligent, reserved, serious. As I sat on the porch barefoot in my husband's shirt and ratty jeans, I felt less than her somehow. She had a purpose and a plan. I had a lawnmower and a monkey's job. Laura was my friend, my friend remembers. Never in a million years would I have believed she would come to this. One of my neighbors remembers Laura refusing an offered beer. I used to have a rough life, she said, and I don't drink anymore. She used to tell the neighbors that there were a lot of bad people in our neighborhood and we laughed, thinking "well, you're the bad people, Laura." But now I see what she meant. She was afraid she couldn't stand up under the pressure of available heroin and available clientele.

So, in the end, she didn't make it. She's alive if you can call it that, somewhere in south Florida serving a four-year sentence for prostitution and possession, but she didn't make it out of Southside back into life. Heroin addicts refer to the time when your drugs are gone and you're junk-sick as "nighttime." So, it's nighttime for Laura, and maybe hope comes in the morning. Somehow, I think I've been fascinated by her life all these weeks because it's a metaphor for what's going on all around me. But unlike Laura, I feel delivered. I feel that somehow God looked at my little family and said That's enough for Team Smith. And I know I don't deserve it. I'm not better than the people facing the wrecking ball, but that knowledge doesn't stem my gratitude for being spared. I'm tempted to think that God spared us because David deserved it, but that isn't true either. I think he spared us because he's good. He'll lead us into difficulty many more times as we walk this earth, but he won't let us be destroyed. Ever. He promised and I believed him.

I had a dream that David and I were standing on the edge of a cliff. He took my hand and said "Just don't let go," and together we leaped off our security into the Wild Blue Yonder. And God said it was good.

When The Lord Made Me, He Made A Ramblin Man

A 59-year-old man showed up at a Wal-Mart in Tuscaloosa with a suitcase and went inside. Ten minutes later, surveillance cameras caught him climbing into a yellow taxi and driving away. For almost two months, his family didn't know what had happened to him. Was he abducted? Did he have some sort of mental break? There weren't any answers to their frenzied questions. It turns out that the taxi bore him to the Tuscaloosa Greyhound Station where he boarded a bus bound for El Paso. He didn't say why. He just went. Fifty years ago, he might have just hopped a box car down at the rail yard to the sound of a harmonica's lonesome waw-waw-waw as the city rolled away. News reports didn't indicate if he had any plans to come home.

It was a bad thing to do. His family was worried about him. He's a bad man, but I understand. I feel it as I sit at a fashionable pre-fabricated restaurant with a group of people I know little and understand less. I feel it when I look at the same sink full of dishes I washed yesterday. I feel it when I see a private jet span the blue distance between the television towers above my happy cottage. I feel it when I'm cornered by the pleasant conversation of a person who isn't all that pleasant. It's a feeling of wanting to go. Not somewhere, just away, and maybe not even forever. I saw an open box car flashing down a track in our neighborhood recently and I imagined running along beside it, throwing my bundle and pulling myself up. I thought let's just jump in there and see where we go. I was almost kidding. I feel I've been seeking some kind of freedom my whole life. A few times, I've tasted it. I used to drive my car along the highway between Auburn and Tallasee just to watch the river pour over the Alabama Power damn. The dark water under the glimmer of the bug-flecked streetlights made me tired. The highway flickering by under the sporadic light of honkey tonks and auto body repair shops made me sad. Freedom, in that sense, isn't what I wanted it to be.

The mystery I'm starting to unravel is that freedom is the fortitude to stay put until the restlessness passes. So, here am I, anchored for the course. Not free to jump a train, but free to stand and be delivered from all that makes me want to.