la femme follette

pie; maybe pancake

 

I hope you are having the time of yr life

Things are super-busy.  Usually at this time of year, Mari has a huge deliverable and he is home for all of December and most of January working on it, freed from the pernicious & incidental bloviating of the real-time office.  Last year, he did not & I forgot what it is like.  It is a fat lot of me running the kids out of his way & out of the house for 6 or 8 weeks. 

We had a lovely week full of holidays & I wish the same for anyone reading.  I am not usually looking forward to the 31 Mondays that are about to come in January, but I am resolved to adjust something about my outlook on the matter.  My first step will be not so much trying to wrap everything up from this year.  I know!  I am going to do carry over!  Daring!  Defiant, even.  Also, fuck a bunch of Change! Everything!  I am way more Adjust Something.     

I also expect 2009 to start out strong because Chickie & I are taking a day, the first day, in fact.  We are both quietly relieved to be able to hang quietly & start as we mean to go on.  Later in the month, I will be heading back to the city with Fat Sally for a 5-day runaround.  That will be way less quiet, I already know. 

The 2008 wrapping up is already upon me, though.  The questions, the reviews, the categorizations.  It started with music.  Meli asked me about CDs and I was like, "people still buy a whole damn CD?  and listen to it on their hi-fi?"  We are super-fucking fortunate to have a really great non-commercial radio station in our airfield, and I only bought one CD this year.  It was the Drive-By Truckers Brighter Than Creation's Dark.  Because I wanted to listen to the whole thing, over & again, and  I knew this going in. 

Ten songs I liked, and only the first one, the Femmes cover of "Crazy," is also the Number! One! Song!  My definition of a good cover is the song that makes the song make sense and before this, I do not think I even realized what "Crazy" was even about.  Despite hearing it a million times, and Baby Jesus, it has been covered by everyone already. 

Then I heard Gordon Gano's mournful + matter-of-fact + double-plus Midwestern delivery, I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind.  I'll bet you did, Gordon.  I know.  Me, too, baby; I remember when I lost mine, too.  There is not a day I do not have to consider it.  It definitely counts for something that the Femmes are such a part of the run-up to me losing my mind -- bad childhood, angsty teenaged girl, grouchy folk-punk, etc, etc. This has been the year for all kinds of Midwesterners from my past to come back round again. Some really good people I am glad to have quietly hanging quietly. It is just ... good.

Any old way, the rest of the songs are listed in the order of their obvious harmonic configuration, and if you don't know them, you can listen to them like a little, legal mixtape here.

"Crazy," Violent Femmes
"That's Not My Name," The Ting Tings
"A Ghost to Most," Drive-By Truckers
"Sex on Fire," Kings of Leon
"Oxford Comma," Vampire Weekend
"Mykonos," Fleet Foxes
"Shake a Fist," Hot Chip
"Good Time," Brazilian Girls
"You Don't Understand Me," The Raconteurs
"Lord, I'm Discouraged," The Hold Steady

2008 has thus far been extra-extra amazing.  There are a few more days left and I will see what I see. 

it's all about choices

A: What accessories do you wear everyday?
Titanium/hematite captive bead ring in a helix piercing. Most days some kind of jewelry announcing my marital status, but there is always a ++ chance any of that is hanging out on soapdish/windowsill.

B: What is your beauty routine?
Smeary eyeliner is about the extent of it. I wash my face. It takes 25 minutes to blow-dry. In the winter, I might moisturize.

C: What was the last item of clothing (for yourself) that you purchased?
A pair of running shoes. No longer do I run (no dirt), but walking shoes a. are ugly, like Grandma goes to Manhattan, b. don't work on the elliptical when you are really going, and c. are too blocky to go fast on the Stepmill.

D: Do you use a dresser, closet, or both?
I share a dresser & a closet with Mari, which no one can believe, that he can stay happily married to Clothes Lover Me sharing the space. C'est verite!

E: What type of earrings are in your ears right now?
The one from A.

F: What type of figure do you have (measurements)?
I do not know my measurements, but I am buoyed along to the world by the letters T and A.

G: Do you wear glasses?
Usually contacts, most especially now since Sarah Palin made Kawasaki frames famous and I had them first.

H: What type of handbag do you carry?
Brahmin Baldwin II satchel. (she's up top)

I: What is your ideal style?
Black, jersey, clingy, over sensible & clunky shoes. Kind of an ogle me, shore thing; footsie, no way type situation.

J: What is your favorite brand of jeans?
I have recently discovered (yeah, duh) that when a person pays big bucks for jeans, the cut is way more flattering. That said, I am just fine for the foreseeable future with 3 pair I got a while back from Boden.

K: Do you wear knee-hi stockings?
Oh, uh, no.

L: Do you *have* to wear matching lingerie?
I never wear underpants.

M: Do you wear makeup?
Yes, bedhead eyeliner, everyday. Swipe of lippy, most days.

N: Do you wear nightgowns?
"Nightgown" makes me think of Mama's Family & Caroline Ingalls. In the winter, I will generally retire wearing a v Anna Magnani kind of slip with a cashmere cardigan and over-the-knee socks. In the summer, it's all tank tops and broadcloth pants.

O: What outerwear do you put on when going out on a typical winters day?
It is not actually cold here, so I wear my leather jacket for most of the "winter," with hat, gloves, inside layering as necessary. If it is ever below freezing (nevar) I have a windproof fleece & a down vest. Because it will nevah nevah nevah be below 0 here.

P: What is your favorite perfume?
Chanel No. 5

Q: Is your motto "quality over quantity" when it comes to clothing and accessories?
I think the motto is "Quality, period." I really love clothes. I love the way the pieces are fitted together and the fabric and the lining and how the zipper went in and who put the darts in and where, when the fabric is patterned is the garment assembled with respect for it, etc.

R: Do you wear rain boots?
Yes, and they make me feel like Polly Pocket and I love them.

S: Do you wear socks or slippers when your feet get cold?
Socks inside shoes; Uggs inside house.

T: Do you have a set of travel luggage?
"Travel luggage," who wrote that? Each adult here has a rolling suitcase guy, mine is larger because the children still piggyback.

U: What is your daily uniform?
When I was a girl, I wore a school uniform, K-12, plus also in the liner notes to Stop Making Sense, David Byrne wrote People will remember you if you always wear the same outfit. Between the two, it is v easy to predict what I will turn up in. (Yesterday I was wearing a pair of gray flannel trousers, and Fille said, v concerned, "Why are you wearing those pants??")  So, long-sleeved shirt, black, or in "winter" a woolen tank top with a sweater, both, any with blue jeans.  In warmer temps, a short-sleeved t-shirt, black, with jeans. If it is over about 85, it is a halter-top with jeans and over 90, halter-top with a skirt or some strappy(less) sundress.  Whenever possible, much of it is black (except the jeans.  Black jeans are for Heidi Klum, only, no?).   

V: If you are married, did you wear a veil with your wedding dress? If not, how did you do your hair?
Yes.  It was big & bouncy like always, but bigger and bouncier.  Because I did not do my hair, my stylist did.  As if I would have three fistfuls of hair and I put it in a chignon?  On glamorous photo-matchy nighttime kitty-cat wedding time?  No, duh.

W: Do you wear a watch?
I do, because I do not like taking my handheld out to see the time, esp w hands full of kids.

X: What item of clothing always makes you feel beautiful?
God, the last thing I need is to feel beautiful, I am always beating back the whole world's admiration of my beautifulness.  I am smart, too!  And good at things!  And nice enough!  I used to be much more into it, like Closing Time, but now I'm all, "I get it!  Beautiful!  Yah, you didn't know?  Shhhhh, let's move it along!"  

Y: What is your favorite type of yarn?
To wear, I guess this means? Cashmere, black, mixed with silk if I can get it. Warm! I don't think I own a sweater that is not cashmere. Most of them I have owned since I was 20, but there it is.

Z: Do you prefer zippers or buttons?
Buttons can be so pretty! Zippers can go in so deftly, though. I love clothes!

all about me

I took note of a meme on my way out the door this afternoon, then serendipitously was coerced into some crazy self-portraiture at a gallery where I had some business to take care of.

Seriously, the chick would not leave me alone about this. I phoned it in all gesture-like, and here we are. (This is fun, because one never talks about a poem before it's read, but this, blahblahblah.) Problem is that I decided to be a GENIUS and get my actual lipstick involved in the mouth and it was an UNERASABLE & SMEARY MESS, ahahaha. But then I was able to get out and good sport and now me me me, o, glorious me.

 

Where is your mobile phone? Here
Where is your significant other? Commuting
Your hair colour? Black
Your mother? Controlling
Your father? Aloof
Your favourite thing? Words
Your dream last night? Nostalgic
Your dream goal? Syntax
The room you're in? Wheeled
Your hobby? Charm
Your fear? Illness
Where do you want to be in 6 years?  Everywhere
Where were you last night? Bed
What you're not? Slattern
One of your wish-list items? Woodstove
Where you grew up? Unparalleled
The last thing you did? Flatter
What are you wearing? Jeans
Your TV? Dark
Your pets? Elderly
Your computer?  Clicky
Your mood? Restless
Missing someone? Everyone
Your car? Vroom
Something you're not wearing? Socks
Favourite shop? Spendy
Your summer? Leisurely
Love someone? Reservedly
Your favourite colour? Red
When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday
When is the last time you cried? Earlier

tag team

Thanks for the game, Alex.  Not like you were low on content.

Three-word answers:

1. Where is your cell phone?
like an appendage

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?
married twelve years

3. Your hair?
incites girl talk

4. Where is your father?
chasing skirts, surely

5. Cheesecake?
Buffalo '66 Ricci

6. Your favorite thing to do?
make pretty things

7. Your dream last night?
my fingerprinted heart

8. Your favorite drink?
dewar's, water back

9. Your dream car?
any pickup truck

10. The room you're in?
paper avalanche looming

11. George W. Bush?
319 days left

12. Your fears?
not unlike Serpico's

13. Nipple rings?
make babies happy

14. Who did you hang out with last night?
soccer league nutjobs

15. What you're not good at?
making things easy

16. Your best friends?
know their strengths

17. One of your wish list items?
to hear again

18. Where did you grow up?
city that works

19. The last thing you did?
shovel steel-cut oatmeal

20. What are you wearing?
black shirt, jeans

21. Tattoo on the lower back?
for owls, sure

22. Ketchup?
sticky homeland menace

23. Your computer?
double plus low-tech

24. Your life?
born to trouble

25. Your mood?
matthew 26, 41

26. Missing?
$29, alligator purse

27. What are you thinking about right now?
Calvin Trillin's writing

28. Your car?
excellent high-speed handling

29. Your work?
is never done

30. Your summer?
american south motoring

31. Your relationship status?
to have, hold

32. Your favorite color(s):
farmhouse brothel prints

33. Last time you laughed?
sweet homeland vigilantism

34. Last time you cried?
sunset & alvarado

35. High school?
hounds of God

36. This quiz:
by someone else

descending

friday five

1. Name five favorite movies.
i. dirty dancing; ii. godfather II; iii. the house of yes, iv. great expectations, v. notorious

2. Name four areas of interest you became interested in after you were done with your formal education.
i. poetry, ii. american history 1781-1861, iii. crafty-makey, iv. eric kroll

3. Name three things you would change about this world.
change begins at home.

4. Name two of your favorite childhood toys.
i. dolls, ii. jacks

5. Name one person you could be handcuffed to for a full day.
Mari, if it were just the two of us.  If I were on Full Mothering Duty? Kaylie.

calm before

Sunday morning, in the wake of 8 quiet hours of sleep, I vanquished The Sadist & His Class Featuring Medicine Balls, plus had it to spare 45 minutes on the down-escalator machine!  I drove home with the roof open, the weather was hot & clear, and Sonny & Cher happened to be on the radio singing "I Got You, Babe."  Last year (two years ago?) I wrote a reluctant post-conceptual love poem, the denouement of which is The Bonos' enduring love swelling publicly when she spoke at his funeral.

All of him/once lived inside of her, like false eyelashes, like a/porpoise, like the brutality of her diversion and/neglect, and the body of her love rose to share/forever in the glory of the collective memory of/their love. 

It might not be clear in a fragment, but listening to them singing from the studio back in 1965, I was bamboozled all over again to realize I got it so right.  I was calm & clear, obviously brilliant, and I felt like the girl from Ipanema.  I could not wait to get home and see the rest of my excellent, lovely family.  The rest of the day was amazing, winding up with Mari and I divvying up the Sunday NYT alongside the  hometowny & welcome interruption of playground chat with acquaintances while we all watched our children play in wholesome, outdoor, co-educational, self-actualizing, team-building playground games of their own design.

I was thinking about thinking about poems again, or as people will sometime tease, Hey, remember when you wrote poems?  Then it was bedtime and we were reading stories and then we had to go to the children's hospital's emergency room and then in the wee hours of the night -- or the first hours of the morning -- I had to downgrade my judgment of our nearest children's hospital aloud while on the premises from I would not take a dog there to I would sooner let Joseph Mengele treat my kids.  Then I had to go all triple-x, plus-plus Emperor Xerxes on them while they tried to keep me from taking my son out of their shitty facility AMA.  I mean, I am the mother, hello?  Additionally, I made it through The Sadist's class at the top of my game which means that on the inside I am like one of the 300 extras, duh!  Recognize!      

Emperor Xerxes did not write poems, I do not think.  Poetry is definitely the girl from Ipanema's game.   Maybe I could start wearing a bikini everywhere.  The point is, that is over.  Sunday night and all of Monday were devoted to getting my son's grave medical mystery sussed out at the farther-away-but-far-superior children's hospital over the river.  He seems to be fine, in the main, which we knew going in, since Garçon is the very picture of fine fettle.  We have to wait and see.  Tests, appointments with specialists, ultrasounds, next week.  Whatever.

I am glad something like this waited to come at the end of a super-relaxing day.  In spite of all the sleeplessness and up-all-nightiness of it, it turned out something of a Grand Family Adventure.  There was reading aloud from Roald Dahl books and funny face games and Life Skills Exposition.  Fillette rolls her eyes at the midnight rumble in the ER, saying of the fresh supervising physician, I can't believe she tried to boss you, Mommy.  Neither could I.  I cannot believe there are people in the world who actually let themselves get bossed, not outside of the gym.              

come to jesus

I had a billion things jingling and jangling through my head today and I wanted to write about how I am sick of summer fruits (sssshhh!), gluten-free doughnuts (zzzZzzz), three really excellent emails I got this week (shhhh), amores perros (it does not matter what I think of a 7yo movie!) & Mexican cinema (more zzZZZZzzz), and Mari's sartorial splendor (zZzzzzZZ) but I felt really unsure about how to make anything GO, especially with all the dissonant photographs I had to anchor the way-too-busy week and also my surly countenance of late and then I saw this over at glittergoods and thought about how I could stand to stand my ground a little to sort it out about what I am supposed to be writing about, really.

This morning, if Mari had asked, "What is the purpose of your weblog, Femme?" I would have said, "To document my crafts and those of the children!" Then mid-morning I sent an email to a long-lost, fondly-regarded acquaintance and I described it as something entirely different, which after answering these questions, it looks like it actually is.

1. Do you promote your blog?

No. I am probably the Emily Dickinson of the weblog-writing world. I think writing a weblog is like being the girl who puts out -- the people you want know who you are & beat a path to yr door, there is no need to blabber. 

Cultivating an Audience is work, anyhow, it seems to me, or it would certainly feel like work to me, given my past of daily deadlines and interfacing.  I am only trying to have a little project & document things for Those who Know.  At the same time, I pretty much try to walk a line between not being inviting in my narration and not excluding anyone who stumbles upon this & wants to keep up, for whatever reason. It is not a secret, but I am neither pimping myself.  There are links in the world.  There is a feed.  There is google, uh, harvesting? 

I guess when I have seen the conversational back-and-forth or (sometimes) the needy, harrassing solicitations some weblog writers get into with the You of the The Audience in the meat of the meta, it does not appeal to me. Because next thing, someone says, "Bah" when they should have said, "Boo" and then it is all, "You're mean, Reader!"  But, who was all "Read me!  Read me! Look at me! Me!," hmm?  Also, the cross-talk?  Between non-authorial writers in comments sections? Discussing controversial topics?  (Meli once linked me to a blow job one that went on for weeks and weeks and weeks of fisticuffs)  Fuck that shit. Go to a bulletin board, already if you want to be angry with strangers.  Or don't, like Alex says.

2. How often do you check hits?

Weekly or such -- as often as I update. I enjoy seeing which depraved google search terms hooked up with the search engine's malapropist to deliver the wrong traffic. Which is another reason I do not promote: I have seen the inner desires of these people on the onlines & what they seek. Yikes.

3. Do you stick to one topic?

A roman-fleuve is a chronicle of a family over time & I deliver what I promise, through my own  selfish lens.

4. Who knows that you have a blog?

Besides the fact that I created this to be a supplemental text for my nearest + dearest, pretty much anyone who knows my maiden name has a free pass to it, should it come up. Usually it happens that I have been minding my own business about it and someone (In The Know) will say, "Oh, I wish we had more time to talk about that project you worked on" or "I really miss yr writing, will you ever again?" or something else of the kind of deep, connective baloney none of us have time for any longer, what since we have eighty billion children and 160 spouses among us, plus all the miles. Then I will sort of shyly confess it. But, really, whatever.  Also, anyone I know who has a weblog themselves, because I feel that it is only fair.  Even if they do not read it. 

5. How many blogs do you read?

The ones on the left. Mostly, they are people I know or have had some meaningful offline contact with.

6. Are you a fast reader?

Yes. I have also turned into an internet skimmer, since I realized that very many people fail to use their close-reading skills on the onlines, plus rely v heavily on their projector to light up what they are necessarily missing.

7. Do you customize your blog or do anything technical?

I have an extra page full of Garçon's non-text books for his continuing educational advancement. I have the typelist of tiny book reviews. I was thinking of a banner, but I have too much knitting to get crafty with pixels.

8. Do you blog anonymously?

Yes. I have changed everyone's name and been cagey about all the rest.  I make liberal use of red herrings.  I am tight-lipped, but not secretive, about where we live, as it surely is no secret to anyone reading who knows of our town.

9. To what extent do you censor yourself?

I keep foremost in my mind that anyone in the world can read this, without my permission or knowledge and without leaving a trace. Within those boundaries, I think that what I write is fairly confessional, in my own coy way. People who know me, the people for whom I set these things down, have their decoder rings set to the right frequency.  But even amongst themselves -- sometimes A can't sort out what the anecdote about B really says.  That's because it's none of yr damn business, I cheerfully remind.  If you can not make sense of it, I almost certainly did not write it for you.   

But there are a lot of strangers reading, too, this is the internet.  Traffic way outpaces the population I know to be reading -- and I have gotten sweet emails from people reading of whom I have not heretofore known -- I think the whole narrative has this very lurid quality to it that keeps readers quiet, lest I realize I have company & bolt.  It is probably a voyeur's paradise.  Though I can't see why anyone withstands the necessary obtuseness + rigorous opacity of it.

10. The best thing about blogging?

I get to put it out of my head. Also, when I feel like I am getting nothing done, it is all in down for the ages -- the books I read, the books I read to the children, how many holiday gifts I knitted, over which ennui I prevailed.

But, it fills in the gaps for people I love so much.  I mean, there is no way that -- for example -- the Israeli and I are ever going to get around to a meaningful discussion about Kershaw's last book or about my stomachaches over ballet school, what with the kindergarteners on crack racing around behind us in our respective homes and the trying to sort conversational triage on the topics front and center -- our children, our spouses, current events, the chicken pox, parents in health crises. This way, he can sneak in late at night and then send me an email that says, "You are so weird -- cumbia. Plus, why didn't you bring the whole case up that time? Don't hold out on me, cookie!" If Fillette or Garçon do a piece of something that is exciting, I can photograph it and then say to Meli or Chickie, "oh, by the way: cute mermaid drawing. check it at the weblog."

Mari gets to check in on our days while he is away. I can go back and check on the details of past projects or yarn I used or dates of germination or whatever. Also, I cannot be coy about this -- it forces me to write, which is the thing that I do.  It will always be satisfying to me to distill a swirl in my mind down to its nugget of conflict, then dispatch it into the ether, a contained thing, a memory. 

coinage

I spent a lot of time at the library alone today, browsing.  Now that I am out of the holiday knitting mines, I have time to read once more.  I was quite gratified to learn that Cheryl Mendelson, the author of Home Comforts -- a cultural anthropologist's philosophical-yet-functional reference guide about the hows of homekeeping -- wrote an entire book about laundry, titled Laundry.  I borrowed it, though I don't really have time to read a book about laundry.  I expect I will buy it sometime later this year.  Maybe I can go wild and do so sooner than that.

There should be a word to describe the feeling of nostalgic contentment, the rightness that one experiences when they manage to find a book they loved as a child and know their children will love, too.  I was thinking the word is probably "readux," but it is a bit twee.  Well, but it fits, and I was having readux today.  When I got the book home, I realized it was quite similar to the book I wanted, but not the exact book.  This can be known as "false readux syndrome." 

The book I was looking for was a biography of Annie Sullivan and I remember being about Garçon's age and just gripped by the tale of the young Sullivan children in the poorhouse and her sauciness and the siblings' devotion to one another.  The book I found is called Annie Sullivan, A Portrait, and it is nearly the same book in narrative content, but the point-of-view is a little different in the book I read as a child.  Its prose was more immediate.  This one will do, and will be done, for it is unlikely they will want to read it again for a while.  I will keep looking.

disclaudere

My pal Marsha wishes to survey me.  Alors.

a) Four jobs I have had in my life:
i. I wore a headset; ii. I wore an apron; iii. I wore tall boots; iv. I wore glitter

b) Four movies I would watch over and over:
i. The Last Emperor; ii. Babe; iii. Apocalypse Now; iv. The Godfather II

c) Four places I have lived:
i. on a Great Lake; ii. on an isthmus; iii. on the Mississippi; iv. on an island

d) Four TV shows radio shows I love:
i. Car Talk; ii. Prairie Home Companion; iii. This American Life, iv. Mountain Stage

e) Four places I have visited:
i. Berkshires; ii. Blue Ridge; iii. Jersey Shore; iv. Finger Lakes

f) Four websites I visit daily:
i. angry asian man; ii. midtown lunch ...

g) Four of my favorite foods:
i. lambs; ii. pigs; iii. kimchi; iv. oolong

h) Four places I would like to be right now:
i. the basement galleries at the art institute of chicago; ii. cleveland's lunch; iii. the corner of state and gilman; iv. 1993

i) Four bloggers I'd like to tag:
I'm too shy to boss anyone but Algren.