Tackle

I decided last week that I'm going to make another run at Infinite Jest. I tried last year, and made it about 100 pages in before I lost momentum. 

The books that have defeated me are a short list: Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, and Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead. I've abandoned many books because they were bad or boring, but these are the three (four including IJ) that I abandoned because I wasn't capable of finishing them.  And, maybe no surprise that all three are experimental in their way, simultaneously messing with expectations of narrative, form, and language.  Which is a challenge for my logical, (cough, rigid, cough) concrete brain.

I justified my abandonment by scoffingly dismissing the white-boy-blogger-love of IJ and DFW... but that's not really honest, or accurate.  I was just defeated.  But I will persevere, and will also refrain from making footnoted commentary for the next several weeks (months?) while I'm in process.

I keep a twitter list of other books that I've read/am reading here.

Potatoes in Aroostook County, October 1940

These color photos of the Great Depression are captivating. Look at the whole series if you can.

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog: "

4: Children gathering potatoes on a large farm. Vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

5: Trucks outside of a starch factory. Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

(via boingboing)

Video: Iron Chef America 'Secret Ingredient' Compilation

SQUID!!! CHEESE!!! BEEEEER!!

Video: Iron Chef America 'Secret Ingredient' Compilation:

[via Eater]

"

Administrative Note

Just a quick process note: I've disabled anonymous commenting.  Your opinions are welcome here, but please be prepared to stand behind them.

Shame shame

How do you shame a bully?

Last week I came across a new Portland blog, and I've been trying to figure out how to address it ever since.  Monument Square Has Eyes the new-ish (since February of this year) blog of a person whose office overlooks Monument Square.  "Brusox" snaps photos of people and happenings in the square and, for the most part, snarks about them.

The thing that bothers me isn't that s/he posts pictures of unsuspecting people online: they're in a public place, and it's therefore legal to take photos of them.  Unethical maybe, but legal.  Although I suppose if you see a photo of yourself and/or libelous remarks on the blog and want Brusox to remove it, you would be within your rights to ask.

Now y'all know I'm not opposed to a little snark.  I appreciate clever, cynical commentary, especially when it's directed at people who have social power and have chosen to live their lives in the public eye.  Ahem.

But:
1. Brusox's commentary isn't especially clever, so it comes off as mean rather than funny.
2. The focus of the blog tends to be mocking the severely mentally ill people in and around the Square.  They clearly can't help themselves, which makes the commentary about them not humor, but just bullying.

I suspect there isn't any good way to address this.  The writer of the blog is totally within his/her rights to post on whatever they see fit, and if they think this stuff is funny I'm sure there isn't anything I can say that will change their mind. In fact, the bullying behavior demonstrated on the blog makes me a little afraid to post my thoughts, because I don't especially want that focus on me.

But more importantly, I know that there are folks being targeted on that site who can't defend themselves, and that really pisses me off.  What do you think?  What's the best way to address this behavior?

Killah

She preys on innocent victims, waiting for them in the shadow of an alley, crouching under the stairs, lying flat beneath a car with a handful of knives.  Unaware, they walk about their silly nighttime business until she decides they've had enough; with the stone hand of an angel she reaches out and snuffs their small dreams.  But death is not enough for this yellow-eyed beauty.  She desires their screams, thrills in their delusions of escape.  She'll toy with them until they are exhausted and wild-eyed, and snap their necks with a casual smack. Then, with the wind tickling her ears, she'll drag her victim to the backyard, to display the gruesome work to her tall gods.

But they are indifferent to her bloody gifts. Each new body is disappeared into a silent grave, with no acknowledgement of her effort.  She decides to go for larger prey.  Perhaps the tall ones require more flesh.

Promo

I also blog at work.  Just FYI.

Unspeakable

As noted, I never write here about the hard things until well after they're over.  In part, I am intensely private about strong emotions (the Tween claims that she has only seen me cry twice before these past weeks), but I also am hesitant to put down in writing anything that is unconsidered. 

So here's the short, but considered, update:

At the end of May, I had some surgery on my lady parts, hoping that they would be less excruciating for me in the long run.  The surgery itself was successful and my recovery fairly fast; I am now mostly back to normal, and the pain is much improved even over my pre-surgery state.  It will be some time before I know whether it was a total success, and I still get tired fairly quickly, but I am now almost completely healed.

Three weeks ago the Princess and I decided to postpone the wedding for a year.  This was a difficult and emotional process for me, since I am rigid in my thinking have a very hard time changing gears.  But truly, with a little time and perspective I am seeing that this is actually a smart decision; we may even be able to plan the wedding for the Princess' homeland, which is her true wish.  And I do like to grant princess wishes.

Then, almost two weeks ago, my dear aunt Becky passed away suddenly. In the absence of my mother, my father's sisters Becky and Cathy have been surrogates for me, together making up the most important adult female influence in my life so far.  I was, and still am, devastated by this loss.  Last week is a blur; there are big chunks of it that I don't even remember.  This week my weeping has decreased to about once a day, and I am able to be alone, but I still can't read the condolence cards my lovely friends have sent, and I still am stunned that I must wake up and go to work and eat and sleep.  

The result of all this is that I feel a little tilted; my little universe has undergone a fundamental shift.  I don't think that this is objectively bad, though it is subjectively excruciating.  Sometimes a change to the foundations of my life helps me focus on what is important, and often it helps me shed old, bad habits, belongings and ideas.  It opens up space I didn't know existed; sometimes I didn't want to know--didn't think I needed to know--that space existed, but there it is just the same.  The princess and the tween have been solid for me throughout this whole thing, and that has been an incredible gift.  It still sucks, though.  A lot. I would much prefer some low-level angsting about messy bedrooms instead of needing some hands to hold on to so that I can remember to breathe.

Just the same. We are here, you and I, moving forward. Still.

Testy

Test... Testier... Testiest.

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

As always, when there are really big things going on in my life I am reluctant to write about them.  So here is a list of small things that are happening in my life that are totally unrelated to the big things, which also perpetuate the idea of blogger as chronicler of minutiae.  Which I totally am.

1. My body continues to age EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Evidence: I had to switch to half-decaf coffee, I bought callous cushions for my feet, and I am ready for bed (I actually literally just typed "dead" instead of "bed," which, well, there you go) at 9pm.  Also, I might need a hearing aid, which proves that I should have listened to my mother when she told me to wear earplugs to all those heavy metal concerts.
2. The Tween has been home sick for a couple of days with a sore throat and a fever.  Because of this she missed dissecting a freeze-dried frog in science class.  Since I had to buy the frog anyway, I wonder if we could dissect it at home? Now THERE'S some family fun time.
3. I quit Facebook.  I don't even miss it, except as a thing I used to do to kill time inbetween doing other things. Sort of like smoking. Here is my reasoning, only tangentially related to Mark Zuckerberg's desire to help us all unintentionally spill our grossest secrets:  I just got tired of it.  I started to feel weird about the passive sort of friendship that FB encourages.  The people who are my actual friends are pretty much up to date on what's going on in my life, and constant status updates were ruining any conversational opportunities I might have with acquaintances... plus sucking my creative energy away from other, more literary, pursuits.  Case in point, here I am writing here.*
4. I bought a coffeemaker.  It has a timer that lets me set it to make me coffee BEFORE I WAKE UP in the morning.  So exciting! Next I'm thinking about one of these newfangled "Refrigerators" to replace my old icebox.
5. The Princess brought me up to visit her family upcoast.  I had met Mom and Sister over the winter, but Dad and Grandparents remained a mystery.  I wanted to check out the childhood haunts and see the settings for all the stories.  I did.  It was lovely; I got got sunburned and fly-bitten and disappointed by the changes to Perry's Nut House, and also got fed barbecue chicken and strawberries, and I think we're going to go back next month.

Ok, and we're done.  Safe areas of conversation fully explored.  

*Yes, the blog is literary because I said so, and just for the record your passive consumption of my thoughts is totally fine.

"Bad Romance" As Performed By Newsies [Seize The Day]

Stress Relief

Take one of these and call me in 1:42

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

via slog

Sixth Grade Gaga

via slog

That Time of the Year

My head is about to explode with all of the things that are going on.  This kind of tension and stress is cyclical: I guess I would probably not appreciate quiet times without it, right?  As in, I would probably give my left boob for a good night's sleep and some job security right now.  Alas, it is not to be.

(This is not my head exploding.  It's the view of the Jordan's Meat Fire from my backyard.

But this is 1) one of the many things I cried about yesterday, and 

2) exactly what the inside of my brain feels like)

Most of the stuff that keeps threatening to shoot out of my forehead in a giant smelly black cloud has to do with regular life kind of stuff: a tween who is tweening, funding changes for my workplace and thus job insecurity, car repair, wedding planning, mother's day.  The vaguely stressful stuff that is annoying but not life-ending.  

Which would all be fine except that my baseline stress level is increased by a hundred degrees to start with because I'm having another surgery on my lady parts in a few weeks.  It's going to be expensive (thanks for the ultra-expensive health insurance that doesn't, it turns out, cover much at all!), and of course I'm not looking forward to the pain and time off from work and helplessness of recovery.  But more than all that, I'm afraid that it won't work, and I will have exercised my very last treatment option.

So, I keep having breakdowns about stuff like whether I eat lunch alone, and who takes a shower first in the morning, and whether the cat is in for the night.  The princess has been remarkably patient, and in appreciation of her kindness I am not completely withdrawing into myself and becoming mute.  This is my usual tactic for stress, and she aptly calls it "turtling."  I resist turtling and she pats my leg and brings me a sandwich, which is, I think, a fair tradeoff.  And helps.  A lot.

Under the Gaga Covers

I really love Lady Gaga parodies. They are my YouTube gateway drug.



People (well, Salon) keep saying that she's saturated us; we can't possibly love her more, and yet... new singles are slurped up whole with demands for more. I'm not tired of Gaga. And I love her fans.



The choice of subject isn't irrelevant; she's walking id for American teens, singing about heartbreak and cell phones and destructive relationships and dressing like your weirdest dreams.



People seem compelled to perform through her; her words in their mouths, her hips moving theirs. Clever and curious, funny, sexy, embarrassing.  All sincere.



Want more? Fifty more YouTube Gaga covers here.

Lateness

I don't know how it's possible, but I'm only just now reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.I'm only about 10 pages in; I'll let you know how it goes.
Ethel Waters, Carson McCullers, and Julie Harris, 1950

Mainers mark Earth Day; Portland selling 'green' items | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

I did this last year: it was a great investment. I should have bought the compost turner, though. I'll be looking into that for this year.

Mainers mark Earth Day; Portland selling 'green' items | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: "Portland is promoting the sale of compost bins, kitchen waste pails and rain barrels at discounted prices."

Marriage

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone but me, but it turns out that I'm a traditionalist. Yesterday the princess and I went and bought engagement rings, and while she (very sensibly, considering her job) wanted gems that were recessed into the ring, I wanted a diamond solitaire.

I got it.

But trying to rationalize a whole bunch of conflicting feelings-- diamonds-are-blood-stained-meaningless-symbols, diamonds-are-beautiful, everybody-will-know-what-this-ring-means, why-does-it-matter-to-me-what-people-think, it's-money-we-don't-have, i-really-want-it-- is sort of a representation of how the marriage situation is developing in my mind.

I've been ambivalent about the gay marriage campaign, and marriage in general. I still don't think that it should be the Big Queer Cause sucking up all of the funding and attention--I would prefer that queer and lgbt organizers take up things like national healthcare, preventing/prosecuting hate crimes, and equal pay regardless of gender. Honestly, I think that most homophobia can be traced to a root of sexism, and working on THAT issue instead would improve the lives of so many people.

I also think that marriage is a fucked-up institution that is often the cause of much unhappiness.

Still.

I love the princess. I want our families and our community and our neighbors to recognize the nature of our relationship at a glance. I want to share my health insurance with her without having to prove to some city official that we've lived together for 12 months, which is what's required for domestic partnership. If I ever own anything valuable, I want her to have it after I die.

But more important than any of that, and the real reason I'm marrying her, is that I want to. I just plain old selfishly want to. I want to make a promise to her that I will always put our relationship first, and that I will stick around to work out whatever comes up in our lives together. We're not promising to be together until we die; I don't believe in making promises I can't keep, and I don't know what the future will bring either of us. But I do know that no matter what happens, we'll be in it together, and if there are challenges we will always try to fix things instead of walking away.

Nonetheless, I have a hard time with marriage as I've seen it practiced and talked about. I'm going to get married just the same.

More on this later, I'm sure.

Upcoming travel

I'm trying to get to NY next month. Princess has never been, and I haven't for more than five years. I can feel forces coming together to make it possible. I BELIEVE.

Brooklyn Bridge New York circa 1905

woo.

The Maine Boatbuliders Show is produced by Portland Yacht Services and will take place at the Portland Company building at 58 Fore Street. via

I'm so glad that the Portland Company has a diverse series of events. It's so exciting for them and for boat-and-flower-show-attending people. It's kind of a pain in the ass for people who live in the neighborhood, though.

To be fair, event planners do seem to make an attempt to minimize the impact... by putting NO PARKING signs on all of the streets around the Portland Company (including my own). But what that means is that hill dwellers are banned from parking on their street, and people unfamiliar to the neighborhood get creative with their parking and create dangerous situations, obstructing lanes and sightlines... and, judging by the number of cars parked illegally on Fore Street during the flower show last weekend, the City seems unwilling to tow or ticket.

On the plus side, maybe I'll get the chance to have some presumptuous boat-show-goer towed when they park in my parking spot. We have to look for the little joys, no?