Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I am on a Catherine Wheel

October 15, 1987

"Can you see to write?" Phebe asked, "maybe I am taking this atmosphere thing too far." We sit in the darkened room, lit by one window, uncurtained and a small flame from the purple candle that Phebe has brought.

Today is Martyr's Day. I remember being in class with Phebe last Martyr's day. What in the heck is Martyr's day anyways? I imagine it must be some quasi-religious day invented by those vicious Roman's in order to convert all their domain to Catholicism.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe it is just for the simple people in the world who have made a supreme sacrifice to mankind.

Martin Luther King to further equal rights.

Gandhi to bring peace in his religiously split, Monarch ruled country.

Joan of Arc, burned at the stake, dressed as a man in armor to fight as the voice had commanded her so.

Catherine Wheel. What the heck is a Catherine wheel? Could it be as the TV show depicted? Wooden wheels, mounted high in the air with people strapped upon them, spinning in the breeze, being eaten by the birds?

Where there ever dragons? I wonder. I really would want to believe that there were. If there are wizards, there must be dragons. Might be a bit like Black & White magic, if there is good, there must be evil. If a wizard is good, his dragon counterpart is evil, if a wizard is evil then the dragon will be good.

Why do all the good dragons live in China?

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I am seriously on a Catherine wheel. Right Now. Not Cool. Plus not making people around me happy either. Either I am not clear, or they aren't - I don't know. I felt like I did when I was buying my house. Drive here! Drive there! Turn this statement in! Turn in this form! Are you disabled as per ADA guidelines?

I want my job back. I want my kids back. They need me. I want my room back. I want my server back. I want. I want. I want. I want. I do not want to be paid to not go to school. I want to be paid to go to work - like the rest of the world. work. I may not be totally suited to my job, but I am really good at it.

Catherine wheel, spinning. Spinning my wheels. Waiting. Waiting. Wanting to return to my comfortable routine. Please. I want to get off this thing. Stop this spinning. Please. Someone help me down.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

treacherous skin circles

October 12, 1987

My hands are very dry. It has to do with the season. in junior high school, the palms of my hands would peel and looked like some sort of disease, The spiral curvatures of the peels would flake and I would attempt to chew the dead skin off, pressing flat the palm of my hand against my chin and nose trying to reach my teeth towards the treacherous skin circles, snake-like, weaving of skin, peeling every fall so that the new pink skin underneath had a chance to breathe.

Ianthe wore her purple feetsie pajamas for most of the morning. She played legos, putting babies to bed, we read the Gingerbread man and the Bird Identification book though she grew bored after looking at fifty pages of birds.

When she dressed, we played airplane, acrobatics on the couch, Woa, Waooo!

We made macaroni and cheese for lunch. Ianthe ate a few chocolate chips, taking each one for a run through the house before popping it in her mouth. She watched me strain and restrain again the newly made orange juice to fill her bottle with. She sat on the counter watching, anticipating, but when I finished, I put it into the refrigerator. "Later Ianthe, later, for your nap," to no avail, she flung herself to the floor crying.

While she was still eating her lunch I started putting on my shoes. "Shoes, Sock," Ianthe said. "No, not now Ianthe, eat." I saw Harrison's bus. Ianthe grabbed the curtain of the window possessively, "My, No, Mine!"

She gave me a big snotty, macaroni and cheese kiss and hug before I left. Cris kissed me and I touched his chest hairs lightly, stroking with my right hand. "Make spinach lasagna with cheddar cheese for supper tonight, okay?"

Once I told my grandmother she made the best lasagna in the world. Weeks later, I told my mother the same thing but she called me on it.

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I understand the dry skin now. I wash my hands. A lot. Like, all the time. I seriously use three hand towels in the kitchen when making a meal. I touch the counter. I wash. I pour the oil. I wash. I cut the food. I wash.

I can bet that my hands peeled in the fall in junior high school because I spent the majority of my days either perched in a tree or playing on the red concrete floor in the basement, constructing vast Lego villages for the bus babies. Always the same: hospitals, hotels, homes. Roads drawn with chalk.

The trees were the best. I loved the fruit trees the most. In my neighborhood there were several great climbing trees with fruit to eat. Sour cherries and wonderful apples at the Kleppers. The Sexton's had a plum tree - delicious. In the backyard we had 2 apple trees - not great for climbing but the unripened fruit was good if you threw it at the ground to bruise it well - and a rhubarb bush.

I was disappointed to have to "grow up" and stop climbing trees. How very disappointing. Once I stopped climbing trees, my palms stopped shedding, but I still have dried hands in the fall through spring.

I won't say I wish I were dead this time. I will say that being a kid was pretty awesome when I was alone in a tree watching the other kids play.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Allen Ginsberg

October 1, 1987

I believe this entry is in response to poetry being read to us in class by Phoebe Hanson.

Kansas disco gay girls
"Chances are" farm boys
fat asses festivities and
mechanical things irrevocably connected.

"I'm a victim of telephones"
telephone victimization
always rings at the most inopportune times but we always answer.

"Flying over Detroit"
injustice in feelings of murder, discrimination
red petaled flower of my body anger.
They have fucked up the planet.
Purely military consideration
Schizophrenics running the planet
Military is waiting for orgasms,
but there are not enough orgasms to go around.
Environmental crisis
bloody press cards
Americans/Vietnam?Martians
have bullets in their heads
Buffalo Gay 90's bring them back.

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I love books. I love poems. I love words, and speech and language. My thoughts ramble. I have been settling into my new home life. The children are home, the grandchildren too. My husband has adopted our adult children. We are a big extended family - and for the most part, all of us are very happy.

Tony and I had just made a budget, days before the first child returned home to us. Now that budget is out the window. A dream deferred. No travel trailer for Lady Door. That's okay. I am resigned to it. Trading the trailer for a chance to see my grandchildren grow - hands down - not even a glance back at the trailer.

The children are wonderful - and distracting. I can get so wound up in talking with them, making things and acting as their servant that I can forget things that matter outside. Like going to school or creating curriculum or grading.

I worry about the new principal at my school. I am paranoid that she is watching me, waiting to make a misstep. I am afraid. My stomach grinds. On the plus side - I have lost 13 pounds as a result of stress.

I feel that I don't get any time for myself. I fear that I speak too much and do not listen enough. I wish I wasn't me. I wish death upon myself almost daily. I hate myself. I want to die.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Things I might look for (so as to tear down the walls) Part 2

Watch out when you start really wanting something. Having coffee with Cindy today, I asked her to order the children's book "Everybody knows what a dragon looks like" I told her I would write her a check. Thinking about it now I wonder "why?" I have read this book maybe ten times already. Do I really need to have it?

Watch out when things start making too much sense. I remember studying the book "You can live forever in paradise on Earth", with Chris Berger, the Jehovah's Witness. It all made perfect sense. The bible suddenly alive with interconnections. The trouble was not that the logic didn't make sense, but rather that I didn't believe in the existence of God.

I would snigger to myself as all these women and God fearing children would pray to this "Jehovah" to bless them. It kind of put a damper on things, not believing in God. So now I fear the end of the world awaiting the signs...knowing I will be one of those poor souls who will die and not live forever with all of them over in Stillwater. I wonder why it is that I believe in the end even though I can't believe in the guy who is supposed to bring all this about - I gotta watch that and not let it happen again.

3. Gotta watch those conspiracy theories that keep hatching in my brain. I sincerely doubt that the world knows something collectively that I just don't get. Who cares if Eric and Colleen are successful and going to church every god damned Sunday; that my parents on Wednesdays go for spontaneous drives down to Redwing for a bite to eat and to catch a view; or that Cindy and John are in league with hundreds of other adoptive parents of Korean children; and that Seven Eleven employees insist that I wear shoes or they won't serve me next time. I wonder why Powderhorn Park attracts the greatest number of single white women with black children and why I even wonder about such a trivial thing. And wonder why my daughter sits alone on the bus on the way home "with only Jim" (her backpack) to keep her company "sometimes he dances for me," she says. Why does Cris refuse to get out of bed if the TV is on on Saturday morning, and for that matter, My God, is He Invisible? The children, tip toeing into bed, touching me lightly on the shoulder "mom, mom" ten zillion times, it is hardly worth it to sleep pat eight o'clock.

4. Watch out when you think you're different than anyone else. I still watch my shadow when I walk, glance at my reflection while opening shiny doors, pick my nose when I am alone, masturbate while my husband is sleeping next to me late at night, Space out and not pay any attention to my surroundings when I am driving. When I read, I cannot hear the pleas for help from my children, I would rather sleep than fix dinner for my family, sometimes fantasize about extramarital affairs but doubt I could ever go through with it, read other people's mail, eavesdrop on others conversations, think I am really any fucking different than anyone else? Ha, what a laugh! Can I change and be on the outside looking in: probably not.

5. Watch out when you want to give up out of hopelessness.

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I feel overwhelming hopelessness now. The sadness is oppressive. It presses on me - I push it away, robotic-ly. I have things to do. Do them. I can't. Too much to do. This list is a list of awareness. Of how I differed from those around me, yet, I wasn't all that different. I am human after all. All of us Aspergians are. I will try to take up the blog again now that school started again. Hold me to it.