Releasing their wiggles

We attempted the “Little Gym” last Thursday.  Well, more than attempted, I suppose.  Finn is safer there than he is at home, in his zeal to climb, run, jump, and just generally scare the bajeezuz out of me, while maintaining a smile of ecstatic satisfaction.  Upon letting the goblins loose, Finn promptly evicted another child from her mother’s lap, so he could sit there and have a story read to him.  The little girl came to me with a look that could only say, “You!  Fix this!” 

After both boys were released from the confines of our Urban Assault Vehicle (UAV), they immediately went about their usual business of heading off in opposite directions.  The “teachers” did a marvelous job, Finn had a blast doing what would be, if done at home, incredibly dangerous things; and Liam and I got to have a little quality time (he became unusually clingy) until the gigantic bucket o’ balls was released.  That kid could spot a camouflaged ball through several feet of dense hedgerow. 

The cost is rather alarming.  So, being a cheapskate, I decided to try another gym out before signing up.  I am sure that “My Gym” works for loads of parents.  Heck, there were loads of mothers there…but they were a whole lot younger than me…and Prucilla is much more comfortable with the older set at the “Little Gym.”  Yes, the older set has less of a tendency toward the Disney-esque inane characters all over the walls (complete with biographies and names, like Memo the Monkey, or something?)  The big draw for “My Gym” seemed to be the “teachers”, who are all 20-something males.  So, mothers can feel the cuteness of a father-like replacement that plays with the children while their real fathers are working, or otherwise MIA.  I like the marketing scheme here…sneaky, tricky, dirty, and awesome.  Lure stay-at-home mothers in with the promise of “adult” interaction while they play with their children, and then offer them a little fantasy to get them hooked, and keep them coming back. 

The younger men, and the too large group of women and kids seemed to provoke an odd sense of jealousy and territorialism in the mothers, who, I estimate, were rather rude to begin with.  There were obvious rivalries over who got to sit next to the instructors, and which ones.  It was all very odd.  Of course, they also have a store inside this one, which I also loath.  I suppose someone wants to buy shirts with the stupid characters on them…where else do they appear but the walls and the brochure?  Should I have expected the men to dress up as those stupid anthropomorphic animals?  When the trial class was over, the “teachers” became the “used car salesmen” of the toddler world–exceedingly pushy, which pushed me and my pocketbook right out the door.

The children didn’t care about the men at all.  In fact, Finn spent most of the time trying to escape the mandatory circle (a designated area marked by an honest to god red and purple circle, painted on the carpet) so he could get on with the climbing, etc.  Liam enjoyed the huge mirror, and spent most of the time talking to and laughing at himself…  Did he think he was another kid, or was he really just enjoying talking to himself?  I don’t think the other kids paid much attention to him, and he was really trying to get their attention.  It is way too much structure for me and my crew (who have discovered that the guest room/my office is quite an amusement park). 

So, after all of this, Finn has decided that he can fly.  He believes, and gets angry at me when his beliefs are proved false, that all of the surfaces in our home are cushioned.  Was it the classes, or is it just him?  I am painfully aware that this is a very suburban, normal thing to do–to take one’s children to playgroups–but it feels very awkward.  It is a feeling that I am going beyond my comfort zone, and rushing for a sorority, or signing up to live in a Stepford community… 

Rushing to lunch,

Pru 

 

 

A Moratorium: Eat it

I am declaring a moratorium on the discussion of, allusion to, or even thought of items of food and various exercises as they relate to calories, fuel, diet, maintenance, and health, while in or near the presence of Prucilla. Friends and relatives shall not, when in her presence, discuss how many calories are in X, nor how many or few calories they or Pru has consumed. Nor shall they discuss her exercise regimen, nor their own. I do not think that a stimulating conversation consists of someone telling me about how many reps they did, nor what food they ate and why, nor what happens when you eat two protein bars in one day. The moment one begins speaking of such nonsense, Pru’s brain will seize, her eyes will roll back into her head, and she will begin to drool/froth. Or, if she is having a great day, she will simply expect you to hand her the nearest and dullest utensil available, so she can shove it through her skull. If one insists on conversing in such a manner, they should at least have the decency to contract their zero-calorie-filled-sentences into a speech lasting no longer than 30 seconds (which is significantly more time than it will take me to stick a fork in my eye).

In a somewhat related tirade, I have noticed an alarming trend amongst the young ladies. What is this frightening business with the overgrown toenails? On Monday, Sam came in with her toenails horrifically done in a “French” manicure. She had them painted hot pink, with white tips, which gave them the alarming effect of having all been chipped and way overgrown. I was trying to find a still from the movie, Nacho Libre, because it really has the horrific effect of Eskeleto’s toenails: Nauseating. It’s what Jo and Vic refer to as Horrified Fascination Syndrome (HFS), where my eyes are transfixed and no matter how hard I try to divert my gaze, the eyes, they will not move. I keep thinking that I am seeing hands instead of feet, and then I am reminded of apes, which leads to the consideration that these women might eat with their feet. It’s a well-known parlor trick of mine–picking things up with my feet-but I certainly wouldn’t eat with them. Disgusting. How about a cultural moratorium on that hideous act of blatant hygiene defiance and just plain bad taste?

The eyebrows, however…I always come back to the eyebrows, because it wasn’t until I was 28 or 29 that I had my eyebrows “shaped.” I had no idea that being girly took quite so much work, and frankly, was under the misguided impression that women were simply born that way. The process of eyebrow waxing has always made me wonder: Has anyone ever had their eyebrows shaped into cartoon-esque angry brows? You know, the straight lines angled down and inward. Now, that would be some awesome brow.

From toes to potatoes, I will circle back to my moratorium. The last bit of which is this: That, whomsoever offers Prucilla a half a baked potato for dinner will rue their dietary fate. I have come to the hard-won conclusion that Mother Nature piles the fat on the pregnant ladies for a reason, and it has nothing to do with growing healthy babies, nor breastfeeding. The reason is toddlers. That fat store, which I so diligently depleted, would come in mighty handy right now, as my food intake is seriously compromised by toddler activity, and the Pru requires a little more sustenance than half of a baked tuber.

In conclusion, no longer will such verbiage regarding said infractions be tolerated without the induction of a narcoleptic fit, a violent rage, etc. There have got to be a billion more interesting things to speak of, and the Pru is in dire need of adult conversation.

Lovely, conversant weekend to all,

Pru 

Thoughts on Wormy Circumstances

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is–Love forgive us!–cinders, ashes, dust;
Love in a palace is perhaps at last
More grievous torment than a hermit’s fast:  (Keats’ “Lamia,” Part II li.1-4)

Is it true?  Are we doomed to grievance either way?  Palace or hut, true love or chivalric lust?  And then what of Mr. Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress?”  Is the grave indeed a place where lovers will no longer find embrace?  I say, “Embrace ye thy Wormy Circumstance!” 

Personally, I enjoy the virtue-lined love-hut with water and a crust.  Either way, it speaks to the human need for the unattainable–for our need to have dreams that transcend the best reality possible for us.  Is the idea of hut love so incendiary to Keats, that it burns the hut down, and is therefore unsustainable?  It burns too fast, too quickly, while love in a palace is an image of over-indulgence/gluttony, and finally boredom? 

Right now, I am dreaming of transcendence from the reality that the cleaning fairy does not exist.  The few maid services that I tried out while on bed rest were possibly the worst way to spend money, and made me feel just awful, so I was really counting on the cleaning fairy to work out.  For some reason, I wouldn’t feel badly about a fairy cleaning my home, especially if it gets to go back home to some verdant forest glade where it can whisper terrible things into the ears of the river trout.  Let’s face it, fairies just aren’t very nice…so, there’s my justification for having them clean for me.  Oh, and the green one in my cabinet is still there.  Any takers? 

I am getting geared up to read Sally X’s suggested Bakhtin book.  Not one who enjoys theorists very much, I am going to make a valiant effort to chew, swallow, and fully digest that book–in between bites of Tom Stoppard (whom, thanks to Dr. Wiley, I have decided I adore), “His Dark Materials,” “Waterland,” and “Staying Put,” “Beowulf,” and  Susan Jackoby’a “The Age of American Unreason” (Apologies for the quotation marks, as there appears to be no way to underline here), and loads and loads of writing.

So, in regards to the Keats’ wormy circumstances, we still speak from beyond the grave, if we have been active members of society or if we have been lechers, sociopaths, or axe-murdering cheerleaders.   I wonder, what the circumstances were for the couple above, that is, prior to the introduction of worms.  Was their love in a hut, or a palace?  It is a good thing that Marvell’s mistress never had access to the interweb!  That is, assuming his poem worked its magic on the lady…or she would have waited forever for her perfect worm-worthy love.  Then again, I have no idea about the relationship of the skellies.  I could look, but for the same reasons that I don’t want the Lochness monster to be proved or disproved, I would rather keep my ideas and not have them occluded by such things as facts.

What good would it be to be human and not have aspirations that were far too high to ever reach?  I guess that’s what all of this means.  Right now I am also reaching for a nanny that will live in my hut and watch the boys, while I write, for a crust and water.  Sam is leaving us to study abroad…I am distraught.

Sad dog,

Pru.

P.S.  Not sure if this picture is what inspired Ed Bain, but you should visit his site just the same.  http://darkartsmedia.com/DevilsTrampingGround.com.html

Uncle Jon

Uncle Jon shall add an “Aunt”
We hope that’s what they really
want.

For marriage is a harder thing
Than adorning fingers with well-meant
Rings.

I meant to post a happy piece,
A song for lovers, blooms and humming
Bees

But right now I feel a sorrow grow,
A hollow feel that most adults
know. 

It settles in the belly low,
where elation sinks when life strips its
glow. 

I am happy for the engaged new,
Yet sad for what I’m losing
too.

I will write a flowery piece the next,
But right now, my small mind is hexed,
with papers long and infant cries,
with poorly meted words, and awful rhymes.

It’s just that I cannot stop old Mr. Keats,
From affecting my words with notes of
Grief.

It means we’re old, old enough to marry,
And Time has stolen away from me, for youth, it does not 
Tarry. 

Pru

Oif!

We had shots at the vet’s, er, pediatrician’s today…so, Pru isn’t getting much done what with all the crying (my tears and theirs) during this usual hour of “nap-time.”  Aren’t babies and small children supposed to take naps?  Apparently, I am a “bad dog,” right now. 

There are many irritating things that have come from the mouths of people whom I am certain mean well…or at least think they do.  The latest is the new nurse, who asked me (as she was staring at the boys), “Are they identical?”  Huh?  Sure, and I am actually six-feet tall.

First of all, let me recount the event that solidified our need for a new doctor, upon the boys’ two-month visit: Our first doctor was rather severe and quick with the boys, and even quicker with answering my questions.  Apparently, he sees a great many parents who are uneducated, drug-clouded, teens, or simply abusive through negligence (I say this wryly, as he is a doctor at the beach, where most of his millionaire patients have no idea that poverty exists, other than they help their church out with fundraisers every now and again).  He liked to give me advice along the lines of, “Don’t leave them alone in the water.”  So, he wasn’t my favorite person to begin with.  But it wasn’t the physicians irritating tone, or his condescending nature, it was the fact that he examined one of the boys twice, and thought that he had seen both.  He gave the same child two different results for the examinations as well.  I actually had to lift up the other baby, who was in my mother’s arms, and ask if he wanted to examine him too.  If you haven’t seen the boys, I will inform you that they neither look, nor act like they are even related, let alone twins.  One is huge, the other is small; one is dark, one is light (in color and temperament).

As bad as that was, it was the fact that he was completely unapologetic, un-humbled by even that mistake, that lead me to see another doctor in the practice.  So, his mistake seems to be the running joke amongst the nurses when we arrive, or when we reschedule and they ask which doctor we want to see. 

I have yet to meet anyone who believes that the boys look alike, and when people ask if they are identical, I want to know if they need their eyesight corrected.  Since I am on the subject, and the boys are now resorting to profanity (“Goddammit,” “bad dog!”), thus raising my ire, I will announce that the next person to suggest to me how ”lucky” I am to “get it all over at once,” is an idiot (as are all the rest of the people who have uttered such a ridiculous phrase.) 

Okay, one child has either passed out, died, or just given up. 

So, the appointment went really well, other than Finn grabbing and pulling the syringe out of his leg.  I might pass out just thinking about that.   The nurse, being new, and obviously unnerved by the activity level of the room, mistakenly wrote a note for the doctor about their being 18-months old.  Going by that age, the doctor brought out a bag of blocks and was asking them to stack them, and then asked them to point to their nose, ears, etc.  They did all of that, and then the doctor realized that they are only 15-months old, and was suitably astounded at their advanced magnificence and superior intellect (and Liam’s awesome dance moves).

Now that Finn has totally mastered the free-style climb, he understands that he has the ability to completely shock and terrify me.  I turned around just long enough to brush my hair, and when I turned back, he was sitting on top of the nightstand, “reading” the books and grinning at me.  Oif.  I am so exhausted. 

Three times now, as I have sat in the waiting room with the boys, I have been mistaken for a nanny–not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.  More than three times now (many more), people have just watched me maneuver the boys and all of their crap through the door as they comment, “you’ve got your hands full.”  No shit.  How about holding a door open, or have reality shows taught everyone that reality is here for their entertainment?  Three doors, “Captain a-hole” watched us work our way through!  Three!  And he has the nerve to make a “jovial,” “nice weather,” chatter-comment?  It irks me along the same lines as someone telling me how short or small I am, as though they are offering me evidence that I have been ignoring all my life. 

Grrr.  Bad Dog Pru. 

Food for Thought

XIV.  A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye.–Jean Antheleme Brillat-Savarin

What more need be said?

Pru

 

More Suburbian Surrealism

Well, the title is a lie.  I was going to talk about something to do with the horrors of cheerleaders, the massacres they commit, yadda yadda, blah-dee-blah.  I really don’t care enough to post that diatribe.  “Diatribe, it could killatribe.” Ugh.  Sorry…it had to escape.

Cannibalism has again taken over the content of my days, as I write my next masterpiece of an essay, which, thanks to Sally X, now has a title!  And, she gave me a colon!  I feel complete Check it out!:

“Fleshed Out: Textual Cannibalism in Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative,” (not coming to a bookstore near you, very soon).

Wow!  It’s like a sparkly little jewel right there, that colon!  I feel all grown up and ready for publication. 

I have been contemplating the conference further too.  Although I publicly and privately groused a great deal too much about the process, it was, in the end, a really good experience.  I can’t say that it aided me as a public speaker, though, as I enjoy the sound of words, and as that was part of my theme, I enjoyed slowing the pace down and drawing out the aural pleasure of precisely enunciated sounds.  (What?  Me, make a bad pun? Where?).  So, maybe it did work. 

Sally X, and Anna X (no relation), did a marvelous job of presenting their papers.  Beautiful, calm, and exceedingly insightful.   

I enjoyed being mean to several other students that I don’t care for, though Sally is the nicest person I know, and because she was the one who got the ears full of my intellect-blasting, snarky verbiage, I was suitably regretful later.  It was nice to hear what other students are/have been working on.

Joan X’s paper, and the discussion it prompted between Sally and Dr. X has put my mind into a spin, and if I think about it for long, I make little sicky noises.  Barthes was not someone that I recall enough of to put his theories into common language, but it is the basic idea that no narrator is an “I.”  I still think that Sally is correct in assessing the gender and race of the narrator in ”Tu Do” street, as I cannot read it any other way, and I think it is a group of egos bloviating to deny that we can indeed pin down one form of the self in one instance, or several for that matter.  I  understand the iteration thingy, but there is still a voice that is static in some ways…right?  Otherwise, my whole world has just done a belly-flop from which it will never recover. 

Oh, and I did not wear sunscreen.  Not at all, come to think of it.  It was a rather rainy day (perfect for my blackbirds), and my “perky goth” ensemble/look.  Which reminds me about a certain conference attendee who I can’t figure out…of whom I was going to make an acidy-spitty little comment, but Sally’s voice is in my head, overriding it with niceness.   

Oh, right, cannibal words…Well, I’m all fleshed out for now.  Ha!  Maybe I will post some of the interesting British Romanticism cannibal related art I am coming across… Maybe in the next post.

I hope everyone is hungry!

Pru

Suburbian Surrealism

So, I survived the conference, and read, without having to resort to reciting Berkeley Breathed’s ”Goodnight Opus” (which I now have memorized, as it is the only story that will get the boys to fall asleep…if you read it at least thrice).  There were quite a few more students there than I had anticipated, which was great, and not as many professors to ask loads of off the wall questions, which was also great.  Come to think of it…I got one question only, so maybe that isn’t really so great.  I did dress up (though I didn’t have enough time to find a hat with a crow on it, or a hat to which I could attach a crow), but I couldn’t pull it off “Slam” style.  Far too nervous for that.  The dressing up did help, I think.  Nicer to think of it as a theatrical something.  No matter, it is over and I am moving on to another essay. 

I have had an image stuck in my head for the last couple of weeks.  It alternately confuses me and cracks me up, every time I consider it.  There is an older gentleman (in his seventies?) who is constantly in motion around my neighborhood.  He is either running, riding a bike, walking, doing some combination of all the three, or sitting in his garage and, presumably, resting.  I always pass him several times while I am running around the settlement here, and it always reminds me of the guy we used to refer to as, “Ghandi,” riding his bike in the merciless Tucson sun.  “Ghandi,” was an exceedingly tan, bald, and hairless man, on a bike.  In fact, I never saw him off of the bike.  He was painfully fit, barely clothed, and I would estimate that he was of an age somewhere in his forties.  The constant motion is curious to me, as one who would like nothing better than a full hour or two, just to sit around.  I am a lazy, lazy woman at heart (and mind, I suppose).

As usual, I was running, boys in stroller, and fighting the wind; we passed the gentleman a couple of times, Liam waved and shouted, “Hh-aye!”  The third time, we were approaching the man as he was heading toward us, and suddenly, I saw an elderly Asian man on a bicycle speed up to get just in front of the gentleman (I’ll call him “Wally”), and “Wally” began to book it after the cyclist!  He was gaining some real speed!  The Asian man nodded and smiled as he passed us, and ”Wally” continued hoofin-it after the cyclist, brandishing what looked like a knife blade shining in the sun.  Shocked, I realized as I got cloer, that the “knife” was a piece of mail.  When the cyclist put enough distance between himself and “Wally,” “Wally” seemed a bit defeated, and slowed to a mosey, mail still in hand.  I was still running, but those were some of the most confusing seconds I have had as a runner. 

It was like watching Inspecter Clueso and Cato.  I am baffled by the surreal display, and have no idea what was going on there.  Was it some odd sort of training exercise?  The only thing that could have made that episode more surreal would have been to see a cluster of diminutive “Disney Princesses,” battling it out with giant Q-tip-looking things, a la “American Gladiator…” which happened indeed to be occurring just a few houses away…

Your Partially Deconstructed,

Prucilla

How can a title make me feel like my underpants are showin’?

Upon seeing that those presenting were indeed “chosen” from a number of proposed presentations, I felt uplifted…and then, I discovered that I didn’t have nearly as fancy a topic/title as the other presenters…

Now, I live with that bad-dream feeling that I have forgotten something, or I have left the hosue with only sunscreen on, or my underpants are showing… 

I can only guess that everyone will be waiting for something more theoretical, more deconstructed, than what I have to offer.  From the titles below, you can see why I am concerned.  I kind of stand out like a sore thumb, and maybe they should really have chosen someone else in my space.  Well, it isn’t my first time sticking out, and it certainly won’t be the last.  I do feel like I lack the fancy, explanatory title though.  I will, however, look to The Tick for a mantra…”I’m out there!  I’m WAY out there!”   Well, here, see for yourself; I don’t have any of those fancy colons, which  I now covet.  “Axioms?!”  I don’t have any “Axioms” in my title!  Well, okay, neither does Clarence:

 

First Session

10 am to 11:00 am 1.

Sally X, “Undermining Axioms:  Racial Deconstruction in Yusef Komunyakaa’s Poem ‘Tu Do Street’” 

2.Anna X, “What Did I Do To Be So Black and Blue?: The Southern Grotesque and Political Resistance in Madison Smartt Bell’s All Soul’s Rising” 

3. Erin X, “Between the flashes: Art and War in the novels of Ian McEwan and Pat Barker” 

Discussion  

Second Session11:10 am to 12:10 pm 

1. Antina X, “Cultural Consumption” 

2. Sonia X,  “Orgasm to Africa: Erotic Energies in the Works of Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde” 

3.  Stacy X, “Soul Snatching and Identity Theft: Spirit Thievery and Identity Loss in Caribbean Literature” 

Discussion

Lunch12:10 to 12:50 pm

Third Session

 12:50 pm to 1:50 pm 

1. Joan X, “The ‘I’ of the Beholder: Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida” 

2.  Caryn X, “Aggression, Arrogance, and Anthropomorphism: Intraspecies Relationships in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s The Yearling and Beyond” 

3. Prucilla, “Blackbirds and the Art of Balance”  

Discussion  

Fourth Session 2 pm to 3 pm 

1. Raquel X, “Medicated into Normalcy: Foucault, Rhys, Beltrán and the Eucharist of Modern Medicine” 

2. Katherine X, “Understood Between Accomplices: Pleasure, Perspective, and Personal Responses to Lingis’ Erotic Narratives” 

3. Clarence X III, “The Power of the Confession”  

Program designed and produced by Joan X

A Balancing Act Amongst Blackbirds

Around Halloween, I used to want so badly to saunter into the haunted houses like all of the other kids.  It was no bid deal for them, because the scares weren’t all that great, really.  The problem for me was the people.  All of the people.  The “actors” in the houses, and the people around me.  About a third of the way through the line I would begin getting really panicked, and not because I thought there would be anything realistically frightening in the dark recesses of the garbage-bag covered warehouses, but because the idea of a cheap “Boo!” scare was really horrible.  It was the idea that there were people in there that I couldn’t see, didn’t know, didn’t probably want to know, and they were going to take advantage of the cheap thrill of scaring someone in a very physical way.  I wanted a haunted house that would scare me by content and context, not by people reaching out and smacking me on the shoulder.  For that, you get a wickedly sharp Prucilla elbow to the groin, my friend.

No, it wasn’t the contents of the “haunted houses” that scared me, it was the fear that built up while I was waiting in the cue.  It was the idea that there was no going back, and the feeling of a crowd mentality that simply herded and pushed me into place.  I still hate crowds.  They are truly the most frightening and stupid places to be.

I know that “people” really get into Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, but I really don’t understand it.  I think it is fun that the literary theory community has jumped on it, and adores it for the theory it incorporates, but I find it a bloviated piece of self-indulgent, “look how brilliant I think I am,” refuse.  However, it still sits, collecting dust, in its own place on my shelf.  I am frightened of the book, not because of its content, but because the ego that speaks through it is so enormously loud.  Granted, it isn’t as though the average Joe or Mary are going to pick this thing up and start incorectly reading into the theory.  That’s saved for the super egos like Dan Brown.  Now that is a group-think driven stack of excremental… 

Every now and again, I will overhear someone using the theorist lingo, and usually incorrectly.  That stuff isn’t easy to get a handle on, and because of that, it becomes a caustic, terrible thing when it is misinterpreted and filtered into the ”common” understanding. 

I am a huge fan of hating the “Ghost Hunters.”  Either those guys are really bigger half-wits than I first thought, or they are complicit in their attempt to deceive themselves and their viewing public.  I really do believe they think what they are doing is legitimate, and that their claims are substantiated…but really.  I can do a better con-job with some of those “effects” than they have, and I am not even technically savvy enough to work my own camera/camcorder.   My real issue with them is the cultural misunderstanding they and others continue to push out into the group-think ether.  I saw them discussing a map a-la Dan Brown’s genius theories.  I can only imagine the groups of viewers nodding their heads, as though these people are experts at anything other than make-believe and evidence-creation.  Somehow, I find that kind of misinformation scattering more dangerous than even Dr. Frank Hibben and his falsified/planted evidence (but that was another blog, long ago).

I am recalling these feelings simply because I am now in the cue toward the hall of horrors, otherwise know as the Graduate Conference; wherein I will give literary life to a nefarious something.  Nope, I can’t back out of the line now…my name’s already on the schedule of speakers…after lunch, of all things (read: broccoli in teeth, and stains everywhere, from nervous, jittery, sweaty, twitching hands)… 

Evil week to all.  Go deconstruct something,

Prucilla