Soooo tired I might, in an unguarded moment, forget to ask who’s at the door.
Author Archives: Tata
To Feel You’re "Acceptable"
This week, voters in California voted to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage. The effort was funded largely by the Mormon Church, which had to found its own state because its views on marriage were so far outside the mainstream. Anyway, the struggle in California ain’t over – not while money is flying in every direction faster than you can say “wedding industry.” This is a temporary setback. It’s an idiotic, repressive and pointless setback, but it’s temporary. I’m certain of this, and here for me is what constitutes proof: Bianca and Reese are getting married.
All My Children tends to circle around and around – and sometimes around again – an issue before making it part of normal life. At first, Bianca was gay and the characters just talked about it. Then there was – zomigod! – a kiss, and we all had to wait for the hysterics to calm down. Then, there was another big build up and another kiss. Nobody was killed and we returned to folding our laundry. Then we had a transgender character talking about emotional and physical love and the audience kind of went crazy, which was stupid but foreseeable. Eventually, the audience calmed down again. Bianca has come back with a brand new baby and a gorgeous girlfriend and this week, Reese proposed. Bianca accepted. They kissed a whole lot and the world did not end. It didn’t! I’m sure of it. See for yourself – the first three minutes will do the trick.
The reason I say Californians’ setback is temporary is that women are going to watch Erica Kane plan a wedding for her angelic daughter, whose beautiful girlfriend is sweet and warm, and women all over the place LOVE A FREAKING WEDDING. There will be resistance, then women will say things like, “I’m not sure it should be legal, but wasn’t that beautiful? I cried my eyes out!” Then a whole lot of women will make one truly crucial recognition: they have gay friends and relatives who might really like to hire a band and polka in public. All gay marriage will mean to most women is the possibility of more weddings, more cake, more dancing, more flowers, more love, more babies to adore, more of what makes life good.
It’s just a matter of time. No one can stop that now.
Hope Finds A Way
Finally, let me share with you the one last blessing for this morning, the sheheyanu. We bless God who has kept us alive, who has sustained us and who has enabled us to reach this season.
I had begun to think recently that these three terms: keeping us alive, sustaining us and enabling us to reach this season speak of the three ages of human beings, First, we are children awe-struck by the world and grateful for being alive. Then, we are middle aged adults struggling to remain stable within the direction we have set for ourselves thankful for being sustained. Finally, we are elderly individuals grateful for just reaching a new day.
That’s a nice interpretation. But, I have been inspired by words I heard this year to look at it differently. Our lives need to be a combination of all of those every day. We must never give up the thrill of being alive, always seek to find our direction and be grateful at the end of each day, knowing we have navigated the dangers of life successfully.
I credit this understanding of the Sheheyanu to a quotation I heard from a former astronaut, Pinky Nelson, commenting on flying the space shuttle after the tragedy of the Columbia.
He said: “You really have three things going on at once. There’s the professional astronaut that’s cool and calm and watching the instruments. There’s the little kid who’s got a ticket to Disneyland is having the ride of a lifetime. And there’s the older person looking over your shoulder trying to take it all in. You know if you’re not scared during a shuttle launch, then you don’t appreciate what’s going on.”
If we’re not scared during life, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And if we don’t feel like a kid in Disneyland each and every day, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And if we’re not watching every step of the way trying to stay in control, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And the Sheheyanu reminds us that we should acknowledge the deep enjoyment of life, the living of life with meaning and the acceptance and overcoming of our fears at every age of our lives.
Welcome to our new lives, to this new day.
That Emptiness Brings Fullness
I can’t form a coherent sentence anymore about politics. The absolute worst thing I’ve ever heard was the suggestion that the Democratic candidate killed his grandmother today for sympathy votes. My response to this has been swift and direct: god damn it, I’m going to knit some fucking cat blankets in my extreme and shitty frustration that reprobate howler monkeys qualify to vote, and put some Good after Bad. Fuck!
And I urge you to give a street person a quarter and a granola bar, put spare change in a parking meter, feed some stray cats, because we have seen enough, and you’ve probably still got a quarter.
That Delicate Satin-Draped Frame
At the family store, where my sisters Anya and Corinne and their mother Ellen show and sell the wares and works of artists and artisans, people ask very interesting questions. The first time I noticed this thinking at work, a woman browsed the little store for over an hour, then asked an exciting question: “Do you have any vases?” My heart skipped a beat. For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Then I said, “Yes,” because the store is a room – and I cannot overstate this – full of vases. Yesterday, a woman walked around in circles and finally asked, “Do you have anything with butterflies?” I gulped, then started at one end of the store and made a pile in a shopping basket for her that would have cost her hundreds if she hadn’t exclaimed, “Stop! Stop! I don’t like my friend that much.” The other question that boggles my tiny mind is, “What would you do with these?” – meaning the pocket vases made by Daniel Latta of Latta’s Fused Glass.
I make lists: love notes, pencil holder, bud vase, chopstick dispenser, spaghetti organizer, handy eyeliner file, recipe card stand, spare change jar, safe place for used razors, container for your shredded credit card bill (pay it first!), cat toy caddy, fresh herb frame, brilliant storage for your favorite stranded wire bundle, haystack for a beloved needle, rainy day cash safe, seed cup, display case for your tail comb collection. I could go on.
Pete and I were wandering through Acme, of all places, when I stumbled on a basket of oversized cinnamon stick bundles. I’d surmised I’d only be able to get them at an Indian grocery, but there they were. This hangs in our bedroom, a warm beige bearing little resemblance to this color, where lamplight appears to flicker and even with the camera’s candlelight setting, the vase appears to move. Or we were having an earthquake no one else noticed. Either way, we couldn’t take a picture of this vase that wasn’t an action photo. Doesn’t it look athletic?
In other news: Miss Sasha reports that Panky has begun to crawl: her life changed in a flash when he got up on all fours and made for the dog bowl.
Yes. I am still laughing.
Friday Dolphin Blogging: Do Birds Suddenly Appear Edition
Horoscopically speak, I’m not allowed to lie about anything, even the smallest thing, so I’m breaking down and telling you a few stupid truths. To advance the plot, you understand.
Perhaps you’ve noticed I’ve been a bit circumspect lately, more so than one might expect over filmy deposits left by my shampoo and dull, lifeless hair. Thing is: two members of my extended family are undergoing cancer treatment, which worked out less fabulously last time than we might have liked. Plus, there’s not a lot I can do besides call up one household and leave amusing messages, which I try to do now two or three times a week, and Heaven help me when someone answers the phone.
Sick Relative: Hello?
Tata: Did you know lips do not exfoliate and you must help them?
Sick Relative: Domenica, it’s always nice to hear you speak in tongues.
In that house, a whole lot of things snapped into fast-forward after the diagnosis, like that one of my cousins planned a wedding in eight weeks to land taffeta-side down minutes before Thanksgiving. Because. Because why? Because. We are going to gussy up, overeat, throw rice and take pictures, got that? You should immediately buy a case of Orville Redenbacher. This has positively awesome comic potential.
On the other side of the family, Pete’s sister Maggie was diagnosed out in Arizona with a cancer similar to the one that killed her mother. Maggie has been friends with my sister Daria since before either of them could say the words “I’m telling!” and my mother is a cancer survivor, so this is no laughing matter. Well, it wasn’t until Maggie started chemo and Pete and I mailed her whole family a variety of silly hats from the toy store for when, as her toddler said, “We all lose our hair.”
It was going pretty well until Maggie’s last chemo appointment this week. She was sitting in the waiting room, talking to other patients. One said he’d been getting chemo for two years, and she heard a few other things that didn’t make sense. Maggie’s a doctor of pharmacy. She calculated a few calculations and realized she’d been given the wrong dosages, so had other patients and who knows how many people are dead now. But instead of collapsing into a heap like a mere mortal, Maggie called one of her other best friends, a Manhattan malpractice attorney.
Perhaps, wherever you are, you hear a distant whooooooooshing sound coming from Arizona, as doctors and facilities rush to cover their asses. I wish them well. There’s no hope for them.
Speaking of hope – you knew there were animals here someplace – NOAA continues to hope the dolphins in the Navesink River will winter glamorously at the Jersey Shore.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service today announced a monitoring plan for 12 bottlenose dolphins in the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers. The agency also announced that there will be no effort to force the dolphins out of the area at this time.
Monitoring by NOAA dolphin researchers over the past week revealed no indications of stress, illness, or feeding problems. They identified 12 individuals moving easily from the Navesink to the Shrewsbury in two groups.
“These animals are in typical habitat, food is present, and we have no reason to believe they are stressed,” said Teri Rowles, director of NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Program. “We’re not going to interfere in what appears to be a completely natural phenomenon, especially when doing so carries a high risk of harming healthy animals.”
NOAA consulted with a number of experts on the condition and behavior of these animals in this habitat and determined the conditions of the estuary are well within those tolerated by bottlenose dolphins.
There is also general agreement that efforts to move the animals from the area by luring, chasing, or catching them for relocation would be difficult, potentially dangerous for the animals and people, and not likely to succeed.
That sounds really rational, doesn’t it? I read the article a few times and the most 
striking aspect of the language is the attempt throughout to shut down any avenue of discussion. If we were children talking about toys, that might make sense, but we’re not. Dolphins have frozen in the Navesink before, and if you’re in New Jersey, I don’t have to tell you it’s been freaking cold for the past few weeks. If you’re not in New Jersey, it’s been freaking cold for the past few weeks. It’s just a matter of time now until the rivers clog with ice.
There’s a website with beee-yootiful photographs of the dolphins, and helpful contact information.
If are not satisfied with the NOAA decision, share your thoughts via a respectful email or phone call. They seem very willing to discuss the matter with anyone who asks.
David.Gouveia: David.Gouveia@noaa.gov or (978) 281-9505
Teri Frady: teri.frady@noaa.gov or (508) 495-2239
http://www.nero.noaa.gov/prot_res/
Or:
Contact Governor Corzine with a respectful email and share your thoughts:
1. Just click here.
2. Choose “Natural Resources” from the drop down menu & click “continue”
3. On the next page choose “Fish, Game & Wildlife” from the drop down menu and fill out the form.
You can also contact Governor Corzine by writing to:
The Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 001
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0001
PH: (609) 777-2500
It can’t hurt to talk about it. Please give them a call.
Some speculate that construction on that big bridge at Highlands keeps the pod from migrating out to sea. Pete and I saw that site a few weeks back, and even on a Sunday it was loud and confusing. I hated seeing that, since twenty-five years ago, the foot of that bridge, then crumbling and untraveled, was where I went for peace and quiet. But that wasn’t so important, it was just another strange dead end for me on the day Pete and I scattered the one-sixth of Dad’s ashes in my possession into the thundering waves at Point Pleasant. Since Dad and I said everything to each other when he was still alive and he smirks in my dreams now and then wearing his usual European underwear, there wasn’t much to say as the powder that used to be Dad fell into the churning spray and foam and flew on the wind. I had chosen Point Pleasant because his grandfather had had a giant house on the ocean, where many of Dad’s favorite childhood memories were set, where I know currents cross the Atlantic and warm the northern coasts. So there was only one thing to say that was new at all.
Tata: ‘Bye, Dad. Be free. Hey! Now you can summer in Europe!
But You Can’t Stop Thinking About Her
Okay. Okay. Okay: we’re sitting in the car on the way home and I burst out laughing.
Tata: Omigod, I forgot to tell you something.
Pete: You like my rugged good looks?
Tata: Pffft! Like I shut up about that. Remember I took a shower for about a year before we went out?
Pete: I remember.
Tata: And remember that I’ve been glum about my hair for weeks?
Pete: How could I forget?
Tata: And I’ve been putting my hair up in a ponytail to avoid dealing with it?
Pete: I’m still snickering. I mean, sure.
Tata: And since I got sick I’ve been complaining I could smell fever on my scalp?
Pete: Hoo boy, yes.
Tata: And you know how we bulk shop at Costco and use giant bottles of smelly goo?
Pete: Indeed I do!
Tata: Well, I was in the shower before and I washed my hair, and I was really frustrated because I couldn’t get the shampoo to lather, which I thought was because my scalp had suddenly become oily or something. So I washed my hair a second time and still no lather and I was just like, “What?” So finally I turned the bottle around and if you can believe it, I have been washing my hair for – like – six weeks with conditioner.
And then, when I expected him to drive off the road in stupefaction at my antics, Pete said the most extraordinary thing.
Pete: I know.
What?
Tata: What?
Pete: I was looking through the bottles on the shelves in the bathtub. There’s this stuff, that stuff, some other stuff and I said, “What’s she washing with?”
Tata: And you didn’t say anything?
Pete: Nooooooo. You’re mysterious.
Tata: I’m not mysterious, I’m – like – stupid.
Don’t panic! I’ve washed my long, luxurious blond hair, glazed it, conditioned it and come clean about this episode with every last one of my female co-workers, and at the end of the story, when they’re gasping at my ability to move about in society without a keeper, I can see they are mentally reviewing the products in their bathrooms.
Speaking of review, let’s review this new picture of Panky with pumpkins.
Man, he’s cute.
So You Can See What’s Going On
Let’s time travel a little bit. The easiest way is with wacky verb tenses. Watch!
On the Daily Show Monday night, Campbell Brown, bless her heart, said she wants to break free of the usual political bullshit, which is heartwarming. My icy heart almost warmed and everything! Then Ms. Brown repeats the modern political version of an old wives’ tale: for your news sources, you can choose Fox on the Right and MSNBC on the rabid left; Bill O’Reilly or Trotskiite Keith Olbermann. The thing is: that actually is bullshit. She might believe it, too, which makes it worse. Let’s talk about the political compass.
That’s me, there, waving to you from the southwest of freaking GANDHI. I am unapologetic in my belief in acting for the common good and leaving people alone to make the best or worst decisions about their own lives and medical care. I am unconcerned about where people were born, what language they speak, what religion they practice or with whom they knock boots; skin color and economics need not prevent us from attending the same tea party. I have a responsibility to care for people less fortunate than myself and to do good works in this lifetime without the kibbitzing of some bearded sky god. Adequate food, housing and medical care for all people are not too much to ask. Political prisoners of the war on drugs should go free. I try to think peaceful thoughts when I want to bash someone with a tire iron. My government does not own but retains stewardship of its public lands, and I want it to take that responsibility seriously while I figure out how to afford shiny-shiny solar panels. Damn it, I want all children to have shoes and safe places to sleep. And books. And uniformly good educations. That’s the lower lefthand spot from which I speak. You can find where your beliefs sit on the Political Compass Test.
You’ll notice the test doesn’t simply divide opinions into Left and Right. It also tests for libertarian or authoritarian impulses. I am shamelessly anti-authoritarian about individuals, which is the same reason I wish for rigorous corporate regulation the world over. It’s pretty simple: one person with a bad idea can do society some minor damage, but an multinational conglomerate with a bad idea can destroy the planet.
So, in practice, I am a happy lowercase-L leftist. Socialism sounds fine to me, but I’m not afraid of a few words, either. I’ve got a dictionary! Have at it! But here’s the thing: the closest things we’ve seen to capital-L Leftists in American public life in the last three decades have been Dennis Kucinich and Reverend Al Sharpton, but neither one of them is a Leftist. They aren’t. They are slightly to the left of center, which you might have noticed if American political rhetoric hadn’t shifted so far to the Right that housing advocates are reviled as rabid Communists. Olbermann is not of the Left or the left. Olbermann is a centrist.
I could explain to you how silly that is but it would require hand puppets and Spam.
But enough about me, what do you think of reporters who don’t know the difference between talking points and facts? What do you think of people who claim to offer balance when they specifically mean they do not? What do you think of public discourse when one candidate in an American presidential election is described by his opponent through racial code words and the press takes up the vocabulary without skipping a beat?
Is winning so important we must reduce half of America to ashes?
As for Campbell Brown, I keep wondering if she simply doesn’t understand what she’s saying or worse: maybe she does?
Your Diamond Desert
Seven days to the election.
From the Highest Tower
This morning, I walked to work. It was tough going, what with the fuzzy lungs and me allergic to cashmere. While I was dramatically infirm, I noticed a new recruitment ad for the military that made me delicately irate. In it, an older man of color asks an olive-skinned woman if her son is still talking about joining the military. She says the young man talks about nothing but. The older man asks if she is still opposed to her son joining. She says her son can be very persuasive, and her mind is opening to the idea. The older man says he’s impressed with both of them.
Congratulations to the US military, which has finally managed to convey what some of us have known all along: our sons are born to be cannonfodder in self-perpetuating imperialist wars. It is only our stubborn belief that children matter individually preventing the military from snapping them up like dropped pennies and turning them into gravestones or worse. And if mothers and fathers would stop being so damned picky about that whole PSTD-head injury-full-thickness burns-lost limbs-depression and suicide thing, it would just be so much easier to conduct these endless, pointless wars that are such a boon to the military-industrial complex. So this morning, when I walked around a ROTC flag raising ceremony because the sidewalk was blocked by shivering crew-cut teenagers, I was in a bit of a snit. But why talk about architecture when we can dance about war?
Poor Impulse Control 