Author Archives: Tata

I’ve Been Memed. II

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Little does Phydeaux know I’ve been lurking at his place, too. Shh! Don’t tell him! It’s a secret!

These are the rules:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

As Dot said, “You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her wear panties.” Or something like that. Anyway, while it’s charming to be chosen for the Varsity Cogitating Team, I should mention some months ago, my sister Daria introduced a pearl of wisdom we now live by. Feel free to adopt it if this adage suits your purposes: Don’t think – it weakens the team. Let’s sort out a few things, for clarity’s sake. Think of it as the AlkaSeltzer before your bingy-drink-drinking.

I write for and/or fall down at:
Poor Impulse Control. Hi!
Running Scared. Infrequently. I finished the Holland House.
Blanton’s & Ashton’s. They have booze.
AgitProp. BYOBushie.
…so Mr. DBK and Mr. Blogenfreude are RIGHT OUT.

I read a pile o’ blogs every day, some several times a day. The really big ones don’t make sense to me (Eschaton hurts my tiny brain and I’d have to quit my job to read Kos) so I stick to mid-level, middle-to-actual left blogs, art, food and storytelling blogs. (Many of these blogs have the Thinkery logo.) At least once a week, I follow someone’s blogroll to a blog I’m really glad I found. The tricky part can be finding it a second time, because while a great many big thinkers are working in the Blogosphere, quite a few of them don’t need little me to prop up their egos. In no particular order, then:

For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast. This is the first blog I read every morning. How Jill accomplishes organized thinking and writing day after day while I’m begging the Caffeine Gods for mercy is beyond me. Moreover, Jill’s passion is contagious. I’m a lot less likely to walk away from political conversations seething and silent than I was before either I found her or she found me.

Enrevanche. Barry thinks about things I don’t or they wouldn’t cross my path. His cat is a humble rock star. I read Enrevanche about once a week. If I skip it, I feel like I misplaced my car keys.

Reading The Unapologetic Mexican drags me out of my cracked-glass-lined comfort zone and into one where my assumptions of ‘normal’ and ‘ordinary’ sound gratingly stupid to my ear – and that is fantastic. I can’t question my ideas – I have to deal with their failures.

Spocko’s Brain is an important read whenever I feel uninspired. One determined, organized person with a good memory can put the screws to bullies, and don’t you forget it!

You must join me in the splendor and fury that is Cripes, Suzette II: Into the Fire. Do not argue the point! You will not prevail! Suzette’s politics differ from mine, which are slightly to the left of Gandhi’s, yet we must order soup, and you must absolutely taste the duck. Taste it! Do not vex me, as this meme will vex Suzette!

It must be mentioned that Sharon at Center Of New Jersey Life is so smart I jog in place to keep up, and it’s a good thing I recently bought new bras.

There you have it. As for Rule #3, I will ask Siobhan to explain it to me slowly and in simple expletives, because I am small and covered with fur. Though there’s Nair.

Say the Mark Is Mine

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Part One

Part Two
At the very end of this story, a large contingent of my family is running in circles around a parking lot. It’s like a Chinese fire drill with fewer fumes, but you wouldn’t know it from the silliness. I go home with Corinne. It’s almost a two-mile straight line from this street to my apartment, it’s getting dark and we’re babbling. Stopped at a traffic light halfway home, we’re chattering at each other when the driver in front of us shoves open his door, jumps out and dances between the yellow lines on Hamilton Street. Corinne and I point! We gasp! We make noises like our lung function is imperiled! The light turns green. He slides back into his car. We squeal with glee. He turns left onto George Street at the next light but our delight stays with us.

At home before 9:30 on a Friday night, I’m too exhausted to move and it’s too early to sleep. Then suddenly it’s very late. Then it’s possible I woke up happy Saturday morning.

Damn it!

Part Three

When I Squeeze You You Make Noise

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Slashdot: The Daily Mail reports that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey.

After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek. This has turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents. Now it seems inevitable though that they will finally land on the shores of South-West England. ‘[Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer] correctly predicted what many thought was impossible – that thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic. It proved true years later and in 2003, the first Friendly Floatees were found, frozen and then thawed out, on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. So precious to science are they that the US firm that made them is offering a £50 bounty for finding one.

Apologies: I misplaced the URL for this blurb, but let’s look at The Daily Mail.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR:

10 JANUARY 1992: Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean nearly 29,000 First Years bath toys, including bright yellow rubber ducks, are spilled from a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean.

16 NOVEMBER 1992: Caught in the Subpolar Gyre (counter-clockwise ocean current in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Siberia), the ducks take 10 months to begin landing on the shores of Alaska.

I am SO HAPPY.

EARLY 1995: The ducks take three years to circle around. East from the drop site to Alaska, then west and south to Japan before turning back north and east passing the original drop site and again landing in North America. Some ducks are even found In Hawaii. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) worked out that the ducks travel approximately 50 per pent faster than the water in the current.

1995 – 2000: Some intrepid ducks escape the Subpolar Gyre and head North, through the Bering Straight and into the frozen waters of the Arctic. Frozen into the ice the ducks travel slowly across the pole, moving ever eastward.

2000: Ducks begin reaching the North Atlantic where they begin to thaw and move Southward. Soon ducks are sighted bobbing in the waves from Maine to Massachusetts.

2001: Ducks are tracked in the area where the Titanic sank.

My heart will go on!

JULY TO DECEMBER 2003: The First Years company offers a $100 savings bond reward for the recovery of wayward ducks from the 1992 spill. To be valid ducks must be sent to the company and must be found in New England, Canada or Iceland. Britain is told to prepare for an invasion of the wayward ducks as well.

Duck validation!

2003: A lawyer called Sonali Naik was on holiday in the Hebrides in north-west Scotland when she found a faded green frog on the beach marked with the magic words ‘The First Years’. Unaware of the significance of her find she left it on the beach. It was only when she was chatting to other guests at her hotel that she realised what she had seen.

What a moron!

Science is just adorable.

If I Make A Mark In Time

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Part One
Siobhan’s sister is getting married tomorrow. Siobhan’s been spinning in decorative circles for months, which has been bugging the hell out of me. Tomorrow it’s all over and Siobhan can get back to what really matters: Me. And she’ll be glad to, because what could be more important than My happiness?

Speaking of selfish, Mom and Tom got remarried on Daria’s birthday.

Let’s review: on the day before my February birthday, Dad called to say he had cancer. Days after Anya’s March birthday, we learned the cancer was terminal. On Corinne’s birthday, the rest of us were in Virginia taking care of Dad. The day before Todd’s April birthday, Dad died. Last week, I figured, crap, this year no one gets a birthday besides Dara and Daria, but I was wrong. A few years ago, a giant fucking hurricane and the stupid humans charged with emergency response wiped out the civil records for the City of New Orleans, and with it, any official documentation of Mom’s and Tom’s secret-from-everyone-even-each-other hippy wedding.

Yesterday, as actual criminals deserted New Brunswick for the Jersey Shore, Anya, Corinne and I lay across benches in a nearly empty courthouse – because it was funny – waiting for our parents, who are typically two-three hours late for everything. On my way into the building, the cop at the door looked really bored until I couldn’t follow directions but what else is new?

Bored Guy: Where are you going?
Tata: Isn’t that what we’d all like to know?
Bored Guy: Today, in this building?
Tata: I’m going to – I think it’s –
Bored Guy: Family court?
Tata: Room 201?
Bored Guy: Family court? Judge SomeFella?
Tata: No. Judge SomeDude? Judge SomeOldMan?
Bored Guy: Judge SomeOldMan is right at the top of the stairs. Why are you here?
Tata: Wedding.
Bored Guy: I guess you’re here to meet them.

He points up the stairs at my – I assure you – very attractive stepsisters. I begin ascending.

Bored Guy: Elevator’s over there.
Tata: Thanks!
Much Less Bored Guy: I said – elevator’s over there!
Tata: The fat lady said thank you.

We sprawled across the benches. We hadn’t even had time to pass out before their father and my mother came up the stairs at 3:30, the time of our appointment with legal destiny and Judge SomeOldMan. Daria ran up the stairs dressed like one of Christina Aguilera’s back up singers just as the clerk was about to lose patience with our babbling. Anya and I had signed the paperwork as witnesses. Corinne was holding all the ceremonial jewelry until Daria arrived, and Todd was in Los Angeles, nursing a red-hot grudge.

See, in 1998, we heard a rumor. I don’t know why it happened this way, but it did. As the oldest child and the one therefore closest to death, I called home. It was a local call.

Tata: Are you two married?
Mom: What? I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Tata: I asked you a yes or no question. I’m not asking complicated questions like how or why.
Mom: I have to go bake something…
Tata: Are you two married? Your innumerable children want to know.
Mom: No. Nuh-unh. Yes. Yes!
Tata: Fine! Thank you! Stop hyperventilating, sheesh!
Mom: I’m sticking my head in the freezer. Rescue me before my hair cracks.

For people allergic to marriage, they’d apparently gotten married twice – at least. The story changes depending on who’s listening and their level of involvement with law enforcement. Mom and Tom met at the commune. Have I mentioned the commune? Yeah, I’ve milked a goat. Anyway, when Daria, Todd and I met Tom, we were the oddly small pre-teens in the alley beside the health food restaurant climbing up the sides of a big man. Subsequently, at a time nobody remembers but before I was released from the custody of primary school authorities, Mom stopped arguing about the getting-remarried thing. They got metaphysical in Martha’s Vineyard before the stars and the sea, more conventionally legal in New Orleans, and now dry and permanent before a judge in New Brunswick. I maintain they should have waited out the seventies for Cher’s dozen farewell tours and gotten married across America, Karen Finley-style, but it’s not like I was present and organizing. No, though I care about things like who’s wearing what metals, I was busy running away from home once a week at the time. So almost twenty years later in 1999, as Todd says to anyone who’ll listen in Los Angeles, “We slapped some rings on them for the whatever anniversary of whatever happened. Then we ate cake.”

Part Two

Friday Music Blogging: Leave That Dog Alone Edition

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Nothing says “Thank Kali it’s Friday” like a music vid straight out of art school from an over-beautiful band. So here’s one in honor of Mitt Romney’s calculated animal cruelty.

In 90 degree heat, I need a full wardrobe of dresses that touch me on my shoulders and nowhere else. And speaking of bad touching:

Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. Then Romney put his boys on notice: He would be making predetermined stops for gas, and that was it.

The ride was largely what you’d expect with five brothers, ages 13 and under, packed into a wagon they called the “white whale.”

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. “Dad!” he yelled. “Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.

As comedian Paula Poundstone said, “Sometimes, you can be proud of the wrong thing.”

I Love the Flower Girl

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Before Miss Sasha was born, I picked her first name and her father picked her middle name. When the time came to sign her birth certificate, her father was off on a bender of some sort. I didn’t know how to spell her exotic French middle name, so I guessed and guessed wrong. Dad said, “Great. You named her Bicycle Seat.” Of course, I really hadn’t. I could spell that. Years later, the Fabulous Ex-Husband(tm) adopted Miss Sasha, and I took the opportunity to correct the misspelling on the new birth certificate. Live and learn.

In May and early June, I heard a whole bunch of people use a phrase over and over. I tried hard to keep a straight face. It is really important to note when communicating with the other humans that what you’re saying is not what the other humans hear. It can’t be. You have your own way of stringing together words that is uniquely yours. My next door neighbor sits outside on warm evenings with a cell and a pack of smokes, and for a couple of hours seems to say nothing more than, “Like…like…you know what I mean?” and I can tell by her inflection she believes her friend does. I don’t have a fucking clue what she means without the ordinary clues provided by nouns and verbs, and I have to say, this neighbor provides me with a very unsatifying eavesdropping experience.

She says one thing. I hear something else. That’s fairly standard.

The phrase I heard everywhere in May and June was “come to Jesus,” as in people were having “a come to Jesus moment.” My brain is of course uniquely mine, but in this case, I’m not sure, so as a public service, I’m saying this in a reasonably public place.

When you say “come to Jesus,” I hear –

I’m just sayin’.

So Long To Want Something More

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Topaz, quirky Topaz.

This morning, I roused just after sunrise to find cuddly Drusy nestled into my left side, which was lovely. The real surprise was finding mercurial Topaz nestled into my right. Drusy loves me with a drenching pre-teen passion. She climbs on me often and kisses me sweetly. Topaz, prisoner of peer pressure, brushes against me for attention only when Drusy’s not looking. I scratch lovely Topaz below her left ear, where she likes scratching best. Drusy always appears after a minute. Topaz only has eyes for Drusy.

Drusy, relocated to the pillow and poodle blanket so I could work.

I’m a terrible photographer. I’ve deleted dozens of blurry images of fractions of pussycats. When the kittens hear the whirr of camera noise, they split into a large number of small cat pieces and relocate the mewling herd. I’ve developed clever tricks like turning on the camera in another room. The kittens respond by refusing to reflect light when I return to the room. They’re around somewhere, but two camera-shy, six-pound kittens possess a mastery of the laws of physics unknown to humans. Topaz is the brains of the operation. I await the day she threatens me with a Teamster-style wildcat strike.

My apartment used to be quiet and spotless. Now it is always inches from a disaster area declaration. I fully expect to see aerial images of my bathroom on CNN and Jim Cantore staring wide-eyed at the destruction. This week, Topaz’s favorite toy is parsley. She races me to the fridge and climbs halfway in. I resist thinking about those paws in the cat box and tear her off a few sprigs, which she chases across the kitchen. Then she plays with them to bits. Later, when they’re little more than compost, I sacrifice them to the garbage gods. Still later, they return from the dead to haunt the kitchen.

I meant to buy a garbage can this past weekend. I really did.

Swept Away For A Moment By Chance

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I had a dream about us. You’re a green fuzzy Muppet and I’m a Tiffany lamp. We go bicycling and sip chocolate milk. One of us wears an ascot, though neither of us has a neck.

**

It’s serious, and it’s not: just before I open my eyes, I don’t know when I am. Time’s the thing. Will I open my eyes in Hartford, starving, teenaged and pregnant? In New Brunswick, as the driven other woman or so sick I wish I were dead? In Boston, despondent and alone? In what apartment, with what gut-churning fear? Me, as I am, I never wake up back in time, so why should I think I might? With my eyes open, I am here, now, with so little to fear I should rest easy. Yet, I hardly sleep at all.

**

We have no common language. You, sweet as sunlight, slip in the side door. Later, I remember strawberries in crystal cups.

**

It’s serious, and it can’t be: I see your face and others behind it. You see a thousand years.

**

You breathe and breathe, and you breathe without me. On a breeze, I arrive like rain.

**

It’s serious, and it’s nothing: your names are yours, while mine tear off and scab. Time’s the thing. One day, I will hear my true name. Then as now, will words pass between us?

**

I have a dream about us. You are a dollar store gift bag and I am a box of rubber bands. We go dancing and load squirt guns with apricot nectar. One of us will leave, though neither of us will ever go.