Diary Of A Mad Housewife
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March 23, 1999
"You've got to dance like no one's watching, and love like it's never going to hurt...."

The source of this quote has been the subject of a running discussion on the med-dance list for the last week, with the final consensus being some country song.  But whoever said/sang it first, it speaks straight to the heart of artistic fears.  Writers, musicians, dancers all struggle with the same nakedness in their work; laying out their soul for public comment.  If we thought about it, we'd be paralyzed with the awareness of how little protection we have against rejection and ridicule, and just how much of our heart is playing "pearl in the pigpen" with the audience.

Two of my very dear friends dance at a Middle Eastern restaurant in town and I spend many of my Friday evenings there lingering for hours over Turkish coffee and conversation.  My friends are beautiful, gifted dancers, with a passion for the art that goes beyond a dance style.  They dance inside the music, channeling its emotion into movement with contagious joy.  The venue is small--a converted A&W building--with 8 booths and a couple of tables that are moved out of the way to create a dance space.  The music vibrates the walls, and the dancer is not a stranger on a distant stage like a movie on the screen, but right beside you.   One of you.

For some, that can be an uncomfortable experience.  Being a compulsive observer myself, I've seen the different reactions to such personal art.  Some look away, staring at their food and trying to ignore what's happening.  They raise their voices above the music and focus intently on the person across from them to make idle chatter.  Some will snicker and make jokes.  Most are curious but they don't know where to look.  They want to stare but don't.  Perhaps some of that is the bedlah costuming (and the shock of seeing exposed stomachs) or a confusion between sexuality and sensuality, but I think it's more than that.  Where do you look when someone shows you their soul?

I have that reaction to certain authors.  There are a handful of beautiful, gifted writers who create with gut-wrenching honesty, holding nothing back, not even a cloak of self-defense.  Jill Barnett, Anne Lamott, Toni Morrison, Sharyn McCrumb, Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Ridley Pearson and others come to mind.  The story doesn't unfold upon a comfortably distant stage.  Nothing is lost to the flood lights.  You can see their eyes, smell their sweat, taste their joy and pain.  They are one of you.

Where do you look when someone hands you their soul?

Inside yourself.

We strive for that honesty in our own art, whether it's music, painting, dance or writing.  But we also know from observation just how thin the illusion of "no one will know it's me" is.  We know some will look away, some will raise their voices to drown out our words, and others will snicker.  So we must dance like no one's watching, and love like it's never going to hurt.  That's where beauty comes from.
 
March 20, 1999
For the last 2 months, I've been on a bad string of migraines.  The new medicine I'm on helps with the pain, not doesn't eliminate the Weird Stuff.  If you've ever had one of those sensory distortion episodes, you know exactly what I mean; the one-sided vision, hearing that disappears or exaggerates, etc.  In my case, it's olfactory hallucinations which precede the onset of an attack.

Since mid morning, I've been catching scent of sandalwood, my favorite incense.  The thing is, I haven't burned any in weeks.  Yet I was smelling it everywhere I went.  In the kitchen making breakfast, in the living room reading the paper, in the car ... even here in the computer room checking email.   One whiff, then it's gone. I've been tense and on edge, waiting for the pain to start.  But it didn't.

A few minutes ago I stood up to stretch out my back, and discovered my head wasn't going to start banging.  I was out of deodorant this morning, I borrowed Kerwin's "masculine scent."  You got it--with sandalwood. 

WELCOME to a new journaler, Jack Zuzeek!
 

March 19, 1999
  GO ZAGS!  Gonzaga  (correct pronunciation: gon-ZAG-a), NOT as the CBS commentators said it) 73, Florida 72!  On Saturday they play Connecticut for a berth in the Final Four.  I watched the UofC/IA game last night ... those kids are BIG!  They've got at least 6 inches and 30 lbs on the Gonzaga back court alone.  Think David vs. Goliath here, folks.  Wonder if they allow slings on the court?

I rechecked my submission log and discovered I was off by a month on the submission to Prism.  I sent it September 5, not October 5.  *sigh*  The last status note from them was January 7, which said it was being sent to the editorial board for a 2nd and 3rd reading, and that I'd have a response within 2 months.  I wish this long response time meant that it's under serious consideration, but I doubt it.  It's probably underneath a fern.
 
 What a week this has been.  Meredith and Tony have been on early release (12:30) since last Thursday, for elementary conferences, with no school at all last Friday.  I love my kids dearly, but this plays havok with my schedule.  Monday things go back to what passes for normal around here.
 
March 16, 1999
I feel old today.  Last night Julie was in a retro mood, and playing Three Dog Night on the piano.  When she launched into Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog, I realized I'd sung that song in the 3rd grade talent show.  ACK!

So that I don't have to suffer alone, I wrote a test to share with you all.  <muhahaha!>

The Codger Test
If you said yes, or knew the answer to 22 or more questions, CONGRATULATIONS!  You're officially an Old Codger.

If you got less than 15 correct, email me for answers, or ask your mother. 

March 15, 1999

I watched a fascinating series on The Discovery Channel last night, Cleopatra's Palace; In Search Of A Legend and The Real Cleopatra.  I'm probably the last person on earth who didn't know much about her aside from being vaguely awareness that Elizabeth Taylor once played her in a movie, so this was very enlightening.  I'm still pondering the idea that the world's image of her comes not from what she accomplished in her lifetime, but from the propaganda put out by Octavius, her rival.  The legend which come down to us is that she was a stunningly beautiful nymphomaniac with the power to bewitch and control men through sex.  Ergo, she slept her way to the top.  The truth, at least as portrayed by the historians in these documentaries, is something very different.  She was bold, ruthless, cunning, ambitious, intelligent ... and perhaps sex was one of her tool.  But perhaps not.  I can't help comparing the accusations against her to the those bandied around about powerful women today.  She slept her way to the top.  As if that invalidates everything else.  Some things don't change, not even in 2,000 years.

Download a great screensaver from the program.

March 14, 1999
Mailbox report:  polite 9 day (probably form) rejection from Talebones on my short-short Sacrifice.  "I didn't think it was for us.  But try me with your next."

Kid report:  Meredith's elementary orchestra received a I rating at contest yesterday!

Hoops Heaven
Ever heard of the Gonzaga University Bulldogs?  Unless you live in eastern Washington, the answer is probably no; until this week.  The Zags went into the NCAA tournament not only as an underdog, but as a spot on the belly of the flea on the proverbial underdog.  "Pac 10?  Where's that?"  But yesterday, our hometown boys knocked off #2 seeded Stanford to advance to the Western Semifinals Thursday against Florida.  Stayed tuned for the next Cinderella Report!

This week, everything has been basketball.  The Central Valley HS boys' and girls' (finishing 8th) teams played in the state 4A tournament in Tacoma.  Julie got home last night, after attending with the pep band.  While the teams competed, the town barely blinked.  It was so different from my little town in Iowa, where stores closed, school canceled, and the entire population migrated to Des Moines for the week to cheer on the kids.  Iowa IS basketball.  At least for boys.  For girls, before the mid-1980s, it was Iowa Girls' Basketball. <TM>  The term may actually be trademarked.  I don't know.  Donald Kaul, the Des Moines Register columnist, always used quotes around it.

Anyway, Iowa Girls Basketball isn't basketball as most of you know it.  Lazette, 'member those days?  In that the ball is orange and round and is shot at a hoop a regulation distance above the floor of a gymnasium, it resembles basketball.  But from there on out, it's a different game.  6 players to a team, split court with 3 guards on one end and 3 forwards on the other (no crossing the center line), and a maximum of 2 dribbles per person.  It was originally designed to be "simpler" and "less physically demanding" on the fairer sex, a passing rather than fast break game.  (Ponder for a moment on force = mass times acceleration, then slam it to a stop after 2 running strides and extrapolate to the wear on joint cartilage.)  This unique game generated some fantastic players within its ranks, but without official 5-man court experience, they couldn't get scholarships (assuming their knees held together that long).  Luckily, my school picked up volleyball in my sophomore year and some of the best were able to get scholarships in that, then play basketball as walk-ons.  Me?  I went to college on a music scholarship. 

Odd as it sounds, I loved that game, just as much as I did pick-up ball with the boys at the schoolyard.  It wasn't basketball as we now know it, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
 
March 13, 1999
Congratulations to Kurt Roth (Rift) and Mary Soon Lee, (Universal Grammar and Ex Terra, Ex Astris) who will have stories appearing in the Dutch language magazine Visionair.

Welcome to Manny aka Samantha Liu!

I've enjoyed the Manny's and Lazette's comments on name connections to famous people, as well as Manny's and Tippi's entries on ambigious ethniticity.  The surname I inherited by marriage, Kanago, is decidedly ethnic; however, no one is ever quite sure exactly which.  Looking at my black hair, dark skin and almond eyes, the first guess is usually Italian, followed by a variety of Eastern European countries, and occasionally Japanese.  The truth is that it's Swedish, with a little help from the officials at Ellis Island.

I ran the anagram finder page, as suggested by Tippi.  The first 8 returns began with Alas. 

March 9, 1999
We're two weeks into Lent, and everywhere I look I'm surrounded by reminders of the season; not the season of sacrifice, fasting and prayer, but the Season Of Chocolate. <TM>  Chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, even chocolate lilies and crosses.  I should be grateful that they don't sell chocolate crucifixes (yet) ... given my children's history with bunnies, they'd bite Jesus' ears off first.

In my youth, Easter was the biggest holiday of the year for my mother's family.  Thanksgiving and Christmas had been claimed by Dad's clan (see Musical Memories), but Easter belonged to the Wieses.  I loved Holy Week--Friday night prayer vigil, fasting until sunrise service on Sunday.  Dad always sang at that service, and once I reached my teens I sang with him.  Then in mid-afternoon my uncles and their families would arrive.  Being a less prolific group than the Montgomerys (perhaps they didn't get enough chocolate eggs as children?), everyone could be seated at our table for the traditional Easter Ham Dinner.

(Ham for Easter?  That one always puzzled me, although it took me years to figure out why.  Jesus was a Jew, and Jews don't eat ham.  Would you throw a party and serve food the guest of honor can't eat?  So my Easter tradition is now turkey or prime rib.  )

I'm pleased to see the tradition of fasting return to the Presbyterian Church we attend, although I'm saddened by the shift in reasoning and focus.  Last year, the youth group fasted from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday as a hunger awareness campaign, and spent most of the day working at the food bank.  A great service project, but for me it missed the point.  At least, it was unconnected to the reason for fasting with which I grew up, which commemorated Jesus' time in the grave and denial of the flesh.

I think many of us have a strong need for ritual, a connection to our spiritual past.  We want to participate in things that demand something from us.  A test, if you will, of our commitment and strength of character.  We long for a sense of continuity, that our beliefs--and we ourselves--are more than temporal.  To meet this need, some Christian congregations are leading Passover seders in honor of our shared Jewish heritage.  Given my own reaction to "the same yet not the same" new fasting, I can understand the Jewish ambivalence toward it, taking the form but changing the meaning.  I'd feel the same.

March 8, 1999
"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio...."
Mrs. Robinson, by Paul Simon

1914-1999  Farewell to the Yankee Clipper, an American legend.  He wasn't always what the world thought he should be, but he was always real.  May they someday say the same of us.

Happy 9th birthday, Tony Kanago and joyous/snowy (unknown number) b'day to Lazette Gifford!

Saturday, Meredith and her team had their Odyssey of the Mind regional competition and took first place!  They'll be continuing on to the state competition on April 17 in Wenatchee.  In addition, they received the Renatra Fusca Award for "exceptional creativity and exceptional risk-taking", the only one given at this regional comp., covering grades 1-12.  (Mere's team is Division II, 6th grade.)  If you've done OM, or have had children participating in it, you know what an honor this is.  I'm so proud of my daughter and her teammates (Amanda, Becky, Chi, Drew and Paul) for all their hard work, dedication, teamwork, and adaptability (cutting lines at the last minute and never cutting at each other).  Julia was  a big part of the effort, spending dozens of hours working with them as their assistant coach.

March 5, 1999
Mailbox report:
43 day rejection on Sebastian Says from Glimmer Train Magazine with the "you don't suck too much, so go ahead and send more" box on the form checked.  Over the weekend I'll figure out where to send it next.  Still waiting on Arachnophobia at Prism at 151 days.

Sent off Sacrifice to Talebones.

"Blue...am I blue....
Remembering "the Blues"....

Sunday afternoon is family time, when we toss everyone in the car and knock off the errands
that have piled up during the week.  Grocery store, K-Mart, video store ... not your typical bonding experience, but it works for us.  This past Sunday, the list included a stop at Computer Renaissance to investigate the potential trade-in values of the kids' 486DX2/66 and my 486/33 laptop.  (Answer--zip.)  Next door to CR is The Sower, a Christian book store that sells their favorite Veggie Tales tapes, so of course Meredith wanted to go there, too.  Since we were "in the area."  But being Sunday, the store was closed.

This more than surprised the kids--it shocked them.  A store closed on Sunday?  Not open when they wanted to buy something?  How dare they!  Aside from the concept of "a day of rest," which they understood in a religious and personal context, the idea that a business  would enforce it by staying closed on Sunday was a revelation to them.  And for me, as well.  It reminded me of how much things have changed since my small-town youth and the Blue Laws.

Blue Laws covered a lot more ground than pornography and liquor; they were the codification of "day of rest."  Right, wrong or indifferent, they just were.  Nothing was open on Sunday.  Not the grocery store, used car lot, the pharmacy, the gas station, or the main street shops.  (The sole exception was The Hotel coffee shop, since it was also the Greyhound station, and it served customers only between the hours of 6 am and 2 pm, when the buses came through.)  If the furnace blew a fuse or the clutch dropped out of the car on Sunday morning, you'd better have had a flash of clairvoyance before 5 pm the day before or you were out of luck until 9 am Monday morning.  It wasn't something we resented or even gave a thought to--it just was.

Spencer, Iowa, where I grew up, was the Big Town in the county, with a population of about 10,000 at its height.  It was--and still is-- a farming support community, and the county seat.  The old joke about rolling up the streets at sundown very accurately describes those days.  There were no discount stores or fast food places, and nearly everything was locally owned.       The stretch of Grand Avenue between 1st and 6th streets housed all the retail business in      town, and their hours were 9 am to 5 pm., Monday through Friday, and 12-5 on Saturday.

Then about 1972, a Cum-and-Go (yes, that was really the name) set up business on the edge of town.  Our first convenience store.  They were not only open on Sunday, but they stayed open until midnight every night of the week!  Suddenly, you could fill your car, pick up a gallon of milk and even buy a six pack on Sunday afternoon.  Community loyalty and suspicion of outsiders ran deep.  Customers came, but only after hours and as a last resort.  The rest of the week they still bought their gas and cigarettes (35 cents a gallon and 50 cents a pack respectively back then) at Davidsons'.  Cum-and-Go closed within 6 months of its arrival and its building stood empty for a decade.

Yet it's absence left a previously unperceived void and we began to resent the inconvenience of planning ahead.  SuperValu grocery store was the first to tentatively reach out, by opening its doors on Sunday, and Swansons reluctantly followed suit rather than lose business to its franchised competitor.

It was the beginning of the end of the Blue Laws.  By 1980, SuperValu was open all night, as was Casey's General Store.  Spencer now has several discount stores and fast food franchises, each open on national standard hours, and on Sunday morning you're as likely to find a teenager working the counter at McDonalds as in church services.  In a small town service economy, you take whatever job you can, and work whatever hours they assign you.

For most, a family day of rest is no more.  And I realize anew that my Sunday family bonding excersions are possible because someone else doesn't have the same luxury.
 
 

March 2, 1999  Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!
How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?''
-Dr. Seuss

For all things Seussian, check out Cyber-Seuss.

The congratulations department:

I'm reading a fascinating book, The Nakedness Of The Fathers; Biblical Visions and Revisions by Alicia Suskin Ostriker.  The classification system didn't quite know what to do with this one: it's listed under Women's Studies, Religion and Poetry.   It's an Torah/Old Testiment commentary from a feminist perspective, but not just that of the author.  She writes from inside the invisible women of our biblical heritage.  The work speaks to Christians as well as Jews, with midrash insight and human emotion.  It's going to take me several readings to absorb it all, and probably years to internalize it all.  Good stuff.
 
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