epiphany

I've already leaked how much resolve my great ambition has left me with ('smoker'), and I can't say my expectations are any higher than they were when I gave Santa my list ('dear santa,'), but insomuch as I've learned from the events of 2007 (and I feel a pressing need to waste my five millionth parenthetical comment to praise the economy of words like 'insomuch') , so now do I 'resolve' to learn at least as much from what awaits [to confound] me in 2008. Maybe a pithy recap of the year will help raise the red flags for me;

• January- I garner a bit of media attention from local news sources for decorating Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday cake at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Though piping tile adhesive through a pastry bag to hide the construction seams on a ten foot high plywood 'cake', I wear a chef's hat. (the year seems to start out on a high note)


• February- I design the set for a dinner theater production of 'Grease', a musical I can't say less about. What I learned; just because the director is passing a snotty comment over his shoulder as he storms out of the final production meeting is no reason to believe that the consequence of calling him a "shitty director" to his receding back will not be revisited on me.


• March- I spend most of this month recovering from and regretting the last one.


• April- I remount a production of 'Don Giovanni' which I designed for Opera Delaware to Temple University. In the new production, my surreal set steps closer to surrealism with the introduction of a predominantly Korean cast, in ludicrous wigs, singing the Italian book to a Viennese opera set in Spain.


• May- With dozens of on-line inquiries netting nothing close to a job offer, I throw myself into designing the T-shirt for an upcoming family reunion. As though I've learned nothing at all from my dinner theater experience, I make this project more expensive and complex than it need have been. I faff around on the Internet; googling myself, exposing the mysteries of my clan (finding out how horrifyingly easy it is to summon some one's mother's maiden name), and launching arms-length emails to everyone I know, bitching about my pitiful circumstance. I discover the irony lurking within my ennui and- Smack Dab is born.


• June- Most importantly, my blog brings me closer to my parents (I'm {at the time}48). They hear my voice- which is meant for everyone- and they 'get' me. What I can't convey in cards and letters, even during holiday visits with my brothers and with all those little nose-pickers around, is that as alien as I might have always seemed to them, there is no one I've wanted more to be understood by. Our almost daily email dialog begins.


• July- I'm in family therapy discussing how impotent I feel when I'm out of work when THE call comes offering work (a lot of it)- which would keep me away from an exercise we might not have been entirely through with but which would keep me heavily and happily employed through...


• August


• September


• October


• November


• December-I am again a 'housfrau' with again no expectation of meaningful employment for quite a while. The good news (for my blistered ego) is that that dinner theater has decided ('insomuch' eventually loses what it may have bought in brevity by sentences which include '...that that...')- however tactlessly my assessment offered back there in February was, it was entirely on the money; I am asked to design "Gypsy" for them this Spring. I learn that there is an extremely fine line between designing sets and drinking bourbon all day long- and to take a polite pass on designing musicals which turn my stomach. (...but I love "Gypsy"). I have a few months to put in place a more carefully measured approach for winning the new director's confidence. I 'resolve' to [as they say] "stay in my own lane", to respect a director's vision (however dull), and to resist trying to have the last word when an actor is making his grand exit. [Yeah, right].

We limp into the new year with a Matterhorn of laundry (we're in trouble, it obscures the door to the front-loading washing machine), an even more pressing need for uninterrupted trash service (that bill zooms to the top of the heap), and bad news from the outdoors for an old furnace. But I am thankful for the modicum of perspective that has succeeded in piercing this shell of self-absorption. The people I complain about the most, my family, are the ones who suffer me the best, and...anything worth having is worth the acres of confusion and turmoil associated with having it. To paraphrase a quote from somewhere- who wouldn't give their right arm to be miserable in such a lovely pink house? Maybe I've been happy all along and just didn't know it.

whatsit

How did I ever get on without this thing? Speaking as an audiophile, here is what I now know I was starved for; bass. My life is filled with treble. Everything presents itself to me in high-pitched urgency. Demanding baby voices drag me from listening to my own heartbeat to feed them and satisfy their desire for this or that. Shrill associates want to know if this will be done on time and what that will cost. Ad spots seek my attention at a pitch that has surely caused me to bleed internally. It's been a long time, probably since Tom Snyder was on the air, that I've enjoyed listening to people. If you've ever heard the sound of aluminum going through a table saw (as frequently enough I do) you may understand how brain-rattlingly close to insanity an unfriendly note can send one. On a less extreme level this is what I endure daily. Maybe it's the cousin malady of how the tags inside clothing drive me to distraction. How to defend one's self against that high end of audio frequency that most people will accept and even seem to enjoy- surely one reason why I've never watched "American Idol". My new best friends- earbuds! Here are the benefits; No one can demand my attention from another room- they must now wave their hands in front of my face and mouthe their urgencies... the phone calls that are never for me are now answered by- not me... and that argument to decide who goes on the computer after I'm finished blogging is mediated by,....?{"scuse me while I kiss this guy..."}. It may seem like I'm only using this as a chance to shirk my responsibilities, but no. Today I played five games of 'Clue', sterilized the kitchen, did some laundry, picked up all of the same things I picked up yesterday, and made a hearty and nutritious dinner- happily oblivious to the barrage of complains and the constant drone of synthesized race track noise that normally scores our home life. These have been effectively doused by a thumpy soundtrack of my own choosing. And to think that only a few weeks ago I was suggesting to Santa, in near complete disregard of my own request for a sound-proof booth, that we could live without 'nano's. Oh no we can not! If you're under forty, you're probably marveling at how long it's taken me to latch onto this concept- how long ago did the Sony Walkman offer us retreat from our noisy world? First of all, I would have worn a rhinestone tiara before choosing to appear in public sporting a set of those corny headphones- who am I?, Lt. Cmdr. Sulu? Next, was I really supposed to carry around my library of recorded music?- I can barely find room on my person for car keys and a wallet. Last and most tellingly, things are only a good idea when I finally decide they are. Till then, I'll give you every reason in the world why they are the scourge of modern life. For instance, I've only recently decided that cell phones are a necessity- offers of employment arrive on them. If you choose to chit-chat away on one, that's your business. Just remember; once upon a time the sight of someone talking to themselves in public signaled that they were insane. At least for me, this impression has not changed. But I still offer a resounding no thanks! to palm-sized keyboards (and the subsequent dismantlement of our written language caused by the difficulty of typing with one's thumbs), programmable coffee makers (program this-just hurry up with the coffee!), and those new-fangled automatic transmissions (there are already too many fluids under the hood to keep track of). To think, the option of nodding in time and shuffle-stepping my path through the drudgery and assault of this demanding world was only ever several hours of transferring discs and a few hundred dollars away. I have to wonder (now that introspection is back on the table). What else may I have been wrong about. ....thump,thump,thump...."What's that?!"

morning

I'm not quite sure what happened during the twenty minutes while I slept, but I completely missed all of the "wide-eyed wonder". Slipping through the shredded packaging and spent cap gun shells on my path to the coffee maker, I thought I heard someone shout out "Wow! Thanks!" but I can't be sure. By the time I settled in front of our pink tree [to luxuriate in that new 'permanent tree' smell] plans were already being made to have this returned, that repaired, and the other phone call placed for tech support. Santa brought my two children the Rolls Royce of 'Dust Buster's which is [in real time] being used to clean up a broken mirror. I can't decide if this means Huckabee will be assassinated well into his second term or I'll be graduating from night school with a Masters degree in something useful. Michael is modeling his new underwear for me. As always, underwear models loom prominently in my 'happy place'. With earbuds plugged into his new 'nano', A. (again in real time) is rapping a [somewhat breezy] proof-reading over my shoulder. (The dog is napping- tuckered out from her new chew toy, or her face would be in mine as well). You might never have known my power of concentration would be so tested but, rest assured, this is generally how I 'compose'. As Michael and I both observed last night, the "....happiest time of the year" is- Spring!; the heater gets turned off, the mailman changes into shorts, what bulbs those damned squirrels haven't eaten offer their display, crafty 'black ice' is replaced by honest mud, and at the earliest possible date, we all head off for the beach. It's also the time when most of the things now littering our floor will be knee-deep somewhere in a landfill. I kinda feel bad about that- but can you put a price tag on five animals in one house being happy all at the same time? ( "Just dig them deeper!"). I offer these condolences; elephants de-forest at a higher rate per capita than human beings; despite winning a Nobel Prize, an Oscar, and the popular vote, Al Gore is still irrelevant; and this year at least, I have not [knowingly] killed or financed the killing of a tree. (My last word on that topic, I promise). My greatest hope is that this society will boil down to some delicious mix of asphalt, Kentucky Fried carcasses and pooped-in plastic diapers. Perhaps future societies paying $100. a gallon for this melange will wish we cared less..., who knows. If I still had a tail it would be wagging quicky between my legs like I just found duck innards in my kibble-(real time again) Mom-Mom gave me... what?!, a 'nano' of my very own! I don't know what color to turn! For me, it's a gigantic push in the direction of... well, piracy. I admit while that holds a great allure, I will download with only a clear conscience- songs I've already paid for on vinyl or [that shiny stuff] (I'm one of the last still out there 'browsing' through the bins). I could go off on how "The Man Who Fell To Earth" this device looks, who could resist wanting one no matter what it does. The bad news is that between everyone in the house downloading from i tunes, visiting game cheats, and managing the busy lives of five webkins, I have to fight for my time in this chair. So quickly, my Christmas message is this; You want to be socially conscious, to hope that swapping out light bulbs will make a difference, to hope that we are not all ultimately defined by how much trash we generate. But it all kind of goes out the window this time of year. Consumption becomes more conspicuous, and let no deadly sin go unrealized. To care too much about the shallowness of our desires would bring us all down. I accept my shallowness and I accept it in others. There are too many more days in the year to be harsh in our judgements. There is only one way (that I know of) to attone for our selfishness. That is to earnestly pray for the health and happiness of everyone everywhere. No bequeath, no hour of service, no amount of self-deprivation can accomplish more. Peace.

a warm and fuzzy feeling

Over twenty years ago Michael and I lived in an unheated storefront on South St. in Philadelphia. He waited tables moonlighting as a rock star, and I was a sign painter moonlighting as the follow spot operator for nightly performances of an idiotic but once popular musical called "Let My People Come" ( which featured live and playfully presented nude scenes {"Oh! Calcutta" for the cabaret crowd}). Here for a short time we ran a gallery/theater called 'plague', living in the back room and hosting weekend performances [limping] the gamut from really[!] loud music to un-metered (often pornographic in it's presentation) poetry. We subsisted on beer and jello, and the occasional deli platter which we provided for the [cough] talent. The street facade had been sculpted to resemble a cave entrance. The place was unwittingly a 'camera obscura'; with the door to our living space closed (and through the hole where a doorknob used to be) the inverted image of people passing by (some stopping to peer in) the front window would appear on the back wall. This was [redundantly] our only views to the outdoors. We slept till two or three in the afternoon (on a bear trap of a sofa bed), so it was perfect for that. At Christmastime we made the unpleasant discovery of soiled bathroom tissue and, well, soil coming up through our shower drain. Okay, it wasn't so much a shower as it was a bit of crude plumbing above an open sewage line for a toilet. Unpleasant?- oh yes, but a complete surprise?- er, no. We began taking our showers at the apartment of the kindly G. girls, sisters who waitressed (moonlighting as fine artists) and were enviably outfitted with designated rooms for cooking, bathing, and sleeping. We were all a bit challenged for cash and would pool our resources to share a hot meal [and cold beer]. They were able to afford a live Christmas tree- with not enough left over to buy ornaments. We were able to contribute a few logs which masked a red light bulb- but no fireplace. Together we filled a few home-spun evenings cutting things out of paper, wiring together broken glass from the street, tying on found objects, and managed to create a breath-takingly beautiful 'outsider' tree. On Christmas Eve the G. girls went off to be with their family in CT. Michael's sister came into the city to bring us home to the suburbs with her for the holiday, arriving in a full length white fur coat and matching fur hat, with a Lhasa Apsa tucked under one arm. That's the picture- a light snow falling on her, standing out on the cracked pavement in high heels in front of a cave, waiting for us to retrieve anything we really cared about from our squalid, everything-for-art, stench-filled, inverter of images.

trees

Several of my postings may have erroneously created the impression of me as a 'tree hugger'. This is not completely accurate. (I have on recent occasion spent thousands of dollars to empty our lot of them). Those trees that rain down some new brand of crap every season. Those which would reek havoc on one's carefully planned brick patio or undermine one's effort to sell off real property- all the time hogging up the sun for themselves. I've even heard stories of skiers being killed by them! Who would defend trees? 'Produces oxygen' is just so smug. I produce a great many things- could I rest my laurels on ' produces laundry'? It's time for trees to come down off their high horse and own up to what they're really good for; They go a long way in fleshing out a national park. They might aspire to become anything from parking tickets to Nora Roberts' latest tome. They create charming vistas, ripe for capture in Adamsian photos. They are home and pantry to any number of species (with an equally limited appeal {don't get me started on squirrels}). Their contribution to cans of mixed nuts should not be overlooked, though usually over fifty percent of that praise belongs to the ground-hugging peanut. And I certainly won't argue that in the hands of a craftsman, they can be transformed into objects of compelling beauty. These are all rather passive attributes. Producing a nut might require a bit of effort, but there ends their responsibility as a parent. In almost every case, from clearing the path for new construction, to putting out wild fires, to refolding road maps, trees rarely do other than tax our patience. Yet still, the sentiment I have confessed is that I'd rather not see them (or us in the process) humiliated. Now, this has only a little bit to do with the pre-lit, pink, fake ones being on sale this week at Boscov's, but the irony of tasteful Christmas trees has gnawed at me for some time. I believe that from the minute we drag a just-dead tree into our home and tangle a few hundred feet of string lights into it, we have made the commitment to considerably increasing our 'tacky per-cubic-foot' ratio. You may see "...ornaments hand-crafted for us in a darling little glass studio in Denmark" but I only see " Oh my God!, you have a f*&in tree in your house!" I am purely an aesthetic snob. I hate houses with shutters that couldn't be closed, mansions you can see from the street, streets named after real estate developers' daughters, 'semi-detached' paint schemes, and now; sharing one's home with a dying tree (that's what house plants are for). We've always had 'live' trees, I can't be exact in describing what makes this year different except that I am primed to revisit our traditions- the present political and economical climate has undermined the security of returning to that comfortable illusion of an old-fashioned anything. Few who have ever actually tried to string popcorn and cranberries could disagree; this activity raises blood pressure instead of lowering it (I'm almost sure that Martha Stewart 'pre-drills'), as does baking with children and shopping in the 'under $10.' price range. Retailers would have us running for anything that promises to remove just an ounce of the pressure of recreating that occasion pictured in Coke ads of the past. It's not that I lack sentiment entirely. The use of Christmas cards is absolutely perfect for maintaining updated address books and the friendship of those people [however] far removed from the importance they'd once held in our lives. And of course it's always nice to stumble upon that minute or hour out of a generally bleak month to recapture our own heightened sense of expectation. Happiness comes from that unconscious resolve not to be disappointed. Children [sometimes thankfully] don't seem to notice the difference between a morning you've gone heavily into debt for and the one where you have broken up the bag of tube socks to wrap individually. But when the year-end bonuses disappear, so does much of my sense of a 'holiday'. ("This year's present to the family is...two more car payments and another month of uninterrupted trash collection!") I'll put it on for the kids, but my heart is in mourning for the unrealized earning potential. (Don't sweat it, Michael will buy him the 'Nano' whatsit!) A story- the first year we started attending a Quaker meeting they offered us a live tree from the property as well as an invitation to a holiday evening gathering of hymns and cookies. We were not resolved to accept either, and spent that evening shopping around for a tree. Our fruitless search ended at Home Depot where we were just heading out the door empty-handed and cranky when I made a few last minute purchases; a saw and a flashlight. In the dark of night we led our three-year-old son (a student of the preschool there) out into the little grove of trees along side of the meeting house. To the dampened sound of carols emanating from therein, I had him hold the flashlight as I unjoined our tree from the earth. (I think we may have been giggling). It was A.'s first Christmas with us. We cautioned him to stay quiet. The consequence of being discovered would necessitate our sitting through a good chunk of the book of Luke, as haltingly performed by seven or eight children swagged in upholstery remnants. That night, forecasting the charge I knew was to be his to answer to for at least the next fifteen years, I wanted him to have an early understanding of how things are not always done. (We've rewritten that script a hundred times over). And now, ten years later, he is completely on-board with the idea of a seven-foot high, pink toilet brush dominating our living room on Christmas morning although, as would be with most other kids, this is likely based on the hope that any given evening will end with a tangible major purchase. (I'm holding out for the tallest pink tree I can find- the on-line search begins tonight!). Well there we have it. A tirade against a green planet, some holiday humbuggery, and a humiliating tale about parenting a fir poacher. Where George Fox and Britney Spears may forgive me, Joyce Kilmer might never.

dear santa,

I’ve composed my wish list for this year and hope that what you can’t make good on will be passed along to someone who can- baby Jesus; Rupert Murdoch, I know you’re connected. I have been generally nice, even on the occasions when I have slipped into light naughtiness. But who makes those calls anyway, "Judge not, lest ye be judged", I always say.
So here goes:
1- Gospel-specific Nativity scenes.
2- Viable late entries to the field of Democratic candidates.
3- An immediate recall of food items which follow this pattern; Pop’ems, Grab’ems, Snack’ems, Chew’ems...
4- A sound-proof booth wherein to spin this glistening web of profundity.
5- Global amnesia on the topic of Brittany Spears.
6- The chemical marriage of ibuprofen and caffeine.
7- Wider literacy.
8- AA batteries, enough of them to power the other half of our household too.

We’re thinking of going with an artificial, pre-lit tree this year, so don’t be alarmed. (I now believe I can hear the freshly cut versions crying for justice). One more thing- my son wants an ‘I Pod Nano’(?). I have no idea what it is and suspect I can’t afford it (actually, Christmas came early for us this year. I just paid off last winter’s heating bill), but if you could just tell him it was making your elves sick and you stopped making them, I could save a bit of face. Thanks. The bourbon and cookies will await you, as usual.

Yours With Breathlessly High Expectations, Smack Dab