This kind of thing

After not speaking to my mother for over 3 years, I was feeling sentimental in early 2020 and, aside from sentimentality, was being realistic: My mother is in her later years. Do I really want to go to a couple of graves (mine and hers) having not spoken to her ever again? No, I did/do not.

Brought her flowers for Mother's Day. Sat and chatted for about 2 hours. It was fine. But at 54, having chosen who I want to be around, and what vibes I want to get, I can't get over some of the low-level ugliness that just can't help but ooze out of her.

For example: We were chatting re my teenaged nephew, who currently likes to shop at Goodwill. I mentioned that I don't like buying Goodwill clothes, but that I do buy used shirts on eBay, or buy from half-off sales on the Chico's website. Chico's shirts, I mentioned, were usually $60 to $80, which I had qualms about spending for a shirt. I happened to have on a Chico's shirt that I'd bought on sale, and pointed that out.

Mom: "THAT is a $40 shirt?"

I'd thought that my shirt looked nice. I tried to be cool and not start a fight: "Yes, this shirt was $60 or more to begin with, I can't remember exactly, and I got it on sale for half off. That's how much shirts cost now. When you go to buy shirts, how much are they?"

She admitted she didn't buy many new shirts. I added: "The only shirts for $20 are at Target."

Today, I spoke to her on the phone. Talk turned to getting older. My mom has a hunched back that's been in progress for over 30 years. I've never said anything about it, but it's a huge scoliosis C-curve. During our conversation today, she pointed out my own poor posture and said that because I also have a hunched back, I would be in pain the way she is... (1) My back isn't anywhere near as hunched as hers! (2) My back has never given me pain. Again, I tried to deflect by saying, "Well, my back has never given me pain so far, but I am worried about my cracked tail-bone, because it hurts in cold weather..."

I'd also mentioned that I was in touch with my uncle on Facebook, and I said how positive he was, and that I really liked him. Mom: "He was always sneaky."

There is ALWAYS something that she tries to make me feel bad about. It's insane. I used to think it was partly me. It's not me.

But I've made the acknowledgment with myself that I DO want to have a relationship with my mother, especially now during her later years. But even after 3 years of not talking to her, it is so incredibly strange that she is still taking jabs at me for no reason. I'm 54 years old! She's 79! It's so creepy, and the vibe is so immediately bad when she STILL says her weird, negative shit. I really am trying to be bigger --- this is, for sure, a test of any "growth in consciousness" that I might ever hope to reach.

RIP Little Richard

Eric Clapton "Running on Faith" Unplugged (1992)

Real Poetry Ain't Your Stupid Therapy

The below is by some random woman that I found online when searching for Sylvia Plath information. EVERY SINGLE POINT I DO NOT AGREE WITH. Just posted here to show how utterly ignorant some people are. Not to shame, but the below author deserves shaming: Julie Lomoe.

Here are her idiotic "seven reasons I love writing poetry" in brief. Not one of which has anything to do with poetry. In fact, every single thing she has to say is the absolute antithesis of real poetry and real inspiration.

Poetry is speedy.
Poetry’s a good way of catching ideas on the fly. 
Poetry’s a wonderful way of processing your emotions.  
Poetry’s highly subjective, and hardly anyone knows what makes a good poem. 
Poetry’s great for getting immediate feedback and applause. 
Poetry’s highly compatible with computers. 
Poetry’s a good way to hone your literary skills in other genres.

The lengthier versions of the above (yes, someone really wrote this):

Seven reasons I love writing poetry

Writing poetry is a wonderful way to jumpstart your creativity and hone your writing skills. A decade ago, I wouldn’t have dared write this sentence, much less declare myself a poet, but now I have no qualms about it. After all, who decides who’s a poet and who isn’t? Danged if I know.

I’ve written in many genres over the years, but poetry eluded me until the year 2001. As a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, I had the opportunity to submit my work to the Oriel, the congregation’s annual literary magazine, and I decided to give it a try. Since then, poetry has become one of my favorite means of expressing myself. I have no aspirations to fame and fortune as a poet; I haven’t even published a chapbook yet. But there’s something wonderfully satisfying about writing poetry. Today I’d like to share seven reasons I love this art form.

• Poetry is speedy. On average, once the words start to flow, it takes me about an hour to come up with a reasonably polished first draft – about the same time I spend on a blog post.
• Poetry’s a good way of catching ideas on the fly. Most of my poetic inspiration comes from immediate experience. There’s usually an “ah hah!” moment when I think “this would make a good poem.” If I’ve got a journal handy, I jot down a few preliminary phrases and ideas. This isn’t always possible, though. When I was skiing down Panorama at Jiminy Peak last week, the slushy spring conditions inspired me to think, “This would be a good blog post. No, on second thought, it would be better as a poem.” It wasn’t until later, when I was at the bar with my hot buttered rum, that I had a chance to capture the ideas on paper. You can read the results in Monday’s blog on skiing.
• Poetry’s a wonderful way of processing your emotions. I became intensively involved in poetry a few years ago, when I was depressed and discouraged about publishing my novels. Exploring my feelings through poetry became a vital way of coping with my depression. For many, poetry has been literally life-saving.
• Poetry’s highly subjective, and hardly anyone knows what makes a good poem. It’s a lot like the cliché about visual art, “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” That’s how most people react to poetry.
• Poetry’s great for getting immediate feedback and applause. No matter where you live, there’s likely to be at least one poetry open mic near you. Many of my poems have been precipitated by the knowledge that there’s an open reading that night and I really ought to bring something new. Most poetry audiences are supportive and enthusiastic no matter what you read.
• Poetry’s highly compatible with computers. I do my best writing in Microsoft word, editing as I go. Some poets prefer longhand, but I love the flexibility of diving in with the first phrase that comes to mind, then playing around with the words on the screen.
• Poetry’s a good way to hone your literary skills in other genres. In poetry, every word counts. Part of the process lies in finding the best possible way to communicate your ideas in the fewest possible words, rooting out the clichés and discovering the most powerful images possible. The habit of writing this way carries over into other genres.

August 1953

50 Years Later: May 4 Kent State Shooting

Have been watching media coverage of the May 4, 1970, shootings of 4 students at Kent State by National Guardsmen. What I found out from extensive C-SPAN viewing though: In the days prior to the May 4 shootings, students protesting Nixon had rampaged through downtown Kent, smashing shop windows, and had set fire to the ROTC building on campus, burning it to the ground. Given this violence, the governor called out the National Guard in anticipation of the student rally scheduled for Monday, May 4, on the Kent State campus.

As media coverage would have it, the "fascist" government was trying to stifle free speech. As reality would have it, the violence of the students in the days prior called for some proactive protective response.

"No Show Jones"

George Jones - The Grand Tour (1975)

George Jones is the Thomas Hardy of Country singers. Unlike Willie, George isn't about groovin' or feelin' good at the moment. Rather, he sings about "emotion recollected in tranquillity" (Wordsworth). Like Hardy (and Wordsworth), the terrible made palatable for the rest of us to later experience vicariously. (If we've been through such a thing, we know, and nod in recognition of, what he's now dumbing down. If we're new to the experience, we get a sense of how bad, but don't have to go through it ourselves.)

George Jones - A Day In The Life Of A Fool (1971)

Off to work with no kiss or goodbye
Wear a smile on my face but I lie
Cup of coffee at the corner cafe
Catch the bus, read the news on my way
Go through motions the whole morning through
Start a day in the life of a fool

Sometimes I dial our number in hopes you've returned
But there's never an answer, guess I'll never learn
Hurry home, as tomorrow is through
Check the mail box, no letter from you
Then I rush up the stairs to my memories of you
That's a day in the life of a fool

Yes, I rush up the stairs to my memories of you
That's a day in the life of a fool...

Give an Azle girl a few extra dollars...

...and what does she immediately buy after 6 months of penury? Walmart bulletin boards and a huge set of hangers, bargain-priced! (Still too nervous to make any bigger purchases, like phone or couch!)

The Rabbit Catcher: Sylvia Plath

After reading Hardy's account in "Jude" of the screaming rabbit caught in a trap, I was immediately reminded of Plath's "The Rabbit Catcher," which was based on a real-life incident. As recounted later by Plath's husband Ted Hughes, they were out walking in the English countryside and she, horrified by the traps they were coming across, intentionally set the traps off, thus ruining them for the hunter. Ted, in recollection, mildly chastised her for spoiling the unseen trap-setter's livelihood. (Sylvia is Hardy's sensitive Jude; Ted, Hardy's realistic Arabella.)


The Rabbit Catcher

It was a place of force—
The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair,
Tearing off my voice, and the sea
Blinding me with its lights, the lives of the dead
Unreeling in it, spreading like oil.

I tasted the malignity of the gorse,
Its black spikes,
The extreme unction of its yellow candle-flowers.
They had an efficiency, a great beauty,
And were extravagant, like torture.

There was only one place to get to.
Simmering, perfumed,
The paths narrowed into the hollow.
And the snares almost effaced themselves—
Zeros, shutting on nothing,

Set close, like birth pangs.
The absence of shrieks
Made a hole in the hot day, a vacancy.
The glassy light was a clear wall,
The thickets quiet.

I felt a still busyness, an intent.
I felt hands round a tea mug, dull, blunt,
Ringing the white china.
How they awaited him, those little deaths!
They waited like sweethearts. They excited him.

And we, too, had a relationship—
Tight wires between us,
Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring
Sliding shut on some quick thing,
The constriction killing me also.

_____________ [my/your name here] the Obscure

After at least 6 months of not reading a damn thing, I finally took the leap and opened Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure." (I'd loved his "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" back in my college days, but hadn't explored much more Hardy since.)

"Jude" is Hardy's last novel, published in 1895. Until his death in 1928, he published only poems after that. Allegedly because of the harsh reception of the book's critique of marriage. (But perhaps also because Hardy had just shot his load, and had nothing else to say on his grand topics of his age's hypocrisy.)

I'm only halfway through. At the beginning, I completely identified with Jude and his yearning for "Christminster" (Oxford), and his efforts to get there. Reminded me of myself and my own youthful yearning for New York City and what I thought it would be. And then the appearance of my own "Sue Bridehead"! The local girl Arabella wasn't a problem---she, I thought, was only the problem of a 19th-century man such as Jude, and not that of a 21st-century bisexual woman! It wasn't like I was ever going to get anyone pregnant! :)  Although, wait, I did yearn for a local Azle girl for years, to the detriment of my scholarship!

But then came Sue! Dear god. What an uber-modern neurotic. Saying one thing on one page, then contradicting herself on the other. (Hardy offers a passage about Sue being very free-thinking in the abstract but very conservative in actuality. Jude also comments to Sue that she is much nicer when she writes than in actuality. This is both me AND someone I've known fairly recently! (Jude also posits that the first great effort of his life was derailed by one woman, and the second... by another woman! I can relate: I think Ginny messed up UT for me, and that Sandra messed up NYC.)

So still interesting up to this point.... But I've now just stopped where Sue left her schoolmaster husband (Jude's original inspiration for dreaming of Christminster) and has run off with Jude... After their pseudo-passions (touching hands and sharing intense feelings and radical ideas, and such), Jude thinks they're about to live together as man and wife... And Sue is now pontificating on why she STILL doesn't think of him that way... (She's already told Jude about a platonic male friend she once had, whom she once shared radical ideas with and who has since died---her ideal, apparently. Oh, Jesus: I'm Sue, remembering Ginny. AND I'm Jude wanting Sue, who is Sandra. And Sandra wants Jim---who is his own Sue when it comes to her. WOW, Hardy.)

I've already read the critical preface to the book and so know that it doesn't end particularly well: Everyone is true to their awful selves! Like in real life!

Thanks, Hardy, for your horrible/brilliant realism re human nature! :)

George Jones: Bring On The Clowns (1975)

Post 6 months of penury...

After a nice check from my new job on May 1, ordered from Amazon/eBay/Walmart:

Bath rugs
Cat toys
Small bookshelf
James Bond themes CD
Mail holder
Bulletin-board/Dry-erase set plus markers/eraser

Also went to the grocery store and bought salmon for $12, etc., and other stuff, just because I could, rather than just staples like beans.

Aaaaahhhh...glad to have some spare cash again.

Coming up with next paycheck:

A good desk-chair
My first smart phone

Coming up with paycheck after that:

A new sectional couch

George Jones: "Someday My Day Will Come" (1978)

George Jones: "Take Me" from "A Poem is a Naked Person"

Little River Band - Lady 1978

An example of a good song that I hated when it came out because the group was so horribly old and dorky-looking, and the music was so seemingly mushy. (On bus rides home from junior high basketball games, someone would usually lead off an a capella version of this song.)

"Feel for the winter but don't have a cold heart..."

Listening/looking today: The song is good; the musicians still look terrible. Nobody wants an accountant telling their life story!

George Jones: Shine On

George Jones: Loving You Could Never Be Better (1972)

Tammy is offstage screeching "harmony." And she's kind of ruining it. And George doesn't look happy. (Love Tammy, but not here.)

When Neighbors Have Really Loud Sex

I first experienced hearing others having sex in the early '90s, at my duplex on Rainey Street in Austin. The walls were thin, my neighbor's howls were loud. It was uncomfortable to listen to. (At one point, my own lover was on his way over, and I mentioned how loud my neighbor was and that I was about to bang on the adjoining wall... He gently admonished me: "Let them have their fun.")

Next, in grad school in San Francisco (1995), while in a one-room apartment next to another one-room apartment that housed the apartment manager and his angry-sex girlfriend. They were constantly screaming at each other and then loudly fucking each other. (Does a neighbor have the right to NOT have to listen to all of that?)

Most recently (like, TONIGHT): With the coming (no pun intended) of spring, a girl in the apartments across from me leaves her windows open. She's not there every day of the week, but perhaps once a week or so, the windows are open and she's laughing loudly until 2 am, and at the end of the hilarity comes (no pun intended) some loud sexual hollering.

Is it WRONG to be annoyed by hearing others having loud sex? Am I annoyed just because I'm jealous and not having sex myself (as has been posited by many)?

Personally, I'm not in the least bit turned on by hearing others having sex. (1) It's like hearing others' loud, intrusive music --- I'm not into what they're into at the moment. (2) I always judge the sounds of the women, which always seem overdramatic. If they're howling like they're howling, then I think they've probably watched too many porn videos and are vocalizing like they think they're supposed to be vocalizing. (3) That said: What if the guy they're with is actually making them howl that way? (Um... probably not.)