The Isolation Journals #111

Your prompt for this week:

Choose a color (any color!). Write about the sound, smell, taste and feel of that color.

You can write in lines of poetry or prose. You can focus on one color, or if you’re writing shorter lines and sentences, jump around to different colors.

Bonus prompt:
Choose a sound (maybe a sound that you love, or that you hear all the time, or that you heard once and will never forget). What is the color and shape of that sound? How does the sound smell, taste, feel on your skin?

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Have you ever had your aura photographed?

Mine was clear

Like I'm not even here

My spirit is sheer

Just vacant and weird

That's a joke

I think

If I ever let someone

Capture my aura on film

What would be seen?

My guess is puke green

The dissonant chords of nagging

Claws scritching on the walls

Each little talon stroking a different anxiety

Carving little grooves

For me to dwell on

When every creak and pop and bump and groan

Could be nothing, or a disaster

The burp when you're hungover

Waiting for your body to decide

If you're going to rally

Or spend the day in bed

The gurgling breath that reminds you

Two drink maximum, ma'am

You can't handle liquid truth

Those bumps you feel 

On the backs of your thighs 

Right after a shave

On a cold morning

Stepping out of the steam

In-grown hairs

Puke green

Syllabus #72

I unlocked a new pointless life goal yesterday.  1000 Days of Yoga!  Every single damn day since January 1, 2018, I have done yoga.  Come hell or hangovers, I took the time to stretch and move.  I'm not talking full-on, hour-long practices every day.  That would actually be impressive.  No, I'm talking a bare minimum of 5 minutes a day.  What a meaningless milestone! 

Also, here is my 6th grade yearbook profile.  Someone was kind enough to randomly post it on my facebook page the other day.  I'm going to make a wild claim here that I was one of those rare people who never had an awkward phase.  Because you can't call it a phase if you're still living your best weird life 24 years later.

Last name redacted - I have one but do you think I would give something like that to just anybody? NO!

Can we talk about how my favorite saying was yoinked directly from Susan Powter's weight loss infomercial?  It could have been worse, I suppose.  We're all just lucky I didn't go with Richard Simmons, "Don't you feel like a pony when you sweat?"

So what was I reading this week when I wasn't ogling Randy Taylor on my favorite sitcom or rocking out to Jagged Little Pill?

---

I can't wait to watch all of these movies (in theory...in practice I'm sure I'll never bother). This quote about Concrete Cowboy starring Idris Elba:  "It’s not a movie that makes my city look good, but it makes it look the way it is, and that’s good enough."

Eloquent and important words from Barack Obama regarding the passing of RBG 

We don't deserve this book but we need it. 

See you on the seesaw, Cindy (seriously though, good on ya, and let's hope party defections like this help make a difference)  

Slow. Clap. The right to vote is worth fighting for.  

It me - "One minute you're like: Yup, we're in person. I can do this. You know, it's not ethical for me to, like, desert my students and be unwilling to do something that's scary and makes me anxious because I'm selfish and I just don't feel like it. So I'm going to suck it up and do it. ... And the next minute, I see that we added seven cases in our county today, and I feel like, oh, my God, everybody's going to die!"

It's time to strap in or strap on.  You can either get fucked by winter this year, or be the one doing the fucking.  That's a graphic metaphor but these are desperate times.    

And for your horrifying long read:  What if the unthinkable happens?

Analog Reading:

Finished Michael Arceneaux's I Can't Date Jesus.  We have more in common than you might think.  We both had alcoholic fathers, and we both had a thing for JTT growing up.  I feel like we could be friends.

Reading David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue.  It's enjoyable as a form of escape, but I'm having a hard time giving myself over to it, like I'm expecting anything I read right now to be making some kind of statement about race, culture, politics, or the state of the world.  This book feels a little too fluffy for the current moment, but I guess I'll finish reading it anyway.

The Isolation Journals #110

 Your prompt for this week, from Rachel Schwartzmann:

[On the topic of slowing down and stepping back from our devices and our to-do lists]

Set your timer for five minutes and do nothing. Stare at the desk or the wall or the dust motes in a slice of sunlight. Then write about the thoughts, the questions, and the answers that came up in that moment of slowness, of stillness.

---

In my brief moment of silence, I thought about the workday behind me.  It was hectic.  This morning feels like last week already.  Nonetheless, it was just this morning that I taught a virtual class of kindergarteners about the importance of balancing your time online with the time you spend in the real world.  We talked about why it's important to take breaks from technology, to ask permission before using a grown-up's devices, and why you shouldn't ignore someone who is in the room with you when you are using a device.  

I wonder how many of their parents could stand to follow the same advice.  How many of these kids have grown up with a shiny, expensive, handheld sibling standing between them and their parents, hogging the spotlight?  A perfect sibling that can be quickly silenced when it cries at inopportune moments, speaks only when spoken to, and can be easily replaced when it misbehaves.

I'm not a parent, but I know I'm guilty of getting sucked into the vortex of my phone, endlessly scrolling, hoping for a hit of dopamine, something, anything good or amusing to fill the void.  If I had kids screaming at me to wipe their butts or invest in their 529 account or make them some chicken nuggets, or whatever kids do when they're feeling spicy, I'd probably never put my phone down.  (Do not call child protective services, I have no plans of procreating.)

So, parents, I get it (do I, though?) and I'm not judging you (am I, though?).  It's just, we all need to slow our rolls.  And our scrolls.  Be present.  Get some fresh air.  Shake out your legs.  Sniff a flower.  Watch a caterpillar wiggle across the sidewalk.  Talk to your kid or your pet or your partner or your reflection (if you're that isolated, you probably need the practice before you put yourself back out there with other live humans).  Listen.

During this virtual class, I asked kids what they could do instead of spending time on their screens.  One little girl said, "Play with my cousin!"  Great, good answer.  Another said, "Pet my doggy!"  A kid after my heart.  Another said, "Play Roblox!"  And there's always one that completely misses the point.

I was like guys, it's ME you're talking to.  Remember ME, your friendly neighborhood librarian who read you stories 8,000 years ago last year in PreK?  What's one SUPER IMPORTANT, SUPER AWESOME thing you can do instead of screen time?  *Gestures behind me at the spread of books displayed on my couch, as I sit on the floor at my extremely professional ottoman desk*

"Watch Netflix!!"

We tried, y'all.  We tried.

Syllabus #71

The blows just keep coming.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Notorious RBG.  Trailblazer, hero, scion of decency.  Her dying words were, "My fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."  After a lifetime of service and fighting for justice, can you imagine carrying that burden as you go about the business of dying?  If anyone is deserving of peace and rest, it's someone like RBG.  Let's do everything we can to uphold her legacy.  Make donations, call your senators.  Put your head between your knees and wail, then wipe your nose and get back to it.

RBG exhibit at the National Museum American Jewish History, Philadelphia 

I was lucky enough to see the RBG exhibit at the National Museum of American Jewish History last December with my mom and Chuck.  She was born the same year as my grandmother, 1933, and it was fascinating to see the time and circumstances in which she grew up.  How many obstacles did she have to overcome by sheer force of will to become the person we know her to be today?  I tried to imagine my grandmother following a similar path.  I've long held that she would have made a good lawyer - she's always questioning, always arguing, sometimes, it would seem, for the sheer fun of it.  Ruth proved to all the generations of women that followed that they, too, could achieve anything.  She proved it by her example, and she ensured it by fighting for equal legal protection for all.  

---

If you, like me, are terrified about what a conservative Supreme Court appointee might do to eviscerate women's rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants' rights, and so on, I wrote us a little ditty, to the tune of DJ Kool's Let Me Clear My Throat:

Now all you ladies in the place
If you got real anxiety, real fear
If you got a birth control prescription, or you're going to Planned Parenthood
And y'all need Roe v. Wade to not be overturned so you can handle your business
Make some nooooooiiiise

---

So it's been a week.

This final comment from retired Justice Kennedy:  "By her learning she taught devotion to the law. By her dignity she taught respect for others and her love for America. By her reverence for the Constitution, she taught us to preserve it to secure our freedom."

Well, shit.  It's gonna be the winter of our discontent and there's not a lot we can do about it.  Except, you know, vote (for Biden, obviously) so that we can get ourselves on the right track, finally.  And wear your damn mask.

Yes, is this a medical procedure?  Is there a co-pay?  Do I need an appointment?  Sign me up.

Analog Reading:

Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter.  Short and sweet.  This is one of her earlier novels, or perhaps it's slim enough to be considered a novella.  It was interesting to see how she later repurposed or reimagined certain characters for her Brilliant Friend tetralogy.  

Michael Arceneaux's I Can't Date Jesus:  Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé.  This book is a delight.  It is insight into a lived experience so totally different from my own, but it is also relatable and often hilarious.

The Isolation Journals - #109

 

Prompt 109. What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.


Your prompt for this week:

This is what the living do…

Use this line from Marie Howe’s poem as inspiration—perhaps as the opening sentence of your journal entry, or as a poetic refrain. Reflect on the mundane; revel in the glorious everyday details of living.

---

I am a philistine.  Not usually one for poetry.  I respect it, but I don't always appreciate it.  It's a personal failing.  But I loved this poem.  It's a reminder that all those little moments, even the frustrating ones, the boring ones, only happen because you're alive.  I mean maybe they happen when you're dead.  I haven't been dead before, so that's a mystery, but rationally, let's just assume they don't.  This poem makes me think of all the deeply human, James Joyce-ian moments we all experience but seldom deem worthy of mention.  The moments that are too common or too private.

This is what the living do...

Driving exactly 8 or 9 miles per hour above the speed limit, picking your nose

Tempting fate on multiple levels

Stripping down in the morning, stepping on the scale

Sitting down on the toilet, phone in hand

Feeling strangely productive as you empty your bowels and check your email

Feeling strong and proud, yet slightly appalled

As you step back on the scale and do the math

Does anyone else do that?

This is what the living do...

Daydreaming about what you'll make for lunch

Before you've finished breakfast

Eating that grape that fell on the floor

Because no one saw you

Licking the rim of the hotsauce bottle

Double dipping your spoon in the peanut butter jar

This is what the living do...

Walking the dog after dinner in the steam of a Southern evening

Sweaty enough to warrant a shower

Skipping the shower and getting in bed later, feeling just a little sticky

Telling yourself you'll wash the sheets...this weekend, maybe

Laughing until you cry when your kitten falls in the toilet 

While you're scooping her litter box

Not even caring that she took off running

With poop-water paws

The look on her face when she realized she'd made a terrible mistake

Oh my god

Living is messy

It's rarely the tidy lists, the major accomplishments, the milestones

Living is breathing and walking and folding laundry

It's paying bills and waiting in lines and eating leftovers at the sink

It's full of hunger and germs and stink

This is what the living do...

Syllabus #70

The other day, we were out for a walk and these two little boys on bikes hollered after us about a missing cat.  They caught up to us and the older of the two, maybe 8 years old, told us all about what the cat looked like.  He then gave us some very convoluted directions to a house around the corner where he believed the cat was hanging out, and explained that they couldn't go looking for her in that yard, because the lady who lives there would call the police.  First of all, what kinda crusty ol' bitch calls the cops on children looking for a lost cat, but obviously we live in a world where that kind of mess happens all the time.

We promised the kids we would keep an eye out for their cat, and turned to walk away, when the older boy piped up again.  "Hey, there's blood in that mailbox," he said, gesturing to a large, rusty mailbox belonging to the vacant house we were passing.  The door of the mailbox had been fastened shut with a tightly coiled rubber band.

The smaller boy climbed off his bike and stood on tiptoes trying to pry open the mailbox.  "You're not supposed to do that!" the older boy admonished him.  Then he turned to us and offered, "You can look in there and see."  I guess he thought we could handle it.  Grownups would know what to do with a mailbox full of blood.

"No thanks, we're...good.  We should probably keep that mailbox closed, but uh, we'll keep an eye out for your cat, good luck guys..."

What kind of week have you been having?  Hopefully not one where you need to undergo bloodborne pathogen training just to retrieve your mail.  

Any time we go to a restaurant now, it's special.  It could always be the last time.

---

Gender reveal party sparks devastating California wildfire.  Our primary concern should center on the residents and wildlife impacted by this fire, but like, who wants to be the fly on the wall when the fetus whose genitals were being feted is born, grows up, and finds out about this horrible mishap?  Like, do these parents even get to keep this baby?  Do they go to jail?  Do they get sued?  

Reading this made me uncomfortable, not because I'm a prude, but because it's so obviously fake and not even aspirational.  A real human wouldn't last a week living this lifestyle without getting gout, cirrhosis of the liver, a UTI and possibly an anal fissure. 

I was going to add my own post-tornado, pre-lockdown experience to this 'last night before lockdown' reminiscence, but the gutpunch of seeing another Nashvillian's comments on the same time period have pre-empted my words.  Also, that sentence had too many hyphens in it.

No, absolutely not.  I will not allow this.  The only experiences we have now revolve around things we can put in our mouths, and also things we can read.  If you took away either of those things from me, there'd be no reason to go on.

Analog Reading:

Just finishing up Dirt by Bill Buford.  It is both privileged and perhaps dramatic to say, but this book has really made me miss international travel.  Like, when is that going to be a thing we can do again?  The depth and richness of the culinary and cultural experiences he finds in the lesser-traveled regions of France have opened a window to a world few Americans have the opportunity or motivation to seek out and experience.

About to start The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante.  It's surprisingly slim compared to her four Neapolitan novels, but that's a good thing because I'm staring down the barrel of multiple library holds coming in all at once, unexpectedly.  

The Isolation Journals - #108

 Prompt (from journaler Ash Parsons):  Your life might look nothing like mine but maybe you also feel that you lack the time, emotional space, or the presence of that saucy minx, “inspiration,” to write. Maybe you can’t sit down and write multiple pages or hundreds of words but I bet you can come up with ten images from the last 24 hours. Give it a try.

One of my favorite things is going back through my “Ten Images” pages from the last year and seeing what I saw. No matter what is going on in the world, within or without, I know I can find a home in these pages.

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1) A steamy, caramelized exhalation of summer's bounty, a peach clafoutis cooling and settling on the stove

2) Red solo cups in the street scattered by drunken revelers leaving the banger thrown by the Airbnb guests two houses down

3) The Nashville skyline looming large against a cobalt sky as I pedal down the greenway, sunlight glinting off the mountains of scrap metal heaped behind the concrete walls flanking the path

4) The stooped, angry old man yelling 'Aw, Hell, HELL' at the people leaving church on Sunday morning (merely a coincidence - we saw him on Thursday afternoon on a different street, yelling the same thing at passing cars)

5) A stout, iridescent jewel of a beetle, rolling a dog turd across the sidewalk like a burly, flannel-clad lumberjack rolls a log or a jolly, fat German man wearing lederhosen rolls a beer keg

6) The surprisingly revealing peach-colored housedress with the 1970s flower pattern that reminds me of a set of sheets my grandmom kept on the twin bed in what used to be my uncle's bedroom, that I wore for really no reason at all for most of the day on Sunday

7) A fat purple thistle in a field of wildflowers marking the entrance to a brief, underwhelming hiking trail

8) Two cats, one fat, one skinny, writhing on the floor bunny-kicking identical plush mice.  Their backs to one another, engaged in parallel but separate play.  It's progress.

9) My tiny workout buddy likes for us to color-coordinate our equipment.  She could have brought the red pipe cleaner, or the purple one, but she arrived with fluorescent yellow, obviously a deliberate choice.

10) The most divine of all sandwiches, the one I dream about when I wake up hungry in the night.  Crunchy peanut butter on wheat bread, layered with apple slices, liberally dusted with cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, and cayenne.  Packed in a to-go container so I could take it on a picnic.  Today I threw caution to the wind and added in a couple slivers of peach, and could hear the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut whisper, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

Syllabus #69

 Sixty niiiiiine.  Nice.

Because I've stuck with this semi-regular habit for a substantial amount of time.  Not for any other reason.  Sicko.

The other day I was working from home and Andy and I went for a lunchtime walk.  There was a stretch of sidewalk with a minefield of scattered dog turds, and I noticed a shiny, brilliant beetle rolling a turd that was easily 10 times its size.  I crouched down to marvel at this feat, this natural wonder occurring right here in our urban jungle.  Andy was not impressed.  But come on, man, nature is wild!  

So what's going on in the world?  Are we holding it together with chewing gum and paperclips?  Here's some stuff!

---

Speaking of sex acts where we talk a big game but in practice they really can't be all that enjoyable, the rusty trombone, the Cleveland steamer, the donkey punch, The Glory Hole 

To change the subject abruptly, this is devastating and probably one of my worst fears during all of this 

And this too 

But really, it's hard to choose a 'worst fear' when there are so many things to send you shrieking into a pillow

Maybe this advice will be useful for someone

Watching:

Finally got around to checking out Schitt's Creek.  Why did we wait so long?  It's a gem, and made me realize my sphere of existence has been limited to my home for so long that as the Rose family moved into that dumpy motel I thought, well that looks like a fun adventure.

Analog Reading:

Finished Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Halfway through Dirt:  Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking by Bill Buford.  It's transporting to recall a time when you could, you know, leave the country and/or meet new people.

The Isolation Journals - #107

 I skipped a few.  I lost a whole month.  But I make the rules around here and on Tuesdays we work from home in our bathrobe and call it a day at 2:23 PM because we have nothing left to give.  Which is highly appropriate for this past Sunday's prompt:

Your prompt for the week:
What multiplies your energy? Write these in list form and tack them to the wall above your desk.

Bonus Prompt:
Reflect on the throughline between all of these things. What is it they do for you? What qualities do they share?

---

What multiplies my energy?  

Cocaine (Just kidding - I hear it's a helluva drug but that's not my style, guys, I'm not that cool.  I got 'narc' written all over my face and still look over my shoulder coming out of the CBD oil store.)

Making lists

Listing a few items I've already completed to establish momentum (except not cocaine...I snorted a Pixy Stix once, and while I can't endorse that behavior, I feel like that was no less unhealthy than consuming it orally...what a dietary abomination)

Deadlines/lighting a fire under this ass

Kitty snuggles (That's a lie - they multiply the chambers of my cold, vacant heart but also make me wanna take a nap)

Cooking a dinner where no one (read: Andy) complains

Reading a good book - the kind where you have to read justonemorepage until you've plowed through 50 and it's truly past your bedtime

Being accountable to other people - never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never wanna look like a schmuck 

Going for a bike ride - Must be a sunny day, when it's warm (but not too warm) with a gentle breeze (but not too windy), so basically the 1 day a year when Nashville weather meets all that criteria I go for my annual bike ride

Creative pursuits - writing, painting, drawing, comedy bits

Going for a drive and screaming to Against Me!

Live music

Is there a throughline?  Kinda sorta?  Much of the list involves situations where there is at least some kind of pressure.  Sometimes it's external pressure, sometimes it's internal, sometimes it's immediate, sometimes it's long term.  Sometimes the goal is private, or simply aims towards catharsis.  Other times, there's an element of public exhibition.  

Basically, I'm a pile of raw peanuts in a pressure cooker.  If you don't turn on the burner, I'm just going to soak in my brine, inert and inedible.  Turn the burner up too high, and I'll explode - stay out of the kitchen or you might lose an eye.  But if you manage to hit that sweet spot, before too long, I'll be a salty delight.