The other night was a late one at work for both Maxim and me. This, coupled with the fact that Subway has that nifty five-dollar footlongs deal, meant that we weren't cooking. The courts sent Lili home to her mother earlier this month*, Sam meandered over to Memphis for a couple-three days, so we rounded up Scout and Mathias and headed out for some sammiches.
On the way there, I laughingly told Maxim about how now that we were sponsoring our little Indonesian cutie, Intan, I thought it'd be great fun to invoke the spirit of About Schmidt and write her a letter once a month on this here weeplog. Said letter would of course contain all the whacked-out mutterings and advice that would never make it past translators in a realtime scenario.
Good ole even keel, decorous Maxim suddenly and startlingly forbade me to write about eensy Indonesian Intan in bloggy fashion. Now, you all know that he's forbidden me to discuss certain subjects with Cyberia in the past and that has only served to make me more rapid with and grandiose in my storytelling. He knows this, too; the man is not a complete dumbass. However, sexy and delightful Muffinasses, this time was so, so different.
When I went all, "WHAAAT? Why not??" Maxim sort of flipped out and foamed at the mouth a little when I replied to him pithily about Not Being The Boss Of Me. The hippie got a tad voice-raisey and heated.
"LOOK, ELIZABETH," (see me using my Realnametm? you know for a fact it was serious, because I am exact-quoting him with my Realnametm and everthang) he said, eyes a little wide, "DON'T YOU DARE BLOG ABOUT THAT CHILD IN ANY MANNER!"
"But it would be so great, and so funny!" I wheedled back. Then I got all chin-jutty and buttholey: "I can't believe you are acting like this! I WILL DO AS I PLEASE, MISTER, PBBLTHTHTHT."
"YOU ARE RIDICULOUS. FINE. WRITE WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT, JUST DON'T USE HER REALNAMEtm." If there was a way to put four periods on the end of that sentence without them looking like passive little trailing-off ellipses, I would, because he totally put the emphatic total of no less than four periods on the end of that sentence. There were maybe even five. Five, y'all!
So henceforward little Intan's name won't be Intan. I mean, it will be in real life and all, to the people that know and love her (Maxim, apparently, MORE THAN ME). But to you fake internet people? She'll be Bernie. You clear on that? Intan is not Intan, Intan is Bernie.
And if any of you fuckers tell her I'm voyeurnalling about her, you are in so much trouble. SO MUCH.
*Completely shitty scenario. I don't want to talk about it. We are done being foster parents for a minute. FUCK THE SYSTEM, IT IS INHERENTLY FLAWED.
Some days I tag along with Tess on our generous two-hour lunch break. Some days she tags along with me. Today I had plans to run home to the studio and cram in some time there putting a coat of this on something, sanding something else, and gluing that to another this entirely. You're following my creative process, right? Right.
My studio is hideously cluttered, because I'm one of those Creative Types you hear so much about. It looks a sweet hot mess in there,
:: my studio, she is a mess ::
but if you ask me where any single, teeny widget or baublething is, I can point straight to it, savantlike, enabling you to insert your hand into the rubble and emerge triumphantly with the specific bit. A mess usually unnerves me, so I typically go in to do a complete sweep and 'straighten' it once a month, but that poses a genuine problem: I run across this thing and that thing and HEY! there's another thing and before I know it, ideas are all over one another, panting and rucking up skirts and ready to get their art on. You people should be in my head. It's vile and amazing and trucked-up sexy all at once.
So I went to the house aiming to get something done, but really all I ended up doing was getting my Dremel tool out to do some detail work on a piece. This lasted all of twenty minutes before Tess became a distraction, what with Kathy Griffin (who is of course a massive hero to all suppressed women everywhere. and to the over-exuberant ones. and to ones that aren't afraid to say the word 'cunt' proudly. cunt, Cunt, CUNT.) being on Bravo and all.
Tess and I watch Bravo programming on a regular basis to keep in touch with our inner gay men. It makes us bodacious, or something. No, seriously. If you don't follow my Twitter feed, then you may not know that a gay man at the flower market last month told me quite enthusiastically that I am Bodacious. He said it just like that, with a cappillul bee and everything. I've been called Bodacious exactly three times in my life, and each time I was in love with the fact that I'd been thusly labeled.
So Tess and I were being bad, smoking (*gasp*!) a cigarette and watching Ms. Kathy and pinging one-liners off of one another. Tess is quick with a snappy comeback, and quite clever, so it's fun to back-and-forth with her unabashedly at times. So we were doing this when Tessa became mesmerized with a Nubian goddess on the tellyvee, and this exchange occurrred:
TESS: Oh. Gaaaahhhd. How fabulous is she?
JETT: She'll do in case of hard times.
TESS: I want to get extensions, and I want to wear them like an afro.
JETT: Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you something!
TESS: What?
JETT: YOU WERE BORN WHITE.
And she was, like cracker-white. Lived in the middle of a farm community, had no interaction with any black people whatsoever until she'd graduated high school and moved to Birmingham for college. So I'm always amused at her lusty desire to be a black woman.
I'll admit, though, when she gets on the dance floor, the results are what could be dubbed 'not bad for a white girl'.
We are sponsoring a child from Indonesia through Compassion International (ROLL YOUR EYES, because if I read this over on your site, I probably would, because I am a complete bastard like that). For reasons I will not go into right at this very now, there was a lot of internal turmoil for me over this one. I know, I know: I will allow the county's child protective services to scoop up kids and deposit them into my home on a couple hours' notice, but I'm tragically torn over mailing a barefoot kid from Southeast Asia thirty bucks a month so she can afford fancy things like, oh, a roof that is not crafted of see-through plastic and nutritional meals.
You people do remember that I'm not a slave to rationality, yes?
Maxim actually made the command decision to do so and was the one to write out the check. This came about because we recently spent some time hanging with Grant Norsworthy, who is a spokesperson for Compassion and has seen firsthand --in several places scattered across the planet-- what they do for children in need. He spoke of them with great reverence and respect and conviction, so now we are the sole sponsors of six-year-old Intan, who has five siblings and has not yet begun school. Our paltry handful of dollars will, thankfully, help her get started.
Before I read much about her, I was reading the literature that came with her packet. I had grand visions of us going to the OshKosh outlet, buying up the same clearance biballs I used to outfit my own children in, and packing them lovingly with things like a babydoll and some ringpops and stickers and other things that children should be lavished with from time to time. My Auntie Jett fantasies were dashed upon the rocks of "NO, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT," however. We are allowed to send her family a monetary gift three times per year, and we are allowed to send Intan the same no more than twice a year. I think the max is twenty-five bucks? and will be spent by Compassion staff on the child to meet specific needs she might have. As to the family gifts, they 'direct' the family, counsel with them as to the best way to invest the money on things like adequate housing, sanitary water supply and the like.
So it looks like Intan will be saved from me and my over-enthusiastic do-gooder ways. RULES, BAH! I will send the stickers, I imagine, brightly-colored and ridiculous ones. And some coloring pages. And maybe one of Mathias' crazy comic books. We are limited to correspondence not greater than 8.5" by 11" in size, and the entire packet cannot be more than one-eighth of an inch thick. Anyone have any ideas? Postcards, photos of the States, these things have occurred to me already. What is the first thing that pops into your Muffinassed brains?
Scout's all, "Let's go over there and meet her." I gave her the Let's Not Be Pushy And Overeager Obnoxious American Whiteys speech. She's just enough like her mother to be crazily dangerous to the world at large. I told her, though, I told her that if that little Intan grows to be a big Intan and we are still her sponsors, we'll go watch her graduate high school. She made me promise and she made me swear, that Scout, that I will take her to Indonesia to meet this dusky-skinned little round-faced girl from a faraway place should that moment present itself.
(I've never had the overwhelming desire to be in that part of the world, not even when my mother told me that she fervently believes I may have a sister thereabouts, a half-sister born of the collision of a foolishly-fought war, my father's whoring ways and his required presence on the scene at previously-mentioned war. I figure if there is a girl in Vietnam who wonders after us, she'll maybe look up me or Fred or Henry. Hell, maybe she already has, who knows? But I'll receive her warmly if that time comes and not worry about it overmuch if she doesn't. I'll explain to her that she was lucky, in a way, that our father was not in close enough proximity to break her heart over and over in the manner that he did mine and Fred's.)
I can't help but be reminded of About Schmidt, when (SPOILER! SPOILER!) the protagonist retires and then his wife suddenly dies and then he fucks out a little bit and then part of his fucking-out entails sponsoring a little African boy named Ndugu (I think? Whatever. It's pronounced EnDOOgoo). He writes these lengthy, rambling letters to Ndugu which are pretty intensely inappropriate but insanely funny and just break your heart to hear them. Ndugu is his unconsciously chosen, seven-year-old, impoverished African therapist. Bless Ndugu's teensy heart.
Oh, Intan, you have no idea how wackadoo your own sponsor is. Ndugu was a lucky little fella by comparison. One day, mebbe, when you are much, much older and it is appropriate, mebbe I'll send you the link to my voyeurnal. Maybe I'll help you start your own. I'm thinking that the way we were united was no accident. Your packet was just kind of haphazardly handed to us, pushed into sort of unexpectant hands, but I knew before I even glanced at it that you'd be a chubby-cheeked girl of no more than seven, that you'd have barrettes pushing back thick, dark hair and that your precious little knees would be knobby. When I finally got around to reading it, and then saw some of the others, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom. It cited your loves as telling stories, making art and listening to music of all kinds. You were the only child in that stack who possessed that express combination; I am a person whose heart believes stubbornly in the existence of Should Bes. Maybe I'll come to find that you are, as well. I hope I --along with my little family here on the other side of this big old little world-- turn out to be a blessing to you.
I'm kind of sorry that I've not updated, and kind of not. As always, there is lots going on up top and there are things of humor and some merit in my life to write about. No time, no time, though, because there is much of it to be stuffed into the sparse minutes I'm given each day (which, if I am fortunate, may just change soon; keep your fingers crossed for a development that I'm not yet prepared to discuss).
Four things:
+one of my uncles died last week. He was married into the family and was a real tool, so don't cry for him (Argentina)(or any other nation, for that matter).
+another of my uncles is gearing up to die. Him, we like. Him, my mother is closest to. Him, was really good to me and Fred. Him, we will mourn.
+my favorite quote right now --and perhaps forever-- is by Saint Augustine: "Qui cantat, bis orat," or, "To sing once is to pray twice."
+I think I'm falling in love with simplicity. Gently, slowly, but deep and hard.
That last little sentencey bit would make a great KY ad, yeah?
I *told* you bastards that my cursing has a cause AND a purpose!
"But despite the seemingly atavistic roots of cursing, the sounds themselves are composed of English words and are pronounced in full conformity with the sound pattern of the language. It is as though the brain were wired in the course of human evolution so that the output of an old system for calls and cries were patched into the input of the new system for articulate speech."
This book has been great nerdy fun. I usually have three or four books concurrently running as reading material, but I didn't set this one aside for anything else until I'd bounced from one side of the cover to the other. I think I may have even spooned with it one night.
I reckon I'll look into Pinker's other titles, as well.
she took a close-up picture of herself; in it she was holding a tub of chocolate icing next to her cheek. posting it online, she captioned it with, "i went to the store so i could bake a cake and this new sprinkle icing was $1.39 and the old none-sprinkle icing was $1.79. now, thats a deal"
she wears purple unselfconsciously. it is not in my power to do that. (thanks for the complex, dad)
a recent post reads, people always hold back... why are you afraid to do what you love? i do everything i love and anything i take interest in. i may not be perfect or as good as anybody else and i may not do it the way others think i should, but i still do it. just because you do things a different way or you're not perfect in what you do doesn't mean you can't do it. do what "you" love. don't let others help you live your life.
big gigunda linkdump to keep you busy for a minute.
Obama's gonna help McCain win (courtesy of Matt). I vaguely recall voicing this prediction quietly to a friend many moons ago. Said friend was surprised that I had an opinion on anything political, much less backing facts for same opining. I am politically tight-lipped, not a complete retard. I just play one on this here weeplog.
Best-dressed: I agree with commenters, though, that it's not really any more eco-friendly than the next garment if you're using the disposables. From a design standpoint, though, this screams "SEX!" at me. As in, I'm totally hot for it.
I'm still playing NationStates after all this time. I am a nerd.
Triple Five Soul makes some of the best streetwear ever and right now has a fatly-stocked clearance section, check it out.
If you haven't yet heard of Black Hockey Jesus, WHY NOT? He's still in his pandering, Whoring For Hits phase, but his writing has staying power and (DON'T TELL HIM, HE HAS BIGHEAD SYNDROME) I'm hooked. He offered me some virgins via e-mail. He really is as sick as his writing conveys. You will love him, oh delightful Muffinasses.
I'm busy finishing pieces for my Etsy shop, and am at the point where I'm about to work on opening it. I've been surfing the marketplace over there even more frequently than usual while WAITING FOR THE PERSON WHO IS COLLABORATING WITH ME ON DESIGN IDEAS FOR THE BANNER AND INTRO PAGE --sorry, did I go all bigfirmvoice on you? whoops-- to hunker down with me about finalizing some design elements. Which tells you how I found this amazing shop, Made With Molecules, with theseawesome pieces of jewelry (and one spectacular pillow)that I would maybe swap some child labor* toward.
One hippy trip might have positive, long-term effects. Nancy Reagan FREAKED EVERYONE OUT. It took a minute to get back around to intense, structured study of psychedelic pharmacology.
That trickster TheDane got a get well gift from The One And Only Mister Chuck Palahniuk. He was all name-droppy about it, too. GROSS.
Did you know that this site over here gives away a fabulous pair of designer shoes once per week? For free. I DID NOT, and if you did, WHY HAVE YOU NOT MENTIONED IT TO YOUR FAVORITE FOUL-MOUTHED SHOEHOUND?? Selfishes.
This series juxtaposes the shifting, vaporous nature of man against the concrete, fixed nature of city. Wow. (link courtesy of redclay, that rakish bastard, who never updates anymore, so I don't know why I continue to link his site)
Sometimes I get really cynical about the world. Then I see something as beautiful and simple and hopeful as this
click track
