Monday, April 30, 2007

First IBP Play, Next IBP Play

First play I ever saw by the Houston theater company Infernal Bridegroom Productions was Endgame, directed by Jason Nodler. Jim Parsons played Clov and Greg Dean was Hamm. Tamarie Cooper as Nell and Aaron Krohn as Nagg. Beautiful. And memorable. To this day, I remember how hypnotic it was to watch Jim move the stool from window to window.

Next IBP play: Tamarie Cooper's 20 Love Songs. It opens Thursday, May 3 and plays Friday and Saturdays through June 9. During the Houston summer, Tamarie is often lauded by the press for being Houston's most genius physical comedianne, as evidenced by her hilarious, autobiographical creations. This year, she's showcasing the many faces of love -- the sweet, the sick, the sultry, the sorry. Come see the show! And see it more than once. Tamarie has invited some local writers and performers to join her in creating these love songs, and she's rotating the numbers each night, so every show will be different. In June, I'll be part of the showcase, performing a short, original piece about maternal love, entitled MAW.

You can learn more about how to get tickets by going to IBP's website.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Sing Shorter Songs

Having grown up in Southern California during the 1970s and 80s, I’ve learned a lot about water conservation: Mostly because I grew up during a ten-year drought, from around 1974 to 1984. But, also my mother chose to make her career in the water business. She started out as a schoolteacher, but she quit her teaching career so that she could raise her children. About halfway through that project, she went to work for the water district up the street from our house. A man named Bill Meadows ran it. He was our friend. He hired my mom to teach a water conservation program called "Ricky the Raindrop" to schoolchildren. She would visit all the schools in OC and educate children about the importance of conserving water, about how water was our most precious resource. She passed out Ricky the Raindrop coloring books that explained the course of the water cycle, through evaporation to condensation and back again. Sometimes, we got to help her, like when the newspaper wanted to do a story on her, and she let my brothers and me pretend to be her students. The backs of our heads, and our mom standing in front of a Ricky the Raindrop poster, were featured on the front page of the Orange County Register's Local section.

Soon she started working as a Special Projects manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Orange County (MWDOC -- we called it Mowdock). There, she developed programs like "Captain Hydro!" for high school students. Her programming was so successful, she found herself moving into the political side of water conservation, helping to regulate the way water and wastewater are dealt with in California. For over 21 years, she was a gubernatorial appointee on the California State Water Board. Because of her I could not help but be hyper-aware of how precious is water, and she schooled us daily on how not to waste it.

One of the strongest conservation advertisements ("Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute," being of them) is one I remember from that period: "Sing Shorter Songs in the Shower." The slogan was all over the place, at least from my view, the one with my water-conservation-obsessed mother constantly reminding us to turn off the water while we were brushing our teeth, or while we were sudsing our hands. I remember seeing a huge billboard on the 5 freeway with the slogan in a word bubble above a guy poking his head out of the shower.

I remember how the first summer storm I encountered in Houston stunned me. I heard this clap of thunder, and then it was as if helicopters were pouring lakes down upon my house. I did not understand for a few seconds what exactly was happening. It took me a minute to recognize rain. I laid down on my bed and stared out the window at the August evening down pour. I called my mom immediately.

"Mom, you won't believe the size of the raindrops falling in Houston right now. I swear they're the size of lemons."

"Don't let it fool you," she said. "You still need to conserve water."

I admit that living in Houston, where it rains a lot more than it does in Southern California, has helped me learn to relax a little, in many ways, but specifically around my water use. I can now take a 10-minute shower once in a blue moon, and I don't feel guilty. I can let the water run while I'm brushing my teeth. I even allow Clara to play in the water, letting a thin stream run from the faucet for over 5 minutes, so that she can fill up cups with water and set them around the sink, over and over and over and over. It keeps her occupied while I make dinner or lunch or try to sweep the floor. I don't even fell guilty for doing it, although I worry that I'm sending her the wrong message by letting the water run for so long without turning it off.

More than ever, though, I think about water conservation. My mom is now working on desalination in California. It's a controversial issue, and it sounds crazy. The last time she visited us, we were eating dinner and I asked her laughingly if she thought desal, as the water politicos call it, would ever get off the ground, if there was any way it was going to happen. She got really quiet. She looked at me, her eyes serious as stone, and said, "It has to work. We're running out of water."

FYI: We're running out of water. I have it on pretty good authority, and, also, maybe you've heard the saying, "As goes California, so goes the nation." If California is running out of water, according to my mom, then the whole country is running out of water.

Therefore: This year? become a patriot -- save your country by singing shorter songs in the shower. Our future depends on it.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

What I Learned at the Opera

I didn't get a chance to write last night because we went to the opera -- Aida -- and it lasted for three hours. Not that we stayed that long; we left at intermission, but the 90 minutes we did see felt like three hours. So it exhausted me, the opera.

First of all, the stage at the Wortham is colossal, so large that when Amneris (the undesirable Egyptian princess) and Radames (the hot Egyptian stud) entered for the first time, I sat with my hands in my purse and thought, "Wow, they look like midgets!" When the chorus (Pharaoh’s court/army) entered soon after, I specified (to myself), "Maybe they ARE midgets." Instead of being bothered by how mini these people looked on stage, and it was deeply bothersome, I concluded that it was the POINT of opera to exemplify how we humans, even those of us who think we're larger than life, resemble mere specks on the universal stage. Midgets are giants, metaphorically. And humans? We're like the dust under the opera midgets' feet. After deciding to view the opera this way, I settled down and got into it.

Opera is the story of our lives, the story of our world, told in really loud voices, large gestures, garish costumes and vibratos. It's so over the top because it deserves to be -- many of the stories are monumentally tragic. Aida, for example. Radames is in love with a slave girl, the Ethiopian princess of the warring nation, who suffers Egyptian captivity and serves Amenris, who loves Radames. If you want a synopsis, please google it. Suffice it to say that Radames and Aida are enslaved by their love and suffer a gruesome death -- they're buried alive -- as a result.

Here are some things I learned last night by watching the opera AIDA:

Death Always Wins.
Death conquers Love.
Love Always Wins.
Love conquers Death.
Romantic love is always doomed.
The enemy provides the entertainment.
My purse is an absolute mess.
Ceremony fills the void.
The characters in the opera trust their author.
My vision is failing, but my hearing is compensating, as evidenced by my ability to hear the piece of candy clicking against the teeth of the guy sitting three people to the left of me.

Before the opera began, a voice told us to turn off our cell phones, and of course, I couldn't find mine because my purse is the size of a grocery bag and full of stuff. So I had to sit through the first act with my hands in my purse, making sure that if my cell phone did go off, I'd be able to silence it before Run DMC's "It's Tricky" broke the operatic illusion. With my hands in my purse, I became obsessed with my unaccounted-for cell phone, and the vision of "It's Tricky" interrupting AIDA reduced me to giggles. Then I remembered my hands imprisoned in my purse, and I felt ridiculous. So I removed them, taking the chance that my cell phone might ring. I dropped my purse to the floor and secretly wished it would.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Strange Rhyming Phenomenon

There was a series of years -- from high school through college and right after -- when I dated a succession of men whose names rhymed with the one I'd just broken up with.

Sean
Ron
Ted
Ed
Nico
Chico

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Body by Ted

When my mom turned 36, she started working out at an athletic club. She got up at the ding of dawn, left for class and was back by the time we were waking up. She worked hard, reshaping her body back to how it was, or nearly, before she had four children. One morning, she came home wearing a yellow t-shirt over her blue leotard. Across the front of the shirt was written, "Body by Ted: He Makes Me Sweat." My brothers and I were agog.

"Who is TED?" I asked.

"The aerobics instructor," she said.

"That's GROSS, mom," Marco said.

We were young, but we nevertheless intimated the prurience of the slogan's innuendo.

I for one needed to get a look at this Ted, this guy who inspired my mom to embarrass us with his t-shirt at 7 in the morning. Once I saw him, I relaxed. He was clearly not a threat, even though he looked like a skinny Tom Selleck. He was gay.

Soon after that morning when she came home wearing the t-shirt, my brothers and I created a song called "Body by Ted." The chorus..."he makes me sweat." We played this one on our tennis racket guitars during our concerts in front of the bathroom mirror. It was our number one hit.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Mess

This afternoon, David came into the kitchen with the new bottle of olive oil I bought at the store. "Were you planning on taking this to the bathroom?" he asked. He'd found it on a table on the way to the bathroom, where I left it and forgot about it.

I have a problem with mess. It's a problem I try to actively work on improving because it's confusing to live in a mess, especially now with children, who by their nature are mess machines. I don't know why I'm so comfortable in a mess; perhaps it's genetic. Definitely inherited, although my mother abhors mess, so I didn't get it from her. My father's messes are horrifying and GOD FORBID I end up keeping every scrap of every bill that ever arrived in my mailbox. Sometimes I worry....

When I was younger, the number one conflict that occurred between my mom and me was over my mess. "Clean up your room!" rang her constant refrain. I would start to clean it up with excellent intentions and energy, but then I'd find something interesting -- a book, an earring, a plastic horse, a shoe -- and my imagination would spark, and then I'd be floating in some other world, some inner place of reverie. Before I knew it, an hour had passed and my room was still a mess.

It got so bad, the messiness and my mother's harping about it, that around 10 years old, I decided to pray to god to help me out with it. I asked god to grant me powers like Jeannie had in "I Dream of Jeannie," the television show. I sat on the end of my bed, crossed my arms, closed my eyes and nodded my head vigorously, once. Opening one eye, I saw my room still strewn with stuff everywhere.

"Come on, god. If you're real, you'll help me clean my room." Again, I assumed the pose.

Nada.

Now I've started trying to clean my room yogically; that is, I attempt to notice my mess, to become conscious of the feelings I have while I'm tossing or shoving aside the medical bills, the empty bags, the unmatched socks, the boxes of defunct files. I notice but do not judge myself. I'm cultivating a deep intention to clean.

Maybe someday I'll actually get to the actual cleaning part.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Favorite Painter: Remedios Varo


Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst, by Remedios Varo, 1960.

source

Saturday, April 21, 2007

First Memory

We lived in a neighborhood called Las Casitas -- the little houses. I was sitting in a yellow high chair, eating a sugar cookie with yellow icing in the shape of a bunny rabbit. My mother was moving around the kitchen, in and out of my view. I could see through the sliding glass door to the backyard. I was somewhere around 12 months old.

Friday, April 20, 2007

GREASE, 1978

I solve my problems and I see the light
We gotta plug and think, we gotta feed it right
There ain't no danger we can go too far
We start believing now that we can be who we are

Grease is the word
They think our love is just a growing pain
Why don't they understand, It's just a crying shame
Their lips are lying only real is real
We start to find right now we got to be what we feel

Grease is the word
Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now that we can be wo we are

Grease is the word
Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling
This is the life of illusion
Wrapped up in trouble laced with confusion
What we doing here?

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now that we can be who we are

Grease is the word
Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

Grease is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word


Book, Music and Lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Clothing Fads of my Youth

Ditto Jeans
Dolphin Shorts
Sbicca Shoes
Vans
Topsiders
Sergio Valente Jeans
The Preppy Handbook
Izod Shirts
Ralph Lauren polo shirts

I don't know why I can't remember any more. My mother bought most of our clothes at thrift stores, before that was a cool thing to do. She always got us good stuff. Once I was old enough to go by myself, I found great stuff; I remember a Tahitian print shift dress from Saks Fifth Avenue and a raw silk pleated skirt, specifically. People in high school used to ask me where I got my clothes. I felt embarrassed to say St. Vincent de Paul's, especially in status conscious Orange County in the 1980s. I remember when thrifting became popular: suddenly it became much harder, and much more time-consuming, to find cool things. Plus, the stores started to seem dirtier, the clothes more like dead people clothes.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Union Pacific

The Southern Pacific tracks ran through our town, through a depot situated a quarter of a mile from my bedroom window. Every night, I fell asleep -- and it took hours -- to the comings and goings of trains, freight trains and passenger trains, San Juan a significant stop, because of its tourist attraction, the Mission San Juan Capistrano, on the way from Los Angeles to San Diego, or vice versa.

We lived on the East side of the tracks in the old section of town, on Mission Hill. At the top of the hill stood the house my father was born in, surrounded by an adobe wall draped with bougainvillea. For many years during my childhood, we walked our bikes or our skateboards to the top of Don Juan Street, using my father's childhood house as the turn-around point, turned around, pointed our vehicles down the hill and, yelling GERONIMO! let ourselves fly for 1000 feet. This fun was, of course, very dangerous, as there were at least two blind curves in the street. Luckily, there were rarely any cars using the street. Most of the people who lived on our hill were old, as in old timers, as in house-, porch- and patio- bound most of the day. When the streetlights came on, we had to go home.

The trains carried tourists and fruit and whatever else -- sometimes livestock, sometimes coal -- up and down the Pacific coast. Because we lived on a hill, we could see the train pulling into town, especially when the condos near the creek bed were not yet built. Sometimes, while hanging out in the white oak tree in our front yard, we'd see human beings riding the tops of the cargo trains -- illegals who had hopped the trains while they were pulling in and out of towns. Right before the trains would pull into the depot, we saw these people scrambling along the tops of cargo cars, making their way towards the ladders, preparing to dismount and bolt towards the creek bed, where they could disappear into the bamboo forests until it got dark. They could follow the natural bamboo tunnels down the creek and once night fell, hop back on the freight train that pulled through town sometime around 9 p.m.

One night, on our way home from visiting my father's mother, who lived on the West side of the tracks, we were stopped at the railroad crossing by a bunch of police cars. After a long time, the police began to wave us over the tracks with their flashlights. As we drove over the crossing, I looked out the station wagon window and saw 20, maybe 50, small, dusty men sitting "Indian style" on either side of the tracks, their hands clasped around their legs, their foreheads resting on their knees. Some of them looked up as we passed them, the beams from the flashlights catching their eyes, which burned and shone, flat as a cat's caught in a car's headlights at night.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Mistaken Identity

I remember showing up to school on December 8, 1980. Denise Haddad, a
seventh grader was standing at the school gate. "John Lennon died," she
said. "He was shot." In my mind I heard her say, "JackLemmon died; he
was shot." Denise was crying and I did not understand why she was so
upset about JackLemmon's death. I figured her distress was about the violence surrounding his death. She was the only person who mentioned anything about it that whole day. I told a few of my eighth grade classmates, "Hey, did you hear that JackLemmon died?" They were like, "Who's Jack Lemmon?"

That afternoon, when I got home and my mom asked if I had heard about John Lennon's murder, I finally understood. I felt like an idiot. But I did not cry.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Oh Maria, Madre Mia
Oh Consuelo del mortal
Amaprame y guiame
A la paz del celestial

I found myself singing this song to Diego before bed a couple nights ago. It was the closing song of the daily mass I attended as a child with my mom and siblings. Mass started at 7:15 a.m., and school started at 8. The mass was in Latin, and lasted 25 minutes, which is short by Catholic standards. I never thought about the words when I sang the song as a child. I sang it because I'd memorized it, just as I had memorized all the prayers in Latin. The entire mass was in a foreign language that I could speak, but I could not understand. Singing it to Diego, I realized that I now knew what the words meant. The song is in Spanish, not Latin.

Oh Mary, my mother
Oh consoler of mortals
Protect me and guide me
to the celestial peace.

Birthday Journal

Woke up. Did yoga. Ate oatmeal. Went to farmer's market. Recycled. Went to Ava's 2nd birthday party. Came home. Went shopping by myself for Janis Joplin costume. Got calls and messages from friends, family. Found enough items to make Janis work -- shirt with bell sleeves, boa for hair, round glasses, beads by Sharon. Came home. Babysat while David did errands (including buying me birthday lottery scratchoffs, which I still haven't scratched off). When David got home, I made dinner -- spiced lentils, basmati rice and kale -- and burnt the kale while Sharon, Aaron and Joy visited. Helped Marcia get kids to bed. David and I left for IBP annual gala -- Tortured Artist Gala, hence the Janis costume. "Look, it's Janic Joplin and David." Saw lots of old friends and some new ones, too. Favorite costumes were the ones of people dressed as IBP company members: Erin Farmer as Tamarie Cooper; Jeff Miller as Joe Folladori; Joe Folladori as Paul Locklear, Mark Yzaguiirre as Jason Nodler. Had portrait made by Katie Jackson and Elizabeth Jackson. Sat in the heart of the building with them for a while (under the stairs). Spent a little time upstairs, too, with the upstairs crowd. Was cajoled onto the dance floor by a beautiful fairy named Gie Gie. Scariest sight on the dance floor: Jennifer Mathieu as Sylvia Plath boogie-ing with a huge smile on her face and an oven on her head. Sang backup with Cathy on "Starmaker" from Soap Opera. IBP band serenaded me with Happy Birthday and Surrender by Cheap Trick. I cried. Came home and breastfed Diego. Watched with David some of the Beckett on Film DVD that he gave me for a birthday present: Rockaby and Endgame. Went to sleep.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Neighborhood Names

In my neighborhood there were two women named Vita. Vita Nieblas lived in a house behind mine, on Don Juan Street, and Vita Reynolds lived in the house in front of mine, on El Camino Real. I lived on a hill, so there was VITA above me and VITA below me. There were also two Ritas: Vita Nieblas's sister Rita, and Rita Donner, who lived down the street from Vita Reynolds. Rita Donner was a third grade teacher at the Old Mission School and probably a lesbian. Dodo (Dolores) lived at the intersection of Don Juan and Ysidora streets. My cousin Nikky lived on the hill behind us. He was married to a woman named Mike and they had a son named Dynamite. Nikky's brother Mugsy lived with them a while. My dad used to walk up the hill to hang out with Nikky, Mike and Mugsy. Those people liked to drink. They had a special room, in fact, for drinking. Really it was their garage, but they'd turned it into their own private saloon. Down in the cul-de-sac at the bottom of our hill, a childless couple, Ken and Barbie, had a backyard as big as a miniature golf course. No one ever used it, but the grass remained trim and clean always. Two houses down from ours, on Guadalupe street, lived the Bomb family. Mrs. Bomb had three boys, Malcolm, James and David. Malcolm was "touched" and would run down the street every morning, air-boxing.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Men in My Family



From Left to Right: Carlos, Dad, Marco, circa 1998

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Jumping Jellyfish

When I was three or four, my parents, my brother Marco, my two grandmothers and I traveled to Hawaii for a family holiday. We spent a lot of time at little beaches with one of my dad's old West Point/surfing buddies. Neither of them surfed much anymore; instead they seemed to like sitting on the beach for hours, drinking beer and telling stories about the old days. I remember picnic blankets spread on sand, my mom in a cute bathing suit, and my dad's mom in a mumu. My mom's mom was probably back at the hotel, resting her eyes.

I collected seashells, built sandcastles, waded. At one point, I turned and ran toward the surf, which was miniature, little wavelets lapping the shore. There was a small ditch about 10 feet into the water, which I found by falling into it. When I stood back up, I yelled "Jumping Jellyfish!" The sound of this phrase, coupled with the surprise of finding a perfect little ditch in the my-size surf thrilled me beyond measure. I ran to my mom and tried to communicate my happiness. She gave me a hug and a kiss and told me she loved me. Then I ran back toward the surf, toward the ditch. When I jumped into it and let the waves knock me over, I yelled "Jumping Jellyfish!" I did this over and over and over and over and over. I felt like I could go on doing it forever.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Turn, Turn, Turn

This coming weekend, I turn 40. When I say "I'm going to be 40 years old," that feels strange; like, wrong. But when I say, "I've been alive for 40 years," that feels right, natural. David keeps asking me if I want a party, and I've repeatedly told him no. I just don't have a party in me for turning 40, although I feel wonderful to be turning 40. All my life, my 40th birthday has beamed like a lighthouse on a jetty in the sea of me, beckoning, signaling, guiding me even. I have my suspicions about why, although I cannot talk about them here. They're private in a mystical way.

But as the end of my 30s approaches, I want to acknowledge how grateful I am for my life. Thank you for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Cutty Sark Snores

Every night when my dad came home from work, he'd pour himself a scotch on the rocks -- either JB or Cutty Sark were his drugs of choice. By the 11 p.m. news, he'd had so many that he passed out on the couch, snoring the drunk snore. Whenever I had to listen to this snore, I imagined slabs of meat hanging in a meat locker.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Renascense

From Edna St. Vincent Milay's poem Renascense

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,— 205
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through. 210
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Friday, April 06, 2007

Resurrection and Immigration

In 1997, my brother overdosed on a speedball and died. At five in the
morning, on a lawn in Oxnard, he blued with the dawn and died. At five
in the morning, or shortly thereafter, a Mexican laborer, a gardener,
or rather a "lawn guy", found him, called for help. Help arrived; EMTs arrived in their ambulance at dawn and resuscitated my brother. My brother was dead and then he was alive. Again.

That my brother was found on the lawn by a Mexican laborer, by a gardener, at five in the morning...I don't know, I feel riddled with suspicion. I don't understand what that gardener was doing at that lawn AT FIVE IN THE MORNING. It just doesn't make rational sense: in the stilldark hours, people are sleeping. What...are they sleeping through the blower,the #1 noisiest thing on the grounds-keeping circuit? Or did this gardener use clipping shears in the dark so as not to wake the sleeping family whose house he tended on the cheap? What kind of house was it?


On the other hand, perhaps it was the laborer's own house, and perhaps he found my brother as he left for work that day, on his way to the tonier areas in the hills of Central California's Ventura County: Westlake Village, Agora Hills, Newbery Park.

A couple years ago, a mockumentary film came out called A Day Without A Mexican. The film highlights how Californians depend on these mostly illegal Mexican immigrants for their wellbeing and prosperity, their way of life. The film is classified as a comedic satire. Were the situation true, however, were these immigrants suddenly to disappear, Californians would be forced to face a deeply grim reality.

I shudder to think on it.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Toaster Love

Tell me about burning,
Open-hearted sandwhiching.
Ask me whose bread I butter
Sinfully and sincerely. Seriously,
Tonight we're counting
Every pin on the head of an angel,
Rabbit, Angel Bunny, Puppy Puppy.
Leave it to the beavers to crash
Over the trees. Let's sit here
Vehemently in love. Let's drink,
Eat toast, and laugh about salvation.

-- Christa M. Forster, 2007

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The Friend that Tried

Dear You Know Who You Are,
Dear beautiful dreamer,
nightmare to trial,
guild and denial-
pit of frenzy, where roosters
hack and peck each other
where daisies strap and
lace each other, where
bees hover and flowers
doomed to a room
mate each other,

How are You?
What's new?
I miss you,
sorely,
too.

--2007 Christa M. Forster

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Karma, Am I Through Yet?

I remember weighing 104 pounds and asking my mom if I was fat. Today I'm 40 pounds heavier and I don't ask anyone if I'm fat anymore because I KNOW I AM. Not necessarily by normal standards, and, yes, I have had two babies in the last three years and so I'm entitled to some of this fatness. It's a mother's right to be a little fat. But I don't want to be fat, so I've been working out and eating pretty much nothing but vegetables, lean meats, and steamed rice. And some cookies now and then everyday. Wheat-free cookies. Still...if time is not linear, and if I still weigh 104 pounds on some other timeline somewhere in the universe, PLEASE let me be kinder to myself and revel in my skinny ass self, rather than worrying about something that isn't even a problem.

Now, NOW, in this timeline I have problems that merit worrying about. The latest is my self-diagnosed stress fracture in my foot. I go to an orthopedist on Wednesday next to get some professional help diagnosing the problem, but until then, can I just say: ENOUGH ALREADY!

Monday, April 02, 2007

Bathtime

When I was in third grade, I innocently admitted to my teacher, a Franciscan nun, that my mom gave me and my brothers our baths together, all three of us in the same tub. Sr. Mary Roch's already sheet white face pinched itself up like she was sucking down a whiskey sour. "Oh how TERRIBLE," she exclaimed. "You must stop that at once, and you must tell your mother to come to school with you tomorrow so that I can talk to her about this."

My mother was pissed! "What do those repressed, frigid nuns know about having kids?" she said. "Do they have any idea how hard it is to give children SEPARATE baths?" I had no idea, so I insisted on my separate bath because it was what Jesus would want me to do, have my own bath so that I could remain pure forever.