smoking, baking pies, patching the ozone layer up with my special lovetape!,
what brave new world, that has such people in it, etc. etc. I guess I write about a certain subject when I feel like I understand it well? and lately I feel like I understand very little, I live in a foreign world where the drift towards mutually polarizing populations is complete. where left turns against right, religious against heathen, race against race, where no dialogue is possible and each group is self-reinforcing and completely turned inwards. where life is glossy and highly-stylized and competitive. I just can't keep up. I leave the house and I feel exhausted and overwhelmed by people, pushing, glaring, so amazingly stupid and self-absorbed. I don't want to be a part of it, the shuffle, the bustle, what's hot or not, the temporal in eternity, the dot on the soaring timeline. I walk the cemeteries that surround my house, the graves with letters lined with lichen, epitaphs that mean nothing. the indefatigable brightness of the neon plastic flowers seems so out of place with every other somber thing. I read an article the other day about a chronic prairie dog problem that is afflicting graveyards: they are unburying the dead and strewing their bones everywhere, their meaningless meaningless bones.
on sunday, sweaty, sunny, I was walking with three of my sisters, Faith (10), Ali (8), and Hope (6) on a shady sidewalk in fredericksburg, and it was excruciatingly clear and cloudless, bubbling heat, light popping and bursting through the green leaves. Faith and Ali's choir concert had just ended. It was an event that I found hilarious, that took place in a flowered gazebo, where all kinds of fawning girlflesh was enthusiastically swinging arms, wiggling in place, waggling their tongues. occasionally, when the mood struck, they would open their mouths and start flapping their jaws wildly to the halfhearted patriotic medley that was being pounded on the electric keyboard by a man who was wearing a tuxedo for some weird reason amidst the otherwise jeaned and sandaled crowd. while singing, each child looked as though I could push a grapefruit into its mouth.
it had ended, and we were walking in the shade. ali and faith each had one of my arms that they were gripping jealously, glaring at each other, Hope merrily trotting behind us and squirting juice at ali's back. I miss them. Faith was lecturing me on how I do not visit enough, and how I abandoned them when I moved away, when all of a sudden ali blurted out "do you know how babies are made?!". I stumbled a bit. was she asking me? I dreaded talking about sex with my siblings.
"why do you ask?" I asked slowly.
"I know how babies are made!" Hope shrieked. "Christopher told us!" Christopher is our brother, 20.
"yeah!" ali piped in. "Christopher told us! they're born in a cabbage!"
"what?" I exclaimed. "babies aren't born in cabbages!"
"babies are not born in cabbages," faith said, rolling her eyes scornfully.
"I know," ali said quietly, somberly, sighing.
"I know how babies are really made!" Hope shrieked, kicking me in the leg.
"DON'T tell me!" I said, and then I tickled her. here are some pictures of them.
because my mom had terrible mental illness throughout my childhood and was frequently hospitalized and not around, and because my dad owned three companies and traveled a lot and was never around, I was usually taking care of my younger siblings when there was not a nanny around to fill the spot. we ate fast food a lot. one summery evening, when we were all younger and I was still in high school and living at home, I was driving them to mcdonalds to get some food. "what do you want?" I asked everyone.
everyone picked something simple, except for ali, who pointed to an exotic looking chicken salad.
"do you want the breast or the thigh?" the mcdonalds man asked me impassively, and I relayed the question to ali.
"Ali!" faith exclaimed. "I know all about this! do you want breasts when you grow up?!"
"whaat?" ali asked, bewildered. "yeah, what?" I asked.
"well, eat the breast if you want to get some when you grow up!" she shrugged wisely, and I dissolved into laughter. that was many years ago but I don't think I'll ever forget that story. and while we're on the subject of things that are delightful, the predominant grocery store in Iceland is called Bonus, and its mascot is a poor, battered-looking pig. I laughed whenever I saw it.
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