i love mugs. maybe its my love of whats inside them - hot coffee, steaming hot chocolate and soothing tea. mmm.
ok. confession. i think i am a mug snob. My sister would understand. This becomes quite clear when i am at over at friend's places and a warm steaming mug of coffee is placed before me, in a stir-scratched grey-white John Deere mug. i look up to see if there is some playfulness, surely, some coment that the dishwasher is running and they're down to the dregs at the back of the cupboard, but nothing is said. My host lifts her mug to her lips, and without any self-consciousness, takes a sultry, life-giving sip from a Hacker's Life Insurance mug.
Is the mug not sacred? You draw upon it with your lips, there is a triangular connection - from mug, to lips to soul - according to the Scriptures of Corroeli, the mug expresses your inner topography, an other worldly vessel to contain hope for the day. I always go for the thin porcelain ones of delicate blue glazed see-throughness, the rough hewn mugs of a potter's wheel who's roughness you can feel b and recently, I have been tempted at Florida gas stations to buy a name mug with Marcy on it, with classic kitschy abundance-of-exotica designs :a palm tree, a flamingo and a white crested turquoise ocean. how neat and lovely a world can be. a mug is a pining, an insistance that a better world is just around the corner of your coffee break.
16 May 2009
14 May 2009
Bitter truth and lemon squares
I have to admit something, and it feels good to say it out in the wide frontier of webland where the characters in this story do not go,(amazing that most of the women in my community do not blog) so I am safe to speak my mind...safe because I've done too much of it lately and I need to put a plug in it (what to do when no one else is speaking?) I am shocked to realize that there are women out there that still yet defer to men in power. Since when is this still happening?
When these men (the princial of our local school for eg:) breech their trust, play dirty, don't consult with their peers (though unpaid volunteers, peers none-the-less) or get consensus and these women speak up and say "no fair" and then back down. They take the half-assed politician-style apology and meekly move on, as if embarassed that they almost made fools of themselves while daring to take a stand and question someone in authority. Authority my ass. I am talking about a principal of my youngest child's school. He has disliked me for years, I called him out on a few things, wondered why he was breeching school policy, apparently I am not supposed to know school policy or care, my job as a parent is to put up and shut up, and the line I hear from these principal-loyal parents is, "just think of the kids, just move on." Years ago when I first questioned something, I was shocked to find that there was no discussion, and it really hurt to keep walking into that stonewall. hey, I thought we were a caring and kind school (as the mantra for the school goes - the principal made it up - go figure) I thought we wouldn't be scared of women asking good, articulate questions written or said in a straight-forward and respectful manner - because truly I thought there was mutual respect. I guess not.
It kind of feaks me out to sit at a table for school council and see all female faces, 8 moms, 2 female teachers (both called Ms.) and 1 male principal. A recipe for disaster because when there are all women and just one male, the women tend to get protective of the lone male...why? are they forgetting that he doesn't need protection as he has thousands of years of privilege behind his pale blue-eyed face?
Not only do they think this relationship is cosy, they hate it when one of their own starts to ask questions, or does not accept massaged truths or projects that are in actuality for the principal's portfolio rather than for the kids (I smelled rats that were floral in comparison).
I am disappointed in my own, my sisters. It sucks to be the only one who resigned her post to take a stand, with only one person saying in an anonymous email: Bravo.
My friends say they are sorry it had to end like this, boy what a half-assed explanation/apology or whathave you...but they do not speak, ask their questions or repeat what they've said to me, when it counts, at council or through the email channels. They are scared? I somehow think that might be partially the case, but also I think that many of them are comfortable thinking that Oakwood is this perfect cosy world, and don't you dare say that it is not.
why hinge your stability on an imagined perfection?
Conflict is good - a potential starting point for more discussion and ultimately, learning and change - from eachother. We are still too scared of conflict, so we do not relax in it and see where it takes us, instead we shoo it away and put it behind us as quickly as possible - fear, fear of it not going away, fear that we are not who we think we are, fear that we don't know where conflict will take us. 1984 ring a bell?
When discussion is shut down too quickly to "move forward", then nothing is learned and the past repeats itself. When discussion goes on ad nauseum, then most people shut down except for me, who can discuss till cows are home watching Letterman.
So balance...I am learning when to shut-up and leave it well enough alone...pick pick pick, and when to stop and make lemon squares. my dear friend Kathleen Bustard makes them for me occasionally, out of the blue...they speak things there are no words for. and they make me pause because my mouth is full, and so is my heart.
I will take a stand again, and remember, when the truth gets too bitter, to listen to what those lemon squares are saying.
When these men (the princial of our local school for eg:) breech their trust, play dirty, don't consult with their peers (though unpaid volunteers, peers none-the-less) or get consensus and these women speak up and say "no fair" and then back down. They take the half-assed politician-style apology and meekly move on, as if embarassed that they almost made fools of themselves while daring to take a stand and question someone in authority. Authority my ass. I am talking about a principal of my youngest child's school. He has disliked me for years, I called him out on a few things, wondered why he was breeching school policy, apparently I am not supposed to know school policy or care, my job as a parent is to put up and shut up, and the line I hear from these principal-loyal parents is, "just think of the kids, just move on." Years ago when I first questioned something, I was shocked to find that there was no discussion, and it really hurt to keep walking into that stonewall. hey, I thought we were a caring and kind school (as the mantra for the school goes - the principal made it up - go figure) I thought we wouldn't be scared of women asking good, articulate questions written or said in a straight-forward and respectful manner - because truly I thought there was mutual respect. I guess not.
It kind of feaks me out to sit at a table for school council and see all female faces, 8 moms, 2 female teachers (both called Ms.) and 1 male principal. A recipe for disaster because when there are all women and just one male, the women tend to get protective of the lone male...why? are they forgetting that he doesn't need protection as he has thousands of years of privilege behind his pale blue-eyed face?
Not only do they think this relationship is cosy, they hate it when one of their own starts to ask questions, or does not accept massaged truths or projects that are in actuality for the principal's portfolio rather than for the kids (I smelled rats that were floral in comparison).
I am disappointed in my own, my sisters. It sucks to be the only one who resigned her post to take a stand, with only one person saying in an anonymous email: Bravo.
My friends say they are sorry it had to end like this, boy what a half-assed explanation/apology or whathave you...but they do not speak, ask their questions or repeat what they've said to me, when it counts, at council or through the email channels. They are scared? I somehow think that might be partially the case, but also I think that many of them are comfortable thinking that Oakwood is this perfect cosy world, and don't you dare say that it is not.
why hinge your stability on an imagined perfection?
Conflict is good - a potential starting point for more discussion and ultimately, learning and change - from eachother. We are still too scared of conflict, so we do not relax in it and see where it takes us, instead we shoo it away and put it behind us as quickly as possible - fear, fear of it not going away, fear that we are not who we think we are, fear that we don't know where conflict will take us. 1984 ring a bell?
When discussion is shut down too quickly to "move forward", then nothing is learned and the past repeats itself. When discussion goes on ad nauseum, then most people shut down except for me, who can discuss till cows are home watching Letterman.
So balance...I am learning when to shut-up and leave it well enough alone...pick pick pick, and when to stop and make lemon squares. my dear friend Kathleen Bustard makes them for me occasionally, out of the blue...they speak things there are no words for. and they make me pause because my mouth is full, and so is my heart.
I will take a stand again, and remember, when the truth gets too bitter, to listen to what those lemon squares are saying.
04 April 2009
blogquizme
Thanks for the quiz mmichele...not sure if I'm doing this right...
Step 1: Respond and rework — answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.
Step 2: Tag other bloggers to do the same.
Here are the questions:
1) What are you wearing right now? yoga pants, my favorite silver ring, red chinese flipflops and my old grey hoodie
2) What is your biggest fear? that there is a god as the OLD/NEW testament describes (scary)then I'm in trouble.
3) Do you nap a lot? Only when I'm pregnant and that aint happenin
4) Who is the last person you hugged? my friend Kendra who always holds on longer than i do and i always feel amused by my inner northern european
5) What websites to you visit when you go online? Motherjones, kijiji
6) What was the last item you bought? timbits, ahem.
7) What’s the last book you read? Loving Frank - about Frank Lloyd Wright and his affair with Mamah so and so. I liked it, actually.
8) Learn something new about yourself lately? yes. i think some people are intimidated by me and this never fails to surprise me because i can be so lame
9) Has a celebrity’s hair cut ever influenced your own hairstyle? Julia Roberts in the early nineties, who, I think, happened to have MY hair
10) What is one skill you wish you had, but don’t - I wish I could do many things, like get up and clean the house without much mental pain, take technically good photographs (I have an eye, but no hand)
11) What was the last movie you watched? watched Bolt with Ezra, being 8.5, he LOOOOOVED it, enjoyable to hear him laugh
12) What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? meeting Robert at a lame party
13) If you had a whole day to yourself; no work, commitments or interruptions what would you do? I'd bike into T.O on the lakeshore,early, have breakfast at Sunny's grille on the lake, Go to the Art Gallery of Ontario (of which I am a member who hardly goes), stroll about, eat lunch somewhere cheap and good, maybe for Pho, read a book in the sun at that sunroom where I got Pho with friends once, go to the ceramic museum after that, end day at St. Lawrence Market to buy veggies and meat for dinner, home on the train with bike on board, reading another chapter...
14) Is there a major goal you have that you haven’t yet achieved? own a cafe, develop a thesis/research area for cultural studies masters/phd, grow a living roof, get rid of belly, accept belly, live in a place where I can sleep in a hammock all year in a two-room cottage with a wild garden (ok, as soon as nest is empty, thats where I'll be...10 years tops.)
16) What is something that those in blogland might not know about you? Amongst other things, I tell grown men to get down to their birthday suits for a living...
17) Where have you travelled recently? Florida the tacky and beautiful - has all the Gulf of mexico and America the malled and walled have to offer
18) What do you do to relieve stress? Laugh. drink wine or tea. escape in fiction. or face reality head on. walk. yoga.
19) If you could change one physical trait about you what would it be? More elegant neck
Step 1: Respond and rework — answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.
Step 2: Tag other bloggers to do the same.
Here are the questions:
1) What are you wearing right now? yoga pants, my favorite silver ring, red chinese flipflops and my old grey hoodie
2) What is your biggest fear? that there is a god as the OLD/NEW testament describes (scary)then I'm in trouble.
3) Do you nap a lot? Only when I'm pregnant and that aint happenin
4) Who is the last person you hugged? my friend Kendra who always holds on longer than i do and i always feel amused by my inner northern european
5) What websites to you visit when you go online? Motherjones, kijiji
6) What was the last item you bought? timbits, ahem.
7) What’s the last book you read? Loving Frank - about Frank Lloyd Wright and his affair with Mamah so and so. I liked it, actually.
8) Learn something new about yourself lately? yes. i think some people are intimidated by me and this never fails to surprise me because i can be so lame
9) Has a celebrity’s hair cut ever influenced your own hairstyle? Julia Roberts in the early nineties, who, I think, happened to have MY hair
10) What is one skill you wish you had, but don’t - I wish I could do many things, like get up and clean the house without much mental pain, take technically good photographs (I have an eye, but no hand)
11) What was the last movie you watched? watched Bolt with Ezra, being 8.5, he LOOOOOVED it, enjoyable to hear him laugh
12) What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? meeting Robert at a lame party
13) If you had a whole day to yourself; no work, commitments or interruptions what would you do? I'd bike into T.O on the lakeshore,early, have breakfast at Sunny's grille on the lake, Go to the Art Gallery of Ontario (of which I am a member who hardly goes), stroll about, eat lunch somewhere cheap and good, maybe for Pho, read a book in the sun at that sunroom where I got Pho with friends once, go to the ceramic museum after that, end day at St. Lawrence Market to buy veggies and meat for dinner, home on the train with bike on board, reading another chapter...
14) Is there a major goal you have that you haven’t yet achieved? own a cafe, develop a thesis/research area for cultural studies masters/phd, grow a living roof, get rid of belly, accept belly, live in a place where I can sleep in a hammock all year in a two-room cottage with a wild garden (ok, as soon as nest is empty, thats where I'll be...10 years tops.)
16) What is something that those in blogland might not know about you? Amongst other things, I tell grown men to get down to their birthday suits for a living...
17) Where have you travelled recently? Florida the tacky and beautiful - has all the Gulf of mexico and America the malled and walled have to offer
18) What do you do to relieve stress? Laugh. drink wine or tea. escape in fiction. or face reality head on. walk. yoga.
19) If you could change one physical trait about you what would it be? More elegant neck
28 February 2009
Slumdog millionaire: them, us, we.
Truth is, we're all the same. we all want to survive, we all kill and steal and cheat to get there.
It's just that, when you are poor, what you do is obvious and incarcible, illegal... what you do to survive, and often what you have to do to survive, seems so shocking and dirty...to those who observe it on a screen, a newspaper, from the sidewalk...
When you are protected by your privilege, what you do to survive is subtle, covered up by policy and cushioned by self-protectionist laws...and the "ways of the market"... and when not justified by suitable law...well, white collar crime seems so inocuous, so clean...so well hidden under nice and tidy.
When we watch slumdog and think of ourselves, our culture perhaps, as better, it is because we are blind by our privilege, because it is made to seem natural, a given, not something earned by colonial greed and massacre, no , we earned it, we are worth it. we are wise capitalists, just like Jesus...
This is what justifies our lifestyle pursuits, makes us feel better when we want a good deal, when we buy cheap goods made cheap by cheap labour, materials and methods.
I do this.
we are good, no? we are good. therefore whatever we do, what our market does, what our culture does, what our history books say ,what ever, what ever we do, whatever we believe...
We are really tourists in someone else's land. perpetual tourists, touring around, consuming the best like kings and queens, the best is made an every-day commodity, luxury is the everyday, our mouths open for more... we are hungry, always hungry, as are they.
It's just that, when you are poor, what you do is obvious and incarcible, illegal... what you do to survive, and often what you have to do to survive, seems so shocking and dirty...to those who observe it on a screen, a newspaper, from the sidewalk...
When you are protected by your privilege, what you do to survive is subtle, covered up by policy and cushioned by self-protectionist laws...and the "ways of the market"... and when not justified by suitable law...well, white collar crime seems so inocuous, so clean...so well hidden under nice and tidy.
When we watch slumdog and think of ourselves, our culture perhaps, as better, it is because we are blind by our privilege, because it is made to seem natural, a given, not something earned by colonial greed and massacre, no , we earned it, we are worth it. we are wise capitalists, just like Jesus...
This is what justifies our lifestyle pursuits, makes us feel better when we want a good deal, when we buy cheap goods made cheap by cheap labour, materials and methods.
I do this.
we are good, no? we are good. therefore whatever we do, what our market does, what our culture does, what our history books say ,what ever, what ever we do, whatever we believe...
We are really tourists in someone else's land. perpetual tourists, touring around, consuming the best like kings and queens, the best is made an every-day commodity, luxury is the everyday, our mouths open for more... we are hungry, always hungry, as are they.
17 February 2009
Mugged
i love mugs. maybe its my love of whats inside them - hot coffee, steaming hot chocolate (with baileys!) and soothing tea. mmm.
ok. confession. i think i am a mug snob. My sister would understand. This becomes quite clear when i am at over at friend's places and a warm steaming mug of coffee is placed before me, in a stir-scratched grey-white John Deere mug. i look up to see if there is some playfulness, surely, some coment that the dishwasher is running and they're down to the dregs at the back of the cupboard, but nothing is said. My host lifts her mug to her lips, and without any self-consciousness, takes a sultry, life-giving sip from a Hacker's Life Insurance mug.
Is the mug not sacred? You draw upon it with your lips, there is a triangular connection - from mug, to lips to soul - according to the Scriptures of Corroeli, the mug expresses your inner topography, an other worldly vessel to contain hope for the day. I always go for the thin porcelain ones of delicate blue glazed see-throughness, the rough hewn mugs of a potter's wheel who's roughness you can feel b and recently, I have been tempted at Florida gas stations to buy a name mug with Marcy on it, with classic kitschy abundance-of-exotica designs :a palm tree, a flamingo and a white crested turquoise ocean. how neat and lovely a world can be. a mug is a pining, an insistance that a better world is just around the corner of your coffee break.
ok. confession. i think i am a mug snob. My sister would understand. This becomes quite clear when i am at over at friend's places and a warm steaming mug of coffee is placed before me, in a stir-scratched grey-white John Deere mug. i look up to see if there is some playfulness, surely, some coment that the dishwasher is running and they're down to the dregs at the back of the cupboard, but nothing is said. My host lifts her mug to her lips, and without any self-consciousness, takes a sultry, life-giving sip from a Hacker's Life Insurance mug.
Is the mug not sacred? You draw upon it with your lips, there is a triangular connection - from mug, to lips to soul - according to the Scriptures of Corroeli, the mug expresses your inner topography, an other worldly vessel to contain hope for the day. I always go for the thin porcelain ones of delicate blue glazed see-throughness, the rough hewn mugs of a potter's wheel who's roughness you can feel b and recently, I have been tempted at Florida gas stations to buy a name mug with Marcy on it, with classic kitschy abundance-of-exotica designs :a palm tree, a flamingo and a white crested turquoise ocean. how neat and lovely a world can be. a mug is a pining, an insistance that a better world is just around the corner of your coffee break.
16 February 2009
contain me
i have recently fell in love with tupperware. mmm, i love the colours - the jewel tones, the oranges, the lime greens and fuschias, mmm, the way it makes my life so so so much bettah.
An organized life is a better one, no? I never ever thought i would succumb, never thought i would fall this low. When i was 19, fresh after i broke up with a long-time boyfriend, i swore up and down that i would never ever EVER be the suburban housewife collecting place-settings, going to tupperware parties... the casseroles, the endless detailing of little nothings,the gossip, the fretting over chaos, the upgrading of tiles, the matching sets.
the smoothing down of the apron.
ok. so i have cooked way too many casseroles in my day, i have upgraded tiles (well, from '50s pink, which i regret replacing in a way...) but i have no placesettings, and i still savour what can come of chaos, yet, tupperware? have i gone over the edge?
but i am smitten. i truly am, with the most stereotypical housewife marker of them all.
it might have something to do with the fact that i am no longer taking courses. This past December I finished all the requirements for my undergrad, finally. Grad pending June '09. From having one's time filled with deadlines, research, the reading of primary texts, the schleping from class to class to, well, to nearly nothing is quite an adjustment.
I had a void of time to fill, a lack of projects, a lack of focus and what was staring me in the face, all day long, everyday? the sagging, sad insides of my kitchen cupboards, whenever i reached for that snack, those many snacks i'm afraid...
when i was busy in school, i didn't really notice how i became the poster-child for a tupperware make-over.
my friends took me by the hand, my uber organized, detail-oriented friends who feel a real, palpable guilt when failing in the household department (what does that feel like?) we entered the tupperware lady's room dedicated to perfect, lovely shelves stacked full of glossy, glorious tupperware.
i felt my first twang.
i am trained to be a critical theorist, to critique the signs, the signifiers of imbedded cultural value, the seduction of marketing, the fetishizing of objects. but i could not penetrate this one. i wanted to curl up into a ball and tuck myself inside a servalier bowl set, i wanted to nestle my cheek up against the modular mates , i wanted to caress the silky crystalwave divided dish.
When Annette Tupper Ware took us upstairs to see her tupperware lined cupboards i could have had a stroke. I was swooning. i think even Annette herself thought i had gone too far.
two weeks later i found myself in my kitchen with a very large box full of moulded plastic. you might think this is the moment that the bubble burst. um, no.
I lovingly unwrapped every piece, filled them with oatmeal and flour and pasta and rice and cereal and juice and spices and stacked the servalier bowls into a shining, sparkly jewel of a plastic pyramid. Every morning for at least a week i opened and shut and opened my cupboards, relishing in the tidyness, the containment, the lack of leaking spices, the winking array of smartly stacked colour. i ordered a motely crew of colour, no matching sets - my only deliberate, calculated, dissent in my plastic compliance.
true, things are better organized. true, my oatmeal and rice won't risk getting those mealy bugs any more. true, the cumin is contained and won't leak over the stove whenever i open the cupboard. true, my baking pull-out drawer is shwank. but i can't help but wonder what got over me and why i am still in love, why i had coffee with Annette Tupper Ware last week, why the servalier bowls are still in pyramid form on the counter. Maybe i better go back to school, get that masters, or go to work. maybe i just need some structure, given to me, solid with a lifetime warranty.
Boundaries are cozy, parameters hold you close, and the meal solutions-to-go-pack is on sale come September. Annette? sorry for that time i put my head on your shoulder. but i have to say, you are the queen.
An organized life is a better one, no? I never ever thought i would succumb, never thought i would fall this low. When i was 19, fresh after i broke up with a long-time boyfriend, i swore up and down that i would never ever EVER be the suburban housewife collecting place-settings, going to tupperware parties... the casseroles, the endless detailing of little nothings,the gossip, the fretting over chaos, the upgrading of tiles, the matching sets.
the smoothing down of the apron.
ok. so i have cooked way too many casseroles in my day, i have upgraded tiles (well, from '50s pink, which i regret replacing in a way...) but i have no placesettings, and i still savour what can come of chaos, yet, tupperware? have i gone over the edge?
but i am smitten. i truly am, with the most stereotypical housewife marker of them all.
it might have something to do with the fact that i am no longer taking courses. This past December I finished all the requirements for my undergrad, finally. Grad pending June '09. From having one's time filled with deadlines, research, the reading of primary texts, the schleping from class to class to, well, to nearly nothing is quite an adjustment.
I had a void of time to fill, a lack of projects, a lack of focus and what was staring me in the face, all day long, everyday? the sagging, sad insides of my kitchen cupboards, whenever i reached for that snack, those many snacks i'm afraid...
when i was busy in school, i didn't really notice how i became the poster-child for a tupperware make-over.
my friends took me by the hand, my uber organized, detail-oriented friends who feel a real, palpable guilt when failing in the household department (what does that feel like?) we entered the tupperware lady's room dedicated to perfect, lovely shelves stacked full of glossy, glorious tupperware.
i felt my first twang.
i am trained to be a critical theorist, to critique the signs, the signifiers of imbedded cultural value, the seduction of marketing, the fetishizing of objects. but i could not penetrate this one. i wanted to curl up into a ball and tuck myself inside a servalier bowl set, i wanted to nestle my cheek up against the modular mates , i wanted to caress the silky crystalwave divided dish.
When Annette Tupper Ware took us upstairs to see her tupperware lined cupboards i could have had a stroke. I was swooning. i think even Annette herself thought i had gone too far.
two weeks later i found myself in my kitchen with a very large box full of moulded plastic. you might think this is the moment that the bubble burst. um, no.
I lovingly unwrapped every piece, filled them with oatmeal and flour and pasta and rice and cereal and juice and spices and stacked the servalier bowls into a shining, sparkly jewel of a plastic pyramid. Every morning for at least a week i opened and shut and opened my cupboards, relishing in the tidyness, the containment, the lack of leaking spices, the winking array of smartly stacked colour. i ordered a motely crew of colour, no matching sets - my only deliberate, calculated, dissent in my plastic compliance.
true, things are better organized. true, my oatmeal and rice won't risk getting those mealy bugs any more. true, the cumin is contained and won't leak over the stove whenever i open the cupboard. true, my baking pull-out drawer is shwank. but i can't help but wonder what got over me and why i am still in love, why i had coffee with Annette Tupper Ware last week, why the servalier bowls are still in pyramid form on the counter. Maybe i better go back to school, get that masters, or go to work. maybe i just need some structure, given to me, solid with a lifetime warranty.
Boundaries are cozy, parameters hold you close, and the meal solutions-to-go-pack is on sale come September. Annette? sorry for that time i put my head on your shoulder. but i have to say, you are the queen.
15 February 2009
bob, neil and barry
This is a pic of my dear husband, sleeping in, while we are camping in Algonquin Park with our tent trailer. I've already walked to the comfort station and back, pondered the water and looked for loons in the mist, read half a book, drank a pot of coffee and then proceeded to make breakfast -in and out of the trailer, doors slamming, kettles whistling, kids get up, tustle, find their clothes, eat cereal appetizers, neighbor babies are screaming for their bottles, kids are biking past with bells on...
and Robert sleeps.
My husband's delight in naps and sleep is in direct juxtaposition to my inability to do so. I am an insomniac. i have a more difficult time letting go of my brain. it often chatters to itself late into the night. my doc wonders if i am, occasionally, a low-grade manic. I wake up and think...think I'm sleeping then realize that if i am thinking, then, i must be awake, think some more and then, think unconsciously for a bit, awake from my sleep-thinking to realize that i might as well think upright...once my brain is kick-started, it doesn't stop for sleeping in.
This routinely happens to me every morning, especially while at home as I am treated to the background noise of Robert's clock radio playing awful, cheesy, mindless '70's tunes that he sleeps through, sometimes song after song after song, even though it is 3 inches from his head. I cannot sleep or think when Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond are crooning, but Robert can. Why does he insist on this nostalgic cheese station in the first place? probably the nostalgia.
Robert, having worked in his parents hardware store for many years and having endured an hour and a half bus ride to and from school with radio privileges for years on end, has heard, even the most obscure songs, several times over. He can sing the tunes to them even while half-asleep, which is the state i think he was in on the bus, no wonder he didn't mind. Oh darn, a long bus ride, what to do? zzz.
Often he ends up with a song in his head when he gets up. Not knowing where he got it from (mystery!) he finds himself singing it in the shower..."I write the songs that make the whole world sing...!" He is usually sadly out of tune despite his full grasp of the lyrics.
Sometimes i wonder what such early and frequent exposure to Barry et al did to the wiring of his brain. we do find his jokes super cheesy.
Needless to say, when the clock radio drones on and on, i want to get out of that bed. I walk on the hardwood floors and hear them creak underfoot, boil water and grind some beans, meditate on the morning fresh and new, write a few lines somewhere upon my laptop, maybe read a few lines in the newspaper. I enjoy the quiet of the sleeping house, but if i listen closely i can often still hear a faint Barry singing, "Copa, Copa Cabaaaaaana..." At this point i call out to him, and he never fails to be freshly baffled every morning: "...i can't believe I slept in".
To be able to turn oneself off like that, when one wants to, is the envy of my life. To be able to sing those songs in the shower, without any self-consciousness, is, i wonder, another form of the same thing? Turn off that incessant, insistent, demanding brain. Enjoy. Repeat.
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