In my imagination, I'm very suave. Well-dressed, 'put together' as my grandmother would say. My hair is free from split ends, I'm svelte, and have well-defined, attractive upper arms. My conversation skills are impeccable. The names and work of contemporary poets are always on the tip of my tongue, but I'm equally well-versed in the classics. My sense of history is specific - names and dates easily lend support to my general understanding. When I write, it is always with insight. People read it and feel compelled to comment, to say, I've been there, it felt like this, or wow, that was lovely to read.

My imagined version of me is much easier to ascertain than the real one. I never know whether I see clearly when I look in the mirror. During meditation, I return again and again to the me sitting on the cushion, breathing, experiencing physical sensations. Sometimes sitting, I feel trapped. Like a metal cage has sprung up inside my skin, my veins filled with wires. Then I remember, I've chosen to sit here for this period of time. Whatever itchy sensation on my nose or back, whatever tightness in my throat or abdomen, whatever heat and burning in my eyes, so what? Just sensations. Innocuous until I react to them like a caged beast thrashing and foaming at the mouth to escape my own body.

Swedish Chef Translator

Trunslete-a unytheeng intu Svedeesh Cheff. Oor Jeefe-a, Felley Gurl, oor Peeg Leteen. Cumpleements ooff Rena... Bork Bork Bork!

Translate anydin' into Swedish Chef. What it is, Mama! Or Jive, Valley Girl, o' Pig Latin. 'S coo', bro. Compliments uh Rena. Sheeeiit...

Translate anythin' into Swedish Chef. Or Jive, fer shure, Valley Girl, fer shure, or Pig Latin. Compliments of Rena...

anslateTray anythingway intoway edishSway efChay. Orway iveJay, alleyVay irlGay, orway igPay atinLay. omplimentsCay ofway enaRay...

Davis Square

Goldenrod fingers of hay on brick,
windy pigeons ascend moving small mountains,
iron masked statues watch and I catch closely

their shifting limbs, slipping eyes.
Sun and shade cast definitions –
your hands half-covered in uneasy sunshine,
calm inside the shade,

its restless inhabitants scuffing, shuffling, limping and dressed in green
wool or workpants, footsteps track through the haystacks,
our voices looking like that man in the leather jacket,

tired, a little overworked
and sitting to breathe
a moment or two
before vanishing.

Fried Twinkies

Preface: I hate Twinkies. They're gross.

Last night Bob, Deji and I felt unsatisfied half-way through a Celtics game at the Fleet Center. We surprised ourselves when we up and left. I think we surprised our other friends who were there with us, too.

Trudged through Boston's still snow covered streets toward Deji's automobile named, I think, Kenda. There was too much noise and even though he repeated her name three times, I never quite heard. But pretended to, because it seemed rude to make him tell me again.

On our way, we passed Anthem on Portland Street - Deji happily exclaimed, "Fried Twinkies! This is the fried twinkie place. Remember? Miranda and I told you about the Fried Twinkies!!"

Given the absurdity in my belly from an evening that Had Not Gone As Planned already, I said, "Let's get some," feeling that Fried Twinkies were destiny or salvation. Bob wanted home and Deji looked back and forth wondering what we would do. We compromised, and Deji, Bob and I walked in, dressed for a basketball game, not a downtown restaurant. Stopped at the hostess station and inquired, "Can we order a fried twinkie to go?"

"Of course. Just order at the bar." And that I did, gleefully repeating, "Fried Twinkie to go, please!" I clearly enunciated the exclamation point. A few minutes later, I took my fried twinkie to go and we went.

We made it home in time for Everwood and I popped open my styrofoam Fried Twinkie holding to-go box. Two Fried Twinkies! Both covered in fresh cream and ripe berries. Swooped my spoon down and bit in. Bit into sweet warm solid gooey sweetness so divine I swooned and devoured my Fried Twinkies quickly.

Fried Twinkies rock.

A pop culture post - The West Wing

You know Josh Lyman? Bob and I just found out this weekend that Brad Whitford's brother attends our church. We're very excited in that we share space with someone who knows someone even though we don't know either of them sort of way. Brad/Josh has donated several items to our church's auction, including signed boxer shorts. This means he's even better than I knew - his brother is UU, and I think he might be, too...

Grrr. Homophobia and the US Department of Education.

There are some good things to be said for Margaret Spellings, Bush's new Education Department Secretary. Back when they were both single, GW reportedly asked Spellings out on a date, but she brutally rebuffed him. That sounds about right. Also, Spellings was once asked on C-SPAN for comment on census data that showed a decline in the traditional family. Her response? "So what?" She said that there are "lots of different types of family" and noted that she herself was "a single mom." Finally, she replaces Rod Paige, who was the worst Secretary of Education this nation has seen.

That said, some of her first acts in office make me shiver in cold anticipation of what's to come. She's pissed at PBS. She's actually pissed at PBS and a bunny. An animated bunny with his own TV show, Postcards from Buster. Buster travels with a digital camera, giving kids a chance to see different people, places, religions and ways of life. Produced by my own hometown station, WGBH, the show is part of a larger program that receives some of its funding from the DoE.

It seems that in his recent travels, Buster took a trip to Vermont. He learned about maple sugaring, farm life, and - this is what upsets Spellings so much - met two lesbian couples who were getting a civil union. This incensed Spellings enough to demand that PBS remove the DoE's seal from the credits, notify member stations of the controversial nature of the episode, and refund the DoE for the costs of producing it. She also warned that the DoE will be clearer about its expectations for future programming.

PBS has decided not to distribute the episode. They claim that it's not because of Spellings' recent actions. I don't buy it. I am, however, proud of my local station, WGBH, which plans to air the episode in March and will be making it available to other stations.

Here's the thing. Today, 37 US soldiers died in Iraq. Over 1,400 US soldiers have died to date. Over 10,000 wounded, a number that leaves out vast numbers of soldiers suffering mental illness or trauma. According to some estimates, as many as 10,000 more Iraqi civilians have died. But somehow, men marrying men and women marrying women continues to register as a problem for people. I don't understand. My not-understandingness is so physically heavy that I wish I could find plainer words to explain - I don't understand. It's a bunny showing kids lives that may be different or similar to their own. Some kids have gay parents. The bunny isn't saying, look, the gay parents are good. The bunny isn't saying they are bad. The bunny just says that they are. That this is a fact of our lives in 21st century America. The bunny's not wrong. Why, oh why, do the conservatives want to deny and deny and deny the facts of people's lives? And why is PBS taking the politically expedient route and agreeing to denial?

We harm a child of gay parents when we say, 'as a society, we will not acknowledge your existence.' We harm our society when we deny the truth and experience of any one child.

This sucks.

Favorite memories

These are some of my favorite memories - if you're reading this, I'd love to know one of yours...

My earliest memory. I am perhaps two and my mother has just finished giving me a bath. She scoops me from the tub into an endless ribbon of terrycloth and wraps me up in the towel and her arms. I am enveloped and warm.

Shooting the shit with Austin and commenting on the superfluity of something he has said. Then wondering if superfluity could be a real word and hoping it is because I like the way it feels to say so much. Like an icy tube for my tongue to slide down. He insists that it cannot be a word. We head for the dictionary - Merriam Webster online. It's a word and I win, which makes me feel smart and sassy and fluent.

No one time, but every time, I find stillness, resting my ear on Bob's chest and listening to the thump of his heart. I try to feel my own heart beat and his at once, and wait for those moments when they are in sync.

Driving up the coast of California with Karen, two unlikely campers. We're so rested and there's so much ocean. Every morning we wake up and watch the surf, eat an apple or some cereal or a peanut butter and banana sandwich. We pack the tent into the car and travel north. Stop for expensive lunch and nap on the beach. Drive further north. Eat an apple or some cereal or a peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner and watch the surf. Sleep, carried along through the night on the waves that I can still hear three years later. Talking and singing and laughing so much. My favorite conversation that week was repeated over and over. "I'm full." "Me, too." "But we've only eaten half an apple." "But I'm so full." "Why are apples so filling?"

Sitting in my dingle - a dormroom in a suite that is meant to be a double but has only one resident - double single, hence, dingle - sitting in my dingle, junior year of college, revising poetry madly, finding that small pieces of poems I'd written over the previous three years all went together into one poem that actually described something the way I wanted to describe it. That they worked together to convey the sweetness and fulfillment and not-enoughness of sex, and the way I felt while I pulled the lines together was a miracle. I love the resulting poem, but not as much as I loved the feeling of letting it happen.

Letting Laurie cook me pasta for dinner senior year. I'd be somewhere in our apartment and suddenly, she'd say the magic words, "I'm making pasta for myself, do you want some?" And I'd hobble into the kitchen and talk to her and keep her company while she cooked pasta for both of us, sauce and all. And that pasta always tasted better than any pasta I've ever cooked for myself.

Same with chamomile tea and white rice. My friend Bill graduated from college while I was still a sophomore in high school. I used to take the bus from Portland, Maine to Boston to stay with him on weekends. He was a broke recent grad and rarely had much food in his house. He would make me white rice with butter and salt for dinner and together we would drink chamomile tea. I'd never liked white rice or any kind of tea before this, but I've always felt that anything freely given should be gratefully accepted. And I've often found that I enjoy things I normally wouldn't in such situations. That's what happened at Bill's apartment. To this day, chamomile tea and plain white rice are among the strangest of my comfort foods.

Swimming in the post-tropical storm surf on the Jersey coast with Bob last summer. Falling over ourselves as the waves flowed back to sea and the sand sunk us down and confused our eyes.

Rambling on again

Sail the sky with a clever boat and dash free of cramped quarters. Give me a nickel and cradle the goat. Grow your beard longer than your eyes and see further into the stars. Grab your coat. Let's go. Come with me around and around and through these awful woods. I'm graying skin and baggy bones, given over to oldies tunes on the radio. Spinning my lessons into wooly woolen artifices and keeping the flames warm not cold. I'm growing skinny with weariness grabbing berries from the poetry. Giving me warm fuzzy warnings every time I come close. Where is my Huck Finn? Where did he go? Is the camper packed and ready? We'll drive for miles and get the munchies.

Laurie and I have a date to write on February 18 - I'm taking the day off from work just to write!! I'm so excited...By the way, the above was just a blind free write. I actually have no idea what I just wrote down and really don't care whether it's good, bad or ugly. Just felt like brain dumping for a moment or two to break up the workday...

The Creek, re-lived.

Bob gave me the third and fourth seasons of Dawson's Creek on DVD for Christmas. I watched the twenty-three episodes of season three between Friday night and Sunday night of this past weekend. So happily. And so engrossed. Dawson's, Sex and the City, the Sopranos, movies with Dermot Mulroney, Reality Bites, Dirty Dancing, French Kiss...I have a fixation that feels abnormal. Or perhaps the word 'involvement' might be more appropriate. When I watch, I absorb the fictional characters' emotions and feel them myself. Perhaps because in middle school and high school I had so few real relationships to invest in, I learned to feel them through movies. Or perhaps because it's my escape - my version of Bob's video games. Probably explains the origin of my melodramatic perceptions of the Events of My Life, particularly when I was still in college, that angst/joy-filled time for us all. I don't know. All I know is that last night, when I got to watch Pacey and Joey fall in love all over again, I felt like I was one of them. I also felt like a big, silly, dorky gal. But I was okay with that.

Oy Vay.

Well, it's been a hell of a weekend. Some bad, some good to come out of it, and a whole lot to sort out. Raise your hand if you knew that I was a great big ball of codependence. I didn't know. Seriously. I didn't. But I'm starting to and I'm feeling like there is light at the end of the tunnel. That maybe, just maybe, I can learn how to breathe the day in fully, exhaling without fear. That grudges can give way to forgiveness. I've become this giant sponge, absorbing everyone's emotions and blaming them for it - secretly believing that I can save the people I love from themselves. This weekend I began to get a firm grip on myself. It's time to wring myself out and figure out how I'm feeling. A slogan I found that amuses me:

Expectations are like resentments in escrow.

Massachusetts Liberals Have Highest Family Values

In case you hadn't heard, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the nation: 2.4 per thousand.

It would appear that us blue folk know how to keep our families together better than those bible thumpers elsewhere. Yes, today I'm feeling the snooty Northeastern yuppy liberal in myself. And yes, as a married, snooty Northeastern liberal yuppy, I'm feeling pretty proud of my roots and a little bit "nyeh-nyeh" toward the red states.

On its way out: 2004

I thought I would take a moment to reflect on the steps forward and back in 2004...

Forward
All of my gay friends can finally get married - at least in Massachusetts. Hopefully sometime soon the state and feds will change other laws, like the tax code, so that my gay married friends will actually have the same rights that Bob and I enjoy.

For the first time in memorable history, the Dems outraised the evil ones for the year. Yipee. Crazy liberals are finally putting their money where their mouths are.

I finally settled down into a job that I will likely hold for more than a year. That's pretty darned exciting. Caveats aside.

Bob has a fantastic job that he loves and just got an 8% raise. We like that.

Our friends and families are generally happy, healthy and well.

Not so forward - in fact, downright cruddy
Bush won. A lot of other states decided that they should codify gay-bashing even further with hateful anti-gay marriage laws. And my abortion rights magic 8 ball keeps telling me 'my sources say no'. People my age are dying or becoming injured at an obscene rate in a war that may or may not end in the forseeable future.

So that's my 2004 analysis in a nutshell. My little bubble is okay, but whenever I think beyond that bubble, I get kinda queasy.

2005, I hope you've got some good news up your sleeve.

Joshua Jackson AND Patrick Stewart

* Sigh * I'm embarassed to say (though not so embarassed that I won't post it online) that I love both of these two men. And now they're appearing on stage together.

The Apollo Theatre will play host to David Mamet’s two hander A Life in the Theatre, starring Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson. Rather fittingly it’s about a veteran actor teaching his craft to a younger newcomer – Stewart has appeared in numerous West End outings whereas Jackson, best known for Dawson’s Creek, is making his West End debut. The last time we saw Patrick Stewart on stage was in 2003 when he headlined Ibsen’s The Master Builder - quite a contrast to Joshua Jackson, who has not appeared on stage since he was eight. The play is directed by regular Mamet director Lindsay Posner, who has attracted such celebrities as Matthew Perry, Minnie Driver and Julia Stiles.

In other ridiculous Lauren celebrity news, I saw Matt Damon last weekend at The Burren in Davis Square. I have now mentioned this fact at least three dozen times. Also, have you seen any of the promos for that silly-looking reality show about the "real-life" princess looking for a wealthy mate? Apparently, she is my friend Debbie's roommate's ex-girlfriend. Karen, I hope you've enjoyed this pop culture post.

Raining

At work, not exactly recovered from my 3am bedtime last night. A coworker was a little bit rude to me a few moments ago, but instead of getting upset, I just sat quietly at my desk, closed my eyes for a few moments, and realized how soothing the sound of the rain outside and the hum of our lights can be. My hands feel a little tingly and the moose are definitely getting quieter. The rain deposits on my window make it look like that funky corrugated glass, the kind that is sometimes tinted green. It's a bubbly window.

Stillness and tacos don't seem to be a matching pair. Did I mention that I was up too late last night?

Of Moose and Me

My stomach is filled with what my co-worker D'Arcy calls "dreadsies." I call them butterflies. But really, they are big, bellowing moose.

I'm in the midst of one of those weeks, or months, or lifetimes, where I am procrastinating and procrastinating until it might catch up with me. Years of experience tell me I will get my act together at the last minute, finish everything in a stellar manner, and move on. But I wish that I could

1. Let go of the tension in my body cause by this slacker/manic worker cycle;
   
2. Actually get out of the cycle and just be on top of things from day to day; or
   
3. Suddenly discover that I have a trust fund, don't have to work for a living, and suddenly have as much free time to just be with people as I want.
   

At the moment, these three things seem equally and painfully unlikely. So I will just plod along with my moose, and feel good when I come up for air in two weeks.

GWBush on the $200 bill...

This got my day off to an amusing start.

GREENSBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Charges have been dropped against a woman who paid for clothes with a fake $200 bill that featured President Bush's picture and the serial number DUBYA4U2001.

Ding dong the witch is dead!

I particularly like the opening line of a CNet News story on Ashcroft's resignation:
John Ashcroft, who was a proponent of encryption and privacy as a U.S. senator and a champion of expanded Internet surveillance as the nation's attorney general, resigned on Tuesday.

I thought a brief retrospective on Ashcroft's tenure as the Attorney General would be appropriate:

• Singing a lovely song.
• Boasting of his conservatism, he once said that there are two things you find in the middle of the road: "a moderate and a dead skunk." He added that he did not wish to be either.
• Losing to a dead man.
• Vigilantly ensuring that nude breasts everywhere will be covered.

gregarious gossamer...

what gregarious gossamer, we three
imbibing autumn at nearwinter’s table
gold cheeks akimbo rolling up surprised laughter

If Elshaday is reading this...

an audre lorde poem that spoke to me way back when...

Afterlove
In what had been a pathway
inbetween
our bed and a shared bathroom
broken hours lap at my heels
reaching my toothbrush
finally
I see
wide valleys filled with water
folding into myself
alone
I cross them into the shower
the tiles right themselves
in retreat
my skin thrills
bruised and battered
as thunderspray splatters
plasma on my horizons
when no more rain comes
I cast me out lightly
returning
on tiptoe
shifting and lurching
aginst my eys
plastic curtains
I hung
last December
watching the sun flee
through patterns
spinning
always and never
returning
I spiced my armpits
courting the solstice
and never once did I abandon
believing
I would contrive
to make my world
whole again.

Open Auditions

Calling all skeeterdogs for sidekicks
or highjinks or a game of jacks!
Your doors must be well-kept, your noses
orange or green.
No marmalade monologues, please.
You must arrange a smorgasboard between
the hours of Tennesee and Texas and come
unprepared for flapjacks on toast.

We will have a sandwich to celebrate
meeting our greatest handyman Gustav-
he's missing a few jacks don't
hold it against him
his game's pretty good anyhow.

Movement will be required, jigs
are always a plus and oh
you must sing in the key of Saskatchawan.
No sad sepia can enter without
shorting the circuit, so
I suggest you leave your jacket
at the door, better yet, under the bed!

We're looking for new enigma and
curtain call will be at 7pm last Tuesday night.