The cat and I have become best buds now that it's just the two of us during the week, and especially since she lost that back leg in late summer. Juniper's always been very sweet -- but reserved, like someone who is on the formal side no matter how long you've known them. They would really rather we all shake hands instead of hug. They make a little sound like "ehhhhh" when you squeeze them, even a bit, in an embrace. My ex-mother-in-law, so formal you wondered if it might be a joke (that would be a no) would, in an attempt to keep children at bay, call out as the kids ran up to greet her: "Now, which hand shall I shake first?" Cats can be like that.
But since Laura, Juni's more attentive (not to actually say the word "co-dependent") owner, is gone most of the time, and since I am the one who gave the okay to remove her leg (the cat's, not Laura's), Juni sees that the stakes are pretty high. People and limbs can actually disappear, and one is left with what? Three legs and one surgery-happy person who occasionally remembers to feed you. It's not much. Best strategy may be solidarity, the cat seems to think. She is at this moment, as is often the case of late, under the laptop -- or cattop, I should say.
In the mornings, Juni follows me, staring or glaring -- sometimes it's hard to tell with cats -- until I sit to meditate. When I get on my zafu or zamboni, or whatever that meditation cushion is called, she sits in front of me and immediately starts her mantra. She has mastered her monkey mind, and is freaking buddha in fur. On the mornings when I've decided to skip meditating and instead move straight into the day, her cat-stare is decidedly accusatory. The danged cat has the discipline to meditate this morning, I scold myself.
This morning I "meditated" about my breathing (I won't say how long that lasted), my to-do list, last night's dreams, my connection to the Source (this for a nanosecond), the Oneness of us all (ditto), and then, for a long time, whether I should have a green smoothie or eggs and kale for breakfast. I opened one eye and spoke to the chanting cat.
"Very impressive, smartypants," I muttered. Juni did not stop chanting; not for a moment.
I felt even worse after that -- it negates your meditation session if you peek, I think -- not to mention mutter, for god's sake. It can't be good to make a snarky comment and then go back to contemplating the oneness of us all. But I only opened one eye, so...points for that.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
oh my, Pollyanna
I believe it's after you have said it one hundred times yourself and have heard it for the one thousandth* time, that you decide it's time to look up the reference. In this case it began with a quick glance at Wikipedia: Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same optimistic outlook.
Hmm. Wonder if it's good. What if we put all the people who are reading Pollyanna right now into the same room? It would probably be a pretty small (but cheery) room.
I download Pollyanna for free, and then I spring for the Audible version for 99 cents. Why not.
The excruciating timbre of the narrator's voice is why not, but despite that, I listen to all five and a half hours -- while I cook, while I do email, even practicing some ukulele. It's Pollyanna, for god's sake; it's not like it's hard to follow. When the book ends, at the point when most people would have had more than they wanted of Pollyanna and her story, I, naturally, order the DVD from Netflix. When a book is fresh in your mind sometimes you want to see how closely the movie follows it. You want to see how they mess with the plot, how true they stay to the original dialogue.
The next night, because that's how ridiculously quickly the Netflix elves deliver Pollyanna, I watch the Masterpiece Theatre version as I cook, do email, and practice ukulele. With quiet delight, I recognize some dialogue, but they insist upon making Nancy and Tim fall in love, fight, then (spoiler alert) reconcile, when Nancy and Tim didn't have to go through all that in the book. They were just friends. And in the book there was no scene of handsome Tim chopping wood, shirtless and in his suspenders. Perhaps I should have put a spoiler alert in front of that, too.
Today the original version of Pollyanna should arrive, Elves willing, because the British rendition wasn't enough weirdness. No, now I am going to put myself through the 136-minute American movie, produced before they edited dialogue for our collective ADHD. With this molasses-on-film version, I might even be able to read along.
At least in the film adaptations they don't ejaculate, thank god. In 1913, people apparently ejaculated in the middle of conversations all the time. It wasn't even embarrassing to them back then; they all seemed quite comfortable with it. "'This is sheer nonsense!' ejaculated the man, decisively." Or "'Your--aunt!' he ejaculated." By the time someone had ejaculated for the tenth** time in the middle of the story I was otherwise enjoying, I couldn't hear "again that spasm crossed his face" or read that someone had stiffened, moaned, or gasped without feeling kind of mortified.
I have to hand it to Pollyanna, though. Even with all of that going on around her, she was a really, really good sport.
*Here I have inserted the word I find the most difficult to pronounce without a running start, with apologies.
**At least it wasn't the thouthanth.
Hmm. Wonder if it's good. What if we put all the people who are reading Pollyanna right now into the same room? It would probably be a pretty small (but cheery) room.
I download Pollyanna for free, and then I spring for the Audible version for 99 cents. Why not.
The excruciating timbre of the narrator's voice is why not, but despite that, I listen to all five and a half hours -- while I cook, while I do email, even practicing some ukulele. It's Pollyanna, for god's sake; it's not like it's hard to follow. When the book ends, at the point when most people would have had more than they wanted of Pollyanna and her story, I, naturally, order the DVD from Netflix. When a book is fresh in your mind sometimes you want to see how closely the movie follows it. You want to see how they mess with the plot, how true they stay to the original dialogue.
The next night, because that's how ridiculously quickly the Netflix elves deliver Pollyanna, I watch the Masterpiece Theatre version as I cook, do email, and practice ukulele. With quiet delight, I recognize some dialogue, but they insist upon making Nancy and Tim fall in love, fight, then (spoiler alert) reconcile, when Nancy and Tim didn't have to go through all that in the book. They were just friends. And in the book there was no scene of handsome Tim chopping wood, shirtless and in his suspenders. Perhaps I should have put a spoiler alert in front of that, too.
Today the original version of Pollyanna should arrive, Elves willing, because the British rendition wasn't enough weirdness. No, now I am going to put myself through the 136-minute American movie, produced before they edited dialogue for our collective ADHD. With this molasses-on-film version, I might even be able to read along.
At least in the film adaptations they don't ejaculate, thank god. In 1913, people apparently ejaculated in the middle of conversations all the time. It wasn't even embarrassing to them back then; they all seemed quite comfortable with it. "'This is sheer nonsense!' ejaculated the man, decisively." Or "'Your--aunt!' he ejaculated." By the time someone had ejaculated for the tenth** time in the middle of the story I was otherwise enjoying, I couldn't hear "again that spasm crossed his face" or read that someone had stiffened, moaned, or gasped without feeling kind of mortified.
I have to hand it to Pollyanna, though. Even with all of that going on around her, she was a really, really good sport.
*Here I have inserted the word I find the most difficult to pronounce without a running start, with apologies.
**At least it wasn't the thouthanth.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
in the interest of research
I'm still trying to digest the recent discovery that you don't think about piles of things. Everyone who commented on that post raised their hand and said, no. No, they don't think about piles.
I think about my accumulated piles of things all the time. It's why I panic when the CVS cashier tries to put my tube of toothpaste into a plastic bag, thereby adding to the gigantic, hideous pile of all the plastic bags I've used in my life. No! God, no. Please; no bag.
Or the fantasy about gathering people who have one particular thing in common, and watching them try to figure out what it is. Anybody with me on that?
I'm feeling the need for a survey (wait a second -- do you ever feel the need for a survey?). Here is (page 1 of) a survey I conducted at a conference several years ago. I left it on the registration desk for two days and people quietly filled it in when they spotted it. Does this same surveying impulse sometimes overtake you?
Regardless, below is today's survey, part of my ongoing research on how other people think and don't think.
Question 1: Do you have a question in your head (perhaps every week or so) that goes like this: Is there anyone else in the world who has ever this exact load of groceries? (e.g., an eggplant, goat cheese, five pounds of cashews, toothpicks, rubber gloves, and a sunflower?) An acceptable variation: has anyone else ever carried this exact load of items? (The image below documents the moment when I told Ting: "Let me get the camera. I think this may be the first time ever in the course of human history that someone has carried this very combination of things: a French press, a wilted daikon radish, and some mud from the Dead Sea.")
Question 2. If you do have these thoughts, does it ever lead to the following:
If this is the very first time this has happened, what an amazing moment this is!
OR
If it has happened before: What if those people met? Would they ever figure it out? (e.g., "Stop right there! I once carried a French press, a wilted daikon radish, and a container of mud from the Dead Sea!")
Do you then imagine their delight?
I think about my accumulated piles of things all the time. It's why I panic when the CVS cashier tries to put my tube of toothpaste into a plastic bag, thereby adding to the gigantic, hideous pile of all the plastic bags I've used in my life. No! God, no. Please; no bag.
Or the fantasy about gathering people who have one particular thing in common, and watching them try to figure out what it is. Anybody with me on that?
I'm feeling the need for a survey (wait a second -- do you ever feel the need for a survey?). Here is (page 1 of) a survey I conducted at a conference several years ago. I left it on the registration desk for two days and people quietly filled it in when they spotted it. Does this same surveying impulse sometimes overtake you?
Question 1: Do you have a question in your head (perhaps every week or so) that goes like this: Is there anyone else in the world who has ever this exact load of groceries? (e.g., an eggplant, goat cheese, five pounds of cashews, toothpicks, rubber gloves, and a sunflower?) An acceptable variation: has anyone else ever carried this exact load of items? (The image below documents the moment when I told Ting: "Let me get the camera. I think this may be the first time ever in the course of human history that someone has carried this very combination of things: a French press, a wilted daikon radish, and some mud from the Dead Sea.")
Question 2. If you do have these thoughts, does it ever lead to the following:
If this is the very first time this has happened, what an amazing moment this is!
OR
If it has happened before: What if those people met? Would they ever figure it out? (e.g., "Stop right there! I once carried a French press, a wilted daikon radish, and a container of mud from the Dead Sea!")
Do you then imagine their delight?
Friday, February 7, 2014
not nervous at all
The morning of the TV bit I had an 8:00 appointment in my next door neighbor's kitchen. She was going to put some makeup on my face before I drove to the studio. I brought over the red bag of cosmetics they gave me at the Look Good, Feel Better class I took during chemo.
"I'm not sure what's in here," I told Arlene, as I emptied the bag onto her counter. Out spilled blush, lipstick, mascara, various pencils and brushes. A sponge with tan smear in its pores. Foundation. Concealer. It just kept coming.
She did her thing and we put it all back in the bag.
As I left, she said, "When you get there, touch up your lips with the lipliner and the lipstick." She gave my eyebrow a little brushing with her fingertip. "You always have to touch up your lips," she confided.
"Okay," I promised. I pulled the lipliner and lipstick out of the bag and popped them into my pocket.
I had my instruction sheet on the passenger seat next to me in the car. I had highlighted the driving directions in bright yellow so that I wouldn't get distracted by the part in bold: "**NOTE** Hosts don't like mayonnaise, duck, canned tuna, beets, relish, Russian dressing, deer, rabbit, lamb." This little note had already captured me completely a dozen times or more. I wasn't going to have that happen as I drove.
There it was on the left: the gigantic CHANNEL3 sign, just like on TV. So whaaaat, I say to myself. Wazza big deal" (I have a Brooklyn accent in my head). So what -- it's just fun! It's just a normal thing on a normal day with normal people. I park where the show's logo says to park, and I carry the paintings, one by one, over the slushy driveway. Then the easels. Then shoes, so I don't go on TV in my winter boots.
Minutes later, I am still feeling kind of pleased with myself for operating so normally, so like a person who lives in the world and kind of gets around in her own quiet way. Someone comes over to take the paintings and set up their display. There's no "I don't know, Jerry. What do you think? Think this one should be over here? Why don't we try...this?" about it. When I turn my head for a second, they have all 4 paintings in place, with three cameras poised (someone does this from an office somewhere) and ready to go. These guys are studio masters, man. They have this thing down to a science. They are counting seconds -- for ten hours a day.
A man walks over to me and says "let me show you to the ladies' room." Even this guy knows the secret about having to touch up your lips. The whole operation is so efficient that they don't even wait for you to ask for directions to the bathroom. This way they don't have to deal with guests trying to figure out whom to interrupt to ask for the bathroom; they don't have to hear people ask for the "loo" or "potty" or "little girls' room."
I touch up my lips in the bathroom. Let me take a quick moment here to say that I discovered after getting home that eyeliner comes in pencils that look exactly like lipliner pencils.
I return to the studio with mauve lips, outlined in brown. I'm here. In this moment. Here I am. What a fun moment! This is my more zen chatter of the head. Fifteen minutes before taping: the clocks on the stove and the microwave both say 2:45, so that when the show airs at 3:00, it looks live. I am a little agog even at that small act of cleverness. I'm pleased that my nervousness is staying quiet enough for me to be having fun.
The producer comes over to greet me. He puts out his hand and smiles.
"Hi!" he says. "I'm Bob."
"Hi!" I say warmly. "I'm Bob."
Yep. "Hi!" I said - warmly, for god's sake - "I'm Bob."
"I'm not sure what's in here," I told Arlene, as I emptied the bag onto her counter. Out spilled blush, lipstick, mascara, various pencils and brushes. A sponge with tan smear in its pores. Foundation. Concealer. It just kept coming.
She did her thing and we put it all back in the bag.
As I left, she said, "When you get there, touch up your lips with the lipliner and the lipstick." She gave my eyebrow a little brushing with her fingertip. "You always have to touch up your lips," she confided.
"Okay," I promised. I pulled the lipliner and lipstick out of the bag and popped them into my pocket.
I had my instruction sheet on the passenger seat next to me in the car. I had highlighted the driving directions in bright yellow so that I wouldn't get distracted by the part in bold: "**NOTE** Hosts don't like mayonnaise, duck, canned tuna, beets, relish, Russian dressing, deer, rabbit, lamb." This little note had already captured me completely a dozen times or more. I wasn't going to have that happen as I drove.
There it was on the left: the gigantic CHANNEL3 sign, just like on TV. So whaaaat, I say to myself. Wazza big deal" (I have a Brooklyn accent in my head). So what -- it's just fun! It's just a normal thing on a normal day with normal people. I park where the show's logo says to park, and I carry the paintings, one by one, over the slushy driveway. Then the easels. Then shoes, so I don't go on TV in my winter boots.
Minutes later, I am still feeling kind of pleased with myself for operating so normally, so like a person who lives in the world and kind of gets around in her own quiet way. Someone comes over to take the paintings and set up their display. There's no "I don't know, Jerry. What do you think? Think this one should be over here? Why don't we try...this?" about it. When I turn my head for a second, they have all 4 paintings in place, with three cameras poised (someone does this from an office somewhere) and ready to go. These guys are studio masters, man. They have this thing down to a science. They are counting seconds -- for ten hours a day.
A man walks over to me and says "let me show you to the ladies' room." Even this guy knows the secret about having to touch up your lips. The whole operation is so efficient that they don't even wait for you to ask for directions to the bathroom. This way they don't have to deal with guests trying to figure out whom to interrupt to ask for the bathroom; they don't have to hear people ask for the "loo" or "potty" or "little girls' room."
I touch up my lips in the bathroom. Let me take a quick moment here to say that I discovered after getting home that eyeliner comes in pencils that look exactly like lipliner pencils.
I return to the studio with mauve lips, outlined in brown. I'm here. In this moment. Here I am. What a fun moment! This is my more zen chatter of the head. Fifteen minutes before taping: the clocks on the stove and the microwave both say 2:45, so that when the show airs at 3:00, it looks live. I am a little agog even at that small act of cleverness. I'm pleased that my nervousness is staying quiet enough for me to be having fun.
The producer comes over to greet me. He puts out his hand and smiles.
"Hi!" he says. "I'm Bob."
"Hi!" I say warmly. "I'm Bob."
Yep. "Hi!" I said - warmly, for god's sake - "I'm Bob."
Sunday, February 2, 2014
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