26 February 2009

you're boring like vanilla ice cream

Who wants to go to Los Angeles on my birthday, hit the thrift stores, eat at a Mexican vendor, get tattoos, then go see the Animal Collective concert, but not for Animal Collective, I want to see Grouper. Anyway, who's in? I might be kidding about the tattoos. No, I take that back, Mom, I really am kidding about the tattoos. I promise.

Love,
Marge

25 February 2009

I believe that time will wound all heels (heals?)*


I got my music taste from my parents.
OK, some of you might argue that I dress like them as well, what with dad pants and everything...

I can remember my mom one day listening to Camelot as she was cleaning up around the kitchen or something and she grabbed my attention for a minute.
"Marge, listen to Richard Burton singing this song, 'Winter is forbidden til December, and exits March the second on the dot."
I held up the record album, fixated by the art. The old english lettering and pictures of Julie Andrews and all the bitty curly-ques while my mom talked about the ideals of Camelot and then what happens and how Richard Burton ends up giving up.

She was never a big fan of rock n' roll. I did grow up on Peter Paul and Mary and one time I got her to explain that she liked them better than the Mamas and the Papas because of their harmonies. She likes ABBA.

And she always tells me about how she became a teenager when she was 18 and she saw Hard Days Night in the theatre. That's probably the best way I've ever heard of becoming a teenager.

When I got bored with practicing my Bartok for piano lessons, I'd thumb through our collection of old sheet music. I found my mom's copy of The Rolling Stones, As Tears Go By. I'd play it through and through.


Early this January, I'd been having a grand old time breakfasting at a little restaurant holding hands over a table (I hope holding hands across a table will never get old) and the boy left for a minute. I started paying attention to the melodies floating around and suddenly I picked out Mick Jagger singing, "I sit and watch as tears go by..."
There was my song.
I bought it this weekend and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

*John Lennon

24 February 2009

reign of errors

Today as I was five feet away from my nanny-ing house I saw a fire engine parked on the street. If anyone knows any little boys, you should know this is their dream come true. I ran inside the house, "Nannykins! Nannykins, hurry-up with your shoes we must hurry outside to see the fire engine!"
The dear mother, my cousin, helped one, and I helped the other with tying their shoes. Monstruo Uno said, "Maybe I can hear the sirens from here, my ears are growing louder, I can hear everything people say now. I can hear everything you're saying, I can hear what everyone is saying. I can hear you talking. I can still hear you talking."

It was one of those afternoons of greatness, the kind where I even get one of Uno's jokes which are my favorite kind of jokes. Voici:
"Knock, Knock."
"Who's there?"
"Worms."
"Worms who?"
"Aren't you glad I didn't say bird?"
"Yes."
"You're supposed to say, 'Bird who"
"Oh. Bird who?"
"Bird you glad I didn't say Bird eating worms?

And then everything went through annarcic meltdown after lunch (a toy lizard was convinced that all the other toys were murderous spiders and kept beating them all up and trapping them under the piano lid). So I still don't know what to tell you about children. Except that I would like to reference Virginia Woolf, if you have children that are yours, get a room of your own. Otherwise you'll be trying to write a letter but your letter will be bombed by a renegade christmas ornament and you will not be able to write until the imaginary fire has died down. And don't even try to put the fire out yourself with imaginary water because you will always get it wrong and will have grabbed an imaginary fire-shooter everytime.

23 February 2009

here's some from the mason jar

I can't not post today because a dearest friend tagged me as being a fantastic blog she reads. Hopefully she reads good blogs.


[me]

Thought six:
I don't know what children are about, but I think maybe it's absurdism with a dash of transcendentalism.

I wish there was more salt involved. Because my family loves salt. I'm not sure if the full weight of our love of salt can be carried across the web rays to you. For example, There are family dinners every Sunday, and every Sunday there averages one mini salt shaker for every 1.4 people. And my sister spreads her toast with butter (the salted kind) then sprinkles all with salt.

My cousin has always said she thinks her Monstruo Dos, who is dos, looks like my Dad. For those who need to know, I nanny her two little'uns. This afternoon as he was running around the parking lot with
either a broken umbrella or a mini soccer ball, I saw it. Mon père. Monstruo Dos smiled (a smile verging on all the mischeiviousness in the world) and I looked closely and critically and there was a mini fuzz-head version of mon père. Oh there he was, my dear funny Pa, dancing around with a broken umbrella just as he would dance around the house with laughter at the puns he would find.
............................

When I saw this on PostSecret on Sunday, I was wishing it would be from that person I know.

{sigh}

And now, I need to commence the writing of my compare and contrasting of Life of Pi and Catcher in the Rye. Let me tell you about that later.

Love you all,
Marge

18 February 2009

my life in kenya

Interlude:
One thing about including anyone into your life is that you amass little strings connecting from your life to theirs. Even the frequent fleeting encounters you have with a host of people (enough to fill a field) merit a little string. So many of us must be strung together it's a surprise we haven't all collectively toppled. Certain people stick in your life for a while and you might even become aware of the little strings that begin with little knots to some soft fleshiness of your heart.

And now Ladies and Gentlemen our show is about to begin!

12 February 2009

what happened after we played with dumptrucks in the snow


Today we talked about poo-ing in pants and when that was being all wrapped up (and I didn't even need to get my hands dirty) Monstruo Uno claimed Monstruo Dos had eaten the top off of a floss stick. You know, the reusable kind where you change out the little flossing head. I took the child onto my lap, it's best to treat these cases with precaution, I'm sure, as I don't have any previous experience in this matter, and asked him a few diagnostic questions.
-Did you eat the floss head?
-yeah
-Did you swallow it?
-Yeah
-Did you really swallow it?
-no (or it could have been yeah, sometimes they sound the same)
-Is it in your throat?
-yeah
-Do you know what a throat is?
-no
I pointed at the middle of my neck saying, "This is your throat, this is your throat," then he started poking my neck as well. So I poked his neck back. Then he cuddled up to me and I was so charmed by this goat-like baby and nobody was choking.

07 February 2009

enough of being accessible and making sense...

...I will say what I want to say, though it mean nothing to you.
Read Hans Christian Andersen's "Galoshes of Fortune" here.

Dear Care,

Prey, did you perchance let those galoshes of fortune slip two grey years ago? Because I perchance slipped them on, as I had always wished to be a povertous poet dallying about on a hilltop and there one tired January morning these flittery flits of decorative abstruse sentences filled my brain, poured forth from my pen and sometimes even escaped my mouth.
I basked in this glow of lights and cotton candy clouds and religious sparrows and individual grass blades and romantacized, symbolic people.
Then one year ago I wished to be coupled to un garçon. The poetry flitted out, as the dear galoshes only fill one wish at a time. It was as Hans had said, even as this final wish had come true, I was torn, conflicted, pained and deeply, heartfeltedly entrenched. Oh what a mire I had thrown myself into! Well, my wish was not as I had thought it would be, though I can't agree that I would've been better off without wishing, staying contented is sometimes to be cold and settled. Quickly thereafter receiving this last request of my heart, the boots were slipped off of me, perhaps you took them back, dear Care. I felt the fortune drain out through the tips of my toes following closely after those boots. And as if it had never begun, my imagined couple ended with only a joking, "I can't take you anywhere," for closure.

Well boots, I dearly miss my poetry. The maid's token of fortune merely had awakened and enhanced my thirst for the poetics and quickly after that never-begun-ending and sometime during the following existensial crisis the daisical way of playing around with words came back to me.
Only to die off again.
And now I find myself in a coupled seat without those boots and I wish slightly I felt given to writing verse about these happenings.

Alas, I am silent. {En d'autres termes, je suis muette}

However, I am actually very happy without the moon-eyed sensations clouding all my senses. Do you want to know what's more delightful than wishes? Knowing you make someone very happy when you laugh at their jokes, listen to what they say, spend an evening with them, when you can argue back, and especially when you kiss them.

Happily yours
Love,
Marge