Author: tuckova

Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O'Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

somebody come and play

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There is one piece of playground equipment in particular. I think it's called the spinner? It's hard to find any more, as they're clearly death traps. When I was little, the spinner was a large round platform about a foot off the ground with several metal rails on it that you were supposed to hold onto for balance. The less popular kids (I think this is how it was decided?) had to hold the outer legs of the metal rails and run in the inevitable mud around the spinner until it got some good momentum going, and then jump on and enjoy the vertigo-inducing spin, holding on tight or risking being flung right back off, as the outer edge was the riskiest place to be but the momentum made it hard to move inward once the spinner was in motion. If you were already on the spinner as it was being spun faster and faster, your job was to stay on and not vomit, which was easier if you were towards the center of the thing, and had not just drunk your chocolate milk ration too quickly. Ah, childhood.

There's a modern version of the spinner now, a one-person deal, which I find excellent as I do not and never have played well with most others. This version is a pole in the ground, slightly tilted with a one-person platform for standing. It involves just one good kick off the ground to get it started, since you're only pushing for one person. It starts to whirl pretty fast and all you have is the one pole to hang on to. The instinct is to hold on really, really tightly, because it feels like everything about this innocent-looking playground thing wants to hurl you directly off of it.

But here's what's funny: if you almost let go, if you open yourself to the wind whipping at you, if you go so far as to fling out your arm and leg, counting on just one hand to hold you in place … it slows down. It stops feeling so damn scary. The magic that made the inner circle feel safe on the spinner of your childhood is the same magic physics that makes it such that when you are alone, the best way to stay upright is to spread out, open yourself up, even though it really feels like the safest thing to do is shrink and cling.

Which is not a metaphor for anything.

rhymes with surface tension

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When I was young I loved red wine, a good in-your-face red that stained my teeth and shriveled my tongue, I sat in the bar I could walk to from my hovel in south San Francisco and wrote to him on the back of a paper placemat: "cheap red wine will always have a place in my heart" and I thought it would be true for ever but then one day it wasn't. One day the taste was bile and tears; I, who will still drink vinegar mixed with salt water for the sheer joy of it can no longer stomach the sour retch of red wine; even the smell turns me.

When I was young I loved beer, I loved the ritual of popping off the top or of finding someone who knew how to tap it right and swearing feudal loyalty, I loved collecting beer mats, the toasting rituals of different cultures, information about the breweries. And I loved the beer itself, the slight bitterness, the way I felt full and refreshed in equal measure, a warm slice of bread in liquid form. And then one day it wasn't good any more. I told her: "this is one of the greatest tragedies of my life" and she said my life must not be that bad, but it was a loss. One day I couldn't stand it: the smell, the taste, the fermented sick of it.

When I was young I will not say that I loved this thing but I tolerated it in people I loved. But can you blame me now, now that I am older, for pushing myself back from the table and saying: I have had my fill. My body soft at the edges as if blurred, my mind though now so sharply honed on the whetstone of enough. Enough. I am not critical if other people like it but please understand that for me this is like an allergy for which there is no treatment: I simply cannot take it, the dark green yellow of this particular behavior; the cocked head, the pointed finger, the backpack of your privilege, the litany of your knowledge. Enough, thanks. 

Roll Up Roll Up

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Ah, and here we are, back at the circus. I'm worried about the funambulists, having been one myself, teetering on the edge, learning not to fall by virtue of doing it and learning to be brave by knowing what my downfall would mean. So I've got one eye on them, the chalk bags, the slackline.

And over here, the elephant, the mysterious must. The blind man's pillar, rope, wall. Fortunately you can see them whole and you see what they are, walking in bored procession, a showgirl riding on the first one's back, legs tucked behind the ears the shape of Africa, a child's mnemonic, the blind man's large fan; they don't want to be here, guided in circles by a woman in spangles who also doesn't want to be here though she smiles like forever: this is the circus, nothing is real.

And now a man in shiny buttons and a whip and the big cats stare out from between the bars like a Rilke poem. They can leave the prison but only if they jump through the hoops. This is the worst, only a step away from gladiators; but whose entertainment is this for? You feel the tears burn your eyes at this final performance, so far from any function that no form could follow it, and the leather cracks and the lions jump through the circles, another and another. This is no savanna, this is nothing to do with their nature, this is not the delicious flesh they were born to tear from bone, and now you're really crying. 

"Don't take it so seriously," they say. "It's just a circus! It's fun!" and you scan the three rings, looking at the plate spinners, the hobbled horses, the freaks, but all you can see is the stress, the cruelty, abandonment; even the clowns have to paint their faces or you would never believe they were happy. 

"Don't be so sensitive!" they say. "It's just a circus!" Exactly.

the density of angels

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In May I had almost no work at all, which scared me because May is usually a pretty busy month. Freelance means you set aside some money when you get some money and you enjoy some time when you have some time and you try to hustle reasonably in busy times and you also try not to panic unnecessarily in slow times so even though I experienced some concern in May I mostly enjoyed the fine weather and the free time and waited it out. Summer's always slow; things predictably picked up a bit in September, but I still hadn't come close to making up for May.

AND THEN: November and December were absolutely crazy. Every academic in Brno wanted to publish something, the air was thick with the smell of grant money to be spent before the end of the year. January promises more of the same, and I finally took time out to look at finances and raise my prices, which I haven't done in ages. I know this is a very interesting story that I am telling you. Stay with me; it gets a little better.

I am thinking about this, about feast and famine, about the flow of things, and about boundaries. What happens with my work is in many ways the same as what happens in my life and I have to remember to keep my eyes and hands and heart open and take it all in and let it all pass. Just like the absence of work in May, there are times in my life when I am scared, when I feel lonely and like what I have is not enough, that I need more hobbies and more interests and more life in my life, but if I can remember to look at what I actually have and assess whether changes need to be made, most of the time the only change needed is the passage of time, into another month and then things are different. And there are times with work and with life when I feel almost overwhelmed, like a hamster running on a wheel, but then I have to remember that I can stop that wheel whenever I want, and that in fact I do kind of love it, running like that, too much to do, 20 pages a day every day, weekends too, and no time to sit around dithering about angels dancing on the heads of pins or practicing ukulele or exercising or anything other than work and basic social maintenance. Not forever, but for a month or two (or three, if I must) it's okay.

And raising my prices, it's so scary in a way because: what if I lose clients? But asking isn't hard, and in this case it's just a yes or a no. And if the answer is no and I don't especially like the client, then it doesn't matter. And if the answer is yes, then I can start enjoying months like May with even greater pleasure. Similarly with life I am asking a lot of my friends right now, for their patience and kindness during this period of self-absorption and overwork, and I'm blessed to have friends who do understand that there will be a sunny day somewhere in the future; a beer garden and the pure pleasure of laughing the sun down, maybe even waiting for the fireflies, because we will have earned that. And the yoga and the ukulele can wait, too.

pruritus

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It is there whether you think about it or not, this impulse that is below thought, or maybe beyond, or over, or in any case not fixed with your consciousness into a place where you can overcome it; it is simply there. Brought to you by a pet, maybe, or something you ate, a walk in the woods, a picnic; probably there was sunshine but not necessarily, and now you have it. 

The way it affects you is impossible to ignore, it is stronger than desire, it is more than almost anything, and even when you manage to put your thoughts to something functional like work or reading, your hands wander back again and again to it; it is more than pain and you realize this when the red ribbon of blood unravels under your hands and you still can't think about anything but this.

Cover it if you can, smother it with magic potions, creams; wrap your hands in bandages; recite the songs of childhood forwards and backwards, spells and incantations, still it rises, insists, whines, cries. It will not be denied. It murmurs in your ear at night, wakes you with hot whispers, your physical response to it is stronger than your thoughts are quick, and your mind is mercury but this is faster, more, demanding.

How do you deal with it? The persistence of memory, the persistence of thought, the realization that it doesn't matter how it started or when it ends but all that matters is now, right now, how you will deal with it. Try for one minute giving it your focused and complete attention. The whole of you absorbed in this, the whole of you absorbing it. Realize you will never satisfy this. Finally now, you can accept it, even take pleasure it in, see it as a mark of where you've been; it's not release but it's better than it was. For now.

too few to mention

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It is my great regret that I never read to you like I promised I would, because if I had read to you, you would have loved me. I regret that I did not paint what you wanted, because if I had painted it, you would have loved me. I'm sorry that we never went to the sea together, because if we had, if you'd seen me in that element of salt instead of soaked in my tears, you would have loved me. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I have to remember that we never said the words, because I feel like we did but we didn't, and maybe if we had, you would have loved me. Maybe it's simple: If I had told you I loved you, you would have loved me. Or biological: if I had been a man, you would have loved me. Maybe I should have tried harder, been prettier, stronger, sweeter, less myself and more what you wanted, maybe if I'd spoken less or more, maybe if I hadn't written that one letter, or maybe if I had written that one note, slipped it under your door at night with a yellow rose and a seashell, maybe if I hadn't left to give you time to think, or maybe if I had left so you could have followed me. Maybe if I'd trusted you. Maybe if I hadn't. I played it every way and the results were the same, but maybe if I'd played it the other way you would have loved me. 

This is backwards. If you had loved me, I would have read to you. Our paintings would dance on the wall behind us. The sea would have been one more place where we loved each other. Words are only worth what they mean, spoken or otherwise, and I am no man. I am who I am and anything else would have been a lie, and I wouldn't have wanted you if you loved a liar, even if I had desperately wanted to believe it was true. I regret nothing. You could never have loved me. 

everything was beautiful at the ballet

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I went to the ballet last night. One of my dearest friends here had been gone for a month, and I wanted to celebrate his return, and another of my dearest friends has put up with a disproportionate amount of my chaos lately, and I wanted to celebrate her sweetness, and also I will not miss an excuse for what looks like a good ballet, which it did. So we went.

The first piece was Serenade, by George Balanchine. Bunch of pretty girls fluttering their arms about, with some guys trying to look like the goblin king in the pants department wandering around. One can like it, but it was: meh. I hate to say that. I mean, here I'm looking at a stage full of athletes and all I can think is: let's do math with Balanchine, because it really looked like illustrations of math problems or something. Not word problems, either. So mostly I sat there thinking about WHY I didn't like it, which is not really the feeling you want in the theater.

The second piece was Sofa, by Olivier Wevers, and that was totally different. There was a purple velvet sofa, and everybody danced on and under and around it, and it was awesome. It made me think of high school and how I couldn't have boys in my room but we could be in the living room, and how the sofa was like a way station to where we wanted to go, and the center of slumber parties, and where we watched TV, and it is still all those things, the sofa is so central, and these dancers were fighting and kicking and kissing and teasing all on a sofa, just like us, except of course way more elegantly and their feet probably hurt a lot more. And in this I felt fully engaged and delighted.

The third piece was Lunar Sea, by Moses Pendleton, danced by MOMIX, a sort of black light madness and chaos. Like the first one, it didn't have a story, but it was so busy and stimulating visually that it didn't need one. And so we watched people split open, creatures with four legs dancing across the stage, absolutely a hundred things to look at. 

We ran across the street in the rain, ducked into a clean well-lighted place for tapas and wine, and talked and talked, the beauty of this, three generations of ballet in one evening, and how the first one made sense because we could see now how that non-narrative mathematical beauty made the other two possible, and how the third one called back to it, and how amazing it is to be able to see this when it is presented like that. It was delightful. I was delighted.

I Wonder by Derek Tasker

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I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.

the remains of the day

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When I was thirteen or fourteen, I went into a hormonal rage and pulled all the shelves in my room down. In about two minutes everything was chaos on the floor — books, toys, knickknacks, everything. And I stood there, sort of shocked, and then I started picking it up. Some things were broken, but I swept them up and kept going. I don't remember how long it took, but I remember how the violence and the drama did not make me feel better in any way, but the slow methodical work did. And the sky opened up and a beam of light on my forehead and the voice of clarity and reason, so rarely heard by the pubescent: now you know how to calm yourself. 

And now I am thirty years older, and I have been cleaning my home and other people's houses for most of that time. It's a thing I can do, dishes and dusting and floors, and it's usually soothing. Plus when you clean other people's houses they pay you, either in money or free accommodations and food, a range of delicious treats in exchange for you doing what you'd do at home anyway, haha. And I did always clean at home, too, for the meditation of it, and the feeling of calm from everything being where it belongs. Except I lived for a long time with people who did not care if it was clean, and you're allowed to not care, I'm sure it makes life much easier, but it makes cleaning up after you kind of a pain. Also my knees started to go weird, locking up, which didn't make kneeling and scrubbing any fun.

So five years ago I got a housekeeper, a teenage girl who came once a week and dusted and mopped and scrubbed. And she did not do the work as well as I did, because for one thing you cannot get a floor clean with a mop, you get a floor clean on your hands and knees, ffs, Yes I know. But she did it every week and she did it without complaining, which in some ways reminded me of my teenage self, and she was pleasant and she didn't want to be my friend, she just came and did it and got paid and left. Then she went to college, which was the worst. 

I have some ideas in here about hiring people to do menial labor, and about privilege etc., which I think I dodged by hiring a teenager, but it was on my mind.

For two years I tried to find another housekeeper, and it was just ridiculous. One who told me the house was a mess (uhm, nope) and so it would be hard to clean; one who talked and talked and talked at me so I couldn't work while she was here, which I thought: shouldn't we… both be working?; one who smelled like cat piss and mold. I did not find another teenager and I did not enjoy the dialogues in my head. So finally Squire and I have been doing the weekly cleaning together, I do the standing parts and he does the kneeling parts, it's not FUN but it helps to feel like I'm not alone and I don't feel weird about it and we get it done and whatever, it's a couple hours. But the cat hair, my god. There is one cat, and she sheds a kitten per room per week.

So we bought a floorbot. My sister's is named Benson so I named this one Stevens because he is also a butler (I was thinking of Miss Kenton, which is more correct, taskwise, but I just couldn't see Emma Thompson in his shiny black morning coat). He is tiny, he cleans one room and then runs out of energy and has to be recharged, so I have to pace him. It is a funny new addition. It is interesting to have watched so many programs about robots in the last year and then find myself behaving exactly as those silly humans, assigning emotions and personality to an object. I mean this is a cheap version, I don't think it even has a memory, which as Deckard will tell you is what separates the roombas from the replicants. But anyway: Stevens. New member of the household.

Well you said you wanted something a little less… sad. And I'm trying, I am. Though the fact that I named my floorbot after the butler who could talk about anything except his feelings instead of, say, Wadsworth, is not lost on me.