a clean, well-lighted brain

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Squire Tuck and i have been talking about brains lately. this is because he
drew a probe that he would like to design that would help him to access
and understand the brains of others. half of this probe is very
grid-like, the other half is all squiggledy. i imagine that you will
be, as i was, interested to learn that the grid portion of the probe is
for decoding the emotions of others, and the squiggle part is for
thoughts. because thoughts come in different sizes and shapes, you see,
whereas emotions have a limited number of causes and expressions and
always make sense.

the number of times that i can say "ah" in a day continues to amaze me.
i’m clocking "ah" at the speed formerly observed for the
expressionless "yeah" on the west wing.

so i asked Squire Tuck to draw me the inside of his brain, which he did, and it
was really interesting because my picture of the inside of my brain is
radically different. whole people can get in and out of my brain, they
can poke about and learn things, tell me about themselves all day long, settle into the armchair that’s just
behind my forehead and see things from my point of view, should they
choose to do so. people can wander in unannounced and set up their own
little cozy area, decide to stay for a while, and i play really loud
music and ask them to leave but they’re like, gripping tightly to a
dendrite and they shall not be moved. my skull is basically like a
bucky fuller house, it’s my house and it’s where i live and all my thoughts have their own rooms,
and that’s how it is.

it is consistently strange to me to realize that i have a completely
different concept of something than someone else has; that my concept
is based on absolutely nothing other than my imagination and possibly
some vaguely remembered sci-fi films; that this concept is no more or
less valid than anyone else’s. that there may be nobody
wandering around inside my brain except me, or that in fact
wandering does not take place at all.

Squire Tuck has a high and impenetrable wall at the edge of his brain, by the
way. i should have gotten one of those, but i seem to have these rather
permeable walls and they’re right at the property line. so. come on in.
i will make you some coffee and i have these delicious dark-chocolate-covered gingerbread things, they’re taking up an awful lot of space in
here right now and i’m happy to share.

*edited to add a requested link to a picture of the probe. the brain pictures are private, but Squire Tuck okay’ed the picture of the probe.

metaphor with line breaks

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she says
every day you promise me dinner
she says
every day you say it’s about what i want
she says
every day you make steak.
i’m vegetarian.

he says
i don’t mean you have to make it
i don’t mean i have to make it
i don’t care if we make it together
but i have to eat.

he says
she used to like to cook
i thought she liked to cook
she would say i love to watch you eat
there would be little garnishes on the plate
now there’s nothing.

she says,
he never told me when he was hungry
he never told me the food was good
he never said thank you
i stopped cooking.
he can get his own food, i don’t care.
i’m too tired to cook, she says, or worse:
i’m not hungry.

he stops at a subway on the way home
or mcdonald’s, and it’s not on the way home at all
out of the way and he hopes nobody sees his car
something quick, something to tide him over
and he comes home to responsibilities and anger
no dinner
and they sleep clutching the edges of the bed.

eventually he starts working late
ordering in or going out
and it’s not just for sustenence,
like he said it would be because he needed it
but one day he realizes he’s savoring the food
the textures, the colors, the smell
the way it makes him feel

she goes out with her friend
and starts talking about the meals he used to make for her
the effort he used to make,
the textures, the colors
her friend touches her hand, briefly, only
briefly, "i could cook that, i think."
and she’s hungry again, for the first time
in years.

tutor to two-two tuckova, part two

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hey guess what i went to on tuesday night? an AWESOME parent teacher conference. who knew, right?

Friar Tuck couldn’t go so i stood in the little line outside the classroom
reading my new margaret atwood book (love!) and pretending not to
listen to the woman who likes to complain about how much she hates the
teacher, how much she hates the school, how her precious boy has never
done anything wrong and she has had it up to here and blah. this woman
is very good for me because she makes me feel a glimmer of something
like sympathy for the teacher.

not that i haven’t expressed hatred for the teacher, because i have.
but i don’t think Squire Tuck is pure and i don’t think we’re without blame in
the problems he has. and i haven’t stood out in the hallway in front of
her classroom unleashing a non-stop tirade against her door. i’ve
dumped my tirade here so that i could go into the meetings with my
hands free, ready for whatever kind of working together could be
accomplished.

anyway, so the teacher (she doesn’t know Squire Tuck has a tutor, shhh) says
that she’s seen a vast, marked improvement in his attitude and in his
schoolwork since the last meeting. she’s very pleased. she’s delighted.
she’s amazed. it’s true that she has also sort of half-heartedly
started alerting us to upcoming tests, for which the tutor has been
thus able to help Squire Tuck study. i gave her a lot of credit for that, because it has
helped a lot to know wtf is going on in school.

this is what i have so far, this series of revelations: 1) this teacher
cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school (acknowledged
11/2005); 2) i cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school
(acknowledged approx. 4/2006); 3) Friar Tuck cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs
to know for school (acknowledged 11/2006); however (formally recognized 1/2007)
apparently SOMEBODY can teach Squire Tuck, and (like always) when you stop
banging your head against the wall and try the door handle, it’s like
ahhhhhhhff cooourssse!

should’ve gotten a tutor ages ago.

then i went down the hall to talk to the german teachers who are beside
themselves with frustration over how Squire Tuck CAN and yet WON’T. haha,
ladies, welcome to my world. "but he’s so smart… he’s so! smart! he
could do anything! he just won’t try!" so they were kind of wet
hennish. fortunately i was feeling charming and also very favorable
towards them because of the fabulous trip to vienna last month, in
which Squire Tuck realized that english was Not Enough and that german could
be Useful, which is when he started admitting that he had homework. so
by the end of it there we all were in the german teacher’s lounge
shaking our heads and laughing and vowing to work together and holy
smokes, y’all. that was probably the first parent/teacher conference at
which i neither pressed half-moons of blood from my palms nor cried on
the way home nor any of the other things that i was coming to think
were like, as much a part of the conference as olives are part of
martinis.

i gave the tutor a raise today, btw. he best not get another job while we’re gone in february.

disarming

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i am thinking so hard these last few days that my head actually hurts.
look! i will spare you all that with instead a lovely little slice of
life story.

yesterday i asked Squire Tuck to do a few things and he agreed; in fact we
stopped just shy of spitting in our hands before shaking on it, so
heartily did we agree and discuss the rewards and penalties for
sticking with the agreement vs. not (respectively). about five minutes
after i left the room he told Friar Tuck he was done (uhm, no) and the two of
them went to the store.

i was in my lowercase rage by the time they came back, that is to say
not a full towering inferno of rage, which i reserve for catching
someone in a direct and hurtful-to-me lie, but up there. i know that
Squire Tuck felt that what i wanted him to do was not necessary (the list
included things like "brush his teeth") and i know that Friar Tuck thinks
that since the consequences are on Squire Tuck (dental care being covered, it
is Squire Tuck who will suffer from bad dental hygiene) then it’s up to Squire Tuck
to get stuff done. but. but. but. so they came home and i was all
grumbledy grumble grr. and Squire Tuck put his hands on the sides of my face
and looked me full in the eye and said, i know you are angry, but i
really really think i did what i really have to do, and it’s me who
takes the punishment if i’m wrong, so you really shouldn’t be mad at me
when i’m trying to take my own responsibility." then gave me a full hug
for about a minute.

and he goes, "now i know that was kind of manipulative in a way because
i know it’s hard for you to be mad after i give you a hug. but in
another way, it made you feel better, right, so is it still
manipulative?"

choo.

tuckova1 Comment

it is apparently That Time of the Year. this happens to me periodically: i feel like i am daily confronted with such a number of things where rational behavior and logical decisions are so obvious to me and yet so obviously unemployed that i think, "either these people are crazy or i am."

for one month i will persist in thinking it’s them. next month, expect me to come to the realization that it is, in fact, me who is crazy. then i will go into agonies over what this means. then i’ll remember that i don’t care; it will involve no doubt a slight rearrangment of habit and friends until i get it back to where i am on a schedule where yes i am crazy but it doesn’t really matter, and we’ll all be back to normal.

it’s odd how you can see blinding glare, know that it is not the light at the end of the tunnel but an oncoming train of painful insight, and nevertheless find yourself totally powerless to move. you say to yourself, "self: remember how last time that train smacked you right in the head and you didn’t have the sense to get out of the way?" and the self answers, "yeah, that sucked!" and then: WHACK.

sometimes a kiss is a thimble

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we watched "peter pan" (2003) the other night. i understand the
difficulty of adapting fiction into film but i am disappointed anyway.
why do people always want to take a story that is perfectly lovely and
simple and clear and add to it? that things must be subtracted i
understand ("princess bride") but that things get added, especially
things that change (what i perceive to be) the basic mores of the story
("charlie and the chocolate factory") is something i’ll never get.

every love song on the radio is about your love. every
biography is essentially your story. every experience speaks to your
experience and every horoscope describes you perfectly. you take the
specifics of a story and smudge them away until there are nothing
left but basic values, then you take the ones that you approve and
clasp
them to yourself, wanting to see how perfectly they fit. see how this
song uses the words "i love you"; that’s exactly how you feel. she
struggled against adversity and so did you; so you’re the same. if i’ve
traveled there then i know what it’s like and you don’t have to
try to explain, and you are generous and stubborn and today will be lucky.

the thing is that the more you push and pull and shove things around
until they look like something that you understand, the less they are
something you really understand. the less they are something you can
understand, i think.

i never really liked william carlos williams, i never understood the
beauty of a red wheelbarrow and though so sweet and so cold has moved
into my heart it’s a very small space compared to a tedious argument of
insidious intent. i like a little ambiguity. and i like cover versions, i like reinterpretations, i like personal footnotes in impersonal
essays. so i’m not saying i require the thing itself or nothing; i’m
not saying my feelings don’t come with a soundtrack and a slideshow,
because they totally do. but to work there has to be a response, not
just an edit and addition and then a flat presentation.

i’m straying; i’m sorry. where was i going? what i wanted to say is
that is that i see you taking pictures, songs, words, and adapting them
to the story you want to tell me, but in a way that takes away from the
original intent without actually adding anything to what you want to
say. robin hitchcock sang you’re projecting onto me/what you’d like
yourself to see but this is even worse, a step further: you’re
projecting onto me what somebody else saw somewhere else. i am
disturbed, i am increasingly disturbed, i am disturbed to the
point where i don’t know if we are even having the same conversation
anymore. i need you to talk to me in your words, not exclusively
quotation. i need you to look at me and see me, not a jumble of
presupposition. i need you to listen to me, not to the voices i remind
you of. and i need you to hear what i say, not what you thought my
words should be.

merry christmas

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christmas is lovely at home. we had salmon and potatoes (czechs have
carp, which is revolting, and potato salad, which i am sure i have told
you about my hate affair with potato salad). Friar Tuck tried to reproduce
the food categories to reflect tradition but to make food so that we
would be pleased, and i am so pleased to have this. Squire Tuck was his
perfect self, commenting on the beauty of black olives against pink
salmon. we ate on my grandmother’s china. i got a sparkly thing because
Friar Tuck has figured out that i like sparkly things, which is very clever
of Friar Tuck. Squire Tuck got seven books because we think he likes reading, i
guess. if you fill a martini glass half full of griotte and then layer gin on top it looks like christmas and it tastes like heaven. i could fill you with details to last you to the new year. we’ve
been listening to laurie anderson’s life on a string and iva bittova’s
kolednice and of course nohavica. i love this song because it seems so
rousing and lively and the lyrics are so sad and determined; it doesn’t work quite
without the music but i’ll give it to you anyway. merry and happy and i hope things are half as good where you are as they are here.

Mary, Virgin Mary
She went around the world, she went alone
Just with Joseph
He was a little useless
They both wandered around the outskirts of Judea

They wandered through the night looking for a place
Where they could lay their heads

They were expecting a child
And none of the people
wanted anything to do with them
All of them said,
you will reap what you sow.

Mary, Virgin Mary
Solved this problem on her own
She found a little stable

It stank a bit
but a bucket of water washed it clean

And then she lay down
and cried a little
And Joseph was hopeless
With a face like a mule
And then near midnight
with the help of god
and thanks to courage

She brought into the world a boy as pretty as a picture

Mary, Virgin Mary,
Who was almost alone in everything

And then a comet flashed across the sky
Mary said,
Josef, let’s go out into the world

There is no place for us here
They don’t love us here
They will kill our son
And so the three of them left

What happened next you surely know
What you don’t know, you can imagine

Mary, Virgin Mary

Who was in all things almost alone

and aNOTHer thing

tuckova2 Comments

on the weekend nobody felt exactly lively. Squire Tuck and i decorated for christmas
finally on sunday, but mostly i sat around in my jammies putting together a puzzle and reviewing my
appreciation of the underrated art of NOTH. whatcha doing? nothing.

on monday Squire Tuck stayed home because he was "sick" and because i’m a
parent who believes that if a kid really really doesn’t want to go to
school, their ability to learn is as hampered as if they were ill, so:
stay home. spare the teacher and yourself. by monday afternoon he had
upgraded to sick (without scare quotes) and by monday evening he was
screaming in pure frustration at Friar Tuck for correcting his pronunciation
of some word or another, and i tried to rub his back and he burst into
tears from the pain of being touched. ah, genuine sickness, i haven’t seen you in a while.

yesterday Squire Tuck felt the christmas spirit of giving and decided to share
his illness with me; by 5 p.m. i was weeping on the couch while we
passed the tissues back and forth and reminded each other to drink more
tea. we watched a bunch of PBS tapes ("in search of myths and heroes"),
which was just so supercool. we talked about shangri-la and how
although religious wars
strike me as ridiculous, it’s not like atheists are above it all: the
cultural revolution wreaked as much destruction as a holy war. we
talked about zeus getting out athena by splitting his skull open, and
whether or not a drill would be a good way to drain the sinuses. Squire Tuck
thinks not but it’s still an option on my table. i cannot go much
longer with the mouth breathing, three more days of this and i’ll be
unable to explain the difference between "it’s" and "its" and then how
will we buy bread.

Friar Tuck came home at about seven with a full bag of fruit and wine and
rum and vegetables. he made this giant vat of vegetable soup and played chess with Squire Tuck and poured
rum punches into me until everything, including the mouth breathing, was
very very funny, and very sleepy, and i went to bed. and slept! and
feel better today, although still unable to breath through my nose.

Squire Tuck’s already back in school.

last night i sat in a pile of tissues (one of my 2 disgusting habits)
and thought how lucky i am. lucky that i have a kid with whom i can
talk about cultural revolutions and splitting headaches. lucky
that i have a guy who knows so precisely how to take care of me that i
barely need to explain anything. it’s the difference between falling off the highwire and bouncing on a trampoline.

as the philosopher jagger once said…

tuckova6 Comments

some things you want you have to absolutely give up on wanting before you can get them. it is not merely the stuff of hollywood, this "just when i thought i could never…" and then boom. if you want to get pregnant and you think you can’t, you must sell the children’s books you’ve been collecting since you were old enough to imagine wanting a child (you were nine) and those you can’t sell, you must give away, and you must adopt some very bad habits, and then, let me tell you, boom. just like in the movies. but you can’t say that you’re giving up on it, you have to really give up on it. this is true for all things that are controlled by magic.

some things you want you have to absolutely give up on wanting before you realize you didn’t actually want them. this is what they were telling you but you weren’t listening because you really really wanted it. you want to be liked by him and you want to be liked by him and you want and you want and he doesn’t. your desperation burns a path in front of you, pleading and not merely wanting but needing. you have to let it go, all that desperation, the belief you can draw it to you with the force of your will alone. walk away and every step you take away you realize what hell your life would have been if you had stood there one more minute. stop wanting the praise of the people who you do not respect; stop wanting the affection of people who do not share your values; stop wanting people who do not care for you. this is true for all things that are other people.

some things you want you have to work hard for. mostly it is about deciding that you want it. mostly it is about deciding how much you want it and whether you can do the amount of work involved. people don’t mind if you say you want something for free, because everybody wants everything for free, but you have to know some things take work. you have wanted to go to greece since you were twelve. maybe earlier. why haven’t you been there yet? you have planned to do something about your brittle heart for three years now, why don’t you get on that? you can have these things if you work. this is true for all things that are you.

**the title of this post is an allusion to a line from the television show HOUSE, in which the good doctor makes an allusion to a line from the rock band THE ROLLING STONES ("You can’t always get what you want").

QUIXOTIC is also a lot of points

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i am troubled that i am not getting a rush of emails along the lines of "WHEN in february, oh my darling anne, can i crush you in my arms and look deep into your pretty blue eyes and confess that for the eleven months you are not here my life is entirely devoid of meaning?" i know you’re lying, but seriously, if you want to hang out in february you best book it early and often. i’m saying. i have vegas to attend to, you know.

on saturday i saw a woman on the bus whose hair was shellacked about five inches off her skull and her makeup was so heavy i could see not merely the line of makeup along the jaw, but the thickness of the line. it facial braille by mary kay. she was wearing jeans and a puffy coat; i waited for her head to detach and go wherever it was going, which was certainly someplace different from the rest of her body, but she was all still in one piece when i got off at my stop.

and saturday continued to be weird. saturday night we were in this nearly-deserted restaurant playing scrabble and the waiter told us (over the hum of the television) that this was a classy establishment in which one could not play games, as it disturbs the other customers. pointing out that the other customers totalled about 10 in a room that seats 100+ was not persuasive, and so we had to leave. it was like getting kicked out of denny’s for studying, i was like, "whaa–?" the next place we went to we asked permission, just in case the earth had reversed polarities or something, and the waitress looked at us as if we had lost our entire minds. "yes, of COURSE you can play games here!" thank goodness. conversation is all well and good but i won’t rest until i’ve spelled CRAZIEST instead of just lived through it.

things are generally good. i got back to sleeping through the night after nearly a month of frantic insomnia, and we’re all much happier for it. a freakishly clean house, a dozen ambitious projects (started, rarely completed), and an insane ability to work without even stopping for cigarettes is all quite entertaining for me, but i gather it is not much fun to live with.
also, i never seem to get done the stuff that NEEDS to get done. it’s like, "you know what? i haven’t cleaned the tiles with a toothbrush in a really long time! i should get on that! what, pay the bills? oh, yeah, plenty of time for that later!! now… where’s that toothbrush?"

it is a good thing i am very very pretty because sometimes i am also very very stupid. but charming! and charm always carries us through the dumb stuff, right? even if we don’t think it will. charm is a total SuperPower. people think they want, like, the ability to fly or something, and those traditional superpowers may be useful, like with invisibility one could rob banks and look at naked people without getting caught, but charm has useful everyday applications. for example, i will probably need it to sort out that bill i missed last month. awhoops.