merely updating

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this morning i got up early and took Squire Tuck to the train station; he went with his german class to vienna for the day. i love europe. i then came home and took a two hour nap, in which i woke up a couple times from dreams that were remarkably not horrific, and so i made myself roll over and try some more. it was strange and lovely. i advocate naps but usually 20 minutes is all i can do before my brain starts cooking up new schemes for me to pick at, and so two hours was like an All Nap Extravaganza Variety Show with donny and sonny and cher and marie and purple socks and you babe.

i bought our tickets for february finally yesterday. shopping on the internet is so easy it almost doesn’t feel like i’m trying; i got very angry at the systems that were booting me off for having a different IP than my (US) address led them to believe, the nosey parkers, but i finally got the tickets and it was cheaper than i’d expected, so yay me. i am so adept and whatnot.

after approximately 20 years of dressing as a stagehand i decided last winter to branch out into colors. COLORS! that is exciting, isn’t it. apparently i decided going with just one color to start, and apparently that one color is "wine" because in unpacking my winter clothes i discovered that i now look like a stagehand with a drinking problem. perhaps next i will go for "green" and i can be a stagehand for a play about people who get lost in the woods while consuming a fine merlot. i spent about 20 minutes talking to andrea about this very important issue. i know it is dumb but it was so nice to not talk about something that cannot be solved. i am decided to be Trivial and Bubbly with Extra Trivia and Bubbles for the forseeable future, like possibly even until after new years.

the beer party was fun; Friar Tuck cleverly snuck in three (3!) non-alcoholic beers, despite which we managed to drink off most of our discerning tastebuds well before we made it to the end. this means we have some for the next time you come to visit, but you’d better make it soon, because now that we know what we like, we’re probably going to go through it fairly quickly. slurp.

circus performance next tuesday. pictures then, if nothing before then comes to mind.

apropos of friday

tuckova3 Comments

1. i often tell people "i don’t have a television" because although we have a set, it’s not connected to the antenna- we only use it for DVDs and videos. so we don’t watch sports or news, but we do keep up with some things. recently i’ve been alternating "big love" and "deadwood" and i have to recommend this formula only if you want your brain to explode from the dissonance. which, i like that.

2. "the big rock candy mountain" is quite possibly the most twisted "children’s" song ever. i found this website which warns "Remember, although this is a fun song to learn and sing, having such easy access to cigarettes and alcohol would not actually be a "good" thing. Smoking and alcohol addictions are harmful to your health," and "…speaking of candy, please also visit Obesity and Your Environment and My Food My World!" hahaha. good thing they left off the verse about being buggered sore like a hobo’s whore; perhaps they don’t have a link to explain why that would be a bad thing.

3. i told Squire Tuck’s tutor that it already seems like Squire Tuck is doing better. "this is not going to be a sprint" pavel told me, apparently concerned that i was going to be thinking things are all better. "this year is more a marathon, and we’re just starting…"

"yes," i answered, "but now it feels like Squire Tuck has finally got his running shoes on."

4. i’m sleeping maybe 4 hours a day and consequently wandering around in a total daze for the remaining 20. my brain is skipping from one rock to the next and i’m playing "don’t look down, don’t look down." i haven’t cooked anything in over a week. i told Friar Tuck i was a good prep cook, because i can focus on one task at a time, but not an assembly, but he says i’m more of a post-cook, which is true. i can reheat like a master.

5. we’re having a party tomorrow, did i tell you? Friar Tuck wants to find out which beer is his favorite. as even Friar Tuck cannot drink 15 whole beers at once, nor can he compare them side by side effectively (because one might get warm while he is drinking the others, etc. SCIENCE) he has decided to have a tasting party, whereby everyone will split the beers and compare them. it’s all very scientific, as it is Friar Tuck running the show. there are evaluation
sheets, and also tables for information. a white board may be involved. Friar Tuck thinks i am making fun of him because i am.

6. what else? is it strange to put "brush your teeth" on the "to do" list? because that’s on mine.

places, activities, and ways to sleep

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on the Charles Bridge
on the 28th of October
on trams sometimes
on trains usually
in cars nearly every time
(unless i am driving)
on buses, but not well.

getting a haircut
watching a movie
writing a letter
reading a book
sitting in an all-night bar
because there was no room at the inn
and no money in my pocket

i tied my feet together
so i wouldn’t wake my imaginary husband.
i tied my wrists together
to take it out of my empty hands
things that are hot like blankets from the dryer
things that are cold like ice on the nightstand

last night, curling my hand around your finger,
watching the streetlight through the curtain
i thought i will never fall in love
i will never fall asleep
i will never fall

bully for you

tuckova4 Comments

yeah, so Squire Tuck got beaten up in school a couple weeks ago.

to say that he’s one of the bravest people i know is the spin i like best for this right now. as in, the morning after it happened i told him he didn’t have to go to school if he didn’t feel like it, and he said, "they made me really sad and they made me really mad, but i don’t want them to feel like they made me afraid, and the best way to show them that is to go back to school." and he went.

it’s hard, the way you want desperately to be and to show that you are 100% on his side. it’s hard because the first thing is that you want to say "how did it get to this point?" and you want your kid to be able to take responsibility for his part, if he had one. everything starts somewhere. but it’s not about who started it, once he’s on the floor and someone else is kicking him.

Squire Tuck is not the only one being targeted. Squire Tuck is perhaps the only one who was held down by one kid while other kids kicked him, but Squire Tuck is not the only one afraid to go to school. Squire Tuck is not the sole target, and more obviously Squire Tuck is not the only person hurt by this. it’s all very messy. it is smeared with pain. bullies suck.

so there’s been a class meeting, and we’ve had a meeting with the teacher, and with the school psychologist. it’s all quite informative. to say that i’m furious would be an understatement, but what i want is not retribution, but resolution. i want it to stop; i want it to be stopped for good.

anyway, anyway. this horrible thing happened to my boy. the things about it that suck are nearly everything. the things that do not suck are of interest and so i will share them:

about Squire Tuck:
what saves this story is that Squire Tuck told me about it, that he knew it had to be talked about, and when he was done talking and listening he said he didn’t feel like talking about it any more for a while. there is licking wounds and there is picking scabs, and Squire Tuck knows which is which. that’s a strength.
and i liked that when we talked about it, that he doesn’t think of this in terms of what he should change about himself so that it doesn’t happen again, but in terms of how he should deal with this person so that it doesn’t happen again. he knows he’s not broken. i think that’s awesome.

about others:
this feeling i have that everyone i tell becomes part of this mass of people behind us, this collection of people who love Squire Tuck and see him for who he is. is he a silly boy, is he american, does he have blue eyes, is he small for his age, does he have a freakish fondness for swords and fantasy? yes.
is discussing these things moving towards solving the problem? no, not really. because first of all, we can’t change most of it, and secondly, he’s not the one who did something wrong.
i knew i’d have to cover some ground again that i’m tired of covering; i expected that. BUT! i did not expect his friend’s mother to take me out for wine and perspective; his circus teacher to offer to walk him to school; my parents to make a late-night call offering any assistance i could imagine. friends and family: the army of Squire Tuck.

so that’s where we are.

tutor to two-two tuckova

tuckova1 Comment

i dream that my ear itches and i go looking for a q-tip. they’re not on the bathroom shelf where they usually are; they’re on a different shelf, but it’s not any kind of a stressful hunt or anything, just, huh, different shelf. i wake up and my ear itches and i go looking for the q-tips, which i now remember i moved to the top shelf a few days ago. "well, well, you!" i tell my reflection, "you make my dreams come true!"

kids these days: which is more surprising, that a third of all czechs (mostly young people) don’t have any idea what happened on november 17th, or that only a third of california students passed their physical fitness test? those who cannot remember the past will be condemned to do sit-ups.

ah, here’s a topic. i hired a tutor for Squire Tuck last week. he starts this week so i have no real evaluation yet. i just know that Friar Tuck is unable to get over the wall that is Squire Tuck’s lack of organization, focus, and mainly interest, and i gave up slamming my head against it last year. grades have been slightly worse than poor this year. he comes home with homework that Friar Tuck is only able to explain by virtue of his fascination with grammar ("ah, this pluperfect verb is derived from the noun that shares a root word with this other noun"), and then Squire Tuck pulls stuff like, "now, what’s a noun again?" Friar Tuck has a full head of beautiful hair and i can’t watch him tear it out anymore; nor am i about to put my own long luxurious locks* at stake. i signed on for a number of things in parenting, including the understanding that i would be puked on more than twice, but i am not ready to drill a child endlessly in subjects about which he does not give a damn. i would have thought that education in matters such as subject and predicate was the job of the school (i thought my job was "try to aim for the bucket next time, sweetie"), but i would apparently have been wrong, and i am not willing to fill the gap, but i can see the kid is getting lost. hence: tutor.

*ha

Friar Tuck and i had a bit of disagreement about it, because getting someone to drill Squire Tuck on the difference between a noun and a verb, however creatively and professionally they do so, does not solve the fact that Squire Tuck couldn’t care less which is which. i think it’s worth trying anyway. i don’t know, but i bet i’ll turn out to be right. i usually am.

to his credit, despite his inability to tell a maple leaf from an oak leaf, Squire Tuck can run for 20 minutes solid AND he knows what november 17th was about.

yesterday we watched amadeus and then we watched the hurra torpedo video. it was a musical mashup of ginormous proportions! and i think: all parents want their children to be happy. i can be constantly disappointed that he doesn’t use his intelligence for the greatest possible profit to himself and others, whether or not he’s happy, or i can stand in the front row and cheer while he slams the refrigerator door down with percussive humor with his pants falling off him, as long as he’s happy. and i think it’s clear that i’m a parent who is going to fully applaud kitchen appliance 80s cover bands. but i also think i should get him a tutor in case he decides to write an opera. so to speak. in whatever form it takes.

do be do be do

tuckova5 Comments

i’m not in my cleverest place. i have a dozen things on my mind and
every single one of them i start to talk gently to, ima lure you in and
figure you out, i say, and i hold it in my hands and then think this is
not the thing, this is not it, examining this will not make me
better or anything different and what is it with me and my need to
hold, to define, to describe. i start sentences that are full of
promise and then i feel like, i don’t know, haven’t i said this
sentence before. i know how i feel, you know how i feel, what possible
interest can there be in this for me. for you. anybody. even the things
themselves skulk away from me in a combination of fear and slithery
boredom that makes me wonder. what am i up to? i can’t say.

here’s one thing that i’m thinking about: why is it hard to do things
for myself physically? i don’t mean the way i look, like "why can’t i figure out the trick to mascara?" or "why does cutting my hair sound like so much bother?" about 10 years ago
i went through a thing where i couldn’t leave the house for a variety
of reasons, one of which was that i had this feeling that i shouldn’t
be in public without a bag over my head and i didn’t have a bag in the
house that would fit. it was a very complex feeling; i was not what you
would call at my most sane at the time. anyway, i’ve come to terms with
the fact that i have never been pretty but nor have i ever needed a
paper bag
over my head. when you get to know me you will say i am "actually kind
of attractive, in an unusual way". i know that now. but i had this
nasty thinking
about my appearance for years, alternating between self-loathing and a
sort of vaguely tolerant acceptance, and although now i like to think
of my attitude towards my appearance as "reasonable affection" the effects of the negativity are still
apparent, and it’s spread to areas
that aren’t about appearance but health. exercising is easy but
remembering to do it is hard. eating vegetables is easy but remembering
to buy them is hard. drinking water instead of coffee is easy but
somehow there’s the coffee in my hand again. why is that. none of these
things are even about long term results, it’s like immediate
gratification for me the minute i get my heart rate up over 120, and
the
next day when my stomach doesn’t feel all clotted and hateful, and the
night when i can fall asleep instead of lying in bed doing inventory of
all the bad things i’ve done in my life. and yet here i am.

i know people who don’t do things for themselves because
there’s this fear of failure, and i suspect it’s the same ridiculous logic. like, if
i don’t study and i get a C, i can say it’s because i didn’t study. but
if i study and get a C, then it’s because i’m stupid. i think at some
point i hitched my health to the idea of my looks, and although i know
that exercise, vegetables, and caffeine free won’t turn me out of a
pumpkin, i somehow have the lingering feeling that striving is somehow
setting myself up. not like setting myself up on a nice date with the
new improved me, but like, setting myself up to drop a bucket on my
head. so i’m fighting with this bitty leftover person in my head who doesn’t want us
to try to be good and fail to look good, and it’s a thumb war of
horrific proportions. today i had spinach and turkey for lunch, and
tvaroh with possibly the last tomato-flavored tomatoes of the year. it
was good.

but you see how this is not the thing, isn’t it; how i almost pinned it
but it got out from under me. it’s not like i can’t get where i’m
going, it’s that i get halfway there and think: hasn’t this been
covered? get a spine and think about something that really takes your
whole brain instead of another mirthless dive at how old habits die
hard. glar.

stupid

tuckova4 Comments

three ways i am stupid

1. games. we like games, we especially like catan but also i am quite partial to alhambra. transamerica was our gateway game. we don’t play as much as we used to but we still play. all these modern games. when my parents came to visit i told my dad, "if you would like to buy us an awesome hostess gift…" (see how we are polite, my family, with the hostess gifts, but how i am also a tactless cow who says what she wants her gift to be? what can i say, we were in the store looking at the box and i was overcome) ANYWAY, i tell my dad, "…buy us ‘risk’."
dude, risk is hard. i don’t mean risk is hard to figure out, i mean it is very hard to sit for six hours watching yourself getting slowly and certainly removed from the board. six hours of my life that i will never get back, the last hour of which was just watching the other three battle it out, as i was already off the board.

so i am stupid in that a) i asked for risk; b) i suck at risk; and c) i want to play again.

2. i didn’t vote. i thought you had until tuesday to mail it, so i thought i would wait until my parents were gone to finally sit down with my two kilos of decision making. i usually decide on the basis of what’s important to me, rather than on party lines, so sometimes it takes me a while, but i thought i could get it done on sunday and off by monday, a day before the deadline. SADLY, absentee ballots need to ARRIVE before the election day. so, whoops. i resign my right to complain for two years. i suck. i don’t think my vote would have swung things in my state, but i feel pretty crappy anyway; it’s the first election i’ve missed in 20 years i think; that includes the year when i knew so little about so many of the issues that i voted largely on the basis of which statement had the fewest grammatical errors, rationalizing that attention to detail was probably just as important as anything else.

so i am stupid in that a) i didn’t vote. there’s nothing more to it.

3. i’ve given up thinking i’m always right and i thought somehow that when i gave it up it would all be easy. i thought that if i was willing to accept that some people were just different from me, and that the choices and opinions they had that would be bad or wrong for me didn’t make the people holding those opinions bad or wrong that it would be over. i thought that somehow when i didn’t want to argue in order to win anymore that i wouldn’t have to argue to defend myself either. i do the wan smile and the yes-i’m-sure-that’s-best-for-you but somehow that’s not enough. i am not stupid for not wanting to fight (and i’ve learned some things by just listening instead of arranging my arguments in tidy formation for the slaughter), and i don’t think i am stupid for smiling til my teeth itch instead of rearing up and screaming you are so wrong, you stupid waterbag of brainwashed idiotic thoughtlessness, not only do i not agree but i would rather cut off my thumbs than… i think i am stupid for having thought that my lack of interest in confrontation would mean i wouldn’t have to be confronted.

so i am stupid in that i thought not voicing the screams in my head would quiet them, when instead it just turned them into a constant stream of static, no less loud and not much less irritating.

that’s all, i think. other than that? perfect. seriously.

Squire Tuck

tuckova4 Comments

Squire Tuck is pretty awesome. it’s interesting to me, our ability to go on for days
and weeks just sort of existing together in a calm affection and then one day he’ll enrage
me to the point that i think MAYBE BOARDING SCHOOL because i will never be able to handle him as a teen, and then the next
day he’ll melt my heart. recently it’s a lot more of the melting. this is preferred by a majority of the panel.

school is not so good, he is (or is
perceiving himself to be) the boynobodylikes, he doesn’t seem to think
people hate him but there is an stated absence of affection that
baffles me. he seems uninterested
in doing anything about that. i think that this is maybe okay. i told
him today on the walk to school that nearly everybody i know who is
interesting now had a pretty shitty time of it when they were kids, one
way or another, and he said, it’s only school that’s bad and i’m trying
not to mind it.

i wish i could make it better for him somehow but i think that i can’t
change the actual problem. i think the only way to make it
"better" is to counterbalance it and that effort seems to be going much
better. it’s i guess month six of "let’s not talk about school unless
Squire Tuck brings it up" and i’m not saying i’m perfect but we have
discovered a full range of other topics that are tremendously
interesting and much less stressful that we can talk about.

like on the walk to school we pass this guy almost every
day. he has a huge dog that he has clearly not trained and can barely
control; he walks his dog around the school every morning at the same
time the kids are arriving and you see him struggle to hold the dog
from attacking other dogs and small children. i hate this guy so much i
have to cross the street so i don’t punch him. "there goes that
donkey-hole again," says Squire Tuck as we cross the street; Squire Tuck, who is
trying to model for me cursing without cursing. donkeyhole is not as
good as pitchforks but i like it. in addition to its being clever, i
like that it sounds like "don quixote". your anger is tilting at
windmills, it says. lighten up.

one of the things we were told to do was to read more with him in
czech. it is hard to find great books in czech for this age. i go to
the bookstore and it’s row upon row of something translated from
english, and the translations of children’s books here are notoriously
bad. some are good i’m sure but i don’t know
which. this kills me because i know which books are good in english and
can talk about YA literature until my teeth are blue; i go into a
bookstore here and it’s nothing but series books from english, most of
which stank in the first place, translated by someone who at first
glance has translated "indian" as if it meant "american indian". i put
the book back on the shelf and walk away. Friar Tuck usually winds up reading
the news with him. perhaps that’s edifying.

right now they’re sitting in the living room; they’re reading a fairy
tale by jan werich, one that features a king giving a poor but
clever maid a riddle and she solves it and he marries her. i like
this version because it goes on after "happily ever after" and also
because it’s not remotely insulting to kids. also, it’s funny. they are
laughing pretty hard and that’s a good sound.

a winter’s tale

tuckova5 Comments

he said he was sorry and i think he was. i think that what happens between us is something i can tell you about and i can try to explain but i don’t know if it’s something you’ll understand. you’ve just never been here, you’ve never been in my shoes.

he’s here for me when i need him: he not only has my back but he warms it, it’s focused and intense. he’s here enough that i feel like i can trust him, rely on him. he brings light into my life and without the person he is when he’s wonderful– i don’t know much, but i know that i have never been as happy as i have been then. sitting outside, a cold beer and the sun on my face and Squire Tuck frolicking and this is what i want and it’s who i want to be. this year was probably even better than most, despite the stormy unpleasantness in august.

and it was good for so long. september and october were like long apologies, like a daily dose of flowers and warmth to compensate for august. everything could be done: plant a late garden and it bursts forth. i walked home at twilight and felt safe, like i didn’t need layers and layers of subterfuge, like i could be–not naked, i never feel that safe, but like i could show myself and it would be okay. like i could flirt a little, something low-necked, a bit of ankle showing. you know.

the window replacement? that was hard times. what if he hadn’t been here for me during that? what would i have done. and my parents? only a week, but the whole time, everything was perfect, i danced alongside my mother kicking leaves and saying "see how he’s good? see how he’s good to me? see why i stay? all this beauty!"

but then today i woke up and it was as if all that happiness never happened. he says, "i held back as long as i could but you knew my nature when you came to me." and i did, but still, it was like ice that wanted to rip through me, take out my heart, make me question everything. it was a cold slap in the face; it was siberia. and there will be no relief.

it will go on like this for months. there’s no point in fighting it. i know how to handle what’s gone and what’s past help. i will hunker down and take it because i know in the end it makes me stronger. or actually i don’t know that but it’s what i say and it’s how i get through.

i know some people who think i should leave. who think that four months of bliss doesn’t make up for six months of crying every day, tears frozen to my eyelashes and knowing that every day etches more wrinkles into my face than a month of cigarettes. the fear of being knocked down, sliding, the constant ringing in my ears and the feeling that maybe i chose wrong. i don’t know what to say to those people. i usually say, "come in the spring. come in the summer."

first snowfall today, y’all.
please to remember that i speak the metaphor fluently, hm.

razor sadness

tuckova3 Comments

i am sorry that i’ve been doing this to you lately, this "let me tell you about our friendship" nonsense, this "let me tell you why you are important" because i know how tiresome that is. it was 20 years ago i read the sentence "when can we stop talking about this relationship and have it" and i knew it was as true as anything i’d ever read. friendships are not made by constant definiton; they are made by the perfect mobius of being there and needing someone to be there. need is too strong a word, but you know. friendships, real friendships, are shared interest and shared value and over time the shared space that is the two of you standing back to back against the world and the shared space of knowing that when you really fuck up, that friend is there to face you, tell you you fucked up and then brush your hair from your eyes so you can see your way out.

given that we know that, and that part of our friendship is that we know that, my recent apparent need to TELL you that is surely a rub. i don’t mean it how it spills from my eyes. you hand me a tissue and i take it and this is what’s important, not that i tell you "you always have tissue when i need it" but that you had it and i took it. surely that’s enough. i know that’s enough.

but i also feel wrapped in uncertainty and meanness and i am afraid that this leaks from me like my tears and when i tell you you always have tissue what i mean to say is i am sorry that lately my tears are as full of bile as they are of salt. rag water and bitters and blue ruin; i am afraid of spilling out over the sides to anyone who will listen. i am afraid of being engulfed, i am afraid of dragging you down when i grab your lifeline. i hope that by explaining how what you do means something to me, that this will somehow protect you. i mean to admire your buoyancy, not to pull you under when there’s no need.

i realize that in a way stating my high estimation of you is a way of underestimating you. back to back we face each other. i meant to thank you and leave it at that. thank you. i mean that.