Q. Is Jodi really fabulous?
A. Not really, no. Here is a brief history of me:

1. Every time I watch Mary Poppins, I cry
2. When I was young, I thought that cats were girls and dogs were boys
3. Ditto horses and cows, respectively
4. My great uncle had six toes on each foot
5. I love the smell of gasoline, a barn after it rains and newborn babies
6. Courtney Salgat (a boy) gave me my first real kiss, age 11
7. I have been held at the end of a sawed-off shotgun and mugged
8. I wish I could be a small child again, so I could ask my grandfather what it was like to fight in a war
9. And if he killed people
10. 36-C
11. At six, I convinced myself and everyone in my first grade
class that my parents adopted me from James Taylor and Carly Simon
12. I wish I could draw
13. Last July, I caught eight toads in one night and took them home. After a few days, I let them go
14. I can drink 32 ounces of water without stopping
15. Theoretically, 14 means I'm capable of playing the didjeridoo
16. I took piano lessons for 10 years and can't play for shit
17. I worry too much
18. I will not drink soup from a cup or eat a hamburger on bread (yes, I understand that buns are comprised of bread)
19. Age 16: Jim Klaffer broke up with me on Valentine's Day for a dumb cheerleader -- I should clarify -- a cheerleader who happened to be dumb
20. I saved two children from drowning on separate occasions
21. I'm getting better about letting corn touch my mashed potatoes
22. I believe in wuv, twue wuv
23. I reduce, reuse, recycle
24. At 21, I shaved my head
25. My mother cried
26. It grew back
27. I seem to be attracted to men who won't eat raw tomato
28. The following words fill my whole mouth when I say them: aqueous, moulder, penumbra, honeysuckle, dangle, curiosity, nebula, blustery, rawboned, cumulonimbus, blink and earlobe
28. Lists are a cop-out way to write
29. I resent authority
30. I have never stolen anything tangible or concrete
31. Hot breezes ... mmmmmmmm
32. My mother, my uncle and I were all born at 7:08; they were a.m. I was p.m.
33. I think mamas should let their babies grow up to be cowboys, cowgirls and cowintersexed individuals if their babies so choose
34. I smell terrific
35. Owls scrare me
36. Chrissy Kendziorski dared me to pee in her cat's litter box when we were eight. I did it
37. She ratted me out that day and continued through high school
38. I have one of my great-grandma's shawls, and I wear it unabashedly, knowing full-well how ugly it is
39. I have little patience for most people but TONS for my children
40. I went to my junior prom on crutches
41. I no longer allow societal pressure to denounce: hamgurgers, other red meats, television, alcohol, the JC Penney catalog, diet soda, cigarettes or fatalism, to affect the way I live
42. Boys with glasses make my hands sweat
43. I think it's cute how the MSN Messenger crying emoticon blinks twice, then cries; it's so mimetic
44. Kermit is my favorite Muppet
45. I love being out on my porch in a thunderstorm
46. Musicals are a bastardization of opera. Ideal effigy: Andrew Lloyd Webber
47. I like brussel sprouts
48. My closet is full of brown
49. The word "meadowlark" breaks my heart
50. I sometimes spit for distance
51. Hobbins
52. Things you might consider drinking but shouldn't: ketchup (this holds for all condiments/ingredients), pickle juice, Jagermeister, Grolsch, yellow snow (melted, neat -- looks like Chivas, is not Chivas), BaNO3, blood (you know who you are)
53. (Don't you, Monica?)
54. I should have done this list as an HTML ordered list. That way, every time I wanted to put something closer to the beginning or the end of the list, my having to reorder the list would be precluded. The list would reorder itself, because that is what ordered lists do

Yes, Michigan, the feeling is forever, but soon I will (ad)venture into the great metropolis and leave this place behind. However much of a morass it seems at times, Flint is my home and I am proud to say so. It's sort of like falling so in love with your toilet, you can't bear to use it anymore.

10. All kinds of flowers growing wild in my yard
9. Not locking my doors
8. Hearing the actual quote "I know all about dirt plugging up machines. I used to live on a dirt road," uttered in all seriousness
7. Pointing to my city on my hand
6. The bittersweetness of midwest living
5. Striking up conversations about rebuilding carbuerators with turkey-hunting exotic dancers (you can't do that just anywhere)
4. Farms: one-inch corn sprouts and the bright whiteness of newborn calves might be the most precious thing imaginable after waiting all winter for the last patch of snow to melt
3. The fact that even in the summer, cottonwood trees make everything look freaking snowy
2. Tucows
1. Living within 15 miles of my entire family

Because it is 2:34a.m. and I am have trouble sleeping these days, I've been doing a lot of thinking these days. It's been a contemplative weekend for me. All random, off course. Paging Dr. Freud, I meant "of course," but at this hour I am too lazy to backspace. You may as well know the truth. So there you have it: I'm a redundant, lazy, misspelling professional editor, but only at well, now it's 2:39 on a Sunday morning. Where did the time go?

-- Should I or should I not write a letter to the America's Choice brand generic food corporation regarding their Swiffer-like floor cleansing moist towelettes? I find the towelettes themselves exceptionally moist, but the packaging in which they come crumbles when I close the container onto my freshly cleansed surface. This is most frustrating. Their canned corn is top-notch. I would certainly mention that in any correspondence.

-- When do little children start remembering? I have scant memories beginning around age two. I remember walking along the hearth at my grandparents house and bumping my head on the bricks that held the mantle in place. My head was bleeding onto my yellow dress. I was wearing those baby tights with gigantic butt ruffles, and my cousin Adriana plopped me on the kitchen table so everyone could examine me. I thought her name was exotic. Many of my other memories are snapshots. I even watch movies from when my children were babies and don't remember those days going by. It's sad, I think.

-- Fanny-packs: why? Please stop. No excuse exists. The accompanying all-cotton short set -- ok -- comfort. Tennis shoes? Arch support. But fanny-packs. No. There are other places to store bingo chips, quarters, cameras, sunglasses, whatever it is you feel you need strapped to your waist. You don't. Stop. For the love of Christ. Stop it.

-- I'm going to law school. I wrote a personal statement that was, well, personal. It details my experience growing up, and watching my teenage brother go to adult prison for a petty crime. I discuss the way it tore our family apart and prevented me from going to Princeton, or even feeling like putting forth much effort at college. I wonder if by doing so, I was exploiting him in some way? I wonder if he felt abandoned when after his first letter home, in which he wrote that a fellow inmate had been soaked in toilet bowl cleaner and set on fire, I never wrote him or went to visit. I am studying child advocacy -- specifically juvenile justice.

-- I installed a firewire card all by myself today. Why won't my computer see my freaking video camera?

-- It is now 3:05. Why am I awake and talking to the INTARWEB? Oh right. Dick Cheney married his high school sweetheart. We could've had gay daughters together, Richard, and I wouldn't have even testified before the senate that rap music makes the children act rambunctious. You're my favorite cowboy even though I hate cowboys.

Mama's: please don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. I didn't want to have to get all bold-face on you guys, but I feel this is very important. I still endorse all other forms of cowhandling found here under item #33, and many other career paths for the bovine-oriented individual. I myself went that route. I still love Bon Jovi. And Dick Cheney. I love you Dick Cheney.

As seen on Murff TV. I think he's affecting the children. At dinner a few nights ago, the waitress placed a perfectly boring white oval pizza plate in front of my three-year-old son who said like some kind of Bhuddist ninja turtle "it's beauuuutiful dude." On with the show.
mount up

NO MATTER WHAT

1. Baby I'm a Star -- Prince and the Revolution: It makes me think of those heavily made up speed freak little unitard blond clone dollies dancing their hearts out on Star Search with your host Ed McMahon and panting into the microphone after he asks them their names and ages "Darthy, I'm sickth." "Brook. Six" "Megan. Seven." "Brett. Six" Brett, you're a stud. I'm proud of you kids. I love that song.

2. Ocean Man -- Ween: Nice ending choice Producers of the Spongebob Movie. This song is sunny when the trees are bare naked and everything is gray.

3. Africa -- Toto: When my little brother was actually little, I remember one day we were planting spruce trees. My parents have a nursery. I was around six, so he was about three. I would punch a hole in the ground with a spade, and he would drop in a seedling. We would each then step on either side of the seedling with our matching Pumas to snug the dirt up to the hole. As we moved along in 8-foot increments he sang "I left my brains down in Africa." Now every time I hear the song I get teary and laugh uncontrollably. Yes, I am dumb.

4. Filmstar -- Suede, The London Suede?: Sometimes they are Suede; sometimes they are The London Suede. I am not an expert in the field of hide-ology, but I can attest to the fact that this song is saxy. It makes me want to be a man with a ducky curl on the top of my hair and a snarly lip. Rawr.

5. You are My Sunshine -- Standard: Self-evident.

Grace has always drawn weird things, and I have loved them all, but this is my clear favorite. It's her "when she was still in my tummy." Now let's just assume I'm wearing mittens and toe shoes, and that I don't have penis limbs. Anyway, I was impressed when she told me "to look at how huge your heart is because I love you so much." I hope that's how she really sees me. I wish I saw myself that way. I see her that way, but there are few adults I see that way -- as having huge hearts. People are jaded and ultra conscious. I am when I'm afraid. I sound like a simpleton, I know, but it would be nice if we could see each other the way children do, with huge hearts and the benefit of the doubt. Scotty had his first day of school yesterday. He belly-crawled under the dollhouse table, shimmied the length of the radiator continued under the teachers' table, between their legs because they were both seated, past the snack table, and rose to all fours at the slide, made it to his knees and eventually stood before I realized he was following a boxelder beatle the entire time. Pretty things are small. (I'm listening to "You Still Believe in Me" from Pet Sounds, Vocals only).

If you meet a robot, and the robot shows you a picture of a Geisha, you should ask if it's his mom. And if she's a cowboy.

This article on a newer form of spyware, termed kruegerware, is pretty interesting. I should qualify that: to me. A few months back, I got Webjacked to Cool Web Search, and it was awful. I'm not going to keeping splitting hairs about Wired's recent purchase of a brand new pair of Bad Idea Jeans. Suffice it to say that kruegerware is aptly named, but should be Kruegerware technically.

Matt was nice enough to guide me through the removal process. I was able to get rid of it without going through all this hullaballoo, but this guy is pretty entertaining, especially when he exorcises the PC down around step 12.

My point in saying any of this is that the aforementioned article says this:

'On its Web site, Cool Web Search denies any involvement with such pieces of kruegerware and condemns its use. The company suggests such programs may be the work of "some webmasters, who are sending visitor traffic to us."'

Those bastardmasters! Who would do something so cruel ... to force you to make considerably more money than you could ever dream of making with a domain name like that, no offense. That reminds me to stop what I'm doing and go register mydomainnameisbetterthanyours.com right this very minute. You clicked it, didn't you? Silly monkey.

I've been trying to motivate myself to resume work on my masters thesis for some time now. While I was browsing the Library of Congress' online image catalog, the photo above, which is part of this series gave me the push I needed, I think. OK, don't gag on the pretense. Hate the game, baby. My thesis is on the poetics of American maternity -- how perceptions of the childbearing body have changed throughout U.S. history and the like. I use poetry to map a trajectory of change reflecting interplay between social, literary and physical bodies. It's all very boring, but I also incorporate visual history, which is why I was browsing the catalog to begin with. There now, we've come full circle.

Of course, I'm a very big idiot with a very little attention span, so I jus had to narrate or otherwise provide commentary on some of the blander photos. You know how it is.

1. Well, I sure don't want "the trouble." That sounds bad. But I'd be more worried about "the myrackfeelslikesoccerballs."
   
   


2. This here is a wonder drug. I know when cholera and teething get me down ... I'm no cholerologist, but are cholera and teething really in the same disease category? Technically, teeth aren't even a diease ... except for maybe in the UK.
   
   


3. "Hello Eloise. How was your day? Doesn't matter. Put little Dwight David in his cage and go make me a highball."
   
   


4. "Hey, watch where you're pick-axing. Some of us are trying to lactate and weave ... thing ... in high heels up in hee-ah."
   
   


5. Apparently wherever there's a windfall of manual labor a-happenin', there's a 19th Century French chick a-nursin'. Is this some sort of pre-Marxist commentary on the value of social reproduction as wage labor? I mean, the mid to late 19th century is, after all, when a boom of industrialization fueled a rift between the public and domestic sectors. Plus it's France. Methinks somebody's being cheeeeeeeeee-keeeeeeeee. I tried, but you mostly have to imagine the lilt there.
   
   

OK kids. I hope we've all learned something. Beware "the trouble."

Ok, I had heard the Dynamite Hack cover of Boyz N the Hood before. That was funny enough, although much like The Gourds' cover of Gin-N-Juice, which almost TEH entire INTARWEB attributed either to Ween or Phish, no one knew fo shizzle what the dizzle was. So I'm taking a stand right up front: the NWA cover is Chicago punk-poppers Dynamite Hack. The latter is The Gourds. As an aside, I think that as the future ex Mrs. Dean Ween, I would be aware if something of this auditory magnitude had transpired under my nose. Of course, that's not why we're here.

We are here because someone very, very brilliant synced the cover to anime clips, and if I ever meet that person, this blog entry is redeemable for one big, fat kiss on the cheek.

Click here to be dazzled, assuming you have a soul. OH! and bandwidth. The file is 30MBs.

I hurt myself laughing at Googlisms of my own name. Yes, I realize this makes me a big, vain dork, but so does blogging.

Googlism for: jodi

jodi is proud to say that for at least seven years now she has conducted all her private affairs under her originally assigned social security number
My plan is foolproof!

jodi is well quailified to assist clients achieve their financial goals
Together, we can be WINARS!

jodi is a daunting if not impossible task
I'm just misunderstood in my own lifetime like all supergeniuses.

jodi is extraordinary in that she doesn't just design attractive pieces
She also enjoy Reese's Pieces.

jodi is so hot
Blink blink.

jodi is an accomplished feng shui practitioner and public speaker
Yes, grasshopper. Me talk pretty one day.

jodi is busy with the active lives of her boys and her church
In that order. It makes sense.

jodi is a beautiful
What is geriatric librarian? I'll take finish the sentence for $500 Alex.

jodi is a ten year old shepherd that was found as a stray
Hi. I'm bo peep. I've got the sheep.

jodi is teaming with dj lukewarm
So all you sucka MCs step to me if you think you can ride this beat.

jodi is currently free to users thanks to support from the british computer society and oxford university press
They're good people. Salt of the earth.

jodi is tying the paddles onto the canoe before a portage
I'll explain later.

jodi is the editor of the canning gazette
Oh, like you never canned anything before.

jodi is an official member of what club? member #40222 of leinenkugel's leinie lodge
Can I get a what what for the LLL?

jodi is on the bottom
No comment.

jodi is a fascinating artist and a fascinating person
Doy.

jodi is a member of the american institute of certified public accountants and the ohio society of certified public accountants
I can count to 25!

jodi is well worth not missing
I think there's a punctuation error here. It should read "jodi is well -- worth not missing!

jodi is nothing like my gaters name
Good ole Bitey.

jodi is responsible for answering the phones
It's true!

Before I catch "The Dumb," and my mom's been worried about "The Gay" this whole time. Jesus doesn't get my e-mails, and I can prove it. I was driving along yesterday, fumbling for a CD when the radio piqued my interest. Now, the ONDCP has made some pretty huge cognitive leaps in the past, and I'm no longer shocked by it. I'm not a crusader for the legalization of "The Pot." It's just not my number one cause, and I don't see that changing. However, if someone else wants to do all the legwork and get it on the ballot, I salute you. I'm a doowhuttchyalike-Digital-Underground-style kinda gal. That's just how mama rolls.

With that caveat, it follows that I was amused but not shocked when I saw the ads implying that pot gets you pregnant, makes you shoot your friends and run down small children -- this is straight out of Reefer Madness by the way -- all while you single-handedly make the terrorists win. Wearing hypocrisy like a badge of honor*** if it means keeping your kids from giggling and eating all the cheetos, though, that's where I have to draw the line. I'd sooner believe that my brain was an Extra-strength Tylenol-laden ovule that came out of a chicken's ass, than believe that hypocrisy is admirable in any way shape or form. I am one with the metaphor, but my brain is not an egg. It is a highly convoluted network of neural pathways, unicorns and road-side phobia stands, so there. This new ad even takes a shot at vegetarians for no apparent reason. The first rule of good writing is "Know thine audience." They've got that covered, I'll admit. Big, grunting because-ah-said-so-and-ahm-the-boss-and-ah-don't-have-to-justify-nothin'-cause-this-is-Amurrka-goddamnit morons are going to buy that for a dollar all day long.

Now, I'm not one to rant without offering a solution, so here goes. If Kerrey loses the election, sell your belongings, cut your losses and RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN! Run for Canada if they'll have you. Bring back bacon and be humble.


***You need RealPlayer or another audio player what supports SMI files to open the link.

Like all medicines, ZOLOFT may cause side effects in some people. In clinical studies, few people had to stop taking ZOLOFT because of side effects. The most common ones are:

baby chicks
dry mouth
upset stomach
decreased appetite
feeling unusually tired or sleepy
trouble sleeping
sexual problems in men and women
diarrhea/loose stools
tremor
feeling agitated
indigestion
increased sweating

Two days ago, my daughter stuck a button up her nose. She called to me from the bathtub to say "Mommy, there's a button in my nose." I was taken aback, of course, so I said "What? What button?"

"A button from my sweater." Being naturally intrigued, I headed for the laundry basket to find her sweet little sweater, indeed, missing a button. So I freaked. I looked up her nose and squeezed it. I couldn't see or feel anything. I called my mom, and tried to get her to convince Grace that she had concocted the whole thing ... to no avail. Finally, being two parts desperate, and one part evil, I told Grace that if she really had a button in her nose, we would have to go to the doctor and he would stick something up there to get it. It would probably hurt.

She decided that she hadn't stuck a button in her nose after all. It had been a potato of all things, and I relaxed, secure in the notion that she was just having an inordinately imaginative day. So bathed and bedded, she asked me to tell her a story. I changed the context of The Boy who Cried Wolf to involve a little girl who cried button-up-the-nose. I finished in full didactic fashion and began Gracie Red Riding Hood on a more playful note.

Mrs. Riding Hood had just handed Gracie the basket of goodies for Grandma when flesh Grace sneezed. Unfortunate me was leaning over her at the moment, so I got it right in the face. She threw her head back to sneeze again and I lifted my hand. When her sneeze was complete, I was holding a button. Luckily, my verbal filter kicked in because I was thinking NO F*$#ING WAY! I was totally stunned.

This all begged the question: "Grace, what possessed you to insert a button (that barely would have fit up MY nose, by the way) into your nostril?" She replied quite simply, "I put it up there so the puppy wouldn't get it." Coupled with the fact that she deliberately BIT the button off the sweater, which she divulged to my mother, her logic must have been "This button clearly isn't safe attached to my clothing, so I'll rip it off and stick it in my nose." Failsafe.

I've had a run of piss-poor luck. Last Monday, I wake up with this nagging pain that comes and goes, only this time it hurt. A lot. I'm not one to toot my proverbial own horn, but I did have two kids without what I'm told is pure pharmacuetical bliss compared to my au naturale go-rounds. Pardon me if I don't want a garden hose shoved in my spine. The point is that pain doesn't usually, well, pain me.

The cold is biting my face when I wrapped the kids in blankets to carry them into my mom's house so I can go to work that morning. In my bustling, I don't notice that I knock my purse into the driveway. Alone, that would be annoying, but since I got all the way to the farm before I perform the infinite reaching for big, fat NOTHING, the annoyance is magnified. As resident person-what-gets-up-early, I open the office three days per week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. As I continue to slap the passenger seat of my van for my phantom satchel, the phone rings. On the other end, my mother is offering to re-bundle my progeny and meet me half way because I needed my keycard to open the door for the soon-to-form flock of peeved early birds. A flock=three people, by the by. "No, no, no," I said. "Someone else with a key will be here in the next 10 minutes."

Sure enough, after 10 minutes and the arrival of another employee, a coworker with a key arrives to save the day. He looks at me funny because I am sitting, with a key to the door, in my running car. I tell him the story and he procedes to unlock the door WITHOUT his keycard. So I not only lose my door-opening super power, but I look like an idiot doing it. Fine.

4:30 p.m. I attempt to take Grace to dance class. I have time to run my disgusting, salty car through the car wash on the way. Our turn: we pull in and some half-baked joker takes my money and tries to count my change while joker #2 soapies up my car. Swoosh, swoosh swoosh go the big blue chamois strips. Grace points out that the soap looks just like marshmallows. I concur. Swoosh, swoosh, sw ... the chamoises stop. What's this? Joker #1 makes a window rolly downy hand motion at me. I guess making an automatic window button pushy motion probably wouldn't get the point across as well. I would be all "What? You want me to look at the ground?" Joker #1 informs me that their chain broke and it will take joker #2, 20 minutes or so to fix the problem, so I should just "sit tight, little lady." Oh no you dittint. I say "I have to be somewhere else entirely in 20 minutes, so if you'd hose off my car, I need to go." He keeps my 7 bucks.

Tuesday begins. My shower is making a funny noise. I cut myself shaving, and since this type of injury can be anemic, I don't notice until a few hours later that it's ruined my cute, cute socks. Sitting at a stoplight on the way to lunch, an old lady ass-ends my car. Jasen and Jon were with me. Incidentally, Jennifer Connelly, Parker Posey and Drew Berrymore should let Jasen buy them each a burrito and a pop. I take the collision well. By this point, I'm elevating being graceful about my own misfortune to an art form. No. I'm not. Sometimes I confuse the inside of my head with "the way things really are." I actually feel terrible that the old lady who hit us was crying and then the cop gave her a ticket. I believe that the sun really was in her eyes. I don't know why law enforcement personnel exact demoralization. Bad form. Of course the equally humiliating insurance industry wouldn't pay my claim if the poor lady wasn't at fault. Quite a quandry.

5:00 p.m. Much to no one's surprise, my doctor finds a big lumpy thing on my left ovary later that day. I guess it's a surprise that I actually sought attention because < white stripes >girl, I have no faith in medicine< /white stripes >. I wish HTML really worked that way because I would so totally < wail on a guitar > all the way through every document. No exceptions. The doctor orders an ultrasound for the next day, and gave me medicine that did nothing but make me puke, no offense to the manufacturer. Wait, did I express regret for insulting a pharmacuetical company? Erase, erase.

The next day. A while before my appointment, a nurse calls to confirm my ultrasound and asks me if I've had one before. I have. "So you know about the water, she says." I do. "Three 8-oz glasses an hour before, right?" Heavens no. She corrects me. "Four 6-oz glasses an hour before." That was more confusing than unlucky I guess. I drive my now crappy car, on which I still owe a whole bunch of money, to the sonography place. A no-nonsense radiological technical ultrasonic picture taker lady squirts cold stuff all over my tummy and jams her wand into my bladder, which is about to runneth over. My doctor later informs me that my cyst is 4.7cm, and generally anything under 5cm, they just observe. I'll just have to deal with it for at least another six weeks.

In other news, I found out that my house payment is going up by $100 per month due to an escrow miscalculation on the part of my mortgage company. Plus, last night, my dog peed my bed -- not to mention that by publicly stating all of this, I sound like a totally whiny baby. I mean, there's no way that hoity-toity two-shoes felt a small little pea through a stack of 50 mattresses. Suck it up already, right? A little help here?

Dear Doctor Name Withheld:

Because you have big loopy curls, I am granting your request to see me again.  I've recounted our first meeting numerous times, and with every mental revision, I grow less awkward.  For instance, now when you tell me I can return to have my acrylic tooth bond replaced -- acrylic tooth bond, indeed --  I do not quip "How much do that costs?"  Oh no.  By draft 17, I laugh coyly like this "huhuhuhhuh" and have some clever retort straight out of a film.  You say "There's no decay; you have lovely teeth, but we can fix this chip for you.  It should last another six or seven years."  And I say "Well it's either that or learn to think gaps are sexy, I guess."  At this point, because we're in a movie and not Burton-tucky, the hygeinist, who has busied herself arranging floss into coils  for later distribution, smirks with her back turned.  If I were really that whipsmart and audacious, her floss would've unrolled crazily when she spun around to shoot me you-shame-faced-hussy daggers.  I mean, if Dixie is the bible belt, Michigan must be the bible noose.  It's enough to asphyxiate a girl.  Blink blink.  I count the minutes until I'm under your big, bright lamp and pretty eyes again.

Gagging on my own words and a spit-sucking straw,

Jodi         

the lambing

 

peeking she would

                        grieve

the gleam

of his flawlessness

it brushed against

            the hazed eyes

of the broken poet

            the plump elbows

the fists

                        his soft bucket

rolled to the floorboards

                                                the twisted lark

                                                of death

smashed by the thrill

            of its own reflection

 

off a ways

gunmen gunned

            midwives

                        cooled their thumbs

between children

 

luring them here

                                    to grow

to find suspicious picnic table puddles

                        in late-night conversation

 

a shoulder dips

            through the cool industrial starglow

scapula angular and unkissed 

                                    it is the almost

unnoticed insignia

                        soaking the lumber

gathering at the bolts

                                                whispering:

we are poor

 

                                                                                                                                   

 

swiveling one through birth waters

            and vernix

footling body

                        squiggling electric

 

maybe she will take a lover

            by the lurking purslane                                                                         

 

                        suction cupped

                                    among bottle caps        

and grass in the cracked street

 

maybe she is the limber numerator

in some mad fraction

                                                the sad gap

a poised barricade fastened

            to twin fives

                       

she is smoothed by the ache for what is closest to her habits --

it is pretty

 

it has spoiled her hands

                        which she was using

                                    when she lapsed

            into the weak anemic sleep

 

and flipped her brain cells

            pill-blue

the swell of the boy

                        who made the lambing

and the keel

 

 

Postcard

 

The time between us looks on. 

That year birth waters shrugged

off running, filling their fiber

bubble when rivulets are what

they should have formed,

what they should have aspired to. 

My aim was to hands

as thick as yours, to the baby

who would not unfold

his new legs.  I aspired

to a box, Tilly Losch, her cloying

battement tendus coiled

under thick clothes, hands

muffed and rolling on a string �

to Thailand,  though the poked

eye of telling you so mumbles

its leaking aqueous humor 

in a single ephemeron,

a rectangle that I have stroked

into dust and pencil smudge

like a people against the blur

of tourists in their own land �

the blisters of orange orchid

bloom on cloth, the turquoise

center pocks sucked dry

by the straw-bill of privilege. 

Oh, to be talked to and seriously. 

In Chao Phraya�s mud, the glower

of ancient rape is stilted in dream

houses planked with smile.  A tired face

washes by the mirror unrecognized

two days before weeping I tumble

to my knees, listless caws muffled

in the crook of a new lover�s

song.  You smell her and turn

your head around to listen -- rub

of your heart scratch on a postcard

from Bangkok, April, year of the snake. 

 

Act One: Produce

Jodifabulous:  To self.*  "I'd like thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat, if we could cycle down some lane.  I'd like thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat if we could ride into the rain, no macs getting wet" ... I need bananas.  Asparagus.  Cucumber and tomato sandwiches.  I'm hungry, but not hungry enough to eat cucumbers and tomatoes on pumpernickel without salt and pepper.  I mean no salt and pepper -- dis-gus-ting.  Tripe-washed spinach.  I doubt that.  "Say a sunflower I became, I'd be growing in your rain."

Sateen NASCAR jacket guy: Beg your pardon?      

Jodifabulous: Heh.  Nothing.  To self (for real, I hope).   He needs a shave.

Act Two:  Deli-side

Bell: Ding!

Shower cap girl: What kin I gitcha?

Jodifabulous: I'd like a half-pound of the munster cheese please.

Scale: To self.  34, .44, .54

Jodifabulous: Humming.  "And in no tah-ahm, you'll be fah-ine."  Oh.  That's good.

Shower cap girl:  You sure?

Jodifabulous:  Yes, a little over.  It's fine.

Scale: Beep. Chick chick chick.

Shower cap girl: Anything else I can gitcha today?

Black Sharpie marking pen: Squeaky, squeaky, squeak.

Jodifabulous:  Nope.  I'm all set.

Shower cap girl:  OK.  You have a great day.

Jodifabulous:  OK.  You too.  To self.*  Skip the chip aisle.  Hey, beer!  Bass, Sierra Nevada.  Bass, Sierra Nevada.  Bass, Sierra Nevada.   Guinness? No.  Bass?  Sierra Nevada.  Now when I buy Tide, that'll go underneath ... yes ... underneath.  Jodifabulous places 6-pack in shopping trolley undercarriage and sings.  Out loud.  "Ohh, when you're cold I'll be there. Hold you tight, to me, to me, yeah. Ohh, when you're alone, I'll be there.  By your side, baby."  I love Sade.  Even though I eat it, ketchup is wrong.  The song ends.

Flourescent lights:  Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...

Act Three: Pet Sundries and Dairy

Jodifabulous: To self.*  This is the coolest grocery store ever.  "Have.  You.  Fed the fish to-dayayay."  I've been singing this whole trip.  I know all the wor ... JESUSTHISISAFARMERJACK!!! I'm adult Contemporary.  Yep, 27.  I'm 27.  If I were Kurt Cobain, I'd have my toe in a shotgun trigger right now ...  and now I know why.  What are the evil grocery lords going to play next.  Manic Street Preachers?  Suicide is Painless?  Oh well, I'm more of a crazy-old-hermit-lady-who-spites-love-because-she-lost-it-type anyway.  "Good night, you moonlight ladies."  I'm going all Miss Havisham tomorrow.

Curtain.

*By "To self," I mean to anyone in my general vicinity.  I lost the ability and the impetus to distinguish between "in my head" and "out loud" with punctuated "NO CLOTHES!" outbursts while giving birth for the second time, naked in a roomful of relatives who, taken separately, are allowed to see me naked, but at the same time ... awww man.

When I learned that Gwyneth Platrow was slated to play Sylvia Plath, the consumately mischaracterized arch poetess of blue-black-haired teens girls -- their boots worn through from gazing -- I prepared myself for the worst.  I imagined Margot Tenenbaum transposed with twill skirts and pearls.  The Sylvia Plath mythos has unfolded an Eeyore-esque cutout of the young woman confessional poet who kicks a stone across the grain of American literature toward her demise.  But reports of her anti-socialism have been greatly exagerrated, as has the emphasis placed on Ted Hughes' affairs as the trigger for her suicide. 

Still, loving and loving alone undid Sylvia Plath.  Her Unabridged Journals reveal an intensely neurotic whimsy that latches lamprey-style to the ideals of romantic love, motherhood, language and the poetry of each.  This film reveals the same intensely neurotic whimsy.  While her subdued nasality works against the role, Gwyneth Paltrow becomes the woman whose quietude stems not from melancholy, but from paralytic anxiety -- a mind that won't slow down.

The slope-sliding production design is both beautiful and uncanny, spanning cerulean Massachussets to gray-green Devonshire.  The latter creates a hauntingly stark backdrop for the gold-haired writer and her fuzzy penumbra.  I don't feel like I'm giving anything away when I say how stunning I find the cranberry-red body bag in which Plath is removed from her dingy brownstone after meticulously taping door cracks to gas herself to death.  Biopics aren't about what happens.  People who care know how she cut crusts from bread, poured milk, cracked a window, kissed her babies, sat down and died.  But people don't know why -- not really anyway.  This film is about how Sylvia Plath was silenced when she didn't want to shut up.   

Post-partum depression is often not even mentioned when Plath is discussed, so I find the fact that at several points in the film when Paltrow finds herself alone in winter with two crying children, she drops her head into her hands and cries "I'm so exhausted.  I'm just so tired."  At these moments, jaded as I am, I am moved to tears, and I don't think it's only because I identify completely; Paltrow is just that good.  Daniel Craig humanizes the enigmatic Ted Hughes who is alternately villified and knighted by literary critics.  They apparently see only those two options as viable handlings.  While I think he was more than a bit of a butthole, this picture gets at the guts of the relationship and rightly trivializes liquoring, carousing and outright infidelities as inherently destructive forces, underscoring memory and their isolating effects of "negative" behaviors as the true culprits.