Cucuyo

Recognize this crotch?
Why, yes! That's me! And yeah, sure, that's my petunia faced girl, Zoey, in the stroller. But before you ask: no, my crotch is not for sale. Nor is Zoey or even the baby there on the bottom left. However, you can buy the diaper pad. You can and you should and you will. Why? Because my über-talented designer friend Ana started Cucuyo based on her own needs as a mother, and because the products rock. And because I said so. Plus, if you enter the code JOY at checkout between now and January 31, 2009 you'll receive 20% off. And because Cucuyo is fun to say. That there is a lot of reasons. Now go, skedaddle. Cucuyo.

The Road to Moradabad

I have been thinking a lot lately about relative misery. Poverty, pain. 'Tis the Season, tra la la, my apologies but I just have to get this out. Everyone I know is in some sort of funk. And yet everyone I know is also lucky in a thousand different prismatic ways: I know it and they know it. And yet here we are, afraid or nervous or lonely, whatever, our minds ricocheting between what we have and what we don't, what we want and what we need, what we see and what we ignore.

Two years ago I went around the world in eight days: Hong Kong, China, Thailand, India, Germany and then home. It was a work trip but I had the pleasure of going with two colleagues that just so happened to be friends. And if we weren't friends to begin with then surely we would have been after those travels.

There is a lot about that trip that I only remember if I really think about it. The sharp sweet of a mangosteen. $18 cocktails in Hong Kong. Haggling over fake bags in China, and how the leather later dripped red dye in the rain. But what I will never forget is India, how the beauty of that country seemed to be so inextricably tangled with the pain.

These women were on a pilgrimage to the Ganges to bathe in the river for some sort of holy day. We saw them while driving from Delhi to Moradabad, a trip that should've taken 2.5 hours but instead took almost ten because of the holy festival among other Indian foibles. Our Indian agent, Anuj, called the day auspicious, a word that I have never really heard used here. I wonder why.

We were miserable in that car, hot and muggy and clausterphobic. Outside the car it rained, at times spitting, other times a torrential downpour. For countless hours we got stuck behind a truck jammed full of wet people while one woman leaned over the tailgate and vomited continuously. We were homesick and afraid to eat the food on the side of the road.

But the people--the women were stunning in their pink and saffron saris, the men with their dark eyes, the families piled onto one scooter holding babies and grandparents as if they were simply bundles of cloth. And even when the trucks were driving straight at us with no intent of moving out of our way, we could not help but notice how pretty they were--big industrial toxic-breathed monsters decorated like marzipan princess cakes.

At some point during the trip a beggar came to my window. I was sitting in the front seat because I felt nauseated. From the back seat Anuj told me not to open my window under any circumstances. So we stared straight ahead at the rain and listened to the strange music from the next car over. The beggar began to rap on my window, and when I turned my head I noticed that he was rapping the glass with the stub of an amputated arm. Bap bap bap, a dull thud, bap bap bap. I couldn't look away and for what seemed like forever we stared at each other, two accidents of birth through the looking glass. They cut off their own limbs to make more money begging, Anuj said. Sometimes it's their legs, sometimes it's their arms. Don't open your window. And I didn't. But I couldn't look away. How can you look at him? my friend asked from the backseat. I feel so bad, I can't even look up, she mumbled from behind her hands. But I felt so bad I couldn't look away.

In India the oldest caste rim their children's eyes with kohl, both to strengthen the child's eyesight and to ward off the evil eye, to prevent the child from being cursed. I wonder which was worse: looking away from the beggar, or looking him straight in the eye? Which is more respectful behind a closed window in the rain? Or maybe it doesn't matter since neither option would have helped anyway. What we see and what we ignore. I wonder if that beggar is lucky in some ways--it's hard to imagine--and if so, how.

What would you have done? What do you do when you walk by a homeless person? Look at them, or away?

Face Hole

I always forget to say shut your pie hole. Or shut your cake hole, I'm undecided which is the better bakery hole. Of course it's not really nice to say either one, to tell anyone to shut any hole really. And now I have just discovered Face Hole, which is quickly becoming my go-to hole, at least in my head where I can often be found telling people to shut it. Shut your face hole! I've written hole so many times now that something seems amiss.

Anyhole... oh, but how I digress. If, like me, you're looking for ways to cut costs this Christmas season may I suggest Face Hole? Officially known as FaceinHole, this site is like those cardboard cutouts you see at tourist spots and boardwalks, except you don't have to pay $20 to look like Don Johnson wearing a white blazer in Miami Vice. Nor do you have to feel like an ass as you pose behind Crocket and Tubbs while onlookers walk by and snicker behind their churros. No, this site lets you be an ass in your own home! (Unfortunately, churros not included.)


I am actually going so far as to not even print these out to send them to friends and family. Because this Holiday season it's email all the way! www.hohoho... I figure not only does it save me some cash, but it also saves a few trees, right? (I'm not cheap, just environmentally friendly.)




So consider this my Christmas card to you. Now go have some fun with your own Face Hole.
Seasons Greetings!
With Love,
The Petunia Faced Family

Oh Yeah, And on a Tuesday Afternoon

No time for a real post today as I will be lounging here singing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and licking Marshmallow Fluff from my fingertips.

Don't worry--I will make sure to sit on a clean towel because Lord knows what lives in the nap of that fur. Do check out the Silver Fox, though. Imagine the stories he can tell!

(In all truth Zoey and I are going to the library for storytime. And then home for a nap and cookies. Doesn't mean a girl can't dream.)

Image from here: Actor Curt Jurgens (2R) w. wife (2L) and two female companions lathering up in a bathtub he had built in his den. 1972. Otherwise known as the year I was born.

Suspicious Beef

A few weeks ago I was in a crowded elevator when somebody farted. I didn't hear it--nobody did. But the stench, oh. It was bad. And the thing about elevators is, of course, the Universal Rule of the Lift (see "ascending room" circa 1823, London): you do not ever make eye contact or acknowledge the fact that you are smushed ass to crotch with complete strangers. You do not tell the lady in front of you that gee, her hair smells terrific as strands of it stick to your lip gloss. Nor do you ever comment on farts even though there you are stuck in a hermetically sealed box smelling the inside of a stanger's colon. Of course every ounce of my being wanted to be all dude, who farted? just so people would know it wasn't me. (It wasn't, I swear. I'd tell you if it had been.) But the suspicious beef went unclaimed.

Of course now we are not in an elevator, we are on my blog and I can say this: DUDE, WHO FARTED? Because I have come to realize that mean anonymous comments are like an unclaimed fart in a crowded room. Yes, I've had all weekend and that is what I've come up with. An unclaimed fart in a crowded room. Wait for the imagery and you will see. Wait for it, wait for it, inhale, inhale-- yeah.

Lately I've received a handful of mean anonymous comments. Part of me says not to call attention to it but another part of me just wants to address the stench and air it out. Here is the thing: I am not for everyone. Nobody is. This is not news. Personally I cannot stand the artwork of Thomas Kinkade but I would never go to his website to tell him to cut out all that Painter of Light shit. He's doing his thing and I respect that. It doesn't mean I have to like bucolic cottages and candlelight.

It amazes me what people will say under the cloak of anonymity, how casually they will criticize and call you out. Some might argue that in writing a public blog I have inherently opened myself up to criticism. But the thing is I have little to no control over the world at large. Someone might flip me off in traffic for nothing and I can't change that. Conflict abounds. But this blog is my little space I have carved out for myself, the surreal estate of my mind full of rollicking pastures, words, ideas and beautiful, smart people. I can build a fence if I want. I can keep out the riff-raff. Yes, there is a guest list. And yes, you are on it. If.

Some might also argue that I only want people who will kiss my ass and compliment me. That is simply not true. I welcome anyone who respects me. I listen to criticism that is constructive. But if you are simply calling me names and questioning my character, well--I reserve that for the people in my life who actually know my true character, not just the caricature of my blog.

So there. I have changed my comments settings to moderated and I am holding a can of Febreze. Please come to my party, read my blog, eat the onion dip--it's to die for! Sure it might give you a little gas. Everybody farts. But if you do, just let me know. I'll stand there with you in the stench of your colon as long as you respect me enough to tell me. Let's hold hands, smile, together we can all enjoy the ride.

*Suspicious Beef is the name that Bryan and I have given our band should we decide to ever start one. I play a mean rendition of Pachelbel's Canon in D and Cyndi Lauper's Time after Time on the piano and Bryan can do The Running Man real good, so watch out! Suspicious Beef World Tour 2009! Dates to be Announced Soon!

**Gah! How could I forget! Come visit me over at The Lil Bee today where I am guest posting as part of her genius Bee's Economic Stimulus Package! No talk of mean comments there! Just pastel rainbows and unicorns, puffy paint and pink! Come on by!

Yes, Virginia

There is a Santa Claus and she (yes, SHE) has a tummy like a bowl full of Cheer--ee--oh--eeoh's.
A job? A pony? Come sit on her lap and tell Santa what you want for Christmas. Ho Ho Ho and a bottle of rum, or something like that.
Happy Friday,
With Love from Susannah and Zoey

Small Sky Country

We live in deer country. I think I just made that up, by the way: deer country. I like the way it sounds, as if we borrow sugar from Big Sky country when we are baking or, better yet, making jam. The truth is I buy my jam from the supermarket and the county in which I live is just a bunch of houses teetering on hillsides or nestled in valleys like red-capped mushrooms. We are squatting on this land that once belonged to the deer in a way that one could never squat on the Big Sky.

This past summer Bryan cleared out a thicket of brush from the front of our house to plant some palm trees and agave. I don't think either one of us knew what a big undertaking it would be. Halfway through the project we ran out of money, so now there is a flat bald spot flanking our driveway dotted with a few yellowing Mexican Fan Palms. We soon found out that the brush had been home to a gaggle of neighborhood deer. Or a flock. A den, a family, however deer congregate, the thicket had been their home. In the mornings now we come out to find them clustered together sleeping on our flax bushes, exposed and covered with dew. And every morning Bryan runs at them waving his arms and stomping his feet, hissing SPSSSSSPSS! He hates the deer. They ate our Potato Vine, he says when I argue for their cuteness. The deer rise slowly, turn to look at Bryan as if to say don't be such a dick, and then they clatter down the driveway, I don't know where to.

Yesterday I sat at our kitchen table writing and looking for jobs that don't exist when suddenly I heard what sounded like a high-heeled supermodel clatter up the stairs to our deck. I looked out the window and there it was, a deer. Who knew they could climb up such a steep staircase? I thought maybe it was like those slats you see at the end of farm roads: the cows are afraid to walk over them and so the slats act as an invisible fence. But there it was, a deer on my deck, slowly sniffing at echeveria and ice plants as if sliding a tray down the counter at Fresh Choice. In my youth my parents sent me to an environmental hippie camp where I learned how to pull apart owl scat to find mouse bones, a skill I have not yet had to employ in my day to day existence, but at that camp I also learned how to sneak up on deer. Apparently deer have terrible eyesight and really only see movement, so I tiptoed up to the plate glass window, stopping only when the deer turned its big eyes on me. Freeze, both of us not daring to breathe. Audrey Hepburn had a deer as a pet. She brought him to the grocery store and called him Pippin. I tiptoed back to my kitchen to get a head of lettuce--surely that would be tastier than an ice plant. I envisioned nights spent in front of the fireplace, brushing my deer's coat, a montage of images of the deer nuzzling my neck which inexplicably included a young Robert Redford, but when I turned back around, the deer was gone.

Palm trees don't belong in deer country, and I am sorry for clearing their home. I think about what the coming months will bring to my family. Oh, I know we won't be spending the night huddled together on top of a flax bush, but still. I am just really sorry.

Top image: Sharon Montrose
Second image: Rupert, RIP
Third image: here
Last image: my deck

When I Grow Up

I'm not sure why I am not yet famous. Or at least invited to more parties. As a child I aspired to be an international bon vivant who wore bright red lipstick and tossed her head back with a signature laugh. Though I now know how to pronounce bon vivant the truth is I look like a clown in lipstick and no matter how many glittery, popsicle red glosses I buy I always seem to fall back on cherry flavored Chapstick, hardly lips worthy of crossing international waters.

I wrote my first book at the age of six. Titled "There's No Land Like Maryland," it was the tale of two male ghosts who lived together. In hindsight, they might have been lovers, influenced by the brightly colored capers of Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street. But mainly the book was my own way of working out any disbelief I had that there was an actual state called Maryland. I don't know why this fascinated me so. In my memory, the book was an opus, hundreds of pages the result of me swinging my legs from the kitchen table, writing. In reality it was probably no more than five pages, the result of an afternoon waiting for my mother to get off the phone. The original manuscript has never been found.

Later I wanted to be a runner. My dad was a runner which meant he changed into his silky 70's shorts in the afternoon, tucked his hair beneath a red bandana and disappeared for an hour or so. Carefully I drew a picture of my own sneakers, the ones with the rainbow stripes on the side, and I wrote above it "Susannah Clay Jenkins, Runner," and I hung the sign on my bedroom door next to the ceramic plaque that read "Penny," a remnant of my infatuation with "The Rescuers." I had never run anywhere without fair warning but I thought it sounded like an interesting enough job though I never was sure of the pay scale.

In high school I witnessed the rise of The Supermodel, though I was far too pragmatic to think I could ever do that. Instead I watched Cindy Crawford on "House of Style" every day after class and sketched bad Nagel knock-offs, girls with pouting lips and piercing cocaine-addled eyes. I was going to move to New York and be a fashion designer. I practiced my signature and mouthed the words to George Michael's "Freedom" while driving my Volkwagen Cabriolet, something I am sure a young Isaac Mizrahi did in whatever corn-fed state he grew up in.

I am not sure why it is that by this time in my life David Letterman has not had me on his show. At least for stupid pet tricks. You'd think that I'd have been able to get Nacho to fetch me my slippers by now, but no. My feet are still cold. I have never lived in a foreign country. I speak French poorly and only when drunk. The strangest thing I have ever eaten were turkey nuts, though they were so deep fried that for all I know I was eating deep fried lint from behind the ice machine in the restaurant kitchen. My life, as of now, is ordinary.

Some say that there is no such thing as success or failure, there is just living your life. I am not so sure. I would argue that success is finding the glamour in your life regardless of what you're doing: watching Zoey ring her lips 1001 times over with my cherry flavored Chapstick, tossing my head back and laughing when she does, running because I have rainbows on my feet.

I have never told anyone this last story because I was afraid I would get in trouble, but when I was around eight years old Jason Doolen told me I could not fit a hard boiled egg in my mouth and so I went home intent on proving him wrong. We were out of eggs so I placed a Weeble Wobble in my mouth and swallowed. I gagged. For a full minute I could not breathe and I sank to my knees saddened by the knowledge that my mother would find me dead by Weeble Wobble. But somehow it finally worked its way down my throat and I felt vindicated. See! See Jason Doolen! I can swallow an egg whole! And to this day I still have that Weeble Wobble in my stomach because I don't remember it coming out, surely I would have noticed. I think of this sometimes, the Weeble Wobble and where it went, what it's doing in there, trying to remember which character I swallowed. Was it the postman? The cowboy? A baby? And is it true that it never ever, not even once, falls down?

How He Met My Mother: My Birthright a Long Silver Scar. Alt. Title: Give Us Your Worst.

In my continued quest to persuade family members to post for me so that I can try to write my book I bring you another snippet from my father. What he does not mention in this excerpt but I will squeal is this: he shot himself in the leg when he was in his early 20's, practicing his quick draw out of a holster, drunk. This is how he met my mother. She was a hot young nursing student and I was but a twinkle in my dad's dilated morphine-stoned eye.

I feel your pain.

Not really.

The bullet traveled down my thigh, severed the femoral artery and lodged behind my knee. There was no pain that I can remember and bleeding to death was really quite peaceful …. until they saved my life at the hospital. …. Hours later, they took out the .45 caliber bullet …. So, what’s the problem? …. No big deal …. No pain and PLENTY of morphine …. until plenty was NOT ENOUGH as a red dragon of pain moved in.

The bullet had created a channel from my upper thigh to the back of my knee. The surgeon, a sweetly sinister Peter Lorrie, did not want the wound to scab over creating the opportunity for infection and rot from the inside. He wanted the wound to heal from the inside out. Therein lies a metaphor, I suppose.

Every other day, Peter Lorrie would open the wound on my thigh. Attaching a cotton swabbed with ointment on the end of a long steel rod, Peter Lorrie would run the steel rod and swab down the channel inside my thigh to the back of my knee. …. For a fact, this caught my complete and undivided attention. An electric searing, white-out explosion of pain collapsing The Universe and imploding The Self into NOTHING BUT PAIN. In my personal pantheon of hellacious physical hurt, I give it a 9, easy.

Okay, I know or so I hear from mothers, “You want pain, Bubba? Try having a baby.” No question about it. I can’t know, although I think we might agree that your pain is your pain, your very own that no-one can measure or feel for you.

So, what else you got. Share the pain. One of your top 10 physical hurts. Emotional pain? Oye- yoi-yoi, way too large and deep. I’m afraid to go near. Not now. Sometime later maybe.

For the Hardcore Zoey Fans: The Wonder of Christmas Edition

Warning: this video does not really have a point. In it, Zoey does not do anything particularly noteworthy, nor do I. The truth is, Zoey and I are exceedingly busy today getting flu shots and then cuddling on the couch. We plan to make brownies and dance. A very long nap is on the docket. I don't have time to write a real post. And this video from last night? Well it was the first time this season I have felt the Christmas magic. Zoey, however, feels it no matter the economic climate, no matter the time of year. The beauty of being 2.



Happy Monday.
xo,
Susannah

Music heard in the background provided by Enzo Garcia, Zoey's very own Davey Jones of a crush and the best kid's music we have found. It doesn't hurt that we see him live every week.

Heartstrings

Zoey kneads the skin on the back of my hand when she is sleepy, scared, clingy. Grabs a pinch of me and rolls it between her fingers slowly as if thinking something over. Sometimes it is my neck, the gobble, the wobble, and I worry that in loving me she will pull my body into the loose coat of a Shar-Pei.

She has done this since she was a tiny baby. Before she could even articulate her fingers, curled in my arms one baby fist would spastically reach up and grab hold of me, paper-thin moons of baby nail folding from the weight of my skin. Mama? I want your hand she now says to me each morning as we cuddle in my bed. Her nails are strong and sharp. I rearrange myself to drape one hand over her chest where she plucks at it in a fugue state of awakening. My shoulder begins to ache, falls asleep, my neck cricked and stiff. Pluck, pull, pinch. My hands, my neck, my skin, my heart is hers.

Six years ago my mother had a heart attack. In the hospital my brother and I stood over her bed like actors, neither of us having memorized our lines. My mother had always been the strong one, pulling the splinters from our fingers like a magician, a nurse who did not believe in doctors. In the hospital bed she looked so small, just a shallow lump of thin cotton. Dust. A magician robbed of her magic. The nurses hurried in to dose her up with something and left us to wait for it to take effect. My mother looked up at me. If I die, she said, I want you to play Major Tom by David Bowie at my funeral. God mom, stop, I said. You're not going to die. Don't say that. But she grabbed my hand and started singing. This is Major Tom to ground control, I'm stepping through the door... and I'm floating in a most peculiar waaaaay... She held my hand as she sang. I felt the thin bones of her fingers, rolled them between my own methodically until the nurses came to wheel her away, still singing. She had angioplasty; the doctors inserted her coronary arteries with stents to keep her blood flowing, to keep her heart beating. To keep us all going.

Sometimes I close my eyes when Zoey is pinching my hand and try to imagine her as an adult. Will she still pull at my skin? Will we hold hands? Will I sing to her, or she to me?

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles

I’m feeling very still

And I think my spaceship knows which way to go

Ground Control to Major Tom

Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear....

Great, Now I'm Craving Pulled Pork

I lost.

Of course technically you cannot really lose something you never really had in the first place, but still. I feel like a loser. I did not get the job. They want somebody with more design experience. They want somebody more. And so here I sit, less, still at the craps table playing the game. And yes I know this image is of roulette but craps fits. Crap happens.

To save both you and me from myself today (note to self: do! not! wallow!), I am going to write about myself. (Ha! Gotcha!) Last week the most awesomest Jennifer from The Most Awesomest Stuff Ever tagged me and so here I am, ready to play this game:

10 years ago: I was surrounded by books, papers and the stiff manila-yellow smell of the library. I was studying for my Masters exam and very, very happy. I felt smart and strong.

8 years ago: I was working as an Assistant Buyer and playing at being an adult. I felt small and scared. On the weekends Bryan would take me sailing and I would throw up vast quantities of Froot Loops into the Bay waters.

6 years ago: Another job, another company, this time with good friends. Every day we would eat lunch together and talk fast and dirty. I laughed a lot. Bryan and I moved to the city.

2 years ago: I was eight months into the tightrope balancing Zoey and Bryan, friends, free time, work and bills. Everything had shifted but I had not yet realized that it is best to tiptoe barefoot lest you fall and drop your basket.

Five yummy things:

1. nutella

2. insalate caprese

3. A pulled pork sandwich and hush puppies washed down with Cheerwine from Little Pigs Barbecue in Statesville, NC. I have not been there for maybe 15 years but I have been chasing that sweet childhood memory dragon ever since.

4. toasted bread with goat cheese, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with thyme.

5. chocolate covered pretzels

Five songs I know by heart:

1. My adidas by Run DMC

2. Theme song to The Patty Duke show

3. Sweet Child of Mine, G&R

4. I Got U Babe, UB40

5. Oh Susannah, by everyone who has ever stuck their hand out to shake mine

Five places I would like to escape to:

1. Mykonos, Greece

2. Florence, Italy

3. Malpais, Costa Rica

4. Hossegar, France

5. the space between our faces when Zoey gives me a kiss with her tiny rosebud mouth

Five things I would never wear:

1. acid wash

2. pleats

3. stirrup pants

4. shoulder pads

5. Disney apparel

Five favorite tv shows:

1. ANTM

2. The Hills

3. Weeds

4. Californication

5. insert newest cheesy reality show here just so long as it lowers my IQ with each episode

Five things I enjoy doing:

1. Hanging out with girlfriends, just chatting about everything and nothing

2. Playing plouf on our bed with Zoey

3. reading

4. cuddling with Bryan

5. impossibly long, warm sunny days at the beach with a bag of chips and my family

Five favorite toys:

1. This here blog

2. The little magnetic doodle thing that I gave Zoey

3. The internet at large

4. swimming pools

5. humor of any kind

Five people who I am tagging to fill this out:

1. not to be

2. a butt

3. but

4. I am tagging

5. YOU

Quick update: I just saw on my site reader that somebody from Disney reads my blog. If this is true then my apologies for saying I would never wear Disney apparel. If you want to offer me a job and maybe I can work from home from 10am-2pm, 4 days a week and get paid $100k/year with benefits, then I will dress head to toe in Disney duds. I will even tattoo the Tazmanian Devil on my bicep for a signing bonus. Unless, of course, the Tazmanian Devil is a Looney Tunes character, in which case I would consider Pluto but not Goofy. Get back to me on that. Thank you.

Petunia Face Tutorial 1.0: How to Use the Blur Tool

You know that dream where you suddenly realize you have to take a math final but you've never even gone to the class? And you look down at the test, a mess of lines and squiggles intersected with numbers and letters where letters have no business being? And then you notice that not only do you not know any of the answers or even how to start but you're in a classroom of 30 other students who each have two sharpened #2 pencils while the nib of your pencil is a halo of ragged wood? And then you look down and see that you are sitting in a small metal school desk completely buck ass naked?

Yeah, that one. Well for the past week I have been living that dream, if you will. Please, let me to explain.

I am an asshole. First and foremost, that is important to understand. And I am feeling desperate. That is also important. The rest of the story is simply detail: I found a job I really want. The recruiter called me. He asked me questions. I answered yes. I smiled even though we were on the phone because apparently you can hear a smile and a smile sounds confident. Yes, I smiled maybe baring my teeth a bit too much. And then yes again. Smiled, nodded my head, yes, sure, uh-huh. And maybe in the course of that questioning I maybe kinda' sorta' said yes to a few questions to which I should have said no. Like yes, sure, of course I know Photoshop. Yes, Illustrator and I! Why, we go waaaay back! And I smiled with my eyes and said yes some more. Yes, I will come in for an interview. Yes, I know where that is! Tuesday, you say? Yes, sure, Tuesday is fine. And then the perfectly nice recruiter said yes back to me. Yes, great, I'm excited to meet you, yes sure, 9am for the interview. And then we'll give you a test on Illustrator and Photoshop.

No. Oh no.

And that is when I looked down and realized that maybe it's true that you can hear a smile through the phone but apparently you cannot hear nudity and lies, a woman with un-brushed teeth standing naked next to her un-made bed at noon on a Wednesday morning.

Because I don't know Photoshop and Illustrator.

I got off the phone and stared into my closet. I am such an asshole. Seriously. What nitwit lies about her skills and then is handed a test? Me, that's who. I had not made my bed but still I would have to lie in it. Or is it lay? I can never quite remember, but the point is: I was fucked.

And here is where the details get even fuzzier. I tried to teach the programs to myself. I cried. Bryan tried to teach me. He cried. Then it was Thanksgiving and across these great United States turkeys everywhere cried. On Friday I finally called the first listing I found on Craigslist for a computer tutor. I told him that I had to learn Photoshop and Illustrator in two days for a test for a job for which I am apparently unqualified. And then he cried. It might have been for me, maybe, I don't know, but he cried.

I had my interview and test today. I went into it with the simple hope that I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself. That the recruiter wouldn't kick me out, hucking a red Sharpie at my back as I scampered away sniveling. But here's the thing: I did okay. Better than okay even. I scored a 66 out of 70. When the recruiter showed me my test results I started laughing. In hindsight perhaps this was not the preferred reaction, but there you go. I did it.

Will I get this job? I'd be surprised if I do, but then again--life seems to be full of surprises. As for now, well, I'm taking off my clothes now and getting back in bed to nap while visions of vectors dance in my head.

Deep Thoughts by Zoey Dimon

For all those that are having a hard time right now--with the economy, with the dark days of winter, with opening a jar of peanut butter, here is Zoey singing a DJ Lance Rock cover of the oh-so catchy tune, "Keep Trying." Out of the mouths of babes (and slightly creepy Nickelodean hipster children's programming).



With love on a Monday morning,
Susannah

Watch Your Step

This is why I strive to be normal. Like Ethan Allen normal. Anne Taylor, Talbot's, although truly I have never set foot in any of those stores. It's not working for me, this poetry of the norm. For inside my veins pumps blood chunky with glitter. When you prick me, do I not shine?


This is my mother's house. Yes, that is a snakeskin draped on the ceiling, a horn twisting out of the wall. Over there is a thing and a that, a few different huhs? and one very pronounced oh, dear.

This little lady moved in a few years ago. I really can't say if she is dressed for the holiday or if this is her regular attire. She can't really say either.

Oh, that. Yeah. We don't much talk about that.

Dripping candles, dust, dried flowers, curling photos, two turn tables and a microphone. I would not be half surprised to see a wedding cake still on the table. Miss Havisham would be right at home.

Care to watch some tv? I'm afraid the only thing on is a show about a Japanese mask.

To be fair, most of this is Allen's doing. This is where he lives, but my mother's apartment in the city is not much different. Here is Allen with their African Grey Parrot named Huxley. When my mom bought the parrot she said that now my brother and I would get to hear her voice long after she dies. And Huxley does talk in both their voices. He can perfectly mimic the sounds of Allen's wheelchair, the doorbell. He tells the dog to stop barking. Ring ring! goes the phone. Hello? Oh, hi! Mmhm. Yup, okay, ha ha ha ha! For the next 65 years I get to hear my mother's one-sided conversation and the trill of her fake phone laugh.

I agree with this one.

At my mother's house I often find myself thinking about the movie "Being John Malcovich." I liked that movie but if pressed could not really say what it was about. The same goes for my mother's house. Sometimes I leave there confused, repeatedly blinking my eyes to the bright sunshine of the outside.

More. Never less. Not Yes, no, this is the House of More.

My mother's closet. Let's see: this coat with that skirt? The brown sweater with those jeans? But does it clash with the toad mask? Hmmm...

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, the annual holiday of eating with your family and wondering just how the Hell you came to sit in that chair. Happy that. There is no such thing as normal. Because blood flows in many different ways, in chintz and chenille, heavy with dust and thin with regret. Mine just so happens to run ragged with plastic masks, Buddha and the bones of small creatures. This is my family. Welcome.

Gobble

Today I am thankful. Yesterday I was thankful, and the day before that, the week before even, though to many it probably did not seem like it.

Yesterday a reader called me out. Emailed me to say that lately my posts have reeked of entitlement. My first thought was "well, fuck you very much, dear reader." But then I read it again. And again and then again and once more with feeling. True, she did say that, but she also said so much more. I won't bore you with the details but she was right. Lately my posts have reeked of entitlement, ingratitude, anger, neediness. I sit down to write and it pours out of me like spilled milk and so I emailed her back. After a few emails back and forth my initial reaction of "fuck you very much" quickly turned to "thank you very much." Because she cared to let me know I was being a twit. Thank you, N, thank you.

And then this. Oh, this. It's funny how your heart can just as easily break from the beauty inside of a person as it can from the ugliness of the world. This. Remember way back around my birthday when I had my very first (and so far only) Petunia Face giveaway? Well the winner was an artist named Kristin. I sent her a 350 million year old ammonite fossil and yesterday she sent me something in return:

My scanner is on the fritz so I had to take a photo and the quality isn't great, but man. It's beautiful isn't it? Ethereal? Magical? I think it's going in Zoey's room, way up high where her fingertips can't touch it. To score your very own Kristin original (or to do some Christmas shopping), visit her website here. Her work is phenomenal! And as if the painting wasn't enough her accompanying note almost brought me to tears. Again, I won't bore you with the details but essentially she said that in light of my recent darkness she thought I could use a lift. Thank you, Kristin, thank you.

And then there's this:
I am forever thankful that teachers are still making small hands into turkeys. Gobble Gobble. May your feast be stuffed with gravy, a good pie and love. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Glass

We live on a hill above a high school. On weekends the all-American cheer of football games rises, the coach's whistle, a brass band. At night sometimes music gropes its way up our hill, songs that I am no longer familiar with, voices I have never heard. I sit in our backyard with my eyes closed, remembering slow dancing.

In the past six years five students from that school have committed suicide.

This is not a post about depression. Nor is it yet another post about how my life sucks right now, the economy, my house, unemployment, the last Oreo cookie. Or at least not in the usual sense. This is a post about hope.

If I leave my house at just the right time in the morning, or just the wrong time depending on perspective, I get caught in the traffic of these kids. BMW's, Audi's, awkward girls in tight jeans with even tighter asses making a twelve point turnabout to park a tank of an SUV. The boys, they look so serious in their studied disregard.

What do I think the world owes me anyhow? A good job, a house, nice car, cute clothes. This is my birthright, right? The daughter of a middleclass family raised in a county renowned for its affluence. I was born with brown eyes and brown hair, the keys to a mortgage I cannot pay clenched tight in one baby fist.

For the past few weeks we have been sitting on the floor in front of our fireplace at night, refugees of a lifestyle we can no longer afford. Zoey sits in my lap, her fat fingers playing in the pool of my clavicle. Over her head Bryan and I discuss what to do next. What to do at all, the fire warming our faces.

Last week my town held a forum dedicated to the families of the children lost to suicide. Eat dinner with your children. Avoid overscheduling. Define expectations for success. Parents leaned in closer for the answers. But what do we do?

Soon it will be lacrosse season, the noisiest season of them all. The clack of the sticks resonates up the hill all afternoon during the week, on weekends. Cars line the street like shiny tin soldiers, parents watching the games, watching practice, watching.

I watch Zoey play pirate. Argh! she says to Nacho, her small voice full of gravel. Argh! she says to her mermaid, making a muscle with one arm. Argh! to Elmo, to daddy, to nobody. Argh. The curve of her cheek pitches me forward, plump skin and wet shining eyes. Tonight my dad is coming over and we will eat dinner with her. Tomorrow together we will do nothing. Argh. It is not too late for us, for me. To define our expectations of success. We are 72.8% water, and yet we are born full.

"The Person You Love" poster found here.
I am going to check this book out of the library.