musings

March 24, 2013

A Codependent Emerges from the Closet

Someone I Love Dearly (SILD) is a heroin addict, newly revealed. Over the last few years, I have been ever more sucked into the addiction behaviors without knowing them as such. In many ways it is an enormous relief to have it all out in the open and to be going through this now – the rehab, the meetings, so many hidden cards on the table. Turns out that the kind of lies I have faced and the kinds of mental backflips and self-doubts I have entertained to accommodate the lies are akin to abuse. It was getting to the point that I was so uncertain about everything that I couldn’t bring myself to ask for help in a store.

But the last thing I want is to swoon with hand to forehead. The role of victim is such an unpleasant one.

It staggers me. The truth was slapping me upside the head for so long, yet I didn’t see it. I knew something was wrong.  I knew it deeply enough to distress my sleep and trash my ability to meet the day head-on. But I was completely clueless about what and how bad.

I didn’t think I was capable of that kind of denial. I am someone who so values honesty and who so regularly spotlights any emperor sans clothes. In this case, I could see the figures under the ice, gesturing and shouting; yet it never occurred to me to get a pick and smash a hole so I could hear what they were screaming.

When SILD admitted the heroin, my first reaction was “Oh no oh please no.” My second reaction was “No wonder.” After all these years, eagerly awaiting messages from my subconscious, I wouldn’t have thought I could so successfully block its transmissions for so long.

March 24, 2013

In Lieu of Goodbye

A bit more than a month ago, life shifted, irrevocably. (Four weeks two days 1 hour 25 minutes – I expect I’ll remember the details forever, my personal version of I remember when I heard Kennedy /MLK /Kennedy /Lennon was shot. All the images I can conjure are from horror movies. Ground splits and previous paths disintegrate. Steep fall from a suddenly looming cliff, to land on a road with treacherous forks every few steps, each new path quickly vanishing into darkness and fog. You get the idea.)

A bit more than a month ago, I learned that Someone I Love Dearly (SILD) is addicted to heroin. Actually that isn’t quite right. It’s not a situation. SILD is a heroin addict. It’s a part of SILD’s being. And it turns out that I am a codependent.

When I sit down to blog, I got nothin’ to say.  Not surprising. When I launched my blog a few months ago I had no idea where it would lead but my blogging tendencies have proved playful and lighthearted. My current thoughts are anything but.  I expect that at some point the light stuff will again rise to the top. Maybe. Meanwhile I’ve got plenty I need to say, and I’ve decided to say it here. For those who want to skip the gory parts, I will make sure it is obvious when I am writing a SILD-related blog.

March 9, 2013

Which One Are You Like?

Waking up.

Bo, Leo, and Arrow.

Recently our kittens had to wear cones after surgery. Their reactions captured their personalities and some basic differences in approaches to life’s troubles.

The cone disturbed Bo mightily.  He didn’t know what to make of it and he immediately became miserable. I’m trapped in a cone. This is terrible.  He dragged himself backwards until he hit a corner, where he hunched down and gave up.

Initially, Leo also wigged out and dragged himself backwards. But he quickly adapted. I guess now I’m a cat who — wears a cone. Okay! Within a few minutes he had evolved an odd but successful, neck-craned gait and had found new ways to pursue his favorite pastime, playing with tiny pieces of crud.

Arrow rebelled against the whole concept of cones. As soon as we put a cone on her, she began whipping her head from side to side and pawing the cone’s edges. No way am I wearing this, get this @#&%$ thing off me. She had it removed and hurled across the room within about 10 seconds.

So far, I have gone through life with responses on the Arrow-Bo spectrum, but I aspire to become more like Leo. How about you?

February 21, 2013

Writer’s Block: The Freedom of Chains

I’ve been reading what a great variety of writers have said about how they approach writer’s block, everyone from Norman Mailer to Maya Angelou. The sentiment seems pretty evenly divided between chain your butt to the chair and get the damn job done and when I can’t write it is my subconscious sending me a message.

Many writers have a hybrid perspective and that is the one that resonates with me. I need discipline to get beyond rote results: chain your butt to the chair so that your subconscious can soar free.

February 19, 2013

Musical Hypocrisy (Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!)

When I was growing up – musically speaking – I hated ultra-pop and ultra-popular. I couldn’t stand Stevie Nicks and it was a big deal when Patti Smith admitted that she liked “You’re the One That I Want” by Newton-John and Travolta. What a relief! I loved that song and thought I was crazy!

But seriously – and it was a big, serious deal; we were rightly passionate about music that was real and music that was bogus – I tried hard to judge music on its merits and not on what was cool. Of course, nowadays saying cool is not cool. Sick. Whatev. Making such an effort was one thing I have in common with my Scar Jewelry character, Heater. (Below I excerpt her remarks* on the subject.)

During the writing of Scar Jewelry there were a few songs that I kept playing again and again, and I quoted them in the book. When I got to quoting “Landslide”, by Smashing Pumpkins, I discovered it had been written by — Stevie Nicks. And it turned out to be incredibly difficult for me to process this fact. I don’t want Stevie Nicks in my book. But I want “Landslide”. But she wrote it. But I don’t want-— you get the idea.

P.S. I won’t try to justify my antipathy to Nicks. Partly some kind of kneejerk purist thing about Fleetwood Mac after Peter Green. A niece is probably named after a Nicks song (not “Landslide”) and I do love her so there you go.

P.P.S. I still love “You’re the One That I Want.”

*Here is what the always-opinionated Heater wrote about this, back in approximately 1979:

Today’s kids got no respect for their elders. Or for anybody else, I am usually proud to report. Respect should be earned, not ordained based on age, status or the other trappings. But so too should disrespect be earned and likewise not be due to superficial claptrap. Punks are no better than rednecks when they disdain Neil Young. So he is from the Sixties, so fucking what. He moved on. He’s always moving on. That’s what makes him an artist. Now I’ve said the A word. So come and get me. You’ll have to catch me first. And I’m moving fast because I just got to interview Neil Young. Who appreciates the great wherever he finds it. Hank Williams, Johnny Rotten. He gets Devo, he gets Kraftwerk, and I’m betting that in another decade he’ll be getting whatever else is new and fresh, while you’re still rattling your rusty safety pins. If he were in Ellay he’d be going out to hear the music that was the most honest and true around. He’d be at all those Alleycats – Differentials nights at Blackies West.
February 17, 2013

Yeast Bread: Invention or Discovery?

Nowadays I’m not much into cooking but I do like thinking about how recipes and techniques got started. I assume many of them were happened upon, along the lines of gee, nobody in the Singh family ever seems to die after they eat and they sure love spicy food …hmm, maybe those spices can help with spoiled meat.

The capper, for me, is yeast bread. Think about it. You’re a baker like me so you get distracted and when you wander back – yikes, the dough is a monster, over the sides of the bowl, WTF

…So you hit it – why? Fear maybe? Frustration? Popping an air bubble? Oh that looks okay again… but why are the kids screaming? Is there a sabertooth loose in the neighborhood?…

… and you wander away again and when you come back: not again! You hit it a few more times and you decide, better get this thing on the fire before it really gets out of control…

What do you think? Is that how yeast bread happened? Or did someone say, these tiny organisms promote certain chemical reactions, I wonder how they will interact with wheat…