love & empire

Things to do with pain: 1) Offer it up as something I share with all sentient beings – if I carry a little bit, then maybe someone else has to carry a bit less.  2) Try not to whine so much and bore people with details. 3) Try to think about what color it is. 4) Try to think like an athlete “pain is weakness leaving your body,” says my son. 5) Use it to motivate me to be stronger, more fit, to not take my olding body for granted. 6) Enjoy how vicodin doesn’t really cut the pain, but makes me love everyone soooooo much and make me so grateful for how great life is, isn’t life so great?!!

I’m failing at most – see #2 (writing a blog post!?!), #3 (no idea). Sort of hanging in there with the others.

But # 6 is awesome. I love you so much!

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Sydney, Australia never stopped being a playground for us.  On our first, jet-legged, morning there we stumbled out on to Bennelong Point and stared, amazed at the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Harbour itself.  The Australian sunshine, brighter than anything we’d ever seen, brighter also because it was 4 or 5 in the morning.  Read the rest of this entry »

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GarageWallwithShadow, originally uploaded by nennajames.

I used to like snow and cold. In the old days I didn’t even wear socks in the winter, just trotted right out to school in my pumps and pegged jeans. Cold meant school got closed and we could spend all day in the cozy Golden Dome watching junior college basketball tournaments, or at Brown Drug eating french fries with gravy. Snow was an innertube tied to a Bronco, taking turns getting swirled into snowdrifts on the side of the street. Snow was skiing – proper skiing with 100 inch bases and fat round ski-made moguls.  Snow was spinning cookies in the parking lot at Kmart and going sledding with the church. Now I slog through slush in my beat up Fryes and scratchy wool socks to my dirty car or the dirty train depending on the day. Honesttogoodness I’m just so tired of being wintertired.

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typewriter, originally uploaded by vero.

with the kids…while driving in the car with three of the four…

“Picasso cut off his ear.” “Why?” “It was Van Gogh.” “I think it was Picasso.” “Definitely Van Gogh.” “Why?” “He was nuts.” “Did it bleed?” “Of course it bled. It was his ear.” “He wasn’t exactly nuts…” “Dude, he cut off his ear.” “Well, yeah, but he was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century and he had to live his whole life without anyone recognizing his talent.” “So?” “Well, if you got a little weird from that maybe that’s a healthy response, not a crazy response.” “How is cutting off your ear healthy.” “It’s not. But if you do crazy things because you are hurt and isolated, there’s a kind of reason in that.” “It’s not reasonable to cut off your ear.” “Right, but then again, wrong. Like if someone hits you, you cry, right? It’s appropriate.” “What does appropriate mean?” “The right response. Like if you cry when you’re sad. .” “Dude, ear cutting is not—“ “Is this one of those conversations about how writers and artists get a bad break?” “Yes.” “Mom you are so lame.” “I’m just saying that crazy is a matter of perspective.” “No it’s not.” “Yes it is.” “You’re not making sense.” “Yes I am.” “No you’re not.” “Like when your brother was pinching you and you screamed and stuck your foot out of the window you weren’t crazy, right? There was a reason why you acted that way, but I didn’t know it and yelled and said you were naughty.” “Oh.” “Did Van Gogh’s brother torture him?” “Actually his brother was his only friend.” “So what did he have to worry about.” “Never mind.” “Can we get the ice cream now?”

In our house it’s not called going to a museum, it’s called “Museum Torture.”

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We cut the wires,
find ourselves in free-fall, as if
our true home were the undimensional
solitudes, the rift
in the Great Nebula.

from Transcendental Etude

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Porche, originally uploaded by courtney.

Wednesday I accidentally got on a MetroNorth to Greenwich, CT when I was trying to get to Rye, NY.  I started at the Fordham stop. To do this I have to take the A train to Inwood and get a Cross Bronx express bus over to the Fordham station, and I always get very stressed about it and plan my shoes way ahead because of all the walking and pack snacks and my big headphones and sigh and stuff. At the Fordham stop there are two main vendors – an Asian guy with a cart big enough for a staff of three who sells coffee and egg&cheese on a roll at a pace of about 10 per minute and a black guy who sells plastic wrapped bowls of fresh cut fruit on a table right on the sidewalk. The fruit is way nicer than anything I see in stores – this is true all over my part of Washington Heights and the Bronx – as far as I can tell.  It’s like the mangos and pineapples are never out of season in neighborhoods filled with Dominicans or something.  I always have to buy a ticket to Stamford because the “R” button on the automatic ticket machine town selector screen doesn’t work in the cold.

Anyway. On Wednesday I either got on the wrong train, or the train was providing “skip service” and I ended up in Greenwich. Read the rest of this entry »

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sohobike, originally uploaded by courtney.

Remember that song? by the Bare Naked Ladies?

I would drop frequent and regular $100 bills on the following: all the sweet, tired-looking workers at Launderrific; anyone who works at a toll booth; the girl at Rolen’s who has my salt bagel and decaf in a bag before I’m even in the door; Ilo who does all the work in my building; Jonce who “supervises” him; the Dominican girls at Franks and Associated; the dudes who sweep the A train at 207th street; every single MTA worker that has to man an elevator; the guy who makes the hot, fat pitas at Moustache; the guy who fills the tanks at the gas station on Dykman; the UPS and fed/ex guys for our building; Jeff, the Postman (who probably wouldn’t accept them); and the guy Manny at Hilltop Pharmacy.

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My one resolution for 2010:

Don’t buy anything that costs less than $3. Includes: itunes songs and television shows, People magazine, designer smoothie drinks, Star$, Dunkin Donuts, powerbars, cupcakes, Ikea kitchen glasses and other “useful” items from their basement bins, cool looking pens, mini moleskin notebooks, extra hair clips and lip gloss.  To quote my Dad – it’s all junque.

Music and tv are the only thing on the list that have utility (sort of) and I can get them cheaper from Amazon ($5 albums!) or by buying actual (plastic!) albums and dvds (and then re-selling them), or better, from hulu.

Exceptions: parking, tolls, and a bagel + large decaf from Rolen’s in Riverdale

I figure I’m gonna save $6 and 300 calories/day. That’s $180 month and a dress size. True Religion jeans, a snappy trench, new shoes for spring.

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I’ve been talking to MTHBMPR about hope.  He’s quoting Bloch right now on daydreams.  It turns out (we think) that hope is a very precise, very still – in the sense of motionless – virtue.  It’s not creativity or vision – it doesn’t “do” anything or act in any direction.  Nor is it madness – it doesn’t leave reality. It’s related to faith, I think, but faith subtends a belief in something at least nominally religious. Hope’s not grace either, though like grace it exists against all reason.  But unlike grace hope is based on vision.  We see things when we hope, and what we see is simple and beautiful.   To hope is to daydream.

So much of the Obama excitement of late 2008 was about hope, and indeed I think his becoming president rested on the inexplicable power of hope.  But what we did after was different.   I think we thought that because Obama was president everything would be fixed – that torturers would be brought to justice, that health care would be given to all, that banking could become honest, that people would have jobs, that pollution and terrorism and poverty could end.  We called this desire hope – but it wasn’t hope.  It was at best creativity and momentum and idealism and at worst collective mania and naivete.  We made a good start – maybe – but the truth is not much good has happened. And there’s not really any reason to think we’ll forge ahead with any kind of real results in 2010

Which is why I think that hope – true,  passive, paradoxical hope – is absolutely necessary now. We need to daydream.

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