Thursday, June 28, 2007

The People We Spend Our Lives With



This is Nick, the Budget dentist with whom I spent a delightful morning having my teeth spiffed up and photo opped. I apologize to the sweet girls in the office for not bringing pastry but the parking on Lake Avenue particularly sucked today. I hope you pay them well enough to afford an adequate breakfast given the fancy second home in Santa Barbara, across from the beach and all. Actually, the dental office, like Budget Films, has little turnover and I know the girls and their ups and downs having had plenty of quantity and quality time there for over twenty years so I am sure Nick’s employees, like mine, are loved and cherished like the family they are
I recounted several months ago on this blog the experience of Nick sending me off to an oral surgeon, who will remain nameless as I do know my boundaries, and I sensed was somehow broken and angry and just incapable of being as gentle as Nick in jamming a huge needle into my gums. Perhaps it is Nick’s voice, although it is a bit pitchy and is not a classically soothing voice and given to snorting laughter, that reassured me more than the distant, inaccessible oral surgeon. Funny, I spoke briefly on the phone to an architect in Northern California with whom I’ve corresponded for years and it was uncanny how similar to Nick he sounded. Sort of a "I am comfortable enough being hetero that I don’t have to maintain the discipline of keeping my voice in an artificial deep melodious register." A cute voice.
I do have to have another major session with the gruff oral surgeon but I have proposed to Nick a dental menage a’tois for which he will anesthesize me and then I will drive across Pasadena to let the nameless dentist do what only he can do. Fortunately, Nick said there was no urgency to schedule this triangle and that my dental health at moment is quite robust.
The second photo is the beam which will replace my children’s current bedroom wall which is now supporting our house. This is the hallmark of my new kitchen and in all the houses I have lived in or owned in my life this is the first time I have ever said "tear down a wall" and I pray it is done and clean and beautiful before my bershert returns.

Erratum Typicus


From the Kaz, who apparently I underestimated and is able to not only live on her own like an adult but send and receive e-mail!
"I just re-read your beautiful discussion of your anniversary and marriage.You were married in 1991, not 1992 (always the savant...). I remembered that the first time I felt the babies move inside me was as Iwas getting ready for your wedding. Also, if you had married in 1992, youwould have already been knocked up and probably showing!Love,Kaz"

OK Kaz. This is the man who broke your heart. And for the first one of you who never read this blog ever, to name this sexy dude and provide all of the lyrics from the song "Honey" I will provide one dozen homemade cookies delivered to your door as soon as they can be baked in my new big dick oven. (Continential U.S. residents who never read this blog ever only please).

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Lose the Baby




We bought a nifty high def camera and send photographers out and about to acquire footage around the city. One of the projects that seemed a natural was a growing baby. We filmed a lovely (looking–I don’t know these people, it’s all about the footage and the release) pregnant woman, filmed her and we have been filming her cute (boy? girl? Check the release) for several months and I had visions of high def footage of a growing baby gracing all number of high roller national t.v. spots. Yesterday we reviewed the most recent baby footage. The baby is getting bigger. Cute. Then the camera moved in. Acne. We gasped. Someone yelled "make up!" I have decided against a dermatological consultation. The baby has been fired. Babies are a dime a dozen. Hollywood is a tough town.

Immaculate


































I dropped Himself at the airport yesterday and was starting to choke up but I placed a love letter in his hand and bit my lip and then burst into sobs when the door slammed and he was gone from me. I said to Leo that I hope that in his life he loves someone as much as I love his father. The bed was so empty last night and today Ana will change the sheets and strip away the smell of him. I spoke to him this morning and from e-mail, "I type this next to Mary Immaculate--Colaiste Mhuire gan smal-- Mary in Irish gets her own spelling not the name of the ordinary girls or other saints as the BVM and she is without smear or stain..."




The rest is private. We are immaculate.

Surrender Dirty Word Check! I Will Not Be Silenced!

This went through:


John safely ensconced in Eire for the next month and next I pack the sprats off to camp 7-10. Remodeling coming along but still in basement and floor there isn't even in yet. Received nice long note from your husband who seems happy and as always after a theatre production swears to be less high maintenance (you can check out the admissibility of e-mail as evidence in divorce court with the Gould-Saltman of your choice) but we know he is a lying piece of s*h*i*t* although based on Izzy and Maddie we also both know how well you've done by him despite other quirks which we will continue to moan about forwever.

Will you be at MB's Saturday? Do you still have that lime juice? Could you stand another mojito?
I have been waiting and waiting for you to call and drag my lazy ass on a walk but apparently you are still a lazy
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XXX000
L

Friday, June 22, 2007

Shabbat

My husband is two floors down posting comments on my blog and I am posting this observation here instead of getting off my butt and waddling down the stairs and reminding him that perhaps it might be nice to get in a bit of real time while we are in the same house.

Research I Would Not Have Funded


From the NY Times:

Girls who have sex at an early age are at slightly greater risk than their peers for feeling depressed, a new survey has found. But their self esteem suffers only if the sex occurs outside of a romantic relationship.


For boys, having sex at early age does not increase depression or decrease self esteem.

Summer


School is out and I can feel it in my heart lungs and groin and I float back to the vinyl stacked on the record player on Fulton Avenue. Late for The Sky. Blue. After the Goldrush. Over and over and over. The valley cools down at night more than here, what we used to call "over the hill" a denizen of which I have now been for longer than I lay in the valley cool, spitting apricot pits through the torn screen and germinating a small tree next to the ancient gardenia.

I marked the seasons at Fulton Avenue with Meyer lemons, camellias, gardenias and bearded iris while the record player plunked lp after lp. At Casamurphy it's grapefruit and jacaranda. I watched Spuds stretched out in his little bed this morning and felt like jumping on him and tickling him and tossing him on the floor. The first weekday morning of vacation and the feel of the bed, still cool before the dog day wretchedness of August which looms ahead, is the best morning of the year. I let him sleep. He would have beaten the crap out of me if I’d given him a raspberry on his smooth white belly or noogies on his grungy boyo scalp.

I had a nice talk with Sid and PK at the hippy school and while we have some philosophically moot areas, they are the gold standard of school administrators–fierce and loving mothers first. Nice to leave my kids in a place where I know they can’t fuck them up any worse than I can. Although, Sid, how many times did you actually watch The Sound of Music?

Himself and I will have been married 16 years tomorrow. There is no single act or decision I have made in my life that has so exceeded my expectation. The idea of marriage is so much richer and bittersweet and fraught with love and sex and grace than anything I ‘d yet to dream in 1992 when I was a June bride. And forty six years ago on Monday, which will be a regular psychotherapy, fish dinner and yoga night at Casamurphy, an Irish unwed mother gave birth to a frail premature infant at County General Hospital.

After our June celebratory rituals, Tuesday himself will fly away to Eire and leave me to remodel, ship the kids to camp and truly feel the emptiness of our bed and remember the coolness and loneliness of the valley.

Thank you my love for being born and for marrying me and for loving me and this stupid stupid fucking body.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Layne Scores BIG against Dirty Word Check

This got through!


vertical approach.
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Which I will fully will retract if you were actually there at 6 a.m. but I did leave you a message to call me at 5:50 and the phone did not ring. Oh, what a breathtaking leap in code breaking if this goes through. My heart will pound as I push send.
Love,