The Last Post

O.K.

I have put off this post for a long time, obviously--I just didn't feel up to writing it. I'm finally ready. This will be my last post on One Mean Chickadee.

Those of you who know me--which is probably all of you--know why I am shutting this blog down. I have thought about it for a long time, debated it with myself, trying to decide what to do. This blog was tied to the life I had, before the Big Thing, before the Personal Issues I mentioned before finally came to a head. I can't go back to it, can't continue with it. There are too many references, memories, and feelings tied to it. It's time to move on.

For anyone who might not know, in case I do have any casual readers who just stumbled upon this blog (and haven't deserted by now after my 2-month absence . . . highly unlikely, but who knows?), I am getting divorced. Or disillusioned. All right, I already am disillusioned, but some legal confirmation of the emotional experience I'm going through will eventually happen.

I will no longer refer to my soon-to-be-ex as Jackspatula, but merely as S.--when I refer to him, which I'm not planning on doing often. To be clear, I'm not planning on airing the dirty laundry in public, at least not in detail. But the truth is, this experience is very much a part of who I am right now, and of what I'm going through, as a person and as a writer. I cannot simply pretend it's not taking place.

The facts:

For a variety of reasons, the 6-year relationship I had with S. did not work out. Things had not been good, at all, for about a year. Maybe more. In retrospect, it was more.

I moved out almost two months ago. I now have a very nice townhouse apartment. It's just me and the cats. I cannot and will not talk about the dog.

I thought we would be able to end things well, remain civil, maybe even be friends again eventually. It did not work out that way. Nothing is final, legally, so I'm not going to say anything more about that right now.

I am doing O.K. It's a process. I have good days and bad days. This is natural. Some people in my life have been amazing during this time, so full of love and support, so there for me, and I appreciate them more than they'll ever know. (You know who you are.) Some others have been indifferent, or kept things on the surface, probably because they just don't know how to deal with it. Others have tuned their backs. This, too, is natural. I will not pass judgment.

This has to be a time of reflection and introspection for me. I can no longer continue with this particular blog, but I must continue to write. In fact, I need to write more. Anyone out there who is a writer, who is an artist, who has any creative impulse at all, understands why.

With all of this in mind, I am starting a new blog. Here is the address:

http://blueruin2.blogspot.com/

There's no real post there yet, but there will be, sometime this week. Stay tuned.

It Lives!

Yes, I am still alive, and to my faithful readers (all three of you or so), I apologize. Between The Holiday, being slammed at work, and the birth of my new niece (Hi, Riley!), things have been a little hectic. And yes, I realize that, despite my best intentions and promises, I am still beginning each post with an apology about not posting more often. I just can't seem to help it. Let's move on.

I do have to add that, in addition to all the hecticness (which is not an actual word, but should be), I've been having some Personal Issues. They are not appropriate to blog about, at least not now, but they are there. So cut me some slack, people, O.K.?

Anyhoo, I saw something today on the Slate homepage that reminded me vaguely of a post from long, long ago. Tell me, whom do you think this is in the picture below? (Hint: it's a very famous musician who had a bestselling album back in the day.)













I showed this to a couple of people at work today, and only one (Raisinette) even ventured a guess--Iggy Pop. Good guess! But so, so far off. Maybe including the tagline from the photo would help?

Wait for it . . .

Wait for it . . .



Patti Smith in concert


Shocked? Yeah, me too. Not only does she totally look like a man (complete with 5 o'clock shadow--download the larger image from Slate), but she looks like a man who's been hanging out with Keith Richards for about 60 years. Seriously, what happened?

I can understand the whole, "I'm an artist who just wants to rock the fuck out and doesn't give a shit about looking hot or ladylike or any fucking crap like that, and besides, I'm old." I really can. And I don't want to sound like a petty, gossiping bitch. But you know, a little moisturizer and conditioner go a long way, don't really take that much time or effort, and might actually make you feel a little better. Even actual men use these things! I'm just saying.

I've never been a Patti Smith fan, but that's not because I don't recognize her talent--it's just not my taste. I've never been that into punk in general, and experimental punk is something I will probably never strive to appreciate at this point. When I first listened to "Horses" years ago, I expected, from the album cover, that she was a folksy, Dylaneque singer-songwriter. Actually, that's what I was hoping for, because that's what I like. Instead, what I heard was . . . punk. At least, that's what it sounded like to me. It's been a few years, though--maybe I should go back and give it another listen and see what I think.

But the fact remains that, whatever you think of her music, you must agree--some attention to personal hygiene is called for here.

On being dragged kicking and screaming into the holiday season

So, first I'd like to apologize for not blogging for so long. It's part not-much-happening and part just-not-feeling-like-it. As always, I'll try to do better. (Kind of nice to know I have a built-in New Year's resolution this year. And be forewarned--I'll probably stick to it about the same as most people stick to their resolutions. That is, not much.)

But anyway, before I get to the meat of the post, I want to share a blog gem I found the other day. While looking up, of all things, Dilbert cartoons about supply and demand (don't ask), I somehow stumbled upon an interesting poker blog. Well, interesting to me, anyway--I doubt most of you will be that interested in a blog about hand histories and such. But the greatest thing about this blog is its title and tagline:

The Poker Chronicles
"Proving that if you put a million monkeys in front of a million computers eventually 65,000 of them will log on to Party Poker."

Ha! That's so true.

Anyhoo, the pressure finally got to me this weekend. After actively and passionately resisting the unending barrage of holiday-related crap that's been steadily directed at all of us since around Halloween, I had to come to grips with the fact that it is, indeed, December, and that there's this "occasion" the entire country tends to pay a bit of attention to coming up soon. Of course, no one really knows what to call it anymore, so it is now merely The Holiday.

I won't go into the whole grotesque commercialization business, or delve into the very relevant question of what, exactly, this time of year is supposed to "mean" to an atheist. I've resigned myself to the fact that The Holiday is a uniquely unstoppable force, and eventually, it's gonna get you. The trick, I think, is to do just enough Holiday-related activities to feel you are still connected to the culture around you, but not so much that you feel you've been completely manipulated and exploited by the market forces that have seized control of peace on Earth, good will, etc. etc.

So, this weekend Jackspatula and I took baby steps. We didn't do any actual shopping for gifts, but we did buy Holiday lights for the front window and mantel, and I picked up some Holiday cards and stocked up on candles. (O.K., the candles aren't really Holiday-related, per se, but they were still a "festive" purchase.) What's more shocking, we actually hung the lights on the front window and mantel, as intended! A much more typical move on our part would have been to buy the lights, let them sit unopened on the kitchen table until about January 3rd, and then take them to the basement for "storage," where they would be quickly forgotten, never used, and then donated to the Kidney Foundation in about 10 years. (This happens a lot. The Kidney Foundation loves us.)

Even more impressive: Jackspatula cleaned out the upstairs closet, pulling out four years' worth of wrapping and tissue paper, ribbons, bows, gift bags, etc., and then I organized all of it and arranged it neatly in one of the downstairs closets, which I also cleaned out first! Yes, I agree--impressive. So now, if we ever actually buy any gifts, we will be ready.

And I have to admit--sitting in our Holiday-lighted living room, writing out Holiday cards and drinking wine, I did feel good and sort of at peace. Could that be the true meaning of The Holiday?

Life Imitates Simpsons

Just as the Warren local newspaper summoned up thoughts of the Onion, some CNN broadcasts lately have been reminiscent of the Simpsons, and specifically Kent_Brockman. Tonight on Wolf Blitzer's show, "The Situation Room," the audience poll asked the following question:

"If you could have a face transplant, whose face would you want?"

Jack Cafferty, the guy administering the poll, then announced, "And we'll read all the ridiculous responses we expect to get from you people later tonight."

I don't know about you people, but that struck me as a little bit . . . well, you_know.

Anyway, in France they apparently did an actual face transplant on a woman whose face had been disfigured, using the facial skin of a woman who had been declared brain-dead. (Apparently, in France, brain-dead people do not enjoy the luxury of state supreme court intervention.) At least, they are calling it a "face transplant." However, they're only transplanting skin, not bone or muscle, so in my estimation, this is more of a "skin transplant." How this differs from what we currently call a "skin graft," I really don't know. Maybe it's just that this new nomenclature made it easier to come up with tonight's fascinating viewer's poll. (Of course, if they just transplant skin, you're still going to look like you, not someone else . . . am I being nit-picky here?)

In other news, Wolf himself reported that a bunch of people out on some body of water somewhere today celebrated the end of hurricane season by "blowing on a ceremonial conch shell." He repeated this important tidbit of information a couple of times while waiting for the footage to show, until it became apparent that they didn't actually have any footage of the ceremonial conch-shell blowing. What they did have abundant footage of was these supposed conch-shell blowers trying, and failing, to light two "hurricane flags" on fire. It seems they were trying to send a little "Fuck you!" message to hurricanes in general, but since the wind was blowing and it was raining a bit, their efforts were all for naught. All in all, not a great day for hurricane-season-ending celebrators.

And now, without further ado, the results of tonight's CNN readers poll:

"If you could have a face transplant, whose face would you want?"

--My own, about 20 years ago
--Gorbachev, without the birthmark
--Frank Zappa
--Bob Marley (and his hair too)
--Wolf Blitzer
--Anderson Cooper

Suckiest poll respondents ever!

[Confidential to burb: "Someone else! Someone else!"]

Art Imitates Life?

I just realized that in yesterday's post, I never got to the part to which the title was supposed to refer. And now I don't remember what, exactly, I wanted to write about that part. What's more, I can't remember which phrase came first--"Life Imitates Art" or "Art Imitates Life." One definitely came first, and then people started twisting it around and using the other one so frequently that now I can't remember which started first. (That happens a bit with the phrases "Dog Bites Man" and "Man Bites Dog*"--the second is used so often now that sometimes you have to stop and think of what the original phrase was. Of course, this one is obvious--but I digress.) And now, of course, I realize that "Art Imitates Life" was the original phrase, but I still can't remember what I was going to write about the other one.** Sigh.

There are a lot of great things about being in your 30s. In a lot of ways, things become much clearer, quickly. You kind of look around at your life and think, "Am I happy with this?" And then you either carry on, or you make minor adjustments, or you make major upheavals. I'm in the minor adjustments stage, and it's a good place to be, actually. You're not just sitting there, stagnating, not trying to improve yourself, but neither are you completely uprooting and taking off to, say, Africa (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

On the other hand, you start to go a little senile on certain things. Things you should remember or know how to do, and then you just blank out on them. I don't remember this happening as much in my 20s . . . but then, I have no way of knowing, of course, if that's because it didn't happen or because I don't remember it.

I guess I should amend this to the first person--these are my experiences, not everone's. I'm sure there are plenty of 30-something folks out there who would say they are still as sharp as ever. To those people I would say, "Ha! You're in denial!" (Just kidding.***)

Things I Just Can't Remember Anymore

1. How to spell "recommend." (I've now made myself practice it so much that hopefully I'll never forget. These obstacles can be overcome.)
2. The capital of Indonesia.
3. The names of people I've met at certain parties about 15 times, but then I never see or talk to them away from these parties, and I'm sorry, but if a person didn't really jump out at me, and I never see or talk to them, I'm probably not going to remember their name. If I was able to do that, I'd have been a politician or a sales rep.
4. How to post photos to my blog. I have to ask burb every time. (This problem is being remedied by Blogger, which is currently addressing the needs of people like myself who need for them to make this process so easy that it would be almost impossible to screw it up unless you were doing it on purpose, and even then it would be hard.)

And a whole bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now . . .


*But actually, I hadn't heard anyone use this phrase in quite a while, until Svengolly's very true comment posted recently.

**This could be because I'm a little bit buzzed right now. --Dedicated to truth in blogging since 2004.

***???

Life Imitates Art

So Jackspatula and I survived another holiday outing to his hometown of Warren. Warren is like the Gary, Indiana, of Ohio--and if you've ever been to Gary, you know exactly what I mean. A once-thriving industrial center that went to hell after numerous factory closings . . . they really need to get Billy Joel in to write a song about it. (Or maybe not--does the world really need another version of "Allentown"?) We actually had a pretty good time relaxing and hanging out with the parents--his parents, that is, who have been divorced for 20 years and live in separate houses but still spend the holidays together, go on vacation together, etc. Perhaps the best part of the whole trip, though, was reading the local newspaper, which frequently reminded me of the Onion. Some actual headlines:

"Terrorist Cells Are Unpopular"
"Woman Reports Freezer Cleaned Out"
"Penguin Men Visit Akron"

And, in the advertising section, "Sell your camper or RV for as little as $23!"

Apparently, all the editors fled a long time ago, along with the GM workers.

Anarchy Rules! Short Stories Rule! Just Read Something, People!

In keeping with the (semi) literary theme of the last post, I wanted to expound a bit on one of my nightstand books. The collection of John Sayles stories includes the title story "At the Anarchists' Convention," and it's one of my favorite short stories of all time. As all of us are painfully aware, the holidays are upon us, and in my opinion, there is no better time to check out a collection of short stories than the holidays. Many of us will be spending copious amounts of time with extended families, and some of us go a little bit nuts being around large groups of people for long stretches. A book of short stories (along with, perhaps, several glasses of wine) is just what you need at times like this--when it gets to be too much, you can sneak off somewhere for 15 or 20 minutes, read a short story, and feel renewed, or at least have something to think about while everyone else is complaining about hip pain or talking about how to get cranberry sauce stains out of the tablecloth or pretending to be interested in the 16th football game of the day. And with any luck, your family will never even realize you were gone! It's perfect.

So, if you get a chance to swing by the library soon and pick up this short-story collection, I highly recommend it. The title story, in particular, is a gem. (Yes, it's one of the three in the book I've actually read. I plan on reading the rest . . . over the holidays!) Just think about it for a minute . . . a convention of anarchists! The whole story just drips with delicious irony, and the title character is delightfully self-deprecating. The premise rests on the fact that all of the anarchists are getting up there in years, because really, who's an anarchist anymore? And their whole group is organized around committees and subcommittees, and they have officers and circulate petitions . . . basically, everything that isn't related to anarchy per se is what they do. (There is a wonderful part where they all throw away the name tags given to them at the door to the convention--"Name tags at the Anarchists' Convention," the narrator writes disdainfully, as if this is just going too far.) This collection came out in 1975, but the depiction of utter chaos and discord that often results when you try to organize people of supposedly like minds rings perfectly true today. (In fact, it summoned up a lot of deja vu from when I worked with MoveOn.org last year . . . )

If you're looking for more great short-story selections, here's my top 10 list. (Finally, another top 10 list!) In no particular order:

1. The anarchist convention story (see above)
2. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor
3. "To Build a Fire," Jack London
4. "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried," Amy Hempel
5. "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson
6. "Lust," Susan Minot
7. "Where I'm Calling From," Raymond Carver
8. "The Enormous Radio," John Cheever
9. "The Burning House," Ann Beattie
10. "Everyday Use," Alice Walker