tuckova

nice rack

last year Friar Tuck was obsessed with hedges. our conversations were like, "i'm thinking of making some changes to my will," and he'd be all, "so an alternating line of beech and maple trees..."

for his birthday i got him some CDs of birdsong because he'd been driving me a bit to distraction with the "hear that? wonder what bird that is!" and i thought that if he knew he would be happy.

hahaha y'all. i may never have a complete conversation with the man again. and his obsession plays like a total ADD parody conversation. "so... about the asbestos?" "look! a bird!" except it's more like, "listen! a pipit! the rubescens! in english, i believe its song is described as see-me, see-me!"

i was walking Squire Tuck to school today and he's all, "i think that was a woodpecker!" and "check out that Parus major over there," and i had to bang my head softly against a lamp post. what hath anne wrought? except then i realized that parus major in english is great tit and it's hard to feel too sorry for yourself when you're laughing til your tears leak.

***
ETA: also: A few circus pictures up here. Friar Tuck takes better pictures than i do because he takes pictures rather than watches the action, so he comes back with like 100 pictures and i have maybe 2. but he will insist on taking them all in profile, or from a hundred miles away, or whatever.  i'm not even going to post the one he took of me, cracking up, me and my seven chins.

reaching for the sky just to surrender

I've been carrying around a ball of angry frustration for over a week now, and it's not exactly causing writer's block but more like writer's inarticulation. It is unlike me to take a direct route to the point, but it is equally unlike me to be unable to get there after some 3000 words. Which is what I clocked when I tried to write down what exactly was bothering me. And so I set it aside and decided to let it marinate a while.

So I'm trying again, here, because I need to set this down. It's this huge thing, and has to do with conversational shorthand; the making over of oneself into a simple, palatable person. Bitten off with a smile and squeezed into a ball. It's to do with how while I realize there are situations in which this is necessary, I find it ... I don't know, insulting when it is done amongst friends. It's maybe to do with the desire to be accepted, and I understand this desire, but I don't get this solution.

The older I get, the more specific I am, and the more I want to distance myself from anything that isn't exactly precise in myself and others. I recognize that the task of defining oneself precisely can be exhausting to the point of boredom, and I don't suggest that we all run around explaining every damn thing, but I think that pretending to be simple for the sake of avoiding complexity is a cheap trick.

It's like: drawing a caricature of yourself in order to make yourself more easily identified by strangers that you're only encountering briefly is one thing, but holding up this caricature for your friends seems more like either you think your friends are stupid or you think they're not paying attention. I understand that this "nobody pays attention to me" thing is all part of the joy of self-deprecation but it's insulting to me because believe me: I'm paying full price attention and I do not like finding myself in the cheap seats.

It's not like this hasn't bothered me before. I don't know why I can't even get close to where I want to say. Maybe some concrete examples. Okay: I'm tired of the idea that your kids are a burden. First because it is not remotely novelty: kids are a lot of work. Second because if you did not want them you should not have had them. Or: I am tired of the nudgey joking that your spouse is unbearable. Either you love the person, warts and all, or you married a giant wart, in which case you are a terrible judge of character, and complaining about the person you chose makes you look stupid. Or: I am tired of hearing how much you hate your boss because it is not that hard to format a resume and lick stamps. They even have peel off stamps now. Or, and this is maybe where I'm heading: the recurring announcement that you belong to whatever group you belong to, of  parents or spouses or employees or women or whatever, and whatever your feelings about the fact that it's part of who you are, when you start making it bigger than you are, you're making a caricature of yourself when you could be making art.

I don't mean it's not okay to complain (or brag) sometimes, as long as you balance it. Sometimes your nose feels like it's bigger than your whole face and it's reasonable to talk about that feeling, as long as talking about it doesn't make you start thinking it's true. This is what we do, we talk it out or write it down and it becomes a little further away. We Erma Bombeck the hell out of what happened until we can laugh at the moment and at ourselves. I understand that articulating a problem is sometimes 50% to solving it; please, have you not heard me whine louder than an unoiled gate? The complaining is not the problem, Rodney Dangerfield. It's the failure to go one inch beyond the caricature you've drawn around yourself. 

I actually never really found Rodney Dangerfield funny. Gar, come on. Or okay wait, maybe I can work with this. The reason that Rodney Dangerfield wasn't funny is that I knew it wasn't true. I knew that he had kids, that he was married and probably genuinely loved his wife. He was complaining about them in order to be liked, and caricaturing parts of what might have been real to the detriment of things that were also equally real. This is why, when you start to define yourself in one way, as having one particular problem, as having one specific feeling, as belonging to one special group —if that one thing is less than the whole story, and especially if that one interpretation is less than real—it feels wrong to me. Because we're not stand-up comedians and we're not caricatures. And this isn't funny. And it doesn't look like you.

mochitsuki weekend

Squire Tuck went to a circus training camp this weekend (what they're called in czech literally translates as "concentration camp" but i think perhaps we'll just call it a "training camp", hm?) so Friar Tuck and i scurried off to the cottage to do all the stuff we can't do when Squire Tuck is there, because we're afraid he might be scarred by the experience.

no, actually i meant pulling the asbestos panels off the wall, gutter brain.

so we pulled the remaining panel off the wall. it was behind the stove, so first we had to take apart the stove and drag the rustingly foul parts out, and then we pulled the panel off. i say "we" but i mean mainly Friar Tuck, although i helped with the heavy lifting a little. i mainly was sorting the existing stuff into piles in the hopes that perhaps now that the roof is done we can get someone to come and haul it all away, so i'd like it neatly stacked for efficient removal.

i'm so mad about the asbestos: the roof was asbestos tiles and the wall panels were impregnated with asbestos, and there's even these strings that the guy used to stuff into the cracks that Friar Tuck says are made with asbestos. also there's a lot of glass wool, but i'm not even getting into that. i'm mad because trying to find someone to haul it off is proving to be very difficult, and trying to find a place that will take it isn't easy either, and the quotes we're getting from the places that do accept it are really high.

everybody has a different idea for what we should do with it. my favorite suggestion was "grind it up in a woodchipper and then distribute it in a field somewhere"; the roofer suggested that we just bury it out in the forest. obviously not doing either of these things; nor do i plan to just dump it at some construction site in the middle of the night (although that is a leetle tempting)-- i have enough money to pay for it to be legally disposed of, and i will, because i am an upstanding person and because i enjoy criticizing others, which means i can't be too much of an asshole without being a hypocrite.

but i do think that other people are poorer, and perhaps less upstanding, and are taking these suggestions, and are getting rid of their once totally legal roofs by means less than legal, and it makes me incredibly pissed, because i can't even be that mad at them. who wants to spend more than the price of a new roof on getting rid of an old roof? it's messed up.

in addition to frolicking in the asbestos, Friar Tuck also gave me some better instructions with the chainsaw so i got to be all i am woman hear me roar and slash through one of the three giant piles of wood. the firewood is totally stacking up for the winter. i sawed everything into nice, stove-sized pieces, and then we did a thing where i was doing the stacking while Friar Tuck was axing the bigger pieces, and i had to grab the piece and then turn to the stack while Friar Tuck swung the ax down, then turn back and grab the fresh piece while he got the next log out, and i remembered when the guys would make mochi in japan in an usu (like a giant mortar and pestle) in front of the train station, and while we were not nearly that efficient or dangerous i still liked falling into the rhythm of work, repetitive work that requires your attention nonetheless.

so: good weekend. although my everything hurts a bit today. i am a pampered pale lady and did not realize that not having muscles didn''t mean they wouldn't hurt.

my thumbs represent the opposition

we'll all be very grateful to hear that my ego got its proper dressing down this weekend and that my head has now shrunk back to a sensible size. i can do many, many things of tremendous importance in the world. i can organize socks. i can explain the difference between good and well. i can boil water like a madman. i can make pickled eggs. i can quote at crazy length from just about any movie released between 1984 and 1994. i can untangle knots without resorting to the alexandrian solution. these are all, i am sure you will agree, highly useful skills.

however,  i cannot consistently break a forest of tasks into individual trees. i get lost in the forest every single time. this is usually a metaphorical forest, but this weekend at the cottage i came to understand that a literal forest, or even a literal clump of trees, can reduce me to rocking back and forth and staring at my useless hands. i cannot run a chainsaw for more than about 10 minutes without flipping out. even if the chainsaw weren't a problem, i cannot prune a tree for any use, because i get too distracted by my desire for symmetry and my fear of falling (one of my many talents is that i can completely wipe out while walking slowly on a perfectly level sidewalk, so i'm not really crazy about situations from which even stable people topple). i cannot seem to stack wood without getting a zillion splinters in my fingers.

i'm really good at taking out splinters, though. i'm good at small things. i'm like, all fingers, no arms.

i continue to be bad at interviews, even when i have time to prepare the answers.

it's nice to be nice to the nice

i'm nice! gosh i'm nice. perhaps you haven't noticed how nice i am, so let me tell you. no, wait: first i'll tell you, and then i want you to repeat it back to me, just so i know we're on the same page. ready? NICE. we will also accept sweet. kind. helpful. pleasant. agreeable. no? can i get an adequate? hello? is this thing on?

gar. it's unbearable with me lately. i am not to be borne. i cannot do the laundry without pointing out that i am doing the laundry. cannot cook a meal without pointing out that i cooked it. dishes, you don't even want to know. if i god forbid should do something that i think someone else might not notice, fix something that nobody other than me knew was broken, clean something that nobody other than me knew was dirty, find something that nobody else knew was lost? nobody needs to worry about missing a thing. steven tyler would be so grateful. see how i washed your socks? and folded them into tidy little snails? and then organized your sock drawer by sock length and color? aren't i wonderful? simply marvelous? nice?

blech. fortunately i am blessed to live with a boy who enthusiastically plays along (yes! i did see how you cooked that meal using three whole pots! hey, did you like how i noticed? wasn't that nice of me to notice!) and a man who absolutely doesn't (oh, anne. oh my.). luckily we all know that we're on anne's crazy train, that this is a transition and not a destination, and i am confident that we will presently be disembarking at a much more pleasant station; one in which i will again simply function instead of pointing out that i do.

i went to the hospital yesterday. i had to make an appointment for a Procedure and the telephonary was just too overwhelming to face, so i grabbed a book and went in person. three hours, my friends, just me and mr. obama and terribly hardbacked plastic benches (and some people who made me look the picture of health, which is always a blast). the doctor was devastatingly cute and laughed at my jokes, and i instantly fell in love which is always a good thing when you're about to take your clothes off.

about the book i'm reading (dreams from my father): i really like barack obama. i have no idea what i think of him as presidential material but i am all weak in the knees for anybody who can write a grammatical, powerful sentence. he's no jefferson but he is maybe, like, sam seaborn. the book is interesting to me in terms of my current preoccupation with the degree to which we are defined by our culture, and his approach to it is an interesting combination of wide-eyed and even-handed that i'm ready to hear.

pretty much that's it, i think. there's a parent/teacher meeting to which i am not remotely looking forward, but i didn't eat uncooked chicken in the hopes i would get salmonella, so in a way we're making process. i may even be nice, although i don't think my capabilities stretch quite that far.

physical stocks down; mental stocks rising

I don't remember the last time I wasn't in some measure of physical pain. A month? Maybe almost two. I know some people are in pain all the time, real serious pain that is worse than a toothache or a crunkledy back, and I'm not comparing myself to them at all. It's just: I don't think about myself this way. I think of myself as fairly impervious. I am the person who will get three hours of sleep and get up the next day and wash windows and wax the floor. I am the woman who will smash her hand through the window and go out dancing after she gets home from the hospital. I am not one to be held back by a boo-boo, and it is almost never more serious than a boo-boo. So it troubles me to realize that I cannot remember the last day that I did not wake and stretch and wince, the last day I did not take something for pain, the last day that I did not consider, before starting a task, whether it was going to hurt. It troubles me first because it makes me feel like a physical wuss and second because I think a certain lack of self-reliance indicates a weakness in mental focus that doesn't bode well.

It's spring. I think it's probably time for a change. I can get up the hill to the cottage without stopping but I think somehow I need to be kicked back into shape anyway. I do not like feeling weak, feeling incapable, feeling powerless. I think I need my body to remember that it is a valuable member of team anne, and I think I need to get it off the bench, where it is sulking. I'm not sure how yet but I am determined.

This weekend we went to the cottage, where we finally have a real roof. A roof is very good and now we are planning to think towards real walls, woot. We spent the weekend shredding branches from the pruned apple trees into manageable piles of fragrant woodchips, and jumping up and down on the compost pile. Good times, y'all. It was cold and windy and frustrating in parts but mostly it was all snails climbing Mt. Fuji. Oh, and Easter was awesome. I got thwacked a little harder than usual (uhm, ow) and also a sunburn (again, and louder: ow) but the sun was shining and my friends are lovely and the pickled eggs turned out great and altogether I feel fairly cheery, just not entirely right.

cheap tricks for hypochondriacs

1. eat a lot of beets
2. forget that you ate a lot of beets

happy easter, my peeps. i'll probably have something to say about pickled beets and purple eggs later.

funambulist

it is no harder to walk across the highwire without a safety net. it is no harder to fix in your mind the opposite pole, the goal; to powder your hands and feet in preparation; to hold the bar that maintains your balance; to tighten your muscles just so; to walk to the opposite side. it does not become more challenging to do this without the safety net. the audience may be impressed, may gasp, although more likely you are the only one in the whole circus really impressed, because you're maybe the only one aware that you are going to have just as hard a time with the net or without. your job is to get across, not to fall, and so the safety net in fact is not a part of your equation. it is not, as you told your friend the other night, a character in your book.

so the safety net really isn't important. what's important is getting across. what's important to you is getting across with style, elegance, charm -- any adjective that would describe a film star from the forties. you do know a lot of it is in the presentation, though: cary grant's whole thing was a facade, but that's not the same thing as fake. you drop the chalk bag over the edge of the platform. everyone watches it fall, as quickly slow motion as a car crash. you did this on purpose. that is style, and you've got it. and you powdered your hands as you fumbled for the bag, which is going to help you hold the bar on the way across.

"elegance" you think to yourself as you slide a confident arch off the ledge of the platform and onto the wire. you picture your body, your center of gravity balanced over the wire, take the next step, smile. the balance is important. people think the bar makes things harder for you but in fact sometimes it's zooey's cigar, the only thing that's keeping you from flying straight off. it gives you something to concentrate on.

"charm" is important too, a certain interaction with the audience but not too aggressive; you want to be liked, you would like to be loved, but above all you need to get across the wire. you don't have to spend time in the middle juggling or dancing unless you think it will be fun. this is your choice. however there is a certain charm in propping up, cooking an omelet, taking your time. you have worked hard, you're strong, and you're not afraid. you can look straight down at the ground where there is no safety net; a few elephants milling about; some kids with open mouths.

some decisions are in your hands. some are not. whether to use tools, whether to juggle, whether you want a slackline or a taut are all up to you. you will have to step off the platform. you've done this before and you can do it again. remember that you have to make it across. remember too, though, that if you make it across without having fun, it's worse than falling. if you fall there are worse things at stake than whether there's a safety net.