"On Death" - Version 2

I’m wearing my dead brother’s shirt. I can’t remember ever seeing him wear it, but it was his, and now it’s mine. If you asked me what I get out of wearing this shirt, I’m not sure I could answer you. I have often wondered that myself. It’s just a shirt. It doesn’t hold anything that’s left of him: all that’s left of him are in my memories, my family’s memories. Maybe that’s what ghosts are made of: memories and empty clothes left around too long and an over-active imagination. The funny thing about death is, and I mean funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha; the funny thing is that everyone always thinks about loss when they think about death. I used to think the same way too: the loss of someone you love as something horrible, irrevocable and final, and it can be – but it’s not that simple. You never hear people talk about the things left behind – and I’m not talking about ghosts, unless that’s what you call t-shirts and memories and regrets. Sometimes things just stick around, long after the loss, and they haunt you.

When I was 28 we moved into the Death House, my sister Jenny, her boyfriend Tim, and I. We called it the Death House because, in fact, someone had died there: two someones back in the late 1980s. The real-estate agent had been required to disclose the deaths before Tim bought the house, I guess there is some kind of law about it. None of us were very bothered about the idea. The folks who had owned it before talked of the incident in a very off-hand way, said they had lived in the place for almost 10 years and had ". . . never had any trouble . . . ." How nice. Tim, who at the time was very interested in Native American culture and religion still suggested we do a smudging ceremony in the place before we actually moved in: just a formality, and kind of tongue-in-cheek . . . kind of.

About a month after we had moved in I had a dream that scared me awake: I screamed and sat straight up in bed. Mom was visiting at the time, and was staying in the spare bedroom next to mine. She came in when she heard me scream: I had actually woken her up. She asked me what had happened, and I told her about my dream, about a scary, shadowy man with wild hair who was standing in my doorway, just looking at me, wondering to himself whether or not he should come in. It took me a long while to get back to sleep after that, I was scared silly, and my overactive imagination was creating all sorts of phantoms in various corners. But nothing really unusual or frightening happened after that one time, and life in the Death House quietly, happily, continued.

After Jenny and Tim and I had lived in the Death House for a while, we learned more of the story, in bits and pieces, rumors from neighbors, remembered newspaper articles. Finally, my sister did some research and found out most of the story through the Anchorage Daily News archives. It was a double-homicide: a classic tale of love gone wrong. The story goes like this: Susan and Duane had been married for about eight years, but had been separated and living in different cities for more than two. They had two daughters. The wife, Susan, had moved on, apparently, because she was in a relationship with another man named Paul. Susan and Paul had been seeing each other for more than a year, Susan and Duane had argued about the new relationship on several occasions. Some time between 4 and 9 p.m. on December 2, 1988, Duane entered the house through the back door. He had a gun. He shot them both, his wife and her boyfriend, and then he left. A neighbor was later quoted as having seen Duane drive by the house earlier on the same day.

Some time after the murders occurred, Chuck, Paul's house-mate, returned home from an out-of-town job. Chuck was the only witness able to provide any other eye-witness information about the day and night of the killing. He got home around 9 p.m., and seeing that both Susan's and Paul's cars were in the driveway, assumed they were asleep. He probably puttered around a bit, as one does when one comes home after having been gone for a few days. Chuck told the reporters he remembers going to bed at about 11 p.m., and he fell asleep.

"... [He] was awakened about 3 a.m. when someone opened his bedroom door and looked at him. He told police he just looked back at the man, who then closed the door and went into [Paul's] room.

[Chuck] went to the kitchen for a glass of iced tea, then went back to bed. But he couldn't sleep and he told police he heard movement in Paul's room next door.

An hour later, he heard someone leave the house and start a car engine. He looked out the window and saw the tail lights of Susan's maroon Chevrolet Beretta.

[H]e got up about 10 a.m. Saturday and began straightening the house. Susan's jacket and gloves were lying in the kitchen and he gathered them up and went to put them in [Paul's] room.

Behind the bedroom door was a large bundle wrapped in a blanket. It was [Paul's] body. On the bed was Susan's body, also wrapped in bedding. He called the police."

- Anchorage Daily News. Marilee Enge. December 10, 1988.

Needless to say, this particular part of the story creeped me out. The first time I read it, my hair literally stood up on the back of my neck; in fact, I still get a chill now, reading it again more than ten years later. It captured my imagination in a way that news articles rarely do, because it made me think about death in a completely different way. I had never thought of death as something you can live with--share a house with, even--completely unaware of its presence in the next room, until some small occurrence brings you face to face with it. You're confronted with death, and you realize that it's been bundled and waiting for you just around the corner for, perhaps, your entire life. You just never realize it, until it's time, or until it's someone you know.

Ever since I can remember, I have always been terrified of death. I think I was four, and I must have seen some TV show that inspired me to ask what was to be my first deeply felt--and most unconvincingly answered--question. I seem to recall getting some speech about heaven and eternal life and happily-ever-after and such. It sounded dubious to me: like the answer she gave me when I asked her why the Bible never mentioned dinosaurs. As children we often feel betrayed by the fact that grown-ups sometimes cannot give us adequate explanations for the questions we have. We learn to mistrust those lumbering giants, who painfully pick you up by digging their meaty thumbs into your tender armpits, hoisting you up--nose-to-nose--then telling you pungently how big you've gotten before dropping you unceremoniously to the floor where you scamper away as quickly as your patent-leather mary-janes can take you. This is how children become skeptics: they cannot believe that the only things grown-ups care to talk about with kids is how big they have gotten, or to ask them if they would please go play quietly in the other room. I remember being skeptical of this "heaven" Mom spoke of, that it was a place in the clouds where everyone lives together and is happy. This sounded suspiciously like a fairy tale to me, but I held my tongue, hoping to learn more later. At that time I'm pretty sure I was just desperate to forget about the whole, scary, unsettling idea of death and the inevitable, eternal mystery that follows.

Later, when I was nine, I remember another betrayal of trust and a deeper sense of disillusionment about the nature of truth. The subject, again, was death. This time, however, I was well-acquainted with the deceased. Our family dog Heidi had died giving birth to puppies. She was a small dog, and high-strung, she irritated me, but I loved her. Mom told me she was dead when I got home from school one day, the day I had been eagerly anticipating arriving home to a box-full of puppies to play with. I learned later that the puppies had been too big for her, and one had gotten caught sideways in the birth-canal, causing massive internal-hemorrhaging. Mom told me they had tried to save Heidi, but they just couldn't. When I asked her what had happened to the puppies, she told me they had also died, but later my older sister Jenny told me that they had had to kill the puppies, because they were too tiny to live without a mother.

I was horrified, and I think I started to cry. Jenny was immediately repentant, realizing she had shared too much with her overly sensitive sister. She hugged me awkwardly, patting me in an unfamiliar way, since at this point in our lives the only times we willingly touched each other was to kick each others' shins underneath the dining-room table or to pinch each other on the couch. She began to talk in the way that people talk when they know they've upset you with something they've said, and they are desperate to say something else to reverse the effect of that first, irretrievable, statement. "It's ok," she said, patting me gently, and with the best intentions, "Heidi and her puppies aren't really dead," she said.

I stopped crying, dumbfounded, amazed at this newly revealed plot of pain and deception that my big sister was privy to while I was not. I had to know more. "Th-th-they're not??" I said, hoping.

"No!" Jen said, full of the vapid enthusiasm wielded by many a door-to-door pamphleteer, "She's not dead, and neither are her puppies! They're in heaven!"

. . . silence . . .

betrayal

. . . resume crying . . .

So. That was my second encounter with the betrayal of death, but it never really hit that close to home. Although my reading material was full of tragic, eloquent, young-teen-early-adult-literary-deaths, I had yet to encounter the real deal in my real life. At least I wasn't so dumb as to actually wish for it, but still, teenagers can be stupidly dramatic. During my teen years I would morbidly do the math (note: Simple math. Remember, I can do addition and subtraction, generally, if I have my handy-dandy calculator, and I check my answers several times.) ... where was I ... oh yes: morbidly doing math. As the youngest of seven children whose days of birth spanned twenty years, and whose parents were the same age as most of my friends' grand-parents, I was quietly obsessed with the idea that I would have the honor of not only watching my parents die, but would very likely see each and every one of my big brothers and sisters bite it, one by one, over the years. I gloried in the dismal romanticism of this idea. Me: tragic heroine, beloved sister, and devoted poetess, dedicated to memorializing the wonderment of her amazing family. I wore lots of black.

Still, death was a very distant threat.

Even when my grandmother died in 1996, and the whole family made the trip to Conrad, Montana to pay our respects, I was relatively unmoved. I know my Dad was upset, though he never showed it. I think Mom was sad, and I know that most of my brothers and sisters shared in her sadness. I probably shed a tear or two out of sympathy, simply being around that much sadness can make you catch it like a nasty case of head-lice. In truth, though, I was relatively unmoved: I hardly knew my grandmother. She was just a photograph on the wall, and a few-times-a-year voice on the telephone: a pleasant old lady who painted pictures and wore garishly flowered house-coats the few times she came to visit. She was practically a stranger. All my other grandparents had died before I was born.

Death finally hit home, however, in 1997. It was quick, brutal, and violent; in the aftermath I felt like someone who had lived through a horrible accident. While I was physically unharmed, my body reacted in ways I had never expected. Instead of this gloriously heroically-tragic figure in black that I had always imagined myself as destined to be, I crumpled--curled inward--like one of those moth-pale sea-anemones with the million hungry tendrils that disappear in an instant the moment something larger than a speck brushes up against it. I was quiet. I sat and looked off into space a lot. I sat and looked up a lot, wondering if Dad was still hanging around, ghost-like, wanting to tell us something very important. I went to the bathroom and took showers self-consciously, hoping that my ghost-dad wasn't watching me pee and blow my nose at the same time; hoping he didn't see me crying in the shower when I was sure nobody could hear the sounds I made.

Time moves on, in spite of all we do to hinder its passage.

I moved back to Alaska after Dad died. We had a wonderful memorial service, after which, all seven of us kids climbed Lazy Mountain in Palmer to scatter Dad's ashes. If you've climbed Lazy Mountain, you know that the name is a tad ironic. There's nothing lazy about the first leg of the climb, where the angle is so steep in some spots you are forced to scrabble at roots and tufts of dirt in order to make it up certain portions of the trail. During the rainy season, the trail is often impassable, so slick and deep with mud you have to wade off into the head-tall bushes and weeds off to either side. This usually causes no harm to the hiker, though if you're not careful you are sure to stumble into a patch of Devil's Club or bump into a moose, so it's best to bring a walking stick. So we climbed, all seven of us: me, at 27, Barb and Bev--the twins--at 47. Brian was there, Glen, Eileen, Jenny, me, and a few close friends of the family. Glen carried Dad's urn full of ashes in a back-pack, his dog tagged along.

It was about noon when we scattered his ashes, gorgeously sunny, and unseasonably warm and dry for August. We could see out over the entire Matanuska-Susitna Valley where most of us had spent a large chunk of our lives growing up; this is where Dad had chosen to move, to uproot those of his children not old enough yet to live on their own, and to bring them to this wild, heartless country. It was so beautiful it made your heart break. We took turns emptying the canister: Eileen, Jenny and me. We went down to a little ledge and opened the brass urn. There was a plastic bag inside, and a metal identification tag clamped around the twisted end into which Dad's remains had been poured. The plastic bag was thick, we tore at it with our fingers, but we were not able to pierce the heavy-duty material. It reminded me of the Visquene Dad used when he and Glen worked construction on various job sites, the heavy plastic sheeting you used to protect the floor, to cover fiberglass insulation, to protect building materials from the rain ... it was very versatile stuff ... and apparently it had more uses than even Dad had imagined. We finally borrowed Pete's knife. We were laughing by then, frustrated, with sore fingers, and anxious to get this over with.

We started to pour out the ashes, the flakes and dust and bits of bone flew out in a plume, like a reverse volcano shooting sooty-destruction down from the sky instead of up from the bowels of the earth. Eileen poured, then handed the urn with the bag still in it to Jenny; Jenny poured some more, then handed it to me; I poured. I poured some more, and still more came, you wouldn't think an urn that size could hold so many ashes. It became darkly comical. We shook the urn, frantically emptying it to get all the ashes out. The bag finally became empty enough to pull from the urn. We yanked it out, I grabbing the bag and Eileen and Jenny tugging on the urn, and there were still more ashes in the bag, were they endless? Always the sharing little sister, I offered the bag back to Eileen and Jenny, "You want to pour some more?" I asked. "Just empty it," Eileen said, "we need to be done with this." Eileen was always a practical and forward-moving thinker. Dad called her "Little Itch," because she was always so busy, so eager to accomplish and explore and go and just do things.

Dad called me "Hurricane," but that's a different story. Nick-names stick around too, long after they’ve lost their sting – long after they’ve lost their appropriateness. Dad called me “Hurricane,” Glen called me “Juice,” though this was long before the O.J. Simpson trial. I can’t remember how I got the second nickname, I think Jenny might have given it to me when she was hurling verbal-slurs at me involving rhyming my name with various embarrassing words, then coming up with other rhymes even more ludicrous and satisfying ... but it stuck around, after the original joke had passed beyond anyone’s remembering. It stuck around, another ghost.

. . . so, where was I before that long tangential slide into the tangles of memory ...

Oh, yes. Bodies, wrapped in sheets. Creeping, lurking death that stays hidden, then leaps out at you when you least expect it. It's like the worst game of hide-n-seek you've ever played. And here’s the part of the essay where I get dark, where I reflect darkly on dark things; where my sly imagination grips my reason and wrings its flimsy little neck. That kind of dark.

Cancer is that kind of dark: did I mention it? Did I mention that it was cancer that killed my Dad? You think of cancer as a long, slow, drawn-out thing, but it wasn't, really. It wasn't, because my Dad was never the sort of guy who went to the doctor for anything. He was a grin-and-bear-it kind of guy. The kind of guy who might sprain an ankle on the way to work, but still put in a full day then go home and self-medicate with an ice-pack and a six-pack and then go back for more; all because he had made a promise, a commitment, and he was a very honorable man.

He was a very stubborn man too, don't get me wrong. He was so stubborn, sometimes, he terrified me. He was so stubborn that even the idea of his anger can still subdue me into a quiet, small place that I am ashamed to even admit I became familiar with. My Mom is stubborn, too, come to think of it. Fancy that. Maybe it's Montana, and growing up during the Great Depression; maybe it's growing up dirt-poor and Teutonic proud and completely isolated from the rest of the world. Lost, in acres and acres of dying wheat, where trips to the dentist were avoided until the last minute because they didn’t use Novocain back then, no they did not. They just put up with the pain, and went on with their lives. That kind of poor. That kind of proud, stupid stoicism. That kind of ... whatever.

I wonder, really, if he ever even realized he was dying.

You see, my stoic-Teutonic Mom (Norwegian), and my stoic-Teutonic Dad (German) were, well ... stoic. This means that when the shit hits the fan, nobody finds out about it. In fact, to have someone who is stoic admit that the mere possibility of the existence of shit is real, and acknowledges the havoc it would wreak should it hit said fan ... that's a big deal. So it was a big deal when Mom said, "Dad's getting an operation. Just some exploratory stuff, no big deal. Thought you should know." It was a big deal, but delivered in such an off-hand way, that only Jenny heard it: that foreboding rumbling beneath the surface: a warning. Jenny freaked out, bless her heart, and flew down to Arizona, where Mom and Dad had moved, in some half-baked romantic John Wayne western fantasy after Dad retired. Mom was just along for the ride, as long as she had her H&G TV, Jenny flew down to be with Mom, while Dad went in to have his exploratory surgery.

So it was Jenny who called, I remember, to tell me one late afternoon at work, that when they had opened Dad up to go "exploring" like some weird medical Columbus, that they had discovered a significant sort of land-mass. Oh, hell, lets not equivocate: they found a fucking archipelago, a completely undiscovered chain of tumorous islands that had mysteriously erupted within my father's ribcage, abdomen, that had been there for who knows how long; and who knows how long he had lived with the discomfort and the pain and the unusual discoloration of his bowel-movements and all those sorts of things that people really don't want to think about that much or they start getting worried about their own cells going out of whack on them and then they start worrying about dying ... about how it pounces out at ya, when all you really wanted to do was put away the gloves and the coat, thank-you-very-much.

So death can sneak up on you, even while its there. It hides away in spots you don't think to look, and it waits to present itself -- and sometimes it teases -- it presents itself in the possibility of death, as a disease, perhaps, that people know so little about that they are forced to remain hopeful, even when there's really not that much to cling to. That’s another kind of stubbornness, I guess, another kind of stoic-ness: another kind of ghost. People will cling to what they want to cling to, instead of seeing what is right before them. People will see a man peeking in the room, and lay quiet, full of wondering apprehension: almost as if they’re watching a movie. People always think: it can’t happen to me, something like that could never happen to me. People are stubborn about not seeing what they don’t want to see.

In the Death House we sometimes tried to reconstruct the crime: we wondered in which room it had happened, we wondered in which bedroom the roommate was lying when the killer had come back and peeked in at him in the dark. While Tim was doing some work in one of the upstairs rooms, he found what he thought were the bullet holes in the far wall. The sheet-rock had been patched and repaired: the holes had been covered, but the evidence of the crime still remained beneath plaster and paint.

That’s another thing about death you never quite realize until you experience it; it changes you, deeply and irrevocably, and even though the damage is not evident on your outside, on the inside you remain deeply scarred, full of holes covered up with a desperate patch-job which serves only to mask the structural damage. But anyone who knows anything about houses knows that if you damage the foundation, the deep-down-insides, badly enough that nothing is going to save that house: you might as well just rip it down.

So I still have my brother’s shirt. It says Armstrong in black letters and there’s a circle around the "A" and it’s located right over where my heart is, when I wear it. I don’t know if it stands for Lance Armstrong, or if it was just some random construction company brand he had picked up at some store that just happened to have an Armstrong logo. I guess it doesn’t matter ... but I kind of hope it doesn’t stand for Lance Armstrong. Lance Armstrong lived.

A few years ago, after my brother Glen had just turned 50, he began to notice some changes. The most significant one was the rapid loss of weight, but like anyone, he simply chose to see that as a run of good luck. Another change was that every time he drank alcohol or coffee, his ears would turn bright red, and his cheeks ... and it wasn’t just a bit of rosiness that folks sometimes get after a glass of wine at Thanksgiving dinner ... you could feel the heat if you pressed your hand to his face.

But remember: a stoic family ... we didn’t find all this out until later. After they were sure about the diagnosis. Turns out he had a very rare kind of cancer that grows what is called a carcinoid tumor. Basically, it’s embryonic tissue left over from when the person was still in the womb that for some reason gets reactivated and grows—very slowly—but the growth isn’t really the problem: it’s the enzymes that are released from this kind of tumor. They’re potent. They are not the sorts of enzymes you want waking up after 50-years of dormancy, saying “Gee, nice nap!! Now what can I make grow?” The redness in his cheeks was a symptom that his liver was failing. By the time the doctors finally figured out what the hell was wrong with him, it was functioning at only 10-percent. A mere shadow of its former state, I guess you could say.

There’s more, of course; I could tell you about the drug-treatments, the trips to the Mayo clinic; the hopes for a liver-transplant being crushed when they discovered the tumors had moved to other parts of his digestive tract. They certainly couldn’t give a perfectly good liver to a fellow who had tumors growing on his large intestine and stomach. Just not practical.

There’s more I could tell you, of course, but I won’t. It’s just too fresh. It’ll be two years in October. He managed to make it till his 52nd birthday. I remember I got him a card, and nothing else. Just not practical. He didn’t mind. It made me angry that other people bought him birthday presents when he wouldn’t be around much longer to enjoy them anymore, and it would be just one more thing for Peggy to get rid of. I was angry, but I don’t think I was really angry about the presents, I don’t think I was thinking too clearly a lot of the time.

I remember the last thing he said to me, though, as I was bending over to kiss his cheek and say goodbye; I was heading back to Anchorage and to school. I had been driving out most nights, just for a little bit, but it’s hard when someone’s dying – you just sit there and sit there – and you’d think the time would drag, but it doesn’t. It speeds up, somehow. All I knew was that the weekend would be gone and it would be time for me to drive back to Anchorage, and I’d feel guilty for not having read my homework. Then after class, I’d feel guilty for not being with Glen, and I’d drive back to Palmer again. He stuck around longer than anyone expected; longer than the doctor predicted; he took his time and got to say goodbye to everyone he loved. As I leaned over to kiss him goodbye, he said, “It’s ok if you can’t come out next weekend, y’know, ‘cuz of school,” and I said that it wouldn’t be a problem, that I’d come back sooner if I could.

The next night was Monday night. I had been sleeping, but around 1 a.m. I woke up – I was wide awake and felt restless. Insomnia isn’t uncommon for me: yet another thing I inherited from my Dad, so I got up and went out to the living room, thinking about reading something for one of my classes. And that’s when the phone rang. He was gone. Now he’s a ghost to me. Now he haunts me in his old gray t-shirt and I can still hear his voice. I can still hear how he sang when he played guitar with Brian, and all of us would sing together. I can still hear it, and it breaks my heart to remember it. He’s my own personal ghost, and I think about him a lot. I wonder how I could have been a better sister. I think about how I could have gone to visit him and Peggy more often. I think about how generous he was and how kind and even-tempered. Not like Dad. Maybe he was trying to make up for Dad – with his fiery German temper – he might have been Glen Junior, but his temperament was all his own. I think he’ll haunt me for a long time; maybe I have something to learn from all this, or maybe I just need to remember him. He’s still my brother.

Here’s a poem I wrote for him, its mostly true, I think – but memories have a way of getting fuzzy on you: it’s based on a story my sister Eileen told me about she and him, when they were kids, flying kites – I think I took some liberties with her memories, but I hope she doesn’t mind. I don’t quite remember the complete story anymore anyway. She was crying when she told me about it, she said, “He was the best big brother ... he never teased me ... he taught me how to pitch and swing a bat, he was the best,” she said. And he was.

kite

Spun spindle—full of filament

stretched out and shining—heaven-bound—

so far

in sky so brimful blue it

almost makes you cry—

the end of it—that string-part

twined around the spool—how stupid—

wasn’t tied—!

how stupid—careless—children are

it’s lost

the kite

the bad-blue ate it up—

and happy past-time’s

flown away to sad—

the boy who held it

trailed along behind

eyes just that shade of blue as sky

to search it out—so sad—the kite—the string—

so long—ate up by thunderous

nothing-clouds

and yet he watched the sky ‘til he forgot

what bright, sharp shape it held.

Will you remember then, the boy?

ate up by nothing thundering to life

to rend the flesh it fed upon

to silence—

rendered itself as seen in only

too-late cat-scans, MRIs, and tests—

rendered as x-ray clouds that glow

when held to artificial light.

But he would never choose that, no,

that hopeless clutch to make-believe

nor fuss about the details:

“take me home,” he said,

and so we watched

the string furl out

we knew it wasn’t tied

that there was not a knot

to stop his soul from flying

when the string

ran

out

I Hate Spiders Part II - Intermezzio

YEEEAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

My intermittent productivity was just RUDELY interrupted by the imposition of a tiny dangling crunchy arachni-poid against my FREAKING CHEEK!

Again, I say: YEEEAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

I felt this itchiness, and I thought it was hair brushing my face, but when I touched my cheek I felt the squirmy little bastard rolling between my fingers like a ball of clay. I screamed a 'middle-of-the-night' scream -- which has all the energy of a real scream, but the screamer has somehow managed to retain enough self-control to realize she doesn't want to wake up her happily sleeping boyfriend in the other room. Still, it was enough to wake up all three cats that were sleeping in here: Gabby went scurrying out into the hallway to "hide" in the exact spot most likely to cause injury had I been racing any faster to the bathroom to look in the mirror to see if it was still in my hair or climbing on my clothes. Marv and Emma woke up and stared at me bleary-eyed, but at least they didn't try to trip me ... little shits ... why are they SLEEPING?? They should be doing their little cat JOBS and KILLING SPIDERS!!! I'm going to have to stop feeding them.

Anyway. I got to the bathroom and inspected myself - took off my hoodie sweater and shook it vigorously to make sure no evils were hiding in the folds, I slapped down my hair, my pajama-bottoms, then checked my face, then shook the sweater again: just to be certain. I put the hoodie back on ... I put on the hood. I zipped it all the way up. Yes ... I am the biggest dork in the world.

I got back to the office and peered suspiciously at my chair - no spider, living or dead. I looked at the floor, ditto. I looked at the piles of paper on the desk ... well ... and decided that if it had crawled underneath any papery-overhang to hide, I would just make sure to firmly pound down each and every book and paper on my desk before picking it up.

silence.

Gabby came back into the office, apparently none the worse off for her harrowing experience of nearly killing me in the hallway by playing "Furry Speedbump" -- I was still not entirely comfortable, so I went back to the bathroom, grabbed an old hand-towel and took it back to the office with me, feeling better now that I had a means of squishing any future visitors with more than four legs. I sat down at my desk. I placed my hands on the keyboard ...

and there it was ...

... on F7 ...

.... curled up and playing dead - or at least apparently so - but its tiny gray-black body and pitifully clenched limbs belied the sheer semi-trailer-tanker-truck-load-o-fear I experienced at the hands-hands-hands-hands of this little creature. Remorseless, I took my towel, making sure to have the largest possible amount of terry-cloth between my hand and the spider. I scrunched up the body, peeked carefully beneath to make sure he hadn't snuck down in between the keys, and then, successful, I wadded and balled up the hand-towel violently, dropping it onto the floor and stepping on it for good measure. Good and Dead: that's how I like my spiders. Then I threw the towel across the room.

Now all is quiet, Gabby's back asleep in the cat-bed next to me; Marv is on top of the dresser; Emma sits like a small, white furry Buddha in the doorway, contemplatin' the insides of her eyelids.

And I have six more pages to go.

I Hate Spiders

It's not a very glamorous fear, this fear of spiders; I know I am not alone in my loathing, my irrational abhorrence. I know I am not the only one who has jumped and screamed and flailed my arms wildly for no apparent reason, only to explain breathlessly to my curious companions that I had noticed a teeny tiny spider descending down from the ceiling on its gossamer thread of deceit. Immediately, everyone in the room will stand up, concern written across each face.

Then, the questions: "Where was it? Where is it?" they will ask, and: "How big was it??" And most importantly: {spoken in the kind of voice that one usually reserves for airline ticket counter attendants when all flights out of Chicago have been canceled for the week} "Did you kill it for chrissake??"

{spoken in the dull, nervous tone of an airline ticket counter attendant in the aforementioned high-octane situation} "No."

{voices now more desperately concerned} "WELL, DID YOU SEE WHERE IT WENT?!?!"

{small voice} "... n-no ..."

"GOOD LORD!!!"

And then everyone in the room is up, all available light-sources are illuminated. Those with any remaining amount of self control are carefully moving pillows, clutching wadded up tissues or napkins in their hands, squinting at the now empty thread of spider silk moving placidly in the slight breeze of many concerned citizens attending to urgent business of the arachnid kind. Sometimes there is one person who claims to have no fear of spiders in the room, and that person is usually enjoying the show very much, tossing out helpfully exciting comments periodically, such as "Oop! Is that it??" {screams punctuate the tense silence, and the sound of bodies colliding and limbs tangling -- human limbs, not spider} "Wait ... ah, no." {cruel chuckling} "It's just a bit of carpet fuzz. Heh heh."

Classic.

The thing about phobias ... or even just having an uncommonly strong dislike for something like spiders (I guess I can't call it a true phobia, since I am generally able to control myself enough to grab a kleenex and squash the little bastards) ... the thing about them is: they make no sense. I've heard lots of theories and reasons and rationales - but really - they're just words. They don't explain the the reasons for such violent reactions, the racing heart, the wild blundering of a fully-grown adult across the room, knocking over lamps and sending magazines flying after using the coffee table as a starting block. It's not like most spiders can even hurt you. There are 35,000 identified types of spiders in the world; there are 3,000 in North America; of those 3,000, there are only two types of spiders that can actually kill you with their bite: the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse. There are, of course, others with varying degrees of poison in their jaws, but the toxicity to humans is so low as to not even being worth mentioning. Even the bites of the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse don't always kill ... but who cares?

I've never heard anyone mention that they're afraid of spiders because they can be poisonous.

I've talked to a lot of people about spiders; apparently I need a hobby. But in these conversations, I've learned that people are scared of spiders for various reasons, and not many of them are logical. People fear spiders because they're sneaky, because they move quickly and erratically, because they're relatively silent and you often don't notice them until they're right on top of you: literally. People hate their multi-segmented hairy little legs. People hate their beady, multitudinous eyes. They spin nasty, sticky webs that last and last, long after the spider has passed on, sometimes. But the spiderweb, with its incredibly strong silken threads, will stay put until some poor person happens to walk right into it. The thing about the webs is: you don't know how old it is, generally, so if you've walked through one, you have to stop for several minutes and frantically pat down your clothing and rake your fingers through your hair, asking all the while of anyone nearby, "Can you see it? Can you see it? Is it there? Is it there???" because any itch on your body for the next 20 minutes will undoubtedly feel to you like the gentle skitter of wee spider legs across your skin.

Even when they're not being sneaky, spiders are creepy as hell. A good friend of mine, Byron, had just bought a house a few summers ago, and he invited me over to see it. As he pushed open the gate, he glanced back and said, "You might want to keep as far away from the wall as you can." I looked at him curiously, and started to ask "Why?" ... but my eyes had already automatically turned to look at the outside wall of his new place. There on the blue paint, nestled cozily in weird hammock-type nests that reminded me of those devices extreme rock-climbers use in order to camp-out half-way up a sheer-cliff ascent that takes more than a day to negotiate, there, were the fat bloated yellow-green bodies of not one, but three freakishly large side-show-quality spiders. I backed away from the wall, no more questions asked. "I would have taken you in through the garage," he explained apologetically, "but I'm still moving in, and there's so much crap in there you can hardly move."

"You cleaning it out soon?" I asked.

"Yep," he said, very seriously. "I'm thinking about renting a power-washer, blast them fuckers clean off my wall." Byron hates spiders too.

This brings me back to my earlier point: that my hatred, paranoia, and fear of spiders is by no means unusual. I can, in fact, think of more people with whom I have shared deliciously creepy and almost too grody spider stories than I have shared dinner with this past year. I go out to dinner a lot.

But back to Byron. He is an excellent example of how apparently random these extreme cases of arachnid-antipathy are; and how even those you would assume are impervious to fear can be cowed by the little creepy-crawlers. Byron is a big guy: 6'3" ... 6'4" ?? ... something like that. Byron was in the Army. Byron has seen combat. Byron's skill on the shooting-range is the stuff of legend. Byron is recruited by the cops to teach THEM how to deal with belligerent so-and-sos. Byron has jumped out of airplanes. Byron knows all sorts of gross EMT/Paramedic stuff about stopping bleeding and reattaching limbs with super-glue and a staple-gun, the mere thought of which would make most people lose their lunch. Byron is also extremely well-versed in all sorts of martial arts, which is how I met him: he taught me what little I know of Kung Fu. If I was in a Snakes-on-a-Plane-type situation, and I had to choose between Samuel L. Jackson and Byron: I'd choose Byron.

But Byron, my dear, kind friend Byron, is terribly, irrationally, gut-wrenchingly afraid of spiders -- sometimes I think even more than me.

So I just read a blog by another friend, Veronica, the other day. She and her husband moved to Hawai'i about a year and a half ago so he could go to school and take advantage of a particularly excellent language/linguistics program at one of the universities there. One of his projects includes work on a Tlingit dictionary, as he is Tlingit himself. They hated to leave Alaska, primarily because of all the friends and family they have here; but another reason, and they have both admitted this, is they hate the ungodly amount of spectacularly creepy bugs that live in Hawai'i.

So.

Veronica blogged about a recent camping trip, which ended with her discovering a furry, crawly stow-away in the cooler when she got home. Her blog, combined with the various responses posted by her life-long-livin' Hawai'ian chums nearly sent me into a coma. It is only with great self-control and determination that I am able to share the following, but I did it ... I did it for art.

Here is her story ...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

GONE AGAIN ... AND AN UNINVITED GUEST

I dropped James off at the airport tonight - he's going to AK again ... just till next Monday.

However, I'm not really alone apparently. Last night we camped and just about 2 hours ago I opened up the cooler to empty it and when I moved one bag there was an uninvited guest with me.

A HUGE cane spider!!! I slammed the lid shut ... will deal with that later ... not tonight. The thing is the cooler was shut while camping, so the only way it got in there was when I put in some other stuff the night prior as to keep our munchies from the mongeese! So Close To My Hand!

The good news is they are harmless ... although huge and creepy looking. They don't like to be around peeps ... so the game plan is tomorrow when I get home from work to put the cooler outside with the lid open and let him leave. I can't do it now cause it's full of beers and I don't want to leave an open cooler full of beers out over night (who knows what else will come into the cooler if I do that!).

For your viewing pleasure is a picture of a Cane spider - not the one in my cooler... just stock photo and an informational link. Oh and from the ends of their legs all out it's about as big as a TUNA CAN!!!

www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii

All I have to say is ....

FUCKING NATURE! ;P

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 2:00 AM - 8 Comments

VRon	Mon, April 16, 2007 - 2:15 AM P.S. Oh yeah ... and Day/Night 1... INSOMNIA!

robin

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 2:23 AM i feel for ya. cane spiders, while harmless, are sooperdooper creepy. hope you catch some zzzzz's soon! sweet dreams....

Jeanne

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 7:03 AM That is very disturbing... Spiders are not my friends. =(

Leese

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 11:03 AM Gahhhhuhhh!!!!!!!

*guavachild*

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 11:46 AM oh the horror... and that ain't even one of the furry kind! I remember backpacking out into the sugar cane valleys near the north shore and having those guys jump out at my hands when I picked fruit. But the worst by far was one rainy night when I lay awake all night long staring at the thin layer of mesh of the tent above me, under the rain fly, supporting about 60 cane spiders, illuminated by the lightning of the storm. What was worse was that I also really had to pee but didn't DARE leave the tent, not for fear of the rain, but rather that all 60 of em' were going to jump me when I unzipped the door. egad.

Seth

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 1:51 PM You think you have it bad.... The old plantation workers told me stories about how, when they burned the fields (the first step in processing sugar cane), all the cane spiders and rats would of course RUN LIKE HELL. So of course they would run towards the plantation towns in great big hairy-legged WAVES. They'd get in to everything and there was nothing, NOTHING, you could do about it..... I have this sick/funny picture in my head of Vron covered in cane spiders. Just my two shekels

VRon	Mon, April 16, 2007 - 1:57 PM You're mean Seth... although... they are pretty harmless... I think if I knew it was coming I'd be more posed. Like tonight... I'm actually really interested in being able to look at it when I let it outside. :)

Dr. Kenobi

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 5:09 PM I'll second Seth on that. My cousin's boyfriend grew up in Otaka Camp on the edge of the Waialua Plantation's fields. He said the screams of the animals running from the fire was the creepiest sounds he ever heard. The old people would make all the kids stand out in front of the camp with brooms in a fruitless attempt to divert all the wildlife away from the shacks where they lived. They would get slammed with wave after wave of cane spiders, roaches, grasshoppers, scorpions, geckos, centipedes, mice, rats, mongooses, you name it. It kinda makes you wonder about the protein content of table sugar...

* * * next day* * *

SPIDER SAGA ... PART TWO
{note: the original was written in third-person, this is not a re-telling of the tale in my words -- I suspect poor Veronica was trying to distance herself from the horror of the situation by talking about it in third person:
kind of like Bob Dole in his final, ill-fated presidential election campaign ... Anyway ... }

Veronica slammed the lid shut at the sight of the large hairy thick legged spider. Even though logically she knew that Cane spiders were overall harmless it still made her adrenaline go wild!

However, it was late and she was tired... and alas her man (AKA bug-killer) was out of town. And so she devised to slept for the night go to work and upon arrival home the next day take the entire cooler outside and let the little big spider out. She even started to enjoy the idea during the day... she could watch it from a safe distance. Part of the worst things about spiders is that they seem to surprise you - and that evening she would not be surprised.

Back from work she opened the door put down her things and picked up the heavy cooler. She dragged it down stairs to the parking lot, by the back fence where the neighbor has many wooded plant things.

She took a steady breath and slowly opened the cooler....

She saw... nothing...

Hmmm ...

So she nudged the cooler with her foot...still nothing.

Gingerly she picked up the blue small bag that was inside in the cooler and dropped it on the ground... expecting to see a spider underneath the bag or scurry out of the bag ... but nothing.

She then nudged the bag with her foot - still nothing. Finally she picked up the bag from the bottom and emptied the contents... still nothing. Looked inside the bag ... nothing.

Back to the cooler she went and carefully took out 8 bottles of beer - each time trying to see any shadows moving and each time getting a little less expectant. But still nothing.

All that was left was a small bottle of salsa, an Arizona Ice tea and the plastic bag the ice was it ... and the melted ice. She took out all the rest of the contents ... nothing ...

NO SPIDER .... IN THE COOLER.

Now she KNEW she saw a spider the night before... how could it have gotten out? She inspected all the sides of the cooler in and out. She shut it and checked how secure it closed - it closed tightly. She thought maybe it had gotten out when she took the one bag out last night at it's discovery... that means it's either randomly in the house somewhere or it's in the bag of Doritos she sealed tightly with clips. The pretzel bag was cool cause she emptied it last night into a ziplock to bring them to work the next day.

WHERE IS THE DAMN SPIDER???!!!!

This is where our story ends for now, although our dear character hopes it ends for good now. Even though she is leaving the front screen door open tonight while she is awake and home ... encouraging it to walk out the door.

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 10:22 PM - 9 Comments

VRon

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 10:26 PM P.S. Cane Spiders won't eat my Beta Siamese Fighting Fish... will it? I'd have to kill it if it tried....

Jess.mypet

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 11:16 PM GAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is why I could NEVER live in Hawai'i --- I'd MUCH rather bump into a bear on a camping trip than a spider --- really

Jeff	Mon, April 16, 2007 - 11:42 PM Could it be one of those "mind spiders?"

VRon

Mon, April 16, 2007 - 11:45 PM No, I wasn't that tired ... it was really there. I'm just trying to be aware of all the things I'm doing around anything dark or cluttered (so basically my entire apartment) ... shaking stuff out before I use it, etc. Good side is maybe it will eat some of the cockroaches in the kitchen I see now and then. ;)

★Wednesday?

Tue, April 17, 2007 - 4:16 AM You could always come have a sleep over with me in the meantime. . .

Jeanne

Tue, April 17, 2007 - 7:02 AM Oh NO... Yikes. This whole story leaves me torn because A--- & I WANT to come visit you BUT I might be a spaz the whole time. LOL.

arize

Tue, April 17, 2007 - 9:40 AM omg i KNEW i should have said something! i read your story the first day and thought, "the spider has a way in and out and its going to leave before she gets to it!" but no, i second guessed myself an allowed your home to be invaded with the huge furry arachnid. do they eat the nasty cockroaches? that would be kinda cool.

Seth	Tue, April 17, 2007 - 12:04 PM they eat lots and lots of bugs, even the big B-52 roaches. They're really pretty harmless, if a little scary

VRon	Tue, April 17, 2007 - 12:13 PM I'm coming to terms that I have a new pet. The old place had a gecko to eat bugs ... now this one will just have a spider. Oh... and I watched Alien 3 last night ... not the best move... this thing sure does look like a face hugger! ;P

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Face hugger indeed ...

So apparently, to a certain extent, people can get used to spiders. Please note the modifiers "apparently" and "to a certain extent" denoting piles of skepticism. Yep. I'm skeptical. I think a person has to have a certain amount of brain damage in order to truly adjust to dealing cheerfully with spiders. A person can tolerate spiders and not be insane, especially when one can logically argue that the "harmless-yet-gargantuan" cane-spider does in fact eat other less-desirable critters. And yet ... I just can't trust anything that ya can't teach how to fetch and video-tape it for You Tube. True spider-lovers are just plain f*cking nuts. For example ...

In my early twenties I dated this guy -- I'm not saying he had brain damage -- but he did have a pet tarantula named Venus. I am merely implying brain damage in order to avoid lawsuits. But seriously: Venus didn't exactly engender a lot of love in my heart.

I should have known it wouldn't last ... he loved Venus the spider, and I loved my cat Harley... and though both were pretty furry, I think if it had come to a life-or-death-match to protect Mommy (me) from certain death (Venus) that Harley could've taken Venus down -- no problem. Luckily, it never came to that. The closest the two of us came to a serious relationship was his agreement to drape a towel over Venus's terrarium whenever I went over to his place.

I wonder, sometimes, how long people have been getting freaked out by spiders. I mean: I know so many people who are creeped out by the little buggers, that there must be some kind of recurring theme on this phenomenon. So I checked, first, into what I already knew. There's an old Greek fable that tells of a woman, Arachne, whose vanity about her weaving skills was so great that she challenged the goddess Athena to a contest. Foolish woman to challenge a goddess: can you guess what her punishment was?

Did you look at that picture? For F*ck's Sake!!!

Apparently there are oodles of fables and myths and legends about spiders. In loyalty to my art I steeled myself against the anticipated horror and did a little poking around. I found out, of course, more than I ever wanted to know about these creepy critters -- and more than I care to share here except in the briefest possible way.

For those who like your educational gross-outs to come with a dash of music, check out this lovely song, cleverly titled Arachnids, by Dennis Westphall of Tickle Tune Typhoon -- no, I'm not making this up. For those with a bizarre sense of humor, try this silly (and fake) news article that explains how pub-owners in Britain purchased realistic "transfers" of spiders (I'm assuming that's Brit-speak for "stickers") to stick inside their urinals to encourage patrons to be more ... accurate ... when using the facilities. There are many Native American stories that involve helpful, sometimes anthropomorphic, spiders who assisted various tribes, as well as stories that depict the spider as the appointed overseer of the entire world. Buddhist stories warn that the way a person treats a spider can have karmic repercussions. In Britain and America, there are all sorts of tales saying that spiders are not only good luck, but that they bring increased wealth. Finally, spiders have been at the heart of countless internet hoaxes, the stars of numerous versions of similar stories involving mysterious bites on the buttocks; unexplained, nobbly, fast-growing face-nodules; and all sorts of other unspeakable horrors. I actually remember receiving a few of these emails when I first got online. I am relieved to finally discover that there is no such thing as a South American Blush Spider (arachnius gluteus) that hides under toilet seats in airplanes. I can finally stop checking.

Speaking of Zen moments.

A few years ago I was at the school, in the studio where Byron teaches Kung Fu. We were waiting for class time to begin, when I happened to glance down on the floor and saw a fast-n-creepy little guy zipping belligerently in my direction. I leaped off the floor, then quickly tried to pretend nothing was wrong: that I had wanted to yelp like a puppy and see how quickly I could spring to my feet and race across the room. It was pretty fast. Byron looked at me curiously, eyebrows raised.

"Spider," I said.

The eyebrows went down. I straightened my shoulders and started back across the room, "I'll take care of it ... "

"NOOOO!!!!" gasped another student -- who I'll call "Spider-Lover" -- as she has a distinctive and unusual name, having changed it because of some nebulous spiritual "thing" she had experienced several years prior. I don't wish to single her out: she's not a bad person, she just annoyed the shit out of Byron and I at the moment. Spider-Lover scurried across the room to where I had been sitting, and scanned the carpet, looking for the wee carnivore. Helpfully, from across the room still, I pointed: "He was heading that-a-way," I said.

Spider-Lover bent down and found the little thing, then cupped it carefully in her hands, lecturing; "You know, even though this school is in a strip-mall, it's still a holy place." She stood, moving toward the doors to the outside which were thankfully already propped open. "It's a place where Buddhists come to meditate, it's a place where we study ... it's a blah blah blah ... "

I had stopped listening.

She had the spider, she was out of the room; it was no longer my problem. I turned to look at Byron, this time it was my eyebrows that were raised.

We didn't say anything, we didn't need to.

We knew our hearts burned with the same irrational hatred of all things eight-legged, in spite of the tenets of Buddhism, in spite of the fact that the number eight is considered an extremely lucky number in Taiwan, China, where the Master of our school, the Sifu, was born. We knew ... though we hid our hatred ... we knew it was wrong; but such things do not matter at such times.

Had it come down to choice, to us or the spider, we both know which carcass would have been ground into the carpet in a millisecond had Spider-Lover not intervened. We would have acted on pure instinct, striking down evil before it could amass its forces: we were true Kung Fu warriors.

We looked out the window, out over the parking lot to the cluster of weeds where Spider-Lover had released our mortal enemy. We knew it was not the last time we would face that enemy, we knew it was only a matter of time before we would meet again: in some incarnation, in some web, on the side of some wall, hanging from the kitchen chandelier. All we had to do was wait.

Soon, spider ... soon.

On Death .... Part 1

"In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns
to thoughts of love . . . " - Tennyson

When I was 28 we moved into the Death House, my sister Jenny, her boyfriend Tim, and I. We called it the Death House because, in fact, someone had died there: two someones, back in the late 1980s. The real-estate agent had been required to disclose the deaths before Tim bought the house, I guess there is some kind of law about it. None of us were very bothered about the idea. The folks who had owned it before talked of the incident in a very off-hand way, said they had lived in the place for almost 10 years and had ". . . never had any trouble . . . ." How nice. Tim, who at the time was very interested in Native American culture and religion still suggested we do a smudging ceremony in the place before we actually moved in: just a formality, and kind of tongue-in-cheek--kind of.

About a month after we had moved into the Death House I had a dream that scared me awake: I screamed and sat straight up in bed. Mom was visiting at the time, and was staying in the spare bedroom next to mine. She came in when she heard me scream: I had actually woken her up. She asked me what had happened, and I told her about my dream, about a scary, shadowy man with wild hair who was standing in my doorway, just looking at me, wondering to himself whether or not he should come in. It took me a long while to get back to sleep after that, I was scared silly, and my overactive imagination was creating all sorts of phantoms in various corners. But nothing really unusual or frightening happened after that one time, and life in the Death House quietly, happily, continued.

After Jenny and Tim and I had lived in the Death House for a while, we learned more of the story, in bits and pieces, rumors from neighbors, remembered newspaper articles. Finally, my sister did some research and found out most of the story through the Anchorage Daily News archives. It was a double-homicide: a classic tale of love gone wrong. The story goes like this: Susan and Duane had been married for about eight years, but had been separated and living in different cities for more than two. They had two daughters. The wife, Susan, had moved on, apparently, because she was in a relationship with another man named Paul. Susan and Paul had been seeing each other for more than a year, Susan and Duane had argued about the new relationship on several occasions. Some time between 4 and 9 p.m. on December 2, 1988, Duane entered the house through the back door. He had a gun. He shot them both, his wife and her boyfriend, and then he left. A neighbor was later quoted as having seen Duane drive by the house earlier on the same day.

Some time after the murders occurred, Chuck, Paul's house-mate, returned home from an out-of-town job. Chuck was the only witness able to provide any other eye-witness information about the day and night of the killing. He got home around 9 p.m., and seeing that both Susan's and Paul's cars were in the driveway, assumed they were asleep. He probably puttered around a bit, as one does when one comes home after having been gone for a few days. Chuck told the reporters he remembers going to bed at about 11 p.m, and he fell alseep.

"... [He] was awakened about 3 a.m. when someone opened his bedroom door and looked at him. He told police he just looked back at the man, who then closed the door and went into [Paul's] room.

[Chuck] went to the kitchen for a glass of iced tea, then went back to bed. But he couldn't sleep and he told police he heard movement in Paul's room next door.

An hour later, he heard someone leave the house and start a car engine. He looked out the window and saw the tail lights of Susan's maroon Chevrolet Beretta.

[H]e got up about 10 a.m. Saturday and began straightening the house. Susan's jacket and gloves were lying in the kitchen and he gathered them up and went to put them in [Paul's] room.

Behind the bedroom door was a large bundle wrapped in a blanket. It was [Paul's] body. On the bed was Susan's body, also wrapped in bedding. He called the police."

- Anchorage Daily News. Marilee Enge. December 10, 1988.


Needless to say, this particular part of the story creeped me out. The first time I read it, my hair literally stood up on the back of my neck; in fact, I still get a chill now, reading it again more than ten years later. It captured my imagination in a way that news articles rarely do, because it made me think about death in a completely different way. I had never thought of death as something you can live with--share a house with, even--completely unaware of its presence in the next room, until some small occurrence brings you face to face with it. You're confronted with death, and you realize that it's been bundled and waiting for you just around the corner for, perhaps, your entire life. You just never realize it, until it's time, or until it's someone you know.

Ever since I can remember, I have always been terrified of death. I think I was four, and I must have seen some TV show that inspired me to ask what was to be my first deeply felt--and most unconvincingly answered--question. I seem to recall getting some speech about heaven and eternal life and happily-ever-after and such. It sounded dubious to me: like the answer she gave me when I asked her why the Bible never mentioned dinosaurs. As children we often feel betrayed by the fact that grown-ups sometimes cannot give us adequate explanations for the questions we have. We learn to mistrust those lumbering giants, who painfully pick you up by digging their meaty thumbs into your tender armpits, hoisting you up--nose-to-nose--then telling you pungently how big you've gotten before dropping you unceremoniously to the floor where you scamper away as quickly as your patent-leather mary-janes can take you. This is how children become skeptics: they cannot believe that the only things grown-ups care to talk about with kids is how big they have gotten, or to ask them if they would please go play quietly in the other room. I remember being skeptical of this "heaven" Mom spoke of, that it was a place in the clouds where everyone lives together and is happy. This sounded suspiciously like a fairy tale to me, but I held my tongue, hoping to learn more later. At that time I'm pretty sure I was just desperate to forget about the whole, scary, unsettling idea of death and the inevitable, eternal mystery that follows.

Later, when I was nine, I remember another betrayal of trust and a deeper sense of disillusionment about the nature of truth. The subject, again, was death. This time, however, I was well-acquainted with the deceased. Our family dog Heidi had died giving birth to puppies. She was a small dog, and high-strung, she irritated me, but I loved her. Mom told me she was dead when I got home from school one day, the day I had been eagerly anticipating arriving home to a box-full of puppies to play with. I learned later that the puppies had been too big for her, and one had gotten caught sideways in the birth-canal, causing massive internal-hemorrhaging. Mom told me they had tried to save Heidi, but they just couldn't. When I asked her what had happened to the puppies, she told me they had also died, but later my older sister Jenny told me that they had had to kill the puppies, because they were too tiny to live without a mother.

I was horrified, and I think I started to cry. Jenny was immediately repentant, realizing she had shared too much with her overly sensitive sister. She hugged me awkwardly, patting me in an unfamiliar way, since at this point in our lives the only times we willingly touched each other was to kick each others' shins underneath the dining-room table or to pinch each other on the couch. She began to talk in the way that people talk when they know they've upset you with something they've said, and they are desperate to say something else to reverse the effect of that first, irretrievable, statement. "It's ok," she said, patting me gently, and with the best intentions, "Heidi and her puppies aren't really dead," she said.

I stopped crying, dumbfounded, amazed at this newly revealed plot of pain and deception that my big sister was privy to while I was not. I had to know more. "Th-th-they're not??" I said, hoping.

"No!" Jen said, full of the vapid enthusiasm wielded by many a door-to-door pamphleteer, "She's not dead, and neither are her puppies! They're in heaven!"

. . . silence . . .

betrayal

. . . resume crying . . .

So. That was my second encounter with the betrayal of death, but it never really hit that close to home. Although my reading material was full of tragic, eloquent, young-teen-early-adult-literary-deaths, I had yet to encounter the real deal in my real life. At least I wasn't so dumb as to actually wish for it, but still, teenagers can be stupidly dramatic. During my teen years I would morbidly do the math (note: Simple math. Remember, I can do addition and subtraction, generally, if I have my handy-dandy calculator, and I check my answers several times.) ... where was I ... oh yes: morbidly doing math. As the youngest of seven children whose days of birth spanned twenty years, and whose parents were the same age as most of my friends' grand-parents, I was quietly obsessed with the idea that I would have the honor of not only watching my parents die, but would very likely see each and every one of my big brothers and sisters bite it, one by one, over the years. I gloried in the dismal romanticism of this idea. Me: tragic heroine, beloved sister, and devoted poetess, dedicated to memorializing the wonderment of her amazing family. I wore lots of black.

Still, death was a very distant threat.

Even when my grandmother died in 1996, and the whole family made the trip to Conrad, Montana to pay our respects, I was relatively unmoved. I know my Dad was upset, though he never showed it. I think Mom was sad, and I know that most of my brothers and sisters shared in her sadness. I probably shed a tear or two out of sympathy, simply being around that much sadness can make you catch it like a nasty case of head-lice. In truth, though, I was relatively unmoved: I hardly knew my grandmother. She was just a photograph on the wall, and a few-times-a-year voice on the telephone: a pleasant old lady who painted pictures and wore garishly flowered house-coats the few times she came to visit. She was practically a stranger. All my other grandparents had died before I was born.

Death finally hit home, however, in 1997. It was quick, brutal, and violent; in the aftermath I felt like someone who had lived through a horrible accident. While I was physically unharmed, my body reacted in ways I had never expected. Instead of this gloriously heroically-tragic figure in black that I had always imagined myself as destined to be, I crumpled--curled inward--like one of those moth-pale sea-anemones with the million hungry tendrils that disappear in an instant the moment something larger than a speck brushes up against it. I was quiet. I sat and looked off into space a lot. I sat and looked up a lot, wondering if Dad was still hanging around, ghost-like, wanting to tell us something very important. I went to the bathroom and took showers self-consciously, hoping that my ghost-dad wasn't watching me pee and blow my nose at the same time; hoping he didn't see me crying in the shower when I was sure nobody could hear the sounds I made.

Time moves on, in spite of all we do to hinder its passage.

I moved back to Alaska after Dad died. We had a wonderful memorial service, after which, all seven of us kids climbed Lazy Mountain in Palmer to scatter Dad's ashes. If you've climbed Lazy Mountain, you know that the name is a tad ironic. There's nothing lazy about the first leg of the climb, where the angle is so steep in some spots you are forced to scrabble at roots and tufts of dirt in order to make it up certain portions of the trail. During the rainy season, the trail is often impassable, so slick and deep with mud you have to wade off into the head-tall bushes and weeds off to either side. This usually causes no harm to the hiker, though if you're not careful you are sure to stumble into a patch of Devil's Club or bump into a moose, so it's best to bring a walking stick. So we climbed, all seven of us: me, at 27, Barb and Bev--the twins--at 47. Brian was there, Glen, Eileen, Jenny, me, and a few close friends of the family. Glen carried Dad's urn full of ashes in a back-pack, his dog tagged along.

It was about noon when we scattered his ashes, gorgeously sunny, and unseasonably warm and dry for August. We could see out over the entire Matanuska-Susitna Valley where most of us had spent a large chunk of our lives growing up; this is where Dad had chosen to move, to uproot those of his children not old enough yet to live on their own, and to bring them to this wild, heartless country. It was so beautiful it made your heart break. We took turns emptying the cannister: Eileen, Jenny and me. We went down to a little ledge and opened the brass urn. There was a plastic bag inside, and a metal identification tag clamped around the twisted end into which Dad's remains had been poured. The plastic bag was thick, we tore at it with our fingers, but we were not able to pierce the heavy-duty material. It reminded me of the visquene Dad used when he and Glen worked construction on various job sites, the heavy plastic sheeting you used to protect the floor, to cover fiberglass insulation, to protect building materials from the rain ... it was very versatile stuff ... and apparently it had more uses than even Dad had imagined. We finally borrowed Pete's knife. We were laughing by then, frustrated, with sore fingers, and anxious to get this over with.

We started to pour out the ashes, the flakes and dust and bits of bone flew out in a plume, like a reverse volcano shooting sooty-destruction down from the sky instead of up from the bowels of the earth. Eileen poured, then handed the urn with the bag still in it to Jenny; Jenny poured some more, then handed it to me; I poured. I poured some more, and still more came, you wouldn't think an urn that size could hold so many ashes. It became darkly comical. We shook the urn, frantically emptying it to get all the ashes out. The bag finally became empty enough to pull from the urn. We yanked it out, I grabbing the bag and Eileen and Jenny tugging on the urn, and there were still more ashes in the bag, were they endless? Always the sharing little sister, I offered the bag back to Eileen and Jenny, "You want to pour some more?" I asked. "Just empty it," Eileen said, "we need to be done with this." Eileen was always a practical and forward-moving thinker. Dad called her "Little Itch," because she was always so busy, so eager to accomplish and explore and go and just do things.

Dad called me "Hurricane," but that's a different story.

. . . . to be continued . . . . .

Confessions of a Bibliophile

"I ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch. I tore out the pages, ate them with salt, doused them with relish, gnawed on the bindings, turned the chapters with my tongue! Books by the dozens, the score and the billion. I carried so many home I was hunchbacked for years. Philosophy, art history, politics, social science, the poem, the essay, the grandiose play, you name 'em, I ate 'em."
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

I have a confession. I am a book-snob. I am one of those people who will not let herself be seen with anything lesser than a canonical tome (unabridged, of course) with at least an introduction by a highly respected professor-type person, and with, hopefully, extensive end-notes and historical/biographical extras at the end. The more challenging, the better: and if I can make it through every book in the list of "must-reads" created by smart literary sorts who know about that kind of thing by the time I die, then I will have succeeded.

No. That's not quite right.

I have a confession. I love Stephen King. I have read almost everything he has written, including the non-fiction stuff. It's more than a simple love for the horror genre, it has more to do with how he writes: the characters he creates, the towns, the regions, he will have characters from one novel show up in another series, and so cleverly weaves them together you can almost imagine he meant to do it in the first place: maybe he did. He sometimes even puts himself in the books--very metafictional--but that's not why I read him. I read him because he just tells a damn good story. He spins yarns, and he has a sense of humor.

No. That's not quite right.

I have a confession. I don't even like literature anymore, novels, I mean. I don't like the ones on the classics lists anymore. I don't like the ones Oprah recommends. I don't even like the ones I used to like: I find them all tedious and predictable and so ... last week. Ever since I discovered rhetoric and theory, or as I like to explain it: stuff that talks not about the book itself and what it means, but stuff that talks about and/or explains how the author accomplished (or tried to accomplish) with words, what he or she was trying to accomplish. With rhetoric words become more than just magical incantations that some folks are born knowing how to do and some aren't. Words become less mysterious, and far more complex. Rhetoric shows you how to make words your bitch, a bitch that sometimes bites you back.

No. That's not quite right.

I have a confession. During particularly busy times in my school-life, the only thing I'll willingly, eagerly read is US magazine. Yes, I mean the one that you get in the grocery store that has photos of the latest Britney Spears embarrassment, the most recent rumor of celebrity rhinoplasty, the hottest marital indiscretions. They accompany all this useful information with high-gloss color photographs of impossibly beautiful people caught in implausible places: "Stars! They're just like US!!" They take out their own trash!! They walk their dogs!! They get parking tickets!! They get photographs taken of them all the time by various paparazzi!!! (OK, I'm not so sure about that last one: I've never been stalked by a professional photographer looking to catch me in some sort of indiscretion ... at least, not that I know of.)

No. That's not quite right.

I have a confession. I love children's books. I used to read nothing but fairy tales for the longest time when I was a child: I loved the magic and the morality and the way everything tied up neatly in the end. I have collections of tales from various countries: folk tales, legends, oral tradition set to writing by some well-meaning Colonialist. I have various versions of books and stories, collected because they have a different illustrator or a different editor. I even have some that are old and might be worth something ... but they're all mixed in with the $2-bargain-books I also rummaged out of the bin at some huge chain store. I used to tell myself I was starting a collection that would be worth money, and that I could share with my own children someday. The truth is: I just liked the stories.

No. That's not quite right.

I have a confession. I'd like to say my lifelong love-affair with books has followed some kind of path of brilliance, some pattern that would eventually reveal itself with enough time and distance and wisdom. But it hasn't. My love-affair with reading and books has led me all over the place: from classics to cereal boxes. The truth is, I just love to read. It is an escape for me, sometimes: a way of finding useful information, others. The truth is I have a huge collection of books, and they're all jumbled together. The theory butts up against the fairy-tales; the Stephen King butts up against the Norton's Anthology; the poetry commingles with the tawdry magazines on the living-room end-table. I sometimes wonder if I should somehow organize them--then I look at them all--shelves and shelves and boxes--and I get overwhelmed, and I don't.

The thing is: I know where to find most of them, and I can generally find them in less than two minutes. Once I have read a book or an article, it's as if it becomes a part of me, and like a phantom limb can haunt a person for years after having lost an arm, I can reach out my brain and feel and find those isolated memories of nearly all of the books I have read. I guess I'm strange that way.

A friend of mine once told me this: she said that book lovers assess other book lovers the same way a dog will assess a new dog--only instead of sniffing each other's butts, the book lovers will browse through each other's shelves to see what sorts of things this new individual has been rolling in recently. I get nervous, sometimes, when people spend too long perusing my shelves--in some ways, it's like a diary. I feel embarrassed they'll see my books on palmistry during that phase I thought it might be interesting to learn how to read people's hands as a party-trick. I worry they'll think I'm pretentious when they see all the feminist theory I have. I get insecure when they sniff around my old fairy-tale books, and make stammered explanations about the beautiful illustrations and my earlier career goal of being a children's-books writer.

It's always unsettling to have people sniff around where your mind has been, especially if that someone is another book-lover, just like you. Book lovers know that other book-lovers judge you by what you've read. Book lovers know that even non-book-lovers judge you by what you've read. It's funny, but it's true. Sometimes it makes me want to hide all of my books behind a screen, so no one will be able to suss out my personality without my permission. But then I'd miss out on the joy of hearing people say: "Oh! I have this book," and "Wow! I haven't read this in years!" or "Man, you have so many different books here I just can't figure you out." I like that last one best, because I like my privacy, which is, I guess, one of the reasons I like books too. I can lose myself in a book and not have to deal with the real world for just a short little time ... it's glorious. So while people can and do judge me, pin me down in a definition according to what I read and what I have read, my books also allow me the means of escaping. They take me to a place where the rest of the world just doesn't matter anymore, and they never mind when I close them and slip them back on the shelf.

My books and me, such a complicated relationship.

Portrait of the Applicant as a Young Woman, or: How I Applied for Grad School and Got My Sh*t Together in 587 Easy Steps!!

This is not a new essay. The story here is part of what was an application essay I wrote in order to be admitted to the UAA graduate program in English-Rhetoric. (with-natch-some current additions to content that I could not resist: what writer can resist the chance to edit his or herself?) The assignment was to write an autobiography. I suppose I shouldn't call it an assignment, it was more of a requirement, but still: what a daunting task. It was terrifying to offer my personal, less-than-glorious educational history to the selection-committee of the University. Even though I already knew half of the faculty, even though I already felt relatively confident I would be admitted: still, the overwhelming sense I had was fear. How terrifying it is to answer what seems to be a simple question: "Tell us a little bit about YOU," when you realize that in the telling you are going to be revealing things about yourself that you would really rather most people didn't know. English teachers are sneaky. They give you simple, seemingly innocuous, assignments that wind up ripping a gaping hole in your psyche, spilling all the detritus of the accumulated scraps and shards of your life, the beach-combed embarrassments, the long-buried shame, the never examined losses ... they all show up ... and they invariably stink.

It's all in your writing. The teachers can see your secrets, even if you try to mask it: and they can see into you. The teachers of English make you read painful essays about painful situations and make you remember painful details of a past you'd just as soon forget: all in the name of education. All in order to make you write. So that they can read all about you, and read in-between the lines, and learn what makes you tick, and learn what makes you cry.

This is why there are so many business and nursing majors.

I have this personal fear of all things math-related. It's not an irrational fear, at least not by my assessment. Math and I have had a war going on since I was in the second grade, when I could *not* figure out the greater-than/lesser-than mystery, nor the secrets of long-division. Math has always had it in for people like me: those who understand the concept, but trip over the details; those who think in metaphor, and who write in verse, but trip on numbers, or worse: "Jessica relies too much on her number line," said Mrs. Schreiber, second grade, "she needs to know her sums."

An addict at eight. I needed my number line ... I loved my number line. I have since lost my number line, but I still have my fingers. All ten of them ... at least, last time I counted there were ten ... or was it twelve ... and oh ... look at that ...

... where was I???

I'll give you a sum, Mrs. Schreiber ... bless your sweet soul. Bless your soul, who admitted to the class she couldn't see how the cursive "s" was developed from the printed "s" -- but I could, at eight, but I was too shy to say. Bless your sweet soul, who even though I couldn't do my sums, and couldn't understand that the greater-than/less-than symbols could be likened to a hungry, greedy crocodile who would like to gobble-up the biggest number (thank god for that substitute teacher whose name I forget but he saved me and taught me that little right-brained trick) who in spite of my hopeless grasp of numbers that flipped and flopped and would not stay still for one little girl--saved a silly cartoon I drew to show to my parents: "Jessica is creative, but she needs to daydream less and pay more attention to her sums ..." I failed you, Mrs. Schreiber, in sums, but you saw something worth saving -- I wish I could say the same for your son, who taught me high-school geometry: but that's another story.

My sums, my sums ... what is the 'sum' of my life? I don't know yet -- and sometimes I get pissed off -- and sometimes I get sad -- but always, always, damn that English-major-literature-lovin-poetry-writing-right-brain-propensity -- always I analyze, and think, and look for the patterns, and look for metaphors, and look for the waxing and the waning of thought: never mind if a sum or two gets lost ... because it's all about the journey, isn't it?

I'd like to think so ... I hope so ... because if there's a math-exam to pass on to the next level once I'm done with this life: I think I am decidedly screwed. Even if I can use a calculator.

I love my calculator.

But I digress. With math, at least, you don't have to write essays that bring you to tears. With math, at least, you don't have to share your answers with each other in the class: or when you do, you can be assured that if you have done everything right, your answer will be the exact same answer as everyone else's answer. If it isn't, you've done something wrong. If it's all the same: you're as golden as the golden-triangle ... or is that rectangle ... aw, shit ... I can't remember. The devil's in the details.

Not so; English.

The devil wants you to be different. If you're different;, you've done something right. If your essay bleeds ink from the staple holes when you turn it in; you've done something right. If your attention to detail is apparent in your passionate representation of perfect APA formatting, through the printing and re-printing of drafts, or eraser-marks, or white out; and includes an apologetic note explaining why the third draft of the five you have completed is missing, because it was melted away with your tears of anguish and care; you've done something right.

Math asks for perfection.

Language asks for blood.

Math wouldn't have me; I open my veins for language.


**********************************************

**with apologies to James Joyce, whose introduction I imitated, and whose words I adore**

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a little girl backing up in a living room. As my mother tells it, almost as soon as I could walk, I would load my arms with books, as many as I could carry, and with fierce deliberateness back slowly toward her chair, torso hunched, fingers splayed, so as not to drop a single precious volume. When I finally reached her chair, I would turn, dump the books and myself in her lap and order: “Read,” and she did. She also encouraged me to learn to read for myself at that early age; I suspect partially so she would have some time of her own. I have been able to read since I was four, and have never lost the obsession; neither have I ever been able to narrow my favorites down to a manageable arm-full. My story is about how I finally learned to stop being a girl who backs into things with her arms full of more books than she could possibly read in a sitting, into a woman who knows exactly where she wants to go, and will take the time to select the perfect book or two that will help her get there.

I have always been a day-dreamer, a creative creature that jumps from idea to idea with startling speed. Growing up, there were always so many things to explore, that I could rarely stick with one for long. I wanted to be an artist, a dancer, a writer, a musician, a detective: but all these dreams I could find already realized for me in the books I read, so I could enjoy my various incarnations without having to do the associated work. I realize now that I was such a dreamer that the majority of my life was played out in my imagination. The trouble was I could never seem to figure out how to make those fantasies happen in the real world.

I made my fumbling journey from grade school through high-school in a book-addled glut of distraction. I never studied, and was often surprised by scheduled exams I had forgotten about. It didn’t matter much: I always passed, but I always felt guilty about it. I had been labeled gifted, been placed in the advanced classes, been encouraged to use my creativity, and I had a great time, but I felt like a sham. Here I was, lousy with potential, IQ registering at 133 (plus-or-minus-three, doncha know ... not that I pay much attention to numbers) and all I could manage were B’s and C’s in most of my classes. (Sorry about that "D" my Sophomore year, Ms. A -- I don't know what got into me.) I figured I was getting by, so I didn’t worry too much. But as high school graduation approached, I was embarrassed to discover I had not the least idea of what I wanted to do after high school. I couldn’t even conceive of living outside the orderly asylum of the public school system: without someone to tell me what to do, how would I ever get anything done?

I began attending UAA when I was 20, not because I had any real sense of what I wanted to do, but more out of a sense of duty. I was good at art, so I thought I’d try being an illustrator. Trouble was, I could rarely manage to finish a project as well as I knew I could. I also enjoyed the idea of being an English teacher, but was intimidated by the idea of trying to keep track of hundreds of kids and their papers and problems when I could hardly keep track of my own life. This led to a regrettable detour into the world of Journalism: a career for which I was spectacularly unsuited. After almost 2 years of half-hearted scholarship I gave up, and with an equally confused and directionless friend I moved to Seattle.

I don’t know exactly what I’d hoped to find in Seattle, but I knew I needed something. I felt guilty about dropping out of college, so to keep my brain active I challenged myself to keep writing and reading. I kept extensive journals, I wrote short stories, poetry, and even attended some smaller readings and shared my work. Still, my output was sporadic, and I spent half the time berating myself for not working hard enough, for never finishing anything to its full potential, and for making no attempts to get published. In a city of heroin addicts, literature was my drug of choice; my dealer, the classic literature section of a local second-hand book-store. I would go in and look for authors whose names sounded familiar and try a book. I was curious about the classics and wondered what made them so great: perhaps thinking if I could figure that out, my own life would fall into place. As I progressed, I found certain authors I had an especial fondness for, and would devour their books as quickly as I could find them. Jane Austen became one of my favorites, as did the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. I think it was the idealized image of order and community in those 19th Century novels that appealed to me most: there was a certain structure there that I lacked—and desperately wanted—but had no idea how to attain.

In 1994 I began working at a medium-sized law firm as receptionist. I didn’t realize that I would wind up being with the company for 10 years. The work I had to do, especially at first, was mind-numbingly boring, but it was there that I finally learned how to force myself to focus: something I’d been struggling with my entire life. The work itself was beneath my mental abilities, but I felt that the discipline and organization I was learning would help in the long run: a sort of brain boot-camp.

All this time I was thinking about returning to school. I’d lost a lot of confidence in myself, and was worried that having been out of school so long meant I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Still, I read everything I could get my hands on. The attorneys used to tease me, saying I was the best-read receptionist in Seattle. They were probably right, but I still couldn’t force myself to go back to school. I felt too safe and comfortable in this structured, albeit unsatisfying, position I was building for myself at the firm.

My Father died in 1997, from cancer. The entire family was unsettled, uprooted and shocked: we all thought he was too stubborn to die. But he did die, quickly, and his death caused the sort of self-re-evaluation in me that it has caused in innumerable people before me. I decided to move back to Alaska – and go back to school. I wanted to be closer to the place where I grew up, to get away from the distractions of the city and to pick up where I left off. I knew what I wanted, but I was still scared, and utterly unsure of my ability to finish a college degree, but I decided to start with just one class at a time. I did this for several years; carefully scanning the schedule each semester to find that one perfect class to fit my work schedule. I consoled myself for the slow progress by the fact that I was at least able to pay for classes myself, and I wasn’t incurring any more student-loan debt. I still had a hard time focusing, though, and was painfully aware of my sorry study skills. I was able to use things I’d learned in the firm, however, to help me organize and prioritize class work, so I did improve.

I think it was around 2001 when the glut of media information regarding ADD finally forced its way into my awareness. I was skeptical, curious, and then intrigued, the more I heard. I began to realize that a significant amount of the symptoms sounded awfully familiar. The only thing that didn’t sound right was the hyperactivity part; I had always been more of a day-dreamer and a book-worm. Then I learned that hyperactivity isn’t always present in ADD-ers, especially in girls, and it can often manifest in more subtle ways, making it harder to diagnose. I went to see an Anchorage doctor who specializes in ADD/ADHD, underwent a load of tests, and discovered that I do, indeed, have ADD.

Just as some people might not have perfect eyesight, but can still function fine without corrective eyewear, not all people with ADD need medication all the time: cases range from mild to severe. Still, a person who has nearly-perfect eyes might choose to wear glasses when he or she is driving at night, just to have the extra correction to make the trip easier. That analogy is perfect for my experience with ADD: I can function without medication, but I choose to use it because it helps me accomplish the things I really want to do. My early life is a blur, a confused muddle of sensory stimulation where I floated, and performed only when directly called upon to do something. Now I can focus, I can actually finish things, rather than abandoning them when I get overwhelmed or lose interest, I can finally set long-term goals for myself that span years rather than days. I am finally living up to my potential, and my confidence in my scholarly abilities has soared.

***note: this is where it gets all sucky-uppy and: "OOOOhhh, pick ME, pick ME, PICK ME!!!" like a
good application essay is supposed to -- you, students of mine, take heed!!! ***

I know I can benefit greatly from, and be an asset to, the Department of English and its Masters Program Teaching Assistantship program. The area of study that most interests me is rhetorical theory. I took Dr. White’s History of Rhetoric class last spring, and found myself completely enjoying the complexities and mental acrobatics involved in that subject. Dr. White was kind enough to speak with me about my performance in class, and encouraged me to consider getting my master’s in rhetoric instead of literature. I gave the matter much consideration, and have spoken with many people on the subject, and I honestly feel that it is the right field for me to enter. I find theory exciting and challenging, and I love tracing the historical ebb and flow of the various ideologies. My ultimate goal is to get my PhD in rhetoric, and to teach at the university level. I know I will thoroughly enjoy the new challenges I find in my graduate-level studies, and I sincerely hope the committee accepts my application into the program.

**********************************************

. . . Just in case you were worried there might be a saccharine-sweet happy ending to this fairy tale: there ain't. I still have to work hard: sometimes, I fear, harder than others. This supposedly great brain I have is capricious. I get tired, quickly. I reach my limit and I have to stop, and I get angry because I feel--I always feel--I should be doing more. I probably goof off on-line more than I should. And still--in spite of my best intentions--I sometimes blow off papers until the last possible minute.

I'm writing them in my mind, I tell myself.

Kinda.

Mostly.

I have good intentions.

The thing is: nothing is ever easy for anyone. Some people just seem to have a better knack for making things look easy to others. This is how we find heroes to worship. We look for those who do what we'd like to be able to do and who make it look easy; then we beat ourselves up for not living up to those imagined standards, until one day we are suddenly enlightened to our hero's fallibilities, or we find someone new to worship.

People love that shit.

I sound like a cynic.

I am sorry, I guess I am, sometimes; but I am a hopeful cynic.

I am cynical, because when I re-read my application essay I see all the naivety that the idealistic little girl in me has always carried. I am cynical, because I wonder how I can ever live up to those idealistic standards that I set when I didn't really know anything. I am cynical, because even when I am reminded every single day of my failings, I still try and I still hope and I still look for something that everyone could have in common: some common thread that truly ties us all together. I am cynical, because I am an idealist, and I wonder, sometimes, if my heart can stand the strain.

I feel, sometimes, like the laws of gravity, the laws of physics, the laws of things I can never understand are pulling at each part of my soul. I feel the sting of sand in my eyes, as experience kicks some sense into me. I feel the loss of failure, when something I've tried goes wrong and collapses in upon itself: a black hole. And even now I worry: I have friends who understand physics; I have friends who know people who have access to the biggest telescopes on the planet, and they could kick my analogy into atoms and remind me just how small I am.

This is what language does to you -- if you let it.

This is, they say, what mathematics can do to you -- if you can get far enough into it.

I don't know: I've never been that far. I'm too busy bleeding my veins for words, and sifting through the scrap-pile of my experience for one more analogy that will make everything fall into place.

but I'm tired.

and I don't want to be a cynic anymore.

I guess I will have to keep on learning.

on Washing Dishes ...

note: I'm not entirely sure about this blog -- it did not quite turn out the way
I'd hoped -- but here it is. I've worked on it for about three weeks, and
I think it needs to set for a while ... maybe I'll edit it a few months
from now. Maybe I won't. I like to think I'm OK with not
being perfect ... I'd like to think ...

************************************************

I am really, really good at washing dishes. This is an odd thing to admit, I suppose, and a guaranteed conversation-stopper at any dinner party, unless the host or hostess is looking for some help. The truth is, I've always hated washing dishes, and I was spoiled rotten by having one of those Super-Moms who basically did it all: cooked, cleaned, took care of the scraped knees and made muffins for bake-sales. I never had to do much cleaning when I was growing up, which I suppose would make most kids jealous. I don't think Mom was trying to spoil me or anything; I think I probably did such a crappy job of whatever chores did come my way that she found it much easier to just do it herself and have it turn out the way she wanted. Fine by me. Imagine my surprise, however, when I finally discovered how much work house work really is.

When I first started doing housework, dishes in particular, I was a little surprised to find out how hard it is. Then I realized just how terrible I was at doing it well. Then it just became embarrassing. Finally, I decided it was easier to just ignore it and let the dust pile up on the bookshelves and the end-tables; as for dishes, it was far easier to eat off of napkins and paper-plates. Both approaches suited my personality: I was never anywhere long enough for any serious amounts of dust to collect, and a steady diet of toast and hotel food (I learned early the practicality of service-industry employment: work at a hotel = one free meal a day) kept me healthy enough to tromp around town in search of something to soothe my oh-so-restless soul.

During my early twenties I had a tendency to move to a new apartment every six months or so, so that enabled me to avoid any of the major spring-cleaning-type activities that Mom usually engaged herself in right around the time that Spring came. That, combined with the fact I discovered I could exist on less and less plates, dishes and cups was rather freeing -- I was Diogenes, the cynical philosopher who valued simplicity and humility, who upon seeing a boy drinking from a stream using only his cupped hands, threw away his own drinking vessel, saying:"A child has beaten me in simplicity!!" I was a philosopher, I was a bohemian: I didn't need nobody!!

For the longest time I never realized how much dust and dirt can build up in the corners while the days slip quietly by; it's hard to notice the dust collecting on the window-sills when you hardly stop long enough to collect your thoughts. Spring cleaning usually coincided with spring break-up in Alaska. The long-absent sunshine would insinuate its beams through the windows, cruelly displaying every single particle of dust and pet-hair that had been collecting like drifts all winter in our living room. It was usually best for me to just get out of the house and let Mom do her thing. If I had stuck around I might have been enlisted to help, and that just would not do: I wasn't cut out for housework. I wasn't sure what I was cut out for, but I sure knew I didn't want it to be housework.

Since first moving out when I was nineteen, I have lived in only three places that have had dishwashers. One was in a dumpy little apartment that I shared with my sister in Mountain View. It was one of the first places I'd ever rented, so I didn't realize at the time what a luxury I had, and I never really appreciated it. The next place after that--after a poorly-thought-out and hastily-executed move to Seattle with my best friend Wendy--also had a dishwasher. It was tiny, but it did the job, and nicely cleaned our tawdry silverware and dishes that we bought from Value Village, and the glassware that we had "liberated" from various drinking establishments around town. We figured: hey, those bars broke at least three or four glasses a night, for them, it was overhead, and they'd never miss one or two more. For us, however, it was a small bit of excitement and some nifty conversation-starter glassware. Plus, it saved us money so we could buy more beer.

After that apartment I moved into a house with three other young women. This place was totally cute: it had been built in the early 1900's. For all its charm and visual appeal, however, it had the kinds of issues that four modern girls could just not handle: there was a sad lack of electrical outlets, especially in the bathrooms, and the kitchen was minuscule, with hardly any counter space, very shallow sinks, and no dishwasher. Still, we loved that house, and enjoyed having people over to see it. We all were completely convinced it was haunted, because it was full of mysterious creaks and pops and things had a tendency to get lost. This has never been proven, of course, but it was much more fun to imagine long-dead, cruelly murdered wives searching for their missing limbs than to reason out a more logical explanation involving old pipes and creaking, warped baseboards, and the fact that none of us were very tidy people. That little experiment ended badly, and I blame it on the fact that there was no dishwasher. It certainly had nothing to do with us being very young, very passionate, and very disinclined toward reasonable discussions, not to mention the lack of enough sense to plan out a chore-schedule and stick to it.

During the first few years I was out on my own in the wide world, I took various indifferent approaches to washing the dishes. I started with the: If-I-don't-eat-at-home-I-won't-have-to-wash-dishes approach, but once a person no longer works in the hospitality industry, it becomes quickly apparent that eating out all the time is an expensive habit.

Sometimes I would only wash the dishes I needed at the moment. I would wash a glass, a bowl, a pan, some silverware. Just what I needed, which would go directly back in the sink when I was done, awaiting my next meal. It was very likely during this particular period of time I developed one dish-washing habit that is actually a good one. Even when I'm helping to load a nice, fancy dishwasher at a friend's place, they'll say, "Oh, you don't need to do that, this sucker will take off anything, it's amazing!" I tell them I don't even really think about it anymore, I just do it. It's so much easier to do dishes when you do a little pre-washing. I learned the hard way that oatmeal would have been a terrific means of mortaring the pyramids together had the Egyptians not come up with some other ingenious way of making all those big blocks stay in place. I don't know for sure how they did it, but if any part of the process involved some sort of mortar, I bet at least one of the ingredients involved was oatmeal. Pre-rinsing erases the chance of scraps becoming permanently fused to a plate as nicely as a made-up phone number and name erases the chance of messy relationships.

The next place that I had a dishwasher was in a nice little apartment on lower Queen Anne. Again, I didn't pay much attention to the fact there was a dishwasher, or a garbage disposal: but those are two things my roommate insisted on when we were looking for places. Sure, I used it, but I never really appreciated it during the short time I lived there. One never appreciates those kinds of things when one has them. I still ate out a lot, and consumed mountains of sandwiches and eternal bowls of cereal.

After that, there was one more place on upper Queen Anne where I had a dishwasher. I realize now, that I originally wrote that I had lived in only three places that had dishwashers, but this is the fourth one I can remember. I suppose it's because during this tumultuous time of my life while I lived in Seattle, I was so busy being young and frivolous and racing about and living off of peanut-butter toast and beer, that I never really had much time to notice anything. I moved so frequently during that time period, in fact, that by the time I finally moved back to Alaska I had moved a total of eight times in five years: including the move to Seattle and back. By the end of it I had lost many things: mostly meaningless. I had lost the purple hair, finally, and exchanged it for something a little more business-casual. I had lost the nervous, self-conscious slump and my deathly fear of public transportation. I had lost the habit of constantly wearing my leather jacket in exchange for something cute and retro that I could wear to my job in the law firm without too much explanation. I had even lost my driver's license, though not for any sort of exciting, law-breaking reason. As far as I can figure out, one night I tucked my license in the back pocket of my jeans at a club or a concert (purses were so not in at the clubs), but when I looked for it the next morning it was gone. It was an Alaska driver's license anyway, and I reasoned that since I didn't own a car, why did I even need one? I simply went to the DMV and got myself a Washington state ID instead. I was paring down. I was Diogenes: traveling light. I had lost my timidity gained from growing up in a small town, I had lost my uncertainty about how to live on my own and support myself. I had lost my fear of being alone, and in fact had discovered I actually preferred my solitude more and more often when it came to choosing between it and another uncomfortable evening spent with people I didn't know very well and trusted even less.

I also lost my Dad.

I was twenty-seven when it happened, and it's why I moved back to Alaska, at least, that's what I told myself. The truth is I wasn't very happy in Seattle anymore. Not to say I was un-happy--I actually wasn't much of anything in Seattle--I was just taking up space. I was getting by, but that was about it: I needed to go back home and reassess what I wanted out of life. But reassessment suggests a certain kind of stability to begin with. I'm not even sure I had that.

When we found out Dad was sick, it was May. He died in July. A lot happened very quickly; there were trips between Seattle and Arizona, where Mom and Dad had moved after selling the house I grew up in in Alaska. I was down there visiting when I realized that I wanted to move back home. It was one of those epiphanies you always hear people talking about. I had never had one before, but I knew what it was; that's what make them epiphanies, I guess. It happened like this: I woke up in the morning, badly rested from sharing a bed with my sister Jenny who had developed a bad habit of punching and kicking in her sleep. I was used to scratches and bruises from when we used to share a bed as kids, but those ones were a little easier to deal with because we were both awake when they happened. There's something unsettling about sleeping next to someone who suddenly starts acting out dream-battles in bed and you wind up taking a kick on the shin or an arm in the face until you finally have to grab a pillow and the dog's afghan and go out to sleep on the sofa.

Anyway, the epiphany: I woke up and thought, "I don't want to live in Seattle anymore." And that was it, really. It was a simple choice to make, and the fact that everything seemed to fall into place, the moving arrangements, finding a new job even before I left Seattle, even Jenny's recent divorce enabled her to easily take me back on as a roommate. I gave a lot of my meager possessions away, packed the rest in boxes and managed to fit it all onto a pallet on a slow-boat to Alaska. I hugged a lot of friends, did a lot of crying, found a temporary home for my cat Harley and flew down to Arizona to help Mom watch Dad die.

When I wash dishes, I have a system. Part of it is gleaned from little tips I picked up from Mom over the years. The first step is to take most of the dishes out of the sink. You can leave little things like silverware in there, or coffee cups and glasses that might not be very dirty. Then you fill the sink with soapy water. You should always start with the easiest (i.e. the least dirty) things first, so your dishwater will stay cleaner longer: it's much more efficient that way. Also: if there are any pans or plates or bowls that still have food stuck on them, you should fill them with hot soapy water and letting them soak for a while before you tackle them. Generally, if you are diligent about rinsing, you won't have to let too many things soak.

I was amazed at how easy it was for me to leave Seattle. I don't mean to say I had nothing worthwhile there: I had many wonderful friends, my own apartment, and a small forest's worth of notepaper filled with my Generation-X ruminations and a lot of bad (but not all bad) poetry. It didn't strike me until much later, however, just how easily I had shaken off that city to move back to Alaska; then I realized that my initial move to Seattle had been just as abrupt and with nearly as little forethought. I realized I had perfected my low-maintenance lifestyle to a science. I realized that I had started keeping most everyone at arm's length: even my family. I had a closer relationship (longer, too) with my books than I had with most people. Even my job, while it paid the bills and had a rather nice benefits package, was one in which I felt under-appreciated and very uninspired. Unfortunately, I also felt very stuck. Apparently, like leftover oatmeal, I hadn't soaked nearly long enough.

Finally, after more years had passed than I care to relate; finally, I left. In a symbolic way, I scraped myself away from my aimless existence and threw myself back into school to see what would stick. It was hard. It was messy. There were many things, habits, that were deeply ground-in, burnt-on, and such a part of me that I could still taste them on my tongue. But it got easier, the more I practiced, the more efficient I became. Soon, I was cleaning up everywhere, breezing through coursework in such a way that I had to wonder why I had once found it so tedious. My home, too, began to reflect the rigid structure of my days: tidy, dishes washed: frankly, I was studying so much that I didn't really have time to make the place messy. Tidy, too, were my friendships ... nonexistent, actually. Like people often do when the pendulum swings the other direction, I wound up overcompensating. One of the reasons my house was always so clean was that I had no social life: nil, nothing. But I was focused, you had to give me that: I had finally succeeded in attaining my own workaholic hyper-focused nirvana where I was master of my entire universe. I was in an oasis of intellectualism. Any inclinations for love and friendship were quickly stifled by my overwhelming fear that if I had too many distractions around me that I would once again lose my way and take off running on some other impulsive whim. I had moved from being a shadow that flew by too quickly to be pinned down, to a degree-seeking missile: and I wasn't going to let anyone stand in my way. Where once my sink full of dirty, mis-matched dishes was a testament to my contempt for convention; now, my cupboard full of clean, cheap (rarely used) ceramic-ware was evidence of my zeal.

And then I met Sean.

You know how it is, when you first start seeing someone, you always try to make a good impression. That first night he came over I had spent a larger part of the day vacuuming, organizing, tidying up, stocking the cupboards full of dishes (ok, so I still sometimes left dishes in the sink: but not for as long as I used to, and I didn't have a dishwasher in that place either). Depending on how well a relationship goes, however, the urge for pretense quickly diminishes in accordance with the amount of quality-time you want to spend with your beloved. I was back to my old habits: at least the untidiness. I divided my time equally between school and Sean -- and it worked pretty well -- though the housework suffered. He would tease me about it -- until he got his own place, and learned what a drag it is to do the dishes, the vacuuming, the everything.

But at least when you live alone, you're living with your own mess. Fast forward almost two years, and we moved in together.

Suddenly: I'm a neat-freak. Where'd that come from? Suddenly, I feel horrified if the dishes stay in the sink overnight, suddenly, I have this overwhelming urge to arrange and re-arrange and re-re-arrange furniture. I want to organize his closets, but I don't. I know better. I want to rearrange the clothes in his dresser ... I want to hang up all the pictures in exactly the right spot ... and I want to know: who in the hell is this woman??? Since when did I become such a control freak? Since when did I become someone who wants to make up a schedule for cleaning out the litter-boxes? Since when did I have people over often enough to feel slightly embarrassed that the bathroom mirror is 80% obscured by toothpaste spatter? What am I ... nesting? That doesn't sound like me at all. And who is this woman who stands over her beloved's shoulder and tells him he missed a spot on the dishes and then proceeds to show him the best way to do it so as to assure maximum cleanliness in the shortest amount of time. After all: I have so much practice. How did I ever think I could live with another person and not become as critical of him as I always have been of myself? Oh, Jessica ...

It took me about two months to adjust to living with someone else again. I hadn't realized, but in my four years as a single woman with a full work schedule and a full class load, I managed to pretty much lose touch with every social ability that I once might have had. Kind of pathetic. And now, now that I had let this ... this ... man into my life, I had to completely reassess my ideas of personal space, personal time, and independence. It's easy to be an independent woman when you're on your own, I discovered, but it's harder when you're "with" someone. It's hard to get stuff done when you always have someone there. I had to learn how to be selfish in a completely new way: in a way that accommodated for another person who I actually cared for. Not easy for me ... the never-stays-in-one-spot-long-enough-to-gather-dust queen. But I did. And I have. And I've started to find a balance ... I think. I've started to learn how to deal with another person's mess ... I've started to learn how to let another person see MY mess and to trust he'll still be there in the morning. I've started to realize that a pile of papers left on the end-table for a week or more does not necessarily mean the relationship and/or world is falling apart. I think I've finally figured out how to let go of certain beliefs. Which is amazing. Which is freeing.

I think there's been something stuck to me for a long time, so long that I did not even notice anymore. Bad habits are like that, not just habits of action, but habits of thought, and habits of non-action. I've become more comfortable with change, and with chaos; I've become more comfortable with the idea of letting people see my shortcomings, and not really caring what they think of me. Is this something a person learns naturally as they grow older? I don't know, I suppose it could be. Is this something that happens to a person when they finally grow up and finally meet that person they can let go of all their boundaries with? Maybe ... I think I've stopped having to analyze it. I think I've reached a happy medium. I think I've learned how to keep things tidy enough for me: not my mother's brand of tidy -- I don't think anyone could achieve that -- her skill in the house-keeping arts is something that is slowly being lost to history. But I think that's OK. I think I've found my proper balance of just enough grime and dirt to prove that I have other things to keep myself occupied besides housework, but not too much to show I've completely gone around the bend into Unibomber territory. I think I've come to see a little bit of sloppiness as a good thing: as a sign of a busy house -- a house where people stop by, and you don't mind that you haven't put out fresh guest-towels and that you don't have a fresh pitcher of lemonade ready. If folks stop by our house now, they're very often greeted by a living-room strewn with cat toys, books, magazines and various lap-tops. There's very often dishes in the sink ... but it doesn't take long to wash out a wine-glass or two, to share a glass with good friends who feel comfortable enough to just stop by, and who don't mind in the slightest about getting cat hair on their pants.

That's clean enough for me.