Why "The Giving Tree" is One Messed Up Book

Now, if you are one of the 5 people who has heard me rant about this in lecture feel free to turn away now.

Otherwise, listen up.

I try really hard not to get all judgey when it comes to books. As a person who reads nearly everything I know that the appeal of a story is so intimately ensconced in ones personage that it is nearly impossible to detangle why you love some stories so much. Maybe it was Who read them to you, maybe it was Where you found the book, maybe the love of your life (you know, the one to whom you finally said yes to anal?) just dumped you for the skank down the hall and the only reason you did not fling yourself from the top of the dorm was that Danielle Steel novel.

I don't need to know - well, maybe about the anal - but that is a whole different blog post.

I do not like The Giving Tree. When I come across papers of Undergrads who wax poetically about the beauty of this book, I want to give them a shake. If I were to meet these individuals:

I would flee in terror.  ( I would also take aside any romantic partner of these simpletons and tell them to run far, far, away...)

Now the why: Yes, I get that the Tree "loves" the boy.  I get for some people that this is some kind of metaphor for Mother love.  For others it may denote some kind of romantic love, the all giving selflessness of archetypal L-O-V-E.

Sigh.

Both ideas are shit.  At least if you are beyond that age of 10.

The tree in this book - a feminine voice - gets all kinds of fucked.  She gets disassembled - literally. She gives everything.  She gets stripped down to the barest of entities...then gets sat upon.

The boy? I know this boy, don't you? The one who comes back when he needs something? The one who liked you enough to have sex with ( as long as no one else knew about it) - but not enough to date?  The father/brother/cousin/friend who wants you to loan him money, or drive him around when he lost his license because of DUI ( which was most likely the fault of some cunt, amiright?) - and if you dare to say no...Good Luck, sister.

This boy is entitled.

This boy will rape if he can get away with it, and then blame the victim of his rape. This boy will tell the police how his wife MADE him punch her, because she wouldn't shut the fuck up. This boy will tell his daughter that it is her fault when he rapes her.

This boy will start a war, then make up lies as to why he did it.  This boy will steal from the vulnerable and then tell you it was their fault for being stupid. This boy will deny climate change, despite scientific proof. This boy will feel he has the right and obligation  to tell other people how to live - who to love, how to express their sexuality, and if they should control their reproductive systems.

If I taught this boy in a preschool classroom ( and I have), I would spend a great deal of time teaching him how to consider the feelings of others. Most likely his parents have told him that he is special beyond imagination. They have praised leadership in his character, when it is, in fact, bullying.

I would watch him closely - and this would make him very uncomfortable. He doesn't like to be watched, because then you might see that he is doing things - things that are not acceptable, poking his friends until they lash out, then crying to you for being hit. Taking things from other peoples lunch. Pocketing other peoples toys. Kicking over other peoples block structures.

This boy doesn't understand when an adult doesn't buy his bullshit.  It has always worked before, after all.

The tree never says No to this boy. She gives, and gives and gives. Long past the point of pain, long past the point of being able to survive.

What is this saying to our children - when we read them this book, with love in our voices?

Are we saying: "I will do this for you"?

Are we saying: "If you love someone YOU should do this for Them?"

Are we saying: "If a woman loves you enough, she will give you everything that she is, no questions asked?"

Are we saying: "A boy you love should strip you down to nothing, and you should be grateful he comes back?"

I call bullshit.

And that is why I do not like the Giving Tree.

(perhaps later I will write "Why "I love you Forever" really creeps me out)

How Can I get more Dawn?

You ask yourselves. I know. I often wonder the very same thing. Or would if I wasn't my own best and most appreciative audience.

Seriously, I KILL inside my mental amphitheater.  It's all lighters and encores in here, baby.

Whorish Ravens

Where you too can be privvy to the usually funny, occasionally esoteric, often confusing conversation in my mind.

Where else can you get things like this?

"At the dance academy for the morbidly shy, skeletons must be used for partners"

Or This:

"The source of her headaches was obvious to onlookers. Marie-Catherine, however, remained oblivious."

It is cryptic comic GOLD.

I also just realized that this past week marked my Six Year Blogging birthday ? anniversary? Blogiversary?

Six Years.

I'm uncharacteristically speechless.

Storied Formation: Tender Morsels

I know I didn't tell you the book in the last post.  But then again, I am a contrarian doxy and did this purposely so the handful of you would come back to hear the rest of the story midst my mental meanderings.

Have you ever wondered what two friends doing their PhD's email about?  Here is Maija:

(oh, we memory detectives sally forth under the tutelage of tsw... pointing out everyone's storied formation and its meaning. shit, there's a detective novel there dawn... let's write one!)

Which elucidated this from me:

I laughed at your idea of us writing a Storied Formation detective novel. With an audience of Zero.

And then we began furiously emailing about Singularity and my stance that: "I don't know that we can create thinking machines, or tolerate them existing.  As such this is why virtual reality and special effects do nothing to move me. It is not real, despite what it wishes.  It simply re-mediates reality. 

But were it to happen? Then yes. Machines would move far faster that humans, for we are bound by culture. We can not move faster than culture and it is bound by humans. "

I know, right? Hold off on that flood of dinner party invitations for the sparkling wits, Maija and Dawn and their ever so interesting to others conversations on things Not related to their dissertations. 

But I digress. 

The Book that crushed me? Blasted and etched itself into my most heavily fortified spaces?

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan.

As a child, I particularly loved the Lang Fairy Books. At first I was annoyed when I would notice story elements repeat over tales from different cultures.  Later it became a tool I would use to relate one story - one culture - to another. It was in those books that I began to understand the inextricable quality of story to culture and that culture is more similar than dissimilar despite where the culture is geographically situated.


The story - and I am by no means intending to write a "review" of the book - combines two fairy tales in my mind- East of the Sun, West of the Moon and Snow White and Rose Red.  (The real one, people. No prettied up shit here)


The objections that got this book booted from the bitch.com list are spurious, at best. There is rape. There is incest. There is abortion. However, to quantify the essence of a story by the objectionable events located within the pages is so ridiculous as to be grotesque. I can think of one in particular (cough cough) which is held up to justify all sorts of immoral shit that exists between it's own pages - some pretty heinous buggery going down there.

I won't offer you story synopsis as you can get that on other sites written by people far better skilled than I. But bear with me as I deconstruct and attempt to articulate what moved me to dissolve in tears.

This has proved uncommonly thornish for me to express.  Which is, of itself, a perplexion - for I am rarely without words to describe.  I can only surmise that this is still  fresh, so close to my bone that I must cleave the words from a place particularly safeguarded and so I feel an uncustomary reticence.

Bear with me, I beg you.

There were two distinct messages that I received from Tender Morsels. In one, I cried as a Mother. In the other, I cried as a Woman.

Mother First:

The mother in this story goes to extraordinary lengths to keep her daughters from the pain of how they were conceived ( through incest, and then a gang rape). Far more than the societal shame ( although she fears that too), the mother seeks to raise her girls in a world without emotional discomfort.

Why did this make me cry?

Partly it is the understanding of the desire to keep from your child, your daughter, the terrors of the world.  The lengths to which you will go to protect, the careful manipulation of the world so that they see no ugliness, no gangs of boys, no fathers who molest. You do not want them to worry about walking home at night, or how their clothes may be interpreted in ways that could make them vulnerable to rape.

You want them to believe that they are strong and capable and will be given fair opportunities in life, work and relationships.You want them to know that their beauty does not come from some external measure of pretty. That the people they love will love them and never hurt them with forethought and malice.

Would I give up my life to protect Emily from pain?

There is a recurring nightmare I used to have when she was a toddler. In it, masked assailants would break into our house and I would bargain with them to not hurt her - to take me, rape me instead of her. I would tell her to run.  I wanted to bear it all in place of her.

It is much, much more than an issue of life as animation of flesh, a beating heart and synapses firing. In fact, the issue of life as physical animal seems inconsequential.

It is more an issue of standing still, locking your brakes into place and holding - gritting your teeth and holding, even as your brakes wear down and the smoke coming off them chokes you.

Would I stand still in my life to protect her - holding everything in a 1998 pattern to provide her with a sanctum? Even at the expense of Me?

What do you think? Would you? Have you? Have I? How many of us do just this - hang onto our illusion of security and normalcy far beyond it's usefulness, and further beyond natural endings?




The author wasn't done with me, I fear. No. She was pulling back her hammer for the next blow.

Happiness.

I confess that in my past year, as I rended and gnashed and poured ashes on my hair, I'd retained an idea that I deserved happiness. That I - of anyone I knew, More than anyone I knew - Deserved Happiness.  In every regard.  I guarded that idea like a virulent envy. Even as I had my body deconstructed and knit back together, even as my Wendy stitched my shadow back onto my self, I held onto this. I deserve to be happy.

Then I read this:

You may never be entirely happy; few people are. You may never achieve your heart's desire in this world, for people seldom do. Sit by enough deathbeds, Branza, and you will hear your fill of stories of missed chances, and wrong turnings and spurned opportunities for love. It is required of you only to be here, not be happy."

and like a thump in the gut, I disintegrated.

Oh.

I read it again.  And cried.

The truth that fills that last sentence is so monumental that it still takes my breath away.  As ridiculous as it sounds, I made that sentence my screen saver so I can see it over and over: a scrolling mantra.

My happiness is not required. It is not obligated. I deserve no more than any other person living, and some may say that for my privilege of race and education that I deserve less.

It is a truth I have always peripherally known, but lost along the way while listening to whisper promises. My serpent promising me the apple.

The deed of which I am supremely liable is in not being Here.  Of removing myself to my own hearts desire in my head for too long and too often over this past year.

I failed myself in allowing me to linger in that other place. Perhaps it was a necessary part of healing. I can't be sure.

What I do know is that the rubble over which  I have lingered, turning over rocks and crooning my songs of loss, is being cleared. The patterns of treading water, of locking my burning brakes is done.

It is my time to re-build.

Storied Formation: Getting There

A few weeks ago I read a book.

A book that shook my core so profoundly that I sobbed through the last 50 pages. Not just trickle of tear here and there. Sobbed. Like "end of Old Yeller" sobbed.

My friend Maija and I have been PhD Candidates under the same professor. Part of our tutelage has been being immersed in this professor's philosophy of the formation of our storied selves, the autobiography of our professional (and personal) personas as informed by our Reader personas. In Maija's more eloquent terms: We are the books we held.

It doesn't always happen in childhood, although for many of us it is where it starts. The first story that you became captivated by, or in...the first narrative that you imagined yourself in place of.... I mean how many American little girls wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House books? How many Canadian girls lost themselves in Anne of Green Gables? [Here I note a gendered and  hetero-normative specific bias to my formational book lists]

As a reader, I continue to be able to lose myself in story - something my friend Maija has a harder time doing. I can forget my critical "academic" mind and dissolve into the pages.  Perhaps because reading, even academic reading, has been mostly pleasurable I have never disassociated reading from bliss.

Therefore, when a story extends a papery finger and places it in spots so tender and unguarded as to make me sob? I notice. I attend.  I ponder. I ruminate and reflect.  I get uncomfortable and fret until I can articulate what got inside and how it did so.  The castle walls, after all, are not made to be breached. Therefore that which does demands close and particular attention.

The book had sat on my shelf since February. As I began my stumbling and inelegant dog-paddle back from my grief, I ignored the books on my shelves.  They had to wait until I was ready to read again.

This summer I have been reading like a fiend.  All the books that have been accumulating in stacks next to my bed? Now is their time.  This particular book was one of three I had ordered when the furor over the bitch.com YA Feminist Lit list and it's subsequent removal of books from the list using means that still befuddle my imagination.

Being an oppositional bitch myself, any pulling/boycotting of a book signals to me that I MUST read this book. It's just the way I am built. Forbid me and you will find me climbing over barbed wire to get to the glittery contraband.  More than that, however, is my deeply held knowledge that someone will object to Everything.  Therefore, if you are going to go all "100 best list" on people, double down and have the ovarian fortitude to weather the storm, dammit.  Because there will be a storm.

I could make a "Best Vegetables In the World" list and get into a fight with someone over why Lima Beans were left off. Aside from my personal conjecture that Lima Beans are, in fact, the devils legume (Blech, Blech, Blech) I can entertain that there are humans who may like them. I would be highly suspicious of those humans ( if that is what they ARE), but I could accept it. That wouldn't mean I was changing my list.

Censorship, particularly of books, really chaps my ass.  There is never a good enough reason to decide for others what words they consume.

"But Dawn", say You, "What about obnoxious hate speech and racist rants".

"what of them?", I answer.

We will never be rid of hurtful and hate filled ideas. Allowing it to go underground only pushes it out in a more pus-filled and virulent form. While banning may bring comfort to the handwringers who allow themselves to be comforted by token and empty gestures, it does nothing else.  It doesn't stop Hate. It doesn't End Rape. It doesn't Change Oppression.  What it does do is to ingrain a code, a double speak, so that the preachers of these noxious and foul schema can continue while hiding in plain sight.

The satisfaction of censorship, to those misguided do-gooders who seek to do so, does not lay with the removal of the words, per se, but with the Ideas. And we all know that Ideas simply can not be stopped. 

Murder in Ikea

"What do you think of this couch?"

"Don't like it"

"How about these chairs?"

"Yeah, hate them."

"And this? How does this strike you?"

"You seriously like this piece of shit? It's hideous."

"I kind of like this couch - it seems comfy to read on."

"That couch is awful. Who would want a couch like that in their house?"

"Here, try this chair. I like this one."

"Terrance, It's the SAME chair you hated five minutes ago, just in a different color."

"Listen. I am 36 years old. I deserve to have real furniture. I do not want leather couches. I am sick of living on futons, mother fucker. I am not afraid to cut you."

"Did you just say that when you divorce me I can choose my own furniture?

It is O-N mutha-fucka...."

All right, so this may have been slightly more dramatized than the real event....but it was how it went in my mind. I think Ikea should have a lawyer on the way out, so you can draw up the divorce papers. Big ups to the Playmobil Playahs. 


I look forward to furnishing my house in Bookcases, Chaises and floor lamps after the divorce.

Needless to say, we have never gone to IKEA together, ever again.


First Published 2006

Dear White Actresses of the world:

I want to personally thank you for your refreshing choice of a movie role as White, Upstanding, Female Ingenue who bravely battles racism by your clever manipulation of your white privilege. This is as true today as when I first wrote this in 2007.

Where would the poor black/latino children be without you? I mean - honestly. Had they not seen your perfect giant teeth and size 2 body clad in designer clothing, they would be forever doomed to their careers as future pimps/drug dealers/thugs/rioters and crack whores.

You have inspired me to run down into an unsavory part of town and start colonizing..um, I mean "re-educating" them. Them being the non-whites, of course.

Perhaps you can bring them Jesus Christ as their personal savior in your next movie.

Maybe you can BE Jesus Christ in your next movie. I bet Mel would love to direct.

And Oh, I love this flow chart with the passion of a million suns. Why Yes, I DO love Coolio! :

No. I can't Help You

I have found myself saying this more and more frequently.

Not because I am the meanest mommy on earth (although truth be told, I may be). No.

It is because my daughter is nine. Nine years old. The age at which I walked to school on my own and babysat my brother (alone)  for large chunks of time. The age at which I roamed the neighborhood on my bike and would disappear to the library for whole afternoons. The age at which I can not ever remember my mother making me breakfast, let alone bacon, eggs or pancakes on a week day.

Now, I am not expecting her to be me. When I was her age, my parents had separated and were almost divorced. I had seen and experienced things that I would never,never wish for her. I would, in fact, get stabby if anyone tried to expose her to those things. No, my life was very, very different.

No. I am talking about learned helplessness. I am talking about "I can't pour my own milk" or "I can't turn on my own shower". Without even trying, she calls out "Mama, can you help me?"

I confess to falling for this - Lots. Her father is even worse as he can't bear to hear her fuss or struggle over anything. He is the one who gets up in the morning and makes the pancakes and bacon ( which needs to be chewy, not crispy). Any suggestion to her that she attend to her own breakfast leads to full out tears and conniptions. SHE CAN'T!!! SHE'S JUST A LITTLE GIRL!!!!

This came to a head a few weekends ago. Her father had been away since Wednesday, and she failed to sleep  between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. This intrinsically means that I must be made to fail to sleep as well.  Because who would you complain to about not being able to sleep if you didn't wake your mother up to tell her that you can't sleep? With each day, I was becoming more frayed and irritable.

By Saturday, I had just about had it.  She kept me up Friday night, then woke me at 7:30 a.m. to request - and I quote:

"Scrambled eggs made with cream and bacon. Chewy bacon, cause I don't like it crispy. Chewy , right? and the eggs with cream and ketchup on the side. and can I crack the eggs? Oh, and I want passionfruit juice too. Remember the bacon needs to be chewy. I don't like crispy bacon."

Apparently, the one glaring eyeball that was peering out from under my pillow and the sharp exhale did not CLEARLY signal the impending danger. Shit, Clowns could have been sending her both semaphore and smoke signals from the end of the bed, and I believe she would have blissfully continued her assault.

My head rose higher. "Get yourself something for breakfast", I muttered.

There was moaning.

Followed by rolling around on the bed.

"But I'm HHHHUUUUUUUNNNNNGGGGGRRRRYYYYY"

I rolled over and tried to re-establish my position of sleeping.

Intentional Nudging began. Now, my kid is the queen of the intentional nudge. She uses it on me when she can tell I am falling back to sleep. It is designed to get maximum effect with minimum effort. The finger would find a soft space in my arm, and the poke both goes forward, while digging up. A twist pinch poke.

This drives me CRAZY. Like raging bull, Mom gone psycho crazy. Lucky for her about 89% of the time, I am still asleep enough to not know I am being poked. But the 11% of the time I do? Whoa, Baby.

This was one of those days.

I leapt up. Pillows scattering. Eyes aflame. My voice was low and close. It was my mothers voice. The one that she used when she was really angry. The one where I talk through my teeth, while maintaining constant eye contact.

"Let me tell you something. I don't know who gave you the impression that I was placed here to serve you breakfast, but you are woefully mistaken and if you poke me again, you will spend the rest of the day in your room." If memory serves, I may have inserted some swear words. Other vague threats may have been described, but I was half asleep and irrationally mad. In every sense.

And then? I got up and made breakfast. Cause now I was awake and it seemed silly to NOT make breakfast. Right?

July 3, 2007 Gimlet Eye

serpentine

Even a Gorgon can not always be wrathful, harpy talons outstretched, screeching with splenetic judgement of man.

For when she woke, the snakes were quiet, loosely coiled along the sides of her face.

They slithered and turned gently. Glissading along her temples, murmuring and sighing words of love in their not quite awake reverie.

In some lights, you could see the maiden she once was, all rosiness and anticipation.

But now, she lay in bed, listening to the sussurations of the snakes, luxuriating at the bottom of their pandora's box, warming themselves in the sun.

storm warning

His weather is constant.

Moody. Angry. Tense. Stormy. Silent. Glowering. Critical. Unforgiving. Disappointed. Turbulent. Dour.

Separated by unpredictable, unexplained silences.

His sunny days are for other people. His audience finds him charming. Erudite. A pleasure.

I have built my weather proofing with skin toughened from 20 years of this inconstant and perpetual storm.

But for her? I shield her the best I can, when I can. I intervene. I step between and deflect. I remind and caution. I divert and disperse.

The gift I thought I was giving her when I chose the immovability of a father, the never abandon you, the pendulum weight of responsibility and duty, all gifts I thought I wanted for myself?

They batter me. They wear me down as I place her under the aegis of my breastbone and hold my hands over her ears, staring at him.

These are no gifts. They are dead-weights, millstones as albatrosses flying over our heads. They are bloated, fetid road kill.

I do not know the people he wants, the wife he would prefer, the child the would shine over and thrum approval. Those females, those not us, are neat and tidy, aiming to please him and show gratitude or appreciation.

I only know that they do not live here, do not live inside us. We are not Them.

"Start no fires", I whisper into her ear, as I open my weather annealed skin to drape over her as best I can.

The better to eat you with

The old cliché is that the shoemakers kids are the ones walking around barefoot, right? Well, kids of early childhood professionals are the ones who fail to adhere to developmental timelines. They are also the ones on whom all the advice their parent has ever spoken will be guaranteed to NOT work. They will talk late, be constipated as exclusively breast-fed babies, and get chronic ear infections. They will also become biters in their classroom.

Yes, I was the Mom of the Biter. That Biter – you know the one who took a chunk out of your child’s face? Then followed that up with the bite on the back the next day? Yep – That was my kid.

What doubled my pleasure, so to speak, was my dual role as point person for the angry parents who wanted me to “do something” about that Biter.

Logically, I could tick off the reasons for Emily’s biting. She was small. At a year old she weighed a whopping 13 pounds so her classmates were behemoths in comparison. She used her teeth when she felt threatened or unsure. She also bit people when she was overcome with love or happiness. Knowing her life long struggle with the modulation of her emotions and her eventual diagnosis of ADD, it doesn’t shock the Me watching seven years later. But try to explain to another’s mother that your child loves her child so much, that she bit them. Not a popular sell.

For Emily, she was also dealing with a significant language delay. Having experienced chronic ear infections from the age of 3 months on, she was a very late talker. She would get frustrated with a friend, and since the word or objection couldn’t be quantified as a word – the teeth were handy and fast.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The day that another child bit Emily, I fought back my urge to punch a 14-month-old child in the face. I also knew that my husband was going to go apeshit when she saw the marks on her cheek. “Who was it, Who was it, Who was it” he grilled me over and over.

“Are you asking me as the mother or as the Director?”, I responded

“The Mother”, he said

“I don’t know, as the mother. Staff doesn’t tell you the name of the biter.”

I braced myself for the follow up.

“Then Director. I am asking you as the Director.” His eyes were widening, mouth tightening.

“As Director, I must tell you that we don’t release the name of the child. It is a matter of program policy and confidentiality. I can assure you, however, that the parents have been notified and are working closely with the staff.”

I took a deep breath. I braced myself, for the gale was a-coming.

“What!!! You will tell me Dawn. You will tell me who bit our child! You will tell me …or I’ll sue you. I’ll sue the Center! This is a matter of health! What if that child has something?” He paused, panting and huffing.

After several more threats to my professional well-being, he desisted. The tables turned soon after. WE became the parents of THE BITER!!!

Her reign was not mercifully brief. She had a long and glorious stint as the top shark in the pond. It persisted through the Two-year-old room, off and on.

The crowning moment in my title as “Mother of the Biter” came after one of Emily’s best beloved friends transitioned into the classroom.

Now, Early Childhood people worth their salt will tell you that groups of children behave in some very predictable ways. In groups of Toddlers, new children are often targeted with a bite. This may come from the last child to transition into the group – or may come from the “Top Toddler” so to speak. I wasn’t kidding when I referred to my groups of Children as “Wolf Packs”. They have very, very similar characteristics.

J was coming into the Ones and Emily was overjoyed. She was her buddy in badass behavior. In fact, this group of Mom’s and I often joked that there must have been a streak of Bad Ass in the water, since we had produced some of the most Bad Ass group of little girls to grace the center in quite a long time.

Day One, Emily greets J and Bites her on the right Cheek. The bite takes up about 70 percent of J’s cheek. It is a nasty thing. Purple and swollen. I want to cry when I see this other child. It is bad. It’s a bite that, as Director, I have to call the Mother about. A mother whom I considered to be a friend. As with my husband, I am going to be questioned. As with my husband, I am going to have to hold the professional line.

This Mother was actually OK. This was her second child, and she was a bit more relaxed when it came to life in the child care center. Her husband, predictably, flipped out. I believe that she later told me that he had wanted to come beat up the Toddler who had bitten his child. I understood.

No, the beauty of my tenuous situation came from another mother in the group. Mother of the child who had bitten my own child, in fact. Having observed J’s bitten face, she approached me in the hall.

Her: “Boy, J has a bad bite!”

Me: “Yeah, It is a big one”

Her: “You know, I’ve been thinking. The parents of that Biter have got to do something about this. I mean, they can’t be very good parents if their child keeps biting, right? What kinds of parents have a child that bites like this?

Me:” I can tell you that the parents are very aware of the situation. They are working closely with the staff and they feel just terrible about the biting.”

Her: “Still, if they were better parents, their child would stop biting.”

At age one, Emily taught me that while she is Of me, she is not me. She has to make her own way, as hard as that is for me to watch and experience. So what kinds of parents have the biter – or the hitter, or the pincher, or the pusher-downer? Ones just like Terrance and I, apparently.

February, 2006

Morphic Resonance

I am certain that there is no place for me.

Despite whatever costume face I have affixed to my body for the day, I know without looking that there will be no one else that will quite "get" me. Even if there will be, I won't be able to find them. And if I do find them, I won't be able to convey our similitude.

I will be left, mid floor, waving my hands about, nattering on, trying to explain how much we have in common, my relief manifold at having found even the most minuscule of connections in the vast sea of my uneasy neurosis and abject loneliness.

Until, like a bound mime, I am forced to concede that I cannot hope to reveal the secret that I know lay between us, waiting to be unearthed.

So I fade, back into my shadows, back into my hidey hole covered with the dead vines and leaf litter of 40 years, my self imposed privation settling on me like a tattered cloak.

There is nothing for you here.

I am but a shadow dawn. 

Get Your Face out of Your Phone

So, I am not going to BlogHer this year ( despite being honored to be a Voice of the Year Finalist) and I am perfectly fine with it.

Despite my teaching a certain Other Blogger how to schmooze bartenders ( without showing your boobs) so they give you free drinks and continue to serve you after the bar is officially closed, I am - at best- a once an every other year kind of gal. Maybe next year when I will persist in  wearing the Velvet PhD Tam the entire time, despite any temperature.

I've been reading and seeing posts here and there about what to wear, what to do etc when going to a Blogher conference...indeed ANY conference.

And here is my Tip:

Get Your Face out of Your God Dammed Phone.

It is true that I am not a Phone Lover.  I don't like to talk ON the phone if I can avoid it...and I do Avoid it. My best friend has actually had her husband once call MY husband to demand that I call her back. I frequently either misplace my phone, or simply fail to charge it. I had a Kin forced on me two weeks ago and I whinged enough that I sent it back since I hated the cluster-fluffed touch screen.

Kris Kringle! If I want to use a phone, I just want to use an as designed by Alexander Graham Bell phone. I don't want to navigate through 15 screens and get asked about shit that I do not care about. ( as an aside, I passionately hated the collage of photos on the Kin at the start up. I am 41 years old. I do not need a random collage of pictures of people I do not know staring up at me for the 12 minute start up.)

Now, here is where this ties into BlogHer....

Bloggers: You are Not that Important. You are not so important that you need to stare at your phone like it is going to deliver the position of the Holy Grail to you. The President isn't emailing you to ask for debt ceiling advice and you had no part in finding Osama Bin Laden. There is simply Not that much to which you must absolutely be privvy that you can not peel your eyes away from the rectangular glowing device.

If someone is talking to you, LOOK AT THEM. MAINTAIN EYE CONTACT WITH THEM.  I teach this to preK kids, fer christ sakes. A Conversation involves Eye Contact so I know you are hearing me. When you are staring down at an illuminated screen you give the impression that you could care less what I am saying. You are also giving the impression that you are too Important or Busy to acknowledge me.

(*cough, cough - I had this happen to me last year - with people I have known since 2006.  If I see you Once a year, give me the consideration of 5 minutes of time to genuinely connect. We don't have to skip down a hall and hold hands and be bestest friends all conference, but sincerity goes a hell of a long way in my book)

And guess what? You aren't that amazing. Despite your branding, your book deal, the palm fronds and Hosanna's when you rode your donkey into the conference hall - You ain't ALL that. In the words of Ben Folds, There is always someone cooler than you...and there will be someone cooler next year, or in two years.  The people you are offending? They are going to remember that - Forever. No matter how big our bloggy world seems? It isn't. It is ridiculously small. We all know each other - especially those of us around forever.

So show a little courtesy.  Show a little human connection. You don't have to tongue kiss each other ( unless you want to) but if someone is talking to you, do NOT look at your phone. If it isn't someone you want to hang out with, say "Thanks so much - It was Great Meeting you! I'm sure I will see you around!"

Just stop staring at your phones. It's annoying. And rude.

Vegetable Wrangler

I am in some kind of Caged Death Match with the vegetables.

When I signed up for the Community Supported Agriculture, it was March. I could be found dreaming of temperatures warm enough to grow anything, let alone vegetables.  Plus, with my established credentials as "Liberal White Lady", it made me happy to think I was supporting my local organic farmer.

Because, as we have established, Liberal white ladies loves us some Environment AND Organic Produce.

Yet, here it is - Week 5 - and I spend more time than I care to admit  looking up ways to use the vegetables. Since my cooking ability is suspect at best, I can be relied upon to diligently Research what I should be doing with the overflowing bucket of vegetables.

Forthwith, I have canned 2 jars of spicy beets for goat cheese salad in the winter when I long for a fresh beet. I have canned One jar of Garlic Scapes in a Korean style brine for who knows what I am going to do with these. I have 2 containers of  Garlic Scape Pesto in the freezer, with the addition (today) of the 2-2cup bags of Grated Zucchini for making fritters and breads/muffins.  Tomorrow, I am blanching the summer squash to freeze for winter soups.  (Psst - I am doing Lacto-fermentation canning - the no boiling kind)

The Garlic is starting to roll in now too - and I may end up pickling a jar. Although the Italian Garlic is up first and we may get through it all before I need to do something. If worse comes to worst, I can tack it up on the doors for evil spirit prevention.

In other news, I am pleased to come out as a lover of  Bob Ross. Yep, the PBS painter guy.  I always have loved him and used to have old VHS tapes of his shows. I would come home from work and pop them in and just listen to him.

I have no painting talent or aspirations, but I can be captivated by a Bob Ross Video. As in "Like a Shot of Heroin in the Brain" captivated.  As soon as I hear his voice, I glaze over into my own "happy little place".  I can feel my muscles relax as the serotonin floods my body. Every day this week, I have been seen to be sitting in front of my computer, mesmerized by Bob Ross.

Here is the Fox rug, as of last night. I have already gotten the vine outlined and am starting to fill in the blueberries and the leaves. I'm not sure of the Colors yet - Maybe a Brown?  Then I have to decide on the next rug theme. I am leaning towards more "totem" animals - Maybe  A Raven?  Which Reminds me, don't forget to visit my newest bambino - whorish ravens  because I know you are all perpetually wondering

"How can I get More Dawn?"

You're welcome.

F*ck You McDonalds

(enter reason #1785 why Dawn will never be a Brand Mom Blogger)

I can not sputter enough about Why this - McDonalds Courts Mom Blogger When Changing the Menu  pisses me off.

Is this what Women Bloggers who are mothers have become? Another avenue to be manipulated? Another voice to soothe (valid) fears for a greedy corporation?

This offends me in so many ways - as a Woman. As a Writer, As an Intellectual, as a Blogger. And as a Mother.

Fuck You McDonalds. Just Fuck You.


Addendum: As I cool down, there are so many intertwined issues here that it doesn't shock me that I reacted so strongly, so From the Gut. Indulge me as I start to pull the weave apart on this one:

1. Women as Mindless Marketers OR Consumers

2. Motherhood as Ultimate Consumption

3. Bloggers/Writers as Marketing Tools ( in both senses of the word)

4. Mothers must oversee all aspects of Child

5.When Child is less than perfect (overweight, not pretty, not socially adept, you name it) Mother is to blame

6. Women are responsible for their own victimization ( both socially and economically) or the "we wouldn't hate you if you weren't Fat" argument. Can also be couched as the "You have such a pretty face" line of thinking

7. Be grateful for tiny, inconsequential changes. Apples, over processed, filled with pesticides and high in un-needed sugar are better than Fries, Right? See! We're Responsive!

8. Poor People don't deserve good things - including food.  See last nights Colbert Report where he pointed out the ludicrousness of the Heritage Foundation report that Americans aren't really in poverty because they live in homes with Refrigerators. And Microwaves.

9. Women will believe stupid bullshit because a Corporation pays attention to them.

I'm sure there are a few more levels, but I need to go grate some zucchini.

I'm the one screaming at the radio

Driving back to Montreal on Monday, I was listening to National Public Radio and a discussion of a book on the Old West, when this tidbit was said by a caller:

I don't want to come off as all politically correct or anything, but I find myself being a little bit disturbed at how we treated the Indians in the Old West.

 At which point my head exploded.

Once I was able to collect the pieces and reconstruct my skull, I began to yell at the Radio:

"No, you wouldn't want to be all "politically correct" or anything. How bout a decent fucking human being? A little bit disturbed?  Genocide IS a little bit disturbing, isn't it? Oh my Fucking God, my American Brethren are some of the most willfully stupid and mis-educated mother fuckers on the face of this fucking planet."

And then the host asked the Author a question about the Movie "Cowboys versus Aliens", and my head exploded again.

Perseveration

It should come as no great epiphany that my mind flits and scampers through all sorts of places. A sort of polyglot consciousness that moves with no predictability.

I also take a great many photos. Some may know this from my involvement in Envisage, but often as I am taking the photos, alternate stories and obscure verbiage are being crafted around them.

Then there are the odd bits and pieces that rattle around. I don't like twitter, and they don't really fit as blog posts.  Ideas, amorphous. Shiny things I pick up, and set down, then search for later when they reappear in my head.

They all need a place, which isn't here.  This place has it's own life. It's own voice, that I love...but the other voice needs a space of it's own too. A nice chaise lounge and good light to read by until I am forced to turn on electricity.

I am changing. I have no idea into what I am changing, except that it is happening. My resistance is less than futile, it is unwise and deleterious.

So, I give to you Whorish Ravens


PS - I am re-starting Desperately Seeking as a Tumblr blog too. I could not bear to kill it, for it makes me laugh so. My picayune and perverted child.

Something is squeezing my Skull

Me (walking to pool) : It is Hot as the devils ballsack. Maybe even the taint behind the devils ballsack.

Given, of course, that the devil is male. Which one would presume given the monikers assigned to it - the "prince of darkness", for example.  Or "Lord of Flies". I guess that if he were female, more androgynous monikers would be given.  Yeah, I am pretty sure the devil is male. 

Emily (walking next to me): Are you talking to me? 

Me: No. Just thinking.

Emily: You're Weird.

At 2:12 a.m., the people present at the pool that day awoke with the complete understanding that what they had been swimming in was not water.

Facade

The passerbys would never know the truth of the matter. Her masters now lay in the bedroom, meat to feed her for days.

You look delicious.

Five Comics you Should Read

Yes, it is true that I am more than a little bit of a fan girl when it comes to some things. Comics being one of them. While my first introductions were the original comics of R Crumb and an old favorite called "Beautiful Tales for Ugly Children" ( which, let's be honest, remains the best title of anything, ever), I developed a  taste for the genre.

Aside from the three others of you who may read comics,...and combined with the fact that I am never asked by nearly any other adult to tell them about my favorite comics, I beg your indulgence as I wax poetic and perseverate about one of  my myriad obsessions.

1. The Runaways

Brian Vaughn is one of those writers who tells an incredible Story.  Runaways is the story of a group of kids who find out that their parents are super villains.  So, they run. They also find out that they aren't quite as "normal" as they thought.

This is the first comic series I have given, in earnest, to Emily. She LOVES them. There is great writing, strong female characters and some real grappling with the identity separation of child from parent.  Who are we, as teens? Who are our parents? Is our destiny tied in with our parents decisions and actions? Who gets to decide what is evil?

The beauty (and drawback) of being a teen was the absolute certainty I felt about issues. I read it in my old journals, sometimes, and smile at my own definitive-ness. I knew Everything and no one could tell me any different. Vaughn is able to bring that to these characters, but also add their loyalty and love for their parents - and confusion as to what is the right thing to do.

Vaughn also wrote "Y: The Last Man" - in which an biological agent destroys all the men in the world...except one, as well as "Ex Machina".  I loved Y, and had to go at Ex Machina a couple of times before finding my groove. He's also written "Pride of Baghdad" about a group of Lions who escape the zoo after the bombing of the Iraq, but I haven't read it to date.

2. Walking Dead

If you have been living under a rock and been unaware of the AMC show adaptation, or my continual fits of adulation regarding the graphic novel series on this very blog, then I beg You. Read this. Start with issue one and move on to Issue 85. You will be shocked. You will numb to it, then you will be shocked again.  You will ponder the issues that Kirkman kicks to the forefront which is - it isn't the event, it is what we do afterwards. Who are we? What do we become?  I just read Issue 84 and 85 and had to catch my breath afterwards.  I lent out my issues ( 1-13) to the friend who runs our local coffee shop and he was mesmerized.

3. FreakAngels

I don't adore Warren Ellis' every move like some fans. There have been things he has done which have not sung to me.  FreakAngels is one I liked from the first issue. An entirely web based comic, with a fairly regular schedule it is now starting to wind down at issue 142.  Part Dystopian, Part Steam Punk, Part Kids with Special Powers, it blends several story threads nicely to make a little niche for itself within the genre. I liked it enough to even buy myself a FreakAngels Shirt, which Emily predictably hates. You should see her roll her eyes. Gah. Her mother likes Comics. Comics named FreakAngels. The Horror.

4.  Sandman

I am not sure how exactly to describe Gaiman's Sandman. Others have done far more adequate jobs than I could dream of doing, so suffice it to say...I loved it. I loved the imagery and world he helped to re-populate. I loved the way he would manipulate a myriad of myth traditions, each popping up and out with ease. His later writing would continue this tradition - American Gods, particularly. I reference some of Gaiman's language and imagery in my own writing, which some of you may have noticed...when I talk about delight becoming delirium for instance.  It was a seminal work and moved comics from a fringe lit position into something more "respected" and serious.

5.  Crossed

First, a Caveat. This comic is NOT for everyone. It is exceptionally violent in every way. There is extreme physical and sexual violence depicted in a particularly explicit manner.  If you can get past that ( and you might not be able to) the story is fascinating. 

Now, I like Garth Ennis. Not everyone does. I liked Preacher, I really liked Chronicles of Wormwood, and Loved The Pro. The Boys has kept my attention for it's entire run, and that doesn't always happen.

I think it is because I had read his other works that I was willing to stick with Crossed and see where it went. Which was a world in which an infection is being passed from person to person through body fluids, any fluid. The part of the brain which inhibits behavior is destroyed nearly immediately, and the red cross appears on the face. The infected then act upon every impulse, with exaggerated violence. It isn't a zombie story, although it has survivalist overtones. What I really like, though, is Ennis' exploration of what happened if we all did the darkest things in our psyches, the stuff we discount, or dismiss, or deny. 

6.  Girls

 Ok, yes, I said FIVE, but here is a 6th.  The Luna Brothers has their big "break" with Ultra.  To the amazement of the person who suggested it to me, I didn't care for Ultra.  Meh.

But Girls? I really liked Girls. And the next series The Sword.   I know it is trite to say that this would be a type of "feminist" comic, but there are some things about the series that have stayed with me post reading.

First off, the sexual and gender politics and power depicted are fascinating. It is a gang of alien women, all cloned from one, who are looking for men to inseminate them. In fact, they will kill the human women they find in order to preserve their potential sperm donors.  

and the art. Such beautiful illustrations.

Some people hated this comic. Ok. Fair enough. I can accept that.

7. Welcome to Hoxford

Dammit, I Know I said 5, but Ben Templesmith is one of my personal favorite illustrators...and this was one he did both the story AND the art. 

You may better know his art from 30 Days of Night, which got made into that shit-tacular movie. As always,  do yourself a favor and  find the graphic novel. The vampires in there should scare the living shit out of you. 

But this was Ben's Story too and I loved it. Just odd and quirky enough ( Werewolves, who we see not nearly enough serious story lines being given over to) and a privatized prison, a crazy prisoner and his trapped psychologist. I've always thought this would make a seriously kick ass horror film, if they just stuck to Templesmiths' ambiance and didn't try to be too ridiculous with gore and special effects.

The other comic he writes is Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, which I ( not shockingly) love.  I mean LOOK at that. Frakking Gorgeous. And strangely funny. 

He also teamed with Warren Ellis to do a series called Fell which has disappeared over time. I assume they both got busy and the project just dissolved, but the issues are wonderful. Its one of those that I wished would have continued, because there was great storytelling to be done.

Finally, I feel I should plug an artist, Megan of Studio MME, that I have been patronizing for a long time now. A BUNCH of her originals hang in my bedroom (The Cat, The Octopus and The Rooster) , and her prints are scattered around my house.  As in All over the house. I keep buying them and popping them into frames and setting them hither and yon. 

Fears Uncloaking 1, Studio MME

She is an amazing talent and has a real sense of whimsy to her work, so visit her at Etsy store. You don't need to tell her that I sent you, but DO buy original art from artists, even prints. It is good for your soul. 

The Fox: A visual story

truthiest truths

The truthiest truth? 

I hate more than I love. And I can't see anyway to fix it.

That more time will let me heal and finish and grow, but it never seems to quite work. There is always more things, more time needed. 

That I want love and passion in my life. Love and Sex and passion in a bigger and grander way than I have had, but that I don't deserve it and anyway I can't have it and it is all in my head and I should just find a way to settle and be happy and content.

But I never,never am. 

And I understand how you can end up an eccentric old writer, drinking too much and embittered and wanting to shoot the people you love because god dammit, why can't they see that you are no good - that THIS is no good. 

And that I understand how people kill themselves, not simply from depression, but from the exhaustion of listening to all the noise in your head - the voices that push you beyond creative output into hysteria. From delight into delirium. 

And that I want to run away from everything, even my daughter who keeps me grounded to this plane of existence, and just pretend everything is still wide open. But I hesitate. My unspoken promise to her keeps me here, keeps me tethered. Whatever I am, I would be less if I failed her. 


Of all my wounds, self inflicted or hard won or battles lost or rarely innocent bystander, that wound would never, never heal.



That I am dominant, but cravenly submissive. Submissive from fear and obligation and staid indifference.  And rage. That is what my headaches are. the contained rage.



Those are my truthiest truths, kate.

An honor to be Nominated

I got word yesterday that one of my posts, Racists in the Crib, was selected as one of the finalists for BlogHer's Voice of the Year in the Niche Category.

Once again, it is an honor to be selected as one of the Finalists. I won't be at Blogher this year, but am sure that it will be a lovely event.

So Two Years in a Row - a Finalist, but not THE finalist. Maybe next year?

This B*tch can't Cook

I am a woman of many, many talents.  Do you want to have discussions where we discuss post modern {fill in your blank}? Or use the word Hegemony or Ontology or Remediation, for real, as part of our conversation?  Want to jump into discussions about brain development and the infinite fascination of how hormones and electrical impulses form babies brains in tandem with life experience?

Do you want to discuss the feminist underpinnings of women's traditional crafts and how I believe my rug hooking to be a subtle feminist act paying tribute to the women who came before me?  Literature?  Why children love to play games about death?  Foreign Films and why I think they tie into a larger socio-cultural story telling tradition that we should be watching in order to have a better vision of who we are as humans and how we can understand the complexities of other cultures that are not our own? Zombies? Graphic Novels and Comics?

Yes, all of these things are topics into which I can slip with ease, slowly back stroking in the warm waters of ethereal intellect.

The practical matters of Cooking? Sigh. Just not my forte.  I love to eat, of course. I love to eat new and exciting things and will almost never say "No, thanks". At least until I have had enough to know that it is not for me.  I am an appreciative guest, for I will love nearly anything you put in front of me if only for the joy of not having had to cook it. (Tuna Noodle Casserole not included.)

And then I signed us up for a CSA (A share of a local organic farm). I wrote the cheque for the CSA, and so I feel doubly obligated to figure out something to do with the flood of vegetables now living in the lower shelves of our refrigerator.

Now, the rabbits can take care of the lettuce we don't get to - They eat a literal shitload of lettuce. A rabbit shitload of lettuce.  They will happily take the kale and chard and collards and bok choi  if we don't get to them.

No, it was the vegetables that I was uncertain about which worried me most.

The Kohlrabi was my first challenge.  I mean what the hell is this thing? And what the hell am I supposed to do with it.

I solved it by slicing it into sticks, tossing fresh lime juice over it and some red and black pepper, a handful of sea salt and munching through it like there was no tomorrow.  Delicious.

My greatest challenge, to date, has been the garlic scapes. 3 Weeks of Garlic scapes and I have to believe that there is more coming.

 Here is my first weeks attempt to wrangle the scapes. It was a slightly more complicated recipe than I would normally even TRY. I mean there was oil and brown sugar and caramelization and then white wine simmering to deglaze the other caramelized bits. THEN I had to add cheese I had never used before, but the recipe promised it was a cheese that wouldn't melt, and I had to have already chopped the tomatoes to get them into the pan.

Do you see this? THIS is complex. I can chop and throw lime juice on something.

Despite the burns on my arm from the oil/sugar and garlic scape beginning, it all ended up being pretty dang good.

I learned that I can chop the scapes, denuding them of the tips past the flowers which are vaguely stringy.  I learned that they kind of have a similar texture to asparagus - so that I needed to cook them, but not overcook them.  Too much and they are mush. Too little and you are chewing on very crisp garlic stalks.

My next adventure was undertaken on Sunday. I knew I was going to use the first Zucchini to make stuffed Zucchini. There is nothing about that dish that Emily can find lip-curlingly heinous, so a safe bet.  But I had another set of Scapes and needed to do SOMETHING.

Pesto was what I made.  Yeah, Yeah, a VERY rough pesto since I don't have a food processor and the blender laughed at me as I tried to use it's feeble blade to masticate the scapes. Simple enough, though - right? Scapes, slivered almonds ( quickly pan roasted), parmesean cheese and olive oil.

My first inkling that this was a winner was Emily taking a small bowl and some crackers and wandering off to snack.

Snack? On Vegetable based Dip? Was there some kind of hallucinogen in the garlic scapes?

Then Terrance wandered in and took some.

What the hell? Both members of my family who NEVER take anything I cook unless it is practically forced down their gullets, maintaining faces that indicate imminent death have both just voluntarily eaten something I have made?

The following day, they both ate more. MORE?!?!?

Terrance never eats leftovers. NEVER. Not in 20 years have I seen him re-heat something. It drives me crazier than I currently can attest to being.  But there he was, munching away happily.  On garlic scape pesto I  had made the day before.  After looking over my shoulder to check for all four Horsemen  who surely must be on the back porch, I quietly crept away.

I am thinking this pesto could possibly avert the Apocalypse, if it came down to it. Well, at the very least Famine would eat it. He is, after all, Famished.

Ba- dum-dum - Cymbal.

(two small things to note here. 1. I am thinking of the scene from The Young Ones, where Neil finds the 4 horsemen in the fridge and 2. The Undertones- Teenage Kicks is playing on my itunes completing my 1985 or so fugue state.)