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writegirl@altavista.com
Arrival
They put my nephew and I in charge of Christmas cookies. Since he’s 12 and smart and intentional, I gave him the basic sugar cookie recipe and he made the dough. We ate a third of it raw. Then we used the cutters to press out the shapes. A snowman shape turned upside down becomes a wonderful alien. We made three-eyed Buddha bears. We gave Santa punk spikes. Angels grew breasts. We made patriotic blue-dough stars with sparkly glitter peace symbols in the center.
If you want conservative, non-controversial cookies, don’t put firebrands in charge.
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
A sea of crushed wrapping paper and brightly colored bows littered the living room Pussan. All of the presents had been unwrapped. Most of the recipients were admiring their gifts.
“Conquer.” The 24-year-old woman tossed her long blonde hair. “I told five people I wanted Conquer.”
“I couldn’t find it. I went to six stores.” her boyfriend tried to save himself.
“He got the new Zelda.” She pointed to my other cousin, acting like he won first prize.
Her parents had given her domestics…a 12-piece set of shiny stainless steel last-forever cooking utensils, a high-end vegetable steamer, a set of flatware for 12, old-lady work clothes, and pink fluffy Princess slippers.
She doesn’t cook. She loves the slippers.
They did much better for her boyfriend. The one they hope will marry her. He received a tent, not just a regular dome or pop-up, no. This tent is a three-room condo! He also received groovy foldaway camp chairs, and a gear carrier for the roof of his van.
This man loves to cook.
I think all of her presents were meant as a dowry to him…3 camels, 1 pig, 18 yards of silk, and a milk goat.
The girl opened my presents: a mahogany, glass-door cabinet for her collection of humorous, old shakers, a set of salt and pepper shakers that look exactly like her Norwegian Buhund, and Mary Carr’s “Liar’s Club.”
“No one but you remembers how much I like to read.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that “Liar’s Club” is about a very dysfunctional family. Hell, what family isn’t messed up? And, yes! It is a good read.
“Anybody wanna go to BestBuy with me?”
I Love My Presents So Much!
1. My cousin in from Seattle gave me a piece of sculpture. He said it reminds him of a huge vagina and since I am such a sexual deviant, it made him think of me.
Man, I love that!
“How does it hang?” I asked him turning the piece horizontal, then vertical.
“Well, I don’t want to get too far into female anatomy here, but the top, the clit, goes to the right, so horizontal, I guess you would say.”
It is huge, at least 4’ by 6’, a woven piece, made of forest-floor gatherings. I spent Christmas Eve, alone, meditating on it. It seems to me that it is a metaphor.
It became manifest by the artist walking along looking for strength. She chopped out long sections of gnarly grapevine, ranging from 3” in diameter to twig ends. She created a foundation lashing the pieces together with sliced-and-dried sections of reeds of some sort. Weaving over and under, over and under, hours upon hours. The shape, the foundation became a vessel, or a vagina as my cousin calls it. Ha! Same thing I guess. A vessel for the seed of man, of procreation, of birth, of life.
As I studied the piece further I realized it is also a cradle. A bed for a newborn, a place to keep it out of harm's way, a strong biblical boat to carry the baby down the river to safety.
I will hang it right over my bed.
2. The next present was out in the garage decorated with a 5’ long rich velvet burgundy and emerald bow. They made me close my eyes and led me blind to the door. I gasped.
It is a concrete birdbath. Not one of those run-of-the mill Menard’s specials. No. It is the kind you would find at a palace in Versailles or at least down at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.
The pedestal is solid and strong, decorated with the tenderest fragile vines. The bowl, or bath, is almost 4’ across! It is designed of 12 sections, repeats of gargoyles (for protection) and vines that have definite snake connotations (more protection).
Okay, it looks far more like a baptismal font than a birdbath. Mostly because the bowl is very deep, large enough to bathe a newborn in. I think a bird would drown in it. Little otters would like it, I think.
I need a man or two! Just to move the damn thing.
Now three days later it has made me think that it would make a perfect gravepiece. Just mount it in a concrete slab, use one of those brass nameplates for the dreaded R.I.P. “I was actually here” info, and perhaps add a little bench.
Maybe I should pick a spot.
3. This gift had me stumped, at first. It is an insulated shoulder bag that holds two Pyrex bowls with snap-on lids. A microwaveable heat-pack comes with it. Immediately I thought how much those Fargoite-Minnesota women would love this for transporting the famous hot dish!
Maybe I can ask my friend G if he can get us an invite to one of those hot dish parties the next time I go up there.
Or I could do lasagna in one, garlic bread in another, add a bottle of wine and seduce some fine man in a forest preserve. I'd walk up to some strange man that moves just right, and I would say, "Hi! I have hot lasagna. Want some?" and with my luck he would say, "Nope. Don't want to be poisoned today. I am off women. I'm just out here trying to find a quiet spot to masturbate."
Actually I think it will prove it’s worth on road trips. Like that time we stopped for gas and I saw all of these black people coming in out of a nondescript restaurant next door. I had to check it out. Well it was a seafood place (this is in D.C.) where you order at a huge counter and wait in the rows of folding chairs…strictly carryout. The food was amazing. Huge piles of catfish and shrimp and cod filled the Styrofoam container. It was enough for at least 4 meals for two people! I could have taken the rest of the food in the hot dish carrier! Then we could have stopped at a rest stop and feasted while we watched the traveling gay men go off two-by-two into the woods.
(Sidebar: At the restaurant, when my road-trip pal went off to the bathroom, leaving me in a sea of black men, the 40ish guy behind the counter looked at me and said “Once you go black, you don’t go back.” All of the men looked at me and snickered and smiled. I gave a huge smile back and told the dude, “Let’s go right here.” The men roared. Haha! you jerk.)
Wait. If the dilemma of the hot-dish bag becomes problematic, I could always give it to my cousin’s camping-fanatic boyfriend. I saw him drooling when I opened it.
4. Come over for breakfast and you can see my new leopard-skin toaster. Ha! It looks like it belongs on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse! Thanks to Jeff! You rock! And thanks for the leather-covered journal. Yes, I will write and draw lots of cool things in it!
5. If you see a girl zooming around in a white Buick with a hot pink license-plate holder that says Bad Kitty, that’s me. I now have a matching cell cover and fuzzy pink steering wheel cover too! (My enchantment with this should last all of a week.)
Thanks to everyone for all of the other presents too. I LOVE THEM! I LOVE YOU TOO!
Up 2 Me?
You told me about Keith, but you didn’t bring him to Christmas dinner as you said you would. I kept your secret. Now you tell me that you and your pal have taken bets on how long it will take before I blurt out the news to your parents. Well, that would be never. Lips sealed. You out yourself, cousin dear.
On The Wings Of A Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Christmas Day can be shit. It rakes up all of the sorrow and sadness about dead people and loss and makes one reflect on all sorts of things, mostly bad things that rack out your brain.
First, love.
I deliver presents to my Christmas family. I go early, 7…Santa you know, and every year my families are filled with kids. So that makes me feel good. I don’t actually meet the family. It is done somewhat anonymously so the people can save their pride and respect. I just give all of the presents to the van man. In my heart I know my family will have a good Christmas.
On Christmas Day I am usually alone. Same this year. Family Christmas was held over the weekend.
Long ago I learned how to use diversion to sidestep that braindemon when he tries to make me cry. Last year it was the solar eclipse and snow graffiti. This year I made birdgirl. Good thing too, since this year there is only a Christmas-cardlike dusting of snow, so no snow project.
Birdgirl…ah, birdgirl…she has been in my mind for some time. Then one day she just appeared. I went dumpster diving to get her. Okay, not actual dumpster diving. I am lying.
Two months ago the Mexican family that moved next door to me had some sort of on-going garage sale/moving-in sale thing going on. Every day a Mexican girl would place “things” up and down their drive in a pattern. I thought she was doing some sort of art performance or clearing the garage so she could hang out in there during the day.
There was no garage sale sign.
I had yelled at them a few weeks earlier because they would pull in their driveway and throw all of the McDonald’s wrappers and White Hen cups into their yard which would blow into my yard and get stuck in my shrubs and mess up the Cosmic Eden concept I have going on. I told them that littering was unacceptable and that they should place the garbage in a garbage can. I gave them one.
They don’t speak English, so I doubt they understood much of my miming, but they could tell I was angry by the fire coming out of my nostrils and the problem did disappear. (See. And you thought I was a sweet girl.) Wait. They have a health-care business uptown so that not speaking English bit was a ruse. Whatever.
Well after their fake garage sale they placed an enormous mound of stuff on the curb… dinettes, kitchen range, glass-topped tables, a rocking horse, and more, more, more. That’s where I found birdgirl. She was trapped between an accordion and jungle gym.
She’s a four-foot-tall Barbie on a spin-around wheeled base.
On Christmas day I transformed her, saving her from her shallow “I am beautiful so I rule.” thing. Now she has heart and strength and cosmictuidity. (pronounced…comic-too-a-dee!)
She’s quite naked but aHa! Now her body is covered in sparkle body cream so it looks like she is wearing a sensuous body stocking. Birdgirl wouldn’t have clothes. Her privacy “cloth” is made of pheasant feathers that Great White Hunters Jim and Gary gave me. They are iridescent…simmering black to purple to flashes of red! Others are two-tone taupe and puce. I duct taped pure white snow goose feathers to her fingers, same as me and the two-feet-long red nails at Halloween. She was in midstate metamorphosis when my pal called the first time. Later.
I changed her blue eyes to green, of course. And I shared three of my East Indian bindi ornaments with her. She wears them better than me. Ruby red lips and robin’s egg blue hair shading finished her out.
Oh and the important part: on each palm she has the symbol for infinity, the loopy eight.
Isn’t she beautiful? I know. I love her too! Right when I finished her it started to snow, so I took her outside for a photo shoot. She is a crystal goddess.
(Just when I am loving her so much neighbor C comes over and when I tell her where I got her she says, “She probably has cockroach eggs in her hair.” Then she added lots of anecdotal “evidence.” Good God! I didn’t even think of such a thing. I am trusting that she doesn’t. So don’t look at her differently now. Okay? She is NOT a cootiegirl.)
Her companion piece, the dark one, is a doll by an outsider artist I bartered art with a few years ago. This doll is about a foot tall and she looks normal in a little plaid pinafore edged with white lace, except when you look closely you notice she has razor-sharp demon teeth. She is chained with a strong padlock. I will never remove it. She scares the hell out of me.
All of this has nothing to do with Christmas. Get it?
Mangia!
Z called. We were to meet on the 26th. He said he hesitated because most people are busy on Christmas. I was glad to hear from him.
He arrives and I admire his new shoes. “Yeah I needed step-ins, can’t bend that well any more.”
He makes me laugh. He is so archaic. The shoes? They are basketball shoes, slip-ons. Step-ins…ha!
I notice he is wearing new boot-cut Levi’s too. It’s the only thing he ever wears. (Z is totally himself. He has a routine.) The old ones are so worn and he doesn’t wear underwear (he said that in one of his poems) and the cloth is worn away at his crotch and Good God he has a magnificent cock bulge. I don’t know if it works or not. He’s so fucking old, dammit.
We sat on the plaid retirement couch, footrests not revealed, and traded presents. I ripped paper. He ripped paper. We both started grimacing pinching the skin together between our eyebrows. “Wait!” I said. “I think I have your present.”
He said, “Yeah.”
“No, the wrapping paper is right.”
We both started laughing.
We gave each other the same present! Ha! Now what are the chances of that?
A shiny silvery utility box about the size of a briefcase. The diamond pattern on mine was larger. We compared the insides. The same moveable dividers, just the “tool” holders were a bit different.
“I thought this would be great for taking my manuscripts to readings.” he said, “but I knew you could use it.”
“I wanted one for my cameras.” I told him back.
Just then my every-other-Sunday dinner pals called. K’s parents were out-of-town and both of her brothers had moved away in the last year. This was her first “alone” Christmas and she was sad. Her man was trying to fix it.
“Join us for dinner at Little Italy.”
“Z’s here.”
“Bring him along. We don’t have anyone for you today…hehehehe.”
They had talked up L.I. for some time and yes I wanted to go. Birdgirl was finished. Z and I had done our miniChristmas.
“Z, you up for dinner in McHenry?”
“I don’t know.”
“We will be there.”
Oh Oh Oh it was marvelous! A little hole-in-the-wall. We drank bottles of Chianti and ate like lusty Italians. As Varian Fry said in the movie about his life, “I always followed the Italians. They knew where to find the best food in war torn Paris.”
Yummmmmmm. I had Fettuccini from the Sea…shrimp, scallops, crab, and mussels in light oil. Of course I tasted everyone else’s food too. I always do that and I offer mine to them. Veal Parmesan, Crab Ravioli, and Z, who always orders the least expressive, non-adventurous thing on the menu, had Spaghetti and Meatballs. See I told you how firmly rooted in himself he is.
Afterward we played darts at a little next-door bar where the concrete stairs to enter the place are very narrow and steep. Old McHenry. People must have had tiny feet in the late 1800s. I drank lemon water because everyone else was getting drunk.
“Another shot!”
Women vs. Men and guess who won, best two-out-of-three? The men BUT haha! they forgot to move the change player button, so it registered that we won.
I dropped off my pals and took Z back to my place.
“Don’t kiss me like that. I’m old.” he grew a little pink and wistful when he said it.
“No. I think certain women in their twenties would think you are just right.”
Pink is my favorite color.
I’d like to end this story here because it sounds juicy, but truth is this: Z said. “Didn’t you see American Beauty? If a 43-year-old can’t be with a 17-year-old, a 54-year-old can’t be with a 26-year-old. It’s your mind I love, honey. Don’t waste yourself on guys like me.”
Dammit.
He then told me about a bizarre man rule. It goes like this: the youngest a woman can be is half the man’s age + 8 years. So for Z that is 35, for Lester Burnham, 29. A man gets to be with any woman older than him, up to 100, I guess.
Z said his first, when he was 17, was 39, and she taught him lots of things. He still prefers older women, sexually. He explained, "I am terrified of any women that can do cartwheels." Why? I wonder...cheerleader phobia?
So now I am thinking getting older is a very good thing. Bring it on!
Actually this is fucked. When I was 17 I dreamed of being 21 so I could do EVERYTHING. Now I have to wait again? Fuck that!
Coda
A’ Shopping we will go, a’ shopping we will go, hi-ho-the-merrier-o, a’ shopping we will go.
I don’t shop on December 26th. I think it is the utmost rudest thing one can do. Presents are about love and you should be wallowing in that aura of love on the next day. Hell, for the whole end of the year, I think.
Plus I don’t like pushy, grabby swarms of people trying to buy whatever they think they didn’t get. I leave it all that shopping madness to the sadfucks.
My sadfuckness rears it’s Gorgonian head in other areas. RRRRRRRRFFFFFFF!
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Hope you had a Merry Christmas too!