The scrim of rolling blinds gives a beige hue to everything outside, the flailing trees and clouds, which seem to have a Fragonard hue today. Could today be that lovely?
Just now I said to the dog, "That's not Daddy-- that's the lesbians." Because we heard a door slam in the hallway. Because Daddy is out hitting golf balls. Striking them. Beating them.
Right now, I'm working on a story about a lost dog, another about two old gay men, and one about a boy who has a crush on a neighbor who's wife has become debilitated.
Right now, I'm thinking there's nothing as lovely as darkly haired thighs.
And wondering if I should buy the new Lady Gaga, even if I think her new songs are too "message-y"?
And why "debilitated" sounds right but doesn't look right.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Housewife is Always the Last to Know
I hesitate, but there's all this time, all this room, 927 square feet, to fill somehow. There are constants-- the floors, for instance, require constant upkeep, making of me a char woman of sorts, something like a woman on her knees. In a day, I develop pleuresy and die. There are other problems, too-- it doesn't end with death. It never ends with death.
Besides the floors, there's the bed to make, and furniture to dust, the tedium of housewivery. But it's what I hope makes me essential. What industry! What productivity! I want the man to think always, "I can't live without him!" Although I am the first to acknowledge the fallacy of such a statement. I've never considered myself indespensible. But who is, really? I can only make myself useful and needed, for a time. I do not take things for granted; I try not to, anyway. It's all a gift and I am blessed.
But I need to turn things around, turn the table-- well, not so much turn the table as to step up to it. I need to put myself at the table.
I told her today, wrote to her-- who do I have to speak to during the day but the help, the Marias who labor here-- that I was becoming sentimental in my dotage. I was being flippant, but I feel as though I have a sense of the edges of it, this. As always, I can imagine the worst scenarios, creating them fully, realistically, so that they bear, these imaginings, a vividness that makes me turn my head away, as though it were right there in front of me. But I wrote to her, "Wheel me out to the garden , if you would, so that I might see the garden one last time, its weeping willows and azaleas." The doomed heroine.
I think I'll try to imagine a better end, then. Best case scenarios. Life is rich, its rewards plentiful. I still have it.
Besides the floors, there's the bed to make, and furniture to dust, the tedium of housewivery. But it's what I hope makes me essential. What industry! What productivity! I want the man to think always, "I can't live without him!" Although I am the first to acknowledge the fallacy of such a statement. I've never considered myself indespensible. But who is, really? I can only make myself useful and needed, for a time. I do not take things for granted; I try not to, anyway. It's all a gift and I am blessed.
But I need to turn things around, turn the table-- well, not so much turn the table as to step up to it. I need to put myself at the table.
I told her today, wrote to her-- who do I have to speak to during the day but the help, the Marias who labor here-- that I was becoming sentimental in my dotage. I was being flippant, but I feel as though I have a sense of the edges of it, this. As always, I can imagine the worst scenarios, creating them fully, realistically, so that they bear, these imaginings, a vividness that makes me turn my head away, as though it were right there in front of me. But I wrote to her, "Wheel me out to the garden , if you would, so that I might see the garden one last time, its weeping willows and azaleas." The doomed heroine.
I think I'll try to imagine a better end, then. Best case scenarios. Life is rich, its rewards plentiful. I still have it.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
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