fallinsummer

I tell you, it feels like the end of October, not the end of July. It's not just the weather, although it has been cloudy, cool, and I've even noticed leaves wafting down from trees. It's that it feels cloudy and cool and the light is a bit filtered, as if through an orangey-yellow lens like it is in fall. At night I lie in bed and shiver a little, snuggling down into my blanket and curling my legs up to my belly to encourage body heat. My skin is warm, but not fooled by itself. I lie awake listening to cars drive down the 5 on streets that sound wet.

Single Mom

This is a term that I have recently become uncomfortable with. The world single preceding the word mom implies, not only that the mother has no partner, but that she is alone in the process of being a mother. Seldom does one hear a man refer to himself as a single father and I think that speaks to the difference between men and women. Women are so ready, at every point, to let themselves be victims.

Snapshot of Grandpa Bruce upon reading A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

The very old man with enormous wings reminds me of him. He too was very old and had a certain light of which only a glimmer remained. He would never allow us to watch television at night and instead read to us while we sat comfortably on his bony, fragile lap. His lips were purple and the skin looked so thin I thought it might break if I poked it with my finger. He drank warm beer and fed his dog, Ben, bland oatmeal on saltine crackers.

Once, my dog, Cinder got hold of a squirrel after it had eaten bait. Cinder went mad. I could hear him howling, a sound worse than coyotes fighting, worse than a woman screaming as her baby crowns and worse than anything I have heard since. I lay, hysterical in Grandpa Bruce’s lap while he stroked my hair and sang me songs from his youth with messages that did not make sense to my generation but had a soothing tone to them.

Snapshot of the girl who is in all of my literature classes

Used to be she had about shoulder length dyed a darker brown than her natural color hair. The style was an attempt at a rockabilly / Betty Paige 'do that never quite seemed in place, always a bit too mussed, needing to be brushed into place. These days her hair is cut short and she resembles Mary Badham who played Scout in the movie rendition of To Kill a Mockingbird; except her head is more round which has the effect of making it look like a ball atop her head if I squint hard enough or imagine it in my mind.

She wears those 1950's cat-eyed glasses that Chandra used to wear back in the Oregon days. I'm not even sure she needs them. (aside: does anyone remember when I wore those glasses, but without the lenses?) I don't want to give you the impression that this chick is hip because she's not. She has all of the outfittings of a hipster - the straight legged jeans, the cardigans, all that Salvation Army stuff), but something is always a bit off and the effort fails (her ass is too big for the jeans, . So, like I was saying, her glasses. I'm not sure why she does this, but she looks down her nose at people. I mean literally, she tilts her head back and lowers her eyes when speaking. Sometimes she commits the ultimate act of narcissism and closes her eyes while speaking. And she does a lot of speaking. I get the feeling that she's a feminist, but is only one because she considers it to be hip. I get the feeling that she isn't really as smart as she lets on she is because really smart people don't throw their intelligence in a person's face. Real intelligence is quiet and it definitely would never name drop. Last night she schmoozed our teacher, "I saw this play, that was like, so interesting (because that's her favorite word, interesting. Everything's interesting. I purposely avoid using the word because of it). It was called the Glass Cord and just the way it was written and acted out was so interesting. There was this very seductive, very ethnic interpretive dancing in the beginning that I just found fascinating, but everyone else didn't. I thought it was very interesting." And what has she really said? Nothing. She talks to hear her own voice, I think.

On the subject of her voice: last night after reading aloud Endgame, I realized her interpretations were spoken in a very high pitched, very nasal monotone. I mean, it's almost Fran Drescher. And she has a sort of underbite, is what it must be. The lower part of her jaw juts out past her top teeth and this, combined with her tendency to talk down her nose makes me wonder if she can't see past her chin.

sigh

I went to bed last night feeling content. At first, I lay there, thinking about the happenings in my life, on becoming a Madrina, on Chad standing me up, on the possibility of my mom staying with me for a while.
Life is so confusing to me sometimes. Nonetheless, I can a content feeling as I lie there, contemplating the confusion. There is something satisfactory to me about all the chaos. I knew Chad would stand me up, which is why I wouldn't go out with him for so long; I know my mom needs help and feel that I can help her, and being a goddmother is (at least in my mind) a very special experience.

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