Terrible Mother

Country Fried Sanity (A Conversation with Friend One)

"I was listening to this song today while I was driving and something horrible happened."

"What?"

"I realized I was listening to country music.  And I really liked it."

"What is wrong with that?"

"What is wrong with that?  Have you been paying attention?  I live in Oregon, Friend One!  And not just anywhere in Oregon, but Hippyland-ATHEISTVILLE Oregon! "

"I like country."

"Yes, but it's different.  You affect liking country.  You put on a pair of snappy heeled cowgirl boots and a denim skirt, and you look good.  You look like city trying to be country, but in a charming way.  Me?  I'm, like, two steps from being trailer trash!  I have to stick with my se7en jeans or I am totally screwed!"

"Are you turning all class consious on me?"

"Look, all I'm saying is that you either have to be sufficiently rural or sufficiently urban to pull off the country look. I'm neither.  I have no street cred.  And I have no cow cred." 

"You have that Republican, Christian boyfriend who is going to be a chaplain for the VA now."

"So?"

"Well that, darlin', gives you tons of cred.  Cow.  And street, even."

"It does?"

"What song were you listening to again?"

(sigh) "That Chesney song about the tractor being sexy."

"You, girl, are gonna be just fine."

*terriblemother

Sippin' on Jinx and Juice

In the world of blogging, my seperation from my husband and impending divorce has received what we might call "the montage treatment."  Meaning, it's been given very short screen time, which has allowed me (conveniently) to skip over it as though it were so much necessary backstory, but just more or less a plot point that had to be covered but not examined.  This is mostly because I don't know how to talk or write about it without sounding, well, fucking depressed.  And also because my feelings change on it more frequently than Sean Penn makes a political statement, so it seems weird to chronicle and re-chronicle my feelings, emotions, angry outbursts.  But IRL (in real life), I've been seperated for going on four months, and I'm just, these past few weeks, feeling stronger, better, more even.  I'm even happier this way--sans my husband--though I miss things.  Specifically, I miss the way things used to be four or five years ago.  I have fond memories of pieces of our marriage and relationship.

But in the past handful of weeks, something interesting happened.  And that thing is that I met a boy.  A sweet boy (in fact, I'll call him that here:  Sweet Boy).  We've been "dating" (ie, hanging out and having long, complicated conversations) for three weeks now.  He is nothing like The Man; nothing like me.  He's a (moderate) Republican and I'm a Democrat; he is a Christian and is going to seminary (!) to get a Master's in Divinity (!!), while I'm a godless heathen.  He is also funny and smart and outgoing and kind and generous.  I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm suddenly, without explanation, happy.  Really actually happy.  I don't know if this is going anywhere, but I'm intrigued by how complicated he is, how complicated I am, and how complicated our new relationship is. 

Now people, just don't jinx it.

*terriblemother

Poem of the Week

Late Poem to My Father

Suddenly I thought of you

as a child in that house, the unlit rooms

and the hot fireplace with the man in front of it,

silent.  You moved through the heavy air

in your physical beauty, a boy of seven,

helpless, smart, there were things the man

did near you, and he was your father,

the mold by which you were made.  Down in the

cellar, the barrels of sweet apples,

picked at their peak from the tree, rotted and

rotted, and past the cellar door

the creek ran and ran, and something was

not given to you, or something was

taken from you that you were born with, so that

even at 30 and 40 you set the

oily medicine to your lips

every  night, the poison to help you

drop down unconscious.  I always thought

the point was what you did to us

as a grown man, but then I remembered

that child being formed in front of the fire,

the tiny bones inside his soul

twisted in greenstick fractures, the small

tendons that hold the heart in place

snapped.  And what they did to you

you did not do to me.  When I love you now,

I like to think I am giving my love,

Directly to that boy in the fiery room,

As if it could reach him in time.

-Sharon Olds

*terriblemother

Obviously, I'm a Bad Friend

My friend Kari has a piece that was recently published at McSweeney's.  It's hilarious.  And she's on McSweeney's.  McSweeney's! 

If I were a better friend, I would have posted this a long time ago.  Obviously, I'm a horror for a friend.

*terrible mother