Nonnie Wafts

Nonnie Wafts

waft |wäft, waft|

verb

pass or cause to pass easily or gently through or as if through the air

I’ve been too busy wafting to write lately. (Well, I also blew my wad on that last poem I posted.  I had to wait for a refill from Whoever distributes that kind of thing.  Writers of lesser works get fill-ups, too, you know. Maybe half a tank or maybe a trickle-I never know what to expect-and I damn sure don’t know when to expect it.) Anyways, back to wafting. One hot afternoon I up and started tracing my ancestry. As I’m pretty sure you know, it’s an easy thing to do these days, thanks to people like poor Steve Jobs-pancreatic cancer, jeez louise! 

genealogy |ˌjēnēˈäləjē, -ˈal-|

noun ( pl. genealogies )

a line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor: combing through the birth records and genealogies.

• the study and tracing of lines of descent or development.

• a plant's or animal's line of evolutionary development from earlier forms. 

DERIVATIVES

genealogist |-jist|noun,

genealogize |-ˌjīz|verb

ORIGIN Middle English: via Old French and late Latin from Greek genealogia, from genea ‘race, generation’ + -logia (see -logy) .

That’s what I’m doing, combing through, only I never suspected I’d find it to be such a warm, romantic, emotional experience. Take Joseph Kennedy, our Joseph Kennedy, who was born in 1840, in Athlone, Westmeath, Ireland, five years before the potato famine, “an Gortá Mór”, the “Great Hunger,” began. Then I learned that he moved to Liverpool and in 1860, or so, he married an English girl, Elizabeth Campbell.   In1882 his wife and two of his daughters took a ship to the US. I imagine Joseph died in Liverpool sometime before his wife got on the boat.  He was an iron turner and Elizabeth was a cotton weaver. The two Kennedy sisters married two Blum brothers five years after getting to New York.  My guess is those girls were pretty, with dimples like my Nana. 1840 is as far back as I’ve gotten with Joseph’s line-record keeping might not have been a priority for the likes of Irish iron-turners or English cotton-weavers in those days.

Now the French! They were serious about keeping track of people. I’ve gotten as far as 1600 with that bunch. I’m going to read about Samuel de Champlain’s settlement in Quebec City, because some of my ancestors were there. Pioneers! Tracing my mother’s father’s family had me wafting in France-Paris, even-and Canada for days.

For some time now it’s felt to me like my family’s been shrinking-I suppose a lot of people in my generation feel that way- what with their mom and dad, aunts and uncles gone, or in their old age. We know our “folk” are all over, some kindred spirits, some not so much, but still, there’s an emptiness above us we have to adjust to.

I feel bigger now.  After the little bit of looking back I’ve done, I’m beginning to sense how huge our family, hell, all our families are. I could be related to every single person that reads my maunderings.  (Yes, I know. “Maunder” is a verb, but if the talking heads can pounce on a perfectly good noun, “incentive,” use its awkward verb form and “incentivize” everything, I can make a noun out of “maunder.”. Well I think I can….er, obviously.) After I die and get to do some quality, bodiless, wafting, I want to meet these men, women, and oh! so many infants and children, about whose births, marriages,  deaths, and immigration records I’ve been dreamily reading. I want to have a good talk with the wood carver from Bavaria, the lady music teacher in Old New York, the French knight, the English farmer. I want to play with all those babies, (so carefully, beautifully named!) and listen to the stories the children have to tell. 

The Florida heat, too much talk by and about Republicans, the general wonkiness of my health and my fed-up-it-ness with feeling guilty that it isn’t better, were getting to me-I was coming down with crankiness and dare I say it out loud? feeling sorry for myself. But I don’t have time for all that nonsense now.  I want to see what I can find out about the Augustines from Trieste, and bring my brothers up to speed about Joseph and Elizabeth from Liverpool.

IN DEFENSE

IN DEFENSE

Let’s hear it for children who can’t make the grade,

men who do yoga and don't part their hair,

long flowery skirts, soft voices, sad smiles,

muddlers, ditherers, timid types who won’t pounce,

old poems, people, houses, and shops,

misfits, crazies, loose women, short men.

Let’s ease up on the plump, the pimpled, the silly, 

the worn-out, the defeated, the below average thinkers,
plodders, shufflers, stooges, and tinkers.

Though some of us triumph, remain certain, look good,

 I humbly submit-most would if we could.

Nonnie and Drago Help Out the Economy

Haven’t written for awhile, but I’ve been busy spending money. My brother Drago and I had most of the floors in our house done in cool ( I mean that literally-underfoot temperature is important to pets and people during Florida summers) porcelain tile. Now the floors are Italian villa, the furniture is a mix of our late Mom and Dad’s Yankee farmhouse aesthetic, Drago’s sleek, slightly Asian bent, and my re-creation of the New York apartment I lived in during a past life when I was buddies with Dorothy Parker and her ilk. So the new flooring cost a bundle, but we happily spent the money knowing we were helping out small business in America, and because the wall-to-wall carpeting had to go-people, pets, and 20some years had done their thing. Writing was off the table, naturally, what with all the discombobulation of our house during our infrastructure project.

The second excuse I have for not writing is because I needed to help out the economy even more by buying a new Apple computer.  Oh, I know they have more money than the Federal government, but I WANTED A MACBOOK AIR! ONLY WEIGHS TWO POUNDS! The computer, the Airport Extreme WiFi thingy, an external hard drive for transferring data from the old ‘puter to new because the Migration Assistant wouldn’t work with the new WiFi box, (Adam from Applecare helped me with that-it was frustrating for him, too), and the gift cards I had to buy for other stuff I needed that the State of Florida won’t let you-oh, never mind-I still don’t understand that part of the process-all came in separate deliveries. Drago and the UPS guy were trading one-liners by the end of the week. Blossom, our dog, was greeting him with a wagging tail and no barks. After phone calls with Madison, Cesar, Phillip, ( the only snooty one), Carla, and dear Adam, I am now transferred to the sleek, beautiful, new Apple, and Drago is using my MacBook, so it’s still part of the family.

Yesterday I finally left the house, after avoiding the heat for as long as I could, to pick up prescriptions and run, well walk, errands.  I also paid a sad visit to Borders, which was plastered with “Going Out of Business” signs.  While driving back to our beautifully tiled home, I had NPR going on the radio and the talkers mentioned the 600+ stock market drop. Drago was home when I got there, watching CNBC.  I asked him if we’d have to sell Mom’s collection of Wedgewood Christmas plates. He laughed, said no, and I decided to take a nap.  Blossom and Sam, our cat, joined me on my elegant bed. I forgot to mention I’d also helped out the economy by buying a new bedspread and pillow shams. Online.

Summer and Money

SUMMER AND MONEY

If you had a lot of money in the bank,

you could buy a car that cools the seats

before you get in-- so your

thighs won't stick.

Hell yes, it’s true.

I saw it on T.V.

You wouldn’t have to rush around,

wilted, hold out for the weekend—

& its beer, big gulps, plastic chairs

on the patio, time off in the sun,

ultra violets or no ultra violets--

bake until done.

If you had a lot of money in the bank,

you could hire a cook who would toss

a cool green salad for you or dish up

coconut shrimp anytime you wanted.

You’d laze on your terrace, snack

on onion dip or paté de fois gras with chips.

You wouldn’t pull weeds, mulch,

pick Japanese beetles off your roses,

wonder if you had the right ph in your soil-

your gardener would do that 

and mow the lawn to boot.

If you had a lot of money in the bank,

you could have a place on the beach, or on a lake!

When you felt like a swim, Bob’s your uncle,

there’d you’d be, good to go. In a unisex

pareo you could sip frozen daiquiris.

Any kind your heart desired. Mango for God’s sake!

You’d accessorize, even guys.

Getting dressed might mean getting dressed.

Money will keep you running

whether you’ve got it or not. Funny, that.

Nonnie and Drago Envision

Nonnie and Drago Envision

        

“It’s much too big, of course.” Nonnie said.

Drago carefully chewed his bite of pork loin (he’d  survived throat cancer and always ate mindfully.)

“What’s too big?” Drago asked after he swallowed.

“The United States. The budget. Who understands trillions, really? The 2010 census counted 310,300 million of us. No wonder we don’t agree. The 1790 census counted 3,929,214 for the Founding Fathers and their ilk to deal with.”  

Drago ate some sweet potato, then said, “That 1790 number would probably have excluded women and had some nefarious way to count slaves. No Native Americans, of course.”

“Oh, right, but look, rounding off today’s population to 4 million, give or take, we’d come out with 77 ½ countries.”

“You’re just carrying these figures around in your head?”

“Well, no. They’re in my pocket. I’ve been thinking about this-doing some figuring. I’m fed up with having to share my country with so many fidiots.”

“What were fidiots, again?”

“Fucking idiots, but I know you’d rather we didn’t swear.”

“Doesn’t work for us, dear. Or maybe it’s a ‘what would Mother say?’ thing. So, what do you have in mind, actually?”

“De-uniting. Regrouping. Starting over in re-sorted ballparks.

Like, for instance, there could be a little country we could live in where education, healthcare, and military spending (not much, because we wouldn’t need it because we’d be in a little country) would get sensible support. Still a democracy and all, but billionaires would be frowned upon. Ostracized, even.” Nonnie dipped her last piece of pork into her applesauce. She always finished meals first. “No. Wait. I know. We could still have capitalism, but after an individual’s income reaches say, a couple of million, they’d have to stop accumulating and start giving. Details could be worked out by smart humanitarians and all, but there certainly wouldn’t be any need to put the mentally ill out on the streets, for example. It’d be great!

And, uh, the trickle-down types could live in one of the 77 ½ countries that just love billionaires! See how that works out for them.”

Drago, who was feeding Blossom bits from his plate by now, and who always gave his sister’s ideas a thoughtful hearing, said, “All these places would have to have names. There should probably be a rule that no one could pick ‘The United States of America,’ by the way. Nonnie, there are a lot of details to be ironed out.”

“Names, yeah, those might be tough.”

“Anything good on TV tonight?”

“Oh, you know. Doctors, crime scenes, housewives. Probably some vampires. Want to watch vampires?”

Nonnie in Albuquerque

That’s me, spring of ’77, on the day I moved out of my shot-gun apartment in Lesbian Nation. I moved many times during the six years I spent in Albuquerque, but that was one of my more dramatic moves. I came home from a performance tour and a teaching gig with the National Endowment for the Arts late one night to find all the little buildings around my apartment had been torn down.  My back porch was gone, too.  I’d been away for six weeks and sometime during the first week my landlord sold his tiny corner of the city.  Everyone else got a fairly timely eviction notice, but I didn’t see mine until the deal

was long done. I had two days to move out.  Bummer.

 

My boyfriend Ted helped me move down to my brother Ric and his wife’s place in the part of town we all called the South Valley.  My dog, Rousseau, all my stuff, and I only stayed one night because the very next day I found my best apartment ever, and we moved everything all over again.  Taking the apartment was a financial leap-from $80 a month to $150, but I was counting on our dance company getting a big grant from the state of New Mexico.  Actually the money, which came through, was federal, but distributed through state governments.  Things like that used to happen, you know? Money for the arts and all.

My new apartment was only two blocks from our dance studio-which was excellent, given my penchant for working at odd hours and the strange behavior of my car, a giant, bluey blue 1953 Cadillac.  The new apartment was marvelous.  It had four bay windows, wood floors, a big kitchen, a shady balcony, an extra bedroom, some funky mahogany furniture (and dreadful stuff I had to disguise) and it sat on top of an empty storefront which meant the place was quiet and private and good for parties

So, the move to 7^th St. turned out well, despite the shock of finding Lesbian Nation (my name for the neighborhood) torn down.  It looked like a war zone.  I’d had a good year there, though. Except for a seldom seen married couple on my left, all my neighbors on that sunny corner were lesbians. This was just past the bra-burning days of the women’s movement, and my friends were proudly, brilliantly, “out.”  Mistakes were made, however.  My neighbors on the right, two University of New Mexico students, decided that one of the freedoms they would fight for was the freedom to go topless.  Men could, of course, and the idea was for things to be equal in every way.  Maryanne and Connie took their toplessness to their screened-in porch facing Mariposa Street.  The experiment only lasted a few nights.  My friends sat on their porch, with the ceiling light burning, and tried to ignore the fleets of rude men and boys who drove around our block, loudly commenting on Maryanne and Connie’s choices and honking their horns. That was a raucous, raunchy week; I was glad when they gave it up and put their shirts back on.

I keep coming up with corny things to write about being young during the 1970s in Albuquerque.  It really was something, though.  An era.  There were fearsome rough spots, but, man, I’m glad all that is with me, hanging out in the mystery of my brain.  I danced through that decade.  Pretty damn cool. 

Bob and Ditty

I cut Dad’s hair today

He coached me.

This is still new for him-

needing so much help.

He was Special Ops during the War.

Solved the rape and murder 

of a French woman. The guilty 

U.S. soldiers shamed their uniforms.

Dad damn near killed a drunk in his own squad

whose stupidity nearly doomed them all,

but cooler heads prevailed, stopped the fight.

The war over, his fluent German

meant a year in an enemy town.

Billeted in a castle, he helped them 

rebuild and rid themselves of Nazis.

Mom didn’t know him when he rang 

the doorbell two years after he shipped out.

She held her toddler, Bobby, 

and said “Yes, can I help you?” 

when she opened the door.   

Dad was heavier, older, 

weary-not the smooth-cheeked,

scrawny tennis player she’d married.

That young man died in Europe.

They had three more babies. Two jobs for Dad.

Weekends he wore a gun again.  Patrolled

NYC docks for Jimmy Sullivan who moved

him from dock to lonely dock after Dad

caught thieves. Dangerous nights in the oily salt air 

lasted through the decade shocked with death.

A gentle Dad let me trim his wispy hair today.

Released from my ministrations, leaning on two metal

canes, he headed for my Mom, who was in bed, 

where she always is now.  Dad grinned 

like a boy- all spruced-up. 

Sparkling blue eyes said “look at me.”

Weak brown eyes saw her handsome husband,

and with a smile as fresh as twenty  

she said, “You look fine.”   

And I sat down to write a poem.

Nonnie Augustine

October 23, 2005

Mom died on May 5, 2006

Dad died on March 3, 2010

One of the Ways We Were

Jealousy schooled her

with unrelenting lessons

which compelled my friend

to perceive false meaning

in spoken, written, imagined

words, gestures, departures,

growls, grunts, and smiles.

She and I would try

to outdrink her obsessions.

Enough Scotch would turn

us blowsy, irate, defiant,

heavy with bleak certainty

that all men should go to hell

and that we’d be dead by thirty.

Nonnie and Drago’s Summer Bus Tour

Drago, my brother, and I have decided to take on this celebrity thing. We didn’t have big plans for the summer and I thought becoming famous might provide material for some blogs or poems or something. Maybe even a short story.  Not a novel.  I wrote one already and lost my temper over the whole “can’t get a publisher without an agent-and agents don’t want new clients unless they are celebrities or, or, well, celebrities.” I rarely lose my temper these days and I quite don’t like it. Besides, novels do go on, don’t they? I have this wonky heart, and I don’t want to spend writing time getting people from here to there. You don’t have to do that in a poem. Well, Longfellow did, but I think he and his ilk covered that sort of poem brilliantly. No need to do it again.

Which brings me back to this celebrity idea. Drago and I could get hold of a bus, somehow-we’ll have to look into that-spray paint the sides of it with our names and “POETRY!” “YOGA!” “HISTORY LESSONS!” in a giant, fun font, think up some dramatic, eye-catching pictures to stencil, (I’m fond of waterfalls myself, but maybe body parts would get more attention) let Blossom choose twenty or so of her favorite dog toys to take, (that will take forever) get a good bus-worthy kitty litter situation for Sam, and we’d be good to go. Or maybe we’d better...Drago is much better with details than I am; I’ll leave the fine-tuning to him.

There are lots of things we could do for people at our spontaneous, whimsical stops at tourist attractions.  I used to teach, and I’d be glad to give geography lessons as well as history, or a course in writing English for people in or out of school.  Drago can explain stuff to people. He’s patient and never makes you feel stupid; I know.  Then there would be his yoga sessions and I could give poetry readings. Oh, and listening activities. THAT would look good on the bus. LISTENING FOR AMERICANS!

After a few weeks of going around offering our talents, we could become famous, and then anything might happen. Maybe an appearance on Piers Morgan. There is one problem I can see in the attention attraction angle.  I get so bored driving on Interstates that we’d have to take back roads some of the time,  which might delay our famousness a bit and (another problem I just thought of) Drago would have to do all the driving-can’t see me driving a bus, can you?-so we’d have to stop enough, probably even where there weren’t crowds. What am I thinking? Of course we’d have to make frequent stops. Blossom has an overactive bladder. Not me.

So, that’s what we’re thinking about doing this summer-a carefree, casual, celebrity bus tour, on which Drago and I would do interesting things  for people, at least until we become famous enough to not have to do anything. We’d be content with national fame. Global name recognition seems a bit much to shoot for-being on a bus and all.

Nonnie Takes Pride on Memorial Day and So Should You

Nonnie Takes Pride on Memorial Day and So Should You

How brave we are!  Soldiers, too, of course, but I’ve never been in a firefight or disarmed a bomb, so I’m not the one to write about the world’s soldiers.  I’ve dealt with terrors, though, and so have you.  Most of us face them down, whether they are the first day on a new job, or the first few hours after a tornado hits.  We’re a brave bunch.

I have a vivid memory of waiting for my first day of school to start, and of feeling woefully unequipped.  I didn’t know anything and I was going to have to learn everything, maybe that very day!  The Principal, Sister Alice Elenita, stood in front of the doors to St. Paul’s Elementary School with a huge bell and a stern face while the other nuns and teachers sorted out the horde of children in the parking lot and directed us into straight lines.  I didn’t know anybody in my line!  I was too little for this, wasn’t I?  The girl (Debbie Sweeney, it turned out) in front of me was quietly, desperately, crying.  I offered to hold hands and we both felt better until our teacher, Sister Marion, told us we had to stand in line with our arms at out sides.  Then Principal Alice Elenita rang her bell and off we went, eyes front.  Not a single first grader turned back.

No one knew I was afraid of riding the subway by myself when I moved to New York City at 18.  I rode the bus to Juilliard the first few days, but it was pokey and the subway was obviously something I had to deal with, so I did, just like I dealt with driving on the Beltway around Washington, D.C., when that seeming impossibility presented itself.  The first time I tried I took a ramp on and immediately took the next ramp off, but, although I never got over my fear of speeding along in all those lanes of traffic, I did it, along with everyone else who lived around there.  I wonder how many of those drivers were scared, at least at first?

Maybe I could fill a book with the times in my life when courage came through for me.  I’m sure you could, too.  We need to give ourselves credit, you know?  We, most of us, are brimful of courage.  Not long ago I picked up a receipt that was left in the slot of an ATM.  It showed a withdrawal of $40.00 and a remaining balance of $14.62.  Odds are that unknown person was going to do what I somehow did the times I was no- kidding- around- poor. Deal with it- like first graders do going through those big doors without their moms or big brothers near-by.

I saw Too Big to Fail the other night and I’ve been thinking about those rich bankers.  I wonder how much courage it takes to get through a week with dignity when you have a couple of million, or billion, in your account.  Tornado?  Tsunami?  They can check into a Sofitel until things sort themselves out.  What scares billionaires, I wonder?  How does character develop when you’re sitting on a cushion that big? If I ever meet one of those guys, I’ll try to find out for you.  You know, if you’re interested.

Simple Twists of Fate

 

Stone Poem

You stoop to select a stone

to toss down the lazy path.

It rolls, reaches level ground, stops,

stays in place when you pass.

Later that same day,

an angry walker

seizes that same rock,

flings it far into the woods

where it lands hard,

jostles a few pebbles,

and then the stone is home

for another thousand years.

THREE THINGS THAT DID NOT HAPPEN

I almost saw Nessie

lift her curious ancient head

above the black waters of Loch Ness.

Hey, that would have been something.

I almost won the jackpot

with triple double diamonds

in a colorful, clattering row.

Oh yes, that would have been something.

I almost had a child.

She was there in my womb

until chromosomes killed her.

My God, that would have been something.

That would have been something

When Nonnie and Drago were Growing Up

We had it all. Down the street was Mr. Swann’s place. He was a farmer, but we didn’t mess much with the farm itself. On his property, safe from development, was a pond, a stream, near-by woods and further away, scarier woods, Jerry, an old, white, sway-backed horse, and bad-tempered Snow Geese that thought the pond belonged to them. There was a dirt road that led to the forbidden sand dunes-fantastic hills of sand and gravel that the grown-ups called a quarry. Rich People, the Piersals, had a big house on a hill.  You got there by a long, shady lane. All these places were grown-up free almost all the time. Dunno. That’s just the way it was then.

Our various mom’s took sightings of our crowd from kitchen and upstairs windows, and I suppose at least one of them had a good idea where we were most of the time. All the Ranch style and Split-Level houses had yards, of course, but playing in some kid’s yard was for days when one of us was in trouble or had to stay close to home because we were going someplace with our parents, or because we had a new toy that we weren’t allowed to take out of the yard. Our mothers had a relay system for calling us when we were out of range of their voices.  Sometimes we ignored the calls, but not often. An older brother or sister sent to find us, or, the worst, one of our parents showing up, meant we were going to “get it.”

We were a gang of maybe fifteen girls and boys. No babies and no big kids allowed. Crybabies and bullies didn’t last long. Unless the weather was really awful, we played outside. Winters were for skating on the frozen pond, sleigh-riding on Piersal’s hill, snow-fights from snow forts, and building whatever we wanted to try for on a particular day. One great winter our dad built two dinosaurs and a giant bear in the front yard. There was a lot of snow in North Jersey that year.

The three other seasons were for roaming our neighborhood and playing, usually without toys, or only a few. My brother Drago was our Cecil B. DeMille. He’d direct the games and dole out the parts. Tarzan was a good summer game because the pond turned into a swamp, and we could swing across the stream on this rope someone’s big brother hung from a tree branch. Every summer there’d be a group of us who’d try to build a pirate raft for floating across the pond. One time the boys actually built a raft that would hold about five kids without sinking right away. Mostly we just got “soakers-” slimy, muddy shoes and socks which meant trouble when we got home. Drago excelled at organizing Circus in the summer.  He’d be the Ringmaster, and we’d all pick skills to hone. My best tricks were fence-walking and doing hard stuff on these two metal poles our dad hung between two wood supports and put up next to the swing and sand-box he built, and built to last, in our back yard. They are probably still there, behind our brown Split-Level on Allen Ct.  When Drago felt we had trained enough, he’d organize a parade though the neighborhood to advertise our Circus. Seems to me things generally fell apart after the parade and we rarely got as far as the actual event. It was hard to get everyone together at an exact time in those days, even for the kids who could tell time.

“Indians” was a good fall game, played in the woods, of course. All-season games were Spaceship, (we had a great fallen tree trunk, split in two big sections) Robin Hood, Soldiers and Nurses, Peter Pan, Swiss Family Robinson, and of course, bike riding and races of all kinds, even plain running.  Piersal’s lane provided us with a world-class scary Halloween challenge, and they also held epic 4th of July parties every year.  The Piersals were great Rich People.

Eeek! Going way past my usual blog length here. Sorry. It’s just that living with Drago again brings childhood back, you know? It’s just that we live in a fairly safe, suburban neighborhood, but we don’t see many kids outside. We don’t hear moms hollering out their back doors. Cars, rather than kids, have the right-of-way on the streets around here. We didn’t know we lived in kid-heaven, but we did. Good old Allen Ct. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Seriously

When I was a junior in high school I ran for Secretary of my senior class.  I’d been elected to the student council each year and I thought I could do a good job taking minutes and all. I’m pretty sure I got on the student council, my entry into politics, my freshman year because I had two well-known, well-liked, handsome older brothers. They paved the way. Even though my personal ambitions were of the ballerina-kind, I was a good kid and listened to all the adult voices that claimed beefing up my list of extra-curricular activities was the way to go if I wanted to get in to a good college. I didn’t know then that Juilliard, the only college I wanted to attend, would not be impressed by my being elected Secretary of my senior class. I campaigned, (hung posters around the school) wrote a speech, and was, to my amazement, elected! No one knew what courage this whole business demanded. I was shy, did not have an approved wardrobe bought in the favored store in nearby Ridgewood, New Jersey, and, a very tricky bit for me, had a bilateral lisp. I dreaded giving my speech to the entire student body (about 400 kids.) But I did it and that was my political career. I have no idea why I won-possibly because I had fewer enemies than the other candidates; my trudge through high school hadn’t included much drama, if any. There was plenty of drama in my dance life, but I didn’t think that counted very heavily outside of various studios.

I’ve always been bowled over by national politicians. They are of another species.  They want to make decisions for other people. Lots of other people. They want to lead public lives and know that they will make enemies and that people will say mean things about them. How about that? Even when they are successful and their side wins an argument, they just wake up to a day filled with new battles.  It must be tremendously difficult to be in the public eye and yet stay out of trouble and easy as pie to slide into a quagmire of one kind or another. Yet these men and women run for office thoughout their lives, ever trying to keep their names on more and more lips, their pictures on more posters, and their speeches heard by bigger crowds. Holy cannoli! Not a life for me.

I’ve been a serious voter though. I do my best. Talk, read, listen; try to figure things out so that I can make educated choices. Not so easy.  I’ve been bamboozled a few times-and I’ve certainly gone with the losing side and had to live with people who I had no faith in being the boss of me, at least for a term or two.  But, you know, Obama is someone I trust. I think I have from the get-go. I like that he’s tall and has a great smile; I like his wife and kids; I like his background and think it’s cool that he’s of mixed race, and I trust him. I believe that he does his best, and I find that I’ve never had reason to question his choices as our President. So, with this, with the killing of an unarmed monster named Osama bin Laden, I’m not going to wrestle with something that until now I’ve not had to deal with. A murderer was murdered in my name and that’s all right with me. I didn’t dance in the streets about it, but I’m not surprised that many people did. If bin Laden had been shooting at the SEALS, I wouldn’t have had to re-organize, accommodate, think about this news at all. It’s just that I grew up believing it was wrong to shoot an un-armed man, and now I need to believe that in this case, in Osama bin Laden’s case, it was an okay thing to do.  And I’m going with that. I’ve stretched a little and that’s fine. I’m on board.

Nonnie, Donald, Drago, and Glee

Nonnie, Donald, Drago, and Glee

Yes, well, I am, after all a blogger, so I’m meant to have something to say about Donald Trump, I suppose.                              Nope. Don’t have a thing.  Wait! I know.  I can say he’s a fidiot. That’s a word I learned today. See, you take the “f” from f#$%ing with idiot and voilá,  Fidiot.  I google “slang” and get a new word every day. Once I settle on one, I put it up in my “private office,” at Zoetrope Virtual Studio, so other writer friends who might be a bit behind in their slang can learn it too. Zoetrope has a Writer’s building, and I’ve been hanging out there since 2004. It used to be a jumping place, but now, what with Facebook and all, there isn’t as much going on. Still, I’ve learned a lot there, and it doesn’t scare me like FB does. I don’t deal well with millions of this or that. Doesn’t matter what really-I don’t want stuff, even friends, well, especially not friends, in the millions. Way too many. Funny to think when I was a kid I dreamed of being famous.  I wanted to dance with Fred Astaire. Like all kids, I was confused about the timing. I mean he was grown-up and in the movies and I was six. How was that going to work out? Practical considerations do factor in daydreams when you’re six or so, but not so’d you’d notice. Donald Trump is like a six-year-old.  A six-year-old fidiot.

But, jeeze louise, why are so many of us giving him so much attention? He keeps acting-out, and we keep paying attention to him. See, I used to teach emotionally disturbed kids, and I knew, and practiced, the basics of behavior modification and a biggie was the first problem-solving step: Ignore Misbehavior. We should try that with him. That’s what I do about Palien, and so does the rest of my family. Others, too. In fact, happily, I’ve seen a distinct fading of her star-power. I don’t know if it will work with the Trumpet, though. It seems to me he’s been getting way too much attention for most of my adult life. And I’m old.

That should do it. I've blogged about Trump.

Tuesday night. Drago, my brother who I live with in case you don’t know, just asked me if there was anything on TV and I told him Glee.  He said he wasn’t gay enough for Glee with one of those airy hand swirls he does when he’s acting gay. I mean he is gay, but he can be especially funny when he acts gay.  I seem to be using a lot of italics tonight. Maybe by the time 2012 gets here, we will all be writing everything in italics. We’re already e-mailing each other in dashes and exclamation points. Pretty much.

I've been wanting to write this...

 

April 18th was my brother Ric's birthday. He somehow managed 53 of them, before his, his what?-alcoholism, mental illness, poverty, loneliness, shame-killed him in August of 2008. The medical examiner found blood in his brain and blamed his death on a "brain bleed.” He ran out of gas a block from his trailer, and fell when he got out of his car. We know this because someone in his neighborhood saw him get up and limp to his place. I don't want to call it his home. Crash pad will do.

A cop I called opened the door, because we hadn't heard from him in weeks, because we were pretty sure he was on another binge, because I couldn't stand waiting and not knowing. Once the cop and I got inside, I only got a glimpse of my brother before broad shoulders blocked me from going any closer. He'd been dead a day before we found him. I called my brother Drago, and he and our neighbor Ben came right away. Drago stayed for the coroner and all that followed that day. Ben drove me home, because no one thought I should drive.

Ric’s life had been full once; a wife, two kids, a renovated Victorian on a quiet street only a few blocks from the bay.

Ric had a day job that he was good at that paid the bills, and nights he played drums. The best drummer in the Panhandle, they said. All the music people around here knew him. A lot of people loved him, too, because he was easy-going, funny, liked almost everybody. His hair turned gray early and he wore it in a long pony-tail. Tall, lanky, always in a t-shirt or layered up with flannel if the calendar said it was winter, he looked like a rocker, but not fierce-kind. He sang, too, but drums were his thing.

It took about fifteen years before alcohol stripped everything, even music,(the shakes) away. I don't know how he lasted that long. Blackouts, fights, hellish weeks of sobering up and making a stab at normal life, and eventually, another binge. About a month before he died, he got himself together and spent a weekend in Pensacola with his daughter and grand-daughter. The visit was good and I was so glad he'd been able to do that. I think he was ashamed, though, that he'd had to take a bus-six hours each way. A car would have gotten him back and forth in two.

Of course, by then shame was a constant, unless he was drunk enough to pass out.

During our twenties, Ric and I lived in Albuquerque. For a year or so we shared an adobe place in Old Town. My favorite thing was to go to "Okies," on Rt.66, when Ric's band was playing. I'd usually drink too much and my brother and his wife would make sure I got home okay, because neither one of them were in to getting smashed. God, or something-I sure as hell don't know-brought me to a time when I couldn't keep going with Johnny Walker Red and I quit drinking. That was almost thirty years ago for me, but my little brother never could stay stopped and I don't think he minded dying a bit. Ric's okay now. Peaceful, looking out for the rest of us, telling jokes, playing drums, himself again.

Nonnie's Cleavage

Cleavage

When I was four I decided I would become a ballerina, started on this project right away, and at seven finally got to start lessons. By the time I was a teenager, a career in dance seemed possible. What I lacked in technique, I made up for in enthusiasm. I was disappointed that I stopped growing at a little over 5’2” tall, and in keeping with almost all dancers, I was, well, flat.

Think about it. How many dancers have you seen with lush, sexy, breasts? How often do you see a ballerina’s boobs bouncing as she leaps, lands, or does fast fancy footwork? When she spins, do you see floppy flesh whipping around as she goes? The torso is a ballet or modern dancer’s center of strength, and there isn’t much chance of developing the soft tissue that fills womanly cup sizes. When I danced, I was glad of my shape, because my “line” was not marred by big bumpy boobs.

Ballet company directors were demanding that all their dancers have long limbs and tiny heads. I was short, and my head was a normal size, so I took off my point shoes, and in bare feet, focused on modern dance. My breasts stayed small and when naked with the current love of my life, or dressed in anything but my dance clothes, I wished I could look more voluptuous.

My dance career ended abruptly at thirty when I tore my Achilles tendon during a performance. Until then I had assumed that I would beat the odds and join the few who continue to perform despite pesky aging. Life is often unfair, etc., etc., but at least, if I couldn’t dance, I expected an increase in cup size. This was not to be. I lost weight. All through my thirties, I was skinny, everywhere.

I got married in a size six dress when I was forty-one, moved into an eight around forty-five and started buying medium, sometimes large, tops somewhere between forty-five and fifty. The change in my body happened when my attention was elsewhere, and I was slow to realize that my water weight was not watery weight at all; it was solid.

But! I'd acquired full breasts. I bought a few low-cut tops that looked like low-cut tops on me, because for the first time in my life, I had cleavage. Forgive me, sisters, but I loved it when men looked at my chest instead of my face! Spandex bathing suits came on the scene, and I bought a chocolate-brown number that squeezed all the stuff I wasn’t so happy about in, and allowed a good deal of mammary to push out.

The politically incorrect pleasure I took when I garnered below chin level stares was short-lived. At fifty-one, with almost no warning, I needed open-heart surgery. They sawed through my ribs, stopped my heart and attached it to a pump, and put me on a respirator while they fixed me up. The good-looking surgeons who came to see me later deemed the operation a success. It wasn’t until I came out of the morphine-induced fog I’d been in that I realized I might have died. Just before I was discharged from the hospital, the nurse disconnected my pee tube, and I walked to the bathroom all by myself.

“Oh, God!” I cried.
“What is it, are you all right?” asked the nurse as she rushed to the open door of the tiny room.
“My cleavage!” I sobbed. Staring at me from the mirror was a scary woman who looked like she belonged in a coffin, and there was a long, thick, red, ugly scar that started below her collarbone and snaked its way down between her breasts.

For a year the scar hurt like hell, and the damn thing even developed its own bumps. And though I had forever lost the chance of dazzling with my décolletage, I still had the unwanted weight on all my body parts except my ears. They hadn’t changed.


My brother Drago, my housemate, (divorce is a whole other blog, at least) thinks I look nice, but he's too loyal for his opinion of my figure to weigh heavily with me. (If there's a pun there, it isn't intentional. I can't pun intentionally. Never could.) The scar was finally fading by 2009 when another handsome cardiac surgeon (they are probably all handsome. Dunno.) saved my life again with open-heart surgery. And on to how I look today: not fat, not thin, big boobs, goodish legs, dressed in turtlenecks. As Tony Soprano would say, "Whayagonnado?"

The Dice are Not to Blame

Ted swam far from shore with a bar of lead.

He loved it, you see, until he drowned dead.

Mick had a trick of giving his money

to heartless bosoms that called him honey.

Sharon kept caring for drinkers and dopers

gamblers and cheaters and whiners and mopers.

Benny saw double and never could tell

which one had substance and which was a shell.

Mick, Benny, Sharon, and poor dead Ted

had luck that sucked they frequently said.

I didn’t agree and suggested instead

that they didn’t have to sink; they could listen to me,

and let go of their lead when they swim in the sea.

"Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants." -- Dorothy Parker

I spent most of last weekend working on a poem, but when I read it for the 110^th time on Tuesday or so, I dumped it.  Admitting it wasn’t any good was a relief, really.  See, there were a few lines I liked, but I was asking too much of them. You know, sometimes you can write a poem, and sometimes you can’t.

Yesterday I had a Nonnie and Drago idea-doing a blog about one of Drago’s claims to fame.  He’s one of the guys on the black and white “Village People” album.  My brother, wearing a sleeveless and sideless T-shirt  (a style he says he invented) stands behind the motorcycle and next to the Indian Chief.  In fact he had his hand on the Chief’s ass, but you can’t see that.  You can Google it and see what Drago looked like during the club crazy, disco crazy early eighties, before so many of the gay or drug-addicted village people died of AIDS.  I wanted  to write yesterday, but it would have been drivel.  My brain was thick, my fingers leaden.

I think it was the news that Japanese babies under a year old couldn’t drink the water-too radioactive.  Like a mother would feel okay giving her 13 month-old baby tap water.  Like anyone on that sad, sad island would feel okay drinking the stuff.  Maybe that was why I couldn’t write about all the funny things that have been going on around here since I last blogged.  And there’s Libya and all.  Dunno, but *“so it goes.”  Hope you’re okay.

*Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five. (He might be able to write something these days-if he weren’t dead, if he wanted to.)

Respite

Some person, she couldn’t recall who, or even when

said, ”Maddy, go to Callaway Gardens.”

So she drove from northern Florida

to the low Georgia mountains, to the pines,

lakes, thickets of muscadine grapes, and thousands

of calling birds, who were mating, nesting, giving birth.

The room they gave her was forest damp, worn out, shabby even,

a perfect fit for Maddy’s spirit. The morning after a quiet night,

she walked through woods to the butterfly pavilion.

Glass high above and all around, awed children softly laughing,

water falling, reds, yellows, every single green growing,

winged creatures fluttering wherever she looked,

pulled her from the narrow room

in the nursing non-home

where her father died earlier that spring.

In the sunlit, moist enclosure,

a bright Blue Mortho chose her,

alighted on her breast,

where it stayed and stayed,

even as she walked, whispering,

down the Wonderland paths of the butterfly palace.

Nonnie's Bothered, Drago Gets Hair

 

Mike Huckabee is obviously a stupid-head.  Last week he called Natalie Portman a starlet! If it had been a big news week, I might have missed this egregious error, but not much else has been going on lately, that I’ve noticed, anyway. Natalie won the Academy Award for Best Actress!  Just last weekend!  Jeesh-politician no-nothings.

 A starlet is:

starlet [ˈstɑːlɪt]

n

1. (Performing Arts) a young and inexperienced actress who is projected as a potential star

2. (Astronomy) a small star

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Everyone’s entitled to a mistake or two, within reason, but if Tea Drinker Huckabee needs to air his opinions on Ms. Portman’s pregnancy, he could at least get her status straight. She’s an A-list actor, not a “potential,” but a “made it.”

People keep asking my brother Drago how he got his hair. Turns out, he’d never lost it.  He just thought he had.  Ten or eleven years ago he started shaving his head because he didn’t like the gray that was coming in (or something.) Last November Drago liked our other brother Leon’s haircut so much he decided to see if he could get one. So he stopped shaving his head and he went from bald to haired, just like that!  (Well, “hairy” isn’t the word I want either.  Drago has not become hairy.) Our housekeeper Lydia calls him Adonis, which makes him blush. (He does all that Yoga, too, you know.)

Not much going on in my life.  Finally got the tests my doctor wanted for my breasts and bones. Oh, yeah. I’m reading a novel by a friend of mine, Russell Bittner, that has a lot  of sex. I’ve known Russell mostly as a poet and although his poetry is often sensuous, I had no idea what I was getting into-bedtime reading-wise with his prose.  Good writing, mind you-none of that throbbing, gushing, or taking; his love-making scenes are explicit and er...engaging, yet poetic. Ima gonna tell him that he should have made at least one of the protagonists a vampire, or a virtual reality-come to-life type, or a serial-killer profiler!  He would have made millions by now, easy.  Of course, he can always do another one.  Easy, right?

Cataracts

Cataracts

I thought we’d keep firm grips of each other’s hand,

each year choose Christmas gifts with knowing care,

include space for the other at every possible table,

in turn listen, lean, push or pull.

We’d make love on Monday, certain of more kisses Tuesday,

eat pasta in Venice, be giddy with Italy and London to come,

stay in, go out, float or flail through moods, over and over again.

We were a couple, a pair, partners, two Musketeers, lifers.

We checked forecasts, were well prepared.

I missed your shift.

You didn’t like the movie, did you?  It was fine.

Let’s eat dinner in front of the TV.  Why not?

Did you write the check, letter, list, card? Not yet.

I forgot your orange juice, paper, medicine. No big deal.

I didn’t know we were coming from our corners, patched-up,

ready for another round, didn’t know we were in a ring,

didn’t see the referee or hear him counting.

I wore a blindfold so opaque that your sucker-punch

blasted me from Maine to Florida. Turns out that I was so sure

of us all by myself,  and you, for awhile, you just went along.

Red Carpet Snaps and Learning to Spell Ophthalmologist

Taking the day off today because I’m a lazy, shiftless cow.  It’s 1:11 p.m. and I’m still dressed in my gray long-sleeved yoga t-shirt, the gray & white striped flannel pajama bottoms my brother Drago gave me for Christmas three years ago before a winter trip to NYC, extremely comfortable black Minnie Tonka slippers my sister-in-law Rae gave me because the last (do you know what that is, I mean off –the-top-of-your-head?) was wrong for her feet, and a cool, urbanite, black jersey robe that I bought myself, just because I wanted it-and it was on sale.  Oh, and my hair is hanging long and straggly which Drago can’t stand.  


I’m giving you the picture because I just spent about two hours clicking on photo after photo of red carpet bests and worsts from various award shows, and honestly, I like my outfit better than a lot of the thousands of dollarsish designer get-ups memorialized, forever maybe, on the Internet.  Mostly women, but men too, who are, apparently, famous, have shown up for the world in gorgeous or boring or astounding ugly/tacky/bewildering clothes.  Lady Gaga came down the Grammy’s red carpet in an egg-shaped litter carried by slaves in gold boxer briefs.  I learned, by clicking on a Jay Leno snippet, that it wasn’t supposed to be an egg, though.  It was a vessel, and she was an embryo.  See?  I wouldn’t have known the vessel-rather-than-egg distinction if I hadn’t spent the morning meandering around the Internet.  Cultural literacy-that’s what I call it. I did suffer, then celebrate, with the Egyptians, there’s that in my favor…but I’m still a cow.

Hell, I do deserve some down-time. Yesterday was a Doctor’s Office day.  I had to go to the ophthalmologist’s for cataract surgery evaluation.  Jeez louise! Like eight machines to look through. No, not machines. Devices, maybe.  Instruments!  That’s what they were.  There were several fairly familiar things where you tried to read letters (I always feel badly when I don’t do well) or those impossible “is this better-or that?” contraptions where one gives sincere, but completely random answers, and then a bunch of weird holes to look through that I’ve never encountered before (that I remember, anyway.) Skinny blue rectangles, red sprays, blinding, no, really, blinding lights, green flashes that dart out at you from the sides, black circles with red lights waaay down there.  Had no idea what any of them were supposed to do.  The tech was very young and neither explained what we were doing nor laughed at my jokes.  I did spend a few minutes with an ophthalmologist, but he spoke Eyedoctor and only to his nurse.  After two and a half hours I was released, eyes wide open, into the shock of daylight.  Drago was there in his Jeep. His afternoon had been blown, too. Don’t you hate that? When someone has to wait at the doctor’s/hospital/courthouse for you? They always say they didn’t mind, of course, but you know they must’ve, at least some, because when you have to wait for someone, even if you love them, edginess attacks you sooner or later. 


So tomorrow I’ll cook him something new from my excellent-even-for-heart-sickos-like-me- Mediterranean Diet cookbook (little product placement there.)  Tonight will be tunafish.

Nonnie’s Lonely, Drago’s on a Mission

Drago’s been holed up in his room, burning incense and trying out different chants.  He’s obsessed with finding an incantation that will cast a spell over Ben Gleck (you know who I mean-I refuse to use his name as he spells it ) causing him to shun the public’s eyes or ears.

I can hear my brother murmuring in Sanskrit. He’s been lousy company for the last few days-eats his meals on a tray in there, won’t watch TV with me, dashes out to teach a Yoga class and then he’s right back to his books or chanting in strange poses he’s invented.  He told me during a brief chat when he came out of his room for food and water that shutting up the Ben Glecks, Shelly Batmans, and Hannah Painins of the world might require new Catholic Buddhist prayers and Yogic efforts. 

I’m all for depriving these lunatics of attention, but I miss my brother. May he find the right formula soon. It’s clear we can’t rely on our own, earthbound kind, to stop the idiocy. Drago says we need help from Higher Powers. I know my brother-he won’t give up until he uncovers the secret to ridding us of these decompensating blithering idiots-I just hope he doesn’t pull a hamstring or throw his back out before this particular free speech conundrum is resolved.