Bee Lavender

When I had dinner with Ana in San Francisco (this would be the Ana from the KTS wedding, not the Ana in Barcelona) she was busily organizing her next project: an erotic novella with a Christmas theme.

When she innocently asked Where in the country do they cut down trees? it was clearly obvious that she needed to see where I grew up.

Although we only just barely knew each other I immediately started to woo her with promises of clearcuts and Kristmastown, USA. The Charm Offensive is mighty and powerful; she tried to resist but finally relented and flew up for the last week of the trip.

Ana wanted to find a lumberjack to learn about the woods, and a bad boy for character study and personal amusement. The credentials to qualify as a lumberjack were vague, but her Bad Boy criteria were specific: tall, tough, tattooed (preferably including neck), smart, and emotionally unavailable.

It was perhaps not entirely practical to search for a lumberjack in the bars of Capitol Hill, but a girl has to make do with the available resources – and I figured we could find a bad boy without too much effort.

Everywhere we went, people wanted Ana’s number, and more than one stranger immediately asked if they could visit her in SF. Bartenders served her endless free drinks, and since Ana doesn’t drink and I don’t touch hard alcohol we often forced Byron to, as Ana said, take it for the team.

During the day we trekked all over Seattle and Tacoma making new friends and haphazardly researching the history of logging. I showed her the original encampment at Alki, and the true Skid Row, and we picked blackberries at Camp 6 on Point Defiance.

Each excursion was fantastically amusing; though after a few days immersed in my highly efficient antics Ana did think to inquire Have I joined a cult?

At night we scoured all of my normal haunts with no success, until a flash of inspiration took us to Kincora, where whole tables of bad boys turned to stare at us as we walked in.

We ended up at a table with the Himsa kids, who pointed out a candidate with the comment His dick is so big it would break you. 

Ana didn’t think that sounded like fun so I introduced her to BP, who grew up on the peninsula. He admitted (quite reluctantly) that he used to have a wood business.

I had forgotten that hanging out with smut writers cranks up the innuendo (and adventure) ratio. Ana gained valuable insight on the technical aspects of logging, but more importantly, the culture of my hometown.

BP looks and sounds just like my cousins and may well be one; in the middle of his anecdote about hurling flaming axes I interrupted and asked him to verify that people used to nail live kittens to trees. He shrugged in agreement, much to the horror of those who grew up in civilization.

Ana and Byron and I, with the occasional disapproving assistance of Jeff, rapidly developed a code of conduct to prevent what Ana called cock blocking. The boys were often parked with friends while we girls trekked from restaurant to bar to after party, interrogating potential candidates about their backgrounds in the forest and evaluating their relative badness.

Whenever Ana had a line on a good research subject I melted away to spend quality time with my scintillating new friend Mark Mitchell at the Bus Stop, officially my favorite bar in the whole world.

The intensity of the search leached into every aspect of our week, turning even the smallest and most routine outing into an adventure. One afternoon at a cafe we were plotting our next excursion. I was trying to implement some level of organization on a chaotic plan when I noticed that a barista in short shorts was cleaning the counter next to us – over and over again – and shimmying to a theremin version of Loving You by Minnie Ripperton.

The performance certainly wasn’t intended for me, though I could not tell which of my companions she was going to hit on. I left for a moment and when I came back she was practically giving Byron a lap dance; this is what happens when you spend your free time with notorious flirts.

It was easy to get caught up in the socializing and neglect the reason for her visit – but I was determined to take Ana to the peninsula.

Along the way we stopped at a chainsaw carving school:

The main destination was Shelton, where nothing has changed since I moved away eleven years ago:

The place still has a functioning mill:

And is officially Kristmastown – a perfect setting for lumberjack erotica!

We also saw actual wildlife: a fox, a seal, and a deer!

Somewhere out in the countryside we stopped at a Chevron, and when I went in to inspect the restroom (gas stations represent my true cultural heritage) Ana finally found a real lumberjack!

Or at least, someone who hauls logs. Her approach was simple – she walked over and said I like your truck.

By the time I was done tsking at the overflowing waste baskets and lamenting the lack of gritty pink soap she had acquired extensive insider information from her logger; I came out just in time to take their picture.

With one mission accomplished we returned to the wild decadence of our city search. Ana dressed in a dashing little sailor suit, pointed to her nautical theme necklace, and said Tonight I’m going to hook me a man!

I introduced her to countless suitable people but somehow none of the boys matched her exacting standards. On the final night we had nearly given up hope; standing in front of the Bus Stop at midnight, I explained the problem to Zack and Greg. Both fit most of the profile – tall, tough, tattooed, intelligent, and, as the kids say, hot.

But evidently they were too sincere; like me, they can be menacing when appropriate – but wear their hearts on their sleeves:

The three of us stood on the sidewalk watching with various levels of amazement as Ana swept through the Cha-Cha, selecting and rejecting with ruthless force.

When she made her final choice and zipped past us on the way to see a show at the Comet Greg asked Do you think she knows she is going out with a drug dealer?

I just shrugged; we agreed that we did not understand the ways of Ana, though the whole thing was excessively amusing.

 

9.4.06 unproven

There has been much debate over whether or not people flirt with me, and my relative ability to reciprocate. I explained the hypothesis to Ana and she brushed it off with a brusque People are flirting with you. Pay attention!

So I did, checking with Ana for expert advice along the way. In the course of one week I recognized two pickup attempts, and at least four people overtly flirting (and that is a conservative count verified by Ana; the number of presumed but unproven is higher).

I found this quite puzzling. I have approximately the same clothes, hair, spectacles, lipstick; nothing about my appearance has changed, but people are interacting with me in a substantially different way. Various friends suggest that the flirting has always happened and that I just failed to notice.

Historically this is perhaps true, in limited circumstances, when I already knew and loved the person. I’ve certainly never lacked friends, suitors, or conquests, even when I wanted to be alone. But something in my manner has changed in the last year. I am more tolerant of ambiguity, and willing to talk to strangers. Do I know how to flirt? According to impartial witnesses, yes. Do I practice the skill? Rarely – and judiciously. To summarize: this year I have become almost friendly.

One night we went to see DJ Laura at the Crescent, a bar I had never been to previously. We arrived late, after the crowd was uniformly wasted, and my ass was patted by strangers more times than…. well, ever; strangers have never previously dared touch me.

At some point a drunk girl grabbed my arms and tried to make me dance. I protested that I don’t know how but she started shoving me around and grinding, and when I failed to have rhythm she took offense. I had to kiss her cheek and gently shove her off on other partners.

Just before closing Byron and Jeff took the floor to sing a duet of Feel Like Making Love:

Jeff threw a dinner party in our honor and a whole crowd of people turned up. I was, of course, delighted to see old acquaintances and make so many new friends. Xin and Niki both emailed that they couldn’t make it, and of course many of the Bus Stop bartenders were working, but Holly Chernobyl, Shannon, Ramona, Matt, David, Jessie, Sarah, Darlene, Sheila, Julia, Lynnette, Joey, Zoe, Kristi, Laura, the Sexy Mailman, and very tall Mark all turned out, along with others I’ve forgotten or did not get a chance to talk to.

I was particularly pleased by the opportunity to hang out with Ade; there are very few people in the world who can laugh at my wicked stories (the ones I will never publish), fewer still who have stories to offer in return.

We talked and talked and the party pulsed and the guests consumed astonishing quantities of alcohol. Ana went to bed long before the guests left as there were neither lumberjacks nor bad boys present; Byron locked himself in his room at two in the morning; and Jeff kept pouring champagne into my cup until my brain went fuzzy.

The raucous antics upset the upstairs neighbors, who tried to intimidate us by filming the scene, until Holly screamed Do you want to see my pussy? at the camera.

 

9.3.06 end

The other night I went on a dinner cruise featuring several hundred computer scientists. One of my favorite people in that crowd asked in amazement Whatever are you doing on the Ship of Geeks?

I would never turn down a chance to go on a boat ride.

However, the trend of meeting other people from the past continued; the most amusing happened when we ran into someone Byron once had a fling with, and learned that she was working two doors down from our apartment.

The coincidence meant that we had to be friends, and she very kindly offered to be my surrogate mother for a shopping excursion; she picked out my new lipstick and then insisted that I try on dresses and show her each one. I’ve never had such a ladylike afternoon, nor have I ever found three new dresses that I liked and could justify purchasing.

Left to my own devices I never spend money on myself, and I left the tags on for a week – but all three eventually made it into my suitcase.

I didn’t run into anyone I recognized but nearly every night I met someone else who grew up on the peninsula. Conversations went something like this:

Stranger: Do you remember that time when those kids were murdered, except the one who just got an extra smile carved into his face?

Me: Yeah, my dad cleaned up the blood splattered restroom where he went to wash afterward. The sheriff took away the towel dispenser as evidence and still hasn’t returned it – my folks are still irritated twenty-five years down the line.

After Hometown Connection Number Eleven I was convinced that I would run into someone I’ve dated, and that they would foolishly try to speak to me.

I prepared to blithely introduce them around – This is X, that sociopath I’ve mentioned – we haven’t talked in sixteen years!

Or Oh, this is Y, my serial rapist ex. Don’t think you’ve met?

But my strange luck held out – the people I met remained familiar strangers, the final one spotted at 2 AM during our final visit to the Jade Pagoda (RIP). I nodded a hello, left a big red lipstick print on Jeffrey’s cheek, and headed back to the safety of Capitol Hill.

 

 

8.19.06 eighties

The other day I was pleased as punch to finally introduce Byron Number One to Byron Number Two. We had an excellent dinner and chat before they indulged my newest passion: the egg circus vending machine at Uwajimaya!

Later that night I met a guy named BP who looks just like my cousins, and discovered that his brother used to work for my grandfather. We had a fascinating conversation about the relative merits of the gun range in Silverdale, the unsolved murders we remember from childhood, and other points of hometown trivia. I was relieved that we were too far apart in age to actually have known each other.

Then later in the evening he introduced me to someone else, who proceeded to reel off a list of everyone I ever knew in the eighties.

Oh, except those I dated; but that might be attributed to the fact that we were friends in elementary school.

I swiftly redirected the conversation to roller rinks.

 

 

8.17.06 photograph

Imagine my surprise to open The Stranger and find a photograph of myself, without having first done something like “perform on a stage in front of an audience.” And no, it isn’t the Drunk of the Week.

Jeffrey says I look badass and pissed off. I believe we enjoyed the show – we just objected to being photographed:

 

 

8.15.06 film

The East London Massive was supposed to show up here this week but each individual member has elected to cancel rather than face the chaos at Heathrow.

This is unfortunate as I was looking forward to showing the crew around Seattle; there isn’t really anything to do when they visit us in Cambridge, aka the city with only one good restaurant. I think that they would quite enjoy the clubs and bars on the hill.

In the past week I have spent most of my time with two six foot six men wearing all black, which makes me feel like I have bodyguards, even if I’m the only tough person in the trio.

The adventures have been relentless, including parties and barbecues and late nights at the Bus Stop. We even went dancing at the Lo Fi for Emerald City Soul, an excursion that featured two completely novel and unexpected experiences: I danced, sort of, which was surprising and delightful.

Then this fellow tried out a stereotypical pickup line on me – which was amusing not least because we’d previously had dinner together and he didn’t recognize me (it might have helped if he had looked at my face instead of just my torso).

Between my complicated past and Byron’s penchant for turmoil there is always a high likelihood of social drama, but so far neither of us has stumbled across any skeletons. The only confusing thing so far is the fact that strangers keep recognizing me — that messes with my misguided belief that I am invisible.

The best part of this phenomenon? I’ve now met a large number of people who have had major health problems, but continue to lead full lives with a wicked sense of humor. I’ve never really had a peer group before!

Jeff says that my life resembles a Hal Hartley film but I disagree; my days include too many elements of farce.

 

8.11.06 surprise

Most of my memories of Seattle are from childhood – dreary trips to the doctor, harrowing surgeries, pain, fear. Or of adolescence, when my driving need to leave home took precedence over anything else.

The two years that I lived here as an adult did not mitigate the past; that short residence had the opposite effect. I could have settled for a pleasant middle class existence in my pretty house on the hill, but the view of the mountains just taunted me. When I left the country I didn’t even plan to come back for a visit.

It is a surprise to find myself back here again without any regrets, having a brilliant time. I do not understand how any of this happened though I do find it all quite amusing.

At the Hideout:

Wandering at night:

Rosyvelt at the Comet:

 

 

8.9.06 neighborhood

Greetings from a portion of Seattle that never existed; or rather, that has been built over from scratch by Paul Allen.

The Cascade neighborhood was once just a stretch of decrepit warehouses and some saggy if beloved apartment buildings like the Lillian. Now the place is overflowing with shiny empty condominium developments punctuating the fake waterfall and climbing wall of REI.

This creates an eerie sense of displacement, as though I’ve taken up residence in a diorama, but again – it would be ridiculous to complain. Although I abandoned Seattle on purpose I still love this city.

 

 

8.4.06 billeted

Lisa Jervis found it quite amusing that I am stuck at the W once again. Years ago we found ourselves wandering in a daze in the Seattle version of the hotel, when an internet start-up threw a peculiar party for young feminists in an effort to woo us into a dodgy scheme they had (partially) formulated.

That weekend was jammed full of parties and food and treats that we potential clients did not appreciate; my estimate is that it cost over one hundred thousand dollars, though I am probably being conservative with the figure. And, of course, none of us signed with the firm.

That was certainly the oddest experience I had during the dot.com years, and most of us were completely mystified by the ordeal. Though the encounter was hilarious and definitely worthwhile; I met Inga for the first time, along with scores of other fantastically smart editors and publishers. At one point Ariel flicked the ash off her cigarette and murmured Watch out. The W is like a portal into another world.

I’m not sure about the others, but this has certainly been the case in my life. The W chain seems to enjoy some kind of special relationship with high tech firms. It is the facility we are routinely billeted to, even if we request an alternate address.

It would be churlish to complain about free accommodation anywhere, let alone in luxury hotel rooms. Staying in these places has certainly taught me a great deal about how to communicate with people who are not remotely my sort.

Hotel visits have also forced me to exude the confidence of the entitled classes. For example: I am no longer stopped by security on suspicion of being a prostitute, no matter what I wear.

But that doesn’t mean that I enjoy these idylls. My mother cleaned hotel rooms when I was a kid, and my father is still a janitor. There is something deeply wrong about letting other people make my bed and tidy my room. I can’t even cope with such ministrations when I am bedridden in a hospital.

Though I do admit that hanging out in the lobby and the bar is useful for my sociological research projects on the mating rituals of the human species. Last night I was deeply amused to sit for an hour watching people in white trousers act silly and spend money.

We were scheduled to spend the rest of the summer at the W but I used up vast quantities of my own work time to identify an alternative that would not be so painful. It took a great deal of strategic effort but I finally found an apartment to rent.

I am very excited to have a fridge that is not crammed full of tiny liquor bottles.

 

 

Yesterday I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art wrangling paper bags bursting with dirty laundry and trying to control my hair and skirt, both of which were sailing skyward in the wind, when a black stretch limo pulled up in front of me.

The driver was eating a sandwich and he rolled down the window and shouted Are you waiting for a taxi?

 

7.26.06 smile

Back in Seattle! Which always includes adventuring with Jeffrey:

I watched the Infernal Noise Brigade play in front of the Comet at two in the morning, letting the crowd shove me back and forth in time with the music. I hung out with Mark Mitchell at the Bus Stop, officially my favorite new person.

I wandered through a club in a state of existential crisis until I was stopped by a librarian who recognized me from my publicity photos and smothered me with compliments – and I remembered to smile.

 

 

7.26.06 hello

The kids took my mother to the zoo, where we fed budgies and visited with an excitable kookaburra who kept trying to fly through the glass to say hello:

While Portland represents everything most valuable about growing up and learning to live in a community, Seattle is the city nearest the place I was born.

The Puget Sound offers the most gorgeous landscape I have encountered anywhere in the world. We said goodbye to my mother at the ferry terminal and the sunset made me cry:

 

 

 

7.24.06 blazing

I flew to the states in time to throw a party for my daughter, who has spent the summer meandering about the states going to conferences, completing internships, and visiting friends. The fact that so many years have passed since her birth is completely baffling; the fact that she is an autonomous adult who can travel on her own is beyond my understanding. That tiny little baby has grown up into a person I admire and enjoy, with a quick and scorching wit and blazing intellect. She is funny, smart, and strong. I feel privileged to be her friend.

The party was at our old house, currently home to Gabriel and Danielle and their brood of children. It was also Gabriel’s birthday so a parade of friends new and old sauntered through the house on what was the most punishingly hot day I have ever experienced in Portland.

Trish showed up from Ohio, and Gordon from SF, along with the usual crew of beloved local characters. A neighbor provided a gift that allowed everyone to survive: a structure dubbed The Mistery.

Nicole arranged for the most genius birthday present for my daughter: a personal phone call from Harry and the Potters.

The visit was short, only three days, and packed to bursting with visits to the zoo and OMSI and the other childhood haunts of my son, who reverted to his standard Portland uniform of a shirt and tie (though I vetoed the blazer given the record heat wave).

The endlessly entertaining Anna Ruby joined us for lunch:

We hung out with Sara, and visited Michelle, and I felt a pang of longing over Skanky Volvo (even though the car has not been operational in years). I bought this car with the advance from my first book:

Later we found ourselves in the yard at 19th Street, talking and laughing with Marisa, Jody, EB, AR, Stevie, Hope, and STS. To say that the visit was bittersweet would be an understatement; I miss my friends quite thoroughly even as my desire to travel grows.

After we said goodbye and walked away Stevie shouted I love you and we chorused our love back at her.

On the way out of town we drove around looking at the houses and schools that once had importance in our lives.

 

7.18.06 pram

This morning I spent twenty minutes trying to remember the American word for pram.

Without success.

It would appear that my brain is acclimating to this place. David warned me that this is the start – first you put emphasis on the wrong part of sentences, then you lose words entirely.

Too bad I will be traveling in the states all summer – it might be entertaining to pick up a slightly demented English accent!

 

7.16.06 towel

The girl was in her mid-twenties, with short blond hair and expensive clothing of an indeterminate trendiness. She smiled and made eye contact with Byron and I watched with interest; people hit on him all the time, but rarely during a ride on the Piccadilly line.

She leaned forward and was about to say something to him when the train jolted and the can loosely clasped between her knees fell to the ground, spilling beer across the aisle separating us. She smiled, looked up at Byron through long eyelashes, and picked up the can.

Holding it with one hand, she reached in to her yellow backpack with the other, rummaged for a moment before she found a towel. Then she leaned down and wiped up the spill.

We watched in fascination as she swabbed the floor of the carriage, folded her towel, and put it away. She cocked her head and seemed about to say something but I elbowed Byron and he looked away. While it is always a good idea to make interesting new friends, there are limits. Hygiene is top of the list.

The girl pulled the towel out again and continued to clean the floor.

 

7.14.06 best

Highlights of the trip included fabulous food, long meandering walks, a trip to the zoo (where it is possible to rent an electric car and drive past all the exhibits, making the Barcelona zoo my favorite in the world), and ice cream in the Barri Gotic.

The best part though was visiting Ana Helena, a brilliant friend (and massage therapist, and cab driver, and performance artist, and biologist, and all-round great person). Ana is always delightful, but there is something very sweet about meeting up with friends who love Portland but live elsewhere.

In fact, I’ve found it easier to meet these friends while traveling than back home, where I am sometimes overwhelmed with longing for the past. Portland was the city where I finally grew up and found a community, but that process, while rewarding, was also tremendously painful.

The first question from people who haven’t seen me in two or three years is predictably Is that your natural hair color?

When Ana asked I had a flash of sitting with her at the yellow formica table in my periwinkle blue kitchen, pots of dye in front of us, using toothbrushes to paint random colors into our hair. The reason I stopped bleaching? I no longer lived near Stevie and couldn’t face having other people touch my head; and with that thought other memories slipped through, of all the events and performances and parties.

Ana Helena said that she decided to go home for the summer because she wants to be in a place that smells like blackberries, and I could suddenly smell the neighborhood too, just as she described, and I recalled that it was Ana’s ministrations that restored my sense of smell after more than twenty years without it. She was also the person who told me that I had to learn to feel pain, and at that recollection the damaged nerve in my right arm throbbed and twitched.

We talked about our new lives in England and Spain, and I felt a sense of wonder at the fact that two girls from Washington and Alaska made it this far. Even while laughing I felt as though I were looking down at the scene playing out in a European cafe.

Talking to Ana underscored a feeling I have that my life is a work of fiction.

During my sophomore year of high school a geography teacher gave the class an assignment to map out and describe an ideal trip. I have no idea what the others chose – Kennewick? Perhaps as far afield as Los Angeles? I wrote a detailed report about a trip to Europe, meticulously documenting imaginary adventures in England and on the continent.

When the paper came back it was marked with an A, but the teacher had scrawled comments throughout indicating that I was a fantasist, that I would never have the wherewithal or cunning to create the life I was dreaming about.

If that teacher were still alive I might write to tell him that I have achieved exactly what the paper described, and more; but then again, perhaps not. He never made it out of that town, after all.

I met Ana Helena when I was twenty-eight and convinced that the teacher was correct, that I would never move away from the Northwest, never leverage myself out of the bohemian poverty that was indistinct from the working class variety I grew up in. I lived without a thermostat, ignoring my ramshackle body, avoiding strangers. I didn’t think that I could change, or that I wanted to. Then one day I accidentally fell in with people who knew how to fix things.

Ana surely does not remember the first time we really talked, in the backyard at 19th Street while experimental films played in the house. Moe and Dwayne were there too and we were all telling wild stories and that specific moment was the first time I ever laughed without covering my face with both hands, an act that split my little world open and changed everything irrevocably.

If I had never met Ana and the others perhaps I would have ended up here anyway. But I wouldn’t be the same person.

I’m glad to have these friends, and even more happy that the relationships do not require me to be tethered to a piece of geography.

 

 

7.12.06 sunlight

People with skin cancer are supposed to stay out of the sun, and individuals who also sport a nicely developed case of lupus are doubly warned against exposure. Beyond that, I’m clinically photosensitive: I feel like the sun is actually attacking me… oh, and I sneeze constantly if I don’t wear sunglasses!

Because of these factors it is safe to say that my skin has not been exposed to direct unmediated sunlight at all since 1983 – no matter how strong the temptation to frolic.

Preparing for even normal jaunts is a laborious process, including multiple varieties of sunblock, protective clothing, and an umbrella if those precautions do not suffice. When my remission ends (which can happen at any time – and sunlight is a major trigger), I have to wear gloves or wrap my hands in gauze. I’ve grown used to the public censure for what must appear to be very eccentric clothing choices, and people no longer comment, or at least, I don’t listen.

This does not mean that I lead a wholly indoors life – I just choose my adventures carefully, with the understanding that each excursion has the risk of kicking off a chain of unwanted medical events.

This fact is a point of sustained gloom, as I routinely turn down invitations to exciting excursions. I will never go to a festival, for instance, nor is it likely that I will visit any of the geographic region known to swelter.

Spain is just at the edge of my tolerance, because it is possible to conduct a social life in the early morning and late at night, avoiding the light in the middle of the day. I also tend to go only in the darker months of the year; a visit in June represented quite a racy risk.

My plan, as always, was to be as careful as possible… but enjoy myself at the same time. To accomplish this I often need to make concessions that would convince other people not to bother.

Yes, friends, even when visiting beaches where everyone else is naked, I go in the water fully clothed.

My bathing costume covered my body ankle to chin; I had on big sunglasses, and my face was fully made up. The plan was to take an early morning swim then retire to the hotel, but the salty waves were too tempting, and my companions too delightful, and I watched the shadows changing on the beach and knew that I was staying out far too long.

Every thirty minutes or so I applied sunblock to any exposed bits of skin, until I had used up an entire tube of the stuff and it was finally time to go.

I was astonished to find that I had been on the beach for eight hours. When I looked in a mirror I found that I had a burn on my scalp; later it became clear that my feet and ankles were similarly scorched.

I should feel fretful and guilty about this. But I don’t care; it was worth it to spend an entire day in the sea.

As the nine-year-old member of the party said while reveling in the waves: I never knew how many heights you could reach when you jump for joy.

 

7.11.06 compliments

Jeffrey postulates that the reason I am so obtuse about flirting is simple: I do not know how to accept compliments.

This is true. I was thirty years old when Ariel pointed out that furrowing my brow, or clapping both hands over my face, or ducking under the nearest table was not the best response to praise. I asked her what I should do instead. She sighed and said Smile. Say thank you.

I’ve been practicing ever since, and getting progressively better, particularly with sartorial subjects and at public events. What I can’t handle, still, is the big stuff. When something really good happens I do not jump up and down; I retire to my sickbed and moan.

When the fact that the Orion contract was real hit me — approximately two months after the sale — I was standing in the road in front of the college where Oliver Cromwell’s head is buried. I burst into tears (a rare event generally, and an absolute taboo in public) and wailed Why can’t my life be like a John Denver song?

The meaning of that sentiment is obscure even to me, but can probably be translated as Why can’t I have a simple, ordinary, normal life?

Though as far as that goes, John Denver might not be a very good role model.

 

7.04.06 influence

One of my friends just reported her therapist says that I am a bad influence.

Presumably because I counsel: Less talk, more action!

I’m off to Barcelona. Happy Independence Day!

 

7.01.06 lipstick

In case you are interested, an upcoming issue of Bitch  includes an essay I wrote about porn. I was also interviewed for the Body issue of Clamor.

Of course, I don’t think that my opinions are controversial. They are simply correct.

However, that does not mean that I have made much progress on certain core research projects. Recently I was reading a book about nonverbal communication and learned that many people find the application of lipstick sexy.

I find this information puzzling; I only dimly understand that wearing red lipstick has any meaning whatsoever, and that evidence is strictly hearsay. I certainly do not paint my lips as a come hither signal – in my mind the choice is anachronistic, not seductive.

I am not happy that anyone might get an illicit thrill by watching me smear something on my lips.

Though this won’t change my behavior or anything.

There are two things I genuinely appreciate about the UK medical system. The first is the fact that medical staff are extremely polite, and appear to care about their patients. They even have the decency to look sad when they deliver bad news.

The second is a related point: when you are obligated to have tests like, say, a pelvic ultrasound, the raw data is delivered immediately. There is no delay while assorted professionals evaluate information.

The nice woman wielding the wand of doom yesterday afternoon pointed to the image of my right ovary on the monitor and said I’ve never seen anything like this before with a puzzled and concerned expression.

Of course not. It is, after all, my body.

My annual Big Cancer Scare is generally not very interesting. It happens too often and I usually just feel annoyed. But since I recently decided to possess and exercise appropriate (some would say normal) emotions, I spent all of yesterday feeling a sort of mild terror.

Or at least observing myself attempting to feel scared; I’m still learning, after all. It is sufficiently difficult to remember that any of it is true.

Byron (along with many of my friends) takes the position that I am like a cockroach and can’t be killed; a brief consultation with him yielded the further wisdom that if I have a new and lethal cancer, at least I’ve had fun along the way.

I’m not a big fan of sympathy so I didn’t bother to mention the matter to anyone else, aside from involving Gabriel in a quest to find the phone number of my stateside oncologist as I have conveniently forgotten the name of not only the doctor but also the hospital.

I shed a few self-pitying tears, berated myself for crying, and went out to dinner. Then I watched that double episode of Wonder Woman featuring Debra Winger as Diana’s ditzy younger sister.

I walked into the appointment this morning fully prepared to hear bad news. Imagine my surprise then to hear a doctor informing me that the thing described by the technician is no cause for worry. In fact, piecing together the facts, it is probably a scar.

The growth that was under surveillance three years ago has vanished.

 

 

6.26.06 recognize

How do you recognize someone you haven’t seen in eighteen years?

Particularly if, aside from growing up, you have also created a new life far away from all that is familiar and dear? Surely we had both changed so much it would be impossible to find each other in a crowd.

These were the questions tumbling through my brain as I walked toward a Clerkenwell pub to meet David, who I haven’t spoken to since 1988.

When I found out that he lived in England I elected not to get in touch for a long time. I figured that he had remained lost for all those years because he didn’t want any of us to find him; I know very few people from my youth, and prefer to keep it that way.

Why, then, get in touch?

Because he left in a clean and subtle way, without getting tangled in the drama that destroyed the group. Because I remember that he always made me laugh, and that he enjoyed the macabre excesses of my humor. Because we ended up in the same place after all this time.

The answer of how to spot him was quickly revealed: we both, for some inexplicable reason, look the same.

My hair is long and tangled and of indeterminate color; as always, I wear weird spectacles and inappropriate clothing; the only real difference in my public persona is that I laugh without covering my mouth.

David still has short dark hair and sharp garbed demeanor and burning wit. The main difference in his manner is the acquisition, after an adult life away from home, of a hybrid accent. He no longer pronounces Olalla the way we would have back in the day – and since my own grasp of rural colloquial phrasing is draining away after only two years in this country, it was fascinating to listen to him talk.

It was a shocking thrill to find that the particular aspects of our personalities that were dark and hidden are now the most visible and pure portions of our identities. What we could smell on each other back in 1984, those profound needs that would create our small community and later drive us away from home and out into the world, are no longer secret.

We grew up and out and into new lives, and that is a dangerous thing, because it requires shedding the old life along the way. But we are still fundamentally just an inverted form of who we were all those years ago.

Meeting again was a risky proposition, and could have been a tedious exercise. I’m sure that he felt the same – what a potential bore to offer up your Friday evening to someone you knew, briefly, as an eccentric teenager in a poor mean town, particularly if you currently have a brilliant cosmopolitan lifestyle.

But we had drinks, then dinner, and then he showed me around his amazing flat, featuring many of the objects I am most obsessed with. I offered up a few morsels of breathtaking gossip about those who have gone astray, but mostly we talked about the years we haven’t known each other. We talked about living in Europe, and the experience of leaving home.

There is something tremendously valuable in knowing a person who remembers the same stories, and has a similar perspective on that beautiful wretched town, without needing to talk about what happened.

The most important thing is that we left.

 

 

6.24.06 credentials

When people ask me what I do now I try to change the subject. Failing that I give an addled and incomplete version that is often willfully deceptive. When someone else seizes control and tells the full truth I feel a flush of embarrassment and my ears turn red.

But since I live in a place where many people assign high value to professional credentials, the question comes up all the time. I’m not getting better with the answers.

But, delightfully, people often inquire about your educational background, and last weekend someone asked about my thesis.

Now, remember, I finished graduate school twelve long years ago. But I did not have to pause or think before I replied I used a participatory research methodology to examine the implementation of federal civil rights laws at the state and local level.

Sigh.

I do not miss that career. Though it was easier to explain.

 

 

6.21.06 unrequited

Recently someone asked me, with some degree of puzzlement, if I have ever experienced unrequited love.

I laughed and replied of course not.

Nothing is impossible, but I doubt that I ever will. Doing so would not be efficient.

Another night I was talking to a different person about similar topics (conversations with me veer around a bit, but can generally be described as investigative journalism) and I flourished one of my favorite old talking points, never once disputed: that nobody has ever had a crush on me, because (goes my logic) nobody has ever confessed such a thing. Much to my surprise the person I was talking to looked mildly dismayed and said But I have a crush on you, Bee. A friend crush. 

I furrowed my brow and demanded to know why this would be so. In detail. Which of course I failed to remember, but the larger point did stick in my mind. Perhaps I think that I’ve never had a crush on anyone because my definition is flawed.

Because, if a crush is defined as a flush of raw energy and instant attraction, I experience it routinely. That is the zap I often get from friendship, which for me is a very cerebral and endlessly entertaining experience. And, although my friends are often crazy, dangerous, needy, broken, or sinister, I love them. In fact, if I am being honest, my friends have broken my heart — and I expect they will continue to do so. Friendship is an imperfect vessel for intimacy.

The other kind of crush still strikes me as perplexing, and will require further pondering.

I suppose that I would be a happier person if I had figured all this out in my murky youth. But then again, maybe not.

 

 

6.21.06 consultation

In the continuing dreary saga of my genetic disorder there is one appointment that I detest more than others, and today was the big day.

I literally will not go to gynecological oncology unless a minder drags me to the hospital. Thirty minutes before I was supposed to be at Addenbrooke’s I was meandering about the city muttering that I would just skip the whole thing. But in the end, Byron forced to go and sit for hours in a waiting room chock full of people waiting for a death sentence.

When I was finally called in to see the doctor (aka the leading expert in the country) he shook my hand, opened my chart, and said Oh I do apologize. You should have had your scan before this appointment.

He asked the basic questions and I gave cursory responses followed by the comment that I’ve been waiting eighteen months for the appointment. This led to another apology and a scramble to sort out urgent testing and consultation appointments, unfortunately spread over two days next week.

I always jump to the front of the queue when the specialists see my file.

But this means that I’m losing three work days (and imposing on a friend to take the time off to supervise my behavior) for a loathsome test that everyone agrees should have been done two years ago.

The results had better not upset me. I am too busy for surgery at the moment.

 

 

6.20.06 staying

When I moved here I was bemused to find that the first question people ask is How long are you staying?

The answer matters because people move in and out of this town all the time, and some of the folks who stay grow weary of the fact that their friends move away.

At first I didn’t mind; I think that it is useful to know people all over the world. It is also true that most of my friends here are either faculty or work in research labs, so they’re relatively permanent fixtures.

But the moment has arrived – one of my favorite people is finishing her PhD and leaving to assume an academic post in another country. Oh no! Whatever will we do without Rachel’s sunny presence?

To compensate for the imminent loss I spent the better part of the weekend with Rachel and her peers and learned many interesting things about academic life. When I was actually young I was neither friendly nor decadent, so the last few days have been rather novel and amusing.

I’ll definitely have to visit Montreal now.

 

 

6.18.06 glance

During my recent travels I met an astonishing number of people who had major visual disorders as children.

We who grew up with fractured vision are an interesting small minority, unable to play sports or accurately judge whether a cupboard is about to smash into our faces. But most of us learned an early shame over the fact of our strabismus, and until now it has been rare for me to find anyone to chat with about the subject.

For most people, growing up without depth perception is complicated but not intolerable; the mind adapts to the challenge. Mine certainly did – it was the corrective surgery at age fourteen that disrupted my ability to track and organize visual cues.

Though I did gradually develop from partial to full stereoscopic vision, it was disconcerting to say the least, and while I can pass simple 3-D eye tests there are many other things I can’t do. Over the last twenty years I have often chosen to view the world with one eye closed, and it has not escaped my notice that this is symbolic.

But tell that to a person with ordinary vision and you are met with dismay or embarrassment. Between my vision, the cancer, and the genetic disorder, not to mention the oddity of my career and lifestyle, there is very little I can say in the course of an average conversation that does not at least glance at a controversial or alarming topic.

I find it shocking that over the last few months I have ceased to care about such things. My reticence has fallen away without warning.

Tonight I was talking to someone at a party and mentioned my childhood cancer as it was pertinent to whatever topic we were trundling through.

He stopped, looked pensive, and said I’m sorry.

I laughed at him and said No you’re not. That is just a platitude.

He thought for a second and then agreed.

Our conversation proceeded to veer about in a perfectly pleasant fashion. It is so refreshing to meet people who are honest about these things.

 

6.17.06 archives

The UK publisher asked for a selection of images spanning my entire life. This required opening the archives – oh my! I tend to keep everything… but also occasionally hack up stuff that makes me unhappy.

Why are there big holes in my graduation photographs? Hmmm. I don’t even remember the names at this point…..

If you knew me back in the day and are reading this, rest assured I do not plan to let the publisher see any of the pics of us frolicking about as teenagers. Though we were all so cute! I didn’t know at the time.

This is from James’ juvenilia, all of which he burned shortly thereafter. Good thing I grabbed a print or two.

Me in 1990 (age 19):

 

 

6.15.06 cover

If you know a writer, you know someone who has a major grudge with the publishing industry.

Our complaints are exhaustive; we are an articulate and grievous crew. We are in fact upset about too many things to bother documenting the sundry details. When we meet, we often trade bitter anecdotes that are interesting only to those who suffer the same indignities.

People who have never published books do not understand our pain.

From what I can gather, the issue that causes the most distress is the inevitably disastrous book cover. I can say with some confidence that I do not know anyone who has been satisfied with the way their books look.

Why? Again, the reasons are too numerous to count. Sometimes the grievance is legitimate – lots of ugly book jackets are published every year. Others are more subtle. Fundamentally it often boils down to the simple fact that someone else controls the manner by which your creative work is represented.

Even if you have some measure of sway in the decisions the process is not easy. I hated the cover of my first anthology because I thought the imagery had poor symbolic value. That experience persuaded me that I needed creative control over other books. But the second anthology caused great distress because the idea and artwork executed by a fantastic designer (and close friend) was changed by the publisher.

I was able to suggest and use the work of a friend (who also shows up as a character in the first chapter) for the memoir, and liked the results very much. But each time the book is published in another country the whole matter of the cover comes up again – and the new publisher has to make decisions about what will help sales, and they are obviously more conversant with their own culture than I could ever be.

The Swedish edition of the book had the same cover, but a translated title. The U.K. edition will have the original title but a different cover.

Wednesday evening I had a peek at the draft of the new jacket, and I have no idea how I feel about it. I furrowed my brow and consulted with my agent, and various writer and artist friends. Then I went on an odyssey through the bookshops of Muswell Hill and Crouch End, looking at covers and taking notes.

Iain very patiently joined me as I scanned shelves to find books published by the same company to compare with the cover they propose to put on mine.

It is nice to have friends who indulge my paranoia.

 

6.10.06 madness

The madness of a summer in this place could not be exaggerated. Heat and sun bring people out of their homes in droves; the parks fill up with sport and play. At night the streets of Cambridge are swarmed with hoards of drinkers. And because this is a university town the parties, particularly after exams end, are a nonstop cacophony, featuring fireworks and finery.

There are swarms of drunk people in tuxedos and ballgowns literally everywhere you look, all day and night.

For the last week I’ve been trying to catch up on work but the temptations are endless. I’ve lost whole days to entertaining frippery and found myself scribbling overdue essays on scraps of paper while riding the train back and forth to London.

 

 

6.07.06 jetlag

Can I call my current state of exhaustion jetlag when I flew out of NY still suffering the side-effects of a hugely entertaining party that lasted an entire weekend without much time for rest and contemplation? Probably not.

There is no time to catch up on sleep; mad deadlines loom and there isn’t even room to do the sundry boat maintenance tasks that I have been putting off all spring. Though I do have to clean up a bit as someone apparently infringed on my hospitality; there are empty Stella bottles littering the top of the boat. I presume this happened during the Strawberry Fair, as other boaters reported some skirmishes with people camping on the common.

Two weeks away from my normal routine offered a necessary respite and too many interesting adventures to describe. Stella and Al were coincidentally visiting the city at the same time, and they threw a lovely dinner party with Tae in Harlem. Later KTS and I went to see Al perform at the Sidewalk Cafe, and hung around outside the club with Stella and other folks, catching up.

It was somewhat eerie to be surrounded by people I intentionally did not know in college (including but not limited to KTS), listening to a performer I never would have imagined would end up a dear friend.

I cannot adequately describe this disjunction of past and present; I loathed the Olympia scene and it is a neverending source of wonder that so much of my current social life revolves around people who were there at the same time.

I’m not one to regret past failures. There is no point wondering if my life would have been better if I’d had friends in college. I was too angry, and too busy, to have been part of the culture of that town and school, and it is sufficient to realize that the problem was me, not the place.

Besides, would I have wanted all of my best memories and most genius experiences to have happened before I turned twenty-five? No. I’m having fun now, and that is not something that a lot of grown-ups can claim.

On the last night in the city I met Ayun and her kids at the Issue Project Room to attend a benefit for the Hungry March Band European tour. I felt a slight undercurrent of sadness at first because I miss singing with the Chorus and all of the madcap Portland excursions, but that sentiment was washed away by the booming beat of the marching band.

The intensity of the performance and the crazed response of the crowd filled me up with joy and Ayun grabbed me and made me dance.

 

 

6.6.06 debauchery

The NY trip was arranged to allow plenty of time for work and visiting friends, but the primary purpose of the journey was to attend a wedding.

I met the prospective groom in 1988, when we both attended a summer leadership institute as idealistic seventeen-year-olds. One day early in the program we were all sent to do volunteer work in the Emergency Housing section of the CD, which at the time was a brutally scary place for our middle class peers to hang out. It only took about ten minutes before we lost a naive girl from a ranch on the eastern side of the state.

When the others scattered to search for her, Karl and I sat down on a boulder and stared at our feet. We hadn’t talked before then. After a long pause he asked What do you think happened to her?

I replied I reckon she’s dead.

He responded My best friend just committed suicide.

Of course, I laughed.

One day during media training we were taught how to shake hands and state our names in a persuasive way, and he insisted on using and emphasizing his middle initial. This led to everyone (or maybe just me) mocking him by referring to him as Karl T Steel throughout the summer and, as far as I could cultivate it, for years to come.

A few days after the institute ended I went on a catastrophic road trip that nearly killed three of my best friends. KTS was supposed to be in the car that day, but at the last minute I didn’t pick him up. If he had been the fifth passenger he would surely have died. The velocity of his body slamming through the vehicle might have killed the rest of us.

He doesn’t remember it, but he came to the hospital and sat with me in intensive care, listening to me talk fast against the pain of a broken face. My jaw was dislocated and I’m sure that I made no sense at all, rattling through one macabre anecdote after another. He sat next to the bed all day, patiently listening, not showing any horror over the spectacle of my smashed body. Karl T Steel won my deep and abiding loyalty that day.

With my education, friendships, and body wrecked beyond repair, I became a zealot in service to the youth empowerment movement. Over the course of the next year I traveled through the state checking on the progress of various projects, recruited for the institute, speaking to civic groups, fundraising working the media, lobbying, working ceaselessly to build something called the Youth Initiative.

KTS quite likely had more entertaining things to do but he allowed himself to be washed along in these plans. At my bidding he gave speeches to the Rotary Club (in which he falsely claimed that he had been a homeless drug addict until the institute saved him), attended countless meetings, helped run events, went to rallies, and even joined the Sea Scouts as part of my scheme to take over a warehouse on the waterfront.

Later we went to the same alternative liberal arts college, but we stopped talking because KTS got hip and I got pregnant.

I married someone KTS still claims is the scariest person he has ever met. Karl immersed himself in the Olympia scene and was a DJ at Thekla. I wandered around wearing a shirt that said One Shot, One Kill. We loathed each other on principle, ostensibly for lifestyle choices but more realistically because we were trying to grow up and needed to shed the past.

When friendships die my tendency is to quietly fade away. I do not participate in fights and confrontations. If I insult someone it is generally an accident. But whenever KTS and I met we verbally eviscerated each other: our altercations were legendary. Strangers in cafes would stare in shock.

These conversations were not even benign at the first point of contact. I would start with something like Why are you wasting your life?

He would reply with Why are you so straight?

I would counter Define your terms. Or are you linguistically lazy on top of everything else?

To be fair, although we meant everything we said, we were also laughing. KTS has a scathing wit and an absolute genius for high sarcasm. I never felt insulted by his observations; he was correct in his estimation that all my life choices were contrary and provocative. I was right to perceive that he was not doing the work that he ought to.

When we both moved to different cities and I no longer had an equal and scathing sparring partner… I found that I missed him.

When I started to write Lessons in Taxidermy I remembered the kindness of that boy who sat with me in the hospital and tracked him down. We started corresponding and the first thing he wrote was an apology for being a jerk.

I demurred and pointed out that I was just as much of an idiot (and that he did my statistics homework at the height of our supposed feud). Eventually we started visiting each other, and our friendship now is something I truly value, perhaps even more because we went through so much to get to this point.

I travelled to New Jersey to watch Karl (currently a medievalist finishing a PhD at Columbia) marry his sweetheart, a woman named Alison (a novelist). I caught a ride to the wedding with Matt, who is married to my former editor at Seal Press. I went to college with Matt, and the fourth passenger, but didn’t know them at the time – along with a whole bunch of other people I would meet later that day, thus continuing the all-Olympia-all-the-time theme of my trip.

Though to be fair, there were also a couple of people who live in my former Seattle and Portland neighborhoods, and others who know my NW friends who live in NYC. The Pacific Northwest thing functions as a sort of alternative secret society.

The groom wore the suit his father-in-law was married in forty years ago; the bride supervised an astonishing amount of the work that went into the day, including making all of the flowers on the cake by hand. Alison’s parents generously offered their home for the ceremony and then excused themselves from the ensuing debauchery. What else can be said about a wedding? The vows and toasts were both hilarious and extraordinary.

The guests, after a few rounds of drinks, split into three groups. There were family and friends of the family, all of them lovely and kind. There were the friends of the bride (and latterly the groom of course), who all appeared to have impeccable manners and interesting jobs.

Then there were the friends from the groom’s past, starting with me as the oldest vintage and unspooling outward through college (JJ, Joey, Matt) and his life in NY (Ana Erotica, Josh, Margaret). This contingent was later described by Matt as the Bad Kids.

Normally I think that I would gravitate toward the middle group; Gabriel mostly hung out with them and had a great time. But for some unknown reason I found myself claimed by the third group, troublemakers all, though a few might not see themselves that way.

Everyone in the third group had funny Bad Karl stories, but I was unique in that I could produce copies of his juvenile poetry. Also his high school graduation photograph, in which he is wearing jeans decorated with anarchy symbols and Smiths lyrics. It might be harder to locate but there is also video footage of a certain lip-synching contest many people would like to forget. Not that I would put these on display – I may be occasionally naughty but I’m not wicked.

Perhaps because I do not karaoke, I ended up hanging out with the crew who were determined to finish all three kegs, at whatever cost; the people who went on an illicit skinnydipping raid of a neighbors pool; and the couples who may or may not have hooked up somewhere on the premises.

It was my naive question that kicked off the kegstand tournament (though I refused to participate, especially when the boys offered to pay me and promised to hold my dress together).

I ran around most of the evening with the squad competing to win the Most Drunk contest, and it was our persuasive charms that convinced someone to karaoke naked to This Old Man. Somewhere in the middle of the night everyone was screaming the lyrics to Too Drunk to Fuck, which was probably an accurate assessment of their state.

At the end one of the Bad Kids tried to persuade me to get in a car with an open Tupperware mixing bowl full of alcohol. When I said no they tried to woo me with promises of cocaine back at the hotel, but Ana Erotica defended my honor. Stop! Bee doesn’t… do that. 

In other words, it was a brilliant weekend, and the best wedding I’ve ever attended.

Gabriel & me having fun:

I always have to take a date to weddings for fear of, I don’t know, contamination – but on this occasion Gabriel’s presence was my gift to the couple. He filled a book with drawings of the event:

Alison and Karl changed their clothes seconds after they exchanged vows – a good thing since we churned the backyard into a muddy mess posthaste:

There was a pinata for the youngsters; Ana qualified!

Everything went a bit fuzzy as the evening progressed; Naked Karaoke was one result:

But most people kept their clothes on. And Karl was happier than I’ve ever seen him (and it wasn’t because he was drinking straight from the pitcher):

 

 

6.02.06 hospitality

When I arrived in New York I was sick, and then the place I had planned to stay fell through, but I was rescued by friends old and new. I was astonished once again that people can be so generous – particularly those who let me crash in their precious private space.

Jess and Brian have my sincere and lasting appreciation. The folks who called in favors to get me sorted medically know that they can call on me for help whenever they like. I am of course humbled to discover that so many people will offer advice and solace: thank you.

Once I had rested enough to enjoy the city I had a predictably fabulous time, much of it based around …. shopping! Life in the UK offers many pleasures, but not necessarily all the consumer goods I feel compelled to acquire.

Brisk effort quickly procured moisturizer, sunblock, new shoes, a dress with buttons on the sleeve, and of course, new spectacles. What would a trip to NYC be without a visit to Fabulous Fanny’s? The proprietor has style to spare but, unusually, is totally honest about which frames look good on my face. And, this time, the shop had expanded – he showed me some special things in a back cupboard!

I visited with too many people to list, but aside from those noted above had an opportunity to see Ayun a couple of times. One humid Saturday I stood laughing in her kitchen all afternoon, watching her make food from a crumpled up twenty-five year old recipe that had been through the wash.

She pieced the paper together like a puzzle but pieces kept blowing away, and she wasn’t really sure of how much flour or sugar to put in the cupcakes, but the end result was of course delightful. Then she took me to a picnic in Central Park, where I finally got to meet Spencer, and hang out with charming denizens of the stage and screen. My favorite guest (held aloft by Ayun):

Other features of the trip included watching a lightning storm from the Q train as it crossed the river; eating vegetarian dim sum with Gabriel in Chinatown; and winning a small green accordion at a spelling bee (even though it was a consolation prize).

 

6.01.06 dismantling

I started this journal four years ago to document the process of dismantling my settled, lovely, and rather boring life in Portland. Since then I’ve lived in and abandoned Seattle, emigrated to England, and travelled so extensively I can’t even remember which country I’m in half the time. Not to mention all the strange and secret developments along the way.

There has been hilarity and heartbreak in equal measure, and it would have been far easier to stay home, but I’m glad that I made the effort.

 

Greetings from a borrowed Brooklyn garden on a gorgeous hot day! I’ve been so busy there hasn’t been a spare second to report on my escapades.

In case you were wondering, this is what top secret projects look like:

 

 

5.23.06 significance

May 22 has had huge significance these last five years; I really do not know why so many interesting and odd things happen on that particular day, but it is true.

Yesterday I went to London to meet with (and this would be the announcement of my most recent thrilling secret) the UK publishing firm that just optioned Lessons in Taxidermy: Orion Books.

The editors, marketing staff, and publicists were excessively professional and lovely and we feasted on cake as we worked out the plan to promote the book.

Then my agent (another new development) took me to tea at the Savoy.

I find this all quite extraordinary.

 

5.18.06 ask

Today as I cycled toward yet another Addenbrooke’s appointment my progress was thwarted by throngs of Elizabethans cluttering Trinity street, with police escort. I sighed and paused to let the trucks full of movie equipment pass, then dodged through crowds of women in long velvet gowns and men in metal helmets.

When I stopped for tea in the market square the friendly chap on the stall inquired what I planned to do with such a glorious day; when I informed him that I was going to a surgery clinic at the teaching hospital his eyes widened and he asked What will they do to you?

I shrugged the reply Nothing. Though I still have to go.

I was right; the appointment was a routine x-ray examination, with an obligatory short conversation with a person who may or may not have been a surgeon (doctors and surgeons have different professional titles and I can’t keep the facts straight).

I might claim that it was surreal that, after reviewing my chart, she asked So you have had lesions in your jaw?! in a shocked and perplexed voice, even though my records clearly state that I’ve had at least half a dozen surgeries for that particular anomaly. She had never met anyone with the genetic disorder, never encountered anyone like me, ever.

I’m used to conversing with baffled medical personnel, and I know how to read my own x-rays.

I patiently pointed out the areas where the tumors grew (easy, that – look for missing teeth and bingo!). Old scarred bits are the grayish areas. New tumors are clear circles.

Here in the UK they always, without exception, treat me with tender concern and ask if I have any questions. I try not to feel exasperated when I give a cursory No.

Why would I have questions for someone who has never met a live human with the disorder? I’ve been living with it my entire life. I’m the best expert available.

But again, that is all routine. The new and interesting bit was the fact that the walls of the examination rooms featured signs that read It’s okay to ask! with a picture of hands being washed.

The small print informs patients that they should not feel nervous about asking staff and visitors to scrub. The lack of hand hygiene has been my number one complaint in the hospitals in this country.

Last year when the nurse started taking stitches out of my face without properly scrubbing, I was momentarily speechless, and then my brain kicked into rage.

When the fellow chirped an inquiry about the biopsy I snarled It was cancer, making him jump.

He knew that the results had not been added to my chart and nervously asked why I thought the news was bad.

I retorted Because I have cancer.

It would have been far more effective to ask him to wash his hands, but I didn’t process the information that quickly.

But anyway, my x-ray was clean, the appointment over in less than twenty minutes including the removal and re-installation of earrings never taken out otherwise over the course of twenty-five years, and then I rode the bus back into town, sitting in the front row of the top of a double decker, peering down at bits of the city I never see from the seat of my bicycle.

I checked my mail and was amused to discover that my referral to gyn-oncology finally went through, precisely eighteen months after my GP put in the request. Since every single one of my other specialist appointments were issued within days of the original request, this delay has struck me as particularly fascinating.

In this country they do not do yearly pap smears; there is controversy over the efficacy of mammogram; certain breast cancer drugs accepted as proven elsewhere in Europe and the US are denied as experimental (read: expensive), and a person like me can’t get an appointment for love nor money.

My GP tried, several times. I talked to the clinic directly. Nothing happened until the geneticist intervened. Though to be fair, my GP did recently refer me to the private system covered by my insurance; I just didn’t have time to make the trek out to Trumpington.

I find it ever so interesting that it is easy to get treatment for the symptoms that are not dependent on my gender, and nearly impossible to see a gynecologist. The reverse is true where I come from.

Later I sat on the wall at St. John’s for a bit, watching Cate Blanchett swan around pretending to be Queen Elizabeth. Some giggling undergrads came through the gates all aflutter to have spotted Clive Owen.

 

5.17.06 nouns

I’ve never been very good with nouns when speaking out loud. The names of objects, in particular, often escape me – as do the names of people I know.

I click my fingers and substitute whatsit for cup and it for the name of a friend’s beloved child.

Living in another country exacerbates this problem, even though the language here is the same one I ostensibly grew up speaking.

Some of the differences are easy to remember: pants are not trousers, for instance.

But unfortunately the multitudes of other differences are more difficult to track. The fact that a number of my friends grew up speaking various other languages, or different dialects of English, adds to the confusion as we sit over a late dinner lavishly describing something that could be covered with one precise word, if only we knew what it was.

 

5.16.03 privacy

My need for privacy overwhelms any urge toward disclosure, in matters both large and small. I do and feel and think all sorts of things that I would never write about, nor even discuss in person. In fact, I can state with some degree of accuracy that nobody reading these words actually knows that much about me, regardless of how long they have been in my acquaintance – or how intimately involved in my escapades.

Most people who hang out with me find this infuriating. Unless they have told me a secret, in which case they are cautiously optimistic that I will not expose them.

I do tell the truth – and occasionally I shock people with information that I would categorize as obvious or trivial – but for the most part I am simply not interested in providing a detailed summary of my existence. And yes, I am aware that this stance appears contradictory given the fact that I have written a memoir (not to mention the existence of this journal).

If I could conceal more I would; for instance, in most of my published writing I have attempted to obfuscate details like the name of the town where I went to college. Mostly because that particular place has a specific meaning for many people, and using the word would distract from the point I was trying to make in a couple of essays. There are numerous examples like this.

Then there is also my (sometimes reckless) refusal to be affiliated with any organized group or institution, and a persistent belief that my actions do not define my identity.

Often this tendency is useful in pragmatic ways; it certainly contributes to my ability to skip through wildly disparate social situations. Other times my desire to keep secrets seems to be a pathological anomaly that should be discarded posthaste.

Doing so would at least improve my conversational range. I’ve been away to London for a few days to celebrate something I’m not prepared to talk about, and I’m off to New York soon to meet Gabriel and work on a top secret project. What is left to write about except a report on the (currently vile) weather?

The fact that I’ve developed an allergy to my favorite sunblock isn’t a scintillating topic.

 

5.09.06 associations

I went away for a week and the city bloomed! The riverbank is awash with Queen Anne’s lace (or at least, I think that is what it is called – I’m no naturalist), the nettles keep grabbing my ankles when I jump on and off the boat, the trees are glistening with new leaves, and the Jesus Ditch is home to a fresh crop of ducklings!

The reading at the Horse Hospital was great fun, though I was temporarily rendered homesick by the Portland theme and glimpses of so many friends and familiar places. But the lovely audience briskly cured me of the flash of nostalgic longing.

There are too many new friends and adventures in my future to worry much about the past, especially when I can go home and visit whenever I like.

It was quite splendid to chat with various audience members, including a nice fellow who corresponded with me before the move to the UK, a man I met in Rochester who has a jealousy-inducing taxidermy collection and beautiful children, a nifty woman I met online who knows NY friends in real life, a highly entertaining literary agent, and the publishers of Nude Magazine.

And, though it seems odd, I’ve grown fond of seeing people out of context. It was nice to spend time with Pete and Chloe in a place that is not cluttered with previous associations. Particularly since Xtina and Iain are such gracious guides.

 

5.06.06 confectionary

Do you ever feel like your life has spun into a confectionary dream? Full of adventure, fun, thrilling secrets, and too many treats to document without a penitential visit to the dentist? Yeah, I know, me neither.

I’m back from a long road trip around the UK with Chloe, Iain, and Xtina including sights too numerous to list. Highlights included Derek Jarman’s garden, visits with artists and musicians in Rochester and Brighton, a mad dash down the coast, and a hotel full of mannequins.

My life this week looks like pure sugar candy:

Check out the nifty translation prepared by my Swedish publisher:

 

4.26.06 aquatic

My battered knees are slowly healing and have now reached what could best be termed the crispy stage: I can get around, but it isn’t much fun to pedal.

I do not like being deprived of my daily bike rides, particularly on brilliant spring mornings. Though the river was quiet today and I could peer down and watch the fish squirming about in the green luminous water.

In my (vibrantly obsessive) childhood I refused to swim in fresh water because fish scared me. I also refused to eat them, for similar reasons. Now I am hugely entertained by the thought of the aquatic life all around me.

 

4.25.06 class

I’ve just finished reading The Likes of Us by Michael Collins, a remarkable book that should be assigned reading. While he describes a very particular version of working-class culture, there are many similarities between his description of English urban poverty and the rural American variety I grew up in.

Collins makes a consistent argument against the sort of journalistic slumming that puts middle-class people in contrived poverty situations to collect data and report back to a scandalized public that, you know, it really sucks to be poor.

The examples of this are legion, stretching back hundreds of years and continuing today; well-meaning, surely, but essentially irritating to anyone who has a legitimate working-class background because those journalists mucking about in our world can always leave.

They have comfortable lives to return to; they have a privileged background that (unless they starved themselves on purpose) generally included sufficient nutrition and medical care to assure their health will not be derailed by the experience.

Toward the end of the book he goes home to a neighborhood that has been social-engineered nearly out of existence and visits a few friends. A boy he grew up with looks him up and down and says I bet you ain’t got a mark on you.

When I go home I rarely see anyone from the old days. My friends, with few exceptions, have fled to distant cities. Those who would more easily be described as enemies are no longer recognizable; we met last in adolescence and seventeen years does change a person.

The place itself has been mangled by reckless suburban development schemes: the forest of my childhood has dwindled to a strip of trees separating a trailer park from a busy road.

When I see a familiar face, I am not even able to place a name or memory to the ghost. And I clearly look like what I am: a newly minted member of the educated professional middle-class. I do not have a mark on me, despite the scars, and this does not endear me to folks back home. I keep my mouth shut and move along.

Poverty in and of itself does not offer a class identity. Many people choose to live ascetically; others are knocked down by circumstance, and do not find community with those at the bottom. One of the most endearing things about The Likes of Us is the way the author concisely describes an autonomous, protective, and meaningful subculture of people looking after their own.

To be working-class is to enjoy a particular world view that cannot be manually replicated.

My own expulsion from that close-knit (and, yes, at times dangerous) subculture was accidental, and a by-product of both the cancer and the experience of becoming a teen parent. I needed a good job that would provide benefits, and that could not be obtained without a college education. One thing followed another; I am more surprised than anyone to find myself so far from home.

It is a privilege to be an adult who can cross the class divide and know people from different backgrounds. But it is an even greater luxury that I have found other class traitors wandering the world, people who respect their working-class antecedents and keep that rawness alive inside.

 

 

4.22.06 groping

Chloe will be visiting England soon (don’t forget about the event, Londoners!) and I felt obligated to warn her, as a fellow child of the Pacific Northwest, about a feature of UK life that I find shocking:

When the weather warms up, the parks turn into make-out central. People spread out their picnic blankets, pop open the champagne, and then proceed to roll around groping each other.

Now, it might just be Cambridge – I haven’t travelled much in this country – but it is an extraordinary sight.

Today was the first full-fledged example. It was still cold enough that I had to wear gloves, but huge numbers of people were in shorts and skimpy tops, lolling about in the fields by the Mill, congregating in droves on Jesus Green, necking! This is highly amusing, particularly if the participants are the corduroy-trousered academic types.

The English have a reputation for reticence but I guess that picnics must offer some kind of aphrodisiac. Or something.

 

4.21.06 heart

The appointment went exactly as predicted, except for one major caveat: Addenbrooke’s is without a doubt the best medical facility I have ever encountered. My experiences with the NHS have absolutely convinced me that socialized medicine is superior to market-based health care.

The quality of care is higher, the doctors more thoughtful, the system less rushed. I am aware of some of the problems, particularly for elderly and rural patients, but the fact that a major teaching hospital is so competent and kind is at least symbolic.

Except of course hand hygiene, but more on that later.

Various plans have been organized, not least of which is a repeat of the fancy DNA testing, which is marginally exciting. I’ve done it before but only with formal promises of confidentiality and destruction of the sample. Now that I live in a land where my genetic profile will not lead to discrimination in insurance and employment, sign me up!

Most of the facts discussed were known; the debates predictable (nobody else in the world has ever presented with my precise symptoms in combination, or any of said symptoms as an infant – I am nothing if not ambitious). The only new information I gleaned is the notion that I am at risk of developing heart fibromas.

Fun!

I still feel a distinct confusion over how any of this can be true. Will age and wisdom change that? Doubtful.

 

4.21.06 sleeves

One of the fundamental rules of chronic illness is look respectable and worthy of services when visiting the doctor.

This is difficult enough for me at the best of times; with a collection of tights decimated by cycling trauma, and a wardrobe appropriate either for mucking about on boats or performing in front of an audience, definitely a challenge.

But the main problem, of course, is the tattoo.

It honestly never occurred to me that anyone would treat me any differently because there is a picture on my arm. The first time it happened the tattoo was still fresh, I was in a museum in NYC, and a security guard decided to be my new best friend.

I thought that encounter was a fluke, but a very specific sort of muscled short-haired bouncer has been a constant presence ever since, all over the world. It happens at shows, at galleries, in the Lego aisle at Hamley’s.

This makes no sense to me, as my essential physical attributes (or as Moe used to say, skills) are exactly the same, and I wear mostly the same clothes. But apparently, if my arm is exposed, I am obligated to talk to strangers.

At first I had no tricks to defer the attention — the most significant example was the time I literally ran away from a guard at the Vatican, leaving a very amused Gabriel to inform the fellow that I am shy.

I nearly assaulted a bouncer in Hell’s Kitchen who wouldn’t let me leave a bar (I considered breaking his fingers but instead just… moved him aside). Eventually I learned to smile and answer questions before inching away: No, it didn’t hurt. I don’t know how long it took, maybe ten hours. I don’t know how much it cost, I didn’t pay for it. I had it done in a city far, far away. Um, okay, gotta go…

Waiters in France pet my hair and sing to me. Old navy vets glare. And of course there was the incident with the Holocaust survivor. These encounters, without exception, only happen if I have on short sleeves.

Covering up the arm for a hospital appointment, then, is critical. I need to find not only a clean, intact, modest garment – but one that reaches at least to my elbow.

Sigh.

At least it takes my mind off the fact that I do not enjoy being a first generation mutation.

 

4.20.06 bound

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Cycling jauntily through town, baskets full of groceries, I moved to dismount … and for no apparent reason fell… into the middle of one of the busiest roads in the city.

Luckily I did not get run over, though both of my knees are smashed up. The injuries at a glance will not require emergency medical attention, though they are far worse than that time I went tumbling down the path at Kubota Gardens.

The only casualties so far are a head of lettuce and my last pair of intact tights.

Back to picking gravel out of my body.

 

4.18.06 fun

To shore up the impression that my life is just a nonstop whirlwind of fun, I would like to share that in a few days I get to have the special experience of hobnobbing with the staff of a medical genetics clinic.

And, although this will be my first encounter with said professionals in a UK hospital setting, the appointment will be predictable in all aspects. They will poke various bits of me as I verbally rattle through the checklist faster than they can remember what to ask.

I will flash a few scars, get photographed, and impress everyone with my astonishing grasp of a disease that I have, after all, lived with for thirty-five years. Whichever doctor is assigned my case will perhaps have met three or four other people with the diagnosis. Though usually, they’ve never seen a live specimen.

Not exactly my favorite adventure, but sometimes necessary in order to secure referrals to the specialist clinics that I have been avoiding for a few years now.

The best part of the process is filling out the family disease tree. This one was particularly hilarious before I even made it too far past the basics like age and address.

If you tick the “yes I have visited Genetics” box, they give you a space about the size of a matchbook to list where you have been seen previously. I conscientiously gave the full names of three major teaching hospitals, a military facility, and the clinical study I sometimes halfway cooperate with.

The space allocated for a list of cancer treatments was even smaller, leaving me no choice but to use the columns reserved for siblings to describe my assortment of maladies. After all, I have no siblings.

Ha! Take that, poorly designed form!

 

4.14.06 bucolic

I’ve lived in this town long enough to dread the start of tourist season, which roughly coincides with…. this weekend. There are tour groups throughout the year but as soon as the daffodils bloom the town is awash with strangers bumbling about taking photographs and impeding traffic. For the most part I avoid the city centre during the day, but the gawking crowds also enjoy the bucolic calm of the river (and so they should).

But they don’t just stroll by. They peer in my windows and, when they can catch me, ask impudent questions. Um, no, Stranger… you may not take a photograph. My boat and I are not on the list of approved local attractions.

Nor should you inquire how much a narrowboat costs, unless you wish to purchase one, in which case I can give you a few numbers of people who are currently selling.

My friend Sally lives in a thatched-roof cottage in a twee village nearby and she tells a funny story about waking one morning to find forty strangers assembled on her doorstep with easels, making paintings of her home.

This too would probably fall in the range of, at the very least, surreal, even if not technically intrusive. At least the cast members at theme parks get paychecks for dealing with this sort of scrutiny every day.

 

4.12.06 measure

When I first arrived in this country I was so nervous I could only just barely stay on my bicycle. It is a measure of how much I’ve changed that the other day I found myself pedaling at top speed down a narrow congested street, baskets laden with groceries, talking on a mobile phone and waving a wild hello at Magnus while somehow also keeping my skirt from blowing up around my ears.

 

4.11.06 sixteen

The day I graduated from high school I whiled away the tediously long ceremony at the county fairgrounds by ripping out the hem of my dress, a psychedelic blue and orange vintage thing with enormous pointy collars.

My mother had shortened it to match the white robe, but I had a foot of swirling color showing by the time I marched on stage, condoms pinned to my cap in protest against the school anti-sex-ed policy, to firmly shake the hand of a superintendent who knew me as the girl who would be happy to tangle the district in multiple lawsuits if not allowed to graduate on time.

Oh, and also because I had both failed my senior year and secured five merit scholarships. While graduating on time, with enough credits to have walked out a year earlier. What a conundrum.

After the ceremony I paused for a series of photographs with people I would mostly never see again, announced to assembled family members that I was not available for a celebratory dinner, grabbed the hand of my loathed boyfriend’s confused best friend, and scrambled away through the parking lot.

Dashing between dusty cars with a kid I didn’t care one bit about I saw David, who had been a good friend through numerous adolescent horrors, adventures, and schemes. David was a hilarious and clever boy who generously adopted one of my guinea pigs when I had to move out of the family house for awhile. I stopped only long enough to flash the favored hand gesture of the metal kids before jumping in my car and racing away.

Since then I’ve heard not one word from David, nor even any gossip about him, except the information that he moved out of the country. As a general rule those of us who banded together for safety at age thirteen severed our ties with each other, and our hometown, as soon as we were old enough to leave. It was well over a decade before a few people made tentative contact; the handful of friends who are back in my life have reinvented themselves almost beyond recognition.

If anyone had asked me in 1989 I would have predicted that most of us would die, or at the very least remain trapped by the poverty and despair of our gorgeous communal landscape. Very few people I knew back then have moved more than a hundred miles from home.

I find it quite odd that I live in England, let alone all of the other strange facts about my grownup life. I sincerely value the friends who made similar fairy-tale escapes, but for the most part I have to fly somewhere to visit them.

Imagine my surprise then to learn that David actually lives in London and, from all accounts, is a fabulous adult version of the boy I once knew.

Of course I’m not interested in reviewing the past, except for literary purposes, so the catch-up emails and texts have been quite minimal in terms of information; I can in fact cover sixteen years of lapsed friendship with a cryptic half-sentence.

But it is extremely nice to know that there is another exile from home nearby.

 

4.10.06 translation

I’m sitting here eating salty licorice and pondering the fact that Lessons in Taxidermy is being translated to Svenska. The book will be available in stores in Sweden later this year!

 

4.6.06 bristol

I had to scamper away to Bristol and Bath for the week; both were great fun, although I was felled by illness mid-trip and spent too much time bemoaning the fact that <i>it is not fair to get sick because I’ve had more than my share of the nonsense</i>.

Through the fog I did notice the exquisite beauty of the area…. I would love to take my boat to Bristol to moor! And not just because the city has great restaurants too. Anyway, home now, and trying to catch up on work and email and boat maintenance tasks.

 

4.1.06 images

Pussymouth was the emcee, the venue filled up with beautiful friends old and new, I was asked to sign a library card, a breast, and an ass – Portland always provides scads of fun. Some images from the event at In Other Words:

The audience – note defensive body language!

Marisa performed:

Then asked me for an autograph:

 

4.1.06 event

London! Check out this May event:

Stumptown Show & Tell
Thursday 4th May, 7.30pm

In case you were wondering, wearing an outfit normally reserved for parties and performances whilst traveling by taxi, subway, and mercilessly long international flights is not a good plan.

 

3.28.2006 adventure

The first and most startling adventure happened immediately upon settling in for the tedious transcontinental flight: the stranger next to me attempted to make small talk. I hardly knew what to think as no seat-mate has ever talked to me on a plane (and I might remind you that I fly more every year than most people do in a lifetime). And, instead of glaring at the fellow, I made at least an attempt at idle chitchat before retiring to stand near the rear toilets and play with a borrowed iPod.

The first destination was home: parents, dinner with my only surviving grandparent, catching up on news of cousins and aunts and uncles, new babies, more cancer, a stumbling economy, local hatred of Wal-Mart; small-town America, my family, the Olympic mountains at sunset, and a tremendous sadness over the fact that I live so far away. And profound relief that I escaped.

Then Portland, another lost home, where I made the mistake of jumping on the light rail without asking anyone for advice. This meant that I landed randomly in a part of the city no longer even marginally recognizable, and had to use my phone to ask for navigational advice from Gabriel which was accurate but confusing) and Marisa (who wanted to come rescue me though I refused).

Wandering through the Mississippi neighborhood I was bemused to find, instead of boarded storefronts, a swanky collection of restaurants, cafes, bars, bike shops, even an upscale plant nursery. Quite a change from olden times. I’m guessing that my old street is no longer a crack corridor.

After a quick stop at the house to say hello to Gabriel and the rest of the Liston clan (who often drop in from Colorado) it was onward with Marisa to a birthday party at Kelly Point Park in honor of the delightful Anna Ruby. It was immensely bewildering and sweet to sit there in the spring sunshine talking to EB, Stevie, Erin Scarum, Ana Helena, Chris, the two Alex-es (both U. and Thunder Pumpkin), and a host of people I had never met before. I truly love and miss my friends even if I rarely tell them so:

The party devolved to a room full of folks stripped to their skivvies gathered around a roaring wood fire. People laughed and gossiped and made long-distance phone calls to badger Stevie’s younger brother for his perspective (as a representative male) over various points of developmental physiology.

When asked what I wanted to do, the answer was invariably just hang out with you so the only full day in town was spent talking to sts over breakfast, lounging on AR’s bed, rambling around, eating lunch at a taqueria, dropping off a package for Chloe, and drinking tea at Half and Half.

The reading itself was great fun and I had a chance to chat with Nicole, Sonny (who is planning to visit!), Loree (we commiserated over the need to sell the Seattle house), Ally (hurray!), and a score of other friends, along with a sizable number of people I met for the first time.

Shemo hatched a plot to stage a special private basement show in honor of AR after the reading and I took on the task of keeping her out of the house until ten that night, no easy task as my friends are not really the sort to hang out in bars, an opinion I share in the smoking states, especially when I’m high on performance adrenaline.

But we ended up at at a bar, where I listened in bemusement as a group of people all solemnly agreed that passion dies in long-term relationships. Normally I would never comment on such things, but apparently I have unwittingly become the sort of person who has these conversations, and I insisted forcefully that relationships that last for years can in fact be hotter than those that last only as long as initial infatuation. Oh, and that I wouldn’t accept less.

At the appointed hour we convened in the basement and Anna Ruby was delighted and surprised. Everyone else drank whiskey and Stevie held me tight and I wanted to stay in that basement forever:

I never want to visit Portland, mostly because I miss everyone so much, and I knew that it would be painful to leave. AR made tortillas and black beans and salsa for breakfast, Ana Helena dropped in and I learned that she will be in Barcelona on and off this year (which means I will certainly see her), along with instigating a comparison of lingerie that forced me to defend my honor and state emphatically that I am wearing the same identical set of unmentionables that I sported the day I moved away.

If I look different it is because I have grown friendly in my old age, not because my appearance has changed. Stevie didn’t believe me but Ana agreed upon inspection that she’d seen the undergarment before.

Marisa and I realized that we were flying at the same time on the same airline so Anna Ruby dropped us at the airport, and when saying farewell became the most recent friend I’ve used the l-o-v-e word in reference to. Marisa and I were able to hang out for a few extra hours, sitting on the floor and eating chocolate AR packed for us.

The visceral, awful, searing sorrow of departure only hit my mid-section when she walked away to board the plane.

The borrowed iPod offered up a song from another local friend that I played over and over to hear a familiar voice singing I’m doing fine just fine / I’m doing fine.

Then the fellow next to me tapped my arm and wanted to talk about the gadget. What exactly has changed in my demeanor to make strangers think they can talk to me? It is very confusing, as I certainly look the same as I ever have.

San Francisco was deliberately planned as respite and offered up lots of fun. I had breakfast with Jen K to catch up on gossip and thesis progress, and drinks with Hiya, who insisted on introducing me to various people as her “famous writer friend.”

They were all invariably more dazzled to be introduced to Gordon, described by Hiya as the “world famous cheesemonger.” I hung out with Anna, and Freakstorm, and a whole passel of beautiful vivacious children. I kept Gordon up too late every night talking, wandered around the city, and admired the Doggie Diner sign:

Other highlights include sitting in a kitchen in my jammies without any lipstick on (unusual to the point of nonexistent in my life; there are people convinced that I never take it off) talking to Fran at midnight; running into friends around town; walking on a beach at sunset while Gordon taunted me about his vision of a film version of my book.

He claims that he would cast Britney Murphy. Good thing he is a cheesemonger and not a film director.

I spent an afternoon blissfully alone at a laundromat, without anyone expecting anything of me, no deadlines to meet, no appointments to keep, listening to old punk music on the new borrowed iPod, eating jellybeans, and reading celebrity gossip magazines.

There was also a party courtesy of the cheese crew, at which I caught up with Daphne, Soulmine (and her lovely boys), and Jaina Bee, along with meeting lots of new people, and witnessing the evisceration of a pig:

Marisa, Sarah-Jane, and Amanda showed up toward the end of the party which made me very happy. Though at one point as I told Marisa a story she blinked and interrupted to ask another one of her patented Big Questions.

When I shrugged and said it’s complicated she wanted a better response, which just isn’t within my repertoire. I mean, I had to write a book to answer a question she asked me in 1999!

The most interesting point is perhaps the fact that I have been telling the same stories for years.  Before March of 2006 people chose to interpret them differently than they do now, even though my script has not changed.

If I am mysterious (and I was informed by yet another reliable witness during the SF trip that this is true – even when I am at my most forcibly transparent and telling the absolute stark truth) it is certainly not deliberate.

I presume anyone paying attention can figure out the back story without confirmation of my specific actions or beliefs. If not… whatever.

Oh, and in my continuing study of flirtation, I only managed to take one SF vote, from Gordon: he says that I do not flirt. But he agreed that such things are regional and cultural and that someone who grew up in California would have a different scale than someone who grew up in the Northwest.

Before the journey started I didn’t want to go at all. At each new juncture I dreaded the next and wanted to stick in the time and place forever. San Francisco was no different and I spent a great deal of the last morning telling people that I really did not want to fly away again.

But in Seattle I met Gabriel and his cowboy hat at the downtown library. Even standing inside the lobby it seemed like a fantasy, something impossible and odd, because it wasn’t there when I lived in the city (or at least not until the very end of my residence). We took a cab to Capitol Hill just in time to interrupt Jeffrey’s band practice. Gabriel was delighted to have an opportunity to play:

On the subject of clothes: I was dressed similarly to other adventures with Gabriel, including the jacket I wore to Italy all those years ago, and the scarf I bought in the market in Florence. He had on the hat and sweater we bribed him with to stay with us on the Breeder tour, and probably other things I failed to make note of.

We do not change much externally, Gabriel and I. Also, when asked he said that I am not mysterious. Though being understood by an extremely confusing person might not be a social asset. At least he is not shocked by whatever new situation presents itself! Plus he is the most positive person I know, which is a comfort and boon in the midst of chaos.

Somewhere at the start of crashing with Jeffrey we realized that all three of us have extremely large heads — despite our quite different body types, we all wear the same hat size. I make a rule never to share headgear but they both seemed lice-free so I willingly sported Jeffrey’s hat after Gabriel had in turn worn it.

The boys insisted I was adorable but it was all way too John-Hughes-1980’s-chick-flick for me:

Three of my most favorite people in the world are named Byron, and it was almost unbearably amazing to have breakfast with two at once (though also odd when trying to tell stories).

I met Byron Number One at Governors’ School oh-so-many years ago (um, seventeen? How is that possible?); it is a privilege and a pleasure that I know him as an adult, and have the opportunity to enjoy his work. Byron Number Three aka Gabriel was also entranced, and it was hard to drag ourselves away to drive off to see a bit of the county, but we had a lunch date with my mother.

Oh, my mother: the most brilliant, sarcastic, and totally genius parent a person could hope for. Over lunch we talked about hot rods, and family vacations, and the history of Italian cuisine in the county.

It was sad to say goodbye, but I promised to visit again very soon. On the way out of town, working on our top secret project, I showed Gabriel various sites, including the only thing that kept me alive after the accident – a dock in Southworth – none of which will be described here. But I’ll give you one photograph:

Jeffrey is a bachelor and, well, I’m not quite sure why. He is one of the most romantic, ethical, and talented people I know. Ladies of Seattle, what are you waiting for? This fellow is prime real estate.

We went out every night including several visits to the Bus Stop, my new favorite place in the world, where everyone has a crush on everyone else, and strangers tell me they like my dress.

The first night as Jeffrey introduced me around to various folks one of the people running the place, a guy with a fierce demeanor (like, you know, my blood kin) and tattoos running up his neck, said Bee? Have we met?

I replied No, I live far away (wondering if he might be a misplaced cousin but never willing to pursue that line of enquiry) but he wrinkled his brow and said Are you a writer?

Um, well, yes. . .

Lessons in Taxidermy! I loved that book! he said, before enumerating his reasons why.

I laughed and put my hands across my face, as I’ve never been recognized just from the author photo.

In fact, I chose the picture that would be the most misleading. I pointed at Jeffrey and said Most of my friends haven’t even read it! Jeffrey here is too sensitive.

Gabriel is a bandit. He was, I’m sure, just having fun — but he made an entire venue of jaded hipsters jump up for the first and only time that night to dance madly to Thank God I’m a Country Boy:

Another night we hooked up with Anika for dinner, but she had sadly injured her back and needed to retire early. We ended up at the Hideout and when I set my stuff down at the bar a drunk obnoxious hipster boy grabbed my wallet. I plucked it back again, and evidently failed to emit my standard do not even fucking try, buddy message because the sozzled young gentleman decided to talk to me.

Again, I would like to note, this does not happen in my life. Ever. I was sufficiently bemused that I actually talked back at the fellow, who decided it would be a good strategy to inquire about the contents of my messenger bag. I answered in detail and since this post is already excessively self-involved may as well share the information: sunglasses, sunblock, notebook, three black pens, camera, lipstick, packet of tissue, band-aids, flashlight, two mobile phones, two pairs of gloves, a scarf, and a packet of cough drops. He was just trying to suss out the need for two mobile phones (one for Europe, one for the states, if you must know) when Jeff plucked me away.

I took the opportunity to ask Jeffrey if, from his perspective, I flirt. A fellow child of the rural Northwest, he did not hesitate before saying Yes. You raise your eyebrows and say sarcastic things – that is flirting.

What an interesting perspective.

It was, as ever, painful to say goodbye to Gabriel at the train station, though I promised to try to visit more. He had been driving me to our various destinations but it became my task to return the rental car.

I haven’t driven in years but found, to my absolute amazement, that I not only knew what to do, and remembered how to get around, but…. get this… I am no longer afraid to drive!

There was nary a flashback nor twitch throughout a morning of dodging commuter traffic in a killer city that has the capacity to remind me of every horrible event of my childhood and youth.

Life, to summarize, is good.

Flying back to England I decided that while the west coast is no longer my home, knowing as much makes the visits vastly more entertaining.

I might be adrift in the world, but I am in fact having fun.

 

3.17.2006 notes

Note to self: find and pack pajamas for the trip!

I am very much looking forward to rampant American consumerism to deliver various goods and services that are scant on the ground here in this picturesque city. The top picks are always sunblock, moisturizer with sunblock, lipstick with sunblock, and black tights – you know, the basics.

Though recently I was forced to accept the truth: the tights I love have been discontinued. Without warning; I did not have an opportunity to dispatch agents to snap up a lifetime worth of Nordstrom brand opaque hosiery before they disappeared from the shelves. The pairs I brought over, and purchased on various other trips, have been completely shredded by boat maintenance tasks and death-grip bicycle pedals.

I am in mourning and have not found any alternative options that suit. DKNY doesn’t cut it. If you can see bruises through the mesh the tights are not, by definition, opaque.

It is very exciting that the weather is improving here. By the time I get back it will be warm enough to plant a new garden for the boat! Maybe I’ll even manage to avoid falling in the river. I can’t wait.

 

3.14.2006 striptease

While making arrangements to meet various people in Portland, I realized that I do not in fact know enough about my own neighborhood to make plans.

Yes, I know where my friends live – but everything else has changed so much I hardly know what to think. Chez What? is gone, I hear, along with assorted other landmarks I could reliably count on. There are coffeeshops and bars and restaurants and record stores where once there were merely boarded storefronts.

The worst by far is the fact that The Jockey Club was torn down to make way for, I don’t know, an expansion of the community college or something along those lines.

I wasn’t a regular at that bar (or any drinking establishment as I was a pure and innocent youth – do you believe me?) but it was the nearest place to meet people or take visitors.

One of my fondest memories from Portland involved sitting in a corner as my friends played Truth or Dare, which ended with the bartender doing a striptease on our table and Byron kissing a taxidermied moose.

Of course, I didn’t play.

That would be telling.

 

3.10.2006 oddity

Byron has always had admirers; he is sensitive, attractive, and a minister’s son, with the attendant social skills that implies. But since he has embarked on his current career the ladies (and a fair number of boys) swoon over him in veritable droves. It is fascinating to see what quantifiable success does to a social life.

Though I am reminded of a conversation I had years ago with a famous friend. I inquired why a recent relationship had ended and the answer went something like: She was a starfucker and I never get recognized in restaurants.

That conversation happened around the time fans of the magazine were gossiping about my decadent shopping habits (vitamin supplements and organic vegetables) and luxury automobile (a fifteen year old Volvo with a dodgy title), though before someone started a rumor that my unschooled children were secretly enrolled in elite private schools.

I had fair warning from friends that leading a visible life would offer perks and punishment in equal measure. Yes, I get to meet and know so many interesting and fun new friends. But it is also a fact that some people are scared to talk to me, or resent my perceived success.

The ability to travel extensively is paired with a lack of sufficient time to rest, or congregate with those I love the most.

I could go on and on but nobody wants to hear a fortunate person complain about the challenges of leading a brilliant life. I certainly do not have sympathy for myself on the issue, let alone other people who drone on about such things.

The only tricky thing that I ponder is the essential oddity of never knowing whether a person likes me as an individual, or for what I represent. But I think that might be a question that everyone has to face… sooner or later.

 

3.9.2006 anchorage

The Michele Shocked song Anchorage came out the year I finished high school; at the time I was driving endlessly around Washington state, doing community organizing and resisting the urge to commit suicide. I had a random assortment of tapes in the car and that track was on one of them, though I do not recollect now if it was mine or something abandoned by one of my wounded friends.

A little over a year later I found myself standing next to the commissary on an army base in Alaska, a teenage bride clutching a baby, staring at a moose.

That song started playing in my mind, and it struck me quite forcefully that I was supposed to identify with the narrator, not the old friend.

I was an efficient and bureaucratic child: in an attempt to escape my fate, I obtained certificates from the appropriate experts stating that I was not allowed to live in Alaska. When the desired transfer was turned down I had my Senator intervene to bring the young husband home.

Military personnel and spouses will appreciate that this is a significant accomplishment, particularly given that I was only nineteen years old at the time.

I grew up in a military town, and I retain a fervent belief that our armed forces deserve a pay raise and better benefits. Even though I do not always agree with specific military campaigns I could have remained a military spouse without significantly challenging any of my core beliefs. I may look like a wildcat, but essentially I am an incrementalist who believes that appropriately managed government programs are the solution to most common problems.

The military also offers poor smart kids education, training, and durable skills they do not have the opportunity to gain elsewhere.

The feeling I had that day in Anchorage was not truly about Alaska, or the army, or any external factor. What I slowly realized over the course of two years, during which time I only lived with that boy for a few months, was that I was compromising my own integrity no matter where I lived.

I had settled – for someone who only loved me incidentally; for a shockingly meager paycheck; for a life without dreams. All because I needed health insurance, and he felt guilty.

That relationship ended, predictably and brutally, with an argument ostensibly about money that was really about two people realizing that they had squandered their youth.

I am inherently a responsible, practical person, and that has often been my downfall. It would be easy to allow myself to be trapped by the expectations and needs of other people, to sublimate myself to work, family, obligations.

I’ve spent the last eighteen years resolutely destroying the suicidal girl who stayed alive only because her testimony was required in a product liability suit.

 

3.8.2006 muse

Today I’ve been reading The Lives of the Muses. My favorite so far is Lou Andreas-Salome, writer and analyst, unattainable tormentor of Nietzsche, lover of Rilke (whose first name she changed to Rainer), colleague of Freud.

I like her story because she did not simply inspire the people who loved her; she also directly influenced their lives, and in fact seems at times more powerful and engaging than the men who remain famous.

Alice was just an engaging child who asked Lewis Carroll for a story. Lizzie Siddal was a beautiful junkie who despaired over the Bohemian life she chose.

Give me instead a woman who, long after she ended their affair and took up analysis as a career, advised Rilke against therapy, saying:

While a successful analysis might free an artist from the devils that beset him, it would also drive away the angels that help him create. A germ-free soul is a sterile soul.

 

3.5.2006 party

I may not have mentioned this before, but I live in an incredibly dull place.

The aesthetics cannot be faulted: the town is breathtakingly beautiful, awash in ancient churches and gorgeous university buildings. The surrounding countryside is tranquil and serene, and I’ve never been as soothed by landscape in my life.

In terms of work, this is quite likely the best place for me to live (for now). I’m surrounded by people who think for a living. I’m no longer the odd one out; I can talk easily about what I do, without worrying that it will cause an awkward gap in the conversation or solicit unwarranted attention. Or at least I can pretend that this is true, which was never possible in the states.

But while the cultural offerings are plentiful – with museums, classical concerts, plays, and lectures all competing for attention – by moving here I unwittingly cut myself off from an entire familiar lifestyle. Yes, there is a music scene, but it is much smaller than one would expect in a university town, because the indie rockers and punks do not typically matriculate at this particular institution. Likewise, they rarely settle here.

There is precisely one good video store, and it is so far away I rarely make the time to ride over. There is exactly one good restaurant (though in this opinion I am biased as I deny standing to places that cost more than thirty pounds sterling per person on average).

There is absolutely no independent publishing scene. Although I have a few zine friends in town, we have no clubhouse. There is nothing like the Hugo House or the IPRC to sustain my social needs.

Probably the worst thing: I don’t have sufficient space to throw my enormous parties.

For the most part, the lack of distraction is good for me. I’ve accomplished more in the last year than I would have back home, with shows and events and readings to attend.

But I do miss my old life sometimes, and I am currently spinning with joy over an upcoming trip. I’m going to spend some time with my family, arrive in Portland in time for Anna Ruby’s birthday party, do a reading, and then fly to San Francisco, where I will see countless amazing friends. Then I will rendezvous with Gabriel and embark on a four-day working road trip: an abundance of riches.

It will be strange to go home again; the trip has the possibility of swinging perilously from exultation to morbid sorrow. But I am still extremely pleased to be going.

In a similar vein, Byron went to Seattle to give a talk at TechFest and had various madcap adventures with Jeffrey, Anika, and assorted people I haven’t met yet.

It is odd to reflect on our life in that city; we weren’t even there long enough to unpack, and rarely went out. I was writing a book and nursing a broken tailbone and had decided to hibernate instead of socialize (despite – or maybe because – over two hundred people showed up for the housewarming party).

This was a necessary rest, after leaving behind an existence that often looked more like a community centre than a private life.

Byron had ditched the vicissitudes of a start-up for a job with a major company, splitting his time between research and development, which kept his mind engaged in a hyper-real fashion. We owned a beautiful house on a hill, and, for the first time ever, enough money to pay bills.

But we were both confronting questions about what we wanted from life:

Material possessions and stability, or uncertainty and adventure?

Familiar experiences or new?

Stay or go?

I didn’t want to leave the landscape of my youth, and refused to consider various possibilities on principle. Byron, in his impetuous and curious fashion, continued to tempt me with options of a whole new life far from home.

I said no several times, until the day he called and asked Want to move to England?

Five weeks later, we were here.

Life in the UK is certainly different, in ways that are both delightful and strange. I do not regret the move.

Though it is nice to know that I can always go home to visit, and that the west coast party continues unabated.

 

3.3.2006 etchings

Byron is the handiest research subject in my attempts to figure out this flirting thing, but he isn’t a very good specimen as he is such a (notorious) natural. Also, and this is critical, he certainly is not more socially evolved than I am. In fact, though he can exert charm effortlessly, he is often completely clueless about the motivations of other people.

He thinks that all banter is just good fun.

I have to point out that people are not just being friendly when they invite him up to look at their etchings. He is always surprised to learn that what he thought was innocent flirtatiousness was in fact an explicit offer of sexual favors.

Even when I tell him ahead of time that it will happen.

We have divergent abilities to understand our fellow humans; I may not know how to chitchat but I have certainly always noticed when someone tried to seduce me.

Perhaps the fact that we are both so obsessed with work is the root cause of our mutual clueless-ness.

 

 

3.3.2006 animosity

I’ve been reading assorted biographies of dead writers and artists and keep running across the concept of inspiration. I’m not sure that I completely agree that an idea has to come from any old place; things sometimes just happen. But it is true that large swaths of my work take the form of an answer to a question.

The best example: one sunny day in Portland I stood silently on a sidewalk as two people I knew and liked, both bespectacled girls in braids, had a slap fight in the entry to the health food store on Fremont. I could have stopped the altercation, but I elected to stand aside and remain silent. The episode ended when the manager came out and said Excuse me, ladies, can I help you?

When I told that story to Inga she was shocked. Why didn’t you do something?

I replied that I had no part in their feud. It did not seem my place to interfere.

But her question made me think about why my instinct was to observe rather than take action. Thinking about the reasons opened up a flood of unwanted memories.

I grew up in a violent household. I watched my aunts and uncles beating the shit out of each other and their children. I had a baby with someone I met in criminal court. I know what rage tastes like, I know how to protect myself, and I have never been afraid to hit back.

It would have been easier from any angle to continue to lead a fighting life. I have been conditioned to act out of anger. I love my hometown and, insofar as I was capable of feeling anything after the accident, I loved the hooligans I dated in my youth. But I made a specific and deliberate choice to walk away and create a life that is not contaminated by violence – of any kind.

From my perspective, it doesn’t matter why people hurt each other. There are always valid perspectives and excuses on both sides. Why did the fight at the health food store start? Who cares? Both of those girls felt that they were right. Besides, it was more than slightly ridiculous to witness some kind of turf war erupting over the bins of organic vegetables.

The fights I’ve witnessed or conducted were just the same: a strange mixture of bathos and animosity exploding over transgressions that, years later, I do not remember.

I rejected violence not because I was weak or scared, but rather because I find it easy and banal.

I responded to Inga’s question with a long email that succinctly outlined what would end up, within the week, as the Fighting essays.

The fight itself was not inspiring; fights are in fact squalid. But when I had to account for my instinctual reaction I wrote what I feel is the best part of a memoir about danger.

 

3.2.2006 disreputable

The other night I watched Bride and Prejudice, and my primary response is that they should have cast someone else as the lead male character. Darcy is supposed to smolder, not annoy.

Also, in the book Lydia ran away and had sex with a nefarious soldier, thus ruining her own life and the prospects of her sisters. In the movie the Lydia character surreptitiously sneaks out to ride the London Eye with a fellow we are to believe is disreputable because he lives on a narrowboat.

This is the second movie I’ve seen recently that equates life on the water with moral turpitude. The other one was bad enough I forget the name but coincidentally cast Jennifer Ehle in the role of a woman who lives on a narrowboat. We are notified that she is bad news with the following additional clues: she is a single mother, she has dreadlocks, and she has a tattoo. She has a posh accent and rich parents but insists on living precariously. And, in a movie about the dating habits of a bohemian London crowd, she is the one who has the worst sex life. Until she hooks up with the slutty bad boy character.

Historically, the people who made lives on the rivers and canals of this country were disparaged. There were even, for a time, laws that restricted children living with their parents on the boats. This is a classic example of the way an autonomous subculture that fulfills a significant, and dirty, public need is depicted by the cultural elite. For other examples see: coal miners and migrant farmworkers.

But come on, people. Industry and technology have changed the world.

We narrowboaters are not the gypsies of the Philip Pullman books, the immoral wastrels of dumb romantic comedies, nor are we any different than any other neighborhood in this town.

Here in Cambridge, and from what I can tell in Oxford and London too, we’re a representative mix of retired folk, sporty types who like the outdoors, and professionals from various respectable fields.

That may not be sexy but it is the truth.

 

3.1.2006 ride

My body is too fragile for extremes of weather; in the winter, my fingers are so cold I imagine they might snap off. The heat and humidity of summer do not bother me, but sunlight does: it is not an affectation that I wear sunglasses even in the dimmest light.

My experience of photosensitivity is profound – the world is white and dazzling and painful. If I’m not cautious sunshine can trigger a potentially lethal auto-immune disorder. Even if light did not hurt me, the sun would still be a monumental enemy, given my history of skin cancer.

Yes, friends, it is true: I am exquisitely sensitive. I should have been born to an era of fainting couches. But I am a rugged peasant and loathe medical authority… so I ignore the injunctions of doctors to stay home and rest.

One of the main features of my life here in England is daily bicycle rides to distant villages: Waterbeach, Fen Ditton, Coton, Grantchester, pedaling as fast as possible through common land.

Spring and autumn are the best seasons for these trips, after the cold and before the tourists swarm the town. I ride to feel my legs moving, feel my heart racing; to be in the countryside and hear the birds sing, and find myself surprised every time by the sight of thatch-roofed cottages and old country churches.

Recently at an event someone asked me about how I choose what to write in this journal.

The site started as documentation of moving away from Portland; when I started writing the topic was fairly restricted. Over the years my life has changed, and the journal has evolved, though principally I do regard it as an exploration of leaving home.

This means that many subjects are simply never addressed. I lead a busy, complicated life, and it is difficult to find enough time to work on the projects I find most absorbing, let alone document the minutiae of my existence.

People who know me in real life often wonder why they do not appear in my writing, or are merely listed rather than described. The reasons are varied.

I think that my children deserve privacy (and my son has dictated that I do not write about him). Relationships with various other people, either now or historically, are similarly out of bounds.

My friends are aware that I am trustworthy and capable of restraint – if anything, I am too inclined to keep secrets. I could never, for instance, write a proper kiss-and-tell, and not just because I used to date criminals. The only confirmation you will ever have about my love life is the fact that I named the correct father on the birth certificates.

Anything else you hear or believe might be true – or maybe not.

There are a few people and experiences I feel that I should write about, but resist for fear of stirring up more trouble. One of the most significant is the phenomenon of lost friendship. I know how to talk about my enemies, and about the people who care for me. But what about that other category, the people I love who no longer speak to me?

I’m not talking about people who drift away, but rather friendships based on true devotion that are abruptly severed. I find it wrenching and painful to even think of two of my favorite people, and have no relative grasp of why they decided to hate me.

There are facts, which portray all sides in a negative way, and impressions, which make me think that abandonment (specifically my reckless rejection of projects, plans, places) is the legitimate cause of the problem in both cases. But I would have thought the grievances would fade as time passed. I know that I am difficult, stubborn, and contrary. I’ve made no secret of any of my own worst qualities, and accept and apologize for the fact that I have hurt people.

What I do not understand is why anyone would choke a friendship that is valued, or reject offers of reconciliation that are genuine. Essentially, I do not understand the utility of holding a grudge.

If I had the choice, I would still know everyone I have befriended in the last six years. I couldn’t say that about any other era of my life, and it is confusing to realize that growing up does not necessarily lead to greater social maturity.

 

2.27.2006 pdx

Byron took his midlife crisis to Portland today. He was there for work but also drove around the old neighborhood in a moody fashion, reporting back on the changes (major gentrification would be an understatement). He dropped in on Gabriel and later was able to surprise everyone at a party commemorating the fourth anniversary of Stevie’s accident.

I wish I could have gone! When I think about Portland I feel queasy with longing.

Despite the fact that one of the other people at the party hates me so intensely she extends the friend ban to my whole family, regardless of age or connection. When Byron turned up at the party, despite her injunction that no Lavender could attend, she had to leave.

Byron thought it was funny. I find the whole thing peculiar.

 

2.26.2006 recognize

Learning to recognize the signs of flirtation is rather extraordinary, not because my daily life is much different (though it is – people keep offering unexpected favors), but rather because I can look back at the past and see various incidents in a new way.

For instance, it occurred to me to wonder why, as an adolescent, I was so frequently shoved into bodies of water. It happened often enough that I always had a change of clothes in my car trunk (along with a case of brake fluid; I was nothing if not prepared).

I asked Byron if that sort of behavior counted as flirtation, and he shook his head in exasperation before replying in the affirmative. I confirmed the concept by asking Iain (to give the hypothesis a more global test), who also agreed that such things are routine.

I do not particularly understand why pushing people into a lake, ocean, or hot tub is a sound mating ritual (except insofar as it is a shortcut to nudity) but… whatever.

Reliable sources tell me that many boys flirt just by moping in my vicinity; that is clearly something that I would never pay attention to as such behavior is not entertaining. Byron would be the prime example, as he mostly just played the guitar and stared at the wall, dreaming that I would be his life partner without mentioning it. For years. But there are many other incidents that do not fit that description.

One recent encounter: I was wandering around and ran into a friend. He said You look hot today.

I said replied It is unseasonably warm.

He laughed and said That wasn’t what I meant.

I stared quizzically and moved along to my next thought, which was likely something along the lines of Is that the church with the William Morris painting in it?

The argument that my lack of flirtatiousness derives from pure stupidity is growing on me.

There are too many examples in my stories.

I asked Byron if the girl who cornered me in the bathroom of the Spar years ago had motives that were not entirely platonic.

He finds these discussions tedious. He pointed out that the girl was so explicit we were ejected from the bar because of her antics. That encounter was rather routine and the preface of a predictable scandal. Back then intimacy was about autonomy, which makes sense, and revenge, which isn’t very noble.

Why didn’t I acknowledge the truth? Because she was dating the person I was trying to divorce, and I did not want to question or understand her motives. The easiest solution was pretending it was all a misunderstanding.

Unfortunately I was a reckless and troubled girl: risk and danger were just about the only things that caught my attention.

That description is no longer accurate. I have grown so light-hearted I am almost dizzy.

 

 

2.22.2006 education

Here in the UK there is a huge amount of pressure to decide on a career at age fifteen. The subjects you study, and the test results on your GCSE’s, determine whether you leave school at sixteen or go on to sixth form, and what you are allowed to study if you remain in school.

Sixth form can loosely be interpreted as the equivalent of a US associate degree, with the attendant choice between vocational and academic work.

My daughter has experienced this rather intensely since her mock exams predicted A star grades in double English: there has been a push to choose university-prep English as her A level course.

Numerous tutors and the intake staff at the sixth form college have been quite strident on the point. The fundamental message is that she must choose her future career now. She is in fact a talented (published) writer, with a verbal acuity that will serve her well in life. Her advisors think the path toward a degree in English is already clear.

They also say she will go to Oxford or Cambridge, whether she likes it or not.

But the child wants to study art and philosophy.

When she announced her intent, the tutors quickly started to hector along the lines of don’t choose now! Wait and see! By which they mean, wait until your inevitable top test scores assure you have to do exactly what we already decided on your behalf.

Art and philosophy are, from a safe middle-class perspective, frivolous.

I feel mildly conflicted only insofar as it seems that she should have the opportunity to coast around some more. In the states she would have three more years to meander before making big choices.

Other than that, I think that art school is better than studying English. What can you do with an art degree? It isn’t clear, but within the ambiguity lies the genius.

My fundamental belief is that people should study what they love, regardless of practical application. When I was sixteen I achieved the highest possible grades and test results in AP literature, composition, and American history.

Two months later I was kicked out of the honors program and ended my secondary education in voc-tech, where I took a certificate in photography. Since I couldn’t be Ralph Eugene Meatyard I wandered off with my art scholarship and studied…. health education and organizational theory.

I did a graduate degree in public administration and worked in government. Now I’m a writer, editor, and publisher. Should I have studied English, just because I had a perfect verbal score on the SAT? No. My choices were extremely wise; I gained life experience and perspective that would not have been possible otherwise.

All of my favorite people are artists, writers, musicians, and mathematicians: people who think and create. None followed a traditional path to arrive at their vocation.

They all work hard – arguably harder than people who chose the path of least resistance.

If my kid wants to study art and philosophy, that is her choice to make. She has excellent role models to show her that the choice is risky and rarely leads to financial security.

 

2.21.2006 decadent

Recently a friend loaned me a copy of a film screened on the BBC awhile back called Decadent Action. The motto that sticks in my mind is featured on a pamphlet the protagonists hand out at a festival: Shop Now, Riot Later.

The very funny film offers an activist model of consumption, based on the premise that pleasure is a valid goal.

I’ll never be dissolute enough to qualify as a true libertine but I am in fact a hedonist. I work hard not just for material security but also to acquire new and novel experiences. Travel, food, friendship, trinkets, adventure – no matter what I have, I always want more.

Even when I was poor, sick, and very young, I had high expectations. I’ll never be the sort of person who accepts mediocrity.

Decadent desires are not inherently wrong. It is possible to lead an indulgent, defiant, and deeply ethical life.

 

 

2.20.2006 wrong

James has been either my best friend or mortal enemy for nearly eighteen years. When I asked him for a suggestion regarding the recent NYC event in which I had to take a “personal risk” I expected him to say something smart and interesting.

When he said be wrong I was unnerved and angry.

But I’ve been thinking about his comments: he followed up on the first email with a couple of paragraphs specifically saying that I should tell a story in which I am clearly the antagonist, and definitely doing something destructive.

There are many stories I could tell to satisfy James. Some are more entertaining than others, but we’ll set aside the torrid ones as I’ve never really cared that much about sexual politics.

After the accident I asked James if he would have cried over my death. He said no, and although I knew he meant that he simply could not cry about anything, I stopped talking to him for an entire year. He was invisible to me, even though the distorted adolescent world we lived in dictated we sit next to each other all day at school. After we reconciled I had not in any sense forgiven him.

Over the next eight years, through various moves and scandals, as we baited and cared for each other, I never forgot. I didn’t scheme or plan my revenge, but I did eventually make him cry, standing on the corner of Division and Twentieth in Portland the night before I married Byron.

But it is unlikely that James wants me to tell his secrets to confess my own wrongdoings.

 

2.19.2006 perfect

I took my daughter to Amsterdam and it may well be the perfect city: boats and bicycles everywhere!

It was quite lovely catching up with old friends and meeting their new child; Amy Joy and Dishwasher Pete have produced an extremely nice infant:

 

2.14.2006 day

Today the headline on the local paper concerned a machete attack in Parker’s Piece. I was pondering this as we walked across Christ’s Piece (for those of you who do not live in the U.K. think “park”) as my elder child chat chat chatted away.

Suddenly she gasped and exclaimed Did you see that?

No, what?

Some man just got all up in your face and hissed!

No way!

Yes way!

I didn’t see anything of the sort!

Later some other fellow was apparently trying to make eye contact and wiggling his eyebrows at me.

I denied any such thing happened, so she reminded me of the time some random person in San Francisco tried to talk to me as I ignored him. Eventually he hollered at my daughter Hey! Tell your mother that she is beautiful!

Though I didn’t know that part until the child mentioned it hours later. I am immune to such things.

Happy Valentine’s Day if you are into that sort of thing!

 

 

2.12.2006 city

Last week our collectively muddled travel plans required me to take the younger child to Paddington Station at an extremely early hour to meet his father, who had been in Oxford lecturing and supping at high table and similar fancy things that keep him in that other academic town.

Luckily, Iain offered to meet me and be my guide to bits of London I would never have found on my own. He is efficient, so the day included stops at Best Shop Ever, Magma, Alfie’s Antiques, Skandium, Daunt’s bookshop and Marylebone High Street, and Selfridges. Then we proceeded to Get Stuffed, a taxidermy store that is fascinating and scary.

We tried to visit Curious Science but it was closed, then ended the day chatting over tea and coffee at the S&M cafe.

Such a glorious trip would not go unnoticed by my elder child, who clamored to be taken to the city immediately to buy Moomin paraphernalia and comics.

I only fended her off for a day before succumbing to the pressure. We decided to stay overnight to maximize the experience and ended up with discount tickets that put us in the front row at the Theatre Royal to see The Producers.

Iain and Xtina generously joined us on the second day for a tour of the area around Brick Lane. We popped in and out of a series of excellent shops, ate, hung out at a real coffee shop (oh, how I miss Portland sometimes), and checked out the Geffrye Museum.

It is always better to see a city from the perspective of people who live in it every day. I’m pleased to have such interesting friends.

 

 

2.09.2006 secret

All year long people have asked What are you working on now? and I’ve answered Not much.

This is true insofar as I throw away ninety-eight percent of what I write (and this is not an exaggeration). I have produced enough material for two long books but didn’t like any of it, so I erased the lot.

Lately though I have been working very intensely on a top secret project that has required me to research the fashions of the eighties. Specifically, this involved opening my yearbooks.

Oh, the horror of the decade. The best picture I’ve found so far is an image of the punk kids sitting in a hallway, hunched over their lunch trays, squinting up at the photographer suspiciously. It was not in fact safe to eat in the main lunchroom, and this is I am fairly sure what inspired the attitude and posture of cool that infected my social scene.

But regardless, the fact is, looking at the photographs, we were simply not in any way radical. The strangest thing about my appearance? I had straight short bobbed hair.

Not by current standards a transgression. Though back in the day revolutionary.

 

2.08.2006 marched

Tonight as I walked to the movie theatre a man approached and said Oh my darling, canna ask you a question?

I looked him in the eye and said No.

Then I marched away as he reeled in bafflement and started to shout entreaties.

 

In an early version of an essay that was included in Lessons in Taxidermy I stated that nobody had ever flirted with me. Before the book went to press I was challenged on this point.

It was inconceivable, Byron said after reading the draft. I stubbornly refused to change the sentence until Byron said You are either being stupid or lying.

If I am not stupid (and nobody has accused me of such except in relation to algebraic equations), and I do not believe that I’m being untruthful, there had to be another explanation. I thought about it and then asked Do you think I flirt?

Byron replied No, you are the least flirtatious person I’ve ever met. But it doesn’t follow that other people aren’t flirting with you.

For my age and inclination I’ve had more than my fair share of romantic intrigue. I’ve been mistaken for a prostitute more than once. People have offered sexual favors. I came of age in an overly affectionate west coast subculture. But I never consciously engaged in the superficial verbal and nonverbal activities that I believed to constitute flirting. I did not connect that sort of playfulness with friendship, sexuality, or identity.

Nor did I want to. I was actually quite proud of the fact that my demeanor repelled casual attention. I liked being tough and unapproachable.

It isn’t good form to put your faith in one witness so I asked other close friends what they thought. Gabriel reckoned that I am a storyteller, Marisa allowed that I’m charming. Stevie had some interesting points that I failed to write down. James meandered into a scholarly dissection of an unrelated topic.

They all agreed that I have not historically exerted girlish charms. More significantly, three of the five surveyed also said in exasperation at my obtuseness But I’ve flirted with you, Bee!

Okay, so the answer is: I’ve been oblivious. But the thing is: I used to have two categories for people. They were either Beloved Companion or Everyone Else.

When I say that nobody has ever flirted with me, I am not talking about any of the normal interactions I have with my friends. I am specifically saying that strangers do not approach me, unless they need directions.

It is literally true that, in all of my travels until age thirty-four, nobody ever dared try a stereotypical pickup. How many women do you know who can make that claim? Specifically the sort who wander around wearing red lipstick and inappropriate clothing?

It is true that I move through the world in a sort of qualified trance state, aware of danger but otherwise ignoring my fellow humans. I never knew that anyone looked at me until I went to Italy with Gabriel, who found it amusing that I didn’t even notice people whistling at me.

He had a month to patiently indoctrinate me into an aspect of adult life that I had never before experienced. I found it frightening to learn that I was not in fact invisible — and I was thirty years old.

About a year ago I noticed that strangers were talking to me. Last summer I noticed someone who was definitely not a friend actually daring to flirt, by classic definition! That person went so far as to grasp my hand and stare into my eyes. I was astonished; apparently I have somehow acquired new, and presumably more engaging, mannerisms.

I tried out the flirting hypothesis on people who have met me only since I left the states, and they all flatly denied that I am not flirtatious; they didn’t even believe the anecdotes I told to illustrate my point.

It would be a mistake to credit the publication of the book with this change (even though I divested a series of secrets that I had never been able to speak about). It also isn’t about self-esteem; I’ve always been a confident person. The main difference in my life is the fact that I am, suddenly and inexplicably, friendly. It is no longer a burden to meet and talk to people.

This is somewhat good (I’ll make more friends), moderately bad (I’ll have to learn new etiquette) but mostly neutral. I seem to be living a backwards sort of existence and this is just another example.

 

 

1.25.2006 library

Lessons in Taxidermy is officially an American Library Association Best Book.

 

 

1.12.2006 community

I’ve been doing community organizing, both informally and professionally, for more than twenty years. I take the idea of reciprocity quite seriously; the friends I’ve made along the way are people I like, but also people I would work to help.

It is true that I sometimes feel choked by proximity; I grew up in a small town and have always craved the anonymity of big cities. I want to be able to go grocery shopping, or just walk down the street, without everyone knowing my business.

I left Portland on purpose because it felt small and parochial, and the insular nature of the town I live in now is not a featured attraction.

But at the same time I really value my social networks and the vast numbers of people I have had the privilege to meet. Particularly in the publishing world, I have enjoyed tremendous support from writers and editors and booksellers – support that I try to return in substantial ways.

The thing that bothers me most about both of the current literary scandals is the fact that social capital has been wasted.

If we don’t look after each other, what exactly is the point?

 

 

1.11.2006 truth

I can’t comment extensively on the recent Fake Memoir controversies because I have not read the books.

However, as the author of a memoir, I feel inclined to say this: my book is factually accurate. Names and some identifying geographical details were changed, but other than that, I told the truth.

Also, and this is critical: I did not fabricate, exaggerate, or embellish. In fact, I elected to withhold vast amounts of information. I had a clearly defined narrative agenda, and the facts extraneous to the main story were cast aside.

Many of the people who appear in the pages of my book wonder why I didn’t examine all aspects of my history. The friends who have heard my lavish and bizarre tales ask why certain stories are not in the manuscript; they want to know if I’ll ever publish the most sensational bits. The answer is a qualified no.

There are many reasons, none of which are pertinent except my fundamental code of ethical behavior. I’m not interested in exploitation.

In writing the book I was not trying to win some kind of contest of victimization or debasement.

If I were playing that game, I could win. I choose not to.

 

1.10.2006 fight

The other morning as my daughter prepared to go to a tutoring session I stopped her and said don’t get yourself abducted, okay?

She laughed, but I was serious, and quickly went through a checklist of how to avoid such an occurrence. She has heard it all before.

The main point is, of course, to avoid danger when possible. But in the event that she does find herself in a bad situation, it is critical that she knows what to do. In my opinion, this means that she needs permission to fight.

I’m worried for my daughter, and for other middle-class girls, because I think that some female children are socialized to lose their inherent instinct for self-preservation. My daughter less than most – she has fended off the standard annoying juvenile situations with vicious instinctual grace – but she will never have the indoctrination I received as a working class girl.

For awhile I thought that we had moved to a town that is inherently more aggressive than others, but over the last few months I’ve realized the danger I sense has more to do with the classic division between town and gown.

Living in Portland or Seattle or Olympia I knew the rules, and it was clear where I fit. That is no longer true, and a change of costume will not rectify the issue. When I walk across the lock bridge and a man with short hair and a mean dog approaches, there is no chance that we know each other, and every possibility that there will be a negative interaction, usually involving a sexual comment. By this I do not mean the odd random compliment, but rather something that is intended to frighten the recipient.

This sort of thing simply did not happen back home, no matter how I dressed. My instinct is reflexive: the person who dares try that game with me might imagine they are hard, but when they look me in the eye they usually know they made a poor choice.

I have access to a tremendous rage that most people inclined to casual harassment are not expecting to encounter. They’ve probably seen it in the eyes of their mother, sister, or girlfriend, but they never want to see it on the face of a stranger. People leave me alone because, honestly, I’m scary.

I know that lots of strong women get hurt, and I am aware that I may one day find my skills are not sufficient. People are raped and murdered all the time, and there is no magic incantation to fend off the risk.

But I need my daughter to know that she is powerful, that she can protect herself, that she can fight.

 

1.9.2006 fate

Byron has been in the midst of a midlife crisis since I met him around age 21 so he is bound to have many woeful thoughts this year as we both hit our mid-thirties. But when I woke up on the boat Saturday morning this is the first thing that occurred to me: it has been exactly twenty-three years since I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I’m nothing if not competitive, and I think that it is safe to say that turning thirty-five is the most genius accomplishment yet.

Of course, with precise comic timing, a letter from the teaching hospital was waiting in my postbox. The department of medical genetics would be ever so pleased to make my acquaintance – and I haven’t even been referred.

Repudiating the month of January and giving up my birthday was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done; but it is my fate, and my pleasure, to attend parties, and this year Byron staged one on my behalf. Iain and Xtina showed up early to watch me pretend to cook and later the place filled up with an eclectic crowd of friends, with children running amok under foot.

Karen cooked dumplings, Sally and Steve turned up with beautiful flowers, Sarah and David brought chocolate, Josh brought wine, Don and Barbara gave me a weather vane with little dancing Germans.

Iain and Xtina gifted me with a Powell Pressburger film and loaned all sorts of books and movies to acclimate me to this new country. My children offered the Willy Wonka movie soundtrack featuring Gene Wilder, and assorted books I wanted from the Cambridge University Press.

We pulled out the button (in the UK one would say ‘badge’) machine to amuse the guests, played music, talked, and ate. I proved my claim that the older child is a clone by pulling out pictures of me at the same age; it is in fact rather spooky that she is so like me physically – and nothing like me in terms of personality.

One of the best parts about making new friends is the fact that they’ve never heard the stories I can’t publish; in the middle of one I remembered the Cautionary Tales series Gabriel and I collaborated on. I pulled it out for the first time in years; my elder child was astonished and kept pestering me to do something with it.

By the time the last guest rolled out the door at two in the morning it was officially our tenth wedding anniversary.

We don’t celebrate this milestone as it is such a random marker. I have always viewed marriage as an economic contract (hence the fact that I’ve been married to someone or other continuously for sixteen years).

In exercising the privilege I have gained access to health insurance, community property protection, inheritance rights, and sundry other novelties that have proved worth the trouble. It is a huge bonus that I really like Byron. We marked the day by drifting around town chatting with friends.

It was, in short, a brilliant weekend.

 

1.6.2006 list

Lessons in Taxidermy is on the Time Out Chicago Top 10 Books of 2005 list.

 

 

1.4.2006 sleep

There are still a few days to survive before the dreaded unbirthday but my nearest and dearest have done their duty, including, from Byron, a subscription to Audible. This is very exciting!

The first thing I downloaded? Some P.G. Wodehouse, of course.

I listen to Wodehouse every night as I fall asleep.

 

1.2.2006 wonder

For those who wonder what narrowboating looks like (as rendered in Lego):

Also, life in England (again in Lego):

1.1.2006 escape

Around two this morning I was sitting on a windowsill in Sidney Sussex surrounded by partying anthropologists and watching as six police, backed up by two wagons and a cruiser, sorted out a brawl.

One fellow holding an ice bag to his bloody head walked to an ambulance with several girls trailing along behind. A group of men stood in front of the pub gesturing angrily at the police until another young man sauntered out and attempted to walk down the street. Much yelling commenced and the new fellow was held back by a uniformed officer.

The scene was amazing to me for one reason: the people confronting each other and yelling appeared to have absolutely no fear of authority. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I have in fact had lots of direct experience with such things.

The man who appeared to be the suspect was told to sit down on a ledge and he complied while everyone else shouted and rushed about. A girl in a tube dress appeared with a roll of paper towels, which she then licked before swabbing blood and ooze off her friends. The crowd of perhaps two dozen surged back and forth, everyone shouting at the cops, despite the fact that they were probably just giving evidence.

Nobody was paying much attention to the presumed culprit, as his mate was alternately blowing smoke in the face of a female officer and making rude gestures at other witnesses. Eventually the pub manager came out with her walkie-talkie and intervened, taking the rude bloke to an alley and gesturing for him to leave the scene.

Then without warning the suspect jumped up and dashed down the street, onlookers screaming and attempting to tackle him, and the police in what appeared to be slow motion joining pursuit. He disappeared around a corner and after a delay one of the police vehicles followed. Slowly.

The other people watching with me at the window all laughed and hollered encouragement before going back to their festivities.

Academic parties are quite entertaining, though in my experience not as flamboyant as you might think after reading a bio of Sylvia Plath or Ted Hughes; allegedly they met at one of these shindigs and were sufficiently excited that she bit him and drew blood. Personally I think that blood is a bit excessive (doubt that she asked permission and there is an etiquette about these things after all). But it would be nice to know more poets; they’re the only people who pet me. Lots of people do not even dare shake my hand.

Happy New Year!

 

The best film during this winter week has proved to be an old favorite: Sixteen Candles. Has the rating been amended? It claims to be PG but I’m fairly sure that my mother had to buy our tickets when I first went with Mash and Anne to see it at that grand old theatre in downtown Bremerton in 1984.

I’m sure at the time I identified with the Molly Ringwald character, though looking at the film now I’m not sure why. She is such a whinger – and not at all nice to any of the people around her, except the best friend with the big hair and badass boyfriend. This does not reflect my life at the time; I wasn’t exactly as messed up as the Joan Cusack character in the back brace, but I definitely had no desire to crack the cool crowd or date a hunk.

The only social aspiration I’ve ever had was to be a geek, and they weren’t having me.

This was such a point of sorrow I was compelled to write a zine (not that we used that word back in olden times aka 1983) detailing the social schisms of junior high. With broadly sketched parodies of the school administration thrown in for extra credit. Which I then distributed in the school for three years, as you might imagine creating quite a stir. Without actually gaining any new friends.

Oh, and another point about that movie: when I was growing up the school bus was actively dangerous. The band kids would huddle up front and hope that nobody would pull a knife on them during the journey. The metal kids occupied the back and blasted AC/DC on their ghetto boxes (which is the correct historical term, unfortunately) while carving up the seats.

I sat in the middle and kept my head down except when chatting to a kid who was convinced that if he performed certain rituals Satan would bring him back from the dead after his next suicide attempt. I don’t remember if he was the same kid who liked to nail live kittens to trees.

I never did manage to become an official geek.

 

12.28.2005 list

I’m on the list. Nifty.

 

12.26.2005 tree

In the states I kept a tinsel tree up all year – it sat on my altar and was decorated with the various seasonal ornaments the children brought home from school. The younger child complained mildly that he would prefer a real tree; luckily he has no memory of the years we were so poor we had a tree made of construction paper.

Christmas in my mind is definitely about the gifts, with a slight nod in the direction of my cultural heritage, insofar as we officially believe in Santa. It can be difficult to find everything on the wish lists but nobody was disappointed; I’m especially fond of my new bike lock.

The only mishap involved a Lush bath bomb, an unwanted gift that my daughter passed on to me. It would have been perfect for her, as she spent her entire childhood with glitter embedded in her scalp. It was not such a great thing for me to use without reading the label, as I do not enjoy sparkling and it won’t wash off.

The stuff is now all over not only me, but also by extension Byron. Though he looks rather fetching glittering up the place with his Tin Tin haircut and Gravy Train. tshirt.

Happy Boxing Day!

 

 

12.21.2005 jealousy

I’ve written about this elsewhere (for instance, in the chapter called Spoiled) but I’ll say it again: I do not understand why anyone would be jealous of anything I have, or anything that I’ve accomplished. Mostly because I do not understand or experience the emotion. I’ve been driven half wild by other sorts of feelings, like rage, but never by any variation of envy.

Perhaps my lack of emotive thought on the subject has something to do with the extreme isolation that chronic illness creates. Here inside the experience of living with a rare genetic disorder and two different kinds of cancer, it would be hard to survive if I allowed myself to compare my life with another.

I’ve been sick since birth, and I expect to die young. These are facts I live with, and yes — it is sort of depressing. But mortality is a fundamental part of life; we all have to die. There isn’t much point dwelling on the issue.

This topic is on my mind at the moment because I’m aware that the rest of my journal this month is rather insufferable. It would appear that I’ve had a fantastic time, and that is in fact true. I always have the best toys, the grandest adventures, the most fun available. On purpose.

The working class and political part of my brain struggles with abundance. I maintain an often violent internal debate in which I am thankful for my own economic stability and angry that others do not have the basic things they need. I’ve only been middle-class by income definition for about three years, and while I appreciate the security I’m not so sure about the rest of it.

When I meet people who tell me that they are jealous of my life, I am surprised and run through a mental tally of what they might like to have: the history of profound life-threatening illness? Not fun.

The excessively messy and reckless personal life? I can’t even write the full truth until a few more people die.

The eccentric, maddening family? It isn’t easy living with geniuses; they tend to be an awful lot of trouble.

The expat thing? I don’t live in a friendly place, and I truly miss my home.

The only thing left is the whole middle-class thing, and you know, I don’t believe it will last – nor do I approve of middle-class, middle-brow activities and entertainments.

People who are wiser than yours truly inform me that nobody will ever believe that my life has been difficult, because I never complain. This information is interesting but not useful.

I find lamentations boring; life can be frustrating, lonely, sad, and sometimes gruesome. I’ve lived through more than my fair share of trouble and it is perfectly reasonable that I should want to have a good time. That starts with recognizing and documenting the good things.

 

 

12.19.2005 interview

Except from my Mamazine interview:

I value community, but I’m not interested in drama. Life is far too difficult and fleeting to get mired down in scandal, gossip, or fear. When I get depressed, I put on a costume and throw a party.

 

12.14.2005 truffles

Just as I finished writing the below rant Byron knocked on the boat window and handed me a package with regards from Daniel: Cru Sauvage truffles!

It is hard to sustain a bad mood when people are so nice to me.

 

12.14.2005 morbid

The morbid months are well and truly upon us. I hadn’t noticed because this month started so well – I should plan to go on tour every winter.

Last year at this time I was home, sitting in the hallway with my back against a radiator, furiously finishing the final copyedits for Lessons in Taxidermy and wishing that I could stab someone in the eye. Not exactly a festive feeling. Though from the evidence in my public journal, I was doing a pretty good job of faking it.

More about magazines: the Piers Morgan interview of Steve Coogan is hilarious and reminds me why I continue to read GQ. I was also thinking about why I tend to enjoy the celebrity and lad mags but not the glossies for ladies and came up with a somewhat simplistic but possibly valid explanation: if I’m going to read stuff that drips with hatred of women, I’d rather it be from the male perspective than the female. This is quite likely a character flaw, but remember, I work in the media. I keep my enemies close at hand.

On the subject of gender differences, I would like to lodge a protest about the fact that Joaquin Phoenix and Seal are both routinely featured in glowing reviews and lifestyle pieces that never once mention the scars on their faces.

No female in either industry, if they could create a career at all, would be able to avoid talking about such things.

My radical disability side thinks it is amazing that anyone can achieve mainstream fame without having to talk about the scars all the time. Hurray for integration and acceptance and so forth. But the part of me that had to learn to accommodate the reality of being a girl with hundreds of scars is just plain annoyed.

I refused to have plastic surgery to correct the more gruesome examples, but it occurred to me that the doctors must have done something to my torso before I was old enough to consent or decline. I asked my mother and she replied yes; they injected every single skin cancer scar with cortisone.

So, in service to the presumed vanity of the adult I did not become, I underwent not only nearly four hundred biopsies, but four hundred cosmetic renovations. Without my consent or knowledge.

It is not surprising that I now have a terrible allergy to cortisone, and a fierce hatred of unnecessary medical interventions.

 

12.13.2005 advent

The toys in the Playmobil advent calendar today: guinea pigs!

Recently I was telling friends about my early entrepreneurial efforts to raise guinea pigs for fun and profit (not for medical testing; I sold strictly to friends and pet stores). For several years of my adolescence it is true that I had quite the little breeding scheme, with cages everywhere and constant mayhem.

It is also true, despite what my cynical friends might believe, that guinea pigs are the smartest rodent. They can live in the house like trained dogs, walk on leashes, and if coaxed, dance. One of mine even saved a family from a fire.

Really.

Sadly I had to give up my pets during a period of household chaos, but I still like the creatures. I do not know why they are included in a plastic nativity set, but it seems fitting somehow.

On the subject of childhood hobbies, my son saved up enough money to buy a telescope. Several weeks after he took it home David congenially came over to help him assemble and calibrate the device. I cooked a proper Sunday dinner (or my version of it, with a roast chicken, coconut rice, and mountains of kale) and then scuttled into a corner, holding a magazine in front of my face while the technical work was executed.

Later we gathered shivering in the backyard to look up at the craters on the moon.

 

 

12.8.2005 people

I have an unnatural love of glossy magazines; in a normal month I read (in addition to the obvious intellectually stimulating sorts) British GQ, a somewhat random mix of Hello and Ok!, most of the newspaper Saturday magazines, whichever other newspaper inserts have free movies I want to see, and every single issue of Now. In fact, I am more aware of the magazine publishing schedule than, say, which day the trash goes out.

This is a habit I’m sure that I have in common with large portions of the population, though perhaps for different reasons. Some people might be truly interested in the (generally boring) celebrity gossip, or the views of Jade Goody, or the latest news about fashion/food/drink. Not me; no, I read them because I am trying to assimilate in a new country.

Perhaps the glossies aren’t the best way to understand life in the UK?

For instance, this morning I read an article by a woman who was celibate for lack of opportunity for over twelve years. The other day I perused a rant (written by a man) about how normal women don’t put out. These magazines offer, in addition to what would seem completely extraneous directives on items to purchase (nobody, and I mean nobody, should ever consider spending several hundred pounds on a handbag – especially not an ugly one), extensive advice about sex. Particularly in GQ, this advice seems to assume that the average reader is inept to the point of imbecility.

Now, I am aware that my life and social scene is not exactly normal. But can it possibly be that bad out there in the larger world? Do people honestly have such terrifically awful trouble finding a partner, and then figuring out what to do with said love object?

I can’t fathom, and remember, I’m the one with a mutilated body and dissociative brain. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me, I have no interest in the banalities of conversational conventions, and I do not flirt. But even so, my only romantic problem has been shedding whichever person I no longer liked. In fact, since age sixteen I have never been single, not even for an afternoon. For large swaths of time I’ve maintained demented and definitely inappropriate liaisons (Byron being one good example, given that when we got together I was married to someone I had misplaced and did not wish to find a replacement).

I am of course a perfectionist; if I’m going to do something, it will be done well or not at all. This definitely extends to all physical relationships; I would never settle for less than I deserve. I’m both arrogant and damaged enough to presume an extreme form of entitlement, in which physical pleasure is a mandatory part of existence.

In this I’m fully in line with most of my peers, a hedonistic crew of people who ravage around the countryside having adventures. Even those who enjoy cozy domesticity are certainly not in need of Dear Abby style sex tips.

When my friends run into trouble with their love lives, it generally takes the form of stalkers, or starfuckers, or the consequences of dating more than one person at a time. If they’re single it is for some random political reason, or obscure spiritual beliefs, or because they are raising young kids (one should never underestimate the work this requires), not because they can’t get a date. Not because they’re incompetent. Given that a large percentage of people in my acquaintance have survived  physical abuse, these points are particularly notable.

Now, I know that there are lots of people who have trouble finding what they perceive as true love or worthy partners. This is also something I do not understand, given that the fairies did not gift me with beauty, style, social skills, money, or any of the other qualities that make a person desirable.

I’m wholly invented, from scratch – what I project to the world is what I choose to show. The people I allow in my life are similarly products not of nature but of hard work. Byron has always been fairly luscious, but the ladies set their caps for him more often now that he has a prestigious job. I liked him just fine when he lived in a van.

To reverse the example: he took a hankering for me when I was a poorly dressed bureaucrat who never talked about anything more scintillating than the fiscal policy implications of implementing the ADA. The life we lead now, in every detail, was chosen with deliberation – and achieved by dint of hard labor. If either of us had been inclined to wait for a perfect partner, we would still be sitting in cafes in downtown Olympia Washington.

But again, this does not in any way mean that I compromised my (lofty, eccentric, and unfair) standards to be in a relationship. I just found someone with sympathetic views, who wanted to help raise my kids. Everything else followed the decision to build the sort of life we both wanted. No part of the past fifteen years has been easy, but if you let go of the idea that it should be, life can often be wild, strange, and scandalously fun.

I started this rumination with magazines, and should bring the point back around. I guess that I have to wonder if people would have better relationships, hotter sex, and more intense lives in every possible way if they spent less time reading about the latest trends in lip gloss and more time having adventures.

Though obviously I could be wrong, and I have no inclination to stop reading magazines.

 

12.6.2005 highlights

Some highlights of the tour:

-Train rides through DC and Maryland.
-Driving around aimlessly looking at monuments as it was too cold and windy to get out of the car.
-Standing in front of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and crying.
–Atomic Books! Owners and staff alike, simply genius. After the event I hung out downstairs and offered emotional support for a broken boiler (it might be wise to avoid my company when you need emotional support).
-Dinner with Baltimore & DC friends including some roller derby mamas.
-Walking with China to see the Christmas lights.
-Meeting Byron at odd and unscripted moments.
-Losing my voice several times but always within reasonable distance of stores that sell remedies.
-Madcap and mildly distressing runs to various airports, often at four in the morning.
-Flying five times in eight days.

And the most important:

-Fabulous audiences who laugh at all the right places!

Auspicious start: the Happy Endings reading was a starred pick in Time Out!

The venue was packed, and it was super fun to meet Jessa Crispin  Beth Lisick before Amanda overwhelmed me with compliments as she introduced me to the audience.

Happy Endings has a strictly enforced premise: we were all supposed to take a public risk, for real, that is not a stunt. There are very few things I’m afraid of that would translate to a performance: it is difficult to find the dramatic impetus of not washing your hands often enough.

In the weeks leading up to the event I surveyed all of my friends and a fair few strangers to get advice on what I should do. To introduce my set I read out a transcript of all the suggestions people offered (noting names, occupations, and geographical distribution).

The main theme my friends arrived at was some version of nudity, including from Stella read without a shirt on and from Ayun put on tassels and twirl it baby! But in my childhood I was a medical curiosity: being naked in front of strangers is not frightening.

The audience laughed the most at Byron’s suggestion, particularly when I added and he told me not to say that on stage. Also at James’ comment, which can be paraphrased as be wrong for once in your life. Neither option were helpful from a performance perspective, nor do they reflect my deepest fears.

So what did I do? What risk did I take? What scares me, in a profound and paralytic fashion?

I made a telephone call.

Specifically, I called my in-laws, for the first and presumably the last time in my life.

The ensuing conversation involved even more compliments and kindness directed at yours truly,  amplified by a microphone and overheard by a jaded NYC audience.

I was literally hopping up and down with anxiety by the end of the exchange.

After the reading Johnny Temple showed me a picture of his baby son holding Lessons in Taxidermy. People from the audience came up to tell me that they were a cancer-slash-writing support group. Coincidentally, I knew one of the women from our mutual association with various sketchy dot.com companies years ago.

I told a selection of friends and strangers a story that used the phrase waiting on line, only to have KTS furrow his brow and point out that I have forsaken my colloquial heritage.

Then we made a list of words that we children of the rural Pacific Northwest cannot pronounce (including but not limited to rural, roof, wolf, sword….

At some point as the crew moved from club to bar the bouncer I had the, er, encounter with a few years ago recognized me and leaned in, scowling.

I offered him a huge smile, and a little finger wave to remind him that, yes, I can in fact take him down.

 

11.29.2005 tour

Some highlights of the tour so far:

I stopped on a street corner in Soho to talk to a stranger wearing a suitcase as some kind of performance art, and within about two minutes figured out that we have many friends in common.

Stella, Al, Cy, Thanksgiving leftovers and enormous apartments. Walks in the snow and a tour of Buffalo City Hall. Meeting Sarah’s lovely dad at a reading.

Keith and Brent and a speakeasy. Jess and Brian and a stuffed toy of the Black Plague virus. The history of trepanation courtesy of the New York Academy of Medicine.

On the only free evening in NYC, being poisoned by a glass of wine (Byron would like to believe the hot bartender slipped me something so she could have him to herself)

Extremes of weather, from snow drifts in Buffalo to balmy sunshine in NYC. It was in fact so warm that Byron, who had only packed longjohns, used a pair of nail clippers to take the legs off his undergarments.

Standing on a street corner in Manhattan, I heard a violent impact and turned to watch in wonder as a bus kept driving after hitting a small car, metal grinding down the entire length of the vehicle.

Walking toward Time Square I watched a tour bus run over a police car — and keep driving, with police running along behind shouting for it to stop.

What NYC looks like (trust me):

 

11.24.2005 brighton

Marisa and I went to Brighton for a few days to catch up with The Gossip. playing at a small dirty pub with Kid Carpet opening. It was an excellent show, as always. They are the only band that make me want to dance (not that I follow through on the urge, though I did nod my head, which is a really extraordinary amount of movement for me at a show). I would strongly suggest that you see them live if you have the opportunity before they graduate to stadiums.

After the show we huddled in the green room and I offered up suggestions of hotels to band members who didn’t want to crash with friends, then sat in the back of their van navigating through a town I do not know.

The desk clerk was charmed by the post-set dishevelment of the group and offered his demo tape. Later we split up and took Beth to dinner; it was strange and interesting to sit and catch up on all the scandals from home.

It would be very convenient if all of my friends could just… move here.

Now I’m preparing a feast; I was up all night baking pies and wore an old tattered Smithfield shirt in tribute to Stella and Al, since I won’t be able to see them until this weekend. The turkey is in the oven, the table is set, and Marisa is teaching my son how to make candied sweet potatoes. I fly away on tour at some point in the middle of the night.

This has been a terrific week — hope to see many of you on the road.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

11.15.2005 soon

These are soon! Come see me read ~ and in New York, I’ll have to take a “personal risk” — hmm.

Mon., Nov. 28, 7pm–BUFFALO, NY, Talking Leaves, 951 Elmwood Ave.
Wed., Nov. 30, 7:30pm–NEW YORK, NY, Happy Endings Reading Series, 302
Broome St.
Thurs., Dec. 1, 7pm–BALTIMORE, MD, Atomic Books, 100 W. 36th St.

 

11.13.2005 impulsive

Stella has a great card with the caption If you want to know how he’ll treat you, ask what he thinks of his mother. I think it would be safe to extend the concept to friendship; if you want to know whether a new person is a good prospect or a potential catastrophe, they will usually tell you all that you need to know within five minutes.

I have a marked love of disorderly behavior and impulsive, charming people, but if someone tells endless stories about treachery and deceit, I pay attention. A stated history of failed friendships, matched with a conviction that other people are at fault — when I hear these stories I know that no matter how much I enjoy the person, they will eventually grow to hate me.

This does not worry me or change my behavior; I just enjoy the person until the inevitable break. I can’t be tempted into a fight, not even to defend my own reputation. I shrug and move on.

This has only happened twice in the last five years, because it does not mesh with my own pathologies. I am well aware that I am often silent and withdrawn, happiest either alone or performing. It can take years of acquaintance before I feel even remotely capable of real conversation, no matter how much I like the person.

This means that I am perceived to be prickly, standoffish, or any of the assortment of gender based insults. But I am also very loyal, and have several deeply meaningful friendships that have spanned decades and all manner of chaos.

If someone has reached their late thirties without ever maintaining a close friendship for more than a year, it would seem to be a pattern. Certainly nothing to pass judgment on, or even change. Just something to notice.

 

11.11.2005 regiment

I have a panoramic photograph of the 351st Infantry Regiment during training at Camp Dodge, Iowa, before they were shipped off to fight in Europe.

They are standing in orderly rows, hats correctly aligned, except one man in the very back row who shoved his hat back and stared at the camera with a half-smile.

They are all so young.

My son bought a poppy with his cake money; he told me that injured soldiers used to sew them out of silk, and they are red because of the blood in the trenches.

Happy Armistice Day.

 

11.10.2005 news

A former housemate (from thirteen years ago) just sent email saying he saw one of Byron’s projects on television and on Wired news.

Interesting coincidence: the former housemate now works in the computer industry and is married to a writer. I never would have predicted any of us would turn out the way we did. Let alone run in paralel.

Particularly when I evicted Byron.

 

11.8.2005 mysteries

One of the great mysteries of life in a British market town is the relative lack of consumer goods. This is not a criticism; I moved here on purpose, and one element of the decision was a desire to escape the rampant commercialism of my homeland. I detest all aspects of shopping.

But when one needs to purchase essential goods, like underwear or shoes, it would be nice to have more than two choices.

This is entirely separate from the perplexing point that many items are not adjusted for currency. Something that costs ten pounds here is often ten dollars back home, and the exchange rate is in my favor.

I am also baffled by the fact that every other European city I’ve visited is affordable (and often cheap) compared to the UK.

 

11.6.2005 purge

Last night we went to see a documentary about a Portland band. Before the movie started I wondered if I would feel morbid nostalgia for home, but luckily, there were only small glimpses of bridges. The strongest response we both had was a sincere rapture over the tambourine boy. I particularly liked his spectacles.

But perhaps the film kicked off something in my mind, because I woke up this morning with a compelling need to purge the last of our boxes. We’ve been here sixteen months and we are not completely unpacked; partly because we have run out of cupboard space, but mostly because I do not want to make decisions about what to keep.

I was sufficiently paranoid to bring all of our tax documents and identity papers in my carry-on luggage, but there they have sat, in the suitcase under the bed. The boxes represent a similar lack of planning and wealth of resources. Byron found a tape of Beth doing Straight to Hell eight years ago, the soundtrack of our impoverished early years in Portland, and I wiled away the day sorting through the detritus of an abandoned life.

 

11.5.2005 bonfire

This morning my son woke me by reciting the poem he learned in school yesterday:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!

Guy Fawkes, guy, t’was his intent
To blow up king and parliament.
Three score barrels were laid below
To prove old England’s overthrow.

By god’s mercy he was catch’d
With a darkened lantern and burning match.
So, holler boys, holler boys, Let the bells ring.
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the king.

And what shall we do with him?
Burn him!

Of course, my son is a stoic, so he delivered the lines in a weary voice.

Tonight there will be a bonfire on Midsummer Common and we will sit on top of my narrowboat to watch the fireworks.

 

11.2.2005 mechanic

My favorite local bike mechanic has moved from the market square and is now a mobile vendor. Right now he can be found on Queen’s Road near Burrel’s Walk. You know, just off Garret Hostel Lane.

If you need to buy a bicycle or get any repairs done, definitely consider the trip. He is one of the best I’ve ever known, and I do know an awful lot of bike mechanics.

 

11.1.2005 interview

I often just, well, talk.

It seemed excessive to use more blood and gore than was strictly necessary, and besides, how many words are there to describe excruciating pain? I wouldn’t read a book that was gross and depressing. I wouldn’t lead a life ruled by those themes.

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