Now, let me see.....how DID I get into this? A simple phone call, left a message and complicated my life once more. But what a fun time. Gina, a tiny 'kid' (well, anyone under around 55 is a kid to me, Gina), invited me to work on a digital film she was making on sex and the older person. Well, I am tired of younger people (there are some on the radio next to me at work) talking about what we do or don't do. One of the things we 'don't do' is have anything to do with sex. Yeah, note that all the people who advertise Viagra look like they are around 50. Well, it ain't so kids....your mother is just as capable of having (and/or desiring to have) sex, as is your weak old father (although he may have to have some Viagra, Cielas or whatever they call it. Probably won't admit it, though.
Gina couldn't think of a name for her film. How about "Only MEN need Viagra!" or "Birds Do It, Bees Do It, Even Over Sixty-threes Do it!" or "Fun Things to do After Menopause" or "Oh, Yeah, You'd Be Surprised What Mother Does." Too long? How about, "MOTHER!! DAD!!"
So, a nice slim girl picked me and my bag of props and wardrobe up to go to a huge warehouse that houses film studios, bakers of cookies, exercise studios and all sorts of strange businesses. If I were a journalist, I think I'd be out there intrviewing all those people...fascinating. I met the whole film crew...all very young and knowledgeable. All the things I had done when very young came back to me -- the Pittsburgh Playhouse where I built scenery and had terrible stage fright; the cable company in Oak Park, where I had to have two people put the huge camera up on my shoulder; the 'character model' job Gus insisted I do at BB/L for the "Bob & Carol, Ted & Zelda Watch Radio" campaign (I was Zelda and 'Carol' did my hair by taking her two hands to my head and messing it up as much as possible--Gus wouldn't let me get a haircut until it was all over). Back to yesterday: I addressed the camera as Gina asked me questions about my sexuality then we went to the studio's bathroom (have to write about that...bathrooms??), where I did the makeup bit and put on the red wool hat from Peru that Whit bought me....and finally I sat and watched them take some shots of photos of me from baby until now, and the big one with K. Gina fed us dinner while they discussed the next film and I made the long trek out to her car, to arrive home some time after 8pm. Long, but fun day.....back to acting, but no throwing up this time. I may finally have grown up.
All that talking, all that acting and all that walking did me in. My left foot (the one whose upper- foot tendon I tore in half jumping out of bed to answer the phone) gave out and was so sore that I simply drank a cup of coffee and went back to bed to read all the magazines that came last week (the catalogs simply were thrown in the bag that Elvira carried out to the big blue can--it's bigger than she is) to be recycled into yet more catalogs. I find that my faves in the magazine world these days are "Fast Company" and "Forbes".....rather odd choices for an old woman. Oh, I still enjoy "Poets & Writers" and try to get through "Newsweek" every week also, which I did first today. It was full of mostly BOOKS this week. I am fascinated with the new Newsweek....not really much of a news magazine anymore.....and a lot less trashy gossip....just a bit of hard news, then a theme like the present one of books. I loved reading it. Now Forbes had a great article of various people talking about their 'best advice.' I loved Nora Ephron's little snips like "Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator, Don't learn how to iron or someone will make you do it (I didn't...or even how to make a bed), Never run for a bus, Marry a man who was unhappily married to his first wife for 17 years"......she can be very funny. They also have a box giving what advice will cost you from various people like lawyers and psychics. I learned a lot by spending the day in bed and putting the foot up above my heart. Thank god for my gem, Elvira! Now the foot, having had to be placed down on the floor, is objecting again, so I shall go to bed and hope it is better tomorrow. I have to go to the bank, so it had better be.
And a quick congratulations to Al Franken......FINALLY a Senator from Minnesota! I wish him well -- NOT an easy job, Al.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Good Old Days??
Good lord.....I have been living in SF long enough to long for 'the good old days...'
When I could stand on Market St with all the tourists to watch the Gay Pride Parade....
When I could still stand for more than fifteen minutes without my back killing me...
When I still didn't even know any gay men & women
When I had a bunch of really good friends in my 'family group' who were gay or lesbian...
When I lived in a house on Hayes St with an old friend from Saginaw (now dead)....
When we used to have parties to watch the runners come down the Hayes St hill....
When I used to run for the bus to make it to work at UC/SF......
When I exercised happily by running across the street to have pool exercises at UC.....
When I had a prescription to use the HOT pool at CPMC after my knees were replaced...
When Bud and I used to go to classes at least twice a week at Fromm/USF.....
When Bud died leaving me in tears, feeling that my big brother had left me alone and ill.....
Of course the Gay Pride parade made me think of all of this...and my SF 'family'....only two of the eight or nine are still alive or here, sad to say. None of them succumbed to AIDS, thank goodness, just heart attacks mainly, or moving away because they can't afford to live here anymore. I think I may miss the wonderful parties at Bud's the most....I used to sit on the piano bench with his crazy friend Lyle, who sang in musicals... and sing, while he tried to find a song I didn't know the words to... hard. He's moved to Las Vegas to do shows. And poor Jan, my favorite of all my friends, who died for some mysterious reason they never figured out....it was as though she just faded away, very strange. Her sister told me they did an autopsy, but couldn't find a reason for her death. Yeah...there WAS no reason, she just shouldn't have died, leaving us with only half of Berkeley explored, and no list of what we each knew about the Bay Area. Even a bunch of my old (quite old) friends from Fromm have moved away....up to real 'Northern California' mainly, I guess to stay close to the ocean.
I could never go back to anywhere away from the Pacific Ocean, and particularly no where where I would be surrounded by republicans. There are so many reasons I worked so hard to get out here for good, starting, I suppose with dear Ned and his stories of a childhood in Sea Cliff, and his adventures in the Bay Area. I used to tell him of my darling Mary and Jones who took such good care of us in Memphis, and he told me of his Chinese nursemaid and took me to the restaurant she took him to as a child to have dim sum.
I wonder if he ever got to "Aunt Kate's" where we went for BBQ as children....I wonder if it is still there. I know the Peabody Hotel, where we helped gather up the ducks in the evening and take them up to bed, and go up in the morning to escort them down in the elevator in the morning, still is, as I have sent several of my friends there and had gushing postcards from them. "Lovely hotel....the ducks are still here....." Although I rather think the ducks are new replacement ones. Same kind at any rate. We lived there while Jessie looked for a suitable house for us, then a bit longer, until I got over one of my bouts of measles (not caught from the ducks, I'm sure). I lay in a large bed, windows drawn, surrounded by old magazines Alonzo Locke had rustled up for me, cutting out pics and pasting them into a large scrapbook with 'library paste,' (which doesn't seem to exist anymore) taking a taste of it now and then. Too bad it no longer exists, as my memories were much sharper when I could still smell the stuff.
Good heavens, the Gay Pride paraders must be dying of the heat! It is 78 in here, and it is always much cooler than the outside....much! So it must be hotter than hell out there. I shan't go out, as I do not like hot weather. I'll just pour myself a nice cup of iced tea and go back to work trying to write some poetry for the reading on July 21 in Yerba Buena Gardens. Hopefully it will not be as hot that day, as I have to wear a hat. Well dear Steve will have set up the tent over our seats, so we won't be in the sun, but the poor audience will be........oh, dear..............ah, well..................
When I could stand on Market St with all the tourists to watch the Gay Pride Parade....
When I could still stand for more than fifteen minutes without my back killing me...
When I still didn't even know any gay men & women
When I had a bunch of really good friends in my 'family group' who were gay or lesbian...
When I lived in a house on Hayes St with an old friend from Saginaw (now dead)....
When we used to have parties to watch the runners come down the Hayes St hill....
When I used to run for the bus to make it to work at UC/SF......
When I exercised happily by running across the street to have pool exercises at UC.....
When I had a prescription to use the HOT pool at CPMC after my knees were replaced...
When Bud and I used to go to classes at least twice a week at Fromm/USF.....
When Bud died leaving me in tears, feeling that my big brother had left me alone and ill.....
Of course the Gay Pride parade made me think of all of this...and my SF 'family'....only two of the eight or nine are still alive or here, sad to say. None of them succumbed to AIDS, thank goodness, just heart attacks mainly, or moving away because they can't afford to live here anymore. I think I may miss the wonderful parties at Bud's the most....I used to sit on the piano bench with his crazy friend Lyle, who sang in musicals... and sing, while he tried to find a song I didn't know the words to... hard. He's moved to Las Vegas to do shows. And poor Jan, my favorite of all my friends, who died for some mysterious reason they never figured out....it was as though she just faded away, very strange. Her sister told me they did an autopsy, but couldn't find a reason for her death. Yeah...there WAS no reason, she just shouldn't have died, leaving us with only half of Berkeley explored, and no list of what we each knew about the Bay Area. Even a bunch of my old (quite old) friends from Fromm have moved away....up to real 'Northern California' mainly, I guess to stay close to the ocean.
I could never go back to anywhere away from the Pacific Ocean, and particularly no where where I would be surrounded by republicans. There are so many reasons I worked so hard to get out here for good, starting, I suppose with dear Ned and his stories of a childhood in Sea Cliff, and his adventures in the Bay Area. I used to tell him of my darling Mary and Jones who took such good care of us in Memphis, and he told me of his Chinese nursemaid and took me to the restaurant she took him to as a child to have dim sum.
I wonder if he ever got to "Aunt Kate's" where we went for BBQ as children....I wonder if it is still there. I know the Peabody Hotel, where we helped gather up the ducks in the evening and take them up to bed, and go up in the morning to escort them down in the elevator in the morning, still is, as I have sent several of my friends there and had gushing postcards from them. "Lovely hotel....the ducks are still here....." Although I rather think the ducks are new replacement ones. Same kind at any rate. We lived there while Jessie looked for a suitable house for us, then a bit longer, until I got over one of my bouts of measles (not caught from the ducks, I'm sure). I lay in a large bed, windows drawn, surrounded by old magazines Alonzo Locke had rustled up for me, cutting out pics and pasting them into a large scrapbook with 'library paste,' (which doesn't seem to exist anymore) taking a taste of it now and then. Too bad it no longer exists, as my memories were much sharper when I could still smell the stuff.
Good heavens, the Gay Pride paraders must be dying of the heat! It is 78 in here, and it is always much cooler than the outside....much! So it must be hotter than hell out there. I shan't go out, as I do not like hot weather. I'll just pour myself a nice cup of iced tea and go back to work trying to write some poetry for the reading on July 21 in Yerba Buena Gardens. Hopefully it will not be as hot that day, as I have to wear a hat. Well dear Steve will have set up the tent over our seats, so we won't be in the sun, but the poor audience will be........oh, dear..............ah, well..................
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
ah, yes, nattering indeeed
Well, now is when I shall tell a funny story about leaks in the gorgeous apt. complex my first husband and I lived in before Whitney was born. Bert and I rented this smashing apt in an old set of buildings on the Near North in Chicago that was owned and rehabbed by the guy who was the art director for ABC-TV and a wealthy lawyer. There were two buildings with a big space in between where a building had burned down, now walkways and garden. Across the back Ray built a wall with terracotta heads that had water coming from their mouths into a pool that ran all across the back of the property. The old buildings were completely new inside, with high ceilings and VERY modern apts.
We hardly needed any furniture, as Ray (not his real name) had built in drawers all across one side of the bedroom, including a very large space for luggage, etc. to be stored, with sliding door closets next to them.. The bedroom had a balcony opening that looked over the living area below, and the windows went from the very bottom to the top, so that the curtain for the bedroom was on a circular track just above the overlook. I bought osnaberg and laid it out on top of newspapers all across the enormous floor of the bedroom, threw fabric paint in black, with flashes of red and yellow across it and made beautiful curtains of it. (Which I later sold to the guy who rented the apt after we left, at about five times what I had paid for the materials.) We also had terra cotta figures built into the rounded fireplace on the first floor, a perfect breakfront built into the dining area, and hand-carved balustrude. Too much. Oh, and it also had a huge grill across one side of the kitchen, with a large vent....like having an outdoor grill inside, a practically walk-in fridge and freezer...with more cupboards than I have had since. We bought a huge couch, three overstuffed chairs, a coffee table for downstairs, and made a very large bed with foam mattresses for upstairs, and one chair for the built-in dressing table. The bathroom had a little hidden nitch for the toilet, two huge counters with marble sinks, a tub and a shower.
Across from ours was a small apt on the first floor, with a very fancy, elaborate two story one on the second and third floors. A spectacular curved staircase that seemed to hang in the air went up to the bedrooms. That apartment also had windows that went from the bottom of the first floor, all the way up to the top of its second floor. It was, by far, the showiest one in the two buildings and our crazy neighbor never did get curtains as I recall. What did he care, he had been a chorus boy in New York and didn't care who saw him in any state.
The first floor studio was rented by a fairly young, blue collar couple, working their way up the social ladder, while upstairs was a young, gay Spaniard of noble heritage, who was impossible. His family had sent him over to get him out of the country, and he made a spectacle of himself as a chorus boy in New York. So he was sent to Chicago with enough money to pay a year's rent, daddy bought him the pale blue Lincoln Continental he wanted and sent him a monthly allowance. He of course, spent the year's rent right away, bought two spectacular dogs and fancy furniture and food, then spent half his time screaming on the phone to daddy or his sister that he needed more money, completely neglected the dogs.....and danced heavily to LOUD music with his new boyfriend.
The dogs took to peeing on the floor in ONE spot, and one day we heard Gloria (the girl downstairs) screaming, "Damn you, you rotten little $^%#@, turn down that ^%$&* music, stop the %#@$&*%$@ dancing AND that dog pee is coming through our ceiling -- do something NOW about it, or I'm coming up to kill both you and the dogs!!" The poor landlord had to go and insist that Jose (I think) get rid of the dogs and do the whole ceiling over.....which cost daddy a great deal of money....and daddy also had to pay for a hotel room for the kids downstairs while it was being fixed. After that, the Spaniard, Jose, had to go to live with his sister on some island somewhere, where she could keep an eye on him. He gave the Lincoln Continental to his boyfriend, and brought me two dozen porterhouse steaks that he had simply thrown into his freezer in a stack.... they were all stuck together .....that he had bought because I said they were nice to have for a BBQ.
I missed him, as he was actually fun and always came to parties with several bottles of THE BEST booze and lots of great food......but no one else seemed to miss him, sadly. I hope he is happily dancing (he was good) on that island of his sister's with a large inheritance from daddy......and not letting any dogs pee on second floors again. And, since he must now be very old, I hope he got some curtains for his bedroom!
We hardly needed any furniture, as Ray (not his real name) had built in drawers all across one side of the bedroom, including a very large space for luggage, etc. to be stored, with sliding door closets next to them.. The bedroom had a balcony opening that looked over the living area below, and the windows went from the very bottom to the top, so that the curtain for the bedroom was on a circular track just above the overlook. I bought osnaberg and laid it out on top of newspapers all across the enormous floor of the bedroom, threw fabric paint in black, with flashes of red and yellow across it and made beautiful curtains of it. (Which I later sold to the guy who rented the apt after we left, at about five times what I had paid for the materials.) We also had terra cotta figures built into the rounded fireplace on the first floor, a perfect breakfront built into the dining area, and hand-carved balustrude. Too much. Oh, and it also had a huge grill across one side of the kitchen, with a large vent....like having an outdoor grill inside, a practically walk-in fridge and freezer...with more cupboards than I have had since. We bought a huge couch, three overstuffed chairs, a coffee table for downstairs, and made a very large bed with foam mattresses for upstairs, and one chair for the built-in dressing table. The bathroom had a little hidden nitch for the toilet, two huge counters with marble sinks, a tub and a shower.
Across from ours was a small apt on the first floor, with a very fancy, elaborate two story one on the second and third floors. A spectacular curved staircase that seemed to hang in the air went up to the bedrooms. That apartment also had windows that went from the bottom of the first floor, all the way up to the top of its second floor. It was, by far, the showiest one in the two buildings and our crazy neighbor never did get curtains as I recall. What did he care, he had been a chorus boy in New York and didn't care who saw him in any state.
The first floor studio was rented by a fairly young, blue collar couple, working their way up the social ladder, while upstairs was a young, gay Spaniard of noble heritage, who was impossible. His family had sent him over to get him out of the country, and he made a spectacle of himself as a chorus boy in New York. So he was sent to Chicago with enough money to pay a year's rent, daddy bought him the pale blue Lincoln Continental he wanted and sent him a monthly allowance. He of course, spent the year's rent right away, bought two spectacular dogs and fancy furniture and food, then spent half his time screaming on the phone to daddy or his sister that he needed more money, completely neglected the dogs.....and danced heavily to LOUD music with his new boyfriend.
The dogs took to peeing on the floor in ONE spot, and one day we heard Gloria (the girl downstairs) screaming, "Damn you, you rotten little $^%#@, turn down that ^%$&* music, stop the %#@$&*%$@ dancing AND that dog pee is coming through our ceiling -- do something NOW about it, or I'm coming up to kill both you and the dogs!!" The poor landlord had to go and insist that Jose (I think) get rid of the dogs and do the whole ceiling over.....which cost daddy a great deal of money....and daddy also had to pay for a hotel room for the kids downstairs while it was being fixed. After that, the Spaniard, Jose, had to go to live with his sister on some island somewhere, where she could keep an eye on him. He gave the Lincoln Continental to his boyfriend, and brought me two dozen porterhouse steaks that he had simply thrown into his freezer in a stack.... they were all stuck together .....that he had bought because I said they were nice to have for a BBQ.
I missed him, as he was actually fun and always came to parties with several bottles of THE BEST booze and lots of great food......but no one else seemed to miss him, sadly. I hope he is happily dancing (he was good) on that island of his sister's with a large inheritance from daddy......and not letting any dogs pee on second floors again. And, since he must now be very old, I hope he got some curtains for his bedroom!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
So Seldom
I am fighting to keep my fingers from racing on the keys to a Shostakovich piano concerto...the only problem with having piano music playing in the background as I work. I just installed a lovely aol/cbs radio menu on my computer and now have a young woman named Mitsuko Uchida playing Beethoven. She is clutching her head on the album cover, looking every bit as horrible as I feel at the moment. The so seldom refers to the fact that I so seldom have writer's block, yet today I Have. I cannot seem to match any one of the thousands of nursery rhymes I know to the news stories of the moment, and I must have some and SOON. Nancy....and all the rest of the poetry group expect me to. (I am staying home the three weeks Nancy is gone to write and save up taxi scrip.) I even spent the greater part of the afternoon and evening listening to Dave Frishberg, hoping he would inspire me, as he usually does, but even that didn't help. Goodness, he is just up in Portland.....I would love to go up and see him play, which is about all he does these days, according to everything I read. He has written sort of a beginning of an autobiog. Maybe I could go up and help him finish it. What fun that would be. God....he is younger than I.....everyone is younger than I am, or else they are dead. I often wonder if I saw Dave in NYC, when he was just being a piano player....he played at Nicks and knew Condon and all the others I knew....did I just not notice him? Strange, as all the names in his memoirs ring a bell....Condon and Muggsy and Pee Wee and all the old Dixieland crowd. But I think he got there after I had left....he is great on piano, almost as good as my dear old James P.Johnson, my favorite of the whole crowd....well, Big Sid Catlett and little Ernie Caseras were my favorite people, but James P. was the best on piano. Ernie was sort of like my darling John Hartford, in that he could play almost anything with a reed, while John could play anything with strings. Of course they usually stuck Ernie with playing something no one else could play...or was playing that evening. He was such a sweet, kind little guy, and a lot better looking than most of the doggy looking musicians in NYC. Golly, I wouldn't tower over him today, I've lost three inches in height. I wonder why Dave Frishberg didn't get as well-known and popular as Randy Newman, they wrote similar songs, although Dave's are funnier. I adore "Peel Me a Grape" and "Van Lingo Mungo." I'm thinking of stealing the idea of "VLM" only with a different group. I have to get busy and come up with womething.
Now I'm nattering again, as I did to K....making less and less sense. Boy I would love to know what happened to him. We used to have such a connection and I have the feeling that he is gone, which I have never had before. Then I always knew he would turn up. Perhaps he is dead. Sad. Well, Peggo......have another dish of ice cream, wipe the tear from the eye and THINK. If I could just find a line in one of the news stories that sounded like a nursery rhyme, but they are all so damned stodgy that it is hard to make fun of them.
I have been most annoyed with Twitter. Every miserable person who signs in to 'follow' me is just there to sell something. I wish I could find someone from the old 'drinkers with writing problems' group....or those crazy nuts who used to meet in the Mission years ago and do silly things like handing out cookies shaped like bombs and say "bombs NOT food." Gosh, what was the name of that group.....they were such fun. I'll have to look in my files and find some of the crazy letters we used to paste pictures on and send out....stuffing envelopes at our meetings in local coffee houses. I've lost all my silly, outrageous friends and I miss them. I haven't talked to Connie in Chicago in ages.....I miss that old gang of artists from the Oak Park Art Co-op and the shows we did. I will never forget doing my silly chicken thing, reading "Time, time, time, time/ On a dime Gertrude Stein...etc." while 'playing' all the un-matched, water filled glasses everyone had brought in....and Gerry grabbing my hand as I came 'off-stage' and saying "Jeeze, Peg, you've got more guts than anyone I've ever seen!" I guess I was good, as one of the gals fell off her chair laughing. "Das Badde Art Showé" was a smashing success. I so wanted to buy Frank Cuda's "Night Over Miami beach," with its twinkling lights all around, and one in the eye of the flamingo flying overhead. He chickened out on his performance though, what was it to be??? Well, the kids in the Pell thing at UC/SF wanted me to go to one of the comedy clubs and tell some of my stories I told them.....odd that I should suddenly develop a comic trait and get rid of the stage fright at such an advanced age. Perhaps I should have been like Carol's Oak Park friend, who left home, husband and kids and became a comedian. Of course, Carol and John and I went to see her here, and she wasn't really very funny. Now that sounds like a shaggy dog story to me, so I think I am getting punchy......no more thinking or writing tonight. Good lord, it is 1:30am and I was up at 10am....Sylvia butted me, as she was out of food again. She is just eating too much....I can't keep up with her. And, I have to be up early again tomorrow.......Ah, well........
Now I'm nattering again, as I did to K....making less and less sense. Boy I would love to know what happened to him. We used to have such a connection and I have the feeling that he is gone, which I have never had before. Then I always knew he would turn up. Perhaps he is dead. Sad. Well, Peggo......have another dish of ice cream, wipe the tear from the eye and THINK. If I could just find a line in one of the news stories that sounded like a nursery rhyme, but they are all so damned stodgy that it is hard to make fun of them.
I have been most annoyed with Twitter. Every miserable person who signs in to 'follow' me is just there to sell something. I wish I could find someone from the old 'drinkers with writing problems' group....or those crazy nuts who used to meet in the Mission years ago and do silly things like handing out cookies shaped like bombs and say "bombs NOT food." Gosh, what was the name of that group.....they were such fun. I'll have to look in my files and find some of the crazy letters we used to paste pictures on and send out....stuffing envelopes at our meetings in local coffee houses. I've lost all my silly, outrageous friends and I miss them. I haven't talked to Connie in Chicago in ages.....I miss that old gang of artists from the Oak Park Art Co-op and the shows we did. I will never forget doing my silly chicken thing, reading "Time, time, time, time/ On a dime Gertrude Stein...etc." while 'playing' all the un-matched, water filled glasses everyone had brought in....and Gerry grabbing my hand as I came 'off-stage' and saying "Jeeze, Peg, you've got more guts than anyone I've ever seen!" I guess I was good, as one of the gals fell off her chair laughing. "Das Badde Art Showé" was a smashing success. I so wanted to buy Frank Cuda's "Night Over Miami beach," with its twinkling lights all around, and one in the eye of the flamingo flying overhead. He chickened out on his performance though, what was it to be??? Well, the kids in the Pell thing at UC/SF wanted me to go to one of the comedy clubs and tell some of my stories I told them.....odd that I should suddenly develop a comic trait and get rid of the stage fright at such an advanced age. Perhaps I should have been like Carol's Oak Park friend, who left home, husband and kids and became a comedian. Of course, Carol and John and I went to see her here, and she wasn't really very funny. Now that sounds like a shaggy dog story to me, so I think I am getting punchy......no more thinking or writing tonight. Good lord, it is 1:30am and I was up at 10am....Sylvia butted me, as she was out of food again. She is just eating too much....I can't keep up with her. And, I have to be up early again tomorrow.......Ah, well........
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Useless Evening, but a Happy One
I have spent actually a useless day, even forgot to eat dinner until after 8pm. But I am happy. The change from analog to digital TV caught me not thinking. I carefully called Comcast to come and add me to their long rolls, but neglected to think that I have something up against EVERY open space in my walls except for where the heaters are along the window wall. The man who came looked over the HEAVY bookcases and drawers full of STUFF that hold up my walls and said, "I'll just leave you some cable....see, you plug it into the TV here, then into the wall plug WHEN you find it!" So, I emptied out two enormous plastic drawers under my desk in the logical place for the plug to be....he said it was probably next to the phone jack. It isn't. But I managed to get some of my writing sorted and put into the boxes I had long ago bought for just this purpose. On pulling out the drawers, we found nothing, and nothing in back of the long file holding up my desk on which my Mac sits.....so I have no TV.
Why didn't I turn the damned thing off for good ages ago? This afternoon I sorted my mail for the last 3 days, throwing away most and this evening I turned on the radio. KALW, my favorite station, was playing their silly quiz game, so I sat back and listened, yelling answers at the radio like they could hear me. Then came Sarah Cahill with a lovely program of piano music. I almost lay down on the floor, as I did from the time I was two or three. I used to lie under Jessie's grand piano, happily letting the music not only fill my ears, but also thump into my little body through the piano. Now I must remember to add that story to my book about Jess...and the stories about her taking me to the symphony and other concerts and pinching me to make me remember. She was right about that -- I shall NEVER forget going to see Madame Shuman-Heink at an early age...Jessie could really pinch HARD. Her theory was: you always remember where you were if it concerned pain....you just didn't remember the pain.
She was right -- other 'pain' remembrances when it wasn't Madame Pincher: when my sister Betty Rae slammed the car door on my little finger. Because of that I shall never forget Niagra Falls. Or the obviously painful births (they did NOT want to come out) of my two children...I remember every detail, but not the pain, which was considerable, Dr. Gross told me later that he had to make some 30 cuts to get Whitney and her big head out, as she was already almost a month late. For Mark, he induced labor, saying he was not interested in delivering any more ten pounders from me. So we got an eight and one-half beautiful baby in Mark.
And so, having gotten off the track completely, as usual, I am sitting here, letting the nice classical music, still coming out of KALW, wash over me. Ms.Katt is furious with me, as she feels I am simply causing the radio to make a great deal of noise. Sylvia hates noise. I am HAPPY.
Also, for some reason I suddenly have a whole slew of people following me on Twitter....and one of them had a message from Guy Kawasaki, so I went to his site and 'followed' him. Don't know why I didn't think to do that sooner. He, of course, immediately sent a message he was doing the same. I miss seeing Guy.....miss Bud....who kept me up with SeniorNet and the people I knew there, although most of them are gone now, including Bud. Which reminds me of others.....
I guess I am more sad than happy to have taken down all of K's photos, in spite of all the nice comments from my friends, and put up dragons....lots of lovely little dragons. I now have 12. I am left wondering if K is dead or merely deserted me. He always said he would never do that, and when I said that as he moved from place to place, how could I ever be sure. He told me that he was going to put a note in his safe deposit box to be sent to me if he died, but that was probably just another story, about as valuable as the letters on my screen were. But it would be sad to think that he cared so little as to let me think so badly of him. And yet....law'sy me, I turned right around and made friends with another younger man....well, what else, all the men my age that I have known are dead and gone. I was hoping I would have another friend not only to write to, but also see once in a while. But ah, no, this one does not like to write letters over a sentence long, or even use the phone. But it has been a lovely, useless, happy day. Ah, well.....
Why didn't I turn the damned thing off for good ages ago? This afternoon I sorted my mail for the last 3 days, throwing away most and this evening I turned on the radio. KALW, my favorite station, was playing their silly quiz game, so I sat back and listened, yelling answers at the radio like they could hear me. Then came Sarah Cahill with a lovely program of piano music. I almost lay down on the floor, as I did from the time I was two or three. I used to lie under Jessie's grand piano, happily letting the music not only fill my ears, but also thump into my little body through the piano. Now I must remember to add that story to my book about Jess...and the stories about her taking me to the symphony and other concerts and pinching me to make me remember. She was right about that -- I shall NEVER forget going to see Madame Shuman-Heink at an early age...Jessie could really pinch HARD. Her theory was: you always remember where you were if it concerned pain....you just didn't remember the pain.
She was right -- other 'pain' remembrances when it wasn't Madame Pincher: when my sister Betty Rae slammed the car door on my little finger. Because of that I shall never forget Niagra Falls. Or the obviously painful births (they did NOT want to come out) of my two children...I remember every detail, but not the pain, which was considerable, Dr. Gross told me later that he had to make some 30 cuts to get Whitney and her big head out, as she was already almost a month late. For Mark, he induced labor, saying he was not interested in delivering any more ten pounders from me. So we got an eight and one-half beautiful baby in Mark.
And so, having gotten off the track completely, as usual, I am sitting here, letting the nice classical music, still coming out of KALW, wash over me. Ms.Katt is furious with me, as she feels I am simply causing the radio to make a great deal of noise. Sylvia hates noise. I am HAPPY.
Also, for some reason I suddenly have a whole slew of people following me on Twitter....and one of them had a message from Guy Kawasaki, so I went to his site and 'followed' him. Don't know why I didn't think to do that sooner. He, of course, immediately sent a message he was doing the same. I miss seeing Guy.....miss Bud....who kept me up with SeniorNet and the people I knew there, although most of them are gone now, including Bud. Which reminds me of others.....
I guess I am more sad than happy to have taken down all of K's photos, in spite of all the nice comments from my friends, and put up dragons....lots of lovely little dragons. I now have 12. I am left wondering if K is dead or merely deserted me. He always said he would never do that, and when I said that as he moved from place to place, how could I ever be sure. He told me that he was going to put a note in his safe deposit box to be sent to me if he died, but that was probably just another story, about as valuable as the letters on my screen were. But it would be sad to think that he cared so little as to let me think so badly of him. And yet....law'sy me, I turned right around and made friends with another younger man....well, what else, all the men my age that I have known are dead and gone. I was hoping I would have another friend not only to write to, but also see once in a while. But ah, no, this one does not like to write letters over a sentence long, or even use the phone. But it has been a lovely, useless, happy day. Ah, well.....
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Goodbye TV
Midnight, and goodbye to TV, at least for a while. I didn't listen to all the advice, but called Comcast, figuring it would be easier just to have them come and plug me in. However, they came and couldn't find the plug, as every inch of my room is covered with bookcases and desks. So the giant with the arm full of cable simply attached two pieces together, put a plug on the end (oh, if only it had been so easy to work with when I was building electronic equipment for Bert!) and told me to keep looking and just plug one end into the TV and one into the wall. I emptied out two whole drawers of my writing, moving stuff to boxes I had bought for just that, pulled out the drawers under my main desk, where the phone jack is located -- Horrors, no cable jack!!! So, now I must ask our manager if she knows where the cable jack is, or I must start pulling out everything and look for it myself. I haven't the strength for that, having moved all those boxes full of typing paper (no, they call it something else now...computer paper or something) one day and helped my home health care worker turn my mattress the next. Isn't life jolly? Well...I'm not missing much, as the summer TV is absolutely the worst batch of sh*t I have ever seen. I shall miss the PBS afternoon news and Craig Ferguson, but that is about it. I shall now have Terry Gross with my dinner and the BBC news all night on radio and Fiona chatting with Dougie MacLean on Saturday. If I hear of anything spectacular on TV, which I doubt, I can go watch it on a friend's TV. The best part of it is, however, that I now HAVE to write in the evening, the time when I am the most creative, and when Ms.Katt is snoozing and leaving me alone.
But am I writing any of the things I SHOULD be writing (family stories, poetry, short stories, half-completed novels?). Of course not, I am working hard at procrastinating, as usual. So with that said, I shall say goodnight and go to bed, as tomorrow is an early day. much too early. Ah, well.......
Monday, June 8, 2009
In Memory of Jessie, my mother
And Who Are You?
“Where is Betty Rae?” she’d say,
Or, “Are you Georgie?”
She so often called me
By either of my sister’s names.
It had little to do with who I was,
For she had mixed us up
Since our early childhood,
And we’d laugh at the confusion.
This was nothing new for Jessie,
Calling out a name, then,
Asking why we had come,
Then asking where the other was.
It was funny then, when we were young,
So how could it be a tragedy
Now that both of us were old,
And she was simply confused--as usual.
Peggy Cartwright, 6/8/09
“Where is Betty Rae?” she’d say,
Or, “Are you Georgie?”
She so often called me
By either of my sister’s names.
It had little to do with who I was,
For she had mixed us up
Since our early childhood,
And we’d laugh at the confusion.
This was nothing new for Jessie,
Calling out a name, then,
Asking why we had come,
Then asking where the other was.
It was funny then, when we were young,
So how could it be a tragedy
Now that both of us were old,
And she was simply confused--as usual.
Peggy Cartwright, 6/8/09
An Evening of Delight
I have just spent the evening watching the "Tony Awards," and discovered that I knew two or three of the people who died this year, but then, at my age that is to be assumed. I spent the evening laughing and crying, as I usually do when watching the superb cast of Broadway actors and actresses, some so familiar, others quite new to me. Almost made me miss living in NYC, and being able to attend the theatre... although I don't know that I could afford it now. When I lived there I had friends in most of the shows and had comps a great deal... then I could afford it.
I am so fond of the Tony's, as I spent several years as a kid working with the Pittsburgh Playhouse ... primarily backstage, but our director, Mr. Burleigh, forced me on stage a few times, where I almost died of stage fright every night. Regrettably, my family would not let me go to the U of Washington at Seattle to theatre school, in spite of Mr. Burleigh's approbation that I study to become a director, as I worked as his stage manager when still in high school. But no, I was to become the family artist, said my parents, always before so proud of the way they allowed us to make our own decisions. Well, I seem to have passed the artist gene on to my middle grandchild, while turning to my mother's hobby of writing as my final career.
The big thing that made me elated tonight: The win of the revival of the musical that I recall made me... and a good deal of the country... feel that maybe, just maybe, things were looking up for a tired old US. I think that for a few of us that feeling is back, and "Hair" is the perfect revival for us. Being a sort of older hippy myself at the time of "Hair"... and having spent the 'summer of love' in San Francisco, I remember the feeling of so many people that this was the dawning of the Age of Aquarias... and that change was coming... that things would 'get better'... I think that the final days of the bush administration had people holding their breath in the same way, waiting for the bush gang to leave, and praying that we would have change and a better life as we all chanted "Yes We Can"... But it is going to take time to rebuild a country that those guys had eight years of work at ruining... and Amuricuns want instant and perfect change. It will come... and in the meantime, at least they can go and see "Hair" and relive all that joyus nonsense.
Ah well..... as the songs all say so well: I am what I am.... before the parade passes by...... kiss the day goodbye and point me toward tomorrow....... let the sun shine..... let the sun shine in...... the su-un shine in. C|:-)
I am so fond of the Tony's, as I spent several years as a kid working with the Pittsburgh Playhouse ... primarily backstage, but our director, Mr. Burleigh, forced me on stage a few times, where I almost died of stage fright every night. Regrettably, my family would not let me go to the U of Washington at Seattle to theatre school, in spite of Mr. Burleigh's approbation that I study to become a director, as I worked as his stage manager when still in high school. But no, I was to become the family artist, said my parents, always before so proud of the way they allowed us to make our own decisions. Well, I seem to have passed the artist gene on to my middle grandchild, while turning to my mother's hobby of writing as my final career.
The big thing that made me elated tonight: The win of the revival of the musical that I recall made me... and a good deal of the country... feel that maybe, just maybe, things were looking up for a tired old US. I think that for a few of us that feeling is back, and "Hair" is the perfect revival for us. Being a sort of older hippy myself at the time of "Hair"... and having spent the 'summer of love' in San Francisco, I remember the feeling of so many people that this was the dawning of the Age of Aquarias... and that change was coming... that things would 'get better'... I think that the final days of the bush administration had people holding their breath in the same way, waiting for the bush gang to leave, and praying that we would have change and a better life as we all chanted "Yes We Can"... But it is going to take time to rebuild a country that those guys had eight years of work at ruining... and Amuricuns want instant and perfect change. It will come... and in the meantime, at least they can go and see "Hair" and relive all that joyus nonsense.
Ah well..... as the songs all say so well: I am what I am.... before the parade passes by...... kiss the day goodbye and point me toward tomorrow....... let the sun shine..... let the sun shine in...... the su-un shine in. C|:-)
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Birthdays
Today, June icks, as she used to say as a baby, was my older sister Elizabeth Rae Cartwright Rodd's birthday. Many in my family seem cursed with being born on days when never-to-be-forgotten things happened. Betty Rae, the name by which I knew her best when we were young together, was one of them, her birthday became D-Day, and her birthday never to be forgotten by any of us. Every year, as the radio, TV and papers are full of stories about D-Day, I can only think of my dear older sister and wish that I could pick up the phone and call her to wish her a happy birthday, as I did every year when she was alive. I have been remembering the last birthday celebration I spent with her. It was in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she and all of her seven children lived. They had all migrated there to join my nephew Tom Rodd, and were all at that birthday. We sat outside, and I cannot remember which house she was in then. P.B. Burgwin had come down from Pittsburgh, and the kids had gone out to some farm and picked strawberries, and I think I can still taste how delicious they were right from the farm...buckets full of them. I have never been able to understand people who put sugar on strawberries, and those would have been ruined by sugar. They were ripe, sweet and perfectly delicious. We had perfect weather for an outdoor party that day, but then, we almost always had perfect weather for Bets' birthday. Well, what else for the one person in the family referred to as "The Saint." She was that, I can only remember her being cross to me twice in my life, and I deserved both. So, Happy Birthday, Betty Rae, if I never told you how much I loved you.....well, I do now.
As to the other two who had the bad luck to have been born on historical days....my poor son Mark James was born on the day that JFK was shot, November 23, never to be forgotten. I can still remember walking along under the el in the rain in Chicago on that fateful day, long before Mark was born, so upset and confused that I hardly knew where I was going. And I was born on another miserable day, long, long before the events of that day, on September 11. I don't need to tell anyone the kind of reaction I get when I tell anyone my date of birth. No one ever forgets my birthday, at any rate. Funny, I have never used that fact in a poem, perhaps this year...ah, well...
As to the other two who had the bad luck to have been born on historical days....my poor son Mark James was born on the day that JFK was shot, November 23, never to be forgotten. I can still remember walking along under the el in the rain in Chicago on that fateful day, long before Mark was born, so upset and confused that I hardly knew where I was going. And I was born on another miserable day, long, long before the events of that day, on September 11. I don't need to tell anyone the kind of reaction I get when I tell anyone my date of birth. No one ever forgets my birthday, at any rate. Funny, I have never used that fact in a poem, perhaps this year...ah, well...
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