Hot Sweet Cheer

A random collection of little pleasures from my day:

Glenlivet with Sarge, leaning against the kitchen counter mid-afternoon, taken in quick swallows; the searing flame in my throat, the flooding warmth at the top of my head, making me fuzzy and clear at the same time...

Good and Fiery--my own box, all mine in its artificial brightness, its hot sweet cheer.

Bach, "Goldberg Variations."

Motorhead, "Ace of Spades."

In Honor of Love

Today is my 13th wedding anniversary. Thirteen years married, but nearly 19 years together from the first kiss to this moment. In honor of love, here are some of my favorite couples; friends, lovers, requited, unrequited, thrilled, longing--obsessed, in thrall, in sympathy, in love, in like--persevering, I've found all of these things with Sarge over the last two decades.

Laura & Almanzo,

Severus & Lily,

Thompson & Thomson,

Eva & Max,

and us

That Day

                                          Photo by Alex, 9/2001

It seems to me that some things don't get easier with the passage of time; 9/11 is one such event. I asked Sarge to tell something about his experience of September 11, 2001, and this is what he remembered.


It doesn't matter why I was there, or what I was doing. You'll have to take my word that I had work to do and the work was there. I could be a doctor, nurse, pipe fitter, steel worker, clergyman, heavy equipment operator, firefighter, cop, EMT/paramedic, truck driver, engineer, public utility worker, federal agent, soldier, transit worker. Maybe I work for FEMA, or NYC OEM, the NTSB, the FAA, the Salvation Army, or the EPA. Maybe I am a DMORT team member (and if you've never heard that acronym and have no idea what it stands for, be very glad). It doesn't matter what I do. I did not run in as others ran out, nor vice versa. I walked in many hours later. My team and I were held back until just before sunset.

Here are a few things I remember about that night.

When we entered the plume, it was weird. I recognized the smell. To me, from a distance of about a mile and a half out, it smelled exactly like the chemical smoke we used to use in the Army, not the colored smoke, the white concealment smoke.

At Park Row and Chambers St. a guy was handing out fiber filter masks to everyone who passed. I have no idea who he was. That kind of mask wasn't going to be very effective in that situation, but I guess they were better than nothing.

Walking east along Chambers approaching Broadway, there were shoes everywhere. I mean dozens of pairs. Why? Where did they come from? Who did they belong to? Did groups of firefighters responding from their homes gear up at that location, leaving their shoes when they put on their bunker pants? Sometimes I wonder what happened to the shoes.

Chambers and Broadway was sort of the northwest corner of the NYPD's inner perimeter that first night. When I got there, a group of very tired looking police officers from Brooklyn relieved a group of totally exhausted looking ash-covered police officers from Manhattan. The sergeant from the Brooklyn precinct, who looked like a smaller version of Captain MacAfee from Mad Max, talked to the Manhattan sergeant, but other than that there was no interaction between the groups which seemed strange. I think the Brooklyn cops were just respecting the utter weariness of the Manhattan cops.

That intersection was a very busy place. ORP is a military term It stands for Objective Rally Point, and it's basically the last place you stop (to get your shit together, do a leader's recon, make any changes to your plan, whatever) en route to an objective. Quite a few people from different agencies were using the area around that intersection as a sort of ORP.

A National Guard platoon formed up there and then deployed to different locations.

There were also three or four members of the Rutgers University Police at that spot.

Some FBI Special Agents tried to get in and were almost turned back when the one doing the talking showed a cop his badge. If you've never seen an FBI badge, they're tiny. They look like miniature badges, incongruous, sort of, well, fake. ID cards were soon displayed and all was well, though the FBI folk may have been a wee bit hurt at having their badges referred to as "mini-shields."

There was another reason there was so much activity at that location. Church Street was pretty much impassible to vehicles. Greenwich and West Broadway ended at Barclay, but they were screwed up as routes in and out when 7 WTC collapsed. So Broadway and West Street were the best roads in and out. Vehicles heading to the site mostly came in on Broadway and exited somewhere else. There was a surprising volume of traffic. Transit Authority trucks bearing names like "Iron North" and "Third Rail" came through. NYC Housing Authority trucks with the names of the housing development they were assigned to passed through. I think I remember seeing "Walt Whitman" "Langston Hughes" "Samuel J. Tilden" "Louis Pink."

Fire trucks from other areas, mostly Long Island, came through. I saw a massive caterpillar-tracked crane pass, a cop sitting on top directing the driver, it reminded me of pictures I'd seen of "erks" (I think that was the term) sitting on the wings of RAF planes in the Western Desert, directing the pilots as they taxied. I thought that crane might tear itself to bits before it got to the pile, those things are really not meant to be driven the distance it had been driven, but the crane operator seemed determined to get his machine where it was needed, where it could do some good.

Medical personnel were directed to staging areas elsewhere, as were volunteers with construction skills.

A Greek Orthodox priest accompanied by a young man and a young woman came up to the check point and introduced himself to an officer:

Priest: I'm Father N__ from Saint Nicholas. I'm here to check on the church.
Cop: I'm sorry, Father, I can't let you in. It's too dangerous.
Priest: I'm not afraid. I should check the church.
Cop (quietly): You can't check the church Father.
Priest: But why?
Cop (deep breath): Because it's not there anymore.
silence, then
Priest: Well, okay, but maybe I could help the injured.
Cop: There aren't any.
Then the cop turned away and the Priest and the young people left. If the cop seemed a little brusque to you reading this it's because you couldn't hear his voice or see his face as he talked. I think maybe he was trying not to cry.

Two Salvation Army ladies came by with a cooler full of sandwiches. Was it just my imagination, or were they wearing bonnets and cloaks, the way I remember Salvation Army ladies from my childhood? In any case, they went where they thought they were needed, and did what they thought they could.

There was one portable light generator at the intersection and as you walked south you were soon in darkness. The power was out in that part of Manhattan. Once you got south of the open space at City Hall Park, once you were back between tall buildings it got really black. There was no artificial light, except for small pools around light generators (and on that night very few were in place), almost no natural light, because of the canyon effect and the smoke.


We shined our flashlights down one of the side streets and saw all these little blue blobs. There by a derelict fire truck we found what had obviously been a temporary triage site. The blue blobs were gloves. The medics must have gone through hundreds of pairs at that location before they had to pull back. They were all over the street in the ever thickening ash and dust.

We passed abandoned hotdog carts and fruit carts. There were some beautiful-looking mangoes on one with a half inch of dust on top looking like some sort of frosting.

Walking west on Dey St (I think) I can only compare that darkness to night under triple-canopy jungle.

And there we were at Ground Zero. And where the hell were the towers? I mean, where was the wreckage, the debris? Okay sure there's a big pile there, but that can't be two 110 story buildings worth. Where did it all go?

The noise low air alarms from Scott airpacks seemed to come from all over. The ash was thick, thick, at least boot-top high on Church Street. Some places where water and ash had mixed, the sludge was even higher. If you got any of that crap on your shoes, you got a hotfoot when it dried, it heated up like concrete does as it cures. The ash made the graveyard behind St. Paul's chapel look almost like a winter scene, except for all the paper all over the place.

There was an unbelievable amount of paper littering the area. Weird how much paper "survived" intact. I picked up an undamaged "Pocono Homes Guide." Strangely it made me feel like crap. Here's some poor schmuck who was contemplating a 90 mile commute to give his family a better life (cause a single guy or gal is probably not moving to the Poconos). This is not a rich person (cause a rich person is probably not moving to the Poconos), this is just a regular person trying to make his or her way through the world, and, for the sin of being a responsible adult and dragging their ass out of bed and going to work at some crap job they get snuffed out just like that.

Also in St. Paul's graveyard was an old-fashioned water-filled fire extinguisher. It was just lying there, pristine. How did it get over the fence? Those things are heavy. If it fell shouldn't it have at least had a dent somewhere?

And across from the back of St. Paul's where I think the entrance to the parking garage used to be there was a "No Standing" sign completely undamaged while all around it was utter chaos and destruction. If you had been standing under that sign, you would have been all right; two feet away in any direction, dead. We moved on.

Later that night, I borrowed a ride north, I had been elected to get some coffee for the gang. We passed St. Vincent's hospital. There was a crowd of doctors and nurses standing at the Emergency entrance. I only saw them for a few seconds as we passed, and maybe it's me projecting my feelings but I knew with great certainty that they were Waiting. Waiting for casualties to come in. Waiting desperately to help, to be of use. As it turned out, and I think they knew, though they hoped it was not so, waiting almost utterly in vain.

I brought the coffee back and we worked through the night. I kind of wish I had written some of this stuff down when it first happened. It's not as clear as it was. Things fade, you know? But it doesn't matter. In another 50 years it'll be ancient history. Academics will know names like Rick Rescorla, "Red Bandana," "The Falling Man," and the others who had their "Kairos moments," made their choices, and acted how we would all hope to in similar circumstances, but few people will feel these events the way we do. "All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

Which just goes to show what an absolute science fiction nerd I am. If you needed any further proof, at one point during that night when I started to get a little freaked out and upset, I thought a particular phrase several times until I calmed down and laughed at myself. I thought "Day shall come again." Not so damning unless you know the source:

Huor fell pierced with a venomed arrow in his eye, and all the valiant Men of Hador were slain about him in a heap; and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.

Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield and wielded an axe two handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried: "Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!"

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

First Light

I was lying in bed with Sarge last night, having one of those conversations that people have, in bed, when they have been together a long long time and still like each other tremendously.

It was the kind of conversation that floats dreamily from mundane to teasing to serious to frankly existential. And then back again. The kind of conversation that begins with a query about whether the car insurance was paid, or what the hamster has been doing so secretively and industriously these past few nights, and ends with God or the finitude of the universe. The kind of conversation that might or might not last till first light, depending on so many things: how the threads are picked up and examined; whether provocative gambits are deployed and which ones gather response; depending on stamina--one might drift off while the other is still talking, a transgression always forgiven; depending on whether or not a light touch on a bare shoulder turns us from intellectual to purely corporeal and then helplessly to sleep...

But we have often over the years been surprised in mid-sentence by the first creeping tendrils of grey light, the first bursts of bird song.

"is it morning already?" I'll ask, amazed.

"We talked through the night!" he'll reply, and I can always feel a smile in his voice.

Filled up with a Feeling

At the dinner table yesterday, Hedgie was telling Sarge about our afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art.

Hedgie: We had lunch in the cafeteria, and I had the children's meal, a peanut butter banana and nutella panini and apple slices. There was just the right amount of nutella so that it oozed out the sides but not too much. And there were three slices of apple, and they were very crisp and sweet. They really know what children like. And we saw an exhibit called "Waste Not."

(We described the exhibit to Sarge and then Hedgie was silent)

Hedgie: Mama cried from it, while we were walking through. It's so embarrassing when you guys cry like that! Like how you cried, daddy, when you showed me that part of "Diva" with the opera singer.

(more silence)

Sarge: Do you know why grown-ups cry like that, Hedgie?

Hedgie: No.

Sarge: It's because we're filled up with a feeling we have--

Hedgie: and you have to let it out?

Sarge: Well, no, it just has to come out, even if we try to hold it in. Like laughter, it's the same thing. Sometimes it comes out as crying, sometimes as laughing. Just two different sides of a feeling that has to come out.

Hedgie: Why do you have the feeling?

Sarge: I don't know. Sometimes with a song or a piece of art, maybe it reminds us of another time or place, or a person who isn't with us anymore...

Hedgie: I guess I can understand that. But it's still embarrassing.


Filled up with a feeling--I so often am. I long ago gave up trying to hide honest tears from Hedgehog. I couldn't anyway, as Sarge says--sometimes it just has to come out.





here's the art that made me cry: "Waste Not" by Song Dong; also an explanation of the installation on the MOMA site.

Distractions

I am, alas, disgustingly adept at procrastination;  I have elevated the formerly humble pursuit of the minor distraction to a high art.  Avoiding my work has become something of an obsession.

Today I was in rare form.  By noon I had accomplished the following:

I stared at my freckles in amazement, for quite awhile.  I have a lot of freckles that I never noticed.  It seemed suddenly important to catalogue them.

I called that long-suffering Sarge long-distance to discuss Victorian costume with him.  He obliged me for a few minutes, and then finally cut me off with a terse "What next, celluloid collars?"

I thought about Sarge in a celluloid collar.

I thought about Snape in a celluloid collar.

I thought that they could both pull it off, but only one would and that one wouldn't be Sarge.

I thought about whether Victorian boots would be too '80s.  And I don't mean 1880s.

I thought about how my fantasies are becoming repetitive and I would need to come up with something new if I wanted to keep my self-respect.

I drank a whole pot of coffee and then had to walk off the jangles.

I argued with my step-dad about the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.

And then, when I thought I had exhausted all other options and had no choice but to begin my work again, I had a crafty brainstorm and crocheted a little stuffed turnip with a face, for my friend's baby.

So, what do you think?  Is he turnip-like?

Funky (a guest post by Sarge)

Was Heaven in the Backseat of My Cadillac? Possibly. I feel that I may have some expertise in this matter, as I once owned a 1970 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. In fact, I am not seriously opposed to the notion that Heaven could very well have been in the front seat of my Cadillac. The front seat was a bench-type seat which is not too remarkable since few sedans had what we called bucket seats in those days. What was remarkable (besides the vastness of it) was that it was a 6 way power bench seat. It went back and forth, tilted, reclined, I swear you could turn the damned thing into a bed-- one with "Magic Fingers" at that, if you were given to constantly jiggling the little toggle controls rapidly back and forth. I was not so given. I was more interested in jiggling... well you can see where juxtaposition and innuendo are taking us. And that car was a great place to juxtapose.

With a front seat of those dimensions the back seat was not even necessary. Of course on a double date (God, how gross were we? Did we have no shame? No? Not even a sense of privacy? Strange I could have sworn I had one, apparently not.) Heaven was often in the front and back seats of my Cadillac, with room for a Coleman cooler full of beers to boot. I'm just getting started so Don't Stop Me Now, You Sexy Thing.

We'd Get Up and Get on Down (Like a Sex Machine).

Yes, we would Partyup and Kiss (actually if I remember right, I saw Purple Rain sitting on the hood of that car at one of the last drive-in movie theaters in New Jersey) and we would probably Do It All Night

We experienced Pain, Pleasure, Ecstasy, and Bliss in that car.

But don't get the idea we were just a bunch of Sexoholics. We'd park and turn up the radio and get out and leave the doors open and we'd Shut Up and Dance (okay those were probably unfair references, they were songs by one of the best bands nobody ever heard of, El Grupo Sexo).

Those were great days, when driving a ten or fifteen year old car meant you were driving a piece of serious Detroit Iron, not just that you were driving an old car. We would do stupid, dangerous things and know that they were stupid and dangerous (let's face it, we lived in pretty much a perpetual state of what the Penal Law defines as Reckless Endangerment) and when we got our boo-boos we laughed at each other instead of crying to someone else. But we knew that What Is Hip was doing your own thang unashamedly. The Caddy was not a trendy car, Porsche 924's and Trans Am T-Tops were all the rage, but it was cool and it had a style of its own, what's more it had substance (472 cubic inches under the hood and 2 and a half tons of GVW worth of substance).

Let Me Take You Higher. We'd go out driving, put on the radio (NOT the stereo) and Sing a Simple Song.

We went everywhere in that car. Can You Get to That was a question that was always answered affirmatively.

That car epitomized funk to me (and not just cause the power windows didn't properly seal and there was a slight mildew issue). In fact you could probably fit a moderate sized band, plus roadies and equipment in the beast. The trunk was roughly the size of the car I currently drive.

Sarge signing off from Theme Thursday guest blogging. Thank you faletme be mice elf.


editor's note: that editor being me, Leah--I must add, I have learned a great deal from reading this post. Now I have to live with it. When Sarge and I were first dating, I made him a special sexy mixed tape (remember those?) that included that Hot Chocolate song, "Heaven's in the Back Seat of My Cadillac," never dreaming of the memories it evoked...at the time, he was much too circumspect to tell me...Sarge, you motherf!@#$er. And p.s. "Can You Get to That" is my personal bar none funky song, by Funkadelic, and if you've never heard it, please go do so immediately.

My Husband

My husband, as a young soldier in the 101st Airborne. That's him, back row far left, squinting into the sun. He really was just a boy!

He's my hero. He's brave and loyal and has done many things that I have only read about. He's also the smartest person I've ever met, and a true intellectual. He's tough when he must be and also kind when you least expect it--in fact, he has a sweetness and generosity of spirit that inspires me every day. All of this makes him absolutely impossible to pigeonhole. You just can't categorize the fellow, now matter how much you might think you can, knowing just one set of facts about his life. Most of all, I love how he consistently astonishes the people who try to stereotype him. He is a living reproach to anyone who thinks that people can be packaged up into neat little boxes; in this age of division and thoughtless ideology I meet more and more people who believe in easy labels. My husband's entire complex existence proves them wrong.

You Talkin' to Me?

I've been evil lately.  EVIL.  I am in a foul temper, hating the world.  If one more person does something stupid around me, I'm gonna blow.

Poor Sarge has been catching so much shit.  Although he is one of the intelligent ones, and as such I continue to respect him, being the grown-up I live with, he's still in the line of fire.  Neither of us is a ray of sunshine, but I've got him beat all hollow in the Hater/Cynic contest.

Last night, as I was gearing up for a tirade, Sarge looked at me with scared eyes and said,

"Sometimes I feel like I'm married to Travis Bickle."

It derailed the rant temporarily, and I laughed.  Hey, I take that as a compliment!

Then he delivered the blow.

"...mixed with Frank Booth from 'Blue Velvet.'"

"Don't you fucking look at me."

I cannot argue with the assessment, but it's somehow so much less flattering...

Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up feeling like Errol Flynn in "Robin Hood."  But I doubt it.  Pass the nitrous oxide.

Gravity

Earth pulls us earth-ward. There is no doubt about this.

A new bicycle was waiting for Hedgehog in Texas--her first without training wheels.

I watched her father, gentle hand on her back, helping her steady. I watched her effort on the tough pedals. I watched her go...

Earth pulled her earth-ward, and she was up again. Earth pulled her earth-ward, and she was up again.

Determined, stoical in her Hedgehog way, we watched, amazed at her lightness, as she conquered the pull and captured an airy balance...

...and pedalled and pedalled...

...and was off...

How I Met My True Love

I found a little New Year's inspiration here: a challenge to write the story of how I met my best love.



My junior year of college, I came out of a failed love affair with a brilliant artist, a pothead, whose long hair I would put in french braids for him whenever he liked, he was funny and beautiful, but cruel and with a penchant for boys as yet unfulfilled. Our relationship ended painfully, and I was miserable, and miserably sought comfort in highly unsuitable beds. When I could see again, and had become disgusted with my own behavior, I began to notice a man, a friend of one of the girls I shared an apartment with, Lucy. He was older by five years, because, I heard, he had been in the army and then returned to college. I would watch him from across the smoking lounge in the social center, and I saw that although he often held forth with a noisy bunch of comrades, he had a quiet center and was mature. Don't ask me how I could see this across a room, through a haze of smoke and noise, but, somehow, I could.

I began to find ways to hang out with him, and just to be near him. I remember one night, I joined Lucy and this man at the little campus nightclub. I was working on a paper on Byron's poetry, and was tired of working alone. The three of us shared a tiny table and ordered coffee and chocolate cake, and I got out my pen and notebook and Complete Works of Lord Byron. I asked Lucy's friend what he thought of a particular poem, how he would interpret it--it was "So We'll Go No More A-Roving"--and of course, being that this was college and by this time he had probably noticed me too, he offered a very smart commentary. Ah, the heady days of intellectual foreplay...

He began taking me on occasional drives at night, to get off campus and to complain about our failed love affairs--but soon the conversation turned to other, more interesting topics, like what we wanted to be when we grew up. At that time, it was a toss-up for me between rabbinical school and the FBI, and I think that impressed him, as our college was chock full of mindless liberal drones, smart but all planning seemingly the same career in public service law. Fine career, of course, but not the only one in the world. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but still.

I began to think about him all the time, in between our car rides. But what I didn't realize then was that Lucy's friend was actually Sarge, my Sarge, the one with whom I would be forever after that, who gave me Hedgie, who is the love of my life, my only true man for the past 18 years. Or maybe I did know, after all, in some cosmic way.

One night, as I sat at one of my many boring college jobs, watching the desk at the social center, my phone rang. It was my other roommate, Emma, breathless on the line. "Leah!" she hissed into the phone. "I'm sitting with Sarge on his front porch, and Sarah is here with us--I think she's plotting her move on him--you've gotta get your ass here immediately--I can only hold her off so long!"

Sarah was a pale pretty blond girl, totally neurotic, like me, but fuck her! At this point, I wanted him for myself!

I grabbed a random freshman by the arm and sat them at the desk and told them to answer the phone, and I literally ran for Sarge's house. Ran! All the way across the darkened campus, the entire length of it, and out onto the streets of the town. Damn it, she would not get him before I had a chance! A block from his house, I had to pause to catch my breath and my dignity, to straighten my skirt, and then I sauntered casually out of the shadows toward the porch. My friend Emma gave me a wink, and a "hey Leah, what's up?" then immediately got up to leave--"see you guys later"--me with Sarge and Sarah. Sarge seemed glad to see me, but Sarah was definitely on the move...so...I just waited her out. For like an hour. I remained unmoveable, like a coed menhir. Finally, when the conversation turned unexpectedly to me and Sarge's heretofore undiscovered mutual love of Tintin comics, Sarah gave up and said goodnight. I think I can still hear, after all these years, the silent whoop that resounded in my head. Funny thing is, Sarge told me years later that he'd never had any intention of hooking up with her. But well, hey, the drama of the victory was heady at that moment on the porch when I watched Sarah's retreating back, her swinging blond hair, turning the corner back into shadow past the street lamp...and I was left alone with Sarge.

We retired to his little room in the rambling off-campus house, eventually, where we listened to music--he played me "Candy's Room" by Bruce Springsteen--and finally, on the narrow twin bed, we kissed softly, and even later, fell asleep warm and close...

And that's the story of me and Sarge, at least the beginning of it.

Fields of Athenry

Today I'm thankful for favorite family songs and long-lived romance...

I'm thankful for Hedgehog's little piping voice singing along while Sarge plays "Fields of Athenry" on his guitar.

I'm thankful that both Sarge and Hedgehog love to dissect and discuss song lyrics with me.

I'm thankful that after all these years, I still love a slow dance with Sarge, to "Misty Morning, Albert Bridge" or "Dixieland Delight."

I Knit and Knit and Knit...

...and knit. I've gone fiber-crazy and have hundreds of skeins of yarn, silk and cashmere and merino, hand-dyeds, hand-spun, imported, local, one-of-a-kind and mass-produced, then hundreds of needles, notions, crochet hooks, pattern books, knitting magazines...

I must have thirty or more projects in my queue at this point...and more in the hopper...more and more...it's soooo out-of-control...

I decided to post this little interview I did with Sarge; it's been floating around and about, with knitters asking their partners these questions...

Me: What is your favorite thing about my knitting?
Sarge: That you’re good at it. Cause you’re good at something, I like that. I like being impressed by you.

Me: What is your least favorite thing about my knitting?
Sarge: you go a little bit overboard. Too many needles, and they’re all over the house, too much yarn and it’s all over the house, too many swaps and they’re all over the house.

Me: What is something I have knitted, that you recall as good?
Sarge: I really really like that leaf pattern that you worked into a scarf. It’s not knitted, but I really like the ornaments that you made for my mom. I love the giant ripple in Rowan Glace. The drape is fantastic. [yes, the man knows what drape is] The multi-colored baby blanket for Hedgehog I love.

Me: What’s something you recall as being a disaster?
Sarge: That friggin afghan out of that garnet and grey squares, out of this terrible acrylic, that was unpieced and sat around for years. Tell me you don’t remember it. God, even you've blocked it.

Then let me talk about my birthday sweater…it wasn’t so much that the sleeves were too long, and one sleeve was longer than the other, as that it was never actually finished. Cause the sleeves I could have rolled up. You must think you’re married to Lurch from the Addams Family. Or an orangutan. Or a Gibbon. And who knows, maybe I am.

Me: Do you think knitters have an expensive hobby?
Sarge: Yes. Yes, I do. I don’t think it’s necessarily an expensive hobby, but people who become deeply committed to it want more and better everything, bobbins and lace treadles and yarn shuttles and spinning wheels and looms, eventually alpacas…

Me: Comparing hobbies, who spends more?
Sarge: You. Because I tend to binge, whereas you steadily spend.

Me: Do you have a stash of any kind?
Sarge:You better believe it.

Me: Of what?
Sarge: I have so many model airplanes, I’ll have to live to 140 before I finish them all, certainly at my current rate of building. And then there’s the guitars…

Me: Have I ever embarrassed you, knitting in public?
Sarge: No.

Me: Do you know my favorite kind of yarn?
Sarge: Rowan Cotton Glace, is that right?

Me: Can you name another knitting blog?
Sarge: Knitty, is that a blog?

Me: Do you mind my wanting to stop at knit shops wherever we go?
Sarge: No. I mind your wanting to stop at generic craft stores for knitting supplies wherever we go. Sometimes.

Me: Do you understand the importance of a swatch?
Sarge: not in a knitting term, no I’m sorry I don’t. Is that like a test square?

Me: Do you read "The Weather in the Streets"?
Sarge: Yes, occasionally…

Me: Have you ever left a comment?
Sarge: No.

Me: Do you think the house would be cleaner if I didn't knit?
Sarge: No, I don’t think it would.

Me: Anything you'd like to add?
Sarge: I think it’s kind of interesting that of all the stuff you’ve knit, you’ve never actually finished anything you’ve started knitting for me.

************************************
Oh, and p.s. I'm answering these two other somewhat random questions posed by Suzanne, and others:

1. What do you admire most about each of your parents? I admire my mother's creativity, kindness, and wacky sense of humor. I admired my dad's ability to treat each thing that came his way, including his impending death, as a great adventure!

2. Which would you prefer and why? To have every stoplight turn green upon your arrival for the rest of your life or to have one week of the best sex any person ever had?: Oh, definitely best sex ever for a week. Not that I haven't had it already, but imagine how mind-blowing it would be if there was even better (with Sarge, of course). Sitting at red lights gives me a chance to knit that extra sock!!!!

Together

Twelve years married today, almost 18 years together. I just adore that Sarge, and I believe he's my bashert, a Yiddish word for destiny--the one who is divinely ordained as one's soulmate.

I thought I'd revisit a poem by Allen Ginsberg, one of our favorite poets, that was read at our wedding party:


Song

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

San Jose, 1954

Misty Morning, Albert Bridge

I went on a wonderful date last light with my man A., whom I've decided to nickname Sgt. Pepper here (I find it awkward to call him "A"). We hadn't been out together, just the two of us, since last year around this time when we left E. (who shall henceforth be Hedgehog) with my mother-in-law and went to a bookstore together. At night. Woo! But then when we got there we immediately separated, Sarge to Sci Fi and me to Knitting, then me to Sci Fi by which time he'd already moved on to Military History. By the time I got over to neighboring True Crime he'd left for the magazines. And never the 'twain shall meet. The last really real date was five years ago, a Who concert. Is there something wrong with this picture? I guess it's okay-- we're true homebodies and we like to be in our house cozily. I think Sgt. Pepper's boyhood, spent globe-trotting, tired him out. Although occasionally he will get a wild enthusiasm for day-tripping in the city. I rarely do.

Anyway, this picture reminds me of us, although I've quit smoking and we're not in London more's the pity. But we were at a Pogue's show at Roseland Ballroom last night! We took the subway from Brooklyn and laughed the whole way, after we'd gotten over a bit of stilted transitional conversation about car insurance...the show was like a giant sing-along in an Irish cop bar. We sang along, screamed and cheered, avoided getting knocked over by the drunken careeners, and generally had a fantastic time. We love the Pogues so much. Almost as much as we love each other. The two things seem inextricably linked--the whole history of our relationship is set to a soundtrack, and the Pogues feature prominently in this. The fact that Hedgehog now loves their music all of her own accord makes it that much more meaningful.

I've plugged them before, but if you've never heard the Pogues, and have any inclination at all whatsoever toward Irish music, or think you might, you must at least give them a listen.

So, what music is in the soundtrack of your relationship, past or present? I'd really love to know.