grape seeds

2002-04-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

Just started a livejournal site (don't ask me why). I still don't know the difference between this blog and my livejournal, although I suspect that I will likely reserve this site for extended essays on what's on my mind, and use livejournal as the low-pressure writing space--aka an actual journal. We'll see whether I can manage to think of any writing as "low pressure" without perfectionism slipping in and rendering me wordless.

So here it is, my livejournal site:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/miriam_heddy/

miriam heddy's Journal

2002-03-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

On the Oscars

When I asked a fellow instructor what she thought of the Oscar award winners, she said, "They went for beauty all around this year."

I had been thinking, this morning, of the way race--normally the invisible (or unspoken) marker at the awards--had become the thing to talk about. Yet really, when I thought about the winner's list as compared to those of the past, I was stunned by another absence--that of the theatrically disabled. Normally--and I use that word with all due irony--the winner goes to the white actor feigning the best ability (or to the white actor best feigning the worst disability).

But here were perfect people playing characters with moral flaws--but that was all.

So I wonder... has race become the disability of the year? Is blackness this year's rewarded imperfection--that which the best male, best female, and man of the year had, at last, overcome?

2002-03-23T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had lunch with a fellow English Ed doctoral student who, as it turns out, is into gaming and fantasy/sci fi television shows. We discussed the finer points of why some shows seem to be written so very badly, and compared con prices and feelings about celebrity appearances. Meanwhile, our third lunchmate (also a doctoral student in English Ed) looked on in wonder at our odd subculture-talk.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like to be in the educated class fifty, or even a hundred years ago. It seems absurdly cliched to say that, even among graduate students, it's television that brings us together.

I guess the ironic moment in this for me is that, for every instance I can think of where fandom has brought me closer to someone, I can also think of a dozen places where fandom's seemed pretty damned dysfunctional, and where the relationships it engenders feel like oddly fragile things.

Perhaps friendship is always like that--defined by a sort of tension between what brings us together and what keeps us apart. The balance, it seems to me, is a tenuous one--and I wonder whether fandom itself acts as a haven for people with boundary issues. Before the 'net, fandom relationships were sustained by periodic meetings that were set apart from the everyday life of most fans (especially true for those in slash fandom). And now, with the 'net, communciation comes faster, but many fans today never even meet their fellow fans "in the flesh." And when they do--in those odd, rare instance when you know a person both online and in RL--do you, in fact, know two (or more) people? And are you the same friend to them both?

I wonder... does the long-distance, mediated nature of the relationships in fandom give fans a false sense that they can fully control the limits of their involvement--that they are emotionally (not to say physically) safe behind a pseudonym, or a persona, or even their writing?

A lot of talk lately (since the 'net) has turned on the issue of how safe we are from legal prosecution, or insane fan persecution. But what about the ordinary threat of fannish friendships--those strange, partially hidden things that, like trees, hide their roots even as they stretch skyward?

2002-03-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have discovered that I am afraid of wholes. I need a new word for writing that is apart--a part of nothing, but complete in and of itself.

I need to write less more often, I think.

I am an imagist at heart--and PWP down to my soul.

2002-03-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

This week, I spent two whole days wandering alone through Soho. Without a toddler in tow, the world seemed considerably less fragile--and my arms seemed oddly empty, save for the packages I accumulated as I walked. In the coffee shop, I sipped my drink far too fast, then found myself with nothing to do. I am used, now, to beginning things and leaving them half-done--used to the inevitable need to move on--used to not getting too comfortable in one place. I have lost the knack for lingering, I'm afraid.

Friday, I made a list of all the things I needed to do this weekend. It helped to put it on paper--almost as if that alone were enough. Now, three days later, I've done a third of the necessary things, and there's hardly time to really accomplish the rest. But today, I went to the park with my husband and child, and watched Nigel chase the Canada geese, and helped him down the slide, and showed him the soft moss that grows under the trees there. I could have been home, ticking off list items as if they meant something. But I couldn't convince myself that anything I might do was worth more than this: an 18 month old picking up an acorn, a stick, a dried leaf, then discarding them all. He has his own agenda.

Tomorrow, I am my students' teacher, another person entirely, and I may regret feeling unprepared. But I'm starting to value the surprise that comes with being at a loss--without direction. One day, I might be able to enter the classroom with a fixed plan and then abandon it without anxiety. But for now, I need my hands free of a lesson plan, and my ears free of my own teacher-talk, if I have any hope of hearing where my students are, and seeing what they've brought to the classroom, to me, and to each other.

Teaching and mothering both seem more and more to depend on setting things aside, on being empty-handed, and on letting go.

2002-03-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

One half-written DS story on my computer, and I'm getting sucked into reading Smallville slash, because, well, it was inevitable, I suppose.

But I can't hear their voices in my head, so I'm not writing, although I have the urge to be completely exterior--to paint a picture, of Clark's dark, feathered hair brushing across Lex's bare, hairless thighs....

That's it. It's all sex, and Lex, and vaguely smutty thoughts about purple speedos and Lex's water-slick body sliding over Clark's....

and idle speculation about why in the world Clark would need a telescope to be a voyeur, and why he would spend any time at all looking at Lana when there are still stars in the sky above him, and Lex in his castle, sitting so alone.

2002-03-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

The difficult thing about blogs is that I've got to convince myself to open this up even when I don't know what I might say. The difficult thing about inspiration is that it too often happens when I'm on the floor playing Play-doh with my toddler, who doesn't appreciate it if I suddenly rush downstairs to the computer because I've suddenly thought of something worth writing down. But he's asleep now, and so I can write and hope I have something to say.

Today, I'm wearing a sweater that I bought years ago from one of those Eddie Bauer outlet sales in Columbus. The sweater's got an autumn leaf pattern stitched into it--very pretty, but somehow, not exactly me. I tend to pass it by as I'm reaching into the drawer, up until I run out of things I like. And then, when I've got it on, I think, "How warm. Why don't I like this? What isn't there to like?" and all I'm left with is the notion that it's just not *me*, as I see myself (or as I want others to see me). It's decidedly unhip (not that I'm all that hip normally, but...). If anything, it's who I was when I bought it, eight or so years ago, when I was a different person--still a Midwesterner, still childless, still wondering what I was going to be when I grew up.

Now I wonder less, and I'm a grown-up more, and, while I still shop at outlet stores, I'm looking for a good deal on toddler overalls. So somehow, putting on this sweater this morning is like putting on an old me, the sweater and jeans and flannel shirts me that I was between my black on black undergrad days and my black on black grad school pre-baby days. And I think I'm continually surprised when I still recognize myself in it now.

George Kelly, a psychologist, argued that people are nothing more or less than the sum of their constructs of the world. He argued that we sort the world as we see it, into an ever-shifting set of binaries that we are always resolving into new shapes and patterns (even as they may seem permanent, fixed, comfortable). In some ways, my closet is a map of my old constructs--a strange history in mostly cotton, of who I was and who I am now and who I want to be and what I value.

Kelly proposed a treatment in which his clients chose a new self--a very specific new self--and went out into the world for a day or week, experimenting, making decisions based on this hypothetical self. Psychology as method acting, I suppose. Kelly stressed that the goal was not for the client to necessarily adopt this new persona, or even parts of it. But doing the experiment (and he saw all people as experimenters and scientists, constantly testing out their hypotheses in the world), the client was given permission to see potential possibilities, new and different relationships and choices... a new and different life that would give them some perspective on their own, as they usually lived it.

Sometimes, I think about going shopping and buying a new me--a new wardrobe for someone I don't yet believe I am. I did that, a few weeks ago, buying a pair of lowriding, made-to-be-skin-tight, flared-bottom Old Navy jeans that skim my wide hips and sit below my not-flat belly. Wearing them reminds me of my childhood, when I had a pair of light-tan, hip-hugging ribbed corduroy pants that I was always trying to pull up higher than they could possibly go.

When I wear these jeans, they get looser and more comfortable as the day goes on. By the end of the weekend, they are starting to slide off, just as I'm starting to feel comfortable with the odd sight of my own pale skin and belly button peeking out from between my shirt and jeans as I reach for something just out of reach. On Monday, I can't yet bring myself to wear them. I'm a teacher on Mondays, and I haven't resolved the feel of low-riding underwear and my more proper (if every so slightly) teacherly self.

The jeans remind me of summer vacation, when I tend to feel most free to wear the least amount of clothing I can. The balance then is a precarious one, as I want to feel the sun on my skin but to do so I risk the inevitable sunburn. So the compromise I make is to expose a swath of skin *here* and cover up *there*. My pale hairy legs are exposed but I wear a wide-brimmed hat that protects the tip of my nose. My shoulders look naked but there's a thin sheen of sunscreen between me and the world.

I guess that I'm not ready for nakedness--for a radical departure from myself as I now live it (and perhaps that's a good thing, as there's much I like about my current life, and closet). But, more and more, I'm starting to think that my life is like my wardrobe--filled with too many old things that don't fit my body or my personality or my lifestyle (part teacher, part Mama, part wife, part grad student, part fan, and all me) today.

But, still, knowing that doesn't mean I need to (or want to) throw out all my old pieces. Some of them still seem to fit even when I think they won't. And to replace everything I've ever known with something new would be too risky and too cautious, at once. Would I buy for the woman I am, or the woman I'd like to be?

I prefer a more gradual change, piece by piece, even if it means that sometimes, I have to struggle to find a way to pull all the pieces together into a whole, together, *me*.

2002-02-22T17:33:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to decide just why I abandoned this blog, and why I'm returning to it now. Looking at the date of the last entry, and its content, it's pretty clear to me that on 9/11, I lost something of myself. I don't know quite what I lost, yet. Not family, nor friends, nor even coworkers.

[No... that's not quite right. I think that I did lose friends (collateral damage?). I think I lost one. No, I know I lost one, although it's hard to pin down the precise reason for that particular loss (and it seems cowardly to lump it in with two towers falling--too easy an answer, and one that I'm not quite satisfied with, as I'm not satisfied with anything connected with that day). The wound there still feels mysterious--a pain like a bruise that suddenly appeared, overnight, and that I don't notice constantly (thank goodness for that--a self-protective measure, I suppose) but that stuns me at odd times, as I stumble into that same place (or places we've been; conversations we've had; things that, even now, I find myself about to say.) The pain is sharp and unexpected, inexplicable, and sometimes I find myself afraid for the moment that it *stops* hurting--because then it will be over--every last trace of her gone.]

Funny, how I thought I could move on, not talk about it (her, the towers). I thought I could say something about fear of writing, fear of writing without an audience, or with one.

In any case (and what a poor transition that is, as I would certainly tell my students), I'm here, now, putting words to this white space, wondering who will read them, who will notice them, and whether that should matter.

I suppose I've changed enough in these last few months to know that where there's suddenly emptiness, that emptiness isn't permanent (even if it seems irrevocable--impossible). And here and now, these words fill the page, at least (one emptiness among so many).

2001-09-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Weeks later, and most days seem normal, and then suddenly, I remember, and then they don't.

The pages of the "Missing" flyers are curling at the edges now.

And when I look at those faces, I wonder each time if I'm going to see someone I recognize. Walking past the same lamposts each day, the faces are starting to seem familiar.

The cliche that "life goes on" needs an addendum. Death goes on, as well. None of us could have anticipated the way that death itself lingers far longer than did the smoke in the air, or the ashes on the street, now washed clean by the rain.

2001-09-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

Two days later, and by now, I've watched the video footage so many times that I find it all seems less rather than more real now.

Last night, Wednesday, my neighbor and I walked up to the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights and we stood with so many others and watched the sun set over the altered skyline. It was oddly beautiful, still, and I was glad of that.

This morning, the winds have changed again, and I can no longer smell the burning, although the streets are still laced with a fine dusting of ash.

2001-09-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I half-expect that I will wake up and find that the World Trade Center is still standing.

I want to say something profound, but I'm just tired, and a little empty, and, like all New Yorkers, more than a little disbelieving.

But I'm alive, with my family, and tomorrow, or the next day, I might find that profound thing, or at least some way of thinking about this that makes some sense to me.

That's all from NYC, Tuesday September 11, 2001.

The skyline, and the City, are forever changed. As am I.

2001-08-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

Most of my apartment is covered in boxes, which has allowed me to realize just how little of my stuff is necessary to my everyday life.

My tchotckes are hidden behind mute brown cardboard, and I find that I can't quite remember all that's missing; What object left the oblong dust silhouette on my now empty bookshelves?

I've several fantasies about sending it all somewhere (the Salvation Army, a storage locker, a black hole), unopened.

Would I miss my unpacked life?

Could I begin again, this time collecting less baggage?

2001-08-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we have a house. I don't quite believe it myself, yet. Somehow, I expect the bank to request yet one more piece of paperwork from us. But I did read the bank's letter, and it does say that my husband is getting the mortgage, conditional on the usual things that are now out of our hands. We've done our part. So it's official.

I'm still dealing with the whole mortgage resentment thing, though. We both applied for it, but they didn't trust my grad student income (the bank thought, apparently, that it was too little, too irregular, and they asked our loan counseling representative, "why doesn't she teach summers?" and implied the possibility that I might decide to quit school and take care of the babies).

The questions they asked imply that I am not going to school to actually pursue a career and that I'm so stupid (a byproduct, apparently, of having children) that I would want to sign my name to a mortgage only to default on it.

The sum effect of all this is that we did, indeed, get the mortgage, but we did it the old-fashioned way, with the man of the house's income.

The thing is, I know--I mean, I *know*, that if I were the man making a grad student's pittance and my wife were making the steady money, they wouldn't have ignored my income, small as it is, or questioned whether I'd be earning it in five years.

I know that my having gone on maternity leave suddenly Mommy tracked me right out of a mortgage.

And it sucks.

We live in a gendered world, and sometimes, I think that the thing about slash that most appeals to me is that I don't have to think about this shit too much.

I just have to live it.

2001-08-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

Bad sex scenes. Yes, Te, you're right (and this is twice this week that Te's made me laugh, so thank you, Te!).

It's enought to make me want to start a fund for wayward slash writers. Chip in a dollar and help buy a slash writer a hand mirror and a copy of Our Body/Ourselves.

Actually, much as I love Minotaur, I sometimes think he should be less tactful than he is during those con talks, and just hold up a sign during certain questions with a diagram of the female anatomy and a big arrow labelled, "Your asshole is here."

Not that everyone *has* to experience first-hand what they write. Hell, not that we women *can* experience it. But hey--when you want to know what kind of lube works, or whether you *really* need three fingers....

Maybe it's *not* such an accident that so many DS stories seem to have Fraser learning about gay sex by reading a book.

But somehow, and maybe this is just me, but I kind of get off on the idea of Fraser and his own hand.

2001-08-06T01:23:00.000-07:00

Te, who did not invent the term "supertext," but who does vibrate with her own inner charm, has magnificent breasts. No, that's not news if you read her blog, but....

Too much has been said about penis envy. I mean, as opposed to penis/penis envy, about which not enough can be said, to my mind.

Anyway, breast envy. That's what I'm talking about. I've got it, and I've had it... oh, I guess it started with wearing those "training bras" in junior high.

Like, there I was, *wayyy* too old to still be wearing the damned things, and I'd look down and think, "Nope, they don't even know what they're training *for*."

Hopeless.

Then came these miraculous "almost" bras. They came in "almost sizes" like "Almost A" and "Almost B." I was like an A+, I think, or maybe it was a B-. In any case, my BCS was below-average, in keeping with my general under-achiever tendencies.

See, now none of that would have mattered to me, I think, had I been able to say that I was one of those "athletic" girls, all lithe and lean. But no, I was one pyramidal kid, all pointy-headed intellectual, all interior and shy, and I was looking for *balance*.

Thankfully, puberty did hit, eventually. It was like one of those storms they like to build up to on a slow day on the evening news--the ones where they talk for *hours* about just how big it's going to be, how you should be prepared, bring your umbrellas, and for godsakes, stay *indoors* if you can.

And then, after all the buildup, it ends up drizzling everywhere but in some little town in Podunk, Middle of Nowhere, where the already poor folks get their trailer parks upturned and everyone feels sorry for them while wondering why in the *world* people keep hitching trailer parks in flood plains.

So, what I'm saying is that I got hips. I got *ass*. When it rains, it *pours*. In other words, I got the entire Southern package, all wrapped up in a big red bow.

But breasts?

Oh, those. Well, one day, dear, when you have children....

So, here I am, with a kid, and yes, the breast fairy did indeed visit, and suddenly, *wham*, I'm outta those sports bras and into an actual, real, ohmygod *C* cup. Hallelujah.

And man, it was *lovely* to finally look down and see a shelf. A *rack*, even. Of course, hanging on that rack was a baby, but hey--he was having a good time, and it was kind of sweet, and still, I thought, in a year or so, when he *stops* nursing, these babies will be *mine*, all *mine* again. Bwa ha ha.

Only the breast fairy had the last laugh. The wee babe's now eleven months old and has a growing interest in feeding himself little bits of solid food. So he's nursing less and, see, it appears that what the fairy giveth, she taketh away.

The storm blew over, basically, and I'm back to wondering if they make a 40B Wonderbra.

So now, it's four in the morning, and I can't sleep, and if I was feeling more creative, I'd work on some of that penis/penis envy, but instead, I'm thinking about Te's magnificent breasts and why our culture, not to mention me personally, ends up being so obsessed over them. Why, after all, did it *matter* that Molly Ringwald could put on lipstick with hers? I mean, what--is that some necessary skill to have just in case your hands are busy elsewhere? (like, down Judd Nelson's pants... ah, those flaring nostrils... good god, those were hot!)

Anyway, thank god for bisexuality and a good imagination, is all I can say. If I can't *have* magnificent breasts, I can think about having them.

And, if you ignore all the whining, Molly Ringwald *was* kind of cute.

2001-08-06T00:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to sleep at night.

I don't know if it's the mortgage hanging over my head, or the fact that I know that, come September 5, I'm going to be getting up at fuck-all in the a.m. to teach undergraduates how to write essays.

The good part about being awake at 3 in the morning is that the apartment is truly as dark as it gets in the city, a warm, velvety dark marred only by the "so I don't kill myself" nightlight in the living room and the glow of my Mac.

I can hear an airplane flying overhead (or maybe that's an air conditioner?), and a constant whooshing sound, from the fan, I think. White noise. And the clicking of my keyboard.

The night is the only time I feel like I can think. But sometimes, I'm up not out of intellect but out of emotion. A restlessness stirs me up inside. Aral, you mentioned it--that "need to *do* something, *fix* something, get things in *order*, dammit!" urge. Admittedly, it's only a faint shadow of the nesting instinct that came right before Nigel was born (and no, I will never underestimate the power of instincts again. Nothing short of gut-level, reptile-brain instinct would make me throw away that much old paper without residual, "But are you absolutely *sure* you won't need that in five years?" guilt.)

The closest thing to this stirred-up feeling is PMS--when I sometimes have the overwhelming urge to break glass. I don't know why, but I get driven, obsessed, with the image of myself breaking a large pane of safety glass, and watching the whole thing shatter, loudly, into so many little pieces.

Funny, that the urge is so destructive. I wish it were creative. I wish I was stirred up to write a novel.

On nights like this, when I'm typing clickety-click in the dark, I understand almost the compelling irrationality that leads people to not take their meds, to embrace an irregular, impossible life.

2001-08-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, and my husband Peter's noted that, "Despite the number of home shows there are on Sunday morning, there aren't enough."

I suspect he's being sarcastic.

But I've found myself addicted to them, lately. There's a strange pleasure in the possibilities of home improvement, watching the layers of a house stripped off and then resurfaced, refinished, made new again.

Last night, we got word that Nigel's cousin Abigail was born.

2001-08-04T23:49:00.000-07:00

My big success today was to figure out how to put a picture up on my newly re-instated blog.

My eleven-month old son's big success today was to learn how to clap his hands.

Somehow, I suspect that my son's handclapping is actually the more productive skill. At the very least, I doubt he's going to become an obsessive hand-clapper, whereas I've noticed that figuring out how to tinker with one aspect of html inevitably leads to tinkering with more.

Also (speaking of other obsessions), on the subject of unnecessary cosmetic changes, CKR doesn't need rice cakes *or* lipo. The man is *fine*, period.

2001-08-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you can make things worse by trying to fix things. And sometimes,it's best to scrap the mess and just start over.

This is the new, and somewhat improved "grape seeds" blog.

We'll see how it goes.

Sorry the page was down for so long due to technical difficulties. We now return you to your local natterings.

(And no, for those of you wondering, we do not yet have a mortgage. Stay tuned, as we are ever hopeful that the bank will get a clue in the next few days.)