Becca Jane Approximately
When your mother sends back your invitations
And your father to your sister he explains
That you're tired of yourself and all your creations
Won't you come and see me, Queen Jane?
I'm So Glad I Met You, You're Another Reason To Talk About Me
My horoscope for this week:
“You should definitely not attempt to re-route a mighty river anytime soon. I don’t recommend trying to change the location of a mountain, either, or commanding the wind to obey you, or shooting a flaming arrow at the sun. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to turn one of your so-called liabilities into an asset or use a stumbling block as a shield. And you might have pretty good luck if you try to convert an adversary into an ally or move sideways in order to advance your pet cause. In conclusion, Leo, seek modest gains that involve reversals and switcheroos.”
Ah, horoscope. You know me so well. I have been trying to command the wind to obey me! Too bad I am, to steal a line from someone else, but a feather on the breath of God. Like the feather in that ingenious American classic, Forrest Gump. I will start digging little tributaries, at least.
Watching White Oleander online: “we visit your mother—she’s our project. Women’s studies.” Janet Fitch is a fucking genius.
Reminds me of Sharon Olds, “Why My Mother Made Me.”
Maybe I am what she always wanted,
my father as a woman,
maybe I am what she wanted to be
when she first saw him, tall and smart,
standing there in the college yard with the
hard male light of 1937
shining on his black hair. She wanted that
power. She wanted that size. She pulled and
pulled through him as if he were dark
bourbon taffy, she pulled and pulled and
through his body until she pulled me out,
rubbery and gleaming, her life after her life.
Maybe I am the way I am
because she wanted exactly that,
wanted there to be a woman
a lot like her, but who would not hold back, so she
pressed herself hard against him,
pressed and pressed the clear soft
ball of herself like a stick of beaten cream
against his stained sour steel grater
until I came out the other side of his body,
a big woman, stained, sour, sharp,
but with milk at the center of my nature.
I lie here now as I once lay
in the crook of her arm, her creature,
and I feel her looking down into me the way the
maker of a sword gazes at his face in the
steel of the blade.
Unproductive
I went on Facebook and starting looking at the pictures from a girl I know’s wedding—she is two years younger than me and she got married where we went to school (it’s freeee!)—while listening to “Heart Like A Wheel,” all these bridal pictures. Recipe for disaster.
What?!
John Updike died! There are/were five Literary Men of New York (limnies, as I like to call them) who I like to imagine will never die: Norman Mailer (dead), Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Philip Roth and Mr. Updike. Now I suppose I should read Rabbit Run. He is dead, after all.
Peter Gabriel and Kate—Don’t Give Up. Aww, Petey, the John of Genesis.
If you can watch this without getting a little bit sad, your heart is dead. Dead, I tells ya!
Maxwell covered “This Woman’s Work,” but it’s far more powerful coming from a woman, there’s that old V.Woolf adage, all great artists are androgynous in their work. There’s something a bit “duh” about the lyrics “I stand outside this woman’s work” coming from the mouth of a man.
Why is Kate Bush so wonderful? I think her combination of talent and absolute, incredible sincerity—almost to a fault, like Sinead O’Connor—is part of it, there are very few women artists who can get away with the sort of seriousness she brings to her work without becoming a bit absurd and outdated, like Stevie Nicks or her descendent, Tori Amos.
A Japanese woman who stole Karen Carpenter’s voice! Through some sort of The Grudge-type magicking away, I’m not going to pretend to know how these things work.
This Is Funny (To Me)
After reading stuff about panic disorders from those experts at Wikipedia, I freaked out (of course) and googled Peter “Against Melancholy” Kramer, who has a blog like everyone else in the universe. He wrote some stuff about light therapy:
“If I sound like a salesman - that’s because I am repeatedly amazed at how resistant depressed patients can be to trying a low-tech approach to mood disorder. After all, some people do simply live further south. But then, in depression, it’s hard to make any effort, and hard to hope.
Anyway, that was one of my thoughts as the sun rose over Lago Nahuel Huapi - long days are easy to live with. As for the artificial version: often, the lights help. Even when they don’t, people like the feeling they give; and in the midst of depression, a little pleasure can be a great boon.”
My mom is from the South and in the Early Days After the Divorce she bought this light box—it is quite dark in this area during the winter, even the longer days are rainy and sad—which I would prop myself up against and trace stuff on when she wasn’t using it. It was tremendous: perfect for tracing anything on, which I oddly loved (I was never able to watch TV without doing something else to occupy my brain). Then I leaned too hard one day, and my chubby little self broke it.
Watching the Detectives circa 1977. “She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake.”
