WHERE I'VE BEEN
Nowhere in particular. It is amazing how tiny to medium shifts in one's routine can de-blog one. Faith's been ailing, in a limping paw kind of way, and I started teaching a marvelous group of college-bound scholars, and I'm thinking about law school, and I've been trying to turn my resume into a CV, and that, plus the new liberal radio station and Richard Clarke, my secret anti-terrorist boyfriend, being ubiquitous, and cooking chicken tagine for Jeff the Most Appreciative...
well, it tires one, don't it.
19 YEARS
Before I explain the headline, let me say this about that: I'm in a very good mood. Feisty. A little bilious, in that, "I have to write about a million essays to express everything I want to say," kind of way. Excited, in that, "holy hell, I may finally have wrestled the concept for my screenplay to the ground" way. Meanwhile, Faith the dog has fallen in love with a woman who owns two Basenjis. It is awesome to behold. Jeff and I will soon eat cumin-dusted salmon. Life is good. I am thinking a lot about women and ambition, and while the answers aren't always pretty, they are fascinating.
That said, I miss my dad. This is the 19th anniversary of his death. This was one of the years I didn't get weepy, but felt lucky he stuck around long enough to clean up his act and embrace the big fat world, including me. The Internet would intrigue him, and South Park would make him laugh. And if there's a heaven, he is blowing tenor sax with Charlie Parker right now.
R.I.P., SPALDING GRAY
I first saw him in 1979, after doing publicity for "Rumstick Road," a piece he developed with the Wooster Group about his mother's suicide. Once, I spoke to him on the phone in 1983 when he was looking, now so sad now, for a student in our department, who had jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived untouched--to make him a part of a performance piece. It goes without saying: "Swimming to Cambodia" was a gigantic touchstone for me. Maybe more later. His poor family.
From another Web site I posted on:
I remember what a pure shock "Swimming to Cambodia" was; so ferociously entertaining and strange, and how it managed to embrace both the utter awfulness of Year Zero, the Cambodian invasion, and good ol' American imperialism AND an actor's burning and wildly narcissistic desire for a part in a movie.
WHAT ABOUT OSCAR?
This marks, I think, the fourth time I knew somebody (in this case,
somebodies) who was nominated for an Oscar; they were, like almost everyone else in Hollywood, crushed by the Cheerful Furry Hobbit Juggernaut. (I am slightly in awe of the Hobbit Juggernaut, because, before the movies came out, I don't think I heard a single person in "the industry" say he or she thought it was a good idea at all. And how amazing for Peter Jackson and Team not just to make three movies back to back, but to, well, transform an entire country's economy--without waging war!) Still, in regards my Oscar nom acquaintances: I think they should have gotten a special prize for being a gifted, still-married writer-director team with a sense of humor, but, hey, that's when I run the universe.
In other random news, Faith traded sweet tail wags and sniffs with a miniature Doberman, male. More and more, I think she craves a tiny boyfriend, but I could be wrong.
I had a really good horoscope today on
Free Will Astrology. And you probably do, too:
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is rising about a minute earlier each morning and setting a minute later every evening. As a result, you're drinking in about 15 minutes more sunlight every week. The psychological effect of this steady influx has been slowly growing, and, in concert with certain astrological influences, will soon reach critical mass. As a result, you will become sun-like: a luminous beacon of warmth. Everything you shine upon will look brighter, and your own beauty will be highly visible, too. It will be a perfect time, therefore, to make a dramatic move that helps you pursue your dreams harder and smarter.
GREAT GALS WE WISH HAD STUCK AROUND A LITTLE LONGER
Lady Fiennes, explorer/inspirer. From her obit: "Ginny Fiennes...spent more than two years in the field with Sir Ranulph and his companions, thus richly deserving the Polar Medal, which she was the first woman to receive, with clasp Antarctic 1980. She was also the first woman member of the Antarctic Club."
Amy Spindler, fashion deflater, good writer.
THE MYSTERY OF INHERITED OBJECTS
Many, maybe 12, years ago, my great aunt Jo gave me an omelet pan. Not any omelet pan, either. It came from her kitchen, it was a sunny side up yolk enameled yellow, it was French, it was heavy, it was perfectly proportioned--from
Le Creuset. "I don't use it," barked Jo, and shoved it at me.
I've used it hundreds of times, and been so careless with the enamel that you really have to struggle to see the yellow beneath the layers of cooking gook. It takes a professional to get it back to its sunny sheen. Still: it makes glorious omelets and scrambled eggs. It's almost impossible to ruin eggs in this pan, even if you are listening to NPR, answering the phone, and unloading the dishwasher. And even then, some of the eggs will be salvageable. It is one of those little miracles that makes you thank God for the French, even when they are mean to you when you have a head cold in Paris and cannot pronounce a single word of French right.
Jo is gone now, and the pan is still here. And now the mystery grows for me, each time I cook an egg: where the hell did she get it? She didn't cook. Her roommate/best friend Dot did all the cooking, which was more of the meatloaf and Cool Whip pie (o glorious) variety. Jo DID travel to Europe, but I never remember her mentioning France at all--it was always Scotland, to visit friends. Jo lived in West Hartford, not exactly the bastion of gourmet cooking, and as far as I know, this was the only piece of Le Creuset she had. Everything else was sensible American non-stick--this pan stuck out like a glorious sunflower. I
think she gave it to me because, as she and Dot aged, they would plunge into frenzies of decluttering. I don't remember what else she said to me, probably something about it never being big enough to cook for two, which is sort of true if you're working with more than four eggs: it's a six inch pan with a two genius pouring lips, one on either side of the pan. But I never remember her telling me where it came from.
So my best guess is someone gave it to her, but who? Was it a gentleman caller? Lord knows they gave her enough jewelry--I helped Dot sort it after Jo died. Was it my late father, who adored France and its cuisine, and would think it was funny to buy his beloved aunt a bright yellow omelet pan in Paris and transport it back to Connecticut? It is, as I think about it, his favorite color, and I can just see him doing it, lugging it through customs and laughing. But he's gone now, too.
This is one of the reasons people contact mediums and psychics. Not for the big questions. For the omelet pans that stay stuck in your brain, and the people you love who could provide the answers. Well, I'll always have the eggs.
