Sunday, April 15, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Backyard Wisdom
Situation: I was stepping outside of my apartment to read and take in the beautiful Spring day. My upstairs neighbors (Dan and Emi) are a young couple from Me: help, help! I’m stuck up here on this big cement slab.
Grand Nanny: I will help you. I will hoist you on my shoulder and then stick you here in the grass.
Me: No thank you. My legs are shaky…(ahhhh…)
Baby: ahhh…gibberish, gibberish
Grand Nanny: sorry I don’t speak English
Me: No worries. I don’t speak Romanian.
In unison: Let’s smile at each other.
II. later...a request from a disabled woman
Me: hey you, get over here.
Grand Nanny: me?
Me: bring me my birdfeeder!
Me: ah yes, empty it. clean it. get all that dirt out with your bare hands.
Me: Does Dan have birdseed for me upstairs?
Me: He does? Go get it. no wait don’t get it. get it. no don’t.
Grand Nanny: I am so confused.
Me: me too
III. the situation as I imagined it observed by Emi and Dan from a second story window.
Emi: why is my baby alone in her stroller?
Emi: oh, there’s my dad.
Dan: yes, helping Amanda. I like Amanda but she is too needy.
Emi and Grand Nanny: (a shared look in Romanian)
Emi: Dan do we have any birdseed for Amanda?
Dan: No, she’s not getting my birdseed.
IV. (outside) a conversation based in reality…sort of
Grand Nanny: Do you know
Me: yes!
Grand Nanny:
In unison: confusion. Shit. Shit. Baby: ga ga squishy (she shit)
(uncomfortably long pause)
Me: I like Emi and Dan. Do you like my birdfeeder?
Grand Nanny: birds? this?
Baby: clinky clinky shiny
Me: Put it on the grill. On that shelf next to the tongs.
Me: Now move my chair! or I will melt in the sun!
Me: Bring me my birdseed!
Baby: ewww! stinky no no stinky!
Grand Nanny: Bye bye friend. We must go, The baby is hungry.
Me: Okay bye. I must go inside too. I make crafts.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Spring Fashion Tips
Good Morning,
When "we" (i.e., I) last left my formal dress wearing experience, moments before I was to lead the parade as a bridesmaid, I discovered the padded breast cups had been sewn inverted and on the outside of my taffeta top. Disaster was narrowly avoided as a tipsy maid of honor performed a padectomy (me in the shell) with a pair of toenail clippers.
More recently, I was awarded a hamburger for my volunteering efforts with Miss Evan’s 2nd grade class. Along with the Principal's Pride certificate for a free trip to McDonald's, I received this life-like rendition of me (see attached). This is what I wear when I’m tutoring the kids. I like it because it's not restrictive in the armpits and I get to wear my shell belt.
Textured tights. You should never wear them. Substitute fleece sweatpants that have pilled. Fringed cowboy chaps will also do.
Add a handbag for a pop of color. OR leave your handbag in various restaurant booths, bathrooms, movie theaters, etc... for a pop of color.
Go ahead and wear white... but not with your day of the week underpants (look there’s stinky Cheryl again wearin’ Monday on a Friday?)
Fool everyone. Dress in dizzying diagonals!
Get some t-shirt paints and write new messages on your message t-shirts.
Life is Good...or is it?
French Horn Playa loves a
Tuba Playin Freak
Trumpet Playin Freak
Sax Playa
Since I've been receiving Spring catalogues since November...I'm finally ready to place my order(s).
Here are some questions I have or perhaps interesting observations for you to consider.
Who names the colors and do they just pick whatever they happen to be eating? Butter, cream, lemon, …
somehow getting dressed I suddenly have the urge to make muffins.
Who determines which color’s are (men’s only) which ones (women’s only)?
I say if Paul wants to wear a pair of Purple Phlox "crocs" and Ann wants to order her clogs in Ash Bark, let them. Isn’t it rather rude to suggest on which side of the color wheel they belong?
I know you have questions too...and the answers are yes
Yes, kitty appliqué clothing is always in—just change the weight for Spring. Trade sweaters for blouses, sweatshirts for t-shirts.
and
Sensible layering—for example, wear your bikini on the outside of your clothes…this will just stretch out the pieces to accommodate and serve as a nice summer preview. (well looky here Betty you all can go on shopping without me. I still fit into last years suit!)
Happy Monday.
Amanda
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Private Bath
Good Morning,
The average American spends 1.7 yrs.* of their life engaged in toileting activities. For most of us, it’s safe to say that’s 1.7 years we’d like to have back. Much to my confusion I have discovered this might not always be the case.
Take for example the recent piece of short creative nonfiction by Fleda Brown (poet lauriet of
Private Bath by Fleda Brown
"Whether we were in Kensington palace, or at a coffee shop on the corner, I would remain alert for an obscure bathroom, one on a lower level, with poor lighting, one that could be easily overlooked, that I might have to myself."
strange but okay...
"At the lake, too, it’s always been pretty much the same. I dearly love the outhouse, with its high window so that the other world is nothing but the tops of trees. I love the rich smell of accumulation, mixed with earth, everything changing back into itself."
okay now I’m concerned, you love the smell of decomposing poop?
"But if someone knocks at the outhouse door, even if they politely drift down the hill pretending not to wait, I’m trapped by time. No longer is time open-ended, no longer are all things possible. I have an assignment—to finish my business, to be a member of the give-and-take of human society."
knock, knock, knock…
"But at home in my own bathroom, I’m Rodin’s Thinker under the glorious sun of the heat lamp, bending over Doonesbury, Dilbert, Boondocks, the glassy ease of Metropolitan Home"
here’s a comment from the outside world…the bending action is a little too graphic
"I balance on the edge of the seat, between feeling and action, between intimacy and the revelation of nature.
I don’t need quiet out there, I need quiet in my soul. I need time and space, the brief illusion of eternity. To sit on the cliff of the toilet, disenchantment only a door away."
...wipe me! wipe me!
Recently I e-mailed Fleda with this message in the attempt to uh get to the bottom of this piece.
Dear Fleda Brown,
I am new to your work and have a question. Recently, I read a piece you had published on the Brevity website.
The piece is called "Private Bath" (Issue.22, Fall 2006). I was wondering if you would be able to tell me where you found the courage to write this piece?
Writing about one's experiences in the bathroom is tricky work. Somehow you've managed to make something taboo or off-limits in polite company very poetic.
Am I reading this correctly, that you consider a bathroom to be a private sanctuary?
Thank you for taking the time to read this and/or your reply.
Sincerely,
Amanda Vallo
Dear Amanda,
It didn’t take much courage—I just tried to connect that experience to the outside world so that the “bathroom” aspects wouldn’t seem so “up front.” Sure, I do consider it a private sanctuary. Don’t you?
FB
And I told Fleda,
No, I guess I do not consider the bathroom a private sanctuary. I experienced a spinal cord injury in 1991. I have thankfully recovered a great deal of independence but since this time I have come to think of my bathroom as 1. a place I'd rather not be and 2. a place of public domain. I think this is why I am so interested in this piece.
p.s.
I have been placed upon a bedpan and forgotten (accidentally) for the duration of one night shift, had to pull a string triggering a loud bleeping light to alert a floor full people the completion of my toileting activities, had unmentionable things done to my unmentionable parts to make me toilet for an audience (young residents); to this day I still get to spend what feels like an inordinate amount of time in the restroom. I do not have an intrinsic sense of a bathroom being a private sanctuary.
...see now I think you’re crazy, lady!
No reply.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree and let time clear away the muddy waters of this correspondence.
Your friend,
Amanda ("Still Fascinated by the Garbage Disposal")
*1.7yrs. is made up.
