Distractions

Posted November 4th, 2004 by Michelle

I got back to my car tonight after a fascinating dinner with my friend Jon (more on that later) and saw a note on my windshield under my wiper. It read “My name is Katherine I think I scratched your car but it’s dark please call me”. I got out of the car and had Jon shine his lights on the driver’s side and sure enough, there is my paint, her paint, a bunch of mud (?) and nice long but shallow dents on the door and the body. I called her, and she was very gracious. but the really sad part is that the repairs are going to cost at least what the car is worth. They’ll have to paint both the door and the body. A real shame… but I’m glad I won’t be paying for it.

Jon and I had dinner at La Boucane. I have a hard time believing that even a google search will come up with any good info on this place; they aren’t even listed in directory service. But what a totally surreal night. We got there 45 minutes after they were supposedly open but found a deadlocked door; we tried to call, but couldn’t find a number, and so we knocked. An older man answered the door and ushered us in to a “lover’s table” (about which Jon and I, essential brother and sister, couldn’t stop giggling) and then he went to the back and reappeared in a chef’s coat. This man brought us bread and water, opened our wine, cooked and delivered our food, and entertained us with stories about Napa 25 years ago. Three other tables trickled in, at which point Jon and I were left to our own devices for half hours at a time as our host opened their wine, cooked their meals, and told them stories. He was as fascinating as the old craftsman house that housed this restaurant; the wallpaper was floral and faded, just like grandma’s, the ceiling and trim a blue that may once have matched the floral pattern but was now far too bright. The woodwork was probably gorgeous once upon a time but was now shellacked with layers of green-brown baby-poo paint. The most terrifying detail, however, were the etched mirrors that hung on the walls between the pocket doors. More floral motifs, this time with wee bluebirds, reflecting the poo-brown and florals from the facing walls. We sneaked a peek under the white rayon tablecloth to find a plastic-covered 1970’s table stolen straight from Denny’s. It was truly wonderful. The wine list was an old crusty book that had ten or eleven selections, designated by one label from a bottle of wine on each page. More often than not, though, the vintage had changed, so there was a little corrective sticky over the year. But, my god, the lobster bisque and the creamed spinach were ridiculous… almost as good as the raspberry souffle. Holy god, good stuff.

And we didn’t really talk about the election, or politics, even, other than a little ranting before dinner. Instead, we talked about our friends, and our trip to the city tomorrow, wine, women, and song. I don’t know if I can stay true to the media blackout I promised myself, not while Bush holds a press conference holding out one generous hand to the Democrats while hiding a dagger behind his back. But what I can do is give myself a little time and breathing room to recover and rebuild.

I ate more at dinner tonight than I ate all of yesterday and the day before. I’m reminded that I hate being this full.

Tell me

Posted November 3rd, 2004 by Michelle

The heavens are weeping here in Napa Valley for the first time this season. We’ve had a couple of late-night showers, but today was the first day that the sun was blocked by soaked rain clouds. It was sprinkling when I woke up this morning, and the rain still falls heavily.

I’m done weeping, for now. I’m ready for a week-long media blackout, and a four-year long Bush blackout. Don’t get me wrong- I will pay attention, I will be informed, but there is no good reason for me to look at his stupid ass-face.

What I am ready to do is act. Tell me where to go, what to do, where to look, who to join, and I’ll consider it. Tell me how I personally can start the work towards election 2008, and I’ll do it. Tell me how I personally can do something to make sure that women have a right to choose, that the polar ice caps stop melting, and I will do it. Tell me how to change one mind a month for the next 48 months and I will gladly do the work. Tell me how to find a candidate that actually comes close to my own politics, but who can speak to middle America, and I will start his campaign NOW, in my little studio, in the little hamlet of Rutherford. I will do it. But I don’t know how.

I am dead serious. If anyone out there has any bright ideas, reasonable ideas, directions, or thoughts, I beg you to send them to me. I can’t find anything on the internet, can’t quite narrow down the Google search (my last try was “what do I do now?”) I will claim utter ignorance, and complete cloudiness- I haven’t the foggiest idea where to begin. But I want to begin, so if someone out there has any concrete ideas, I want ’em. And I tell you this: put me to work on the next Democratic campaign for President. Do it. We’ll win. He will be brilliant and funny and articulate, but southern or midwestern and appealing. We need to find him, and then he needs me to work on his campaign.

We can have a quiet revolution as the Republicans sit back on their haunches and rest on their majority. We can be worms that slowly devour the Republican stronghold on the center and south of this country. We will invite the Christian Right to stay in the houses of the lord, and draw out the younger voters who just couldn’t get excited by Kerry. We will be moles, infiltrating middle American. And the Republicans will do most of the work for us- things are going to get so incredibly awful that it will finally become undeniable and unbearable and American will lust for someone SMART and CAPABLE rather than someone who seems like he’d be fun in a hot tub. The war will drag, our health care costs will skyrocket, our teenagers will not be able to go to college, and finally, finally, something is going to break. We just have to be prepared and have done the groundwork to catch the country when it falls.

Someday, the rest of the world will try to forgive us for being such assholes. But first we have to stop being assholes on an international scale, and that’s not going to stop for four more years. We’ve got work to do.

?

Posted November 3rd, 2004 by Michelle

I might be the last family member awake. It’s 1 AM in California, way past my bedtime, and only now did I finally get up off the couch and turn off the TV. When Kerry hit 242 electoral votes, I had spasms of hope, but they are gone. There is still a chance, I know, but the fact that Bush is 5 million ahead in the popular vote, and that he has led this race from the minute the polls opened is telling.

In 2000, I hardly took the election seriously because I thought it laughable that Bush would get elected. I predicted a minor landslide this year in favor of Kerry. And while I know that there are a thousand things more important, I can’t help but think about the opinions of people in every other country in the world- what must they think of us, we who had a chance to right a horrible wrong and instead stuck our heads in the sand.

I will try not to despair, I will try to take Sean’s advice and be incredibly artistically productive tomorrow. I’m sad, ashamed, demoralized… but mostly I am really, really pissed off that the madman is around for another four years. I’m really pissed off that he’s frightened over half of my fellow Americans into voting for him. And now, I’m going to finally go throw up and go to bed, and then wake up and try to figure out what to do.

I mean, seriously, what exactly went wrong?

Musings

Posted October 31st, 2004 by Michelle

I spoke with an old friend of mine today for over an hour while I was raking crisp, brown leaves into mounds in my itty back yard. I’ve only known this friend for a few years, but now that a year has passed since we lived in the same town, it feels as though she’s from a time before. With how quickly things change, knowing someone for more than a few years at this point grandfathers them in to the “old friend” status. She was telling me about her new job, her challenges and prospects, and then finally admitted that she’s been seeing someone- another mutual “old friend” whom I just adore. He’s sweet, funny, adventurous, an activist, handsome… just lovely, and it’s funny, because there was a time when something between he and I might have been possible. I entertained the notion, but more as just that- entertainment- than anything serious, much like I have treated almost every man I’ve dated in the last four years. Clearly I’ve done plenty of pontificating and wondering and wandering through my love life, but I still need to revisit the patterns to determine where I’ve been and what’s happening now and where I’m going. The point is, I still do not believe that ultimately this guy and I would have been compatible. But the woman I spoke today is deeply in love with him, which is wonderful, but confusing. How can she take him so seriously? But the truth is, I think it was me who was incapable of something serious, not him. I’m thrilled for both of them, and have no pangs of a missed opportunity or anything useless like that. It just has made me look myself over, again.

My friend and I also spoke of a man who is still in my life, one who has been any number of things to me over the past two years: friend, albatross, lover, confidante, boss (whoops!), annoyance, thorn in my side, heartbreaker, idiot, supporter, and back to friend, in no particular order. He really believes that the future holds something deep and meaningful between us; my friend asked if he had a chance. I’m pretty sure the answer is no. He obliterated the trust between us, not by betrayal, per say, but by being an ignoramus, and I find it next to impossible to rebuild bridges once they’ve been razed by indifference. The weird thing is, when we speak on the phone or over email, we have these incredible conversations filled with confidences and hard questions and honest answers and I feel so warmly towards him, so intimate and loving, but the few times he’s been physically in front of me in the last year, those feelings aren’t nearly as prevalent. This is familiar to me, actually- the ease of loving someone who isn’t there- but I’m not really thrilled with that disconnect.

It’s become so clear to me what I want, so specific and true and simple, really. Seems to me that the law of averages will ultimately work in my favor, if only I open the right doors.

Home

Posted October 27th, 2004 by Michelle

It’s really strange to be here. Back in California, I mean, in my little cottage, in my little job. It was so incredibly surreal spending a week in Iowa with people I adore. Seriously? It made me want to move back. Everyone keeps asking me how my trip was, what was my favorite part, and I’m pretty sure my favorite part was a random hour sitting on a couch with my family or Anastasia. There was no best part, really. Well, except for maybe Kent’s pancakes. Also, I was looking at my nephew Sean Patrick’s photo albums, the ones his mom Melissa made for him, and was stunned at the loss of all pictures of my brothers and I as kids. We have some random pictures, and I’m sure Ian has a hoard of them at the farmhouse, but I don’t even know where my baby book is. One evening, though, Melissa handed me a stack of photos that were just devastating- pictures of all of us, at every awkward age, divorce pictures, London pictures, pictures even from two Christmasses ago. Pictures of my mom and dad when they were actually married. Now that’s strange to remember. It’s one thing to hold that thought in your brain, but another altogether to see them in the same frame. Bizzare.

The last couple of days at work, I’ve sat at my desk and slowly ticked off the things I had to accomplish, but after each one, I sort of looked around to try to remember what I do for a living. Nine days is a long time to be away, and what it has done is given me a whalloping slice of perspective. I don’t know what I can accomplish in this job. I don’t know what is possible, regardless of who I know, and who my dad knows, and the excitement surrounding it… there is only so much money in this valley, and that money has gone to so many other worthy causes, and I don’t know how much is left for my organization. I’m plowing ahead with programs and plans but I don’t know how many people I may disappoint. That’s hard. And I don’t want to disappoint myself.

I’ve officially lived in Napa Valley for a year, as of October 23rd. Un-forking-believeable. So much happens in a year, and I can’t believe the itch is already here. Maybe it’s because I travel so much, I spend so much time on planes and in other locales, that eventually I don’t feel satisfied wherever I call “home”. I have the sweetest abode ever, the best little cottage in the world, and still, I wonder what it would be like to move to downtown Napa so I wouldn’t have to burn so much gas every day when I drive to work. I wonder what it would be like to move back to New York. I know it’s just that I’ve been gone, and I’m haunted by every place I’ve been, but the feelings are still there. I have friends and family who root me all over the country, but that is the problem, really.

Kent and Melissa have completely changed the way they eat. It’s incredible. I know I keep on using superlatives to describe everything but they are apt. Kent has always knocked my socks off when he steps into the kitchen, when he creates these amazing concoctions on his deliciously crowded electric stove, but this time, it was all about fresh vegetables and curries and wonderment. I mean, except for the pancakes. His wok is enormous and much-loved, his knives sharp and true, and both Kent and Melissa (and Anastasia) have inspired me to do something about the way I feel about my body right now. But really, I just want to be back around everyone. My dad is in the desert, my mom is in New York, my closest brother is two hours away. I mean, clearly it could be much worse, but I’m wishing that everyone would just come home for a little while. And then tell me where home is, so I could meet everyone there.

I was in Iowa when Iowa was in

Posted October 21st, 2004 by Michelle

Finally, an hour to actually write about this week… it’s been really busy, actually, and I’ve had exactly no time to myself, which has been perfectly wonderful. But now I’m back at Kent and Melissa’s house, wrapped up in a quilt and debating between a blog and a nap. I can only hope there is time for both before we all go see John Edwards speak this afternoon.

But I’m too tired to write, so instead, please enjoy this wee photoblog…

My first day here we went to pick pumpkins at the local patch…

My pumpkins are the middle one and the one on the far right. It’s the first time, probably ever, that I didn’t hide the pumpkins I’d carved, or at the very least, I’d hoped that a child’s baseball bat might put it out of its misery…

I was lucky enough to spend Lucas’ birthday with him and fam at the Brown Bottle…

and then out for a little too much tequila with my life-long best friend Stacey.

Stace and I found guildebooks for next September’s trip to Peru…

and were witness to the incredible sight of as many assembled toy soldiers as real soldiers have died in Iraq:

We also saw our former house on Forest Dr. in Cedar Rapids, where the owners cut down the best tree, paved the green grass, and fenced in the yard (and are voting poorly)…

and then another old Williams house, warm and inviting, largely unchanged (and voting wisely)

There’s much more, but time to go to the rally.

Uh,

Posted October 19th, 2004 by Michelle

It’s awfully good news that I’m too tired to hook up my camera for shots of tonight. All that really matters is that Stace and I woke up the dogs when we stumbled home at 2 AM reeking of tequila and pizza. Oops. Those darn dogs! Why they gotta carry on so?

Stace and I are going to Peru next September. That is very good news.

I ought sleep.

Iowa

Posted October 17th, 2004 by Michelle

If I had to go home tomorrow, I’d say that I’d had one of the best vacations of my life. But I don’t go home tomorrow… I get a whole nother week.

I took a run today through Iowa City, through real fall, complete with colorful leaves to kick and dogs to pet and college kids in sweatshirts. I got the immense pleasure of hanging with the whole Iowa Williams clan, the day before Lucas’ sweet 16th birthday. Sean Patrick had to leave early to go do his work for the Democratic party, but Kent and I wandered the Co-op and bought veggies to make a curry. Melissa found me the best coat ever at her shop. It’s so peacefully wonderful.

I spent yesterday evening with the entire family of my life-long best friend, and it was extraordinary. Her father has not changed, not even the smallest bit, since I was a kid in a sleeping bag next to my best friend on the living room floor, or cajoling for a space in front of the box fan on unbearably hot summer nights. Her father was always there, telling us stories, making us laugh. Her mother was always there, too, and I blame my desperate love of boxed mac ‘n cheese on the comfort of her mother’s table- the very same table where last night I carved a pumpkin. My best friend’s house is the only one that recalls my childhood. We moved too often, and left behind too many friendships, to call any other former house a childhood home. But her house, and her siblings, and her parents, and all the cats, and the table, and the enormous fruit tree planted the year she was born all stand as reminders, as desperately needed proof that I indeed did have a childhood, no matter how short. Last night her mom asked if it was strange to be there; I told her truthfully that it was not. There was nothing strange about it. That house is still a home to me, and I’m stupid with thankfulness that it still exists, and that I will always be welcome there.

Usually I am a terrible pumpkin carver, but as soon as I get my hands on Stacey’s camera, I shall prove that just this once, I done good.

Posted October 13th, 2004 by Michelle

Harvest may be ending, but the fires and the heat are making the valley feel like the dead of summer in Los Angeles. For the first time in years, I drove home through a dirt yellow sunset, through horrible smoky air quality. It wasn’t like the riots of 1991 when the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see the other cars in the parking lot, but it was pretty darn ugly, stinky, and funky. The crap in the air was palpable, slimy. The fire burns still, and word is that it was intentionally set. What forking idiot would do such a thing.

I just finished watching the debate, and I’m afraid for my gastrointestinal health (and not because of the Taco Bell 7-layer burrito that was dinner). I almost can’t bear it any longer. I have this gut-wrenching fear in more than one facet of my life, and it’s getting to be a bit much. I have about the same chances of success in my job that Kerry has in being elected and it’s almost too much faith to keep right now. My job is much less important than the Presidency, but still, it’s my job, and it keeps me in knots. My boss sat me down today to take a hard look at what is possible in our current project. Can my organization afford to pay me what I’m worth? Not bloody likely. Are our chances of success extremely high? Absolutely not. Do I want to do it anyway? Well… yes. I believe I can do great things in this position. I don’t know if the community or the environment will allow for success, but by god, I could be the one to make it all happen. I could CHANGE something, I could actually have a positive effect on something larger than myself. And I love going to work every day. Give me another six months and I think I could truly make a difference. But… but… how do I balance that with my constant struggle for financial security? When will I have to stop begging and borrowing just to keep my car out of the shop? When does the balance become unreasonable? Will I ever love a job like this again? And the thing is, I’m good at it. I could work the rest of my life in this field. I found it, the thing that eluded me for my entire adulthood, and now I have to decide between continuing this work and being paid a living wage? It’s not entirely fair. But if I could stick with this, at least for another six months, maybe a year, it would position me to do even more, further me in this particular world. Ugh.

Did I mention that the post office lost one of my grant requests? Can I tell you how much that sucks?

Sometimes I think back to coming home to my studio apartment in Brooklyn, and what it felt like to be me in that last year. How incredibly alone I felt. I feel different in this life, and I think my job has a lot to do with that. Well, and the extra pounds of chub keep me warm at night, but I can’t really count that as a positive.

Posted October 10th, 2004 by Michelle

I’m not usually one to get out of bed at 8:30 AM on a Sunday, but you wouldn’t believe the day. We were promised cool weather, even showers, but instead it is perfect. I can’t really describe it beyond that. My writing studio has windows on two walls, one open to a wall of honeysuckle, the other to the trees of my driveway, and as I sit and read the news the cyclist of the valley occasionally parade by on the road about a hundred feet away. Mornings like this absolutely fill me with longing but also sort of with hope. Particularly when the coffee is ready…

Ahh. I’m thinking that my love of fall is really just a love of mornings. During fall, the cool of the morning, the sparseness of the light, is around all day. The colors of the slanted morning sun are translated, in autumn, to enduring reds and golds and yellows. And maybe that is what is so spectacular about the beginning of fall- cool mornings and the hint of what the days will be in just a few weeks. I can’t say I’m ready for the winter rains, but days like this, I’ll take. And maybe, just maybe, if I didn’t have a regular job, I wouldn’t treasure this moment so deeply. Maybe if there wasn’t somewhere I’m supposed to be for many hours of the week, I would have just stayed in bed and slept until the morning was gone. Instead, the from the windows is blowing gently on my coffee. This morning makes me think of the house upstate a mile or two from Ian and Tessa’s farmhouse, the white house with black shutters and a sun room and big, plush chairs visible from the street. I want to buy that house someday. I want to live in it and send my rug rats to go play with their cousins at the farmhouse.

I wish that the sun would stop climbing, just for a few hours.

I dreamt last night of my trip to Iowa. I leave this coming Friday, and I’ll be in Iowa and then Chicago for nine days. Nine glorious days. When I told my co-workers about this vacation, they stared at me blankly. One said, “Uh, is Iowa really the best use of your vacation time?” Oh, yes. But in my dream, I was doing something wrong. I can’t place it now, and I know that it was another case of dream transference- I often take safe events and people and then transfer ugly events and people into those situations rather than directly dreaming about the ugly stuff. But I was doing something shameful or disrespectful, and even though I can’t remember what, the feeling lingers. I’ve done plenty of stupid stuff over the last couple of years (hell, my whole life, but I can only count backwards so far), but probably the ugliest thing I’ve done lately is a series of blogs just over a year ago now. I couldn’t really see it at the time; actually, I couldn’t see anything. I was just in pain and the only thing that made me feel better was pouring poison onto the internet. Honestly, though, it didn’t make me feel better. I think it perpetuated the pain rather than assuaging it. The shitty thing is, it was a relatively sustained outpouring, for like a month or so, and I can’t take it back. I can’t believe some of the things I felt, and I hate that I made them public. Ian and I were talking the other day, and I made some comment about being thankful that I wasn’t big on being vindictive, and he made an immediate reference to these blogs, and it socked me in the stomach. It’s been a year, and yet, in the immortal words of Harry’s Sally, “It’s out there”. Nothing to be done about it, except for to do better next time. Small consolation, though. I’m not ashamed of the pain I felt, not even ashamed of the anger; I just wish I hadn’t acted in a way that was ugly enough to still come back to haunt me.

But the day calls. If you, dear reader, have not visited this glorious part of the country, this Northern California coastal/wine country world, I suggest you do so immediately. It will cure all that ails. And… better yet… it’s almost Halloween. I’d like to dress up as a thin person. Does anyone have a thin person suit?