Dancing Queens

A while back, I wrote about the lost art of the mixtape. And I recently rediscovered one of the best. My first year of college, two friends and I created this tape to be the perfect dance mix, with built-in time to catch your breath. We laughed so much while we created it, and I wish I could scan in the cover art I made (we each made our own for our own copy of the tape). Think fishnets, and sass, and groovin' and love. Four years later, at a party shortly before graduation, someone put a tape on: it was the mix we had made! It had made its way around the school, passed on for its legendary powers to get people up on the dance floor. And we laughed and laughed as we danced. And here's how it went:

Side A

Dancing Queen - ABBA

Respect - ARETHA

Stuck in the Middle - STEALERS WHEEL

Into the Groove - MADONNA

Sweet Dreams - EURYTHMICS

Take On Me - A-HA

1999 - PRINCE

Groove is in the Heart - DEEE-LITE

Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - URGE OVERKILL

Vogue - MADONNA

A Fine Romance - LENA HORNE

I Will Survive - GLORIA GAYNOR

Side B

Let's Go Crazy - PRINCE

Tainted Love - SOFTCELL

Wonderwall - OASIS

Laid - JAMES

Jump - THE MOVEMENT

Big Time Sensuality - BJORK

Son of a Preacher Man - DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

Hooked on a Feeling - BLUE SWEDE

Take a Chance on Me - ABBA

St. Elmo's Fire - JOHN PARR

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - DORIS DAY

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman - ARETHA

Girls Just Want to Have Fun - CYNDI LAUPER

And though we made this tape more than 15 years ago, and it was a mix of our different tastes, and it's a little scratchy from being played so much, and it breaks my personal mixtape rule of using the same artist more than once: it's still fabulous!

Be that girl.

Livin' La Vida Loca

Oh dear. I appear to have missed September completely. How did that happen? Actually, that kind of thing happens all too often these days. I say to a friend, "Let's get together soon," and soon turns into several weeks. Weeks that are full of not a whole lot, and at the same time, everything that matters. Hours spent chasing a ping pong ball as it bounces down the sidewalk. More hours spent hiking in the woods, baby boy snuggled close, twisting and turning to watch the dog scamper and pounce. Mornings at the farmer's market, afternoons in the park, ten minutes here and there climbing the back of the porch swing. The days just disappear, and I try to hold on to the moments.

Also - September means back-to-school, so that's been taking up a fair bit of time that I might otherwise be recording my grandiose opinions on the world. My head's been in Mesopotamia and Egypt, to the point that I'm not even sure who's running in the local elections. (and I've discovered that in some ways I'm incredibly unobservant: on a walk one day I'll ask if that house has always been that color, or that lamppost has always been there, and usually it has, and I've walked by it hundreds of times without noticing. So the political signs in people's yards are not so helpful)

It's not like I'm so super-busy doing this-that-and-the-other, although I get to the Y for yoga and pilates, and have the occasional game nights with neighbors. Not so many dance parties or poetry readings, not a lot of going out for dinner, or staying up all night being wild and crazy. Sometimes I miss those times, when I was just gearing up for the evening activities at a time I'm now usually in bed, maybe even asleep. It was fun, and part of me still wants to be that girl. Part of me still is, somewhere inside. But my life is loca in a whole new way, now.

And I am happy.

Of Meat And Men

I just read Julie Powell's second memoir, Cleaving. It's about learning how to be a butcher while she cheats on her husband. Or tries to get over cheating on her husband. Whatever. My verdict: the bits about the meat are good. Clear voice, fun recipes, compelling. The bits about the men? I don't care. And the bits where she tries to find meaning and metaphor about the men in the meat? Irritating. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the whole book because of it. I did, and could have done without the whole last travel section as well. But the bits about the meat more or less made up for it.

My initial reaction was actually a lot more harsh - I said some mean things about her while I was reading, wanting her to focus on the interesting stuff and leave the forced introspection out of it. I had a similar reaction to the Julie & Julia movie (I didn't read the book) - I like the Julia bits, not so much the Julie bits. But now that I've sat with it a bit, she's grown on me some. It's her memoir, so she's entitled to write about whatever she wants. (kind of like blogging, no? Which is where she got started, after all. But I doubt I'll be reading that anytime soon.) And it's her life, to fuck up or fix up however she wants. I just wish I didn't have to read about so much of it.

Like: she starts with an interesting description of how to take apart a pig, and then goes off on the symbolism of how the flesh (aka she and her lover) clings to itself and has to be pried apart carefully to avoid tearing a ragged edge...blah blah. Get back to the juicy stuff. More meat, less men!

Choose Your Own Amendment

You're walking down the street on a sunny day when you spot someone who looks out of place. This person is loitering and anxiously looking around. He is wearing a funny cap on his head and is darker than most people who live in this area. If you: go up to him and ask in a friendly way if he needs help, turn to page 32. If you: check your bag to make sure your concealed weapon is loaded before calling a buddy for backup, turn to page 57.

PAGE 32: Well done! He just needed to find a public restroom he could use. You are a kind human being that offers us all hope for the future. Live long and prosper. Go forth and multiply.
PAGE 57: Good job! You scared him so badly he peed in the street, splashing your shoes. You are the antithesis of all that America stands for. Go directly to jail (or better yet, to school), do not pass Start, do not collect $200.

Selected Amendments, as interpreted by the squeaky wheels we love to hate:

The First? Only when it applies to me!
The Second? Hell yeah!
The Fourteenth? We don't need that no more.

And while we're at it, let's write a few more that will redefine the world to fit our narrow-minded perspective. (Is this where both sides whip out Leviticus to prove a point?) Apparently only a few red-blooded patriots really know what the Founding Fathers had in mind. God forbid any of the rest of us actually read the Constitution.

Oh, how the blood boils. It makes me inarticulate. The worst of it may be how poorly this represents our people, but you'd never know it from what you see in the media. (except Jon Stewart, of course, peace be upon him) Hearst created a war out of nothing (ok, not nothing, I'm oversimplifying history to support my point, just like everyone else) and it's happening again, people lining up to take sides over issues that didn't even exist until the flames were fueled by the Fox flock.

And the so-called "Mosque at Ground Zero"? Neither a mosque nor at ground zero. What a good opportunity for peacemaking and community-building that's getting twisted around until it will only end badly. Let's fight more wars - after all, what else do we have those guns for?!

I don't know about you, but when I chose my own adventure, more often than not, I ended up dead. Unless I cheated and looked at all the options until I found the happy ending. It was always there to be found.

Parenting Advice from a Jackass

It was too windy to read the paper in the park today, so I ended up listening to a nearby phone conversation while hanging out with the boy. (Ok, yes, I would probably have listened in anyway.) He was going on and on about all sorts of things, interrupting himself now and then to yell at his kid. Here's the nugget of wisdom he had to share, loudly:

If your seven-year-old keeps pooping his pants, you should make him wear them on his head and (I quote) "smell that shit all day until he learns not to do it again." If you don't have the heart for that, you don't let him out to play and you be sure to tell his friends why.

He also talked about a girl he knew who was scrawny because she was a junkie, but could drink anyone under the table and win bets. They'd split the cash. He was real proud of that. Delightful, no? I admit he sort of endeared himself to me when he talked about the dirty hippies who won't get a job and don't wash their hair. He was most upset about how bad dreadlocks smell, except for this one hot chick he knew with platinum dreads - all the rest remind him of his cat's hairballs.

On a vaguely related note (well, not related to hairballs), I came across some equally revolting parenting advice in the classic manual "What to Expect: The First Year." In a listing of games to play with little ones, they included this rhyme: "Clap hands, clap hands, till daddy comes home, cause daddy has money and mommy has none."

Yeah, you read that right. Welcome to parenthood, ladies and gentlemen.

Be: Here, Now.

My yoga teacher started class this morning with a lovely Mary Oliver poem (aren't they all?), about attention. Ironically, although I live in the present a lot these days, I couldn't do it during yoga. Every time she'd tell us to center and sink in, to pay attention, my mind would wander. And then I would notice the wandering, and try to focus, and still end up with eyes and thoughts darting around the room. The woman next to me kept doing poses wrong, and I wanted to correct her, or have the teacher fix it. The man in front was huffing and puffing and generally making a new age spectacle of himself. My pants kept sticking to me in funny ways because of how hot and sweaty I was. Nevertheless, it was a great class and a great way to start the day. Here's the poem:

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver (1992)

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

And The Living Is Easy...

Summertime! A time for barbecues and hammocks, for popsicles leaving purple tongues, for dancing and swimming and late nights under the stars. Or, these days, for early nights watching tv, peeking outside and wondering if it's ok to go to bed while it's still light out. A whole new world. Actually, now that the boy is more or less reliable about bedtime, and we have a monitor that works at quite a distance, we've managed a few fun evenings with friends. But those carefree days are behind us - and ahead of us, as we watch our neighbor kids run shrieking through the sprinklers and tumble into a pile, laughing all the while.

We are trying to keep adventuring; we even went rafting, to celebrate the 4th, with baby on board. It was a tame and empty stretch of river, a handful of splashy spots amidst the gorgeous scene, just perfect for his first time out. Hopefully a sign of days to come. As we were de-rigging at the end, we chatted with a guy who said he started taking his kids real young and how his oldest son is a river guide. The future? (And then he slept through the fireworks that night, hurrah. Can't say the same for the dog, but she's always been a fraidy-pup with noises like that. Thunderstorms back in New Mexico sent her trembling into the bathtub.)

I live in each moment. The trees, not the forest. It all seems like it's going so fast anyway. The fish may be jumping (don't know if the cotton is high) but I have small waves of anxiety because I haven't planned for the fall yet. Has it really been six weeks since school ended? How did that happen? Here's how: one day the grimace at the sweet potato becomes an open mouth asking for more, bright orange giggles delighting in this new experience. Squeals of joy greet the sight of the dog hunting her tennis ball, ears flying in the wind, a pounce in a cloud of dust. Grunting marks the hard work of rolling and rolling and rolling, trying to push up, to stay up, to get where you want to go, and finding yourself going backwards instead. Somehow, in the midst of all the ba-ba-ba-ba-babbles, you are growing up, one day at a time.

One of these mornings / you're goin' to rise up singing / Then you'll spread your wings / and you'll take to the sky...