Writer Rodney Street Laundry

2009-10-25T17:39:00.001-06:00

Marilyn Bennett's Blog has moved to marilynbennett.com.

FEBURARY 21, 2009

2009-02-21T21:04:00.013-07:00

For those of you have asked if you’ve been taken off the blog list and that’s why you haven’t been receiving notices of postings, no worries; there just haven’t been any new additions. I’ll change that now, just shy of ten months since April 24, 2008. So much has happened in those months too. Though I haven’t written about them, I thought about them and that must count for something. So here is a recap, a brief run-through of things I might have written about and may someday …or not.

June
Obama won the primary in Montana! Happy day! I celebrated with other jubilant Helenans at a local bar, Miller’s Crossing. Visiting Montana for a few days were a group of foreign journalists who the U.S. State Department had invited over to witness the democratic process. I talked with a few representing various news outlets, one with a Samoan news station, another from Papua New Guinea, and another with the BBC out of Niger. They were all surprised by what they called the “race revolution” happening in this country, that an African American could be a contender for president of the U.S. of A. They expressed a mix of shock and excitement, which I too toasted. I’ve since heard back from IDY Baraou, the BBC reporter from Niamey, Niger, and I hope to write more about his observations now that Obama is in office.

July
Summer brought visits with family, my mother in June, and in July my brother Curtis, sis-n-law/fun Kelly, and niece Lexi. Picture four tall (some might say there were a couple of large ones) floating slowly down the Missouri and passing the take-out place by a few miles. And there was my last trip out of Montana (but who’s ancy) to my niece Sallie’s wedding in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University. I am a former student of TAMU –note we are not alums, just former students, there are a lot of traditions like these. It’s been many years since I was there, and unlike most other former students, I have not kept the school passion. They call us “2 percenters.” At one point at the reception all the Aggies were called out to do the fight song, a fervent song done with movements and much verve. I thought that I would stand by my niece in a kind of school-spirit niece-aunt bonding moment. This was after my Texas Tech Red Raider brother Paul had pushed me out onto the dance floor. What I hadn’t thought through is that I no longer remembered the words to the song nor that being next to the bride, I would be on the vide tape in perpetuity. My lip sync was about three words off and when we got to the movements, I had to let the side-to-sides of my neighbors carry me. At least I remember where the arms went. All this was met with glee by Paul, the family’s variousTexas Longhorns, and a cousin from California that said seeing me out there was worth the trip. Thanks so much.

August
Another home project was begun. This time nephew Max and his girlfriend Kate came from Arizona to scrape, scrape, and more scrape the old paint off. Too bad they didn’t get to apply any paint during their two weeks. The project continued on into November when the last storm window was put back up. Joy, Andrea, and Jesus did the excellent work.

Other happenings turned the backyard animal king/queendom upside down. One being the bird feeder turned cat feeder that went up. There was a frenzy of feline focus, crouching and lunging, with a few feathers flying. I don’t think that is what my avid bird-watching mother intended when she gave me the feeder.

Fall
Then there were the Obama over McCain days. I went through 4 “Obama for President” yard signs as they kept being stolen. The fourth one I surrounded with dog poop to at least give the thieves something else to take away with the sign. It made it until the day after the election when it was swiped. My high school informant said that she heard guys boasting they had taken signs. She thought that was stupid, especially the gloating part.

November
Fall Art Walk at the Rodney Street Laundry
Two fabric artists displayed their work and all I could think about was the time during my heterosexual union that we bought a Bernina sewing machine because the husband thought I should sew. I even went to one class but the frustration of bobbin problems proved once again how much I was not cut out for sewing (this was in no way a disappointment to me). He got the machine in the divorce settlement.

A new sign goes up at the Laundry with the direction of the Black Hand, White Pinkie of God.

Plus a new bakery, Vanilla Bean, has moved in across the street from the Laundry

where the pawn shop used to be. Yum. I recommend the cupcakes, orange croissants, cinnamon rolls, ham and cheese scone, BBQ sandwich, and the coffee though not all in one sitting.

Buuzdo the cat moved in just after Thanksgiving from the Chicken Ranch that was starting to be the Cat Ranch. Formally spelled Buuzdeaux, he is named after the term my friend Brandy’s Serbian grandfather called boys that visited the house. This was in place of having to remember their names. Emma is underwhelmed.

I entered the Facebook world kind of by mistake and have embraced the reality that I suck at it. For example, I accidentally named a sewage plant after my sister, but it was in a response to a poke so she had it coming. And with all the people that have found me from my childhood, let me just say that Facebook is not something you join if you’re in the witness protection program.

Ah, December and January
Early in December a surgeon told me after a colonoscopy that I had tumors that were this close (imagine an inch between thumb and index finger) to cancer. I wondered if that was to scale or what. She said that I needed to have part of my colon taken out –who says that kind of thing? She also informed me that Americans have the longest colons and you don’t need all your colon. I was in shock over the news about the colon but not enough to not consider that was an odd bit of information, so I asked if other races or, rather, country’s citizens had shorter colons. Come to find out Africans and Asians are shorter because they eat less processed foods, but the closer an Asian gets to living in America (by way of Hawaii to the mainland for instance), the increase in colon disease. My friend and doctor Michael confirmed this.

Moving on, eleven days later I went under the scalpel and came out with a shorter but still American colon. My sister came from Texas to stay with me and take pictures when the surgical nurse put one of those hair net things on me before being wheeled down to the OR. I refused to put one on when I was four for a tonsillectomy so this was something she felt she needed to document for the rest of the family. I would have done the same thing if the hospital gurnies were turned. What followed was 6 days in the hospital where I had a new take on Eat, Pray, Love; Pray, Pass Gas, Eat. Though it goes against my sense of politeness to talk so easily about bodily functions especially the digestive tract, after the nurses asked for the umpteenth time if I’d passed gas, I got used to scat-talk. The surgeon asked if I’d passed gas out my bottom, which had me wondering where else that would be. Medical school must have taught her something extra.

There were complications during surgery that required cutting me open (ouch) rather than just the laproscopic method that we’d planned. This then set up another problem. After I got home, an infection developed under the incision area and I was back to the hospital on Christmas night for another 4 days. It required the surgeon to re-open the incision, clean out the bad stuff, and left it open for me to I pack and unpack for 4 weeks in order for it to heal from the inside out. One should not have to see the inside of one’s gut. It’s just not right. I felt that I was in the Wild West but without the whisky poured into the gaping hole and a bullet to bite on during the marinating.

I don’t recommend any of this unless, of course, you need it. Finally though the gaping wound came back together, and I’m feeling much, much better!
The great benefit is that I got to spend a lot of time with friends and family in person, by phone, thru email, under anesthesia, and in la-la land. (To those reading this, thanks to all the many ways you offered support!) All and all, contrary to the ER doctor who diagnosed that I was "unlucky" and needed some good luck (no prescription written), I feel very fortunate.

To share my fortune, here are a few hospital tips I came up with on my last stay:

1) You can change the channel on the TV in the ER waiting room without anyone

hurting you even if others are enjoying A Redneck Christmas (and I thought Fox

News was bad.)

2) You get help faster if you pull the chain the in the bathroom than if you push the

button on the hospital bed.

3) Even if you are a smart alec with the food staff like...staff, "You're back." me, "Yeah, I missed the food." They, bless 'em, take it as a compliment.

4) When the beeper keeps going off because the IV tube is bent anytime you breathe

b/c of where it was placed in the arm, it's better to let the nurses come and turn off

the beeper every two minutes rather than resetting it yourself. They decide much

more quickly to move the IV to the top of the hand, a place with less constriction

with every move.

5) The housekeeping staff are gems and know which floors have chocolate ice cream.

6a)Watching Loretta Young playing a nun in a hospital on Christmas Eve trying to get

Billy a bicycle is not entertaining when you are in a hospital on Christmas night.

6b) Always find a nurse that knows where the tv remote is that is separate from

the one attached to the bed. Otherwise, you can only go one direction when
channel surfing. It wears on you, and you end up with Loretta.
7)The fewer the years a nurse has been in practice, the bigger the bag put over the IV

to keep it dry during a shower. One junior nurse (I had her during 3 of her first 4

days at the hospital, her first nursing job) used a full size trash bag. The seasoned

nurses would whip in with a small bag, tape, and once even a netted glove.

Now to February, 2009
The movie Milk is playing at the Myrna Loy Center where I work. It is the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a major public office in America, as one of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It portrays the start of his activism, his ability to unify and empower a community, and, tragically, his assassination 30 years ago.

I was very moved by the film and what seemed like his zest for life. It also made me glad for the work I’ve done in the LGBT movement. My most recent activist life while I was living in Chicago left me pretty worn out. But as Milk and the gay right movement unfolded, I was reminded of earlier times and work that I had been involved in that felt like I had made a difference --work with LGBT youth, National Coming Out Day activities in Dallas, and organizing a group for gay and lesbian employees at SMU. Those were days when there were still many risks in coming out. We had to be organized in order to fight for anti-discrimination protection in schools, places of employment, health care, and in our faith communities, to name a few.

As I watched clips of Anita Bryant in the movie and her religion-wrapped bigotry, I thought of how I was at one time convinced that if we could influence the religious communities to dismantle their discriminatory practices or at least educate people, that it would bring greater change in our society because we were going to the source of so much ignorance and fear. But I learned, as my friend and fellow writer Gil Caldwell often says, “On justice issues, the church is more often the tail lights than the headlights .” It follows behind change and not out in front showing the way. True enough because the church by and large remains a place of exclusion while society continues to change.

However, lest we think that the fight for the rights of LGBT persons is over, we can look at the passing of Prop. 8 in California. This, thirty years after the same state led the country in legalizing protection of LGBT civil rights. Or just this past week the Montana Legislature House Judiciary Committee voted “no” on a bill on a party line tie vote against HB 252 brought by Rep. Margaret Campbell (D-Poplar) that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, to Montana's Human Rights Act and outlaw discrimination against LGBT and Two Spirit Montanans.

Some of the opposition’s opposition sounded stupidly familiar:

Dallas Erickson, described the 30 sexual orientations and 5 genders (each needing a separate bathroom), that would be affected by this law.

<my thought: only 30? Can’t we at least keep up with Baskin & Robbins’ 32?>

Jeanette Zentgraff from Concerned Women for America, explained that if schools cannot discriminate in hiring, "It is difficult to remove teachers who are flirting with students."

["HB 252] would force us to hire these people, and once in, are very militant." Harris Himes, Hamilton

Another line comes to mind, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Linda Gryczan at Equality Project of the Montana Human Rights Network (equality@mhrn.org) has promised that there is a YouTube clip coming that shows the 30 flavors testimony.

CHANGE OF BLOG SITE
I’ll soon be moving my blog to a new web site. I write that news to you so I’ll be motivated to finish the web site… and write again before 10 months are up.

Changes in the Neighborhood

2008-04-24T11:17:00.008-06:00

Reporting in from Rodney Street where many changes are taking place.
I've already written that the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop has moved over to the B&B Market. I misspoke that the meat counter was from the original meat market. That would have made it very, very old and unworkable so forget that. Here is picture from the old shop; remember this cartoon picture for later as it has now been painted over at the Laundry. One of the photographs at the bottom of this page is of the sandwich kitchen looking into it when it was at the Laundry. This picture can be compared to the first picture in the slide show B&B Market over in the right hand column. Now the kitchen has been cleaned out, newly floored, and awaiting more renovations. Second up in the slide show is John Leaf, one of the B&B owners, in the new space for the sandwich shop. The market has been spruced up and now sells gourmet and organic foods as well as the customary corner store staples. Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and Rogue brew, Spam and multiple mustards, and Nutella. Life is good.

Moving on to Rodney Street Laundry, there was a lot of activity there last week with the arrival of the new energy-efficient, larger, and front-loading washer and dryers (slide show number two...cool feature, huh? even with my inferior skills of figuring out how to do it). Sandy, co-owner with Jacquie, is in the first picture with the slew of deliveries. Many tasks preceded the new machines: installation of new flooring, application of new paint, and reconfiguration of plumbing and such. In a couple of the slides, you can see the "behind the scenes" of the laundry business. Also find the new wall that covers the old cartoon. This was last week, now the Laundry has reopened for business even while the finishing touches are being applied. On a late drive-by, one can see Sandy through the window in the light of the fluorescents still working into the night.

Updates to come on the grand reopenings!

Two more "before" shots.

IN DEFENSE OF KUMBAYA & POLITICS

2008-04-10T15:24:00.005-06:00

Add my name to those voting for Barack Obama for president. I am moved by the man, period. I can go on to explain the linear-type traits and experience that qualify him to lead the nation, but I’m more interested in why people play down his inspiration and hope. Is he insincere, I don’t think so. Is he manipulative or is he persuasive? Is he living his destiny? Are we? Should we bring lofty imaginings into the picture? Yes, because if ever there were a time for imagination, this would be it. I don’t need to go into the litany of problems such as war, the economy, health care, genocide, poverty, tax cuts/burdens, education, climate change, torture, and on. We know the problems, we can hear lists of ways to fix them, but what inspires and moves us to do anything about them? What I’ve seen of movements attempting to create change is the multiple avenues through which it is sought: community organizing (power up), policy design and implementation (power down), consciousness-raising needed in order to fuel the first two for them to be effective, and commitment to things not seen only imagined (some would call that faith or hope or even foolish fancy).

I recently learned a new buzz word/phrase being bantered about these days, “Kumbaya moment (KM).” I saw this reference in two different articles. In the first one I thought the use of KM was an interesting notion. As I read on in the newspaper, I found another reference. So then I wanted to relocate the first article, but doing this felt like I was in a card game of Concentration, where each card of the deck is laid out face down, with the goal being able to remember where a pair of the same number/suit is by turning up two cards per turn. With no success, I turned to Google to see if it would by chance bring up the article. What I got were a whole slew of articles about KM. It seems that John Edwards used the concept of Kumbaya first, calling Obama the “Kumbaya candidate." I found this tidbit in an article by Meghan Daum writing for timesunion.com. She went on, “The term allows its users to have their coolness cake and eat it, too. To invoke "Kumbaya" is to display one's counter cultural credentials while simultaneously letting it be known how stupid and irrelevant those credentials are in today's world. Like those loathsome shibboleths ‘think outside the box’ and ‘let's take a blue-sky approach,’ which combine self-help jargon with corporate doublespeak, "Kumbaya" manages to be completely earnest and completely disingenuous at the same time.
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=677605&category=OPINION&newsdate=4/3/2008

Now being a former camp counselor and youth director, I’ve sung Kumbaya more than my share and I’ve had some very funny KMs. One came in a staff call when I worked for a non-profit, national grassroots organization working for inclusion of all people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the United Methodist Church (UMC). There were four of us around the table and two by speaker-phone. We had just received news of a woman who had committed suicide under the stress and heartache of her church’s condemnation once members found out that she was a lesbian. We already knew about charges being brought against another UMC pastor for being openly gay. It was a doubly hard day. In the sad moment, I suggested that we sing Kumbaya. It’s true. We began to sing, the six of us, and then it was so somber that I got tickled and couldn’t hold in the laughter. Pretty soon, the only ones singing were the ones on the phone lines because they couldn’t see or hear that the rest of us had quit singing. That of course made it even more hysterical. Bad, bad, bad, but I couldn’t help myself. In actuality the song has gotten a bad rap, especially by sincere/disingenuous people like me. In all seriousness, there is meaning for our country and globe in this song, clear and present need even, “Come by here, oh God.” Our world can sure use some Divinity (however conceived) showing up right about now or, at least, our best selves rising to the fore. There are lots-o-problems going on and a spiritual life force would be welcome. If hope is part of that, come on.

Last week was a stand-in-line-for-hours week, and there just aren’t very many of those here in Montana…at all. At a Helena Starbucks or one’s favorite non-corporate coffee joint, the longest line might be five, and it only seems long because there is a lot of space between the customers. We have a lot of open landscape out here and not a lot of people so people forget to bunch up. It’s sometimes very annoying. I mean standing in line for dry cleaning is not the same as standing in line for a prescription. You don’t need privacy for picking up the freshly cleaned down comforter.

A week ago last Tuesday, I stood for a couple of hours outside the Helena High School gymnasium to see former president Bill Clinton, a historic occasion for Helena and Montana, but then our delegate count is r-a-r-e-l-y seen as making a difference in national politics. However, with the presidential race as it is, we had some impressive visitors. Entrance was free too, just like Willie Nelson’s concert this past July, and with about the same amount of security, though Bill did have Secret Service dudes once he arrived and Willie only had the county sheriff’s department.

Last Saturday though, the real rock stars showed up in Butte (rhymes with “cute”) for the (Democrats) annual Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It was another couple of hours of line-standing to get in, this time in a very cold wind. The word was that we were not supposed to bring coats or large purses to speed up security screening and so many folks were not prepared for the icy chill. That was another two plus hours of waiting in line and however festive the anticipation was, it was still COLD. Usually-amiable people got pretty testy when anyone tried cut in line and the misguided souls were quickly booed to the end of the line, especially one a mile long (okay, maybe .75 miles). However I did see an elderly World War II vet --his cap said so- step into a gap in the line ignoring the .75 and though he was yelled at, I saw that someone let him in not too far down the line. What did he have to lose; he’d dodged bullets, what was getting in trouble for cutting, really?

Side note: I’d never spent any time in Butte, a mining town of ruffian legend, its population was once over 100,000 (that would be roughly 10% of the whole state’s today) made up of numerous immigrant communities, a mix that led to the name Butte, America. It’s also said that Butte was where the American labor movement was born. The introduction to the town added to my overall adventure. We went to the Berkeley Pit, a former open pit copper mine that is about a mile and a half wide and about 1,780 feet deep; stopped by the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church (speaking of one of the immigrant groups); drove up the steep hill to Montana Tech to take in the view; meandered through Walkerville; had lunch at a sports bar that was once a bank with vault seating available; and finally got to the place I really wanted to go, the M&M Bar. It's an infamous place, starting in 1890, watering many an off-shift miner, surviving prohibition as a "cigar store," and still serving customers 24/7. I had a cell phone picture taken of me on the inside it but the photo didn’t get saved. Too bad, because an hour or two later Obama had his picture taken in the same spot. I did get the backdrop of the memorial to Evel Knievel, a hometown Butte boy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What can I say about the Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner (box lunch for those of us in the stands)? For one, it was only the second occasion where Barack and Hillary appeared at the same dinner, Virginia being the other. Two, it was interesting to sense the sharp feelings between the two candidates’ camps. There was at least one unifying line and it was met with mighty cheers when Clinton said that one thing about this election, “George W. Bush won’t be on the ballot.” Woo-hoo. Third, though their speeches addressed the same concerns, as one friend put it, “Obama made you feel like we could get things done while Clinton just made you tired” with her long lists of what we need to do and how we need to do them. Both candidates are intelligent, resourceful, impressive and experienced. However, I disagree that Hillary’s experience of having lived in the White House counts as the qualification that many herald. There have been plenty of presidents (the entire bunch of them) who have never lived in the White House before they got there. Also, when she says and infers that only she knows how to fight and hold her ground, I think about Obama being a black man in America. Hello. I think he knows how to hold his own. And as far as his church and Rev. Jeremiah Wright goes, the true revelation is that many in White America haven’t imagined what the Black experience is in these supposedly united of states.* In addition, have these same people listened to some of the prejudiced rhetoric that is spoken weekly in United Methodist pulpits, Hillary’s denomination? Furthermore if what it took for Obama to speak directly about race was the You Tube sound bites by Wright, then so be it. Though there are disagreements about Obama’s address from within and without the African American community, it still was a person of color running for president speaking candidly about race. That, to me, is a fresh breeze with a hint of moisture on a hot, dry day. Call it a Kumbaya Moment, that’s all right, I’ll even stand in line to hum along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*On Black experience in America:
An email from my black Elder Brother, Gil Caldwell, definitely worth a read.

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath -

America will be!

Langston Hughes

In my 74 years of living, America has never been completely America to me...74 year ago I was born into American racial apartheid; the hospital where I was born, the neighborhood to which my mother returned with me, the churches, schools, stores, theaters, parks, buses, trains, all and much more were shaped by America's original sin, racism....Yet as I grew up, I knew that one day America would begin to be America for me.

That day began to become a reality in what was called the Civil Rights Movement....I was an unknown "foot soldier" in that Movment...I was in Mississippi, I participated in two phases of the Selma to Montgomery March, I was at the March on Washington, I marched next to Martin Luther King in a March on the Boston School Committee....Slowly as I became active in a Movement that would transform America, America began to become America for me.

Then when I was 73, the race for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party began and in that race was a man whose name is Barack Obama.... At first I was not too enthusiastic about his candidacy..I remembered the candidacies of other Black persons; Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun....I remember that at one time there had been the possibility of a candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination by Colin Powell...But "politics as usual" surfaced again and not only was Colin Powell thwarted by attacks that many of us thought were unfair, his wife was personally attacked as well....Of course I must acknowledge that Alan Keyes has also sought the Republican presidential nomination.

But, as the candidacy of Barack Obama began to succeed and succeed, despite reservations in the larger community and the African American Community, the idea of America becoming America for me, took on more new life!

New life, despite the foolishness of "Is Barack Obama Black Enough?"....Despite attempts to use his admitted drug use against him...Despite, the childish efforts to pronounce his middle name, "Hussein" with a cynical sarcasm that sought to frighten an electorate that was too wise to be frightened....Despite the efforts of some African American Civil Rights icons and successful business persons to make Senator Obama look small in an effort to make their candidate look large...Despite the efforts of a former President to minimize the achievements of Barack Obama by saying words to the effect, "He is another one, just like the other ones" (Words that not only belittled Obama, they belittled the significant impact of the "other ones")...America becoming more America for me grew and grew, despite the illogical and irrational efforts to convict Barack Obama of "guilt by association" by bringing up the names and words of Minister Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright....Despite the efforts of a former Vice Presidential candidate who said "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."...(I had not heard this kind of "reverse victimization" before")...It is akin to saying, "If Tiger Woods was a white man, he would not have achieved the success he has." This is a new way of "dissing" Black accomplishment.

But, but, but despite the above foolishness, my vision of a new America grows and grows. Each day as I see and hear the enthusiasm of persons of all colors who are much younger than I, continuing to be excited about the prospects of CHANGE that a Barack Obama Democratic Party nomination and presidential election would offer, my hope and my pride expand. An "America that never was America to me," begins to take on "being" in ways I have never known before. My generation is a generation of "Segregation Survivors". Some would hope that we would go to our deaths in silence, so that it would be as though we never existed. The contradiction and hypocrisy represented by the reality of our segregation experience has given rise to the sickness of a national amnesia that dares not remember what we were made to be and who we are today. But, some of us have refused to be "Invisible" nor silent, women and men. Now as we are on the edge of our transition from this life, we see in the Barack Obama candidacy, even those who do not support him, something in America we never expected to see.

Despite the racial blood, sweat and tears of the past, we now see in the race for the presidency of our nation, an America struggling not to be born again, because it has never been what it is struggling to be now, but rather to be born for the first time! We live not far from the Stone Pony night club that Bruce Springsteen made popular. I could never listen with much enthusiasm to, "Born in the USA" that was/is sung with so much power by Springsteen. But now in 2008, the 40th anniversary year of the assssination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the nation of my birth evokes pride I have not known before. I can listen with pride to Bruce Springsteen's song ways I never felt before. The success of the candidacy of Barack Obama no matter what happens, enables me to say with Langston Hughes, "America will be!" Hallelujah!

Gil Caldwell
Asbury Park, New Jeresey
March 13, 2008

Gil and I have co-authored Truth-in-Progress: Letters in Mixed Company, a manuscript waiting to be snapped up. More information to come.

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Click on the blue/gray word “ 0 Comments” (do NOT click on the email icon, that takes you a whole other direction) below. The zero will change with each added comment, so it could read 1 comment, 2 comments…
In the screen that pops up, write your comment in the box, like the text of an email. You can add your name at the end or not. Up to you.
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Guest Author: Kelly Bennett

2008-03-21T11:28:00.004-06:00

Thought I'd throw in a new element to the blog and feature a guest author, Kelly Bennett. For those suspicious of the Bennett part of her name: yes, we are part of the same family. She's married to my oldest brother Curtis, and they currently reside in Jakarta, Indonesia. She has many books to her name that you can check out on her website, www.kellybennett.com, AND she has been to the Rodney Street Laundry. The following is part of a series of email entries that Kelly periodically sends out describing her experiences in Jakarta. Someday soon she'll have a blog but there isn't any pressure, really, Kelly.

Jakarta News—Nyepi, March 7, 2007

Today is Nyepi. Nyepi is the Balinese "Day of Silence." It is a day set aside for fasting, and meditation. From sunrise today until sunrise tomorrow everyone is expected to maintain silence. The day is reserved for self-reflection, prayer, meditation. No one lights a fire, works, travels, no one talks or eats. Imagine on an island that is usually crackling with activity, buses, taxis, bikes roaring past, honking, music, tourists and hawkers yakking, laughing, completely silent. The roar of the surf, waves, wind and gulls squabbling provides background music along the coast. Inland,in the forests and rice terraces, the insects provide the only sound track. Occasionally, a baby's cry or a toddler's giggles break the silence, these interruptions only magnify the quiet. Although most of Indonesia is not Hindu, Nyepi is a national holiday. Indonesia recognizes five religions, and everyone must subscribe to one: Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic and Christian. As a nation, Indonesia recognizes major religious holidays of all five of these. Which translates to a lot of national holidays, and perhaps a higher level of religious and cultural awareness than is evident in other countries. Interesting how when we are given a day off as a result of a holiday, we are more inclined to take notice of the event. Here in Jakarta, where there are few Hindus--none that I know personally--the streets are uncommonly empty. And, if it's possible, the few cars and motorcycles on the road seem to ride quieter and the vehicle horns--honking is a favorite pastime of Jakarta drivers--are still. It's Thursday, but the air has that Sunday afternoon feel I remember from when I was a kid--that relaxed, lazy feel that came after church, after a belt-stretching lunch, after we'd changed out of our good clothes, and theTV was turned to the golf channel. One has to admire the conviction of the Balinese people. Imagine how difficult it must be to observe Nyepi. This island, where tourism is the mainstay of the economy, cancels all air, sea, and road traffic, demands that shops, restaurants, and even the beach shuts down for 24 hours. Tourists and non Hindu are exempt from observing the holiday--barely. Within the confines of resorts and hotels restaurants are open and the pools available for swimming, but no splashing allowed! Exceptions to the vehicle/silence code are made for emergency vehicles carrying people with life-threatening conditions and women in labor--they are allowed to scream. (I guess even on Bali no one is willing to confront a woman in transition.) One thing about the day seems grossly at odds with the sprit of Nyepi: Throughout the holiday, a select group of men called Pecalang (pronounced Pe-cha-long) patrol the streets. These men are selected by the community to patrol the streets making sure that no one dares to ride, or talk, or watch TV, or light a fire--even a cigarette--during the 24 hours of Nephi. Iwonder what a silence keeper does if he catches people breaking the rules?He can't yell at them? Maybe he thinks at them until they behave?Sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

For more about Kelly Bennett and her books visit www.kellybennett.com
Kelly has authored or co-authored 12 books for children—both fiction and non-fiction. Her titles include Not Norman, Spider Spins a Story: Fourteen Legends from Native America and the just-released Strangers in Black.

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THROUGH THE WINDOW

2008-03-13T18:57:00.004-06:00

I have an amazing spot where I write at home. My study has windows on two sides, the old kind with three vertical planes of glass in wood frames on top and solid glass below, circa 1930. I haven’t opened them lately, but this summer, Andrea, who painted all but two rooms of the house, worked wonders with a sharp blade to break them free from being painted shut. They slide along a thin rope pulley on the inner frames to open and close. On the south side of my room, I look out through three of these beautiful windows onto the backyard, beyond that to Mount Ascension. To the west, I look out on a side yard that once served as a dog run or at least has a three-foot wooden fence on one end with a gate to usher the dog in. The other sides are six foot. Now you know Ms. Em is not going in there so instead we imagine a stone patio with hot tub under the fine towering tree that is in charge right now. The woman who measured for the blinds had French doors where these west windows are for easy flow out to the patio. She had it all figured out down to which closet the towels would lodge. But right now, it is a bank of two windows and a view of Mount Helena in the background. The room is sunny and a very happy place to be. My desk faces out to the big backyard that hosts a small 350 sq. foot rental cottage on the right side and a small garage on the far side in front of me, both in matching dark yellow wooden siding with burnt orange trim. The rest of the back fence line is filled with trees kept with an old wire fence. On the left is more of the 6-foot wooden fence, encasing the yard from the street on the other side.

This is anything but a quiet little place, one can see by the variety of scat present: deer, rabbit, cat (lots of cat), birds, and dog. The deer’s was mystifying to me as I couldn’t figure out how a deer was getting in so I had settled on an imagined monster rabbit. Until the evening when I opened the door to let Emma out and there was a large doe digging around in the snow under the crab apple tree. She looked at me, me at her, Emma for the smell of cat excrement, and then she easily jumped over the wooden fence and took off down the street. I thought my apparition-seeing moment had come, but the next day upon investigation, I found her scat. I didn’t spot her again for a long time, but a few weeks ago as I drove up to the house I saw two young deer by the fence. One trotted across the street but the other looked at me and then into the back yard. Pretty soon a doe jumped over and the two trotted away. So much for the false sense of protection for a summer garden. I knew that a few herds traveled through the neighborhood, often following the same trail as the postman across the front yard at an angle to cut the corner. I’ve seen him; I’ve seen their “calling cards,” as Mammaw used to call them, large scat-terings.

There was another party interested in the crab apple tree, this time a huge flock of Bohemian Waxwings. There were at least a hundred of them that descended on the back yard with their playful chirping. I hadn’t seen this type of bird before. I knew they weren’t sparrows or robins and all the other ones I know were on sunny vacation and weren’t due back for a few months. I did the only thing I knew to do when faced with feathered questions; I called my mom. I couldn’t offer her much, “They’re bigger than sparrows and finches. There is a whole bunch of them. They’re mostly gray black, have some rust color on their heads, and yellow on the tip of their back wings.” She did what birders do: sorted the information, compared and contrasted in her mental bird book, and spit out the answer, “Cedar Waxwings.” Well, she had the waxwing part right. I was following her suggestions on the internet and was happy with that answer even though she suggested I look at Bohemian Waxwings too, which later I found out that’s what they were. Mom said that she had searched all over Michigan for some of these Bohemians but never found them. She called their visit “wondrous,” I’d have to agree.

The greatest activity in the yard surrounds the cats. In fact I’ve come to call the cottage the “cathouse.” Emma calls the flowerbed, bordering the front of the small house, “treat land.” I sit at my window, see the cats dig around in the bed’s soil and do they’re business, and shudder at seeing the production of Emma’s treasured snacks. That sight is just too fresh and vivid when Emma comes inside with THAT breath. Every now and then a cat will brave coming over to her. I wonder if she recognizes it as “the source.” The other night she was doing her own pooping by the bed. Even while she was in the dog’s awkward poo stance, she had her nose turned to the treat box, multi-tasking.

There is a little cat door in one of the windows of the cottage. Three cats live inside. Two out of three are often outside; the third is venturing out more now that the weather is warmer. The longhaired black one often sits on the roof peak over the door looking down on the yard. One day I came home to that cat on his perch, the other black feline resident climbing the nearby tree (best bird-hunting tree during spring and summer), and a loud crow in another tree cursing the cats. That’s what I imagined the noise to be; it sounded so stern. A giant gray tabby also visits the house. I’m waiting to hear howling and find him stuck in the door after eating the cat food inside. There are at least two other cats that visit on a regular basis.

The weather has warmed up and most of the snow has melted in the yard. I’ve enjoyed seeing all the various paw/hoof prints (the snow also covered the less desirable scat). We had some mighty windstorms in the last month or so. I looked out one day to see the plastic Adirondack chairs copulating. But there were some really, really cold days. I checked the weather conditions on the internet one morning, the day after a snowstorm left 2 feet of sparkling snow but lots of sunshine. The blue sky was deceiving, it was minus 15 outside, that’s Fahrenheit. On the Weather Channel listing where it reads “Feels Like:” it had “N/A.” No fucking kidding. Once you’re at minus 15, what’s it take to figure what it feels like, bloody hell frozen over.

On April 2nd I will have lived here 4 years. Clearly that’s not long enough to become jaded to the urban deer herd. They still surprise me when I drive by them as they trail down the sidewalk. Yesterday was no exception as I sat here at my computer and looked up to see a doe running down the alley, pass behind the garage, and cross the street. Soon a second doe came barreling through. I waited but that was the end of it. I wondered if I should have set up a water stand by the garage for the deer marathoners but socializing with the deer is frowned upon. Plus, they’re wild animals in an urban jungle. I still think they are the graffiti bearers.

Another window that I love looking out of is the one over the kitchen sink. It has a wonderful view of the big Montana sky, great for full moon watching, and more cat antics. I watched one of the neighborhood cats trying to act nonchalant, as cats do, when after crossing the snowy street, its paws, legs and belly sunk into deep snow. It backed up, sat down, scratched, and decided to go back to where it came from, all the while bluffing, “I meant to do that.”

Last week’s blog had a picture that was taken from my office window at the Myrna Loy Center which is across the street from the county courthouse. The caption read, “What’s in the pick-up.” It was a stuffed mountain lion and a mounted deer head. When the lion was being brought out, human arms under the belly, I thought it was a very old live dog. As it got closer and the man carrying it turned around, I thought with alarm, “It’s a mountain lion!” My brain then eased into, “ It’s a stuffed mountain lion.” Yesterday through the same window I watched a Golden Retriever/Yellow Lab mix puppy playing on the courthouse lawn. When the dog walker tried to take it back into the courthouse, the pup sat down and refused to budge. It’s only 2-3 months old and belongs to one of the judges –a good one that always talks to Emma when we see him on the street. He once borrowed Draco (one of the Hounds of the Myrna), when Draco was a young pup, for the day to hang out in his courtroom.

Windows offer a frame for life’s constantly moving picture. Not only do they allow us a view on the world but also a focus at a particular sight. Over the years when my dad was sick with cancer, especially toward the end, I remember thinking that someone watching through the window from across the street could have followed the whole story of his illness: his slowed walk during chemo treatments, the boxes being brought home after early retirement, the arrival of the wheelchair that propelled him once his legs became weak, then no sight of him leaving the house but the sense that he was still in there, cars lining the street, adult children arriving from the airport, a shroud of silence during the last days, a pastor ringing the doorbell, a hearse pulling up, and a body taken out on a stretcher (the jogger going by when this actually happened looked rather shocked). Later it would be the limousines driving up to carry the grieving family to the funeral --lots more of the family there by then, hours pass and back the cars come accompanied by more people, neighbors bringing casseroles to the door, flowers being delivered, and days later, cars taking the same adult children back to the airport. This might be a dreary sight but it is still there frame by frame and tells a story. We see these all the time if we look and keep looking. It is an honoring in a sense, witnessing of life unfolding, sometimes all the way to the end, a tender wave hello and goodbye.

In memory of Mary York, dear friend in Chicago, and Martha Gilmore, lovely woman mentor and friend in Dallas. I imagine you with Molly Ivins and Ann Richards. When the wind is right, I hear all y’all laughing.

Also in memory of four lovely four-legged creatures: Willy, Girl, Joshie, and Lily.

COMING SOON
Guest blog by Kelly Bennett, more e-says, and news of Rodney Street Laundry.

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AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD

2008-03-06T17:14:00.002-07:00

Okay, forget that whole plan of writing more often with fewer words. Whatever. That’s just not my temperament and that’s that. Several of you wrote and told me that the number of words doesn't matter. I like you. Today, though, will not be an essay but a brief hodge-podge of items about the neighborhood.

(You can read the comments on the last posting by clicking on "Comments" just below my last posting.)

Capital City Perks
Months back I mentioned that the owners of Main News, James and Sandy Rojo, were taking suggestions for a new name for their store. Soon after, James came up with their new identity, Capital City Perks. The store is truly “more than good coffee” as their tagline promotes and good coffee gets high marks already. The Rojos are the wonderful people who bring the Sunday New York Times to Helena on the Sunday of publication AND they sell cigars AND comic books AND other interesting merchandise. Nice humidor and you can’t say that about just any store. Check out www.capitalcityperks.com. They aren’t officially in the Rodney Street neighborhood though they’re only 3-4 blocks down the hill. One good drop and roll and you’re there.

Side note: Big thanks to the “New York Times Fairy” who paid for last Sunday’s paper. When I picked up my paper from the Rojo’s front porch (the store isn’t open on Sundays anymore but we can still get the paper if we work it out in advance and put the $5 through the mail slot), there was a note that said the NYT Fairy had paid for my paper. What a fabulous and happy surprise, one of those little gifts that mean a lot. I now believe in fairies.

Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen
Big news about the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen, it has now moved across the parking lot to B&B Market. It’s a nice fit as B&B already has a deli feel to it with their meat and cheese case leftover from when the building was a meat market. Plus the merchandise in the small grocery store already reflects the neighborhood’s diverse tastes: Pabst Blue Ribbon to Rogue Microbrews, lemon pies of old (also come in cherry and apple, one serving per yellow, red or green wrapper) to half-loaves of heavy wheat bread from a local bakery. I haven’t tried the coffee.

Snow Sculpture Contest
The 2nd annual snow sculpture contest was held a few weeks ago. First place went to Timber with his King Kong creation. He built back in a cold, shady corner and with the temperature in the 40’s, he also gets the award for the longest-surviving sculpture. Timber won last year as well. He has an advantage being a stone carver by trade. In fact, he carved the stone crosses that grace the Helena Cathedral. I asked him if he carved them on the ground and someone else put them up, but he said that he was the one up high on the steeple installing them. Made my knees weak just thinking about that kind of height. The sweet smell of dryer sheets at the drifted across the parking lot from Rodney Street Laundry where the machines were in full use. There is BIG news coming from the laundry too, but can’t tell it just yet.

MANY READERS HAVE HAD PROBLEMS WITH POSTING A COMMENT. HERE ARE STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS:

TO POST A COMMENT OR RESPOND TO A COMMENT, DO THIS.
1) Click on the blue/gray word “ 0 Comments” (do NOT click on the email icon, that takes you a whole other direction) below. The zero will change with each added comment, so it could read 1 comment, 2 comments…
2) In the screen that pops up, write your comment in the box, like the text of an email. You can add your name at the end or not. Up to you.
3) Below that box is “Choose an identity,” click anonymous.
4) Click on “Publish your comment.”

TO READ COMMENTS, also click on “Comments.”

TO RESPOND TO COMMENTS, go back to the same process as posting (above).

INTRODUCING E-SAY

2008-02-18T19:26:00.003-07:00

Recently I read an article on what makes a successful blog. I went through the checklist of three:
1. Keep blogs to 300 words or less.
2. Do not include cutesy pictures.
3. Write every day.

Clearly I have failed all three. My shortest blog was 800 words, longest over 2,000, and they are usually in the 1,200 to 1,400-word range. I like pictures and am an admitted softie for cutesy dog ones. I last wrote on January 6 and today is February 18 (points for both dates being in the same year).

According to the author of the article, I am completely on the wrong track. If I tighten up the wordage and write more often (I’m keeping the pics, they make me laugh), then the formula predicts I will have more readers and they will come more often (unless they are turned off by the said pics). I suppose that makes sense and is important information to know, maybe I could even experiment with the ideas, but I’d have to keep such ramblings like this particular sentence out because I’m already to 186 words. So I keep the pics, some rambling, and most importantly, I now officially change the name from blog to e-(s)ay. Because, really, these are essays not little tid-bits. I’m not made for the changing world. I still like erasers though I have grown overly dependent on spell-check and I wonder if Google has become our collective memory. They could do some weird shit to us (252, not good, 255).

Here is my plan. I will write my wordy e-says and cut them into bite-size (no pun intended, I’m not that kind of clever) parts, and I will post more often, maybe every day. Numbered, serial e-says. Okay? Better be, I’m out of words. 300

Dancing with Fear

2008-01-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

A million years ago –say, like 22, a few of my lifetimes ago-- I decided that I would do one thing a year that I was afraid of. The first thing that I learned was that I was afraid of a lot of things. I was working at Bridger Bowl Ski Area near Bozeman, MT, teaching day care kids how to ski. Carolyn and Del (now owners of the chicken ranch where I lived for the first 6 months in Helena, to whom I’m forever grateful) hired me with the main qualification that I could pick up 4-year olds flailing in their snowsuits on the ground. I had only learned to ski the year before and that was with the careful teaching of Carolyn. Skiing itself was something I was afraid of. Also driving to and from work on the snowy roads. Also taking CPR training. Also cooking for dinner guests. Also meeting new people and engaging in small talk at parties. And countless others. Once I started the challenge, it was clear that I would have to take on more than one fear a year because there were so many. I could write a lengthy essay even a whole memoir on how this decision to face my fears has shaped my life and personality and physicality (of the preservation kind, I have never bungee jumped or been sky-diving), but I won’t here. Blessed be.

HOWEVER, this is where I begin my story of how I have come to be teaching Nia Dance Technique every Tuesday morning at 7:30 a.m. (Dancing Lotus Center on the walking mall next to the Parrott). For those that know me well, there are two facts that stand out from that sentence: dance and 7:30 a.m., both share the essence of being out of my comfort or capability zone. But there they are.

I started attending Nia classes in April, 2006, when my health was taking a dip. (Note: I started 2006 with the goal that it was the year to get healthy. My body responded with being hospitalized in the second month with diverticulitis and in the fifth with a hysterectomy. The body took me at my word, I suppose.) I was adamantly urged/instructed by spiritual director Kathryn to go. At the time, my general and inflexible feeling was that “my people” of peasant stock were intended to push ploughs not move with fluidity. The polka might get speedy but not so mysterious as the inner workings of free dance. Actually I can’t take all the peasant stock down with me to this stereotype so I’ll just say that my family is tall, big-boned, upright, and immovable unless playing basketball, which obviously requires movement but values tall and upright. So to say that I was reluctant, hesitant, nervous, and/or misguided would be an understatement. It was a fear and therefore fell into the category of facing it, the annual thorn.

Okay, I actually liked it even though I felt extremely (really, really, really) self-conscious. I could follow the leader (Kathryn) but the notion of the free-form dance, gliding around the room during some routines, almost lost me. I moved with downcast eyes. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me. Over time, I started to “get” the whole notion of Nia or at least a founding principle of “The Joy of Movement,” feeling the physical joy of moving the body, being aware of moving the ribcage from side to side, getting the pelvis to do the Elvis, sensing the side of my hands in the chopping motions, and feeling the strength on the back of my forearms when blocking out. I made it clear to Kathryn that I didn’t do sounds, no “ha” or “ya” for me. There was a limit to the movable.

Time went on and I started going three times a week and my body loosened up. I got less self-conscious, felt freer to shake my shy booty, recovered my sense of rhythm that I thought I lost after putting away my clarinet in 10th grade, and found more emotional openness inside myself. Most of all I laughed and laughed. Not that laughter has ever failed me; I just got to do it a lot. Fast forward to about a year from when I started, now Kathryn was encouraging me to take the white belt training, the first level and the prerequisite for teaching. That familiar shot of fear zipped around my body landing in my throat and stomach. Oh for f---‘s sake. The damn seed was planted. Then the irresistible Britta, the Black Belt certified, White Belt trainer came to town in April and taught a 4-hour playshop. I was sunk.

And that’s how I came to be sitting with five other women –two from Billings, one from Chicago, and another two from Helena- in June, 2007, nervously waiting for Britta to begin our White Belt Intensive (we’ll call it The Intensive after this). I was the only one that was undecided about teaching. I had the clause of taking the training for “personal growth” to cling to. What followed was 40 hours of training over 7 days and an experience of renewal that I’d forgotten existed. The main thing I had held onto weeks prior to signing up and attending was that it was okay to be “caught learning.” I’m of the sub-conscious belief that I must know how to do everything. Once I abandoned the notion of perfection, I had a lot of room to embrace foolery. Which was good because it quickly became very clear that there would be fears within fears to face. Dammit to hell. On the first full day we had to do our solo free dance. I had caught wind of this exercise but wasn’t prepared for it to be the first day nor that the music would be randomly selected. I did check to see if curse words were allowed before using them. My body was tingling and hands sweating, even right now as I remember it. I knew that this was better to get over with sooner than later. I had youth do this kind of thing at the beginning of camp every year to break the fear/reluctance/good-sense ice, so I knew that this was necessary, probably recommended by 4 out of 5 doctors, but f---ing hell. I didn’t close my eyes completely but sure enough didn’t look up at the other six sets of eyes though I couldn’t have had a more sympathetic, I mean supportive, group of people to experience this with. It was over in less than 6 minutes and eventually my palms dried off and my body quit quaking. The Intensive had truly begun.

Now a word about Nia: it is a combination of dance arts (Jazz, Modern, and Duncan —thus the gliding around the room on tippy toes), martial arts (Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, and Aikido), and healing arts (Feldenkrais, The Alexander Technique, and Yoga). Each one is a stream feeding into the greater flow of movement so within in one song various practices are intermingled yet with intention. For example, one routine has a song that juxtaposes the soft fluidity of Tai Chi with the powerful structure of Tae Kwon Do; another mixes funk with the sensation of melting. (Disclaimer: I am risking being caught learning at this very moment and have the option of correcting in future posts whatever information I’m getting wrong.) Foundational is the practice of letting go of the mind and sensing what is in one’s body, changing pain to pleasure, opening up to a universal joy of movement.

Britta came back this past October to teach another Intensive. I attended some of the sessions for refreshers and like many times in my life, I found that I have a dyslexic sense of learning or fall under the Law of Distraction. She was teaching us about tapping into Universal Joy and all I could think about was Universal Suffering. Of course, I was thinking rather than feeling but I am still confused on this which leads me to believe that I’ve got more to learn or communicate or digest or ingest or embrace --the joy of bewilderment. That and learning how to shimmy are my growing edges.

Onward, as regular readers would know, I’ve been absent from the blog. Not as obvious would be that I’ve had good reason and been really busy. More to come on that in other postings, but for now it is enough to explain that it took me six months before I taught my first class. By then I’d faced the fears of doing 30-minute radio interviews in San Antonio and returning to a past life of activism when I attended an event in Boston. Finally back in Helena for most of November, I was able to get to the nuts and bolts of learning the first routine to teach (for those interested it’s called White Belt Dreamwalker). The night before my first class I experienced what my actor friends have told me about dress rehearsals: I lost all sense of knowing the choreography and was most upset that the next morning I would cry in front of the class. I went to bed. The next morning, 5:30 a.m. (had to get a new alarm clock because my old one couldn’t be set for that early), my first thought was, “why the f--- did I say I was going to do this!” Coffee, meditation, and lucky charms (not the cereal kind) came to my aid and I showed up and set up. Lynn my cohort, training-mate, and sister teacher arrived first with her vibrant enthusiasm and put me at ease. If nothing else, we would laugh. Clare got there, brand new to Nia and one of the instigators for having an early morning class, and again I knew it would be fine. We were there to have fun and I know fun. The class went very well. I didn’t look to the side of the room where Lynn and Kathryn danced but I could hear them hooting and hollering, ha-ing and ya-ing. I did it, I taught a dance class, and still continue to do it and that’s that. I’m grateful that my fears led me down this path even though I can’t imagine where it’s going to continue to lead me.

I’ll end with a line from a friend of mine’s blog. LG and her partner Mary have been fighting cancer that is warring with Mary’s body. I admire their courage, love, and persistence. Here are LG’s words:

“Even when I don't feel right, I try to act as if until it changes. Emotions are energy and energy always changes.”

Fall Art Walk

2007-10-16T10:48:00.000-06:00

Calling all Rodney Street neighborhood or the vicinity writers for a night of readings at the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. The laundromat and other neighborhood landmarks have joined in on the 24th Annual Downtown Helena Fall Art Walk on Friday, November 9, from 6 to 10pm. During the evening, we will have readings every thirty minutes as well as tasty refreshments and an exhibit of visual art from neighborhood artitsts. Please let me know if you are willing to read something. Pull out something old, try out something new, just have fun with it. Can't find a better "crowd" (there isn't a lot of room for the masses) to rise to the occassion and give it a go. The rest of you Helenans be sure and put the laundromat on your walking list.

HOW DID IT GET TO BE FALL?

2007-10-02T21:56:00.000-06:00

Saturday, September 29, 2007
I’m sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma Airport in a semi-quiet spot with floor to ceiling windows looking out on the gray puffy cloud-filled sky. It looks like I could reach out and ring the water from one of them.

Traveling is always a bit disorienting especially when the trip is fast-paced and packed from start to finish and the flight path is crisscrossed. I booked the flight with American Advantage miles, which was good for the pocketbook but not for direct travel. For starters, American doesn’t fly to Montana. With mileage points though they allowed me to hook up through Alaska Air’s Horizon Air. There aren’t many of those flights out of Helena so I took what I could get: 6:10am to Seattle (one stop in Great Falls that didn’t require getting off but did require moving to my assigned seat and losing my sleeping berth). Then was the painful 7-hour layover before I could catch a flight to Dallas. Two things Sea-Tac Airport has going for it: (1) there is a great place for chair and foot massage that is very rejuvenating especially when one has had only 4 ½ hours of sleep and (2) the bathroom stall doors open outward so you don’t have to squish in your bag and yourself into the stall, work around the door to turn around and get it shut before doing one’s business. Someone thought that one through. Probably an architect with a hell of a long layover somewhere.

Thirty-six hours after arriving in Dallas –just long enough to miss the turn off at Lewisville and almost go to Mckinney rather than Denton and still have some time to sleep once I backtracked and got to the right destination-- I caught a quick flight on Southwest Airlines (my favorite) to Houston and the day after that I drove the 3 1/2 hours to San Antonio. Now coming back a week later, I had it easy this morning with an 11:10 departure from San Antonio, quick changeover in Dallas, and then nice flight to Seattle where I now have five hours before I board for Helena. I love flying and traveling but as I gain in minutes and years, it seems to take longer for my soul/life-force/innards to catch up with my body. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow, Sunday, when I get some time to stare into space –not that I’m not doing that now but it looks like I’m focusing on the computer screen.

I was in Texas to promote my San Antonio book, It Happened in San Antonio (on sale at the Alamo Gift Shop, your local bookstore, and online). I had an excellent book signing at the Twig Bookshop, a brief news radio interview, and two nerve-racking 30-minute taped radio shows. Nerve-racking because prior to I felt like I was preparing for a pop quiz on my book that led me to reading the book in the style of cramming for finals the night before. Hal, father of my friend Elaine and publicist of mine, told me after the second taping that I had a thorough knowledge of my subject and that I’d be surprised at how many authors didn’t know their material. I wasn’t surprised at all but felt that a bit of grace/luck/willfulness had gotten me through by the skin of my teeth. In an earlier conversation he told me about a book entitled Fiction Writers are Liars and Thieves, which made me feel justified in whatever I said, true or false, even though I do write non-fiction.

Hal has his own recording status, he makes tapes reading Hank the Cowdog books (on #49) out loud for a radio and reading program. Kids that have trouble reading can listen to Hal/Hank while they follow along on the page. Sounds like a great program to me and Hal with his perfect Texas accent I’m positive makes Hank and the gang come alive.

Hal, my mother and I got to the second taping about an hour early, which didn’t help my nerves any, but when the radio personality (Ron Aaron) arrived with a giant black Great Dane named Eloise by his side I decided that it wouldn’t be so bad after all. Hal asked what kind of dog Eloise was and Ron answered, “A Texas Chihuahua.” An answer even Emma would have thought funny and she’s known some of the smaller variety Chihuahuas. Later when one of our party went to the restroom, Ron said, “Oh, did he stop at the sandbox.” Ron is the executive director of the Animal Defense League of TX, a no-kill non-profit shelter that right now has about 400 dogs and cats (go to their website, the dogs all look happy and the cats coy). Hal, my mother, Ron, Eloise, and I boarded the elevator and went up to the studio and while Eloise circled around, Ron and some others gathered up equipment and another chair. The chair part caught my attention because there was already one and they were only getting another and there were three of us humans. There wasn’t a chair by Ron’s control panel either. He came back and said that I would be standing because that makes for better radio. Since he didn’t have a chair I figured he wasn’t pulling my leg. So I stood with a huge microphone in my mouth, Eloise bedded down behind me, and Ron doing his introduction. My cheat-note book out of sight behind the microphone, I swallowed hard and dove in. I had been comforted by the “taped” part of the interviews, however I found out that it just meant it wasn’t live right then but the taping wasn’t for the purpose of editing. It was The Deal. The morning taping went well but I could refer to my book and find snip-its. The second with Ron was more of an overview of the book and a discussion of San Antonio, also more banter, kind of like a non-competitive but still speed-ball ping pong match. He told me that the recording went right to the hard drive so that if I made a mistake to correct myself right then. Only choice was to jump in, hope the thoughts/answers came, and in a timely fashion. They did and I had a fine time even when Ron asked how I knew the story I had just told was true. I answered, “How do you know it wasn’t.” I got to bring in my alma mater Davy Crockett Junior High and our mascot The Pioneers and he got in a “Go Pioneers.” I also got in a plug for the Myrna Loy Center and, of course, the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. I broke up the laundry and sandwich shop name as one must be succinct on the radio (so I was coached). It was a good day all around. The radio shows play Sunday morning (September 30th) on “Community Closeup” at KCYY-FM with Chrissie Murnin and “Talk San Antonio” on KAJA-FM with Ron Aaron. I won’t be tuning in. My voice never sounds the same on the outside as it does in my head and listening to a tape scares me.

I had been worried about sounding Texan enough but felt prepared after the flight from Seattle to Dallas with all those Dallasites and then one trip to the grocery store pretty much got me set. However after the second interview I asked my mother if I sounded Texan. She said, “No but you were well-spoken.” I don’t think she meant to imply that the two are mutually exclusive.

Side note/Wish I had a picture: As Hal and I were driving to the first interview, we passed a fast food restaurant with two drive-thru lanes: one for DONUTS, the other for TACOS.

In my last post I wrote about various different ways to define seasons. Soon after that the seasons began to divide and multiply. Summer-Montana is Heaven sub-divided into June Heaven with Precipitation and Chance to Stay Cool, July Hot-as-TX Summer-without-AC & Severe Drought Season, and August Fire and Smoke Season. And my personal seasons were June Visitors, July Buy a House via Email/Phone for Brother and Sister-in-Law, August New York City and Virginia Beach Trip to Unrealistic Redo New House in Seven Weeks with Laptop Hard Drive Crash, Diverticulitis Bout and Red Dots. The August season blended into the September season with the Redo and the final move into the redo-in-process house on the 10th. I now live on Butte Avenue (for those not familiar with MT cities, Butte rhymes with “cute”…really, no jokes). My neighbors include a small herd of deer, couple of rabbits, and graffiti tagger. The last week of August, some youngster tagged the house with the signature “Unknown.” It was funny at first because that was the last thing I expected to happen in Helena, my house to be signed in Sharpie permanent ink. When I had to clean it off, I wanted to ring the child’s neck. I figured that it wouldn’t take much to identify the tagger. I thought about stopping kids on the street to ask if they were at-risk youths or, simply, if they had a Sharpie I could borrow. I wondered for a bit if maybe the culprit was a disenfranchised buck (of the hooved kind) with pen rubber-banded to his antlers –the city has planned to bring in sharpshooters to cut down on the deer population. If I were a deer, I would feel at risk AND disenfranchised and take to scribbling to extinction. I gave up ID-ing the tagger and worked on cleaning the graffiti off the house. For future reference, paint thinner, TSP cleaner, and electric sanders do not take permanent ink off, they mostly make the wall cleaner and the tag stand out more. Also, it is hard to match up paint from a 500 year old paint can found in the Pulp Fiction-like basement even if it is the paint on the house. My mother was the last person I would think of as being the source for graffiti removal products but she faithfully reads the Happy Handyman column in the Houston Chronicle and remembered a product that cleans graffiti right off. Our Ace Hardware didn’t have that particular product but did have another one. With a good spray application and a hard scrub the tag came off. A few weeks later some high school informants told me that there was a girl going around tagging houses with “Unknown.” A girl-pioneer-tagger…I still want to ring her neck. The police officer that I talked to said that there was a gang in the area named the “No Browns” but if he was taking it from the tag, he was on the wrong track. And what kind of name is No Browns for a gang in a state with a population 92% white. Their goal is racist AND flimsy.

Just after the graffiti incident I got sick and had to have a round of antibiotics that I then had an allergic reaction to. Red dots started appearing on my stomach. I thought about connecting the dots to see if it made a shape or word but was afraid that the “Unknown” tag would emerge.

A special note about the new house, Emma shares the yard with three cats that live in the guesthouse (a tiny rental house) in the backyard. One in particular is Emma’s new best friend and food supplier. The cat is a successful hunter and as cats do, he brings the dead prey back to the yard and home base. Emma then has endless cat-roadkill treats to look forward to. She’s a happy dog even if she has feathers stuck between her teeth.

I left off my July posting with the promise of Part II and Part III. Now there are more Parts than can be counted, it’s been such a full summer. I do remember though what Parts II and III were going to be about: II was about crashing the free, Willie Nelson concert in Choteau with sister-in-law Kelly and III was about taking the Nia White Belt Intensive Training to become a certified Nia dance teacher. I’m adding a post below that tells the Willie Nelson close-up adventure story in pictures as well as two other photo essays: SHOUT goes on vacation and Emma’s Dog Days of Summer. I’ll start my teaching-Nia escapades in posts-to-come as I’ve set a goal to teach my first official class on Tuesday, December 4th. After doing radio with Eloise, I’m up for (almost) anything.

THANKS, DAVE!

2007-10-02T19:59:00.001-06:00

Though not confirmed, it is widely believed that David Letterman was the celebrity that brought Willie Nelson to the Choteau rodeo arena for a free concert for 2500 Teton County residents and 500 lucky lotto winners (or maybe it was 2700/300, you get the idea). Residents stood in line to get their tickets and others sent in postcards. One of the winners in the drawing was all the way from NYC.

Dave has a ranch outside of Choteau (populatin of about 1,800 and located 20 miles east of the Rocky Mountains on my road to Glacier Park) and seems a good neighbor. I don't know if he was thanking the good people for helping nab the would-be kidnapper of his son months back or just liking to see people have fun or what, really didn't matter. What could be better than a Willie Nelson concert in a rodeo arena in Montana? I didn't have a ticket but when Kelly got to town I thought that we should just drive up to Choteau and see what was what. She was more than game. So here are pictures of our little adventure.

By the way, Willie did say from the stage, "Thanks, Dave." There you go.

Kelly at our perch where we could look in on the rodeo arena and get a glimpse of Willie & Family. If we were in a big city and bought seats to the concert, very likely this would be as close as we could get! There weren't as many people as I thought there would be on the outside hanging out to at least hear Willie even if we couldn't get inside to see him. The Jaycees still sold burgers (local beef) and beer to us out the back door of their booths. Great people those Jaycees.

These people in the cherry picker came prepared. They were on the outside too but sure had good seats behind and above the arena. They could see the stage straight on. People sitting down below enjoying more of that local beef. moo

Wonderful surprise, one of the Jaycees came out and told us outsiders that we would get to go in! The entrance was right by the side of the stage.

See!

Willie was at his laid-back finest and the crowd was probably the mildest ever. The security consisted of (besides the Jaycees) the county sheriff's department lined up in front of the stage. However mostly they were helping people in the crowd by taking their cameras and clicking close up pictures of Willie and his band. A very dusty German Shepherd wound its way through the crowded legs. We got our way to the front without having to push or shove. What the Jaycees thought would be the last few songs that we could get into hear became about 45 minutes of Willie wrapping it up and then playing another and another and another. He was amazing. With the sun setting, he ended with the song, "I gotta get drunk, I sure do regret it." We sure didn't regret making the last-minute drive up to Choteau. Thanks, Dave!

SHOUT goes on BEACH VACATION

2007-10-02T19:47:00.000-06:00

SHOUT learns about friends that bury friends in the sand.

"Where'd everybody go?"

SHOUT tests the waters.

SHOUT learns about tides.

OH NOOOOOO!

IN THE NICK OF TIME!

SHOUT safely back in room
with Max the lifesaver.

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

2007-10-02T19:37:00.000-06:00

DONE YET

Maggie Mae and Emma at House Redo

PUGFEST

Helena

URBAN HUNTER

New York City

BIKER LAB IN DOGGLES

Safeway gas station in Helena

TREAT

Emma at Rodney Street Neighborhood picnic

2007-07-08T17:50:00.000-06:00

FIRST THINGS FIRST
The owners of MAIN NEWS, a general store of sorts, on the ground floor of the Arcade Building on the downtown walking mall are having a contest to rename its business. You can submit your ideas at the store. The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate. The owners, Sandy and Jim Rojo, provide one of my weekly simple pleasures, the Sunday New York Times on the Sunday of publication (if the airline doesn’t send it somewhere else or something gets mixed up in Seattle where the papers begin their flight). I like living in a place where it is hard to get the Times but I also really like being able to savor its international, national, arts, books, interesting-people obituary, and unapologetic Queer news coverage (see same-sex married couples along side the not-same-sex ones in the wedding announcement section). So now I have both Helena and the NYT and I’m a very happy person. If you have ideas for their business name drop by their store or if you don’t live here, send it to me and I’ll submit it and if you win, I’ll get five Sunday papers in your honor…or you can visit and buy cigars, they have a wonderful selection.

HOUSE ARREST
Due to Visitor Season, I have been put under house arrest. I do have/get to check in at the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Rodney Street Laundry on account of my parole agreement but mostly I will be writing from home for now. There are many ways to name the seasons and I’m not the first or last to do so. Here’s my latest rendition: “Visitors Season: Helena & Montana are Heaven (Summer),” “Some Curious Visitors: When Does it Get Cold There (Fall),” “Locals Only: No Way am I Coming There to Freeze my Butt Off (Winter),” and “Tentative Plans: When does It Stop Snowing (Spring).” Mom was here for 10 days in June and sister-in-law Kelly was here for a week (also called Many Adventures Season). In between I was in an amazing training for a NIA Dance Technique White-Belt Intensive (more on that in next posting). That time was a different season altogether: Marilyn Voluntarily Pushed Out of Comfort Zone Season.

SEASONS TO SORTING LAUNDRY
There are different schools of thought on when one waits to do a load of whites: wait until there are enough for a full load (people that stand out in a dark alley); don’t have enough dirty for a load, mix with very light colors; or don’t own enough to make a load, mix with light colors and perpetuate the decreasing number of white whites. I have no set thought (surprise) on this and find it situational. For example, right now I have a hodge podge of brief stories/vignettes to mention. Do I wait for enough to constitute one post or just lump them together? Turn the water on cold, you get them all…remember BRIEF vignettes, you’re not committing yourself to long entries. The long stories are long enough for a full post. Those will come later, Part II and III or maybe just Part II. I really do combine more often than separate and wait, another surprise I’m sure.

LOST & FOUND
Emma has discovered road kill (if you are squeamish of animal behavior go to next paragraph). She trotted off the other day when I wasn’t looking, not an all out run that is her signature but a slowly sniffing down the street until out of sight. She’s been hanging around off leash very consistently but I know better than to not pay more attention. I went looking and found her in the middle of a busy street on the yellow line licking the asphalt. Cars slowed down and passed on either side of the oblivious dog. Mind you this same dog is afraid of telephone cords, sudden noises, and box fans but now road kill rocks. She all out ran last night to the same spot. She never ever forgets a food source. This time Magpie feathers were involved (told you, if you’re squeamish you shouldn’t have read this, she is a dog after all). Back to the front yard lead she goes. She’s still smiling.

I found another pure, simple pleasure a few weeks ago, a brand new Papermate Pink Pearl eraser. It makes me so happy. I know how to use it. It’s effective, fresh, without dark smears. It also doesn’t rely on new Microsoft Office 2007 that came on my new work computer that I installed a few weeks ago. I used my favorite obscenities for three weeks before I got it taken off. Call me set in my ways, go ahead, I don’t care, I hated it. I’ll just erase your words.

Found Object (see picture):
a) musket ball
b) ball bearing from old wagon wheel
c) kidney stone from T-rex
d) petrified rum ball
e) other
Please submit your answers.
Kelly found it at what will be my new house. My brother Curtis and his spouse/partner/wife Kelly, presently residing in Jakarta, Indonesia, have bought a house here that I will live in. It comes with a studio in back that our mom will visit 3-4 months out of the year (Helena & MT are Heaven Season). Even though I’d never bought a house before, it was easier than the blasted Microsoft Office 2007 (I will try to let this go).

Another Found Object
One construction worker’s discarded toilet is another man’s new throne. At the Queen City Newspaper’s 5th Anniversary Party I got to talking to a man that had lived in a house bursting with parties in the Rodney Street neighborhood when he was in college. Story goes they needed a new toilet. He was down by Big Dorothy’s (a brothel that last until sometime in the 1970’s when she decided to close it –my uncle has a wild story about helping her reach this state of upward mobility by showing her that selling shots of alcohol was more profitable than her other sales, do we believe him?) and came across workers cleaning out Big D’s building. He asked if he could take the toilet and now recalls what a sight he made carrying a toilet up the hill from Last Chance Gulch to Rodney Street (it is a huffer and puffer of a hill).

The man recalled another fantastic story about his brother who also lived in the RS neighborhood. The not-fantastic part was that his brother had been in a motorcycle accident that had left him disoriented in life. One night of 30-below temperatures the brother’s 4-plex caught on fire. Unfortunately he stood out in the street and didn’t realize that all the water and such used to put out the fire had frozen around his feet and he was stuck there. Neighbors called the storyteller-brother to tell him to come get his brother.

Okay, there are enough laundry piles for you for today. To be continued…

Unchanging Change

2007-05-26T23:04:00.000-06:00

So much for the pinkie swear of writing more often. However the intentions were very good as I see in my computer file that I have notes from being at the Rodney Street Laundry on April 29th. Seems like that was just last week that I was intent on writing and ready to go but, alas, that didn’t happen. On my behalf and for my behalf, we did have our biggest fundraiser of the year at the Myrna Loy Center a mere two weeks ago so there was the work ahead of time and the recuperation afterward –it was a wine tasting after all and very successful for the wines, tasters, auctioneer, and the MLC till and programs. Now I’m back at the computer and the Laundry and raring to go.

Meanwhile, since I last wrote, the Legislature came back for a special session, rallied, passed the budget, and the Republicans fired Rep. Lange as the top House Republican dude, more for having a clandestine meeting ahead of the special session than for his tirade. In addition, Spring peaked from around the clouds and then slid back in a game of hide and seek. In the 80’s, toasty with a clear blue sky one week, lots of rain in the city and snow in the mountains the next. The lilacs kept their enrapturing scent throughout, the apple blossoms on my tree came and then were swept away by a storm’s wind. Today though is a gorgeous one with plenty of sunshine and warm air.

I talk about the weather more here in Helena than any place I’ve lived, maybe because there is more variety, actual seasons for example. Or because my love life is dormant so instead I have more time to consider other drama like weather systems. But always Weather has been close to my mind. Starting with my great-grandmother Sally Geers Sandusky who thought all weathermen were liars. I dated a boy in college who was studying meteorology. When she met him and found out his major, she promptly said, “Why do you want to be a liar?” Her view was rather reasonable as she was born before the Weather Service came into being and I’d guess that they had a steep learning curve but unwavering confidence. The combination of which would lead to overly somber forecasts that weren’t realized or sunny ones that were rained out, all given with the certainty of an overly-zealous new field of experts. Mammaw, as we called our great-grandmother, used to watch tornados rip through her flat West Texas landscape and be the last into the storm cellar so she knew storms, skies, warnings and masquerades. She’d also spent a lifetime leaning into the everyday West Texas wind which makes Chicago’s classification as the Windy City seem like a dog’s mild panting (though really the Windy City isn’t named for actual wind but blowhard politicians). In order to stand upright, she’d had to plant her feet solidly on the ground with a little flex in the knees for the gusts. Weather was no lofty science.

Another thing about the talk of weather is that wherever I have lived, people say a similar verse, “If you don’t like the weather here in Ama-ril-ah (or College Station or Tulsa or Dallas or Chicago…) just wait a while and it will change.” The speaker would always localize the change but really, weather is universally changing. However, I don’t know if this saying is pronounced in Honolulu, St. Martens, or Mozambique.

I think that Mammaw died before the advent of the Weather Channel on television. Its presence would have been quite a stretch for her. I am however taken with watching it especially listening to the local forecasts. First, the announcer always says it like he’s here, “tonight we’ll have lows in the 30’s.” Then there are the descriptions, one day “very cold” dipping to “bitter cold.” Missing however as the temperature dives to sub-zero extremes is the classification “unfuckingbelievable cold.” Then there are predictions like, “chance of rain and a rumble of thunder.” I don’t know about you but I don’t remember a thunderstorm with just one rumble of thunder. But for all the wording, I do love seeing the map of the US of A and how my weather is moving east out to friends in Chicago and onto my brother in New York City, even if it does morph into something else by the time it gets there. And in the bitter-ass cold of winter, I can see that Dilia in Phoenix is having a nice time of it until summer when the blazing sun creates extreme weather down her way. But it’s a dry heat. The last thing about the Weather Channel that I’ll mention is my theory of how they audition reporters for hurricane season which, by the way, starts in June. They give the would-be reporter a script, microphone, and then train a firehose on them and see if they can stand up. Mammaw would have passed the test with her withstanding-the-force-of-wind experience but then she would have been a liar and she was nothing if not a straight shooter.

The rains have brought forth a huge harvest of the only crop that is in my yard…unless you count the wormy apples. Rhubarb. Without my help this green, leafy plant sprouts and spreads out of the ground and when cut back, still returns about three more times with the suspicious and mysterious red stalks that couple with strawberries to make a good pie (pronounced “pah”). The Joy of Cooking goes to great lengths to clarify that rhubarb is not a fruit even though its pie is in the fruit pie section of the cookbook. Not mineral or vegetable either. Though my earliest years were in the Dakotas and Montana where rhubarb is plentiful, other places we lived it was not so we were much more likely to have cherry or pumpkin or apple pie (Mrs. Smith does not make a frozen rhubarb pie) so rhubarb was a relatively unknown entity. But when I moved into my house here, my friends Annie and Barb identified for me the rhubarb plant. It looked more like what I remember the Summer Squash plant to look like when my brother Paul and I were sent out to hoe the vegetable garden in our side yard. Our dad spent his early years on a farm and I guess he thought we should be using that soil for something. Mostly it would offer up tons of cucumbers that made their way into sweet “bread & butter” pickles. The smell of vinegar on pickling day held a certain fondness as my father seemed to tackle the cucumber transformation as a feat of engineering: an efficient, orderly production line with a satisfying end-product. He had the added benefit of having the soured & sweetened harvest on ham sandwiches the rest of the year…there were that many cucumbers. I think I'll stick with my one rhubarb plant.

+ + +

As you may be able to tell, I don’t really know where these posts will go once I start writing. Today I was going to write about the DOC as you can see on the back of the t-shirt of Kim Drew, one of the new co-owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop. This DOC stands for Delivery of Chow, a play on the DOC (Department of Corrections) across the street. But I’ll ponder that another day. The DOC t-shirt and chow scenes in the pictures were taken at the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen Open House on May 5th. The BBQ beef brisket sandwich was mighty fine and the signature potato salad delish. It was another bright sunny day!

+ + +

One final note, there are some new comments on the last two posts. I added them from excerpts of email people sent me. So please check those out. Also, if you can’t figure out how to add a comment, send it to me and I’ll add it under anonymous unless you want me to add your name. I won’t add your email comments unless you give me permission. It can be short, quick, off-the-cuff, irreverent, insightful, humorous or pointless. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be shy. Also, please share the blog site with others. The more readers, the more interesting the comments.

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For those that have asked:
604 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Oh, now to 603 days…

SHOUT

2007-04-30T21:59:00.000-06:00

For as long as I can remember (and way before then), laundry product marketers have had a superb skill for naming and branding their merchandise. How about BOLD? Wasn’t that the one that had a free towel inside, for those of you alive in 1966? Not sure what TIDE conveys but CHEER seems happy and bright and there is that All-temper-Cheer that gave a gay-all-the-time feeling. Bounce is good, especially when drying linens. They could test beds with Bounced sheets to see if kids jump higher. But my favorite name right now is SHOUT, the stain remover. In fact I’ve had a bottle with me for several weeks now because one never knows when a SHOUT opportunity will come.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Ah, so you put SHOUT on beforehand so the stains don’t stick?”

This political insight was from an assistant in the Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer’s office about the bottle of SHOUT that I was carrying around at the state capitol on Thursday. It was a good day for SHOUT, the morning after the morning when House Republican majority leader Michael Lange lost it in a meeting of House Republicans. He said that the governor could “shove it up his ass.” Really, he said that, and there was a lone, local television news reporter with a camera to get the scoop. It wasn’t long before the clip hit YouTube.com and other internet and national news sites. Who says that the antics of the Texas Leg have anything on Montana’s?

The irony or not was that his ranting came in the context of a tirade about dignity and honor. Oops. More, “So my message to the governor is to stick it up your ass! That’s my message to him. Stick it up your ass.” Now the Helena Independent Record did not run the expletives but replaced them with ** though pronounced sounds like assssss-terisks to me. Their April 26th headline read “Expletives deleted: House speaker’s tirade takes ugly session over the brink.” The editor did think it through as noted in a gold box, “Although the vulgar language referred to in this article is arguably the point of the story, the Independent Record decided to replace some of the more offensive words with as(ssss)terisks. Doing so is the IR’s policy for such language.” A local news station gave a warning about offensive language preceding the report on the evening news. Definitely not HBO.

More, Lange called Schweitzer the “…S.O.B. (already abbreviated so no ** needed) on the second floor that thinks he’s going to run this state like a dictator.” Some of his comments were met with applause from fellow Republicans in the room. On the video, the camera pans to people standing along the wall including several high school pages. Then there are men at the table looking at the floor, scratching an ear, or leaning in with hand over mouth not in surprise but in thought, like “oh, ****, he did not just say that.” But he did and more, “He (the governor) can take every bill and I don’t give a ****…I will not be offered a bribe to turn you lose to go screw the state of Montana …(pause)… on any bill.” Not good for the state tourist bureau no matter how you look at it. One representative chewing gum eyed the camera. Wonder what he was thinking?

Lange alleged that Schweitzer had offered him a bribe in an earlier morning meeting. Later, when asked about that by a reporter, Schweitzer replied that he didn’t even offer Lange a cup of coffee. Well then, what do you expect?

What the governor did offer was a tax-and-budget compromise, an offer to break the stalemate issue at its height on the 88th day of the 90-day session. The state projects a $1 billion surplus for the next two years and there is definitely a difference of O-pinion on funding for schools (for example) and tax rebates. From some observers at the meeting Lange seemed to be open to it but a few hours later it wasn’t working for him. Clearly.

Lange got uglier in his remarks to the House Republicans and enlarged his circle of targets, likening the Democrats to “radical socialists” like those in the “Soviet Union, North Korea and Red China.” He was steppin’ on toes then. Later Lange apologized to members of the House, to which Rep. Bill Wilson, Democrat from Great Falls, replied in a “point of personal privilege” that he’d never heard anything so “vile and insulting as I heard today. …this is a very low point in the history of this body.” And he’s been around for 14 years. He took deep offense at the communists and socialists remarks seeing as his father had landed on Normandy. On Friday, Republican Senator John Cobb would say that the House Republicans were being led by “a couple of thugs.”

Lange ended his tirade with “God bless each and every one of you” after saying he would “go over the cliff with you.” Personally if I was in Republican shoes I’d stay on flat land, tell him to go ahead, and then double back to the building.

To no one’s surprise, the House stalled on budget bills and now the Legislature has to go into a special session, estimated at $38,000 a day and about $1 million total. Though Lange said that he would gladly go without pay, “I don’t give a crap about pay when our way of lifestyle is under threat,” he was helping to send a million dollars of projected surplus down the drain. This because an impasse or debacle or snafu or BFD (no ** needed) speeches or plain belligerence in the House kept the main budget bills moving forward. (I suppose there is finger-pointing at the Senate and definitely back and forth across party lines but for the sake of argument let’s stay with blaming the House Republicans.) Bills that haven’t passed both chambers now go back to the beginning, scratch, do-over to the extreme. This wasn’t a surprise as the Queen City News, the weekly newspaper, had a picture on last week’s cover of a bus with a destination sign (where it often says “Have a nice day”) that read, “Nowhere” and the side stenciled with “Partisan Line.”

The fun part for me was happening into the Capitol the day after THE day with my esteemed and favorite state senator, Christine Kaufmann. It is a definite understatement to say that she is quite happy not to be on the House side anymore. I sat in on the opening of the Senate session that morning. It began with a visit by some of the cast for the Queen City Ballet’s production of Cinderella –maybe the first time drag visited the Senate chambers. It was a delight to see Senate President Mike Cooney get kissed on the cheek by one of the ugly step-“sisters.” He jokingly ruled it out of order. Sen. Kaufmann introduced them “off the record,” of course. Another senator then recognized an athletic director from somewhere I don’t remember because my thoughts were still absorbed with the drag sisters. Then Sen. Kaufmann sought permission to introduce an additional guest to which someone asked if it was another motley cast. She then looked up at me in the gallery and introduced me as one of her constituents (I swelled with pride) and the Writer-in-Residence at the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. I got light applause and standing welcome from about ¾ of the senate, the Cinderella cast and athletic director had gotten the full body but by then it was like following a dog & pony show. Just another day in the life of Montana politics and laundry, I suppose. I only wished for more SHOUT gumption as I left the building and saw Representative Lange talking with a reporter. I would have loved to have had a picture of him holding SHOUT but I didn’t want to ask and have him tell me to stick my camera up my asssssterisks.

~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks to all y’all who came out to one of my book signings in Texas or just got together with me for fun. Special yee-haw (we really don’t talk like this) for Jodi and Jacki and that fine margarita just-add-Tequila machine. I got a few Texas pictures thrown in here to show that I was doing something book-related while I wasn’t writing on this here blog. I will be back on a regular basis, pinky promise, I swahr. I do appreciate your comments and emails even if I don’t write back.

AND FINALLY, the public is invited to an Open House on Saturday May 5th 12-4pm, at the Rodney Street Laundry. Sandy Shull and Jacquie Gibson will introduce the new co-owners of the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen, Kim and Joe Drew.

The Secret According to Emma

2007-03-25T15:34:00.000-06:00

I’m back. It’s been a month since I last wrote. I lost some numbers on the calendar –around 7 of them-- due to a pulled/strained/f-ed lower back or specifically the SI (sacro-ileac). Not something I’d recommend. After the excruciating pain subsided about four to five days in, I could at least settle down enough to read while I lay on ice then heat packs in between naturopath and acupuncture treatments (thank you, Doc Bergie). It’s bad when you have to call a friend over to get the landline phone out from under the futon where it had rolled impossibly out of reach. The worst though was when I had to muster up all my determination to sit and then stand up knowing the sharp pain that was going to immediately shoot through my body. It was about a six step process. Roll on side, curse; lift on elbow, call on the sharpest profanity; up to sitting, ow, ow, ow, ow; the final though requiring-the-most-intake-of-breath stand; don’t pass out because I’d have to start all over again; and then try to remember why I got up in the first place. This was not fun.

But here was the worst part. I had watched The Secret DVD a couple of days before I reached for the fateful water bottle in the backseat of my car, felt a snap then shooting pain and found that I could no longer stand erect. The Secret is a documentary that has gone from word of mouth and finally tipped over into wide media attention a la Oprah and thus become the latest embraced and mocked quantum physics, “you create your own reality” trend. Months ago a friend since grade school called me to insist that I get the DVD. I had every intention to look it up on the web but then forgot. Then I came across Bev at the Myrna picking up her loaner copy that had been dropped off there. She said that I could borrow it. Now, this is a very The Secret thing: set the intention (sure, Tricia, I’ll get it) and even though I forgot about it and didn’t do the next few steps of imagine and feel the result, the DVD fell into my lap. So I finally watched it. Once I got past the (to me) very hokey visuals and the idea that this principle had been lost and denied the masses until now, I had no argument with the basic point, the Law of Attraction. However I had a hard time believing that a starving child in Africa could accomplish what the little white, well-fed boy in the documentary did: cutting out a picture of a red bicycle from a catalogue, obsessing/imagining his ownership of it, and then finally getting it. Then again, it’s context, I suppose, that creates one’s greatest desire is (i.e. bicycle v. food, bicycle v. bringing your child back to life). The steps are straightforward: ask, believe, receive. What one puts out there is what one gets back. Put out negative, get negative.* Put out positive, get positive. Keep your mind and attitude in check and you will attract what you ask for. Fostering gratitude is crucial as well.

(* Insert: there is fundamental problem to imply that a parent "asked for" a child to be killed by a stray bullet or millions of people drew to them by negative thoughts devastating hunger or AIDS.)

I watched the DVD, thought positive thoughts, felt gratitude and what happened?! I ended up with a sprained back and laid up for a week. For one, on my best days, these kind of Secret deals including intercessory prayer and "you are what you think" philosophies really make me paranoid. I get obsessed with chasing the thoughts around my brain trying to catch up with the negative ones to beat them into submission and find and rally the positive because my life and all good things depend on it. (BTW, is there a difference between negativity and sophisticated sarcasm?) So when something like a thrown back comes flying out of left or right field, I rack my brain figuring out what I was thinking but knowing it’s too damn late, all the while saying, “I’m bloody grateful, okay? I am. I know I’m lucky and privileged and don’t take for granted that I can move, think, laugh, all righty roo? I am grateful already SO WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM?” This I yell to the universe.

My wise counselor/spiritual director, after ranting about my back and The Secret for about $40-worth of my session, told me, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And since it was phallic Freud that described the cigar, it had to be true. Maybe bad-backs happen and I hadn’t somehow drawn it to myself. It took about five days to accept that, coinciding with the day my doc said that it very likely wasn’t a disc problem and just a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack. Let me throw in here that I have had times in my life that can be described as “a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack” but I’m not there anymore and haven’t been in a long while. I’ve got a great, relaxed, creative life here. So what gives?

I must put in here a couple of quick examples of paranoia-reinforcing experiences. Twenty-three years ago I fell asleep reading Something More, a book about claiming joy in life, and about three hours later I awoke to my apartment building on fire. I had to jump out of my second-story window to escape. I definitely got something more than I bargained for and don't believe it was joy. So either a cigar is just a cigar or I’ve got a dyslexic relationship to the Law of Attraction. I’ve also worked for two organizations that I ended up with an employment lawyer to broker mutual severance, organizations with lofty names including words like human understanding and reconciling. The shadow side lurks. In fact, key people who participated in the development of The Secret documentary are in conflict over who gets credit for the film and its origins. To one couple’s great credit, they are not suing because it takes “energy away from their own pursuit of the law of attraction.”

As my back got better, I was able to go out more. It was when I was sitting outside a bakery/cafe with Emma that I realized that Emma had mastered The Secret. I had spent about an hour of sipping my latte and reading the New York Times Book Review when out of the blue one of the young women from the bakery came out with a little doggie treat for Emma, “the very good dog.” I looked at Emma sitting so charmingly to receive her treat and realized she constantly draws treats to herself. (It helps that she is a golden retriever. If she was a wild boar, I don’t think she would be as successful.) I know Emma puts out a lot of treat energy and she does attract the biscuits back to her. “Treat, treat, treat,” she pants. When we go to the bank’s drive-up, she adds drool to the “believe and receive,” cocks her ear to the voice coming over the speaker, and leans forward when I get the treat-carrying capsule in the car to receive her beloved baked bones and my deposit slip. She is also pro-active in her search and retrieve of goodies (she does not retrieve balls by the way). At work, Ed does not give her treats when she begs, but later he comes in my office to give Emma what he calls “random reinforcement.” In actuality Emma may be still calling the shots with her power of attraction. For even when she sleeps, she imagines and believes, “treat, treat, treat, treat.”

Now two weeks after my bent-over pain, I realize that the week prior I had been tuned into people going on vacations or taking time off to hang out. Could my desire for time off attracted my back ailment? If so, I need to not only chase down the negativity but also clarify the positive desires. Vacation without pain. I’ve projected more monthly expenses over income before (many times) and wondered where the dough would come from only to have the above-mentioned fire or legal settlements bring in cash. Again, checks without lawyers or insurance companies. Cigars that are just cigars.

I don’t belittle The Secret. Being in tune with the universe, with one’s desires, and aligning oneself accordingly is a great way to live along with a fine dose of gratitude. But it is also good to recognize and allow anger, grief, frustration and indignation. These seemingly negative emotions are signals, process, storytellers, and essential warning signs. Other than that, what’s the harm with “pant/chant-ing, drooling, and receiving?” Gulp.

AND THE AGITATOR AWARD GOES TO

2007-02-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

I’m agitated today and the Laundry is a good place to be for that. There are at least 16 agitators in here not counting the other people or the dog and even then they would only make 18 though every now and then it rises to 19 when the leather-jacket guy comes in to check on the dryer. But Emma is quiet and the woman sitting in my usual space is reading so they don’t seem agitated right now. It’s just me and the 15 inner workings of the washing machines. I’m irritated by the limited help that I’m getting from my San Antonio book publisher on promoting my book. There, that’s it. I have calmed down some though after filling a page with the f-word (my mother is reading this) in the many ways it can be used in a sentence. That helped me blow off steam and see that the biggest frustration is not having enough time to work my day job, write on two different manuscripts, and market a book that’s been out for ten months without much selling success in a city where 5 million visitors come every year and a state where Texas History is required for every child in public school. San Antonio is key to TX history. I’m not the only one that made a model of one of the five missions out of toothpicks. Besides, I was told that schools were a secondary market when my chapter on a juicy, online sex-solicitation blackmail story got cut. I forgot that there was a classroom audience. My bad. Besides, what’s the difference between a story about a whorehouse and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the husband and wife tag-team solicitors presenting settlement agreements to entrapped paramours except that the incidents were over 100 years apart. I know. Online-sexual encounters and school children are a sore subject even if the children aren’t involved. However, it did seem like a teaching opportunity though not the kind the adolescent boys would take away. I agree on that point entirely. (FYI, my editor and friend, Patrick, has been very helpful so he’s good. This is a corporate agitation-causing shenanigan and the business of books.)

Okay, I feel better.

I will be in San Antonio hopefully doing some book signings (see above) April 11-13 and in Dallas April 14-17. For those of you in Dallas, I’ll be letting you know about the book signing open house on Sunday afternoon, April 15.

To more interesting agitators and topics: the jailhouse theme of the sandwich shop fits very well with peaceful, non-violent resistance types of agitators. I’ve only been arrested twice for civil disobedience and those were pretty staged, nothing like the kind with billy clubs, fire hoses, police dogs, tear gas, and bullets. Nothing like that at all. In D.C. the plastic handcuffs on my wrists in front of me kept coming off and I had the darnedest time keeping them on to maintain the image of resistance. My jail time experiences (or experience as one of the two I paid my fine only 20 steps from the police wagon that brought me in after which I walked about 20 steps to and out the front door of the police station) were not particularly world-shaking though they taught me a lot, especially because of the people who I was arrested with.

The first time was in Cleveland, Ohio in May, 2000, outside the United Methodist Church (UMC) General Conference, the major big deal, every four years, lasts for two weeks, legislative branch of the denomination meeting. They conduct their business much like Capitol Hill with committees, sub-committees, bills/amendments/propositions, lobbyists and blowhards but without the sensitivity about prayer or the separation of Church and State. Not that C&S are separated, check out Institute for Religion and Democracy (i.e. Religion for the Unification of C&S) and their plan to take over the leadership in the UM, Presbyterian, and Epicopal Church denominations and the correlation of how that will infect Congress with a Christian Conservative agenda. I met the then executive director of IRD months before the General Conference. We were sitting at the same table for dinner. I’d lost my name tag, so he didn’t know who he was sitting and chatting with. Nor did I as I was new to the gig. We’d gotten pretty familiar before he asked what organization I was with and we realized that we were each talking with the enemy. We paused in silence for a moment and then went on with our conversation. Make of that what you will.

Back to agitators, the organizers of this arrest were Mel White and his group, Soulforce. Several historic figures of civil rights and civil disobedience were in their number, informing their spiritual foundations and direct actions. Some of these included Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi; Yolanda King, Martin King’s daughter; Jim Lawson, a leading strategist on peaceful non-violent resistance in the civil rights movement including the training of the students who staged the lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides; and Robert Graetz, who had his house bombed after he stood with King during the Montgomery bus boycott. In earlier arrest, these folks and their ancestors were not shackled in plastic, slip-off handcuffs.

I forgot to say that we were demonstrating against the UMC’s policy and practice of discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“Queer” in political parlance) people. We were outside the Cleveland Convention Center where the conference was held. Everything was well planned. The mayor’s office and Cleveland police all knew ahead of time what we were doing, all 218 of us. After a walk around the center in silence, we lined up 20 at a time in the driveway so that we blocked traffic. It was a very moving experience if only for the company of people who I was arrested with. Their historic roads of heartache and persistence in the ugliness of violent discrimination gave credence to our cause. Still I knew that as I was in the holding cell, later finger-printed, frisked, and put in a regular cell that I was not suffering as those that had gone before me. Another civil rights mentor and dear friend who I was arrested with was Gil Caldwell, the co-author of one of the manuscripts I’m working on (and why agitators are on my mind). He has continued to teach me about the realities of racial discrimination even as he says I am teaching him about Queer civil rights.

The next day when Goliath-over-David arrests were made inside the convention center on the floor of the conference, we weren’t so organized but we got through. Picture 35 or so people disrupting Senate proceedings and you’ll have a bit of the picture. Okay, so the convention center auditorium is also used for basketball games but it was that somber –a line of us going down the center aisle between rows and rows of tables, seating 1,000 delegates, the room in utter silence and solemnity. Now that was a traumatic experience, several amps up from standing in a driveway blocking traffic. I could feel the anger and hatred rising like steam from those who despised us (voting tallies would say that there were about 650 of that sentiment, though some of those just found us distasteful). The scene got especially harrowing when a woman, not in our group, almost jumped off the balcony above us in an anguished and tearful lament. I’ve never seen 6 white men in dark suits scramble so fast to move the table below out of the way and somehow prepare to catch her –it would not have been pretty. Fortunately, upstairs other men caught her legs and body and pulled her down. What followed were several intense hours of negotiations, reports, and votes, ending with the group moving up onto the stage just behind the presiding bishop. Quickly the Cleveland police entered stage right and arrested the protestors including a couple of bishops who joined the group as they were taken away. I had left the floor earlier with another coalition leader during a break so that we could bail the group out of jail. They were released several hours later after an $11,000 credit card charge, biggest bill I ever signed. I did not leave a tip.

The arrest in D.C. was outside the Catholic Bishops Conference. The difference between Catholic and Protestant demonstrations was that the Catholic songs that we sang as we circled were in Latin instead of English. Other than that it was the same. I was getting terribly sick as we stood out in the cold and drizzle. By the time we got to the police station, all I could think about was getting back to the hotel and bed. But then I recognized a woman two people in front of me. She was one of the drag queens that threw the first spiked heels at the New York City policemen in what is now known as Stonewall, the riot that many mark as the beginning of the Queer rights movement. (Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots for more history.) I was in line paying my fee before I caught a car back to my sickbed and I realized that yet again I’d been arrested with someone that was there in one of those important beginnings with the real tear gas, barricades, and time of sacrifice. She was still fighting, resisting, and inspiring. And for those who are wondering, she was wearing tennis shoes.

My heart is with these agitators today and the machine kind too. This part of the wash cycle is essential to jarring the dirt out of the fabric (social or otherwise) –some loads need more than others. I’ve found it tricky to time pushing clothes I forgot to put in the machine down into the suds before the agitation starts. One, the sudden change makes me jump. Two, agitators aren’t called agitators for nothing; they can beat your hand up pretty badly (different from the non-violent kind). The rinse cycle eventually comes and then the spin, much like press conferences and damage control. Then the moment of truth arrives, did the wash come clean or is there still more dirty laundry?

RED LIGHT

2007-02-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

RED UNBALANCE LIGHT INDICATES WASHER HAS SHUT OFF. RAISE LID – DISTRIBUTE CLOTHES EVENLY – CLOSE LID – CYCLE WILL RESUME AUTOMATICALLY.

We could all use a “red unbalance light” if not for ourselves, at least for others to see, register, and avoid. Not that we’re not a bit unbalanced all the time, shifting weight, opinions, contradictions, priorities, but the red light indicates that the load is so off that the machine has come to a stop. Only a re-distribution will get things going again. Really what we need is the yellow light, the one that comes before the red one, the warning that the wet stuff better be shifted or it’s coming to a grinding halt. (I’ve always thought that an “Asshole Crossing” sign would also be a helpful forewarning.) This light would come on even before the machine started to shake and bounce around, prior to the loud knocking noises. However, if you come into the laundromat, start the load, check the clock, and plan to come back about the time it finishes, then it’s a real pain in the ass. You come back thinking stage one is done only to find that it’s the lean-over, pull-on-heavy-wet- towels, threatening-lower-back-spasms time. This is a very similar feeling when coming back to the dryer to see that the door wasn’t all the way shut so the dryer never turned on and the wet clothes look a bit bewildered laying on the floor of the botched circular ride. Hopefully, the timer only starts when the dryer goes and not when the quarter went in. Either way, the laundry process has been interrupted and efficiency lost because when it all comes down to it, no one really wants to sit in a laundry waiting on clothes. Except for me maybe.

That thought reminds me of a guy who told me that if you love what you’re doing, you’ll do it for free. He looked at me, then my writing pad, and back at me to make his point. We had been talking abut food stamps, disability, and anti-employment sentiment. I’d met Eddie several months before when he’d first come to town, pack and tent on his back. He was living up Grizzly Gulch near the old lime kilns (built in the late 1860's). In fact, some other guy came back with him one night and was so drunk he fell into one of the tall old brick structures. Not so good, bad in fact. Didn’t know what he’d look like when the sun rose. He was okay though.

Anyway, this conversation with Eddie was in winter and he was telling me that he was now living with his girlfriend in her place near the Laundry and describing the last time he went down to get food stamps –he was a regular. The food-stamp worker had said that he looked young and fit and employable and why didn’t he get work. He didn’t know why but he answered back that he didn’t want to pay taxes.

"Does it bother you that I work and pay taxes that go to paying for your food stamps.”

“No, not really.”

We talked on about getting money when disabled and that his girlfriend received social security benefits for psychiatric reasons. He was musing about ways he could make that work for himself. I gingerly asked what kind of work he’d want to do if he was working. He replied a bit too quickly that he’d had work, done this or that, but that he really didn’t want to put all his time into something he hated. I sure understood that. A couple of years ago, trying to find income here in Helena, I answered an ad for a marketing job in grocery stores. I got the packet in the mail with full instructions on how to market products from my little cardboard table cheerily decorated with little American flags (one example) to attract grocery shoppers to sample the new food or beverage. Relatively, effort expended to dollar received (except for having to schlep one's own table, cloth, said flag, microwave or crock pot), it was an okay job. What threw me though was the hairnet and apron that I was required to wear. The woman on the front of the instruction book looked very happy, eerily so. Fortunately, I had to go out of town and by the time I got back all the positions were filled. The name of the company was New Concepts in Marketing. Isn’t there a truth-in-advertising clause somewhere? I’ll never look at the food-sample people the same ever again. Flag or no flag, they are moving the economy along.

I then applied at Osco because I saw that they did not have to wear uniforms. However, as part of the application process, I had to sit at a computer and answer a 100-question (maybe it was 300) survey that they used to determine team spirit, level of happiness per hour of subservience, anger management, and patience. After being asked the same question the 25th different way, I was certain that I would flunk the test. They kept asking if I’d ever had problems with a supervisor, been angry enough to use profanity in public, and if I played well with others. By then, I was broken, cursing, hated team players, and knew I would not get a call. I didn’t.

I’ve gotten out of whack before. I shouldn’t have needed a yellow or red light, the machine was shaking and quaking and making a loud racket but I kept going. By the time things grounded to a halt, my engine was burned out. I know what employment disability is like and redistributing the heavy stuff afterward so it wasn’t hard at all to understand where Eddie was coming from. After he left, I pondered how the world could manage without work and pay, the money exchange. I’m no economist or cavewoman so I didn’t come up with any good ideas. There are people that like, even love, to work. There are people that don’t care to “pull their own weight.” There are people that can’t do either one. Green, yellow, red lights. I don’t know that this is a case where “it takes all kinds.” I do know that there are Like Kinds and the piles really shouldn’t be washed together but if so, on cold.

My present job (have I mentioned that I work as the development director at the Myrna Loy Center?) took me to the State Capitol this week to give a 3-minute testimony at the HB 9 Cultural and Aesthetic Grants Program Hearings of the Long-Range Planning Appropriations Subcommittee (I worked really hard to get all the words in the right order). The grants are funded by interest earned on the Montana Cultural Trust, its corpus established from coal money long ago (meaning I can’t find the exact dates or type of levy/tax information online) provides funding to at least a three-page, single-spaced, type-size 10, excel spreadsheet list of non-profit organizations. I got to listen to about 20 of them before I testified for the Myrna --as we affectionately call the center. The best and l o n g e s t testimony was from a senior citizen of the town of Conrad, population 2,500. She said that when she found out that their grant had been cut in half, she cried so much and was so sad that she had to go to the doctor to get Zoloft. She was a gem of a citizen and quite funny in her persuasive, older-woman-from-one’s-childhood-church way, sweetly reprimanding the committee about funding her town’s art council. In a nice touch, one senator leaned over to the chairperson and said, “Now, you know her son.” I bet they got a grant. Another testifier was told by the chairman, “Be sure and tell the Weisners hello.” Back to our million citizens in this giant land of Montana, I do like that neighborly way. The only drawback is that sometimes (not all the time) if you don’t have a mama from Montana or know the Weisners, you don’t get to play with the big kids.

The best part of going to the capitol though was taking pictures. My friend Barb works in the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs and she showed me around. My friend and fellow Myrna staff member, Krys, was also there that morning. Both were game for Kodak moments, as you can see.

Along the photograph lines…I went cross-country skiing on Saturday as the snow was bountiful and the day gorgeous. However, I have not put on a pair of those narrow sticks in about 25 years. There is a particular muscle on the inner thigh that hadn’t made itself known to me in about that long too. Friend DD tells me that there is a certain age that it is okay to take Advil before and after exercising. She also said that face-plants, full-body spread-eagle falls, are reminders of how much we loved tumbling in the snow when we were children. That was way more than 25 years ago so that memory will take longer. Still it was a beautiful day and the snow tasted really good.

It is very quiet at the Laundry this afternoon except for meeting the Drew Family, two adults and three children. Kim and Joe are the new owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop and Soup Kitchen. (I had The Smuggler today, roast beef with whisky garlic cream cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and some other things on wheat with the potato salad.) They moved to Helena in the late 1990’s and their son grew up coming here. He knew Sambo as the “sandwich man.” Kim and Joe both seemed very happy to have their new business. Kim said that this neighborhood is the friendliest in town, “people wave at you when you go by it's a community within a community.” She’s certainly not the first or the last to make that comment. They have just added to the cheer.

Meanwhile, Emma is trying to figure out a sound, that of a crumpled dollar bill going in and out of the change machine. She’s cocking her doggie head and ears. Ah, finally the quarters. Back to nap for her. Not much of a fan base today, only a few brief, “you’re dog is so cute.” One admirer was a young woman that came in with her friend and happened to say “fuck” as she was sorting through her laundry. She quickly apologized to me. I said that I didn’t fucking care what she said. “That’s my girl,” she laughed. Emma twitched.

Until next time, remember:
FOR PERSONAL SAFETY: AFTER RAISING LID BE SURE TUB HAS COMPLETELY STOPPED BEFORE REACHING IN.

For those that have asked

2007-02-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

703 days, 23 hours, 50 min, 0.5 seconds

Countdowns

2007-02-04T23:54:00.000-07:00

When I was in Chicago in January, I was given a keychain by two dear friends, Mary and LG. It has on it a digital running countdown of the days George W. has left in office. Right now it is 715 Days, 9 Hours, 8 Minutes, and 56.2 Seconds (I had to type that fast because each .something really moves the clock). This little keychain makes me happy every time I look at it. When I first laid eyes on it, there were 750 days left. Each day is one day closer to the end of an administration that I have no good words for. (Go to http://www.backwardsbush.com/ to get your own.)

715d, 9h, 5 m, 34.4s

I’m thinking of other countdowns today as I sit at the Laundry. The count stopped this week on the life of a one-of-a-kind, national, political, biting voice: Molly Ivins. She long-reported on the Texas Legislature but didn’t stop at the borders, there wasn’t a powerful politician that was free from her sharp wit and keen wordsmithing on behalf of the powerless. She’s the one that nicknamed George W. Bush, “Shrub.”

One column I remember well from 1992, she wrote that Ross Perot’s economic plan was as welcome as a wanton woman at SMU Theology. (Some papers ran the word, “whore.”) Working at SMU Theology at the time, I wrote to her and told her how proud we were to be mentioned in her column, invited her to our Women’s Week conference, and signed my name and “the other wanton women of SMU Theology.” Not long after I got a postcard of Ralph, the swimming pig, jumping off a rock at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas. It read, “Dear WW of SMUT, Would love to come to talk to WW, but this year is out. Booked to the gills. But keep me on your dance card for further on down the line. Best Wishes, Molly Ivins.” At first I thought that someone had played a joke on me but then I knew that few would have access to Ralph’s card, a performer that Molly Ivins favored. I’m only now noticing how she addressed it, simply,
Marilyn Alexander
c/o the Wanton Women of SMU Theology
Dallas, TX 75275
A couple of years later she spoke at SMU and when I asked her to sign my copy of her book, I showed her the postcard. She laughed, said that she remembered and then wrote, “For Marilyn, another wanton woman, Raise more hell!” Kindred spirit for sure.

I’m looking at the obituary from last Thursday’s New York Times. She had countless good lines. “After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that the United States was engaged in a culture war, she said his speech ‘probably sounded better in German.’” Another quip: “There are two kinds of humor… One was the kind ‘that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity… The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That’s what I do.’” Her voice was passionate, insightful, and powerful. To check out her final column, Stand Up Against the Surge, go to
http://www.creators.com/opinion/molly-ivins/stand-up-against-the-surge.html
I’m still in shock that we won’t be reading her fresh words and cunning commentary anymore and her loss is just way too soon after the death of her friend and another extraordinary Texas woman, Ann Richards. We’ve lost two national treasures.

715d, 8h, 46m, 51.3s

Then there is the war in Iraq that has no countdown. Besides the above three people giving rise to things political, I’m in this frame of mind because I’m writing up an interview to be included in my book on Laundry stories. Through the Laundry community, I found a soldier to interview that had just come back from Iraq (that was in the Fall of 2005). Living in Helena has made me much more aware of the troops serving in this dreadful quagmire. The National Guard and Army Reserve are big employers here and because it is a small state (in population, real big geographically), it seems that when a Montana soldier dies, I pause a bit longer in thinking about him or her and the soldier’s family, kind of like neighbors down the block. Also, I’d not been to a homecoming parade for returning soldiers before but on Thanksgiving Day in 2005, I was on Last Chance Gulch, the main street through downtown, with the crowd waving little American flags and cheering to the troops hanging over railings of military trucks and sitting on top of tanks. I was moved that they had returned from sights and sounds and experiences that those of us present could not imagine --except maybe for the WWII and Vietnam veterans in the crowd. Hats and signs helped identify them.

I disagree terribly with this war that we are in. We shouldn’t be there and we’re going to have a hell of a time getting out. Our administration has really made a mess of things, a horrific calamity in a land that already had plenty. But even with these personal thoughts and convictions, I wanted to hear from someone who had been there. I needed to hear a soldier’s perspective, even if it was only one of many.

He agreed to come to my house on a December morning. The smell of the freshly-baked pumpkin bread filled the air. I put on tea and we sat on my couch. He was very gracious, trusting and generous to tell his story to a stranger after he finished, but two hours later, he told me that he hadn’t been able to tell anyone about it from start to finish. He said that either people didn’t have that much time or hadn’t asked.

He didn’t come home to a big fan-fare because he did not go with his unit but was sent with one from Missouri. But those that were there when he stepped off his plane wept with joy to have him back. Because he joined another unit, he entered into an already-established pecking order. He was an outsider from the start and had his authority challenged from day one. To sum up his overall experience, he had a supervisor that made work and life hell, oversight of troops that needed his emotional support as much as his logistical direction, and travel on roads that constantly had to be checked for IED (improvised explosive device). In order to do his job as a communications technician he had to travel out to three different hubs to work on internet satellites and internal networks with the threat of an explosion at every turn. He didn’t dwell on the danger as much as the working conditions with his boss. I came to see his experience as a really bad job but in the pit of explosive hell. He had a very humbling story and I was in turn humbled that he would tell it to me without knowing my political persuasion or any reason to think that I would really listen.

715d, 8h, 22m, 44.2s

There is the time running down until the kick-off for the Super Bowl this afternoon. Now, let me say, it is thought that all lesbians follow professional football religiously, as well as other sports. In contrast to a gay man who once said, “Organized sports are optional for my people.” However, for this woman-loving woman, I am not one to sit and watch football games on a given Sunday afternoon or Monday evening or whenever they are televised. My sister, Liz, has to call me the first Saturday in November to tell me who the victor was between our rival alma maters: Texas Tech (hers) and Texas A&M (mine). I never remember that they are playing.

Today I’ll make an exception as I did back in the hey-day of my youth when the Dallas Cowboys were quite the thing. Since the Chicago Bears are in the line-up this afternoon (Mountain Time, 2 hours earlier than Eastern evening) so I have some positive sentiment and loyalty to my friends in Chicago. In fact, two just called me on my cell phone, Jim and Terry, ones for which the sport is optional though the parties surrounding the grand sport are not. I’m also interested that this year marks the first time that both head coaches are African American: Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy. Both seem to be extraordinary men of great character and steady leadership. No matter which team is victorious, it will be the first time an African American coach won a Super Bowl. So the televised game for its historic meaning is another good reason to join the millions of viewers. Still, you can see, my reasons are so not-lesbian, but so be it.

715d, 8h, 18m, 23.2s

Finally, here at the Laundry, a count-up has just begun. There are new owners for the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. Sambo retired on Friday, his last day to serve up grub. We wish him well. I’ll keep you posted on the new developments in the lunch fare.

There are beginnings and endings all the time. We wait, we mourn, we listen, we cheer, we part, we greet, and the clock keeps ticking.

715d, 8h, 16m, 17.3s

UPON RETURN

2007-01-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2005, I was treated to the stories of an 89-year old Dr. Haney Cordua from San Diego, California. I noticed him when I walked up as he was having his picture taken under the Rodney Street Laundry sign which hangs in perpetuity on the side building wall. It’s not often that the laundry is a backdrop for a Kodak moment so I immediately became intrigued. I figured this had to be a certain occasion and I approached the threesome: elderly gentleman, younger female photographer and younger male completing the trio, as soon as I saw an opportunity. We were all headed into the building for the same purpose of lunch at the infamous Jailhouse Sandwich Shop and Soup Kitchen.

While we sat at our respective tables I asked if the older man was here for something special. Sure enough he was back to visit his birthplace. He was born in Helena in 1915 but moved away in 1918 and he’d only been back once since then. He readily agreed to talk to me once I explained that I was the resident writer, which he got a kick out of. I quickly saw that he had a keen mind as well as memory. I first asked him where he went after Helena and immediately realized my tactical error because it seems that the earliest memories are often more accessible and we were now starting at age 3 and had 86 more years to go. Fortunately he had a great sense of humor and could spin a good yarn. His family had moved to Florida when he was three in their 5-seat Franklin Chummy Roadster.

“This was 1918 and still close to the Civil War (which, I thought, is still pretty close to some Southern hold-outs). Kids in the neighborhood teased me about being a damn Yankee. My father told them that I had been born in the Montana Territory, he in the Republic of Texas and my mother in Canada and yes, we were damn Yankees and proud of it!”

By 1922 the family had settled in San Diego. He said that there are goofy things that happen in life that for some reason or another stick with you. For example in kindergarten a clown taught his class how to chew milk (he demonstrated and I witnessed his lips together but slightly puffed cheeks moving with the chewing motion inside his mouth). He said that he still thinks about the clown’s lesson whenever he has milk and faces the dilemma of drinking it down or chewing on it a while.

He changed topics to his mother and described how she was going to be a nurse in San Francisco but took one look at a bedpan and decided to enroll in medical school. Later she was taking exams when the great earthquake ruptured the city. After school she had a difficult time finding a job but she sent an application to a Butte mining company under the name O.B. Brazien and was hired. It wasn’t until she arrived that they found out she was a woman. Later in 1918 during the flu epidemic his mother was one of the few doctors that would make house calls.

Harney was named after his father who was named after a General Harney, a famous general in the Civil War (a name I have since run across in researching for a book on San Antonio). His grandfather was Captain May Cordua, served under the general in South Dakota, and had hopes if his child was named Harney that he would be made a major. The promotion didn’t come to fruition but the name stayed in the family.

At that point in our interview Harney’s daughter (the photographer) with a nudge from her husband (the younger man) redirected the conversation back to Helena and their sojourn that day through city and county records to find the addresses of his homes. Remarkably, after 83 years, he still remembered one of the addresses, on Lawrence. The records confirmed it. He laughed when he said that he was going to ring the doorbell of his childhood home and when the inhabitants answered he would say, “Remember me?” He also recalled his walks downtown by himself at three, almost four, where he sat in people’s cars trying to drive them. The owners would call his father to tell him to come and get him…again.

He lived his life in San Diego and, like his mother, had a long career as a physician. Still he was pulled back to his earliest roots. I could tell that he had many stories in him but his daughter and son-in-law sensed that he was tiring so they prepared to go back to theirhotel. I left feeling my life was far richer for having met him.

2007-01-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

It’s good to be back on my little computer screen after a month away though I didn’t mean to be gone so long. There was the week in New York City for Christmas with a couple of days in Callicoon, NY, followed by a whirlwind-week of fun in Chicago to bring in the new year, and ending with ten days of a nasty bug that clobbered me when I got back to Helena. I feel like a new season has arrived now but that may be because the temperature here has risen to the 30’s rather than the single and below-zero temperatures of the last two weeks. It’s a beautiful sunny day in Helena.

I intended to write an entry from NYC and Chicago but that fell away pretty quickly. However I did bring back some snapshots of a sampling of Laundromats along the way. One universal bond is the repetitive task of doing laundry. Yes, there are those sayings of music and love and laughter and such that we name as the common language of peoples around the globe and throughout history but washing clothes is definitely an experience that could be the foundation for peace accords –maybe a wash day truce. There are those that do not go for clean or even slightly-freshened clothes but the rest of us think, smell, and wish that they did. And there are those that have never done a load of laundry in their lives but hopefully they can at least imagine the process (much like knowing carrots come from the ground and not just from the produce section) even if with-or-without-bleach, cold or multi-temperature-wash detergents are foreign terms. So in honor of our global unity, I offer some laundry snaps.

Getting back to Helena and the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen (the soup kitchen part just means that they serve soup with their sandwiches unless you want potato salad…and though original, “& Potato Salad Kitchen” is not as catchy), there was a great event in the neighborhood last Saturday, the Snow Sculpture Contest. It took place in the parking lot between the Laundry and B&B Market in a festive winter carnival atmosphere, two fires going to warm up by, and plenty of slick ice to slide around on. And it was COLD, really cold, subzero cold. Emma was actually shivering which she never does unless she wants to really act like it is a humongous problem that she is being left at home. I think the ice was chilling her little paws and on up her doggie legs though that did not keep her from eating snow. But the really cold ones to feel sorry for were the sculptors, especially as they had to take gloves off to do the finer touches like spray on the color. I talked to two that had worked side by side all day and were trying to uncurl their frozen fingers by the fire, one on a mountain lion, the other on a queen (Helena is known as the Queen City). As frozen as they were, they seemed invigorated with their accomplishments and should have been, they won the top two prizes respectively. I was pulled in as the third judge after the first two had come to different un-bridgeable conclusions. Third place went to a slide sculpture that a group of children created. Other works were very good: a penguin with baby (see the movie March of the Penguins), a buffalo head, and a van in a likeness to an icon long-parked in the neighborhood. There had been a sculpting workshop held the weekend before led by Charlie Carson. The result was a colorful Sponge Bob that stood in front of the B&B all week to entice entrants and spur curiosity. Besides the sculptors, about 150 people dropped by the carnival throughout the day.
At least one pick-up truck was parked nearby with signs in its bed of the snow that had to be hauled in from MacDonald Pass and Cox Lake as there hasn’t been a good snowfall since November (maybe October, it all kind of runs together). I admired the straight-forward, can-do attitude of the organizers: Snow Sculpture Contest, bring your own snow. Not, “we want to have a contest but we might not because there might not be any snow.” Nope, this was going forward no matter what.

Both the Christmas Caroling Party and the Sculpture Contest were the result of a neighborhood organizational meeting back in September. Set up as a part “get to know your neighbors” and part town hall, the event pulled in about 150 people and filled the Myrna Loy Center (MLC) auditorium.

The MLC is another extraordinary, dynamic fixture in the neighborhood, around the corner from the B&B. Housed in the old county jail (the reason for the Jailhouse in Jailhouse Sandwich Shop…), it is a performing and media arts center that screens films nightly; offers music, dance, and theater performances throughout the year of local, regional, national and international artists, a number who come for artist residencies and work with area schools. In one year one could rock out to a local high school age band complete with teen groupies, groove to the sounds of “Ladies and Gentlemen, the legendary Chico Hamilton” (as one of his group announced often…we all could use someone like), vibrate to the drumming and dancing of an African dance group, and be awestruck by Alvin Ailey’s younger dance troupe, Ailey II. To me this is an amazing place in a city of 35,000 and a state population of about a million people and is a fabulous part of the one-of-a-kind Rodney Street neighborhood. The center is named after the (Ladies and Gentlemen, the legendary) glamorous actress Myrna Loy who lived in Helena for a time and started her acting legacy in local productions. (Gary Cooper also grew up here, possibly in the RS neighborhood but maybe I’m making that up.)

The old jail-turned-MLC is across the street from the county courthouse, the present jail on the other side of the courthouse. The MLC is also a community center of sorts as many organizations rent the auditorium or gallery space for their performances, meetings, or receptions. So the MLC was a natural setting for the neighborhood gathering and perfect for a meeting to discuss the past, present, and future community –a living history.

The snow might have to be trucked in and is different each winter but the sculpting of a neighborhood is always in process. On Rodney Street the neighbors are reviving a rare awareness of the past that forms the present and envisions the future in fine detail, with colored water frozen on a snow queen. Even though she will eventually melt into the ground, she was here on a cold winter day, and her formation was cheered by a carnival of people

2006-12-18T19:55:00.000-07:00

December 17, 2006

Tonight was cold-call Christmas Caroling at the Rodney Street Laundry. Actually it was the gathering place to go out singing and then come back to for hot chocolate, cookies, and many other treats. This was an official Rodney Street Neighborhood event. An ice sculpture contest is coming in February with training prior to on how to make the ice block ---snow in a box, water, let freeze, repeat. Then the attendees will learn about carving tools. I’ve seen chain-saws work wonders but I’m thinking you’d have to make a really big box of ice to use that machinery. Butte (it is not pronounced "but", try again) had a contest last weekend that was one to rival as well as get tips from, so I heard. All I know is that I won’t stick my tongue on the sculptures. My brother Paul taught me that with the ice trays in our freezer…twice…once with a babysitter that then had to figure out how to get my tongue unstuck. Rip.

I haven’t been caroling in a very long time. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I went. Must have been when I was a youth director at a church in Texas eons ago. I did participate in a Posada a little over ten years ago but though it was walking around in the dark from house to house (traditionally three) and some singing was involved, it was not caroling. The Posada is a Mexican tradition of re-enacting Joseph and Mary’s search for a room at the inn, the first two houses turn away the young couple. The third allows them in and that is the home that has the Posada for the evening. There is way more depth to the traditional, symbolic pilgrimage and my experience was more superficial, we went back to the church for cookies and hot chocolate…not that the people who welcomed Joseph and Mary weren’t willing to take us in, it was simpler to organize in the fellowship hall. Also as I recall from my Bible lessons I don’t think cookies and cocoa were a part of the nativity scene even after the wise men showed up with gifts but treats seem to always follow modern religious walks in the dark.

I don’t know what the weather was like in Bethlehem, but Texas was balmy compared to here where the temperature hovered around 18 degrees (Fahrenheit that is). It was a jolly group negotiating three-inch ice on some sidewalks. I’m certain it got thicker as the time went on. Next year I’ll remember to bring the kitty litter. There were some excellent singers in the bunch that led us and set the pitch and did other musical things. Emma went along and she got nose to nose with one dog from one of the houses we caroled.

But it was the house where they were celebrating the third night of Hanukkah where she got to all-out bark at two other big dogs, one a fellow golden retriever. I thought that house was an especially good one for her to cause a ruckus since we were singing a very Christian Christmas song (one about Jesus and not Santa) at a not-Christian home. We didn’t know that until one explained what they were doing inside when we came out of the before-midnight-clear blue and interrupted. The people were very, very gracious. It was an uncomfortable moment especially when one sang out a reminder, “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel.” I say “uncomfortable” because we were a bunch of liberals –or at least those of us I knew-- that celebrate diversity and respect pluralism (there are at least three “bad” words in that sentence according to Jerry Falwell). And even though we had Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls, Up On the Rooftop, and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas in the repertoire and could add “Dreidel” how does one know where to sing what song. There isn’t time for carolers to sing (or households to hear) a medley of interfaith as well as secular songs at each house. But even without any religious purpose or intent, we were still putting Christ back into Christmas (though I don’t think he really comes out since he takes up all but the last three letters) or make that putting Christ into the Holidays…which is not something I really want to do for those of other faiths. And it’s not that I really have anything against Christians per se, some of my best friends and dearest loved ones are, some even clergy I might add, and I even received mail as Bishop Marilyn B. Alexander for a couple of years until my theology school alma mater figured out that I had falsified my name and address change card. But I love and honor my friend Acharya Swami Durga Das too!

I had been pondering our “cold-call caroling” as we started out, wondering if everyone would want Christmas Carolers coming to their house. Would there be cranky people like me, ambivalent about the season, over-educated and experienced about how the church has destroyed lives throughout history and still today through its discrimination? (Oh, that’s the holiday spirit.) In general though, it is a very happy thing to have a group of singing people surprise you at the door and a couple of people even put their coats on and joined us. One house we got cookies. At another house, the woman who opened her door said, “And they say that nothing ever good happens in this neighborhood.” Some people did look like they felt a little awkward but that might be because they were torn between really wanting to see the end of Desperate Housewives and being polite. A car of teenagers stopped just to hear us sing and clapped and hollered. I just imagined one of them saying, “I’ve heard of such but I’d never seen it in person.”

We returned to the Laundry by way of the B&B Market and a quick stop at Jesters if nothing else to get our dose of second hand smoke for the next decade. That was the only place where someone danced a jig to the music. By then and appropriately so we sang, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

Over refreshments I got to talking with Mariann about what she liked about living in the Rodney Street neighborhood where she’s been for over ten years. She said, “What I like the most is everybody greets each other. The drug people don’t bother me. If there is a problem, people take care of it. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in Helena.” Also in the thawing group was State Legislator Christine Kaufmann. I took her picture as a before-senator photograph as she is on the short-list to fill a senate seat and she’ll find out Tuesday if she is in. After refreshments, I gave one of the women in the group a ride home due to the bad ice. The last thing she said was, “There is no place like this neighborhood.” No doubt.

Happy Holidays!

NOTE: Some are still having trouble adding a comment. If you don’t have a google account, please click in the circle by “Other” or “Anonymous” before you click on Publish Your Comment” and see if that makes it work. I am reading the comments and will use some of them in future posts. THANKS!

2006-12-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

Fairly quiet at the Laundry this Sunday morning except when I was trying to take some time-release pictures with the digital camera that my generous brother Curtis handed down to me and I never read the instructions on the finer details. My favorite place to sit and write is in a narrow spot tucked into the northeast corner of the Laundry, sided by two windows where my signs hang, the first row of washers, and an glass inset from the entrance, basically a 3x6 space. So between setting the timer, crawling over an enthusiastic Emma who is tied up so as not to get the avocado pit back behind the table or bother the non-existent (at the moment) customers, and getting in position in 10 seconds in front of a camera that I don’t if it really has this function, it’s a tight squeeze. One guy tried to take my picture but it kept coming out blurry –something I greatly sympathize with. I tell people that look at my blurry photographs to just tremor their hand a bit and they’ll be able to settle the image to see it properly. He and his friend left and during my comical attempts a woman came in that was very happy to take my picture. She’s gone now and it is quiet, except for the occasional sigh of the dog.

We’ve been cooped up all weekend due to me fighting a cold or the flu, neither of which I can remember which you starve and which you feed so I feed them both. While I have at least had movies to watch, Emma has only had treats to intersperse her napping. I guess that’s not all that different from me. We’re both trying the feeding-remedy. In her dogged mind, treats are the main food group. Just ask anyone who has ever given her one. She never forgets them or the pocket or desk drawer where the morsel came from. Though I’m sure in her heart of hearts she loves them for who they are.

Interlude I:
Sambo, the owner of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen just walked through. He’s a man of few words, some might say gruff but he is a surprising personality. One, he was very cordial about me including his business in my writer-in-residence title. Two, his karaoke specialty is Frank Sinatra. I admire that kind of seeming contradiction. Everyone has a story not only to tell but one that forms who we are, how we got to be how and where we are. Sometimes we get to know the underlying plot, often we do not. Unless of course E! Hollywood does a segment on you or 20-20 but either you’ve shown your privates to the paparazzi or been involved in exploiting children on the internet and those are at best squeamish options to even consider for a millisecond.

Interlude II:
Some guy with a steaming mug of coffee just stopped in because he was supposed to meet a friend here. Quoting the yellow sign he said, “I’m glad that the writer is in.” He and Emma had a mutual admiration minute and he guessed Emma’s age to be about 8 or 9. I said that I didn’t really know as I got her at the pound 8 years ago but at the time they thought she was 2. He replied, “Oh she was an inmate puppy. I want to get one of those death-row puppies this spring. I’ll just ask which one is next to go. Yes, Emma, you’re from the pen. You fit right in on Rodney Street.” Off he went with a smile. Nice fellow.

Interlude III:
Blurry-cameraman’s friend is back.
“How often do you come here?”

“About once a week is what I try to do.”

“Do you take a picture of the building every time you are here?”

“No, that was just for my blog.”

“There is a French-Canadian movie about a guy who took a picture of the same place at the same time every day. There was a clock in the picture. He did it for a year and then he asked a friend to take the pictures but his friend didn’t want to come back every day so he just changed the time on the clock to match the time it was supposed to be. So I wondered if you took a picture once a week.”

“That’s an interesting idea.”

“There would be different cars in the picture and snow and no snow but it’s not an urban setting so not that much would change.”

“No, probably not, but still an interesting thought.”
Interlude IV:
Sandy, the owner, came by to ask if it was Friday, my designated day to be here. She was off to open her other business, Birds & Beasleys, open 7 days a week for the holidays. Part seed store, gift shop, birding headquarters, and general store/community center, Sandy is a “connector” in the language of the book The Tipping Point, she knows everybody and can immediately tell you who you need to talk to about downtown business, non-profit organizations, and where in Home Depot you can get (or not) a particular part for a dryer.

Interlude V:
“The writer is in on a Sunday. You’re getting to know a whole different crowd.”

With these words I met Lila who after church each Sunday comes here to use the washers (her washer broke but not the dryer). She lives just down the street, her financial advisor business on the main floor, apartment in the basement. Amongst her array of financial wares, she sells life insurance. With the adult care services, coroner’s office, and funeral home clustered in the neighborhood, even the drive-by visitors might pause to consider.

Lila was very efficient in her washing, already had the loads separated into two bags with the perfect amount of detergent in a plastic container. No lugging the big box of detergent on the three-block walk. She knows the drill.

She’s a Montana native, hailing from Miles City on the eastern side of the state, though she moved here in time to go to Helena High School and stuck around after that. Decades later she stays and exudes the love she has for Helena and Montana. I got to asking her about the best thing to dissolve sidewalk ice and she said what she uses is kitty litter, not to dissolve the ice but to give traction. Good to have in the trunk too if you get stuck. This wasn’t exactly a uniquely Montana ice tip but she gave me some un-ice-related ones, two drink names that I’ll have to test on a local bartender.

Red beer: beer and tomato juice, 80/20, can be spiced but regular tomato juice is the usual. She ordered it once in Texas and they didn’t know what she was talking about. “Red beer?” Must have sounded suspicious.

Ditch: whiskey and water. She read somewhere that the name came from when the miners were here. They got their water out of the ditch.

I had my hours today set by the time-release on my laptop battery. It’s out of juice signaling the time to take the signs down and go home. Emma has shaken off her sleep and dander and is ready to go. Until next week, remember the agitator’s work comes before the rinse and spin cycles.

Posting Comments

2006-12-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

I've had many people write that it isn't clear how to post a comment. The little envelope symbol below the post looks like it would be for comments but actually is for sending me an email. That's great if you want to email me. However, to add a comment you have to click on the word "comment" to the left of the envelope. It doesn't look like you would since it looks like it is just a record of the number of comments, like "5 comments, but it is. So click on it and a screen will come up that you can write your note on. You can also read the other comments. Others of you may have gotten a screen that said you had to sign in to leave a comment but I think I've fixed it now so anyone can leave a comment. Please feel free to invite others to the blog. One more thing, I will post every weekend. Won't promise a particular day but check on Sunday evenings or Monday mornings. If you'd like me to send you an email notification that I've added another post, please let me know. Thanks, MB

Welcome to the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen

2006-12-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

December 2, 2006

With some trepidation I start this blog. Like a lot of things that I put off, this task has grown larger in my mind than it needs to be, especially since those of you who will read this first round are so supportive. I was determined to set this up two weeks ago but once I had looked online at all the options for blog templates, I had forgotten why it was I was going to do a blog and took a nap instead. But my friend DD gave me a pep talk yesterday so here I am. My goal is to post once a week from the Rodney Street Laundry and Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen where I’ve been the writer-in-residence since April, 2005, about a year after I moved to Helena, Montana, from Chicago and Texas before that. You don’t have to name the city your from in Texas cause it’s just Texas, ‘nough said. –except to say that even though George W. claims TX as home, the Lone Star State has also bred such treasures as Ann Richards, Willie Nelson, Molly Ivins and Larry McMurtry. So there.
When I first started my residency –which by the way was kindly allowed by the Laundry owners Sandy Shull and Jacquie Gibson and supported by the sandwich shop business owner Sambo-- I came over to the laundromat at least once a week for several hours. Now I’m doing well to get here for a few hours each week but I’ve turned over a new page and am here now. One aspect of this blog is to have interaction with you readers so please figure out how to write comments so we can create a conversation and let me know that you are out there.
The idea of being the resident writer was not to live at the laundry as some have asked me but to sit here and listen to people’s stories. Some solicited but most from people working and waiting on their laundry that sit down to chat. I hang in the street windows two yellow laminated signs that read “WRITER IS IN’ when I come in to write. They spur some curiosity, my Golden Retriever is often with me and she is also a conversation started, and sitting, writing in a journal attracts people. Mostly though, for some reason people just want to share their stories with me even before they know why I’m here. I do tell them what I’m doing especially if the story seems like something I’d like to include in the book of stories that I’m writing. That way I get their permission. Otherwise, I just eavesdrop. Then there are the simple interludes like one woman asked me what I was doing here and I answered that I came here to write. When she got up to put her wet clothes into the dryer she turned to me and said, “Don’t you have a TV at home?”
Sometimes I feel like the village letter writer for those that think that they can’t write –something that people often mention, “I’ve always wanted to write this down.” So I am a recorder of stories that people feel compelled to tell but would not write down themselves. So far I’ve talked to a man who had just returned from serving in the Army Reserve in Iraq, an artist that hangs out with "the other ghouls" at the scary bar, Jesters, across the street (when he found out that I was lesbian he said, "Everybody's turning queer"), and a Holiday Inn launderer who was using the dryers at the laundry because the ones at work were broken. From New Jersey, he used to be in a rock band and once jammed with Bruce Springstein's band.
For those unfamiliar with the Laundry, it is in the three-block "hood" in Helena complete with meth trade and the Department of Corrections probation office. It's good to centralize. Other businesses include Jesters Bar, B&B grocery (both with apartments for rent upstairs), pawn shop, lawyers offices, funeral home, low-income housing, and various other county offices like the coroner’s. All this is smack dab in the historic Rodney Street neighborhood, quite the prime real estate at inception and growing more so once again. The Laundry’s red brick building houses about 20 washers and 10 dryers (but you want to use the big ones cause they dry faster) in the front and a four-table and three-stool-counter lunchroom in the back, grounded with a (retro from the youngsters’ perspective) black-and-white checkered floor. Around the corner from the tables is the kitchen, about twelve feet in length, wide enough for two people to closely get by each other to prepare food and take orders, and divided from the eating area by the jailhouse-barred order window. Only thing left to the building is a large bathroom --a favorite drop-in for the locals-in-need-- with a back outside door by the toilet blocked by plywood (with graffiti) and secured by a jailhouse door and padlock. The graffiti is minimal, unchanging, and not very interesting…unlike the many people and their stories that collect here.