anthea jane

Helen Keller

2011-02-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

I saw that movie about Helen Keller, I can't think of the name of it right now. But I feel like if I'm not careful I might raise a spoiled self-centered and plus even incompetant person. Because I don't know what I'm doing. I don't. She hurt her leg, my daughter, she hurt her leg last night at this class at our church. Now she is laying on the floor crying "Why won't somebody help me?" But see, Im easily manipulated. I manipulated my dad this way, and I turned into a despicable person. I don't want that for her. So when she does this, I feel this reaction of disgust and contempt, a reaction I remember bringing out in others. It's this victim mentality. I used to feel so sorry for myself. I wondered how others could be so heartless toward me, why they hated me. Those are the very words she is uttering now. She is ten years old. I believe it is better for her to struggle and pull herself up and walk than for me to give in to her. But then I wonder, am I being abusive. Parenting is the hardest job there is. Thank God I live with my mom right now. She has some common sense. I remember not being able to manipulate her when I was a kid. Then because I was able to manipulate my dad, when I got older I became extremely abusive to my mom. I was a terror, a holy terror. I don't want that for her, it's a horrible life. People hated me. My teenager friends all thought it was funny, but they weren't the real world I would come to find out. I think lying on the floor struggling, feeling sorry for herself if probably where I need to let her stay for right now. The moment will come when she thinks nobody else is coming to her rescue and she will find the strength within herself to get up. That happened to me. I lost my first child, not through a death but because I was impossible to live with, I know it's true. And then I couldn't fight to keep my daughter, her name is Allie. She's 22 yrs old today. I lost something that really meant something to me and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Then I had to get up. I had to get off the floor and I did. That isn't to say that I'm so functional now, but I have some ability to recognize my own part and that I am responsible for myself ultimately. At least that's something. And that's all thanks to AA.

I'm such a bad parent

2011-02-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

I have no idea how to do this. Ok so like right now, (and by the way I know that I sound like a teenager when I say like all the time, but I'm nota teenager, I'm 46 deal with it) she's saying sh'es sick and can't go to school. On average she is sick about every three days. I have been dealing with this for two years, ever since I put her in school. I used to homeschool her, but decided it wasn't working very well, plus I just didn't want to do it anymore. Then I feel like I'm selfish. If I don't want to do it, I don't see how I can do a decent job. She wasn't learning very much homeschooling. I don't know. I'm so confused about everything. And my guilt over being a bad parent is astronomical. The truth is I'm not the best parent. I get frustrated so easily. With my first child, (well, not my real first child, but the one I'm raising,) everything is so easy. He is really laid back, doens't fight me over evertyhing, so when he said he wanted to homeschool I went along with it. I am able to tell him once to read a certain book, or work on his geomtery etc and he does it. He is teaching himself geometry from a text book. My daughter is mini me though. I must have been unbelievably difficult to raise.

Ok that's it, I'm blogging

2011-02-24T07:38:00.001-08:00

I'm so frustrated, and now I realize I should just probably blog about it. Because I keep facebooking about it and that's not helping. At first I tried to use this blog for writing a story, and that was all fine but I don't want to write right now. I just want to... I don't know, tlak about stuff that's going on. I don't have friends to talk to really, just my husband. I thought I had this friend Casey, but I called her a control freak one time and she said, "You must never contact me again." I'm sure when she said this she was unaware how controlling that sounded. Oh well, I don't expect friendships to last anyway. I really liked her, but she was controlling. I'm sure I have my problems too, but I'm not really sure that it's why my friendships don't last. Anyway this morning I am really really really frustrated. My daughter Tara is sick again. My husband put some kind of bandage around her leg and didn't tell me and forgot to take it off. I'm worried now that it could have cut off her circulation or something and really hurt her. I worry a lot. I'm a worrier anyway and then she's always sick or telling me she's sick, and then acting really really really sick, and sometimes she really is but come on, every three days? That was one thing I really liked about Casey. She was honest about her failures as a parent, and it made me feel a lot better about my own. She was humble that way, like she knew, she just knew that she had failed, and she had done the best she could but failed. I liked that about her. I liked her sort of admission of powerlessness, like in the 12 step program. She wasn't in the 12 step program, though.

The Square of the Pawn - Chess.com

2011-01-28T12:33:00.000-08:00

The Square of the Pawn - Chess.com

King Arthur

2011-01-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

I remember my dad used to say that what was important about a particular rendition of the King Arthur myth was not so much whether the myth was an accurate deptiction of the real story, (if such a thing can even be known) but what that particular rendition said about the people who told the story. He taught a class where he used to tell the students something along the lines of "Curtain rises, it is the eighth century, the story of King Arthur is brutal and savage. Curtain falls. Curtain rises, it is the fifteenth century, the story of King Arthur now has elements of Chivlary, decency, mercy, the honor of women, almost to a ridiculous level, and a nearly intoxicating revel in the worship of Christ. Curtain falls." The story has changed because the people have changed. What is more important is the reflection of the values of the people. You could forward it to today, and notice the absurdly feminist Guenevere in the most recent movie portayal of Camelot. It says much more about us, than it does about the original events surrounding the supposed King Arthur. Of course many already know that most of these characters were added later, Guenevere and Lancelot and such. The French loved romance, and added most of it.
Le Morte D'arthur by Sir Thomas Malory is the french version of an old legend. Written in the mid Fourteen Hundreds, it represents the emerging values of the time. Mercy, Christianity, honor, valor, courage, even foolhardy courage was valued. It shows Nobility - meaning not so much the titles but to behave nobly, from which the titles of nobility come. It gives one a greater understanding of where such titles might have come from, and why they may have indeed been deserved. It also shows that such values would have been passed down from generation to generation, and mere titles wouldn't have been enough to merit them. None illustrates this better than the story of Sir Gawain. When he becomes over zealous in his wrath to kill a knight and cuts a lady's head off who begs for mercy and tries to defend the knight he is publicly shamed. He is forced to wear the lady's head around his kneck like a necklace, and appear before the court of King Arthur. King Arthur defers to the ladies of the court to judge him. Sir Gawain is only given a chance to even be heard because of his blood ties to the King, showing how respected and important blood relation was, and forshadowing these blood lines of nobility. The ladies judge him, and command him to go forth and defend ladies honor wherever he may, and to never again refuse mercy on one who asks it. This indicates a shift in values in the culture, it is the shaming of the previous culturally sanctioned merciless and cruel violence towards those weaker than yourself.
It is difficult to read the original seven hundred page version of Le Morte D'Arthur, which might more appropriately be titled "Tales of the Court of King Arthur," without constantly thinking about how these stories reflect the sentiments of the people who lived during the time it was written, or perhaps a few hundred years before, as in those times thoughts and observations about the period probably took a while to receive expression.

Maximum Occupancy

2010-08-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Faulkner: as close to primary experience as reading gets?

2010-07-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

I often wonder what to make of Heidegger's question, "What does it mean to be?" I have thoughts about the experience of being, and then the secondary thoughts about the experience of being, and of all the great books I have ever read, none have come closer to answering this, at least in the particular sense of those in the Compson family, than "The Sound and The Fury."

My favorite though is what Faulkner himself said about it--that it was just a story about a little girl who fell down in the mud and got her drawers dirty.

Yes, and in the end that's what life is, in retrospect. It's one moment. For me it's more a collection of them. I don't know that I could pick just one. But that's what it comes down to. Some random (or perhaps not so random) collection of moments. Now I know, I realize that in the case of Caddy, her falling down in the mud is symbolic of her later promiscuity and consequent tarnishing of the Compson family name. And of course, even deeper than that, the death and decay of the entire post civil war plantation nobility. And Caddy's innocence transcends her fall, because all of her tarnishment comes from without, like the mud splashed on her. Hers is juxtaposed next to Benjy's innocence, which by it's very nature is incapable of tarnishment. So Caddy, though she may have fallen in the mud seems cleaner than those around her, even when, due to the surrounding chaos of Damuddy's death, she had to sleep in those dirty drawers. Without regard to her own comfort, she once again takes on the responsibility of the parent, and comforts her mentally retarded brother Benjy. Her character is lunminescent--even in literature itself--let alone this story.

And Quentin, unable to detach from his obsessive sense of responsibility over Caddy's conduct is shown in the end to be bound not by a sense of duty, but by a fear of meaninglessness, for which he chooses to "stop time" by committing suicide. This shows his character as jaded and driven by selfishness, even if only we outside the family are able to see it.

And of course Jason, not worth the time to discuss, nearly is the mud represented on Caddy's drawers, with only Dilsey able to point it out (because she is outside the family). And in a sense this being outside the family, and thus objective is like to being outside of being, and therefore able to objectively discern the meaning--the way only she seems to be able to read and interpret the broken Compson clock.

So this moment when Caddy falls in the mud has meaning beyond the moment and yet I believe Faulkner meant it literally when he said it was really just a story about a girl who fell down in the mud. There is almost no need for the story beyond that, as it can all be incapsulated in that moment.

Bottom Up Fairy Tale

2009-07-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

He held his finger in the air. Way up high. He shouted. It was the last thing he planned to say. It was the last minute of his stupid class, the one Dr. Solomon should have been teaching.

I think none of this would have happened if Dr. Solomon would have been there that day.

"And that's why there IS NO GOD!!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.

It was fine. We all agreed pretty much. It was an Existentialism class here, who do you think you're convincing of anything. Not like it took any guts.

But while his finger hovered in the air ... an explosion cracked the sound, splitting the class in half, causing us all, including the student teacher to freeze for a tense moment, stretching on to today.

It was the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard. Like a cannon.

Like a sonic boom.

The rain came pouring down. The day turned black! I giggled nervously, along with the rest of the class.

"Or, I could be wrong," he admitted, smiling sheepishly as he pulled his finger down out of the air. He pulled it down haltingly, and at angles, zig-zagging it down.

I wonder how his life changed that day. Because mine sure did.

The End

(of this blog novel)

Start at the bottom! I told you!!!

2009-07-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

So it was a clear blue sky, right? I hummed as I walked along that sunlit cement Austin campus. Whistling and humming, all excited. I smiled to myself, thinking about the possibility of a baby on the way. And I walked up the stairs, and the bustling of other the students walking past me felt so... what is that feeling when you're in college? You're full of hope or something. And I guess I had extra hope that day.

I get to the classroom, my Existentialism class, remember? You would know that if you've been reading from the bottom up.

But it's this stupid grad student! Ug! Where's Dr. Solomon? He makes people look so stupid!

Well, this grad student just had nothing. He went on and on for an hour about it though. There was nothing at all in what he said, just a bunch of verbs and syllables but it had been a clear day when I walked in there. He was so impressed with himself about his proof that there was no God and he was really really happy about how certain he was and I think he shouldn't have been so happy about it because it was gonna take a miracle to clear up that acne of his.

Fairy Tale Real Time

2009-07-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

"Fusion, not fission," he corrected me, and he smiled when he said this, and he put his fingers together. All the fingers together, from both hands, at the fingertips they met, as if that would explain it.

And the reason he smiled was because "It is a common misconception." Although he didn't say it like that. He said it some other way but it was the same basic message. He was definately amused by the number of people who had that misconception about fusion and fission.

Man he really was a Physics nerd! Maybe I should have appreciated that more.

But I couldn't! I couldn't appreciate that! I had gained like twenty pounds and didn't look hot anymore! And I could tell by the look in his eye that I didn't.

He had sort of twinkly eyes. No! He had a twinkle in his eye. And his eyes were almost black. And her eyes are a lot like his.

Oh wait! I know! I was gonna tell you about that day in the classroom, the day I found out! Ok Ok I'll tell you that next, I promise.

Fairy Tale Real Time

2009-07-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

The soap had a real strong smell. That shower was hot! We had been talking that morning, all morning, Mark and I. We were pretty excited. And the soap smelled stronger than any soap smell since or before. I can still smell it. We had been talking in the living room, babbling excitedly. We were crazy about each other, and now with me being late and all, we were just going to have to speed it up, that's all.

So I went to the clinic, and in those days it took a lot longer to find out the results. I don't know if I knew the results yet upon walking into class that day, but I do know it was a bright blue sky, and I was happy. I might even have been whistling.

But my professor, Dr. Solomon, the one who had been making me think all those great new thoughts for the first time, the ones I can't remember now, he wasn't there that day. Instead it was some pimply faced grad student.

I wonder if he would realize I was talking about him, if he read this blog. I bet he remembers this too. I bet everyone in that classroom remembers. I bet everyone in there's life changed that day. Not just mine.

Fairy Tale

2009-07-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

The day I found out I was pregnant something really strange happened.

First of all, that's when I sort of realized what had been going on around there. Mark was just sort of a blur. A freckled blur. A nuclear physicist blur. He rode a motorcycle and wore a bandana and that's all I knew. But I did love to hear about physics.

He tried to explain it to me. He kept telling me about plasma.

"I thought plasma was blood," I said.

"No," he explained, and he always used his hands a lot when he explained. He spoke extra slow, as if I were too stupid to understand. And I don't see where the hand gestures were going to help me any to understand when the term "plasma" was going to be used to explain something with atoms and electrons and neutrons. And then he threw in the word "fission." That really made it hard. But in the end I suppose I got it. That he was working on the project of fusing atoms rather than splitting them. It was something he said the sun could do. It sounded to me like something only God could do. Which I suppose explains the time in a half delusional state I heard him say he was God.

And speaking of God, that's exactly what the wierd story is about that I was going to tell you that happened the day I found out I was pregnant.

Fairy Tale

2009-07-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Look I know what you're thinking, but those weren't my dirty dishes. That's not what he was mad about, it couldn't possibly be.

And I know I said something about it because I kept telling Mark I felt like we were his maid and his butler. That's real clear. I said that for sure.

"I feel like we're his maid and his butler!"

Because I couldn't stand the sight of that gross food all over the sink and I didn't like cockroaches scurrying out of the sink everytime I went into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a drink of water... wait, they scurried back into the sink. As soon as the light went on. Yuck!!!

And I was so nauseated all the time. I felt like throwing up everytime I heard certain songs that reminded me of that time for years. Thank God I don't remember what those songs are today!

So we moved. We got an apartment on the other side of town. Way on the other side. As far away from Mark as we could get. And that's the apartment I lived in when I had the baby.

Fairy Tale

2009-07-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

It was impossible. It was ridiculous. And Mark and Mark got into a big fight over it.

"You're wife," Mark shouted... and I don't remember the rest of what he said, but it made Mark's face, the other one, not the one who was shouting, turn red. Beet red! And when Mark's face turned red it matched his hair, which was pretty red too. And it made his freckles stand out. And I know that he was called Bozo The Clown by his classmates when he was in elementary school. I think maybe even in highschool.

He used to keep his hair very long. I thought it was because he wanted to be a hippie and wear a bandana and ride a motorcycle but it turned out he was disguising his Bozo The Clown look. If he wore his hair short it curled up real bad and stood up high on his head. As it was he looked red and angry and flustered but imagine what he would have looked like if his hair had stood up another two feet on top of his head.

And I don't know what he said. I guess he was defending me. But I could tell he was embarrassed about it, sort of like how he was embarrassed to walk around with me if I was smoking while pregnant.

And he stood there across the counter which was covered with dirty dishes and pans and old food and crock pots and probably a pizza left in the oven straight on the rack.

And I have no idea what he was so mad about.

Fairy Tale

2009-07-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

I wish I could remember what some of those thoughts were. They seem dark now, a little tinged with nausea and dull white walls. But I imagine then they were just shady, just dark like in the shade under those thick Austin Trees. What were they, those Texas trees. I can't remember a single one of them. But they must have been there a long time, because they were all gnarled and twisty, real climbing trees. You could get lost in them.

I remember that stew I tried to make in a crock pot. I was going to be all housewife, like my mom. You know, spices and everything, and slow cooking potatoes? But there were maggots in the paprika. And cockroaches came scurrying out of the garbage disposal, and climbed through the dried on food on the stack of dirty dishes, most of which were left there by my roomate Mark. It's not supposed to be like that when you're a housewife. The sink is all clean, and there's a big beautiful dark green lawn, shaded by the Maple tree with the old rope swing.

See, I remembered the name of that kind of tree.

Fairy Tale

2009-05-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

I had always wanted to take that class. I wish I could remember what that professor said that day. I walked out of their thinking a lot of thoughts for the first time.

I probably went to that museum and wandered around, the one with the greek statues. I might have gone over to that one coffee shop. I used to love to go there. I would sit there and drink coffee and read. And stare out at the rain sometimes. It rains a lot in Austin.

And it gets so green there when it rains. I can hear the rain on the leaves, it's a soothing sound. Like a muffled patter. Is it Austin that's called the ree city? Eeore's birthday?

"I don't want people to see my pregnant wife smoking."

Imagine how that must look.

And what was that pink maternity shirt I had.

He was so embarrassed about that. It was evening. We were walking across the red bricks of the campus. It wasn't raining.

But that's later.

Why do memories come like that, in unrelated sequences. Unrelated in time, or logic, or even association.

I bet it's cause they're stored near another memory. I bet it's a physiological thing.

Fairy Tale

2009-05-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to say this, but leering was cool with me. I liked it, I took it as a compliment. But that's what it was. Leering.

Like the leering you see in a bus station.

The guy who was to be my roomate, he leered in a comedic way. It was a drunken, and amused leer. Come to think of it, that guy was real funny. Mark was also his name. He had a blonde shape on his head that had made up it's mind to be hair. He cooked pizzas in the oven straight on the rack. I later realized this is actually what the instructions say on the box, so it's not like he was wrong about it or anything.

My room was off to the left, past the living room. I could shut the door, shut reality out in there. There was a shower in there, and a bathroom. It was nice to have that in there. I didn't have a bathroom in my room at Eliza's. She did. And man it was nice too, decorated with candles and mirrors and pictures and scents and sof fabric wall hangings, just like the rest of her house.

I was better off there. I should have managed to make it work there, not piss her off, she was nice, she kept that place really clean. I should have helped her clean. I should have listened to her. I should have taken those meetings she dragged me to seriously. I shouldn't have eaten the Doritos.

But wait! That's crazy. I have the right to eat Doritos.

There was a tree right outside my new bedroom window that seemed to shine bright green for my day, like it was all new hope and opportunity.

I signed up for a couple classes. Existentialism, with Dr. Solomon.

He blew me away in that first class. He was like Aristotle in there. He asked questions till the student felt his face go hot from his own stupidity. My dad would have liked that.

Fairy Tale

2009-04-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

I know it was Clay that picked me and my things up in his blue pick up truck. Clay Cormack. Him, his truck, and his "When are you gonna grow up" smile. And that smile lay under his, "I'm all growd up"mustache.

"Aren't you going to get your mattress?" he smiled.

"Nah," I said. I think that's what I said. That or I said, "What do you mean, you already tossed it into the back?"

I knew that mattress wasn't the first one. I'd picked up several off of front terraces since the first time he'd suggested it. What the hell did I need to buy a mattress for?

Man, life was easy.

"Pull in here, I guess this must be the address. Let me double check. 2o24 Blackbird Lane. I bet I'll like it here. I like blackbirds. To say nothing of that song by the Beatles."

It was toward evening. Clay said he'd wait in the truck. He must have. Otherwise he'd probly have said "You see those three guys leering at you? I'd rather you move in with me than have you move in there!"

I remember walking up the drive. It was kind of balmy in the evening, the sun setting, and I thought I was in Hawaii. They had great bud there.

I remember the porch door. Creaky, noisey, with a tendency to slam.

Bang!

"Hi!" I'm sure that's what I said. With a big smile and an extended hand. You're all big smiles and extended hands when You're 20. Especially 24. What am I saying! I mean 22.

And there they stood. Three leering men. The long haired red head with the bandana in the middle. But he wasn't wearing it that day.

"Hi," they all leered.

Fairy Tale

2009-04-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'd only had a couple roommates ever before, but it seemed like I'd been thrown out by dozens of them. It was always something. Like that one named Karen. She complained about everything I did! She complained that I used her skillet. She complained that when she was staying at her home in Houston I slept in her bed.

I remember that. I had this feeling of luxury, like when you're at a hotel, of being able to sleep in whichever bed you wanted to. And of course I picked hers because... actually I don't know why I picked hers. But it really pissed her off.

But you know when she interviewed me about being her roommate in the first place she didn't ask me any of those kinds of questions. She only asked me what my favorite band was.

"Led Zepplin? You're in!"

But me and Eliza, we'd been getting along pretty good for a long time. It seemed like a year. And I really cared about her.

I wish I could remember her last name now. I would look her up on facebook.

She was a chef. She had a catering business, and a cleaning business. She was a go getter, and she made the most delicious noodle salad I ever tasted.

"You just add raman noodles, tuna, and mayonaise! Like a sandwich, but with raman noodles," she said. I still make it to this day.

Mark used to eat raw raman noodles. It was his way of eating when he had no money. He told me about it with a smile on his red headed freckled nuclear physicist face. Wait a minute. Was that him? Yea, I think that was him did that. Either him or Scott. Nah, it was him.

Fairy Tale

2009-04-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

See, I used to leave coffee cups all over the counter. I used to use too many spoons. Then one day she took out a coffee cup. It was black. And she held out a spoon. She stood there in the nice kitchen with the picnic bench holding the spoon out and waving it in the air.

"Janey Lou," she said, "you are going to start using just one cup and one spoon. You are not going to get a new spoon and a new cup every time you make a cup of coffee any more. See? And then the counter won't be covered with coffee cups and spoons and, we will have clean spoons when we need them!"

And she smiled when she said all this.

Of course! It made perfect sense. And I really changed my ways on those coffee cups. Before that I'd just been using them willy nilly, leaving them everywhere. I didn't even know I was doing this.

And I made a permanent change on this. Do they have spell check on these blogs?

Anyway, no longer did I leave out this atrocious number of coffee cups and spoons.

And there were other changes as well.

For example she said to me one day, "Do you realize that everywhere you go you bring three things with you? Literally. I've seen you. If you just get up to go from the living room to the kitchen you bring all three of those things. Your coffee cup. Your tray. And that disgusting thing full of water. Do you know how dirty that thing is? I clean it every morning and by the afternoon it's water is filthy!"

It never even occurred to me to say, "Wow! You clean that thing for me?"

"I have to! I can't stand the way it looks, or smells. Nothing worse than dirty bong water!"

Fairy Tale

2009-04-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

"I am so sick of you eating bag after bag of those! You eat two giant bags of those a day! What are those, economy size bags?"

She was really screaming!

I know she was, because if she had been talking in a normal voice, standing as far away from me as she stood, there in the middle of that beautiful living room of hers with the candles and the mirrors and the soft nature colors and wall hangings, I wouldn't have been able to hear her over the crunching.

"And you never gain a pound!" And she held her fist in the air! It wasn't a chubby fist. I suppose she had a couple extra pounds on her frame than she needed, that's all. What was the big deal? ANd she didn't look bad really. She took care of herself, just like she did her house. Her long brown hair was always nicely curled, she wore green and red festive sweaters with little decorations on them. And she didn't look girly girl either. I can't stand girly girl.

It was too bad really. Nobody had ever done more to help me than Eliza. And I really liked living there. And all over a bag of Cheetos! I mean Doritos.

Fairy Tale

2009-04-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

It all started over a bag of Cheetos.

Around August, it must have been. August, 1987...

Or maybe it could have been a bag of Doritos. Anyway she was mad because she said, "I'm trying to lose weight! Stop eating those Doritos!"

I stood halfway up the stairs. They were a brown stairs, brown, because of the color of the carpeting. Or tan. Maybe they were tan.

And my hand, it was gripping a black railing. I don't know if it was iron. I never know those types of things. Metals.

"Are you crazy?" I asked her, point blank. "You are trying to lose weight so I have to stop eating Doritos?"

And she didn't even really need to lose weight.