Wasp-town Massacre or Spark

Oh the horror.

In my petit jardin (little garden ), I host a snapshot of the natural world.. co-existing.. thriving. The toads. The moles. The American House Sparrow (according to the bird book). The Morning Doves (SAVE THEM! Stop the shooting, they love).
And the WASPS. As someone* recently informed me, I was home to at least 100 or 1000 (not so good in the number memory) wasps. The wasps resided in several dwellings (they sorta went condo) in and around my maison. One hive resided on the front of my house. Another duplex could be found on the outside of my fence. And three or four residences were found to be in my outside light fixture. Which incidentally does not seem to be working.

We/I know they are wasps, because they have this spindly legs that sort of drag when the fly. They are persistent.
They can't swim worth shit (keep drowning themselves in the kitty water bowl) and they scare people. One would think that given my kinda princessy-nature that this Kennedy-like Wasp-Compound (except they're Wasps, not Catholic) habitating in my front yard would work me up. Throw me into a tizzy. The House of Representatives throws me into a tizzy. The fundamentalist right throws me into a tizzy (I've just come to terms wit the fact that I'm a religiousist... sorta like racist, but a little more broad and a lot more narrow). The wasps, do not throw me into a tizzy. We co-exist. I sun. They sun. I read outside. They fly outside. I work in the garden. They eat the garden. It's all fine.

It is not fine however for the friends.. for the students. People, including my cute little paper boy (Red.. I don't know his name. but he has red hair) run in fear of the wasps. They, (the people not the wasps) contort their bodies in order to avoid being in the same air space. Haven't these people been on subways before? Space is meant to be shared. That's why I live alone. sheesh.

So as the Wasp problem escalates, I happenstance upon this spark. This spark, whose trade is of an inutitive nature, also seems to find joy in the definitive. The pragmatic. The kill. I --am lover of the creature. Cannot kill a bug unless it's hurting me directly. For example, I cannnot kill a spider--I've been told I walk with Spider (my animal soul). And like many, I have read Charlotte's Web, thus I highly doubt one could kill a spider and not see her weaving her web which would read, 'Don't kill me, I'm kind'. I cannot kill something. But I do get somewhat turned on by people who can. A conundrum? A contradiction. Not really. I'm like dependently independent.. if you know what I mean.

So, Spark comes over for the kill. He wears one black glove, and a Lavender shirt-tight and fitted. A disguise? Camoflauge?
Well.. maybe more for the East Village, but it works(ed) pour moi. mmh. I felt safe. Screw Brinks, Spark is greater security,
and at this point doesn't charge a monthly fee.

I give him the kill-foam, and I go inside. I ask him if he believes in Karma. Not a good question as he is about ready to
destroy a generation and future generations of wasps. I'm reminded of this quote,

We all enter through the same door, but live in different cells.

Why I thought of this I'm not sure. It could've just been literal as Spark walked, well-sorta ran to my door following the foaming. Or perhaps, I was hoping however that this evening his cell would be my cell. Back to the wasps. He kills all (lickety split) three condos and enters; out of breath, a little exhilarated and ready to rumble. Or receive payment..

I know the wasps had to go. They were just one more obstacle, contributing factor to my life/ alone. I can just hear 'em (people not wasps), "She's got neurotic cats and a village of wasps, too! And she eats organic!"

Sharing space is fragile and requires more than just co-existing. I mean, you can't let somebody in with too much stuff flying around. People won't want to come over if they just don't feel safe. I know this.

I never have understood that to maintain one life one often has to end somebody else's... the horror.

*someone =Spark

Sex In Ypsilanti

My hairstylist, Dwight, a dashing-like diva, alters my hair color to match the ever-chameleon-like Sara Jessica Parker. I’m fine with it. Prior to her Sex in the City days, I had often been compared to her. Her roles in Square Pegs and the Broadway show Sylvia, where she played a singing dog, were the most frequent comparisons (for those of you who are not on top of my theatrical past, I played mostly talking animals until about age 24-25ish). To compliment, not so long ago, I was referred to as Sex in Ypsilanti. I asked myself, “Am I sex.. in Ypsilanti?” . Do I personify it? Am I the urbane among the mundane?”
Regardless of the precise connotation, there is sex in Ypsilanti.
And there are stories to tell, a story to tell.

So, we met amid politics and pomp. The circumstance, was a friendraising event, I hosted at my house. He is a friend of a friend, whose work was in politics and whose life and family was born and bred here. My first experience with a townie, well, second.. okay.. third. But this one had potential and possibility at least in the public arena. Both of us like the spotlight, believed in the power of people (not necessarily a person) to transform the world, and he was pretty. My students called him One Life to Live or General Hospital. Their connation being that he looked like he walked off the set of a soap opera. Little did I know how much drama he was capable of producing.

I should always be wary of pretty. I know this .. I have lived the effects of pretty. You cannot mix pretty with ethnic.. you cannot mix pretty with someone who, though- I clean up well, doesn’t live the life of pretty. If you are pretty, you don’t have to work at it (i.e. no need to brush the hair, waxing, chemical peel etc.). Once, I watched him get ready for the day, a little face moisturizer, and just pressed clothes-- he just slipped into them, like Superfly.. ease, style, sparkle and confidence. I might hate him.. if I was a consumer of it.

The sex, was certainly not city like and certainly slow going. He was chivalry-I guess except, that I led, moved first, opened the doors, did the driving.. la la la.

As much pain and disappointment .. I have been through; I still slurp up hope like it’s water. Like I’ve never tasted it before.. seen it before. And when you’re in Ypsilanti and the buzz is that a coffeeshop opened up; hope in the form of someone who is connected to the world beyond is too good to pass up.
Translation. I am a sucka in …short skirts.

Fast forward.. some months of hanging and laughing and sharing a little of our lives. Late night lattes and early morning political events mixed well. But the mix was rarely stirred.. and following an evening at Bill Maar-where he didn’t even chuckle at jokes about the conservative onslaught towards human rights issues such gay rights and reproductive rights, I knew that the days with the townie in his Crossfire were numbered.

Friends .. maybe lovers .. still.. we leave for the Thanksgiving Break. He talks about how he is too selfish to be in any relationship, needs to work on his career, we still make a night of it, (translation ..dumb girl.. me.), and I leave at 4am .. he calls , ‘you get in okay?’. He leaves for the East coast, I return home more to the middle (still a state of blue), and upon our return I never hear from him again. He refuses to return my calls.. emails.. la la la.

Fast forward—March. I hear he is engaged. This is soon after I pass him running—I’m amazed he has carved out a path to run here. I have yet to do this. It’s hard to figure out where to run;. mostly street, not enough sidewalk.
Treacherous.

Fast forward- July. I ‘m showering, and the TV is on.. I hear a voice.. it’s familiar. I get out of the shower and go watch the TV, and he is there w/ his fiancé. They are one of four finalists for an all expense-paid wedding given by the Today show. For closure and clarity, I needed to go online in order to figure out the transition from ethnicity (c’est moi) to home-town girl. It’s amazing that one can share such a story with thousands, but not to a person it may more directly affect.
It must be easier for many to be public rather than private. Privacy requires honesty, in the public it is much easier to lie.

He didn’t win (and not because my ‘students’ crafted a state-wide campaign, to vote for another couple), and he couldn’t have been more disconcerting and uncomfortable. I hear that the camera adds ten pounds, it most also add some truth. If you aren’t honest, the closeup, can ruin you.

COMING SOON – SPARKS INTO FIRE, a tryst, a tale and some truths
or Wasp-town Massacre

Goody Goody Goes to Court

Abstract – A relatively young professor finds herself in civil court. Due to circumstances, completely within her control, the young professor wrestles with the action that summoned her into a world she would’ve preferred to have participated in, but only on the stage.

Many of you (mother & family excluded) know I was being sued. Let’s break down the story.

Student (will call him T) who I have known for 4-plus years finds himself hitting rock bottom. Laid off from work (not fired), unable to pay for school, his car hits an unmarked city construction site. The oil pan will need to be replaced. I don’t even know what that is, and all I know is that it’s pricey. T does not have a credit card, nor good credit, nor a parent, a relative, a relative of a relative who could assist him. T is attempting to get the funds from the city to pay for car as it is their fault. (They of course say it’s the contractor fault, the contractor the city)
The impending result- Bank of Decky.

Had this incident above occurred about a week or so earlier I would’ve sent them to my mechanic. Many of you have had the pleasure of meeting and kibitzing with my mechanics. You also may know that I’m known among them, as Catgirl. After ‘saving/taking/helping/feeding/fostering tons and tons of cats kitty corner to my mechanics, we became great friends. They, too are lovers of animals. They have or had a host of ferrets, and a duck couple that returned every spring. Humanists.

The week before the student and oil pan incident, another student, a single mother could not afford to have her car (power steering) fixed. Like many students and friends’ prior, I sent her to my mechanic. In sending this student, I had a 'cultural-awareness' lapse, and thus caused her great discomfort.

Unfortunately, my beloved mechanics, the ones who captured a live crow in my house, helped me get a 40 ft. ladder so I could rescue Uno (my cat) from a tree after 17 hours, who bought my car so I could lease a better one, they (my mechanics) do not appear to like people whose melanin matches the color of night. My mechanic said to me “We don’t need people like that here. Jessica”. It seems that Hate is not a friend to informalities.. as Catgirl became Jessica, and Jessica remembered where she lived. Mid-America, 48197 or 98.

The mechanic, where the student above and T ended up were friends of another student, and thus I thought it was safe. The car fixed, sat there for weeks as T tried to negotiate with the city. I called the mechanic and asked him to make a deal. Why did I not empower T to do this? This is where this gets tricky. The following are several reasons/rationales/excuses for my actions:

• Knowing how the last student of color was treated by a mechanic I was nervous and felt I could advocate better for him
• I’m an enabler
• I’m more of a yes or sure woman vs. a no woman.
• It was Xmas
• I wanted to see if my credit limit could increase; I wanted air miles
• How could I not? I am beyond privileged and lucky and have friends and relatives and relatives of relatives who could make sure my oil pan was fixed so I could be in home in time, for X-mas.

The deal. Pay 1/2 with a credit card and then post-date a check for January 31st for the rest. My thought on this: T would get a job, pay it off and/or he would reconcile with the city.

January comes. T had no job and had not reconciled with the city. I call the mechanic, they inform me that they cannot find my check, I call again .. it’s now February.. they cannot find it. I cancel it and do not write them another one. At this time, T has a job ironically at the City, and will hopefully be able to pay off this debt. And no, I haven’t seen a dime.

In March the mechanic find the check and process it. It’s returned, and they call me. I call T, and inform him .. it’s his car he need to take care of it. He writes them a bad check. They get mad and sue.. me. Not him.. mind you. .me.

First thing, after being summoned – I call T, and yell like I have never yelled before .. words like integrity.. disappointment, and statistically proven statements like “ there is a reason Black males have the lowest college retention rate. You can’t balance day and night let alone your check book. You are a walking statistic. Get your shit together”, or something like that. It was drama .. simulcast.. over and over and over again. When does a person become the result of their own history, their own trials and not result of the history they inherited? This is the conundrum. The sadness. Back to court .

Mediation, early June, 9am – Noon. A mess! Should not have worn the black halter, I know this now. Should not have brought the book, Cultivating Humanity by Nussman to peruse and highlight, know this now. Did contact a lawyer, who is actually an Ann Arbor City Council man and the Deputy mayor.. homey don’t play.. who basically said, “You cannot be sued for somebody’s else’s debt.” (this should be of great relief to my mother in regards to myself). Though there is nothing legally binding me to the car, to the work on the car-the mechanic refused to dismiss the charges and now were off to court and the magistrate- date to be set later

Court date- July 20th – 9am. Foremost, I received nothing .. NOTHING in the mail telling me of the court date. I had to call a friend, who works for the Clerk’s office and then I had to call the court, which informed me they had sent me out a letter. I asked them to resend. NOTHING. I arrived, wearing a flower-type cotton skirt, my Tommy H dark brown sandal/shoes and a brown shirt. My hair was pulled back. Though encouraged to wear black or navy blue (in the summer?!)
I declined. However, I did get a pedicure the day before, in case things went South. I brought no book, just some grading.

While waiting I met Henrietta, who I envisioned would be good to have on my side if ever there were cell territory issues. She wanted to talk, to unload and did… briefly. She told me she shouldn’t even be here, just wanted to keep her self out of jail (in civil court?!) something about her moving to Tennessee and then being here but not having Michigan registration and her friend who was smoking mar-I-juan-a (as if it was some unknown substance) in her car.. not her though. She doesn’t do drugs, but when the got pulled over .. it was her not her friend that got in trouble ..she’s here because she missed an earlier court date because she was at another court dealing with something else.

I went into court and following Henrietta’s plea for leniency she was granted another trial. They called my name and then the company suing me. I said my name, and then they asked for the company; the company never showed case dismissed without prejudice (their words).

Like the prior weight loss-by-default plans (the food poisoning, identity theft, house purchase, dog mauling) this court event served me well. I once again fit into my summer wear, and all is just in the world.

On the Cusp

If my dad, had cut out the fried food, his 2-pack-a-day pleasure, the 1/2 of a cup of sugar he added to his coffee and the years and years of loving hard, partying hard, and lying hard, he would be 63 years old, today.

I’m thinking he would’ve read the DaVinci Code before it became a best-seller, voted for Dean and then Kerry, would’ve call Bush something like, ‘a fucker’ or a mean mother-fucker’ or a combination of the two, would’ve been on disability, and of course still weaving tales of the life Colonel Alexander's treks in ‘Nam specifically Saigon, and the Tet Offensive, which he proudly, yet uncomfortably and emotionally struggled with.

If he were here today, I’d tell him that heat..helps heal. Muscles. The Mind. When it’s hot, I don’t think as much, I just am. (I do think about my hair and degree of frizz forming though).

I’d also tell my dad that promises and regrets are what fills souls. Without them, I would guess one is most empty, or at least sensing ‘ the missing of something’. My dad had severe colon problems (okay, Crones), and I’m thinking it was less disease and more the pain of promises unfilled. Steroids can’t fix that shit, just make you puffy and mask the truth.

My promise and my regret.

I told my dad, as he lay dying, whispered in his ear actually, not to worry about Nicky (my half-brother) that I would make sure he was taken care of and safe. He could leave the world. I was 30 years old. Nick was 8 or 9. Sadly, I know Nicky’s life only in reference to my own. If I was 30, he must be 8.

I was 19, and living in NYC when my dad informed me that his 2nd wife and he were having a child. My response was, now romanticized, “ Didn’t you have a vasectomy?! And are you going to pay for him with the child support you still owe mom?”. This account has been mildly altered--with only the first part being somewhat true. He informed me that a vasectomy could be reversed (I recall this being a little to much for my sexually tepid self to handle—I was into the Muppets, not envisioning, my father in positions of procreation.) and so he and his 2nd wife had a child in July when I was a senior in college.

A slight diversion –when he told me (my brother Peter and I) he was marrying someone (his secretary 20 years younger) my response (of course heightened for literary effect) was, “It’s like marrying the summer girl!” The summer girl, was perhaps still is, a mainstay of the upper-middle class world in north Chicago, where young women from Wisconsin and Michigan came to live and dream close to Chicago. Their job was to take care of the children while the Mothers’..worked? Swam? Hung out? Ellen, the woman my father married and the mother of Nicky, my half-21-years-younger-than-I-am brother or from his perspective, the girl who never calls or write, but lives 2 hours away, was like many of the Summer Girls: pretty. young, thin, tall, blonde, a partier, and someone who either liked motorcycles, had you drink beer, but told you it was iced tea, liked the Doobie brothers over Disco, and/or came from a military family. A Chicksa. And soon, my dad’s wife.

The promise and the regret.

So, I promised my dad that I would make sure Nicky was taken care. At the time, his x-second wife (Ellen) was in prison (not jail) for shooting out someone’s tires or something except that she was sauced, and it was a government-issued gun (she worked for the CIA). The Commonwealth of Virginia. where they all lived was relentless and she had to make a deal. So, Nicky I guess lost both parents within 4 months. One temporarily, one permanent.

He went to live with his mother’s boyfriend (my father felt him to be a good guy) in Michigan and waited there for his mother’s return. We talked sporadically, a couple phone calls, a letter or two.

Me, the queen of outreach, feline saver, could not reach for her own brother. It’s easier to love and/or save those who you don’t feel responsible for, and where the reach often results in reward or accolade. “You’re amazing, you shouldn’t help all those people!” “ I know,“ I could humbly respond.

Nicky symbolized time with my dad that Peter nor I ever had. He was the result of what I felt to be, rejection of my dad’s first life, he didn’t/doesn’t look like my dad, my brother or I. He was/is the opposite of all three of us (introvert to our extrovert). He’s mathematical and scientific (which I guess my dad sorta was), and which my brother and I are so.. not. And he’s 21 years younger than I, and though perhaps I was not a sexual patriot at that age, he technically could be my child. (Though, I’m slow…I mean I just joined a credit union and bought (on credit..) a couch. It’s red. So, maybe not my child .. but plausibly)

It’s funny; now that my dad has gone and passed, I sometimes think/feel he is more part of my life. I talk to him more, sense he is watching or concerned about me, and throwing some crazy-ass situations and people into my life so he could watch the sparks. An example. for the last year, my intestines have been on a wild ride. They are either allowing the contents to pass or holding on to them for safekeeping. In extremes and nothing in between. It’s like my Dad is talking to me through my body, and with my mind a little broken and my heart quite closed-where is there to go, but through the colon? eh?

I wrote a letter to Nicky a couple weeks ago and he wrote me back a couple weeks later. The letter was more surprising than I could’ve ever conceptualized. mIt wasn’t this gush fest, it simply was a letter from a complex, intellectually fascinating, funny, sarcastic, and a deep person. The letter was a brief synopsis of his birthday and why it wasn’t so great, a birthday gift that broke, an Air show that wasn’t so dynamite and a rant (his word) on why it was so lame and he could not suspend his disbelief.

This week prior to my dad’s birthday was also filled with me being sued and having to go to court for the second time (more on this later), and the meeting of a woman there named Henrietta who just wants to say out of jail, a recent relationship which never found closure (not my choice) now being publicly played out (or rather the individual is now engaged to someone else and competing for an all-expense paid wedding on the Today-more on this later, too.), the devastating break up of two of my students, students who are less students and much more family, and a wandering around the streets of Ann Arbor with.. a spark.

My dad was born on the cusp, he was also ambidextrous (like I) and I always felt this was just why he was.. fucked. He was always in between many worlds - responsibility and rebellion, love and lust, warm and cold.. present and past.

My dad – trying to live in liminality, in the spaces in between of what was and what could or should be – my dad ever present, made a lot of promises, and told my brother he had no regrets. I don’t think my insides, intestines, colon and all could live that life.

On love deferred

The first time I had my furnace serviced I wondered if would I fall in love.

A friend of mine’s ex-fiancé, shortly after their breakup, had some plumbing issues and so called in a plumber; her pipes fixed, they married soon after. She teaches Rhetoric, and he fixes valves. She also seems to like Sangria morning, noon and night, but that’s another story.

Greg is both my heating AND cooling man; never have been much of a swinger. After my air stopped working (I must note that I’m not an air person, fire sign ya know, but when the air stops moving, I’m grateful that I am able to afford –and it is afford-to make it move.) Greg arrived. He quickly inquired about my filter, and asked me why I hadn’t changed it. I responded that I thought that the filter was for heating not for cooling. Greg told me the furnace was for both heating and cooling. With a name like furnace (emphasis on fur) it cools? I don’t get it.

Here is what I know about Greg. He has a lead foot. He goes up north during hunting season, but doesn’t really hunt, but still hangs out with guys, He brings his own bottled water to drink. He laughed, not when I didn’t know where the Fuse Box was, nor when I used a watering can in an attempt to clean out the compressor, but when I joked, “I really probably shouldn’t own a house”. He also likes flowers and thinks my Gerber Daisies will grow, but I really have to water and water and water them. Greg is fire, air and water. And married.

Love did not arrive with the Brinks man, UPS guy, the Plumber (he scratched the porcelain), Comcast (think he had a tether), Paper Boy (though..), or the Jehovah’s Witness (I informed him that unless he paid his association fee he would have to proselytize elsewhere). mmph.

Love has just not arrived at my door, or around the corner or even when I sleep. Some days, like Sundays after I read the New York Times’ Weddings Pages attempting to decipher the many paths towards love, unity and equality, I become sanguine. Melancholy. Resolved that love is my dream deferred. Love-capital L, I mean. Adding to this, my second-to-the-last girlfriend of Divorced parents, recently married. Granted it was to an Israeli and he’s really tall, but still.
The scarlet letter, “D”- children of divorce-their either the first to love or the last.

I love chance. I love constructing meaning where there is probably none. Yesterday, I made up a game at a store which was selling ol’ school CD’s. I closed my eyes, picked a random CD, and announced, that ‘..this is my life’s meaning today!'
My first CD – New Flame
My second CD – Stella Got her Groove Back, the Soundtrack

You can’t make this shit up.

Mary, friend, x-student, having recently broken up with her girlfriend, picked up ‘Tricky’.

Part of my struggle is that when I feel a flutter, I just want to fly (particularly when it’s hot and I’m heated, and the air isn’t moving).

What to do with the sparks…the flutters? A most recent flutter, a friend of a friend, whom I had hung out with, and even somewhat conversed with prior, was telling me the origin of his name. His name means, sandalwood, and what immediately passed through my mind, was, ‘Well if we ever went out I think it would be cool to find him something that is sandalwood”. Perhaps, I have been watching too many TLC Dating Stories, where they recommend bringing the gift to the first date, true, true. But I’d like to believe that the above was a moment to capture. To satiate on a little; the subconscious swimming to the surface for breath.

The Secular Messiah

So, it was this article on this new opera about Walter Benajamin, that German-Jewish (never .. Jewish-German; hence the problem) Philosopher combined with an early morning walk w/ my cat (weight issues, she has been comfort eating for years and I perpetuate her need for comfort by giving her the food) , and the check out of this neighbor (he was doing the checking I was doing reading and walking). The neighbor, I sense watches Nascar (not that there is anything wrong, well, really wrong with that), cuts his own hair, and bums smokes off of others, which he eventually did. As he stretched and re-stretched his leg (a mating call? is this stretching something new? I was confused), I was slightly hoping he would come over to me and ask me what I was doing so I could tell him,

"Well, I'm walking my overweight kitty so she can re-determine territory, figure out her place or her replace and I am reading an article on a new opera about Walter Benjamin, who though able to see and taste freedom from Nazi Germany in France, was denied and thus committed suicide. They call him in some circles a secular messiah because of his desire, I think to 'save' many from the drowning in a sea of fundamental absoulutism, the threat to art as progress, to art as hope, to art as healer, to art as change. (my somewhat uninformed take on his work).... What are you doing?".

Educator or assimilator? Pioneer or Albatross? Savior or saver? Lonely or alone?

Welcome to my blog, as I attempt to get a little more out of my head/heart, move to DSL perhaps, and deal with the parentheticals, the diversions and hopefully create some art, some dialogue & find some love in the process.