mulling over where to put my vaginas

1. In trying not to get too far away from my blog, I present this post.

2. Ogunquit, Maine. Halloween decor:

I call him “Dashing Charlie”

3. Monday is the day I found a dead rabbit in the side yard, a part of our yard where none of us tend to go. I didn’t touch or disturb the body, but it looked large, an adult; and perfect. It seemed too big for the cat to have downed. Hubby moved it yesterday and indeed said it did not have any apparent marks or blood on it.

4. What do you think about the rabbit (multiple choice):

a. natural causes

b. zombie apocalypse coming just in time for Halloween

c. at least twice in the 13 years we’ve lived here, the cats have brought baby bunny tributes to the door. Their fur is always perfect and thick and beautiful.

d. sad, even haunting

e. where should one put such a large, dead animal?

5. Though not completely recovered from recent injuries, I am still here and much better. I am learning that setbacks are part of injury recovery. It’s not all I’M BETTER AND BACK TO NORMAL ACTIVITIES NOW, FULL OF VIBRANT GOOD HEALTH (FOR FUCK’S SAKE). It’s more like CRAP, I TRIED SOMETHING I USED TO BE ABLE TO DO, IT HURTS LIKE HELL, AND CAN’T DO JACK SHIT FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS.

JULY 2013

50th Birthday necklace, vintage

6. I know I talk about it all the time, but I have aged even more quickly due to my recent injuries (more rapid facial aging than from the last couple of years’ bouts with anemia). I offer the above photo as evidence. See the way I am not as present as usual, some part of me is withdrawn? That is the face of a body in chronic pain.

7. UGH

8. CRAP

9a. Though you think you know me well, the next item may overstep any previous TMI boundary.

9. As we were on our way out of Provincetown in late August (our two night, last hurrah of summer mad-dash to the Cape), I visited one of the public restrooms; you know, the one near the huge public parking lot in the town center. After I used the loo,

yes, that loo

I washed my hands and then cupped them to bring some water up to my mouth so I could gently rinse (see, TMI). I did so and spat in the sink. A woman (from New Jersey, mayhaps) standing near me said, barely audibly but definitely disapprovingly enough for my ears, REALLY?

Such a dare as that, how could I resist? So I said, very loudly: YES, REALLY!

New Jersey: That’s disgusting.

Me, Happy Valley: You’re disgusting.

or something like that. Let’s just say neither of us remembered our manners and the insults continued and heightened.

She “reported” me to the attendant and kept making quite the fuss even after I, head held high, exited the restroom.

The interaction was more in depth and lasted longer than what I have presented and I can’t remember much any more. Even immediately afterward, I couldn’t piece together the whole thing because I was shaken and stirred and triumphant and shocked and angry and embarrassed and righteous. L’il ol’ me, twinklysparkles, all of that, all rolled into one.

10. I really wish 40-something, overly-made-up women from New Jersey with big hair and clanky, not-inexpensive jewelry read my blog.

11. TRAGEDY STRIKES!

(some of you may have heard about this last week on Facebook)

All seven letters, perfect, ready for a 50-point bonus, but nowhere to place them on the board.

12. How would you feel if you didn’t have a place to put your vaginas?

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goddess

Recently spotted in Provincetown:

We drove past this sign in Provincetown last Monday on our Capril trip. We understood that it could not be a real traffic sign. The next street is a one-way and who can drive in a beehive pattern anyway? The next day, we drove past again and snapped some photos. That night I pondered and pondered the image in my mind’s eye. I figured it out. It is a woman; yes, a celebration of the feminine.

On our last day, on the way out of town, a woman outside the adjacent gallery said, yes, it is a woman, the Venus of Willendorf, to be exact.

Although I do have proper feet, I know just how she feels.

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Provincetown Mass: what’s not to love?

 The Red Inn, bayside, Provincetown, Mass

Last week, Hubby and I got to Provincetown BY OURSELVES for a couple of nights. It was sort of my birthday trip (July), sort of a belated anniversary trip (June), sort of a belated Hubby birthday trip (February).

Highlights included us not using our car for 2-and-half days. After we arrived at the Inn and parked, we used our commuter bikes to do whatever we needed, not hard considering how small Ptown is and how little was required of us. We biked up and down Commercial St. every day for coffee, the library, lunch, dinner. We biked to an ocean beach and walked in the Province Lands. The ocean side is only about 2 miles from The Red Inn which is on the tippy tip of the Bay side. It’s on the harbor, where the swimming is not so great, but where I find more sea glass than anywhere else on the Bay or the ocean. Any theories on this?.

There were 3 John Waters sightings (not unusual) but the great thing was this very snazzy blue blazer he was wearing. Maybe it had some sort of shiny dark blue fibers with a black slash pattern throughout. But it’s rude to stare so I can’t be sure.

Absolute highlight? Meeting William Sanderson and his wife at breakfast on our last day at the Inn.

William Sanderson, the amazing character actor who we all remember from Blade Runner and many other roles, but we’re not exactly sure which ones.

Hubby puts it best when he says that the reason you can’t remember Bill Sanderson in some roles is that he completely embodies his characters. He disappears into the role absolutely.

When I looked for a bio on Sanderson later in the day, I was amazed to find that he has a degree in law and that he was an army medic.

He’s a sharp one, that Bill Sanderson. He quoted Robert Frost and he got goosebumps when we told him we were from Amherst and that we’d recently visited the Emily Dickinson installation. His wife was also very friendly. I sure wish we could have talked to them some more.

I had a happy and funny interaction with the owner of Joe (whose name is Scott) about an unfortunate incident involving getting my favorite coffee-blended made. He was a peach and my coffee-blended, which I ordered from the beautiful man behind the counter (SO beautiful, I know his mama loves him), was fabulous.

Another highlight was our trip to Savory and Sweet Escapes on our way out-of-town on Thursday evening.

I have decided that the SWEET ESCAPE POMEGRANATE CHIP ICE CREAM ranks in the top 5 best ice cream experiences of my life. YOU MUST GO AND EAT THIS ICE CREAM!!! In the homemade waffle cone. Who cares if it is dripping all over your hands and legs when you are only halfway through? I don’t even like fruity ice cream. I don’t get ice cream in a cone most of the time. Unfuckingbelieveably amazing flavor. I’ll buy you one just to prove it to you, just tell me where to send the 5 bucks.

Though we are in a drought, it did rain in Ptown last Wednesday. We watched the storm roll in, lightening striking off in the distance, probably on the ocean side. The air cooled and the sky was beautiful.

I leave you now with the following song which is featured in the Wes Anderson flick Moonrise Kingdom (who among you remembers Music Monday?)

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twinkly on the Cape, June 30-July 7, 2012

Provincetown: a pair of little dogs in a pink doggie stroller being fed ice cream by their owner. Egregious behavior? Not until she licked from the same cone and then tried to force feed one of them when it roundly rejected the ice cream. Other details available, just ask.

Window at one of my favorite galleries. On my way to a body and hair like this? Time will tell.

3 flying seahorses grace the handles of the Lipton Cup in the Provincetown Library. The cup was awarded to the great sailing ship the Rosa Dorothea, a reproduction of which is on the 2nd floor. When I say reproduction, I mean half-size, 66 feet long. Part of it is lit in pink. A Cape Cod must-see.

living sculpture:

Advertising for a show, The Naked Boys, I think. After you walk past these guys night after night, it’s awfully hard not to pull that terrycloth down and see what’s going on under there. And such pretty legs. Dang.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Yes, this is the pool that I loved. High tide was often on either side of my poetry writing workshop. The Bay beaches lost a lot of shoreline a couple of years ago in a severe storm, so when the tide is high, there is just water next to a fence; this is why I jumped in the pool morning, noon, and night, naked when possible (also hot flashes are abundant ’round my these parts). I want to go back to the same house. I want to live in the pool.

The full moon last week. It makes me think of the nursery rhyme boys and girls come out to play, the moon doth shine as bright as day….I swear I’ve posted that song here somewhere, but I am too lazy to find it. Perhaps a video is in order?

4th of July, fireworks on the beach. This was a kick, fireworks dotting the shore as far as the eye could see with the closest large display in the harbor at Provincetown. The great thing was that everyone was happy and running around in the cool windy air. Beyond Ptown, on the ocean side, we could see lightening. What a night. Here you can see what someone was shooting off right next to us. Tide coming in, but look how wide the beach is still…

All the girls (lucky man, that Paul):

Back to Ptown: Hubby and my mom, in front of Puzzle Me This, the best store in the world for games and puzzles

a very bold woman or a lost extra from the set of Lord of the Rings:

This is from our last night in Provincetown. We want to laugh at first, but it’s not funny, you know. It reminds me of the Jacques Brel song about the sailors and the whores.

Can you imagine?

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one of those tiny errors that drive me nuts

First, Hallelujah, we have wi-fi from an unprotected network. As long as I sit on the upper deck of our house rental (from which I can see the ocean of Cape Cod Bay, can see the sand peeking through the water at low tide—even without my glasses—can feel breeze on my bare skin), I get reception.

BUT WAIT! I have now adjourned to the bedroom, on the same side of the house as the deck, and I have connectivity! No mosquitoes, just the sound of the bullfrogs from the huge pond below! This Cape gets better every minute!

I made a mistake in my recent post, thinking that the puzzle-head sculpture was in front of PAAM; as I was walking in town later in the day, I realized it was in front of one of the many galleries on Commercial Street. You know how I like to be accurate if at all possible, so I thought I’d let you know.

Here are two more photos of sculptures of heads, both of these from the excellent sculpture park, deCordova in Concord, Mass:

I don’t really know why I am putting these here now except that they are extremely cool works of art….

I have much more to share. Provincetown; my poetry; my poetry workshop; the amazingly cool, inspiring, fun, beautiful, poetic, art installation at the Emily Dickinson Museum, “Dwell in Possibility,” which we managed to sneak in on Friday before we left town for the Cape. I’ll give you a peek:

You know, this exhibit has been up for weeks and weeks and although I’d driven by parts of it a number of times, the family waited to see it until the day before it was to be taken down. BUT, oh, how worthwhile. So much to tell, so many poems to post….where to begin?

Internet is sketchy unless I’m on the deck and tho the moon be full and lo I want to write and post, I will retire for now. I think the poems I have been working on in the last little while of my life are good. I am getting better at editing.

Just know that I can see the flat ocean in the distance; it is close, not even a quarter mile down the slope

July is the month of my birth

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on hiatus, sort of

On hiatus, possibly, from blogging for the week. I can probably do quickie updates, but nothing too involved.

I am in Truro, Cape Cod for the week, no wi-fi at our house rental (WTF?) but a fabulous pool and less than a block from the ocean (bayside).

I have my new point-and-shoot camera with me (you all know the saga of my older point-and-shoot camera with a water-stained lens, right? See any photo I’ve taken and put here on my blog in the last year-and-a-half and you will probably notice); my new commuter bike and paneer; Hubby; daughters; one of their friends; and my mother.

I will be doing a poetry writing workshop with Dorianne Laux each day this week at the Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. I am excited and slightly scared, though these words do not adequately describe the subtleties of my actual emotional state in regards to the upcoming workshop. In any case, wish me well….

Speaking of sex toys, I have forgotten all of mine at home. Fortunately, Provincetown is a den of sin and I think there are at least 3 “sex” shops. The most embarrassing (to me) being Toys of Eros, whose window is smack dab on the main strip (Commercial Street) and generally features its white-torsoed manikins in bondage gear. All these years, I have tried to stay in conversation with the kids face-to-face as we pass. I don’t know what my worry or discomfort is; they’ve been coming up here for 12 years, same as me, and they’ve seen more drag queens and leather boys than I ever did until I was in my 40s.

In the absence of having uploaded any current photos, I give you some from April 2011. Or you can visit a couple of old posts about Cape Cod, here, here, and here.

sculpture in front of PAAM, Provincetown’s excellent art museum

just a little house/building, not too interesting, but I liked it enough to take this photo

That’s all folks, I’m outta gas and outta a desire to sit in this internet cafe/coffee shop (The Wired Puppy)

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Provincetown

Returned from Cape Cod last night with 4 teenage girls and my 77-year old mother in the aged mini-van. You can imagine that hi-jinks, hoots, and hollers were all part of the trip. That’s what I would imagine, if it hadn’t been me behind the wheel, encased in reality.

Couldn’t get my ass too far beyond inertia until quite late in the day today. I didn’t cook; only cleaned up cat poo, went grocery shopping, managed 2 different group email lists in order to convey mass information, downed a pint of Starbucks. I finally managed to start a batch of granola at about 10 this evening and to brew a pot of coffee to be consumed tomorrow.

Sad news today about one of my daughter’s former teachers, too.

Damn.

I walked around by myself in Provincetown for a while on Wednesday. It’s something I do very little of–I’m usually with kids or Hubby, even Mom. It was so lovely to stroll around and snap photos. No matter what’s going on inside of me, Ptown has a stability. It’s reliable and predictable. There will always be skilled locals riding their simple bikes (not fancy, 21-gear racing bullshit–these people are practical and really going where they need to get) against traffic, darting between pedestrians; always beautiful gardens and houses painted charmingly; always some big honking gas-guzzler of a fancy black SUV plowing its way along Commercial Street; always a fat touristy family in Cape Cod sweatshirts eating loads of ice cream, looking sort of out-of-place, but not really out-of-place because they belong as much as anyone. There is always commerce and productivity–people working on their houses, deconstructing, reconstructing, sanding, blasting, painting. Always some drunks, always some smokers. Lots of tattoos and the most fantastic short haircuts to be found anywhere in the world. The proprietors will always be gay and hip and will always treat me differently and even sometimes less well than they treat the locals, as well it should be. The beautiful galleries and paintings and art everywhere. The feeling that this is not reality, but then remembering the working class roots of the area, the hardscrabble life of sailors and seafarers which beats its true bloody heart into Ptown as much as the art, performance, and flamboyance. This is a place of survivors and brave souls. There are no wussies here, except the visitors, like me. I am in love with it all.

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Cape Cod–CHACH

As you may know from Music Monday this week, we are spending a few days on the cold and windy Cape of Cod. Here is my yelp.com review of our favorite restaurant in Provincetown, MA:

Heaven, I’m in Heaven. What? I’m not in Heaven, I’m in Chach? As has been abundantly stated, the most amazing, HEAVENLY, vanilla-infused French toast ever made. I can’t finish it, can’t eat the middle because it gets too soggy and gloopy. But the crusty edges, thick all the way up and down: give me more, ’til I burst!

I love the waitstaff. I think some are leftover from the last restaurant here whose name escapes me.  I love the woman with the fish tattoos. Is she a Pisces? I don’t know, ask her. She also has a great haircut and a sort of typical “does she like me or hate me?” Provincetown vibe. The older gentlemen waiters who are generous with the “sweeties” and “honeys” are an easier read: obviously they love me.

My kids love it, my hubby loves it, my mother (yes, my unpleaseable mother) loves it, our friends love it, our kids’ friends love it. Closed on Wednesdays, so don’t take a 3-hour walk down the beach from your condo and expect a big hunking breakfast on a Wednesday.

If you’ve never vacationed in Ptown yet, you may be surprised at the prices, which are on the high side, esp. considering that this is mostly breakfast. The music can be unpredictably loud or simply too Ptown for me.

Lots of locals, always a good sign. Chach gets thumbs up with a twist (highest rating).

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