pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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CHAMPIONS OF OBSCENITY

296.

I had lunch with my writer friend Zulu today, who is likewise an amiable drinker and party giver but who is decidedly NOT a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn.

We met at Mama Dip's, a down-home southern place (although I should note that I ate what nutritionists would describe as a balanced meal of �healthy food� despite the fact that one of the largest medical studies ever conducted has recently shown that low-fat diets do not actually cut health risks).

Anywho, we met so I could give her my edits of the first draft of her newest nonfiction piece and it is a doozy�a heart-wrenching essay about the various girls who �turn in on themselves,� mostly after being abused. I also gave her book contract the once over and must say that I really need to finish my novel before her book comes out in 2007 so that we can give more readings together (plus, damn it, I don�t want to be yet another thank you in another writer�s acknowledgments).

Zulu and I talked about the fact that (at least working-class) southerners live in a more violent landscape than many Americans and so matter-of-factly talk about a level of violence that other people just can�t stomach.

Everyday violence? Well, my first example is the fact that my mother�s best friend�s father used to punish his daughter by squeezing hot pepper juice into her eyes ... but see, now I�ve gone and shared an element of my novel before the thing�s even been published. My father used to push his toddler grandsons down and say �Get up, boy. Be a man!� and �Don�t you dare cry, boy� if they hurt themselves�I guess trying to make them tough guys (or maybe just because he liked being cruel but most likely because he was following in his own father�s footsteps and creating the next generation of power kegs who mistakenly believe that silent endurance of pain without reaction is a show of strength).

Dorothy Allison nailed the South Cackylacky landscape of my younger years down in Bastard Out of Carolina and Angelica Houston got the violence right in her film adaptation of this book (although she got the southern wrong). Many people we know could not watch this film all the way through to the end and many others sobbing uncontrollably during the particularly violent scenes. (Um I believe I was one of those people, actually.)

Zulu and I usually wind such conversations around to The Piano Teacher, a French film that left us both speechless. Both times we saw it, everyone else stormed out of the theatre before it was over but we stayed through to the end. It validated our experiences somehow, depicted with incredible accuracy a person who relies on pain and torture to articulate the pain of her existence.

So yeah we talked about all this in the context of her nonfiction piece, in which she just matter-of-factly describes atrocities�much as I describe the room where my mother shot herself, she pointed out.

Pottergrrrl cannot watch violence and does not understand why I read poetry of witness or watch films such as Hotel Rwanda that depict violence and cruelty and hatred so graphically. But I just cannot stay safely within the confines of the beautiful parts of my life. That�s not authentic to me when I know that so much atrocity exists just outside the edges of my life. I have tried very hard to make sense of the senseless violence I have encountered in my own life and beyond it, to try to understand the motivations behind it and the damage it causes. I also want to get it right in my own writing. (And, frankly, have a hard time respecting people who bury their heads in the sand.)

And, speaking of violence, I have discovered that, like wise(ass) Mr. Mailer, I am a much exaggerated street fighter who is just plum lame in reality. I taught self-defense to women many, many moons ago and studied two martial arts styles and am generally much stronger than most women you�ll meet and so have operated under the false assumption that, if need be, I could execute those karate moves defensively, disarm an opponent, and, well, kick anyone�s ass if the situation called for it. Wrong! And my recent kung fu classes are proving it.

Kung fu is based on monkeys� movements and is thus differs profoundly from the two styles I studied previously�particularly because the stance involves crouching so low to the ground that your bent knee nearly scrapes the floor (which is absolute hell on flabby thighs). And it�s true that I am not in the best physical shape of my life right now, but I have to say that these sessions are nearly killing me and the sad reality is that my reconstructed shoulder is just not going to let me continue these classes.

Gawddammit and oh well. One more dream driven over the dam when no one was looking....

So here it is 2:56 AM already and I cannot fall asleep despite the fact that I have to be up and at �em in 4 short hours.

This was a difficult day on many fronts and I�m having trouble shutting it off. My ex Tree had her lumpectomy/underwent anesthesia for the first time in her life at the ripe young age of 43 today, which of course made me think about her trying to comfort me after I came out of anesthesia from my total shoulder reconstruction and spent the next 24 hours barfing and shaking hundreds of stitches about violently and, basically, wanting to die because I was in so much pain and gawd I hope she is not having a similar experience right now.

It just hit me today that she actually has breast cancer. I mean, I�ve known about the lump for several weeks and learned that it is cancerous on Friday, but the reality of this didn�t actually sink in until today.

Her mom and sisters and new lover are all up in the mountains with her tonight and the procedure seems to have gone as well as could be expected. I know we�ll all rest better if Thursday�s path report confirms that it�s in situ and not invasive ductal carcinoma though, since in situ is usually 100 percent curable. Holly and Tree report that any scenario will probably still require radiation and chemo therapy though.

�

And now it�s 11 AM Wednesday morning. I finally managed to fall asleep around 3:30 and hit the snooze bar till 8, so had to take the world�s fastest shower before scrambling into work.

Just re-read this thing and realize I didn�t even write about all the other stuff going on that is keeping me up at night, but at least Computergrrl and I vented to each other, which helped.

We both literally took our toys and went home this past weekend and spent some time pondering whether or not we would be putting our toys permanently away. Our lives seem to be running in parallel lines right now, which is scary.

Oh yeah and we watched a good basketball game too.

11:05 a.m. - 2006-02-08

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