My metal heartbeat

Lately I've taken to pounding out letters to my two brothers on my old Royal typewriter. I happened upon the thing in vintage clothing store (which also stocks old typewriters and typewriter-themed clothing. Odd. And perfect.) I have been longing to replace the one from my youth for years now. (It suffered the scourge of one of mom's manic cleaning frenzies back in the day. Probably wound up on the sidewalk next to the trash can, which was fitting, since that's where my grandfather found it several years prior when he decided to take it home and restore it). I don't think this model is exactly the same. I remember ours being slightly darker in color, but it's nearly a dead ringer. Apparently, gray was THE color to make these suckers out of back in the day, and I have come across varying shades in my travels. This one most closely resembles the gun metal gray of my childhood typewriter. I remember, too, that ours had a case that fit over it. It was made of the same steel the typewriter was made of. The whole thing must have weight 30 pounds or so. It could have herniated our backs several times over, but that didn't stop my brother and I from moving it around the house when we were kids.

I've been searching the Internet for the past hour for images of Royal typewriters. The one I own now is the KMG model (i think). The M in the middle stands for "Magic Margin", a feature which is not so much "magic" as a series of levers and release buttons that allow you set up and then remove a few margins along the length of the roller. Ah, the 40's... a time when machinery that outperformed your expectations was dubbed "magic".

I wasn't sure, when I first bought this KMG model, that I was actually going to use it. I thought I might shove it on a wide plant stand and stick it in the hallway for passersby to leave quirky messages on... but, on a whim one night, I took of its dust cover, and started to pound out a letter.

I'm beginning to fall in love with typing on the thing. I can't type at my normal clip because the hammers get jammed. Instead, I have to be very deliberate with each depression. I have to make sure the hammer has slapped the roller with an "a" before I pound down the "b". It takes quite the effort to get a rhythm going, but once I do...it's the sweetest sound in the world. It drowns out all other noise. I become consumed. It's a wonderful break, too, from a plastic keyboard. By comparison, I am lazy and slack-wristed on the keyboard. The delete key is so handy, sloppiness is always an option. But on the typewriter, because I don't have the special white correction ribbon, sloppiness is not an option. Which is refreshing, because with the slowing down of the typing comes great intention, and with great intention comes great flow. I find that having to slow down my typing just that little bit gives my brain extra time to think of the next string of stuff. There's a slight delay between brain and hand motions, and it puts me into this strange and wonderful state of ease. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. Hands take care of last minute's thoughts while Brain and I starting setting up the next sentence. I can't express how much more relaxed and spent I feel after typing letters. It's a full body workout. I think I am beginning to understand how the great novels of the world were created on these things. It's hard not to write novels when sitting down in front of them.

So far, my brothers haven't written back. Mom thinks I'm weird for writing them using a typewriter (then again, she's the one who threw out an antique with the last week's leftovers, so I'm not going to count that comment). I'm going to keep writing them. Even if they never write back. At some point in the letter writing, it becomes about satiating a need to hear that thwap thwap thwap... the need to hear my writing as regular as my own heartbeat in my ears.

Haircuts and Transplants

Oh, Glory of glories! The spider condos are gone! Removed by my own hand! (and CLH's). Carmelized then pulverized in the outdoor fire pit. Sigh.

And i thought MOWING the lawn was satisfying. Bah!

Seriously now. I don't know what the name of those suckers were (the plant books are still in boxes, and I'm not smart enough to figure out to search for a plant picture online without any good criteria), but there were COVERED in cobwebs. It was a low growing bush (when not housing a spider population) sporting tiny waxy leaves and bright orange berries. This one, however, was hardly green anymore because it was so covered in webs. The trunk was gnarled and withered. The spiders had long ago abandoned their 14 story house of filth, but their webs had all manner of decay still hanging around in them. The plant was grey, for god's sakes. Dis. Gus. Ting. Who knows if it was even alive? All I know is that the thing was creepy, it was half dead/half growing on the side of the house and it looked like hell. So, we cut it down, in the rain, and then we burned the thing.

We had the fire going for several hours. We'd rented a chainsaw earlier in the day and CLH cut up the old Christmas tree and the who-knows-what-other-kinds-of-tree stumps we found in the many "refuse" piles in the yard. (By the way, lawn chairs don't compost, so don't fucking add to the piles of organic stuff, mkay?) We had a pretty sizable pile of junk wood going- weirdly shaped roots and dried out thin crispy boughs and stuff, so we got a burn pile going and lit it up. We'd burned most of the blackberries we'd wanted gone (they're noxious, but delicious, weeds here), and we were just relaxing after a long day's work, looking around the yard for other stuff to burn (the lawn chair almost made it in) when CLH remembered the spider condos. We both got a gleam in our eyes, grabbed the saw and shovel, and practically ran to the front of the house. By this time the rain was coming pretty steadily. Nothing too heavy- just enough to make all the dirt stick to our clothes. We looked like chocolate bunnies when we were done, but we didn't care. The spider condos were on their way to a fiery grave. I didn't leave the fire until every last inch of them had turned to ash.

There was something indescribably wonderful about burning all the crap that wouldn't stack in the pile. It was one part necessity, and one part ceremony. We, without adding to already stuffed compost bin we'd built, or the bulging yard waste container, got rid of the yuck, AND we rid our house of yet one more reminder of the rampant neglect that shows up everywhere here. Even plants can use a funeral pyre. Sure, we could have shoved the things into a wood chipper- but that would have seemed overly brutal and mechanical. The slow burn approach seemed a bit more ... noble (even if i WAS doing it with a little bit of sadistic glee in my heart). CLH and I transplanted some lavender and sage plants from the backyard (where they were also looking gnarled and spindly from not being trimmed) to the spot the spider condos had been. The rain came down harder later that night, so we didn't even have to water them. Now, instead of having our ankles raked by the tendrils of a dying old bush as we walk by, we will be greeted by the soothing (dare I say, therapeutic?) smells of lavender and sage. Ahhhhhh.... I feel calmer already.

Another "I heard it on the bus" blog posting

Let me just start out by saying that commuting by bus from the suburbs BLOWS. I'm about ready to throw in the towel with this whole "living in the suburbs" bit. The highlight of my day: a sweet young girl engaged me in conversation on the bus. Hang on, though. I need to vent.

I used to recoil at the sight of the massive spider webs embalming the pathway from the front door to my car. Now, i'm so pissed off (at the spiders, at nature, at my beep-beep-beep-heavy-machinery-backing-up-at-7-am-neighbor, at the fact that the first thing I see when I walk out my front door is a half dead monkey tree limb laced with webs and spiders the size of my eyeballs, about my too-small kitchen sink and my too-big "camp style" bathroom, about the utter lack of foresight that dictated the position of all the freakin' light switches in this house) that i just machete right through them with my bare arms. Anyone observing from afar might think a) i have a hard time regulating the swing of my arms when i walk, b) that i'm practicing my judo chop on invisible sparring partners or that c) i'm stark raving mad.

I had to wait an extra forty minutes for the bus home because i finished work late and the buses run with less frequency after commuting hours. And this after a long and tedious day of work. The only thing that kept from going on a killing spree was the book about organic gardening i read while waiting.

The odd highlight of the day was talking to a young girl on the bus on the way in to the city. I didn't realize until a few minutes into the convo that she was with a group of special needs kids. She shyly asked me if it was okay if she talked to me. Of course, I said. She started in on a story about how she'd won the plastic bracelet she was wearing at a carnival. I was just about to get a closer look when someone from the back of the bus hissed her name and told her to not talk to me. The voice said something like "What did we say about talking to people?" The girl tucked her chin into her neck and paused for a moment - but then she kept on going. Again, the voice from the back of the bus said the girl's name, adding "This is your last warning". The girl and I looked at each other; I patted her hand and said, "it's okay- you can tell me another time. I don't want you to get in trouble." I turned and faced forward so she wouldn't be tempted... but, as we drove along, i kept wondering why this girl needed to be silenced by her authority figure. What she prone to violence or outbursts? She seemed so incredibly innocent and demure... The worst part about it was that I could tell she was used to being told to shut up- but that didn't stop her from trying to make friends on the bus anyway. I don't know much about what it's like to take care of a special needs kid... or what this girl's particular story was- but it sure didn't seem like she was hurting anyone by yakking on the bus (hell, it beats staring out the window at the cargo containers on the port). I kept thinking, as I exited the bus and started my walk to work, about how she was being treated like a criminal for talking to me. I don't mean to turn this into a soapbox moment... but i sorta had this refrain going through my head... something like "what the world needs now/is talking on the bus/sweet talking on the bus". Maybe that girl's story would have made some morning commuter's day... It just seemed, given that the rest of this city's inhabitants can't seem to make casual eye contact with one another on the streets (Chicago? Five gold stars for you for your pedestrians' AWESOME sidewalk-side manners. ) that a little light convo on the bus is just what we need to make being crammed in there a little more palatable. I hope she got to tell her story to someone today...

Public F*ing and The Art of Selling Out

Alright. Enough about the house already. The grass has grown back. I cut it. The library got painted yesterday. It's "coming along", people. Thanks for asking. Really. Onto bigger things.

Like public sex. Like the kind i saw yesterday on my way to an outdoor music festival. It appeared, from a distance, that a guy was rhythmically pumping one of those drop down flexible security gates, his hands above his head, clutching the rungs of the gate, his legs spread slightly, his pelvis crashing into the gate, causing it to shudder. It wasn't obvious right away, but there was a girl up against that gate. I probably wouldn't have even noticed her, had she not moved. As we passed, she reached for the hem of her denim mini skirt and tugged it down (for effect really. I mean, come on, sister. One more square inch of flesh isn't going to send anyone over the edge. You're having public sex, for chrissakes.)

Yes, the boy definitely was either stoned or drunk and his pants were about 3/4 of the way down his legs. His oversized shirt covered his backside. What was most striking was this: while they guy looked like he was enjoying himself immensely, the girl looked embarrassed and maybe a little scared. She was just a touch taller than him and her head poked out just above his right shoulder. She looked right at us as we passed. Weird.

Afterwards, I thought to myself: this is the kind of thing that always happens to other people and never to me. Almost everyone I know has some sort of "i saw people doing such and such in a public place". Not me. Not ever. Do I have some instinct to avoid this stuff?

I remember a bus ride home in high school. It was my first year of high school. I was still a naive little girl, fresh from Catholic grammar school, on her her way to Catholic high school and ignorant still of the inner workings of human sexuality. Nancy P., all ninety pounds of her, leaping up on her bench seat, revealing the rolled up waistband of her her too-big plaid uniform skirt, pointing to the window and screeching and giggling that the guy in the car next to the bus had his pants around his ankles and was masturbating as he drove. We all rushed the side of the bus Nancy was sitting on, but, by the time we got there, the guy had sped off. Nancy, breathless and smiling, told us the details. He was looking up at her. He was an older guy. The car was an older model. He was hairy. I sat back down in my own seat, disappointed that a few seconds had separated me from another opportunity to glimpse into the adult world of sex and its secrets.

After a few more blocks of walking away from the kids on the street, my thoughts took a turn. Was she there by choice? Was that a rape I had just witnessed? Did i just walk away from a CRIME, stifling nervous laughter and averting my eyes? Geez. She DID look a little scared. She WAS really young. She WAS tugging her skirt down so we couldn't see her... She did look right at us. Was she saying HELP, or, Man, I am embarrassed. Hurry up, drunk boyfriend, so we can get the hell out of here. I hate that I have to think that way.

***

Earlier in the day, I sold a little piece of my soul to eBay. I'll let you know if my "cute, perky" mug (their words, not mine) makes it to Internet. I was standing in line for a smoothie when a woman with an eBay t-shirt approached me and asked if i had ever sold or bought anything on eBay. Turns out, i had just sold my Simpsons figurine collection to a Canadian via CLH's eBay account. Made a cool $600 (i bought the damn things for almost $1200.00 seven years ago, so you could call that a really sound investment). I told the lady with the t-shirt the story and she called over her producer. I repeated the story to him. It wasn't much really- just that we had made all this money on the eve of moving into the house, and that, when all was said and done, I had essentially used that cash to pay my first mortgage payment. That, and after frantically wrapping up more than one hundred figurines after 51 simultaneous auctions on the eve of moving day, we moved with something like 12 less huge boxes. They ate it up (i think they ate up more that i was "cute and perky", "had great energy", and that i was wearing my hair in pigtails. I was asked three times if i was over 21 years old). So, i may be an eBay spokesperson soon enough. Here's the thing i took away from that: I am frighteningly good at taking direction. The producer made me do three takes, and by the third take, I was a 12 year old, telling the story in an almost-falsetto about my dolls that i sold on eBay and how thrilled i was that eBay was able (with a dramatic wipe of brow with back of hand) to help me make my payment just in the nick of time! Scary, huh? From jaded to juvenile in three takes. Who knew?