My Lovesong to Eliot

Having just read my sister-in-law's blog about her favorite poem, I find that I have to copy her. Initially, I tend to be a fairly lazy reader--it takes a really compelling story or very interesting characters to get me to read "lyrical" prose. And poetry? I don't think I've read much since I graduated from college 15 years ago. But there is one poem that I do remember. And return to again and again. It is very famous; I studied it in high school, and in both my American and English Literature classes (those darn expatriots).
"The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock"
It has lines like:

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned, and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-end of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

and

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After all the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say, "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all,
That is not it, at all."

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but I have occasionally sensed this emptiness and uselessness and impotence in my life. (I think it's called being human.) In general, I am happy and feel great, but there are times when I feel so misunderstood and incapable of articulation and simply invisible. This poem just seems to capture all those sentiments and the absurdities that accompany them.

Horseshoes, Hand Grenades and Nuclear War

I had to make some Emeril's Essence today to put on our ribeye steaks for Valentine's Day. All was going well, till I had to put in 1 tablespoon of black pepper. I have a magic pepper mill, you see. It's doesn't take too terribly long to grind a quarter teaspoon. But when you try to work up to a whole teaspoon, it seems like no matter how hard or long you turn it, you never reach the teaspoon. It's as if it knows that an important milestone is coming up and it doesn't want to reach it. So I had husband twist the mill for a while. And we went in spurts, dumping it out every quarter teaspoon or so and measuring the pepper. And I'm not kidding you, by ten minutes later we had increased the size of the pepper granules but we still hadn't reached the tablespoon mark. However, I decided that in the matter of measuring pepper, almost is good enough.

Last Friday was the sixth-grade dance. I have a bruise on my arm from pinching myself so I wouldn't CRY when the music started and Janey ran off to do the line dance with all the other kids. It was the same song that Beulah had danced with her class to three years ago. And I tend to get emotional when I watch performances anyway, but I was just overwhelmed with feeling like my little girl is growing up. She was one of the few girls who wasn't wearing makeup but she had a good time.

Being Random

So last night I dreamnt I was taking a walk down the southbound freeway entrance onto University Parkway. The former first lady of Utah, Mary Kaye Huntsmen walked passed me. As soon as she was in front of me, she got hit by a magic spell and was turned into a really cute little pig. I picked her up to bring her home and hoped that no one would butcher her when she got older.

In real life, I have seen MKH once, walking in a parade with her very photogenic family. It was on Center Street, though, and she definitely was not hit with a magic spell or turned into any farm animal.

By the way, you will find some fairly disturbing pictures if you enter "piglet" into Google's image search.

Goose and I made brownies today. Earlier she had been scribbling with markers and then came into my bedroom with a folded piece of paper, saying, "Look, I made a recipe for brownies!" (Or, because it is Goose, "Wook! I made a wecipe fow bwownies!") So this afternoon we got everything out and baked the brownies according to her recipe (and the one in my head). She continues to be demanding of attention but she is so cute and fun lately. She loves to play Candyland and she came with Husband and me to the library, so excited whenever she saw a book she was familiar with.

My only news is that I'm doing part time work for my dad and Uncle Reed's IPPFBE endeavor. Husband designed their website a couple of years ago, and my dad wanted me to help update the site and work on a newsletter. Their goal is to produce superior trees and other perennial plants that will flourish in regions that have poor conditions for traditional grain crops. They also want to explore using nuts for bioenergy and transforming trees at the end of their lifespan to biochar. It's a very worthwhile project; I hope I can be helpful. We're trying to think of my title still, so I can put it on my emails that I'm sending out.

Ever Wonder . . .

what a seven-year old would do with a camera he got for Christmas?

The hermit crabs are his new pets, and he *loves* them.

Thanks for the memories, Cheeseball!

Jellied Rabbit Mold?

We had fantastic Christmas yesterday. Santa brought Goose the skeleton costume that she has been asking for. Beulah gave me an assortment of chocolate. T-Bone got that package of underwear that he was expecting and Janey finally has a good book light. Cheeseball unwrapped the cool spoon/fork combo that we saw when we watched a blacksmith working. Husband made a careful list of all the things I asked for and I got laminating sheets, a complete Messiah CD, an expandable pole for window washing and a battery for my Lolex. But the most awesome thing was a cookbook from our favorite consignment store. The recipes are different and fun and it's filled with pictures of the various steps. Though some recipes I gotta say I'm not going to be trying: Eel Pie, Eggs in Aspic, and Jellied Rabbit Mold...

Let's Be Polite and Call It Kitsch

So we put up the Christmas tree on Monday night. It's our 7 year-old, fiber optic Wal-Mart special and it's covered with homemade wonders and cheap plastic baubles, along with maybe 4 ornaments that cost over $1.00 a piece.
I kept feeling frustrated that I didn't have enough surface area to display the various Christmas decorations that I have, and then I came back from a meeting inspired to put all my Santa Claus stuff (from my Aunt Mary's tole-painted Santa face to our broken Santa in his sleigh with lights) on top of my cupboards. The icing on the cake, though, is the white pillow-filling fluff that we tore up and mounded to look like snow up on the cabinets. The complete look is cheesy and silly, and yes, even tacky, but at least it's different from the same ole, same ole. Janey was happy to help me do it. I have accepted that I will not have an elegant or charming holiday home, but I'm absolutely okay with that.
I love Christmastime!

The Rose

Tonight we went to Beulah's "Young Women in Excellence." I've been to many of these functions in my life, but tonight was by far the best. Each of the fathers of the young women were asked to bring a flower that he felt represented his daughter, and then bring his daughter up and explain why the flower reminded him of her. It was so wonderful to hear so many loving things said about all these different girls. I felt like I was on the verge of tears all night. Husband brought Beulah up along with a pale pink rose and said that it was pretty and became even more beautiful when you look at its details.
It's a shame that so often in life I focus on the negative when there is so much to celebrate. Take Beulah for instance. She is such a lovely young lady--so smart and so curious and eager to do her best. She is full of passion and wonder and she can be so tender and caring. It makes us laugh when she mispronounces words like "lyric" and "hysterics" because her first exposure to them was in a book. She underestimates herself so much and I just wish I could rip all that insecurity away because she is a fabulous girl with a lot to contribute to the world.