Sunday, October 10, 2010

Ed and Helga In The Garden, with Wolf Watching From The Shadows



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Bright, sunny, breezy day. Today was the bedding. Sheets and pillowcases and blanket and comforter cover washed. Pillows and mattress cover washed and dried. Mattress rotated. Everything hung out in the sun to get blasted by the sun and put back on the bed where it awaits the arrival of herself.

(While I was doing all that laundry I got out the chrome polish and polished the washer and dryer and microwave and then I waxed them with Turtle Wax™and buffed them out with a towel. Mental Illness sneaks up on some people, but on me you could see it coming from outer space.)

I'm making Pho again. Today I'm doing the broth, simmering chicken stock with charred onions and ginger and star anise and cloves and peppercorns in the big le cruset pot the woman got us at the thrift store in the Mission for six bucks. I've got the fresh basil and green onions and mint and cilantro; the pork (only for mine, the woman gets the veggie version) is marinating in agave and lime and garlic.

It's a four hour drive back from the airport, so when we get home I can just heat up the broth and do the rice noodles and chop up the veggies and by the time she gets out of the shower I'll have a big old spread set out.

We can eat ourselves into a coma and talk story and look into each others eyes for the first time in two weeks.


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I will spend the next twenty two hours on pins and needles. I am a nervous little poodle.


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I'm listening to Lucinda Williams. She's so damn corny, but I got it bad for her. Her daddy was a poet so it's no wonder she's all fucked up. You know how poets are.


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I'd like to say thank you to everyone that's been coming by and saying such nice things.


"Thank you."



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In no particular order:

The films of Wes Anderson.
The films of Terrence Malick, especially Badlands and Days of Heaven.
The flims of Werner Herzog, especially Fitzcarraldo and Little Deiter Needs to Fly.

Everything Joseph Campbell said, wrote, or lectured on.

Mark Bittman for no-nonsense, reliable, trustworthy recipes in "How To Cook Everything" and his blog on the NYT.

The New Yorker.

Cormac McCarthy
Jack Gilbert
Kathy Bates
Elvis Costello
Daniel Johnson
Betty Butterfield

Photoshop
Smart phones
The intertubes
GPS

The sea.
Sexual Intercourse.
Fighting.

Longing.
Grief.
Rain.

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Last night I was half hung over and sick to my stomach and having a hot flash and I got up at about two and laid out on the back deck in my altogether and the cold of the deck against my burning flesh, and the cold air in my lungs and wafting invisibly over my cooked skin and high above me in the silent vault of heaven a riot of stars shot through with blinking satellites and meteorites and I thought that was just about the best thing that had ever happened. Lying out there in the cold dark of night like a wounded animal.

After an hour I was shivering and clear headed and wrung out and I went back to bed and slept like a saint bernard.


*


Jane's Addiction.



***


Namaste.


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23 Comments:

Blogger Radish King said...

I watched Days of Heaven for the first time last week because you had mentioned it here a while back. It was so goddamned beautiful I forgot to breathe. Every second of it. Every second.
Thank you for that.
And for sun dried sheets.
xo

1:43 PM  
Blogger Ms. Moon said...

Ah Jeez. Now I am falling in love with your wife and your dog too.
I promise I'm not a crazy stalker. I'm going to go plant lettuce now. I'll leave you guys alone.

2:00 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Rebecca-

Holy shit.


Well, welcome aboard. I can't get enough of that damn film. It really does take your breath away, over and over. My wife got me a copy for my birthday years ago and I watch it two or three times a year.


I'm so glad to see you making your way back to the surface.

You amaze the hell out of me, you really do.


yrs-


scott

2:09 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Ms. Moon-

My wife and my dog are very fall-in-love worthy. People are doing it all the time.


I know you're not a crazy stalker.


Not a stalker, anyway.



you keep coming back now.


yrs-

scott

2:11 PM  
Blogger Lisa Page Rosenberg said...

I found you via Maggie May and Ms. Moon. If they make a fuss about someone, I take notice.
And they are always right.

2:16 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Hey Lisa Page Rosenberg-

Welcome!

I owe them both a heartfelt thank you.


Hope you'll find something of value here. There are beers in the fridge.


yrs-


tearful

2:22 PM  
Blogger Penelope said...

Can I take a leaf from your book of love? I guess I can since you've left it open there. cccrrrrcrcrcrcrrr. Gently torn, thank you.

3:39 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Penelope-

yr welcome to it.


thanks.

3:48 PM  
Blogger Mim said...

Riot of stars.

You're a fierce scrubber and seether yet come down to peace . . .

Be well.

4:35 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Mim!


thanks, you too.


yrs-

tearful

4:45 PM  
Blogger Petit fleur said...

Hey TDW,

I found you through Ms Moon and Maggie also.

I love your writing. I also found a lot of familiarity with your movie favorites... There are a few I have not heard of, so that is exciting too. I'm somewhat of a movie person.

BTW, here are a few movie pics you may like: Schitzopolis, (Steven Sodderbergh), Wings of Desire, The Big Blue.

Cheers!
pf

5:22 AM  
Anonymous Personal Trainer Singapore said...

hey!! this is a very nice blog. thanks for sharing your life and experience here. hope you never give up. keep it up.

9:29 AM  
Blogger Jaye Ramsey Sutter said...

I found you through rebecca who I found by looking up Boston terrier blog and maggie may and it was odd because rebecca was writing about a friend with a one eyed Boston and I just found one at a pound and got her out.

I am that kind of woman.

I love your writing. I like your profession--I am a recent law school grad but I am having trouble with the Bar.

Probably because I have been on the wrong meds. I am better now and hope to take the damn thing in July. Law school on the wrong meds. Jeebus.

I now want to write with big spaces. It is where it soaks in -- in those big spaces.

I want you to talk about your art. Rebecca, too. Because it makes me want to photoshop the word. Do you see like that and do these great works so we can see it, too?

1:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I am a nervous little poodle"


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!



okay. that was the best!

(;

4:42 AM  
Blogger Marylinn Kelly said...

It was your list with FITZCARRALDO that caused me to stop here the first time. Too many like-minded choices to discuss. I didn't know Lucinda Williams' father was a poet...I admire where you are willing to go in your posts...from the food preparation to how you write about your wife to each acknowledgment of feelings not often owned willingly. In a phrase I think I used once before, how and what you write and the flat-out, hand-to-hand way you approach life and household appliances speak to me of a rare courage. It really is a hero's journey.

(an earlier comment didn't connect. Please delete if it is duplicated.)

1:56 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Petit Fleur-

Thank you, and welcome to this place. I love Wings of Desire, one of my very favs. I'll have to check out Schizopolis and The Big Blue.

yrs-


tearful

5:14 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Personal Trainer Singapore-

Well, thank you. If I'm ever in Singapore and need to work on my abs....

5:16 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Jaye Ramsey Sutter-

Anything on the wrong meds will probably be a little harder than it might otherwise be, but law school....it might be a wash.

Just kidding.


And good luck with the bar. You'll make it.


*


and big spaces.




I do like 'em.





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Art? I don't see the outer world like that, but my art pretty well reflects big parts of my inner world, and since I tend to work on combining images until something 'sparks' a lot of it must come from unprocessed stuff that lies below my conscious ability to access.

These pieces let me dredge up stuff from the dark depths.


I enjoy it. I think if they are any good, everyone gets something from them. Or from some of them, anyway.


blah, blah, blah.


thank you for coming by, I'm glad of the company, and glad you've kept coming back.


yrs-


tearful

5:23 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Kay-

Ah, but I really am a nervous little poodle on the inside.


And that is profoundly funny to me, too.


yrs-


tearful

5:24 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Marylinn Kelly-

Well, you sure are sweet. I don't know if its a hero's journey or not, but I'm not taking any chances.

whatever that means.


anyway, we'll have to catch a movie together sometime. Anyone who can watch Fitzcarraldo and like it has got to be fun to hang with.


yrs-


tearful

5:27 PM  
Anonymous nursemyra said...

Fitzcarraldo is my favourite Herzog film too! My Best Fiend runs a close second.

2:09 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Oh, My Best Fiend!

One of the great ones, for sure!


xo-

Scott

6:50 PM  
Blogger cobaltika said...

jack gilbert is awesome.

so is photoshop.

and you!

peace,
bobbi

5:18 AM  

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