///w-a-m///

the never thought of consequences of divorce:
who gets the Marilyn Merlot?

 

for a long time my parents have been married, thru out all of the years where it seemed like everyone else's parents where getting the fashionable divorces. everyone else had cool step siblings to beat up, or to raid their closets... yet, everyone else was envious of the television family happiness portrayed in the LASTNAME household.... little did they all know is that the myth slowly wore away at the edges, happiness was replaced by lost identities and communication problems.

oh well....

The Big Question is:
how exactly does one draw the lines down what they get to keep?

so pretend the divorcing couple once had a considerable wine collection, for their own personal edification. and what if the wine collection still contains an unopened bottle a 1989 Marilyn Merlot?

who gets dibs over the bottle?

while both members of the soon-to-be ex-item are jovial over the concept of future inebriation as a result of that beautiful bottle.. who gets to maintain custody over this bottle with a picture of Marilyn Monroe?

can they jointly share the bottle? (is this at all possible?)

should they enlist the son to sell the bottle on ebay, then spilt the proceeds?

could they even trust the son to give them equal portions of the money not used by the son to purchase more video games? (or more specifically to purchase more Samba maraca's? or what if the son doesn't bother selling the bottle just for to increase his own ass wiggling Samba skills?)

should they just giggle about the silliness of the whole separation issue all together? as a simple bottle of Marilyn Merlot barely scratches the surface of the concept of having spent so many years with a person only to be dividing up trivialities.

sometimes it is easier to laugh, and feels better to laugh, than to let out those streams of tears.

they know who gets the kids, the house, and the Miro.
but who gets the Marilyn Merlot?
we might never know.



--kel

3/30/2001

spring break is not a good time for working.

 

for the first time, in ages, i actually had school work that needed to be accomplished over spring break. or work that i realized, if it was accomplished during break, i would be much more happy and much more less stressed during my dwindling numbers of weeks left in school.

i found myself saying to other people, "Yeah, i'll prolly bring my stuff home, but i'll never really accomplish anything." Even though there is many a things i need to accomplish, and things that i really had hoped to accomplish.

when i had actually told my dad that i was had to actually do school work over break, he seemed puzzled. "School work? During Spring Break? Why?" not quite understanding the stress alleviation that will occur if i do everything that needs to be taken care of. and i didn't want to feel like i completely wasted a good week doing absolutely nothing, instead of accomplishing something.. no matter how silly the task may have sounded.

little did i know, the spring break fates would have preferred if i stayed on a sunny warm beach somewhere far away from anyone else.

my airline decided to strike. (which is terribly amusing as it was chosen because there was a scare that northwest would strike again. ugh.)

oh yeah, and there is also the minor detail that my parents decided that now was the time they would announce their impending divorce.

somehow, how this all factors in ... i really just want to be able to do my school work. i really need to have some non-interrupted time for working, which doesn't seem like it is going to happen any time soon... during this lovely spring break.

spring breaks should be exempt from any concepts of school work, this is my decree.

--kel

3/28/2001

 

my father's father has always been a stranger to me. he was actually a stranger to my father most of his life. i have seen him twice. once when i was three we lived there for a long time while my mother was working in atlanta. and the other time was before my little sister who is now 13 was born.
so, tonight, out of absolutely nowhere, i decided to call him. i found his phone number (the wonders of the internet) and dug up all of my nerve...
and called. a smallish child answered the phone and i was petrified that i had only the information that he lives near atlanta and his name is jack and i was pretty sure (but not positive) on his last name and he invented plastic plants (yes, i am directly blood-related to the man who set those atrocities loose on the world) as in plastic house plants. the kid asked who was calling. i told him my name and that i thought jack knew me. he asked if it was about his foot. i said no and i was waiting for someone to yell "dad! phone!" so i could be humiliated to tell a stranger that i was looking for my grandpa and called the wrong man. but instead he said "grandpa phone" and i was slightly relieved. the kid turned out to be my cousin. i didn't know he existed, but when i got to talk to him, he told me he knew who i was, i have red hair and my picture is on the fridge, but i was six then. suddenly, i wished my first grade school picture was more flattering...
i talked to my grandpa for maybe half an hour. i'll know for sure when the phone bill comes. it was long enough to make me cry, but not long enough.....
i learned that he's diabetic and he had half his foot amputated recently. a family history of diabetes is enough information to make the call worthwhile if i never speak to him again... and for my whole 21 year life i have been denying that i had a family history of diabetes.
i learned that my aunt kelli is now 29 and is doing well and has a child. my grandpa was really nice to me. really nice. it made me want to jump into my car (which barely gets me to work some days) and drive to atlanta to hug him. he was actually happy to hear from me. i was so scared that whatever had caused him not to talk to my father or my aunts was going to make him hang up the phone.
i told him about my life and my sisters and he asked about my mom three times... he mentioned dad and just said to tell him hello and that he loves him and "short visits make long friends". i know they haven't spoken in more than ten years.
i had never heard that phrase before "short visits make long friends" but i really like it.
i gave him my phone number and i learned he makes it near here pretty often for the horse races when they are "in season" and he said he would call me. i don't know if i expect him to, but i know he meant it when he said it. he told me to call anytime and particularly if i was ever in atlanta.
so my brief interview with the man who invented plastic house plants (he figured out how to make them not smell funny, that was the key), was very informative. i don't know what happens from here, but i am glad i made the call, and i think i'll be finding a more recent photo of myself to mail off to georgia soon if nothing else.
-- mary ann

3/23/2001 (0) comments

 

(((i'm livid.)))
a rant by knk

currently i'm on the verge of tears due to a current situation with a professor's grading of a paper of mine...



let me backtrack and also apologize to all of you who have been subjected to reading my shaky writings, as i never liked writing (or my writing skills) for a good portion of my life. if and what i write is more because i feel like i have something to say, and i have always highly disliked the idea of being a silent passive 'girl.' thus my reasonings for writing in general.

i would consider myself a good student, i show up to my classes (as difficult as that may be early in the morning on a freezing cold minnesota day), i actually make the effort of participating in my classes, i do my work, and even tho i might procrastinate a tad (but who doesn't).... i get good grades, even tho i somewhat question the idea of being graded (and would much rather learn without the trappings of being graded)... i dream of going off to grad school and being completely/continually immersed in the search/discussion of knowledge.....

it is my last semester of college. and i'm fulfilling those last requirements that over the years i either forgot about or they didn't fit into my schedule.... generally, i take classes on the basis of if it looks like it would be of interest to me, so i signed up for a class on scandinavian literary fairytales. (which seemed, at the time, would appease my interest in the form of fairy tale writing and also might be something outside of the realm of the theory which is the bulk of my major. the class actually looked like it would be good.) yet, i find myself in a class where i continually find moments where i would want to conflict with the professor (but because i've learned, conflicting with the profs generally isn't a good idea)... i'll grimace as he boils down all of freud, or all of marx into these bite sized pieces to manipulate in ways in which he can use against the stories we read. (i come from the line of thinking that if one is going to use a philosopher person to back up an argument, that you should be exposed and also expose the class to that writing. None of this has been done. Feminist theory is glossed over in a few words to a class full of neophytes to theories in general.) i have on several occasions objected to his screwing foucault into something completely unrecognizable.. but at that time, i only explained instead of attacking him. (thank you f.s., years ago to learning about the importance of 'i' vs 'you' statements.) so i write my paper for the class, on a topic which is quite close to my own heart and interests... i was extremely excited about the paper, and even sent copies of it to other people...

yet i wasn't excited to see it returned to me... completely marked up in red ink... for trivial reasons.
(did i mention yet that he isn't a native english speaker? perhaps this factors in a tad.)

i was completely livid when i first looked at the markings. i actually did cry... because not a single one had anything to do with the actual content or my progression of thoughts, but it was extremely critical about my usage of my mother tongue, english.

i will never claim to being an expert on the english language. as i hated english when i should've been learning grammar... there were other subjects of more importance.
and also, the writing skills that i have developed are completely as a result of spending a good portion of my life online... (and only because of online did i ever develop a taste for even writing a word.)

my major is writing intensive. it is what we do. and i enjoy it. (i'm even willing to stand up for the ancient idea of a senior thesis, because it seems to be an essential crowning moment of a major: cultural studies and comparative literature, which is focused on writing theory about theory.) but i don't write about fluffy literary texts in the way which the paper for this class required.

i went in and talked with the professor after class today. (after i had a bit of time to calm down... and thus think about it all.) i told him how i'm not an english major, i'm might not be the best at grammar... but the syllabus said nothing about being harshly graded on the grammar, it only mentioned that the content was of high importance.
and i told him that i didn't think he was justified in writing "Quite a good string of observations, but somewhat marred by 'unpolished' language." as the only damn thing he wrote about my actual content.

he railed on me for 45 minutes.

as being overheard (by my other class which is 30 minutes after the end of this prof's class) by others, they couldn't believe his tone of voice and the dumb things he was saying.

he spent a good portion of the time critiquing my usage of the 'meaning' instead of what he would rather 'means.' i told him that this is just semantics, and shouldn't affect my grade. but he thought it made the paper unreadable. we also had an argument over my usage of the word 'risk' instead of what he wanted the word 'sacrifice'.. because he didn't believe that the character saw the it as a risk, and i said that it isn't from her standpoint that i wrote my paper.. it is how i read the story, and it is from the reader's view that she (the character) took a 'risk'. then he said that i should say 'as a reader of this story....' instead of just writing the word 'risk' without being attached to saying it was from me. But the whole damn paper is from me, so i don't really see the need in justifying every line by taking up words saying "I believe" or "My understanding" or anything in the damn 1st person in general. saying the word "i" doesn't help add to my argument, i only see it as weakening.

we're studying hans christan andersen, a poor undereducated man, who had brilliant stories to tell but was always critiqued by his contemporaries on his grammar skills instead of the content of his stories.

3/22/2001 (0) comments

 

i am not catholic, but i adore the trappist monks. everyone should visit
their nearest trappist monastery. they are the coolest people on earth.
there are a few reasons i love these monks. one, there's a woman living at
the monastery in kentucky and no one cares cause she's just as committed to
her religion and spirituality as they are. i think it's really cool that
they are monks who let girls be monks. equal opportunity in that monastery.
another thing that's awesome about these monks is that they make the best
cheesecakes and jellies in the world. okay, so it's not really a very deep
reason to love them, but they seriously make cheese and cheesecake and
jelly and bourbon that's fabulous. plus, when you buy it, you're giving to
a really great cause, these monks who do a lot for you...
which brings me to my third reason to love trappist monks. the whole
premise of their existence is that the world is so busy and so crazy that
not everyone has time to pray. so, they have it arranged so that at all
times, 24-7-365 there is always a whole monastery full of trappist monks
who are praying for all of humanity. and they just don't pray for your
immortal soul either. they pray for your health and well-being and
basically, they're just out there praying that you have a good day, all
day, and all night, every day. there's always a trappist monk looking out
for you and hoping you are happy. that rocks. when the whole world seems
against you, you can always remember there's a bunch of monks somewhere who
love you and hope it's going to be okay for you. you have to appreciate the
thought if nothing else. it makes me warm inside....
another thing to love about these monks is that they are really cool and
self-contained. they support themselves through their yummy food sales
(hand grown, handmade, hand packaged food with love from a monk who wants
you to be happy!) and they severely limit their contact with the outside
world that they devote their lives to helping.
only three monks in the whole monastery in kentucky talk to people from the
outside world. one is the one who runs the gift shop, one is the one who
gives the tours and the other is the one who answers the phone. the last
time i was there, one of my friends asked if they don't all want those jobs
and the tour guide laughed and so no. they really value being the one who
just wraps cheesecakes all day long and those other mundane jobs because it
frees their minds to think about other stuff.
there's really something in there, the idea that it's better to be able to
be self contained and just be able to be alone with your thoughts. i like
that a lot.
the first time i went to visit "my monks" in kentucky, i was just in awe of
this beautiful place where they live and this amazing existence that they
have chosen for themselves. i thought for months that i should be a
trappist monk. really, i did.
i mean, what better kind of people can you ask for? they ask nothing of
you, they don't want anything from you, they don't even want to talk to
you, and yet they dedicate their lives primarily to praying that good
things will happen to you. maybe you don't believe that prayer gets you
anywhere, but you have to love that these people are at least sending out
wishes for you to be happy. plus their whole like incredibly zen and
philosophical way of life, they all work, but the work they value most is
the work that frees their mind. i'm telling you, you should go and visit
your local nearest trappist monastery. pack a picnic. enjoy the sites
(there's some incredible stuff at the one in kentucky). take a tour.
learn about your monks. take home some food made with love.
"my monks" have their website at www.monks.org. go visit it. learn about
these people. they love you, love them.

--mary

3/21/2001 (0) comments

 

It's funny… when you write with certain music in the background or in the foreground or wafting through your head, the influence it has on your words is amazing…it's kinda like drugs. Kinda like how the words of so many songs that so many straight people sing and claim as personal anthems, were written in a cloud of smoke in a big room of people having sex. Or the paintings that we all gape at like, "how the hell did they ever paint something like that? And look at the symbolism…and the contrast…and the…"…were painted on some really good high… im sitting here with the beautiful voice of ani d floating across the hallway from my room to the computer room (since my cd player won't stretch all the way in here-- I just have to turn it up real loud)…and it's kinda weird because what i'm about to write will be in part because of what surrounds me.
Influence is both so blatant and hidden in our society. I went through this big philosophical phase about a month ago (pertaining to influence)… my friend from argentina sent me this email about the occurrings of some random day…he had gone into the city of beunos aries (he lives outside of it) with his friends and they had been walking under a bridge and had seen a man lying on the ground. At first, they thought he was drunk and passed out, but when they got closer, they saw blood everywhere and realized that he was dead. And for some reason, something hit me when I read that.

A man died.

To me, he was a random, no-named Argentinian man under a remote bridge in a distant city I have never been to. How could that ever effect me?? But then I thought about influences and the way people work and the the way people affect each other… and what if I was going to meet him someday? What if he was going to meet someone who was going to meet someone who was going to meet me someday?
We all take a little bit of each other everywhere we go…kind of like those big puffy flowers that spread their seeds when the wind blows…they scatter and grow in other places.
People are like that. We talk to each other and plant our ideas in other minds and those minds plant ideas in other minds…ideas that could never
have been planted if the first planting had never been.
And so what if the whole entire course of my life has been altered because of this single dead Argentinian man? Or what if part of myself has been passed all the way down to him through a big chain of people? Then did part of myself die with him? And then what about plane crashes and car accidents and the people that die every single day…? We never really give a thought as to how their death affects ourselves…
So now it sounds like I believe in fate. I don't. because I don't think I believe in god. But I believe that we are all connected in some weird way…through emotion, through influence, through just being alive together on this planet…and for some reason, it makes life a little more beautiful to me.
Just to know that we're all running around together, confused as hell…influencing little minds and pretending we are less naïve than everyone else. We dance around in little bubbles that i create for you and you create for me. We're preoccupied with things that don't matter. We forget that all we have is each other.

--debbie

****I've dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. ~ emily brontë****

3/15/2001 (0) comments

 

Two months ago, at the time I am starting to write this, I had unprotected sex. I am normally very sexually responsible, but I had an evening of oversight. I wasn’t concerned about contracting any diseases, I am in a long-term relationship and we both have been tested. Pregnancy did cross my mind, but obviously it didn’t strike me as anything to worry enough about. There were condoms in the room, it wasn’t a question of convenience. It was a simple choice I made. And now I am paying for it.
I hate birth control. I have refused the pill for many reasons, most of which revolve around my general distaste for having my body ruled by drugs, and my questions about long-term use. I would rather wait and see what happens to people who spent time on the pill when they were my age once they are ninety before I try it on myself. Condoms are annoying. It’s not having to buy them or the stopping to use one that bothers me. It’s the using them. As for other methods, I have my reasons.
I know I have to be very fertile. No one on either side of my family has less than two children. My parents both have enough siblings it takes two hands to count them all. My mother got pregnant with my while on the pill. There really isn’t an excuse for what I didn’t do that night.
So, here I sit, pregnant. I am not feeling really shy or ashamed or anything, I made a choice, here are the results. I have also made another choice which I am not shy or ashamed about. I am going to have an abortion. As soon as possible. 
Here’s the story on what’s happened since. Two weeks after the unprotected (and great, I might add) sex, I woke up with cramps. Right on schedule. No period came. This went on for two weeks before I began to seriously evaluate the situation. I had cramps every day that felt like tomorrow I would bleed. I felt like I had PMS. My period did not come.
So, I sat down to consider possible reasons why I would not menstruate. Well, I had dramatically changed my entire life since my last period. I added stress, and removed some nutrition. I changed my sleeping habits from 10+ hours every single night to less than 6. I began spending time with lots of new women. My car is emitting fumes which could stop anything normal and healthy. The new millenium had started. There were plenty of perfectly good reasons why I wasn’t having my period, yet. It just needed time to adjust to my life.
I gave it a week. No period. I began to seriously worry. This is now five weeks after the unprotected sex. Now I decide to actually consider pregnancy as a possibility. I still had cramps every day. My body went back to normal size finally (I had been PMS bloated for three weeks). Things started to change.
Everything I ate after 8 PM made me vomit. I was completely exhausted and started going to bed around nine PM when normally I am up until two. My libido vanished. These all could be easily attributed to a sinus infection combined with a new job. Maybe that’s what causing them.
At one point I told my boyfriend that “there’s a very real chance I may be pregnant”. That was about this time. He just sort of agreed and didn’t bring it up again. So, neither did I.
I let two more weeks pass while taking hot, hot baths and talking to my uterus about letting go of whatever it was holding in there. No dice.
So, Saturday, I finally cornered my boyfriend and myself. We went to Kroger and bought the cheapest pregnancy test they had. If I was pregnant, I was pregnant enough that any old test ought to be able to figure it out. I went home, I drank a bunch of water. I peed while he timed to make sure it was at least five seconds. 
He went to the couch, I kinda stared over the thing in the bathroom. It was almost instantly that the lines appeared. I waited the three minutes (he was still the designated timekeeper), and then came back in the room and announced we are pregnant. I then walked right by him to the phone book to look up planned parenthood, wondering if I would be able to get an abortion here or if I would have to drive 100 miles to the nearest clinic I know of that performs them. It was a Saturday night, but I thought surely the hours would be on the answering machine. They aren’t.
Then I noticed my boyfriend crying. We had talked about this already in a “what-if” way. We had agreed on abortion with no discussion. He explained that when I said I was pregnant he was happy about it. He had already decided he loved this baby. He admitted he knew it was going to have to go away, pronto, but he was emotionally involved with this zygote thing growing inside of me making me smoke less and sleep more (possibly). I had not counted on this.
I was as nice and sympathetic as I could be, talking about how maybe someday we really would have kids, but not while we can barely afford to feed and house ourselves, and now we know we can certainly conceive. He didn’t seem much consoled. He agrees that we are not giving birth to any babies around here, but he is still sad.
It’s been four days now and I am finally jotting this all down. He seems to be feeling better about the whole situation. I am not, I know I am 8 weeks post conception here and I have to get this thing out, NOW. 
Which brings me to my current beef with planned parenthood in this town. I am thrilled that we have one, and I don’t mean to sound like I am taking my reproductive rights for granted (although I do dream of how someday women will be able to). I love Margaret Sanger for founding that organization. My problem is that they are too hard to get in touch with.
I have called at 8 am and at 5:30 PM. Immediately before and after work. I know there is typically a one week waiting period to get a preliminary appointment, and I don’t even know if they can supply me with what I need. I procrastinated long enough. I am trying to take action. What this means to me is that I am going to have to call from the payphone at work (I have a phone at my desk but I do not want the people I share an office-room with to overhear this particular personal conversation on work’s dime) on my lunch break. It also means that I am definitely going to have to miss work for both appointments. Or maybe here I can get it all done in one. I am not sure what the state laws are regarding waiting periods for abortions.
Other information to share with you in this preliminary report… I did some research online and have learned that the whole process takes ten minutes (for a D&C which what I presume will happen to me), and, while you should take the rest of the day to relax, you can resume normal activity the next day. However, you might bleed for up to four weeks and cannot have sex for like four weeks after that. I’m hoping for a Friday appointment. I don’t want to miss any more work than is necessary.
Last night my boyfriend announced that he didn’t think he wanted to have sex until we were ready to actually make children. I responded by saying I intended to suck it up and get on the pill as soon as this was over, and couldn’t we re-evaluate this after the about two months of medically imposed abstinence? He’s not so sure. I guess we’ll see.
The other primary issue is the money. Basically that I don’t have any. I mean, I have enough money I could afford this, but I am counting on it to pay my rent next week. My boyfriend is between jobs right now and cannot even pay his half of the rent (hence my extreme poverty), but he is looking for a job. So, I am trying to save my pennies against the clock.
If I sound like I am not emotionally involved, it’s because I am not. I don’t care about this thing that I have invited to mooch off of me. I am concerned that my boyfriend isn’t going to be able to handle this. I am not second guessing myself, I have always been avidly pro-choice, and I know this is what is best all around. I am scared to death that something is going to stand in the way of my personal choice and being able to act upon it (like time or money or protesters or geography).
I am writing about this for WAM because I want to share my experience. I don’t know if I will change anyone’s opinion on the matter, but I hope I can at least interest you.

3/14/2001 (0) comments

 

I was sitting in a coffee shop in Clifton the other day, and I had a strange awakening to an action that I have performed many times, but never noticed.
I was writing in a notebook, when my left hand started to itch. Rather than stop writing to scratch it, I simply used my teeth. I realized though, that I had done this many times before and, in fact, rarely used my hands to scratch any part of me that I could reach with my mouth. At first I was rather amused and infatuated with this odd behavior that I had discovered in myself; soon though I began to understand it.My mind, I have decided, does not operate in a normal fashion... in fact, it operates quite abnormally. Not only does it come equipped with a pause button (I stole that description from Mary), but it operates on several tracks at once. The odd part though is that the tracks are separated by really fucking high concrete walls so that what ever is happening in one track is completely isolated from and oblivious to what is going on in the other tracks. So this sudden enlightenment led me to understand the previously mentioned strange behavior.I scratch my hand with my mouth. Is that odd? Is it odd that I get so preoccupied writing that I do not want to break my train of thought? Is it odd that when my trains of thought collide I become helplessly confused and am forced to murder small animals? Is it odd that I would joke about murdering small animals? I don’t think so.
None of that seems odd to me. However, it seems odd to me to concern one hand with the problems of another.

--josiah

3/13/2001 (0) comments

 

"Tell me why - I don't like Mondays"*

Things should never begin on Mondays, as Mondays are the days everyone who has ever read a Garfield comic seem to dread.  There is something in the idea of actually having to get out of bed at a prescribed time, in order to continue on the daily haze which is called life. Sunday has evolved into "me" day, instead of participating in some institutionalized religion in order to make me feel happy, generally I partake in what I want to do. It is just that Monday comes around, leaving off where Sunday once was, and it is shock as now yet another week has begun, now it is yet another week to procrastinate doing something.

Actually one of the big somethings that I have been regretfully procrastinating has been simply doing something about the WAM web.  It should be easy, as there are already a few articles written, some buffer space to slack. But each Monday comes around so quickly that I realize as an afterthought at about 11.30 at night, that I should’ve done the WAM website.    "Oh, well, I can just put that off for next week.   As it should start on a Monday, shouldn’t it?"

Maybe the whole apprehension to actually updating this website has simply been, I personally don’t like beginnings, and conversely endings.  Greetings seem silly, especially the small talk of "Hi, how are you" in passing persons. (Especially seeing how no one really has the time to actually listen to how you really are, just a "fine" is all they really want to hear.)  There seems to be some need/ some want of mine to have some little small talk with you, that potential reading audience, if only to say who/what this is, instead of what I would more rather is that this begins hence forth as if you and I know what is going on (hey, if you know would you care to enlighten me?) 

well anyways, enough rambling on my side of things, I really should just do write one thing: 

HELLO welcome to WAM

peace love and empathy,

kel

* extra bonus brownie points for those who actually recognize the above quote being from a Boomtown Rat's song.

3/12/2001