Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again
Now I’ve been smiling lately,
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
something good has begun
Richard Hamilton.
Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train
Come on now peace train
Yes, peace train holy roller
Everyone jump upon the peace train
Come on now peace train
A few weeks ago, I came home triumphantly wielding a near-mint Cat Stevens LP from a trip to a nearby touristy mountain town — only to see in going through my collection that at some point in the past I’d brought that exact record in pretty much the exact same condition.
My organization skills may be in the toilet, but the important thing is, I’m consistent.
Now come and join the living,
it’s not so far from you
And it’s getting nearer,
soon it will all be true
Now I’ve been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can’t we live in bliss
I’ve been trying to balance my recent heady busy-ness in the areas of work and returning to school with the activities I love, like country driving, taking pictures, listening to my records, and of course spending time with my mad rad friendohs.
Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again.
I don’t know by what trick or trends in behavior I’ve done it, but, despite recent roller coasters of emotion, anxiety, and obligation, I still just feel really happy and mellow about things in assessing the Spring, even accounting for the ups and downs.
Sheets of rain keep falling here. It’s pretty when a little sun comes through, it makes it look like glass. But otherwise it’s overall a very dingy scene and it bums me out even more than a rainy day normally would (I actually like the rain, mainly) because I am waiting to hear from my husband about his grandmother. She’s not expected to live much longer than the next few days; when she passes away, I will fly to Portland to be with him and the family. I simply can’t let him go through that alone, and I would never disrespect my in-laws by even considering not going, to say nothing of the fact that I would like to say goodbye to a woman in whose home I lived (we rented from them once they moved to a retirement center), whose son I spent a great deal of time with, and to whose grandson I got married. It will be difficult, but it has to be done.
So today, being that it was raining cats and dogs and I think I even saw a ferret, and as kidlet had a school holiday, I wanted to have special bonding time before I travel without her. We are almost never separated, so I’m anxious about that as well.
We decided to make chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (total rainy day food) and watch us some uplifting movies. First up was The Wizard of Oz, and it started my wheels turning about the books and about the pluses and pitfalls of escapism.
Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.
Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as “historical” in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer “wonder tales” in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale.
Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.
Having this thought in mind, the story of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.
L. Frank Baum
Chicago, April, 1900.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Introduction.)
A lovely sentiment, but I find Baum’s assertion as to the lack of nightmares and heartache in the final product of the Oz books — of which I am one of the world’s staunchest and most highly devoted fans — intriguingly debatable. If I have time later this week, I will try to have a movie moment with Return to Oz, which will shed some light on what I mean.
Holly Owens as Dorothy in the Emerald City, for Tarina Tarantino’s “My Pretty” collection.
— Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?
— Uh-huh.
— Jolly old town!
“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, then I never really lost it to begin with.”
Did You Know? … two of the images in this post are pictures of my daughter at Christmas. She gets a new pair of ruby slips every year.
Playboy’s Miss December 1965, the lovely and talented Dinah Willis, was a “Bewitched” fan (boo: that snooty stick-in-the-mud Sam can kiss my ass; Team “Jeannie” for-ev-errr), but I forgive her because she was a really interesting gal other than that.
Photographed by Pompeo Posar.
Miss Willis has devoted most of her off-hours this past fall to her increasing interest in the field of underwater photography. “I’ve always been kind of an amateur photo bug,” says Dinah, “So when my mom bought me a Yashica 35-millimeter camera for my birthday last August, and a skindiving friend of mine helped me build a waterproof plexiglass housing for it, I really wanted to learn all I could about underwater camera techniques.” (“Letter Perfect,” Playboy, December 1965.)
My husband got me hella photography shit for my Lomo Diana F+ camera for Christmas. Hella. Like all kinds of nifty gadgets and attachments. I don’t know what that’s about or how he remembered me talking about all that shit over a year ago, but I’m really grateful, although nervous because it adds extra pressure for my photos to not suck. I guess I should have bought him art supplies … I didn’t even think to. I’m a sucky, shoddy, estranged dick. Sorry, husbandoh.
“Nowadays, I spend most of my free weekends south of the border shooting stills in San Carlos Bay, or talking shop with all the other amateur shutterbugs who come there to dive.”
Dinah’s few stay-at-home evenings are spent brushing up on her painting (“I stick to watercolors most of the time, but I’ve dabbled in everything from oils to toothpick sculpture”), listening to her collection of country-and-western LPs (“Hank Williams is my ideal”) and cooking Mexican dinners (“Outside of tacos and enchiladas I’m a total washout on the domestic scene”).
Hank Williams and tacos? Kiddo, I’m yours. I will even tolerate your retarded fuckin’ pillow-dogs (she mentions that she breeds show mini-poodles; we can keep them around to feed to the Great Dane/Mastiff mix I will one day breed).
“With my father dead and my older brother, Keith, in the Army, I’m the only breadwinner in the family. Of course, my Playmate money will take care of any emergency, so all I have to do is earn enough to make ends meet for the next year or so. I’d like to travel a little before I settle down, anyway. There’s not much for a young girl to do in my home town except get married, have babies and watch television — and I hate television!”
Word. Television will rot your brain, y’all. I’ve always said that. Not like the internet, which cures baldness, tones muscle, kisses babies, and makes you smarter!
GROWING UP:
I was born in Texas* but grew up in Ruidoso and Eunice, New Mexico.
FAMILY LIFE:
I have one older brother who is fighting in Vietnam.
PEOPLE I ADMIRE:
Jackie Kennedy and Barry Goldwater. I don’t see how a woman can take such a loss and remain so brave. And he’s one of the most outstanding individualists of our time.
MY WEAK SPOT:
I sleep too late.
Between all of that, the tacos, the Bakersfield-sound-LP-fandom, and the photography, Ms. Willis and I are clearly hella getting married as soon as I build this sex-changing time machine, and if you scoff at my flawless plan you are totally not invited to the wedding.
*Heroes fans — she was born in Odessa, TX specifically.
Actually, a spin on the wiki reveals that Ms. Willis has been firmly spoken for since not long after this December pictorial was published: “Dinah married a musician signed to The Tokens B. T. Puppy label. Dinah has two daughters. One is a poet who works with the homeless in the Bowery, NYC; the other is a singer, song writer and a backup singer for Chubby Checker.” Not too shabby. I’ll let it go and leave the time machine blueprints for another day! This time…
Most of the time, I do not much consider myself very badass or even particularly put-together as an adult, because I am mainly fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants and not terribly interested in grown-up rules, but sometimes that immaturity and disorganization goes so far out there that it comes back around in to Being Awesome. It hit me hard when I was making dinner for me and the kidlet tonight.
Yep. That’s right. Dinner was cartoon-character-shaped macaroni and cheese, chardonnay for me, milk for her, and a split Snickers. The kidlet had this Madonna-wannabe headband on and she had fluffed out the lace and pulled it around her face like a fascinator and was lecturing me in a very fancy voice with her hand on her hip about opening the packet of powdered cheese, licking my finger, and sucking off the cheese. She was very chic. I was impressed enough to almost consider not eating more of the cheese.
(Later, instead of digging up a tablespoon, I just eyeballed how much milk and butter I figured I needed. Totally overestimated on the milk. So when it didn’t set up right, I drained and poured some of the runny mix in to a plastic cup from the Olive Garden. I meant to pour it down the sink, probably, but I instinctively drank it instead.)
We’re eating macaroni and watching the live action Scooby Doo now, because kidlet loves the dog and Mommy loves Matthew Lillard. (Did you know he was The Fat Kid growing up, so everyone made fun of him, and it affected him very deeply? Because I know, because I love him.) Sometimes we play Scooby Dooby Doo in the bathtub — she is Scooby and I am Shaggy. The tub is the Mystery Van and we drive in it to solve crimes and say “like” a lot. Not gonna lie: we’re pretty awesome.
So, I went to the mall with Miss D yesterday to check out the new H&M store. The women’s stuff was all fine and good, some cute things I guess although nothing unmissable, but I struck awesome gold in the little boys’ department: scored two totally pimp Star Wars sweatshirts. One is a zip-up hoodie and the other is a purple pullover with Yoda on it. Freaking sweet as heck!
There were fantastic Star Wars t-shirts, too, but I was already over the spending limit I’d mentally set for myself. Still, looking at the sweatshirts? Totally worth it, and Miss D got this pretty necklace that looks like cranberries at the store next door to H&M, while kidlet snagged a hot pink headband with a bow that is pure Madonna circa 1985. So a great haul was yielded by all!
I was right about the first Diana roll sucking. The pictures came out horribly. I mean, just the absolute Suck. Only like three even printed. It’s my fault because I am so heedlessly impatient and thoughtless that I didn’t take the time to get it right before snapping away in the heat of the moment. I need to work on this, but I will not let it get me down. Hopefully my next roll will come out better.
In the evening, we had a small pre-Friend Thanksgiving with Christo since he will be gone on real Friend Thanksgiving. It was really great; we went around the table saying what we were thankful for. I was thankful to be home, and put the period right there. Then I jetted to Panda’s and whisked her off to the pub cause she had had a motherfucker of a day, like with dead pets and everything, it was horrible. We met up with Jonohs (who had new guylights — between him and Panda going blonde, I am beginning to feel totally untransformed!) and sort of did trivia, but mainly Panda and I focused on beer and chat.
All in all, it was a surprisingly full day, and I did a lot more driving on city streets than I normally care to, but a really excellent day. What I said at dinner, I meant. Days like yesterday, both the good and bad, can take my breath away with how fortunate I am to be in a place I think of as home, to be with my friends and family. I’m ridiculously lucky.
So that’s about enough avoiding the Diana. I’m off to take pictures of the lonesome October because I like my camera and it is mine and it doesn’t matter where it came from.
Kidlet’s godmother is coming today to make cupcakes and do Halloweeny shit. I will hit the road with my finished film, freshies, flash and gels in hand, and hopefully come back poorer but happier.
I am completely undeterred in my plan to bus and hoof it all weekend. Bring it on, water cycle; I got a kickass red umbrella which I have been trying to lose and grieve over for practically forever! (It’s so unlike me to actually hold on to something that I love so well that this streak of keeping track of my red umbrella is beginning to freak me out.)
This weather is just the excuse I’ve been waiting for to finally bust out my ruby slipper chux. Last night I dreamt briefly that I had a Holga (in actuality I have a diana f+) and I was futilely attempting to take pictures of a rainbow, but I kept jacking it up I was sure, and I said in the dream to my friend that the problem with Lomo was that I could not tell how the pictures came out until they were developed, but that at the same time I loved that. Now I know why I dreamt of rainbows: it’s raining today! So let’s do this!
Cat Stevens — Peace Train
The Thought Experiment 