Friday July 20, 2008 5:30 AM
"Hahaha Intensity" (big heat, finally rain)
Huge rain in middle of night, lightning storm in the evening, so morning is transformed world. Cool air, wet ground, and still misty because it is so close to dawn. A woodsy smelling and looking world, what heaven! We went thru too much blistering heat for too long, so this relief and refreshment now is like a dream-come-true. There still is a “pinch me, can this be real” feeling, we had been prisoners in that hot hell for so long.
It was a huge pressure, that is the only way I can describe it. When something that uncomfortable lasts that long, and is ear-marked by relentlessness, it turns into a huge pressure. Oddly enough I began to crack from it yesterday afternoon, the kind of hairline crack which opens up after too much pressure for too long. I woke up and did some emailing, and then in the middle of it, the emails refused to send, and internet went down too. So I sat on phone long time waiting for someone from my cable company to tell me what to do. And when I finally got to speak to Yvonne, she sounded like she was in another world. This was not your crisp, helpful, efficient voice, but like talking to a sleepwalker. Either she was silent, or occasionally she giggled. But I did find out the cable internet was down in my area, and they had no idea when it would be fixed. “OK” I said to Yvonne, “I’ve been trying for a month to send my friend Linda her birthday card and birthday presents, now I will do it.”
So I got out Linda’s beautiful card and wrote it out. And found her new address and addressed the envelope. And then I decided I would look for some of the stories I had printed up last year, to see if there were some I could send her as a pamphlet. That was a big deal. Back in NYC, before internet email computer, when it was just typing up your stories and making xerox copies to send your friends, I was actually fairly organized. I had two file cabinets, and put things in folders and could find them if I wanted to find them. For some reason in Tucson I haven’t bothered to be organized at all. I just shove everything into piles, and when the piles get too big, I shove the whole piles in bottoms of file drawers. Which is fine if you want to do no work at all. It means a ton of work has fallen out of my life, but it also means it is simply not possible to find anything. And I am sorry to say I think it means procrastination. I mean eventually I am going to have to get out all those piles shoved into bottoms of filing drawers and sort thru them, if I am going to want to find anything. Yesterday was the first day I wanted to find anything, so the problem didn’t really emerge till yesterday. I wanted to find a few stories to send Linda, and I wanted to find a color xerox of one of Bill’s paintings to use as a cover.
Actually it wasn’t that bad finding the xeroxes of the stories from last year. They had all been in a black leather satchel on floor of my bedroom closet from when I brought them home from xerox store last year. And sat there in that big black leather pocketbook for nearly whole year, till I decided they should not be on floor of my bedroom closet. I took them out of the black pocketbook and shoved them into the bottom of a small wood cabinet I bought from Caren when she moved to Mexico during the winter.
So I opened up the doors of the small wood cabinet and took out everything I thought was there and sat on floor to see what was there. My dog Beanie thought it was very interesting and exciting that I was sitting on the floor next to my computer instead of on the chair. And so he walked on and sat on the stories as I was trying to find out what was there. It was very hard to get him to budge. There seemed to be only 3 stories there, altho badly organized and with missing pages, and some I seemed to have printed up 3 different ways. So I thought “OK, if it’s only 3 stories from 2 years ago, fine! let me just find the last page to each story, and find a color xerox to use as cover.” So I put together 3 stories, but then for some reason I shoved my hand in the wood cabinet again, and another pile was in there. And it seemed to contain two more stories to add, so now I had 5.
Of course the ones I thought Linda would love best were not there, I guess I never got around to printing those up, but at least I had five. I just had to go thru the second pile and find the two other stories, and make sure they had all their pages. Some were xeroxed double-sided and some single-sided, and some I seemed to have left out some pages. Beanie came back in when I got out the second pile, walked on them and sat on them, and I had to wait till he decided to move. But I had stories and it was easy. There was one color xerox of a painting in there with them, but it was frayed around the edges, and I wasn’t sure it was the one I wanted. And I wanted one for back cover too. But when I started to open up my file drawers, to find a folder of Bill’s color xeroxes, that is when I saw what an atrocious mess it all was. There was no way I would ever find it in all this mess.
However 4 years ago a guy had called me because he was writing a book about women’s liberation, he was a professor at a college in West Virginia, and I had promised to send him an article I had written about it few years before. It was actually a letter to someone, but in the letter I had made some good insights about women’s liberation, I had a clear bead on it. I had made one feeble attempt to find the letter at the time to send him and gave up. And to my amazement yesterday morning, while looking for Bill’s color xeroxes, I found it in manila envelope stacked in a file drawer. I have a hunch his book is long since published, he likes to write about controversial topics, and he writes his books fast. The one before this book on women’s liberation was about something very controversial in WW 2. I had saved his address in a pile for 4 years, somewhere else, and I have no idea if I held on to it during my last attempt 6 months ago to do something about my piles of paper. I might have thought “his book is long since published, and I will never find my letter about women’s liberation,” and finally threw out his letter to me asking for it. Altho it’s possible I just moved it around. In any case if I find his letter to me with his name and address and remember where I put my letter about women’s liberation, I will send it to him. I don’t care if the book is already published, it is something I have been planning to accomplish for 4 years, and I will just do it, and I will never have to think about it again.
I gave up looking for Bill's color xeroxes and decided I would use that one, the only one I could find, even tho it was worse from wear. All I wanted in the whole world was to finally accomplish Linda’s birthday present, it had taken me a month to reach this point. So I put the cover on top of the 5 stories I had organized for her. I put the birthday card on top. I found the big stapler, dusty in a corner, and asked Bill to put a big staple in. But he was sitting in the chair by open front door. His plan was to go to Randolph Pool which opens at 1 PM, so he could dump me in the pool and use their weight-lifting gym. It was hard waiting around that hot house with nothing to do till it started to get to be near the time, even tho we would use up some of the time by going to Post Office first, to send off Linda’s package, and then to library so I could return my books and take out new ones.
We both got grumpy as we thought about waiting around till 1 PM. So I decided I would lie on my bed and look out the window till it was time to go. But before I got onto bed I impulsively reached out my hand to my little bedside table to see which bracelet was there. I had been planning to send Linda the small delicate Navajo bracelet with the exquisite purple stone, and maybe also the simple larger one with the big Arizona turquoise, and had begun polishing up the silver on the purple bracelet. But when I stuck out my hand, the bracelet which came into it, was the fancy expensive one, with a lot of silver, and gorgeous turquoise with gold speckled thru the turquoise. It is my fanciest bracelet. And I realized I could use up my time, while waiting till 1 PM, just sitting on my bed and polishing up that one for Linda. So I decided to do it. I used my bed sheet, it was cotton, and polished up all the silver, till it turned silvery and shiny again. And then polished the stone too so it gleamed. In one of my researches thru my file drawers, I had found a gold jewelry box with that fluffy padded stuff in it, I guess it had been the box for one of my bracelets, and I had gotten it out, and put it with Linda’s package. So I put the bracelet in that one. And then found a beautiful pair of turquoise earrings. For some reason the silver polished up in an instant, it was not a big job, and I polished up the turquoise too so it gleamed, and found a very small gold jewelry box with padded stuffing for that. And I had Linda’s whole package. Just then Bill began grumbling, he couldn’t take it anymore, sitting around waiting. So I said “let’s go now, we'll go to Post Office, you can staple the booklet for me, and I can send it off, then we'll go to library and just hang around the air conditioning in library till it is time for pool to open."
So we walked into the inferno and got into the truck, and Bill carried the huge heavy dusty stapler in, and I brought my package for Linda, as well as all my library books to return. Bill stapled it perfectly, he did very nice job. And Post Office was empty. I showed the postman the bracelet, the earrings, and the booklet of stories, and the birthday card in its envelope with address written out, and he said “your friend in New York will like it, it’s a pretty bracelet and pretty earrings.” He scotch-taped the two jewelry boxes for me and put it all in a postal envelope and looked up how much it cost by 2 Day Rate and for Parcel Post. Parcel Post takes 9 days, it was only 2 dollars cheaper, so I decided to go with the 2 Day Rate. I was excited that Linda would actually get all this, and get it soon.
I was thrilled that it was accomplished. I felt I had been amazingly lucky to have accomplished it in 2 hours, my original plans had been far more complex, and would have involved 3 trips to xerox store among other things. It wasn’t everything I dreamed for sending Linda, but it was fast efficient and done. And I knew when your friend sends you a Navajo bracelet from Arizona, that no matter how beautiful purple stone is, all you want with all your heart is turquoise. Whether Linda will actually wear the bracelet I don’t know, but it will take her breath away when she sees it, and this is what you most want for a birthday present, for someone to leap with joy.
In the library I went to the ladies room and changed out of the dress I had worn for the post office into cool cotton top and skirt. And sat there with nothing to do and watched the clock. Then I asked the girl for scissors and went to ladies room and cut the top of my hair, where it was too long and getting in my eyes, and watched the clock some more. Then I went to find Bill to ask him if he wanted to stop at Feig’s first, the Jewish store, to get kaiser rolls. I had bought all that hamburger meat and forgotten to get hamburger rolls. And each morning when he made his hamburger for lunch, he protested about putting it on rye bread and wished he had a kaiser roll from Feig’s.
He said “what time is it?” I said “12:30.” He said “OK we'll leave.” But he had parked so far out in the parking lot because he had kept looking for shade, and it was such a hot walk to the car. I was walking very slowly and wished just for once Bill would do what everyone else does, which is park as close to the building as he could. He always has some reason for parking far out, I guess he likes an exposed space to get out of. He said “why are you walking so slowly?” I said “it is hot.” He said “if you can’t take the heat move to San Diego.” He said “do you want me to drive the truck around and pick you up at the entrance?” “YES!” I said “YES! thank you.”
When we got in the truck he said “let’s skip Feig’s.” I said “but pool doesn’t open till 1 PM, I will die if I have to stand outside in the heat for 20 minutes, let stop at a convenience store and get me a huge iced soda.” He said “is the gas station OK?” I said “perfect!”
For some reason I was completely wiped out. I don’t know why yesterday was the first time the heat finally got to me. It wasn’t that yesterday was hotter, altho it was blistering beyond belief, it was as if the whole summer accumulated in me. The little store on side of gas station had one small hard chair to sit in. I just sat down and said to Bill “I can’t do a thing, you make me the soda, you pay for it, I am just sitting here, I want a Sprite.” He made me a 32 ounce Sprite. “Fill it up with ice” I said, and took the pack of Vienna Fingers on my right from the shelf, handed it to Bill and said “pay for this too.” And then he handed me my soda, my cookies, and I sat in the little hard chair, in the small air conditioned room, sipped on my ice cold soda, and felt happy for the first time all day. That is all I wanted in the whole world, to sit quietly in air conditioning, sip on a big ice cold soda, eat my Vienna Fingers, and talk to the women behind the cash register.
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