WriteOutLoud

"I Feel Squirmy"

said my student I was tutoring on the subject of the Italian Renaissance to the tune of $50/hour.  "I feel like wiggling around, you know?" he complained. "Why IS that?"--which is what makes him interesting.

"Because you're a twelve-year-old boy, that's why.  Can you stand on your head?

"Whut?"

"Can you stand on your head."

"I dunno."

"OK, not really your head.  Your HANDS.  Come over here"--I crossed to the study wall--"and just kick UP, like this"--and did a handstand against the wall.  Which nearly killed me with all my tendonitis issues, but I wasn't letting on. 

I came down, slightly breathless.  "Come on!  I'll catch you.  No, don't start from your knees; start standing, but like a track star on the blocks.  Yeah, good. . .  OK, once more, kick HARD, you'll get it--woopsie! there you go!"  The second time, he kicked to about 45 degrees, and I lifted him the rest of the way.  He stood there, only a little wobbly, for a count of maybe 15.  Then down.

"Whoa--that was COOL!"

"Yeah?"

"Could we do it again?"

"Sure !"

Then he caught himself.  "No, uh, um, never mind."

"OK.  So who first posited that the earth was NOT the center of the universe?"

"Copernicus."

"Right."

"Who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?"

"Michelangelo?"

"Right."

"Who designed the big dome in Florence?"

"Brunelleschi?"

"Yup."

  Goodness how rewarding.

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In other news:  as of Wednesay, June 15, WriteOutLoud will be on hiatus for a while. 

The Aviatrix

When I was a little tiny kid, like 3 or 6, commercial aviation was still a novelty, still glamorous.  My parents put me on the plane from San Francisco to Burbank without a thought--no nametags, no security stuff, nothing.  500 miles?  1000?  No big deal!  They knew I'd ingratiate myself.  Little tiny Me, aloft.  I loved it.

I still see the interior of the DC-3 as if it were two weeks ago:  two-and-two seating, scratchy grey flannel upholstery, the smokesmelling plane humming/buzzing /bouncing through deepdark night, me cruising up and down the aisle, offering mints like the little stewardess I was and would be.  (I got plastic wings for this.)  My fellow passengers were mostly asleep, though, so I usually ended up in the cockpit on the pilot's lap, watching the lights and meters, calm as you please.   Sometimes I got to steer, but more often I just curled up on a uniformed lap and fell asleep to the hum of the engines. 

I distinctly recall being carried off a DC-3 by some guy in a uniform and handed over to my uncle Zack, a 6'4" Lockheed executive and cowboy who often got mysterious phone calls that sent him striding out of his ranch house in the wee tiny hours.  I took more than one of these calls myself:  "Hello?" 

"Zack Z________, please.  This is Howard Hughes calling." 

"He's asleep, sir."

"He eeeeeeyuz?"  Mr. Hughes sounded surprised. 

"Yessir.  It's three o'clock in the morning here, sir."

"Well, tayulll him I wanna TAWK to him!"   

"Yessir.  Yes.  Just one minute, sir."  And I'd pad down the Mexican tile hallway to my aunt and uncle's sacred bedroom, bang on the door and yell, "Uncle Zack, Mr. Hughes is on the phone!"      

Mumbling. 

Then Uncle Zack would burst out of the bedroom and pound down the hall and into his Cadillac or his peacup, and off he'd roar to meet Mr. Hughes at the Burbank or Van Nuys airports.  Nobody ever knew why.

And I'm not making this up.

What I Learned at Paint Camp: Not For the Squeamish!

1.  It's OK to draw first.  (Chorusgirl and I pushed a lot of paint around and fought our way through a lot of "teaching" on our way to this epiphany.)

2.  Cats fart.  Audibly.  Or maybe just Chorusgirl's tabby-point Siamese, who looks like he's disappearing a la the Cheshire Cat.  I've spent a lot of (involuntary) time with cats (I'm allergic) but never fetched up against this particular fart-fact.  Chorusgirl's little catbrat--technically still a kitten--actually farted AT me while sitting harmlessly on the kitchen counter, grooming a hind leg: "Pfhllp!"  Then gave me the "Who--ME?" cat-look.

3.  Because we are 90% water, we create our own reality per What the [Bleep]?

4.  So I am shifting my paradigm, thankyouverymuch!

5.  Some dogs can't get enough love.

6.  I want to own one of them.

7.  God = the super[impo]sition of all-spirit of all-things. 

8.  Just watch the movie.

OK, so I didn't get as much paint on the canvas as I was hoping.  Or it all ended up being white:  BFD.

(Berkeley Fire Department--god how we used to tweak those guys:  pull up next to them at an intersection and yell, "YUP, IT'S TROOOO!"  "What's true?"  "Law of the Universe:  there's no such thing as an ugly firefighter!"  And they'd just grin.)

But no of course what I mean is Big Fucking Deal, so we didn't actually paint that much.  We were just getting ready.  Look out! 

"What IS That?"

Like my brother's dog, who is Labretriever in front and we're-not-sure-what in back (greyhound? whippet?), this car parked in front of the post office doesn't match itself.  The grill and headlights look very '52 Chevy, but the back looks Hudson, sorta, or maybe Kaiser (we had one).  It's shiny black (stupid color in the desert, where every breeze has its sand quota) with RRRRED! interior.  Very snappy.  I cannot just walk by.  I lean in the passenger window:  "So what IS this thing? . . . Oh, ha ha, I SEE--"

I needn't have asked; I needed merely to have read his baseball cap:  "MARV'S '50 DODGE" say big white letters on black.

Marv is a character.  (Surprise!)  He was getting ready to back out of his parking space, but he shuts off the engine and tells me all about the engine is original, but he just had it rebuilt to the tune of twice what he paid for the car, and this is the same upholstery (with performations) that Elvis had in his . . . somethingorother, not a Dodge.  "Wanna go for a ride?  Hop in!  I won't bite ya!"  He grins, and he has a lot of teeth.

I have a Red Riding Hood moment ("Her car found abandoned in the parking lot at the post office . . . she's been missing for a week . . .").  "Um, no thanks, Marv.  What's that transmission--three-speed?"  Yes, it is, and I tell him I learned to drive on a pickup with three on the column, just like that.  Wow.  "Bye, Marv!" I wave. 

He turns the key.  The post office door opens.  Guy comes out.  Yells, "Hey--what IS that?"  Marv shuts it off again.  Probably without sighing.