Spidercamp

Something terrible happened and the power has gone out for good.

Something terrible happened and the power has gone out for good. A lot of people died but we were lucky. Then the winds come and drag away the tent with all our supplies in it. I don't realize until long after it has tumbled down the gorge (stuff bouncing out of the tent as it cartwheels; ultimately it flutters down light as a kite) that my brother was in it, too. I can't even do anything about that because my father is being dragged to the same place, clutching at tree trunks and screaming. Somehow I help him and he is saved. The winds die down. I pack my gear and go out looking for my brother.

I forget what I'm doing. There's a bad smoke in the air that's bad for my brain. I black out and find myself crouching by the road, stuffing thumbtacks into a pouch, muttering to myself these will come in handy, these will come in handy. I shake my head and drop the thumbtacks and keep going.

I round a corner and find a corpse. She must be new. We cleared out all the old ones from this area. She's in a rocking chair, clutching a glass that still has liquid in it. I try not to look. She's cut up pretty bad.

I turn away and hear a crunching noise behind me. The crunching of glass. It takes me forever to look back over my shoulder. I'm cold. She's standing there with a fist full of shards and a ragged length of wood speared through her chest and she is not bleeding. Medic, she hisses. I can't move. Get me a medic you bitch you LITTLE FUCKING BITCH

I walked in on an old Russian woman peeling onions

(not a dream:) I walked in on an old Russian woman peeling onions in the school kitchen. She was a little fat grandma in a bright pink shirt and her gigantic silver bowl must have had fifty onions in it. She said, "I not cry! Iss onions!" Never seen her before in my life, but she made me listen to a long boring story about her grandson but it was ok because of her accent. She kept insisting she was not really crying and I kept saying ok and she kept telling me some more. ... An old couple in the grocery store, both in work uniforms, hers a nurse's, his a mechanic's. They walked real slow behind the cart and took their time over the celery. I liked them already and then he slapped her on the ass and she giggled. ... Things I've learned from my boss this week: * black people are annoyingly difficult to tell apart * bananas keep best in the refrigerator * a child raised by two lesbians will always end up with behavior disorders and very fucked up * there are no nerves in the human ass.

It takes a trip to the dentist to cheer me up

It takes a trip to the dentist to cheer me up. That's sick.

From my first glance of the toddler with the yellow sundress and the honey-colored curls I know what I'm in for. My specially trained eye gathers the evidence - wrecked waiting room, wicked grin - and concludes: Brat. Its mother, who is unfailingly the source of the problem, doesn't even have the courtesy to look frazzled. She just coos to her little angel, Honey, please don't rip up the magazines, sweetie, please don't color on the wall, baby, come here? The kid can tell from Mommy's faint, quavering tone that these are not commands or expectations, just suggestions to be shrugged off. No thanks. I'd rather run wild.

The kid has shoved all the chairs around. I pick the farthest one, move it a little farther away, and take the shredded magazines off the seat. The kid howls. Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, that, lady, mommy that lady, etc. She's pissed. Mommy pretends to be engrossed in the Monthly Rag or whatever. She continues to do this even when her kid sidles over to me and tells me, in an excellently loud and creepy corn-child hiss, Go. A. Way. I shoot all kinds of "what the fuck" eye daggers at Mommy but Mommy doesn't give a shit.

Anyway none of this bothers me once I remember that this kid is not mine to deal with and I don't have to clean up any of the mess. Plus, the kid's name is Bogie. Ha.

Wade the hygenist is a great guy and I want so badly to contribute to the conversation but my mouth is jammed full of shrapnel so I just get to listen, which is fine when it's Wade. He likes intelligent books and stupid tv, just like me. He can't remember the name of the disease that girl had on the last season of Top Model, but, appallingly, I can. But I can't talk. For a second I think of acting it out but all I can think of is lying down and looking sleepy, which is what I'm already doing. So I grab my notebook and pen out of my pocket (that's right) and scrawl LUPUS and Wade is very impressed and says that this year the sick one, the ringer, is legally blind, and he's always thought a good way to get some play would be to find a blind girl and just sneak up real quiet and grab her. Then he says he hates beer commercials because he is not going to start drinking Budweiser just because of some ponies.

Wade tells me about the film he made. Usually when people start telling me about their special projects I start strangling myself but this documentary sounds awesome - it's about the near-total lack of hiphop culture in Chicago despite the tremendous black population there - 46%. By this time the torture is all over and I'm allowed into the conversation. He totally shirks his job to keep talking with me. We go from the Pope to Hitler to Beyonce's fine ass to the Crusades to modern-day politics; he swears and apologizes and swears some more.

I don't know Wade's political stance, I only know he's a conservative Christian. So we both speak in generalities until it becomes clear that we both think Bush is king of the fucktards, at which point Wade crosses his arms and grins and says I knew all the black folks were hatin his ass. Makes me real glad when I hear somebody white say he's a moron too.

When I left, he shook my hand, a firm warm grip, and thanked me, as if he were the one who was grateful.

Other things I like: the New York Times' slogan is "Expect the world" (how did I not know this?) and during Dr. Phil the tv keeps running a commercial for mops.

the alternative to cruelty

Last week somebody told me about a guy who was unbearably cruel to an animal. It's stuck in my head since then, I can't shake it. She wasn't even trying to illustrate a point about this guy, or relate it to anything - she just wanted to tell me about cruelty. The story wasn't good for me. It hurt.

I've been doing the same thing here. It's one wounded animal after another and the stories aren't doing anyone any good. I have to stop because it's all I think about and it's making me feel desolate all the time. I can't be making it worse. If I can't say anything nice, at all, ever, I might just have to shut up for a while rather than drive more miserable stories out into the world. Here: I know a hundred utterly unloved children who are slowly becoming bitter jerks and I can't fix any of their lives. That's what my blog will be for the next forever if I don't shut it off now.

I'm no disgusting sunshine fairy but I'm going to have to do my best to focus on the rare moments where I don't feel like I'm going to crumble from frustration or grief.

In that spirit, I give you:

1. A new co-worker (splendid miracle: we hired someone) who does not appear to suck. Sure, she's "enthusiastic" and makes my ears bleed a little, and it is true that she said "If I can just change one child's life for the better, it's all worth it!!!" (punctuation hers, this is defintely a three-exclamation-points kind of special lady), which did make me want to kill or die, BUT what I choose to focus on is the fact that there was a table thoroughly shellacked with peanut butter and jelly, and she cleaned it up before I even remembered there was a mess. And she says things like, "How can I help?" "Just let me know what I can do" and "Can I help you carry that?" And she really loves her kid and her kid is a sweetheart and that means a great deal. And having her on staff means I am now allowed to leave the kids for that holiest of holy moments, which I had been missing for so long, the bathroom break.

2. When I came home yesterday there were people on the landing talking to people down below on the ground. This beautiful woman with a head full of dreads and a long orange dress, enormously pregnant, called up to a guy who said Lawd, look who's here. What you been up to? She laughed and said, Havin a baby. He ran down the stairs yelling DAMN, girl! Knocked yo ass UP! and they rubbed her big orange belly together.

3.Who's going to Russia?

The world is full of cute boys

The world is full of cute boys I could not give a damn about, but they're fun to watch. There's Victor, with a crooked mouth and hair gone gray three decades too soon. College boys studying and methodically underlining nearly every sentence in the book, one with ink spots all over his shirt and hands, the important parts, I guess. The sulky coffee guy in thick glasses who would rather be anywhere else but yelling CHAI, SOY LATTE over the yapping of a roomful of people on cellphones, but who dredges up one brief real smile for me.

These handsome strangers mean less than nothing to me because today the world sucks and there's no convincing me otherwise. I still dutifully write down their details, because it all comes in handy at some point. Or it's just to keep my hands busy and to keep me from making things worse.

Things don't look up until I read an article outlining ten ways a man can become a better man for his woman. It's written by a man and appears in a men's magazine, so it's none of this "mow the lawn and take me to Paris" crap you'd find in Redbook or Cosmo. I read the article because dude is funny and because I'm not used to seeing the self-betterment approach in a mainstream magazine. Much more common are articles on how to change your man, or how to put up with your woman. This is humble, practical advice that makes sense.

It takes me until number 8 to realize that every item on the list is something Logan does as a matter of habit. I finish reading and backtrack to make sure. Does he kiss me on top of the head? All the time. Take me as I am? Yep. Come to my defense? Act glad to see me? Laugh at my stupid jokes? He does, and, on days like this, he does everything he can think of to make me feel better.

I realize, not for the first time, that I've got a very, very good boyfriend. I don't have an off switch, more's the pity, so I don't shake the terrible mood right then. But I tuck these facts away for future reference, meaning, from now on.

the successful execution of large truths delivered in tight spaces

Barbara Kingsolver, on short stories:

"...the successful execution of large truths delivered in tight spaces... the business of fiction is to probe the tender spots of an imperfect world."

---

I didn't have to go to work because of hurricanes again, but still I was sad all day, I don't know why. I was reading Frank McCourt and inevitably my heart broke, but it wasn't that. It wasn't the weather either because as soon as I stepped out into it I felt better. The light was all blue and the rain was close together, the kind that gets you wet through to the skin in about four seconds. We sat and read for a long time in the coffeeshop, which is an entirely different thing done with Logan than done alone. We drove back home through very strong wind in a very tiny car and now I'm safe and able to do the real work, of which this blogging stuff is just a happy side effect.

I never thought I'd be a medic

I never thought I'd be a medic, and I'm not. Still, when the six-year-old wants to know about AIDS, it's me he asks, and we talk about it. Yep, if somebody had it, it would be totally safe for you to play with their legos. Then a seven-year-old runs up to me and says, I'm kind of freaking out! She's been running hard and can feel her heart pounding on both sides of her chest and is worried she might accidentally have two hearts. I introduce her to the jugular and the radial, and we talk about how strong the heart is.

In the same day, two kids ask me what cancer is, and I tell them. I try to tell the truth without being scary. I tell them there are lots of ways to get better from it and doctors are getting smarter all the time and that if they ever got sick, there would be lots of people helping them get well again. I hope that it's true.

I issue band-aids, neosporin, ice packs. Lately I've paid a lot of attention to feet. The feet of the children of the wealthy might often be mistaken for not-so-privileged feet. Who's more likely to have ill-fitting or worn-out shoes, the children of the poor or of the rich? I only know that I see a lot of blisters from kids whose parents buy the shoes alone, guessing at size, because it's a hassle to take the kid to the shoe store to try things on. Or they buy last year's size because it honestly doesn't occur to them that small feet get bigger. Or they buy two sizes too big because the kid will grow into them eventually, and that'll save the bother of the shoe store for at least a year or so. I'm not inferring or exaggerating. I've heard conversations and I have seen the evidence.

The evidence is children who limp and grimace through a game of tag. The evidence is blisters on top of blisters on tiny toes and heels. Sometimes, ok, maybe don't read this sentence, sometimes I sit a kid down on the floor and untie the laces and slip the dress-code-brown loafer off the little foot, and I try to be gentle and the kid tries to be brave, and I can see where the problems are even before I take the sock off, because there is dried blood and there is fresh blood.

And there is Ava, who said her feet hurt, and I took off her shoes and socks and saw that her toenails had grown so far out that they curled over the ends of her toes. Because no one had cut them for her. Because no one had thought of it. Who's supposed to do it - the maid? Me? Lawsuit. Ava is four years old and nobody is paying attention to her body at all. Now that I'm looking for it, I see she has tangled hair and filth behind her ears. She's so little and her parents are so rich and this is what an expensive private school is about.

I was in the bed this morning thinking how it's a terrible thing

I was in the bed this morning thinking how it's a terrible thing to have to get up out of your warm nest of blankets and leave the good book you're reading in favor of a depressing world full of insane bosses, demanding brats, parents who won't even say hello and teachers who are openly full of hatred for you, who are so far below their station. You'll suffer all this without ever complaining to the people causing the suffering in the first place. You'll do your damn hateful job with a smile and never expect so much as a thank-you because you gave up all hope of that years ago. It's an especially awful thing to have to put up with so much bullshit while suffering a fever and a headache and exhaustion and a complete lack of morale, but you'll do it, you'll get up out of your warm bed and shut the Frank McCourt which is where all this misery was feeling very much at home, comfortable, and starting to feel as if things were sure to get better any day now. Except you have to get up and go to work.

And the day did turn out to be shit, but before it started, a good thing did happen. I went to the library though I knew it would make me late for work, because I did not give a damn. I was hoping for the Bookmaster more than usual because there was a mistake with my account and I was in need of a very kind person who would believe what I said and not pull the Biggest Asshole Librarian Ever trick. I have a hard time with authority figures, meaning, anyone behind a desk, because they are so often mean for no reason, and so I was a little worried about trying to convince the library that I really did return a book that they still think I have out. It's my word against the computer's and all they have to do is not believe me and then I owe them four hundred dollars in replacement fees. I'm tightly wound these days anyway and I get worked up over things like this so I was fretting at least six times the amount actually called for.

I walk in, and he's there, behind the counter, the antithesis of Asshole Librarian, the Angel of Books. He looks more out of place every time I see him. He's too good for this terrible decrepit library full of bums. He doesn't seem to care or notice that the shelves are half empty or that the clientele necessitates an armed cop patrolling at all hours. His shirt is a beautiful soft blue, and the sleeves are rolled up halfway, which is a silly thing to find charming, but I do because I'm made weak. I walk up; he lifts his eyes and smiles and I see the deep creases around his eyes and I know I'm already taken care of.

I only get halfway through my explanation before he waves his hand and says, No, no need. He scans my card, types something, clicks something, and says, There, all set. It's like it never happened.

He hands me my card with an almost irrational gentleness and says, You have a good day, miss, and then he winks at me and it's all I can do to grin, and say Yes, Yes, you too, you have a good day yourself, and get myself out of there before I do any serious damage to my pride.

As a realist, I am used to settling

As a realist, I am used to settling for "pretty good" while striving towards "awesome." You don't have any perfect days at a childcare facility. It's impossible. Somebody's always going to punch somebody else. You do the best you can. You deal with problems as they arise and do what you can to make sure everybody's basically ok.

My boss is a perfectionist and is only used to dealing with small groups of very young children in a very controlled environment, with, I suspect, sufficient staff to do most of the work for her. Her old job was all tea parties and fairy cakes. Here we've got six times the number of kids, from all age groups, in surroundings which are chaotic beyond belief, largely because we are working with a skeleton crew. We're scraping by. One person gets sick and it fucks the whole thing up. We don't have the luxury of perfectionism.

Today I realized (this was right after she told me how many menbers of her immediate family suffer from bipolar disorder) that my boss is the type of perfectionist who splinters and explodes when faced with insurmountable imperfection. An attitude of "if I can't have 100%, why bother at all?"

I think it was the rubber spider. That damn kid came up waving his rubber spider and wanting to talk about it for a half hour and I tried to hit him with a quick "that's wonderful GO PLAY" but my boss was enchanted and took the rubber spider and cradled it in her hand and petted it and cooed, "and UP! came a SPYder!!! and sat DOWN! beSIDE her!!!!!" in this repulsive saccharine singsong. The kid shut right up with his spider monlogue; he just stood there with his mouth hanging open, looking from her to me and then back to her as if to say, "holy oh my jesus you big fucking moron."

I should have been paying more attention to her face, because I really think that's when it happened, I think that's the moment she cracked. Maybe her eyes got all glittery and evil. All I know is that ten minutes later I heard her snarl "Get over it," to a four-year-old who was bleeding, and refused to give an ice pack to another one whose fingers had been badly smashed against concrete. For the rest of the day she mostly hid in her office. She was irritable, bitchy, and unreasonably jumpy - I scared her twice by speaking to her. I didn't sneak up, I approached her from the front - but she was blank as a ghost, grimacing, lost in her own head.

I don't know what's with the girls

I don't know what's with the girls in sweaters, it's sweltering. There was a girl standing in the parking lot outside the library, wearing a green sweater and smoking aggressively to cover up the fact that she was trying not to cry, and it was funny because I'd just been thinking, it's always the sad girl who owns the room.

---

I was back with an old boyfriend, before things exploded into ugliness, back when there was only silent discomfort and awkward lack of conversation. He'd driven a long way and had instinctively known where to find me - without hesitation he drove straight to the ratty diner where I was walking around and around, frustrated, crying, looking for an empty seat that wasn't there. Even in the dream, I knew it was creepy that he'd found me so easily. I couldn't have hidden if I'd tried.

We sat in his car in the parking lot and I rubbed his head and tried to look happy. He just stared at the steering wheel and mumbled. There was nothing to talk about and that's always how it had been. We were both trying so hard to fake it and I didn't know why he had even bothered coming to find me and he didn't know either. It was exactly as it really had been with us and I woke up feeling as dead as I always, always used to feel.