I know you believe you understand
what you think I said. But I am
not sure you realize that
what you heard is not
what I meant.
^ o o M
S ^ T lD t^
___________ W A S H I N G T O N ft O R E G O N C O A S T S ___________
Patrick Murray
2 0 0 0 C o rre c te d fo r PAC IFIC BEACHES
HIGH MAY
LOW MAY
DATE
DAY
JOTS™
A.M
GUK
TIME
FT
1 Mon • 11:23
Fatally Femne
By R. K. Puma
I’d returned to school after fifteen years'
absence and opted for a topic course in creative
writing — ‘The Female Experience”. In my naiveté. I
hadn’t realized that women’s Studies attracted mostly
disgruntled females, dilettantes returning in earnest,
and those researching a change in sexual preference
(ripe pickings?). At any rate, in this workshop, each
of us felt quite extraordinary.
Lydia, though younger than we, spoke
patiently about the kinds of work she expected of us.
Her shapeless legs were always crossed at the ankles:
stationary body language accompanying the fervent/
feminist lecture and conjecture — not unlike famed
Dr. Brothers discussing sex with knees solidly
soldered together. Lydia had a captive audience of
battered wives, single mothers and doe-eyed dears
with fresh abortions in mind.
We circled the wagons, actually our desks
— metal folding chairs, appended unnaturally with
wood, to support our right-handed endeavors:
pioneering the spirit of sisterhood. I noted Lydia's
“Afro” (overpermed/thin) adorning her round, East-
Euro face, with thick-penciled eyelids. She was
assigning predictable reading. In the poetry anthology
after many selections, I saw the contributors as a
buncha’ broads, tired of bitching in prose. I couldn’t
wait to see this crap up for discussion. I was clearly
not with the group: Lydia’d invited a colleague to
read to us her “Ode to My Diaphragm” and I had to
clamp my palette to stifle asking why she didn’t do a
sequel ode to her douche bag. Oddly, the other ladies
in the group were entranced with it. Great, me and
Helen Reddy against the world. I hate Helen Reddy.
But I’m down with Rodney D. and Aretha about
getting no, uh, R-e-s-p-e-c-t(more pissed-full than
wistful, I guess). How alone I felt in a crowded
faculty livingroom, with Mary Daly; watching her
exploit her status as an educator —with admiring
babes at her feet, groveling for very selective
wisdom.
As it went, I waxed anarchy, blasphemy,
heretically unpopular views such as: men are human
beings. Bite this bulletin: they're also the same
species! When I’d admitted to loving not a few (dad,
bro, many buddies and sons-on-tap) I became
regarded as eccentric. The wine & cheese parties in
the syllabus were required; chatter ended abruptly on
my arrivals. Work poured in and Lydia
mimeographed her ass off. The purple-printed sheets
became the precious piñata for the ladies, much as
sweet-toothed Latino brats, greedy for poking and
jabbing.
Now, Maya, a Spanish American self-
confessed lesbo who drove a cab, was (to me) the
most likeable of the group. I ler works were sprinkled
with obscenities about the Blessed Mother. Catholic
rearing, I'd supposed. Her thick accent and gringo
boots, Army camouflage ensemble, reading her work
on the Madonna in the backseat of a Rambler on
Monticello Avenue. She had a polite tolerance of
heleros with a sense of humor we agreed in class too
often.
Then there was Jan, also openly gay with a
sweet face that belonged on a pancake box. Her most
memorable work was a poem inspired when she’d
eavesdropped in Burger King, on a couple of ROTC
guys playing war games with their fries. She was
incredulous and affronted. I grew to like her anyway.
Mane was the carth-mother/widc-hippy:
overheanng her, a guy in the next brxvth had asked
why it happens that all women’s libbers are so ugly.
and she retorted with ‘why do guys that ask that,
always have bad breath?’ which gives you an idea
how often it was asked. She was a great organizer
though, and made a helluva quiche, but I never
understood her cry ptic work until she’d explain away
the vaguery. I did wonder, when I’d seen she was
giving a reading a few years later - hey, who died
and made her a poet?
Susie, financially struggling alone with three
kids but determined academically, wrote cheering
things about baking cookies and clobbering her
daughter with the hot sheet pan. Her unshaven legs
and dry thonged feet attested to her busy schedule,
unless that was a personal style expression. When we
were to give a public reading in the Arts & Letters
hall (to faculty, family or anyone else snag-able) she
adamantly refused to participate. When the big
evening arrived, she was more poised than Jackie O.
The weekly parties/ luncheons were to prepare us for
that gig. Cliques constantly shifted — the mode for
discovering the extent of one another’s abortion
notches.
Dale was sweet and skirted issues on
sexuality while Joie stayed away from it altogether
with themes on wind, ballet dancers and yes, Joyce
Kilmer — trees. Sidney, tragically hip, thin in
designer jeans and high-heeled boots, attempted to
write cryptically but unconsciously borrowed heavily
from Billy Joel (about a girl in stilettos declaring it’s
her own life, dropping the ‘leave me alone’ so we
wouldn’t make the association). When I’d said I
could name that tunc in three notes, I softened it by
saying at one time I was influenced heavily by Bob
Dylan without realizing. Our eyes didn’t meet for the
remainder of the semester. It’s not like I was calling
her a frickin’ plagiarist — what’s a workshop for?
But I was equally sensitive: when Lydia asked me to
scrap one of my stones, I coulda’ slashed her handily.
Thing was, she'd assumed it was a fantasy with
herself in the lead, and a bit miffed when I explained
1 was boinking my (male) philosophy professor. Ah,
well. It’s not difficult to irk a feminist.
Charlene wrote a lengthy piece on Ursa
Minor, which was bafflingly beautiful and she might
have earned the class award, had there been one.
Then there was Victoria, whose
dcmeanor/countenance were equal to her name. Her
poems about a lover were as gory as the Norman
invasion: “Ruminations in Blood" conjured images of
her man, Beowulf with red fangs. I wanted to tell her
J.C.Penney’s was having a White Sale, since they
hadda’ go through some linen.
There’s a sense here I’m introducing
reindeer, Snow’s dwarves or the Mouseketcers, but
you had ta’ be there. Karen was ‘Ted Baxter’ in drag,
of Mr. Grant’s newsroom. The first day she’d
brcathily declared, ‘I do so want to write fiction.
Good fiction’. Are we heaving yet? Her novel
(yeah—she wouldn’t get off it, in installments yet) of
romance on the tennis courts involved a heroine
(guess who?) who had a thing for her Rabbi, and did
so want to beat him in a set. She'd asked me for
suggestions and I diverted the conversation to a
preferable topic: religion. She was stumped for a
word for people who take catechism. “Fools?” I
suggested, further alienating myself from yet another
sister. But today she writes for a big Hampton Roads
paper, so there you are on what they kxvk for.
I most identified with Angela, we both so
neurotic and beat. Beat? She'd have been at-home on
Bleeckei Street in the 5()’s; it was in her Ghent flat
that I saw all the old women’s hats she collected.
After her party I went home, slept off the wine and
dreamt, then wrote about it:
3:20 a.m.
There I was in some strange little shop,
I don’t know how close I was to my companions.
First 1 tried on a purple hat with netting and plume—
Its show-biz elegance made me look smashing,
but we knew it was ‘all wrong’.
2 Tues •
3 Wed •
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9 Tues ®
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The next hat was tlowdy—
can’t recall what color.
[Sorry, Pablo]
Its small, funny shape made me hurriedly put
it aside,
I didn’t want to get depressed.
There were several more to try,
when I spotted one so unique that it thrilled me.
•
A dream-storm, lost in confusion, the wake.
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Babushka? Train? Dotted swiss?
I awkwardly tied it.
The disinterested girls chorused
31 Wed
AM TIDES
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“It’s not you”
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• BIGGER THE DOT - BETTER THE FISHING'
DAYLIGHT TIME
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BOLD TYPE
and I didn’t buy anything.
© 2000 R K Puma
(with apologies to Picasso for ‘borrowing’
Jacqueline’s hat.)
Lydia had red markered: ‘Great! Read this one on
Tues, night.”
The group discussed it and got more from it
than intended. There’s a voice, and it’s definitely
esoteric. Not everyone is gonna’ get it. I’d offered it
was possibly a derivation of the old ghost-town
sheriff routine, changing hats every time the stranger
asks to talk to someone else — in the derby he’s the
barkeep and in white Stetson, the mayor. That is,
attempting to be all things to everybody. Nobody
buys it, nobody gains. Identity. That’s what the ladies
decided it was about. I had a difficult time reading it
aloud, even in the classroom. I love to'talk. I'm nuts
to write. Why can’t 1 read what I write? My face
twists and contorts involuntarily. Moment of truth, I
s’pose. Typewritten paper looks so great but you feel
like a complete moron reading, like you’re ripping
somebody off — their time, at least. You know those
dreams where you wanna’ holler and ya’ can’t make
a sound?
With the poems selected and protests over
protocol out of the way, we rehearsed. Lydia put me
up there first I still wonder what that meant. Perhaps
she felt I might bolt; or worse yet, head out on a beer
run. I did one on Boxes and another on being a
Daughter; a sis and niece accompanied me in support.
I’d drank a six-pack on the way to the hall and both
uh, ‘supported’ me by harping. Okay, so give me a
saucer of milk and let me sharpen my nails on the
upholstery. I don’t get women. They don’t get me.
When I recently congratulated a co-worker on luckily
having a son, noting her puzzled look, I tossed in:
‘hell, tough as it’s been for us - you want any fruit of
your loom to have it as crappy?’ I’m an equal
opportunity misanthrope though; males are very
lampoon-able too, and I still can’t read this jive
aloud.
© 2000 R K Puma
Oh, what? So, the season had its high point for
the Cubs so far, on day one on the other side of
the world. It’s merely May. It takes Tools and
Time to make a Team; we have both. I l has
alw ays seemed to me that the first half of the
season, before the All Star Break, is when the
‘real’ fans watch the games. Everyone watches
playoffs and Championships, but the ‘real’ fans
watch the first half. They watch the mistakes,
the corrections, the lessons, the injunes, the
losses, the team being formed. It’s like when
you watch a rehearsal or the first few
performances of a band or a theater company,
you can see if they arc going to be able to play
well together. The team, be it a theater company ,
a band or a baseball team, cither is there, or there
are a bunch of folks going through the motions,
taking things as they come with no thought of the
goal. Uncle Mike has wisely mentioned that in
poker, you get a lot of cards, you play a lot of
hands, but in the end it’s who wins the game. In
baseball, teams win the game. The Cubs over
most of last century had good players and
managers, and coaches, but never a team. I
finally started believing that the Cubs could
become a team when Rino came back to the
team, having walked away from 14 mil to take
care of his family scene. That was years ago, but
Rino is still with the team as a coach I saw’it the
other day when Grace gave up the bag to a kid
who needs playing time. I saw it when the coach
told reporters he was going to work with Sosa on
his fielding. Yes, you laugh, the Cubs arc taking
their usual place in the lower rungs of the
Central, and this year is Bat men 3, featuring Jr.
Which brings me to my predictions. I predict
that Sosa will hit less than 50 home runs, Mark
Grace will hit under 350 (tee hec), Kerry Wood
will win the Cy Young, and that catcher we got
from the Yankees will be facing his old
teammates in the Senes. Go, Cubbies!
I don't know why I did it,
I don't know why I enjoyed it,
and I don't know why I'll do it again.
Bart Simpson
UÎPEλ LEFT EDGE J W
2000
I
4