Knitting, Allende and Twelve Year Old Boys

Katherine here.

I feel like I'm living in triangles upon triangles. There's a job triangle that puts together 21 teachers, 17 school cultures and a driving and scheduling puzzle that would take a Zen master to do with lightness and efficiency. There is a home triangle composed of my friend Jim, my colleague Jim, and my lover Jim. There's a health triangle of doctors, and vitamins, and ghost boobs. Another health triangle is put together with running, bathing in the woods, and playing tennis. Lots of triangles.

There are numbers of triangles that live in my head when I wake up early in the morning. Sometimes the moon makes nifty shadows on the wall at 3:00 in the morning. There's kind of a Plato-in-the-cave effect caused by the railings of our bed that adds to my thoughtfulness at times as well.

Of late, the middle-of-the-night triangle marks a battle between my right and left brain. On the side of the triangle that keeps my right brain rattling are my recent knitting struggles and breakthroughs which go round and round in a daily vicious circle. They make me agonize over lace patterns in sleeves knit on the bias where each round has a different pattern. They may be too short.

There are similar problems with the lower body of the sweater. I've become a really fine knitter, I think. It's just really hard to make things fit. I thought losing the boobs after the last round of cancer would help make everything fit me. Hasn't worked that way.

The thought of un-doing and re-doing the sleeves is unbearable. The thought of losing the Lambspun turquoise yarn is unbearable. Stopping is unbearable. I'm only sane because I'm knitting a basic seed stitch scarf as a Christmas present for a friend.

The other two sides of the current nightly triangle are book-based and very left brained. I'm reading The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allende and The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. Both are wonderful. Both have done a good job of making my brain whirl over what I am and what I am not.

I love Allende fiction. The men are almost always lovable monsters and the women who love them put up with so much and then the men finally learn mercy of some kind by the end of the book. She writes sexy stuff too.

Last night, while debating which knitting approach to take (to undo or not), I measured my life against Allende heroines. It's a hard thing to do when I only feel physically complete when Jim is holding me.

When I'm tired of playing ping pong with Allende and knitting, it's the book about T.S. Spivet that keeps me awake. T.S. is a gifted 12 year old who draws maps of everything in his life. He wins a Smithsonian Award and ends up hopping a freight train back east and then hitching a ride to DC to accept the award. It's a beautiful book. It could only be about a twelve year old boy. Stand By Me would never have worked if three girls went looking for a body. There is something magical about being a twelve year old boy.

I don't lay awake at night trying to be a twelve year old boy, but I try to figure out what the perfect, quintessential age is for a girl. I have gone through the stages of my life over and over and no memory triggers an emotion that is as pure as what the boys in Stand By Me feel or as pure as what T.S. Spivet sees. If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Mostly, I like my triangles.

Mancaves and Aeries

My son Chris just finished installing what will be stage one in the formulation of his mancave. I'm sure Chris has been dreaming about the necessary components for the ideal mancave even before such a horrible term was coined, undoubtedly by some specialty sports network. In any event, he has put a large flat-screen plasma television with surround sound in his basement and arranged it in front of and around a large leather couch with enormous coffee table. According to Christine (my daughter-in-law), he gets up Sunday morning, heats up some wings, puts them in a bucket, opens the basement door and says "I'll see you tonight." As soon as his children grow up he is putting in a pool table. That will be nice because I will undoubtedly visit them more often. I used to be pretty good with a cue stick in my hand.

I've never felt the need for a mancave. If I had one I would be upstairs constantly to see what Kathie was doing. I would eventually either have to stay upstairs and watch the games, or Kathie would have to come down to my mancave in which case it wouldn't be a mancave anymore. This is a quandary I am putting off by the clever ploy of not putting one in.

If one of the definers of a mancave is a flatscreen television than we have one of sorts upstairs. I spend a lot of time up there watching sports or movies because our purchase of a 60 inch Panasonic plasma television has in fact ruined my life. When we had a 15 inch RCA that served us for at least the first half of our marriage we used to read and talk to each other, or take extended hikes in the Colorado mountains. Now we just sit in front of our high def screen and comment to each other about how clear the picture is. On winter nights it takes the place of the fireplace we never use. Those HD tvs put out a lot of heat.

But this room is more of an aerie than a mancave. It is in a loft for one thing. It is also Kathie's knitting room.

One might think a man would feel uncomfortable in such environs. In addition to our television which dominates the south wall, there are (time out while I go count) sixteen hooks on the west wall, each holding at least one thingee (skien?) of yarn. The different colored and textured yarns on the wall make an impressive pattern, but it isn't like having one of those plasticized slap up action enlargements of John Elway throwing a pass on the wall. The wall opposite holds two prints by Ray Knaub and one by R.C. Gorman. There are two other pieces over the television, one a stylized etching of the sun by Carol Vanous (Bartkus) and another an oil painting of a raw onion by Jeff Reeser. I remember crying (no irony intended) when Jeff gave me the painting the day before he graduated. It meant a lot.

We have a ridiculously heavy sofa sleeper in the room that no one has ever used after the first night. The floor is more luxurious. We also have Tetonish arm chair with pine trees and elks parading across the fabric. The chair is even more uncomfortable than the couch. There is a pine bench with drawers for yet more of Kathie's yarn that is actually quite comfortable. And there is a table in the middle of the room covered in knitting needles, stray pieces of yarn, cook books, novels, political rants, empty wine glasses and the like.

You can find us there most nights. Katherine will be in the elk chair puzzling over her latest knitting project. I will be on the couch watching tv while reading a book, more than likely nodding off.

Shifting Gears

My daughter set up this blog for me as a Christmas present the same year she and her mother bought me a very expensive classical guitar as a joint present. I was thrilled and that first year was characterized. Strike that. That first month was characterized by diligent poetry postings and daily practice sessions on my guitar. I was getting particularly good at C scales in all their variations.

But then things changed. I started working more regularly as a handyman. It was hard to tile floors and frame basements and still keep my nails long enough to play. It least that was and is the rationalization I used back then to explain away my diminished interest in both this blog and that guitar.

Isn't it interesting how things change again and again. I'm not "handymanning" as much and even though I am having a hard time of thinking of things to write poetry about--I guess I am too happy and complacent to feel compelled to SAY something--I have been working on my guitar recently. I consider that a good sign.

All this rambling is complicated or created or spurred on--I'm not sure which--by the Julie and Julia movie. If you haven't seen it here is a quick recap. It is about a young, married, frustrated writer in NYC who is looking for something worthy of her talents, for something to accomplish on her own. She decides to make every recipe in MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, Child's masterwork, and write about it every day in a blog. Recipe leads to recipe which leads to one posting and then another. Pretty soon she is getting hits on her blog. She is getting an audience. Publishers find out about it and the rest is pretty much history.

So I'm going to start posting on this thing again, but my wife is going to join in. We are going to talk about what we enjoy the most: Knitting, Cooking, and Dining Out. There will also be some poetry. A short story or two. Some political rants. Time will tell.

Good George Bush

(Sung to the tune of "Good King Wenceslaus")

Good George Bush, our president, has led this land to ruin.
If with this you disagree, it's only you you're foolin'.
Katrina hit the poor Gulf Coast and George was full of feelings,
But in the wake of that great storm, the people still are reeling.

Waterboards and wire taps, his modus operandi,
A Presidential power grab while our Congress stands by.
Let's all rejoice this Christmas time, his term will soon expire.
He'll be back in Crawford soon; his cronies we will fire.

- James D. Starkey

Los Cabos

There is a gap
in the roped-off beach
at Villa del Palmar

Where brown skinned vendors
in tattered hats
display their wares

Henna tattoos that last two weeks
cowboy hats in pink and blue
heavy cases strung with silverish strands

The rhythm of their language
seems to mock
the tanning gringoes in their chairs

You have to squeeze
your way through
to make it to the beach

And burning time-share owners
on their way to cool off
are careful to avoid those bark brown eyes

That's what the guide books say:
"Vendors can be annoying;
just ignore them as you pass."

It's hard to do

They sit there on their knees
while college boys boast of last night's drunken score
and fat retirees plan this evening's fun.

-James D. Starkey

Breasts and Catechisms

Circumstances first began chipping away at my innocence during a Catholic Youth Organization field trip, and there wasn't a priest in sight. It was Frances McGraw who was the agent of my descent into mortal sin.

She looked a lot like you would expect someone named Frances McGraw to look. She was one of those unfortunate seventh grade girls whose breasts developed long before her classmates'. Seventh grade girls back then were supposed to be skinny, athletic, and flat chested. Frances was none of these. But to my junior high eyes her breasts were things of wonder. I would catch myself staring at them, mouth agape, when the rest of the class was working on long division or parsing particularly knotty sentences. I dreamed about them at night, not quite sure what one was supposed to do with breasts, but somehow aware of their significance. The boys in class had a joke about Frances. We didn't know how she was going to die, but we were sure it would not be by drowning.

She, of course, wore glasses perched on a too big nose and even at thirteen the traces of a mustache showed faintly on her upper lip. Her glasses were pink things with pointy frames like a cat's eyes. Her dad was a rancher in Estes Park, a real outdoorsman, and Frances took after him. She had her own horse and often wore cowboy boots. And she wore Austrian sweaters, the kind with tightly knit wool still greasy with lanolin and patterned with a series of pine trees or deer parading across her chest. I was always expecting her to yodel or go off like Heidi, looking for her grandfather.

In spite of her physical attributes, or because of them, she was a wonderful girl, always laughing and fun to be around. She was also the class brain and a star in our weekly catechism class in the basement of Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church. She and I shared the star role in CYO. I was the head altar boy and she was president of the youth group. Rest assured, we both knew our catechism.

"Who made you?"

"God made me."

"Why did God make you?"

"God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this world and the next," we would trumpet back in unison.

I used to go to her ranch and we would go riding together. We spent one whole day in sixth grade riding up and down Fish Creek casting for brookies and talking about school and church and friends. As much as it was possible for a twelve year old boy and girl, we were best friends.

But then the CYO started taking field trips to Denver to see movies, or to go bowling at Celebrity Lanes, or to visit a museum. And the field trips took place on a bus. And the bus had a back seat. And the ride back up to Estes was long and dark. I noticed on one trip back from a showing of "The Robe" at the Denham Theater, Mike Kleineider and Carol Landis sat in the back of the bus and made out. The sponsors for that trip, ironically Mike's parents, sat in the front seat sound asleep while Mike and Carol sunk lower and lower in the back. I could hear my fellow Catholic youths giggling as they snuck furtive peeks at the goings on and I could only imagine the kinds of illicit things that Mike and Carol were up to. That was the year, after all, that I started reading James Bond novels and kept saying the name Pussy Galore over and over to put myself to sleep.

I saw Mike the next day and asked him to tell me all about his adventure. He smiled and told me he had unhooked her bra. Well, I could imagine the rest. And the rest of the summer I thought about riding back to Estes in the back of the bus hooking and unhooking Carol Landis' bra. I even snuck one of my mother's bras out of the laundry and practiced on it, the Oedipal ramifications of this act never occuring to me. Mostly, I saw it as an insurmountable obstacle. My mother's bra had two rows of four hooks each and it was stiff and armor-like. When she went to the dentist and got X-rays, the lead apron they put over her chest must have been a redundancy, I figured.

My friendship with Frances and girls in general started fading that summer. I had other things on my mind besides horses and fishing for trout. It is hard to be best friends with someone you only want to ravish.

School started again and the CYO planned a fall trip to Celebrity. Most of the kids went swimming, but I spent the day with Mike shooting pool and sneaking cigarettes. I was becoming a man. And it was with that new feeling that I made a mad dash for the back seat when we got on the bus for the return trip, patiently waiting for Carol Landis to join me.

"Can I ride back here Jimmy?" They were the words I wanted to hear, but it was Frances who sidled up next to me, Frances and her wooly sweater with the silver pine cone buttons and the wonders that lay beneath.

--James D. Starkey

Upon Hearing Reactions to Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Mr. Green." The New Yorker, January 23, 2007

"That's pie in the sky thinking," the critics retort
And thus new ideas are often sold short.

Ultra light cars are just one case in point
Of gas saving plans that we might anoint.

Solar panels and fluorescent lights
Both can ease environmental plights.

Renewable fuels come also to mind
As potential solutions of a different kind.

And the list goes on in its futile way;
Avant Garde thinking has never held sway.

--James D. Starkey