Thursday, March 20, 2008

I'M SORT OF UNCOMFORTABLE TALKING ABOUT THIS, BUT I NONETHELESS CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT

For awhile I was writing about pregnancy. I wrote a couple stories, the play I am writing now has a pregnant person. Here's an excerpt from a play I wrote last year that I abandoned:
LIZZY
This is reality, mother! I am pregnant. With child. Knocked up. Corked. Embarazada.
JOAN
I don’t see why you insist on doing this to me. You have always had it in for me. Ever since you were a little girl.
HAROLD
(Incredulously)
Pregnant. Huh.
LIZZY
This has nothing to do with you. This is about me and what I want.
HAROLD
(HAROLD chuckles)
Well, Joannie? She’s certainly not a lesbian.
JOAN
Lesbians can have children Harold.
LIZZY
I am not a lesbian!
JOAN
It happens all the time.
HAROLD
Why do you know so much about lesbians?
JOAN
I don’t know so much. I know something, that’s all. About an alternative culture that I was perfectly ready to accept in my own daughter...
LIZZY
I am not a fucking lesbian!
JOAN
But now-- well, this is much worse than being gay. Did you hear me, Elizabeth? Much worse.
LIZZY
What about cancer? Would you have preferred that too?
HAROLD
I don’t know. I mean, not that I think being a lesbian is bad or anything...
LIZZY
Oh Jesus Christ.
HAROLD
But, I’m glad you like boys, Lizzy. I must say. That was a bit of a relief.
JOAN
Of course. Relief. I think that is the perfect word to describe the way that I am feeling right now. Relieved and relaxed.
LIZZY
Mom, calm down.
JOAN
Calm and serene and relieved. Right Harold? May I have a drink before I faint?
I seem to have gotten it out of my system, though. No one has been pregnant for awhile. Now I keep writing about race and racial tensions. One piece after another about it. I don't even realize I'm doing it until it's done. And the whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

Apparently, I'm not the only one.

Friday, March 07, 2008

AH, LOVE.


A quote from my boyfriend:
Don't give me the ass face just before I leave for work!
We're going to DC today. I need a break from the primary. One might think, "You're going to our nation's capital to escape the presidential nomination?" To which I would respond, "I never said I was very smart."

The last time I was in DC was in 8th grade. I remember that Josh Mintzer and I fought non-stop, until Josh got moved to another bus. I was good with the comebacks then. It was a defense mechanism I had to develop to counteract my underdeveloped fashion sense. If you go to school in nothing but a sweatshirt and a pair of red and white striped tights, you learn to hurl whatever tools you can get a hold of at the nasty hyenas that will undoubtedly greet you in homeroom.

I also remember that our tour guide in DC walked around with an open umbrella to make herself conspicuous, and got bleary eyed when describing the zoo's difficulties in getting the pandas to procreate. Apparently mama panda kept rolling over and squashing her babies in her sleep. This story was undoubtedly told to us to elicit our pathos, but we were thirteen. We thought it was hilarious. I remember the tour guide gesturing wildly about the tragedy, while I sat there on the bus with my friends, staring at the seat back in front of me, tears rolling down my cheeks, desperately suppressing the guffaw that was screaming from my belly, clamoring for release.

Anyway, we're going to see every museum. To walk hand in hand on the mall. It should be fun. I am sure I will have plenty to share when I get back, so stay tuned...

Wednesday, March 05, 2008