These rocks are words: take them in your mouth
and bite down, crush them, gravel them between
your teeth till they are sand, then spit them out:
gritty consonants, dark vowels on clean
white paper, remnant of a broken tree
once rooted deep in dirt, now blank and pale
as sightless eyes or skin of leprosy
soiled with dust sieved by the teeth, a trail
of scales fallen from the eyes, of notes
drawn up in measured music. Given breath,
they rise up from the page in dancing motes
and whisper in our ears of rumored death:
We rocks, we trees will give rise to new words
when you are gone to dust and scattered shards.
[April 13, 1994]
About this poem
My first sonnet. As described in the introductory essay in my masters’ thesis (Borrowed from Wind, 1997) –
“Stone Poem”… is a Shakespearean or English sonnet, comprising three quatrains, each of which takes its own part in logically developing the poem, and concluded by the couplet’s one-two punch—softened slightly, in this case, by the off-rhyme of words and shards.
Elsewhere in that essay:
Words come from rocks, geese, grass, wind, not vice versa. Hence the reversal that suddenly took place, just before I printed out copies of “Stone Poem” for workshop, from “These words are rocks” to “These rocks are words”…. After workshop, half my copies of “Stone Poem” came back with the single, commanding note [from other students in the workshop]: “These words are rocks!” Which says a lot about just how strong is the received understanding of the “And God said, Let there be light” model of creation-by-the-word.
Andy & BethAnne Clary, from campaign literature mailed to my home.
I’ve already voted — Tuesday before last, in fact, when I headed over to the Loussac Library to attend that evening’s Anchorage Assembly meeting & discovered absentee balloting already in progress. I voted for Dick Traini for seat F in the Anchorage Assembly.
A number of other progressive Anchorage bloggers have already weighed in on why other Midtown voters ought to vote for Dick Traini & against Andy Clary in the April 6 municipal elections. Now it’s my turn.
Yesterday my friend John Aronno of Alaska Commons wrote, “I like Andy. He’s a nice guy. He also comes off as a highly intelligent person”[Ref #1]. I have no reason to doubt John, whose judgment has proven itself time & again since I first met him last year in the trenches of the summer-long battle of the Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 — a battle which is, of course, highly relevant to this election, not only because Andy Clary was on the “no” side of it[Ref #2].
Dick Traini. Courtesy Alaska Commons.
Later in his post, John reiterated Clary’s likability:
Andy Clary is a likable guy, and someone with crossover values, given his opponent, Dick Traini, who is about as likable as spring’s “break up,” or Michael Steele, or Paul Kendall. It honestly reminds me a bit of the Scott Brown election: elect the opposite of your values because you’re more pissed off at the person that claims to represent you. Traini hasn’t worked hard for this, and even I am in the camp where, either way, I won’t be happy. No one ends up represented well. Kudos, Midtown. [Ref #1]
Uh… well, thanks John. That’s kinda how I feel about it too. As a Midtown voter, I can at least take consolation that I’ll no longer be “represented” by this guy –
– but it’d be even better if I had a chance of being “represented” by someone who really did represent me. But that’s the nature of representative democracy — some people are “represented,” & the rest of us are screwed. Of course, the “other side” — whatever that side might be — has to deal with that same stinky win/lose fact.
But let me cut to the chase. Here’s some reasons to vote for Dick Traini rather than Andy Clary.
Reason #1: Dan Sullivan
This comes out of one of Andy Clary’s mailers that arrived in my mailbox:
In my book: not a great recommendation. In fact, it’s enough reason all by itself to pick Traini over Clary — especially coupled with the other side of the “support” equation: Clary’s support of Sullivan. Check out this video (courtesy Alaska Commons) of the candidate forum where Clary was asked to name one positive & one negative thing that former Mayor (now U.S. Senator) Mark Begich did as mayor, and one positive & one negative thing that Mayor Sullivan has done.
Clary couldn’t think of even one negative thing Sullivan had done. Well, I suppose it’s possible that Clary sees Sullivan as perfect — but that’s pretty troubling, if so. In his campaign literature, Clary claims to have “an independent conservative viewpoint”: is his viewpoint independent enough to disagree with or oppose Sullivan on anything, or will he be just a junior version of Sullivan’s departing pal Dan Coffey? The Anchorage Daily News reports,
On an Assembly that’s been fractious over Sullivan’s leadership, Clary makes it clear he is allied with Sullivan, who became mayor last July. He served on Sullivan’s transition team, held a fundraiser at McGinley’s, the pub Sullivan co-owns, and says of Sullivan, “Generally, I like what I’ve seen.” [Ref #3]
What about Traini? The story goes on:
Traini said he donated $100 to Sullivan’s campaign for mayor, but the mayor didn’t reciprocate. “I have a good relationship, I think, maybe not the best.”
“I work with both sides,” said Traini. [Ref #3]
Reason #2: Opposition to equality under the law for LGBTQ citizens
Here’s a photo I took in the Assembly chambers on August 11, 2009, right after the Assembly by a vote of 7 to 4 passed the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO-64, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, & education. [Ref #4] That is, until the ordinance was vetoed 6 days later by Mayor Dan Sullivan. [Ref #5]
At the center in the grey jacket with red shirt is the Anchorage Baptist Temple’s Rev. Jerry Prevo, and beside him is ABT associate pastor, Rev. Glenn Clary — Andy Clary’s father. Prevo and ABT were, of course, prominent opponents of AO-64, going so far in their opposition as to bus Mat-Su Borough residents in to testify against it (a move permitted by then-Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, who is standing for re-election on April 6).
Despite his father’s affiliation with ABT, Andy Clary is not a member of Prevo’s church. He’s a member of ChangePoint [Ref #3] — a fact which at least some of Clary’s supporters seem to believe means he is absolutely independent of ABT influence. For instance, check out this comment on Dan Fagan’s Alaska Standard piece criticizing ADN reporter Rosemary Shinohara’s story about the Midtown race. The commenter, Bryan, was responding to a previous comment by Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore:
There’s no connection!
What a bunch of BULL! Prevo is not Andy’s pastor. ABT is not Andy’s church.
SO WHAT CONNECTION ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Andy Doesn’t go to ABT… Prevo isn’t Andy’s pastor…
This faux connection is complete BULL and you should be ashamed. [Ref #6, reader comment]
A similar comment was made anonymously to a story about Andy Clary’s candidacy at the LGBTQ blog Bent Alaska. [Ref #7] But please — of course there’s a connection between Andy Clary and ABT, because of his father; and it’s not as if evangelical megachurch ChangePoint is at odds with the politics espoused by the pastor or members of evangelical megachurch ABT. Aside from that, Andy Clary, as a staff writer for Dan Fagan’s conservative blog the Alaska Standard, made it clear that he opposed the ordinance, albeit in less strident tones than many of red-shirted “Christians” who testified last summer:
As I sat in the assembly chambers Tuesday night and listened to hours of testimony from both sides of the issue, I was concerned how much religion kept coming up in the discussion. Time and time again, those who stood up to oppose the ordinance would quote the Bible or call homosexuality sin. The whole setting became an us vs. them mentality and even I, reporting live from the event, kept a tally of how many testified on each side of the issue. I cringed at the tone of some of the testimony.
Now, before I go any further, let me say that I am opposed to the ordinance myself, but for very different reasons. You see, I am a committed follower of Christ, and although I believe homosexuality is not a lifestyle that Christ approves of, I see it no differently than other sins such as alcoholism or adultery. Why do we Christians lash out against one sin so differently than we do any other? We need to be reaching these people not tearing them down. [Ref #2]
Never mind that persisting in calling homosexuality a “lifestyle” or a “sin” akin to alcoholism or adultery is not a very good way of reaching “these people” — speaking as one of “these people” myself. In his campaign literature, Andy Clary claims that “I know how to listen”; but like most of the redshirts who populated the Assembly Chambers last summer, his mind is already made up about LGBTQ people: he’s not listening to us at all.
And don’t forget: Clary couldn’t think of one thing wrong that Mayor Sullivan did. This sign — carried by a demonstrator on August 17, 2009, after Sullivan’s veto of AO-64 –
– could just as well say “Assembly candidate Andy Clary supports discrimination.”
Well, what about Dick Traini? Discussion of this race in the LGBTQ community has focused almost as much on Traini’s Mormonism as on Cary’s relationship to the church his father is a pastor of. LGBTQ Alaskans remember all too well how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) financed the 1998 campaign against marriage equality in Alaska, as well as the Prop 8 battle in California.
But the LDS Church is taking a different stance on employment and housing protections — and so, apparently, is Dick Traini. Yesterday, E. Ross at Bent Alaska wrote,
Dick Traini is a conservative with an independent streak. He has also said that he could support a non-discrimination ordinance similar to the one passed in Salt Lake City with the approval of the Mormon Church. That ordinance added sexual orientation but not gender identity, and involved only housing and job protections. [Ref #7]
But just now I learned that in fact two ordinances were passed in Salt Lake Lake City last year — both of them endorsed by the LDS Church — and the second one extends the same protections on the basis of gender identity, that the first extended on the basis of sexual orientation. [Ref #8] In fact, both ordinances took effect just yesterday. [Ref #9] Congratulations, Salt Lake City!
Might that meant that Traini could possibly support a nondiscrimination ordinance that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity? Maybe someone should ask. In any case, better him than Clary, who like Mayor Sullivan supports discrimination.
Reason #3: Experience, or the lack thereof
As a Midtown voter whose also got another voter living at my address, I’ve gotten peppered with Andy Clary campaign mailer with their photoshopped attacks on Traini. Ryan Knight at the Back Porch comments:
Throwing mud at your opponent, mocking them in pedestrian cartoons, and attempting to aggrandize yourself at their expense indicates immaturity and poor character integrity. You don’t win by bullying, and the actions Andy has engaged in towards Traini are not Christian. God is not going to give him a high-five for mockery, manipulation, and Machiavellian plots. If he thinks so, he needs to read the bible again, and spend some serious time getting up close and personal to God. [Ref #10]
The Mudflats described one of the mailers thusly:
His latest mailer puts Mr. Traini’s photoshopped head on the bodies of King George, Napoleon on a horse, the bust of Julius Caesar and some sort of leotard-clad union superhero.
Underneath these bizarre iconic images are the words…and I quote (including quotation marks and all caps):
“PLEASE BEWARE OF SPECIAL INTEREST POLITICIANS WHO MAY HAVE A LITTLE TOO HIGH OPINION OF THEMSELVES…” [Ref #11]
Yep, I got that one too. Here’s what it looks like:
Here’s one I got earlier:
What strikes me about these cartoonish attacks is this:
They are red herrings intended to distract voters from Clary’s own lack of public service experience by deriding Dick Traini for his record of public service. Clary’s made a theme of referring to “career politicians” — clearly intimating that Traini is one. But is he? As Traini told KTUU Channel 2 News:
“That’s interesting,” Traini said. “Let’s see: I spent 20 years in the military, I worked civil service for 18 years, and I’ve taught college for 13 years — that’s my career.” [Ref #12]
Traini’s record of public service includes 10-1/2 prior years on the Assembly, in the 1990s and from 2001-2008. Per the Anchorage Daily News:
On the Assembly, Traini was chairman for six years.
He was the driving force behind creation of Anchorage’s popular off-leash dog parks. He sponsored tougher laws for uninsured and unlicensed drivers.
He backed more serious penalties for DUI offenders, a tobacco tax to discourage young people from smoking, and an anti-stalking law.
Traini also tried to get rid of emissions testing for vehicles, arguing that Anchorage no longer needs such testing because our air meets federal quality standards.
But the Assembly ended up reinstating the testing. [Ref #3]
(Clary also apposes I/M testing.)
Compare the record of public service of Andy Clary, who owns an IT consulting service:
When asked at a candidate luncheon how he has served the community, he cited church work. He taught Sunday school, led men’s studies and cooked food for different events, for example. [Ref #3]
Right. Nothing outside the church. Nothing involving members of the community outside his own evangelical megachurch community of belief.
His ideas for what to do on the Assembly are just as limited in their scope, made up chiefly of standard conservative talking points (low taxes, free enterprise, etc.) and tech as the answer to just about everything. Sometimes those ideas make sense –
One idea to save money is to rent to the state space that’s not needed for the city’s data center, said Clary. He’s also heard a city human resources and financial software system is performing poorly, and is costing the city time and money. He’d like to get that fixed. [Ref #3]
– and sometimes he’s clearly out of his depth. John Aronno reports:
Next, he wants to “allow police and fire to be more effective through improved technology in the field.”
Great. But if you approve of Sullivan’s approach to reducing emergency services, I don’t understand how fancying up the computers in a vacant office helps anyone in an emergency. [Ref #1]
Exactly. Not to mention — just what does Clary even know about police and fire technology? According to the ADN, he owns Think IT Alaska and develops Internet software for GeoNorth. [Ref #3] But I don’t see anything at either company’s website to indicate he has any knowledge much less expertise in the technologies routinely used by law enforcement officers or firefighters in the field. Does he even know what NLECT stands for, or what it does? What’s his experience or knowledge of crime mapping, its benefits, its limitations? Just as a couple of for instances. These are specialized areas; a degree in Management Information Systems and ownership of an IT consulting company do not make him even remotely qualified as the go-to guy for looking to the technology needs of Anchorage Police Department or Anchorage Fire Department. He’s talking out of some other part of his anatomy there than his mouth, sorry.
Clary’s inexperience and narrowness of knowledge really shows here, too — from the KTUU story on the Midtown race:
Traini says if he’s voted in to the Assembly, the U-Med district containing the University of Alaska Anchorage campus and several city hospitals will get extra attention.
“The University-hospital area there is a big economic engine for Midtown,” Traini said. “We’ve got to figure out how to get transit coming in there, the housing around it, and the demands of the people who go to college there.”
Clary says he’s got a hands-off approach to government involvement in private lives.
“I think some of the business owners are concerned that the city doesn’t need to be proscribing so much how land use is developed in that area,” Clary said. “I’m of the opinion that the private sector needs to lead that effort.” [Ref #12]
Has Clary never heard of government working with the private sector, for the benefit of both? Hello? Particularly when we’re talking about — hello? — an economic engine for the area that Clary is aspiring to represent. Hello?
Andy Clary’s “fresh perspective”: Not really that new, not really that different, and — sorry — not really that bright
Just typical conservative talking points with a little IT added in.
It’s even clearer to me than it was before I started this post how much better a choice Dick Traini is than Andy Clary, whose chief qualification for running seems to be an ideological narrowness that matches that of Dan Sullivan, Dan Fagan, and the evangelical megachurch community.
Traini, for his part, is recognized for his ability to work with conservatives as well as progressives:
“I think I can get both sides to work together,” Traini said. “I have worked before with a liberal Assembly, I’ve worked with a conservative Assembly. I’ve worked with four or five mayors, depends on how you want to count. And we can all work together, because everybody down there wants what’s best for Anchorage.” [Ref #12]
former Assemblyman Traini, competing with Clary for the Midtown seat, regularly served as a swing vote between one camp and another on his prior years’ service. [Ref #13]
And we need that more than someone who seems poorly equipped to do anything other than be Mayor Sullivan’s yes-man.
I’m really glad I voted as I did. I hope other Midtown residents will vote for Traini too.
And do vote! It’s important! Especially if you think Sullivan’s mayoralty sucks as much as I do: because this election, if it goes wrong, could serve to make his administration even suckier.
References
4/1/10. “Andy Clary” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons).
Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan on KBYR. What a crappy way to end the workweek. But sometimes one must willingly suffer. http://bit.ly/dzlxwV#
Palin’s REAL reason for quitting revealed! — so she wouldn’t get this letter. http://bit.ly/bEOPLp#
RT: @beardedjon: @yksin I’m pretty sure she initiated the letter (or is involved with those that did). // You’re probably right. #
I’m told Mayor Sullivan called in sick, & so won’t be on KBYR. Maybe he caught a case of the cold feet. Heh. #
RT: @SistersTalk: Just finished recording interview w/ @PamelaMeans. Love her hair! // Saw her in concert in AK a few yrs ago. She’s great! #
Posted inThe Daily Tweets|Comments Off on The Daily Tweets, 2010-04-02: Sometimes it’s good to be out of the loop. But sometimes one must willingly suffer.
Downtown Anchorage with Mt. Foraker (left), Denali (middle), & fata morgana (right) in the background. Fata morgana are optical illusions particularly common in polar or other cold regions: there really aren't really any mountains north of Denali visible from Anchorage, except with fata morgana. (Clickthrough to my Flickr account for options to see a larger version of this photo.)
It’s still National Poetry Month. Here’s one of mine.
The Mountain
The Mountain gazes from my locker.
She is the beacon of home.
On a clear day she can be seen from infinity.
From a flying height when the land is covered over,
all but the great yellow eye is a blueness —
all but the great rolling white plain below,
from which she alone rises.
She reflects the sun most greatly.
She is higher than the others.
She is whiter than clouds.
On days when she broods in her cloudcast
pilgrims cry for her to show herself.
Some have died in their search for her vastness,
as have died on the flanks of many mountains,
seeking the high places.
She is the Weathermaker.
She is the Crown of the Continent:
none approach her but in awe.
She is elemental, ice and rock,
snow and wind. Those who climb her
are breathless with her magnitude.
From her summit they gaze in wonder
at the tangle of her mighty ramparts,
the shoulders of her sisters and brothers,
their snowy heads, their howling wind souls.
Spine of the land thrust up
by the grinding of continents, you signify
the might of the planet. You glow
like a lamp in the arctic summer.
Even in winter night do you shine.
You are never dark.
You are not my most loved mountain,
nor favorite, nor most familiar.
But Mountain, you gaze from my locker.
You can be seen from infinity.
I see you even from this far distance.
Great One, you beckon me homeward
as you stand watch over the land.
[April 27-June 7, 1990]
About this poem
Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) was the first sight I saw of Alaska when I first came up in 1982: it was poking up above the cloudscape my plane was flying over. I was here 5 years before a bad economy led me to move to Seattle. In 1990 I was in my third year of living in Seattle, with a job that sucked & a terrible homesickness for Alaska. I happened upon an Alaska Airlines brochure with a photo of Denali on it, and taped it on my locker: my light at the end of the tunnel to go with a countdown of the days left before I was outta there & on my way back to Alaska.
The first poem that came to my mind today was this, by the English Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), who wrote “Inversnaid” about a burn — a small stream — near Inversnaid, Scotland. Chester Creek in Anchorage (in the photo), is a good long ways from Scotland, but Hopkins’ language knows these waters too, even if you don’t understand a lot of his local vocabulary. Hopkins was famous for his innovative use of what he called sprung rhythm. He’s one of my favorite poets, and this is one of my favorite poems — a prayer for wetlands.
Hopkins did not publish his poems during his lifetime. His friend Robert Bridged published a volume of his poems in 1918, available online at Bartleby.com: Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Chester Creek’s name comes from its Dena’ina name Chanshtnu, meaning Grass Creek.
Inversnaid
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
A friend told me Saturday night that my story “Itch” had won 2nd place (along with a welcome $300) in the annual Radical Arts for Women (RAW) short story contest. I missed the award announcement myself because I wasn’t feeling well; it was made at RAW’s annual Celebration of Change show.
Congratulations to Emily Sousa, whose story “Mail Plane” took first place (and $500). Her story will be published on RAW’s website. (I’ll link when it becomes available. Update:Here it is.) Mine is published here.
Other winners:
3rd place ($100): “The Remaking of Audrey Lang” by CN McLaughlin
Honorable mention: “Gone, Fishing” by Audrey Fearnside
Honorable mention: “219s” by Amy Whinston
Congratulations, writers!
About “Itch”
“Itch” is an excerpt from yet another of my works-in-progress (how many of ‘em do I have, anyway?) called Finer, which is a lesbian love story set in 1980 in a northwest Montana town that bears an amazing similarity to the one I grew up in. “Itch” is from about the second or third chapter in. But that’s all the set-up I’m gonna provide: in media res.
The photo above has nothing to do with “Itch”, except to further establish the theme: Lesbian. Love. Story. If you like that theme, I hope you enjoy the story. If you’d rather read other stuff, please do.
Itch
by Melissa S. Green
She thought they might talk a little after the lights were out, but they didn’t. She said good night, and Rue murmured agreeably, and then it was silent except for their breathing.
But Kater couldn’t get to sleep. She used to think, when she was a kid and shared a double bed with Tabitha, that she was allergic to other people, because she’d itch, sometimes all night — itch and scratch and itch and scratch, until sometimes she’d get down on the hard floor with only a blanket and pillow, just so she could sleep. Mom would yell at her when she caught her at it. But maybe she was only allergic to Tabitha. She’d never itched with the few other people she’d shared a bed with.
Tonight she did. One itch down there on the arch of her foot, another behind her right knee, a little one on her neck. She tried to ignore them and let them pass, but the one on her foot became unbearable, and scratching that one she had to scratch the others too, all of them in one carefully parsed burst of activity, slow and careful so as not to disturb Rue. But no sooner had she killed the itches and relaxed and gotten herself comfortable again, and even begun to doze off, than another itch came, and another. And another.
Time crawled, and so did the itches, all over her body. Eventually, with each itch, she had to scratch again, and each time no matter how carefully she moved, the mattress shifted under her, or her shoulder accidentally tugged at the blankets, and she was sure she had to be disturbing Rue. She didn’t think she was allergic to her. It had to be because she was so conscious of Rue lying that near to her, conscious in a way she’d never been of Tab who, after all, was just her sister, not in hell someone she was — well, maybe was — falling in love with. Or something. Shit. She shouldn’t have taken Rue’s offer to crash here tonight. She should have had Po drop her off at Matt’s house, even if she hadn’t been able to call ahead. She should even have gone back to her own house, no matter how much her parents didn’t want her.
She bent her right knee slowly and carefully and scratched her left calf with her toenails, then slowly and carefully straightened her leg out again. Then the ache in the small of her back became intolerable. To ease it she rolled, carefully as she could, onto her left side.
A quiet sigh. Shit. She’d woken her. Rue turned over, and the whole bed moved. Then Rue’s hand darted out from under the blanket, a pale blur in the darkness, to rub at her forehead. Another audible exhale, then quiet again.
Kater dozed now and then, but more often she was wide awake, attempting to will her itches away so she wouldn’t have to move. But there were always at least the little itches, at least the little moves, subtle but not subtle enough, her toes accidentally brushing up against Rue’s ankle, or the blankets sliding off her shoulder to expose it to the room’s winter chill, and her effort to cover herself again without tugging at them. Once there was just enough of a drift — her’s or Rue’s, she wasn’t sure —that their entire legs were touching, her left and Rue’s right. Was Rue asleep? No, her breath was quiet, but it was uneven. There was a little jump in Rue’s leg, and her knee knocked against Kater’s.
Yes, she was awake. What was going through her head? Anything like what was in Kater’s? Kater began to think so — a quiet, unspoken awareness of each other, and the occasional brushing of their limbs as they shifted or scratched. Touching occasionally, touching lightly, but touching. Changing slightly where and how much they touched with each shift of position.
She dozed off, woke again feeling sore in the shoulder where she lay on her side. She rolled slowly onto her back, and then she noticed how much distance there was between her and the edge of the mattress. She thought, Am I crowding her? but she raised her head slightly to look and saw there was just as much space between Rue and the other edge of the bed. She lay where she was and did her best to quell her fear at how close they lay — not just she but both of them drawn to the center, to the place where they met and touched so sparingly. She became conscious of how tense her muscles were. She tried to relax them.
It might have been two hours after they’d turned out the lights that Rue suddenly got up and left the room. No doubt to piss out some of that pitcher of beer she’d shared with Po. Kater took advantage of her absence to give herself a good, thorough scratch, then settled down again against Rue’s return, on her stomach this time. But Rue’s absence lengthened. Five minutes, six…? how long did it take her to pee, anyway? An itch in on her left buttock. She reached back to scratch it, and just as she moved her hand back to her side, she heard Rue come back in, the door close. Kater pretended to be asleep.
A draft of cold air flowed under the blankets as Rue lifted them to climb back into bed — not to settle herself this time on the bed’s edge, as Kater feared she would, but near the center again, where she had been before. The cold air warmed again, the heat of Rue’s body. Rue’s breathing slowed, and Kater thought she’d dozed off. But then Rue turned on her side, facing Kater, and laid her left forearm gently over her.
Kater’s heart sped. She lay there, feeling that warm pressure, and she wanted, oh how she wanted. And now the small of her back ached from lying on her stomach, so she rolled off her stomach and onto her left side again to face Rue, and she moved just the tiniest bit closer to her, and then Rue’s arm was fully over her, not just lying there, it seemed, nor really holding her either. But Rue’s arm was over her, and Rue was quite aware, she had to be — even in the dark Kater could see her eyes were open — of what, who her arm covered, it wasn’t Mannie here in bed with her, and her arm was warm, like the corner of a soft blanket. Somehow then they drifted that much closer, piece by piece, until their whole bodies touched, until Kater’s head was encircled by Rue’s shoulder and arm, by Rue’s very presence. She could smell the slight sour of beer on her breath, mixed with the mint of toothpaste.
She remembered the first time she’d gone to bed with a woman. Vina, her name had been, just someone she’d met once in a bar in Missoula and never seen again, though she’d gone to the same bar a couple of times on other trips looking for her. In bed with her that one time, You’re beautiful, she’d whispered, and Vina had answered, a touch sarcastic, Aren’t we all. Rue was more beautiful than Vina, Kater thought, but she’d better not say so, better not ruin it, better not jinx it. Better to let their bodies say what needed to be said, if only they would say so much as she wanted them to say. It seemed just as she had imagined it might be when two people met seeking to become friends, maybe even lovers, and they’d talk of this and that, feel across the walls gradually, slowly reaching subjects deeper and deeper in each other’s souls — it was that way now, here, in this bed, the graduation of their bodies in increments from distance to lesser distance to closeness, to skin in contact with skin. Or almost skin: just those thin layers of Rue’s t-shirt, of Kater’s borrowed t-shirt, between them. Their breasts, just touching. Their warm bellies. It was not at all as it had been those other times, with Tim Rollinger in high school, or with Vina — even the slowest time, with that woman from Polson whose name she never learned, who was so slow as to bore her, seemed rushed in comparison with this. This time she found she liked the slowness, found herself savoring each moment, each interval of waiting, each tiny step to a more intimate level, even fearing it might not go so far as her body wanted — her body, which was thrilling in the guts, thrilling all up and down her, and the wetness that was gathering, then pouring out between her legs. Her heart beating hard. God, how she wanted.
Then it was as if Rue were pulling Kater to her like a blanket, inviting her, helping her move her limbs, her body, their legs crosshatched, Kater’s arm around Rue the same way she would hold a pillow in her own bed, but Rue’s breasts so much softer, and alive. She could feel Rue’s heartbeat against her arm. She felt her own pumping heart, heard her own quickened breath. Again she felt the tension of her muscles, and she went through them, one by one, from toes to head, and made them relax. But they sprang back into tension, she wanted so badly, and she had to go back through them again, and again her want hardened them. She couldn’t keep her breath steady or quiet.
She raised herself up, wanting to kiss her, but Rue murmured something.
It was nothing so harsh as a no, but it wasn’t a yes, either. Kater settled back down again, and tried to content herself with brushing her fingers against Rue’s left cheek — the area next to her ear, with the soft and tender skin, soft hairs that she knew would be a towheaded white-gold in the light. Soft, alive. And as she stroked so lightly with her fingers, she could feel in her arm the pulse of Rue’s heart, pulsing, it seemed, just a little faster than would be normal.
Then Rue whispered, barely audible, “Get some sleep now.”
Kater closed her eyes, trying to still her yearning, her disappointment. Mannie, she thought. She rested her hand on Rue’s shoulder and lay still, feeling Rue’s rapid heartbeat against her arm, and if she could imagine what the heartbeat gave away of Rue’s thoughts, or what her slightly harsh breathing meant, it had to be that same want, held back by that same thought, Mannie. It was Kater here with Rue, it was Kater who felt Rue’s thigh against her crotch — surely Rue could feel the heat there, the dampness of Kater’s underwear, surely she heard the need Kater couldn’t remove from her own breath, matched by Rue’s rough breath, matched by the dampness of Rue’s panties against Kater’s own thigh — Mannie was at her college in Massachusetts thousands of miles away. But still, here Mannie was, where she belonged and Kater didn’t. So Kater forced back her desire and quieted her breath and stilled herself, no longer itching.
She woke some time later from a doze, Rue whispering about her arm fallen asleep under Kater’s body, and they shifted, and later Rue shifted again, until she was spooned in Kater’s arms, her smaller body a neat fit to Kater’s larger, as though to take solace for what they both wanted but couldn’t have. Rue drifted back into sleep, and Kater could feel her even breath in the rise and fall of her belly under Kater’s hand. But Kater lay awake for a long time, unable to hold back her yearning. Unable to do a damn thing about it.
I find myself not feeling like going to Celebration of Change tomorrow night. Therefore I’m not going. Staying home to write instead. #fb#
Rachel Maddow: Scott Brown lied that she’d run against him in 2012 in order to raise money for himself. http://bit.ly/d36YKe #fb#
Here’s what I get for not getting enough sleep: bad headspace of warped in mel darkspace variety. Tonight’s for recouping: food, sleep. #fb#
Actually this is headspace of the intensely hostile variety. If in traffic I’d be in danger of murderous road rage. Good thing I’m home. #fb#
Posted inThe Daily Tweets|Taggedwriting|Comments Off on The Daily Tweets, 2010-03-26: Two writers meet. One says, “I’m writing a novel” and the other says, “neither am I.”
This is a brief update by way of saying, I’m taking a breather from Sullygate (the George Sullivan “life insurance” matter of concern to citizens of Anchorage) to focus a bit on writing. I’ve got a deadline on a story I’m working on.
But I will be coming back to it. In particular, to take a closer look at the memorandum issued the other day —
— as well as the Ethics Board opinion issued on March 23. Looking at first week of March for these. I’m especially interested in the memorandum because of contentions made by certain conservative members of the Assembly on Tuesday that it answered all the questions.
No it didn’t. It answered some but not all.
I’ll at least try to update my bib tonight. My hands have been so achy I haven’t taken time to do so yet.
