I'm expecting to be swept up into another campaign in fairly short order, so I'm embracing this interim time, and it's been pretty sweet so far. I have started working on 2 new fiction writing projects, and I've used a new approach to both. My best writing-- the stuff that means the most to me, the stuff that I feel really exhibits what I can do-- comes from spontaneous moments when something is really bubbling beneath the surface and I write to exorcise the demon. Someone once told me that you're an artist when you can't not create your art, be it painting, sculpting, writing, acting, whatever. I feel very lucky that I have firsthand knowledge of that feeling. I've had nights when I can't sleep until I get something down on paper.
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Sidebar: Sister Jennie refers to the band Florence + the Machine as "Delores and the Synthesizer". It is fucking hilarious, and my current playlist on [a certain online music service that I will NOT mention on this blog] just played a song from that band. Sister Jennie is unlike any other.
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Othersidebar: The holidays at Casa Mofo left me with a very full refrigerator and, sadly, only one stomach into which the leftovers can be deposited. So, I've been cooking quite a bit, and currently, the house smells like slow-cooker jerk chicken and apple-blueberry crisp. Regarding the chicken, there is something singularly satisfying about eating food with flavors that were developed and mastered in parts of the world that will never know terms like "wintry mix". Also, I'm embracing the opportunity to fill the house with smells that the 'rents don't enjoy. Roasted cruciferous vegetables, curry, onions, garlic, etc-- I'm going to get this joint jumping. For what it's worth, I just took a few bites of the apple-blueberry crisp and SWEET CHRIST ALMIGHTY. I'm getting the vapors. I put a little extra lemon zest in the filling and used 5 different variety of apples and added coarse sea salt to the topping...I might need a cigarette after this.
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I get an idea and then I start writing the basis for the idea. It's like I see the picture, but when I begin, I first write the "frame" so that I can nail it down before I get to the picture. The logic behind this is that writing the picture will be easy because it's already so vivid and developed. Right now, I'm working on the pictures first. I could hear the dialogue, I could see the character's faces, and I wanted to--
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Back to the othersidebar: I'm sorry, but holy shit, this crisp is delicious. And by the way, by adding blueberries to the recipe, some of the apple slices have been tinted this beautiful shade of magenta and some of them have a gradient effect. It is borderline obscene. Man, am I grateful for my hedonist side!
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--secure those pieces before they lost anything. I haven't been hit like this in a while, and I have no idea how long it'll last. I feel a bit like a pitcher in the 5th or 6th inning of a no-hitter. (Because I SO know how that feels...) I'm trying to keep all conditions stable, not change any habits, and maybe I can draw this out long enough to nail down the full skeleton of each story.
I won't get into the details of either piece, but I will say that one of them was partially inspired by a conversation I had with my aunt Mary-Ann over Thanksgiving. I don't know if she knew how beautifully or pithily she had articulated this one particular idea but holy shit. The other one was handed to me by BFF Molly. Literally. It was wrapped up with a bow. I cannot fuck that one up because the 'making of' story would be just too good to miss.
So, what else. The holidays in DKMland were rife with mirth. Rife, I tell you. All of my siblings and their respective spouses were under one roof and it was fantastic. The word "fortifying" seems appropriate. So, Sister Jennie got married in November, and there was this moment in the proceedings that I will never forget. (Bear with me; this whole thing will tie up quite nicely.) I'm standing up as a bridesmaid, Sister Carrie was a few spaces up from me, and then Jen and Brother Chris were at center ice. Immediately to my right was Brother Dave, holding the Gretabunny [whose dress was on backwards], then the Corcfortons, and my parents, BFF Katie and Dr. Kevin right behind them. There was this very tight concentration of very important people, and there's magic in that. In anticipation of our annual Christmas Eve shitshow, there was this consensus among my siblings that we wanted to keep things a little more mellow this year. Now, I LOVE my extended family; I am fully aware of how lucky I am. But, every Christmas Eve, there's just all of this rigmarole that accompanies our annual party, and it gets easier and easier to miss the opportunities for that magic ohana feeling we had going during Sister Jennie's wedding. So, this year it was just my immediate family-- there are 10 of us now-- plus Sister Kelly's family, our beloved family friend Gige and her son Rob, and the participants of our sibling hoodie exchange. We were all able to sit at one table [well, it was several tables that we sort of shoved together], no one was climbing over anyone else, there were no voices fighting for top volume, and it. was. fucking. awesome. It made me fall in love with my family all over again.
Alright, generally, I wouldn't do this, but I'm going to unpack that last sentiment. Here's why I love my family all over again, and I'll do this in age order.
- Il padre-- Watching my dad relate to BFFs Katie and Molly is a damn gift. Our family has always operated with a gentle open-door policy, and my dad set the tone for that, whether he meant to or not. He has this inherent understanding of the idea that your family can definitely include the people you find, not just the people who've dipped in the same gene pool, and it's one of my favorite things about him. I love that his was one of the loudest voices in the audience at BFF Katie's med school graduation when her name was announced.
- Mama Jan-- We were doing some last-minute shopping for Bro-Joe, and I spotted this framed photo by a Detroit-based photographer, Michael Heughens, that I knew he'd love. Jancakes was a little on-the-fence about it, and after some pleading, she goes, "You know what? I'll return that remote-controlled helicopter I got him and get him this instead." I genuinely love that my mom bought a legit TOY for her baby boy of 34 years. [BTW, check out Heughens' work. There are some great shots.]
- Bro-Joe-- I love how he comports himself around his wife. He's not annoying about it, it's not like gushy bullshit, but he does these little things that all add up to him taking his role as Kelly's husband really seriously. And I also love that his marriage has introduced 4 great new people to our family.
- Brother Chris-- the newest member of my ohana! Alright, so a very basic element to the DKM psychosis is awkwardness, right? A major, major factor in whether or not I can genuinely like someone is whether or not I feel awkward in his or her presence. Not only do I feel zero awkwardness when Chris is around, but I think he actually makes me more comfortable. Forrealsies. This is no easy feat. (If I made a fabric chain with all of the shirts that I have ruined with nervous sweating, it would span the fucking globe.)
- Sister Carrie-- on Christmas Eve, Dr. Kevin was given some fancy new undersquares as a white elephant gift. Even though Carrie has her Master's degree, even though she is somebody's mother and somebody's wife, without a moment's hesitation she grabbed one of the pairs and - poof! - new millinery accessory. Like the seltzer bottle or a pie in the face, undersquares on the head is a major icon in the commedia delle Monforton and I will never not love that about Carrie.
- Sister Jennie-- You know how I hate cleaning my room, in a way that has several levels to it? In anticipation of Carrie/Dave/Greta's arrival, I had to tighten up my cleaning game, and Jennie was all over it. Even though she doesn't empathize at all, she understands that I ascribe meaning and gravity to pretty much everything, often to my own detriment. She gets that throwing something out is tricky for me and she doesn't make me feel like total nutbar Aunt Gladdy character for it. She spent hours in my room with me, gently kicking my ass and keeping things moving, and even vacuumed the corners of the ceilings for me. And this was all done despite her feeling like shit for her entire visit home.
- Brother Dave-- I'm pretty sure that Dave's entire raison d'etre is being a dad. He's remarkable. He doesn't get rattled, he doesn't flinch, he just executes. Right after Thanksgiving, the Gretabunny was having some tummy trouble and it was causing her to break her pattern of being the most mellow baby of all time. So, in one particularly unpleasant episode, Greta just LOST it-- screaming, face flushed like a little strawberry, in very obvious pain, the whole thing. Carrie, the concerned mommy, was understandably distraught to see Greta like that; Dave handled the very unpleasant task at hand [specifics are entirely unnecessary here], picked up the baby, and went out onto the front porch with her to literally and figuratively cool her down. It was amazing.
- Sister Kelly-- Kel and Bro-Joe stayed at Casa Mofo together the night before they went back to SanFran. I was hanging out with BFF Katie earlier in the evening. I come home, see Bro-Joe and my dad in the TV room, probably watching the 2nd episode of 24/7: Road to the Winter Classic [which I cannot recommend highly enough], and I hear Jan and Kel in the dining room. I walk in to find my brilliant and lovely sister-in-law on her hands and knees scrubbing the carpet; one of the four-legged nieces had left a Christmas gift under the dining room table and Kel was cleaning up said gift. Seriously, WTF.
Anyway. I had a wonderful holiday. It wasn't as populous as it usually is-- ACG and Wifey Laura were busy moving into their new Minneapolis digs, there were no random IA reunions-- but the time I spent with my loved ones was sweet. One of my favorite holiday quotes is: "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love." I have some bad-ass co-conspirators.
