My Dirty Little Secret

Yes ... I am a an anti-establishment, feminist, independent thinker. And I freaking love the Oscars -- rather, the red carpet. I'm dirty and ashamed, but goddess help me how much I enjoy the designer award show dresses....

Here is my favorite.
I really like Penelope Cruz. She's a talented actress. I thought she was magnificent as the ambitiously compassionate nun impregnated by a transvestite in Todo Sobre Mi Madre and I'm looking forward to Volver being released on DVD. Both of those films were written and directed by my favorite filmmaker -- Pedro Almodovar. (Among other artistic contributions, Almodovar made Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios -- hilarious, as well as Tacones Lejanos -- a great story with an excellent sex scene. He also discovered Antonio Banderas.)

And this dress! It's a bigger-than-life homage to 1930s glamour. It's like Mae West was crowned a princess by the sunset. It would be so much fun to wear while dramatically sauntering out to the balcony for some night air.

Now go read what the Fug Girls have to say about Kiki "I don't have time to do my hair" Dunst's hideous monstrosity. I agree with all of it -- especially the part about Deadwood.

Glockenspiel

From ages eight to twelve, I was sent to an Orff music camp for one week each summer. The camp was run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph at their motherhouse -- about an hour outside of the city. At camp, we spent about half the day swimming and the other half under the tutelage of Sister Victoria, who taught music and dance. At night we would have hikes, campfires and sing-alongs. For me, Orff camp was a seven day preview of heaven.

What's that??? Nuns, swimming and music classes -- you thought that was heaven! Well, yes. To this day, I still believe swimming is the best way to spend a hot summer day. Making music and dancing is the best way to spend ANY night or day. Also, I liked nuns. Generally speaking, they tended to be passionate about whichever subject they spent their lives teaching and studying. And the Sisters at camp seemed to be truly following a vocation and quite happy. They also gave us a degree of autonomy not experienced at home. It was bliss!

Except that I was pretty sure Sister Victoria didn't think much of my abilities. She always told me I wasn't singing loud enough, she always made me play the glockenspiel instead of the xylophone AND for dancing she always paired me up with the boy everyone else picked on.

I wanted to play the xylophone so badly. The xylophonists played the melody of each song. Everyone played the xylophone except for a few kids who couldn't learn notes and had to play the tamborine and Kevin, who took music lessons year round and got to play drums. Oh, and me -- I always had to play the glockenspiel. The worst part was she would tease me ... I would pick an alto xylophone and she would leave me there for a couple of days. Then she would make me switch with whichever kid got stuck with it. She would spend a couple of minutes teaching me the notes to the harmony lines of each song and there I was once again ... the Great Glockenspiel Girl.

But I recently had a strange epiphany about Sister Victoria's treatment of me. She didn't put me on the glockenspiel because she thought I was incapable of playing the notes on the xylophone -- she put me there because I could play the harmony without being distracted by the melody while singing the song, loudly. She made me dance with the awkward boy every year because I never picked on him. She knew she could depend on me -- but being a good nun she never complimented me for doing what I was supposed to be doing.

And to this day, although I still enjoy a jazz combo with a xylophonist -- it doesn't compare with the sudden glee I experience upon hearing the chime of the glockenspiel. Donovan recently played Arcade Fire for me. The use the glock in several of their songs, which inspired this post. Jimi Hendrix used it in "Little Wing". If you listen carefully you can hear those clear chimes every now and then.

They are both beautiful and surprising.

If I were a month I would be: October

If I were a day of the week I would be: Friday

If I were a time of day I would be: Midnight.

If I were a planet I would be: Earth

If I were a sea animal I would be: A mermaid

If I were a direction I would be: West

If I were a piece of furniture I would be: A recliner

If I were a sin I would be: lust

If I were a historical figure I would be: Genghis Kahn

If I were a liquid I would be: saltwater

If I were a stone, I would be: turquoise

If I were a tree, I would be: weeping willow

If I were a bird, I would be: a purple martin

If I were a flower/plant, I would be: tiger lily

If I were a kind of weather, I would be: thunderstorm

If I were a musical instrument, I would be: xylophone

If I was something that floated through the air, I would be: an idea

If I were an animal, I would be: tiger

If I were a color, I would be: amber

If I were an emotion, I would be: love

If I were a vegetable, I would be: beet

If I were a sound, I would be: leaves in the breeze

If I were an element, I would be: silver

If I were a car, I would be: Chevy Super Sport

If I were a song, I would be: "Mala" by Liliana Felipe

If I were a movie, I would be directed by: Pedro Almodovar

If I were a book, I would be written by: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If I were a food, I would be: green chile

If I were a place, I would be: Jemez, NM

If I were a material, I would be: velvet

If I were a taste, I would be: pumpkin

If I were a scent, I would be: rain

If I were a word, I would be: passionate

If I were a body part I would be: forehead

If I were a facial expression I would be: contemplative

If I were a subject in school I would be: philosophy

If I were a comic book character I would be: Tank Girl

If I were a shape I would be: spiral

Strep Throat .... Not Bird Flu

Because I Am A Mother

Our chaotic occupation and plundering of Afghanistan and Iraq is creating an insurgency. The insurgency exists because we are occupying these nations and killing innocent civilians -- making them angry and thirsty for justice. I hate to think of anyone sick, maimed, homeless and orphaned because of the callous actions of greedy US -owned corporations, who are robbing us (US citizens) of jobs, health care, security, sanity and our military of life and limb.

How would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot? What if the following described the life of your daughter?

"The Americans killed my father. My father went to Kabul to get medicine for my brother who had pneumonia. When the Americans bombed, my father was killed. He did not return to bring medicine for my brother. So my brother who had pneumonia also died." This young girl said the following when asked if she had any message to the American public: "do American children love their fathers? I miss my father very much. Every night I cry and my mother tells not to cry because my father is in paradise, but I still miss him. I don't like the Americans."

She, her mother, and her siblings live in abject poverty.

The preceding was excerpted from rense.com, via God Is Not An Asshole. (Although, I sometimes think he is -- see the preceding quote.)

Valentine's Poetry

It's Wednesday ... Happy VD!

Anticipation of Separation

This is the rustle of the whisper
of the trickle
of the warm wet bead
crawling across your breastbone
while you wait for the faint bass
in the chest next to your ear
and you hear the intake,
the manifold,
the murmur of so much air
embracing his lungs
and you miss the moment
before it ends.
Drowning in the blues of faded cotton sheets.

He holds my hand against nightmares.
He develops superhuman strength
and mythic proportions and somehow
and illogically my merman embraces me again
against my jealousy and
despite his lying lips we live
within truth breathing underwater
and manifesting the pulse
of the city within
without and pierced through the core
again and again and again….

High Anxiety

That is kinda what my office looks like -- except it and my desk are much smaller and I do have a semblance of a filing system. This is causing me to become very anxious.

1. On a practical level: Naturally... I'm drowning in paper. I have 5 x's the project load of other people in our department with the same title. I spend my days bewildered and panicked and I'm terrified I'm going to screw something up majorly and get fired.

2. On an existential level: There is no possible way that all of this documentation serves the greater good. It's wrong, it's rigid, and surely it is inhuman.

3. On an environmental level: How many trees must die in the service of obscure governmental "safety" regulations AKA beauracracy? I am certain most of these endless regulations were created by people who pull down 6 figures, don't actually do any work and cover it up by having endless meetings in which they waste time and create new rules, regulations and documentations with which to waste everyone else's time.

Can I please go live in a tipi or log cabin deep in the woods and stop playing this convulted modern society game? Pretty, pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top?

Vampire Mermaid

Your Vampire Name Is...

Athene of the Great Oceans

What's" Your Vampire Name?

Crazy Love

I dread Valentine's Day. I begin developing pre- Valentine's anxiety a week in advance ... it's a big fat psychotic Hallmark slut of ridiculous expectation and for what? Why do you think they call it VD?

"Be Mine." What does that mean? Let me love you up and then take complete ownership of you? My love will enslave you??? I will own you. "You're mine."

Also, Mercury will be going retrograde on the 14th -- so beware of miscommunications -- especially with your lovers or partners or spouses or whatever. Also, any affairs or breakups initiated during a Mercury Retrograde will never stick.

I noticed in my time as a bartender that people get VERY drunk, VERY bitter and VERY mean on VD. I guess we all secretly hope for love and romance and all that jazz. And if you don't, the arrival of VD can create unnatural feelings of inadequacy, envy and vacancy within hearts that are normally way too full for such pathology. During the international outbreak of VD on February 14th, it's quite easy to see how drowning one's sorrows could be the best course to take. And that course easily escalates into a toxic waste spill requiring an expert hazmat team to clean up the wreckage caused by so many emotionally charged ions bonding with alcohol in a closed space.

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
Colette

Love,
(Cynical) Sirena

Yeti!!!

I dreamed that the survival of humanity depended on us collaborating with the Yeti. While at somebody's lake cottage in Michigan, I was given this assignment along with my friend Michael (who has previously displayed supernatural abilities in the dreamscape such as changing tires with his bare hands), my son Donovan, and two other children unrelated to me, but essential to this mission as they were 13th cousins to the Yeti or somesuch.

Anyway, we walked about a mile from the lake and cottages -- this had to be done at dawn and in stealth. If we were seen, the corporations would level the forest in order to sell the lumber.

This forest also held magical secrets, which could help heal humanity AND it was home of the Yetis -- where would they live if it were destroyed? Certainly, they wouldn't form an alliance with us if their forest were destroyed -- and that alliance was our only hope in surviving the horrible battles that were coming to pass.

The trees were so old, mossy and gnarled. There were spider webs as thick as alpaca blankets along the perimeter. We stepped into the lovely, damp magical woods. We looked behind us and at each other. No one had trailed us. We could hear the Yeti gathering up ahead in a clearing and we walked toward them. Just then, a music box started tinkling -- it had fallen open in the little girls jacket pocket. We could hear the Yeti fleeing and the little girl's face crumpled with tears.

The sound of the music box was actually my alarm clock.

Damned mandatory awakening!

Cold as Hell...

...not hot, and with a generous helping of salt.

It's been below zero for about 5 days running and at least 3 people have died -- 1 in her unheated apartment, another in his backyard and a homeless person who was sleeping outside.

I can understand how the cold gets you in your sleep. When it's this cold, I don't want to set my feet down on the floorboards for anything and it's tempting just to curl up in a nest of blankets and drift off... If a person didn't have heat, I imagine it would be even more tempting to burrow in the blankets and drift off...

They've also converted this city into a giant salt flat. It looks like what Marquez described in The Autumn of the Patriarch, when El Benefactor sells the ocean to the gringos and all that's left is the smell of the sea like a longing, and a giant salt bed. Only it was tropical and balmy there. Now when I get into my car after work, my lips taste like salt. The bottoms of my shoes are gritty with salt. I wonder who stole my fins, my ocean and left me with this devil of a white city. There are even giant salt hills on random corners -- but it's been too cold to snow.

The cold also causes longing -- you long for a warm body to put your feet against, you long for the rosy dawn of spring... and carbohydrates. I crave carbs so much when it's cold. Yesterday my entire caloric intake was supplied by toast -- with PB & J, with honey, or with Nutella.

The good news is the panic I had whipped myself into in December re: unseasonably warm weather and global warming occuring much sooner than the most dire of predictions, probably was just a panic. It's like a second chance to pull our heads out of our asses and change things NOW before winter does disappear forever.

Also, it's snowing -- a salt shaker sprinkle ... but the start of a snow shower. While I don't understand the exact scientific principle, I do know that in order to snow it has to be warmer than it was these last several days. (I'll bet it warms up to at least 10 degrees F!!!)

"Bear Down, Chicago Bears."

It's Superbowl Sunday, the Bears will be challenging the Indianapolis Colts and the temperature just increased to positive numbers. (It is currently 1 degree farenheit here.) Donovan and I are going to Meander's to watch the game.

The last time the Bear's were in the Superbowl, I was 13, Meander was 10 and we were left in charge of our sister Liza and 6 cousins -- 5 of whom were under 5 -- while the grownups went to a bar to watch the game. When the game ended, Timmy and Mary (1.5 and 1 y.o., respectively) found the poster paints, stripped down to their diapers and enthusiastically painted themselves blue. What team spirit!

To read the musings of a dedicated Chicago football fan, visit Pauly's site.

Superbowl Sunday is for frivolity. I'll be back to your regularly scheduled Sirena shortly.

Go Bears!!!

Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

Sweet dreams.

Here is one article from her "old-fashioned newspaper crusade". (And read a tribute to Ivins here.)

Bubba, we -- yes, we --have to stop the war now

By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

The president of the United States does not have the sense that God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.
I don't know why George W. Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is that WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped. NOW.
This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to increase U.S. troop levels in this hellhole by up to 20,000, as he reportedly will soon announce.
What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny?
Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?
It's monstrous to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people the charges against them if they're arrested. This administration has done away with rights enshrined in the Magna Carta, and we've let them do it.
This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I'll write about this war until we find some way to end it. Every column, we will review some factor we should have gotten right.
So let's take a step back and note that before the war, one of its architects, Paul Wolfowitz, testified to Congress that Iraq had no history of ethnic strife.
Sectarian and ethnic strife is a part of the region. And the region is full of examples of Western colonial powers trying to occupy countries, take their resources and take over the administration of their people -- and failing. The sectarian bloodbath we see daily completely refutes Wolfowitz.
And let's keep in mind that when the Army arrived in Baghdad, we, the television viewers, watched footage of a bunch of enraged and joyous Iraqis pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein, their repulsive dictator, in Firdos Square. Only one thing was wrong: The event was staged, instigated by a Marine colonel and a psychological operations unit that made it appear spontaneous.
When we later saw the whole square where the statue was located, only 30 to 40 people were there (U.S. soldiers, press and some Iraqis -- and one of several U.S. tanks present pulled the statue down with a cable). We, the television viewers, saw the square being presented as though the people of Iraq had gone into a frenzy, mobbed the square and spontaneously pulled down the statue.
We need to cut through all this smoke and mirrors and come up with an exit strategy, forthwith.
The Democrats have yet to offer a cohesive plan to get us out of this mess. Of course, it's not their fault -- but the fact is that we need leaders who are grown-ups and who are willing to try to fix it. Bush has ignored the actual grown-ups from the Iraq Study Group and the generals and all other experts who are nearly unanimous in the opinion that more troops will not help.
It's up to you and me, Bubba.
We need to make sure that the new Congress curbs executive power, which has been so misused, and asserts its own power to make this situation change.
Now.