my infatuation with Sisi

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connecting the dots with sex, time, and power

The world lost a fascinating and compelling man when Leonard Shlain died last year. One of his three best-selling, fascinating and thought-provoking books, Sex, Time & Power, is a brain buzz of curiosity, not to mention a hell of a great read.

In this historical anthropology of the connection between women's sexuality and evolution Shlain connects the dots between sometimes disparate entities such as, for example, grandmothers and circumcision, as well as unpacking more commonly paired pairings, like wife and husband.

Galloping through it, I learned that right-handed males tend to engage in risky behavior until they're 25 because that's when their left frontal lobe myelinates. Until then, their sex drive dictates just about everything they do. I knew this, but I didn't know why.

Also interesting to ponder is the notion that speech was invented to facilitate sex. And that (here is the connection between grandmothers and circumcision) the uncut penis reaches climax earlier than one that's been sculpted, thereby decreasing the potential for conception (more thrusting = increase in vaginal pH = better environment for sperm), et voilà, circumcision = more babies for grandma to spoil!

Most intriguing, however, is this whole time thing. Women invented it. Duh. Men may know instinctively how deep Crater Lake is (my husband was a couple feet off in his estimate), but get them to understand that if they work out, get an oil change AND pick up a few things at the home brew store, they won't have time to take a shower before the symphony, and you've accomplished a Sisyphean feat.

pink is the new pink

It's everywhere, all of the sudden. Over-sized handbags, cardigans, signage. For the first time ever I'm smearing my lips with it. Coveting items dipped, painted, bejeweled and iced with it.

I don't remember pink being so ubiquitous. Not even as a small girl, when trolls and Barbies and bedspreads were offered. Pink, even more than red, has always struck me as a romantic color. Not the mature, devil-lady sort of romance--more the schoolgirl crush kind. Think dots on the i's. Think lip prints on love letters. Shiny. Soft. Fairy Godmotherish.

Why all the pink? Are we again looking to scuttle back to simpler, more innocent times? Are we seeking to embrace the myth of a benign, loving world? Or is it, simply, that pink reminds us that not everything is black.

revisiting old love stories

Every few months I review old stories I've written to assess whether or not they suck. Well, that's not completely true. The motivation isn't quite self-flagellation, but I tend to be impatient when I read stories I wrote while in the throes of some or another grievance. Occasionally I'm mortified when I realize that some of them are published, out there in the world, and feature a world view I can't relate to anymore.

Sigh.

One thing is certain though. I admit to having a somewhat quirky, cynical view of romance. Or, I did. Up until about four years ago. What I've noticed is that I'm more inclined to give my characters a break now. I'm kinder to them. I'm less full of the drive-by rage that infused my pages and invented harsh and embarrassing scenarios for antagonists and protagonists alike.

But what has replaced this tendency, I ask myself, clicking open stories, scrolling and scanning their paragraphs. I think it's penetration. I hope, actually, it's penetration. What lies beneath the urge to skewer? Where can I go here, with this poor schlep? I'm entering, I hope, the realm of the true urge to write the love in the love stories. And with this pledge, I re-enter.

home and hearth and baggage

My husband and I just bought a house. We've been packing boxes this past week, and the move is scheduled, officially, for next Thursday. It's an exciting time, really, but insidiously stressful.

Last night we both awoke and sat bolt upright at 3:00 a.m. having been zapped from sleep by separate-but-equally startling dreams that starred our ex-spouses! In both cases, houses were involved, the buying/selling/fixing of houses. And there were cameo appearances by other major players in our lives. But not, oddly, each other.

For the next hour we shared our respective dreams and then tossed and turned with sleepless anxiety. Emotions, chaos, pragmatic foibles--all the ingredients of "bad dream patina" continued to plague us until we at last drifted off for the final hour-and-a-half before one of our iPhones tweedled its morning alarm.

Never have I been happier for morning to arrive!

marital happiness more important than Oscar

Here's an abstract of this newsy tidbit in a recent editorial by David Brooks:

Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being. If you have a successful marriage, it doesn't matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn't matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.

Red carpet, red schmarpet.

moving on

I’ve lived in my house for nearly eleven years. More than double the years I’ve given to any other house in my life. During that time I’ve occasionally lamented its lack of 21st century amenities: the crooked floors, the bottlenecks out of the kitchen, the absence of closets—but mostly, I’ve worn the cedar and plaster and the expansive garden and the texture of the towering trees that grace the lot like a beloved thrift store jacket. One I felt smug to have found.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t feel grateful for the wood windows, the view out my bedroom window, the deep, luxurious bathtub, the hot tub tucked between the laurel and the Gingko tree. With fresh paint on all the walls and newly refinished clear vertical grain fir floors, with the smooth slabs of granite in the kitchen, and the flower beds tilled with dark mulch, my house is prettier than ever. Dressed for the prom. Lined up on the auction block with a shiny cow bell around its neck.

But the realities of selling in a shitty market involve putting emotion aside in favor of pragmatic delineation of square footage and items on any potential buyer’s punchlist. A house is reduced to the barest of commodifications, like a toaster would be, or a power drill.

Back in ’99, when I first strolled the nearly quarter-acre lot with my newborn son nestled in the crook of my arm, I was smitten. Coming from an urban neighborhood where our house was jammed in between two others and where I needed to maintain constant vigil lest my kids trip over discarded junkie paraphernalia or arrive in the path of a stray drive-by bullet, I felt my entire being sink into the wonder of this vintage bungalow as I nursed my baby under the mountain ash.

My baby is on the brink of middle school now, my older kids in adult lives of their own. I have a different husband, a different job, a different car, and, sadly, a different perspective. I’ve become much more attuned to square footage, closets, two-car garages. Those big trees? I sigh with fatigue just watching them leaf out, fast-forwarding to the perennial raking sessions and gutter-cleanings. A quarter acre is a lot to mow, to weed, to prune.

Today marks the twentieth day that my beloved house has been classified as “active” on the RMLS. Early in this listing we had an offer. A young family, as smitten as I had been, initially. But when an inspection revealed a few flaws they’d somehow missed in their four viewings of the house, they reneged, took their earnest money and fled to the nearest ranch house—one that, coincidentally, was being sold by friends of mine.

During the sunset of that offer, our realtor discovered a house that suited our criteria, and one that was a breath away from official MLS register. A well-built, impeccably maintained split level that abuts a lovely park. We’ve made an offer contingent on the sale of our house. It’s been accepted. We have a timeline now. In two weeks, we need to be in contract, or we lose the deal. In anticipation of our realtor’s suggestion that we lower the price on our house to facilitate this almost ludicrous stipulation, yesterday I tried to wrap my mind around the concept of home. What home actually means to me now. And how that concept has become, in this “market,” divorced from any sense of spiritual and emotional living. I mean, my kid’s placenta is buried under that crooked weeping cherry back there. Is that now a hazard that requires DEQ certification? Do I need to disclose it on the umpteen-page tome that accompanies every real estate transaction?

I sought counsel before the realtor meeting, where I knew she’d be whipping out the reduction papers. I asked Michael Powell, one of the most successful businessmen in this city, how he built his empire. “Is it because you’re a rogue?” I queried. “Or because you are just really good at applying conventional wisdom.”

He scoffed at the term rogue, of course. No, Michael Powell built the Powell’s book empire on his capacity to see beyond business-as-usual. Selling used books beside new books was an idea that threatened to jeopardize the conventions of the publishing industry. But Michael Powell’s maverickness was born out of a vision that served the larger world of books and those who love them, and ultimately, the publishing industry has benefitted from his originality, his integrity, and his follow-through.

What I’d hoped to convey when I sat at the table with the realtor and my husband, was adherence to the bigger picture, and the goals we had going into this decision to put the house on the market. We’d wanted to upgrade. We’d wanted lower maintenance, better spaces, a less-busy street, all without it impacting our finances adversely. My question was, “Will a reduction in price guarantee us this next house? Or is it more likely to jeopardize our goals in the long run, because now we’ve opened the door to the idea of a fire sale.”

The realtor suggested that our house was overpriced, even though we’d gotten a near full-price offer in the first ten days of listing and the house was being shown every day to new prospects. My husband jumped on the wagon, “We need to invite a new pool of buyers.” And thus the spiral that ensues when one invites that discussion has begun.

My stance is that a back-on-market house with a price reduction is a big white flag, and flies in the face of our larger goals. But, I signed the papers anyway, and what that decision bought me is a new detachment. In that act of John Hancocking a “price reduced” addendum, I also divorced myself from the emotional contingencies. My house is just a set of stats; it’s no longer my home. Coming into this transaction, I was very vested in a certain outcome: find a buyer who loves the house the way I did when I first saw it. I’ve let that go. It’s possible, after all, that there is no such person. It’s something that I cannot control. The love, disappointment, passion, anger, sorrow and elation that I’ve experienced in this house these eleven years belongs to me and me alone; it’s not transferrable like a Home Warranty. What I know is this: I love fiercely, and I love unconditionally, and I love irrationally, and I am not the least bit pragmatic.

A person like me is always going to make bad decisions in the real estate business. I have signed those decisions over to the experts, and now I must move on. Once the house definitively sells, or doesn’t, I can re-inhabit my true nature and relationship with home. Whether it’s this one, or the next. And maybe that’s the lesson I’ve needed all along.