Towel Day!

Ok, everybody. It's towel day, and in honor of a great man who died much too early and suddenly, I urge you to grab a towel and knock back a few pan-galactic gargle blasters. If you can't find any, try tequila and lemonade. Man with beard is, alas, not on the continent this week, but Thirdling has the right spirit, doing her homework.

Windows.

No excuse. I always think that if I can find a peaceful place, where there are no "you suck" messages seeping out of the walls or the internet or the phone, then I will be able to scrape myself together long enough to write something publishable. I know I am repeating myself here, but it is really frustrating when all the writing teachers say "it's great! don't know what you could change!" and all the publishers say "form rejection." (ok, a couple said "it's highly creative/original/had fun with it BUT," which is better than "fr," i admit.)

*Anyway,* (I seem to have a severe case of the post holiday babbles, here) above is the view from my office window, as of this morning. Note the violas, the nasturtiums, the cool welded chain sculpture in the neighbour's garden (big wooden thing is neighbour's house). And check out the picture below that, the view from our holiday cottage. There were grapes growing inside the winter garden there. Grapes!

I ought to be writing fucking masterpieces. I mean, any normal writer would have written a Pulitzer prize winner or a Nobel candidate by now! (I would just like to record that the temptation to go off on another HHGTTG babble here is almost overwhelming. Instead, you can see what I would have babbled about the idea of "normal" here, at about 1:30.) Just look at those views! You should see the view from my office when the roses are blooming!

Still. There is something amazing about windows. I love their symbolism. Not the "normal" exit. A hole built into a structure to let in light, or air, or chase a stray bee out of. But not for people. The temptation to climb out the window and not the door just to see if it changes anything, to see if I wind up in a different place, is very strong.

Towel Day

Tomorrow, Sunday May 25 will be towel day. Douglas Adams died too young, but at least he accomplished a lot before he did. Happy towel day!

Douglas Adams meets Monty Python

Oh, right- wasn't this blog supposed to be about writing? And art? My writing and my art? No no, that was someone else's blog...

All RIGHT, All right, yes, it was me...

So. I come home from my two weeks of holiday, and in the huge pile of mail is the letter I was expecting;

Dear would-be student,
your printmaking course has been canceled due to lack of interest blah blah blah.....

I received an identical letter last fall. I was struggling then, too, to figure out what it was I was supposed to be doing, what I wanted to be doing. I asked myself, 'why did fate allow this course to be cancelled?' Then I found out I was pregnant and thought, 'oh, that's why.' And then I wasn't pregnant anymore. So the course is cancelled a second time, and I'm not surprised or upset, and don't care why, and then the phone rings. It's the teacher of the course. There has been a mistake, she's been talking to the school faculty, the course will take place, blah blah blah.

Now. Why did this woman have to sound like an over-drugged sing-songy left-behind space hippie on the phone? I could almost see the rainbows and peace symbols and smell the pot. I was so unconvinced, I nearly told the woman I couldn't make it; I was busy every Monday night for the rest of my life, sorry. Why couldn't there have been an instant rapport? A sudden indefinable feeling of trust? The conviction that I would have something exciting and edifying to look forward too on Monday nights? I really could have used that.

So who's steering this, anyway. What is the meaning of life? I am trying so hard, I want to do something good, so SOMEBODY, please, give me sign! In the mean time:

Me: Waiter, bring me a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, please.
Waiter: Yes. Something to drink?
Me: That is a drink. Does the bartender know how to make it?
Waiter: ummm... with sandwiches.
Me: No, I don't want any sandwiches. Does the bartender know how to make a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster or not?
Waiter: Ahh! About five minutes.
Me: Forget it. Just bring me a slice of lemon and a large gold brick.
Waiter: Que?
Chorus of patrons: He's from Barcelona!
(lively jig ensues to the tune of the Blackadder them)
Me: Hang on, is this that improbability drive thing again? (I duck a bowl of petunias as it flies through where my head used to be.)

Improbability Drive

I have been thinking a lot about fate, chance, and likelihood. What happened to my baby was a statistical long shot. Like winning the lottery. But my life has had a few of those.

I quit grad school to travel. I went to Ireland. I had never been anywhere, and Ireland had always been on the top of my list. At the same time, a lunatic Swiss man, to whom I am now married, also quit his job and traveled to Ireland. Throw in two German students (one with incredibly smelly socks. He had brought only his grandfather's old doctor's bag as luggage. There was no room for actual clothes in the bag; only the big fat textbook, which I never saw him open. He was supposed to be studying for his med school exam the following week. The other one was studying psychology. He watched us intently and took a lot of notes.), some burnt toast, a bicycle and an abandoned chicken wing in the bottom of an oven all did their magic to push us closer and closer together. Ok, there was a large pile of Swiss chocolate involved, too.

So there we were, together against all odds, working for small change in Ireland. The job was seasonal, though, and come October, we had no income, and no way to get back to Switzerland either. We were considering *gasp* borrowing money from his mom! So what to do, what to do? Hmmmm. Win the Lotto. No, I'm not kidding. We didn't win the jackpot, but we did win what was the largest fiver in history at that point- 1,304 Irish Pounds. Enough to get back to Switzerland.

And what are the odds of exactly the right sperm and exactly the right egg being released to make a certain child? Out of three hundred million sperm per ejaculation? And 400,000 eggs fighting for release? And we have the three most perfect girls. And then there's poor Douglas, dead at 49. What were the chances of that? Just before the sperm whale and the bowl of petunias hit the ground, the bowl thinks "oh, no. Not again."

And there it is. I must accept the long odds, just like the bowl of petunias, whether in my favour or not. I know Douglas Adams was an atheist; but I am going to indulge in the fantasy that my wishy-washy watered-down vaguely christian upbringing prompts. I am going to picture my little boy in heaven, making Douglas Adams laugh, and vice versa.