When the baby has my bangs in his fist, pulling them toward his mouth, and his foot on my chin, pushing it away.
Author Archives: Eden M. Kennedy
Hey, Wait a Minute
I’m a goddamned housewife! A revelation I had while cleaning the stove ten minutes ago. Three weeks ago my life was all about typesetting and captions and health tips and spas; now it’s all about Shout! and Fantastik! and Viva and Huggies.
I went through our budget and figured out that we can live on Jack’s salary and my unemployment — not well, but we won’t starve, nor will I feel the need to sell my car. I just have to keep “looking” for work to keep my benefits coming (and there’s no threat of finding another editing job in this overfed cultural backwater).
This Is Only a Test
What’s In a Name
In my town there’s a public garden named for Alice Keck Park, who I guess was some sort of philanthropist. The problem is that people think the name of the garden is Alice Keck Park — what with her last name also being the name of the thing that’s being named. So to be perfectly correct we should call it Alice Keck Park Park.
There’s a similar problem up at the rose garden in front of the mission, there’s a whole bed of roses named in honor of another garden philanthropist named Helen Thorne. What are the odds? Will I, too, end up with a little patch of grass named after me?
Coincidentally, here’s a poem on something close to the subject by W. D. Snodgrass.
These Trees Stand . . .
These trees stand very tall under the heavens.
While they stand, if I walk, all stars traverse
This steep celestial gulf their branches chart.
Though lovers stand at sixes and sevens
While civilizations come down with the curse,
Snodgrass is walking through the universe.
I can’t make any world go around your house.
But note this moon. Recall how the night nurse
Goes ward-rounds, by the mild, reflective art
Of focusing her flashlight on her blouse.
Your name’s safe conduct into love or verse;
Snodgrass is walking through the universe.
Your name’s absurd, miraculous as sperm
And as decisive. If you can’t coerce
One thing outside yourself, why you’re the poet!
What irrefrangible atoms whirl, affirm
Their destiny and form Lucinda’s skirts!
She can’t make up your mind. Soon as you know it,
Your firmament grows touchable and firm.
If all this world runs battlefield or worse,
Come, let us wipe our glasses on our shirts:
Snodgrass is walking through the universe.
I Dreamed of Oprah Winfrey
I had a terrible dream about my former job last night, that I showed up late to a meeting at the office and my former assistant, who now has my job, was wearing a gorgeous green velvet dress and was so happy. It turned out to be a big party and Oprah was the guest of honor and I looked at her and just wanted to bust out crying. Why I thought Oprah would understand my problems — that’s a power normally reserved for Jesus and the ideal reader. It’s my fault for having an old copy of “O” magazine on my nightstand. I swear I just bought it for research.
No poems today.
How Jackson Got His Many Names
Babies spit up two kinds of milk: one that’s still fresh, and one that’s been in the stomach long enough to look like cottage cheese. As soon as we learned this, Jack and I began saying, “I’ve been cheesed!” when the baby spit up on us. As cheese went from noun to adjective to verb in our house, all sorts of phrases sprung up, such as “Don’t jiggle Jackson too much or he’ll cheese you!” and “You’re looking particularly cheesy this evening” and “Hand me that cloth, I have to decheesify someone here.” And of course it led to an evolving series of nicknames for the baby (Mr. Cheese, Monsieur Fromage, Signor Formaggio) leading to the current favorite: Senor Queso.
His other nickname is The Nut, which stems from the beginning of my pregnancy when I started consulting a little growth chart to see how much the fetus weighed each week. Somewhere around 9 weeks I determined that s/he was as big as a peanut, so that’s what Jack and I started calling the little beast (handy when we were still debating names). For a long time s/he was going to be named Pablo Ali (or Kate), but serious dissension from Jack’s mom led us to settle on Jackson.
Five Months
Today is Jackson’s five-month birthday, so we celebrated by sleeping in until 6:30 and then watching Sesame Street with a cappuccino. Actually, I had the cappuccino while Jackson chewed on the remote.
I am happy to report that it IS okay to eat something that’s been in the refrigerator for nine days, but you might not actually enjoy it. I had exactly two bites of some aged osso buco and then threw it out. Which reminds me of the time I had dinner down on Chrystie Street at Sammy’s Roumanian Restaurant with Mark and Bill. This is the place where they put syrup containers full of chicken fat on the table. So I order veal and the waiter says, Oh, I thought you’d be too liberal to order the veal.
Leftovers
Hardware
I was in Restoration Hardware the other day looking for knobs to put on the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink. Restoration Hardware has the best knobs. They have knobs in the shape of garden tools, leaves, letters of the alphabet, you name it. Brass, copper, glass, enamel. My husband was looking for a knob to use as a pull for the glove compartment on his ’57 Ford flatbed truck. The glove doesn’t lock or anything, it just has a spring action to keep it open or shut. He found a little hammer-shaped knob. It’s perfect for a work truck.
All this reminds me of a poem by Wallace Stevens.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be the finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once,
and spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Blue
Depressed about the whole joblessness thing. I mean, I really hated/was burned out by that job, but I didn’t want to get fired. Editing jobs are impossible to find around here, so I might have to switch fields. God help me if I have to go back to working in a bookstore, the pay won’t even cover childcare. I might as well stay home and raise goats. My landlady would love that. Then I’d be homeless, too!
This is my favorite poem by LeRoi Jones.
Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
(For Kellie Jones, born 16 May 1959)
Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
the ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus . . .
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there . . .
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands.
