The Jane Eyre Complex

Thinking about My Little Pony
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

"You paint your head
Your mind is dead
You don't even know what I just said.
That's You: American Womanhood."
- Frank Zappa

My Women in Literature professor said that when a woman in a ninteenth century novel looks in a mirror, she isn't being vein, she's looking for who she is, unless, asserts my professor, that book was written by a man. Is it even possible to claim this with any objectivity? It seems a woman keeps looking because an image can never deliver a self, only a repeating question, ever cheapening, ever limiting. Maybe a mirror is a trap.

Dadtrap

Dadtrap
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

You were probably wondering when this man would appear. Who is this person with his progressive lenses and his snowy beard? Where did he arrive from? "The last time I was in Oakland," he said, climbing out of the rented PT cruiser, "was on my way to Vietnam." You forget these things, that dad didn't have time to learn cool or cynicism because he was too busy building his house, saving his scraps, filling his mouth with tacks in the basement. Contrary to your stupid contemporary slant, Dad didn't just uncurl out of some pod when you were born, wiggle his fingers and look for something to entertain him.

Little River Beach Wood

Little River Beach Wood
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

Perhaps the more I tell you about it, the less it happened and the more it became the thing I told you about. I fear it sometimes, that hijacking of reality by our own exposition, boasting, apologizing for,or retelling in another medium besides brain wrinkling. On the other hand, why give me cognition if not to make abstractions of the things that happen to me? Am I trying to control what you think of me through how I represent myself, my deeds, travels and accolades? Perhaps, but are we not all understanding each other on another level that pays no attention to our words and pictures and symbols anyway? Isn't your gut just telling it like it is, and the reasons you make up to explain your reactions nothing but extraneous amusments playing between us in the air?

When Women Wield Machetes

P1010082
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

Tomorrow I visit my sister. I must become prepared. The woman who studies Xena's power grip moves like she's preparing for the GRE's, who scans the room for signs of "Barbie Complex" in order to crush it, who can, in the same sentence, coo sweetly and bite sharply, and who drives a car with no muffler across the country, is awaiting my arrival to her small, rotting trailer in the forest. We will sing in sister harmony, not Neild sisters, but maybe Lennon sisters. We will cook elaborate meals that cost more than dining out. We will fight like babies. We will fish dead chipmunks out of springs. We will spy on Mexican boys at the swimming hole. We will laugh like animals. We will pine for the days of pole-vauting off boulders in our yard and destroying every dainty young friend who dared to visit our secluded turf with it's dinosaur gravel pits and Ewok forts of old.

Saab Story

Saab Story
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

For all your demands, I like taking care of you. Sometimes I feed you green liquid so you don't get a fever. Sometimes blue, so you can cry like I do when you're away. You are so responsive, subtle, you know when you need to stop. You coax responsibility out of me. I may be the one with the title, but you are the one in charge.

Where were your bangs in 1991?

From Whence we Came
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

Since 1991 every molecule in your body has replaced itself twice over. If I replaced every part in my 1991 Saab 900, (I'm well on my way) would it be a different car by now? Do Erin and I have some of each other's molecules? Yesterday she took a sip from my bottle. I was, still am, ill. Will she get sick from the bottle or from some kind of physical empathy she knows of my germs? Is she breathing through lungs she built out of me? Did we absorb our cardboard president, our ugly tees, Tammy's hairspray or my mother's giddy grin? In some way, I suppose, we must have.

Is it happy time?

Mothers Posing
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

Sometime along the way you make a decision to comment on the weather when you see a person on the street. You put up a Christmas tree even though you don't care about Christmas. You eat baked goods you know will kill you. Why? Maybe because your mom wanted everything good for you and you gave up trying to redefine good in the context of other people. Good became a furtive exchange between you and your self, and mom got to be proud that you appeared to be doing the right things. She's probably on to you, because moms are infinately smarter than we think, but she's also too polite to say anything because she is a mom, after all, and she knows how to talk about the weather.

Patties

Patties
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

Everything lives at one time or another. Sometimes that's hard to believe.

Elixer of Life

Elixer of Life
Originally uploaded by mchughtie.

This week's Menu: Hamburgers, Fries, Canned Peaches, French Toast, Tater Tots, Sausage, Ritalin, Chicken Patties, Cucumbers, Peanut butter, Paxil,chips, fish sticks, peas and carrots, canned pears, milk, chocolate milk, and Farmer Girl California Tomato Ketchup.