Tuesday, December 2, 2008
My first flying lesson in two years was canceled yesterday - what a thrilling event! There is little more uplifting (npi) in the world than a canceled anything, especially a flight! Remember, to have flown is glorious. To anticipate flight... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It is, as our baby girl goat Bonny Belgum Double Junior would say, "pretty good." I get total credit for being ready and willing to show up, though. Alas, it's already been rescheduled for two days from now, but there's always that unpredictable weather. The point is that I don't cancel. If I actually fly, so very much the better, or so I will say after the fact.
Andree and I finally have the actual - not working - title for our collaboration. The working title, "That's the kind of person she is.," is hereby replaced with the real and lasting title, Somewhere in These Days of Morning. Andree's recent show saw two prints from Somewhere go out the door, so we have already garnered a stack of receipts, albeit a slender one. We're for real!
I'm so tired of not doing more public speaking. Invite me to charge up your crowd for the next interminable training seminar! Let's wake these people up! They can go back to sleep when the PowerPoint comes on.
Bonny's America responds to the slightest inconvenience with her husband's gorgeously simple phrase, "Well, call the Hilton!"
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I snooze, I lose. I almost missed my first customer review on Amazon.com. I was determined to do absolutely nothing to cause one to appear. No favors were called in. This lovely person is a total stranger in a strange land indeed: Santa Cruz, California. Almost two weeks ago. What a lovely little world, with people like her who are moved to share a bit of enthusiasm for something. I'll pay forward her kindness with this thought, for those of us decidedly not in California: Winter is a beautiful, exciting, shocking, dangerous, thrilling event. Let's give it a real big welcome this year. And let's share some of our coolness and ice with our struggling friends in the heat of fire. Together, we'll all get the temperature just right.
Bonny's America needs new brakes but is trying to hit all the right notes on the decidedly circuitous way to the shop.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A review in the U of Minn. alumni magazine almost literally indicates that you can, in fact, beat City Hall. For those of us who frequented the joint in the late '70s, early '80s, the U is a place where things tangle up and slip away unaccountably. Not a place that receives and acts upon mail from an alum's publisher. It is a strange new world indeed. Today is the hairless dog of alma maters.
Bonny's America is in a ditch and out of gas. Cheer up, I only mean it literally.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I'm still holding Obama's victory close to my heart. By all means, talk amongst yourselves. On Huffington Post, in the mix of celebration photos from all over the world, arms in the air, crying, cheering, was this from Afghanistan:
Bonny's America may be a pacifistic country, but it is not without mercy for these weary, wary onlookers to their own fate.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Why are you reading this?! Go dream about our future with Obama, says the utterly converted Bonny. Death to cynicsm? Is this possible? Let's decide it is.
It's been a long, cold, lonely winter.
Bonny's America dares to dream. That statistically proves anyone can.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
I have agreed to use headphones tonight if the debate is too jittery for my husband. Last debate, we thought it was the choppy uploading of the screen, so he lay on the floor behind the computer to listen in darkness. And it had just as jangling an effect. Apparently their words were uploading into their brains and outputting in just as jolting a manner. He couldn't stem his brain's line hits, as we used to call them, for hours into bedtime. Come to think of it, neither could I. Can't wait to do it again. Can't wait for it all to be over either. Combine one couch, one broken foot, and one laptop (okay, three) and you get one "news" junkie. I gotta go cold turkey after this.
And then there is mercy:
Bonny's America feels like this. Advises our good friend, "Never leave home."
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Greetings, one and all! I don't have the heart to force the flies back out into the cold. 70 degrees, you say! Pah! We have our own tiny ecosystem in these hills and valleys. Every single forecast: Wind! Brrrr. But why should you care, for heaven's sake? My apologies. You must have felt like you were listening to a debate for a second there.
All I want to do is look at pictures of the strangest rare endangered species and read about their talents. I mean ever, not just right now. I can't see my way clear to justifying any other course of action for the rest of my life. Once you've read that the blind "human fish" olm eats
only every ten YEARS, or that there are only 200 one-inch bats LEFT... And this purple frog you're seeing spends most of its life 13 feet underground - frankly, a very appealing idea. These are the most amazing, inventive, gorgeous creatures imaginable - no, strike that. There is no WAY to imagine what I am seeing. Don't get me started on evolution. Nothing makes me angrier (although most everything makes me angry, by way of disclaimer) than hearing the blah blah about evolution LEADING to humans. I'm fine with the evolution theory, but we are a disgusting, miserable example of what it means to progress. Does it LOOK like we're progressing? Evolving? NO! We are devolving ever more, taking everyone and everything with us, and in that hideous process have taken way too much attention - and means of sustenance - from living beings who really are brilliant, resourceful, kind, patient, creative, cooperative, and utterly beautiful. *@*!# the thumb! If that's what it means to evolve - to render a creature that eats only every ten years extinct - then I guess we win a big shiny prize.
Bonny's America - anyone's America - is unworthy of the dudong!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
See you in Wayzata tonight! My fervent prayer is that it will be warmer there than it is here, because we have a new rule that we can't turn on the heat, we can only build a fire. But I can't get to the woodpile, and a two-hour bath didn't do the trick. I am prepared to pour my latte over my head right before the reading so I don't overshiver the words like in "Crimson and Clover." Anything for the cause.
For all my various nerves, the only moment that caused me to reel from a rush of anxiety yesterday was the Huffington Post headline that maybe Palin would do well in the debate. This must be what it feels like to have a gun to your head. PLEASE don't let her be fake-articulate! I saw something about an Alaska debate where she used the word "discourse." Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bonny's America's shivers are timbered indeed!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
This is amazing! This new thing, Google Book Search, will take you right to the cover page of Bonny's America: Cut the Woman Some Slacks! and lets you look anywhere you want through the whole book! Then, if you like it, links to buy it are right there. Talk about a Look Inside feature! Way more extensive than amazon.com's. How can this work? Easy: They don't let you copy or print it, and they hope your eyes get tired. I know I don't like to buy stuff I can't preview, and I seldom get to a bookstore from up here. Now it comes to you! They have loaded lots and lots of books, including the whole KenArnoldBooks catalog. Make it a night: Browse with brews!
Bonny's America is now an open book.
Monday, September 29, 2008
The mighty Belgum/Tracey duo has struck again. Come meet the magical Andrée Tracey at my Wayzata reading on Thursday!
For the hard-of seeing (remember, this is simply a small image of a wonderland collage):
Flags are flying, people are marching in a row.
It's a business army, storming a high-rise, expertly trained in death of the spirit. Orders: Shoot to kill. There is a massacre every day, and these living dead sense nothing except fear of reprisal. They fall in step. She knows the tree frog sees this and peps in horror. She loves the tree frog for pepping. His pep can melt a building. So it should.
©2008 Bonny Belgum
Suitable for a Monday morning, no?
Bonny's America peps with the tree frog. May we all pep with the tree frog.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The eighth chicken has come home, it's an ideal day for mushrooms, I've been up for two whole hours and, after two lattes, am calling it. Time to go back to bed and start over. It happens.
There is a surging hope in me, though, about Obama - that he might be a human being. I saw a clip of him on Letterman, deconstructing the pig lipstick metaphor. He both used the word "connote" and flashed a huge smile. He was amused, he was having fun. He was actually kinda cute. In the style of Clooney, the smile is doled out sparingly, with a big payoff. Speaking of, you know winter is coming when our goats sprout their underside Clooneys. They're coming in thick and dark this year.
Bonny's America has substituted the amazon.com Hot New Releases list for the stockmarket charts, but apparently the addiction is as strong. I don't think I could even say I can quit anytime.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
I am crestfallen. I have realized suddenly that Newt is short for Newton. That's all. Dreams die hard.
Bonny's America is comforted by a newcomer, a green flincher whose haunches each replicate a blade of grass. I don't want to know his name. I know that he's perfect.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Andree Tracey has rolled out the welcomest of mats on her site, inviting one and all to join her in attending my Amazon Bookstore reading. She spoils me. I think this thing's gonna be quite the party! Crutches optional.
Bonny's America apparently features a diagnostically insane foot. Come one, come all, peer at the phenomenon Thursday at 7!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
This guy calling in to Wisconsin Public Radio just got called on to be next and he hit a button on his phone, so his first comment was a beep, which reminds me of that bag of popcorn in the snack trailer at the movies - the one that pops the popcorn into the air in a puff of joy at the touch of, I believe, Ms. Diet Pepsi. Wait, now the guy has an off-the-hook beep piping into the Afghanistan expert's longwinded response. Why am I thinking of frog calls? Sonny is fond of saying, "Yeah, thanks for the call, Jim. I'll hang up and not listen." I think he got that from his second wife, the St. Bernard, who was a bit of a comedian. Although I really don't think she was bluffing when she acted like she thought she was upstairs when in fact the back third of her was still on the stairs. She'd stand there waiting for me to proceed, and I'd stand there waiting for her to fully upload her body so she could shift it into the kitchen and out of the landing so that I could leave the corner behind the door to the basement, where I would typically need to wait. I loved that. Wait, the Afghanistan guy just said Kumbayah! I am totally not kidding. Properly, I totally am not kidding. Or, I am not totally kidding, which changes the meaning utterly. The Germans have it figured out - the little identifiers they stick in front of and behind their words lets you spill the whole Scrabble game and put everything back where it was, if you're honest.
Bonny's America has sprung two Estonian tulip-poppies this morning, in the form of reading attendees - I won't be alone!
Monday, September 15, 2008 (urgent update)
You won't believe this. The birthday girl - okay, my magical sister! - couldn't stand it anymore so she looked up Estonia. As tulip-shaped poppies are our witnesses, look what came up:
Bonny's America is most beholden to the visions of Nanny the seer.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Happy birthday to a delightful young lady whose view of Estonia couldn't be further from mine. I picture their packages are wrapped with six thick slates and then a wooden club is taped to the top. She sprang forth almost autonomically, "Oh, no, Estonia is ALL red and orange!" She sees big poppies everywhere with tulip edges, all red and orange. A happy place. A CURRENT place. (Maybe it will bump New Zealand off her #1 spot?) I'm certain she's right - it flowed right through her. Just one way she's always a surprise, and another reason I'm glad to call her my best friend and, often, personal savior - even though we've never been formally introduced.
Now, then. I think we can all agree that ... September is a mossy protrusion:
copyright Bonny Belgum/Andree Tracey 2008
We are a rock. We are an island. She could be looking to Estonia.
Speaking of a rock (me) on an island (the couch), Week Six has begun with no relief in sight. I may be ROLLING into those readings, at this rate, but I shall be there.
I have been humbled by the dark side of my hermit life. I have asked, what do other people do, who don't have a husband to help them, before and after work? And what do I do, when he is at work? I can't move without the white hot stone of pain lighting up, but yet Sonny still has to pee, and on rare occasions so do I. Plus there's my fierce caffeine addiction. I've made coffee twice during this sojourn and had to rest up the rest of the day. Do you have any IDEA how many steps there are, literally and figuratively? Well, I mean just literally, but some are foot-steps and some are procedure-steps, and many require both. It ought to give you some idea how it's going that I don't even think it's worth it. I'm back to strictly what I can reach from my island.
The point is, though, people's response to exactly what one can do in such a helpless state goes like this: Friends, family, neighbors, church, community. I've made it my mission not to have or serve as any of those, and now who's laughing? It's almost embarrassing if it weren't so sad if it weren't so funny that I didn't see this coming. But my rules include a determination to help others first before I'm qualified to ask, and I can't do that from the COUCH! Besides, I have done some things for some people sometimes, but as it happens those people are presently in need or in demand themselves. I managed to eke out the words "I need help" but my timing was all wrong. And "neighbor" out here - if you say can you walk half a mile to take my dog to pee, then you gotta be ready for when they go to St. Maarten for a month and leave behind a pack of wolverines. See where I'm going with this? It's not just watering plants and taking in mail out here, it's serious stuff, and all us (we?) neighbors know it.
And to pray to a Christian God so that someone will print me a sheet of labels? Doesn't seem worth it - seems more like I'm writing my own ticket straight to hell, should there indeed BE a Christian God who finds out I want a page of labels printed. And community - we don't even know which one we LIVE in. We have to find out when/if we vote. That leaves family. Nobody nearby, and we have all had an unspoken policy thus far to offer hearty greetings when the occasion serves, but we are all islands ourselves. Islands that split off the mainland and floated off and anchored hard. We don't ask favors. We don't accept favors. We're sort of shy, in an arrogant, gnomish sort of way. Which leaves me here on the couch knowing Sonny's gonna have to pee within the hour and it's only Monday. What did he do to deserve reduced service? He's dignified and composed and not a snuggler, but he IS "friends with all the groups," as popular kids describe their high school experience.
Bonny's America is an island with food and water, although the sound of Sonny drinking water strikes fear to its shores.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 (later)
Wait, I gotta tell you this before it's already outdated: Near as I can figure out, amazon.com has listed Bonny's America as #34 on its Hot New Releases list for essay books. I'm not kidding: http://yp.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/4464?ie=UTF8&pg=2.
Quick, go look, before they change their minds!
Bonny's America might be funnier when ordered from Estonia. As our friend once said, "Truly we live in a postmodern world."
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
What I've always known as the St. Paul Pioneer Press has included Bonny's America: Cut the Woman Some Slacks! in its list of 37 page-turners (thank you, Mary Ann Grossmann!), properly showing its publication date as October 2008. All y'all have been getting the sneak preview. :) And today is the day Andree and I shall decide on a proper title for our collaboration. We're almost ready to start shopping around the pitch!
Bonny's America awaits the hay truck and the chimneysweep.
Monday, September 8, 2008 (afternoon)
Musings from Couch Month (four weeks down, two to go):
I am fighting to stay afloat here.
I follow cyberlinks about the potential first ladies, and before I know what’s happening I’m reading a quote Woody Allen gave to Pop Tarts about how Scarlett Johansson is not his muse. I try to get back to Cindy and Michelle, and it’s all how Michelle’s sundress on “The View” subsequently sold out all the Nordstrom stores and how Cindy wears yellow and leather. And how one of them has a business, but she can’t talk about it.
Fine, on to their husbands. I click on the Google homepage link to what Senators Obama and McCain are reading: The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post—I can’t tell heads from tails on either site. They’re both feverish tabloid mosaics followed by single-spaced lists of most every news source in America and abroad, including Perez Hilton. Is that a person or a place? If a person, is he or she real? If so, why? Inside my head roll waves of bewilderment, pulsing to a strobe-light rhythm.
Biden is announced as Obama’s running mate, and his main asset is he’ll be a great president. Aren’t we skipping a step here? Are they going to take turns in the big chair depending on whether the problem du jour occurs here or in Rest of World? Does Obama like change that much?
As for McCain’s pick, She Who Must Not Be Named, let’s just call her She Who Will Be Out Before the VP Debates.
Bonny's America is all clouds and Minute Rice and pillows.
Monday, September 8, 2008 (morning)
I have given an interview to my alma mater, The Minnesota Women's Press. When the piece is printed on September 17th, we'll find out together what-all I said... It was a lovely time. Editor Michele St. Martin is clever and in tune. Sonny kept a watch over our flock by day so I could hear her over the bellering billygoats.
Bonny's America is a mounting cacophony of caprine hormones the likes of which you'd have to hear to believe ... actually, go right ahead: Rocky's link is to your left.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Andrée's struck again, pairing up with my chapter, "She has never had no thought in her head." She's getting requests for the publication date for our tentatively titled That's the kind of person she is. Good thing we're on a roll! Here's the latest chapter, deliciously woven into the collage itself:
Bonny's America has donuts in the air, donuts in the couch cooler, donuts in her cluttered head ... and hot coffee.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Just a quick challenge: Try watching the Palin speech withOUT thinking of the Teletubbies. Do not picture her with Mickey Mouse ears. Let me know how it goes.
Bonny's America respects the dangers of unchecked merriment and knows when to decline the advent of laughter without a chaperone.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Another project I'm working on is Fear of Fear of Flying, a humorous self-help book for those afraid of Fear of Flying class. I believe there are thousands among us. Ultimately, it will be a whole workshop, with course materials and the book and maybe some footage from the vantage point of a Cessna 152. See, the idea is, learning to fly is the only safe, secure way to get over fear of flying.
But don't think about that just yet. First, there's reading, then ground school, and always choice, always an out. It's all good. Here's a rough draft of the first couple chapters, "The Fear" and "The Flight."
Bonny's America would look dreamy from the sky today and would make a suitable impromptu landing strip - remember, all planes are gliders.
Monday, September 1, 2008
The magical Andrée Tracey strikes again! Here is the latest chapter of our collage/text creation, featuring an unbearably delicately bold visual gift:
She hears all the bird's songs, from all over the world, at once.
The voices from the jungle sound the most familiar. She may have lived there from before time. The birds where she stands, the birds she can see with our human eyes, are the most muted in the chorus. The jungle birds, the loudest, like to improvise. This is strange for a bird. You must trust your call as you trust your wings. The jungle birds don't care if no one answers, don't care if they crash down out of the sky. The jungle bed is thick and comfortable and never lonely.
The muted birds seem happiest on bare twigs, where you can see through the tree. They dread the coming of spring and new life. It plunges them into confusion until far away when the leaves fall and they regain control.
- excerpted from That's the kind of person she is by Bonny Belgum/Andrée Tracey, copyright 2008
Clearly Andrée and I were destined to meet. I was thrilled just to share coffee and chatter, but I got so much more. I'm spoiled rotten by what she can do for my prose. Look for future collages incorporating the words into the art as they are drawn and spun like candy into her vision.
Bonny's America will be conveyed somehow to The Minnesota Women's Press by couch phone.
Friday, August 29, 2008
My husband would like to point out (see August 20 post) that the real Popeye Doyle's pursuit of the guy who's "wrong" resulted in a drug arrest, so it's even more exciting. Likewise, based on yesterday's xrays, I'm sentenced to the full 6 weeks, no time off for good behavior, of which there was apparently an insufficient sum. So, guilt or no guilt, Zsa Zsa Gabor it is. I need five more pillows.
Thanks to the wonderful Andree Tracey, I now have an image to include even though I can no longer reach my camera (by way of excuse for the dry tomes of late). This intolerably delightful collage goes with another chapter of my fanciful narrative (to follow):
Cooking takes up most of her time
because she only uses her left hand, and she is right-handed. This handedness does not change after years in the kitchen, because she does everything else right-handed. The food tastes better, though. Considerably so. The left hand has a far greater appetite, inspiring subtle influences of spice and heat for which the right hand has no patience.
- excerpted from That's the kind of person she is by Bonny Belgum/Andree Tracey, copyright 2008
Bonny's America was full of cows and baby bulls and calves and more sheep last night that aren't there this morning.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
During mishaps, I land on the "bad" foot and electronic springs are activated and radiate upward and outward and hit the upper bound of my foot and reverberate up and down until I trade swearing and sweating for pillows and ice. This thing doesn't miss an opportunity. But I've actually been reading books, so there's a switch. The experience might better prepare me for giving readings, because maybe I'll have some insight into why people read. I have seldom been to a reading, because I overidentify with the author's likely humiliation at the size of the crowd (eight = to the rafters, from what I've seen from my vantage point, skulking behind the Current Affairs aisle at Barnes & Noble). It's too painful.
I may well not reach eight because I'm using the seat-filler routine very sparingly (like my husband has to drive me if my foot is still broken, so he may as well sit there as anywhere). But the point is I will share with the four or five honored guests the recent experience of having read something that isn't a textbook. In fact, these are popular, currently featured books. Maybe we've even read the same books. Maybe we can talk about those instead. Please, let's do. Because if you write like you talk, and I do, it seems like backtracking (my husband's worst fear) to turn around and read them aloud again. I wrote them aloud - they'll sound silly read aloud. I'm slowly realizing that what I've been preparing during Couch Month is actually much more akin to a stand-up routine. I hadn't really planned to read from this book. But the publishers say that's what's expected, so I'll have to fit that in somewhere. With any luck, I'll have forgotten my material and will be obedient after all and we all can walk/hobble/roll away relatively unchanged by the experience, which is all you can really ask of most things.
I tried to watch the DNC (which it turns out is not a surgical procedure) last night, but all I got was this game show. It said DNC, but I've heard they've reprised The Price Is Right, and it sounded more like that? It felt good to laugh that hard. One of the funniest things I've ever seen. I was laughing so hard by the sign-off that I hobbled straight off to bed, forgot to ice my foot, and was in pain all night. I'm not sure I won anything on that show after all, when you tally it all up.
Bonny's America needs a small cow.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
It has since been confirmed that I did indeed break my foot. My husband's favorite story about "French Connection" is a behind-the-scenes moment. Popeye, played by Gene Hackman, is a real cop, and that real cop served as consultant on the film. During the course of his consulting during the high-pressure, high-budget filming of a scene, the real Popeye's eyes darted across the street and tracked a man walking down the sidewalk. He stated simply, "That guy's wrong," and left the set to pursue the suspect on foot (no pun intended). So it was with my foot. I delivered to the on-call doctor the following subjective finding: "This foot's wrong." And so it is.
I have been sentenced to 4-6 weeks lengthwise on the couch. As I began to consider the ramifications of this arrangement, I became confused. How will the ensuing weeks differ from my daily routine? Certainly my husband won't notice any difference. Will I? Is it possible to get up even less than I have for years, whether due to laziness, mild depression, or the worship of nap as one of God's most merciful gifts upon us? "Sleep, that knits up the 'raveled sleeve of care." I think that's Shakespeare, but you'd have to ask my husband, who knows that stuff. He taught it to me when my father died, and it really does help. It really is true.
So in the ensuing weeks I will discover and report just how to do even less than I already do. A sneak preview: My foot's preliminary report, based on yesterday's activity, even with a Velcro ski boot, is that utter inaction is harder to achieve than your wildest dreams.
Bonny's America is a sweaty place with pockets (one) of ice.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Porquay's gotta run two bills, and I inadvertently placed my suddenly shoeless right foot where he next planned to step. Plus his left front leg has reverse arthritis, so he has to keep weight off it in the summer, so his right front foot takes the weight, as did my ill-placed foot. Porquay was a good sport about the inconvenience. While he doesn't walk us to the pig house door after a late-night visit like Notorious P.I.G. does (Porquay's a sound sleeper), he is sweet and gracious by nature. My right foot's anger is quelled by ice, but my heart has felt only an outpouring of love and concern for Porquay. I ensured his proper feeding, which was in progress and thus the hubbub (feeding one pig and then the other with as much as a second in between is a recipe for disaster), while doing what I usually do when I'm really injured: Speak quietly to myself, "This will require first aid. I will apply ice as soon as I go inside, which must be right away." If I swore and yelled, it would mean I just stubbed my toe. Things have to turn black before I start the calm narration. Or they have to start on fire.
Anyway, it's been confirmed that my foot was not actually broken, and I'm kind of disappointed. I was, as is so often the case, craving mercy, and it's harder to come by with a hidden black foot. But airing the foot for mercy's sake would be flirting with disaster and often the law. So I will suffer silently as my heart swells for Porquay. My mangled foot is a fond souvenir of the reality of pigs on the premises, and who could wish for more. Certainly all the goats agree - Rocky's whole group now sleeps in the pig house, and this morning, before he had time to scamper off and act nonchalant, I caught our biggest sheep, Shrimp, sharing an outside wall with the piggies' inner wall. I'm sure they all felt the added warmth. My foot's freezing.
Bonny's America is going to be a cozy lovefest this winter.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
This striking, dreamy, sophisticated, wild, and humble photo montage by aforementioned genius Andree Tracey (see left, or jump desperately quickly to her blog/collage gallery, http://www.andreescollages.com/) is the first of many in our fanciful new collaboration. Andree is illustrating - and thus making whole - my novel-in-progress, That's the kind of person she is. The chapter illustrated below follows, in its entirety.
Decoding is a state of mind.
Slippery iron or chromium tubes are not carriers. Decoding is a parched landscape brimming with age, cracking all the world’s history into tiny laugh lines. If you can’t see in it the best jokes ever thought but not spoken, all the math in the collective wisdom vaults can’t help you. She and the Dalai Lama laugh so hard you can almost hear if you know where to look. Tornadoes spin them up to a little white wrought-iron tea table, where they eat lemon cakes and enjoy the brittle view.
She had an idea once, and for that she is sorry.
- excerpted from That's the kind of person she is by Bonny Belgum/Andrée Tracey, copyright 2008 (whatever that means)
Bonny's America is full of delightful creatures - some of them human!
Monday, August 4, 2008
I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I figured this book would either die quietly, which it seemed to be doing well so far, or at the other extreme (I can only think in extremes) catch the attention of some intimidating literati and make me want to crawl under the bed, which I'd desperately want to do, but ours lies flat on the floor and the only things that fit under there are dog hair and old Kleenex. But instead, what should happen but an expression of interest from the tv and radio station in Lewisburg, TN (Tennessee is my natural homeland), home of ... I can't possibly prepare you for this ... the Goats, Music, and More Festival. If I'd ever dreamed a book could bring me to such excitement I would have... well, done the same thing - written it and looked for a publisher for 15 years. Anyway, the point is that they also had a small news item written by my potential reviewer, and it was about how the hit and run damage to two cars was really caused by a pig! I'm SO homesick for Lewisburg, Tennessee, but at least I learned to stream their radio station. Why couldn't I have done that before? It wouldn't have occurred to me. The festival includes a 5K Goat Walk. But with Tennessee Fainting Goats, they'll never get anywhere! The first pebble on the gravel road and everybody's down. I need to be there. I've GOT to be there. I also might get reviewed in this fancy magazine in Atlanta and in Fitness Magazine and some other stuff, but I can't even remember, I'm so excited. I need to LIVE where goats and pigs are part of the regular news and events. It's URGENT.
Bonny's America might hold its own Goats, Music, and More Festival, without the Music or More - they're too high-strung, and this is their party, after all.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Today a promising architect and fascinating human being turns eleven years old. Happy birthday. Eleven is the year that forms you. In the best way, you will always be eleven. Keep riding that pig!
Bonny's America - everyone's America - is a better place because of July 26, 1997.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I have met the most amazing illustrator. She is a painter, photographer, collage artist. She sketches, she designs, she does it all. You would be mightily rewarded by a visit to www.andreetracey.com, where you can also go to her blog for a peek at her latest collage inspirations. Her collection of paintings about Suburbia (a place more bizarre than Hollywood or growing up on a miniature golf course) are suitably alarming - either under water or on fire, as one might imagine. She brings Chagall into the 1950s. Her work is a pure delight. Here (with Andree's permission) is one of my favorites among her collages, "She took off her mask":
Bonny's America is a wonderland of sugarplums.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Remember how Holly Hunter in "Broadcast News" scheduled 10 minutes a day to cry? She'd check her watch, which she wore with the large man's face on the inside of her wrist, and I believe she even took it off for the duration. And she'd sit on the edge of the hotel room bed or the dock or wherever she found herself and cry. It's bound to happen, why not take control of it? I've always admired her for that, and am convinced that she gave her character that affectation. Maybe it takes practice - I can't really get it going on command. Maybe it's because curmudgeons don't cry. And if I learned how, what would become of my curmudgeon identity? Losing that would give me something to cry about, but who'd know the difference if I'm already crying? If you miss a dose, do you wait until the next scheduled dose? If you accidentally cry twice, do you call the nurseline? I'm about ready to cry right now, just sorting out all the specifications.
Bonny's America is so beautiful - the cloud is inside her own head.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
My husband ordered the first copy of my essay collection last night, on lucky 7/11, for his mother. She has been such a sweet, encouraging cheerleader for me. Just the night before it came out, she left a message that she knows it's going to be something really special. Well, I know SHE is. So sales couldn't be going better, even if they stop at one. :) We can't afford to order any more - I'm already in the hole for promotional copies, but I think I'm supposed to grouse about that - makes me a more official book author. Truth is, it's the cheapest art form out there. No materials! Just your own miserable, knotted, snarled, angry brain resisting every step of the way. But we're supposed to say that too. So far, so good. Is there any cliche I'm leaving out?
Anyway, on to other excitement. The sheep are mingling - I dare use that term - with the goats and piggies and almost Sonny. And the occasional kitten and chicken wander through, as surprised as anyone to be there.
And the eighth chicken returned tonight, a very merciful gift, although her return was not for my benefit. It's just that life has a way of going on even when you have exciting things like a new book. So I was in a bit of a dark cloud over some trivial incursion into my happy bubble and then my eighth chicken shows up! There's a really GOOD thing that happened over which I had little control. So it all balances out. Repeat three times.
And Sonny, who's been a bit of a cool customer lately - possibly literally, as he's been sleeping only on tile or marble - has again taken to panting on wood surfaces closer to us, and we're touched and honored and pleased.
EB Double J, our infamous little billygoat, is all excited over the invention of the bag bra, something he can wear to protect his endowment even in the midst of brambles and tight squeezes through fences. The piggies have offered to market it, and his tag line is a cheerful, "Thanks, Bag Bra!" Like, "I used to get pinched in the fence, but not anymore. Thanks, Bag Bra!" The whole farm is convinced it's going to be a huge success. We have yet to work out the details, but it's a very entrepreneurial group.
We're also going to pitch to the local used car lot that they start a side business as a rental car agency, because there isn't one to be had for 25 miles, by which distance I'd already be where I need to get. We want to sell the truck and just rely on the little good-mileage Subaru, for obvious reasons. At over $100 a tank, plus insurance, plus monthly payment, plus the obscenity of it all, this would be a good plan. I mean, to quote this one crotchety old witness in a vintage "Law & Order," when they asked if he was sure he was home on Tuesday night, the 14th of August, at 9:00 in the evening, "Where would I go?"
Bonny's America is now a multifarious reference.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
I've really been trying to ease up on writing about the animals all the time, because not everyone can relate and all that, but you know what happened? I just sat there staring at "July 1, 2008" for an hour and took a nap with no further progress. I woke up resolved to pour my heart into mud, as I had such a strong inkling to do, and I feel much better. This is my world, what's outside my windows and inside my house (including the occasional billygoat, piggy, infant kitten, what have you). This is all I care about.
I stopped writing for a long time when we moved up here because I didn't want to write about anything else, but the animals didn't want me writing about them. They'd insert themselves into the piece with things like, "Happy now? Now that you've aired our most private painful and joyous experiences with total strangers who may actually believe that pigs wallow in [not mud]?" Even the birds and the caterpillars were sounding off, and I was just frozen, so I clammed up altogether (not literally, God knows - my husband thinks he wants that until it happens, at which point he's mortified) and stopped writing. So. Creatures of the earth likely have universal appeal, but even if they don't I only know my own world, as is true for each of us. That said, it is amazing to give a blind kitten sight through the use of a sharp fingernail and a tube of guck.
And the first thing they see is me, which scares them to death and they push off of me into the air about 12 kitten-lengths from the ground and take their chances. I'm not messing with pre-sight kittens. These are barn kittens who could see until too much paste caked their eyes shut and the inner meat swelled until there's no visible eyeball (npi). But eyes are popping open all over town (well, mainly in the woodpile), and some have even found the food dish, further blocking the hens from stealing a crumb or two or 20. Eye clinic is a very satisfying job. I hold it twice a day.
Bonny's America is full of egg-sucking raccoons and bitter chocolate.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Here's a recipe: At 88 degrees Fahrenheit, combine two piggies with two one-gallon bowls of water. Go back inside for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Return. Top off with hose.
Believe me, "wallowing" is a glorious pastime. You knew that already, but have you embraced it? You gotta really get ino that self-pity mud with all four hooves, wiggle around until you're comfortable, and settle in for a while. Pigs, being much more highly evolved, skip the downside altogether. Porquay took the most luxurious soak yesterday, after crafting a smooth, cool jowl-ramp upon which to rest his head. I'd show you, but I couldn't bring myself to invade his privacy. Maybe next time.
Bonny's America is a fact of life, and life is just energy.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Our blueberries are turning the faintest tinge of blue. If ever there was a miracle, it is our ability to produce blueberries. We can coast happily from here. Even if the Misery Index says blueberries can't make us happy.
Bonny's America is turning misty blue.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Do you ever forget not to do something? One of my husband's favorite jokes, from a comedian we can't recall, is the guy who looks at his huge garish tattoo and says, "I forgot not to do that!" It's a micro/macro thing with me - I get so caught up in the minutiae of my task that I neglect to consider its worth. Sort of like when you keep looking for something you already found because you forgot the point of the search? That is actually less intelligent than being surprised you found something in the last place you looked. Anyway, God knows I love these Valentines but my $6.00 a month profit is, I now realize, offset by about a $200/month cost, when you add up all the little crap eating away at your forlorn little checking account from 5 directions. What was I thinking? Well, in the beginning people were buying them up at an ever-increasing rate. But now those henless folks have to spend more for eggs and they probably still drink milk and maybe they even drive to a store to get these things, using up gas that costs the same per gallon as a postcard you could probably survive without (how, I don't understand, though, frankly).
Speaking of gas, I have to say I "pulled a Dad" - one of his more minor infractions, to be sure - today and tried to get to Stillwater, 25 miles south, with the little orange gas tank lit up two miles into the trip. I always figured his theory was that gas would either become unnecessary (it might!) or be offered free of charge before his tank ran out. My reason was I didn't want to be late for brunch - and the last time we tried to have brunch there they had stopped it early with no warning, no plausible explanation - I was determined to offer my friend the experience she deserved this time, and the whimsical cut-off was looming. (My dad was always late too, so that may have been a second reason - but he was REALLY late, not a few minutes late. Anyway.) But when you live where I do, you either head the wrong way early on to get gas or commit to the last 20 miles with fingers crossed. I pulled a Thelma and Louise a la Seinfeld, although I had no hand to hold. At least I wasn't driving the truck!
After brunch, though, my friend (now that's a true friend) volunteered to shadow me to the gas station. I couldn't figure out, as fumes wafted, which way to turn in the heavy tourist traffic to get to the only gas station. Time was running out. I hopped out of the car and ran back to ask her and she didn't know - why should she? This is supposed to be my neck - well, at least elbow - of the woods. I ran across to another car holding in it a Suburban Woman in Large Sunglasses, and tried to ask her. She shouted over me in a monotone, "I'm sorry, I'm driving right now." Clearly a unilateral decision she had made some time back. And for once I looked rather quite presentable, not like I was threatening to wash her windshield. People like her give Stillwater a bad name. Stillwater would have to shut down without people like her.
I ran back to my friend's car window and said all I know is it's next to the hardware store. She pointed to the hardware store and I committed to turning right. After I gave her the thumbs-up that I'd made it, I remember thinking I should probably not tell my husband it came to 13.875 gallons and our car only holds 14. That's a quarter-gallon I had left, and that Suburban Woman in Large Sunglasses probably ate another quarter before that. I tried to consider that she may have had a traumatic experience in the past with an approaching pedestrian and she made this resultant policy. Like the time we wanted to dump our realtor and didn't know how and the new realtor said, No matter what she says, respond: "Our plans are unclear." We use that to this day. The less appropriate this response is, the more power it has. Fascinating. I still couldn't bring myself to rule in favor of this woman.
Anyway, I gotta admit that was close. Brunch was delicious.
Bonny's America is a splish-spash of fuchsia and gold.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
If you happen to run across the actual newsprint copy of the Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Star Tribune, there is a fantastic artist's rendering of Keith Richards' face accompanying the "SYMPATHY FOR..." commentary. The all-caps title befits the power and glory of the Rolling Stones. They just are not lower-case rockers, never will be. Made my day - that's the benefit of being continually surprised when good things happen. Like when Notorious P.I.G. briefly tried out the new pig house! And later, separately, so did Porquay!
Of course, come bedtime (about 7:00 for them) they really pitched in together to recreate a semblance of their former bed out of soft dirt and bits of worn straw (never mind the surrounding structure is utterly absent) and snuggled down al fresco, bathing in the moonlight.
Home at last, after a foray into God knows what THAT thing was.
Were you drifting off just there, all cozy with the piggies? Okay, how 'bout this good-night story: abI tabaught maby habusbaband abab labanguabage labast nabight. Habe abactabuaballaby gabiggabled!! abEspabeciaballaby abat maby sabayabing "Babobbaby Kabennabedaby"! Traby abit - abit's habilabarabiabous!
Babonnaby's abAmaberabicaba abis pabosabitabivelaby gabiddaby thabis mabornabing!
Monday, June 16, 2008
My thoughts on Keith Richards' face expressed in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune: Sympathy for...
Bonny's America is a happy place tonight.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Hey, I just realized it's Friday the 13th! Victorian postcards are so into Halloween, I wonder if they ever celebrated these Fridays. I wonder how old this tradition is. I wonder why I don't find out instead of wondering (not) aloud. Okay, hang on. I looked it up. It's called paraskavedekatriaphobia and it was first mentioned in English in 1869, although it appears to have much older roots. Wikipedia, ladies and gentlemen. This is what they mean by Information Superhighway. But I gotta tell ya, I don't feel a bit better having provided this information. In fact, I feel like I kinda ruined all the fun we were having. Let's start again:
Hey, it's Friday the 13th! We don't have any black cats around the place right now, but one used to show up to charm the heated felines. There are ladders strewn about, to be sure. 'Nuff said.
I feel like I'm going crazy, but I could swear I just heard on the radio that Canada apologized to its aboriginal people. And that a Kansas legislator is trying to get the U.S. to do the same. What's the holdup? Well, he explained, it's really, really hard for people to admit they're wrong. And he's a Republican! Maybe it's more April Fool's Day than Friday the 13th. Or else there really IS a Santa Claus!
Bonny's America is blanketed in a hushed symbolic snow right now.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Well, I'd like