Weekly Zephyr #34: January 18th, 2018

Colin Cassidy, In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country, 2008

STRUCTURE

is a word I used to not enjoy. The whole implication of it. The whole vibe of it. It's a word for Type A people, I thought, and goody-goody, morally superior types who get all their bills paid on time. People with great credit. Goal-setters, goal-achievers, triathletes, professional organizers, the professionally organized. Fit people in ironed clothes. People with perpetually groomed nails/brows.

Many years ago I read this book WHICH YOU CAN GET HERE FOR THIS HILARIOUS PRICE (watch out for that shipping)

back in the 90s when it came out and I loved it. I must dig it up and re-read it. I FEEL LUCKY TO OWN IT BECAUSE NOW IT COSTS $1500. In this very fine, very expensive book, Lynda Obst speaks (among many other entertaining things) about the phenomenon of Fuzzy Girls and Crisp Girls on the suit side of show business. (She doesn't speak of Fuzzy Boys or Crisp Boys because A of all, nobody gets called a "boy" in this context and B of all, boys are generally allowed to run free, grooming-wise.)   Anyway, as a self-identified Fuzzy Person forever, I'm talking up there about The Crisp.

But something is changing, AND I THINK IT'S ME. Structure sounds friendly to me now. It's a helper. It's a buddy to hold your stuff up and keep you from melting everywhere. It can stop a problem from happening. It can take something that only exists in your imagination and turn it into a thing you can see with your eyes and interact with, maybe even something that can sustain you with dollars—paper* dollars if you want—or Sacajawea dollars, if you want to be different and you're into the heft—that you can stuff into your actual wallet. It doesn't have to be a mean boss/dad/mom/teacher/whoever it was when I hated it.

*I just googled it because I thought HEY I BET U.S. DOLLARS AREN'T PAPER and THEY'RE NOT THEY'RE MADE OF COTTON AND LINEN FYI

NEUTRAL/BENEVOLENT STRUCTURES I'M THINKING ABOUT OF LATE

• musculoskeletal structure

• textbook structure

• structure of a morning before school/work

• meditation practice structure

• narrative structure

• clearly stated/consistently enforced boundaries

• the tarot

• this guy in particular, the structure guy of tarot

                                see, look at him. he's all right. he's not an authoritarian. he's just using skills. he got that whole cube up in the air. might even have come out of nowhere. and now here's this triumphant, possibly flaming hot cube.  that's something.

I used to look at other versions of that guy, The Emperor, and think nothing but resentful thoughts about the patriarchy and The Man DOWN WITH YOU JOHNNY LAW

up with  pillowiness!   mercy!   lush things!   soft, kind mothers!    creativity!   looseness!     *free flowing water and such*

all type of thing of which are grand and always will be  but balance is nice dynamic tension those things are important you can't just have one side operating. you'll fall over.

IN HONOR OF STRUCTURE WEEK LET'S GO TO THE CONTAINER STORE AND PLACES LIKE THAT AND PICK THINGS WE'D BUY WITH UNLIMITED CONTAINER-BUYING FUNDS

I'LL GO FIRST

these

and this

  this one

I just think that's a pleasing box. Looks all soft to the touch, nice edges. Good shade of gray.     

and finally this wonderful wastebasket

                        NO!

LOOK AT IT IT'S A GLASS IT'S A GLASS OF TRASH HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT MY TRASH IS THIS GLASS HALF-FULL OR HALF-EMPTY

OF TRASH