Yesterday, on I-84 East out of Waterbury, I – along with many other drivers – encountered construction trucks with giant yellow-lighted arrows mounted on the back, instructing us to shift one lane to the right, as the left lane would be closed. I obligingly moved into the rightmost lane and crept along as other cars drifted into the middle lane from the left, their various levels of frustration showing clearly in how tentatively (or viciously) they cut in front of other cars. About a mile later, the same thing happened again; orange dump trucks indicated that middle-lane cars should move to the right again, crushing us all into a slow and annoyed queue sure to stretch on longer than many of us could tolerate.
If I hadn’t been so busy making sure no one cut in front of me, this common suffering may have caused some fellow-feeling to well up in me – but alas, I was so engaged.
When we had passed the last construction truck, I – along with many other drivers – looked curiously to the left to see what mammoth undertaking was causing such a snarl in our already tangled traffic patterns, expecting to see a crew laying pavement, or a major accident, or a giant pit where the left lane used to be. Instead, I saw…nothing. No crew members with hardhats and orange reflective-taped vests; no chain-gang cleaning up litter or mowing highwayside grass; not even another giant orange truck. Traffic quickly moved over to fill the two previously banned lanes, drivers again sorting themselves into most frustrated (left), annoyed and confused (middle), and people who always drive the speed limit, anyway (right).
Several miles down the road, near the exit I would normally take to get home, a giant yellow-lighted sign mounted on an overpass alerted us to construction on Exit 34. Being familiar with this exit, I craned my neck (from the left lane) to glance at it as I passed: again, no construction whatsoever.
Today, again on I-84, I was waylaid at a different spot for what was becoming a familiar lack of roadwork, by orange construction trucks; I noted the sign for Exit 34 construction again, this time with the addition of trucks shifting traffic into the left lanes – a dangerous proposition at that particular point, where a left-exit merge to Rt. 72 makes changing lanes tricky even under the best circumstances. I turned off the highway before my usual exit, mainly to avoid seeing another example of completely nonexistent construction being done by no one.
Now, I have long been familiar with Connecticut’s tendency to experience what I call “phantom traffic,” particularly on I-84, in which traffic bottlenecks for no apparent reason. I am acquainted with hours of sitting outside Danbury waiting for the traffic jam to break up, only to find no original cause. I suspect that much of the blame falls on the drivers at the front of this pack who shift into the left lane and find themselves driving neck-and-neck, at roughly the speed limit, with the car to their immediate right, for miles; but I have no evidence of this. It is pure speculation. Whatever the cause, phantom traffic is a fact of life in Connecticut.
Is it possible that the state has noticed this tendency as well, and is trying to make it official policy somehow?
Like having a state bird (robin), a state tree (mountain laurel), or a state motto (“Qui transtulit sustinet”), perhaps Connecticut decision-makers feel a state traffic pattern (the bottleneck) – one of the most annoying, and thus most noticeable and readily associated with a state’s identity – would engender a sense of unity in CT residents. Perhaps they hope that we Conn-natives will feel a sense of fierce loyalty and even pride as we become jammed up with drivers who only enter our state in order to exit it – in transit to New York, or Boston.
“Take that,” we’ll think, “you lousy out-of-staters.”
Or perhaps this is Governor Rell’s ingenious plan: What better way to enforce her new platform on state troopers (pro), truck safety (pro), unsafe teen drivers (anti), and to create new jobs for people whose skill set includes driving orange dump trucks very slowly and occasionally standing on the side of the road, surveying traffic and chatting?
I have to drive 84 every workday, or else face the hellish red lights of downtown Southington on Rt. 10. I hope that whatever the reason for this trend, it extinguishes itself quickly and thoroughly, and that the powers-that-be end up feeling very, very ashamed.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Party Like It's 1999
I had a weekend that could only be properly captured on film if Samuel Beckett wrote the screenplay and Steven Spielberg directed.
It was that absurd.
On Sunday, my brother Tyler came down from Vermont with his fiancee to attend a wedding shower in their honor, attended by church members who would not be at the April wedding but wanted to celebrate. It was held at my grandma's house, and she and I were the hostesses. And my mother came, with my youngest brother, Spencer.
In case it's hard to spot, "my mother came" is the punchline here. But I should start with context: not from the beginning, which would take too long, but from the beginning of this particular absurdity.
The last year my family was all in one piece -- and this is a loose designation -- was 1999.
My mother kicked me out of the house after my first year in college, over chores. It was even stupider than it sounds and was, as most things are, secretly about something else. On the day I left, she followed me around the house asking why I was "rejecting the family" and "putting [her] through hell," and saying various insulting things about my character. (But this was nothing new.) The weekend following, she put all my things on the back porch and arranged to be gone when I picked them up. She hung up on me when I tried to call the boys, sent back letters I mailed, stood in the doorway laughing at me (literally, laughing) when I went to ask for my birth certificate. I was reduced to tears in front of the police officer that eventually showed up; I was reduced to tears by many, many things, but they were mostly tears of relief at being out. I lived with my grandparents, her foster parents, through vacations and summers until I left for China.
She kicked my brother, Tyler, out of the house after his second year in college, for equally ridiculous reasons. (She said he had put his name on her AAA membership.) He moved in with Grandma and Grandpa, too. My expulsion from the family had lasted some six months and been broken when I finally replied in anger to a series of hateful emails she had been sending me, but Tyler's lasted much longer. Most of us who knew Mom began to suspect that she would never speak to him again. By the wedding shower on Sunday, it was going on three years.
But something must have changed. I have no idea what it was. I had had several hours-long conversations with her since moving back here, about how she should reconsider her complete rejection of Ty, but she couldn't see that she might be wrong, might be interpreting events rather than relating "the real facts." She couldn't see that three years of estrangement was too vicious a punishment for any offense, let alone something as small as Tyler's. (Also nothing new: Once, Tyler was punished with two years of no television for not doing chores.) She wouldn't, or couldn't, budge.
Until she did, last week, as though a switch had been flipped, or everything that happened in the past three years had been erased. I've seen her do this before, on a smaller scale: When we were young, when she got upset, her face contorted with rage, and if I asked why she was angry, her face would change completely, become placid and calm, and she would say "I'm not angry." It was frightening.
It was a strain on her, being at my grandparents'. She had cut them off completely, too, first for housing us after we were excommunicated, and then last summer for letting Spencer, my youngest brother, see Tyler; I didn't expect them to ever have contact with her again. But she treated them the way she would treat anyone at the party.
I tend to believe this means she's angrier at everyone else than she admits, too.
We sat, the four of us family, me, my mom and two brothers, and talked and told stories about when we kids were little, and laughed. We took an "updated family photo." But the strain wore on her until she suddenly demanded to be taken home -- not fifteen minutes from now, after I cleaned up, but NOW. I drove her and Spencer home to their apartment, and continued down the street to mine.
I had a headache. I still have a headache.
This happens to me: that when I get what I want, I am overwhelmed by the conflict between the joy at getting it -- finally, finally -- and the sorrow of the memory of years without, years of missing. Every moment we sat laughing brought to mind weeks and months when we didn't. I can only embrace both at once; I cannot divorce the two. My mother cannot marry them.
And that is why apprehension blots out joy and sorrow. She has not changed, not fundamentally, and it's likely only a matter of time before this -- estrangement, rejection -- happens again.
At least now we can tell ourselves the bad times are likely to end eventually, too.
I can live with that.
It was that absurd.
On Sunday, my brother Tyler came down from Vermont with his fiancee to attend a wedding shower in their honor, attended by church members who would not be at the April wedding but wanted to celebrate. It was held at my grandma's house, and she and I were the hostesses. And my mother came, with my youngest brother, Spencer.
In case it's hard to spot, "my mother came" is the punchline here. But I should start with context: not from the beginning, which would take too long, but from the beginning of this particular absurdity.
The last year my family was all in one piece -- and this is a loose designation -- was 1999.
My mother kicked me out of the house after my first year in college, over chores. It was even stupider than it sounds and was, as most things are, secretly about something else. On the day I left, she followed me around the house asking why I was "rejecting the family" and "putting [her] through hell," and saying various insulting things about my character. (But this was nothing new.) The weekend following, she put all my things on the back porch and arranged to be gone when I picked them up. She hung up on me when I tried to call the boys, sent back letters I mailed, stood in the doorway laughing at me (literally, laughing) when I went to ask for my birth certificate. I was reduced to tears in front of the police officer that eventually showed up; I was reduced to tears by many, many things, but they were mostly tears of relief at being out. I lived with my grandparents, her foster parents, through vacations and summers until I left for China.
She kicked my brother, Tyler, out of the house after his second year in college, for equally ridiculous reasons. (She said he had put his name on her AAA membership.) He moved in with Grandma and Grandpa, too. My expulsion from the family had lasted some six months and been broken when I finally replied in anger to a series of hateful emails she had been sending me, but Tyler's lasted much longer. Most of us who knew Mom began to suspect that she would never speak to him again. By the wedding shower on Sunday, it was going on three years.
But something must have changed. I have no idea what it was. I had had several hours-long conversations with her since moving back here, about how she should reconsider her complete rejection of Ty, but she couldn't see that she might be wrong, might be interpreting events rather than relating "the real facts." She couldn't see that three years of estrangement was too vicious a punishment for any offense, let alone something as small as Tyler's. (Also nothing new: Once, Tyler was punished with two years of no television for not doing chores.) She wouldn't, or couldn't, budge.
Until she did, last week, as though a switch had been flipped, or everything that happened in the past three years had been erased. I've seen her do this before, on a smaller scale: When we were young, when she got upset, her face contorted with rage, and if I asked why she was angry, her face would change completely, become placid and calm, and she would say "I'm not angry." It was frightening.
It was a strain on her, being at my grandparents'. She had cut them off completely, too, first for housing us after we were excommunicated, and then last summer for letting Spencer, my youngest brother, see Tyler; I didn't expect them to ever have contact with her again. But she treated them the way she would treat anyone at the party.
I tend to believe this means she's angrier at everyone else than she admits, too.
We sat, the four of us family, me, my mom and two brothers, and talked and told stories about when we kids were little, and laughed. We took an "updated family photo." But the strain wore on her until she suddenly demanded to be taken home -- not fifteen minutes from now, after I cleaned up, but NOW. I drove her and Spencer home to their apartment, and continued down the street to mine.
I had a headache. I still have a headache.
This happens to me: that when I get what I want, I am overwhelmed by the conflict between the joy at getting it -- finally, finally -- and the sorrow of the memory of years without, years of missing. Every moment we sat laughing brought to mind weeks and months when we didn't. I can only embrace both at once; I cannot divorce the two. My mother cannot marry them.
And that is why apprehension blots out joy and sorrow. She has not changed, not fundamentally, and it's likely only a matter of time before this -- estrangement, rejection -- happens again.
At least now we can tell ourselves the bad times are likely to end eventually, too.
I can live with that.
Seer
Sometimes, like today when I look at the blank white sky, I see tiny radical movements, like the vibrating strings of string theory -- particles of floating, disembodied ether, what I imagine real sorcery would look like.
I know that this is because of a problem with my eyes, as hearing high ringing is the death of that tone for ears, and I worry that if I can see magic, I soon won't be able to see anything at all.
I know that this is because of a problem with my eyes, as hearing high ringing is the death of that tone for ears, and I worry that if I can see magic, I soon won't be able to see anything at all.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Virgoing to get you
My horoscope, with which I have become fascinated, reads in the Hartford Advocate, for last week:
I’m not sure how long these horoscopes are supposed to last – until next week? When they get replaced by the next horoscope? – but if this Rob Brezany is serious about his “reading of the astrological omens,” he might want to check his chart again.
First of all, “not just from the moon” implies that one of the “seductive offers” about to be received by anyone born between my birthday and Sept. 22, will actually be from the moon.
Sorry, moon. I’m not available for your sort of interlude. I know you, all shifty and waning, here one week and gone the next, and I’m not up for that sort of disappearing act.
And anyway, according to Hafiz, you’re not my type. I like men.
Secondly, the three sentences making up what is presumably the prediction for my week are strangely unrelated. I like the tentative wording – “may,” “could,” “might” – because it implies some level of humility on Rob’s part, but it frustrates an attempt to read this horoscope as a coherent narrative. Will all three happen, in order? Is there a cause-and-effect relationship, here? If the first one doesn’t happen, will the second or third? Presumably, the “temptations” of the second sentence are related to the “secret suitors” of the first and the “profusion of invitations” of the last, but how, exactly?
And what about setting? The secret suitors are coming from the shadows – which, by the way, sounds pretty ominous and creepy to me; I mean, why not just knock on my door, like normal people? Why be all Batman about it? – while I’m being lured to the far ends of my imagination – away from said suitors, or towards them? And where are they inviting me?
Because I don’t really go to bars or dance clubs or anything. I mean, I would rather spend time watching a movie or walking at the park or sitting in a coffee shop or going on a road-trip. So if they wanted to invite me to “go clubbing,” it wouldn’t impress me much.
I have to say, he was right about being agitated.
Thirdly, the prediction is so incredibly unlikely that thinking about it does, in fact, add an element of giddiness to my agitation – the way the rain of frogs at the end of Magnolia makes one feel a bit giddy. It’s miraculously unlikely.
But the universe does seem to be conspiring on some level. My girl says to me today, as we’re sitting at the library, from out of the blue: “You got a boyfriend yet?”
I say, “Nope. Not yet.”
She says, “Are you gonna get one?”
I laugh. “You mean at the boyfriend store? What do you think – should I go for the cheap model?”
She laughs. “Get the expensive one.”
Now – just in case – at least I’ll have some idea of which one to pick.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “The moon asked me to meet her in a field tonight,” wrote mystic poet Hafiz (trans.). “I think she has amorous ideas.” You might soon feel a similar suspicion, Virgo. According to my reading of the astrological omens, seductive offers will be coming your way, and not just from the moon. Secret suitors may emerge from the shadows. Temptations could lure you toward the far ends of your imagination. The sheer profusion of invitations you’ll receive might make you giddily agitated.
I’m not sure how long these horoscopes are supposed to last – until next week? When they get replaced by the next horoscope? – but if this Rob Brezany is serious about his “reading of the astrological omens,” he might want to check his chart again.
First of all, “not just from the moon” implies that one of the “seductive offers” about to be received by anyone born between my birthday and Sept. 22, will actually be from the moon.
Sorry, moon. I’m not available for your sort of interlude. I know you, all shifty and waning, here one week and gone the next, and I’m not up for that sort of disappearing act.
And anyway, according to Hafiz, you’re not my type. I like men.
Secondly, the three sentences making up what is presumably the prediction for my week are strangely unrelated. I like the tentative wording – “may,” “could,” “might” – because it implies some level of humility on Rob’s part, but it frustrates an attempt to read this horoscope as a coherent narrative. Will all three happen, in order? Is there a cause-and-effect relationship, here? If the first one doesn’t happen, will the second or third? Presumably, the “temptations” of the second sentence are related to the “secret suitors” of the first and the “profusion of invitations” of the last, but how, exactly?
And what about setting? The secret suitors are coming from the shadows – which, by the way, sounds pretty ominous and creepy to me; I mean, why not just knock on my door, like normal people? Why be all Batman about it? – while I’m being lured to the far ends of my imagination – away from said suitors, or towards them? And where are they inviting me?
Because I don’t really go to bars or dance clubs or anything. I mean, I would rather spend time watching a movie or walking at the park or sitting in a coffee shop or going on a road-trip. So if they wanted to invite me to “go clubbing,” it wouldn’t impress me much.
I have to say, he was right about being agitated.
Thirdly, the prediction is so incredibly unlikely that thinking about it does, in fact, add an element of giddiness to my agitation – the way the rain of frogs at the end of Magnolia makes one feel a bit giddy. It’s miraculously unlikely.
But the universe does seem to be conspiring on some level. My girl says to me today, as we’re sitting at the library, from out of the blue: “You got a boyfriend yet?”
I say, “Nope. Not yet.”
She says, “Are you gonna get one?”
I laugh. “You mean at the boyfriend store? What do you think – should I go for the cheap model?”
She laughs. “Get the expensive one.”
Now – just in case – at least I’ll have some idea of which one to pick.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Confessions, IV
It is my belief that my knees are my most unattractive feature.
I am afraid of falling or biting something hard and breaking all my teeth.
My earliest memory of a family story: When my mom was four, her biological mother lined all the kids up in the living room and called her husband in from the kitchen. When he came through the door, she hit him over the head with a hammer. He went to the hospital, she went to jail, the kids went to foster care. I knew this story was shocking when I was young, but I didn’t begin to wonder why I had been told about it, and so casually, and when I was still so young, until I hit my twenties. It has only recently started to seem strange to me.
I am afraid of falling or biting something hard and breaking all my teeth.
My earliest memory of a family story: When my mom was four, her biological mother lined all the kids up in the living room and called her husband in from the kitchen. When he came through the door, she hit him over the head with a hammer. He went to the hospital, she went to jail, the kids went to foster care. I knew this story was shocking when I was young, but I didn’t begin to wonder why I had been told about it, and so casually, and when I was still so young, until I hit my twenties. It has only recently started to seem strange to me.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Fine lines and wrinkles
I am shocked every time someone does or says something nice to me. I cannot emphasize this enough.
In fact, I’m taken so off guard that I often respond with confusion or an idiotic non sequitur. I say something overly serious in response to a joke; I say something sarcastic in response to a serious personal statement. I in all ways fail to recognize “the hand of friendship.” I hit my head with my palm as soon as I leave the room, wishing I could return and ask for a “do-over.”
I can be gracious. I have learned to say “thank you” to compliments even when they seem patently false; there’s no need to discuss the issue, drawing even more attention to my lack of good quality X. The complimentor would only insist, necessitating my increasingly specific and personal examples of times when I showed terrible judgment in the area of X. And anyway, there’s no need to argue if I already know the truth.
So even in my “gracious” moments, I spend most of my time defending myself against other people’s good opinions of me.
I send gifts, write emails, call people up, occasionally say nice things. I apologize for actions or comments that I feel stupid about, even when I was probably the only one who noticed. I try to be helpful, as much as I can. I like to inform, to take on extra work for others, to do favors. I will listen to interesting people talk for hours and wish they would continue. And despite my own tendency to grow suspicious and wary of anyone being this nice to me, I expect other people to accept this as their natural due, and not to question.
But often, they do.
(At least the good ones do.)
In the attempt to answer, I make stuff up: I like doing this kind of spring cleaning; I’m good at writing emails; I can’t live without spending hours at [insert apparently boring task here]. It’s not all lies – I would go so far as to say 90% of the time, my reasons are practically lie-free – but it’s not the whole truth, either.
The truth is that sometimes, I don’t know why I do what I do, and that sometimes, it’s your fault.
Call me a closet optimist – very closeted, some would stipulate (with a derisive laugh) – but I’m easily inspired by people doing great things, or by great people doing anything. I want to get on board when people I like are involved (see post on high culture). I want to understand (see post on ed psych). I want to relate (see…um, the whole blog, I guess). That's the end-game.
But then I explain, or try to explain, to people who ask, that I have some selfish reason for all of this. It seems rude to blurt out "because you're cool." Instead, I try to convince them that I’m doing it for me; this has the bonus effect of releasing them from the obligation to pay attention, or feel guilty, or reciprocate or, worst of all, thank me.
I expect to be invisible. This is obviously a stupid expectation; I have no superpowers, and I only know three or four blind people (who can hear very well, so I’m not even invisible to them). But I expect my work, my efforts, my presence, to be taken for granted, and also to not, myself, take others for granted. It’s a terrific double standard that should work out well for everyone.
The main problem with expecting to be taken entirely for granted is that it requires that everyone else in the world be a jerk, and the people I know are not jerks at all. In fact, they’re mostly pretty great, which is why I do all that stuff for them.
It’s a fine line, of course, between doing things for people because I like them and doing things for people because I like them, and whatever the reason, the results are the same. I end up doing the same whatever-I’m-doing. I end up learning a lot, about people and spring cleaning/emailing/apparently boring task Y. There’s no need for me to ever reveal my real people-oriented motivations.
But here’s the wrinkle in my plan to hide my true, relational purposes: It occurs to me that it might matter to you, my many, many readers, who could feel used or undervalued by my pretensions to a mercenary motivation. So be assured: It all comes from affection. I don’t have a mercenary soul; I’m not even that practical, in the end. I just like you, and I’m not looking for anything in return.
Now get cracking on those “carte blanche” questions.
In fact, I’m taken so off guard that I often respond with confusion or an idiotic non sequitur. I say something overly serious in response to a joke; I say something sarcastic in response to a serious personal statement. I in all ways fail to recognize “the hand of friendship.” I hit my head with my palm as soon as I leave the room, wishing I could return and ask for a “do-over.”
I can be gracious. I have learned to say “thank you” to compliments even when they seem patently false; there’s no need to discuss the issue, drawing even more attention to my lack of good quality X. The complimentor would only insist, necessitating my increasingly specific and personal examples of times when I showed terrible judgment in the area of X. And anyway, there’s no need to argue if I already know the truth.
So even in my “gracious” moments, I spend most of my time defending myself against other people’s good opinions of me.
I send gifts, write emails, call people up, occasionally say nice things. I apologize for actions or comments that I feel stupid about, even when I was probably the only one who noticed. I try to be helpful, as much as I can. I like to inform, to take on extra work for others, to do favors. I will listen to interesting people talk for hours and wish they would continue. And despite my own tendency to grow suspicious and wary of anyone being this nice to me, I expect other people to accept this as their natural due, and not to question.
But often, they do.
(At least the good ones do.)
In the attempt to answer, I make stuff up: I like doing this kind of spring cleaning; I’m good at writing emails; I can’t live without spending hours at [insert apparently boring task here]. It’s not all lies – I would go so far as to say 90% of the time, my reasons are practically lie-free – but it’s not the whole truth, either.
The truth is that sometimes, I don’t know why I do what I do, and that sometimes, it’s your fault.
Call me a closet optimist – very closeted, some would stipulate (with a derisive laugh) – but I’m easily inspired by people doing great things, or by great people doing anything. I want to get on board when people I like are involved (see post on high culture). I want to understand (see post on ed psych). I want to relate (see…um, the whole blog, I guess). That's the end-game.
But then I explain, or try to explain, to people who ask, that I have some selfish reason for all of this. It seems rude to blurt out "because you're cool." Instead, I try to convince them that I’m doing it for me; this has the bonus effect of releasing them from the obligation to pay attention, or feel guilty, or reciprocate or, worst of all, thank me.
I expect to be invisible. This is obviously a stupid expectation; I have no superpowers, and I only know three or four blind people (who can hear very well, so I’m not even invisible to them). But I expect my work, my efforts, my presence, to be taken for granted, and also to not, myself, take others for granted. It’s a terrific double standard that should work out well for everyone.
The main problem with expecting to be taken entirely for granted is that it requires that everyone else in the world be a jerk, and the people I know are not jerks at all. In fact, they’re mostly pretty great, which is why I do all that stuff for them.
It’s a fine line, of course, between doing things for people because I like them and doing things for people because I like them, and whatever the reason, the results are the same. I end up doing the same whatever-I’m-doing. I end up learning a lot, about people and spring cleaning/emailing/apparently boring task Y. There’s no need for me to ever reveal my real people-oriented motivations.
But here’s the wrinkle in my plan to hide my true, relational purposes: It occurs to me that it might matter to you, my many, many readers, who could feel used or undervalued by my pretensions to a mercenary motivation. So be assured: It all comes from affection. I don’t have a mercenary soul; I’m not even that practical, in the end. I just like you, and I’m not looking for anything in return.
Now get cracking on those “carte blanche” questions.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Categorically speaking, I'm nothing.
When I first took the Meyers-Briggs personality test, I was designated an ESTJ. When I took it again three years later, I was an INFP – the exact opposite of my original designation. I asked the scorer what that meant for my personality, but she only kept repeating that it couldn’t happen.
By some star charts, my birthday makes me a Leo; by others, I am a Virgo. These signs are generally acknowledged to be opposites.
On a “right brain/left brain” inventory in biology class, I scored an equal number for left and right brain-edness. My teacher insisted that this was not possible, and was somehow not convinced by my argument that there were an even number of questions if you eliminated the drawing of a dog. (Whichever way the dog faces, right or left, supposedly indicates which hemisphere is dominant; I had drawn the dog facing me, straight ahead, which was completely neutral.)
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Happy 83,842
Congratulations to my car and I, for our 10,000-mile anniversary. I’ve been a bit neglectful in acknowledging this milestone, since my little blue hatchback—for some reason, named Betty, but never referred to by name—hit 83,842, exactly 10,000 miles over her mark when I got the certificate of title in mid-August, on Sunday. We were somewhere around New Haven on I-91 N when it happened.
You may ask why my car and I have driven so much in less than seven months. The answer is that I drove her up from DC originally; went to help out a friend; went to college homecoming; went to work 3-7 times per week; and visited friends, and had visiting friends.
I owe my working relationship with this, my first and only car, to you-my-friends, the supervisor whose brother sold me the car for $20 (US), and most of all, my mechanic, who agrees with me: “She’s a good little car,” “She’ll last forever,” and “She’ll probably need new brakes at 90,000.”
May we live to drive 10,000 more.
You may ask why my car and I have driven so much in less than seven months. The answer is that I drove her up from DC originally; went to help out a friend; went to college homecoming; went to work 3-7 times per week; and visited friends, and had visiting friends.
I owe my working relationship with this, my first and only car, to you-my-friends, the supervisor whose brother sold me the car for $20 (US), and most of all, my mechanic, who agrees with me: “She’s a good little car,” “She’ll last forever,” and “She’ll probably need new brakes at 90,000.”
May we live to drive 10,000 more.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Year of the Chicken
When I was in China my first year, I went by bus or van to the capital city of my province to get a burger at Grandma’s Kitchen, a western restaurant-now-franchise started by “Grandma” in Chengdu, about once a month. I began doing this after experiencing an almost hallucinatory craving for beef following my long anorectic phase in the fall, and continued on the advice of my (own) grandmother, a retired RN, who insisted that I needed more iron and B vitamins than I was getting from pork, vegetables, and rice.
As I have low blood pressure, a tendency toward anemia, and a ridiculously melodramatic history of fainting – rivaling any hysterical romantic heroine of the nineteenth century – I listened to her.
I ate hamburgers then the way I now take my car in to get its oil changed: as necessary maintenance. Not that I don’t enjoy beef, because I do. I just don’t normally eat much of it and don’t think about it, ever, unless one of those crisis-like cravings hits me, which they occasionally do.
You can see, then, why I was less surprised than I might have been when, Monday night, I suddenly began fantasizing about eating an entire chicken.
Okay, I thought. Where did this come from?
I tried to think of what vitamins or nutrients a chicken might have – an entire chicken, especially – that other foods wouldn’t, but couldn’t come up with anything. After all, everything tastes like chicken. It’s the most unassuming, unobtrusive meat we have.
I tried to assuage the feeling by meandering around the Stop & Shop, which was closing in less than an hour, and eventually settled on some pre-cooked “sweet and sour chicken tenders”; for some reason, my fantasies involved only pre-cooked chicken, and as I had neither “chicken tenders” nor an entire chicken at home in my freezer, I decided that giving in to this was alright.
I ate the three “chicken tenders” for dinner, and lunch the next day, and I thought that was the end of the fantasy.
But today, even before lunch, I find myself thinking about it again: a whole chicken, glazed and brown, sitting in a petite plastic black-and-clear container. I eat my crackers, with marmalade. I eat more of them than usual – but no matter how many I eat, they are not chicken.
On my way home from work, I make up my mind. I will go to the store – to Gnazzo’s, the local grocery, which removes a bit of the corporate edge from my plan to buy something pre-cooked and packaged in plastic – and I will buy an entire chicken.
I will eat it for dinner.
I pull into the parking lot, find a space immediately, and go inside.
I’ve never bought an entire chicken before, not even one I would have to cook myself – I didn’t even buy the one my students brought into my house to turn into chicken nuggets for class one day, which they had selected live, and which was the best seaweed-flavored-saltine-coated baked chicken I have ever had, or expect to ever have – so the whole experience seems a bit daunting.
I am distracted by a sale on waffles – so inoffensively bland and convenient! – but the sale is “Buy One, Get One Free!” and each package has sixteen waffles in it.
“I don’t see how I could ever need thirty-two waffles,” I mumble regretfully, and pass them by.
The kind of cake my mother wants to try is on sale, but they don’t have lemon, so I pass those as well.
I am approaching the chicken stand. This is my last chance to abort this strange mission.
It’s a big responsibility, I chide myself. Are you sure you’re ready for this kind of commitment? You’re not going to have fun with it on the first day and then neglect it, letting its leftovers rot in the fridge until trash pickup three weeks from now? You’re not going to decide tomorrow at lunch that you’ve had enough of chicken, that chicken is “so yesterday”?
No, I answer firmly. I know what it means to buy a whole chicken. I can handle it.
So I go to the “rotisserie chicken” display – which has no actual rotisseries, but boasts a number of packaged chickens whose labels claim that they (the chickens, not the labels) have been cooked by rotisserie – and look down on my choices. They are all similar, a disappointing “Brown Sugar and Honey Flavor,” and yet unique, as chickens are in life. The packaging refuses to guess the size or weight of each chicken, the amount of air-space seeming to anticipate something larger than what rests inside, but the Nutrition Facts listing “Varied” as the number of three ounce servings per package. These chickens are from the Allen farm in Seaford, DE.
I choose a small-looking chicken with peeling skin. I’m not sure what a family with kids would go for, or someone having company for dinner, but they might care more about presentation than I do, so I leave the nicer-looking ones behind. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog, anyway.
Uncertain of the etiquette involved in planning to eat an entire chicken, I also pick out the smallest container of chicken stuffing I can find. Then the chicken won’t be alone, I think absurdly, though I have no idea whether “chicken stuffing” refers to bread that’s been cooked inside a chicken, with chicken pieces in it, or just with spices that complement chicken in a meal.
I take my purchases to the front and pay, asking for a paper bag – again, to lessen guilt, and for my recycling – and drive the one block home.
I set the chicken on my living room coffee table and open the package. I get a fork and steak knife – though again, whether this is strictly proper seems to matter more to me than I had anticipated, especially considering that I’m eating out of a plastic take-out container in my living room. I put out the stuffing and some applesauce, and I eat it with the chicken.
I eat probably a third of my chicken, which, again, is small, but no Cornish game hen. I learn that dark meat really does taste better than white meat, and that my tendency to view poultry as a conduit for salt probably results from my tendency to eat white. I remember what it was like to eat the skin and ask for more as a child. I marvel at the bone structure under the meat and wonder if the heart is still inside.
Then I put my chicken away, on the top shelf of the fridge where I’ll be sure to see it tomorrow, hoping for the best.
After all, tomorrow is still so far away.
Who knows what I’ll want to have for lunch?
As I have low blood pressure, a tendency toward anemia, and a ridiculously melodramatic history of fainting – rivaling any hysterical romantic heroine of the nineteenth century – I listened to her.
I ate hamburgers then the way I now take my car in to get its oil changed: as necessary maintenance. Not that I don’t enjoy beef, because I do. I just don’t normally eat much of it and don’t think about it, ever, unless one of those crisis-like cravings hits me, which they occasionally do.
You can see, then, why I was less surprised than I might have been when, Monday night, I suddenly began fantasizing about eating an entire chicken.
Okay, I thought. Where did this come from?
I tried to think of what vitamins or nutrients a chicken might have – an entire chicken, especially – that other foods wouldn’t, but couldn’t come up with anything. After all, everything tastes like chicken. It’s the most unassuming, unobtrusive meat we have.
I tried to assuage the feeling by meandering around the Stop & Shop, which was closing in less than an hour, and eventually settled on some pre-cooked “sweet and sour chicken tenders”; for some reason, my fantasies involved only pre-cooked chicken, and as I had neither “chicken tenders” nor an entire chicken at home in my freezer, I decided that giving in to this was alright.
I ate the three “chicken tenders” for dinner, and lunch the next day, and I thought that was the end of the fantasy.
But today, even before lunch, I find myself thinking about it again: a whole chicken, glazed and brown, sitting in a petite plastic black-and-clear container. I eat my crackers, with marmalade. I eat more of them than usual – but no matter how many I eat, they are not chicken.
On my way home from work, I make up my mind. I will go to the store – to Gnazzo’s, the local grocery, which removes a bit of the corporate edge from my plan to buy something pre-cooked and packaged in plastic – and I will buy an entire chicken.
I will eat it for dinner.
I pull into the parking lot, find a space immediately, and go inside.
I’ve never bought an entire chicken before, not even one I would have to cook myself – I didn’t even buy the one my students brought into my house to turn into chicken nuggets for class one day, which they had selected live, and which was the best seaweed-flavored-saltine-coated baked chicken I have ever had, or expect to ever have – so the whole experience seems a bit daunting.
I am distracted by a sale on waffles – so inoffensively bland and convenient! – but the sale is “Buy One, Get One Free!” and each package has sixteen waffles in it.
“I don’t see how I could ever need thirty-two waffles,” I mumble regretfully, and pass them by.
The kind of cake my mother wants to try is on sale, but they don’t have lemon, so I pass those as well.
I am approaching the chicken stand. This is my last chance to abort this strange mission.
It’s a big responsibility, I chide myself. Are you sure you’re ready for this kind of commitment? You’re not going to have fun with it on the first day and then neglect it, letting its leftovers rot in the fridge until trash pickup three weeks from now? You’re not going to decide tomorrow at lunch that you’ve had enough of chicken, that chicken is “so yesterday”?
No, I answer firmly. I know what it means to buy a whole chicken. I can handle it.
So I go to the “rotisserie chicken” display – which has no actual rotisseries, but boasts a number of packaged chickens whose labels claim that they (the chickens, not the labels) have been cooked by rotisserie – and look down on my choices. They are all similar, a disappointing “Brown Sugar and Honey Flavor,” and yet unique, as chickens are in life. The packaging refuses to guess the size or weight of each chicken, the amount of air-space seeming to anticipate something larger than what rests inside, but the Nutrition Facts listing “Varied” as the number of three ounce servings per package. These chickens are from the Allen farm in Seaford, DE.
I choose a small-looking chicken with peeling skin. I’m not sure what a family with kids would go for, or someone having company for dinner, but they might care more about presentation than I do, so I leave the nicer-looking ones behind. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog, anyway.
Uncertain of the etiquette involved in planning to eat an entire chicken, I also pick out the smallest container of chicken stuffing I can find. Then the chicken won’t be alone, I think absurdly, though I have no idea whether “chicken stuffing” refers to bread that’s been cooked inside a chicken, with chicken pieces in it, or just with spices that complement chicken in a meal.
I take my purchases to the front and pay, asking for a paper bag – again, to lessen guilt, and for my recycling – and drive the one block home.
I set the chicken on my living room coffee table and open the package. I get a fork and steak knife – though again, whether this is strictly proper seems to matter more to me than I had anticipated, especially considering that I’m eating out of a plastic take-out container in my living room. I put out the stuffing and some applesauce, and I eat it with the chicken.
I eat probably a third of my chicken, which, again, is small, but no Cornish game hen. I learn that dark meat really does taste better than white meat, and that my tendency to view poultry as a conduit for salt probably results from my tendency to eat white. I remember what it was like to eat the skin and ask for more as a child. I marvel at the bone structure under the meat and wonder if the heart is still inside.
Then I put my chicken away, on the top shelf of the fridge where I’ll be sure to see it tomorrow, hoping for the best.
After all, tomorrow is still so far away.
Who knows what I’ll want to have for lunch?
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Lieberman goes to the Dark Side
I hate watching that little-boy Anakin in The Phantom Menace. He’s just so wooden. The scene where he leaves his mother leaves me wishing he’d just go, and give her a chance at a normal life—one that includes emotions.
Although I haven’t seen Attack of the Clones, I’ve heard that Anakin doesn’t get any better; I’ve been told he and Amidala have absurdly little chemistry. I imagine the love scene going something like this:
Hayden Christenson, in dull monotone: Oh. A-mi-dah-la. I must have you. I cannot live. Without you. [limply extends arm in general direction of Portman]
Natalie Portman, beautiful as ever but playing down to make Christenson look less stupid: Oh Anakin. We should not give in to our passion. Which is great. But let’s do it, anyway.
Christenson: Yes. Let’s.
And then Anakin goes to the dark side.
Kind of like Lieberman.
It started with a complete lack of observable emotion, followed by questioning the basic tenets of the Force (in this case, the DNC) and siding with darkness in a few key cases (lured by the completely unseductive RNC—substitute Ron Schneider for Natalie Portman, here) to ultimately begin a war that his generation won’t finish.
When, exactly, did Lieberman get in bed, so to speak, with the Republicans? Was it when he lost the DNC’s endorsement and ran as an Independent? Was it when he voted for the Iraq war? Or has it been written in the stars since the beginning of time? I suspect that he’s been admiring himself in the black cape and practicing with the red light saber in secret for some time now.
I’ve been waiting, since Lieberman endorsed McCain for president in 2008, to hear that the RNC has officially gathered him into the fold, will pay for his campaigning, etc. Whether Connecticut will continue to accept him post-defection is questionable.
May the Force be with us.
Although I haven’t seen Attack of the Clones, I’ve heard that Anakin doesn’t get any better; I’ve been told he and Amidala have absurdly little chemistry. I imagine the love scene going something like this:
Hayden Christenson, in dull monotone: Oh. A-mi-dah-la. I must have you. I cannot live. Without you. [limply extends arm in general direction of Portman]
Natalie Portman, beautiful as ever but playing down to make Christenson look less stupid: Oh Anakin. We should not give in to our passion. Which is great. But let’s do it, anyway.
Christenson: Yes. Let’s.
And then Anakin goes to the dark side.
Kind of like Lieberman.
It started with a complete lack of observable emotion, followed by questioning the basic tenets of the Force (in this case, the DNC) and siding with darkness in a few key cases (lured by the completely unseductive RNC—substitute Ron Schneider for Natalie Portman, here) to ultimately begin a war that his generation won’t finish.
When, exactly, did Lieberman get in bed, so to speak, with the Republicans? Was it when he lost the DNC’s endorsement and ran as an Independent? Was it when he voted for the Iraq war? Or has it been written in the stars since the beginning of time? I suspect that he’s been admiring himself in the black cape and practicing with the red light saber in secret for some time now.
I’ve been waiting, since Lieberman endorsed McCain for president in 2008, to hear that the RNC has officially gathered him into the fold, will pay for his campaigning, etc. Whether Connecticut will continue to accept him post-defection is questionable.
May the Force be with us.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Zen and the art of McDonald's "feng shui"
Recently, I was involved in choosing and copy-editing an article out of California on a McDonald's franchise restaurant that incorporates "feng shui" elements into its design plan. The proprietor had ridiculous things to say about the attempt to appeal to Asian patrons, claiming that this McDonald's wanted people to feel that they could linger over their Big Macs and artery-clogging transfatty fries, in a calm and peaceful atmosphere -- ignoring, apparently, the entire ethos of McDonald's and all fast food establishments, in the process.
But far be it from me to criticize someone wanting to take down McDonaldization a peg or two. My problem is not so much with the corporate-subversive feel of the feng shui-ed restaurant; it's with the headline that accompanied the AP article.
"Do you want fries with that Zen?" the article headline read. "California McDonald's aims to boost sales with feng shui."
Now, on the business page, the reference to boosting sales becomes less cynical and more practical -- and anyway, it's nice to see them admitting that the bottom line is the bottom line, "qi-balancing" Eastern philosophy aside. The problem with this headline, which I forgave, and ran basically intact (because it also appeared on China Daily, which is an English-language in-China newspaper), is the reference to Zen in an article about feng shui, as though the two are interchangeable.
Getting "Zen" and "feng shui" confused is like referring to an "English kiss" -- which, let's face it, would have to be something between the inaccurately named "Eskimo kiss" and the mob's "kiss of death" -- when what you meant was a "French kiss." Just because the nations are in the same hemisphere and their citizens look basically the same doesn't mean that their cultures are interchangeable.
In fact, the opposite is true for Japan and China, as it is for England and France. The textbook controversy a few years ago -- when the Japanese re-published a series of history textbooks glossing over their actions in the "Rape of Nanjing" which was, well, pretty much what it sounds like, in WWII -- is only the tip of a very large and ancient iceberg. My ninth grade students sat morosely in my class, looking shell-shocked and confused, on the day they learned of Japanese actions in the second world war. The Japanese language teacher at my school stood up at the end of the year and gave a speech, in which he cried, imploring Chinese to please stop making fun of him and treating him badly for being a Japanese.
A shop-keeper at a market, when he found out I was American, immediately launched into a discussion of our countries' similarities, beginning with an animated hand-sign depiction of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. "We have mutual enemies," he seemed to be saying.
The longer I was in China, the more I picked up this paranoid, borderline hostility toward the Japanese. I enjoyed the interaction with the Japanese teacher, who taught my housemate to make sushi, and the karate instructor, who often watched movies with us. But when confronted with any element of Japanese culture -- Battle Royale, the Japanese remake, for instance, and the only movie I've ever turned off after seven minutes, being too frightened to continue -- I could only respond with bewilderment and occasional horror. The efficiency, the compact, neat lifestyle, the attention to detail, contrasted sharply with China's sprawling and messy way of life, its cobbled-together solutions to problems that should have been anticipated, its flagrant and dangerous use of fireworks whose detritus littered the streets for months after Spring Festival.
To conflate the idea of Zen, then, with feng shui, seems almost inconceivable to me.
It's a vocabulary slip-up, really, since we American English-speakers have imported the word "Zen" to indicate inner harmony, and the words "feng shui" to indicate putting our physical space in an order that promotes inner harmony; we sample what suits us, and use imported words generically to indicate whole and diverse worlds of (foreign) thought. It is on par with calling everyone who looks even slightly Asian, "Chinese."
We're going to have to stop this, especially considering the likely economic position of China -- and other Asian countries, like Japan, South Korea, or the rapidly developing Vietnam -- in our future.
But I don't expect a revolution in terms to begin with McDonald's.
But far be it from me to criticize someone wanting to take down McDonaldization a peg or two. My problem is not so much with the corporate-subversive feel of the feng shui-ed restaurant; it's with the headline that accompanied the AP article.
"Do you want fries with that Zen?" the article headline read. "California McDonald's aims to boost sales with feng shui."
Now, on the business page, the reference to boosting sales becomes less cynical and more practical -- and anyway, it's nice to see them admitting that the bottom line is the bottom line, "qi-balancing" Eastern philosophy aside. The problem with this headline, which I forgave, and ran basically intact (because it also appeared on China Daily, which is an English-language in-China newspaper), is the reference to Zen in an article about feng shui, as though the two are interchangeable.
Getting "Zen" and "feng shui" confused is like referring to an "English kiss" -- which, let's face it, would have to be something between the inaccurately named "Eskimo kiss" and the mob's "kiss of death" -- when what you meant was a "French kiss." Just because the nations are in the same hemisphere and their citizens look basically the same doesn't mean that their cultures are interchangeable.
In fact, the opposite is true for Japan and China, as it is for England and France. The textbook controversy a few years ago -- when the Japanese re-published a series of history textbooks glossing over their actions in the "Rape of Nanjing" which was, well, pretty much what it sounds like, in WWII -- is only the tip of a very large and ancient iceberg. My ninth grade students sat morosely in my class, looking shell-shocked and confused, on the day they learned of Japanese actions in the second world war. The Japanese language teacher at my school stood up at the end of the year and gave a speech, in which he cried, imploring Chinese to please stop making fun of him and treating him badly for being a Japanese.
A shop-keeper at a market, when he found out I was American, immediately launched into a discussion of our countries' similarities, beginning with an animated hand-sign depiction of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. "We have mutual enemies," he seemed to be saying.
The longer I was in China, the more I picked up this paranoid, borderline hostility toward the Japanese. I enjoyed the interaction with the Japanese teacher, who taught my housemate to make sushi, and the karate instructor, who often watched movies with us. But when confronted with any element of Japanese culture -- Battle Royale, the Japanese remake, for instance, and the only movie I've ever turned off after seven minutes, being too frightened to continue -- I could only respond with bewilderment and occasional horror. The efficiency, the compact, neat lifestyle, the attention to detail, contrasted sharply with China's sprawling and messy way of life, its cobbled-together solutions to problems that should have been anticipated, its flagrant and dangerous use of fireworks whose detritus littered the streets for months after Spring Festival.
To conflate the idea of Zen, then, with feng shui, seems almost inconceivable to me.
It's a vocabulary slip-up, really, since we American English-speakers have imported the word "Zen" to indicate inner harmony, and the words "feng shui" to indicate putting our physical space in an order that promotes inner harmony; we sample what suits us, and use imported words generically to indicate whole and diverse worlds of (foreign) thought. It is on par with calling everyone who looks even slightly Asian, "Chinese."
We're going to have to stop this, especially considering the likely economic position of China -- and other Asian countries, like Japan, South Korea, or the rapidly developing Vietnam -- in our future.
But I don't expect a revolution in terms to begin with McDonald's.
Confessions, III
I often eat in my living room using a "Lady Lovelilocks" metal TV tray.
I have hit the following things with a car, in chronological order: a parked minivan, a nine-year-old boy, a squirrel, a deer, a turtle, another squirrel. The squirrels and turtle died; the deer totaled the car; the nine-year-old is fine, and much older now.
I wrote two horrible novel-length stories in high school, which you will never read.
I have hit the following things with a car, in chronological order: a parked minivan, a nine-year-old boy, a squirrel, a deer, a turtle, another squirrel. The squirrels and turtle died; the deer totaled the car; the nine-year-old is fine, and much older now.
I wrote two horrible novel-length stories in high school, which you will never read.
Friday, February 29, 2008
You're DREAMY
Yesterday, my honor was challenged (negligibly—but “it’s a slippery slope”) when I recounted a part of a dream I had; this dream seemed too fantastic, I suppose, to have been actually dreamed. To defend my honor, and put that fantastical dream in context, here are partial accounts of some dreams I have had this week, and one “classic” dream I had several years ago.
In my dreams:
2/29/08 – You say to the photographer that in the end, you’d agree to do what she had said you should—that if she died, you would look in on her mother at the nursing home and visit occasionally—but that, “like most guys, it left me wondering why you picked me.” She doesn’t respond to this but says she thought it had been settled before, that it needed no formal acceptance, but you insist that you had come to the point of laying out the terms but not accepting them. The whole conversation is a farce, but a highly amusing one.
2/27/08 – In a house with a walkthrough (short hallway between two main rooms), three horses run across from one room to the next, the third horse striking a small white rabbit with its hoof, trampling the rabbit’s hind leg. The rabbit cries out.
I wait for the horses to clear and shout for someone else to “call Animal Control” because I think the rabbit must still be alive. I get latex gloves and go over to the rabbit, careful not to step in or touch the gore left by the horse’s hoof, but when I try to pick it up to assess its injuries, it tries to jump away, so fearful that I think it will die if I continue. I stop trying, and when it eventually seems to calm down, I can see that flies have swarmed its injury and are eating away not just the bad flesh, but the good as well.
I am transported outside (in that way that dreams have of just dropping you elsewhere), next to a bush, and I lay the rabbit down next to it. It is night, and the brown spot that had been on the rabbit’s back has disappeared completely, leaving the rabbit completely white and smaller than it had been. The rabbit dies, and I am frustrated by my inability to save it from the hive mentality of the flies and maggots.
2/26/08 – All in Simpsons style animation: I am staying with the Simpsons, who live in Connecticut, and have just learned that a disease is turning people into werewolves. In response to this, the mayor of Hartford, Daniel Negreanu, declares amnesty for all prisoners, and I look out the window of 742 Evergreen Terrace and see dozens of animated black men running down the street.
2/24/08 – I go to Boston, being invited, and then to DC. I get lost at night but am rejected by Metro-train ticket sellers who say they’re “on break” and tell me to “go get popcorn” instead. I can’t find the popcorn, so I look for a car but ultimately cannot remember how I got there to begin with.
Later, I am a social worker with a fourteen-year-old girl who tells me how she’s fixed all the problems in her home life. Her story is convincing, so I leave to go to a conference. An African-American social worker and Ellen Muth give a presentation in which the black woman pretends to hate Ellen but as she moves her own student-desk, she pulls Ellen’s along as well. Ellen has a keyboard and plays self-composed music as their desks whirl around the room. “It’s a metaphor and a presentation at the same time,” I think (absurdly).
2002 – A commercial in the middle of my “regular” dreams, entirely from the perspective of a “camera,” 70’s soft-lens: A slow pan from the ceiling, out of focus, down to an oven door, shut, on a side angle. An oven-mitted hand reaches in from the right and draws down the door, another hand reaching in and pulling out a cookie tray. The shot freezes as chicken fingers are revealed on the tray, and a (deep) voiceover announces “None of these chicken fingers was found guilty in a court of law.” This happens two more times, with “Only three of these chicken fingers” found guilty on the second tray.
In my dreams:
2/29/08 – You say to the photographer that in the end, you’d agree to do what she had said you should—that if she died, you would look in on her mother at the nursing home and visit occasionally—but that, “like most guys, it left me wondering why you picked me.” She doesn’t respond to this but says she thought it had been settled before, that it needed no formal acceptance, but you insist that you had come to the point of laying out the terms but not accepting them. The whole conversation is a farce, but a highly amusing one.
2/27/08 – In a house with a walkthrough (short hallway between two main rooms), three horses run across from one room to the next, the third horse striking a small white rabbit with its hoof, trampling the rabbit’s hind leg. The rabbit cries out.
I wait for the horses to clear and shout for someone else to “call Animal Control” because I think the rabbit must still be alive. I get latex gloves and go over to the rabbit, careful not to step in or touch the gore left by the horse’s hoof, but when I try to pick it up to assess its injuries, it tries to jump away, so fearful that I think it will die if I continue. I stop trying, and when it eventually seems to calm down, I can see that flies have swarmed its injury and are eating away not just the bad flesh, but the good as well.
I am transported outside (in that way that dreams have of just dropping you elsewhere), next to a bush, and I lay the rabbit down next to it. It is night, and the brown spot that had been on the rabbit’s back has disappeared completely, leaving the rabbit completely white and smaller than it had been. The rabbit dies, and I am frustrated by my inability to save it from the hive mentality of the flies and maggots.
2/26/08 – All in Simpsons style animation: I am staying with the Simpsons, who live in Connecticut, and have just learned that a disease is turning people into werewolves. In response to this, the mayor of Hartford, Daniel Negreanu, declares amnesty for all prisoners, and I look out the window of 742 Evergreen Terrace and see dozens of animated black men running down the street.
2/24/08 – I go to Boston, being invited, and then to DC. I get lost at night but am rejected by Metro-train ticket sellers who say they’re “on break” and tell me to “go get popcorn” instead. I can’t find the popcorn, so I look for a car but ultimately cannot remember how I got there to begin with.
Later, I am a social worker with a fourteen-year-old girl who tells me how she’s fixed all the problems in her home life. Her story is convincing, so I leave to go to a conference. An African-American social worker and Ellen Muth give a presentation in which the black woman pretends to hate Ellen but as she moves her own student-desk, she pulls Ellen’s along as well. Ellen has a keyboard and plays self-composed music as their desks whirl around the room. “It’s a metaphor and a presentation at the same time,” I think (absurdly).
2002 – A commercial in the middle of my “regular” dreams, entirely from the perspective of a “camera,” 70’s soft-lens: A slow pan from the ceiling, out of focus, down to an oven door, shut, on a side angle. An oven-mitted hand reaches in from the right and draws down the door, another hand reaching in and pulling out a cookie tray. The shot freezes as chicken fingers are revealed on the tray, and a (deep) voiceover announces “None of these chicken fingers was found guilty in a court of law.” This happens two more times, with “Only three of these chicken fingers” found guilty on the second tray.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
PHILISTINES
That's what these people are. Gah. I'll be surprised if I can even form a coherent sentence amid the sputtering.
I've had an evaluation report from a third job I took on, edited, by special editing staff at the DMR (now DDS). If they were good at being grammar-nazis, that would be one thing, but they are not. OH, how they are not!
I'd give you a precise example--in fact, I will, next time I have the "edited" report in front of me and haven't cast it away in disgust--but suffice it to say, it's terrible. And I mean TERRIBLE--correcting sentences that actually had meaning in English to sentences that do not, and never will.
As in: adding the conjunction "xxx; because, xxx" WHICH IS NEVER CORRECT and is even less correct in this case, if that's possible; using four-syllable words where a two-syllable one works just as well; ADDING THE PHRASE "IN ORDER TO" AS THOUGH THERE WERE A QUOTA OF "IN ORDER TOS" NEEDING TO BE FILLED.
OMG. WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM. (That's not a question, really, and so doesn't require a question mark.)
Okay, deep breath. I think I can survive this, if only because they hold back some of your pay on this job until you send the report in (knowing that most people will end up never writing it, they say, but now I suspect it's because most people know what the "editors" will do to it), and because it's not, by any stretch of the most fertile imagination, a work of art.
Still: Philistines.
(While I search out exact details on the grammatical atrocities committed against my report, go here and be appalled by the photos of babies in weird-o outfits a la Anne Geddes, who's always freaked me out, and in baskets and whatnot--looking as shocked and horrified to be there as you are to see them there. I don't understand why anyone would hire this photographer on the basis of these photos, no matter what the Maritime Fall Fair Photo contest says.)
I've had an evaluation report from a third job I took on, edited, by special editing staff at the DMR (now DDS). If they were good at being grammar-nazis, that would be one thing, but they are not. OH, how they are not!
I'd give you a precise example--in fact, I will, next time I have the "edited" report in front of me and haven't cast it away in disgust--but suffice it to say, it's terrible. And I mean TERRIBLE--correcting sentences that actually had meaning in English to sentences that do not, and never will.
As in: adding the conjunction "xxx; because, xxx" WHICH IS NEVER CORRECT and is even less correct in this case, if that's possible; using four-syllable words where a two-syllable one works just as well; ADDING THE PHRASE "IN ORDER TO" AS THOUGH THERE WERE A QUOTA OF "IN ORDER TOS" NEEDING TO BE FILLED.
OMG. WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM. (That's not a question, really, and so doesn't require a question mark.)
Okay, deep breath. I think I can survive this, if only because they hold back some of your pay on this job until you send the report in (knowing that most people will end up never writing it, they say, but now I suspect it's because most people know what the "editors" will do to it), and because it's not, by any stretch of the most fertile imagination, a work of art.
Still: Philistines.
(While I search out exact details on the grammatical atrocities committed against my report, go here and be appalled by the photos of babies in weird-o outfits a la Anne Geddes, who's always freaked me out, and in baskets and whatnot--looking as shocked and horrified to be there as you are to see them there. I don't understand why anyone would hire this photographer on the basis of these photos, no matter what the Maritime Fall Fair Photo contest says.)
It Killers Me Every Time
Fill in this blank:
Yeah, I know. But the answer, somehow, is "chest."
I suspect it's a clever joke.
Now they’re going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it’s all in my head
But she’s touching his _______
Yeah, I know. But the answer, somehow, is "chest."
I suspect it's a clever joke.
Highly Cultured
I could be cultured, I think. I have potential.
But other than my ownership of a few Mozart CDs, there’s not much I can brag about beyond sheer potential. I haven’t been to the symphony in years, and even then, I went with free tickets and friends who thought “dressing up might be fun” (though it never is). I went to see Maynard Ferguson when he came to Southington in the 90s and scrunched myself up over the agony of the high notes his second trumpet was hitting (as a fellow trumpeter, I experienced his pain the way I imagine husbands experience sympathetic labor), but have not repeated the experience in the new millennium.
And yet, it’s not that I’ve had too little experience. I’ve been to plays, including a terrible version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon. I’ve eaten fancy dinners out and remembered the rule about starting from the outside when selecting utensils. I’ve worn my share of eveningwear, despite its many encumbrances, and shucked my nylons at the end of the night like any debutante returning from a gala.
I’ve even faked, though exceedingly poorly, a British accent.
Why, then, do I remain the Eliza Doolittle to the cultured world’s Henry Higgins? Surely some of this high culture should have worn off on me as I partook of it. Surely I should have digested some of the many lessons offered me from, as it were, the silver spoon. And yet the reason I own I Pagliacci is that I heard Kelsey Grammar sing the aria in the guise of “Sideshow Bob” on The Simpsons.
I am an educated woman. Yet I would rather sit down in front of the DVD version of The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged, with a mini pizza and a bathrobe than do any of these “cultured” things.
It may be that I’m lazy, and that high culture activities — and “fancy” things in general — are more work than their popular culture counterparts. Perhaps I lack the strength of will, stamina or fortitude that sitting through Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights requires. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination that causes me to drift constantly away from Food and Wine’s “Lebanese Chicken Mixed Green Salad” and toward my two-dollar, heat-in-bag chana masala. It may be an unattractive stubbornness that makes me eschew makeup or earrings in favor of having the time it would take me to put them on, and proper etiquette in favor of practically no manners at all.
Calling me lazy, unimaginative, unmannered or stubborn (or, in a particularly nasty mood, unattractive) may seem like the obvious choice had I never attempted any of the activities I describe — except that I have done all of them. I have done them with and for my friends. The problem is not that these activities are intrinsically boring, but that they do not stand out — among the many options — as primarily social activities.
High culture, if it ever did, no longer lends itself to community. The purpose of a cocktail party seems to have evolved from “an intimate evening with friends”—"intimate" here meaning "very polite"—to “a networking opportunity.” The symphony hall and the playhouse, once the only places to see performances, have been replaced by the mosh-pitted concert hall, the movie theater, and increasingly, the home entertainment center. A night out, which may have once meant dinner and the foxtrot, has become “clubbing.” People are congregating elsewhere because the focus in leisure time is to be social, a fact not often taken into account when planning or executing “high culture” activities.
Where are the tailgating parties for the symphony? What provision have foxtrot aficionados made for large crowds with pop music sensibilities? When will gown makers design something that’s comfortable to “chill” in? Which playhouses allow viewers to clap or jeer or throw things at the action onstage as it happens? (Perhaps more importantly, where is the overpriced popcorn with extra butter ooze?)
I want to like these high culture activities — I do — but my first priority is sharing experiences and face-time with friends. Is it my fault that I don’t want to spend my leisure time in formalwear, staring straight ahead and not talking?
Perhaps it’s high culture’s fault for being so snotty and difficult to get along with, like the stuck-up cousin you’re forced to invite to your birthday party.
But give me a social reason to go, and I would. I might even enjoy myself. Underneath this casual exterior, after all, I have a high-class heart of gold; like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I’m just waiting for some john to pick me up and take me to the opera.
But other than my ownership of a few Mozart CDs, there’s not much I can brag about beyond sheer potential. I haven’t been to the symphony in years, and even then, I went with free tickets and friends who thought “dressing up might be fun” (though it never is). I went to see Maynard Ferguson when he came to Southington in the 90s and scrunched myself up over the agony of the high notes his second trumpet was hitting (as a fellow trumpeter, I experienced his pain the way I imagine husbands experience sympathetic labor), but have not repeated the experience in the new millennium.
And yet, it’s not that I’ve had too little experience. I’ve been to plays, including a terrible version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon. I’ve eaten fancy dinners out and remembered the rule about starting from the outside when selecting utensils. I’ve worn my share of eveningwear, despite its many encumbrances, and shucked my nylons at the end of the night like any debutante returning from a gala.
I’ve even faked, though exceedingly poorly, a British accent.
Why, then, do I remain the Eliza Doolittle to the cultured world’s Henry Higgins? Surely some of this high culture should have worn off on me as I partook of it. Surely I should have digested some of the many lessons offered me from, as it were, the silver spoon. And yet the reason I own I Pagliacci is that I heard Kelsey Grammar sing the aria in the guise of “Sideshow Bob” on The Simpsons.
I am an educated woman. Yet I would rather sit down in front of the DVD version of The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged, with a mini pizza and a bathrobe than do any of these “cultured” things.
It may be that I’m lazy, and that high culture activities — and “fancy” things in general — are more work than their popular culture counterparts. Perhaps I lack the strength of will, stamina or fortitude that sitting through Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights requires. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination that causes me to drift constantly away from Food and Wine’s “Lebanese Chicken Mixed Green Salad” and toward my two-dollar, heat-in-bag chana masala. It may be an unattractive stubbornness that makes me eschew makeup or earrings in favor of having the time it would take me to put them on, and proper etiquette in favor of practically no manners at all.
Calling me lazy, unimaginative, unmannered or stubborn (or, in a particularly nasty mood, unattractive) may seem like the obvious choice had I never attempted any of the activities I describe — except that I have done all of them. I have done them with and for my friends. The problem is not that these activities are intrinsically boring, but that they do not stand out — among the many options — as primarily social activities.
High culture, if it ever did, no longer lends itself to community. The purpose of a cocktail party seems to have evolved from “an intimate evening with friends”—"intimate" here meaning "very polite"—to “a networking opportunity.” The symphony hall and the playhouse, once the only places to see performances, have been replaced by the mosh-pitted concert hall, the movie theater, and increasingly, the home entertainment center. A night out, which may have once meant dinner and the foxtrot, has become “clubbing.” People are congregating elsewhere because the focus in leisure time is to be social, a fact not often taken into account when planning or executing “high culture” activities.
Where are the tailgating parties for the symphony? What provision have foxtrot aficionados made for large crowds with pop music sensibilities? When will gown makers design something that’s comfortable to “chill” in? Which playhouses allow viewers to clap or jeer or throw things at the action onstage as it happens? (Perhaps more importantly, where is the overpriced popcorn with extra butter ooze?)
I want to like these high culture activities — I do — but my first priority is sharing experiences and face-time with friends. Is it my fault that I don’t want to spend my leisure time in formalwear, staring straight ahead and not talking?
Perhaps it’s high culture’s fault for being so snotty and difficult to get along with, like the stuck-up cousin you’re forced to invite to your birthday party.
But give me a social reason to go, and I would. I might even enjoy myself. Underneath this casual exterior, after all, I have a high-class heart of gold; like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I’m just waiting for some john to pick me up and take me to the opera.
Monday, February 25, 2008
The email arrives.
Dear alicia
think you for the Email .
yes I did have funn wih carilin.
and im sorry i mist pizza hut with you .
Well I hop you Get this email
alicia your the best
from j----
I hop you Get this.
by alicia
j----
j----
Well, A Person Can Dream
Observed: A teal Toyota Celica GT, CT license plate, with the word "MUSTANG" spray-painted on the rear bumper in burgundy.
My job.
My girl and I went out to find a fax machine this morning, since I needed to send in my timesheet. We went to Staples in Southington and she stood by as I struggled to understand the machine. Two attempts later, it printed out a sheet announcing the number was busy, and we stopped by the cashier to ask for an employment application.
“They’re all online,” the cashier says. “We don’t have any paper copies in the store.”
“We’ll go to the library and fill it out,” I say to my girl, and we leave. I turn right out of the parking lot, thinking it will be faster, but am wrong. I turn on the radio to mask the mild panic coming over me as we get to the Bristol line.
“That’s an elevator tower,” I tell her, pointing to the Otis Elevator building. “They build elevators there.” But the knowledge doesn’t help me to know where we are. Eventually, I figure, we’ll have to get to Route 6 or 72, and I can get to where we’re going from there.
We do, and I do, and we stop at the library to check our email. She opens an email I sent her last week, and turns to me.
“How do I write back?” she asks, and I point out the “reply.”
When she’s finished writing, she tells me to check my email, but her reply hasn’t arrived yet. We leave for a different library, one with a pay-by-page fax machine.
“Let’s go for a walk first,” she says when we arrive, remembering that I had said we would start out by walking when she got into the car this morning. This is significant—it means that whichever personality had been listening to my morning itinerary had resurfaced, and was willing, even eager, to listen.
My girl has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) and Schitzoaffective Disorder, meaning that she cycles through personalities, and talks to people who aren’t there. It’s a difficult and, I think, atypical combination. The medications she takes slur her speech and cause her to drool, a fact which frustrates her, since she can still understand what it was like before. She remembers when people could understand her, read her writing, relate; I struggle to hear the first time but find myself asking “What was that?” more often that she’d like. Still, when her pleasant selves are out, she is patient and even affectionate. Today she has only ignored me once, and I can usually snap her out of this behavior by saying her given name.
Every moment is new for her. We walk for twenty minutes, and I can repeat myself four times without her noticing. I make sure to point out where we are and what we’re doing every five minutes or so, to keep her oriented; I can’t tell when she’s switched, and she most often replies with “Oh—I didn’t know that!” or “I forgot,” the hallmarks of what I think are two separate personalities.
I am talking to myself as we walk, whispering, as though having a conversation with someone who’s not there. I catch myself doing it and half-laugh. This is a good sign. It means I am comfortable. But it reminds me of what Josh, another job coach, said of a male client I used to work with: “He’s crazy, you know that, right? He’s absolutely nuts. He talks to himself, making those little noises? That’s not the Touretts.” I had let this slide by without comment, declining to admit to my own one-sided rambling.
My girl is walking beside me, her arm slipped through the crook of my elbow. We reach the corner and a dump truck rumbles by, a yard from where we stand. Her grip tightens like a blood pressure cuff around my arm; I feel both protective and protected.
“You’re my best friend,” she says. “I know sometimes we get on each other’s nerves, but you’re my best friend.”
“Everyone gets on each other’s nerves sometimes,” I say.
“I get on your nerves sometimes?”
“Only when you’re ignoring me. That’s frustrating.”
“Yeah, see. I get on your nerves. You look young.”
“I’m older than you,” I say.
“You’re in your twenties?”
“Yes.”
“See? You’re younger.”
“No, I’m at least three years older than you. You’re in your twenties, too.”
“Oh, yeah. I want your job,” she says.
“You want my job? Taking yourself around every day?”
“Yeah, it would be kind of fun. Going to the park, to the mall…No smoking, though. I saw a show on TV about smoking yesterday. Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t start.”
“I won’t. You can get diseases from smoking.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” she says.
We return to the library, I fax my timesheet, and she eats her lunch. I check for the email.
“Nothing yet,” I say. “How was your lunch?”
She gives me the thumbs up, one purple-painted fingernail bending backward, farther than mine could go. I had asked her why she painted only one hand, and she had said she couldn’t do the other hand; I neglect to ask why one of her “friends” didn’t help. It’s best never to acknowledge their existence—or non-existence. Instead, when she speaks to them, I step into the space where they stand and ask her a question. More often than not, this works. Today, as most days when we are alone and job-hunting, her friends do not come out.
She gets up and chooses a magazine, then sits in the comfortable chairs that make up the reading area at this library. I can see that she’s falling asleep but will let her, for now.
We will look up the Staples online application later, and I am hoping that it does not include the personality test that CVS’s application did. It was twenty pages long, and impossible to decide what to put for each question: Should I answer for her? For which version of her? Could she understand the consequences of answering inconsistently, insufficiently, without an awareness of being judged? They’ll never call her back, if the test is worth anything as an indicator of mental disorder. Frustrating.
What we really need is a Flowers for Algernon-type situation — a mom-and-pop shop that will take her on out of loyalty and personal interest, where she can be herselves. What we’ll most likely get is a placement in a corporation required by law to hire a certain percentage of disabled employees. She’ll come up against the inflexible rules of these types of companies and be let go, in the end, though with the kind of corporate regret that always accompanies firing someone who might consider suing.
And we’ll be here, doing this, again.
“They’re all online,” the cashier says. “We don’t have any paper copies in the store.”
“We’ll go to the library and fill it out,” I say to my girl, and we leave. I turn right out of the parking lot, thinking it will be faster, but am wrong. I turn on the radio to mask the mild panic coming over me as we get to the Bristol line.
“That’s an elevator tower,” I tell her, pointing to the Otis Elevator building. “They build elevators there.” But the knowledge doesn’t help me to know where we are. Eventually, I figure, we’ll have to get to Route 6 or 72, and I can get to where we’re going from there.
We do, and I do, and we stop at the library to check our email. She opens an email I sent her last week, and turns to me.
“How do I write back?” she asks, and I point out the “reply.”
When she’s finished writing, she tells me to check my email, but her reply hasn’t arrived yet. We leave for a different library, one with a pay-by-page fax machine.
“Let’s go for a walk first,” she says when we arrive, remembering that I had said we would start out by walking when she got into the car this morning. This is significant—it means that whichever personality had been listening to my morning itinerary had resurfaced, and was willing, even eager, to listen.
My girl has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) and Schitzoaffective Disorder, meaning that she cycles through personalities, and talks to people who aren’t there. It’s a difficult and, I think, atypical combination. The medications she takes slur her speech and cause her to drool, a fact which frustrates her, since she can still understand what it was like before. She remembers when people could understand her, read her writing, relate; I struggle to hear the first time but find myself asking “What was that?” more often that she’d like. Still, when her pleasant selves are out, she is patient and even affectionate. Today she has only ignored me once, and I can usually snap her out of this behavior by saying her given name.
Every moment is new for her. We walk for twenty minutes, and I can repeat myself four times without her noticing. I make sure to point out where we are and what we’re doing every five minutes or so, to keep her oriented; I can’t tell when she’s switched, and she most often replies with “Oh—I didn’t know that!” or “I forgot,” the hallmarks of what I think are two separate personalities.
I am talking to myself as we walk, whispering, as though having a conversation with someone who’s not there. I catch myself doing it and half-laugh. This is a good sign. It means I am comfortable. But it reminds me of what Josh, another job coach, said of a male client I used to work with: “He’s crazy, you know that, right? He’s absolutely nuts. He talks to himself, making those little noises? That’s not the Touretts.” I had let this slide by without comment, declining to admit to my own one-sided rambling.
My girl is walking beside me, her arm slipped through the crook of my elbow. We reach the corner and a dump truck rumbles by, a yard from where we stand. Her grip tightens like a blood pressure cuff around my arm; I feel both protective and protected.
“You’re my best friend,” she says. “I know sometimes we get on each other’s nerves, but you’re my best friend.”
“Everyone gets on each other’s nerves sometimes,” I say.
“I get on your nerves sometimes?”
“Only when you’re ignoring me. That’s frustrating.”
“Yeah, see. I get on your nerves. You look young.”
“I’m older than you,” I say.
“You’re in your twenties?”
“Yes.”
“See? You’re younger.”
“No, I’m at least three years older than you. You’re in your twenties, too.”
“Oh, yeah. I want your job,” she says.
“You want my job? Taking yourself around every day?”
“Yeah, it would be kind of fun. Going to the park, to the mall…No smoking, though. I saw a show on TV about smoking yesterday. Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t start.”
“I won’t. You can get diseases from smoking.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” she says.
We return to the library, I fax my timesheet, and she eats her lunch. I check for the email.
“Nothing yet,” I say. “How was your lunch?”
She gives me the thumbs up, one purple-painted fingernail bending backward, farther than mine could go. I had asked her why she painted only one hand, and she had said she couldn’t do the other hand; I neglect to ask why one of her “friends” didn’t help. It’s best never to acknowledge their existence—or non-existence. Instead, when she speaks to them, I step into the space where they stand and ask her a question. More often than not, this works. Today, as most days when we are alone and job-hunting, her friends do not come out.
She gets up and chooses a magazine, then sits in the comfortable chairs that make up the reading area at this library. I can see that she’s falling asleep but will let her, for now.
We will look up the Staples online application later, and I am hoping that it does not include the personality test that CVS’s application did. It was twenty pages long, and impossible to decide what to put for each question: Should I answer for her? For which version of her? Could she understand the consequences of answering inconsistently, insufficiently, without an awareness of being judged? They’ll never call her back, if the test is worth anything as an indicator of mental disorder. Frustrating.
What we really need is a Flowers for Algernon-type situation — a mom-and-pop shop that will take her on out of loyalty and personal interest, where she can be herselves. What we’ll most likely get is a placement in a corporation required by law to hire a certain percentage of disabled employees. She’ll come up against the inflexible rules of these types of companies and be let go, in the end, though with the kind of corporate regret that always accompanies firing someone who might consider suing.
And we’ll be here, doing this, again.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Every Breath You Take (I've Been Watching You)
I am cyber-stalking you, and I know all your secrets.
(Unless you’re someone I’ve never met, in which case, welcome to my blog.)
I found your secret other family in Nashua, and photos of that time you sacrificed 14 Guatemalan children to the Incan sun god, for instance.
Wait to hear from me, re: instructions for bribe drop-off.
But seriously, I did a bunch of practice runs for internet research I plan on attempting, a few weeks ago. First I looked up those of you I know by sight online, but that was too easy; I moved on to people I didn’t know as well, and though it was indeed more difficult and thus theoretically more helpful, the whole process of stalking-people-for-practice left me feeling embarrassed—so much so that I didn’t tell anyone that I had done it. (Until now.)
It has occurred to me recently that though “practice stalking” is a worthless and dorky activity, enlisting help in finding the actual information that I want, may not be. So I’m going to tell you what I’m looking for, and if you have interest in solving my mystery, you can help directly instead of being the unwitting victims of my research. (Except for the ones with the secret family and the Guatemalan sacrifices. You still owe me hush money.)
Like everyone, I have a father. Like many people, I don’t know much of anything about him; I last saw him twenty years ago, in Baltimore, in one of two lifetime visits, where I also met my paternal grandmother (didn’t like her much) and great-grandmother (loved her—lots of cats, and the same birthday as me…but she was 78 at the time, so is probably not still living).
My father, whose name is Thomas W. Magaha (I think his middle name might be “Wilton”), married another woman and had two other daughters after me, named Deana and Rachel. (I can’t guarantee the spelling of “Deana.”) I don’t know the name of the woman he married—he was never married to my mom, and my last name is her maiden name, which I’ve always thought was a nice little matriarchal twist. There’s no telling whether his ex-wife would have taken his last name or not, or whether they were even ever officially married. The only thing I know about my father is that he chewed tobacco, though what good this information will do or whether it’s even still accurate or not, I can’t guess.
I would like to know something about these people, but without necessarily contacting them.
If you come up with anything, let me know.
(Unless you’re someone I’ve never met, in which case, welcome to my blog.)
I found your secret other family in Nashua, and photos of that time you sacrificed 14 Guatemalan children to the Incan sun god, for instance.
Wait to hear from me, re: instructions for bribe drop-off.
But seriously, I did a bunch of practice runs for internet research I plan on attempting, a few weeks ago. First I looked up those of you I know by sight online, but that was too easy; I moved on to people I didn’t know as well, and though it was indeed more difficult and thus theoretically more helpful, the whole process of stalking-people-for-practice left me feeling embarrassed—so much so that I didn’t tell anyone that I had done it. (Until now.)
It has occurred to me recently that though “practice stalking” is a worthless and dorky activity, enlisting help in finding the actual information that I want, may not be. So I’m going to tell you what I’m looking for, and if you have interest in solving my mystery, you can help directly instead of being the unwitting victims of my research. (Except for the ones with the secret family and the Guatemalan sacrifices. You still owe me hush money.)
Like everyone, I have a father. Like many people, I don’t know much of anything about him; I last saw him twenty years ago, in Baltimore, in one of two lifetime visits, where I also met my paternal grandmother (didn’t like her much) and great-grandmother (loved her—lots of cats, and the same birthday as me…but she was 78 at the time, so is probably not still living).
My father, whose name is Thomas W. Magaha (I think his middle name might be “Wilton”), married another woman and had two other daughters after me, named Deana and Rachel. (I can’t guarantee the spelling of “Deana.”) I don’t know the name of the woman he married—he was never married to my mom, and my last name is her maiden name, which I’ve always thought was a nice little matriarchal twist. There’s no telling whether his ex-wife would have taken his last name or not, or whether they were even ever officially married. The only thing I know about my father is that he chewed tobacco, though what good this information will do or whether it’s even still accurate or not, I can’t guess.
I would like to know something about these people, but without necessarily contacting them.
If you come up with anything, let me know.
Cheryl Eubitch
As I watched out of my third-floor window in Columbia Heights, Washington DC, July, approximately 1 a.m.:
Young woman, maybe mid-20s, shrieking out third floor window: Cheryl! Cheryl, you bitch! Cheryl, go away!
Another young woman, presumably Cheryl, stands just off the curb in the street, waiting.
YW: Cheryl, I told you to go!
Cheryl stands there, steps up onto the curb.
YW leaves window, curtains flailing behind her, and appears in first floor doorway.
YW: Cheryl, I told you to go! [Attempting to get a hold of herself, but speaking loudly through gritted teeth] Cheryl. We all talked about this. You have all of your stuff. It’s right here. [Gestures to piles of stuff on porch]
Cheryl says something too quiet to hear.
YW: No, you can’t come in. This is all your stuff. Cheryl! You’re unbelievable! You aren’t coming in!
Cheryl stands on sidewalk, says something too quiet to hear.
YW: Cheryl, you’re such a bitch! You bitch! No! No, you can’t come in! This is all your stuff, Cheryl! It’s right here! [Kicks blanket]
Cheryl puts a hand on chain-link fence, says something too quiet to hear.
YW: CHERYL! GO AWAY! HERE’S YOUR STUFF!
YW picks up blankets and throws them over the side of the porch, into the bushes.
YW: HERE’S YOUR STUFF!
YW throws a box out into the front yard. Cheryl takes a few steps down the street, puts her hand to the top of her head, says something too quiet to hear.
YW: CHERYL! YOU BITCH! GO AWAY! THIS IS ALL YOUR STUFF! THERE ISN’T ANY MORE!
Cheryl begins to walk away, down the street.
YW slams door, appears again in third floor window: DON’T YOU COME BACK, YOU BITCH! THAT’S ALL YOUR STUFF! [Slams window.]
Young woman, maybe mid-20s, shrieking out third floor window: Cheryl! Cheryl, you bitch! Cheryl, go away!
Another young woman, presumably Cheryl, stands just off the curb in the street, waiting.
YW: Cheryl, I told you to go!
Cheryl stands there, steps up onto the curb.
YW leaves window, curtains flailing behind her, and appears in first floor doorway.
YW: Cheryl, I told you to go! [Attempting to get a hold of herself, but speaking loudly through gritted teeth] Cheryl. We all talked about this. You have all of your stuff. It’s right here. [Gestures to piles of stuff on porch]
Cheryl says something too quiet to hear.
YW: No, you can’t come in. This is all your stuff. Cheryl! You’re unbelievable! You aren’t coming in!
Cheryl stands on sidewalk, says something too quiet to hear.
YW: Cheryl, you’re such a bitch! You bitch! No! No, you can’t come in! This is all your stuff, Cheryl! It’s right here! [Kicks blanket]
Cheryl puts a hand on chain-link fence, says something too quiet to hear.
YW: CHERYL! GO AWAY! HERE’S YOUR STUFF!
YW picks up blankets and throws them over the side of the porch, into the bushes.
YW: HERE’S YOUR STUFF!
YW throws a box out into the front yard. Cheryl takes a few steps down the street, puts her hand to the top of her head, says something too quiet to hear.
YW: CHERYL! YOU BITCH! GO AWAY! THIS IS ALL YOUR STUFF! THERE ISN’T ANY MORE!
Cheryl begins to walk away, down the street.
YW slams door, appears again in third floor window: DON’T YOU COME BACK, YOU BITCH! THAT’S ALL YOUR STUFF! [Slams window.]
President Bush: God's Choice
Evangelicals have been claiming since day one of our current commander in chief’s presidency—and even before—that President George W. Bush is God’s choice for the U.S. Are they right? Let’s look at the evidence.
Evangelicals spoke up loudly when the vote recount went on for week after week in 2000, praying and saying that Bush would sit in the White House come Jan. 20, 2001. They cheered just as loudly when the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision—especially significant because the ability to make it was apparently self-bestowed—declared George W. Bush the winner. Surely, God was listening.
Finally, a president for us, they thought. Now we can stop being persecuted and get on with living godly lives. And they went home and dusted off their fetus-picture placards and “God Hates Fags” signs, ready to go back to work.
It seemed, then, that the evangelicals and fundamentalists left the presiding to the president, content to let him, and those fat cats down in Washington, worry about the running of the country and the world. President Bush took vacations. (But that made sense, because who didn’t love Texas?)
Then Sept. 11 arrived, freaking everyone out, not least of all the evangelicals. Jerry Falwell commented on the legacy of feminism, among other factors, that led to the fall of the towers. Evangelical leaders decried the immorality of the country and the evil religion of Islam. Suddenly there was a lot more shouting to be done, and a lot more finger-pointing. When they weren’t busy consuming, consuming, consuming (because otherwise, the terrorists would win), evangelicals took on many of the responsibilities of assigning blame. The rest of the country huddled together in fear and shock.
Through it all, President Bush was the man of the hour. Even Democrats had to agree that in a time of crisis, President Bush gave a pretty good speech.
And from a pulpit, no less, thought the evangelicals.
This was sweet, sweet vindication. President Bush, faced with a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, had risen to the occasion and proven God right. Surely everyone would see that.
Time passed, and Al Qaeda operatives were still at large. The war in Afghanistan began and ended. President Bush, God’s choice, told the U.S. that war with Iraq was necessary, and evangelicals backed him. Saddam Hussein was found and executed. Still, the war went on.
President Bush continued to prove God right. Surely, surely everyone was seeing that.
In the meantime, Democrats complained about the environment (Bush refused to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and wanted to drill in ANWR), the reliance on oil (cars run less efficiently in the U.S. than in China, and Republicans resist legislation requiring minimum mpg for even the largest SUVs), the economy (a record deficit replaced the surplus from the end of the Clinton era), taxes (decreased for the rich), education (No Child Left Behind creating only paperwork, not progress), the erosion of freedoms (the Patriot Act apparently allowing phone-tapping of citizens, gag-ordering of presidential aids, and waterboarding of prisoners) and the United States’ global image (international goodwill destroyed by unilateral action in Iraq on the basis of bad intelligence contradicted by that of the UN). They just couldn’t stop complaining, it seemed. What was their problem?
Americans re-elected Bush, anyway.
Then economists began to use the “R” word. Consuming was no longer the answer it had seemed to be—it wasn’t helping. And there was other evidence that the terrorists were winning. Americans were still getting killed in Iraq, being underinsured, and worrying about what to do in their old age. Maybe the Democrats had a point.
The evangelicals thought back to the time they had asked God for a leader, and remembered how they had received Bush.
Surely, they thought, concern beginning to furrow their brows, surely Bush was God’s choice?
Judge for yourself:
I Samuel 8:4-5, 10-19, 22
“So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel [the prophet] at Ramah. They said to him… ‘now appoint us a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’”
“Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.’
But the people refused to listen to Samuel.”
“The Lord answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king.’”
Evangelicals spoke up loudly when the vote recount went on for week after week in 2000, praying and saying that Bush would sit in the White House come Jan. 20, 2001. They cheered just as loudly when the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision—especially significant because the ability to make it was apparently self-bestowed—declared George W. Bush the winner. Surely, God was listening.
Finally, a president for us, they thought. Now we can stop being persecuted and get on with living godly lives. And they went home and dusted off their fetus-picture placards and “God Hates Fags” signs, ready to go back to work.
It seemed, then, that the evangelicals and fundamentalists left the presiding to the president, content to let him, and those fat cats down in Washington, worry about the running of the country and the world. President Bush took vacations. (But that made sense, because who didn’t love Texas?)
Then Sept. 11 arrived, freaking everyone out, not least of all the evangelicals. Jerry Falwell commented on the legacy of feminism, among other factors, that led to the fall of the towers. Evangelical leaders decried the immorality of the country and the evil religion of Islam. Suddenly there was a lot more shouting to be done, and a lot more finger-pointing. When they weren’t busy consuming, consuming, consuming (because otherwise, the terrorists would win), evangelicals took on many of the responsibilities of assigning blame. The rest of the country huddled together in fear and shock.
Through it all, President Bush was the man of the hour. Even Democrats had to agree that in a time of crisis, President Bush gave a pretty good speech.
And from a pulpit, no less, thought the evangelicals.
This was sweet, sweet vindication. President Bush, faced with a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, had risen to the occasion and proven God right. Surely everyone would see that.
Time passed, and Al Qaeda operatives were still at large. The war in Afghanistan began and ended. President Bush, God’s choice, told the U.S. that war with Iraq was necessary, and evangelicals backed him. Saddam Hussein was found and executed. Still, the war went on.
President Bush continued to prove God right. Surely, surely everyone was seeing that.
In the meantime, Democrats complained about the environment (Bush refused to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and wanted to drill in ANWR), the reliance on oil (cars run less efficiently in the U.S. than in China, and Republicans resist legislation requiring minimum mpg for even the largest SUVs), the economy (a record deficit replaced the surplus from the end of the Clinton era), taxes (decreased for the rich), education (No Child Left Behind creating only paperwork, not progress), the erosion of freedoms (the Patriot Act apparently allowing phone-tapping of citizens, gag-ordering of presidential aids, and waterboarding of prisoners) and the United States’ global image (international goodwill destroyed by unilateral action in Iraq on the basis of bad intelligence contradicted by that of the UN). They just couldn’t stop complaining, it seemed. What was their problem?
Americans re-elected Bush, anyway.
Then economists began to use the “R” word. Consuming was no longer the answer it had seemed to be—it wasn’t helping. And there was other evidence that the terrorists were winning. Americans were still getting killed in Iraq, being underinsured, and worrying about what to do in their old age. Maybe the Democrats had a point.
The evangelicals thought back to the time they had asked God for a leader, and remembered how they had received Bush.
Surely, they thought, concern beginning to furrow their brows, surely Bush was God’s choice?
Judge for yourself:
I Samuel 8:4-5, 10-19, 22
“So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel [the prophet] at Ramah. They said to him… ‘now appoint us a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’”
“Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.’
But the people refused to listen to Samuel.”
“The Lord answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king.’”
The Art of Shame
I am home, after breakfast out with my mother and brother, because it is her birthday. The dread I had felt before—because our last phone conversation had been cut short by her sullen “Fine, whatever,” when I had said I didn’t know when I’d be stopping by next, and because her sullenness wears off of her but not off of me—dissipated during the pleasant breakfast, only to be replaced by a new one.
My grandmother went last week to be with her nephew, who tried to commit suicide for the third time on Valentine’s Day. His wife is leaving him and he can’t imagine his life without her. She wanted to pray the demons of death away from him, she said, but wasn’t sure what responsibility he would have to keep them away—if they came back, they would return with seven more, according to Scripture. She called the pastor to find out. I didn’t listen for the answer.
Grandpa is home by himself this week, as he was last week. He’s nearing eighty, nearing the point when his irritation seems more confused and irrational and his head for numbers has begun failing him. I save him a seat in church every week, finding this the only connection we can establish—the only connection we’ve ever established. I should go sit with him, this lonely week especially; I should be leaving right now.
I can’t. I can’t wish to go. I can’t wish to sit and sing and listen, though these are my family. Even for my family, I can’t go.
I sit until the time the service starts, in my apartment, justifying myself to a god I know must have been an invention. I can’t do this, either. I get up, collect my things, and go to the car.
Anyway, Mom will be watching out the window of her house a block away, waiting to see my blue Geo pass by and turn left. Sometimes she calls me just to see where I’m going.
It would be an offense to avoid her on her birthday, and the gift I ordered didn’t come on time, so I’m already one behind on her internal scorecard. Church is a reason to be away from her, something she accepted about me a long time ago, and I can’t spend time with her now; I’m too pensive, too inward, and this is something she has never accepted. My week has been spent in this state, thoughtfully, and I have relished time spent away from requirements.
Today is a day of requirements. I start my car and pull out.
Maybe I will go somewhere else, I think. Maybe I’ll stop and never make it to church. I’ll tell Grandpa I went to a different service, or that it was Mom’s birthday. Mom will think I went to church. I’ll stay hidden, safe. I’ll be myself, not responsible for anyone else.
I sigh.
I pull onto West Main St, hoping to be brave enough to pull into the Starbucks near the strip mall, though I hate Starbucks. I prepare to turn, but can’t—perhaps I can go somewhere else, take a walk or a hike or go to the park, so I continue.
At the intersection where I must turn to get to church, I do, exhaling in frustration. Grandpa might be at the service already. He might be trying to save me a seat. I can’t stand to think about this.
I try to turn away but fail, and arrive at the parking lot of the sprawling contemporary warehouse-style building that used to be a New England brick Swedish Baptist church.
If there are no parking spaces, I don’t have to stay. I bargain with god and myself as I always have, superstitious because of guilt.
I pull around the first leg of the parking lot, seeing a half-space where snow had been pushed back, but not enough. God can’t expect me to park in that: so far, so good.
Around the corner, there’s a space right near the front.
Shit, I think, but don’t pull in.
I go around to the front of the building, thinking to look for Grandpa’s car. He may have gone to the earlier service, actually, leaving me almost completely guilt-free. There’s another space right at the front.
Shit.
But I don’t pull in, again, and I don’t pull into a third one. As I am turning out of the parking lot, I see what I think might be Grandpa’s car in my side mirror.
Fuck. But I don’t turn around. I turn out, away, others pulling in, probably assuming that I had gone to the earlier service. This is important to me, that they think so. It is important that they not know.
Maybe I don’t hate secrets. Maybe I just have too many of them to keep, I think.
I drive toward Berlin center, thinking the library might open at noon on Sundays, that I might sit there until church would be over. It doesn’t open until 1, and it’s only 11:30 now. I turn around, though I wish I were driving away, anywhere flat and clear and fast—toward Pennsylvania, maybe, and past, into the plains, Nebraska, Utah. But I have work tomorrow, and it’s my mother’s birthday, and anyway, I don’t have the money for that sort of thing. I drive into New Britain.
I pass the road that would have taken me over the hill we rode the wagon down, when it was just me and Mom and one brother and we walked from our house to Laura’s in Newington. I pass the funeral parlor that had outraged me as a child, because it replaced a stand of trees that had punctuated the gas stations and auto-body shops of South Main St. I pass the Tae Kwon Do studio where my then-best-friend Kelly had taken classes and earned bruises that I envied. I pass Buell St., the first place I can remember living—number 49, third floor—where our Polish landlord would give us maroon-dyed eggs for Easter, which we would hide in the bottom of our baskets. I am driving toward the center of town, hoping to be soothed by the echoes of how I used to feel and be but knowing I will not find what I’m looking for. I turn away before I can be proven right.
As I pull onto the highway, headed back home, it occurs to me that I had never decided to go to church or not to go; I only drifted, struggling with myself until it was too late to decide anything.
How many decisions have I avoided?
I decide to go to the Starbucks in Southington.
I order a “large hot chocolate,” a small rebellion against the ubiquitous, commercial presence of a coffeeshop that warps people’s language into “tall, grande, and venti.” This is not enough to justify my presence here, but corporate guilt is familiar to me, and comfortingly universal. I will not use their internet—I will go to the Southington library and sit upstairs, at the table where the strange girls accosted me. I will stay for one hour, maybe one and a half, and I will purge myself of this wounded self-immolation.
I will buy my mother a pre-made birthday cake that will have to defrost for an hour, and I will return to her house as my youngest brother gets off work.
This will be your spiritual act of worship.
I will call my grandfather and explain that I did not go to church, and ask how he is. He will tell me about coupons he’s clipped and meals he’s eaten with male friends over the week, and give me the update on Grandma and her nephew, and he will kindly end the conversation after less than ten minutes.
This will be your reasonable act of worship.
I will love other things more than certainty and shame. I am trying. I will try.
My grandmother went last week to be with her nephew, who tried to commit suicide for the third time on Valentine’s Day. His wife is leaving him and he can’t imagine his life without her. She wanted to pray the demons of death away from him, she said, but wasn’t sure what responsibility he would have to keep them away—if they came back, they would return with seven more, according to Scripture. She called the pastor to find out. I didn’t listen for the answer.
Grandpa is home by himself this week, as he was last week. He’s nearing eighty, nearing the point when his irritation seems more confused and irrational and his head for numbers has begun failing him. I save him a seat in church every week, finding this the only connection we can establish—the only connection we’ve ever established. I should go sit with him, this lonely week especially; I should be leaving right now.
I can’t. I can’t wish to go. I can’t wish to sit and sing and listen, though these are my family. Even for my family, I can’t go.
I sit until the time the service starts, in my apartment, justifying myself to a god I know must have been an invention. I can’t do this, either. I get up, collect my things, and go to the car.
Anyway, Mom will be watching out the window of her house a block away, waiting to see my blue Geo pass by and turn left. Sometimes she calls me just to see where I’m going.
It would be an offense to avoid her on her birthday, and the gift I ordered didn’t come on time, so I’m already one behind on her internal scorecard. Church is a reason to be away from her, something she accepted about me a long time ago, and I can’t spend time with her now; I’m too pensive, too inward, and this is something she has never accepted. My week has been spent in this state, thoughtfully, and I have relished time spent away from requirements.
Today is a day of requirements. I start my car and pull out.
Maybe I will go somewhere else, I think. Maybe I’ll stop and never make it to church. I’ll tell Grandpa I went to a different service, or that it was Mom’s birthday. Mom will think I went to church. I’ll stay hidden, safe. I’ll be myself, not responsible for anyone else.
I sigh.
I pull onto West Main St, hoping to be brave enough to pull into the Starbucks near the strip mall, though I hate Starbucks. I prepare to turn, but can’t—perhaps I can go somewhere else, take a walk or a hike or go to the park, so I continue.
At the intersection where I must turn to get to church, I do, exhaling in frustration. Grandpa might be at the service already. He might be trying to save me a seat. I can’t stand to think about this.
I try to turn away but fail, and arrive at the parking lot of the sprawling contemporary warehouse-style building that used to be a New England brick Swedish Baptist church.
If there are no parking spaces, I don’t have to stay. I bargain with god and myself as I always have, superstitious because of guilt.
I pull around the first leg of the parking lot, seeing a half-space where snow had been pushed back, but not enough. God can’t expect me to park in that: so far, so good.
Around the corner, there’s a space right near the front.
Shit, I think, but don’t pull in.
I go around to the front of the building, thinking to look for Grandpa’s car. He may have gone to the earlier service, actually, leaving me almost completely guilt-free. There’s another space right at the front.
Shit.
But I don’t pull in, again, and I don’t pull into a third one. As I am turning out of the parking lot, I see what I think might be Grandpa’s car in my side mirror.
Fuck. But I don’t turn around. I turn out, away, others pulling in, probably assuming that I had gone to the earlier service. This is important to me, that they think so. It is important that they not know.
Maybe I don’t hate secrets. Maybe I just have too many of them to keep, I think.
I drive toward Berlin center, thinking the library might open at noon on Sundays, that I might sit there until church would be over. It doesn’t open until 1, and it’s only 11:30 now. I turn around, though I wish I were driving away, anywhere flat and clear and fast—toward Pennsylvania, maybe, and past, into the plains, Nebraska, Utah. But I have work tomorrow, and it’s my mother’s birthday, and anyway, I don’t have the money for that sort of thing. I drive into New Britain.
I pass the road that would have taken me over the hill we rode the wagon down, when it was just me and Mom and one brother and we walked from our house to Laura’s in Newington. I pass the funeral parlor that had outraged me as a child, because it replaced a stand of trees that had punctuated the gas stations and auto-body shops of South Main St. I pass the Tae Kwon Do studio where my then-best-friend Kelly had taken classes and earned bruises that I envied. I pass Buell St., the first place I can remember living—number 49, third floor—where our Polish landlord would give us maroon-dyed eggs for Easter, which we would hide in the bottom of our baskets. I am driving toward the center of town, hoping to be soothed by the echoes of how I used to feel and be but knowing I will not find what I’m looking for. I turn away before I can be proven right.
As I pull onto the highway, headed back home, it occurs to me that I had never decided to go to church or not to go; I only drifted, struggling with myself until it was too late to decide anything.
How many decisions have I avoided?
I decide to go to the Starbucks in Southington.
I order a “large hot chocolate,” a small rebellion against the ubiquitous, commercial presence of a coffeeshop that warps people’s language into “tall, grande, and venti.” This is not enough to justify my presence here, but corporate guilt is familiar to me, and comfortingly universal. I will not use their internet—I will go to the Southington library and sit upstairs, at the table where the strange girls accosted me. I will stay for one hour, maybe one and a half, and I will purge myself of this wounded self-immolation.
I will buy my mother a pre-made birthday cake that will have to defrost for an hour, and I will return to her house as my youngest brother gets off work.
This will be your spiritual act of worship.
I will call my grandfather and explain that I did not go to church, and ask how he is. He will tell me about coupons he’s clipped and meals he’s eaten with male friends over the week, and give me the update on Grandma and her nephew, and he will kindly end the conversation after less than ten minutes.
This will be your reasonable act of worship.
I will love other things more than certainty and shame. I am trying. I will try.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
DEAR ABBY: "Take a Hint, Dammit!"
“For an excellent guide to becoming a better conversationalist and a more attractive person, order 'How to Be Popular.' Send a business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $6 to: Dear Abby Popularity Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447.”
Ed Psych
There are two ways to learn something new:
1. Books/classes
2. Immersion/obsession
I choose obsession.
Obsession is not for everyone. Luckily, I have a natural gift for focus, drive, and physical insensitivity to awkward sitting positions.
I have no corresponding gift for balance—of anything. I am clumsy (and in fact, despite years of hurling myself to the floor in gym class, have never successfully completed a cartwheel). I tend to choose a topic or author or director and then talk about/read/watch only that thing.
This is occasionally obscured by my rapidly rotating through topics/authors/directors, which makes me appear to be more balanced than I probably am. It is also punctuated by periods of what I described in “Apoplectic, anorectic” (but don’t bother reading it—it’s not that good), in which I completely lose interest or investment in something that should be necessary or good: like eating, or reading anything at all, or watching movies or TV, or work of any kind. I’m pretty sure I’d be on jihad right now if it weren’t for that natural circuit-breaker.
But there’s this point in obsession, when you’ve absorbed all you can of whatever the topic or activity, when you can break through into understanding; the whole world snaps into place, somehow. It happened to me in China, after two months of not understanding a word of what the Chinese were saying to me…suddenly, I understood everything. It wasn’t because I had been studying. It was because I had been saturated with the everyday movements, gestures, laughter and doubt and way-of-being of the people, and my point of view had shifted. I could understand them even without vocabulary or grammar; I felt I could understand their way of thinking.
It was as dramatic as when the optometrist clicks the next lens into place and asks “Okay, one…or two? One…or two?” and your prescription is finally, literally, clarified.
I heard myself respond to questions I couldn't understand with words I didn't know I knew. I had to translate into English based on how I had responded to the question in Chinese, to get back to what the original question had been. Often, I would have entire conversations with shopkeepers or waitresses or hairdressers and later realize that I could not explain to other Americans what we had talked about because I didn't know the individual meanings of words -- only the meaning intended to be conveyed. I could not remember whether films I watched had been subtitled or dubbed, my memory of the content was so vivid. It was as though I were learning a new mother-tongue.
This perspective-shift can happen with book-learning, and I’ve experienced it with a particularly good book’s explanation of principles or characters or an especially revelatory scene in a movie — but it feels less then like I’m changing, and more like my understanding has changed.
Still, this is how I teach, or how I try to teach and learn: to the break-through point, not to a test. Tests are worthless -- I think most teachers would agree -- and in a perfect world, they would do nothing but distract us all from the business of learning. As it is, I can count on my hands the number of historical facts I learned in twelve years of public school: The Magna Carta was signed in 1215; Chief Pontiac of the Ottawas was indirectly responsible for the Proclamation of 1763; Kay invented the flying shuttle in 1733; the Bismarckian system of alliances is unfathomably complex; forty percent of British went to the movies twice a week in the 1940's.
I learned differently in China. I learned a lot more.
My second year in China, while in the lao cheng (Old City) in Yinchuan with my best Chinese friends — three girls, my students — I walked ahead, breaking through the crowd as we aimed for another large market, and I noticed that people were staring as they passed us. I turned around, trying to discover what was fascinating them, and looked for a second before understanding dawned: They were looking at me, a foreigner (with huang se tou fa, “yellow hair,” freckles and blue eyes). I laughed and said to my girls “Sometimes I forget that I’m a lao wai ('foreigner').”
They looked at me, startled for a second, and I saw understanding hit them the way it had me — they laughed, too.
“Sometimes, we, too” they said. “You are like a Chinese to us. You are just Alicia.”
1. Books/classes
2. Immersion/obsession
I choose obsession.
Obsession is not for everyone. Luckily, I have a natural gift for focus, drive, and physical insensitivity to awkward sitting positions.
I have no corresponding gift for balance—of anything. I am clumsy (and in fact, despite years of hurling myself to the floor in gym class, have never successfully completed a cartwheel). I tend to choose a topic or author or director and then talk about/read/watch only that thing.
This is occasionally obscured by my rapidly rotating through topics/authors/directors, which makes me appear to be more balanced than I probably am. It is also punctuated by periods of what I described in “Apoplectic, anorectic” (but don’t bother reading it—it’s not that good), in which I completely lose interest or investment in something that should be necessary or good: like eating, or reading anything at all, or watching movies or TV, or work of any kind. I’m pretty sure I’d be on jihad right now if it weren’t for that natural circuit-breaker.
But there’s this point in obsession, when you’ve absorbed all you can of whatever the topic or activity, when you can break through into understanding; the whole world snaps into place, somehow. It happened to me in China, after two months of not understanding a word of what the Chinese were saying to me…suddenly, I understood everything. It wasn’t because I had been studying. It was because I had been saturated with the everyday movements, gestures, laughter and doubt and way-of-being of the people, and my point of view had shifted. I could understand them even without vocabulary or grammar; I felt I could understand their way of thinking.
It was as dramatic as when the optometrist clicks the next lens into place and asks “Okay, one…or two? One…or two?” and your prescription is finally, literally, clarified.
I heard myself respond to questions I couldn't understand with words I didn't know I knew. I had to translate into English based on how I had responded to the question in Chinese, to get back to what the original question had been. Often, I would have entire conversations with shopkeepers or waitresses or hairdressers and later realize that I could not explain to other Americans what we had talked about because I didn't know the individual meanings of words -- only the meaning intended to be conveyed. I could not remember whether films I watched had been subtitled or dubbed, my memory of the content was so vivid. It was as though I were learning a new mother-tongue.
This perspective-shift can happen with book-learning, and I’ve experienced it with a particularly good book’s explanation of principles or characters or an especially revelatory scene in a movie — but it feels less then like I’m changing, and more like my understanding has changed.
Still, this is how I teach, or how I try to teach and learn: to the break-through point, not to a test. Tests are worthless -- I think most teachers would agree -- and in a perfect world, they would do nothing but distract us all from the business of learning. As it is, I can count on my hands the number of historical facts I learned in twelve years of public school: The Magna Carta was signed in 1215; Chief Pontiac of the Ottawas was indirectly responsible for the Proclamation of 1763; Kay invented the flying shuttle in 1733; the Bismarckian system of alliances is unfathomably complex; forty percent of British went to the movies twice a week in the 1940's.
I learned differently in China. I learned a lot more.
My second year in China, while in the lao cheng (Old City) in Yinchuan with my best Chinese friends — three girls, my students — I walked ahead, breaking through the crowd as we aimed for another large market, and I noticed that people were staring as they passed us. I turned around, trying to discover what was fascinating them, and looked for a second before understanding dawned: They were looking at me, a foreigner (with huang se tou fa, “yellow hair,” freckles and blue eyes). I laughed and said to my girls “Sometimes I forget that I’m a lao wai ('foreigner').”
They looked at me, startled for a second, and I saw understanding hit them the way it had me — they laughed, too.
“Sometimes, we, too” they said. “You are like a Chinese to us. You are just Alicia.”
In Which I Am an Idiot
In deference to the age of my car, I try to play only music tapes produced before 1995 when traveling; this isn’t difficult, since that’s around the time everyone stopped making cassettes, anyway. Recently I picked up a few tapes at the Goodwill, including the eponymous Collective Soul album, Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, and Peter Gabriel’s So.
If you’ve read my earlier posts, you can probably guess that I’ve been listening to Peter Gabriel lately—in fact, obsessively and manically would be other apt adverbs. I knew practically nothing about Gabriel, personally, before popping this tape into my car stereo, but that doesn’t excuse the level of ignorance to which I’m about to confess.
When I heard “Red Rain,” the first song on the album, my immediate reaction was “Wow, this sounds like something Phil Collins would produce.”
Yeah. It does. Maybe because Peter Gabriel was the frontman for Genesis, Alicia. Maybe because Phil Collins was the Genesis drummer. Maybe that’s why.
At least I heard the link, though—that might count for something when I get to the chic-but-not-too-chic gates of hipness heaven.
Post-script: I can't get over "Red Rain," actually--I keep having to listen to it despite only owning it on tape and being forced to listen on the ugliest, most lazily-assembled "casette personal stereo" on the planet--especially the part at the end where he sings "I'm begging you": I'm like, Peter, you had me at "I cannot make a single sound as you scream."
If you’ve read my earlier posts, you can probably guess that I’ve been listening to Peter Gabriel lately—in fact, obsessively and manically would be other apt adverbs. I knew practically nothing about Gabriel, personally, before popping this tape into my car stereo, but that doesn’t excuse the level of ignorance to which I’m about to confess.
When I heard “Red Rain,” the first song on the album, my immediate reaction was “Wow, this sounds like something Phil Collins would produce.”
Yeah. It does. Maybe because Peter Gabriel was the frontman for Genesis, Alicia. Maybe because Phil Collins was the Genesis drummer. Maybe that’s why.
At least I heard the link, though—that might count for something when I get to the chic-but-not-too-chic gates of hipness heaven.
Post-script: I can't get over "Red Rain," actually--I keep having to listen to it despite only owning it on tape and being forced to listen on the ugliest, most lazily-assembled "casette personal stereo" on the planet--especially the part at the end where he sings "I'm begging you": I'm like, Peter, you had me at "I cannot make a single sound as you scream."
PT Cruisers are among the ugliest cars ever made.
Others include the Honda Element and the Ford Sport Trac.
Movie Review: Oldboy (Korean)
An idiomatic expression whose meaning is revealed in one of the final scenes of the film (so I won’t tell you here), “Oldboy” also causes me to compare the hero of this South Korean flick to old classic-epic heroes: Odysseus, for instance. Oh Dae-su goes through as many challenges before reaching the end of his quest as Odysseus did—with the difference that Oh Dae-su does not come out virtuous and unscathed.
In fact, the main reason this film seems so epic is Oh Dae-su’s driving sense of revenge, fueled by fifteen years of unexplained imprisonment. It isn’t Dae-su’s sense of wronged innocence so much as an outraged confusion that compels him, on his return to the world, to seek out his captor and exact revenge. (That, and a threat by the captor that Dae-su must seek him out.) His motives and his methods are messy. In fact, not much in this movie is “pretty”—but that’s what makes it epic.
In one scene, for instance, shot brilliantly (and digitally, if I’m not mistaken), Dae-su takes on the typical gang of martial artists you’d see in any Bruce Lee movie. Normally, the staging of this scene would have our hero in the center with a circle of bad guys surrounding him, waiting their turns to attack, and the hero would dispatch each with efficient ease, barely breaking a sweat (or, if so, breaking a sexy sweat that causes chest muscles to glisten and gleam, etc). Dae-su, however, is in a narrow hallway, and has enemies coming at him from both sides; he fights desperately, as though he has nothing to lose; he is stabbed, but barely acknowledges it. Sweat flies everywhere, and Dae-su has to take a second to breathe in between wild kicks and punches he likely invented himself. It is as difficult to turn away from this scene as the ones in which Daniel Day-Lewis wields a butcher’s knife in Gangs of New York, with the difference that you really don’t want to.
Oldboy is an almost unceasingly brutal movie, and in the end, it is revealed to be even more brutal than you had thought.
What saves this movie from being only sickening, blood-spattered Jerry Springer-type material are the efforts of the director and director of photography. The hallway scene, for instance, is shot as though a cross-section had been done of the hall; this allows us to see all the action, but keeps us out of it at the same time. We are voyeurs, not participants—and by this point (unlike on an episode of Jerry Springer), we sympathize with Dae-su. We can be drawn into the action without being overwhelmed or threatened by it. The movie also uses a framing device that allows us to enter and exit the story conclusively (though confusingly, in the first viewing).
Still, the end is sickening. After so many trials, Dae-su gets his answers, and they are likely not what we (or he) expected. The sense that he must now live with these answers is more stifling than the fight scenes; what stretches ahead of him now may be more challenging than what had come before. And yet, the acute initial trials after being set free have prepared him for this new challenge. There is hope that he can rebuild and live in peace, even with the answers he received.
Oldboy is not for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for Korean martial arts epic, this is your winner.
Now if only I could find some good cold noodles.
In fact, the main reason this film seems so epic is Oh Dae-su’s driving sense of revenge, fueled by fifteen years of unexplained imprisonment. It isn’t Dae-su’s sense of wronged innocence so much as an outraged confusion that compels him, on his return to the world, to seek out his captor and exact revenge. (That, and a threat by the captor that Dae-su must seek him out.) His motives and his methods are messy. In fact, not much in this movie is “pretty”—but that’s what makes it epic.
In one scene, for instance, shot brilliantly (and digitally, if I’m not mistaken), Dae-su takes on the typical gang of martial artists you’d see in any Bruce Lee movie. Normally, the staging of this scene would have our hero in the center with a circle of bad guys surrounding him, waiting their turns to attack, and the hero would dispatch each with efficient ease, barely breaking a sweat (or, if so, breaking a sexy sweat that causes chest muscles to glisten and gleam, etc). Dae-su, however, is in a narrow hallway, and has enemies coming at him from both sides; he fights desperately, as though he has nothing to lose; he is stabbed, but barely acknowledges it. Sweat flies everywhere, and Dae-su has to take a second to breathe in between wild kicks and punches he likely invented himself. It is as difficult to turn away from this scene as the ones in which Daniel Day-Lewis wields a butcher’s knife in Gangs of New York, with the difference that you really don’t want to.
Oldboy is an almost unceasingly brutal movie, and in the end, it is revealed to be even more brutal than you had thought.
What saves this movie from being only sickening, blood-spattered Jerry Springer-type material are the efforts of the director and director of photography. The hallway scene, for instance, is shot as though a cross-section had been done of the hall; this allows us to see all the action, but keeps us out of it at the same time. We are voyeurs, not participants—and by this point (unlike on an episode of Jerry Springer), we sympathize with Dae-su. We can be drawn into the action without being overwhelmed or threatened by it. The movie also uses a framing device that allows us to enter and exit the story conclusively (though confusingly, in the first viewing).
Still, the end is sickening. After so many trials, Dae-su gets his answers, and they are likely not what we (or he) expected. The sense that he must now live with these answers is more stifling than the fight scenes; what stretches ahead of him now may be more challenging than what had come before. And yet, the acute initial trials after being set free have prepared him for this new challenge. There is hope that he can rebuild and live in peace, even with the answers he received.
Oldboy is not for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for Korean martial arts epic, this is your winner.
Now if only I could find some good cold noodles.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Carte Blanche
In order to encourage use of the blog comments (rather than calling me, which is fine, except that then I answer on the blog anyway), I hereby give you carte blanche to ask whatever question you'd like. I will answer it.
As Spiderman on Family Guy would say, "Everybody gets one."
As Spiderman on Family Guy would say, "Everybody gets one."
Turn on all women with VPXL wesi
As you can imagine, I was excited to receive this email, which had such a generous promise as its subject, from "Janie Beaver" today. I'm not in the business of turning on women, but insofar as I am a part of womankind, I'm grateful to know that there are things that bind us all together, such as universal turn-ons.
In the spirit of building a community around the aphrodisiac "VPXL wesi," Janie had included five other email addresses in the "to" line of the email--I assume, just in case we wanted to contact each other and discuss the sex appeal of said "wesi."
At least it wasn't an ad for cheap Viagra, enlarging my penis, or most bizarrely, replica watches, none of which I'm currently interested in.
What could it be? I wondered. A great sense of humor? Being considerate? James Spader in "Dreamlover"? Maybe it will be something I hadn't thought of as "sexy" before, like instant oatmeal, or a tracheotomy, or being stuck on a Ferris Wheel in high winds.
It was none of these things. (Thank god it wasn't that last one.)
In fact, the email seemed to favor a scattershot approach to appealing to all women. It announced "Bigger p e n i s, better s e x!" then followed with a link to funladiesnow (which makes the email inclusive of lesbians and thus cannot be dismissed), and finally ended with this:
Good luck, men.
In the spirit of building a community around the aphrodisiac "VPXL wesi," Janie had included five other email addresses in the "to" line of the email--I assume, just in case we wanted to contact each other and discuss the sex appeal of said "wesi."
At least it wasn't an ad for cheap Viagra, enlarging my penis, or most bizarrely, replica watches, none of which I'm currently interested in.
What could it be? I wondered. A great sense of humor? Being considerate? James Spader in "Dreamlover"? Maybe it will be something I hadn't thought of as "sexy" before, like instant oatmeal, or a tracheotomy, or being stuck on a Ferris Wheel in high winds.
It was none of these things. (Thank god it wasn't that last one.)
In fact, the email seemed to favor a scattershot approach to appealing to all women. It announced "Bigger p e n i s, better s e x!" then followed with a link to funladiesnow (which makes the email inclusive of lesbians and thus cannot be dismissed), and finally ended with this:
Somewhere in there, my lady friends, is the key to your wildest fantasies.olaf dearie opec agee.
biotic !!! oliver.
Good luck, men.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Sick and Tyrad
The local paper printed a front-page article this week about a New Britain man who went on The Tyra Banks Show and made some stereotypical comments about different names that were suggested to him (i.e., "Juanita" was a hot Mexican girl). The article did not specify what all the comments were, as the show had yet to air, and the guest's agenda was apparently to clear himself of all charges of racism. (As Isaiah Washington learned, repeating what you said is not the way to go if you're looking for exoneration.)
The man stressed that he had been pushed to say what he said, but that he had not gone as far as the other "guests," who he implied were also actors. He claimed that he himself was an actor, although The Tyra Banks Show representatives claimed otherwise. It's more difficult to decide who's telling the truth here than it seems, since an out-of-work actor may think of himself as an artist--while most of us think of him as a waiter. (See Mamet's Edmond for further, gruesome and troubling elaboration.)
My money is on the local man, not because I think he's more honest, but because I just don't want to find myself on the Tyra Banks Show bandwagon.
Tyra Banks, who was nominated for a daytime Emmy, spends almost her entire show making her guests cry and then turning the conversation to herself. You can see this tendency in her other show, America's Next Top Model, which is onto its tenth cycle, where she and two or three other judges sit in...well, judgement, over the young women hoping desperately to win a chance to model. She wheedles her way under the tough exteriors of these girls, many of whom have experienced some hidden trauma and are heart-breakingly ready to confess it all; congratulating them for having finally become better, more self-aware people; and then dumping their asses. Top Model requires contestants to be both vulnerable--to the photographer and the creative director's suggestions, as well as the suggestions of the judges--and "fierce," meaning impervious to criticism and willing to stab each other in the back when necessary.
But we accept that on Top Model because, hey--that's modeling, right? It's reality TV, and that's the reality of the industry. Her ability to smell blood in the water is Tyra's greatest talent on this show; she is able to exploit any vulnerability the girls might exhibit, and crack them. She is able to prove to viewers that potential-model-X needs to go home, for some particular reason, which is quite a feat for a show based in an industry that relies so heavily on split-second impressions. Tyra makes us feel, as much as we can feel, that the show might be an actual contest rather than a farce with a foregone conclusion. She gives us a plot.
But the same quality of being able to bring women to tearful confession on Top Model somehow becomes a liability on The Tyra Banks Show; she cannot "cut" guests from her show following their dramatic revelations. She has to talk to them. And this is where disaster sets in.
Tyra seems to have little sense of proportion, and often compares the struggles of her guests with her own personal experiences. This type of empathizing makes her good at "girlfriend" chatting--though the segments in which she sits with her personal girlfriends and dishes about skin care are awfully self-congratulatory--but terrible at trauma. If you had run over and killed your two-year-old grandson because he was kneeling behind the car as you shifted into reverse, which of Tyra Banks' stories could possibly help? The one about when she felt fat? The one about when she broke up with her boyfriend because he was mean? (Or even abusive?) The answer is that none will help, because Tyra is not the point, and by telling her story, she is acting as though she is. Equally useless are the questions in this type of situation: How do you feel about running over your grandson? Do you feel guilty? Why do you feel guilty? And so they continue, circling the guest's pain like a buzzard, but always unable to strike.
I should mention that there was one time I saw Tyra do something remarkable on her show: She stopped a confession. The topic was trashy, almost Maury-esque--lovers who cheated and wanted to come clean to their partners (on national television)--and I'd like to believe that it had already been making Tyra and her crew a little queasy. Tyra spoke at length with the cheater, discussing what effect this confession would have on the marriage and the spouse, and reacted to what she heard. She stopped the cheater from devastating the spouse (on national television) and suggesting that they go to actual marriage counseling instead--the spouse was spared!
Until, of course, the show aired, at which point the spouse almost certainly found out anyway, and Tyra received viewer accolades for her self-sacrifice in letting the spouse grieve in private.
I admit that I've seen only a few patches of the show, and on only one occasion (Aug. 9, 2006) did I watch the majority of the hour-long program. Unlike every other time I flipped past Tyra (or found my housemate watching in rapt attention), the hostess was not gouging into the personal horrors of one guest or another; she was spending a significant amount of time doing what she does best, which is giving advice to women about womanly things. (And not making them cry.)
She stood in the center of her stage and announced that she would tell us all the secret of bra sizes. I was as eager to know this information as I would be to know all the varieties of North American garter snakes, so I leaned forward in my chair in anticipation.
Here's what she (and the show's web archive) had to say:
Interesting information, right? (Except for the spelling and grammatical errors, which are irritating.)
Tyra explained this, and then she demonstrated.
"I'm a D," she said, brightly but confidentially, as if we didn't know this already. (As if we didn't know this.)
I sat back in my chair.
Well, I thought. At least now I know we have nothing in common at all.
Post-script: Women everywhere have written in to Tyra asking for more information, or clarification on the measurement rules, but so far, the show has not responded. Eventually, representative of Just My Size seemed to take on some of the women's questions with product ads.
Luckily, I am one of the 20% of women who wear the correct bra size.
Or so I suppose.
The man stressed that he had been pushed to say what he said, but that he had not gone as far as the other "guests," who he implied were also actors. He claimed that he himself was an actor, although The Tyra Banks Show representatives claimed otherwise. It's more difficult to decide who's telling the truth here than it seems, since an out-of-work actor may think of himself as an artist--while most of us think of him as a waiter. (See Mamet's Edmond for further, gruesome and troubling elaboration.)
My money is on the local man, not because I think he's more honest, but because I just don't want to find myself on the Tyra Banks Show bandwagon.
Tyra Banks, who was nominated for a daytime Emmy, spends almost her entire show making her guests cry and then turning the conversation to herself. You can see this tendency in her other show, America's Next Top Model, which is onto its tenth cycle, where she and two or three other judges sit in...well, judgement, over the young women hoping desperately to win a chance to model. She wheedles her way under the tough exteriors of these girls, many of whom have experienced some hidden trauma and are heart-breakingly ready to confess it all; congratulating them for having finally become better, more self-aware people; and then dumping their asses. Top Model requires contestants to be both vulnerable--to the photographer and the creative director's suggestions, as well as the suggestions of the judges--and "fierce," meaning impervious to criticism and willing to stab each other in the back when necessary.
But we accept that on Top Model because, hey--that's modeling, right? It's reality TV, and that's the reality of the industry. Her ability to smell blood in the water is Tyra's greatest talent on this show; she is able to exploit any vulnerability the girls might exhibit, and crack them. She is able to prove to viewers that potential-model-X needs to go home, for some particular reason, which is quite a feat for a show based in an industry that relies so heavily on split-second impressions. Tyra makes us feel, as much as we can feel, that the show might be an actual contest rather than a farce with a foregone conclusion. She gives us a plot.
But the same quality of being able to bring women to tearful confession on Top Model somehow becomes a liability on The Tyra Banks Show; she cannot "cut" guests from her show following their dramatic revelations. She has to talk to them. And this is where disaster sets in.
Tyra seems to have little sense of proportion, and often compares the struggles of her guests with her own personal experiences. This type of empathizing makes her good at "girlfriend" chatting--though the segments in which she sits with her personal girlfriends and dishes about skin care are awfully self-congratulatory--but terrible at trauma. If you had run over and killed your two-year-old grandson because he was kneeling behind the car as you shifted into reverse, which of Tyra Banks' stories could possibly help? The one about when she felt fat? The one about when she broke up with her boyfriend because he was mean? (Or even abusive?) The answer is that none will help, because Tyra is not the point, and by telling her story, she is acting as though she is. Equally useless are the questions in this type of situation: How do you feel about running over your grandson? Do you feel guilty? Why do you feel guilty? And so they continue, circling the guest's pain like a buzzard, but always unable to strike.
I should mention that there was one time I saw Tyra do something remarkable on her show: She stopped a confession. The topic was trashy, almost Maury-esque--lovers who cheated and wanted to come clean to their partners (on national television)--and I'd like to believe that it had already been making Tyra and her crew a little queasy. Tyra spoke at length with the cheater, discussing what effect this confession would have on the marriage and the spouse, and reacted to what she heard. She stopped the cheater from devastating the spouse (on national television) and suggesting that they go to actual marriage counseling instead--the spouse was spared!
Until, of course, the show aired, at which point the spouse almost certainly found out anyway, and Tyra received viewer accolades for her self-sacrifice in letting the spouse grieve in private.
I admit that I've seen only a few patches of the show, and on only one occasion (Aug. 9, 2006) did I watch the majority of the hour-long program. Unlike every other time I flipped past Tyra (or found my housemate watching in rapt attention), the hostess was not gouging into the personal horrors of one guest or another; she was spending a significant amount of time doing what she does best, which is giving advice to women about womanly things. (And not making them cry.)
She stood in the center of her stage and announced that she would tell us all the secret of bra sizes. I was as eager to know this information as I would be to know all the varieties of North American garter snakes, so I leaned forward in my chair in anticipation.
Here's what she (and the show's web archive) had to say:
- Band Size: place your measuring tape just below your breasts and around your body. Once you have determined that measurement, add five to that number. If you get an odd number, round up. That new total represents your band size.
- Cup Size: place the measure tape across the fullest part of your bust and around your body. Don’t pull the tape tight, leave it a little loose across your breasts. Subtract this number from the Band Size figure. The difference determines your cup size as follows: Less than 1 inch = AA, 1" = A, 2" = B, 3" = C, 4" = D, 5" = E or DD, 6" = F or DDD, etc.
Interesting information, right? (Except for the spelling and grammatical errors, which are irritating.)
Tyra explained this, and then she demonstrated.
"I'm a D," she said, brightly but confidentially, as if we didn't know this already. (As if we didn't know this.)
I sat back in my chair.
Well, I thought. At least now I know we have nothing in common at all.
Post-script: Women everywhere have written in to Tyra asking for more information, or clarification on the measurement rules, but so far, the show has not responded. Eventually, representative of Just My Size seemed to take on some of the women's questions with product ads.
Luckily, I am one of the 20% of women who wear the correct bra size.
Or so I suppose.
In Which I Discuss the Merits of Billy Joel's RIVER OF DREAMS
I can't believe you fell for that one.
There aren't any.
There aren't any.
Oh, Bitchuary.
As I racked and unracked magazines at the Kmart and CVS today, with one of my girls, I chatted with another job coach who was shadowing me for the day. We commented on the covers of the magazines, especially the ones that were borderline Enquirer-and-"legitimate-magazine," such as Star, US, and OK. Britney Spears was featured on, I would say, a majority of these covers, though I did not do a statistical analysis.
"You know, the AP has already prepared her obituary," the other job coach said, and I would have gaped in surprise if it had been at all unexpected.
The AP, and the rest of the media, like to be prepared, sure--but if there's an office pool going around for the day Brit buys it, those guys are cheating. They'll know exactly when the day will be, because they'll have caused it to come.
I'm not speculating that Britney Spears' life would have been happier without superstardom, nor am I blaming the media for what are obviously her choices--marrying K-Fed comes to mind as a particularly stupid, or at least silly, choice that BS made all on her own--but the celebrity-worship culture she's become a part of is now influencing the choices that she has available to her, and that's not funny. The feedback loop of "Look what stupid thing Britney's done now! And to her kids! And she's a psycho!" is beginning to consume itself, but no one can manage to break free.
If the obvious desperation of her actions weren't enough ("She bought a laxative at the drugstore!" one magazine proclaims, and shows an insert picture of Correctol. My. The things of which scandals are made), her recent single "Piece of Me" should serve as notice on her state of mind:
I’m Mrs. 'Lifestyles of the rich and famous'(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. 'Oh my God that Britney’s shameless'(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. 'Extra! Extra! This just in'(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. 'She’s too big now she’s too thin'(You want a piece of me)
In response to this obviously last-ditch defensive attack--and, in my opinion, the most substantial contribution she's made to pop music since her accidental-S&M debut "Baby One More Time"--I heard one radio DJ respond with "Come on, Britney: When did anyone ever call you too thin?"
Come on, Mr. DJ: When did anyone ever tell you it's a good idea to cannibalize those who make up your livelihood? (Or is Clear Channel putting you all up to this?)
When did celebrity "news" become news? When did the antics of a few people driven to distraction by the extremes of attention they experience become noteworthy? Shouldn't we rather be saying, as we might say of lab rats bombarded with constant stimulus, constant access to food, and constant flashbulbs, "Well, it's no wonder they went crazy"? Shouldn't the effects of this kind of life be obvious, not newsworthy at all?
Beyond the contents of the headlines, though, lies their tone, and this is what causes me to despair for Britney. Outside of comments made by well-meaning "family friends"--such as Dr. Phil or Barbara Walters--there has been an unceasing stream of vitriol coming from the media, aimed directly at the Spears' personal life, and often in the guise of disinterested concern.
It is not disinterested, and it is not concern. It is willful and rapacious obsession with our own superiority.
Is this why all magazines, everywhere--and radio shows and talk shows and other "entertainment" options--have become a sanctuary for bitching? I mean not just regular complaining, but the snarky kind of constant complaint that never leaves room for personal error and never gives an inch to a response, and which usually has as its topic something that everyone appears to agree on, anyway, obviating the need to register the complaint in the first place. Do we really need to prove to ourselves over and over again that, had we been her, we never would have been such screwups?
Yes, Britney Spears is publicly devolving into a sad morality tale. But maybe we should find another place to get our lessons, so that she can have what she most needs: to be left completely alone.
I'm doing my part. I've never been a fan.
"You know, the AP has already prepared her obituary," the other job coach said, and I would have gaped in surprise if it had been at all unexpected.
The AP, and the rest of the media, like to be prepared, sure--but if there's an office pool going around for the day Brit buys it, those guys are cheating. They'll know exactly when the day will be, because they'll have caused it to come.
I'm not speculating that Britney Spears' life would have been happier without superstardom, nor am I blaming the media for what are obviously her choices--marrying K-Fed comes to mind as a particularly stupid, or at least silly, choice that BS made all on her own--but the celebrity-worship culture she's become a part of is now influencing the choices that she has available to her, and that's not funny. The feedback loop of "Look what stupid thing Britney's done now! And to her kids! And she's a psycho!" is beginning to consume itself, but no one can manage to break free.
If the obvious desperation of her actions weren't enough ("She bought a laxative at the drugstore!" one magazine proclaims, and shows an insert picture of Correctol. My. The things of which scandals are made), her recent single "Piece of Me" should serve as notice on her state of mind:
I’m Mrs. 'Lifestyles of the rich and famous'(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. 'Oh my God that Britney’s shameless'(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. 'Extra! Extra! This just in'(You want a piece of me)
I’m Mrs. 'She’s too big now she’s too thin'(You want a piece of me)
In response to this obviously last-ditch defensive attack--and, in my opinion, the most substantial contribution she's made to pop music since her accidental-S&M debut "Baby One More Time"--I heard one radio DJ respond with "Come on, Britney: When did anyone ever call you too thin?"
Come on, Mr. DJ: When did anyone ever tell you it's a good idea to cannibalize those who make up your livelihood? (Or is Clear Channel putting you all up to this?)
When did celebrity "news" become news? When did the antics of a few people driven to distraction by the extremes of attention they experience become noteworthy? Shouldn't we rather be saying, as we might say of lab rats bombarded with constant stimulus, constant access to food, and constant flashbulbs, "Well, it's no wonder they went crazy"? Shouldn't the effects of this kind of life be obvious, not newsworthy at all?
Beyond the contents of the headlines, though, lies their tone, and this is what causes me to despair for Britney. Outside of comments made by well-meaning "family friends"--such as Dr. Phil or Barbara Walters--there has been an unceasing stream of vitriol coming from the media, aimed directly at the Spears' personal life, and often in the guise of disinterested concern.
It is not disinterested, and it is not concern. It is willful and rapacious obsession with our own superiority.
Is this why all magazines, everywhere--and radio shows and talk shows and other "entertainment" options--have become a sanctuary for bitching? I mean not just regular complaining, but the snarky kind of constant complaint that never leaves room for personal error and never gives an inch to a response, and which usually has as its topic something that everyone appears to agree on, anyway, obviating the need to register the complaint in the first place. Do we really need to prove to ourselves over and over again that, had we been her, we never would have been such screwups?
Yes, Britney Spears is publicly devolving into a sad morality tale. But maybe we should find another place to get our lessons, so that she can have what she most needs: to be left completely alone.
I'm doing my part. I've never been a fan.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Songs That Lloyd Dobler Would Have Been Better Off Playing, If It Had Been Me
“Here Comes the Flood” by Peter Gabriel (Technically the version I know wasn't out until 1990, but my favorite choice.)
“Kyrie” by Mr. Mister
“Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper
“Opportunities (let’s make lots of money)” by Pet Shop Boys
“Days Are Numbers (The Traveller)” by Alan Parsons Project
For a remake:
“I Grieve” by Peter Gabriel
“Rest” by Skillet
“Mad World” by Gary Jules
“Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants
“The Old Apartment” by Barenaked Ladies
“Last Beautiful Girl” by Matchbox Twenty
“Cannonball” by Damien Rice
“Galileo” by The Indigo Girls
“Fair” by Remy Zero
“All Over You” by Live
For the foreign, dubbed versions:
“Dui Mien de Nu Hai Kan Guo Lai” by Richie (Trans: “Look at me, pretty girl over there”)
“Cowboy Virtuel” by Roch Voisine
“Inevitable” by Shakira
“Kyrie” by Mr. Mister
“Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper
“Opportunities (let’s make lots of money)” by Pet Shop Boys
“Days Are Numbers (The Traveller)” by Alan Parsons Project
For a remake:
“I Grieve” by Peter Gabriel
“Rest” by Skillet
“Mad World” by Gary Jules
“Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants
“The Old Apartment” by Barenaked Ladies
“Last Beautiful Girl” by Matchbox Twenty
“Cannonball” by Damien Rice
“Galileo” by The Indigo Girls
“Fair” by Remy Zero
“All Over You” by Live
For the foreign, dubbed versions:
“Dui Mien de Nu Hai Kan Guo Lai” by Richie (Trans: “Look at me, pretty girl over there”)
“Cowboy Virtuel” by Roch Voisine
“Inevitable” by Shakira
Confessions, II
I eat applesauce out of the jar the way one might drink milk out of the carton.
I sometimes wear my socks two days in a row.
When I was a teenager, I ate plain Cheerios or whole shredded wheat for breakfast; now I eat Cocoa Krispies or Fruity Pebbles.
I sometimes wear my socks two days in a row.
When I was a teenager, I ate plain Cheerios or whole shredded wheat for breakfast; now I eat Cocoa Krispies or Fruity Pebbles.
Phrases So Out of Proportion That They Are Never Appropriate
As with phrases that never help, phrases so out of proportion that they are never appropriate can be funny, under the right circumstances. I use them in my everyday life whenever I encounter a minor difficulty, which is the only time that they will be funny to the speaker. These phrases are always funny to a listener with an ear for irony and/or little investment in the situation at hand, but may be exasperating to a listener who feels the speaker is being serious—and cares.
The following are examples of such phrases, each with a discussion of fictional situations in which they might conceivably become appropriate, and instruction on their use as jokes in everyday life.
"All is lost!"
Fictional situations in which it might become appropriate: Nuclear holocaust, after which you are one of two survivors and the other survivor is blind and has asked what you see; while standing on the bow of the last available warship as a giant squid pulls it under; as a “Lost & Found” clerk, when answering the question “Where’s the ‘Found’ department?”
Instructions on its use: As melodrama goes, "all is lost" is top-notch. Unfortunately, it's difficult to pull off farcically in person, unless you have a flair for faking a mounting hysteria. Even then, it can be off-putting to those who are annoyed instead of amused by hysteria.
My advice is to deadpan this one. Keep a straight face and use a monotone voice, with perhaps a hint of irony. You may want to elaborate for impact, adding “oh no, oh no” or “we’re all going to die.”
"We're NEVER going to get there/finish this!"
Fictional situations in which it might become appropriate: [in dismay] On the way to X location, you get stuck in a sinkhole and are being rapidly sucked into the earth, and your one regret is that you will never arrive at X; [in shock] on the sudden realization that you have been cursed by the gods to push a stone up a hill all day and chase it down all night, or are trapped in the movie Groundhog Day.
Instructions on its use: This phrase must be whiny in order to be effective—but any joke that involves whining should be used sparingly, and with discretion, since fake whining is often just as annoying as its real counterpart. Still, there are two scenarios in which this out-of-proportion phrase could be used successfully.
First, there is the short whine, in which you, the speaker, say the phrase one time in order to mock your own impatience. Tone is key for the short whine; you may want to overdo it a bit to make it clear that you are not serious. Then drop the subject.
Second, there is the remedial, or corrective whine. As with the short whine, this should be used only to mock your own impatience, specifically when you realize that you have been actually whining and are annoying the listener. Pushing your whine up a notch and then laughing should release the tension of the situation (which has built as the listener wishes you would stop whining) and allow the listener to gracefully dodge the need to lie (i.e., “No, I WANT to hear what you have to say. You’re not annoying me at ALL”).
“I might as well be dead!”
Fictional situations in which it might become appropriate: On discovering that the afterlife is exactly the same in precisely every way, as this one.
Instructions on its use: As with all phrases so out of proportion that they are never appropriate, this phrase is best used when the stakes are so small as to be, literally, laughable. Some examples of this type of situation include receiving a minor injury (very shallow paper-cut, stubbed toe, broken nail), acting like an idiot in front of someone you “like,” or having to wait in a long line at the Home Depot. Again, use this hyperbole sparingly, as it becomes less funny the more it’s used.
The following are examples of such phrases, each with a discussion of fictional situations in which they might conceivably become appropriate, and instruction on their use as jokes in everyday life.
"All is lost!"
Fictional situations in which it might become appropriate: Nuclear holocaust, after which you are one of two survivors and the other survivor is blind and has asked what you see; while standing on the bow of the last available warship as a giant squid pulls it under; as a “Lost & Found” clerk, when answering the question “Where’s the ‘Found’ department?”
Instructions on its use: As melodrama goes, "all is lost" is top-notch. Unfortunately, it's difficult to pull off farcically in person, unless you have a flair for faking a mounting hysteria. Even then, it can be off-putting to those who are annoyed instead of amused by hysteria.
My advice is to deadpan this one. Keep a straight face and use a monotone voice, with perhaps a hint of irony. You may want to elaborate for impact, adding “oh no, oh no” or “we’re all going to die.”
"We're NEVER going to get there/finish this!"
Fictional situations in which it might become appropriate: [in dismay] On the way to X location, you get stuck in a sinkhole and are being rapidly sucked into the earth, and your one regret is that you will never arrive at X; [in shock] on the sudden realization that you have been cursed by the gods to push a stone up a hill all day and chase it down all night, or are trapped in the movie Groundhog Day.
Instructions on its use: This phrase must be whiny in order to be effective—but any joke that involves whining should be used sparingly, and with discretion, since fake whining is often just as annoying as its real counterpart. Still, there are two scenarios in which this out-of-proportion phrase could be used successfully.
First, there is the short whine, in which you, the speaker, say the phrase one time in order to mock your own impatience. Tone is key for the short whine; you may want to overdo it a bit to make it clear that you are not serious. Then drop the subject.
Second, there is the remedial, or corrective whine. As with the short whine, this should be used only to mock your own impatience, specifically when you realize that you have been actually whining and are annoying the listener. Pushing your whine up a notch and then laughing should release the tension of the situation (which has built as the listener wishes you would stop whining) and allow the listener to gracefully dodge the need to lie (i.e., “No, I WANT to hear what you have to say. You’re not annoying me at ALL”).
“I might as well be dead!”
Fictional situations in which it might become appropriate: On discovering that the afterlife is exactly the same in precisely every way, as this one.
Instructions on its use: As with all phrases so out of proportion that they are never appropriate, this phrase is best used when the stakes are so small as to be, literally, laughable. Some examples of this type of situation include receiving a minor injury (very shallow paper-cut, stubbed toe, broken nail), acting like an idiot in front of someone you “like,” or having to wait in a long line at the Home Depot. Again, use this hyperbole sparingly, as it becomes less funny the more it’s used.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)