marianne schmarianne

Retail Therapy Gone Bad

2008-11-22T18:37:00.000-08:00

Can one be a socialist and also love shopping? More pressingly, can I be a socialist and continue to love shopping?

Before I answer, allow me to explain why I'm suddenly asking these questions. Until this particular point in life, I have taken great comfort in shopping. The women in my family--generations of them--have led me to believe, by example, that New Shiny Things make Everything better. This Everything can be anything: a burst of low self-esteem, a hard day at work/school, and/or miscellaneous personal catastrophes. Buying clothing, in particular, is a great comfort: when shit goes bad, my forebears argue, retreat into the material. The simple beauty of textiles--even those crafted into mass-produced garments by underpaid sweatshop workers in economically bankrupt countries around the world--lifts the spirits, making life livable again. What can't you accomplish when you look and feel fabulous?

For years now, I've been aware of the many problematic aspects of everything I just wrote. Psychologically, shopping is a cop-out. The gratification is short-lived, and you're left with the same problems you started with, except now you have no money. Philosophically, the connections between gender and consumption are troubling: women feel better after buying girlie stuff because our culture has wired us to feel better when we look pretty, ie, when we meet mainly patriarchal, bourgeois expectations for our appearance and behavior. And corporations have made billions off of the female desire to conform, linking our psycho-social-sexual development to the market.

I've been aware of this, but I've accepted these contradictions with the ubiquitous cop-out of my generation: "At least I admit it." As I gaze longingly at retail displays, I think smugly, "At least I know what's really going on." Astonishingly, my academic approach to feminine consumption also allows me to feel superior to other female shoppers. Listening to their inane conversations in the fitting room, I sneer and snicker, meanwhile giving in to the same unaccountable desire for the skirt that is, in their words, "OMIGOD, just SO CUTE."

Yes, I have been a hypocrite. But I am so damn comfortable in my hypocrisy, I don't want to reconcile anything. I'd rather be shopping.

Or would I? The problem is, I don't really enjoy shopping anymore. I used to be able to shop in disgusting, florescently lit, suburban environs for hours without wanting to vomit. Now I can't even approach a mall or "towne center" without choking back the remnants of lunch. Why? Well, this brings me to yet another contradiction: shopping makes me hate the masses. Behavior in busy retail spaces--screaming children, price-grubbing, long lines, personal-space violations--makes me crazy. Today, Mike and I had to buy some things at the Waterfront, and it drove us to drink (which is always easy to do at retail centers--booze is always close by). It also drove my seminarian husband to blaspheme: "Jeezes fuck," Mike yelled as yet another cell-phone driver cut him off in the parking lot.

While Mike isn't a socialist per say, he and I both stick up for the masses, being products of their number. Shopping, however, makes us project the problems of capitalism onto the very people it victimizes. It's hard to remember to blame the system when every shopper in Target is annoying as hell.

But, at other times, I can clearly see the capitalist tableaux for what it is. About a month ago, Mike and I went to Ross Park Mall to buy a gift for his mom. It'd been a while since I'd ventured into a mall, and quite a bit longer since I'd indulged in "upscale shopping." Ross Park, we soon found out, had been upscaled: the petit-bourgeois women and girls of the North Hills--with their dazed men in tow--scampered eagerly in and out of Nordstrom, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany's. Mike and I, genuinely afraid, retreated into JCPenney, where we quickly bought the gift. "Let's get the hell out of here," Mike said, nearly running toward the exit. Once in the car, we both agreed that we were disgusted at the vulgar display behind us. The excess, the naivete, the unsatiable desire for the material--it was all too much. But most of all, it was the unveiled truth of the spectacle that disturbed us. We're all so SCREWED by the illusion of material comfort. It's why we're all slaves to the items that give us this comfort--and why, in my opinion, Americans put up with bullshit like "trickle-down" economics, for-profit wars, and miscellanous government corruption. What does it matter, if you have the new Louis Vuitton it-bag?

Wow.

To return to my question. Do I need to return to my question? I think the answer is quite clear. The love of shopping or the socialism has to go, because they can't--at least, for me--co-exist. And, at this point, it ain't gonna be the socialism. Once you look into the abyss, there's no turning back.

Losing my shit.

2008-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

I am officially "losing my shit," as my friend Melissa would say. This election is far too abrasive for my delicate mental constitution.

Last night, Hot Metal held "Debate the Debate," a debate-watching discussion with actual rules such as "have respect" and "don't judge." I went to this debate and wound up losing my mind--also known as my "shit."

I probably shouldn't have gone, but I couldn't help myself: I'm a masochist when it comes to human stupidity. So I gathered with my politically diverse church-going friends, made small talk, ate a bunch of popcorn, and then promptly choked on it as I listened to Obama and McCain recite the same arguments they've been using for the last few months.

Obama wearily defended himself yet again against McCain's groundless accusations concerning his "terrorist" pals; McCain smugly continued to accuse him. "Joe Plumber" was addressed earnestly by McCain and ironically by Obama. Fingers were pointed; buzz words words sufficiently obscured meaningless, empty campaign promises.

This was all nauseating, but I didn't lose my shit until McCain defended Palin by claiming she understood "special needs" families! It was a pathetically emotional plea that has very little to do with the office of the vice presidency and how Palin is or is not fit for it. So, of course this means "Joe Plumber" or "Joe Six-Pack" must have loved every minute of it.

When McCain stared into the camera and addressed this anonymous Joe, I realized how this seemingly offensive ploy was working rhetorically. Joe's an American myth: the noble, hardworking, family-oriented American man who likes "straight talk" over beer and chicken wings. There are probably a lot of white suburban and rural men who'd fit this stereotype, at least on the surface. They're the type of person that urban professionals sneer at, that blacks eye warily, that Europeans regard as the stereotypical American. Joe, by the standards of the rest of America--minorities, women, youth, professional whites--is hardly exemplary; in fact, he's kind of an oaf. So why is McCain talking to him?

Well, because McCain IS Joe--with money. And there's a sizeable segment of middle America--Joes and their wives--who think Joe/McCain is a stand-up guy.

There were a few Joes at the debate last night, and they made me lose my shit out loud. I kind of yelled at them when they said they STILL didn't think global warming is real, when they sneered at the idea of voluntary taxation, and finally (and most explosively) when one of them said he found McCain's accusations that Obama had hung around with terrorists convincing.

Joe, why must you be so dense?

I tried to keep what little of my shit remained, but it was too late. I just HAD to bring up Sarah Palin so that I could point out her many legitimate failings, including being found guilty of abuse of power in Alaska just recently. And that's when I irrevocably lost my shit.

Now I will be known as the outspoken liberal. This has its pros and cons. It's good to have loud liberal voices in American churches--most of them are so ignorantly, blindly conservative. And I want people to know where I stand, why I think liberal values are so important. But I don't want to be the crazy ranter who shuts down dialogue and encourages polarity.

Did I become the crazy ranter? I don't think so. I DO wish I had kept an even tone. Desperate times, though, result in desperate measures, and sometimes my "shit" becomes negligible.

Stepmonster.

2008-09-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

I have several friends whose parents have remarried despicable people. Many of these unfortunate friends have unflattering names for these people, all of them appropriate, but my favorite term by far is "stepmonster." This is what my friend Lacy calls her father's second wife, who is crazy. And mean. And, well, monstrous.

As of this past Sunday, I too have a "stepmonster." His name is Vince, and in my personal opinion, he sucks. Since I've already detailed why this is the case in a highly self-indulgent previous post, I'll spare you the rant. I will, however, add more evidence: when I told him I wanted to try to be civil and keep our family as functional as possible, he turned to my mom and said, "See, I told you: She's a little teapot and just needed to blow off a little steam."

Oh, the rage. I told him to beware The Rage of the Teapot (which should be the title of a mock-gothic novel, btw).

So, as I was saying, I have a stepmonster who has given my mom his name and will now begin ruining the rest of her life. But, I also have a stepsister who isn't a stepmonster at all. In fact, she may be my doppelganger. (Which might make her a monster to others, but not to me.)

She showed up at the wedding in jeans and a black t-shirt. She's much taller than me and looks like a gypsy, with dark, kohl-rimmed eyes and long black hair. She had an ironic smile and said she was just "trying to behave."

I liked her right away.

Later, she told me that she didn't meet her dad, my stepmonster, until she was twenty. Now, she talks to him on the phone about once a year. She said, warily, that she hopes my mom will be happy. It occurred to me that she might hate her father as much as I do. Or more.

The similaries continued to add up. She made a lot of bitchy, mean comments. For instance, when she saw one of our overgrown Italian cousins wearing a trendy fedora, she said, "Who invited K-Fed?" Like me, she's a vegetarian, and like me, she likes to rant about excessive cell phone usage. Like me, she likes to paint, but unlike me, she's actually really good and sells her stuff at festivals.

I would totally be friends with her. But I feel shy. Maybe my mom is her "stepmonster." Maybe she thinks I'm a stepmonster, too. God.

But, the thing is, I would love to have a sibling to share my angst. And she seems like she's very good at angst.

The answer is NO.

2008-07-09T19:12:00.001-07:00

Today, as I innocently walked down my street, just yards from my own front door, my SOCKS were solicited by a self-proclaimed foot-fetishist in a passing pick-up truck.

Yep. That happened.

A blue pick-up truck stopped in the middle of my street, and the driver rolled down the passenger window and beckoned me toward him. He was an average-looking young man, twenty-ish, and I assumed he was going to ask me for directions, as this happens pretty regularly.

"Excuse me, " he said with a strangely excited, flushed face. "This is really embarrassing, and really weird, but I have a foot fetish and I was wondering if I could buy your socks." His voice cracked, and he looked desperate. "I'll pay you ten, twenty bucks if you'll just give them to me."

I would have paid him more to describe the look on my face at that moment, which I'm sure was an ugly mixture of shock and outrage.

"No, that's weird," I replied stiffly, and practically ran toward my house, where I immediately related the exchange to Mike, whose mouth promptly dropped open.

And then, as usual, the attempts at analysis began. Here are a few theories we came up with to explain this deviant behavior:

1. It was a dare. He was pretty young; even though he seemed to be alone in the truck, a friend may have been hunkered down behind the seat, snickering. It was a pretty small truck, though.

2. He was conducting a sociological experiment, measuring public reactions to sexual deviance. Or how far women will go when asked. Mike pointed out, though, that it was too legally risky for an official study.

These theories are, as Mike pointed out, preferable to the idea that fetishists can prey upon complete strangers at will. But maybe that's what happened. A few months ago, my friend Jessica posted a photo of herself on her blog with bare feet in the background, and a foot fetishist from Spain left a comment praising her feet and offering her a free trip to Spain so he could see them in person.

Listen, I don't have anything against benign fetishists, i.e., people who keep their fetishes to themselves and consenting adults who share them. But, if they ask me, or Jessica, or other innocents, the answer is NO: we will not sell you our sweaty socks, nor will we allow you to caress our feet in Spain.

The answer is, and always will be, NO.

Jury's Out

2008-06-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Today I fulfilled a "very important" civic duty--or at least, I tried my best. Yes, I reported for jury duty. No, I didn't make today's cut. In fact, I was one of the first people to be dismissed.

There are two questions on the all-important juror questionnaire that I did not answer satisfactorily. When I was defending these answers, maybe I gave the prosecution a little too much lip. And so, I took my nine dollars and my juror discount card and went on my way. Actually, I went to Franktuary and had a veggie dog called "The Italy." It had fresh mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes on it. While consuming it, I tried to sort it all out. In the end, I mostly have questions, cynical ones.

Here's what happened.

I arrived at the Allegheny County Courthouse at 8:25. I proceeded to the third floor, to juror's quarters, so that I could promptly report for duty. A series of three rooms was filled with a cross-section of the local population: middle-aged soccer moms in tapered pants, rumpled young men who obviously did not understand "business casual," frightened looking young girls, etc. There was lot of bad clothes, bad hair, and stupid comments. 8:30, our report time, came and went, and we were all still waiting around, looking bleary and confused. The only preparation we'd had for jury duty at this point was the "summons" sent to us a few months before, and this prepared us only for our arrival time, location, attire, and acceptable use of electronic devices. Having already accomplished these things, we had nothing to do, and no idea what to expect.

There had been no instructions on the summons about what a juror actually does, or how the selection process works. But there had been a stiffly worded statement in an antiquated font that informed us how important serving as a juror is to the US judicial process. Serving as a juror, it informed us, ensured that citizens would be tried by their peers. And do you know what THAT means? That our government is run by the common people!

I ardently believe that democracy only works when "the people" can make informed decisions. Apparently, our judicial system disagrees, and believes that us commoners can decide another commoner's fate best when we have absolutely no fucking clue what we're doing.

Wait. Perhaps I'm being too judgmental. At 9:00, when we were finally led into the courtroom, given identifications tags, the questionnaire, and juror pens, we were offered free coffee and tea and given VERY explicit instructions for operating the coffee machine. It turns out that the new juror coffee machine was a bit unusual, and had just been broken the week before by a juror who failed to follow instructions properly. So, despite the fact that the instructions were posted on the wall by the machine, a cross, middle-aged admin with giant hair spent about 5 minutes explaining it. Then we were told how to get to the bathrooms, and not to venture outside the juror quarters. Then we had to fill out our questionnaire, and were left alone for about an hour to write out our names and answer 12 questions.

So, about those questions. One asked if you or anyone close to you had been accused of a crime. I had to circle yes, because two people "close to me" have been. Then, another question asked if you would be less likely to trust the testimony of a police officer because of his/her job title. First, I answered no. Then, I scratched that out, and answered yes.

Around 10:15, after much rustling in the front of the room, three attorneys walked in, along with two young black men, looking baby-faced and uncomfortable in too-big suits. As the jurors were put in order, the attorneys scrutinized us and took notes. I got the distinct impression that they were already deciding, based on appearance, who they wanted on the trial. Meanwhile, I was making my own snap judgments. The prosecutor, I decided, was a douchebag. He had an aloof, stony face, and didn't look anyone in the eye. One defense lawyer was just kind of a goof: he took his shoes off and tried to cheer up his client, who looked like he might cry and/or vomit at any time. The other lawyer, a distinguished black man in a formidable pin-striped suit, I felt some respect for: he maintained distance without being a snob. He was respectful to everyone.

Luckily, I was number 5. That meant I sat in the front row, just a few feet from the interview table. I made a lot of uncomfortable eye contact with a defense attorney and the plantiffs, especially the one closest to me, the one near tears. The charges were read, and it was to be a murder trial: the two boys were accused of shooting another guy to death in Homewood two years ago.

The interviews began, and I decided that my first impressions were correct. The first woman to be interviewed was a housewife in her sixties. The prosecutor spoke first, and his tone reminded me of a pre-school teacher speaking to a class of four-year-olds. The goofy defense lawyer was no better. The woman had answered "yes" to the family member question, and there was much discussion about this. She had also answered "yes" to a different question about police officers. The goofy lawyer asked her why she would be MORE inclined to trust a police officer's testimony because of his/her profession. She said, "Because police are on the side of the law."

Later, after I had been interviewed, I found out that she had been selected.

As I listened to her, I suddenly really wanted to be a juror on this trial. Because her answers sucked. SHE sucked. She wasn't smart, and even though a person close to her had seen the inside of the judicial system, she still believed in it. In the goodness, the moral rectitude, of police officers.

When I was four, I watched, hysterical, as police officers jumped out of an unmarked vehicle and
forced my dad into their car. Later, I saw the mess they made of our house when they searched for drugs, and heard that they had threatened to take my mom to prison. For sixteen years I visited my father in prison and had to put up with lazy, fat-assed officers throwing their tiny portion of power into my face.

But it isn't just that. I watch the supposedly objective news. I hear about the racism, the sexism, the violence. Recently, in Homestead, a cop was caught having an affair with a 14-year-old neighbor. In the city of Pittsburgh last year, several cops were accused of domestic abuse, and none of them convicted.

I began to think that maybe those questions were a joke. Does ANYONE still trust police officers?

Soon it was my turn. I approached the table, sat down. The goof started in on me, with the others looking on. And suddenly I got that evil look in my eye, the one I get every time a cop pulls me over on the highway. The devil-may-care look responsible for my 7 speeding tickets.

I was asked, three times, to explain the problematic answers. The goof said, "I don't mean to pry, but..." and I said, "By all means, pry." It was a bad start. He said, "All of this amuses you, doesn't it?"

"Yes." In a perverse way, yes it does.

I told him the bare facts about my dad. I told him I thought I'd still be able to make an objective decision. The plaintiffs were looking at me with large eyes. One of them almost smiled when I said, "Because of my experiences, I'm not naive. I think there are certainly some great cops out there, but I think there are some bad ones, too. I am certain that, on the stand, I am perfectly capable of seeing the difference."

Douchebag prosecutor pushed me over the line. He announced to me that my experiences with my father had been very "formative." I heard myself saying, "Yes, most childhood experiences are." When did I reach this level of sass? He then put words in my mouth, saying that I had mentioned that I was aware of corruption in the judicial system. I called him on semantics and said, "I wouldn't--and didn't--use the word corruption."

Soon after this I was thanked for my time and sent home. Or, more accurately, to Franktuary, where I stimulated the local economy by using my juror discount.

As I ate my veggie dog, I got offended. It began to occur to me that the whole juror thing was a spectacle, just a spectacle of democracy. Being a juror was about free coffee and lunch discounts and total cluelessness. Jury duty is not about democracy.

Here's why I believe this. The lawyers say they want people who can be completely unbiased, who can put their experiences and beliefs aside in order to be make the best decision. But who can do that? Most people think they can, but they can't. Experiences and beliefs are as much a part of us as blood and guts. We can't just suspend them. The problem is, only thoughtful people understand this. The man sitting next to me in the courtroom got it: he leaned over to me and told me so. And then he got dismissed. So, does this mean that the only people who will be selected for juries are those who think they can be unbiased? The unthoughtful and uncritical?

Also--and here's what gets me--saying that you would believe a police officer more than an average person does not make you unbiased. It simply biases you in favor of "the law," i.e, the prosecutor, who probably has an office in the same building as the police chief. The lady who was chosen and I both gave biased answers, but the prosecution liked hers better than mine. They aren't looking for the unbiased, but instead, the conveniently biased.

The fate of two young black guys from a Pittsburgh ghetto will be decided by people who think that police officers are honest, noble, and disinterested. Which means they probably have chosen to ignore the vexed relationship between cops and young black men such as these. Which probably means they won't pay a whole lot of attention to the complex social forces that may have caused these two young men to shoot another man like themselves. Or, the forces that have blamed them for a crime they didn't commit.

Innocent until proven guilty? Sorry folks, but probably not.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short

2008-05-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

There are so many people getting on my nerves these days. I drive to get groceries, and I get cut off in the parking lot and in the store aisles. I plant flowers, and people throw their beer bottles and candy wrappers on them. I walk around my neighborhood and step in dog shit that some diva was too lazy to pick up. I wear a skirt, and some middle-aged man in a pick-up truck has to whistle at me.

I edge closer to being a misanthrope every day.

But, to be honest, people get on my nerves the most when I am least satisfied with myself. In other words, I project feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing onto the population at large, which then makes me feel superior to them (and therefore, less inadequate and self-loathing). I can squint in angry disbelief at the world, shake my head in moral indignation, and think, in my curmudgeon-esque fashion, "I might suck, but at least I don't let my Chihuahua shit on the sidewalk. Oh, and at least I don't have a Chihuahua."

This allows my own faults to pale in comparison. So, for instance, I can compare my worsening shopping addiction to the shitting Chihuahua and feel like I'm still coming out on top.

But, after employing this strategy for nearly twenty-seven years now, I'm on to myself, and that makes the whole process a lot less effective. Recently, I have become painfully aware of the fact that elitist misanthropy is merely a quick fix for self-doubt, and furthermore, ultimately becomes very self-defeating. If humans suck, and I'm a human, then that leaves very little hope for personal improvement. If life is nasty, brutish, and short for everyone else, it will be for me, too--perhaps more so because I hate everyone, including myself.

So what can I do? Besides going shopping? Besides overeating?

Well, I guess try to be more Jesus-y. Jesus loved everybody, but this didn't mean he was a pansy. He was always telling people what's what. To broadly paraphrase, Jesus said: your faith is inadequate, you don't have much self-knowledge, you are painfully shallow, you reward all the wrong people in your society, and you don't really understand God, even though you think you do. Oh, and, you are so simple-minded that you don't understand anything I'm saying to you right now.

I like to think Jesus was a bit curmudgeonly himself. But he wasn't a misanthrope. All of this was somehow said in love. Although I don't claim to understand that kind of love, I tend to think that love is action, and these statements Jesus made were all active. He didn't sit at home in his carpenter shop and grumble about how stupid and unspiritual everyone was and how he was so much better than them. He actually went and told people about their inadequacies, often through parables that his bumbling followers didn't get. But he told them, and then he did things like save them from blindness, lameness, even death. Of yeah, and then there's the whole dying for all of mankind thing, probably the antithesis of misanthropy.

My interpretation: I can still complain about Chihuahua shit. But the next time I catch some coed letting their horrid little dog go at it, I should tell her off (heheh). Or maybe, if she's already split, I should clean it up myself (grumble, grumble).

Free time?

2008-05-06T05:03:00.000-07:00

The first (academic) year of my Ph D is over. The spring semester has dumped me over its edge, and now I am left to my own devices. The problem is, I'm not really sure what those "devices" are. I have a laundry list of things to do, school-related and no. But I can't get motivated. Instead, I wake up at 6 am to a mind coursing with plans. When actually get up, though, these plans vanish, and I manage to waste my day on facebook, or reading random novels at Joseph-Beth. Oh, and drinking. There's been plenty of that!

I did manage to work in the garden. The spring flowers--tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus--have faded now, and I've planted some annuals around the perennials that have returned with vigor. I'm also raising some seedlings: "Green Envy" zinnias for the ornamental garden; purple and green basil for the herb garden (which has also become quite ornamental, I must admit). This gives me a sense of accomplishment, and the illusion that my time has not been wasted.

Meanwhile, the rest of my time has definitely been wasted. I've been attending the horrifying "Learning Communities Institute" (you may remember me ranting about this last year) to prepare for fall teaching. This time, I'm in a different community, one run by competent colleagues for a change. So things have been easier, and I've been able to enjoy the free lunches. Although I still need to swallow quite a bit of vomit and fight hard to maintain a neutral facial expression for much of the time.

And afterwards: novels and drinking. So unproductive and self-indulgent. So GREAT.

Irish Apocalypse.

2008-03-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I presented a paper with some friends from school at WVU's graduate colloquium, and on our way back to Duquesne, I made the mistake of driving through downtown Pittsburgh after the St. Patrick's Day parade. The streets looked post-Apocalyptic. There were piles of green plastic cups drifted against overturned barricades, police cars and ambulances everywhere, and drunks of all ages staggering through the rubble, wearing bizarre green hats, jewelry, and apparel.

As we neared campus, we both feared and anticipated coming across our students drunk in the street. At the entrance to the Armstrong Tunnels on Forbes Ave, Melissa rolled down her window to ask two barely functional coeds why they thought it was fun to traipse around town drunk in garrish attire. But before she could do so, one of the girls turned to us and started whooping. "Yeah, St. Patrick's Day!!" she screamed, making Melissa's question immediately moot.

The glass walls of the bus shelter near campus had been smashed, and shards littered the sidewalk and street. A drunk dude in plaid pants and a newsboy cap nearly stumbled in front of my car. "Oh my God," Melissa said. "I have to get out of here."

Because we are a city of many Irishmen, and because the city officials are mildly retarded AND on crack, Pittsburghers are permitted to drink openly in the streets ALL DAY the day of the St. Paddy's Day parade. Many of the revelers are drunk by 10am, and they keep the green beer flowing as the day progresses. At some point, these people manage to trash the entire downtown area. Then, unsatisfied, they wander over to the Southside, where they stumble down the sidewalks in riotous groups, shouting, pushing, and vomiting. Mike was reading at Crazy Mocha, and every time the door opened, he heard unintelligible shouting. Then, the door would close, shutting out all evidence of the Irish Apocalypse yet again.

I find all of this very funny, but also very disgusting and terrible. Generally, I am amused by seemingly innocuous human spectacle: it all seems so alien, so strange. But I am pretty horrified by mass public drunkenness and the chaos that ensues. The mob scene that results when placid Pittsburghers blow off some steam en masse makes me think that our city--and our society at large--is barely holding our civilized facade together. What social force keeps us from this kind of chaos or worse every day? And will that force hold?

Crushworthy.

2008-02-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

No matter how much I attempt to intellectualize my love of Daniel Day-Lewis, I must admit that beneath my regard for his incredible acting lies what can only be defined as a school-girl crush. I love his crooked nose, his bemused and slightly ironic smile, his ability to lose himself completely in each character. And tonight, Oscar night, I loved his hoop earrings, longish hair, and soft-spoken acceptance speech.

Yep, it's a celebrity crush.

I'd like to tell you that I have been largely immune to celebrity crushes, but this would be a lie, and I think lying on my blog would be a mistake. So, to maintain the verisimilitude (or at least, the veneer of verisimilitude...mmmwhahahaha) of this text, I will freely admit that I have had several enduring celebrity crushes. Here they are, in roughly chronological order:

Leonardo DiCaprio, circa 1993-5. It became a total cliche to crush on Leo after Titanic hit the theaters in 1998, but before this he appeared on Growing Pains as the adopted brother for the show's final seasons, and he made a few artier films that captured my imagination: What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. Back in my grunge phase, the perversity of his playing a retard and then Romeo struck me as irresistible. Factor in a greasy bowl cut, pasty, skinny limbs, and sea-blue eyes, and it was a hopeless cause: Leo became my first major celebrity crush.

Christian Bale, 1994-present. When I was twelve, I went to a sleepover at my friend Kate's house with about ten other middle school girls. After eating a shitload of sugar and telling ghost stories in the back yard, we watched a sappy musical put out by Disney called Newsies, which dramatized the plight of young boys who sold newspapers in turn-of-the-century New York. Christian played the main character, a runaway who dressed in cowboy attire and performed a pulse-raising song-and-dance number called "Santa Fe." There were several forces at work here that soon brought about my second celebrity crush: again, the skinny, pasty limbs; the greasy bowl cut; and finally, the sympathetic bad-boy character that enthralled my middle-school self so completely. For a while, Christian faded out of the scene, but I didn't forget him. Now, he's returned with American Psycho, Batman Begins, and The Prestige: all roles that have revived and sustained my crush.

Johnny Depp, 1994-present. One of my friend's older sisters had a giant Johnny Depp-circa- 21 Jump Street poster in her room. I saw it and yet another celebrity crush began. This time, it was the brooding eyes, the bad-boy persona, and the complete and utter weirdness that permeated his image. I watched Benny and Joon, What's Eating Gilbert Grape (again, this time to stare at Johnny), and Edward Scissorhands. When he ditched Winona Ryder and trashed a bunch of hotel rooms, I only loved him more. And now, there are so many more bizarre films to add to the crushworthiness: Ed Wood, The Libertine, Pirates of the Carribean...And so, my celebrity crush on Johnny Depp continues.

Ewan McGregor, 1999. For a brief time, Ewan McGregor ranked #1 on my celebrity crush list. I watched Trainspotting, it sickened me, and then I fell in love with him--even though I had just seen him sitting on a toilet, shitting. The accent, the tight jeans, the skinny/pastiness: it was too much for me. Then, I saw Star Wars Episode I and it was over. Completely over. How could he willingly participate in something like that?!

Daniel Day-Lewis, 2000-present. I took an intro to film class my sophomore year of college, in which I pretended to understand mise-en-scene and cinematography. One of the films we watched in class was My Left Foot, the story of an Irish cripple who also happens to be a total asshole. As the lead actor, I found Daniel irresistable, again because of the greasy hair, the pasty/skinniness, and the sympathetic badass persona. (Yes, when it comes to celebrity crushes, I certainly have a type.) And Daniel added a few roles that took my crush on him to new heights: Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. Oh, the creepiness. Oh, the complexity. Oh, the crush.

And now, for the most recent crushes...

John Stewart, 2000-present. I want to marry John Stewart. And it's OK for me to say this, because Mike wants to marry him, too. No, he's not pasty or skinny, and he doesn't have an Irish or Scottish accent, but he has enough irony to make up for it. When he appeared on Crossfire and told off the media, the pride and infatuation Mike and I felt practically made us pass out. Seriously. Despite the rise of Stephen Colbert, John Stewart will always be my favorite joke news anchor.

James McAvoy, 2006-present. Last year, right before Oscar night, Mike and I went to see The Last King of Scotland. That's when I developed a celebrity crush on James. First of all, we have the skinny and pasty factor. Next, we have the sympathetic badass persona. And finally, we have a Scottish accent, and I love me an authentic Scottish accent. This crush DEFINITELY continues, and is, perhaps, stronger than ever.

So, there they are, the most memorable of my celebrity crushes. The sad thing is, I'm probably forgetting a few. I guess that's what happens when you pretend to be the kind of person who doesn't have celebrity crushes.

The Cruelest Month

2008-02-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

T. S. Eliot is wrong: February is the cruelest month, not April. I'm quite confidant that even the Hyacinth Girl, if she could reevaluate her situation, would agree.

February is cruel because it hangs like mustard gas in the Pittsburgh air, creating a sickly haze over the buildings and streets. It then infiltrates the body, creating an internal, infernal fog that colludes everything. Everything.

February resembles the cat-like haze in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Eliot always weighs on my mind in February.

Last year, when February weighed on my mind well into March, I made a list of things to look forward to, so I could chin-up my way through the bleak winter days. The list was marginally effective--effective enough to try it again. So here goes.

1. Possible Spring Break trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains for five days. We'll be staying at a ski resort located in the state park and will be doing little to no skiing. Snow tubing might happen, though, as will hikes through the park. Ah, nature. How vexed you are.

2. Possible Spring Break shopping spree at the Grove City outlet mall. I know: this item is totally lame. But hey, I am a shameless fashionista, and I long for spring attire. Seersucker pants? Check! Cotton sweaters? I hope so! Canvas flats in bright colors? Laaawwwwd, please!

3. Barack Obama's presidential campaign. I can't wait until he kicks Hillary's ass. She sucks. Why must the first woman to run for president be a conservative war hawk in liberal garb? Also, I'm a sucker for Barack's idealism. The Audacity of Hope? Well, I can't help but believe in it, either.

4. Spring flowers. Last fall I planted tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils throughout my garden with the aim to cheer myself up in March. I can't wait to see their yellow, purple, and orange splendor.

5. Hot Metal Faith Community moving to the bar/restaurant across the street. No more being late for church...hopefully...and the opportunity to take a greater part in their social ministries here on the Southside. This will give me the chance to atone for being a Very Mean Person.

uhhh...i think that's it. A modest list, but yet, a satisfying one. Remind me that I said so, okay?

"Let's run away to Atlantic City, let's feel the wind in our hair. "

2008-01-27T21:49:00.001-08:00

In response to one of my lethargic posts a few weeks ago, Em borrowed some lyrics from Ragtime to suggest a trip "down the shore." It was kind of a joke, but I think she knew that even bringing up the Jersey shore would make me come speeding across PA for a visit.

This sounds bizarre, but I love the Jersey shore. It's all so tacky and 1950s: the boardwalks with their tourist shops, wax museums, and trattorias; the overpriced carnival rides; the retro motels dotting the beach; the murky, syringe-laden sea. Oh my God, it's fantastic.

Em and I have a long and rather hilarious history of driving down the shore. The best (and worst) of these stories happened three years ago, in the middle of a string of ill-fated visits that each ended with me vomitting pathetically in Em's bathroom--and not from a stomach flu. I vomitted on this particular visit because I had sun poisoning. Hailing from upstate NY (where the sun seems to never shine) and being half Sicilian, I became cavalier with sunscreen during a long day of wave-riding at Wildwood. After six hours in the sun (!) and a beer or two at a pub, I realized that I probably had skin cancer. Blisters formed on my cheeks and thighs, and I was so uncomfortable on the way home that I took my pants off. But then we got lost--I think we somehow wound up in Trenton--an almost ran out of gas, and the gas attendant totally saw me (and my sun blisters) nekkid. Oh the horror, the horror.

The next time we went to the shore, I covered myself in sunscreen; unfortunately, at one point while I was bodysurfing, sunscreen was the only thing that covered me: there was a swimsuit top malfunction, and a handful of prepubescent boys innocently dallying in the ocean that day may or may not have seen their first pair. Again, the horror.

So, you can see why I love the shore: vomitting and nakedness plague me when I'm there. It's heaven.

But, it's winter (in case you hadn't noticed), and Em had a cold, so we decided to stay away from the shore this time and head into Philly instead. I am equally enthusiastic about Philly. The row houses, the nasal accents, the good Irish bars: what's not to love? Em and I also have a history there, including long hikes across town, into historical sites, across bridges, and into various bars. My favorite of these excursions happened a few years ago, when Mike, Em, Mark, Amy, and I found this crap bar with a great jukebox in the Old City, drank pitchers of cheap beer, and became pleasantly tipsy while we sang along to Van Halen & co.

This time, we went to a vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown, church in Fairmont, a diner near the art museum (where we sat uncomfortably close to four Philly dudes who kept staring at us and talking about "pussies"--a tried and true pick-up line, I don't doubt), the art museum, macy's (for some retail therapy, of course), and finally to an Irish pub just beyond "gaybarhood"), where we had Irish coffees and talked (loudly? hypocritically, after judging the dudes for the same thing earlier?) about sex.

And throughout the day, I realized that I could live in Philly pretty happily. All I want is an urban rowhouse with ironwork, a balcony, and a roof garden. There were plenty of those in Fairmont, where there's also a really spooky abandoned state penitentiary that hosts haunted houses for Halloween. I wonder, does the penitentiary raise or lower property value in the neighborhood? Because I would LOVE to live across from such a place.

Tomorrow I'm heading home, but I don't want to. I want to stay here and pretend everything in my life is fine. (Except for the vomiting and inadvertent nakedness that would inevitably occur if I were to linger a few more days.) But since I have to go back, I'll keep humming:

Let's run away to Atlantic City, let's feel the wind in our hair.
Sharing the day in Atlantic City, sea and salty air.
Let's run away to Atlantic City, no one can find us there.

Tony Soprano and Me

2008-01-18T06:18:00.001-08:00

Mike and I are currently making our way through season 4 of the Sopranos. Since we consciously avoid television, we're more than a bit behind with most shows that we love--especially the Sopranos, which is, like, over.

But oh, how we love the Sopranos! It combines so many characteristics we value in entertainment: dark humor, murder, miscellaneous debauchery, psychoanalysis, dumb Italians: you know, all of the things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. And let us not forget its quasi-literary value: there's actually a collection of essays entitled The Sopranos and Philosophy. Um, awesome.

Of course, one of the things I love the most about the Sopranos is its internalized portrayal of the stereotypical Italian man. Tony Soprano, on the surface, is my dad reincarnate: callous, uneducated, chubby, hypocritical. And I'd like to believe that the show's investigation of his interior life--as shadowy as it may be--reflects my dad's anxiety, bizarre sensitivity, and inability to process the depth of his actions.

And, of course, I'm rather fascinated that Meadow Soprano mirrors ME in some ways: she's smart, cynical, an English major, interested in social justice (perhaps in reaction to her father's disinterest in any kind of justice?), and caught between shame and pride for a father she resembles in many troubling ways. Toward the end of season 3, Meadow and Tony have a late-night conversation filled with the unspoken feelings between them. One thing that is spoken, though, is that beneath their surface disagreements, they are alike.

(The next time I saw my therapist, he helped convince me that my similarity to my father did not necessarily mean that I would make his mistakes.)

But my favorite thing about the Sopranos BY FAR is Tony's surprising sensitivity toward the plight of animals. During the show's first season, Tony's obsession with the geese in his backyard becomes a main subject of the conversation between himself and Dr. Malfi. He sits crying in her office because he is so worried about the geese, and it becomes clear that his panic attacks are related to the geese in some integral way. Three seasons later, Tony murders the sinister Ralphie because of his responsibility for a horse's death, and sees the need to send Christopher to rehab because he accidentally kills Adrianna's dog while high.

This love and concern for animals is comic, but also an integral part of Tony's character. It reveals his rather complex contradictions, and becomes a major way that viewers can build sympathy for him. Or, potentially, it could motivate viewers to feel less sympathetic toward a man who can chop someone up with a butcher knife but can't stand to see an animal suffer.

If you read my "Tagged" post below, you know that this characteristic of Tony's makes me feel sympathy for him, as I share a similar trait. I don't necessarily consider myself a misanthrope, and I certainly don't chop people up with butcher knives (insert sinister laughter here), but I do regard humans warily, because they knowingly perpetuate all manner of evil things. Animals, however, are victims to human folly and the cycles of nature.

And so, that is why I feel sympathetic toward them AND Tony Soprano, whose love for animals complicates his relegation to the "evil" side of the good/evil binary. And possibly my dad's--and my own--as well.

Etc., whatever.

2008-01-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

Things have not improved since my previous depressive post. I've become mired in office politics at school. My mom claims she's in love. I'm buried under a load of work. And it's only the first week of the semester.

When I started this blog, I told myself that it would not simply be about my problems; that while it would certainly be about me and my experiences, it would not read like my high-school journals (currently being stored in my creep-tastic basement): I wouldn't "pour my heart out" in a trite, angsty way.

But sometimes, sometimes, life has no literary merit. Sometimes life really is just angst and melodrama. And one of those times is now.

So, I would simply like to say that things are glum. Everything seems to have changed, but I had very little say in any of the changes. And, when I did have a say, I was totally and completely wrong, or speaking in another language, or depressingly self-interested.

There are no safe places. And I like to have at least one.

relapse

2007-12-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

My mom has started seriously dating a cousin of my Dad's who is an alcoholic, a gambling addict, and a drug addict; he has no job and lives in a trailer in Wayne County. Oh, and he has an estranged daughter my age.

And Mom refuses to admit that ANY of the above is a problem because he tells her that he's "born again."

So far, two holidays have been ruined by confrontations: the day before Thanksgiving AND Christmas Eve we had intense hours-long discussions about it. Each time, I pleaded with her to back away, using every rhetorical flourish I could to convince her what a totally fucking BAD idea this is. And each time, she accused me of doubting the power of Jesus Christ to "heal" people.

How can I argue with Jesus?

Quite honestly, I'm angry and scared. And I'm not allowing this relationship to happen without fighting it. My next step? Driving to Rochester and staging a family intervention. After that? Confronting Vince. And then? Well, I don't know. I refuse to threaten to cut my mom off: that's a tactic she's all too familiar with. However, I don't know how else to get my message across: reason hasn't been working so well; neither has heartfelt emotion.

And so, one of the only people I have left in the world is going to deliberately betray me--and herself. She's essentially choosing this ASSHOLE over her only daughter.

This is why my depression has relapsed, just in time for the gloomiest months of the year and the beginning of the spring semester.

And I feel completely powerless to fight it.

Tagged.

2007-12-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

Jessica of Folk and Fairy (see link on the right) tagged me. Because talking about oneself is the ultimate self-indulgence, and because I just finished typing (and vomiting) for two weeks straight, I must oblige. While gorging myself with chocolate, my second-favorite indulgence, of course.

The rules:
Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are seven random things about me. (Although, I kinda feel that this is redundant, since this blog is FILLED with random things about me.)

1. I become legitimately angry when people don't wear coats in the winter. Are they making some sort of statement by eschewing proper attire? Like, "I want to prove that women's bodies must be displayed not only in summer, but throughout the year! That's how much I love objectification!" Seriously, people. Dress for the weather.

2. Often I have more compassion for animals than people. Perhaps because they don't speak. And they're never under-dressed.

3. I hardly ever read a book chronologically, a quirk that irritates Mike endlessly. Usually I give the first and last chapters a skim; if I determine the book is good, I'll then proceed chronologically. If not, I will stop reading. If I have to read the book for class, I'll locate the sections that deal with a major character/theme and read only those.

4. I hardly ever read a book completely. Even if I love it, I'll still skip parts that don't seem important. I blame this on Dorrance Publishing and the hellish year I spent reading manuscripts there.

5. My last name is now Holohan. How random is THAT?!

6. I love domestic work that most women my age view as a chore/pastime of grandmas. This includes cooking, gardening, and sewing. Basically, I like making stuff. And then consuming it.

7. If I was EXPECTED to do any of those domestic activities, a la fifties housewife, they would immediately lose their charm. I only like grandma stuff because it seems kinda counter-cultural. I like to announce that instead of bar-hopping on Saturday night, I whipped up some bread pudding, ate it all myself, and then sewed myself a new bag. (See what I mean about consumption?) If I were actually living in the fifties, I'd be smoking Lucky Strikes, wearing leather pants, and driving a motorcycle, NOT sewing poodle skirts, cooking pot roast, and cultivating peony bushes like Mrs. Beaver.

M'kay, now I'm supposed to tag seven people. But because I'm not into rules, I'm not going to. And the whole "tagging" thing smacks of that '80s friendship bread phenomenon--you know, that jar of yeasty, goopy stuff your mom would tote home from church and then pass on to other unsuspecting acquaintances after she had baked several loaves of mysterious bread? Bizarre!

So, I'm approaching this version of tag the same way I approached tag during recess: great! I got tagged! now I get to sit down while everyone else runs around for another half hour.

Never fear, though: there will be plenty more self-indulgence here at marianne schmarianne in the future.

type, vomit. type type, vomit vomit. vomit.

2007-12-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering, that's what I've been up to these long, dark days of early December.

I'd forgotten, over my two year break from studenthood, how much I hate end-of-semester madness. You know, the feeling that you've worked your ass off all day and still have a grocery list of things to do. That centrifugal force has riveted you to the bed after you've drifted off, drooling on a book you were "reading." That you have so many ideas in your head that you will certainly explode or at least pass out from nervous exhaustion before you finish the damn paper. And, when it's all over, the feeling that your feverish effort has been for nothing, that you have not become a better person or helped anyone else to become a better person or really influenced the world in any positive way through your scholarly essays on Rebecca Harding Davis and Amy Lowell, which took many hours to research and write.

You know, THAT feeling.

I didn't overdo it, did I?

Still loving Linford.

2007-11-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

Linford Detweiler, of the band Over the Rhine, was the first writer to convince me that non-fiction could be beautiful and interesting. (I even got to tell him so once, and he appeared to actually care.) He did this through his folky, idiosyncratic autobiographical writing in which faith, landscape, and art merge with the self. And now, he's done it again:

"The thing about music is, you either feel it or you don't. And for whatever reason, when I sat down at the piano and Karin [his wife] opened her mouth, the room changed. We didn't plan it that way. It's just that the first time we performed together, people felt something on their skin and wanted to know what had happened, because it felt different somehow. All of a sudden we were feeling a bit shy. We didn't know what had happened, and Karin and I went our separate ways not long after we graduated. But I think that chemical reaction was lurking in the back of our minds."

A perfect metaphor for the tangibility of human connection. You can find the entire article, "Only in America: The Trumpet Child's Autobiography," in the November '07 issue of Paste, and Over the Rhine's new album, The Trumpet Child, in stores now.

"The Women's Movement has ruined you, Marianne."

2007-11-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

One of my professors actually said this to me the other day. In case you were wondering, the professor is a man--an older man in his sixties, who dedicates himself to dressing (unironically???) like a cowboy every day. Many of us have also decided that he has serious issues with women, as can be illustrated by the quote above.

Ever since I started my MA at Duquesne in 2003, this professor and I have engaged in an intermittent battle of wills and wits that has played out largely in the context of elevators: it's amazing how many witticisms can be exchanged between the second and sixth floors of College Hall.

Last year this battle intensified. A week into the fall semester, I realized I had the same schedule as this professor. Not only that: we taught in neighboring classrooms in buildings across campus. So, I often found myself walking with him to and from class. He did most of the talking. I would listen bemusedly most of the time, but sometimes I actually felt some pity for him: here he was, a few years from retirement, completely jaded and quite obviously certain that he had made little to no impact on students during the course of his career. And I became empathetic to the degree that I sometimes thought, "God, will this be ME in forty years?!"

But then we engaged in a pointless but furious battle of wills that led me to retract most of the empathy he had worked up in my hardened heart.

We began arguing over which route we would take back to our building after class. Imagine, if you will, a petite, young-looking graduate student squaring off against an older man in cowboy attire over whether we would take the direct route or the circuitous route that led past a university construction project. He became bizarrely insistent that I walk with him past the new building; I, in return, became equally insistent that we take the direct route.

Nobody really won: I went my way, he went his. This parting ended the battle for a while.

But now I'm in his class, and from the very first night I have been that obnoxious student who asks too many questions in a manner that borders on disrespectful. I am the opposite of demure, and I strongly suspect that he prefers demure women.

This preference of his became apparent during our next pointless battle, which took place in front of the microwave in the graduate office, i.e., MY office. I was in the process of microwaving a frozen dinner of some sort, and had realized that it needed to cook for another minute. Just as I placed the dish back in the microwave, I caught a whiff of cigarettes, whiskey, and stale coffee. Guess who? It was him, and he wanted to nuke his coffee. He insisted that I let him budge in front of me. I, of course, was equally insistent that he must wait, and pushed "start."

And that's when he said it, that thing about the "Women's Movement" ruining me.

(Seriously, who calls it that anymore???)

He says things like this to be controversial, the token misogynist in a department filled with feminists. Knowing this, I simply replied, "No, actually, I blame my father for that."

This statement, while a quip, holds quite a bit of truth. I've inherited most of my personality traits from my dad, so if my personality sucks, it's his fault, right? And then there's the whole 16 years in prison and unexpected death. Could these things count as "ruining" me?

Well, I guess that depends on what "ruining" means. In this professor's opinion, "ruining" appears to mean making a feminine-looking girl act in a way that traditional western society has dubbed "masculine": being stubborn, independent, assertive. And yes, I admit, rather bossy, snide, and aggressive from time to time.

Blaming this on feminism, though, is a fallacy. Yes, I am a feminist. Is this status responsible for my personality? Um, no. Does it keep me from repressing my personality? Sure. Isn't that called social progress? Does social progress ruin a person? As a Liberal, I answer that question with a resounding NO.

A-hem. Okay, I admit, I am beginning to sound strident. But, seriously Professor X. Stop being a dick.

My not-so-secret garden

2007-11-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

My garden saved my life.

Really, it did.

As I've discussed a few times on this blog, this year has been Marianne's Mental Health Year. After a decade (or more, let's just be honest) of avoidance, I decided to give up the internal battle and discuss my deepest insecurities and shame with a fantastic cognitive psychologist named Dr. Friday. (Doesn't he sound like a comic book character?) Therapy, definitely, has saved my life.

But my garden has, too. Investing a lot of time and physical effort and psychic energy in PLANTS can really help one work through anxiety and depression. And while therapy is amazing, the intensity of each session can often leave one...at loose ends for a day or two. Work--mindless work--is the best solution.

So, in April, I built and planted a garden from scratch in my teeny tiny Southside back yard. I ripped up about fifty years' worth of weeds and sod and garbage, added some new soil, installed a weed barrier, and stuck A LOT of baby plants in the ground. In the process, I also discovered and uncovered an old brick patio that had been neglected for so long that it had completely disappeared beneath three to five inches of weeds and soil.

I wasn't really sure if the plants would live. After all, the soil around my house has probably been contaminated by years of soot from the steel mill that used to be two blocks away. And, I've never really gardened on my own before: I used to "help" my grandparents with their gardens, but that was years ago. Still, I went out to check on the plants every day, watered them, fertilized them, pruned them, and they grew. And grew. And grew.

To be honest, I have been pretty obsessed with my garden all summer, and I pour a lot of emotional energy into it. I even blush a little when friends and neighbors compliment it. It's a big accomplishment for me, and I actually take pride in it.

Taking pride in something I've created is a novel concept for me. As Dr. Friday has forced me to admit, I have always regarded my creations as inadequate, and therefore, I've been a bit ashamed of them. In fact, when I have found myself in a particularly forceful fury of perfectionism, my projects and their "glaring" faults seem to exemplify my inadequacies as a person.

This is why I'm in therapy.

But my garden (and Dr. Friday, of course) has changed this unfortunate negative thought pattern. And, in celebration of newfound self-esteem, I've posted photos of the garden as it has evolved through the summer and into fall.

In case you're interested, the back flower bed includes Siberian iris, osteospermum, "dusty miller," "hens and chicks," marigolds, and Scottish moss. The side herb gardens include basil (purple and green), dill, cilantro, rosemary, oregano, and a monstrous grape tomato plant. The front gardens consist solely of French lavender bushes and double petunias.

BTW: After three frosts, most of the plants are still thriving. Also, I'm in the process of planting spring-blooming bulbs: tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths (in memory of Eliot's "the hyacinth girl"). The tulips--tall purple and dwarf orange--have been planted in the front beds; the daffodils and hyacinths will be planted in the back.

Argument

2007-10-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

I like to argue. But not when I'm actually angry. And only about issues without much gravity, like aesthetics. (Okay, so aesthetics can be pretty important sometimes. But...you know what I mean...)

Today I had a random argument with another graduate student, and I THOUGHT it was going to be one of those fun, random arguments I love so much. But then things went horribly wrong. Or at least, I think they did. I'm really not sure.

We were laughing, and then suddenly... he was shouting. And I was trying to keep laughing, but it was pretty awkward, to say the least. Then we seemed to patch things up, but he wound up kind of storming out of the room.

Ummmmm.....????

This person, who is so crotchetly and cynical he could be an old man with a cane, likes very few people. He is embittered and, I think it fair to say, hates everyone. Usually I have a soft spot in my heart for people like this, and so, up until today, I fancied myself one of the people he hated least in our department. In fact, the other day we had a strangely long and funny conversation about shampoo. I found this endearing and thought it meant I was on his good side. Or at least, as far from his ire as anyone gets.

But no. I had to go and make a somewhat idealistic comment about our department and the improvements the professors are trying to make. This totally set him off, and he began shouting, "Oh, you're from another planet. ANOTHER PLANET!" While I tried to explain myself, he continued shouting this directly into my face, and I felt something (perhaps the Sicilian part of me?) snap. And so, I found myself shouting the same phrase back into HIS face! At this point, the more rational part of me won control again, and I tried to make a joke of the situation. But there was NO salvaging it. It was irrevocably awful.

When I went to teach my class today, which is, ironically, about rhetorical argumentation, I told my students that I had engaged in an argument that completely lacked "mature reasoning" (the staple of competent argument, according to our textbook) and, as a result, had become very "cranky-pants" (a term I recently introduced them to). Then I had to deliver a grammar lecture, which made my day even worse.

Now, at the end of the day, I'm feeling 1) kind of glad I had this stupid argument, because it was amusing to me and everyone else around at the time, and 2) ashamed that I allowed myself to get carried away and that I should never speak again.

But I will. And a lot. I just can't help but argue.

Details: I love you, but you're bringing me down.

2007-09-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

Details, details. How I love you, how I hate you.

I consider myself a detail-oriented person in that I am analytical, a perfectionist, and generally pretty perceptive. (And because those personality tests that we all secretly love to take have always told me so. And I can trust those, right? RIGHT?) Inevitably, I'm the person in the group who brings up the flaws in any plans we've made, and I'm preoccupied by the one person who seems to have something bothering them. I take much longer to think a project through than to actually complete it. And when a room needs to be painted, I volunteer to do the detail work--and I actually enjoy it.

But somehow, the details of daily life always escape me. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've completely lost my short-term memory. Meeting today at 3? What? I was supposed to email a student about the assignment due tomorrow?! I'm supposed to do a presentation WHEN? We're hanging out with them TONIGHT? These are questions I ask myself and others on a daily basis.
I know, I know: I need to get a planner, set cell phone alarms, etc. I've tried that. In fact, I have a planner, and I use it, but there are always important events that I've forgotten to add. Or, I simply forget to consult the planner. Also, I turn off the cell phone alarm and then forget that it even rang.

As you can see, I'm hopeless.

And that would be fine, if my career weren't ALL ABOUT details. First, there's teaching, which involves countless details on a daily basis--details that a large group of students are depending on me to remember. On top of that, I'm taking two classes, meaning I have multiple due dates to keep in mind. And, since I'm basically the academy's bitch now, I have a whole list of extracurriculars to attend to, such as EGO (English Graduate Organization, and the pun is definitely intended) meetings, fundraisers, conferences, parties, etc. And somehow, I have to remember to show up for all of this stuff.

Clearly, I need a secretary to survive the PhD. But there's absolutely no hope for that, since my income is significantly less than a secretary would expect to be paid. What to do? Here are some options:

1. Become independently wealthy and hire a secretary. (Matt Reed and I already have a plan for this that involves Harriet Tubman's autobiography.)

2. Quit everything I'm doing right now, pop out some babies, and resign myself to huswifery. (although I'm pretty sure that I'd need good time-management skills to be competent at that. And, I'd go insane. "The Yellow Wall-Paper," anyone??)

3. Press on without a short-term memory and use the "absent-minded professor" stereotype as an excuse.

Which do you think sounds best?

Adventures in Public Transportation

2007-09-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

The fall semester just started; I'm exhausted and not thinking all that clearly at the moment. But I really need to tell you all about taking the bus.

For far too long, I feared the bus. From a rural Upstate New York perspective, the bus is an alternate universe where all sorts of ugly, sordid things congregate. It is commonly believed that one might get molested, hurt, or even murdered on the bus. Because my family members have this perspective, taking the bus never even occurred to me when I lived in Rochester. When I visited other cities, though, public transportation seemed like a natural choice: I took the L in Chicago, the subway in New York, and the streetcar in Toronto. All of these bus alternatives seemed very glamorous to me at the time, but as soon as I arrived at home, I was back in my car, speeding around Rochester and points east.

It was possible for me to avoid the bus because I've always had a car. From the moment I passed my driver's test at 16 until last month, I've been in the possession of several small, foreign-made vehicles that were given quirky names such as "The Mallier Kier" and "Fredo." (Each, of course, with pretty hilarious stories behind them.) They made it possible for me to live a very car-centric life for a long time, and for that I am (somewhat) grateful.

But now I take the bus. There are several good reasons for this. I sold my car for almost $4,ooo, and will be saving hundreds of dollars a year on insurance; I can also avoid paying steep downtown parking fees ($600 a year at DU!) and repairing the occasional smashed window/broken mirror, which is a given in city life. And, since I am trying to be as "green" as possible these days, I can also lighten my "carbon footprint" on the atmosphere.

But, honestly, I don't mind taking the bus because it gives me a great opportunity to stare at people and eavesdrop on their conversations. As I've mentioned previously on this blog, I have a love/hate relationship with the general public. While I am annoyed at/disdainful of/horrified by people much of the time, I am still intensely fascinated by them, and deep down inside my hardened heart, I feel...compassion for them. Yes, compassion. And the bus has become a space where my love and hate for the American public merges on a daily basis.

Generally, before entering the bus, I arm myself with sunglasses and headphones. These items ensure that I can stare at people and eavesdrop on them without them becoming aware of this, and, most importantly, without them trying to talk to ME. Conversation is to be avoided at all costs. However, this plan doesn't always work. And that's when things get interesting.

The first incident I experienced on the bus was, I've been told by hardened bussers, pretty extraordinary. The bus driver abruptly pulled over by Giant Eagle at Wharton Square, announced that he had to pee, and locked us all in the bus while he went to accomplish that. Of course, several passengers were outraged by this, including this shriveled little old man, who started ranting loudly about how the bus driver, by abandoning us to pee, was taking away our freedom as Americans. This became a spirited lecture on the many ways Americans are wronged by our government, which is the worst combination of communism and fascism and is being led by a complete moron. While delivering the lecture, he grasped a pole with one hand and with the other pointed ineffectually at all of us, trying to implicate us in the hopeless state of our nation. Passengers reacted in various ways to this angry little man. Some smiled sardonically to themselves, other nodded in agreement, some quietly expressed annoyance, and others ignored him completely. I laughed quietly to myself.

This incident has been followed by several more: the time a little old man warned me not to talk to recovering drug addicts who attend my church, or the argument I overheard between two black men regarding whether women are as morally perverse as men, the man (in a Pens jersey and sweatpants) crocheting a blanket at lightening speed, or the conversation between a young hipster and a middle-aged black woman about LA Gear sneakers. There's always something interesting happening on the bus. Which is why I'm not complaining--yet.

Dog Days

2007-08-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

These, my friends, are the dog days of summer. And I hate them. HATE them.

(I feel like I capitalize the word "hate" a lot on this blog. Hmmm.)

First, there's the weather. It's been in the nineties and insanely humid all week; I can't go outside without cursing. Stepping out the door feels like walking into a gooey wall of tapioca pudding fresh from the stovetop. And the sad thing is, it isn't NEARLY as delicious. Yesterday, my friend Jill and I discussed which month is worse weather-wise: August or February. We agreed that February is worse due mainly to lack of sunlight, but August weather definitely comes in for a close second.

Next, there's the back-to-school situation. At some point back in May I convinced myself that the end of August would never come, that even though I had made definite plans to begin my PhD and continue teaching, these plans were just abstractions, things I could talk about with acquaintances to shallowly impress them but not actually have to DO. Well, school starts in about two weeks and I still can't seem to flip my "this is reality and you should be concerned about it" switch.

Which isn't something that should surprise me: I've always been a terrible procrastinator. Well, actually, it may be more accurate to say that I've always been a FANTASTIC procrastinator, because I always seem to produce my best work at the last minute. However, I'm still consumed with panic each time I procrastinate (which, ironically, probably enables me to do good work). The other day I told Mike, who is also a serial procrastinator, that we should just accept our work habits as they are and stop panicking. But I'm not sure that's really possible.

All this to say that while I'm feeling glib about the coming tasks right now, I will soon feel miserable about them, and the misery will be heightened by my memories of the glibness. And, in thinking about this emotional process, my glibness is being spoiled. Gaaaa.

So there you have it: dog days. A bittersweet gob in the throat, sweat on the brow, and a growing seed of dread in the pit of the stomach. And gone far too soon.

Three's a (weird and creepy) crowd

2007-07-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, while attending Mark and Amy's wedding reception, I was hit on in a way that I've never been hit on before. Re-read the title, and I'm sure you can guess the specific way I'm referring to. Um, ewwww.

It happened at the end of the evening, when the remaining guests were more than a little tipsy. I was, of course, one of these guests, and I was definitely tipsy. (I actually have wedding drinking down to a science: only one drink before dinner, so I don't get sleepy when the bar temporarily shuts down, then three drinks containing hard liquor in quick succession after the cake. This allows me to get just drunk enough to actually have fun dancing, but not drunk enough to fall down while dancing.) I won't go into all of the details, and I won't mention who did the propositioning, but I'm 90% sure that a certain couple strongly hinted that they wanted to have sex with me. Together. At the same time.

oh, MY GOD.

Here's the thing: I'm friends with many people who are sexually adventurous, even promiscuous. But group sex? I only know a few people who have admitted to it, and most of the time they're ashamed. They say things like, "It happened on accident" or "We were all just really drunk and weird things happened." In my opinion, group sex is on the Dark Side. It means you are sexually deviant and probably have severe emotional problems. It should not be something you're proud of, unless you're Hugh Hefner or that asshole from Girls Gone Wild.

And, I admit, I am a huge prude. I've always been extremely guarded about my body. I've never made out with a stranger or near stranger (unlike most people I know--even the prudish ones!). While I have gone astray in other areas of life, when it comes to sexuality, I've always kept to the straight and narrow. And while I admit that I could have had a lot more fun at certain points in life had I been more willing to experiment, I'm proud of my prudishness and feel that I've done the best thing for me.

So, of course, when this proposition occurred, I was very weirded out and had to take a few minutes to analyze the situation. Had what I thought just happened actually happened? If it had, why?! Given who had done the propositioning (which will still remain unspoken), there were sooooo many levels of weirdness to sort through. And everyone was tipsy, making logical thought a lot more difficult.

With few options of escape open to me, I simply danced as far away from the offending couple as I could. But suddenly, everyone started creeping me out. Friends and acquaintances who had seemed innocently friendly moments before became sinister and suspect for sexual deviance that might possibly affront me at any moment. After all, the couple had seemed perfectly nice pre-proposition. It occurred to me then that sexual deviance is a lot like adult diapers: with the right clothes, they can be hidden, and no one will ever know about your incontinence unless they get close enough to hear the tell-tale rustle.

With my neuroses in full swing, I began wondering "why me?" Is there something about me that screams "I want to have sex with you AND your fiance?" I don't exactly wear my prudishness on my coat sleeve, but I never thought someone would be comfortable asking me to do a threesome.

The next morning, thinking about the situation again, I put the thought that the proposition had anything to do with me out of my head. Some people are just...odd. And I'm not--at least, not in THAT way. Go me.

You know you've married the right man...

2007-07-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

...when, on your second wedding anniversary, he arrives home from work in the midst of a heated phone conversation with a friend about the new Smashing Pumpkins video, and says this: "...it's so stupid that it's kind of cool, except he's wearing that fucking wedding dress."

Overhearing this, I was suddenly struck by how lucky I am to have married such a strange man.

The "He" being spoken of is Billy Corgan, of course, the eternally angsty rock 'n roll idiot savant behind the Smashing Pumpkins, a grunge-era anomaly that captivated many a moody adolescent back in the mid-nineties. Mike was one of those moody adolescents: he listened to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (both discs, and even the songs sung by James Iha and D'arcy) every day after high school and considered Billy Corgan to be a great voice of our generation (never mind that Billy is actually a generation ahead of us). "The world is a vampire..."; "I fear that I am ordinary..."; "We only go out at night...": these are musings that had Mike pumping his fist while crying a single tear in his bedroom every evening as he mourned the injustice of his middle-class, suburban existence.

I laugh at him, acting superior, but really, I liked the Pumpkins a lot, too. And I was, in many ways, the quintessential moody adolescent of that era: I wore black every day; I stayed up late, reading and writing existential poetry by the glow of my blacklight; I snuck clove cigarettes from the older boys I hung out with; and most importantly, I feared that despite these things (which I hoped made me soooo much more interesting and complicated than anyone else my age), I was, nonetheless, ordinary. Billy, who had reached the age of thirty by this time, legitimized my adolescent angst.

But, although I think I'll always appreciate the memories the Pumpkins evoke, and I'll always think that some songs (such as my favorite, "Tonite, Tonite") are fantastic, I'm done with them. I refuse to forgive Billy for quitting Zwan (which I really liked), making an atrociously embarrassing solo album, and then getting the Pumpkins (ie, himself and Jimmy Chamberlin) back together for a new album with the unfortunate title Zeitgeist. To me, grunge-era reunions are a sad cliche at this point. In fact, they remind me of Ethan Hawk, the grunge posterboy. While Ethan had it goin' on in Reality Bites and Before Sunrise, he refused to quit while he was still hip and now tries to write introspective novels and screenplays that are, of course, mediocre at best. Similarly, the Pumpkins of old were iconic; they should have left it at that. But no: Billy's got to beat the proverbial dead horse.

All this to say, I disapproved of the new album in theory even before I saw the horrible artwork and read the quasi-political lyrics. In my mind, there was no WAY it could possibly be good. Mike, while wary, had hope. The Pumpkins had always meant more to him than me: like many adolescent (and adult) males, music wasn't just music to Mike; it created an identity. While I mulled over Billy's gloomy, egocentric lyrics for a while and then called it a day, Mike obsessed over Pumpkins trivia, became part of a Pumpkins web ring, and bought rare Pumpkins imports online. [Mike claims that none of those things actually happened, but I think that's the embarrassment talking.] Clearly, for him, there's much more at stake.

But, while Mike claims that the new album is growing on him, there's still one thing that he can't forgive: Billy's dresses. Or, to quote him accurately: "Those fucking dresses." Billy started wearing them in the late nineties and no one really knows why. When the Pumpkins performed at the MTV awards circa 1996 or 97, Billy wore a long black sheath. Soon, he had a silver one, too. The melancholy adolescent boys, still nursing their homophobia, became disillusioned with their solipsistic hero. Mike tried to ignore the dress, but just couldn't. It began to symbolize everything that was going wrong with the latter day Pumpkins.

So this is why Mike is so pissed: he was hoping the album would be good, and it's not. Even worse, Billy's brought back the dress with a vengeance. It's apparently a wedding dress with all sorts of odd accessories. I haven't seen it myself, because I don't care. What I do care about, however, is Mike describing this dress and his feelings about it, because it's hilarious. And on our second wedding anniversary, it reminds me again why I fell in love.

"How are you feeling, generally?"

2007-07-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

Dr. Friday, my therapist since January, asked me this question toward the end of my monthly blab session on Thursday. And the answer wasn't simple by any means.

First, some background on my time in therapy. For three months, I saw Dr. Friday on a weekly basis. This was during the Really Bad Phase when I was in Serious Trouble. But apparently my mental health began improving, and in April, we cut back to two meetings a month. Then, in May, Dr. Friday brought up--wait for it--"termination." When he said that word, smiling optimistically, I began quietly panicking. What? WHAT? You mean, I won't be able to come see you anymore? You mean I no longer have to pay you to be a captive audience for my emotional problems???!!! These are all questions I shouted in my head. Outwardly, I tried to remain calm, but some of this turmoil must have registered on my face, because he suggested that IF I felt uncomfortable with termination, we could simply narrow our meetings to once a month over the summer and reevaluate in the fall. Visibly relieved, I accepted this compromise.

When I left that day, I began analyzing two issues: One, has my psychological health improved so much that I no longer need therapy? I mean, it has only been six months, and I've got twenty-six years' worth of depression and anxiety to sift through. True, we'd made some progress, particularly regarding the Shadow of My Father, but it felt like there was a lot more to do. Also, if the truth be told, I'd kind of resigned myself to being in therapy for life. And I no longer hated the idea. In fact, I'd come to kind of LIKE it.

Which brings me to the second issue: Why did I want to remain in therapy so badly? Isn't one supposed to be GLAD when one's therapist announces that one is no longer crippled by depression and anxiety? Yeah, you'd think so. But not me. As I brainstormed why, here's what I came up with. Option 1: I dislike any changes to my routine that aren't my idea, because this makes me feel Out of Control. Option 2: I'd come to regard therapy and the conditions that made it necessary as an essential part of my identity, and if I stopped going, I'd have to re-align my perception of myself. And finally, Option 3: Dr. Friday is the ONLY older man that I have been able discuss my personal problems with, making him a replacement father figure of sorts (figures). Quitting therapy would mean giving that up and possibly never finding that kind of relationship ever again.

I settled on all three.

So, when Dr. Friday asked me to describe my current state, I started thinking about my sublimated desire to remain in therapy. Would I allow this to skew my answer? And really, how AM I doing?

I'm not sleeping well, but I don't feel tired, and I'm using the extra waking hours to make stuff (see previous post). I'm not as obsessively anxious generally, but the other day I did sit outside of my friend's party for about fifteen minutes before I could muster the courage to go in. I've started smoking again, which is Very Bad for my health, but I'm also running three miles a day, which is Very Good. I've been getting along with my mom, but I've also been dealing with a lot of guilt and regret about other relationships (or lack thereof).

So, my answer? I told Dr. Friday all of the above, and he agreed that I'm vastly improved, but that I still need therapy. And so, the narrative continues.

I make stuff.

2007-07-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

It's true: I'm one of those women who can be classified as "crafty," and it scares the shit out of me. Here's why it's so frightening: I come from a family filled with women like this who have created countless hideous crafts and subsequently ruined their previously tasteful homes by placing these crafts on unsuspecting walls, tables, and any other available surfaces. My mom is one of the worst offenders: in the past year, she has ruined six perfectly good chairs by stenciling pink roses on them; desecrated a wicker table, which was once brown but is now burgundy "flecked" (aka, spray painted) with gold; and made a mockery of the chandelier above her dining room table by covering it in rose-printed fabric. And these are just her latest offenses against good taste. For years I have been sneering at straw hats decorated in pastel silk flowers, stuffed barnyard animals wearing bonnets, and lace edging on every piece of fabric in sight. And I have always sworn that this would NEVER EVER EVER be me.

But I'm helpless: my compulsion to make things has overpowered my fear of being like my mother and having bad taste (which, sadly, are often the same fear). I may be in the process of becoming what I hate. Ever since I was a teenager, other friends with crafty moms and I have frequently discussed when the turning point occurs, and how. Do you wake up one day and randomly think, "Must have mauve calico curtains immediately!" Or is it a slippery slope, one that leads you from thinking a little bit of lace on the edge of the shams would be pretty to displaying stuffed geese in nineteenth-century outfits on your mantle?

Well, now I know: it's apparently a slippery slope. But, I stubbornly insist that the pillow shams I made for my friend Jill last week are not at all mom-like, and that while they may be the first sign that my judgment is devolving, they're still...pretty cool. She thought so, anyway.

Here's the concise version of what I did: Jill and I went fabric shopping at IKEA and (the dreaded) Jo-Ann Fabrics. Jill picked out bright green, turquoise, and eggplant fabrics and contrasting thread. I borrowed several pillows she wanted to cover, designed some patterns, and used my mom's sewing machine to stitch the shams. Then, I found several Art Nouveau designs in a book Jill lent me, sketched them onto cardstock, and turned them into stencils. Finally, I applied fabric paint (no, NOT the puffy kind that victimized me in the early '90s) with a "sponcer" (a sponge for stenciling). Here's the results:

Now, I know what you're thinking: a trip to Jo-Ann fabrics? Fabric paint? STENCILS??? This is dangerous territory. And I agree. But, for the record, I'd like to state that Jill and I made sure to ridicule the soccer moms buying ice cream cone-printed fabric destined for mother-daughter jumpers, and we relived nightmarish puffy-paint experiences while picking out fabric paint just to remind ourselves that this project was SO MUCH different than that.

I insist that I have not yet slipped into style oblivion, which seems to me like the tenth circle of hell. But you be the judge.

"Shopping urban in mom's suburban" and other adventures in summer employment

2007-06-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

Before I begin this post in earnest, I feel the need to say this: I don't hate people. Per say. Really. I don't. Uh-uh. 'Kay?

Now, I'll say this: I have become an academic because I hate the "real world" (ie, corporate America and middle-class public life). And yes, often "people" are implicated in this hatred. However, in academia, people are secondary to ideas. Yes, people have created these ideas, but we can encounter them (the ideas and the people who created them) through written language. And honestly, that's how I feel most comfortable encountering others, particularly the scary but predictable monolith known as the general public.

But, because I'm still a student and my stipend ends in May, every summer I must leave the (relative) shelter of the academy and immerse myself in what I have come to know as the cesspool of public life: low-paying service jobs. Generally, these jobs are effective in that they send me running back to the university with open arms willing to be filled with books, papers, whiny students, and an even lower paycheck.

Here's a list of the crap jobs I've been forced to take over summer vacations since I was eighteen, ordered from least to most painful:

7. Office Assistant, DU English Dept.

Not a bad job, overall. I sat in a sterile, florescent office all day, but with people I could at least tolerate. The worst part of the job was photocopying ENTIRE 400-page books for a prof who needed to send the originals back to the library before she could read them. Yes, it was tedious, but at least I was working with books.

6. Library Student Assistant, McCartney Library

This was also a highly tolerable summer job. I had to put up with Dr. Moran, the hair-brained, high-tempered, and bird-like head librarian, and I had to "shelf read" pretty much the entire day, but again, at least I was constantly surrounded by books, which soothed me.

5. Temp, Office Team

I thought temping would be ok; after all, a lot of friends had done it with modest success. I should have known this would not be true for me. I was first sent to an Audi dealership in Monroeville, where I was expected to do three jobs rolled into one. This included answering the phone, which rang constantly; filing a never-ending pile of service invoices, which were organized poorly and placed in a separate room; and cashing out disgruntled service customers, which I technically wasn't supposed to do according to Office Team policy. Oh, I also had to screen calls for the business manager, taking the name of everyone who called for him and paging him to find out if this person was important enough to speak to. This happened about every five minutes. At the end of the two hellish weeks they offered me a full-time gig, but I ran far, far away. After a subsequent week-long stint at a poorly organized company where I had to ring a DOORBELL to get in every day, I quit the agency.

4. Ice Cream Scooper, Bruester's

This job seems painless enough, and you're probably thinking, as I was when I took the job, how difficult can scooping ice cream really be? Well, let me tell you: it's pretty damn difficult when you're 20 and working with 15-yr-old drama queens; when you've got shit for muscles and the ice cream is frozen hard; when the cash register tells you the total, not the amount of change you're supposed to give back, and you're bad at math; and when the corporate office is located across the street and calls to complain every time the line grows to more than five people long (which is ALL the time on summer evenings). My favorite incident was when one of the corporate bitches made me throw out an entire sundae because I had put it in the wrong kind of cup and used a little too much ice cream. I wanted to quit on the spot and walk out eating the sundae myself, but I needed the money, so I stayed for another month.

3. Freelance Editor

Why is this job worse than those listed above, you ask, when it seems like the perfect job for me? Well, because I had to work with Jaime, an insurance salesman who thought he was a genius but couldn't write to save his life. I had to read, like, the hundreth draft of his terrible manuscript and then ever so gently tell him how he should rework it (ie, rewrite it coherently). He did not take this so well, and sent me and the secretary for his publishing company about a million angry emails in which he criticized MY ability as an editor and basically acted like a condescending prick. And as you may know, it doesn't get much worse than a painfully mediocre person acting like a condescending prick. Then, I had to meet with him in person and spend three hours listening to his boring and inadequate explanations for why the manuscript sucked. I think I'll stick with teaching, where students HAVE to accept my criticism or else get a bad grade.

2. Housekeeper, Blossom View Nursing Home

Two words: Shit and piss. Everywhere. This is all you need to be told about this job and why it ranks second-to-last on the list.

1. Assembly Line Worker, American Thermoplastic Company

I don't even know how to START describing why this was the WORST summer job ever. Ok, how about here: I had to work on an assembly line with two frat boys and a strung-out Vietnam vet named Mickey, and we had to box binders with college names printed on them as fast as we could in order to receive a good "score" for the day. I made $7/hr listening to Mickey talk about his ex-wife and her name, Dina, which he claimed was tattooed on his penis. Oh, and I had to cover for him, working twice as fast, while he stared off into space. After Mickey was fired (he failed a urine test), I had to work with a kid who lied constantly, telling me to do this or that and then laughing hysterically when I believed him. Meanwhile, I was constantly hit on by big burly dudes who were intrigued by the fact that I was in grad school ("So I hear you're one a them smart chicks, huh?"). HELLLLLLL. I was actually relieved when I was diagnosed with mono after a month of work and had to quit.

You can understand, then, my angst at having to go out into the real world, once again, and find a summer job. Having ruled out doing most of the above ever again, I decided that I would venture into an area untouched by my experience as of yet: retail. Also, I wanted a job I could walk to. Luckily, I live two blocks from several retail chains. So I tried to make myself look cool and disaffected and started asking for applications.

Three days later, I found myself in the midst of a "group interview" at Urban Outfitters, where most employees clearly think they are both cool and disaffected. There were about eight of us in the group, including two managers, and I immediately guessed that all of them were younger than me. Luckily, I look like I'm 18, so I didn't discredit myself right away.

I shouldn't have worried about that, because it soon became clear that just about everyone in the group was a complete idiot. (If this sounds mean, I'd like you to refer again to the opening sentence of this post. It's still true! Really!) There was a glam-punk kid who let everyone know that he fancied himself a writer; a girl who supplied too much personal information every time she spoke, as if she were writing in a diary; another girl who spoke far too loudly, making me wince; a girl who claimed to be a dj and told everyone she was "a lover, not a hater"; and finally, an awkward girl who told us that she didn't feel "cool enough" to work at the store.

Here are some questions that the managers asked us during this interview:

If you could take only two items to a secluded island, what would they be?

If someone gave you $100 right now, what would you do with it?

What CDs have you bought recently?

Name your two greatest strengths and weaknesses.

What's one thing that really upsets you?

All I could think was: Seriously??? You're going to hire me based on my answers to these questions? Sweet.

But there was a catch. Everyone else had to answer too, and as they were all complete idiots, you can imagine what kind of opportunity these questions afforded them to be completely idiotic. I got through it by mentally stabbing myself in the eyeballs about a thousand times.

The next day, I got hired. Unfortunately, so did a few of the idiots, which made me feel very insecure.

Then, I went to training, where all of us new hires and two managers went over a few booklets that outline company policies. On the back of each booklet this phrase is printed: "Shopping urban in mom's suburban." Maybe I'm thinking about it too hard, but I still find the phrase baffling. My favorite policy, located in the customer service pamphlet, is an all-important acronym, VIBE: Values and Interaction to Build our Environment. Every employee on the sales floor is expected to put VIBE into action, to make it a verb, not just a noun. Shit.

During my first shift, I worked with a guy named Nick, who, while showing me how to run the fitting room, also embodied what VIBE really means. He started telling me that the company wasn't doing as well this year, because "who wants to pay fifty fuckin' dollars for a t-shirt?" Then, he brought it home: "I really don't give a shit about this company." I laughed, relieved to have immediately found someone as apathetic as myself about corporate success. We were totally vibin'.

The job is easy, and I found myself liking it, in an apathetic sort of way. Basically, I fold and straighten clothes for five hours, which appeals to my not-so-hidden compulsiveness about clothing.

However, it soon became evident that I would need to get ANOTHER job, since the store seems to think "part-time" is about six hours a week. So, through a circuit of connections, I found myself employed at a failing tie shop that has literally six customers a day. The manager was about to quit because the corporate office wouldn't specify if/when the store is going to close, and she needed a few employees to basically hold down the fort until this happens. It's the perfect summer job, in a lot of ways: I'm alone with books, the internet, and satellite radio for most of the day, and the company has already written off the store, so there's very little pressure to actually sell anything. In short, a good foil to the VIBE philosophy.

So far, I'm pleased with my summer foray into retail, because I get to work with other people who hate people. I mean, who seriously dislike people sometimes. Yeah.

But, only time will tell where these jobs will fall on the crab job list. I'll keep you posted.

Heat

2007-06-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

"...And, like that, I'm back in that valley with its broken-combed mountain tops and the wolves at night and the ever-present feeling that the world is so much bigger than you, and my mind becomes a jumble of associations, of aunts and a round table and laughter you can't hear anymore, and I am overcome by a feeling of loss. It is, I concluded, a side effect of this kind of food, one that's handed down from one generation to another, often in conditions of adversity, that you end up thinking of the dead, that the very stuff that sustains you somehow tastes of mortality."

Bill Buford, Heat

Last week Mike and I took a long-awaited beach vacation, and it went exactly as planned: we dutifully took the elevator from our seventh-floor condo to the beach, where we sat in reserved beach chairs and read books all day. (OK, I also did a lot of staring, mostly in grandma mode: from behind my sunglasses, I disapproved of every skimpy bikini, every instance of bad parenting, and every tipsy kite-flyer within my line of vision.)

So, as you can imagine, my reading list was of utmost importance. I began obsessing about it two weeks before vacation and walked out of Carnegie Library Main with a ridiculously large stack of books. I could barely see over them as I walked to the car. If you'd run into me that day, scattering the books across the sidewalk, you would have noticed a few typical beach reads in the pile: novels from a bestselling author published in the last year or two. You also would have found a non-fiction work by Bill Buford, former fiction editor at the New Yorker, called Heat (An amateur's adventures as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta-maker, and apprentice to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany). This meandering but engrossing account of Buford's time spent in the New York restaurant industry and at the mercy of Mario Batali, an acclaimed chef, is actually about the central role food plays in our lives--for some, to the point of obsession. Because of this, Heat was my favorite vacation read.

To explain why, I need to provide some background info. As I've already mentioned in a previous post or two, I come from a family obsessed with food. My dad's family, Sicilian immigrants from a small coastal village called Real Monte (you can see the African coast while standing on the beach on a clear day), quite literally regarded food as THE essential element of spiritual and social life. My Nono made his living at a meat factory, then came home and cultivated his extensive and meticulously planned garden. My Nona spent her days turning the vegetables he grew into delicious recipes that she had inherited from generations of women in her family. Neither of them (or anyone they knew) EVER had an important conversation without food present; similarly, food (its quality and portion size) was the main way they decided whom to befriend: if a paisan fixed a lackluster meal, or failed to offer a suitable abundance of sweets during a quick visit, they were blacklisted. Period.

So, it's no surprise that I related to my dad's parents mainly through the medium of food. We could never understand each other very well (they spoke very little English; I spoke very little Italian), but food and its preparation became an alternate language. Nono walked me through his garden, pointing with pride to young cucumber that I was allowed to pick early and eat whole. Nona let me help stuff ravioli with cheese, beef, and peas, and flip veal cutlets sizzling in olive oil while she supervised. I was allowed to taste the pasta to determine if it should be cooked longer (she never used a timer).

It was a family tragedy that I refused to eat red sauce for the first twelve years of my life. Nona and Nono both averted their eyes, seemingly in pain, when I covered my spaghetti with butter and cheese, but at other times they would study me covertly, as if trying to figure out the mystery of a blood relation who willfully rejected the family tomato sauce. "Americana," Nono would murmur, shrugging and seeking comfort in the garden.

My palate, at that age, had been formed by my mom's side of the family, English, Irish, and Dutch in nationality. At DeWitt family meals I could eat American comfort food at its finest: buttery mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, cheeseburgers. With my grandmother, a former home-ec teacher, I made snickerdoodle cookies and apple pie; I fried crumbled hamburger for mild chili; I learned how to use somewhat uncommon kitchen tools such as a flour sifter, and I was instructed in the details of competent cooking: always crack your eggs into a separate bowl before frying them! Always use a knife to level off a cup measure of flour! (I complied while she was watching, but when she left the room the details were totally lost on me.)

My parents, while from these very different backgrounds, met and fell in love because of food. My dad took my mom on a date to a steakhouse with a buffet salad bar, and she (a 115-lb model at the time) ate him under the table. He fell in love with her appetite; she fell in love with him because he was willing to satisfy it. To this very day, nothing makes my mom happier than an all-you-can eat menu.

All of this to say, an (unhealthy?) obsession with food is embedded in my DNA. Reading Heat, particularly the passage quoted above, helped me to understand the role that food has played--and continues to play--in my life. Even when I couldn't talk to my dad about anything important (which was most of the time), we could still talk about his sauce, and how he'd adapted it from his mother's recipe (he added onions). When I don't want to tell my mom about my bad day, I can describe--in great detail--the meal I made last night, and she is enthralled.

In this way, food does become a sort of alternate language, one that gives a new perspective to memory, one that reveals unspoken truths about identity. Food can be like memoir.

Rediscovering Mother's Day: A photo essay. Or, Why I miss Rochester in the springtime.

2007-05-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not a very good daughter most of the time (for reasons that will go unrecorded for now), but I managed to score some much-needed bonus points this last weekend with an extended visit to Rochester, during which I participated in many mother-daughtery activities. Here's a photographic record of these activities, which I actually enjoyed--mostly.

During my childhood and adolescence, my mom would often spontaneously take me out for country drives along the shores of Lake Ontario. My favorite drives were the ones where we would find ourselves chasing the sunset, trying our best to get to the shore before the colors faded. Well, on Friday, Mom and I found ourselves on another of these sunset chases. This time, however, the sunset was swathed in a curious mist rising off the chilly water and drifting onto the shore.

The photo above depicts this mist floating above an inlet on the Webster side of Seabreeze. I made my mom pull the car over so I could grab some shots. This one's my favorite.

Later, as we were walking down the pier, Mom spotted a blue heron standing quietly in the water. I managed to get this shot seconds before he flew away.

The next day, I "helped" my mom nanny Julia Collins, the three-year-old daughter of a childhood friend. We went swimming at the Webster Aquatic Center and swinging at Webster Park, which sounds simple enough, but I was EXHAUSTED by mid-morning. I became aware, yet again, of why I'm not ready to have kids: the swings lose their charm in a BIG way after about 20 minutes. When I'm with Julia in public, though, everyone thinks I'm her mother because we're so much alike: long brown hair, big brown eyes, and a neurotic temperament. She's basically a preview of my own future progeny. This photo shows Julia doing her "cheese!" face while Mom force-feeds her french toast. She and I will have to start a support group someday.

On Mother's Day, Mom, Grandma, Chuck, and I had lunch at Sannibel Cottage, a new restaurant named for an island on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It's my mom's favorite restaurant, which means it MUST be good. In case you've never met her, the first thing that defines my mom as a person is her food fanaticism. The woman loves to eat, and she has a magical metabolism (which I am SO GRATEFUL to have inherited) that allows her to consume vast amounts without becoming obese. Mom and I both put our metabolisms to work at Sannibel that day, devouring rolls with honey butter, salads with mango dressing, and large main courses. I had an excellent dish called "gritty shrimp," which combines Gulf shrimp with grits in a garlic-butter sauce and fresh asparagus. SO GOOD. As you can see from the photo above, my mom's metabolism is about the only thing I inherited from her: she's looking gorgeous, as usual, and I'm looking...like my dad.

After lunch, Mom, Grandma, and I headed downtown to the Lilac Festival, where I suppressed my crowd anxiety and checked out countless varieties of lilacs. I must admit, though, that my favorite flowering bush was the unidentified one in the photo above. However, I do really like the French variety of lilac, like this one, in front of which Grandma and I are posing:

I'm also really into the tulip bed, particularly the dark purple variety:

(PS: My mom took this picture, and she hasn't really learned how to zoom yet. In fact, digital cameras in general freak her out.)

Overall, it was the best weekend I've spent in Rochester in a long, long time. I haven't missed my hometown in a while, but when I stood on that pier, between the fog and the sunset, I realized that there's something about the place that I've internalized, that has become a part of my psyche in an unspeakable way. Often I want to forget the past and look to the future, and I've often wanted to abandon Rochester because eighteen rather gloomy years of my life were spent there. Yet the past is caught up in the landscape, and the landscape has become a part of my identity. I can't abandon it without abandoning myself.

I have a similar relationship to my mom: we've been through some tough things together, and often I want to forget those things. But to do so, I would have to sacrifice a large part of my connection to her.

Instead, I'm going to keep the memories around, but dilute them with water, to take the edge off.

Insomnia, gardening, and Pollyanna-ish realizations

2007-05-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

First, about the insomnia. This week, sleep apparently became optional to my body. Three nights in a row I laid awake, staring at light reflecting on the bedroom ceiling. My bed, once a refuge, became loathsome. I resorted to sleeping pills.

Then, I realized that outdoor labor makes the body remember that it's supposed to shut down when fatigued. I've decided to transform the weed-infested strip of dirt outside of our house into a garden of sorts. According to my gardening manual, this means that stripping the sod, removing roots, and replenishing the soil is necessary. Once I started this task, I also realized that removing random pieces of garbage from the last ten years or so would also be necessary. Under a few inches of dirt, I found a foam ring that looked suspiciously like the remnants of a padded toilet seat, a pepsi bottle, an old container of lip ointment, a few lighters, a metal hanger, a very long, unidentified strip of plastic, and a bunch of other crap. I felt like I was excavating life on the 2700 block of Jane Street since my landlord stopped caring about the outdoor appearance of the house.

I'm now on Day Two of this project, and the flowers aren't even in the ground yet. I spent yesterday morning clearing out bricks and other debris; today I finished that job and added some much-needed organic matter. Tomorrow I will install the weed barrier, plant the flowers, and top it off with some cedar mulch. No problem, right? We'll see.

In the midst of the gardening and insomnia, I've managed to engage in some "positive thinking," which I have cynically labeled as "Pollyanna-ish realizations" in the title of this post. These realizations revolve around the nightmarish learning community meetings discussed in two previous posts. After participating in this nightmare, I have been forced to admit these positive things:

1. I am a good leader and teacher. I take charge easily, I communicate straightforwardly, and I get things done. I can come up with really interesting teaching ideas. Even in the face of adversity (ie, a bad leader that must be surmounted).

2. Jesus put me in this horrible situation so that I would make this realization. Funny how he does things like that.

3. Even if the situation sucks, it is REALLY funny.

OK, now that I've satisfied my therapist, enough of that. Back to self-loathing, which is much more comfortable to me.

Freshman Bigotry

2007-04-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

Because I think that one of literature's main purposes is to make us uncomfortable with reality as we know it (including our complacencies, biases, and misconceptions), I teach Tony Kushner's Pulitzer prize-winning drama, Angels in America: Millenium Approaches, to my students. If you've never read it, the play depicts the interconnected conflicts of several characters who struggle with AIDS, homosexuality, religion, and American politics in 1985, which Kushner calls (using Stanley Kunitz's words) "a murderous time." Subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," it questions the binary oppositions that we Americans have internalized and allowed to control our thinking about controversial issues. In my class, I focus particularly on the oppositions of power v. powerlessness, freedom v. bondage, and justice v. injustice--and how the play reveals that none of the "priviledged" terms (power, freedom, and justice) are exactly what we think they are.

That said, my students have a very difficult time getting past the most blatant issue: homosexuality. These eighteen year olds, who seem to regard themselves as worldly, cynical, and badass, who regulary view graphic violence and sexuality in commercial films, are shocked--SHOCKED--at the profanity and graphic sexuality in the play. They're so distracted by these aspects that they can't even really begin to find meaning in it on their own. While grading their written responses, I read, over and over, "I've never read anything like this before," and "I don't understand what this is about." Some of them are so taken aback that they begin to sound almost elderly at best and hatefully bigoted at worst. Here's an example of the former:

"...I still do not see how this could have won the Pulitzer Prize, and to be honest, I do not see how anyone can even consider this a good piece of American literature. The language and content used is so vulgar, that if reading this play were not for a grade, I would have put down the book by now. There are ways to express certain things without having to capitalize the work 'fuck' or using other curse words on almost every page of the entire play...."

And here, sadly, is an example of the latter: While students were in discussion groups last Friday, I heard my "troublemaker" student (a guy, of course) telling his group that he thought homosexuals DESERVED to get AIDS and die. The other students (to my relief) reacted with shock and horror at his statement. He saw that he had my attention at this point and repeated the statement. I had to make a quick decision: how do I respond to my burgeoning bigot? Do I ignore him? Do I make a big deal about it? Do I silence him? To my own astonishment (so many things I say while teaching astonish me), and because I was highly medicated at the time, I very calmly told the student that his statement was precisely the kind of thing I did not want to hear in my classroom. He attempted to defend himself by saying that his opinion was religious in nature. I could tell that he was delighted with the negative attention, so I went with the silencing option, just to spite him. I told him that he needed to beware of his audience, and that I require students in my class to be respectful of everyone in the room. Then he said, "I know. Teachers have told me this before." !!! So I ended the conversation by telling him he should know better, then.

After class ended, I found myself preoccupied with my little bigot and my response to him. At first I felt that I had responded too calmly. I mean, if someone had said something similar about African Americans (like, "They deserved to be lynched!") I probably would have kicked the person out of my classroom. Was I playing into gay oppression with my even-handed response? On the other hand, was I wrong NOT to engage in a moral discussion? If I really want to change their minds and hearts, shouldn't I have challenged that student to articulate his views, as horrifying as they may be? Maybe if he had failed to defend himself in a rational manner, he would be more likely to see the flaws in his thinking.

After obsessing over the situation for a few days, though, I'm standing by my decision. I wouldn't give a voice to racism in my classroom, or sexism, so I don't think I should give a voice to homophobia, either. And I'm not sure how much value an impromptu discussion of moral values could have. I make it a point to refrain from debating my students on "hot button" issues because there's really no conclusion to these arguments, and I am determined that my classroom WILL NOT resemble The O'Riley Factor in any way, shape, or form. So, I shut the bigot up. Hopefully he'll get the message someday.

Lest I sound too negative, I do need to point out that many students are really into the play, even though it confuses them. One student wrote, "The piece displayed some good points and made me thoroughly analyze my own thoughts on some of the topics and conversations held throughout the story." I can't reach every student, but I can get some of them to start thinking about the world in radically different terms than they once did.

After all, am I not, myself, the product of such an effort? There was once a time when I was surrounded by people who, following Falwell's lead, would agree that AIDS is the embodiment of God's wrath. Thanks to the Humanities profs at Geneva College (of all places!) I was rescued from freshman bigotry: literature scooped out my brain (with all of its complacencies, biases, and misconceptions) and put it back in, rewired it, and set it on a radically different path. Now it's my turn to do the rescuing, and while it may seem like I'm doing a shitty job at times, I'll just have to keep the faith. If it happened to me, it can happen for others as well. I have to believe this, or I'll never get myself out of bed in the morning.

I'm sick and that's sad.

2007-04-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

I thought I would escape winter without a cold, but no. A blast of cold weather (soon after an 80 degree day) has allowed a cold virus to assault my weakened immune system. I tried to ignore the cold for a few days, which of course only made it worse. So, I am pouting at home today instead of working. I love spring.

Springtime on campus = ew.

2007-03-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today the temperatures have crept past seventy for the first time this year, which seems like good news. However, I work on a college campus, which means that this is actually bad news. Ordinary college students who just last week slumped around campus in their hoodies, boots, and pajama pants have now removed ALL of those items and replaced them with much smaller pieces of fabric that, if you look closely, can be identified as miniskirts, tank tops, and shorts. I'm referring to the girls, of course; the guys are just as bad, though: many of them are wearing beaters or have removed their shirts entirely. And, the combination of exposed female skin and warm temps have transformed them into loud, smirking assholes. (Many of them were assholes before but kept this under wraps, just like the girls kept their skin.)

I try very hard to believe that humans are, in fact, much more sophisticated than animals, but often I find my efforts challenged, particularly when the mating rituals described above are boldly displayed before my resistant eyes.

Sadly, these primal cycles affect me too. Today I wore a skirt with bare legs and open-toed shoes, and I noticed that some of my male students behaved...differently. Some were louder, more show-offy. Others were more gentlemanly, deferential. Still others tried extra hard to participate to my liking. Basically, whatever they thought they could do best, whatever has won them most attention in the past, that's what they did, probably subconsciously.

But who am I to say? I'll never REALLY understand men. Even though I used to hate it when women said that, now that I'm married, I know it's true. I know Mike VERY well as a person, but as a man, he remains mysterious to me. This is why I once swore I would never marry: at the time, my idea of being in love was conquering the other person, and you can never truly conquer what you don't understand. (Ironically, when you DO come to understand that thing you don't want to conquer it anymore.) But now I'm down with ambiguity. What else do we have to keep for ourselves other than our own mystery? I know I want to keep (horde maybe is a better word) just a little bit of mine.

But anyway, back to complaining about college mating rituals. The bottom line is, if such a sordid, archaic thing must happen, I wish they would at least keep it out of my sight. Maybe I'll start failing girls for showing too much leg and guys for noticing. But who am I to question or disrupt nature? Maybe I should just accept the inevitable.

Offers

2007-03-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

Despite my somewhat irrational fears of rejection on all fronts, I have received two "offers" (aka acceptance letters) from PhD programs: one from WVU and another from Duquesne. Both have offered me a full scholarship, teaching fellowship, and stipend of about 13 grand a year for five years. Now I must choose.

For a few days, the situation seemed very complex. For a while, before I was accepted at either school, I was sure that I wanted to go back to Duquesne. Then, I was accepted at WVU and got a very flattering email from a nineteenth-century Americanist who specializes in Native American literature. She told me that they were "very excited" about my application materials and that she personally found my work very interesting and very much wanted me to choose WVU (the word "very" was used often). And so, I wavered. Scholars excited to work me? It seemed too good to be true, and as I (sadly) crave validation that I really do belong in this field, I was a sucker for the praise.

But now that I've received an offer from Duquesne, and just as much validation from professors who know me pretty well, I find myself wavering again. Why not return to a department where I've already "proven" myself? This afternoon I was so conflicted that I made a trusty "pro/con" list for both schools and talked through it with my friend Jill. After this exercise, I realized that I only want to go to WVU for one reason: Timothy Dow Adams, an autobiography specialist and co-editor of a scholarly journal on autobiography. And honestly, I don't really think that reason is good enough. What if he's a jerk? What if I decide I don't want to write my dissertation on autobiography after all? Then I'm stuck in West Virginia, which is VERY unappealing to me.

So, I think I'm going to go back to Duquesne, as a degree from there will allow me to pursue the career I want: a tenure-track position at a small liberal arts college. But first, five more years of hard work, including one or two in the library, researching and writing a 150-300 page dissertation. I must hate myself. But, academia is the only workplace for me, and I do kinda love it, in the same way that I love large meals, which I know will result in a stomach ache, gas, and fluid retention, but that I just can't stop myself from consuming.

Why does like have to fluctuate between darkness and light? And why is the darkness so appealing to me? Grrr.

St. Patrick's Day

2007-03-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'm always surprised at what a big deal St. Patrick's Day is in Pittsburgh. Especially here on the Southside, where there are (purportedly) more bars per square mile than anywhere else in the country, two of them Irish. This meant that drunk yinzers staggered by our house from morning til night, most of them wearing everything green they could get their hands on, which made for some pretty humorous moments.

But my favorite St. Patrick's Day moment by far was the sight of a drag queen, decked out in a green mini-dress, gigiantic blonde wig, and heels, drunk and attempting repeatedly to walk through a revolving door that had been locked. Hilarious.

Other than an opprtunity to laugh at drunks, St. Patty's Day means very little to me. I'm not a big drinker, and even though I now have an overtly Irish last name (that rhymes very unfortunately with my first name), I don't really identify all that much with the teeny bit of Irish blood that I inherited from my mom (which is actually a very controversial topic in her family: her grandmother's generation denied that they were Irish to avoid discrimination/stereotypes). I can appreciate some Irish literature (I've even been won over to Joyce), I like some traditional and contemporary Irish music, and I'd like to visit the country someday, but these things are not a large part of my life. And honestly, the Celtic aesthetic doesn't really resonate with me, probably because it's so overused, and by individuals categorized under a different form of nerdiness than me.

Mike is Irish and Eastern European (like many Pittsburghers), but he's never been that interested in his nationalities. While I'm a first generation American, he's probably a third or fourth, and while I grew up with my Sicilian grandparents, his Irish grandparents died before he was born. So, he's just as uninterested in St. Patrick's Day as I am.

Still, I'll look forward to my occasional visits to Piper's Pub and The Harp and the Fiddle, where I will indulge in strong Irish beer and the VERY few items on the menu without meat.

Grading makes me want to vomit.

2007-03-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

I used to think that there could be nothing more psychosis-inducing than writing papers, but I've discovered over the last few years that I was wrong. Grading papers is far, far worse.

There's so many of them. And they're all so bad. Well, not ALL of them are bad, but most of them are. And it takes forever. And I just know that no one will bother to read the comments I've spent days laboring over. And of course I've procrastinated, leaving most of the papers until the end of spring break, making the whole situation even worse.

I'm having an existential crisis over it. I know, I know: I practically have an existential crisis every day. But this one is particularly shameful and adolescent.

I considered paying someone to grade the papers for me, but unfortunately I would fail my students if they paid someone to WRITE their papers, so I feel morally obliged to do the work myself.

Why God why.

Now I have to go grade some more, meanwhile choking back my lunch. Seriously, make it stop.

Lost in Translation.

2007-02-27T14:07:00.000-08:00

What's left to do the last week of a cold and dismal February (which also happens to be the week before Spring Break at DU)? Find humor in situations that others will NOT find funny when you try to relate them later. Here are three things that were HILARIOUS to me this past week, but a lot less humorous in the telling:

1. Last Wednesday, I was trying to teach two poems by Robert Browning to a class of 18 freshmen, and they were SO not getting them. When I came back from my 11 am class, I was discussing the situation with a few other adjuncts, and it somehow became this elaborate joke that involved...snakes and vaginas. Um, I really have no idea how it happened, but we were all laughing hard enough that our sides hurt. The next day, one of them, Craig, told me that he had been working out that afternoon and suddenly was overcome with the humor of the situation. Another, Benji, told me that she tried to relate the joke to her husband, but it just didn't translate. And so, I'm not going to even try to explain it all now--just know that the joke, odd as it was, offered a few good moments during bad days.

2. On Friday, Mike and I were reading an aquaintance's blog, and discovered a link to a site devoted to science-nerd haikus. And on that site, we found this work of genius:

"E Coli in My Butt"
I learnt this today:
There's e coli in my butt
Also in my gut

--Henry James

I probably laughed about this for two-three days straight. Why? I'm not really sure. But the fact that the author attributed it to Henry James makes it even funnier.

3. Immediately after Martin Scorsese won his much-deserved Oscar, "The Departed" also won Best Picture. Martin had already left the stage, but a camera followed him as he learned the news. And because he is a nervous little man, he hurried back to the stage. At this point, the camera cut to a brief shot of him pointing and yelling (nobody could really tell at what or whom), and I lost it. I probably laughed for about ten minutes, which was uncomfortable, because everyone else we were watching the Oscars with had stopped laughing long before. Again, I had no idea why it was THAT funny to me, but later Mike reminded me that I've been surrounded by tiny, nervous Italian men my entire life. I guess that'll do it.

Process versus product.

2007-02-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

I'm having a hard time enacting the "process versus product" mentality. I have fully embraced it philosophically, but I just can't seem to make it work for me.

Here's why:
1. I am a perfectionist, and perfectionists expect a perfect product to justify all of the effort expelled during the process of creating it.

2. I am impatient, and usually a process of any kind takes time and patience to enjoy. Generally, I just rush toward the finished product so I can begin the whole frenzied mess all over again.

3. I am obsessed with products of all kinds and what they do for me: beauty products, clothing, albums, movies, etc. Do I care about the process that L'Oreal engaged in to produce my face wash? No, not really. This, sadly, also applies to movies and other things I should care more about than my face wash. For instance, while Mike is usually just as excited about the "making of" feature on DVDs, I'm just...not. (The only exception here is books: I often write critical papers on the process an author went through to write/publish a book. But I don't enjoy the process of writing the paper AT ALL.)

So why am I thinking about this now? Well, I started painting again last week after a seven-year break, and I was having a pretty hard time getting started. By that I mean that I was indulging in a lot of "negative thought patterns"--exactly the sort of thing I'm supposed to be avoiding, according to my therapist. Every time I tried to paint, I remembered why I'd quit: it wasn't fun anymore. Instead, it became self-conscious and something I felt pressured to do well. Also, I had a crisis of representation: I was painting in sort of a quasi-realist/impressionistic mode, and I wanted to transition into a modernist mode, but I couldn't make that work for me. So I quit.

And I was on the verge of quitting again, until my therapist cornered me with his pesky logic and insight into my character. He reminded me that it was pretty telling that I couldn't even enjoy something that's supposed to be fun and relaxing; he also pointed out that I wasn't engaging in the process of painting at all (or the subject matter of the painting), but instead fixating on the final product. "And that's not saying that frustration isn't part of the process," he said. "But remember, the act of creating the painting is much more important than the painting itself."

He was right. And he was even more right when he told me that I need to start regarding my life that way as well. But now I have to figure out how to actually DO that.

At church today, Jeff talked about how, throughout the ages, individuals have constantly tried to find a way to rid themselves of the sins of the flesh and live the life of the spirit. He related the example of St. Francis, who, to eradicate lustful thoughts, made himself a "snow wife"--a snowwoman, basically--and then rolled around in the snow to cool himself down. Um, weird. Jeff then suggested that maybe if we start serving others as Jesus (and Paul) command us to, it may be the equivalent of nailing our fleshly impulses to the cross--a much more useful alternative than, you know, the snow wife.

It seems that my predicament is a similar one: I'm feeling so blinded to the answer to my question, that I'm tempted to fashion a bizarre St. Francis-like alternative to make myself at least feel as if I've found the answer, when I'm really just responding to flesh with flesh. But, truthfully, I know that figuring out how to enjoy the many processes of life will be ... a process. Damn.

February on my mind.

2007-02-05T11:26:00.000-08:00

I hate February. HATE it. To me, it is equivalent to those horrible early morning hours (3-5 am)when you'd rather be asleep, because if you're awake it means a.) you have insomnia, or b.) you had to wake up way to early, most likely for an unpleasant task. This sums up my attitude toward this nightmarish month: I'd rather be sleeping, especially since I have some really great flannel sheets on the bed right now.

But unfortunately, life goes on, in all of its awful February mediocrity. Here's what I've been doing to try to spice things up:

1. I made a Myspace page. Yeah, I know, it's barely even cool anymore. And when it was cool, it was only ok for teenagers. But, I tend to do things after the novelty is worn off. For instance, vegetarianism: hip in the nineties, but expected in 2004, when I decided to give it a shot. And I'm still loving life sans meat. So there you go.

2. I've been scoping out the spring fashion that I cannot afford to buy. I try to pretend that my obsession with fashion is simply artistic, but really, it's a VICE. Each month, despite my best intentions, I blow all of my spending money on new clothing. I just--can't--help--myself. But, part of the frustration of being a fashion hog in February is that the stores are loaded with springy items, like sandals and even bathing suits. And because I always want to immediately consume my new purchases, I can't justify buying spring clothing at the moment. However, I can plan for the future. (Yes, I plan my wardrobe. Sad, I know. I blame my mother.) And this year, I've noticed the stores are full of an item I searched EVERYWHERE for last year: open-toe flats. And there are many colors, so I'll have options. This is very exciting. Yay.

3. I've been baking and eating cakes. I used to be pretty awful at baking, but with a bit of practice, I've improved substantially. Last week I made a tasty chocolate-pistachio cake that turned out beautifully. There was a bit of an issue with the chocolate topping--it turns out that dark chocolate doesn't melt very well--but everything turned out fine, and I got to use my most unnecessary wedding gift: a fancy glass cake plate. This week, I'm planning to make a two-layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Here's my rationale: If I can't hibernate through the month of February, I'll at least eat like I'm going to.

4. I rescued a kitten that was trapped beneath my kitchen floor. She was about two months old, and nearly dead of starvation, but she had the loudest meow I've ever heard. I pulled her out of a small trapdoor that my landlord never sealed and promptly gave her a can of food, which she inhaled. I was all set to keep the kitten, but Alice was VERY angry, so I had to give her to my neighbor. But, at least she's alive, out of the cold, and in a good home.

5. Mike and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica, a very nerdy but AWESOME sci-fi series. I'm not usually a sci-fi nerd, but this series has really won me over. I'm so into it that often I regard my day as a mere prelude to its melodramatic glory. Once again, sad.

6. Finally, I've been dreaming of the beach vacation we're going to take in May. Having won Mike over to the sublimity of spending a week reading on the beach last year, I can't stop thinking about how much better it will be this year, since we've decided to literally do nothing but sit our arses on the beach and occasionally go out to eat. Only three months to go...

Still, February isn't just a month: it's a state of mind, and it's kicking my ass despite the aforementioned activities. What I need is an impromptu trip to Europe. If anybody's willing to buy me a plane ticket to Paris, let me know ASAP. Not to sound desperate, or anything...

The Anniversary

2007-01-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

Two graves must hide thine and my coarse,
If one might, death were no divorce...
John Donne, "The Anniversarie"

To celebrate the first anniversary of my dad's death, I did something that he would have strongly disapproved of: I began therapy. For the entire year, I'd been confronted again and again by how much I needed to do this, and I saw, in candid moments, that I was a textbook case for clinical depression. But--and this is a big part of the problem--I am my father's daughter, meaning that I am stubborn as hell about repressing emotion and rationalizing bad behavior. And I told myself these things: you are cynical about life, yes; a pessimist, absolutely. These are aspects of your personality that you need to embrace, not symptoms of a disease that needs to be eliminated.

But a few weeks ago, as the anniversary crept closer, I decided that if I couldn't call myself out on this shit, I needed to pay someone to do it for me. I wasn't sleeping well, but I didn't want to get out of bed. I resumed my obsession with death. I began to believe, again, that the world is controlled by raving maniacs, who are in turn controlled by a maniacal God. My heart raced frantically, hamster-like, in my chest. Personality? God, I hope not.

So, off I went to a really great therapist who plays the part exactly like I want him to. He pays close attention to semantics, asking challenging questions about my word choices as I try to explain the past. And, we've even talked theory: he's a cognitive psychologist, and he's explained exactly what that means and how he wants that approach to play out for me. Which is great, because it allows me to believe that the whole therapy process is at least somewhat within my own control.

Strangely, even though I avoided this for so long, I'm starting to like it. Maybe this is because I'm an egomaniac and love discussing myself for a hour; maybe it's because I'm actually making sense of some aspects of my past. But one thing continues to nag me: what ARE the boundaries between my depression and my personality? And, furthermore, what if the world actually IS run by maniacs? Wouldn't it be better for me to accept this? What if I'm being a realist, something that naive optimists choose to call depression?

Mike tells me this is my depression talking.

Eating alone

2007-01-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

A woman eating alone in a "sit-down" restaurant is an unusual thing, even in the twenty-first century. I realized this a few years ago, when I would occasionally eat out alone. Most of the time, I would come prepared to look busy, brandishing a book or magazine like a weapon of sorts against the confused and/or pitying gaze of the waitress. But honestly, I don't like to read while I'm eating; I don't like to talk much, either. I just want to focus on the fleeting pleasure of hot, flavorful food, freshly delivered from the kitchen: the way it looks on the plate, the way it smells, and of course, the way it tastes. In fact, one of my favorite moments in everyday life is when a plate of food is placed in front of me. (If you've met the people who raised me, this should come as no surprise.) I don't need a partner to enjoy this moment, even if I am a woman.

Since I got married, I don't eat at restaurants alone all that often. Eating is one of the most fundamental activities of life, so if you're truly sharing your life with someone, it goes without saying that you'll eat with them most of the time. Last Saturday, however, I found myself alone, and knew exactly what I wanted to do: eat lunch at Lulu's Noodles and then spend the afternoon at the Carnegie Museum. So, I went to Lulu's, announced to the host that I was a party of one, and was given the worst table in the entire place, which I'm sure they were saving for a solitary party such as mine. I resisted the urge to get out a suitable person-dining-alone activity, and instead simply sat and (i'm pretty sure) blatantly stared at the people around me, eavesdropping on their innane conversations. It was great. Then, my green tea and pad thai arrived, and I savored the moment as long as I could.

Alone, and without the self-imposed distraction of a book, the moment was heightened: I dwelled upon the well-balanced flavors and textures, the heat on my tongue. I ate so slowly and deliberately that I couldn't finish the generous helping, as I usually can. My meal, along with the gray afternoon light on the table and the clamor of eating all around, formed a sort of still-life in my head, and as I walked through the art galleries later, I wished that I could bring myself to paint it. But I don't paint anymore, so I'll use Li-Young Lee's words to represent the subdued pleasure of eating alone I experienced that day:

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want?

A Holiday

2006-12-31T16:49:00.000-08:00

Tonight is New Year's Eve, which is my absolute LEAST favorite holiday, because it's all about SOCIALIZING and having a "great" time, when really, there's nothing all that great about talking to shallow strangers at drinking parties in expensive hotel rooms, which is what most people think they need to do to have a great time on New Year's. There's also nothing great about being suckered into attending a drinking party at a near-stranger's house, which has been the story of my New Year's Eve for the last three years or so. All I remember doing at one of these parties is staring like a zombie at re-runs of "I Love the Eighties" on VH1 while drinking warm Coors Lights. At another, I fell asleep. At another, I became irrationally angry when our friend Ashley repeatedly and loudly insisted that we play charades, my absolute LEAST favorite game--so angry, in fact, that I yelled at her. When we finally wound up playing anyway, despite (or because of?) my evident hatred of the game, I became overly and embarrassingly competitive as an outlet for my aggression. I wrote down obscure, oddly worded book and film titles for the other team to act out; in revenge, someone gave me The Silmarillion. Luckily, Darren Belajac (another overly competitive player) was on my team and guessed it.

This year, I'll be going back to a near-stranger's (friend-of-a-friend's) house for a drinking party where games will be played. Seems like a cruel repetition of past New Year's nightmares, but this time, there are two differences: we're bringing our own supply of Jagermeister and Goldschlager, and I've changed my mind about games. They're pretty fun, especially when you have nothing more to talk about, which happens quite frequently to socially awkward people like myself. During my Mom and Grandma's five-day stay in Pittsburgh over Christmas, for instance, we played Skip-bo and Monopoly, thereby avoiding hours of awkward and meaningless chatter. Because who wants to discuss real-life with your family when you could be talking about purchasing the Pennsylvania Railroad or Park Place? Certainly not me.

Unfortunately, the dreaded real-life discussions do come up eventually. My mom started missing my dad when we sat down to eat Christmas dinner, and I spent a large part of the evening counseling her while trying to subvert my own emotions on the subject. Well, "emotions" probably isn't the right word; "chasm" might be better, because at this point "my dad" as a concept seems like a black hole that a large part of my life has gotten sucked into. But that is something that I can't exactly share with her, so instead I said "brave" and "upbeat" things that seemed to make her feel better--until she ran to the bathroom and projectile vomitted all over the wall. Really, that happened. My mom puked all over her in-laws' sterile, flower-papered bathroom on Christmas day. It was horrible...and totally awesome.

When I said good-bye to my mom and grandma, the closest remaining members of my family, a few days later, I felt guilty about being relieved. Even though I love them, and they are the only family I've got, my inner and outer life is very different than theirs, and I can refrain from impatience and even outright hostility for only so long. I know that most adults feel this way about their close family members, but I wish I could avoid it, given my peculiar family circumstances (being an only child and grandchild, and most of the family dead). This is why I've started liking games.

I'm going to go put on my "game face" for New Year's Eve now--and tuck a precious bottle of tasty liqueur under each arm. Here's hoping for even just a little bit of fun.

I'm...speechless...

2006-12-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

If you'd like to know why, read this: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/12/12/4227/2458/Front_Page/_quot_When_Faith_Gets_Dangerous_quot_

More comments later, after I collect my thoughts...

A Sufjan Stevens Christmas

2006-12-13T15:42:00.000-08:00

The bed that isn't made
The broken window shade
The radiator's on
I loved you all along
But I can see it now
You always tell me how
I could do so much better
You said it in your letter

Did I make you cry on Christmas day?
Did I let you down like every other day?

from "Did I make you cry on Christmas? (Well, you deserved it!)"

I like Christmas music, but in recent years, the "magic" behind it has been pretty much gone. This is, of course, my fault: as I've grown more and more cynical, the "holiday spirit" has been more and more difficult for me to access. Recently, I've been pretty pissed about this. The few weeks before Christmas used to be my second-favorite time of year (harvest being my favorite), but now that those weeks are here, I find that I'm already in the post-holiday, "I'm fat from too much eating and drinking; oh yeah, and winter sucks" mindset. This does not bode well for the ENTIRE WEEK that I must spend with my mom and grandma soon: instead of losing my temper at the end of the week, I'll probably say something regretable as soon as they get out of the car.

Luckily, Sufjan Stevens has saved the day--and the holiday--for me. Mike and I were able to locate what was probably the last copy of Songs for Christmas left in Pittsburgh, and I've been listening to it all afternoon. What Sufjan provides in this collection of holiday eps can best be described as reprieve from played-out notions of holiday cheer--both religious and secular--that seem to permeate everyday life. He accomplishes this through a mixture of parody, nostalgia, humor, and the hidden moments of clarity that have become his trademark. Including original songs, new takes on old favorites, and instrumental pieces, the collection provides a way for the cynical to re-define "holiday spirit."

In fact, Songs has given me such relief from pre-holiday depression that listening to it has become a sort of therapy. The collection is beginning to play the same role that Illinoise played after my dads unexpected death. Sometimes I would listen to Illinoise searchingly, to find answers; sometimes for the comforting knowledge that another person was just as confused about matters of life and death as I was; and sometimes just to fill the silence. While my current disillusionment with Christmas is not nearly as serious as the existential crisis I struggled with at that time, I appreciate the salve that Songs has provided for my post-adolescent holiday angst.

All of this to say, Songs for Christmas is worth finding and spending $22 on. Go get it, and perhaps your Christmas will be salvaged as well.

On "ripping a new asshole"

2006-12-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

There have been very few times in my life when I have actually been "ripped a new asshole," as the saying goes. When it has happened, mostly in response to my relational misconduct, the person doing the ripping has always been a "loved one," or at least, someone who claimed to be.

Given this backgound, I shouldn't be hurt or discouraged after today's ripping; instead, I should view it as a compliment: obviously, the people who did it care enough to go to the trouble. However, this was the first time I have been criticized so honestly as an academic, and due to the fact that the ripping has taken place in new territory, it stings more than a little bit.

Here's the story: I am in the process of applying to PhD programs, and an integral component of the PhD application is a horrible little essay entitled the "statement of purpose." In this essay, you must "sell yourself," i.e., make yourself attractive to the schools you want to attend, by "setting yourself apart" as a student and future scholar. This seems simple enough, but it's actually very complex given that everyone has a different idea of how it should be done. Oh, and it's often considered a "decisive factor" in whether or not you get into a program.

This is a nightmarish situation, especially for me, because I don't "sell" myself well. I've been told in the past that I either come across too matter-of-factly or too naively. So, to confront the current situation head-on, I enlisted the help of two professors who have written recommendations for me and who have been helpfully candid in the past. Yesterday, I sent them a rough draft of the statement of purpose I'd been obsessing over for a few days. Today, after reading it, they both ripped me a new asshole.

To quote one of them: "It's OK, but your capable of much, MUCH better work." To quote the other: "This sort of thing is just not going to cut it." And it went on and on.

Did I think the essay was great? No. Was I expecting them to be critical? Yes. But somehow, it felt a lot worse than I thought it was going to. Why? Well, quite frankly, academia has been pretty good to me in the past. I got a 4.0 in grad school, and received mostly praise and very little criticism on my oral and written work. My profs liked me as a person, and I won't say it was all fun and games, but it went pretty smoothly for me. But now, I'm approaching the top of the academic ladder, and suddenly things aren't as easy as they used to be.

My friend Amy, a PhD student, told me to get used to having a lot of new assholes ripped on a regular basis, and while I'll have to in order to survive, I'm certainly not used to it now. In fact, my new asshole is very tender, and it hurts a lot to sit down. But very soon (probably after a few long discussions with friends and maybe a few glasses of wine) the tenderness will be gone, and I'll sit down and redo the damned statement. And it'll be good. Or at least, it'll be better than just "OK."

And if it's not, well, then I won't be going back to school. But I'm not going to think about that at the moment; I'm going to go over to Joseph-Beth and anesthetize myself with some trashy magazines.

An Advent reflection: There's mystery in waiting.

2006-12-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Waiting isn't something I do well. Impatience has been a prominent personality trait of mine from the time I was very young, and even though it often leads to near-disatrous results in my personal life, I persist in being impatient. The realities of life are beginning to wear impatience down a bit, but for the most part, I'd still rather go without that have to wait for something I badly--even desperately--want. This makes me a terrible Black Friday shopper (even if waiting in line for a few hours outside of Best Buy at 5 am guaranteed me a $20 ipod, I'd probably still be at home in bed); coincidentally, it also makes me a terrible Christian.

Christianity is all about waiting. Christians continually wait for a redeemed world: for God's kingdom to come, for the lion to lie down with the lamb, for the bridegroom to come for the bride, for Jesus to make sense of this mess. I've never liked this about my religion, and recently I've revolted against it: I've chosen to embrace the present world as an important part of the faraway idyll that first existed in Eden and (we believe) will exist again. I'm not totally convinced that the world as we know it will cease to exist, which is why I think we should care for it the best we can and try to work toward the ideals we associate with a redeemed earth.

But, undeniably, the world sucks right now. When I look around, and when I look inside, it becomes painfully obvious just how broken everything is. Much of the time I ignore this (I'm not sure I could stay sane if I didn't); then, suddenly and randomly, it takes my breath away. And again, I'm stuck with the waiting I deplore.

It's Advent, and in church every Sunday, we've been learning about waiting. Advent is, symbolically, the season of waiting for the Christ child, even though I've never really thought of it that way. (Being raised in a Baptist church, I wasn't well schooled in symbolism.) As I sang the well-known hymn quoted above, which is all about the simultaneous ache and joy of waiting, I was reminded of the symbolic role of Isreal in the Christian faith: just as Israel endured periods of exile and had to wait for redemption, we experience moments of brokenness during which we wait, desperately, for Christ's presence. But, as the song argues eloquently, the periods of waiting should also be times of celebration, as difficult as that may seem, because of God's promise.

This is how I've decided to view the world: it's sagging under the weight of our burdens, but I'll "rejoice"--i.e., work toward and pray for redemption--as I wait for Christ to return. And maybe mysteriously, miraculously, waiting will be transformative.

The triumph of Sojourners

2006-11-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

In the latest "Sojo Mail," the frequent email newsletter that the progressive evangelical organization Sojourners sends to its subscribers, founder Jim Wallis reports that there was a "substantial shift in religious voters in the midterm elections." Calling the recent election a "moral values election," Wallis can barely contain his excitement as he notes that finally, FINALLY American Christians are beginning to realize that sexuality and "the family" are not the only "moral values" they should be concerned about when visiting the polls. Twenty-nine percent of white evangelicals voted Liberal, up eight percent since 2004. Forty-one percent of evangelicals as a whole voted Liberal, while Catholics voted fifty-five percent Liberal. Polls also show that the war in Iraq was the top "moral issue" for religious voters, who also considered poverty and social justice the most pressing national social concern.

As I digest these stats, I too have a hard time containing my excitement. I'm excited that "Voting God's Politics," Sojourners' massive pre-election pamphlet campaign, was successful in its attempt to get Christians around the country to think outside of the Republican box that's been confining them since the Reagan era. Just two short years ago, during the dark days after Bush was voted back into office, NPR reported stats revealing that the Christian Right and their stance on "moral values" (ie, abortion and homosexuality) had played a notably large role in keeping him there. Now, thanks to the tenacious activism of Jim Wallis and Sojourners, the tide of radical Conservatism is waning, and Christian progressivism is back in the mainstream--perhaps for the first time since the 1970s. I'm impressed that they've managed such a widespread impact. It's great to have idealistic optimists on your side.

I'm an idealistic pessimist, which means that while I firmly--even dogmatically--stand behind the activists of the world and the Liberal values foundational to their causes, it's often difficult for me to mobilize. (It also means that I'm profoundly unhappy most of the time.) Ever since I realized I was a Liberal about five years ago, I've been caught between arguing vehemently with Conservative friends and family members and convincing myself that they'll never change their minds, that America will soon be run by Hitler in a cowboy outfit and there's nothing I can do about it. Most of the time I pull off something in between, asking questions that others avoid asking, throwing in my point of view when it would be easier to stay silent. Mike has done a better job (he's an optimist, after all): he manages to argue in a congenial kind of way and challenges Conservative Christians at church to compare Jesus' values with the Bush administration's. He even--gasp!--placed "Voting God's Politics" brochures next to the Conservative-leaning info the church displays every year. But both of us have, I think, done our share of influencing, and as I read Wallis' comments on the election, I remembered how many friends announced their decision to vote Democrat this time, and, even more importantly, their decision to vote at all in seemingly uninteresting mid-term elections. And while Bush's sinister character makes a pretty good argument against Conservatism on its own, I can't help but think that some of that was our doing. (Correct me if I'm being too egocentric here, OK?)

Either way, I'm excited that there's finally a light at the end of the Bush tunnel. What lies beyond him, and whether that light is natural or artificial, is still uncertain. But my hope for even a few years' reprieve just won't die, even if it is mixed with caution and cynicism.

Finally, Saturdays are fun again! (a photo essay)

2006-11-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

I don't exactly have a nine-to-five job, so usually I wind up working on Saturdays. But yesterday I flippantly declared, "To hell with work!" Well, OK, not totally. I cleaned the bathroom and did some laundry, but that doesn't involve grading essays or coming up with lesson plans, so it doesn't really count as "work" right now. But after that was over, I set up the Christmas tree (even though I am technically against putting up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving), ate a large plate of pasta for dinner, and then went to see Death Cab for Cutie and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the (horrible) Rostraver Ice Garden. Here are some highlights:

The Christmas tree went up early this year because it was stored in our creepy basement that must be avoided at all costs, since zombies live there. Since Mike had to venture down to put some stuff away, he decided to bring the tree up to save himself another life-threatening trip. Here it is, taking up too much space in our teeny living room.

Immediately after the tree was placed in its stand, Alice PhD began investigating. For some reason, she thought the light bulbs smelled delicious and tried to eat them.

Here are Mike and I, shoving our faces full of spaghetti, swilling cheap wine, and being masters of our limited domain.

As I mentioned previously, the Death Cab show was unfortunately held at the Rostraver Ice Garden, which sucks in a number of ways. The acoustics are horrible, and you have to stand on ice covered by a thin carpet the entire time, meaning that numbness travels from your feet up your body as you stand there. A friend pointed out that the numbness wasn't so bad, as this was the first show she'd ever been to where her feet hadn't hurt the entire time. But they hurt twice as much later as they began to thaw. However, one great thing about the Ice Garden was the cheesy Disney movie-esque ambiance, which is represented by the sign in the above photo. Makes you want to rent The Mighty Ducks, doesn't it?

Another seemingly great thing about the Ice Garden was the time-out box and the enviable view it offered to short people like me. I watched Ted Leo's set and a fraction of Death Cab's from this spot, and it was temporarily glorious, as you can see from the picture below.

At this point, a raunchy echo developed that made it sound as if there were a drum-and-bass dance party being held in the back portion of the rink. My ass was asleep by then anyway, so we moved to the floor, which really wasn't that bad. People weren't obnoxious at all, which isn't something I can say about any show I've been to in the last few years, or possibly any show EVER. I'm usually, at some point during the show, stuck behind the tallest, fattest, smelliest guy in the room who dances wildly, beside teenage couples making out, and in the midst of an impromptu path between the stage and the bathroom and/or bar. But that didn't happen this time. Ted Leo was great, and Death Cab played every song I wanted to hear, so my $35 wasn't wasted (although it was DEFINITELY a rip-off).

So that was my Saturday. It wasn't amazing, but it was good, and that's more than I can usually ask for.

What the Business Professor Said.

2006-11-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

As a person who is completely incompetent at any academic or professional field but the humanities, I've been guilty of sneering at business-y types who happen to have a more practical kind of knowledge. While these individuals, who understand mysterious real-world ideas like inflation and investment, are out there making tens of thousands of dollars more a year than I do (because their knowledge can, in fact, be used by corporations to make money), I watch my bank account dwindling and smugly think, "Well, at least I can understand texts and their cultural significance"--a skill that, unfortunately, has no cultural significance of its own these days. Which is why, sometimes, the business types can get under my skin.

All of this to provide background for my run-in with an unnamed business professor. This man teaches before me in the same classroom, and repeatedly breaks an unspoken academic code: he teaches for too long and then takes forever to pack up his laptop, Wall Street Journal, and other business-y accessories (it's almost like he's Business Ken or something). I was mildly annoyed for a while, but didn't really care: after all, I break codes of conduct on a pretty regular basis, advertantly or inadvertantly. So, aside from some occasional eye-rolling, I was tolerant.

Then, one day, he turned on me. I entered the classroom early with a student. Business Ken was packing up his laptop; I nodded hello and then ignored him. My student, a really nice, smart kid, asked me when I was going to return his last essay. I told him when, and we began comparing and contrasting the difficulties of grading papers with the difficulties of writing them. The student had a hard time believing that grading papers could be as difficult as writing them, and asked me what could be so hard about it. As I began to tell him that assigning grades was the most difficult part, Business Ken turned to me abruptly and began to tell me off. Rapidly and with great agitation, he condescendingly informed me that I only felt that way about grading because I was young and inexperienced, and that I had to learn to set and keep high standards whether my students met them or not.

I've never been any good at controlling my facial expressions, especially those produced by annoyance, surprise, and anger. Business Ken's unwanted lecture caused me to feel all of these things simultaneously, and I'm sure he knew it immediately. However, he continued his harangue, undaunted by my "die, bitch" expression. When he stopped to take a breath, Wall Street Journal and laptop securely in hand, I simply told him that he could ask my student (who had witnessed the lecture) about my standards. The student backed me up by confirming that they were quite tough, and Business Ken left the room.

As a vertitable infant on the teaching end of academia, I appreciate advice from experienced professors who are in my discipline and who know and respect me. I do not appreciate drive-by lectures by Business Ken, who has probably never graded a paper in his life. And I certainly do not enjoy being lectured in front of my students, whom I lecture (kinda) every other day. Luckily, my student agreed that Ken had stepped out of line. He laughed and remarked that Ken was probably trying to be fatherly, since I'm young (and look even younger). This made the situation even worse from my point of view, given my difficult past relationship with my own father. I could barely concentrate, and I had to somehow teach a class.

And so, I stumbled through my lesson plan for that day as I allowed Business Ken's voice to merge with the other hateful and demeaning voices already blaring (on a loop) in my brain. It took me all afternoon and evening to quiet the self-hating babble, which gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Mike had to remind me (again) that those voices are telling lies, and (again) to stop being so fucking crazy. Thanks to his obstinate normalcy, the self-loathing induced nausea went away.

But the general feeling of self-hatred remained. It wasn't until Sunday, when I retreated to the chapel after the Hot Metal service, that I could ask for help--and be willing to receive it. I was reminded of Peter clamoring out of the boat when he saw Jesus strolling by on the sea that night--and sinking until Jesus convinced him to get the hell over himself. So, I decided to try to do that (getting over myself, that is) once again.

The "Mallier Kier's" moment of fame.

2006-10-31T05:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, that was my car that you saw on the news, with the back window smashed and shards of very expensive glass covering the back seat.

And yes, that was me, surveying the scene in my pink polka-dotted pajamas, looking confused.

'nuff said.

A 953-word review of "A 2,305-word essay on Sweet Child O' Mine."

2006-10-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

The November issue of Paste arrived in our mailbox yesterday, and as I carried it into the house, the title of an article caught my eye: "A 2,305-word essay on Sweet Child O' Mine." Now, as far as titles go, this one would suck--if it weren't for the fact that it has most readers immediately wondering what one could possibly have to say about a Guns n' Roses song in an article that long. Falling prey to this curiosity myself, I flipped to the article and found that the previous title is actually only a subtitle/alternate. The full title of the article is "How a bunch of long-haired, strung-out guys in leather pants taught me about humankind's struggle to make sense of existence in a meaning-starved corner of the postmodern here and now, or: A 2,305-word essay on Sweet Child O' Mine."

The lure of this title, in its wordy glory, becomes a bit more complex once you've read the entire thing. It is clear that the article has a more specific audience than originally assumed. Allow me to point out a few key words: "or," "humankind's struggle," "existence," "postmodern." These signify that the author fancies himself not only a music critic, but a scholar in the field of cultural studies. He makes us aware that not only will he be analyzing a kitchy eighties song, but he will be doing so with intellectual panache, bringing together tidbits of history, philosophy, and literature. Obviously, this article is intended for people like himself who have united once-split loyalties to "high" and popular culture under the banner of postmodern pastiche.

Most of the time, I'm one of those people. As a student of literature, I also believe that I'm a student of culture, in all of its complexity. As a postmodern, I see no problem with analyzing a pop song as a literary work, because I think it IS a literary work. So, it seems that I'd really appreciate this article, and I do. But I don't LIKE it. I thought I did, at first, but the author lost me before I even finished the first page. Now I'm trying to identify why.

The purpose of the article is to trace the mounting tension between the opposing forces of bubble-gum pop and cultural uncertainty/disorder within the song. The author employs an analysis of lyrics and melody to argue that the song's feel-good romantic narrative is intentionally disrupted by a dark nihilism that threatens to become the dominant narrative of the song. By the song's close, however, the two narratives continue to exist side-by-side, forming a pastiche that comments on the dual nature of late capitalism: we embrace uncertainty and unbridled hope at the same moment. To make this argument, the author forms a pastiche of his own, juxtaposing his analysis with lines from Yeats' "Second Coming", Ezra Pound's "The Return," John Betjeman's "Slough," and Paul Simon lyrics.

Ok, so here's why I don't like this.

1. The author's need to identify himself as a postmodern is too self-conscious, and, in my opinion, hackneyed. Postmodernism (in its philosophical and literary forms) can be traced back to the late 1940s, making it sixty years old. But somehow, it's still treated as if it were a hip new phenomenon. I thought Christians were mainly guilty of this, but it appears that others (who should know better) are as well. Maybe this sounds smarmy, but seriously, pastiche is not a new idea. Neither is using literary form to comment on the message of a piece. SO MANY writers have done it now that it shouldn't really be attempted with a straight face anymore. This author seems a little too proud of himself for approprating a played-out literary mode.

2. Similarly, the author is obviously anxious to identify himself as one of the cool kids. First, he makes it clear that he did not like Guns n' Roses at the height of their fame. He likes them now that they've become kitchy and nostalgic (another pomo staple). Next, he takes pains to place himself within a subcultural elite: he understands diverse cononical literary works (Twain, Pound, Thomas, and especially Yeats), he knows "good" popular and obscure music, and he has a "cynical Marxist friend" (a prerequisite for belonging to the cultural studies elite). In short, the author seems so eager to prove himself to his readers that I almost felt sorry for him as I encountered posture after textual posture.

3. His prose is often over-indulgent. For example: "The whole imprecatory riot crescendos in an epic complaint that demands an answer it knows it will never get." Riiiight.

4. There's a big hole in his gaudy postmodern guise: his failure to be egalitarian. Only four women are mentioned in the entire article. Three of them are literary constructions: Becky Thatcher, "Sweet Child," and Little Suzy. The only female writer/artist mentioned is Cyndi Lauper, and then only to describe bracelets. The writers, philosophers, and musicians of importance to the author are dudes. This would be almost understandable (after all, we still live in a male-dominated culture) if he did not defend Axl Rose's mysogynist impulse when no defense is needed. Even if the woman in "Sweet Child" is objectified less violently or lewdly than in other Guns n' Roses songs, she's still being objectified and condescended to. The author's argument did not necessitate a defense of Axl's ideas about women; therefore, he should have left that part out and made himself more credible.

OK, so it's not easy to write 2,305 words about a Guns n' Roses song. But if you're going to do it, at least be a bit more aware of what you're getting yourself into.

Here's what the future holds for 36 lucky freshmen.

2006-10-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Instead of grading the intimidating stack of papers sitting on my desk, I'm thinking about the classes I'm going to teach next semester, particularly the readings I'm going to assign in those classes. This has distracted me all evening, so I feel the need to write about it.

First, here's why I'm thinking about my future classes instead of those I'm currently teaching. Unfortunately for me, I don't happen to be one of those (usually) contented individuals who "live in the present." Most days, from my point of view, the present sucks. But, lest I sound too pessimistic, it is also true that I generally count on the future to bail me out--even though the bailing out hardly ever happens when the future becomes the dreaded present, thus beginning the vicious cycle again. So, I'm thinking about the spring semester because it still exists in the future and is therefore infinitely more interesting and promising than the present. Four months from now I'll be writing a similar blog about fall '07.

So here's what I'm thinking about assigning.

Because I teach "Imaginative Literature and Critical Writing," an introductory literature course, I'm required to include the major literary genres: poetry, drama, and fiction. However, I do get to pick the subject matter for my classes, which means I can torture my students with the stuff that I love. Last time I taught this course, I decided to be gutsy and join the course cluster entitled "Oppression, Resistance, and Protest." I made my students read literature about how few rights individuals around the globe--particularly in America--actually have. Included were classics such as Miller's The Crucible and Steinbeck's The Pearl, but I also decided to take a few risks with Kushner's Angels in America and Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. The class turned out to be...interesting, especially since there were quite a few conservative political science majors in the class (dudes in love with their own voices, of course). I don't regret using that topic, but I think I'm going to be a bit more subtle this time.

But not too subtle: a bit of controversy and discomfort can be a good thing in the literature classroom. I think I'm going to start with a brief unit of creative non-fiction, which will definitely include David Sedaris (right now I'm thinking "i like guys" or "me talk pretty one day"), Annie Dillard (probably from An American Childhood), and a healthy dose of modernist expatriate memoirs. Then I may force them to explore the line between fiction and non-fiction with Capote's In Cold Blood. Of course, there will also be fiction by a handful of my favorite writers (John Updike, Flannery O'Connor, and Rosario Ferre, to name only a few). As for poetry, I think I'm going to take a leap and make them read some Eliot (maybe Prufrock? One of the Four Quartets?) but also some of the Victorians he hated, such as Christina Rossetti (Goblin Market?) and Robert Browning. Oh, and a few contemporary poets who pepper the generalist anthologies, for good measure. (Not to downplay the contemporary: I really do like some of it.) Finally, I think I'm going to bring back Angels in America because it's hilarious and forces them to see the world from a very different perspective (and it's set in the '80s, so I get to do my "I love the eighties" lecture). But I'm also thinking about adding Wit and A Doll's House, or maybe something by Tennessee Williams, since I'm preoccupied by Southern literature right now.

Anyway, this is the first time I've thought about the spring, so the list will definitely morph into something else by the time January comes. But brainstorming my future syllabus is SO MUCH better than grading papers that are currently cluttering up my present. And because the pile isn't exactly dwindling (I've been doing any number of unpleasant tasks to avoid it), you'll probably see another blog about future possibilities--in the classroom and out--posted here soon.

Everything's better in October. Even Pittsburgh.

2006-10-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

Well, OK. Not everything. It's midterm in college land, which means the students are stressed and unhappy, which in turn means that my job kinda sucks right now. But a lot of things are better in this, my favorite month. The morning view from the 10th Street Bridge, in particular.

Three mornings a week I walk from the Southside to Duquesne, which means I have to cross the 10th Street Bridge, climb an intimidating set of steps, and cross the Boulevard of the Allies. The steps often make me curse DU's lofty location, but the bridge affords a notable view of downtown, the Southside, Oakland, and of course, the Mon. Because I cross the bridge so often, however, I began to ignore the view--until Monday, when the morning sunshine met the fog, producing spectacular results (that language would render ordinary, so I won't even try to describe them). I will, however, mention that I was reminded again, for the first time in a while, how oddly appealing Pittsburgh can be.

Fall glory unfolded again (in a distinctly Pittsburgh way) over the weekend when Mike and I hiked around the Southside slopes. It doesn't get any more Pittsburgh than the slopes, where sets of stairs are considered streets, old row houses are built into the hillside, and the downtown skyline can be viewed from the woods. We took the "church" route, which begins on 21st Street and winds around to Monastery and Pius streets, and shamelessly craned our necks over fences to check out houses we loved and their enviable views. The tree leaves were beginning to change, the air was crisp, and I experienced a rare moment of satisfaction with myself and the world. It was short-lived: while walking over a bridge, I looked down and noticed that the sidewalk was made of metal grating that provided a dizzying view of the 100-foot drop beneath. Immediately I imagined a snap of rusted metal and my body plummeting into the ravine below, where it would smash, pumpkin-like, into an unrecognizable mush of flesh. Ah, what a pleasant day.

Recently I've criticised myself for becoming one of those Pittsburghers who never leaves their neighborhood. But the Southside has basically everything I want and need: a movie theater, cheap European fashion (H & M), a grocery store, bookstores, a library, Crazy Mocha (a must!), and plenty of bars and restaurants. Oh, and enviable October vistas. So why should I leave?

"This neighborhood is not a ghetto! We are not going to let them make it one!"

2006-09-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

Or so a neighbor exclaimed to Mike after last night's incident.

Here's how it went down: I was awakened at about 3 am by the sound of shattering glass. My first thought was that our bedroom window, only inches from the sidewalk, had been broken by a baseball bat and that Mike and I would soon be bludgeoned to death by a thief--after he (or she) discovered that there's nothing of value to be found here. But as wakefulness quickly claimed me, I became aware that nothing quite that serious was happening. My next thought was that someone was breaking car windows, but when Mike peered outside, there was no one in sight. At that very moment, I heard yet another explosion of glass and discovered that the college kids across the street, drunk on a Friday night, were gathering just about everything breakable inside their apartment and hurling it onto the street--and sidewalk and cars--below.

Someone called the cops, who made the kids at least make a show of cleaning up the mess (even though they were way too drunk to hold a broom). Mike ventured out to see if our cars were still intact, and they were. While he was outside, he asked the cop what had happened. "They had a party, and now they're cleaning up," came the curt reply. But what kind of party involves throwing all of your fragile belonging out the window? Have I grown so old that I no longer understand what the hip kids do at parties these days?

Maybe this is my vanity talking, but I prefer to think that the kids across the street are spoiled rich dicks who've never had to think for themselves--only about themselves. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Today, our neighbors expressed their disgust and anger at the lack of neighborliness the college kids have revealed on a regular basis. It seems that this isn't the first incident they've created: a few months ago they were partying loudly on a weeknight and the cops were called. One of the kids was so uncooperative that they had to load his ass into the paddy wagon and take him down to the station. Now, the adult residents of the 1700 block of Jane Street want to get them evicted.

I'm just as angry at the assholes as everyone else: I've got better things to do than clean a bunch of broken shit off my sidewalk, and I'd rather not have to buy new tires. But their anger runs deeper than that. My neighbor got at the heart of the issue when she declared that we must keep our neighborhood from becoming a ghetto. Because when you live in the city, it seems like "the ghetto," with its stereotypical barred and boarded windows, curbside trash, and graffiti, is constantly encroaching.

But this neighborhood has resisted decline. When I moved here from South Oakland two years ago, the surprising peace and quiet of our block, as well as its tidiness and friendliness, was like a gift. I had always thought of the Southside as a loud, active part of the city, but this particular neighborhood seemed to have a small town ambiance due to its largely middle-aged and elderly residents who had lived here for most of their lives. Because of their long-term commitment, our neighborhood remained virtually crime-free and relatively clean.

Then, a house was sold to a landlord type who converted it into apartments that were promptly rented by unruly male Duquesne students. They're the type (not uncommon at Duquesne) who dye their hair, go tanning, pass a football awkwardly in the middle of the street, listen to weird European Coldplay remixes, and wear white button-down shirts with designer jeans on a daily basis: an uncultured, frat-boy variety of the metrosexual that seems to have become more and more prevalent. Their presence in the neighborhood has been aggravating, because they don't seem to understand the unspoken rules of the place; instead, they're acting like they live on, say, Dawson St.

What's so ironic about the situation is that these kids are most likely from upper-middle class suburban families who would shudder at most urban neighborhoods and probably blame the lower classes and minorities for ruining previously gentrified areas. Now, their kids--raised to carry the torch of American priviledge--are the ones being accused of turning our neighborhood into a ghetto. Maybe it's because they've been brought up with the idea that all urban neighborhoods are ghettos anyway, so why bother to exercise personal responsibility there? The city can absorb their days of youthful excess, and by the time they move back to the suburbs, they will have learned how to take care of themselves and their stuff, leaving the neighborhood to the next generation of selfish, sloppy kids.

OK, I admit it: I'm indulging in a rant. To be honest, they haven't made our neighborhood a "ghetto" yet. But after living in Oakland, I know the fear of college students is a reasonable one. It is likely that as more houses are sold to absentee landlords, more irresponsible college kids will move in and trash the neighborhood, lowering property value. I clearly don't care about property value, but I do care about personal responsibility and maintaining a clean, safe neighborhood. And, as of right now, there's still a bunch of broken glass and pottery all over our street. So, I'm going to do something I've never done before (and never thought I'd ever do): I'm going to call the cops. Hopefully they'll bring the paddy wagon back--as a dramatic flourish.

The Skinny

2006-09-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, I wear skinny jeans. No, I do not aspire to be like Nicole Richie, who is regularly seen looking skinny in her skinny jeans. I wear them, instead, for two reasons: One, I like fashion, and they are fashionable; and two, I've become skinny again, and I like to think I can pull them off.

In his latest film, Scoop (which I thought was moderately funny but also somewhat forced), Woody Allen, who restored himself to the big screen and reprises his role as himself, says "My anxiety is like aerobics." This quote aptly describes my own weight loss recently: I've worried and obsessed away four pounds and counting since the beginning of the fall semester three weeks ago. Take note, dieters: you can throw away your weight loss books. Simply become a comp 101 instructor, and you'll lose weight even while eating all the fatty foods you can find. Add a bit of chronic depression to the mix, and you're set.

I accidentally discovered this diet a few years ago when I entered grad school and my neuroticism reached new heights as my weight dropped to new lows. For a while, I didn't notice the weight loss, probably because the all-encompassing anxiety was a bit distracting. When I finally realized that all of my clothes were too big--and why--I was forced to accept the terrible irony that I will only look fabulous when I'm most miserable.

Last summer I got married and finished school, and in the face of newfound marital bliss and so few demands on my time, excess neuroticism faded for a while. And because I wasn't miserable, I stopped looking fabulous. Ten extra pounds snuck onto my frame, and I was so contented at the time that I didn't even care--I continued visiting Michael's Pizza Bar on $.50 pizza night and hoovering as much as I could.

Then, in April, I went to Florida, and something ruined my view of the idyllic beach that stretched before me: the sight of my gigantic, pasty, dimpled ass spilling out of my bathing suit in the bright sunshine. Oh, the horror, the horror. At first I doubted that it could even be mine; it seemed so alien, extraterrestrial even. I poked it a few times to make sure Mike's idea of a joke wasn't to attach a prosthetic ass while I slept. But it was definitely, horrifyingly mine.

Exercize happened, and the ass dwindled. Then, teaching happened, along with its accompanying stress and self-doubt, and now I'm back to the skinniness of misery.

And so, I wear skinny jeans. My fear of tapered pants (which began in the mid-nineties after I had seen pictures of myself in pegged jeans) has subsided, at least while I'm neurotic and miserable enough to stay skinny. Or until they go out of style.

No hairdresser, no glory

2006-09-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

I want to sucker-punch the person (probably a man) who originated the phrase, "A woman's hair is her glory." Why this violent reaction to a Victorian quote that could be safely classified as quaint? Because while nobody says it anymore, it's perfectly obvious that most people still believe women should have glorious hair. And in order to have glorious hair, a woman must find a trustworthy hairdresser--a nearly impossible task if you're unwilling to spend more for a haircut than for a new pair of shoes.

If you were looking at the Mallia family album right now, you would notice that my hair changes a lot over the course of twenty or so years. You would also notice that none of the many hairstyles I adopted were ever glorious, although certain individuals may classify the mullet I had in kindergarten and again (accidentally) in eighth grade as such. There was no glory in my overprocessed spiral perm during the early nineties, or in the stringy faux-raven pseudo-goth 'do in the mid-nineties, or in the purple pixie cut from my early college days. And there's certainly no glory in the overgrown bob I've settled for now.

And yet, I continue to quest for glorious hair. Meaning, I quest for a trustworthy hairdresser, even though finding one seems more impossible than ever. Recently, my hair barely recovered from two disasterous visits to Phillip Pelusi. I went to a decent hairdresser in Oakland for a while, but her dislike of everything and everyone (which she verbalized in a continuous rant as she angrily chopped off my hair), although amusing at times, made me paranoid, because I knew she disliked me too. Not because there was anything to dislike about me in particular--I did nothing but nod in agreement during her rants--but because it was just her way.

I've thought about giving up on glorious hair and just letting it grow until I look like a hippie. But I dislike hippies, and I'm already accused of being one often enough due to the vegetarianism, pacifism, and ecological concern. For the sake of my own dignity, I need to do whatever I can to distance myself from these people, so in addition to disdaining communes and having an alergic fit every time I catch a whiff of patchouli, I will continue to have my hair "styled" by incompetent hairdressers who promise glory, but fail to free my hair from its decidedly unglorious genetic bonds.

Frank's Eulogy

2006-08-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

All the glory when He took our place,
But He took my shoulders, and He shook my face
and He takes and He takes and He takes

Sufjan Stevens
from "Casimir Pulaski Day"

Last fall I began thinking about death. Pretty often, actually. To the point where I truly believed that I would--not could--die at any moment. When I came to this realization around mid-December, I noticed that I had been surrounding myself with death: Bright Eyes' I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, Arcade Fire's Funeral, and Death Cab for Cutie's Plans--all overtly interested in death--had been in my cd player constantly. I'd been preparing for my Master's exam by reading the seventy-five or so works of literature that my professors had decided were "great," and coincidentally, most of them were about death, too. When I walked around my neighborhood, I often felt that some freak disaster was about to befall me: a seemingly innocent passerby would turn out to be mentally ill and push me off the Tenth Street Bridge; the driver of a tractor trailer passing me on Carson Street would suddenly lose consciousness, drive onto the sidewalk, and crush me beneath the trailer's bulk. At night, having survived another seemingly perilous day, I would lie in bed and tell God that I wasn't ready, that he would have to pick someone else this time, even while I knew that a person can't really tell God anything.

Well, he didn't pick me. But I wasn't off the hook. At 10:30 on an evening in late January, I had almost fallen alseep on the couch when my mom called and told me, in a terrible voice, that my father had died. He had massive heart attack, fell over, and turned blue, leaving her behind to figure out what to do next. And me, to try to quietly reinterpret my life.

A few days later, at the funeral, I read a eulogy for my father. I was told later that it had been perfect, recounting truths about his life, inciting laughter and tears, heartache and hope. But ever since I delivered it, I've been completely speechless about my father's death. Language, as Derrida liked to claim, has proved inadequate as a vehicle of self-expression. And so, my reinterpretation of life is largely inarticulate. I've been listening instead of speaking for what feels like the first time, and in my silence, I've come up with a better eulogy for my father. It's a collection of writings about death, fatherhood, and the blank terror that has gripped my consciousness during the last eight months. And it comes closest to telling the truth about the world as I see it now.

Sufjan Stevens, "Casimir Pulaski Day" (from Illinoise)
Li-Young Lee, "Mnemonic" (from Rose)
T.S. Eliot, "The Burial of the Dead" (from The Waste Land)
Anne Lamott, "O Noraht, Noraht" (from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)
Death Cab for Cutie, "What Sarah Said" (from Plans)
Arcade Fire, "Neighborhood #4 (Seven Kettles)" (from Funeral)
U2, "Wake Up Dead Man" (from Pop)
Bright Eyes, "Poison Oak" (from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning)

Gnarls Barkley says it best...

2006-08-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Here's my first blog. It's about being crazy, and in it I quote the Gnarls Barkley song by the same name. Hopefully this is of interest to you.

The more I find out about the fundamental chaos that underlies the universe, the more I need to convince myself that it has nothing to do with me, that I am not, in fact, crazy. This is a difficult thing to do when everywhere I go, I am confronted by other individuals who seem pretty crazy to me. Or are they?

Take, for instance, the man I saw jogging at Charlotte Beach last week. It was my mom's birthday, and since I'm generally a thoughtless and ungrateful daughter, I decided to drive up to Rochester to celebrate with her. (You may wonder why my mom would want to celebrate her birthday with a daughter like that. I'm wondering the same thing, actually.) On the morning of her birthday, the temperature fell below ninety for the first time in a week, and we decided to take a walk along the pier. As the wind picked up, tossing polluted waves onto our feet and blowing our hair into our lipstick, a man jogged past us. He was middle-aged, of average height and weight, and was wearing a typical middle-aged man workout outfit: shorts a little too short, t-shirt a little too tight, and socks pulled up a little too high. I would have forgotten him immedietly and would by no means be describing him right now if, in the next moment, he hadn't transformed himself into a public spectacle. Ten feet in front of us, he stopped jogging, arranged himself into a fighting stance, and began doing what I can only presume to be his best Bruce Lee impersonation: lunging forward, he karate-chopped frantically for several seconds, then began kicking and punching the air in front of him as if it had offended him gravely. Then, satisfied with the ass-kicking he had given nothingness, he jogged on serenely. A few moments later, perhaps to prepare for the air's return attack, he dropped to the ground, propped his feet atop a short concrete wall, and began doing rapid push-ups.

As we cut a wide swath around him, I did the only thing that can be expected of a bystander at that moment: I laughed loudly, and now that I think back on it, almost delightedly. Because, if I'm going to be honest, I must admit that public displays of eccentricity do delight me, even if they're seemingly inconsequential to others. For instance, I saw a woman wearing teal gaucho pants trip and fall on her face on a streetcorner in Beaver Falls, PA, and I had a similar reaction. (Mostly because she was wearing those hideous gaucho pants. The combination of the pants and the falling was too much for me.)

After a lengthy set of push-ups, the man's face had turned an unnatural shade of red. My mom stopped laughing and expressed her worry that he might have a heart attack if he didn't give up his silly grudge against air resistance. She wished that he would stop running/doing pushups/karate-chopping. Because I'm not nearly as nice as her, and because I had already abstracted the man from any sort of reality I associated myself with (with includes mortality, apparently), I wanted him to keep going, mostly so I could keep laughing. I got my wish: he ran the length of the boardwalk, tore off his t-shirt in a frenzy, and began the routine all over again. By this time, most of the people at the park at that moment had noticed him and were staring in wide-eyed confusion. One older man, sitting quietly at a picnic table, his rotund figure refreshingly fitness-free, stared with an intensity that comes only from seeing someone a little too much like you--your age, your socio-economic group--losing their damn mind.

Mom and I left the park before the second round of aerobic kung-fu had been completed, and as we drove away, she forgot the man and thought about more pleasant things, like the delicious food she would consume that night at her birthday dinner. I continued thinking about the man who was so willing to exhibit his fitness mania to all who wished--or didn't wish--to see. I replayed the scene over and over in my mind, as if it were one of those irresistable disaster clips on ifilm, and chuckled contentedly to myself. Then, because it had been such a delightful scene to me, I decided it would be wrong of me not to share it with my husband. So I called him, and described the scene in great detail. That week, I related the story to every friend I hung out with. They all laughed, asked "Who does that?" just as I wanted them to, and agreed that the man was clearly crazy.

The hilarity died when I began analyzing my compulsion to tell everyone I knew about the fitness freak. I mean, it was a funny story, definitely, but funny enough to announce to a group of near-strangers at a friend's family picninc? I don't think so. In fact, those near-strangers may have found my obsession with craziness a little bit crazy. I realized, then, that my interest in the fitness freak was merely a sad, passive-aggressive attempt to assert my own sanity in a chaotic, crazy world. And in doing so, I threw myself headlong into the choas.

Or maybe it's just me. But does it matter whether the chaos approaches from within or without? When I look either way, it's there, in plain sight. Maybe I found that man in the park so funny because his mania was familiar to me: he was wearing my id on his shirtsleeve. I think Gnarls Barkley says it best:

Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably