I once heard it said that a crazy person is someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results each time. Like Charlie Brown with the football, we see Lucy sitting there, we remember the taste of the grass when she pulls it out from under our feet, and yet we still charge forward with our legs outstretched.
There's something to be said for indulging in 'crazy.' Crazy may be as crazy does, but crazy is also the moment that you decide to be--you catch your reflection in a car window and think oh boy, this is what an insane person looks like. From that point forward, once that thought has nestled into your brain and taken up an extensive knitting project, it is truly difficult to wrench it out. The past few weeks, I experienced what it is like to be a complete slave to my emotions: if in the past I was somewhat of an indentured servant, or even a nice wisecracking butler to them, recent history has made me none other than a slave. When the voice in my head said 'cry,' water fell. When it said 'act completely unreasonable!' I was thrashing and screaming. And most of all, when it said 'push him until he runs away!' I did just that. The voice inside my head, that little friend that Michael Singer calls your Inner Roommate, suddenly adopted a shrill Yonkers accent and a lisp. In other words, the most annoying voice on the planet. And when I couldn't stand listening to it for another minute, I gave my boyfriend the privilege of listening to it instead...and best of all, I acted surprised when it yielded the same results that it always does. I am Charlie Brown. I have missed the football yet again.
I truly believe that one of the most frightening states of a relationship is the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Not only are you having an argument, but the person you are speaking to in no way resembles the person you spend your time with--and not in an obvious way, like "this person is no longer wearing a Hawaiian shirt!" but in deeper, subtler, terrifying ways. There is the stomach-pummeling feeling that no matter what you say or do, this person will not understand you. It's like trying to eavesdrop on the Vietnamese nail technicians when you know they are gossiping about your ratty callouses. Suddenly, the light in your person's eyes has been snuffed out--and the worst part is, you don't even feel like the person who did it. Theirs isn't the only body that has been snatched; there is someone in your head, and it's not you. You want the best for your self, but the only thing this person wants is to crush tiny villages like Godzilla on methamphetamines.
And the worst part is, when you've got a case of the body snatchers, the only thing you can do is wait.
So, for three whole days, I waited. And let me tell you, I've given this a lot of thought--and of all the jobs to undertake while going through a massive fight with your boyfriend, some are worse than others. Sticking your head inside the oven to check for gas leaks, for example, might not be the best pastime. Accompanying your friend while he picks out perfume for his perfect girlfriend isn't exactly a hoot. However--and I really mean this--there are few things less appealing than standing outside a popular restaurant and smiling at people for four hours straight; and for those three days, with eyeballs so swollen from crying that I resembled one of those Asian dogs whose features get lost in their own neck fat, I had the distinct displeasure of doing just that. It isn't always bad for business--some German tourists saw my toothy grimace and pained stance and thought, "oh goody! just like home!" Yet the majority of the time, I had the feeling that most people I was able to make eye contact with were able to recognize the tortured milkiness of my gaze, and head for the Indian restaurant next door. If only they were sorry enough that they bought a couple shrimp and calamari appetizers, ah... well, I'd probably make better tips. As it is, I think most people were at a loss for what to do. And they're not the only ones.
The thing about core-shaking arguments, and the ever-lovely silent treatment, is that once you're out of it you miraculously forget how awful it was; or at least, your brain puts a band-aid over the more gooey scabs. When I was waiting to go into dance class, crying my little eyes out, one of my fellow dancers told me about her real crisis--a husband who had lied and left her, and what felt to her like a shattered life. It's been a year, she told me, and it still hurts... but it gets better. And as far as that whole story goes, I'm familiar with the outcome. I've been there. I've never been married, but I've been there. So does the fact that I continue to run into this relationship with arms outstretched--engaging in the same careless behavior, but expecting the other person to have matured for the both of us--make me crazy?
The answer is no. The fact that I keep expecting to hit the football may make me stupid, as anyone who has seen me play team sports would agree, but it doesn't mean I'm crazy. Crazy would be not walking up to Lucy, extending a hand, and at least trying to work things out. Crazy would be the lack of change, not choosing a different path...not making it harder for the body-snatchers to take up real estate.
I'm still having absurd dreams, including a particularly vivid one involving papier mache sharks, but I no longer feel as though someone else is at the helm of my life. I'm at peace now, and so is he. We bid farewell to the demon-seeds that temporarily occupied our psyches, and laughed when we realized it takes approximately ten seconds of hugging for each day that was spent in argument to undo the damage completely. It wasn't the first, nor will it be the last time that a storm hits; however, next time the forecast calls for rough waters, all we can ever do is suck it up and get a bigger boat. We would be crazy not to.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Sex and the Pity Case
In life, everyone makes mistakes. Recently, my former roommate Alycia made the mistake of giving me her password for HBO GO, a little website that specializes in ruining what little chance I had left at a social life. After a brief flirtation with the dozens of critically acclaimed and educational movies available for instant watch, I made the mistake of watching an episode of Sex and the City--not ironically, which makes it even worse--and since then, have spend a significant portion of each week wading in the dark side.
It started innocently enough. Now that I'm no longer in school, I have plenty of time to do the things I love: hiking, going to the Farmer's Market and making fresh food, salsa dancing, and chipping away at my bucket list of novels. What I'm actually doing with that time, however, is watching Carrie Bradshaw smoke Marlboro lights as she contemplates the benefits of wearing a diaphragm. As far as television goes, it's not even that great--the shock factor that 'made' the show in the first place is as outdated as its baby-blue UGG boots. However, not one to pass up a chance to flaunt my addictive personality, I've made a point of watching as many episodes of the damn thing as humanly possible, breaking only to refill my bowl of trail mix and occasionally check the back of my calves for leg sores. (The life of a post-grad... they tell me I'm educated. I don't believe them.)
The problem with watching too much of anything, as I have known for an embarrassingly long time, is that it begins to seep into your consciousness in ways that reveal themselves slowly. It never ceases to amaze me how, knowing this fact, I continue to seek out television shows that I KNOW will make me impossibly annoying--for example, the time I watched 3 seasons of Friends and promptly developed addictions to coffee, sarcasm, and layered hair. (I have since abandoned the latter, but have found the first two to be excellent companions to relative unemployment.) After watching The Hunger Games twice in two weeks, I found myself fantasizing about sleeping in trees, and imagining what available materials I would use to make a fire...you know, in a pinch. During the year that Jeremy and I were obsessed with Six Feet Under, I half-expected every phone call to bear devastating news. When I told Jeremy about my new friend Carrie Bradshaw, however, he gave me such a horrified expression you would have thought I'd informed him of my fun new habit of picking the wings off of flies. I told him that it was perfectly fine--I knew it was silly. "Doesn't matter. It's only a matter of time before it starts to affect you," he said--like it was one of those diseases that incubates in your body for months before you know you have it. Like syphilis. "Miranda has syphilis in Season 4," I told him, but I don't think he was amused.
Still, the question remained: how much does television affect my state of mind? It's not as though I've picked up any of the lovely habits that the characters have, such as smoking a pack a day or having sex in laundromats. Still, like Carrie with the cigarettes, I've been living behind the assumption that my addiction to this show is completely under my control--I can stop anytime I want. It's not affecting my daily life, it's just a way of unwinding after serving pasta to German tourists all day. Still, I found myself fighting the urge to order a Cosmopolitan from a bar that specializes in bottles of Bud, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't wear glitter eyeshadow to work. The way I see it, the invasion hasn't spread to every part of my being yet-- it's not as though I've started belting my overalls. And yet--in typical Carrie Bradshaw voiceover-rhetorical-question fashion--I couldn't help but wonder:
Am I pathetic?
It has only been a month and a half since I graduated college. In that time, I have gotten a summer job, traveled to the East Coast, started an Improv class, read three and a half books, and written a symphony. (Well, not that last one, but you get the point.) Yet somehow, given the choice between doing something creatively productive and eating an entire box of Mac n' Cheese, I choose the Mac n' Cheese. Every time. Is this the lovely part of post-grad life--the time between government-funded excursions to Bora Bora and candlelit guitar sessions in my Soho loft--that no one tells you about? They tried, I suppose. About one month before graduation, those of us lucky enough to have accumulated roughly $20,000 in student loans were shuffled into a depressing office for something called an "Exit Loan Counseling Session," which turned out to be about as fun as a pap smear. Still, now that I am actually home and faced with the looming reality of loans, major life decisions, minimum-wage jobs, and entire grocery store aisles devoted to creams that will make me stay "young forever," it's easy to feel trapped. I don't want to stay young forever. Besides giving one the ability to drink six margaritas and still go on a run the next morning, the twenties seem pretty damn wobbly. And pimply. And that's where, despite all that it does NOT do for women who can't afford to blow $300 on a pair Manolo Blahniks, Sex and the City does seem to get it right: the main characters are in their thirties, looking back on the twenties with a mixture of awe and good riddance. At 35, they may be embittered and completely delusional, but at least they know who they are... and honestly, at this juncture in my life, that's something I still have to look forward to.
On an average day, Carrie Bradshaw smokes approximately nine packs of cigarettes, uses her (ahem) WRITER'S SALARY to buy twice that many pairs of shoes, and wears at least one item of clothing on a body part for which it was not originally intentioned. And that's her prerogative. As for me, I have spent the past 4 hours completing a "Food Handler's Safety Certificate" online (did you know that spitting in the customer's face is considered a potential health hazard? And that one should refrain from smearing feces all over their hands before serving food?), recovering from a night spent at Old King's Road, where the whiskey sours are the size of Slurpees, and reading The Blind Assassin on the porch. HBO-worthy? Hardly. And yet, last night--while in the company of an old love, who spent the evening texting his very new, and very pretty, girlfriend--I began thinking about my particular brand of pathetic. Yes, I'm almost twenty-two, and I still do basic math problems on my fingers. However, I am old enough to have an old love--old enough to know better than I did then, and to forgo most inclinations toward bathroom-crying in favor of having an adult conversation. Pity is what pity does, and I've found--quite recently--that the line between pathetic and angsty, though sometimes translucent, is actually quite firm. Pitying myself at this incredibly fortunate and free time in my life is about as effective as hiding the bag of Cheetos in the back of the cabinet in order to "forget them." (As in... not at all.)
Pathetic would have been spitting my gum in my evil stepmother's hair when I saw her last Friday. Pathetic would have been telling my friend's brother, after he told me I had a "lesbian haircut," that he had Ugly Betty braces. NOT pathetic, however, was leaving last night with nothing but a wink and a smile, marching in my front door, and watching the Season 3 finale. At least I don't watch The Bachelor.
Yet.
It started innocently enough. Now that I'm no longer in school, I have plenty of time to do the things I love: hiking, going to the Farmer's Market and making fresh food, salsa dancing, and chipping away at my bucket list of novels. What I'm actually doing with that time, however, is watching Carrie Bradshaw smoke Marlboro lights as she contemplates the benefits of wearing a diaphragm. As far as television goes, it's not even that great--the shock factor that 'made' the show in the first place is as outdated as its baby-blue UGG boots. However, not one to pass up a chance to flaunt my addictive personality, I've made a point of watching as many episodes of the damn thing as humanly possible, breaking only to refill my bowl of trail mix and occasionally check the back of my calves for leg sores. (The life of a post-grad... they tell me I'm educated. I don't believe them.)
The problem with watching too much of anything, as I have known for an embarrassingly long time, is that it begins to seep into your consciousness in ways that reveal themselves slowly. It never ceases to amaze me how, knowing this fact, I continue to seek out television shows that I KNOW will make me impossibly annoying--for example, the time I watched 3 seasons of Friends and promptly developed addictions to coffee, sarcasm, and layered hair. (I have since abandoned the latter, but have found the first two to be excellent companions to relative unemployment.) After watching The Hunger Games twice in two weeks, I found myself fantasizing about sleeping in trees, and imagining what available materials I would use to make a fire...you know, in a pinch. During the year that Jeremy and I were obsessed with Six Feet Under, I half-expected every phone call to bear devastating news. When I told Jeremy about my new friend Carrie Bradshaw, however, he gave me such a horrified expression you would have thought I'd informed him of my fun new habit of picking the wings off of flies. I told him that it was perfectly fine--I knew it was silly. "Doesn't matter. It's only a matter of time before it starts to affect you," he said--like it was one of those diseases that incubates in your body for months before you know you have it. Like syphilis. "Miranda has syphilis in Season 4," I told him, but I don't think he was amused.
Still, the question remained: how much does television affect my state of mind? It's not as though I've picked up any of the lovely habits that the characters have, such as smoking a pack a day or having sex in laundromats. Still, like Carrie with the cigarettes, I've been living behind the assumption that my addiction to this show is completely under my control--I can stop anytime I want. It's not affecting my daily life, it's just a way of unwinding after serving pasta to German tourists all day. Still, I found myself fighting the urge to order a Cosmopolitan from a bar that specializes in bottles of Bud, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't wear glitter eyeshadow to work. The way I see it, the invasion hasn't spread to every part of my being yet-- it's not as though I've started belting my overalls. And yet--in typical Carrie Bradshaw voiceover-rhetorical-question fashion--I couldn't help but wonder:
Am I pathetic?
It has only been a month and a half since I graduated college. In that time, I have gotten a summer job, traveled to the East Coast, started an Improv class, read three and a half books, and written a symphony. (Well, not that last one, but you get the point.) Yet somehow, given the choice between doing something creatively productive and eating an entire box of Mac n' Cheese, I choose the Mac n' Cheese. Every time. Is this the lovely part of post-grad life--the time between government-funded excursions to Bora Bora and candlelit guitar sessions in my Soho loft--that no one tells you about? They tried, I suppose. About one month before graduation, those of us lucky enough to have accumulated roughly $20,000 in student loans were shuffled into a depressing office for something called an "Exit Loan Counseling Session," which turned out to be about as fun as a pap smear. Still, now that I am actually home and faced with the looming reality of loans, major life decisions, minimum-wage jobs, and entire grocery store aisles devoted to creams that will make me stay "young forever," it's easy to feel trapped. I don't want to stay young forever. Besides giving one the ability to drink six margaritas and still go on a run the next morning, the twenties seem pretty damn wobbly. And pimply. And that's where, despite all that it does NOT do for women who can't afford to blow $300 on a pair Manolo Blahniks, Sex and the City does seem to get it right: the main characters are in their thirties, looking back on the twenties with a mixture of awe and good riddance. At 35, they may be embittered and completely delusional, but at least they know who they are... and honestly, at this juncture in my life, that's something I still have to look forward to.
On an average day, Carrie Bradshaw smokes approximately nine packs of cigarettes, uses her (ahem) WRITER'S SALARY to buy twice that many pairs of shoes, and wears at least one item of clothing on a body part for which it was not originally intentioned. And that's her prerogative. As for me, I have spent the past 4 hours completing a "Food Handler's Safety Certificate" online (did you know that spitting in the customer's face is considered a potential health hazard? And that one should refrain from smearing feces all over their hands before serving food?), recovering from a night spent at Old King's Road, where the whiskey sours are the size of Slurpees, and reading The Blind Assassin on the porch. HBO-worthy? Hardly. And yet, last night--while in the company of an old love, who spent the evening texting his very new, and very pretty, girlfriend--I began thinking about my particular brand of pathetic. Yes, I'm almost twenty-two, and I still do basic math problems on my fingers. However, I am old enough to have an old love--old enough to know better than I did then, and to forgo most inclinations toward bathroom-crying in favor of having an adult conversation. Pity is what pity does, and I've found--quite recently--that the line between pathetic and angsty, though sometimes translucent, is actually quite firm. Pitying myself at this incredibly fortunate and free time in my life is about as effective as hiding the bag of Cheetos in the back of the cabinet in order to "forget them." (As in... not at all.)
Pathetic would have been spitting my gum in my evil stepmother's hair when I saw her last Friday. Pathetic would have been telling my friend's brother, after he told me I had a "lesbian haircut," that he had Ugly Betty braces. NOT pathetic, however, was leaving last night with nothing but a wink and a smile, marching in my front door, and watching the Season 3 finale. At least I don't watch The Bachelor.
Yet.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
On the Benefit of Being a Creep
The other day, over a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, Jeremy and I had a serious conversation about what it means to be a creep. "It's like those moments when someone holds your gaze just a little too long," he said. "Only instead of one moment, it's forever. All the time." I thought immediately of the trumpet player in our high school band, a staple in the theater orchestra, whose instrument only left his mouth long enough to sigh "wow, BLUEBIRD GIRLS" every time we walked by in our skimpy chorus costumes. I thought more recently of the man who, after subletting a room in our house, made a habit of showing up at odd hours and cooking himself food, all the while using his cell phone to snap pictures of my roommate's butt. "Did you ever think I was creepy?" asked Jeremy, allowing me just enough time to swallow my mouthful of pancake before I answered with the obligatory "no, never!"
But then I thought about it. I remembered the kid who walked around barefoot in the high school halls, dragging a baby palm frond behind him for no particular reason other than he got a gigantic kick out of it, and frequently broke into the theatre to play Beatles songs on the ratty piano. The reason Jeremy and I started dating in the first place was because he snuck into my front yard and left a mix CD on my porch. At the time, of course, I found it overwhelmingly romantic--but truth be told, the very gesture that won my heart is the same that places many a prowler on the neighborhood watch list. Which got me thinking: what exactly makes a creep, if not breaking and entering? It seems that it has to do with intention--a flighty concept in itself, and one that is impossible to pin down without significant evidence. When it comes to creepiness, many of the qualities that I find endearing in one person are the same ones that make me cross the street to get away from another. If it's all right for me to talk to Estiké as though she is a human being capable of rational thought, but not okay for the woman on lower State Street to walk her cat on a leash and talk to the person that lives in her hand, is it simply a matter of confining your creepiness to places where no one can see you? What qualities do a creep make?
Two weeks ago, I began work as a hostess at Aldo's Italian Restaurant. Essentially, this means that I stand in front of the entrance with a stack of menus in my hand, staring at people until my overly-friendly smile frightens them into asking for a table. This level of creepiness on my part has proven to have its benefits--I once convinced a family of seven to eat lunch simply by commenting on the fact that their identical hue of ginger hair is a dying breed. Day in and day out, I smile at everyone who passes by the restaurant until my cheeks ache and I can no longer genuinely recommend anything on the menu because it all tastes like minimum wage and a wasted liberal arts degree. (Though you have to admit, "would you like an order of garlic bread?" is still a gigantic step up from "would you like fries with that?"). Anyhow, the flip side of staring down everyone that passes by is the fact that it is a two-way street: in my vulnerable position in front of the restaurant, only two doors down from Subway, I am a sitting duck in a highway of creeps. Just the other day, a portly man in a backpack--whose rainforest-themed t-shirt, I'm sorry to say, ended a good four inches above his bellybutton--walked straight up to my face and stared at my left eyebrow. "No one will ever love me," he told me, "so all I can do is drink. Will you help me with that?" I muttered something about it being my first day on the job, which it was, and continued to shuffle the menus. He eventually walked away, but not before leaving me with a knot in my stomach and the distinct feeling that ants were crawling all over my body. That same weekend, I had a Vietnam vet tell me that he "didn't want to hate me," but clearly did; sat a couple who requested a separate seat for their leather-bootie-wearing dog; and served calamari to a man who, sitting alone, declared "we'd like iced tea, thank you very much" and proceeded to sing opera at the top of his lungs.
What accounts for this rise in creepiness? Has it always been there, and I've just been sheltered beneath the Scripps elm trees--where people are more likely to ask you for your preferred-gender-pronoun than your phone number? After I got off work last Saturday, I made my way to a social dance event at SB Dance Center, where--surprise!--the average age was approximately 70 years old. Tessa was already there, dancing with someone who looked like he could be her family's witch doctor, leaving me with a man whose garlic breath was so strong that even our disparate heights--about a head's distance apart, with him being the shorter--couldn't shield me from its potency. Later that night, while we sucked down beers that cost approximately 25 cents per sip, I asked Tessa what she thought about our creepy dance experience. She stared into her cup, and sighed: "Was it bad that I had a moderately good time?"
So I guess this is what is has come to. I consider it a good day at work when I'm not verbally harassed, and our college dance careers have fizzled into West Coast Swing nights that feature Enya on the playlist.
Just as soon as I'd resigned to this thought, however, a perfectly un-creepy-looking man asked if he could join our table. "You look like you're having an interesting conversation," he told us--and I resisted the urge to tell him that, in actuality, we had devoted the last half hour to unpacking the bisexual escapades of one of our college acquaintances. Instead, we said "why yes, we are," and spent the rest of the night talking about everything from David Lynch to Infinite Jest with our new friend Joe. He had seen us across the bar, decided we looked like we were capable of holding a decent conversation, and approached us in a way that wasn't creepy in the slightest.
What was creepy, however, was invading our new friend's place of business on a day that I knew he was scheduled to work. First of all, I knew he'd be there because I asked him for his schedule and, while pretending to record some deep and meaningful thought, wrote it down on my polar bear-themed notepad. Second of all, even after going to all the trouble of driving to the bookstore where he works, I couldn't bring myself to leave the classics section long enough to say hi. And you know what? I don't even like classics. I spent twenty minutes pretending to flip through Frankenstein, a book that I would rather use as litterbox liner than read one more damn time, deciding whether I could safely make a beeline for the exit without bumping into Joe. What actually happened was this: I walked through the section he was organizing, turned beet red, and took up a sudden and all-consuming interest in a workbook on small-business finance. When he asked me if he could help me find anything, you know, the reason people come to bookstores in the first place, I mumbled something about Frankenstein and scuttled toward the check-out line. Whoever put fluorescent lighting in bookstores clearly had no thought in mind for the creeps out there, those of us who would go to such drastic measures to make a new friend that we'd buy a set of greeting cards just to avoid leaving empty handed.
Well, at least I got my thank-you notes done.
When it's said and done, I think we all have a little creep in us--some more than others. And here's the thing: it's not all bad. In fact, sometimes it leads the Joes of the world to take pity on us and buy the first round at Elsie's.
"We'd like an iced tea, thank you very much."
Last Sunday at work, an Irish couple walked into the restaurant and asked to be seated. I immediately knew where they were from, but restrained the creepiness that was dying to burst out of me by engaging in the social rituals that I knew would keep from leaving the restaurant and taking out a restraining order. I asked them how their day was going. "Where are you from? I can't quite place your accent." (Lie.) We're from Ireland. "Oh, really? I couldn't tell!" (Lie. Lie lie lie.) Truth be told, I left their table looking like somewhat less of a creep than I felt like on the inside, but with no less of the benefit of being slightly creepy. In a world where most people would rather let a potential interaction walk by than chase it down the street, it feels good to be one of the chasers. I can't say I've broken into a full-blown jog yet, but who knows--if I ever break down and get a leash for Estiké, there's no telling what side of the street I'll end up on.
But then I thought about it. I remembered the kid who walked around barefoot in the high school halls, dragging a baby palm frond behind him for no particular reason other than he got a gigantic kick out of it, and frequently broke into the theatre to play Beatles songs on the ratty piano. The reason Jeremy and I started dating in the first place was because he snuck into my front yard and left a mix CD on my porch. At the time, of course, I found it overwhelmingly romantic--but truth be told, the very gesture that won my heart is the same that places many a prowler on the neighborhood watch list. Which got me thinking: what exactly makes a creep, if not breaking and entering? It seems that it has to do with intention--a flighty concept in itself, and one that is impossible to pin down without significant evidence. When it comes to creepiness, many of the qualities that I find endearing in one person are the same ones that make me cross the street to get away from another. If it's all right for me to talk to Estiké as though she is a human being capable of rational thought, but not okay for the woman on lower State Street to walk her cat on a leash and talk to the person that lives in her hand, is it simply a matter of confining your creepiness to places where no one can see you? What qualities do a creep make?
Two weeks ago, I began work as a hostess at Aldo's Italian Restaurant. Essentially, this means that I stand in front of the entrance with a stack of menus in my hand, staring at people until my overly-friendly smile frightens them into asking for a table. This level of creepiness on my part has proven to have its benefits--I once convinced a family of seven to eat lunch simply by commenting on the fact that their identical hue of ginger hair is a dying breed. Day in and day out, I smile at everyone who passes by the restaurant until my cheeks ache and I can no longer genuinely recommend anything on the menu because it all tastes like minimum wage and a wasted liberal arts degree. (Though you have to admit, "would you like an order of garlic bread?" is still a gigantic step up from "would you like fries with that?"). Anyhow, the flip side of staring down everyone that passes by is the fact that it is a two-way street: in my vulnerable position in front of the restaurant, only two doors down from Subway, I am a sitting duck in a highway of creeps. Just the other day, a portly man in a backpack--whose rainforest-themed t-shirt, I'm sorry to say, ended a good four inches above his bellybutton--walked straight up to my face and stared at my left eyebrow. "No one will ever love me," he told me, "so all I can do is drink. Will you help me with that?" I muttered something about it being my first day on the job, which it was, and continued to shuffle the menus. He eventually walked away, but not before leaving me with a knot in my stomach and the distinct feeling that ants were crawling all over my body. That same weekend, I had a Vietnam vet tell me that he "didn't want to hate me," but clearly did; sat a couple who requested a separate seat for their leather-bootie-wearing dog; and served calamari to a man who, sitting alone, declared "we'd like iced tea, thank you very much" and proceeded to sing opera at the top of his lungs.
What accounts for this rise in creepiness? Has it always been there, and I've just been sheltered beneath the Scripps elm trees--where people are more likely to ask you for your preferred-gender-pronoun than your phone number? After I got off work last Saturday, I made my way to a social dance event at SB Dance Center, where--surprise!--the average age was approximately 70 years old. Tessa was already there, dancing with someone who looked like he could be her family's witch doctor, leaving me with a man whose garlic breath was so strong that even our disparate heights--about a head's distance apart, with him being the shorter--couldn't shield me from its potency. Later that night, while we sucked down beers that cost approximately 25 cents per sip, I asked Tessa what she thought about our creepy dance experience. She stared into her cup, and sighed: "Was it bad that I had a moderately good time?"
So I guess this is what is has come to. I consider it a good day at work when I'm not verbally harassed, and our college dance careers have fizzled into West Coast Swing nights that feature Enya on the playlist.
Just as soon as I'd resigned to this thought, however, a perfectly un-creepy-looking man asked if he could join our table. "You look like you're having an interesting conversation," he told us--and I resisted the urge to tell him that, in actuality, we had devoted the last half hour to unpacking the bisexual escapades of one of our college acquaintances. Instead, we said "why yes, we are," and spent the rest of the night talking about everything from David Lynch to Infinite Jest with our new friend Joe. He had seen us across the bar, decided we looked like we were capable of holding a decent conversation, and approached us in a way that wasn't creepy in the slightest.
What was creepy, however, was invading our new friend's place of business on a day that I knew he was scheduled to work. First of all, I knew he'd be there because I asked him for his schedule and, while pretending to record some deep and meaningful thought, wrote it down on my polar bear-themed notepad. Second of all, even after going to all the trouble of driving to the bookstore where he works, I couldn't bring myself to leave the classics section long enough to say hi. And you know what? I don't even like classics. I spent twenty minutes pretending to flip through Frankenstein, a book that I would rather use as litterbox liner than read one more damn time, deciding whether I could safely make a beeline for the exit without bumping into Joe. What actually happened was this: I walked through the section he was organizing, turned beet red, and took up a sudden and all-consuming interest in a workbook on small-business finance. When he asked me if he could help me find anything, you know, the reason people come to bookstores in the first place, I mumbled something about Frankenstein and scuttled toward the check-out line. Whoever put fluorescent lighting in bookstores clearly had no thought in mind for the creeps out there, those of us who would go to such drastic measures to make a new friend that we'd buy a set of greeting cards just to avoid leaving empty handed.
Well, at least I got my thank-you notes done.
When it's said and done, I think we all have a little creep in us--some more than others. And here's the thing: it's not all bad. In fact, sometimes it leads the Joes of the world to take pity on us and buy the first round at Elsie's.
"We'd like an iced tea, thank you very much."
Last Sunday at work, an Irish couple walked into the restaurant and asked to be seated. I immediately knew where they were from, but restrained the creepiness that was dying to burst out of me by engaging in the social rituals that I knew would keep from leaving the restaurant and taking out a restraining order. I asked them how their day was going. "Where are you from? I can't quite place your accent." (Lie.) We're from Ireland. "Oh, really? I couldn't tell!" (Lie. Lie lie lie.) Truth be told, I left their table looking like somewhat less of a creep than I felt like on the inside, but with no less of the benefit of being slightly creepy. In a world where most people would rather let a potential interaction walk by than chase it down the street, it feels good to be one of the chasers. I can't say I've broken into a full-blown jog yet, but who knows--if I ever break down and get a leash for Estiké, there's no telling what side of the street I'll end up on.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Home is a Four Letter Word
Ah, Santa Barbara: land of the free, home of the SUVs that sport "Respect Mother Earth" stickers while driving exactly twenty-five miles per hour in school zones, even on weekends. I've been home for exactly five days, and I already feel the fog (and by 'fog' I mean crystal clear and a perfect 73 degrees) of Santa Barbara creeping in.
Maybe it's the fact that I've spent more than a fair share of the past few days sitting on the couch reading The Hunger Games, but Claremont--and the highly-stimulating workload that I left there--already feels lightyears away. Is it true that, mere weeks ago, I began my mornings by going to the gym and actually reading the BBC homepage that pops up when I open the internet, and didn't just use my computer to constantly update my screensaver with new and exciting photos of cats? For every poetry reading and/or lecture that I regularly attended in Claremont, I have now been to one beach BBQ populated by shirtless Swedish exchange students who manage to drink beer AND slackline at the same time, all without mussing one perfectly coiffed blonde hair out of place. Was Santa Barbara always this way, and I just never realized it, or has it taken it upon itself to use my homecoming as an opportunity to flaunt its most superficial--and naturally, most seductive--qualities?
I think part of the issue is the fact that, after years of relative non-accountability, I have moved back under my mother's roof. Don't get me wrong; it's a great roof. We have matching plates here, and little vases lined up on every surface. Plus, there are cats--and when he is not eyeballing Estiké with a look that says "I could eat you for lunch and still have room for a few gophers," Ernest is actually being pretty tolerant. Still, after one look at our whale of a cat, Estiké ran behind my bed and didn't come out until Friday. I, however, had no such option. I threw myself into the masochistic job of unpacking all of my belongings as quickly as possible, desperately trying to mark my territory in a house and a town that no longer feel like my own. Now I can't remember if they ever did.
No one ever warned me about the fact that it is entirely unnatural to live at home after graduating from college. If they did, it was probably in the context of a Nora Ephron movie in which the heroine--besides being played by someone in their thirties who wakes up looking like sunshine and wearing way too much lip gloss to be having an existential crisis--miraculously has her shit together, so the message is lost. The truth is, there is a window of time between the ages of--oh hell, about 18 and 38--where living at home is depressing as hell, especially if it comes after a period of relative freedom. Even if it is necessary, even if the home conditions are beyond wonderful, it feels like a backslide. The truth is, I love it here--I love my family, and I can practically smell them making an effort to leave me alone--but I've still found myself resorting to bizarre and extreme measures to forge boundaries. For example, I have my scotch tape, not to be confused with the communal scotch tape, which sits approximately ten feet to the left of it. I cleared out a drawer in the fridge so I would have a place to put my groceries, which as of now consists of a wilted bunch of kale and a bottle of cheap wine that I bought because it had a cartoon on the label. Mature? Hardly. But if I don't enter the house from a separate entrance than the one my parents use, if I don't dry my towel on a rack by itself, I'm afraid I'll get lost. I'm terrified that I will get gobbled up by this beautifully cushy place.
Last night, after working for nine hours straight--four hours wrangling kids at the Santa Barbara Dance Institute Show, where of 300 performers, about 299 refused to wear their costumes on their natural waistlines because it "DOESN'T LOOK COOOOL," followed by five hours hostessing at Aldo's--I came home and collapsed. Enough complaints from my shoulders, though, and I decided to do a little bit of yoga before bed--and rather than quarantine myself in my room, decided to stay next to my mom as she sat in the massage chair I brought back from school. As Elena Brower's digital form told me to let three-dimensional breath permeate my being, my mother was emitting a series of sounds that sounded like she was either being fed to a pit of scorpions, starring in a particularly vocal adult film, or both. It was awful, and I had no idea why it bothered me so much. Here she was, just unwinding from a day as stressful as mine was--clearly trying to do something for the knots in her back, just as I was--and it was all I could do to keep from screaming. Each time she moaned and grunted, I felt like an angsty teenager, pissed and hormonal and confused as hell. And why? Why do our parents make us so angry, embarrass us to no end, when the parents of our friends--even the ones who, at graduation, wore matching lime-green tee shirts and used the "official family birdcall" to announce a photo opportunity--are deemed acceptable? I can only hope that I get to embarrass someone like that someday. I hope I get to make my kids angry. I hope I make them furious when I make puns and wear butterfly hair clips (both of which I do now, by the way) so that they--like me--will want to move out and do things with their lives, and go on adventures with their parents without having to share a bathroom with them.
The truth is, Santa Barbara is a lovely place to be; and on the cool parents meter, my parents score high. They always have. The thing is, I'm afraid of getting sucked under, and losing the momentum I've worked so hard to gather. Perhaps the very fact that I'm terrified, though, is what will keep me from losing it. Plus, I've been here a week and haven't yet incorporated the phrase "cool, bro" into my vocabulary...so I suppose there is hope for me yet.
On the phone with my grandfather the other day, I got to thinking about the different expectations for old and young people. Before anything, before I even got a chance to wish him a happy birthday, he said, "Hello! I'm not sick! Still standing, doing well, can't complain!" as though the inquiry was implied by my very presence on the other end of the phone. How different would it be if every time someone congratulated me for graduating, before they even got a chance to ask what I am going to do with my life, I was able to say, "I don't know, probably walk around? I got out of bed this morning, and I'm going to go to the kitchen in a minute. Life is good!!" instead of the more standard post-Scripps response of, "Oh you know, I'm going to start a couple NGOs this summer before taking off for my 25,000 Fulbright grant to Nepal to cure cancer."
We're not that different, you know, twentysomethings and senior citizens. We both want to get up each morning and have someone pour us cereal in our favorite bowl, save us the cartoon section of the newspaper, and treat us like reasonable beings who are worthy of conversation. I think we both just want to find a little peace.
Maybe it's the fact that I've spent more than a fair share of the past few days sitting on the couch reading The Hunger Games, but Claremont--and the highly-stimulating workload that I left there--already feels lightyears away. Is it true that, mere weeks ago, I began my mornings by going to the gym and actually reading the BBC homepage that pops up when I open the internet, and didn't just use my computer to constantly update my screensaver with new and exciting photos of cats? For every poetry reading and/or lecture that I regularly attended in Claremont, I have now been to one beach BBQ populated by shirtless Swedish exchange students who manage to drink beer AND slackline at the same time, all without mussing one perfectly coiffed blonde hair out of place. Was Santa Barbara always this way, and I just never realized it, or has it taken it upon itself to use my homecoming as an opportunity to flaunt its most superficial--and naturally, most seductive--qualities?
I think part of the issue is the fact that, after years of relative non-accountability, I have moved back under my mother's roof. Don't get me wrong; it's a great roof. We have matching plates here, and little vases lined up on every surface. Plus, there are cats--and when he is not eyeballing Estiké with a look that says "I could eat you for lunch and still have room for a few gophers," Ernest is actually being pretty tolerant. Still, after one look at our whale of a cat, Estiké ran behind my bed and didn't come out until Friday. I, however, had no such option. I threw myself into the masochistic job of unpacking all of my belongings as quickly as possible, desperately trying to mark my territory in a house and a town that no longer feel like my own. Now I can't remember if they ever did.
No one ever warned me about the fact that it is entirely unnatural to live at home after graduating from college. If they did, it was probably in the context of a Nora Ephron movie in which the heroine--besides being played by someone in their thirties who wakes up looking like sunshine and wearing way too much lip gloss to be having an existential crisis--miraculously has her shit together, so the message is lost. The truth is, there is a window of time between the ages of--oh hell, about 18 and 38--where living at home is depressing as hell, especially if it comes after a period of relative freedom. Even if it is necessary, even if the home conditions are beyond wonderful, it feels like a backslide. The truth is, I love it here--I love my family, and I can practically smell them making an effort to leave me alone--but I've still found myself resorting to bizarre and extreme measures to forge boundaries. For example, I have my scotch tape, not to be confused with the communal scotch tape, which sits approximately ten feet to the left of it. I cleared out a drawer in the fridge so I would have a place to put my groceries, which as of now consists of a wilted bunch of kale and a bottle of cheap wine that I bought because it had a cartoon on the label. Mature? Hardly. But if I don't enter the house from a separate entrance than the one my parents use, if I don't dry my towel on a rack by itself, I'm afraid I'll get lost. I'm terrified that I will get gobbled up by this beautifully cushy place.
Last night, after working for nine hours straight--four hours wrangling kids at the Santa Barbara Dance Institute Show, where of 300 performers, about 299 refused to wear their costumes on their natural waistlines because it "DOESN'T LOOK COOOOL," followed by five hours hostessing at Aldo's--I came home and collapsed. Enough complaints from my shoulders, though, and I decided to do a little bit of yoga before bed--and rather than quarantine myself in my room, decided to stay next to my mom as she sat in the massage chair I brought back from school. As Elena Brower's digital form told me to let three-dimensional breath permeate my being, my mother was emitting a series of sounds that sounded like she was either being fed to a pit of scorpions, starring in a particularly vocal adult film, or both. It was awful, and I had no idea why it bothered me so much. Here she was, just unwinding from a day as stressful as mine was--clearly trying to do something for the knots in her back, just as I was--and it was all I could do to keep from screaming. Each time she moaned and grunted, I felt like an angsty teenager, pissed and hormonal and confused as hell. And why? Why do our parents make us so angry, embarrass us to no end, when the parents of our friends--even the ones who, at graduation, wore matching lime-green tee shirts and used the "official family birdcall" to announce a photo opportunity--are deemed acceptable? I can only hope that I get to embarrass someone like that someday. I hope I get to make my kids angry. I hope I make them furious when I make puns and wear butterfly hair clips (both of which I do now, by the way) so that they--like me--will want to move out and do things with their lives, and go on adventures with their parents without having to share a bathroom with them.
The truth is, Santa Barbara is a lovely place to be; and on the cool parents meter, my parents score high. They always have. The thing is, I'm afraid of getting sucked under, and losing the momentum I've worked so hard to gather. Perhaps the very fact that I'm terrified, though, is what will keep me from losing it. Plus, I've been here a week and haven't yet incorporated the phrase "cool, bro" into my vocabulary...so I suppose there is hope for me yet.
On the phone with my grandfather the other day, I got to thinking about the different expectations for old and young people. Before anything, before I even got a chance to wish him a happy birthday, he said, "Hello! I'm not sick! Still standing, doing well, can't complain!" as though the inquiry was implied by my very presence on the other end of the phone. How different would it be if every time someone congratulated me for graduating, before they even got a chance to ask what I am going to do with my life, I was able to say, "I don't know, probably walk around? I got out of bed this morning, and I'm going to go to the kitchen in a minute. Life is good!!" instead of the more standard post-Scripps response of, "Oh you know, I'm going to start a couple NGOs this summer before taking off for my 25,000 Fulbright grant to Nepal to cure cancer."
We're not that different, you know, twentysomethings and senior citizens. We both want to get up each morning and have someone pour us cereal in our favorite bowl, save us the cartoon section of the newspaper, and treat us like reasonable beings who are worthy of conversation. I think we both just want to find a little peace.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Closer to Fine
I didn't just grown up in this place; I also grew down, and out, and in, and through. The 'through' part is a work in progress, I suppose, since I'm currently sitting in my room surrounded by a pile of stuff that I can't remember accumulating, an even bigger pile of stuff that I'm embarrassed to have accumulated, and a half-eaten pint of ice cream. I have created a fortress out of crap, walls almost as high as my waist, so that--if I lie at the right angle--I can't see what's on the other side. It's nice in here. I have ice cream. Estiké paces back and forth, pissed because I doused her with flea medicine, whining because she has no idea why everyone has suddenly decided to up-and-leave. I can't say I blame her.
In case you don't know, Estiké is my cat. She's gray and bolts at loud noises, and would gladly trade social interaction for food...hence, we get along. As of tomorrow, she and I will both be alumni of the Co-op: my home for the past three years, my treehouse at the edge of the world, the picture that comes up when my mind thinks 'home.' Saying goodbye to Scripps after graduation was bizarre, no doubt, but it was a blur: this is the goodbye that I have most been dreading. This house, and this room, is the place where my vision of myself has come in and out of focus. It has been the site of my biggest loves and the place where I rested my heart after my biggest losses. I couldn't count the memories, or give voice to their significance, even if I wanted to--and I don't think I want to, because I could never do it justice. Like I said, in these walls, I grew. I feel love for this place, for the grape vines and the mangy refrigerator, the green paint stain on the floor from my sophomore art project and the echo of the studio, that goes beyond language. It's just one of those things.
I've thought long and hard about making some sort of tribute to the Co-op, a collage or a photo album, but I can't quite bring myself to muster the energy. Instead, I'm lying on the floor, trying to adjust my head to best see the computer screen while simultaneously globbing ice cream into my mouth. The yoga of denial.
In all honesty, I feel numb. I have all these ideas in my head about how I should be feeling, how I should have been feeling at graduation, and how I will feel tomorrow when I pull into the driveway of the new chapter of my life. I think I should be feeling more pain, I should be listening to Natalie Imbruglia and sobbing to my friends about all the good times we had. (I tried yesterday, and listened to at least an hour of Ray LaMontange radio before my roommate made a pitcher of something with tequila in it and hid my sweatpants.) At graduation, I'm pretty sure I should have been feeling something other than the desperate urge to pee, and I suppose I did--but the glow of honor and gratitude was coated in a thick layer of overwhelm, and I hardly knew what was happening. Now that I'm here--looking over the edge of the cliff I'm either about to fling myself off of or dribble over, one or the other--I feel drained. I spent all day helping a friend unpack boxes into her new Los Angeles apartment, dazed over the amount of IKEA furniture and grown-up kitchen supplies (can openers, coffee filters, and serrated knives, oh my!) that she had to her name, while my entire morning had been spent scraping a bird poster off of my wall with a spatula. The wall looks naked now. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Silverlake with my hands in my pockets, checking out the well-dressed babies dangling off the arms of women with tattoo sleeves, and listening in on conversations that revolved around things like oh, I finished my screenplay. Are you still acting? and oh yeah, mostly voiceover stuff now. I watched two girls nearly spill their kale smoothies when the notorious L.A. parking police nabbed them for neglecting to feed the meter. "BUT WE WERE ONLY THERE FOR LIKE TWO MINUUUUTTTESS."
Is that what the 20's look and sound like? Is there something wrong with me that I'm curled up in the fetal position on the floor, refusing to unplug my fairy lights because then it will be real, the room will be empty, and wishing I had the entire Hunger Games series as book-on-tape? I am twenty-one years old, a college graduate, and am able to appear completely serious on my skin while utter confusion bubbles mere centimeters beneath the surface. It's the part they don't tell you about when you're shaking the Dean's hand, trying not to slip on the Astro Turf: freedom feels like a big ball of crazy. To me, twentysomething is something akin to a gigantic hole in the pit of my stomach, unable to be pinned down as either excitement or acid reflux. If I didn't know any better, I would say the nausea is the rumbling of the crossroads that I have been dreading yet anticipating--beautiful, lustful, heartbreaking, infuriating sadness--and that it's the beginning of something huge. Then again, I did just eat an entire pint of Phish Food, so it's hard to say. I'm fine with not knowing.
From my position here on the floor, it all looks pretty scary. I feel no need to move at the moment; this room has given to me, and pressing my skin into its skin makes me feel like I am giving back.
I want to stay here forever, but the walls won't take me. They're naked now. Is this what goodbye feels like?
Ready or not, here I come.
In case you don't know, Estiké is my cat. She's gray and bolts at loud noises, and would gladly trade social interaction for food...hence, we get along. As of tomorrow, she and I will both be alumni of the Co-op: my home for the past three years, my treehouse at the edge of the world, the picture that comes up when my mind thinks 'home.' Saying goodbye to Scripps after graduation was bizarre, no doubt, but it was a blur: this is the goodbye that I have most been dreading. This house, and this room, is the place where my vision of myself has come in and out of focus. It has been the site of my biggest loves and the place where I rested my heart after my biggest losses. I couldn't count the memories, or give voice to their significance, even if I wanted to--and I don't think I want to, because I could never do it justice. Like I said, in these walls, I grew. I feel love for this place, for the grape vines and the mangy refrigerator, the green paint stain on the floor from my sophomore art project and the echo of the studio, that goes beyond language. It's just one of those things.
I've thought long and hard about making some sort of tribute to the Co-op, a collage or a photo album, but I can't quite bring myself to muster the energy. Instead, I'm lying on the floor, trying to adjust my head to best see the computer screen while simultaneously globbing ice cream into my mouth. The yoga of denial.
In all honesty, I feel numb. I have all these ideas in my head about how I should be feeling, how I should have been feeling at graduation, and how I will feel tomorrow when I pull into the driveway of the new chapter of my life. I think I should be feeling more pain, I should be listening to Natalie Imbruglia and sobbing to my friends about all the good times we had. (I tried yesterday, and listened to at least an hour of Ray LaMontange radio before my roommate made a pitcher of something with tequila in it and hid my sweatpants.) At graduation, I'm pretty sure I should have been feeling something other than the desperate urge to pee, and I suppose I did--but the glow of honor and gratitude was coated in a thick layer of overwhelm, and I hardly knew what was happening. Now that I'm here--looking over the edge of the cliff I'm either about to fling myself off of or dribble over, one or the other--I feel drained. I spent all day helping a friend unpack boxes into her new Los Angeles apartment, dazed over the amount of IKEA furniture and grown-up kitchen supplies (can openers, coffee filters, and serrated knives, oh my!) that she had to her name, while my entire morning had been spent scraping a bird poster off of my wall with a spatula. The wall looks naked now. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Silverlake with my hands in my pockets, checking out the well-dressed babies dangling off the arms of women with tattoo sleeves, and listening in on conversations that revolved around things like oh, I finished my screenplay. Are you still acting? and oh yeah, mostly voiceover stuff now. I watched two girls nearly spill their kale smoothies when the notorious L.A. parking police nabbed them for neglecting to feed the meter. "BUT WE WERE ONLY THERE FOR LIKE TWO MINUUUUTTTESS."
Is that what the 20's look and sound like? Is there something wrong with me that I'm curled up in the fetal position on the floor, refusing to unplug my fairy lights because then it will be real, the room will be empty, and wishing I had the entire Hunger Games series as book-on-tape? I am twenty-one years old, a college graduate, and am able to appear completely serious on my skin while utter confusion bubbles mere centimeters beneath the surface. It's the part they don't tell you about when you're shaking the Dean's hand, trying not to slip on the Astro Turf: freedom feels like a big ball of crazy. To me, twentysomething is something akin to a gigantic hole in the pit of my stomach, unable to be pinned down as either excitement or acid reflux. If I didn't know any better, I would say the nausea is the rumbling of the crossroads that I have been dreading yet anticipating--beautiful, lustful, heartbreaking, infuriating sadness--and that it's the beginning of something huge. Then again, I did just eat an entire pint of Phish Food, so it's hard to say. I'm fine with not knowing.
From my position here on the floor, it all looks pretty scary. I feel no need to move at the moment; this room has given to me, and pressing my skin into its skin makes me feel like I am giving back.
I want to stay here forever, but the walls won't take me. They're naked now. Is this what goodbye feels like?
Ready or not, here I come.
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