a bit of culture

On Friday night I met up with a big group of coworkers at Sabang, a brilliant Indonesian restaurant with a massive vegetarian menu that includes an array of vegetarian seafood. It was fun and the dinner lasted until 10pm, which is positively scandalous for a hermit like me.

I had an embarrassing incident when I first arrived. I walked in and I heard someone say, “Oh, here’s another one!” and she motioned for me to come over to her table. I didn’t recognize the three people at the table, but since I’d never met one of the coworkers who was going to be at the dinner, and since I didn’t know most of the spouses who were going to be there, either, I just assumed that these people were either spouses or last-minute-addition coworkers who I hadn’t met yet.

They introduced themselves and started gabbing about how one of them had gotten arrested for passing out Impeach Bush buttons somewhere. That definitely made them seem like people from my office. (What can I say? We’re a liberal bunch.) But slowly I began thinking, “Wait a minute...am I at the wrong table? Something doesn’t feel right.” So I mumbled something about needing to run outside to check my voicemail, and I hid in the lobby, waiting to see if any coworkers showed up. They did, and when we walked into the restaurant together, they didn’t go to the table where I’d just been. So I had been at the wrong table after all! D’oh! I tried to shrink down into my seat so my original dining companions wouldn’t see me and wonder what the hell I was doing sitting with an entirely different group. But even if they didn’t see me, they still must’ve been wondering what was up with that weird girl who sat down with them, introduced herself, and then disappeared into the night.

On Saturday I worked on freelancing for a few hours and then hit a Capital Fringe Festival play, The Lesbian and the Flying Pig. It was about the US under Christian fundamentalist rule, and it was funny, moving, and scary. (Scary mainly because a Christian fundamentalist is currently in charge of the US; he may not be of Handmaid’s Tale proportions, but still!) As the play was only a block away from the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum, and there was an hour between when the play ended and the museum closed, I decided to browse through their modern art wing. I was quite entranced with one Andrew Wyeth painting I saw, but finding a copy for my apartment is proving to be very difficult.

On Sunday morning I went to a coworker’s son’s bris and naming ceremony at her house. It was my first bris and I loved every minute of it. The rabbi was hilarious and the whole ceremony was just so moving, lovely, and meaningful. They had quite the lunch spread, so two other coworkers and I settled down after the ceremony with plates of food and spent a good hour or so eating and chatting. We really hit it off with one guy at our table—a Manchester, England, native.

In a different vein, this is an avatar I created on Yahoo a few weeks ago. It’s as close as I could come to making an avatar who looks like me. I gave her my brown hair, blue eyes, black-framed glasses, and square face, and put her in an outfit that looks like my clothing. I made her look pissed off, too. Fitting!



song heard most recently before posting:
Shady River—The Chapin Sisters

an interlude of miscellany

My hair. I’m chomping at the bit to hack it off. For the past few years I’ve gone through these cycles wherein I grow my hair long, cut it all off, donate it to charity, and then grow it long again. The last two times I did this, the hair went to Locks of Love (the picture to the left was taken after my last big cut, in December 2005). During this round I decided I wanted to do something different; namely, donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths so it would go to a woman with cancer. They only require an eight-inch ponytail, and since mine is now clocking in at nine inches, I knew I was finally free to chop it. Only…no. Turns out they don’t accept dyed hair, and I finally had to resort to dyeing mine a few months ago, since it’s turning white at warp speed. And even though I didn’t dye my hair at all between the ages of 17 and 32, it’s still exempt from donation. I’m disappointed! I guess I’ll just have to give it to Locks of Love again, as they take dyed hair. However, their minimum requirement is a 10-inch ponytail, so I’ll have to wait another month or two before it’s long enough to donate. Gah!

Plath. I was so pissed at him earlier this week, because he killed a poor little bird when I took him and Freyja in the yard to get some fresh air. When we’re outside I watch them carefully to make sure they don’t attempt to leave the yard, but I guess no amount of careful watching can stop a cat from spontaneously ripping a bird from the sky. Here’s what I don’t get: Plath is overweight, 10 years old, on Prozac, and has been a housecat his entire life. Yet somehow he’s able to leap into the air with the speed and acumen of a cheetah to suddenly pluck a bird out of mid-flight. How does he do it?? He killed one other bird in the past, as well as a mouse. Obviously I need to keep this cat away from the great outdoors! My backyard is turning into a graveyard. If I were a rapper I’d have to go by the name Gravedigga, especially since I had to dig a mouse grave at my mom’s house the other week, too, after her boyfriend killed the poor little fellow.

I’m partially to blame for the bird’s demise, but that didn’t stop me from being a passive-aggressive bitch who refused to talk to Plath for a few days, aside from saying things like, “I’m going to the courthouse tomorrow to get your name legally changed to Plath Wayne Gacy” and “Oh, you want some of this pizza, eh? Well, I bet the bird you killed would like some of it, too. Only HE’LL NEVER EAT AGAIN.”

Lindsay Lohan. She should go to jail. Yes, addiction is a terrible disease, and I do think it would be a shame if she didn’t get the medical help she needs for her addictions, but the bottom line is that she broke the law. Several laws, actually. Having an addiction shouldn’t give you a Get Out of Jail Free card. If Joe Schmo got busted twice for DUI, and both times he had cocaine on him, and he had been drinking underage during the first DUI charge, his ass would be in serious trouble. It wouldn’t simply be a matter of sending him to rehab to wipe the slate clean. Why should Lindsay Lohan be any different? People can break many laws in the name of addiction, and I don’t see the justice in letting them escape punishment for it—especially when those broken laws could cost other people their lives. Should a sex addict avoid jail time if his addiction causes him to start raping women? Should a gambling addict avoid jail time if his addiction causes him to start robbing banks? I personally think Lohan should go to rehab and do some jail time. Hey, at least it will keep her out of the clubs for a while.

Michael Vick. The other day I got into an online debate regarding Vick and the charges against him. I said that I wanted nothing to do with Nike until they drop their sponsorship of them. They have put aside their plan to endorse his shoes, but they haven’t dropped him from their roster completely.

Someone retorted:

Um, let me double check on something. Yep, there it is presumption of innocence. Or, as we laymen like to say: “innocent until proven guilty”.

What if (and yes, I read the whole indictment, honest, you can read it on line) he really had nothing to do with it? Or he isn’t convicted of any wrong doing? And you’re Nike, and you dropped an innocent man from your payroll? Then what?

Well?

I responded:

As for Michael Vick, yes, he could be innocent. That’s for a jury to decide, not me. Personally—and I know my opinion doesn’t mean anything in the end—I think he’s probably guilty. A very intensive long-term investigation found, on his property, 52 pit bulls and dogfighting equipment such as forced breeding stand, treadmills, performance-enhancing drugs, and a bloodstained fighting pit. Is it possible all that stuff was on his property and he knew nothing about it? If he doesn’t actually live there—if he bought the house for his cousins, as he claims—he might not know about it, but then again, doesn’t he have a single staffer who could report to him what’s going on? Doesn’t he ever visit this property? If he visited it even shortly he would’ve seen the bloodstained pit at the very least.

But still, he could be innocent and losing his endorsement over nothing. And you know what? I don’t even care. Call me callous or bitchy or heartless or whatever, but honestly, I could care less if he loses his endorsement deal while he’s innocent. I never want to see an innocent man go to jail, but losing an endorsement deal when he’s already a millionaire? I ain’t shedding any tears over that. Countless innocent people have been falsely accused of crimes in this country, and that’s a damn shame—that’s a major flaw in the system—but it happens, and most people don’t have millions of dollars to fall back on when it happens. If Vick is innocent and lost his endorsement deal or his job with the Falcons unfairly, his career isn’t over. Celebrities always get second and third and fourth chances. Normal people rarely do. Some other team will hire him, and somebody else will give him an endorsement deal, and he’ll make millions more selling his story to the tabloids.

He replied:

I know this is a tough case to put your personal feelings away, but it’s entirely possible that he’s totally innocent. And that he feels just as badly about this as you do. His peeps never told him about it becasue they knew he wouldn’t approve. And yes, isn’t it possible that he never stays at the house, he just bought it for his friends and cousins to live in.

Possible, yes?

So, it seems to me, your arguement boils down to the fact that he’s rich, and likely to get richer no matter what happens. So to hell with him, and the system.

OK. that’s fine. I feel your pain. Be pissed at M Vick.

I’m not sure what Nike’s guilty of here.

Someone else wrote:

This sounds like the same thing - is it a boycott if you don’t already use their product/service? How much business had you done previously with Nike?

The other part of your argument is just emotionally flammable. I understand that this is a news topic, but people (not just you) really are starting to sound like a torch-carrying angry mob. How many folks had those Duke lacrosse players convicted of rape the minute the story broke? If that isn’t all the proof anyone will ever need to make sure we let the whole story play out before we ruin someone’s good name, then I don’t know what would do.

Does my gut say that he is guilty of something? Yup. Do I think his career is over? Yes, again. He may have millions now - but his earning power is severely damaged simply based on the outstanding accusation. Nike, the NFL and anyone else who does business with Michael Vick all need to reassess their business relationship. Right now, he is a cancer - and this is not something that will go away. This is the biggest sports story of this decade - as big as Pete Rose in the 80’s and OJ in the 90’s.

My understanding, by the way, is that the NFL and Nike have both removed all Michael Vick merchandise from their respective web sites. Nike has (at least for the moment) delayed a Michael Vick-related product launch (shoes?). So, if there are still fringe groups (PETA isn’t the most reliable unbiased source, in my own opinion) that are calling for a Nike boycott, it is possible that they have an agenda outside of this incident.

I replied:

QUOTE
is it a boycott if you don’t already use their product/service? How much business had you done previously with Nike?

Like Carrot Cake Man said earlier:

QUOTE
Yes, if I talk about it, and convince others not to [go] there who did before.

I’m desperately unathletic, so aside from buying a single pair of Nikes two years ago (and that was only so my feet wouldn’t be destroyed during a walking-intensive vacation), I don’t use Nike products. There has just never been a need for them for my torpid life. But I know people who do use Nike products quite a lot, and that’s where my boycott comes in. Will they listen to me? Who knows. Probably not. But I tried.

QUOTE
NFL and Nike have both removed all Michael Vick merchandise from their respective web sites. Nike has (at least for the moment) delayed a Michael Vick-related product launch (shoes?)

Yeah, and it’s my understanding that this was driven in part by the outrage of people appalled by the dogfighting charges—people who were boycotting Nike and the NFL and phoning them with their complaints. The media focus also had a lot to do with it. If none of this had happened, would Nike and the NFL be pulling that merchandise? Maybe. I don’t know. This is why I was doing the boycott—to get the merchandise and the endorsement pulled. If Vick is proven innocent, then, as far as I’m concerned, they can sell all the Vick products they want and endorse him all they want.

I agree that people are starting to sound like a torch-carrying angry mob, and it’s not my intention to join them. Mass hysteria and witch hunts don’t appeal to me at all. I’m not baying for blood—I’ve just been telling people how I feel about the issue and then letting the justice system do its job.

QUOTE
I know this is a tough case to put your personal feelings away, but it’s entirely possible that he’s totally innocent. And that he feels just as badly about this as you do. His peeps never told him about it becasue they knew he wouldn’t approve. And yes, isn’t it possible that he never stays at the house, he just bought it for his friends and cousins to live in.

Possible, yes?

It’s absolutely possible. Still, I have to wonder how much responsibility property owners should have for property they don’t live in. If you own a house and give it to your friends and they use it for sexual slavery, should you be held partly responsible for this, even though you didn’t know what was going on? I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t seem fair. Yet how fair was it for the people forced to be sexual slaves? Who was looking out for them? Maybe the one thing that could’ve saved them was a landlord/property owner taking some time to periodically check on his/her property to make sure everything was okay.

It’s kind of a murky, gray area, and if anything good comes out of this Vick case (aside from those dogs being rescued), maybe it can be a clarification of the extent of responsiblity a property owner carries when s/he doesn’t live in the property.

QUOTE
So, it seems to me, your arguement boils down to the fact that he’s rich, and likely to get richer no matter what happens. So to hell with him, and the system.

Well...yeah, basically. Not the part about the system, though. I think the judicial system needs an overhaul because it’s deeply flawed, and the fact that very little is being done about it is a tragedy.

Look, I’m not professing to be unbiased here. I’m totally biased. I’ll readily admit that I’m not a big fan of rich celebrities and athletes who usually think they’re above the law. And I’ll readily admit that when it comes to animal cruelty cases, my first line of defense is for the animals who suffered, perpetrators—guilty or not—be damned. I always take the animals’ side first. No, it’s not fair for me to give a toss about the people accused of animal cruelty. It’s not fair for me to be biased. But I work in the animal protection field and every single day I hear news about horrific acts of cruelty against animals. Today, for example, I got to work and the first thing I saw on email was a press release about two girls who held down a kitten in California and set him on fire. This is what I see every day. After five years it’s getting hard to set aside compassion for the dogfight ring leader or the puppy mill owner or the cat decapitator who might be innocent, especially when investigative facts point to the contrary. It’s hard for me to give those people the benefit of the doubt, because all I see are the mutilated and abused animals. This is my personal bias.

Why not leave my job? Because, daily horror aside, I love my job. I love that I’m doing my part to make a difference in animals’ lives. It’s the same reason my boss’s wife loves being a chemo nurse, even though it means seeing death and despair on a daily basis.

The debate dwindled down after that. Vick’s trial is slated to start in November. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out...



song heard most recently before posting:
Good Times Gonna Come—Aqualung

All I Really Need to Know I Learned from ’80s Song Lyrics

Forget about kindergarten. The only thing I learned in kindergarten is that it’s a mistake for a five-year-old child to wear a one-piece Halloween costume to class, because when she needs to pee she’s not going to be able to get the costume off in time, and after she pisses her pants her mother will have to come to the school with a clean pair of plaid bellbottoms for the poor child to change into.

No, kindergarten didn’t tell me everything I need to know about life—all my important life lessons came from the sage wisdom of 1980s song lyrics. Below are a few of them, all of which would probably be right at home inside a fortune cookie. If you can name all the song titles from whence these lyrics came, I’ll toss you some cookies (or some biscuits, for you Brits). Please feel free to add your own lyric life lessons to the comments section, if you’re feeling philosophical and wise.


Sometimes love can be mistaken for a crime.

Hollywood ain’t paved with gold—it’s just a trick of light.

Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.

Everybody’s looking for something.

We all have wings but some of us don’t know why.

Different people have different needs.

Life is cruel—life is never kind.

A man can tell a thousand lies.

Ain’t no use in complaining when you got a job to do.

Love is a battlefield.

Sometimes love don’t feel like it should.

To the heart and mind, ignorance is kind; there’s no comfort in the truth—pain is all you’ll find.

We’re fools to the rules of a government plan.

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.

If the wind is right you can find the joy of innocence again.

When you go you’re gone forever.

You don’t know what you got until you lose it all again.

It can cut you like a knife if the gift becomes a fire.

When you’re born to run it’s so hard to just slow down.

You’ve got to roll with the punches to get to what’s real.

You live for the fight when that’s all that you got.

Summer’s like a merry-go-round.

If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.

We are stronger when we are giving love.

Everything is nothing if you got no one.

When a problem comes along, you must whip it.

No one can take away your right to fight and to never surrender.

Some things in life you cannot measure by degrees.

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble.

There ain’t no perfect world.

There’ll be rumors floating around on Judgment Day.

You can’t fight passion when passion’s hot.

When you hear temptation call, it’s your heart that takes the fall.

We don’t have to take our clothes off to have a good time.

The sun always shines on TV.

Even doves have pride.

There’s nothing fair in this world, there’s nothing safe in this world, there’s nothing sure in this world, there’s nothing pure in this world.

Playing games is part of human nature.

Everybody’s going off the deep end.

There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime.

Sometimes there’s nothing to feel, sometimes there’s nothing to hold, sometimes there’s no time to run away, sometimes you just feel so old.

Some things will never change.

Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past; you must fight just to keep them alive.

In violent times you shouldn’t have to sell your soul.

Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues.

Love’s a game of easy come and easy go.

Love is like a bomb.

It's so much easier to push instead of pull.

If you know what you want, just go on out and get it.

Fact is fiction and TV reality.

Every night has its dawn.

Everybody’s got a reason to live. Everybody’s got a dream and a hunger inside.

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

So many times it happens too fast—you trade your passion for glory.

There is freedom within, there is freedom without.

It’s no better to be safe than sorry.

The more you live, the faster you will die.

There is good and bad in everyone.

Memories will burn you.

The passing of time leaves empty lives waiting to be filled.

Love is a dangerous drug. You have to receive it and you still can’t get enough of the stuff. It’s savage and it’s cruel and it shines like destruction; comes in like the flood and it seems like religion. It’s noble and it’s brutal, it distorts and deranges, and it wrenches you up and you’re left like a zombie.

Everyone needs a place and home’s the most excellent place of all.

We all need control.



song heard most recently before posting:
The Prayer—Bloc Party

dust to dust

“When a plant or animal dies it will eventually be eaten by the decomposing microbes. They will decay or disassemble it and put it back into the soil. This life-death-decay-life cycle has built the thin layer of fertile soil that covers our land. It nourishes and grows our plants, which are the bridge of life between the soil and man. The laws of Nature demands that all expired life be recycled back to the soil to serve as food and energy to support future life. Nature did not exempt the human body from this cycle. Should not it too be recycled?” –Malcolm Beck, “Pushing Up Daisies”

Long before I read The American Way of Death and learned about the seamy underbelly of the American deathcare industry, I decided that I wanted to be cremated. It just seemed like more of a free-spirited thing to do, and as a gal with a rabid case of wanderlust, I liked the idea of merging with the wind and rain instead of being anchored to one spot for eternity.

As I got older I also recognized the value in staying away from modern burial techniques, since they’re so economically wasteful and bad for the environment. Consider this:

• Many coffins aren’t solid wood—they’re made of chipboard that contains formaldehyde—and their handles are made of plastic made to look like brass. When happens when that formaldehyde and plastic starts leaching into the soil? Toxic embalming fluids, along with the copper or lead in expensive caskets, can leak into the ground and water supply.
  

• When a corpse decomposes inside a coffin, there isn’t enough oxygen to create aerobic compost (a beneficial process). Instead, anaerobic decomposition takes place and produces methane, which is 23 times as powerful a greenhouse gas such as CO2.

• Massive cemeteries take up land that could be used for food production, playgrounds, or nature preserves.
  

Those are some of the reasons why cemetery burial isn’t for me.

So why am I thinking about all of this right now, when I’m healthy and robust and only 33 years old? I’m not going to deny that I’m a morbid ghoul at heart, but really, that’s not the reason why I gave this subject so much thought. No, my intentions were far more straightforward and practical. Basically I just realized that, hey, I could die at any minute. Even as a teenager I had no illusions of immortality. And I knew that if I died without telling my family how I wanted them to dispose of my body, they’d probably end up taking the safe route and burying me in a cemetery, even if that’s not what I wanted. Yes, okay, it wouldn’t really matter if they did that, since I’d be dead and unable to see/experience what was going on. But, see, I just think it’s sad when a person’s deathcare clashes with his/her wishes or personality type, simply because the family had no idea—or didn’t care—what the person wanted. Like an earth-loving hippie who’s buried in a huge mausoleum or an expatriate who’s buried in his hometown, simply because that’s what their families want.

So at an early age I scripted a will stating my wishes: I want any viable organs and tissues to be donated; I want to be cremated, with half of my ashes spread in Greenwich and half spread in Lebanon County; and I want a memorial service that’s simple and nonreligious, with particular songs played and particular poems read. In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to my favorite charities or trees should be planted in my honor. If flowers are received, they should be donated to hospitals and hospices afterward. I specified that my dad is to take custody of my cats. I specified which charities/organizations should receive money from my estate. I said that my possessions and valuables should be distributed among my family and my very closest friends, as long as we’ve had contact within the six months prior to my death. Certain items go straight to my mom—my photos and journals, mainly—and my journals can be read by my loved ones after Heather has edited them to *ahem* remove any incriminating evidence.

In recent years, though, I’ve been pulling away from the cremation idea, mostly because it’s not an ecologically sound practice. I learned that the typical crematorium consumes around 285 kilowatt hours of gas and 15kWh of electricity during the three-five hours it takes to burn a body at 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s around the same amount of energy an average person uses at home in a month. Plus cremation releases into the air CO2, mercury vapor (from fillings), dioxins, and hydrocarbons (from crematory coffins). A 1990 study by the Electric Power Research Institute found that mercury vapor during cremation of a person with the average number of fillings was toxic enough to poison the fish in five 10-acre lakes. A 1999 report from San Francisco’s Public Works Department found that crematoria were the third-highest contributor of mercury in the region. Not only that, but are ashes really good for the environment?

In 2003 I read Mary Roach’s book Stiff, and it led me to consider human composting. This involves freezing a body; immersing it in liquid nitrogen; letting it disintegrate into an odorless, hygienic powder; and then burying it in a biodegradable coffin. Any toxic parts like mercury fillings can be separated out beforehand. The powder composts completely into a rich soil in just a few months. A freeze-dried body supposedly produces up to 65 pounds of pure organic matter that would enrich the soil. It does sound kind of grisly and weird at first blush, but the basic tenet of composting is pure: it’s simply a means of wholly returning to the earth and doing one’s part to nurture soil and trees.

However, I do have to wonder: How much energy does it take to make the liquid nitrogen? Will any traces of it remain in the powder and contaminate the earth? Wouldn’t it be better to just put my corpse on a traditional compost pile and let nature do its trick? Will such an option ever be made available to the general public? Probably not, because most people would be turned off by the idea—they wouldn’t want to think of their loved ones decaying under a pile of waste, coffee grounds, banana peels, etc. But it would be a practical solution for someone who wants to be composted without liquid nitrogen. Compost companies have found that large animals (even full-grown horses) disappear completely within two weeks when placed in an active compost pile. Nothing remains—no teeth, bones, or hair. Wouldn’t a human disappear almost as quickly? It’s not like my family would have to live with the thought of my body hanging out in a compost pile for a full year.

But anyway, the other day I read a great article (in, of all places, the June 25th issue of People magazine) about green burials. The article focused on the Ramsey Creek Preserve in South Carolina, a cemetery/nature preserve that’s exclusively reserved for green burials. The owners dig all graves by hand, and the cost of each plot is used to fund land restoration. Headstones are simple and made from local fieldstone. Coffins are simple pine boxes that are biodegradable. Bodies are unembalmed and wrapped in simple cotton shrouds. If you were a fan of Six Feet Under, you’ll remember when Nate was buried in a similar manner—wrapped in a shroud and buried under a tree in a nature preserve.

After People ran the article, letters began pouring in, some in support of green burials and others condemning it. One woman wrote, “I have seen the postmortem effect on a human body and cannot fathom the idea of allowing loved ones to decompose in a crude fashion.”

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what this woman does for a living? That’s right, she’s a funeral director. You mean a funeral director actually disapproves of burials that don’t require funeral homes? Shocking! Beyond that eye-rolling aspect, her letter cracked me up. “Decompose in a crude fashion”? As compared to the elegant decomposition you get in a casket? Come on, decomposition is decomposition. It’s ugly and it’s nasty and it’s natural no matter how you look at it. Granted, a top-of-the-line casket will keep the moisture and worms at bay for a long time, but the body, no matter how insulated and embalmed it is, is still going to decay. Decay is inevitable. So why not do it in a way that benefits the earth? It’s worth considering, anyway, although in the end, it’s a highly personal choice.

Personally I think that choosing to allow your body to return to the earth isn’t disrespectful or dishonorable. It’s not “crude.” It’s what our ancestors did, and if it was good enough for them, why isn’t it good enough for us? It’s definitely something that captivates me the more I think about it, and I sincerely hope that the green burial movement gains some steam in the years ahead.

Some links I found on the subject:

http://greenburialcouncil.org/

http://www.greenburials.org/

http://www.forestofmemories.org/

http://www.memorialecosystems.com/


song heard most recently before posting:
The Gunner’s Dream—Pink Floyd

fields of plenty

Yesterday I headed out to Berryville, Virginia, for Antoinette’s son Luca’s first birthday party. It was 95 degrees and the party was outside (normally a recipe for disaster in my heat-hating world), but I still had a really good time, especially since I hadn’t seen Luca since his christening in November. He banged his face on someone’s sunglasses at the party and ended up with a bloody nose—his very first. The poor boy!

The birthday boy and me

One thing I dreaded about the party was seeing Antoinette’s dad, because every time he sees me he asks, “Why you not-a married yet? Eh? Why you still-a single?” etc, etc. And he always expresses shock and horror over the fact that my parents are divorced, even though they’ve been divorced now for 17 years. This time I think he stayed away from those lines of conversation, but I can’t be sure, because I couldn’t understand a single word he was saying. It’s weird...sometimes I can hack my way through his accent and other times I’m lost. Yesterday was one of the times when I couldn’t understand him. So I just nodded and smiled and said “Yeah!” a lot. For all I know, the conversation could’ve gone like this:

Mario: “Are your parents dead?”
Me: “Yeah!”
Mario: “Did you kill them?”
Me: “Yeah!”
Mario: “Did you kill them because you’re a gross, crazy, useless little bitch?”
Me: “Yeah!”
Mario: “By the way, I hate the fact that you and my daughter have been friends for 21 years. You’re a bad influence and the whole family hates you.”
Me: “Yeah!”

On my way to Luca’s party I passed some fields full of hay bales, and because I’ve always wanted to photograph hay bales (yeah...don’t ask), I made a mental note to stop at the field on the eastbound side of Rt. 7 on my way home, especially since there was a country road running beside it (which would make for easier parking—I didn’t want to park along busy Rt. 7). So when I was heading home, I pulled onto the country road and parked my car on the shoulder, and to my sheer delight, I saw that the hay bale field had a huge rainbow arching over it. Plus the light was stunning because the hay was illuminated from the sun behind me, yet the sky over the hay remained dark and roiling. I scrambled out of my car and ran across the road, dropping my camera along the way (it’s banged up but still working just fine, thank god). I nearly fell a few times, too, because apparently platform sandals weren’t meant for running through rutted, hilly earth and knee-high grass. (Who knew?) I frantically snapped away for several minutes, raindrops and lightning bolts be damned, getting some strange stares from passers-by in the process. It was totally worth it. I’m always happy when pictures turn out like I planned!

These wildflowers were in a field across the
street from the hay field.

song heard most recently before posting:
Man in Motion—John Parr

worth more dead than alive

$6025.00

Hot damn, y’all! Being born with a life-threatening condition pays off. My craniosynostosis will help me net over $6000! Too bad I won’t be around to enjoy that sweet, sweet booty.


song heard most recently before posting:
Money for Nothing—Dire Straits

education

I nearly squealed with delight when I read this in Heather Armstrong’s latest blog posting:

“No, all my nightmares are now about college, all about not knowing the answers to a test, or not knowing that I’ve been enrolled in a class the entire semester until the week of finals, or waking up late and missing the final entirely. It’s never about sharks or getting hit by a bus or having the house crushed by a dragon, at least not anymore.”

This was so cool to read because, like her, I have frequent college nightmares, even though I’ve been out of college for over a decade. It’s weird…these dreams began not long after I graduated from college—I never actually had them when I was in college. They’ve been increasing in frequency as the years have passed, too.

The most common variation of the dreams is this: the end of the semester has arrived and I realize I haven’t attended class for most—or all—of the semester, so I have no idea how I’m going to pass my finals. A less frequent variation involves me arriving on campus at the beginning of the semester and not knowing what my mailbox code is, and/or what my class schedule involves. In the latter, I need to go to some office on campus to find out my schedule, but I can’t find the office and nobody can tell me where it’s located, so I just wander and wander, becoming more panicked with every step. In the dreams where I missed class all semester, the classes I missed are always the same: English and gym. Always English and gym.

So, okay, in a typical dream, finals are upon us and I break into a sweat of panic as I realize, “Holy shit, I haven’t been to English or gym class since, like, the first day of the semester. How am I going to pass these exams? How am I going to explain to my professors why I was missing all semester long?” Then I start coming up with myriad excuses to tell my professors. Like, I got really sick and couldn’t attend class for months, or I had personal troubles that kept me away from school. In these dreams I’m always on the cusp of graduating and I always realize that my failure to show up in class is most likely going to cost me my diploma. Sometimes in these dreams I’m running back and forth between my real-life job in Maryland and my college in Scranton, and I know that if I miss my chance to graduate, I’ll either lose my job because I won’t have a diploma or I’ll lose my job because they generously allowed me to take time off work to go to school, but that generosity is going to stop if I go over my allotted four years of schooling.

I’m quite curious as to what these dreams mean and how many other people out there have variations of them!

Speaking of college, I saw the greatest bumper sticker recently: “Education is everywhere.” And it’s true. So very true. I love the idea that education isn’t confined to a classroom or a textbook. That it’s out there in the world, in our experiences, in our daily lives. That just by observing something, paying attention, picking up a book, or watching a documentary, you are educating yourself and expanding your world.

But it also made me think about the paradoxical nature of the education section of my quotes collection. On one hand, there are quotes touting the virtue of being educated. I really do support this notion: the idea that education is exquisitely important, that it can change the world. I think it’s a tragedy when kids drop out of school prematurely and never go back for a GED. I think it’s a tragedy when kids in other countries are forced out of school at a painfully young age because they must pay to attend upper grades and they have no money to do so. I think it’s a tragedy that universities aren’t free or at least reasonably-priced, and that so many universities rely heavily on SAT scores for admitting students. (I test rather poorly, especially when it comes to math, so my SAT scores make me look like I’ve got about three brain cells in my head. Thankfully the four schools to which I applied looked beyond my low scores and were willing to take a chance on me.)

But on the other hand, I’ve got quotes in my collection that are heavily critical of education. I think it’s because I’m dismayed by the state of the educational system in the US—its increasing dependence on standardized tests, its emphasis on rote memorization, its focus on textbook learning.

And administrators are cracking the whip, forcing teachers to follow strict guidelines in order to ensure that students can pass specific standardized tests, which means teachers are losing the freedom to stray from textbooks and inject unconventional methods into their teaching techniques and lesson plans. Often they’re not even allowed to choose their own textbooks; instead, they have to buy specific texts chosen by administrators. So certain textbooks become orthodoxy and thus a certain set of prejudices is passed down year after year. With such a strict adherence to textbooks and rigid tests, the classroom becomes a grim and joyless place offering a narrow window on the world.

Although there are niches for kids who are learning disabled and kids who are gifted, there’s not much space for kids like me (I excelled at Honors English, AP History, and French, but at the same time I could barely pass the lowest levels of math and science; also, I hated speaking up in class—hated it with a passion—and even when I was doing great academically in class, my grades would suffer because I didn’t speak enough). All kids learn differently, but these differences are set aside in favor of a limited amount of boxes in which they’re expected to squeeze themselves. They must think this way and learn at this pace and their abilities should be somewhat uniform across the board, so if they’re in the “smart” English class they must also be in the “smart” math class. But what about people like me? Or kids who are geniuses with algebra but fail geometry? Or kids who ace history but can barely spell?

What bugs me most of all is how the educational system so ham-fistedly promotes conformity and groupthink. This obviously isn’t a new ideology; it’s been going on for as long as schools have existed. Remember that famous scene in Pink Floyd’s The Wall when the schoolchildren—who are all wearing deformed masks that make them look identical—have to march in step and uncomplainingly ride a conveyor belt that drops them into a grinder, where they’re all turned into one steaming lump of meat? The idea is that schools are grinding kids down to their basest nature, taking away what makes them unique and creative, pulverizing them into a single entity. How very true that often turns out to be. And I’m not even talking about school uniforms and clothing restrictions that keep kids from dressing as they want to dress.** I’m talking about the push to get kids to not think outside the box or color outside the lines. (Sheesh, how many clichés can I squeeze into one sentence?) Said Henry David Thoreau, quite beautifully, in his journal in November 1850:

“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch out of a free, meandering brook.”

**Honestly, I think school uniforms can be a good idea. Although I would’ve hated them in high school, as an adult I can appreciate the purpose they serve. They level the playing field so kids aren’t viciously ostracized or ridiculed for dressing differently or for wearing, say, discount or secondhand clothes. Many folks say that uniforms promote conformity and encourage everyone to be clones. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Conformity is more than just how you dress—it’s how you think. How you act. What you believe. Clothing does make a personal statement, and I’m happy to work in an office whose business-casual dress policy isn’t rigid. So on the days when I feel like doing so, I can show up at work in funky platform shoes instead of sensible pumps, wearing a psychedelic ’70s dress instead of a gray suit. It’s a nice perk. A very nice perk. But at the end of the day, clothing doesn’t define who I am. It doesn’t make me less of an individual if I’m at work in a bland suit or a uniform, just like it doesn’t make a quirky, creative kid less of an individual if she’s wearing a uniform at school.



song heard most recently before posting:
In the Sun—Joseph Arthur

Concert for Diana

This weekend was a godsend because for the first time in months, I didn’t have to work. That buoyant feeling of release was incredible. So I spent a lot of time reading (I finished two books) and watching Netflix DVDs (Midnight Express and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu). On Saturday I finally went to the Corcoran Gallery in DC to see their modernism exhibit, and aside from inwardly bitching about their high entrance fee (when half the museums in DC are free, you do tend to get spoiled), I really enjoyed myself. And I managed to snag a parking space right outside the museum. No small feat!

I was rooted to the sofa on Sunday as I watched the full six-hour Concert for Diana. It seemed to be a smashing success, and I’m very sorry I couldn’t be there. I tried—really, I did. I was fully prepared to fly to London solely for that concert. But every time a fresh batch of tickets was released to the public, they sold out before I could snag one.

Disappointments:

• Fergie didn’t piss herself while performing. I’ve seen shots of her with a wet crotch on stage, and I was hoping that she’d follow suit yesterday, because I don’t know if there’d be anything hotter on earth than seeing someone pissing herself while performing in front of the future king of England. Sadly, Fergie let me down. And she lip-synched, too, which I thought was disgraceful. Her performance slot should’ve gone to a performer who is actually capable of singing live.

• That trainwreck Amy Winehouse didn’t perform. I wanted to see her slurring and staggering her way across the stage, and maybe even rip off her shirt to carve “Diana” into her stomach with a piece of glass.

• Robbie Williams didn’t join Take That for a surprise reunion. What, he had something better to do than to sing in front of a billion people worldwide?

• Kanye West didn’t scream “PRINCESS DIANA DIDN’T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE!” while on stage. (Of course she cared about black people; I just wanted him to re-enact his awesome “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” tirade from way-back-when.)

• Most shocking of all: Elton John didn’t perform “Candle in the Wind ’97.” I was all set to brutz my way through it but never got a chance. I know he swore he’d never do it again after Diana’s funeral, but rumor has it that William and Harry asked him to perform it at the concert, and what better reason does he have to break his vow than a request from Diana’s sons? It’s not like he was asked to perform it on freaking American Idol. Wills and Harry should arrest him for treason and throw him in the Tower of London.

Aside from those issues, I thought the concert was superb. I loved the “Diana & Me” clips played between performances, as well as the childhood home movies shown at the end. The performers were great and it was a lot of fun to see William and Harry grooving to the music. The entire occasion was a marvelous, unique memorial to their beloved mother.

Yes, I’ll admit it: I liked Princess Diana. Well, obviously I did, or I wouldn’t have sat through a six-hour TV concert on a gorgeous, pristine summer day. Okay, no, Diana wasn’t the brightest bulb in Britain. And some of the stories of her being hysterical and manipulative—and perhaps a tad unstable—probably carried some degree of truth. But at her core she had a genuinely good heart. She cared about people and their problems and wanted to do something to brighten their lives. She took a bad situation (a loveless marriage; cold, distant in-laws; constant, crushing hounding by the press) and turned it into something positive (raising awareness of important issues, such as AIDS, homelessness, and land mines). She dragged the issues of eating disorders and self-injury out of the shadows by publicly sharing her personal experiences with them. She gave the royals a softer, more modern face by dancing at rock concerts and taking her kids to amusement parks and McDonald’s. She exposed her kids to life beyond their “ivory tower” (as she called it) by taking them to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, AIDS wards, and streets with heavy homeless populations. Above all, she truly loved her kids—she didn’t keep them at a polite distance as so many of the other royals do with their children. She loved them and treated them like…well, royalty. Diana may’ve been flighty, neurotic, and lovelorn, but she was still a good person and a phenomenal humanitarian, and she died far too young.

To celebrate the concert I drank English cider in the Diana memorial mug I bought during my second-to-last London trip. I would’ve eaten British food, too, if I’d had any on hand!

This has nothing to do with Princess Diana, but I saw a very cool blurb in the most recent issue of GDUSA magazine:

Revenge of the Nerds

Avant-nerdism is gaining steam and will hit the mainstream in 2009. “Avantnerdiwhat?” you ask. Zandl Group researchers, the ultimate trendspotters, define avant-nerd as a stylish, cool, or social person who engages in nerd culture with a full awareness of the irony of his or her behavior. Irma Zandl says that avant-nerds are the new creative class and that they possess a “compact, eco-friendly, quirky, and smart” aesthetic. Avant-nerds tap into retro styles and reflect a European sensibility. They ironically re-appropriate nerd culture, transforming the formerly nerdy into something cool. The aesthetic is influencing fashion, industrial design, and interior design, Zandl adds.

Lord almighty, those are my people! I hope this trend takes off!!!


song heard most recently before posting:
Vedete? Lo son fedele—Giacomo Puccini