The Homecoming Alternative

Homecoming Girl Celebrated

If you haven't read this story, I'll wait.

Done?

Here goes.  This is a bad idea.

My heart was not warmed.  Still isn't.  My reaction, then, you might ask?

"Fuck that."

Really?

Yup. "Fuck that."

What kind of jerk...

Great question.  I wondered that myself.  About myself.  Because that was what the middle of me thought of that story.  And the more I read, the more I thought about it, the more disgusted I became.

Disgusted?  With the girl?  Definitely a jerk, then.  With the town?  What's wrong with you?

More great questions.  Allow me:

Assuming you were educated in the United States during your teens, how do you remember your high school homecoming court being chosen?  By merit?  Minimum GPA, participation in clubs, volunteering, extracurricular interests, athletic prowess?  No, me neither.  It was popularity.

popularity - the quality of being widely admired or accepted or sought after

Somehow, the desire to preserve tradition has left generations of educators unable or unwilling to stop the process of allowing students to rank themselves on the most pointless, limiting, and irrelevant of factors.

Attractiveness, wealth (i.e. ability to own nice things, support nice parties), and the ability to speak only in words and phrases common enough not to arouse suspicion of independent thought.

As an unsupervised process, free from all faculty oversight or direction, the selection of homecoming court members usually results in nothing more harmful than an opportunity for students to determine which of their peers are most likely to acquire, at best, the most superficial acquaintances or, at worst, an unwanted pregnancy.  However, as this story indicates, a class of students with an overabundance of boredom, malice, or both can choose to do something more devious and hurtful.

At this point, when shown the intentions of their students, the teachers and principal decide to let the nominations stand.  For one of only two reasons:  either they have no idea as to the social standing of these children and don't recognize that something has gone awry.  Or, they are aware of the reasons for this girl's nomination and don't feel they have the authority step in and provide a correction.  I'm not sure which is worse, but I'm leaning towards the former.

In either case, as the underlying motivation became clear, they stuck with the course of non-interference, instead allowing the students to police themselves via social networking sites, and ultimately abrogating responsibility for a solution to the larger community.

So, following the example set by thousands of teensploitation movies and the Disney happiness factory, the citizens of this small town decided they would solve the twin problems of shyness and unpopularity with a makeover and a forced celebration.

The story went viral, first around the town, then the internet.  Offers of free dresses, dinners, limos, prettification, and even escorts all came flooding in.  Even though no one knew who this girl was.  Proof, if it is required, that this was all about our hurt feelings.  Not hers.

Well so what?  If it highlights bullying and the dangers of cliques, then good.  If people want to help her out, then so what?

Help her out.  Okay.  Who is she again?  Just a girl.  Just a student.  A victim of bullies.  Certainly not the only one at that school.  The only thing special about her situation is that we all decided to care.  Which is not to say that that is a bad thing.  But what are we doing with all of that energy, all of those resources?  Is it helpful to her situation to say that she should definitely get her hair and nails done?  Is it helpful to force the rest of her class to celebrate her, whether or not they really want to?  There is a private court of student opinion that will exist long after the dance ends.  Its easy to think that just like on TV, she'll be raised on our shoulders, a Maroon 5 song will play, and the credits will roll.  Maybe even rapidly on half the screen while the other half blares an advertisement for another show about Peri Gilpin starting a synchronized swim team in the Sudan.

Point is, pretending that simply "taking back" homecoming for all of us that have been bullied is short-sighted and reductive.  And selfish.  Her story became about all of "us" who've been subjected to the focused ridicule of our peers.

What lessons will this girl take away?  That other people have been bullied, yes.  That there is a larger community outside of the popular kids, yes.  That she is worthy of respect,  of course.  But also, that Homecoming still matters, that a true celebration of an individual's worth comes with a fancy dinner, a limo ride, and a makeover.

With all of the bullying that undoubtedly will still continue in that school, what resources will remain to help those victims?  After all the effort spent to make one child (and of course, ourselves) feel better, what do we have to say to the rest of the victims?  If the contributions and energy we're prepared to marshal in defense of the helpless is spent on one pointless event, with no larger campaign or support for all other potential victims, what do we say to the next hopeless teenager?


Too bad they don't celebrate Homecoming in Canada.

Apologies, Albert...

A proud Euskarian name, brought in all likelihood, albeit piecemeal, from the Celtic tribes from northern Europe.  surviving the linguistic influences of Gascony and Aquitani tribes from the time of Ptolemy, it hitched a ride on some of the earliest seafaring vessels departing from Europe.  Landing at last on the island now known as Hispaniola, manning ships of Cristobal Colombo, and then establishing itself amongst the Taino peoples.  Intermingling with the bloodlines of a native population possessed of such distinguished persons as Anacona of Xaragua, a warrior queen who resisted the waves of conquistadors.  Maintaining its singular dignity, this family name flourished for another several centuries before producing a prodigious baseballing set of genes, whose scion escaped with his mother for the shores and opportunities of the US.  The man carrying this name rose quickly through the farm system, in spite of being drafted 402nd overall in 1999 by the St. Louis Cardinals.  Named rookie of the year in 2001, he achieved unparalleled fame, honoring his namesake forbears by becoming a nine time all star in Major League Baseball.  An historic name, now inscribed on bedroom posters and finding its way into thousands of packs of baseball cards, collected and sold the world over.

One pack of which was purchased for my five-year-old nephew, who just so happens to be learning to read.  A name for the centuries, nay millenia, waiting patiently in a stack as a young man sounds out the words that describe careers, lifetimes of achievement.  And then, finally....

"Al...Albert.  Albert.  Albert.  Poo...Poo jols.  Poojols.  Albert Poo-jols."

"No Daniel.  Its pronounced 'Poo-holes.'"

A light comes on.  If there's one thing more resonant with the under-6 set than sporting achievement, its potty talk.  Adult sanctioned potty talk.

"His name is poo-holes?  Albert Poo-holes?"


"Yes, Daniel.  That man's name is Poo-holes."

Cackling ensues, and a proud line of warriors and sea-faring adventurers dims slightly.

"Poo-holes, Poo-holes!  Allllbeeert POO-HOLES!"

"POO-HOLES!"

Sorry, Albert.

My first lifetime, in 4 seasons: Winter

I'm swaddled in winter wear.  Over-bundled unto immobility.  Winter after Christmas is a much more serious affair than before.  The sky is much too close to darkness for me to only now feel as if dinner should be soon.  I think I should smell something, but its too cold for a window or door to be cracked.  I'm in my front yard close enough to the house to tell, but the scent of salty mucus in the scarf drawn tight across the lower half of my face would block it anyhow.  My playmates have gone home for dinner and my sister has gone as well, leaving me alone.  The front porch light sconces are out, twin dusted bulbs alone like light house keepers, wrapped in a few filaments of spent spider threads, cold-cracked with a parcel of moth husks to mark time.  The sun was a small, glowing egg yolk sliding behind the tree line at the end of our cul-de-sac, dragging its watery orange silk with it, leaving me very alone in the snow brightened front lawn.  My eyes picked out the shapes our daytime trees, rendered now in an indigo palette, the ones like our christmas getting snagged and tugged out of form by the same jangly wind that was pulling water out of my eyes.  Not afraid, really, but more out of instinct i ran towards the two yellow beacons that were the prismatic windows of our front door.  Taking a straight line across the lawn, i could hear the pop of each step as i broke through the crusted snow over my own snotted breathing.  Perhaps the awkward snowsuit, or just the unpracticed gait of a five-year-old was to blame, but i lost my footing and went down in a heap.  A different pop, underneath the tumult of my collapse, was clearly audible.  In children my age, the doctor would later say, they're called greenstick fractures.  Because children's bones splinter like a honeysuckle twig.  It ached.  Funny-like.  I didn't cry out.  I rolled over on my back, my little greenstick held across my chest, breathing to myself.  Fast at first and then slower.  And slower, still.  And then only quietly, my mouth tasting of saliva, but warmer, like batteries.  The sky, darker now, was cold-washed with clouds, framed by the hood of my snowsuit, the few stars shattered by the water filling my eyes.  I blinked them dry and listened to the trees, just out of sight.

The Train Pulleth into the Station...

Not a long post.

Someone close to me is getting ready to leave...

93 years is a long time.  The Nintendo is 25 years old.  It came out when I was 10.  The stock market crashed when she was 10.  The first one, in 1929.

Decades.  9 of them.  Into the tenth.  2 kids, 7 grandchildren.  11 great-grandchildren, if my math is right.

To stand at such an angle, from such a vantage, to see clearly down 20 different paths...different circuits.

Just a thought, friends, for those for whom the train is arriving:

May we all board in a timely fashion, with a minimum of fuss, and plenty of people waving.

Second Chair

A thought today, perhaps, for those whose toil goes unnoticed or seen and unheralded.

I have never had a haircut i like.  Ever.  It isn't that I'm unhappy.  That ship left port a long time ago.  Rather, I just don't care.  I say what I want and something else happens.  Sigh, smile wanly, pay with tip.  Repeat.  This has been my routine for decades.  I once paid a lot for a haircut.  Somewhere with fancy mirrors, washbowls for shampooing, and 60 dollar scissors.  Same result only poorer for the effort.

Barber shops usually have at least two chairs, sometimes three.  The owner has the first chair (barbershops generally aren't "investment" opportunities), and some sad lump or two in the others.  If you're second chair in a barber shop, you might be saving up for your own shop, but usually its just some guy turning toddlers' crewcuts into glasses of rye at the veteran's hall.

At the place i go now, the second chair is held by a man in his nineties named, i think, Gifas.  He sweeps up for the owner's cuts and occasionally handles the overflow on busy days.  Study the face of the second chair barber when his chair empties and client after client politely waves off his solicitations, preferring to wait for the first chair.  As perfect an expression of abject purposelessness as you will ever see.

Several weeks ago, I did not defer.  I saw the line, I had places to go.  I couldn't wait.  Gifas, I'm yours.  What do i care?  It's not as if i was going to get the cut i wanted.  In all honesty, my hair isn't easy to cut. I've got three whorls all positioned at terrible locations.  If the etymology of cowlick is to be believed, surely my infant head must have tasted like a salt block to some heavenly bovine servant.  I even have two in my beard.

Gifas wears a smock.  Like a doctor.  Or a teenager working the makeup counter.  Like all persons born shortly after the Great War, his hands shake. 30 minutes later i looked like i was only missing the neck bolts and an angry mob to corner me in the windmill.  Or like i should wear overalls with no shirt and be kept from petting rabbits.  Sigh.

So today, with a little shaggy growth to erase Gifas' efforts, I headed back to try again.  Sure enough, there was a line for the first chair.  But something happened.  The timing of the cuts worked out in my favor.  The owner's chair opened up and Gifas was still working on insuring at least a week's worth of shame for some poor 11-year-old with an impatient mother.  The owner waved me over.

Every so often we are given an opportunity.  An opportunity to...I don't know.  To be...decent.  Maybe.  Or just to do something only for the sake of another.  There was someone in line after me for the first chair.  I looked at him, then at the owner.  The moment dilated enough that Gifas shaky hands slowed to a mild tremor and he looked in the mirror at the three of us.  No, I said to the owner.  I looked at the man next to me and told him to go ahead.  I looked at Gifas in his smock.  No wrinkles there.  Ironed every morning, no doubt.  A small breakfast in a small apartment.  Several smocks hung in a closet, each an emblem of a purpose.  A reason to get up, to get out, to be needed.  Maybe the reason he's lasted this long away from the support of his kids or the state.

Thanks anyway, I said.  I'll wait for Gifas.

Stranger in a Strange Kitchen, or How I Overcame Childhood Xenophobia

strang·er  (strnjr) n. 1. One who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance. 2. A foreigner, newcomer, or outsider. 3. One who is unaccustomed to or unacquainted with something specified; a novice: a stranger to our language; no stranger to hardship. 4. A visitor or guest.

Having been one and met many, I wonder how all of us can feel so differently about the concept.  How a community or culture reacts to one, I think owes a lot to how often those within that community have allowed themselves to be seen as such, and how, in that moment, they felt.  And further, what they did about it.

I come from a family of travelers.  Not the pseudo-Roma types in the American southeast that collect down payments for un-asphalted driveways.  Rather, those that wander.  Or wonder.  Then wander.  There was a desk at my father's parents' house that I would pass as a child whenever we visited.  Stuffed as it was with yellowed grocery lists, receipts, catalogs, and filleted correspondence, it stood as an ongoing exhibit of their lives in process.  What caught the eye of a curious grandson, and many admiring visitors was the corkboard above it.  Pinned to every inch were thousands of photos, thick as fish scales.  Curling like sloughed bark, they were a record of an entire life spent in the service of, and as, strangers.  On camel back.  Under an umbrella, bizarre trees in the background.  Darker haired, tighter skinned people that looked a lot like my grandparents smiled back from dozens of photos definitely not taken anywhere in Kentucky.

Perhaps even more fascinating were the exchange students they hosted.  Its a very strange feeling as a young person to meet adults who don't speak English.  They're decidedly grown-up, yet they talk like children.  they're curious about you and want desperately to speak, but are forced to rely on broken phrases cribbed from television and meaningful eye contact.  They were friendly with my adults and were clearly vouched for by them.  And they were strangers.

As children, we are all given the same opportunities to embrace strange cultures and people.  To be clear, i am not describing a situation in which my mother and father encouraged me to speak to strangers, take their candy, or accept their rides.  I am referring instead to that rite of passage that all of us took at some point, which i am sure is not unique to American culture;  the sleepover.

I was 6.  It was Friday.  That morning, I took a letter from my mother to my teacher.  Having read it, she sent me to the office to show it to the secretary.  She read it.  Then she reached into her desk drawer, took out a slip of paper, and wrote down the information.  Then, dear readers, for the first time ever, before any of my plane tickets or Eurail passes, I was handed the most amazing billet any child may ever hope to receive;  a permission slip to ride a different bus.

A child's ticket for travel.  giving it to the strange bus driver, in the strange bus, parked in the strange location.  Then, off to the strange house, filled with strangers.  I had my friend as a guide of course.  but the trust required in such in arrangement ought not be overlooked.  Having been sanctioned by my parents, he would be my only touchstone, my only reference point, my only familiar on this expedition.

Let's be honest; i wasn't going overseas.  Yet, to a small child, it might as well have been a ticket to Zanzibar.  I'd had playdates before.  I'd been to other houses for birthday parties.  but this was different.  I was alone in my strangeness.  No other kids to share the oddness, and most importantly, no ride home when it got dark.  No festivities, no event.  No balloons or cake.  Just a whole lot of weird furniture, weird lighting, weird toys, in a weird house in a weird neighborhood.  and most of all, weird smells.   It might feel like a normal playdate.  Right up until dinner.

For those who may not think smell is important or indicative or evocative, i offer this test.  Walk through or near a grade school at lunch time and convince me you don't become nostalgic.  Bleach, fresh paint, and musty radiators will always be redolent of dorm life.  A strange house would be so firstly because of the smell.  Strange laundry.  Strange cleaning products resulting in disorienting floor-based play on an odd carpet or linoleum in a weird basement.  And it would all come to a point when the first fingers of aroma from dinner would find their way downstairs or out to the backyard.

Every new experience, every vacation always has a newness about it.  Something to remind you that you've gone beyond the familiar.  I argue that its the smell of other people's dinner that makes it real.  New ingredients, new techniques.  For me, as a child, that's when a play date become...sinister somehow.  Foreign.  Scary.  And no concession, whether in demeanor or speech, would ever be made in my direction to indicate an understanding of my apprehension.  My friend, his parents, and maybe a sibling or two, would simply slide into their strange chairs at their strange table and start eating their strange food.

As every day before it, that day would end. At a slightly later hour, maybe, but end it would.  With strange toothpaste in a strange bathroom.  And finally to bed, to be tucked into odd-smelling linens with my head pointing the wrong way with none of my stuffed animals on whom to rely, and what little light there may have been definitely in the wrong location.  It is at this moment that we become one of two very different kind of people.

When i was in Europe, those moments that still glow faintly in the dark, cold, shelved corridors of my memory share one immutable common theme; i was lonely.  Abjectly, despondently lonely.  By choice, i travelled alone.  I found friends with whom to share a day, a meal, or maybe a train ride.  But by forcing myself to wander alone, and through my stomaching and enduring, and most importantly, eventually riding out the resultant homesickness, I became self-reliant.  And confident.  I discovered that there is something valuable in the kindness of strangers, upon which i was forced to depend to overcome my loneliness.

I think our response to the novelty of a sleepover and the overwhelming panic of being, dare i say it, a stranger in a strange land, is what ultimately determines our acceptance of other people's cultures.  Even if we gave up and cried for our parents until they came and took us home, we recovered, tried again, and eventually spent the entirety of some night at a friend's house.  Sometimes the night passed slowly, tearfully.  Lonely.  We either become forever wary and afraid of other people, other cultures, only comfortable with a lifestyle that changes little.  Or we trust ourselves to other people, strangers in a strange home, to take care of us, never forgetting who we are and where we are most at peace.  But stronger, more confident, and more willing to expose ourselves to something foreign.

Always waiting on the other side, as a reward for our endurance, was a bright, cartoon-filled morning.  Greeted upon waking with a warm smile, by parents not much different, really, than our own.  In a kitchen, now filled with sunlight, that looked remarkably less strange and rather more familiar than when we were afraid.  And at a table with four legs, just like at home, with plates, not much different than ours.  Piled with pancakes.  Just like at my house.

Dude, don't forget; we're off next Monday.

Just back from vacation.  Nose to the grindstone.  No more holiday cheer.  Gray, cold, and distinctly unfestive, January waits.  The least exciting month.  Just look at the word:

                                                                            January

See?  Boring.  And yet...from out of nowhere, a co-worker or spouse or friend tells you, "Don't forget; we're off next Monday."  They will say it casually, as if they've known it all along.  "What!" you'll say.  "Why?"
Why, indeed.  How is this possible?
"We're off Monday!?"
Who has done this?  In whose honor am I to be excused from work?  Why, none other than Martin Luther King.  In addition to a lifetime of struggle for equal rights, an enduring quest on behalf of all mankind, he is apparently blessing me with both a 3 day weekend AND the subsequent 4 day work week.  God bless you, Martin Luther King.

Here's to Facebook

People move away.  Sometimes several states away.  Its difficult to stay in touch.  With friends or family.  A phone call.  A letter.  Maybe an email.  We all do what we can, but sometimes the distance between can stretch too far.  You forget to return a call.  You miss a birthday.  A birth even.  You feel guilty and the guilt, ironically, keeps you from correcting a mistake.  Sometimes you get a second chance.  And sometimes you even feel guilty about not having made the effort yourself for that second chance and even that will keep you from making a new connection.  What's worse, the stronger the connection originally, the deeper the friendship, the stronger the guilt that keeps you from just admitting a mistake and taking what you can, when it comes.  Perhaps that's the greatest part of Facebook:  the mechanics for both reconnecting and maintenance are already in place.  Just plug in. For so long I had been one of its leading detractors.  Write a letter, make a call, I would say.  All the while never getting around to it.  Thinking, mistakenly, that great friends lost for too long deserved a grand antique gesture in order to adequately address the error of having let them go.  In the end it was simple.  I accepted a friend request.  No letter, no apologies.  Just a small electronic nod, and a wordless invitation to see their life.  And to observe that life.  Here we are, here's what we're up to.  No worries.  A few comments, a couple "likes" on a post.  And then a moment arrives when you feel comfortable enough to try again.

A lifetime ago, i met a man.  A boy, actually.  So was I, then.  And then he met a girl.  And it was a summer.  We were all seventeen, and in spite of the true joy of having no real responsibility, everything about that summer felt massive and final.  And momentous.  You were all seventeen; you remember.  Lost track after that for years.  Somehow I found them again.  They were together.  Happily.  We had some responsibility then, but still had the freedom to practice being adults without having to commit to anything real.  And then they did commit.  To each other.  And I was asked to stand up for them and speak at their wedding.  Still one of the greatest honors I've ever been given.  And then I met a girl.  And when we committed, my friends returned the favor at our wedding.  We stayed in touch after that.  For a while.  They moved, we visited.  And then...nothing.  I don't know how or why, but that was it.  For a long time.  They moved, maybe.  Back home from out west.  Maybe.  Too many years passed with too much guilt.  I didn't know.  Enter Facebook.

They found my wife first.  I wasn't on Facebook, so she would give me small updates.  They had moved, matriculated.  Then they had kids.  That's what got me.  I could stand having missed a move, a degree or two.  But somehow, the idea of their starting a family was more than i could bear.  I still wasn't sure what to say or how to say it.  Turns out a shared love for bourbon and a ridiculous bottle-sweater was all it took.  That and good timing.  We were just about to go home, which was just a short drive from their new home, new life.  So we went.

Just a day.  Half a day, really.  No one deserves 60 degrees in January, but we got it.  All that we may wish for our friends or family, in this life or the next, is happiness.  A contentment.  Peace, security, fulfillment. A beautiful home with a porch, a garage, and slow traffic going by.  And healthy, glorious, magical, curious, delightful children.  One would be a miracle; they had two.  Should I live a thousand years, it would be a full life were I to be such a host for anyone else.  A meal, a bed, a bottle of booze and chance to get to know them and their family.  Again and for the first time.

Yeah, there's silly pop-up ads in the margins.  And yes, there will never be an electronic substitute for the sound of a child's genuine laugh or feeling the weight of an envelope upon which a loved one has written your name with a pen with their own hand.  But friends, I am saying that without this wonderful invention, the above moment might never have come about.  Here's to Facebook, and all the new friends we might get to know.

To hoard, perchance to shred

Having only a cursory understanding of what is undoubtedly a complex and harrowing disorder, and having only seen maybe 5 minutes of the eponymous program, I will nevertheless assert that hoarding, in its early stages, begins with an unwillingness or inability to process incoming mail.  And perhaps, as a close second, the overestimation of the "actual" value of free tote bags.

Our most recent ordeal, and most issues with sorting and discarding mail, began with a broken shredder.  Like most people, the fact that we couldn't remember where or when we purchased our shredder, or more importantly, how much it cost, made buying a new one difficult.  I knew that our current model wasn't powerful enough.  I knew this because the sound of it shredding made me think of Ving Rhames cursing through a ball gag.  And having no idea what one should cost and for what amount of power or how that power is measured, i just didn't buy one.  That was the start of the darkness.

Three stacks of mail.  Unread, read but unprocessed, and shred-worthy.  First the shreddable pile grew.  And grew.  It grew because "we" (everyone knows i mean only my wife, right?) didn't want to just throw out sensitive mail items with our personal information on it.  If you have a working shredder and just take for granted why a solicitation to join Curves Gym for Women requires shredding, i will be happy to explain.  It contains personal information.  Like your address.  Which is impossible to obtain, apparently, by any means other than sorting through coffee grounds, eggshells, slimy cottonballs and used dental floss in the hopes of discovery.  I knew the shredding pile was large when toppling became a concern.  At which point a line was crossed (by me, alone) that is crossed once by all who eventual find themselves sobbing through a newspaper-narrowed hallway towards a TLC camera crew, lamenting the loss of their "valuables:" I put the mail that must be saved in a bag.  For saving.  Until later.  Oh god.

Stacks of unread magazines can also be a point of concern.  Moments of tension periodically (pun intended) arise in our home when my wife confronts me about putting a mixed stack of Health/Fitness/Shape/Woman/Home/Garden/Woman'sShape/GardenFitness/HomeHealth/ShapeHealth/Woman'sGarden/FitnessHome/ShapelyWoman'sGarden into the pile of newspapers for recycling.  Not because i'm mixing glossy print with newspaper (shut up, all of you; it goes in one truck anyway). Rather, she was bothered because 1) she hasn't read them yet (pffft) and 2) she hasn't removed the address part with our name and our "secret codes."  Which, she imagines is used only as a shortcut by identity thievery adepts to easily extract personal information.

The trouble with this logic aside from bagged mail, is the same as with hitchhiking as a successful path for a career in murder: the victim pool has evolved.  Its a cold, lonely, unsatisfied murderer that stalks our  nation's highways.  Likewise, potential identity thieves are not be-masked, striped-shirted prowlers rooting through our bagged garbage with a flashlight clenched in their teeth.  Nor are they waist-deep in a garbage barge, occasionally turning a grimy, trash slicked face skyward, thrilled at the discovery of my wife's discarded Frontgate catalog.

In summary, fix your shredder.  Or buy a new one.  And read your magazines quickly.

Secret Collation

Whenever a movie or television show dealing with the intelligence community shows a room wherein secret discussions are being held, there are always professional looking binders containing pertinent information laying around.  Who prepares these?

Only one of the following scenarios can be true:

A man walks into an austere office at Langley.

"Have a seat Bob.  I've got good news and bad news."

"Oh?"

"We are moving to sponsor your top secret clearance."

"That's great.  What's the bad news?"

"Well, the trouble is, at this level, our briefings and documents are obviously more sensitive-"

"-Of course - "

"- but still require the same level of professional production value."

"...Okay..."

"Do you see where this is going, Bob?"

"No."

"Well, we can't exactly have this kind of information getting jammed in a copier somewhere down the hall.  All of our best secretarial talent tops out at "secret" level stuff.  In other words, Bob, you'll be making your own reports and binders from here on out."

"No."

"I'm afraid so.  Look, it happens to all of us.  Look at me; I'm 65, when i got my clearance, I had to pump that poisonous ink into a mimeograph machine.  It is what it is buddy.  Otherwise, we'd have a pile of dead temps at the end of every week."

[both men cackle whitely.]

Or...

An older woman walks into an austere office at Langley.

"Thanks for getting these briefings together so quickly, Rose.  I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Your welcome."

"Say, Rose?  Can I ask you something?

"Yes?"

"Ever read any of this?"  (Holds up briefing)

"What?"

"This.  The briefings."

"I don't think so.  No."

"But...you'd have to?  Right?  I mean, to check for typos, grammar, content.  That sort of thing."

"Oh, I don't think so."

"Rose."

"Yes."

"Part of what we do here, is determine when a lie is being told.  You know that right?  A large part."

"Where are we?"

"Rose."

"Suddenly, I don't know where I am - "

"- Rose - "

" - I should go and lie down.  (Hurriedly leaving)  At my house.  Right now - "

"- Rose - "

" - Or see my sister.  Who's been ill - in Venezuela - " (Running now)

"Rose!  Who has a gun?  Anyone?  Damn.  Someone shoot her."

hair

For the second time in my life, I am finding hair growing on new parts of my body.  Only now its my ears and shoulders.  Both times I consulted my father; the first time to get advice, the second time to get an apology.

Arts Education

In even the best of times, Arts education in the public school system is always in jeopardy of suffering in the face of budgetary concerns.  And now, when the economy is strained, we hear stories daily of school districts all over the country slashing funding for music, theater, and art departments.  In order to save these programs many advocates are forced to inject new feeling into the same arguments, hoping that the school boards to whom they are presenting their cases will be somehow be moved to spare the axe and find some hidden funding to keep these necessary projects afloat.  Unfortunately, these arguments are as compelling as they are predictable.  Having just seen Werner Herzog's amazing Cave of Forgotten Dreams, it occurred to me that there is a novel argument to make in defense of the arts.

Imagine us, 40,000 years ago.  For reference sake, the Sumerians set up shop 8,500 years ago, and the early dynastic Egyptians began knocking around about 8,000 years ago.  So, consider the circumstances.  No farming, clothing made from hides, basic tools, a rudimentary language, and definitely no writing.  Basic hunting and gathering.  And lots of hiding in caves.  Dawn to dusk, the primary focus would have been finding something to eat and somewhere safe to sleep.

And yet, for no reason, at least none that would aid in either of the above listed preoccupations, we drew.  On the walls.  Of a cave.  Not handprints, which are a remarkable step in their own right.  Drawing.

A charred torch is scraped on a wall to be relit.  It makes a mark.  And then something happened.  There was a moment, before which we were one way.  After, another.  Someone, who other than being terribly dirty looked a lot like us, in an idle hour, decided they wouldn't spend their evening picking bugs out of someone's hair or staring at the fire.  Decided.  To take a charred stick and DRAW ON THE WALL.  To have some idea of the wonder of this moment, watch any 2 year old learn to scribble.  And then name their scribbles.  And then at around 3 years-old, to try to make a shape that they have seen.  At some point around 40,000 years ago, this didn't happen.  And then it did.

What did we draw and why?  Not plans for a hunt.  Or even each other.  With nothing to be gained other than the primal pleasure of itself, we drew pictures of animals.  And not a catalog of what to be wary of. Just what we had seen.  Over an over again.  Different animals, some running, some fighting.  Horses neighing.  Imagine the moment when other duties waited.  When others in the tribe would watch the person at the cave wall, rapt in a shaky fire's light.  Waiting to see what would appear from the end of a stick.  From memory, an image would appear, then another, the faces of the witnesses slowly betraying a recognition of something outside, from before, glimpsed once.  Perhaps run from.  Or towards.  Or being clubbed to death.  Or torn apart and skinned and placed on a stick and held in a fire until it tasted...different.  Or just lying dead on the ground.  But definitely, and most importantly, not present.  At that moment, a conversation occurred, before conversation ever occurred, between a person making an image and those recognizing what that image was meant to convey.

this was the beginning of us.  US.  An idle hour spent creating.  Creating something with no intrinsic value.  Those images didn't make the cave warmer, our fire brighter, our tools sharper, our prey slower.  They made us more interested in our world, and more interesting for it.  How different our world must have seemed now that we could recreate it when removed from it.  Now imagine the teaching of that skill.  To give to a child their first charred stick, their first piece of ochre.  Seeing another learn to create.  To then see the advantages gained with that enhanced vision.  That all things are such that you may know them through their representation by virtue of your trained and patient hand.  Or that failing your ability, you may know them on the walls of your home, in all its safety, through the efforts of another.

This made us different.  Better.  Pensive.  Keener.  Smarter.  Artistic.  This is the gift of not just drawing, but of all the arts.  We could do it, the neanderthals couldn't.  And they were quickly left behind.  Musical instruments and sculpture were quick to follow.  But they were first.  Before agriculture, before commerce, before language even.  And most importantly, don't ever forget, especially the next time you find yourself at a school board hearing where someone threatens to cancel the marching band, shutter the dark room, unplug the kiln, or fire the theater director;  all of the wonder and majesty of our first strokes across the walls of cave took place 39,649 years before the first organized sports were ever played.

Cats vs Dogs

You cannot talk of having children without someone recommending a pet as a first step, apparently as training.  Several flaws are immediately apparent with this logic, not least of which is you cannot leave your children at home alone all day, nor is it kosher to simply pour cheerios into a bowl on the floor while you fold laundry.  Should we consent to this "first step," I find myself leaning towards something more exotic:  flying squirrel, galopagos tortoise, robot monkey.  All roundly dismissed by my wife as non-options.  Fair enough.  Then dog or cat it must be.  Which got me thinking...

Pluses for cats are a short list and are as follows:  

Eat less, shit in a box, and, if up to it, chase mice.

The end.

This may seem dismissive, but when compared to dogs, the drawbacks become obvious and quite lengthy.

First, there is the issue of loyalty.  If something is to live in my home, it should be part of the family, part of the team.  Should you cat lovers already be inhaling quickly with intent to argue,  I would like to offer a quick test:  tomorrow, leave your cat's food bowl empty and open a window with access to a fire escape or the side yard.  No?  Enough said.  Let me also point out that in spite of having been originally domesticated by the egyptians over 5000 years ago, pet cats remain in the 10-20 lb range, occasionally reaching 30 lbs when food isn't stored high enough.  Do not delude yourself that this is an accident.  Who wouldn't want a giant cat for a pet?  Rest assured, this has been tried and has obviously ended tragically every time, resulting in a size we can handle.  Or more accurately that we can trust.  The same energy has surely been spent breeding cats as has been for dogs.  And yet it is not uncommon to see a 200 lb St. Bernard curled up in living room filled with children, while the tiniest of cats are still being de-clawed.  

Secondly, protection.  How many "Beware of Cat" signs can you recall seeing?  Start with guests.  When entering a home with cats, the owner generally issues two warnings.  If they are house cats, the warning is to not let them out.  This is curious, as the cat is fed, watered, loved, and has its shit removed by that owner. Why then worry about escape?*  The second warning is usually about which cat is "unfriendly."  This usually means the cat is not interested in strangers, expressing its disdain with a distinct lack of presence.  Never a wariness of what a stranger might do to its owner, mind you.  Just a penchant for hiding.  Or alternatively, a willingness to be petted until an arbitrary "over-petting" line has been unknowingly crossed, at which point the "unfriendly" animal will close like a bear trap on the offender's hand, then proceed to scratch and bite until thrown across the room.  

Now imagine an actual intruder.  Any dog, even those subject to periodic beatings and an irregular feeding schedule, will bark unto madness at even a hint of a burglar.  Your average cat on the other hand will blithely watch someone rifle through your belongings, with the only thought in its head, presumably, "I wonder what kind of food this guy would buy?"  Not a meow or scratch in protest.  And were you to be harmed by that same intruder, I will brook no argument as to which of the two animals would prove the greatest benefit.  "Hey,  I think that mewling cat wants us to follow it!  Something must be wrong!  Let's hurry!"  

Aside from the above, the boxed poop argument does hold a great deal of sway with me.  I have, at least once, walked someone else's dog.  And because I respect the social covenant, I took a bag with me.  I realized about myself that day that I cannot abide any two of my senses experiencing animal shit without an uncontrollable urge to vomit.  Grabbing while seeing, smelling whilst grabbing, etc = [gagging].

As an addendum, let me say that I am more in favor of skipping the pet part and heading straight into parenthood.  At least with children, the presumption is that in return for your part in getting them somehow to adulthood, you might one day expect that they will arrange payment for the giant West Indian woman that lifts you out of the tub, or at least a decent cremation and a column in the local paper. With dogs and cats, not only are you on the hook for food and ridiculous halloween costumes, but you've also got to sort out the ultimate trip to the vet.  Like cooking for someone who can't stay to do dishes.  

*side note on escaped or runaway pets.  I have found what i thought were two such animals in my life, one dog and one cat.  On principle, I remained silent.  Whatever circumstances existed at their respective homes, they had clearly made a choice, which i chose to respect.  Having no idea what kind of home life they had, and failing a Pet Welfare Department to adjudicate the matter, i nodded in their direction respectfully and continued minding my own business.

Pest control

Are mice cute?  Is it charming that they live under your fridge or in your oven?  Do you imagine little beds made out matchboxes?  Spent spools as furniture?  Do you think of the one in the chef's hat?  Or the one with the big ears that sounds like michael j. fox?  Allow me to propose a few simple exercises to disabuse you of this notion.  First, pull out your fridge.  My fridge? you say.  But that's...it's a fridge.  Trust me, it got into your home somehow.  You can do it.  I'll wait.  Yeah, how about that.  Pretty disgusting.  Mice and rats literally cannot control their bodily functions.  And yet, you've probably never seen an episode of Tom and Jerry with the little guy on the run, grunting out tiny raisins as he ran across the Thanksgiving table.  Nonstop pissing and shitting.  That's how that pile behind your fridge got there.  Nonstop.  They do not "hold it" while they delicately nibble on your dinner dishes.  Or your sponges, pots, pans, utensils.  While your in the kitchen and feeling chuffed at having moved a large appliance for the first time, get some help and slide out your stove.  Make sure the gas is turned off and don't break the line.  I'll wait.  Even worse, right?  If you're tempted to see the excrement as quaint, take a knee and have a wiff.  Yup, that's still shit and piss, even if its adorably dainty.

First order of business, clean it up.  You have to, because you're not a savage.  Now, how do you get rid of them?  You don't.  Even the most conservative estimates say that there's at least one mouse or rat for each of us.  the good news is, you only have to be cleaner than your neighbors.  think of it like an arms race, only with bleach.  They will always be in your building, you just have to make sure that your apartment is the last option when its time to eat.  Like Hardee's.  "Let's go to 4b." "Hell, no. I'm sick of eating carbonized pasta sauce off the burners." "Well, where then?" "Dude, 3b.  It's just through the ceiling." "Oh yeah?" "Mos def.  They just throw their dishes in the sink.  They don't even scrape them." "serious?" "I'm telling you, man.  Like we can't just climb in and out off the same fucking dishes." "Lead the way.  And, dude, you've got some shit hanging off your tail."  "Leave off, you've dropped like, 5 turds while we're deciding."

For added measure, leave out some traps.  I couldn't, you say.  Why?  Because they're precious?  Remember; nonstop shitting.  And pissing.  On your utensils.  But I just caaan't.  You can and you must. You live in the city.  Based on this conversation, you're probably some kind of hippy as well.  Abandon your irrational fidelity to them based, presumably on some feeling of kinship on account of the mammal thing.  This is your chance to go hunting.  Well, trapping anyway.  which is kind of like hunting, only for smart people.  There's nothing smart about trapping innocent creatures, you say.  Well then set some out and see how you do.  There's a science.  Whatever modicum of intelligence they may possess, a large portion of it is dedicated to not dying.  There is nothing more satisfying than waking up and finding  several dead mice in your traps.  It's primal.  We've been doing it for 4000 years.  And while you can't make a coat, trade for tobacco or blankets, or clothe your children with your catch, you'll definitely be able to entertain guests without having to make excuses when they go to set the table with silverware when you're not looking.

Advice for Newly Married Men - Part 2

NEVER, EVER tidy up after your wife.  Clean around her things.  Scrub the floors, the windows, the bathroom.  Pick up your belongings.  But don't ever touch anything belonging to your wife.  There is no greater feeling than when something of hers goes missing and your help is appreciated instead of required.  I once transferred a pile of shoes and clothing from the living room to her side of the bed.  Oy.  I couldn't resist.  they were everywhere, since apparently she molts like a reptile when she gets home from work, using the living room furniture as a python would an abrasive rock or tree stump.  the image was akin to the old tin-types of civil war battlefields.  flats, boots, purses, sweaters, and kitten-heel Mary Jane 1-inch pumps strewn like casualties in some Accessories Antietum.  Problem is, once something from that pile went missing, even a month later, i was liable just for having laid hands on it.  Forced to search it out, for some imagined culpability, although, admittedly, I didn't put much into it.  My efforts could best be described as when everyone in a town is forced through communal obligation to search for some missing teenager that no one really liked anyway.  Imagine someone wantonly wandering through a field checking their messages with one hand while aimlessly poking a stick into stalks of dried sorghum.  Nevertheless, due to a mis-guided attempt to make our home more presentable, I found myself searching the countryside.  Touch nothing.

Advice for Newly Married Men - Part 1

Resist the urge to ever tell your wife she looks like she lost weight.  conventional wisdom (and countless comedians) will tell you that this is a viable tactic for extricating yourself from any level of mistake.  Forgotten birthday, unwashed dishes, a wandering eye.  This would be a mistake.  The most invaluable pretense that any man can maintain is a total ignorance of his wife's physical shape.  This is not to say that you shouldn't take every opportunity to tell your wife you know she's beautiful.  She is (or, you should say so), and you should tell her that often.  However, if you profess to have some ability to discern her weight loss, you automatically qualify yourself as an expert, thereby opening yourself to being subpeonaed to testify when she feels she gains weight.  Avoid this conversation at all costs.  "You always looks the same to me; beautiful.  I just don't notice your weight."  This is most conveniently cultivated when she has in fact lost weight.  RESIST  the urge to tell her.  Instead, summon the strength to avoid the simple route and tell her she always looks the same to you.  Trust me.

Crowded Subway

I was on a crowded train.  Crowded.  I've got an arm through someone else's bookbag strap, my phone is in someone else's pocket crowded.  A baby is breastfeeding in my lap, i'm turning the pages of a man's book crowded.  Forced to breathe in turns crowded.  no need to hold a strap crowded.  Which is good, since maybe the worst part of a crowded train is that all of the metal stabilizer bars are warm.  98.6 degrees warm.  Nothing worse than bracing yourself with a palm-greasy pole the same temperature as a stranger's armpit.  but the worst part of a crowded train are the people who prefer to keep their stop a secret.  No looks, no preemptive standing. no gathering of belongings.  Just a panicked rush for the door at the exact moment the doors open.  Like Rod Roddy just called their name for the Showcase Showdown.  And with an expectation of all others to just part, disappear, or what, lift them and pass them out the door?

Laundry

I do my wife's laundry.  She works, i don't.  Fair enough.  However, the negotiations, once the deal was broached, were more...complicated.  My portion of the washings can be divided into only two categories; things that take a while to dry and things that don't.  I also try to keep the socks and underwear separate.  Mixing socks in with towels and sweatshirts is just asking for an escape attempt.  They hide in the sleeves or the fitted sheets with, i'm positive, the intention of either remaining wadded and wet in an effort to avoid drying, thus requiring isolation from its twin and making it harder to track.  Or sneaking out during a folding effort of the larger article in which it has stowed away.  I have no "lights" or "darks" per se.  Everything piece of clothing i own is in the greenish, brownish, grayish color scheme and is old enough to have been washed so many times that bleeding is hardly an issue. *side note: most of my clothes are purchased or kept with an eye towards the future.  That is to say that i don't own anything that would indicate a susceptibility to current trends when viewed on whatever means exist for my children and grandchildren to gawk at and make fun of in the future.  A gray-green-brown colored sweater with no fancy collars or cuffs will the same in a laser-generated personal retinal projection as it does now on plain digital photography.  They will have to content themselves with confining their jests to whatever grist they can make from my hairstyle.
My wife's sorting and classifications for her clothes are somewhat more complex.  Not having had enough time (or inclination) to memorize each article of clothing, i am left with a series of taxonomic distinctions based on percentages of natural vs. man-made fibers.  sample: "anything with elastic should be line-dried.  Unless it is more than 60% cotton in which case it should be tumble-dried on low heat, gentle cycle.  Unless that remaining 40% is lycra or wool.  Then it should be line-dried.  But not these pants, which have semi-elastic cuffs, which can be tumble-dried on medium heat, gentle cycle, but only for 20 minutes, at which point, they should be turned inside out and then line-dried.  I don't have the energy to explain the vagaries used to identify distinctions between articles of exercise clothing, an entirely separate species, with their own special drying needs.  And never mind the care required for individually bagging and treating the "delicates," which necessitate their placement in zippered mesh washing bags.  Should i succeed in proper separation, which is rare, with mistakes in technique met with the dreaded comment, "oh.  that should have been line-dried" when seen in a folded stack next to the drying rack.  Placing the articles on the drying rack is not a short endeavor, and has the feel of decorating for a very sad and lonely holiday only i "celebrate."  the time spent festooning the rack is only superseded by the time spent folding her tiny doll clothes.  my wife is a petite woman with matching clothes which means folding them takes on the feel of some task from some obscure tale of ancient mythology.  Its such a tiny pile of dried goods; how can i still be folding halter tops, pants and leggings an hour later?  And the matching of an endless supply of tiny socks?  [harrumph, harrumph].  When i do convince my wife to re-evaluate her clothes with an eye toward reduction of line-dried items, i do feel somewhat bad for those pieces that are "cut" and moved down the from the peerage of hanging items to machine drying.  As if they're now seen as inferior by those items still privileged enough to enjoy the benefits of gentle drying as a treasured, display article.  I will continue to handle this for my wife until such time as i may claim to have been to tired from work to be able to continue, but with this caveat; while i never stop loving her, i do find room in my heart for other feelings at least while i'm hanging the certain percent wool-cotton-lycra-spandex-rayon stockings with care.

4 Lions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvo27XU-ooE

Grand track from an amazing group, during the credits of an amazing film.

Personal Style

I fret about the future every time i choose what to buy or what to wear.  In case a photo is taken, i try to portray a timeless image.  Not timeless, like a chanel suit; rather as in the least amount of explaining to my children or grandchildren.  It was a green sweater now (then), it still appears to be just a green sweater then (now).  No ridiculous collars or boot-cut, slim fit pants.