Gobama

What it was like:

Greg celebrated by having a Bush-burning party on Sunday night--everyone brought something Bush-related to burn, whether it be "the war in Iraq" or "my lack of civil rights." Some people brought an actual bush. There was an effigy of W that was burned. Not remembering the tale very well, I was thinking of the biblical burning bush as a story whose theme was "hope." I couldn't remember the plot, or why the bush burned or why it mattered, but I thought of it as a hopeful symbol. But now, upon revisiting it, I see that it is much more about endurance, and tests of faith. Moses seeing the face of Yahweh through the bush is certainly a miracle, but it comes with a burden--he has to lead the Israelites from slavery. No small task. And what's so miraculous about it is that although the bush burns, it is not consumed.

There are several metaphors here. We have endured (oh, have we endured) and it took an enormous amount of faith to bring us to where we are today. Faith in people, mostly--their power to listen, to gauge what is important, to let the best man win. We needed to be willing to risk the enormity of failure in order to celebrate the flight of victory, and we were, and for once it paid off. There's the fact that such a miracle does come with a burden--the burden to see it through, to actually deliver us from evil and not become it along the way, not to stagnate in the victory that has already been but to appreciate that each victory allows us to embark on a new quest.

But also, the bush is not consumed. And the Bush is not consumed. Like Voldemort, he can never be fully vanquished. Everything has not changed just because one thing has changed, but much can change as long as we do not forget that the past is easily a specter of the future and must not be ignored or taken lightly, just because its roads are already trodden.

I don't think Bush is all evil. I only realized this when his face appeared on the Jumbo-tron (such a strange word; I felt like I was in an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and a "boo" nearly two million strong erupted from the frigid field. It bothered me, because it was the one moment of negativity in what was otherwise the greatest number I can conceptualize gathered in nothing but peace and commonality. We were there to celebrate what is to come, to be the best versions of ourselves and to commit to being so for the foreseeable future, not to throw stones. I did not expect to feel sorry for him, but I did--no matter what he has done, this was a formal moment of decorum and respect and we violated it. After eight years, he is probably hardened to the hate mail, he has become the artful dodger of shoes, and he remains an unapologetic wager of war. He has done such horrible damage, and yet I could not bring myself to hate him. I didn't boo, and while everyone (it seemed) around us did, Robin, Katie, Burke, and I stared at each other and wondered what we should do. I haven't asked them, but to me it felt like we, and two million others, had all ventured outside to see something amazing and rare and, though expected, still surprising--like an eclipse that had been promised but which no one truly believed would come, or even like people witnessing that eclipse before the knowledge of what that meant, everyone experiencing the truly unexplainable together. We were all gathered in quiet exuberance, patient anticipation, and with a hyper-awareness of the sanctity of the moment. And then, with that face and those boos, we were suddenly inside a Nazi rally, a Klan meeting, any such thing organized around a common hatred...oh yes, maybe this time we were on the "right" side of hate, but such thinking is never safe.

The night before, Katie's mother Nina had clucked at us that we were "dumb as grass" for wanting to venture out into that cold, those crowds, that complete craziness, and then, to show us the merits of staying home, she fed us a dinner worthy of kings. She and Burke have a slightly-hostile mostly-funny game that they play in which they never call each other by their real names, but only by things that rhyme with their real names: "Kirk, would you like some more peas?" "Oh, thank you, Lena, they're wonderful." It's when they get into names like "Lurk" and "Wina" that you start to wonder about their true feelings for each other. Nina spent about half the evening cooking and half the evening trying to convince us not to go, but in the morning she was up at 6am making us peanut butter sandwiches and individual baggies of carrots and counting our pairs of socks.

Nina turned out to be right that the "worst thing" would be the first thing: buying our metro tickets. We waited in a jostling cluster bottlenecking toward a single machine and a poor unfortunate metro worker whose job it was to operate it so things would go quickly. I was carrying my life on my back, turtle-like, because I had to fly out that night, and our first stop in the city was going to be to Burke's friend Tyler's place to set it down. Although that meant a crowded metro ride with an awkward protruberance emanating from my back, it really could have been much worse. Everyone was just so HAPPY! There were families, people by themselves, old people, people of all races, and everyone was excited, but a reverent kind of excited where you just didn't want to do anything to mess things up--you wanted to quietly revel for awhile, for this thing which had been such a long time coming.

Oh, such a long time coming. The long eight years of Bush, of course, but also the hundreds of years of oppression, the hours of aching feet in the backs of buses, the interminable minutes of November 4th, the lifetimes of yearning for freedom. Obama took his oath on the Lincoln Bible, the same Bible on which Lincoln was sworn in by Chief Justice Roger Taney, the man responsible for the Dred Scott Decision. In other words, the man who had determined that blacks could never be citizens administered the oath of office to the man who would one day write the Emancipation Proclamation (and the Gettysburg Address, which is SO beautiful; you should reread it if you haven't in awhile) on the Bible that would one day swear in the first black President. So much about Obama's run has been unnervingly poetic, from the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech to the death of his grandmother just before the election, to the various 100+ year-old people whose parents were slaves and who have witnessed so much since then, living to see this country of majorities make what still seems like the unlikeliest (but loveliest) of choices.

We got off the train and were unable to get out of the station because our cards had not been properly read going in, and when we explained the situation to one of the workers, he laughed like we had unmade his day and went to get the manager. She gave us the all-clear to get out through the handicapped gate, and while the worker held it open for us we thanked him profusely and I said "Yes We Can!" I felt a bit stupid, but he broke into a hearty grin and said, "Sure enough. Yes we CAN!" and wished us good day. Maybe we hadn't unmade his day after all.

The cold really was bitter, 15 degrees is what I heard later, although it felt colder than the 3 degrees that it was in New York when I had arrived there a few days before. After depositing my bags with Tyler, we braved the cold again, this time for the long haul, and tumbled toward the Mall. There were huge crowds on certain streets and little flocks of people here and there all gravitating toward the masses, and I imagine that if you looked at us from above we would look like the little bits of filings that swirl around a surface with the wave of a magnet, and we were magnetized, we were being governed by something larger than ourselves, and I imagine that, had we walked blindfolded through those shifting streets, we would still have eventually found our way to the same place, because at that moment, it was the center of two million universes.

We finally made it onto the mall just above the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and walked along the banks of the frozen reflecting pool, Lincoln behind and Washington ahead, past ducks floating in the one exposed patch of water, heads tucked backwards into their bodies, seemingly oblivious to any disturbance of their universe. The Washington Monument loomed before us, and although many of us were flocking toward it, we were walking through what was still recognizable as an open grassy space--but when we got to it, and crested its hill, and elbowed our way to where we could see anything at all, the masses were truly breathtaking. We could see the Capitol, albeit too far off to see the people on its steps, but we could see the carpet of people stretching from here to there, a swirling mass of bubbling life, all ready and waiting for the same moment. It was extraordinary.

It became clear that we were not going to be able to just find anyone we might look for. I had vague instructions of where Robin was, and we walked down the hill toward that side. As we tried to spot each other amid a sea of puffy, hatted figures, we each saw a person who was waving a flag with a glove fitted on top of the stick, and walked toward it (on the phone, I'll admit, not just at random), and finally saw each other from maybe 20 feet away--20 feet and much maneuvering, but Robin managed to make it to us, and we were in view of a Jumbo-tron, surrounded by believers, and by several of those we most love. For a moment, I wished it could last forever.

Then, I started my period. I think we got there around 10:30, and literally a minute or so after Robin made her way to us, I felt it. It was lucky Nina had stuffed some toilet paper in our pockets, and also lucky I was wearing tights, pants, and a series of long sweaters and scarves, because I was unable to do very much at all about this predicament for another 3 hours. I will say that, although my uterus' enthusiasm is admirable, I wish she could have contained herself a little longer, because she put me in a bit of a tight spot and did detract a bit from my potential enjoyment of the "moment," if by moment I am allowed to mean the next 3 hours.

The ceremony itself was lovely and everyone was quiet. If you can even imagine what 2 million people looks like, then try to imagine 2 million people all being quiet together. I don't think I could have imagined it. It was as though the air was a crystal figurine being gently handled by a kindly god--it could so easily have been shattered, by anything, but it wasn't. Although the invocation was inane, the oath was fumbled (pesky adverbs!), the "Air and Simple Gifts" turned out to be piped in, and everyone started to leave during the poem, the moment after "So help me God" saw a tidal wave of jubilation arise, I'm sure, not just from us but from the hundreds of millions watching everywhere--and I KNOW, with those gasps and those hugs and those dances of exaltation, that without even a place to stand, we had moved the world.

Afterwards, we found Greg and bade Robin farewell, and started the slow funneling back out into the streets. This took at least an hour, during which my blood flowed freer and cramps attempted to stop me in my tracks, but I made it through, repeating "mind over matter" until I found a CVS, Burke found us a cab, and we all found our way to Greg's favorite cafe, which serves fresh farmer's market fare and which was certainly open for nothing but celebration at this moment. The bloodbath could have been worse, and after some substantial cleanup I began to feel like myself again, my fingers thawed, and the coffee tasted more coffeeee, the brilliant light shone on all of us in our youth and happy exhaustion and beauty and hope, and I felt the aftermath of that moment Dylan Thomas describes, "the spellbound horses walking warm, out of the whinnying green stables, onto the fields of praise."

Let us begin.

WWJVF?

I’m in a quandary. Well, several. One is what to write about, but, as always, coming to it from an inordinate amount of time off it is hard to get jump-started again, and I’m thinking “quandaries” will be a good topic because that’s what ends up fueling my internal monologue every other second of the day, for example:

oh god should i snooze the alarm clock one more time or just get up come on katherine you should just get up oh but it feels so good to not be up come on katherine you should get up should i have orange juice do i feel like making a sandwich who should i vote for for president does my vote count anyway who are my real friends shut up stop being so insecure why can’t you just be happy with what you have does this make me look fat who cares no one’s looking and people already love you for who you are the real question is who should you vote for for president should i go to the duke reunion fuck it’s been five years what the junk am i doing with my life why do you want to go anyway it’s just consumerist bullshit living in the past and most people aren’t going you shouldn’t need that for validation oh but it’s so green and golden there in springtime who should i vote for what should i be how should i feel what the fuck should i have for breakfast!!!!

Um. Yeah. Just a TMI-snapshot of what it’s like to inhabit my brain for 2 minutes. I’m seldom without a quandary, or several, of varying levels of importance. Today, they are, in ascending order:

1. How can I live with the fact that spring break will be over in less than 24 hours?
2. Will I ever be able to buy a house?
3. Should I go to the Duke reunion?
4. Who should I vote for for president?

The first two are relatively simple: you can’t but you have to anyway, and no. The third is not complex but is still ponderable. Part of me really wants to go. But the more I pontificate, the more expensive flights will become, already the only ones I can find return Monday, so I would have to miss school which I’ll already be missing enough of at the end of the year for the sake of being in North Carolina…and most of my close friends aren’t going so there is always the danger of being dearly disappointed, but then there’s Dr. MM and TMDJBRBB, and the loveliness of Durham in spring if all else failed. But there is also the danger, for one living so tenuously in the present as is, that the slightest tilt toward indulgence of living in the past would severely throw off my equilibrium. But then the part of me that craves ritualization aches at the thought of five years passing by without some sort of ceremony, a memorial, a moment of silence at least for the lives We Once Were. But does that have to cost me $500? I suppose not.

Which brings us to quandary #4, the main subject of today’s discourse. Who Would Jesus Vote For? And, once we’ve established that, should I vote for the same person? I would greatly appreciate input on this subject because for all my research and soul-searching and waiting for signs, shadows, wonders, I am still stuck in the decisionless wasteland of my mind.

My absentee ballot for the primary came in the mail last week with its strict instructions to be filled out in black pen in the presence of two witnesses (which I found extremely funny; I mean, I know why they do that and of course I’ll get it signed by two witnesses, but just the thought of me summoning two witnesses to watch me fill it out and to act as audience to my final throes of (in)decision making, especially when you get down to the district court judges at the bottom of the ballot whom NO ONE has ever heard of and who are not even google-able but who unfortunately will probably make the most difference of anyone else on the ballot but who get elected because we like their middle name or their gender better than the alternatives—which is probably how the president ultimately gets elected too, come to think of it).

I’ve been frustrated in my attempt to participate in this, the American political process at the most basic of levels, because once you get below the gubernatorial level there is really no information on anybody—even if they have a website it’s basically a geocities page with their name and some not-very-catchy slogan with the requisite misplaced apostrophe and no other information. The most amusing thing I have found so far in all my sleuthing is this page, on which Roderick Wright, one of the candidates for district court judge, makes a very formal invitation to this girl whom he may or may not know personally to have lunch with him, right above a comment by someone who doesn’t know the girl either but is commenting because she “looks damn good in those photos”.

But the foibles of local politics aside, I am still hung up on the humdinger of them all: the Clinton vs. Obama question. I have done research, I have scoured their websites, the commentary of other websites, read their speeches, and solicited the opinions of my friends, and I still remain paralyzed. In the beginning, I was leaning toward Obama because I’m a predictable twentysomething: I liked him. He was inspiring. He “made me feel hopeful.” He gave good speeches. He said that his worst quality was having an unorganized desk, rather than something like “caring TOO MUCH about children.” And, the most typical reason of all, my friends and students liked him. And who doesn’t want to look cool in the eyes of their friends and students? And the question of supporting the 200 years of American presidential patriarchy (when there is finally a female alternative) was conveniently canceled out by getting to support an oppressed racial minority—a win-win situation all ‘round. But I needed more than this. I still do. I need MORE of a reason than “liking” him, wanting to be his friend, and feeling like part of a youngun’s political club to justify actually voting for him. I need a reason, a real rational reason, to choose him over Hillary. And so far, I don’t have much of one.

(Editor’s note: I referred to Clinton by her familiar first name in the above line for alliterative effect. It bothers me how everyone feels like, after generations of calling politicians by their last names, now that there’s a woman in the mix we are automatically on a first-name basis with her. I mean, her campaign has chosen that, making her posters and bumper stickers say “Hillary” on them, but I still think it’s a patriarchic presumption for the masses to make.)

The only things I really have against Clinton are her vote to authorize war (which I think was more complicated than Obama likes to make it sound and the senate on the whole was shamelessly manipulated by the Bush administration) and various things that Bill Clinton did while he was in office. Most of the average-Joes you hear interviewed on NPR about why they like Hillary say that “they were pretty happy with Bill, so why not.” Well, to that I say it’s easy to be remembered fondly when your successor was the worst president in US history and when throughout your time in office the economy was pretty OK and we were mostly at peace. But, although everyone likes to put BC’s sexual capers at the top of his list of flaws, I prefer to top the list with Rwanda, finish it off with DOMA and “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” and pepper a bit of NAFTA in between. I remain torn, because I know that a lot of these were political concessions and it’s not an easy or black-and-white decision, when you’re president, whether to save hundreds of thousands of African lives, but all in all there’s a lot I’m not proud of on the part of the only democrat who’s held the office in my lifetime.

But should Hillary Clinton be saddled with the sins of her spouse (which, by definition, according to DOMA, is her male companion to whom she is joined in holy matrimony)? I don’t like that any more than I do the argument that she WILL be good because Bill was. But nor do I trust them to be entirely separate entities—I have to wonder, is she inclined, as he was, to sacrifice gay rights in a political compromise, if SOMEBODY’s rights have to be sacrificed? Is that better than sacrificing, say, the environment? Probably so, in the long run. But do I take it personally? Hell, yes.

I decided to look at gay rights as an issue that might help me decide between Clinton and Obama. Given almost-sameness in basically every position and every plan they espouse, I thought it might be a dealbreaker. But it’s still difficult. Both devote a section of their websites to their thoughts on the issue. Both are afraid to say the M-word. Obama, king of crowd-pleasing sound-bites, likes to refer to us as his “gay brothers and sisters,” which for some reason makes me kind of uncomfortable, like I’m visiting a church and they’re referring to me as one of them when I didn’t ask or want them to. Both have posted “open letters” on various gay websites to reach out to us, but Obama has made only two gay-themed statements/interviews whereas Clinton has made six. Should sheer numbers sway me? Perhaps not, but the fact that Clinton’s letter appears on OurChart.com? I find that pretty ballsy. And funny. I wonder if she’s ever watched The L-Word. But it was a good letter.
And here’s Obama’s.

They both pretty much amount to the same thing—similar promises (which don’t include marriage), similar rhetoric about the country “fulfilling its promise to everyone.” But, although Clinton skirts around the marriage issue (a good strategy; it almost gets lost in all the other good things she’s saying), Obama says “I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment,” the not-too-subtle implication being that he’s of that camp that, for reasons either personal (read: religious) or political, he believes that the word “marriage” should be reserved for a man and a woman. Is he doing this to not alienate conservative-Christian democrats (are there such a thing? There must be). Or is he doing it to not compromise his own faith, what he believes to be sacred? I don’t know, but either way amounts to the same thing and is something I find extremely dangerous (not to mention hypocritical...separate but equal, anyone?). The more I learn about Obama the more I hear his morality and reasoning couched in a religious background, and although I’m not so naïve as to think a president can get elected without God in this country, it gives me pause. Obama’s religion seems deeply personal to him, and he doesn’t have enough of a record for me to see evidence of his acting on principles of the separation of church and state. So many people say he reminds them of Martin Luther King, Jr. I can see why; but most people forget, because of his civil rights legacy, that MLK was first and foremost a preacher. His cause was a good one, a righteous one, we all agree, but his justification for it was Jesus. Jodi and I went to see one of King’s daughters “speak” at Wake Forest when we were there, and left in the middle of what was a full-fledged sermon, vicious and exclusionary of anyone who does not believe in the Word. So, when wondering WWJVF, I think the answer could very well be Obama. But I’m really not sure that that makes me any more inclined to do so. But to be fair, when you throw in what some journalists dredge up about Hillary's faith, I don't know what to believe.



The final elements of my decision-making have to do with elements independent of either candidate’s stand on issues. I have Greg telling me that if Clinton is the nominee, McCain will surely win, so we have to fight for Obama with all our might. I have the consideration of age vs. youth—is it good to have a young, energetic president or is the “experience” thing really tantamount? And, finally, I have my allegiance to the second sex to consider. I will be the first to tell you that women do not automatically make good leaders—Margaret Thatcher, case in point. Either way you look at this election, a barrier is being broken—the chance to rumple (not break, not destroy, not erase) centuries of white supremacy in our leadership, or centuries of patriarchy. As much as I try to quantify one of these as being more important than another, I cannot. But I do know that all the women I know over about 35 are Clinton supporters, and I don’t think younger women, or men, often fully recognize the very recent struggle that women have, and are still, going through.

Jodi’s in a feminism class right now and every day comes home with a new realization of how her life really has been affected by the oppression of women. If her mother hadn’t taken her out of swim team because “her shoulders were getting too big” (at the age of 6!) she could have won awards, been truly competitive. If her high school hadn’t required female students to take sewing, Child Development, and Grooming and Deportment (eyebrow-plucking), maybe the experience would have been more rewarding, she wouldn’t have left in 11th grade, and she could have pursued higher education or more fulfilling lines of work before now. My mom has spent years in jobs where women get paid less than men. In California, I’m surrounded by women who truly have no idea how to value themselves apart from their appearance and their perceived beauty in the eyes of men and the world. I don’t think there is another woman who’s going to be in the position to run for president anytime soon, and I don’t know that Clinton will have another shot if she doesn’t win this time. Obama has the momentum going, and he will definitely be around for years to come. After all, this is just the primary; Obama has wide support…if it came down to him versus McCain, I would happily vote for him. But now, when good is pitted against good (or at least middling vs. middling) should I give Clinton the chance she deserves, one which she may never have again?

Perhaps I’m taking myself too seriously. My vote surely doesn’t count that much. And if I take too much longer to make this decision, it won’t count at all.

So What Should Katherine Do?

In Search of Lost Time

I don’t consider myself to have an addictive personality. Jodi does; she can’t say no to chocolate if it’s in front of her (it should be humanly impossible to eat so many peanut butter M&Ms in one sitting), and, although she doesn’t drink often, her philosophy when she does is usually “the more the merrier.” I don’t have that problem. But I do get hopelessly addicted to one thing: television.

Not normal TV; oh, no, I would be a good candidate for a “Kill Your TV” bumper sticker. I’ve never had cable. TiVo remotes stymie me, make me feel like a member of my grandparents’ generation, as do video games. But just don’t make me kill my computer. Where would I be without the sweet oblivion of series on DVD, or, most recently, Lost in high-def on ABC.com? I wrote about The West Wing once on this blog, about how its characters were my best friends to speak of. Now, since there’s nobody on Lost you would really want to be best friends with, they’re skipping the middleman and heading straight toward my subconscious: they have started infiltrating my dreams. I have noticed that my dreams these days usually involve either my students or Lost characters. Thankfully not both yet. But which is better, really—waking up feeling like you’ve just been at work all day when it’s time for work (no offense, kids)? Or banding together with imaginary people attempting to thwart evil (in monsters, but most potently the evil that lurks in the depths of human consciousness) at every turn? And who is evil anyway? I mean, the other night I was best friends with Ana Lucia, even though she is like, so last season, but…well, I think I can answer my own question. It’s probably never better to be on the level where you’re relating to fictional characters as though they were real. I should be grateful to dream about work.

So why the addiction? Why can’t I stop? It’s not even that good, really—after three seasons of suspense the pattern is blatantly clear—not that I know who’s who and what’s going to happen, but that I KNOW that just when they seem like they’re going to answer some crucial question, some spanner will be thrown in the works and you’ll be forced to wonder who’s really on which side and rescue will be postponed yet again. It’s getting comical. Not to mention you know that whenever something huge happens, no one on the show is going to tell anyone about it; they’re going to speak in veiled, vague one-liners that ensure that their fellows learn as little about it as possible to pave the way for future misunderstandings—if you ask me, an abuse of dramatic irony. And furthermore, whenever they have to make some huge plan that involves the whole group, it’s going to be as convoluted as possible to ensure the most chance of something going horribly awry.

So this begs the question: Katherine, you KNOW all this. You are SMARTER than the show. It’s basically trash—suspenseful trash, decent non-linear-narrative-trash, but manipulative and fluffy—still mostly trash. So why do you let it control you? It’s like I always tell the kids about when I was in high school and college and I KNEW I was smarter than all the people who were cool, and basically just as pretty as all the people who were skinny and perfect, but just couldn’t believe it in my heart. Why would I still want to be like that when I knew it was better to be me? Maybe the real addiction is to the path of least resistance. It is so easy to believe in all those ridiculous norms and stereotypes, but to resist them with all your heart and soul requires real work. And it’s so much easier to immerse yourself in the stories of others (not just “The Others”) than to immerse yourself in your own.

That’s what’s sobering. I have probably spent about 48 hours watching Lost over the past month. And to think about what else I could have done with 48 hours of my free time; indeed, of my LIFE…well, it’s enough to make me feel like a slight waste of space. What if I had written for 48 hours, rather than not written at all? What if I had exercised, or meditated, written an actual letter to a friend with a stamp and with the beautifully tragic variations of handwriting that make us all human? I could have cleaned the house, planted a garden, learned the tarot, or even just THOUGHT—pondered life’s persistent questions. I could have responded to emails and phone calls, made pieces of art for friends, remembered birthdays, paid more attention to Jodi, planned better lessons, read BOOKS, for God’s sake, decided whether I actually BELIEVE in God…the list goes on.

The one thing I have been reading is a book by the Dalai Lama, called Ethics for the New Millennium—it started out as something I was skimming in order to make the students read something about Buddhism, but I got hooked and read the whole thing. It’s rather ironic that this is the book I’ve been reading during the aforementioned paralysis of inaction and spiritual decrepitude. It’s about how to implement a universal “spiritual revolution” through the simple ethical principle of compassion for others—and how much happier we will be personally, and how much improved society will be the world over if our every action is infused with the intention to not cause suffering to others or obstruct their right to happiness in any way. And I have thought quite a bit about my Lost addiction in relation to the ideas he puts forth. It’s certainly not directly hurting anybody for me to squander my life in front of the computer, so in that sense I guess it’s better than murdering innocents or deceiving people for my own gain. But I think I know what the Dalai Lama would say about my ethics, although at times I don’t want to believe it: that given what good I COULD be doing, both for others and in furthering my own spiritual quest (which would eventually result in further service to others), wasting even a little of my precious life in the pursuit of passivity is unconscionable. I am giving in to the demons of laziness, giving in to my own inertia, when what I need to exert is positive force.

I know that much of what I crave in Lost is being told a story. And I know the Dalai Lama himself would admit that the thirsting for stories is, in itself, a noble and essential human quality. I love saying to someone, “Tell me a story,” and hearing the infinite variety of results that come from this request. The whole value of reading, of writing, of being an English major (I have to believe that was a purposeful pursuit, or what is my life??) is in learning more about the world and humanity through our stories. But I’ve realized that the tipping point is when I let my craving of being TOLD a story prevent me from telling my own—when I let others’ journeys (FICTIONAL ones) distract me from bringing meaning to my own life, from contemplating more essential questions, from being of use.

I know all this. But just as it’s well-nigh impossible (in America in the new millennium) to believe you are beautiful at the age of 16 (a notion the Dalai Lama finds, rightfully, bewildering), it is ridiculously difficult to resist the inertia; to choose action and thought over laziness and passivity. I’m going to try. But it’s lucky that within two more episodes, I will have caught up to the current season of Lost and have to wait a whole week, like everybody else, to squander my life for a single hour. I guess piecemeal is better than all at once when it comes to wasting time…right?

Blather on Bad Habits

I don’t really feel like writing today, but I’m trying to make myself. So I’ll be brief. I spent $92 at the used bookstore on Saturday and all I want to do is read. Today I finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and lord, let me tell you, there is nothing better than fiction for reluctant young adult readers. I’m eager to move on to The Count of Monte Cristo (which is, I think, 1844’s answer to fiction for reluctant young adult readers—people didn’t live to be much older than 30 anyway, right?), so I’ll be brief with the following:

A Meditation on The Number One Activity I Do When I Sit Down to Write: Nail Biting

It’s amazing how satisfying biting my nails is. And time-consuming. And complicated. Nails that did not previously need shortening suddenly begin SCREAMING for the knife…or the tooth…when I sit down to write. I know it’s kind of gross. I don’t bite them to the quick or anything, just the tiny half-moons that are ready, well-clear of the skin. I started biting my nails as a conscious decision. Precocious 8-year-old that I was, I knew that all interesting people had bad habits, and I didn’t have one. I guess I didn’t consider reading too much or preferring the company of adults to that of children a bad habit. This meant only one thing: If I didn’t have a bad habit, I needed to adopt one. But what were my options? Nose-picking was just nasty—at times, a practical necessity, I’ll admit, but definitely not a cool bad habit or one you could do in front of others and get the fascinating-points I was hoping for. And of course all the adult bad habits—drinking, smoking, passive-aggression, serial monogamy, soap operas—were still a bit beyond the pale.

The characters in books who bit their nails always had exciting lives. They bit their nails from nervousness, yes, but this meant they were the kind of people who had things to be nervous about! Which meant their lives were exciting! Full of passion and scandal! Which meant people were fascinated with them. And that they were well-rounded. If I started biting my nails, I would be all of these things too.

It was a little weird at first, and harmless enough. I suppose it still is. I don’t like having my nails long anyway because I feel like my hands are unusable—like Edward Scissorhands or something (Katherine Nailhands…hmm. Not the same ring to it…). Or too delicate, like the porcelain hands they use to display rings. So if it’s a matter of having short nails, it doesn’t make TOO much difference whether they’re short from cutting or from biting. Although duh, they look worse when you bite them. And I never wear nail polish on my fingernails either, partly because I hate how it feels (it makes my fingertips feel like they’re wearing a mouthguard) but also, admittedly, because as dubious as the health and hygiene of biting one’s nails is, it is grosser to bite painted nails than non-painted nails. But I totally don’t understand how people keep fingernail polish pristine. I only know one person personally who does this as a matter of course, and that’s Cari. That means it must be a myth that such things are possible for ordinary people.

Speaking of nail polish, an interesting tangent: long before I ever used it for its intended purposes on a regular basis (toes only, of course), as far as I was concerned its primary uses were medicinal (curing chigger bites) and practical (nipping runs in your stockings in the bud). It seems like half the world (or rather, half the people who even know what the heck chiggers are) firmly believes that chiggers burrow inside your skin and stay there till you suffocate them—with nail polish, of course—and the other half believes this is hogwash and they just bite you like normal beasts. What is the truth? Mythbusters should do a show on this. While the former does sound a bit alarmist and like something that only happens in the southern hemisphere, I am here to tell you that nail polish works. Maybe it just keeps you from scratching, or maybe it actually suffocates the microscopic parasitic invaders. But it works. And then, of course, the pantyhose use = brilliance. Just be sure to use clear if the run is in a visible place, or else you risk looking slightly mutilated.

Another tangent: hangnails. And why the bejesus do they hurt so much? How can something this big: , hurt SO MUCH? And where do they come from, and what purpose do they serve? Rarely do I experience such satisfaction followed immediately by deep regret as I do when I just yank one out. ‘Cause you know, when you don’t have nail clippers with you, and it’s just hangin’ there, hangin’ out it true hangnail fashion, whispering like the devil on your shoulder, “You know you want to. You want to so bad. Just pull me. Forget the week of inflammation you will suffer. Forget the blood on your hands that will make perfect strangers think you forgot to wash your hands after changing your tampon. Just yank. Like you’ve never yanked before.”

So…wow. Gross. Three pages on nailbiting, hangnails, and chiggers. These seem like things that only an overly-talkative teenager could blather for so much time on. Perhaps I do have a future in young-adult fiction, after all…

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

The last time my whole family went to the beach together was, I believe, in 2004. As always, we chose the small stretch of beach in the Alabama panhandle (what? Alabama has a panhandle? Indeed, a little-known fact that may prove quite useful at cocktail parties). We used to come here every year during my childhood, but there had been a hiatus for several years due to my grandfather’s illness and everyone’s mismatched schedules. So on this, the Thompson Beach Reunion Tour ’04, after my grandfather’s death, we revisited old haunts by staying at Vista del Mar, a vintage relic that evokes all the charm of 50’s Pleasantville perfection, though now of course with a coating of decaying grandeur. It’s not a bad place, and, although a high-rise, it’s the last of the strip, so that walking down the beach east of the building there is soon nothing but dunes, seagrass, and the big blue sea.

I don’t remember too much about this particular trip. I remember trying to walk all the way to the end of the beach, but never quite making it. I remember playing stupid games with Robin in the pool and laughing so hysterically that the other poolside guests had to have been made quite uncomfortable. I remember heading to the highest level of the building to try to get phone service in order to talk to Jodi. There was my cousin Margaux’s wedding, which is the subject of another story for another time. As usual, there was the overabundance of seafood and the dread of the blast of air conditioning as you walked inside while soaking wet. Other than that, the trip blurs together in a montage of blonde and blue, sand and sky—except for one evening, which began like any other but ended in something akin to the final scene of Lord of the Flies.

So, among our age-old beach traditions is that of buying a Florida lottery ticket. When we started going to the beach, Florida was the only state in the southeast that had a lottery, so we saw it as a once-a-year opportunity to squander a hard-earned dollar or two on a raffle with impossible odds. We always stayed in Alabama, as previously noted, but being only a few miles from the Florida border, we would drive into Pensacola on occasion and usually stop for a lottery ticket at the Florabama—a dive bar that straddles the border (read about their legendary Mullet Toss). During the week before purchasing the ticket, we would all put our best efforts into channeling the supernatural forces that would cause us to win, and write down numbers that revealed themselves to us through divine intervention—the number 27 appeared to us in a dream; we saw 43 on 3 different license plates in a span of ten minutes, the numerology behind my birthdate was 3, etc. We would choose our six fateful numbers this way, and wait. It was always exciting, especially when I was really little. I knew that we faced impossible odds, yet to a child (who thinks $100 is a sum akin to the riches of King Midas), impossible odds still seem just possible enough that it’s worth waiting with bated breath as the numbers are drawn.

So, again, in 2004 it had been several years since we had last played the lottery. By then, I think Georgia had its own, but we never played it, having the irrational (yet fortunate) attitude that the lottery was something only to be done in Florida, and only on special occasions, one week a year while vacationing and channeling numbers through divine inspiration. For some reason, I suppose disinterest or disillusionment, we did not buy separate tickets—one for my family, one for my aunt and uncle, one for my grandmother—but my grandmother, instead, bought one ticket and casually declared that if it won anything we could all share it. I think we all contributed our special numbers, reasoning that the force would be stronger if everyone’s paranormal prophetic abilities were pooled.

We bought the ticket, and, with the drawing the next day, began to playfully imagine what we would do with the winnings.

It began as idle dinner conversation. Simple hypotheticals. The eternal question, what would you do with a million dollars? I believe we began this way, not considering practicalities but simply dreaming, desiring—my parents would fix their fallingdown house that is currently caught in a race between their retirement and its own decay. My grandmother would travel to Paris again, or Sweden, or be set in the event of a medical situation. Robin could pay for school, I could travel, get Jodi a green card, my aunt and uncle could settle the legal dispute over their land and finally have time to finish their house. How wonderful, how perfect, how problemless our lives would be if we could have these simple things! But then, someone, and I don’t remember with 100% certainty who (although I could guess), asked the fateful question: Well, wait—how are we going to split the winnings, anyway?

I am of the opinion that it was not the question itself but the semantics that screwed us: note the certainty of the future tense, the rhetorical step that took us from the realm of the hypothetical, the conditional, to the certain. Talking about money you might win (when really you don’t have a chance in hell) is a different beast than talking about money you have won. That was the mistake. But words are so small, their complexities so hard to notice sometimes, so easy to spit out and so impossible to retract. So we all continued the conversation, oblivious to the deadly turn it had taken, discussing how we were going to split our millions.

I think everyone in my immediate family just assumed we were splitting it seven ways—one for each of the people involved. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be another way to split it—I mean, it should all rightfully go to my grandmother, since she bought the ticket, but if she chose to share, and, I mean, since I had contributed my divine number to the ticket, surely I was entitled to something? But another party objected to that, claiming it wasn’t fair for our “household” to get 4/7 of the earnings when both the other “households” would get less just because there were less people in them. I thought it was rather fair, because more people cost more money, and my sister and I don’t technically even belong to my parents’ household anymore. Well, maybe Robin does/did, as an eligible dependent, but I certainly didn’t. Yeah, so maybe Robin shouldn’t get her share, but I should (haha, more for me!!). But my grandmother sided with that faction, saying it wasn’t their fault that they didn’t have children. Which is true, but not the issue at hand—it’s not like Robin and I would be sharing our millions with our parents, and it definitely wasn’t the case that my mom and my aunt would share theirs with their parents. Parent. Why would we share with those who shed their blood, sweat, tears, and, well, yes, money, on us anyway? It’s not like we asked to be born. They got themselves into this pickle. Just thinking about it sends me into a frenzy a la Finding Nemo, “Mine! Mine! Mine!.”

My mom made a halfhearted attempt to stick up for us, saying that we were people too who should be included in the group we’ll call, for these purposes, “family.” We were over 18 (well, I was), and therefore—but the opposition was too strong, and, while I value my personhood and would have valued my cut of the winnings, after a point it wasn’t worth the fight. My memory of how it ended is unclear. I’m sure someone sullenly did the dishes, plodded through putting away the food. I think I gave up and said that however they chose to split things would be fine. But we went to bed, if not angry, then miffed, disgruntled, off-kilter, wronged, betrayed, misunderstood. As my mom and I were getting ready for bed, we looked at each other with the eyes of doomed puppies. “Oh, my God,” Mom said, “I sure hope we don’t win.”

Do you remember the story by Shirley Jackson called “The Lottery,” which you undoubtedly read in high school? If not, I won’t give it away, but you should read it here. Someone undoubtedly knew something about the macabre dynamics of chance—or, more to the point, of human nature. But we proved, that night, like the best of the deceptive psychological experiments on the demonic nature of humanity (the Stanford Prison experiment, the Milgram obedience experiments, Jane Elliott’s blue-eyes v. brown-eyes shenanigans—don’t tell me the IRB approved that shit!), not to mention Mean Girls and The Devil Wears Prada, that love is a logical fallacy based on the premise that altruism exists. Maybe I’m being harsh. But even without being quite that harsh, I can say with certainty that money (read: greed) will ruin people. You don’t even have to have the money, you just have to pretend you have it for about half an hour to start seeing the effects.

The next day we looked at the paper, or watched TV (I can’t remember now how we heard the news), with dread, for once praying—I was, at least—that we would not win the lottery. Suffice it to say, we didn’t. We breathed a sigh of relief and moved on, stuffing the uncomfortable dynamics under a rug for the time being.

As an epilogue, I should note that following that debacle, my grandmother supposedly (I’m going on hearsay) reapportioned her will so that both her children are considered equally, rather than taking into account the children (i.e. Robin and me) of one of her children. It doesn’t matter. I think in some way she’s trying to level the playing field—my aunt was supposed to have a baby once, but a terrible twist of fate prevented it. Even after a quarter of a century, some wounds are still too fresh to be written, and so I won’t go further, but I think my grandmother is doing all she knows how to make my aunt feel valued and validated as a woman in her own right, with or without having provided grandchildren. If money would provide any consolation for pain, I would give my hypothetical lottery winnings to her in a heartbeat. And my inheritance. Because I suspect she, in a heartbeat, would give all of hers to have her child.

New Year's Resolutions

A few summers back, a certain couple who shall remain nameless were fond of somewhat aggressively praying before meals in the dining hall. Although not overt proselytes, the aggression lay in the fact that if you were sitting near them, it was unignorable. For one thing, they had to sit directly across from one another in order to hold hands. If such facing seats were not available, the two would either ask someone already seated at the table to move, or, more often than not, take the more passive-aggressive approach of sighing, exchanging meaning-laden glances, and ultimately reaching ACROSS other diners in order to hold hands while they prayed, for what felt like a small eternity. Perhaps it was only a mere 20 seconds or so, but such awkwardness can feel like minutes, and in those minutes the reached-across person would be left to contemplate A) whether such breaches of manners are permissible in matters of faith, B) why the handholding part was really necessary in such circumstances, C) how her food was getting cold because, as gauche as it is to reach across someone to pray, surely it must be even moreso to reach around that supplicating arm for a tater tot and gobble it up, not to mention the risk of embarrassing ketchup drippage, and D) the fact that she, the reached-across person, was not praying, but instead spending the same amount of time and energy scheming about how to circumvent the obstacle of said pious appendage and get a tater tot from her plate to her mouth, including ketchup.

It was that lattermost point that nagged at me, long after the annoyance of the situation had morphed into nostalgic hilarity. Because as annoying as it was, the reason why it felt so uncomfortable was that, though they seemed self-important and absurdly serious, next to their devotions I felt shallow and superficial. The rest of us complained about the terrible food (and it was quite terrible), but these two thanked Jesus for it. For, like, minutes at a time. The rest of us made mashed-potato volcanoes and wrote crude words with our sandwich-crusts, and these two stopped to appreciate the bounty of heaven, in silence, three times a day.

I tried to think whether I stopped to appreciate anything in the course of an average day. Whether I had three moments of purposeful (rather than circumstantial) silence in a day. Whether I observed any sort of ritual at all (aside from toothbrushing) (which I take rather seriously). The results were not impressive. I’ll marvel at a nice sunset or a full moon, if I happen to see one, but only if it strikes me as marvelous—I don’t often, anymore, search for the beauty in ordinary things—like a cloudy day, an unfull moon, a twisted tree. I never stop in purposeful silence to catalogue the things around me, and I am certainly unpracticed in the art of gratitude. Even the nicest meals I have ever eaten have gone sans a moment of appreciation (I’ll thank someone who paid for a meal, but forget to thank the circumstances that provided it), so I would never have stopped to thank the world for the bland slop served up in the Refectory. And for that I am ashamed.

So it has only taken me a year and a half to come around to the fact that, much like divesting from Halliburton, I need to appreciate my food in order to feel myself a moral person. Not so much savor its taste, but actually nurture a sense of gratitude for the fact of it, the abundance of it, and the beings that gave their lives for it, both animal and vegetable. To acknowledge that to eat is sacred, precious, is the way I participate in the circle of life until I become ashes. It’s the least I can do. And also the most.

******

It should be noted that, for all my resolve, I still have trouble remembering to do it. I have written it and my other resolutions on the large blackboard in our kitchen in order to try to abide by them. And my other resolutions are to WRITE and to proactively pursue my own happiness; i.e. stop my kvetching and try to enjoy my life, rather than focus on the frustration and isolation that so overwhelmed my autumn. It’s actually going well so far. Here’s hopin’.

Que Será Será

I should not let myself lapse like this. It’s an unsurprising phenomenon that the farther away you get from writing the harder it is to return to it—just like going back to school after summer, back to exercise after laziness, back to the waking world after a nap. I suppose it’s been three weeks now, and while I have some shiny new (and rather good, I must say) excuses, I know that this is exactly how I let my writing go last time and then didn’t write again for two years. So thanks to JDM for the wrist-slap, and also for trying to ruffle my feathers by espousing journaling as a superior form of writing. Here’s what I have to say about that: your mom goes to college. And writes in a journal. Hah.

So my excuses range from birthday getaways, to fires, to work—all last weekend I was camping with my students, and you can tell this is a good excuse because it’s one where if I had been given the choice whether to write or to be camping, I am absolutely certain I would have chosen writing. Mostly, though, because of being sick, which somehow always creeps up on me right before these trips. Sunday and Monday were my worst days, the kind of days where you remember that you should never wish to be sick so you can get out of work, because being sick SUCKS. And these are the days, my friends, to not have to sleep outside in the cold where you can’t prop your head up. But the trip was a success, and we managed to hike, play on the beach, cook, read Oedipus Rex (the study of literature must not be sacrificed to the great outdoors, must it? And at least now there are 7 more young people who know that “Sophocles” rhymes with “Hercules” and not with “bifocals”), and challenge our greatest fears on a high ropes course. In which yours truly climbed 3/4 of a climbing wall. I never thought I’d see the day. Still, I don’t imagine I’d be any more successful if you placed me in front of the Half Dome cables again. I heard the World’s Greatest Rock Climber on NPR, talking about how the rock communicates with you when you find a handhold, a foothold. You reach for it, and it bites back. I prefer a bit more sophistication in my communication. With any luck, Pam and Oscar will let me into the Finer Things Club. I know I’m behind, but I’ve read Angela’s Ashes, and I would happily prepare an extra credit report on Oedipus Rex. If you couldn’t tell, I’ve discovered that The Office comes on one of the few channels that comes through on our rabbit ears. Oh Frabjous Day!

But I digress (can you digress from a topic that is yet to be established? I’m sure I can, anyway). Ladies and gentlemen, today’s topic is The Future. Having spent the ENTIRE weekend (minus a couple of hours of blissful West Wing escape) writing a transcript and recommendation for my one senior student who has a November 15 deadline for his first college application, the topic is fresh in my mind. Or rather, no other topic can really infiltrate my mind because I have been holed up at home, in front of the computer, all weekend. Except for four hours yesterday in Target, the 99 Cent store, and Trader Joe’s. I’m sure my purchasing behavior would make a vibrant topic for a future post. But as this is the present, we must speak of the future.

I have been trying to counsel Gorby on his next move, trying to stay one step ahead of the college game, oscillating between being so jealous that he gets to go to college, and so thankful that I don’t have to deal with all the pressure and uncertainty of one’s senior year of high school. It is sobering, though, because enough thinking about someone’s future and you begin to realize that the future he’s planning for is the present I’m living in. And what am I doing with it? Spending every waking hour preparing other people for their futures. I’m not resentful…but I find myself craving a break from the…constancy of it, trying to steal precious minutes for self-reflection from the ever-mounting hours of obligation, and when I do find those minutes it seems so much easier to spend them in the West Wing. But am I living in the present? I’m not pining…at least not actively…for the golden days of yore (although I’d love the daylight hours back, thanks—Daylight Savings is my friend), but nor am I doing much that I enjoy outside of work. And I do enjoy much of work. But…it’s work. So what kind of person am I to counsel someone on the future? It’s too depressing to say “don’t be like me, whatever you do,” and I wouldn’t mean that anyway. But I see these kids, and they’re all in that phase where they’re still convinced their lives will not be ordinary.

I remember that. I remember believing that I might very well become famous, find the perfect relationship completely devoid of problems, change the world for the better and travel to every country in the world and, oh, maybe win the lottery or something. I think I believed it all through college. And in college, as it was ending, as it was slipping away like the memories in Eternal Sunshine, we made promises to each other that we would all go in for a ranch in Montana that we’d split 10 ways and all live there and have babies together and write and think and party and watch the sunrise. And it’s not that I wish that’s what I were doing, not most of the time anyway, but I wish it were possible to go through life without splintering your heart into a million pieces and necessarily blunting some of them so that you don’t feel the pain of ordinariness, and of obligation, so harshly. Should I tell Gorby to enjoy college because soon enough he’ll have to start choosing which of his loves to indulge and have to suffer the splintering of friends to the four corners of the globe (if that’s a contradiction in terms, why does it happen so easily?)? Should I tell him to enjoy high school because it’s the last time all the people who are most important to you are within 20 miles of you at all times? Should I tell him he’s embarking on the last four years of his life that are reserved for his own self-discovery? Or refrain from depressing old-person-speak and hope that he just doesn’t discover it for himself too late? Aggh. This is what comes, my friends, of being 26. This second quarter of a century is a doozy.

When I was 17, I wanted to act. I wanted to go to college, demostrate my laudable intelligence to all the world, and then act anyway—be the next Jodie Foster, Claire Danes. Have a funky apartment in the Village and only go to LA when I had to; my real passion was for off-Broadway. I yearned to love myself enough to think that others would love me, to be wanted, to have relationships to write novels about in one’s old age (not journals—novels). I wanted to be skinny. I wanted to be memorable without being slutty, edgy without being a poser, I wanted to travel, to dance, to have it all. But that was just my so-called life. This is my real one.

Reading The Odyssey and Oedipus, the question of prophecies, self-fulfilling and otherwise, is bound to come up. We’ve discussed whether we would want to know what was in store for us, if we had five minutes with Teiresias. And although for some reason the notion of prophecy is quite romantic, I’ve never bought in. Inevitability is so…ordinary. I’d much prefer a version of destiny in which I shape the events, even if that means that I am to blame for them not turning out exactly as I want. I’d rather have five minutes with Doris Day, to lull me with the comfort that whatever will be, will be.

I was asked by a student last week whether I actually like teaching. I still feel guilty that she had to ask. My answer was long-winded, with a bunch of yes-buts: yes, it’s incredibly rewarding, but also incredibly exhausting, draining, work-intensive. Yes, but I never envisioned that this is what I would do. Yes, but I would like it better if I didn’t have to get up early (although nor would I want to stay later than I do). And although I don’t lie, I feel quite uncomfortable telling kids that this was not something I aspired to. I don’t want them to think I don’t want to be there with them, and I don’t want them to think that teaching is not something to be aspired to. I don’t want them to worry that they won’t achieve their dreams, and most of all I don’t want them to see me as someone who hasn’t. Partly because of pride. But partly because it’s more complicated than it was back when our biggest fear was to be ordinary. A substitution of dreams is not the same as their squashing. Taking the good with the bad is not a compromise; it’s the way life is. And 26, though it rounds up to 30 (so did 25, for that matter, but that seems so arbitrary), is not too old to still do some of the things you always hoped you might. I lived to write another day. Anything’s possible.