Rumors of Gustav all day online. Cat 3, Cat 4, Cat 5. Looks like now it's a Cat 3. It was the top story online all day Saturday, but now it isn't a top story any longer. I don't know if that's a "between the hours of 2 and 5 am PST" thing, or whether the story is simply going to be pushed out of the headlines for tomorrow. Regardless: it would suck to be one of the people having to evacuate.
So yeah. The hurricane online. I may never have TV at home again. I'd love to say this is some conscious, life affirming choice I've made, once and for all. But mostly, it's this: 1) I'm cheap and don't want to pay for cable. 2) I can't freaking stand TV in general, it makes me irritable, and a bit violent, unless I really want to watch the program. If I am near a TV, I watch the program and enjoy it. Then the TV goes off. (If I can convince its owner to turn it off.) It's how I was raised. Don't let anyone tell you your childhood isn't formative. It is. God help us.
So on Wednesday, I listened to Joe Biden's speech at the DNC on NPR. I actually don't listen to NPR regularly. I get my news online, usually, sometimes at NPR.org. I know us alternative white people types are supposed to listen to NPR with every meal and in the car, but I always have to be the alternative to the alternative; so alternative, I'm normal. So I don't listen regularly to NPR. I listen to it now and then. (Wait, is that normally normal?)
Anyway who gives a crap about all that. My point (if I can wrap my head and fingers around a point at 3 am) is that it was so awesome to listen to a speech on the radio. Especially since Senator Obama has revived the art of oratory. Suddenly it's okay to make a speech. It's okay to let your voice lilt. It's okay to let a few words hang in the air.
So I enjoyed it a hell of a lot. I made dinner and listened to Joe Biden's speech. When he introduced his mother, I formed my own picture of her. Not just the picture of her sitting in her seat at the DNC, but pictures of her at home w/Biden when he was a kid, pictures of her as a young girl. "That's not change, that's more of the same" sounded really good on the radio. It made me wonder what it must have been like in the golden age of radio, when people would gather around to hear the news. Not watch it.
I did not turn off the radio once the speechmaking had finished. Once the speech and DNC coverage were finished, NPR played jazz.* I felt like such a genuine alternative white person sitting there listening to jazz on NPR, and I thought that maybe I should listen to NPR more often than I do. You know, get back to my roots. But I think I've been missing the point. NPR isn't about NPR, really, or about proving how smart and alternative you are. It's about the pleasure of listening to the radio. It's nice to have NPR on the radio. It's nice to have the radio on.
I watched Barack Obama's speech the following night at a friend's house on TV. I was glad I did. But a re-run of a portion of Biden's speech sort of killed my radio memory. Suddenly, "that's not change, that's more of the same" just didn't sound - the same. Biden's mother was adorable, but now I was stuck with the image of her sitting there in her seat at the DNC. All my other mental pictures of her vanished. And while there's nothing wrong with Joe Biden's face, and he looks just fine on television, I preferred the sound of his voice.
I'm not sure I like to look at the faces of people when they're speaking. Faces demand too much, and faces betray too much. And when you're watching TV, a face is both more and less than a face. It's a face that becomes simultaneously superhuman, and not quite human.
A voice without a face, a skilled voice, can convey so much on its own. And a voice, on its own, leaves you freer to decide how to respond to it. If you want to be taken in by the speaker, you can. If you want to consider what the speaker is saying and evaluate it critically, you can. You don't have to do either. You can do both. You can just enjoy the sound of the voice, if you want. A voice on the radio comes in to the room while you're going about the business of living. You don't have to watch it. As long as you can hear it, you're not missing a thing.
Writing is kind of like hearing your own voice in your head. Obviously, I like the "sound" of my own voice, since I "speak" every week. Count yourself lucky you don't have to watch me while I'm doing this, though. I've been known to pick my nose on occasion. And that would really kill the moment, I think.
Yeah. I think it would.
*Myspace will not allow me to publish the following: The sentence "I left the radio on." followed by "After the DNC coverage...." (or any variant thereof.) (go figure.)
So: I'm starting to think I might be a caffeine addict. I take it orally, usually in liquid form, usually in coffee. I drink lots of coffee.
Duh, I live in Seattle.
But I guess I've always held on to the hope that I like coffee for reasons that go beyond addiction: the smell of fresh ground coffee in the morning, the pleasant wake up ritual where I sit with my cup of coffee and look out the window and relax before the day starts.
I do like these things quite a bit: the pleasant coffee aroma, the pleasing coffee ritual.
But I am beginning to suspect that at the root of all this pleasantry is: caffeine.
The suspicion blossomed this week when the carafe that goes with my french press shattered (along with a few other dishes) in the dishwasher.
I must have loaded too many dishes or packed a few in too tightly. (I've been packing them in more tightly lately, it's true. I'm trying to cut down the water bill.) Broken glass in the dishwasher: it was a mess. But the worst of it was: I couldn't make coffee.
I actually considered taping the carafe back together (but in the end decided against it). I looked around my kitchen for something that might serve as a substitute for the carafe. Nothing. I considered running to the local espresso stand. However, if there is one thing about me that tempers my (possible) caffeine addiction, it's the fact that I'm cheap. I didn't want to pay two or three dollars for a cup of coffee.
So I told myself I was being a baby, and that I could have coffee when I got to work. I would simply have to do without the ritual for one day.
It took me longer to get ready for work, because I had to clean up the glass, but also, I think, because I hadn't yet had any coffee.
I walked to work that day. My walk is just under a mile and a half. By the time I had covered the first half mile, I was about ready to give in and duck in to a Starbucks. I felt beyond irritable. I felt like I had still not woken up. I had a splitting headache pressing at both temples.
Every Starbucks along the way was packed, and I also wanted to get to work by the time I had said I would. So I pushed on (but I peered fervently in the window of each Starbucks or Starbucks-like establishment as I passed, hoping one would be having a slow day. None of them were having a slow day.)
By the time I got to work the headache was excruciating. I had one thought in mind: coffee machine. On my way to the coffee machine I related my harrowing tale to anyone who would listen: "My coffee pot broke in the dishwasher this morning, and I wasn't even able to make coffee ." I didn't even care what anyone's reaction was to this mini-story, I was beyond caring about the opinions of others.
At last I reached the coffee machine. I punched buttons feverishly and waited for it to deliver me.
The first cup took away my headache.
The second cup gave me the jump start I needed, and I thought, relieved: Ah. I'm back.
I was going to buy a new french press on the way home. But then I remembered, two years ago, those nice kids in Provo, Utah bought me a big jar of instant coffee. I think I still have it. (I kept it for nostalgic reasons.)
When I got home I looked for the instant coffee. Indeed, I still had the jar. Being a Seattle coffee snob, I don't usually drink instant coffee. However, I know it does the trick, and the idea of drinking it before I put money in to a new french press appealed to my sense of cheapness.
So the next morning, I fixed myself some instant coffee.
I am happy to report that, though the taste of it offends me the way the taste of Pabst used to offend me before I quit being a beer snob, instant coffee does the trick just as well as any super brewed fresh espresso with a twist of lemon lime and a dollop of cream. Maybe even better.
***
So am I a caffeine addict? I mused to myself, as I sipped the instant caffeine sludge (black, I had no cream or sugar in the house).
As I pondered that question, I remembered the story of how I had come upon the jar of instant coffee in the first place.
In the spring of 2006, I packed myself, my guitar, my amp, and some records (my records) in to a rental car and drove through Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, then came home up the west coast through California and Oregon and back to Washington. I called this a "rock n' roll tour".
I had two shows booked on consecutive nights in Provo, Utah. The first show was at a club called Velour. The second show materialized just before I arrived, and was at a used clothing store that doubled as an indie music venue some evenings.
I rolled in to Provo for the Velour show at about the time I was supposed to be on stage (fortunately I caught the last couple songs of the opening band) and played my set. Then I met the bass player from the headlining band, and his wife. I was going to crash at their place while I was in Provo.
After the show I went back with my hosts to their home, and was shown the couch where I would sleep. They told me they would both be going to work and/or to class in the morning, but I was welcome to help myself to anything in the kitchen, to listen to records, whatever made me feel at home.
I laughed and said, "Just show me where the coffee maker is and I'll be fine!"
After a very quick moment of silence, they told me they didn't drink coffee, but I was welcome to anything else.
"Oh well," I said. "I'll go into town in the morning and get a cup of coffee."
In the morning I headed for a grocery store. I figured I could either get a cup of coffee there, or I would find whatever cute little espresso stands might exist on the way.
By the time I had parked at the grocery store, I had not seen any cute espresso stands. I walked in the store, and started cruising around the perimeter, since usually if there's brewed coffee or espresso to be had in a grocery store, that's where you'll find it.
I did not find any fresh brewed coffee or espresso for sale.
By this time I was also hungry, so I grabbed a pre-packaged deli sandwich, and walked up to the checkout line. I waved the sandwich at a very nice, clean cut looking checker and asked him where I might find a cup of coffee to go with the sandwich.
He smiled professionally and said: "You won't find any coffee served here. Maybe if you go to a sit down restaurant. I think there might be a Starbucks up by the school?"
I stared at him, incredulous that 1) he thought there might be a Starbucks in town and 2) it sounded as if there were only one Starbucks in town.
"I think Coke just came out with this new product that has coffee in it," he said helpfully. "Coca-Cola Blak?"
I thanked him, and perused the store one more time. I finally found some General Foods International coffee, which I don't usually like, because it's too sweet, but I was beyond the point of being picky. (Though not beyond the point of being cheap.)
I took the GFIC and the sandwich back to the house of my hosts, and drank a couple cups (or three) until the headache subsided and I felt like myself again.
That night, they returned home and presented me with an enormous jar of instant coffee.
The bass player, Joe, said: "When you said you were going out for coffee this morning, I wasn't sure how much luck you would have, so we got you this." (I swear I did not see the instant coffee on my own trip to the grocery store. Perhaps it was one of those items where you have to be a local to know where to find it in the store. Maybe the "In Case You Have Out of Town Visitors" section.)
I kept the jar with me in the front seat of my car for the rest of my trip, and I kept it after the trip was over. I am finally drinking it now. I will drink all of it, and once it is gone, I will buy a new french press. Luckily, on Friday, one of those "20% off any item" coupons from Bed, Bath & Beyond arrived in the mail. With the savings from the coupon, and the money I will have saved not buying coffee beans while drinking the instant coffee, I think I can justify the expense of a new french press. (Also, though I toyed with the idea of continuing to drink instant coffee - since it may be cheaper - this hope was dashed yesterday on a trip to QFC. A jar of instant coffee the size of the one my gracious hosts purchased for me in Provo, Utah now costs $8. $5, maybe. $8? Not worth it.)
So hmmm. Am I a caffeine addict?
I'm still not convinced. But after writing this blog, I can no longer deny it: I am really, really cheap.
I spent so much of this week feeling lethargic because of the heat, I don't know if my mind is up to a blog, but the blog gods don't really give a rip whether you're up to it, or not. So here we go.
I've been thinking lately - not intensely, but intermittently - about how I don't like to make cookies any longer. Or gingerbread, or pies. I used to love it. I even made my living doing it for several years. I used to go kind of crazy at the smell of fresh nutmeg.
It's kind of the same problem I face making records. It's fun to make stuff, to go through the process of making it, to smell it baking in the house, but then you're left with a pile of cookies or a mess of gingerbread. Everyone's so health conscious these days that they just get angry if you leave it out to be eaten. (Gee, thanks a lot. Just what my diet needed.) You can't eat it all yourself. You don't need all of it. (Anymore than you need a couple hundred copies of your own record lying around.) So, unless you know a family with a dozen active kids who have high metabolism, it's not necessarily a kindness to bake things for other people. I suppose you could buy spinach and chop it up, put it in cute little packages, sprinkle it with freshly ground nutmeg, and deliver it to friends.
Not quite the same. (However, fresh spinach cooked with fresh nutmeg is actually really, really good. I had a boyfriend once who was an awesome cook who taught me that.)
Anyway, the "spinach and nutmeg parcel" idea is kind of in keeping with my shifting conception of what it means to be a person who "creates things".
Songwriting and creation used definitely to have an element of catharsis for me, as did baking. (I can't even remember why I found baking cathartic, but I did, and I remember that it felt cathartic.)
There's really no reason to expect that just because you engage in some act of catharsis, people are going to pay you for it.
I remember when I'd go through a breakup, and someone would invariably say: well, at least you'll get a song out of it.
Of all the reasons to write songs, that has got to be my least favorite. The urge is there and I do it, of course. I write the song. It helps me deal with my emotions. But whether that song should be shared: that's something else. These days, I'd say: only if it's a very, very good song.
So spinach and nutmeg songs. Spinach and nutmeg songs are probably more like songs that aren't afraid of emotion, but also aren't afraid of emotions other than angst and loss.
Spinach and nutmeg songs are like, "Duh. Angst and loss. Welcome to your life dude. Now what?"
Real spinach and nutmeg songs are familiar with angst and loss, but aren't in love with it.
Real spinach and nutmeg songs taste awesome, better than you would expect, in fact, but are also good for you.
Because they taste good, they might end up hits; because they are good, they will have staying power. Spinach and nutmeg songs tend to tell stories with themes other than, or in addition to 'I broke my heart and it hurts'.
Not everyone will be able to write a spinach and nutmeg song, but everyone can live a spinach and nutmeg existence.
And this...is how we b*&%sh$t when we are feeling too lethargic to blog.
Nevertheless, below is my personal playlist of top 10 spinach and nutmeg songs. Chow down.
1) Free Fallin' - Tom Petty 2) (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman - Carole King('s version) 3) Respect - Aretha Franklin 4) Long Division - Death Cab For Cutie 5) Walkaway Joe - Trisha Yearwood 6) Take it Easy - The Eagles 7) Instant Karma - John Lennon 8) Lyin' Eyes - The Eagles 9) Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel 10) It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan
This will be a: "It's technically Sunday, so it's still the Sunday blog" kind of blogs.
This is so that I can use my coffee energy (after I wake up, later this morning) to go to war with the dust bunnies that have taken over my apartment. I think it will help out my cat, although most of the dust comes from her. (Especially since the weather actually got warmer, she sheds about an entire cat's worth of hair every day. If I were a god, and an efficient sort of god, I would gather up the hair at the end of each day, focus my intense and generative god ray on it, and create a new cat. Just because I could. And then, since I would be a god, I would be able to find a loving home for each new cat, because I would be able to seek out people in the city who were in need of feline companionship. I would know these people, in the way gods do.)
However, I am not a god, and so later this morning I will merely be crawling around on my hands and knees slaying dust bunnies. (Using the word "slay" makes it seem like a much less menial task, don't you think.)
That's really all. That, and my new record (like, the "new" record I recorded in 2006) is currently in capable hands being mastered.
Once it is mastered, it will be packaged. Here are three things for sure that will happen:
1) The songs will be copyrighted 2) There will be actual disks (Not too many disks. But a number of actual disks will be pressed.) 3) The songs will then be turned loose on the internet for free downloading; listening enjoyment; non-commercial use. Fly away, songs (I will say, when they are turned loose.)
That means the whole durn thing will be available for free, because: why the hell not? Did I make a record, then sit on it for two years to fuss and fidget about the single digits and tens of people who will own copies of the songs reproduced in physical media; or who will own digital copies of the songs?
Hell no. I did not.
If you want to geek out on the subject of copies, check out this link.
If you don't want to geek out on the subject of copies, I can hardly blame you. But don't say you weren't warned.
I need to sleep. I can tell by the way I'm writing.
Good night. Good morning.
-me
***
P.S.; 8/11/2008
This copyright stuff; I ain't no sophisticate in it (obviously). I'm not trying to be one, neither.
It's just that I *am* interested in it, and certain things (in my understanding of the subject: copyrights. and stuff. and how they apply to me and people like me. and stuff. and how they apply, in a broader sense, to the creation of culture. and stuff.) just make sense to me.
Mostly, those things boil down to: 1) music in essence is free, 2) I make music for people to hear it, and I don't want to get all fussy about free downloading when I am not hooked up with a worldwide distribution network; I want anyone who wants to hear my songs to hear them, 3) I still believe the concept of copyright needs to exist, because even if the landscape of copyright is changing, we don't live in a perfect world, and people do take advantage of other people, and so some kind of protection (or a notion of a kind of protection) for people who create things still needs to exist.
These are gut feelings for me, 1, 2, and 3, twiddle deedle dum, doodle duddle dee.
It began when smart people began using two little words: "as" and "well".
The words are typically used at the end of a sentence, as in: "I went back to the house to get my jacket, and while I was there I picked up my mittens, as well."
Or:
"He heard everyone had gone to the beach, and decided he would go, as well."
These sentences could just as easily be rendered in this way: "He heard everyone had gone to the beach, and decided he wanted to go, too."
Or:
"I went back to the house to get my jacket, and while I was there, I picked up my mittens."
Mittens, period. No need to tack on an "as well", courtesy of this beautiful dimension in language; it's called context. There's really no need to tell your listener you picked up your mittens "as well". Unless your listener is brain dead, he or she probably pictured you going back in to the house, and picking up your jacket. When you added that you had picked up your mittens, that likely made sense in and of itself. All of us have had the experience of going back to retrieve something, and while in the process of retrieval of that one thing, realizing we could pick up a thing or two in addition. Your listener will understand, based on shared human experience, and because of context, that while you hadn't planned to pick up your mittens, you decided to pick them up anyway, since they were there; it was cold out; you were worried your fingers might get frostbitten.
Even if your listener is brain dead, do you really think shoving an "as well" in her face is going to make her listen? Like, "Uh huh, uh huh, yeaaahhhhh, whuh-----'as well? as well? As well what? No, wait, what did you say again; before you said that? As well what!?"
I find this scenario unlikely.
But, whatever. Maybe you like to say "as well" in such situations. Maybe you like the way the phrase rolls off the tongue. Maybe you like what "as well" does to the delivery of a sentence, maybe it makes the sentence more pleasantly rhythmic in your ear.
If that's really how you feel, I can't argue with that.
My current theory to explain the American overuse of "as well" is as follows: Ever since we've looked dumb, and then dumber on the world stage, we've had, as a nation, a collective unconscious desire to prove we're actually smart. What better way to do this than to ape those masters of the English language "across the pond": the Brits. (This theory is, of course, completely subjective, and based mostly on my belief that when I look at the world and the goings on in it, my observations are pretty much right on the mark.)
An English person using the phrase "as well" imbues it with such character that the two mundane words become irresistible; the "as" is passed over quickly, and the "well" is delivered in a quick succession of no less than four distinct and accented tones, each tone conveying its own world of meaning. Who wouldn't want to sound like that while speaking? It totally rules.
I used to write stories, for fun, that I never even tried to have published. (Maybe at the time I thought I wanted to get them published. I honestly don't remember; as the dreams of fame and fortune die, one by one, it all becomes a blur.) I used to write a lot of English characters in to my stories, because I loved the way Brits speak. I still do. My English charcters used the phrase "as well" quite a bit, actually. (They also used "actually"; quite a bit, actually.)
English folks have a way of making the most mundane phrases and words sound awesome. This has less to do with the words they use than with the way they enunciate their speech. (Like, they actually enunciate when they speak.) I'll never forget when I was in high school, and I was fortunate enough to get to take a week long trip to France and Spain with the French and Spanish classes. Before going to France, we spent two days in London, then took a ferry from Portsmouth to France. There were some English girls on the ferry sitting near me and my friends, and they were all giving each other a hard time. One of the girls was making fun of another companion, bothering the second girl about what she was eating. The second girl suddenly burst out, "I'm eating fruit; actually." It was an ordinary sentence, but the delivery was so exquisite that I went to the bathroom on the ferry and repeated it over and over to myself so I wouldn't forget how she had pronounced and sequenced each word.
So yeah. Ever since then, I've peppered my speech with "actuallys" and "as wells", because let's face it, English people have an impressive command of English. If you speak English, and you care about language, it's only natural to want to imitate this command.
However, this imitation can lead, I fear, to language abuse. Yes, that's right: language abuse.
Consider this: Not long ago, while I was still living in a household with cable television, I turned on the news for the weather report. The weather man gave a spiel that sounded something like this:
"Temperatures will be cool in the morning; around the greater Seattle area, up north, and on the peninsula as well. A band of showers is passing through the convergence zone as well, and we'll see those pass through northern Snohomish county, through Mt. Vernon, in to Everett, and perhaps in to Seattle as well. The system is a weak one, so those showers will dry up by the noon hour as well; we'll be seeing some warming later in the afternoon, as well, and that trend should continue in to the rest of the week, as well."
(I do not exaggerate. I remember counting each separate use of "as well", as I had been nursing a suspicion for some time that this sort of language abuse was rampant. I remember counting seven uses of the phrase "as well" over the length of a minute. Actually.)
We need, I think, as a nation, to remember that the use of "as well" does not automatically make one sound British, or smart, or awesome.
I am not advocating ceasing use of the phrase completely, but rather an increase in the consciousness of when it is used, and whether it needs to be used at all. Perhaps, in a sentence, "as well" could just as easily be replaced with "too" or "also". Or nothing. (Mittens. Period.) Sometimes tacking "as well" on to the end of a sentence can even diminish the sentence's power, or make it somewhat nonsensical.
Let's not forget that American English has it's own richness, it's own rhythm, it's own pompousness.
Let's remember that part of the beauty of American English is precision of attitude, rather than precision of form. We have a lot of different groups of people here, and they all speak English in a different way. That makes for a lot of different ways of speaking English.
Finally, let's not forget that no one can say, "Shut the f$%! up!" quite like an American; regardless of creed, class or color.
Slept rather late. Needed the sleep, but need the time, also.
I'm tempted to let the cat blog this morning.
I used to sit occasionally for a cat who liked to blog with me, or for me, but my cat just likes to hang out with me while I blog. She doesn't seem particularly interested in blogging herself.
.....Nope.
Then I'm not getting out of it.
My coffee is ready; I'll drink some and see if that helps.
***
That's better, if not great.
I've been gushing to people lately about the new (ish) Death Cab For Cutie record; I love it. In fact, despite the price of gasoline, I've been jumping at the chance to take short road-trips so I can listen to it in the car. Yesterday I went to Whidbey Island to visit an old friend who was in town for a limited period of time.
I listened to Narrow Stairs on the way there. Once I was in line for the ferry (and it was a 1.5 hour wait) I switched to country radio. I haven't listened to country much since I went through that phase with it a year ago, but I still like it. Some of the "new" country is pretty cheesy, but not all of it. At it's best, country music is a blend of storytelling and a certain menu of traditional musical styles. And I like it when I hear the stories and the style filtering through the commercial gloss of a commercial country radio station. I never went to country radio to be cool, artsy, or alternative. I was just tired of all the cultural divides I'd set up for myself. Do I want to learn to line dance or get a gun permit? No. (Although line dancing looks kind of fun. The craze is over though, I think.) Main point: I'm no longer offended by twang.
While in the holding area for the ferry in Mukilteo, I was was seized by one of the paroxysms of nostalgia to which I am prone. Time is more or less standing still there - for the time being. I turned off my radio and opened my windows, and watched older men walk by with ice cream cones for their waiting families. A dilapidated Ivar's was directly in front of me, with a sign on it's facade proudly proclaiming it was established in 1926. Tired looking mothers tried to manage squirming and fidgeting children inside hot cars. A man yelled out of his car window to another man walking by, and they had a conversation for awhile. I swear the light even looked the way it does in old color photographs from the early 1970's. Mostly people were relaxed, smiling, walking slow. It was hard to believe I had come from the land of construction cranes, road rage, and passive aggression just hours before. Then the cop walked by with the bomb sniffing dog, checking each car. Even the cop was relaxed. Even the dog - alert and diligently sniffing for danger - seemed relaxed. But that part of the scene didn't fit my childhood reverie.
I met my friend in Langley, and it was great to catch up. When I headed back home, I again put Narrow Stairs in the cd player for my drive back to Seattle. The first song that was my number one off that disk was "Pity and Fear". Then it was "Long Division", because "Long Division" is a perfect pop song in every way. Then it was "Grapevine Fires", because it's simply a beautiful song. Yesterday's song was "Bixby Canyon Bridge". I can't really explain why. "Bixby Canyon Bridge" on both ends, with a lot of twang in the middle. And maybe a sprinkling of "Grapevine Fires".
And now the blogosphere has sucked me in again and the day is wasting, so I'll sign off here.
meet me at the underground bunker with a case of canned corn
So how about some more online pop culture: online "lifestyle" articles.
They're usually written in an upbeat, matter of fact tone, no matter what the subject. Personal hygiene, diet, finance, job hunting, office romance, etiquette, managing the rising price of gasoline in your daily life - the list goes on. And on.
This last week, I saw an article with a subject I never thought I'd see: Why ordinary Americans should consider stockpiling food.
I found it on yahoo, but it's actually also available here, at the Wall Street Journal.
Stockpiling food?!? Like, is this for serious?
Well. Maybe. Read the article, and decide for yourself, I guess.
Fortunately, when I was a kid, we stockpiled food. It was part of a family game we played called: "It's not the Depression, but let's pretend like it is for fun". So I know how to do this.
Right. So before I head down to my underground bunker to manage my stockpiles, (I really hope the building management will understand why I had to dig a tunnel in the alley behind the building) I am here to say that all hope is not lost.
Wisdom from the era of the Great Depression is still here with us, should things truly get that bad. You can find bits and pieces of this wisdom everywhere: online; really, really, really old people; the public library.
I have my own piece of this wisdom. It's a cookbook, titled, appropriately enough: "Cookbook of Memories, Remedies & Recipes from the Great Depression".
What's in this cookbook? A lot of casseroles. Casseroles are great when times are tight because you just throw whatever you have leftover in a casserole dish, sprinkle salt and pepper on top, and toss it in the oven. If you cook it long enough, pretty much every casserole tastes exactly the same.
However, there are more creative and thought provoking recipes in the book. As a service to the reader, I would like to share a few of the recipes that particularly caught my attention.
A note of caution: One thing I've noticed about the book is that many of the recipes call for eggs, butter and cream. Eggs are still relatively cheap these days, but butter and cream are not. I was puzzled by the abundance of recipes that called for cream and butter in a book that is supposed to help you prepare food on the cheap. Then I remembered: It was the early 20th century. Back then, everyone kept a cow and a couple chickens in the yard, or a back bedroom or something. Hence: plentiful eggs, plenty of cream, plenty of butter - all for free.
In these more complicated times, one will likely need to make substitutions for the cream, butter, and possibly the eggs in these recipes. But cooking is all about being creative, and that's half the pleasure of it.
MEAL PLAN
1) Salad
The above referenced cookbook points out that dandelions are completely edible: leaves, roots, and flower.
A salad can be made from the greens, or, for something a little more unusual, the book suggests frying dandelion blossoms in oil, cornmeal, and beaten egg.
Tips for city dwellers: If you live in the city and don't have a yard handy with dandelions for harvesting, you can still obtain them. In a city like Seattle, where small grassy parks are plentiful, it shouldn't be too difficult. Be sure to wash the dandelions in case they've been peed on by dogs or people. If you live in a city that is more of a concrete jungle, you have to be more creative. Generally, however, anywhere there is a little dirt or grassy patch, you can find dandelions. You just need to pay attention. Wherever you find them: be sure to wash thoroughly before eating.
The book has a recipe for "Beer Soup". This is a great recipe, since beer is staple food for most households; something most folks are likely to have on hand.
The recipe is fairly simple and calls for: 2 pints light ale, 1 pint of cream, 1/2 pound sugar, 5 or 6 egg yolks, and cinnamon. (Reserve the egg whites for use as a facial mask.)
This is a double boiler cream type soup. You first blend the egg yolks, cream, and sugar and set it aside; then heat the beer in the top of the boiler; then pour in the blended egg, cream, and sugar mixture and stir until the mixture thickens and is hot enough to serve. Then it is sprinkled with cinnamon.
A general suggestion: Remember, during the Great Depression, you'd just go in the back bedroom to milk the cow and pull a few eggs from the nests of the chickens. Today, you likely don't have that option. Cream is expensive. Besides, who needs all that fat, sugar and cholesterol? A simpler, healthier version of this recipe is as follows:
Pour two cans of beer in a bowl. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Drink the soup.
3) Main Course
This recipe is from the Wild Meats section of the cookbook. It requires quite a bit of preparation, but, remember, if you're living during a depression, you'll likely be unemployed and will have plenty of time to cook a complicated meal.
The recipe is for roast squirrels, and calls for the following: Squirrels; salad oil, lemon juice or vinegar; bread crumbs, cream (sigh), mushrooms (or dandelion flowers); salt, pepper, minced onion, brown stock, and paprika.
Squirrels are to be washed, then marinated in oil and vinegar. The rest of the ingredients (crumbs, cream, mushrooms, onion, spices), except for the brown stock, are then combined for stuffing the squirrels. The squirrels are then stuffed, and roasted in a pan with the brown sauce. Squirrels should be "well roasted". Then served.
Tips for city dwellers: First, the good news: most North American cities have an abundant squirrel population. Now the bad news: your city likely has an ordinance or other rule that prevents the hunting and trapping of squirrels. It is generally not advisable to eat any wild meat that is illegal to hunt; so if it is illegal to do so in your city, my opinion is you shouldn't do it. (Remember: these recipes serve to provide desperate measures for desperate times. Ideally, if times become this desperate, your city will change the applicable ordinance or rule.)
A note to vegetarians: If you're grossed out by the main course choice, well, so am I. I've heard squirrels described as "rats with tails", but I've always kind of liked them myself. Not that I would ever want one in my house, or sitting in my lap, but you know what I mean. They're cute. I like seeing them scrabbling around on trees and window ledges. But remember: these are desperate measures for desperate times.
4) ....and so, on to Dessert.
This is my favorite part. The book has a lot of great recipes for desserts, but keeping to the idea of functioning in the most extreme of desperate times (and keeping in mind that you don't have live chickens or a cow stashed in your back bedroom or storage unit), I have selected this recipe: "Bread Crumbs & Fruit". It requires only stale bread crumbs, fruit in season, sugar, and hot water.
Layer the stale bread crumbs, fruit and sugar in a baking pan, until the pan is full, (or until you run out of bread crumbs, fruit, or sugar). Keep track of how many cups of bread crumbs you use. When you are done layering, pour over the mixture one half cup of hot water for every two cups of stale bread crumbs used. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
The book suggests serving the dessert with cream, but I suggest you could just as easily serve it with beer.
Tips for city dwellers: If you don't live out in the burbs, or out in the wild, and if fruit is no longer being delivered to your grocery store, where will you find fresh fruit in season?
You have to look hard. It depends on the season. In the pacific northwest for example, many, many roadways are lined with blackberry brambles. Every year, millions of blackberries bud, ripen, and rot on these brambles. Of course, since the brambles are along major roadways, they are constantly absorbing car exhaust through the air, and, through the ground, countless other impurities that filter off a roadway, but remember: these are desperate measures for desperate times.
I hope these suggestions have been helpful, or, at the very least, thought provoking. Speaking personally, it gives me peace of mind to know that the wisdom of earlier generations is there for all of us, if we would but only seek it out.
So does anybody else on myspace see those "match.com" video ads when you log on to or off of myspace? The ones where it's like you're looking in to the guy's apartment through the computer screen, so you see him approach the computer and sit down to look at it and see what's what. (The ads I see have men in them.) I first thought they might be ads for match.com video chatting. Then, I thought the ads were perhaps even more creative and ambitious, meant to give a target audience, the single woman, the idea she was peering in to the worlds of men all over her city: lonely, interesting men who couldn't wait to get on match.com and meet her (And her. And her. And her, too.)
Anyway, I'm still not completely sure whether these are ads for video chatting on match.com, or a simulation of the world of the typical available male on match.com, because I don't use match.com.
Okay. I tried it once for a month. But that was several years ago. I haven't been near it since. (Sherry, if you leave a comment, it shall be ruthlessly censored.)
(That brings up a blog subtopic: is it best not to make reference to one's past (but brief) use of an online dating service in one's communications online? We've all heard the stories about people who post anecdotes or pictures chronicling their wild drunken revels with a visiting circus troupe, and then who later, when being considered for that great new career or that exciting new promotion, are turned down for the job, or fired because the damning record of their antics is discovered online. When it turns out the midget and the fat lady in the circus troupe are actually relatives of the CEO of the new company where you hope to get hired, well, you're pretty much screwed. But what about online dating? Is it wrong to admit in an online public forum that you were looking for love? That you wondered if the guy who just wanted a "nice, fit, girl he could take shopping for shoes and on trips to the zoo" might actually be for real, might actually fall in love with you? Is one to be destroyed simply because one admits that one entertained, for a few short weeks, the possibility of spending weekends on the arm of a nice man, walking through the monkey house in a new pair of pretty open toed shoes, laughing about how bad it really stinks in the monkey house, after all?
I suppose this is a blog topic for a later date.)
So. Back to the match.com video ads that appear on myspace: The men in the ads are all probably at least five years too young for my "appropriate age group" and they all have two additional things in common: they wear two layers of clothing, (usually a button down shirt over a tee shirt with "character") and, as they approach the computer screen, they all, to a man, start taking off their (outer) shirts.
My favorite one is the orange juice guy. Unlike the other men, he is wearing a sweatshirt over his tee shirt. He seems to live in a small cramped apartment. You see him walk in to his kitchen, wearing his sweatshirt, with a glass container of orange juice in his hand. He stands in a corner of his kitchen, which is garishly lit by an overhead light fixture, and you see him face the computer. (Apparently, he has aimed his computer screen so that it is in the direct line of sight of this particular corner of his kitchen. I find this fascinating.) He takes a swig of orange juice, right out of the pitcher. He waits a minute. Then, as if the orange juice has given him courage, he swaggers to the computer, and sits down. (He must set the pitcher of orange juice somewhere en route, but at this moment I can't recall exactly where.) He starts typing. Then he (of course) takes off his sweatshirt.
***
I know "orange juice guy" isn't real. I know he is an actor, playing the part of an eligible single man for a match.com ad. But I am intrigued by the idea of "orange juice guy". Is there someone out there exactly like orange juice guy? Or is orange juice guy more of an archetype? Perhaps I am orange juice guy, and that's why I find him so compelling. Perhaps he shows me some lost part of myself.
***
UPDTATE:
Well. I have new pics! Well actually they're old. They were taken as press photos for the release of "Where the Words Go". However, we didn't use them, I think because we decided I didn't look "rock n' roll" enough in them. I'm going through the last bits of my things from storage this weekend, however, and found these. So I put 'em up. So there they are. I like them because, even though you can't tell, the dark indoors pictures were taken in the back room at the Croc, the pictures with the reflection were taken in front of the Sit n' Spin (when it was still the Sit n' Spin) and the pictures with the columns were taken at the old Catholic school building near my old apartment.
Well gee, I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th!
How about those smiley faces and hearts in the Lake Union fireworks show? Now those were super cute!
All right kids, well, you know why I'm here: it's time to blog! All right!
I hope this 4th of July reminded you of why you need to be patriotic! Because a great nation is built by great people who believe in it, and if they stop believing in it, it's not a great nation anymore! Not without their care, devotion, passion and hard work. Not without the sweat of their brows; not without their tears of joy in happy times, and tears of pain in less happy times. We're all in this together you know! Old, young, rich and poor alike! People of every race, creed and color! Bound together by the ideals and laws of this great nation!
So put down that history book, and stop reading about the fall and sack of Rome. This isn't the Roman Empire! (I understand the temptation, as I, myself, was born on the IV Nones of March.) But such thinking is folly! We haven't been around as long as the Roman Empire! We haven't even had a tri-centennial! When Rome fell, there wasn't a worldwide crisis, (like global warming, today) threatening the survival of ALL mankind! And besides, just yesterday, The New York Times announced the return of the dirigible!
So buck up, soldiers and citizens! A cleaner, quieter, happier time is coming! You just have to believe in it!
So what did you do for the fourth? Me, I watched the fireworks display and bbq'd Hebrew Nationals (because they're the best) with friends! I thought about America! I thought about dirigibles!
Even my cat, who is my writing pal on Sunday mornings these days, has opted for a cooler spot in the apartment, sans shared body heat. (She thinks sweaty humans are kind of gross.)
Okay so a few updates: I'm done w/paralegal school. So I will be releasing the record I recorded with the help of Shawn Simmons, Patrick Porter, Burke Thomas, Michael Vermillion and Taryn Webber back in, uh, the summer of 2006? Sheesh, that sounds like a hazy, distant time of my life already.
In what form I will be releasing the record is still in the works. But there will be some kind of release. (I know Shawn has given up on the idea of this record being released, but I've simply been in suspended animation. ) Release of a record is, I have decided, more about the artist than the business. Why have I decided this? Because nobody is making a living off the release of my music, including me. But still: there is a side to release that often gets lost in the shuffle of talking about buzz and labels (major, indie, or whether they're even still relevant as businesses) DIY, and scenes: when you make something, there's a natural need to "release" it, to make room for something new. Kind of like a snake crawling out of it's skin and leaving the old skin behind. It's this squirmy itchy thing you have to do, whether you feel like it, or not. Whether you're making money, or not.
I've had to face this reality the past week because, well, to tell the truth, I saw my arms in the mirror one day and realized I had lost the fine (but subtle - it can be seen underneath smoother, softer flesh) muscle definition that comes from playing the guitar regularly. You can imagine my dismay, I'm sure, at discovering I had lost a lot of it - especially if you've ever maintained a vigorous workout regimen and have then let it slide, and seen the results of your negligence in the mirror.
Horrors!
So I pulled out my acoustic and started playing. The idea was to play for fun and make myself laugh, and begin to re-build the fine tuned (but subtle, don't forget subtle) musculature of which I was once so proud. Instead I ended up writing two songs. I write a lot of songs that I never try to keep. Songwriting is something I do almost without thinking, usually most of the songs suck, and I can let them go back to wherever they came from. But this week I wrote two songs that I liked a lot. Sigh: squirm squirm, itch itch. I am not excited about these songs, except in the most basic sense. I am not excited by the idea that I might write more of them, as I have no idea what to do with them. If I were still mono-focused on being an indie musican, I would not talk about them. I would lock myself up in my apartment with caffeine and Pabst, pull out my four-track; squirm, and itch, and try to capture the secret "magic" of moment and get a whole record out of it.
"A mosquito my (songwriting) libido" is pretty much how I feel about these songs.
The cat is back and trying to type. Ok, hold on I have a funny story about her but I have to ask her if it's okay to tell it so she doesn't sic her army of avocats on me. I also need permission to use her name, because the story won't flow without using her name. Hold on.
.....okay she says it's okay. s/Andrea M. Maxand for her cat.
Here is the story: When I first pulled out my guitar and started playing, my cat watched me for a few minutes, then ran straight to the bathroom and started yowling: wrenching, horrible cries of feline angst. At first, it was a terrible blow to my ego. But my determination to get my arms back in (subtle) shape kept me focused on my purpose, and then, a sudden inspiration hit me.
"Hey, Katy," I called (Katy is my cat's name - at least that's the name she lets me and my friends call her.) "I'm writing this song for you. This song is about you! Why don't you come hear your song?"
Silence from the bathroom.
"C'mon Katy. Come help me write."
A head poked around the bathroom door. "Meowr?"
"That's right, it's about you! I know it seems like I'm ignoring you right now, but I'm not, I'm writing you a song."
Katy emerged from the bathroom, emitting several approving meows, then plopped herself next to me on the couch and let me continue playing.
I swear to god this is true.
So, whether my cat actually enjoys my playing, I still don't know. But, as long as she knows it's all about her, we have a sort of understanding.
In the end, life is really all about negotiation, I suppose.
So hey, they found water on Mars. Google "water on mars" and see what you get.
What's next? Martian bottled water, I bet. A million bucks a bottle. At least.
***
I have been really depressed lately about "the environment". I grew up in Washington state, spending a lot of time outdoors and getting familiar with the feeling of seasons turning and changing. I spent a lot of time on various beaches around the area, picking up shells and rocks.
My parents had a Volkswagen van, all right? The old kind with a pop top. We didn't dress in tie dye, and my parents didn't smoke weed, and my dad was a little too concerned with cleanliness and keeping the van "ship shape" in order for us to qualify as full-blown hippies, but as I continue to meet people who have moved here from other parts of the country, I've gathered that I had a much more "earthy" experience growing up than a lot of other people have had.
I don't need to hear about record high temperatures in Antarctica, or declining krill populations in the oceans, or record breaking storms to know the planet is unbalanced. I can feel it. My hippie wits tell me. It's not a psychic thing. It's a "dude, I spent most of my school-age summers in a Volkswagen van" thing. You spend a lot of time outdoors, you notice a myriad of details. You also notice when they change. Flowering cherry trees never used to flower around here in January, for instance. You could count on that. My favorite beach in the world used to be strewn with the shells of sea animals, picked over by the seagulls. Now when I go there, you have to hunt for the shells. From the collective family memory: my dad grew up in Alaska before it was a state. Before he went to college, he worked on fishing boats. (Smaller, privately owned boats. Not like The Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel.) He used to talk about how the fish were so plentiful, during certain seasons, the water was "boiling" with them.
Of course, from the other side, the argument is we haven't had enough time to collect data on global warming, and other warnings regarding the destruction of the planet. The arguments generally run something like this: given the millions of years life has been on the planet, and how many times the planet has changed completely, how can we presume to know, in a period of a hundred or so years, whether our actions are affecting the planet adversely or not? Once upon a time, there were dinosaurs. Once upon a time, the planet was a much warmer place. Then again, once upon a time, the planet was covered in ice. Maybe the changes we see now are simply part of the natural order of things.
I actually admire this argument. I think there is something to it. If it is arrogant to assume the earth is ours to do with as we like, it is perhaps equally arrogant to assume we can "save" the earth so that it will always be a habitable place for humans.
However, this argument tends to ignore common sense. If you throw poison on something living and it dies, if you can see and prove the cause and effect, to try to attribute that death to "the natural order of things" is just plain B.S. It makes about as much sense as killing someone, and then arguing in your own defense that the person was "going to die anyway." By now, we've seen enough proven results of human activity to know that we do a lot of horrible things to this planet. We kill things. We're good at it. We even have a genius for it.
This genius is part of what has helped us gangly, hairless creatures with heads too big for our bodies survive. I'm not anti-survival, anti "nature is red in tooth and claw", I love fuzzy cute animals, but I know my cat would eat me if she were starving to death.
The thing is now, we need to turn that genius in a different direction. Most of the time, unfortunately, I fear that we won't do this. I know we can do this (and this is what gives me hope) but I fear there are powerful cyncial folks who know very well that we're destroying the planet, and they simply don't care. It's not a matter of convincing them the destruction is happening, it's a matter of convincing them the destruction should and must stop. That life is worth tending to, even if we can't control it, even if, ultimately, humanity is doomed, in geologic time, solar time, or any other kind of natural time.
As much as I respond to stories about whales dying of broken hearts, and epic tales of penguins marching to reproduce their kind, and even dogs nursing orphaned baby deer where the vanishing wildnerness meets suburbia - I don't think this kind of awareness will "save" us.
What will, I believe, save us, is if we turn our genius to figure out how to make saving the planet profitable. People need to be able to get rich off it. We need Green Tycoons instead of oil tycoons. We need an industry, something that exists as an engine to drive an economy based on conservation rather than consumption. That seem impossible, I know. How can conservation replace consumption as a driver of economies? And all this while keeping intact a sense of human dignity and respect?
I don't know how, and I realize it sounds absolutely crazy. But I am willing to bet there are geniuses out there who can figure it out.
So get to work, geniuses.
***
And now for the video postscript. Few things say "hope" like this video: scroungy looking indie band playing thoughtful song about life and death in the midst of happy dancing schoolchildren. Makes you think about mortality. And whether your kids' school will prepare them to get ahead in the world. Doesn't it? Awww. Where's that penguin movie, anyway....
I have, over the weekend, come to the conclusion that I am a complete dork.
It's a relief, as you might imagine, because after all these years of struggling desperately against my inner dork, to be able to admit I am a dork and embrace all that entails - I feel so free, so relieved of unnecessary burdens - I am, truthfully, a bit giddy.
I will, I am certain, have relapses into shame and self-condemnation of my dorkness; but the train is on the tracks. She might make a few stops, but she's going all the way to the end of the line, baby!
There's something about just admitting who you are that contains an inherent power to shift your perception of the most ordinary of situations. Put another way: Once you know you're a dork, the whole world changes! You'll walk in to a coffee shop, a coffee shop you used to frequent in the days you hid your dorkness, and all the little gestures and words you've been in the habit of keeping to yourself will rush to the tips of your limbs and the tip of your tongue. You get set to hold them back, but then you remember: "I don't have to - I'm a dork!" You can let them rip!
Or you'll be standing at the mailbox in your apartment building, (acting like a dork) and someone else will come to get his or her mail. Your first impulse is to stop being "such a dork". But then you remember: you are a dork! There's nothing you can do. Dork away, you fabulous dork! (Maybe the other person is a dork, too, and just hasn't realized it yet.)
Or maybe you're listening to your old records and cds, and you happen upon a song like "Else" by Built to Spill, from Keep It Like A Secret. You're bopping your head up and down, arms stuck at your sides, feet glued to the floor (as if you were in a club in Seattle, living it up northwest style) and this line comes up:
Best not talk too loud/You're not as smart as you require a mouth
And you realize for the first time: that line was never meant to be taken literally! It's merely the expression of an attitude, a generality, a platittude woven in to the musical fabric of a loping bass line and wiggly guitars, a platitude put there intentionally! A platitude nestled in the context of an indie rock song to show you that you've been running around your whole life thinking you should keep quiet lest you betray a lack of perception, wit, or knowledge, when what you should actually be doing is running off at the mouth! Who cares if you sound stupid? Who cares if you are stupid! Think about it: this line comes from a guy who gets up on stage and makes dorky noises on his guitar, and sings to you - in public! In full view of GAWD and Everybody! He wasn't keeping his mouth shut when he said that (aloud and captured to be played over and over again, on a record; aloud, live, in public). He's the biggest dork of them all!
Is it dorky to realize all this now, at this late date? You bet! But the great thing about embracing your dorkness is: it doesn't matter! So if you're a dork, wear your dorkness with pride. Gather all your dorky people together and have a dorky party to celebrate. I want to see your dorky hands in the air, and real smiles breaking through those studied masks of ironic and tortured ennui! Try laughing out loud in public instead of raising your eyebrows! Let your laugh hang in the air, take inventory of all the startled looks, and laugh again, louder! C'mon! You can do it! .
I believe in the power of the people to change the world. I truly do. So get out of those closets and fly your dork flags high.
(And if you find yourself hiding your dorkness now and then, that's okay. Just get back on the train and keep going. We've all been there, and we'll all be there again. You're on the right train, you're heading in the right direction, and that's all that matters.)
***
Happy father's day to all fathers out there. You big dorks.
Yeah. Well. Myspace just ate my blog. God I hate that.
Maybe it's just as well - I don't have much to say this morning.
I'm really digging Gemma Hayes right now - going backward to her earlier records. There are two. She just released a new record in May of 2008, The Hollow of Morning, recorded during 2006 and 2007.
She's Irish, and it's good to get familiar with music coming from Irish folks because, well, the Irish are taking over Seattle. It's true. Think about it. What other group of folks could handle this weather we've been having lately, and thrive in it?
Just the other day I saw a leprechaun on the Denny regrade...
...wait this feels kind of like a South Park episode...
...okay well. I have a final this week so I'm going to be studying a lot. I should probably get to it.
*** (Oh yeah. Yay Barack! Let's get our country back. Now there's a task for some serious thought and effort.)
So. All this anti-Hilary Clinton talk in which I've been indulging over the past several months makes me think I should finally address a subject that I've avoided ever since I started this blog. (Or at least, I think I've avoided it. I've been doing this for awhile, so maybe I did adress it some Sunday back there in the blog trail. But I'm pretty sure I haven't.)
The topic is feminism, so if the mention of that word makes you want to play an air violin - well, I can't stop you. Yuk it up like Itzhak Perlman.
In the interest of being fair and balanced with an exposition of my own opinions, however, I think I should spend some time on this.
This week I clicked on a yahoo link that promised an article discussing high paying jobs for women. The introductory paragraph of the article acknowledged that inequality in pay in the workplace for women is still an insidious problem. But, the article went on, some things have changed for the better. Then it went into the list of high paying careers for women. There were five of them. A couple interesting points to note (from memory) about the article:
1) With the exception of one, all of the jobs listed had a median salary of less than 100k annually (60k to 80k was the range for the four.)
2) The one job that was not less than 100k was "Entrepreneur". The sky's the limit on this one, the article said, and while you might not be the next Mary Kay Ash, there's no telling how far you might go.
I don't know about you, but I haven't met an ambitious career guy over 22 who thinks that topping out under 100k is a "high-paying job".
Now if you don't want a high-paying job, it doesn't matter. But if you do, and that's truly the top end for an ambitious career woman, well, that's just - sad.
If it isn't truly the top end, then: who is writing this crap, and why are they writing it? Who is paying them to write it?
***
I grew up with liberal parents. Whatever that means. As you get older, you discover the monolithic views you thought your parents clung to were much more complex and multifaceted than you had realized. However, I was raised with a general sense of "girls can do anything". The destruction of that sense, of course, started in school. In elementary school, I was an arm waver. My hand was always in the air with the answer. I was usually right, but when I was wrong I never forgot the answer (and I think I actually learned more when I was wrong). It wasn't the momentary shame of having the wrong answer in front of the class that stopped me from volunteering answers in school and looking unpopular for doing so. It was puberty.
***
It's seventh grade in a public suburban junior high school in America. Everyone is white (It's 1980 something.) A year ago, you were in a class with boys and girls. You stayed with the same students all year, and everyone in the class, male and female, became a personality by the end of the year.
Now you move around the halls from class to class, so that you no longer get to know people just by being in class with them. You have to be in a sport for that. Or chess club. Or hang out behind the school and get stoned club.
You see couples necking in the hall, which is forbidden, but it seems so wild, so free, (the way you felt just last year when they let you out for recess) that it starts to look like a way out of the drudgery of school. And so yeah, your hormones are raging and you want to experiment, and that's natural, but it seems like so much more than that. It looks like adulthood - and adulthood means freedom.
You are required to take gym, where they now separate the boys and girls. If you're a girl, you have to take showers with girls, you have to look at naked girls all the time, tons of them. Unless you're a girl who really really likes girls (and if you did, good for you) this is not necessarily a pleasant experience. It invites comparisons and the development of standards of physical perfection - among girls. Seventh grade was when we all started to talk weird. It's when we started to use the word "like", and like, we all started to sound totally the same.
It's also when girls who were smart last year start to not be so smart. (I didn't fall into that trap until I was a sophomore in high school.) In seventh grade (this story I'm pretty sure I've told before: my own personal "I hate math!" story) I took eighth grade math. We had an assigned seating chart. My assigned seat was in the back. (In those days, I actually preferred to sit near the front.) I was surrounded by eighth graders, one of whom, a boy with permed light brown hair - a sort of 1980's white boy 'fro - tormented me every day. Some of his comments were sexual. I never complained. I just took it (like a man!). A girl who sat near him, an eighth grade girl who had a short haircut and always wore a denim jacket and had a friendly face, would snicker at everything he said. I don't know why. Thinking back, most of the things he said weren't that clever. Maybe she was turned on by his white boy 'fro....
Fortunately, there was a fellow 7th grader in 8th Grade Math, Darcy, who had heard Mr. White Boy 'Fro tormenting me during class. As it turned out, Darcy and I also had geek English and geek Social Studies together, and one day, in geek English, Darcy said she'd heard what was going on in math and felt sorry for me - but she didn't say it as if she pitied me - she said it to let me know she could just as easily have imagined herself being the target of the same kind of teasing. Darcy ended up being one of my best friends until my family moved to Seattle a couple years later. By the end of our freshman year of high school she had developed a whole language of her own called "Lizardeze". She wrote an entire entry in "Lizardeze" in my annual. She gave me a decoder, too - but I've since lost the decoder.
***
And I still haven't really discussed Feminism, with a capital "F".
I am one of those people who is uncomfortable with "isms".
Religious-ism, Political Correctness-ism, and Feminine-ism are just a few of the "isms" that I have been attracted to, then repelled by during my lifetime. The attraction happens because I believe there is something good at the heart and intention of each of the "isms". And then, I am repelled because something about "ism-ness" destroys the heart and spirit of the good thing that attracted me in the first place. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it may have something to do with "Dogma-ism" and "Militant-ism"; both of which don't allow much room for a sense of humor.
But that's avoiding the issue. Why was I attracted to feminism once? Because sometimes, it really sucks being a girl. Because most of the time, nobody listens to what you have to say. Because despite the TV series "Sex in the City" the married woman/slut dichotomy still exists in the minds of men, and, frankly in the minds of other women, and if you are anything in between, you are hard to place and it can be lonely and scary when you're a hard person to place. Because women are different from men, but one half of humanity, and I do truly believe that to marginalize one half of humanity makes the experience of being human poorer for all of us.
***
When I was into Religious-ism, what turned me off was that you could ask questions, but only certain questions. Basically, any questions that were believed to thwart "the cause" were not allowed. I was involved in a somewhat progressive branch of Religious-ism, so many more questions were allowed than in perhaps some other branches. However, it was an evangelistic branch, and the one question we could never ask was: "What if evangelism actually does more harm than it does good?". That was what finally killed it for me. (That, and I was really hot for this guy, and I didn't think I could wait to evangelize him and get him to ask me to marry him before I made a move. As it turned out, he was gay.)
I moved from Religious-ism to Feminine-ism, and my personal experience was to find there were questions in this ism that were also not okay to ask. The tone of the realm of the forbidden was different.
First: It seemed especially taboo to address the idea that sometimes, maybe even often, women are just as responsible for keeping other women down as are men - and in particular, the idea that other women who professed feminism might keep sometimes keep other women down. Again, my beliefs are shaped by my personal experience, but in my life, when I have been lifted up, it has always been not by a movement or a philosophy, but by an extraordinary individual who goes the extra mile to invest in me, or who has thrown me a lifeline when I needed it. Sometimes these people have been women. Sometimes, they have been men.
Another undercurrent I found personally to be stifling in feminism was a tendency to not allow self-criticism of the movement and mindset, although this also made sense to me Most women, myself included, are entirely too self-critical as it is. If you've been brought up in a religious tradition that teaches you to think every human urge you have is automatically sinful, that problem is compounded. But there is a kind of self-criticism that is helpful. Not the "I hate my body; why am I so fat and ugly" type of self-criticism, but the "Maybe we messed that one up and there's a better answer" type of self-criticism. (Now, not to oversimplify, there is scholarly self-critiscism of the feminist movement, and so it's not fair to say it doesn't exist. I guess I"m more speaking to the tendency of people, when they hang out in groups and call themselves by an 'ism', to identiy with the group and feel self-righteous .)
More and more, I find I'm trying to get back to the feeling I had when I was a kid, and thought I knew the right answer in class, and raised my hand, and gave the wrong answer, and everybody laughed at me, and I felt stupid, but I learnedsomething. And the amazing thing still is, to me, when I look back on my school age self, is that I would jump right in and raise my hand again, even remembering how humiliating it could be to be wrong. What I finally had ground out of me by the time I graduated high school wasn't the ability to be a whiz at Advanced Calculus - it was the ability to keep asking questions and to keep risking looking stupid in the process; the ability to keep learning from my mistakes.
I've been trying to get it back ever since.
This doesn't even scratch the surface of feminism, and my sometimes troubled dialogue with it, including everything that is good and inspired and necessary about it. What I'm trying to say is that I am a feminine-ism-ist, but only when I can constantly re-define what that means to me. I'm also a move-from-the-back-of-the-class-and-look-like-an-idiot-ism-ist. I pretty much suck at that last ism, but as long as it's challenging, eh?
So I first heard this morning (Saturday morning, I guess now it's Sunday morning, isn't it?) about Hilary Clinton's "assasination remarks". (No, I did not watch the news or read any news on Friday. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is often weak.) And I saw that Barack Obama had dismissed the remarks as no big deal.
I tried to do the same, all day. I had a lot to do. Errands to run. Studying to complete. An assignment to turn in.
Near the end of the day, post assignment submission and hanging out with a friend and picking up some food and beer at a mini mart, I stopped by the magazine stand. You know the type. It's a mini-mart magazine stand. Booby magazines on one level, home and garden magazines on another, and a few major magazines on another.
Right at my eye level (that would have been below the booby magazines, which were more at a man's or a taller woman's eye level) I saw, juxtapositioned, an issue of Vanity Fair with Bobby Kennedy on the cover, and Esquire, with Barack Obama on the cover.
And I got this sick, sad, awful feeling, and I remembered again Hilary Clinton's remarks. And I wished she hadn't said them.
I called my friend over to look at the magazines. We made a plan to look up the actual video of Senator Clinton online, later.
So we did.
In context, Senator Clinton's remarks come as part of an explanation of why she has not yet dropped out of the democratic primary race.
And watching her speak, my discomfort increased and continued. I couldn't put what I was feeling into words, however.
Fortuneately, Keith Oberman did:
Every word needed to be said.
(But the switches in camera angles still crack me up.)
I wish nothing at all bad for Hilary Clinton. As a woman I still empathize with her. It's impossible not to do so. But I want her to set the bar higher. I want to see her handle the rest of the primary, and the rest of her career as a politician, with real class. But this ain't how I want to see that glass ceiling shatter. Period.
