Meow: of Cougars and other such nonsense.
[This is a piece I wrote a while back, which you can now read in it's edited and enhanced version in the beautiful Whore! Magazine]
I have been going to The Gym religiously for the past three months as part of an effort to try to alleviate a knee injury which I was told, none to gently, was much to do with my age and over use of said knee. In fact, the doctor had basically described the problem by saying that while I am forty, my knee is actually more like that of a 60 year old. For more reasons than would ever be necessary to articulate this has landed me in The Gym. As I was working my way through my circuit the other day two girls came over to share my space. It was clear that one of them had a plan and the other had no clue and they were there together as some sort of team effort to “get fit.” I kept working and watching. Like everyone else at the gym I now do that immediate, yet cursory, comparative evaluation of the people around me. For example, these two women were clearly younger than me, but also, not nearly as strong, toned, or athletic. Okay, they were pudgy, in that soft way that somehow is okay in youth. I carried on. They began to chat.
“I was listening to the radio on the way to drop my kids of at school today, and it was talking about how women in their forties want sex way more than younger women.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like how I guess they have done all this other stuff and now they are just, like, able to get what they want and stuff.”
“Well, yeah, I mean that makes sense. I mean, if you are forty what else is there? It is not like you can do anything else like go settle down or something. You are so old you might as well get what you want.”
I was looking straight at these two at this point. Either I did not appear to be one of those old people who had no other point in their eyes or they really were as clueless as their conversation indicated.
Forty. Too old to do anything else. Might as well get what you want.
I kept lifting weights and considered the myriad interpretations of this conversation replete with contradictions. Am I a sex-crazed, past the point of redemption, goal oriented, middle-aged woman deserving pity? Or was it jealousy I heard? The conversation went on:
“Yeah, I guess. Kind of like Cici. Have you seen her on my Facebook? She is smoking hot. She so tight. And she’s like that.”
“I haven’t seen her except for that little picture, we’re not friends.”
“Oh, well, she is like 36 and she look so good. Of course, I’d look like that if I didn’t have kids too.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I felt sorry for Cici if these were who she called her friends.
As I walked away it considered the effects of women now joining in on this stereotyping and pigeon holing of single women well beyond their early thirties who are not raising young children or married – happily or otherwise. Now, it seems, it is not just men doing the labeling, but other women as well. They all look and judge, and cry “Cougar!”
The double standard is obvious and deserves little exploration or examination beyond reiterating the obvious ignorance and durability of it. In high school, the guys who have sex with lots of girls are studs, the girls who do the same are sluts, it is a universal tradition. As we get older and people begin to pair off into legally sanctioned couples, the men who remain single are called bachelors, a term with plenty of panache and class. The women? They are spinsters, desperate, divorcees. At my 20-year high school reunion I was one of maybe five single people. And of that five I think I was only one of two who had actually never been married. My male friend was congratulated by all his buddies. I was questioned: Are you married? No? Never? Huh. How come? Why not?
Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
Interestingly I have found that it is the men who seem far more desperate to settle down than the women I know, and while I have no evidence beyond the empirical about this, I think it would be an interesting study to see if the issue lies somehow in some strange, buried rejection psychology. Logic would hold that the women who remain single have more likely rejected certain men than never have been propositioned or considered. Therefore, it seems to me that the women who remain single into their thirties and forties may trigger some sort of deep seeded resentment from men, and consequentially, women.
And what of the women who are now joining in the labeling and judging? To say it is simply jealousy seems short sighted, but why do these women care about the single ladies? They have already stipulated that one of the things they find the most offensive is the Cougar tendency to seek younger men, therefore, their husbands are not even under consideration. And I would agree, the type of man who catches my eye is never the middle-aged guy with a wife and kids. Ever. My tastes have remained consistent from my earliest interests as a single teenaged girl. And this, I am certain, is the root of any type of Cougar nature that I have. It lies purely in the aesthetic. It is like everyone around me has grown up and out and older while I still appreciate the man who is out there being single and putting a little effort into his game. Perhaps it is the reminder of a lifestyle that they (mistakenly) believe they have given up. Though I would be quick to point out that no single woman I know has ever even suggested that somehow having a husband and or children should require a) an older man or b) a resignation to the world of abstinence or (perhaps worse) self-conscious sex.
Further, it is important to consider the basic mathematical circumstances that we are dealing with. Women live longer than men. Women (through their own mental torture and the insistence of society) are forced to stay in better shape than men. Women are more likely to be single by choice than men (again, this is unsubstantiated beyond my own years of observation, but will be used as a given here.) There are more women on the planet than men (this happens to actually be substantiated, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html ). Putting these facts together lends a level of understanding, or perhaps necessity, to a measurable part of the female population currently being labeled Cougars.
There are numerous studies coming out around the world describing the plight of men as the gender gap takes on new characteristics (see Where Are the Boys? The Growing Gender Gap in Higher Education, Thomas G. Mortensen, as an example.) In China men struggle to find wives amidst a female population embracing academia and professional options. In America, women are outpacing men academically and professionally (in spite of the fact that their salaries are yet to be truly commensurate) and feel less inclined to settle for a relationship where this discrepancy could cause friction.
Women in their forties are better equipped to seek and create sexual relationships that are more satisfying. This is from experience, knowledge and diminishing concern about needing to behave a certain way based on the age-old social rules of “How To Get A Man.” It all equates to confidence. And herein lies the real issue behind the Cougar label. Confident women freak people out, in just about any circumstance: dating, work, politics, school, and on and on and on. This is a conundrum because there is a general understanding that confidence is somehow desirable and beneficial, but apparently it is the Goldilocks syndrome: must be confident. But not too confident.
The term Cougar is also often misused. Carrying with it a clearly negative connotation, the label suggests a women seeking prey – and of course this prey would be younger. Younger because it is easier to snare or manipulate? Maybe, but I would guess it is more likely to do with aesthetics than anything else. No one ever asks Hef why he likes buxom blondes in their twenties, it is his obvious taste (and I rarely hear him being described in predatory terms, which I am sure we could all argue would be far more appropriate than suggesting a 38 year old woman with a 20-something boyfriend is predatory.) The label itself does little to consider the actual nature of any sort of relationship between an older woman and a younger man, and the obvious suggestion that the women had to chase, capture and claim her young man is offensive at every level. If Hef is excused from labeling because the women come to him rather than him chasing them, it seems obvious that the assumption a woman has had to chase a younger man only gives further credence to the chauvinism that perpetuates such labeling in the first place. How could anyone know if the women sought the young man or it was the other way around? I can say with certainty that I am not a chaser though I certainly date younger men.
I recently began asking men (generally single) what they thought of the term Cougar. Did they think of me as a Cougar? Did they think it had positive or negative connotations? The results of my informal straw poll were predictable but still interesting. The men I know who I consider confident and intelligent took the term with a grain of salt (and of the ladies who would earn the label, they were generally complimentary.) Bartenders were very positive, apparently older women tip very well. Young drunk frat boys were also very positive, though I would assume they would have been as equally enthusiastic over a bacon wrapped hot dog in their condition. My married (male) friends saw a place for the term, but likened it more to Sex and the City’s Samantha, who they appreciated far more in celluloid than the possibility of reality. Everyone I asked assured me emphatically and repeatedly that I was in no way a Cougar. This made me laugh because in just about every situation where the subject came up I was with a younger man, or had last been with a younger man. It belied their acceptance of the term showing that in fact they do all see it as an insult, and one they would not levy on a person that they know or like. Of note, they defended their insistence that I was not a Cougar on the basis of my arrogance and unwillingness to pursue. Another backhanded compliment?
In even a superficial examination of history it is easy to see the discomfort that females who own, promote or embrace their sexuality have engendered. This has long been the domain of the fancy peacock – not the more subtle of the species. Anytime a woman acts in a way that is considered more masculine in tradition she is bound to run into some friction. Hence the double standard. I would guess this double standard will far outlive the current terminology and will morph into a series of new descriptors as humanity carries on, especially in light of the fact that the current trends in gender disparities appear to be on a trajectory that will only intensify the situation. From harlot to whore to slut to dyke to bitch to desperate housewife to Cougar and beyond,
A few years back I met a nice young man at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens. I was in the latter half of my thirties and he was just at the midpoint of his twenties. I would describe this young man as strapping – he was after all, one of the famed New Zealand All-Blacks, 6’2”, 230 according to his official stats page, with what I will describe as negligible body fat. Clearly younger than me, that fact was of no consequence to him (or me) as we walked around the City all night. We heard nary a word regarding our (unlikely?) pairing. The following year I met a nice young man from Chicago at the same tournament. Our presence together should have garnered far less interest than my pairing from the year before. Yet as we walked around the always crowded corner at the top of D’Aguilar street in Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong, a group of boisterous Aussie and British guys who had attended the tournament dressed in matching pink tutus and sparkly cowboy hats (also pink) looked right at me and started to point and yell, “Cougar! You are such a COUgar! Hey, here’s a COUGAR for you!”
I went from stunned to mildly irritated to embarrassed to enraged in less than five taunts. A man (sans wedding ring, by the way) in a sparkly pink dress was trying to insult me because I was with someone younger than me who could not obviously kick their ass in an All-Black-minute.
Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
And so it goes, around and around. The Cougar label suggesting far less about those to whom it is attached and disclosing far more about those who choose to throw it around. At it’s root, it seems to be a way for those who feel threatened by less conventional women to somehow disenfranchise them through put-downs and insults. In terms of a cultural phenomenon, the existence of a “Cougar” population seems a completely logical outgrowth of the demands that society, and the name-callers especially, have put on women for years. You demand we look good, be achievers and embrace the virgin-whore dichotomy, and this is what you are going to get: a huge group of women terribly disappointed with their available options for partners leading us to embrace single-dom and consider unconventional partners.
I am reminded of any number of tales of genies bearing promise of wishes granted. Be you oh-so-careful when given the chance to make your wish.
The Illusion of Perfection, part 1
I knew a couple once, in what was like another lifetime, that seemed like this absolutely RomCom reality. They were like perpetual honeymooners. It wasn’t just that they never fought, it was that they clearly, outwardly (and in every way) adored each other all the time. All.The.Time. It was as if they had somehow managed to capture that first week/month/(or so) thrill of infatuation and live within it.
It reminded me of a Disney movie.
Umm. She was asleep. Yeah, I know…
I spent quite a bit of time with this couple, and I will not say when or in what capacity because in this case confidentiality is really important, but the more important thing is to know how much I idealized these two. He was older and she was his second (younger) wife. And they fawned over each other, and they were ever considerate, he in the way the foppish guy in the RomCom always is, eliciting groans from the male audience, and ‘awwwww,’ from the girls. Even tough girls do it so don’t front. She was sometimes silly in that reborn nerd girl kind of way, and he always played the straight man, ever patient, never getting ruffled. They seemed to be a Perfect Couple.
The person I was with when I first met them had no time for them. He was not impressed at all. My next partner during this time – not always the sharpest tool in the shed – always said he thought something was off. [Sometimes those well-used tools shine bright.] My mom said the same thing of them, not that it was an act exactly , but that it certainly seemed to exact effort. Eventually, I knew their secrets. All of them. Well, all of hers, and the ones he had shared with her. I imagine with the number of secrets she had that he would never know, he must have had some doozies that she did not know. They were the kind of secrets that, even in a soap opera, would elicit incredulity. It was clichéd dirty laundry of the worst sort. And even when she told all my secrets, I never told hers because I knew that he would leave her if he found them out. Absolutely. As far as I know they are still together, but she must go to bed every night knowing the secrets she cannot tell. I think now that this is what contributes to her manic adoration. But I don’t really know. Anyhow, that was the Perfect Couple I knew.
I found myself thinking of this perfect couple not too long ago. The Neo-Honeymooners. I was living in that heady, intense, early onset adoration that develops – if you are lucky – in the initial stages of a relationship. While I was giddily (is that a word?) soaking it all up, I was amazed that it appeared I had stumbled upon that magic elixir of perpetual infatuation. This would never end! Huzzah! I win!
I forgot for a minute that every magic elixir I know of knocks you out and leaves you with a whopping hangover at best, or maybe just puts you into some comatose state of delusion [see exhibit Sleeping Beauty, above.]
And so when the moment came when I had to see this person as a real human and not some Disney character, I had to pause. Had I failed? Was I doomed to a perpetual cycle of up and down romance always culminating in some sort of dramatic downward spiral? Those were my first thoughts. Definitely. But then, I sat with myself and looked at those ideas more closely. It dawned on me that as reality emerged through the foggy illusion of [let's face it, one-dimensional] perfection, it was probably happening for him too in regard to me. And he did not seem all that troubled by it. When I fretted about my own reality poking through the rainbow haze, he didn’t do anything, he just stayed right there.
And that is something.
This whole living in reality thing seems very adult. And there are parts of it that also seem really uninspired. But, I do not go to bed harboring secrets. And I know that he is not bothered by the fact that I did not put away the clean laundry, or that everyday is not like a RomCom holiday. We are humans and [mostly] doing the best we can for each other all the time. I guess that means we really like each other. A lot.
Then I though about another “Perfect Couple” I know. And another. And another. What has made them all perfect is how they embrace the imperfections. [Or, at least manage them and deal with them...] I know this is not always easy. Or fun. But that is the magic of the real Honeymooners: One of these days, POW! Right in the kisser…!
The Kramden’s knew what a real honeymoon was.
I have – I’ve got an explanation. A perfect one. I’m a dope. Not a run-of-the-mill dope, the world’s champ. For years I’ve been taking for granted the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me – you. I’ve never shown you the appreciation you deserve, Alice. You could walk outta that door right now and I wouldn’t blame you. You deserve something better than me. There are a million guys who’d give you anything if they could have a girl like you.
Ralph, I don’t want a million. There’s just one guy I want: you.
Baby, you’re the greatest.
Mental Body Imaging.
I used to live with a bulemic (truth be told, I have lived with two bulemics, two anorexics, an exercise bulemic, a laxative addict, and several compulsive eaters – but hey, I came up in the 80s where, according to Movado watches – and the general social consciousness – you could “never be too rich or too thin” and I certainly had my own food issues: I ate). The bulemic to which I refer now had a lot of other issues, as I imagine most do, but I bring her up now to make this point: I used to look at her and think to myself, “Wow, you are a really horrible bulemic. You are still fat.” True story. When I think about how I would think these things about her, I feel pretty bad, but then there was a lot of other shit going on in that relationship. Still, looking at it in print, it’s a pretty embarrassing thing to admit.
At the time, I remember being somehow acutely aware of my own physicality, but also totally unconcerned with it; a rare combination I have not since experienced. Of course, I was 24 and super active and looked great. I am not sure I ever crossed the threshold of being conscious of looking great, but, I knew at least enough to know that I did not need to hate myself via my appearance.
And I did not think about it a whole lot more for quite some time.
Then I moved to China Light (Hong Kong.) A place with all the constraints of Old China and the demands of the West. In other words, aesthetically speaking, the vast majority of women are fucked. I know the body-positive set says something like a bajillion women don’t look like supermodels and only eight do, or something, but in Hong Kong it is far worse. It is worse because there are women of every ethnic and national background trying to co-opt the best features of every other group. If this were possible in reality the tragic mishmash would be horrible, but as it is you see Asian women with the natural inclination towards thinness perming their hair, whitening their skin, augmenting their breasts, reshaping their noses and eyelid surgery. Western women are straightening their hair (that which they do not remove), coloring everything that can be colored, darkening their skin, and liposucitoning the rest away. South Asian and Middle Eastern women follow suit with their own tendencies – threading, whitening….
And all of them are dieting. No one is thin enough.*
When I first arrived in Hong Kong I was not fat. I was not even chubby. I was thin. But I would go into shops and local shopkeepers, who do not let you try things on, would say, “Noooo… not for you Missy. Too big.” Local people would comment on how “strong I was.” A lovely euphemism for too big to comprehend. And if your local friends thought you had put on a few pounds, they would simply say to you, “You fat.” The objective delivery made it all the worse because it gets you in the mind-set that it is not an insult at all, but a reality, and likely a reality you are going to need to deal with. Soon. [I am reminded of the Chinese restaurant in Kota Kinabalu that I saw called Soon Fatt. Sigh.]
When you are surrounded by people who are a fraction of your size, you just get used to feeling huge. And the longer I was in Asia, the more huge I felt. Bear in mind, I am 5’10″. I generally weigh about 150 pounds, give or take. I am really active, very strong (in the non-Chinese meaning of the word) and pretty healthy. Living in Asia I wore an extra-large in everything. Bigger if it was available. It was just the way it was. When I would come home, the sizes I wore would get increasingly smaller. I remember coming home in 2008 and going to Banana Republic where the sales person sized me up as a six. I laughed out loud. I have not been a size six since middle school. But vanity sizing had hit in the States and so the sizes were quite literally nothing but a number. It was a joke (especially at the mid-market stores, like Banana, etc.) The thing is, I am a size ten. Legitimately, that is the size I wear. I have very broad shoulders and a wingspan that is longer than my height, not to mention a 34″ inseam. I.Am.Not.A.Size.Six. My old clothes attest to the accurate size, my new clothes say I am a six or an eight.
Lies.
But it says a lot about what we are working with in terms of body image. In Asia, no matter how small you are, you are never small enough. And in the US when people are too big (they are) the solution has been to adjust sizing to pretend you are not so big. Both scenarios tell us that we are not okay as we are. And for some reason that is an incredibly easy truth to hold fast.
Before I came home from Asia I spent six weeks in India. I was at an ashram for the majority of the time. How I looked was absolutely not a focus. I was there for a whole slew of other reasons. The focus on the aesthetic slipped easily away when washing one’s hair became an ordeal best left for once or twice a week and getting clothes clean, at least for this Westerner, was not a reality using a concrete slab and hard soap. I lost so much weight in the ashram that I stopped having my period. This was not intentional in any way. But when I left the ashram and I had a look at my physique, I was entranced. Enamored. It was amazing. Always having been healthy, I was now skinny. It was a total trip. Obviously my body was in some state of shock, and so was my mind. But having once reached the “Promised Land” I have never been able to let it go.
I returned to Hong Kong and everyone I knew was so pleased with how I looked. Then I moved home to the States and you can imagine how I looked relative to my surroundings. But, once out of the ashram, and back to a more regular life, so too was my body more regular, and oh! – the disappointment of regularity. Beyond the disappointment, there is the next phase: chasing the dragon. And once you are in pursuit of an inappropriate goal, you are on the treadmill which, unlike any other treadmill, actually has a destination: BDD.
Body dysmorphic disorder is described as “a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of their physical features. The individual’s symptoms must not be better accounted for by another disorder; for example, weight concern is usually more accurately attributed to an eating disorder.” It is on the same continuum as OCD and can manifest in a number of ways. There are sorts of online tests you can take to determine if you have BDD – but really, if you think you have it, you probably do. The severity varies and in no way am I in need of hospitalization, or is it effecting my work (in fact, my work often is a forced counter-balance to my own issues because I am overly conscious of being “body-positive” [I'll get to this "body-positive" nonsense in a moment] in front of my students because somehow in spite of how I might be feeling about my shit, it seems like I am somehow responsible for not contributing to theirs). Still, the disconnect between how I see myself and a more likely reality has been growing for some time now. Well, since I came home, specifically. And the fact that back in the land of corpulence I am more freaked out than I was in Asia is an irony that is not lost on me.
In Asia I had the built-in safety net of impossibility. With no chance of meeting the “ideal” you are free to just do your thing, this is why it is so much harder for my Asian friends over there. However, after I returned to the US, my altered perspective began to emerge from a more subconscious level, right out into the forefront of my daily existence. This grew into a silent obsession with the minutia of my appearance. My physicality. My hair. My nails. My skin. My BDD has manifested in an internal dialog that is getting a bit tedious, frankly.
A while back I found myself looking at one of those “body-positive” websites a friend had posted on Facebook. And while I certainly can see where there might be something positive about it, I found nothing aesthetically tolerable about it: the sizes, the shapes, the stylings, none of it. In fact, as I looked at pictures of legitimately large women lolling around in lingerie, I started getting irritated about it. I mean, it is not like fat is healthy. I wondered how these people could walk around and not seem bothered by all the things that were bothering me.
After I looked at the website for a while I looked at myself. And instead of seeing my same old size ten self, who should have looked pretty damn fit in comparison – I saw those images. And it was real. I looked and looked and looked and tried all sorts of angles and still, it was all this deformed distorted unpleasantness. It was all I saw. Last week I saw myself in a photo someone had just taken. I did a double take. I was cracking up over something and looking totally relaxed. I could not believe that was how I looked. But it was me. I looked in the mirror.
Total disconnect.
It is strange. Rationally, I know I look fine. But somehow, it is so easy to convince oneself otherwise… And then the things l love to do become chorish. And all this Photoshop v. non-Photoshop stuff, or the whole “Real women” campaign, and the body positive shit just becomes even more annoying. Even hanging around someone who thinks you are simply amazing (hi mom!) in every way cannot really combat the weirdness. I imagine it will be something I always think about – but I hope for now at least, that whether or not my reality matches that of others, it can become a little less important. We’ll see.
Right now I’m going to the gym.
Or not.
*All data is empirical and based on personal observation rather than statistics, though it is easy enough to find stats that both support my statements and refute them with equal vehemence and frequency.
Broken.
Going to leave this brokedown palace,
On my hands and knees, I will roll, roll, roll.
I went to see a friend tonight that I had not seen in years. We were thinking that it had probably been Pre-Y2K the last time we actually shared space. We sort of knew what to expect in that strange “I’ve seen you the Facebook” way, but still it had been ages. I had a few reservations about going – mostly I was feeling tired and not totally into going to a show, but it felt like I had been cancelling and cancelling and it would be nice to catch up. Still, there was something just sitting there right outside my conscience niggling me, causing me to feel uncomfortable enough to be conscious. I was a little late, but so was he, and then there was the standard cock-up at the door, as is often the case at local shows. Once inside, my anxiety completely dissipated as I was immediately swept up into the familiarity of the Auditorium. My response to live music and the accompanying scene is visceral and inescapable; it is in my DNA. And it is so easy to overlook so many things when you are suddenly the one who can sit anywhere, go anywhere, do anything, because you are with the right people.
But this night I wanted to talk to my friend. I wanted to ask him so many questions. What he had been doing. How he was. Who he had seen. Share our collective conscience. But he was in show mode. After a lifetime of always being that right person who got so many perks for so many of his ‘friends’ it is painfully evident that this has become his entire social currency. It made me sad. It made me want to just be one of those regular people talking in the crowd, milling, wondering what is behind the black curtain and up the private stairs. But it was not to be.
My friend is still my friend. He will always be. But he is broken. And that is heartbreaking. No matter how hard I tried, the disconnect, bordering on dissociation was just so hard to be around. I watched how people regarded him and saw how they sized him up weighing opportunity and cost – a simple economic equation for them, discounting the person underneath. Whenever things got too touchy everyone would fall back on the old times, old names, old faces, old places. There would be a moment of comfort and then everyone would move on. I watched my friend not really move on. Such a life he has had – so amazing in so many ways but still so lonely and sad in others.
After everyone gets what they want, who will take care of him? Looking around at the beautiful venue I could hear Jerry and his words took on a whole new tone.
It’s a far gone lullaby, sung many years ago…
Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home…
I looked at my friend and realized that he did not really want to talk and catch up. He wanted to fall into the familiar old roles, he the connection, me the groupie, and let’s get it on. We had come into the evening from such entirely different experiential universes and with such different objectives, I realized that we would never – at least tonight – be on the same page. And so I had to go.
All the birds that were singing are flown, except you alone….
Fare you well, my friend.
xo
Back to the Future – or something.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I spent the night in a room I had not slept in since 1989, and not regularly inhabited since 1986. When I got up and walked out through the living room to the kitchen, my parents were sitting there chatting quietly. There was even a calico cat on one of the chairs. I was waiting for a phone call to formulate a plan to go meet a friend and did not feel especially garrulous, or even loquacious.
I looked around.
Maybe this was 1986.
No, the grey hair and improved vocabulary were both clear indicators that I was not re-inhabiting my teenage self – but little else seemed awry in this intensely personal Back to the Future moment. Somehow, I had gone home again.
It was a trip.
It is a pretty great house, in a pretty great neighborhood, in a town I swore I’d never go back to again. But, truth be told, most people agree it is a pretty great town. In fact, most of the folks that left, not wanting to be those people who never left Petaluma - you know – those people, are shaking their fists in the face of the Great Unfairness as it has now become pretty hard to get back. With kids, a sluggish economy and a no low growth community, the town holds quite a bit of appeal. Even when I go back now, I look at through a [mostly] different lens.
And through this rather altered state I headed out of the house (on foot) to go visit some friends I have known longer than my conscious memory serves. I was amazed at how quick the walk was – I swear it used to be longer; I am sure I would have never insisted my mom drive me such a short distance all those years. Would I have?
I went back again last night. It is a bit more settled-in, in terms of looking like a house my family would occupy, rather than a place they might just be passing through.
It was still a total trip.
I woke up and walked down to the corner where one of my regular mini-markets used to be which now sells gourmet wine, chocolate, cappuccino, and meats. Luckily they also still sell milk, because I definitely needed to tip Clo through my two lips with my morning coffee. Back at the house it was kind of a standard Sonoma County winter morning: cold, clear… retro.
I was in full retro-mode myself.
After years of being no closer than two hours (by air) from my family, it has taken no less than a month to revert right back to the old ways. Suddenly when I find myself with my parents after a 40-minute drive the urgency of milking every minute that I didn’t want to miss when I was staring down the belly of a 14-hour flight disappears. Though the old rotary dial phone has been replaced by the iPhone, I still catch myself tuning out of the parental orbit and trying to catch up with what Everyone else is doing. [I spent years in Petaluma keeping up with Everyone, it was an endless job, that Everyone is a busy dude.] But somehow, there is a kind of visceral comfort that I get just from being there – I guess it is the same comfort that I always got as a teenager who had the privilege of attentive parents I could ignore. Sometimes it takes 25 years to recognize that kind of privilege.
I decided I would head downtown to do a little Christmas shopping, or something. It seemed like the right thing to do. As I walked out of the house my mom said I looked like I was meant for somewhere bigger than Petaluma.
It is what I had always thought about Petaluma, too.
It was just one more irony making me feel right at home on this morning of Christmas Eve Eve. I walked down the street and felt completely at home at out of place simultaneously, and really, if I haven’t already defined what coming of age in Petaluma was like for me – this was it.
And so, what to do… I suddenly was facing a bit of pressure to be home at a certain time [awkward] and so my options were limited. I called MPFW. She was at our old 7-11. It seemed beyond coincidental. She picked me up, like it was 1986. We had a couple of things to do – different only in detail from the things we would have had to do in exchange for being out with the car 25 years ago. Then what? Coffee? Yeah, okay, that sounded good.
Or we could have a cocktail…
Yeah, we could, couldn’t we?
Yes. Yes, we could.
So, we did.
Just like we did back in 198- err…. nevermind.
Heading back to my house without even needing to ask where we were going, MPFW took out some gum.
Oh, yeah. Gum. Better get some of that before we get home… you know, because the grown-ups are there. Just like 1986.
And who doesn’t love a little anachronism for the holidays?
It is Petaluma. Do you know what year you’re in?
Rule #1: Be sure you are not placed on the end of any group photo.
My parents recently moved back to the area. Apparently the true 1%ers they have spent a lifetime trying not to be, they are now going to be snowbirds, (of a sort, still choosing rather atypical resting points.) As this move was getting closer everyone was asking me about it: Was I excited? Did I want to be closer to them? Was it going to be ‘too close’? I never really thought much about my answers. Of course I was glad, I have not lived within a reasonable driving distance of my parents since 1988 – at which point we were still living together. And after more than five years of a minimum of 18 hours of travel time to see them, I have been looking forward to easier parental access. Haven’t I?
Plus, if you know my parents, they are kind of The Shit.
Anyhow, along come the holidays… always an ass-kicking time at work and the days don’t just seem shorter because of the dark, I am convinced they really are shorter. Add to that, the family equation and life just gets busy. But it’s cool you know.
It makes for good material.
Unfortunately mom has taken to proclaiming that I am not allowed to write about certain things. Like my family. I can’t always tell which family things will get the kibosh and which will be okay, it seems kind of random. Okay, that is not entirely true, but I have to say I was getting seriously censored for a while. But, the way I am looking at it, their locality puts them back on the front page. I was willing to let slide many an opportune tale while they were up North, but now their mountain hiatus has come to an end.
So.
I will make little mention of the navigational skill of the Ways-ie App, or my step-dad’s triple-protected new-new iPhone. I’m going to jump right into my Bridget Jones montage. [The Back to Future remake will be for a later installment.]
That pretty much sums it up. For the second time in two weeks, I was completely mal-attired and borrowing clothes in order to not be simply ridiculous – though as my aunt says, at least I did not show up in a bunny costume.
But barely. Visualize, if you will, my arrival: Jeans (7 for All Mankind, but still: JEANS) and motorcycle boots. And a cute black t-shirt. And I walk in and see my grandma all dressed up. For high tea in honor of her birthday with all of the ladies.
There were petit fours on the table for goodness sake.
I thought it was weird that my uncle wondered why I wasnt carrying anything with me when he picked me up at the train station. And my aunt asked me if I needed to hang anything up. I definitely did not get the memo. Suffice it to say that one more day would be spent in a state of awkward dress. [The irony that I spent years cultivating awkward style for family events is not lost on me. A particular outfit of blue and black plaid pants, blue suede boots, a fuchsia over-sized button down shirt over long-sleeved thermals and a fedora comes to mind.]
Back to now, the afternoon moved along into the evening… everyone else was dressed totally appropriately, not that I want to harp on this, or anything, but any thoughts that my Bridget moments were finished would be incorrect.
“So, do you have a love in your life?” I was asked.
“Umm, no, not at the moment.”
“Oh, the last time we saw each other I think you were with someone.”
“Yes, yes I was.” I say. [I want to say, 'Yes, #3. He was the one who went to jail and led to Rule #1. What is Rule #1? See that picture over there? You see how it looks like I have a hand growing out of my abdomen? Yes, that is the effect of Rule #1: never find yourself on the end of any group photo. Excising (or exorcising) of anyone is made far too easy if you are on the end. That is what happened to #3. And you should see us jockey for position in the group photos these days.']
I don’t say that.
“That can’t be the granddaughter?”
“Oh, no, this is A, not K…”
“Ahh, I see I knew it hadn’t been that long!”
In discussing my work with a really amazing couple they tell me they are in a Current Events Group, and that it is really fun “because everyone is a [whispers] Democrat.” I smile and explain that if it were not that way, “group” might not be the correct noun. “We probably shouldn’t talk about politics,” she whispers, shh-ing me.
Sitting down to eat, my step-dad and I get to talking. Somehow my (lack of a) love life comes up again. I am not bothered by this conversation, I know the discussion comes from a place of concern… or maybe that is the wrong word, but I am sure my parents just want for me what they’ve got. And truth be told, what they’ve got is awesome. But, still… I don’t really know why I why I don’t meet many people and etcetera and etcetera. [Not totally true: I don't meet people because I work all the time and because most people my age [who are not categorically dysfunctional or insane] are happily married to rad people, or gay.]
By the end of the evening, my clothes faux pas (and my neglect in remembering to bring my camera), my obvious singleness, and my concern over mom being angsty about all of the above had faded. Partaking in a marathon goodbye (the length of the goodbye seems directly proportional to proximity) none of it seemed to matter. I was getting a ride home from my parents and the weekend was still young. I made a call to see about going out.
Maybe some things really are meant to stay the same.
Just be sure to get to the middle when the group photos commence.
Coffee: DENIED!!
Last week I went back to my hometown for a Halloween party. I even wore a costume and everything. I don’t go up there very often, and every time that I do go… I am glad. Thought I was going to say I regret it, huh? Nope. Anyhow, R and I got to the party fashionably late and in high style. Who knew that this evening would lead to my latest WTF moment…
One of the things that I enjoy about going to the hometown is that all of the pressure of socializing with an agenda is out the window. I have long abandoned the idea that this particular little slice of heaven would bring forth a guy I would want to date… or would want to date me for that matter – let’s not forget I did more than a decade of hard time there, so I have some context for this attitude. Plus, when I am there I am generally flanked by R so I have a nice comfortable landing spot, and exit strategy. This shindig was no exception to my previously established assumptions. Therefore, you can imagine my surprise to make contact with someone (new) who seemed pretty interesting, and who has an incredible back story as well. Suffice it to say I was intrigued enough that it made the next morning’s brunch conversation agenda.
Over the course of several hours of brunch Dr. T and R and I talked about the changing social dynamic we are facing these days re: meeting people, and of course the inherent distinction between his, and ours. Facts being what they are, it is a lot easier to be a dude of our – shall we say, station – or just be honest and say age? It reminded me of this sentiment from an article about all the Single Ladies:
I realized that I too have always just assumed that the whole “love” thing would just work itself out. It turns out that is a bit naive, and by the way, don’t read that article if you are still in that frame of mind: total spoiler. So, we contemplated, what was the best course of action to take in navigating these waters, (which seem like they should get smoother with maturity – not more fucking rocky)? We could all speak to different strategies coupled with equally diverse (and though often humorous, still disappointing) outcomes.
Should one “get out there” and try to make things happen even if it’s not what you were naturally inclined to do? Should you use places in your comfort zone as a “hunting ground”? Internet dating? The fact of it is, all of it made me want to barf in my cappuccino. I have always said that if I wasn’t going to meet someone doing what I normally do, and in the course of my normal life, then I wasn’t going to meet the right person. I still believe that, but the reality of that scenario is that I work pretty much around the clock during the school year, using my free time for yoga and the gym… and then I want to travel when I am not working. This is not conducive to being a successful dater (which we have long-established I have no idea how to do anyhow.) Not to mention, I don’t even know what i am looking for. This particular line of rhetoric was precipitated by my admission that I do not go out on Friday night. “I am just too tired,” I told Dr. T. “But it seems like you are always doing stuff… totally energetic,” she replied. “You can’t trust Facebook,” I reminded her.
And here it is, Friday night and I am home. Exhausted. Not at all unhappy, but completely aware that my staying in perpetuates the reality that I will continue to reduce the odds of meeting someone new and interesting or at least the bearer of interesting potential.
So, maybe it was not too crazy to consider someone I met in my hometown. Shit, I have certainly considered far more suspect possibilities in places far afield.
Information was acquired (from both sides of the equation, I might add) and contact was made. “Let’s get together for coffee or something…” “That would be great, we should have some free time coming up with the holidays…” “By the way, I thought you were gorgeous.”
Aaawwwwww.
And then the Facebook connection was established. I looked at his profile. I saw some things that made me go “Hmmmmmm….” [You went to Pahrump? On purpose? FOR.FIREARMS TRAINING????] But, in my typical optimistic fashion (don’t laugh I am an optimist, but of course only in the most ridiculous circumstances) I overlooked these few things. After all, had I not just spent hours talking with my best friends about how (c’est la vie said the old folks, it goes to show… ) you never can tell? Plus, you can’t trust Facebook.
Plans were made. Life went on. Two days later I got this message:
Listen, why don’t we hold off getting together for that drink. After checking out your fb stuff I realized that you and I are polar opposite on our politics. Friendship sounds a hell of a lot better at this point.
Of course, being the headcase that I can sometimes be, my first reaction was to go back and look at my Facebook page. Umm… What? I couldn’t even figure out how it was “political.” Save for the poster from my union that one of my amazing coworkers made for us to carry at the General Strike standing behind Occupy Oakland… oh, hm. Perhaps that is political. But, as a historian, I would certainly NOT miss an event like that! And as a teacher (he is one too) who in the world could be anti-union? I looked further. I had a Howard Zinn quote. Okay, maybe I am a little political. I considered all of this in a new light. But cancelling a coffee date? I shook my head. Does the guy know anything about me? Well, he is related to people I have known since I was six. He knows where I grew up, not a traditionally conservative bastion – though these days, sheesh. Everything else he gleaned from… from… Facebook?
I looked at all the stuff on my Facebook. Things I have selected to share with a very wide variety of people and re-reconsidered. It may be political. It may ideological. Hell, it may be psychological. But mostly, in my opinion, it is there to be intellectual – and I don’t mean all smarty pants, but I mean to engender thought, or perspective. Yeah, even argument. Some of the people I respect most in my life are the ones who really come at me from a different angle and are not afraid. [That would be you, Mr. Fox Island.] But in the end I went back to the same old place:
“Seriously. Am I not cute enough to override the red flags??? Do you know how many guys I have gone out with in spite of the plethora of screaming scarlet banners??????”
Ooohhhh…
Wait a minute…
…perhaps Mr. Freinship-sounds-a-hell-of-a-lot-better-at-this-point is on to something here…
A letter, #4
You will never believe the strange coincidence that brought you to my mind the other day. I am actually glad I can tell you in writing so I don’t have to hear you tell me how there are no coincidences and everything happens for some greater more significant purpose.
Anyhow, what happened was this: I was leaving my night class and one of the people in the class asked me if I lived in the City. I told her that I did and then she asked if I was taking the train home. Again, I answered in the affirmative, and before I knew it, it appeared that surly me had made a new friend. We walked to the train together and chatted the whole way home, she lives just one stop beyond me. In talking she told me that she had heard me talking about Hong Kong to someone and that her husband had lived in Hong Kong. Really? I asked, When? She said he had been there for about five years in the 90s, pre-handover it sounds like. He was a teacher. Wow, what a coincidence, I said. She asked me about living there and I told her that my Hong Kong experience was unique in many ways, mostly because I lived in a really unusual place. She asked where and I told her Lamma. She laughed and said that was where her husband had lived too. I am sure that we must know so many of the same people… you probably know him! She asked if all the expat teachers live on Lamma and I had to tell her only a certain type of expat lived on Lamma… I did not go into a lot of detail.
And it got me thinking of you in your Lamma heyday.
It has been some time since I heard from you. This makes me wonder – are you still alive? Have you actually turned the corner you are always just about to round? It is so hard to tell with you. And frankly, our last conversation was really tediously redundant, which I imagine you know, hence the more recent silence. Still, there are so many things that make me think of you, would it make you feel bad to know that I especially think of you when I consider my finances? In contrast, I also thought of you a lot last week when I had a really sick kitty on my hands. Remember when Matilda got sick that time and we couldn’t tell what was wrong with her, but she was so sad and lethargic and just seemed so defeated? God, that was awful and I was so glad that you were able to take her to the vet, even if I ended up having to pay you for it (how odd in hindsight!) And then when Normie had that weird episode and you called me at work… I was so freaked out. Looking back on it and knowing what was up in my house and who was there with you, I am quite sure you all just got him stoned, which, while totally stupid, is not that harmful. In spite of all that I am still glad you finally got to see what it was like to have pets while we were together.
I am going to Thailand in the spring too and so of course that brings you to mind, we certainly had some raucous times. It is amazing to think how much time we spent there, and I always laugh when I remember sitting in Vientiane having dinner on the Mekong and you were just so desperate to get back to the other side, you kept going, “That is Thailand right there! Why am I not there?” You do love the land of smiles.
I try really hard not to focus on the things I feel like you took from me, because I know in reality you can only take what someone allows you to… And I really, really try not to think about the promises – all of them in their most abstract or concrete manifestations. I try to remember the man I knew you were inside and the way that, regardless of anything else that was going on, you would stand up for me. It was your most manly attribute, like, you really knew how to be a boyfriend, even if you were not doing it all the time. I try to remember the way your mind worked when you stepped out of the rabbit hole and let go of the fractured, slivers of philosophy you wanted to craft into some sort of wild justification for the life you were living. I try to remember how lovely you were.
These days you are still in London, I imagine, pining for Southeast Asia as you always will, never quite able to shake the idealized glamour of the expat life. It was a good life for a while, though, wasn’t it?
Be well, you.
a x
Clichés: from tartare to true love and points in between with piña coladas and getting caught in the rain
I had a really excellent dinner at one of my favorite restaurants last night. I go to Garçon a lot because it is super close and the food is really good – especially the soups that Arthur makes. [Also the staff is really, really, good-looking. Good looking French guys, what a cliché.]
I have been giving Arthur a bad time about taking his tuna tartare off the menu because it was one of the most yummy things ever. It’s sort of a joke because there is plenty of other great stuff on the menu, but it has become kind of a running commentary at this point. Last night he said that he hasn’t felt like putting it back on the menu because it is such a cliché.
Huh.
I told him that lots of things become cliché for a good reason. He chuckled. But then he walked away.
Interestingly, I have been thinking about clichés a lot lately. [Though, if it were really a cliché, I suppose logic would dictate that it is not that interesting. But, nevermind.] The point is I have been considering the clichéd nature of so many elements of my life.
I want to be a writer/photographer/traveler. *yawn*
I am a single woman who teaches high school and has cats. *yawn*
I am an only child with entitlement and perfectionism issues. *yawn*
I routinely make predictably bad decisions regarding relationships. *yawn*
*yawn*yawn*yawn*yawn*
I came up with the latest version of my unwritten bestseller this week. It was like an AK-47 packed with all things trite: I visualized it looking like some sort of Palahniuk-styled paperback (think Diary), self-deprecating and humorous account of the foibles and follies of my life (hello Sedaris and Fielding), with braggadocio thinly veiled as “experience” (consider every travel author you have ever read, but Bryson and Gilbert in particular.) I wanted to call it Cliché. For real. I thought how each chapter could start like:
“You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” I imagined this chapter being an ode to my long-lost tuna tartare.
Another chapter could begin:
“They say when you are in love you want to shout it from the mountaintops” and then go into some sort of humiliating anecdote about how that cliché has played out in my life. [No yelling from mountain tops, I can assure you. Not that the clichéd nature of the concept has deterred me from wanting it.]
And perhaps:
“Those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.” The myriad levels of cliché that line offers me is astounding.
There would have to be a chapter simply called “Crème brûlée” or “Tiramisù”. I think “Happy Hour” or “So, I got a tattoo” could certainly merit individual chapters. Along with “Cat Ladies”, “Burning Man”, “Yoga is my mantra”, “I know a guy”, “The Grateful Dead” [any genre of music really... I remember trying so hard to not be cliché in my music choices back in high school that I actually bought Hüsker Dü albums. Hüsker Dü was never cliché. You know why? They were not very good.]
There is a reason that things become cliché. They have some sort of merit. At least initially… and maybe that is good enough.
True love is a cliché. Does that make it lame? And crème brûlée and tiramisù are fucking delicious. Deal with it. Cats are legitimately good company. No one is going to think it sucks to have someone tell them they are better than a summer’s day. And you know every word to the goddamned Piña Colada song – although you may not know it is called Escape - and even while you hate it, you don’t turn it down. Because what comes around goes around and you can’t pass the buck forever and you probably pierced something one time that you pretend you never did and no matter how cynical the times dictate we must be, you’re still hopeful that practice makes perfect, even though you know nobody is…
You like Piña Coladas.
And getting caught in the rain.
Don’t worry. I won’t tell.
photo: Signs in chalk. October 9, 2011. 18th Street near Sanchez.
A compromising position.
I was talking to T on the phone this morning as she drove to work. A major benefit of having summers off is increased phonability. Like, for instance, yesterday as I was finishing up the last-minute of “really fun” stairclimbing at the Gym (more on this soon, you can be fucking sure) my phone buzzed with a +44 number. I will never not pick up a +44 because it is going to be either Fun Bobby, RG, J, or the goddamned Queen of England. Obviously I answered. It was not the Queen. But, thanks to modern technology and my inability to be shamed into cell phone silence after five years in Hong Kong, J came along as I finished my workout, got changed, went to Safeway and entertained the checkout lady, walked to the nail place and helped me pick a color. So, this morning as I was finishing up my coffee and contemplating the mysteries of catttitude, I was pleased to see T calling in. I figured she could hang with me while cleaned the cat box, did the dishes, watered the plants and headed to yoga.
I was not disappointed. Among other subjects, in what is always worthy conversation, we began to consider the things that are fundamentally necessary for us in a relationship. More to the point we were looking at deal breakers. Or, maybe those are the same things. It’s hard to tell.
One thing we agreed on was that as we get older, (and I don’t actually mean this as a disparaging comment about aging, but rather a statement about how people change over time and perhaps, if they are lucky they get to know themselves a little better too) we seem to have developed more stringent, umm… let’s call them “standards.” It may be true that some people develop their “standards” with more expedience than T and I have, and I am not going to speak to advantages or disadvantages of efficiency in standards-establishment. However, throughout this conversation it seemed to me that the habit of compromising I had cultivated has done little to help me accurately evaluate any of my relationships.
It got us to the fundamental point of confusion. When does having a standard = being stuck-in-your-ways (rigid, frigid, cold, etc.)? Or, again from the more familiar opposite point of view, when does compromising in a relationship = compromising… yourself? I immediately took to the comfort of list making. What have I determined that I simply will not compromise?
I Love L.A., Part 2: “Looks like another perfect day”
From the West Side to the East Side
Everybody’s very happy
‘Cause the sun is shining all the time
Looks like another perfect day…
I remember the first time I saw the ESPY Awards. It was this ridiculous combination of a bunch of shit that I love: pretty people, spectacle, the thrill of victory, sports rivalries, touching stories of perseverance, high-profile hosts, higher profile attendees. It looked like a seriously good time. I also remember telling #4 that I was going to go to that show some day.
I say lots of things like that.
But you know, there is something to be said for manifestation. Or maybe, I just know the right people. Enter D. I’ve known D since we had the pleasure of Ocean View and the Third (now Marshall) College Dormtastic life at UCSD way back in 198X. And, D has one of these sort of amazing jobs that actually has perks. [I suppose sitting here on summer vacation it appears that I have a few professional perks too, but D's perks? They are in another league altogether. Like, another galaxy really.] And the thing about D is that she has a very wide circle of friends who like all sorts of different things. Guess who likes sports?
Yeah. Me.
My 4.5-day Los Angeles-Carmaggedon Tour de Force coincided perfectly with this year’s ESPY Awards at the LA Live Nokia Center. D was unsure if she was going to go… she has lots of events like this on her calendar. But I was totally thrilled for the chance to go and so the decision was made: fun times for me and some good schmooze time for D. Following our perfectly timed meeting in the lot across from the LA Live facility, I got to introduce D to TCH, move my luggage from one car to another, make way to the first red carpet event of my life. I realize these things do not interest a lot of people.
I am not one of those people.
I also understand that this kind of thing could get incredibly tedious and blah, blah, blah.
Also, not one of those people.
We headed into the ESPN Zone where the pre-party was. It was a completely hosted bar and had amazing food. Things were looking good.
You Can’t Always Get What You Want… but if you try sometimes, you might find…
I just had a job interview. Yes… just like last year, I am in the Bay Area, where I want to be, and looking for work in the field I want to work in. Of course, this is unexpected [unexpected because I (clearly incorrectly!) thought that I would be returning to the school where I worked last year for this year - where I really wanted to work again]. But not totally unexpected in terms of the state of public education and budgets and the general state of affairs that I knew I would find in California on my return last year following more than five years over seas.
I am at a funny place in my life these days. I am in a place, geographically, where I would like to stay. I am in a place, physically, that is forcing me to acknowledge that I can no longer leap tall buildings in a single bound. I am in a place, emotionally, that is totally erratic – there is simply no other way to describe it. I am in a place, mentally, that is strangely calm.
As I was riding Bart under the Bay, from the city I am so happy to call home, to Berkeley, a place I would love to work, Mick (with the assistance of the London Philharmonic Orchestra) came symphonically onto my iPod apparently reminding me:
You can’t always get what you want…
You can’t always get what you want …
You can’t always get what you want…
But if you try sometimes, you’ll find…
YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED.
I wondered if this song was going to be a good omen, or if I should skip to the next song, wanting all the luck I could account for in my corner. Then Mick said, “I saw her today at the reception, a glass of wine in her hand. I knew she was gonna meet her connection, at her feet was her footloose man…”
You can’t always get what you want…
You can’t always get what you want …
You can’t always get what you want…
But if you try sometimes, you might find…
YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED.
I let it play.
The interview was for a really good job at a good school with good people. It seemed like the briefest interview I have ever had (but on second thought, it was about the same length of every other interview I have ever had, so I am not sure what that means.) It seemed like real people were talking to me about real things and wanted real answers. At one point, in perusing my resume, the principal had said, “So, Sparks, to China. There ‘s a move everyone makes.” I laughed to myself. Yeah, how much more legitimate can a geography teacher be than one who actually pulls a freaking geographical? And on leaving the interview, the standard self-doubt and insecurities that go with the whole process came up. Did I say enough? Did I say too much? Did I sell my self? Did I look desperate? Did I seem enthusiastic? Did I demonstrate my experience? Did I highlight my talent?
As I walked out of the school and headed over to a sunny beer garden to contemplate the whole thing, Rehab’s song, ‘Sittin’ at a Bar’ came on. I smiled. I remembered hanging out of the back of a songthaew haphazardly bouncing along a pitted road between Thong Sala and Haad Rin on Koh Phanghan with a one-time soul brother as we belted out the lyrics to that song…
As I contemplated this memory in the hot (really hot – but a “dry” heat!) Berkeley sun five years later, I thought again about my situation. I am not the norm for my age group to be sure. I cannot imagine most of my friends in my current circumstances. I thought about a lot of the teachers I know who were surprised to hear I was in a situation where I had to look for another position, but really glad that they were not. I considered the disadvantage of starting at a new district, losing years of experience on the pay scale – again, starting all over – again. When you think about it like that it doesn’t sound so good.
But then, you can think about it another way, too. I don’t know too many people over here who have gotten to see and do the things that my unconventional decision-making has brought me. I may not have the security that a lot of people do, but I have navigated crazy back roads in Thailand, seen the sun come up over Angkor Wat, walked on the Great Wall of China, lived in an ashram in rural India, gone diving off the coast of Borneo in the Celebes Sea, met real geishas in Kyoto, shot automatic weapons in Vietnam, brought my preguntas to la junta with Par Par Lay in Burma, eaten buffalo at a family barbecue in northern Laos, crossed the Mekong in a longtail boat, given up my seat to a monk on a flight back to Hong Kong, been upgraded to Cathay Business class and traveled by night bus through the jungle, had Bamboo snakes in my house, fed monkeys on the beach, cursed cockatoos in my lychee tree, thrown Mexican fiestas in Hong Kong and had raging toga parties in my little house on the South China Sea. And those are just the adventures in Asia.
When I got up from lunch it suddenly seemed less terrible that I did not have a job. But I hoped I would get one anyhow.
When I got home an hour later the principal I had just interviewed with called me.
“We loved you, why don’t you come work here.”
Fuck. Yes.
YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED.
When I began writing this post I was on the train coming back to the City from the East Bay, unemployed.
When I finished it, I was sitting on the couch in my apartment in the Mission drinking a beer, employed.
I realize that there are a bunch of you out there who are waiting to tell me you told me so.
I am totally fine with that… and I love you for your infinite and amazing support. xoxo
Free to be [fill in the blank].
I have not had a repressive, oppressive or otherwise [externally] limited life. I have been blessed with all of the promises that our Founders put forth in the Declaration of Independence in spades. This has been largely due to three factors: my family, the era (1970s NorCal) into which I was born, and courage [derived primarily from a combination of stubbornness, curiosity and (at least initially) naiveté.]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
When I consider independence I always end up thinking about freedom. Really, freedom is what I have relished as a person who has never had to actually fight for her independence. While I appreciate autonomy – on both a personal and statutory scale – it is freedom ”the exemption from external control, interference, regulation and the power to determine action without restraint…” that I love.
And I always have.
Round and Around we Rebound: I’m piloting the relationship Swiffer
Throughout my basketball career, my most dominant stats were always rebounding. I had some games where I totally controlled the boards on both sides of the floor. My record for rebounding stood for ten years or so after I graduated. My coach accused me, on more than one occasion, of padding my offensive rebound stats by being such a crap offensive threat on the put back. I can’t tell you if it was intentional but I can certainly tell you I knew how to rebound. This is one of the reasons I always liked Charles Barkley. Anyone who knows anything about basketball knows, the man dominated the boards when he was so inclined. In addition to his general hilarity, bordering on total ridiculousness, and real likelihood to say absolutely anything ["These are my new shoes. They're good shoes. They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it."] Charles always sent the ball home.
I don’t care what people think. people are stupid.
~ Charles Barkley, “The Round Mound of Rebound”
Not that I want to be the Round Mound of anything, but it turns out that rebounding continues to be a particular area of my expertise.
Who knew?
Me & Hunter, together again: Same same but different
It is dark and gross outside this morning and that suits me just fine. And though I wrote about the eerie parallels between my life at this exact moment last year and this year, I really had no idea how parallel they would be. I was unsure how I would feel about these parallels as I got up this morning, but with more coffee and continued dark skies, I feel better than I thought.
I was told yesterday, via a very late-in-the-day email, that I had not been rehired at the school where I worked this year. To say I was shocked would be an understatement, but also inaccurate in some other ways. I was shocked. But I had a feeling, one I could not readily explain or identify, that something was off as I waited all week for the decision. It was a pretty horrible feeling, and the reality of my intuition being correct was little consolation. Then I thought about last year again. I looked over at Matilda, who seems to know when things are not quite right, and remembered how we, or I, felt last year. It was dark and rainy and hot and gross in Hong Kong. She and I were holed up in the apartment in Pak Kok considering our life without Norman. We were very, very sad. Things were very unsettled. But it was how it was.
Now here we are, it is cool and grey and quiet in the Mission and we are safely ensconced in our apartment and we have gotten used to our life without Norm, so I can only imagine that we will also get used to whatever new situation presents itself to us.
I suppose in light of the current circumstances a post similar to this one would be apt. But I am not really in the mood. I feel more like writing something in the vein of my hero Dr. Thompson.
In 1958, Thompson wrote a letter to the Vancouver Sun. I am not sure if would be accurate to say that he was “seeking” a job, but it would be accurate to say that at the time HST was still a relatively unknown and was living in NYC, deeply in debt and drinking like the best of the disreputes. [In terms of parallels, I am not in NYC, nor am I deeply in debt. I am definitely a relative unknown and considering drinking like the best of the disreputes.] Thompson’s letter appears in the book The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1). [There are three volumes. Somethings are worth hoarding, for real.]
The letter [with my comments] follows. If you want it without my comments get your own copy of the book. (more…)
Here is how it goes when you are trying not to have it go that way:
I decided I did not want to spend money for the rest of June. This is both smart and highly irritating: it is the right thing to do, but it is pissing me off. And, as it would be, the minute I made the seemingly reasonable declaration, here came all the reasons why it was unreasonable. In the average day I do not really need to spend much money. I have all of my needs met. But here are the things that I instinctively considered spending money on in a single 24-hour period:
- Laundry (service – not the machines)
- Mani-pedi (I really am due)
- A facial
- Fresh pastry (as if I need this)
- Beers at Zeitgeist in the sunshine (it *was* the Solstice after all)
- Bottled water (see above)
- Photo book project (finally finished, want to share with everyone)
- Lunch (have food at home)
- Aesthetician
- New bag at Timbuk2
- New Marc Jacobs perfume
- Wine at Whole Foods (gift)
- Airline ticket to LA
- Drinks with someone I want to have drinks with
- External hard drive for Mac Book (need this, for real)
- Airline ticket to Reno
- U-Haul rental (for emptying storage unit in Reno, a net savings in the end…)
- Baseball tickets
- New brand of sunscreen
- Concert tickets (for three separate shows)
- Food at the movies (I have free tickets)
- New kitten (yes, I am serious)
- Dinner (have food at home)
- Drinks with someone I should not be having drinks with
- Tickets to a loft party
- Dinner for someone I should be treating
Seriously. This is ridiculous. I feel like I am part of a Twelve-step program.
[photo from Tobias Wong exhibit, SFMoMA]
A New Situation.
Whenever people ask me about living in Hong Kong they are always curious about the cost of living (well, whenever people my age ask anyhow… there is quite a wide range of questions from the less chronologically proximal demographics). The thing about Hong Kong for me was that it actually was not that expensive. Let me clarify: the necessary costs of living were not that expensive (anyone who knows me is familiar with my tenuous and ambiguous relationship with the need v. want conundrum).
I chose to live in a kind of unusual place, which was not super popular with Package Ex-Pats and true Hong Kongers. Lamma was too far away, they said. The gweilo ghetto, they said. Among other far more odious comments. But it all kept the cost down. I found a great place to live, surrounded be people who stayed removed from the Peyton Place style drama of the main ex-pat hub in Yung Shue Wan. I busied myself with off island activities. By off-island activities I must admit I mean work, at least for the majority of the time I as in Asia. So, I used my home – all 750 square feet of it (with three – yes THREE – bedrooms) – as my place of rest and respite. Unless I was hosting a party, which was known to happen fairly regularly.
So that was the equation. I had a fairly inexpensive living situation (about US$800/month), which was compounded by transportation costs (a boat was required to get off the island) that ended up being about US$300/mo. I pay upwards of US$1500 in San Francisco for about 500 square feet and comparable transportation costs (not matched by service at all, thank you very much Bart.) I spent about US$1100 on the most basic costs there and here it is about US$1800. Another important variable in this equation however, concerns salaries and additional costs of living.
In terms of absolute values, there is not a huge difference here. Though, I would say it is significant and there are other little things here, like banking fees are stupid (I am talking to YOU Wells Fargo), I pay a fee for Netflix (possibly worth it, though I think more expensive than just buying my pirated discs over there), vet care is more expensive, and there are a few other miscellaneous costs I foot here that I did not there. However, behold the chart below.
Who decides if you are Second Best?
My high school coach used to call me Avis. He did this in an obvious play on one of my other nicknames, as one of his myriad ways of teasing me. At the time, all of his teasing fell into the same category for me: cruel. I was an overly sensitive teenage girl after all, so of course, I let it all get to me, in the wrong way. In hindsight (as it always happens) I see a lot more of the subtext to the seemingly harsh words Coach J had for me. I think I get it.
Or at least I thought I did.
My coach never gave me shit for coming in second unless he knew I should have won. In one sub par performance against Analy High School, a meet that mattered far more for team points than personal glory, I remember telling him that I had been the meet’s top scorer with my second place finish the 100 meter hurdles. He raised an eyebrow and said second was the first loser. I was outraged. But he was right. The girl who beat me was lame and the only reason she had beat me was that I had been all upset about Josh Ingalls not asking me to the prom and it was all I had been talking about for days. I remember being flabbergasted when Coach told me to get a prom date already and be done with it. He had known all along.
He mostly called me Avis during the basketball season. And I couldn’t stand it. Basketball teams are so small, and even if they are completely dysfunctional, they are tight-knit. Add to this that our group was really competitive in all the best and worst ways. So when he started adding the tagline to my nickname (you try harder!) I took it really personally, as if I had to try harder than the other girls because of some deficiency. It made me furious. Again, looking back, his tactics seem not only obvious, but effective. He knew I cared and that in fact I did try harder, and that I would always try harder regardless of, well, anything. He did not see this as pathetic, he saw it as tenacious, honorable, and a work ethic he could respect.
As a sixteen year-old, mired in the 80s where one could never be too rich or too thin (as Piaget borrowed Wallis Simpson’s famous quote over and over to remind us…) and the worst possible thing one could ever do was look like they were trying, I just hated it.
And what of it, being second best? What does it mean? I recently was given pause to consider this on a wholly new level. It was like being called Avis all over again. If you are someone’s second choice, does that make you second best?
Of course, my initial response to being relegated to second place is “Fuck you,” because I am klassy and tolerant like that. Like, really? I am a back up plan? But it comes back to that whole lens of subjectivity concept: why does the way I see myself have anything to do with the Avis-colored lenses of another? There is no harm in trying hard. Or harder. As long as this is not wholly to serve someone, or something, else. I am not going to try any harder to right this current situation by somehow suggesting that, in fact, I am far more likely to end up being the Hertz in this analogy. If that is the case it will become evident, and at that point, someone else may be behind the wheel.
I don’t mind being a little Avis-like. If it means you are nice, honorable and responsible, I am cool with that. I will be nice because I am, and I will not take people for granted, because I don’t. But I am not going to pander for your business. And if you decide that perhaps you made the wrong decision, someone else may have already figured that out. Most significantly, me.
Coach, I may have finally worked it out.
Thank you.
ps: Although, Coach, if you ever read this, the flies on dung simile never really made me feel all that much better. Just sayin’.
Kitty in the City.
Toto, I don't think we're on Lamma anymore. Just sayin'.
What not to do on a date. If you want another date, anyhow.
Alright, let’s face it, I am hardly any expert on this, and I appreciate that dating is hard. And frustrating. And often awkward. Even downright tedious. This is probably why I don’t really date and therefore lack expertise on the subject. [Hey you in the back, I hear you talking about how my choices for dates are at the root of the problem. Not that I am denying it... but, SHH.] But, even when I talk to my friends who really do date, like really make the effort to get out there and focus, focus, focus…. I hear the complaints.
Anyhow, for what it’s worth here are a few things I would say you should categorically NOT do on a date.
Amanda
