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 2
Ahh… the Illusion of Perfection. So illusory (and elusive) that people actually believe they can not only obtain perfection, but that it might matter.
I have long been called a perfectionist, by myself and others I suspect. My grade school teachers noted it in the way that I worked (or quit working) when something did not come out exactly right on the first attempt. For a long time in my professional life I was convinced, categorically that if I made a misstep in any way shape or form, all would be lost. While there are a lot of advantages (professionally) to this mindset, it does little for sanity, relationships, or general well-being.
And if all is lost, then what do you do? Really? What do you do?
If you are me you spend a lot of time kicking your own ass. This is a drag. In every way imaginable.
For some time now I have been really trying to work out what really does matter. You hear the cliché all them time that on one’s death bed one will not think back on all the work that they did not do, or the worrying that they did not do…
I think (as with many clichés) this may be the real answer.
Could it be that simple?
On April 15, 2012 something happened that has since shaped much of my attitudes about what really might matter. While this was a catalyst for me in some ways, it was something I had been grappling with for much longer. But a catastrophic event can do this to a person… send them further and faster on a train of thought. After April 15 I started thinking about how it might not be the end of the world if I did not grade 120 papers on the exact day I got them. I started to think that in some ways my inability to present perfectly comprehensive and amazing lessons everyday might be acceptable. I thought I might not wash those dishes right then, I might go to bed and let someone rub my head. I looked around and thought, it just might be okay to do nothing for a minute.
In many ways, my present working environment has contributed a great deal to my ability to see that, while perfection may be a worthy goal, it is not a required outcome in order to achieve really amazing, important, valid things. I am working these days with the most creative, flexible, dynamic groups of people I have ever worked with. Without being patronizing or pandering in any way, these folks have a really solid grip on appropriate priorities for the tasks we have at hand. Consequently, they also have a really clear understanding of how to make sure the pursuit of perfection can coexist with the pursuit of happiness (or at the very least satisfaction.)
I can’t really express how grateful I have been for this – especially recently as I grapple with intense grieving for inexplicable losses, true instability as a teacher working in a public school under the painful thumb of state budgets, insane student behavior as spring approaches and I again find myself at the helm of a group of seniors who do not know how to deal with all the emotions associated with the impending transition that high school graduation brings them whether or not they are ready for it.
When I think about all these things – and all the other shit that is strewn across the world and the human race: genocide, poverty, domestic violence, failing economies, war, the mass marketing of fear, global warming, endangered species, racism – suddenly I get a whole new view of what matters. And what does not matter.
What matters? Spending time with the people who enrich your life, whenever you can. Doing things that energize and recharge you. Minding the three gatekeepers of the mouth: The first gatekeeper asks “Is it true?” The second gatekeeper asks “Is it kind? For those who qualify for the first two, there is a final question. The third gatekeeper asks “Is it necessary?”
And what does not matter? Internet trolls, and angry little men in general. A student who is righteously indignant that I took a page out of Mr. Hand’s book and did not allow him to come late to my class with food. A stack of ungraded papers. Handouts stapled imperfectly.
Tonight I will go to the gym and be punished by my trainer and love it. Then I will walk home and cook dinner for the really kind person who came to meet me just so I didn’t have to walk alone. Then I will get to spend time chatting about the things that matter with someone who matters. I will probably do some work to prepare for tomorrow. I will manage any crises I need to, including cleaning the cat box. And I will sleep well. Grateful for the opportunity to do all these things whether I like them or not, for another day.
All is not. lost.
Words for a moment when there simply are none.
For there is nothing heavier than compassion.
Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone,
a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes. ~ Milan Kundera
There are some things that are so horrible and awful and terrible, that they don’t ever seem real. Until they are real. And even now when they are real, I find myself continuously being drawn back to a place of suspended animation and disbelief. That this reality cannot actually be real. But it is real. And it is horrible and awful and there are simply no words in any language that can impart the kind of raw, visceral sadness I am speaking of.
I woke up today for the third time since a permanent shift occurred in the reality I inhabit. And the cats wanted food, and the sun came up, and the people went to work, me among them. As I sat on the train, knowing I would soon be riding the same train back to the City with 50 tenth graders, I read the news. I wanted to read about news really far away from me. From places where terrible, awful things happen all the time and so they don’t seem like such incomprehensible aberrations. And the first thing I read was about how this month is National Stalking Awareness Day. I am fairly certain in this context the focus is on internet stalking, but the connection between cyber-stalking and real stalking is too real for me. Especially now.
There are a litany of self-aggrandizing idiots on the internet who consider themselves “internet-famous” (a euphemism for being NOT famous…) and as such are constantly blubbering on and on about how they are “stalked.” These people post photos of their boobs all over the interwebs, try desperately hard to be titillating… and then cry, “Oh my! That person thinks I want to talk sexy with them!” Or, “God, that person is so obsessed with me!” In light of what it really means to be stalked, and what is on my mind today, these sad little people only add insult to the injury I am feeling right now. The things that lead a person to stalk another are probably impossible to be understood by any other, but when the outcome leads to tragedy, it points to a whole host of problems that have far-reaching effects. And when the tragedy touches you in a deeply personal way, you find yourself trying to make sense of things that make no sense and becoming enraged about pitiful people you don’t know or care about on the internet while you ride the train to work because to think about the pain that is really weighing on your heart and soul is so awful you cannot even breathe when it enters your mind.
I need to breathe.
We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others… Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”
~Pema Chödrön
Looking for explanations for the inexplicable is probably a road straight to insanity, but it is something I keep coming back to. It also leads to assigning false causality to minutia, and to conjecture, and to blame. I wanted to place this overwhelming grief onto someone else for the simple relief that anger might offer. For a moment I felt better.
But the relief was short-lived.
The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive. ~John Greene
The events that transpired in my hometown on Sunday afternoon, to people who I have known and loved for so many years, have left me and this small town adrift. That a family who I hold so dear in my heart and who have had a tremendous influence on my life are going through something so horrible is unconscionable. It is unfair. It is enough to engender feelings of anger that I was unprepared to deal with. But the worse I was feeling, and the more wound up in anger I became, I realized I was only adding to the horror of this situation. And compassion and forgiveness might be the only way I can regain some sort of balance in my mind. I do not have to forgive an individual who I have always struggled with for being who they were, but perhaps as the only way to quell the negativity within my mind, I would have to forgive them for this final act, if only as a small act of compassion towards such an injured person. This forgiveness actually felt quite selfish. I was doing it only for myself and simultaneously felt wracked with guilt for attempting to forgive.
But I kept thinking about it. In forgiving one person, I was not minimizing the other. Nor was I excusing the behavior of that individual, in recent times or further back. What I was trying to do was realign my energy to focus on the people for whom I am intensely grieving. And then, strangely, I started to feel a bit better.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato
As I look back on the life of my friend who has been taken away, the interconnectedness of all of us becomes so painfully clear, and not just because we come from a small town, but because the lives we live have far-reaching effects in wonderfully positive ways, as well as some that are terribly tragic. To try to understand why things happen after the fact is futile. There is no way to truly understand what you watch from any sort of distance, really you would be lucky to have a clear understanding of things you directly experience.
There are no words I can offer right now to a family I wish nothing more for than relief and peace. A family that has always welcomed me, and remembered me, and supported me no matter what. And to the friends I have on all sides of this tragedy, I feel equally helpless. Perhaps for these reasons I find myself here, writing in vagaries and tangents. Though it is little compensation I am sure, I turn now to another great mind:
To know even one life as breathed easier because you have lived… this is to have succeeded. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please give if you can: Conover & Sullivan Childeren
*photo: Curtis Stankalis
TVGNFTW
Sometimes after I spend some time immersed in someone else’s words (reading, people, reading.) I find it hard to avoid mimicry. This is strange to me because I do not do the Madonna accent thing – ever. Though I have been made aware that my accent changes. Everyone talked about how I over annunciated when I came back from Asia. No shit? That doesn’t make sense to you? Then you should go to Asia. Or more likely not. When I went to Europe on my own for the first time everyone “over there” said they knew I was not only American but Californian. A guy from some other English-speaking place said he knew I was Californian because we are the only people who simultaneously stretch each word out while speaking ridiculously fast. I found that an interesting, accurate and impressive observation. Today I would explain it more simply by saying hypno-diction and hyper-syntax. Or something like that.
This also makes me remember when my entire household was so completely addicted to Tetris that it began to color how we drove, moved… hell, those pieces were permanently falling in my (drug-free… ish) field of vision. It became an element of lifestyle. That happens to me when I read sometimes… I try on these other lifestyles. It is weird to write about it because it is not something I would normally do out loud – or, like, outside of my head. I don’t think. But right now I am acutely aware that I am doing it. This whole little diatribe is quite in the vein of something else I have been reading and I cannot even stop myself from writing this way. I wonder if it reads differently to the people who know me and read this blog normally. Is it plagiarism, do you think? And then that makes me think of a line from my current favorite Noah and the Whale song:
Look at me, calling myself a writer and shit.
But Tetris was the shit, wasn’t it? I love how all of the squares make that cool sound when they land. I was reminded of Tetris earlier today for a totally different reason, which was that I had my television on and as most people know, I am quite likely the shittiest television watcher ever. It find it impossible to stay focused and can’t share the clicker because I am constantly… clicking. There isn’t anything on T.V. anyhow, save for Law & Order of like ten thousand varieties and decades, and now the same could be said of derivative CSIs. Not that I am here to judge. I have tried to find a news program to watch in the morning when I get ready for work because it seems like it is helpful to know about the weather and what the hell is wrong with Bart on any given day. But that whole Sisyphean effort has just really brought out my masochistic tendencies because the Bay Area morning news is seriously so bad it is offensive. I have given up trying to find a good program and have chosen to settle on what is categorically the worst: NBC.
Seriously, they regularly completely enrage me before 6:30 a.m. with their stupidity, vapidity, and often totally inappropriate commentary. It is more energizing than coffee. There was a husband and wife team for a while who constantly talked about how they had triplets, but now the Mr. is gone leaving the Mrs. with the guy I would say is the dullest tool in the shed (yes, Jon Kelly, I mean you), except for they have Christina Loren doing the weather, so there is not really any more room in that category. The jokes are bad, the news is useless and the weather is often wrong. I can’t really comment on the traffic guy because I take Bart, I like his name though, Inouye has gravitas. The Guy-in-the-field Bob Reddell, reminds me of Harry Dunne, and I do not mean Jeff Daniels, I really mean Harry Dunne. The tech guy is so patently conservative and anti-Obama he could make the lost iPhone prototype at Cava-22 the fault of the current administration.
Recently, in my effort to watch anything for more than twenty minutes (aside from baseball or basketball) I even tried to watch the Emmy’s. Talk about useless. I didn’t know anyone on that program. But it got me thinking about some shows I should try to watch, so I made a list. And when I sat down to watch them grading papers became more engaging. Perhaps I shouldn’t have started with Ashton Kutcher’s debut on Two and a Half Men.
In the midst of this predicament, which I am sure makes me un-American somehow, I clicked over to the TV Guide channel. And I watched it. For a really long time. I finally found a channel I like to watch. It doesn’t matter what the audio situation is, I tune it out. There is something one hundred percent satisfying about those blue squares that fit perfectly together and just scroll up your screen. Some are green (sports!) some are purple (movies!) and they are all there, all the time, fitting together seamlessly. All that potential and I never have to ruin it by actually watching any of it. I can just know what is there and what is coming up and how it fits in the schedule and there is even occasionally a gap in the programming.
Just like Tetris.
I finally found a home.
TVGN FTW.
I thought of Bukowski tonight.
If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.
~ Bukowski
[mural detail from Capp Street, near 24th]
King Lear: We haiku you.
William Dyce 1806-1864, King Lear and the Fool in the storm
Irrational Lear
Lost everything he owned
Once hidden, now known.
I give you King Lear:
Madness, betrayal, bad weather.
Everybody dies.
The eye does not see
when the storm reduces man
madness his nature
Lear – angry, crazy:
A dragon lose in the storm
Dies of his madness.
The King splits his land
family drama arises
then everyone dies
Kingdom is split up
Bastard hates his legit bro
A lot of guys die.
Daughters: good and evil
Family can’t be trusted
Lots of people die.
Driven to madness
King Lear reaches true wisdom
Harsh realities.
Outcast by daughters
Young daughter dies with his mind
He sees, weeps, and dies.
filled with mad anger
Lear and his children destruct
the truth is revealed.
King Lear went insane,
but it brought him clarity
and understanding.
A king’s foolish words,
Betrayal leads to madness,
And then they all die.
A great King named Lear.
Tricked by two evil daughters
And everyone dies.
Delusional king
Insane daughters betray him
Everybody dies.
The plot is simple-
first, everyone goes mad, then
everybody dies.
Offsrping betrayal
Results in insanity
Finally, all die.
Madness is rampant
Through the storm and the battles
King Lear is crazy.
King Lear is crazy
Blind eye turned to honesty
Everybody dies.
King Lear falls down and
Oh what a horrible storm!
breaks his innocence.
For Lear wanted what
was not real nor realistic.
He lost all he had.
There was a mad king
Who was lied to and betrayed
Everyone drops dead.
Like tempest’s thunder
The King’s mind tears at itself
Sleep is death is peace.
Greedy daughters and
Tempests containing bald men
Where did the fool go?
King Lear is a play
William Shakespeare wrote it
Hamlet was better.
…and what’s that spell?
A starburst.
A cataclysmic event.
A nebulous constellation of color.
Memorable.
Made of a multidunious melange.
Meandering through the madness.
Abstract.
A place in the sun.
A view of the world.
Necessary.
Noteworthy.
Never easy, not often simple.
Distant but dedicated.
Demanding and delightable.
Daring………………………………………..
Anomalous > analogous.
Amazed by the lights.
A.M.A.N.D.A.
[an experiment in visual verse - google image searched each letter of my name - for the As used a variant in each search - selected one of the top five images to show up - coupled images with alliterative verse]
Unexpected emails continue…
Today’s installment in the unexpected emails comes from… me. A few years ago I came across a website called Future Me. I was using the website, which allows you to send yourself an email at a specified date in the future (obv), with my students. It was kind of cool in terms of a more unusual way to practice writing, and also goal setting in some ways. The premise was simple, set a date to receive your letter, type your letter, send.
So, of course, I did it too.
Happy New Year!
It seems impossible to believe that 2010 has come to an end. I remember Gust Proutsos, back in my first year at Procter Hug High School in Reno, told me that I was going to be absolutely blown away at how fast the years would speed by. I was unsure if this was a comment on age, perception, or working in a profession that is so totally locked into a temporal relativity. Regardless, Mr. Proutsos knew what was up. I cannot believe that I started this year in Bali, still a Hong Kong resident, then meandered through Burma and India, then found myself Stateside again in the exact circumstances I had abstractly described as a goal in September of 2009.
It is nothing short of fascinating.
Everywhere I look I am hearing people talk about how they cannot wait for this year to end. They are so over 2010. 2010 was so bad/hard/unfair/miserable… I guess, again, I am an anomaly. Sitting at the Latin American Club last week enjoying a cold beer on a rainy night with a very cute and inappropriate compadre, I was considering things, my life and the like. He looked at me and said, “You are such a positive person. I mean, you love your job, your house, your family. You really love your life.” He kind of chuckled and I smiled.
Yes. Yes, I do.
True Stor- CENSORED!!
Anonymous, but suggestive of... what?
So, maybe there is some benefit to being anonymous in that you can really write whatever you want – consequences be damned. The downside of anonymity is that you don’t get the legit acknowledgment that you are probably after in the first place (and it seems to me that anonymous attention seekers really have no boundaries in terms of the desperate levels to which they go to for attention, so the theory that all of this is a plea for attention seems substantiated.)
The thing is I love to tell stories, about me about adventures, about whatever. I enjoy this simply for the opportunity to be a rocking raconteur. The other thing is, even if you harbor a rom-com inspired fantasy that you may write something and somehow the one person on the planet who is supposed to read it does, and then somehow you live happily ever after because s/he understood/had an epiphany/realized they had been right (or wrong)/saw the light/determined they could not live without you (or would finally live without you)/offered you a movie-book-tv deal… the reality is that the people who “read” you generally have a personal reason to do so; they found you through a friend or friend of a friend, they are your family or your actual friends, they have a common interest that brought them to you (sorry hot stuff, it was your kitty not your pussy that brought them around…) [Note: I am excluding stalkers here, because those people are not reading your shit anyhow, they are tracking you, which is really different; like I have this ugly group from Akron, OH and San Antonio, TX who are constantly tracking me, as well as a very strange individual from KNX, TN, but it is not because they want to read my blog it is because they are freakishly jealous of my life creeps.]
The way I have conducted my on-line life is as simple as my real life is, which of course is not simple. It is, however, authentic and not some fantastical version of what I might wish my life was. I have chosen to write about real shit that happens to me (sometimes pretty fucking embarrassing shit), real shit that happens to people I know (sometimes pretty unbelievable shit) and real people (sometimes seemingly unreal)… because I am real.
This has led to some interesting consequences and outcomes.
Why Do You Do What You Do?
An inspired idea that apparently came into being on the Playa. I imagine a lot of inspired ideas take shape out there… but it is particularly special when they make it out of Black Rock City and become something more permanent. The question here is simple: Why do you do what you do?
Or is it?
I considered how to answer this question. Would it be a life philosophy I could uncover, or specific to one thing or another? I mean, obviously why I eat too many tacos is not the same reason I spend too much money on my hair, and why I do yoga is not why I freak out at the slightest hint of parental critique…
Or is it?
Maybe all the things we do (and by that same definition the things we don’t do) are connected and somehow totally logical no matter how incongruous or idiosyncratic we want to seem. Maybe there is some sort of rationale behind it all. Or maybe not.
Why do I do what I do? (more…)
Someone needs to get a grip. And by someone I mean: YO.
The type of memories
that turn your bones to glass
turn your bones to glass…
My house is a complete disaster and I have about ten million things to do. So, of course, I am sitting here blogging about it because, wehey! I know how to procrastinate. And what better way to avoid reality than to submerge oneself completely in narcissistic, though cathartic, endeavors? I was thinking about this as I sipped my cappuccino at the Green Cottage in Yung Shue Wan this morning (because I am pretending I have the time and disposable income for these types of things.) I feel like writing about every little detail these past (and last) few days. I look around and reflect. Yeah, how pretentious – I am reflecting. And try as I might, with all intention and seriousness, I cannot stop with this heightened obsession with contemplation.
Every time I get started packing a box, I begin looking through the things I am packing, because, really, I have to – I mean I cannot actually take all this shit with me – and then I am gone. The mental meander is dangerous too because it is apparently infinite. Until you pick up the next item. And so far I have packed exactly two boxes. Yes. Two. That is all. Though, I did manage to bring a few more into the house today, so potential rides again.
And what made it into those two 20kg (ha) boxes? Of all the things I need to pack organize and move… I have thus far filled both cardboard receptacles with: Books. I promised I would go through my library and cull. I have removed exactly seven books from the collection excluding the Asia Lonely Planet library, which I shall bequeath to my friends here because those are simply too heavy and illogical to bring back to the Western Hemisphere. I am not sure how this rates as a packing success, but I take comfort in the words of Briton Sydney Smith (1771-1845): “There is no furniture so charming as books, even if you never open them or read a single word.”
Amen brother. And can you spare a dime to cover the shipping costs?
Thank you 欧阳江河 (Ouyang Jianghe)
Poetry. Again. No escape. I guess I will just admit it. I like it. Dammit.
Last week one of my students came in with a proposal for a literature project on the Chinese poet Ouyang Jianghe. What the fuck? Chinese poetry? Are you kidding? Nothing but a little thing (4,000 words) examining the life and work of Ouyang Jianghe. (Who?) And then, as they say, a funny thing happened in the midst of my negativity. I read the stuff.
Most students who deal with Chinese poetry over here study Bei Dao, one of the so-called “Misty Poets.” These guys were, for the most part, booted from the PRC following the Tiananmen Square events in 1989, and are described as “misty” because their work is full of intentionally vague allusions and hermetic references. Probably the most famous Bei Dao poem is “The Answer”, though the collection, At The Sky’s Edge gets a good amount of play. Anyhow, suffice it to say, I was totally unfamiliar with Ouyang Jianghe.
And for good reason. The guy is no longer writing poetry, as has been said, everyone’s a critic. And now he is too. A member of the third generation of Chinese poets, Ouyang Jianghe is not “misty” but known as one of The Five Masters of Sichuan. Rather than focusing on politics or more abstruse references and metaphysics, he writes about everyday things – a modern/Eastern incarnation of literary realism, I suppose. He is pretty hard to find info on (shit, he is not in Wiki? What ever will we do??) but there is a brief bio online from a Berlin literary festival as well as a couple of others from various events.
But of course, my student came armed with verses. Literally. And we began to read.
“Every moment is the same moment.”
“So, an incisive look will reveal mankind to be wholly faceless, appearing as everything but being nothing.”
“But English has no territory in China.
It is merely a class, a form of conversation, a TV program,
in university a department, tests and paper.”“Transparency is a mysterious visible language of waves,
when I say it I have already separated from it…”“Language leaks out, dries up, before light penetrates.
Language is to soar, is
openness facing openness, lightning against lightning.”“Language and time are transparent,
we pay a high price.”“But who is the master of hat wild thought and ornate diction
speaks with flames, smears lips with tulips”“With one eye people look for love
the other presses into the barrel of a gun
bullets make eyes at each other
your nose aims at the enemy’s living room
politics incline to the left
one person shoots at the east
another falls in the west”“Wind, a masterpiece that surrounds the body.”
“Always I read, draped in flame or hunger.”
A realist. Perhaps. Realism gives a writer an opportunity to be supremely subversive by presenting something that is just about understandable and only subtly askew. Then only the truly astute will notice and how rare that the astute would be the ones who would choose censure or dismissal or death. Ouyang Jianghe writes about words and books and beauty and planned economies and leopards and diaspora and Soviet composers and workers in a glass factories Hamlet and fast food and language and power and death. Everyday is art. If all that is not political than I am not sure what is. For people who do not understand that… well, I suppose there is FNC and the WB for them.
So, Ouyang Jianghe is a master at that clever Chinese sleight of hand/mind/tongue/thought… he will let you think as you will about his poetry but he is most certainly saying what he means to be saying; and he feels no need to correct you, your error is your responsibility not his.
I think this will be a pretty interesting research project.
I’d like to thank the Academy…
Every year, I host an Academy Awards party on Oscar® Sunday©. In the States it was kind of different because my party actually incorporated the awards telecast and we could do silly things like dress up or whatever. Over here in GMT +8, we do it differently. They do televise the awards eventually, usually on Monday night after everyone has worked out who won, who looked like shit and who won the coveted Red Carpet Douche-Bag award.
Some things remain the same though: we still pick the winners and have a little pool to see who can out guess the guessers Academy. This year I think I am going to add some categories like Best/Worst dressed, Best/Worst lines, or Best/Worst audience appearance, just for a little more variety. And we have champagne, ’cause we are classy like that. Oh, and one other thing we can do here, thanks to the fabulous Asian copyright laws, is that we can hand out the movies as swag because they are easily purchased in any SE Asian locale. We have ‘em all. [Okay, except Avatar.]
And so, as the necessary prelude to the March 7 (or 8th) event, “The Academy” announced the Oscar® nominees a couple of days ago. [Their website has a countdown in case you have lost the ability to use a calendar.] This of course precipitated the standard litany of commentary on the oversights, the poor judgment, the obvious make-up calls, the general dissatisfaction with the list. It’s predicable and fabulous and a part of the cultural fabric to which I always look forward.
“Cats, who’d have ‘em?”
I’ve been thinking about cats a lot lately. Okay, it is not like I don’t think about my cats a lot in general, but lately I have been a little more global in my consideration of cats. I have long worried that I may turn into a “Cat Lady,” and the attendant stigma that goes with that. I am really the perfect candidate: single, approaching middle-age, cat-loving, History/Literature teacher. I mean, they don’t write Cat Ladies better than that. And my cats run me. For instance, right now, I really want to get up and get another cup of coffee but Matilda is on my lap and she is content, and gives me stink-eye when I move, so coffee is more of a contemplation at this point. Eventually, I will get the coffee, but not before considering what a great reason this situation is for having a live-in helper, roommate, even a boyfriend.
When I returned from Bali and I called my parents, I could hear in my mom’s voice right away that something was wrong and there were only a few things that might make her sound this way; as I was okay, it was either going to be gramma or kitteh. It is kitteh. Their 12(?) year old cat is not well, and as is the case with cats, the reasons are ambiguous, but the reality is clear. Taking her to the vet is traumatizing and causes kitteh to really make you feel bad, and so Ella was keeping to the safety of the subregions of the bedroom and not taking food. This cat is Ella Mae, who they adopted, along with another kitty named Callie, from the shelter in their North Idaho town. The adoption of these two cats has a lot of significance to me because I was there and helped my mom pick out the cats. She had been reluctant to get another cat after the death of her most recent furry friend, Celeste. But after enough time had passed she realized that she really missed having cats and had decided to adopt two, so they would have company, and also to select adult cats as everyone always adopts the kittens but the older cats often go overlooked. I happened to be staying with my parents after a very dramatic break up [look at me be understated] with Ex #3. I was not totally myself, but cats always cheer me up. I went to the shelter and we picked out the two (very different) calico kittehs. They were bewildered and everything esle that comes with a total rearrangement of every known detail in ones existence when we brought them back. Callie was the wilder, more adventurous of the two. Smaller and more traditionally calico, she ran around and checked things out. Ella, likely a little older, is a peachy calico – white and grey and peach colored. And she doesn’t like other cats. One night we couldn’t find Callie and every issue that I was dealing with regarding the recent turn of events in my own life totally manifested in a total freak out about her (temporary) disappearance. I totally lost it for a minute.
Then she came back.
Cats.
So, now Ella is getting ready to say her farewells. Callie left them long ago, likely the result of her wandering, she got really sick and gently passed. Ella really came out of her shell at that point and became the Queen of the Manor. And now as she is preparing to go, it is just totally sad all over again.
William James, why are you stalking me?
“An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.“
01/11/10.
Odd date. Odd day. Though I think I am misstating it when I use the word odd lately, but I am without another suitable adjective at the moment. I suppose I could go with freakishly synchronous – as I do love synchronicity (when it is real…) Or perhaps, it was just another day.
Here is January 11:
- I received a really nice email from my step-dad with an attachment to Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac.” He noted that he thought I might enjoy this newsletter (I do very much) and that he thought that on that day I would especially appreciate the words about William James. January 11 is the date of birth of the philosopher/psychologist/writer. I did not read the entry until later in the day.
- On the ferry, I began to re-read the novel 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. Please make no mistake in believing I am reading this 900-page behemoth for a second time, it is just that I started it a couple of months ago and am just now having the time to really attack it so I decided to start again, at the beginning. On introducing one of the characters, Liz Norton, Bolaño tells us that “If volition is bound to social imperatives, as William James believed, and it’s therefore easier to go to war than it is to quit smoking, one could say that Liz Norton was a woman who found it easier to quit smoking that to go to war… This was something she’d been told once when she was a student, and she loved it, although it didn’t make her read William James, then or ever.”
- On arriving at the office I saw that I had a lesson with one of my IB Literature student who is working on the novel Portrait of a Lady, by William’s brother, Henry James. This is a story about Isabel Archer, an American woman, “confronting her destiny” and it “explores the conflict between the individual and society by examining the life of a young woman who must choose between her independent spirit and the demands of social convention.” How totally UNfamiliar.
That was an interesting trifecta. So, of course I went and read the words from Keillor’s Almanac.
He wrote a lot about the psychology of pragmatism. He argued that a person’s beliefs were true if they were useful to that person. And he said, “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”
You don’t say.
He hung out with Freud, Jung, Helen Keller, Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell, and many other intellectuals. He once said, “Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world.” And he said, “Properly speaking a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.”
Sounds like he might have been on to something. Now I have a whole new philosopher to invite to my daily luncheon of mental musings. Fantastic.
As if I wasn’t already odd enough. 8)
Belief creates the actual fact.
A dude-montage in 5 easy steps.
I was recently discussing the fact that I refer to my exes by number when I write about them. The semi-awkward part of this was that I was discussing it with a dude. Not a boyfriend or someone who has reason to be concerned about being referred to as (or in his words relegated to a) number (that takes some degree of time, effort and commitment), but he thought it was – umm… uncool, I think.
I tried to explain that I write about #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 enough that I do not feel comfortable referring to them by name on the internet. He said that it was objectifying. I tried to say that this was not the case, though it may be. He said that people who know me well would be able to work out who each one was. I conceded that was true, but that I felt confident that #1, #2 and #5 would be fine with that (though #5 should be uncomfortable, however much of the reason he is now #5 is illuminated in his lack of discomfort). I know that #3 and #4 would not be okay with it. The good news is #3 would never deign to read anything I ever wrote and #4 does not read full stop. I understood why he thought it was strange that I has made this a habit, but in light of the circumstances, I am not going to make a change anytime soon. There is also the bit to be considered that I do not want to make the boys/men the focal point, but rather the stories. Add to this that for better or for worse, these people had made a huge impact on my life; whether I want to admit it or not, they have been monumentally significant.
Excuse?
Justification?
Rationale?
Reasonable?
Quién sabe.
As we continued to contemplate my internet-(in)appropriate exposure, I gave some serious thought to all my exes – inconveniently not all stored in Texas.
#1: Musician. Live music freak – loves shows. Party-dude. Sports fan. Passive (chill?) Tolerant (resigned?) Sweet. Easily satisfied. Mildly bohemian and slightly malleable.
#2: Brilliant. Complicated. Live music freak – loves shows. Chill (until he is NOT chill.) Observant. Educated. Athlete & fanatic. Bros before hos. Loyal. Family man.
#3: Conflicted. Incredible business acumen. Wealthy. Critical. Hampered by family. Obsessive. Entitled. Gentleman (for a purpose.) Confident. Driven. Movie fan. Felon.
#4: Athlete. Coupon clipper & advertisement reader. Passive (aggressive.) Simple. Uncomplicated. Dependable. Unbothered. Provincial. Low needs. Jet-ski & big screen dude. Homebody. Dog person. Frustrated.
#5: Intelligent. Exotic. Music freak. Ex-pat. Junkie. Schemer. Gregarious & extroverted. Oddly confident. Liar. Reader. Shirker. Worker.
Quite a strange assemblage. And then I looked at my dinner companion who, to a degree, embodies some little something of all of them. Is it true that the older we get and the more people we know the more likely it becomes that everyone reminds us of someone? Or, is it possible that this person really and truly actually IS the embodiment of all my “boyfriends-past,” to teach me some sort of Dickensian lesson in the here and now? I have no idea, but this I know: my dinner companion/travel compadre is: A musician. (Live) music freak – loves shows. Party dude. Tolerant. Mildly bohemian. Chill (until he is NOT chill.) Observant. Loyal. Educated. Family man. Conflicted. Confident. Driven. Athlete. Dependable. Unbothered. Dog person. Intelligent. Gregarious & extroverted.
It made me think of a movie I just watched called 9. A brilliant scientist infuses sock puppets (?) each with a different part of his soul. Apparently he had nine parts. So, together they form a whole. Maybe that is my point. Or maybe it is just what happens; after meeting people for so long, and in so many places, everyone does remind you of someone else, or some aspect of one who came before. It could really be that simple. Or maybe it is something much more. And maybe it matters only in so much as I want to write about how it might.
And… maybe everyone should get their own number.
Travel (Writing).
Every time I have the opportunity to take a trip – big, small, exotic, mundane, work-related, totally frivolous, near, far – I am grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity, the variety and the inherent surprises that come even when you think for sure they will not. And I am grateful for the chance to share my experiences with others. Whether or not they are grateful is something that apparently very few travelers actually consider, but I would like to consider it.
Since I have been living in Asia and traveling in Asia I have found, in sharing my experiences, I rely heavily on words like myriad and juxtaposition. But these words do so little to actually communicate what I mean. Or at least they seem ineffective in comparison to what I see around me. How can I really demonstrate what I mean when I say there are myriad subtleties in the art of multilingual (or non-lingual) communication in Asia, or that Asia is replete with the most incongruously wonderful juxtapositions I have ever seen? Just saying it seems limited.
And why would it matter? Because, of course, with traveling comes the requisite sharing of said experiences, either with other travelers, or maybe with those who would, but can’t and those who could, but don’t. Ihave a great audience in my classroom for sharing, though I was reluctant to share my trips with my students in the US at first, a result of scars from having to endure my own Freshman English teacher’s every vacation to Hawaii (Mark Reischling I know you loved it, but us? Not so much.) Eventually I did begin to share and whether or not it had the Reischling effect on the kids, it totally changed how I traveled. I began to look around the world in a wholly new way; trying to see everything through the eyes of my students gave my trips a completely new focus. I brought back Vegemite and didgeridoos and boomerangs from Australia and let my students try all of them when we studied the region in Geography. I shared my photo essay of the street people and permanent protesters from D.C. when we covered Civil Rights and Liberties in Government class. I brought in albums from Italy when we studied the Renaissance in World History and the photos for my graduate thesis on Area 51 when we covered the Cold War in US History. Photos of the Ancient Agora and the Theater of Dionysus were passed around when we covered mythology and Ancient Greece. From Russia to Alaska to the Baltic States to Mexico and Jamaica – I wondered: What would my students find interesting, or surprising or bizarre… what might shock them? How could I impart what it was like to be in all these places… How could I create the sense of place in a way that they could relate to and provide context for what they were studying?
I read somewhere recently that the abundance of travel writing was getting simply ridiculous. Something to the effect that people live under the misconception that everyone wants to read about their every trial and tribulation on the road and that somehow a well-inked passport makes one the next great… well, you know, travel writer. And I had to admit, it is kind of true. There are more travel blogs out there everyday, and in some ways, this might kind of be one. I do not read many of the travel blogs that profess to be the “key” to any sort of wisdom, and I love the idea that something one reads on the internet could in any way be “off the beaten track…” [Sorry Lonely Planet, I still love you and I turn to you often, but yo, you are way mainstream.]
Still, I have a certain love for travel literature.
Saying thanks…
A person I know from a long time ago posted something on that notoriously annoying social networking site today that I really liked. It said:
Every day this month until Thanksgiving, think of one thing that you are thankful for…
Of course, there were some other requisite instructions I am going to ignore because that is how I am, but as an exercise, this is a good one. So, to start with, thank you Lance.
Today I am thankful for the return of my slightly distracted mojo courtesy of these two Tweets from the LA Times Books and the brilliant Lizz Winstead. [I mean if Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejan can write, come on...]
Eat, Pray, Emulate.
I went to see my yoga teacher’s master/teacher this weekend. I could not go to the practice that he held last night because of work, but I am glad I got to hear him talk and to see him. I am kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I really wanted to just see what he was like in relation to how I look at his student who is trying so hard everyday to teach me new things. I was a little nervous. But I went.
And it was totally cool.
I like the energy that people who are completely in possession of who they are can project. It is a unique thing to behold, and I know very few people who are really that way. I know plenty who think they are, but few who really are, and you can tell the difference immediately. I live in a place filled to the brim with individuals who claim to be uber-enlightened. You know, they have all the right music, incense, books – yeah, they bought the t-shirt. Funny enough, they tend to be some of the most judgmental and narrow minded people I have encountered. Like judgmental AND patronizing all at the same time. It is an UNjoy to behold. The guruji I saw on Sunday had it going on for real. He was totally different than the people I usually see professing their enlightenment. He was just really happy, and that is sort of what I hope enlightenment is really all about. And then he mentioned Osho, which is also cool because I have been digging Osho ever since I realized he could be all deep AND talk about the “F-word.”
Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.
Put that on your list of “Things that make you go, ‘Hmmmmmmm….’”
Mojo Rising.
The phases of life are pretty interesting. We are really into one thing, then another then another. Could be maturation. Could be capriciousness or dilettantism. Lately I am less concerned with micromanaging these phases, but I get a little bothered when they impede my ability to do things I like. For instance, I have had the hardest time writing these past few days. My brain is full and my eyes are open. But – nothing seems to be happening. I mean, lots of things are happening, just absent of words.
I feel like I have lost my mojo.
I better take a look around, see which way the wind blows….
Amanda
