My maternal grandfather was an immigrant, and that side of the family is thoroughly German. After cooking bacon, my grandmother would pour the grease into a coffee can, saving it for, well, I don't know what. But she was saving it. My grandfather kept every rubber band, bank statement, scrap of twine. "You never know when you might need it," he'd say. Living through both World Wars — the first as a child, the next as a young man — created a lifelong habit of frugality.
I know it's not right to generalize, but it is rare to see a messy German. My mom's side of the family, and the vast majority of their countrymen, have a uniquely Teutonic dedication to order and cleanliness. My grandmother's home was always sparkling; I remember her hands glowing pink from cleaning with diluted bleach. (It is a wonder that my mother ever developed proper immunity, because the home held so few germs for her body to fight.) Before we left his house after a visit, my grandfather would rush out to clean our car windows even if he had taken it through a car wash that day. Everything in my grandparents' home was tidy, there was never any dust or disorder, and god forbid you leave a dirty dish in the sink for a moment or two.
Betty is her parents' daughter. I'll clean my apartment before she visits, but while I'm in the shower or running to the store for a minute, she'll make it shine. I ask her not to do this, because it makes me feel like a filthy sow who is being silently judged. (Also, she should just rest and stop working so much.) My take on tidiness is a blend of my father's controlled-chaos clutter and my mother's fastidious and spotless organization.
Yesterday's cold, rainy afternoon made me happy because it meant I could clean the apartment. This probably doesn't sound like fun, but it is so satisfying to zone out with an old toothbrush and dirty tiles. There's a kind of zen-lite focus that develops when all there is to do is disinfect and organize. I like to clean because doing so leads to tangible, visible results. So before an unusually social evening began, while the sky whipped rain against the windows, I was rearranging the contents of my dresser drawers. This probably sounds like the most tedious chore, but like they say, if it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone, go ahead and do it. Especially if your socks wind up arranged by color in the process.
I know it's not right to generalize, but it is rare to see a messy German. My mom's side of the family, and the vast majority of their countrymen, have a uniquely Teutonic dedication to order and cleanliness. My grandmother's home was always sparkling; I remember her hands glowing pink from cleaning with diluted bleach. (It is a wonder that my mother ever developed proper immunity, because the home held so few germs for her body to fight.) Before we left his house after a visit, my grandfather would rush out to clean our car windows even if he had taken it through a car wash that day. Everything in my grandparents' home was tidy, there was never any dust or disorder, and god forbid you leave a dirty dish in the sink for a moment or two.
Betty is her parents' daughter. I'll clean my apartment before she visits, but while I'm in the shower or running to the store for a minute, she'll make it shine. I ask her not to do this, because it makes me feel like a filthy sow who is being silently judged. (Also, she should just rest and stop working so much.) My take on tidiness is a blend of my father's controlled-chaos clutter and my mother's fastidious and spotless organization.
Yesterday's cold, rainy afternoon made me happy because it meant I could clean the apartment. This probably doesn't sound like fun, but it is so satisfying to zone out with an old toothbrush and dirty tiles. There's a kind of zen-lite focus that develops when all there is to do is disinfect and organize. I like to clean because doing so leads to tangible, visible results. So before an unusually social evening began, while the sky whipped rain against the windows, I was rearranging the contents of my dresser drawers. This probably sounds like the most tedious chore, but like they say, if it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone, go ahead and do it. Especially if your socks wind up arranged by color in the process.
Labels: neuroses
I used to think I had secret powers. A sampling:
Sadly, I am now a flightless failed mentalist who has one-sided conversations with babies. Now the only magic power that remains is dreaming. I feel sorry for people who can't remember their dreams, because having mine come back to me is one of my favorite daily rituals.
In the last couple of years, a strange new pattern has developed. Right before I fall asleep, exactly as I take that first step into slumber, an intense shock of fear jolts me awake. I often sit up in bed with tremendous force, gasp for air, feel my heart race, feel a shiver run through my body. I never know why I am so petrified, because there's never anything to remember.
This happened last night, as it does most nights, but it was different this time. I bolted awake, opened my eyes, and saw a tall, thin woman standing at the foot of my bed. She had sallow skin and angular curls spiraling out of her head. She was wearing a thin maroon cardigan over a dress the color of institutional light green, and her malicious grin broadened as she crept forward. She had it out for me.
It was a horrible vision, easily as bad as the childhood fever dream in which I had to save my grandfather's life by singing the Tyson chicken jingle ("Tyson's fee-ding you / like fam-i-leeee") to Bob Barker, who was hosting a game show in my clothes closet. Last night I snapped out of it and escaped that awful woman, but the whole thing felt uncomfortably real.
So now, on the cusp of bedtime, I'm trying to decipher what the scary lady is all about. Why, for the first time in all these years of bizarre jolt-awakes, did I hallucinate her? Just thinking of it is making my heart beat faster, giving me chills. I have no idea why I was so scared of her, or what she might represent.
My childhood self would be disappointed by my lack of special powers. But I feel very fortunate to have a strong subconscious that, for whatever reason, plays tricks on my me. It never runs out of things that make me wonder, which may be the reason we dream in the first place. The subconscious mind is such an exciting mystery, even (especially?) when it makes us see things that don't exist. So maybe that is a secret power that we all have. And with that, I am going to brush my teeth, slip into bed, and see if that harpy dares wake me up tonight.
- As a toddler, I believed that I could understand the cries and gurgles of babies in a secret language indecipherable to adults. As I got closer to kindergarten, I quietly panicked because this special ability was slipping away.
- I had recurring dreams of flying. I could feel the strain of flapping my arms, pushing down to soar up to the top of the maple tree at the property line. I took this as a sign that my dreams could come true. If you had looked at our front lawn during the summer of 1987, you would have seen a bird-legged little girl frustratedly waving her arms up and down.
- Around the fifth grade, I was convinced that I could read minds, which led me to track down magic books that would refine my skills. Ladies and gentlemen, the not-so-amazing Kreskin!
Sadly, I am now a flightless failed mentalist who has one-sided conversations with babies. Now the only magic power that remains is dreaming. I feel sorry for people who can't remember their dreams, because having mine come back to me is one of my favorite daily rituals.
In the last couple of years, a strange new pattern has developed. Right before I fall asleep, exactly as I take that first step into slumber, an intense shock of fear jolts me awake. I often sit up in bed with tremendous force, gasp for air, feel my heart race, feel a shiver run through my body. I never know why I am so petrified, because there's never anything to remember.
This happened last night, as it does most nights, but it was different this time. I bolted awake, opened my eyes, and saw a tall, thin woman standing at the foot of my bed. She had sallow skin and angular curls spiraling out of her head. She was wearing a thin maroon cardigan over a dress the color of institutional light green, and her malicious grin broadened as she crept forward. She had it out for me.
It was a horrible vision, easily as bad as the childhood fever dream in which I had to save my grandfather's life by singing the Tyson chicken jingle ("Tyson's fee-ding you / like fam-i-leeee") to Bob Barker, who was hosting a game show in my clothes closet. Last night I snapped out of it and escaped that awful woman, but the whole thing felt uncomfortably real.
So now, on the cusp of bedtime, I'm trying to decipher what the scary lady is all about. Why, for the first time in all these years of bizarre jolt-awakes, did I hallucinate her? Just thinking of it is making my heart beat faster, giving me chills. I have no idea why I was so scared of her, or what she might represent.
My childhood self would be disappointed by my lack of special powers. But I feel very fortunate to have a strong subconscious that, for whatever reason, plays tricks on my me. It never runs out of things that make me wonder, which may be the reason we dream in the first place. The subconscious mind is such an exciting mystery, even (especially?) when it makes us see things that don't exist. So maybe that is a secret power that we all have. And with that, I am going to brush my teeth, slip into bed, and see if that harpy dares wake me up tonight.
Labels: sleep
"Coffee."
"Tomlin."
Coffee isn't Mr. Coffee's real last name, of course, but that's how our conversations always start. It is one of those small parts of our friendship that always feel comfortingly familiar. I remember the night we met; it was six years ago, maybe even to the month. I’d been invited to do a reading at a coffee shop on Roscoe, and he liked my story. He asked me what my favorite book was, and Nabokov sent our friendship on its way.
We talk every few months, send each other tiny notes in the mail, that sort of thing. (We've e-mailed each other maybe three or four times, oddly.) What our conversations lack in frequency, they make up for in meaning. We just get each other, and during the gaps in communication, our lives frequently run parallel. When we talk, we laugh at the coincidences. May: I'm going to France, he's going the week afterward. August: He's in love with a girl in Prague, I'm in love with a boy in Portland. Now: He's nursing a bruised heart, I'm doing the same. It is good to be able to ask each other, "Do you know what I mean?" and have "yes" be the truth.
"You should come out to SF," I said last night. "We'll paint the town red and you can get away from the gray weather." (I am tricking him. Fog is gray. Shh.)
It's not the first time we've talked about such a visit, but so far we haven't made it happen. And maybe that's part of how our friendship works, too. We don't need to see or even talk with each other all the time to stay connected. We just are. When it's time to hang up, one of us always tells the other one how much our friendship means. I love that, but I love that it goes without saying even more.
(PS)
Before any aspiring matchmakers get any ideas... Yes, we tried dating when we first met. We tried really hard to convince ourselves that we should be a couple before realizing that a good friendship is better than a lot of people's romantic relationships are.
"Tomlin."
Coffee isn't Mr. Coffee's real last name, of course, but that's how our conversations always start. It is one of those small parts of our friendship that always feel comfortingly familiar. I remember the night we met; it was six years ago, maybe even to the month. I’d been invited to do a reading at a coffee shop on Roscoe, and he liked my story. He asked me what my favorite book was, and Nabokov sent our friendship on its way.
We talk every few months, send each other tiny notes in the mail, that sort of thing. (We've e-mailed each other maybe three or four times, oddly.) What our conversations lack in frequency, they make up for in meaning. We just get each other, and during the gaps in communication, our lives frequently run parallel. When we talk, we laugh at the coincidences. May: I'm going to France, he's going the week afterward. August: He's in love with a girl in Prague, I'm in love with a boy in Portland. Now: He's nursing a bruised heart, I'm doing the same. It is good to be able to ask each other, "Do you know what I mean?" and have "yes" be the truth.
"You should come out to SF," I said last night. "We'll paint the town red and you can get away from the gray weather." (I am tricking him. Fog is gray. Shh.)
It's not the first time we've talked about such a visit, but so far we haven't made it happen. And maybe that's part of how our friendship works, too. We don't need to see or even talk with each other all the time to stay connected. We just are. When it's time to hang up, one of us always tells the other one how much our friendship means. I love that, but I love that it goes without saying even more.
(PS)
Before any aspiring matchmakers get any ideas... Yes, we tried dating when we first met. We tried really hard to convince ourselves that we should be a couple before realizing that a good friendship is better than a lot of people's romantic relationships are.
Labels: chicago, emo spice, men i would have dated
It's funny: I started telling stories before I could write them down. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mother, and she'd take down the tales I dictated. (Sample title: Paddington Bear Goes to the Mailbox.) In grade school, Jim and Mike and I were an accelerated-reading trio that we called The Rainbows. We wrote Choose Your Own Adventure-type stories in BASIC, and I still remember the password to get into the most adventurous levels. (Blueflashfalcon10mx.) Later, there was WSBS, the "radio show" we hosted over the school's PA system. (The poor nuns.) After a stint as the editor of The Good News Bears, I went on to high school to eventually run The Critic, and after that I edited The Michigan Independent. Post-college, I have always made my living from words.
Other talents elude me. I can't draw; my recent attempt at sketching a dog resembled lumpy oatmeal more than any sort of mammal. I cannot sing very well. Dorky dancer. Asthmatic, clumsy, bad at sports.
So that leaves writing, one of the roughest interests a person can develop. I never trust people who say it's easy to write. Maybe it is for them, but they should just shut their traps, because for the rest of us, it's work. Often-thankless work that compels an otherwise well-balanced person to tinker with a paragraph for hours or ponder the placement of a single comma, all for the chance that there's a tiny seed of something great growing in the copious amounts of crap you've produced. And the better writer you become, the more you can spot what isn't quite right. (For instance, the first paragraph has far too many parentheses, and now I've added one more. Agh!)
I've always liked this take on writing from Truman Capote:
When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.
I don't think I have some sort of magical talent or anything like that, just an attraction to words and a need to share them. Still, I put on my red writing cap and crack that whip. Sometimes that pushes me toward improvement, and I'll get into this rare and amazing mode where everything flows as it should. Other times, the whip is cruelly critical, and it makes me think I'm a bigger hack than Nicholas Sparks. Then I get upset because Nicholas Sparks' books are the Precious Moments figurines of literature, and yet he finishes his schmaltz, so why don't I write some schmaltz of my own? See? Whipped. But I can't not write. Frankly, I don't know what else to do.
All of this is an lengthy prelude to what I wanted to say in the first place, which is this: I like taking photographs! I enjoy snapping scenes all around town, stealing shots of strangers, and trying to get the cats to stand still for a portrait of Minou as a feline Henry Kissinger lookalike. (Glasses, jowls.)
Unlike writing, taking pictures is easy for me. This is because I have no idea what I'm doing, and I don't measure myself by the end result. There are no high expectations, no need to get a perfect shot, no aspirations to do much more than capture a scene. I might look at a photo and think, "Oh, look how well it turned out!" instead of looking for something to improve. In other words, it's fun.
Lately I've found another reason to keep the camera battery charged. Since my father died, an increasing number of my pictures look like his paintings. The bright colors, the empty space, clean lines — they're all him. I laughed while writing this because I just looked up at a painting he did of an awkward girl next to a cruiser bike; this morning, I snapped exactly that scene while waiting for the bus. I don't go looking for this overlap; it just happens every so often. Every time it does, it's like he's here for a moment, looking at the world with me.
Labels: dad
I got halfway to the train today before realizing that I'd forgotten my bag at home. On the walk back to retrieve it, I took a different route and basked in the sunshine. It was one of those warm early spring afternoons that is probably foggy on the western side of the city, but the Mission was nearly balmy. All the walking gave me ample time to think.My mind went to 2007, when I considered heading to California. I was ready to leave Chicago, but I was also scared of making such a large and literal move. I spent a lot of time going over what-if scenarios — what if I don't like it, what if I don't make friends, etc. Eventually I thought, "Well, if that happens, then I can always move back." Fear — at least the worry we dream up for ourselves, anyway — is actually an easy demon to slay.
Anyway, when the furniture was sold and the Chicago days were dwindling, I specifically remember thinking, "I will always remember this time as a point when I knew my life was going to change in a big way." I love those moments. Like when Jesse and I stared upward on a summer night, I knew I'd remember that as one of the best scenes of our friendship.
Sometimes you can identify your life's turning points as they happen: graduation, first job, moving to a new city, having children. Other times, it takes time to look back and realize how some of the most meaningful things start out unassumingly. I think of listening to Fifteen records (actual records!) with Trevor in 1996, for instance, and how it was impossible back then to know what a close friend he'd become.
Today I'm again at a fork in the road, and I am dropping the compass in the dirt. It is scary and exciting at the same time. (Two roads diverge! Captain of my soul! Choose your own adventure! Other highfalutin literary allusions!) But for now, it's time to lace up my orthopedic dancing shoes.
Labels: emo spice
