The Ugly Volvo

Things That Make Me Happy

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:32:30 GMT

Topping the list right now is my sister's myspace page.

Dear Pam,

A note on myspace pages: If you become engaged and decide to make your myspace headline, "We're Engaged!" (as I have seen on numerous pages), remember not to change your default photo of a shot of you looking lovingly at a taxidermied raccoon.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=143318598&MyToken=48962fc5-2639-4aa3-950f-1eff866fda89

I love you so much.

Sincerely,

Kelly

Give It a Rest

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:50:35 GMT

"I slept through the whole thing," Karen tells me. "He was talking for about an hour or so and I think I fell asleep after 4 or 5 minutes and woke up at the end when everyone was leaving. I feel like a bad person."

"You're not a bad person, you're overtired."

"Yeah, but it's not like it was some local greenpeace guy who's talking about building a compost heap in his backyard. I slept through the Dalai Lama," she emphasized. "A friend had even gotten me tickets because I was so excited that he was talking at our school and then I sat down and I was just out...I just passed out. I remember waking up at one point where he was pretending to be a lion or something-- he was using his fingers and pretending they were fangs, and everyone was laughing at it like, 'Look, the Dalai Lama's pretending to be a lion!' Or maybe it wasn't a lion," Karen says with uncertainty. "But he was pretending to be something with fangs." Karen holds her two index fingers to her mouth, as if doing an imitation of a walrus. "He was doing this with this fingers," she said. And he was chasing fake gazelles around-- I don't really know what he was doing. And then I fell asleep again."

"It sounds like he really made an impression on you," I tell her. I am thrilled that revered spiritual leaders have the same effect on my sister as that horrible butterfly from the Lunesta commercials."

"I didn't mean to fall asleep!" she said. "But he talks really slowly and sort of quietly. Which is GOOD," she emphasizes, since it sort of goes well with...you know...his job. But which is bad since...you know...I fall asleep really easily. You know..." she says again, trailing off.

And here is the thing. I do know. I know that she didn't mean to fall asleep and probably didn't want to fall asleep any more than I had wanted to fall asleep while standing up in the third row of a Snow Patrol concert.

"Are we having a slow night?" the lead singer asked the audience, grasping the microphone with both hands, "since it seems I've put someone to sleep here in front."

My eyes shot open in that moment between sleep and awake where you're only vaguely cognizant of your surroundings. Where you murmuringly wonder, "Am I at home in my own bed? Am I at my parent's house in the bed I grew up in? Am I on a trip or at a friend's apartment, nestled lovingly into their sofa? I couldn't possibly be standing up in the third row of a Snow Patrol concert, could I? Because that would be ridiculous.

"I'm not asleep," I said, to the singer and my boyfriend at the time and the other several hundred people in Webster Hall or the Bowery Ballroom or whatever ridiculously large venue I had decided to use for a makeshift, Saturday evening, "naptime." I said it groggily, in the "Of course you didn't wake me up" voice you use to answer phone calls you receive at 8AM on a Saturday. While standing next a friend eagerly clutching her Heineken and staring lustfully at the band (the friend who had dragged me to a Snow Patrol concert in the first place), I had managed to fall asleep while standing up, an enviable ten feet from the stage. I would have included more details about the concert-- the singer's attire, the demographic of the crowd, the opening song-- except that I don't remember them because I was sleeping and nothing in the venue made much of an impression on me but the sad lack of pillow-top mattresses.

"That's why I never took you to concerts," my ex sighed. "Remember the time we went to that place in Brooklyn and you fell asleep at the bar by all those pocketbooks?"

"I was resting," I tell him. "I was really tired and just needed to rest so I was resting." Similar to the time I 'rested' at that diner, with my head on a table next to a half-eaten dish of pancakes. Or at that bar when I decided I needed to "rest," and politely placed my knit hat over my face to keep people from coming up and talking to me while I caught up on REM sleep next to the Big Buck Hunter machine.

It is perhaps a trademark of our family that we are not particularly good at forcing ourselves to stay awake. I remember as an eleven year-old being dismissed from Church school only to have the entire class discover my father, politely asleep in the coat closet. He was in a sitting position, his back against the back wall with his legs jutting out, looking like the wicked witch of the east had been killed by a juvenile array of hoodies and snowpants. His eyes popped open as my sister and I gently nudged him in the leg.

"Dad," we said. "You're sleeping on the floor of the church coat closet."

"Yes," he said, affirming our observation. "I got here early to pick you up and I was waiting for--" he looks as his watch "--twenty minutes at least. I guess I konked out." Other girls reached above his head to slide their shiny pink jackets off their hangers.

"Why didn't you wait in the big room?" we asked. "There are chairs."

"I'm not sure," he said. "I was standing by the coat closet since I remember thinking we could just grab your coats and go, but then at some point I must have gotten tired and sat down."

"None of the other kids' dads was asleep on the floor of the coat closet," we pointed out. Our father looked quickly to the left and right of himself.

"You're right," he said, after his quick verification. "None of them is. Just me." He nodded jovially to a girl whose family we were friends with, who pulled her coat awkwardly from above his head. "So are you girls ready to go?" he asked, getting up from the floor with that slight extra grunt that begins in one's mid thirties, when one realizes it is not quite as easy to get up of the floor as it once was.

"We are very ready to go," we told him.

And we drove home to my mother, where we most likely relayed the story of finding my father asleep on the floor, where she most likely gave him a disapproving look since my mother extremely disliked having my father fall asleep at places or times that were not the appropriate places or times to fall asleep.

"What he would do," my very patient by tired mother would relay to us, "Oh, god, I wanted to kill him when he did this. What he would do was hold a house party where he was talking and making people laugh and joking with everyone. Where he was just the life of the party. So I have all these people walking around our house who I'm trying to help entertain. And then a few hours into it everyone would start going, 'Where's Ross? Where did Ross go?" Because at some point he would have decided he had had enough and would just walk to his bed and fall asleep. And you can't DO that," my mother said, either emphasizing or pleading. "You can't just hold a party and then go to bed and leave all of them walking around your house."

"And it was the same with Pam when she was a kid," she went on. "She'd be playing outside on the driveway and all of a sudden it was like, 'where did Pam go, where's Pam?' and it would turn out she had gotten tired and walked into her bedroom to take a nap."

And in fairness to us and our semblance of narcolepsy, each of us lives frantic lives from which we rarely force ourselves to take a break. My father has for years risen at 4:30, only to return home around 7 in the evening, physically exhausted, not able to actually collapse in bed until 10 or 11 at night. My younger sister often works multiple jobs in addition to her schoolwork, her band practices, and her social life. And I, who should not be writing this now when I have to be at work at 6 tomorrow morning, have been averaging 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night.

"I'm so stressed out," Pam says to me. "I'm getting up so early to beat traffic. I work in a school where the kids are nuts," she says. "They are crazy. The other day I actually thought I was going to strangle one of them. And I've finally tried Yoga to try and calm me down, and it actually sort of works."

"That's great," I say, "I'm happy it helps."

"It does," she says. "I don't like the super high energy yoga where you sweat a lot. And I'm not sure I get out of it what you're supposed to get out of it. I like it to relax and it helps me with that, but from my teacher I sort of get that I'm supposed to feel like I'm one with the universe, and I don't. I'm sort of embarrassed that everyone else is feeling something I'm not feeling."

"They're not feeling it either," I told her, suddenly ordaining myself a psychological evaluator of women in New York Sports Club yoga classes. "And being able to relax when you need to will put you in a better state of mind, which is what's more important for you than being one with the universe."

"Ok," she says. "I just felt like everyone else got this spiritual thing from it that I missed."

"Sometimes it's important to have a spiritual experience, but sometimes it's more important to get some rest," I told her. "And Anyone who's ever slept through a speech by the Dalai Lama will back me up on that. I'm almost sure of it."

A sort of retarded essay that has nothing to do with anything.

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:07:37 GMT

I haven't written any normal blog-type entries in a while since I do not have internet at my workplace, but I wrote this the other day so figured I would post it.

The narrator is NOT ME.

I had no reasons/excuses for writing it.

First off, please stop crying. I love you and it hurts me to see you hurting. Not that you’re not allowed to feel hurt and feel pain, because that’s a part of human experience I can’t deny you (nor would I, normally), I just don’t want to have to see it.

Do you want some time to clean yourself up before we have this talk? Your face is a mess-- your eyes are completely swollen shut from the crying and your complexion is blotchy and uneven.
And I know you’re going to protest through those beautiful lips of yours—fuller today than usual, I noticed—that no, you’re not crying, that this is a physical reaction to a shellfish allergy and that is has nothing to do with our mutual trust issues or the state of our relationship.

I was not born yesterday.

I can tell that you’re angry—your skin is so red and tight that I can almost see welts of resentment working their way up your arms. I will assume it has something to do with “Saturday night” and have a feeling I’ve hit the nail on the head, given that you seem to be completely at a loss for words. Acknowledging your dramatics, I’ll assume the strangled, breathy exhalations are an indication of your intense antagonism, despite your insistence at pointing at the shrimp tails I left in a colander in the sink. Let’s keep the focus where it belongs here—on us. On what we’ve been and what we have the potential to be.

I went out Saturday because I wanted to give you some space. Because I feel like I’ve been around too much and you don’t have your own life. The fact that you have your hands up around your throat confirms my suspicions about my behavior over the past few months. I’ve been choking you. I haven’t been letting you get enough air. Yes. Air. I get it. You can stop illustrating the concept. I’m not an idiot and I feel bad enough as it is. But the thing is, I feel like you’ve fallen out of love with me and I’m just desperately trying to get you back. Is any of this resonating with you at all?

I’m trying to have a serious conversation about a serious topic. Us. And yes, since you clearly won’t let me go on until I address your agenda here—those are mussels. A bag of discarded mussel shells. Because this is me, muscling my way back into your life, and this is you, so emotionally cold that your complexion has taken on a bluish tint. What happened to the warm, loving person I fell in love with?
I want things to be the way they were back in January. You were so attractive in your blue Northface jacket, your eyes sparkling and so much less bloodshot than they are today. Back when holding my hand gave you goosebumps, as opposed to the golfball sized welts my company has given you this evening. Do you miss all that? I miss it. I don’t always verbalize how much I miss it, but I do.

I’ll admit it. It’s hard to talk to you while you’re rifling through your medicine cabinet. I don’t know if this is some sort of symbolic relationship technique, but you clearly want me to stab you with your Epi-pen. Isn’t this taking things a bit far? I know I’ve hurt you emotionally, but are you really one of those people who needs to dull the emotional with physical pain? Do you feel like it will hurt less to have me pierce your skin with this needle than it did to have me pierce your stone-cold façade with love?

I am only doing this because I care about you and if that means participating in your silent drama, so be it. I must admit to myself that I have already become a willing participant in the soap opera of your existence and if that extends to inflicting physical harm (at your bequest) on your person, who would I be to deny you what you want?

Where should I thrust the needle—your heart? The location that feels, in my humble opinion, the most fitting, and yet I see you dramatically grasping at your thigh, as if that is where you compartmentalize me.
I’ve never had anything to do with your heart, have I? This relationship, in which I foolishly invested myself, has been nothing but below the belt. Here I am, at your feet, my emotions as inflamed as the majority of your facial features, and yet I must resign myself to the fact that this relationship will fall far short of my expectations. There is nothing I can do that I have not attempted to do already. It is beyond saving.

I’m glad we’ve had this talk. Here’s your Epi-pen, hurled with mixed emotions into the flesh of your splotchy leg. Do you feel better, now that I’ve done it? I do. I’ll admit that it brought me some semblance of pleasure to bring you a modicum of the pain that you’ve brought me over these long, winter months. It seems to have calmed you down as well, which is advantageous. I feel as though we’ve had a physical battle here, each of us propped up against the wall, panting.

Dear god, but love is invigorating.

This is between you and me and everyone in the world with internet access.

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:06:56 GMT

Written for the Inner Monologues essay reading. Topic: Deep dark secrets.

Deep Dark Secrets

I looked around for my deepest, darkest secret hoping that I would re-encounter some scandalous thing I had since forgotten. (Oh, it completely slipped my mind, but I’m only sexually aroused by Fig Newtons and Office Supply catalogs. Perfect!) Living, however, in the time and place I do, the things I share and the things I keep secret have been somewhat altered. It is not terribly taboo, in the East Village, to be sexually aroused by Fig Newtons and Office Supply Catalogs and I have several friends who will openly tell me about an orgy involving 8 neighbors, Nabisco, and an order form from Staples. It no longer strikes me as terribly secretive. What I have become more secretive about, however, are the things that set me aside as perversely, definitively less cool than the people who are willfully humping boxes of binder clips.

“The village is so quiet at this time of the morning,” a friend noted, as the two of us walked down First avenue in the early morning hours.
“It’s like quaint, almost. Like everyone’s about to start waking up and doing things. Sort of like…” she smiles. “You remember that scene in the beginning of Beauty and the Beast where Belle’s walking down the street, where she’s like, “Little Tooooown, it’s a quiet village.”

I smile and egg her on. She is clasping her hands together dramatically as she sings.

“Every daaay, like the one before.” She continues smiling good-naturedly but begins to sing-talk the remainder of the verse. “Little town full of something something…”

“Little people,” I say.

“Little peopllllle. I can’t remember the rest of it,” she says.

“Waking uuuuup to say,” I sing it as if prompting her, hoping that she will join me for the next verse. She leans in but says nothing, smiling. “Waking uuup to saaaay…” I realize that she doesn’t know the remainder of the words and so I proceed without her, talking through the song with all the musical inflection of Peter Jennings, desperately hoping that I will seem less enthusiastic.

“Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour Bonjour Bonjour!”
“There goes the baker with his tray like always, the same old bread and rolls to sell! Every morning just the same since the morning that we came to this poor provincial town. (Good morning Belle!) Morning Monsieur! (Where are you off to?) The bookshop! I just finished the most wonderful story about a beanstalk and an ogre and a… (Marie! The baguettes! Hurry up!) Look there she goes that girl is strange, no question…

“Wow,” my friend says. “You know like the whole thing.”

“I don’t,” I say. “Just that first part and I don’t even know why I know it.”

This is not true, I think to myself, staring into the innocent eyes of my friend. Unless by “just the first part” I meant “every lyric to every Disney song from the mid eighties through present day,” and if by “I don’t even know why I know it,” I meant, “because I listened to these songs like I was an obsessed madwoman.”

Hi, my name is Raquel and I am addicted to memorizing the lyrics of Disney songs. It has been 22 months since I have last danced through the streets to the Aladdin Sountrack.

“Hi Raquel, welcome,” say the members, clapping enthusiastically. They are wearing chambray shirts with pictures of Lady and the Tramp or The Aristocats stenciled onto the backs of them. They can tell you that David Ogden Stiers was the voice of both Cogsworth the clock and a Conquistador opposite Mel Gibson’s “John Smith.” All of them have at one point owned mouse ears. They are not the types of people with whom I care to be associated.

* * *

The Disney aspect of it probably developed between the ages of 1 and 13, during which I was allowed to see only rated G movies. It was at this point that I developed an obsession with walking around singing, hoping that adorable woodland animals would follow the sound of my voice. And while we don’t have a history of song-lyric memorizing in my family, there is a strong genetic predisposition to play the same song over and over again, which I recognized early on and which became problematic the year we acquired a car with a CD player.

“Just his the back arrow for me, Ross. Just one more time.” My mother gestured toward the car stereo with her chin. My father, carefully peering at the CD player, poked awkwardly at the button with his index finger.

“I love this song,” my mother said. She was already nodding her head to the early instrumental notes.

“We’ve spent the past 30 minutes listening to “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel,” I said calmly. “Why don’t we listen to another song on the CD? Or another CD?” I suggested, since we had previously listened to 30 minutes of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and a 45 minute blast of “I am a rock, I am an island,” which is nothing, if not an effective way to boost the morale of three children stuck in a Volvo. It was not particularly unusual to spend a 4 and a half hour trip listening to five songs, and I remember one specific instance in which we drove the entire way from New City to Utica listening to nothing but “Have you Ever Really Loved a Woman,” by Bryan Adams.

And yet my own affliction persists.

“Wow,” said yet another unsuspecting friend as we perused the shelves of an antique store upstate. “Will you look at this stuff.”
Leaping on her turn of phrase I grabbed a pewter candlestick and a crystal martini glass, holding them enthusiastically up in the air.

“Look at this stuff. Isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete! Wouldn’t you think I’m the girl…the girl who has…everything!

“I would think that,” my friend says.

Look at this trove, treasure untold, how many wonders can one cavern hold?! Looking around you you think, “Sure. She’s got everything!”

“Oh—where’s that from?” my friend asks. “I remember that song!”

“I’ve got gadgets and gizmos a plenty. I’ve got whosits and whatsits galore.”

“Little Mermaid. It’s Little Mermaid. I knew I knew it.”

“You want thingamabobs? I’ve got 20. But who caaaares.”

“You’re making a scene. You’re making a scene and you look retarded.”

“No big deeeeeeal.”

“People are starting to look at us.”

“I want moooooore.”

“Please stop this.”

“I want to be…where the people are. I want to see…want to see them dancing…walking around on those…what do you call it? Oh…feet.”

“We’re leaving,” she said. “We’re actually leaving right now and if you sing another word of that song you will no longer be allowed to be “where the people are.”

* * *

The first step is admitting you have a problem. After a bad day I would often find myself curled up on the cold tile of my bathroom, getting one last hit of “Hakuna Matata.” Over time you became less discerning and I would sometimes find myself listening to not-even-particularly-great Disney soundtracks. I couldn’t quite swing another round of “Whole New World,” from Aladdin, and would find myself in a dank supply closet, my headphones blasting “a guy like you” from the Hunchback of Notre Dame” or “Just Around the Riverbend,” from Pocahontas, a movie which, despite the absence of both critical acclaim and a definitive nose on the main character (she just sort of had nostrils, unless she was in profile) I memorized the lines to in just under two weeks.

And it wasn’t until it began affecting the ones I love that I realized it had become a problem. While cleaning my room, humming the opening montage to “Hercules,” (a greek epic set to Gospel music) I found my little sister singing along as well.

“You…you know this?” I asked, caught by surprise. “I thought you weren’t into this stuff?”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “But when you have a bedroom adjascent to someone to plays the same songs non-stop for a month at a time, you learn them.

“Oh, Karen. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I love this stuff. It’s great.”

And I looked on, conflicted, like someone who is technically responsible for their sibling’s drug problem—it was my fault and now I had dragged her into my horrific underworld of embarrassment. She was so young. She had so much ahead of her.

I hung my head in shame.

* * *

And while yes, this is it, this is my revelatory deep dark secret, it’s embarrassing but it’s certainly not awful. Recovery has been a long hard road, which I have walked down whistling, followed by whimsical woodland creatures. While I haven’t forgotten any of the lyrics I’ve learned over the years, I’ve long since left my Disney CD’s at home. And it is only through my sister that it remains alive at all. I received a mixed CD from her a while back which contained the normal things one would expect from my college age sister—Dashboard Confessional, followed by The Shins, followed by Rilo Kiley, followed by…

“Hey,” my friend asked, peering at our car CD player on the way back down to the city. “Isn’t this from the Jungle Book?”

“It is,” I told her calmly, smiling. “And if you don’t mind hitting that back arrow on the stereo for me, I’d like to hear it again.”

Here's My Card

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:53:38 GMT

My sister Pamela was working at the American Eagle in the Nanuet Mall during high school. This was at a time in her life when, to avoid getting hit on by a neighboring mall worker she convinced him that she was identical twins, both of whom worked at American Eagle in the mall, and spent most of her time with him conversing about her fake identical sister to keep him off the topic of "when they could hang out." ("I'm Pam. Veronica works tomorrow.")

But my sister is not identical twins. She is one sister, Pamela D'Apice. And when she was not busy working retail or pretending to be a genetic copy of herself to keep the boy from Spencer Gifts at arms length, she was shopping, because that is what Pamela D'Apice loves to do. She has always loved to shop. And she had always wanted, as most sixteen girls want, something that would allow her to shop with more ease and efficiency.

And that was when the woman walked up to the counter and placed a gleaming credit card in my sister's hand that read, "Pamela D'Apice."

"Oh my god," my sister said, blushing. Shaking a little. "Are you serious? Is this for me?"

The woman nodded.

"Oh my god," Pam cried. "Oh my god. Thank you? Where's my mom? Who did this?"

"Who did what?"

"Is this for me?" she asked again, holding the credit card to her chest. "Are you serious??"

"Am I serious about what?" she asked.

"Did my mom give this to you to give to me? Is this like a surprise way of giving me a credit card?"

"What??" said the woman, who began looking around for hidden cameras in the same places my sister was looking around for our mother who, she was certain, would jump out at any moment and say, "Surprise!!! Enjoy your new credit card!!! We always loved you the best!"

"What are you talking about?" asked the woman.

"This card?" my sister began.

"What about it?"

"Is it for me?"

"Yes?"

"To keep?"

"To use."

"To keep and use!" my sister said, excitedly.

"No, not to keep!"

"Not to keep?"

"Not to keep," said the woman, both thoroughly flustered and territorial, holding eighty dollars worth of v-necks and sale items.

"So it's like a temporary card?" Pam asked.

"No, it's like a permanent card--" the woman began, "--that is mine. When you said, 'Is this for me,' I thought you meant, like, to use to ring up my clothes with. I have no idea what's going on here."

"For real?"

"Of course for real!"

"Are you giving me this card for me to have?"

"No!!"

"So this card isn't for me to keep?"

"What?" the woman looked skyward, toward the mischievous god of cash register antics. "Why would I let you keep my credit card?? How am I confusing you??"

And my sister, slowly letting her card-clutching hand fall from her chest, looked soberly at the woman and then at the card.

"So is your name Pamela D'Apice?" my sister asked.

"It is," the woman said. And then, after pausing for a few moments, "...is your name Pamela D'Apice?"

"Yeah," said my sister, fingering her American Eagle nametag that said 'Pamela.' "Pamela D'Apice."

They stood looking at each other across the counter for a few moments more.

"Ok then," said the older Pamela D'Apice. "Well it's very nice to meet you, Pamela D'Apice. I'm glad we sorted that out. Do you want to ring up my items now?"

My sister pursed her lips in embarrassment.

"Id love to," she said. "Did you find everything you were looking for today, Ms. D'Apice?"

"And then some," said the woman, as, items in hand and credit card in purse, she walked, relieved and confused, out into the rest of the mall.

I'm Gonna Rock and Roll All Night, But For Now I'll Sit Quietly in This Depressing Lobby

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:05:05 GMT

So let me start off by saying that I have a tendency to arrive places early.

It started at 6 and by 5:45 I had arrived and was standing at the front desk of the building, facing a guard in a blue uniform who was chewing on the end of his moustache.

“Admissions office?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “The party?”

“Ok,” he said, and pointed me toward a large room on the first floor while another uniformed man anxiously insisted that I put on a name tag reading, “Hello, my name is: 1/16/08.”

“No—she doesn’t have to wear that,” the guard with the moustache said. He pushed the second’s hand away, embarrassed. “Only for admissions office. For the party doesn’t need the sticker.”

"Ok," said the second guard, looking longingly at his endless curl of dated labels. "I guess you can just go in."

“The party,” as it has been advertised, is a reception for those involved in a Brooklyn mentoring program, and the room in which it is held has obviously been decorated on a $15 dollar budget by a person who has robbed a dollar store. The attendees at this point include myself and the very nice woman who runs the program.

“Well you’re the only one here so far,” she says encouragingly.

“I am,” I say awkwardly.

“Try and make yourself at home,” she says. “Everyone else will be here in a while.”

I pause briefly as I am given and fill out an empty “Hello. My name is” tag. In the white space I write out my name in all capital letters. (Hello. My name is RAQUEL.) I stick it on my sweater despite the fact that I am the only one there and am already aware of my own name—both the pronunciation and the spelling. Hello Raquel, my name is Raquel. I’m so glad you could make it. Please, make yourself comfortable.

I walk quietly to the “games and activities” tables in the front of the room (“Go check out our games and activities,” the woman in charge encourages, unaware, perhaps that the quickest way to clinical depression is a solo game of Jenga.) I encounter numerous games and activities, immediately teleporting me back to my paper mache-filled childhood. A barrel of monkeys, Connect Four, innumerable pieces of colorful origami paper fanned out over a plastic tablecloth.

“I remember these markers!” I suddenly exclaim to no one in particular, but the event organizer answers, because she is the only one there and does not want me to be uncomfortable. Sitting at the edge of the table is a box of Mr. Sketch Scented Watercolor markers, which I remember clearly from every art class between the ages of 5 and 13.

“The purple one is grape,” I say, and hold the marker to her nose while she politely nods. “And my favorite was the orange one because it didn’t smell like oranges, it smelled like orange tic tacs.”

She once again smiles cordially and as I take an enormous whiff of the markers, I notice that they do not smell as fabulous as they used to. The basic scent is unchanged, but the feeling of pure, unmitigated joy that I once felt at the scent of orange tic tacs has lessened somewhat.

I fill a small plate with cookies and grapes and survey the room, which is as sterile and welcoming as a hospital waiting area. The walls are white and fluorescent lit. There are 7 large folding tables, evenly spaced, surrounded by fresh-looking plastic chairs. All of the chairs are maroon except for 3, which are red, and I wonder if I sit in one of the red ones if I will later be chosen for something special. (Hint: No, I will not be.) The tables’ centerpieces are triads of white, swirl-patterned balloons tied together with purple curling ribbon and taped to a small doily. The small doily is then placed atop a larger doily and is flanked on either side of the table by two additional smaller doilies, the holes in which are not fully punched out, and which I then go about punching out with my pen, leaving a soft trail of dandruff across the dark table. I take a half-hearted bite of my cookie at the exact moment the stereo is plugged in and the smooth notes of a familiar song slide from the speakers. Within a few seconds I have identified the song as “Let’s get it on,” and within a few more seconds it has hit me that maybe this is not the most appropriate song to be playing at a young children’s mentoring program reception. Briefly, I become glad that I am the only one there. I “get it on” with the only thing there besides myself-- a small glazed pastry that does little to resist my advances. I then “get it on” with some grapes, and later with a pineapple and a glass of apple juice. It is a much longer song than people realize.

It is now past 6 o’clock. I am still the only one in the room. I find myself staring at a small sign that reads, “In appreciation for the support of the class of 1963,” which is hung on a pillar in the center of the room. I wonder what, exactly, the college has done in appreciation for the support of the class of 1963, since there does not appear to be any monitary indication of the class’s contributions aside from the sign itself. I wonder if perhaps the pillar itself is the fruit of their donation and that the word “support” is meant quite literally. I then wonder where on earth everyone else is, because I am still the only person in the reception hall. The second song has begun playing, which is a rendition of Steve Wonder’s “Isn’t she Lovely,” with sound clips of his young daughter crying and gurgling interspersed with the lyrics. Not being aware that this version existed, I happily lip sync along with the lyrics but begin glancing around anxiously to try and see the young child whose ghostly voice has suddenly begun echoing through the deserted meeting hall. I hear a whimper and a cry and stiffen, wondering why the ghost of a dead newborn has chosen to haunt the Lobby of St. Francis College.

It is 6:20. I am already stuffed, having gorged on a bagel sandwich and innumerable desserts, and people are trickling in. I recommend the cookies to various guests that I do not know. I talk with other mentors at my table. And it is not until later—around 6:40 or so, that many of the mentees begin to arrive, each of them between 8 and 16 years of age. And they are going off like firecrackers, filled with enthusiasm for a party which I only moments ago felt bad about, embarrassed that we had nothing better to give them. None of them comments on the sad centerpieces or the fact that the lighting makes everyone look about 10 years older than they actually are. No one mentions the microphone stand covered in yellow balloons that looks as though it is suffering from a painful venereal disease. The mentees are rabidly excited, happily discussing the size of the meatballs at last year’s party (SO HUGE) and what they’re getting as gifts this year (BOOKS) and what they are hoping to win at the raffle (ANYTHING). None of them notices the music, which has segued into a sort of standard “wedding DJ between ‘84-‘89” sort of theme. And it is good, I think, that they are as excited as they are. My mentee approaches me, smiling, and begins drawing on a piece of paper.

“This is supposed to look like graffiti,” she explains, furiously scribbling. “You do one color, and then another color around it. I did it in class and my teacher gave me a really good grade on mine.”

“It looks awesome,” I tell her, writing her and my name together in block letters on my own piece of paper. “And these markers are awesome,” I say once again. “Do you guys use these in school? The orange ones smell exactly like orange tic tacs.” I hold it up to her nose for her to assess and she pauses drawing for long enough to break into an enormous, ecstatic grin. "Can you smell it?" I ask hopefully, meaning, I realize, "Is the smell of it still sort of neat to you?" or "Are you young enough to still get a kick out of markers that smell exactly like tic tacs?"

“Oh man,” she says, excited, and I find myself smiling and handing her the marker, like an aging Olympian passing off a torch to a younger athlete. She glances quickly around the room, assessing with whom she can share her discovery.

“It does smell like orange tic tacs," she says calmly, her assertion the final word on the topic. "That’s crazy. It totally does.”

So Long and Thanks for All the Milk

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:32:49 GMT

Having gone home on a whim last weekend, I awoke in my teenage bedroom, uncertain at first of whether or not I was waking up in 1997, with acne and a crush on some kid in my drama class.

Thankfully, that was not the case.

I woke up, twenty-seven years old, clad in a plaid flannel nightgown that my grandmother had given me the Christmas before she passed away, pairing it with my sister's fleece sleep-pants. The pants are polluted with pictures of Scottie dogs in colors that in no way match the uneven plaid of my nightshirt and because I like to sport no fewer than three mismatching patterns at all times, I reach for my younger sister's robe, which features unattractive silhouettes of deer, some of which (for whatever reason) are upside down. I am wearing socks slippers inside regular slippers because my mother is going through menopause ("Is it hot in here or is it hot in here?" she asks) and insists upon keeping the house thermostat hovering near 30 degrees. Glancing in the mirror I notice that the rim of my nose is chapped and my hair feels as though it may or may not have fallen into the deep fryer at White Castle. I would never in a million years venture outside like this.

Wiping sleep from my eyes I gaze at a blurry version (I have not yet put in my contacts) of a person who has abandoned any dreams and goals for the future-- who decided to forgo college to stay home and nurture her sea monkeys-- the sort of person who has never left the yard except to get the mail and who forms very definite patterns and habits and will tear out patches of her hair if she does not have her Honey Smacks at exactly 8:39, or will show her mother she doesn't like something by threatening to hold her breath until she passes out. There is something about coming home-- as if returning to the nest meant returning to an actual nest, in which the only things that matter are being fed and being comforted and encouraged to grow.

I walk into my parent's room where my father is sitting at his roll-top desk, which is neatly littered with short motivational quotes and pictures of my mother and of myself and my sisters. My father looks up as I slump toward him-- three layers of flannel with the dramatic imprint of folded sheets still etched into my face. I look, to anyone else in the world, like an Alaskan burn victim from the early nineties who has never used soap. I can think of my appearance with nothing but disappointment. He puts his pen down and smiles, turning in his chair to face me.

"Good morning!" he says.

"Good morning."

"Did you sleep well? Are you warm enough?" He asks this last question without a trace of irony. If I tell him that no, I am not warm enough, he will get his wool robe from the bathroom and place it over my sister's robe with the upside-down deer.

"I didn't realize how tired I was," I tell him.

"Long week?"

"Yes," I say. He nods. My father is smiling in the way he smiles when he is very excited about something.

"Well, I can't tell you how happy I am that you didn't wake up until just now," he says, grinning. "I just did my errands and we didn't have milk in the house and I kept thinking of you waking up and going to the fridge for milk and not finding any." He pauses for a moment, as if this scene were accepted as one of the many horrific tragedies of our times and society-- daughters going to their parents refrigerators only to find them devoid of milk. Children forced to get their calcium through yogurt or cheese or (god-forbid) the foul-smelling calcium tablets my mother keeps in a jar on the lazy susan.
"Oh," I think, "the humanity."

"So whenever you're ready to have breakfast," he continues, "there's a half-gallon of milk in the fridge. Have as much or as little as you like."

"Thank you," I tell him.

"You're welcome," he says.

I smile at the gesture. Not that I wish to be painted as a tyrannical offspring whose every wish is foreseen and granted-- a great many of my wishes (such as my wish that we turn the thermostat up to, oh, I don't know, 50?) go unfulfilled. But it is nice to have someone looking after you sometimes.
This is one of two obsessive things my father does for me like clockwork.

Thing 1.) He will go out of his way to keep milk in the house when he knows I am coming home.

Thing 2.) When I will be riding with him in the car he will put in the Rolling Stones CD set to the song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (track 6 on the Greatest Hits) because he knows that I enjoy it. And he will pretend that he has forgotten what CD he has left in the player and go, "Oh, let me just see what I left in here," and will turn it on, watching the large digital '6' appear on the screen as Mick Jagger's voice leaks out of the speaker, quietly at first, then with a gusto almost matching my father's.

"I have to take a shower before breakfast," I tell him, the imprint on my face slowly beginning to fade. "I might take one a little longer than normal today, just to enjoy it."

My father smiles at this as if it is a concept he has always secretly embraced but has never before shared.

"You know," he says, as if admitting a scandalous secret, "There are days I've done that. I'm, what-- 61?" I nod affirmatively. "I'm 61 years old," he says, "and between work and the commute I'm still putting in 12 to 15 hour days."
He pauses. "And I'm not complaining about that," he emphasizes, "but it takes me all of one minute to take a shower and I'm done. It's a completely functional act for me. But there are days when I'll just stand in there for an extra two, three minutes, for no reason at all. I'll just stand there with the really hot water and all the steam coming up-- and the heat is just so great and--" he laughs to himself briefly, "and I almost feel gluttonous for it. Thinking, 'here I am with so much to do and I'm just standing in the shower for no reason.'"

"If it makes you feel any better," I offer, "I am not 61, and I can easily spend five additional minutes standing in the shower with no gluttonous repercussions.

"I think a lot of it is just not being able to take care of things when I'm in there," he says. "When I get out of the shower-- and I actually think like this," he stresses, "I come out nervous as hell, thinking, 'I hope nothing goes wrong right at this exact moment because I just got out of the shower and I can't handle emergencies before I'm dressed.' And the moment I relax," he says, "is actually the exact moment I button my pants. I have this feeling like, 'Ok. Whatever happens from this point on will be all right because I'm wearing pants.' The house could catch on fire, we could hear gunshots, someone could have a medical emergency, but I'm ok because I have on pants. I can handle things in pants. When I was younger it used to be pants and shoes, but now my feet are old and pretty calloused, so I feel like I can handle things with just pants."

I nod, trying to look wise and understanding in my fourteen layers of sleepwear and my father smiles, happy to have come clean about his trouser-dependency.

"Does that make any sense?" he asks.

"It does," I admit.

"So you're going to take a shower-- which will hopefully be both relaxing and functional?"

"I am," I tell him.

"With no guilt or feelings of gluttony about its length?"

"None," I promise.

"And would you let me know when you're having breakfast so I can join you? And give me an idea of what time you'll need a ride to the train station?"

"Yes," I say. And my father, kissing me on the cheek, goes back to work.

Shuffling away, I walk into the bathroom to take a shower. Peeling off the ridiculous blanket-like layers I see my skin and am reminded once again that I am a normal human being with an apartment and a job. I do not always wear two pairs of slippers, one on top of the other, and am fully capable of meeting responsibilities and occasionally paying bills on time. I linger in the shower for a few minutes longer than necessary and dress myself cautiously, pulling on and enjoying the empowerment of my pants. I walk out of the bathroom, fully dressed in a button down shirt and sweater. I wear a hat because, despite the fact that I am dressing like a responsible adult, it is still 30 degrees in the house. But it is a nice hat. My hair is clean and my nose is no longer chapped.

I walk to the refrigerator where I pull out a fresh half gallon of milk and sit down to eat two consecutive bowls of cheerios. My father lowers himself into a chair in the way older people are prone to do-- a mixture of their handling their own bodies as if marked, "Fragile, Handle with Care," while at the same time wanting to drop themselves there with abandon, giving in to the unforgiving pull of gravity.

"Are you enjoying your milk?" he asks. I inform him that yes, I always enjoy the milk a little more when I am at home. I drink enormous glassfulls of it, feeling slightly gluttonous about the luxury of having someone keeping the house stocked with milk, so that I might drink it with abandon. (I do have somewhat of a love affair with milk, to the point where I had a slight crush on Howard Hughes in "The Aviator" because of all the milk he drank).

"And you'll let me know when we have to go to the train station?" my father asks, following up again.

I nod. And as I sit in the car later that night on the way to the train, enjoying the perks of a middle-class station wagon (heat! leg room! cupholders!) my father asks if I'd care to listen to a CD.

"Just whatever's in there?" I ask.

"Whatever's in there," he says.

And hitting 'power' I see the enormous 6 materialize on the screen of his CD player. Mick Jagger, quietly at first, reminds me that I can't always get what I want.

"So how often, roughly, will I get what I want?" I ask.

"It depends what you want," Mick Jagger answers, truthfully.

"Milk," I say. "And hot showers."

"Ok," he says, "You can't always get what you want, but there's a better chance of it happening frequently if you want things like milk and hot showers."

"And to be able to take on the world," I add. Mick Jagger frowns, pursing his squid-like lips.

"You'll need pants for that," he says. "Are you ready for that sort of responsibility?"

"I think so," I tell him, as we approach the train station.

Nodding to myself, I am fairly sure that I am.

A Few Important Things About Baby Showers, Which I Neglected to Mention to My Sister

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:52:16 GMT

Pamela, my dearest sister for whom I care dearly and by whose worldliness I am usually refreshed,

Just three things, by way of baby showers, that perhaps you did not understand.

1.) If you are fortunate enough to be seated next to the babies eventual great-grandmother, who also happens to be your paternal grandmother, rejoice! Marvel at your proximity to this great matriarch. Do not be put off by words of wisdom she might have for the next generation to come. As she watches (with that timeless gaze) the mother-to-be open a package of baby wipes, do not be put off if she turns to you and says something like, "your grandfather uses those on me now."
She may also make helpful suggestions. When the gift unwrapped reveals itself to be a diaper bag, she may make an unusual observation, saying something like, "You could also carry the baby in that." Nod and agree. You could also carry the baby in that. It is unlikely that that will be necessary, but you could.

2.) A baby shower is a time to laugh(babies are joyous!) and have fun and play games. The games you are playing will be simple games. There is no hidden agenda. There are no extra points for creativity and the concepts of sarcasm or satire rarely figure into these events, whose theme colors will usually be pastels. If (hypothetically) you are given a sheet of paper with a list of nursery rhyme beginnings and are told to "complete the nursery rhymes on the count of three!" what they are asking you to do is to complete the nursery rhyme as you remember it from your childhood. They are not, as you mistakenly thought, asking you to think of the line that might best complete the nursery rhyme and fill it in. Please note that if you do this, the judges will be extremely confused when you hand in your paper for evaluation.

3.) We both learned, perhaps, that it is unwise to sign the card attached to your present, "Love, Uncle Ned's Kids," since while you and I might think it is a hilarious call back to the movie "Wedding Crashers," which we enjoyed immensely, the person opening the gifts may not remember this line of the movie and may begin to visibly panic as she tries to remember the new relatives she has recently acquired and begins to sweat, looking around nervously, not knowing who to thank for the basket full of toys and clothes and diapers. Just a note for the future. Perhaps if we were to sign our own names, it would be easier for the mother-to-be to thank us for the onesie with the words "tax write-off" written across the chest.

4.) And Centerpieces, Pam! Ahhh, centerpieces. These, perhaps you did not realize, are highly sought after in suburban communities. Often painstakingly assembled, it is considered uncouth to actually be eating the centerpiece, while still at the event.
I do understand, of course, that you began eating the centerpiece because you saw me eating the centerpieces. I neglected to point out to you that I was eating the gum on the bottom of the centerpiece, so that the centerpiece itself appeared to remain intact. No one will notice if you remove the bottom layer of candy. I was being "stealth."

If, however, the candy you choose to take are the Crybabies (no, I hadn't had them since 4th grade either), whose removal leaves an enormous bald spot on the side of the centerpiece, it is probably best to just admit what you have done, rather than to try and even out the damage by pinning a dollar bill to the centerpiece, as if we were in a backwater strip club where your cousin had chosen to announce her pregnancy.

5.) Also, may I please say that I love you dearly and if you were actually to stop doing these things, baby showers and other such parties would lose a great deal of their enjoyment for me. Please never change. You are wonderful.

Warm regards from your loving sister,

Raquel

She Is Not Good At Games

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:47:23 GMT

"We're going to the diner," Karen said. "To play games."

I have always found it bizarre that, given her track record with board games Karen continues to beg family members to play them with her.

("Name a country on the equator!" someone shouted during a previous game of Outburst. "I'll give you a really really good hint...think about buying a BRA for your ZIL," to which Karen enthusiastically screamed, "ZILBRA!" following up her previous guesses of Oregon, Spain, and New Mexico)

On this occasion (AKA last night) I was playing Trivial Pursuit: The Millennium Edition against Karen and her girlfriend Casey. We had chosen to play from 12:30 AM until 3 in the morning at the Nanuet Diner. We make many questionable decisions.

"Ok," I said, reading from the card. "Orange. What London Cabinetmaker opened a factory in 1749 that later became famous?"

"What London Cabinet maker..." Karen said, trailing off.

"Ok, so who makes cabinets?" Casey thought aloud, encouraging Karen, who appeared to be either drugged or asleep. "And they're famous. Cabinets. Cabinet Makers. AMERICAN HOME FURNISHINGS..."

"...is in America and not London," Karen said, thinking, suddenly slightly awake. "Cabinets. Carpentry." She leans in toward me asking, in a conspiratorial whisper, "So it's not Jesus?"

"No," I tell her. "It's not Jesus."

"Really?"

"He was not actually around in 1749. Also, he was not British."

"That was the only carpenter I could think of," she said, defeated.

"Ok, but brainstorm. Who MAKES things?" Casey asked. She is filled with energy and seems to be summoning answers with her hands, fanning them toward her in excitement. "What was the name of the guy from that movie? He made things out of wood?"

"I actually have no idea? What you're talking about?" Karen said, head tilted to the side.

"That movie."

"Yes?"

"With his workshop?"

"A movie..."

Casey grimaced, pushing her head into her hand. "He made all those things out of wood," she says. "I can even see it-- his workbench all laid out in the scenes behind him. She pauses for a moment while trying to coax it out of herself. And then suddenly, "And Pinocchio! He's the guy who made Pinocchio!"

"MR. GEPETTO?" Karen asks, incredulously. "I'm sorry-- did you just waste two minutes trying to come up with the name of someone who is NOT REAL?"

"It's not based on anything?"

"He's a cartoon!!"

"Ok," she said. "Then never mind. Then it's probably not him."

"So do you guys have a final answer?" I asked. They looked at each other in silent agreement and defeat.

"American Home Furnishings," they said in unison.

"Thomas Chippendale," I said.

"So when he wasn't stripping down to his bow tie," Casey explained, "He was busy making cabinetry."

"Fuck," said Karen, looking with determination toward the next question.

Question Two:

"Ok," I said, a bit further into the game. "Brown. Science and Nature. What organism can grow to 30 times the size of the blue whale?"

Karen and Casey sat back in their booth as if they had been shot.

"Thirty...times?" Karen asked. "Thirty times the size of the BLUE WHALE?"

"What organism can grow to 30 times the size of the blue whale?" I read again, placing the card back in it's holder.

"Whoa," Karen said. "So that question we had a while ago said that the blue whale's tongue can weigh as much as an elephant..."

"Yeah."

"So the whale itself is the size of a couple of school buses. And there's an organism that's THIRTY TIMES AS BIG AS THAT?"

"Think," said Casey.

"I don't know!" she said, flustered. "The Earth??"

"The earth's not an organism," I told her.

"Guess a giant squid," Casey suggested. "They're giant."

"They're not THAT giant," Karen said, flabbergasted.

"They have the word GIANT in the name though! GIANT! GIANT SQUID!"

"It's not giant squid."

"They're supposed to be really big though!"

"It's not that."

"Are you positive?"

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND," Karen said, turning to face her, "that if there were a squid that were THIRTY TIMES THE SIZE OF A BLUE WHALE, that it would not even be able to swim because it would ALREADY BE EVERYWHERE."

"What's thirty times the size of a blue whale then? That's also an organism?"

"Nothing!"

"You can't think of anything?"

"No, that's a guess. Nothing! Nothing is 30 times the size of a blue whale! Can that be it? Can the answer be 'nothing?'" Karen leaned in with abandon.

"The answer is not 'nothing,'" I said.

"SHIT."

"Just guess giant squid!"

"SQUID ARE NOT THAT BIG!"

"But it's a guess!"

"I DON'T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT A SQUID THIRTY TIMES THE SIZE OF A BLUE WHALE EXISTING."

"Ok, then what about something that's like a collection of really small organisms, like a coral reef?"

"Maybe," Karen said. "Like a coral reef. Or an amoeba." We each look out the window and envision an enormous amoeba overtaking the parking lot of the Nanuet Mall.

"Ok, not an Amoeba," Karen said. "But like a collection of bacteria. Or a very advanced cloud..." She makes this last suggestion in a dreamy voice, as if this question has killed her and she is drifting off.

"I don't even know what that means," Casey admitted. "I think you're tired."

"Do you have a final answer?" I asked. "Do you want to go with 'very advanced cloud?'"

"NO," Casey said politely. "We will be going with 'giant squid.'" She places her palm on the table in a gesture of finality. "Our answer is 'giant squid.'

"The answer is not giant squid," I said quietly.

"I TOLD YOU," Karen said, suddenly re-animated. "SQUID ARE NOT THAT BIG. I'm going to fall asleep and have a thousand nightmares about squid now." Casey's eyes dart frantically for a moment, summoning a new answer.

"GIANT OCTOPUS! GIANT OCTOPUS!" she shouts, negating her earlier decision. She is hitting on the table as if there is an imaginary buzzer on which she can ring in this new answer.

"You're just naming sea creatures and putting the word 'giant' in front of them." Karen said, incredulous.

"GIANT OCTOPUS! Giant Octopus is my final answer."

"It is also not giant octopus. I don't even think there's such a thing as a giant octopus," I said.

"And it's not the earth," Karen says, recapping.

"No."

"Or a--"

"It's not a very advanced cloud."

Karen purses her lips. "Ok," she says finally. "No idea. Our answer is that we have absolutely no idea."

"Giant sequoia," I tell her.

"Shit," she says.

Let's all be Afraid of This Together

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:52:18 GMT

This is a new essay on a topic I've written about before, so I'm putting it behind an LJ cut.

Let's All Be Afraid of This Together

For the record, here are two of my most commonly encountered fears:

Fear #1
I am horribly, unconsolably afraid of being seen as unusual by other people with whom I am trying to fit in. I am afraid of being “weird.”

Fear #2
I am terrified of spiders.

“Oh, I’m terrified of spiders,” my friend offers and I smile because of course she is terrified of spiders. I love being afraid of spiders because everyone is. Having arachnophobia is the equivalent of watching “Dancing with the Stars,” or “Grey’s Anatomy” or “LOST.” You can mention it at the water cooler and almost everyone will know what you’re talking about.

“So I went camping when Adam and I were in South America,” says one woman, “and there was this spider in my tent that was literally this big.” She makes a circle with her fingers that is the size of either a large cupcake or a small pizza and involuntarily shudders. “I cried,” she says, and all of us shriek in unison.

For years I was content to casually mention spiders whenever phobia discussions arose.

“Did I tell you about the time an egg sac hatched in my Volvo while I was at the mall?” (This is a good one and involved a frantic twenty-minute drive home that involved pulling my hands from the steering wheel at each intersection to maniacally scratch my head while screaming. )

It has always been easy to make small talk about normal phobias. For years I happily offered up stories to people about my fears of spiders, heights, cockroaches and commitment—all things that received eager nods of recognition.

Here is another of my fears.

Fear #3
I am deathly afraid of Jewelry and certain varieties of buttons.

Yes. Really.

I first disclosed my jewelry phobia to my mother, who did not believe me and thought I was making it up. It is difficult to be afraid of something that other people are not afraid of because they will (inevitably) not know how to react. They will pick up the thing that scares you and go, “This? Really?” laughing at the absurdity while they chase you around the house with a pair of earrings. I myself did not fully know how to react to it. Outside of my family (who didn’t believe me anyway) I first admitted it to a friend who would become a psych major in college.

“You’re afraid of jewelry?” asked the friend, marveling aristocratically at my oddness.

“Yeah. Most jewelry,” I said. “And some buttons.”

“You’re wearing some buttons right now.”

“I’m not afraid of these.”

“So what sort of buttons are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Do you remember in Sleepless in Seattle when Meg Ryan tries on a wedding dress that she accidentally rips and there were buttons all down the back? I was afraid of those.”
My friend nodded politely. She had seen Sleepless in Seattle but had clearly been focusing on things like “plot” and “character.”

“So you’re afraid—like afraid how?” she asked.

“I get the shakes,” I said, “and if I accidentally touch it I act like how you would act if you had bugs crawling on you.”

“So like grossed out?”

“Yeah, like grossed out. Is that really weird?” My friend stared at me for a moment, not speaking.

“Yeah,” she said finally. It’s really weird.”

Which, I admitted, was obvious. If my friend had replied, “No—that’s not weird at all. I have at least seven friends who run away, screaming, during commercials for The Jewelry Exchange,” I would not have believed her. I knew of no one who had even heard of a phobia of this type. I would not have felt completely out of place as a sideshow circus freak, but would not have fit in ideally with them either, given that they drive nails into their eyes for amusement and I merely feel nauseous at the sight of charm bracelets.

I put my phobia away, not to be discussed. Not completely, since I dealt with it every day—while standing in line at a Starbucks I began having heart palpitations after noticing that the woman in front of me had chosen to wear (I think) every gold bracelet she had ever owned. I managed to keep my lunch down and spoke about it to no one. It was only recently that, completely unexpectedly, I received a call from my childhood friend.

“You’ll never believe this in a million billion years,” she said, “but my roommate here in Binghamtom is afraid of Jewelry.”

“Are you sure she’s afraid of it,” I ask. “Or she just doesn’t wear any of it.” I had met and made a very good friend who did not wear any jewelry due to a strong allergy to metal which she had discovered in fifth grade, after taking up the flute.

“No, she’s afraid of it,” she said. “I’m positive. I asked.”

“Can I meet her?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “She really wants to meet you, actually.”

I hung up the phone and stopped everything I had been doing. I felt, I think, what every lonesome superhero has felt when they discover what they have fervently hoped all along— there are others out there like them. I felt this despite the rather obvious fact that, rather than a superpower, I had a debilitating psychological condition that left me unable to look at my friends’ engagement rings without wanting to throw up. (But really, congratulations.)

There were others!

I immediately ran to the computer and assembled a message in a bottle—an incredibly shoddy AOL Hometown webpage with a purple background.

Hi! My name is Raquel and I have a phobia of jewelry. I do not wear it but also do not like touching it or looking at it or thinking about it. If it touches me I wind up washing that spot for a long time to try to get the feel of it off me. If a friend is sleeping over and leaves some on my dresser overnight, I spend a long time Windexing the dresser in the spot where the jewelry was. It began as a fear of buttons—my mother said that one day when I was two and a half I started crying whenever she tried to dress me in buttons and never understood why.
If you have any idea what I’m talking about, contact me at email.address@yahoo.com.

A few months later I found a letter in my inbox.

“Hello,” it said. “My name is Brian. I am a cartoonist from Ohio and I am deathly afraid of Jewelry.

“Hi,” said another letter received, its excitement level matching my own. “I’m an actor in the Baltimore area and HATE JEWELRY!!”

“Thank god!” replied someone named Kim. “I am so happy that I am not alone!”

And shortly after that I was introduced to my roommate’s friend. We approached each other tentatively, like dogs that were deciding whether they will become playful or kill each other, not wanting to discuss why we were actually there. The elephant in the room sat draped in platinum and diamonds from Harry Winston and both of us anxiously turned our heads away to avoid looking at it.

After an awkward breaking of the ice (so—you’re afraid of jewelry too?) we spoke for a while and deduced that yes, we had the exact same phobia. We exchanged horror stories (a terrifying trip to Mardi Gras) and pet peeves (she did not even like to say the word “Jewelry” and called it “the J fear.”)

“Do people always ask you how you’re going to get married someday?” she asked.

“All the time,” I said. “Do they ask you how it started? Do people ask if when you were a baby you were strangled by a necklace?”

“Actually yeah,” she said. “A lot of people ask that.”

I smiled and nodded in recognition And it was not until several years later while updating my “AOL hometown page” that I came across a new website that seemed frighteningly relevant. Unusual Phobias.com.

In addition to 8 people with a phobia of jewelry and 30 with a phobia of buttons, the list included the following:
People with a:
Fear of Styrofoam
Fear of Black Olives
Fear of Green Olives
Fear of Crumpled up Paper
Fear of Spandex (a man who can’t attend his daughter’s dance recitals)
Fear of Rainbows (Yes, they’re terrible, aren’t they?)
Fear of accidentally eating a “freshness packet”
Fear of bank tellers, burn victims, and people standing in the same place for a long time.
There are an unusual amount of people who are afraid of Ketchup and Mustard, of which the following was my favorite:

“My father has a full blown anxiety attack when we use ketchup and the house goes into Hazmat alert if it spills on the floor. He is also afraid of 1000 island dressing. His eyes get wide and real crazy looking and he backs away and tells everyone to freeze.”

“Are these for real?” I asked myself, but the entries don’t seem like outrageous lies. They seem, for the most part, earnest and relieved, usually in three parts.
1.) Here is a description of my phobia.
2.) For my whole life people have never believed me when I’ve told them.
3.) I am amazed and thrilled that there are other people out there with it.

Some people, of course are just trying to get attention. We are ALL scared of cannibal Siamese twins or “Ghost Cows.” I also am nervous about gravity reversing itself, but I manage, somehow, to make it through the day.

A few months ago a friend sent me a You Tube clip of the Maury Povich show in which Maury addresses a woman with a phobia of pickles. The woman is crying and sputtering and Maury, in classic form, chases her down with an enormous platter of pickles, to which she responds by running away screaming into the audience, losing her shoe in the process.

“Can you believe this?” asked my co-worker, who had sent it to me and then immediately come over to my cubicle to re-watch it. “This is hilarious,” she said, gawking. “That’s so messed up.”

“I guess parts of it are,” I admitted, reasoning that if you have a phobia of pickles and you
a.) Volunteer that information on Maury Povich, and
b.) Work as a waitress in a diner

Then yes. That is a little messed up. The words “Mariah says just the smell of pickles can cause her to tremble with fear” appear on the bottom half of the computer screen.

“That’s crazy,” my co-worker says. “That girl is fucking crazy.”

I become silent and stare my co-worker directly in the eye. “She’s not that crazy,” I tell her.

To my co-worker I give a momentary cold shoulder—if you dismiss other people’s fears, I will temporarily dismiss you. To Mariah I give a look of sad compassion. “It is ok,” I mouth to the YouTube video. “I understand and you are not alone.”

Resistance is Futile

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:07:35 GMT

There is a quote on a folded piece of paper that I carry around in the back pocket of my Moleskine joke notebook, so that if I get tired of reading punchlines and premises, I can opt for something more earnest.

“I have been asked many questions in my life about poetry, religion, life, and I have given precisely the same number of answers, but I have never, I repeat, never, satisfied a single interlocutor. Why? Because all questioning is a way of avoiding the real answer, which is really known already. Every man is enlightened, but wishes he wasn’t. Every man knows he must love his enemies and sell all he has and give to the poor, but he doesn’t wish to know it—so he asks questions.”

I read it over and over, thoughtful, and when I eventually tire of it place it neatly back in its pocket and pull out the only other reading material on my person, which, at the time, is a J. Crew catalog.

“My life is complete,” I think to myself, calmly flipping the pages. “There is nothing in the world that I need.”

”Except this sweater,” says the catalog matter-of-factly. I blink quickly, becoming alert as I examine the item in question.

“Shit,” I think. “I made that blanket statement about completeness without having known about the existence of this sweater.” The sweater, which I like a lot, is a heather grey cardigan with dark brown buttons.

“But it’s not like it would change anything,” I say to myself. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, now I own this sweater, now things will be different. Now I’ll enjoy my job and my comedy career will take off and my relationship issues will fall by the wayside. Nothing is going to change.”

”You don’t know that,” says the catalog. “Something might. You have a propensity to generalize rather than learning from experiences.

“That is sometimes true,” I tell it, impressed by its insight but wary of the backhandedness with which it is baiting me to purchase its commodities. I am looking at a picture of a sweater and feel like I am standing with my ear to a megaphone operated by between four and seven screaming copywriters.

“BUY IT,” one screams.

“Do you think you can WALK AWAY FROM THIS?” yells another. “FROM A CASHMERE BLEND? ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

“You haven’t gotten a new sweater since last Christmas!” a third points out.

“Of course not,” I counter. “Most of the months between then and now were extremely warm. Also, I have a budget.”

It is at that point that I feel the fourth stealthily creep up behind me with a cold, three-inch blade at my throat.

“Buy the fucking sweater,” it whispers.

* * *

It is fairly rare that I buy a large item (anything, on average, that is more than $60). It is something about a large sum all at once that frightens me, though I will, without giving it a second thought, purchase two fifteen dollar books a week without blinking an eye.

Perhaps even more frequent than my impulsive literary purchases are my “basic needs” purchases; things that I am in a constant cycle of “running out of.” No sooner have I purchased soap than I need toothpaste and no sooner have I purchased toothpaste than I need shampoo, or Saline Solution, or Deodorant. In a perfect world I would show up at a counter, utter the word, “Soap,” and a man would hand me a bar of soap and I would walk away.

It rarely transpires in that manner. The last time I went to buy soap, despite being loyal to a specific brand, it took me fifteen minutes to stand in the aisle going, “Well they all have moisture, but is it more important that I have a “healthy glow” or that I smell like cucumbers? Should I go for the one with aloe or the one that claims it is anti-aging?" I wonder briefly if the anti-aging one actively helps stop aging or if it is just “against” aging in a generic sense, sort of like Joan Rivers or Janice Dickinson.

Each of the soaps cries out to me like crafty orphans begging to be taken home, playing up their strong points in the way they will eventually learn to do on a resume, assuming that orphanhood does not lead them directly into a life of drugs and homelessness and violent crime.
Soap, I think. Soap soap soap. I cannot decide what I want my soap to focus on. It feels vaguely like I am setting up my strengths in a video game or role-playing character and must sacrifice some things to excel at others. I have four points in hand-to-hand combat but only a two in pore minimizing. I am angry that packaging is making it more difficult for me to buy the soap I truly want, which is any, goddammit. Any soap.

As I walk through Duane Reade I notice two girls independent of each other who are wearing false eyelashes. I walk until I find an Indian woman who looks like she might possibly work there and ask where I can find toothbrushes. Looking disgruntled, she motions for me to follow her as she carries a large box up the stairs. She is wearing bright, turquoise blue loafers and is stepping on the backs of them, crumpling them under her heel. Silently (I don’t believe she said a word to me throughout) she extends her arm, hand palm-out, directing me toward the toothbrushes, and there are, of course, a thousand of them.

I look for a package labeled “Basic, boring toothbrush,” but find it nowhere. I must choose between cross-action and “Elite Angle.” I must differentiate between Pulsar and Pulsar “Pro-Health” (Neither Pulsar Anti-health, nor Pulsar Anti-aging seems to be available). I must take in “The Navigator,” (designed, I suppose, for people with so little sense of direction that cannot direct their toothbrush into the correct orifice) and “The Arctica,” whose name seems only to apply to the packaging, which is designed to look like ice. I want to cry. I want to abandon my teeth to the ravages of nature or rub the inside of my mouth with hog bristles. Another girl wanders over to peruse the toothbrushes and also becomes trapped—two flies in a web of oral health.

“I can’t find the one I had last time,” she complains to me. “Mentadent makes it.”

“I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “I used to get mine from my dentist but I haven’t gone for a checkup in a while and the brush I have looks horrible.”
That is putting it lightly. The brush I have now looks beyond horrible—like an elephant’s doormat, its bristles splayed more wildly than the false eyelashes I continually see on people around the city.

“I’d also sort of like to find one that’s under four dollars,” I say, toting out my pipe dream.

“I hate coming here,” she offers.

“I know,” I say. She is picking up toothbrushes and putting them down again. I begin to back away from the entire endeavor.

“Where are you going?” asks the Navigator, leaning toward me with a sinister friendliness. “Look how aesthetically pleasing my handle design is!” it offers.

“I don’t have time for this now,” I say.

“Don’t have time for what?” asks the Pulsar Pro-Health. “My vibrant color scheme and multi-dimensional brush head? That?

“For any of this,” I say, sighing. Without looking twice I grab the plainest brush I can find in a pack of three (to further put off my next expedition), and pay for it. I become briefly nervous that it will not get far enough into the crannies of my teeth or massage my gums enough, but manage to assuage my fears with the realization that I am leaving the store.

Pulling the toothbrush out of my bag I find that I am much happier with it when it is not surrounded by other toothbrushes. I feel that I have won this particular round but do not delude myself into thinking that I am anywhere close to winning the game. I feel a bit like Odysseus, wishing my crew would tie me to the mast so that I might hear the sirens as I sail down Fifth Avenue without being lured into their stores to purchase more things I do not need.

Someday, I hope to myself, I will have a greater success rate in withstanding their allure. I glance into a store window and decisively glance away. I pull my heather grey cardigan tight around my body as I walk to the subway.

Are You Chicken?

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:06:25 GMT

“All right,” my mother said in a conspiring whisper, “The first one of you girls to get chicken pox, wins.”

She said it with concentrated motivation, the determined air of a coach who will give everything she has to see her dream realized. My mother wanted us to get chicken pox. Badly. She was always very worried about germs and disease and had heard, no doubt, that children who were not exposed to chicken pox at an early enough age would suffer dire consequences—extreme facial scarring, perhaps, or sterilization, or rejection by all reputable graduate schools. The three of us were facing her attentively in a line, our ages accentuated by whether we were taller or shorter than the pockmarked chair-rail surrounding the kitchen table.

“Wins what?” Pam asked. “What do we win?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Something. I’ll make it good.”

“Money?”

“Maybe a little bit of money,” my mother said.

She had explained to us earlier that chicken pox was something that happened to everyone. “You’ll all get it sooner or later,” she said, “and it’s better for you to get it while you’re young. It’s dangerous to get chicken pox when you’re older.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Complications,” she said, and I nodded knowingly as if she had answered my question in great detail. “Ah yes,” I thought, “Complications. Of course.”

“How do we get it?” I asked.

“Being around someone who has it,” she said. “If you’re around their blisters it can spread, if you touch them or get their germs. The same way you’d catch a cold from someone.
It’s going around,” she added, “so it should be fairly easy to catch it.”

I nodded to myself. Obtaining chicken pox didn’t seem difficult at all. The main difficulty seemed to be obtaining it before either of my sisters, though a brief glance at their placid faces showed no outward sign of competition.

“All right,” I thought, sashaying out of the kitchen, hands on my small hips. “Let’s get this thing.”

* * *

The next day at school I scanned my classmates, zeroing in on each with the crosshairs of my bionic third-grade eye. I was looking for spots—raised blisters on the skin. Or itchiness. Or someone getting sent home because of chicken pox, in which case I had only a limited amount of time before their parents showed up and would have to work quickly. Scanning the desks I saw nothing. A boy named Michael scratched his head, but he was always scratching his head. He scratched it particularly often when he had trouble with a lesson, as if the answers were lodged under a thin layer of dead skin on his scalp and would be unearthed by the raking of his fingernails through his thin, blonde hair. I pulled back and continued scanning. A girl named Jessica had a mole on her face but I was fairly sure she had always had a mole on her face.

“Raquel?” Mrs. Schweitzer’s voice brought me back to reality. “Do you want to complete the eight times table on the board?”

No, I thought, I had little or no interest in doing that, but walked reluctantly up to the front of the classroom. I wrapped my hand around the chalk, hoping that perhaps one of the other children to complete a times table had left a festering chicken pox infection on its dusty surface. My back to the crowd I completed the table and then turned and stood at the front of the class as they chanted my answers, realizing that I had an excellent view of my classmates and that Janice* in the back left corner was scratching her stomach through her shirt.

“Raquel, you can sit down,” she said, and I walked back to my seat, narrowing my gaze in on my target.

I watched her intently. She did not yet seem aware of the fact that she was scratching, but did it absentmindedly, grabbing fistfuls of her belly and letting her nails sink into it, hoping to ease the discomfort. I looked at her skin and found no other outward signs, but still—in the early stages there are only one or two blisters. I needed to make physical body contact with her before the end of the day. Pam and Karen might already be happily body surfing through scores of viral first graders and pre-schoolers, playfully assaulting their immune system while I sat, staring inertly at a potential carrier. I locked eyes on her stomach, which she was still rubbing violently, and the teacher asked us to line up for lunch—a boys line and a girls line. I stood directly behind her, staring at the hair on the back of her neck, pulled tight in a ponytail, with a few dark curls escaping the elastic. Janice almost definitely had chicken pox, I thought, and it would be so much easier for me to get them if we had something regarded as even a mild friendship.

“Can I cut you?” I asked. The infection had started on her stomach, I thought, so best to be nearest to that part.

“I don’t care,” she said. “We’re just walking to the lunchroom.”

I nodded and slyly took my place in front of her. “Are you buying lunch?” I asked.

“No,” she said, aloof. “It’s pizza nuggets today. I don’t like them.” I leaned in to hear this, hoping the germs inherent in her breath would waft happily into my mucus membranes. I turned back around in line, before slowly backing up into her, as if pushed. My back lightly grazed her protruding stomach.

“Hey,” she said. “Be careful!”

“Sorry,” I said. “The line was backing up.” She seemed to accept this fairly obvious lie, despite the fact that the other girls in line were standing perfectly still. Stealthily reaching behind me, I rubbed my hand on the part of my back that had made contact. “Closer!” I thought. “I am getting closer!”

We sat through lunch at separate tables, the period’s uneventfulness marred only by my insistence on finishing the liquid in her Capri Sun.

“Can I have the rest of your drink?” I asked, wandering by her table, allegedly on my way to the garbage can.

“I’m throwing it away,” she said, confused. “It’s empty.”

“Oh,” I said, picking it up and sucking the damp, fruity air from the silver package until the bag was vacuum-sealed flat. “I always wanted to try these,” I said. “My mom won’t buy them.”
It was a half-truth. Clearly I had just stumbled upon the most awkward way to imbibe some of her germs, but I had always wished my mother would pack me trendier, more interesting lunches. My red delicious apples were not only far from delicious, they (along with their compatriots: a tuna sandwich, juicebox, and banana with my name written on it) were far from garnering me any semblance of popularity. Although perhaps, in retrospect, it was less my dearth of fruit roll-ups and Ecto-Cooler and more my propensity to enthusiastically contract diseases from people that kept me a comfortable distance from the popular kids’ table.

We proceeded out the side door of the cafeteria, into the field for recess, where I proceeded to involve myself in a grade-wide game of “Tag,” during which I would allow myself to become “it” and would then mercilessly chase Janice around the ball fields, tagging her in areas I thought most prone to infection.

“Stop tagging me on my stomach, Raquel!” she screamed, running away from me.

“It’s just a game!” I shouted. “It’s the easiest place to tag!”

“Why aren’t you chasing anyone else?” she yelled, her voice lilting as she panted through the syllables. Janice was not a good runner. The other children, who had realized they did not have to try particularly hard to avoid being tagged by me, began jogging comfortably along the sidelines, observing the action.

“I’m chasing other people too,” I said, and with that began half-heartedly chasing Keysha McGrady long enough for Janice to slow down, after which I pounced on her.

“What are you doing?!” she screamed.

“Nothing!” I said. “I’m playing a game!”

“You’re not tagging anyone else!” she went on. “Why are you being so weird today?!!”

“We’re all playing tag,” I said. “I’m just trying to make you it,” I said. While saying this she had confronted me face to face and upon saying the words “make you it” I proceeded to tag her three times during our conversation as if illustrating a point (I am tagging you!) with my actions.

“You’re it,” I said. And before I could run, Janice swiped her pox-ridden hand over my own shoulder.

“No, you’re it,” she said. Amazing, I thought. I’ll have the chicken pox by 6PM this evening.

Jumping on the opportunity of a lifetime I threw my palm against the skin of her left arm.

“You’re it again,” I said.

“No you,” she said, slapping me in the chest.

“You are,” I said, tagging her.

“You’re it, Raquel!” she shouted, tagging me.

“You!”

“No you!!!” she screamed, hitting me several times on my shoulder. “You! You’re it! I hate this game—I’m not playing!” she shouted.

“Fine,” I said, sauntering off to tag someone else. I smiled at myself. Janice would have more important things than this game to think about during the umpteen oatmeal baths she would have to take over the next five days. I imagined myself luxuriating in an oatmeal bath, which I was told would ease the itching after contacting chicken pox. I was not a tremendously big fan of oatmeal, but perhaps my mother would allow me to substitute a cereal of my choosing and I could lounge lethargically in a tub full of Honey Nut Cheerios, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or Trix. Perhaps it was only important that it be a breakfast item and I could lie for hours in a tub of waffles or pop tarts or bacon. The possibilities were endless, and I salivated at my upcoming affliction.
“Chicken Pox,” I thought, “will be the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”

And it was mid-day later that week that I found myself absentmindedly scratching my stomach. Lifting the hem of my T-shirt, I discovered what appeared to be a new mole sitting beside my bellybutton. It itched like mad and I tried to ease the discomfort by pushing the corner of my lunchbox directly onto the blister and holding it there.

“Nurse Carol,” I said, walking to her yellow-cinderblocked office after being granted permission by Mrs. Schweitzer. “I think I have chicken pox.”
I gave no hint as to why I thought I might have it—I took no pains to detail to her my lengthy attempts to rub elbows (literally) with the previously infected.

“I think that’s exactly what you have,” she said after a few minutes of examining my lunchbox-dented stomach. “I have a few children who are out with it this week. I’m going to call your mother.”

And she did call my mother, who of course showed up half an hour later to pick me up from school since I was, in the nurse’s words, “highly infectious.” I beamed the car ride home, lifting my shirt just high enough to showcase my newly formed pockmark.

“So do I get the prize?” I asked.

“Of course you do,” she said, and true to her word she would give me something akin to five dollars and a bag of jellybeans, which, to me, was all anybody could ask for in the world.

“I hope you won’t be mad though,” she said, “I’ll probably also give your sisters something when they get it. I know you were lucky enough to get it first, but really I just want all of you to get it over with when you’re young.”

“So I don’t get anything else for being first?” I asked.

“You get a mother who’s very proud of you,” she said.

“You know, luck had very little to do with this,” I explained, outlining the blister with my nail. “I worked really hard to get this.”

“I’m sure you did,” she assured me.

“So do I get something extra for being first?” I asked.

“You get to stay home from school for at least a week,” she said. “And while this might seem a little weird, you get to help me out by making a point to infect both your sisters.”

I nodded, happy to help. “Just let me know what you want me to do,” I told her, scratching at my hard-earned virus that lovingly nestled itself into my skin.
“That actually doesn’t sound that weird at all.”

Just Desserts

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:20:10 GMT

I remember it clearly because I was eight, maybe nine, and because it was the sort of stupid thing that eight and nine year-olds occasionally dream about, because they do not yet know to dream about bigger, more ambitious things. My sisters and I sat dangling off our chairs, having finished (or almost finished) our dinners.

“No dessert yet,” my father told us. “If you can wait an extra hour for it I have a really great surprise for dessert. But you have to wait an hour.”

“I want a grape ice,” said Pam. Pam was six, maybe seven—an age where willpower is far from its peak. “Is the surprise grape ice?”

“No,” said my father.

“If you wait an hour you can have something better than a grape ice,” I whispered, kicking her.

“I want one.”

“Stop ruining everything,” I said, and she sulkily went back to mashing the things on her plate together, making it look like she had eaten more than she had. Karen, who was two, maybe three, was sitting in her booster chair, not fully understanding the enormity of the phrase “surprise for dessert.”

The hour we had to wait was the hour it would take for my mother to get ready before leaving the house. Many of my father’s “great surprises” have been things like, “allowing us to ride on top of the station wagon, clutching the luggage rack, while he drove it up the block and around the cul-de-sac. These were things that we could not always so much do when my mother was around, given that she refused to let us ride without seat belts, let alone without seats, let alone on top of the car."

“It’s a really good surprise,” my father said, and I frantically thought through all the sweet or fattening foods we had in the house, wondering what he would possibly let us have. Maybe he was going to finally let us eat icing, an unhealthy but universally understood child fantasy. Maybe he was going to let me eat the grape licorice string that I had found in the cabinet while looking for something else two or three days prior, but which was still there because I had checked for it that morning. Maybe the box of sugar cubes I had had my eye on for so long would finally be fair game. Pam, rather than marveling at her potential opportunities, chose to brood over the delay, making noises that ranged between drawn out versions of the words “graaaaaaaape iiiiiiiiice” and loud, indistinguishable moans.

“I love you girls,” my mother said. “Be good.

“Love you,” we said. And it was true. We loved our mother very much. But in this particular instance it meant, “We love you as much as it is possible for children aged two, six and eight (or five, seven and nine) to love someone. Please go out to dinner with your friends already so we can find out what we’re having for dessert.”

The door closed behind her and we listened for the screen door to click into place as well. I looked at Pam, who was slumped in her chair as if waiting an hour for dessert were the equivalent of being shot.

“All right,” said my father. “You girls have been really good about waiting. Your dessert for tonight is…

“Is?”

“Is anything we have in the house,” he said. “It’s whatever you want.”

I stared at him, blinking with the disbelief that accompanies unbridled joy. Anything? We could have anything we wanted?

“Anything,” he clarified. “Whatever you can get your hands on, you can eat.”

I climbed out of my chair in awe while my sister, who had realized the importance of this supermarket sweep-type opportunity, ran to the freezer and stuck two grape ices in her mouth at once. Locating the string licorice in the drawer where I had longingly viewed it that morning, I uncoiled the roll and began lowering it into my mouth, as if overseeing a rescue that was determined to save someone trapped in my esophagus. (Grab the licorice! Hang on!) Chewing through it, I watched as the tail end disappeared between my lips and immediately ran to the refrigerator to polish off a jar of vanilla frosting, accenting the taste with peanut butter (smooth), and spooning it into my mouth. I sat tentatively at the table, ready to bolt up at a moment’s notice to eat something else. Pam, who had polished off her grape ices had begun on the cherry ices while Karen had discovered a box of soft-baked chocolate chip cookies and was proceeding to consume her bodyweight in Frihoffers.
We were, and have always been, bottomless. Karen, several years later at my High School Graduation party would eat (in addition to the food and cake) twenty-five pieces of fudge, leading guests to ask the question, “Why is your sister lying on her back in the middle of the living room?” Even as a toddler she patiently pushed cookies into her small mouth before discovering a jar of Hershey’s kisses which she unwrapped with her tiny, pinkish fingers.

“Ice cream,” I said aloud, as if summoning troops to battle. My sisters dropped what they were doing and proceeded to help me dig out the ever-present container of Breyers (half chocolate, half vanilla) that defined our freezer.

“I’ll scoop it,” I said, since I was the strongest. And as I began digging into the brown and white block my sisters ran to accent their ice cream with highlights of the last five minutes. Hershey kisses were added, as were crumbled cookies and pieces of frosting. Marshmallows (the large ones) were poured generously.

“This is amazing,” I thought, pushing spoonfuls of indeterminate sweetness into my mouth. “This is the greatest thing that will ever happen to me.”

And it must have been up there, given that it is nearly twenty years later and I have not forgotten it. My father and sisters do not, I believe, have any recollection of the incident, a fact which both saddens and shocks me. But more than the happy memories of the food itself, I enjoyed the realization that I do not need as much of things as I think I need.

“I’m done,” I choked, words that I could not have imagined myself uttering. I was amazed at my limits—namely, that I had them. While able to eat many more than my usually allotted “three cookies” or “one bowl of ice cream,” I was not, in fact, endless. I had a definitive limit and I had discovered that limit while halfway through a box of sugar cubes, unable to place another cube in my mouth without feeling as though I would vomit on the brick-red tiles of our linoleum floor.

“I’m full,” I told my father. Karen and Pam had long since fallen asleep in a fat stupor.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you. Can we do it again next week?”

“No,” he said.

“Next month?” I asked.

“Probably not,” he said. “I just thought it would be nice tonight. I think at least once in their lives, people should get to have whatever they want.”

“It was good,” I told him, “but I feel sick.”

And looking back, it was brilliant of him to have given that to us at a point in our lives where whatever we wanted was available in the baked goods aisle at ShopRite, with a possible detour into candy/frozen foods. And that while we might get older and begin wanting larger, more complicated things, at least once we had gotten everything we wanted. It was mind-blowing to us that it had been offered, but it was good to know that getting everything you want, in one way or another, will make you sick.

* * *

It was last week that I went for a lunchtime walk with my father—over the Manhattan bridge and back over the Brooklyn. Upon returning to his office he took me to “Garden of Eden,” an aptly named grocery store which specializes in temptation, olives and cheese.

“Because we usually have lunch together and we didn’t have time to eat,” he said, “Whatever you want for lunch is yours.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks.” With great excitement I picked out two pomegranates and a plastic tray of Sashimi.

“Is that all you want?” he asked.

“It’s enough for lunch,” I said.

“Come look at the cheeses,” he said. “You don’t have to eat it all today.”

“Ok,” I said. “Can I get this?” I help up a container of mozzarella in olive oil.

“Whatever you want,” he said.

“Ok,” I said. “Wow. Um. I want everything in the store.”

And I did, I thought, glancing from the perfectly unbruised plums to the wheels of brie to the small, individual sized mousse cakes which I imagined eating with my hands. But my father is not made of money and as I learned at the age of eight (or maybe nine), it is nice to be offered everything you want, but actually having it can be somewhat painful—if not for you, for someone.

“Get a dessert,” he encouraged.

“All right,” I said, picking out a fruit tart in the window of the pastry refrigerator. “I’ll have this.”

“That’s all you want as a dessert?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I told him, eying the rows of cookies and chocolates.

“Are you sure?” he asked. My eyes fell on a container of fruit-flavored licorice and I paused, fruit tart in hand.

“I’m sure.”

“You’re positive,” he said.

“This is enough of a dessert,” I told him, calmly remembering the taste of vanilla frosting mixed with peanut butter. “But thank you for the offer. It all looks amazing, but I’ve had most of it before.”

Same Sex Marriages

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:29:19 GMT

Below is a link to a friend's blog with the video footage of San Diego mayor Jerry's Sanders' announcement regarding same-sex marriage.
I thought it was worth watching.

stay free! daily blog

(Note to my father or other computer-deficient people: Click on the link (the words stay free! daily blog) and when you get to the second page, click on the video on the PLAY symbol, which is a small, forward-facing triangle. Good luck.)

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Poor Forethought

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:19:46 GMT

So my sister called me after getting off work.

"You sound tired," I said.

"I sort of am," she admitted. "I was supposed to get out of work about an hour ago but we just finished up at around 10 and I'm headed home." My sister works at a newly-established coffee shop on the Cornell University campus.

"There's a lot of background noise," I said. "It's hard to hear you."

"Yeah," she answered, sounding unusually out of breath. "It's raining. A lot."

"I can hear it," I said.

"I'm walking to my car now-- the parking lot is huge so I had to park really far away."

"That sucks. I hate the feeling of wet clothes sticking to my body."

After which she paused for longer than a normal conversational pause.

"Well," she continued, "I have this pouch in my backpack that's completely waterproof..."

She pauses again momentarily as if realizing that the sentence she has begun is not necessarily one it is in her best interests to finish.

"And?"

"And I..."

"And you?"

"And I figured I'd use it for the stuff that I wanted to keep dry," she says, tentatively. "So I put my clothes in it."

"Your clothes?"

"I really liked the outfit I was wearing today and wanted to wear it to a party later, so I put the clothes in the waterproof pouch in my bookbag..."

"So what are you wearing for the walk to the car?"

"Well..." she said, not answering.

"So what are you wearing?" I asked again, quietly feeling that I already knew the answer."

"I'm walking through the Cornell parking lot in my underwear," she said. "Yes."

She went on to tell me that it "wasn't too bad." That she was wearing a sports bra and horizontally-striped boxer briefs and that she could probably pass for a jogger, were she not
a.) walking, and
b.) carrying a backpack and a skateboard.

"And c.) in a torrential downpour," she continued. "How is it possible that it's actually raining harder? I would have ridden the skateboard but I didn't want to rust the bearings, so I'm just holding it."

"So you're just walking through a parking lot in your underwear?" I asked again.

"Yes."

"Wearing a backpack and holding a skateboard."

"Yes," she said. "It sounds really weird when you say it like that."

"It is sort of weird," I say.

"It is a little," she admits. "I'm almost at my car now."

And that is when, over the sounds of the thunder, I hear my sister yell "FUCK."

End Note:

If you are so worried about your outfit getting wet that you are willing to walk through the parking lot of an Ivy League school in your Gap boxer briefs and matching sports bra, packing your day-wear outfit in a waterproof pouch in your bookbag, try not to leave your car keys in the pocket of your pants, as it will defeat nearly the whole purpose of this utterly ridiculous act.