I drove to a job interview today in Brian’s Tahoe. To call his truck ‘big’ is an understatement. It feels like driving a building—a lurching, mutinous building, that doesn’t particularly care for the directions you give it, so it obeys them on its own time. Brian’s last truck was a twenty-year-old Landcruiser, so I guess he likes them that way. When I first got in the passenger’s seat of that Landcruiser, I thought it was the largest truck I’d ever ridden in. Brian’s form in the driver’s seat to my left felt like it was four feet away. Now, in the Tahoe, we sit even further apart. I never would have thought it possible, but it is even bigger.
When I am driving it, which is only when I absolutely have to, I sometimes forget how I look to other cars on the road. Since I feel small and timid behind the wheel, I assume that other drivers can sense my meekness, and are going to try and crush me. Chances are, though, that all they actually see is a monstrous blue Tahoe. When I realize this, I suddenly feel like a tiny bunny sequestered in the head of a giant rampaging killer robot. I’m sure everyone has those days.
So, I have recently relocated to North Carolina. This is exciting and life-changing in a number of ways, some of them unexpected– others, extremely guilt-inducing. The road to self-discovery appears to be paved with shame. For example, in the past few days I have learned:
I kind of love to drive!
It began with my purchase, from my folks, of a dark blue 2003 Pontiac Vibe, and continued with a subsequent two-day, fifteen-hour road trip down to North Carolina through hurricane Hanna. I have never driven for that long at a time in my life, through such ridiculous weather conditions, but it somehow left me more excited than ever to be driving again.
I know, I know. With gas prices being the way they are, it’s not the best time to get your groove back through driving. But come on! I get great gas mileage! Don’t look at me like that. AND, for nearly all of my life– in NYC, Hawai’i and Boston, I have relied almost exclusively on public transportation to get everywhere. It’s nice to not have to work around someone else’s schedule for once (326 bus, I’m looking in your goddamn direction). There’s no more frantically looking up bus times online, like when I lived in Medford, and doing the dance of “I’ll need to leave an hour early for the movie, because the next bus after that will make me miss the previews. Heck, why don’t I just walk the 40 minutes, because that will get me there at the right time anyway.” I shit you not, I Heck just walked the 40 minutes more times than not. I do like to walk. But damn hell, now I get to drive!
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the words “package store”?
I was in the parking lot of the ABC Package Store down the road from my new place, with a large box I needed to mail in the passenger’s seat, about to get out of the car when Brian called.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I couldn’t find the UPS Store I mapquested before I left,” I said, “so I’m at the package store. Hopefully I can mail my box from here.”
“Wait, the package store?”
“Yeah. The ABC Package Store. On Timber Road. To mail that big box?”
Suffice it to say, had Brian not called at that moment, I would have taken my box into the ABC Package Store only to discover that it was in fact a liquor store. Because in North Carolina, liquor stores are known as package stores. Well, duh!
“I guess that explains the sign out front that says ‘No Loitering.’ I was wondering who would want to loiter outside a package store. I mean, how exciting would that make this town?”
Brian and I are in disagreement as to whether it would have been more hilarious if he hadn’t called, and I had lugged my box inside and tried to mail it. I feel that I probably would have covered it well.
“I need to mail this pack…age…But while I’m here, I’ll take a fifth of Wild Turkey.”
Brian recently developed five rolls of film that had been sitting around the house for the last three years or so. About twenty percent of those photos involved the dog reluctantly wearing clothes. Mostly socks.
I think both of us might need hobbies? or children? or medication? Or all of the above. Tell me we are not alone.
Have you heard the one about the McCain/Palin ticket?
Q: What’s the difference between a Vice Presidential Candidate and a Hockey Mom?
A: ::: Scream of despair:::
I have been traveling around for the last few weeks—spending a few days in New York City, a few in Boston, and now a few more on Cape Cod. I had originally been hoping to take more of an adventurous sightseeing trip to distant lands, but I gradually became aware that such trips cost money. Thus my plans gradually shifted until they had transformed into a tour of my old northeast haunts—staying with friends and family—which afforded me free housing, free entertainment, and lots of free time while everyone else was off working. This trip has been an exciting journey of self-discovery, sleeping late, and rampant boozing and seafood. Yesss.
It has also politically activated me. I had almost managed to forget my tendency to become fiercely invested in politics for the three months or so leading up to every presidential election, like the shameless bandwagon boarder I am. For most of the time, my interest in politics lies dormant, like a robot in sleep mode. But in late August of every election year, catching five minutes of ‘Meet the Press’ one morning triggers my “POLITICALLY CONCERNED” mode and I leap frantically into action; whirling around uselessly and emitting shrill beeps—like C3PO, but with a more tenuous grasp of the issues.
Because of the infrequency of this brief mode, it is not my most well-informed and shining mode. All I want to do is talk about the upcoming presidential election—and I am eager to share with everyone the strong opinions I have on the candidates and issues after careful perusal of half an issue of Newsweek I read in the doctor’s office.
“How old do you have to be to vote again?” I will splutter, after giving a heated speech about how I think Joe Biden’s wife is pretty. “What the hell kind of a name is ‘Trig’? If I am not living in the state I grew up in, can I still vote there? And where is the Electoral College?” I spend my evenings watching CNN with fervent concentration, even though for all I understand, I may as well be watching Telemundo. At least Telemundo has better outfits, and more believable pregnancies.
“If the Democrats win this election, do I have to give back my $600 check? Because they can forget it. I already spent it.” It’s a wonder that I am not smacked upside the head, or at least sequestered in a closet until Nov. 4th—with an absentee ballot shoved under the door for me in October.
Last year I planned and hosted an event during the presidential debate that was called “Drink Beer and Eat Cupcakes and Watch the Presidential Debate”. I don’t really recall much about this issues that were discussed, but the cupcakes were delicious. Actually, I do remember noticing that during the course of the debate, Kerry drank his water out of a fancy stemmed goblet, while Bush used a good-old-boys type lowball glass. I realized at that moment the election was over. Possibly I am a little more politically prescient than I thought.
So, my day was off to a decent start. I was getting my teeth cleaned, so it wasn’t the best start I could have asked for, but it could have been worse, and then it did become worse. In the middle of my cleaning, a dental technician wandered over and asked me something that no one has ever asked me before.
“Are those your kids in the waiting room?” she said casually.
My left eye twitched a little, since my mouth was already wide open.
“Ungg-ggg…” I said. When my mouth was free of hands for an instant I rasped, “They’re not my kids.”
“Oh,” she said. I waited for her to smile sheepishly and apologize for assuming that I had children, because now that she saw me up close I was clearly too young for that. But all I got was “anyway, they’re very well behaved.”
When she turned away I immediately scrutinized my outfit to see if there was anything about it that might possibly suggest that I was a parent. I was wearing battered sneakers and an old t-shirt and had unbrushed hair. I have looked like that since I first learned to walk. True, I was back for my six-month cleaning, which denoted a certain sense of maturity; usually I get my teeth cleaned every three years, when it is more of an archaeological excavation than anything else. But nothing else about me, as far as I knew, screamed “I have given birth. I now care for young.”
Still, I have been out of college for five years. Apparently it is within the realm of possibility for me to have had children. To many, it is no longer a weird assumption to make. This is utterly terrifying.
As a matter of fact…I had seen those kids in the waiting room. They were at least eight years old. For the first time since high school (when it was for different reasons), I began to wonder how old I looked. I have always assumed that I appear as juvenile and unprepared to for life as I feel and act, but guess I could be wrong. I began to panic. When I get carded at the liquor store, I wondered, are the clerks actually joking? Or worse, are they trying to make me feel better about myself by asking for ID? Do they snicker behind my back when I leave the store with my crow’s-feet and my cheap jug of wine?
The problem is that right now, I feel less prepared than ever to have children. Perhaps this is because I have had more time to consider the idea, and to reflect on how difficult parenting has to be. I have ruminated over my own childhood, recalling in great detail the aggravating phases I put my parents through. A decade of excruciating shyness. Harrowing middle-of-the-night asthma attacks. The years when I would wear only stretch-pants, eat only peanut-butter sandwiches, and leave squashed Kleenex all over the house during allergy season. The endless fights between my younger sister and I when we breathed in each other’s faces after eating sour cream & onion potato chips and argued inanely over the top bunk.
The older I get, and the more impossible the idea of having children seems to me, the less patience I have with the ones I do come across. Those very children in the waiting room had kind of irritated me—and they were apparently well-behaved.
When the comparatively minimal responsibilities which come with pet ownership became a drag, I knew I was going to be in trouble if I ever had a child. I whine about having to go home to let the dog out after leaving him alone in the house for nine hours. I roll my eyes whenever it is my turn to feed him, even though it takes thirty seconds and two simple arm motions, and if he doesn’t want to eat, fine. You have to teach a dog to sit, but not to spell, or relate to others, or dress itself. It might jump up on a stranger, but it will never ask them why they are fat in a sweet, piercing voice.
It has occurred to me that my growing annoyance with other people’s children might be the work of some instinctive self-protection—a way to keep me from actually having any children of my own before I am ready, but I soon dismissed this idea. I figure that if my body really wanted to protect me from having children, the smart thing to do would be to make me increasingly irritated with men. Which, come to think of it, it has. Maybe I am safe after all.
I’m famous! The Wikipedia mentions me in this entry about the HMS Edinburgh:
“The cruiser’s second salvo straddled the Schoemann and disabled her severely enough that her crew scuttled her.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Next stop, Hollywood!
I love bad movies! I would rather watch Steve Guttenberg with a fake accent and hair extensions riding a motorcycle than rent Citizen Kane. It is an ongoing sickness that I have finally come to terms with—I have even begun taking pride in my dogged devotion to certain awful films, which is like flaunting your ability to look pregnant after eating a big meal.
But what’s not to love about terrible movies? They’re usually easier to understand than good movies, and watching them makes you feel smarter and more talented (and if they have small, misguided costume and makeup budgets, you also get to feel prettier). When I was in high-school, their very existence did wonders for my fragile self-esteem. “I have no date to prom,” I would think, “but at least I didn’t produce Waterworld.”
A good movie teaches you about yourself; a bad movie can also teach you about yourself, but it will be things you didn’t really want to know. Bad films also taught me just how long ninety minutes can be, and that a sequel is in trouble when the only actors retained from the original film are the high-school principal and football coach.
Still, despite my vastly impressive and socially crippling bad movie expertise, last night I was revealed as the fraud I am. For years, I have called myself a connoisseur of bad movies without having seen Xanadu. I now realize that this was equivalent of claiming to be an authority on the English language without having read Shakespeare. Also, comparing the two is a felony, or should be.
Xanadu, a ‘roller-disco musical’ from 1981, is even worse than it sounds, which I didn’t think was possible until I saw it. Critics claim that it is arguably the cornerstone of modern cinematic failure—and by ‘critics’ I mean most anyone who has seen the whole thing. Certainly it was not the first-ever movie to be bad, but it is now clear to me that it lowered the bar to a whole new basement level. Nothing else I have ever seen comes close to Xanadu’s perfect-storm-like combination of naive optimism, jaunty unselfconsciousness, and Olivia Newton John in a peasant blouse and roller skates.
Perhaps it was the constant flashing neon lights, or the dramatic, eye-twitch-inducing hairstyles that were not acceptable in any decade or dimension that has ever existed or will ever exist (trust me on this one). Maybe it was the part, early on, where the hero, a struggling artist, tore up a drawing and said, “Aw, hell, guys like me shouldn’t dream anyway.” Or the montage of dance numbers near the end that made my brain try to eat itself. Or the sudden and baffling interlude in which the romantic leads inexplicably turn into cartoon birds and fly around chasing each other. Or the fact that every time you try to forget that Gene Kelly stars in this movie, he starts dancing around and it’s like he’s dancing on your heart.
I can’t go on. I need to take my mind off of this movie. The doctors say I shouldn’t upset myself. Let me just say that I think it was the almost tragic unselfconsciousness that finally got me in the end. It was like watching Miss America flash a dazzling smile with spinach in her teeth.
If anyone else has seen Xanadu and has an opinion on it, or advice for me, I would love to hear it. Mostly, I just want to feel like I am not alone. I have landed on the other side, and I will never be able to find my way back. Nothing will ever be the same.
Maybe I need to watch it again.
I was born and raised in Manhattan, but I left to go away to college and never came back for more than a few weeks at a time. Despite this fact, whenever I return for a visit I want desperately to feel as though I fit in here, if only for one long weekend or so every few months.
Does anyone else ever feel this way about coming home? This strange fierce surge of possessiveness when you walk down streets you used to call yours? A need to feel as though you still belong there? I make myself crazy sometimes, with my pitiful, raw longing for some kind of recognition from the city itself that it is my hometown. It’s as though I expect traffic cops to smile and nod as I pass them, and grocery clerks to hi-five me and say, “Welcome back!”
I grew up here, and I’m back for a few days. What do I want, a cookie?
The thing is, it’s difficult to feel like Manhattan is yours, even when you do live there—even while growing up there and spending your childhood exploring it and taking it for granted. It’s hard to feel like you own ANY city, but especially New York, the commercial landscape of which seems to change every twenty-four hours. You can go away for the weekend and when you come back a spa and a cupcake shop have appeared on your block. This city is a Labyrinth of constantly evolving banks and bodegas, noisy construction sites and fruit stands. You might discover a fantastic Mexican place around the corner one day and two weeks later it’s a gym.
I have heard friends from other places complain that going home is a stultifying experience because nothing has ever changed, but this idea makes me a little envious. Very little of the neighborhood of my youth has remained the same. Maybe the problem is that a person wants to feel as though they’ve outgrown the place they’re from. After all, they lived there when they were young and foolish, and they’ve changed so much since then! But I will never outgrow Manhattan, or leave it behind. Manhattan will always be cooler and more sophisticated than I am…and almost as neurotic.
Part of my problem is that most of my childhood friends are still here. Many of them left to go to college, but returned soon after. Why this should make me feel guilty, I don’t know, but it does. I feel like a traitor, an abandoner. I let the siren song of cheaper rent and cleaner streets lure me to cities in other states. My parents remained in my childhood apartment in Manhattan, and I told myself I didn’t want to stay in the same city as my parents. I told myself I couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan and didn’t want to live in any other boroughs. I told myself I knew I’d always end up back in New York eventually.
So when I do come home to visit, slipping back into the mix and trying to act as though I haven’t been gone for months, in the back of my mind I feel like New York is indifferent to my presence. It doesn’t care if I stay or go; it’s been doing fine without me. It’s over me. And I’ll never be over New York.
I Heard Tell 