A Case in Point of Excessive West Coast Friendliness

Yesterday, my friend Miranda and I (www.mediocrityisnotsobad.blogspot.com) were standing in line at the Parkway Theatre to buy tickets to watch the Oscars there next Sunday. It was cold. It was rainy. There were A LOT of people in the line in front of us.

As we stood there waiting for them to start selling tickets, a man walked around the corner and started shaking people's hands. I didn't think much of it until he reached us.

"Hi," he said, extending his hand out to me. "I'm Connie. I'm up at the front of the line, waiting to buy tickets, and I thought since we're all going to be watching the Oscars together next weekend, I'd come by and introduce myself. That way when you see me next week, we'll already know each other and we can all be friends."

There was a time when I would have assumed that anyone who would just start up a conversation with me in a line must be a) crazy; b) trying to scam me; or c) trying to pick me up. This guy, while probably a little bit off, was none of the above. As far as I can tell, he was just. . . .friendly. Which for me just makes the whole thing stranger.

Anyway, we chatted about the tuxedo he was going to sport and the party dresses and tiaras that Miranda and I are considering wearing, and then he continued to make his way through the line. Miranda and I started giggling, knowing that this is what makes California so great. (Or so weird, depending on your perspective.)

But I have to say, I am excited that when I show up at the Parkway next Sunday, I will have one friend already waiting for me there. Connie, I'll be looking for ya!

Weird things that happened to me today

1) As I was riding BART this afternoon, I noticed some graffiti on the side of a building that said "JESUS SAVES YOU FROM HELL." I kid you not.

2) I went to hang out a brewery this evening. And by brewery, I really mean large open parking lot adjacent to the back of a warehouse that can only be accessed by walking through the Walmart/Home Depot parking lot and squeezing around a chain link fence and jockeying yor way through the crowd of big, burly Teamsters.

3) At said "brewery", my friend Miranda and I managed to meet the only three militant members of the teacher's union, oh, probably in the world. We had to toast unions at least 7 times. And we were only talking for about a half an hour. It was so random and weird though. This is what happens when you move away from the East Coast and and they finally manage to break through your reserve: you become one of those chatty people who talks to everyone. I have become that person. One little comment about stocking up on tokens for beer and suddenly you're Andrew and George and Don's best friends and you're making plans to hang out in San Lorenzo (which, for those of you who didn't know--and I imagine that would be all of you--is on the 880 corridor in between San Leandro and Hayward. Apparently half of it got annexed away by San Leandro back in the day, but it still has two elementary schools of its own, dammit!)

T.O.

I've been thinking about the concept of "The One" lately. (AKA "T.O.") I have friends who talk about finding "The One"--"Well, I guess he just wasn't 'The One' after all." "When it's the right time, I know I'll meet 'The One.'"

I'm not sure that I buy it. It just seems like an awful lot of pressure to put on any one person, on any one relationship.

And is it even a reasonable expectation? To me, "T.O." seems to imply completion, the person who makes you whole, the relationship that gives you everything you need. Like in Jerry Maguire: "You complete me." It's a nice sentiment, if you're into that kind of thing. A nice sentiment, but is it even possible for it to exist as a reality? Can one person really give you everything you need? I doubt it. Even if it were possible, would it be healthy? I think not.

A chicken and egg conundrum: did people start writing books and making movies about finding "T.O." because they'd seen that it really could happen in real life, or did people start looking for "T.O." in real life because they saw it some damn movie? Movie love is not real love, and I have a deep, sinking suspicion that the movie industry (with a little help from those bodice-ripper romance novels) is largely responsible for people's unreasonable expectations about what love means and what it will look like.

I think the odds are good that you will not fall in love with a person who regularly says things like "You complete me." I think the odds are good that they will not, in fact, complete you either. And I'd say the odds are fantastic that they won't like the movies you like, or the hobbies you like or the foods you like, and that unless you just want to give up on film noir and Thai food forever, you're gonna have to find someone else to enjoy those things with.

But for all you hopeless (or is it hopeful?) romantics out there who are actively searching for your "T.O."--take heart. This blog, after all, is being written by a woman who, if she gets married, is seriously considering having her husband live somewhere else. Like in a house of his own across the street. So what the hell do I know about love and "The One" anyway?

And Part Four. . .

Love makes you do crazy things. Things you never thought you would have done, much less wanted to do.

You think you have your life all figured out--you know what you want, you know where you're going, and then love derails it all. Love changes your mind, and changes you.

It's not always big things that change, but the total effect is the same.

I have been observing this phenomenon with my friends for years: As a single woman, Laura* filled up her weekends with carefully worked out plans and activities. As part of a couple, she's suddenly really into just hanging out. As a single woman, Nicole* was crystal clear that after graduation from college, she was moving back to California and going to law school. She HATED the East Coast. One year into a relationship, however, and all her law school applications were for schools in Pennsylvania, where her boyfriend had found a job. As a single man, John* worked on living wage and other economic justice politices. As a married man, he finds himself in business school and preparing to move to India with his wife.

As a single person, I have always secretly condemned these changes of plan, these changes of preference. From the outside, it looked like selling out: changing what you want and who you are for some guy (or some girl). But the more I think about it, the more I think this analysis is wrong.

One of the best things I've ever read about love comes from Julian Barnes' brilliant novel The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. He says that love is what keeps "the history of the world from becoming self-important." Love takes your best laid plans and messes them up. Love takes your brilliant strategies and throws in the wrench. Love thumbs its nose at history, and says "so much for what you wanted to happen--here's what you're getting!"

Maybe the better analysis would be to say that love is the x factor, the unknown variable that's going to come in and change the equation. Maybe love is the thing that opens you up to possibilities that you never would have considered for yourself otherwise. Maybe the changes that love effects aren't actually selling out, but rather growing up.

*Note: names have been changed to protect the guilty. :-)

I Lied

I know I said there would be no ranting this week in honor of Valentine's Day, but this was too ridiculous to pass up.

The headline on Yahoo News today?

"Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter."

Can we impeach him for this?

The giddy e-mail face

Maybe a month or so ago, I was going to write a blog post about something I'll refer to as the "giddy e-mail face." For those of you who are not immediately familiar with it, this is the face that involuntarily and uncontrollably seizes your face--generally making you break out into what should, by all rights, be a face-cracking smile--when you receive an e-mail from that certain someone.

This is a mis-leading name, however, because in my experience the face does not just appear as a result of e-mail. Voicemails, IMs ,text messages and talking on the phone are also not safe from this exceedingly visible and often embrassing reaction to another person. Hell, I've seen friends carry out whole, in-person conversations with their object of affection with the giddy face firmly intact. Someone even had the nerve to accuse me of doing just that. They were, of course, mistaken.

I have had a lot of recent experience with the giddy face. It seems that suddenly everyone I know has a crush, or is dating someone, or is in love and so the giddy face is now everywhere. Whole conversations have been devoted to the cute things they said or did that prompted the face. Even more conversations have been devoted to bafflement about having this reaction at all.

I have definitely been in the latter camp of conversations. I had always assumed that I was way too cynical and too guarded and too jaded ever to be afflicted with something as goofily, grossly cute as the giddy face. The last time I experienced the giddy face, I'm pretty sure, was when as a freshman in high school, the student body president/captain of the soccer team talked to me one day in the cafeteria.

And yet it has suddenly returned, publicly embarassing me and causing my friends to stare at me and say things like "I don't think I've ever seen you like this. It's kind of. . . weird." Yeah, it is kind of weird. I'm not really sure that I like it.

But then again, maybe it's good to know you're capable of that level of feeling, that level of excitement, that level of hope. Maybe it's good that my ability to believe in romance and love didn't die in 9th grade with a soccer player named Ryan Sullivan. Maybe.

L'amour: la troisieme partie

I'm a little tired today, and I'm not sure that I'm up for a big reflection on the philosophical aspects of love. So instead, we get a Top 5 List. Easy, straightforward, and in no particular order.

Top 5 Love Songs that Don't Use The Word Love

1) "El Scorcho" by Weezer
2) "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie
3) "Sorry Signs on Cash Machines" by Mason Jennings
4) "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service
5) "I Only Have Eyes For You" the Flamingoes

Thoughts on like and love: Parte dos

True Love

Two years ago, at Christmas-time, my grandfather—who has always seemed to be a frail, bird-like, fragile little man, and who had become increasingly detached and remote and uncomprehending of late—collapsed and was taken to the ICU. The doctors weren’t holding out much hope for his recovery—they were very clear with us that it was just a matter of time.

Still, for several weeks, he lay in a hospital bed, seemingly unconscious, not opening his eyes or in any way acknowledging that he could see or hear what was going on around him. Scores of tubes and monitors and wires were hooked into him: a respirator to help him breathe, feeding tubes, heart monitor, something to monitor his blood sugar level, who knows what else. His breathing—even with the respirator—was labored and ragged; an unmistakable noise—like that of a rattlesnake’s tail or a child’s toy—escaped from this throat with every breath: the death rattle.

Christmas that year was my grandparents’ 55th anniversary. We spent it sitting in the ICU. For days, my grandmother had simply refused to leave the hospital at all—“I want to be there when he wakes up,” she’d say. Over and over, she would go to his side, pat his hand and stroke the side of his face and say, “Harry? Harry, it’s me, Nan. Harry? Wake up Harry. I miss you so much. You look so handsome. You’re so handsome.”

It became a kind of crooning lullaby that she sang, as if to comfort him, and perhaps herself. She looked at him with the fresh naïve hope of a young child, sitting on Santa’s knee, certain that he is real and that whatever is asked for would be received: if she asked often enough and she believed deeply enough, perhaps soon he would wake up and they would go back to normal.

It took the three of us to convince her to leave his side, even for a moment. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, would just sit there, patting his hand, and stroking back the thin, stringy strands of his still perfectly black hair, telling him how handsome he looked.

Thoughts on like and love: Part I

I find myself thinking about love (and its predecessor like) a lot these days. Maybe it's because Valentine's Day is around the corner and it's hard to avoid bombardment by images of "true love." Maybe it's because many of my single (or recent formerly single) girlfriends seem to be finding like and love of their own. Or maybe that's just where my head is.

There are, I believe, 7 days until Valentine's Day. And in honor of that, I'm committing those 7 days to blogs about love, like and relationships. No crabby rants about George Bush. No funny stories about children pooping (unless they did it for love). In keeping with the spirit of the day, I'm even going to try to refrain from ranting about love, like and relationships. Happy blogs, people. Or at least reflective blogs.

So with no further ado:

I have been on what feels like a million dates in the last three years. (It’s probably closer to fifty.) Some of those guys I’ve really liked; some were just alright. One or two I would be happy never to see again. Generally, I was glad when they called and happy to get e-mails from them. Generally, I had a good time when we went out. Generally, everything about those dates and those relationships was. . . . fine.

Fine. It’s a word that in my book ranks right up there with ‘nice’ as one of those neutral, positive-sounding words you use to describe something that frankly, you really don’t like that much but you can’t find any good reason to dislike it. And so you say that it seemed. . . . nice. They were really. . . nice. If all I can think to say is that you are ‘nice,’ that’s pretty much the kiss of death. You might as well be horrible or repulsive or obnoxious. At least then you’d be interesting.

Somewhere in all this dating, I had forgotten that there could be something other than ‘fine.’ Or maybe I’d just given up hope in finding something more than fine. In college, there were people I was excited about—people who made my stomach drop and my head spin. People who could reduce me to a giddy, goofy, inarticulate mess and whose every e-mail and phone call left me with an embarrassingly uncontrollable face-splitting smile that wouldn’t be wiped away, no matter how hard I tried to contain it.

But three years of blah dates had left me numb. I had gotten used to my bland dating diet of 'nice' guys and 'fine' dates. It's only just recently that I've realized how terrible--and unfulfilling--'fine' really is. 'Fine' is all too often what we put up with, what we settle for. But I'm finally realizing that holding out for someone that you're really excited about just might be worth it after all.

Romance on the Bay Bridge

I got proposed to while paying my toll to get on the Bay Bridge last week.

As I reached out to hand the tollbooth guy my money, he said "Oh, you are so beautiful! Are you married?"

A little taken aback, I replied, "Um, no."

"Well, you must at least have a boyfriend."

"Um, yes. Yes I do," I said.

(NOTE: This is a bold-faced lie. I have finally learned, after many years of awkward encounters, that when weird strangers are hitting on you, the correct answer to this question is always yes, regardless of the truth.)

"Well is he going to marry you?" the tollbooth guy asked. "Because I would marry you, and buy you a house and you would live very comfortably. You just remember, if he won't marry you, you always have me."

"Thank you," I said. "That's very nice. Can I have my change, please?"

And then, proposal and change in hand, I was on my way.

I Hate George Bush

In case there was any confusion on the part of people who have been reading my blog, let me just say it one more time: I HATE George Bush.

I hate him for creating a budget that creates the LARGEST deficit in our history, that cuts spending to education, medicare and other social services while increasing military spending and hanging on to his stupid tax cut. (Because of course it's totally worth selling out underpaid teachers, struggling public school kids and my aging grandparents for an extra $20 a month in my paycheck. I'll have to make sure to go out to dinner to celebrate. Plus, then I'll be doing my patriotic part to support the economy.)

It's like George Bush and his administration are trying to give one really big "fuck you" to everyone in the middle and lower classes and anyone who has bought into the idea of the importance/necessity of a social safety net.

I mean, come on! It's EDUCATION. It's the freaking future of our country. Although, if recent trends are any indication, it'll probably just be rich people who run the country anyway, and they probably all went to private school, so that works out OK. And really, if you're going to cut spending on education, what better place to put funds than into the military? Because, after all, if kids aren't going to be able to count on a good education to help them get a job, then at least they know they can always enlist. And, you know, hopefully not die.

Admittedly, it's not like he's the only president who does crappy stuff like this. Has there ever been a time when a president said "Hey! I think we should reduce our military and defense spending so we can focus on better education and health services for everyone?" Is it just that the Bush Administration has been such a long and horrifyingly anti-populist nightmare that I can't even fathom that other presidents actually cared about people, or are they all--to varying degrees--about this bad?

Makes Me Question Why People Have Kids

This is how my co-worker, Brooke, spent her night last night:

We were running a training for a group of workers, and several of the participants had brought their kids. Being the helpful person that she is, Brooke offered to babysit the kids while the training was going on.

According to Brooke, the three kids were--to quote--"devil children": out of control, screaming, running around. Typical 4 year old boys.

At one point in the night, Brooke says that she left the boys to walk into the next room to get some water for one of them. When she came back not two minutes later, she found a surprise waiting for her on the floor: a log of poop. While all of them denied responsibility, clearly someone waited for her to leave, dropped his pants and pooped on the floor.

I can't say I'm sorry I missed that.

When Political Propaganda Goes BAD

As annoyed as I get with the Republican spin factory framing Democrats as a bunch of fetus-killing, tree-hugging peaceniks looking for government handouts, suddenly their propaganda is looking pretty reasonable.

Let's compare it to what I found on the windshield of my car (and every other car on the street) this morning:

The campaign magazine for Lyndon LaRouche. Now, for you politically in-the-know types, you're already rolling your eyes and groaning, because you know that LaRouche--who has campaigned in every presidential campaign since 1980-- and his minions are NUTS. But for those of you who need more convincing, here is what was on the cover of his campaign magazine.

"Keep Fascist Alito Off the Supreme Court."--This isn't so bad, because frankly I said the same thing about Alito just yesterday.

"Cheney's 'Schmittlerian' Drive for Dictatorship"--complete with a photo of Dick Cheney superimposed next to Adolph Hitler. Lovely.

But my personal favorite (because of its complete ridiculousness and lack of relevance to anything else on the cover)?

The headline that says "CHILDREN OF SATAN IV."

Now THAT'S propaganda.

What is the World Coming To?

So I go to check my e-mail this morning and am greeted by this headline on AOL:

"Heroin Hidden Inside Puppies."

Puppies? Seriously?

Top Ten Things I'm Angry About This Week

10) James Frey shopping his book A Million Little Pieces--with its cliched plot and one-dimensional, stereotypical characters--as a memoir after it failed to get published as a novel because it had a cliched plot and one-dimensional stereotypical characters. Don't pass off crap fiction as the truth with the hopes that that will make it worth reading. It won't.

9) Cindy Sheehan getting arrested for attending the State of the Union while wearing a t-shirt protesting the casualties of the war.

8) Because I am angry about these things, at least one person will accuse me of having PMS . I don't.

7) That a-hole George W. announcing in his State of the Union Address that the U.S. is "addicted to oil" and "that the best way to break that addiction is through technology" as if he came up with the idea himself. Guess what? People who actually give a shit about the economy and the environment have been saying that for years.

6) The defense attorneys for Ken Lay and those Enron crooks having the nerve to claim that there was no "evil doing" on the part of their clients. Like hell there wasn't.

5) George W. (Yes, he gets two mentions because I'm really that angry) touting the wonders of a national health-care plan that will do absolutely nothing to increase access to health care for the 46 million people who are uninsured (up from 40 million when he became president) and will most likely create a disincentive for people to seek preventive care before their health problems spiral out of control.

4) Samuel Alito is confirmed as the latest Supreme Court Justice--say goodbye to workers' rights, women's reproductive rights, and anything resembling civil liberties.

3) What passes for good immigration "reform" these days is legislation that makes it a felony for you to be in this country (and makes it a felony for anyone else to assist you) unless some company has decided to host you as a "guest worker," by which I mean that they plan to manipulate you, exploit you, and then turn you over to the feds if you try to do anything about it.

2) And did I mention they also want to build a wall to keep out the flood of "illegals?" Yeah, a really big wall with barbed wire and armed guards and probably lots of dogs.

1) More than anything, however, I am angry that on a daily basis, nothing I'm doing is making any of these other things any better.