The honor roll is nice but nothing boosts a fourth grader's confidence like winning a beauty pageant. Which would you rather have, a certificate on the fridge or a tiara on your head? As a ten year old winner of both accolades, I will tell you, the crown looks a lot better in photographs.
Much like the honor roll, I knew the Miss Pre-Teen Corn Queen title was destined to land effortlessly upon my bony shoulders. Effortless for me, that is. My mother, a lover of themes and spectacle, fastidiously pieced together my winning costume: an overalls-miniskirt combo, white cowgirl boots, red lipstick, and daisies braided into my hair. I only had one competitor, and her outfit did not include shoes.
The competition at the 1998 Travelers Rest Corn Festival in the Pre-Teen Corn Queen bracket was far less cutthroat than my only previous pageant experience, the 1991 Wee Miss Berea contest. For starters, it took place outdoors, on a high school football field, next to some 4H exhibits and a ferris wheel. Back in 91, two other fluffy three year olds and I were locked in a three-way tie, but (reportedly) I winked at the judges and won them over. I don't remember this winsome gesture, but I do remember telling the emcee I wanted to be a cheerleader when I grew up.
The third and final pageant I entered was the Miss TR competition in 2002 at Travelers Rest High School. Like all of my freshman endeavors, the pageant was a shot in the dark at belonging in a world I didn't understand. Despite years of orthodontics, contact lenses, and countless trips to the mall and Sally's Alterations, I did not win this one. Like every other thing I ever discovered I wasn't good at (figure skating, the dulcimer, the Nuva Ring), I quit pageants. Two out of three ain't bad, I thought, even if the two crowns I won preceded puberty. You win some, you lose some!
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
My Life In Holidays - The Girl From Carolina Christmas Spectacular
New York is fine but I love going home. "But Breanna," you must be wondering. "How on God's green earth do you sustain yourself artistically in SC? Don't you miss devising environmental theater pieces, going on fruitless auditions, and toiling away in a nonprofit theater office? Don't you pine for the world of 'collaboration' and 'stipends?'"
NO. At home I replace all that with a heightened sodium intake and Well Dang! Productions.
Alex Wroten and Joe Worthen first asked me to be in a movie of theirs when I was in 9th grade and they were in 10th. This 2.5 hour feature was called Tapeworm and it was real weird. I think they recruited me because I was the only girl they knew. Which was cool. Years later Well Dang's aesthetic maintains its weirdness but thankfully those guys streamlined their writing, and now everything they make is awesome.
Like the two films we shot in December, 2011 as the city of Greenville grounded us all within two miles of each other over the holidays. The first was Judy Truly, the sequel to 2010's Peter Bear. I played the title role. Judy has the charisma of a snail and the detective skills of an infant, and also shares the same name as my great aunt.
The second was The Girl From Carolina. Alex pitched the script to me as a "redneck film noir" but he needn't have gone further than "redneck." I was all in. I played the film's heroine Ferrari Thunderbird Taylor, a strong, passionate, driven young woman. And I looked GREAT. Between Mom and Jaci's wardrobes, the TR Wal-Mart, and me, my costume blossomed into a stunning medley of daisy dukes, bra straps, a Jesus necklace, and a Bump It. Every morning before I left to film, Mama would take my picture and exclaim, "You look so BEAUTIFUL!"
Even though it was stupid fucking cold outside, filming was fun because I got to relive some Greenville glory days. Hanging out at the Handlebar, strutting up and down Poinsett Highway, fist fighting with Prentiss in Gateway Park. Watch the trailer; if you're anything like my family you'll think it's the best thing you've ever seen.
I spent the remainder of "Christmas break" running into people from middle school and navigating Greenville's new (to me) bar scene, usually at the same time. I will tell you, the only thing more ridiculous than a gaggle of bike loving hipsters in a bar in Brooklyn is an identical gaggle in Greenville, SC. At least the drinks are cheaper. As always, I can't wait to get back.
NO. At home I replace all that with a heightened sodium intake and Well Dang! Productions.
Alex Wroten and Joe Worthen first asked me to be in a movie of theirs when I was in 9th grade and they were in 10th. This 2.5 hour feature was called Tapeworm and it was real weird. I think they recruited me because I was the only girl they knew. Which was cool. Years later Well Dang's aesthetic maintains its weirdness but thankfully those guys streamlined their writing, and now everything they make is awesome.
Like the two films we shot in December, 2011 as the city of Greenville grounded us all within two miles of each other over the holidays. The first was Judy Truly, the sequel to 2010's Peter Bear. I played the title role. Judy has the charisma of a snail and the detective skills of an infant, and also shares the same name as my great aunt.
The second was The Girl From Carolina. Alex pitched the script to me as a "redneck film noir" but he needn't have gone further than "redneck." I was all in. I played the film's heroine Ferrari Thunderbird Taylor, a strong, passionate, driven young woman. And I looked GREAT. Between Mom and Jaci's wardrobes, the TR Wal-Mart, and me, my costume blossomed into a stunning medley of daisy dukes, bra straps, a Jesus necklace, and a Bump It. Every morning before I left to film, Mama would take my picture and exclaim, "You look so BEAUTIFUL!"
Even though it was stupid fucking cold outside, filming was fun because I got to relive some Greenville glory days. Hanging out at the Handlebar, strutting up and down Poinsett Highway, fist fighting with Prentiss in Gateway Park. Watch the trailer; if you're anything like my family you'll think it's the best thing you've ever seen.
I spent the remainder of "Christmas break" running into people from middle school and navigating Greenville's new (to me) bar scene, usually at the same time. I will tell you, the only thing more ridiculous than a gaggle of bike loving hipsters in a bar in Brooklyn is an identical gaggle in Greenville, SC. At least the drinks are cheaper. As always, I can't wait to get back.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
My Life In Holidays - The First Thanksgiving
Much to my family's dismay, I chose not to attend the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I have too many fond memories of viewing the parade from the comfort of my weatherproof living room to sabotage my love of the event by fighting throngs of Staten Island families and international tourists who don't even know what Thanksgiving is.
I absolutely love Thanksgiving because I love cooking for lots of people. And when you're hosting Orphan Thanksgiving, as Anna and I did last year, there are no rules! You can put paprika AND cayenne pepper in the deviled eggs! You can invite grown-ups who will contribute excellent bottles of wine and fancy cheese to the party. You can hold a mandatory concert. Anything is possible when you squeeze twelve hungry people into a kitchen/living room the size of a pool table.
We were fortunate that Anna's parents and brother Nikhil were present at our apartment's First Thanksgiving. This meant a few things: Anna's mom, Susan, hit up Whole Foods on her way into town, saving us from grocery shopping at the bodega across the street. We executed a beautiful, entirely vegetarian Thanksgiving. The wheat loaf with mushroom gravy was so savory and filling that I didn't miss having turkey at all. In fact, the only dish I really missed was Granny's sweet potato casserole with all the pecans and brown sugar on top.
Lastly, having the Srirams over meant Anna's dad, Subramaniam, emceed an impromptu talent show. He kicked off the performances with a dramatic reading/recitation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, act 3, scene 2, when Brutus addresses the Roman citizens after Caesar's death. His performance was inspiring, and not at all influenced by the painkillers he was taking due to recent oral surgery.
Who knows what this year's Thanksgiving will bring. As long as friends, family, booze, and leftovers are involved, I'll be happy. Last Thanksgiving, Subramaniam reported at the end of the night, "Susan, I can't feel my mouth." If that's not the true meaning of this fantastic holiday I don't know what is.
I absolutely love Thanksgiving because I love cooking for lots of people. And when you're hosting Orphan Thanksgiving, as Anna and I did last year, there are no rules! You can put paprika AND cayenne pepper in the deviled eggs! You can invite grown-ups who will contribute excellent bottles of wine and fancy cheese to the party. You can hold a mandatory concert. Anything is possible when you squeeze twelve hungry people into a kitchen/living room the size of a pool table.
We were fortunate that Anna's parents and brother Nikhil were present at our apartment's First Thanksgiving. This meant a few things: Anna's mom, Susan, hit up Whole Foods on her way into town, saving us from grocery shopping at the bodega across the street. We executed a beautiful, entirely vegetarian Thanksgiving. The wheat loaf with mushroom gravy was so savory and filling that I didn't miss having turkey at all. In fact, the only dish I really missed was Granny's sweet potato casserole with all the pecans and brown sugar on top.
Lastly, having the Srirams over meant Anna's dad, Subramaniam, emceed an impromptu talent show. He kicked off the performances with a dramatic reading/recitation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, act 3, scene 2, when Brutus addresses the Roman citizens after Caesar's death. His performance was inspiring, and not at all influenced by the painkillers he was taking due to recent oral surgery.
Who knows what this year's Thanksgiving will bring. As long as friends, family, booze, and leftovers are involved, I'll be happy. Last Thanksgiving, Subramaniam reported at the end of the night, "Susan, I can't feel my mouth." If that's not the true meaning of this fantastic holiday I don't know what is.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
My Life In Holidays - Come On Irene
Like graduations, hurricanes are infrequent opportunities for massive debauchery. Hurricanes blow into town with as much pomp and circumstance, elicit concerned phone calls of “Good luck,” and “Are you going to be okay,” and “Fill the bathtub with water,” and ultimately keep the real world at bay for another couple of days. At least, this was my experience of that trick Irene.
If you are anticipating a hipsters versus nature horror story, allow me to lower your expectations: Hurricane Irene expressed her wrath in Brooklyn solely through heavy rains. In patches. I remember some humidity was involved, and the wind blew a little bit. However, to atone for its embarrassing mishandling of the 2009-2010 blizzards, the city of New York shut down all the bridges, tunnels, and public transportation between the boroughs and advised massive evacuations to “higher ground.”
This meant two things: first, all of my professional obligations were canceled for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT. I was teaching at the time; my classes were called off. I worked as a fake barista at the time, my coffee shop closed. I was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the time and our TECH WEEKEND was postponed. Do you realize what that means?! Two solid days of mind-numbing twelve-hour rehearsals wiped off the face of the production calendar!
Second, Anna, Justin, and I made the executive decision to evacuate about 30 blocks north to a friend’s place. We demolished a 7/11, and along with the plentiful rations of beer and pasta and coffee we also stuffed bedding, movies, and art supplies into the trunk of my Yaris.
We spent the next forty hours in Fort Greene weathering the storm. I was drunk for at least 28 of those hours. Activities included cooking, drinking, eating, watching movies, drinking, playing Catch Phrase, making arts’n’crafts, drinking, wrestling on the air mattress dubbed ‘the bird’s nest’, drinking, and a rousing game of indoor hide-and-seek. Which I won, because Justin never even suspected I could fit behind the flat screen on the mantle!
After surviving day 1, I woke up around noon to a text from Mom, sent at 7:42am:
“Did the power go out? Are you in the eye of the storm, and the worst is yet to come? How is the car? Not safe to drive. Water still rising, I bet.”
To which I replied, as I am wont to do, “NO MOM”.
Oh, Irene. I remember you fondly. You showered us with a dilettante’s disaster, and heralded the mildest of winters. You allowed multitudes of 20-something Brooklynites to relive childhood without involving kickball, rompers, or nannying. If only every storm was perfect like you.
If you are anticipating a hipsters versus nature horror story, allow me to lower your expectations: Hurricane Irene expressed her wrath in Brooklyn solely through heavy rains. In patches. I remember some humidity was involved, and the wind blew a little bit. However, to atone for its embarrassing mishandling of the 2009-2010 blizzards, the city of New York shut down all the bridges, tunnels, and public transportation between the boroughs and advised massive evacuations to “higher ground.”
This meant two things: first, all of my professional obligations were canceled for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT. I was teaching at the time; my classes were called off. I worked as a fake barista at the time, my coffee shop closed. I was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the time and our TECH WEEKEND was postponed. Do you realize what that means?! Two solid days of mind-numbing twelve-hour rehearsals wiped off the face of the production calendar!
Second, Anna, Justin, and I made the executive decision to evacuate about 30 blocks north to a friend’s place. We demolished a 7/11, and along with the plentiful rations of beer and pasta and coffee we also stuffed bedding, movies, and art supplies into the trunk of my Yaris.
We spent the next forty hours in Fort Greene weathering the storm. I was drunk for at least 28 of those hours. Activities included cooking, drinking, eating, watching movies, drinking, playing Catch Phrase, making arts’n’crafts, drinking, wrestling on the air mattress dubbed ‘the bird’s nest’, drinking, and a rousing game of indoor hide-and-seek. Which I won, because Justin never even suspected I could fit behind the flat screen on the mantle!
After surviving day 1, I woke up around noon to a text from Mom, sent at 7:42am:
“Did the power go out? Are you in the eye of the storm, and the worst is yet to come? How is the car? Not safe to drive. Water still rising, I bet.”
To which I replied, as I am wont to do, “NO MOM”.
Oh, Irene. I remember you fondly. You showered us with a dilettante’s disaster, and heralded the mildest of winters. You allowed multitudes of 20-something Brooklynites to relive childhood without involving kickball, rompers, or nannying. If only every storm was perfect like you.
Monday, April 2, 2012
My Life In Holidays - July 4th
You don’t graduate from college every year, thank god. I don’t think I could stand that crucible of good will and utter anxiety more than once a decade. July 4th, however, retains its Birth of a Nation significance year after year, and grown-ups of New York celebrate accordingly.
Day-drinking, grilling out, and shooting fireworks occupy most of this great nation on Independence Day. But in New York most of these activities are conducted in public parks and on rooftops, or, in my fortunate case, on a sailboat in the Hudson. The fireworks show was exquisite and I could almost hear Beyonce’s live performance over the terrible techno blasting from a neighboring boat. I remember thinking, for the first in my life, that my Sperrys were actually appropriate outside of a sorority-laden state school in the southeast. Also, it was on or about July 4th that Anna and I stole a cat.
On our block lived the lovingest cat you’ve ever seen. He was gray and majestic, so we named him Grey Baby. On separate occasions, Grey Baby had flagged down both Anna and me (as loving cats are wont to do) and flung himself at our feet on the smoldering sidewalk. Also on separate occasions, different concerned neighbors had worriedly asked us, “Have you seen the sweet little old lady who’s always with this cat? You never see one without the other.”
Of course we hadn’t seen the sweet little old lady, and we assumed the worst. On the way home from some dedicated pregaming on Independence Eve, Grey Baby once again planted himself in our path. We scooped him up, traipsed up the stairs and unleashed him in our living room. Justin fretted about fleas and bedbugs while Anna brushed Grey Baby’s hair and I took glamour shots of him. (See above.)
I tried to make him sleep with me in my bed. But I woke up the next morning, July 4th, to a desperate scratching noise behind our couch. I was sweaty and hungover so I released Grey Baby back to the wilds of 15th Street.
I saw him a few more times after that. Often with a tinier grey cat who followed him around- I christened this little cutie Baby Grey Baby. I didn't try to adopt him, though. Rejection by a stray street cat was not something I wanted to experience twice.
I spent the rest of the day celebrating America, my bed bug-free apartment, and my TWO days off from teaching. The smothering humidity reminded me of home.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
My Life In Holidays - Graduation
After twenty years of school, the habit of measuring time in semesters is a hard one to break. In December, for instance, I left my four jobs to visit home for Christmas break. Lately my grandparents keep asking me when I "get out for summer." Gradually, however, I'm learning to delineate the seasons and months by the occurrence of Major Holidays. Being a New Yorker, this takes more effort than one from a normal place might imagine. It goes without saying that Jews shoulder the largest possible burden of special dates, but I find that we secular, young adult heathens have plenty of our own calendar crosses to bear.
I moved to Brooklyn mid-May of last year, so I'll start there. College graduations present a monumental opportunity for reckless intergenerational merrymaking. Relatives smother the graduate with love and pride and deluded charges to go forth and Do Great. They ply you with tear-stained cash, but not enough to cover four years of higher learning. Definitely enough to dull your sense of your own "cost of living" for the first moth or so, though, for which I was terribly grateful.
I feared my graduation would be stressful because the date would have marked my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. Of course they were both in attendance (they love me more than anything in the world), along with legions of family from both sides (ditto). Including my aunt's new beau whom I had never heard of (I put it together real fast that, oh yeah, I hadn't seen Uncle David in ages).
It wasn't, though. Graduation was stressful because I went into my typical itinerary-planning Family Trip mode. Organized activities included me shepherding a caravan across the Verrazano Bridge to show everyone my new apartment, and scrambling to find family-friendly events in the embarrassing town of New Brunswick, NJ that would make the North seem a little less shitty. My parents managed to locate sweet tea vodka at the Buy-Rite, so then the turnpike sprawl didn't seem so bad.
Of course everything turned out fine. It meant a lot to my family that I graduated with the highest GPA in the theater department, and not for a minute did it occur to them that this indicated a gross academic shortchange in Conservatory World. They were still enthralled with my academic prowess even after I veered into this maximum security prison en route to the Newark airport.
Graduation made me excited for my new city and new house and new job, but mostly it made me excited to visit home a couple of weeks later to see Jaci graduate high school. Her version was pretty similar to mine, only with better food and prettier people. The graduates were shiny and hopeful and, for the most part, had finally lost all their baby fat. White zinfandel haze notwithstanding, for Jaci and me both, graduation was a treasured bit of ephemera surrounded by the ones who love us best.
I moved to Brooklyn mid-May of last year, so I'll start there. College graduations present a monumental opportunity for reckless intergenerational merrymaking. Relatives smother the graduate with love and pride and deluded charges to go forth and Do Great. They ply you with tear-stained cash, but not enough to cover four years of higher learning. Definitely enough to dull your sense of your own "cost of living" for the first moth or so, though, for which I was terribly grateful.
I feared my graduation would be stressful because the date would have marked my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. Of course they were both in attendance (they love me more than anything in the world), along with legions of family from both sides (ditto). Including my aunt's new beau whom I had never heard of (I put it together real fast that, oh yeah, I hadn't seen Uncle David in ages).
It wasn't, though. Graduation was stressful because I went into my typical itinerary-planning Family Trip mode. Organized activities included me shepherding a caravan across the Verrazano Bridge to show everyone my new apartment, and scrambling to find family-friendly events in the embarrassing town of New Brunswick, NJ that would make the North seem a little less shitty. My parents managed to locate sweet tea vodka at the Buy-Rite, so then the turnpike sprawl didn't seem so bad.
Of course everything turned out fine. It meant a lot to my family that I graduated with the highest GPA in the theater department, and not for a minute did it occur to them that this indicated a gross academic shortchange in Conservatory World. They were still enthralled with my academic prowess even after I veered into this maximum security prison en route to the Newark airport.
Graduation made me excited for my new city and new house and new job, but mostly it made me excited to visit home a couple of weeks later to see Jaci graduate high school. Her version was pretty similar to mine, only with better food and prettier people. The graduates were shiny and hopeful and, for the most part, had finally lost all their baby fat. White zinfandel haze notwithstanding, for Jaci and me both, graduation was a treasured bit of ephemera surrounded by the ones who love us best.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Learner's Permit
Jaci turned 15 but for some reason her innate teenage desire to drive had not kicked in to gear*. She preferred to be driven. Driven to school, to cheer practice, to her friends' houses, to the mall, to McDonalds, to the pool down the block. While this might have thrilled a safety-conscious parent worried about the abundance of other 15-year-olds crowding the roads, our mom had had enough. Feeling bored one day and fed up with ferrying her around, Mom seized the opportunity to coerce Jaci into the driver's seat.
Jaci laughed in that "nothing's actually funny; you're just stupid," kind of way. Mom insisted; Jaci panicked. I panicked. I yelled, "I'm not riding in the car with her! She doesn't even have her learner's permit! Mama, she doesn't know her left from her right! We're all going to get arrested!"
"I'd like to see them try." Mom scowled. She hates the Travelers Rest highway patrol and generally feels like they owe her one, due to their bad attitudes whenever they write her a speeding ticket. She said to Jaci, "For heaven's sake, you're 15 YEARS OLD. Get in that car and DRIVE."
I was fit to be tied, but didn't want to miss anything. Also, I knew Jaci would need the wisdom of my experience gently guiding her through this, her first, time behind the wheel. Mom and I started shouting over one another:
MOM: The first thing you do is put the car in gear-
ME: NO. The first thing you do is BUCKLE UP-
MOM: In this car the best thing to do is to PUT IT INTO GEAR FIRST.
Mom sticks to her guns; I will give her that. Jaci looked glassy-eyed and flushed. We crept towards the end of the driveway where she slammed on the brakes.
I said something like "Jesus fucking Christ Almighty she's going to kill us. Mom, do you want us to DIE?!" Mom topped my expletives with such tender words of encouragement as "Get your left foot off the brake! Remember when your father had you drive the lawn mower when you were two? It's just like that!" Mom and I both meant well, but Jaci was flustered from all the yelling. Not to mention she was probably scarred, being a survivor of my own checkered driving history. Haltingly she made it to the stop sign at the end of the road. That's when we noticed droplets on the steering wheel, and on the inside of the windshield. They were projectile tears spurting from Jaci's red face like bullets. Her eyes had swollen shut like they do when she pets Pepper, our rabbit, or Pumpkin, our guinea pig.
Bless her heart.
It took the rest of the drive to TJ Maxx to decompress (Mom was back behind the wheel at this point and Jaci was lying down in the back seat so her wheezing would stop). After we ran in and picked up some bathing suits, a yoga mat, and some flavored olive oil we were all in good spirits and proud of the day's accomplishments. And Jaci went on to pass her driver's test on the first try, a feat neither our mother nor I can boast.
*As always, PUN INTENDED.
Jaci laughed in that "nothing's actually funny; you're just stupid," kind of way. Mom insisted; Jaci panicked. I panicked. I yelled, "I'm not riding in the car with her! She doesn't even have her learner's permit! Mama, she doesn't know her left from her right! We're all going to get arrested!"
"I'd like to see them try." Mom scowled. She hates the Travelers Rest highway patrol and generally feels like they owe her one, due to their bad attitudes whenever they write her a speeding ticket. She said to Jaci, "For heaven's sake, you're 15 YEARS OLD. Get in that car and DRIVE."
I was fit to be tied, but didn't want to miss anything. Also, I knew Jaci would need the wisdom of my experience gently guiding her through this, her first, time behind the wheel. Mom and I started shouting over one another:
MOM: The first thing you do is put the car in gear-
ME: NO. The first thing you do is BUCKLE UP-
MOM: In this car the best thing to do is to PUT IT INTO GEAR FIRST.
Mom sticks to her guns; I will give her that. Jaci looked glassy-eyed and flushed. We crept towards the end of the driveway where she slammed on the brakes.
I said something like "Jesus fucking Christ Almighty she's going to kill us. Mom, do you want us to DIE?!" Mom topped my expletives with such tender words of encouragement as "Get your left foot off the brake! Remember when your father had you drive the lawn mower when you were two? It's just like that!" Mom and I both meant well, but Jaci was flustered from all the yelling. Not to mention she was probably scarred, being a survivor of my own checkered driving history. Haltingly she made it to the stop sign at the end of the road. That's when we noticed droplets on the steering wheel, and on the inside of the windshield. They were projectile tears spurting from Jaci's red face like bullets. Her eyes had swollen shut like they do when she pets Pepper, our rabbit, or Pumpkin, our guinea pig.
Bless her heart.
It took the rest of the drive to TJ Maxx to decompress (Mom was back behind the wheel at this point and Jaci was lying down in the back seat so her wheezing would stop). After we ran in and picked up some bathing suits, a yoga mat, and some flavored olive oil we were all in good spirits and proud of the day's accomplishments. And Jaci went on to pass her driver's test on the first try, a feat neither our mother nor I can boast.
*As always, PUN INTENDED.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Surprise, It's Some Mennonites
Jaci graduated, and I left South Carolina the following morning at 3:00am. By the time I reached northern Pennsylvania I was caffeinated, stir-crazy, and freaking out at the warning signs flashing TRAFFIC AHEAD FOLLOW DETOUR. In a rare moment of direction-following I veered off I-78 and found myself in Grimville, a town unchanged since 1780.
Had I not been so bleary-eyed, such a detour would have been delightful. Lord knows I am a sucker for kitsch. Perhaps I would have stopped to photograph the green fields and red barns and white churches. Instead I tried to maintain the speed I'd been driving on the interstate, but felt compelled to slam on the breaks when I spotted a gaggle of Mennonite* children swarming around the front yard of an old farmhouse. The boys were each dragging pre-industrial farming apparatus and the girls were each dragging a toddler. The latter were swathed in bonnets and long-sleeve, grass-length dresses and aprons. It was 95 degrees outside. I was sweating in my air conditioned car, and I wasn't wearing hardly anything, comparatively speaking.
I drove on, resisting the urge to stop in the cured meats and Amish trinkets shop (an obligatory Foamhenge pilgrimage had put me behind schedule). I did, however, think it would be charming to have my picnic lunch of Cheeze-Its and and pound cake by a lush, winding brook, so I started to pull over when I found one. Only it was surrounded by a barbed wire electric fence. The nearest house was obscured by a yard full of deceased lawn mowers and a giant Don't Tread On Me flag. So were the surrounding houses for the next seven miles.
I was confused, because I associate defensive rural weirdness with the South. Sticking to the interstate on my drives northeast generally means the Dixie Outfitters is the last bastion of bigotry I encounter on the way out. Grimville proves, however, that these staunch us-vs.-them enclaves exist all over the country (roadtrippers of America may be pleased to know). For this and other reasons**, the Midwest scares the living daylights out of me.
I made it back to New York and unloaded the sets of dishes, the masterpiece gourd birdhouse***, and what was left of the pound cake my grandparents had sent up with me. Some manholes had exploded on my street but if toxic gasses wafted in through my open bedroom window they just made me sleep harder. I was glad to get back to the city, but I couldn't stop thinking about Grimville. I wished I had stopped at the cured meats and Amish trinkets shop. The kitchen in my apartment is mostly complete, but I'm still seeking a hand-made butter churn, and I bet those Amish would have had just the thing.
*This is an assumption on my part, based solely on the "YOU WILL MEET GOD -Mennonite Church" sign I'd just passed.
**Tornado Alley, Fargo, Michele Bachmann
***Gramma and Grampa grew a backyard full of gourds, and now they are bonafide gourd birdhouse artisans.
Had I not been so bleary-eyed, such a detour would have been delightful. Lord knows I am a sucker for kitsch. Perhaps I would have stopped to photograph the green fields and red barns and white churches. Instead I tried to maintain the speed I'd been driving on the interstate, but felt compelled to slam on the breaks when I spotted a gaggle of Mennonite* children swarming around the front yard of an old farmhouse. The boys were each dragging pre-industrial farming apparatus and the girls were each dragging a toddler. The latter were swathed in bonnets and long-sleeve, grass-length dresses and aprons. It was 95 degrees outside. I was sweating in my air conditioned car, and I wasn't wearing hardly anything, comparatively speaking.
I drove on, resisting the urge to stop in the cured meats and Amish trinkets shop (an obligatory Foamhenge pilgrimage had put me behind schedule). I did, however, think it would be charming to have my picnic lunch of Cheeze-Its and and pound cake by a lush, winding brook, so I started to pull over when I found one. Only it was surrounded by a barbed wire electric fence. The nearest house was obscured by a yard full of deceased lawn mowers and a giant Don't Tread On Me flag. So were the surrounding houses for the next seven miles.
I was confused, because I associate defensive rural weirdness with the South. Sticking to the interstate on my drives northeast generally means the Dixie Outfitters is the last bastion of bigotry I encounter on the way out. Grimville proves, however, that these staunch us-vs.-them enclaves exist all over the country (roadtrippers of America may be pleased to know). For this and other reasons**, the Midwest scares the living daylights out of me.
I made it back to New York and unloaded the sets of dishes, the masterpiece gourd birdhouse***, and what was left of the pound cake my grandparents had sent up with me. Some manholes had exploded on my street but if toxic gasses wafted in through my open bedroom window they just made me sleep harder. I was glad to get back to the city, but I couldn't stop thinking about Grimville. I wished I had stopped at the cured meats and Amish trinkets shop. The kitchen in my apartment is mostly complete, but I'm still seeking a hand-made butter churn, and I bet those Amish would have had just the thing.
*This is an assumption on my part, based solely on the "YOU WILL MEET GOD -Mennonite Church" sign I'd just passed.
**Tornado Alley, Fargo, Michele Bachmann
***Gramma and Grampa grew a backyard full of gourds, and now they are bonafide gourd birdhouse artisans.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
How To Land That Job and Also Get Everything Else You Want In Life
At 9:00pm on a recent Sunday evening, Anna and I set out to conduct some research on Fort Greene, a prospective new home for us. Never in a million years did I expect this on-site fieldwork to culminate in shagging* with a stranger in a Brooklyn dive bar. But that's what happens when you meet a fellow South Carolinian who happens to love whiskey as much as you do. At any rate, the following Monday morning I woke up with the spins and a 10:00am interview in Manhattan. I thought, Thank God I wore so much makeup last night that there's enough left on my face for today. I rolled into the tutoring company's headquarters reeking of whiskey, sweat, and hairspray, but I was on time.
Sandy the interviewer herded a few highly qualified, sober applicants and me into a conference room where the motion of the office swivel chairs nearly did me in. When asked, I managed to string together some words about the importance of individualized education. I hoped they'd all mistake my pauses and blurred focus for moments of inspiration. I held it together until Sandy handed out a test of high school-level English and math questions. The words and answer bubbles were swimming. My head was swimming. My stomach was swimming. I couldn't discern whether the first problem was a reading comprehension question or a calculation. I excused myself, vomited, returned, and tried to remember what the hell sine and cosine mean.
Sandy emailed me the next morning regarding my "delightful interview," and offered me the job!
Recently when I drove Anna to audition for Pan Desi, an Indian television network, I planned to wait in the lobby reading Bollywood magazines while she completed a screen test. But when we walked in and the intern said, "You're both here to audition?" I said, "Why, yes we are!" Soon enough I was doing a screen test of my own for Pan Desi's sure-fire hit new reality show, Princess Perfect. I was confused, because the CEO described Pan Desi as "the new BBC" and I couldn't see how anything called Princess Perfect could ever be categorized as remotely BBC-like. By the time I left he'd promised to write a role for me on Pan Desi's version of SNL.
Last summer I got a gig teaching a Shakespeare summer camp for which I was perfectly well-suited. I also managed to wrangle a position at the same organization (a science center, mind you) teaching geology! I dubbed the course Rock On! and in my telephone interview, I dredged up all the knowledge I'd gained as an avid childhood rock collector, throwing around terms like "geode," "volcano," and "clay beads." I emphasized the course title (Rock On!) and that all the campers would become Rock Stars by the end of the summer. And you know what? Puns pay off. I got the job. It was in Ashland, OR and my campers had a great time. Especially my little ginger vegan named Ocean.
You must be thinking, Breanna, how come you get all these jobs you're woefully underqualified for? Don't you feel bad for tricking people who think they are hiring someone who is sober, or good at math, or Indian, or a geologist?
Why no, I do not feel bad at all. I land these various and sundry positions based on the combined merits of my persistence and the ease with which bullshit rolls off my tongue. Here's what happened a few summers ago when I decided I should work at Publix for a month:
Steve the general manager interviewed me. He asked why I wanted to work at Publix. I said, "For my twelfth birthday, my mom ordered me a Publix cake decorated like a big old sunflower. She was running late to pick it up because my little sister had a doctor's appointment but Cathy at the bakery stayed open late just to give us the cake and also she gave my sister a cookie which cured her fever and also she gave me one too. And I thought that was just the nicest thing. And from that moment, I knew I could see myself working at Publix."
Did this episode really happen? Maybe, I can't remember. But Steve thought this was the best story ever, and he was clearly in agony because he couldn't hire me only for a month (that's how long I had in SC before I left for school). I did not say, "Oh, I understand. Thank you for your time, Steve. It was a pleasure meeting you." I sat patiently and didn't say anything until he finally handed me the mandatory employee drug test and a green Publix vest. Done and done!
Perhaps you've encountered this expression on a bookmark or magnet or some asinine optimist's Facebook profile: Aim for the moon, because even if you fall, you know you'll land among the stars. Now, this doesn't make any astronomical sense at all. Everyone knows the moon is a zillion times closer to Earth than "the stars," the closest of which is obviously the sun. So the aphorism's backwards. To reflect the actual physical makeup of the universe (assuming the earthliness of the speaker), it should read: Aim for the stars, because even if you fall, you know you'll land on a nice plushy surface made of cheese.
Remember this next time you find yourself in an interview. If you can speak in complete sentences and exhibit a reasonable degree of shamelessness and self-delusion, you stand a pretty good chance of getting the gig. How else do you think I got hired to drive teenagers around in that 15-passenger van that one time?
*It's the state dance of South Carolina, y'all.
Sandy the interviewer herded a few highly qualified, sober applicants and me into a conference room where the motion of the office swivel chairs nearly did me in. When asked, I managed to string together some words about the importance of individualized education. I hoped they'd all mistake my pauses and blurred focus for moments of inspiration. I held it together until Sandy handed out a test of high school-level English and math questions. The words and answer bubbles were swimming. My head was swimming. My stomach was swimming. I couldn't discern whether the first problem was a reading comprehension question or a calculation. I excused myself, vomited, returned, and tried to remember what the hell sine and cosine mean.
Sandy emailed me the next morning regarding my "delightful interview," and offered me the job!
Recently when I drove Anna to audition for Pan Desi, an Indian television network, I planned to wait in the lobby reading Bollywood magazines while she completed a screen test. But when we walked in and the intern said, "You're both here to audition?" I said, "Why, yes we are!" Soon enough I was doing a screen test of my own for Pan Desi's sure-fire hit new reality show, Princess Perfect. I was confused, because the CEO described Pan Desi as "the new BBC" and I couldn't see how anything called Princess Perfect could ever be categorized as remotely BBC-like. By the time I left he'd promised to write a role for me on Pan Desi's version of SNL.
Last summer I got a gig teaching a Shakespeare summer camp for which I was perfectly well-suited. I also managed to wrangle a position at the same organization (a science center, mind you) teaching geology! I dubbed the course Rock On! and in my telephone interview, I dredged up all the knowledge I'd gained as an avid childhood rock collector, throwing around terms like "geode," "volcano," and "clay beads." I emphasized the course title (Rock On!) and that all the campers would become Rock Stars by the end of the summer. And you know what? Puns pay off. I got the job. It was in Ashland, OR and my campers had a great time. Especially my little ginger vegan named Ocean.
You must be thinking, Breanna, how come you get all these jobs you're woefully underqualified for? Don't you feel bad for tricking people who think they are hiring someone who is sober, or good at math, or Indian, or a geologist?
Why no, I do not feel bad at all. I land these various and sundry positions based on the combined merits of my persistence and the ease with which bullshit rolls off my tongue. Here's what happened a few summers ago when I decided I should work at Publix for a month:
Steve the general manager interviewed me. He asked why I wanted to work at Publix. I said, "For my twelfth birthday, my mom ordered me a Publix cake decorated like a big old sunflower. She was running late to pick it up because my little sister had a doctor's appointment but Cathy at the bakery stayed open late just to give us the cake and also she gave my sister a cookie which cured her fever and also she gave me one too. And I thought that was just the nicest thing. And from that moment, I knew I could see myself working at Publix."
Did this episode really happen? Maybe, I can't remember. But Steve thought this was the best story ever, and he was clearly in agony because he couldn't hire me only for a month (that's how long I had in SC before I left for school). I did not say, "Oh, I understand. Thank you for your time, Steve. It was a pleasure meeting you." I sat patiently and didn't say anything until he finally handed me the mandatory employee drug test and a green Publix vest. Done and done!
Perhaps you've encountered this expression on a bookmark or magnet or some asinine optimist's Facebook profile: Aim for the moon, because even if you fall, you know you'll land among the stars. Now, this doesn't make any astronomical sense at all. Everyone knows the moon is a zillion times closer to Earth than "the stars," the closest of which is obviously the sun. So the aphorism's backwards. To reflect the actual physical makeup of the universe (assuming the earthliness of the speaker), it should read: Aim for the stars, because even if you fall, you know you'll land on a nice plushy surface made of cheese.
Remember this next time you find yourself in an interview. If you can speak in complete sentences and exhibit a reasonable degree of shamelessness and self-delusion, you stand a pretty good chance of getting the gig. How else do you think I got hired to drive teenagers around in that 15-passenger van that one time?
*It's the state dance of South Carolina, y'all.
Monday, February 28, 2011
A Valentines Sampler
In no particular order (except chronology):
February 14, 1994. In an oatmeal bath, wearing mittens so I couldn't scratch my chicken pox. Crying because my cat, Sweetie, had run away.
February 14, 1996. Making a Valentines piñata for the class Valentines party!!!!!
February 14, 1998. Disguising my handwriting to pen the note, "Do you like Brea? Please place your response underneath the class dictionary."
February 14, 2001. I don't know, wearing a ton of glitter probably.
February 14, 2005. Sharing a mug of weak tea at Spill The Beans with Emily. Also sharing one set of headphones so we could both listen to Ani DiFranco.
February 14, 2007. Authoring this love note: "Roses are red/ Grass is green/ Be my Valentine/ Or I'll stab you in the spleen."
February 14, 2009. Flowers, Natural History Museum, Yaffa Cafe, a one-act play festival, NJ Transit. This was a good one.
February 14, 2010. Day: curled up watching Dexter, eating chicken wings, missing America. Night: Ryanair flight to Berlin!
February 14, 2011. Three-way date with Anna and her boyfriend, James. Later enjoying the dozen roses and chocolate truffles our moms sent us.
Look forward to these brief but compelling holiday-themed posts in Hungry Lion's future: A Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Sampler, A Groundhog Day Sampler, A Palm Sunday Sampler, and A Guy Fawkes Day Sampler!
February 14, 1994. In an oatmeal bath, wearing mittens so I couldn't scratch my chicken pox. Crying because my cat, Sweetie, had run away.
February 14, 1996. Making a Valentines piñata for the class Valentines party!!!!!
February 14, 1998. Disguising my handwriting to pen the note, "Do you like Brea? Please place your response underneath the class dictionary."
February 14, 2001. I don't know, wearing a ton of glitter probably.
February 14, 2005. Sharing a mug of weak tea at Spill The Beans with Emily. Also sharing one set of headphones so we could both listen to Ani DiFranco.
February 14, 2007. Authoring this love note: "Roses are red/ Grass is green/ Be my Valentine/ Or I'll stab you in the spleen."
February 14, 2009. Flowers, Natural History Museum, Yaffa Cafe, a one-act play festival, NJ Transit. This was a good one.
February 14, 2010. Day: curled up watching Dexter, eating chicken wings, missing America. Night: Ryanair flight to Berlin!
February 14, 2011. Three-way date with Anna and her boyfriend, James. Later enjoying the dozen roses and chocolate truffles our moms sent us.
Look forward to these brief but compelling holiday-themed posts in Hungry Lion's future: A Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Sampler, A Groundhog Day Sampler, A Palm Sunday Sampler, and A Guy Fawkes Day Sampler!
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Why Is That Child Dressed Like A Turkey
If I said Halloween was my favorite holiday when I was little because I got to dress up as something fantastic, I'd be lying. Halloween was my favorite holiday because my mom took Jaci and me Fall Festival-hopping. We'd start at my elementary school where we'd crawl through the cardboard maze, then stop by Publix for some free cookie-decorating en route to Berea First Baptist church, finishing the night off there with a good old-fashioned candy scramble*. Of course, I did love dressing up. One year I even changed costumes in the car between Fall Festivals. But the opportunity to wear a terrific costume was not reserved solely for Halloween. I learned at an early age that costumes were de rigeur on every holiday, and perfectly appropriate on plain old school days as well.
When I was four, I sat on the living room floor with my mom while we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and colored a poster board cut in the shape of a giant turkey's feathers. Right before we left to eat lunch at my grandparents' house, she attached the poster board feathers to my back and a red sock to my chin. When we arrived, all I said for the first half hour was "Gobble gobble gobble!" and all my Granny said was, "Why is that child dressed like a turkey?"
For non-celebratory days in kindergarten, I favored two outfits: my cowgirl dress and my Indian dress. My mom made them both and they were basically the same pattern, except one was pleather and had fringe and beads, and the other was "tribal"-print muslin and had fringe and beads. It turns out your friends are more likely to believe you are Pocahontas's great great granddaughter if you dress the part. I was also fond of my gypsy, hula-girl, pioneer-girl, and Tinker Bell outfits (Mom made these, too).
Because I spent my formative fashion years emulating wild game, cultural stereotypes, and Disney princesses, vestiges of my costume craze remained in my wardrobe through adolescence. For most, middle school is a great exercise in blending in with your peers. This laudable pursuit was lost on me, and though I stopped wearing "costumes," I started wearing uber-conspicuous neon tights, cat-eye glasses, animal-print shoes, a pair of skants. In the few hours of high school I wasn't forced to wear "neutral" rehearsal blacks, I sported ill-fitting vintage clothing.
And now, in my august fifth year of college, my turbulent fashion history has left me bereft of any sense of style and a reluctance to wear anything but chunky sweaters. This is a result of several factors: my learning to knit, my living in a stupidly cold climate, and my penchant for layering. Thank God a significant portion of my coursework this year is dedicated to "dressing for the business," or, in my case, "learning how to dress like a competent grown-up who is not a social worker or in her fifties." It's been a challenging learning experience, but as I'm sure you're aware, acting school is all about breaking through personal barriers.
I still like to dress up for holidays, though. This Valentines Day I plan to go as an aorta.
*A candy scramble is when you get all the kids together in the largest Sunday school room and throw handfuls of candy at them.
When I was four, I sat on the living room floor with my mom while we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and colored a poster board cut in the shape of a giant turkey's feathers. Right before we left to eat lunch at my grandparents' house, she attached the poster board feathers to my back and a red sock to my chin. When we arrived, all I said for the first half hour was "Gobble gobble gobble!" and all my Granny said was, "Why is that child dressed like a turkey?"
For non-celebratory days in kindergarten, I favored two outfits: my cowgirl dress and my Indian dress. My mom made them both and they were basically the same pattern, except one was pleather and had fringe and beads, and the other was "tribal"-print muslin and had fringe and beads. It turns out your friends are more likely to believe you are Pocahontas's great great granddaughter if you dress the part. I was also fond of my gypsy, hula-girl, pioneer-girl, and Tinker Bell outfits (Mom made these, too).
Because I spent my formative fashion years emulating wild game, cultural stereotypes, and Disney princesses, vestiges of my costume craze remained in my wardrobe through adolescence. For most, middle school is a great exercise in blending in with your peers. This laudable pursuit was lost on me, and though I stopped wearing "costumes," I started wearing uber-conspicuous neon tights, cat-eye glasses, animal-print shoes, a pair of skants. In the few hours of high school I wasn't forced to wear "neutral" rehearsal blacks, I sported ill-fitting vintage clothing.
And now, in my august fifth year of college, my turbulent fashion history has left me bereft of any sense of style and a reluctance to wear anything but chunky sweaters. This is a result of several factors: my learning to knit, my living in a stupidly cold climate, and my penchant for layering. Thank God a significant portion of my coursework this year is dedicated to "dressing for the business," or, in my case, "learning how to dress like a competent grown-up who is not a social worker or in her fifties." It's been a challenging learning experience, but as I'm sure you're aware, acting school is all about breaking through personal barriers.
I still like to dress up for holidays, though. This Valentines Day I plan to go as an aorta.
*A candy scramble is when you get all the kids together in the largest Sunday school room and throw handfuls of candy at them.
Monday, December 6, 2010
FOAMHENGE
The following is a treatise on the merits of the prehistoric English monument known to tourists worldwide as Stonehenge, juxtaposed with those of its American emulator, Foamhenge.
As any Anglophile, Neo-Pagan, middle-Neolithic scholar, or person who's ever flipped on the Discovery Channel even once can tell you, no one quite knows how or why Stonehenge was erected in the middle-of-nowhere (Salisbury), England. Fortunately, this is not the case for Foamhenge, located in the middle-of-nowhere (Natural Bridge), Virginia. Mark Cline built Foamhenge in 2004 because, presumably, he knew what a kick-ass project it would be.
Stonehenge's placement on earth may be astronomically precise and line up with the sun during solstice or whatever, but Foamhenge is only a few feet off and YOU CAN ACTUALLY TOUCH THE THING. At Stonehenge, if you were to set foot over the rope circling it, the Royal Army would likely descend on horseback from behind the surrounding burial mounds, seize you, and lock you in the Tower of London. There are no such guards at Foamhenge. Little did I know, when I pulled off on exit 180 from 81N for some gas, that such a wonder even existed in the New World. But when I drove by a seemingly abandoned clearing with only an open gate and a FOAMHENGE sign, you better believe I whipped the car around. I thought, "I have found a gold mine, and it doesn't even matter that I'm stuck in Sunday-after-Thanksgiving traffic. There is no way I'm going to miss out on Foamhenge." Best decision I made that day.
Now, in England, the weather is perpetually disgusting. (This fact is also known to Anglophiles and tourists worldwide.) At Stonehenge, you have to squint to differentiate the dark gray stones from the dark gray sky surrounding them. Foamhenge, however, sits on a woodsy mountaintop enveloped by the azure Appalachian sky. And while I found no evidence of civilian life off of exit 180 save for an Exxon station, it turns out that Foamhenge sits in a three-mile cluster of other astonishing attractions courtesy of Mark Cline:
-Enchanted Castle Studios
-Dinosaur Kingdom
-Professor Cline's Haunted Monster Museum
-The actual Natural Bridge of Natural Bridge, VA. Cline can't take credit for this one. It's advertised on billboards for miles as the "Rock of Ages," and every summer it serves as the backdrop for a music and laser show entitled The Drama of Creation*.
Stonehenge sits off of a highway trafficked only by tour busses, surrounded by sheep.
Foamhenge's major selling point is its giant floating statue of Merlin, with an explanatory plaque detailing how he levitated the stones to form Stonehenge. Remarkably, Stonehenge covers this mystical element even more sensationally, albeit unintentionally and begrudgingly: this self-proclaimed reincarnation of King Arthur illegally squats at Stonehenge, bedecked in a white robe and brandishing a petition on behalf of the Druids to reclaim Stonehenge from the English Heritage Commission. King Arthur "stands up for the people, Dark Ages style." (Thank God he overcame his youthful identity crisis in which he mistakenly thought he was King John.) If I could witness the meeting of any two people on earth, it would be that of King Arthur and Mark Cline.
My visit to Stonehenge left me marveling at the enduring weirdness of the Brits. My visit to Foamhenge left me marveling at why I ever left the USA in the first place. I bid farewell to Merlin, jumped down from the sacrificial altar, and headed back to I-81. I was hungry and determined to hit up a Chick-Fil-A before they disappeared north of the Mason Dixon line.
*The one from Genesis.
As any Anglophile, Neo-Pagan, middle-Neolithic scholar, or person who's ever flipped on the Discovery Channel even once can tell you, no one quite knows how or why Stonehenge was erected in the middle-of-nowhere (Salisbury), England. Fortunately, this is not the case for Foamhenge, located in the middle-of-nowhere (Natural Bridge), Virginia. Mark Cline built Foamhenge in 2004 because, presumably, he knew what a kick-ass project it would be.
Stonehenge's placement on earth may be astronomically precise and line up with the sun during solstice or whatever, but Foamhenge is only a few feet off and YOU CAN ACTUALLY TOUCH THE THING. At Stonehenge, if you were to set foot over the rope circling it, the Royal Army would likely descend on horseback from behind the surrounding burial mounds, seize you, and lock you in the Tower of London. There are no such guards at Foamhenge. Little did I know, when I pulled off on exit 180 from 81N for some gas, that such a wonder even existed in the New World. But when I drove by a seemingly abandoned clearing with only an open gate and a FOAMHENGE sign, you better believe I whipped the car around. I thought, "I have found a gold mine, and it doesn't even matter that I'm stuck in Sunday-after-Thanksgiving traffic. There is no way I'm going to miss out on Foamhenge." Best decision I made that day.
Now, in England, the weather is perpetually disgusting. (This fact is also known to Anglophiles and tourists worldwide.) At Stonehenge, you have to squint to differentiate the dark gray stones from the dark gray sky surrounding them. Foamhenge, however, sits on a woodsy mountaintop enveloped by the azure Appalachian sky. And while I found no evidence of civilian life off of exit 180 save for an Exxon station, it turns out that Foamhenge sits in a three-mile cluster of other astonishing attractions courtesy of Mark Cline:
-Enchanted Castle Studios
-Dinosaur Kingdom
-Professor Cline's Haunted Monster Museum
-The actual Natural Bridge of Natural Bridge, VA. Cline can't take credit for this one. It's advertised on billboards for miles as the "Rock of Ages," and every summer it serves as the backdrop for a music and laser show entitled The Drama of Creation*.
Stonehenge sits off of a highway trafficked only by tour busses, surrounded by sheep.
Foamhenge's major selling point is its giant floating statue of Merlin, with an explanatory plaque detailing how he levitated the stones to form Stonehenge. Remarkably, Stonehenge covers this mystical element even more sensationally, albeit unintentionally and begrudgingly: this self-proclaimed reincarnation of King Arthur illegally squats at Stonehenge, bedecked in a white robe and brandishing a petition on behalf of the Druids to reclaim Stonehenge from the English Heritage Commission. King Arthur "stands up for the people, Dark Ages style." (Thank God he overcame his youthful identity crisis in which he mistakenly thought he was King John.) If I could witness the meeting of any two people on earth, it would be that of King Arthur and Mark Cline.
My visit to Stonehenge left me marveling at the enduring weirdness of the Brits. My visit to Foamhenge left me marveling at why I ever left the USA in the first place. I bid farewell to Merlin, jumped down from the sacrificial altar, and headed back to I-81. I was hungry and determined to hit up a Chick-Fil-A before they disappeared north of the Mason Dixon line.
*The one from Genesis.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Hey There, Chicken Neck
School photographers like to shoot kids in order from tallest to shortest, so they don't have to readjust the stool for every single weirdly-shaped fourth grader in the class. By the time it was my turn at the end of the line, they'd always have raised the stool completely and slapped down a phone book for me to perch on so the camera could capture my face in front of the woodsy or graffitied brick wall backdrop. Going last meant several things. I had more time to practice my smile, decide whether to take my glasses off like my mom told me to, read a Babysitters Club book, etc. Most significantly, I got to hear the photographer cajoling all of my classmates, particularly the girls, into smiling for their yearbook picture:
"Well, hey there Miss America!"
"Look-y here, it's Cinderella!"
"Aw, hi Ladybug!"
"Well, I'll be! It's Princess Jasmine!" (This was to Meenal Patel.)
"You must be a fairy princess!"
"Come on Sweetheart, big smile!"
I couldn't wait for him to liken me to a Disney role model or complement my jumper or ask me if I'd skipped a grade because I was so tiny. But fourth grade dramatically altered my future school picture day experiences and here's why: When I slid onto my booster seat in the library-turned-portrait studio, the photographer glanced at me and said, "Hey there, Chicken Neck." He proceeded to prod at my head until it was stuck at that terrible angle so popular in school photos, where my chin, forehead, and eyes were all pointing in different directions. His only cajoling was, "Yeah, you got a real long neck, Chicken Neck."
I didn't say much of anything, because I had to run catch up with my class as they trailed out of the library. Although if I could do it again, I certainly would make a point of asking that particular school photographer why he possessed only three fingers on his left hand.
"Well, hey there Miss America!"
"Look-y here, it's Cinderella!"
"Aw, hi Ladybug!"
"Well, I'll be! It's Princess Jasmine!" (This was to Meenal Patel.)
"You must be a fairy princess!"
"Come on Sweetheart, big smile!"
I couldn't wait for him to liken me to a Disney role model or complement my jumper or ask me if I'd skipped a grade because I was so tiny. But fourth grade dramatically altered my future school picture day experiences and here's why: When I slid onto my booster seat in the library-turned-portrait studio, the photographer glanced at me and said, "Hey there, Chicken Neck." He proceeded to prod at my head until it was stuck at that terrible angle so popular in school photos, where my chin, forehead, and eyes were all pointing in different directions. His only cajoling was, "Yeah, you got a real long neck, Chicken Neck."
I didn't say much of anything, because I had to run catch up with my class as they trailed out of the library. Although if I could do it again, I certainly would make a point of asking that particular school photographer why he possessed only three fingers on his left hand.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Norman, Connie the Fake
I called Norman, my landlord, to thank him for repairing the hot water and for fixing up the deck. I didn't ask him, "Norman, what on earth made you think that nailing a poorly measured piece of plywood to the uneven floorboards then painting the whole rotting thing blue was actually going to improve the deck in any way?" Instead, I said, "Norman, when are you coming back to remove the grill, busted chairs, card table, can of gasoline, etc. that you stored in my kitchen back to their home on the deck, or better yet, to a landfill where they belong?"
To which he replied, "Uhhhhh. Not today. Maybe in a couple of days. Today my face... it's swollen. Swollen twice the regular size."
I reminded him as kindly as possible about the shattered window in my living room and hung up.
The thing about Norman, and his wife Dalia, and their son Mike, is that they suck. Landlording, for them, is a family business. And it's a good thing, too, because none can complete a sentence without muttering incoherently, furrowing their eyebrows, repeating their previous asinine comment, and unloading unsolicited and irrelevant information on the listener. Such as the time Norman informed me he would be replacing our front door to comply with the city's fire code regulations. I was just getting to know him at the time and casually asked why exactly the door needed to be replaced.
"Because they're ballbusters," he replied, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Excuse me?"
"The inspector. For years it was a man. He never had no problems with me; I never had no problems with him. Now it's a lady inspector, she's bustin' my balls."
"Oh. What's wrong with the door?"
"All these doors, old doors. They're great doors. Had this house 12 years, never had a problem with the door. I got 9 other properties, all of 'em got good doors. Now this lady inspector's tellin' me it ain't 'fire resistant,' I gotta change it."
He sighed. "It's not easy being a landlord."
To brighten up our dismal, dirt-caked, decaying house, Anna and I bought some plants. I started out with an indoor vegetable garden, because I'm really only interested in growing things I can eat. The corner of our bedroom gets full sun, due to our south-facing windows which don't have blinds. I've got several pots full of basil, stringbeans, collard greens, mustard greens, and arugula. I call the basil and arugula simply Basil and Arugula, but I christened the stringbeans Bonnie and Her Babies and the collards Aimless Amos. Anna selected some lovely tropical plants for the kitchen windowsill. However, Home Depot neglected to identify these pretty little things. They were labeled only "house plants- decorative" and aside from the obvious aloe (named Burnheart) and the African violet (Esmerelda), we had no way of knowing what other colorful species we were purchasing.
Esmerelda, Burnheart, Tereza, and Sabina are pretty enough but the real star of our kitchen windowsill was Connie. Four brilliant yellow blossoms crowned her regal cactus stature, lighting up our dour kitchen like a candlelight vigil. So you can imagine our shock and disappointment when Anna went to water Connie one morning and discovered clear, plastic-y gobs beneath those luminescent blooms. It was HOT GLUE. Connie's blossoms were FAKE, glued onto her natural cactus flesh by the garden department at Home Depot in order to sell her as a "houseplant- decorative." Who even knows if Connie is real at all.
But we all have our crosses to bear. Obviously, Connie's is vanity and artifice. For Norman, Dalia, and their spawn, it's utter uselessness. For Anna and me, it's another year of living in New Brunswick.
To which he replied, "Uhhhhh. Not today. Maybe in a couple of days. Today my face... it's swollen. Swollen twice the regular size."
I reminded him as kindly as possible about the shattered window in my living room and hung up.
The thing about Norman, and his wife Dalia, and their son Mike, is that they suck. Landlording, for them, is a family business. And it's a good thing, too, because none can complete a sentence without muttering incoherently, furrowing their eyebrows, repeating their previous asinine comment, and unloading unsolicited and irrelevant information on the listener. Such as the time Norman informed me he would be replacing our front door to comply with the city's fire code regulations. I was just getting to know him at the time and casually asked why exactly the door needed to be replaced.
"Because they're ballbusters," he replied, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Excuse me?"
"The inspector. For years it was a man. He never had no problems with me; I never had no problems with him. Now it's a lady inspector, she's bustin' my balls."
"Oh. What's wrong with the door?"
"All these doors, old doors. They're great doors. Had this house 12 years, never had a problem with the door. I got 9 other properties, all of 'em got good doors. Now this lady inspector's tellin' me it ain't 'fire resistant,' I gotta change it."
He sighed. "It's not easy being a landlord."
To brighten up our dismal, dirt-caked, decaying house, Anna and I bought some plants. I started out with an indoor vegetable garden, because I'm really only interested in growing things I can eat. The corner of our bedroom gets full sun, due to our south-facing windows which don't have blinds. I've got several pots full of basil, stringbeans, collard greens, mustard greens, and arugula. I call the basil and arugula simply Basil and Arugula, but I christened the stringbeans Bonnie and Her Babies and the collards Aimless Amos. Anna selected some lovely tropical plants for the kitchen windowsill. However, Home Depot neglected to identify these pretty little things. They were labeled only "house plants- decorative" and aside from the obvious aloe (named Burnheart) and the African violet (Esmerelda), we had no way of knowing what other colorful species we were purchasing.
Esmerelda, Burnheart, Tereza, and Sabina are pretty enough but the real star of our kitchen windowsill was Connie. Four brilliant yellow blossoms crowned her regal cactus stature, lighting up our dour kitchen like a candlelight vigil. So you can imagine our shock and disappointment when Anna went to water Connie one morning and discovered clear, plastic-y gobs beneath those luminescent blooms. It was HOT GLUE. Connie's blossoms were FAKE, glued onto her natural cactus flesh by the garden department at Home Depot in order to sell her as a "houseplant- decorative." Who even knows if Connie is real at all.
But we all have our crosses to bear. Obviously, Connie's is vanity and artifice. For Norman, Dalia, and their spawn, it's utter uselessness. For Anna and me, it's another year of living in New Brunswick.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Foodie
I loved having journals when I was little but I didn't write in them very often. I'd pen a couple of rants at my parents, maybe record some made-up encounters between me and the boy I was obsessed with, and if I felt really inspired, I'd write some acrostics. Then I'd abandon my little diary with the roses and ballet slippers on the cover in favor of something new and Lisa Frank.
The only journal I've been able to consistently maintain, ever, in my 22 years of wannabe journaling, is a busted spiral notebook where I write stuff about food. It used to be my mom's notebook but she tore out her lesson plans from eight years ago and gave the remnants to me. It's incredibly practical. The entries are brief and the sparse narrative is limited to things like "Tonight I put Coors Light and five squirts of ketchup in the chili and it was AWESOME." It's full of wisdom gleaned from my own culinary experiences, such as, "If you plan to watch TV in bed all day you better make these chicken wings!" And it's a lovely chronicle of my life abroad:
"Are you cold all the time? Can you only afford £3 supermarket wine? Dump whatever white wine you have left but can't quite stomach in a pot, heat on the LOWEST possible setting (or the alcohol will evaporate and you'll feel like an idiot), add some honey, vanilla, and cinnamon. Delicious! Curl up and watch American TV online!"
Truth be told, I am excellent cook. My culinary inventiveness emerged early- before I could read I was preparing delicacies like Strawberry Juice for my family. To make Strawberry Juice:
-Get some little paper Dixie cups. Your grandparents probably have some in a dispenser next to their bathroom sink.
-Get your mom to cut the stems off some strawberries and put 2-3 of them in each little cup.
-Mash with a fork.
-Dump in some sugar and add some water.
-Mix all that up and serve to your family members!
As soon as I could hold a wooden spoon I was making Kraft macaroni and cheese. With Gramma's help I mastered dump cake, and with Mom's help I mastered Mexican. To make Mexican:
-Layer refried beans, ground beef, and Frito-Lay canned cheese in a baking dish.
-Put a bunch of black olives on top.
-Bake or microwave until nice and melty, and serve with tortilla chips and canned pears.
My parents had no choice but to buy me an Easy-Bake Oven. I lovingly concocted angel food cake and devil's food cake in that thing until the heat lamp busted from over-use. I also began to stray from those prepackaged mixes and create my own recipes. My cocoa-honey-cinnamon cake was weird, but it looked and smelled just like a real cake!
Now quite seasoned in the kitchen*, I make as much from scratch as time will allow. My favorite things to cook depend on the ingredient, method, or gadget I'm currently obsessed with. Past fixations include cheese making, sourdough baking, the crockpot, the Magic Bullet, Asian soups, stock making, crème brûlée torching, and the George Foreman grill. One of the main reasons I look forward to returning to NJ this year is the hand-me-down pasta maker sitting in my basement with my name on it. And I have big plans for an indoor vegetable garden!
I like to cook because I like to make stuff. But unlike papier-mâché, knitting, or collaging projects (other former and ongoing pursuits), the results are comparatively speedy and edible. Except my first sourdough loaf, which "rose" for 8749583 hours but still tasted like a wet brick. I like cooking for myself and I like cooking for others, although I no longer bring plates of magic cookie bars to college parties, as I mistakenly thought was custom when I was 18.
But mostly I like to cook because I'm good at it. And because apparently, it's the only thing worth writing about.
*PUN INTENDED!!!!!!!!!!!
The only journal I've been able to consistently maintain, ever, in my 22 years of wannabe journaling, is a busted spiral notebook where I write stuff about food. It used to be my mom's notebook but she tore out her lesson plans from eight years ago and gave the remnants to me. It's incredibly practical. The entries are brief and the sparse narrative is limited to things like "Tonight I put Coors Light and five squirts of ketchup in the chili and it was AWESOME." It's full of wisdom gleaned from my own culinary experiences, such as, "If you plan to watch TV in bed all day you better make these chicken wings!" And it's a lovely chronicle of my life abroad:
"Are you cold all the time? Can you only afford £3 supermarket wine? Dump whatever white wine you have left but can't quite stomach in a pot, heat on the LOWEST possible setting (or the alcohol will evaporate and you'll feel like an idiot), add some honey, vanilla, and cinnamon. Delicious! Curl up and watch American TV online!"
Truth be told, I am excellent cook. My culinary inventiveness emerged early- before I could read I was preparing delicacies like Strawberry Juice for my family. To make Strawberry Juice:
-Get some little paper Dixie cups. Your grandparents probably have some in a dispenser next to their bathroom sink.
-Get your mom to cut the stems off some strawberries and put 2-3 of them in each little cup.
-Mash with a fork.
-Dump in some sugar and add some water.
-Mix all that up and serve to your family members!
As soon as I could hold a wooden spoon I was making Kraft macaroni and cheese. With Gramma's help I mastered dump cake, and with Mom's help I mastered Mexican. To make Mexican:
-Layer refried beans, ground beef, and Frito-Lay canned cheese in a baking dish.
-Put a bunch of black olives on top.
-Bake or microwave until nice and melty, and serve with tortilla chips and canned pears.
My parents had no choice but to buy me an Easy-Bake Oven. I lovingly concocted angel food cake and devil's food cake in that thing until the heat lamp busted from over-use. I also began to stray from those prepackaged mixes and create my own recipes. My cocoa-honey-cinnamon cake was weird, but it looked and smelled just like a real cake!
Now quite seasoned in the kitchen*, I make as much from scratch as time will allow. My favorite things to cook depend on the ingredient, method, or gadget I'm currently obsessed with. Past fixations include cheese making, sourdough baking, the crockpot, the Magic Bullet, Asian soups, stock making, crème brûlée torching, and the George Foreman grill. One of the main reasons I look forward to returning to NJ this year is the hand-me-down pasta maker sitting in my basement with my name on it. And I have big plans for an indoor vegetable garden!
I like to cook because I like to make stuff. But unlike papier-mâché, knitting, or collaging projects (other former and ongoing pursuits), the results are comparatively speedy and edible. Except my first sourdough loaf, which "rose" for 8749583 hours but still tasted like a wet brick. I like cooking for myself and I like cooking for others, although I no longer bring plates of magic cookie bars to college parties, as I mistakenly thought was custom when I was 18.
But mostly I like to cook because I'm good at it. And because apparently, it's the only thing worth writing about.
*PUN INTENDED!!!!!!!!!!!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Rainbow Trout
If you are an elder, a white Christian of any age, or a member of my family, you know it's just not a summer until you pay a visit to Dollywood. Growing up, my obsession with Dolly Parton waned to a healthy, fascinated respect, but the wonders of her theme park continued to delight and entertain. Dollywood is part amusement park, part county fair, and part tent revival. I loved the logging-themed Log Flume, the American eagle exhibit, the fancy dresses at Lid'l Dolly's, and the gospel/clogging shows. I loved the woman in period dress sweating over a kettle of boiling lye soap in 96° heat. I loved the Birdsong Family. The Birdsongs were a mom, a dad, and a slew of young'uns who wore gingham and played instruments. Needless to say, those were some homeschooled kids if I ever saw any. Each year they'd have yet another infant on the stage playing a fiddle.
In addition to theme park thrills, Gatlinburg boasts the Smoky Mountain Arts and Crafts Community. Looping around a mountain, a two-lane highway connects the cabins/studios of these local artists. It's hard to pick a favorite amongst the potters, whittlers, macrame-ers, Indian jewelery makers, quilters, dream catcher weavers, and those people who melt colored candles over glass bottles. But certainly the most memorable of these Smoky Mountain traditional artisans is Stephen Sawyer, painter of the Art for God masterpieces. Sawyer portrays Jesus as a contemporary hero- a shirtless, ripped, tanned, glistening hero in a contemporary setting such as a boxing ring. A viewer might think she was looking at a country album cover or a naughty firemen calendar, if it weren't for the halo frequently hovering over Jesus, the only Byzantine relic of this flashy new religious iconography. Sawyer invokes Thomas Kinkade's skilled use of light in weird places to create a general celestial glow around all his muscle-y Jesuses.
Now if you think Gatlinburg is just a bunch of rednecks sweating and throwing their money away on hillbilly souvenirs, you'd be forgetting the hordes of dilettante outdoor enthusiasts like my mom, Jaci, and me. When we're not driving around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park looking for black bears, we are tubing down a river somewhere. Tubing is just like rafting except 329043 times slower. You don't have to wear a life jacket, and you can sleep and tube at the same time. Tubing is relaxing and heavenly.
So you can imagine everyone in the river's surprise when my mother, lazily floating on her stomach, plunged her arm into the water and yanked out a great big rainbow trout!!! We all thought the only aquatic life in that segment of the river was minnows, salamanders, and Coke bottles. But here, plucked from the muddy water without bait or dynamite was a humongous rainbow trout. We were elated. The little kids behind us were elated, as were their grandparents. Mom was elated because she'd just started the Eat Right for your Blood Type diet, which required her to eat loads of rainbow trout!
Mom stored the thing in the Wal-Mart bag we'd packed our lunch in. For the remainder of that victorious trip down the river, she dangled the bagged fish off of her wrist in the cool water. Back at the hotel she cleaned and cooked it, and we rounded off our locally-sourced supper with some of the addictive cinnamon sugar bread we'd bought at Dollywood (which wasn't on the Highly Beneficial list for Mom's blood type, but didn't appear on the Avoid list, either). During dinner I tried for the billionth time to convince Mom to take us to see The Miracle, but she said no, we had to go outlet shopping. That was ok; by the end of the week I'd scored some good discount school clothes, a new pair of moccasins, a miniature crock pot, and a season pass to Dollywood. By that time Jaci couldn't wait to get home where she already knew all the channels on TV, Mom couldn't wait to share the rainbow trout triumph with all our friends, neighbors, and relatives, and I just couldn't wait to return to the Smokies next year.
In addition to theme park thrills, Gatlinburg boasts the Smoky Mountain Arts and Crafts Community. Looping around a mountain, a two-lane highway connects the cabins/studios of these local artists. It's hard to pick a favorite amongst the potters, whittlers, macrame-ers, Indian jewelery makers, quilters, dream catcher weavers, and those people who melt colored candles over glass bottles. But certainly the most memorable of these Smoky Mountain traditional artisans is Stephen Sawyer, painter of the Art for God masterpieces. Sawyer portrays Jesus as a contemporary hero- a shirtless, ripped, tanned, glistening hero in a contemporary setting such as a boxing ring. A viewer might think she was looking at a country album cover or a naughty firemen calendar, if it weren't for the halo frequently hovering over Jesus, the only Byzantine relic of this flashy new religious iconography. Sawyer invokes Thomas Kinkade's skilled use of light in weird places to create a general celestial glow around all his muscle-y Jesuses.
Now if you think Gatlinburg is just a bunch of rednecks sweating and throwing their money away on hillbilly souvenirs, you'd be forgetting the hordes of dilettante outdoor enthusiasts like my mom, Jaci, and me. When we're not driving around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park looking for black bears, we are tubing down a river somewhere. Tubing is just like rafting except 329043 times slower. You don't have to wear a life jacket, and you can sleep and tube at the same time. Tubing is relaxing and heavenly.
So you can imagine everyone in the river's surprise when my mother, lazily floating on her stomach, plunged her arm into the water and yanked out a great big rainbow trout!!! We all thought the only aquatic life in that segment of the river was minnows, salamanders, and Coke bottles. But here, plucked from the muddy water without bait or dynamite was a humongous rainbow trout. We were elated. The little kids behind us were elated, as were their grandparents. Mom was elated because she'd just started the Eat Right for your Blood Type diet, which required her to eat loads of rainbow trout!
Mom stored the thing in the Wal-Mart bag we'd packed our lunch in. For the remainder of that victorious trip down the river, she dangled the bagged fish off of her wrist in the cool water. Back at the hotel she cleaned and cooked it, and we rounded off our locally-sourced supper with some of the addictive cinnamon sugar bread we'd bought at Dollywood (which wasn't on the Highly Beneficial list for Mom's blood type, but didn't appear on the Avoid list, either). During dinner I tried for the billionth time to convince Mom to take us to see The Miracle, but she said no, we had to go outlet shopping. That was ok; by the end of the week I'd scored some good discount school clothes, a new pair of moccasins, a miniature crock pot, and a season pass to Dollywood. By that time Jaci couldn't wait to get home where she already knew all the channels on TV, Mom couldn't wait to share the rainbow trout triumph with all our friends, neighbors, and relatives, and I just couldn't wait to return to the Smokies next year.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Dear Abby
Some obnoxious kids compulsively tap their pencils (future drummers), and some obnoxious kids compulsively read (future bloggers). For me, learning to read was akin to acquiring a super power and my prowling little eyes devoured every word in their path. No billboard, TV Guide, or back of a cereal box was safe. The first thing I remember learning to read was The Cat in the Hat and the second thing was Dear Abby. I discovered Dear Abby early in my elementary school career because the first part of the Greenville News my mom always opened in the morning was the crossword and comics page, and she left it on the kitchen table for my consumption along with my honeybun. Abby's column floated imperially over the horoscopes and word jumble- she owned page 6D of the Lifestyle section. And I read her EVERY MORNING.
Dear Abby had a profoundly formative influence on my budding literacy and social awareness. I vicariously learned the ways of the world through the familial, marital, professional, and etiquette-related dilemmas of others. I also learned about Alcoholics Anonymous, 10 Signs of Domestic Abuse, and all sorts of holidays I never knew existed. On any random day Abby would close her column with a direct address to a specific population that went like this:
"Confidential to my Jewish readers: Happy Purim!"
"Confidential to my AARP readers: Happy Armistice Day!"
"Confidential to my Christian readers: Happy Easter! Remember, it is unwise to give small animals (bunnies, chicks, etc.) to your children as presents. Pets require an investment of time, attention, and money, and unless you can fully care for this new member of your family, it's advisable to just visit your local zoo."
In retrospect I should have clipped that last directive upon each reprinting, highlighted it, and glitter-glued it to my parents' bathroom mirror because this important message obviously escaped them. This oversight resulted in our possession of an immortal rabbit called Pepper. Any takers?
I had a friend in third or fourth grade and her house had a laundry chute! At my behest, we used the chute to rig up our own version of Dear Abby. We tied some sheets together and tied a bucket to one end. From my station in her bedroom, I would lower the bucket through the laundry chute to my friend, stationed in the basement. From there I instructed her to write me, Dear Abby, a letter, which I would answer and return via laundry chute express mail. She was ok at playing Dear Abby, but had trouble coming up with any interesting problems beyond "Dear Abby, what color nail polish should I choose? Pink or red?*"
One early school morning I sat down with my toaster strudel and reached for the paper only to find one of the Dear Abby letters neatly clipped out of the page. My mom had cut out half the column before I had a chance to read it!!! Her reasoning? "It was totally inappropriate. I can't believe Abby would print something like that." I was enraged at my mother's censorship. Almost as enraged as I felt (and continue to feel) every time Abby wasted valuable column inches by printing a stupid-ass letter saying something smug and stupid in response to some of her advice. Such as:
"Dear Abby,
When Birthday On A Budget In Boise wrote you in search of thrifty ideas for her 5-year-old's birthday party, you forgot to mention Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey! Duh, Abby! Kids and parents these days just forget all about the good old-fashioned games that used to make America great. Do you think teenagers would be dying their hair blue and getting pregnant out of wedlock if they'd had some good old common-sense fun at their birthday parties? Well I'm here to tell you they wouldn't, mark my words.
-Remembers the "Small" Things In Wapakoneta"
All that's missing from this example is a Paul Harvey quote. Even at seven years old, these types of letters infuriated me because of their blatant irrelevance, clueless self-righteousness, and worst of all, the obligatory failed pun in the signature. I LOVE puns and loathe to see them done badly. Moreover, letters like this one, with no problem of any consequence, defile the very intent of an advice column while cheating a truly needy letter-writer out of his or her rightful space in the column. If I'd wanted to read something boring and short-sighted over breakfast, I would have turned to the Greenville News editorials page.
And so, Dear Readers, to honor my first favorite writer and to make reparations for her occasionally misguided printings, I would like to officially open up Hungry Lion to all you advice-seeking folks out there. This means you. Wondering what to do about an office romance? Want to quit smoking or manage your anger or come out to your parents? Or maybe get rid of your neighbor's yappy dog once and for all? Hit me up! Be warned, my guiding principal for future advice-giving will probably be "If this were a movie, what should happen next? What would provide the most interesting conflict for me, the viewer?"
But really, what do you have to lose? Here's some advice: For a truly multi-faceted approach to a situation, write to me AND Dear Abby. You'll be the judge of whose advice is superior, but both points of view will come from an opinionated individual with your best interests at heart. And you can take comfort knowing at least one of them has great hair.
*Even in the imaginary world, she was limited by her parents' "pink or red nail polish ONLY, until you're 16!" rule.
Dear Abby had a profoundly formative influence on my budding literacy and social awareness. I vicariously learned the ways of the world through the familial, marital, professional, and etiquette-related dilemmas of others. I also learned about Alcoholics Anonymous, 10 Signs of Domestic Abuse, and all sorts of holidays I never knew existed. On any random day Abby would close her column with a direct address to a specific population that went like this:
"Confidential to my Jewish readers: Happy Purim!"
"Confidential to my AARP readers: Happy Armistice Day!"
"Confidential to my Christian readers: Happy Easter! Remember, it is unwise to give small animals (bunnies, chicks, etc.) to your children as presents. Pets require an investment of time, attention, and money, and unless you can fully care for this new member of your family, it's advisable to just visit your local zoo."
In retrospect I should have clipped that last directive upon each reprinting, highlighted it, and glitter-glued it to my parents' bathroom mirror because this important message obviously escaped them. This oversight resulted in our possession of an immortal rabbit called Pepper. Any takers?
I had a friend in third or fourth grade and her house had a laundry chute! At my behest, we used the chute to rig up our own version of Dear Abby. We tied some sheets together and tied a bucket to one end. From my station in her bedroom, I would lower the bucket through the laundry chute to my friend, stationed in the basement. From there I instructed her to write me, Dear Abby, a letter, which I would answer and return via laundry chute express mail. She was ok at playing Dear Abby, but had trouble coming up with any interesting problems beyond "Dear Abby, what color nail polish should I choose? Pink or red?*"
One early school morning I sat down with my toaster strudel and reached for the paper only to find one of the Dear Abby letters neatly clipped out of the page. My mom had cut out half the column before I had a chance to read it!!! Her reasoning? "It was totally inappropriate. I can't believe Abby would print something like that." I was enraged at my mother's censorship. Almost as enraged as I felt (and continue to feel) every time Abby wasted valuable column inches by printing a stupid-ass letter saying something smug and stupid in response to some of her advice. Such as:
"Dear Abby,
When Birthday On A Budget In Boise wrote you in search of thrifty ideas for her 5-year-old's birthday party, you forgot to mention Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey! Duh, Abby! Kids and parents these days just forget all about the good old-fashioned games that used to make America great. Do you think teenagers would be dying their hair blue and getting pregnant out of wedlock if they'd had some good old common-sense fun at their birthday parties? Well I'm here to tell you they wouldn't, mark my words.
-Remembers the "Small" Things In Wapakoneta"
All that's missing from this example is a Paul Harvey quote. Even at seven years old, these types of letters infuriated me because of their blatant irrelevance, clueless self-righteousness, and worst of all, the obligatory failed pun in the signature. I LOVE puns and loathe to see them done badly. Moreover, letters like this one, with no problem of any consequence, defile the very intent of an advice column while cheating a truly needy letter-writer out of his or her rightful space in the column. If I'd wanted to read something boring and short-sighted over breakfast, I would have turned to the Greenville News editorials page.
And so, Dear Readers, to honor my first favorite writer and to make reparations for her occasionally misguided printings, I would like to officially open up Hungry Lion to all you advice-seeking folks out there. This means you. Wondering what to do about an office romance? Want to quit smoking or manage your anger or come out to your parents? Or maybe get rid of your neighbor's yappy dog once and for all? Hit me up! Be warned, my guiding principal for future advice-giving will probably be "If this were a movie, what should happen next? What would provide the most interesting conflict for me, the viewer?"
But really, what do you have to lose? Here's some advice: For a truly multi-faceted approach to a situation, write to me AND Dear Abby. You'll be the judge of whose advice is superior, but both points of view will come from an opinionated individual with your best interests at heart. And you can take comfort knowing at least one of them has great hair.
*Even in the imaginary world, she was limited by her parents' "pink or red nail polish ONLY, until you're 16!" rule.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Hey Oregon!
This summer I packed all my worldly possessions in a covered wagon and headed out West. Actually, I flew Continental, who charged me $35 to check a bag. If that's not highway robbery I don't know what is. But when I alighted in Ashland, OR, I discovered not a Deadwood-style camp, but an impossibly lovely town of coffee shops, farmers' markets, mountains, and, of course, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The wildest features of this Western town are the lush gardens surrounding every house and quaint bed-and-breakfast. And, I suppose, the senior citizens Shawn and I spied dancing to the beatboxing of a white, dreadlocked performer called Cornflower at a a local art festival last week.
South Carolinians don't really think about Oregon, or believe it actually exists. When I informed my family of my summer plans, they said, "Wow! Well, have fun in Washington state!" I don't know if this is proof of OR's existence, but here's a sampling of local Ashland businesses. You may notice a theme:
Salon Juliet
All's Well Vitamins
As-U-Stor-It
CD or Not CD
Anne Hathaway's House
Shakespeare's Sister Moon Boutique
Last night I attended a "community, all-levels" yoga class. In any other locale, this would have been called a "VERY STRENUOUS, even if you're a running/cycling/sprouted-grains-eating type" yoga class. Which, for the record, I am not. Granted, after the class I could have walked off some excess tension in the rock garden labyrinth on the studio's front lawn. Instead I chose to walk home (because everyone walks everywhere around here) and dive into some huckleberry ice cream.
I spent my first week in Ashland pestering small businesses with desperate requests for employment. All of them, from the brewery to the shoe store to the grocery co-op, included, "socially responsible," "organic," or "hemp" in the title. Finally I landed a position at Noble Coffee Roasting, where the sustainably-sourced coffee is roasted on the premises and then French-pressed. It turns out my position is more bus-boy than barista but it's a start. I plan to spend all my earnings at the 8728345 used book stores and the 9478274 precious little bakeries in town.
I asked Shawn if he wanted to attend the above-mentioned yoga studio's "Celebration of the Sacred Tantric Dance of the Divine Feminine" workshop with me. This caused him to look up from his iPad for the first time in days and say, "No. Haven't you seen enough middle-aged women with hairy armpits in this town already?"
I said, "Want to go to Yogurt Hut?"
So we did. Yogurt Hut is an amplified version of the kids' dessert section at Ryans, but with frozen yogurt instead of soft-serve ice cream. So it's healthy! After you pump yourself as much fro-yo as you could possibly want, you load it with candy and fruity toppings from the buffet. A cashier then weighs your creation and charges you accordingly. Mine cost as much as a steak dinner and was just as satisfying. I proposed a toast: "To a wonderful summer in your home town!" Shawn and I clinked our massive bowls of yogurt and headed home on foot, sidestepping a barefoot, pony-tailed backpacker gawking at the sunset.
South Carolinians don't really think about Oregon, or believe it actually exists. When I informed my family of my summer plans, they said, "Wow! Well, have fun in Washington state!" I don't know if this is proof of OR's existence, but here's a sampling of local Ashland businesses. You may notice a theme:
Salon Juliet
All's Well Vitamins
As-U-Stor-It
CD or Not CD
Anne Hathaway's House
Shakespeare's Sister Moon Boutique
Last night I attended a "community, all-levels" yoga class. In any other locale, this would have been called a "VERY STRENUOUS, even if you're a running/cycling/sprouted-grains-eating type" yoga class. Which, for the record, I am not. Granted, after the class I could have walked off some excess tension in the rock garden labyrinth on the studio's front lawn. Instead I chose to walk home (because everyone walks everywhere around here) and dive into some huckleberry ice cream.
I spent my first week in Ashland pestering small businesses with desperate requests for employment. All of them, from the brewery to the shoe store to the grocery co-op, included, "socially responsible," "organic," or "hemp" in the title. Finally I landed a position at Noble Coffee Roasting, where the sustainably-sourced coffee is roasted on the premises and then French-pressed. It turns out my position is more bus-boy than barista but it's a start. I plan to spend all my earnings at the 8728345 used book stores and the 9478274 precious little bakeries in town.
I asked Shawn if he wanted to attend the above-mentioned yoga studio's "Celebration of the Sacred Tantric Dance of the Divine Feminine" workshop with me. This caused him to look up from his iPad for the first time in days and say, "No. Haven't you seen enough middle-aged women with hairy armpits in this town already?"
I said, "Want to go to Yogurt Hut?"
So we did. Yogurt Hut is an amplified version of the kids' dessert section at Ryans, but with frozen yogurt instead of soft-serve ice cream. So it's healthy! After you pump yourself as much fro-yo as you could possibly want, you load it with candy and fruity toppings from the buffet. A cashier then weighs your creation and charges you accordingly. Mine cost as much as a steak dinner and was just as satisfying. I proposed a toast: "To a wonderful summer in your home town!" Shawn and I clinked our massive bowls of yogurt and headed home on foot, sidestepping a barefoot, pony-tailed backpacker gawking at the sunset.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Trash
My sister said it best when, at the learned age of five, she informed our grandmother that "Some people's trash is other people's treasures." These wise words convinced Gramma to U-turn the pickup, head back to the dump and collect that football-shaped plastic trunk Jaci had fallen in love with. To this day it sits in our basement, housing pipe cleaners and broken camcorders. The point is, Jaci nailed the central tenet of my favorite suburban institution, the Yard Sale. Trash, treasures, and more importantly, the prospect of getting rich make yard sales every crafty kid's dream.
For starters, there's the sheer popularity factor of yard sales. For that one special Saturday, between the hours of 7:00am-noon, your house is the buzzing social capital of the neighborhood. Friends, family, neighbors, and hungry-looking strangers flock to your lawn and admiringly paw through your belongings. As a child I would, of course, hawk lemonade, luring in customers with my hand-painted signs and my "I'm the Big Sister!" t-shirt. I would also display my artwork, which included woven potholders, Jazzy Jewelry, and construction paper cut into snowflakes. I charged people coins for lemonade and bills for artwork.
And my enterprising little self didn't stop there. As I grew older and more persuasive, I commandeered the kids in the neighborhood to aid me in planning carnivals, plays, and concerts for profit. These events rarely panned out, because some people don't understand the necessity of rehearsal and can't take direction to save their lives. But my venturesome spirit lives on: when entertaining, I always set up a Bargain Table and cover it with household stuff I don't want any more. I charge party guests 50 cents for each item they take, thereby effortlessly (and shamelessly) ridding my house of unnecessary debris and making enough extra money to cover my library fines.
Visiting yard sales was equally thrilling in a less-entrepreneur, more-voyeur kind of way. I loved sifting through old toy collections, drawing conclusions from them about the sullen teenager inevitably peering out onto the lawn from her bedroom window. Play-Doh Spaghetti Factory- hardly touched, I would observe. But the Suzie-Pees-A-Lot doll was missing an eye and a clump of blonde curls from so much handling. I would don discarded dance recital costumes and test-drive Barbie cars while my parents weighed the merits of a chipped vanity versus an air hockey table.
Yardsales are totally kid-friendly because it is every kid's dream to run around a stranger's property and touch all their stuff. However, the yardsale's uppity cousin, the Estate Sale, is definitively NOT. While I would leap out of bed at 6:00am, wake my parents, and demand we set out for a yard sale on any given Saturday, I would throw a shit-fit at the mention of an estate sale. Unlike my parents, I had no interest in "finally seeing the inside of that big old farmhouse with all the land at the edge of town." The hosts of estate sales hate children and want to cut off their fingers even before they reach for Grandma's diamond clip-on earrings. And try hosting a mini-tea party with Aunt Edna's carnival glass china, just to see how it feels, before you start convincing your parents to buy it. Never have I been thrown out of a stranger's dining room so quickly. The words "silent auction" still make sweat with boredom.
Look, if you're into old-looking junk (and believe me, I am), skip the estate sale and head to the Pickens County Flea Market. On Wednesday mornings in the summer this place becomes a veritable nation of goods and services. In addition to estate sale-type crap, you might just leave the flea market with a clap-on, clap-off dolphin lamp, a peach tree, five pounds of okra, a handmade bird house-mailbox-sprinkler, some Third Reich paraphernalia, and a large Styrofoam cup of boiled peanuts! Livestock available includes free kittens, cockatiels, bunnies, rottweiler puppies, and peacocks, and most vendors accept Confederate money.
The real lesson to be gleaned from yard sales, estate sales, and flea markets is that most of the time, some people's trash is just destined to become other people's trash. When it's acquired in style, though- say, with a reluctant offering of petty cash, outdoors, on a 90° summer morning- I'd definitely qualify that as treasure material.
For starters, there's the sheer popularity factor of yard sales. For that one special Saturday, between the hours of 7:00am-noon, your house is the buzzing social capital of the neighborhood. Friends, family, neighbors, and hungry-looking strangers flock to your lawn and admiringly paw through your belongings. As a child I would, of course, hawk lemonade, luring in customers with my hand-painted signs and my "I'm the Big Sister!" t-shirt. I would also display my artwork, which included woven potholders, Jazzy Jewelry, and construction paper cut into snowflakes. I charged people coins for lemonade and bills for artwork.
And my enterprising little self didn't stop there. As I grew older and more persuasive, I commandeered the kids in the neighborhood to aid me in planning carnivals, plays, and concerts for profit. These events rarely panned out, because some people don't understand the necessity of rehearsal and can't take direction to save their lives. But my venturesome spirit lives on: when entertaining, I always set up a Bargain Table and cover it with household stuff I don't want any more. I charge party guests 50 cents for each item they take, thereby effortlessly (and shamelessly) ridding my house of unnecessary debris and making enough extra money to cover my library fines.
Visiting yard sales was equally thrilling in a less-entrepreneur, more-voyeur kind of way. I loved sifting through old toy collections, drawing conclusions from them about the sullen teenager inevitably peering out onto the lawn from her bedroom window. Play-Doh Spaghetti Factory- hardly touched, I would observe. But the Suzie-Pees-A-Lot doll was missing an eye and a clump of blonde curls from so much handling. I would don discarded dance recital costumes and test-drive Barbie cars while my parents weighed the merits of a chipped vanity versus an air hockey table.
Yardsales are totally kid-friendly because it is every kid's dream to run around a stranger's property and touch all their stuff. However, the yardsale's uppity cousin, the Estate Sale, is definitively NOT. While I would leap out of bed at 6:00am, wake my parents, and demand we set out for a yard sale on any given Saturday, I would throw a shit-fit at the mention of an estate sale. Unlike my parents, I had no interest in "finally seeing the inside of that big old farmhouse with all the land at the edge of town." The hosts of estate sales hate children and want to cut off their fingers even before they reach for Grandma's diamond clip-on earrings. And try hosting a mini-tea party with Aunt Edna's carnival glass china, just to see how it feels, before you start convincing your parents to buy it. Never have I been thrown out of a stranger's dining room so quickly. The words "silent auction" still make sweat with boredom.
Look, if you're into old-looking junk (and believe me, I am), skip the estate sale and head to the Pickens County Flea Market. On Wednesday mornings in the summer this place becomes a veritable nation of goods and services. In addition to estate sale-type crap, you might just leave the flea market with a clap-on, clap-off dolphin lamp, a peach tree, five pounds of okra, a handmade bird house-mailbox-sprinkler, some Third Reich paraphernalia, and a large Styrofoam cup of boiled peanuts! Livestock available includes free kittens, cockatiels, bunnies, rottweiler puppies, and peacocks, and most vendors accept Confederate money.
The real lesson to be gleaned from yard sales, estate sales, and flea markets is that most of the time, some people's trash is just destined to become other people's trash. When it's acquired in style, though- say, with a reluctant offering of petty cash, outdoors, on a 90° summer morning- I'd definitely qualify that as treasure material.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Stranger Things That Happen
Despite my most diligent efforts to the contrary, when traveling alone I appear friendly, gentle, kind-hearted, and eager to converse and perhaps make long-term plans with whoever targets me for small talk. This could be because I look like an unaccompanied minor. It could be because I carry a Petal Pink Vera Bradley duffel bag, which, outside of the Southeast, must scream, "Hey! I'm sociable! Let's chat!" Maybe it's a combination of the two, which perhaps gives strangers the impression I'm running away from home.
According to what I'm sure is sound scientific research, if a man approaches a woman and asks her for directions, she is more likely to talk to him. Oh, the pretense! I felt like a saint recently when a confused gentleman asked me if I knew when the next train was due at the NJ Transit New Brunswick station. "8:15!" I replied charitably, and assured him he was indeed on the New York-bound platform. Then, sensing the impending Talk With A Stranger, I turned away and commenced all the faux phone-checking, ticket-shuffling, eyebrow-furrowing avoidance tactics. But, queen of misleading signals that I apparently am, he took my behavior as an invitation to sit next to me and chat.
After a brief version of this conversation, and with no prompting on my part, he told me his entire educational background which involved lots of engineering, computer science, several countries, and an oil rig. And now he is the Venezuelan ambassador to the US. And also a banker. In the banking-oil company. Well, maybe, maybe not, I thought. One thing I ascertained for damn sure was that he did NOT need my helpful directions; he takes the same train every week night! As I attempted to move towards the approaching train, he managed to work in his theory of how "time... it isn't actually REAL!"
I thought, here is where I'm supposed to connect with an interesting stranger whose experiences and points of view are worlds different from my own. I could hear every acting teacher ever harping in my head about the vitality of people-watching, urging me to observe this man's dialect and mannerisms to reprise in a character some day. I'm sure I stood to learn a life lesson at the very least. But I did not wish to. At all. Is it wrong to desire a peaceful train ride? Perhaps my complete disinterest in his life story and bullshit theory was standoffish, but his assumption that I wanted to hear it all in the first place was presumptuous. I don't need to hear crazy from passing strangers; that's what talking to my relatives is for. For true stories of demons, recovered homosexuals, the socialist state of China and the like, I need only have lunch with my grandparents.
I always prefer eavesdropping on strangers instead of interacting with them. Which is exactly what I was doing at the Philadelphia airport when an Auntie Anne's employee approached me, having just finished his shift, and asked where I worked. I answered:
ME- I'm a student. (Defaulted to above-mentioned avoidance behavior.)
HIM- You do not work at airport?
ME- No. (HOW did Vera not tip him off?)
HIM- Where you are from? (Ok, limited English. Good sign. I figured he wanted to practice the few phrases he knew, and that's cool with me. Also, it guaranteed a quick and content-less interchange.)
ME- South Carolina.
HIM- Are you married?
What? And these odd, unsolicited encounters are not limited to public transport hubs in seedy Northeast cities. Once while waiting on an oil change* (before my social reticence set in), a fellow patron and I critically discussed every advertisement in that day's Greenville News. When we landed on Fred Astaire Dance Studio's Discount Ballroom Dancing Lessons, he earnestly suggested we take a class together! Is committing to a six-week course the next step after a harmless conversation about newspaper ads, even if the one proposing it is three times your age? I don't know. I don't know!
Remarkably, my recent twelve-hour stint on a China Town bus from NYC to Greenville, SC, resulted in no such perplexing interactions. The only English I heard during the entire trip was "TEN MINUTES," bellowed by the driver upon careening off I-95 somewhere in Virginia. Groggily I bolted into what I hoped was one of those fancy gas stations with a beer cave. Instead I gazed through bloodshot eyes at a truck stop. Truck stops are part general store, part diner, part strip joint, and part locker room. The only women's bathroom stall was locked and for once I thought better of just popping into the men's. In that moment, however fleeting, I wished for an ally to exchange bewildered glances and forgettable comments with. Instead, I vowed to hold my bladder until the next morning and made a beeline for the bus with four minutes to spare. The man sitting behind me had just purchased a bucket of fried chicken, and the smell reminded me of home.
*Not the oil change when they carded me to settle a bet with the boys in the back, who thought I looked too young to drive.
According to what I'm sure is sound scientific research, if a man approaches a woman and asks her for directions, she is more likely to talk to him. Oh, the pretense! I felt like a saint recently when a confused gentleman asked me if I knew when the next train was due at the NJ Transit New Brunswick station. "8:15!" I replied charitably, and assured him he was indeed on the New York-bound platform. Then, sensing the impending Talk With A Stranger, I turned away and commenced all the faux phone-checking, ticket-shuffling, eyebrow-furrowing avoidance tactics. But, queen of misleading signals that I apparently am, he took my behavior as an invitation to sit next to me and chat.
After a brief version of this conversation, and with no prompting on my part, he told me his entire educational background which involved lots of engineering, computer science, several countries, and an oil rig. And now he is the Venezuelan ambassador to the US. And also a banker. In the banking-oil company. Well, maybe, maybe not, I thought. One thing I ascertained for damn sure was that he did NOT need my helpful directions; he takes the same train every week night! As I attempted to move towards the approaching train, he managed to work in his theory of how "time... it isn't actually REAL!"
I thought, here is where I'm supposed to connect with an interesting stranger whose experiences and points of view are worlds different from my own. I could hear every acting teacher ever harping in my head about the vitality of people-watching, urging me to observe this man's dialect and mannerisms to reprise in a character some day. I'm sure I stood to learn a life lesson at the very least. But I did not wish to. At all. Is it wrong to desire a peaceful train ride? Perhaps my complete disinterest in his life story and bullshit theory was standoffish, but his assumption that I wanted to hear it all in the first place was presumptuous. I don't need to hear crazy from passing strangers; that's what talking to my relatives is for. For true stories of demons, recovered homosexuals, the socialist state of China and the like, I need only have lunch with my grandparents.
I always prefer eavesdropping on strangers instead of interacting with them. Which is exactly what I was doing at the Philadelphia airport when an Auntie Anne's employee approached me, having just finished his shift, and asked where I worked. I answered:
ME- I'm a student. (Defaulted to above-mentioned avoidance behavior.)
HIM- You do not work at airport?
ME- No. (HOW did Vera not tip him off?)
HIM- Where you are from? (Ok, limited English. Good sign. I figured he wanted to practice the few phrases he knew, and that's cool with me. Also, it guaranteed a quick and content-less interchange.)
ME- South Carolina.
HIM- Are you married?
What? And these odd, unsolicited encounters are not limited to public transport hubs in seedy Northeast cities. Once while waiting on an oil change* (before my social reticence set in), a fellow patron and I critically discussed every advertisement in that day's Greenville News. When we landed on Fred Astaire Dance Studio's Discount Ballroom Dancing Lessons, he earnestly suggested we take a class together! Is committing to a six-week course the next step after a harmless conversation about newspaper ads, even if the one proposing it is three times your age? I don't know. I don't know!
Remarkably, my recent twelve-hour stint on a China Town bus from NYC to Greenville, SC, resulted in no such perplexing interactions. The only English I heard during the entire trip was "TEN MINUTES," bellowed by the driver upon careening off I-95 somewhere in Virginia. Groggily I bolted into what I hoped was one of those fancy gas stations with a beer cave. Instead I gazed through bloodshot eyes at a truck stop. Truck stops are part general store, part diner, part strip joint, and part locker room. The only women's bathroom stall was locked and for once I thought better of just popping into the men's. In that moment, however fleeting, I wished for an ally to exchange bewildered glances and forgettable comments with. Instead, I vowed to hold my bladder until the next morning and made a beeline for the bus with four minutes to spare. The man sitting behind me had just purchased a bucket of fried chicken, and the smell reminded me of home.
*Not the oil change when they carded me to settle a bet with the boys in the back, who thought I looked too young to drive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
