In the summer of 2001 I made my first trip to Europe. It has been my only trip to the continent but there's something about saying it's the first that inspires of sense of culture that I can fool you in to thinking I own. I visited London and spent a lot of time in the curry filled street of northern England, a place many Indians still reside, and make a masala sauce that still haunts me in sleep. I spent a week in Paris, a week I spent not understanding why Americans don't like the French. They were nice, and gracious, and smelling flowers at a market smelled better because I was smelling them in Paris. I spent 24 hours in Dublin. Enough time to take a tour of the Guinness factory, experience the most torrential of rains I've known and drink brew with Irishmen at the cities pubs. The bulk of the rest of the trip was in Italy, and for reasons I can probably attribute to it being the most cost friendly solution, I flew Dublin to Pisa.
Pisa's a city of an airport, and a leaning tower. If by chance the airport went in to disrepair, and the leaning tower, leaned to its demise, the city, may never make another map. It was the only thing we were seeing there, so it made the most sense to lug the luggage from the airport to the tower, from tower to train, where we'd travel to Florence that afternoon.
Once you squeeze through crowds and get close enough, camera in hand, do the cliche photos, me in front of the tower, me next to the tower, me pretending to hold the tower between my fingers, me pretending to be larger than the tower, your work at the leaning tower of pisa is done. And if you have an ex-boyfriend like I did, not only will he delete all the pictures accidentally so that my readers would just need to take my word this entire post isn't a figment of my imagination, you'd have an ex-boyfriend that after London, Manchester, Dublin, Paris, and an afternoon in Pisa, had driven me to meltdown status.
Years later when I broke up with him (in a therapists office - but that's for another post) - they were for all the same reasons that drove me to that meltdown that August afternoon in 2001 burning sun beating down on my bare skin, luggage surrounding me, as I told him I didn't want to go on.
Oh don't get me wrong. No suicide intervention was necessary. With him, I didn't want to go on with him.
He told me I looked silly. Tourists, children, backpackers, manueving to get around me. While I sat on my large suitcase and sobbed. This post isn't about him, so there's little reason to go in to details. All you need to know is I was right, and he was wrong. About everything.
I've been siked about turning 30. It happens tomorrow. And even though it falls on a Friday the 13th, it clearly is more of a magical wonderful sort of 13, and not the horror movie sort of number. But 30, it comes with some baggage, some luggage, like the one I sat on in Italy. And in yoga today, between a birds of paradise pose and tree pose, I discovered - I'm turning 30.
When class was over I walked outside. I sat down. And I cried. I can't even remember why it was I started, but after a half hour, I got my life together and walked away. But I needed to sit down, melt down, be down. And admit some truths to myself. Truths like you can't ignore getting older. Or the responsibility that comes with it. Or that sometimes when faced with it, it's ok and not be ok.
I suppose if I could rationally explain a meltdown, or any meltdown, about age or the weather, than I'd in some way let the world in to the complexity of women. But I don't have that answer.
I needed about 10-12 more minutes of good crying time, but I discovered I'd been sitting on ants, and worried at any time they'd use my legs as a food source, so I got on my way.
So with complexity of women, and complexity of relationships, and complexity of age, comes a spontaneous meltdown.
Years ago, in the summer of 2001, I eventually got up, I dried my tears, I hopped on that train to Florence, and I enjoyed it as I did Naples, Pompei, and Venice. Today, the fall of 2009, I metaphorically do the same. Move on. With purpose, and cause, and a humanity.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
When Sleep Meets Light - Light Meet Clarity
I'm afraid I may always be one of those write when times are tough sort of folk. Such that, the absence of posts should signal the adverse, that things are, quite positively, good.
Alexander's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, in reverse.
I suppose getting good things is fairly simple. As simple as ABC, 1-2-3, heads shoulders knees and toes. The sun in the east, and by noons after - the west. It needs only one, just one, a singular requisition. An assumption, a supposition, a science fair hypothesis, that says first, I deserve good things. I deserve good fall like weather and I deserve faithful friends - fresh baked cupcakes and a delicious cheese pizza just for me. A tub of cookie dough, and no one to judge my food metaphors. I deserve love and I deserve happiness. Love and happiness that inspires clarity and golden silence, stillness, and light, holding tight to what you've got, like a box of 4 ready to be devoured before thawed Uncrustables, and those who won't judge my ever growing food metaphors. And on this rare occasion, a blog entry.
While my waking life is good. My subconscious isn't. It's a murky sleep filled place, with visits most recently from my past.
Sometime ago I got to thinking about sleep. If you're sleeping as much as the doctors order, you're spending about 1/3 of your life tucked under the sheets. Add to that a rainy Saturday, and a week a year of sick time, a marathon of the West Wing in bed, you've got a lot of time with you and your mattress. I was going to take advantage of that time, and make it as comfortable as humanely possible. My bed, is a feast for the tactile senses. It's a down paradise. A thread count dream. Eleven pillows and a cat purchased solely for her heat generating, jonesing for a nap at moments notice, spooning potential. Fresh cut lavendar. Vanilla custard candle. A cup for tea, and a ceramic cupcake to inspire good dreams. It's a grand place, a vacation for 8 long hours, once a day, seven times a week, where a month turns in to a year and life is, good.
But even when life is good, and your thread count is better, there's still work that the subconscious asks. And in the past 2 weeks it's asked me to spend time with those who've occupied parts of my past. I've had awkward conversations, been chased down my childhood street, and looked back to see the people I love replaced. I would hope this isn't unconventional marketing for Jim Carey's new Christmas Carol, and instead about making peace.
In the past 3 nights, I've awoken with no dreams, no nighmares, no visits. Sound sleepfulness. But an idea. A gutted feeling. That being happy asks two requisitions: knowing you're deserving of it - and saying goodbye to a time and a people who never deserved you. And if I've had to do that in the murky world of my subconscious sleep, I get to wake up to luxury sheets and the happiness I now come to rely upon at mornings hello.
Alexander's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, in reverse.
I suppose getting good things is fairly simple. As simple as ABC, 1-2-3, heads shoulders knees and toes. The sun in the east, and by noons after - the west. It needs only one, just one, a singular requisition. An assumption, a supposition, a science fair hypothesis, that says first, I deserve good things. I deserve good fall like weather and I deserve faithful friends - fresh baked cupcakes and a delicious cheese pizza just for me. A tub of cookie dough, and no one to judge my food metaphors. I deserve love and I deserve happiness. Love and happiness that inspires clarity and golden silence, stillness, and light, holding tight to what you've got, like a box of 4 ready to be devoured before thawed Uncrustables, and those who won't judge my ever growing food metaphors. And on this rare occasion, a blog entry.
While my waking life is good. My subconscious isn't. It's a murky sleep filled place, with visits most recently from my past.
Sometime ago I got to thinking about sleep. If you're sleeping as much as the doctors order, you're spending about 1/3 of your life tucked under the sheets. Add to that a rainy Saturday, and a week a year of sick time, a marathon of the West Wing in bed, you've got a lot of time with you and your mattress. I was going to take advantage of that time, and make it as comfortable as humanely possible. My bed, is a feast for the tactile senses. It's a down paradise. A thread count dream. Eleven pillows and a cat purchased solely for her heat generating, jonesing for a nap at moments notice, spooning potential. Fresh cut lavendar. Vanilla custard candle. A cup for tea, and a ceramic cupcake to inspire good dreams. It's a grand place, a vacation for 8 long hours, once a day, seven times a week, where a month turns in to a year and life is, good.
But even when life is good, and your thread count is better, there's still work that the subconscious asks. And in the past 2 weeks it's asked me to spend time with those who've occupied parts of my past. I've had awkward conversations, been chased down my childhood street, and looked back to see the people I love replaced. I would hope this isn't unconventional marketing for Jim Carey's new Christmas Carol, and instead about making peace.
In the past 3 nights, I've awoken with no dreams, no nighmares, no visits. Sound sleepfulness. But an idea. A gutted feeling. That being happy asks two requisitions: knowing you're deserving of it - and saying goodbye to a time and a people who never deserved you. And if I've had to do that in the murky world of my subconscious sleep, I get to wake up to luxury sheets and the happiness I now come to rely upon at mornings hello.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
That's Some Pig
I was a fan of Charlotte's Web long before the adorable Dakota Fanning rendition. I read the picture book aloud, the paperback silently, and when I'd finished, the animation. I immersed my eyes and brain and imagination in talking sheep and goats and pigs and spiders, and when in the 4th grade our teacher asked if anyone was interested in taking home to live out it's glory days our classroom rat, I knew my parents would be the only ones who'd say yes to my animal rescue missions. In my house, in my living room, across from the piano, and next to the fireplace, Templeton lived out his two year life in the lap of luxury: a mansion style cage I asked as my Chanukah present.
Templeton was some rat. No Templeton was more of a son of a bitch. But when someone passes, even a rat, as he did in 1990, it's bad form to speak badly of them. So, that Templeton, he was some rat.
He ran the roost as the little one always does. The cat, the golden retriever, even my human sister feared him. But he was alright. He was some rat.
Charlotte's Web tells the story of a pig destined for a bacon fate. Who, by the miracle of his courageous little spirit and the help of a spider, made unlikely friends and prizes abound. Charlotte reasons if she can make the farmer see the things in the little pig no one sees, he won't have to die. Some Pig, she writes.
Terrific.
Radiant.
And, humble.
I have a "some pig" theory when I need to see the best in someone. Somewhere in a barn, there's a spider who thinks there's a pig that's radiant and terrific, and it's only my task to try to see that too.
I like baseball despite my friend's insistence it's boring and slow. (Their words). (And they are wrong). But it would be a seemingly tiresome mission to convince them otherwise. Instead I enjoy it for what it brings me, and through that, through the nuggets of optimism and "did you see that fast ball on a 3-2 count" details of the game I hope they will see it as the "some pig" it is.
Social life. I'm not allowed to have one in October. Because when I do, I'm out on such an outing, and the Dodgers have a 9th inning like the one we had today. A game 2 clinching NLDS Dodger win 2 outs in the 9th inning win. And while I'm dumb enough to leave my house in October, I'm also smart enough, even by accident, to leave on the television and let tivo rewind the entire game for me.
There is a charm about getting to watch a 9th inning like todays, when you already know they won. Because it's not like those bases loaded bottom of the 9th situations where runners are stranded and there's disappointment. It's more like Christmas where you know there are presents downstairs, it's just about how fast you can run to violently unwrap them. So I violently unwrapped the 9th inning, thank you Tivo, and it was just as the 11 text messages I received said, a win. A win. A win.
A radiant.
A terrific.
If not humble.
Win.
That was some pig, win.
That was some win.
Templeton was some rat. No Templeton was more of a son of a bitch. But when someone passes, even a rat, as he did in 1990, it's bad form to speak badly of them. So, that Templeton, he was some rat.
He ran the roost as the little one always does. The cat, the golden retriever, even my human sister feared him. But he was alright. He was some rat.
Charlotte's Web tells the story of a pig destined for a bacon fate. Who, by the miracle of his courageous little spirit and the help of a spider, made unlikely friends and prizes abound. Charlotte reasons if she can make the farmer see the things in the little pig no one sees, he won't have to die. Some Pig, she writes.
Terrific.
Radiant.
And, humble.
I have a "some pig" theory when I need to see the best in someone. Somewhere in a barn, there's a spider who thinks there's a pig that's radiant and terrific, and it's only my task to try to see that too.
I like baseball despite my friend's insistence it's boring and slow. (Their words). (And they are wrong). But it would be a seemingly tiresome mission to convince them otherwise. Instead I enjoy it for what it brings me, and through that, through the nuggets of optimism and "did you see that fast ball on a 3-2 count" details of the game I hope they will see it as the "some pig" it is.
Social life. I'm not allowed to have one in October. Because when I do, I'm out on such an outing, and the Dodgers have a 9th inning like the one we had today. A game 2 clinching NLDS Dodger win 2 outs in the 9th inning win. And while I'm dumb enough to leave my house in October, I'm also smart enough, even by accident, to leave on the television and let tivo rewind the entire game for me.
There is a charm about getting to watch a 9th inning like todays, when you already know they won. Because it's not like those bases loaded bottom of the 9th situations where runners are stranded and there's disappointment. It's more like Christmas where you know there are presents downstairs, it's just about how fast you can run to violently unwrap them. So I violently unwrapped the 9th inning, thank you Tivo, and it was just as the 11 text messages I received said, a win. A win. A win.
A radiant.
A terrific.
If not humble.
Win.
That was some pig, win.
That was some win.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Simplicity
Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a friend. A two hour phone call from a friend. A beau like firefighter friend. We talked of the recent weeks he'd spent in Oregon fighting a fire. We talked of the self defense class I'd taken. We talked of the NFL season thus far and a quarterback friend we share. We talked of the MLB post season at our fingertips and a relief pitcher Dodger friend we share. We talked of his sister and her new chocolate lab. And we talked of my mom and the surgery on her black lab. We talked of his parents and their cruise up the eastern seaboard to see the changing of the fall foliage. We talked of my mom and the same cruise she's taking as they debark. We talked about how impossible it is to ever make what we have work, and we talked about what our friends will never understand: our lives are indescribably connected despite our best efforts in opposition.
In yoga, whether you're doing bikram or power, meditative or any other form, uji breath is the common link. The uji breath is so common, that it's at the core what yoga is. Through yoga, you learn how remarkably critical the breath is. That that breath can heat up your body, and cool it down, open muscles and close them right up again. That when life gives you nothing but woes, it's that breath in which you always return to. As regular as the timing of the sun. As powerful as a foreign military. As simple as a child's laughter.
Like grief, a quickness to acceptance is at the core of happiness. It's my reason for being happy more often than the average bear. It's all resilience is. I see acceptance there. Pass go, collect $100 dollars. Buy park place and breeze through collecting monopoly pieces. Win the game. Prize: acceptance. Now go be happy.
I told fireman what a fool he is. I told him that he should go out, and try to find someone as awesome as me. There's no way to say this seriously, so he laughed. "Just try," I said, "and find someone as awesome as me." Just like that I said it. Laughter.
I wasn't attempting to be funny. I was absolutely seriously. Though a diztiness about my personality makes it remarkably hard for anyone to take me seriously. But I was very serious. He never will realize it. He will never realize it not because there's anyone else. Or because he doesn't think he's not putting forth his best effort. I know at the root of my uji breath, his effort, unlike all other aspects of our connected life, is misaligned.
It was a two hour conversation with lots of time to talk about lord knows what. But tucked in there like an eight year old at bedtime, was the place of work. I said I'd struggled so to find purpose in a year that's brought a lot of unemployment. And how I'd learned through introspection and good friends, that my earthly purpose is supremely more important than just a job. As much as that man can talk, he didn't say anything. Until he did. "Rebecca I can't really agree with you. For me, my job is everything. It's first. It comes before anything else. After family. No, before family. They are my family. Everything else is second. And that will never change."
No, no, it certainly never will.
And in the simplest way, our interconnectivity unwhined like a summer camp friendship bracelet through the heat of the tepid air. We are so very different.
I woke up early this morning. I hadn't slept if at all last night, worried, anxious, hesitant, about a job interview today. I'd been up late preparing, and couldn't settle in to sleep. I woke up to an alarm, followed moments later by a phone call from my grandma, "I need you to take me to the hospital."
In that second of pause, of finding my uji breath and trying to wake my sleepfilled eyes, two hours of talking to a firefighter beau came back. A fast forwarded tivo induced recollection of everything we'd talked of, of all ways we were the same, and different. My instantaneous response was of rescheduling the interview. Of jumping in clean clothes and getting to her home to take her.
When he calls me back, whenever, if ever that will be, and asks me of the interview - if he remembers, I don't think there's any part of him that would understand how I make the choices I do. As I don't understand the choices he makes. But in rushing to happiness, I seek acceptance that I never will understand him. And in spending any amount trying to do so, I waste time in seeing that my complexity lies in simpleness. Lies in choices. Lies in priorities. Lies in drawing in an uji breath and letting my muscles know that this life, like it drew us to one another, will draw me to someone who, in our indescribable connectivity, chooses me first, too.
In yoga, whether you're doing bikram or power, meditative or any other form, uji breath is the common link. The uji breath is so common, that it's at the core what yoga is. Through yoga, you learn how remarkably critical the breath is. That that breath can heat up your body, and cool it down, open muscles and close them right up again. That when life gives you nothing but woes, it's that breath in which you always return to. As regular as the timing of the sun. As powerful as a foreign military. As simple as a child's laughter.
Like grief, a quickness to acceptance is at the core of happiness. It's my reason for being happy more often than the average bear. It's all resilience is. I see acceptance there. Pass go, collect $100 dollars. Buy park place and breeze through collecting monopoly pieces. Win the game. Prize: acceptance. Now go be happy.
I told fireman what a fool he is. I told him that he should go out, and try to find someone as awesome as me. There's no way to say this seriously, so he laughed. "Just try," I said, "and find someone as awesome as me." Just like that I said it. Laughter.
I wasn't attempting to be funny. I was absolutely seriously. Though a diztiness about my personality makes it remarkably hard for anyone to take me seriously. But I was very serious. He never will realize it. He will never realize it not because there's anyone else. Or because he doesn't think he's not putting forth his best effort. I know at the root of my uji breath, his effort, unlike all other aspects of our connected life, is misaligned.
It was a two hour conversation with lots of time to talk about lord knows what. But tucked in there like an eight year old at bedtime, was the place of work. I said I'd struggled so to find purpose in a year that's brought a lot of unemployment. And how I'd learned through introspection and good friends, that my earthly purpose is supremely more important than just a job. As much as that man can talk, he didn't say anything. Until he did. "Rebecca I can't really agree with you. For me, my job is everything. It's first. It comes before anything else. After family. No, before family. They are my family. Everything else is second. And that will never change."
No, no, it certainly never will.
And in the simplest way, our interconnectivity unwhined like a summer camp friendship bracelet through the heat of the tepid air. We are so very different.
I woke up early this morning. I hadn't slept if at all last night, worried, anxious, hesitant, about a job interview today. I'd been up late preparing, and couldn't settle in to sleep. I woke up to an alarm, followed moments later by a phone call from my grandma, "I need you to take me to the hospital."
In that second of pause, of finding my uji breath and trying to wake my sleepfilled eyes, two hours of talking to a firefighter beau came back. A fast forwarded tivo induced recollection of everything we'd talked of, of all ways we were the same, and different. My instantaneous response was of rescheduling the interview. Of jumping in clean clothes and getting to her home to take her.
When he calls me back, whenever, if ever that will be, and asks me of the interview - if he remembers, I don't think there's any part of him that would understand how I make the choices I do. As I don't understand the choices he makes. But in rushing to happiness, I seek acceptance that I never will understand him. And in spending any amount trying to do so, I waste time in seeing that my complexity lies in simpleness. Lies in choices. Lies in priorities. Lies in drawing in an uji breath and letting my muscles know that this life, like it drew us to one another, will draw me to someone who, in our indescribable connectivity, chooses me first, too.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Dear Dodgers Stop Sucking
Comma.
You've had a September anyone would call a gift - finishing up the season playing the two worst teams in all of baseball. Aside from Capps and La Roche, the Pirates defense, and perhaps Adam Dunn, there's nothing complicated with winning the majority of these games. For a team with the best record in the national league, an almost shutout today, and the atrocity of yesterday - makes me livid. I won't anymore argue with those who say we won't make it through the first round of playoffs, because with you playing this way, they are right. You think you can beat the Cardinals or Phillies when you can't turn a simple double play from short? When the best closer gives up 4 runs in the home half of the 9th? When you commit little league errors at a demonic pace? No, you cannot.
I am a Jewish mother in training. I am a guilt giving, head shaking, stern looking giving, mother in training.
I have gone to your games when I've had no job at all and little disposable income. I've paid for your parking. I've bought your overpriced food. I have arrived in the 1st and stayed until close. I revolve my days around your schedule, checking the score in temple and other inappropriate occasions. I have returned from vacations early to be at your games. I sing the praises of the best team I've ever known, and why.
If I didn't think you'd like it, well I'd turn you all right around and give each and every one of you a spanking. It's September 28th. Stop sucking right this instant.
Respectfully,
Rebecca
You've had a September anyone would call a gift - finishing up the season playing the two worst teams in all of baseball. Aside from Capps and La Roche, the Pirates defense, and perhaps Adam Dunn, there's nothing complicated with winning the majority of these games. For a team with the best record in the national league, an almost shutout today, and the atrocity of yesterday - makes me livid. I won't anymore argue with those who say we won't make it through the first round of playoffs, because with you playing this way, they are right. You think you can beat the Cardinals or Phillies when you can't turn a simple double play from short? When the best closer gives up 4 runs in the home half of the 9th? When you commit little league errors at a demonic pace? No, you cannot.
I am a Jewish mother in training. I am a guilt giving, head shaking, stern looking giving, mother in training.
I have gone to your games when I've had no job at all and little disposable income. I've paid for your parking. I've bought your overpriced food. I have arrived in the 1st and stayed until close. I revolve my days around your schedule, checking the score in temple and other inappropriate occasions. I have returned from vacations early to be at your games. I sing the praises of the best team I've ever known, and why.
If I didn't think you'd like it, well I'd turn you all right around and give each and every one of you a spanking. It's September 28th. Stop sucking right this instant.
Respectfully,
Rebecca
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
August: Osage County
"Grandma, I can't find a job. There's virtually nothing out there."
"Well do you think anyone will want to hire you the way you look and sound right now? You've got bronchitis. You've had a fever of over 100 degrees for a week. You have bags under your eyes. And you look terrible."
"Hmm. I thought I was lookin' alright today."
"No. You look horrible. Take care of yourself now. See a doctor if you have to. Go to a clinic. Don't be proud. You'll get a job when the good lord is good and ready."
We all have different standards for what constitutes entertainment. Anything that's got solid writing is fine in my book. If someone who calls themselves a critic has something good to say about it, that helps. If it's got a kid left Home Alone or John Candy as an uncle making pancakes that can't fit inside the kitchen, well it's probably going to be the best movie ever. And it's got too much nagging, well I can get that in a car ride with my Grandma. I like entertainment that doesn't remind me of who I am and where I've been. I don't like reality, and I don't like arguing. In my movies, in my tv shows, or in my life.
I saw the Breakup, because people said alright things about it. My critical critique after seeing it: Those people are liars.
If I lived 100 more years, those are 100 years I'd be just fine doing without arguing. Doing it myself, or listening to others. There's nothing fun about it. Hence my rule.
I accepted tickets Sunday to the Ahmanson for one reason only: I love the Ahmanson. As a nine year old I saw the ballet at the music center just about once a month. I sat next to people drinking wine, and ate my pretzel. As a twenty nine year old, I like it just the same. The scrapers of downtown LA surround the theatres, which all surround three perfectly nice looking fountains. If I had a say in to whether I got married, and engaged, who it was, and where it all started, I'd ask the universe to make it happen there. I've romanticized that I'd stare across the shooting water, and a face in the crowd, would be the one, the one for me. We'd live happily ever after, and it's probably fairly certain this will never happen, but I decided it at nine with my pretzel, and I'm not about to let that little girl down.
I like to dress up, take the train there, sit near the orchestra, hurded with old women and new pashminas, little girls and party dresses, and be in this world, this romanticized world, acted out for me. I'd stop at intermission to replay what it was I enjoyed, and at lights dimming, head back for the second half. When it's all over I'd scurry out to make my train, peer at the fountains, sifting through every face in the crowd, and box up, like a present, my romanticized feelings for this place for next time.
The trouble is, I never went Sunday. I never took the train, or saw the play, looked through the crowd, or stood under the dimmed lights. I wanted to know in advance the play's subject and for that, I never went. It would have been three and a half hours or arguing, a family at odds with each other, doors slamming, marching up stairs to nowhere. So I read the summation, was able to provide "how I liked it," with details, to my mom, when she called to ask how it was the next day.
I don't enjoy lying, but I do enjoy seeing my mother is satisfied - and she was. In her mind, I went. And in mine, I did too. For romanticism is a place I visit only when I travel within. The man in the crowd I meet, and fall for, probably won't be at the music center. It most probably won't even be near fountains. He'll be far different than the bow covered boxed up fantasy that I've had twenty years and a pretzel to create. But he will be, a gift.
When I'm out in the world, and I see others, unappreciative of that love and arguing though they live on a stage in August Osage County, I think about that gift, and that boxed up dream, and wish for silence. Where I could lay among fountains, my head on his heaving chest, and ask for nothing more than just being. Being with the man who holds my heart.
Monday, September 21, 2009
My Coffee With Niles
If it's true that our bodies house a soul, which has journeyed through time and traveled through space, then I can't also believe we are all the same. I've met 3 year olds and 90 year olds, and through thorough comparison and inspection, I couldn't tell you who was older.
I spent my teenage era convinced there was an aging sweet tea drinking southern woman inside me. It never served as reason enough to allow me to stay home from geometry exams, but it made my parents fear for my mental health. They never really understood I was just trying to undermine their authority by proclaiming I thought I was older than them. Yet I always did feel older than I really was. And as long as my skin can fight the years of aging, I think no one, save my parents, and the two people who read this blog, will have to be the wiser.
All of this being so, I still have a need for the modern. A new cell phone as often as a mobile servicer allows. A knowledge of the news at its breaking. A politico following. I'm an interested 2009er. But I also adore times of past. Whether it be due to the still to be proven old southern woman inside my 5'6 blonde frame.
I craved a rotary phone at one time, and as I asked, heaven and a local thrift store delivered. It wasn't the candy pink or yellow I had in childhood mental scrapbooks of a wall mounted phone I rushed to answer at Grandma and Grandpas. It was black. And it's price probably 200 times that of it's original sell for amount. But it had been as I desired and as mine it would become.
It would be more of a shabby chic decorative piece, with little otherwise value. Though I hooked it up in case.
Having had issue with my mobile device, I called the company for repair. Knowing troubleshooting is possible only by calling on a phone other than the problemed one, I used the rotary.
Interesting thing about rotaries. Aside from the 4 American businesses who plan for those who call from rotaries, no one else is enabled. Unable to "key" in my selections, the automated voice on the other end growing more frustrated with my lack of response, disconnected. If it hadn't been automated, I'd imagine her saying something like "get a real phone, idiot."
I called back on my mobile.
"You know you really have to call on a landline-"
"Yes I know. Long story, long.....
...so if you could call me on my rotary phone, I think then we could troubleshoot my cell phone."
"Ok calling now, mam'"
"Oh I forget to add, sir, my rotary phone doesn't ring. So tell me when you're calling, and then I will just pick it up."
I'm typically late to the party. And it's not my first time at the rodeo. I was born on a Tuesday, just not last Tuesday. But my life, resembles that of a circus, at a more curious inspection. Between a cell phone born in 2009, and a rotary phone born in 1950, both can dial out, but only one can key in selections, and neither can perform any other functions of a typical telephone.
I think through the next 30 minutes he was in many way pleased that I wasn't as ill minded as I had originally given off the perception. My mobile was repaired, and my rotary shall, in the way it was bought, be fancied mostly for decorative glances. I have at least one phone that can make, and receive, telephone calls, text messages, and with satellite's assistance, perhaps some data services.
While I juggled the rotary phone cord, and the cell phone, a laptop on my knee, and eyed the time I needed to jump in my car and be off, I thought of my favorite Frasier episode. Frasier and Niles are sitting at the coffee shop, having just ordered their most specific coffee orders, and sending them back repeatedly for fixing. Niles asks Frasier if he's happy. Philosophers and psychologists and other people who have opinions have held that once you ask this question, you aren't. Something, I reason, like stopping to take a photograph, and removing yourself from a moment. But I stray. Frasier and Niles, at the coffee shop, the entire episode revolving around Frasier, and his answer. Moments before the twenty-two minute end of the sitcom, Frasier, finally getting his coffee order right, says, that he is.
I left my friend at the phone company, after repairing the cell, and jetted to Rosh Hashanah evening services. I read hebrew, and sang with the choir. I asked that everyone I love be remembered for another year. I heard a sermon, and listened to a cantor. And when all was done I retreated to our family home. To finish off our dinner, and for me the dessert. I sat with my family. It didn't need to be 2009. It could have 1950. Or the dawn of creation. I wouldn't have needed a cell phone. I wouldn't have needed a rotary phone. Just people who I love, and people who love me back so that I could tell Niles, what took Fraiser twenty two minutes and the perfect cup of coffee to get to.
I'm happy.
I spent my teenage era convinced there was an aging sweet tea drinking southern woman inside me. It never served as reason enough to allow me to stay home from geometry exams, but it made my parents fear for my mental health. They never really understood I was just trying to undermine their authority by proclaiming I thought I was older than them. Yet I always did feel older than I really was. And as long as my skin can fight the years of aging, I think no one, save my parents, and the two people who read this blog, will have to be the wiser.
All of this being so, I still have a need for the modern. A new cell phone as often as a mobile servicer allows. A knowledge of the news at its breaking. A politico following. I'm an interested 2009er. But I also adore times of past. Whether it be due to the still to be proven old southern woman inside my 5'6 blonde frame.
I craved a rotary phone at one time, and as I asked, heaven and a local thrift store delivered. It wasn't the candy pink or yellow I had in childhood mental scrapbooks of a wall mounted phone I rushed to answer at Grandma and Grandpas. It was black. And it's price probably 200 times that of it's original sell for amount. But it had been as I desired and as mine it would become.
It would be more of a shabby chic decorative piece, with little otherwise value. Though I hooked it up in case.
Having had issue with my mobile device, I called the company for repair. Knowing troubleshooting is possible only by calling on a phone other than the problemed one, I used the rotary.
Interesting thing about rotaries. Aside from the 4 American businesses who plan for those who call from rotaries, no one else is enabled. Unable to "key" in my selections, the automated voice on the other end growing more frustrated with my lack of response, disconnected. If it hadn't been automated, I'd imagine her saying something like "get a real phone, idiot."
I called back on my mobile.
"You know you really have to call on a landline-"
"Yes I know. Long story, long.....
...so if you could call me on my rotary phone, I think then we could troubleshoot my cell phone."
"Ok calling now, mam'"
"Oh I forget to add, sir, my rotary phone doesn't ring. So tell me when you're calling, and then I will just pick it up."
I'm typically late to the party. And it's not my first time at the rodeo. I was born on a Tuesday, just not last Tuesday. But my life, resembles that of a circus, at a more curious inspection. Between a cell phone born in 2009, and a rotary phone born in 1950, both can dial out, but only one can key in selections, and neither can perform any other functions of a typical telephone.
I think through the next 30 minutes he was in many way pleased that I wasn't as ill minded as I had originally given off the perception. My mobile was repaired, and my rotary shall, in the way it was bought, be fancied mostly for decorative glances. I have at least one phone that can make, and receive, telephone calls, text messages, and with satellite's assistance, perhaps some data services.
While I juggled the rotary phone cord, and the cell phone, a laptop on my knee, and eyed the time I needed to jump in my car and be off, I thought of my favorite Frasier episode. Frasier and Niles are sitting at the coffee shop, having just ordered their most specific coffee orders, and sending them back repeatedly for fixing. Niles asks Frasier if he's happy. Philosophers and psychologists and other people who have opinions have held that once you ask this question, you aren't. Something, I reason, like stopping to take a photograph, and removing yourself from a moment. But I stray. Frasier and Niles, at the coffee shop, the entire episode revolving around Frasier, and his answer. Moments before the twenty-two minute end of the sitcom, Frasier, finally getting his coffee order right, says, that he is.
I left my friend at the phone company, after repairing the cell, and jetted to Rosh Hashanah evening services. I read hebrew, and sang with the choir. I asked that everyone I love be remembered for another year. I heard a sermon, and listened to a cantor. And when all was done I retreated to our family home. To finish off our dinner, and for me the dessert. I sat with my family. It didn't need to be 2009. It could have 1950. Or the dawn of creation. I wouldn't have needed a cell phone. I wouldn't have needed a rotary phone. Just people who I love, and people who love me back so that I could tell Niles, what took Fraiser twenty two minutes and the perfect cup of coffee to get to.
I'm happy.
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