For the passing of another great Texas woman.
Molly Ivins, thank you.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Underground Railroad Slept Here
In doing more research on my local history book, I came across a second reference to the Underground Railroad in this particular town. The first refernce that I encountered was on a tour given by a respected researcher at the museum where I used to work. He claimed that one of the museum's houses had a small cubbord that was "probably" used to hide fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. This second reference was in a book, written in the 1970s, saying that the basement in a house on the opposite side of the river from the museum was used to help slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. I have a huge problem with these sorts of claims because they rest upon what people would like to believe about their past rather than what has been documented about the past.*
Each region has a melodramatic but heroic story that it likes to tell about itself, particularly in regard to race. For instance, growing up in the south, I was always told that the Civil War was fought by patriotic citizens defending their rights, Yankees were all rude damnyankees, and slaves were all happy. Maybe in another part of the region, another state, another county, or another plantation slaves were treated poorly, but not Here. As a friend of mine put it, "To hear my grandmother talk, Africans were running to the ships, building their own boats, swimming even, just to come over to South Carolina and be slaves on her ancestor's plantation because the slaves there were treated so well." My own grandmother prefers another argument. "Clio," she says, "You don't have to feel guilty about slavery. Your ancestors didn't own slaves."
When I first moved north, I learned that those "happy slaves" were all running away in droves with the help of the universally embraced abolitionists because everywhere seemed to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. Toward the mid-west, every town seemed to have been a childhood home of Abraham Lincoln and a stop on the Underground Railroad. Over toward the east, every town had been a First, visited by George Washington, and a stop on the Underground Railroad.
I was interested in these sites because, after many years of studying pro-slavery ideology and the conditions of slaves, I found information about active efforts to help individuals leave slavery rather refreshing. At the same time, being the scholar, I wondered at the seeming vast numbers of Underground Railroad sites that I kept encountering between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. Really, if every single town north of the Mason-Dixon line and the Ohio River was a stop on the Underground Railroad, if the northern states had that much traffic in fugitives, the southern states would have been emptied of their black populations by 1861. At that time, when I first encountered these sites, I knew only a little about the Underground Railroad. Serious scholarly study was just experiencing a revival on the subject, partly due to such common claims and to such reactions as my own.
Now, having studied several fugitives and the activity and ideas surrounding the opposition to slavery, I still wonder at the prevalence of these claims. Like the two alleged sites in the town I am writing about, most rest on the existence of a small closet, or a "hidden" room, or a "tunnel," or some other architectural feature that is more than easily explained as nineteenth century storage or post-Civil War construction. In one instance, at a documented Underground Railroad site, a small cubbord in one of the upstairs rooms was for many years explained as being the place where the slaves hid. This was quickly disproved when an enthusiastic tour guide asked a six-year-old on a tour to demonstrate by climbing in. The six-year old did not fit. In fact, most documents about the Underground Railroad do not describe hidey-holes like this. They describe the fugitives as either hiding in outbuildings, like barns or warehouses, or being passed off as a free black person.
What has happened at some level in these cases, I think, is that stories of the Underground Railroad were conflated with stories coming out of the Holocaust, such as those of Anne Frank or of "The Hiding Place." The same elements exist in both types of stories, and both are most commonly told through children's literature or historical sites. The white or gentile sympathizer smuggles the endangered fugitive or Jew into this tiny hiding place, thereby thwarting the slavecatcher or Nazi pursuers. Additionally, as the years pass, more communities and individuals claim sympathy with the oppressed characters than could have possibly existed at the time.
This is, at the moment, just an impressionistic hypothesis; but I think it probably bears investigating. When and where did these hiding place myths develop and proliferate? Is there actually a correlation between the Holocaust stories and the Underground Railroad stories? Most importantly, why do people insist on believing the more mythologized version rather than the more accurate version?
Each region has a melodramatic but heroic story that it likes to tell about itself, particularly in regard to race. For instance, growing up in the south, I was always told that the Civil War was fought by patriotic citizens defending their rights, Yankees were all rude damnyankees, and slaves were all happy. Maybe in another part of the region, another state, another county, or another plantation slaves were treated poorly, but not Here. As a friend of mine put it, "To hear my grandmother talk, Africans were running to the ships, building their own boats, swimming even, just to come over to South Carolina and be slaves on her ancestor's plantation because the slaves there were treated so well." My own grandmother prefers another argument. "Clio," she says, "You don't have to feel guilty about slavery. Your ancestors didn't own slaves."
When I first moved north, I learned that those "happy slaves" were all running away in droves with the help of the universally embraced abolitionists because everywhere seemed to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. Toward the mid-west, every town seemed to have been a childhood home of Abraham Lincoln and a stop on the Underground Railroad. Over toward the east, every town had been a First, visited by George Washington, and a stop on the Underground Railroad.
I was interested in these sites because, after many years of studying pro-slavery ideology and the conditions of slaves, I found information about active efforts to help individuals leave slavery rather refreshing. At the same time, being the scholar, I wondered at the seeming vast numbers of Underground Railroad sites that I kept encountering between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. Really, if every single town north of the Mason-Dixon line and the Ohio River was a stop on the Underground Railroad, if the northern states had that much traffic in fugitives, the southern states would have been emptied of their black populations by 1861. At that time, when I first encountered these sites, I knew only a little about the Underground Railroad. Serious scholarly study was just experiencing a revival on the subject, partly due to such common claims and to such reactions as my own.
Now, having studied several fugitives and the activity and ideas surrounding the opposition to slavery, I still wonder at the prevalence of these claims. Like the two alleged sites in the town I am writing about, most rest on the existence of a small closet, or a "hidden" room, or a "tunnel," or some other architectural feature that is more than easily explained as nineteenth century storage or post-Civil War construction. In one instance, at a documented Underground Railroad site, a small cubbord in one of the upstairs rooms was for many years explained as being the place where the slaves hid. This was quickly disproved when an enthusiastic tour guide asked a six-year-old on a tour to demonstrate by climbing in. The six-year old did not fit. In fact, most documents about the Underground Railroad do not describe hidey-holes like this. They describe the fugitives as either hiding in outbuildings, like barns or warehouses, or being passed off as a free black person.
What has happened at some level in these cases, I think, is that stories of the Underground Railroad were conflated with stories coming out of the Holocaust, such as those of Anne Frank or of "The Hiding Place." The same elements exist in both types of stories, and both are most commonly told through children's literature or historical sites. The white or gentile sympathizer smuggles the endangered fugitive or Jew into this tiny hiding place, thereby thwarting the slavecatcher or Nazi pursuers. Additionally, as the years pass, more communities and individuals claim sympathy with the oppressed characters than could have possibly existed at the time.
This is, at the moment, just an impressionistic hypothesis; but I think it probably bears investigating. When and where did these hiding place myths develop and proliferate? Is there actually a correlation between the Holocaust stories and the Underground Railroad stories? Most importantly, why do people insist on believing the more mythologized version rather than the more accurate version?
Harping Weekly: More Pitfalls from the Land of Local History and Myth
Today I thought I had a wonderful addition to my local history book. The town that I'm writing on was a center for shipbuilding in the middle of the nineteenth century. The business peaked during the Civil War; but, just after the war, one of the bigger yards received a sub-contract to build gunboats for the Spanish government. At that time, Spain still held colonies throughout the western hemisphere, one being Cuba.
Cubans rebelled against the Spanish government fairly consistently between 1868 and 1898, when the Americans stepped in. Meanwhile, in 1868, the Spanish government required a larger navy to suppress the rebellion and contracted a large shipbuilding firm in New York City to build ships and gunboats. That firm hired other smaller firms to do some of the actual building, including that one in this town.
Meanwhile, the Peruvians became worried that Spain would attempt to invade them, so they turned to the U.S. government to protest American participation in building up the Spanish military. I'm not particularly well versed in Latin American history or U.S. foreign relations, so I'm still researching some of the specifics of the allegations and demands and so forth.
In any case, the U.S. government ordered a halt to the construction of these boats; and, in doing so, sent its own gunboats to the mouth of the river on which the town is located to prevent the boats from shipping to New York where they would be received by the Spanish. According to all the local histories of this town that mention this incident, the story appeared on the front page of Harper's Weekly and Leslie's Illustrated, two nineteenth century news magazines.
Fabulous! I thought. I can get the newspapers, get contemporary accounts, get good quotes, and get a great illustration for the book. Readers will think, "Wow! The town was really that important back then!" Everyone will be happy.
Unfortunately, I had a difficult time getting Harper's Weekly back there, having very limited access at best to a library that would supply the journal, even in microfilm. Well, now, here, in the middle of nowhere, I not only have access to a library that can supply the journal, but can supply it, on its own shelve, in its original form. Oh, the joy of finding real, actual, brown and crumbling newspapers from the nineteenth century sitting on the shelves mere feet away from my office! I literally did a little Snoopy dance.
Of course, this story could not have a happy ending. I found the 1868 volume. I found the October 16th issue. I found not the "front page" story. The front page story was an extended obituary of a priest. Inside the volume, the stories relating to Spain and Cuba only mentioned the gunboats in a sentence. None mentioned the town. Illustrations? Not of a boat from this town. I scanned the entire month of October. All issues yielded the same results, or lack thereof.
I will go through the entire volume of 1868, January to December. I will peek into the late months of 1867 and the early months of 1869. I will look more into the event in government documents. I will check my sources for the source yet again, just to make sure the mistake was not in my own note-taking. I once said that the local historians of this town were excellent researchers. That still holds true in most cases; but I keep coming up against these re-told or inflated stories with dubious if any citations, and my work gets more and more frustrating.
I fear that running up against local myths and either disproving or re-writing them is dangerous business if my market is local. I want to write a good book that people will enjoy; but I want it to be verifiable and accurate, not a promotional product. In attempting to do both, I wonder if my work will alienate or disappoint the local institutions that sell such books as my own. They can say, "She isn't right on that story at all. My grandmother said it happened this way. That book is no good." Moreover, one of the sources for this information on the gunboats was a very respected and prominent historian (one who has a huge chip on his shoulder and who is unbelievably paranoid, but that is another story). Unfortunately, his opinion can get a book in a store or ensure that it does not get ordered.
Then, again, I myself may just be unbelievably paranoid, as well.
Cubans rebelled against the Spanish government fairly consistently between 1868 and 1898, when the Americans stepped in. Meanwhile, in 1868, the Spanish government required a larger navy to suppress the rebellion and contracted a large shipbuilding firm in New York City to build ships and gunboats. That firm hired other smaller firms to do some of the actual building, including that one in this town.
Meanwhile, the Peruvians became worried that Spain would attempt to invade them, so they turned to the U.S. government to protest American participation in building up the Spanish military. I'm not particularly well versed in Latin American history or U.S. foreign relations, so I'm still researching some of the specifics of the allegations and demands and so forth.
In any case, the U.S. government ordered a halt to the construction of these boats; and, in doing so, sent its own gunboats to the mouth of the river on which the town is located to prevent the boats from shipping to New York where they would be received by the Spanish. According to all the local histories of this town that mention this incident, the story appeared on the front page of Harper's Weekly and Leslie's Illustrated, two nineteenth century news magazines.
Fabulous! I thought. I can get the newspapers, get contemporary accounts, get good quotes, and get a great illustration for the book. Readers will think, "Wow! The town was really that important back then!" Everyone will be happy.
Unfortunately, I had a difficult time getting Harper's Weekly back there, having very limited access at best to a library that would supply the journal, even in microfilm. Well, now, here, in the middle of nowhere, I not only have access to a library that can supply the journal, but can supply it, on its own shelve, in its original form. Oh, the joy of finding real, actual, brown and crumbling newspapers from the nineteenth century sitting on the shelves mere feet away from my office! I literally did a little Snoopy dance.
Of course, this story could not have a happy ending. I found the 1868 volume. I found the October 16th issue. I found not the "front page" story. The front page story was an extended obituary of a priest. Inside the volume, the stories relating to Spain and Cuba only mentioned the gunboats in a sentence. None mentioned the town. Illustrations? Not of a boat from this town. I scanned the entire month of October. All issues yielded the same results, or lack thereof.
I will go through the entire volume of 1868, January to December. I will peek into the late months of 1867 and the early months of 1869. I will look more into the event in government documents. I will check my sources for the source yet again, just to make sure the mistake was not in my own note-taking. I once said that the local historians of this town were excellent researchers. That still holds true in most cases; but I keep coming up against these re-told or inflated stories with dubious if any citations, and my work gets more and more frustrating.
I fear that running up against local myths and either disproving or re-writing them is dangerous business if my market is local. I want to write a good book that people will enjoy; but I want it to be verifiable and accurate, not a promotional product. In attempting to do both, I wonder if my work will alienate or disappoint the local institutions that sell such books as my own. They can say, "She isn't right on that story at all. My grandmother said it happened this way. That book is no good." Moreover, one of the sources for this information on the gunboats was a very respected and prominent historian (one who has a huge chip on his shoulder and who is unbelievably paranoid, but that is another story). Unfortunately, his opinion can get a book in a store or ensure that it does not get ordered.
Then, again, I myself may just be unbelievably paranoid, as well.
All In My Head
The second most stupid medical condition in the world must be migraine headaches. Four days of unending, unexplained*, un-curable pain that makes you think that the ancient Romans were on to something when they drilled holes in people's heads to let the demons get out.
The first and most stupid medical condition in the world is depression. Your brain does not make or retake or otherwise process your serotonin, turning any thought that enters your head into something sad. No, tragic. King Lear tragic. There is no explanation for why the brain cannot deal with the serotonin properly either.
I speak from experience: It's stupid.
*Actually, the pain itself is explained as a cycle of dilating blood vessels and irritated nervous tissue in the brain. Vessels dilate, nerves get irritated. Nerves get irritated, vessels dilate. What is not explained is why the cycle begins.
The first and most stupid medical condition in the world is depression. Your brain does not make or retake or otherwise process your serotonin, turning any thought that enters your head into something sad. No, tragic. King Lear tragic. There is no explanation for why the brain cannot deal with the serotonin properly either.
I speak from experience: It's stupid.
(This book, however, is not: All In My Head, by Paula Kamen.)
*Actually, the pain itself is explained as a cycle of dilating blood vessels and irritated nervous tissue in the brain. Vessels dilate, nerves get irritated. Nerves get irritated, vessels dilate. What is not explained is why the cycle begins.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Can't Buy Me Love
I keep thinking about that little incident with the pissed-off girlfriend that I wrote about in my last post (what can I say, my day was boring, and it was probably the most colorful episode of my life last year). In reviewing the whole episode in the days after, I moved through several stages. The first was a sense of betrayal that he had acted the fool and humiliation that I had let myself get into that situation. The second stage was laughter. I mean, why not? How often does a mousy, little, bookish sort who is sometimes mistaken for a lesbian, like myself, get threatened with an ass-kicking over a dude?
Later, however, I started to realize that maybe, in walking up to them at that festival, I had walked into a situation that I could not yet comprehend in regard to class. You see, they were both clearly working class. I was not. This, I think, colored the confrontation in ways that none of us understood.
Whereas I was, at the time, severely underemployed and very poor, my education and accomplishments meant that the situation was temporary for me. Given the right opportunity, I would soon be on my way back into the economic middle class in which I would not have to borrow money to buy groceries, or live from paycheck to paycheck just paying the bills, or letting my health slide because I couldn't pay the doctor or the pharmacist. Indeed, as I walked away from her that night, I thought, "I have a PhD. I wrote a book. I'm better than this bullshit."
My excessive education also puts me in a professional and educational class in which I question pretty much anything that comes my way. For instance, I seriously doubt either of them ever sat around to think about the class implications of that night, (I seriously doubt that either of them even remember that night, but, again, the intellectual class tends to be a bit more self-aware, -analyzing, and -absorbed than most others) while I'm here writing a blog post about it from my office at a university (don't tell).
Because of this, I also think quite a bit about feminism, or my position as a woman in the world. I think about sexism and patriarchy and how these concepts -- these realities -- affect my interactions with other people. Because of this, as well as my economic status, and as well as my own personal inclinations, I value my ability to be self-sufficient, to have "a room of one's own and a little bit of money." Because of that "little bit of money," I can live alone. I can travel alone. I can make major decisions about my life such as getting another degree, or moving to another part of the country. I have access to birth control of all sorts so I can determine if I do or don't have children and I can define the types of romantic and sexual relationships that I have. These things are luxuries of my economic class and I have availed myself of them with glee.
Meanwhile, the two of them -- and I am actually thinking a bit more about her, since she was the one who seemed the most threatened -- are of the working class. I knew a lot of people like them up there, too. They live from paycheck to paycheck just paying the bills, even those with basic college educations. They have to borrow money for groceries. They let their health slide because they cannot afford the doctor or the pharmacist, even with health insurance. They do not have good access to birth control. Nor did they have the education or accomplishments, nor the finances to pursue the education, to make the situation temporary. What was for me a minor setback in the long-range scope of my career and life was life as it is, was, and will be for them, and for quite a number of people, especially in that region.
When you are poor, your independence is compromised because independence has a price. I could and can live alone because I could afford to pay the rent on an apartment by myself, although I had to rely on other people there toward the end. Most of the people that I knew up there could not afford to live alone. The guy, in fact, tried to persuade me to be his "roommate" because "two can live cheaper than one." He wasn't just trying to get laid on that one, either (I don't think). When I left, he was trying to find someone else to live with him. Couples would continue to cohabitate even after they broke up because they could not afford to live apart, or stay married because they couldn't afford to get divorced on top of living apart. So, romantic relationships had a very prominent economic component.
To me, the guy was just a fun dude to hang out with. To her, he was a catch. He was her age, he was single, he had no kids, he had a job with benefits, he was a minor star in circles that she considered cool, and he worked at a place that people up there considered cool. Sure, he was inordinately immature, but she took that as a given with men. Sure, he ran from serious commitment, but she also took that as a given with men. She did not consider things could be otherwise because, in that environment and that economy, you need a partner with a job to get by. In needing a partner, you tend to overlook some serious character flaws.
In that confrontation at the festival, this girlfriend saw me as a threat not just to her romantic relationship, but also to her economic well-being.In that environment, you don't get angry with the partner for threatening the situation, you get mad at whatever is outside of the situation that might be the catalyst for the threat. Meanwhile, you keep your own eyes open for someone better.
Or maybe I'm just making a long, overly intellectualized and condescending excuse for some rude behavior.
Later, however, I started to realize that maybe, in walking up to them at that festival, I had walked into a situation that I could not yet comprehend in regard to class. You see, they were both clearly working class. I was not. This, I think, colored the confrontation in ways that none of us understood.
Whereas I was, at the time, severely underemployed and very poor, my education and accomplishments meant that the situation was temporary for me. Given the right opportunity, I would soon be on my way back into the economic middle class in which I would not have to borrow money to buy groceries, or live from paycheck to paycheck just paying the bills, or letting my health slide because I couldn't pay the doctor or the pharmacist. Indeed, as I walked away from her that night, I thought, "I have a PhD. I wrote a book. I'm better than this bullshit."
My excessive education also puts me in a professional and educational class in which I question pretty much anything that comes my way. For instance, I seriously doubt either of them ever sat around to think about the class implications of that night, (I seriously doubt that either of them even remember that night, but, again, the intellectual class tends to be a bit more self-aware, -analyzing, and -absorbed than most others) while I'm here writing a blog post about it from my office at a university (don't tell).
Because of this, I also think quite a bit about feminism, or my position as a woman in the world. I think about sexism and patriarchy and how these concepts -- these realities -- affect my interactions with other people. Because of this, as well as my economic status, and as well as my own personal inclinations, I value my ability to be self-sufficient, to have "a room of one's own and a little bit of money." Because of that "little bit of money," I can live alone. I can travel alone. I can make major decisions about my life such as getting another degree, or moving to another part of the country. I have access to birth control of all sorts so I can determine if I do or don't have children and I can define the types of romantic and sexual relationships that I have. These things are luxuries of my economic class and I have availed myself of them with glee.
Meanwhile, the two of them -- and I am actually thinking a bit more about her, since she was the one who seemed the most threatened -- are of the working class. I knew a lot of people like them up there, too. They live from paycheck to paycheck just paying the bills, even those with basic college educations. They have to borrow money for groceries. They let their health slide because they cannot afford the doctor or the pharmacist, even with health insurance. They do not have good access to birth control. Nor did they have the education or accomplishments, nor the finances to pursue the education, to make the situation temporary. What was for me a minor setback in the long-range scope of my career and life was life as it is, was, and will be for them, and for quite a number of people, especially in that region.
When you are poor, your independence is compromised because independence has a price. I could and can live alone because I could afford to pay the rent on an apartment by myself, although I had to rely on other people there toward the end. Most of the people that I knew up there could not afford to live alone. The guy, in fact, tried to persuade me to be his "roommate" because "two can live cheaper than one." He wasn't just trying to get laid on that one, either (I don't think). When I left, he was trying to find someone else to live with him. Couples would continue to cohabitate even after they broke up because they could not afford to live apart, or stay married because they couldn't afford to get divorced on top of living apart. So, romantic relationships had a very prominent economic component.
To me, the guy was just a fun dude to hang out with. To her, he was a catch. He was her age, he was single, he had no kids, he had a job with benefits, he was a minor star in circles that she considered cool, and he worked at a place that people up there considered cool. Sure, he was inordinately immature, but she took that as a given with men. Sure, he ran from serious commitment, but she also took that as a given with men. She did not consider things could be otherwise because, in that environment and that economy, you need a partner with a job to get by. In needing a partner, you tend to overlook some serious character flaws.
In that confrontation at the festival, this girlfriend saw me as a threat not just to her romantic relationship, but also to her economic well-being.In that environment, you don't get angry with the partner for threatening the situation, you get mad at whatever is outside of the situation that might be the catalyst for the threat. Meanwhile, you keep your own eyes open for someone better.
Or maybe I'm just making a long, overly intellectualized and condescending excuse for some rude behavior.
'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy
Some days, I got nothing. Still, I feel that I must write, especially if I'm not writing what I'm supposed to be writing, just for the sake of keeping in practice. I can rationalize procrastination very well. This is one of those practice musings.
One of the radio stations out here in the middle of nowhere is a classic Classic Rock station. I love these stations. They were the only thing that got me through high school, and they were all classic rock back then, too, they just played fewer songs written while I was actually still in high school.
Last night they played, “Reelin’ in the Years." I actually remember when that song was popular, before it was classic rock. I thought the words went, “Are you reelin’ in the east, blowin’ away the dimes.” “Reelin’ in the east,” and “blowin’ away the dimes” had some oblique reference to the mint or to the Virginia reel, I figured. Then, of course, he asks, "Have you had enough of mine?" So I also figured that the person he was singing to might have stolen his money and ran east. Something like that. Anyway, I thought this until I actually bought Steely Dan’s greatest hits many a decade later and could hear the words on a much better sound system than my car's radio.
For many years, I also thought that Van Morrison was singing about a girl who made him “write check” in “Crazy Love.” Why not? She so enamored him that he would just write check after check, buying her anything she wanted. This seemed a tad misogynist, but I tried not to think too hard about that element of classic rock lest I lose all enjoyment in music. Turns out, she made him "righteous."
Another lyric that I misheard was, “Some guys were born to ramble, some guys breathe bubble air,” which I took to be a juxtaposition of people who were free to wander with people who, like the boy in the bubble (who appeared in another song by another writer), were trapped in one place. Who the hell were Rimbaud and Baudelaire? my seventeen year old self asked, when she found the lyrics written on the album sleeve. They never put lyrics on the cassette in those days.
Actually, I almost passed that lyric off as my own to someone last year. Trying to impress me, this guy showed me his collected works of Rimbaud. “Oh,” I teases. “So, some guys were born to Rimbaud, some guys breathe Baudelaire, some guys just have to go and put their rockets everywhere.” I tried not to actually sing the song. He bought it. “Wow,” he said, “that’s beautiful. Did you write it?”
Granted, the dude was trying to get laid. I could have recited Dr. Seuss, or Snoop Doggy Dog, or the phone book, really, and he would have acted impressed if he thought the flattery would get me into his bed. I, on the other hand, felt a tad guilty to be plaigairising. I also felt my ability to keep a straight face weakening. So, I confessed: “Driving With Your Eyes Closed,” by Don Henley. Building the Perfect Beast. 1984. “Oh,” he said. “I always thought Don Henley was a hack.”
That right there assured that he would never ever ever get into bed with me.
His Henley-hate put me off in a big way, along with one or two other loser qualities, and it was a good thing, too. About a month later, I found out that he had a girlfriend. A big, ole, mean girlfriend. For three years (which overlapped with another of his girlfriends by about a year and a half, if his stories are straight, and they probably aren’t). I learned of the girlfriend when I ran into them at an outdoor festival.
"Hey," I said, when I saw them. "How's it going?" He turned and ran off, leaving us both there, without introducing us.
Bending over and putting her face an inch from mine, she explained the situation. According to her, the guy had been telling her, his girlfriend, that I was either actually fucking him, thereby luring him away from the deep and obvious bliss of their perfect relationship, or that I was refusing to fuck him, thereby being a bitch by toying with him. She was a bit unclear on which. I think it was both. She was not receptive to other versions. Whichever story she preferred at any given moment, however, she was defintely going kick my ass over it. She had a good foot on me, and maybe thirty pounds. She could have done it.
At which point I started to look for the t.v. cameras because, really, do people actually behave this way in public without the promise of fame? The guy was, by this time, hiding behind a pole. Hiding. Behind a pole. This was worse than Jerry Springer. This was high school. Except, I never got into confrontations like this in high school. How the hell did I end up in this one, now? It seemed so pointless, so ridiculous, so undignified.
So, I turned my pretty head and walked away (no misheard lyrics in that one) because what else can you do? Sometimes you like to listen to the music from high school. Sometimes, you meet people who are still there.
One of the radio stations out here in the middle of nowhere is a classic Classic Rock station. I love these stations. They were the only thing that got me through high school, and they were all classic rock back then, too, they just played fewer songs written while I was actually still in high school.
Last night they played, “Reelin’ in the Years." I actually remember when that song was popular, before it was classic rock. I thought the words went, “Are you reelin’ in the east, blowin’ away the dimes.” “Reelin’ in the east,” and “blowin’ away the dimes” had some oblique reference to the mint or to the Virginia reel, I figured. Then, of course, he asks, "Have you had enough of mine?" So I also figured that the person he was singing to might have stolen his money and ran east. Something like that. Anyway, I thought this until I actually bought Steely Dan’s greatest hits many a decade later and could hear the words on a much better sound system than my car's radio.
For many years, I also thought that Van Morrison was singing about a girl who made him “write check” in “Crazy Love.” Why not? She so enamored him that he would just write check after check, buying her anything she wanted. This seemed a tad misogynist, but I tried not to think too hard about that element of classic rock lest I lose all enjoyment in music. Turns out, she made him "righteous."
Another lyric that I misheard was, “Some guys were born to ramble, some guys breathe bubble air,” which I took to be a juxtaposition of people who were free to wander with people who, like the boy in the bubble (who appeared in another song by another writer), were trapped in one place. Who the hell were Rimbaud and Baudelaire? my seventeen year old self asked, when she found the lyrics written on the album sleeve. They never put lyrics on the cassette in those days.
Actually, I almost passed that lyric off as my own to someone last year. Trying to impress me, this guy showed me his collected works of Rimbaud. “Oh,” I teases. “So, some guys were born to Rimbaud, some guys breathe Baudelaire, some guys just have to go and put their rockets everywhere.” I tried not to actually sing the song. He bought it. “Wow,” he said, “that’s beautiful. Did you write it?”
Granted, the dude was trying to get laid. I could have recited Dr. Seuss, or Snoop Doggy Dog, or the phone book, really, and he would have acted impressed if he thought the flattery would get me into his bed. I, on the other hand, felt a tad guilty to be plaigairising. I also felt my ability to keep a straight face weakening. So, I confessed: “Driving With Your Eyes Closed,” by Don Henley. Building the Perfect Beast. 1984. “Oh,” he said. “I always thought Don Henley was a hack.”
That right there assured that he would never ever ever get into bed with me.
His Henley-hate put me off in a big way, along with one or two other loser qualities, and it was a good thing, too. About a month later, I found out that he had a girlfriend. A big, ole, mean girlfriend. For three years (which overlapped with another of his girlfriends by about a year and a half, if his stories are straight, and they probably aren’t). I learned of the girlfriend when I ran into them at an outdoor festival.
"Hey," I said, when I saw them. "How's it going?" He turned and ran off, leaving us both there, without introducing us.
Bending over and putting her face an inch from mine, she explained the situation. According to her, the guy had been telling her, his girlfriend, that I was either actually fucking him, thereby luring him away from the deep and obvious bliss of their perfect relationship, or that I was refusing to fuck him, thereby being a bitch by toying with him. She was a bit unclear on which. I think it was both. She was not receptive to other versions. Whichever story she preferred at any given moment, however, she was defintely going kick my ass over it. She had a good foot on me, and maybe thirty pounds. She could have done it.
At which point I started to look for the t.v. cameras because, really, do people actually behave this way in public without the promise of fame? The guy was, by this time, hiding behind a pole. Hiding. Behind a pole. This was worse than Jerry Springer. This was high school. Except, I never got into confrontations like this in high school. How the hell did I end up in this one, now? It seemed so pointless, so ridiculous, so undignified.
So, I turned my pretty head and walked away (no misheard lyrics in that one) because what else can you do? Sometimes you like to listen to the music from high school. Sometimes, you meet people who are still there.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Ah, that Evil Fiction!
She copped out on me! At some point in the middle of the book, I had the brief thought, "wouldn't it be funny if the bad guy turned out to have multiple personalities?" Then, I thought, "naah, she would never do something so trite. She's too good for that." Apparently not. The meditation on evil and biology just dropped right out of the story about ten or twenty pages from the end. One bad guy tried to escape and the other turned out to have multiple personalities as the result of child abuse. The "monster" who tortured, murdered, and mutilated numerous women, including some children, was turned into a monster by another monster. Then, Lucy's tumor ended up benign, and all of the psychological and neurological investigations just disappeared. I suppose that is the nature of genre fiction, that ideas are a bonus and secondary to action. Perhaps she will continue with the ideas in the next installment, in which I am sure Scarpetta will pursue the child abuser and provide some motivation for the incompetent and conniving fellow who seemed set to destroy the lives of the main circle of characters, our good guys.
Despite my overwhelming disappointment at Cornwell's clichéd resolution to the story, this was a bit of a step in a different direction for her. Rather than a purely evil bad guy, biologically wired to be bad, she looked into how the bad guy was turned into a bad guy (or girl, as the case may be and is) by his environment. The multiple personalities, of which the character had only two, were split into a victim and a predator, which was echoed in one of Benton's contemplations early in the story about researching the features of predators in the wild and in predators in society. The victim personality created the predator personality during her own torture at the hands of an uncle. This same theme is also echoed by Marino (or was it Benton?) in describing Lucy's narcissism, which attributes to emotional abandonment by her mother and in describing his own upbringing as part of the working class in New Jersey. Cornwell has touched on this concept earlier in this series not only with Lucy and a bit with Marino, but also with Scarpetta herself. Their backgrounds have made them the flawed humans that they are. Now, she is applying this to her bad guys, which gives her story a bit more nuance, even with its disappointing end.
Again, I am hoping that Cornwell is just beginning to explore this idea. That is, after all, the nature of serial fiction. The author can begin an idea in one installment, and then develop it in subsequent installments.
Meanwhile, before I read the Cornwell book, I read another that was more of in the New York Times Bestseller list, miscellaneous award-winning, category of fiction. This one, A Ghost at the Table by Suzanne Berne, had some frustrating middle parts. For instance, she has an Asian character, whom the main character kisses for no plausible reason, who seems rather pointless in the story, even as a symbol. Nonetheless, the book was engaging and had a rather satisfying ending in that it was not at all a resolution to some of the main conflicts in the story.
In this book, the main character is a middle-aged, single author of historical fiction for girls working on a book about Mark Twain and his daughters (hey! I had that idea!) She goes "home" to her sister's house for Thanksgiving to find that she will be spending the week not only with her sister's upper middle class family but also her estranged father who has just suffered a stroke. Naturally, they have many family issues, the main character is considered "pathetic" and "depressed" by her sister's stable family, and many things are not what they seem. This is all the typical fare of many novels of domestic drama.
Except, in this story, they do not all live happily ever after. In fact, in the last chapter, the father dies as the main character sits by his side in an act of passive euthanasia. Her sister and sister's family end up hating her, accusing her of murder at the worst and frigidity at best. Yet, she doesn't feel guilty. Her sister has made peace with their father and tries to force the main character into the same resolution, but the main character realizes that her position in the family was much different than that of her sister. Her sister and father had been close, lost that closeness after the death of the mother decades earlier, and then returned to that closeness at the end of the father's life, realizing that their alienation had been the result of a misunderstanding. The main character, however, realizes that she never had that intimacy with any of the other members of the family. She had no closeness to which she could return. Her emotional pain did not come from the mother's death or alienation from the father after the death, but from the alienation she had experienced since birth.
The main character had accepted her alienation, was still angry and hurt in that way that many people will always be hurt from irreparable childhood damage; but she had gone on with her life and created her own bonds with friends and her own work that she enjoyed. She seemed to be happy, if also sadly aware of her pain. At the end of the story, even as she was ostracized from her sister's family, she was able to see the nature of the individuals and their relationships, without insisting that they were in any way wrong or sick, as they seemed to think about her. This acceptance, as opposed to redemption, seemed a rather unique ending for a modern novel.
Another thing about the story that interested me was the main character's work. All through the story, she offers information about the relationships between Mark Twain and his daughters, as well as about the daughters themselves. In the midst of the story, you begin to think that she is projecting her own family dynamics onto the Twain family, particularly in one explosive scene that does not endear her to her family and their Thanksgiving guests. The main character sees beyond the folksy image of Twain because of the parallells that she sees between her own family and his. In the absence of actual documentation or any great familiarity with the subject of Twain and his daughters (outside of a visit to the Twain home in Hartford and the knowledge that he blamed Christian Science for the death of one daughter, which itself is a long story), I cannot evaluate if the character is allowing her own familial problems to drastically warp her interpretation. What I can evaluate is that the author, Berne, seems to be saying that the historical writer's personal experience can enhance their interpretation of their material. I'm not entirely sure how far she intended to pursue this idea in her story, because she does not seem to actually debate or argue this idea in her text to great length. Still, I rather like the idea. Perhaps that is my own uncritical experience and, therefore, bias.
In any case, this is a book that I wish that I could have written, and perhaps was trying to write with my old Story A. The particulars would, of course, have been drastically different, and I would have delved much more into the perspective versus bias debate; but, the intersection of a individual's history, family history, and historical interpretation (as well as how we know what we think we know, which is another topic for another time) make history very immediate in a much more nuanced way than something like a family tree or a visit to the therapist or writing a regular history book might allow.
Despite my overwhelming disappointment at Cornwell's clichéd resolution to the story, this was a bit of a step in a different direction for her. Rather than a purely evil bad guy, biologically wired to be bad, she looked into how the bad guy was turned into a bad guy (or girl, as the case may be and is) by his environment. The multiple personalities, of which the character had only two, were split into a victim and a predator, which was echoed in one of Benton's contemplations early in the story about researching the features of predators in the wild and in predators in society. The victim personality created the predator personality during her own torture at the hands of an uncle. This same theme is also echoed by Marino (or was it Benton?) in describing Lucy's narcissism, which attributes to emotional abandonment by her mother and in describing his own upbringing as part of the working class in New Jersey. Cornwell has touched on this concept earlier in this series not only with Lucy and a bit with Marino, but also with Scarpetta herself. Their backgrounds have made them the flawed humans that they are. Now, she is applying this to her bad guys, which gives her story a bit more nuance, even with its disappointing end.
Again, I am hoping that Cornwell is just beginning to explore this idea. That is, after all, the nature of serial fiction. The author can begin an idea in one installment, and then develop it in subsequent installments.
Meanwhile, before I read the Cornwell book, I read another that was more of in the New York Times Bestseller list, miscellaneous award-winning, category of fiction. This one, A Ghost at the Table by Suzanne Berne, had some frustrating middle parts. For instance, she has an Asian character, whom the main character kisses for no plausible reason, who seems rather pointless in the story, even as a symbol. Nonetheless, the book was engaging and had a rather satisfying ending in that it was not at all a resolution to some of the main conflicts in the story.
In this book, the main character is a middle-aged, single author of historical fiction for girls working on a book about Mark Twain and his daughters (hey! I had that idea!) She goes "home" to her sister's house for Thanksgiving to find that she will be spending the week not only with her sister's upper middle class family but also her estranged father who has just suffered a stroke. Naturally, they have many family issues, the main character is considered "pathetic" and "depressed" by her sister's stable family, and many things are not what they seem. This is all the typical fare of many novels of domestic drama.
Except, in this story, they do not all live happily ever after. In fact, in the last chapter, the father dies as the main character sits by his side in an act of passive euthanasia. Her sister and sister's family end up hating her, accusing her of murder at the worst and frigidity at best. Yet, she doesn't feel guilty. Her sister has made peace with their father and tries to force the main character into the same resolution, but the main character realizes that her position in the family was much different than that of her sister. Her sister and father had been close, lost that closeness after the death of the mother decades earlier, and then returned to that closeness at the end of the father's life, realizing that their alienation had been the result of a misunderstanding. The main character, however, realizes that she never had that intimacy with any of the other members of the family. She had no closeness to which she could return. Her emotional pain did not come from the mother's death or alienation from the father after the death, but from the alienation she had experienced since birth.
The main character had accepted her alienation, was still angry and hurt in that way that many people will always be hurt from irreparable childhood damage; but she had gone on with her life and created her own bonds with friends and her own work that she enjoyed. She seemed to be happy, if also sadly aware of her pain. At the end of the story, even as she was ostracized from her sister's family, she was able to see the nature of the individuals and their relationships, without insisting that they were in any way wrong or sick, as they seemed to think about her. This acceptance, as opposed to redemption, seemed a rather unique ending for a modern novel.
Another thing about the story that interested me was the main character's work. All through the story, she offers information about the relationships between Mark Twain and his daughters, as well as about the daughters themselves. In the midst of the story, you begin to think that she is projecting her own family dynamics onto the Twain family, particularly in one explosive scene that does not endear her to her family and their Thanksgiving guests. The main character sees beyond the folksy image of Twain because of the parallells that she sees between her own family and his. In the absence of actual documentation or any great familiarity with the subject of Twain and his daughters (outside of a visit to the Twain home in Hartford and the knowledge that he blamed Christian Science for the death of one daughter, which itself is a long story), I cannot evaluate if the character is allowing her own familial problems to drastically warp her interpretation. What I can evaluate is that the author, Berne, seems to be saying that the historical writer's personal experience can enhance their interpretation of their material. I'm not entirely sure how far she intended to pursue this idea in her story, because she does not seem to actually debate or argue this idea in her text to great length. Still, I rather like the idea. Perhaps that is my own uncritical experience and, therefore, bias.
In any case, this is a book that I wish that I could have written, and perhaps was trying to write with my old Story A. The particulars would, of course, have been drastically different, and I would have delved much more into the perspective versus bias debate; but, the intersection of a individual's history, family history, and historical interpretation (as well as how we know what we think we know, which is another topic for another time) make history very immediate in a much more nuanced way than something like a family tree or a visit to the therapist or writing a regular history book might allow.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Trashy Novels and Evil
Finally! I've been granted a library card from the local public library! The video store's stock shall be plummeting now that I have access to free books. Yes, I know you have to give them back, but then you also don't have to store them, either. With a couple hundred or more books already (and that after having lost a quarter of my library in my disastrous move of five years ago), sending them back is also a blessing when they aren't crucial to any work that I am doing.
Joyfully, then, I have availed myself of trashy novels. By "trashy" I mean books that were not required reading or written by any author whose other works were required reading in literature classes. Not that I have anything against literature, being the old English major and all, but sometimes you just want to escape into another world were the good guys win and the bad guys go to jail, but where you know some other bad guy will crop up just because the world sucks that much and just so the good guys can have their day once more and just so you can read all about them again. Thus, my choice of "trash" tends to be mysteries, preferably with a hardboiled female protagonist. I'm a wholly uncritical sucker for anything V.I Warshawski or Kay Scarpetta might investigate. Having already gutted the oeuvre of Paretsky (although I could probably go and read them all again since I seldom remember much of the plots of most of these for very long), I pounced upon the last remaining Cornwell.
I'm not yet done with it (ah, the sweet melancholic bliss of falling into a novel, being unable to put it down, but not wanting to finish because then the experience will be over!). According to Cornwell, her research for this current installment, Predator, convinced her to be against the death penalty. From what I have read so far, the means of that conversion appears through the way she explores the biological aspects of evil in this book.
Cornwell tends to create complete monsters for her bad guys. They stalk, rape, torture, mutilate, and kill their victims, of which there tend to be many. Even in her non-fiction work, the terribly flawed Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed, she turned her suspect into an incarnation of almost satanic evil. Her bad guys are irredeemable and should be removed from society. Flawed as all of the good guys may be, including the racist, sexist, homophobic, Pete Marino, they are ultimately good. There are some other types of characters in between, but their sins tend to be incompetence, greed, and self-interest. They are bad, but not evil.
As far as I have read in this one, Cornwell seems to be blurring the distinctions between these characters. Part of the story involves the character Benton, a former FBI profiler, and his research into the brain activity of serial killers (although he, and by extension Cornwell, does not like the term "serial"). He is looking for any abnormalities in activity or structure in their brains, presumably to either rehabilitate or predict criminal behavior. At the same time, he has trouble finding "normal" control subjects. The "normal" applicants for the study all tend to have some sort of abnormality.
Meanwhile, the usual cast of good guys is discovering the abnormalities in their own neurological composition. Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, has discovered that she herself has an abnormality in her brain in the form of a tumor. The fact that Lucy is a lesbian might also be seen in some quarters as an abnormality, as well. Pete Marino sees a therapist who prescribes him anti-depressants, suggesting another sort of abnormality in his brain. We haven't even begun to explore the problem with the main bad guy, Hand of God (Hog, for short).
I should perhaps reserve final summation and judgement of the book until I've seen how the story resolves. Nonetheless, it seems that she is exploring the concept of evil as a neurological, pathological, and behavioral phenomenon. Is certain pathological behavior a manifestation of some other, medical pathology? Are certain pathological behaviors socially acceptable, and when do they stop being socially acceptable? Can a serial killer have a perfectly normal seeming brain while one of the good guys has a tumor? I'm very much hoping that she does not tidy things up to the point of some people are born bad and others are not.
I'm very much enjoying that she is trying to look into the nature of evil because evil is a very tricky subject. To say, "Hitler was evil" is very simple, knowing what he did to Europe and the Jews, among others. Yet, Hitler was wildly popular. Were his supporters, the "regular" Germans, the grand parents and great-grandparents of today also evil? You would be hard pressed to find someone (outside of a Klan meeting) who thinks slavery was not evil, but what about the people who supported it? Were the textile mills in the north culpable in that evil? Were people who wore cotton evil? Were the people who didn't think much about slavery because it wasn't in their backyard evil? We can move this up to now? How entrenched are our lives in things that, when analyzed from a distance, would be considered evil but from our daily point of view are not something that we truly consider?
This train of thought seems a bit of a leap from a trashy novel with a serial killer, but what I think Cornwell might be examining in this book is that spectrum, those increments where "patriotism" becomes the murder of over six million people, where a fashion leads to the annihilation of the humanity of 4 million people. She may be (and again, I should hold off judgment) looking at the ability of the good guys to also become the bad guys.
Joyfully, then, I have availed myself of trashy novels. By "trashy" I mean books that were not required reading or written by any author whose other works were required reading in literature classes. Not that I have anything against literature, being the old English major and all, but sometimes you just want to escape into another world were the good guys win and the bad guys go to jail, but where you know some other bad guy will crop up just because the world sucks that much and just so the good guys can have their day once more and just so you can read all about them again. Thus, my choice of "trash" tends to be mysteries, preferably with a hardboiled female protagonist. I'm a wholly uncritical sucker for anything V.I Warshawski or Kay Scarpetta might investigate. Having already gutted the oeuvre of Paretsky (although I could probably go and read them all again since I seldom remember much of the plots of most of these for very long), I pounced upon the last remaining Cornwell.
I'm not yet done with it (ah, the sweet melancholic bliss of falling into a novel, being unable to put it down, but not wanting to finish because then the experience will be over!). According to Cornwell, her research for this current installment, Predator, convinced her to be against the death penalty. From what I have read so far, the means of that conversion appears through the way she explores the biological aspects of evil in this book.
Cornwell tends to create complete monsters for her bad guys. They stalk, rape, torture, mutilate, and kill their victims, of which there tend to be many. Even in her non-fiction work, the terribly flawed Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed, she turned her suspect into an incarnation of almost satanic evil. Her bad guys are irredeemable and should be removed from society. Flawed as all of the good guys may be, including the racist, sexist, homophobic, Pete Marino, they are ultimately good. There are some other types of characters in between, but their sins tend to be incompetence, greed, and self-interest. They are bad, but not evil.
As far as I have read in this one, Cornwell seems to be blurring the distinctions between these characters. Part of the story involves the character Benton, a former FBI profiler, and his research into the brain activity of serial killers (although he, and by extension Cornwell, does not like the term "serial"). He is looking for any abnormalities in activity or structure in their brains, presumably to either rehabilitate or predict criminal behavior. At the same time, he has trouble finding "normal" control subjects. The "normal" applicants for the study all tend to have some sort of abnormality.
Meanwhile, the usual cast of good guys is discovering the abnormalities in their own neurological composition. Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, has discovered that she herself has an abnormality in her brain in the form of a tumor. The fact that Lucy is a lesbian might also be seen in some quarters as an abnormality, as well. Pete Marino sees a therapist who prescribes him anti-depressants, suggesting another sort of abnormality in his brain. We haven't even begun to explore the problem with the main bad guy, Hand of God (Hog, for short).
I should perhaps reserve final summation and judgement of the book until I've seen how the story resolves. Nonetheless, it seems that she is exploring the concept of evil as a neurological, pathological, and behavioral phenomenon. Is certain pathological behavior a manifestation of some other, medical pathology? Are certain pathological behaviors socially acceptable, and when do they stop being socially acceptable? Can a serial killer have a perfectly normal seeming brain while one of the good guys has a tumor? I'm very much hoping that she does not tidy things up to the point of some people are born bad and others are not.
I'm very much enjoying that she is trying to look into the nature of evil because evil is a very tricky subject. To say, "Hitler was evil" is very simple, knowing what he did to Europe and the Jews, among others. Yet, Hitler was wildly popular. Were his supporters, the "regular" Germans, the grand parents and great-grandparents of today also evil? You would be hard pressed to find someone (outside of a Klan meeting) who thinks slavery was not evil, but what about the people who supported it? Were the textile mills in the north culpable in that evil? Were people who wore cotton evil? Were the people who didn't think much about slavery because it wasn't in their backyard evil? We can move this up to now? How entrenched are our lives in things that, when analyzed from a distance, would be considered evil but from our daily point of view are not something that we truly consider?
This train of thought seems a bit of a leap from a trashy novel with a serial killer, but what I think Cornwell might be examining in this book is that spectrum, those increments where "patriotism" becomes the murder of over six million people, where a fashion leads to the annihilation of the humanity of 4 million people. She may be (and again, I should hold off judgment) looking at the ability of the good guys to also become the bad guys.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Coughing up Six Feet
For the past week I have had a literal lump in my throat and have developed a chronic cough. A book I tried to read had a character with consumption. "Maybe I have tuberculosis," I thought. Another had a character who discovered that he had throat cancer when he felt a lump in his throat that would not go away. "Maybe I'm dying," I thought. I have no fever, so I'm probably not hosting any little microscopic beasties. I also have no internet at home, nor any cable television or television reception, so I had to invent dramatic scenarios to entertain myself while hacking up a lung.
I tend not to get officially sick. Sure, I get horrible migraines that knock me out for four days straight; but I tend not to harbor viruses or bacteria or other things that make the immune system kick into overdrive, so I don't really know how to handle this sort-of-sick thing because I feel like I should be half-dead before I skip out on work of any sort. Yet, there I was yesterday, lying in bed, feeling like I had been whipped across the back with a cat-o-nine-tails, completely devoid of any energy to hoist myself perpendicular to the floor, and making up macabre scenarios for myself. All I really had the will to do was to watch Six Feet Under reruns and drink daiquiris. Without any rum in the house, I settled for my first season DVDs of the reruns and some Tylenol PM.
Six Feet Under seemed to fit my overly dramatic and melancholic mood. Six Feet Under fits my overly dramatic and melancholic personality, actually. Like many of the HBO series to which I have become addicted in their VHS/DVD incarnations, Six Feet Under seems to have an interesting philosophical viewpoint that most television shows lack. In this case, the driving conflict of the show seems to be the impossibility of appreciating life while living it.
Life, in this show, is depicted as being here and now. There is no confirmation of an afterlife of salvation, or even damnation. Sure, they all see visions of the dead father, Nate, Sr., but those visions are clearly their own projections. The same applies to the younger Nate when he dies.
Nor is religion or spirituality a source of comfort for any of the characters, even those who profess an interest. Ruth goes to church, but she doesn't seem to have much of a spiritual life. David goes to church, but several story lines show how that has failed him because he is gay. Nate has passing interest in spiritual matters, but not a deep devotion or curiosity. Brenda is the only outright atheist of the group, and her problems stem from an inability to find joy in anything at all. The constant stream of dead bodies seems a reminder that, as Nate says in one episode, "We are all really just biology, aren't we?" A dead body is so empty and final, a very tangible phenomena of the absence of life.
All of the characters, therefore, have a sense that they must live now, and envision that existence as something more than survival. They all struggle to find happiness, although almost none of them can seem to define happiness. Love, romantic and familial, are vaguely connected to this concept as evidenced by the pain each feels in the absence and disappointments of that love.
Pursuit of romantic love drives most of the plot lines; but that familial love is just as present. Brenda, in particular, lives in a constant state of anger because her parents were more involved in one another and their alternative lifestyle than in her well-being. She perceives her childhood role as that of caretaker of her brother and audience to her parents. The Fisher children, in their imaginings of their father, betray their own alienation from him. Ruth and her "legless grandmother" also reveal an emotional starvation that has left her bitter and rigid in her attempts to create her own "perfect" family. The fact that any of these characters wants to procreate is more of a testament to their own needs for familial love than any ability or even desire to actually be good parents. Moreover, their vague concepts of all sorts of love seem based more upon idealized notions of those sorts of love, and the failure of reality to live up to the ideals
Satisfying work is also another source for the search for happiness. The device that gets the series moving is Nate's return home to take his father's place in the family business. David has recurring doubts and resentments about his course of work. Ruth finds some happiness in her work as a florist. Brenda goes on a quest for a profession that leads her right to the one she detests most. The last two seasons, and the final scenes, are strongly influenced by Claire's career path.
In fact, Claire's career seems to be the closest thing to a solution that the series offers for appreciating life. She becomes an artist, creating beauty and finding satisfaction in creating that beauty. Her form is photography, capturing a moment; and she photographs portraits, apparently of the people she loves. So, metaphorically, she is able to freeze a moment of time for future appreciation. Then, she outlives everyone in the series, ending up blind with cataracts, which seems to suggest that even her way is not an effective solution to appreciating life while you live it.
Yet, the characters' inability to be happy, to feel loved, or to fully care for someone else is such a common human frailty. They may have a corpse in the basement and in the viewing room on the first floor of their house, but that presence of death does not lead them to any deeper appreciation for life nor give them any better emotional tools to deal with how temporary each life actually is.
Oddly, I find that tremendously comforting.
For the past two years, I have felt that time is getting shorter. Dismiss it as a mid-life crisis if you must, but it is very real to me. Each time I see someone, my parents or my friends, I wonder when I will see them again and if this will be the last time I see them. What if it is? What should I say? No matter how realistic a person might be about their relationship with someone, romantic, familial, or otherwise, is it possible to stay in a complete state of appreciation for that person at all times?
After all, as in Six Feet Under, one of the biggest things that gets in the way of the characters fully caring for one another is the characters themselves, be it their histories with one another, or the ways that they annoy one another, or the ways that they cannot help hurting one another, or their own insecurities, or the millions of other reasons that people fight and tear one another down. Perhaps the voice of reason on this was Brenda's mother when she listed all of the ways that people "fuck each other up," but with the caveat that "once, just once, in a very blue moon, they bring out the best in each other."
I cannot think of any neat little bit of wisdom to tie this up, as they always do on usual dramatic series that are not about dead bodies in the basement. The closest that I can come is my interpretation of Claire's career choice; but, again, it is not really a solution. If I had wisdom, I wouldn't be writing this in the first place. I'd be out appreciating life as I live it. So, maybe this is part of why I am coughing and devoid of any energy: This midlife crisis in isolation in the middle of nowhere, finding temporary comfort in the idea that the failure to appreciate life while living it is not so uncommon a phenomenon.
I tend not to get officially sick. Sure, I get horrible migraines that knock me out for four days straight; but I tend not to harbor viruses or bacteria or other things that make the immune system kick into overdrive, so I don't really know how to handle this sort-of-sick thing because I feel like I should be half-dead before I skip out on work of any sort. Yet, there I was yesterday, lying in bed, feeling like I had been whipped across the back with a cat-o-nine-tails, completely devoid of any energy to hoist myself perpendicular to the floor, and making up macabre scenarios for myself. All I really had the will to do was to watch Six Feet Under reruns and drink daiquiris. Without any rum in the house, I settled for my first season DVDs of the reruns and some Tylenol PM.
Six Feet Under seemed to fit my overly dramatic and melancholic mood. Six Feet Under fits my overly dramatic and melancholic personality, actually. Like many of the HBO series to which I have become addicted in their VHS/DVD incarnations, Six Feet Under seems to have an interesting philosophical viewpoint that most television shows lack. In this case, the driving conflict of the show seems to be the impossibility of appreciating life while living it.
Life, in this show, is depicted as being here and now. There is no confirmation of an afterlife of salvation, or even damnation. Sure, they all see visions of the dead father, Nate, Sr., but those visions are clearly their own projections. The same applies to the younger Nate when he dies.
Nor is religion or spirituality a source of comfort for any of the characters, even those who profess an interest. Ruth goes to church, but she doesn't seem to have much of a spiritual life. David goes to church, but several story lines show how that has failed him because he is gay. Nate has passing interest in spiritual matters, but not a deep devotion or curiosity. Brenda is the only outright atheist of the group, and her problems stem from an inability to find joy in anything at all. The constant stream of dead bodies seems a reminder that, as Nate says in one episode, "We are all really just biology, aren't we?" A dead body is so empty and final, a very tangible phenomena of the absence of life.
All of the characters, therefore, have a sense that they must live now, and envision that existence as something more than survival. They all struggle to find happiness, although almost none of them can seem to define happiness. Love, romantic and familial, are vaguely connected to this concept as evidenced by the pain each feels in the absence and disappointments of that love.
Pursuit of romantic love drives most of the plot lines; but that familial love is just as present. Brenda, in particular, lives in a constant state of anger because her parents were more involved in one another and their alternative lifestyle than in her well-being. She perceives her childhood role as that of caretaker of her brother and audience to her parents. The Fisher children, in their imaginings of their father, betray their own alienation from him. Ruth and her "legless grandmother" also reveal an emotional starvation that has left her bitter and rigid in her attempts to create her own "perfect" family. The fact that any of these characters wants to procreate is more of a testament to their own needs for familial love than any ability or even desire to actually be good parents. Moreover, their vague concepts of all sorts of love seem based more upon idealized notions of those sorts of love, and the failure of reality to live up to the ideals
Satisfying work is also another source for the search for happiness. The device that gets the series moving is Nate's return home to take his father's place in the family business. David has recurring doubts and resentments about his course of work. Ruth finds some happiness in her work as a florist. Brenda goes on a quest for a profession that leads her right to the one she detests most. The last two seasons, and the final scenes, are strongly influenced by Claire's career path.
In fact, Claire's career seems to be the closest thing to a solution that the series offers for appreciating life. She becomes an artist, creating beauty and finding satisfaction in creating that beauty. Her form is photography, capturing a moment; and she photographs portraits, apparently of the people she loves. So, metaphorically, she is able to freeze a moment of time for future appreciation. Then, she outlives everyone in the series, ending up blind with cataracts, which seems to suggest that even her way is not an effective solution to appreciating life while you live it.
Yet, the characters' inability to be happy, to feel loved, or to fully care for someone else is such a common human frailty. They may have a corpse in the basement and in the viewing room on the first floor of their house, but that presence of death does not lead them to any deeper appreciation for life nor give them any better emotional tools to deal with how temporary each life actually is.
Oddly, I find that tremendously comforting.
For the past two years, I have felt that time is getting shorter. Dismiss it as a mid-life crisis if you must, but it is very real to me. Each time I see someone, my parents or my friends, I wonder when I will see them again and if this will be the last time I see them. What if it is? What should I say? No matter how realistic a person might be about their relationship with someone, romantic, familial, or otherwise, is it possible to stay in a complete state of appreciation for that person at all times?
After all, as in Six Feet Under, one of the biggest things that gets in the way of the characters fully caring for one another is the characters themselves, be it their histories with one another, or the ways that they annoy one another, or the ways that they cannot help hurting one another, or their own insecurities, or the millions of other reasons that people fight and tear one another down. Perhaps the voice of reason on this was Brenda's mother when she listed all of the ways that people "fuck each other up," but with the caveat that "once, just once, in a very blue moon, they bring out the best in each other."
I cannot think of any neat little bit of wisdom to tie this up, as they always do on usual dramatic series that are not about dead bodies in the basement. The closest that I can come is my interpretation of Claire's career choice; but, again, it is not really a solution. If I had wisdom, I wouldn't be writing this in the first place. I'd be out appreciating life as I live it. So, maybe this is part of why I am coughing and devoid of any energy: This midlife crisis in isolation in the middle of nowhere, finding temporary comfort in the idea that the failure to appreciate life while living it is not so uncommon a phenomenon.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Justice moves so glacially, painfully slowly, in tiny little increments.
Today my brother received news that justice had moved one of those miniscule increments for him.
I have tried to tell my brother's story, obliquely and abortively. My biggest problem has been that it is not really my story to tell. Now, the main incident of his story is a matter of public record in the Education Agency in the State of Texas.
Three years ago, while at home for Christmas, with my book about to be published, I began to reminisce about my career in history. My first American history teacher had written in my 8th grade yearbook something to the effect of "when your first book is published, make sure that it has a distinguished history teacher and coach in it." He, of course, referred to himself. He had been the best teacher I had ever had, before or since. He had won teaching awards, but I have a PhD in history, and two master's degrees, so that endorsement carries some weight. More importantly, his confidence in my work and my intelligence helped hold off the Ophelia syndrome for at least a year. "I wonder whatever happened to him?" I mused to my mother.
Like me, my mother has no unspoken thought. "He looks bad," she said shortly. "He's aged a lot." Then, she paused. She opened her mouth, snapped it closed. She opened her mouth again. Covered it with her hand. I know this routine. The thought sits right behind her face. If you looked into her eyes, you might see it.
"What?" I asked. "What happened?"
"He got caught with a student," she said.
Surprisingly, this did not surprise me. "Please tell me she was over-age," I said, hearing the ways that question should be revised even as the words left my mouth.
"No," said my mom.
"Please tell me she was a 'she'," I said, knowing the answer.
"No," she said.
In 8th grade, all of those beautiful boys who hung around him, on his football teams, on his baseball teams, on his basketball teams, milling about his classroom before school, lingering after school, playing Dungeons & Dragons at his home, going camping on weekends, all without supervision.
Two years later, my brother was one of those boys.
This last, I kept to myself. I had no proof, and my parents would blame themselves if something had happened. As for my brother, how do you approach that conversation? "Hey, it's not my business or anything, but I was just wondering, did this teacher molest you way back in the 80s?" Do you ruin a good memory of a teacher if it didn't happen, and do you meddle in where you weren't invited if it did? So, I let it lie.
Last year, my father's extended family, at least the parts of it who all still speak to one another, had one hell of a Thanksgiving. Neither my nor my brothers could attend, all of us scattered to different parts of the country, them with wives and babies, and no one with enough vacation time or money to make the trip to the gathering at my aunt's house in Baton Rouge. In good Louisiana tradition, people ate and drank to marvelous excess until someone had to air long-standing grievances. As one grievance begot another, my Dittohead cousin revealed that another, much older cousin had made a pass at him when Dittohead was just a child. This led my father to reveal more than he should have about our family.
None of this was relayed to me by my parents in the "we had a nice time at Thanksgiving" messages. My aunt, on the other hand, thinking I knew all about it, wrote "oh, doll, what a holiday! I never knew that a teacher had molested your brother." Now, I knew. I also knew that everyone else knew. I also wondered if my brother knew if everyone else knew. He didn't, although he half-suspected that our dad had "blabbed" it to me, at least. Between him and my parents, most of the full story was revealed to me.
My brother had been molested by this teacher back in the early to mid-1980s. Like many children, he was not going to tell a soul, and like many boys, he thought that he might have been gay as a result. After a very difficult decade of fucking any female with a body temperature and doing every drug he could smoke, snort, or slurp, my brother decided to act. He contacted my dad and told him the story. Since my brother's case had passed the statute of limitations, which was five years at that time, my dad advised him to contact the school district. He did. The school district conducted an "investigation," which consisted of asking the teacher his side of the story, then officially ordering him to avoid any hint of impropriety. This meant that he could not be alone with students and could not meet with students outside of school hours unless another adult was present. The matter stood there for another ten years.
Then, in 2001, the teacher showed up in the same school where my mother was librarian. She was moving to another school, but she alerted another teacher who was also friends with the district police. They kept an eye on him. Sure enough, he was up to his old tricks, only now, not only were a few people alert to him, but parents had become much more savvy and aware of this sort of behavior. This was, after all, in the wake of the accusations against the Catholic priests. When I had first mused, "whatever happened," the school district was already building a case against him. Two years later, his contract was not renewed and his teaching file was flagged.
Then, right after Thanksgiving last year, the Texas education department contacted my brother. They wanted to remove the flag from the teacher's file and revoke his teaching certificate. My brother gave him all of the ammunition that he had, letting them use not only his case, but also his name. The six other students from the years 2002-2004 were also included, but not named. Their cases are still within the statute of limitations, which is now 10 years in Texas.
Today, my brother learned that the state had found this teacher unfit to instruct children. He was ordered to turn in his teaching certificate and all other related documentation. He complied and can no longer teach in Texas. Ever.*
Is this enough? No. The teacher -- now ex-teacher -- is still a predator pursing his prey. He runs a business giving fishing tours, targeting children as his audience and billing himself as the "Fishing Coach." He even has pictures of young boys on his website. The irony is disgusting.
Then, there is all of the damage, damage upon damage, rippling outward from the molestation, that still affects my own family, down into my nephews' generation.
Justice is slow and small; but I am so fucking proud of my brother for making a piece of it happen.
* This teacher taught 8th grade history at Olle Middle School in the Alief Independent School District in Houston from 1977 to 1983 and again from 1987 to 2001, then in Stafford from 1983-1987 and in Fort Bend from 2001 to 2004. If you are browsing around and found this blog, and were molested or approached by him (and you know who he is if you were), then know that you are not alone, and that something has been done.
I have tried to tell my brother's story, obliquely and abortively. My biggest problem has been that it is not really my story to tell. Now, the main incident of his story is a matter of public record in the Education Agency in the State of Texas.
Three years ago, while at home for Christmas, with my book about to be published, I began to reminisce about my career in history. My first American history teacher had written in my 8th grade yearbook something to the effect of "when your first book is published, make sure that it has a distinguished history teacher and coach in it." He, of course, referred to himself. He had been the best teacher I had ever had, before or since. He had won teaching awards, but I have a PhD in history, and two master's degrees, so that endorsement carries some weight. More importantly, his confidence in my work and my intelligence helped hold off the Ophelia syndrome for at least a year. "I wonder whatever happened to him?" I mused to my mother.
Like me, my mother has no unspoken thought. "He looks bad," she said shortly. "He's aged a lot." Then, she paused. She opened her mouth, snapped it closed. She opened her mouth again. Covered it with her hand. I know this routine. The thought sits right behind her face. If you looked into her eyes, you might see it.
"What?" I asked. "What happened?"
"He got caught with a student," she said.
Surprisingly, this did not surprise me. "Please tell me she was over-age," I said, hearing the ways that question should be revised even as the words left my mouth.
"No," said my mom.
"Please tell me she was a 'she'," I said, knowing the answer.
"No," she said.
In 8th grade, all of those beautiful boys who hung around him, on his football teams, on his baseball teams, on his basketball teams, milling about his classroom before school, lingering after school, playing Dungeons & Dragons at his home, going camping on weekends, all without supervision.
Two years later, my brother was one of those boys.
This last, I kept to myself. I had no proof, and my parents would blame themselves if something had happened. As for my brother, how do you approach that conversation? "Hey, it's not my business or anything, but I was just wondering, did this teacher molest you way back in the 80s?" Do you ruin a good memory of a teacher if it didn't happen, and do you meddle in where you weren't invited if it did? So, I let it lie.
Last year, my father's extended family, at least the parts of it who all still speak to one another, had one hell of a Thanksgiving. Neither my nor my brothers could attend, all of us scattered to different parts of the country, them with wives and babies, and no one with enough vacation time or money to make the trip to the gathering at my aunt's house in Baton Rouge. In good Louisiana tradition, people ate and drank to marvelous excess until someone had to air long-standing grievances. As one grievance begot another, my Dittohead cousin revealed that another, much older cousin had made a pass at him when Dittohead was just a child. This led my father to reveal more than he should have about our family.
None of this was relayed to me by my parents in the "we had a nice time at Thanksgiving" messages. My aunt, on the other hand, thinking I knew all about it, wrote "oh, doll, what a holiday! I never knew that a teacher had molested your brother." Now, I knew. I also knew that everyone else knew. I also wondered if my brother knew if everyone else knew. He didn't, although he half-suspected that our dad had "blabbed" it to me, at least. Between him and my parents, most of the full story was revealed to me.
My brother had been molested by this teacher back in the early to mid-1980s. Like many children, he was not going to tell a soul, and like many boys, he thought that he might have been gay as a result. After a very difficult decade of fucking any female with a body temperature and doing every drug he could smoke, snort, or slurp, my brother decided to act. He contacted my dad and told him the story. Since my brother's case had passed the statute of limitations, which was five years at that time, my dad advised him to contact the school district. He did. The school district conducted an "investigation," which consisted of asking the teacher his side of the story, then officially ordering him to avoid any hint of impropriety. This meant that he could not be alone with students and could not meet with students outside of school hours unless another adult was present. The matter stood there for another ten years.
Then, in 2001, the teacher showed up in the same school where my mother was librarian. She was moving to another school, but she alerted another teacher who was also friends with the district police. They kept an eye on him. Sure enough, he was up to his old tricks, only now, not only were a few people alert to him, but parents had become much more savvy and aware of this sort of behavior. This was, after all, in the wake of the accusations against the Catholic priests. When I had first mused, "whatever happened," the school district was already building a case against him. Two years later, his contract was not renewed and his teaching file was flagged.
Then, right after Thanksgiving last year, the Texas education department contacted my brother. They wanted to remove the flag from the teacher's file and revoke his teaching certificate. My brother gave him all of the ammunition that he had, letting them use not only his case, but also his name. The six other students from the years 2002-2004 were also included, but not named. Their cases are still within the statute of limitations, which is now 10 years in Texas.
Today, my brother learned that the state had found this teacher unfit to instruct children. He was ordered to turn in his teaching certificate and all other related documentation. He complied and can no longer teach in Texas. Ever.*
Is this enough? No. The teacher -- now ex-teacher -- is still a predator pursing his prey. He runs a business giving fishing tours, targeting children as his audience and billing himself as the "Fishing Coach." He even has pictures of young boys on his website. The irony is disgusting.
Then, there is all of the damage, damage upon damage, rippling outward from the molestation, that still affects my own family, down into my nephews' generation.
Justice is slow and small; but I am so fucking proud of my brother for making a piece of it happen.
* This teacher taught 8th grade history at Olle Middle School in the Alief Independent School District in Houston from 1977 to 1983 and again from 1987 to 2001, then in Stafford from 1983-1987 and in Fort Bend from 2001 to 2004. If you are browsing around and found this blog, and were molested or approached by him (and you know who he is if you were), then know that you are not alone, and that something has been done.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Another New Year
So, Happy New Year.
2006 sucked. Goodness knows that it could have been worse given that two people close to me spent time in surgery. Overall, I will remember it as a year that started out with a lot of hope that soon devolved into disappointment and abject poverty. That was not fun. Even getting out of that universally impoverished situation left its scars because I had to give up some things, including a person, that were very important to me. 2007 does not start with hope for me. I won't let myself have hope because I'm so pathologically afraid of disappointment right now.
Meanwhile, Christmas vacation lasted a week, thanks to the incredibly generous holiday benefits of my current workplace. This vacation started with a train ride, progressed to two car trips, and ended with an airplane home: planes, trains, and automobiles. I took the train they call "The City of New Orleans" down to (where else?) New Orleans. I had to catch it in the middle of the night, so went right to sleep when I got on. When I woke up, yes, I did say (to myself) "Good morning, America, how are ya?" Seriously.
New Orleans did not look as bad as I expected. Still, it ain't great, that's for sure. The Superdome now has a roof, but the whole place is very depressed in about every way possible. My aunt picked me up at the station there. We drove out to her place in Baton Rouge, then had dinner in the ancestral homeland along the River Road. Much alcohol was consumed, and my uncle ended up driving us on the levee for a bit. Not on the road next to the levee, mind you, but on the levee itself. We got out of the car to look at the river in the moonlight. The Mississippi really is one big river.
The next day, my aunt and I drove to Texas to spend time with my parents, my brother, my sister-in-law, and Nephew the Younger. Nephew the Younger here began my education on the movie Cars, particularly the merits of one "Tow Mater" character, whose voice is that of Larry the Cable Guy. This should not have come as much of a surprise to me, that this nephew would adore a character with the voice of Larry the Cable Guy, since his father essentially is Larry the Cable Guy.
From Texas, my parents drove out to the east coast of Florida with me in the back of the van. There, we saw the other brother, the other sister-in-law, and Nephew the Elder. Nephew the Elder is actually only elder by nine months. When I mention that I have nephews who are nine months apart, but forget to also mention that they are first cousins to one another, people express great sympathy for their mother.
Elder continued my education on Cars. He showed me all about Tractor Cow tipping, but showed a distinct preference for the character Lightning McQueen, who is the "star," voice by Owen Wilson. His father, however, isn't exactly like Lightning McQueen, although he might have tried to be like Owen Wilson many a year ago in high school; but the Elder does like to be the star of most gatherings (not that that makes him unique to any almost-three-year-old). Elder also has a mohawk haircut.
Probably the best part of the whole trip, and maybe even the year (it was THAT shitty of a year), was when Elder woke up in the middle of the night, came into the living room where I was sleeping on the couch, and crawled up to sleep on my chest. I just knew that he would wake up screaming when he realized that I was not Mommy or Daddy; but he didn't. Is it sad that this was so great for me? Maybe because this is probably the only time that will happen in my life, and that this does not happen every single time I try to get some sleep, I could revel in it.
In Florida, we all went to the aquarium and to the Everglades, and my brother treated me to a meal at a place that serves nothing but meat. Oh, and a salad bar. The meat is the star. Good thing I'm not a vegetarian! Then, I went to the beach, which is like three blocks from his apartment, and then I hopped on the plane back to Nowhere.
I could ponder the ins and outs of the family dynamic, and how I worry that the little boys who are so sweet will be turned into big creeps by way of the inherent sexism in our family, and how I ended up with some odd dreams about being sent to high school, and how I worry that my father's propensity to order the most fat-saturated item on the menu in combination with his morbid obesity will lead him to a heart attack and stroke, or that my mother's propensity to note every restaurant between Texas and south Florida will lead to something equally fatal, or how I feel incredibly protective of them in the face of one of my sister-in-law's overt rudeness while also completely understanding why she is so rude, but I think that I will follow the rule that sometimes a little bit of denial is a good thing and leave the memory on the happy image of my two nephews, and their parents adoring them, and their grandparents adoring their progeny.
2006 did have its moments.
2006 sucked. Goodness knows that it could have been worse given that two people close to me spent time in surgery. Overall, I will remember it as a year that started out with a lot of hope that soon devolved into disappointment and abject poverty. That was not fun. Even getting out of that universally impoverished situation left its scars because I had to give up some things, including a person, that were very important to me. 2007 does not start with hope for me. I won't let myself have hope because I'm so pathologically afraid of disappointment right now.
Meanwhile, Christmas vacation lasted a week, thanks to the incredibly generous holiday benefits of my current workplace. This vacation started with a train ride, progressed to two car trips, and ended with an airplane home: planes, trains, and automobiles. I took the train they call "The City of New Orleans" down to (where else?) New Orleans. I had to catch it in the middle of the night, so went right to sleep when I got on. When I woke up, yes, I did say (to myself) "Good morning, America, how are ya?" Seriously.
New Orleans did not look as bad as I expected. Still, it ain't great, that's for sure. The Superdome now has a roof, but the whole place is very depressed in about every way possible. My aunt picked me up at the station there. We drove out to her place in Baton Rouge, then had dinner in the ancestral homeland along the River Road. Much alcohol was consumed, and my uncle ended up driving us on the levee for a bit. Not on the road next to the levee, mind you, but on the levee itself. We got out of the car to look at the river in the moonlight. The Mississippi really is one big river.
The next day, my aunt and I drove to Texas to spend time with my parents, my brother, my sister-in-law, and Nephew the Younger. Nephew the Younger here began my education on the movie Cars, particularly the merits of one "Tow Mater" character, whose voice is that of Larry the Cable Guy. This should not have come as much of a surprise to me, that this nephew would adore a character with the voice of Larry the Cable Guy, since his father essentially is Larry the Cable Guy.
From Texas, my parents drove out to the east coast of Florida with me in the back of the van. There, we saw the other brother, the other sister-in-law, and Nephew the Elder. Nephew the Elder is actually only elder by nine months. When I mention that I have nephews who are nine months apart, but forget to also mention that they are first cousins to one another, people express great sympathy for their mother.
Elder continued my education on Cars. He showed me all about Tractor Cow tipping, but showed a distinct preference for the character Lightning McQueen, who is the "star," voice by Owen Wilson. His father, however, isn't exactly like Lightning McQueen, although he might have tried to be like Owen Wilson many a year ago in high school; but the Elder does like to be the star of most gatherings (not that that makes him unique to any almost-three-year-old). Elder also has a mohawk haircut.
Probably the best part of the whole trip, and maybe even the year (it was THAT shitty of a year), was when Elder woke up in the middle of the night, came into the living room where I was sleeping on the couch, and crawled up to sleep on my chest. I just knew that he would wake up screaming when he realized that I was not Mommy or Daddy; but he didn't. Is it sad that this was so great for me? Maybe because this is probably the only time that will happen in my life, and that this does not happen every single time I try to get some sleep, I could revel in it.
In Florida, we all went to the aquarium and to the Everglades, and my brother treated me to a meal at a place that serves nothing but meat. Oh, and a salad bar. The meat is the star. Good thing I'm not a vegetarian! Then, I went to the beach, which is like three blocks from his apartment, and then I hopped on the plane back to Nowhere.
I could ponder the ins and outs of the family dynamic, and how I worry that the little boys who are so sweet will be turned into big creeps by way of the inherent sexism in our family, and how I ended up with some odd dreams about being sent to high school, and how I worry that my father's propensity to order the most fat-saturated item on the menu in combination with his morbid obesity will lead him to a heart attack and stroke, or that my mother's propensity to note every restaurant between Texas and south Florida will lead to something equally fatal, or how I feel incredibly protective of them in the face of one of my sister-in-law's overt rudeness while also completely understanding why she is so rude, but I think that I will follow the rule that sometimes a little bit of denial is a good thing and leave the memory on the happy image of my two nephews, and their parents adoring them, and their grandparents adoring their progeny.
2006 did have its moments.
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