Want to be breathless? Get Marisa Silver’s “Alone With You”
For the past several months, I’ve been carrying on a love affair with the short story. I’m generally predisposed toward novels but these days, given the chaos of modern life, it may be a day or two (or, admittedly, longer) before I have time to settle in again. At which point, I’m out of sync with the pacing and often need a good memory jog to keep moving forward. Then there’s the battle to stay awake for more than 20 pages. The short story is a fine alternative. It’s compatible with my bedtime reading, but also with the all-too-brief minutes of free time throughout the day. Really, it’s a perfect and immediate literary fix when done well.
On bullies
I was running down the stairs, weighted with my overstuffed backpack, jammed in next to all of the other students—some going in my direction and some going up—trying to make it to fourth period on time, when she hit me in the back of my head. For no reason that I can remember now, or that I was aware of back then, the 8th grade bully had punched me from behind. I was in 7th grade with braces, gawky and unknown. She was pretty with long dark hair, was intimidating and unprovoked. After she struck me, I cried in the girls bathroom, alone. My head ached. But more than anything, I was humiliated.
Battle of wills: A beard, to me, is the anti-Kama Sutra
Everyone knows I hate cats. I don’t like Mustangs, either (the car, not the animal). I don’t like Crocs, Disney-themed clothing on adults, velour track suits declaring the physiological status of the wearer’s vagina, belching or mommy bloggers. To this list of stuff I loathe, I would like to add Stephanie Meyer’s abhorrent Twilight series and the fact that 90 of the 170 calories in a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg come from fat.
And as long as I’m narrowing the scope of friends I have not yet offended, I’m going to state here that I am not a fan of facial hair on men.
Generally speaking—and there are rare exceptions—I like a clean shave, and there is no mystery that my preference is directly linked to daddy issues. My father grew a beard during the years before he left my mother, a time in which he was already gone, even if his body and his beard were physically present. He had taken up the guitar back then, and he would sit on the living-room couch, his long body curved around and clinging to the neck as if it were a rescue tube, and he would strum out “Peaceful Easy Feeling” over and over and over again. You can put The Eagles on my Gong List, too.
My husband knows my position, and, over the course of our 13-year relationship, he’s gone to great lengths to respect it. Though he also knows that if he wants to get laid, his chances—with me at least—decrease exponentially with each day the razor sits in its cartridge. The man makes his choices, and as he likes to say when soaping his face for a shave, “A happy life is a happy wife.” He really ought to write a book. Divorce rates would plummet.
His usually clean-shaven state is maintained out of a contractual agreement of sorts, in which I do not wear bangs and which has mostly worked well for us. With the exception of a time a few years back, when our marriage was in trouble and we engaged in a subliminal war of bangs vs. beard, I’ve kept my forehead uncovered and he’s limited his facial hair to a soul patch.
However, this past winter, he stopped shaving, partly out of superstition—his football team was doing well and he didn’t want to jinx it—and partly out of laziness. At which point, I just had to get over myself.
I didn’t have the energy or the right, really, to complain. He does a lot around the house, and I figured he’d earned himself a beard. It’s his face, I decided (I’m gracious like that), and he should do what he wants with it. And anyway, we’re married-with-kid and I have to be honest here: We’re the cliché. It’s not as if we’re having sex all the time and his incentive to keep up the upkeep was—meh. Sex as a tool is pretty ineffective when you’re not having it. Go figure.
When his team eventually lost in the playoffs, he went for a shave at Barber Side on Adams Avenue and, happy that he was going to indulge himself while releasing the demon, I did an end-zone dance. But it was premature because what came of that shave—and the subsequent shaves—was a handlebar mustache. I’d almost rather pet a cat than look at a handlebar mustache.
But my husband is supportive of all my endeavors, even the cockamamie ones; the least I could do was attempt to be supportive of his. Sam was having fun with facial hair, and given that I can change my look with a sweep of Red Stiletto lipstick by Lancôme, it seemed only fair to let him do his thing.
So, I accepted the ’stache when it began to grow. I even acted enthusiastic on its behalf for a while, going so far as to express eye-rolling exasperation when he told me a regular customer had asked him, as if she didn’t get his Halloween costume, “So, who are you trying to be?”
“Whatever,” I said, in solidarity. “Obviously, she doesn’t get it.”
But soon he began to absentmindedly twist it when we were chatting. Sometimes he’d smooth it. Other times, he’d pet it. And then? He started to wax it.
It moved when he spoke, tickled my face when we kissed, and, well—I have officially confirmed that I am not at all interested in Frederic Nietzsche going down on me. I’m glad, though, to have resolved that life-long question. It was keeping me up nights.
So one morning as Sam was leaving for work, just after he’d set my daily cup of coffee on my nightstand, I didn’t say, “Thank you” or “Have a great day, sweetie” or any of the kinds of things that would be appropriate for a woman to say to the man who goes to the store in the middle of the night to bring her back a package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs.
No. I said—in what I thought was a very diplomatic and reasonable tone—“So, honey, tell me. How much longer is the ’stache gonna be with us?”
After that, it was ix-nay on the ustache-may conversation. Like a deviant teenager, I considered making a hair appointment to cut me some bangs while he memorialized the mustache when he renewed his driver’s license. This thing just had to run its course.
In time, he headed to Barber Side and took off the ends, a happy compromise fully rewarded when we had frantic make-up sex in the backseat of my car. While it was parked in the garage. He pulled a hamstring, but still. He got laid. And I got my baby-faced boy in a mustache I can live with.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
Scoundrels among us
There I was in my car, hands on my steering wheel at 10 and 2 just like I learned in driver’s ed. way back in the last century. I was minding my own business when I heard a story on the radio about a new policy being implemented by Ryanair, a (despicable) European budget airline.
When, oh when, will I learn to ditch NPR once and for all? It’s bad for my heart.
People: Ryanair is about to start charging it’s customers to use the loo on some of its flights.
On friendship
“You are the friend of a lifetime,” she said to me as we walked back down the 1700 steps toward Positano. She was ahead of me but twisted back a bit as she spoke, her body still moving carefully forward, her words floating in the air behind her like the tail of a kite. I was a little stunned by the compliment and thought to myself, Girl, it’s a long way down from here. I sure hope I don’t disappoint you someday.
What I didn’t say in response is that you get what you give.
What I didn’t say in response is that I am just a reflection of her.
Kill Buzz: On Google’s answer to social networking and other crap like it
I could have sworn I’d clicked “No, thanks.” But instead I must have clicked, “Hell yes! Sign me up now because God forbid I should have only 17 other points of access to all the mundane shit my friends (or should I say ‘friends’?) are up to.” Thanks to the shiny new Gmail Buzz, Google’s answer to TwitFaceMySpaceLinkedInPlaxoWave, I now get all the mindless shorthand drivel in octuplicate. Oh, how quaint, the days of a handwritten letter.
Sometime last week—after I’d wasted an hour on Facebook (OK, fine, so it was two hours) and an unspecified amount of time perusing the photos of my contacts on Flickr, and then a while or so reading only headlines at three newsy sites, and one quick dip into Twitter for Emily Alpert’s updates on the San Diego Unified School District Budget Kerfuffle: The 2010 Edition, while simultaneously conducting three chats, one direct-messaging session, writing a blog post, taking a phone call, tweezing my eyebrows and helping my daughter complete 29 Valentine’s Day cards—I noticed the word “Buzz” and a brand-spankin’-new rainbow-colored thought bubble just below the link to my Gmail inbox.
Since I had some spare time, I clicked on it.
And lo! The information came screaming at me in layers and layers of layers. Without doing anything, I already had 30 followers, was following eight people and had a bold-face offer to follow bunches more. Some of my followers and followees were already engaged in lengthy—though, let’s be honest, not exactly riveting—conversations with people they follow or who follow them, many of whom I do not know or follow. You follow me?
I felt like I’d arrived at a friend’s house in sweats and slippers with cold cream on my face expecting an intimate dinner of take out and chick flicks, only to find a hedonistic gala with beautiful guests decked out in Alexander McQueen finery (rest his poor soul). Apparently, I didn’t get the memo.
“So… is there a way to just link my Twitter feed to Buzz? That’d be so much easier…” wrote one friend whom I’m automatically following.
“Buzz can take your tweets but you can’t update Twitter through Buzz yet,” responded his friend, whom I am not following. That friend continued, “I feel like a big stupid jackass for using those words in that sentence.” Hmmm. Self-deprecation is a feature I dig—maybe I want to follow this guy, after all.
As I scrolled down in blurry-eyed dismay, I read some of the—what are they called? Buzzards? Buzzits? Buzztwits?—and noticed that most of what I was reading, I’d already read during my earlier Facebook time-suck. With the same exact content in multiple places, it would be safe to say that the linking of platforms is well underway and my friend needn’t worry about sending his message out multiple times. One voice command into his trusty-rusty iPhone and his could be the Tweet heard ’round the world. Holy Merriam-Webster! Am I even speaking English anymore? R u?
Seriously, people. It’s a sorry state of affairs when we can link all of our accounts but can’t manage to link with the people sitting right across the dinner table because we’re busy twatfacebuzzering—that is, if people actually come together in the same physical space to begin with. Our relationships have been watered down to pokes and useless virtual cocktails and serial IMs. We’re so constantly in touch that there’s hardly a need to meet.
I have numerous friends whose marriages are on the edge of a knife in large part because the blue glow of technology has taken the place of intimacy. Hell, I could end up being one of those people if I’m not careful: Just this second—literally as I typed—I was chatting with a friend in Boise and half-conversing with my husband, who was standing in front of me folding my laundry. The only reason I spoke to him rather than texting him from my Blackberry is because I knew responding would have taken him away from fondling my underwear, his only opportunity since my multitasking doesn’t often include getting naked with him.
Speaking of my phone—to which I upgraded from a 5-year-old, sticker-adorned flip phone in December—I can now check e-mail and Facebook and all that twattie-yahoodle from my car or the beach or the movies or the grocery store or the gym. If I want to, I can buzz all my friends—and their friends and their friends—to let them know I’m at 80 percent of my maximum heart rate. Right! This! Second! Instant gratification is dog-slow compared with the offerings of the 3G Network.
With all these options, it’s increasingly difficult to live in the present. But I’m old-fashioned at heart, and I’m pushing back against this nonsense. I prefer letters to listservs, and once in a while, I have to unplug. Two weeks ago, I forged ahead sans cell phone, albeit unintentionally. And that day, I heard raindrops—actual droplets of water falling from nimbostratus clouds—crashing on my sunroof. I watched them bead up and slide down my windows. I had a driveway moment during which I wasn’t texting, e-mailing or talking. It was raining, and I was listening. L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G.
This week, I got a postcard from a good friend in Switzerland. A physical piece of paper with ink on it. The original 140-character communiqué. In cursive, scrunched together to fit the limited space, my friend wrote, “Can you stop over in Zurich on your way to the Amalfi (I read about it on your blog)?”
I decided right then that a letter was the only appropriate response. But we’re modern girls and I needed her physical address. And since I’d already shut off Buzz in disgust, I asked her for her digits the old fashioned way: I e-mailed her.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
C is for ‘crazy making’: If you’re enduring school-choice season, you’re not alone
Feb. 15 marks the last day that parents of children going into or already enrolled in the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) can apply for “school choice.” If you’re not a parent, you probably think this column doesn’t apply to you. But please. Don’t skip over to the medicinal-marijuana ads just yet. There’s valuable information for you in the next nine paragraphs, namely: Don’t have kids. Not that kids aren’t great; they totally are—especially if you raise them right, with plenty of pleases and thank-yous, baths and broccoli and lots of Yo Gabba Gabba! (As an aside: Most people don’t raise their kids right and you will have to deal with these insufferable nincompoops on a daily basis. It’s painful.)
So where was I? Oh yeah. Getting your kid into school.
Navigating entry into the public-school system makes that first horrendous year of incessant crying, sleepless nights and crap-filled diapers seem as fun and carefree as the days when you were single and doing lines off a bathroom counter-top at the Manchester Hyatt during the staff Christmas party. Make the most of your childfree lives, people. It’s a tad different over here on this side.
Here’s how the school thing works: Parents can send their kid to their neighborhood school like they did back in the 20th century. Or, they can look at other schools in the city that have a particular focus—say, immersion in another language or an emphasis in boondoggle—and list up to five of these schools on the “choice” application. Then you cross your fingers and kiss your elbow that Little Jackson’s number gets picked out of the giant lottery ball at the school district’s main office. All of this doesn’t include applications to charter schools, each of which has a separate form. Admission to these schools is equally as random (or so they say).
Although I’m not a hover parent or even one who is particularly organized—I missed my father-in-law’s birthday last year—I managed to overachieve in the school-application department and beat the deadline by months. And thanks to a Total Freak Out at the ominous news of pending school budget cuts, I turned my back on my philosophical stance and waded into the private-school-application waters. More specifically, Sam and I dove head first into the financial-aid tide pool for a private school. It was a paralyzing experience that went something like this:
How many boats do you own? 0
How many vacation homes do you own? 0
How many of your membership dues exceed $250 each month? Uh… 0.
Do you summer in Madrid or Gstaad? …
Do you prefer Dom or Krug to be served on your private jet? …
Do you own a coat, scarf or purse made by Burberry? Oh, God no. Hell no.
Jimmy Choo or Christian Louboutin? …Do knock-offs count?
Sam and I had started to feel pretty low and uncomfortably exposed. After four hours of scouring old tax records and seeing exactly how worthless we are on paper, I sucked down three old-fashioneds, including authentic maraschino cherries made by D.A. Kolodenko himself (take that, you high-falutin’, private-school-attending Cristal drinkers!). It was clear how far I’d wandered off the beaten path. These are not our people, I thought. And we are not worthless, even if a line-by-line audit says otherwise. We are poor! We are pagans! We are public school! And with that, I shredded our application. I’d like those four hours back, please.
Every day, I am asked by various friends or family members, “Do you know where Ruby will be going to kindergarten?” And I offer an abridged spiel with lots of gesticulation. Our first choice for her is a school whose proximity to our home is sort of like that of Russia to Alaska, but even closer, if you can imagine. It’s not a metaphor: We can actually see it from our front porch. Unfortunately, because it’s a magnet school, we’re beholden to the lottery and there is no greasing the wheel with charm and / or insider connections. I’ve watched other parents do some foot stomping, but that only serves to remind me not to hang out with them. Ever.
My personal feeling is that if I have to listen to the school’s alarm going off all weekend long, my child should automatically be given admission, in the same way that she is automatically admitted to our neighborhood school. Because that would be an actual choice, as opposed to the semi-sorta-pseudo choice currently offered. I politely mentioned this to a district staffer on the phone one day, when I’d called to verify that they received my faxed application. Not surprisingly, I heard only crickets on the other end of the line.
And so, like parents all over the city, we wait on the School Gods to bestow upon us the answer to the pressing question. If you’re a parent and you haven’t already done so, you might want to get your hustle on. You have just a week to make your list and then sit on your hands. And if you’re not a parent, and you made it this far, then, well. I’m guessing you really need to hit up that pot dispensary now, though you’ll likely have to get in line behind a few parents. And after you get home, I would highly suggest you seek out DJ Lance Rock for a little entertainment.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it
As I begin preparing to go on Euro Gallavant 2010—also known as Debt Fest 2.0.1.0, or Reinvent Yourself: The 21st Century Edition—I’ve been making contact with a few other writers with whom I’ll be sharing prosecco toasts and sunsets over the Amalfi Coast. I sure hope they’re not talkers, boy. I like my sunsets lonely and profound and weighted with deeper meaning. Sort of like J.D. Salinger. Ah, shoot. Who am I kidding? What’s a sunset without friends and a few tipsy oohs and ahhs and holy mother of Jesus can you believe we’re in fucking Positano?!?
One of the people I plan on spending some serious time with is this woman right over here. I spent several days perusing her blog and getting lost in her incredible interviews (especially this one), which are amazingly thoughtful, pitch-perfect-inquisitive and deserving of larger publication. All I can say is that the screenwriters for Jerry Maguire couldn’t write a line cheesy enough for the occasion of meeting Sariah in person.
Without a script, I’ve decided my best bet is to play it cool. Not like Danny Zuko impress-my-friends cool. But more like a don’t-fawn-or-try-to-touch-her-hair cool. The way I figure it, if I don’t knock her over and hump her leg on day one, that will be West Side Story cool.
But I’ve strayed now from my original intention, which was to borrow the questionnaire part of Sariah’s interview. Because it’s so damn cool. As in, The Birth of:
What are your necessities?…Love; kisses from my daughter, both landed and blown; sunglasses; CO Bigelow Mentha Tint lip gloss; heels of all kinds (stacked, stiletto, kitten, princess, wedge, what have you); booksbooksbooks; The New Yorker; On The Street with Bill Cunningham; the family bed on weekends; alone time; my Canon 40-D and 50mm lens; Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, any Thelonious, Jimmy Smith, Gene Harris, Chet Baker, Ella Fizgerald…oh hell, all kinds of jazz that I couldn’t possibly live without, especially Cannonball Adderly’s and Bobby Timmons’ swingin’ masterpiece “Dis Here” set on repeat, cruising up the coast as a passenger in my husband’s classic Mini, windows down, volume at 11. Picture it…
Nothing smells better than. . .my daughter’s skin after a bath and her scalp after oiling; the space between my husband’s nose and upper lip after he shaves; early mornings in a canyon.
Nothing tastes better than. . .Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups/Trees/Eggs/Hearts with an ice cold glass of water.
Nothing feels better than . . .Hey, now…
I’d rather be…laughing and toasting with friends on my back patio during a summer evening, my home filled with people I adore, than doing just about anything else, especially faxing.
If you could live in any other epoch, which would it be? As far as fashion goes, the 20s or the 60s (ala Mad Men). Otherwise, this one seems to be working out well for me.
If you could jump into any painting, à la Mary Poppins, which would you choose?
“The Tree of Life,” c. 1909 by Gustav Klimt
What about you? What are your answers to Sariah’s pressing questions?
Dichotomy: Heidi Montag journeys to become ‘the best me’ while thousands die beneath rubble
An acquaintance of mine blogged recently about some things she’s sick and tired of, and her post inspired me to account for a few of my own. As I racked up my itemized list of grievances, the worst earthquake in 200 years struck the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Oh, Haiti. How you put things in such clear perspective for the rest of us.
On Jan. 12, 2010, this list might have been just a bunch of snark. Today, it’s down right absurd. That being said, here are a few things that I am really friggin’ sick and tired of:
1. Carrie Prejean. San Diego’s crown jewel—and the boobs that beauty-pageant officials cruelly forced on her—simply will not go away. Prejean and her erect right nipple were spotted frolicking in a Hawaiian ocean with her boyfriend du jour last week and made the headlines alongside “Thousands Feared Dead.” Since when did 15 minutes become 15 years?
2. Adam Lambert. OK, I’m not sick of Adam Lambert, per se; he’s the anti-Carrie Prejean, a guy with actual talent who used his celebrity to encourage his fans to donate to Haitian relief. So I root for him. I’m more sick of the hullabaloo over his American Music Awards performance, for which he is now on a World Apology Tour. I watched his three minutes on the AMA’s via YouTube. That he nearly finger fucked one of his female dancers was surprising. But kissing a boy? Bitch, please. He should have shoved his tongue down Carrie Prejean’s throat if he wanted to be outrageous.
3. Speaking of outrageous, how about Heidi Montag’s 10-hour, 10-procedure plastic surgery? At 23 years old, this talentless, soulless fame-whore has finally chiseled away her self-proclaimed “ugly duckling” looks for something a little more Barbie. I guess she didn’t get the memo that beauty comes from the inside. Too bad for her, there’s no surgery to fix inner ugly.
4. The goddamned pandas. The adult pandas, the baby pandas, whatever. Seriously. I. Am. Over. It. Panda-cam? Bo-ring. The giant panda exhibit at the zoo? Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. The line to get into the panda exhibit at the zoo? Biggest scam they have going. I like to go through the exhibit of always-snoozing pandas just to eavesdrop on disappointed tourists. I watch as they try to navigate their double-wide strollers along the narrow passage, keep the kids from swinging on the railings and strain to hear the barrage of panda factoids whispered over a microphone by zoo employees. “All they do is sleep” and “We should have gone to SeaWorld” are two of my favorite overheards.
5. Christmas decorations left up after Jan. 1. Look, I know it’s festive and romantic and twinkly and Christ-y, but FYI to my neighbors with the giant corner window: We’re pushing February here. It’s time to let go. The tree must come down. The electric moving snowman, too.
6. Shitty customer service. Hey, Tom, at Fairlane Cleaners. If you melt the buttons off my sweater without first warning me that the buttons might melt off my sweater, it’s your fault, and I do not appreciate a lecture about why it’s my fault.
7. The orange construction cones left behind by the company that made my neighborhood sidewalks wheelchair friendly more than a month ago. Way to find conscientious contractors, city of San Diego! It’s nice that the physically disabled have better access, but is it really that hard to clean up your mess?
8. Oversharing via Twitter. Tila Tequila, Courtney Love and Lindsay Lohan can tweet “the truth hurts” or “it’s the truth” or “the truth will come out” all they want. They’re still abominable, individually and collectively, and no amount of truth-telling will change that. Unplug, ladies, unplug.
9. Athletes and crocodile tears. Mark McGuire, I’m talking to you.
10. Liars who lie and know they lie and don’t get called on their lies by people who perpetuate their lies. Two recent lies that come to mind: “We had no domestic attacks under Bush,” by liar Rudy Guiliani and “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term,” by liar Dana Perino.
11. Not Of This World window decals. If you’re not of this world, what world are you of, exactly? I can only assume you’re of the world that teaches you how to expertly snake parking spaces from me at the library. Obviously, being Not of This World anoints you with VIP status, and your need to check out that book trumps the fact that I was waiting patiently—indicator on—for that space. Peace to you, brother. I don’t care what world you’re from: I would help your sorry ass in a crisis.
12. Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Your responses to this particular human emergency were predictable and nothing short of vile. You are worms, both of you, which is a bitter insult to worms the world over. Keith Olbermann said it better: “Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under the rubble in Haiti tonight.”
Aaaand just like that, I’m back to Haiti. I can’t not think about Haiti for very long, the devastation and the heartbreak and the unimaginable horror those people have endured—continue to endure—all while life here hums right along. It’s senseless and unfair that the sun should rise and set on two places not so far apart and yet everything is terrifically lopsided. I feel helpless and frustrated. So I donate a few bucks and make a few jokes to feel normal. I go to the gym and the bank and the grocery store. I play with my child who tonight sleeps safely under layers of blankets and a solid roof, unlike thousands and thousands of Haitian children just like her. All I can do is not linger too long on the images and be extremely thankful for my plain luck of geography.
And when it all gets to be too much, when things get really low, that panda-cam sure can take the edge off the overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
(Image from Reuters)
(As published—sans photos— today in San Diego CityBeat.)