As fictional television detective Adrianne Monk would say, a great memory is both "a gift and a curse." As someone who has a freakish memory, I live this motto every day.
It's a gift when happy tidbits pop into your mind. Summer, to me, is wrapped up in a short snippet in my mind: I'm about 4, freshly-bathed right before bed, wearing my light blue terrycloth PJs, sitting on a picnic bench in the backyard, watching my two brothers play in the freshly cut grass, while also watching the dusk set in. Not a momentous event, but it sticks in my mind as if it were yesterday.
The word surprise was defined for me two years later. I was in our basement rec room watching TV with my one brother, and my mom called down the stairs and told me to come up. I said, "do I have to?," and she said, "yes," so I did. As I climbed the dark blue carpeted steps, I though it was odd that I could smell my teacher's cologne, but I ignored it. My parents were in the back living room, so I went back, and standing there in her fake fur was my second grade teacher, Mrs. McCleary. I remember just staring at her, wondering what she was doing there, and then her coat moved: in her arms was Brownie the puppy that she had brought to class earlier in the week--the puppy I had begged my parents to have after I was put in charge of taking care of it while it was in our classroom. I grabbed the puppy and sat on the floor, ecstatic that my parents agreed to let us have a second dog--my dog.
Determination in my mind will always be connected to an experience I had when I was a writer for my high school paper. I had just done a brilliant piece about homelessness in Bucks County--actually visiting the homeless women's shelter that I had never even known existed since I could not believe that poverty existed where I did!--a moving piece that showed the humanity of homelessness. The article was going to hit just as "Hands Across America" was occurring, and the junior editor who reviewed the piece re-wrote the entire piece into a crappy "let's do Hands Across Bucks County or have Bucks County Aid like Band Aid" pep rally cheer. My original was hacked to bits, replaced by pep and pom-poms, and in my stubborn teenage mind, that would never do. So I told the teacher-adviser that I didn't want my piece to run as it was revised and that I'd rather throw it in the garbage than be connected to such "trite fluff" (yes, my exact words!). I told Ms. Franke that either it went in as I wrote it, or it went in the trash. The article appeared in the next issue--my original article, with the comma errors fixed. Victory.
These happy moments are numerous and clearly still come to mind often as I go through life, but then there's the other side of Monk's adage: that a good memory is a curse, too. Embarrassment will forever be the moment in French class in 1984 when I had to give an oral speech about a guy fixing his motorcycle, and instead of saying "par" I said "pew" and the popular kids in the class laughed hysterically, with my crush leading the way, holding his nose saying "p.u. is right!" and nearly falling out of his yellow-backed desk/chair combination. This one minute of my educational life still haunts me, even though I have spend millions of minutes in classrooms through K-12 as well as three college degrees. But that one minute is still there, as if it happened earlier today.
Disappointment will be forever branded into my mind as the moment when I asked someone to the senior prom. We worked together, and he was a few years older, but I thought he'd do me this favor so I could go since I didn't get to the sophomore dance or the junior prom. After all, only complete losers didn't go to any of their proms. I was wearing a beige and white striped sweater and matching solid beige sweater skirt (it was the 1980s after all), thinking I looked pretty good and that since he always flirted with me that he would do it. After getting up the nerve to ask him, and convincing myself that this was a lock, he laughed openly and said, "seriously? Can't you find anyone your own age to take you? Won't anyone else be seen with you?" I turned away like a kicked puppy and never brought the subject up again. But the night of the prom, when I was working because everyone else was at the prom, and he was working in the next department only, I realized that the world of romance and happy endings was a pile of crap...something clearly for others but not me.
Gut-wrenching fear is always connected to two moments. First in 1992, when I heard my mother answer the phone and talk to her gynecologist and repeat the word "malignant" about a recent breast biopsy. That huge, icy fist of reality punched me in the stomach and nearly made me sick. Second in 2004, when I heard the ER doctor tell me that my father had terminal brain cancer and only had 6-9 months to live. Again, icy stomach punch. Mom lived, Dad died, life had to go on. But the moments occur again and again without warning.
Just as I could go on forever with positive memories, I could go on forever and a day with the negative ones. And some nights, when it's hard to fall asleep, it's only the negative ones that come to mind: dissolved friendships, embarrassing moments, sad endings, lost loves, and fears of them all happening again and again. It's easy to say, "think of the bright times!!" when you're the one who doesn't have a Monk-like memory, when you're the one who isn't cursed with pessimism...when you're the one in love saying, "winter must be cold for those with no warm memories, and we've already missed the spring." When you're on the bright side of the memory wall. But when both sides of the wall constantly invade your daily life, it's not so easy to see the glass as half full.
So what can I do? What does it mean when all of these memories bombard you day and night, day after day?
When I took an Art History class in college, my instructor introduced us to a fascinating artist and artistic technique: pointillism by Seurat. I remember the instructor lecturing that each dot was it's own work of art, each dot was important in its own right, but that when you put all the dots together, each dot worked in harmony to create a larger picture. So if you stand three inches away from "Picnic in the Park," you see a series of pastel dots, sitting individually next to each other: distinct. When you walk three feet backwards, however, a different picture appears: we are at the picnic at the park with the ladies and their umbrellas. We see the larger picture.
Each time I remember the good times and the bad times, the happy moments and the sad, the moments of elation and those of complete embarrassment, I'm at the picnic in the park. Each time a memory floods into my mind's eye, I'm three inches away from the event: living each moment in isolation with its own significance and influence. And as the memory fades into my daily life, I'm three feet away from that moment observing the larger picture: these memories--good and bad-- paint the portrait of whom I am today. The memories shaped me, and that's just the way it is. I can try to change that, try to forget, but to do that is to forget a piece of what makes me whom I am today. Good or bad, it's just the way it is. True friends accept me as I am; the others try to change me and constantly force me to revise my picnic in the park...but that isn't going to happen.
My memory dots are my memory dots: they've made me cynical, comical, sensitive, helpful, insecure, over-achieving, paranoid, vulnerable, pig-headed, and lots of other things. Accepting me for whom I am may not be a picnic for some, but sometimes the dots give us the whole picture...for better or worse.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Rainy Night in Madison
The rain fell lightly: not enough to need an umbrella but enough to make one hunch beneath the hood of a light raincoat. The streetlights sparkled off the damp streets, the capital building glistened, and the nightlife was alive. After all, it's a college town; what college town isn't abuzz on a Friday night....despite the rain?
My stomach rumbled, so I set forth to find this evening's "eat in your hotel room" food. Sub? Burger? Pizza? Chinese? As I donned my hood and strolled along the main street, I looked for dinner with one part of my brain, but with the other I noticed people. The first group, young ladies pledging a sorority, and the second group, young men pledging a fraternity: all in a group, all establishing their identities. Since this is a usual occurence on a college campus, I pushed them out of my mind and continued to State Street: the main drag. Next I saw beggars on the corner with their change-filled coffee cups shaking at the college students and passers-by. Most people just hustled by, talking to other members of the group so they could ignore the pleas; once again, however, I felt badly and dropped in some change. "Bless you," said the one as he shared the pittance with his group. Another group, another identity. I guess you can see where this is going now...everywhere I went was a group, and everyone seemed to pull its identity from the group. A group of cross country runners in their warm-up suits, thirty-something couples strolling hand-in-hand, students pretending to be the Beats as they spoke poetry aloud and laughed, black-clad folks with wine glasses in hand inside the contemporary arts center, Grad students complaining about reading lists and TA training, fancily dressed theater goers waiting inside for the show to begin, the folks from Georgia staying in my hotel who were all in town for the same wedding, and the list goes on. The entire walk, while I foraged for food, all I saw were groups...no one seemed to be alone, wel, except me.
Earlier in the day I was with a group, but within that group I saw the divisions: the vegetarians looked down at the meat in sandwiches; research-professors talked about antiquated rhetorcal devices that I had never even learned; the married/partnered talked about their wonderful couples vacations; the parents updated each other on who was where and why; the locals discussed the expected traffic on the ride home; etc.. Groups within a group: again, the sense of clinging to an identity filled the room.
As I walked along the rainy streets, a loner in a world of groups, I realized how much of our personal identity is gleaned from groups...and how we all crave this connection. We group ourselves in a variety of ways. Single-parents chat about single-parent stuff. Couples hang out with other couples. Ivory-towers chat with ivory-towers. City folk thrive in the activity with other city folk. Farmers relate to other farmers. You get my drift.
We talk about the individual spirit of America, but in reality, we are very rarely individuals. I may be alone, but I'm not unique in being alone...I'm sure there are others out there in a similar situation, but we never see each other. Those who do not fit into most groups draw their identities from a group that never groups, a group where each member exists on its own, wondering where the other group-mates have gone: we are the group-less, but at the same time, this is our group. Alone yet not alone...isolated but not...wait, I guess we are. Strange thing about groups: they only matter when you actually spend time with them together...you can't be part of a group alone.
My stomach rumbled, so I set forth to find this evening's "eat in your hotel room" food. Sub? Burger? Pizza? Chinese? As I donned my hood and strolled along the main street, I looked for dinner with one part of my brain, but with the other I noticed people. The first group, young ladies pledging a sorority, and the second group, young men pledging a fraternity: all in a group, all establishing their identities. Since this is a usual occurence on a college campus, I pushed them out of my mind and continued to State Street: the main drag. Next I saw beggars on the corner with their change-filled coffee cups shaking at the college students and passers-by. Most people just hustled by, talking to other members of the group so they could ignore the pleas; once again, however, I felt badly and dropped in some change. "Bless you," said the one as he shared the pittance with his group. Another group, another identity. I guess you can see where this is going now...everywhere I went was a group, and everyone seemed to pull its identity from the group. A group of cross country runners in their warm-up suits, thirty-something couples strolling hand-in-hand, students pretending to be the Beats as they spoke poetry aloud and laughed, black-clad folks with wine glasses in hand inside the contemporary arts center, Grad students complaining about reading lists and TA training, fancily dressed theater goers waiting inside for the show to begin, the folks from Georgia staying in my hotel who were all in town for the same wedding, and the list goes on. The entire walk, while I foraged for food, all I saw were groups...no one seemed to be alone, wel, except me.
Earlier in the day I was with a group, but within that group I saw the divisions: the vegetarians looked down at the meat in sandwiches; research-professors talked about antiquated rhetorcal devices that I had never even learned; the married/partnered talked about their wonderful couples vacations; the parents updated each other on who was where and why; the locals discussed the expected traffic on the ride home; etc.. Groups within a group: again, the sense of clinging to an identity filled the room.
As I walked along the rainy streets, a loner in a world of groups, I realized how much of our personal identity is gleaned from groups...and how we all crave this connection. We group ourselves in a variety of ways. Single-parents chat about single-parent stuff. Couples hang out with other couples. Ivory-towers chat with ivory-towers. City folk thrive in the activity with other city folk. Farmers relate to other farmers. You get my drift.
We talk about the individual spirit of America, but in reality, we are very rarely individuals. I may be alone, but I'm not unique in being alone...I'm sure there are others out there in a similar situation, but we never see each other. Those who do not fit into most groups draw their identities from a group that never groups, a group where each member exists on its own, wondering where the other group-mates have gone: we are the group-less, but at the same time, this is our group. Alone yet not alone...isolated but not...wait, I guess we are. Strange thing about groups: they only matter when you actually spend time with them together...you can't be part of a group alone.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Genetically pessimistic?
The other day I was channel surfing when I came across a show with an intriguing title: "Michael J. Fox's Adventures of an Incurable Optimist." The title alone struck me as being a bit off since Fox has suffered with Parkinson's Disease since he was only 27, and I couldn't imagine anyone in his shoes being optimistic about life. But since I have always loved his work, I watched the show. In the beginning, he talked about being optimistic v. pessimistic in life, which made me immediately flash to my own life since I have always been labeled as a pessimist--even since I was a toddler. Throughout the show Fox taunted us with the fact that he was going to explore one of the new theories about what makes a person pessimistic or optimistic, but I just knew he was going to say that it's life experiences that make you this way, so I took a little stroll down memory lane in my mind as he talked with Lance Armstrong.
My mental walk went back to a slip of paper I once found in my mom's stuff. She had written down that when I was about 3, I told my brother who was 8 that "you'd be better off not getting out of bed sometimes." Now, I was only 3, so I must have heard an adult say this at some point because how could a 3 year old be this pessimistic? From 3 I jumped to 6 and found evidence that it is life experience that makes us pessimistic. I vividly remembered the hurt I felt when my best school friend "Amy" borrowed my box of 64 Crayola Crayons (w/ the sharpener!!) near the end of the school year and left them out in the sun so they all melted: my super duper box was one big blob. I cried. Then I flashed from 6 to 10 and remembered one of the most devastating events of my life. Our fifth grade class was writing books to submit to the Young Author conference where you got to meet the authors we were reading and see a tarantula (a very marketable event to get 5th graders inspired). I had been entering since 2nd grade and had once gotten an "Honorable Mention" in 4th grade for my book "The Strongest Ant," so I readily embraced trying again. For the fifth grade project I wrote "Freddy the Frog," a great tale about life in the swamp with the title character. My unbiased opinion was that it was brilliant and would win the trip to the conference, and I was right. The only problem was that I didn't get the trip. My arch rival at the time, Jeanine, stole the book from my desk and rewrote it in her printing, and upon submission, she won the trip. She was our school's "Young Author" that year. As you can tell, I'm still crushed: I loved that book and never ever liked Jeanine.
But as Lance Armstrong's story continued, my mind kept accumulating stories from my past that clearly made me the pessimist I am today. From the age of 4 I had two friends, and we were all inseparable...until 6th grade when they both "dumped" me because they wanted to be popular in middle school and said that they couldn't when they were seen with me. The one friend lived immediately across the street, but he wouldn't even walk to the bus stop with me: he walked on the other side of the road and would not talk with me or make eye contact. That same year, in a desperate attempt to make friends, my mom let me have a party for all of the girls in my 6th grade class: they were all invited and no one came. It was just my mom and I and loads of food. Sadly, I remembered event after event like this from 6th grade through to today as Lance Armstrong spoke about his being raised by a teenage mother and his struggles with cancer. I tried to focus on the show in order to avoid more trips down memory lane, but at one point my mind wandered to grad school and a guy I was dating. We got along really well, and he had the most gorgeous green eyes I had ever seen. I knew he could be the one as he sent me postcard after postcard from the different countries of Europe he toured for 6 weeks that summer. He promised to call as soon as he was home on July 31st, but it was the second week of August before he finally returned my calls (that was before email and Facebook). When we finally got together, and he didn't have the souvenir he had said he "picked out just for me" from Vienna, his words kicked me in the stomach: "I've decided to date Gina instead of you." "Who's Gina?" "Oh, did I forget to tell you? I had a blind date with her in April. We had just started dating, so I didn't really mention it. But she's a family friend, and she lives closer, and she picked me up at the airport, and her family has been 'established' in my town for a long time, and her dad's a lawyer..." He said more, but I don't really remember the rest. That was it for me: my being a pessimist was to be expected since life had pooed on my head far too many times to even remember.
Fox's voice again broke me out of my saddened stupor as I continued to watch the show. I learned about a "happy" country called Bhutan, heard about how the Chicago Cubs' 100 year losing streak doesn't upset the fans, and then came what I was waiting for: the segment that was about to prove me right...that life dumping on you makes you pessimistic. Fox introduced a British researcher who was exploring what causes us to be optimistic or pessimistic. She sat Fox down at a computer and had him select between two pictures that flashed on the screen. I picked out the images, too. I saw a dagger, a tombstone, and a lightening bolt. When the researcher discussed the results, I was stunned. Basically, if you chose the "positive" pictures--the child, the flowers, and the sunny day--you are pre-wired to be an optimist; if you chose my pictures, you were pre-wired to be a pessimist. Apparently, this researcher was finding that we are genetically pre-disposed to be optimistic or pessimistic. Impossible, I thought. But then she showed DNA results and other facts, and lo and behold, it made sense!
After the show, I sat back and felt somewhat relieved: it wasn't my fault that I was pessimistic...it was my neurological make up. But I couldn't get all of those bad events from my life out of my mind: they still must have had some effect on my pessimism. Then I remembered what the researcher said to Fox--that this predisposition makes a person perceive an event as either positive or negative based on the pre-disposition. If that's true, then when my crayons melted and I saw a blob, someone else would have been happy to get a whole new box of un-used crayons. To them, Jeanine's stealing my book would be a sign of how not to behave in life. Being dumped by two friends in 6th grade would be an opportunity to find better friends to a pre-wired optimist. No one coming to a party would be proof to an optimist that they weren't friends you wanted in the first place. Losing John to Gina in grad school would have been a boon to a pre-wired optimist: "at least I learned his true colors early!" I saw it, but I knew I could never think this way: I'm just pre-wired to be Eeyore.
But with my new found knowledge, I began to see why "perky" people who do see the glass as half full always wore on my nerves: I was not genetically pre-disposed to embrace their joy. So, when I think back to watching a TV show titled "Trapper John, M.D.," I understand why the "have a nice day!" candystriper drove me crazy; why one of my middle school friends who loved hearts, "friendship" sayings, and rainbows sometimes made me want to gauge my eyes out; why, to this day, I easily doubt friends; and why I immediately expect the phrase "I wanted to talk to you about something" certainly means trouble for me.
I just can't help it: I'm genetically wired to doubt the world and its intentions. And I know it must be fact because Michael J. Fox told me so...and anyone who can travel through time with a DeLorean must know more about science than an English professor.
My mental walk went back to a slip of paper I once found in my mom's stuff. She had written down that when I was about 3, I told my brother who was 8 that "you'd be better off not getting out of bed sometimes." Now, I was only 3, so I must have heard an adult say this at some point because how could a 3 year old be this pessimistic? From 3 I jumped to 6 and found evidence that it is life experience that makes us pessimistic. I vividly remembered the hurt I felt when my best school friend "Amy" borrowed my box of 64 Crayola Crayons (w/ the sharpener!!) near the end of the school year and left them out in the sun so they all melted: my super duper box was one big blob. I cried. Then I flashed from 6 to 10 and remembered one of the most devastating events of my life. Our fifth grade class was writing books to submit to the Young Author conference where you got to meet the authors we were reading and see a tarantula (a very marketable event to get 5th graders inspired). I had been entering since 2nd grade and had once gotten an "Honorable Mention" in 4th grade for my book "The Strongest Ant," so I readily embraced trying again. For the fifth grade project I wrote "Freddy the Frog," a great tale about life in the swamp with the title character. My unbiased opinion was that it was brilliant and would win the trip to the conference, and I was right. The only problem was that I didn't get the trip. My arch rival at the time, Jeanine, stole the book from my desk and rewrote it in her printing, and upon submission, she won the trip. She was our school's "Young Author" that year. As you can tell, I'm still crushed: I loved that book and never ever liked Jeanine.
But as Lance Armstrong's story continued, my mind kept accumulating stories from my past that clearly made me the pessimist I am today. From the age of 4 I had two friends, and we were all inseparable...until 6th grade when they both "dumped" me because they wanted to be popular in middle school and said that they couldn't when they were seen with me. The one friend lived immediately across the street, but he wouldn't even walk to the bus stop with me: he walked on the other side of the road and would not talk with me or make eye contact. That same year, in a desperate attempt to make friends, my mom let me have a party for all of the girls in my 6th grade class: they were all invited and no one came. It was just my mom and I and loads of food. Sadly, I remembered event after event like this from 6th grade through to today as Lance Armstrong spoke about his being raised by a teenage mother and his struggles with cancer. I tried to focus on the show in order to avoid more trips down memory lane, but at one point my mind wandered to grad school and a guy I was dating. We got along really well, and he had the most gorgeous green eyes I had ever seen. I knew he could be the one as he sent me postcard after postcard from the different countries of Europe he toured for 6 weeks that summer. He promised to call as soon as he was home on July 31st, but it was the second week of August before he finally returned my calls (that was before email and Facebook). When we finally got together, and he didn't have the souvenir he had said he "picked out just for me" from Vienna, his words kicked me in the stomach: "I've decided to date Gina instead of you." "Who's Gina?" "Oh, did I forget to tell you? I had a blind date with her in April. We had just started dating, so I didn't really mention it. But she's a family friend, and she lives closer, and she picked me up at the airport, and her family has been 'established' in my town for a long time, and her dad's a lawyer..." He said more, but I don't really remember the rest. That was it for me: my being a pessimist was to be expected since life had pooed on my head far too many times to even remember.
Fox's voice again broke me out of my saddened stupor as I continued to watch the show. I learned about a "happy" country called Bhutan, heard about how the Chicago Cubs' 100 year losing streak doesn't upset the fans, and then came what I was waiting for: the segment that was about to prove me right...that life dumping on you makes you pessimistic. Fox introduced a British researcher who was exploring what causes us to be optimistic or pessimistic. She sat Fox down at a computer and had him select between two pictures that flashed on the screen. I picked out the images, too. I saw a dagger, a tombstone, and a lightening bolt. When the researcher discussed the results, I was stunned. Basically, if you chose the "positive" pictures--the child, the flowers, and the sunny day--you are pre-wired to be an optimist; if you chose my pictures, you were pre-wired to be a pessimist. Apparently, this researcher was finding that we are genetically pre-disposed to be optimistic or pessimistic. Impossible, I thought. But then she showed DNA results and other facts, and lo and behold, it made sense!
After the show, I sat back and felt somewhat relieved: it wasn't my fault that I was pessimistic...it was my neurological make up. But I couldn't get all of those bad events from my life out of my mind: they still must have had some effect on my pessimism. Then I remembered what the researcher said to Fox--that this predisposition makes a person perceive an event as either positive or negative based on the pre-disposition. If that's true, then when my crayons melted and I saw a blob, someone else would have been happy to get a whole new box of un-used crayons. To them, Jeanine's stealing my book would be a sign of how not to behave in life. Being dumped by two friends in 6th grade would be an opportunity to find better friends to a pre-wired optimist. No one coming to a party would be proof to an optimist that they weren't friends you wanted in the first place. Losing John to Gina in grad school would have been a boon to a pre-wired optimist: "at least I learned his true colors early!" I saw it, but I knew I could never think this way: I'm just pre-wired to be Eeyore.
But with my new found knowledge, I began to see why "perky" people who do see the glass as half full always wore on my nerves: I was not genetically pre-disposed to embrace their joy. So, when I think back to watching a TV show titled "Trapper John, M.D.," I understand why the "have a nice day!" candystriper drove me crazy; why one of my middle school friends who loved hearts, "friendship" sayings, and rainbows sometimes made me want to gauge my eyes out; why, to this day, I easily doubt friends; and why I immediately expect the phrase "I wanted to talk to you about something" certainly means trouble for me.
I just can't help it: I'm genetically wired to doubt the world and its intentions. And I know it must be fact because Michael J. Fox told me so...and anyone who can travel through time with a DeLorean must know more about science than an English professor.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Take off, helicopter parents!!
The other day I walked into the mailroom only to see our program assistant yelling "I hate parents...I hate parents" at the phone that she had just used. "What's up?" I asked, pretty much knowing the answer. She responded that the mother of one of the 20 year old transfer students that we had just registered only an hour ago (and with whom we had spent over an hour!) had called to tell us that we had given her son the wrong schedule. The mother said that he should be taking this and that and this and that as if she were the expert in our program. The chair of the department finally dealt with the mother later that day, but sadly this is not a one-time occurrence. We are in a new phase of education where college professors are being bombarded and hassled by the helicopter parents who cannot let their children grow up and be responsible adults; these parents just hover above us, trying to tell us our jobs, controlling their "children" who are now over 18, and causing us to wonder...when are you going to make your children take care of themselves? Are you going to fight with their spouses for them? Go to their jobs and tell their bosses that they aren't doing their jobs right? Go to Iraq and tell the drill sergeant that she's being "mean" to her baby? When are you going to make these "kids" be adults?
As I said, this is not a limited occurrence in my daily worklife, and now I've been noticing it everywhere! One time last semester a student took our placement test for composition, and his mother harassed both of our program assistants as well as the chair of the department before then moving on to harass an Associate Dean, the Dean, the Provost, and then the Chancellor because she knew her student was "an excellent writer" and didn't need any college writing classes, even though the placement test results said otherwise. Momzilla, as we fondly called her, finally lost her battle but not before making an ass of herself: the son she was fighting for was 20 and was quite capable of handling himself, but he LET his mother act like this. Again, parents bugging college professors is not something that is new and not something that will go away anytime soon since these parents seem to be incapable of having their children mature into responsible adults.
But the college arena is not the only victim of helicopter parents. The other day I was at the DMV getting some paperwork done for my mother, and as I sat the 30 minutes it took them to process the forms, I saw two more examples that made me cringe. One young man, who looked to be about 19, was standing at the one podium filling out his paperwork with his mommy looking over his shoulder. She kept pointing to different lines on the form telling him what to write down, and the son just did it. As they then discussed their paperwork with the clerk, I learned that this young man had had his driver's license suspended, and he and his mommy were there to get the license re-instated. Mommy helped with the forms; mommy wrote the check; and mommy did all of the talking with the clerk. The ADULT son just stood there like a lump of immaturity. The other example was another helicopter mommy who was there with her son who was taking his driver's test. In this case, the mother actually filled out the paper while the son was playing with his new iphone: at one point, while she was filling out his paperwork, he turned to her and said, "if I want to say Lucy's phone, what do I do, use a dash?" The mother said, "no an apostrophe before the 's'." I cringed inside, but then she did something even more helicoptery. She got up and left, and when she came back in, she told sonny that she had just re-parked the car on an end space so he wouldn't have to worry about backing out from between two cars. WHAT!?!? He was just about to take a test where he would be in control of a deadly weapon but yet he couldn't do his own paperwork, didn't know how to use an apostrophe, and couldn't back out from behind two cars? Thank you helicopter mommy!
As a whole, college professors abhor these helicopter parents, but some profs do not realize that they, too, are helicopter parents. I was recently at a high school graduation party and a fellow professor from another department was there. This prof looked over at a poster the graduate had made, her "memory board" that was part of a senior year activity. This prof has a son who will graduate high school next year; upon seeing the memory board, she said to the parent of the graduate, "well, I'd better start doing that for him now...he'll never do it on his own." What??? This is a college professor who also complains about helicopter parents and here she is saying that her son is not capable of simply gluing some pictures to a piece of posterboard?? She said how he doesn't think of details like that and blah blah blah. Oh, come on! Who's fault is that? I wanted to tell her to "take off" and stop being a helicopter parent, but no matter what I would have said, she still would have thought she was doing the right thing: no helicopter parent thinks he/she is doing anything wrong.
These are just a few of the examples that bombard society every day, but what is causing this phenomenon? Why are our skies peppered with helicopter parents who can't teach their children to be responsible and self-sufficient? I have a few theories based on my observations of my friends' children and my goddaughters:
1. Schools give gold stars and extra credit points for everything. Johnny knows his own name, give him a star. Sheila breathed oxygen, give her 10 bonus points. Taylor graduated kindergarten, let's have a party the size of a wedding reception!
Real life lesson #1: not everything you will do is praiseworthy, and extra credit cannot save you for the rest of your life.
2. Schools will not name winners and losers in races. I asked my goddaughter last year how she liked her end of the year "field day," and she said it was stupid. Why, I asked. "Because no one wins or loses. It's stupid. There's always a winner and a loser." Out of the mouths of babes often comes logic.
Real life lesson #2: there are winners and losers, and we need to learn to cope with this when we are young.
3. Children need to develop their own sense of responsibility and not be controlled by spurious rules and regulations. I don't know about you, but I had chores growing up: they were my responsibility, and if I didn't do them, I didn't get my allowance.
Real life lesson #3: responsibility is developed and nurtured not just learned through osmosis; the world is full of rules....get used to it!
4. Parents who are involved in their children's lives are better parents. Yes, parents should be involved. My mom helped with PTA, nearly punched my 8th grade Algebra I teacher in the nose when he said I cheated on a test (which I didn't), and helped with band fundraisers in high school. But she wouldn't fit all of my battles for me--that was up to me--and she certainly would never have second-guessed a college professor!
Real life lesson #4: at some point in your life, you need to be self-reliant because parents are not around forever.
I can hear a few of you reading this saying, "you don't have kids, so what do you know?" Well, I may not be a mom, but I think I can say without this prerequisite that some things are just logical. Parents need to let their children mature. Parents need to foster responsibility in their children from a young age. And parents need back off when children reach the age of maturity.
If your child is old enough to drive a car, he is old enough to make his own memory board. If your child is old enough to get his license suspended, he is old enough to do his own paperwork and pay his own fine. If your child is old enough to be drafted into a war, he is old enough to work with a knowledgeable advisor to choose a college schedule. And if your child is old enough flee the nest, then it's time for the helicopter parent to go the landing strip and celebrate the fact that his/her child has been raised well-enough to be a mature adult. So helicopter parents please take off before your children's lives get chewed up by your rotors.
As I said, this is not a limited occurrence in my daily worklife, and now I've been noticing it everywhere! One time last semester a student took our placement test for composition, and his mother harassed both of our program assistants as well as the chair of the department before then moving on to harass an Associate Dean, the Dean, the Provost, and then the Chancellor because she knew her student was "an excellent writer" and didn't need any college writing classes, even though the placement test results said otherwise. Momzilla, as we fondly called her, finally lost her battle but not before making an ass of herself: the son she was fighting for was 20 and was quite capable of handling himself, but he LET his mother act like this. Again, parents bugging college professors is not something that is new and not something that will go away anytime soon since these parents seem to be incapable of having their children mature into responsible adults.
But the college arena is not the only victim of helicopter parents. The other day I was at the DMV getting some paperwork done for my mother, and as I sat the 30 minutes it took them to process the forms, I saw two more examples that made me cringe. One young man, who looked to be about 19, was standing at the one podium filling out his paperwork with his mommy looking over his shoulder. She kept pointing to different lines on the form telling him what to write down, and the son just did it. As they then discussed their paperwork with the clerk, I learned that this young man had had his driver's license suspended, and he and his mommy were there to get the license re-instated. Mommy helped with the forms; mommy wrote the check; and mommy did all of the talking with the clerk. The ADULT son just stood there like a lump of immaturity. The other example was another helicopter mommy who was there with her son who was taking his driver's test. In this case, the mother actually filled out the paper while the son was playing with his new iphone: at one point, while she was filling out his paperwork, he turned to her and said, "if I want to say Lucy's phone, what do I do, use a dash?" The mother said, "no an apostrophe before the 's'." I cringed inside, but then she did something even more helicoptery. She got up and left, and when she came back in, she told sonny that she had just re-parked the car on an end space so he wouldn't have to worry about backing out from between two cars. WHAT!?!? He was just about to take a test where he would be in control of a deadly weapon but yet he couldn't do his own paperwork, didn't know how to use an apostrophe, and couldn't back out from behind two cars? Thank you helicopter mommy!
As a whole, college professors abhor these helicopter parents, but some profs do not realize that they, too, are helicopter parents. I was recently at a high school graduation party and a fellow professor from another department was there. This prof looked over at a poster the graduate had made, her "memory board" that was part of a senior year activity. This prof has a son who will graduate high school next year; upon seeing the memory board, she said to the parent of the graduate, "well, I'd better start doing that for him now...he'll never do it on his own." What??? This is a college professor who also complains about helicopter parents and here she is saying that her son is not capable of simply gluing some pictures to a piece of posterboard?? She said how he doesn't think of details like that and blah blah blah. Oh, come on! Who's fault is that? I wanted to tell her to "take off" and stop being a helicopter parent, but no matter what I would have said, she still would have thought she was doing the right thing: no helicopter parent thinks he/she is doing anything wrong.
These are just a few of the examples that bombard society every day, but what is causing this phenomenon? Why are our skies peppered with helicopter parents who can't teach their children to be responsible and self-sufficient? I have a few theories based on my observations of my friends' children and my goddaughters:
1. Schools give gold stars and extra credit points for everything. Johnny knows his own name, give him a star. Sheila breathed oxygen, give her 10 bonus points. Taylor graduated kindergarten, let's have a party the size of a wedding reception!
Real life lesson #1: not everything you will do is praiseworthy, and extra credit cannot save you for the rest of your life.
2. Schools will not name winners and losers in races. I asked my goddaughter last year how she liked her end of the year "field day," and she said it was stupid. Why, I asked. "Because no one wins or loses. It's stupid. There's always a winner and a loser." Out of the mouths of babes often comes logic.
Real life lesson #2: there are winners and losers, and we need to learn to cope with this when we are young.
3. Children need to develop their own sense of responsibility and not be controlled by spurious rules and regulations. I don't know about you, but I had chores growing up: they were my responsibility, and if I didn't do them, I didn't get my allowance.
Real life lesson #3: responsibility is developed and nurtured not just learned through osmosis; the world is full of rules....get used to it!
4. Parents who are involved in their children's lives are better parents. Yes, parents should be involved. My mom helped with PTA, nearly punched my 8th grade Algebra I teacher in the nose when he said I cheated on a test (which I didn't), and helped with band fundraisers in high school. But she wouldn't fit all of my battles for me--that was up to me--and she certainly would never have second-guessed a college professor!
Real life lesson #4: at some point in your life, you need to be self-reliant because parents are not around forever.
I can hear a few of you reading this saying, "you don't have kids, so what do you know?" Well, I may not be a mom, but I think I can say without this prerequisite that some things are just logical. Parents need to let their children mature. Parents need to foster responsibility in their children from a young age. And parents need back off when children reach the age of maturity.
If your child is old enough to drive a car, he is old enough to make his own memory board. If your child is old enough to get his license suspended, he is old enough to do his own paperwork and pay his own fine. If your child is old enough to be drafted into a war, he is old enough to work with a knowledgeable advisor to choose a college schedule. And if your child is old enough flee the nest, then it's time for the helicopter parent to go the landing strip and celebrate the fact that his/her child has been raised well-enough to be a mature adult. So helicopter parents please take off before your children's lives get chewed up by your rotors.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Is Dolly gay?
While procrastinating at work the other day, I took a gander at the news on the Yahoo! homepage. Considering the state of the nation today, the stories overall were quite dire, well worth addressing in their own textboxes: the CEO of GM was fired by the president; the stock market was down again; banks that received bailouts were under scrutiny; Fargo was flooded and in a state of emergency; and reporters pondered if Dolly Parton was gay. Wait, I thought to myself: did I just read that right? Was there really a story about Dolly Parton's sexuality mixed in with the rest of the stories?? Yup! I read it right: that was one of the major news items on the page. I couldn't help myself; I read the piece.
Apparently Dolly has a very close female friend, so people were beginning to question whether this "friend" was really a "partner," even though Dolly has been married for over 40 years to the same man. At first the main part that stood out was the fact that this piece was mixed in with much more dire, serious news events. But then a second thing struck me: why should we even be thinking about whether or not Dolly is gay? Why do we feel this need as a society not only to label everyone but also to judge everyone's sexuality? Why are so many people so hung up on people being gay?
I'll admit something embarrassing: in elementary school, when someone was being an idiot or a brat, we called said person a "gayrod." I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it was an insult. In middle school this changed to "you're so gay," also meant to be an insult. By the time I got to high school, however, I abandoned this insult as I realized that I had gay friends. To me, their being gay was just that I knew that Pete liked men instead of ladies, and Kay liked women instead of men. But that was that: no biggie. They were still my friends. But I remember them trying to hide it from the non-understanding, cruel teenagers at the school. How sad, I used to think.
Now, as a college professor, I have many gay friends and students, and their being gay does not affect my feelings or concern for them. They are people, and I have no idea why we are so concerned with their sexuality. They aren't worried that we are heterosexual: they aren't telling us whom to date or marry. As I think about this, I can't help but think about a documentary that I just showed in one of my classes about the 19th century "Indian schools" in America. Basically the government took thousands of native children to schools, cut off their hair, burned their native clothes, banned their native religions, taught them English and made them forget their languages, and made the "savages" into "productive citizens," which basically meant that we obliterated their pasts and forced them to become "white," even though we did not always grant them the same rights and privileges once we removed all of their native culture. As I thought about this horrific part of our past and the news story about Dolly Parton, something clicked in my head: isn't this what we seem to want to do with gay people? Aren't some people in society just trying to "straighten" the gays?
But then I thought to myself: what's the big difference between homo-and hetero-sexuals? What are the markers that distinguish us? Gay people have home responsibilities, children, homework, concerns, triumphs, fights with their partners, bad hair days, flat tires, parents, pets, broken appliances, good days, and bad days. So do straight people. Gay people eat pancakes, club sandwiches, pizza, sushi, chocolate cake, hummus, vegetables, apples, and artichokes. So do straight people. Gay people's kids get sick, throw tantrums, cry, get skinned knees, create beautiful art, have secret words, perform in concerts, accidentally break vases, and make forts in the living room. So do straight people's kids. Hmmm. I'm sensing a pattern here. Gay people have sex with their partners. So do straight people. Gay people drive cars, straight people drive cars. Gay people like rainbows, and straight people like rainbows....I think you get my drift.
So I return to the question: why are we so obsessed at labeling people as gay or straight when we are all just people? One of the greatest loses that resulted from our "civilizing the natives" in the 19th century was our killing culture: do we really want to be responsible for more cultural death? I don't think so either.
Apparently Dolly has a very close female friend, so people were beginning to question whether this "friend" was really a "partner," even though Dolly has been married for over 40 years to the same man. At first the main part that stood out was the fact that this piece was mixed in with much more dire, serious news events. But then a second thing struck me: why should we even be thinking about whether or not Dolly is gay? Why do we feel this need as a society not only to label everyone but also to judge everyone's sexuality? Why are so many people so hung up on people being gay?
I'll admit something embarrassing: in elementary school, when someone was being an idiot or a brat, we called said person a "gayrod." I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it was an insult. In middle school this changed to "you're so gay," also meant to be an insult. By the time I got to high school, however, I abandoned this insult as I realized that I had gay friends. To me, their being gay was just that I knew that Pete liked men instead of ladies, and Kay liked women instead of men. But that was that: no biggie. They were still my friends. But I remember them trying to hide it from the non-understanding, cruel teenagers at the school. How sad, I used to think.
Now, as a college professor, I have many gay friends and students, and their being gay does not affect my feelings or concern for them. They are people, and I have no idea why we are so concerned with their sexuality. They aren't worried that we are heterosexual: they aren't telling us whom to date or marry. As I think about this, I can't help but think about a documentary that I just showed in one of my classes about the 19th century "Indian schools" in America. Basically the government took thousands of native children to schools, cut off their hair, burned their native clothes, banned their native religions, taught them English and made them forget their languages, and made the "savages" into "productive citizens," which basically meant that we obliterated their pasts and forced them to become "white," even though we did not always grant them the same rights and privileges once we removed all of their native culture. As I thought about this horrific part of our past and the news story about Dolly Parton, something clicked in my head: isn't this what we seem to want to do with gay people? Aren't some people in society just trying to "straighten" the gays?
But then I thought to myself: what's the big difference between homo-and hetero-sexuals? What are the markers that distinguish us? Gay people have home responsibilities, children, homework, concerns, triumphs, fights with their partners, bad hair days, flat tires, parents, pets, broken appliances, good days, and bad days. So do straight people. Gay people eat pancakes, club sandwiches, pizza, sushi, chocolate cake, hummus, vegetables, apples, and artichokes. So do straight people. Gay people's kids get sick, throw tantrums, cry, get skinned knees, create beautiful art, have secret words, perform in concerts, accidentally break vases, and make forts in the living room. So do straight people's kids. Hmmm. I'm sensing a pattern here. Gay people have sex with their partners. So do straight people. Gay people drive cars, straight people drive cars. Gay people like rainbows, and straight people like rainbows....I think you get my drift.
So I return to the question: why are we so obsessed at labeling people as gay or straight when we are all just people? One of the greatest loses that resulted from our "civilizing the natives" in the 19th century was our killing culture: do we really want to be responsible for more cultural death? I don't think so either.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
SLNK-ing Through Life as a SLNKasaurus
I was in Cracker Barrel today filling my basket with treats to share with some co-workers when the kind young man straightening the candy said, "oh, are you getting Easter treats for the kids?" I said, "no" and was about to say that they were for friends at work, and he said, "oh, just getting them warmed up then?" I said "yeah" and walked away; sometimes it's easier. As I hopped back in the car and thought about the candy guy and continued toward my destination, I thought back to a recent appointment I had with a new doctor. She asked me, "marital status," so I said, "single." "How many pregnancies have you had?" she asked. I said, "none." She asked, "because of infertility?" I said, "no" and was about to say "never had the opportunity," but she wrote on the chart, "no children by choice." The phrase sounded so judgmental and final to me, as if in one phrase, she wrapped up what the rest of the world sees about my life: single, loser, no kids, thus making me a SLNK.
I had about 100 miles left to drive before I got to my destination, so of course I couldn't get my SLNKy status out of my head. I immediately thought about what happens when I connect up with people with whom I haven't spoken in a while; they always ask "married yet? any kids?" I just say, "no, I haven't dated Mr. Right, yet: just Mr. Wrong, Mr. Idiot, and Mr. I'm Marrying the Rich Girl Instead." My friends laugh but then say with their heads tilted in a looking-at-a-sad-puppy manner, "well, it happens when you least expect it! And you can always adopt!" I smile and act like none of it bothers me as their words echo in my head. Bullshit responses to my SLNKy-ness, judgment attached.
The next place my mind went as I drove on was to my students who sometimes ask not "are you married" but "why aren't you married?" I usually defer the question and turn their attention back to the work at hand, but their words still reverberate in my head since most of them are partnered or already engaged. And sometimes the students ask, "don't you want kids?" Again, I divert the question but it lingers in my mind. More judgment.
I continued to drive and to try to not be too depressed about the fact that I am a SLNK and will probably be one until I die when a Beatles' song started playing on the radio, and all I could think was "At least Eleanor Rigby did get married once!!" That's just sad.
So here I am trying to make sense of this in this blog.
Yes, I'm still single: don't have the best of luck with worthwhile men. I'd like a husband, but it just hasn't happened No, I don't have kids: doesn't mean I don't want them. I'd love them, but it just hasn't happened. My one brother was single until he was into his 40s, but no one ever looked at him with pity, trying to figure out "what was wrong" with him: he was just single, a bachelor, not a loser. So why am I not simply single or a "bachelorette"? That label is used when a woman is just about to get married, but only for a short time. And do I even want to be a bachelorette since the name is just the feminized male label? Why can't I say "I'm single" without feeling guilty or like a loser or like someone who is not meeting some pre-determined societal expectation? I don't judge married or partnered folks, so why is there judgement attached to my not being married? Some SLNKs are SLNKs on purpose, yet I don't judge them, either! Judgment, judgment, judgment.
Here's the truth: being single and not having kids is not as easy as it looks to those on the outside of my world. I've worked with people who figure that I have all the free time in the world and can do their work too since they have "familial obligations," like I have all the time in the world for their lives. I have friends who don't understand how exhausting being single can be: no partner to help with the housework, fix the drywall, take the car for an oil change, go on long walks on a sunny day, listen when I've had a bad day, or any other benefit of partnership. People don't always realize how hurtful their words can be. Sure, I would like a husband and kids, but it hasn't worked out, and realizing that I may never have these things in my life saddens me more than people can imagine.
By the time I got to my destination, I realized that I feel like an extinct species: the SLNKasaurus or the P-SLNK-adactyl. On a daily basis people go to science and natural history museums to gaze at the creatures in the displays and wonder what their lives were like. Sometimes I feel like I'm one of those displays with the primary difference being that I am alive and sentient. I see the condescending glances; I here the questions/comments (i.e. "she's so nice, why is she single?" or "she probably has her standards set too high"); and I feel the judgment that my not being married with children is so much more important than the things I have done in life. I can't ignore the voices as my taxadermied partners in extinction can; I live with them every day, and there's no way to SLNK away in peace.
I had about 100 miles left to drive before I got to my destination, so of course I couldn't get my SLNKy status out of my head. I immediately thought about what happens when I connect up with people with whom I haven't spoken in a while; they always ask "married yet? any kids?" I just say, "no, I haven't dated Mr. Right, yet: just Mr. Wrong, Mr. Idiot, and Mr. I'm Marrying the Rich Girl Instead." My friends laugh but then say with their heads tilted in a looking-at-a-sad-puppy manner, "well, it happens when you least expect it! And you can always adopt!" I smile and act like none of it bothers me as their words echo in my head. Bullshit responses to my SLNKy-ness, judgment attached.
The next place my mind went as I drove on was to my students who sometimes ask not "are you married" but "why aren't you married?" I usually defer the question and turn their attention back to the work at hand, but their words still reverberate in my head since most of them are partnered or already engaged. And sometimes the students ask, "don't you want kids?" Again, I divert the question but it lingers in my mind. More judgment.
I continued to drive and to try to not be too depressed about the fact that I am a SLNK and will probably be one until I die when a Beatles' song started playing on the radio, and all I could think was "At least Eleanor Rigby did get married once!!" That's just sad.
So here I am trying to make sense of this in this blog.
Yes, I'm still single: don't have the best of luck with worthwhile men. I'd like a husband, but it just hasn't happened No, I don't have kids: doesn't mean I don't want them. I'd love them, but it just hasn't happened. My one brother was single until he was into his 40s, but no one ever looked at him with pity, trying to figure out "what was wrong" with him: he was just single, a bachelor, not a loser. So why am I not simply single or a "bachelorette"? That label is used when a woman is just about to get married, but only for a short time. And do I even want to be a bachelorette since the name is just the feminized male label? Why can't I say "I'm single" without feeling guilty or like a loser or like someone who is not meeting some pre-determined societal expectation? I don't judge married or partnered folks, so why is there judgement attached to my not being married? Some SLNKs are SLNKs on purpose, yet I don't judge them, either! Judgment, judgment, judgment.
Here's the truth: being single and not having kids is not as easy as it looks to those on the outside of my world. I've worked with people who figure that I have all the free time in the world and can do their work too since they have "familial obligations," like I have all the time in the world for their lives. I have friends who don't understand how exhausting being single can be: no partner to help with the housework, fix the drywall, take the car for an oil change, go on long walks on a sunny day, listen when I've had a bad day, or any other benefit of partnership. People don't always realize how hurtful their words can be. Sure, I would like a husband and kids, but it hasn't worked out, and realizing that I may never have these things in my life saddens me more than people can imagine.
By the time I got to my destination, I realized that I feel like an extinct species: the SLNKasaurus or the P-SLNK-adactyl. On a daily basis people go to science and natural history museums to gaze at the creatures in the displays and wonder what their lives were like. Sometimes I feel like I'm one of those displays with the primary difference being that I am alive and sentient. I see the condescending glances; I here the questions/comments (i.e. "she's so nice, why is she single?" or "she probably has her standards set too high"); and I feel the judgment that my not being married with children is so much more important than the things I have done in life. I can't ignore the voices as my taxadermied partners in extinction can; I live with them every day, and there's no way to SLNK away in peace.
Friday, March 27, 2009
I drank the RomCom Kool Aid
People who know me best know that I actually do remember events from way back in my childhood. I really do remember body bags on the tarmac from Vietnam, even though I was only 3 when the conflict "ended," and I remember seeing news footage of a scary man named Jim Jones in a town that I had never even heard of: Guyana. I remember his bad hairdo, the Elvis sunglasses, the white Fantasy Island suit he wore, but most of all I remember that from that day forward, Kool Aid took on a whole new meaning to me and society. Replaced were the images of the rotund Kool Aid pitcher breaking through walls singing songs; what replaced these images were hundreds of bodies, linked arm in arm, dead on the floors of huts, airfields, and open spaces.
As I grew up, however, the references to Kool Aid became somewhat diluted and became connected with any time a person joined a group by leaving logic and willpower behind. So when a friend "turned to the darkside" and became popular, she "drank the popular Kool Aid." When a friend quit band to join a sport, he "drank the sporto Kool Aid." Later in years when a former teaching colleague moved to administration, we said "she drank the Kool Aid." Even though the original intention of the Kool Aid reference was dire, I must admit that I still use the term for the latter purpose of demonstrating when someone has left logic and willpower behind, which is why I'm embarrassed to admit that since I was a child and into my adult years, I have drunk the RomCom Kool Aid. And life has never been the same since.
It started in 1978 with "Grease": who couldn't love a story about a cool high school where people partied, and danced, and sang....and fell in love with their "opposite." Danny and Sandy: the dream couple for almost everyone my age, especially those of us who were not "cool," who were the "Sandra Dees" of our time. We all wanted to be Sandy: to fall in love over the summer and then wind up with the guy...even if it meant changing who we were and abandoning reason. Then in 1980 came "Xanadu," a movie that now looks ridiculous, where a muse and a musician find each other across time and dimensions to fall in love. Sigh. As the years progressed, I continued to watch variations on the romantic comedy: "The Breakfast Club," "Say Anything," "Sixteen Candles," "St. Elmo's Fire," "Three Men and a Baby," "When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle," "Must Love Dogs," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "An Affair to Remember," and hundreds of others. The stories were perfect. Fate brings together the girl/woman who is misunderstood, under-appreciated, shy, or just insecure with the boy/man of her dreams who is popular, cool, handsome, and perfect overall, and they live happily ever after as their odd lives and distinct personalities match perfectly, like romantic, destined puzzle pieces. Sigh.
Now, I'm a fairly intellectual, skeptical, and logical person, so how have I managed to be so affected by RomComs? Why can't I get beyond the stories I've seen? Shouldn't I know better? Here I am, approaching 40, and I'm still single. And part of me still actually believes that the perfect man is out there and that at some point in time, we will meet and hit it off. I deny this, of course, to the public, especially as a Woman's Studies professor, but secretly I still think that Harry can wind up with Sally, that Bender and Claire could work, that George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn were destined to have breakfast at Tiffany's.
A few months ago a study came out saying that romantic comedies set up unrealistic expectations for women, thus causing many women unhappiness in their relationships. As an academic I dismissed the idea in public, but at home I read the article and realized that it was true. Then a colleague of mine who is a psychologist lambasted the study, pointing out statistical errors, problems with the "control" and "subject" factors, and other weaknesses in the study's methodologies. I didn't discuss it with her because all I could think was, " of course you say that: you're with a man who would do anything for you and worships the ground you walk on." Did she never see "Grease" or "When Harry Met Sally" or any other RomComs? Was she indeed inoculated against the influence? I never asked: I didn't think she'd appreciate the challenge to her expertise.
So as I write this, I think about my friends. One friend I've had since middle school found her husband at work. She was a waitress, he a customer, and one day he left her a note with her tip and his phone number: that was 20 years ago and they are still together. One friend from high school got a new neighbor one day when she was a teenager: they've been married for 20 years now, too. Another friend from high school was in a sorority in college and involuntarily went to a dance at the brother frat. A guy pursued her, but she resisted: she was going to prove that she wasn't in college for her M.R.S. degree: they are together now for 20 years and have two great kids. One friend from college has been with her high school sweetheart now for 24 years, and they are quite a happy couple. How is it that some people's lives really do mirror the RomComs and others don't? Why do some Harrys wind up with Sallys while some of us can't meet the man who loves dogs?
I've since given up on RomComs: now the thought of them make me a bit queasy, and the commercials are quickly surfed by. I must admit that I agree with the studies that say RomComs can alter your view of reality and romance, but there must be more to it than that. But what?
All I know is that while cynicism is a powerful weapon, nothing seems to hold a candle to the power of the RomCom Kool Aid I drank for far too many years. Damn that Kool Aid: it tasted so good, but now feels so bad.
As I grew up, however, the references to Kool Aid became somewhat diluted and became connected with any time a person joined a group by leaving logic and willpower behind. So when a friend "turned to the darkside" and became popular, she "drank the popular Kool Aid." When a friend quit band to join a sport, he "drank the sporto Kool Aid." Later in years when a former teaching colleague moved to administration, we said "she drank the Kool Aid." Even though the original intention of the Kool Aid reference was dire, I must admit that I still use the term for the latter purpose of demonstrating when someone has left logic and willpower behind, which is why I'm embarrassed to admit that since I was a child and into my adult years, I have drunk the RomCom Kool Aid. And life has never been the same since.
It started in 1978 with "Grease": who couldn't love a story about a cool high school where people partied, and danced, and sang....and fell in love with their "opposite." Danny and Sandy: the dream couple for almost everyone my age, especially those of us who were not "cool," who were the "Sandra Dees" of our time. We all wanted to be Sandy: to fall in love over the summer and then wind up with the guy...even if it meant changing who we were and abandoning reason. Then in 1980 came "Xanadu," a movie that now looks ridiculous, where a muse and a musician find each other across time and dimensions to fall in love. Sigh. As the years progressed, I continued to watch variations on the romantic comedy: "The Breakfast Club," "Say Anything," "Sixteen Candles," "St. Elmo's Fire," "Three Men and a Baby," "When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle," "Must Love Dogs," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "An Affair to Remember," and hundreds of others. The stories were perfect. Fate brings together the girl/woman who is misunderstood, under-appreciated, shy, or just insecure with the boy/man of her dreams who is popular, cool, handsome, and perfect overall, and they live happily ever after as their odd lives and distinct personalities match perfectly, like romantic, destined puzzle pieces. Sigh.
Now, I'm a fairly intellectual, skeptical, and logical person, so how have I managed to be so affected by RomComs? Why can't I get beyond the stories I've seen? Shouldn't I know better? Here I am, approaching 40, and I'm still single. And part of me still actually believes that the perfect man is out there and that at some point in time, we will meet and hit it off. I deny this, of course, to the public, especially as a Woman's Studies professor, but secretly I still think that Harry can wind up with Sally, that Bender and Claire could work, that George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn were destined to have breakfast at Tiffany's.
A few months ago a study came out saying that romantic comedies set up unrealistic expectations for women, thus causing many women unhappiness in their relationships. As an academic I dismissed the idea in public, but at home I read the article and realized that it was true. Then a colleague of mine who is a psychologist lambasted the study, pointing out statistical errors, problems with the "control" and "subject" factors, and other weaknesses in the study's methodologies. I didn't discuss it with her because all I could think was, " of course you say that: you're with a man who would do anything for you and worships the ground you walk on." Did she never see "Grease" or "When Harry Met Sally" or any other RomComs? Was she indeed inoculated against the influence? I never asked: I didn't think she'd appreciate the challenge to her expertise.
So as I write this, I think about my friends. One friend I've had since middle school found her husband at work. She was a waitress, he a customer, and one day he left her a note with her tip and his phone number: that was 20 years ago and they are still together. One friend from high school got a new neighbor one day when she was a teenager: they've been married for 20 years now, too. Another friend from high school was in a sorority in college and involuntarily went to a dance at the brother frat. A guy pursued her, but she resisted: she was going to prove that she wasn't in college for her M.R.S. degree: they are together now for 20 years and have two great kids. One friend from college has been with her high school sweetheart now for 24 years, and they are quite a happy couple. How is it that some people's lives really do mirror the RomComs and others don't? Why do some Harrys wind up with Sallys while some of us can't meet the man who loves dogs?
I've since given up on RomComs: now the thought of them make me a bit queasy, and the commercials are quickly surfed by. I must admit that I agree with the studies that say RomComs can alter your view of reality and romance, but there must be more to it than that. But what?
All I know is that while cynicism is a powerful weapon, nothing seems to hold a candle to the power of the RomCom Kool Aid I drank for far too many years. Damn that Kool Aid: it tasted so good, but now feels so bad.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Let them eat....pumpkin??
Being a child of the 1980s, I was well aware of homelessness in America, hunger in Africa, and the failure of America's farms because of Band Aid, Hands Across America, Farm Aid, and other fund- and social-awareness raising campaigns. In my insulated world where C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio were king, however, the whole problem was something that could never affect me: these were issues that happened out there, somewhere. In the spring of eleventh grade, however, this view changed when I was asked by our newspaper advisor to write a story about the county's shelter for homeless women and children. I remember snorting a bit on the inside thinking, "yeah, right: homeless people in Bucks County, the county of high school taxes and the classic suburb of Levittown. Whatever!" But I swallowed my doubt of the shelter's existence and did the story. When I went to the shelter, I saw women who looked like "normal" women--those with whom I worked at the department store or saw at the local grocery store--and "normal" kids--those who played with trucks and dolls and board games as I did when I was young. Suddenly, I became aware of a problem that was not so far away, that wasn't out there somewhere else.
In college, I lost sight of the silent poor as I pursued my degree. I ignored homelessness and poverty as I read Shakespeare and Milton, studied Cultural Anthropology, and struggled to understand logical proofs and theorums. I had my own bills to pay--including books, tuition, supplies, insurance, etc.--so the non-college-attending poor were not my concern. Luckily this self-centeredness slowly disappeared, and when I moved away to grad school, I again became interested in helping others. Although none of us grad students had much money, one Christmas eight of us banded together and raised money to buy small gifts for the overlooked teenagers at a local abuse shelter. I started buying a little bit of groceries to donate to the foodbank when I had a few spare dollars. These small efforts followed me for many years as I often bought groceries for the "poor" and stocked up on clearance priced toys for the Toys for Tots collections.
Flash forward to where I am today...on the Board of Directors of the Hunger Prevention Council for my local county. We oversee three foodbanks, and each month, the pantry reports show that we give out to our county at least 25,000 pounds of food to families in crisis, which means that just our small county in Western Wisconsin provides nearly 300,000 pounds of food to people each year. 300,000 pounds! And the numbers aren't just this staggering in my own private Idaho: these numbers can't hold a candle to those from larger counties in our state, depressed-former-industrial areas around the country, inner city areas all over the map, and the like. We have Americans in such states of crisis right now that a local report about a food bank in St. Paul, Minnesota analyzed a two-fold problem: the decline in donations to food pantries since many people are suffering in this recession and the situation where people are deciding which meal of the day to eat so their kids can eat. Yes, I said which meal, not meals: note the singular. From childhood I was raised believing the myth of the American Dream, that Americans can pave their streets with gold if they work hard enough, yet the reality that very few people tell us is that there are so many structures built into our society that can easily prevent this from happening, thus your own neighbors could be in this place of crisis without your even knowing it.
Now, to give some people credit, I will admit that many people out there do give money to food charities, or donate a few items at the grocery store, or give to the Scouts when they do their annual fall food drive, but be honest: what do we usually give to the food drives? A can of beans, some pasta, soup we bought but don't like, and the must-have can of pumpkin, which we are never really sure how it got in our pantries--all things that have been sitting in our cabinets, waiting to be given to the Scouts. Do we give away our favorite foods or ones that we know will provide families with a tastier meal than soupy, beany, pumpkiny pasta dishes? Not always...but we tell ourselves that we're doing the right thing. We are helping the poor, and they should be happy about that.
But think about this as you order your next $5 chocha-mocha-half-caff-foamy-super-latte: if you fell on hard times, would you want to eat soupy, beany, pumpkiny pasta bake, or would you occasionally like some chili or beef stew or tuna or vegetables or cereal or peanut butter or maybe even some cookies?
The WIC program is now updating their lists to include not only cheese and milk and a few other staples but also fresh fruits and vegetables, high grain foods, meats, and other staples for healthy diets. If the government can finally update their perceptions of the "poor," even though they are using poverty actuarial tables that were minted in the 1950s, then maybe we should follow suit. So the next time you see the collection bin for donations at your store, or hear the Scouts are coming for their yearly visit, or hear that a local pantry needs assistance, please step up and help. You never know whom you are helping, but at least you'll be helping.
Just leave the pumpkin out of it...
In college, I lost sight of the silent poor as I pursued my degree. I ignored homelessness and poverty as I read Shakespeare and Milton, studied Cultural Anthropology, and struggled to understand logical proofs and theorums. I had my own bills to pay--including books, tuition, supplies, insurance, etc.--so the non-college-attending poor were not my concern. Luckily this self-centeredness slowly disappeared, and when I moved away to grad school, I again became interested in helping others. Although none of us grad students had much money, one Christmas eight of us banded together and raised money to buy small gifts for the overlooked teenagers at a local abuse shelter. I started buying a little bit of groceries to donate to the foodbank when I had a few spare dollars. These small efforts followed me for many years as I often bought groceries for the "poor" and stocked up on clearance priced toys for the Toys for Tots collections.
Flash forward to where I am today...on the Board of Directors of the Hunger Prevention Council for my local county. We oversee three foodbanks, and each month, the pantry reports show that we give out to our county at least 25,000 pounds of food to families in crisis, which means that just our small county in Western Wisconsin provides nearly 300,000 pounds of food to people each year. 300,000 pounds! And the numbers aren't just this staggering in my own private Idaho: these numbers can't hold a candle to those from larger counties in our state, depressed-former-industrial areas around the country, inner city areas all over the map, and the like. We have Americans in such states of crisis right now that a local report about a food bank in St. Paul, Minnesota analyzed a two-fold problem: the decline in donations to food pantries since many people are suffering in this recession and the situation where people are deciding which meal of the day to eat so their kids can eat. Yes, I said which meal, not meals: note the singular. From childhood I was raised believing the myth of the American Dream, that Americans can pave their streets with gold if they work hard enough, yet the reality that very few people tell us is that there are so many structures built into our society that can easily prevent this from happening, thus your own neighbors could be in this place of crisis without your even knowing it.
Now, to give some people credit, I will admit that many people out there do give money to food charities, or donate a few items at the grocery store, or give to the Scouts when they do their annual fall food drive, but be honest: what do we usually give to the food drives? A can of beans, some pasta, soup we bought but don't like, and the must-have can of pumpkin, which we are never really sure how it got in our pantries--all things that have been sitting in our cabinets, waiting to be given to the Scouts. Do we give away our favorite foods or ones that we know will provide families with a tastier meal than soupy, beany, pumpkiny pasta dishes? Not always...but we tell ourselves that we're doing the right thing. We are helping the poor, and they should be happy about that.
But think about this as you order your next $5 chocha-mocha-half-caff-foamy-super-latte: if you fell on hard times, would you want to eat soupy, beany, pumpkiny pasta bake, or would you occasionally like some chili or beef stew or tuna or vegetables or cereal or peanut butter or maybe even some cookies?
The WIC program is now updating their lists to include not only cheese and milk and a few other staples but also fresh fruits and vegetables, high grain foods, meats, and other staples for healthy diets. If the government can finally update their perceptions of the "poor," even though they are using poverty actuarial tables that were minted in the 1950s, then maybe we should follow suit. So the next time you see the collection bin for donations at your store, or hear the Scouts are coming for their yearly visit, or hear that a local pantry needs assistance, please step up and help. You never know whom you are helping, but at least you'll be helping.
Just leave the pumpkin out of it...
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Untouchables in Fat Suits
As Americans, we are very self-centered. We think that we know best, that other countries have it all wrong, and that we are much better than any other game out there. Take, for example, our views of countries with caste systems. We judge and condemn them, yet in America we have many systems built into our culture that resemble this type of social demarcation. In school we group people by activities: sportos, technos, bandos, etc. and judge them accordingly (i.g. jocks are dumb, technos are asexual, bandos are strange). As adults we cluster people by income: upper upper class, middle upper class, lower middle class, etc. and judge them accordingly (i.e. "it's my money, go earn your own," "get off of welfare, lazy," etc.). And because we are Americans, we like to think that we avoid labeling anyone as "untouchable," but in reality, we do. I am an untouchable: I am overweight.
Now, you may be saying, "oh, being fat is not the same as being an untouchable in a caste system," and you may be right: my comparison may be extreme. Let's look at the social situation of the untouchables: they are denied access to making a good living, looked down upon by others, and their worth to society is worn from head to toe. When you are overweight, you often feel as though you are socially maligned, disgusting, and disappointing as other "untouchables." Overweight people are discriminated against in employment opportunities (one of the most invisible yet pervasive type of work discrimination that remains), are consistently looked down upon by others (especially if an overweight person has the nerve, god forbid, to eat an ice cream cone in public), and are judged from head to toe as others try to discern what you eat on a daily basis and how you got "so fat." And just as untouchables are marked from childhood, so too are the overweight untouchables.
Let's go back to middle school....a middle school with a swimming class as part of the PE requirement. As if being chosen for teams last isn't demeaning enough and being called all kinds of names connected in one way or the other with being heavy isn't bad enough, I had the great fortune to also have to take swimming--I cannot tell you how many times classmates screamed "there she blows," or "Moby's here," or other insults as I swam toward advanced qualifying levels. Middle school is hard enough, but when you are "plump," the scars are much deeper...and looong lasting. Because of middle school, I often break my food into small bites since if you take a big bite of a sandwich, you get snorted or mooed at. You learn from a young age to hide as much as possible, and not to expect ever being accepted in the "in" group. It's as if, from a young age, the overweight untouchables learn the lesson that no one wanted the untouchable around, as if fat people are somehow contagious--we might just infect you with fat!!! (insert evil laugh here)
Now let's fastforward to my senior year of college when I grabbed the brass ring: I reached goal weight and, in all humility, looked pretty hot. Red wavy hair, small waist, proud smile, size 10 or 12 bathing suit...not bad for a former fat kid. Goal weight was a dream. Clothes fit regardless of the day: no more "does this fit today, does this fit today" questions. Men noticed me: some fairly hot men even wanted to date me. Self-esteem was high: I had broken out of the untouchable class and was now one who could judge others, if I had chosen to, which I didn't. I flew high for 9 years...before the crash began.
Here's where the story reverts back: medical conditions arose that made me start putting weight back on, and quickly, the size 10s and 12s were replaced with 14s and 16s, which were then replaced with 18s and 20s, and so on. Suddenly the looks on the people who passed me by went from benign to judgemental. The looks that say, "can't you control your appetite?" "Don't you know how to exercise?" "You disgust me" (which, if you ask me, was a look of fear...fear that they could someday be the fat ones) "Why would I even write the first email to you on eharmony or Match.com? I don't want a fat chick on my arm!" and other such leering, disapproving glances that I face every day. One cannot begin to wonder about one's value in a society that judges people so heavily on their appearances. And then paranoia can kick in: are my friends judging me? Do my students judge me? Do my students take me seriously? How many more people think I'm pregnant and single? The whirlwind of comments never stops when you are an untouchable: you just learn to listen less.
A few years ago, one of the daytime crap shows like Tyra Banks had a brilliant idea: put a thin person in a "fat suit" for a day to show how society judges that person. Big surprise: the findings are always the same. Many people are rude to the "fat suited," others leer, far too many laugh in front of and behind the back of the "subject," airline customers think "oh crap, that fat one's next to me," and other similar reactions. Then, the thin person comes back on the show without the fat suit and says something brilliant like, "I couldn't believe how people treated me. That was the most miserable 24 hours I've ever lived!" The audience chuckles and cheers, Tyra hugs the woman, and the credits roll...and the fat suit sits in a dressing room, discarded with pleasure.
As a fat kid who became a thin twenty-something who then became a fat adult, I wish everyone knew the native american proverb that reminds us that we should not judge anyone without walking in her shoes first, whether we are talking about race, sexuality, gender, obesity, or anything. Unlike the perky little "my daddy is a producer so now I'm a journalist" person who can breathe a sigh of relief as she ditches the fat suit, we cannot step out of ourselves and shed the fat suit after only wearing it for 24 hours. We carry this weight (pun intended) with us on a daily basis and look forward to the day that we are given a break.
You wouldn't think of walking up to an anorexic and saying "eat more," or to a bulemic to say "puke less," so why are we so quick to judge overweight people and give them the reductionary advice: "watch what you eat, fatty! A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." We overweight untouchables stand out enough: treat us with the humanity you so easily show to others with eating disorders. Fat people are just that....people.
Now, you may be saying, "oh, being fat is not the same as being an untouchable in a caste system," and you may be right: my comparison may be extreme. Let's look at the social situation of the untouchables: they are denied access to making a good living, looked down upon by others, and their worth to society is worn from head to toe. When you are overweight, you often feel as though you are socially maligned, disgusting, and disappointing as other "untouchables." Overweight people are discriminated against in employment opportunities (one of the most invisible yet pervasive type of work discrimination that remains), are consistently looked down upon by others (especially if an overweight person has the nerve, god forbid, to eat an ice cream cone in public), and are judged from head to toe as others try to discern what you eat on a daily basis and how you got "so fat." And just as untouchables are marked from childhood, so too are the overweight untouchables.
Let's go back to middle school....a middle school with a swimming class as part of the PE requirement. As if being chosen for teams last isn't demeaning enough and being called all kinds of names connected in one way or the other with being heavy isn't bad enough, I had the great fortune to also have to take swimming--I cannot tell you how many times classmates screamed "there she blows," or "Moby's here," or other insults as I swam toward advanced qualifying levels. Middle school is hard enough, but when you are "plump," the scars are much deeper...and looong lasting. Because of middle school, I often break my food into small bites since if you take a big bite of a sandwich, you get snorted or mooed at. You learn from a young age to hide as much as possible, and not to expect ever being accepted in the "in" group. It's as if, from a young age, the overweight untouchables learn the lesson that no one wanted the untouchable around, as if fat people are somehow contagious--we might just infect you with fat!!! (insert evil laugh here)
Now let's fastforward to my senior year of college when I grabbed the brass ring: I reached goal weight and, in all humility, looked pretty hot. Red wavy hair, small waist, proud smile, size 10 or 12 bathing suit...not bad for a former fat kid. Goal weight was a dream. Clothes fit regardless of the day: no more "does this fit today, does this fit today" questions. Men noticed me: some fairly hot men even wanted to date me. Self-esteem was high: I had broken out of the untouchable class and was now one who could judge others, if I had chosen to, which I didn't. I flew high for 9 years...before the crash began.
Here's where the story reverts back: medical conditions arose that made me start putting weight back on, and quickly, the size 10s and 12s were replaced with 14s and 16s, which were then replaced with 18s and 20s, and so on. Suddenly the looks on the people who passed me by went from benign to judgemental. The looks that say, "can't you control your appetite?" "Don't you know how to exercise?" "You disgust me" (which, if you ask me, was a look of fear...fear that they could someday be the fat ones) "Why would I even write the first email to you on eharmony or Match.com? I don't want a fat chick on my arm!" and other such leering, disapproving glances that I face every day. One cannot begin to wonder about one's value in a society that judges people so heavily on their appearances. And then paranoia can kick in: are my friends judging me? Do my students judge me? Do my students take me seriously? How many more people think I'm pregnant and single? The whirlwind of comments never stops when you are an untouchable: you just learn to listen less.
A few years ago, one of the daytime crap shows like Tyra Banks had a brilliant idea: put a thin person in a "fat suit" for a day to show how society judges that person. Big surprise: the findings are always the same. Many people are rude to the "fat suited," others leer, far too many laugh in front of and behind the back of the "subject," airline customers think "oh crap, that fat one's next to me," and other similar reactions. Then, the thin person comes back on the show without the fat suit and says something brilliant like, "I couldn't believe how people treated me. That was the most miserable 24 hours I've ever lived!" The audience chuckles and cheers, Tyra hugs the woman, and the credits roll...and the fat suit sits in a dressing room, discarded with pleasure.
As a fat kid who became a thin twenty-something who then became a fat adult, I wish everyone knew the native american proverb that reminds us that we should not judge anyone without walking in her shoes first, whether we are talking about race, sexuality, gender, obesity, or anything. Unlike the perky little "my daddy is a producer so now I'm a journalist" person who can breathe a sigh of relief as she ditches the fat suit, we cannot step out of ourselves and shed the fat suit after only wearing it for 24 hours. We carry this weight (pun intended) with us on a daily basis and look forward to the day that we are given a break.
You wouldn't think of walking up to an anorexic and saying "eat more," or to a bulemic to say "puke less," so why are we so quick to judge overweight people and give them the reductionary advice: "watch what you eat, fatty! A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." We overweight untouchables stand out enough: treat us with the humanity you so easily show to others with eating disorders. Fat people are just that....people.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
In Defense of Crack Whores
One rule my father had in life was "never wait in line for food;" perhaps doing so brought to life too many pictures he had seen of breadlines in The Depression, even though he was born seven years after the crash. Anyway, because of hearing one too many times, "never wait in line for food," I have a hard time doing it to this day. But on my recent trip to San Franciso, CA for a conference, I ignored my father's voice in my head when I went to a locally famous diner named "Dottie's True Blue Cafe," named after the immense talent Dorothy Dandridge, where I waited in line 45 minutes to get a seat in the tiny 36-person diner. In line were locals who regularly frequented the spot, tourists like me who wanted to try a local phenomenon, and people who appeared to be somewhere in between. As one does when waiting in line nearly an hour for pancakes and bacon, I struck up conversation with a couple behind me: two "locals," one of whom was moving north for a job so she was fitting in one last visit before leaving the state. As we chatted, the pair informed me that the diner was located in what they called the "Tenderloin" district, the meaning behind which neither know--they had just accepted the name and passed the folklore on to me, the latest tourist in line. Part of this area being the "tenderloin" was that this area was one where a great concentration of "crack whores" lived, their words not mine. Almost at the same moment as the couple said this, one walked by muttering to herself, clearly not in her right mind--it was as if they shouted "cue the crack whore in front of Dottie's!" And, in tandem with this, the couple in front of me turned around and said, "don't lean against the walls. People piss and god knows what else there." A truly high quality postcard moment.
My time came to take my much coveted seat in the diner, and after ordering blueberry corncake pancakes and some usual breakfast fare, I drank my tea and read my new Barbara Ehrenreich book. The breakfast arrived, steamy and tasty, and another "crack whore" strolled by the window, looking in with crazed eyes. Apparently her appearance was a regular occurrence because the waiters just shook their heads and ignored her...that is until she burst into the diner screaming "I am Janet Jackson. You gotta listen to me!" I was saddened by the sight of her with her wild hair and her ripped mini skirt, but what saddened me the most was when the whole diner broke out in laughter. Loud, un-concerned laughter. The waiters shooshed her off, only for her to come back a few minutes later, which pulled the owner out to the door with a phone in his hand to call the police. Janet left the building, and when she did, the diner acted as a whole chuckling, saying "she must be a regular," and "Janet Jackson? She must be on crack!" I was the only one who did not laugh. I, like the "crack whore," was on the outside looking in on a group I could not understand.
As I left the diner and headed to my conference, I pondered how I could have feelings for Janet after only seeing her at her worst, and for about 3 minutes. Isn't her being a crack whore her own problem? Didn't she willingly bring it on herself? Of course the people in the diner would have said yes, and perhaps I would have said yes a number of years ago, but my answer on this day was no because of something I learned years before. As it turns out, I, an English professor from a quiet, boring background, personally knew a crack whore--a crack whore who had slept in my parents' house, who rode in my car all over the state, who enjoyed the "Moon Over My Hammy" platter when we all went to Denny's until 3am during college summers, and who played a great game of nighttime tennis under the strobey schoolyard lights of local high schools.
Shelly was a woman with whom I had gone to college and who had completed half of her Master's degree, a woman with whom I had nightclubbed and partied at the Jersey shore, a woman whose father was a police captain and whose mother was an office manager. Shelly had earned her B.S. in Criminal Justice from a great school, had landed a job with an insurance firm, and who was engaged to a man who would do anything for her. But in between all of this, she had some seriously painful health conditions: kidney stones, endometriosis, and some others that required her to be on Percocet off and on to live with the pain. Sadly, after the engagement was broken off, Shelly seemed to become more dependent on the pain pills to get her through the day. Doctor's kept writing the scripts, Shelly kept taking them, the system seemed to work. Until the day that the doctor's who had gotten her hooked decided that she shouldn't have anymore: cold turkey.
My departure to Doctoral program broke my regular contact with Shelly, so I had assumed that she was doing well. Sure the student loan collectors called my parents' house asking me for her whereabouts since she had listed me as a reference way back when, sure the Christmas and Birthday cards had stopped, but we all get busy, so I continued to assume that her life was going as smoothly as mine. I lived in this Brady Bunch world until her college roommate contacted me many years later warning me that Shelly was now addicted to heroine and crack, was a prostitute at the same Jersey shore where we had all frolicked in college, and was calling her "old friends" looking for handouts. Shelly had become the addicted street walkers she had written about in her criminal justice classes, the street walkers we gasped at on our frequent trips to the shore.
Her college roommate and I emailed back and forth so I could learn the whole story. Apparently, after the doctors stopped writing scripts and the ERs in the area had her on their radar as a pill-seeker, Shelly moved to the shore and got addicted to heroine first, crack next. At first she had a job to support her habit, but then she turned to burglary, breaking and entering, and then finally prostitution. The woman with a B.A. in Criminal Justice and whose father had worked his way up to the post of Captain in the police department was now getting arrested and serving time in prison and then at halfway houses. The "Moon Over My Hammy" at Denny's was replaced by prison fare; the mosquito-peppered tennis matches were replaced with recreation time in "the yard;" and dreams of working someday for security firms was replaced with a prison number. A sad state of affairs for anyone let alone someone who held such promise and joy.
So as I walked down Jones street to O'Farrell in San Fran remembering how the people in the diner laugh at Janet Jackson, I realized I was upset because I saw Shelly in Janet...and suddenly the abstract notion of what had happened to her was right in my face. Somewhere near the Jersey shore there could have been tourists and locals laughing at Shelly as she passed by the window or as she walked the streets. And those same people were probably judging her for being a crack whore, for "letting that happen to her," for being a societal failure who never graduated high school and who "asked" for that life.
I'll admit that on some level, Shelly did give in to this seedier side of life (she did have parents who did try to get her into rehab a couple of times), but on some level society did it to her. We question the motives of crack whores, but do we ever ask why the doctors cause this situation to happen in so many cases (Matthew Perry from Friends had fallen victim to the same problem)? Do we ever question why our cities are still so controlled by drugs? Do we ever blame the "Johns" for even using prostitutes? Do we ever blame insurance companies for not covering expensive procedures but covering the cheaper expense of pain meds? Do we ever just take the time to look at ourselves and realize that many of us are only one short fall away from a bad situation? Probably not.
But we sure are quick to laugh at those who have.
My time came to take my much coveted seat in the diner, and after ordering blueberry corncake pancakes and some usual breakfast fare, I drank my tea and read my new Barbara Ehrenreich book. The breakfast arrived, steamy and tasty, and another "crack whore" strolled by the window, looking in with crazed eyes. Apparently her appearance was a regular occurrence because the waiters just shook their heads and ignored her...that is until she burst into the diner screaming "I am Janet Jackson. You gotta listen to me!" I was saddened by the sight of her with her wild hair and her ripped mini skirt, but what saddened me the most was when the whole diner broke out in laughter. Loud, un-concerned laughter. The waiters shooshed her off, only for her to come back a few minutes later, which pulled the owner out to the door with a phone in his hand to call the police. Janet left the building, and when she did, the diner acted as a whole chuckling, saying "she must be a regular," and "Janet Jackson? She must be on crack!" I was the only one who did not laugh. I, like the "crack whore," was on the outside looking in on a group I could not understand.
As I left the diner and headed to my conference, I pondered how I could have feelings for Janet after only seeing her at her worst, and for about 3 minutes. Isn't her being a crack whore her own problem? Didn't she willingly bring it on herself? Of course the people in the diner would have said yes, and perhaps I would have said yes a number of years ago, but my answer on this day was no because of something I learned years before. As it turns out, I, an English professor from a quiet, boring background, personally knew a crack whore--a crack whore who had slept in my parents' house, who rode in my car all over the state, who enjoyed the "Moon Over My Hammy" platter when we all went to Denny's until 3am during college summers, and who played a great game of nighttime tennis under the strobey schoolyard lights of local high schools.
Shelly was a woman with whom I had gone to college and who had completed half of her Master's degree, a woman with whom I had nightclubbed and partied at the Jersey shore, a woman whose father was a police captain and whose mother was an office manager. Shelly had earned her B.S. in Criminal Justice from a great school, had landed a job with an insurance firm, and who was engaged to a man who would do anything for her. But in between all of this, she had some seriously painful health conditions: kidney stones, endometriosis, and some others that required her to be on Percocet off and on to live with the pain. Sadly, after the engagement was broken off, Shelly seemed to become more dependent on the pain pills to get her through the day. Doctor's kept writing the scripts, Shelly kept taking them, the system seemed to work. Until the day that the doctor's who had gotten her hooked decided that she shouldn't have anymore: cold turkey.
My departure to Doctoral program broke my regular contact with Shelly, so I had assumed that she was doing well. Sure the student loan collectors called my parents' house asking me for her whereabouts since she had listed me as a reference way back when, sure the Christmas and Birthday cards had stopped, but we all get busy, so I continued to assume that her life was going as smoothly as mine. I lived in this Brady Bunch world until her college roommate contacted me many years later warning me that Shelly was now addicted to heroine and crack, was a prostitute at the same Jersey shore where we had all frolicked in college, and was calling her "old friends" looking for handouts. Shelly had become the addicted street walkers she had written about in her criminal justice classes, the street walkers we gasped at on our frequent trips to the shore.
Her college roommate and I emailed back and forth so I could learn the whole story. Apparently, after the doctors stopped writing scripts and the ERs in the area had her on their radar as a pill-seeker, Shelly moved to the shore and got addicted to heroine first, crack next. At first she had a job to support her habit, but then she turned to burglary, breaking and entering, and then finally prostitution. The woman with a B.A. in Criminal Justice and whose father had worked his way up to the post of Captain in the police department was now getting arrested and serving time in prison and then at halfway houses. The "Moon Over My Hammy" at Denny's was replaced by prison fare; the mosquito-peppered tennis matches were replaced with recreation time in "the yard;" and dreams of working someday for security firms was replaced with a prison number. A sad state of affairs for anyone let alone someone who held such promise and joy.
So as I walked down Jones street to O'Farrell in San Fran remembering how the people in the diner laugh at Janet Jackson, I realized I was upset because I saw Shelly in Janet...and suddenly the abstract notion of what had happened to her was right in my face. Somewhere near the Jersey shore there could have been tourists and locals laughing at Shelly as she passed by the window or as she walked the streets. And those same people were probably judging her for being a crack whore, for "letting that happen to her," for being a societal failure who never graduated high school and who "asked" for that life.
I'll admit that on some level, Shelly did give in to this seedier side of life (she did have parents who did try to get her into rehab a couple of times), but on some level society did it to her. We question the motives of crack whores, but do we ever ask why the doctors cause this situation to happen in so many cases (Matthew Perry from Friends had fallen victim to the same problem)? Do we ever question why our cities are still so controlled by drugs? Do we ever blame the "Johns" for even using prostitutes? Do we ever blame insurance companies for not covering expensive procedures but covering the cheaper expense of pain meds? Do we ever just take the time to look at ourselves and realize that many of us are only one short fall away from a bad situation? Probably not.
But we sure are quick to laugh at those who have.
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