How to eat a sandwich

The man eats his sandwich with such antsiness, such suppressed power visible in every movement of hand to mouth. He leans forward and his feet bounce up onto the tips of their toes. At intervals his hands brush each other off, trading favors with utilitarian nonchalance. They sound like sandpaper bristling.

Between bites, his tongue sweeps brusquely against his teeth, clearly the result of a long habit of efficient food consumption. The sandwich is nearly gone and he puts the last bite in his mouth, crumpling the wrapper in the same motion. With decision, he captures and munches on a few sesame-seed escapees.

A Good Accent is Hard to Find

Last week, in the wake of midterms and while examining the many nuances of John Stuart Mill, I went to see Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.

The Globe Theatre of London obligingly left their foggy mysterious city (the majority of my mental pictures of London are scenes from Gaslight) to come to Ann Arbor, where they were no doubt trampled upon by charging mobs of Jansport-wielding students who were too involved in chortling over their latest text message to prevent the injury of a hestitant Shakespearean.

Here's my ticket! I'm saving it the same way you save the coaster at a fancy restaurant. Like a hoarding of proof that you can be expensive.

"Center or side?" the peaked clerk at UMS (University Music Society) had asked me, after he got over his surprise at being spoken to. I looked at the available seats and went instantly into optimization mode. This was just like choosing a seat for a plane ticket! First criteria: aisle! If many aisles available: close to the front! If many aisles close to the front: center row!


There were a few aisles close the front, but none in the center row. So, I got J4. How nice, I thought. I like the number 4. J is a good letter. Well, I arrived, and this was my view:

See that head right there? The one on the right bottom corner? That was not a friend of mine. I presume that was the boyfriend of the girl next to him, since she kept clutching his bicep at random points during the play (more restraining than affectionate in my opinion, but maybe he likes that). Yeah, anyways, given the rather, uh, less than panoramic view that J-4 allowed me, I took the far-too-unnecessarily-close-to-a-strange-person seat -- right next to him instead of the aisle seat. "Hello, stranger," I whispered seductively as I sat down, clutching his arm as a greeting. Ehhm, just kidding. Anyways.

I loved being in a theatre. Especially when it's spelled "theatre." Here's the king looking lionlike.

Here's a picture with most of the cast. There was always alot going on in this play. I was surprised by all the physical humor -- the king kept making this unlikely high-pitched screechy noise (which cracked me up every time, I might add) and this one other guy kept grabbing his crotch and shaking it. This supports my theory that all men have an affection for slapstick and sound effects, even William Shakespeare and Dominic Dromgoole (the director).There was one benefit, although a slightly alarming one, to being so close to the front yet so far to the side. Actors occasionally were very near my seat. Here's the crotch-grabbing man alarmingly close-up. He seemed like a merry fellow, but -I'm sure you understand- not the one I would have chosen to be within touching distance, given his crotch-grabbing history. (Look at his left hand! Where is that going, sir?) Okay, here's the person who I actually wanted to come a bit closer (cue Jay and the Americans). Berowne is the companion of the king who hesitates about swearing off women for three years when the four of them are signing the oath. What a smart lad! The actor, Trystan Gravelle, is Welsh and dashing. Look at him perched, looking broody, on that perillous piece of metal (okay, fine, not actually perillous, but I like to think so). His accent was amazing. Did I mention that he was Welsh? The French princess, in the orange, was also a wonderful actress. And look at their clothes! I love the dresses. Anyways, so after about an hour and a half of the play, everyone clapped and then people started streaming out. I thought it was odd, because the story didn't seem to be resolved. That's a bit abrupt of an ending, William, I tut-tutted in my head. Bicep boy next to me looked relieved when I rose to get my things. In my futile attempts to get pictures of the stage that were NOT grainy and blocked by an enormous pole, I had made some occasional leaps into his arms and lap.

So, I streamed out with the others, my heels clinking satisfyingly on the wooden floor, adding to my feeling of cultured sophistication. I pulled on my gloves. I had just gone to a Shakespeare play, I smiled to myself. All in all, I thought, it was a good experience. I should do it more often, go to the theater. Or better yet, the theatre.

Two hours later, my housemate (who had been at the play but in a different seat -- which probably didn't involve invading anyone's personal space or having no view of the front of stage) asked where I had gone. I blinked at her.

"I saw you get up during intermission," she explained, "then I didn't see you come back in."

"Ohhhh, right," I replied. ("Idiot!" screamed my brain.) "I, uh, had to leave early."

She looked sympathetic. "It's too bad you missed the ending."

It is, isn't it?

Intermission, n.

1. the break during acts; 2. the period when one does NOT waltz home with no realization that the story has not actually ended

Autumn Renaissance in Ann Arbor

Autumn Renaissance

Fall Rendez-vous

The Dissenting Tree

Burnt Orange

Fall Secrets


The ivy is changing!

L'automne est un deuxième printemps, où chaque feuille est un fleur. -Albert Camus

East Quad


Potpourri

Christmas in October

The Sunny Side

On Snark, Humanity, and Choosing Sides

Midterms are over, and I'm escaping life, going to Panera and contemplating failing my finals. Gosh, I miss Panera. The smell of bread and the sounds of people are so comforting. But anyways - failure.

The more that I'm at this school, in a world of fierce academia (although I'm sure Ivy league students would screech with laughter at that), the more I wonder if there isn't a fundamental conflict going on. A fundamental conflict in which I have never chosen a side.

I think that basic human kindness is the lowest common denominator. Simple "niceness", unchecked emotion, unquestioning sympathy -- what would education be, and more than that, what would art be, if these qualities were enough? Imagine the educated wit of A.O. Scott's reviews, the snappy snark of Lorrie Moore's short stories, the gloriously unforgiving imagery of Flannery O'Connor, or Joyce Carol Oates, without their respective wit and snark. Imagine rock music without its scathing commentary on our culture -- oh my god, imagine movies without that! We wouldn't have any Woody Allen movies if just niceness were enough. Hell, imagine blogs. We'd just be reading about feelings, with an endless variety of cheerleading/feeling legitimization in the comments section -- "You're beautiful the way you are and don't you forget it" followed by copying and pasting exclamation points. I mean, oh my god, imagine pinkindiaink without Kat's scornful impudence! There would be no pink india ink in a world like this, friends!

Kindness is not enough. A happy family of poor villagers (why do we always return to "villagers" when we want a controlled scenario? villagers or desert islands..) who care for each other have human kindness and sympathize with one another, but that is not enough. If it were enough, civilization would not have grown around us. There would be no ruthless business world on which we base our economic system, no competitive sports to drive us, no harsh academia to whittle youth into knowledgeable citizens.

You agree with me so far? Snark is important! Wit, high standards, genius, are important! But stop. Stop for a moment and re-read what I said about the villagers.

"A happy family." Those three words evoke the most profound longing for a child of divorced parents. How impossible it seems for them, and how much they would give up to have it, makes my dismissal cold and meaningless. "A family with human kindness." The child of an abusive parent looks at those words without comprehension. "A family of people who sympathize with one another." A person whose family has alienated her/him based on lifestyle or religious choices would feel the lifting of an unbearable burden to have that judgement replaced with "sympathy."

Kindness, therefore, is the lowest common denominator: it is not enough, but without it, everything else is extraneous. Art is snarky and cruel because the author depicts humanity with the vibrant, tingling brush of sarcasm - but the humanity has to be there.

I feel that people forget that. Professors have a reputation for tough love -- and I'm not the type to go running to the teacher, asking to change a grade because of personal problems. I'm used to strictness. But the other day, as I saw a teacher be unbelievably unsympathetic to a student's concern, I suddenly asked "why?" Why do we accept the lack of humanity from people just because their "higher" qualities are so numerous and cultivated? We automatically accept that talent can be not only eccentric (I'm all for eccentricity), but actually cruel.

Isn't it a little scary to be in a world where emotion exists to be mocked and problems are always excuses?

We are suspicious because the alternative is pliability, giving into ever demand, becoming naively a push-over. The alternative, in a broader sense, is mediocrity. Assuming the worst is the most efficient method, I agree, but don't we lose something? Aren't the pursuits of efficiency and excellence and the pursuit of humanity sometimes diametrically opposed? And if they are, which side am I on?

Toast to a childhood friend

Going to a baby shower is not being truant from life. A baby shower is REAL LIFE. So I'm not going to post about the shower I went to today (although if I did it would definitely include a remark on the tendencies of post-menopausal women to evaluate breast pumps in loud voices).

But you see, the baby shower was for a girl named Emma, someone I've known for a helluva long time. She and I have eluded responsibility, questioned normalcy, and yearned for adventure together. Soo I think a little toast to memory is called for *clink.*

Last week, she and I and her sisters went to Shaker’s, an ice cream spot in our neighborhood.

As we were eating, Emma told the story of the first time we went there together -- something I haven't thought of in so long.

(prepare for semi-long anecdote regarding misfit child and ice cream mishap. skip anecdote to get to pictures if begin to feel drowsy from length and boringness of anecdote.)

The first time I went to Shaker’s, I was eight years old and on a visit to my new friend Emma’s house. Emma is the youngest daughter of a family who were notorious in our church for being very conservative. My parents were nothing compared to them. The Harrison’s parents were very strict, no television or modern music was allowed, the family rosary was prayed every day no fail, and in general the four daughters were held up as paragons of the good traditional Catholic girl – very modestly dressed, dissembling, respectful, quiet, and domestic. “Don’t say that around her– she’s a “Harrison girl,” became a common caution.

I was not like this. My parents were strict compared to the public-school standard (no television, no pants or shorts, no boys), but I just wasn’t that kind of kid. Emma and my other classmates were the kind of girls with strait tractable hair that always seems to fall right, clothes that seem to be newly pressed no matter the humidity, and the ability to never get caught talking.

I, on the other hand, was frequently late, had an irrepressible giggle whose timing unfailingly coincided with moments of solemn silence, and I always seemed to be forgetting something – my tie, my homework, my hair band. My shirt was possessed with a demonic determination to free itself from my jumper, and my Peter-Pan collar was usually sticking straight up by noon. My ruler would mysteriously disappear, I would run out of paper, and the teacher, Sister Mary Thomas, always noticed on the ONE day when I wore mismatching socks. All in all, I was not a very “together” little girl.

So, anyway, Emma and I got to know each other despite her being a Harrison girl. We began spending time together during lunch (hers was always a lunchmeat sandwich cut diagonally, and an apple. Mine usually contained something warm-able and with sauce, which I inevitably spilled). We talked about topics like movies (which, “of course, my parents cut the bad parts out of”) and our school work and had pretty much become friends.

So, I was to visit her house for the first time, and was pretty excited. All went well until her mother offered to take us, Emma, her sister, and me, to Shaker’s. I had never been there before, but I was not going to question anything.

We pulled up in the drive-thru and Emma and Mary both ordered a small turtle sundae, which, as I noticed from my window in the back, were $2.19 each. Doing some quick thinking, I decided that I would get a large ice cream, which was $1.75. This was cheaper than what they were getting, I reasoned, so it would be okay.

As you might guess, I wasn't aware that I probably should've just gotten the same thing as Emma and her sister. It wasn’t until many years later that I noticed prudent child-sized guests giving that tactful default “I’ll have the same.”

So, anyways, Shaker’s “small” is a large, and their large is…well… it was approximately a foot tall. I kid you not. If you find yourself in Metro-Detroit, make a stop at 12 Mile and John R. and you’ll see. I eyed it with horror, but determined to do my duty and eat it all.

Of course, I couldn’t, and that night while the rest of the Harrisons ate dessert, I kept my eyes down and worked on my refrozen cone, thoroughly mortified at my own extravagance.

Anyways, I licked my small cone and laughed as Emma told the story and ate her turtle sundae.

One more toast *clink, clink.* I'd like to toast my park.

Emma and I used to visit this park by our house. We would sit on the swings, with or without ice cream, and make silly plans. I revisited the park and was amazed that it was, well, just a little park.

The park used to be a kingdom

A haunted forest

A dare
With fleeting glimpses of eternity But now it was just a park. And the ice cream was just ice cream.

It’s surreal that Emma is married (married!) and having a kid, and I’m moving away. And that’s it’s been over a decade since we started that tradition.

Now, though, the sun is still shining and the ice cream is still creamy. I guess change comes to everyone, even to little eight-year-old girls who wear ponytails and navy jumpers and never think it will.

Bus travel is not romantic. Consider yourself warned.

"I love travel -- the airport's concentrated preoccupation, the train car's delightfully inescapable propinquity with strangers, the road trip's unreachable-ness and sheer fancy. The commute and not the destination is what piques my emotions and returns my excitement to a child’s unqualified delight. I feel again that sense of vulnerability mixed with wonder that I remember most about childhood travel."

I was reading over my journal on my computer, and found this. Clearly, I wrote that before taking a bus, and so I’d like to put this story out there to anyone who may think of romanticizing “the commute” the way I did. Ah, sweet innocence.

pic from michaelmurray's blog

Two months ago, armed with my self-entitled and rashly broadcasted love for the commute, I embarked upon a seven-hour bus ride with eyes wide open ( I was trying to get back home from Chicago, where I had come from Vermont, where I was visiting friends).

To my friends’ tentative suggestions of the famed unpleasantness of bus travel I deigned only scornful replies.

No, no, I don’t care, I assured them. I, you see, am independent of such petty cares as comfort when The Wanderlust takes me. I am a true bohemian, a gypsy, a care-free spirit, I implied, with something of a patronizing pity for their attachment to the lesser worries of comfort and safety, of shelter and sustenance.

Of, I later realized, survival. For, quite frankly, bus travel is not idyllic. It has no hidden wild, fun side to be coaxed out by the imaginative traveler. It allows no space for games or pretentions or, for that matter, body odor.

The propinquity with strangers is not romantic. It is, yes, inescapable, but not, oh-dear-naïve me of a year ago- “delightfully” so.

The child’s vulnerability is certainly there, but, and again I address my lamentably ignorant self of a year ago, NOT mixed with wonder. With nausea, with hopelessness, with the lack of a seatbelt, a bathroom, or water, with fear, with a lingering confusion as to whether the thing poking into the back of your seat was or was not a hand and whether it did or did not make its stealthy way to do god-knows-what while you were sleeping --- yes.

But wonder, especially the type of wonder associated with Shirley Temple’s blue eyes widening as her rosy mouth opens in a perfect “o” to express her unprecedented joy – no. No, no.

Not that there were no high points. Because there were. The highlights of the trip were two:
--The first was when I awoke to see the sign for Gary, Indiana, and hummed Gary, Indiana (Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but-- Gary, Indiana…) for about fifteen miles.
--The second when the bus chugged into a rest stop/Wendy’s and the driver told us we had ten minutes to get dinner, although he was breaking a rule by stopping.

When having the chance to buy water at the expense of the pervasive odor of stale fries and pickles clinging to the entire bus for the following four hours is a “highlight,” well, you’re not exactly experiencing wonder.

Bus travel is NOT romantic. Humane travel intended for plane and train passengers only. Not tested on bus passengers. Consider yourself warned.

I'm burning my bra and throwing out my razors 'cause I found... Jesus? The Ann Arbor Art Fair, an Epilogue

So, I haven't been posting because I've actually been busy... doing yard work, studying, and going to ridiculous job interviews which I will post about later, even though job interviews aren't really normal escapist, day-dream activities.

But in the meantime, as I was doing laundry yesterday, I pulled something pink out of the pocket of a pair of jeans, which upon examination I remembered to be the same jeans I wore to the Ann Arbor art fair which I posted about earlier. (In case you're having concerns about my sanitation habits, since I went to the fair about two weeks ago, let me assure you that I haven't worn those since.)

What, I wondered, could this be. The front of the flyer (is that Elvis?):

and these two panels are the beginning of the inside:

Okay, I thought at this point... a seminar on the independent woman? A dating group? A dating group for divorcees? For cat owners? For lesbians?

Then I flipped to the next leaf (ohh, a Jewish dating site?) and then to the back. And then it all came back to me..


"Tired of putting your hopes and dreams in a man or woman? Accept God's gift to YOU."
What is that implying? That I should accept Jesus in a cynical rebound from the dating world? That Jesus, unlike the dandies us girls are usually afflicted with, will not inspire cat-filled man-hatred? I mean, I've heard a lot, a lot, more than my share [believe me. school with traditional Catholics who all believe imperceptibly different obscure dogmas and argue about it.] of people making semi-outrageous and very contradictory claims about what God wants us to be doing, but never have I been told that he wants lay people to be celibate... At least their approach is originial, but it's a little, erm, strange. Where the hell did I get this flyer anyway?

Then, gradually, with unwilling recollection, it all came back to me. The women with pink shirts on the street corners of the Art Fair, pink shirts that had the words...jesus and kosher on them somewhere... had handed me this flyer, which I just stuffed in a pocket... I remembered thinking at the time, why are both those words on one shirt, and also, thank god my father is off his religious kick because we would probably be standing at the other street corner shouting over them.