Nobody talks about this.
I have a memory of sitting in my dorm room in Watson Hall (no relation) in college Senior Year, one afternoon, just sitting on my bed studying and listening to records, and suddenly it struck me with a start - I was 21. Which meant I was done with the teenaged years. I would never, ever have to be a teenager ever again. And the feeling was one of huge joy and relief. Done! I made it! 21!
Fast forward 24 years to now. And turns out I was wrong.
What they don't tell you is that all the hormonal storms a girl goes through as a teenager when she's about to get her first period, there are the same hormonal storms at the end of the process when she's about to stop having periods.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Two boomerangs
Yesterday boomerangs appeared in my life two times.
First was on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR, where the special phone-in guest was William H. Macy. One trivia fact about him is that he's an avid woodworker, and has appeared on the cover of woodworking magazines (he mentioned that that's the only kind of cover he seems to appear on, but I don't think that's exactly true). But another triva fact about him is not that he collects boomerangs. The hosts mentioned this fact, and he said no, it wasn't true, but the story keeps coming up. "It goes away but then it keeps coming back again," he said, meaning that literally but then also playing up the boomerang theme. He said he doesn't know where it came from, the story is that he has a huge collection and is very interested in boomerangs, but no.
Second reference was something I saw on my walk around the little lake. I was on the other side headed back, and admiring the way the western sun glinted on the water and the geese glided so majestically. Then I heard a sound that instantly took me back to twilight at my grandparents' cottage - the sound of voices coming across water. I walked on and when I got closer I saw there was a group of men, some old and some young, playing in the lawn between the apartments and the main office building. Then my mind instantly went to backyard cricket, but I realized a second later that of course a group of Wisconsin men playing on a lawn on Easter Saturday would not be playing pick-up cricket, they've probably never even heard of it and wouldn't know what equipment you'd need or anything. I thought probably football, or maybe baseball since the season's just starting. But it turned out they were playing with a boomerang. The smallest kid, a little blonde guy maybe 10 or 11, was throwing it and the older guys were giving him tips. "Up and into the wind, right?" he said. So, they were playing with an Aussie thing, just not a set of cricket stumps.
First was on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR, where the special phone-in guest was William H. Macy. One trivia fact about him is that he's an avid woodworker, and has appeared on the cover of woodworking magazines (he mentioned that that's the only kind of cover he seems to appear on, but I don't think that's exactly true). But another triva fact about him is not that he collects boomerangs. The hosts mentioned this fact, and he said no, it wasn't true, but the story keeps coming up. "It goes away but then it keeps coming back again," he said, meaning that literally but then also playing up the boomerang theme. He said he doesn't know where it came from, the story is that he has a huge collection and is very interested in boomerangs, but no.
Second reference was something I saw on my walk around the little lake. I was on the other side headed back, and admiring the way the western sun glinted on the water and the geese glided so majestically. Then I heard a sound that instantly took me back to twilight at my grandparents' cottage - the sound of voices coming across water. I walked on and when I got closer I saw there was a group of men, some old and some young, playing in the lawn between the apartments and the main office building. Then my mind instantly went to backyard cricket, but I realized a second later that of course a group of Wisconsin men playing on a lawn on Easter Saturday would not be playing pick-up cricket, they've probably never even heard of it and wouldn't know what equipment you'd need or anything. I thought probably football, or maybe baseball since the season's just starting. But it turned out they were playing with a boomerang. The smallest kid, a little blonde guy maybe 10 or 11, was throwing it and the older guys were giving him tips. "Up and into the wind, right?" he said. So, they were playing with an Aussie thing, just not a set of cricket stumps.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The way you make guitar playing musical
is to get the rhythm going in your right hand and keep it there, so you don't have to think about it.
And don't stop if you get something wrong, to adjust. Just keep going.
And don't stop if you get something wrong, to adjust. Just keep going.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
No Sides
I was at the Mall the other evening replacing some lost sunglasses, and was hungry as it was that cheese-and-crackers time right after work, and I stopped by the Sbarro stand in the food court to get a pizza slice.
The guy behind the counter came up ready for my order. "A slice of pepperoni, please," I said.
And he replied, with a slight smile, "And I know enough not to ask you if you want any sides..."
This goes back more than a year, from when I first moved here and was on a personal crusade to improve American customer service practices. This guy, a tall guy with a friendly face and older than your usual fast food worker so perhaps the manager, took my order one night, in very similar circumstances - Mall trip after work, grabbing pizza for an evening snack - and after I said I wanted a slice of pepperoni, he recited a list of available side dishes as if from a script that Corporpate had instructed every employee that they had to say for each order: "Salad or breadsticks?"
But he said it not in the tone that he was suggesting some optional extras that I might consider but didn't have to have, you know, with a rising tone at the end of the question, like "Any salad, or maybe breadsticks?", the tone familiar to us all from the "Do you want fries with that?" question.
No, he pronounced the question with the falling tone of the waitress rattling off the list of available salad dressings, like, you get one of these anyway with your order so which one would you like, "Salad, or breadsticks."
So I scolded him about it. I told him that he shouldn't make it sound like they were included if they were extra, and that it was the tone of his voice that caused the confusion. It was a very short exchange, like a teacher correcting a student, and it certainly didn't put me off going there semi-regularly ever since.
So when he immediately recognized me again after so much time and knew not to even ask the question, it made me burst out laughing. "Wow, that goes back a long way!" I said.
"Well, some things make an impression," he said.
I kept smiling as he got my drink, warmed the pizza and rang the whole thing up (for a fair price, only what I wanted and nothing more, etc.). "One day," I said, "I will come back and order one of everything."
Chalk one up for my crusade to improve American customer service, and then another one for having lived here long enough to have some history with these people.
The guy behind the counter came up ready for my order. "A slice of pepperoni, please," I said.
And he replied, with a slight smile, "And I know enough not to ask you if you want any sides..."
This goes back more than a year, from when I first moved here and was on a personal crusade to improve American customer service practices. This guy, a tall guy with a friendly face and older than your usual fast food worker so perhaps the manager, took my order one night, in very similar circumstances - Mall trip after work, grabbing pizza for an evening snack - and after I said I wanted a slice of pepperoni, he recited a list of available side dishes as if from a script that Corporpate had instructed every employee that they had to say for each order: "Salad or breadsticks?"
But he said it not in the tone that he was suggesting some optional extras that I might consider but didn't have to have, you know, with a rising tone at the end of the question, like "Any salad, or maybe breadsticks?", the tone familiar to us all from the "Do you want fries with that?" question.
No, he pronounced the question with the falling tone of the waitress rattling off the list of available salad dressings, like, you get one of these anyway with your order so which one would you like, "Salad, or breadsticks."
So I scolded him about it. I told him that he shouldn't make it sound like they were included if they were extra, and that it was the tone of his voice that caused the confusion. It was a very short exchange, like a teacher correcting a student, and it certainly didn't put me off going there semi-regularly ever since.
So when he immediately recognized me again after so much time and knew not to even ask the question, it made me burst out laughing. "Wow, that goes back a long way!" I said.
"Well, some things make an impression," he said.
I kept smiling as he got my drink, warmed the pizza and rang the whole thing up (for a fair price, only what I wanted and nothing more, etc.). "One day," I said, "I will come back and order one of everything."
Chalk one up for my crusade to improve American customer service, and then another one for having lived here long enough to have some history with these people.
G20 kiddies
I had CNN on the other morning and they were showing footage of the protesters gathering at the G20 meetings in London. This was before the bank windows got smashed and anything got out of hand.
The cameras were really close to the police line, so you could see the faces of the aggro and het up young men in the front lines, "confronting" the police. I know so many people who are in lefty groups like this, I could just imagine all the planning meetings, the travel arrangements, having been made for like four years, all the temporary sleeping arrangements and really cool parties late at night after all the demonstrations had finished, all the organic food and girls with scarves wrapped in their hair and guitar playing and sharing. They must have been looking forward to this for like four years. I could also imagine all the earnest meetings where they debated and sorted out their group point of view, with all these young men's faces taut like thick wires, vibrating with their opinions but broadcasting them only to that tiny room.
On the news footage, you could see those same taut faces, yelling and yelling into the absolutely passive faces of the cops in yellow riot coats. The cops had linked arms to hold a line, and were probably going to have to stand like that the whole day, and this big row of impassioned young men were inches away from their faces, yelling and yelling, and you could tell they were alternating currents of anger and sarcasm. Trying and trying to provoke an emotional reaction in the cops, but the cops are trained not to rise to it or react.
It made me think about information and communication, and the fact that you have to have both signal and receiver to make it work.
The cameras were really close to the police line, so you could see the faces of the aggro and het up young men in the front lines, "confronting" the police. I know so many people who are in lefty groups like this, I could just imagine all the planning meetings, the travel arrangements, having been made for like four years, all the temporary sleeping arrangements and really cool parties late at night after all the demonstrations had finished, all the organic food and girls with scarves wrapped in their hair and guitar playing and sharing. They must have been looking forward to this for like four years. I could also imagine all the earnest meetings where they debated and sorted out their group point of view, with all these young men's faces taut like thick wires, vibrating with their opinions but broadcasting them only to that tiny room.
On the news footage, you could see those same taut faces, yelling and yelling into the absolutely passive faces of the cops in yellow riot coats. The cops had linked arms to hold a line, and were probably going to have to stand like that the whole day, and this big row of impassioned young men were inches away from their faces, yelling and yelling, and you could tell they were alternating currents of anger and sarcasm. Trying and trying to provoke an emotional reaction in the cops, but the cops are trained not to rise to it or react.
It made me think about information and communication, and the fact that you have to have both signal and receiver to make it work.
Poem about how much I hate this season
It's April. It's April.
But everything is brown.
I walk across the spongey ground in a cold wind.
In April.
(wrote this a few days ago when going to get the mail)
But everything is brown.
I walk across the spongey ground in a cold wind.
In April.
(wrote this a few days ago when going to get the mail)
Morbid themes on the radio
So two different evenings this past week I was listening to Terri Gross on NPR and she was covering really morbid topics. These are sad enough on their own, but even harder for me right exactly now in my life, where I'm noticing lots of wrinkles, counting grey hairs in the bathroom mirror every morning, coping with a persistent nerve-related pain in my left shoulder and arm, and realizing that my body is moving into "the change" and I'm going to have to make sense of being a dried-up husk of a woman.
The second show was by a guy who wrote a book about dealing with his father's terminal illness and slow decline, and the bit I listened to was a bit with way too much detail about what it's like to turn off the oxygen - by then I'd had enough and just turned the radio off. But the one before I listened to all the way through, because it was about guitars as well - an interview with John Mellencamp (fka Cougar) about his new album.
Terri read out the chorus of the first song on the album, which was based on a little homily John's grandmother told him in her very old age. I reproduce them here without permission:
"Nothing lasts forever
And your best efforts don't always pay
Sometimes you get sick and you don't get better
That's when life is short even in its longest days."
Chilling. So, thinking about life being short in this way, I was wondering if I should immediately email the poem in the post just previous to its inspiration. But didn't, because you know, sometimes life is also long and you have to be tactical and patient about your longer-term goals.
So, favor to ask, blog readers, if I do sudden cark it unexpectedly, can you please make sure he gets it?
Off to dwell upon happier subjects, I've got Pandora on the Hives channel and the sun is shining outside.
The second show was by a guy who wrote a book about dealing with his father's terminal illness and slow decline, and the bit I listened to was a bit with way too much detail about what it's like to turn off the oxygen - by then I'd had enough and just turned the radio off. But the one before I listened to all the way through, because it was about guitars as well - an interview with John Mellencamp (fka Cougar) about his new album.
Terri read out the chorus of the first song on the album, which was based on a little homily John's grandmother told him in her very old age. I reproduce them here without permission:
"Nothing lasts forever
And your best efforts don't always pay
Sometimes you get sick and you don't get better
That's when life is short even in its longest days."
Chilling. So, thinking about life being short in this way, I was wondering if I should immediately email the poem in the post just previous to its inspiration. But didn't, because you know, sometimes life is also long and you have to be tactical and patient about your longer-term goals.
So, favor to ask, blog readers, if I do sudden cark it unexpectedly, can you please make sure he gets it?
Off to dwell upon happier subjects, I've got Pandora on the Hives channel and the sun is shining outside.
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