Short Person's Lament

I have a request: if you are tall, and by tall I mean six foot or so, please don't sit in the front when attending a play, concert, reading, or, for that matter, any event. A calf-roping seminar at the corral? Lean on a post a bit farther away. A Ronco Veg-O-Matic™ demonstration? Pony up on a stool near the back. A tattooing seminar? Okay, maybe you need to get the details on that one. But don't stand in the front at the packed concert! You have choices! 

You can still see no matter where you stand. You can watch the guitar player pick or strum or the lead singer dramatically collapse on his 22-year-old, futurely arthritic, knees.You'd get a look at Hamlet pacing the boards, holding Yorick's skull in hand, no matter where you sat. If you could get tickets, you'd actually see Javier Muñoz as Hamilton.

But me? At five foot four? What I see is how well you wash your neck. I can tell the age of your shirt by how frayed the collar is and I know before your mother does if you’re using an effective stain remover. Of course, if you're bobbing your head to the music, I see the band as though they’re in a flipbook or have turned on a strobe light and transported us all back to 1969. Head down—band visible, head up—your hair. Head down—band visible, head up—your hair again.

To get an idea of what I’m talking about, spring for some courtside seats at a basketball game, the seats right behind the team. Maybe the Cavaliers (Channing Frye, 6’11”, Kevin Love, 6’ 10”) or the Heat (Chris Bosh, 6’11”). That game is what life is like for height-challenged people every day. We’re all like the little kid who can’t see over the table, who keeps jumping up and asking, “What’s going on? No, really, what's going on?”

Here’s a thought—what if tickets were sold by the purchaser’s height? You might actually get a discount because you’re in the back.

And actually, in the first paragraph, I lied.  By tall, I don’t mean six foot or so, I mean taller than me. 

 

The MWPBT

 

Hello readers,

I have been asked by my friend Amy Miller to participate in something called “My Writing Process Blog Tour,” or as I will now refer to it, MWPBT, because that rolls off the tongue. MWPBT has been making its way around the blogging world for some time now.  It’s a slo-mo relay race of blogger after blogger navel-gazing, writing about it, and handing off the navel-gazing baton to the next blogger. I am supposed to answer four questions about my (finger quotes) writing process. My last post was on July 21; what kind of process could I possibly have?  But Amy has faith in me and I have faith in Amy. She, unlike yours truly, has fully formed thoughts in her brain, and her blog has actual serious writing. http://writers-island.blogspot.com/ 

Here I go with the four questions.

What am I working on? Many of you don’t know that besides the blog, I write poetry. And I must say that if this blog was all I ever wrote, that would be a sad state of affairs. (See above: last post July 21.)  I have a poetry manuscript that has been going door to door on the publication circuit, trying its darnedest to look cute and forlorn and like it needs a good home. So far about thirty publishers (who looked like such nice people!) held it at arm’s length like it had fleas and tossed it out the door. Two or three said it had nice eyes and one declared it a finalist, so I try to have hope, but I am starting to think that origami may be a better use of the paper. 

How does my work differ from others of its genre? Oh, I’ve got this one! This is easy: because I’m me! Picture a toddler on top of a picnic table, hands on hips.  No one else has my sense of humor, makes the same spelling and usage mistakes over and over again, has the same take on this odd, wonderful, wacky, pathetic world we live in. Blog or poetry, it’s all me, all the time.  Me, me, me.  Me.

Why do I write what I do and how does my writing process work?  (Did you see what I did there…rolled two questions into one?) In the blog, I write what I do because I’m pissed off. Like today, I am out of town with my husband, staying in a bed and breakfast.  The photos on the web looked so lovely.  The rooms were spacious and modern and well lit, the beds huge.  Well, I’d like to stay at that bed and breakfast, because our room is small and dark and the faucet in the tub drips.  And did you know that queen size beds are only sixty inches wide? I obviously did not, because my husband and I are now sharing what is only enough room for me and a newt and he’s much bigger than a newt.

At home we have a bed the size of Kansas, big enough for me to sleep on my stomach with my knee sticking out in his direction and there is still room for the body pillow I must have.  Do you hear me?  I need it! I can’t sleep without it, despite the fact that I abandon it as soon as I fall asleep. And the fact that it’s the equivalent of a third human in the bed doesn’t matter at all because we’re talking Kansas.  There’s room for everyone.  But this morning, not believing that the B and B’s inadequate bed-like structure could possibly be a queen, I Googled bed sizes and, in fact, queens are a mere sixty inches wide. I laid sideways to measure, using my 64-inch body, since I don’t carry a tape measure with me. Toes at one side, nose at the other.  Yep, it’s a queen. Never again.

And, if we’re talking about my poetry process, well, that’s much more mysterious, and organic, and a bit magical, as poetry tends to be.  Who knows where that stuff comes from?  I don’t.

Now I pass the baton to…Jennifer Swanton Brown.  Jennifer Swanton Brown published her first poem in the Palo Alto Times when she was in the fifth grade. She has degrees in Linguistics and Nursing, and completed her Master of Liberal Arts at Stanford University in 2012, with a thesis on the domestic poetry of Eavan Boland. Jennifer has been a poet/teacher with California Poets in the Schools since 2001 and joined their Board of Directors in March 2013. Her poems have been published in multiple local journals, including The Sand Hill Review, Caesura and The DQM Review. In October 2013, Jennifer became the second Poet Laureate of the City of Cupertino. You can follow her Poem-A-Day project "A Lane of Yellow" and other Cupertino Poet Laureate news at http://cupertinopoetlaureate.org. Jennifer also manages regulatory education for clinical researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine.  Her personal blog is "A Twirly Life" http://twirlyword.wordpress.com/

Take 'Em Inside

Last night our neighbor's dogs barked for over an hour.  Over an hour?  Yes, a very long, loud hour. I'm sure these neighbors weren't home or they would have brought their beloved Rex and Fifi inside after fifteen minutes or so.  I would say 'after a minute or so' but my recent experience with local dog owners is they can easily sit out fifteen minutes without deciding to take the long walk over to the screen door and let the little canines inside.  No, they can wait out a whole lot of noise.  And, of course, that means the rest of us are waiting out the noise, too.

Last night's offenders clearly weren't home.  They were on an outing that kept them away from the house for a long time; and they'd decided to leave the four-legged guys outside so they wouldn't poop in the house or chew the arms off the sofa.  Concerned about their belongings, these dog/homeowners thought they'd throw the pooches in the back yard and head out on their trip. I picture these folks at a friend's house, sitting on the deck, enjoying margaritas and fajitas, laughing and happily forgetting all their worldly woes.  Good for them. 

But I have a plea to make.  PLEASE don't do that.  Please don't blithely drive away, forgetting what you've left behind. Please don't make your dogs my problem. Because even if you just drive to Trader Joe's to buy some guacamole and Two Buck Chuck; even if you just hop in the car to pick up your children from school; even if you just drop off the dry cleaning; it's going to take at least fifteen minutes.  And fifteen minutes of your dogs barking is a really long time when I'm trying to read, write, watch TV, enjoy my patio, work, talk on the phone, chat with my husband, host book club, throw a party, take a bath, sleep, or maybe think.

I work from home.  I love my home.  My husband loves our home.  But our home with a barking, whining, howling, baying soundtrack is a whole lot less enjoyable. 

I Rue Detective

Why, oh why, do good shows go bad?  Is it peer group pressure?  Are the mediocre and truly lousy shows roughing up the good shows in the back of the studio lots, sticking fingers in their chests and growling, "Yer makin' us look bad, raising the curve. So here's what yer gonna do..." 

In this case, I'm not just talking about a good show, but a great show.  True Detective.  For seven episodes this was some of the best TV ever.   Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson  as the detectives. Michelle Monaghan. All incredible actors. Creepy, creepy murders.  Haunting scenes and cinematography.  Tension up the wazoo.  A plot that made sense and a trail to follow. 

And then, the finale.  Even that was going pretty well until the detectives pull up at the suspect's house.  When they have no cell phone reception to call for back up, do they turn around in the driveway and go get help?  Of course not. These two guys plow ahead on their own.  One goes through the house, the other heads out back and chases the evildoer though high reeds and weeds for a really long time and finally into an abandoned structure that looks like an enormous brick beehive.  The inevitable fight ensues and here's where it all goes south. (Spoiler alert: if you don't want to learn what happens, stop reading.)

McConaughey takes a knife to the gut.  Not just any knife but one that looks like it goes all the way through to his backside; one that creates an enormous, gaping wound that's pumping blood like nobody's business when he later pulls the knife out.  He loses blood at a rate that should kill him in minutes. He, of course, survives.

Harrelson evidently has a map, night vision goggles and word on a shortcut, so he shows up a moment later, just in time to get a hatchet to the chest.  Right through the sternum. Bad guy takes a bullet to the brain and keels over dead. Harrelson drags himself over to McConaughey's side and sits up, completely lucid and seemingly not in pain.  He, too, survives.  What's a little hatchet in the chest when you've got a friend to cheer on? The cavalry arrives a moment later, having received a phone call from Harrelson while he was searching the house.  They, too, seem to have taken a shortcut or mastered time travel.  And they've brought helicopters!

Is it too much to ask that writers follow a few basics?  For example, if a character receives a mortal wound, said character dies.  If the writer doesn't want said character to die, s/he should give them a much less dangerous wound or have the bad guy miss. If it takes one character x amount of time to cover some land, it should take y and z characters the same amount of time. These seem like simple rules to follow.  If these writers had, True Detective could have been truly great.

Life Lessons

As we move into the new year, I've gotten a bit philosophical and my mind has wandered to life lessons. What do we learn from our parents?  What do we teach our children?  Parents try to pass on certain values and ethics to their children, but often as not the kids have a very different take-away.

For example, my parents used to take my sister and me on Sunday afternoon rides in the country.  Cindy and I would lie upside down on the back seat and count the trees and telephone poles as we sped along. Our father would take the little hills too fast in order to give us all a roller-coaster-like thrill.  We would lift off the seat and plop back down, filled with the rush of excitement/daring. I remember once our father had to brake suddenly and my young body flipped over the front seat and landed near my mother's lap. Laughter ensued from the grownups and then I was folded back over the seat.  I think our father had several life lessons in mind on those rides: seize the day, have your fun when you can, be unconventional, don't follow the rules, getting out in the country is good, etc.  What lesson did I take?  Wear seat belts.  Always wear seat belts!  They weren't even invented yet, but I was looking ahead.

Our parents were working class people, hardworking, stressed, and they had expectations that we would learn how to do chores and help around the house.  They did not have high aspirations for us because they were realists and they only knew what they knew. There was no expectation that my sister or I would go to college, nor our younger brother.  We would get jobs, marry, settle down. My sister and I were taught the inside chores: laundry, dishes, dusting, etc.  Our brother was taught the one outdoor chore: cutting the grass. Despite the fact that our father helped with cooking and cleaning, and even enjoyed them, and would have made a damned good stay-at-home dad, gender roles were high on the list of lessons to be passed on to us.  What did I take from this? Sexism bad, feminism good.  Sexism bad, feminism good.  Also, I must go to college.  Not sure why, but I must go.  

Now of course, I wonder what my daughters have learned from my husband and me.  If we tried to teach them anything, it was to be left wing.  Politics were very one-sided in our home.  And we taught them that entertaining is a good thing to do; have parties, invite friends, cook good food.  But what else did they learn from us through all the day-to-day living?  All the times we weren't trying to pass along any nuggets of wisdom.  When I was driving, or reading, or going out with my friends...when their dad was working, or napping, or making enchilada sauce...what were they peeking under the table to see? What did they absorb and to what did they inwardly resolve to always do the opposite?  Too early to tell.    

As I look back at that list in the first paragraph, I see that some of my dad's lessons stuck after all: have your fun when you can: check.  Getting out in the country is good: check. Be unconventional: check. We've definitely passed that one on to our children, too, whether we were trying to or not. One example: when our younger daughter was in first grade, her teacher asked each of the students what his or her favorite movie was.  Around the room the little darlings declared "Little Mermaid” or similar kid stuff.  Our daughter? "Lethal Weapon Two," she announced to the stunned teacher.  Not just Lethal Weapon, no, she preferred the second in the series. Hmmmm, showing our first-grader R rated movies...maybe "Don't follow the rules" stuck, too.

Vote for Me

If I ever run for public office, it will be on a single issue: improvement and standardization of women's public restrooms.  I am sick and tired of waving my hands all around a faucet, waiting for water to emerge, only to see there is a knob that should be turned; banging on a soap dispenser that is waiting for me to hold my hand under the shoot; and feeling up the paper towel dispenser until I finally give up and dry my hands on my pants. Sometimes I start to look around for the hidden camera because I think I must be getting punked.

If I am elected, all women's restrooms will have a hook on the inside of each stall door. That hook will be large enough to hold a purse strap and a coat collar so I do not have to swing my purse onto my back, crunch my coat up around my boobs, and hold everything in place while I pull down my pants and lower precariously onto the toilet. Invariably, my purse succumbs to gravity and falls onto the floor, right between the toilet base and the receptacle for 'sanitary' products. When that happens, I just want to leave my purse where it landed and walk away.

All toilet stalls will have a fresh supply of seat covers, and manufacturers of said covers will figure out a new way to package them so the first few don't shred to pieces or come out in a clump that a woman before me has crammed back in the container.

Toilet paper.  It doesn't have to be two-ply.  I know that's expensive.  But the stuff they're using now doesn't even merit being called one-ply.  This stuff is more like half-ply or no-ply.  In fact, this is what takes us so long in the bathroom: extracting microscopic bits of toilet paper, one after the other, until we finally have a handful.  That process can take up to an hour and by then we have to pee again.

All toilets will be manual flush!  This is a nonnegotiable piece of my platform.  I am fed up with toilets that flush while I'm still unzipping my pants, flush again while I'm doing my business and a third time while I'm trying to get my clothes reassembled, still holding my purse and coat because there was no goddamn hook.

All public restrooms will have a well paid attendant who cleans and restocks about once an hour and isn't one of those who sit around next to a bowl of rosewater and a tip jar and thanks you for coming.

All women's bathrooms will have enough stalls to handle the traffic or else the men's bathrooms will be relabeled unisex for overflow.  If an establishment is small, like a restaurant, but large enough to have two little water closets, and chooses to label them both unisex, they will be severely reprimanded.  One will be for women only, the other unisex.  If I can hold it (which, I admit, is unlikely), I'll wait for the women's room because it will be cleaner and the seat will be down.

All women's rooms will have a mirror bright enough to check for spinach in my teeth.

And finally, all stalls will have functioning locks, because there is nothing worse than getting bonked in the head while you're sitting on the toilet, holding all your belongings off the floor, and leaning forward to press the door closed each time it swings open, when some other poor woman tries to enter your stall.

Thank you for your vote.  

I’ll Have the Pie

Are you ready for Christmas?  No, me either. But last night I decided to watch a little television to relax and veg out and what happened? I was accosted by one Christmas themed advertisement after another. Last night, November 7th, a week past Halloween, seven weeks before Christmas, and three solid weeks before my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. (Isn't Thanksgiving great?  Just food, food, more food, family, friends, and more food, including pie.) But I digress. I was saying that I'm not ready for Christmas. And of course I don't want to be ready. What kind of anal planner has the holidays under control this far in advance? 

But Glade Air Fresheners is ready. They're already running an ad with a multiracial group of girls singing about peace. Because when your kitchen smells of fish or your living room reeks of eau de chien, your mind immediately goes to the end of war for all time, right? Sniff, sniff. Sniff, sniff.  Yeah, I think that's garlic and will there ever be peace in the Middle East?  

Walmart's running ads with garlands and red ribbons in the background and then, to make sure you get the main point—presents—they show a woman sitting on Santa's lap. That's a little creepy. And Walmart's also partnering with Wheel of Fortune on Secret Santa-themed shows. Again, kind of creepy.  Who are these secret gift givers and where are they hiding?  Will one pop out of the wheel in an elf suit?  Or peek from behind the bonus board to whisper hints? Try C. I think there's a C.  Maybe an A?

Kay Jewelers isn't being left behind. They're pushing gifts of jewelry under the tree this year, because what woman doesn't want her boyfriend to propose in front of her whole family while she's still in her bathrobe? Nissan's ad has Christmas trees in the showrooms and they seem to only be selling red cars this time of year. Sorry ma'am, powder blue isn't available until Easter. Disney takes it a step further and suggests contacting your travel agent to spend the holidays in the Magic Kingdom where no doubt you'll encounter Mickey and Minnie dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

And those aren't all the Christmas commercials I saw in just two and a half hours. Best Buy, Bank of America, in fact, probably all the commercials from now until December 26th will feature holly, fir, mistletoe, Santa, reindeer, and piles and piles of presents.  

I know this is by now an old lament.  The Christmas season has been marching ever earlier on the calendar, ruining the fun for kids and adults alike.  If one quarter of the year is devoted to hyping shopping in the wrappings of made-for-TV movies, feel-good pablum, and various interpretations of the holiday, from the very religious to the very secular, how damn special can it be?  Now, I'm not religious and never was, but I remember the almost-impossible-to-stand anticipation of Christmas morning after just a few weeks of hype.  It was painfully delicious. It was special.  This nonstop barrage is just downright annoying.

Funny, it's Hanukkah that's right around the corner; it starts super early this year, in November, the day before my favorite holiday.  Did I mention pie? 

Shutdown

I don't know about you but the recent government shutdown really got me riled up.  The first three days I was completely obsessed, glued to the TV.  I wanted to know the play-by-play as each occurred and not wait for the evening news.  I only did chores and tasks that allowed for watching the news at the same time: ironing, cooking, paying bills, pretending to clean.  If I couldn't simultaneously watch our national monuments and parks being cordoned off or listen to the pundits speculate on how long the strong-arming would last, that chore had to wait until my own personal shutdown was over.

Of course, after a couple of days it was necessary to go out into the world again to buy provisions but those first three days were solid shutdown.  Then it stretched on and on. And on. The fun parts were soon over, like when Michelle Bachman, who had just voted for the shutdown, thrust herself into the war memorial demonstration and declared, "You can't close America!" Or when Michelle Bachman stretched the skin wide around her eyes and declared, "We're not blinking." Or when Michelle Bachman...hey, wait a minute; I sense a pattern.

Now the shutdown is over and our budget is passed for the super long, super secure and reassuring period of roughly three months.  What then?  In the post-Christmas credit-maxed period for middle income and low income Americans, Tea Party Republicans may again decide to hold the government hostage and cause billions of dollars of loss, putting people out of work and causing ripples of lost income and commerce to large swaths of the economy yet again.  Maybe they got enough of a whooping in the polls to prevent another shutdown but we'll see. Ted Cruz's numbers went up in his bid for president, so he came out ahead. 

I don't think I'll ever understand the concept of the antigovernment government rep. It's like a frog complaining about the size of the pond just before he leaps in and starts swimming.  It's like a carpet salesman decrying the loss of hardwood floors.  It's like a queen complaining about the cost of supporting the royal family.  I can't tell if the antigovernment folks are disingenuous or if they really don't understand what government does.  A lot of them seemed genuinely shocked that the federal government runs national parks.  Sort of like those Obamacare protesters with the "Government keep your hands off my Medicare" signs.

I'm glad the president hung tough.   At the beginning of the shutdown, I heard Chris Matthews say on The Colbert Report that no one fears Obama and not being intimidating is a problem for any president.  I think Matthews was right at the time...there were several points in his first term when he seemed to be the caver in chief.  But Obama's refusal to deal with extremists holding the government hostage put a healthy fear in those who want to do him and his agenda harm.  He's not perfect but he sure played it right this time.