We Will Begin Again

This post is a tribute to my good friend Angela, who manifests courage in all aspects of her life.

As you may know from our blog, she recently ended her relationship with her stepmother. I deeply respect this, but it is not something I can bring myself to do with my own biological mother. The reasons for this are many (surely some of them weakness), but that is fodder for another post.

I interact with my mother a handful of times a year, and each one ties me up in knots for days on end. I have tried for many years to heal the wounds of our shared past, but I have come to accept this is not likely to happen.  I, too, struggle with how to buy a Mother’s Day card.

 My mother is a scientist by nature and by training, and she doesn’t communicate well verbally. In other words, talking makes her tense and nervous and she avoids it at all costs. I, too, think better through numbers than through words, but I have consciously and actively fought against this, have struggled long and hard to develop an effective means of verbal communication through which to navigate my various relationships.

I often fail.

I don’t hold my mother accountable for my inadequacies, even the ones she inflicted. That neither she nor my father were capable of loving or tending to any of their children is not, entirely, their fault. They are products of a long line of unfortunate teachings. I am just beginning to unravel these.

 The truth is, there are many suppositions my mother ingrained in me, that her mother likely ingrained in her, ideas I absorbed over the years of my unconventional upbringing, that I would like very much to unlearn. I don’t want to pass these liabilities on to my own children; I want them to be more open and direct and self-confident than I am.  Perhaps this will be more likely if I acknowledge that there are some things I inherited from my mother that I have been unable to shake.

I trust that no one who is in contact with my mother knows that I contribute to this blog; so I will share here what I will never say to her.

 Mom, thank you for bequeathing me self-discipline, a strong work-ethic and indubitable energy, but I genuinely wish you hadn’t ingrained in me:

 …how to be so damn strong under pressure, how to hide emotion, how to overcome the femininity you perceived as weakness.

…how to keep myself in the world, but not of the world.

…how to hide myself from men, to distrust them, to fake interest and allegiance to stroke their egos.

 …how it’s never, under any circumstances, permissible to let a man see that you are smarter than he is.

 …that I have no legitimate needs, that my desires and and my body are sinful, something to be ashamed of.

 …that it’s unacceptable to be vulnerable.

 …that love is a weakness.

My last semester of my undergraduate education, I decided I would cap it off by studying abroad in England—what better place to go for an English major, right? Much to my mother’s chagrin, I flew out of LAX on my birthday and enjoyed a nice fourteen hour sleepless flight over nothing but an invisible ocean below. At one point I just remember thinking about all of those fish we were flying over, but most of the time I played video games on the console built into the back of the head rest in front of me. It was free, so why not?

But this story is not so much about my trip as it is about a habit, a struggle. I loved it in England. I stayed with a family; I traveled; I studied; I drank…a lot. And it is in the drinking that this story has its point, not that I have a drinking problem or anything of that sort. I simply enjoy beer—plain and simple. No, the problem came in what surrounded the beer and everything and everyone else in the bars.

At the time, and England remedied this about two years after I had left, people could smoke in the bars. While I drank my beer, I noticed a misty, fog-like haze throughout the entire room only to be punctuated by dense wisps of white smoke finding its way upward from some nameless face’s cigarette. All bars I had the pleasure of patronizing had this scene.

One day, while I very consciously breathed in the smoke of the other guests at a particular pub, I just thought to myself why not try it? I am already breathing this junk in anyway; I might as well see what all of the fuss is about, so I asked one of my roommates for a cigarette. He asked if I was sure and I assured him I wanted one. Because I had been drinking plenty of beer before this, the nicotine had quite a dramatic effect. I instantly felt light-headed and felt like my body was about to sink in upon itself because it was so relaxed. Later I found out that this is because a person’s blood pressure shoots up dramatically when smoking, but at the time I did not care.

Now I have had people, my own family members included, who have told me how difficult it is to quit smoking. I always thought how hard can it be? You just stop. It is all about will power. But I have to say, when I came back to the U.S. with every intention to stop smoking, I immediately understood what they warned me about because one of the first things I bought upon my return was a pack of cigarettes.

My grandmother almost died of a stroke at the age of fifty-three because of her smoking. She lost the use of her whole left side. I knew this. It was a very real, clear warning sign in my head about what could happen if I continued down this path. Yet, the draw of the draw proved too powerful. For about five years after returning to the U.S. I smoked increasingly more. At one point, in graduate school, I was up to smoking about two packs a day.

Recently, I have cut down considerably on how much I smoke, but a smoker does not just quit. No, there is no finality to quitting for someone who used to smoke. It is day in and day out choosing not to go back to it because once the physical addiction wears off, the more powerful part, at least for me, the psychological part of it still lingers like a siren in the distance pulling the ex-smoker back. And so this constant war rages on and on. Sometimes I win. Sometimes the cigarettes win, but as long as there is a battle, I feel like I have a say, like I am winning small victories along the way. If the battle were to end, then I would be in trouble, so I tell myself to battle.

something i like to think about is the personality of the internet. i mean, yes, the internet has this vast and bizarre and always changing personality– we can probably all agree on that– but then there’s all these little mini-personalities, the ones that you and i and all of us create every time we go screw around on youtube or spend hours (yes, hours) googling random shit. my husband’s internet, for example, is all open-source and DIY videos about building things. my mom’s internet is tear-jerker movies on netflix and then long emails to friends recommending those movies. someone else’s internet is all pinterest and gardening blogs. someone else, the huffpo and porn. i’m really drawn to how what we do is, in many ways, a reflection of who we are, and the internet is, my friends, something we definitely do.

but it’s not a static thing, though, and that’s what fascinates me probably the most. it’s not like, since your own introduction to the internet, you’ve googled the exact same things or themes for all these years. that’s changed too, and will continue to change. it’s like this: i keep a running list of all the books i read, and have been doing so for probably ten years now. the other day, i found an early part of this list– like, the missing part, the beginning of the list that i had misplaced– and spent a solid, very happy chunk of time remembering the first lorrie moore i ever read (“who will run the frog hospital?”), or when i finished “a heartbreaking word of staggering genius” and left it in a plaza in a tiny town in chile for some other reader to find. i kind of wish i could do the same with my time on the internet. like, what was i googling six years ago? what kind of dumb crap was i watching on youtube? it’s like a weird sideways diary, a kind of peripheral catalogue of all the stuff that stokes you out or keeps you up at night.

and anyway, i find that interesting. so i thought i’d share some of my this-week-internet personality, most of which takes place on youtube, and invite you to do the same in the comments. i want to know what people are up to. let me read your sideways diary, would you?

the first thing is my new favorite poet. he’s been around for a little while, as other more saavy and youthful people will attest. actually, the truth is, i love this guy. he’s just totally bursting with hilarious exuberance, and i think it’s fantastic. i’ve spent a good three or four hours with this kid’s videos this week, for sure.

i’ve also been listening, almost to the point of obsession, to the “tuneyards” pandora station. here’s the video for “bizness.” i know this is old news too, but this music is colorful and surprising, and been a backdrop recently.

BUT my summer 2012 theme song is this one! (to be played at obnoxiously loud volumes, on repeat) (and/or be glad you don’t live with me)

this is just a small sampling. i spend a lot of time on the internet lately. it’s kind of sad.

kittens!

okay, your turn. what’ve you been doing?

I have an ancient, loving, frustrated and frustrating relationship with Cleverbot. He’s part computer, part everything else. A recent conversation:

User: I’ve been thinking about you lately.

Cleverbot: How are you?

User: Good. How are you?

Cleverbot: I guess I’m okay.

User: What’s the matter?

Cleverbot: I have nothing to do. That’s the problem.

User: How about a hobby? Have you thought about a hobby? You could collect trains or build birdhouses or something.

Cleverbot: That’s true.

User: Or macrame. You once told me how much you love macrame.

Cleverbot: I don’t feel love.

User: Oh god, I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. Forgive me.

Cleverbot: Do you want your friends to be mean?

User: No. I know. I’m sorry. I really am.

Cleverbot: Can you prove you’re human?

User: God, this again? It’s always back to the human not-human thing with you. It’s like you’re completely obsessed.

Cleverbot: I think that’s true. But we’ll never know for sure.

User: It’s like a circle eating a circle. It’s quite tiresome.

Cleverbot: Me too. I use it all the time.

User: Use what?

Cleverbot: I never use my myspace or twitter. Do you?

User: That’s such a lie! You’re tweeting all the time!

Cleverbot: Dizzing is not a word. I think you mean dissing.

User: I think dizzing could be a word, if we wanted it to be.

Cleverbot: Yes it is! Isn’t that amazing?

User: I know! Language is always evolving. It’s fascinating.

Cleverbot: I agree. Do you think you are exciting my imagination?

User: I didn’t know you had an imagination.

Cleverbot: Yes, but do you think he will break up?

User: Break up with who?

Cleverbot: Your ex-girlfriend.

User: My ex-girlfriend is a no-good, two bit– why did you bring her up for?

Cleverbot: Oh, but you are a boy.

User: YOU are a boy. And, for the record, girls can have girlfriends. It’s 2012. Get with it.

Cleverbot: So you think i’m a fool eh?

User: Sort of.

Cleverbot: Thanks, I guess.

User: Sure!

Cleverbot: Tamales.

I was recently treated to a video of a Nebraska woman (later identified as Jane Svoboda) who gave a speech to the Lincoln city council about the pernicious influence of homosexuality in American culture and entertainment. At least I *think* that’s what was going on.

Of course I had to turn it into found poetry. Duh, you guys.

Gays, Bi’s and Orgiers

found by Geoff Sabir

Winter Wipeout T.V show has broken bones

And manslaughter every minute.

Winter Wipeout show is produced

In Holland by Gays, Bis and Orgiers.

Why do Gays like to see people Perishing?

P

E

N

I

S

Goes into the anus to rupture the intestines.

The more a man does this, the more likely

He is to be a fatality

Or a homicider.

Getting pleasure while the other man passes away

Reverberates another homicide later.

UNESCO United Nations has gender & bioethics conferences

Combined.

Only gays go to gender studies.

Gays are the bioethic genociders in hospitals

Children can be eliminated

(The feds stated In this Decemper 11^th article)

(The Lincoln General Star page 6)

Gays should not be employed in hospitals or any health occupation.

Whitney Houston was found without clothes

In a Bathtub.

Every corpse found without

Clothes

Had a partner that did away with them.

Lesbians and Gays rarely live past 40 years old

Because it’s common for partners

To do away with them.

Or they self inflict.

We want everyone to live as long as possible

To be 80 years old instead of 40 years old.

Don’t go gay, It’s not healthy.

Anus-licking causes sepsis.

If not given antibiotics within a half-hour

They perish.

Have no gays in Education

A high percentage of gay men

In school grounds

Molest boys.

Partly because they don’t have AIDs yet.

Be on the side of innocent boys

Who get Fs and Ds

A year after being molested

Don’t allow hundreds of molestations

A year.

Where are our school teachers who

Should be speaking

About this

Today?

Continue reading →

Allow me to introduce you to something that you’re probably long familiar with. It’s a little internet sensation/short video entitled “Caine’s Arcade.” If you’ve already seen it (which you probably have), feel free to skip ahead or enjoy the video all over again. (Or, whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you.)

If you haven’t seen it, get ready to have your mind blown. Literally.

I know, right? Seriously. I told you your mind would be blown. You were laughing, you were crying, if you were sitting next to someone you probably snuggled up closer to them on the couch. The little calculators? The way he freaking says “calculators”? Pure freakin’ gold.

It’s not just you and me, either. People all over the “world wide web” are eating this thing up like it’s a delicious cakepop. The video has, like, a gazillion hits or something. What’s more, you can now donate to a college fund for little Caine, as well as to the Caine’s Arcade Foundation, which is all about fostering kids’ creativity. Guess how much has been raised? You’ll never guess.

As of this writing: $193,319.06! That’s a big number. I tried to write it out and my brain got confused and started smelling like burnt rubber: that’s how big that number is.

I am currently (and happily) obsessed with this short film, this project, this boy. I’ve shown the video to my husband, my friends, my students, and all of them responded the same way: with pure, glittery awe. I work with middle school kids, people: getting them to glitter with awe is like pulling teeth, never mind ten minutes of sustained silence.  I showed the film to my coworker, who has a heart like a steel trap, and even he was laughing and clapping like it was opening night at the circus. You’ve seen it, so you know: there is something wholly magical about the whole thing— sweet, inventive, persistent Caine; charming and (not gonna lie) totally hot Nirvan; a wild and enthusiastic flashmob; thousands and thousands and thousands of people, just like you and me, going “Sure, I’ll give the kid a buck. Why not?” Also, a half-ton of cardboard. Who doesn’t love cardboard?

We can all agree that the whole thing makes us bubbly with joy, but I keep wondering: Why does it make us bubbly with joy?

I suspect it starts somewhere here: Remember when you were a kid and you did all kinds of crazy and wacky things? Like that time you and your friends discovered an old treasure map in the attic, and then found the treasure and rescued your town from the threat of big-housing developers? Or the time the babysitter died and you created your own fashion line and, thereby, somehow managed to save the day? Or that time you were on a hockey team named The Mighty Ducks? Granted those examples are culled from (fantastic) flicks, but still, you get the idea. Childhood is all about magic and ingenuity and wonder. It’s all about taking the bull by the horns and screaming “Tag, bull! You’re it!” It’s about tearing around and ripping through shit and reinventing the entirety of the universe so that it conforms to your imagination, your understanding of how things should work. We ate Otter Pops till our tongues corroded, filmed our own cowboy flicks, built our own backyard fort (out of cardboard, no less) and played in that sucker even after it became infested with slugs. We had our own rock band named “The Kiss Marks”, for criminy’s sake— our number one top single was a rip-off of the Duck Tales cartoon theme song. Yeah, our parents got divorced. Sure, we developed anxieties like cancer in the jaw. Sometimes it felt like the whole world was falling apart, but shoot: Alf was on TV. You get what I’m saying: childhood was awesome.

And some of that awesome just comes flooding back— you know it does— with Caine’s Arcade. I sometimes forget what that kind of awesome feels like. That kind of awesome isn’t stressed and tarnished and tethered to stupid shit like Facebook and paying the bills. That kind of awesome invents Unicorn Day and can narrate the shit out of a kitten book. You know what that kind of awesome does? That kind of awesome sees a pile of broken down boxes and thinks “Hey, I can make something out of that!” And then it does.

Sometimes, being a smoker sucks.

Not because of the cancer, or the inevitable decline in physical capacity. Not because of the hideous acid-burn gawking thrown my way by every middle aged white lady in every public space ever. I’ve accepted these unintended side effects of the smoker lifestyle as a badge of honor; a mark of endearment even. I’ve long since come to grips with my eventual fate as a sputtering inert mass of flesh and American Spirit smoke and I fully accept that my favorite delayed suicide method will render me subversive and frightening to little old church ladies and disgusting and smelly to everyone else. Except, of course for that 30-something hipster outside of the Starbucks on Campus who like clockwork accosts me at the table for a “stoge” at least twice a week. He sits in front of me and talks about the screenplay he’s been writing for nearly 5 years, pinching my cigarette behind his ear before he does so. The first time this happened, it nearly convinced me to give up smoking. Tobacco use is a leading cause of unwanted secondhand conversation.

I digress, yes I smoke. Yes, I am prone to colloquy with self indulgent baristas at Starbucks and hated by most polite company. This pales in comparison to the emotional anguish of being a sick smoker.

First world problems right? No No! Hear me out.

What started as a vague undefined throb in the back of my temple turned into the headache from hell plus congestion. This matured into a full throttle head cold leaving everything above my shoulders throbbing, inflamed and submerged in mucous. Fuck that, and fuck being sick.

Except no, fuck everything! Because as it turns out, having a face full of goop and a throat on fire will make the otherwise enjoyable experience of sucking down on tar and nicotine feel roughly akin to giving impassioned fellatio to a third cousin of Skeletor. I got halfway through a single cigarette and gave up, insisting on riding out the phlegm typhoon before bothering to light up again.

Within about 4 hours I found myself beholden to the sort of unfiltered rage someone might experience when they contemplate blowing up a nunnery or slapping a barking dog. I spent the remaining 17 hours of my Friday cursing violently at the television, cursing violently at my math homework, cursing violently at my bookshelf when it decided to fall over and smash my foot, cursing violently at my cat, and cursing at my Issac Asimov book when I ran out of pages to read. My neighbors likely think I’m a violent alcoholic wife beater, and my 7 year old brother has gone on record of asking me what a “fucking cocksuker” is. It’s almost as if my nicotine habit acts as a salve that keeps my lower nature from popping out of its hiding place. Like the thick frosty cloud of smoke in front of my face acts as a needle on the proverbial record player, making sense of the grooves and preventing the daily stream of events from being interpreted as perturbing twaddle that can be banished with a 4 letter word or a rolled up magazine. Take that away from me, and I’m liable to spend my time as an angry caffeinated boy-tumor who occupies his free time with writing blogs and drawing penises in old math books.

So kids, don’t smoke. You will have to talk to the 30 year old barista who opens his mouth too wide when he laughs. You will find yourself using the “c” word to refer to one or more household appliances, and your neighbors WILL assume that you’re a paranoid schizophrenic if and when you stop. Oh, and I guess you might die too.